TRANSCRIPTION | Sunday, April, 11, 2021 | Grave or Garden

 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

A few years ago, our family took a vacation out west. And we've now had the privilege to do that a handful of times. On this particular occasion, we were going to Mount Rushmore, and on our way to Mount Rushmore, we actually found ourselves in Wisconsin. And as we were driving down the interstate, we noticed that there was this like huge orange edifice, and you could see it from miles away. And as we got closer and closer, it had our full attention. And so we ultimately pulled in, and this is a picture of the big orange moose. I almost feel like this picture needs a further explanation though, for context. I'm sure some of you are wondering who is that man standing with Mandy? It's a much slimmer version of myself. That's actually from a time period when I was quite sick. And I was having a number of surgeries and trying to work through that illness. That is the period of time that Mandy references as having spent two and a half years sleeping with the field goal kicker even though she married the linebacker. The linebacker is back. He has a clean bill of health. He feels 10 foot tall and bulletproof. And he now eats whatever he wants, in case you couldn't tell, amen. So, I don't know if I should get encouragement on that or not. Our kids were there. This is one of the kids. They were really young at this time. They are taking pictures, we're taking pictures. The kids were playing around with the moose. We’re trying to find out how we're gonna climb the moose, how we're gonna ride the moose, how we're going to get Dawson to sit in the antlers of the moose. Like we're all about the moose. And then as we finish up with our photo opp at the big orange moose, we make our way back to the parking lot. And there is a guy there that has this massive load of ATVs. And he's getting ready to unload them, and he sees our vehicle and the Kentucky license plates. He starts a conversation with me. He said, oh, you're saying you're from Kentucky, what part? I said well, we actually live around Lake Cumberland. He said oh my goodness, I own land there. I fly in periodically to just be there and enjoy the scenery. He said we love Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. And so then I looked at his license plates, and he was from Minnesota. I thought man, what a small world. But but then I'm like, well, what are you doing in Wisconsin? And what's the deal with all the ATVs? And he said, oh man, we're getting ready to unload. He said, one of the best trail systems in this part of the world is right here. He said up in these woods. There are miles and miles almost feels like endless miles of trails. And I said, well, where? He said, right here. He said, in fact, right over there is the entrance. I said well where's the entrance? And I'm looking, and he's pointing, and I realized that in a very obscure way there is this entrance that someone would have to point out to you that it existed. Someone had to let you know that it was there. And I thought to myself, here this guy is with his family, getting ready to go on this great adventure in God's country. And it's going to be so exciting, and it's going to be so exhilarating. And here's me and my family playing with the big orange moose. And then I thought about how that is like so many Christians. It's like, they don't realize that there is something that they're missing. They don't recognize that there is an entrance and a pathway into an adventure with God that you could spend the rest of your life exploring in abundant ways. Just like somebody's got to let you know what's available. Lest you spend your life with the photo ops at the big orange moose. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

I was thinking about how...I'm sure there's a lot of you that maybe you're new to a relationship with Jesus, or maybe you've been away from Jesus for a while. And now you're back desiring to be in a closer relationship with God. And maybe you're kind of trying to figure out like, what can I do to make sure that I'm experiencing all that God has for me, and I'm getting to explore all those paths. It's important that you ponder those kinds of things because John chapter 10, verse 10, says that Jesus comes to give you life, and to give you life more abundantly. And so God doesn't just want you to go through the motions of a religious experience, like he wants you to experience an overflow of life, not just in the next world but in this world. In fact, he wants to make heaven manifest in your part of earth. So think about for a minute, like, abundance.

How do you walk in the abundance of life that Jesus has for you? How do you fulfill even what Paul said that God desires to do exceedingly and abundantly above all you could ask or think, according to the power that he's already deposited on the inside of you? How do you make sure that you're exploring all those pathways of God's glory? 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

In Luke chapter 11, Jesus is having a conversation with his disciples. He's trying to help them to walk out abundant life. Luke chapter 11, verse number 1, “Now it came to pass, as Jesus was praying in a certain place, when he sees that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. And so Jesus said to them, when you pray, say, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I want to draw your attention back to verse two, Jesus said to them, “when you pray.” Isn't it intriguing to contemplate that Jesus seems to have an expectation that his followers are going to pray. That it's not going to be something that they might do, or they may someday get around to, but there seems to be an expectation that this is going to be a regular part of their life. And he's trying to equip them to be as effective in this vein as possible. When you

pray. I want you to understand something, if you are going to truly experience abundant life in Jesus Christ, you are going to need to live a life that is full of prayer. In fact, out of all the things that God could talk to us about that we should be intentional in doing, he did not say to us that we should always work. God didn't say that men ought always to preach, or that men ought always to play, or that men ought always to have fun, or that man ought always to stop and hang out with the big orange moose. But what God did say is that men ought always to pray. And it doesn't seem to be in a suggestive form. It seems to be in a commanding tone. It seems to imply that this is an expectation that Jesus puts on his followers that heaven puts on earth that we ought always to pray. So a few weeks ago, we talked about what it would mean to always pray. We talked about how to take passive thoughts and transform them into active prayers. And if you've hung out with church online on Wednesday nights at all, you know that one of the things that we talk about repetitively is the subject of prayer. Because I believe that to experience abundance in God, our life must be full of prayer. Why? Because in sin, we communicate our independence of God, but in prayer, we communicate dependence upon God. Men ought always to pray. I think we ought to pray when we are defeated so that we can become victorious. But I also think that when we are victorious, we ought to pray that we don't become defeated. I think when we are impoverished, we ought to pray that we become prosperous, but I also think that when we are prosperous, we ought to pray that we don't become impoverished. I think it would do us all some good if when we are discouraged, we would pray that we would become encouraged. But also that when we are encouraged, we would pray that we do not become discouraged. Men ought always to pray. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

You can't find overarching examples of when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to preach, or when they asked him to teach them how to even teach. There's not a lot of discussion going back and forth between the disciples and Jesus about how to do miracles or how to do signs and wonders. But when it came to the subject of prayer, they asked specifically, Lord, teach us how to pray. It seems to me like they understood that the prayer was the secret to the power. That they understood that there was something about Jesus prayer life that made Jesus be able to walk in the authority that he walked in, and they're saying out of everything you can teach us how to do like, the thing that we want to get down the best is how do you pray? And yet, isn't it intriguing to think that in the world we live in today, especially as followers of Jesus, that we do not put an emphasis on teaching people how to pray. I believe that teaching our kids to pray is as important as teaching them how to read and write. Men ought always to pray. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

A minister goes to seminary. We teach them about Old Testament theology, New Testament theology, homiletics this and homiletics that and yet rarely is there ever any subject dealing with prayer. Yet men ought always to pray. You do understand the Bible says that men are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So it is important that you educate yourself on the subject of prayer, and that you let God and through the Word of God and through the right kind of teaching, learn how to pray so that when you live a lifestyle of prayer that you are going to set yourself up to be in that place where abundance, the overflow of it is on every side of your life. But what Jesus goes on to say, Luke chapter 11, verse number two, “So he said to them, when you pray, pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Hallowed is just an unusual word that means reverence. But it also could be said to mean, praise. And so one of the things that Jesus is teaching us is that when you go into a time of prayer that not only do you need to live a life that's full of prayer, but you also need to live a life that's full of praise. And that in fact, your prayer should start with praise. And I would say to you, if your prayer feels powerless, it might be because you've not chosen to incorporate praise. Most of us turn our prayer times into pity parties, where we begin to pour our heart out to God about how bad we've got it in about everything that's went wrong, and everything we don't like, and who we want God to fix, and how much thing how many things we want God to pay for before the end of next week. Instead,

what if we stepped into this place where that we began to realize that we could stop lamenting what we've lost and start thanking God for what we have left? You do understand that every time a miracle takes place in the Bible, it starts with what was left. Every miracle starts with a problem, but you can get so caught up on what you lost that you don't even see what you got left, and that's where the miracle is going to start. You see that they need food, all they got is five loaves and two fish. It's what they got left, but he fed 5000 people with it and had 12 basketfuls leftover. He'll start with what you got left. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

There's a woman about to lose everything she's got because her man has left her in debt, and he's passed away. But what she had left was a jar of oil. But when God got done with that jar of oil, not only was her debt paid, she was wealthy and sitting real good for the rest of her life. The miracle started with what she had left. And I just came to tell somebody you need to start praising God for what you have left. Maybe during your prayer time, bring in a little praise where that instead of numbering your enemies, you start to thank God for your friends. I don't know, maybe that's why some of us ain't got no friends. Because we are so preoccupied with what's wrong with us, that we never even pay attention to what someone else might need. Rather than pointing out your bruises maybe you ought to thank God for the fact that no weapon formed against you will ultimately prosper. Maybe quit dealing with your pain and start thinking God that you still have breath in your lungs. Because everything that hath breath, praise ye the Lord. It's not that God has a problem with you talking to him about your problems. It's not that God is intimidated by you bringing up the subject of what you've lost, or how many enemies you have, or how many bruises you've taken. But it would do us good in our prayer life to understand the principle of praise and to live a life that's full of praise. And to begin to think about some stuff like yeah, man, I've took some licks, and I've been hit, and I've been knocked down, and I’ve been beat up, but bless God, hallelujah, I still got breath in my lungs, and let everything that has breath praise ye the Lord. And there's something about even thinking about that subject that begins to help you to understand the brevity of life. And you begin to realize that life itself is like a singular breath to God. That life is just a vapor according to even scriptures evaluation of it. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Man, life can be short. I mean, you can close your eyes, wake up tomorrow and be old. I say that as a 40 year old. I got stuff that hurts that I didn't know had. My wife is so sweet. She's, she's like, so kind and so gracious. And I mean, she just kind of takes life with a smile, and she's just got a true gift of mercy. And, this week, she was mean. I'm just not used to it. Like, I'm like, where is Mandy, and what have you done with my wife? And I just, there's this tension, and there's just this edginess and finally I'm like, Mandy, like what is wrong with you? Finally, she said, I'm turning 39 this week. So I tried to preach her happy. And I could not get an amen in our living room. It was while I was thinking about that...you saw the orange mousse picture, you saw the shriveled up version of Eric having lost a ton of weight, sick and not knowing what was wrong with me, and devil in my head, and absolutely convinced that I was going to die young. And a friend of mine, who's actually here with me today, visiting from Eastern Kentucky, he shared a message with me that another man preached. In the message, the man talks about how you don't need to focus on whether you're going to die young or if you're going to die old. You just need to focus on dying finished. Jesus was a 33 year old man. But on a cross, he said it is finished. How can a 30 year old man be finished? Everything that was in him had been brought through him. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

You need to live a life that's full of prayer. You need to live a life that's full of praise. But you need to also live a life on purpose. If you are going to make sure that you die finished, and you arrive at the latter years of your life and feel like you have truly made a difference, here's the thing, you may feel like you've lost some time. You may feel like you've not lived a life on purpose. I got great news for you, it's never too late to be who you might have been. And so I just want to encourage you with Luke chapter 11 verse number 2, “So he said to them when you pray our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,” look at the next part of this verse, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What that is saying is God line me up with your purpose for my life. God help me to be a follower of Jesus who is truly in tune with the ambition of heaven for my life. And stepping into that place where that you're not just pursuing your own goals and pursuing your own desires, but that you're saying, I want to live a life on purpose. And I want to make sure that it's God's will not my will, that's being fulfilled in me and through me. And that's the reason that some of you, you've reached a place in life recently. Maybe even, you've been dealing with it for an extended period of time, you don't have a high tolerance for foolishness. Because there's something in you that realizes the clock is ticking, you sense the seriousness of the hour in which we live, and you know my life needs to be on purpose. You find yourself trying to be around people of thought and trying to be around people who are doing something, and people who are going somewhere, and you're looking for people that understand the kingdom of God. You even like, find yourself hungry just to talk to somebody who's actually thinking about Kingdom things. Because you want to be a part of something that's on purpose. So that when you get to the end of your days, you can say, God finished what he started in me and through me. 

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Jesus, he shows us, if you're going to walk in the abundance, your life has to be full of prayer. But then Jesus teaches us, it's going to need to also be full of praise. In fact, it's going to need to start with praise. And I guess I need to parenthetically insert this, I have people all the time that asked me like the well meaning people like why y'all sing so much? Like, aren't we just there to see what you got to say? I said, you misunderstand. Because the Scripture is clear. God inhabits the praises of his people. You enter into his gates with thanksgiving. You enter into his courts with praise. In fact, Scripture says you enter into his presence with singing. And so we're looking for something more here than a motivational speech with a god slant. And so the only way that that can happen is for the presence of God to come down. And when the presence of God settles, I promise you, the more we sing, the better I'll preach. Especially if people are singing from their hearts. And people are coming at God with everything that's within them, and they're saying, heaven, come on down. I want the purpose of heaven to be made manifest in my life. I want the purpose of heaven to be made manifest in this place. And so I got news for you, praise is not a spectator sport, it is a moment of participation, where you step up and you say, I am ready for the presence of God to be made manifest in my life. God, move. Bring your purpose, fulfill your will, establish your will over my entire life. God, have your way, live a life on purpose. And what you'll discover is that if you will live a life of prayer, a life of praise, a life of purpose, you will ultimately live a life that's full of power.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Luke chapter 11, verse 2, he said to them, “When you pray, our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.” Isn't it something to contemplate that we serve a resurrected King? That we serve a King Jesus who hell has no answer for. That death, hell, and the grave couldn't keep him down, couldn't do anything with him; he completely conquered it. And now we are given the ability to say, Lord, let your kingdom come. That's a revelation for some of you because you're still trying to pull everything up, and you need to be pulling something down. And instead of sometimes focused on what you're trying to pull up, focus on pulling heaven down, and you'll discover it'll bring the power and turn the lights on. And all that darkness you've been trying to drag people out of won't even exist anymore, simply because heaven came down. And I know it doesn't make sense to some of you, and I know it sounds really radical to some of you, but if you've ever been in a place where heaven came down, you realized that there is absolutely nothing that God cannot do when he begins to invade a place with heaven. Heaven, come down. He brings with it power, resurrection power, abundant power, exceedingly abundantly above all you could ask or think according to the power that he puts on the inside of you. Resurrection power. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now dwells in you. Power. Aren't you tired of living a life that's powerless? Aren't you tired of living a life that is where you just feel like you're constantly getting beat up all the time, and you're not sure what's coming at you next, but you dread it, whatever it is? To live a life of resurrection power. I want you to look over somebody and tell them resurrection power.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

So they're gonna come, they're gonna play some music softly. And as they do so I want to give you one final thought. Here it is. Resurrection power. It happens in the book of John, chapter 20. We talked about it last week. We took a look at it, and you may remember bits and pieces of it. Jesus is in the tomb, Jesus is dead. And the disciples are starting to figure out that something's happened at the tomb. But they don't know how to fully process it. But word is spreading among them that they need to check it out. It starts out with Mary Magdalene going to the tomb, and she sees the stone rolled away, but that's all she knows at this point. She runs back, she gets Peter and John, they come. They investigate things. They realize, okay, Jesus is not in the tomb, then they run off again. Mary Magdalene is standing here all by herself. She don’t know what to make of all this. She didn't have to grave has been robbed. She don't know if the government's trying to start a conspiracy. She don't know if the Pharisees are up to something to try to ruin the name of Jesus and destroy his legacy. All she knows is that this is a mess. She's standing there, and the Bible says she's looking in the tomb. She sees two angels, but she's still confused. And this scripture says that she does something profound. See, the Bible is clear that Jesus was buried in a garden tomb. And so on this side, she's looking into the grave. But then she makes a decision to turn and look into the garden. And when she turned and looked into the garden, at that moment, she saw Jesus. She experienced the resurrected Jesus. And we would learn later that it changed her entire life. But here's the thing, as long as she was looking in the grave, she couldn't see him. But when she looked in the garden, suddenly, he's visible. Makes me wonder if he was there the entire time that those other disciples were coming and going, but they were looking in a place that housed death instead of looking in a place that housed life.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Graves are a place where dead things lie. But gardens are a place where living things grow. And I just feel like that I need to tell somebody that if you're really going to walk in power, and have a life that's full of power, you are going to have to stop looking in the grave. You're going to have to stop focusing on the dead things. Quit looking at the sickness, and start looking at the healing. Quit looking at the sin and start looking at the salvation. Quit looking at the addiction and start looking at the deliverance and discover that there is resurrection power that's waiting on you in a garden environment where God's going to walk with you, God's going to talk with you, and you're going to discover that you don't got to walk through life all beat up and beat down. Can I get an amen from somebody on a Sunday morning, if you're ready to live a life that's full of power.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

And so I'm going to ask you this morning, if you will just to stand with me to your feet all over this room, and I want you to begin to just maybe contemplate , am I living a life full of prayer? Or am I just having worry, and having doubt, and having concern? Like, am I tossing all this nonsense back and forth in my life? Or am I really living a life full of prayer? like am I talking to everybody else about it, or am I talking to God about it? Have I just gotten really good at putting on social media, or am I actually sending it to heaven? Like, am I living a life full of prayer? And as heads are bowed and eyes are closed, and you think about that, think about this, that the greatest prayer any of us will ever pray is the prayer where that we acknowledge Jesus’ lordship over our life. Where that we surrender our life totally to Jesus and we invite his blood to take away our sins. Where that we thank him for the crucifixion, and we celebrate the resurrection. Come on, your moment with God right here right now. And maybe you need to give your life to Jesus for the very first time. Maybe you need to rededicate your life to Jesus. Maybe you need to go all in. But what you do know is that today, you need to start a journey towards the resurrection power of Jesus. Like there's a pathway over there waiting to be explored in relationship with God, do not get caught up with the orange moose. And that speaks to somebody this morning. God, I thank you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert

Lord, I thank you that you take us just as we are. I think you God that out of all the things we could pray there's nothing greater than this where we just throw a hand in the air and we say God, you can have me. I'm not much, I'm not worthy, I'm a mess, but God, I thank you that you would even take me. I thank you, God that your blood is dealing with the record books of heaven. And there's stuff that you're blocking out right now, and you're erasing, and God, I'm so grateful. Lord, I can't help but to praise you, when I start to contemplate all the good things that you've done. I thank you, God, for resurrection power that comes into my life. And as God as we make this decision today that we're going to live a life that's on purpose. No more going through the motions, no more holding to a form of godliness and denying the power, but, Lord really trying to be in sync with heaven and exploring the pathways of your glory. Abundance father, there's some views we haven't seen yet. We've heard about it. We've heard the tales. God we thank you that today there's an invitation into something more than status quo religiosity, abundant life Jesus, available through resurrection power. Thank you, Jesus.