What Are You Living For

Josh Stephens: And now we get to do chapel, and I'm really excited because we're going straight into chapel.
You guys have heard about our speaker today. He's one of you. He's a student. You've heard
other people talk about him, and I'm really excited that today you get to hear from him.
And as you know, anytime you talk in front of your peers, it can be a little bit nerve-wracking.
So man, let's give it up. Let's give him a round of applause, show a lot of love
for Mr. Chandler Dutton.
Speaker 2: Well, good morning, everyone.
It's a blessing to be here this morning.
If you don't know me, this is my second semester here at LCU,
and I love to meet everyone's face in the room
because as my good friend Matthew has said before,
we really don't want anyone falling through the cracks.
Me, myself, Jesus has taught me how to truly love people
and stop caring so much about myself,
so I really do want to meet each and every one of you,
whether you're of the kingdom of God or not.
I just want to remind everyone that you are here this morning
at this specific time in history, at this specific place of LCU,
at this time in chapel this morning for a reason and for a plan and for a purpose
that you can't even comprehend whether you believe in God or not.
And so I say this because the spirit of the living God,
when I was at my lowest moment, brought me from death to life in a split second.
And so I know and I pray that that can happen for each and every one of you in this room.
But for that to happen, I'm asking you, I'm requesting you for 15, 20 minutes that we have to just sit in stillness.
Sit in the presence.
It's nothing good that I do, but just let the Lord speak to you.
Because I know he can heal you as he healed me.
And so if you don't mind, if I can pray real quick over all of us.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I just thank you for each and every one of us in this room.
I just pray that it be your words and not mine.
I pray that you humble me, and I pray that you touch the people in here that don't know you.
I pray that you touch on those that do know you, that they want to know you more.
And we love you so much.
We thank you for who you are.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
So I was going home for break, Christmas break, this most recent one, and I had one simple goal in mind.
And that was simply just to fall more in love with Jesus every day.
And that is something I've been doing over the past three years when I became a true follower.
But seeing people like on the front row, like Brandon Rick, seeing how they bear fruit each and every day and they fall more in love and they have impact on people.
I wanted that more.
So I went home and that's exactly what happened.
The first few weeks I was on fire, I was falling more in love.
But then as Christmas approached, I started doubting in my head.
The enemy started saying, look, you don't really love him.
You're just faking it again.
Like you're just going through the motions.
And so I asked the Lord, I said, show me where my heart's at.
And sure enough, he slaps me in the face at Christmas dinner.
I'm going to pray. My mom asked me to pray, and I just, I start praying, and what I thought was a
normal prayer, I just ended up falling into tears, and all I could say, I fell on the ground. I was
like, Lord, like, can we all, like my family, like everyone I know, everyone in this world, can we
just return to your feet of Jesus? Can we sit in stillness for just five seconds and worship you
and sit at your feet as I have experienced you? I want everyone to experience what I have experienced
with you. And as I was preparing for this message, I thought back to this moment, and I realized why
this kind of happened. I realized that my whole life was changed because I learned how to sit at
the feet of Jesus and truly worship him. Not just a song, not just putting a hand in the air, but
worship from here. Worship from sitting at his presence when no one's looking, and waiting in
hours, and knocking and knocking. That's where I truly found a relationship with him. And we see
this in John 4. I'm going to skim through this because I know y'all get scripture thrown at y'all
all the time. But we're going to go to John 4, and this is about the Samaritan woman and Jesus. And
so to give some context, Jesus is sitting at this well planning. He knew the Samaritan woman would
be there. Just like, I want to point this out real quick, he comes to meet us. He's always there
waiting with open arms. We just don't reach back sometimes. He came to meet me at my lowest, so he's
here to meet this woman. He planned it. He knew she would be here, and this woman comes, and she's
thinking she's too far gone. And he talks about how he would give her eternal life and all this
stuff and that she's not too far gone. But I kind of want to just skim through that because I really
want to focus on what he says about worship. And so the Samaritan woman asks, hey, where do we
worship? Like some of y'all say, well, I got to worship in a temple or here or here. And Jesus
is like, no, no, no, it doesn't matter where you're at. It all starts here. And in verse 23,
it says, yet a time is coming. It has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father
in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and
his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth. What does that mean? He's saying, look, it doesn't
matter where you are, but it's inward. It doesn't matter if you're in a church of Christ or a
non-denominational or in a Baptist church. If you're worshiping him from here, that's all that
matters. But now the spirit part is the heart that's real, that's authentic, that's you taking
a step with the Holy Spirit and meeting him and worshiping him from deep down when it doesn't
even make sense, but you just feel a tap there. That's what it is. And then the truth is who God
is, what the Bible says of him, the one and true God, only Jesus, not anyone else. So those two
combined, that's where we find true worship. And you see over the course of my life, this is where
I had to meet him. I grew up in a Christian home. I don't remember a time not believing in God,
not believing in Christ, but yet I grew up with this perfectionist mindset. And I think we've all
kind of been through that, especially with sports and go, go, go personalities. I fell in love with
the next best version of myself and trying to be perfect. But the issue with that is that's not
what the gospel is. And we know that because we can't be perfect. And I just couldn't realize
that. And so my eighth grade year, me and my dad got a gym and I worked out for hours and hours
and hours every day to prepare for football. That was the only thing on my mind. I said God first,
but yet all my behavior, my identity was put in a temporary sport. And so as I come to my freshman
year I come in I gain about 35 pounds of muscle grow a couple inches I'm at 14 bench in 300 and
I'm thinking okay I'm stronger than kids ahead of me if not football I'll go d1 for powerlifting
like this is it this is my purpose this is who I am but then sure enough when that was taken away
when I had multiple strains through my freshman season and couldn't play and then I got back and
then I had two tears in my shoulder and hip in the same month I just crashed and it may seem weird
that one thing was taken away and that's what crashed my life. But when you put your heart
and it's anything other than Jesus, you will crash when that's taken away, when something
temporary of this world is taken away. And so when it was taken away, I had a deep depression,
anxiety. For several months, I just couldn't eat. I lost about 30 pounds. All I wanted to do was
sleep. And it got to a darkest moment. I just didn't want to be here anymore, to be quite honest.
But then in my lowest moments, the spirit of living God, what I was touching on earlier,
gave me peace and joy deep down, and I can't even explain it. I can't. I can't give you facts,
but it was there, and ever since that point, I've never been at that low, and I felt his presence,
and so you would think after that I would 180 and my life would change, but that's not what
happened. I stayed stagnant in my faith till about my senior year. I came off a church camp,
was on a spiritual high, and I felt anxiety and depression coming back, but I just, I didn't feel
right about it this time. I said, I looked back, I was like, Jesus, you healed me once. Why is this
coming back? And then I thought, well, I never kept you in my heart when you actually fulfilled
that hole. I never kept going after you. So I was like, I want to feel what this relationship
feels like that people talk about and how it's different from every other religion.
And so I just, I did just that. And I made the greatest decision I've ever made in my life. And
sat and I sat and I sat and it took time, but I would go to the park and I would at least just
get there. I would pray. I started opening that for the first time ever. It didn't make sense,
but I just did it and I just got there. And with my whole heart, my whole soul, my whole being,
I was like, Lord, I want you. I want you to show me who you are. I want to feel your presence again.
I want to know what this relationship actually looks like. And so I did that over and over again,
listening to worship, prayer, fasting. I went my first two day, no food fast, and that changed my
life because I said no to all the distractions. I killed my flesh and I decided to be still and
just sit in his presence, sit in nature. You see, the devil's got everyone in a game. He's got all
these phones, all this technology, everything to distract you because he knows if you be still,
you will find Jesus. I know that. There's some unbelievers in this room, but you can find him
if you knock and you ask and you keep going after him. And so I found him here sitting in his
presence. I found Jesus. I found a relationship with him, and he gave me joy and peace, and he
flipped my whole personality. Some of you don't know, I had so much social anxiety, I couldn't
talk to people, and now people call me a light, and it's not about me. I'm not bringing that up
for about me, but that's all because of what he did in that park over time. It was a process,
but I had to go and be there, and I had to sit with him. I wrote this quick definition of worship
to kind of break this down.
It's a continuous living of humility.
It's not once.
It's continuous.
It's nonstop.
It's focusing your mind, heart, posture, and soul,
every part of your being on Jesus,
trying to, like throwing everything of yourself at him.
It's an intimacy with the Lord that prioritizes him.
And where you cling to the spirit and you reject yourself,
you say, no, it's not about me.
It's not about my weaknesses.
It's not about my sin.
It's about you.
You see, a lot of us know that
when we go from a non-believer to a believer,
it takes one small moment of accepting Jesus in your heart,
a surrender, a worship to get him there.
But to go to a believer, to a disciple,
that surrender is every single day.
That surrender is at 3 a.m. if he wakes you up.
That surrender is all the time.
And you're always thinking about him,
talking about him, walking with him.
And so my first point is worship
is a continuous inward surrender of yourself to Jesus.
Not just music.
This is prayer, fasting, reading the word.
This is on your knees in your prayer closet
at the park, just crying.
Nobody knows.
Nobody sees you're pouring out your heart.
Lord, I want to be different.
Burn out the sin for me.
Change me.
Make me a better man.
I want to find you.
If that's you, you don't even know him.
We'll go after him.
Some of you won't even give him 15 minutes of your time.
And he's the best thing that could ever happen to you.
Sorry.
Just pour out your heart.
Pour out your tears.
Proverbs 12.1, like I was in the park,
whoever loves discipline loves knowledge.
You want to know God more?
Well, then go to him more.
Go to his word.
keep going to him wrestle with god keep knocking keep seeking keep waiting on him at the end of
luke 4 the lord says the spirit of living god is an access to everyone for people who actually
reach back to him the issue is is not him he's been reaching this whole time for us but you just
won't reach back and so he's waiting on you go to him and my second point is worship is putting
Jesus first over all things. Jesus talks about in Luke 14 26 that love me so much that you hate
everything else. And you may think that sounds rough, but he's not saying no, actually hate
everything else. He's saying love me so much that you're loved everything else in this world, even
your family can't even compare. And again, that sounds weird, but when you actually learn who God
is, God is love. And the more you spend time with him and experience true love, you learn how to
love yourself more. You learn how to love your family more, and it grows with each other. So you
have to put them as your priority. You have to kill your idols. You have to say no to everything else.
The king of kings should be the king of your heart, because if anything else is the king of your heart,
you will crash. That sport will end at one point. That relationship will end at one point.
You as a father or a mother, you're not going to feel at peace when you're at that point if you
don't have Jesus, I promise you, you have to keep going to him. My last point, worship leads to
intimacy with Jesus by decreasing yourself and increasing him. It's the point where you say,
look, I'm done with myself. I'm done with who I think I am, and I'm just going to put you first.
I'm going to learn how to put you first. I'm going to learn how to increase who you are in my life
by prayer, by fasting, by weeping, by mourning. I'm going to go to you and I'm going to put you
first and decrease myself because I know I was not made to live for myself.
My late friend Downey passed away my freshman year of college last year.
And he had cancer for the last two years of his life. And you would think when somebody gets
something like that, that they would flip. But he actually grew closer to God. He actually became
most joyful people and at peace people I ever saw. And at his funeral, his brother is speaking,
and he's saying a few days before he died, he walks in and he sees Downey in a chair. He's not
crying. He's not sad. He's not mad. But he's sitting there with his hands up, and he's screaming in joy,
worshiping the Lord. So you tell me how that makes sense. You tell me how a kid who's about to pass
away is in joy because he knows where he's going. He didn't put his faith in this world. He's even
in his darkest moments, he knew it was all about Jesus. You see, there's a God-sized hole in
everyone's heart, and if you don't put Jesus there, you will crash, and if you don't continue to put
him there, you will crash. I think back to him, and it's what led me to who I am today, because
he understood it. He understood at the deepest, worst points, you need Jesus, and not only at
those points, but the points after. We suffer from anxiety, but as one good man said before up here,
John Deloney, maybe our anxiety is telling us something that's wrong. It's telling us that we
actually need to be with him. We need to go with him. We need to slow down. You need to wake up
and give you 15 minutes of just sitting on your knees praying and giving him your time, and I
promise you, you will find him. You see, Jesus filling that void for me in my heart. It led to
my joy. It led to my identity. It led to my peace. It led to my purpose, my true purpose, and it led
me to real love, not just a feeling. I look to the cross and that's how I know what love is.
And so that's where you find yourself. Now, if you don't fill Jesus in that void in your heart,
you will never have peace. You will never have joy. You will never have identity. Your identity
will be put in everything of this earth and it will fade away and you will never have purpose
and you will never experience real love. Only those that know God know real love.
And so you have to worship him. You have to go to him and find your purpose in him. He's the
one who can fulfill your heart. And if you have questions, please come talk to me. There's been
people in this room I've had convictions to talk to if I'm being honest. I've done all right this
semester, but there's been more people to talk to you. And I said, oh, I was too tired. Oh, I was
whatever. I don't care who you are. I don't care where you came from. I will love you because Jesus
told me I love. So please come talk to me, please. I don't, if it's any of the faculty, come talk to
me. Something I've never really told people my first three weeks here, I did not like it.
I looked around, I judged, I thought it was just like high school. But then I gave one person a
chance. My professor, one of the big ones who got me here, Brandon Ricks. I just decided to talk to
him one day. And we probably talked in his office for like, what, two hours about the word?
And ever since then, he is now a brother to me. He is now a spiritual father. That whole office,
Monica Hill, Tabitha, Chris, Kim, they are now my family away from home, but I had to give them a
chance. And so if you're in here and you just keep complaining about not finding people, I promise
you, you just got to give someone a chance. If you don't believe what this crazy person up here is
talking about Jesus, well then just keep asking questions, please. If that's the only thing you
do, just keep an open mind. Just ask me questions. Ask people questions because they're here to love
you no matter what, if you believe or not. I'm here to love you no matter what. I just want this
for you because it changed my life. And I know it's going to hurt when it hits you. I don't
want you to hit rock bottom to find out who's the rock at the bottom. That's what it took for me,
but I don't want anyone to hit rock bottom. I want you to find who the rock, who the firm
foundation is now, but I can't do that for you. And so I'm just asking you, what do you have to
lose? Seriously, I know we have people coming from all over the world, but what do you have to lose
to give us a chance? Just ask questions. Just be here. Just notice the people that are different
here and that are lights and go just talk to them. Go try to experience Jesus for yourself.
To close, I was one way and the only way I can explain it is I was one way and then I was
completely different and the only common denominator, the only thing in between was Jesus.
He's the only reason I'm here. I shouldn't even be standing on a stage right now,
but he's the reason why I'm here. And so I can't tell you, I can't give you all the facts,
I can't prove anything. But all I can say is I'm here and he's the one who changed that. I didn't
call on any other God. I didn't call on any other name. I called on Jesus, the most high God, the
one, the God in the flesh that came down and died on the cross for our sins because he knew we were
imperfect. You can't be saved by your good works. Let's be honest with ourselves. And that's what
love is. That's how you actually find yourself is in the peace of Jesus and what he did on the cross.
And so back to break, the last week I was running fever and I couldn't sleep for two nights.
And honestly, I don't say this to point out myself, but I just sat there and prayed for probably two straight days.
And it wasn't about how good I did up here.
I know I'm not good at this, but it was about I just wanted it to touch one life.
I just wanted someone who could experience what I've experienced for themselves.
And I know that can happen for you, but I'm begging you, I'm asking you to learn how to be still.
I'm learning how you to turn the phone off, turn the brain off, and go and sit in a room where no one's looking,
turn off the lights, and pray, and pray, and pray, and open this Bible and read it until it makes sense,
because it is the word of the living God.
It just took me a while for me to understand that.
And it took me for him to reveal himself to me, for me to fully comprehend that.
And so to close, as one great Reverend Taden said, Jesus died on the cross.
He spent way too much on you for you to not try.
And I'll go even further.
He spent way too much on you for you not to just give him an ounce of your time,
for you not even to give him an ounce of a chance.
The creator of the universe, all that you are is crying in worship to him.
You were made to live for him.
That's why your life doesn't make sense.
So he spent way too much for you to just not try.
If you don't mind, if I could pray before we leave.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I just thank you again.
I just pray that you continue to move in this campus and move through all out the world.
I just pray that you just, you provoke one person just to come ask, that they just come to you.
We love you.
We thank you.
I just pray that you be with the broken.
Let them know that you're there.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Y'all are dismissed.
applause
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