The Mission of God – Matt Chandler

I love sermons. They’re almost like spoken pieces of art. One of my favorite pastors to listen to is Matt Chandler. I love that he speaks the Truth boldly, yet lovingly. Whenever I listen to sermons at home, they’re usually ones that he’s preached. My friend Rachel suggested that I listen to the “Mission” sermon series from August. I started listening to the first one–The Mission of God–and heard things in the first 5 minutes that I wanted to write down. So I thought I’d write my notes in a blog post.

– You can love the Lord and find yourself in extremely dark places.

– You don’t have to pretty up the Christian faith. The Christian faith isn’t that you’re great. The Christian faith is that He’s great despite you not being great.

– The Psalms are not cute; they don’t belong on t-shirts.

– To be 99% known is to be unknown. You’ve got areas of your life that you’ve pulled back. You’re trying to throw out this aura of being better off than you are, more capable than you are, not stuck in the things that you’re stuck in. You have given the enemy a foothold that he will joyfully take advantage of. It’s why it’s not enough for you to simply be in community, but to, in that community, be honest about where you are–even if that’s, “I’m in a dark place.”

– Don’t over-spiritualize your struggles. Sometimes you just need help; sometimes it’s a chemical issue, and you just need to get help. It’s called common grace; if you need help, get help. It’s a safe place for you to struggle with whatever as long as you’re willing to struggle.

– Take advantage of the weapons God’s given you to combat despair.

– You’ve been given other brothers & sisters that are as imperfect as you are. Sometimes what people around you need is not for you to be strong, but for you to be weak. And in your weakness they’re encouraged, and in your weakness, they’re pushed further into their relationship with Christ. Don’t hide in your despair; it never ends well. I’m not saying you’ll take your life. I’m just saying you’ll isolate yourself and you’ll rob yourself of the joy that Christ died to bring you.

– Tragedy… is one of the few things that kind of wakes you up from the routine you begin to walk in. When [tragedy] occurs, it kind of wakes you up and you see [what’s important]. But on a normal day, those lines are very blurry. On a normal day, just a regular Monday, what’s ultimately important and what’s not so important, that’s kind of a grey area. But in tragedy, all that becomes clear. And so routine & rhythm can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. It’s a good thing because you need rhythm and you need routine in order to be productive and to work hard and to make the most of the life God has given you. Routine & rhythm become a bad thing when you forget why you began the routine & rhythm in the first place.

– What is the mission of God? What’s the point of all this? So if you look at creation, it seems a little bit superfluous, doesn’t it? If you begin to look at the universe, it just goes on and on and on and on and the stars and the earth.. I mean, it just seems a bit over-the-top. If our God is the Creator God, He creates everything that is, everything macro, everything micro.. if He’s involved in where the stars stay and He’s involved in your cellular mitosis, what’s He doing? What’s His mission? What’s He about? What’s He trying to accomplish? I think what people do is they look at the world and they look at themselves and through our cultural lens, they assume that God’s mission is about us: “The reason everything exists is so that God might save me, might rescue me, might in the end ultimately have children like we have children where we want to see them mature, we want to see them safe, we want to see them well put-together.. that’s kinda like the mission of God.” They’ll point to the fact that God created us, they’ll point to all the verses in the Bible where God loves us, He provides for us, He cares for us, He shields us, He protects us. They’ll point to that and go, “See.. isn’t it obvious? We’re the point. We’re what God is after.” God is for you. God does love you. God does provide for you. He is a shield about you. He is the lifter of your head. But there’s a motivation behind all that lifting, protecting, guiding, and love that goes well-beyond you. (Psalm 23:1-3) You can see God’s activity towards us; it looks like we are the point. You can do this in a hundred other texts.. except the root of His motivation for all that shepherding, leading, lying in green pastures, leading to still waters, restoring of the soul is clear in the text. Look at [verse] 3 again.. “He restores my soul, He leads me in paths of righteousness for…” what? “His name’s sake.” So why does God love you? What does God pursue you? Why does God shepherd you? Why does God care for you? It’s not because of you. It’s for the sake of His name; it’s for the praise of His glorious grace.

– If you’re the point, everything falls apart.

SCRIPTURE ABOUT GOD’S GLORY

1. Isaiah 43:6-7 — the reason you exist is for the glory of God, the name & the renown of God, & the praise of His infinite perfections

2. Isaiah 49 — God calls Israel for His glory

3. Jeremiah 13 — God delights in making much of himself through people who are lacking

4. Psalm 106 – God rescues Egypt for His glory

5. Romans 9 – God raises up Pharaoh to show His power & His glory

6. Exodus 14 – God defeats Pharaoh by the Red Sea to show His glory

7. Ezekiel 20 – God spared Israel in the wilderness for the glory of His name

8. 2 Samuel – God gave Israel in the Promised Land for the glory of His name

9. 1 Samuel – God did not cast away His people for the glory of His name

10. 2 Kings – God saved Jerusalem from attack for the glory of His name

11. Ezekiel 36 – God restored Israel from exile for the glory of His name

12. John 7 – Jesus sought the glory of His father in all that He did

13. Matthew 5 – Jesus told us to do good works so that God would get glory

14. 1 Peter 2 – Jesus warned that not seeking God’s glory makes faith impossible (certain actions, certain behaviors like church attendance, like being a good person, you believe you when you don’t feel like you’re owed, you’ll get frustrated that God has not given you what He never promised to give you. The good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not that everything starts working out your way. The good news of the Gospel is that God is enough regardless of your circumstances. You get Jesus. That’s the Gospel. You can’t have saving faith if you’re really in this for you.)

15. John 14 – Jesus said that He answers prayers that God would be glorified

16. John 12, 17 – Jesus endured His final hours of suffering for the glory of God

17. John 13 – God gave His son to vindicate the glory of His righteousness

18. Isaiah 43:25, Psalm 25 – God forgives our sin for His own sake

19. Romans 15 – Jesus receives us into his fellowship for the glory of God

20. John 16 – The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the glorify the Son of God

21. 1 Corinthians 10:31 – God instructs us to do everything for His glory

22. 1 Peter 4 – God tells us to serve in a way that will glorify Him

23. 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10 – Jesus is coming again for the glory of God

24. Habakkuk 2 – God’s plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory

25. Romans 11 – Everything that happens will redound for the glory of God

26. Revelation 23 – In the new Jerusalem, the glory of God replaces the sun

– The point of the Bible is God; it’s not you. You’re not even in 2nd place.

– If God is after the praise of His glorious grace, then He is not after my begrudging submission, but rather after my joy so that all the commands in Scripture are about God lining you up with how He designed things to be for your greater joy.

– How unbelievably arrogant it is of you to say “I’m here for a second in the scope of eternity and I know better for me, what’s going to lead me into joy, than the One who created all things and wired all things.”

– God’s commands on our lives are meant to lead us into delight, joy. What about suffering? What do you do with those moments that are hard, that are painful? How is God increasing my joy in allowing dark days to come? By being enough on those dark days.

– God leads us into joy in suffering by being present and sustaining through that suffering.

– The love of God towards me as a sinner is not God making much of me, but rather Him freeing me up to make much of Him.

– We’re simply tapping into this deep, base purpose of our existence, which is worship. When you go to that concert and you’ve got that feeling of all that energy and you’re just kinda caught up in this euphoric moment, the reason that feels so good is it’s what you were created for. The problem is what you’re worshiping continues to fail you… So you have to look for another high, another worship experience. If you start to think about sports and music… we do with those things what God has commanded us to do with Him.

– What God has enabled me to do in saving me is to spend my days making much of Him. And He never gets old, and He never lets me down, and He never ever runs out of areas for me to gaze up and to wonder at and to make much of.

– The most spectacular place where you see a man set free to glory in God is when suffering is occurring and all they have is praise for Him because that goes against the grain.

– If God is for God, and our joy is inseparably linked to God being for God, and God’s salvation of us is not ultimately about us but rather setting us free to make much of Him, then Heaven is a ever-increasing experience of these glories. (Ephesians 2 – In the coming ages, God will show to us the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus.) A billion years from now, those of you who are believers will just be scratching the surface of how infinite the joy of God is.

– You have got to get over YOU. You’re not the point, and the more you think you’re the point, the more you will be enslaved to a thousand vices. When you’re the point, you use others. When you’re the point, you will easily be angered and bothered by others… When things don’t line up like you want them to line up, you’re just seething looking for someone to blame. Why? Because it’s about you. But when it’s not about you, you’re free. When it’s not about you, you get to extend grace, When it’s not about you, you get to rest. When it’s not about you, you get to breathe, When it’s not about you, you’ll sleep better. When it’s not about you, you’ll be happier. I don’t use the word happy. Happy is cheap substitute for joy, and it’s fleeting. But I’ll straight up throw this out.. when it’s not about you, you’ll be happier. But when it is about you, the more I think you’ll be miserable.

I am truly blown away by how amazing God is and how much greater His plan is than anything any person could ever come up with. I pray that I can continue learning how to make much of Him with my life rather than much of myself, my life, my desires, etc. I’m so thankful to be His child 🙂