BCC Sunday Service 3-29-2020

good morning everybody and welcome my name is rod Larkins I lead the music at Broadway Christian Church on the traditional service my wife Darlene over here and myself we're gonna be leading some music here now if you look to the right of your screen if you're on your computer you'll see you see a little tab that says notes or if you're on your mobile device look at the bottom and on there has the words for the songs that we're singing we invite you to sing right along with us as if you're right on that service so we don't have the whole band here I did put the drums and the bass and the guitar in my little box here they're gonna help us out even though they're not here we're gonna start off a song called come now is the time for worship here we go [Music] ah [Music] now is the time [Music] now is the time to give [Music] just as you are [Music] just as you are people [Music] one day every time you confess you are gone still the greatest treasure remains to those who gladly choose now is the time to work [Music] now is the time to give [Music] just as you are [Music] just as you are before [Music] every tongue will confess you are one day every knee still the greatest treasure remains of sadly choose you now now is the time [Music] now is the time to give [Music] just as you are [Music] just as you are [Music] at Calvary [Music] years has been to vanity and tearing up my Lord was crucified knowing not it was for me he died one see there was great and grace was free was multiplied to me [Music] now I've given to Jesus everything [Music] him as my my raptures oh can only see Oh Oh see there was pretty grace was free there was multiplied to me there my burdened soul found Liberty [Music] love that drew salvations plan hold the grace that brought it down to man Gotha Gardens bandicam Oh merci there was great and grace was free [Music] goodbye to me Liberty [Applause] [Music] all right at Calvary what we're gonna usually at this time we usually ask everybody to greet each other shake hands get to know one another well obviously that's not gonna be possible today but Pastor John Claude did say something I thought was really kind of neat he said we're not necessarily looking for social distancing we need physical distancing to be safe but we need to still be social you need to call those people that you haven't talked to in a while we don't want to leave anybody alone at home that can kind of be kind of tough so if you can every reach out to someone let them know that you're thinking about them and that you're glad had a chance to talk with them we're gonna continue on darlings gonna lead this next song it's called God on the mountain and so Darlene I'm gonna let you go ahead and take it over [Music] when you're up you got peace of mind like you've never known these change when you do don't lose faith oh you're [Music] when things go you'll make them rise [Music] instill God here's to God [Music] Utah [Music] when you do but the top comes easy with life's that hits [Music] but it still is of trials and temptation that's when your face it's really good to the turn [Music] is [Music] you make [Music] yes to God for the god [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is to God the [Music] it's sweet our prayer [Music] [Music] it [Music] and [Music] it's me to the [Music] my soul to the [Music] it's part [Music] welcome to church online today glad you joined us in our service our thanks to rod and Darlene for leading us this this time in our worship right now we're going to transition to one of the most special and sacred times that we have as a church which is the Lord's Supper so if you're not quite prepared yet just take the next moment or two and and go and if you've got a piece of bread or a cracker maybe as something to to drink could be could be grape juice it could be dyed coke I don't know what you've got but but let's do that right now and we're reminded through the song we just sang that God in His goodness in his love in His grace and His mercy he receives us and takes us just as we are a lot of people have this belief that they're not good enough for God well the reality is that none of us are good enough for God but that's exactly the point isn't it and the point is that that God in His mercy loves us so much not that he overlooks our sin but that he sent His Son Jesus to pay the price for our sin he took the penalty he absorbed God's wrath against sin for us so that we could stand before God one day perfect and complete and the Lord's Supper is a reminder to us of that so today let's let's partake together and let's begin by holding the bread and I want you to do something that we do in church also and even though we're scattered and a variety of homes and settings right now wuntch is just to say this right after me as we hold the bread Lord Jesus this is your body [Music] which was given for me as I eat this I remember you and now hold the cup and say this after me Lord Jesus this is your blood the blood of the Covenant shed for me as I drank this I remember you as I drink this in church every time we do this we're proclaiming the good news of the death the burial the resurrection and the soon coming of the Lord Jesus Christ let's pray our Father in heaven we thank you for the sacred Rite thank you that each time we do this as a body whether we're gathered by the hundreds or scattered we know that we're even two or three of us are together jesus said there he is in our midst and father we fully believe that Jesus Christ is in our midst in your Holy Spirit right now as we gather as we celebrate as we observe the love that you have god for us expressed in Jesus and his death on the cross and his resurrection on the third day we bless you and we thank you for this in Jesus name Amen once again I welcome you to our online service today this is different for us different for everybody while making adjustments to the coronavirus and all the alterations that we've had to make in life including our giving I want you to know that all through my life I just regularly habitually place my offering in the offering plate but we're not passing the plates today but but we do want to remember the needs of the congregation and the needs of our community through our giving and and you know I think that the pandemic that we're going through right now brings out both the best and the worst of people and I'm so glad to hear about stories of generosity from various church members those of you that have reached out to help others and to Indian choir and in to and maybe give to those that are less fortunate so way to go church I'm proud of you for that and let's remember the ongoing needs of the Broadway Christian Church and of course I know that many of you don't give online but for those of you that started giving online as I just did this past week you can go to BCC Mesa dot-com / giving it'll lead you directly to the place where you need to be on our website to set up online giving and if you'd like to you can continue to mail your offering to the church physical address and it's there in your notes as well god bless all of you thank you so much we'll continue our service now [Music] good morning everybody it seems like just overnight every every pastor in America has become a televangelist so don't be surprised next week when you see Pastor John and Abbot online if he's wearing a white three-piece suit and a toupee just don't be surprised by that when he shows up that way next week but in all seriousness thank you for joining us today it's going to be it's going to be a great morning already has been appreciate rod and Darlene and they're leading this morning and it was so great to be able to take communion with one another and I just want to encourage you if you didn't get a chance to do so too check out our last week's service online it was great and Pastor John Tata just a super message on worry and so relevant for the time that we're in right now and I want to say a special thank you to our staff that has done such a great job making so many adjustments over the last couple of weeks as new news has come out and we've had to adjust and adjust and so we appreciate their efforts and their work and what you're seeing is certainly a result of all that effort and we just say thank you to them and and there's a lot of work being done behind the scenes as well in regards to what's going on with services and trying to create more content for everybody and then I want to say thank you to you for joining us online and for being patient with us and our prayer and our hope is that we can gather to get together really really soon so we've been going through the past two months a series called inside out and we're going to conclude that series today and as we conclude the series today we're going to do what we've done every week as we've begun our sermon time and that's we're gonna read galatians chapter 5 which has been our main text we're gonna read it together out loud and so i know it's is online so wherever you are today whether you're in your kitchen whether you're on your patio whether in your living room we want you to say this out loud with us just like you were in the room today and so here here we go well just wait one more second if if you've already got it memorized don't look at the screen look at your feet or look up at the ceiling fan and say it out loud with us just as well so here we go together but the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control now that's what's supposed to describe followers of Jesus that's what's supposed to let people know that that Jesus is living in us and the virtues and the qualities that are being seen by people are what's coming from the inside out but my guess is if you would ask most people today in the world who weren't Christians to describe a Christian I'm not sure they would always use those specific terms or those qualities or those virtues maybe what they would say about us is that we can be abusive that we can be critical that we can be narrow-minded judgmental hypocritical and I know I know what our response is to them typically is this no I'm not you are and that's not a very good response from us our response should be the fruit of the Spirit we should be responding with love and joy and peace and patience etc and how that happens is that when we open our heart to Jesus he begins to change us from the inside out and the responses that we have to all things in life begin to change in the fruit and the virtues begin to come again from the inside out so we're gonna we're gonna talk about today the topic that everybody's been looking forward to we're going to talk about self-control so here's my question for everybody and I want you to raise your hand just like you're in the room again how many of you have been looking forward to having a message about self-control I've been looking forward to it and those of you that are raising your hands I'm not sure that you're telling the truth but Wes what we're going to talk about today we're going to talk about self-control and I want to have you watch this video of a little boy named Daniel and Daniel is struggling with the issue of self-control take a look at this video Daniel [Applause] what happened why are you mad tell your why you mad when you feel so mad then you wanna roll take a deep breath and count to four [Applause] [Music] [Applause] y'all better okay and it's just that easy that's just that easy that we deal with self-control but the truth is self-control isn't that isn't that easy but the one thing that I do believe is that in some area of our life and it's different for it's different for all of us it's not the same but in some area of our life we all struggle with self-control and just in some different areas of life and we all would like to get just a little bit better at self-control but the thing is about self-control is the way that we try to remedy it is we try to do it by this very very simple phrase and it typically never works and it's try harder try harder is not the solution to self-control and here's here's what it looks like somebody comes to you and they're struggling and they're having a problem with a self-control issue in their life and they ask you for advice and they say what do I do and you say well don't do this but do this you say hey pray read your Bible go to church and stop doing it and they come back to you just a little bit later and they say to you hey this is really hard and then your advice to them as well try harder you see the truth is try harder never really works and when it comes to this idea of self-control particularly in the Bible there is no more misunderstood topic in the Bible than self-control it is so misunderstood and the and the emphasis that we put on it really never works and so we've been again to our main text throughout this entire last two months talking about the fruit of the Spirit has been Galatians chapter 5 verses 22 and 23 and so what we're going to do today is we're gonna be in Galatians chapter 5 and we're gonna start in verse 16 and we're gonna go all the way down through verse 25 and we're gonna go verse by verse and we're gonna see what Paul says about this very issue of self-control and I'm gonna tell you it's gonna be so different than probably what you're used to hearing in regards to the idea of self-control but I believe it's the best way for us to navigate having self-control in our life because it's a fruit of the Spirit that we want to have just like love joy peace and patience so as he begins saying in chapter 5 verse 16 listen to the words of Paul he says this but I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh so Paul's short answer for us here because he says it's not it's not willpower that's not how we get self-control but it's spirit power that's how we get self-control and Paul goes on to explain even even more about this idea of self-control listen to the words he says in verse 17 and I think these things that we can all relate to he says for the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh they are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want so Paul simply says when it comes to doing the right thing we don't do it but when it comes to doing the wrong thing we do do and that's the way we we've always approached it and so there's this tension there's this tension in our life that we constantly come into frustration with particularly when it comes to the idea of self-control the things that we don't want to do we do and the things that we want to do we don't do and it's just that continual tension and Paul mentions again in Chapter 7 of Romans and I want to encourage you to read the whole chapter but I'm just gonna read to you a verse and however you see this very idea of what Paul is talking about listen Paul for Paul this this verse these last two verses that we just read they're not theoretical they're biographical for him he's trying to tell us this is the this is the tension that I've been living with and we can all shake her heads and go yeah that could make his complete sense listen to what he says in Romans chapter sup 7 verse 19 he says this 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 now I want to tell you some things about Paul because this is really important for you to understand Paul was considered and has been considered in church history terms like V man he's been a missionary of missionaries he's a church planner he wrote the majority of the New Testament that we read in the Bible he is a saint he's an apostle he's this person that we all look up to and what Paul is trying to help us understand is that in regards to this idea of self control that we are not alone we're not alone in this and not only are we not alone but every person struggles with this very battle the battle between the spirit and the flesh the battle between wanting to do the right thing and not doing it and and one not wanting to do the wrong thing but ended up doing it anyway and so Paul continues to say but but in regards to that there is a way that we can make some progress listen to what he says in the next verse he says but if you are led by the spirit you are not under the law he said there's there's the contrast he said if you're led by the spirit you're not under the law now we have to understand just a little bit more about Galatians to really understand the totality of what Paul is saying and so Galatians as we as we kind of look at it in terms of the history of this church Paul Paul was the was the church planter for the church in Galatia and Galatia what the town that he is writing to is what we now know today is modern Turkey but when when they first began as a church what they were known for is a church that was full of joy but the problem is some false teachers came along and as these false teachers came along they began to teach that in order to grow in order to be understanding of God that you had to basically believe in and follow the law well what happened to this church in Galatia is they went from being people that were full of joy and that's how they were actually described as people who had no joy well Paul wasn't there with them anymore but he hears about this and as he hears about this he begins to write this letter that we're talking about today in Galatians and he says to them hey we are not to live by the law we are to live by the spirit and that's what he is trying to encourage them so there's two there's two contrasting ways that that we can navigate this idea of self-control and the first one is that we that we live by the law and the way that we live by the law and it's it's circular it goes in this circular motion and it starts it starts essentially on the top with this idea of selfishness see we have selfish greed we have selfish ambition we have selfish sexual desires and and we give in to those and then it leads to suffering and that's the way that it always happens every time our selfishness always will lead to suffering in some sense sin always has consequences it separates us from God it separates us from other people that caused damage in our life so selfishness leads to suffering but under the law the solution to the suffering as this circle continues to go the solution is a system and the system says this the system says deny yourself self-denial it says try harder it's the list of do's and don'ts and so you don't be a glutton you don't lie you don't cheat but you do go to church and what happens is it begins to have this focus on the system and as the system goes and if the focus is on right and wrong if the focus is on doing and not doing and so the focus turns to being self focused and our attention becomes on us and we get into this loop of stuff of selfishness and suffering in the solution and the do's and the don'ts and we get so concerned about it that it leads to being self focused and it just continues to perpetuate itself and the more perpetuates itself and I think I've been there myself because in my life this is the way that I've always tried to have self control which is to try harder self-denial do's and don'ts and we just continue this pattern and what it leads to is total frustration and discouragement we're almost we just want to give up and wanna say it is if this is religion I want to have nothing to do with it this is not what the Bible teaches about self-control but when we see people like this we think of we think of them in every way shape or form as people who are some of the most unhappy mean people in the world because they become so self-righteous and so self focused and they're the reason they become so mean is because they focus on what everybody else does and what they don't do and they and they they recognize that nobody else can measure up but they also are recognizing that they can't measure up themselves and so they become people who are absolutely joyless and we see that happen and that just repels us and we want to have nothing to do with that and that's why Paul includes self-control as one of the fruits of the spirit that we need to have in our life contrast that to the way of the Spirit and see the way of the Spirit starts off exactly the same as the way of the law it starts off with selfishness no different it's tossed it's it be continues to go to suffering but then it comes to the solution and the solution is so different and this is where we have to really pay attention to this idea of self-control because it's not trying harder the solution is a Savior it's it's it's one of the most unbelievably profound solutions that we could ever have to this idea of self-control it's our God coming to live in us and desiring to be in relationship with us and what he gives us is unconditional we don't deserve it and we can't earn it and what that does when we put our when we put our focus on our Savior and we are not self focused it takes it takes that that sense that we have to continue in this cycle and that the cycle never never never stops and what that produces in us more than anything else is forgive fulness I don't know about you but I don't want to carry around my life's sins and I don't want to carry around all the past choices that I've made I want to recognize that I've been forgiven and how incredible that is and so we even begin to focus on the Savior and our tension goes off of him produces forgetfulness in a life we have freedom from our sin not only do we have freedom from our sin but it gives us the ability to not go back to the life that we once had under the law anytime anytime you or myself anytime any of us in this room in this church online today desire to go back to do's and don'ts we need to put our focus on the Savior and when we put our focus on the Savior because he is the solution a solution like no other it produces real transformation in our life now there's a couple of ways that we can navigate living by by the Spirit I just want to mention a couple of those as as as we continue to going on as we look at some of these verses and the first one is this that we need to take an honest self inventory an honest self inventory and if you've heard about celebrate recovery which is a ministry that we have here at Broadway Christian Church and as soon as we come back to meeting on campus they meet here in this room at 6:00 6:30 every Thursday night and it's such a great ministry but this this one idea is so critical and is so important which is we take an honest self inventory and we ask ourselves the question what are what are my weaknesses and in in my just recent past where have I lost my self-control and the reason the reason that we do that is not is not to not to look at other people because that's what we're gonna do we're gonna look at the next verse which is in Galatians chapter 5 19 through 21 and we look at these just this description of the sinful nature and we think oftentimes we think about other people's sin but it's not for us to focus on other people's is supposed to be used as a self-diagnostic to help us learn and evaluate our weaknesses and when we're losing our self-control and to put our focus on that so listen to the words that Paul says he says the acts of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality impurity and debauchery idolatry and witchcraft hatred discord jealousy fits of Rage selfish ambition dissensions factions and envy and drunkenness and orgies and the like so really what Paul does is he gives us a few categories here actually gives us four categories and the first ones are related to sexual sin he talks about sexual immorality impurity which is a which is very similar to lunch at lust and debauchery and in regards to that he's saying hey there's some sexual sins and then he gives another category in regards to idolatry which is making anything more important in our life than God and he says hey I want I want to talk about idolatry and witchcraft and witchcraft is the worship of anything other than God and he says hey you shall have no other gods before me and then the the one that the category that he really focuses on gives us a lot of definition into is a category of relationships and it's interesting in our culture today that there is a need more than any other time in our history for us to be better in relationship with one another listen to the words that he uses here he says the flesh are obvious is hatred and discord and jealousy and fits of Rage and selfish ambition and dissension factions and envy I think about what it would look like for our world today if they saw followers of Jesus being loving and joyful and peaceful and kind and good and gentle instead of what Paul just described and so the goal here the goal for us as followers of Jesus is not is not to be self-obsessed but to be self-aware to be aware of our weaknesses and to continually ask ourselves so it's a taken honest self inventory and then once we have done that the next thing is we believe that God can help listen I think one of the most important things that that we need to really hold on to is this truth that God is not done with us that God loves you he still wants to be with you he's still pursuing you he still wants to see your life be transformed he sent his son to die for you and and God wants us to know that and so again Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 and 23 Paul says but the fruit of the Spirit is love joy and peace and he goes on to out the rest of the fruits of the spirit that we've been going over for the past two months but listen what he says at the very end of verse 23 he says this against such things there is no law against such things when you when you are loving when you're peaceful when you're joyful when you're kind there there's there none of that's gonna get you in any kind of trouble or now that that's gonna have long-lasting consequences in your life but I think there's a I think there's a bigger reason why he's bringing this up to us I think there's something more that we need to understand which is the law the law of do's and don'ts and rules and trying harder will never produce in you what the fruit of the Spirit will do I will never transform you will never change your life it will always be a perpetual cycle of trying harder of failing and being discouraged and and trying to just continue that cycle in your life over and over and over again and so Paul helps us to see hey there is no law when it comes to that so we believe that God wants to help us and he helps us by sending us the spirit and he wants us to live by the spirit not only does he want us to live by the spirit but he wants us to refocus on something better now as we talked about the story earlier we saw the video of Daniel and we saw his mom do something really good and I don't know if you caught it this morning or not but I I just want to draw your attention to it and it wasn't accounting that wasn't what she did that was so interesting and so good and so in so genius yes she had him count one two three four but what she really did for Daniel who was having a moment where he was losing his self-control and he was pouting and he didn't even know why he was mad but what she did by getting him to count was she got him to break the cycle she got him to refocus and by refocusing on counting he broke the the loop of the bad behavior that he was in and that's what God wants to do in our life he wants us to refocus he wants us to take an honest self inventory he wants us to live by the spirit he says to believe that God wants to wants to do something good in our life and still is loving towards us and pursuing us and then them in the midst of that that we can refocus on something better and when we were focused on something better here's what happens we don't worry about trying to resist and we don't worry about dealing with regret we refocus and what refocusing on Jesus does is it breaks the cycle and that's the solution to refocus on on the Savior and it becomes Savior focused and then it becomes us not forgetting and then we break the cycle and transformation begins to happen in our life listen to Galatians chapter 5 verse 24 says those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and with its desires here's what that means for us today that we can move on from our past that we can break this cycle that we believe that our sins were crucified on the cross with Jesus when he gave himself up for us that we are truly forgiven that we don't have to live in the past anymore and that we can move on from our past we don't have to again try to resist and try harder and live with regret but we can begin to move on and then the last verse that Paul says in verse 25 is this he says since we live by the spirit let us keep in step with the spirit since we live by the spirit let us keep in step with the spirit and how do how do we practice that how do we do that how do we walk with the spirit and because I think that's what Paul wants us to do today he wants us to say hey I want you to I want you to have what Jesus is producing in the inside and I want it to be shown on the outside and I want people to know that you are full of the spirit you are living with the spirit and how do we do that we do that by doing it daily and continually we do that by taking an honest self inventory we do that by believing that God wants to do good in our life we do that by refocusing on the better solution which is the Savior when you focus on the Savior it changes everything and that's what God wants us to do today he wants us to look at self-control and say I'm not gonna try harder I'm not gonna make it about do's and don'ts and I'm not gonna make it about rules I'm gonna beef Savior focused and when I'm Savior focused it's gonna transform me and everything around me amen let me pray father may we live by the spirit today father may we focus on our Savior maybe understand that we are forgiven may we keep in step with the spirit and we pray this in the name of Jesus amen so we're glad you joined us online today and can't wait for you to come back next week and join us again online and we'll be here at 8:00 9:30 and 11:00 have a great day you

Channel: Broadway Christian Church Mesa

Views: 1,306

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: cr1B4DHf6DI

Length: 51min 0sec (3060 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020