The Disciples Prayer: Practical

0 (0s): Good morning, harvest church. Welcome. We're so glad that you're here this morning. Let's pray as we go into worship, dear God, thank you that we get to gather here in your name and help us to focus on you as we worship and listen to Jeremy's message today, help us to take it throughout the week and not forget or lose sight of what you have for us. God, help us not get distracted by what's in the world. Just really help us to focus on what your plans for us are. Thank you. Amen. You guys can stand 4 (11m 51s): At this time we invite Jeremy up and have a sermon 5 (11m 60s): Much. Was that not powerful? I love youth led Sunday. It's awesome. It's awesome to see them stepping up and into things that there'll be taken over soon. Pastor Steve is in Oklahoma. He's at an influencer's national conference there, so you get, you get me for a second week in a row. If you weren't here last week, I, I started with maybe notice the Lord's prayer, the disciple's prayer, the model prayer found in Luke chapter 11 and Matthew chapter six and last week was very much the kind of ethereal portion where this week is going to be a little more practical. 5 (12m 46s): So I'm looking forward to that. But with that said, why don't we all just stand up and we'll, we're going to pray the prayer together and we'll go from there. I'll be from Luke chapter 11, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom, come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our sins. As we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, lead us, not in temptation temptation, but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Thank you may be seated. 5 (13m 29s): So last week was fun. I got to, to teach really on like this prayer that Jesus had his, you know, his disciples came to him and said, Hey Jesus, we see the most powerful thing that you do is this, this thing called prayer. This thing of talking to your father. So Lord teach us to pray as well, not teach us necessarily how to pray, but teach us to pray. They saw something important in the life of Jesus and they wanted that for themselves. And so the first part of that prayer, that Jesus then teaches them is really, if you're a CEO, if you, if you've ever started a business, you start with the mission statement and then you give a vision and then you give the core values like how the company does these things. So I see this, that in this prayer as well, see the mission is our father in heaven. 5 (14m 11s): How it'd be your name, that's what we want to do. We want to set God apart from any other. And that's the mission of, of, of Jesus and what he came to do. And then he gives us vision of your kingdom. Come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And now he's going to give really practical steps of the core values of how we practically do that in our day-to-day life. So that's why I'm excited to, to lead us into today. Last week we addressed, you know, when we come to God to pray, it's how we address God. We talked to him as the father. We talked to the father first about the father, and then we talk to the father about his kingdom. And then we talked to the father about his will for his kingdom, in a sense we want to let God be, God, let God be God. 5 (14m 58s): So that's the way we start the prayer. How do we continue that? How do we show that to others? How do we live this out? So we do that by one that we show others. We model others, that we have a heavenly who father, who cares about us and that we set apart our heavenly father, because we know he's, he's, he's, he's earned that he, oh, he has owned that. Then we do that by seeking out our lived out lives to bring his heavenly reign here to earth, by showing that by modeling that in our own lives. And then we live that out in our daily lives. A number of years ago, I got to go to Ethiopia to go visit some missionary friends that were, that were living there at the time. And part of the trip we've, you know, flew into ADIs. 5 (15m 39s): And that was like the main capital. And then we got, we got to go to the, do this trip of going out to these villages that were about a hundred miles from the Sudan border, like way out there. So like I think three days down a dirt road in a land cruiser, this is like my kind of adventure. So we're going down these dirt dusty roads, and we get to this, this kind of tribal region and think grass huts, Serengeti. It was just a phenomenal place to go visit. And there was a Canadian family that was living amongst these Ethiopian tribes and bringing them the gospel. And it was just funny to see the contrast of really these dark skinned Ethiopian people mixed with these white Canadian blonde haired kids and blonde hair parents running around. 5 (16m 28s): And they, and they were just doing an awesome job of bringing the gospel to these, these people. And in the midst of our stay, a few of the guys kind of emerged out of the Bush and there they were, they're carrying their bows narrows with him and he got to meet these four, these four guys. And, and those are bows that they'd handmade themselves. They'd taken spoons and made their own like tips for the arrows. I mean, they'd done everything and I don't know how it happened, but our tree contest popped up. And it was us as white boys against these, these, these guys. And, and of course they just annihilated us there. They hit the mark every time we, we, we tried, but that makes sense, right? 5 (17m 11s): Because their reality is that on the way to come visit us here at that missionary compound, they might see dinner running by and they might need to actually use those bows and arrows and get their food, their meal for their family on the way to, you know, on the way to visiting us or maybe on the way home that living out day by day, that hunting provide for their knees. And that's really been the story of most of humanity over the centuries. Most of humanity is relied on that day to day daily bread. That day-to-day needs. Sometimes when things like the Texas freeze happens, we realized just how susceptible our modern way of living. 5 (17m 52s): We haven't always had water in our, in our houses. We always haven't had a reliable source of electricity for our needs, but that day-to-day living it out. And the question, I guess, that we asked her that I asked scriptures, does God care about our physical frame or physical need? Does God care about that? And I believe from scripture, the resounding answer is yes, you see Jesus says in, in, in this prayer, he said, give us day by day, our daily bread. It's a request based on the character, the name of God, our father. And just prior to that, Jesus had said, Hey, if anybody among you lacks, if one, if one of your kids and you've been a father, they need some food. 5 (18m 38s): You don't give them a scorpion or you don't give them what they don't need. If they ask for food, you're going to give them food. Like that's requests based on the character of the father. And so we have a heavenly father who cares about us as well. Some have sought to like, just spiritualize this then saying, oh no, God doesn't care about our physical needs. He just cares about our spiritual needs. But I don't see that. I don't see that being the truth. God cares about our spiritual needs. And we'll get into that. But also God just cares about our day to day physical needs, da Carson wrote this. He said, it's a prayer for our daily bread, not a warehouse of bread. The prayers for our needs, not our agreed it's a one day at a time reflect, reflecting on the precarious lifestyle of many first century workers who were paid one day at a time. 5 (19m 27s): And for whom a few days, illness could spell tragedy, give us our daily bread. And do you notice how he says, Jesus, same, give us our daily bread. There's the us now that we're not solitary. We're not meant to be individuals. We're meant to be a community. Lived in community, lived as a big family, a big church family and a big family as, as under the, the having to heaven, the father and God knows that we have needs and often, and especially for me, and maybe it's something for us, men is that we see our needs as a weakness. I don't want to let other people know about our needs. We, we kind of try to shy away from that. We hate our needs because it communicates a weakness in them, in us. 5 (20m 10s): And we say, well, I don't want to let my needs hinder us from praying as though our weakness somehow stains that purity of prayer, do we bring our daily needs before our heavenly father? And what's amazing about scripture is that God knows our needs before we even asked them that didn't make sense. When you think of the sovereignty of God and all knowing God, he knows everything. But if we just saw our daily needs as something that God already knew about and he's going to provide for them, how do we walk? How do we walk that out and live in faith? Matthew six verse eight says, therefore, do not be like them as he's teaching his disciples to pray for your father knows the things that you have before you even ask of them for even ask him. 5 (20m 57s): He knows what we need. It was that way in the garden of Eden too, with Adam, you know, there he is. He's with God. He's, he's like, well, this is, this is pretty awesome. I I'm, I'm here with God. I've got a garden. This is awesome. But God knew that Adam was alone and he said, that's not good. And so God then gives Adam this job of naming the animals. And so the animals are paraded before Adam. He begins to name the animals. And at some point after the, I don't know how many Mr. Messes he named. He realizes, Hey, wait a second. Where's my misses. And that's where God allows him to put him, puts him to sleep and then creates his, that need for him. 5 (21m 37s): God knew Adam's need before he even knew it. And it speaks to our soul spiritual needs as well. In John chapter six, we find Jesus's first I am statement. John has six or seven. I am statements that he, that he, that he quotes of Jesus. And in the first I am statement was just that on the daily bread. And he read Jesus related back to the manner you see, what had just happened was the 5,000 people had just been fed that great multitude. God had multiple Jesus had multiplied the fish and the bread and he'd fed everybody. 5 (22m 19s): And now they're coming to Jesus saying, Hey, show us a sign. Jesus, show us a sign for just having fed them, show us a sign. And so he's he? He said, well, they said, sorry, Jesus, that Moses gave our fathers the bread in the wilderness. So what are you going to give to us? Give us a sign. And this is what Jesus said in John chapter six, verse 32. And Jesus said to them, most assured the, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but from my father who gives you the true bread from heaven for the bread of God, is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread. 5 (22m 58s): Always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Are you eating of me? So the physical needs that we have very much speak to our spiritual needs and that's what Jesus is going to address next in his model, prayer, he says, and forgive us, our sins, forgive us. Our sins. Sin is what Adam did in the garden. And we've been really doing ever since the Greek word, sin is, is a translation from the Greek word and it's biblical usage throughout scripture is to miss the mark or a feeling to miss the target and to archery turn right. 5 (23m 44s): Or it's also being used to air or be mistaken to miss or wander from the path of her brightness and to honor and to do or go wrong. It's it's all a missing of the mark. And it's linked. Jesus has links this and forgive us our sins back to the, give us our day-to-day bread. It's a day to day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. So it's linked to that. That it's a request for our physical needs to be met every day, but also our spiritual needs and our, our need to, once again, confess our sins to our heavenly father, something over the years I've worked into my morning, devotions is I've, I've worked. 5 (24m 31s): First thing is to just my morning, confessions of art I've, as I can think clearly. And it's in the quietness of the day. I can think clearly about yesterday and the times that I air the times that I missed your mark. And I begin to work those into my daily confessions in the morning. And then that rolls into then eating of the bread, eating the word of God and, and, and my time in the scripture and the forgiven us our daily, since that this speaks of two things. One that we have sinned, Romans 3 23, says for all, have sinned and come short of the glory of God all have sinned. 5 (25m 17s): So we have to first recognize that we have sinned. And then we bring that to the need, to the Lord. And we say, Lord, forgive us our sins. And if we can ask, if Jesus said, ask us to be forgiving of sins. It means that our sins are forgiven. When we confess our sins, they are forgiven. That's amazing. Our greatest need, our greatest thing that separates from God a will be washed away, Romans 5, 28 or five verse eight says, but God demonstrated and own his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. I have a quote that, that it was not sure exactly who it's attributed to, but all I'll say the quote, and then I'll give you the name. 5 (26m 7s): It says this, it says, sin will take you farther than you want to go keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you wanted to pay. Lot. A lot of people will say that rabbi Zacharias, he quoted that if you know his story, you know, the tragedy that unfolded after his death, I'll say that once again, sin will take you farther than you wanted to go keep you longer than you wanted to stay and cost you more than you wanted to pay. I knew a gal at our old church in Santa who, who had been dating her high school boyfriend for seven or eight years. 5 (26m 49s): And this guy ended up passing away in a car accident. And upon that, all these details started to emerge from his life. The fact that he'd been having an affair since they started dating in high school with her best friend, some drug stuff came out, all this stuff that she had no idea of, of the guy that she was dating came out after he passed away. And she just, it just wrecked her. There's so much grief, grief, and trauma, and just anger. That was just like, where did this come from? It's those secret things that we begin to hide away that will cost us more than we wanted to pay As this week, as I was planning for the, the the message. 5 (27m 38s): And it was just realizing, man, is there any sin that I need to confess? And, and Lord like, yes. And then, and then new Lord's like, and then you need to do in front of everybody. You need to confess the sin. And, and that I had to of course confess it to my wife as well. But I, I, we have a joint account with my wife and I have my own personal credit card. And I began to use that personal credit card to buy a few purchases that I didn't let my wife know about. And this week I'd planned on purchasing a few hundred dollar thing that it was going to kind of sneak through and not let my wife know. And the Lord is like, you can't do that. That's stealing from your family, stealing from your wife. 5 (28m 21s): So first say, okay, you want me to do this in front of everybody, Lord. And you want to confess you on me. I'll confess it before you learned that was sin to plan to do this thing. And then I had to go to my wife and be like, honey, this is what I was planning on doing. Here's the credit card. I'm sorry. And confess that in front of her. I don't want upon my death for all this stuff to creep out, to find out that somebody that I was hiding, something that I wasn't living the life of integrity that I want to live when Billy Graham passed away or sorry. When Billy Graham was alive, he had this whole entourage of men that would go into every hotel room to make sure that there was nothing scandalous in there that nothing could distract him from the ministry. 5 (29m 3s): He never allowed himself to ride in a car with another woman alone. He had all these kind of gateways to protect himself and upon Billy Graham's death, guess what? There was no drama. There was no hidden sin. Same with Dwight moody. No, no, there was no drama. He said this. He says, the Bible will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the Bible on my death. I don't want any drama to come out. I don't want anything to be found under, under my mattress or hidden bookmarks on my computer. You see sin weighs us down and we can't effectively run with the, that God desires us to can't enjoy the course. 5 (29m 44s): Like our cross-country runner lays aside everything. That's going to ensnare them, everything that's going to like set them back and they want to run the race. They want to have the everything focused on running the race and running it. Well, this last, this a few months ago, I had a chance to go backpacking with some of our seniors in the youth group. And we took them up into the Sierras. It's an amazing time. It was just a small group of us. And, and one of them is a little bit of a jokester. Love him. And he started telling us about how his dad's a firefighter and how his dad would joke around with the other firefighters. And he would take these rocks and he'd get a Sharpie. 5 (30m 24s): And he'd write on the Sharky, sheriff on the rock with the Sharpie, thanks for the ride. And then he'd put these rocks in his fellow back back, firefighters backpacks. And I saw him and he put a few rocks on, on other backpacks of the other guys. And I thought that was pretty funny. They fell off. I was like, oh yeah, you're a prankster. That's hilarious. Well, at a certain point, the trail got really, really steep. And it was kind of like the last final push to get up and over. And then down into this like Alpine lake. And one of the students began to really struggle so much that like his legs were cramping up about every five steps. He could not carry the backpack up this hill. 5 (31m 5s): So I said, okay, look, we're going to get you over this hill. Let me just take your backpack. We'll put it on me. We'll get it. We'll get you up and over. Okay. And then everything's going to be good. So I took it backpack haired up and over, made it up. He almost killed my legs and we get into camp and like, oh, this is good. Okay. We made it. We're all good. And I began to unpack, we get to set up tents. And I realized, man, my, this is a really lightweight backpack, but it's really heavy. What? And I started taking things out and then I realized there's a rock. There's a rock. And I looked at this person might be in this room. He might've done announcements. And I began to Chuck the rocks at this person. 5 (31m 50s): How are we, how many rocks, how long have I carried these rocks from the Trailhead? I'd been carrying these extra rocks from the trail. And there was, yeah, there, there were some hindrance, but it's okay. I got rid of them. Throw them at him. Love him, love the jokes. But Hebrews 12 says this. It says, therefore, since we are so surrounded by so great, a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin, which so easily ensnares us, let us run with endurance. The race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 5 (32m 33s): So we need to do in our life, the daily confession, the daily of reminding God, I've sinned, I've messed up. Lord, forgive me, is that laying aside of the weights and the things that ensnare us and sin is first and foremost against God. When I was desiring to use that credit card for purchases to hide from my wife, that was first and foremost against God, but then also against others. And I think that's the, the hard part is that we have a tendency to, to judge our sin against other people. Well, I'm not as bad as that person. I'm not doing as bad as what they are. And we begin to point to others and comparing that. 5 (33m 17s): And I think that was one of my faults from growing up in the church. I began to look at my life and say, man, I got it all together. They don't have it all together. Wow. I'm doing so much better than others. And that is sin. And the Lord really confronted me on that. A number of years ago, see our church had gone to the year after hurricane Katrina happened, there was still a number of houses and churches that were still in disarray, still completely washed out by hurricane Katrina. And so our church sent a group, including myself and a few and a number of others. And we began to help rebuild houses and a few churches. And I was working there in a, in a church, sanctuary a small church down in Louisiana. 5 (33m 58s): And there's this guy that was working with me. His name was Mike Skiles and big guy like my height, maybe an inch taller than me, 70 pounds of muscle. More than me. He was had tattoos all over him. He was like, one of those guys that was just like, you would see him. And you're like, Ooh, I shouldn't be in this alleyway alone with him. And like, go the other way. Like you just had this. He was a, he lived life, a little rougher than I had. And I was just totally judging him by his outward appearance. And then he, I was like, Hey Mike, how'd you come to the Lord? What, what brought you to the Lord? He began to tell me his story. And his story was like, he'd been raised since seven or eight on the streets by himself. Both of his parents had been druggies. 5 (34m 39s): They both abandoned him. He'd he basically been raised by a biker gang, was jail in and out of jails in and out of prison, drugs, alcohol, you just name it? He'd he'd done it. I remember him tell me that. And in my head I'm like, Aw, man, he really needed Jesus. He, he really needed Jesus. And I was pointing the finger at him in my mind saying he really needed Jesus. And it was one of those times, the few times in my life where I felt like the Lord really spoke, speak to me in my head. And he's like, Jeremy, you as a little child needed me just as much as he needed. My sin is just as greatest as him and I at that moment, man, in my head, I just, Lord, I repent and dust Nash as I am sorry for those thoughts for judging my sin against him, because Jesus is going to leak. 5 (35m 33s): Now, forgive us, our sins with, for we also everyone who is indebted to us, it's a hard, right? It's a command. Forgive everyone who is indebted to us, but yet it's a command, but it's a call to action. It's how we effectively live out the gospel. If we're saying, if we're living out the gospel saying I've been forgiven of my sin, but I can't forgive you of your sin. Then that means the truth is not in us. The truth that we have been forgiven, Matthew 18 gives us an amazing parable. That constantly comes to my head. 5 (36m 13s): Peter asked Jesus. He said, Hey Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother? How many times should I forget my brother? And, and now Peter says like seven times, right? Seven. That's pretty good. If I get my brother, forgive my brother seven times, that's good. Right? And Jesus is like, no, no, no. 70 times seven as in 490 times, like, I don't think Jesus meant exactly four nine, but just like you can't keep track, keep forgiving. And Jesus then gives a parable which speaks into that. He says Matthew 18 verse 23. It says, therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 5 (36m 53s): And the first servant came and, and he owed a debt. The king said, Hey, you need to come pay this debt. And it was a T a debt of 10,000 talents. And the man says, oh, please, please forgive me. I'll pay it back. Whatever I can do. The king said, you know what? I'm, I'm going to go ahead and forgive you that complete debt, 10,000 talents wiped off your record. And so that, that first serving then leaves the presence of the king having just been forgiven. And he goes out and he finds another servant, a certain, this servant owed him a hundred denari. And that man, that man said, the first servant says, Hey, you need to pay me. And the guy's like, I can't, I'll pay you back. Just give me time. Oh no, no, no. You're going to get thrown into prison. 5 (37m 34s): And he just throws him into prison. Well, the king finds out and this is what he says. When the king found out how the first servant had dealt with a second, he said, then his master, after he hit F he called him and said to him, you wicked servant you forgave. I sorry, you WCA, sir. I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you. Some of this is lost in translation because we don't understand what a talent is. We don't understand what a Dinara is. So let me break it down. 10,000 talents. One talent is equal to 6,000 deniera. 5 (38m 14s): That was about the rate of conversion. A Dinair. I was a day's labor. So what Jesus was saying was this in this parable is this, this first servant owed six 60 million days of labor, roughly 200,000 years worth of labor. You owe me. So on the conservative side at $15 an hour, 8, 8, 8 hours a day, that's $120 per day on the conservative side. That's $7.2 billion at the first servant had been, had been forgiven enough, $7.2 billion. I mean, what's he doing building towers in New York, some $0.2 billion. 5 (38m 58s): How did he even rack that? We don't know, but Jesus is speaking of this insurmountable debt that this first servant owes and what is the second servant O to the F to that first about $12,000 debt, but 7.2 billion compared with 12, not even close Jesus, isn't minimizing the debt that others do. When we, when we sin against others, he's not minimized, not he's not sweeping under the rug. He's just comparing it to the debt that we have been forgiven. Our sin against God is always greater and holding onto the sins of others against us and forgiven our debt that has been forgiven. 5 (39m 41s): It's the evidence of our faith of living out the gospel. When we forgive others, we're living out the gospel. We're saying, Jesus deal with me. As I have dealt with others and lead us, not into temptation, it's a stranger requests. You know, why, why ask Lord not lead us into temptation. God doesn't want us to sin. So why would we pray for protection from that? Well, maybe we could say it this way. Keep me from sin and its power. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness after 40 days. And he was 40 days of fasting. 5 (40m 22s): 40 days of not eating. And Satan came with him and said, Hey, turn this stone into bread. You can do that. You have the power, but yet Jesus responds with scripture. He said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, Psalm one 19 would say your word. I've hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against. You. See, God knows our frame that we're made of, but dust, he knows our weaknesses. Jesus, as the high priest was tempted in all things yet remained righteous. First Corinthians 10 verse 13 says this, no temptation has overtaken you, except that is common to man. 5 (41m 3s): But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you need be able to bear. It. There's a man who was watching TV and he lived in the south as well. And he was watching the TV. And you saw on the news that there was a hurricane approaching. It was kind of aimed right at him. And he sees this hurricane on the TVs like, Ooh, this is scary. He's like, okay, Lord, I'm going to pray, Lord, please save me from this hurricane. Well, here's honk outside of the door. And he opens the door and his friends and in his pickup and he said, Hey, there's a hurricane coming. Get in the truck. We're going to go, you know, go up north. And the guy's like, no, no, no. 5 (41m 44s): It's okay. G God's going to save me. Guy drives off. Later on. As the water begins to rise, his house is surrounded by water. The storms kind of come in through a guy that comes up in a boat motors in a little motorboat. He comes up to the guy's porch and said, Hey, get in, get in. I'll I'll save you. The guy's like, no, no, no, God, God's going to save me. It's okay. Find the water rose. So high that he's on top of the roof. And he's up there on top of the roof, just surrounded by water. And a helicopter comes, hovering by and the guy says, can we help you? Can we save you? He's like, no, no God's gonna save me. It's okay. 5 (42m 25s): Well, the guy dies, right? The water kept rising. The guy dies and he goes to heaven. He says, God, why didn't you save me? God's like, I sent you a pickup truck. I sent you a boat and a helicopter. God is in the business of rescue his kid. I love it. How often when we were attempted by sin, a thought, a call from your aunt Thelma that you haven't heard from in a years, an alert on your phone, a Bible verse that pops in your head. There's always these little things. He's a little out to the God provides to walk away from these temptations and to deliver us from the evil, but deliver us from the evil one. 5 (43m 6s): For, we have an enemy in the Bible as the power and God has the power to deliver us. First, Peter five says this, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your cares upon him for, he cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that those same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. What it would have been like what the world would have been like if Adam and Eve had simply hearing the temptation of the serpent had just cried out to Lord, Lord help us. 5 (43m 49s): Is this true Lord? What, how different would the world be? Or now they hadn't eaten of that, that tree that they shouldn't have consequences of sin have rectal world. So deliver us from the evil one. Well, in a fusion six, we're told to put on the full armor of God. And these there's, there's a number of different things that we're told to put on. Don't just put on the partial arm of God, put on the full armor of God. And how do we do that? Well, we do that by walking those things out for the belt of truth, that's GERD around our waist. When we walk in truth, then the truth of the belt of truth is put on us. 5 (44m 31s): The full of God begins to put on us. Or what about going into the full promises of what God has for us? I liken it to this. There was as, as the nation of Israel was crossing over the Jordan and going to go into now, the promised land that God had been had had set aside for them. Moses had passed away. Josh was turned to lead the nation. Now over the Jordan and into the promised land, there was battles to be fought. There. There was things that were going to have to happen, but yet God was calling them into that. And there was two and a half tribes that decided to stay out the Reuben GAD in the half trapper tribe of Manasseh. They looked at the land on the east of the Jordan. 5 (45m 11s): They said, no, this is okay. This is a good place for us to lay. We there's a lot of good land for a cattle. We'll be okay. We don't need to cross over. And that was offensive to everyone else. I mean, they wanted to like wipe those tribes out in a minute instantly, but they said this, that this was what they decided, what they came up with. Okay. You guys can have that land on the east side of the Jordan. But what we need you to do is we need to send your, your, your soldiers across to fight the battles. We want you to continue coming to the feast once a year, because you're part of our tribe. You're part of the 12 tribes of Israel. This is the called nation. They did that. They kept their peace, but they stayed there on the, on the east side of the Jordan. And you know what? 5 (45m 52s): They were the first to fall into pagan worship. And they were eventually the first tribes of Israel to be captured by the Syrian army. They didn't enter into the fullness of what God had called them into. And they were picked off for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. See the kingdom, the power and the glory all belongs to the Lord, not to us. And I like this one when my old pastor said, Ricky Ryan said in the ministry, there's three things you don't touch. And he was talking to a few of us, pastors, three things, you don't touch, you don't touch the gold. You don't touch the gals and you don't touch the glory. 5 (46m 34s): Those don't belong to you in the ministry. And God is saying in my kingdom, we have to remember that this is God's kingdom. It's his power and his glory. We just get to join with him in our prayers, fewer to go win an R. If you were to go in an archery contest and you were to win that contest and you were to be one of the people to stand up on the podium and there would appraise you. It wouldn't be the bow and arrow that was on the, on the podium. It would be the Archer, the bow and arrow are the tools by which they won the contest. But the Archer is the one who did the work. And that's what I want to be. I want to be a tool in the hand of a living. 5 (47m 15s): God, I want him to bring about through me, his will and his purpose in his kingdom. So before we have our communion time, I'm going to have Tyler come up and give his, but nine times in these verses, it's our us in a, we it's the collective it's we as a body of Christ, we live and we grow in community and connection with the body of Christ. So Tyler's gonna come up and he's gonna talk about his time at youth group. 8 (47m 53s): Good morning. It's still morning. Okay. So I'm Tyler. , I've been coming to harvest since I was in like kindergarten and I'm a senior now. So been here a little bit, but I joined the youth group back in 2015. So I've been in youth group for like six years and it's changed my life dramatically. It's one of the most essential parts of, I'd say my spiritual growth and a big part of that is, is the fellowship. And I love that my friends will hold me accountable for things. One of my good friends came up after first service and he goes, you did great, good job. 8 (48m 33s): You said I'm 39 times. So I am going to try and say less. Don't know if that's going to be possible. Gregor's holding up. I've already said it twice. I had it again. But yeah, the, the community of, of our youth group is amazing. And throughout my youth group experience, I've had a lot of friends come in and unfortunately walk away from the faith because they didn't. Yes. Again, they didn't grow in that community. And they started hanging out with the wrong people who had the wrong influences and now looking at where they are in their lives. 8 (49m 16s): It's, it's really sad and hard for me to see the pain and the struggles that they're going through, just because they didn't bond with their friends. They didn't have that value for, for the community that our youth group has made. So fundamental. So with that, our youth group, now we meet every Wednesday. It's amazing people live paycheck to paycheck. I live Wednesday night to Wednesday night, like, okay, I just got to make it to Wednesday. If I can make it to Wednesday, I'm going to be good. And it's amazing. It's such a good spiritual recharge. It's you're seeing your friends. You're worshiping together. You're checking in on each other. 8 (49m 56s): The staff is amazing. The volunteers, they just, they love us so much. They care about us. They are always willing to pray for me with whatever I'm need prayer for. If things are going wrong, they're always willing to talk. It's amazing. It's really a helpful, if you are having just a rough day, I've called Jeremy multiple times with just random things. And he's always willing to talk. He's always there for me. And just knowing that I've got people to back me up as, as I walked through, this is amazing. So one of the things that kind of struggle with is pride. 8 (50m 40s): I've got a big ego and this, this fellowship as our youth group has grown and grown. We started with 15 and now some we've got, had like 70 plus kids a night. I've been praying like God helped me with my pride, helped me, you know, realize I'm not the best. What happens when you get 70 kids in a room that all have different skills is you're not the best at anything. Really. Nathan Thomas, one of my best buds, I used to be a cross country runner. I, there's no way I can run as fast as him. He can do a 5k in under 17 minutes and the worship team. I don't have any musical talents. 8 (51m 21s): I can't do what they do. And so there's all these little things that are just so humbling and so great for me to grow spiritually. Okay. How, how can I get better, Lord? What, what do you want, what are you calling me to do? I can't do what they wanted they'd can do. I kind of want to do that cause that's really cool. Can you help me to do that? Okay. That's not for me again. What do you want me to do? And just kind of finding who I am in him and walking with him the entire time is just, it's amazing. And the, like I said, the staff, the fellowship of the other, the other youth kids has just really blessed me and shaped me into who I am today. 8 (52m 4s): And I plan on staying on that path as long as I can till I die. Hopefully. But yeah. Thank you for letting me stand up here and talk about my experience with youth group. If you guys are looking for youth group or, you know, someone who needs to join youth group, send them to harvest. It's amazing. It'll it'll change their lives. It surely changed mine. So handing it back off to Jeremy. 5 (52m 37s): So, so within that living and growing and community, we're going to take our community. Now we'll take out our cuffs. We're what we're going to do yet. Before we open it fully is, is, is we're gonna actually have a time of worship. And during this time of worship, what I'm asking us to do is examine our hearts and our minds. It's a time where Jesus was examined before he died for his perfect atoning death. And, and it's time for us to look at before we take of communion to look at our own lives and look, look inward. So I'll read this from Corinthians and then the band will come up and do a worship song. 5 (53m 17s): First Corinthians 11 verse 27 says this, therefore, whoever eats of this bread and drinks of this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, but let a man examine himself. And so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup for you, eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body for this reason. Many are weak and sick among you and many sleep. Let's take time, Lord, this song to confess and maybe release forgiveness to others as well. I'll pray or thank you for this time. For this morning, Lord, I pray that we would be able to do business with you and maybe release the debt of others in our own hearts, Lord, that we might be free to just run the full res for the two you have set before us, Lord, we thank you for what you did on the cross you're sinless life for our sinful lives, or because you were died and rose again, we know that we can walk in that life as well. 5 (54m 24s): We can have victory over these things. Lord, thank you for this time. Lord, just help us to examine, bring anything to the surface that needs to be, be given up Lord in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. 4 (54m 43s): Thank you, Jenny. We're going to invite you guys to stand up with us and worship 5 (58m 29s): First received from the Lord. That which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus and the same night in which he was betrayed, he took the bread, which he had given. He gave thanks and he broke it. He said, take this. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's eat the bread together, The same manner. He also took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this. As often as you drink in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat of the bread and drink of this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes partake together. 5 (59m 23s): You close with me with a prayer. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom, come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our sins. As we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, lead us, not into temptation temptation, but deliver us from the evil for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Thank you. Service