Jesus was not driven by their opinions; he was steered by the will of his Father.
Are you? Are you? If you're not, you're going to be tossed and driven with the wind,
and your emotions are going to ruin your life, and your cynicism is going to constrict your wisdom.
First John 4. Where do you come from?
You don't even have to answer. I'm going to answer it. Are you ready for this?
This is 1 John 4:4. I love this Bible verse. I've quoted it a lot,
but I don't think I ever understood it until this week. First John 4:4: "You, dear children, are
from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you…" It's
hard for me to say this like I want to say it. It's so powerful to me.
It reminds me of a lady. She came up to me one time after I preached. She had a deep
Southern accent, and she said, "Aren't you from Moncks Corner, South Carolina?" I said,
"Yes, ma'am." She said, "I'm from Summerville," which is only 20 miles from Moncks Corner or so.
That's where my rival high school football team is, the Summerville
Green Wave, so I said, "Well, I won't hold that against you."
You know, that little small-town humor, you know, give her that little Moncks Corner… I said,
"Well, I won't hold it against you," because I'm a Berkeley Stag and they're the Green Wave. I said,
"It's all right." She said, "Well, then I've got a question for you if you're from Moncks Corner.
Why don't you talk like where you come from?"
She said this about my accent, but I want to ask this about your attitude.
I just read you a Bible verse that said you are a child of God. So why don't you talk
like where you come from? You come from God. You come from royalty. You flow from his side.
Talk like where you come from! Watch this. Let the weak say, "I am strong." I come from strength. I
come from the Rock. I come from the well. I don't come from Nazareth. I don't come from
Moncks Corner. I didn't come from Larry. I came from the Lord. I have an inheritance.
Give God 20 seconds of praise
like you know where you come from! You are a royal priesthood! You are a holy nation!
To declare the praises. Anybody can describe the problem. To declare the praises.
It doesn't take faith to be cynical. It doesn't take smart to be cynical. It takes faith
to contradict your circumstance with your confession.
She said, "You don't talk like you're from Moncks Corner." Some of y'all don't talk like you
know his blood was shed for you. You talk to yourself like you're worthless.
I'm not even talking about what you say to other people. I'm talking about how we talk
to ourselves. I'm talking about the inside voice.
God said, "Let us make man in our image."
You were made in his image. Paul said you are God's workmanship
created in Christ before the world got started. What gave Jesus the authority
to focus on his assignment and what's going to help you do it as a mom, as a man, what's
going to help you to still know who you are even though the addictions you carry say otherwise…
I'm telling you, God knows what's going on inside of your heart today. I don't; he does.
But even still, before any of that, before any of those layers of life that labeled you,
you, children of God, dear children, have overcome… Greater is he that is in you.
If I could teach you one thing about God today…
I can't tell you who he is because that would take the rest of my life to even read the introduction,
but I can tell you where he is in one word: inside.
So, look at the rest of the text in 1 John. It's very powerful.
He said in verse 5, "They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world…"
How can we have God's Spirit and speak Satan's language?
How can Satan drive out Satan? Cynicism is counterfeit strategy.
The real wisdom of God is peaceable and pure, and it creates more faith, not less.
Who are you listening to? Voices become viewpoints.
He said you come from God, but you listen to the world. You come from God,
but you listen to the opinions of people who don't have your best interests at heart.
I know everybody is trying to read into what I'm saying, because you can't say
anything anymore without it being political. I'm saying 1 John 4:5 is what I'm saying.
Worldly values have no place in the heart of a Christian. "That's right,
Preacher! That's why I don't smoke." The Bible doesn't even have cigarettes in it.
This is not about the external stuff. That's not what he's writing about.
He's saying there are false prophets that have come, and the way you can recognize…
He says they speak from the viewpoint of the world. Voices become viewpoints.
What you hear gets in your heart.
What you scroll gets in your spirit. I'm helping somebody in the most practical way today.
The Lord said, "This is why you're stressed." Cynicism is not wisdom. It's a sickness.
They are from the world. They speak like the world. Why would we have the Spirit of God
and speak the language of Satan? Just the things we say to ourselves about ourselves…
He said the world listens to them, but watch what I found in verse 6. I love this. "We are from God,
and whoever knows God listens to us…"
That really got me, because I pictured Jesus… There's a crowd around him,
and they want something from him. How many of you feel like there are people
who want things from you all the time? I know you're sitting next to them so
you can't really raise your hand on that point. I know. I hear your inside voice.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh,
the incarnate eternal (in itself that's a contradiction), is standing with a crowd
surrounded by scribes and even dealing with the cynicism of his own family,
but he knew where he came from. We are from God. This week, in your heart, I want you to
talk like where you come from. Or another way to say it: use your inside voice.
The world is so loud you think it's normal, like Abbey. "This is my inside voice. I'm
just a pessimistic person. That's just the way I am." What about the Great I Am?
I thought we just read a verse that said, "Greater is he
that is in you than he that is in the world." So what about that? Voices become viewpoints. Right?
I thought you were seated in heavenly places with Jesus where he reigns.
So what are you doing down in the sewer of cynicism?
The real issue isn't whether our nation is divided.
The real issue is whether your heart is divided. Do you really trust his authority?
Jesus had internal authority. Do you know what that means? He didn't need other people to tell
him who he was. That's so cool. Wouldn't you like to get there? I would. Look at Jesus. In verse 28,
he says something. You can't really get the full sense of it in English. "Truly I tell you…"
This phrase is only recorded from the lips of Jesus in the whole New Testament in this way.
Let me tell you what's interesting about it. Usually, when a priest or a prophet
would prophesy, they would say, "Thus saith the Lord" and the people would say, "Amen."
It was a response to what was spoken that confirmed the truth of it. Oral witness.
In the text it says, "Truly I tell you," but the actual literal translation
is "Amen, I tell you the truth." What's weird about it is he said "Amen" first.
He is the only one who does that. I don't mean to bore you today. I know you want to
get back to counting ballots, but can I talk about the Bible for three seconds?
Can the Lord have three seconds of your attention?
All right then. See, let me read this to you. Witherington said in his commentary…
I read this really expensive book to be able to tell you the significance of this
moment. Jesus goes on to say this in Mark's gospel over and over again. The phrase is
"Amen, I tell you the truth. Amen, I say to you." This is the first instance in Mark. But listen.
This phrase, which was characteristic of Jesus, suggests that he felt free to vouch for himself.
It was a really expensive book, so I have to read it again.
This phrase, "Amen, I tell you," suggests that he felt free to vouch for himself
and the truth of his own word without requiring external human testimony to his truthfulness.
I want you to learn how to say "Amen" from within.
What I mean is I want you to get to the point in your faith, and I want to get to the point in my
life where I do not wait for humans to validate my identity or for events to validate my optimism.
I want to be able to say "Amen" to begin with. So say "Amen." If you know who you are,
you can say that and not wait for anybody else to say it for you. If you know what he has spoken,
if you know what he said, if you know where you come from, you can start your…
This is so grammatically incorrect, but theologically it's so powerful.
Jesus wasn't waiting on anybody else for an amen.
He had an amen that came from within. I think we've lost that.
I think we are so consumed with the voices of others we can't even hear our Father,
and then we start asking God to take away things we put in our hearts through the wrong voices.
But today the Lord said, "It's going to be a better week for you,
because you're going to begin with 'Amen.'"