Work with Purpose Conference | Keynote 2 | August 2024
Description
Discover the power of believing your identity in Christ (Christ in Me & Me in Christ) and walking out your calling in the marketplace. Learn more at about Work with Purpose, here!
rst time mind you this is
happening and I want to talk about what the month of August represents to me now August in West Texas look I didn’t grow
up in this y’all this is here’s the lie that I have learned that you say in West Texas are you ready
but it’s a dry heat I got in my car two days in a row
and it was 118° 118 and see y’all didn’t laugh at that
because you’re used to this I did not grow up in this I was a heart of the Midwest kind of kid and August
represented something very very special to me since 1901 y’all do the math that’s 120
4 years since 1901 on the second Thursday of August
every year the Missouri State Fair begins we were not a family that was a family of
means we didn’t have a lot of money so we didn’t take vacations to speak of our break from reality our normal break
experience was to take the month of August and travel to sadelia Missouri
and go to the state fair and I love fair food anybody else y’all love fair food somebody please and I mean like foot
long sausages on a hogy bun with green peppers and onions and must nobody ever
says hey you want to grab lunch today sure where do you want to go well I know this place where they got a foot long sausage on a hogy bun with nobody
chooses that this is a break from reality but that foot long sausage is just the beginning weirdest Fair Foods
in America I thought I’d look it up how about this one deep fried jelly beans anybody eat this for lunch
on a stick now we’re going to play the game
what state do you think this is y’all tell me
Arkansas that’s just [Music] mean no
Massachusetts leave it to the Yankees leave it to the Yankees all right let’s
move on how about this one deep ride scorpion anybody want this
one on a stick can you imagine walking around the
fair with this thing no that’s not right anybody want
to take a guess what state you are so right you’re on this one Arizona State Fair you’re exact go
and give yourselves a round of applause for that one it was almost unanimous okay
how do you even do this I wanted to try it at home I was
afraid I was going to set my house on fire I have trouble with turkeys at
Thanksgiving that’s no joke deep fried butter on a
stick you want to take a guess y’all are so
arrogant and the Sigh afterward was oh naturally Wisconsin of course yes I
should have guessed Wisconsin I should have known that but this one is my favorite this is my absolute favorite
are you ready this is not possible this is not
possible but it is see here’s the truth it’s not on a
stick oh no see like y all think that mixes oh yeah of course that’s how I do
it all right what state y’all are the winners there you go
give yourselves a round of
applause only six people clapped right there in contrast 60 just bowed their
heads in shame deep fried beer in a pretzel dough
pocket you have got to be kidding me that’s that’s just stunning the fair represented for us a
day a single day where our daily routine got interrupted we got to escape from
reality for just a minute I remember sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck in a grass parking lot
eating cold Fried Chicken cold potato salad cold baked
beans anything you could stuff into a great big cooler filled with ice and I
thought it was the greatest meal on Earth we never ate that growing up that
was not lunch for us because we weren’t a family of means we had a rule that went along and I
always remember lunch because lunch was the breakpoint where the rule got to get reset this was our
rule we showed up in the morning and you had to spend the entire morning in the
exhibits portion of the fair the Missouri State Fair is divided in half there’s all the exhibits and then
there’s this giant Arch to the Midway do y’all have that at
Texas y’all have never been to the Texas state fair have you I’ll tell you it starts the last weekend in September and
it runs for 22 days it’s inas Texas go to the tape Fair there’s this giant Arch that goes to the Midway and we boast a
mile long Midway now it’s not really a mile long it’s really a half a mile long you walk down this way and when you get
to the end you go this way and you come back and then it’s a mile long and all the stuff in the middle is that weird
fair food I was talking about lined down the sides there would be rides and then
these Sideshow attractions but we were not allowed to go to the Midway until after lunch the
reason is we didn’t have enough money to buy tickets for the kids to ride the rides they wanted to to last all day
long so you had to burn a half a day looking at sheep and cows and horse pulling carts around a little track and
stuff like that or the ginso knife guy with the big mic around the thing chopping stuff up that’s how we spend
our morning then that fantastic lunch cold fried chicken and off to the
Midway we learned how to make some tickets stretch y’all and there was one
attraction that could do it every single time it was a sideshow attraction called the fun house now I need to know have
y’all ever been in a fun house cuz this is not going to make any sense if you’ve never been in a fun house yes or no good
fantastic you walk up the fun house and the first thing that happens is you step on those steps that do this one all the
way up and then you go through that spinny tunnel thing everything is designed to make you fall down OSHA
would have a field day with this place steel steps moving side to side
while 8-year-olds try to climb up bleeding shins busted lips I remember
the day I tried to stand like this and hold on to the spinning
tunnel no way was I strong enough and when I cracked my head on the steel revolving death trap I thought it was
funny not as funny as my brother and I jumped up and continued on then you go into the glass maze anybody done this
one I mean this is a br abrupt I mean oh yeah turn here and you go all around by
the time you get done there’s so much anxiety in your heart you’re not sure you’re going to survive the
experience until you get to the very end the Hall of Mirrors the fun house
mirrors y’all know this thing the funh housee mirror here it is the funh housee
mirror this is actually Gina when she was 14 it’s not I’m
lying I thought this black and white Beauty was a perfect representation of what I wanted to talk about today the
funh house mirror made you look so stupid I mean I remember one time I had a 4-foot neck and a pea-sized head it
was great and you walk out of this thing laughing I mean laughing well when
you’re walking out laughing everybody walking by sees you’re having a good time they ignore the blood on your shins
and your nose they just see the laughter and they’re going to spend their ticket to go
in fun fun house mirrors here’s what’s
amazing a lot of you have an app on your phone right now that does this same thing don’t you you take that picture
and it puts like rabbit ears on your head or a gopher nose on your face or something it makes you look like you’re
116 years old or 2 years old whichever you
choose did you know you have another fun house mirror on your
phone you do how many here I really I want you to answer or hold your hand up how many
here have taken a selfie in their life I maybe I should have asked who
here has never taken a selfie yeah there you go one person has never taken a selfie God bless
you did you know that 70% roughly of the people that
go to a facial reconstructive surgery for elective cosmetic surgery show a
selfie to their doctor as an excuse for why they want
facial reconstructive surgery 70% what they don’t know is this Boris
Passover a teacher at Rutger’s Medical University said I want them to realize that when they take a selfie they are in
essence looking into a portal fun house mirrror a selfie taken at this distance
a bent arm distance makes the base of your nose appear 30% wider than it actually is and your head’s 10% longer
than it really is because of the shape of your camera you have to be at least
5T away for that camera to get an accurate portrayal of the true perspective of who you
are let that one sink in for a minute you have to be at least 5et away
to get an accurate portrayal an accurate representation of what you actually look
like so what do you use to get an accurate portrayal how do you figure out what you
really look like who you really are and that’s what I want to talk about today who am
I there’s another funhouse mirror that’s even bigger than your
telephone so I want everybody real quick to just look to your left see that person now look to your
right this guy down here doesn’t know left from right he just went One Direction and stuck
there’s your funh housee mirror there’s your fun house
mirror in the Book of Genesis Adam is working worshiping
serving in the garden for how long we don’t actually
know one day somebody else shows up offers this idea up and y’all know this
story I’m not going to recount the whole thing the uing
regret leads to this in the cool of the day God was walking through the garden he said Adam where are you and Adam
answered hiding why came the
response because I heard you and I was afraid because y’all pay attention I
am naked that’s the first existential
statement ever made by man about man there it is do you remember the
response that came next who told you
that see the inference is I didn’t tell you that I God never told you that it
might have been factually correct but it’s not a thing that you use to Define yourself in that moment a second
defining voice a second defining set of circumstances entered into Adam’s
life and never left the fun housee mirrror was born there was a distorted a
twisted view of self that’s a tough one to live with and
because God said on the day you eat of the fruit of the tree of Good and Evil on that day you will surely die the
devil lied about it but it happened anyway something surely died man’s
Spirit his ability to immediately proactively commune with God was cut off
no longer could God be the defining source of man completely holy but we
need love and acceptance so Paul calls it flesh we
begin to take our soul and manifest that through our body and bounce it off of everyone around us cuz this is the only
resource we have for love and acceptance for approval and your flesh was born
right there but if you think that person to the left or the right has the ability to
accurately Define who you are you bought into a lie so you do whatever you do say
whatever you say think whatever you think and then you watch the response of the people around you and you gauge
whether it’s good or bad based on their response they are the mirror of your life think of this if you didn’t have a
mirror or a camera how would you know what you look
like think it through you need some resource to inform you other than self
because you cannot look at yourself it’s impossible you have to have some
reflective surface to view yourself that’s what we’re going to talk
about today I’m going to offer you two ideas that you can employ to get an accurate
view of self the first is me and Christ and the second is Christ in
me if you’ll hang on to these two ideas if you’ll employ them deeply believe
them fully it will change
you let me describe how
sorry we’ll go back here for just a second I want you to imagine someone in your family that you’re close to that is
of the opposite gender maybe your wife or husband son or
daughter mom or dad somebody you pick somebody and I want you to ask this
question if you woke up tomorrow and something inside of you snapped and you truly believed you were that
individual so my wife’s name is Stacy she is way better looking than me she’s
way nicer than me she’s way smarter than me Kinder than me she’s better than me in every single imaginable way but if I
woke up tomorrow and I imagined I would Stacy how do you think I would
dress this ain’t it what car would I drive what would my cell phone number be who would my
friends be what calendar would rule my day what diet would I consume everything about my life would change in an instant
because I would believe that I’m Stacy and therefore I would act like I’m
Stacy there are 17 verses of scripture about that second half Christ in me you
know Christ in me the hope of glory and I promise you in my case that’s the
truth but there are 170 exactly 10 times as many passages of
scripture about me in Christ and every one of them is a defining verse 2
Corinthians 5 17 says anyone who is in Christ is a new creation old things have
passed away behold everything is new do you believe
that that’s the question we have to deal with do you believe that now I want to introduce you to a
handful of those scriptures today and I mean a
handful they come out of the opening of Ephesians Ephesians is a tough book to
read because it’s written more like an orchestral score than it is a book Greek
can do that Paul is so excited that for three chapters all he’s going to do is get into this exclamatory function
saying this is true and this is true and this is true and this is true because you’re in Christ and it’s going to break
him down to the point that he just launches into prayer and then he’s going to recapture his breath and launch in
again with a whole new list half of the book is going to be that the second half
is going to be because that’s true true this is how you should respond but just the opening of the book
I just want you to listen the opening of the book says this blessed be the God and father of
our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
Heavenly places in Christ just as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before for him in love
having predestined us to adoption through Christ to himself to the praise and glory of his
grace which he used to make us accepted in the
Beloved in him we have Redemption through his blood the Forgiveness of
sins The Riches of Grace which he caused to abound toward us in wisdom and
Prudence having made known to us the mystery of his will which he purposed in himself for
his own good pleasure that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he
gathered all things together in one things in heaven and on Earth in
Christ do you hear all the in hymns and in christs look that’s only six verses
the first 12 are just nuts and we don’t have time to quote them all so what I did was I took those 12 verses and I
just pulled the promises the words that pertain to you to me to anyone who’s in
Christ and made a summary let’s review them you’re blessed with every spiritual
blessing you’re holy chosen blameless standing before God not in judgment in
love you’ve been adopted as sons and that matter that as sons that
matters you’re accepted and acceptable redeemed forgiven rich in Grace
abounding in wisdom and Prudence having understanding and purpose unified with heaven we have an inheritance we’re
filled with trust sealed with the Holy Spirit and guaranteed y’all
guaranteed to be taken home now if you just took that list and
pasted it on your mirror in your bathroom and you used that as your mirror in the
morning and you really believed it how would it change
you how would it change you I can ask the first question how would you
dress if you were robed in righteousness here’s the scary part that
list right there that’s just the surface and I don’t mean the surface of the 170 I mean that’s just the surface of that
passage if you dig into every one of those verses what you’ll find is just extraordinary I’m just going to do one
for you and it’s going to be one that seems kind of innocuous blessed be the
God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing okay what does that mean let’s
pay attention blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing
that word’s in there three times and the root of the word is the same every single time but the word itself is slightly
different the first one is IG it’s got at its heart the idea of adoration
adorable The God Who is deserving of our adoration there’s a good way to say
it blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus the adorable God and father
of our Lord Jesus Christ has number two the word is eulogia we gone from eul to
eulogia eulogia you might hear the word eulogy in there and that’s exactly
right eulogy it is a final indelible Eternal unchangeable spoken
truth about you God has eulogized is eulogizing it’s
present imperative it always happens you and the last one it’s in a abundant
Commendation to commend you without end so let’s just rephrase it into some Modern English
ready the adorable God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ has spoken a final
unchangeable Eternal indelible NeverEnding truth about you declaring
that you we me us are to be abundantly commended in the Heavenly Realms why
because we are are in Christ because if you’re one choice to
trust Jesus you’re one trust causes that response in him right
now Heaven is hearing God extol the greatness of you because you’re hidden
in him that’s one verse that’s
one I’m going to invite you to go find the other 169 and dig him
up but I don’t feel that way Bill you don’t know me well the truth is
you don’t know you either God does and at some point you’re going to
have to give up what you think is true about yourself in favor of what he says is true about you that’s what will
change you but I feel like such a hypocrite okay let’s get that word off the table really fast hypocrite they’re
in Greek Theater All actors were male there were no women or children but
the plays had parts of women and children and other things so there was a troop of actors that stood apart in
Greek Theater and they played everything that wasn’t a man women children bugs
snakes nymphs Gods whatever that’s what they played and that troop of actors was called the
Hypocrites they were actors who acted as if they were something that they aren’t
that’s what being a hypocrite is but if it’s true that you’re holy blameless redeemed righteous LED in Triumph a
servant Satan’s son or daughter of God if that’s true every time you act contrary to that that’s when you’re
being hypocritical not when you step into it and embrace it
fully this is the shift looking into the reflection of
God’s perfect true indelible image is the only way you will see yourself
accurately and that’s what I’m inviting you to do
today if you want an exercise that can help you stand on the other side of that
feeling of hypocrisy I would invite you to memorize two verses just start here
Galatians 2:20 says this I you we have been crucified with
Christ nevertheless we live but see it’s not me
it’s Christ in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in
the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me that’s how important you
are that goes right ahead with the blessing right the extol of God from
Heaven therefore Romans 12:1 I’m begging you I beseech
you offer yourselves as a Living Sacrifice time out think it through this
is not dead yet this body has not yet ceased to be so what if I just gave this over and said today Jesus whatever you
want to say whatever you want to do however you want to serve however you want to love this is
available go for it you’ve been crucified with Christ
nevertheless you live but it’s not you it’s Christ in you so offer yourselves as a Living
Sacrifice take the par of I want to live my life for God set that aside for just
a minute and adopt the Paradigm of God I want you to live your life through
me me in Christ and Christ in
me Paul discusses it in 2 Corinthians too he talks about the gospel the light
of the glory of the Gospel remember Jesus said I’m the light of the
world and he turned around and looked at you and said you’re the light of the world he says the light of the glory of
the Gospel of God we hold that treasure in Jars of
Clay earn vessels do you remember Gideon the 300 if you haven’t read the story go
find it 300 guys took on 134,000 midianites in the Book of Judges
all they had to do was surround them and hold up a jar of clay filled with oil
burning very quietly and when that jar was broken the light shined forth so
brightly in the night that it blinded the opposing
Army but I don’t feel holy Bill That’s The Clay
Pot when the earth and vessel is broken the light shines most brightly
it’s through the cracks in your effort that Jesus shines that’s why Paul said when I am
weak he is strong if you can believe what God says
is true about you and then in your broken
attempt you can let him shine through the cracks of your attempt the world will know the love of
God because people are not targets for conversion
they are image bearers of God that deserve our love and service we’re the body of
Christ if we believe it it changes
everything everything by the way you do that and you show up with
work you show up at work you show up with your purpose but I truly believe that you
will never know your purpose in the market space until you truly know your identity
in the sight of God God give us Grace to believe a
little more today than we did yesterday and then act a little more
honestly than we ever have
before I want to leave you with a couple of questions
what statement made by God regarding your identity my identity
in Christ is the hardest to
accept how hard is it to say I am Holy when you know your
life but see you can say it because God said it and you can allow that truth to
be yours what habit most frequently blocks the truth of Who I Am from being the
normal experience of my daily life we want to give you a few minutes to walk through these
questions I’m asking you personally do this exercise
deeply be honest with yourself be honest with God stare into his image and see
yourself fully and let this de be the day that everything changes
English (auto-generated)
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