Are You Prepared for Jesus’ Return [Today’s Choices Matter]

well hello church we get to worship even on a holiday weekend hallelujah you know we got the notion of a holiday right it's a contraction of holy day i'm not making this stuff up so every weekend we have a holiday to celebrate our lord you don't sound convinced we read a passage last night where uh nehemiah helped to re-implement the feast of tabernacles a seven-day holiday for the jewish people they celebrated right in fact they're celebrating now but that for when nehemiah brought it back with the help of ezra for seven days they gathered in public for half the day to read the scripture aloud i think you could sell that to your kids as a week's vacation i think you could sell it to one another holidays are it's a privilege to be with you we are so thankful i don't ever want to take that for granted again we did for many many years and we forfeited that and we had a short reminder of the value that comes from being in the midst of god's people and i am honored to be with you if you're still joining us digitally you you need community whether you can make it to our campus or not you you will not maintain your strength that you will need for the season ahead unless you have a community of believers around you at least in my opinion hallelujah we are not passing offering plates yet but we've been praying every service because an offertory prayer for a very intentional purpose as a reminder that god is the one who secures our future we live in a very uncertain time i understand the messaging that the economy is as good as it's ever been that all the leading indicators are wonderful but there's nothing to be concerned about those same voices said afghanistan was a rousing success and i assure you that our economy cannot ensure our future not the strength of the dollar nor the federal reserve only god can do that but he is well able and in giving in the practice of generosity it's a way that we learn to trust the lord it's exercising a portion of your faith has very little to do with church budgets or the needs of community the practice of generosity from a biblical perspective is to help us establish in our hearts to to learn to trust god that he is our source that he can deliver us from the brick pits of egypt and into a an empty wilderness and meet every need that we have you know it's easy to say amen to that but we've lived with such abundance and such um so much stability that we really haven't had to trust the lord we could make our life plans and the only time we would cry out to the lord is if our plans get interrupted for the majority of the world it's impossible to plan because they lived in so much instability and god is teaching us a bit about trusting him in some new ways so for that reason we've been praying at every service i thank you for your generosity you've made it possible for us not only to continue our ministry but in many ways to expand it through this season i thank you for that i feel like today we ought to pray for the the people that have suffered because of ida the hurricane started in our gulf coast but it went all the way through new york i mean it uh a path of destruction across our nation on the other coast there are wildfires there are just challenges everywhere we look aren't there people suffering you know if we watch that just casually we miss the opportunity to stand with him so if you'll stand we're going to pray whichever sanctuary you're in if you're joining us online you can stand right there i know you're comfortable you got your computer in your lap and your coffee but what a privilege to pray with you you better tell the person next to you i'm glad i can pray with you don't touch them or hug them or kiss them just turn okay we're not back that far just yet okay wow how quickly ah it's a privilege to pray together lord thank you for your people lord their prayers rise before you and you give attention to them and we thank you for that lord i thank you for the freedoms we have the freedoms to worship together to stand in the public square and acknowledge jesus as lord you have blessed us in so many many ways lord forgive us when we fail to acknowledge that or recognize it we pause today to acknowledge you are the source of all that we have lord we have not made ourselves wealthy or made ourselves affluent or made ourselves successful you have done that and we thank you for it today lord we pause this morning to stand in agreement to pray for those who have been affected by the storms or the fires or the threats in our nation from the gulf coast to the east coast lord i ask you to intervene that you'll open the pathways where resources and supplies are needed that nothing will impede them that they will be delivered with ahead of schedule and in abundance lord that where there are needs that have been overlooked that you'll bring them to the attention of those who have the authority and the resources to bring resolution lord for those who have lost much i pray that you would comfort them that that there would be an encouragement that would begin in their heart that is greater than any loss they have experienced i thank you for your faithfulness lord only you can secure our future but you are well able and we stand this morning in your presence to acknowledge you of lord of all lord of our hearts lord of our lives lord of our nation we look to you to establish us to keep us we praise you for your faithfulness today in jesus name amen hallelujah you may have a seat you should have received an outline when you came in most of the scriptures we will use are included there if you're joining us on one of the digital platforms you can download those outlines from the website or from the app it'll help you follow along i want to continue with theme we began with a previous session talking about jesus return and i'm really posing a question are you prepared for that i believe we are approaching the end of the age i don't have a timeline in the sense that i'm not prepared to tell you months or weeks i'm not particularly trusting of anyone who does but it seems there is abundant evidence from scripture in the world around us that we are approaching the end of this age and the question the to me the most pivotal question around that event has to do with your preparation and i've been a part of the church most of my adult life and i think evangelical america has done us a bit of a disservice and i'm a part of that so i'm not throwing stones but we've had such a disproportionate focus on our entry into the kingdom of god that we've had really little interest beyond that and i'm an enormous advocate for helping people enter the kingdom of god the new birth to be born again to be saved to be converted to understand that through the blood of jesus and the acknowledgement of jesus is lord of your life your sins can be forgiven you can have a new future that no matter what your past is no matter what force of darkness stands in authority over your life today that through the shed blood of jesus if you will acknowledge jesus of nazareth as lord of your life you can be set free and forgiven and with that the bible describes a supernatural event that takes place in your life it's called the new birth jesus said himself in john 3 that no one would enter the kingdom of god no matter what family you're born to no matter what race no matter what religion you adhere to adherence to a religion is not adequate you have to experience a new birth he said you have to be born of water and of the spirit but once you've been born into the kingdom of god your work isn't done i think we lose sight of that you know if we went to the hospital this morning and we looked through the glass at all the new births from the weekend i think we all understand intuitively that if we left those children to themselves even if they're perfect 10 fingers 10 toes everything works they're capable of making noise and making a mess everything's functional but if you walked away from them the outcome wouldn't be good but if we left them to their own devices if they didn't mature if they didn't grow if they weren't trained if they weren't disciplined if they weren't instructed that the outcome would not be good well the same is true for us spiritually in the same way that we have to grow and be disciplined and trained and learn physically we have to grow and be trained and learn spiritually so i come back to the question do you imagine that you're ready for the lord's return and we really need more than opinions well i think so i hope so i'd like to be i wish i were i've been baptized i come to church regularly you know you can sit in church and miss the kingdom of god you can be a pastor and miss the kingdom of god it's not about titles or positions or locations it has to do with the person of jesus and your relationship with him but that comes beyond just a birth announcement it's more than just a birth certificate and so that's that's the topic of this this little study we're doing and uh for this session i want to talk specifically about how your choices today matter i'm grateful for your history you know typically if we talk about jesus return we think of prophecy in the book of revelation and we break out our charts what's going to happen when right and our our primary question typically is once you think you're a part of the kingdom of god when are we getting out of here right because we went out on the first load up we don't want to see the trouble we don't want to smell the trouble we don't want to think about the trouble we want to go well i have bad news i don't have a chart i don't i don't even have one in my office because every time i build it i rearrange it but i'm happy for people with charge they have such certainty with their charts i'm not opposed to that but the reality is i can make a pretty convincing argument for several arrangements of the chart from scripture what i can tell you that the bible counsels us is to be prepared and so that's going to be the focus of this and i'll start with this notion it's kind of a cautionary little bit of a yellow light there are some things the scripture has told us that we need to have incorporated into our portfolio it's a warning if you will so that we don't overlook it some of them come directly from jesus some of them are a part of the the council that's been given to god's people through all the ages we'll start in matthew 23 jesus is speaking to the the leaders of his generation it's a lengthy passage i just cut out a couple of verses it's a it's a sample that is representative it's a much harsher discourse than these two verses reflect it's matthew 23 and verse 16. jesus said woe to you blind guides you say if anyone swears by the temple it means nothing but if anybody swears by the gold of the temple he's bound by his oath you blind fools which is greater the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred we can answer that question right i think the temple holds more authority than the furniture in it right it's it's location in the temple is what adds significance to it it's the words jesus is using to describe the leaders of his day i mean they carry religious labels but don't misunderstand they are the political leaders in israel and jesus says to them you're blind gods you're blind fools pretty harsh words his disciples take him aside when he gets done with the discourse and he said did you know you offended them can you imagine asking jesus if he had a connection with his audience were you clueless lord no no i was paying attention really in fact they get angry enough eventually they orchestrate his execution what i want to call your attention to is the fact that jesus engaged the events of his day he didn't come with a theoretical presentation of faith he talked to the people about what was happening in their world he would heal on the sabbath even though he knew it caused tremendous turmoil in the establishment of his day they would watch him to see which one of the the rules of the day he would transgress it's impossible to separate jesus message from the events that he was engaged in in his life i tell you that because i think there's some concern in contemporary christianum in our nation whether or not our faith should have any impact or any reflect in any way current events around us now we can't capitulate to current events we have a biblical standard and a biblical rule that we follow but the current events are relevant because the condition of our culture is directly related to the health and the vitality of the church the church is called to be salt and light and if we gather and study our bibles without awareness of the world around us we are exactly what jesus accused the leaders of his day of being we're blind guides because we have a theory but we have no understanding of how it interacts with the world that we see it's we're walking through an extraordinary time a time like i have never experienced in my life it was introduced to us with a pandemic that came from wuhan china but it's continued and had been extrapolated far beyond that at this point we're still struggling with the impact of that virus it's impacting our lives on a daily basis we're tired of it but the good news is god has intervened in the midst of this he spared the lives of countless hundreds of thousands of people that we were told wouldn't survive and in the midst of that he's awakening his church in ways we've never been awakened before prior to coven excuse me prior to coven we were pretty happy we were rocking along we were doing pretty well our kids were in school our life plans were working we were relatively content and then god began to shake us and everything's been turned upside down they said if you go home for two weeks you'll be good to go either they were confused or misleading it's not certain to me exactly at this point but we've needed more than two weeks but the confusion continues we've watched in recent days as we have abandoned our own citizens in afghanistan it's unprecedented in most respects that hundreds of us we just walked away from them not because there weren't options we chose the option to abandon them now as distressful as that is even more distressing and a far greater concern to me in fact is probably of greater concern to me than anything i have seen since we first heard about covet has been the refusal on behalf of our nation to accept responsibility for what happened to go to the podium in place after place organization after organization and institution after institution and celebrate the greatest evacuation in human history to be honest is terrifying to me and it i it's caused me to pray in new ways this is and please don't imagine this is about a person or a party because this is far greater than that this involves enormous blocks of our government the state department the intelligence communities the the leaders of our military this is far more than an individual please don't be angry at an individual this is indicative of the heart of our nation this is indicative of our character it's what causes me such distress that if we don't like the outcome of our reality we just won't talk about it we'll turn our heads and look another way and make up a story that makes us feel better about ourselves folks we have to have a change of heart this isn't about the people that are elected if we if we have a change of heart we'll elect different people if we have a change of heart we won't tolerate moral corruption at the deepest levels of our government it is worth noting those same people are telling us our economy is wonderful so i hope you understand that god is the only one who can secure our future just in the same way that jesus looked at the world around him and tried to bring alignment with a biblical perspective i think the church has that assignment as well it's uncomfortable i think most of us would rather not think about it we'd rather just focus on what we're doing and imagine that the next election will fix it but the elections won't fix it it's only a change of our hearts that will fix it again the question is are we prepared for the return of the lord i'll add to that one other caution we've been given and that's that history really does matter the good chapters and the bad chapters they're a part of our story and we learn from them in deuteronomy 6 and verse 10 this is the exodus generation those people that began as slaves in egypt hundreds of years as slaves they have no personal inventory of freedom or liberty moses walks in and says pack up we're leaving and through the most remarkable series of events the plagues that are visited on the egyptians the power of god demonstrated on their behalf until ultimately they're released they walk through the red sea that's parted they're drinking water in a desert that god provided and eating food that god provided and moses begins to give them instructions they haven't been a people they've never been a nation they don't know autonomy they don't know how to live so they begin god goes picks up the heavy task of giving them a social order these are the rules you'll live by it's what makes those books of deuteronomy and numbers and leviticus sometimes seem a drudgery god is putting the boundaries in place that will keep his people this is what holiness looks like this is what purity will look like this is what worship might look like you're gonna need a tabernacle i'll i'll identify some priests there's some special characteristics that will be required of them there's some behaviors that will be expected of you because i'm a holy god it's such a remarkable remarkable body of work that it has shaped western civilization millennia later well in deuteronomy moses is talking to the people about what happens when they come into the promised land the reason they left egypt was to go into a promised land and he's giving them some instructions when the lord your god brings you into the land he swore to your fathers to abraham isaac and jacob to give you it's a land with large flourishing cities that you didn't build there'll be houses filled with all kinds of good things that you didn't provide wells you didn't dig and vineyards and olive groves you didn't plant but when you eat and are satisfied be careful that you don't forget the lord who brought you out of egypt out of the land of slavery he said when god blesses you when you're affluent and your children are imagining an inheritance and you're imagining the security of your grandchildren he said don't forget that god's the one that did this now if he's giving him that warning it's because our tendency is to forget that god's the one that did this that is the story of scripture from the book of genesis through the book of revelation that we forget what god has done for us we drift and god in his mercy and grace disciplines us and brings us back to center and he's saying don't forget what god has done for you we're a generation who has forgot that it was the blessing of god that brought us freedom and liberty and independence because we forgot that we didn't mind that jesus name was removed from the public square we didn't mind that our children weren't taught about our faith in the public schools we conceded the point looks there is no freedom and liberty apart from god's truth there's nothing on planet earth that suggests human beings will work together for the common good it's god's intervention in a human heart that writes a different future for us that's the message of the church it's what we call good news the gospel it's why we're advocates for jesus why we encourage people to yield to him it's awkward for us it's easier for us to imagine that darkness is the problem that the politician you don't like or the party you don't support is the one that's wreaking the havoc but the truth is it's the weakness of the church again the question are we prepared for the lord's return there's a third warning we're given it's in deuteronomy as well helping god's people be prepared for what's ahead of them and it has to do with god's gifts in our lives chapter 9 verse 4 after the lord god has driven them out before you don't say to yourself the lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness no it's on account of the wickedness of these nations that the lord is going to drive them out before you it's not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you're going to take possession of their land but on account of the wickedness of these nations the lord god will drive them out before you to accomplish what he swore to your fathers understand then that it's not because of your righteousness that the lord your god is do you do you think moses has a problem with repeating himself or do you imagine that the idea is the people will have a hard time holding on to the idea three times he said it's not your righteousness this is not because of you it's not because you are so special or so clever in fact he closes by saying you're a stiff-necked people not a bad prayer for us lord we're stiff-necked people help us lord we are arrogant and prideful we've imagined we've done this we've apologized for you for so long we've lost the imagination what it would look like to stand up for your truth we'd rather be liked by others than approved by you god forgive us folks it's not our righteousness we haven't made ourselves free we won't make ourselves treat one another well it's only the power of god from within us that can do that one more warning this is jesus matthew 24. matthew 24 is jesus most lengthy prophetic discourse it's actually matthew's chapter 24 and 25. it's initiated by a couple of questions asked by the disciples what will be the signs of the end of the age and your return and in chapter 24 he gives them a rather lengthy list of signs that will take place in the earth and then in matthew chapter 25 he begins to use parables to tell them what the world will be like and what they'll need to do to be prepared before he comes back these are the covenant people of god they celebrate the right holidays they eat the right foods they drink the right beverages they're doing everything right but jesus tells them what they'll need to do to be prepared we should listen in matthew 24 he says therefore keep watch because you don't know on what day your lord will come but understand this you see if your choices of today make no difference you don't have to keep watching if you've got all your god business done and there's no decisions to be made and there's what you do today has no bearing on your eternity you don't have to keep watch again i understand i'm not asking you to be frightened about your salvation i don't want to diminish the trust or the confidence you have in your future in eternity neither do i want you to live presumptively so i'm going to ask you to listen to jesus and not just listen to the ideas that you've held so sacredly jesus said therefore keep watch because you don't know on what day your lord will come but understand this if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming he would have kept watch and wouldn't have let his house be broken into so you also must be ready because the son of man will come in an hour when you don't expect him so it's not like you can just have eternal preparation that requires no thought jesus said keep watch you don't know when i'm returning and you have to be ready now he's got my attention what's readiness look like he tells the parable at the beginning of chapter 25 we looked at it in the previous session about the the virgins awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom there were ten of them the bridegroom was delayed and five were ready and five weren't and the five that were prepared went in and the five who weren't weren't present when the door was opened and the door was sealed and they weren't welcomed they were anticipating the arrival of the bridegroom they had been invited to participate when he arrived everything was prepared except their own readiness and because of that they forfeited that window we're going to look in a minute at the parable that follows that keep watch god has given us gifts he has blessed our lives we can't afford to lose sight of that he's kept us generation upon generation upon generation because we have kept him if our children and grandchildren are to know the freedoms and the liberties that define our lives it will because it be because this generation chooses to honor the lord that outcome isn't clear yet there's a battle underway in the earth its origins are spiritual but it's being played out in the international arena what's happening in afghanistan is the it's an alarm sounding that there's a shift taking place we've seen it that before a couple of administrations ago was the most islamic friendly administration we had in the history of our nation our president went to cairo and made a speech at the university was that it was the seat of the muslim brotherhood celebrating the contributions of islam to our world that that speech was recognized as really being what ignited gave rise to what at the time was rather euphemistically known as the arab spring with the promise of freedom and liberties in the muslim world that they hadn't known before that women would be given more privileges and rights they'd be treated less like cattle but the promise of the arab spring pretty quickly turned into revolution upon revolution and it ended up with the expansion of iranian authority over the middle east and north africa and a more violent a more radical extreme of islam than we had seen previously that was culminated at the end of that administration with an airplane filled with multiplied billions of dollars delivered to iran we had a change of administration and a a gradual change of policy again it's about more than individuals we saw a shift in the middle east a shift away from iranian authority over the middle east and the promulgation of terrorists iran is the is the world's greatest sponsor of state sponsor of terrorism with the shift that followed that administration we saw something begin to happen historic things happened peace accords with israel and their muslim neighbors that we have never seen not since the modern state of israel was born the abraham accords israelis began traveling to muslim nations on vacations never happened before an iranian authority over the region was diminished in voices of tolerance and we saw the threats of terrorism diminished but with our exit from afghanistan and us lending the weight of our nation to the establishment of the taliban a globally recognized terrorist group as an actor on this the international stage again iranian authority has been expanded and if that weren't enough we have armed them are you ready are we paying attention again not to be angry at politicians it's about our heart you see there's a personal battle it's a personal battle i know that seems odd and almost paradoxical but if we'll cooperate with the spirit of god in our hearts and our lives god will move on stages far beyond our homes and in the contrast the battle can be understood i think in some very simple ways it's a battle in your heart and mind between pride and humility one of the most destructive forces ever used against a human being is pride pride caused satan to lose his place in heaven an archangel one of those glorious beings ever created lost his place of power and his place of service because of pride he said in his heart the scripture says i can be like god we have to guard our hearts proverbs 18 and verse 12 says before his downfall a man's heart is proud but humility comes before honor those are the two choices pride the bible says leads to destruction not just a fall but that if we choose humility we'll receive god's honor he will bring elevation to our lives now you acquire humility indirectly you can't order it from amazon in that too bad we like you know a prime delivery humility comes to you from engaging in behaviors that allow humility to grow in your life recognizing other people's value recognizing other people have gifts and abilities thinking of others more highly than you think of yourself in every circumstance humility doesn't mean you deny the strengths and the gifts that god has given you it doesn't mean you're a weak worm of the dust with nothing of any value in your life humility doesn't mean you don't have an opinion humility does not mean you don't ever lead humility doesn't mean that you don't ever set a course moses we are told was the meekest man on the face of the earth it's really a synonym for humility but if you'll remember moses is the one that walked into pharaoh and said let my people go that was not a day of quiet reflection that was a very confrontational series of meetings that he had even the hebrew slaves said won't you hush who appointed you leader over us so humility doesn't mean you have no value humility means you're willing to serve others moses laid his life down he had a pretty good thing going in the desert before he had that little bush event the rest of his life was filled with grumbling and challenges and resentment does that feel accurate to you you see humility says god what do you have for me the foundation of humility is an awareness of a power greater than yourself and a willingness to yield to it pride is on the opposite end of the spectrum pride is about self-assertion and it fuels selfish ambition this is what i can do and this is what i want and this is what i will do first peter chapter 5 and verse 4. it says when the chief shepherd appears peter's trying to help us get ready for jesus return when the chief shepherd appears you'll receive the crown of glory that will never fade away young men in the same way be submissive to those who are older all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another because god opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble humble yourselves therefore under god's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time cast all your anxiety on him he cares for you what's the fear if i engage in behaviors that allow humility to emerge in me maybe i'm forfeiting something maybe i'm yielding a place maybe i'm not being self-assertive enough maybe i'm not enough selfish ambition i got to push and i got to get to the head of the line and and peter says cast all that anxiety on the lord humble yourself before god again church i i want to understand it's important for me i'm really just sharing what has been working in my heart how do we live in such a way to be prepared for the lord's return we give ourselves as fully as possible to what we know the lord would have us do i don't have a better answer than that in the last couple of weeks i've had on half a dozen or more occasions somebody say to me you know well talking about things that were going on in our world and so maybe the lord's coming back as if jesus return is our get out of jail free card i think that's the wrong way to understand it the reason jesus will come back to the earth is because if it wasn't for his return his church wouldn't survive we've thought of it as the divine evacuation we just didn't have to deal with the trouble but we have an assignment here and whenever that point comes we're for an extraction on our behalf it will be because we desperately need it he won't be an intrusion in your life you want to be prepared i want to be prepared look at psalm 14 and verse 1 the fool says in his heart there is no god they're corrupt their deeds are vile there's no one who does good it's not it's not a good place to stand humble yourself again it doesn't say you don't have value or talents or abilities humility doesn't mean we're all the same we're not if i could sing like dawn you'd have to stuff a sock in my mouth but i can't if i tried to sing you would stuff a sock in my mouth again we've misunderstood humility so we've avoided it humility is the on-ramp to god's promotion it will bring good things to you we often avoid it because we have a plan we have a timeline we won't know when we want things to happen and we have no intention of waiting on god so we're not going to submit to him we're not going to accept his moral boundaries because we know what we want and when we want and we can manage this and it's led us to some very destructive pathways matthew chapter 25 this is jesus discourse on his return and he's finished giving us the signs and now he begins to tell us some word pictures to help us understand what it will require of us to be ready for the lord's return and at this point we're in danger of not listening because what we understand is if we've said the sinner's prayer and we've been dipped in a pool we're all good we don't have to listen anymore everything else is ancillary secondary not particularly relevant but that isn't the full counsel of scripture that's not all jesus had to say matthew 25 the verse is immediately preceding this are the verses of the parable about the the virgins awaiting the bridegroom and those that weren't prepared and were left outside excluded and he says again again he's talking about his coming kingdom it would be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them to one he gave five talents to another two and to another one each according to his ability we are not all the same i've talked to you in the past that god's not a socialist we don't all get to play in the nba i think i should have been allowed slow uncoordinated people who can't jump don't get a lot of opportunities according to their ability they were given resources then he went on his journey the man who'd received the five talents went at once put his money to work gained five more the one with two talents gained two more but the one who'd received the one talent would often dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money after a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with him that's the punch line jesus is coming back and there will be an accounting he came the first time as the suffering servant is the lamb who would take the sins of the world when he comes back the second time he's coming back as a conquering king and the judge of all you want to be prepared to meet the judge the man who'd received the five talents brought the other five master he said you entrusted me with five i've gained five more the master replied well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful with a few things i'll put you in charge of many in fact he'd been faithful with everything he'd been given jesus said in comparison to what you're going to have that's kind of small stuff but serving the lord is not a burden it's a privilege in whatever place in whatever way and whatever assignment he gives you you know when i reflect on my life i have chafed so often at the things the lord's asking me to do it's an embarrassment to me there was a time when my commitment in this place meant that i i mowed the grass and i cleaned the building and whatever needed to be done and at the time it felt like it was an endless period of time in retrospect it really wasn't and i struggled with it i said lord you know really and until this day i have to guard my heart don't hurry to what's important do with enthusiasm when god puts in front of you today god doesn't need us to be important he needs us to be faithful he'll bring significance to what you do if he doesn't bring significance to what you've done in time if you've been faithful to him he'll bring significance to you in eternity so i don't want significance in eternity therein lies the rob where was i verse 22 the man with the two talents came and said master you entrusted me with two talents i've gained two more well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful with a few things i'll put you in charge of many then the man who'd received the one talent came master he said i know that you're a hard man harvesting where you haven't sown and gathering where you haven't scattered seed so i was afraid and i went out and hid your talent in the ground here's what belongs to you nothing lost the master said you wicked lazy servant you knew that i harvest where i haven't sown and gather where i haven't scattered seed you should have put the money on deposit at least i'd have it back with interest take the talent from him give it to the one who has ten talents everyone who has will be given more and he will have an abundance whoever doesn't have even what he has will be taken from him and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth that's jesus in matthew's gospel that's not the old testament that's not god speaking about the canaanites that's jesus teaching his audience with his disciples in front of him significant words see i think there's some confusion in contemporary christendom often judgment god's discipline in our lives or his restoration when we have drifted off course whether it's his discipline or his restoration in our lives we don't typically experience those immediately or completely you understand this intuitively there are times all of us have made choices that weren't godly and we probably took that first step with a little anxiety a little trepidation wondering what would happen if we took that step over the line and we took the step and we didn't hear thunder so we were emboldened to take another step and another step until finally we're so far off course we've almost forgotten what it looks like to honor god so we have to craft new language that the way we're walking really is a godly way because after all we've taken this path we haven't experienced any immediate consequences so we become more and more emboldened in that and we'll embolden other people because once you begin to walk away from god's invitations in your life you want to recruit company it's human nature the bible tells us that judgment delayed is an expression of god's mercy and his grace he doesn't want anybody to experience his judgment and he gives you time imagining you'll repent in the same way when god begins to convict you of your sin and you begin to repent and you said i've got to make a course correction his restoration in our life is often incremental it doesn't happen completely in a moment all at one time significant amount of biblical evidence to this when the the children of israel when judgment comes on the people they can't live in the promised land any longer because their hearts are so far from god god said i've got to discipline you if i don't discipline you you will lose completely your story of faith the only hope of you making it is you're going to have to be disciplined jerusalem is destroyed the temple is destroyed they live in a foreign land as slaves to more than one empire for 70 years they don't live in jerusalem and when god begins to restore them he doesn't do it overnight they don't go back to jerusalem with solomon's temple and all of its splendor and golden walls and golden tools and no he begins to restore them incrementally nehemiah goes back and he rebuilds the wall the smallest footprint of the wall around jerusalem david's jerusalem a far different city than it had been previously and he sends ezra back to begin to reinstate the worship and zerubbabel builds the temple but the temple is so humble so simple by comparison to solomon's temple that those who had any memory of the previous temple wept out loud the restoration is taking place they're coming back and being established again but it's happening a little bit at a time and that happens in our lives that we tend to get impatient god why i know you're capable i know you're able why does it not happen all at once well when we're walking away from the lord we don't get too exercised because judgment doesn't fall on us immediately see god's grace and mercy demonstrated us towards us when we're walking the wrong direction we need faith in god to grow because the the ultimate objective is to understand that god is the one who restores god is the one who writes our future god is the one who keeps us we would rather serve god than walk our own path and that has to be built in us so that we can hold it and walk it and live it and celebrate it are you prepared are you preparing today we're living in a world of a lot of turmoil and a lot of realignment you see there's a tension between those two realities this is the stuff of the new testament revelation chapter two it's a new testament book in chapter two it's a message to a church the church at thyatira i have this against you you tolerate that woman jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and by her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality in the eating of food sacrificed idols again he's writing this to a church you tolerate something and it's leading you into immorality i've given her time to repent of her immorality but she's unwilling i've been merciful so i'll cast her on a bed of suffering and i'll make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely unless they repent of her ways i'll strike her children dead then all the churches will know that i am he who searches hearts and minds and i'll rep repay each of you according to your deeds again i would remind you it's the new testament are you ready are you prepared are we living to honor the lord i know i'm preaching to the choir you're in church on a holiday weekend you're sitting at home listening to a sermon not getting the odds on the ball games this afternoon so i understand but i'm concerned for the trajectory of the church i believe god has given us a unique opportunity in this season to bring alignment to him and it begins in our hearts we talk just a bit about what's happening in our world because we need that perspective but but the real issue is the hearts of god's people if we will change our hearts god will move heaven and earth that's the truth don't be angry at others don't don't be agitated at others don't be filled with hate towards others begin to say to the lord lord be merciful to me on my watch i've been distracted i know what i know what comes up in me well i've done i've done this and i've done that and what do you want i just i want to say to the lord lord i want to honor you fully i want to love you more i'll do a little illustration you know for i read a lot of literature about the church and try to be aware of what's happening to an extent with the church in our world and if i had to give you a visual description of the church it seems to me for more than a decade our primary message has been a message that god loves everybody but it doesn't mean that god loves everything everybody does and we've had trouble sorting that out so the primary message it seems to me of our voice has been a voice of inclusivity tolerance doesn't really matter how you behave you just you just kind of want to have a general trajectory towards the lord and it seems to me like the strength of our message has been about as direct as a pool noodle this has been our instrument of blessing we'll bless you you just live any way you want to live lord bless you you know don't get hung up about what god said about marriage you just choose any way you want lord bless you right and it's been pretty comfortable our world didn't collapse oh bless you too you're laughing at them i'm gonna come bless you as well but it didn't really matter after all god's been gracious and where we take prayer out of the schools it's all right bless you we don't have to use jesus name go stand at a flagpole bless you and no we're not going to pray any longer in the hospital somebody might sue bless you we've been pretty chilled out no no we don't tell our kids about jesus in the schools all bless you the worst thing you could be accused of was being offensive right lord forbid and then we wonder how we arrive at a place where there's such confusion for our children that we have to do background checks at church before anybody can work with the children because our immorality and perversion has grown to the point so pervasive so widespread that even we worship together we have to do background checks oh bless you bless your heart does that feel like the church you've known feels pretty accurate to me and i don't want us to be angry i don't want us to be condemning i don't want us to be critical but i think we have to have a a greater respect for the truth of god than a pool noodle i'm not i'm not suggesting you'd be angry and i'm certainly not suggesting you be violent what i want you to know is you're going to meet the judge and your opinion isn't what will be the point of evaluation it will be god's truth then i'm pretty confident that when god said thou shalt not he meant it and i'm pretty certain when he said to us this is what i want you to do that he wasn't just offering you a heavenly suggestion i think if you talk to daniel who spent his life as a slave in babylon because his people the covenant people of god celebrated all the holidays and ate all the right food but their hearts were far from him and daniel spends his entire life as a slave in a foreign land i think he understood god didn't bring discipline with the pool noodle we have to have a heart for the lost we have to care for the ungodly we have to help one another up in fact when you have strayed from from the truth that you know and you need a way back you need the strength of god you need something to take hold of that will help you back god's not going to work restoration for you with the pool noodle you'll want his strength and his power and his majesty when you get to that point i'm pretty confident now again don't take a 30 second clip i'm not advocating for violence for anger i'm telling you if your imagination of god is that he's just a teddy bear you need to revise it are you ready it's an important question what are you excusing well it's just fornication you know you don't have to be married to get involved in all that sexual stuff it's not about a piece of paper no it's about god's opinion we can define marriage however we no god did that well what about well we need grace and we need mercy we can show the compassion to others because we need it ourselves but we can't rewrite the script but there'll be consequences there could be it could be difficult for us folks i believe the lord is coming back and i believe it matters to him what we've done i've got a couple of minutes i wanna may i offer one suggestion to begin to to look for the things that you can see god doing you know when we prayed for the hurricane victims a few moments ago or the the people in the path of the wildfires in our nation i'm expecting to see god intervene but i'm not expecting the reports to come miracle on the gulf coast angels seen unloading cases of water because the people that write those reports and the people that make those evaluations don't have those boxes on their forms i believe in a god who heals we pray for the sick a great deal and when you go to the doctor i think it's an unfair burden to ask a medical professional to say to you you had a supernatural miracle god healed you because they live in an environment that has a whole lot of legal eyes upon them there's a whole lot of voices that speak into their life and on their diagnostic form there is not a box for a supernatural event and you're asking them to validate something that you know by your own experience i think it's an unfair burden they may believe in prayer they may believe in god they may believe you've had a miracle don't ask them to write that on their prescription pad that's not why you went there so i believe we'll see god move on behalf of the victims of the the hurricane and the fires but i expect i want you to watch for it i expect you to begin to hear reports like uninterrupted supplies being delivered to the victims research sources being made available without hindrance from politicians or anything else that would have interrupted that begin to listen for the god stories that come out begin to listen that the wildfires that have been uncontainable that have ravaged tens of thousands of acres and threatened the homes of thousands and thousands of people they're beginning to contain them that the the the wind directions changed or the humidity levels changed or something that last week seemed uncontainable and unstoppable looks as if today maybe we're beginning to get our arms around it or to do the electricity being off for three or four more weeks for people that have lost power maybe those projections are cut in half yes it means that the power people will be working through the night and they'll work to the point of exhaustion but they'll get outcomes that are better than what they would have anticipated when you hear that you stop and you say god thank you you intervened you alleviated the suffering of those people and then you use your voice to share those victories with the people around you they'll think you're a little odd well didn't the power people work 72 hours yes they did but god gave them outcomes beyond what they were supposed to we're getting a beautiful new highway in front of the church it was a two-year project we're hoping to get there before 5. but we're going to celebrate because the last of the barrels is going away really soon hallelujah it's biblical philippians 4 rejoice in the lord always i say it again rejoice let your gentleness be evident to all the lord is near don't be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to god we've been too focused on what we don't like what's not going right it's filled you with fear and terror and anxiety and dread it makes you easy to to be divided and separated we have to understand who our deliverer is what we're preparing for the king is coming and we're getting ready and we'd like to help you get ready it's true we've been a little sloppy we've been distracted we've been too engaged in the world but god in his mercy has awakened us and he's begun a pathway of restoring us and day by day week by week we're getting more alignment and we're looking for god's involvement in our world we want to see it i want to be more aware of what god is doing than what the wicked are doing i want to be more ready to acknowledge god's mercy and his help and his deliverance because i'm dependent upon that for my future i think we had a breakthrough recently of biblical proportions in texas they passed a law regarding abortion it limited abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy after there's a heartbeat abortion is no longer an option it's still possible for abortion and under that circumstance to be used as a means of birth control that hasn't been removed yet it's still there but it has removed some of the latitude to make casual choices about human life but even beyond that our supreme court voted not to block the law which was amazing it's the most remarkable thing here's my concern if you if you listen online or you listen to a news outlet i don't listen to a lot of news i i can't take it but overwhelmingly what i have heard is how dire that is how dark that is how destructive that is how wrong that is how inappropriate that is it shouldn't be allowed to stand and it definitely shouldn't be allowed to spread to another state may i make a suggestion that we begin to use our voices forget the social media don't run post it stop use your voice where you work with the people around you that that know you're a christian say i'm encouraged that we would attach value to the life of a child talk about it amongst yourselves when you're with your friends if you're getting together to watch a ball game say i think we ought to thank god before we get to the halftime food he has spared the lives of tens of thousands of children with a group of people that had the courage to implement that law see we've got to become advocates for the good god is moving but if pastor if i said that out loud somebody might not like it hmm you don't have to be obnoxious you don't have to be condemning in fact you need to be careful abortion has touched everybody directly or indirectly so there's opportunities for compassion and mercy and grace but it's a wonderful step forward for decades we've sacrificed 3 000 children a day every day it's more than a child a minute we have sacrifice to comfort and convenience and ease and there is a there's a there's a breeze suggesting that that could change hallelujah lord we thank you for that we praise you for that god is good to us he's coming back church and the the standard is more than attending church when it's convenient and being moral enough that you don't get caught begin to ask the spirit of god if there's any place you need to bring greater alignment with him don't be sloppy it's a dangerous thing to to give yourself license you don't negotiate with evil it will out negotiate you every time give your heart fully to the lord i brought you a prayer why don't you stand with me we can read it together it's in your outlines if you got it okay heavenly father nothing is hidden from you you have rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your son your grace and mercy have given us hope we rejoice today in all that you're doing throughout the earth let righteousness reign upon us forgive us of our great pride and arrogance forgive us of our immorality forgive us of our greed forgive us for turning our backs to you you are right in all of your judgments look upon us with mercy and lead us once again in paths of righteousness may the earth be filled with your praises let our nation be filled with shouts of praise may jesus name be exalted amen hallelujah god bless you

Channel: World Outreach Church

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Keywords: be bold, humility, what does it mean to be humble, meek, what does it mean to be meek, Iran, Isreal, Jesus returning, mercy, Jesus is coming, prepare for the end times, Israel, World Outreach Church, World Outreach Church Murfreesboro, Pastor Allen Jackson, Pastor Allen Jackson Sermons, Online church service, live church service, christian sermons, Murfreesboro TN, Jesus Christ, Interdenominational Church

Id: U99NHjoepg4

Length: 61min 9sec (3669 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021