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Central California Conference

Teen Girls’ Retreat

Nicole Parker

The Upward Look

The Inward Look

The Outward Look

For those who haven't met me earlier, my name is Nicole Parker, and I am so grateful that God has given me the privilege of being here to be with all of you.

I am sharing, this is the third part, for those who don't know, of a series that we've done today.

And the first part was called the upward look, where we realized we must focus on God.

Everything else in life becomes good when he is the primary focus in our lives.

Then the second part that we did was the inward look, how God wants to work in our hearts, make it safe for us to be able to explore what we feel.

And while we can't let our hearts lead us, we do need to listen to our hearts.

Don't follow your heart, but Yes, because your heart will tell you lies about the world.

But your heart will tell you the truth about what you believe and what you worship.

And so now we're talking about the third part of that, the outward look.

When I have spent my life focusing on God and I'm seeking him with my whole heart and I'm not afraid to let him work and do the deep things inside of me Then I'm ready for the outward look now, of course, there are lots of ways that that could go but what I'm focusing on today is the outward look of relationships When my my relationship my vertical relationship with God is solid and healthy, that is what prepares me for horizontal relationships, for building connections with other people.

So, you can see here, the upward look leads to a healthy inward look.

I am always going to see myself badly if I'm not focusing on God, but when I have a healthy upward look, it will change my inward look, and then it will change my outward look.

A lot of us live in a world where likes are everything.

And our upward look often doesn't sufficiently impact on our outward look.

Because we spend so much time on the horizontal, what do these people think of me?

Am I measuring up to what everybody else thinks I should be?

God says you are priceless, you are loved.

Anybody remember what 2 things that we crave?

Every human being longs to be loved and to be valued, and the only truly safe places to find those are in creation and redemption.

How much we are loved is measured by the love in the heart of God.

How much we are worth is measured by a God who said, I will die for you.

So that is supposed to be the lens through which we see everything else in the world the lens through which we see every relationship Look relationships can be really rough, right?

Anybody here ever been through a rocky relationship?

Boy it really messes with you But when we can see life through the lens of, I am loved with an everlasting love, then I don't have to please other people.

And then I can come to my relationships, instead of from a place of emptiness, looking for somebody to satisfy me, I can come from a place of fullness, looking for ways to bless others.

The book Instruments in the Redeemer's Hand says, whatever rules the heart will exercise inescapable influence over the person's life and behavior.

Whatever rules your heart will change the way you think and believe.

So belief will change according to where we find our sense of identity.

We talked this morning about how identity is where we get our sense of love and worth.

Whatever I believe makes me loved and valuable will be my identity.

If that is in Jesus, then my identity will be safe because I'll trust him to love me.

But if I don't, then my behaviors will reflect where I'm getting my sense of identity.

Now, is it a sin to have a favorite sports team?

No, no, these are the fun things that a lot of people do in life.

That's great because every 1 of us is part of multiple groups, right?

The problem is when I think my group must be exalted above other people.

When I'm not getting my sense of identity from Christ, then I start looking down on people who are not part of my party, my group, my club, And whatever that is, that will lead me to exalt myself and crush others down.

How I choose to spend my time is how I choose to spend my life.

We only get so many hours in the day, but the way that we spend those tells what we really believe about what satisfies us.

Behaviors are in the end the result of our outlook, our up look, our inward look, and then what we see around us.

You see, the Israelites said that they followed God, but who did they actually seek?

They could not pry themselves away because no matter how much they talked about God, their behaviors showed the truth.

And we may say we talk about God, but the way that we think about other people will tell the truth about whether we worship God or whether we worship what someone else thinks of us.

So the real question is who has your heart?

If you get it from God then you'll be safe going into relationships with other people.

You know, I remember when I was rock climbing.

When I first started rock climbing, I was about 8 years old.

And I remember I started scrambling up that cliff and I was like wow I Was born to do this.

They said I was like a little monkey I just could not get enough of climbing When you go rock climbing for those of you who don't know, you have this rope and it's anchored to something at the top and then you've got somebody at the bottom, ideally belaying you, and they can stop you from falling all the way down.

When you're climbing though, if you're climbing, you're halfway up the cliff and you lose your grip, you don't fall all the way down.

Your rope's supposed to catch you, right?

Those of you who've been through that, it's pretty scary, right?

The rope stretches and you may get scraped up a little bit.

But you know, your rope's gonna hold you, you're gonna be fine.

This is the way it is when we trust God with our whole hearts.

When people let us down, we may get scraped up a little bit.

We are sinners in the midst of sinners, but we won't be destroyed by other people betraying us.

Jesus modeled to us how to handle betrayal, didn't he?

We don't know the hearts of those around us, And honestly, relationships are a risk, especially marriage.

You know, you're a sinner, they're sinners.

There's no guarantee anywhere that the person that you marry will always be there for you because they make choices day after day.

And no matter how much God may seem to have led you into this relationship, it may fall apart.

And marriage changes every hour of every day of all the rest of your life.

And yet, I married my husband almost 23 years ago.

I have never regretted that decision, not for a single day.

And yet, I'm also really glad that I didn't marry him any sooner.

Series

Teen Girls’ Retreat

The Outward Look

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Gerard Damsteegt: Spring 2013 Week of Prayer

Revival as It Is in Jesus

48m

Plenary

Pentecost Repeated

55m

Back to the Mission

The Battle Cry of the Remnant

1h 1m

The Blame Game

42m

David, Bathsheba, and Saturday Night

53m

The Ripple Effect

1h 19m

Plenary

In Love, and Lost

50m

Christian Martin Weekend

How To Avoid Being a Good for Nothing Christian

50m

Plenary

Samson, Sex and Salvation

1h 13m

WYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

Obedient Unto Death

59m

Plenary

The One Thing Jesus Can’t Give You

55m

The Book of the Law

45m

Sound Doctrine