Harvest Church Arroyo Grande

What Has God Promised Through Faith in Christ?

0 (2s): Thank you look forward to what you want to do in our hearts this morning. Would you give us ears to hear and eyes to see? We want to know you. We want to come close to you. We want to experience your power and your presence, your mercy and forgiveness this morning. Even as we celebrate at the Lord's table today, God, you just cleanse us from all the things that kind of get in the way of our relationship with you. G purify our hearts and draw us into yourself. So kind of be in our MIS as we sing the songs would you would have our praises. 0 (42s): We love you, Jesus. And your precious name. Amen. 0 (59s): break the chains that have hi, our living hope. 0 (18m 1s): Thank you. That's out of the grave. There is victory in Jesus name. Thank you for the victory. God, we just pray for continued communications to our hearts and souls and minds today. Lord God, that there's victory in Jesus, God, that we would hear it. We would believe the gospels for us, that we would internalize it, that we do live it. Lord, in Jesus name 1 (18m 37s): God, where, where we're struggling to believe that the gospel is for us. 0 (18m 41s): I pray God that you would remind us and affirm to us. Speak to us in your loving and gracious way. Lord, it's your kindness that calls people causes people to pretend some more God. So speak to us. Lord, we pray minister to us. We pray Lord in Jesus name Jesus. Amen. You may be seated. You may be seated. 1 (19m 11s): Good morning, everyone. How is everyone? You know, it's interesting as we were singing this last song, I was, I don't even know why I'm going to share this with you, but I'm going to, but I had this dream last night and I felt compelled to share it. I don't even know why, but maybe in the sharing, it'll kind of become clear, have this dream that I'm walking around without any pants on last night and DMI. I know I realize that, but I'm walking around and it's strange to me that I'm walking around this way, but it's not, doesn't seem to be strange to anyone else. 1 (19m 59s): And so I, at one point in the dream, I asked my son, I said, Curtis, can you get me a pair of shorts? And he said, dad, you've already got shorts on. I looked down and I had shorts on. I felt lost. Interesting. I wonder what, what that was all about. And another part of the dream, I had been loading up my truck with some stuff I'm just giving you bits and pieces of the dream 2 (20m 22s): Bits and pieces of the dream. 1 (20m 23s): I, I see this truck began to roll without anybody in the, in the driver's seat. And I thought it was my truck. So I started running after the truck. And then I realized as I'm running after the truck, it's not my truck. It's another truck. It's, it's a different truck. It's a bigger truck. And it's running out of control and it crashes into another truck. And I thought, well, that's weird. I thought that was my truck, but my truck was just fine full of all the junk that I needed to throw away, but there was all kinds, but the truck was fine. And, and so then I thought, well, what, what does this dream mean? What does, what does it mean anything? Or did I just eat a bad burrito or something? What we, we did have, we did have some takeout last night. So maybe that was the deal. 1 (21m 4s): It was the broccoli. There we go. And, but I was feeling heavy about the dream. And then as we're singing this song, like the burden just kind of lifted off of me. It was like, I realized that the gospel stuff that's us free in the, the world in all kinds of different ways, tries to weigh us down and wear us out. And so maybe through the dream, I was, you know, the enemy or whatever it was, was attempting to kind of wear me down and wear me out. But the reality is, is that 2 (21m 36s): That I had my shorts on 1 (21m 38s): And my truck was just fine. I think that maybe the truth that God wants to speak to us, we have this perception about ourselves or this idea that maybe somebody has put upon us to weigh us down and to wear us out. 2 (21m 54s): But as we look down, 1 (21m 56s): All is good. We've got our shorts on or truck's fine. So maybe, maybe you've been wrestling with something that's wearing you out and wearing you down. And it's lot from the enemy that God wants to lift off of you. And so I'm just going to pray for us that the Lord would lift that off of us. And so Lord, we pray for that Lord all over the campus. Whoever's listening Lord that you would lift the burdens in Jesus name. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So there's not meant be any burden of heaviness. There's the conviction of the holy spirit, but we're, we, we understand the difference. And so Lord, I pray that if there's something that we need to confess and repent of that we would do that. But then as we do that, as we sincerely confess and repent Lord that that burden would be lifted. 1 (22m 39s): And if there's something that's of the world, the flesh or the devil Lord, we pray that that would be lifted off of us as well, Lord. So we're going to be looking at some things today. God's promises to us through faith in Christ. And I pray that as we do that, we're just be a revelation of joy, a revelation of peace that we would renew our experience and the grace and mercy of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And that if there are those here today who have never experienced the grace and mercy of the Lord, Jesus Christ, that that would be experienced and new life would be given and salvation would be added and adoption would take place Lord. And that great things would what happened as that person moves forward. 1 (23m 22s): So Lord, I pray that you would eliminate anything of the world, the flesh of the devil that might try to hinder what you want to speak to us today, whether it be through false, accurate the, the, the enemy is the accuser of the, of the flash of the brethren. He's a, he's constantly accusing lying to us. His native tongue is that he just speaks lies constantly. So Lord pray that we wouldn't be believing lies and that we wouldn't be sucked into his accusations, Lord God. But that we would know that we have been adopted. If we are in Christ, we are in his family. Our sins are forgiven. His grace is sufficient. 1 (24m 3s): His mercy is plentiful. And our salvation is, is sure because Jesus is sure. So thank you, Lord, do what you need to do in each of us. Lord, we pray. We just want to be available. Speak to us. We ask Lord in Jesus name. Amen, amen. What do you call a man with no body and no nose? Nobody knows. Speaking of noses, you know, you're getting old. When the barber spends more time on your nose than on your head. If you don't own, I'm talking about, then you will know. 1 (24m 43s): Eventually you will know eventually, Hey, we're in second Timothy chapter one verses one through seven, and we're going to be jumping into second Timothy and answering the question. What has God promised through faith in Christ? What has God promised through faith in Christ? Do you believe that God has made some promises to us? For those of us, you are in Christ. He's made, he's made promises to us. And we're an unpack five of those promises today. And maybe there'll be a part two next week, but we're going to leak look at least five promises today. As we just kind of look at Paul's greeting to his, his son in the faith, Timothy, who was a young pastor, the church of emphasis, there's this greeting and it's, it's filled with connection. 2 (25m 34s): It's 1 (25m 34s): Not some, some just quick little greeting. That's lacking connection and love. And it's this greeting that's just filled with connection. It's some greeting cards 2 (25m 54s): Are 1 (25m 56s): General greeting cards. You know, the kind that you get for people who are distant from you, but you feel obligated to get a greeting card for, so you get them one that may be, it was just kind of general. But then there are those greeting cards that really speak to your hearts. My wife got me a father's day card last week. And man, it was just rich with encouragement and, and goodness. And so there's, there's a difference in the type of green. Paul is rich with love for Timothy. As he reaches out to him and writes this letter, what does God promise through faith in Christ? 1 (26m 37s): Let's find out verse one second. Timothy chapter one verse one says this letter is from Paul, chosen the will of God to be an apostle of Christ. Jesus. I have been sent out to tell others about the life here. It is the life he has promised through faith in Christ Jesus, the life he has promised. So Paul's telling others about the life that he has promised that God has promised through faith in Jesus Christ. He says, I'm writing to Timothy. My dear son. Number one in your notes, he's promised a new kind of spiritual family. Not exciting. Some of us are come from broken families and distant families, hard families. 1 (27m 20s): The truth of the matter is, is that God has given us in Christ, a new kind of spiritual family. Timothy is Paul's spiritual son. Paul is Timothy's spiritual father. So Paul probably didn't lead Timothy to the Lord. And we're we'll know that he probably got his faith from his mother and his grandmother, but there was a, there was a leadership that Paul had intimidate his life, where he probably discipled him where he trained him to be a leader in the church and taught him out of what it really meant to follow Jesus. So Timothy is Paul's spiritual son. 1 (28m 0s): Paul is Timothy's spiritual father. Each of us should have one of those by the way. Or we should all have a spiritual mother or father. We should all have someone who's speaking into our lives ministering to us downloading truth QS. We all need someone like that in our lives. And then we all need someone that we're pouring into as well. Someone that we're speaking into communicating truth to life and, and counsel to. And so this is kind of what is modeled here in this new kind of spiritual family. We've got this responsibility and this honor to connect one another. I, I met my pastor in Colorado at my stepmother's Moore Memorial service. 1 (28m 43s): And immediately there was a kinship, 2 (28m 46s): Right? Because immediately 1 (28m 48s): We know that we're both followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we never met. Personally, we had talked on the phone a couple of times leading up to the service as soon as we see each other and MBB beyond that, as soon as we talked on the phone with, there was just this, this kinship, this connection because we're brothers in the Lord, meaning we are believers. We believe on the name on the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And we will spend eternity together with each other, with the Lord. And there's just this 2 (29m 16s): Connection 1 (29m 19s): That takes the relationship a deeper than just meeting someone that you aren't connected to in any other way. It's it takes your blood relatives, blood relationships, different and deeper as well. My natural daughters, I've got two daughters who are also my sisters 2 (29m 40s): In the Lord. 1 (29m 42s): And so we can relate as father daughter, but we can also relate as brothers and sisters in the Lord. There's this, there's the connection. I total stranger who believes in the Lord is my spiritual. Relative is your spiritual relative. And honestly, sometimes we feel closer to our spiritual family than we do to our natural family. We belong to each other. God has created something of a family connection in the body of Christ. We belong to each other, a spiritual family, and we belong to God who is our heavenly father. It's interesting that dynamic, that relationship, depending on your relationship with your earthly father, you connect to your spiritual father really well or not. 1 (30m 30s): So well, it just depends on how you connected with your earthly father. Romans eight, 14 through 16, says this for all, who are led by the spirit of God are children of God. 2 (30m 45s): So you've not received 1 (30m 46s): A spirit that makes you fearful slaves. So it's not a servant master relationship. Although we are bond servants of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We are choosing to serve him and give our lives to him. But Jesus calls us friends. The father calls us sons and daughters. You've not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves and said, you received God's spirit. When he adopted you as his, his own children. Now we call him Abba father, which just means daddy. 2 (31m 18s): So there's this intimate 1 (31m 19s): Connection that we can have that we're designed to have. I have with God, the father in this spiritual family that God has designed and has given to us. He is our Bubba father for his spirit, joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. We need to kind of that resonate with us a little bit. The reality that we are God's children. I was talking to a guy last week and he was talking about doing something that was questionable. And I said, well, I said, I, I would have I'm doing that. He said, well, I'm not worried about it. Cause when I get to heaven, God's got a lie. He's going to straighten me out on a lot of different things. 1 (32m 1s): It's like that perspective that says, as soon as I see God, he's going to give me a little spanking, right? He's going to give me a time out. He's going to discipline me for something because I know that I've messed up somewhere along the line, but I don't know about you, but when there's a healthy dynamic, elder relationship between kids and parents, kids, father, and child, that's not, you know, I'm not waiting to come down on my kids. I'm waiting to give him a hug. Right? I'm waiting to see them so I can, you know, they don't like a lot of kisses, but I like to kiss my kids, you know, and my grandkids and they're kinda like grandpa knock it off. But that's, I mean, the heart of a is to love on his kids and grandkids. 1 (32m 42s): And so sometimes our perspective is that boy, as soon as I get to heaven and God's going to kind of, you know, discipline me, he's going to come after me. Jesus took all of that. You took all of that on the cross. And so we belong to God because of what Jesus has made possible. And we belong to one another. Isn't that sweet. That's why church is so amazing. We come together and we can love on one another and pray for one another, laugh together. Just be together, give each other a hard time when necessary and just kind of beats together as a big family, we belong to God and we belong to one another. So maybe you're feeling like you're disconnected from your earthly family. 1 (33m 26s): You don't have to be disconnected from your spiritual family. Be a part of what's going on. That's why I'm so glad that we're all back in church. It's hard to connect through zoom or through FaceTime. It's hard to connect, right? There's there's a, there's something missing. There's something missing. We belong to God. We belong to one. Another. Number one, he has promised a new kind of spiritual family. Number two, he's promised grace mercy and peace. Let's unpack those a little bit. First two continues. May God, the father and Christ Jesus. Our Lord gave you grace, mercy and peace. This is Paul's greeting to Timothy. What a greeting. 1 (34m 7s): It's a reminder of the foundations of our faith, faith, grace, mercy, and peace. Grace is God's unmerited here that we hear it a lot, but we need to hear it again. Grace is God's unmerited, unmerited favor. It means we do not deserve it. If we deserve it, it wouldn't be grace, 2 (34m 29s): Right? We 1 (34m 31s): Go along. Sometimes we think, ah, we shift somewhere and we go from great. I used to work. We feel like if we don't do certain things, we're not, we're not in good standing with the Lord. But grace is given to us as God's unmerited favor, Ephesians two eight says, God saved you by his grace 2 (34m 52s): When you believed and you 1 (34m 55s): Can't take credit for it now, wherever you can't take credit for it, it is a gift from God. So we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. It's just an amazing theological truth that we need to constantly revisit. Maybe you've had a bad day and you need to revisit, is it the doctrine of grace And be refreshed in the truth of God's grace? That it's sufficient. If we confess our sins, he is faithful. And just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, his grace is sufficient. Then there's the mercy of God. 1 (35m 35s): Robert Robinson has had been saved out of a life of sin through George Whitfield's ministry in England. Shortly after that, at the age of 23, Robinson wrote the ham come thou fount of every blessing, streams of mercy, never ceasing sad. Lee Robinson wandered far from those streams and like the prodigal son journey journeyed into a life of carnality. And one day he was traveling by stagecoach and sitting beside a young woman and grossed in her book. She ran across a verse. She thought was beautiful and asked him what he thought of it. This is the quote prone to wander Lord. 1 (36m 18s): I feel it 2 (36m 20s): Prone to leave the God. I love 1 (36m 24s): Bursting into tears. Robinson said ma'am ma'am, I'm the poor unhappy man who wrote that him many years ago. And I would give a thousand worlds. If I could enjoy that feeling I had then although greatly surprised she reassured him that the streams of mercy mentioned in the, his songs still flowed. Mr. Robinson was deeply touched turning his wandering heart to the Lord. He was restored to full fellowship. Yeah. Anybody need a little mercy today. 1 (37m 6s): Streams of mercy still flow and they flow for you. They do. They flow for you. Streams of mercy flow for you. This God's good streams of mercy are available. 2 (37m 22s): Just 1 (37m 24s): Soak that up a little bit. Maybe you've had a rough season and you need to refresh yourself in that truth. Grace and mercy are abundant in God's kingdom and grace and mercy lead to the peace of God, grace and mercy and peace. Peace is what is experienced when we abide in Christ and he abides in us. There's peace that is experiencing Christ, but it requires that we abide in him that we, we make an intentional effort to abide in him. 2 (38m 2s): We're making 1 (38m 3s): Him our highest priority. Let's see, we're allowing him to be our highest priority. John 14, 27, Jesus said, peace. I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world, not as the world gives. Do I give to you? Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid. So the opposite of peace would be troubled 2 (38m 35s): And fear, feeling troubled and fearful. The Messiah's peace is based on his grace and his mercy. 1 (38m 47s): So let that grace and mercy leads you to the peace of God. Peace. I leave with you. My peace I 2 (38m 56s): Give to you, not 1 (38m 59s): As the word world gives the world gives it's. It's very conditional piece. If everything's going good, or as I expect, then I'm 2 (39m 9s): At peace. 1 (39m 11s): If I have what I think I need, then I have peace. If I have the relationships that I think I need, then I am at peace. It's very conditional. 2 (39m 20s): It's very conditional. 1 (39m 22s): The peace of God is based on his grace and mercy. And we experienced that as we abide in him, but we can drift from him, right? We drift maybe like the writer of this ham. We drift and maybe go a long time without experiencing his grace and mercy. And so there's no peace. Maybe you're even going to church and seemingly doing all of the right things, but you're lacking a peace in your life. Maybe there's a lack of abiding. There's plenty of doing, but there's a lack of abiding in him. Abiding just simply means, Lord, I'm going to wake up every day and just be with you, be in close proximity with you. So Lord, I want my life to just stay cozied right up to your life. 1 (40m 7s): And so that means I want to invite you into everything and, and Lord, I want your wisdom for, for my decisions. I want your guidance through your word and through your spirits. Peace. I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, do I give to you, let not your hearts be troubled. How's your heart today. Are your hearts troubled? Afraid. I think that's what that dream was meant to do is meant to stir up fear in me, anxiety 2 (40m 34s): In me. But what happened 1 (40m 36s): Is, as soon as I got in the presence of the Lord, especially singing that final song, it's like peace was restored. Peace was restored. Let God do what he wants to do in your life. It'll you, you will be surprised at the peace that that comes to you. The Messiah's peace is based on his grace and mercy. Here's a solid definition of peace. It's the tranquil state, eight 2 (40m 59s): Of a soul assured 1 (41m 1s): Of its salvation through Christ. 2 (41m 5s): And so 1 (41m 5s): Fearing hear this. And so fearing nothing from God. Not that we don't have a healthy respect and fear and all of God, but fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly. Lot of whatsoever sword. That is that's 2 (41m 22s): The peace of God says that I'm okay, 1 (41m 27s): Good with God because of his grace and mercy. I'm in the family of God because of his grace and mercy. He's adopted me in my sins are forgiven because of his grace and mercy. I have a new life in Christ because of his grace and mercy. And because of all of that is true. I have peace, 2 (41m 45s): Peace in Jesus. 1 (41m 47s): He's promised us grace, mercy and peace. And number three, he's promised us to clear conscience. 2 (41m 52s): And then interesting. Paul talks about a clear conscience. I clear conscious. 1 (41m 59s): He said, Timothy, I think God for you for God that the God I serve Timothy. I thank God for you. The God I serve with a clear conscience just as my ancestors did night and day. I constantly excuse me. I didn't day. I constantly remember you in my prayers. I longed to see you again for, I remember your tears as we parted and I will be filled with joy when we are together. Again, that's that family relationship that we're talking about. But before that, we got to that. 2 (42m 31s): Paul talks about his clear conscience. 1 (42m 35s): I mean, outcome Paul have a clear conscience after all. I mean, before Christ, he was a persecutor of the church. He was going after believers in the way followers of the way he was going after Christians persecuting and killing Christians. I mean, how can a guy like that to have a clear conscience? 2 (42m 57s): I mean, 1 (42m 57s): Shouldn't, shouldn't he carry that burden all the days of his life. Shouldn't be, I mean, he was a horrible man and abusive man, a terrible person. You fought against Christ. So shouldn't you carry that burden all the days of his life and Christ of course not in Christ. Of course not in Christ. That's 2 (43m 22s): Never the expectation. Remember grace, mercy and peace. Remember 1 (43m 28s): Your before Christ days? I remember my BC days. What about after becoming a believer? Did Paul do everything perfectly? I mean, how can he have a clear conscience after all? Was he a perfect man again, 2 (43m 45s): Of course, knots. 1 (43m 47s): Did he ever make a mistake or commit a sin? Of course he did. Let's read about, Paul's struggle with sin in Romans seven 14 through 25. 2 (43m 58s): I'm always perplexed by this passage, by the way, 3 (44m 1s): Maybe you are as well, or maybe you've got a better handle on it than I do. That's very possible. 1 (44m 5s): Romans seven, 14 through 25 says, so the trouble is not with a law for it is spiritual and good. That trouble is with me for I'm all to humanist slave to sin. I don't really understand myself. I'm saying that in the text is saying that I don't really understand myself where I want to do what is right, but I don't do it instead. I do. I hate, but if I know that what I am doing is wrong, shows that I agree that the law is good. Good. 1 (44m 47s): I am not the one doing wrong. It's sin living in me that does it. I don't think Paul's not taking responsibility. Just saying there's there are, there's a war within a war within that causes me to do the things that I don't want to do. I want to do what's right. But I can't, 2 (45m 12s): I'm battling constant, certainly the corruption within 1 (45m 19s): The one doing wrong. It's it, doesn't it feel like a separate entity within you? Like when you're feeling tempted and you just, can't not sin, you just feel like there's something internally that's dragging you against your own will. 2 (45m 35s): There's that 1 (45m 36s): Spiritual battle within us, that Paul is describing here. 2 (45m 42s): It's sin 1 (45m 44s): Living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me that apart from the spirit of God, that is in my sinful nature, 2 (45m 53s): I want to do what is right. But I can't. I want to do what is good, but I don't, 1 (46m 1s): I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. I'm really grateful for this taxed. It, it makes the gospel 2 (46m 18s): Attainable. Doesn't make it so out of reach because we, 1 (46m 26s): In a daily bat, we are in a daily battle against sin, the world, the flesh and the devils bombarding us. I want to do what is good, but I don't, I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if, if I do, I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing it, doing wrong. It is sin living in me. Yeah, it does. It. We'll have to ask Paul to expand on this. Read, read a couple of commentaries that were not helpful. I don't know that anybody knows what to do with this text. 2 (47m 1s): Paul will explain it. When we get there. One day, I have discovered 1 (47m 5s): This principle of life that when I want to do what is right, 2 (47m 9s): I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my hearts. Most 1 (47m 14s): Of us would say the same thing. I love God. I love his law with all my heart. Somehow I keep doing the wrong thing, but there's another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that still within 2 (47m 30s): Me. Oh, what a miserable person I am, 1 (47m 37s): Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin. And thank God we haven't answers Christ. Jesus, thank God. The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is in my mind. I really want to obey God's law. But because of my sinful nature, I'm a slave to sin. Thank God for his grace 2 (47m 59s): And his mercy. 1 (48m 1s): It's through this grace and mercy that we can have peace and a clear conscience with God. 2 (48m 8s): We beat ourselves 1 (48m 9s): Up. And maybe to some point, we need to pay attention to what we're doing and not give ourselves permission to send, not using the grace of God as an excuse to sin. But at the same time, recognizing that we've got this battle within us and some days we're just gonna Dumble and allow the grace of God, the mercy of God to get. We were talking about this in our journey group. Friday morning at 6:00 AM were just talking about sin and temptation. And someone reminded me. I think it was Jim Pennington reminded me. He said, God knew all of that stuff was gonna happen before it happened, right? Because he's not he's outside of time. Right? So it's like he sees the parade of life from the beginning 2 (48m 53s): To the end. He sees everything that happens in between the lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world. Meaning it was the plan because we would need it. 1 (49m 8s): God's grace and mercy through Jesus Christ gave Pauly clear conscience and 2 (49m 13s): Peace. So if you're wrestling with condemnation, a muddled conscience, relax, repents, give it to Jesus and rest in that grace and mercy and experiences. Peace. You can have a clear 1 (49m 31s): Conscience. You can have a clear conscience. 2 (49m 35s): You be say, well, you 1 (49m 37s): Don't know what I've done. Paul called himself the chief of sinners because he had done some pretty gnarly 2 (49m 45s): Stuff. 1 (49m 47s): God's grace is sufficient. So just let it go. 2 (49m 50s): Let it go. Let it go. And 1 (49m 53s): When the enemy reminds you of it again, 2 (49m 56s): Let it go say it's under the grace and mercy of the Lord. Jesus Christ 1 (50m 4s): Take every thought captive until the obedience of Christ. So our thoughts are going to bombard us. Wow. What 2 (50m 10s): About that? Or you shouldn't have done that. I use it's all his stuff he's promised at clear conscience. 1 (50m 19s): And then he's verse number four. He's promised a life of faith. I remember your genuine faith. Paul writes verse five for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother, Lois, and your mother Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. So it appears that Paul is commending his salvation, that he acquired by faith, but also his life that he lives by faith is trusting in God. Paul is recognizing that Timothy saved by Grayson is or saved by faith in the finished work of Christ, but it was also living out a faith life. 1 (50m 59s): So again, as Christians, we're saved by grace through faith, and then we live out our lives by faith. That that is the only way that God has called us to live our lives. As followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We receive the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ. So it's the gateway into life with Christ, his faith in the finished work of Christ. That's the gateway. And then we don't just stop there and stop exercising. Our faith. It's actually introductory it's faith. One-on-one that gets us in by God's grace. And then we live our lives by faith 2 (51m 37s): For the rest of our lives, Hebrews 1 (51m 40s): 11 one. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. So faith is the substance. It's the raw material. It's the ingredients, right? That's what faith is. It's the raw material. The ingredients of things, hope for the evidence of things not seen. So were it wouldn't be faith. If we could see it, right? It wouldn't be faith. If we could see it, we can't actually see it. Oh God, we, we he's invisible. And so we have faith in him. Faith is the raw material. It's the evidence faith, because what is required to be follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ, Hebrews 11, six says, but without faith, it's impossible to please him. 1 (52m 25s): God, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, that he exists. And that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So we're saved as we put our faith in Christ and that saving faith begins a new life of faith in Jesus Christ. So what we're talking about is not just fire insurance. Like you get, you know, like life insurance, you pay for it, and then you, you have it. It's no, you it's a life that God is ushering us into where we're actually called to live differently as a result of our new faith life. And so with that, how has your life changed as a result of your faith experience in faith, walk with God, 2 (53m 8s): How has your life changed? 1 (53m 9s): Does that change? Does your faith change the way you think is it changed the way you live? Does it change the way you believe? Does it change the way you speak and think and all of those things, which change that? And I think it needs to be tangible. I think we need to be able to say this changed. I actually live my life differently in this arena because of my faith. If I heard a quote this week, bye, a guy that I'm surprised. And, and I even questioned whether it actually came from him, but mark, Walberg made this quote. He said, God never gives you a dream that matches your budget. 1 (53m 54s): He's not checking your bank account. He's checking your faith 2 (53m 59s): And then interesting. Okay. God 1 (54m 1s): Never gives you a dream. Whether he wrote it or not. 2 (54m 3s): It's true. Whether he said it or not, it's true. God 1 (54m 7s): Never gives us a dream that matches our budget. He's not checking your bank account. 2 (54m 12s): He's checking your faith. God 1 (54m 16s): Is always going to be calling us into a life of faith. He just always just the way he works. So he's going to be putting us into circumstances and situations where we are above our capacity, where the job required is required, requires more of us than we actually naturally have. He's going to put us in certain circumstances where we have to give in ways that we never thought imagined recently this week, somebody gave me a letter written by Rick or Rick Warren. I don't know what you think about Rick Warren, but doesn't matter. He, this is what, this is his story. Rick Warren, pastor Saddleback church, down in Southern California and years ago, years ago, when they were getting ready to build their new building, he was praying. 1 (55m 2s): He said, he's basically said what? I always say, praying, be obedient. Do what you Lord's asking you to do. So he prayed and he felt like the Lord was asking him to give a hundred thousand dollars over a three-year period. 2 (55m 17s): Well, it 1 (55m 17s): Was an impossible ask from the Lord. He didn't have that kind of money in that season of his life. But the Lord asked him to give a hundred thousand dollars over a three-year period. And he felt compelled to tell the church. He said, I don't know how, 2 (55m 35s): But 1 (55m 36s): This is what I'm going to commit to by faith. The very next week, he gets a call from, I think the publisher was Zondervan and they said, Hey, we'd like you to write the book, purpose driven life. And we're going to give you $150,000 advance to write the book. And so he came to church the following week and said, you remember what I said last week? I said, I don't have the money. I just got this book deal. And now I'm going to be able to do it. This is, this is how God operates. So he, he didn't have the resource before he committed to giving what the Lord had asked him to give. But he knew by faith that the Lord was asking him to give, where is it in your life that the Lord is asking you to do something that you don't have the resource for or the talent for, or ability for, or the time for what is God asking you to do that? 1 (56m 28s): You're saying no to, because in the natural, you don't see where the resources coming from. Time, talent, treasure. I don't have enough time to do that. Lord. I don't have enough wisdom to do that. Lord. I don't have the training to do that. The education to do that, Lord, what, how is this possible? But the Lord has planted a dream in your life. He's planted something within you that requires faith. And if you don't step into it, you'll never realize the fulfillment of that dream. The people of Israel coming out of Egypt, we've talked about these stories all the time, what they had to get Pharaoh in the chicken, his chariot and soldiers there, they're pursuing 2 (57m 15s): Israel. And they're up against the what? The red sea, right? And 1 (57m 20s): Said, God, what do we do? What did God say? He said, get moving. Right? You got to step into the red sea and see what I will do. But if you don't step into the red sea, you'll never see what I can do. So after they get through the red sea and they're in their wilderness, they're in there for 40 years because of their lack of faith, a whole generation had to die off. Now they got to go into the promised land and where do they have to cross there? Right? So what is happening in the Jordan? They need to pass through the Jordan to get to the promised land, but nothing would happen until they stepped into the Jordan. 1 (58m 3s): And then when the Jew, they stepped into it, the water began to back up and they pass through on dry ground again, 2 (58m 10s): Where what's 1 (58m 11s): Your red sea? What's your Jordan river? What do you need to step into? In order we experience the supernatural plan that God has for you. This is just the way this is the faith life. It's just, if you want to do anything for God, it's going to be done by faith. Faith requires commitment. Faith requires commitment before the miracle is do with that. What you will do with that, what you will back to Timothy. Second Timothy, one six. Do with that. What you will, is that really what I want 2 (58m 50s): To say there? Yeah, I'll leave it there 1 (58m 55s): Back to second Timothy, one six. This is why I remind you to fan into flames. The spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. So essentially saying the same thing. You've been received something by faith. Now, fan that into flames, fan it. And what does it, have you ever been camping? We've all been camping. Well, Moses has been camping, right? And your, your fire goes down and it's just a little of cold, just like a little bit of hot coals, right? What do you got to do to breathe that, breathe life back into that fire. You gotta get down there and breathe on it. 2 (59m 32s): Nicole's began to get red and there's some smoke that begins and then boom, a little flame pops up. 1 (59m 40s): And then what do you do after you fan that flame? Now you start feeding it, right? And then as soon you've got this big blazing fire, but the blazing fire is not going to last forever. You got to keep feeding it. And when it dies down and you gotta breathe into it, breathe life back into it. So Paul is telling Timothy to do it reminds you to fan into flames, your spiritual gift. God gave you. When I laid my hands on you forgot has not given us a spirit, fear and timidity, but of power love. And self-discipline number five. What has God promised? He has promised power over fear. 1 (1h 0m 22s): Timothy was, yeah. Obviously deer dealing with some kind of fear or else Paul wouldn't have written about fear 2 (1h 0m 29s): Forgot. It's not 1 (1h 0m 30s): Given us a spirit of fear and timidity, Timothy, but of power love. And self-discipline 2 (1h 0m 38s): Where do we get 1 (1h 0m 38s): The power to overcome fear? I mean, if this is promised to us, if God has promised power over fear, where do we get 2 (1h 0m 45s): It? Well, we get 1 (1h 0m 48s): This power over fear by believing in who we are in Christ. Paul saying fan into the flame, into flame, the spiritual gift. You have been gifted Timothy, but it's not going to just happen. You've gotta, you gotta fan it. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta step into it. You gotta live it. 2 (1h 1m 11s): Believe who you 1 (1h 1m 12s): Are in Christ. You've been blessed with spiritual gifts to be used. Every believer in the scripture, it says, has been given a spiritual gift to be used for the building up of the body of Christ, the edification of the body of Christ. So what's your spiritual gift that you need to flame our fan into flames. Maybe it's hospitality, 2 (1h 1m 32s): Maybe it's generosity. Maybe it's teaching. Maybe it's shepherding you name it. There's a whole host of them. 1 (1h 1m 44s): This God wanting you to fan in to flames. You're you're fearful. Well, maybe about doing it. Well, we're all fearful about stepping into God's supernatural plans. 2 (1h 1m 54s): It's just natural to be fearful, but 1 (1h 1m 58s): Natural doesn't mean it's right to stop and never step into it. Then fear is natural fears. 2 (1h 2m 8s): Fear is just natural. It's it's, it's just, 1 (1h 2m 13s): You know, we get into this new building next door, we signed a five-year lease. 2 (1h 2m 18s): And then I, 1 (1h 2m 18s): The way I up the next day, I'm like, what do we just do? I know we're supposed to do that, but now what do we do? 2 (1h 2m 27s): You know, we plant a church and 1 (1h 2m 29s): Nobody shows up and what do we do? 2 (1h 2m 32s): Very few people show up. You know, we, we 1 (1h 2m 35s): Hire staff and the money's not there. Everything that God has asked us to do in the course of these 18 years, as a church plant has been a faith journey because we didn't have the people, money, resources, gift talent. I had never done it before. I never preached weekly on a Sunday morning. I, I just, I'd been an associate pastor. I've been at church chaplain jail chaplain. That was the extent of my, but God said, go plant the church. 2 (1h 3m 3s): I said, okay, we'll go plant a church. What, what 1 (1h 3m 7s): Are you doing? Planting a church. You have no idea how to plant a church. I don't know what I'm doing, but God told me to go plant a church. I still don't know what I'm doing, but we're still moving forward. I've been blessed with spiritual gifts to be used. If you don't use them, they will never develop and produce the kind of fruit God intended them to produce. Use fanning. The flames means don't let the fire go out. 2 (1h 3m 39s): Don't let your fire burn out. Believe 1 (1h 3m 42s): What God has done in you and go for it for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power love. And self-discipline. This is what I wrote. You will have power. You will have power over fear when you choose to believe God's plan and purpose and gifting for your life and walk in it. In spite of opposites, 2 (1h 4m 5s): Power over fear, power over fear. Believe, 1 (1h 4m 9s): Believe God's plan, purpose, and gifting in your life 2 (1h 4m 14s): And walk in it. In spite of opposition, there's always going to be opposition. There's always 1 (1h 4m 21s): Going to be opposition. People told me 2 (1h 4m 24s): When we planted the church, we don't need any more churches. Please don't plant another church. All right. 1 (1h 4m 33s): People told me you don't have the stamina. You will never make it as, as a pastor of a church. You just don't have it. So you it's not in you. All right. Opposition is natural because the enemy knows. He's got a pretty good sense about what God wants to 3 (1h 4m 56s): Do with us. And so he's going to do everything he can to throw away on that. 1 (1h 5m 0s): Where's he throwing water. And where are you letting him throw water on? You're on God's plan for your life. 2 (1h 5m 8s): If you're, we are 1 (1h 5m 10s): Full and timid about what God has called you to do, 2 (1h 5m 14s): Just stop and decide to move forward and watch what God will do. 1 (1h 5m 24s): What has God promised through faith in Christ? He's promised a new kind of spiritual family. So you're not in, you're not in it alone. You're in it together. We're all in this together. He's promised grace, mercy and 2 (1h 5m 35s): Peace. 1 (1h 5m 37s): He has promised a clear conscience life, a life of faith and tower over fear with that. We're going to take communion. I mean, by the worship team to come forward, hopefully you received your communion elements. If you did not raise your hand and we will get you communion elements. 2 (1h 5m 57s): And yeah, 1 (1h 6m 2s): Communion is just an opportunity to remember what Jesus has done for us. Extending grace and mercy and peace to us. And maybe today as you take communion, as we take communion, maybe today is the day where you say God I'm to, I'm not going to be fearful or timid any longer. I'm going to do what you've asked me to do by faith. And I'm going to conquer my fear with the power of God. Okay? Everybody knows how to open these things. Two layers of cellophane, the first layer on wraps, the, 3 (1h 6m 44s): The wafer we, we like to call it styrofoam. It's pretty accurate. But if you get, if you work up some saliva first, before you put it in, then 2 (1h 6m 56s): It'll help. It'll help. Just a little 1 (1h 7m 1s): Experience there for I pass on to you. What I received from the Lord himself on the night, when he was betrayed the Lord, Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it to then he broke it in pieces and said, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me. 3 (1h 7m 17s): Let's go ahead and take the wafer. Oh, we're so thankful, Lord. We're so thankful that you allowed your body to be crucified pierced on that cross for my sin Lord for our sin. We're so, so eternally grateful, so forever grateful. And so Lord, on this family, Sunday, as we do every family, Sunday, we stop Lord. And we say, thank you. We refresh our minds in the truth of what it costs for our salvation. 3 (1h 7m 60s): And we say with great gratitude, thank you so much. Jesus. Thank you so much, Jesus. 1 (1h 8m 8s): In the same way, he took the cup of wine. After supper saying this cup is the new covenant between God and his and agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this to remember me. As often as you drink it for every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes 3 (1h 8m 29s): Again. Let's take the Jews. Thank you, Lord. We, we, we announced your death. Lord. We announced your victory over sin and death. We announced the gospel that it is 1 (1h 8m 55s): True and rights and we believe it today. Like we've 3 (1h 8m 58s): Always believed at Lord and I pray that you would convince people of the gospel in Jesus name, God, that you would convince people of the truth of the gospel and that each of us would believe that the truth of the gospel is for us. The grace, mercy and peace is for us eternal life and salvation is for us. We thank you, Lord. That'd be glorified as we continue to worship in song. Thank you for this time. We love you Lord in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. 0 (1h 9m 30s): father. 0 (1h 13m 32s): We love you and praise you. We are your children. We are your Kindle. We thank you for the honor is that we get to be in your presence. When we get to worship you, we love you. Maybe go out with a stay with heads, held high and the smiles on our faces because you are so good in your most precious name. We pray. Amen.

Guard What God Has Entrusted to You

0 (1s): Would you stand with us? Why don't we pray as we begin, Lord, we just look to you this morning to the author and perfecter of our faith. God, we just pray that you would meet us in this space. As we've gathered here to worship you this morning, that you would just dwell in each heart, that you would comfort every soul that you would heal every body in need of healing and Lord that you would rescue, redeem and restore. Would you lead us beside those still waters? 0 (41s): Again today we all stand just an equal footing in need of a savior today. So we thank you for your great love for us. Thank you that we don't have to be afraid in this chaotic world that we can be at peace in your presence this morning. So we walk without fear. Lord, we look to you this morning for everything that we need in Jesus name. Amen. In June my head like, gosh, you . 0 (10m 48s): He is Jesus Tonga. 0 (11m 6s): my God. 0 (15m 12s): Jesus. Jesus. Thank you, Lord. 1 (15m 49s): Thank you that you have conquered the grave. You've given us new life, new hope, peace and joy, new confidence in you. Lord, you have done so many things and continue to do so many things and we're so grateful. We're grateful God that you're a good father, that you are liable. Your, your love for us is unconditional. You were faithful. 1 (16m 29s): You're kind and good. God. Did you have healthy expectations for us? Thank you that you call us your sons and your daughters. You have adopted a sincere family. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God. I pray that you would just bless every father gathered today and thank you for the work of fathers in our families and our culture and our church. 1 (17m 12s): Thank you God, for the way that they faithfully lead their families, Lord, and thank you for the role of fathers within the church, within the family Lord, you've given us profound opportunity and profound responsibility, and then you give us the grace to do what you ask us to do. And you strengthen us for the good work ahead, Lord. We're so thankful, Lord God, we honor dads today. I thank you for my dad. Bless each dad. And for those who have lost their fathers, Lord, we just pray for comforting peace upon each person today, for those who have a difficult relationship with their fathers, Lord, that you would minister God where there needs to be grace extended and forgiveness, extended Lord, where there needs to be reconciliation. 1 (18m 9s): Pray that that would happen. Also, Lord God, that you would work to bring reconciliation and restored relationship. Jesus, thank you God that you're always at work and it's never too late. You're you're available to do the good work that is needed in our lives. Reconciliation. We're bringing reconciliation and hope and joy and peace and Lord, as we've gathered for church today, we thank you Lord, that we've had the opportunity to sing and that we're praying and that we've got the opportunity to open up the word and, and that we're going to laugh some today. Lord, there's just a lot going on Lord. We're so thankful Lord. And so as we have gathered this father's day be glorified. 1 (18m 53s): As we saying, as we've been singing Lord, as we open up your word, be glorified. We pray in Jesus' name. Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. You can be seated 2 (19m 3s): Happy father's day. 3 (19m 5s): How many dads are in the room? How many dads were in the room? Raise your hand. Right? How many dads? Four or five. There's gotta be more than one. Ray. Real real. There we go. There we go. Good. Good. Good. Thanks for all you guys do. Thank you for being dads in this critical culture that we live in. Thanks for being good dads. We have it. Typically I opened, opened my sermon with some kind of a joke and I say some kind of a joke because sometimes they're funny. Sometimes they're not so funny, but today we have, we have dad jokes for you. So let's go ahead and roll the video here. Pay attention. That's going to be, I think it's going to be funny. So let's see what let's let's find out here, 4 (19m 49s): Curtis. Yeah. What do you call a fake noodle? Good. Tell you it in pasta. You got to say that with that Boston accent pass. Tim, do I enjoy making courthouse? Punts guilty? Do you ever get cold? Just stand in the corner. 4 (20m 29s): They're usually 90 degrees. Wow. What did the drummer call his twin daughters. Did you hear about the kidnapping at school? It's fine. You woke up that one could have gotten dark fast. I ordered a chicken and an egg online. 4 (21m 9s): I'll let you know what came first. The chicken, which one comes in first. I'll let you I'll let you know. Okay, good. No one came a little late average, average joke. I don't know. I once wrote a song about a tortilla, but it's more of a wrap. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Why can't you ever run through a campsite? 4 (21m 56s): You can only ran. It's always pest ticks. Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? No. Great food. No atmosphere. Dad jokes. Number one. What do sprinters eat before a race? Nada. Nothing. They fast? Alright. I thought about going on an all almond diet, but that's just nuts. 4 (22m 43s): Why are balloons so expensive? Inflation? What does the noisy pepper do? It gets jalapeno business. The older crowd. They're like, yeah. I used to run a dating service for chickens, but I was struggling to make ends meet spring is here. 4 (23m 37s): Is that the joke? 0 (23m 55s): I got so excited to wet my pants. 4 (24m 10s): I got so excited. It wasn't pants. All right, here we go. You're American. When you go into a bathroom and when you come out book, what are you while you're in the bathroom? You're being 3 (24m 43s): So that's enough jokes to last the rest of the year. 2 (24m 46s): So I have got to get a job. 3 (24m 53s): This is my job. This isn't this great. Isn't this great. Oh, we should pray after that Lord, as we know, as we get into the word, Lord, your will be done. Speak to us. Thank you so much for the ability to laugh. Laughter is good medicine. As we get into first Timothy chapter six today, as we wrap up first, Timothy chapter six, you just pray that you would speak to us. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Amen. How is everyone? Good. Good, good. Hey, we've just a quick update on 1 0 2. We're going to refer to our new worship center 1 0 2 until we actually get in there maybe, but our new worship center building 1 0 2 west branches coming along. 3 (25m 35s): And what I failed to do last week is show this, these pictures, both services. So let's go ahead and show the pictures up so everybody can see what, so that's the exterior of 1 0 2. It's just a minutes. Walk, not even a minute. It's on the sidewalk here. It's about 45 seconds walk and, and that's kind of what it's going to look like, except for that we're changing the exterior colors, but we took off those canopies over those other windows and the exterior color is going to be basically whites with black trim and it's going to really, really look good. So Dan Hennessy put these pictures together for us. Let's look at the next shot here. This is the inside. 3 (26m 15s): This is what it's going to look like. And so far we've got the stage, the stage being worked on the, the sound booth, framed the couple one partition wall framed. We're making progress a few weeks. We're going to have air conditioning done. We've got plans for plumbing, electrical, all kinds of stuff going on there. So I just want to thank Dan for putting that together. So many people have already been a part of the project beginning with our Workday. You guys remember the work day where we had like 40 or 50 show up to do the demo. We took out, I think eight dump trailers full of stuff on that day. That was about three weeks ago or so. And then this last week we took out two more dump trailers, full of junk out of that place. 3 (26m 55s): There's just so much stuff. So many people have been involved. Jerry Shaw, it has helped with design as well for the, for the building inside and out, been very helpful. MW architects, Wayne and Derek. They're donating a lot of their time and a lot of their effort to get our, our plans drawn that we've got lands that are just about completed, just about ready to be submitted to the city. And then the city will be taking about two weeks to get our building permits. But in the meantime they said, you can keep working and just leave things open so that we can inspect everything. So de Bedford's been in there framing up everything and yeah, Perry's been doing all kinds of stuff. 3 (27m 36s): My brother Larry's been working on painting for us. He did the painting on the parsonage up the, up the driveway, just this last week, Jim Owens in charge of the electrical work he's been doing that Aaron looters is in charge of the technical side of things. We've got a guy Sean D blue, who comes around to do cleanup, anytime that we need him to do cleanup. And it's just been, it's been really, really good to see just the body of Christ come together. And, and so I sent out a letter this week just to kind of let everybody know kind of where we are. So if you didn't get a letter, get, make sure you get your email to address to us through a communication card. You can do that online or through paper communication cards. And we will get that letter to you just say this, give us your email address and then say, Hey, I'd like to have the letter that pastor Steve sent out. 3 (28m 21s): So then we'll get that letter to you. So anyway, that's the update we're hoping to be in sometime fall. My wife said, don't give a hard date and I know that's wise, but so I'm going to say fall in September, October, hopefully around there, we'll be in there. 2 (28m 37s): Step up. 3 (28m 38s): I know we're Jeremy thinks we'll be in, I think September 19. So he's, he's the man of faith in our staff. So we're going to say September 19th, let's hold Jeremy to that. All right. September 19th. Okay. So we're in first Timothy chapter six, this week, sermon title guard, what God has entrusted to you. This was actually what Paul told Timothy in this letter. As he wraps up these six chapters, Paul told Timothy guard what God has entrusted to you. So that is the title of our message today. That's what we're going to be challenged with today to literally guard what God has entrusted to us. So what does that mean? If you're in Christ, then God has given you a new beginning. He's given you new life and purpose and understanding and hope all of these new things are yours in Christ Jesus, but they've got to be held onto you. 3 (29m 29s): Guarded protected. He's given us Grace Love kindness and mercy and these things we need to in our culture, especially in down throughout, not just our culture, not just the Western culture and the 21st century, but down throughout history. I mean, beginning of the first century here where people were challenged to guard this incredible gift, this incredible revelation, this incredible truth that God has given to us. And so these amazing gifts that God has given, they, they need to be guarded. Otherwise we can tend to forget what God has done for us. 3 (30m 10s): Maybe we've been in the faith for many decades and we can continue. We can, you know, forget, we can kind of forget what God has done. We can forget the mercy that he is given to us, the grace that was so desperately needed. And we can forget that he just loves us every day, that he's kind to us every day. He's merciful to us every single day. So we need to guard our perspective about those things and then guard our faith around those things. They need to be guarded and guard what God has entrusted to you. How do we do this? Number one. And we're going to pull these seven points right from the text this morning, the first point. And we talked a little about a little bit about this last week, but don't let money distract you. 3 (30m 53s): Number one, don't let money distract you, guarding what God has entrusted to you. That a lot of the pitfalls around the brown faith is money. It sets it's finance. And so number one, Paul's very clear. It's a Timothy about money. And he said, and he basically saying, Hey, don't let money distract you, Timothy. And as you lead others, challenge them not to let money distract them. So again, we covered these first few verses last week, but for the sake of context, we're going to read them again. So first Timothy chapter six verse six says yet true, true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world and we can't take anything with us when we leave it. 3 (31m 37s): So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be intense. Find contentment to be one of the biggest gifts, the greatest gifts that God gives us the capacity to walk in. When we figure out how to be content with whatever it is that God has given to us. There's just a great deal of joy that follows that we eliminate the striving. We eliminate the anxiety. We eliminate the, the, the temptation to overwork and to try to make more and get more. 3 (32m 18s): There's something that happens in our souls, in our lives. And I think it happens. There's a, there's a resting in our minds as a resting in our hearts. There's a resting in our lives and we by God's grace make the decision to be consents. Lord help us to be consented. I think we live in a culture where we're always going after more. We're always trying to get, trying to move forward. And, and there's something to be said for just resting in the Lord last week, we said, we must honor God with our ability to be content taking things a step further this week. I believe this verse is telling us that great wealth, real wealth is defined by godliness and contentment. 3 (33m 0s): Meaning we can have everything in the world, all the stuff in the world and still be feeling empty real world in the kingdom of God and in the world is godliness with contentment. If we try to stuff, anything else in that whole called godliness and contentment, and we try to stuff, anything else in that it's going to leave us lacking and lead it, leave us wanting more. It's not a bad thing to have some resources, but it's how we think about those resources that can get us into trouble. So it's okay to have some resource. 3 (33m 41s): I encourage you to have some resource, but how we think about those resources, we'll, we'll kind of direct the course of our life. Sometimes we think a little bit more and I will be okay if I just have a little bit more, I will be okay. Or sometimes we have this perspective that says I'm secure because I have enough. Our security can never be okay. And the stuff that we have as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ, our security needs to be in the person and the finished work of Jesus Christ. If our focus is on resource, then we have a fear around losing those resources and that fear around resources about keeping those resources keeps us from being generous. 3 (34m 30s): We want to hold on to it because after all we've worked so hard to acquire and accumulate resource. Now we have to be careful and we're fearful about losing them. And so we, we fail to be generous when the Lord asks us to be generous, fear around resources makes those resources a person's God, right? Proverbs 23. There's no slide for this, but Proverbs 23, 4 and five says, don't wear yourself out, trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit and that good wisdom in the blink of an eye wealth disappears for it will sprout wings and fly away like an Eagle off the top of my head. 3 (35m 12s): I can think of two people, two friends of mine who have lost a great deal, a great deal of resource in their life. One guy through a bad investment, through one bad investment, lost his whole life savings, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in one bad move in with an investment. He lost everything that he had acquired. And he had acquired quite a bit at that stage in his life. He was only in his forties, but he had lost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. But because he chose not to be not to be worn out by that, I mean, it was hard and it was difficult and that sort of thing, but he, the guy turned his eyes on the Lord and say, okay, God, where do we go from here? 3 (35m 60s): How do we move forward from here? And over the last 20 years, he's been able to rebuild. And, and in my perspective, my I've known this guy for decades, probably for decades. In my perspective, this guy is more grounded and more godly and has a better perspective on wealth. And he's ever had is when you lose it all and have to rebuild it reestablishes. Hopefully if you're your faith in God and his ability to, to sustain you, it changes your perspective about those things, because you know how quickly wealth can disappear. It just changes everything about your perspective. Another guy, a friend of a friend of mine lost literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, upwards of a million dollars in one bad business transaction. 3 (36m 49s): So the first guy lost his money to a bad investment. The second guy lost his money in a bad business deal. And I'm like the first guy, the second guy chose to just focus on the Lord and just believe that God was going to is going to take care of them. And that's exactly what happened. It's interesting when bad things happen to good people, because at times, bad things happen to good people. What we do with that experience tells something about us. These two men decided not to give up on God, not to give up on, on their dreams and ambitions, but to just move forward with a different perspective. 3 (37m 34s): And they, they both have grown tremendously in their ability to trust the Lord through their experiences. They both recovered just fine because their confidence was in Fry's back to first Timothy chapter six, but people who long to be rich, fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. People long to be rich, fall into all kinds of traps. Workaholism is a temptation for people in the Western culture. If we just work a little bit more, a little bit harder. If I work on the Sabbath, if I work on Sunday, if I just work, keep working, then I will be able to acquire what I need to acquire. 3 (38m 20s): So workaholism is one temptation when people long for wealth materialism is, is, is the result of workaholism and the desire to be rich. We live in a culture where workaholism and is rampant. And so we just have to fight against it. We just have to fight against it. Verse 10 says for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So not money itself, but the love of money, right? The love of money. And some people craving money have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows, the, of Nam and the got of money as a harsh task master. 3 (39m 4s): If we're living our lives for money for ma'am and the Bible says, you can't serve God and money, you can't serve God and mammon. If we're living our lives for money, doing everything we can to acquire money, we're going to realize eventually that mammon money is a harsh taskmaster with very little reward and it doesn't doesn't last and it doesn't bring any kind of real peace or joy. We'll have a lot. They're fearful. They're going to lose it when they have little they're fearful, fearful. They're not going to have enough, but when God is the focus, when we do what the scripture says, seek first, the kingdom of God and his rights is this. 3 (39m 46s): Everything else will be added unto us. When we trust God and believe him, we can relax. And just trust that God's got our best interest in mind. So God, what God has entrusted to you. Number one, don't let money distract you. Number two, remember who you are in a crazy world that we live in. It's it's easy to forget who we are. Who are you? Paul told Timothy, but you Timothy are a man of God. How many of us would say, I'm a woman of God. I'm a man of God. How many would I identify themselves that way? Right, right. We can, we can say, I'm a man of God. I'm a woman of God. But are we really living, believing that that's our identity. 3 (40m 26s): I living like Paul told Timothy to live live like LIS lived this way because you Timothy are a man of God. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are men and women of God. That means if we're in Christ, our sins have been forgiven. We've been adopted into his family. We actually belong to the living God. So we need to remember who we are. And then also remember whose we are. If you're in Christ, you're a man or woman of God. You belong to God. Remember who you are and then live out of that identity. It's easy. You're to say on Sunday morning, Hey, I'm a man of God. I'm a woman of God. But you live out of that identity and allow that identity to dictate how you live your life. 3 (41m 11s): That's a wholly different wholly, totally different scenario. In story, we need to allow the ID, our identity as men and women of God to shape our life and our decisions. So Paul was reminding Timothy of his identity so that he would avoid the pitfalls of life. If we ID our debt, if we are identifying ourselves as people of the world that going to live like people of the world. But if we identify ourselves as people of God, that we're going to live, like God would direct us to live. So allow that identity as a matter of woman of God, to shape your life and decisions. If you're here today, and you're saying, I'm not a man of God, or I'm not a woman of God, maybe to one of two things needs to happen. Number one, maybe you don't know Jesus at all. 3 (41m 53s): Maybe you haven't had your sins forgiven. Maybe you haven't been adopted into the family of God. If you want to be considered a man or a woman of God, if you want to be God's kid God's child, then just simply invite the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ into your life and say, Lord, I need you. I want you. I want that to be my identity. I want you to be a man of God. I wants to be a woman of God or maybe you're saved, but you're just not identifying. You're not thinking of yourself in the right terms, in the right context. You're not thinking I am a man of God. I am a woman of God. And so that actually changes the way that I speak. It changes the way that I think it changes the way that I make decisions and the way that I live my life. 3 (42m 36s): Why? Because it's not an arrogant thing to say, I'm a man of God. You're just stating the obvious. If you are in Christ, then you are a man. You are a woman of God. So don't think that that's an arrogant statement. You're just saying, Hey, it's like saying, it's like me saying, Hey, I'm, I'm the, I'm the son of my father. I mean, it just stating the obvious. So I'm my dad's kid. You know, I'm stating the obvious. So if you're in Christ, you're just stating the obvious. It's not an arrogant thing. And it never should be an arrogant thing because we're saved by grace because he's good. Not because we're good. Paul is reminding Timothy of his, of his identity so that he would avoid the pitfalls of this life, greediness and worldly things so that he might pursue righteousness. 3 (43m 18s): What does it mean to pursue righteousness guard? What God has entrusted to you? Number three, run from evil. By pursuing righteousness, run from evil, by pursuing righteousness. Righteousness is simply things that are right in God's sight, things that are right according to the word of God and things that are right according to the spirit of God and God never contradicts himself. So if we open up the word of God and live our lives, according to the word of God, then we're pursuing righteousness. Because those things that we're pursuing our rights in God's sight. I wonder if in our lives, we're pursuing the wrong things. 3 (44m 2s): And we don't even realize that we're pursuing the wrong things because we haven't opened up the word and allowed the word of God, the Bible to shape our perspective. Verse 11 continues so run from all these evil things, Timothy pursue righteousness and a godly life along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. So righteousness is a pursuit. It's something that we have to be intentional about. We don't just wake up and pursue. We wake up with the wrong perspective some days and we're we're grumpy or we've had a bad dream or whatever. We have to set our mind, fix our thoughts on the right stuff and begin to pursue rights as this out of the gate every morning. 3 (44m 47s): So run for all these evil things. How many know that we have to run? Paul said, fleet youthful, lusts. We, we have we're in a culture. That's bombarding us with temptations. You know, the world, the flesh and the devil is pumped bombarded with temptation. So we have to run from these evil things, pursuing righteousness. So we have a responsibility and action to take pursue righteousness in a godly life. Along with faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Remember first Timothy one 19 through 20. There's no slide for this, but it says, as we back up in first Timothy one, he says clean to your faith in Christ and keep your conscience clear for some people have deliberately violated. 3 (45m 29s): Their conscience is as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked. And then Paul gives a couple of examples. and Alexander are two examples. I threw them out. Paul said, I threw them out and handed them over to Satan. So they might learn not to bless FIM God. So from the first century to the 21st century, we have this responsibility to run from evil and pursue righteousness. And it will be like that until Jesus returns. We're going to have to have this perspective. Maybe, you know, someone who has shipwrecked their faith. If you just look at the decisions that were made along the way, you can see how it was easy for that person to shipwreck their faith, because they weren't pursuing a righteousness. 3 (46m 13s): They were wrapped up and enveloped in the world. Maybe you've been there. Maybe you're there. Now you feel like man, I've shipwrecked my faith by my decisions. You know, the good thing about the gospel is that the Bible says that his mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. If we confess our sins, he is faithful. And just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, we can come back into a right relationship with God. All right, faith with God. Re-establish our walk with the Lord by simply confessing our sins and the deciding to do these things, deciding to run from evil, by pursuing righteousness. What evil do you need to run from? 3 (46m 57s): What righteousness do you need to pursue? What area of in your life do you need to run from evil and pursue righteousness? Usually it's not your whole life, right? It's like a lot of good going on, but then there's those gnarly things as dark things in your life that just need to be obliterated. They need do you need to run from those things by pursuing a righteousness guard, what God has entrusted to you? Number four, fight the good fight of faith. That's what verse 12 says, fight the good fight for the true faith. So fight that requires intentional living, fighting the good fight of faith, like being all in. 3 (47m 38s): And I imagine showing up for a fight because you're in a fight, whether you like it or not, whether you realize or not imagined showing up for a fight unprepared, you're going to get pummeled. And you're going to get obliterated by that by your opponent. And so be prepared for the battle that says we don't wrestle against flesh and blood enemies, but against the principalities of darkness or the enemy Satan and his minions are fighting against us. And so we have to realize that we're in this battle, this fight. And so we have to fight the good fight of faith, of the true faith. We have to fight to hold on to our faith, right? If we don't fight to hold onto our faith, it just kind of slips away, right? How do we fight holding on to hold onto our fate? 3 (48m 19s): We, we, we fight by thinking about the right things by choosing the right things, by keeping our eyes on the Lord. If we don't fight the culture and resist the culture, we'll be swept up in the culture. It's just the way it is. If you don't fight it, we get swept up in it. If we don't fight the flesh, if we don't fight temptation, if we don't fight these things that are trying to draw us away, then we'll get swept away in it. So how do we fight? Well, the simple answer is just do what the Bible says. We're to abide in Christ. We're to be with Christ and have him be in us. So abiding Christ and, and in that relationship, you'll bear much spiritual fruit. 3 (49m 0s): So you just simply abiding Christ. He wake up every morning and say, God, I'm all yours today. And throughout the course of the day, you're saying I'm all yours today. Lord, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? Sometimes we go into autopilot and we're not thinking about God. We're just kind of living our lives. But then circumstances come up where we need God. And we're calling back out to him. Why not just abiding Christ all day long. Number one, abiding Christ. How do we fight? We abide in Christ. Number two, pray without ceasing. That's what the scripture says. Pray without ceasing. How do you do that? We just do it all day long. Lord, I feeling tempted right now. I need your help. God. I'm feeling grateful right now. 3 (49m 41s): Thank you, God. I am so happy that I, I, where I'm at my season of life. Lord. Thank you, God. Thank you for the hard work that you've given me to do, Lord, thank you so much. And it's just about constantly just turning our attention to the Lord. Thank you Lord. For that, that, that, that transaction that just went through. Thank you for the ability to think wisely about this business deal that, I mean, thank you, Lord, that you're, you've made my marriage better Lord. That you've made my, my relationship with my kids better than just an attitude of prayerfulness and thankfulness. Pray without ceasing. And then read your Bible daily. Just kind of getting back to the basics. How do we find you got to read your Bible. You get up, you get up and you, you feel off throughout the day. 3 (50m 24s): You gotta open up the word of God. I can't. I stress that enough to us. We got to open up the word of God and read two or three chapters of God's Bible of the word. Don't just read a verse. A verse is good, but if a verses good, two or three chapters is even better, right? I mean, we will see then hours listening to radio or podcasts or watching television or whatever it is that we will do or reading anything else, but the Bible, but we won't spend 20 minutes reading two or three chapters. Cause that's really all it takes. It's not meant to be a heavy thing. It's just a reality check. We don't spend enough time reading the Bible. 3 (51m 4s): And so we're distracted by all these things because we're not allowing our mind to be shaped by the scripture, by the truth of who God is. If you're feeling discouraged and you take the time to read the Bible with an open mind and an open heart, you will be encouraged, right? If you're feeling tempted and you open up the Bible and you with an open heart and an open mind, read the Bible, the temptation will dissipate. If you're in need of any kind and you open up that scripture and just read a couple of chapters, two or three chapters with an open mind and open heart, God will give you the answers that you need. You'll restore peace to you, confidence to you, joy to you. You'll walk away thing saying thank you, Jesus. 3 (51m 46s): I'm grateful Lord for your word. Now I know every more, more than never that I needed your word. And you do that every single day. And God will show up for you every single day. Biting Christ, pray without ceasing. Read your Bible daily. Be continually filled with the holy spirits. We must lead because Ephesians five says that we must be continually filled with those guys. What else is the answer? I mean, we leak, right? We're like we, we need to be constantly filled with the holy spirit and then number five, stay humble and teachable. That's how you fight. That's how you fight abiding Christ. Pray without ceasing. Read your Bible daily. 3 (52m 28s): Be continually filled with the holy spirit and stay humble and teachable. Number five, hold tightly to your new life. First 12 continues. It says hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses. How do you hold tightly? All of the things that we just talked about, those five things that we hope that we just talked about. That's how you, that's how you hold tightly. That's how you hold tightly. You remember that God has given you a new life. Hold tightly to that. The temptation is to be excited about it for a month and then forget about it. When trials come, we're forget about it. 3 (53m 8s): When a seemingly better offer comes along in the form of a temptation that is meant to destroy your life. Remember that God has given you a new life. Remember you're not your own. You've been bought with a price, hold tightly to your new life in Christ. Make God your priority in every decision. This is how you hold tightly. You hold, you make God your priority in every decision. And then you re resist temptation. You keep your eyes on Jesus. These are, this is, this is how you hold tightly to your new life in Jesus. If you don't hold tightly, you will slip away. Not because the gospel's fragile, but because you're fragile, the gospel is powerful. 3 (53m 51s): But in our humanists, we are fragile in our own strength. We are fragile, but in Christ we can do all things. And so we in Christ, we hold on and we keep our focus on him and we make our decisions all about him. We keep our, with our eyes on Jesus, number six lives so that no one can find fault in you. Verse 13, Paul told Timothy and I charge you before God. He wasn't saying, Hey Timothy, this is just a good idea, right? I charge you before God who gives us life to all. And before Christ Jesus who gave a good testimony before Pontius pilot, that you obey this command without wavering, then no one can find fault with you from now on from now until our Lord, Jesus Christ comes again. 3 (54m 44s): Remember Jesus before Pontius, pilot, Pontius, pilot could not find anything wrong with Jesus. And so he washed his hands, turned him over to those who wanted to kill him. And they killed Jesus. Jesus declared before Pontius pilot. I am the Messiah. I am the Lord. Jesus was our prime example. He lived a life above reproach, fully God and fully man. He lived a life beyond reproach, resisting temptation, the temptation to be disgruntled with people. 3 (55m 24s): He, he would heal people. He would heal 10 lepers and nine of the 10 would just go away and forget all about him. One would come back. This was his, this was the deal. Jesus said, didn't I heal 10 of you. Why is there only one that came back? But that's what he dealt with constantly. He worked miracles in front of people and they refuse to believe that he was the Messiah. So the temptation was probably too hard in his heart toward people because that's the temptation to harden our hearts toward people. But Jesus resisted that temptation. He lived above reproach, chose to love people unconditionally, and he gave his life as a ransom for all. 3 (56m 5s): So how do you live? So no one can find fault in you have a genuine faith. That's where it all begins. It's, it's a faith that is genuine. That is not for show. It is like, this is who I am like from the, my toes to the top of my head inside out. This is who I am in Jesus. I mean, this needs to be our perspective. Like every part of me, a hundred percent of me is in Christ. At genuine. Faith will keep you from living above reproach, keeping your, your life above reproach so that no one can find fault in you. And then out of that, you'll have integrity, have integrity. 3 (56m 50s): What does that mean? It means to be honest, the men and women of integrity be, be honest with every transaction and every conversation be honest, I had was here at the office on Friday and I was studying, prepping for some, for Sunday for this message. And this guy, this homeless guy, he started kept knocking at the door and I'm like, Lord, I don't have time to talk to this homeless guy right now. I've got a sermon to write, right? And so I ignored him, knocked the first time I ignored him knocked the second time. I'm like, okay, I'll get up. And I thought to myself, if he asks me why didn't answer the door the first time, I'm just going to be honest with him. 3 (57m 33s): I'm going to say, dude, I am busy right now. I don't have time to talk every time that you knock on the door. I love the guy, but I can't stop every time. So I had this wrestling match. I could say, well, I didn't hear, but that would lack integrity. The honest thing is I just didn't have time. So he never asked me why I didn't answer the door the first time, because we finally chatted and that sort of thing, but it was all good. And we got things handled, but I thought, you know, the temptation is to be dishonest. Oh, I was, I must've been in the bathroom or Hey, I must've been outside or Hey, I must've been upstairs. I didn't hear you knock. But the truth is God's worthy of our very best. And when it, just to be honest about things, have a genuine faith, not for show, have integrity, be honest. 3 (58m 15s): I remember a number of years ago, we had some taxes down. I shared this story before and there was a big, big fat tax mistake made on our taxes. And so the following year I had to pay an additional $7,000. I'm like, well, I'm the only one who knows about this tax mistake. I could just forget about it, but I'm not the only one who knows about his tax mistake. My God knows about this tax mistake. So I have to be honest about the stacks mistakes. So I ended up volunteering that information to my CPA and I paid the additional 7,000 bucks. 3 (58m 56s): I would rather pay $7,000 and have a clear conscience than hold onto that 7,000 bucks and have a JD conscience. I just don't want, I don't want to think about that 10 years later or 15 years later or five minutes later and have regrets. So be honest, tell the truth. Be the same person in every situation. I'm not saying I've got this nailed. I don't have this nailed. All you gotta do is ask who are close to me. I am trying to get this nailed. And that's all God's asking us to. He said, just work toward this. Be people of integrity, be people of integrity. And when you mess up own it and walk forward with integrity guard, what God has entrusted to you. 3 (59m 37s): Number seven, live anticipating Jesus return. I think sometimes we're only living for this life. We're only living for this life for these 67, the 80 90 years that we have a hundred years that we have we're okay. Only living for this life. We can guard effectively what God has entrusted to us by having this anticipation that Jesus will return and then help others do the same for adjust the right time. Verse 15 says it just the right time. Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed only almighty God, the king of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords. This is how it all wraps up. Like Jesus will return. 3 (1h 0m 18s): He is coming back. He alone can never die. Speaking of God and he lives in light store, brilliance became God that no human can approach him. No human eyes ever seen him nor ever will all honor and power to him forever and ever. Amen. One commentator wrote such a Lord deserves. It was an awesome reverence combined with complete humility. We, the return of price for some of us is so far in the back of our minds that we're not even thinking about it. And so it doesn't impact the way that we live our lives. We hold on to our, our faith. When we realize that Jesus could return at any moments, he alone, I'll read verse 15 again for just the right time. 3 (1h 1m 0s): Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed and only almighty God. The king of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords is surely assuredly. As he came, he will come again. Are we ready for him? Are we living our lives every day? So we're ready. No matter what happens, we're ready to, to meet him. Verse 17 says, trust those who are rich or teach those who are rich in this world, not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Isn't that interesting. He richly gives us all we need for our necessities. 3 (1h 1m 43s): Is that what it says? I mean, it's true, but is that all it says? He says he originally gives us all we need for our enjoyment and that interesting. I think we think sometimes that God is only going to give me the bare minimum and I've have to be happy with that. Well, we need to learn to be content with the bare minimum, but I I've watched God over the course of my life. Richly bless our family and take care of not just our necessities, but our desires. We're going to North Carolina this, this summer or in the fall to go to our niece's wedding. 3 (1h 2m 28s): And so I told Julia in North Carolina, that's the east coast. I said, we'd never been to New York. We got to go. We got to drive the six hours. We got to go up to New York and see New York. We've never been up there. We're going to see Niagara falls and, you know, see, we want this part of the country. We've never been to before. We've never seen before. And so we were talking about it and I, you know, she's, we're wrestling about, you know, talking through how we're going to do it. Now we're going to pay for it. So God will, God will do it. He will do it. I just know he will. I just, there's something about just trusting, not in a irresponsible way, but when you feel like the Lord's in something that you would just do it by God's grace. 3 (1h 3m 11s): I remember a number of years ago, I wanted to take my whole clan to Hawaii and it was going to be a really expensive trip, but I just knew that it was the right thing to do. My kids were getting older. That, that one point we had one grandkid little Levi's. So he traveled with us and I just knew it was the right thing to do. So I said, Hey guys, we're going to take you to Hawaii. All of you, we're going to go and spend some time in Hawaii. And so we did that and God provided for the trip. He took care of the trip. We had amazing sushi in that, remember that restaurant. And it was just amazing sushi and great experiences together. 3 (1h 3m 51s): And the Lord just handle it all through creative financing ways. He just gave us all we needed for that trip. And it was one of the best shifts our family has ever taken. So we have that, that memory, that experience together, there's just, there's something about trusting God with your whole life. And when he calls you to do something, whether it's whatever ministry related or just to bless your family, we can have confidence that he will give us those things. Now we don't want to be irresponsible about it and just flippantly. But when we sense a peace from the Lord, we go for it. We go for it. 3 (1h 4m 31s): Why? Because we walk by faith. We live by faith. We serve God and he can be trusted. So when we're talking about this new building over here, 1 0 2, I believe that that's going to be a beautiful worship center for us. Somebody said recently, I don't want to worship in a warehouse because they look at it. Now it looks like a warehouse. Trust me, I don't want to worship in a warehouse either. It's going to be beautiful over there. Why? Because I just know that God's going to give us what we need to beautify that place to make it a place of worship. So when people come in, they're like, wow, God is here. It's beautiful in here. And it's just going to be a great place to worship. We're going to be able to get a bunch of people in there that can worship together. It's just going to be really fun. 3 (1h 5m 13s): So I'm not, I'm not telling everybody, Hey, cut. Every nickel, watch every dime. Be careful. Don't spend that. I'm just not doing that. I'm saying let's do what is best for the, for God's house. Let's do it with wisdom, but let's do it with excellence. And then we'll see what God does. I think God is worthy of our very best. And so we're, we're not going to be chincy about it. We're going to put in good equipment. We're going to put in really nice lighting, really nice flooring, really nice decorations. It's going to be really, really great all because we believe that God wants to do it that way. 3 (1h 5m 57s): We have people come onto our property all the time. They say, man, you guys maintain this place really well. You know, why do we maintain this place really well? Because it represents who we are in Christ. I don't want people walking onto our property and say, man, this place is run down. Needs, paint, needs paving. I don't want that. I don't want that for my house. And I don't want it for the church. You wouldn't want it for your own house. I'll run down and you didn't needing to be repaired everywhere. I want this place to reflect the beauty of God, the glory of God, not overdone, not opulent, but right, right. The right balance. And so that's what we're all about. So when we, when we fix up buildings, we do it well, when we support missions works, we do, we do well. 3 (1h 6m 40s): When we do ministry by God's grace, we try to do it really well because God's worthy of our very best. Their trust should be in God who originally gives us all we need for our enjoyment, tell them to use their money to do good. Verse. 18 says they should be rich in good works and generous to those in need. Always being ready to share with others, by doing this, they will be storing up their treasures as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life Timothy guard. What God has entrusted to you, avoid godless foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge. Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness. 3 (1h 7m 21s): May God's grace be with you all? That's the end of first Timothy, and we'll be in second Timothy next week with that, I want to pray with that. I want to have a stand. And with that, I'm gonna invite the worship team forward and we're gonna sing some more. And it's my desire that we would give God our very best in our worship that we would worship in spirit and in truth. And that we would expect the very best from him because he is the giver of the very best. And so Lord, I pray that we would change that we would allow the 1 (1h 7m 55s): Scripture sure. To change our minds about you. Lord personally, I have great expectations, great expectations because I serve a great God. It would be foolish and ridiculous to have low expectations of the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It would just be ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. It's not rational, Lord. It's not anything. It just doesn't make any sense. It's a lie of the enemy is what that is. It's a lie of the enemy. So Lord, I pray that you would confront the lies that we've been believing. The fear that we've been feeling in God, that we would move forward as bold servants of the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords that we'd hold tightly to our faith in Jesus name, God, that we would do the hard work to hold tightly, to be faithful, to be sincere, to do the right stuff. 1 (1h 8m 47s): Lord God, to honor you with our every business decision, with every transaction, with every dollar, with every thought you got with everything that we want to honor you Lord God. And by doing so, holding tightly Lord holding tightly, guarding what you have entrusted to us. Lord. We love you. Lord make us men and women of faith, men and women of God. Maybe you're here today. And you just need to confess an area of fear in your life. And, and I'm not going to have you come up to do it. 1 (1h 9m 28s): I'll just have you just, just give a one or two word answer and then I'll repeat it. So everybody, everybody can hear it. What is an area that you're just saying, God, I need to submit this and surrender this to you. What area of fear? We'll just focus on fear. What's your fear. And then just speak it out. And we're going to pray over everybody's who's got fear and anxiety around the Lord. Go ahead. Fear of losing a loved one through bad health. Yes. Yeah. 1 (1h 10m 13s): Fear the future in general. Fear of not having enough fear. Fear of feeling in school. Yeah. Real stuff. You're fearless. You're not being the man of God that he's called you to be yeah. Good, good. 1 (1h 10m 58s): I was praying this morning and I just, I realized about 10 minutes into my prayer walk that I was praying all of these anxious prayers. And it's like the holy spirit just stopped. Say, why, why are you anxious? Prayers, anxious prayers are fear. Prayers. They're worry prayers. They're there. They're not faith prayers. And, and I felt like the Lord, well, the scripture says don't be anxious about anything, but pray about everything. And so I just began to pray differently and maybe that's what the Lord is wanting us to do. Just begin to pray differently and just say, Lord, thank you that as I work hard, I'm going to, I'm going to do well in school. 1 (1h 11m 46s): Thank you Lord. As I keep my eyes on you, I'm going to be the man of God that you want me to be Lord. As I trust you, Lord, I'm going to trust you with the future and with my provision Lord, as I keep my eyes on you and, and believe you got, I'm going to believe that it's a pointed. Every person has a certain span of life appointed by you Lord. And I'm going to trust you that when this person's time is up, it will be REITs. And you're going to give peace and grace for that season. But I'm also going to trust you, Lord God that you're a healer and that you have the capacity and the grace to heal. And so I'm going to ask you to heal as well. Lord God, God, that you will bless my future. 1 (1h 12m 27s): So Lord, thank you that you've got a plan to bless my future. Thank you God, that as I turn my eyes on you and do what you've asked me to do, God, I don't know. I've got nothing to fear. You have nothing to be anxious about your faithful Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God that you're the God of the impossible. When we're up against impossible things, God, that's where you shine. And so Lord help us to keep our eyes on you, Lord, for relationships and for finances and for spiritual health and mental health and physical health. Lord God, thank you, Lord God build us up in our most holy faith. Like never before we pray, Jesus build us up, Lord God, get us focused on you. 1 (1h 13m 9s): We pray Jesus, thank you. As we sing, we're going to be singing words of truth and words of praise, words that have the power to transform our thinking. And so let's sing with faithful hearts, believing hearts, excited hearts, help us to seem that way Boulevard. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship. 0 (1h 13m 47s): smooth. singing new songs of the Lord bubbling up in our souls. 0 (1h 21m 14s): Thank you Lord. yes. He didn't want heaven without us. 0 (1h 21m 50s): .

Honoring God in the Testing Times

0 (0s): Thanks for joining us wherever you're at on campus here, outside in loft, the beautiful sanctuary. That's pretty packed for the nine o'clock. Thanks for coming guys. And, and if you're joining online, but regardless we're going to worship 1 (28s): and he . 1 (4m 35s): She says so with you and all that, she says, so , individually. 1 (7m 9s): That means you need to like sing out something. That's your own song. You just need to like sit there and just realize all of these things on a whole new level today, God, that you would speak to us in those areas of our lives, 2 (15m 29s): Where we are fearful, doubtful, faithless in need of just a assurance of your presence, of your power, your ability, Lord God, whether it be relationship or finances or work or other relationships, Lord God, whatever, whatever the case may be. We know God. And we want to know Lord God that you are faithful. And so show us, Lord help us. Lord. That has been so good to be in your presence and pray God that as we open up the word that it would just be a sweet time, sweet time, a time of celebration, time to revelation, Lord God, a time of exploration, Lord and God that you would just do great things. 2 (16m 19s): As we open up our hearts and our minds to your word. Thank you for this time in Jesus name, Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. Thanks guys. Thanks very much. 3 (16m 32s): We'll welcome her to a story recently by these two guys who went to Alaska, who's been to Alaska before few people have been to Alaska. These guys wanted to go to Alaska because they wanted to do some hunting and Alaska and something. They did most years. And so they go to Alaska and they hire a Bush pilot to take them deep into the wilderness so they can get their elk. And they only anticipated getting one elk, but they got two elk this year too. And the Bush pilot flies in to rescue these guys and pull them out. And he's like, Hey, there's no possible way that we can put two elk on this Bush plane and get you out of here. 3 (17m 18s): And the plane just isn't powerful enough. And the guys were like, no, no, no. This happened last year as well. This happened last year, we, we got to ALK last year unexpectedly and we had a smaller plane and he took us out of here. And so we're confident that you can do this. We're confident that you can get us out of here. So reluctantly, the Bush pilots said, all right, well, let's put the elk on there and climb in and see what happens. And so they're cheering him on and he's trying to get out of there trying to lift off the water and it's right. I mean, he's got all this weight. It's difficult, but they lift off in there where their head right toward a mountain. And he's getting cheered on is as they get and they're gaining altitude, they're getting higher and higher. 3 (18m 1s): And, and they, they they're about at the tip of the mountain and they, they almost made it, but they crash. And these two hunters, one talked to the other, said, Hey, 4 (18m 12s): His name was John. And he said, Hey, 3 (18m 14s): Hey John, how do we do? He said, well, you made it about 200 yards farther than we did last year. Terrible story. Right? So I've actually got a story of success. So last week, last week we invited everybody all over the congregation to be praying for our parking situation. You guys remember that how many were praying this week? Like we were praying this week, right? Well, the results of hundreds of people praying is that I, so the city had a meeting apart from me on Monday, they just gathered with their city managers and they had a meeting. And then I get this long email from the city stating that we're still short parking spaces and blah, blah, blah. 3 (18m 57s): So I'm like, ah, where what's going to happen. So they say, we want to get a meeting with you on Thursday this week. And so I went down for a meeting Thursday morning at nine 30. And at, after the Monday information, I, we sent out a reminder to everybody to keep praying and we'll just believe God for what he wants to do. And so sure enough, it was the craziest thing. I show up to the meeting on Thursday morning at nine 30 and it's with two city officials. And they, they said yes to everything. It was like this crazy thing that I was like, totally a appraise moment where they said, Hey, I, I said, Hey, you guys have miscounted. He deleted the number of parking spaces that we have. 3 (19m 37s): We, we actually have, according to the regulation, 10 extra parking spaces, then, then we are actually required to have. And they, they looked at the numbers again and said, yeah, you're right. You're right. Actually you're right. And so they gave us the green lights too, do the projects. They gave us the green light to start the framing and to continue the framing inside there. They said, just don't close it up. Cause we want to be able to, you know, inspect it all. And that sort of thing. They gave us the green light basically to start this week on painting. So I think we should start painting outside this week. I asked them, I said, because we've got a preliminary set of plans. This is another praise the Lord as well. The first architect that we went that we hired to do the project said, you know, I can't get to it for two months and it's going to take two or three months after that to get through the city and blah, blah, blah. 3 (20m 28s): And so we hired another architect and this architect got it done. And he got a preliminary set of plans done for us in about 10 days. And so we've got a preliminary set of plans and they're going out to the subcontractors. The process is a subcontractors have to draw an electrical and plumbing and, and fire sprinklers and all that sort of thing. And then hopefully next this coming week, we'll be able to submit those plans, worst case w w we'll be able to submit those plans. I asked them this guys at the city, I said, how long will it take for them plans to turn around? And so that you can issue a permit because initially the, the, our architect, our first architects said it would take two to three months for the city to turn those plans around. They said, it'll be two weeks, but we're going to try to get it done in 10 days. 3 (21m 10s): So we are months ahead of our original, our, our, our secondary kind of timeframe. And so really good news. Let's throw up some pictures there. We've got some mock-up, this is kind of what the inside of that building will look like shares there's. You can see kind of the back toward the bottom of the screen. You, you walk in that's where the front door you go in and you get their platform and the, the partition wall in the back there, let's go look at the front there next. So that's kind of what it will look like, except for we're changing the color scheme. And the color scheme will be pretty much an off-white on the building with the black trim. 3 (21m 51s): And, and so the reality is, is that we could, we could be in there if everything goes as planned the next like three to four months, as opposed to like six months or whatever it was going to be. So that's really good news on the good news front. We actually, we were able to refinance all of this property. We, we bought it a number of years ago and the rates were higher than they are now. So we were actually able to refinance and drop like two and a quarter points off of the, the, the interest that we were paying. And so with that transaction, we're actually going to be able to pay off the second mortgage that we you have, and yeah, really good news. 3 (22m 32s): And we're going to reduce our monthly by $2,000 a month. Our monthly mortgage will be less 2000, $2,000 less a month, and that second mortgage will get paid off. So, so really good news. So it frees us up to be able to really focus on this, that project to raise up the money that we need to get for that project. And so I did some calculations and I, as I said, last week, then the number initially was it's like 1 25. And then we met with a bunch of contractors and got some bids. And it was it it's going to be closer to 2 25, 220 $5,000 for that remodel, which if we didn't have people in the church volunteering to do a lot of the work that's being done in there, it'd probably be twice that it'd be twice that. 3 (23m 15s): So it's going to be about $225,000. There's roughly, we've raised about $27,000. So we have roughly another 200,000 or so there's always surprises. So we're not sure exactly the hard number, but it's roughly another 200,000. It needs to come in. So now instead of needing it to come in in the next six months, we needed in the next three months. And so this is the deal I, I cracked it down or did I know it's easier like to digest smaller numbers. It's easier for me anyway. And so I said, okay, what is the, if we've got 300 families in the church, what is the number? And the number's about $700 per family. If so, if everybody gave $700, every family gave 700 bucks, we'd be at that mark and be able to get the project paid, bought and paid for in the next few months. 3 (24m 3s): So I know a lot of you have already bought chairs and squares. I've already bought chairs and squares, but in light of this new information, our family is going to give at least that 700 and we're going to do everything we can. And so I'm just asking you to pray about doing the same thing, if you can great, some will be able to do more than that. And that will be great because some won't be able to do anything at all, just because of circumstances and that sort of thing. So again, just pray, say, Lord, do you want me to participate in this? And if so, how much is it? 700? Is it 1400 2100, some will be able to give more in the past, we've had people give $30,000 to projects like this $50,000 to projects like this. 3 (24m 43s): So whatever you want to do, I believe at the end of the three months or four months or so, we'll get that project done, bought and paid for without any debt. And that's going to be really important. So anyway, so I'm going to pray for that and pray for our tax. We're back in first, Timothy chapter six today, continuing our study in first Timothy. And so why don't we go and stand up and I know we've already prayed and that sort of thing, we're going to pray some more. In fact, if you would like to, if you feel compelled to come and pray over this whole project, I want to give us a minute or so to do that, but you have to come up to speaking to Vox one again. So we're not going to take a ton of time to do this, but I just want to give people an opportunity to pray over this and pray into it. 3 (25m 27s): And so if that's you, then I'll start and you come on up and speak into it. If not, no big deal. We'll just continue on with the message. But Lord, we just want to pray. We thank you God for open doors for answered prayer, Lord. It's amazing what happens when hundreds of people just decide to pray and to believe for your hand to move in difficult and, and really seemingly impossible situations. Lord God. So we say, thank you for that Lord. Thank you. It it's it's, it's, it's, it's amazing what you will do. Somebody said last week, it's a Jericho moment for our church. And as we prayed, and as we believed the, the walls came down and we were able to, we're able to get in and access and, and make progress with this new space that we have. 3 (26m 14s): Lord God. So we say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. We believe God that you're in this. We believe that this will give us a greater opportunity to impact our community and our world with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. And so we say yes and amen to your plans. We thank you for your plan and we believe God you're in it. And that you're going to provide for us. So your will be done. We pray. Thank you, Jesus. Anybody else wanna be bold? Damn. This is so surprising. It's you're being bold. Here will be required. 0 (26m 52s): We're going to be required. Lord. As, as these people come into this new facility, Lord to love on them, to show them Jesus, Lord, help us to do that. Lord, the project's going to happen. The funds are going to come in, but there's one thing that we cannot buy. Lord, it's your presence. We need your anointing on this place. Lord, we need you to walk the aisles. Lord. We need you to put your hands on people, Lord, and set them free Lord and open their eyes that they might receive the word and be saved. Lord father. We just place it in your hands. Lord in Jesus name. Thank you, man. 0 (27m 32s): Thank you, Lord. Thanks Dave. Anybody else? 4 (27m 40s): All right, well thank you Lord. We're so grateful and we're, 3 (27m 43s): We're going to continue to pray and ask and seek and knock Lord God, and then do what you've asked us to do and just trust you for the outcome, Lord God. And so thank you for this time. God bless the word to our hearing. We prayed Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. First, Timothy chapter six, we actually took a break from our first Timothy study for a number of weeks to talk about faith and all kinds of stuff. And so faith will obviously be weaved into everything that we do because without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And so we want to always honor him with our faith. So we've covered a lot so far in our study and I just kind of, to kind of recap here. 3 (28m 26s): Remember we spent two weeks asking God, two questions. What do you want me to do today? That was the first question. And then Lord, what do you want to do through me today? So there's similar questions, but what do you want me to do today? What do you want to do through me today were a couple of questions that we spent a couple of weeks talking about. Also we asked what does godliness look like? And you can go back and listen to the messages and get all of these, all of this information. But these are just kind of the highlights we declared faith in. Jesus changes everything. We talked about integrity. We warned against false teachers. We talked about the mercy of God. We received instruction about worship. 3 (29m 7s): We talked about leadership within the church. We received wisdom in dealing with widows and elders all from first Timothy and today as we wrap up, well, actually we'll take a couple of weeks to rock up first, Timothy chapter six. Today we'll learn how to respond to difficult situations. We will look at what promotes godly living and we'll see how to avoid snares concerning money. So the message is titled today, honoring God in the testing times, honoring God, the testing time, if you've ever been through a test before I talked with a guy yesterday who was going through a pretty legitimate test and after long, long conversation with him, he realized that he just needed to humble himself in the midst of the test, trusting that God is sovereign trusting that God sees him and has seen his progress in his life and that he could, he can trust God and not worry about what men think. 3 (30m 11s): And so at the end of the day with his test, he decided to keep his eyes on God, not get welled up sometimes in a test, if we're being falsely accused or whatever the case may be, we can kind of well up with pride or get angry or get frustrated or get disappointed. But the test I've found in my life. And as we see through scripture, the tests always reveal something about us and it's an opportunity for God to shape us, to, to refine us and to make us into the men and women that he desires for us to be so honoring God in the testing time. It's this is the most important time in our lives where we need to figure out how to honor the Lord. 3 (30m 55s): And so we're going to look at some circumstances here in first, Timothy chapter six, and try to figure some stuff out today. So number one, we must honor God. Especially when in a test, we must honor God, especially within a test. I've noticed that God doesn't always deliver us from the test he will deliver ultimately, but it's not until we learn the lesson that the test is designed to teach us. Have you noticed that? And if we get through the task without having learned the lesson that the test was designed to teach us, we just find ourselves in that same test over and over again until because God is good. 3 (31m 36s): He wants us to learn lessons. He'll just take us through the ringer one more time and help us out of his great love so that we might learn from the test. The thing that we need to learn from the test, why? Because the next test is going to require what we learned from the last test. And I was, as I was sharing with this guy yesterday and talking with this guy yesterday, actually my wife and I were both talking with him. We said, this is a unique test, meaning that this isn't something that you could foresee. And that often is the test. It's like, this is something that I couldn't foresee, something I really couldn't prepare for. But previous tests in this man's life were preparing him for this unique test. 3 (32m 18s): And I wonder what your unique test is. We must honor God. Especially when in a tests, God doesn't deliver us from the test. Usually just gives us the instructions about how to navigate the test. And he's teaching us something through the test. Israel was in Egypt for 400 years. It was a big long 400 year that God delivered them. Eventually he did. He delivered them eventually taking them through the wilderness. They were in the wilderness for 40 years because they couldn't figure out how to pass the test. And so God kept them in the test until, until they figured it out. And they, they were able to trust the Lord. 3 (32m 59s): And so Joshua was able to take them into the promised land. Last week, we talked about the testing of the early church, the apostles specifically how each of them suffered physically in their physical bodies for their faith. It was a test. Remember the test prior to the cross, when Jesus gets arrested, what happened? Everybody's scattered, right? It was a test. It was a test. What do you do when there's opposition? What do you do when things are unfolding differently than you expected, will you pass the test? And so many of them failed the test. It seems like the only ones who pass the test are the women around Jesus. They were painful to Jesus when he was arrested at the cross. 3 (33m 41s): And it seemed like everybody else, especially the man they scattered, but they learned something in that testing about sticktuitiveness about obedience, about faithfulness, about trust. And so after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, after the Ascension, when Jesus sent them out, they had a new boldness. They were filled with the holy spirit, right power was in them. And they had this new boldness so that when the test hit them again, when opposition hit them again, not with somebody else, but in their own physical bodies, they were able to endure. And most of them died, suffering persecution for their faith. 3 (34m 24s): All of them suffered persecution. And most of them actually ended up dying at the hand of their enemies. So we look at verse one in first, Timothy chapter six, we're talking about slaves for a moment here for a few, few minutes. And as I honestly was thinking about slavery and maybe your text says servants, first one says, all slaves, maybe your text says servants, same word should show full respect for their masters. They w so they will not bring shame on the name of God and his teachings. It was difficult for me. I spent four days thinking about this, this one verse wrestling with this idea of slavery and why isn't God speak differently about slavery? 3 (35m 10s): What's what's the backstory here? Why, why are people instructed to live honorably in this dishonorable relationship? And so I've discovered some things and worked through some things. And I figured some things out and was able to write a halfway, hopefully coherent message that speaks to us in this 21st century world, where we're not in this culture. In other cultures around the world, there is slavery. There is that type of oppression, but we don't necessarily see it. Although there are in the sex trade, their sex slaves in our culture, in our communities, in our country. 3 (35m 54s): And so there is that sort of thing, but it's kind of veil that's behind closed doors. We don't necessarily, we're not necessarily impacted or participating in it, but it's happening. So it's difficult to hae the instruction in a difficult situation. And so I just spent four days praying about it and thinking about it and I'm writing about it so that we might hopefully come away today with some understanding without glossing over anything. So slaves, the word slave into Greek is do loss. It's it means servant or slave do loss in the vines. 3 (36m 33s): Expository dictionary says this. It means bond man or bond made from the word de IO to bind a slave. Originally the lowest term in the scale of servitude came also to me. And one who gives him self up to the will of another. You can read about that first Corinthians seven or Roman six, and do a lot of became the most common and general word for the word servant in Matthew eight and nine nine. And it became a meaning of defining a servant, but without bondage, without, without the type of slavery con you know, things that we kind of conjure up in our head, you know, civil war, slavery type stuff. 3 (37m 15s): So it became, it started out, you know, slavery and kind of changed and morphed into this word servant. In fact, in calling himself a bond slave of Jesus, Paul recognized that he was a servant, a do loss, a bond slave of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He talks about that in Romans one, one. Then he had been formerly a bond slave of Satan, and that having been brought to a bought by Christ, he was now a willing bond slave to a new master. So do loss is a word for slave or servant one person owning another. As I broke it down, I thought this is one person owning, and this is difficult to, for us to digest and to understand why, why didn't the script, why don't the scriptures address it differently. 3 (38m 5s): And we're going to understand that here as we go forward. So do the last one person owning another one person controlling the life of another one person in charge of another so difficult situation, difficult place. If you're the slave to try to figure out how to honor the Lord in that relationship. But this is a, as I thought about it, I realized this is a clear picture of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Again, Paul declared Romans one and Peter declared this to be true. Second Peter, one, one Peter said this letter is from Simon, Peter, a slave that same word, do loss and apostle of Jesus Christ. So Peter, the one who abandoned Christ now identifies himself as a slave of Christ and an apostle of Christ. 3 (38m 52s): He realized that his life needed to be a hundred percent God's in order for him to be faithful to the calling that was upon his life and faithful to the sacrifice that Jesus made on his behalf. So Peter declared Paul declared, they declared this about themselves, that they are slaves of God, slaves of God. It said, we, we are owned as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We are owned by God. This is, this is what Christianity means. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We are owned by God, one person owning and other Jesus owns us. We've been bought with a price. So as I thought about slavery, it kind of put, it helped me to understand it from a different context. 3 (39m 35s): And I've talked through this before and I've wrestled with it before, and I've understood some things before, but it was just, I wrestled with it again in this go around, do loss. One person can owning another one person controlling the life of another. That's really what Jesus has called us into. He's called us into a life where we're filled with the spirit of God and controlled by the spirit of God. The Jesus actually is meant to have control of our lives through the power of the holy spirit. One person owning another controlling the life of another one person in charge of another, as Christians, we are to submit to the leadership of Jesus Christ, but then there's the institution of slavery. How are slaves and slave owners to relate to one another? 3 (40m 17s): And we read again, first I made the six one, all slaves should show full respect for their masters. So they will not bring shame on the name of God and his teaching that that's strong language flavor to show respect so that they don't bring shame. So God, so yeah, you're Paul instructs slaves to show full respect for their masters. John F Woolford wrote under normal circumstances, slaves and masters had no association outside the institution of slavery with the advent of the gospel, with the preaching of the gospel. However, these two groups found themselves thrown together in the congregation in, in new ways, creating problems. 3 (41m 1s): The apostles were forced to deal with repeatedly. So here Paul instructs slaves, how to show full respect for their masters. First Corinthians seven 20 and 22. Paul puts the Christian life into perspective. The slave life into perspective, whether slave or free we are slaves of God, let's read first Corinthians 7, 20, 22. You in the, again, Paul puts things into perspective here. He says, yes, each of you should remain. As you were, when God called you, are you a slave? Don't let that worry you. But if you get a chance to be free, take it and run. Amber. If you were a slave, when the Lord called you, you are now free in the Lord, right? 3 (41m 43s): It's it's, it's almost an oxymoron. We're free. We're free in the Lord in the sense that we're from underneath this type of slavery, but were instead choosing to be slaves of the Lord, Jesus Christ. But with that comes great freedom. It's, it's, it's, it's a difficult concept for us to understand. There's freedom. Someone say that there's freedom and we're able to do whatever it is that we want to do. But all that kind of life creates in us is bondage. We become slaves to the things that we obey. And so if we're, if we're saying I feel most free when I'm able to do whatever I want to do, we're believing a lie because the reality is all that that life does is entrap us and enslave us. 3 (42m 28s): W what we're told in the scripture is that if we're in Christ, where we find freedom and Liberty, because we serve a good master, whose first desire is to bless us and to save us and to forgive us and to redeem us and to set us free in it, to adopt us into his family. I remember if you were a slave, when the Lord called you, you are now free in the Lord. And if you were free, when the Lord called you, you are now a slave of Christ. Isn't that interesting? It's it changes the paradigm a little bit. It's a, it's a bit of a paradox. I mean, I know I wrestled with this question. Why didn't Paul just speak out against the institution of slavery? 3 (43m 8s): Why didn't he just speak out against it? I mean, it's obviously deplorable, but the truth, this slavery was so a part of the Roman culture and down throughout history, it was enshrined in Roman law. If Paul went after this institution of slavery, he would have had to devote his whole life to the overturning of this institution. But instead he realized that if he would just preach the gospel, if you would take the gospel to the region and to the area, then, then freedom would ultimately be the results. Paul spent all this time calling people to recognize Jesus leadership. 3 (43m 51s): So slave and, and master. He spent all of his time calling people to recognize Jesus leadership and Lordship so that they might come under his authority. Paul knew that the reign of king Jesus would resolve all injustices. And that's what we look forward to. But we've got to have a kingdom purpose, a kingdom perspective, believing that submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God, and to his reign and his rulership will well, we will begin to handle all injustices because when the heart of a person changes, whether it be a master or a slave, God begins to change the way that they their lives. 3 (44m 34s): But Paul didn't tell slaves again, first Corinthians 7 21. If you can get a chance to be free, take it like that. If you can get out of that desperate situation, get out of it. But in the meantime, Paul gives instruction. This is about the relationship of slaves to their master. This is good instruction for employees, as well as slaves. And so maybe this is where it kind of bridges over to our lives because most of us are employed somehow where we re we, we report to someone. So maybe we can read verse one, all slaves, servants, employees, et cetera, should show full respect for their masters. So they will not bring shame on the name of God. 3 (45m 16s): And his teachings words were to do everything is unto the Lord. Even if we've got a boss, a manager, an overseer who's unjust, who's not easy to work for. Who's not fun to be employed by. We have a biblical responsibility to honor that person, those people, that company, that respect, possibility that we have within the company. We have a responsibility to honor it, where to do everything that we do as onto the Lord. So this is a difficult thing. If you're a slave, if you're also, if you work for a difficult person, this is, this is hard to do. 3 (45m 58s): But if we can't honor the Lord in the testing times, there are, there's not, there's probably not much two hours faith, right? Especially if we keep going around the same band. And so maybe you're in a bad situation at work. And the Lord's trying to show you something, just sit, commit to his plan, submit to what he's trying to show you and watch the beauty beautiful work that he will accomplish in your life. So if you work at a job that you do not enjoy, if you work for a person, a difficult person that you don't enjoy, just ask the Lord, Lord, how do I honor you? And honor my employer in this situation showing full respect act means a number of things. 3 (46m 44s): I just wrote down a handful of them. What does it mean to show full respect? If we're, this is what God has called us to do. What does that look like? I wrote down. Number one, do you do the job you're paid for basics? Right? Sometimes though when we're disgruntled, we try to, we get in there and we do the very minimum, but we actually dishonor God when we do that, because he's told us that we're actually working for him. And where did you? Everything is under him and not as the men. So we actually have a holy calling as, as hours of the Lord, Jesus Christ, a holy calling to do to the job that we're paid for, with excellence, what work diligent D work diligently, all of the hours were paid for. 3 (47m 29s): So no lunches showing up late, no going home early, do the work that you're paid for. And then be on time. When we hire a new person at harvest, I sent him into Ron's office. I say, Ron, tell them how we operate around here. And so Ron gives them the rundown. He's like, you don't ever want to be late, right? Because I don't like it when somebody is late, they'll argue. What if you're late? Well, I'm not sure actually late cause the meeting doesn't start till I get there. Right? So, so I use my own justification cause I'm, I'm a late at times, but there are in every work culture. 3 (48m 14s): There's an expectation, right? Do the job you're paid for work diligently all the hours you're paid for beyond time, have a good attitude, go the extra mile. These are all things that every employer values and expects from their people. So maybe your boss is your test. I've had plenty of those in my work life. Your boss is your test. Maybe your job is your tests. Maybe your circumstances or your tests. What is, what is your task? What is God wanting to teach you so that you can graduate from that test? W we're in graduation season, and God wants you to graduate from that test so that he can take you into another test. But with the test, come maturity, depth strength with the tests there there's growth and there's progress. 3 (49m 11s): And we get unstuck. When we graduate from a test and we get promoted into other things, things test help us to see our blind spots, tests, strengthen our faith tests, I guess rely on God to remind us that we need him honoring God in the testing time. Number one, we must honor God. Especially when in a test re closely related to this one is the second point here. We must honor God. When dealing with people very much like I just talked about, but slightly different. It says if the masters are believers, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. 3 (49m 52s): Verse two, those slaves should work all the harder because they're, their efforts are helping other believers. You are well loved. So when the master and the slave share the same faith, sometimes there can be. And especially if they go to the same church, part of the same fellowship, you can sometimes as a worker, as a servant, as an employee, get a little slack, right? Because there's familiarity and friendship, right? So you can actually become a burden to the person that you're working for because you've gotten too close to them. And you've decided you've decided that just because they're there because they're your friends or brother or sister in Christ that you don't need to work as hard because they won't get rid of you. 3 (50m 43s): I fired, I fired plenty of people who were brothers in the Lord, sisters in the Lord when they weren't doing their job because there's no room for it in God's kingdom. There's just no room for it. We're called to work as unto the Lord. And when we don't work as unto the Lord, the result is that you lose your job. It's just the way it works in the, in the world. And that's how it works everywhere. And it's how it works around here. If the masters are believers, there's no excuse for being disrespectful. Disrespect would be, Hey, showing up late, not working your hours, leaving early, being lazy and not going the extra mile servants should work all the more diligently to bless the believer they work for, right? 3 (51m 36s): Whether the, your employer or boss is a believer or not, the servant should work as unto the Lord and not unto men. First time of the six to second part talks about false teachers and cheer riches says this, teach these things, Timothy, teach what things to me, the wall, all this stuff that he's been talking about in this book. And first Timothy, and up to this point and verse six, teach these things. Timothy, encourage everyone to obey them. Some people may contradict our teachings, but these are the wholesome teachings of the Lord. Jesus Christ. They, these teachings promote a godly life. 3 (52m 16s): So Paul's instruction to young Timothy as he pastored the church and emphasis is to help people to live a godly life. But there's other people with a different agenda with different motivation. So Paul's instructing Timothy as Paul is Timothy spiritual father and overseer. He's instructing them. He's instructing Timothy to teach these things that he wrote about in the first letter to Timothy his teachings promote a godly life. The verse says, and this is what's always the motivation of a good teacher promoting a godly life. This is the desire. This is the desire that is within a good Bible teacher. They want to promote godly living. 3 (52m 58s): They feel a call to promote godly living. So number three, in our notes, we must honor God with what we teach and believe most honored God with what we teach and believe. So perfect example of this is that how many have heard of any grand personality too? Yes. Few of us. Right. Well, so we, as a staff started investigating and, and, and kind of helping to understand personalities. We, we started researching Enneagrams and personality tests so that we might help. So we might be helped in understanding how to relate one to another, but this is the problem we just found out recently that it's it's origins is the new age of movement. 3 (53m 42s): We had no idea. And so we're done with any Agram. Yeah. It's not from the lowered and we didn't realize it. We just thought it's just a personality test while bot and somebody highlighted it to us. I said, Hey, have you looked into any grams deeper? And we said, no. And they said, well, here here's a podcast. And so we listened to it. And so we're no longer, we don't want to use anything. That's not from the word of God. And if we're, if we make a mistake and we, we, we realized that we're thinking about things differently. Or if I'm not a biblical perspective or believing something, that's not biblical than we than we are. We, we, we have to change our minds. 3 (54m 23s): And I wonder if maybe coming out of, you know, the world, we come into the church and we, we bring with us worldly things that aren't from God. And we try to merge them or marry them, or hold on to them as we try to follow Jesus. And as we realize that those things are from God, we have this responsibility in the scripture, people involved in the occult, they brought their books, their sorcery books, and they burned them to the tune of millions of dollars in sorcery. But they burned them because they knew that they weren't from the Lord and they needed to get rid of them. 3 (55m 5s): So maybe you've got some stuff in your life that you need to burn. Maybe it's pornography, maybe it's I was getting this wrong astrology. Is that astrology the signs. And is it astrology or is it astronomy? It's astrology, right? I never get that. Right. Maybe you're reading that every day in the paper. It's it's new age, it's cult type stuff that you shouldn't, you need to be looking to God's word, to direct your steps and to direct your life, not to the local, you know, the recent astrology stuff, is it that God is trying to strip out of your life because it's, it's not from him. It's something that you're holding onto. I don't know what it is. 3 (55m 46s): Only. You can know that only God only, but when you have the responsibility to do what we did, when we figured out we were on the wrong path regarding this, any grant thing we, we scrapped did immediately. Like we didn't have to have a conversation with God about it. We realized this is not from the Lord. So we got to scrap it for anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lax understanding. Be careful for God, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. If what you're doing is swelling you with arrogance, be careful, be careful, such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. 3 (56m 30s): I've seen this happen over and over again. And it's divisive people within the church, quibbling over marginal doctrinal, things that cause division people in the greater church, the, of the church in the community, in the world, people squabbling over things that are unimportant, that is causing division within the church. It stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt and they have turned their backs on the truth to them. A show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. 3 (57m 11s): I remember. Yeah. Sincere teacher of God's word. The desire of that man or woman is that they would help people grow in godliness. It's always about pointing people to Jesus. It's always about pointing people to the word it's always about by God's grace. Doing what God has asked us to do. Paul addressed the same issue in chapter one. It's like, he's come full circle. If you go back and read first Timothy chapter one, we've come full circle where Paul's addressing false teachers within the church. Paul's teachings are designed to promote a godly life. These others are causing people to divide within the church causing problems. 3 (57m 57s): Verse four. Again, such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. The serves up arguments, ending it ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt and they have turned their backs on the truth to them. And show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. So a person's motivation and teaching should be to point people to Jesus, not for some kind of gain to make people aware of their need for his grace. To help people have a kingdom perspective, to encourage people, to share their faith, to challenge people, to live for Jesus, to do what we are doing today, encouraging people to honor God in everything. 3 (58m 40s): If a person's motivation is personal it's for, if it's for gain to be heard, their motivation is skewed and unhealthy and the result won't be good and godly. So number four, we must honor God with our ability to be content as we wrap up these last few verses. So we're, we've got this opportunity to honor God in all these areas of our lives. And the last area for today is our ability to be content correct. 10 men in a consumer-driven culture is very difficult like that. 3 (59m 20s): Every ad, every television commercial, everything that we read about or hear about is, is, is to create Discontentment in our lives. Like, Hey, you can have this new truck. I use that illustration because I'm always looking at new trucks, right? I don't need a new truck. Right. But I'm always admiring new trucks. You can have this new thing, this new shiny gadget. You can have one, you can have all of these things. Right. I saw David Apadaca his new Harley Davidson. I'm like, I get to have a new Harley Davidson, but I don't need a Harley. My wife doesn't want me to have early, so I'll probably never get early. So there you go. But it's another shiny thing. I'll ride yours. Thank you very much. 3 (59m 60s): I appreciate that. We just have to be careful that we're not always running to the next shiny thing because it gets us distracted from God's plan for his life. For our lives. I've noticed that being content leads to peace, being content leads to peace, being discontent, always kind of keeps you anxious. Right? Verse six says yet true godliness with contentment is itself. Great wealth. I don't think you can actually have contentment without true godliness because true godliness gives us that perspective that, Hey, I'm not living for this life. My life is not my own. I belong to the Lord. 3 (1h 0m 40s): My stuff belongs to the Lord. So yet true godliness with contentment is, is self great wealth. That's where we find the true wealth in life. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world and we can't take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. That's probably one of the hardest verses in scripture, right? We have enough food and clothing. Let us speak intent. Especially in our culture where we are consumers as a rule, it's hard to think about the basics of food and clothing and being content with those things. The only thing we take with us when we die, our, our good works. 3 (1h 1m 21s): That's it. That's it. You don't get to take your Harley with ya. I don't get to take my truck with me. I don't get to take my guns with me or whatever it is that I've got. The only thing I get to take is my good works. Everything else is wood, hay and stubble. Like the farmer had too many crops. He's like, Hey, build bigger barns, right? Bigger barns, bigger bank accounts, bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger, whatever. And the scripture says, you fool it tonight. You're very tonight that you're very, your life is, is required of you. 3 (1h 2m 2s): I don't know. I just continue. Mint brings a balance and a piece to life like nothing else, but people verse nine says, but people who long to be rich, fall into temptation are trapped many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people creating money have wandered from the true faith and prac pierced themselves with many sorrows. People do that with dads, you know, do it all kinds of different ways. You have to have something, you go get it. It just requires maintenance and work and debt and all kinds of stuff. 3 (1h 2m 47s): I talked with a buddy of mine a few years ago and I said, why don't you, why aren't, why aren't you in church? Why, what what's going on? You you've been out of church for so long. Why aren't you in church? And he said, you know, why not church? Because I don't want to let go of my money. I appreciated his honesty. I don't want to tie the said, I don't want to. If I go to church, I know they're going to talk to me about money buying. All right, we'll stay at a church. Then you can't serve God money. So you made your choice. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, honoring God in the testing times. Number one, we must honor God. 3 (1h 3m 27s): Especially when in a tests, when dealing with people with what we teach and believe and with our ability to be content. So how do we respond to difficult situations? We need to honor God, right? Let's invite the worship team out and we're going to sing some more songs. How do we deal with difficult situations? That's one of the questions that we said we talked about in the beginning. We just choose to honor God by putting him first, by doing what he asks us to do, what promotes godly living. That's one of the other questions that we said we'd highlight biblical and godly teaching is what ti what promotes godly living. So get under some good biblical and godly teaching and watch your life become more godly. 3 (1h 4m 8s): How do we avoid snares concerning money? Love God more than you love your money. That's just basically the bottom line. So with that, why don't we go and stand up? And we're going to worship some more and honor the Lord with our singing. Amen. Amen, Lord. Thank you for this time. Thank you God, for your word, for what it has taught us, pray that it would sink deep in our souls and continue to convict us and change us. Challenge us God that it would show us your great love for us in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship. 1 (1h 4m 54s): my eye to see that you're shaping my to trust what you say. 1 (1h 7m 28s): you say you're the inside. 1 (1h 9m 23s): If you Baila one final breath. 1 (1h 11m 31s): The son of God. we seeing her. 1 (1h 13m 41s): We see, we see, we see, we see, we see them. we see, we see, 0 (1h 16m 39s): We see, thank you God, for just faithfully meeting us whenever we never, we step in and we invite you. You show up God, thank you for, for just opening your word and giving us truth this morning. And I just bless this as we go Lord and keep us, keep, keep our gaze ever on you. As we, as we depart this morning and, and all that Jesus name. Amen.

Faith Believes God is Sovereign

0 (3s): Holy spirit. What'd you just come now and just calm our hearts and minds to help us to just take captive. Every anxious thought this morning, we welcome you to your way. Thank you. You promise to be in our midst when we gather, and when we worship you, as we lift our hearts and our voices, all of our cares and concerns to you, God, would you meet us with your presence? Power change. Set us free. 0 (44s): Want to draw near, see you this morning and experience your holiness and goodness, your grace and your mercy. 0 (1m 4s): might be hard to believe what we're singing. 0 (11m 33s): Do you believe he's good today? Do you believe he's never going to let you down? Maybe some of you do feel like God let you down, you know, and that's okay. I love that. Actually, the Bible gives us that example on the song, this David songs, if you read one song to the next there's one song where like you're a good God and the next one he's like, Lord, I am in the pit. My enemies are surrounding me. Where are you? Right. So I don't think God's afraid of our doubts. I think he encourages us to bring our doubts to him, to be honest with them, about where we're at and the crowd to him from the pit and invite his rescue. 0 (12m 18s): And to believe that he is faithful and he will pull us out. I just want you to know that I have moments even today, where I struggle with a battle is happening in my own mind of do I believe he's good this morning? I believe he's never gonna let me down. I just want you to know you're not alone. And if you're in that space today and there's there's room for that here for you to say, God, I'm hurting this morning, I do feel like I need breakthrough in an area I've been crying out and praying and asking him begging for change. And I haven't seen it yet. He welcomes us to call it what happened to him? Good hearts seasoned near to the broken hearted and the crushed in spirit. 0 (13m 1s): So if you're crushed in spirit this morning, that's why these mirror to you. So lean in to him this morning. I'm leaning in with you even as my own soul, sometimes as doubts and questions. I trust that he is God. I trust that he is faithful. 0 (13m 46s): Try that again. 0 (13m 58s): that you love us. 0 (18m 7s): Lord. 1 (18m 10s): Thank you that you are thinking about us this very moment. Your love is very real, very present. I pray that every person would experience that maybe some for the first time, experiencing your love and a real profound and obvious way. Lord God, for those who are hurting today, we pray God that you would just show yourself faithful. Thank you that you do that, Lord God, we are humbled by your presence. I love it, Lord, that when we feel the least deserving, you show up with your great love. 1 (18m 54s): I think we see that throughout the scripture. This thinking about that woman with the issue of blood, just sick, her whole life and unclean feeling just outside and unwelcome and unloved. But yet if she, she knew that if she just could push through, press through and touch the hem of your garment, that something might happen and something did happen. The power of God that went out from Jesus' body that flooded her life, changed her forever. 1 (19m 36s): She experienced love from Jesus, grace, from Jesus power from Jesus and, and she was no longer an outcast, no longer unclean, no longer sick, but she was brand new in Jesus name. I pray for each of us. Lord that we'd be brand new in Jesus name, be brand new in Jesus name, Lord God, whatever it is that we're up against have been up against, have dealt with, have failed in Lord God. We are in you now. And that's what matters, Lord God. So if you're here today and you, you, you need Jesus. Just call out to him. 1 (20m 18s): He's as near as your next breath, your next word, you call him the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ. You shall be saved, welcomed into his family and loved unconditionally and wonderfully. So let Jesus know that you need him and that you want him and then walk them into your life. Maybe you need to welcome him into your life. A fresh today because circumstantially you've been distant him or even Cheryl Lynn talked about, maybe disappointed, disgruntled, welcome him in welcoming, back into your life. 1 (20m 59s): He promises never to leave you nor forsake you. He loves you. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. We love you. Thank you for this time. Lord bless the word and we pray, blessed it to our spirits Lord and bless it to our minds and bless it to our lives. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. You can be seated. Thanks team. Appreciate that. Very much. Very powerful word. We're continuing our study on faith today. So title of the message is faith believes God is sovereign. And so in light of those things, I'm going to talk about a couple of things in light of the fact that we believe as believers, as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ, that he is sovereign, that God is sovereign. 1 (21m 46s): That simply means he's the Supreme ruler over all things. That means nothing is outside of his control. Nothing is outside of his realm to influence to direct. And so we're asking God to do a couple things today. We're, we'll be talking to you about our new space at one oh two west branch, one minute walk from here. It's the old something different building before that it was the wardrobe building before that it was bank of America back to 1952 when it was built. And so more in the process of kind of navigating some stuff with the city right now. So this is what I want you to pray about specifically. Remember I've said, Hey, can we pray every day? Like every day for this process, because things just come up and we need to pray through the process. 1 (22m 30s): And so the hurdle that we're up against now is a hurdle that I thought we had squared away. It was the parking hurdle because the city needs to make sure there's enough parking for that new space over there. They're saying, Hey, you need to come up with 60 parking spaces. And so we thought we had remedied with parking the parking lot across the street. But now they're saying that shared parking on Sunday morning. So anyway, I have gone back and forth with the city no less than like 20 times. And I'm a bit exasperated at this point. I don't know if you've ever been there. So I wrote an email to the city. 1 (23m 10s): I prayed about it first. I said, Lord, what do I do? Right? Like, what's next? Right? So I praying, I'm saying Lord, so this is me typing an email. So I said, Patrick, he's our planner, good guy, by the way, very good guy. This parking situation is getting ridiculous period. The truth is, I said, I'm still typing my email. I said, the truth is our people who will be attending Sunday morning services will be parking where they have been parking parking for the last 16 years at our spot at one 24 west branch, which is place here and at the village center village center has given us parking on Sunday mornings for free for the last 16 years. 1 (23m 52s): So I said, the truth is that's where our people will be parking. So there's not actually a real need for additional parking. So I'm asking that you guys would reconsider and think through your position because with a simple decision from the city, we can move past this and get moving with our project. So I said, sincerely, Steve. And so a few hours go by and I don't, I don't hear from Patrick. And then so like maybe I overstepped, but I prayed. So I'm thinking I'm okay. So, and I was gracious. I wasn't angry in the email. I wasn't, I was gracious. 1 (24m 32s): I was gracious. So he responds back, Steve, I totally understand you're there. You're frustrated with this situation. He said, I'm going to call a meeting with the city managers on Monday that's tomorrow, so that we can try to navigate this with you, for you so that you can, so we can move past this. And so with that, I want us to pray together today that God would open the door for that. One of our partner ministries ministry that we partner is coastal Christian school. They're also up against a situation with their facility and they're asking that people sign a petition. So this petition is actually available out there at the welcome center. It's a petition to approve an expansion of their conditional use permit, which allows them to put an, a gym on their property and multipurpose buildings and that sort of thing. 1 (25m 22s): So we're gonna pray for them. And I'm going to ask you to go out and sign there. They're looking for a thousand signatures from churches across the central coast, which I don't think it'll be a problem at all, but if you can sign the petition and then pray for them as well, that would be great. So with that, let's go ahead and stand up is what I'm going to ask of you. I'm going to ask that you would pray for CCS and pray for the parking meeting tomorrow for harvest shirt and, and ask that you would come up here and do it. So come up to Vox one 21. This is box one, by the way, box ones. 1 (26m 3s): There it is. So if you're in the campus somewhere else, like at the loft or in the, on the patio and you'd like to come pray, I'd like people to come and pray into the microphone, into the screen so that people at the rest of the campus can see what we're doing and see online and know what we're feeling know what's going on. Otherwise 2 (26m 22s): It's just kind of a dead noise and people can't hear what's going on. So I'm going to pray. And then I'm going to invite you guys to come up and fray into the microphone on the platform and nothing to be worried about 1 (26m 34s): The world wide 2 (26m 36s): Web, we'll be recording everything that you say, 1 (26m 39s): And everybody who's watching online 2 (26m 41s): Will be ridiculing and criticized or your prayers. Now I'm just kidding. 1 (26m 45s): They will be praying with you in agreement 2 (26m 48s): With your prayer. So as I pray, I want to invite you guys to come up forward, come forward and do the same thing. We're just going to take a few minutes to pray and just trust the Lord here. So Lord, we pray right now in Jesus name for his coastal Christian school, we pray that they would get their thousands of signatures on their petition and beyond that, that they would get their approval for their conditional use permit to add to their campus so that they can have the space that they need and be able to expand as their, their capacity. The number of students that they have, I think has doubled in the last year. And so they're in desperate need of more space. And so we pray that you'd bless 1 (27m 23s): Them with more space, with resources 2 (27m 26s): To build on their current property and blessings from the city and the county, Lord God. So take care of them. We pray Lord. And we pray for this meeting tomorrow with the city managers, whoever they may be. I, I don't know who is all going to be involved in the meeting, but for this me, this parking meeting tomorrow, we pray the God that you would remedy that for us in Jesus name, we pray that you would give us favor that you would go before us God, that you would open the doors and, and just, just pave the way for us to move forward with our project. Lord God. And as we have a new architect on the, on the project, Lord, we pray that you would bless him, that his company would be able to turn the plans around quickly. 2 (28m 6s): Lord, that would be able to get, get those into the city and that the city would give us our building permits. And we built be able to move forward with the plan, with the idea, the hope to be opened by Christmas Eve, Lord. So we just pray for your wisdom. We thank you for it, Lord. Thank you. Who else be bold? Come on up here. Don't make me wait. Just get up here. There we go. Gary Tucker. So here you got to stand right here up on the platform. Father. We just thank you, Lord, that your word tells us there is nothing too hard for you and you will do exceeding, abundantly above all that we could ask or imagine Lord, you are God almighty. As we sung this morning and we pray, you'd move the hearts of everybody involved Lord in this decision. 2 (28m 52s): And we trust God, you're going to allow us to move forward. Or parking is nothing for you. You own the whole world Lord. So we just pray father that you would work it out and have them agree that we're going to be able to still park where we haven't been parking more. And we're trusting you for the rest in Jesus name. 1 (29m 13s): Thanks Gary. Who else? Who else? Who else get up here? Don't make Berio come on up. You got a word for us too, David. All right. Speaking to that. 2 (29m 26s): Awesome. Cool. So Lord, we just cleaned to your word right now. God, because we know that your promises are true. And so in John 14, 11 through 14, God, you say, believe me, when I say I am in the father and the father's in me or at themselves, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I've been doing. And they will do even greater works than these because I'm going to the father and I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the father may be glorified in the son. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. Father. We know that you say ask and you shall receive God seeking. You will find knock and the door will be open. God. We know that if we ask for a stone, you won't give us a serpent. God. So father right now is your children. 2 (30m 6s): God, we just petition have him saying, Lord, we know that you want to partner with us. God, we know you want to partner with us in the expansion of what you're doing here. God, because you know, this is kingdom business. God. So father, we just commit this project to you. We already know it's in your hands Lord that you are the God of the impossible Jesus father. We know that we've seen time and time again, where things seemed impossible that you came through, like after the destruction of Solomon's temple, Godwin was unable to be built again, Lord, with the few workers and the few materials you were the one who rebuilt it. God. So Jesus, we trust this with you. God, we say this is nothing like the last guy. This is nothing for you, father. We don't even break a sweat because we trust our father. 2 (30m 48s): So God we thank you for the grace and the meeting tomorrow. God, we thank you that you would just move their hearts with your holy spirit Jesus in Jesus name. Amen. 1 (30m 58s): Hey man. Thanks brother. Appreciate it. Who's next? Who's next? Come on. Up here. Right, Diego. Right there. There we go, 2 (31m 13s): Father. I just want to thank you for harvest campus. I want to thank you for coastal Christian and the work that you've already done at each campus. Lord and father, father expansion is coming. It's your expansion, Lord father. I thank you again for the work that you've done and father, I thank you ahead of time that this expansion will come. I think you ahead of time that your kingdom is coming, that your kingdom is expanding father. 2 (31m 56s): Thank you. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Come on up. Stand up here. 3 (32m 12s): Thank you father. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My heart is bubbling and full of joy because the city knows we're going to grow and they're worried about where are they going to put us? Praise you, father praise you, father, that you are letting this town know that you are on the move or God, I just praise you. I praise you. I praise you. I can't wait to see. I can't wait to see all the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. You're going to bring both here and to coastal Christian academy, praise your name, father 1 (32m 45s): More. Anybody else? Linda, come on. What'd you stand right up here. Here we go, 3 (33m 3s): Father, God, I am just so excited because maybe the world sees us as a problem. But this is an answer to prayer because we have been praying that the work of harvest would go forth through the city and it airs and it has, and we keep growing and growing because of your grace, Lord God. And so we're not looking at this as a trial, even Lord, because this is part of the joy that we are experiencing because of your growth. And we know that you have answered our prayer and desires to continue to let us grow Lord. And so we know that you're going to provide a way for us to expand. And so far this event, Lord. So we just stand in agreement together, everyone right now, who is praying, we stand in agreement against anything the enemy would try to do to prevent this from happening. 3 (33m 53s): Lord, we stand together and you have told us where two or more are gathered. There you are in our midst Lord and where we got a lot more than two or morally here, Lord. So we stand together. We praise you. We honor you. And we say, Lord, bring the blessings. We receive it in your name. 1 (34m 10s): Amen. Joy. Come on up. Thanks Sheila or Linda. Sheila's the other one. 3 (34m 20s): God, you're awesome. You're a mighty God. Your control. We praise your name and we thank you. We thank you for this opportunity. It's who cut to worship you and to grow our faith. God would you, would you deepen our faith and brute us in your love that our church would grow and be on fire for you? God that this, this is so this is so little as it, as it's been mentioned before it God, this is so nothing is just a drop in the bucket, but God, this is a way to grow our faith. And I pray that you would, you would grow us as a church. You would encourage us through this, that you would strengthen our pastors and our elders and deacons through this there, this trial, God that you you're in control God, you are unstoppable. 3 (35m 11s): This whole nuts top here where your word. So we praise your name now. 1 (35m 16s): Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. Let's give the Lord anybody, anybody. All right. So my, my, my belief is that I'll come back next Sunday with a good report. So be seriously being praying all week long, but especially today and tomorrow, I'm not sure what time the meeting is, but be praying and the Lord do what he's going to do. Amen. And then yeah, you can be seated. There we go. You can be seated. God bless you guys. So as I mentioned in the prayer, we've got a new architect. The original architect was great. Christian loves Jesus, but so busy. So she said, Hey, I'm a couple of months out before I can even get to it. 1 (35m 57s): So then I met another architect last Saturday, just by accident, kind of happenstance, if there's any such thing. And he said, Hey, I can turn this project around quickly. And so he had a meeting with him and talked with the other architect and she said, yeah, if he can do it quicker, let him let him do it. And so he took it over and it's in the works now. So now we're hoping to get some plans here in the next couple of weeks versus a couple of months. And then those plans go to the city for plan approval and for permit issuing. And so we're hoping that doesn't take three months, like they're saying it could possibly take three months, but ultimately our plan is to be in the new kind of thought. 1 (36m 37s): It would be like Christmas Eve would be a great opportunity entity to have Christmas Eve service in there. So that's like six months away. It's already six months into this year. So time goes so incredibly fast. So in, in the beginning I was a little frustrated, but six months is quick. It's going to get there before we know it. So be praying for God's timing, but then also God's provision. So all along, we've just said, if you feel like you want to be a part of it, then here, here from the Lord and just be obedient. The price actually is, has gone up significantly. I don't know about you guys, but every time we do a remodel, the price goes from one number to another number we Jolene and I, we remodeled our house a couple of years ago, price doubled in the time of the remodel. 1 (37m 22s): When we remodeled this sanctuary 16 years ago, the price started out at like 35,000 and went up to like $85,000. So we're looking probably closer to $225,000 for that remodel. Originally it was like 125. Now it's probably closer to two 25 cost of materials. Everything is high right now. If you've done any kind of building right now, you know, everything is very, very expensive. Yeah. So, so, but we believe that God is faithful. Just like he was when we did this project, 16 years ago, we had 60 people on the jury 16 years ago and we did the project. Debt-free now we've got more than 10 times that, and we're believing for God to do the same thing. So if you'd like to join us and be a part of that, just, you know, be a part of what God is doing. 1 (38m 8s): God has been so faithful. I don't know if you guys realize God's faithfulness through your obedience. The church, when we planted the church, our budget, literally our budget every month was $1,500. Cause we rented a little school and I was working full time and we had a worship leader that we gave a stipend to, but it was really like 1500 bucks a whole month. Like it took him and we were like some months wondering if that was going happen, right? This, this year, we're watching God as he's been doing it every year for the last 16 years just increase what he provides for us this year. On average, we brought in $95,000 a month. 1 (38m 51s): So was like, you know, our old budget or original budget was 1500 for the month. Now it's bringing more than $3,000 every single day of the month. And so it's kind of interesting to see God's faithfulness. This last month was our, I think our biggest month ever, we brought in like $128,000. So, so God has response. I share that to say that God is responding to the need and there's a big need. So if you'd like to be a part of that, that then jump in, be a part of what, what God will do and watch what, how he blesses it. And anyway, with that, let's jump into Hebrews and continue to talk about faith. They amen. This'll be, we'll be wrapping up our faith study of Hebrews, be weaving it into the messages going forward. 1 (39m 31s): But Hebrews chapter 11 verses 35 through 40, as part of the examples of faith that we've been studying. We see one more story of God's faithfulness to his people of faith. So we pick it up in verse 35 and then we go into 36, 37, 38, 39 40 in those closing verses of chapter 11 are pretty difficult. In fact, I didn't want to preach this message today because like I said, Lord, I want to encourage the people with faith. And I don't want you to discourage them with the last part of Hebrews 11, but there's, there's a purpose in us communicating the whole counsel of God's word. 1 (40m 12s): And so we communicate the whole counsel of God's word because God uses the whole counsel of his word to instruct us and to grow us up in our most holy faith. And so as we get to the end of Hebrews 11, we're going to see examples of God's faithfulness to his people of faith that looks different than we might imagine. Like we so far we've been studying about God's profound impact in the world because people of faith have stepped up. We're going to actually see the people of God go under severe persecution for their faith. Many of them giving their lives for their faith. And in the midst of that, we see the faithfulness of God because we don't carry just a temporal earthly perspective. 1 (40m 56s): We carry this eternal perspective where we believe that this life in the earth is important, but also what we do for eternity matters. And so we're living not just for this life, but for the life eternal as well. And so when we have that kind of perspective, it changes things. So the long game is that we don't live for this life alone, but for the one to come also even more so, but we'll get there in a few minutes. Let's look at Hebrews 1135 as we wrap up this study of faith and God's faithfulness. So, so far we've talked about all kinds of people, right? We've talked about Abel Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses parents. 1 (41m 37s): We've talked about Moses. We've talked about the people of Israel, Ray Hab, Daniel Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We've talked about Gideon and we've talked about all of these people of faith. And now we'll spend some time on the story of this nameless widow in verse 35. Oh and Elijah. We'll talk about Elijah. In fact, we're going to talk a lot about Elijah as we get into this text. So Hebrews 1135 says, and again, this is after all of those other stories of faith, he says women received their loved ones back again from death. So let's take, take a look at one of those stories relating to this, this verse first Kings chapter 17. It says this now Elijah, who is from Tisha and Gilly ad told king Ahab. 1 (42m 23s): As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, listen to his competence, right? This was a man of faith. He understood that he heard from God and he was committed to obeying God. So he said, listen. As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, there will be no Dew or rain the next few years until I give the word, no, do no rain for the next few years until I give the word. So we declares this to the king and stands firm. Why? Because he's heard, I heard from the Lord, number one, God directs the elements. 1 (43m 10s): We, we have to believe that God is sovereignly in charge of everything, or he's not sovereignly in charge of anything, right? We believe that God directs the elements he told. He told the prophet, it's not going to do. There's not going to be any Dew or rain for the next few years until you the word we, we, we have to expand our capacity to believe God for things that maybe we wouldn't have believed God for in the past, God directs the element. Remember Jesus calmed the storm, right? Because he directs the album. Remember when Jesus walked on the water because he controls the elements. 1 (43m 51s): So he's in charge of everything. He controls everything. Then the Lord said to Elijah, go to the east and hide by Karath Brook near where it enters the Jordan river, drink from the Brook and eat Raven, eat what you want the Ravens bring you for. I have commanded them to bring you food. That verse tells me that God directs the wildlife. He doesn't just direct the elements, but he directs the wildlife. So he's Elijah. Here's some, the Lord and God tells me to go by this body of water, this Brook and eat what the Ravens give you, because God's gonna provide for you through the Ravens and through this water. 1 (44m 35s): And so God directs the wildlife. How do we know this is true. Look at Noah's Ark. You ever wonder how all those animals got into the arc? I mean, how much work would it have had been if Noah had to go around and gather up all of the animals, right? But this is what it says in Genesis six 20 God told Noah pairs of every kind of bird and every kind of animal and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, we'll come to you. We'll come to you to be kept alive. God directs the elements and he directs wildlife. He can direct every aspect and element of your life. If you just let him, if you just trust him, he can direct and provide and take care of all of your needs. 1 (45m 16s): Back to first Kings verse five, five says, so we lied. Yah did, as the Lord told him it can't beside Kira Brook, Easton. Jordan. What happened you suppose is brought him bread and meat each morning and evening. So I think about the people of Israel wandering through the wilderness for how long, 40 years and every day they wake up and there's fresh manna on the ground. Why? Because God is faithful to do what he says. He's going to do. He's he's providing for this prophet through the Raven to bring bread and meat every day. And he drank from the Brook. But after a while, the Brook dried up, why did the Brook dry up? 1 (45m 59s): Because there was no more do and no more rain because God stopped the do. And he stopped the rain and it wasn't going to come back until Eliza spoke the word. And so everything that God says in his word is unfolding before our very eyes. And this is true. Whether we see it in our own personal lives or not, we can see the faithfulness of God unfold as we trust him and believe him doing what he asks us to do. But after a while, the Brook dried up for there was no rainfall call anywhere in the land. Number three, we're seeing how God is speaking to Elijah. Number three, in your notes, God directs people he's speaks to people. 1 (46m 43s): Then the Lord said to Elijah, verse eight, then the Lord said to Elijah, what has God been saying to you lately? What has he been speaking to you lately? What has he been communicating for your soul lately? I think God wants to speak to us. I think he wants to speak to you. Then the Lord said to Elijah, go and live in the village of Zerephath near the city of side-on. I have instructed a widow there to feed you. So now no longer is the bird of the Raven going to feed him. But this widow is going to feed him and it, and it doesn't even make sense that this widow would meet him because the winter doesn't have a resource to feed him. But this is what happened. So he went to zero path and see arrived at the gates of the village. 1 (47m 25s): He saw a widow because God was speaking to him. And so it wasn't coincidence that he saw a widow, God spoken, directed that widow to do what she was doing so that when the prophet showed up, Elijah sees the widow. See, he arrived at the gates of the, of the village. He saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, would you please bring me a little water in a cup? And she was going to, as she was going to get it, he called to her, bring me a bite of bread. But she said first, well, I swear by the Lord, your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. 1 (48m 9s): Okay. Why would God direct Elijah to this widow who didn't have any bread? If she was the one responsible to feed him while he was there, he's unfolding his plan. He's unfolding his plan. It's like the, the, the offerings of the, of the widow. She, she gave all that. She had, she, she provided the Lord everything that she had as an act of worship. And now this widow, woman's going to have the opportunity. We need to do the same thing. I swear by the Lord, your God, that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking wheel in the bottom of the jug. 1 (48m 53s): I was just gathering if you six to cook the last meal and then my son and I will die. But Elijah said to her, don't be afraid. You're you're out your external circumstances, your outward circumstances. Don't have to dictate how you deal with life. We need to who in those desperate moments, reach it, cry out to the Lord and say, okay, God, I'm in this desperate place, much like Carolyn was talking about I'm in this desperate place. What are you going to do now? And then just watch what the Lord will do and obey, listen and obey. Don't be afraid. Go ahead and do just what you said, but make a little bread for me first. 1 (49m 35s): How selfish is Elijah? Right? I know you're going to die. I know you only got a little bit, but make me a little bread, right? Do you think that was a lie, led you to being selfish? This was Alijah being used by the Lord to test her faith all throughout scripture in the old and the new Testament, we're called to give God our very best. The very first fruit of our offering. We're called to do what he's asked us to do with obedience and faith. Believing that he's going to come through in a supernatural way. He said, then use, what's left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says. 1 (50m 17s): There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again, there will always be all of oil and flour for how long, as long as the Lord wills. It said it wasn't gonna rain for a few years. And so God was going to take this meager bit of loyal and flour and multiply it because this is what he always does. And we always see that he's in charge of number four. God has power over in animate objects, lifeless objects. 1 (50m 59s): God has power. Even over those things. We see it. When he feeds the multitudes, he feeds the multitudes twice. One time, he feeds 5,000 plus women and children. The next time he feeds 4,000 plus women and children. Each time they gathered up baskets of leftovers. Yeah. Beers that they actually gathered up more at the end than they had in the beginning, because God has power over in adamant. Yes, we need to believe that he will provide supernaturally. When he asks us to do something, our tendency is like, Lord, I'm I'm down to the end of it. 1 (51m 39s): Like, this is all I've got. Whether it be money or time or whatever it is, Lord, I don't have the ability to give. And it's probably in that moment that he asks you to give. In fact, I love it. I'll just say, Lord, I don't want to be tested in this, but I do love when sometimes I say stuff and I get tested on it, like immediately. And so I'm putting a disclaimer, Lord, I don't want to be tested in this area, but I love it. Like when we're at the end of our resource, either as a church search or in our family and the Lord says, give what you have leftover, give it away and watch what I will do. 1 (52m 19s): So, number of years ago, we were trying to buy this property and we tried to raise money and we couldn't raise any money. I've shared this story before, but I'll share it again because it's fun. So we had worked hard. We tried to raise money. This is like two, $2 million property or whatever. And we're trying to raise money. We need at least 15 or 20% down or whatever. So that all of our money, we raised $15,000. Boy, they all of our money. That's all we get raised, right? Hardly anything. It doesn't put a dent in things, but CCS is also raising money for their facility. So we said, let's take our $15,000 and give it to CCS. Clearly we don't have enough money to do anything, but maybe it will help them. 1 (53m 3s): So we go down the road a little bit longer and, and this place, we were raising money for this place when it did come available, but it still wasn't available to us. But the house next door became available and we needed to raise, I don't know, a hundred thousand dollars or something like that to, to buy that house next door. Cause it was like $470,000 or whatever. So we needed to raise like, I dunno like 8,000, whatever the number was. It does. It doesn't matter. God provided that money. Like immediately. It's like there was no effort needed at all. We, we had, after we gave that money to CCS, we just started raising money again. And all of a sudden we had a hundred thousand dollars. We're like 98,000 bucks or something like that. So when we needed money, my coffee, when we needed money for that place, God provided it for us because we, we took our measly $15,000 that we had, which wasn't a much DAS, but it blessed them. 1 (53m 56s): And we gave it away and God provided and, and took care of the need for that. And then when a couple of years later, when this place became available, we needed it. We had remodeled that place and the value went up like, I don't know, 150 or $200,000. And so the value of increase, they're putting these properties together. We hardly had to raise any money at all. We raised a little bit of money that we did need to raise so that we could put the down payment on this property. So God love it, leverage that property. So we get out, buy this property. Now we owe, we own like $3 million in property in the beginning. Remember our budget was $1,500 every month, right? 1 (54m 37s): And, and then I'm going to camp out on this for a bit here. We, we wanted to rent this facility. It wasn't for sale. Yet. We wanted to rent this space and it was $3,000 a month, 3000 that's twice what our budget was 3000 bucks. And we were still renting the school because we needed a place to meet while we were renovating this place. So now we're at 4,500 bucks. About the same time we started renting other space. And at the same time that board said, Hey, we need you on full time to, to run the projects we're remodeling and building and painting and doing all that kind of stuff. So I came on full-time when the church has 60 people in it and the church was able to pay me plus pay this plus pay for everything else that we were doing. 1 (55m 24s): And we've never looked back. That was 16 years ago that we made the decisions to move here. And we've been able to renovate space and build space and all kinds of stuff. So God's been faithful because this is what God had done as period is faithful period. And he will call us to do unreasonable things so that he might do supernatural things. Let's go back to first Kings. I'm totally out of time here. It says a matter. And we're going to keep going. Let's order some pizza in, and then I'll just keep preaching until like three years, verse 15. 1 (56m 5s): So she did, as Elijah said, she, this is where it starts. Like, what is the Lord saying? This widow who was on her last meal, preparing to die. She did, as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. There was always enough flour and all of oil left in the containers. Just as the Lord had promised through Elijah, sometime later, the woman's son became sick. He grew worse and worse. And finally he died. Then she said to Elijah, oh man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son. But Elijah replied, give me your son. 1 (56m 45s): Then he took the child's body from her arms, carried him up the stairs to the room where he was staying and laid the body on his bed. Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, oh Lord, my God. Why have you brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me causing her son to die. And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the Lord, oh Lord my God. Please let this child's life return to him. What happened? The Lord heard Elijah's prayer, right? The Lord heard Elijah's prayer and the life of the child returned. And he revived. Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. 1 (57m 24s): Look. He said, your son is alive. Have you ever been in the room when somebody died? And when somebody has expired, it's not awesome. The person is dead lifeless. The warmth of their body is leaving them. And they're becoming this cold lifeless shell. It's not fun. This is what happened to this woman, her son, she's a widow. She's already lost her home. He's dead. And then God shows up and got it. 1 (58m 5s): The stores him saying, man, it brings the back to him. And he said, look, your son is alive. I share that because God has the power over life and death. And I want to say physically, but also spiritually. And some of us need to hear that spiritually. He's got power over life and desk because some of you are feeling dead spiritually, and God wants to resurrect your, your spiritual life. God wants to resurrect your spiritual life so that you're feeling alive again. But this is how it's going to happen. It's going to happen as you step out in faith, in obedience to do whatever it is that God has asked you to do. So what I'm, I'm not even talking about the building. I don't care about the building. 1 (58m 45s): I know that God's going to take care of the building. What I'm saying is whatever God has asked you to do. The last thing he's asked you to do to go back to that thing and then watch as you will be gently do what he's asked you to do. Watch the spiritual life in you. Refresh. I talked with a guy yesterday, Friday, talked to the guy Friday and heard from a guy Friday. He was sharing kind of a story. And he had gone through a terrible divorce. His wife left him, took his sons, moved out of state. He had no custody. He had no ability to see his kids. And, and it went on like this for, for a decade. I think it was a decade. He was driving in his truck one day and he felt like the Lord said, you need to call your wife's husband and apologize to him for the way that you have treated him during this, this time. 1 (59m 33s): And oh, by the way, you need to apologize to your wife as well. And he's like, you have got to be kidding me. And he decided to do it. So he calls the son to get a stepdad's his son stepdad's phone number. And he said, Hey, God's done a work in my life. And I just want to call and apologize to you for the way that I've acted and the way that I've lived before you. And if it's all right with you, I'd like to call your wife, my ex-wife and apologize to her as well. And he did. And the Lord completely reconciled that family. You didn't get remarried to his wife, none of that. But they, they had a relationship. 1 (1h 0m 15s): He was able to be at his son's high school graduation, sitting at the family table. There was his son was able to forgive him. His son had been angry with him for a decade, I think is what he said for a decade, for the way that his father had been acting in God, through that obedience reconciled the whole family. What is God asking you to do? That seems impossible. That doesn't seem like it's going to bear any fruit. And it seems like something that you're not even interested in doing. If God is asking you to do it, go back to that. You might be feeling spiritually separated from God. Spiel is spiritually dry because you're just flat refusing to be obedience. God cannot bless disobedience. He will not bless disobedience. 1 (1h 0m 56s): God can resurrect your spiritual life. He's got power over life and death physically, spiritually Jesus raised gyrus daughter from the dead mark five raised a widow's son from the dead in Luke chapter seven, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and John chapter 11, Jesus himself was raised from the dead. And we see Elijah raising this widow woman's son from the dead. Then the woman told Elijah, I know for sure that you are a man of God and that the Lord surely speaks through you. So we've heard a lot of amazing stories of God's faithfulness, but the reality is number six, in your notes God's plan. Doesn't always unfold. As we expect God's plan. 1 (1h 1m 37s): Doesn't always unfold as we expect. So let's take a look at how, how his plan, and I'll say his plan unfolded in the, in the lives of these people. So now I'm not saying that God had caused what happened with he allowed it and he's been glorified through it. Others who didn't experience the victory, like we've been talking about others, tortured refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They place their hope and a better life. After the resurrection, somewhere jeered at and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons, some died by stonings and were sawed in half and others were killed with the somewhat about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute, and oppressed and mistreated. 1 (1h 2m 25s): They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground around just as a for instance, this is how the 12 apostles died. And I'm going to give you kind of the rundown here real quickly though. I hear so often I want a first century Christ experience like people like I want to do you really want a first century Christ experience because what you will get is what they got. Some of our hardest decisions as Christians is, do I go to the nine o'clock service or do I go to the 11 o'clock service? Right? Do I go to, you know, out to her Mexican food after order? 1 (1h 3m 7s): Or do I get pizza afterward? You know, what, what sporting event do I watch on the television afterward? You know, where, where do I, my wife and I go out to dinner. I mean, those are, these are the things that we wrestle with. This is not first century Christianity. This is first century Christianity. This is how the 12 apostles died. Ad. This is from the, the voice of the martyrs or excuse me, Fox's book of martyrs to book. Andrew was crucified, but he wasn't just, he was crucified in an X shaped cross and he wasn't nailed to the X shape cross. He was actually tied to the cross to, to extend the time that it would take for him to actually die because you're, you're hanging and it's causing you to suffocate and you have to push up to get a breath. 1 (1h 3m 58s): And then you're useless. He just suffocate. So while he was dying and it took days for him to die, what was he doing? He was preaching to passers by people who would go by watch and mock him. He was preaching the gospel. Andrew was crucified, Bartholomew beaten, then crucified, James son of Alphaeus was stoned to death. Others think that James son of Alphaeus was actually crucified in lower Egypt and then sod in pieces. So it wasn't good enough that they crucified him. They cut him in pieces. You really want to first century Christianity, this is what you're going to get here. 1 (1h 4m 42s): James son of Zebedee was beheaded, just like the apostle. Paul says Paul John exile for his faith died of an old age, but they did try to kill him. They put them in a VAT of oil, boiling oil, trying to kill him, but like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, nothing happened to him. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fiery furnaces. They didn't even smell like a barbecue, but they'd been in the furnace, right? John, the apostle John Kent comes out of the boiling oil. He's got no, no injuries. He will not die while he's in the Calder. And his historian said that while he was there, he was actually preaching the gospel. 1 (1h 5m 22s): They're like, get him out of there. Exile him to the island of Patmos, where he can't have anybody preach to you. So while he's there though, God's got a purpose for them. Jesus reveals that revelation to him. He writes revelation, the book of revelation and the rest is history out of an old age. But after living his whole life for Jesus Judas, not a scary. He was stoned to death. Matthew was speared to death. Peter crucified upside down, Phillip was crucified. Simon crucified, Thomas, a spirits of death and Matthias was stoned to death. So that's kind of, that's what happens. All these people earned a good reputation. 1 (1h 6m 2s): The scripture says verse 30 and all these people are in a good reputation because of their faith. Yet none of them received all that God had promised forgot. It's something better in mind for us so that they would not reach perfection without us remember back in Hebrews chapter 11, verses 13 through 16. I think we covered this week too, in our studies in Hebrew and Hebrews, it says, all these people died. Still believing what God is. I promised them they did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on the earth. And that that's the perspective of the first century church and needs to be our perspective of the 21st century church that we are. 1 (1h 6m 44s): This is not our home. We are foreigners and nomads were passing through with the sole purpose of glorifying God in our lives waves for the life to come for all eternity. They were foreigners and nomads here on the earth. Obviously, people who say such things are looking forward to a country. They called their own. If they had long for the country, they came from, they could have gone back, but they were looking for a better place, a heavenly Homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God for. He has repaired a city for them. So number six, God's planned. Isn't always what we expect it to be. Let me get there again. God's plan is not always, does not always unfold as we expect, but number seven in your notes, as we wrap this thing up, God's plan can always be trusted. 1 (1h 7m 34s): God's plan can always be trusted. So if you're at a crossroads in your life and you're just perplexed by God and what he has done or what he has allowed, go back to your big picture, long game plan and perspective and say, okay, God, clearly things are unfolding for me the way I think that they should unfold. What is your long game? I've been praying for the Methodist camp for 16 years. You guys have been praying with me for the Methodist camp that God would give us that Methodist. It's 29 acres back there for 16 years. And God hasn't seen fit to give it to us yet. Right? Things don't always unfold. The way that we hope that they would unfold difficult, have hit our family, things that we didn't expect or wouldn't welcome in, in a million years, but things have happened. 1 (1h 8m 22s): And we got to believe that God is in control. He is unfolding things. So don't lose heart before you see the answer. Don't lose heart. Before you see the answer. Did I read Hebrews 11, 13 through 16? Did I finish that? I didn't. Okay. They were looking for a better place at heavenly Homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God for. He has prepared a city for them. God is what has got up to in your life. I know what he's up to you. I think in the church and I'm trying to figure out what he's up to in my life as well. What does he have to in your life two weeks ago? 1 (1h 9m 4s): I said by faith, we will, by faith, I will. We asked you and challenge you to fill in the blank. And then we had people come up and talk about my faith. They will. What is it that by faith, God is taking you through and you will do, will you choose to be obedient? We choose to love him. We, she used to be faithful to him. Will you choose to do what he's asked you to do? Whatever that ask may be. I promise you this. If you do that, your spirit, your spirit spiritually, you will come alive again, where you've been struggling spiritually. You will, you will begin to come alive. Like you've never been alive before. Just simply confess your sin and say, Lord, I I've not done. What you asked me to do. 1 (1h 9m 45s): I'm going back to what you asked me to do. And I'm going to do that thing. And then moving forward, I'm going to do what you asked me to do was with that. Let's go and stand up because really that's what Christianity is all about. We follow Jesus. He says something. We obey it. That's Christianity. There's if it's, if your Christianity is something other than that, it's not Christianity. It's just not Christianity. So what is it that God is asking you to do? Speak it out? Anybody? What is it that God is asking you to do? Serve him. Good. Yeah. Specifically? What does that look like? Anything specifically? 1 (1h 10m 28s): Yeah. All right. Good. How about perfect. Perfect. Who else? There you go. All right. What else? Serving children. Good. Who else? Serving marriages. How long are you going to do that? Until I die? He says, what else? Healing. The sick. Awesome. What else? Preach the gospel. So real quick. David's the one that prayed for my knee. I'm running. I've been running ever since. So it's a win brother. Good for you. Good for God. 1 (1h 11m 8s): What else? Teaching Bible says, is there anything new that you like Lord's put on your heart? Anything new? Okay. All right. All right. Giving, giving more each week to what God is doing in the church. I repeat so that people online can hear and see people at other places. What else? All right. Awesome. Awesome. Just make yourself available for media skills, mediation. 1 (1h 11m 49s): Okay. Now. Okay. Good mediation. Well, thank you very much. What's your name? Donna. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. What else? Anybody else? It's gotta be something burning in you right now that you're afraid to say. You're afraid to say it, that's it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. A cattle helping people helping to be a catalyst that people might share the gospel downtown. Very good. Something else is burning in your soul that, you know, if you don't say it, you're not going to be obedient to it, helping with the coffee. 1 (1h 12m 32s): So that's wonderful. We need more of that by the way more, more coffee. Elbers anybody else on the platform? Anybody come on, there's gotta be one more like big thing that the Lord has said. One more, one more. Who is it? Great. Good, wonderful, good stuff, Laura. Thank you for what you're speaking to us. We want to say by faith, we're going to do that for eating those things that lie behind straining forward. The things that lie I had, Lord God. So we just pray Jesus, that you would help us by faith to step into those supernatural plans. 1 (1h 13m 15s): Lord use us mightily. We pray, help us smiley. We pray. Thank you for your grace in Jesus name amen. Hey man, let's worship. 1 (1h 13m 22s): 0 (1h 14m 25s): . 0 (1h 17m 45s): helping you this morning to lead us this week. 0 (1h 22m 10s): Take those steps towards those things are challenging us to be brave, to be bold, to make a difference, to be salt and light in the earth, to extend your love to those around us. We thank you for this time to reset her off hurts on you to be ready to ground it in your word. Spend time in your presence and with one another to each other's burdens and reminding each other the truth. So would you seal these things upon our heart? We love you. Thank you for this time when your precious.

God's Call and Promise

0 (11s): Okay. I sing praises to your praises to your name that so much. Hi. Oh, . 0 (9m 38s): Thank you for your presence here this morning. Thank you for the joy in our hearts is welcoming you to come into move, to speak. This, make a life to refresh our souls latest beside those still waters. Thank you for mercies that are new today, your grace follows us coming out of your way in our hearts and our lives. 0 (10m 25s): We welcome you. We were all one Sloss, but now we're all found. And so we thank you, Lord reskilling, your amazing, amazing grace. We sing amazing grace together. Amazing how soon we see end first. 0 (14m 57s): One more time. 1 (15m 42s): Lord God, we come before you. Now we thank you for that amazing grace for it. Wasn't for your grace Lord, we would not be here. We would be nothing but the objects of your wrath. God, you pour out your grace abundantly upon us to bring us to faith in you and to sustain us from day to day, you pour out your grace in general, Lord God, over the whole world, you rain on the just, and the unjust we come our way. Thank you for that. Amazing, amazing grace. The penalty paid by Jesus that we might walk in freedom. 1 (16m 26s): Our chains gone and being, being set free. Thank you God that we can enter into your presence. We can boldly approach the throne of grace. We can come before you, Lord God, as your dearly, dearly beloved children. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Amen. And amen. Take two minutes. Steve gave you a five. I only get to preach once in a while. So you get the whole load today. 1 (17m 7s): So you only get two minutes to greet each other. So All right. 1 (18m 42s): Let's let's bring it back in. We're glad you're here this morning. If you're with us here in the sanctuary on the patio and the loft, or if you're watching us online, we, we really appreciate that you're with us today. I am Dave . I'm associate pastor here and pastor Steve and Jolene are taking some well-deserved time off. And so just kicking back and enjoying on this holiday weekend. Can you believe it's Memorial day boy, it comes around in a hurry, comes around in a hurry this morning, I'm going to be continuing with the theme of faith that Steve has been on. 1 (19m 26s): He's been preaching through Hebrews 11. I'm jumping back into the old Testament this morning and the prophet had guy and we're going to be looking at what God is speaking to the people of Israel. And I think it's a word for us for today. It's so easy folks to, to look at some of the things that have happened in the past. As you read scripture, as you are going through the word and, and you, you look at it as simply as a historical event, but you know, God is still speaking to us through those historical events and those words are still applicable to us today. 1 (20m 8s): So we want to look at what the prophet has to say here. Hey guy was a prophet during the time of the return to the promised land after the Babylonian captivity. And he and the Zechariah were the ones who were prophesying when the people had come back into the land and they're starting to get settled. And, and so here we're, we're picking up in our, in our story here about where the people are back there, settled in. They, they came and they, they kinda got things cleared a little bit, but they also got established. You know, we got to got to get there and you gotta start your farm, or you got to take over and get that vineyard cleaned out. 1 (20m 52s): So you can start producing again, those orchards, whatever it is that you're doing, we've got to get our sheep together, figure out what all this stuff clears some areas. So they've got placed to graze. It's not just, you know, living among the rubble and that sort of thing. And, and we got to have a place to live. And so we got to hear them, got to build their houses, and we've got to do all this kind of thing. And that this is what's been going on now for years and God sends the prophet to them. And he says, you know, you need to, if you notice how, when you, when you, you go, you scatter your seed. And when it comes harvest, you're expecting a lot. And there's only a little and you notice how there's blight and mildew and how your, your crops get knocked down by the weather. 1 (21m 40s): How you go to gather up the wine and there's not near as much as what you thought there was going to be. Yeah, you need to get busy about the business of God. You need to get busy about the, the kingdom of God and not just living your life, not just, not just go on around your day-to-day routine and everything and forgetting to build what I've called you to build. So he does that. The people obey and they start the process and then God comes back and he speaks to them a second time. 1 (22m 21s): And so we're going to pick up there in chapter two of hat guy, the first nine verses, here's the word of the Lord in the seventh month on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai, the prophet speak now to Zerubbabel son of Sheltie, Al governor of Judah and to Joshua son of Jozadak the high priest and to all the remnant of the people and say, who is left among you? Who saw this house in its former glory? They're starting to rebuild the temple. How do you see it now? Is it as nothing in your eyes yet? Now be strong as the rebel declares, the Lord be strong, oh, Josh have a Joshua son of Jehovah deck. 1 (23m 5s): The high priest be strong. All you people of the land declares, the Lord work for, I am with you declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you. When you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst. Fear, not for thus says the Lord of hosts yet once more in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine. And the gold is mine declares. The Lord of hosts. 1 (23m 45s): The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace declares. The Lord of hosts. God, we thank you for your word. Pray God that you would anoint it to our hearts, that you would speak down deep into us. Lord, even into me as I deliver this, I pray God that you would speak through me, that you would speak to the hearts of these who are are here right now. Lord, I know sometimes you speak words that I don't say and that's okay, but speak Lord, because we need to feast upon your word. 1 (24m 36s): We need to be nourished by you. Send us forth, Lord God, full of your word, full of your spirit, full of your truth, full of your love that we might see this world transformed and let us walk in faith to the praise of your glory in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So God, here we see God's call and then God's promise. We're going to be looking at those two aspects of, of this today. And God's calling to his people here. There's a threefold. All right, we've already talked about they're back there. 1 (25m 18s): Now there they've been back for a long time. God's on them and said, Hey, let's get about the business that you're supposed to be doing here. And they get started building the temple. And so he gives them a three-fold call as encouragement to get started. Be strong, do the work fear not, or as I like to put it from looking at it from the other direction, have faith be strong, fear not have faith. So the first part of this calling he gives is to be strong. He gives them the word that they can do this because he has enabled them. God has given them all that they need to, to do the work that's ahead of them. 1 (26m 3s): He's giving them, given them the abilities he's given them. The, the, the strength that is there for them. That's why he says be strong. It's there already be strong walk in it. Walk in the strength that I have given you be strong as a rebel declares, the Lord be strong. Oh, Joshua son of Jozadak the high priest be strong. All you people of the land declares. The Lord notice here. God is calling every level of Hebrew society. He's calling Zerubbabel Zerubbabel's Bellm. My secretary at my old church, grew up the church and said, when she was little, the pastor who was there was whenever you come to those, those names, you can't pronounce just say tea, kettle. 1 (26m 50s): And so what teakettle son of teakettle well, no, it was the Ruby bell was, was there. He was direct descendant in the line of David through David's son. Nathan, you read it. He's he's in the genealogy of Joseph. He is, if there had been no captivity, he is one who is eligible to be sitting on the throne of David. He is there and, and that was known. And that's why when Cyrus sent them back to the land, told them they could go back and rebuild the temple. He was made governor because he was really in line to be king. 1 (27m 33s): And then Joshua, he says, be strong. Oh, Joshua Joshua was the high priest directly from errands line. He was next in line at if the Solomon's temple was still there, he would have been the high priest. So he was given that authority. First thing they did when they got back as built the altar. So they could start the sacrificial system again, even before they had the temple in place, but they had this system that, and now they're working and he's saying be strong. And we see Zerubbabel as, as the governor, as, as the king figure, you know, in our, in our church, say we can compare that to our elders, Steve and Ron and Neil and Jim and Gary, they carry the mantle of the leadership in the church today. 1 (28m 27s): They carry the mantle of, of having to discern the will of God for our body. And it's, it's a mantle that God has given them, but it's also a great responsibility and it's easy to be overwhelmed when you're in that position. I know I've been there and it's it's really, as you, you are trying to discern the mind of Christ. That's it? That's it huge. Wait. So we say, it's not a burden it's, but it is a weight. And, and as you, you carry that weight, you need to be strong. 1 (29m 8s): So God is calling Zerubbabel to be strong as the governance in the land, Josh, the high priest, I kind of likened him to the rest of the staff at church work Joshua's that he ministered before God and, and to the people, you know, he's the, the man in between going to God, going to the people and the, and as they do this, that's the function of a priest to do that, to stand, be the intermarriage intermediary between God and man, while the, the elders kind of give direction. And we mediate that to the people. And then, you know, sometimes we hear stuff and we bring it to the elders and bring back and we tattle on you, we test, but we take good things. 1 (29m 56s): We say, Hey, this is what we're hearing. I don't know if you're hearing this, but just, we need to be in communication one with another. And we've, as we carry out the ministry, as we do all the functions of the things that are going on in the church, and then there's the call for all the people of the land. You to be strong, walk in the strength and the enablement that God has given you, as we move forward. As we, we, we carry out the business of the kingdom of God, as we work towards the goals that our God has given us, this is what we're called to do. 1 (30m 41s): See Israel had been living just a fairly routine life, not unlike us today. We got back and this includes, I mean, the high priest was going about his business. was the governor he's going about his administrative business. People are going about their business farming store, owners, market, all this stuff. There probably weren't any computer specialists then, but other than that, there was, you know, all the normal day-to-day stuff of life, it was going on. And as they're doing this, they're pursuing their business. 1 (31m 23s): They're taking care of their own things. They're watching over their own houses. They're putting themselves and their needs before anything else. And unintentionally, as a result before God, we don't ever mean to put stuff before God, as followers of Jesus, we, we know what it is to be removed from, from the carrying the burden of sin. We have the weight of the responsibility of a follower of Jesus. But, but we understand that God is on the throne. God is Lord of all, God has made a way, but yet we're still dealing with this. 1 (32m 3s): And it's so easy to get caught up in the routine. And God kind of gets shoved to the side. We put him in his God box, we get them out each morning. When we open up our Bibles and spend a few, few minutes in prayer and in the word, we get them out again and let them stay out longer on Sundays. But other than that, he goes back in the God box and we get busy with life. see it's such typical behavior because our flesh wants to rise up. We get ourselves the rhythm of the world and we go with the flow of life and we follow the path of limited, if not least resistance, because there's a lot of resistance out there. 1 (32m 55s): And we do what Israel said over in chapter one that God spoke to them and said, yeah, you've got people here who were saying, it's just not time. Yet. At that time to build yet the church I served in South Carolina, every time the subject of expansion or building or anything came up, he always got out his book when it's time not to build. And it just senior pastor told me, he said, you know, Kenneth is going to get out his book again at our meeting this week, because we're talking about expansion. We're talking about what we need to do to grow, because we say it's just not quite time yet. Just let me finish the project they've got. 1 (33m 36s): And then we'll start with kingdom work. Just let me take care of this or let me make sure that I can build up some funds so I can afford it. And then I can help out with kingdom work. Yeah. Oh, it says just the opposite. He says, seek first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all these things will be added to you. You see, we were upside down. We speak about the kingdom as being upside down, but we're the ones who are upside down when Paul was there in, in Ephesus and the craftsman, all of a sudden this guy who's turning the world upside down is here. 1 (34m 22s): No, it's turning the world right side up. And so it doesn't make sense to say, okay, we're going to put God first. We're going to take care of all this first. I'm going to go neglect my business. I'm going to neglect and we're not really neglecting it. But we automatically, our flesh takes us to the opposite end and we start digging our heels in because it's not just seek me first out, take care of everything else. I will see to it. That things are taken care of. You will see the blessing of God. If you put me first, if you make me an afterthought, well, I won't kill you, huh? 1 (35m 8s): But she'll just scrape by. Why not walk in the abundance I have for you? If you put me first, rather than you walking in my afterthoughts, God never calls you to a task without supplying what you need to complete. It. That's so hard for us to grasp sometimes, you know, and here again, this is where we talk about the be strong what's going on. They they've been at it for about three and a half weeks. The first prophecy that hat guy brought, the people were convicted. 1 (35m 52s): They went to work. It took three and a half weeks to get started. But we're talking, we're not talking about, you know, rapid communication here. They had to get the word out to everyone who back in Israel and say, Hey, we're starting on the temple three and a half weeks. They're at it. Now it's been another three and a half weeks. They'd been working. And you know, when you've got a big project and you get about three and a half weeks in and it looks like nothing has happened. Yes. Yeah, yeah. A little dirt moved around. We've got some of these rocks and some of this rebel pulled out of the way and we can kind of see where things are, are starting. 1 (36m 33s): And we see the outline of what's going on. But boy, this is overwhelming. Will this ever get done? And so God brings this word once again, be strong. Those, the rebel be strong. Oh, Joshua, be strong. All the people of the land declares the Lord, see the people needed the encouragement to continue. I needed to move forward. Clearing rebel by hand takes time. And you know, these big projects take mind. Numbing amounts of time. You think about the cathedrals in Europe, those, those big old Gothic cathedrals hundred and 50 years, 200 years to build. 1 (37m 20s): That's a lot of work that continues and continues and continues and continues and it's will it ever end? So he says, be strong. When we built in, when I was in Kansas, we built it a church building and we had to bring a soils engineer out and he had to, to look at the ground and, and, you know, study the compaction of it and everything. You were brown ground penetrating radar and out and figured out, oh well we're 88% compaction. So, oh, wow. That's great. It needs to be 95. 1 (38m 2s): And so they had to come and they, they had to dig out for the foundation. Fortunately we're farmers, everybody has heavy equipment and yeah, hallelujah. So you dig out that where the church was going to be that where the building was gonna gonna stand. And then we had a young teenager who was more than happy to come in and just, they had a sheep's foot, what they call a sheep's foot, which has compacts the soil. And they had one on the farm. So he brought it in and he spent two days driving back and forth through the whole ad in a little, put a little dirt back in driving back and forth through the hole, but a little dirt back in two days. 1 (38m 48s): And it's like one, I don't know how he stood just being in there, just driving back and forth on that same half a block. And I talk about mind numbing, but it feels like nothing's happening, but it's what makes everything ready. All the prep work. All the doing people needed to be strong in order to continue to persevere. They were enabled. God says, walk into your enablement. Second part of God's calling to us is to do the work. 1 (39m 29s): He has empowered us. He's given us the strength that we need. He's given us the abilities that we need. He's given us all that we need to do. We just need to do it. He says, work. This is in verses four B and start in the middle of the middle of verse four. Work for, I am with you declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you. When I, when you came out of Egypt is not only is there an aspect of calling. There's a promise with it. There's encouragement with it. Yes. Do this. But know that I am with you. Work. I am alongside you when God calls us he not only supplies what's needed to complete the work he works with us. 1 (40m 15s): God is our yoke fellow. God, as a matter of fact is the master builder to our common laborer. God does the majority of the work. He gives us the privilege of working alongside him. See if we try to do that in our own strength. If we tried to do it on our own, it's not going to work. What is someone 27 first verse, unless the Lord builds the house. Those who build it labor in vain, unless the Lord watches over the city, the Watchman stays awake in vain. 1 (41m 1s): It's all gone. Okay. This is not to say that we sit back and watch God do the work. God specifically says to work. And at the same time he blesses us abundantly. He, God magnifies the work of your hands. As you, as you're leaning on him, as you are, are working in his strength, we're called to be strong. As we're in his power, doing the work he somehow or another in God's economy, he manages, well, it doesn't manage. 1 (41m 43s): He just declares. It manages. Sounds like he's got, has to figure out a plan. He's already knows what it is. God takes what we do and makes it more, don't know how he does it, but he does it. The third aspect of our calling is to fear not, or from looking at it from the other direction, have faith. See the opposite. Opposite of faith is an unbelief. The opposite of faith is fear. 1 (42m 24s): When you, when you get afraid, it's because you are looking forward into life, looking at the scenario without the benefit of the presence of God. In that scenario, this is what is called you. Look ahead and your mind starts thinking what's going to happen if this, if this, if this is, this is if this, and if we don't put God into the mix, income, be good. But when we know that God is with us, that God has empowered us, that God has enabled us. And that God is doing the work alongside of us. We can be encouraged and move forward. 1 (43m 10s): And then we don't have to walk in fear. He says, my spirit remains in your midst. Fear, not isn't it. The greatest encouragement of all that God is with us. That God remains in our myths. And not only in our midst, but in us, Jesus promised his disciples and thereby us. When he's speaking to his disciples, he's talking to us. He says, the holy spirit is with you, but would be, can you, the holy spirit is in you. 1 (43m 50s): You are a follower of Jesus Christ. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, the spirit of the living, God lives in you. And the spirit is given without measure. You have all that God has for you in the holy spirit, living in you right now. Why should we be afraid? Psalm 27. It's not on the screen, but the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. I've home. Shall I be afraid? We have no need to fear because God is with us. We can walk in faith. 1 (44m 33s): So you haven't. So, or we have so infinitely better than what Israel did you think about Israel in the wilderness? They had the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. And we think wouldn't that be so cool? Wouldn't it be so cool to stand at the foot of Sinai and just be kind of afraid because God's up there talking to Moses and there's thunder and lightening and fire and smoke and all of this stuff. And, and, and we, we crave and experience in our flesh. We have better than an experience in our flesh. We have the spirit of God in us. And so we can walk forward in faith. 1 (45m 20s): See we have the witness of the indwelling spirit of the living God in our hearts, Romans six 16 tells us the spirit himself, bears witness with our spirits, that we are children of God. Okay? And our heavenly father is attentive and caring and kind and loving and compassionate towards his children. He calls you to be strong and he will strengthen you. He calls you to work. He will empower you. And he calls you to have faith in him. 1 (45m 60s): And he promises. He will never leave us or forsake us be strong. Do the work have faith. So where is that taking us harvest church? Let's take a look at God's promise. God's promise to his people is that he would be with them just that he has always been. So God asks this question through Pega, to the people who is left among you, who saw this house in its former glory. 1 (46m 42s): How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? They looked at the foundations that was there and, and those who were older and they saw where the new foundation was starting to be laid. And these older ones who had seen it before the exile to Babylon were grieved in their hearts. It was going to be different. It was going to be less glorious, but at the same time, the younger ones were overjoyed and they were shouting for joy. And this second temple was just nothing like Solomon's temple. 1 (47m 22s): It was plain. Where's the gold and the silver and the bronze. Where's all the, the car of decoration. Where is all this other ornamented beauty that just reminded us of who God was and what he had done for us. And that he was the creator of all that. He brought us out of Egypt, that all of this was happening. And now we do well it's stone . But then again, the young ones had never seen the temple and they were, it was amazing for them. You go back to the book of Ezra. You read about this as a chapter three, starting at the 10th verse. 1 (48m 2s): It says in when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets and the Levi sites, the sons of ASF with cymbals to praise the Lord, according to the direction of David King of Israel. In other words, we've looked back at the scriptures. This is what we're supposed to do. And they sang responsively, praising and giving. Thanks to God for he is good for his steadfast love endures forever towards Israel and all the people shouted with a great shout and they praise the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid, but many of the priests and Levites, and the heads of fathers houses, old men who had seen the first house wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid though many shouted aloud for joy so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of peoples weeping for the people shouted with a great shout and the sound was heard far away. 1 (49m 3s): So often the case, younger ones, rejoice at something new and different and fresh. And we who have, so we say more years behind us than ahead of us. I don't expect to live to 128, but we grieve when there's change. We grieve when something is different seems when you're young and your life is spread out ahead of you, everything is fresh and new and exciting and interesting. And then when we become a little more mature, we embrace the past and the familiar and the safe and the secure you see, this is why God not only calls us to do things he provides for it. 1 (49m 60s): And he makes a promise with the calling, that word of encouragement, that word of strengthening that word of hope, that word, that doesn't make any difference where we are. I am with you. God not only reminds the people in our passage that he will continue to be faithful to his covenant promise that he made. When they left Egypt, go back to Exodus 27 and says this, I will dwell among the people of Israel and I will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord, their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord, their God. 1 (50m 42s): That's the promise that he made as they were coming out of Egypt. He further promises that what seems different and new and uncomfortable will be truly more glorious than what was familiar and stable and safe. Okay. Nine, the glory of this house shall be greater than the former. The glory of this house shall be greater than the former says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace declares. The Lord of hosts. You know, he also promises them. 1 (51m 23s): Not only that their space would be more glorious than the old space. He promises them. Look, once again, in just a little while, I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth and the seas and the dry lands and all nations and all the treasure of the nations will come to you. The silver is mine. The gold is mine. I will take care of it. If you're obedient, then just do what I've called you to do. You don't have to worry about it. I love worshiping in this space. You know, this is part of what drew us here when we came, because it's it's well, well, yeah, reminded me of myself. 1 (52m 13s): It's old, but it's, it's cozy and it's comfortable. And there's a spirit of love here. A spirit of worship here, not just a spirit of worship that gets it's gets us around the temple and, and, you know, having a good time in Jesus. But we entered into the holy of Holies where we can fall on our face before God, that just really, really drew us. That was part of, of why we came. We looked at other places after I retired from my old church and we found places that were good and the word was being preached. But in worship, we kind of felt like we never really quite entered in. 1 (52m 53s): And, and we felt that here, and we felt the love of the people here. We felt like this is a place we can fit. And, and our space had a lot to do with it. I think I shared with you before. I used to think that was the loft terminology, but God has seen fit to cause us to outgrow this space holiday weekend. So we've got some empty chairs right now, but, but God has been blessing and blessing and blessing to the point where we we've outgrown it. 1 (53m 38s): The truth is that on Sunday mornings, especially in second service, over half of our congregation is in the other venues. We don't realize that here in the sanctuary, because we come in there, get here early enough. So we get a seat and it feels like this is us and it's full and it feels so good. And, but we don't realize that over half of our congregation is out there between our two services. There's 80 or 160 to 190 people that meet here in the sanctuary and two services. But there's 220 to 250 in the other space. 1 (54m 19s): Okay. I meet new people every Sunday. I see new faces every Sunday. People I have never seen before here. And some of them have been coming here far longer than I have, but I don't get to see them because they're in different places. I asked many people, oh, is this your first Sunday here? No, I've been here for seven years. I was having a tough enough time learning all of your names. And now we've got all these new people. Praise, God, see, I got white hair. I don't have to remember everybody's names, but God is doing great things here. 1 (55m 9s): No, from a nuts and bolts of ministry standpoint, just from a state of practicality, we don't have room here to do the ministry that God is calling us to. Jeremy mentioned in the, in the announcements this morning about our prayer ministry. You know, you can be on our prayer chain, 52 email addresses on our prayer chain that when we get requests that I send out, we have a, the prayer group that meets on Thursday morning. Small. I'd love to see many more of you be a part of that eight o'clock. Some people say eight o'clock is too early. I get there. And that's a, that's a big deal, but it's, and then we have people who are ready to pray with you every Sunday. 1 (56m 2s): At the end of the service, we like to invite people to come forward. If they have a need of prayer, if they need to respond to the word that was given, or if there's some other special need, we have people assigned to pray when the elders or most of them come to second service, but they're here. We're ready to pray. And very rarely do people come because when they do come there, isn't room and people are walking by and it's gets interrupted and whatnot. We need more space. You already have heard that we're having to turn kids away from Sunday school. 1 (56m 46s): So we need to expand. God has bigger things in store for us, bigger things in congregational growth. And it's not just about being bigger. We talk about this all the time in staff. We've had a lot of folks transfer in from other churches, and we're so glad to have you glad you're here, but God's kingdom. Isn't about moving sheep from one pasture to another. We need to go out and find the lost sheep and bring them in. Jesus says, I have sheep, not of this fold. 1 (57m 28s): And they need to be found and brought back and brought in. And so, as we're limited in space here, we need more rooms so we can grow. We can do bigger things in ministry and prayer and training and evangelism. We can do much bigger things in missions, both at home and abroad. We can do much better things in ministering to our community. And all these things will be easier and more practically facilitated. If we have that space over there at one oh two west branch, and you know, we have a five-year lease there. And what I've been praying is, oh Lord, when that five years is up, I pray that that's not enough space. 1 (58m 12s): I pray. We have to move again. I think I've shared with some of you before a friend of mine told me, he says, you know, Dave, you'd be hard pressed to find it in scripture, but I'm sure there will be moving in hell. We have lived in our married life. We have lived in 10 different places, done a lot of moving in our ministry years. We have been involved in three church building projects and one church moving project. You get into those new spaces and it's uncomfortable for a little while to kind of feel like, oh yeah, it's kind of exciting to be here, but I'm not even sure exactly where which cupboard to put the canned goods in, in the kitchen. 1 (59m 0s): How, how are we going to arrange the closets? How are we going to do this? What's what about that in the new churches as well? Yeah, we kind of think this is the way Sunday school is going to be laid out in those new classrooms, but chances are we're going to have to rearrange and do other things. And it's, it feels a little bumpy for a little while, but soon home, it doesn't take long because home isn't about the space. Home is about the people who are gathered there. The people that fill the space, that's what home is about. 1 (59m 40s): We've. And so what will be with us, God never changes. Remember Hebrews 13, eight, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever, but he is an agent of change in our lives. He constantly is working in us to change, to, to, to transform us, to grow us, to renew us, to change us, as it says in second Corinthians, from one degree of glory to another. And until that one day when he will glorify us, when we cross over and then at the resurrection, get our glorified bodies and we'll be like, Jesus, have a body like Jesus. 1 (1h 0m 24s): Like he could, you know, walk through a door or walk through walls was great, showed up in the, with the apostles in the upper room and the night of his resurrection. And when all the doors were bolted and locked, he was just there. That'd be kind of cool. Just squat, walk out this way. And this upcoming move that we're making as part of that process of being transformed and grown and renewed and changed for the advancement of the kingdom of God, be strong, do the work be full of faith. 1 (1h 1m 10s): Let's pray. And I want you to make a note of this, to pray this week and continue while we're in the process. Building projects take notoriously longer than what the time budgeted it is. Thanks worship team. When we built in Kansas, after all that driving back and forth with the sheep's foot, they promise that we started in August and they promised us we'd be in at the end of the year, the end of March, I finally told the contractor, says we are dedication is scheduled for next week. We will be in and they finished. So be patient. 1 (1h 1m 52s): This is where it can get discouraging. When things take longer than what we think they're going to take, oh, I would love to say, we're going to be in the next month. I doubt it, but know that God can do it and work around all the hoops that have to be jumped through and get the work done. So be strong. Do the work, have faith and have willing hearts to follow after what God is doing. Let's pray, God, we come to you now and we pray for strength. You said, be strong. So Lord, we know as we come to you and pray for strength, you will strengthen us because it's your will for us. 1 (1h 2m 33s): It's your word to us that we would do so thank you, Lord goddess that to help us to persevere in the tasks, because you have enabled us to do all that you're calling us to do help us Lord Jesus, to do the work, the work that needs to be done, whether it's on the building or whether it's in the ministry or whether it's in reaching out and doing the work of the kingdom, just loving our neighbors. As we love ourselves and loving you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, Lord God, you have empowered us by your spirit to do that. So we will do the work, help us and Lord help us to be full of faith, to not walk in fear that we might overcome any intimidation and any opposition that we might face. 1 (1h 3m 34s): Thank you, God, that, that promise of your spirit, the guarantee that you put in our hearts, that your spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that gives us the encouragement to stand in the face of opposition. And finally, Lord give us willing hearts, willing hearts that we might follow after your leading and that we would trust you that we would not look ahead and worry that we would not look back in grief, but that we would look forward to all you're doing and what you have done and take the history of what you've done and that you will embolden us to live up to this calling that you've given us because of the promise that you have made to us. 1 (1h 4m 34s): Pray. If there are any here who don't know what it is to be filled with your spirit, don't know what it is to be born. Again, made new in Jesus Christ to be a new creature in Christ, new creation in Christ Jesus, because they're still bound in sin because they have never responded to the truth of the gospel. I just pray that your spirit would speak to them this morning and draw them to yourself because you are God and you loved them and you want them to be your children. Thank you, Jesus. We pray all this in your holy name. 1 (1h 5m 16s): Amen. And amen. Let's worship. And then if, if you need prayer for anything, there will be people up here after, after we worship this morning. So let's go to the Lord. 0 (1h 5m 34s): the song. I am yes. 0 (1h 11m 19s): but I might bring you in to the kingdom of God that will strengthen your and thinking that'll bring you forward. 0 (1h 12m 6s): It's through. 0 (1h 12m 53s): There was a moment when the lights went out oh, geez. 0 (1h 17m 37s): Oh geez. Oh, geez. oh, geez. Oh, geez. 1 (1h 18m 20s): It's feel there's somebody here on campus today. I don't know if you're here in the sanctuary or if you're in the loft or on the patio, but you need to be set free that we've been singing about breaking bonds and breaking chains and being set free. And you just feel like I'm not free. Do you know you've been trapped in darkness. You've been trapped in a place of where you feel as if you thought you were free, but you're, you've been in a dungeon. So reminded of Charles Wesley's old him where one of the verses says I was in the darkness of night trapped in nature's night bound in chains. 1 (1h 19m 12s): I can't remember the words now, but you came and you set us free. Lord, God, you set us free. And for you, if you're out there and you feel bondage, if you feel something is holding you back, if you sense the weight of your sin, and even if you feel like, oh, what I have done is far beyond God could never forgive me. Don't let the enemy live to you like that. He's saying that to you because he doesn't want to lose you out of his kingdom, into the kingdom of God. You can never be too. God God's arm is not too short. If you need to know Jesus today, just, just come to him in your heart. 1 (1h 19m 56s): You just speak from your heart. You can even speak without moving your mouth. If you need to, but just say, Lord Jesus, I need you. I'm a sinner. And I know I'm lost. I know I don't deserve forgiveness, but would you come in and forgive me anyway? And he will, and he'll make you new. And if you've done that today, I want you to tell somebody, look for a staff member. If you're here in the sanctuary, you come tell me if you're in the patio or the loft. 1 (1h 20m 38s): Look for one of the staff members, tell them, you know, today, I just feel like I need to be set free and they'll talk to you and just give you more information to help you get started. Thank you God, for your grace. Once again, an amazing, amazing grace man.

Faith Activates Everything in God's Kingdom

Happy mother's day while we're taking a break from our first Timothy study. So we're going to be in Hebrews chapter 11. We're talking about faith this week. Last week, we talked about miracles in light of, especially this new building that we're, we've leased over one Oh two West branch. And today we're talking about faith and how it activates everything. God's kingdom, faith activates everything in God's kingdom. That's the title of our message. And it's the focus of our message. And it's really the reality of our faith as followers of the Lord. 3 (15m 3s): Jesus Christ. I mean think about it. We were saved by 4 (15m 8s): God 3 (15m 9s): Because we put our faith in him in his ability to save us, to forgive us, to cleanse us and to adopt us into his family. So by faith, we are experienced salvation and new life in him. And then by faith, we pray to this. God that's invisible. We can't see him. We can sense him. And we know that he's real. And we know that his word is real. So we can sense something in our spirit that God is real, but he's invisible. And so by faith, we pray. And then by faith, we have great expectations of a great God. And I would say, we need to have great expectations because we serve a great and powerful and all sufficient God. 3 (15m 55s): And so everything is activated in Christianity, in God's kingdom, by faith, without faith. We're going to read here in just a little bit or talk about without faith. It's impossible to please God. And we need to believe that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So we're going to talk about how faith activates everything in God's kingdom. And we're going to answer the question. What does biblical faith, what does that look like? And hopefully at the end of the message, we're going to have some clarity about faith and what that means for our lives, because it's not something that just a select few experience or are expected to operate in. 3 (16m 37s): It's actually for the church, every one of us, young, young and old everybody's expected to operate by faith. And we see that in the old Testament, as we look at he heroes of faith and his word, continuing to teach, we're going to see God's example through these heroes of faith and where we can actually read about them and then mimic and copy their behavior and become the people that God has called us to be. So what is biblical faith? Hebrews 11 one says this faith shows, faith shows the reality of what we hope for. It is the evidence of things we cannot see hope for cannot see both invisible. 3 (17m 22s): Faith is the reality of those things. Faith shows us the reality of what we hope for. It is the evidence of things we can not see. The living Bible paraphrase says this in Hebrews 11 one, it says, what is faith? It is the confident assurance. And this is the kind of attitude that we should have before the living God, this confident assurance as we walk this life of faith, that God is up to something and he's going to do something in us and with us and through us, it is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. So if you've ever been in the place, I know you have, if you have been walking with the Lord for even a day or a week or a month or 10 years or 50 years, God puts something, a vision within us that requires faith. 3 (18m 12s): Maybe, maybe you're praying for relationship. Maybe you're praying for a family member. Maybe you're praying for resources. Maybe you're praying for a job, whatever it is. God has placed something in us that allows us to operate in this place of faith. We're saying, God, I don't know how this is going to happen. I think about the people of Israel coming out of Egypt after slavery, and there was no path before them. They come up against the sea and they're so God, the scripture says, made a way where there was 5 (18m 40s): No way. There 3 (18m 43s): Is no path forward until God opens up the sea and gives us the path forward. What is faith is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is a certain, it is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us. Even though we cannot see it up ahead. Someone said a weak faith, a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes. Where is a strong faith is strengthened by them. So where's your faith. Today? Is your faith strengthened by difficulty, by challenges in your life? 3 (19m 25s): Or is it weekend? I would say that God wants to strengthen your faith on every level. Now, like most of us, we have faith in some areas of our life, but not so much in other areas of our lives. Some areas we have just like either no faith or just a very little bit of faith. If we even have a mustard seed of faith, we can do amazing things. We moved mountains. The scripture says, so God will use the tiniest bit of faith in our lives. When we step into it and out of obedience and trusting God, exercise that faith and do what he's asked us to do wonderful and supernatural things will happen, but we've got to step into it. 3 (20m 5s): The people of Israel needed to step into the water. They needed to move forward before the water actually opened up and they were able to pass through on dry land. And that's what we see. We see God requiring us to take a step of faith. Before, before we actually see the answers, see the provision before we actually receive what he has for us. He's actually calling us into a place of faith. A weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes. Whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them through their faith. Verse two, Hebrews 11, two through their faith that people in days of old earned a good reputation. 3 (20m 48s): There's something about the kingdom of God. When we see people within the kingdom of God, exercising, faith, they earned a good reputation. Why? Because they're, they're doing stuff for God. They believe God. And they're actually stepping into the, his supernatural plans for their life. And so we honor, and we esteem those who have faith because it's those people who have faith, who are doing the things that God has called them to do. But listen, it's not for special people. It's for all of us, God has called all of us to be people of faith so that we might step into those supernatural plans that he's called us to. So whatever it is that stirring within your life, within your soul begin to step into it. 3 (21m 31s): Even if you've only got a little bit of confidence. 2 (21m 36s): We, as we thought about 3 (21m 37s): One Oh two, we've been thinking about for months. When I, when I say one Oh two, that's the new worship space over there. So just for ease of saying that we were going to call it one Oh two for now, but it's the new worship space. When we started thinking months ago, 2 (21m 52s): Probably more than months ago, 3 (21m 55s): Maybe over a year ago, we started thinking about what, where do we grow from here? What do we do from here? What's next for us? And so we started looking at spaces. We looked at a few spaces, there's a space over here. It's just too small for us. And then this space at one Oh two 2 (22m 8s): Available. And we thought, well, this is, this is kind of impossible. 3 (22m 16s): We, we can't afford it. It's going to take a ton of money for renovations. It's really, it's not doable butts, but we begin to exercise just a little bit of faith. And so I made a phone call and I called doc John, hi Ashley. I said, John, I said, we'd like to look at your space. We're a church. We'd like to make it a worship center. What do you think? He said, yeah, come on down. We'll take a look at it. He said, he said, it's no problem. The city is going to let you in there. And I said, okay, well, we'll see what happens when I call the city. And the city said, Nope, the city said, we're not allowing any new churches in the downtown village Corps. I said, is that legal? And they said, I think so. I said, well, it's actually illegal because I had a letter in my possession from an attorney from Pacific justice Institute who wrote me a five page letter, citing law and other cases where the courts overturned a decision to prohibit churches from being in downtown village, core area type areas. 3 (23m 16s): And so I said, Hey Patrick, this is one of the planters down in the village or in the city. I said, Hey, can I send you this letter that I have for my attorney? He said, yes, send it over. This was a Friday. He said, send it over. I said, and we'll have our city attorney tech, you know, take a look at it. So I sent it over to him on Friday afternoon, Monday morning, I get a letter back from the Villa, the city of Aurora grantee. And they said, Hey, your attorney's with PJI Pacific justice Institute are accurate in their assessment. This space, we are ready to move forward. All you need is a, just a use permit and we can accommodate your needs in the village. So what seemed impossible God, through a five-page letter from an attorney turned around and made possible for us, but then we're thinking, can we afford it? 6 (24m 5s): Can we move 3 (24m 7s): Forward? But by God's grace, we've just began to take steps in that direction. And so when I said that, God never really shows you the picture until you step into it. The God has begin to show us the picture. So I was, I got a bid for, we have to put fire sprinklers in that building over there and the, the underground. So you have to tie into the city's water main. It's a big deal. You have to cut into the streets and sidewalks and all that sort of thing. So it was a big deal. A friend of mine gave me a price of $30,000 for that job. And this is a friend of mine. So he was like, Hey, this is the good guy price. It's $30,000. So I'm like kind of limiting the price and wondering where that money is going to come from. 3 (24m 48s): And then I'm talking in a circle of friends after church last Sunday, and a guy who I know does underground work said, Hey, I do that kind of work. I said, you, you do that kind of work. I know you do underground stuff. I didn't realize you do that kind of work. And he said, yeah, that's actually what we do. Most of the time we do that kind of work, we tie into the city's water main. And we, we put in check valves and that sort of thing, he said, I'll just do it. I'll just take care of it for you. So I called him up a couple of days later and I said, 6 (25m 17s): Hey, what did you mean 3 (25m 20s): When you said, I'll just do it. I said, how much is this going to cost us? He said, well, have I ever charged you for anything in the past? And the answer is no, he's never charged us for anything in the past. So we'll probably have to buy some materials and that sort of thing, but that went away. I needed, we need a ton of electrical work done in the space. And so I'm at the space at one Oh two on Friday. And I decided to walk over to village, grill for a sandwich. I get a big old burger with greasy, all kinds of goodness on it. So while I'm over there, I run into a guy and his family from the church and he said, Hey, do you need any electrical work done at the new building? I said, yeah, but it's big commercial stuff. 3 (26m 2s): It's going to require a ton of work. Are you up for that kind of work? He said, we do it all the time. It's no big deal. He said, well, I'll just me. And my son will go in there and we'll just do it. We'll just do it. So the electrical is taken care of. I got a painter who's taking care of the painting. It may cost us a little bit for the paint, but electrical. We're getting a good deal on the underground. We've got a great deal on the fire sprinklers on the inside of the building, great deal on HVAC. I'm missing something. There was something else that I was going to throw in there. But God, what we're seeing is we stepped out and said, okay, Lord, this is what we want to do is what we feel called to do. And we prayed about it. So don't just ready. Fire aim. Think about what you're doing and get some confirmation from the Holy spirit. 3 (26m 43s): Think through what you're doing. You know, don't be reckless. God will show you, but then he'll, he'll bring confirmation to an affirmation to you about things that you feel called to do. And maybe, maybe it takes weeks or months or years before things come to fruition, but God will, will show you what to do. So I had talked about it with my staff and elders and we prayed about it and thought about it and all that sort of thing. And finally, that's when we decided to move forward. So it wasn't like ready fire aim. It was like, man, is this what the Lord has for us? And that's what we felt like together unified that we feel like the Lord has got this for us. So through their faith that people have old in days of old and earned a good reputation by, by faith back to Hebrews 11, three by faith, we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command. 3 (27m 36s): The entire universe was formed at God's command. That what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. So often what we do is we hear in our spirit, right? So don't, don't allow your head to get in the way of what God is saying in your spirit. Now God has given us a brain and we think through everything, we budget for stuff. We figure stuff out, but don't let your head get in the way of what God is speaking to you in your spirit, because this is what we don't happen to your head. I talked about this last week, I think in your head, you argue with God in your head, you are fearful, anxious, nervous. You can't see it in your head. You're disobedient to God, but in your spirit, when you know when your soul, like in your guts, that God has called you to do something and you step into it. 3 (28m 22s): That's where the victory comes. That's where the provision comes. That's where God shows up amazing miracles. When we just with that mustard seed of faith, step into it, let's see if he can speak the universe into existence by the word, by just speaking. It's often what we'll do is we'll look at the raw material of our lives, our ability, our resources, what we can do in the natural. And we dismiss everything that God wants to do. We're like, I know God, you probably want to do this, but I don't got the money. I don't got the time. I don't got the ability. I it's, I don't have any that you, so what if I'm calling you to it? Okay. What if I've got plans for you and purpose for you? 3 (29m 4s): He speaks to the universe into existence. By his words, I think he can take our rough raw materials or our absence, raw materials and do something wonderful with it. He wants to do that with our lives personally and our families. And with our by faith, we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command. That what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. Verse four. It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to then Cain did Abel's offering, gave evidence that he was a righteous man and God showed his approval of his gifts. 3 (29m 52s): Although Abel is although able is long dead. He still speaks to us by his example of faith. He's long dead, but we're still talking about Abel and his faith. Let's look at the story about Cain and Abel in Genesis chapter four, some of the slides are messed up. We're going to go into Genesis now, but then we're going to go back to Hebrews. I think some of them say Genesis, when they should say Hebrews, I'll try to keep you up to speed on that. Here we go. Genesis chapter four verses one through five. Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve and she became pregnant. And when she gave birth to Cain, she said with the Lord's help, I have produced a man later. She gave birth to his brother and named him Abel, when they grew up, Abel became a shepherd while cane cultivated the ground. 3 (30m 36s): When it was time for the harvest cane presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. The ESV says in verse three, in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruits of the ground. So it seems like from the context of what we're reading about, because Hebrews 11 is all about faith. People's exercise of faith in the scripture. And so in that context, through that lens, we need to interpret what is happening here with Cain and Abel, I think, and it seems from the texts that came, brought an offering, but he brought it in his own timing and he brought, it seems whatever is left over from his crops. 3 (31m 31s): So he brought his offering, but it was in his own timing and whatever was left over from his crops since he brought some of his crops able on the other hand, brought the best portion of the firstborn lambs from his flock. So Abel brought the first and the best. It appears that Cain brought whenever he felt like it, whatever was left over Genesis four, four says Abel also brought a gift. The best portion of the first born lambs from his flock, the Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept cane and his gift. 3 (32m 17s): This made Cain very angry and he looked dejected. Abel brought his first and best Cain brought whenever it was convenient for him, whatever was left over. That's the difference. And that's why God received Abel's offering. And he did not receive canes offering. We either bring God the best and the first, or we bring God our leftovers. There's no middle ground there. We either bring God the best in first. Or we bring him our leftovers and we see how it worked out for Cain and Abel. This story is highlighted in the hall of faith because it's a story about faith. 3 (33m 2s): It was Abel's faith that allowed him to bring his first and his best. He wanted to honor God by faith with his first and his best. He wanted to make sure God was honored and worshiped with his giving before he did anything else. It seems like Cain's offering was given once everything else was kind of taken care of whenever he felt like it, he gave his offering. Whatever it was that was left over Abel's offering was given in faith. Cain's gift was given as the leftover God accepted Abel's offering and rejected. Cain's essentially Abel's offering was given by faith. 3 (33m 45s): Keynes was not. So when we ask you to give toward a project like this or whatever we want it to be done out of faith, in fact, the Bible says he desires a joyful giver. So hold onto your resources until you're ready to give it joyfully and then give whatever you want to give. As the Lord leads, I believe 10% is the beginning. 7 (34m 12s): Some would argue 3 (34m 13s): That's an old Testament principle. I think it's a through and through principle. So give whatever the Lord would ask you to give or sell and chairs and squares, not really selling them, but that's that didn't sound right where we got chairs and squares available for this new space. So a chair is a chair and a square is a square square footage of flooring. So that's kinda what we're, we're giving people an opportunity to enter into this program or this, this process, this faith process by buying a chair in a square. So we have this gal in our church who said, I want to buy, not only for me, but I want to buy for my kids and my grandkids who attend the church. So I think there's six of them. So she bought six chairs and six squares. 3 (34m 53s): So I thought what a great idea. I've got a clan of 12 here. So maybe I'll buy 12 squares and 12 chairs for my clan. And I had this idea and then I share it with Jolene. And I haven't gotten your read on that yet. We'll we'll, we'll talk, we'll talk. That's just an idea. 7 (35m 9s): We'll talk. The idea 3 (35m 11s): Is to create opportunity for all of us to enjoy what God has called us into. This is the beauty of God in his kingdom is he actually invites us people into his kingdom work so that we can be blessed through the process and grow in our faith through the process. And somebody said, you know, if we buy a chair, do we get our name on it? 7 (35m 32s): And no, unless 3 (35m 34s): You want to Mark it with a marker underneath the chair, that would be fine, but no names on the chairs most likely. And so we're just going to move forward. Believing that guy will provide for 2 (35m 43s): Thing. Number one, 3 (35m 48s): Faith gives the best. And 2 (35m 50s): First of everything, number two, 3 (35m 54s): Faith changes the way we live 2 (35m 58s): Back to Hebrews 3 (35m 59s): Chapter 11, verse five, it says it was by faith. That Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying. He disappeared because God took him for before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. And it is impossible to please God, without faith. So we know that Enoch was a man of faith because it says that he please God, and it is impossible actually to please God, unless we're operating with faith. And so we know that Enoch was a man of faith and it says anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists. That's a faith belief and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. 3 (36m 43s): So we believe that he exists and he is a rewarder of those who sincerely seek him. Faith changes the way that we live, Equinox, faith, please, God, and God, God was pleased with him because of his faith. And you not believe God existed. And he knocked, sincerely sought after God. And then God just took him. Let's take a look. Genesis five 21 through 24. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters thus, all the days of Enoch were 365 years. He knocked walk with God and he was not for God took him. 3 (37m 27s): Isn't that great? What a cool thing to be so close in age intimate with the Lord that he decides one day, I'm going to take you up. You don't have to go through the dying process because that's kind of a bummer. You don't have to die at all. You just get taken up, right? You just get taken up. And all of a sudden you're in the presence of the Lord. Faith changed the way that Enoch lived his life. He lived as a man of faith. We know very little about ENR, except that he was a guy who pleased the Lord and we can deduce from that. But he was a man of faith. He's in the hall of faith after all Hebrews chapter 11. So we know he was a man of faith. We know that he pleased God because he pleased God and walked with God. 3 (38m 9s): He took him up. He watched me God for 300 years. 2 (38m 12s): That's a long time, 3 (38m 13s): Right? That's a long time. That's not like a flash in the pan. Like I'm going to walk with God for a few weeks or a few months or a few years. And he walked with God for 300 2 (38m 26s): Years 3 (38m 27s): And God took him. That's faithful. And this that speaks to us that we have the capacity to faithfully walk with God and faithfully the Lord for hundreds and hundreds of years should the Lord tarry. Although we're not going to be given that many years, but for all the days 2 (38m 43s): Of your life, faith gives the best. And first 3 (38m 48s): Everything faith changes the way we live in. Number three, faith moves people to action. Faith moves people to action. Why? Because faith without works is dead. Right? Faith apart from works is not faith at all. Faith always leaves people to action to works because that's how God works in the universe. Hebrews 11 seven. It was my faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God who warned them about things that had never happened before. 3 (39m 29s): He obeyed God about things that had never happened before. It had never flooded in the earth before it had never rained in the earth before. But God warns Noah that a flood is coming. A flood is coming by his faith. Noah condemned the rest of the world. And he received the righteousness that comes by faith. So the length of the boat, the arc was 300 cubits. A cubit is 18 inches. So the boat was 450 feet long. So it wasn't just this little dinghy, this little raft that he was hoping to navigate the storm with. He built this monstrosity, this, this big old 450 foot boats that was 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 3 (40m 17s): So about the dimension, the dimensions of this property from that wall out there to that wall on the outside of the exterior walls, all the way up is about 450 2 (40m 27s): By 75 feet. Not interesting. 70 measured it out long time ago, and we're just going with it. 3 (40m 34s): 450 feet long, 70 feet wide. It took him roughly a hundred years. Someone say one 20 someone says he was 80 by 100 years 2 (40m 44s): For argument's sake, but 3 (40m 45s): A hundred years. So sometimes we're like obedient to the Lord for a week. And we're like, Lord, where are you? I need you to come through, right? Or we're we're obedience Lord for a month or a year. And Noah was obedient to the Lord for a hundred years doing something that people were ridiculing him for because he was in a wicked land. He was the only righteous man. He was in a wicked land, building a boats where there was no water. How do you get a 450 foot boats to the water? They didn't have cranes. It was ridiculous, right? It was totally ridiculous. But he did it. Philip Yancey wrote faith means trusting in advance. 3 (41m 28s): What will only make sense in reverse? So we read this story where like, he builds the boats, the rains come, he survives right. New life for no one, his family. Right? So it's easy to ex you know, we can read through the whole story in a few minutes, but what about the a hundred years of building and with expectation, believing that God's going to come through that there's really going to be a rainstorm that there's really going to be a flood that really everybody's going to die. Who's not on the boats. Like he had to believe. Long-term, that's how it is. A lot of times, as we raise kids, we're raising kids with a long view in mind. We're like, man, I got 1825 years with these kids. 3 (42m 8s): I got a plug to them. Maybe they're struggling. But man, I got faith for my kids. Right? I got faith that they're going to come through that they're going to continue to serve Jesus. And we do it. Long-term maybe you're in a long-term marriage. And you're like, man, I need faith for my marriage right now. So you just hang in there and you just keep praying and just keep loving your spouse. You keep serving your spouse. And in the long run, we'll be, we'll see the beauty of what God wants to accomplish in those relationships. But we got to exercise. Some faith. Faith means stressing in advance. What will only make sense in reverse, right? We don't get the benefit of the reverse. Number four. Faith causes people to trust God with the unknown. 3 (42m 50s): Let's talk about Abraham. It was my faith that Abraham obeyed, when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. So he's leaving his home as a 75 year old dude with a 65 year old wife going somewhere that the Lord would show him. But he would live there as a man of faith. And even when he reached the land, God promised him. He lived there by faith, where he was like a foreigner living in tense. And so did Isaac and Jacob who inherited the same promise. 3 (43m 34s): Faith causes people to trust God with the unknown Elisabeth. Elliot said, Shrew, faith goes into operation. When there are no answers, have any unknowns in your life. We've all got unknown. It's like, Lord, am I going to wake up in the morning? We believe by faith that we're gonna wake up in the morning. Right? Unknown. No, my going to get, am I going to get my next breath by so much of life is about faith in the unknown. Oh, there it is. Good. Okay. Came. Oh, there it is again. Okay, good. Good. We're not guaranteed that next breath. 3 (44m 14s): God gives us the next breath where he doesn't. But by faith we believe, and by faith we move forward. And when he's ready to give us our last breath and we by faith move forward and into eternal life with him and God's good. And God's faithful. True. Faith goes into operation. There are no answers. Hebrews 11, 10 says Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. Number, number five, faith keeps people focused on heaven. Faith keeps people focused on heaven, Abraham. He didn't care where God called him because that's not his end game. God's anger and game for Abraham was eternity was with Abraham would spend eternity with the Lord. 3 (44m 58s): So tell me where, tell me to go wherever it doesn't matter. I'm here on this earth for a short time. And then I'm with you. So tell me to go wherever it doesn't matter, right? Because the end game is eternity. His focus was eternity. His focus was on what God had for him. Faith keeps people focused on heaven. Abraham's focus was heaven. His faith in God, freed him to live for God in the earth because his main focus was not earthly, but heavenly when our main focus is earth and earthly things, earthly relationships, possessions. When our main focus is the earth, we can't be freed up to do the eternal things. 3 (45m 42s): They haven't the things that God has called us into. So God is always trying to pry our hands off of temporal things, right? He's always trying to pry our hands loose of things that we can't control. Anyway, we can't control most of our life. And so God's trying in his wisdom to get us, to loosen our grip and to trust him so that we can be freed up to do what God has asked us to do. Some are so focused, maybe only focused on earthly things that they are bound up, bound up and afraid to trust God and live with an eternal perspective. If you're bound up and afraid, you're living with a temporal perspective, that's just the reality. 3 (46m 27s): If you're bound up and afraid, you need to shift your focus, allow God to tell you whatever he wants to tell you to move you wherever he wants to move you to direct wherever he wants to direct you because you're living for the King. And ultimately this is just a, this is just a blink 2 (46m 44s): In eternity this time. 3 (46m 46s): It's just a it's it's over in a blink over. We were looking at pictures last night, we were celebrating my son's 29th birthday. And we were looking at pictures and we said, what were we doing? 2 (46m 57s): 29 years ago? And now here we are. 29 years later, all of those kids that we were having are all grown up. It's just been a blink 31 years of marriage, just life just we're in May, 2021. We in 2021, 22 in may, 3 (47m 26s): We could be in 20, 22 already by now. I don't know. It just goes so quick. Verse 11. It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child though. She was barren and was too 2 (47m 37s): Old. Again, 3 (47m 40s): We take a personal inventory of our lives and say, I have barren God. I've never had kids. I'm too old 2 (47m 46s): Barren and too old. 3 (47m 49s): She was, Sarah was 90 years old when she had her first kid 2 (47m 52s): 90, got the promise at 60, 65 years old, 25 years, 3 (47m 58s): She has her first. I think I got the math right on that. Sarah was 90 and Abraham, Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born, she believed that God would keep his promise. She believed that God would keep his promise. And so a whole nation came from this one, man, who was as good as dead And nation was so many people that like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there is no way to count 2 (48m 26s): Them. Number six, 3 (48m 28s): Faith allows people to believe for the impossible. What has God asked you to believe for what's the impossible that God has asked you to 2 (48m 36s): Believe for? Is he giving 3 (48m 38s): You as he burdened you with a dream for your life, for your family? What has God asked you to believe for the impossible that God has asked you to believe for, for years, decades, over a decade, I've wanted to have a training location, a seminary location here between LA and the Bay. Because if you want to go into seminary, you have to go to LA or the Bay. And that's really your only options inside the state of California. So I've always wanted for more than a decade. Now I've wanted to have a place on the central coast for people to be trained for the ministry. So we've attempted to do things over the years, just kind of dipping our foot and our toes in the water. 3 (49m 20s): So we've had know Bible school on wheels, which is a certificate program where I think you go through 10 classes and you get a certificate. We're still operating those classes. They're great classes. We also just now are launching, it's called a certificate and life development course certificate program through Western seminary. And so it's a four class seminary level without all the homework. I mean, there's still a little bit of homework, but it's not for credit. So it's not all of the extra, you know, book reading and writing papers and that sort of thing. So, but it's a, it's a four class certificate program. But my long-term goal is to offer a full-blown seminary experience here on the central coast. 3 (50m 2s): So my plan is in the fall, God willing, I'm going to start a, another master's program, do a master's in applied biblical leadership with Western seminary, with the end goal of either getting a doctorate in ministry or a PhD so that we can offer Western seminary courses or some kind of seminary courses here for credit. So that I would allow people to get trained, equipped, and released into 2 (50m 28s): The ministry. I haven't shared that with very many people, but that's what I am just 3 (50m 35s): Praying for. And I feel in my soul that God wants to do here on the central coast. You know, I, you know, it's been, he won't leave 2 (50m 42s): Me. It's is 3 (50m 44s): Stuck with me for more than a decade. So I I'm just believing that God's going to open the door for that. What is, what is God speaking to you? And what is guys speaking to 2 (50m 56s): You? Faith 3 (50m 58s): Allows people to believe for the impossible verse 13, as we wrap up here, all these people died, still believing what God had promised them. 2 (51m 9s): They did not receive. What was it 3 (51m 11s): Promise, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. There may be some things that you you've got that got us put within you, that you're a partner with, but you won't see in your lifetime, but future generations will. Future generations will we'll see. And, and, and, and realize those dreams. But you're all in because of your kingdom perspective, they agree that they were foreigners and nomads here on the earth. Obviously, people who say such things are looking forward to a country. They call their own. If they had longed for the country, they came from, they could have gone back, but they were looking for a better place, a heavenly Homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God for. 3 (51m 53s): He has prepared a city for them. Number seven. So we wrap up faith keeps us believing that God is for us. You believe that God has for you. It says here, that is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, because there are people of faith. Faith keeps us believing that God is for us. And that he has a plan for our existence in the earth. What is God's plan for your existence in the earth? 2 (52m 17s): You're 3 (52m 17s): Not just here by accident. Do you believe God has a plan for you? Listen, if you hear this message, you're all of a sudden accountable, you're accountable for your life and how you're going to live your life before God. Your, your, this is truth from God's word that he has a plan for you. So now it's your job. Maybe it's the first time you're hearing this. Now it's your job to figure that out and joyfully and faithfully, walk that out. 2 (52m 46s): God has a plan 3 (52m 47s): For you here in the earth. 2 (52m 49s): Faith gives the best. And first of everything, faith changes the way we live. Faith moves people to action, faith. 3 (53m 2s): There's people to trust God with the unknown faith keeps us focused on having faith allows people to believe for the impossible 2 (53m 13s): And faith keeps 3 (53m 15s): Us believing that God is for us. And that he has a plan for our existence here in the earth. We'll pick it up and Hebrews 11, 17 next week, just to be clear, we're moving our worship center over there, but we're going to be utilizing all of this space. It's a one minute walk from here to there. So we'll still be parking where we park. There's still, there's additional parking over there, but we'll mostly be parking where we park. We'll be dropping off our kids where they get dropped off. Although we'll have a couple of classrooms over there for nursery and for a mother's room and that sort of thing, but mostly it'll be just normal drop off your kids here. You'll walk them in and over there. And we have church and you walk them in and back. 3 (53m 55s): And that's where it goes. I think we're probably going to give this sanctuary to the youth ministry. Someone said, they're going to destroy ours. Our sanctuary, 0 (54m 3s): Well, 3 (54m 5s): We're not here. Big for buildings, right? We're not here for buildings. We're here for kingdom stuff for souls. And if we can add young people soul to the, to the kingdom and get them saved and sanctified and filled with the Holy spirit, then that's what we want to do. So we've got to change that carpenter chairs. I don't care. I just want our people on the central coast or young people reach for the kingdom. So it'll look a little bit different when you come on campus, but mostly we're going to video feed still to the loft on Sunday morning. So if you want to drop your kids off and still be in the loft venue, for those of you who are in the loft, you don't have to go anywhere. You can just stay there, but we encourage you to go check out the space. 3 (54m 47s): So literally it's a one minute walk from here. You just go down to one or two down in the corner. You know, the village grill is right before that, the building was before this something different, that something different sign is still up there. So go check it out. We spent all day along yesterday, demoing the building, taking out walls and all kinds of stuff. And we took seven dump trucks or seven dump trailers full of stuff out of there yesterday. So it's really coming together. So with that, let's go and stand up with that. Let's go invite the worship team. We're going to worship. And then if you're a part of the prayer team and you want to pray for people, make sure it makes sure you're you're available for that as well. And, and then when it's all said and done, just take the time to walk over and see that new space. 3 (55m 31s): It's going to be really worthwhile. Thank you Lord, for what you're doing for who you are. We love you pray that we be people of faith in every area and arena of our lives. We love you and Jesus Jesus name. Amen. Amen. 0 (56m 7s): take our feelings. 0 (57m 46s): you said 1 (1h 5m 24s): Thank you, God. We love you. Jesus. We give you our hearts this morning. Would you bless us throughout this week and remind us that you are faithful Lord, that you are always with us every step of the way. And so we look to you, Jesus, for those leaps of faith, God, would you remind us that you are carrying us, that you cover us under the shadow of your wing. You provide for our needs. God, you give us those mercies that are new for each day. And so thank you for meeting us here this morning. 0 (1h 5m 55s): In this hour, we love 1 (1h 5m 57s): You. Give you a hearts in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, happy mother's day. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day. If anyone would like some prayer this morning, we have prayer team. I'd love to pray with you. So feel free to head on forward. Some folks will meet you here. Otherwise say hello to somebody and have a beautiful day. We'll see you next week.

Youth Sunday

0 (11s): Good morning guys. Hi. Hello, Mike. Hello? Hello? Hello. Hi guys. Welcome to church today. If you don't already know, today is a new Sunday. They call it like the youth takeover, I guess, but yeah, so I'm Levi. This is one of our youth bands for a Wednesday. Yeah, let's let's stand in worship. 0 (14m 5s): Lord. Thank you for this day. God, thank you for your presence in this building. God, I pray that your word would flow through Jeremy and Tyler today. God, that you would speak through them to us. God, that your Holy spirit would be full in this place. God, Jesus name. Amen. And so I guess now is the time you guys are supposed to talk to each other. 1 (14m 40s): Hello 0 (14m 41s): And welcome to harvest church. I am not wrong. She is not wrong and she's definitely not wrong. I am Brecker. Wait, I'm a junior at ADHS. 1 (14m 52s): I'm Olivia Hunsicker and I'm a seventh grader at Paulding middle school. And I am Emma Irie. I am a sophomore at HHS, 3 (15m 5s): These gentlemen, and my often forgotten, but not my me crazy people. Welcome to harvest church. We are so glad you're here. Whether online or in-person we're just so happy you're here. If you want information about upcoming events, we have our info center up the Hill. If you are new here, we also have a gift for you. Also at that info center up the Hill. 1 (15m 27s): Today is family Sunday. Every fourth, Sunday of the month is family. Sunday students first grade and up will be in services with their families. We serve donuts in celebration of family Sunday, each month. We'll be sure to grab one after service. In addition to family, Sunday today's youth takeover day. Students are helping out in various places, greeting or shift team kids, ministry, serving donuts, and even bringing the announcements. We are looking for a few morning. People who are willing to get here bright and early to brew coffee for our church services. 1 (16m 8s): If this is you sign up at the info center today, 3 (16m 14s): Our man, and if you are in junior higher, older, we have the men's breakfast coming up May 1st at 8:00 AM. We will be having breakfast. It's free. You don't even have to sign up. You just show up and you get a free breakfast right here. 8:00 AM May 1st 1 (16m 32s): Spring and summer life groups session kicks off in may. Week. Groups are a great way to build relationships and grow in your faith. In Jesus. We have home groups, men or women's Bible studies, young adults, or young professional groups, a golfing group, yarn club, and even seminary classes. Grab a flyer available at the info center or at the welcoming tables in each venue and plug get plugged up into a grip on April 30th. We have a lettuce worship night at 6:30 PM on the end of grand Avenue. It is a SOC Shaun flight worship event. And we'd love to have you there. And now I welcome pastor Ron, up to the stage for our baby dedications. 3 (17m 19s): Good morning. My name is Ron. I'm a senior at a rug high school, and this is youth takeover day. I qualify. I would like to invite up front. We've got three families that are going to be dedicating a child to the Lord today. So I'd like to invite the Wade family up. If you guys could kind of take a spot right over here, the Wade family, and then the sailors get to be kind of right here in the middle. And then over on this side, we're going to have the Sutherland family. So go ahead and find your spot. I always find that baby dedications is one of my favorite, favorite things to do. 3 (18m 1s): And I'll explain why in just a minute. All right, good to see you guys. Okay. I've got a dedication certificate already for you. So I'm gonna go ahead and hand that to you. And this one goes to you and there you go, Maggie. Okay. So what I want to do first is introduce these families to you. So over in this side, we've got Tom and Kelly Wade and their little one is Lyford grant Wade. They go by leave. He goes by leaf and leaf was born September 20th, 2020 in San Louis Obispo, handsome young man. 3 (18m 41s): And here we've got Tom and Kelly Wade and their little one is 2 (18m 49s): Over here. We've got Tom and Kelly Wade. How'd they get up here twice over, 3 (19m 2s): Over here. We've got Cody and Emily's sailors and their little, little one is Judah. Dellbot. They say that right. Dealt with Delbert sailors. And he was born November 23rd, 2020 in San Luis Obispo. Okay. See if I get the third one right over here, Jeremy and Maggie Sutherland. And of course we've got Elsie and Posey and their little one is Winnie Mae Sutherland and she was born February 17th, 2020 in San Luis Obispo. All right. 3 (19m 42s): So dedicating our children to the Lord is really about parents dedicated dedicating themselves to the Lord. First, in fact, Jeremy's going to talk a lot about that in his message this morning. And it's making a commitment to raise our children in what the Bible describes as the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Another translation, the new living puts it this way to raising our children in the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. And so these families have chosen to be up here today and because you are their church family. And so child dedication is really about making a commitment to us. But of course, to the Lord that we're going to, we as families, as those of us who have the honor and privilege of raising children are going to do it to the best of our ability as God gives us the ability to do so. 3 (20m 33s): There's an interesting verse in Psalm one 27. Let me get back over here in the middle Psalm one 27 beginning with verse three, it says children are a gift from the Lord and they are a reward from him. So we recognize that that children are actually a gift from God and, and a reward. And so therefore all the kids that we have, however many, one or a dozen are all meant to be a gift and a reward from the Lord. And so as parents, how is this done? So raising children is certainly an uncertain thing for sure, but God gives us some instruction. 3 (21m 13s): So from Deuteronomy chapter six, beginning in verse five, God gave some instruction to the people of Israel and we can glean from it as well. It goes like this to parents. He says, you must love the Lord, your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you're at home, when you're on the road, when you're going to bed and when you're getting up. So the idea is parents, first and foremost, as I mentioned earlier, is our responsibilities have a relationship with God. And he's the one that helps us so that when we communicate to our kids about him and about the things that God has for them in their life, they're, they're getting a real life example from mom and dad and I've found, and Jeremy is going to talk about this again, too. 3 (22m 6s): If, if they're not seeing the reality of our relationship with God in us, first chances are they won't follow that instruct. They want emulated. So it needs to be first and foremost seen in mom and dad. So again, Proverbs 22, direct your children onto the right path. And when they're older, they will not leave it. All right. So I'm going to ask a series of questions to the families here. And if you would just respond as I ask you the question, just say we will. And I think, I think there's seven questions. I'm not really sure 4 (22m 39s): We will. Yes. 3 (22m 42s): However many I asked. All right. So this is to moms and dads. Will you commit to raise your children in an atmosphere of love and discipline, knowing that the best hope for a healthy childhood is one of unconditional love and clear biblical standards. Okay. Second question. Will you communicate? Sorry. Will you commit to communicate to your children? The necessity of placing their faith in Jesus Christ when they're at an age of understanding their personal need and the significance of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. 4 (23m 21s): Okay. 3 (23m 24s): Will you commit to pray often for your children asking the Lord to accomplish his plan and purpose through your children for the glory of God? This is probably the toughest question of all. To be honest, when your child is at an appropriate age, will you commit to release them to follow God's and purpose for their life? Yeah. And finally, last question. Will you commit to humbly place your trust in God, cooperating with him as he accomplishes his plans and purposes in your family? 3 (24m 4s): All right. So I have a couple of verses here. So the first one is going to be for four leaf. The verse I have for him is Jeremiah 29 beginning with verse 11. This is what it says for, I know the thoughts that I think towards you leaf says the Lord, the thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and hope. I have a verse for Judah, Judah, you paying attention. Okay. You can, you can, you can watch the archive online. Okay. And this is Philippians one six. He who has begun a good work in you. Judah will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. 3 (24m 49s): And then Winnie, I call her Winifred. That's not actually true. Am I the only one that does that? Okay. All right. You and me Winifred winning, sorry. Philippians two 13. This verse says for it is God who works in you Winnie both to will and to do his good pleasure. All right. So what we're going to do as a group right now, and whether you're here in the sanctuary or in the loft or in the shop area or online, we're going to pray for these families. Okay. All right, Lord, we lift up leaf to you and Judah to you and Winnie to you. 3 (25m 33s): Lord, we pray that out of, at an early age, they would come to know you as their Lord and savior that at an early age, that we would just have this profound awareness that you are, that you are God, that you are the one who's leading and guiding, directing their family and mom and dad, and, and Lord that just at a very young age, that would make that decision and that they would walk with you from the beginning until the end. And so Lord, also, we pray for these families or that you would give them wisdom as parents to parent well, to lead their families. Well, and Lord, we know that it's, it's an imperfect process of being a parent and raising children. But Lord, I trust we trust. 3 (26m 13s): We pray that you would give them each wisdom, knowledge, discernment along the journey. So it, as a pour into their kids, the result would be awesome. Solar. We commit these families to you. We just thank you, Lord, that you are with them guiding and directing to every step along the way in Jesus name. God's people said, amen, amen. You guys can all sit down now and, and I'm going to turn things over to Jeremy over here. God bless you guys. Thank you so much. 5 (27m 9s): Good morning. Isn't this sweet time. Family is amazing today. We, we, we do that today. We celebrate and we honor the fact that it's all about the family. My hope this morning, as we, as we just peruse through scripture, we'll just be barely skimming the top, the surface. But I want to, I want to show you from, from big time, beginning, from time to time end, it's all about the family of God. So today we celebrate families and first grade and up are in. And I know sometimes it gets a little loud. It gets a little, you got to settle them down. You've got to give him something else to do some distract with that is okay, because in the end, these, these young minds and these young hearts are going to see the way that their parents and their grandparents to worship God. 5 (28m 2s): And that's going to stick in their mind. Maybe even more than anything I'm going to say, or the preacher says, they're going to see the way that their parents sit under the word of God and hear the preaching. And it's, that's going to be such an impression. So I pray today brings just refreshment to your soul, a wind to your sales and oxygen to your lungs. Let me, let me pray this morning. As we jump in Lord, we thank you for this precious gift. This thing called the family. And it was from you, Lord. You are the designer, the creator of families, of marriage, of parenting Lord. And so we look to your word right now to, to, to instruct us, to give us instruction, to show us how to live and how to do these things that you've called us to do Lord. 5 (28m 51s): So pray to the Lord that you would just fill us with your spirit this morning, show us from the word of God, open it up to us in Jesus name. We pray. 2 (28m 57s): Yeah, 5 (29m 1s): Hopefully you aren't getting tired of backpacking analogies. I know that's been the theme of these past few weeks. It's excited to see yesterday. I took, well, two days ago, I took my daughters backpacking for the first time. My other one, not my, not my youngest daughter, right? But my six year old, my eight year old took them backpacking for their first overnight. Or we went about a mile in and it was just a great time. And, and along the way we had to kind of, I had to encourage them just a little bit. And that's kind of the way we start out these trips. Right? Years ago, I saw on the internet, a picture of this rock cliff. And it was what the author described as an old Chumash camp. 5 (29m 43s): And he was very vague in his, in his directions of how to get there. In fact, he was stayed away from telling people where it was because he didn't want people going there and defacing anything, ruined anything. He wanted to kind of keep it a very hidden spot. Buddy, 4 (29m 55s): Show these pictures of this hidden to mash camp. 5 (29m 59s): When he went there, there was this rock cliff, and there was a waterfall that was spilling down in this little lush, little, little, almost garden in the mix of these rocks. And I thought, I want to find out where this is. I want to go there. So for about, and this is, this is 10 years though. So for the last eight, 10 years, I've been tracking down trying to find out where this place is. I know it's in our local back country. I know it's out there. So I've been wanting to 4 (30m 24s): Find it well. About three 5 (30m 26s): Years ago, a friend of mine, I started asking him some questions. I found out he was a backpacker and said, Hey, do you know where this camp is? I started to show him some pictures. He's like, Oh, I know where that's at. Let me show you on the map. So you put a P you put a little dot on my map, where it was. And so in the back of my mind, I'm like, I gotta get that one to find this place. This place looks incredible. And so I had this map, I looked at, I know the store, I know that the, what did the trail involves as far as well, elevation climbs and its rivers and all this stuff's going on. I had a very good picture of what it could be like, but I hadn't put my feet on the trail. I hadn't taken those steps. 4 (31m 2s): So we 5 (31m 4s): Started hiking up that way with the youth that, that went from our team or from our 4 (31m 9s): Took 17 students 5 (31m 12s): Leaders and just had a phenomenal time in the back country. Some of them were first-time backpackers. Some of them had a little bit experience, but all, everyone just joined on the trail. And we, we took a, we went up about 6.8 miles 4 (31m 25s): Up the Hill. And 5 (31m 29s): Even with all the vision and all the like, Hey, this is all the hype of where we were going. It's still in the middle. You can start to see the students' eyes start to get lost. You can start to see I'm like, what am I doing this for everyone? It started out with those great intentions. We're going to power through this. We're going to make it there and no time. And then you kind of get in the middle and you realize, Oh man, there's Hills and there's rocks. And there's rattlesnakes in the bushes, literally rattlesnakes in the bushes, 4 (31m 59s): The tree 5 (32m 0s): Dusty. I didn't, I didn't know. It'd be such a hard climb. My Paxter is starting to weigh me down. And you start to see this look on the student's eyes, halfway in where they're like, well, I can't go back out. And I'm like, there's only one. Oh, like, what do I do? 4 (32m 15s): I tried 5 (32m 16s): To bring a little vision, try to bring a little encouragement. All right, students, this is what we're gonna do. You're gonna, you're gonna stand up in the back. 4 (32m 21s): Okay. I know it. I know that weights kind of crashing your shoulders, but let's just stand up in the pack, 5 (32m 27s): Allows your lungs to get the air that you need looking up. Instead of just looking at the trail below, you allows you to, to see more around you. So just focus on the trail and the hardships there. It's like, Oh, look where we are. Look at the vastness 4 (32m 40s): That's around us. And they push on every single student, made it up 6.8. 5 (32m 47s): Wow. It was a tough track, but we made it. And I think that's what family has been like. That's my analogy. As a family has been like that through this year. You know, our family, we had Winnie right before COVID hit. And my wife, knowing that we're going to have a baby soon decide. It's probably a good time to put our kids in charter school. So she's not only homeschool. And so let's put both kids in charter school, the older kids in charter school. So I get a little reprieve. My wife gets a little reprieve throughout the days. So we put them in charter school two months in and then boom COVID hits. And now my wife has a brand new baby. She's trying to keep live. That has a bunch of food, intolerances and stuff. So there's a hardship. There's now she's homeschooling. 5 (33m 28s): Now we're trying to do all this. And it was just a year that just felt like that pack was just starting to weigh us down. And I think a lot of families felt that this, 4 (33m 37s): And it's 5 (33m 38s): We look up and we see, okay, God has a purpose for the family. Let's, let's see what this vision that God has for purpose. Let's fill up our lungs with this, this, this vision, what the Lord has for us. And let's go from there. Let's 4 (33m 51s): Push on. God 5 (33m 54s): Has a special purpose of, of his plan of redemption through the family. Family is used 301 times in the Bible, old Testament and new Testament family is used 301 times. And I thought that's not fair. That's a lot, 301 times in the whole of all scripture. But then you start adding into that. All the other aspects of family, father, mother, children, sons, daughters, adoption, all these, these things. And you start there. There's a multitude of plethora verses out there in the Bible that would deal with family. So today we're only going to scratch the surface, but fathers and mothers are not replaceable. Never will be, God has set them in place. So we start in this morning in the family and the garden family in the garden from Genesis chapter one, and God gives a design and pattern for his first family for this beginnings 4 (34m 49s): And 5 (34m 49s): In his own image and likeness, he's going to create them. We as humans are imagers of God, we bear God's image. And it's one of the reasons why 4 (35m 1s): This year has 5 (35m 2s): Been so hard for me. I like to see faces. I like to see the image that God has given to each and every one of you. And when those things are covered up, it's like, Oh, we're missing out on something. We're missing that. We are imagers 4 (35m 13s): God. As one 26, 5 (35m 17s): 27, it gets the ball rolling. God says, let there be, let us make man in our own image, according to 4 (35m 25s): Our likeness, 5 (35m 28s): Let them have dominion over the fish of the CEO of the birds, of the air and over the cattle and over every UN over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female. 4 (35m 45s): He created them. 5 (35m 47s): Now my daughters found a bunch of little creeping things along the trail. I found a lot of fat, a couple of snakes found some lizards that they want to take home with them, but weren't quite able to catch. We found a toad in the Creek and they want to take that home too. But we decided it might be best to keep that little critter there in the, in the car 4 (36m 5s): Creek, because 5 (36m 9s): All those animals are amazing and wonderfully made. But yet there's none like, like God who 4 (36m 14s): Us in our, in his own image, you know that 5 (36m 21s): A lot of people who doubt Genesis narrative as they put it as it's something that well, it's, it's a nice story. 4 (36m 34s): Let me tell you what I believe. And I still, 5 (36m 38s): And a little different sometime. I didn't mention this first service, but I believe in a young earth creation, I believe that the Bible is the infallible and errand authoritative and sufficient word of God for us, that these are just stories that these are histories And that when God takes Adam and Eve, he didn't take something else that was already there. You know, he took Adam from the dusty earth and he created this man in his own 4 (37m 3s): Image and then a woman. 5 (37m 7s): And I realized that sometimes that thought that thinking seven sets myself away from other youth, even other Christians, even others, 4 (37m 16s): Christian universities or higher critics. 5 (37m 21s): I think that I, and I go back and I said, okay, well, this is what I believe, but is that true? Is this, does this true? Is this true? 4 (37m 28s): And what do I 5 (37m 29s): Really believe? And what do I think about the Bible? The Bible has a lot to say about itself, but what is, what is Jesus as the 4 (37m 37s): Author, 5 (37m 40s): The fulfillment of all the old Testament scriptures, what did he think about the Bible? 4 (37m 47s): And Jesus 5 (37m 48s): Accepted the old Testament Canon as, as it, as it exists today, without any modifications and claim to fulfill it. That's in Matthew chapter five, Jesus looked at the old Testament, said, this is the word of God. I came to fulfill it. He didn't change anything. He didn't say, well, this is just a story. That's just a nice pattern to follow. No, he said, this is the word of God. And he filled fulfilled 4 (38m 10s): It. Jesus 5 (38m 12s): Treated the old Testament narratives at straightforward. 4 (38m 17s): That means, 5 (38m 18s): And this is one and two, which he refers to in Matthew chapter 19 and Mark chapter 10. He treats those things as straightforward facts, the creation of man or woman, the creation of family, the garden, 4 (38m 30s): The serpent Jesus treats, Abel Noah, Adam, or Abraham all is living people sorry. 5 (38m 43s): And Gomorrah. He references in Matthew chapter 10, 11, and then Luke 10. He'll talk about lot in Luke chapter 11 or sorry, 17 Isaac and Jacob. He talks about the man in the wilderness and not me as some story, but actual manna bread that came 4 (38m 60s): From the heavens. 5 (39m 3s): He talks about the wilderness serpent, Jesus and Moses as the law-giver 4 (39m 9s): Jesus 5 (39m 9s): Even accepts Jonah as in three days and three nights in the belly of a whale in Matthew, chapter 12, all these things are so 4 (39m 18s): Criticized 5 (39m 22s): And yet Jesus accepted them as straightforward facts and street for narratives, 4 (39m 28s): Jesus 5 (39m 28s): Even accepted the old Testament authors as the ones that are actually wrote it in Mark in Mark chapter seven, Jesus says Moses was the writer of the first five. It 4 (39m 39s): Looks that Isaiah wrote Isaiah 5 (39m 44s): In Matthew chapter 13 and Mark seven that David wrote the Psalms in Mark chapter 12. And that Daniel wrote the book of Matthew in some higher critic. They criticize it. Well, Daniel prophesied so extremely accurate that there wasn't just one Daniel. It must've been written later in attributed to you now. But Jesus said that Daniel wrote the book, 4 (40m 5s): Good Daniel. And I'll get to families in a second, just say, but this is what 5 (40m 13s): Jesus had to say. And so when I come up here and I speak about the FEMA, I want to, I want to stand on the word of God. That's has to be our starting place for his design and intent. And that's what we'll talk about next is the intent and scope 4 (40m 26s): Of that. This God's 5 (40m 28s): Purpose to extend the garden of Eden ind out into the world. And it says, Genesis chapter one, verse 28, then God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air. And over every living thing that moves on the earth, there was supposed to be a stewardship taken care of, of not consuming, not destroying, but to, to watch over these things, You talked about the families that are to come when God gives a God, gives a command nature to says, Oh, I don't want to do this 4 (41m 13s): Man. So many. 5 (41m 16s): He will hear the law, the 10 commandments. How much better would the world be if everyone wanted to follow the 10 committee? 4 (41m 26s): Yeah, 5 (41m 26s): If God's commandment, the first commandment he gives to humankind to mankind was there in one six, when God said, sorry, one 28, let them be fruitful and multiply fruitful, multiply the husband and wife knows what it means to be fruitful and multiply. That is a great commandment to do. There's a great blessing to do, to be fruitful and multiply. And he says, go. And so that's what Adam and Eve do. It says the book of the genealogy of Adam in Genesis chapter five. It says in the day that God created, man, he made them in his likeness. He made them in the likeness of God. 5 (42m 8s): He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them mankind in the day that they were created. And it goes on to list the sons. And it goes on to say that he had many other sons and daughters. You see it's God who sets the solitary and families Psalm 66. He brings out those who are bound into prosperity, but the rebellious dwell and the dry land, 4 (42m 32s): If that was 5 (42m 32s): God's original intent for these families to go out and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, take care of it. 4 (42m 41s): We know that that trouble comes soon in the garden. There's trouble in the family. 5 (42m 47s): It didn't take long for there to be drama in the family. Genesis chapter three, we see the husband and wife there's drama. Now in the husband and wife, we see a reversal of the God-given roles that instead of Adam being the protector, the head we see now, Eve talking to the serpent and being deceived. And as she eats the fruit, and then she says, she gives the fruit to Adam who was with her. Adam was right there. He should have been watching out for his, his bride. He should have been watching out for his lady and he wasn't. And it quickly becomes the blame game after that. How quickly, how quickly do we jump into that crazy 4 (43m 28s): Cycle? As the book love and respect talks about 5 (43m 33s): Start blaming things. And ultimately the blame didn't fall on Adam and Eve. The they're ultimately blaming God because he was the one who gave everything. And yet God said, this is all very good. And yet they're blaming God for their problems 4 (43m 53s): That doesn't 5 (43m 53s): Stay with Adam and Eve. Then it goes on to their children. You have children in Brazil 4 (43m 59s): And just 5 (44m 2s): Four, six and seven says, so the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door and is desirous for you, but you shall rule over it. Or you should rule, right? 4 (44m 21s): There's trouble 5 (44m 21s): In the family. That all of a sudden now there's the, their kids are now at war with each other. And God appears in a, in a, in a act of grace and mercy, God goes and says, Kane, 4 (44m 35s): Don't do this. Why are you angry? He warns him. And yet 5 (44m 42s): We see the first murder in the first family in the first chapters of the Bible. 4 (44m 49s): I love how honest 5 (44m 51s): Bible is about those who are in it. Doesn't make them out to be seen. So this shows their sin and brokenness right 4 (44m 56s): From the start right away, we have 5 (44m 60s): Murdered there. And then we have the first exile, as Kane is sent out from his family record in Genesis four, it says, and he said, what have you done the voice of your brother? Brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your blood brothers blood. From your hand, when you, till the ground, you shall no longer leave a yield at strength and a fugitive and a vagabond. You shall be on the earth. So Cain is now sent out from his family. If that trouble that started in the first family, it there's now trouble until now 4 (45m 40s): Trouble 5 (45m 40s): Till now. You know, we, we see many families in the old Testament, broken 4 (45m 45s): In missing 5 (45m 49s): God's plan, missing God's original design and intent for family, 4 (45m 57s): But yet it's God who uses a 5 (45m 60s): Family to save the whole world. 4 (46m 3s): God puts husband 5 (46m 5s): Wife. There are three kids, there's three sons and their son and their daughter-in-law into an Ark to preserve and protect the whole world. God uses families. 4 (46m 22s): So where are we at in our cultural world? I wasn't 5 (46m 26s): Planning on sharing any quotes or any, any stats until yesterday was the one book I did bring on my backpacking trip with my daughters. It was fun as, as we spent one out night out in the back country, just a mile in, and as, as we were heading back out, back to the car, back to the trail, head 4 (46m 49s): Stop 5 (46m 49s): To take some pictures of my daughters. I wish I'd, I wish I would have thought of it earlier. And she had them up on the screen, but taking pictures of my daughter and I hear a familiar voice down the trail. And it's pastor Steve and Steven and Curtis, and they're coming up the trail and they're all energized and ready for the whole hike. Well, my daughters are just kind of fading, just trying to make it back to the car. 4 (47m 11s): And they were just, 5 (47m 12s): It was this exciting moment. And I look at Steve with his two sons and there I am with my two daughters and different ages, different sizes. 4 (47m 19s): And yet it was just this cool moment out there. So 5 (47m 25s): Out there, up on the mountain, right now, they're out probably camping by a river manzana, narrows, where we took the youth a few weeks ago, getting his time with some, with some kids I'm stoked to that. He's out there doing So I wasn't planning on PR on giving these quotes and tell this one from a book I just picked up. The book is called raising passionate Jesus followers by Phil and Diane Komer. And he's he quotes a 2000, 2009 study that concluded that 90% of youth active in high school church programs drop out of church. By the time they're sophomores in college with only 34% ever returning as a youth, pastor, 2 (48m 12s): Someone 5 (48m 12s): Who has kids in my own eyes, that's terrifies me 90% 2 (48m 20s): It's sobering, 5 (48m 25s): But there is hope because in 2010, there was another, another study that showed that there was a remnant of homes where faith stood strong in the way, all the way into adulthood Have to end with 90% walking away. There was this remnant of home where we're faith and, and a relationship in a way, in a way, religion was taught and pushed onto them onto your, your children. And it's in those homes where there was an active involvement in the lives of their, of their kids. That, that, that 90% didn't apply. 5 (49m 8s): It says in students who stayed in the church throughout college said, the first thing they do when they have doubts or questions is to talk to their parents and read their Bibles. The students who remained in the faith, the first thing they would do, if they had problems that arose, they'd talk to their parents and read their Bibles. And so that is the model we need to, we need to be doing that. And I'm so stoked that a youth group, what we do is this on a Wednesday night with the youth, it's really not that different. We have some fun, we have some games, we do a little ice breaker, so the students can get to know each other. And then we go straight into the same worship team. Student led worship, 2 (49m 50s): Someone 5 (49m 50s): Who come up and give their testimony of what God has done. And then when they open up the word of God and we have Bibles, and I hear this like page turning, and it's incredible to hear 50, you know, Bibles turning at the same time to, to this text or that text and this it's phenomenal. And I think those are the things that are going to break that 90% is when youth group isn't so foreign to what's in here. And it's one of the reasons that drum drew my family and I to this church is that families are emphasized. We want to do worship together. I want to worship next to my daughters on a Sunday morning. I want, I want them to see me worshiping and I want to see them worshiping. 5 (50m 31s): I want to raise my hand and I want to see my daughter mimic me and raise their hand as well. 4 (50m 38s): It's like that 5 (50m 38s): Father's heart is like beating on my chest, Say a lot about where our culture is at today that I do know this, that Jesus didn't come to change the culture, but he came to change individual, heart, individual hearts. But when a hardest change, then it begins to change culture around it. I think there's no more important job in this world and parents raising godly children. 4 (51m 12s): And even 5 (51m 12s): As I stand up here, I, I know of my own inadequacies on the way I'm doing my best to raise my girls and my, my flaws and my mess up. So pray the Lord's grace over them. 4 (51m 25s): The parents raising godly children, 5 (51m 29s): February 12th, 2004, then mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsome redefined marriage for the first time I believe in the world is no longer be between a male and a female. He ordered city hall to issue different marriage license licenses. There was a marriage being redefining within our lifetime. 4 (51m 54s): In 5 (51m 54s): Our lifetime. We've seen gender being redefined as well. It's no longer male and female. The way that pattern in the image of God, that is being changed. Now I heard of a friend who has a, a larger youth group, not in this area, But on that issue of gender identity, over 50% of them said they didn't fit into in a youth group, didn't fit into male or female. We have to hold the truth. We have to teach and train 4 (52m 32s): The word of God. 5 (52m 36s): All of children is even being redefined in a very subtle crafty way. I've I see, as I look out and watch movies and media, all of a sudden realizing, wow, this is, this is not new. This is, this has been around for a while. And this, this whole thought that parents don't know best children know best 4 (52m 58s): Medium 5 (52m 59s): Portraying parents as being just simple minded and not knowing and not up on the, you know, all the fashion, the culture, all these things are just, just don't listen to your parents, do your thing. It's no longer parents know best it's children know best. And I'm going to throw a Disney movie under the bus right now. It was from, I was 10 years old. When this movie came out, the little mermaid, right? That's a great little movie. What are you saying? Jeremy Disney. And I've let my girls watch it. And I've obviously seen it. I've had to fast forward some sections from my girls, but think about the little mermaid and what it, and what it teaches. 5 (53m 40s): And, and these, these, these minds that a 16 year old are 4 (53m 45s): Teenage girl knows better than what her father, 5 (53m 51s): You know, right. She, she, she wants to go be a human. 4 (53m 55s): She wants to 5 (53m 55s): Collect human things and he finds out and he says, no, no, you can't do this. This isn't good. This isn't healthy. And so he, he, 4 (54m 1s): You know, destroys 5 (54m 3s): All our things and she's left to go out on her own to make this thing happen. And so she pursues the path of becoming a human and, and doing it her way. And then she gets into trouble. And then her father has to rescue her. And then in the end, Oh, he realizes that you're right, honey, you should be a human. You should do this thing. But if you see the crafty lies that become the in-between that you realize that what is telling the Watchers that hate your parents don't know best. It's actually you who knows best. You need to do your own thing. You need to not listen to your parents. That is, 4 (54m 36s): Is dangerous. So how does God want to use your family? 5 (54m 53s): First off marriage and family is a mystery. Is it not? Because it's a picture of something greater, something that will fully be revealed when, when Jesus Christ comes back, I would encourage you this week to read through Ephesians in the light of family, as in a church family, but your own family, read Ephesians, and just see what things begin to pop out to you. As you read the book of Ephesians in light of family, church, family, and your own family. And, and if you think grandparents, I want you to keep the course because you're not done raising your own children and you're, and you're, and you're, and you're there in the lives of your grandkids and young people. 5 (55m 35s): If you think, Oh man, that he's, Jeremy's talk about marriage and family just know that if the Lord tarries someday, you will have her own family. And these seeds, the seeds of the word of God will someday sprout. And I want to see you have a godly marriage and a godly family. 4 (55m 47s): Oh, really? 5 (55m 51s): Joel Kim said this. He said, family is one of the central means by which the Lord deepens and expands our faith. 4 (55m 60s): And it's often 5 (56m 1s): As a model of our heavenly father 4 (56m 4s): Quoting from 5 (56m 5s): The old Testament. Paul Paul Paul goes to second Corinthians. He's writing his letter to the Corinthians. And he says this, that God will be a father. I will be a father to you. And you shall be my sons and daughters says the Lord almighty. And so with all these attacks in the culture to our family, we have to know that it's not just, these are flesh and blood things. These aren't just people's ideas. These are straight lies from the pit of hell. This attack on family, isn't flesh and blood. Paul would say in Ephesians six, finally, my brother, and be strong in the Lord in the power of his might put on the whole armor of God that she may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil. 5 (56m 47s): We need to know what the Wiles of the devil are to be able to stand against them for, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities against powers against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. Having done all to stand the rebellion against family and marriages and children is, is a direct act of rebellion against the very nature of the Godhead and parents are so needed. Parents can never be replaced. The parents are needed. There is a Holy dependence upon parents. 5 (57m 27s): And often that is comes in the form of wisdom and direction into, in speaking into the lives of their kids. When I was in high school, I wanted to go watch a high school football game. It's in the fall of central Valley. It gets a little cool at nights. My mom was like, you need to take your jacket. Nah, I don't need my jacket. Now you need to take a jacket. You'll get you'll. You'll get chilly. You'll get chilled. And then you'll get a cold. Nah, I won't. I will. I'll be fine. Ran around that whole evening. Came home, had a sniffle. Next day, I had a cold. My mom knew me better than I knew myself In second Chronicles, chapter one, God appears to Solomon in a dream. 5 (58m 19s): And he asks him basically, Hey Solomon you're you're you're, you're the King. You're the man. What do you want? What do you want? Do you want your enemies? Go on whatever you want. You just ask for it. And Solomon asks for wisdom and knowledge. 2 (58m 36s): Why does 5 (58m 36s): Solomon asked for wisdom and knowledge? I mean, it seems pretty straightforward, right? He's going to be the new King. He's got all these people. He's got to lead. Why he asked for wisdom and knowledge open up to Proverbs four. If you have your Bible, 2 (58m 54s): Proverbs chapter four. 5 (59m 3s): And in Proverbs chapter four, Proverbs is a book written by Solomon. This struck out this, this stuck with me a few years ago. 2 (59m 16s): Yeah. 5 (59m 19s): The first part of Proverbs, most the provers is written to his kids to Solomon's kids. Chapter four verse one says here, my children, the instruction of a father and give attention to, to know understanding for, I give you good doctrine. Do not forsake my law. When I was young, when I was my father's son tender in the only one in, in, in, in the sight of my mother, he also taught me and said to me, so let me ask you. Who wrote the book of Proverbs Solomon, who was Solomon's father? Who was Solomon's dad, David. 5 (1h 0m 0s): So this are the, these are the words he records. The words he received from his father in the book of Proverbs says, so now he's telling us, so in Proverbs, he says this, this is what he taught. This is what David taught Solomon. He said this in verse four, let your heart retain my words. Keep my commands and live, get wisdom, get understanding, do not forget or turn away from my words in my mouth for and do not forsake her for. She will preserve. You love her. And she will keep you wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore get wisdom. And in all you're getting get understanding. I think there's a direct correlation to David St. 5 (1h 0m 41s): Son someday. I know your weaknesses. I know, I know you someday. You're going to be King and this is what you need to have. You need to have wisdom and you need to have understanding. So God appears to Solomon a dream. What do you want? Well, my dad said, I need wisdom. I need to do, I need to get wisdom. Parents are so needed for your input, but also that gives a responsibility for children. So I want to invite up Tyler to come up now to come up and give us a word as well. This morning, you just thought I was just going to be me. 5 (1h 1m 23s): And I got to, I got Tyler to come up to give a word. Come on, buddy. 6 (1h 1m 30s): All right, good afternoon. Yeah. It's it's afternoon already. So since it's you take over, I'm going to start off with kind of a traditional youth introduction. My name is Tyler . I'm 16. I've been attending harvest for about 12 years. Now my toothbrush color is white, green and pink. And because Gabe is probably watching this and he will get upset. If I don't my tooth press toothbrush, bristled density is his medium. Okay. Very important. So family, as Jeremy's been talking about as an important part of God's plan, children are obviously a part of that plan, but a really key aspect of children in God's plan is raising and becoming godly children. 6 (1h 2m 16s): Pastor Ron touched on this verse with the dedication Proverbs 22 six, he used a slightly different version. I'm using the King James, cause you can't really go wrong with that. It says, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. I really liked this version because of the words train up to prepare for battle. So when we leave these walls, it's a battle out there we're being okay. And how Jeremy said that 90% of Christian youth leave the church after high school. That's crazy. That's that's our fight. Okay? That's our parents can help us with that. But us as youth have to decide whether we want it or not. 6 (1h 2m 59s): That's our responsibility. Our responsibility is to listen to our parents, our elders, and learn how to use the weapons that they will teach us. And that God wants us to use. I was looking at another article, very similar to what Jeremy was talking about. And it gave some reasons for why youth leave the church. One of them was when kids go to college, all of a sudden they're surrounded by all these atheist ideas. These people who are super comfortable in their reasoning and they, they know what they're talking about. And they're going to convince you that this is, this is the real thing. Their belief is wrong. A lot of color kids, college, Christian youth don't know how to respond to that. 6 (1h 3m 45s): They don't know how to defend their faith. They instead of pressing in and learning how to defend their faith, they fall back and want to be comfortable. They don't want to push themselves out of their comfort zone. I wasn't going to share this, but it's Jeremy started off first service with two CS Lewis quotes. So I figured I kind of copy that. But CS Lewis was really famous for arguing against atheist, debating them publicly. And one day he was beaten. He'd never really been beaten before. 6 (1h 4m 25s): And the way he responded to that was by writing the Chronicles of Narnia, probably the most influential Christian children's book out there. And so my point is we will face attack. We will be defeated at some point, okay, it's inevitable. But the fact that we need to change is how we respond to that. Are we going to fall back and be afraid and give into the enemy? Or are we going to keep pressing forward? Are we going to keep taking one step at a time until we get to the end? Okay. Till we get to the goals and plans, God has set for us. 6 (1h 5m 5s): Fusions six one through three says children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right honor. Your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you. And that you may enjoy long life on the earth. The second reason that they said kids fall away from the church is because kids don't think the Bible has any significant meaning directly at them. When they're kids, it's for the old people, the old people can do what they want and I'll do my own thing and everyone's happy, but God wants us to be with him. Okay. He gives his first commandment with a promise to the children, not to the adults, not to the priests. He wants us to be with him. 6 (1h 5m 45s): He says, I know the road is going to be long and hard and painful. But if you keep following me, if you keep pressing into it, you'll get the reward at the end. One thing I'm super grateful for my parents is teaching me that pushing past the pain will get me to the best things in life. Keeping on that idea of backpacking that Jeremy did. My first backpacking trip. I went with a bunch of a couple of my buddies and they're done ads. And we could either backtrack the way we came. Nice. You know, seen it Creek route. There's some ups and downs. Okay. It's not a cakewalk. Or we could do a trail called hurricane deck. 6 (1h 6m 26s): Now at the time, hurricane deck sounded super awesome and it is, but we got up we're we're gonna, we're going to do it. We knew the elevation was going to be, you know, significant. And it's going to be like climbing. I don't know, like 2,600 feet. And so we get up and we get going and we're hiking and they're switchbacks and the trails in front of us and we're climbing and we start to see the top of the Hill. We're going up. And we're like, okay, we're almost there. This is great. You know, it's hard, but it's not that hard. And it's gets a little steeper. So we decided to take a break for like, you know, the last push-up and one of the dads pulls out, his GPS gives them a thing, looks at it and goes, we've climbed about 400 feet. 6 (1h 7m 15s): We still had over 2000 feet to go. So we get over this Hill and we, I look up and there's this like mountain range that we're going to have to climb. And there's no switchbacks. The trail fades into bushes. You go straight up this thing. And so we put our heads, heads down and we climbed and climbed. I don't think I've ever done a harder hike. That was hard. My toes hurt my calves burned at times I, I wanted to quit. It was, it was that bad. The trail was not the most well-maintained so, you know, there's branches all over. My legs are getting cut up. I'm getting slapped in the face with, with branches, but I kept telling myself, keep going, take one, one more step. 6 (1h 8m 0s): Just another step. Get to the top. And when we got to the top, you could see the entire Valley before you've got a river off to one side, you've got snow, captain mountains up top. It was probably greatest view I've ever seen in my life. And I've been to the grand Canyon. I've been to Zion national park cabin. I've been to all the really cool places that everyone says, you have to go. The reason why that is my favorite place as one, the view is by far the best. Okay. If you ever get the chance to do a hurricane deck and you can do it, be prepared. Okay. 6 (1h 8m 41s): But the reason it was, it was so great was because I had to work for it. I didn't get a pull up and park and be like, Oh, there's the view. Yay. I had to bust my butt off to get up there. Okay. And when I got back to the cars, it was like 10 miles of hiking. I was exhausted and it takes a good bit to exhaust me. So I would just want to encourage all of you to keep pressing on when it gets hard. When the road is tough, keep taking this as forward. Tell yourself one more step. If I take one more step, we'll get closer and keep taking those steps because in the end it'll be worth it. 6 (1h 9m 21s): Thank you for letting me do this. 5 (1h 9m 32s): Thanks Tyler. That's amazing. So we have now an invitation into God's family. It was God who in his, in his special purpose, took this husband and wife of, of, of, of fresh new family, Mary and Joseph, and had them bring his son to the world. God uses family. And there's two ways I see in the, in the text in the Bible that God invites us into his family. One is by adoption, Ephesians chapter one verses three through six, has blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be Holy and without blame before him having predestined deaths to the adoption of sons as his sons, by Jesus Christ himself. 5 (1h 10m 25s): According to the good pleasure of his will, God invites us into that adoption into his family. The other way I see is by marriage, by patrol, there are a covenant or a contract. She John 14, a one through five says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me for, in my father's house, there are many mansions. And if I were to not, if were not, so I would not have told you, but I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. He is inviting his bride, the church to join him in his head, in the father's house. 5 (1h 11m 7s): The insula that the place where a son, after his betrayal, the, to his bride, he would go and to his house and his father's house and begin building a room, begun, building a place for he and his family to then live. And Jesus is making those words is seeing the same thing. It's like, I'm going to go. And I'm going to prepare that place for you. And I love Thomas because he asked the question, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How can we know the way Jesus makes one way? He says, I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father, except through me. We are to be then a family for eternity, a family for eternity. 5 (1h 11m 52s): And the earth is a waiting. And as well as our bodies are just awaiting this new creation, the new heavens and the new earth, 4 (1h 12m 2s): Let's go 5 (1h 12m 3s): To Romans chapter eight, real fast, Romans chapter eight, 4 (1h 12m 16s): I'll start 5 (1h 12m 16s): 18. It says for, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory. That shall be revealed in us. And like Tyler is saying when, when he was climbing that mountain, the hurricane deck, there is sufferings. But once you get to the top and you can get that vision of everything that's going on there is there's this, this there's this, this glory sense. Like, ah, this is majesty. You look around and you see, what's what God has put out to set us before us 4 (1h 12m 48s): Verse 19 for the earnest expectation of the creation 5 (1h 12m 51s): Equally waits for the revealing of the sons of God, for the, for the creation was subjected to futile, futility, not willingly willingly, but because, 4 (1h 13m 3s): Because of him who subjected it to it in hope, because 5 (1h 13m 6s): Creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious Liberty of the children of God. For, we know that the whole creation, groans, and labors with birth pains until now, not only that, but we also have the first fruits of the spirit, even ourselves groan within ourselves are the earth is waiting for this new creation. Our bodies are awaiting as Jesus as the restore of the family of God. If you go to revelation 21, you'll see the vision that John was given. And it says, and he sees this vision of God on the throne. He says, in hue sound in the throne behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, write for these words are true and faithful. 5 (1h 13m 47s): And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the Omega at the beginning. And the end, I will give of the fountain of water. I need water. Sorry. I will give it the fountain water of life freely to him who thirst. And he who overcomes shall inherit all things. I will be his God. And he will be my son, 4 (1h 14m 9s): 2004. I set out a couple of friends to 5 (1h 14m 12s): Conquer mountain shack 4 (1h 14m 13s): Faster. It was a January full of ice. We had to 5 (1h 14m 19s): Shoo up to high camp. And then from high camp, we woke up at four in the morning and began our ascent up the last remaining 6,000 feet. And it was, I mean, it was a grueling day Crampons on her feet, ice axes in her hand, just working our way at this, at this icy slope. And all day I kept looking up, okay, okay. There's the summit. I can, I can do the summit. I can, I can see it. It's right there. And just as we thought about, about, about 12 o'clock about noon, we reached that summit and I realized it was a false summit like 4 (1h 14m 54s): That. Wasn't it. And what I said, 5 (1h 14m 56s): She is it's called misery Hill. And I know the reason why it's now called misery Hill. 4 (1h 15m 3s): There's a little plateau. 5 (1h 15m 4s): And then you see misery hell and it's about, it's a 400 foot Hill on top of Mount Shasta. 4 (1h 15m 11s): And I 5 (1h 15m 11s): Just remember thinking how in the world am I going to do this? And as I approached misery Hill, I realized that it was solid, crunchy ice. And that there wasn't nice staircase. There was no trail. It was just, you go straight up this Hill. 4 (1h 15m 22s): And the way that the ice 5 (1h 15m 24s): Had formed and the wind had had, had its way with it, it was an 18 inch steps. So each step you have to like lift your foot up 18 inches to get up the next one. And I would take one step fire breath, one step five. It was just this painful. And then once you got to the top of the Hill, then he realized there's another thousand or a hundred feet to go a hundred yards to go. And then finally 4 (1h 15m 46s): The summit. And I later 5 (1h 15m 49s): Down after I got to the top of misery Hill and I thought, that's it, I'm done. And my friends who are 4 (1h 15m 52s): There, so Jeremy, you got it. We're not doing this alone. We're not leaving you here. Come on. 5 (1h 15m 59s): We made our way to the summit and it hadn't been those guys. I would not have made it. And that is what church that is what the family of God is for. We are here to support and encourage others onto the glory. That is yet to come 4 (1h 16m 12s): From time, pass 5 (1h 16m 13s): Time, attorney God is using his family. And so now as we take partake 4 (1h 16m 17s): Of communion, we have a few 5 (1h 16m 19s): Communion cups. If you didn't receive them on the way in, you can grab those in. Actually I need one. I forgot mine. Can I give him a breaker? If you didn't have to get, didn't get one. Thank you, sir. Raise your hand and we'll get, we'll get those to you. 4 (1h 16m 33s): But this is 5 (1h 16m 33s): Now the invitation and the remembrance of God's family. Communion is what we look on, what Jesus has done for us. It is remembering what he has done for us 4 (1h 16m 44s): Last. And we therefore need to examine ourselves to make sure 5 (1h 16m 49s): We're not doing, we're not adding anything to the cross of Christ. We're not trying to add to works or perfection or anything. Jesus Christ did it all at the cross. And so we are remembering his invitation into the 4 (1h 17m 2s): Family at a Galilean wedding. It was different than any other in Jerusalem. 5 (1h 17m 10s): And in any other wedding in Israel, in a Galilean wedding, as the groom, they S they read the contract at the gate. Both families were there every week. There was multiple witnesses. As they read the groom would then pour the cup and he would extend it to his bride or his potential bride. And then a Galilean wedding. The bride had the, was, had the ability to either accept or reject that cup of wine. And after receiving, if she chose to accept, she would take us. She would drink from it. And then the girl, the groom would say this, he would save, I will no longer drink of the fruit of this vine of this cup until the day of our wedding feast, As Jesus is passing out the cup that night, the night before his knife, as betrayal, the night of his death, he tells his disciples verily. 5 (1h 18m 3s): I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of this vine until the day that I drink it in the new kingdom, Jesus looks at his disciples and said, I want you to be in my kingdom. You will be my family. So if you have accepted his death, his burial, his resurrection as your own, if you have believed in confess, this community is we don't do this in remembrance. So it's the tin foil top. Did you kind of pull off, sorry. The bread 2 (1h 18m 33s): Is 5 (1h 18m 33s): Not easy. I know I'm struggling in front of everybody. 2 (1h 18m 43s): Read 5 (1h 18m 45s): Paul would say for, I receive from the Lord that, which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed, took the bread. And he, when he had given things, he broke it and he said, take this, eat my body, which is broken for you, do this. And remember in the same manner, he also took the cup after supper saying the cup. This is the cup of my new covenant in my blood. Do this. As often as you drink it in remembrance of it, 2 (1h 19m 37s): Let's pray and have the worship team come up. 5 (1h 19m 47s): We do this in remembrance of you making the way into 2 (1h 19m 53s): The only way into the family of God. We accept your death and 5 (1h 20m 3s): Resurrection as, as our own Lord. So we want to live in this new life. The do the new covenant board of what you've done for us. We want to be filled with your spirit as we go out. And we love on our families and love on the family of God as a whole remove division, Roos, strife, Lord mayor, families not be like the garden of Eden families. Those families are there that were there, the first families, Lord, but maybe we model the family that Jesus you came to to live in and to enjoy and to breathe and to, to give what, to pray that we would have been filled with your vision of what you want to do with his family fills to the spirit this morning in Jesus' name, we pray, amen. 5 (1h 20m 54s): We'll have a worship. We'll have the worship band plan out. And then if you have any prayer, any things you want to lift up for prayer, any blessings come up with the front and what we'd love to pray for. You let's stand together. 0 (1h 30m 56s): Lord, thank you for this day. God, I pray that as we go out, back into the world, God, back into this culture that we live in God, that would be a light for people to follow God that we would be able to carry what we've taken from the sermon today. God, and bring it to other people God, and build the, build your church. God. So I thank you for this time. God, I thank you for this time that we get to worship and fellowship in all of this in Jesus name. Amen guys. 0 (1h 31m 39s): Have a good day.

5 Steps to Getting Along with Others

0 (0s): Let's all stand and we're going to worship together. Lord, we just want to invite you in our hearts Lord, to be preeminent in our hearts. Lord, thank you. That it is your idea that we would gather together as believers. And we just simply want to enter into that amazing place, that wonderful place of worship. So Lord, we just invite them not only your presence, but that indwelling part of Horsham. So then as we sing these songs, it's not just songs we're singing, but we're literally lifting up our heart, our mind, our soul, all that we are to you, the living God. 0 (42s): So Lord, we just delight in you with thank you so much for the privilege of drawing near to you today, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Sing together. There was a moment was the dog . 0 (13m 7s): I need some miracles this morning. Maybe you have pain in your body. Your heart is broken in your fighting anxiety, whatever it is, do some miracles it's reaching out to you for a miracle is desperate all over this campus and everywhere every house you might even want to reach, reach out to you, your loving presence and your healing, your spirit on your sons and daughters. 0 (14m 19s): Remind us of your faithfulness and your goodness, your new for state . 1 (18m 47s): And I pray that we would be able to internalize that truth. God, that you will never let us down. You are good. You are faithful. We can put the full weight of our trust in you believing you wholeheartedly without reservation, without holding anything back. Lord God, we just want to believe that and know that that is true. So I pray God, God, for just a blessing upon those who are struggling with that revelation, God, that you would help them to reflect on their past when you have been so faithful Lord, it's hard to hard to believe sometime for the future, the press or excuse me, the president, or even the future, but we can reflect on the past and then we can look at the scripture, no of your faithfulness, Lord, you never let people down. 1 (19m 35s): So help us to internalize that truth. Today we pray be glorified as we do so in Jesus name, amen. Amen. You can be seated. And if you are in fifth grade or above, you are dismissed to your class fifth grade or above, you can go ahead and go to your class. You're what you're in fifth. You are. If you are a fifth grade through 12th grade, you can be dismissed. If you're above 12th grade, you have to stay in church. Should've made that more clear. 1 (20m 16s): I absolutely should have made that more clear we're in first Timothy chapter five today, or get through the whole chapter today. I was, as I was kind of thinking about the message this morning and praying about, you know, kind of wanting to get God's heart for the message. I decided to go out into the garden and just do some praying. We've we've got this garden in front of our house. It's kind of like the secret garden it's been in the making for decades now. And it's just really beautiful. And that's how I was walking around the secret garden and just the beauty, the flowers, and all of the hard work that my wife and mother-in-law put into it. I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I saw this little yellow thing in the garden and it was an Easter egg that was left behind from the Easter egg hunt in our family. 1 (21m 5s): The little kids get an Easter egg hunt and then the next generation of kids, which would be my kids. If you're, you know, the 20 to 30 year olds, they get an Easter egg hunt, but in their Easter egg hunt, there's money inside the eggs. And so it's, you know, it's a lot of incentive for our kids, our 20 and 30 year olds to go and find eggs. Well, it just so happened that they missed an egg, but I got to it and had already been opened up probably by my dog by by Jolene's dog. I'll say Jolene's dog is more a dog and my dog. And then the kid cat that was inside, that was all taken out as well. And the rapper I saw the rapper nearby. And so I'm trying to pray, but now I'm thinking Easter eggs, right? 1 (21m 46s): I'm thinking there's probably more Easter eggs where there's one, there's more. And I know that if it's, if I find something, I might find some money. So I look it around trying to, trying to pray, but distracted, right? So I find another Easter egg and I crack it open and it's got a $2 bill in it, some pretty good deal. So I keep looking, keep looking. I found another Easter egg, but this one had a $20 bill in it. Then I keep looking and I find another Easter egg. And it's also got a $20 bill in it. 1 (22m 26s): So now I'm $42 richer. And you know what I'll be doing after church looking for more Easter eggs, right? So in reality, this money does not belong to me because it really belongs to the kids who were supposed to find it. So Jolene, I want you to come and get this and then take it to Steven back there. Cause he's my son. And he's my, he's the one that probably should have found it. And so there you go see, even you get the 42 bucks. My first thought was this is going to buy me around a golf, you know, but then I, you know, decided to give it to my kid. 1 (23m 9s): So as I was looking at all the free for the Easter eggs and praying about it and thinking about the message I noticed, there's like hundreds of snails out there as well as early morning. And there's just snails everywhere. And I thought, I thought we were talking today about getting along with others out of first into the chapter five. And I thought, you know, if we look hard enough, we can find beauty in every person. We can find beauty and every person beauty that will help us to love people and get along with them Mo betta, or we can kind of keep our eyes on the snails. You were kind of eating things up in the garden 2 (23m 46s): And things that we don't like. We can get distracted by the snails. Maybe, maybe we say the wards that people have or the blemishes that people have or the problems that people have. But I think God wants us to focus on the positive things that God would have us to focus on within our relationships. And so we're going to actually ask, answer the question. What are the five steps to getting along with others? As we look at the scripture as we look and what I like about a text like this is because as we look at Jesus' life, Jesus got along with everybody except for the religious leaders who were leading people astray. He loved everybody, whether they were stuck in sin, dealing with all kinds of stuff or whatever, he attracted people who were broken, who were in desperate need any ministry to them. 2 (24m 34s): And he loved on them and he cared for them. And so he has asked us to do the same thing within the context of our relationships. If we took a poll, we could probably come up with all kinds of differences, whether it be religious differences, theological differences, political differences, whatever, but the Copely, the common denominator for us as Jesus. And hopefully the common denominator helps us to love people the way that Jesus loves people. So that's the challenge for us today. Steps to getting along with others first, Timothy chapter five. This is Paul speaking to Timothy, who pastors a church in the town of emphasis. 2 (25m 16s): And so Paul, a seasoned veteran in the ministry is speaking to Timothy, who is newer to the ministry. And he's telling him, Hey, this is how you deal with people. This is how you react and respond to people. This is how you love people as a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He said in the verse, one never speak harshly to an older man. The word there is it's elder. But in this context, Paul is not speaking about the office of elder. He will be later on, but he's right now speaking about justice, older men never see speak harshly to an older man, but appealed to him respectfully, as you would to your own father, maybe you're here today. 2 (26m 0s): You've got to run relationship with your father. So this isn't helping you. I had a rough relationship with my father for years. My dad hit the road when I was about two years old and he never really looked back and never paid child support really never was involved in our lives much. And so I had as an adults to make the decision, to find the good in my father and rekindle that relationship. And we've done that. And now we speak on the phone about once or twice a week weekend. There's, there's something beautiful about the decision to find the good in the people that are hard to find the good and, and the more I talk with my dad and meet with, you know, him, the more I find that there's good in him got a rough start, but there's good in him. 2 (26m 49s): And that's the attitude that God wants us to have that Paul is speaking to Timothy about. He says, never speak harshly to an older man, but appeal to him respectfully as you would to your own father. Maybe. So maybe there's a couple of things going on here. Maybe God wants to do something in your heart regarding your relationship with your father, whether your father is still alive or passed, God can do a healing in your heart, restoring a health to your heart concerning your father. And then maybe you've got older people in your life. And you're having a hard time speaking to and dealing with respectfully just because they're difficult. People. Everything that God asks us to do in his scripture requires that we are filled with this power that we're filled with the grace face of God, the Holy spirit, the power of God, so that we can do what he's asked us to do. 2 (27m 38s): So everything that God asks us to do requires strength from God to accomplish. So I never speak harshly to an older man, but appealed to him respectfully, as you wish your own father, maybe you've got a difficult Persia and you're saying, man, I'm having a hard time. I'm speaking respectfully with this person, Lord, would you help me? And so you go into the conversation and you say, Lord, I'm going to speak to this person with grace and respect, and you're going to give me the grace to do it. And I'm grateful for that. And then you just move forward. The verse continues, talk to younger men as you would to your own brothers thought about my relationship with my full blood brother. I've got, I got a full-blooded brother. I got two stepbrothers and I got a half brother. So there's got a lot of brothers. 2 (28m 18s): And I think, you know, I've for 52 years, my brother and I've been connected and there's there, there's something that happens over 52 years. There's a connection, a depth of relationship, a respect, and a love that we share for one another. And this is kind of the example that Paul uses as he writes Timothy talk to younger men as you would your own brothers. And so talk to younger men there, we've got lots of young men around this church, right? I just went backpacking with a group of them a couple of weeks ago. And I tell you, there's a, it's a stellar group of young men that we have in this church. 2 (28m 58s): And Keegan's one of them. Keegan is a young guy, senior in high school. He's in the loft right now. I'm running the soundboard in there and then you'll often see them running cameras back there where my son Steven is. And then you'll often often see them up here on the platform playing music. He's just serving everywhere. He's just a stellar example of, of a young man. And so as I think about younger men and talking to them as you would to your own brother, it's easy to talk with a guy like Keegan or the stellar young men of our church with respect and with love. But then there's the young people in your life who aren't so stellar. And that's again difficult, right? Because there's, you know, as young men were often your heart stuff and struggles, and it's hard to, hard, to hard to relate 1 (29m 42s): To those 2 (29m 43s): Young men. But again, by God's grace, as 1 (29m 45s): We address the young people 2 (29m 48s): In our lives with respect, with love and with kindness, 1 (29m 52s): And at times with a challenge to change or to grow up, 2 (29m 56s): Then we can do it with the right heart. And with the right mind, that's all in verse one, verse two says, treat older women as you would your mother. My mom goes to church here. She's right here on the second row. And my mom, after my parents divorced, worked hard, very hard, very, very hard to make sure we had a roof over our head and clothes and food and all that sort of thing. And think about the history and the past and all the stuff that she went through. And as I think about other women, older women in the church, I think people have a story. And I, I just, I think what I wonder what that person's story is. 2 (30m 38s): And then I think about my mom and I think I, I'm going to honor that person and love that person to the best of my ability. And it says, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters. 1 (30m 49s): So palsy, young guy, or a palsy old guy talking to a young guy and a Timothy is at pastoring, this church. And he, so he's got this challenge to address the Gallus his age 2 (31m 3s): With 1 (31m 4s): All purity as he would his own sister. And what a, what a great model 2 (31m 9s): For a young people who are dating for guys in the way that they're supposed to treat women in their lives, it's supposed to treat them with all purity as you would your own sister. So with that perspective, purity is, is the utmost important to see in a relationship. And we have this responsibility as young people, young people have this responsibility to treat the women in their lives as their own sisters with purity and with dignity, five steps to getting along with others. Number one, treat all people with respect, treat all people with respect, fathers, brothers, mothers, and sisters, treat everybody with respect. 2 (31m 50s): Number one, number two, take 1 (31m 52s): Care of those truly in 2 (31m 55s): Need. I just thought about a joke as that was thinking about the Easter eggs. I thought about a joke. And so I thought I'd share a joke with you. How do you catch a unique bunny rabbit unique up on it? How do you catch a tame? One same way. I was supposed to say that earlier in the message, then I forgot about it. 1 (32m 25s): So I'm saying it now because it's kind of a heavy 2 (32m 28s): Message. And so I wanted to throw in a joke. There sounds good. 1 (32m 32s): Number two, take care of those in need. You really need to take care of 2 (32m 37s): Or honor. Any widow has no one else to take care of LSD care for her. 1 (32m 44s): But if she has children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them. 2 (32m 51s): This is something that pleases God. So we actually have a spirit 1 (32m 56s): Well responsibility as people in the Lord, people of the Lord today 2 (33m 0s): Take care of our parents and grandparents. We, we are, 1 (33m 6s): We have a responsibility, especially with widows, but if she has children or grandchildren, their first response 2 (33m 11s): Abilities to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them. This is something that pleases the Lord, the fifth commandment, what's the fifth commandment honor, your father and your mother. And this is the only command with a promise that your life, that you may have many days in the land, the Lord is giving you the fifth commander honor, father and mother. So we have this profound responsibility and privilege to take care of those who have taken care of us. And it's really not just an option. It's actually a responsibility. So what's a true widow though. Verse five says, now it's true. 1 (33m 47s): Oh, a woman who is truly alone in this world has 2 (33m 50s): Placed her hope in God. She prays night and day asking God for his help. When I think about a true widow, I'm thinking about the prophetess Anna in Luke chapter two, when Jesus, I think it was when Jesus was being presented at the temple and this woman, Anna was there. And 1 (34m 8s): It says that she had been married to her husband 2 (34m 10s): For seven years. And I 1 (34m 12s): Even in the text, it says she was 84 years old. And she spent all of her time 2 (34m 16s): In the temple, praying and fasting and worshiping 1 (34m 21s): The Lord. She spent all of her time doing this. This is how she spent her widowed years. She spent all of her time working, 2 (34m 28s): Shipping, fasting, and praying night and day. I think about another widow who was a part of our church for a lot of years. Her name was freedom. Maroney she's passed. Now you guys remember freedom. We, we called her granny. We called her granny. And when granny was still alive, I'd go visit her and she'd see. Yeah. 1 (34m 47s): Ask the question. Why am I still here? Why won't the Lord take me home? I said, I don't know, granny. I don't have any idea, but I 2 (34m 54s): Know that you 1 (34m 57s): Have purpose as long as you're here in the earth. I said, so use this time to pray for your kids, for your grandkids, your great grandkids 2 (35m 4s): Kids. Cause she was, I think she had, she was close to a hundred. She had, she, she was very old and had a lot of grandkids. And so I said, use this time to pray for your kids and grandkids and see what the Lord will do. And so she would agree and I'd go back to visit her again. And she'd say, why am I still here 1 (35m 23s): As a grantee? Because you got some prayer work to do. So make sure that you're praying for your, 2 (35m 28s): Your kids and your grandkids. And so when we got the call that she had passed away, we weren't surprised at all. But we were able to rejoice that the Lord was glorified in life. A true widow, a woman who's truly alone in this world has placed her hope in God. She prays night and day asking God for his help. We got a bunch of widows in our church. What do they call the sunflower girls? Sunflower group. Yeah, wonderful. As a group of gals and they gather, and they spend time together and they enjoy fellowship together. And they're using their lives to honor and glorify the Lord verse six says, but the widow who lives only for pleasure spiritually dead, even while she lives, give these instructions to the church so that no one will be open to criticism. 2 (36m 16s): So saying a widow who's living only for pleasure is actually spiritually dead. 1 (36m 20s): And I would say anybody who lives only for pleasure 2 (36m 22s): Is actually spiritually dead. 1 (36m 24s): Because as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ, we're actually called to purpose in this life. Now 2 (36m 30s): I encourage you to have a good time. We live here on the central coast of California and there's great hiking and surfing and biking and golf 1 (36m 37s): Everywhere. There's all kinds of stuff to enjoy. So enjoy 2 (36m 40s): It, enjoy it. In fact, I played golf on Friday, you got a call from a buddy of mine and he's like, Hey, do you want to golf this afternoon? Another pastor in the area. I'm like, what time? He said three. I said, how about three 30? And I was like, ready to go because I'd been up since four o'clock that morning working on stuff. And so I was ready for some reprieve. So I get out there and we play golf together and we had a great time played nine holes out of black Lake. And I, I beat him by 11 strokes. 1 (37m 8s): I got, I never beat anybody 2 (37m 9s): 30 by 11 strokes. I'm always the guy getting beat by 11 strokes, but I beat this guy by 11 strokes. So anyway, yeah. Brag on myself a little bit. Sorry about that, 1 (37m 19s): Jordan. You'll be me next time by 11 strokes, but that's all right. So enjoy life, but blended together with the purpose of God 2 (37m 29s): For your life. Enjoy what you do. I'm going to go backpacking with my two boys on, on Saturday next week, we're going to go backpacking and spend some time together, enjoy life, but don't forget the purpose that God has called you to anyone who's living only for pleasure of spiritually dead, even while she lives or he lives verse eight says, but those who won't care for their relatives, especially those in their own household have denied the true faith. 1 (37m 56s): Such people are worse than unbelievers. And so again, we've got this spiritual responsibility to care for our loved ones. And so if you've got young kids and people in your life, you've got a family, it's your spiritual responsibility to take 2 (38m 11s): Care of them. My dad was, and he watches the service every week. So Hey dad, 1 (38m 18s): But he never paid child support. 2 (38m 20s): And we'll talk about it. He'll say, Hey, I want your service did it. He probably didn't want me watching it today. Did you? But we've got an open relationship. But, and 1 (38m 28s): Then I know other people, younger people who just 2 (38m 31s): Refuse to support their family and it just strikes a chord to me because it's our spiritual 1 (38m 36s): First and foremost, this is how we disciple the next generation by being responsible people as fathers in his mothers. It's, it's how we disciple and point the way for the future. Next generations we explain. But then we live our lives in front of the next generation. So they might know how to follow Jesus and how to trust Jesus and how to live their lives in a way that honors him and his word. And so if we're saying that we're Christians, but we're not doing what the Bible says, there's a conflict in the, in the hearts and souls of our young people. And we don't want to create that 2 (39m 10s): Conflict. And so we have this responsibility, a spiritual responsibility to care for our loved ones. 1 (39m 17s): It says, if you don't do it, you're actually worse than an unbeliever. There's something there that we need to be paying attention to you and aligning our lives with verse nine, a widow who has put on the list for support must be a woman who's at least 60 years old. I appreciate it. It's very practical because it helps the church understand how we support widows in our midst and how to decide about how, and 2 (39m 40s): If we support a widow intermit. So 1 (39m 43s): A widow must be who wants to be put on the list, must be a woman who's at least 60 years old. And it was faithful to her husband. So we get to kind of examine and evaluate someone's life. And no, one's perfect, but there's some parameters here that we can use to help us 2 (39m 57s): Make wise choices. 60 years old, faithful to her husband, 1 (40m 2s): Verse 10, she must be well respected by everyone because of the 2 (40m 6s): Good she has done. Has she brought up her children? Well, has she been kind to strangers and served other believers humbly? Has she helped those who are 1 (40m 17s): In trouble? Has she always been ready to do good? And so you can examine that kind of lists and decide, does this person meet the qualifications for it 2 (40m 27s): Beyond the, the list of those that we help as, as widows. And then we make those decisions. 1 (40m 33s): And then he says, in verse 11, the younger widows should not be on the list. So anybody under 60 should not be on them. 2 (40m 41s): It's kind of nice that if you're under 60 or considered a younger widow, that's kind of a good deal, right? So if you're under, that's a positive thing. If you got no, all right, I think you're still young at 60, but whatever, here we go. Okay. 1 (40m 55s): The younger widow should not be on the list because their physical desires will overpower their devotion to Christ and they will want to remarry. Then they would be guilty of breaking their previous pledge. And so apparently the pledge was, Hey, if you're on the list receiving support from the church, then you're devoting yourself to the church, to the work of the church, to the Lord, to the work of the Lord, to what he would have you to do. And you're not going to remarry because you're on the list of receiving support. And so a younger widow might be tempted to remarry, might have the urge and the desire to 2 (41m 27s): Re Mary. And so that's why they're not supposed to be on the list. Their physical desires 1 (41m 31s): Overpower their devotion to Christ and they will want to remarry. Then they would be guilty of breaking their previous pledge. And if they are on the list, they will learn to be lazy, younger widows. They will learn to be lazy and will spend their time gossiping from house to house meddling in other people's business and talk. So that's true. Struck a chord with somebody Pedaling and other people's business and talking about things they shouldn't. So I advise these younger widows to marry again, have children and take care of their own homes. Then the enemy will not be able to say anything against them. So the wisdom from Paul to Timothy says, if you're a younger widow, get remarried, go, go, enjoy your life. 1 (42m 18s): Have a family take care of your, your, your, your, your family. Don't, don't try to get on the list of support from the church. You've got better things to do. Verse 15 says from afraid that some of them have already gone astray and now follow Satan. Isn't that? I'd say that's a strong statement. Some have gone astray, and now they follow Satan. So there's two, there's two paths in the earth. There's the narrow path that leads to life. And then there's the broad path that leads to death to destruction. So you're either on one or the other 2 (42m 52s): Path. 1 (42m 53s): There's not many paths. There's essentially two passes, only two paths. You've got the way to Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the father except through me. And so if you're not following Jesus in his path, you're actually following Satan 2 (43m 9s): This path. Isn't that interesting. So there's no wiggle room there. Paul said 1 (43m 17s): Afraid that some of them have already gone astray and now follow Sagan. So they're, they're either following Jesus where we're either following Jesus in our lives or we've gone astray. And now we're following Satan. We're being influenced by the enemy. It's a strong statement and it should wake us up to the reality that in this life, we, we, we, we have a decision to make, who am I going to follow when all of this, all of the arenas of my life, 2 (43m 46s): If 1 (43m 47s): I'm following Jesus and all the, all of the arenas of my life, that I'm reflecting his word in my decisions and my words and my thoughts and my deeds, everything is lining up. And when I get out of the line, I'm quickly to confess quick, to confess, quick to repent, and I'm getting right back in line following Jesus, because he's my Lord and my leader. And so I want to follow my Lord and my leader. And apart from that, I'm on this different path where I'm just kind of going haywire and following whatever my flesh or the enemy compels me to follow. You can't have both verse 16. If a woman who is a believer has relatives who are widows, she must take care of them and not put the responsibility on the church. 1 (44m 29s): If a woman who is a believer has relatives who are widow, she must take care of them and not put the responsibility on the church. And then the church can care for the widows who are truly alone. So you've got this powerful responsibility to take care of those who are truly in need. Number two. And number three, we have this responsibility to honor our leaders. And it's easy for me to talk about this at harvest church, because you guys do that. I really feel like you honor us. And in the way that the scripture says, and honestly, it, it makes it fun to work here. It's fulfilling to work here for all of the leaders and all of the staff. It says here, elders should do their work. 1 (45m 9s): Well, elders press Buderus. Now we're Spock talking about the, those who carry the office of elder elders, who do their work well, should be respected and paid well. And thankfully from the beginning, I've been on staff here for 17 years going on 18 years. And from the beginning, this board has always taken care of my family with just decent pay, with good pay and with how many know this is an expensive place to live, right? And honestly, we don't want it. We don't want to call people to our team and pay them at a poverty level and expect them to serve with joy and serve with gratitude. And you know, when they've got mortgages, they've got, they've got kids in private school, they got all kinds of responsibilities. 1 (45m 55s): So we do our best by God's grace to pay people well, because that's what the scripture says we're supposed to do. Especially those who work hard at both preaching and teaching for the scripture says, you must not muzzle at ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain and in another place, those who work deserve their pay. So essentially Paul is telling Timothy, take good care, financial care of your elders, especially those who labor in the word. So kudos to harvest church and to the elders of harvest church, the board of harvest church, thank you for what you do. We are honored as leaders and then 19, this is another way to honor our leaders. It says, do not listen to an accusation. 1 (46m 38s): So there's going to be times when you hear an accusation against an elder, dismiss it, unless you hear it two or three times, then there might be something to it. And then at that point, maybe you come to the elder or you come to the board and you talk about it. But you out of the gate, though, it says, do not listen to an accusation against an elder, unless it is confirmed by two or three witnesses. So it just kind of helps to honor the leadership when there's a bit, the benefit of the doubt, and that doesn't happen around here. That's never happened around here, but that's, that's just what the scripture says. Those who sin should be reprimanded in front of the whole church. This is kind of harsh, right? Cause we're all sinners. We've all fallen short of the fall, short of the glory of God. 1 (47m 19s): But I think probably talking about leaders here and honestly, thanks to social media and the world that we live in everybody's mistakes has put out on media and the worldwide 2 (47m 30s): Web. And so anything that a leader does that is, 1 (47m 35s): Or cause you know, we're a leader. 2 (47m 38s): Sure. And it's plastered all over, all over social media anyway. So we don't even need to bring it before the whole church necessarily because Oh, everybody knows about it already. And so we need to be careful the way that we live as leaders, those who sin should be reprimanded in front of the whole church. They will serve as a strong warning to others. And so maybe there's a time to bring up the leader who has failed. It's listen. When I hear about other leaders who have failed, it sends like ice water through my veins. It is a warning. It's a strong warning. To me, it's a strong warning to our team. And we talk about it. 2 (48m 19s): We say, man, we don't want to be in trouble like this. Person's in trouble. God bless them. We love him, but we don't want to be in that kind of trouble. So we need to live our lives above reproach to the best of our ability by God's grace, we need to live above reproach so that we don't get ourselves into trouble. And so we talk about it. It's a strong warning, just strong warning. Verse 21. I saw him the command you in the presence of God. I mean, this is a command. I command you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus and the highest 1 (48m 52s): Angels to obey these instructions without 2 (48m 55s): Taking sides or showing favoritism to anyone. Paul was giving clear, 1 (48m 59s): Clear command, a clear command to Timothy, Hey, this is how I'm asking you to lead. This is how I'm declaring that you must lead as a pastor within the church. That's why it says never be in a hurry about 2 (49m 13s): And appointing a church leader do not share on the sins of others, keep yourself pure. So when we, 1 (49m 18s): We are looking for church leadership, we have to be careful and take it slowly. 2 (49m 23s): Other other Bibles say, don't lay your hands quickly on somebody else. That means don't appoint a leader prematurely. And so we have to be careful. And sometimes that takes years before we have the chance to really feel confident. And it puts somebody in a place of leadership. You're not sharing the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. Paul's telling 1 (49m 44s): Timothy man, your, your life is to be above 2 (49m 46s): Reproach. And the Lord 1 (49m 49s): That you have leading with you, their lives are to be above 2 (49m 52s): Reproach. I shared 1 (49m 54s): Last week that pastors, teachers of the Bible, we're going to cure a greater judgment from God. And so we actually have to think through our lives, what we teach and how we live. 2 (50m 4s): I live and thank God for his grace because none of us do it perfectly. But man, I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be that. I don't wanna be that guy. I don't want to be a guy. So we're, we talk about it openly as a staff and as pastors and we hold each other accountable and I meet with other pastors and we do the same thing there. So hopefully we'll by God's, we'll get through to the end of our ministries without shadows hanging over without problems. And we'll hear when we stand before the Lord, well done. Good and faithful servant. That's what I want to hear. 2 (50m 45s): Number four, take care of yourself. Not about others now were bought. Paul's kind of focusing on Timothy here a little bit. And he said, take care of yourself. Don't drink only water. You ought to drink a little wine for the sake of your stomach because you're sick so often. So apparently Timothy was a frail physically. He had some stomach issues. And so Paul told him to drink a little wine for his stomach. So we look at wine in the scripture and we can say wine is good and bad or good or bad, or we can say all kinds of stuff. But wine obviously has an additional purposes. Wine has got, is used within worship. You know, people take communion with wine and bread. Jews definitely did some Protestant churches. 2 (51m 28s): Like here, we use grapes use because we don't want to sort of wine and cause somebody to stumble. So we use grapes use as a symbol there of the Lord's blood and, and Bible. And biblical times water was often scare. So wine became a necessity rather than a luxury is equated with life wine. Along with the grain and oil represents God's covenant blessings promised to Israel for obedience, and we also see God withholding those necessities for disobedience. And so wine can be given as a gift, as a blessing for obedience or withheld for disobedience. Additionally wine represents joy celebration and festivity expressing the abundant blessing given to us by God. We also know that Ephesians five says don't be drunk with wine. 2 (52m 13s): So if you're going to enjoy some wine, God bless you in that, but don't get drunk and don't cause somebody to stumble. And then you're within the parameters of scripture. Amen. Lots of really practical things here in first, Timothy chapter five, Paul told Timothy, he take care of yourself. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you taking care of yourself? Part of the way we take care of ourselves is we, we honor the Lord in his word. So we, we can, we take a day off every week. I know plenty of people who work seven days a week. They own their own companies and their own businesses. And they work seven days a week or people in the ministry. They work seven days a week and God's made it very clear that we're to observe the Sabbath day to take a day of rest. 2 (52m 55s): God, God modeled that in the creation account, he worked six days creating the heavens in the earth and then he arrested. Why? Because he was worn out from all of that work. No, God doesn't ever get worn out. But as a model to us creation, he said, take a day off, do something on that day. That's not connected to your regular work and just take a deep breath and relax and enjoy life a little bit, relax and enjoy life. I tell the guys who were working seven days a week. I said, dude, you will get so much more accomplished if you'll take a day off every week. Yeah. 1 (53m 28s): It's it's like tithing. It's like you give 10% and God takes the 90% and does way more with that 90% than you could ever do with the a hundred percent. It's just a principle that God says, honor me with the way that you live your life. And I will bless it. It's a, it's an act of worship to take a day off because we're saying, God, I trust you that everything's going to get done. 2 (53m 51s): As 1 (53m 51s): I re as I obey your commands, I trust you that you're going to take care of everything. Tithing is an act of worship. We're saying, God, I, I trust you with my income. And so I know that you will do more with 90% than I could ever do with a hundred percent. It's just there. There's, there's something that honors God. It's an act of worship. When we do what he asks 2 (54m 11s): Us to do, take care of yourself, where do you need to take care of yourself? What do you need to do? Maybe you need to do a little less. Maybe you need to refocus your priorities. Take care of yourself, have hobbies. I love to ride my mountain bike. Don't do it as often as I should. I love to run. I've started running again. Yeah, good and run. My knees were jacked up then I got prayer. I'm telling you God's done a work in my knees. I was able to run yesterday. Again, no problems. 2 (54m 52s): God's a healing. God, he's restoring God. He's a faithful God. So all of us just need to exercise and walk a little more faith with the Lord with the way that we're living our lives. We hold on to everything. Cause we don't have any faith that God will take care of us. We work every day, work every moment because we're afraid that God's not going to take care of us. Were we a threat fret and worry about every relationship and every decision because we don't believe that God's speaking to us or can speak to us or will speak to us and will direct us and real will guide us and help us and protect us. We're just off full of fret and worry anxiety. And we're thrash because of it. 2 (55m 33s): God's given us life that we might he's coming, that we might have life abundantly. Like, like it's, it's not a life of fear and fret. It's a life of joy. Somebody asked me earlier today, how are you doing? I said, I'm, I'm doing so good if I were doing any better, be illegal. Right. And it's all because of God's grace. Not because I'm some superstar, I'm just, I just love Jesus. And he loves me. And I figured out, man, that serving him with my whole heart, his words had that's it. Right? Right. It's just, it's just where it's at. And then when I mess up, cause my wife will tell me, he messes up from time to time, probably every day, multiple times throughout the day, multiple times throughout the hour, a minute, whatever. 2 (56m 16s): But there's grace for that as well. And just don't beat yourself up, but you'd be, be constantly consecrate. Your luck, hots, consecrate your life. Sanctify your life in Jesus will never have greater joy wrapping up. Number five, don't judge a book by its cover. Five steps to getting along with others. Don't judge a book by its cover says in verse 24, remember the sins of some people are obvious leading them to certain judgments, but there are others who sins will not be revealed until later some are obvious. They're like, Oh, he's a murderer or a thief. Whatever the case may be. And then there's others who sin is kind of hidden below the surface. 2 (56m 59s): And so we're not to judge a book by its cover. There are others who sins will not be revealed until later when we stand before the judgment seat of God and give an account for our lives in the same way, the good deeds of some people are obvious. And the good deeds done in secret will someday come to light. We've got a gal in our church who a secretly, her husband doesn't even know this. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Ah, whatever. Nobody knows who I'm talking about. This gal shops every week for our food bank, our food pantry, she goes out and finds really good deals every week. And she'll show up midweek when nobody's around. 2 (57m 40s): Occasionally I'll see her. Cause I'm here all the time feels like, but she'll bring in all these groceries. She'll bring all these groceries in and just drop them off. The good deeds done in secret will someday come to light. I'd never, I'd never tell you who she is because I don't want her blessing. I don't want her. I don't want to blow her cover, but she is one of those people you wouldn't suspect necessarily. She's a wonderful person, but no one knows what she's doing behind the scenes. Others seem all religious, but they're doing crazy stuff behind the scenes. Crazy bad stuff. 2 (58m 22s): Don't judge a book by its cover. We need discernment as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ to figure people out. We need to exercise discernment and be prayerful. Five steps to getting along with others, treat all people with respect, take care of those truly in need. Honor. Your leaders take care of yourself and don't judge a book by its cover. With that. I'd like to invite the prayer team up. We're going to worship some more and then I'm also want to invite the prayer team. So the worship team come forward. And then during worship, if you'd like to receive prayer for anything, the protein will be up here as well. I'm up here, my wife's up here. Others are up here available to pray for you. 2 (59m 4s): We talked about a lot today. God's first Timothy fives, full of stuff and good stuff. And so if you've been touched or convicted or challenged or encouraged and you want some prayer, come on forward with that. Let's go and stand up and learn. We'll be careful to give you praise and honor and glory for everything. Jesus, for the good in our lives, Lord God. We say thank you for the hard things. Lord, we say that you're faithful and, and we can trust you, Lord. Thank you for the challenges Lord, they, they, they always turn our attention to you. If our hearts in the right place, Lord, I pray that our challenges would always turn our hearts to you. Lord God, that we would always go running to you, our father, our friend, and the alpha and the Omega God that we would run to you with parts that are pure and desiring you or God, and that we would love you all the days of our lives and that we will allow you to love us all the days of our lives. 2 (59m 58s): Lord, God work a miracle in our lives today. Encourage us, build us up in our most Holy faith. Speak to us, continue to move powerfully. We pray. We love you. Jesus. Thank you for your abundant grace. Say thank you to the Lord about maybe speak that out, 0 (1h 0m 24s): Speak it 2 (1h 0m 24s): Out. I want to be able to hear you say it out loud. 0 (1h 0m 37s): What else? What do you think before healing? Yeah. Hey man. Hey man. Thank you for EEG and Lord. Thank you for that. Yes. Yes. 0 (1h 1m 24s): Thank you. Jesus. 2 (1h 1m 33s): We have so much to be thankful for. We love you, Lord. We thank you for your very kindness, 0 (1h 1m 40s): Patience, faithfulness. I'm thankful for my wife, thankful for my kids, my parents for my life. God help us to worship in spirit and in truth we pray. Thank you Lord. Amen. 0 (1h 2m 18s): thank you so much. 0 (1h 12m 15s): Got it. We don't have to walk with fear that we can stand firm and your love for us and the presence of our enemies and hardship and trials that you carry us through. And so we thank you for your presence here with us today. Thank you for all the work that you've done in our hearts. We pray that you would just see a lit upon our hearts. God, that we would walk into this week, different change because we've been in your presence. Thank you for this. Remember we love you. We give you all the glory, all the praise, all balloons, Jesus in your precious name. Amen.

What Does Godliness Look Like?

0 (0s): So a big welcome to you. We have info center that's that has all the information that you'll need to find out about plugging into harvest church. And just in case, this is your first time here at harvest, and you want to find out more about us. We actually have a four week class starting today. It's called harvest growth track and that's opened the parsonage. So if you feel like I want to find out more about harvest today, you can go jet up there right now, Chris, he's about ready to start. That's that's that's today. A few other things we've got M six gathering tomorrow. That's men gathering at a thousand Hills ranch out in, I don't know where it's at. Actually. I haven't been yet. So a thousand Hills ranch, we have the men's gathering. 0 (43s): There's a free dinner worship and then testimonies. And you're asked to bring a friend. So if you've never been, maybe grab a friend, go out to the M six gathering. There's no RSVP needed to show up. And then lastly got one more announcement. That's the Kings, the kids spring keeps saying Kings. I don't know why. I'm sorry. The kids spring choir. And this is the last week to sign up. So if you have a child from second grade and up and you're, and they're interested in joining the choir performance at the end of may, email Leslie or head for the info center for more information on that in the rehearsals will be on Sundays from 10 20 to 10 50. So we've got those things going on and yeah. 0 (1m 23s): Good to see you guys all here and I'll let Tim take it over from here. 1 (1m 28s): Good morning, please stand. We're going to worship together this morning. I'll just a quick word of prayer, dear God. Thank you so much for the opportunity to have a building, to worship in, to have a sound system that works and all this stuff. God, that just, just, it just helps us facilitate Lord. And I just thank you for, for being our God this morning, first and foremost is asking to meet each and every one of us here in a new way this morning, we just want to get out of the way and just become aware of you guys. Just to make it less about us. More about you this morning. 1 (2m 11s): Jesus name 2 (5m 1s): Say worthy is the key and just seeing and declare how much we love you. 3 (16m 48s): Our hearts and minds and soul is drained. Every part of us, Lord, we love you. And we know that love is reciprocated. In fact, we know that we love you because you first loved us. You started this whole thing and we're so grateful. We're so grateful. Lord, You got to pray that you would touch every person in this room and on this campus whoever's watching online. I pray that every person who would be touched with the reality of your great love, And then that would trigger a response in every person, this kind of response that we've been singing this morning. 3 (17m 31s): God, that we love you. 2 (17m 35s): We love you, Lord. We love you. Lord, 3 (17m 39s): Refresh us in that love Lord, both ways, got to refresh our love for you and refresh God, our understanding of your love for us. Thank you, Lauren. It's good. Just to praise and sing and pray and to just be in your presence. Lord, we bless you God, as we open up your word this morning, and as we avail ourselves to your truth, I just, I know God that you're going to download something of power to us, not to believe that it's just good stuff in store for us today. 3 (18m 20s): That's true. Every time we open up your word and avail ourselves to your truth, Lord, that you've just gotten life, transformational, power change for us and challenge for us. And so I pray that we'd just be anxious and hungry for it. Lord, like, like we're anxious and hungry for a good meal. When we're really hungry, Lord that we would just be anxious and hungry for our time with you today. And then God that you would fill us to overflowing with abundance. So we leave this place filled up with you and, and we can spill it out on everybody else, Lord, and with love and grace and truth and hope kindness. 3 (19m 2s): Thank you Lord. We need you. We love you, Lord. Bless us. Now we pray. Continue to bless us. I should say, Lord, continue to bless us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. You can be seated. Thank you. Worship team. Then you worship team. 4 (19m 16s): Oh, it's just good to, yeah, it's good. Just to be in the presence of the Lord. I, since I was a young guy, I've just always appreciated worship and the time just that, that is set apart just to seem to the King and to give our hearts fully to him. And so I'm thankful for the opportunity this morning, thankful for Easter last week. So many people came out and spent days setting everything up. Mike Apadaca was out there with his tractor, grading, everything and our back area and dozens of people helping to set things up beginning like on Thursday and through Friday and Saturday and Sunday. And it was just really, really powerful. 4 (19m 60s): And then the cleanup, you know, happen in a couple hours, thanks to so many people who just, who stuck around and, and helped us out with that. It was just really, really good. After Easter. We had this crazy idea that we'd go backpacking. So we, my son and I, so the youth were planning this backpacking trip and they were planning to leave Tuesday to go back off of figure a mountain off of one 54. And it's about a 6.8 mile hike. And so Jeremy, our youth and family pastor said, Hey, why don't you guys leave a day early and make sure that there's actually camping spots available for another 25 people or so coming back. 4 (20m 40s): So, so Curtis and I got up after the long Easter weekend and we left about seven 38 in the morning and we began to hike and just had a wonderful, wonderful time as I was hiking. I thought there's so many parallels, so many parallels to the Christian life, the Christian walk and this hike we're on this backpacking trip that we're on. In fact, when we finally made it there, we, we didn't, we didn't share this thought with each other until we actually got to the, the, the destination we both said to each other, Curtis said, Hey dad, if you weren't with me, I probably wouldn't have made it all the way. 4 (21m 21s): I probably would have stopped and camped along the way, because there were, it was just a lot of uphill and that sort of thing. I said, Curtis, that's exactly what I was thinking. If you weren't here, I would have stopped like a mile back and just said, that's enough. But we both realized we would have totally missed the amazing destination that we experienced if we would have given up and so much like the Christian walk, the Christian life. If we don't have people spurring us on holding us accountable and challenging us to continue what we're going to settle for something far less than what God has for us. And so I was super grateful. Curtis was there and then we got there and there was plenty of spots. And so we called back to Jeremy and said, Hey, come on out, man. 4 (22m 4s): There's lots and lots of room. And so he came out and they all 25 of them, it was really, really powerful that the day that they were supposed to come out, it was getting about four o'clock and they had been on the trail for a while. So I was kind of getting anxious for them to be out there and I wanted to see them. And so I just started down the trail and I got about a mile back from the, the main campsite there and there they were, they were all settled there and kind of taken a break before they made the final descent. And it was yeah, really, really good. But one guy had pulled a muscle in his leg and he was really struggling carry his backpack. And so we got a chance to help him carry his backpack. The last mile that isn't, that just like the Christian life. 4 (22m 44s): Sometimes we get injured or we're discouraged. We don't know how we're going to press on. We don't know how we're going to finish and get to the destination, but others come along, come around us and help us to carry the burdens that we have to get us moving. And to our destination, I tell you, what is the best, most beautiful destination? There were two waterfalls. I should've brought a picture, a video right. Or something, but there were two waterfalls coming down and flowing into this big, big, like eight foot deep pool of water that you could swim in and refresh yourself. And it was so amazing, so much better than the campsite that was a mile earlier, or even the ones that were just along the way we would have totally missed it. 4 (23m 29s): I think that's kind of, God's message to us is that we will totally miss out on God's best if we give up and maybe you're here today and you're kind of wondering whether you want to press on in your faith as your, as a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And you've got this big backpack on and you're just kind of feeling weary and just kind of feeling worn out. I just want to encourage you that God is with you and he will help you get there. He will help you get there, but maybe you got this pack on and, and there's, there's an art to packing a backpack, right? Like you don't want to pack too much. There are things that you need. Like, you need a tent, a sleeping bag, a sleeping pad. You need, you know, cookware and food and that sort of thing. 4 (24m 10s): But there are certain things that you don't need to carry in like big, heavy stuff that just kind of wear you out. So you gotta be careful not to have too much on your pack. Otherwise it's cumbersome and it's difficult to keep going forward. So some of us in our lives, we're carrying all of this extra unnecessary weight, this baggage, this burden burdensome stuff that the Lord just wants to lift off off of us. It's it's really a picture of God's. You know, Jesus said, my yoke is easy, so there's a yoke, but he said, my burden is light. So he wants to lift it off of you. So if you're carrying around just old baggage from past mistakes and failures, sins, whatever it is, just confess that to the Lord. 4 (24m 54s): If we confess our CNC is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So what he'll do is he'll lift that, that bag of that burden off of our bag. And then we'll be able to kind of March on through. I remember when I got to the campsite and took off the backpack, it was just like, Oh man, you feel like you're walking on air because all of that weight is off of you. I think that's kind of the experience that God wants us to have like something of a lighter load in our lives. So confess whatever you need before the Lord today, and just watch his grace and mercy wash over you and watch your, your law, your load kinda lighten up. It was just a powerful deal, but as kind of back, as long as we were walking and I'll just kind of share this story for a little bit and the, can we start the clock? 4 (25m 37s): Thank you. Because now I'm not, I'm not going to know how much time I have and it doesn't really matter cause I'm just going to go till I'm finished anyway, but now there we are, but it's helpful to know that I'm over, right? So it's just helpful to know. So as, as we were hiking, there was a lot of incline and my son would tell me, he kept, he kept telling me, Hey, dad look up. Cause I'm I got, you know, I'm just going, you know, it's just trying to get the job done. And he would tell me, look up Dan, look at, look at what we're hiking in. And, and he would just remind me of all of the beauty, the wonder of what God had created and is sustaining even now. And it was just like this refreshing experience. 4 (26m 18s): We're going to be talking about a biting with God today. We're actually going to be answering the question. What does godliness look like? What does godliness look like? And I, I couldn't help, but make a lot of para a lot of comparisons to that backpacking trip because I was reminded of so many wonderful things as I just chose to look up and abide with God and appreciate his presence 5 (26m 45s): And appreciate his beauty. I think sometimes we can just get busy, right? We've got our head, 4 (26m 49s): It's Dan, we got stuff to do. And we don't look up 5 (26m 53s): And just say, thank you Lord for life and for breath and for 4 (26m 57s): Family and for whatever it is that you want to thank the Lord for, we can get burdened down by maybe illness or disability or whatever it is. And we don't, if we don't look up, we're just kind of stuck with our heads down. And like my son told me, I'm telling you look up, look up, God's doing some really, really amazing things. If we'll just stop and pay attention. So what does godliness look like? We're going to kind of unpack that today. We're going to kind of discover that today because I think God wants us to experience something of newness in our walk with him, our relationship with him. He wants to breathe life into us in such a powerful way that we walk out of this place with new perspective. 4 (27m 42s): I remember just sitting around the campfire when we were there just before the kids got there. And even after the kids got there, just sitting around the campfire, just being so filled with gratitude for what the Lord has done. I mean, I just, I looked around at his creation and then that caused me to ponder about my, my own life and my family and the way that God has just blessed our church and taking care of us. And I just, I just was filled with this refreshing gratitude. It was so important and so necessary for, for my life as I just sat there and just thought about the Lord. There's something about abiding with him and allowing him to buy it to abide in us. That is just life-giving and powerful. And we get busy and distracted and we miss out on those things. 4 (28m 26s): So let's take a look at what Paul wrote to Timothy in first Timothy chapter four. And we'll get to that answer. What does godliness look like with that? Let's say as you guys turn to first Timothy four, I just want to pray, 5 (28m 37s): Lord Jesus. We just pray. And we thank you for your presence here. 4 (28m 42s): We were able to sing that last song and just talk about how much we love you with all of our hearts and minds and soul and strength or got God. I know you're blessed by that Lord. And I just want to declare that as a church, we love you Lord, and we want you to have your way with us today. 5 (28m 59s): We want you to speak to us where we need. 4 (29m 2s): I need you to speak to us, to challenge us where you need, where we need to be challenged, Lord God, that we would be 5 (29m 10s): Encouraged today and put back on the right path. Maybe it's been a tough journey and some of us are feeling the burden, the weight of it all. Lord, I just pray that you would bless us as we trust you in Jesus name. Thank you, Lord. Amen. 4 (29m 28s): The 41. Now the Holy spirit tells us clearly that in the last times, in the last days, some will turn away from the true faith and they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings come from demons. There's a temptation as the return of Christ draws near. And this has been going on for the last couple thousand years since its Ascension, there's this, there's this temptation to walk away from it. So walk away from the Lord and to pursue other things. But God has got us on this path and he doesn't want us to give up. Although there challenges and difficulties along the way, coming back out of the hike while going into the hike, I had been wearing these boots and they weren't, I guess they weren't broken in very well. 4 (30m 16s): So I was getting these hotspots and these blisters. And so I decided just to put on my sandals, he saw these, you know, strap on sandals and I hiked the rest of the way. And then I was hiking out and I realized I'm getting gnarly blisters on my feet. As I'm hiking out with these sandals, I would've wore socks with the sandals, but then I would've been, looked like an old guy. So I, I didn't want to look like an old guy. Although I do typically wear socks with sandals, but I decided I would just, just go for it. I thought, what choice do I have? Like I gotta get outta here. Like I five miles from the trail head. I gotta just keep going. I can't stop and wait here for three days until my blisters heal up. Right? Cause then I'm going to walk another mile and get some more blitzers I got to stop again. 4 (30m 59s): I think the challenge for us is that we've got to just continue to move forward two hours or destination. Although we do deal with troubling things, temptation and sickness and all kinds of challenges in our life. But what I noticed is that God gave me the grace just get to continue to walk out. I literally have silver dollar size blisters in between my toes, but I was like, I know they're there, but I'm not going to look at them. I'm just going to keep marching forward because I don't have a choice, right? I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to stand out there until, till they get cleared up. So what I noticed is that God gave me the grace and then I get home. I get to my destination. 4 (31m 39s): Wife makes this hot water with Epson salt, you know, Epsom salt. I don't know what it's called, but you put your feet in there and it just creates this nice soothing experience. I wouldn't have had that soothing experience if I were to quit on the trail, right? God's got such blessing for us. If we just don't give up, if we refuse to give up, but continue to March forward. Now the Holy spirit tells us clearly that, that in the last time, as the time of Christ return draws near some will turn away from the true faith and they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. Listen, there's only one true faith that leads to heaven. 4 (32m 19s): There are many faiths in the world, many counterfeit faith, but only one faith leads to the God who created and sustains the universe. There's one God that offers salvation by grace, through faith. And some are tempted to turn away. Some will turn away from faith in Jesus alone, and they 6 (32m 40s): Will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. So anything that is contrary to the scripture and what the scripture says about Jesus and who he is and what the scripture says about God and who he is is, is a contrary gospel. It's a counterfeit gospel perpetuated by demons by the fallen angels. That the enemies 5 (33m 3s): Of God, there's one God that offers salvation through grace, by grace, through faith. And the Holy spirit has revealed this 6 (33m 12s): Truth, that in the as time wears on, 5 (33m 15s): And this has been going on for the last couple thousand years, people will be tempted to walk away from the faith. 6 (33m 21s): Mark 1322 says for false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform signs and wonders. So as to deceive, if possible, even God's chosen ones, watch out. I have warned you about this ahead of time. So there's a warning of, for the church, for the believers of Christ that says, Hey, be careful not to get distracted or to be hindered from your faith in the Lord. Jesus Christ in acts 2029. Luke wrote, I know that false teachers like vicious wolves will come in among you. After I leave, not sparing the flock. Even some men from your own group will rise up and 5 (34m 1s): Start the truth. In order, in order to draw a following, 6 (34m 6s): What kind of people would do this? Like what kind of people would intentionally draw others away from the truth? Well, Paul tells us in first Timothy four, two, these people are hypocrites 5 (34m 16s): And liars and their conscience is, are dead. 6 (34m 21s): So these people are not who they claim to be. They are deceivers like their father, the devil himself, who is the father of lies. And they, they are without a functioning conscience. So their conscience and sear, they're dead, they're liars and deceivers. So these are the people. These are the entities that are trying to draw us away from our faith. And so don't, don't be surprised when you feel like giving up. It's it's an age old ploy of the enemy to get us distracted and hindered, getting us to refuse, to believe the truth of who Jesus is and what he wants to do 5 (34m 59s): In our lives. These people are not who they claim to be. 6 (35m 2s): They're deceivers without a functioning conscience, they will do what counterfeit religious leaders have always done. Counterfeit religious leaders have always heaped, heavy burdens and restrictions and expectations on 5 (35m 15s): Their followers. That's what we see throughout the throughout history and in the scripture of religious leaders, 6 (35m 23s): This is what verse three says. They will say it is wrong. These these religious leaders, they will say it's wrong to be married and wrong D certain foods, but God created those foods to be eaten with. Thanks by faithful people who, the truth, the Bible knowledge commentary States, the false teachers plaguing the Ephesians church were the forerunners of the Gnostics of the second century. The Gnostics believed that spirit is good and matter is evil. So anything that is got matter to it is evil, but spirit is good. So they believed all appetites relating to the body are therefore evil and should be rooted out, including normal desire for sex and food. 6 (36m 9s): And so they're saying don't get married, don't eat certain foods. It's all of these heavy duty restrictions that these religious leaders want to keep on us trying to get us to conform to their, their plan and purpose. So it's wrong to be married. Ron, what does God say about that? This is, this is what needs to be our response to anything that we hear that is sideways or seems different than the, than the word of the Lord. What does God think? Genesis two 18 in the new living translation, it says, then the Lord, God said it. It's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him. And so God has created marriage to be a blessing to humanity. 6 (36m 49s): Now there are single people in the world who are called to it, or just in their circumstances. They're single right now. And God's blessing is upon them, but God has created marriage as a good thing for the world. The early deceivers also said that it's wrong to eat certain foods. What a bummer. I got a quick, quick joke. So this Catholic nun in this Catholic school was in the cafeteria with all of the Catholic kids. And there was this big bowl of apples in the line of the food. And so the Catholic nuns brought a little note that said only take one, Apple, God is watching. 6 (37m 31s): So, but at the other end of the line and the cafeteria was that big old platter of chocolate chip cookies. And so one of the students said, take all you want because Dodd is watching the app 7 (37m 44s): Bulls. 6 (37m 48s): I would prefer a chocolate chip cookie over an Apple any day. In fact, the only reason I eat healthy food like apples is so that I can have a chocolate chip cookie and enjoy the food that God has had called, called us to enjoy. But the early deceivers would say, it's wrong to eat certain foods. What does God say that? What does God think about that? And acts chapter 10, the apostle Peter fell into a trance and had a vision from the Lord acts 10, 11 through 16, says this. He saw the sky open and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners in the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Then a voice said to him, get up Peter kill and eat them. 6 (38m 33s): And what does Peter say? No, no Lord was his response. Listen, it's never a good idea to say, no Lord, it's a contradictory term. Like it's an oxymoron. You can't have Jesus as Lord and leader and King of your life and say no to him. Because by saying no to him, it declares that he's no longer your King and Lord and leader. And so for Peter to say, no Lord, he was showing a bit of his old nature. Have you ever had that creep up in your life where your old nature pops up and you're like, no Lord. Like I was arguing with the Lord the other day about meeting with some guy for prayer. 6 (39m 13s): It's like, Lord, I don't have time. I don't want to meet with this guy. Although I felt like I was supposed to meet with the guy. As soon as I'm having this argument with the Lord, I get a text from the guy that I'm supposed to. Hey, are we still praying together? I'm like, of course we're still praying together. Get over here. So, but we have this tendency to resist the good stuff Lord wants to do in our lives. No Lord Peter declared. I've never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean, but the voice spoke again, do not call something unclean. If God has made it clean, the same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven. 6 (39m 55s): Verse four says since everything God created is good. This is back to first Timothy four. Since everything God created is good. We should not reject any of it, but receive it with things where we know it has made acceptable by the, by the word of God and prayer made acceptable by the word of God and prayer. So now we have, I have to think, okay, God has created all of these wonderful things in the world and they're all good. Can we just indulge in anything and everything that God this created. And so we think about this, you know, this, the, the, we have this idea when it comes to food and when it comes to this new legalized thing called marijuana, and we think, well, if it's legal, then it must be okay, but it's clear that we're not to take anything that altered our mind. 6 (40m 49s): The scripture's very clear about this. So these are the guidelines for how we're to enjoy what God has created. We follow the word of God and we enjoy what God has provided for us with prayer. And thanks giving. So can I have anything I desire without measure? Well, let's look at a couple of verses here. You Zeke, you'll see. 1649 says Sodom sins were pride, gluttony and laziness. Well, the poor and needy suffered outside the door. So we know that we're allowed to enjoy everything, everything that God has given to us in the area of food, as long as we're not doing it in excess gluttony, we have to exercise some self control. 6 (41m 30s): So I, I stand up here and I, my gut constantly sucked in because if I don't suck it in, then it shows my Ponch, right. But my Ponch is there because I refuse to exercise. Self-control regarding sweets in my life. And so yesterday my wife said, Hey, would you like a cinnamon roll? And I said, no, I'm not going to eat the cinnamon roll because I just had a snack. I'm not having another snack. So an hour later, she's outside in the garden and I decide it's time for another snack. So I had a cinnamon roll that she made for my birthday because my birthday was just last week. And she made these amazing homemade cinnamon rolls with all of this icing on top. 6 (42m 10s): And then my daughter had, had bought me some, this, these donuts that I enjoyed as well. And then Jolene also had made this Apple pie that was just calling me. So I had donuts and I had Apple pie and I as cinnamon roll. And there was no, no wonder why I wasn't hungry for dinner, but I found a way to get dinner in me as well. It was just this incredible experience. And so that's called the sin of gluttony and I did lose 10 pounds, but I need to lose about 10 more. I, I, I, I think if I lost 10 more, I'd get rid of that gut. I wouldn't have to suck it in everywhere. It's uncomfortable to have to suck in your stuff 4 (42m 48s): Like everywhere. But that's what I gotta do. Cause I'm bill gluttonous. One of the, 6 (42m 56s): The fruit of the spirit of self-control. And I've realized that when I'm like, self-control in one area of my life that tends to spill over into other areas of my life. And so we have to be careful, 4 (43m 5s): Well that we're exercising. Self-control in all areas of our life. Now I know some of you is like, shut up Henry about your gut, right? You're like, I can barely hear 6 (43m 14s): You. See it. Listen. If I took my shirt off, you'd really see it right. Took it off bare chesty to be like, whoop, all of a sudden, there it is. Right. I've never had a gun. So now that I got one, I'm like, 4 (43m 26s): I'm trying to, I'm trying to hide it. That's why I wore these flowery shirts. They kind of nevermind, whatever. 6 (43m 33s): What else does the Bible say about our appetite? Galatians five 19 through 21 says when you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear. Sexual immorality in purity, less skull pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I had before that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom 4 (44m 5s): Of God. So there's 6 (44m 7s): A word in verse 20 that mentioned, it's mentioned it's the word is sorcery. That word is also witchcraft. The Greek word. There is farming KPI, a pharma Kia, depending on how you pronounce it. And it means which 4 (44m 21s): I think what happens is, is when we avail ourselves to the, the unhealthy 6 (44m 33s): Use of drugs in our life, whether we're smoking dope, listen, 5 (44m 36s): The kid smoking dope is my favorite thing to do in the whole world. Why? Because it's a great escape, right? I would smoke. I would get high. I would go to sleep and I'd be out for a few hours. He was great. 6 (44m 48s): But then I realized that God has called us to live a life that we're not meant 5 (44m 54s): To escape from. And 6 (44m 56s): When I realized that over the course of my life, I realized I don't need to run 5 (44m 60s): Toward farming, farm 6 (45m 2s): Makiah. I don't need to run toward drugs. I can run to Jesus and find this stuff that I need. Often we're running to the wrong stuff, whether it be food 5 (45m 12s): Or drugs, 6 (45m 13s): And especially with legalized marijuana. Now I just got back from Colorado about a month or so ago. And 5 (45m 19s): There's, there's dispensaries 6 (45m 21s): All over. Like you can walk in anywhere and get marijuana. It's just a 5 (45m 26s): Early thing. It will wreck your life. I'm just going to tell you it will wreck your life. And just because it's legal in California, doesn't mean that you should be taking it. Anything that is going to alter your mind, whether it be drunkenness or any really any kind of addiction, some are addicted to sex or pornography. Some are addicted to wine. Alcohol, some are addicted to drugs. I know a guy who was addicted to drugs, painkillers for a year, 6 (45m 55s): And I've known this guy for years. And I, I I'm on the phone with him one day. I'm like, dude, are you loaded? Seriously? You sound like you're loaded. And I didn't know that he was loaded, but he was loaded. Right? And it was a wake up call 5 (46m 7s): To him. And he realized 6 (46m 10s): That he was hooked and he needed to get clean from his drugs. And so he's been clean for about the last year, 18 months or so. And you know, what's improved in his life, 5 (46m 19s): Everything right? His, his financial problems got cleared up. Why? Because he stopped spending so much money on drugs because it's black market drugs that he had to get because he couldn't get his doctor to prescribe anymore. His marriage got fixed. His family got fixed because he wasn't jacked up on drugs anymore. His spiritual life got squared away because he wasn't jacked up on drugs anymore. Listen, drugs, 6 (46m 43s): Addictions, all of these things will Jack 5 (46m 46s): You up. 6 (46m 48s): I didn't even realize how jacked up he was until he got off the drugs. When he got off the drugs and he realized, man, my, this is the life Jesus said, I've come that you might have life abundantly. This is you can't enjoy that. If you've 5 (47m 1s): Got an addiction in your life, you just 6 (47m 3s): Can't. You got to get all of the addictions out of your life and trust Jesus in every arena of your life. Addiction is just an escape, right? 5 (47m 14s): It's a way to get some, some help, kind of a counterfeit help and escape. When we're in trouble. God doesn't want that for you. He wants you to be free in Jesus name. And he just want you to be free. He makes the way to freedom possible because he's good. And he's faithful. Somebody told me this morning, I've turned that 12 step program into a two-step program. She said, I decided to quit drinking. And then I quit drinking. 6 (47m 46s): I said, what a great story? You know, we, we run to the wrong stuff. This is the wine capital of like, I mean, there's wine everywhere, right? So we have this temptation to run to all this alcohol and that 5 (47m 58s): Sort of thing. And listen, I'll say wine 6 (48m 0s): In the scripture tends to be spoken of in a positive light. It's a blessing, but drunk. 5 (48m 5s): And this has never spoken of in a POS in a positive light. It's Ephesians five says don't be drunk with wine. They will ruin your life instead. Be filled with the Holy spirit. So if you're drinking to excess, getting yourself drunk, you just need to stop. If you're running into pornography, trying to find fulfillment there by God's grace, she just need to stop. If you're running to drugs, trying to find something to numb your life, God, God, hasn't called us to live a life that we're trying to numb. 6 (48m 39s): He's trained. He's called us to live a life that 5 (48m 41s): We're trying to enjoy by his grace. We can do that. So run from all of those things that are deceptive and destroying your life. Drugs 6 (48m 50s): Bugs that alter our mind or alcohol that alters our minds is not for God's people. So there are some parameters 5 (48m 58s): For the stuff that God has created in 6 (49m 1s): World. Paul told Timothy, if you explain these things to the brothers and sisters, Timothy, you will be a worthy servant of Christ. Jesus. So Timothy's responsibility was to explain this truth to his people. He would be a worthy servant of Christ. Jesus, who, if he did this, who one, who would be one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teachings you have followed. So pastors and Bible teachers actually do. 5 (49m 31s): I don't have a choice, but to teach the whole counsel of 6 (49m 35s): God's word, it would be easier to talk about rainbows and butterflies, but that's not what you want to hear. And that's not what I want to talk about. I don't think you want to talk about rainbows and butterflies. I think we need to hear the word of God, that truth and allow that truth to be, to challenge our lives so that we properly align ourselves with him so that we can abide in him and have him abide in us. James three one says there's actually a stricter judgment for pastors and teachers for teachers of the word of God. We're actually going to stand before the Lord and give them 5 (50m 10s): Account for what we taught. I don't want to be in trouble. 6 (50m 16s): I don't want to be in trouble with God and I don't want to be in trouble with you. So I'm just going to teach God's word to the best of my ability, 5 (50m 23s): Where we need to get challenged and move forward. Amen. Verse 4 (50m 28s): Seven says do not waste time. Arguing over godless ideas and old wives tales. Instead, train yourself have to be godly. Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. So what does godliness look like? Number one, God, Salinas is abiding in God, John 15. Jean says that if we abide in him and he abides in us that we will, we will produce spiritual fruit. Spiritual fruit is eternal. It doesn't have a shelf life. It's always credited to our account. So spiritual fruit is anything that, that impacts the kingdom of God for eternity. 4 (51m 10s): So when people get saved, when we're do a good deed for someone, when we pray for someone, when we love the unlovely, all of those things. When we're allowing the spirit of God and the word of God to come out of us and to bless those around us, we can, you can't actually accomplish anything of spiritual value. Apart from that abiding relationship with Christ, we can do a lot of busy stuff. We can volunteer for Sunday school for 10 hours a week. We can serve in all kinds of small groups. We can greet at the front door. We can write large checks to the church, but none of that stuff actually matters if we're not biting in Christ, right? 4 (51m 52s): Sometimes people write a big check to the church and that substitute that's kind of a substitute for their abiding and their service to Christ. But God has called us to serve him and love him wholeheartedly with all of our time, talent and treasure so that we honor him. And the way that we live our lives abiding in Christ gives us the grace to do all the things that he's called us to do. I was talking with this young couple and we're doing some counseling with them. They're about ready to get married. And, and they used to come to church here, but now they live in Nashville. And so I was doing stuff over zoom and doing some counseling and it got to, you know, we started talking about finances and I went on this rampage about tithing. 4 (52m 38s): I said, Hey, I'm going to talk to you was about tithing because it's really just gonna be foundational to your walk with Jesus. And so I did this whole teaching on tithing and I said, what do you guys think? And they said, Oh yeah, we already give 20%. It was like a total waste of my time and to talk to them about diving. But they're there something about, there's something about trusting God. And we're going to look at that in the next portion, but there's something about trusting God and believing him that comes out of that abiding relationship with him. What does godliness look like abiding with God, number one, number two. What has godliness like obedience to God abiding and obedience? 4 (53m 23s): Obedience is defined the general concept 6 (53m 28s): Of obedience, both in the old and the new Testament relates to hearing or hearkening to a higher authority. So hearing it or hearkening is not just 4 (53m 38s): Hearing, but it's actually hearing and doing it's obeying 6 (53m 42s): One of the Greek terms for obedience in the Bible conveys the idea of positioning oneself, 4 (53m 48s): There, someone by submitting to their authority and, 6 (53m 52s): And another Greek word for obey in the new Testament means to, this'll be surprising to us to trust another word in the new Testament for obey is actually it means to trust. We will never fully obey God. If we don't fully try. 4 (54m 10s): I asked him with our lives, our time talent and our treasure 6 (54m 15s): Measure, according to Holman's illustrated Bible dictionary, a succinct definition of biblical obedience is to hear God's word and act accordingly, to hear and act, to hear and respond, to listen and obey IRD men's Bible dictionary States, shew hearing, or obedience involves the physical hearing that inspires the hearer and a belief or trust that in turn motivates the hearer to act in accordance with the speaker's desire. Thus biblical obedience to God means to hear trust, submit, and surrender 4 (54m 53s): To God and his word. So 6 (54m 56s): Part of godliness has everything to do with obedience. Eight reasons why OBD 4 (55m 2s): Hands to God is important. Let's take a look at these really quick eight reasons. I don't know if they're up on the screen or not, but let's just go for it. 6 (55m 8s): Jesus calls us to obey is number one. What a great reason to obey simply because Jesus has called us to obey. I was talking to pastor Dave earlier. We were talking about baptism and he was having a conversation with the person where the guy about baptism. And he asked the guy, why should you get baptized? And he kept trying to come up with all these theological reasons why you should get baptized. And Dave said, Hey, why can't the answer be? Because Jesus told us to be baptized. I mean, if Jesus asks us to do something, we don't need to jump through all kinds of theological hoops to make our point. We just say, yeah, Jesus told me 4 (55m 42s): To do it. God told me to do it. So I'm going to do it. 6 (55m 44s): Jesus calls us to obey Jesus. John 14, 15 says, if you love 4 (55m 48s): Me, obey my commandments. 6 (55m 51s): Number one, Jesus calls us to obey. Number two. Obedience is an act of worship. Romans 12 tells us to give our whole lives. All of our bodies, everything is an act of worship to the Lord. Obedience is an act of worship, more so than singing and lifting up our hands along the same lines as worshiping. And when we come, come together gathered because what we do when we obey God is we declare that he is God and that he is worthy of our adoration. He is worthy our obedience. And so when we walk out obedience before the game of games were declaring worship before him and say, because you are God and I am not because you are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, I will be obedient to you. 6 (56m 37s): OBT obedience is an act of worship. Number three, God rewards obedience in Genesis 22. God told Abraham, listen, your descendants in the whole world will be blessed because of your obedience. To me, 5 (56m 54s): Obedience is rewarded by God. You'll see it in your life. As you decide, 6 (57m 0s): I'm going to be a person of obedience. Every time the Lord asks me to do something, I'm just going to do it and watch the blessings that the rewards that come your way as a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ it's and it's so much, so much fun. It's more fun than just kind of wrestling with God all the time about everything that he asked you to do. If you just say yes, Lord, not, not Peter, no Lord, no Lord doesn't work. As, as a kingdom follower of the Lord. Jesus Christ. Yes, Lord works every time. Number four obedience to God proves our love. All you have to do is read first and second, John, and you see that there's a direct correlation, a connection between obedience and the love that we say. We have the book of first and second, John clearly explains that obedience to God demonstrates love for God, loving God implies following his command. 6 (57m 48s): So we can't say we love God. If we don't walk obediently in his presence. Number five obedience to God demonstrate 5 (57m 55s): Space. Interesting. Huh? When we open 6 (57m 59s): Bega, we show our trust and faith in 5 (58m 2s): God. It's an, it's a demonstration 6 (58m 6s): Of our faith. We're saying, Lord, I believe you. And so if you're asking me to do this, 5 (58m 11s): I'm going to trust you. I believe it. Lord. 6 (58m 13s): I'm going to, I'm going to demonstrate my faith by saying yes to you. And first John, two, three through six, it says we can be sure that we know him. If we obey his commandments, if someone claims, I know God, but doesn't obey. God's commandments. That person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 (58m 33s): But those who obey 6 (58m 35s): God's word surely show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives. As Jesus did obedience to God demonstrates faith. Number five, number six, obedience is better than sacrifice in the old system. The old covenant old Testament. If somebody said that they would offer a sin, offering an animal sacrifice, but that's not what God was after. That was God's grace extended in that time so that people might be forgiven. 5 (59m 15s): But the scripture 6 (59m 17s): Says obedience is, 5 (59m 19s): Is better than sacrifice. 6 (59m 25s): Obedience is better than the sacrifices 5 (59m 27s): That we offer. New Testament. We, we sin and we say, Lord, forgive me. And then that's a great model. Obviously. That's what God wants us to do. But how about if we just decide we're going to be obedient. Obedience is better than sacrifice. I mean, I don't want it 6 (59m 41s): Offer. I don't want to have to offer. I don't want to have to say forgive me 5 (59m 44s): Lord and said, I just want to walk purely before the King of Kings. Thank God for his mercy 6 (59m 50s): Sanctification means I I'm asking for forgiveness less and less in a sense I'm still sending, but it's not the same old gnarly sins that I used to sin in. Maybe it's sins that are representative of my, my growth in Jesus. We still have to guard against a moral failure. We still have to guard against the pride or the flesh and pride and all of those things. But, but sanctification, meaning that the longer we're walking with Jesus means that we're not doing those same gnarly sins that we used to do, but there's an obedience connected to our 5 (1h 0m 29s): Lives and obedience that honors the Lord and requires us less of us grovelling before the Lord and saying, God, I'm sorry, I've done this a thousand time. There's victory available for us in Jesus. Number seven, disobedience leads to sin and death. The disobedience of Adam brought sin and death into the world. This is the basis of the term original sin, but Christ perfect obedience restores fellowship with God, for everyone who believes in him, Romans five 19 says for as by the one man's disobedience, Adam, the many were made sinners. 5 (1h 1m 12s): So by the one man's obedience Christ, the many will be made righteous in first Corinthians five 22. It says for as Adam, for, as in Adam, all die. So also in Christ shall all be made alive. First Corinthians five 22, number eight through obedience. We experienced the blessing of Holy living. And that's what I'm talking about. There's a blessing connected to Holy living. That is the decision to be obedient. And listen, if you're, if you're jacked up with addiction, you're going to miss out on this blessing. You're going to miss out on his blessing. I don't want you to feel picked on today. I want you to feel like there's hope today. I want you to feel like man, there's hope on the other side of this addiction, whatever it may be. 5 (1h 1m 54s): There's hope maybe you're here today and you're struggling with porn online porn, pretty, pretty pervasive sin in our culture for men and for women. There's a there's art there's software that you can load onto your computer called covenant eyes. That will hold you accountable for what you're watching online. You get an accountability partner and you say, Hey, I want you. And that accountability partner will actually get a report of everything that you read. I looked at online and, and they'll flag things that are inappropriate so that you have one more opportunity to say no to that sin. 5 (1h 2m 43s): So maybe yeah, this online porn or some other kind of sex addiction, maybe it's just an addiction to wine, alcohol drugs. There are paths forward. We have a, an AA program that meets here on Thursday nights for people who are trying to overcome their addiction to drugs. There are Christian based recovery programs that are available in the community for people who want to get free from drugs and alcohol and other types of addiction. So there's steps that can be taken if we will just decide to take it by God's grace and move forward in freedom through obedience, we experienced the blood sings of a Holy life. 5 (1h 3m 26s): What does godliness look like? Number three, discipline disciplined under God, disciplined unto God. Godliness speaks of a disciplined life in word thought and deed, listen, we're all in this journey, carrying our backpacks, moving toward a destination, just to be on the journey requires discipline. You've got to pack your bag and take the stuff that you need to take. You need to put on the armor of God and do what God has called you to do so that you survive the experience and thrive in the experience. It's it's the, the root of the word disciple is discipline. And God has called us to go make disciples of all nations. 5 (1h 4m 8s): He's called us to be disciples and to go make disciples of all nations. And so that means that we must activate discipline in our lives and be disciplined unto God as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And with that activation of discipline in our lives comes victory comes the ability to be obedience comes just joy and speakable and full of glory. Some of us don't even realize what we're missing out on because we keep falling short of the destination. We keep missing what God has for us and we fall short. And so we keep, keep missing out on God's best discipline is what God has for us. If we will move forward in that we will experience godliness like never before. 5 (1h 4m 53s): Let me just wrap up these last few verses and then we'll call, call the worship team back in just a few minutes and we'll stand and worship here. It says, this is a trustworthy saying verse nine and everyone should expect apt it. This is why we work hard and continue to struggle for our hope is in the living God, who is the savior of all people. And particularly of all, believers teach 6 (1h 5m 18s): These things and insist that everyone learned them. Don't let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say in the way you live in your love, your faith and in your purity. I think we have way too low of expectations for young people. That's why I love it. When we've got young people here on the worship team, people, young people greeting young people involved in leadership because obviously Paul had an expectation of this young leader named Timothy. He said, don't let anyone despise you because you're young. Sometimes we, we think, wow, I'm young. It's my time to mess around. 6 (1h 5m 59s): And then I'll get serious with the Lord later on. Don't waste your time falling into that trap. Sometimes though, we, we, when we get old, we fall into that same trap. We say, ah, I'm too old to be doing anything helpful for the kingdom. I'm just going to play golf or do whatever I do and don't get me wrong. I love golf, but not at the expense of the kingdom work that God has called us to do. There's kingdom work that God has called us to do so, whatever your hobbies are, make sure they're in alignment with God's plan for your life. And if you're young or old, make sure God is on the throne of your life. And if you're middle-aged and you're raising kids, you've got all this stuff going on. Make sure Jesus is at the throne is on the throne of your life. He'll make you a better parent and make you a better husband, make you be a better spouse wife to make you a better person in Jesus' name. 6 (1h 6m 44s): Don't let anyone think less of you because you're young. Be an example to all believers in what you say and the way you live and your love, your faith and your purity. Until I get there, focus on reading the scriptures to the church, encouraging to believers and teaching them do not neglect the spiritual gifts you received through the prophecy, spoken over you. When the elders of the church laid their hands on, you gave you your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation, Timothy and the salvation of those who hear you. 6 (1h 7m 24s): What does godliness look like? It looks like a biting obedience and discipline. How's your backpacking trip. How's your journey with that? Let's go ahead and stand up and we're going to invite the worship team forward and we're going to worship some more and just see what the Lord will do as we honor him with our time. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this time. Be glorified. As we sing, be glorified. As we think about ponder and decide what we're going to do with this information, help us to decide to abide and to be obedient and to be disciplined in you in Jesus name 2 (1h 8m 52s): . 2 (1h 13m 27s): Jesus died for me. I see his wounds, his hands, his feet, him down to the edge by heavy stone. 2 (1h 14m 16s): robes, Y blazing shop yeah, blazing C sharp. 2 (1h 16m 28s): And 1 (1h 17m 56s): Just ask you to help us each one of us be obedient in that next step. Like what are you calling us to God? What are you calling us to to give that's that we're trying, maybe we're trying to escape from, from the life that you count on us to leak out. And I just, we should just convict each one of us. If something there's always something we can do to get closer to you. God, just ask really? If I just ask you for that Jesus name. Amen. If you guys, if of you guys want prayer, we always have staff and volunteers up here are willing to pray for you. So come on out, but otherwise, thanks for coming. We'll see you next week.

Without Fear | Easter 2021

0 (0s): Let's all stand. So getting everybody to stand up with me, please. All right, Lord. We are so thankful. So thankful for what you did for us. Some 2000 years ago, Lord, you provided the means for our salvation. We can only say we thank you. And we receive what you provided for us through the cross and through the empty tomb. We honor you today and worship you today. We just want to lift you up so that each one of us, every heart, every person would be touched profoundly touched by the living. God, we are so blessed. We are so thankful. 0 (40s): Thank you for the community of believers that we are today here. Not only at harvest church, but throughout the central coast, we bless you. We love you in Jesus name. And God's people said 2 (2m 58s): then came the morning. 2 (3m 50s): Hey man. 2 (10m 27s): And you're so worthy of our praise and our time. You're worthy of a heart. Thank you so much for this beautiful day to gather, to remember what you've done for us, how you set us free. I pray for every heart here this morning that they would know the love of Jesus. Today. We know that they're not alone. Now that you walk with us all the days of our lives. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for your presence here with us. We thank you for your great love for us. We worship you for who you are. 2 (11m 2s): Jesus, Jesus. 2 (11m 39s): . 2 (17m 47s): I had this reoccurring fear that we're going to hold a service like this, 3 (17m 50s): And nobody's going to show up. So thanks her not making that fear a reality. So a quick joke, we go, before you sit down quick drug, before you sit down, sorry, Jewish rabbi confesses to his wife. He said, I sold the family burial too. He said, how could you sell the family burial to I plan to be buried there with you in the family. What are you doing? What are we going to do? He said, she said, how did, who did you sell that to him too? He said, well, this guy named Jesus, the good news. He only needs it for a few days. 3 (18m 27s): we prayed for good weather. And here it is. We're so grateful. Thanks Perry. We titled the whole events today without fear where we just believe that God would call us and would challenge us to live our lives. Without fear. You guys are proving that that is your goal as well as you are here today. God wants us to live. He wants the people to live without fear. So welcome. God bless you. It was early on Sunday morning as the new day was dawning Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb and the women had encountered, had an encounter with an angel and then shortly thereafter, the enemy encounter with the living God with Jesus, the Lord, both the angel of the Lord, both of them said the angel of the Lord and Jesus, the Lord. 3 (19m 30s): I said, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid is handled. Jesus has it under control. He's risen from the dead. Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, the resurrection. It means that Jesus is who he said he is who he said he was. He is God. He is the Messiah. He is the savior of the world. He's the only way to have it with that. Let's take a moment and we'll pray and we'll continue with the message. Lord Jesus. We are so grateful for your presence here. I pray. 3 (20m 10s): We pray together. God, that you would remind us of the reason that we're gathered, that we would be so built up encouraged with the truth of the resurrection. God that we would leave today with a better under it standing greater clarity around the resurrection. God, we invite you to speak to us personally and corporately to God that she would do what all you can do, minister to every soul that gathers not only here, but all over the central coast, wherever people are gathered. We prayed that she'd be ministering speaking and moving. So Lord, we thank you for your presence. We love you. 3 (20m 51s): Thank you that you're alive in Jesus name. Amen. Jesus is who he said he is who he said he was, he is faithful. He was dead. And now he is alive. So we celebrate the whole world celebrates. I remember after a baseball, when, when I was a little guy, we went down after baseball. When we'd all jump into the back of the truck. Remember those days, when you get pilots in the back of the coach's truck and head to foster freeze and get ice cream, that was the deal. We would celebrate the win by piling in going down the freeway. And everybody's just kind of blowing in the wind, but we would celebrate with some ice cream, right at the end of a good season in any sport, we would gather for food at a pizza place and we'd celebrate with awards and all kinds of fun to celebrate the end of a season. 3 (21m 42s): When my kids were growing up, we had some forged banquets that we gathered for hundreds of people gathered for spores, paved, wins, and celebrate the coaches and the teams. The players. There's always a celebration. And we remember all of the celebrations in our lives, but sometimes we forget the work and effort. It took to get to the celebration. There's a ton of work going into the celebration, the end result, which that allows us to celebrate. So today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but we will also reflect on a few other things. We will answer five questions today. Here are the questions. Number one. What did Jesus accomplish before the resurrection? 3 (22m 26s): Number two, why was Jesus put to death? Number three. Why was the resurrection necessary? Number four. Why is the resurrection celebrated? The number five? What do we do with this? Jesus? What do we do with Jesus? Number one, what did Jesus accomplished before the resurrection? Jesus offered himself as a sin offering for the whole world. Jesus was born. He lived and died to call people to God and to offer his life as a ransom. 3 (23m 8s): For many out of this happen, you might ask, well, there's a word that we use. It's called the incarnation. It literally incarnation means literally to put on flesh. And this is exactly what Jesus did. And the Lord Jesus who was fully God took on flesh and was born as a baby. We celebrate his birthday, Christmas. He was raised in a family with 4 (23m 31s): Parents and siblings and responsibilities and all of the normal challenges of life, except he was without sin. If you raise kids, you know that no kid is without fault without sin. Jesus was perfect. He never sinned. Maybe that word sinned is new to you, that word sin. What does that mean to you? Sin basically means to miss the Mark, to miss the Mark. So recently this last Thursday, I started well a couple of weeks ago, I started running again for the first time in probably the last year and a half. My knees were hurting. And so 5 (24m 9s): I stopped running for the last year and a half and 4 (24m 12s): Somebody prayed for my knees and I started running again. So there you have it that God is still a healer today. So I get running and my goal is to run a mile and a half. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but if you haven't been running for the last couple of years, it's a big deal. My lungs and legs and heart were screaming at me. And so I only made it about a mile out before I stopped. I'm going to build and I will get to the mile and a half Mark. But in this scenario on Thursday, I missed the Mark. I sinned as it were not in a spiritual sense, but to define the word sin, it means to miss the Mark. So my Mark was the mile and a half marker. 5 (24m 54s): I made it to a mile. 4 (24m 56s): So that is essentially what it means to miss the Mark to sin in that way, God has a Mark. Did you realize that God has a Mark? He has expectations for humanity. For instance, God said an exit is 2016. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. What does it mean to bear false witness? It means to lie, right? So God is essentially saying, thou shall not. You should never lie. So when we lie, even when it's a small white lie, when we lie, we have missed the Mark. And the Bible is full of expectations 5 (25m 32s): That God has for us. The 10 commandments, this is the ninth commandment, but there's nine others. And 4 (25m 39s): So a whole 66 books of the Bible where God has expectations for his people. So one of the marks is that we would be 5 (25m 48s): That we would never lie. Any anybody ever lie once in their life? Okay. I would say most of us are probably 4 (25m 55s): Fudge the truth. Just a little bit told a little white lie. So if that's you, then you have missed the Mark and you have sinned. As the Bible says, the wages of sin is death. The penalty, the payment for sin is death, but the free gift 5 (26m 8s): Of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Our Lord. 4 (26m 12s): So imagine Jesus through all of his life, 5 (26m 16s): Including his adolescent years imagined that he never sinned. He never broke the laws of God. He was perfect. 4 (26m 24s): Peter tells us in first, Peter, two 22, speaking of Jesus, he said he never sinned nor ever deceived anyone for the rest of us. Romans three 23 says for everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious 5 (26m 42s): Standard. Every single one 4 (26m 44s): Of us, Romans five six says when we were utterly helpless, lost in our sin, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. So what did Jesus accomplish before the resurrection? Jesus offered himself as a sin offering whole world. He was born. He lived, lived and died to call people to God, into offers life as a ransom for many Romans six 23. Again for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. Our Lord Jesus was born and his whole purpose in, in being born was to die, to die for the sins of man kind. 4 (27m 27s): Matthew 2028 says speaking of himself, Jesus said for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a writer. Awesome for Manny again, Jesus was, he lived and died to call people to God and to offer his life as a ransom for many number two, why was Jesus put to death? We've been touching on it. It's because of sin because of sin and the world. Jesus took the sins of the world upon himself. So that those who accept his sacrifice might be forgiven of their sins. The ancient prophet, Isaiah, yeah. Called the Shakespeare of Hebrew literature was a poet who understood the two sided nature of God's character. 4 (28m 15s): There is mercy, but then also judgments. There was grace, but also discipline justice, but also forgiveness, exile, and also salvation. Isaiah wrote prophetically 700 years before Christ was born. 700 years before Jesus was born, lived, died and resurrected from the dead. And he wrote 700 years in advance. What would happen to the Messiah? This is what Isaiah wrote about the savior of the world. Isaiah 53, speaking of Jesus, it says this who has believed our message to whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm. 4 (28m 58s): My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance. Nothing to attract us to him. He was wised and rejected. A man of sorrows acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised and we did not care yet. It was our weaknesses. He cares. It was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God at punishment for his own sins. But he was pierced for our rebellion. He was crushed for our sins. 4 (29m 40s): He was beaten. We could be made whole, he was whipped so we could be healed. All of us like sheep have straight away. We have left God's path to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him, the sins of us, all, he was oppressed and treated harshly yet. He never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep, as silent before 5 (30m 7s): The year is he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned. He was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants that his life was cut short and midstream, but he was struck down for the, for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong. He had never deceived anyone, but he was buried like a criminal. He was put in a rich man's grave, but it was the Lord's good plan to crush him and cause him grief yet. 4 (30m 38s): When his life has made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life. And the Lord's good plan will prosper in his hands. 5 (30m 50s): When he sees all that as accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant 4 (30m 56s): Will make it possible for many to be counted righteous 5 (30m 60s): For. He will bear all their sins. Verse 12. I will give him the honors of the victorious soldier because he exposed himself to death. 4 (31m 10s): He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins, 5 (31m 13s): Eddie and interceded for rebels. Why was Jesus put to death? Because the penalty for sin is death. Jesus took my sin. He took our sin upon himself. So that those who accept so that we might accept his sacrifice and be forgiven of our sins. Why was the resurrection necessary? Number three, why was the resurrection necessary? The resurrection demonstrates that 4 (31m 48s): Everything he said is true. He told his followers I will be killed. And then on the third day I will be resurrected. Jesus told his disciples that he would die, but on the third day he would rise again. The resurrection proves that Jesus is who he said he is and who he said he was Dr. Jamie David. Jeremiah wrote scripture tells us that we are 5 (32m 13s): Separated from God because he is Holy. He is Holy and we are not. 4 (32m 18s): We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We read about that. Romans three 23, we cannot measure up to his standard and we cannot go to heaven in our own imperfection, but all mighty God devised a plan, a plan of redemption. He would send his only son, Jesus Christ to this world to live a perfect life. And he would ultimately go to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. Some wonder, how could one man do that? And the answer is no mere man could, but this man was the son of God. He was God in the flesh. And only through him, can we come to God, 5 (32m 59s): Fully justified? 4 (33m 1s): Jesus Christ himself said, I am 5 (33m 3s): The way the truth and the life. 4 (33m 6s): And no man comes to the father except 5 (33m 8s): Through me. Dr. David David, Jeremiah continues only by placing our trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins. Can we go to 4 (33m 17s): Heaven? And because Jesus Christ came back from the grave, demonstrating the reality of his words and the truthfulness of his statements. 5 (33m 26s): No, that his words are true. Now we know why the resurrection of Jesus Christ was necessary. His whole reputation was, 4 (33m 39s): Was counting on this resurrection. If he did not resurrect from the dead, 5 (33m 44s): Everything that he said was a lie and not worth following, but he did. 4 (33m 49s): So with that number four, why is the resurrection celebrated? Why do we celebrate the resurrection? Well, the resurrection represents new life for each and every one of us who would welcome Jesus into our lives to have our sins forgiven and to be welcomed into the family of God. It represents new life, new hope, new purpose, new promise in Jesus. The resurrection proves that Jesus is who he claimed to be. So we celebrate the resurrection 2000 years later because people for 2000 5 (34m 26s): And years have been trusting that resurrection I've been trusting that name. They've been putting their trust in the living God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. 4 (34m 37s): They've been trusting Jesus for the salvation of their souls, broken people, people who desperately needed forgiveness of their sins, good people who also recognize 5 (34m 48s): Guys that they needed the grace of the Lord. Jesus Christ. 4 (34m 51s): Good. The bad, the ugly, everybody in between people who need Jesus, 5 (34m 56s): The Hammond find forgiveness there. 4 (35m 0s): Celebrate the resurrection because 2000 years ago, Jesus made the only way possible to heaven. And people have been trusting Jesus for their salvation. 5 (35m 9s): Ever since let's read the 4 (35m 10s): Biblical account in Matthew chapter 28 verses one through 10, it says early on Sunday morning 5 (35m 16s): As the new day was dawning 4 (35m 18s): Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord, came down from having imagined the scene, a large earthquake because an angel of the Lord came down from heaven. He rolled aside the stone and sat on it. His face shown 5 (35m 35s): Lightening and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him and they fell into a dead faint. Then the angel spoke to the women. Don't be afraid. He said, I know you're looking for Jesus who was crucified. He isn't here. He has risen from the dead just as he said, what happened, come and see where his body was lying. And now go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you in the women ran quickly from the tomb. 5 (36m 17s): Imagine though they're their emotion, their, what they're experiencing. As they went to go visit the tomb and they realized that Jesus is resurrected. The women ran quickly from the tomb verse eight. They were very frightened, but also filled with great joy. And they rushed to give the disciples, the angels message. And as they went, Jesus met them. I love that statement because I've experienced that in my own life. Jesus meeting me in my desperate time of need being faithful to me when I'm not his faithfulness being good to me when I'm not worthy of his goodness, Jesus met them. 5 (37m 8s): He met them and greeted them. This is what Jesus wants to do with each. And every one of us, he wants to meet us and greet us and then give us a message. They ran to him, grasp his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee. And they will see me there. So the angel of the Lord spoke to the women. Don't be afraid. Jesus met them, greeted them and gave them the same message. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Jesus is alive. He's well, he's present with us. 5 (37m 48s): I'm declaring to you today that we are to be without fear in Jesus' name. Jesus died for our sins. Jesus made the way to heaven. Jesus 6 (38m 0s): Loves you. Jesus loves you. 5 (38m 6s): Jesus is faithful. 6 (38m 11s): So 5 (38m 12s): With all of the information that we've gathered this morning, what did we do with this Jesus? What did we do with Jesus? 6 (38m 24s): I heard Marie. Remember when I was in middle school, 5 (38m 28s): It was confronted with the gospel. The good news that for whatever reason, because he decided to not because I was good, but Jesus, he loves me. I was confronted with that revelation that Jesus loves me and that he wanted to forgive my sins, that he had a good plan for my life. That he wanted to be a part of my life. I remember being broken. It's just a young guy being broken by that revelation, that information, that truth that I knew, God was speaking 6 (38m 58s): To me. What do we do with Jesus? I want to encourage you. Don't be 5 (39m 5s): Afraid. Welcome him into your life. Jesus came that we might have life and life abundantly. He loves you. And no matter what you've done or on the other side of things, no matter how good you think you might be, you need Jesus. And by his grace, he welcomes you. Some are afraid. Some here are afraid to follow Jesus. Maybe you've tried and it hasn't worked out. I would just tell you, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to follow Jesus. Some are afraid of what others might think. 5 (39m 46s): If you started following Jesus, don't let the fear of man keep you from following Jesus. Some are afraid of what Jesus might expect. Trust me, whatever Jesus expects. The blessings on, on the other side of following Jesus is so out ways. The, the expectation that Jesus might have, Jesus said, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. 6 (40m 15s): What do we do with Jesus? 5 (40m 17s): Can I encourage you and invite you to give your life to Jesus? We're going to have a baptism. Baptism is a time when people who have decided to believe and follow Jesus, make a public declaration of their faith. They're saying to the world, to everybody who will witness to God into the world, I am a follower of the Lord. Jesus Christ. 6 (40m 42s): There's an opportunity 5 (40m 42s): To be baptized today. We've got a handful of people. Who've committed to be baptized ahead of time. But if you're here today and you have given your life to Jesus or want to give your life to Jesus and you want to get baptized, that I'm gonna encourage you. After we pray to go back to the tent behind me and we'll have a t-shirt and change of clothes for you, and you'll have the opportunity to be baptized with that. Let's go ahead and bow our heads in prayer and do some business with the Lord. Lord Jesus. We 6 (41m 17s): Are so 5 (41m 20s): Humbled by your presence. God, we're so humbled by your goodness. You gotta know that you've been speaking to people like you spoke to my heart so many years ago. And I thank you for that. Listen, if you're here today with everybody's eyes still closed, as we continue to pray, if you would like to receive Jesus as your Lord, you simply do this. You tell God you need him. You say, Lord, I need you. I need you to forgive my sins. I need you to come into my life. I need your love. I need your grace. 5 (42m 1s): I need your mercy. And as you humbly acknowledge your need to the living, God did Jesus. The Lord. He will come into your life and forgive your sins. He will adopt you into his family and make you his own. So Lord, I pray that as people make that decision today that it would stick and that those people would be bold to follow you all the days of their lives. Thank you for your amazing grace. We love you Lord in Jesus name. Amen. So if you'd like to get baptized, let's go ahead and stand up. We're going to worship some more as we stand up. If you'd like to be baptized, make your way to the baptism tent directly behind the platform and we will get you prepared for baptism. 5 (42m 48s): In the meantime, we will sing some songs, continue to worship the Lord. 0 (1h 1m 38s): What a celebration this morning. Thank you so much for joining us search. We're so glad that you were here with us this morning. We just want to take a moment and just pray as we close this service, would you bow your heads with me, Lord, we love you. Would you just seal upon our hearts, all that has been done here today? God, would you just draw hearts unto yourself? And would you cause us to be a reflection of your love to a dying hurting world around us that is so in need. And I pray that you would help us to walk without fear into this week ahead that we lean into you for strength, for guidance, for everything that we need, Lord, that you care for us so much, you know, the hairs on head and you know, every anxious thought. 0 (1h 2m 21s): And so we look to Jesus for all that. We have Nita. Thank you for coming. Thank you for living and dying and rising again that we could be free. So we celebrate you Jesus. This morning, we give you our hearts and all of our things in his precious and Holy name. Amen. Amen. Amen church. Well, that song that we close with, it's called walk without fear. And that's our special gift to you this morning. We have a recording of it available on iTunes on Spotify, and you can find the lyric video on YouTube. So I hope that you look that up. You can hop on our church website to find all those links, but it's just our gift to you that you could carry the stay with you forward and walk without fear. 0 (1h 3m 2s): So we're going to have that lyric video playing after service. But before we wrap up, we have some special announcements from our kids director. Leslie is going to tell us about the Easter egg hunt. So don't go far. If you've got, kids are gonna want to stick around for, this is my mind. We have our Easter egg hunts going on right now, right after service. They're going to begin in just a few minutes. So if you have kiddos between the ages of zero and 10 years old, we have a hunt for four to 10 year old in the first area. You'll see a balloon arch that's orange and yellow and white. You'll see that on the right side, down the driveway. So if you have a four to 10 year old, go ahead and go down there. If you have a birth to three-year-old, you're going to continue past that one. 0 (1h 3m 43s): You're going to see a second balloon arch on your right. And that's where you're going to go for those kiddos. So, all right. Happy Easter, everyone you're dismissed. 2 (1h 4m 1s): We didn't do food. 2 (1h 4m 18s): hi. 2 (1h 6m 38s): Oh me. Yeah. Now I see .