Beth Moore - Taking Root In The Family Tree - Part 4
We ought to stick out in our workplace because we're filled with the Spirit, and we're empowered. Listen, he's very, very good at real estate, very. If you're a real estate agent, you can honestly say to him, "You know, I need to be smarter than I am about this. Could you, like, tell me, bring me understanding here". He's great with numbers, fabulous with computers, fabulous. He's fabulous with design. Did you know that the very first time we ever see the Spirit come upon anyone to anoint anyone in the scriptures, It was for the ones who were constructing the furnishings and all the drapes and all for the tabernacle, back in Exodus. He can do anything. He can do anything, but sin.
So let him do it through you. Let him do it through me. But sometimes we're just realizing, hmm, this is just, there's nothing happening here; this one needs to come up. Sad, too, but it just needs to. It's not a bad thing; it's just a dead thing, 'cause the season's over. Sometimes we are so rooted in the past, we have become irrelevant in the present. We have become impotent in the present because we're rooted in the past. Ms. Irma Jean, you know why Ms. Irma Jean is here this week? Because she got something going right now. I asked my coworkers over here, I said, "Did you see Miss Irma Jean stand up"? She jumped up.
Do you know how many people at 90 would just be going, "I've already learned it"? Somebody said to me, to me, just this week, somebody around my age, "I have changed all I want to". Okay, well, you know what? This is the last time we're going to lunch. I love you forever, but I am not going to lunch with anybody that is through changing. I'm sorry, you can take them to lunch. I'm not going. No, thank you. All right, Matthew 15:13, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up". It will be rooted up. You know what I want? Lord, whatever has been planted in my life that is not of you, get it up; get it up. Anybody?
Listen, we know that we cherish our sin. Please forgive me for putting it this way, but it takes one to know one. I know what it's like to be so sentimental about our sin, or feel like, "It's my comfort. It's my comfort". But, listen, we can know we're in bondage when we want roots in our lives that our Father has not planted. Your heavenly Father will withhold no good thing from you. I don't say, in our realm of experience, we'll have everything we want. I'm saying, in our person, rooted down in us, to make us a person powerful in the Spirit, a wonder woman, a wonder man in the Spirit, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him freely give us all things," Romans 8 says.
Listen, we want whatever he didn't plant to go. And we got some things that need to go. We got some things that need to go. And I'm gonna tell you what a few of them are. There is one, let's see, you're in Matthew. Turn with me really, really deeply into your New Testament, if you're new at this, to Hebrews 12, 14 and 15, "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it," verse 15, "that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no", here's our part, "no 'root of bitterness' springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled".
Springs up means it's rooted down in there. You cannot keep bitterness underground. You cannot, I cannot. Where we are bitter, and I've been bitter, and most of you have been bitter, we will never keep that quiet, never keep that a secret. We may think we're getting away with it, but people see it because a root of bitterness is going to spring up from the ground. Oh, it is, oh, it is, oh, it is. Here's something else about bitterness. We're never gonna keep it to ourselves. We can't just trap, think, "You know, I'm just gonna tell you this is my problem, and I don't want my kids to have this. I don't want my good friends to have this. I don't want anyone, I just want to keep it to myself. It's my problem".
We don't get that option because, for whatever reason, the nature of bitterness is It defiles many, and it troubles many. It's an affliction; it's an affliction. I read an article because, you know, I just was researching anything that I could get access to this week on this particular topic. So I Googled some wording, and it brought up an article on a Christian women's website that was so, so good on this. And the writer of this article is, her name is Erin Davis, Erin Davis. I don't know her personally, but I want to read you what she says; it's on bitterness, and she says this, "Bitterness flourishes in the soil of justification".
Dead on. I want to say that again. Dead on, oh, I keep thinking about this. "Bitterness flourishes in the soil of justification". Now, I'm gonna keep quoting her, "I've found that when I fixate on my interactions with a specific individual, I am looking for justification for the anger or frustration I'm feeling in a relationship. I've learned that if I find myself replaying the tapes often", and we need some new verbiage there because we don't have tapes, but if I find myself replaying that thought process over and over again, "I should see that as a red flag that something is off in my own heart".
How about that soil of justification? Because that is what it is. When we're bitter about something, we replay over and over and over and over again how justified we are that we are mad. Over and over. Over and over. Bitterness is a constant recalling of a record of wrongs, constantly. And we will just, it's the way we justify, over and over again, justify over and over again, "I have a right to be mad". You know what? You also have the right to be free. You have the right to be free. Your bitterness and my bitterness is, it's poisonous. It's not doing us any favors. I keep saying this over and over again, I hope this is not offensive to somebody, but, y'all, we're here this long on this earth, this long.
Do we honestly want to spend our time mad and bitter and unforgiving? Really, really, we'll never do this again; this is not reincarnation; we don't die and wake up and get to do it all over again. Like, we die and this is done, and then it's eternity. And we're gonna look back on this and go, "I spent 30 years in bitterness? I had a job to do, a divine mission. My temple was the house of the Holy Spirit of Christ. I had a power in me beyond anything you could buy or sell. And I was bitter for 30 solid years".
Is that the way this thing's going down? Because you get to decide. You get to decide. One reason why you don't want to make that decision is because the person you're bitter at, who lives in your own home, might think it's okay. You know, after 15 years, I bet they'll get past it. I bet it's just about time. This punishing people, there is nothing that betrays us playing God more than us coming along and chastising people. It's just not our job. We speak the truth in love. We do get to say, "You know what? You nearly killed me. You nearly killed me. This broke my heart". But we also get to be free.
You know, we have to watch how we're feeding all of this. In our conversations and what we watch and what we listen to, we'll just feed these roots in us. I'll just tell you, on the way, I had to grin about this week because Keith and I were watching "The Midwife". I don't know if y'all, it's called "The Midwife;" did any of y'all ever watch it? It's just, you know, British TV is so good, it's just embarrassing to the United States; it's embarrassing to us. But we're just forever looking for some kind of good dramatic series that is for honest to goodness grown ups, but it's not nasty. And so this qualifies.
So we were watching "Call the Midwife". I was thinking back, when I was growing up, I thought a midwife was a wife that was in her middle-age years, but that's another story. But there's this constant baby having, you can imagine, because it's called "Call The Midwife," and so there's a lot of baby having, and there's the worst hollering. I mean, there's some hollering going on; there's some hollering. And I was watching it like this and watching it like this, and the more they were having those babies and hollering, I just wanted to look at him and go, "I gave birth to your spawn like that". I mean, anybody know what I'm talking about? Or you just want to go, "That was me"! Because we identify with everything out there, then we take that on. Maybe it's time for us to quit reaffirming what is nearly driving us crazy about ourselves.
I want you to take down point number 5, and I wanna sit right here in this Hebrews 12 for a moment. Nothing roots us like realizing we can't uproot Christ. I want you to just glance up. I'm not going to go into reading all of it, but you will see that it begins at verse 5 on the discipline of the Lord, and it pulls down into 7, that "God is treating you as sons", or for us, for most of us in this room, daughters. "For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which we've all participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons". Verse 12, go there, "Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather healed".
I want to tell you something. I had this conversation with my staff the other day because we have young ones that have done a lot of things right and made a lot of good choices. Most of us on staff have, in our past, been somewhat of a train wreck; that's probably what drew us together. She was one of the ones that was just talking about just the insecurity of whether Christ had his best in mind for her. So I want to tell you a word of testimony here. The reason why I don't struggle with this issue came a very bad way. Do you remember when I showed you the picture of the roots? And I said, "Wow, those are some ugly roots for a beautiful tree".
My deep roots that I have grown in Christ, some of them grew a very healthy way. I mean, thank God. You don't just study for decades and it not have effect. I bless the Lord. He plants the seed, and he grows it. But, some of my deepest roots, where I came to fall in love with Jesus as my unrivaled romance, the dearest thing in all of life to me, no one, and I love a lot of people, but no one in flesh and blood compares, in my heart, to Jesus. Well, how in the world does that happen? Ugly roots, ugly, ugly roots for me. There are better ways; find a better way. Because my sin had lots and lots and lots of repercussions, and you don't want them. You don't want them.
So the last thing I'm saying to you is, go sin yourself in to a really, really deep relationship to Christ. If you're getting that message from me, then somehow I'm misleading you. But here is what I'm gonna tell you. That, when I was dealing with so many consequences of my stupidity and my foolishness, and, I mean, God's hand was heavy upon me because he's committed to me and devoted to me. And so, did I get away with it? Good Lord, no! Here's the thing about it. You think you are, and I remember that for a while I was worried because I thought, you know, I don't know whether to be happy about this or not because nothing's coming down on me yet.
And so this either means, this could mean he's not who he said he was because he said he was going to come down on this, and he's not going to... oh, he came down all right. He came down. But, during that whole period of time when I was dealing with so many consequences to my sins, I cannot even tell you how, in all of my pain, Jesus loved me. I should have been able to get rid of him, and I couldn't; I tried. I should have run him off, and, for the life of me, I could not do it. He just stayed with me. And, when the consequences hurt so badly I thought I could not bear it, and then, when the convictions started rolling because at first you're just so like confused by everything, and just all of that fog.
And, when I started waking up to my stupidity and my foolishness, and started just having a practical breakdown over it, there he was, holding me in his arms, putting me back together, piece by piece, in a whole new way. And that victim that had been looking for trouble all of my life, through that experience, was crucified with Christ. That girl doesn't even live in me anymore. That girl was so killed by that last experience; that girl dead.
Now, I want you to hear something. Psalm 103 says, "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities". But what he's saying is that he does not treat us according to, in other words, that he doesn't just mete out the discipline in accordance with the depth of our sin. Here's what he does. He metes out the discipline according to what will teach us. Is anyone in the room going through a season with God where you know good and well, you're living through consequences and you're dealing with the discipline of the Lord? I'm gonna tell you something; all he's after, all he's after is your healing. All he's after is us learning. That's what a disciple does.
It says in Hebrews 12, "Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather healed". Do you understand that the season he has you in, he is trying to heal what has been broken in you so that you can learn to walk and be whole. Even in his chastisement he cannot diminish one ounce of his love for you, not one ounce. And so this weird thing that happened is that I came out of it with such a security in him so I can testify to you, you cannot get rid of him. If you are in Christ and he's in you, whatever you have rooted down in your life, you cannot uproot Christ if your life depended on it.
Somebody today needs to know that. Remember that we talked about high and deep? Psalm 103 says this in verse 11 and 12, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed his transgressions from us". Anybody understand what that means?
As far as east is from west, that, on the cross of Christ, when he stretched out his hands, nailed to that tree, and gave up his life, that your sins were separated from you as far as east is from west. What we've got to root up in this room today is the root of shame. That thing is so poisonous and will send us back into a cycle of so much trouble and so much self-destruction that there's no measuring it. Today, today, today, we're gonna root up roots of shame.
I wanna tell you a story of something that happened a couple of days ago. Keith sent me a picture the other day on my phone, and I was so astonished that I called him immediately and said, "What on the ever-loving earth"? He said he was in the den of our home, and he heard a loud thump against the window of our home. He was in the den, there's the front door and there's the window. And he said immediately he jumped up because he knew what had happened, and he opened up the door, and he said, when he did, Jelly, our bird dog, went running out the door and immediately grabbed up a woodpecker that had gone right, you know, it's that season where they're competing with the other males for the females.
And so, if they see their reflection in the window or in a mirror, they attack it. And so it had knocked itself out. And he said, "I thought it was dead". And he said, of course, she's a bird dog, so what did she do? But the beautiful thing about a bird dog is they have a soft mouth because they're not meaning to tear it up; they want to bring it to their master. So he said he leaned over to Jelly like this, and he said, "I'm gonna need you to give me that bird. I'm gonna need you to give me that bird". He patted the top of her little head, her little one eye, and she gave him the bird. And he said, he just looked at it, he thought, "I think it's dead".
And... yes, look at the picture. Would you look, if you would, I don't know why this makes me want to cry, too, but I don't know if you can see on my husband's hands, you know, we're, he's 60 and I'm 59, so we've lived a lot of life, and so he's got these scars on his hand, and he's a rough guy, but he's my guy, and he's so tender with me; he's the biggest dichotomy. That he would wrap this little bird in his palm, and he just talked over it, talked over it. He said it began to wiggle, and then he said it began to panic, and so he had read, you know, he's done this a couple of times, so he got a little towel and a little warm little rag, not wet but just a little dry, right, and just rolled it up so that it would not hurt itself trying to beat its wings against him.
And he put it in a little box where it would be in the dark for a little while until it would calm down. And then he came back and got it, and he held it in his hand, and he went out front, and it just flew right off. And it was such a tender thing. And I think sometimes we think we're more merciful than God. Do we not know that every single shred of mercy we ever have for anyone is because we were created in the image of God? Do you understand that he has you? That, when you knocked yourself out trying to destroy yourself, having a fight with your own self, that that scarred hand held you tenderly and gently, and, when you thought you were in the dark, nobody was there, all along he had you.
I'm gonna tell you something, girls. I do not know where you get a better deal in this world than Jesus. I hate to put it in terms like that, but I'm just going to put it to you just like that. Here is the Savior that says, I've done all of it. I've given my whole life. I bore all of your sins. I overcame the grave so that you could have resurrection life. I poured out my Spirit on the day of Pentecost, my Spirit, like a pitcher, so that my Spirit could live within you.
And I've called, I've got a purpose for you here and plan for you here. Your life's gonna mean something. Everything you've been through, I'm gonna work it together for good for those who love me and feel called according to my purpose. Then, when this thing's over, you're with me forever and ever, and you will live happily ever after. Now I'm just gonna ask you, what you got going better than that? Because I don't understand it. I don't, for the life of me, I cannot understand who would not want that.