You Need a New OS | Why Control Feels Safe—But Isn't

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- Every day we roll the dice,

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another decision, another responsibility,

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another space to move.

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We keep chasing the next thing, hoping we'll finally arrive.

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But Jesus offers something different.

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He doesn't promise to take away the hard stuff in life,

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but he does show us a different way to play the game.

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In Matthew 11, Jesus says, "Come to me,

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all who labor and are heavy laden,

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and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

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for I am gentle and lowly in heart,

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and you will find rest for your souls.

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For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

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- Well, hey, everybody's got a hot take on the internet,

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so I want to give you mine.

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It's that most of us don't actually have a time problem,

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we have a control problem.

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The one of those things,

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Jen, what's one of the things that you can't control?

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- Uh, well, this past week,

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I would say my kids all getting on the bus on time.

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Do you know how much happens before 7:20 a.m. in the morning?

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We made the bus two out of five times this week.

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- That's not a good ratio. - It was rough.

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- Not not doing great. - No, it wasn't good.

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- Well, hey, no matter who you are,

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no matter where you are, man, the timing of this series,

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I think is really, really helpful.

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Alli Patterson going to be talking about control.

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Hey, welcome to Crossroads. My name is Andy.

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- And I'm Jen and welcome back.

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Welcome back from vacation. You still work here?

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- Great to be back from vacation. I was gone.

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We save all of our PTO for a few weeks at the end of the summer.

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- We have a photo of your family. It's so cute.

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- So fun. It was so fun.

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And while our hotel was sort of mid, it was not great.

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We had an incredible time just connecting.

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My kids discovered playing cards. We had an amazing time.

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But being away on a beach vacation

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doesn't automatically fix the problem

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of being burdened or stressed out.

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So we need to figure out how to give our burdens over to God.

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- Yeah. So we're going to start our day with some worship.

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And these songs, we're going to hear

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references to some specific Bible stories.

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And as you hear them, hopefully these are people

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that have trusted God with their lives.

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And when we sing them together, hopefully

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it'll help us to trust him as well.

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Let's do it together right now.

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- Jesus, I thank you that what we just sang is true,

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that you're always on time.

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I know for me right now,

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it's kind of hard to sing that song.

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I look at my life and I'm like, "God, where are you?"

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But I have this history with God,

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where I look back in moments where I thought

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he wasn't with me, and I now see He was right there,

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right beside me in the fire.

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So we thank you for that, God.

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I thank you that your word says

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you'll never leave nor forsake us.

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And so I cling on to that truth today.

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I thank you that you're kind and good.

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That's your nature.

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We love you and we thank you.

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And I pray all this in your name. Amen.

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Well, thanks guys so much for worshiping with us.

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My name is Trinity, if we have not met.

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This is one of my favorite things that we get to do.

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Before you grab a seat, say hey to your neighbor.

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- Happy birthday, dear Ruthie. Happy birthday to you.

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- We are packing this box

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for the Thanksgiving Food Drive. Do you want to help?

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- Yeah. Okay.

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- Hey, I'm Michael. - Hey. I'm Owen.

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- Nice to meet you. - Yeah.

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- Man, everybody wants day 2,890 of friendships, right?

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But it's so hard to, like, work up the energy

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or the courage sometimes for day one of new friendships.

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And honestly, I feel like once you graduate high school

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and college, it just gets harder.

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- It's so true. - Yeah.

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But I feel like that's where Crossroads groups

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can help in a huge way.

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Everybody's in the same boat.

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Everybody's looking to connect.

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Actually, that video reminds me of my good friend Anissa.

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She's from Libya and my wife Rachel and I met her

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like 13 years ago through a Crossroads group

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when we were newly married.

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And she's been a faithful friend,

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like through moves to multiple cities and homes

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and neighborhoods, through life stages,

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the birth of all three of our kids, birthdays,

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good times, hard times, and honestly, like --

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- All the above.

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- Everything in between, you know?

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- Yeah, I know for me, I have a lot of friends,

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honestly, but the ones that are the deepest friendships

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are women who share similar beliefs as me.

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And so there just happens --

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There's just like more depth, more realness,

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more authenticity when we all trust a God

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that's just bigger than ourselves.

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So I'm really excited because this fall

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I get to host the online moms group

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that we're going to meet Wednesday nights from 8:30-9:30.

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And I'm excited because you can bring your mom wins,

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your struggles, your tears.

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You can bring wine if you'd like.

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It's going to be really good.

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But we get real because we believe in the same God.

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So that's good. - That's right.

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- We also have -- we're in the Oakley atrium right now

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where all of our sites have moms groups, men's groups,

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on site groups of all kinds you can find online.

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There's also a ton of healing groups for trauma

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and marriage and many, many things.

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You can learn more at Crossroads.net

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or you can text the word "more" to 301301,

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and we will just send you a link that you get to click on.

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And it's that easy to learn more

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about what we have going on.

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- Yeah. Now just showing up to a group

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can't guarantee that strangers become your best friends,

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but staying home guarantees that

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those people will remain strangers.

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If you don't try out the group,

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if you don't head to the house,

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if you don't join an online community,

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man, you have to start somewhere.

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And that's true in life.

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That's true with community.

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That's even true around our finances.

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I recently had a woman named Giovanni who reached out.

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She's been coming to Crossroads for a little over a year,

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but she just talked about how her faith

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has just been strengthened as a result of this place.

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I want to read you just a couple of words that she said,

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because I love this.

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So she said, "I have a somewhat complicated history

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with organized religion.

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But once I started to feel that connection at Crossroads

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and realize how much I was benefiting from the messages,

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contributing felt like a natural next step.

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At first, small act of giving,

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along with sincere and honest prayer,

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has led to meaningful shifts in my life

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in a surprisingly short time."

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She talked about how it reminded of that verse

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where if we draw near to God, he'll draw near to us.

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Now, there is no formula for faith or giving or anything,

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but man, it is just cool to hear how God shows up

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for one person in their story in really unique ways.

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- I love it. Sometimes when we take

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that one step of trust, we discover that

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God's been waiting for us all along.

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And if you want to take that one small step,

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you can join us at Crossroads.net/give.

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A step of faith is powerful because it changes our story.

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We go from, I need to fix it all or be good at it all

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to okay, God, I can trust you with it.

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Sometimes for me it is day by day.

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It can be hour by hour.

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I know if you're a part of addiction recovery

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or you have a loved one who is, that is very true for you.

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It is one day at a time.

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- Yeah. That's why we're focusing this whole series

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on Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus says,

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"Come to me, and I will give you rest."

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- Hey everyone, my name is Alli Patterson.

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I'm one of the teaching pastors here at Crossroads,

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and I'm also someone who tries to get her groceries

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in one trip from the car. Anyone else?

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This is totally me.

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If you're not doing that,

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what are you actually doing with your life?

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I mean, come on, it's all about strategy.

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I stand in front of my trunk.

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I look at the bags that day.

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I make sure I have my purse before I start.

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And my goal is to get them all in, in one go.

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And usually it's like the trunk button that gets me

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or the door handle getting in the house.

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Like I say, praise Jesus because somebody

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put a door handle I can get with my elbow

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from the outside so I can actually get through.

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This is how we go through life.

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This is actually the visual that came to me

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when I was thinking about this message,

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because we go through life loaded down

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with bag after bag after bag.

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And something hit me, like, that

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I had really gone wrong here when my daughter

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was standing in front of the trunk of the car

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about a week ago, and she's like, "I got this.

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Don't even help me. I can get 'em in."

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And I'm like, I have passed this way of thinking down,

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you know, and this kind of --

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This kind of approach to life is actually

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the people that Jesus is talking to

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in his great invitation that we're going

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to look at together today.

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Let me pray that he would show us a better way to live.

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Lord, would you be with us

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and reveal a new way of life to us today?

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In Jesus's name. Amen.

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We want our life to go well.

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That's why we're doing this series.

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It's called Well Played because we want a life

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that's well played because why?

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We want to win the game. We want a good outcome.

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I honestly don't know very many people

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that wouldn't say, "You know what I want?

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I want the things that I'm doing

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and the people I love to turn out okay.

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I just want a decent outcome.

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That's what I'm looking for."

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And so we somehow pick up along the way

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that it's on us to be a part of how that happens.

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And so we take on bag after bag after bag

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because we think it's about my good strategy.

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It's about anticipating the obstacles.

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It's about how strong I am, how good I am

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at carrying all the things that I need to carry.

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And the truth is, one little thing goes wrong

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and the whole thing falls apart.

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I was literally doing this with my groceries the other day,

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and I almost laughed out loud because I'd already thought

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about this visual for the message today.

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And I was holding the rotisserie chicken

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by the handle that they give you to hold it by,

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and it broke and fell on the floor,

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and my cat was licking the chicken

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before I could drop all the groceries

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and pick it all up again, right?

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Like there are moments where we realize

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whatever, however strong we are,

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whatever strategy we've got going on,

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however many bags we've been able to carry,

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it really is on us.

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And we're exhausted by it.

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And I think that's why these words of Jesus

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that we're looking at, I hope you hear these in your sleep.

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We're going to say them a million times today

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because this invitation from Jesus,

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it sounds so good to us

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because this is the way we go about life.

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There's an amazing offer on the table

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for those of us who feel this way.

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Matthew 11:28-30 one more time:

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Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,

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and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

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For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

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Our burdens are not light,

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not the way that we go through life.

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The big idea for today is this:

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these words of Jesus are not an invitation

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to set down a bag.

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They are an invitation to

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a completely different way to live.

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Instead of being heavy laden, he's talking to

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those who labor and are heavy laden.

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I was looking at some of the words in the original language,

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and I think that's why this grocery bag visual

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came to my mind, because the word, phortizó,

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the heavy laden word, it actually means to load up.

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And I thought, where in my life do I load up?

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And I'm like, that's it.

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I, you know, I load them up.

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And this is, this is the person,

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the way of operating that Jesus is speaking to.

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And he's offering a different mode of operating,

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a different operating system.

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Now you've got a phone in your pocket,

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a computer, a gaming system,

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something that you access on a regular basis

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that has an operating system.

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I'm about to exhaust my knowledge

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of operating systems in the next two sentences.

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An operating system is the software on the inside

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that runs all the pieces and parts together

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to produce an outcome.

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You want your phone to do something.

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You want to -- You press a button on a game

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and the operating system goes to work

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to do the thing that you just told it to do.

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So when we ask the question,

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how can I get that out of my life?

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I want something. This is the outcome I want.

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Our operating system is what goes to work.

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How do I get it?

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How do all the parts work together?

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What thoughts do I have?

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What processes do I go through?

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What bags do I pick up?

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This is the operating system

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and Jesus is inviting us to change our operating system.

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You and I have a default OS.

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Our our operating system default can be boiled down

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to one word, and that word is control.

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Don't get mad at me.

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We're all in this together, control.

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We want it because what we've learned along the way

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is the one who's got the control over the most bags

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gets the best outcome.

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If we're holding the things that matter

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to the outcome we want, then it's under our control.

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And that's why we pick them all up.

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That's why we try to hold on to people,

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to things, to details, to plans,

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because we believe that that is the way

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to produce the outcome that we want.

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Our default system is control.

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I want my kids to be more successful than I am.

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I want to be the CFO one day.

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I want to have a great, amazing group of friends.

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These are good, these are good things

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potentially in our life.

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It's not the outcome that's the problem.

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It's the way that our operating system tells us to go get it.

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It's the things, the processes,

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the stuff on the inside of our heart,

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our mind and our life that are exhausting us

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because our default set of instructions tells us

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it's on you. Pick it all up, carry it till you need it.

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Be the one in control.

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And this way of doing life is loading us up.

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It's exactly the load that Jesus is referring to

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when he says, "All who are heavy laden"

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and the offer is to come to me,

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a completely different way of doing life.

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The funny thing is this operating system of control,

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the one that we learned, the one that,

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you know, it's kind of our default.

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It's just the way that it makes sense to do it.

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It wasn't the original design.

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It actually came about after God designed human beings.

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And he designed us an entirely different way.

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Like OS 1.0, I guess you would say

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was something else completely.

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And if we boiled that one down to one word,

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I would say that one is trust.

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If you boil down exactly how God designed human life

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to work, it would all boil down to trust.

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If you go back and read Genesis 1-3,

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where God makes the first human beings

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and all of the other things that are made,

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you would pick up things like this.

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And I would encourage you to go read those chapters

00:34:08

and test and see if what I'm saying is correct.

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What you're going to read is a God

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that designed a human being directly on his own.

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He breathes his own life into him.

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He placed him in an environment

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where life could be sustained.

00:34:23

He chose food for him.

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He gave work to him.

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And that work, oh, by the way,

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was supposed to be done in connection with him.

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It was to represent him,

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to rule over the creation that he had made.

00:34:37

Everything about humanity was designed

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to be done in connection with the creator.

00:34:45

And not just connected to him,

00:34:46

but intimately involved in the life of God,

00:34:49

in the plans of God, in the creation of God.

00:34:52

It was all supposed to be connected.

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And so this original operating system

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was entirely based on a relationship of trust.

00:35:02

He didn't actually devise any strategies

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to help us carry things through life.

00:35:09

It was actually completely different than that.

00:35:12

He only had one strategy, and that one strategy

00:35:15

was a request that he made about a tree in the garden.

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And this was very important to the entire strategy

00:35:21

of how humans lived with God

00:35:23

and lived this life they'd been designed for.

00:35:24

And he said, "Hey, there's this tree,

00:35:27

and I really don't want you to eat the fruit

00:35:30

of that particular tree."

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And the tree's name was the Knowledge of Good and Evil,

00:35:36

the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

00:35:38

Kind of a mouthful, but essentially God was saying

00:35:41

the one thing, the way that this works,

00:35:44

the one thing that I can't have you do

00:35:46

is I can't have you take control.

00:35:50

I can't have you being the one that is

00:35:53

the knowledgeable, the wise, the one with all the info.

00:35:56

The thing is, you can't hold that.

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That's for me.

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And so the way that it was supposed to work is God knows,

00:36:05

and we receive.

00:36:08

And he asked them not to eat that fruit.

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And what do you think they did?

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They ate it with a big shove from a serpent

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who was in the garden, who said these words,

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"But if you do eat it, you will be like God."

00:36:26

That was the temptation.

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You will have the knowledge of God.

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You will have the power of God.

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You'll be able to make the decisions of God.

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You will know the will of God.

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You will have all the knowledge that God has,

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and you will be able to chart the course.

00:36:38

Only the problem is we aren't God

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and we were never designed to hold that kind of weight.

00:36:45

We were never designed for that kind of life.

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And so when we took control,

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we took on a life that we can't handle.

00:36:58

And the operating system changed.

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It was the moment that in our house I had --

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So I have four kids.

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My youngest, she just turned 15 yesterday.

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It was her birthday.

00:37:07

So I guess this was like 14 years or so ago,

00:37:09

whenever they get their first few words

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and start doing things on their own.

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And she said, every time I would try to help her

00:37:16

with something she very obviously needed help with,

00:37:18

she would look at me and push my hand away,

00:37:22

and she would go, "By my own, by my own."

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And sometimes the kids will still say that as a laugh.

00:37:28

They'll go, "By my own, mom. By my own."

00:37:31

You know, you don't have to teach a toddler

00:37:34

to want to do things by themselves.

00:37:36

They will let you know by my own.

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That's why I said our default one,

00:37:43

the one that we now come hardwired with, is by my own.

00:37:47

It's I'll do it. I'll know. I'll decide.

00:37:50

I'll be the wise one. I'll chart the course.

00:37:52

I'll decide the next steps.

00:37:53

This is our default system.

00:37:55

But it wasn't the original.

00:38:00

The original was an OS entirely based on trust.

00:38:05

And doing life inside this other operating system,

00:38:08

where we're the one that gets to carry everything,

00:38:10

and we're the one that gets to make all the decisions,

00:38:12

and we're the one that tries to know all the relevant info,

00:38:15

it has some consequences for us.

00:38:17

And one of those I've been thinking about

00:38:19

is that it makes life really small.

00:38:22

We're inside this sort of game scenario.

00:38:25

And I'm not a gamer, I admit it.

00:38:27

I'm sorry if the metaphor falls apart for me

00:38:30

at some point today, but I was just thinking

00:38:32

it makes the game board smaller

00:38:34

because we want to know what's the step ahead.

00:38:38

So we build higher walls

00:38:39

and we only step on the squares that come next,

00:38:42

or we only go, you know, to the level that we know the best.

00:38:46

And so as we think about how it makes our life smaller,

00:38:49

we leave things on the table all the time

00:38:52

because we don't know.

00:38:53

We're not sure how it's going to go.

00:38:55

We don't know the outcome.

00:38:56

We can't understand the impact.

00:38:58

We're not sure it's the best thing

00:39:00

and we want to know the outcome.

00:39:03

And I just think, man, um, how many times

00:39:06

do we go through years as an adult

00:39:09

and never try anything new? Why is that?

00:39:12

Why are us grown ups known the world over

00:39:16

for never doing anything new anymore?

00:39:20

It's because we default into this setup

00:39:24

where we do what we can see ahead of us.

00:39:27

And why do we do that?

00:39:28

It's not because that's always even what we want.

00:39:32

It's because that's what we think

00:39:34

will produce the best outcomes.

00:39:36

Well, I don't want to put that person at risk

00:39:38

because I can see this outcome

00:39:40

and I don't know the other one.

00:39:42

It's from a heart to get a good outcome.

00:39:44

But we shrink the game board of our life,

00:39:46

and then we counsel our kids sometimes to do the same.

00:39:50

I had a friend who told her son, "Don't take that class,

00:39:55

because that's a really hard one.

00:39:58

What if you don't get an A?

00:39:59

It might ruin your GPA."

00:40:01

Oh, my goodness, that's shrinking the game board, right?

00:40:04

Like we leave opportunities and skills

00:40:07

and all kinds of even fun on the table

00:40:10

because we can't see what's around the next corner.

00:40:13

And that's our operating system at work.

00:40:15

I think we've made a mistake.

00:40:17

We like to tell ourselves that we're living a faithful life,

00:40:21

we're living a responsible life,

00:40:22

a dependable life, but what we're really living

00:40:24

is a controllable one.

00:40:27

And we have mistaken control for faithfulness.

00:40:32

And those two things are not the same.

00:40:34

God is not asking us to live a predictable life

00:40:37

where the next steps are clear

00:40:39

and the outcomes are known.

00:40:40

But control tells us you only know when you can,

00:40:43

you know, you only go where you can know.

00:40:47

You only go the places where you know the outcome

00:40:49

because we feel responsible for it.

00:40:51

We're carrying the bag of the outcomes

00:40:54

of so many things for our life and for the people we love.

00:40:57

And as a matter of fact, that's the other thing

00:40:59

that starts to change a lot.

00:41:01

When we carry the bags of outcomes

00:41:04

for other people's lives, it starts to make

00:41:06

those relationships really, really difficult.

00:41:10

We love our people, right?

00:41:13

Our friends, our sisters,

00:41:15

our aging parents, our children,

00:41:18

whoever you feel a sense of love and responsibility for,

00:41:22

we start to carry the bag called the outcome of their life.

00:41:26

And the minute we do that is the minute

00:41:28

that we guarantee that relationship

00:41:30

is going to get real difficult at some point,

00:41:32

because we have to start managing them.

00:41:35

Now we're managing their life

00:41:37

to get the outcome that we think is best for them.

00:41:40

I see this all the time in parenting young adults.

00:41:43

It's a hazy time, right?

00:41:45

Like your role is changing in the life of your child

00:41:48

in these years.

00:41:49

And so many times what you want

00:41:52

is you want to tightly manage the walk in front of them

00:41:56

so that the outcome is good.

00:41:58

That's this instinct from our operating system of control.

00:42:02

My husband and I crack up.

00:42:04

He'll say this to me sometimes.

00:42:06

We had a friend of ours, a couple.

00:42:07

His kids were a couple of years older than ours,

00:42:09

and he was really frustrated with his son one day.

00:42:11

And he goes, "If he would just do what I tell him to do,

00:42:13

his life would go a lot better."

00:42:18

Yeah, it probably would. Right?

00:42:21

So my husband will look at me

00:42:23

when one of our kids ignores our extremely wise advice,

00:42:26

and he'll go, "If he would just do what I tell him to do,

00:42:30

his life was going to go a lot better."

00:42:32

And I'm like, "I know, right?"

00:42:33

You know, but what's -- We laugh,

00:42:36

but like, what's underneath that?

00:42:39

It's the weight of the outcome.

00:42:42

And that's the thing that God is not asking us to carry.

00:42:45

He's not saying don't coach well, don't be wise,

00:42:47

don't pass on wisdom.

00:42:49

He's saying don't carry the bag

00:42:51

of the outcome of their life,

00:42:52

or suddenly you're going to be managing them.

00:42:54

Instead of loving them, you're going to be controlling them.

00:42:57

Instead of coaching them, you're going to be asking them

00:43:02

to carry the weight of what you think is best,

00:43:05

and their emotions and their choices

00:43:07

and everything about their life

00:43:09

is going to come back on you, and it's going

00:43:11

to make that relationship extremely difficult.

00:43:15

It's too heavy a bag for you to carry.

00:43:17

And I know some of you are sitting here thinking,

00:43:20

"Well, not my kid, but if my sister

00:43:22

would just do what I tell her to do,

00:43:23

her life would go better.

00:43:25

If my, you know, if my friend would stop

00:43:27

doing all those stupid things

00:43:28

and just do what I tell him to do."

00:43:30

You know, we get these little moments

00:43:31

where our our thoughts give us away.

00:43:33

I was thinking about where does this pop up?

00:43:36

Because some of us are sitting here

00:43:37

and you're thinking, "Yeah, all you controlling people,

00:43:40

stop it. Really annoying the rest of us out here, you know?"

00:43:44

But some of us just do the opposite.

00:43:46

We're no less controlled by this system.

00:43:49

We just completely reject and rebel against it.

00:43:51

We know we can't carry all that. Who cares anymore?

00:43:53

I'm just going to be over here

00:43:55

while you people do all this.

00:43:56

And everything about our life becomes rejecting that.

00:43:59

It's still the same system running the show.

00:44:03

And I started brainstorming with some people

00:44:05

that I teach with, and we were talking about

00:44:08

what are like the little red flags where control,

00:44:10

you know, this operating system we have that's in us,

00:44:14

where can we see it at work

00:44:15

that might not be totally obvious on the surface?

00:44:18

We might be able to fool other people,

00:44:20

that really that's what's going on below the surface.

00:44:22

Here's a few that we brainstormed.

00:44:24

You say I don't care what we do,

00:44:27

and then you reject every suggestion that anyone makes.

00:44:31

Anybody have someone like that in their life, right?

00:44:34

What about this one?

00:44:35

You email the boss or the teacher, coach, whoever,

00:44:38

a helpful suggestion, that's really exactly

00:44:42

what you need to happen to make things easier for you?

00:44:46

Nobody else knows that.

00:44:47

Come on now, red flag. Right?

00:44:50

Um, okay, this one, I admit

00:44:53

I've had some personal experience with this one.

00:44:56

I'm going to deep breathe.

00:44:57

Moms, if you have a teenage son

00:45:03

and you are on a group chat when he is 16 years old

00:45:06

and you are still arranging his sleepover plans

00:45:08

with his friends, red flag,

00:45:12

control operating system in full function.

00:45:15

I'm just telling you, I could give like a mini sermon

00:45:17

over here on this.

00:45:18

If you want a man someday,

00:45:21

you're going to need to stop doing that.

00:45:23

Stop. Okay? That could be a whole separate sermon.

00:45:28

Sorry.

00:45:30

I'm not too popular on the mom group chats

00:45:32

because I'm like, "Why don't we butt out

00:45:34

and let the kids handle this, you know?"

00:45:36

And they're like, "Oh, that wasn't very nice."

00:45:41

And they're like, removed from the conversation, you know?

00:45:45

Anyway, sorry, I told you

00:45:47

I could give a whole sermon on that.

00:45:49

Next one. You give someone advice

00:45:52

and get irritated when they don't take it.

00:45:55

Or you say, God, I trust you.

00:45:56

But if we were a fly on the wall for your prayers,

00:45:59

it's really just a long list of ways

00:46:01

that God should handle the thing that you asked him for.

00:46:06

And this was my personal out, as you might

00:46:07

be able to tell from my little rant.

00:46:11

You see someone else with a control problem

00:46:13

and you judge them for it. Ow!

00:46:17

When my coworker brainstormed that one,

00:46:20

I was like, "Oh, okay, I'm going to put that one

00:46:21

on the list because that one hurt a little bit, totally."

00:46:25

Right before Jesus offers this amazing invitation

00:46:28

to rest from a life where we always feel like

00:46:32

the one carrying the bags, we always feel

00:46:34

if we don't say it, if we don't show up,

00:46:36

if we don't do it, the outcome's not going to be good.

00:46:39

Jesus says there's two kinds of people.

00:46:42

These are the verses right before this amazing invitation

00:46:46

that he gives us to rest, to find soul level rest,

00:46:50

the rest that we want.

00:46:51

And he says, there's two kinds of people,

00:46:53

and one of them is set up really well to receive it,

00:46:57

and the other, not so much.

00:46:59

Here's what he says in Matthew 11:25 and 26:

00:47:03

At that time, Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father,

00:47:05

Lord of heaven and earth,

00:47:08

that you have hidden these things from the wise

00:47:10

and understanding and revealed them to little children.

00:47:17

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

00:47:21

There's two kinds of relationships,

00:47:24

two kinds of ways to relate to God:

00:47:27

to be the wise and understanding one,

00:47:30

or to be the little children.

00:47:33

And I've got to tell you, it makes me squirm

00:47:35

because I like those words.

00:47:39

I like wise and understanding one.

00:47:42

That's what I want to be about my life.

00:47:43

And Jesus is saying something kind of radical here.

00:47:46

He's saying something very opposite

00:47:48

of what our instinct is.

00:47:49

But think about Adam and Eve in the garden.

00:47:53

What was the temptation? You will be like God.

00:47:56

You will be the wise and understanding one.

00:48:00

And Jesus is saying the benefits of the Kingdom,

00:48:02

the power of the Kingdom, the life of the Kingdom

00:48:05

is for the little children.

00:48:06

It's not because they're uneducated or immature.

00:48:09

That's not the insinuation here.

00:48:11

What he's saying is that they understand

00:48:14

a life of dependance. That's what kids understand.

00:48:17

They understand that they're to receive things,

00:48:19

that they are not strong enough,

00:48:21

that they are not wise enough, that they are not mature enough

00:48:24

to be able to run their own life.

00:48:26

That's what Jesus is essentially getting at here.

00:48:28

He's saying, "You've got a choice:

00:48:30

You can be the wise and understanding one

00:48:34

and go your own way, by my own;

00:48:36

or you can be a little child

00:48:39

and receive the life of the Kingdom.

00:48:42

Receive the rest of God.

00:48:44

It's right back to the original design in the garden.

00:48:51

It's actually incredible.

00:48:52

And it has all kinds of hallmarks of Jesus's

00:48:55

come to me. Come to me.

00:48:59

But the wise and understanding, I gotta tell you,

00:49:02

that is rough for me because I like those words.

00:49:05

I remember when I was in seminary,

00:49:07

I would look through the course catalog,

00:49:08

and I had to start slow because I had four little kids,

00:49:11

so I wasn't on like a full student schedule.

00:49:13

So I'd only take a couple classes at a time.

00:49:14

And it would pain me because I'd look through

00:49:16

the course catalog and I would go,

00:49:18

"I want all these classes.

00:49:20

Every single one of them.

00:49:21

I want to know all the things."

00:49:24

And it sort of pained me to leave classes on the table

00:49:27

because I wanted so badly to know,

00:49:30

I wanted so badly to learn.

00:49:32

And I got to the point a couple of years in,

00:49:35

as I was moving slowly through my degree at the time,

00:49:38

and I hit this point with God where I finally said to him,

00:49:41

"I'm never going to know, am I?

00:49:45

Not all of it. Never. I so want to."

00:49:50

And I feel like the best thing

00:49:52

that happened to me in seminary was just

00:49:54

the overwhelming amount of incredible,

00:49:57

amazing potential, knowledge and wisdom of God.

00:50:00

And I just went, "I can't hold this all."

00:50:03

And it was such a bummer to me at the time

00:50:05

because I was like, I entered going, like, I want to know.

00:50:09

That's why I'm here.

00:50:10

And instead, God just hit me with a tidal wave of,

00:50:13

"You're never going to know all the things that I know."

00:50:20

Exactly. That's exactly right.

00:50:25

It may be the best thing that happened to me

00:50:28

in seminary because it forced me into a choice:

00:50:30

Am I going to live like I can,

00:50:32

like I can be the wise one,

00:50:34

I can be the understanding one?

00:50:36

You certainly are around people like that

00:50:38

and teachers like that and leaders like that,

00:50:40

who want to be the wise and understanding one.

00:50:45

That was the temptation of Eve.

00:50:49

Or a little child who understands

00:50:52

there's something I have to receive,

00:50:53

and I cannot know the fullness of my life.

00:50:56

So the invitation Jesus is making

00:50:59

is to reinstall the original.

00:51:01

Come to me, walk with me.

00:51:05

Take on my yoke, the one that you were designed for,

00:51:10

the one where I give you what will sustain you.

00:51:13

I give you your food. I give you your work.

00:51:15

I give you the right relationships.

00:51:16

I give you your life.

00:51:17

I walk with you through that.

00:51:20

See, Jesus doesn't say, "I'm going to give you a map

00:51:23

and I'm going to meet you at the end."

00:51:25

This is an invitation to a life where he walks every step

00:51:29

and no, you might not see it.

00:51:30

No, you might not know the outcome,

00:51:32

but he will be with you.

00:51:35

So what happens if we choose to install

00:51:37

this original system again, this system of trust

00:51:40

where we actually come to him?

00:51:42

I think it's worth splitting some hairs

00:51:44

because control sounds so right to us.

00:51:48

We are so used to that operating system

00:51:51

giving us instructions

00:51:52

and being that inner voice in our head,

00:51:54

we're so used to it that it actually feels correct.

00:51:57

And so I was thinking about what does control say?

00:52:00

What does trust say?

00:52:01

There's some hairs I think that are helpful to split here.

00:52:04

Control says, what can I do to make sure this all works?

00:52:09

What can I do to make sure this works out?

00:52:12

And trust says, what is mine to do?

00:52:17

To me, this is the fundamental difference:

00:52:19

Control carries the weight of the outcome,

00:52:21

and trust says what's actually mine to do?

00:52:27

What is a faithful engagement with what is going on,

00:52:31

what is mine to do?

00:52:33

Control says I try to anticipate every problem.

00:52:38

This is my grocery strategy, right?

00:52:41

Like, I know I've got to hit that trunk button.

00:52:43

I know my purse has to come out of the front seat.

00:52:45

It's no good if you make it all the way into the kitchen

00:52:47

and your purse is in the car.

00:52:49

What are you doing? You know?

00:52:51

You got to go all at once.

00:52:52

And so I got to get the purse, got to open the door,

00:52:55

got to make it around the corner

00:52:56

so I can't have things sticking out.

00:52:58

You know, there's all kinds of strategy involved

00:53:00

and control tries to anticipate everything

00:53:03

before it happens.

00:53:04

And trust says I can actually wait

00:53:06

to respond to the problems that actually arise.

00:53:11

Both recognize you're going to have some obstacles.

00:53:15

Trust doesn't lay in bed at night

00:53:18

like I did a few nights ago, thinking about

00:53:20

something that may or may not happen six months from now.

00:53:25

All kinds of other ways. You know?

00:53:30

The last one that I that I thought about

00:53:32

when I was making these, you know, what's control say,

00:53:36

what's trust say is really a difference in peace

00:53:40

because in the control system that is our default

00:53:43

peace is when all the what if scenarios are taken care of.

00:53:47

We've either gotten through them all

00:53:49

or we've adequately planned for them.

00:53:51

But control focuses on what if.

00:53:57

And trust says, even if.

00:54:00

Peace in the middle of a trusting relationship with God

00:54:04

is even if.

00:54:05

Not a denial of problems, not a, like,

00:54:08

this life is going to be great because I'm with Jesus.

00:54:10

You know, I mean, that's not a bad way to think.

00:54:13

But trust says even if that thing happens,

00:54:19

even if that outcome doesn't come about,

00:54:21

even if I can't fix that situation,

00:54:24

even if that person makes choices I would never make,

00:54:27

even if that happens, I know who God is.

00:54:32

There's this mindset in the trust system

00:54:34

that control, like, has its eyes closed to

00:54:38

that literally cannot see.

00:54:39

There's a biblical concept underneath

00:54:42

the trust operating system called sovereignty,

00:54:45

sovereignty of God.

00:54:47

The Bible talks about it all the way

00:54:48

from the beginning to the end,

00:54:49

that God is the one above it all,

00:54:51

answering to no one else,

00:54:52

holding all the cards,

00:54:54

ultimately whose plans go down.

00:54:57

The one with all the power, all the authority,

00:54:59

all the rights to the plans

00:55:02

and the processes that are going down.

00:55:05

The sovereignty of God and the trust operating system

00:55:09

puts that first. It puts that at the top.

00:55:12

It puts God at the top and says, I know who he is,

00:55:16

I know what power he has.

00:55:17

So even if these bags all fall apart,

00:55:22

I know exactly who God still is.

00:55:26

Trust runs on the sovereignty of God.

00:55:28

So this is the soul level kind of rest

00:55:32

that's available to us.

00:55:33

This concept is all throughout Scripture.

00:55:36

The first time I encountered it, it really changed me

00:55:40

because the scenario was so odd to me it stopped me cold.

00:55:44

When I was reading this in the book of Isaiah

00:55:46

near chapter 30 God starts speaking

00:55:49

to the nation of Israel because

00:55:50

they've encountered a series of problems.

00:55:52

You know, they're holding bags, they're having trouble.

00:55:55

Their strategy is not working because their strategy

00:55:57

is to continually run to Egypt over and over again.

00:56:01

Egypt was the power at the time.

00:56:02

They were warm to Israel at the time.

00:56:04

And so they were able to have treaties

00:56:06

or get weapons or borrow food or, you know,

00:56:09

retreat there when they couldn't live in their land anymore.

00:56:12

There was all kinds of things that

00:56:13

they kept running to Egypt for over and over and over again.

00:56:16

And God sends a message through the prophet Isaiah.

00:56:19

And he basically describes this really stark situation

00:56:23

where they're running and running and running

00:56:25

and running, and they end up on a mountain top alone.

00:56:27

And he said, "If you keep doing what you're doing,

00:56:29

that is where you're going.

00:56:34

If you keep insisting on running and running to Egypt,

00:56:38

you will find yourself all alone."

00:56:42

And it's not how you feel sometimes

00:56:44

when you're holding all the bags,

00:56:46

aren't you feeling like who else is doing something?

00:56:49

Are any of you people even trying to help me at all?

00:56:52

You know, and that's that's kind of

00:56:53

what God is insinuating, that when we choose this way,

00:56:59

that's ultimately the end.

00:57:00

And here's what he says instead,

00:57:03

I come back to these words all the time. He says:

00:57:06

In returning and rest you shall be saved;

00:57:11

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

00:57:16

The one thing our operating system never tells us to do

00:57:19

is stand still, trust God.

00:57:25

And I'm a worker, so I'm game, like God knows

00:57:28

I'm not -- I'm not a hard get.

00:57:29

You tell me to go, I'm going to go. You know?

00:57:31

So this is not -- this is not about no action.

00:57:34

This is about a posture of receiving the steps,

00:57:38

of receiving the action, of receiving

00:57:41

the provision for that from God.

00:57:43

He's asking for trust in him.

00:57:45

And Israel was struggling with the exact same thing

00:57:47

you and I struggle with: God, can I trust you

00:57:50

when I can't control you?

00:57:52

Because the one thing you can't do is control him.

00:57:56

You can give it a shot with lots of other things,

00:57:59

lots of other people, lots of other situations.

00:58:02

And we do all the time.

00:58:03

But the one thing we instinctively know

00:58:05

is we cannot control God.

00:58:09

And so we struggle with that because

00:58:12

our system tells us you've got to be able to know

00:58:15

or it's not right. You got to be able to.

00:58:17

Trust is entirely based on

00:58:18

whether you can see the end here,

00:58:19

and God doesn't tend to reveal that.

00:58:23

He tends to ask you to do what Jesus is offering:

00:58:27

Come to me, walk with me, learn from me.

00:58:31

Trust rests in the fact that somebody else is driving.

00:58:34

I had this crazy situation.

00:58:37

I've never had this happen before this or after it.

00:58:40

And this was probably 4 or 5 years ago.

00:58:42

We were driving up to Michigan

00:58:45

and we go way up north, so it takes a while.

00:58:47

My husband was driving.

00:58:48

I was in the passenger seat, um, next to him.

00:58:51

And my rule, by the way, side note,

00:58:54

if I pay for the car, I get to sit in the front seat.

00:58:58

So I have four kids and they're always like,

00:59:00

"Can I sit in the front?"

00:59:01

"Nope. Did you pay for the car?

00:59:02

Okay, then get in the back."

00:59:06

So that's just a little little tip for you.

00:59:08

Once you start that, it's over for you.

00:59:10

You're going to be in the back seat.

00:59:11

I'm just telling you, stand firm.

00:59:15

Okay, so I'm in the front seat, as I should be,

00:59:18

and my husband was driving the car

00:59:21

and I got a little sleepy.

00:59:23

And every time I would close my eyes,

00:59:25

I would panic and I would open them again.

00:59:29

And every time I would nod off, then I was like, [gasps].

00:59:33

It was this shot of anxiety

00:59:35

that as soon as I closed my eyes,

00:59:36

something bad was going to happen.

00:59:38

Has that ever happened to anyone before?

00:59:40

Okay, so this is a normal thing.

00:59:42

I've never had that happen before or since,

00:59:44

but I remember that drive like it was yesterday

00:59:47

because every time I tried to rest,

00:59:50

even though we're barreling in upstate Michigan

00:59:52

where the speed limit is 75 up there. Just saying.

00:59:55

Right? 82 miles an hour, and I'm not driving.

00:59:59

And yet I could not allow myself to rest.

01:00:02

It was almost as though every time I tried to rest,

01:00:05

I would jolt back open like I could do something

01:00:07

if he decided to drive off the road,

01:00:10

or if somebody hit their brakes in front of us.

01:00:11

I wasn't in control.

01:00:13

I just couldn't rest because I guess I didn't trust.

01:00:18

I tried to explain this to my husband

01:00:20

and he was like, "I'm mildly offended.

01:00:24

Like, what the heck?"

01:00:26

Like, "I know, I know you were driving.

01:00:27

You're a good driver."

01:00:29

I feel like that's what God is saying.

01:00:30

Like, "I got this.

01:00:33

You don't have to keep jerking your eyes back open.

01:00:36

It's okay."

01:00:39

You know, in this memory came back to me

01:00:41

because how silly is it that the car is moving

01:00:45

that fast with another driver behind the wheel

01:00:48

and I somehow think that if I just open my eyes

01:00:50

and watch and I just hold the anxiety

01:00:53

of where we're going in my in my hands,

01:00:55

that it'll change something.

01:00:56

No, no it won't. It actually won't.

01:01:01

But you couldn't -- you couldn't have convinced me

01:01:03

to rest on that car ride because everything in me

01:01:06

was saying, open your eyes.

01:01:08

Be responsible for this.

01:01:09

Something bad could happen if you're not.

01:01:12

And I know how crazy that sounds.

01:01:14

I have no idea why that happens.

01:01:15

Sometimes I feel like God plants those things

01:01:18

just so I'll remember them 7 or 8 years later

01:01:20

and talk about it. Who knows?

01:01:22

But we're invited to a different life.

01:01:23

Here's the words again, Matthew 11:28-30.

01:01:27

You're invited to let him drive.

01:01:28

Jesus says: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,

01:01:32

and I will give.

01:01:33

I will give you rest.

01:01:36

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,

01:01:38


01:01:40


01:01:42

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

01:01:45

He is saying, not just you can set down the bags.

01:01:49

He's saying, I want to change the inside

01:01:52

where it all came from, where that instinct

01:01:54

to pick them up to begin with comes from.

01:01:58

You can you can make an exchange

01:01:59

and you can actually do that today.

01:02:01

I don't know if you have ever actually said to Jesus,

01:02:06

"I want that from you.

01:02:07

I want that kind of life of trust with you."

01:02:10

The Bible says it comes from our center.

01:02:12

We've been talking about operating systems.

01:02:14

Well, the Bible calls our operating system our heart.

01:02:17

We tend to think of it as our emotional center,

01:02:20

but the Bible calls the heart something

01:02:22

way closer to an operating system,

01:02:25

where everything comes together to drive forward

01:02:29

into our decisions and our life and our thoughts

01:02:31

and our processes, the heart.

01:02:33

And guess who made a promise that one day

01:02:35

a new heart would be possible?

01:02:38

God spoke that generations before Jesus came

01:02:41

through the prophet Ezekiel, who said

01:02:43

there would be a day where God says,

01:02:45

I will give you a new heart,

01:02:47

and I will put a new spirit in you.

01:02:49

And Jesus is saying right now here today,

01:02:51

there's a new heart available, a new center,

01:02:54

a new operating system, a new way of life.

01:02:57

And if you've never received that,

01:02:58

you can actually do that right now.

01:03:02

You can leave behind this default thing

01:03:05

that comes hardwired in us,

01:03:06

and you can reinstall the original.

01:03:09

If you have never done that,

01:03:10

I'm just going to say a prayer with you and over you.

01:03:13

And I would encourage you to just say these words right now.

01:03:16

Lord, Jesus, I'm coming to you for a new heart.

01:03:23

I want to leave my old ways behind me

01:03:27

and operate in a connected relationship of trust with you.

01:03:32

Walk with me, Jesus, from this point forward. Amen.

01:03:38

And sometimes, even when we have that heart,

01:03:40

we need a reboot.

01:03:42

You know, something's making it run slow

01:03:43

or we've picked up a few bags that aren't ours to carry.

01:03:46

So I just want to give you a minute here

01:03:48

to end thinking about what is it?

01:03:53

What have you been dragging along with you?

01:03:59

The person who just

01:04:00

will not make the decisions that you want.

01:04:04

The situation you've spent a decade trying to impact,

01:04:08

the outcome that you're holding, that you think,

01:04:12

I don't think this is going to work

01:04:13

quite the way I want it to,

01:04:16

could be something that goes down tomorrow,

01:04:18

it could be a lifetime thing.

01:04:20

But all I know is you're not designed to carry that.

01:04:25

So I just invite you for a moment to sit with Jesus

01:04:29

and set it down and tell him, "No,

01:04:33

I want to operate In trust for you instead."

01:06:08

- That song says that we put our hope in Jesus.

01:06:11

This isn't like a surrender into the universe

01:06:15

where we're no longer going to do the things we've done.

01:06:18

This is, no, I'm going to hand this over

01:06:20

to a person I can trust,

01:06:22

a person who's sovereign and holds it all,

01:06:25

a person named Jesus who promises that when I follow him,

01:06:29

he works out all things for my good.

01:06:31

And I also know this: Whatever you just handed him,

01:06:35

this is the week that something's coming at you

01:06:38

and you're going to be like, "No, no, no, I need to do that.

01:06:41

I'm going to need to take that back."

01:06:42

I can almost guarantee it.

01:06:44

If you genuinely allowed yourself to hand him something,

01:06:49

then something's coming at you this week.

01:06:51

And so I want to offer you a prayer.

01:06:53

We're going to say this together.

01:06:54

We're going to go old school.

01:06:55

We're going to stand

01:06:57

and we're going to say a prayer together, word by word,

01:06:59

because I think you're going to need it this week.

01:07:01

I know I'm going to need it this week.

01:07:03

And I think you're going to recognize

01:07:04

the first few lines of it.

01:07:06

So will you stand with me right now?

01:07:08

And let's pray the Serenity Prayer together.

01:07:13

God, grant me the serenity

01:07:16

to accept the things I cannot change,

01:07:19

the courage to change the things I can,

01:07:22

and the wisdom to know the difference.

01:07:25

Living one day at a time,

01:07:27

enjoying one moment at a time.

01:07:31

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peac.

01:07:35

Taking, as he did, the sinful world as it is,

01:07:41

not as I would have it.

01:07:44

Trusting that he will make all things right

01:07:47

as I surrender to his will. Amen.

01:07:53

Amen? Amen. Okay.

01:07:56

When it comes at you, we're not taking it back.

01:07:59

I'll see you next week.

01:08:02

- Hey, thanks so much for joining us this week.

01:08:04

I hope that you understand more that

01:08:06

God wants to free you from having to control everything.

01:08:08

That's not all on our shoulders,

01:08:10

that it's not all on your shoulders.

01:08:12

One of the lines that jumped out the most

01:08:14

that will be ringing around in my head for weeks

01:08:17

is the question that Alli asked, like, man,

01:08:19

do we still want God when we can't control him?

01:08:23

When we don't get get to control the outcomes,

01:08:26

but we have to learn to trust?

01:08:27

I hope that over this week of the good things that happen,

01:08:30

of the challenges that come your way,

01:08:32

you experience more of that opportunity

01:08:34

to trust God and experience freedom in the midst of it.

01:08:36

And for whatever comes up, we'd love to pray for you.

01:08:39

If there's something you want to experience

01:08:40

more freedom around

01:08:42

or a decrease in control in your life,

01:08:43

we'd love to pray for you.

01:08:45

- Yeah. And we want to make that easy for you.

01:08:47

You can actually text the word "more" to 301301,

01:08:49

and you will get a link for an easy way to click on

01:08:53

and text someone for some prayer.

01:08:54

And a live person will text you back.

01:08:56

So do that and get in a group.

01:08:58

We talked about groups earlier, the same thing,

01:09:00

text "more" to 301301, you'll get a two links.

01:09:03

One is for groups and one is for prayer.

01:09:05

So it's just an easy way to get you connected.

01:09:07

But next weekend Andy and I both will be in Sandusky, Ohio.

01:09:10

We have our Anywhere Weekend.

01:09:12

We're super excited to see a lot of our friends

01:09:14

up north of us, and we'll miss you guys,

01:09:18

but we'll hopefully see you next week.

01:09:20

- Thanks so much for joining.

01:09:21

See you next week on Crossroads.

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