In “Don’t Judge Your Situation Yet,” we’re reminded that our individual problems don’t cancel out God’s plan — He’s using it all for our good.
Because see, we don’t taste life as a meal.
We experience the ingredients in isolation.
In God’s mind, your life is a meal. In
God’s mind, your life is Thanksgiving Day.
What do you all eat on Thanksgiving?
I might come over. Put it in the chat.
What do you all have at Thanksgiving? What
do you like at Thanksgiving? What do you have
at Thanksgiving? Mac and cheese? I might
come. Can somebody do better than that?
Mac and cheese and sweet potatoes. Like,
sweet potatoes or a sweet potato thing with
marshmallows in it? The sweet potatoes
are the middleman for me. I just want
the marshmallows on top of the sweet potatoes,
honestly. So, yeah, that’s good. I might come.
What else? What do y’all have at Thanksgiving?
I don’t know. I’m making everybody hungry. I’m
losing my audience. This is really bad public
speaking. What am I doing? You have to understand
that the moment Naomi is in her life right now
is a blessing, but it’s a mixed blessing. I
noticed the room got happy when I said, “You’re
stepping into a blessing.” It’s like, “Yes!”
I forgot to tell you it’s a mixed blessing.
That means you need to prepare for the blessing
as it is actually going to be or you might
miss the blessing because it’s going to be
mixed when you get it. In fact, Naomi was in
so much pain there in Moab where she went to
escape from Bethlehem where there was a
famine… It seems like she did all right
when she lost her husband, but when she lost her
sons too, she said, “Don’t call me Naomi anymore.
Call me Mara.” Naomi has the connotation
of pleasant. Mara means bitter.
After what she has been
through, can you blame her?
When somebody has been through something like
this, you don’t tell them, “It’ll come together.”
“What will come together? How can you replace
those boys? Even if God gave me 20 more,
it wouldn’t replace them.” That’s how it is
sometimes in your life. Don’t try to tell me,
“It’s going to get better. Call me Bitter.”
When that kind of bitterness hits your
heart, you don’t even want to hear about
better from anybody…not from preachers,
not from teachers, not from Pinterest.
“Don’t tell me all things work together
for the good of those that love God.”
When you taste the ingredient in isolation,
it would be lying to say, “That’s delicious.”
It would be lying.
I was talking to a guy… I think he was in London.
He said he had to lay off 40 of his 200 employees.
He said, “But you know what?
It’s a good thing.” I said,
“I understand what you’re saying, but for them…
I hope you didn’t tell them that.” He said,
“No, I’m not telling them that.
I’m just telling you that.”
I said, “Well, make sure you
don’t tell them you feel that way,
because they probably don’t see it like
that right now from your perspective.”
He said, “You’ve got a good point.” It is a good
point. Have you ever walked in the kitchen…?
I’ll just use an example. I’m not a cook. Take
a scoop of baking powder, and just down it.
Did you ever do it? So, baking powder is bad.
Anybody want a big heaping pile of baking
powder for lunch today? Raise your hand.
This is the message. Do you want the whole message
in a moment? This is the whole message. This is
why you came from Michigan. This is why you tuned
in online. Just because it tastes bad in isolation
doesn’t mean it won’t serve a purpose
in the finished product. I’m not saying that.
The Bible said that after Naomi had gone so low
she said, “This doesn’t taste good…” Honestly,
I figured out why people in church often look
so sour when they’re in church: because what
you went through this week didn’t taste good.
You are trying to praise God with a taste
in your mouth of disappointment and fear.
I mean, it’s hard to say, “Hallelujah”
when your mouth tastes like hurt.
“Call me Bitter. You might as well.” It doesn’t
taste good, yet what a strange blessing they gave.
Let me give you a little bit more background so
I can make sure I’m not confusing. Graham is
my guy. He told me the other day… He was like,
“Dad, sometimes you have to slow down with
these Scriptures. You’ve been looking at
them all week, and we’re just waking up.
You have to slow down, break it down.”
Even though I can’t do it justice, the book
of Ruth is beautiful. You could read it in the
time that you could watch half an episode
of Ozark. When we move through it, we see
Naomi, Elimelek, Kilion, and Mahlon. Mahlon is
Ruth’s husband. Orpah is married to Kilion. (Both
of those baby names are available, by the way, if
you want to have an original name for your kid.)
When they went to Moab, they went to a
place that they didn’t (this is important)
plan to go. This message is for somebody
who is in a place you didn’t plan to go.
I’m going to take it further. Sometimes
it’s a place you hate being there,
because they’re from
Bethlehem, and they’re in Moab.
Kind of like when the Israelites went to
Egypt. I mentioned it earlier. They didn’t
go to Egypt because it was their dream to
go to Egypt. It wasn’t on their bucket list
to go to Egypt. They went to Egypt to
survive. We’ve talked about that a lot.
I think a lot of the sin cycles we get sucked into
in our lives are out of survival mechanisms. If we
don’t deal with it that way, we just put so much
shame on it, we can’t help anybody get healed.
People won’t come to Jesus, because you
don’t understand the power of his covenant
with you. You think Jesus is like other people
and that there will come a point where he’ll be
ashamed of you and go, “Oh, that’s too far there.
I was going to use you, but really? You did that?”
You don’t understand the power of a covenant,
but Ruth did, because when Naomi said,
“Leave me. I’ve lost my husbands. I’ve
lost my boys. I’ve heard there’s bread
in Bethlehem. We’ve been here 10 years…”
Ruth said, “I’m not leaving. I’ll make
a covenant with you. Whither thou goest,
I go. Your God becomes my God.” Your god will
often become the same god as your friends.
If you are around people who worship
status and stuff, it won’t be long until
you’re shackled to the same things they
are. Touch somebody next to you and say,
“You ought to hang out with me a little while.
If you hang out with me, you’re going to have
strong faith. If you hang out with me…” Come
on, Def Leppard. “If you hang out with me…”
So, they go back together, and Naomi, in
this honest moment, says, “Call me Bitter.
I still have the taste in my mouth. I’m going
back to Bethlehem,” which means house of bread,
which makes it that much more depressing
when there’s a famine in Bethlehem,
when there’s a famine in the
place that is named after bread.
When the joy of the Lord is supposed to
be your strength, and you are a Christian,
and you’re depressed. You are a Christian
and you can’t sleep. You are a Christian
and you have addictions. You are a Christian…
“I am a C, I am a C-H, I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N,
but I have ADD, ADHD, A-D-D-I-C-T-I-O-N.
I’m in the house of bread, but I’m hungry.”
“Call me Mara,” she said. Ruth said,
“I was with you when I wanted your son.
Now you don’t have a son to give
me, but I’m still with you.”
I wonder who the Lord is saying
that to. “I’m still with you.”
“I don’t sell low and buy high.” God is not Warren
Buffett. God doesn’t trade like that. God said,
“I’m still with you, because I made a covenant
with you. It’s not the kind of covenant I made
with Noah. That was limited. It’s not the kind of
covenant I made with Abraham. That was limited.
It’s not the covenant I made with Moses. That was
limited. It’s not the covenant I made with David.
That was limited. This is the covenant of my blood
made with the life of my Son, and I am with you.”
In your bitterness, in your brokenness,
God said, “I’m with you.” “But
I’m bitter.” “But I’m with you.”
I love the Lord, because he wrote the Bible.
He knew the woman who said, “I’m bitter,
and it’s over” in chapter 1 would
be holding a baby in chapter 4.
So he gave her someone named Ruth, the Moabite.
He gave her a Moabite. Not somebody from
Bethlehem…somebody from a place that she never
wanted to be. Remember, it’s God’s kitchen.
If you walk around God’s kitchen tasting
stuff… “I don’t like that. I don’t like that.”
You know how you are. Some
of y’all are faith foodies.
You walk around. “Hmm. No, I
don’t like that.” Now listen.
You get to tell God certain things you want him
to do. “God, I want you to grow me, mature me,
bless me.” You can say all that to God. It’s
good. You don’t get to tell him how to do it.
I’ll go a step further. You get
to tell God what you want. Do
you know that’s the first thing
Jesus asked in the New Testament?
He turned around to people following
him and said, “What do you want?
Let’s just get right to it. Cut to the chase.
Cut through all the niceties. I don’t need a
soliloquy. What do you want?” They said,
“We want to see where you’re staying.”
You have to follow me to know me. That means
that if you judge stuff while it’s happening,
you’ll call yourself by what you’ve been through.
I was in the kitchen the other day, and Holly
was making breakfast. I was trying to be helpful,
but I can’t cook. But I wanted to help out.
She had just finished the sausage, so I was taking
the pan to pour out the grease from the sausage.
I can tell who cooks in the room by your reaction.
She said two things to me that
I’m going to preach to you.
She said, “Leave the grease. I’m about to use it.”
That’s the first thing she said. I’m out
of the book of Ruth. I’m in “Second Holly.”
She said, “Leave the grease,
because I’m about to make your eggs.
When I make your eggs, I’m going to
take these eggs, and I’m going to…”
All things work together.
The grease on its own is not something you want to
eat, but if you’ll let me leave the right amount
of grease for this recipe that I know… See,
because if I make your eggs without grease…
She looked at me and said the second thing.
She said, “You need to get out of my kitchen.”
I hear God saying to somebody who has been telling
him what he can’t do, what he shouldn’t do…
I heard the voice of the Lord. I was praying
about it, and God said… Hit your neighbor and say,
“Get out of God’s kitchen.”
Stop asking God to bring people back who
were supposed to go. Get out of the kitchen!
Stop asking God to take thorns away that he left
so you could know him. Get out of the kitchen!
“Get out of my kitchen! Let me mix
this, because when I get done mixing
these eggs with this grease, when I get
finished mixing your pain with my joy,
when I get finished mixing your gift with
your opportunity… Get out of my kitchen!”
In my weakness he is strong. That’s
grease. That weakness is grease. Stop
trying to get rid of it, and let God mix it.