Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to The Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you are joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, good morning. If you are new here, really glad that you're here.
I'm Charlie, I'm the lead pastor here and really glad all of you are here, especially if you are new and I hope that you've gotten to meet some people and we would love to meet you if you've not had a chance, if I haven't had a chance to meet you, I'd love to talk to you there in the back after the service and just figure out any way that we can help you. If you are thinking, Hey, I think I want to make this my home church. We want to make this as easy as possible for you. We want you to help you feel like you can get connected as quickly and as easily as you would like. And so again, glad that you're here, glad all of you were here.
And if you were not here last week, Mark, our small group's discipleship pastor, he kicked off a new series for us that we're calling Ancient Paths, and really just kind of exploring this idea that sometimes we strive for something new, like we're trying to figure out what is the new thing, what is this new thing that I can do, when really the tracks have been laid for us for two thousand years of some really good, healthy practices, beliefs, systems that really can kind of help us walk this path that God has called us to. We spent some time earlier this year talking about off ramps, things that can keep us off the path. These, we're going to spend some time really just with historical ideas and disciplines that help us stay on that path. And then again, these aren't anything new. These are ancient paths where for generations, people have been using these things to develop and cultivate their relationship with God.
And it's really interesting for me personally, as Mark and I were just kind of talking about this series, that it really kind of comes at a time also, I mean, we plan these things like in the spring, but it's really kind of hitting me at a time where I've just been feeling real nostalgic. I think part of that is August is the anniversary, it's the sixteenth year that our family moved here to Fayetteville to lead here at The Grove Church, and I think having my youngest daughter, she started high school, that's kind of gets you kind of feeling old and nostalgic, and as my older daughters, as they continue to mature and see God do things good with them, it's like it's just got me just kind of in that place. And so I've been telling a lot of stories, if you've been around, that really kind of come from my early days. And some of them, the older I get, the most more ridiculous these stories are. In fact, one of them started with me being at a church just like this, and meeting a staff member from a college ministry at that church, the fall of my freshman year when I was in a really dark place, and that was the fall of nineteen ninety.
It's a thirty six year old story. So we don't have to go back to the church fathers. I've got my own ancient paths. And I was a college student there from nineteen ninety, ninety four in Hendricks in Central Arkansas, and graduated from that, and went on staff with a college ministry called Stumo, and I was on staff with them for six years. And during the transition there towards the end, it was just very clear that God was giving me or a family to heart more for pastoral ministry working through a church.
I thought we had a great opportunity in the church that we were living in, that we were going attending at the time. I was kind of on their staff in a temporary kind of way, and they were looking for somebody permanent. I thought that God's just kind of moving these paths together, and I did not get that job. In fact, they didn't even interview me, which that's tough. You got the job on an interim basis, and they don't even interview you.
That's tough. That's just that's not what you want. Anyways, well, that's because it's very simple. I was 28 years old. They said, you're too young and you don't have a seminary degree.
So we decided to fix that, because you can fix both of those things at the same time. You go to seminary, you get a degree, and then when you're done, you're marginally older anyway, right? And so that's what we did. But there was a lot of disappointment there, a lot of hurt, and a lot of the transition didn't work out the way. My wife, she's six months pregnant, and now we've moved to Colorado Springs to live with my in laws, which is only a blessing.
It was only a blessing. And my mother-in-law, she lives with us now, and she's awesome, and she's here. So I don't want there to be any negativity with this, except for the fact that a 28 year old guy, it feels like a regression. I was on this I owned a house. I was on this job.
I was gonna get this new job, and now I'm delivering pizzas at Colorado Springs and live on my father-in-law. And it's just it was just hard, and it was a real emotional time for me. I've got a, I'm about to have a three year old and a newborn. I'm in school, I've experienced all this disappointment, and it was really kind of this life altering moment for me. So here's my ancient path.
Lived in Colorado Springs, I was having to drive to Denver for class. When we finally moved to Denver to live on campus, I spent a lot of time driving from North Denver, where we live, to South Denver, where the Chick fil A, where I was the night manager works. Was in the car a lot by myself. Ancient path. Charlie, what did you do?
Well, one of the things I did, and you're gonna judge me, it's fine. That's why they're ancient paths. I would listen to the Left Behind series on audiobook. And you say, how would you do that, bro? It's the year 2000.
I'm telling you, it was a packet of cassette tapes, and you just put them in one at a time, one at a time. Sometimes I would listen to the radio, and K Love was kind of this national radio network, and they would have different affiliates, and I would listen to this. And there was a song that was new at the time. Twenty six years later, your association with this song might be that it is a little cheesy, and I recognize maybe in hindsight that you're right. But at that moment in my life was a life altering song.
I can only imagine Mercy Me. Again, right, maybe you're yeah. I get it. I get it. But the concept of this song at the time was incredibly impactful to me because he's talking about what is it gonna be like?
What is it gonna be like when you see Jesus face to face? And he talks about that really kind of the emotions that are gonna be really complicated to the point to where you may not know you cannot predict right now how you're gonna react, and in the moment, you may not know how to react. And he says this, surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you, be still? Will I stand in your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all? I hear the song now, and I kinda giggle a little bit because it is it's it's it's early two thousands, I get it. But when I think about that moment where I was the first time I heard that song, my heart, I can go back there. I'm tearing up, actually, because I cried significantly.
Because there was something about it, about just kind of helping me redirect myself. That's kind of where this ancient path is supposed to be leading, ultimately to face to face with the God of the universe. And it really kind of helped sort out just kind of some really complicated feelings that I was having about who I was, what my relationship to God is, what it's supposed to be. And there's something just really significant about, like, when you think, like, what are you supposed to think about when you think about you, when you think about God? The answer here in this song, and I think in real life, is actually a little bit complicated.
Am I gonna be really happy? Am I gonna be scared? Am I gonna be am I gonna be excited? Am I gonna am I am am I gonna fall down? Am I gonna jump?
Am I gonna scream? Am gonna be quiet? Because there's just a lot of different things to feel. And so we think about this particular ancient path that we're talking about. I want us to start by really asking this question.
When I think about God in me, what do I feel? What do I feel? What's going on in here? And again, the answer is a little complicated. Because I think there's a couple of things that we need to realize, and honestly, I think they go together.
There is a huge gap between me and God. I am someone who struggles all the time. I battle sin. I'm I'm falling short. And here's this great and awesome God, and the gap between us is significant.
And feel a certain way about it. And, not but, but and, and what Jesus has done to take me from down here and to bridge that gap to help us have a deep personal relationship with him, not just simply to forgive us, but to make us adopted sons and daughters of the Father. He has given us everything, and that is incredible. So when I see him, I'm gonna am I gonna be a little bit embarrassed? Am I gonna be excited?
But we don't have to wait to the future to ask that question, we ask it now. When you think about who you are and where you are right now and who God is, what do you feel? And what we're gonna talk about today, because I think there is, I think there is kind of these they're gonna seem like they don't go together, but I think put together, they make a lot of sense to kind of bring the tension of these two ideas together. I wanna celebrate the awesome things that God has done for me through Jesus and the things that he is doing for me now, and I want to confess. When I fall short, I want to confess.
And so what we're talking about today is celebration and confession, that I want to celebrate the amazing thing that God does and, not but, but and, and recognize this gap that I have between what I'm currently doing and who God really is. But before we get into that, I wanna make I wanna kinda make one thing clear, because if we're gonna if we're gonna talk about this, I wanna celebrate the goodness and also confess my sin. I wanna make sure that we understand this. So when you think about when I think about God and me and what do I feel, the first thing I wanna make sure you understand, we're talking about celebration and confession, is that you need to reject. You need to reject shame and pride.
Now I've already tried to do this service once today, normally I try not to do that, try not to just reference the first service, this is your first service, I understand that. But there's this thing in me, like this idea of talking about the difference between shame and guilt, I could probably speak, do a four five week series just on that idea, because I believe it is so significant. But it is, this is not a part of a five week series, this is one point of three of one sermon. And so we're gonna talk about it a little bit more at the end when we talk specifically about confession. But at least I wanna put this idea in your head because I'm convinced of this, that if you are going to walk the ancient path and be the man, the woman that God has called you to be, not just simply now, but twenty years from now, thirty years from now, fifty years from now, you're going to have to figure out in your heart, in your devotional life, in your relationship with God, in your community with other people, what is the difference between those two things.
Because guilt about something that you have done is appropriate. Feeling shame is something different. We'll say it this way. If you were to say something to me and it was a lie, and you know it's a lie, I know it's a lie, and I say to you, hey, you just lied to me. And you say back, what are you saying?
I'm a liar? No. Yeah. I'm all I'm saying is that thing that you said, that was a lie. Oh, so you're calling me a liar.
It's like, by some but by a very limited definition, yes, but not the thing that you're saying. I'm saying I'm trying to keep it here. You lied, and we should resolve this, but sometimes when somebody confronts us on something, and honestly, very often, we don't need somebody to confront us because my own inner dialogue is plenty. When I think about what I've done, I begin my this critic in my head, you're awful, you're terrible, what's the point of you? No one loves you.
God would never love you. You're the worst. Why? And and and depending on how much you have cultivated this kind of shame inner voice in your head, you can get pretty low pretty quickly. And somehow, in some places, we've been taught to equate that with the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit says, not this, but this. He does not come at you and say, you are the worst. Whatever that voice is, we put it down. Not shame. Figure figure that.
Spend some spend some time, and by that, I mean the rest of your life. Figuring that out. But also, don't want celebration to be pride. We don't want to have this pride, and then pride can kind of manifest itself a lot of different ways. For me, it's this.
I can get it into my head, like I understand the gospel, that I was a sinner and separated from God, and not based on anything I did, He bridged this gap for me. But it can't get in my head sometimes when good things happen, when there's prospering. I'm like, yeah, I mean, it's God totally did that, and it's not based on anything I did. I mean, but, I mean, I mean, look at me. Like, I'm kind of I got it was by grace, by faith, sure.
But when God was picking people to give grace to, he was like, well, that guy, he's talented. He's going to be a solid one, right? And you begin to think, maybe I deserve this. Or maybe you begin to think, maybe we can put God out of it entirely. I did I I I did this.
Or maybe there's a different sort of pride, and it really overlaps a lot with confession. How are you doing? I'm doing fine, actually. Things are good. How about you?
And it's not true. And if we embrace pride and shame, we get stuck because I'm not willing or able to really do the work to do the repair that is needed to do to to to deal with the consequence of my sin, and I'm not giving God the full honor and praise that he deserves for what he has done and what he's doing. So we're gonna look at a couple of Psalms today, both written by the same guy, where he is kind of manifesting both of these different things, and we will start with Celebration, Psalm chapter 40 starting verse one. I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.
Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you. Were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare. So here you've got David. I was in this pit.
Things were not going great for me, and guess what happened? God raised me up, and it was awesome. And now I'm in this great place. I can now stand. I feel secure.
So much to the point to like, God's given me this new song. And like literally, not metaphorically, like he literally wrote a song. I mean, that's what he did. He's a poet, and I'm like, God's so great. I'm gonna write a poem.
Maybe you're not gonna write a poem, right? But he's just like, I he just could not help. I've been spending so much time down here asking God for this, and now he's put me here. I don't wanna go on as if nothing has happened. I need to recognize, God, thank you so much.
I recognize where I where I was, and now I see where I am, and I and I've got nothing but good things, like, you're amazing. Thank you so much. I'm gonna write this down as a song to make sure that everyone knows. And what does he say here? He's like, so many people are going to hear about this and put their trust in you, which is true because here we are thousands of years later reflecting on his heart here and figuring out, well, how can I praise God the same sort of way?
And we'll say it this way. We think about the way that we're supposed to feel when we think about God and us, that we wanna celebrate. We wanna celebrate when you experience God's blessing. You wanna celebrate. This is what he's doing.
He's in his own way, he was unique to him. He's a poet. He's songwriter. He wrote this song, and I'm sure he is singing it and telling it to people. He's writing it down, and in every way, he's just in the way that God designed him.
God is good, and he did this great thing for me. I think we have lost this idea. And I'm not talking about what we talk about when we talk about the way that you pray. Have you ever heard this acronym, ACTS? You first, you praise God, adoration, then you confess, then you're thankful, and then you ask God for supplication, ACTS.
I'm not talking about this little sliver in your prayer life. God, thanks for all the blessings in my life. Thank God, thank you thank you for doing that. That's a good thing. Thanksgiving is a good thing.
We chose a very specific word, celebration. Not just a one to three sentence acknowledgment of something good that happened, but a celebration of the goodness of God and how you have experienced it in the past or right now. Our family, we're big celebrators, and this has kind of evolved over time. It started several years ago when we started a new tradition where if it's your birthday, birthday, you get to pick where we go for dinner, and we go around the room, and everybody says what they love about the person. And it's really sweet, and it's really special, and it has been something we have done for probably fifteen to twenty years now, but it's kind of grown from that.
It went from that to now we do it on our anniversary. My wife and I on our anniversary, we'll find a time for just the two of us to go out, but we'll also do a whole family thing. We call it family birthday. It was when our family was born. So we all get together, and we have dinner, and we all go around, and we talk about what do we love most about being a part of our family.
And now we've added Mother's Day, and we've added Father's Day. Anytime somebody gets a job, anytime somebody gets a promotion, anytime somebody the first day of school, the last day of school. I'm telling you, it has gotten to the point now where it does not matter. We're just looking for reasons, and we need to celebrate that. My middle daughter Lauren, a friend of hers, we just found out he got a job, and the immediate thing was like, well, we got to take him out.
We got to have got to celebrate that. Suddenly, there's a Red Robin plan emerging at some point, And I'm sure in this moment, and it's going to feel really uncomfortable for not for us, but for him, we're going go around talking about why we think he's going be great at this job and how we're so excited about this. The only thing, and this is one of the things that is not caught on yet, but it is not from a lack of effort, especially on the older two. We're not quite at half birthdays yet. They will come around every now and then, you didn't even say anything to me.
My half birthday was yesterday. Like, I promise you that is not on my calendar. Usually, the here's the thing is by the time my oldest daughter can say that, it is actually one month past what would have been my half birthday. And I was like, all you got to do, May fifteenth. If you remember May 15, I'll come around June 20, and we can work something out.
But it's mostly a bit. Celebrating right there. But there's some I mean, beyond just that, the things that happen to your family, like, what has God really done? Like I said, I've been real nostalgic lately, and then there's a part of me that's like, I just want to get to a point to where some of these epic transformational moments in my life, moving here sixteen years ago, we're about to come across the thirty sixth anniversary of the time that I met this guy as a freshman in college. It really kind of changed put me on this different path.
January, we're about to come to the celebration of when we finally sold this house that we owned before we moved here, and that we owned for ten years after we moved. Coming across these things that happened to me in the summer of two thousand, right? All year long, there are all these things that have happened, these deep commemorative moments in my life where God has done something significant, and I want to remember. And then I want to have eyes. I want to have a mindset that's out there that's like, what is there to celebrate?
Like, I'm just waiting for the next thing, somebody to get a job, first day of school, but God doing something in my heart and in my life that I can celebrate. If we came with those eyes, I think we would have a lot to celebrate. And if you've ever looked in the Old Testament, or if you just kind of did a search or whatever, of all the Jewish festivals, you would just see one after another after another. They were celebrating things that God did over the course of their history all the time. And depending on kind of what calendar you have, if you decide on your online calendar, like, to share holidays on there, and you see kind of what comes up, you'd be like, man, the Jewish people, got another one coming up.
There's another one. Which one is this one? And I don't mean this in a derogatory way at all. It just seems like, man, they're always celebrating and commemorating something. What would it look like in our hearts and minds if we just had lenses out there?
What is it that God is doing in my life and has done in my life that I could be celebrating? Same guy, different period in his life, King David, Psalm 51, he has done something terrible. Not the worst things you can do. It involves adultery and murder. And it is it is a it is a terrible story, what he's what he's gone through, but it's finally it's finally caught up with him.
It's finally caught up with his heart, what he's done. And in Psalm fifty one one to four, we've got this. Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. So you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. He's done something bad. And rather than him allowing it to feel like, well, that's it. I'm done.
That's it. I'm done. I'm done. God will never love me again. He'll never think any well of me again.
You know, and so I've got I've got I've got to hide it from Him. I've got to do something. I've got to pretend it didn't happen, or I've just got to fade off into the sunset. And these are all the different reactions many of us have when we think about the sin that we've committed, the things that we've done. I'm gonna hide it.
I'm gonna minimize it, or I'm gonna allow it to think that that that a sin can just it can just it can just take me off the board forever. But there's a there's a humility here that we see in David. It's like, I I recognize what I've done. I know that it was significant. I know that it was serious, and I'm sorry.
And I know that even though I have caused all of this harm to these people over here, that I've done damage over here, and I'm sorry. And we'll say it this way. Here's what here's why this is important. We confess to repair your intimacy with God. And I say it this way on purpose, because I think there's some confusion that we have about the way confession works and its purpose.
Because what we understand about the gospel, again, is that God is we, you know, this is this is kind of the standard, and we're down here. And and Jesus died on the cross, and he brought us. He bridged the gap so that we could now have a relationship with God. But I think some of us think of this in terms of being at neutral. I wasn't in debt, and now I'm at zero.
And now my life is kind of living above and below this zero. I did something good today. I did something bad today. I did something good, did something And if I do something bad, I have to confess it. And if I don't, then there's a chance that I could die in the negative, and there's going to be a problem.
And I've got to now I have to I know Jesus did all this work, but now I have to manage it. And if somehow there's something I don't confess today or or something I forgot to confess, I can be in real trouble. And there are certain denominations in Christian traditions that think like that, but that is not we we embrace this idea that not only did he forgive us to get us back to here, but he elevated us with Jesus' righteousness and made us an adopted son and daughter. So we are not confessing in order to keep and maintain a relationship with God. That is not what's happening.
We do not confess to God in that way any more than my kids do to me. My kids do not, when they've hurt me, when they have done something that they're not supposed to do, and they come to me and they apologize, it is not out of fear that I may not allow them to be my daughters anymore. It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud like that. You need more than when there's repair between my wife and I, when I need to apologize to her. I don't apologize to her and think, well, if I don't, she won't want she won't she'll divorce me.
No. Our relationship is solid. I confess to cultivate the intimacy, to I'm just I'm sorry for what I've caused you harm. I've caused you hurt, and I am sad about that, and want things to be better. I want them to be okay.
We talk like this a lot. I don't know how many times you've heard people talk like this, but it is very common. In the last fifty years or so, when we talk about following Jesus, we say, we'll say phrases like, I'm not a practitioner of a religion, I have a relationship with Jesus. It's actually the very first time I heard this again, which would have been when I was in college, was actually mine, it was mind shifting for me. But if that's true, if we are not just simply practicing religious rituals, but we are cultivating a relationship with God through Jesus, then I confess not because it's ritualistically required, but because it is relationally necessary.
I I I want to have short accounts with my kids, with my wife, with my friends. I want to be able to be honest about the things that are going on in my heart and my life, and I have if I've hurt you, I want you to know that that is not what I what I want, and that is not who I am trying to be. Again, I'm rejecting shame. I'm awful. I'm the worst.
I have to accept the worst possible interpretation of what I've done. I did something I wish I hadn't, and I'm sorry. And I'm willing to do what I need to do to make to to make us better. This is what I say to my wife, to to my to to my kids. And when we come to God the father, we have such great confidence.
I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I've done that. I'm sorry I've hurt you in this way, and God always forgives, always restores, always heals, And guess what then happens? You've got another thing to celebrate. In my darkest moment, I came to God.
I confessed, and he heard me, and he healed me, and we're good. And now I can celebrate that, a reminder yet again of the overwhelming faithfulness and goodness of God. And as I'm walking down this path, I've now got these new lenses. I'm looking for opportunities, and if you have these kinds of glasses on, you'll see it all the time. Awesome things that God is has done and is doing, reminding you of things in the past, doing new things now, promises for the future.
There's gonna be constant celebration going on in your heart and life about the overwhelming goodness of God. And when I stumble, when I fall short, when my sin continues to be a problem, I can have the confidence that I can just come to him and apologize, and the relationship is healed because that is who he is, and now I'm celebrating again. And with a new lens, a new idea about what it is I'm looking for in my life, I want to celebrate what I've done. I want to keep short accounts with God with relational confession. Not only am I staying on this ancient path, but there's joy and peace rather than the the pride and the shame that so many of us are carrying with us.
And we always have a response time here after the service, but I just we you know, we've kind of crafted these last two songs with this in mind. The next song is gonna be very centered around confession, about what does it mean for us to be, to still have that brokenness in us and that restoration that God provides. So I'd encourage you during that song, where you are in the back, just to have a mind a mindset around, God, is there any repair that I need to do? And then we're ending with a big one, a celebration song about the overwhelming power of God. And so I pray that in these next few minutes, you will confess and restore and celebrate the faithfulness of God.
Let me pray. God, thank you so much. Thank you for everyone who's here, because I gotta know you brought them here. They needed to be people who are celebrating, confessing, walking these ancient paths. And so God, whatever it is you put on their heart, God, I pray you would magnify it and give us all the lenses we need to celebrate your goodness, your faithfulness, and what your son Jesus Christ did for us, not simply to forgive, but to give us full life and to make us your sons and daughters.
And I pray God that we would walk out of here with hearts that see that all the time and hearts that confess so that we can let you know in the good times and our struggles how big and awesome you are. And again, we're so thankful for your son Jesus who makes all this possible. That's in his name we pray. We're that. Do do And And culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate that.
Podcast. It's on the same feed, however you found this particular podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.