Cycles of Forgetfulness: God's Unexpected Deliverance

1. "The source of all of our forgetting is that the things that we know are true have never become or have failed to now be real to us. And we know this. Because there's not anyone in this room that has not heard of the wisdom of God. And yet we stay completely stressed out and completely anxious because that wisdom of God is not real to us. We've all heard of the presence, of the holy presence of God. We know that intellectually. And yet we live blatantly immoral, self-serving lives with no thought about it because the holy presence of God is not real to us. We've all heard of the love of God. All of us intellectually have heard of the love of God. And yet we are completely, we feel snubbed, we feel shamed, we feel worthless, we feel insecure because the overwhelming love of God is not real to us." [19:15] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Remembering the Lord, centering in the Lord. All of that is daily. It's not this one time conversion experience. And that's what happened to the Israelites here. And the crazy thing is, is if God is not central to us, if we are not centered in him, then no wonder we're serving. Because there's no motive to pursue the good and to shun the bad. I mean, that just becomes this weird, dry kind of legalism that becomes its own idolatry of this is who I am. I'm the good people. And I always do. I mean, the whole motive behind that is because we belong to him, but beyond not behaving correctly, what happens soon enough where there is only forgetting and never the remembering is that we cannot even discern, sorry, discern or recognize, the good from the bad." [21:21] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "The Lord never points any place but the heart as the cause of our disease. He's saying it's the heart, not the land where the idols come from. The Canaanites can set up totem poles and carve stones and build temples, but only the Israelites hearts can make those things idols. Only their hearts can make those things idols. Listen to Michael Wilcock. It's always the same old, same old boring sin. The sin of centering our lives on the value of the world right around us and therefore showing in practice that those things are more valid, important than the Lord is. And we all know that. How much time do we spend? How much time do we spend on social media versus reading God's word?" [24:00] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "God hands them over, yes, but not to destroy them, to awaken them. And yet they are slow to wake up. Before it was, now it's 18 years. 18 years of this before they cry out. And when they do, how do they cry out? The literal translation there is they give a yelp of pain. Okay. They cry out. Only. In their distress. Again, God is not gullible. There is no inkling here of repentance. The cry is arising from the experience of distress, not from a realization of sin. Not from an ownership here of sin. And how do we know? Save us from them, not save us from us. Okay? The cry of repentance does always save us from us, but save us from them." [31:15] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "The point is there are no limits to the resources and the plans and the purposes of almighty God. And this is only going to become clearer as we go through crazier cycles here in the judges. We can know God's promises. We can claim God's promises. We can hold God to his promises, but he is never bound to our expectations of how he is going to fulfill them. Lord, you have promised. That you're not going to withhold anything good from me. You've promised that. Now I'm going to tell you how that needs to look, Lord. I've decided this is the good. Lord, you've told us that you would not let our foot slip, that you would not ever leave us or forsake us. Let me tell you what that needs to look like." [42:32] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "We do not have a left-handed Savior. We have what? We have a Savior who is deformed, eternally deformed, in what? Both hands. We have a Savior who's deformed in both hands. And you know where he is right now on Wednesday morning? He is at the Father's almighty right hand. And you know what he's doing? He's showing him his hands. He's showing him his hands for me. And then that same Lord with those same hands promises that nothing can snatch me out of those hands. Out of those eternally deformed hands that I can never forget as I'm wrapped up in them how much I'm loved by them because they are forever scarred with scars that I deserve. With my scars. He nailed them to our cross. He bears my scars in his body forever. Why? Because he loves us." [01:01:23] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "So the question for us this morning is will I bring my divided heart? Will I bring my diseased heart to be captured by that heart? And when I say captured, I mean captured. Because there is no place anywhere in the scripture that tells you that you can be Christ covered if you are not Christ captured. We want the coverage. We just want to forget. We just want to, I mean, we cannot be Christ covered unless we are Christ captured. Captured doesn't sound good to us until we understand what it means to be captured by the Lord. And what does it mean? He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will pick up the lambs and carry them in his arms close to him. That's what captured by the Lord means. That's what captured by the Lord means. It means full security. It means full love. And you know what it means? No autonomy. Because when you're captured and you're being carried, how much is up to you? Not much." [01:03:00] (62 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)