(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

You guys, as we begin today, I hope you are starting to feel and experience that God is moving in his people, amen?

And not just here, but there's a time for the church to be standing up, and this is that time.

And what we're starting to see is God really calling his people into more, and that's something that Pastor Clay's been talking about since the beginning of the year, more than 24.

But I was thinking this week about, the thing that limits what God can do isn't God.

His word says that he can do immeasurably more than whatever we think of or imagine.

I can imagine a lot.

I'm a party and pink converse kind of guy.

I can think of a lot that God could do in his church, and what his word says is that it's even more.

He wants to do more.

And so the limiting factor in what God wants to do isn't him, oftentimes it's me, right?

It's us.

And so how do I remove me out of the equation, right?

And sometimes what I think that is, is it's when I get real with God, right?

When I'm finally just like, you know what?

I'm tired of pretending.

I'm tired of making this up.

I'm tired of trying to seem like I've got it all together.

And God, I need you to come in.

And that is when he steps in and begins to do that work that he's always wanted to do.

And so today, that's kind of what we're gonna be talking about and I wanted to begin today by sharing, my oldest son, he's 17, and he started taking a Bible class over at North Myrtle Beach High School.

And it was awesome, totally, I didn't pressure him.

You know, you think, oh, pastor dad forcing his kids to take, no, that wasn't it.

That wasn't it.

He's given a list of electives and they said, what do you wanna take?

And he said, oh, I wanna take Bible.

And you know, honestly, my reaction was, are you sure?

And it's not anything to do for my son, right?

Like, Bible classes can be boring, right?

Like, and so he came home one day and I said, son, how's that Bible class going?

Again, not that I'm the authority on teaching the Bible, but like I said, anybody here ever sat through a boring Bible class?

All right, there's like two of you.

So for the rest of you, welcome.

This is gonna be your one-time experience.

No, I'm just kidding, it's not.

But he, you know, he was telling me about it and everything, but you know, a lot of the times, like I said, people can make the Bible just, oh, like snooze alert.

But yet what the Bible is, right, is the Bible is engaging and the Bible is powerful and the Bible is really insightful and continues to speak to us and it is super interesting.

And the more you dive into God's word, the more you discover that God is down deep.

You know, you peel away those layers and God's still there.

And to give you an example, the city of Bethlehem, okay?

Most of us know the Christmas story.

This is where Joseph and Mary came.

It's where Jesus was born and they wrapped him in cloths and they put him in a manger.

But did you know in ancient Israel, Bethlehem was the place where when lambs were born, they were taken to Bethlehem for the sacrifices in the temple, right?

These lambs, these perfect sacrificial lambs were first, as soon as they were born, they were brought to Bethlehem, they were wrapped in swaddling clothes and they were placed in a manger to calm them down.

And it was there that people would go, the priests would go to select a lamb that would be sacrificed for the forgiveness of the people's sins.

That's what Bethlehem was, right?

Most of us know, like, oh, that's where Jesus was born.

No, no, no, God's like, no, if you dig deeper, Bethlehem's so much more.

For thousands and thousands of years, Bethlehem was the place where the lamb was brought and he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and he was laid in a manger for the forgiveness of the sins of the people.

And here comes the Messiah.

In Bethlehem, wrapped in cloths, laid in a manger.

And I'll tell you guys, the more I learn about the Bible, the more it's just like, oh my gosh, this isn't a boring book.

This Bible is real.

This Bible is the incredible story of God interacting with his people throughout history.

All right, and the Bible is full of successes and it's full of failures.

It's full of good people and bad people.

It's full of people who do well and people who screw up like you and me.

It's full of life and it's full of death.

And it tells the story of a flawed people following a perfect God.

That's what the Bible is.

And it's real.

And this is what I love it for, because it's not polished up to make everything look and seem like it's perfect.

And it's not polished up to make all of the people seem like they're all put together and perfect.

Right, and that's one of the reasons we know that it's true.

And one of the reasons that after thousands of years, we can still relate to it.

Right, because these people, they did not have it all together, just like me.

And yet God comes in and he uses these people to change the world.

And church is still doing that in this very day.

Right, to this very moment, he's using imperfect people to carry his message into a world and change that world forever.

That's what you and I are here for.

And you think about it, okay, if you were given the task of, hey, you need to start a new religion and let's start with writing a book, right?

If I was gonna write a book to start a new, to make, entice people to follow my religion, man, that book would all be about like, hey, if you follow, like, man, things are gonna be good.

Life's gonna be perfect.

You're gonna have plenty of money.

Your marriage is gonna be awesome.

Your kids are gonna do everything you say to them.

Right, and all of these things, I would make it so fantastically fun to follow this.

But the reality is, if we read this, we wouldn't believe it, right?

We'd read something like that and go, well, that's not my life.

That's not my experience.

That's not, it wouldn't be real.

It would be fake.

It would be too good to be true.

And that wouldn't be the Bible.

I think the closest thing that that is, that we have nowadays is it's social media, right?

All of these inspiring people, right?

You guys know what I'm talking about, right?

These fantastic pictures, hashtag every single filter in the world, right?

All of these fantastic pictures with inspiring captions about how happy everyone is, about how great marriage is, about how awesome my kids are.

And it's just life-changing.

But we know, right?

Some of us have posted that stuff.

And we know, like, man, I hope nobody digs too deep.

Like, this is not where it's at.

None of it is real.

And yet we want to portray this amazing life.

And maybe we wanna do that to get people to affirm us and tell us how great we look and how lucky we are.

I mean, how many people's moods are raised or lowered based on the number of likes that they have on their Instagram posts?

It's a real thing nowadays.

Or maybe we wanna portray a perfect life to cause other people to maybe be a little bit jealous, just a little bit, right?

To feel like we have it all together.

Or to maybe get them to say, the grass is greener on their side of the hill.

I wanna be on that side of the hill.

And so we have pictures, right?

And I, okay, disclaimer, these next pictures I'm gonna show you, I don't know any of these people.

I just pulled them off the internet, all right?

So if you see any of that, any of the people that you know, I'm only making up stories, okay?

I don't know any of these stories.

It's just, I picked them and that was it.

So we have pictures like this.

Let's see that first picture.

All right, so we got the family reunion or the family picture, right?

And everyone's happy and smiling.

But what we first notice is like, man, there's these two girls who are like out trying to pose each other, right?

They got the leg out, they're back to back, right?

And these are the two granddaughters that are vying for grandma's attention, right?

Because one got accepted into this prestigious college and the other one just didn't feel like she got into the right college.

And so she's trying to impress grandma with how great she looks and everything.

And then you got have the guy on the far right of the screen or the far left of the picture if you're in the picture.

And you know, like he's here for the picture, but he's really feeling inadequate, right?

Because he's the short fat son-in-law, right?

You like it?

And yet we're all here and we're smiling, we're trying to get together, we're trying to be nice because grandma and grandpa wanted a family photo and this is what we got.

And then the next one we have, right, is the family reunion, right?

You know what I'm talking about.

I don't even have to make up a story for this picture.

I remember one of my family reunions and my mom and my aunt were outside fighting with each other, throwing each other over trash cans.

And then we came back and took the picture, right?

And everyone's smiling.

And you know, the person on the one side is glad that they're on the farthest end from the person on the other far end because they don't even know why that person's in the family anymore, right?

Like it's, and yet everyone looks happy and like they're having a great time.

And you know, it's, again, I know I'm making this up, but this is sometimes the reality of what we feel and what we see on social media.

But if we're gonna tie this into our life of faith, what is it that God wants, right?

Because God doesn't want me to be fake.

God doesn't want me to pretend like everything's okay when it's not.

God wants real.

God wants me to be real.

God wants this.

Check out this picture.

This person I do know, this is my daughter.

When she was about two years old.

And you don't even have to guess at the emotion that's going on in my daughter right now, right?

Like she's mad.

Sunglasses are on crooked.

I think at this point she was running away from home.

And she was mad at something, I don't know.

That's my daughter.

But you'll notice, like she is, if you're gonna run away as a California girl, she has everything that she needs, her sunglasses.

And if you look in the basket, she's got her blankie and her high heels on, or her high heels in the basket.

She's good.

She doesn't need anything else from mom and dad, nothing.

She's set to go.

But again, this is real, right?

This is real.

This is how I'm feeling right now.

And I don't care if you're taking a picture, I'm not gonna smile for it one bit.

And this is what God wants, right?

How many times though do I treat my relationship with God like social media?

How many times do I want people to see me all put together?

How many times do I want all the blessings and none of the problems?

Because I know if people really see me, that they won't like me.

And again, this is not what the Bible teaches us about what it looks like to follow God, about what God wants for us or from us.

As I mentioned, the Bible is the story of God interacting with humanity.

And it's messy, broken, frustrated, sad, and ugly humanity.

Right?

And as he comes into the lives of these people, he begins to redeem and he transforms and he reconciles and he equips these people to do things they never could have imagined.

That's what God does.

That's what he's in the business of doing, but he can only do it if they're honest.

That's what we see in the Bible.

You can't come to God pretending because he'll see right through it.

He wants the honest.

He wants whatever you're feeling.

He wants all of it because then and only then can he begin to work.

It's only when our hearts are finally open, when they are truly coming, when we are truly coming to God for the answers, that that's when he can do his best work.

And that's what I wanna talk about today, about getting real with God, about clearing out anything that is getting in the way of what he wants to do in our lives.

And with that, I wanna begin in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 12.

And Jeremiah was a prophet in the Southern kingdom of Judah around 600 BC.

And when he was around, Babylon was the superpower of the day.

And they were going around and they were conquering nation after nation.

And in 586 BC, Babylon finally shows up in Judah and they conquer the Israelites.

And up until that time, Jeremiah was pleading with the people, pleading with God's people, that they would repent and come back to God before it was too late.

And there are several times in this book where we find Jeremiah voicing his frustration with God.

And I wanna look at only one of those instances right now.

And if you've ever wanted to know, is it okay to be mad at God?

Here's your answer, right?

In my Bible, this portion starts as Jeremiah's complaint.

All right, plain and simple.

You were always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you, yet I would speak with you about your justice.

God, I've got some notes, right?

That's what he's saying.

Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

Why do all the faithless live at ease?

You have planted them and they have taken root.

They grow and bear fruit.

You were always on their lips, but far from their hearts.

Yet you know me, Lord.

You see me and test my thoughts about you.

Drag them off like sheep to be butchered.

Set them apart for the day of slaughter.

How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered?

Because those who live in it are wicked.

The animals and birds have perished.

Moreover, the people are saying, he will not see what happens to us.

And as I read this, I thought like, this is us today, right?

This is us, as we're looking out in this world today, there's so many times where we have said, God, this place is a mess, right?

Evil isn't just growing, it's prospering, it's thriving and it's going unpunished.

Where are you?

Aren't you supposed to be a just God?

Why don't you just do something?

That's what Jeremiah is saying.

That's what I've said.

This is real.

This is my frustration.

This is your frustration.

And I think it's here, when we stop pretending to have all the answers, when we stop pretending to have all the answers and have everything figured out, that God can finally respond.

And respond, he does.

All right, check this out.

Here is God's answer.

Jeremiah, if you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?

If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?

And so what we have to understand is that we are totally free to question, to yell at, be frustrated at God all we want, but then he's free to respond, right?

You can, whatever you wanna say to him, let it out, but he's gonna respond to you.

And what we see from God's response is that, yes, it's a little harsh, but what we see him telling Jeremiah is, Jeremiah, I need you.

No, I created you to stand up against this evil.

That is why you are here.

That is why I called you out.

Right now, you cannot stand up against this.

So I have to help you grow.

I have to help you persevere.

I have to help you get stronger.

Why?

Because there are people out there who are getting lost, who are losing hope, who are giving up, and they need someone to lead them and point them to me.

Jeremiah, church, that's you.

That's you.

This is the equivalent of God saying, grab a straw and suck it up, all right?

It's time to put on the big kid pants and let's go to work.

That's what we're here to do.

And what we see is God is always calling us to step closer to him, to allow more of him into our lives.

And that's what this passage in Jeremiah is all about.

And we even see it in the New Testament in John 3.30.

John the Baptist says about Jesus, he must become greater and I must become less.

And it's sometimes in our own frustrations, in our own pride, that's what gets in the way of God doing that work in us.

See, God knows what is keeping us from giving him our whole heart.

God knows.

You can't lie to him.

You might be able to lie to the people around you.

You might be able to lie to your family, your coworkers, or your neighbors, but you cannot lie to God.

And while he knows what's going on in our hearts, he will often go to extreme measures to open our eyes to it.

And that's when he begins to work.

I wanna show you an interaction between God and Job. And we all know the basics of the story of Job, right?

God tells Satan, man, there is nobody like Job. He's fantastic.

And Satan says, well, he's only fantastic.

He only loves you because you've pampered him his whole life, right?

You've given him everything.

Nothing's ever been bad for Job. And God says, okay, go ahead and test him.

You just can't kill him, right?

And what follows is basically the crumbling of Job's life, right?

His family dies.

His wealth is taken away.

His health is taken away, right?

There's even a point where his wife looks at him and says, you know what?

Why don't you just curse God and die, right?

Loving spouse 101.

There it is.

But like a good husband, he ignores her and continues on.

Just kidding.

You don't have to listen to me.

I wear hot pink Converse.

Just ignore me.

But sometimes, even for the best of us, right?

When struggles come, we discover things about ourselves that we would have never known before, right?

We've had that in our lives.

It's in our struggles where our hearts are truly revealed.

And sometimes that's why God wants to get us there.

Because he wants more for us.

Listen to how Job described himself in Job 29.

He says this, he says, "'How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone on my head and by his light, I walked through the darkness.

Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God's intimate friendship blessed my house, when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me, when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.

When I went to the city gate and took my seat in the public square, the young men saw me and stepped aside and the old men rose to their feet.

The chief men refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands.

The voices of the nobles were hushed and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths."

And he goes on, I'm gonna jump down to verse 21.

It says, "'People listened to me expectantly, waiting in silence for my counsel.

After I had spoken, they spoke no more.

My words fell gently on their ears.

They waited for me as for showers and drank in my words as the spring rain.

When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it.

The light of my face was precious to them.

I chose the way for them and sat as their chief.

I dwelt as a king among his troops.

I was like one who comforts mourners."

Well, isn't that atrocious?

This self-righteous dude, I mean, I wouldn't wanna hang out with Job. Did you hear those words?

Like, when I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it.

The light of my face was precious to them.

This guy's a nut, right?

Nobody would wanna hang out with Job because he was so full of himself, right?

And here's the reality.

Job might've been good, but he knew he was good.

In fact, he knew he was awesome.

The Bible calls that not righteousness, but self-righteousness.

And while righteousness is good, self-righteousness is very frowned upon.

Because what you're saying is I'm the best.

People need to worship me.

Young men need to step out of my way.

Old men need to just shut their mouths, right?

Like, can you imagine living life with this guy?

You know?

I mean, if I found out he was sick, not that I wish it on anybody, but I'd be like, man, you know Job, like maybe you deserve it, like his friend said.

But what we see here is that this is very similar to the rich young ruler during Jesus's day, right?

That rich young ruler, he knew he was good.

And he came up to Jesus to validate how good he was.

And he says, good teacher, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus says, you know, you follow the commandments, love the Lord your God, obey your parents.

And it's like, I've done it.

I've done it my whole life.

But see, Jesus knew what was in his heart.

Jesus knew there was something that was holding him back.

And so he says, well, then go ahead and give away everything you own and come follow me.

And the Bible tells us that the man walked away sad because he had great wealth.

And Jesus knew, right?

This is Jesus opening our eyes to what is in your heart that's really keeping you from following me, right?

And God's answer to Job is a little harsher, but I think this is one of the great parts of the Bible.

Right?

This is Job chapter 38.

And it says, then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.

Right?

There are times where God speaks in a small voice, right?

God speaks in a whisper, but not to Job. Job needed something a little bit more.

So God comes in the storm and he said, who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?

Brace yourself like a man and I will question you and you will answer me.

Right?

And your King James, if any of you have the King James, this is that fantastic biblical phrase, Job, gird your loins, because it's about to get real.

Right?

And God says, were you there when I laid the earth's foundation?

Tell me if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions?

I mean, Job, you're great.

Surely you know.

And it goes on like this for a while.

And then God asked Job to respond.

And it says this in Job 40.

It says, the Lord said to Job, will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?

Let him who accuses God answer him.

And then Job answered the Lord, I am unworthy.

How can I reply to you?

I put my hand over my mouth.

I spoke once, but I have no answer.

Twice, but I will say no more.

All right?

But God's not done.

Right?

Husbands, kids, this is when mom's really mad and she's been yelling at you for 10 minutes and you're like, okay, I'm sorry, I got it.

And she looks at you and goes, oh no, I'm not done.

I'm not done.

But the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm, brace yourself like a man and I will question you and you shall answer me.

And the great thing is Job does take it like a man.

Right?

He realizes that he was wrong.

And this is his response at the end of the book of Job. I know that you can do all things, God.

No purpose of yours can be thwarted.

You asked, who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

You said, listen now and I will speak.

I will question you and you shall answer me.

My ears have heard you, but now my eyes have seen you.

Right?

This is when God reminds us our eyes get opened.

Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

See, here's the thing.

God is not trying to destroy us in our problems.

When we have problems, that's not God trying to get rid of us, to end us.

He wants us to repent just like Job did.

And that word repent, it means to turn from, right?

God wants us to turn from our life, our decisions that we were making, that were taking us away from him and return to the path that he desires to lead us on.

C.S. Lewis has this incredible quote.

I wanna read this for you.

It's gonna be on the screens so you can follow along.

C.S. Lewis says, we all want progress.

We all wanna move forward.

But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be.

And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.

If you were on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road.

And in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed.

Amen?

And refusing to admit a mistake.

And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistakes.

We're on the wrong road.

And if that is so, we must go back.

Going back is the quickest way on.

And so, church, today I wanna give us an opportunity to stop, to make sure that we're on the right road, and if not, to turn back.

Right, God is calling this church, God is calling every church to great things.

And as we mentioned before, the biggest hindrance to that is not God's power, it's my will.

And so as you came in today, there was probably a little piece of paper on your seat, and here's what I want you to do.

If there's a frustration that is keeping you from giving your life over to God, let Him know.

Right, write it on that little piece of paper.

If life's circumstances have been weighing on you and you feel like God has abandoned you, let God know.

This is a time to get real with God.

This is our time.

If you just need to confess something that's getting in your way of experiencing God, today's the day where you get rid of it.

Today's the day where we say it's done, it's over.

And I want you to take some time, the worship team's gonna come back up and they're gonna sing a song, and anytime during that song, if you wanna write whatever that is on that little piece of paper, and bring it up to the cross.

There's a cross up here, there's one in the back.

You can go to the cross, there's hammers, there's nails.

Let's nail it to the cross once and for all.

Let's bring it to Jesus because that's what He died for.

He died to take those burdens.

He died so that you could live in truth and in power and in redemption and in freedom, and that's why we are gathered here today.

And we're also gonna have members of our prayer team by the crosses.

If you just need somebody to pray for you, if you just need somebody to give you a hug, that's what they're there for, okay?

So here's what I want you to remember.

It's only once we open our hearts that God can finally get to work on our souls.

And so let's allow this to be that time where we open up, whatever it is, frustrations, anger, something holding you back, some sin, it's time to give it up and let God do the work He wants to do in your life.

Let me pray.

God, we love you and we thank you.

Thank you so much, Lord God, for not abandoning us, even though we're not perfect.

Father, you continue to call us closer to you.

And Father, I know I get tripped up a lot on that journey, but Father, you pick us up, you dust us off, and you tell us just to keep going.

And today, Father God, we want to open our hearts to you.

Lord, I pray for each person here today that whatever it is, whether it's frustrations, anxieties about this world, whether it's pride, whether it's guilt, whatever it might be, Lord God, if we are just tired and we just don't think we can carry on, may we be real enough with you and just bring that to you today.

May you hear us, Lord, and may you respond.

May you let us know we're not alone, that you are with us.

Father, for those people here today who for the first time have heard your voice, and Lord, they need to give their lives over to you, may their heart's prayer be this, Lord Jesus, I need you to come into my life as my Lord and Savior.

Forgive me of my sins.

Allow me to begin a new life where you are my guide, where you fill me, where you walk with me every step of the way.

And Lord God, may I see the work that you are doing in my life now and forever.

And for us as the church, God, may we not be afraid.

May we know that you have great things in store, and may we be excited about that.

May we be excited that there's work to be done in our lives as well.

And may we not shy away, but may we stand up boldly and proclaim, God, we need more of you and less of us.

We love you, Lord, it's in your name we pray.

And all God's people said, amen.