Matt Chandler - For Us and For Them

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. This will be our passage: Hebrews chapter 12. Earlier this week, I was in Orlando preaching, and on my first night with this group of men and women, the Holy Spirit fell in a uniquely beautiful way. Over 40 men and women said yes to Jesus and moved toward Him. It was a powerful night, truly powerful. And here’s the thing: it was like the first time this week I realized this. I mean, I knew it, but it was the first time I thought, «Oh man, Lord, more of that at TBC.» Then my wife, Lauren—her name’s not Elsie, although I affectionately call her LC because of her initials—I realized this has been a mistake. People lovingly say, «We love your wife Elsie, ” and I think, „Well, you don’t obviously know her. Her name is Lauren.“ Lauren has been one of the worship leaders at IF Gathering since the beginning. So on Friday, I got to go and be her armor-bearer, if you will. I carried her bag and was simply Lauren Chandler’s husband, which is really who I am if you know both of us.

Then, I found myself in a room with what felt like 70 billion women and men globally or something, and there it was again. The Holy Spirit fell; there were tears, confessions, and people moving toward Jesus. It was so profound, and my heart stirred for more of that at the Village. Lauren and I have talked a bit about this: my entire adult life has been here. I arrived as a 28-year-old with no kids, and now I have a married child, a son about to graduate, and a 14-year-old that looks 32. It’s hard for me to separate my own life from my deep affection for the work of Jesus among us as a people. What ends up happening is that I see the work of God moving in profound ways, and I feel really anxious for us. As the psalmist put it, I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. There is so much in me that wants all of it for you. I desire for you to experience freedom from internal bondage. I want you to know His goodness in a way that transforms your entire life. I want you off the sidelines and right into the heart of God. I don’t often wake up in the middle of the night worrying about spreadsheets and such, but I frequently wake up feeling a great deal of weight for you. I love this season we’re in, and that doesn’t have much to do with what we need to build to keep doing what we’re doing.

Nick has already said it, and I’ll reiterate: If the Lord doesn’t move us into greater worship and delight in Him, then even if everything is in place at the end, I won’t be satisfied saying, „Yeah, we did it.“ That’s not what it’s about for me. I’m eager to preach this morning; my heart feels alive in unique ways.

Now, in 2012—which feels like a lifetime ago (some of you weren’t even alive back then)—I preached through the book of Hebrews. Is anyone here from when we did Hebrews? A few of you? Okay, yes. As I said, it feels like a lifetime ago. Here’s what’s crazy about what I get to do: I can summarize my entire job description in four words. You’re a pastor, so what do you do during the week? Okay, here it is: I get to pray, prep, preach, and pastor. Can you tell a Southern Baptist wrote that? Right? That’s what I get to do for a living.

Back in 2012, I was studying the book of Hebrews, and it was like a mini revival for me. The author was trying to communicate one thing: the supremacy and excellence of Jesus Christ. While I was studying, the Spirit was opening my eyes, letting me look again and rediscover the insights through the Old Testament. For most of us, the Old Testament can feel like the scary part of the Bible. Yet the writer of Hebrews addresses Jews in the first century who were being severely persecuted by both Rome and the Judaizers—those saying that Christ had to be rejected in some ways, urging them to return to their Judaism. They felt the pressure and began to drift back to what they knew. Our testimony is that if we aren’t careful, we’ll drift back to what we know. So repeatedly, he conveys the message: Jesus is greater than…