Fellowship Bible Church Worship Service - July 25, 2021

[Music] oh there's nothing [Music] better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing nothing is better than you [Music] i'm not afraid to show you my weakness [Music] is not a place than you there's nothing [Music] better than you or there's nothing nothing is better than you [Music] you turn shame into glory you're the only one who cares you turn graze into god you [Music] you're the only one who cares oh there's nothing better than you oh there's nothing [Music] better than you lord there's nothing nothing is better than you oh there's nothing better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing nothing is better than you you turn grace into god [Music] [Music] you're the only one who [Music] you're the only one who cares amen there's nothing better than jesus amen we serve a god of promises hallelujah let's continue in the same spirit of worship this morning amen god of abraham you're the god of covenant and our faithful promises time and time again you have proven you'll do just what you said though the storms may come and the winds may blow i'll remain steadfast and let my heart learn when you speak a word it will come to pass pray is your faithfulness to me great is your faithfulness to me from the rising sun to the setting same i will praise your name great is your faithfulness to me he's a faithful god [Music] god from h to h though the earth may pass away your word remains the same though your history can prove there's nothing you can't do your faithful land true though the storms may come and the winds may blow out remain steadfast and let my heart learn when you speak a word it will come to pass to me great is your faithfulness to me from the rising sun to the setting same i will praise your name great is your faithfulness to me how many want to put their faith in jesus this morning firm foundation anchored to the ground [Music] jesus my anchor to the ground my hope and firm foundation he'll never let me down i'll put my faith in jesus my anchor to the ground my hope and firm foundation he'll never let me down [Music] to me great is your faithfulness to me from the rising sun to same the will praise your name break is your faithfulness to me [Music] great is your faithfulness hallelujah let's give god a hand praise this morning if you can [Applause] amen and that's next song we're going to sing talks about how great god is amen we serve a great god we serve a mighty god you give life you are love you bring light to the darkness you give hope you restore every heart that is great are you lord [Music] it's your breath in our lungs so we pour out our face we pour out our praise it's your breath in our lungs so we pour out our praise to you only [Music] if you know this one sing with us you give life you give life you are love you bring light to the darkness you give hope you restore every heart that is [Music] [Music] so we pour out our praise to you only it's your birth in my lungs so we pour out our place it's [Music] [Music] praise [Music] all the earth will shout your praise our hearts will cry these bones will sink grey are you lord all the earth will shout your grace our hearts will cry these bones will sing the earth will shine your place our hearts will cry these bones will sink are [Music] so we pour out our it's your day [Music] um [Music] and great are you hallelujah he is great and greatly to be praised amen [Applause] father god we just thank you for being a great god that while we are weak while that while we are needy while we are are yet to be perfect that you are great and mighty and powerful and in control and you love us [Music] thank you for loving us thank you for your son there's no one greater than your son and while we couldn't live the life we needed to live he came here and lived that life for us and died on the cross for us so that we might have life so that we might give every breath to say great are you lord [Music] lord this morning as we hear your word lord i pray that you would change our hearts that you would turn us to you and then you would help us to follow you this morning wherever you're leading us for you are great and greatly to be praised in jesus name i pray amen would you guys please be seated foreign to hear his word um as uh in case you can't tell it i have add and so it's like oh wow um back on track william back on track no honestly it is good to be here with you this morning uh not only to lift our hearts in worship that last song i i think speaks a lot to what we're going to hear from pastor jason in just a moment uh sets the stage in terms of great is the lord you know these these broken bones will what will sing as you're listening to pastor preach you're going to hear that song in your head probably a couple of times if you're here and you're you're a guest at fellowship and by god's grace and his mercy to us we have had so many guests so many visitors over this last month or so it's an exciting thing that god is doing here and people are coming to to to be a part of that and if you've not yet connected with us do us a favor on the seat back in front of you potentially there is a qr code uh if you arrive early in a service you'll see in the slide rotation uh the invitation to connect with us there's a qr code there then wherever you are in any of those things you can just use the camera on your smartphone and it'll link you to our website and the page that's going to take you to is fellowshiproswell.org connect would you do that would you connect with us would you let us know that you've been joining us that that you're worshiping with us uh it would mean a lot to us we would like to put uh names to faces we're not going to spam you send you all kinds of things uh just wanna let you know that that uh we're here to answer any questions that you might have another way that you can connect with us and know what's happening here at fellowship is through our e-news uh we'll say that a lot to talk about e-news this was an e-news this was an e-news and if you haven't yet subscribed to e-news go online and do so it takes but a minute and it helps you to know what's happening here at fellowship and sometimes even what's happened this past week uh we've had a blog that's part of our e-news and and this past week maria montenegro was the one who wrote the blog and it's a praise report over uh the outstanding movement of god that took place the week before as we did a back to school outreach we had families that we were able to provide groceries to school supplies too it was a big event prayed with them there's so many hurting people that got to pray with go to the enews you can also connect with it on our website and and just look at how god used that moment to to to bless many and to allow us to preach the gospel to people many times who have not heard it before now we cannot do those things apart from you and your continued faithfulness and so every time that i get a chance to stand up here i want to thank you for that for your generosity uh you've heard it said before pastor jason said others have said it along the way that fellowship has emerged the the heart of the pandemic in a much healthier financial position than many churches our size and smaller and even larger and it's just because of you and we're super thankful for that not because it lets us keep the lights on and provide air conditioning and what have you it does we've replaced two significant uh uh chillers or air handlers air conditioning units on our roof during the pandemic because of that but but for me uh it goes beyond that outside of our walls and our care to the impact it's having literally amongst the nations and so i encourage you to keep being a part of that uh we're about a hundred thousand dollars or so short of making budget our fiscal year ends this week and pastor jason will probably talk a little bit more about that in just a minute um so i'm not here to to beg you or or done you for money uh i just want you to know god's doing some amazing things and one of the ways that we get to participate in that is by our giving so we can give but we also want to encourage everyone to go and our mission again is uh outside of the walls we've had multiple mission partners come up over the last month or so to share what god is doing in their lives and in their countries but mission also is within the walls and and so one of the things that we're about to launch again is uh recruiting for children's ministries student ministries and things like that as we begin our new school year now whenever we talk about that there's some people who kind of recoil a little bit because this worst picture worst case scenario unfolds in their minds that oh they're inviting me to go change dirty diapers in the children's ministry no thank you i don't have time for that right um certainly there are those that that god might call to do that but there's so many more opportunities and there's an easy way for you to find out what those are opportunities are and what those opportunities are not go to the website fellowshiproswell.org serve and we've created a brand new page and it's basically a uh a jobs posting page for us and all of our ministries that have needs have put those needs up there with a brief description and unless it says you'll be changing dirty diapers you're probably not going to have to change dirty diapers uh and so i want you to be praying about that we we have such a need uh for for those who feel compelled and would do so joyous joyfully to serve in our children's our students our front lines ministries and others we're expecting a lot of people we've already been experiencing a lot of people coming back to church over the last couple of months and as summer ends and school begins we think that we're gonna swell even more and so there's a lot of opportunity for us to love one another by serving all right well as it was my pleasure to welcome you to fellowship it's also my pleasure to welcome our pastor as he brings the word of god to us this morning come on out pastor jason we love you brother love you too well good morning i'm grateful for pastor william and for the gift that he is to both me personally and to our church and i want to echo uh so much of what he just told and said in terms of where we are financially as such a blessing and when we talk about giving we're we're really talking about dollars that turn into transformation life change um and to see how the lord's been doing that through fellowship in espanol through our student ministry baptizing students last week and really our mission partners around the world it's pretty astonishing what the lord is doing so we're grateful for that um this morning i just want to uh i want to keep it uh 100 or keep it 100 as the young people say uh this morning i am so grateful to be here and i love this church and courtney and i are so overwhelmed and thrilled to be here i want to i want to tell you where i've been the last week and a half or so courtney and i took off to go to florida for vacation to see family and for the kids to play with cousins and we spent about four days three days in orlando which was awesome sat by the pool i don't i'm not a beach guy personally i don't i don't do the beach i don't like sand and uh so so we sat beside a zero entry pool for a couple days and enjoy the sun which was which was great because we got a chance to really what it felt like breathe for the first time since march and kind of exhale and look ahead a little bit and so now we're trying to get kids registered for school and there's forms you need in georgia that i've never heard of and you know all sorts of stuff and so we're trying to take care of that and then this past week i was at a student camp in covenant college at covenant college in chattanooga and we were there with a thousand of our closest friends and and saw the spirit of god poured out in such a unique um and powerful way and i was telling the the the first service i said you know there's a difference between people on stage sort of manufacturing sort of this emotional feeling from the stage there's a difference between that and then experiencing the the manifest presence of god um in just a really tangible way and so we got to experience that which was man incredible um and and so uh with all of those things going on at the same time last week um you know um i was reminded of uh this interchange with cj mccollum on twitter cj mccollum is a shooting guard for the portland trail blazers and he's on his podcast talking about super teams in the nba and how super teams are the new thing and no one should go to a super team and how he would never go to a super team which is back in the conversation as the nba championship was just played and they win without being on a super team and he's having this whole conversation about i'll never join a super team and this that and the other and he's real salty about it well um one of the listeners tweets him and says stop talking win a playoff game first to which he replies i'm trying jennifer you ever just felt like that i'm trying jennifer you ever just had one of them weeks where it's tuesday and you're like wow it's been a long week like if it could go wrong like it probably did and like it just keeps getting worse and worse and like in the middle of that you just kind of throw your hands up maybe sit in a puddle of tears you say man i'm trying jennifer i i it's been one of those weeks for us um i don't know if y'all know this but pastors are people too uh and we have those we man it was it was a hard week and i saw that by way of introduction to say that this morning i'm i'm deviating a little bit from our sermon series and miracles because i need to preach the truth to myself because i even i'm having a hard time believing it this morning and so i need to preach the truth to myself so i want to invite you to be partakers and witnesses of me preaching to myself this morning so if you take your copy of god's word and meet me in the book of job chapter 19. i love that so much job chapter 19. uh as as you turn there to job chapter 19 let me let me also say that uh part of what makes um being here such a joy is having elders that over the last two and a half months have become brothers and i i they know this and i'll tell you this i i have a hard time trusting people and i think if you've gone through hurt in the past then you understand that it can be hard to trust folks but these men have proven themselves faithful and trustworthy and it's really been so cool to see what's been happening in our elder room um and so much of that you're gonna get a chance to get a peek behind the curtain here pretty soon to to be partakers of that but this morning uh we are installing three new elders this morning and so in the life of our church that's a huge huge deal and i am so thoroughly excited for the men that god is called here and the spouses the women who walk beside them uh job 19 we're going to be in verses 25-27 excuse me verse 23 through 27. job chapter 19 verses 23 through 27 when you get there say oh yeah if you need a minute say hold up brother all right verse 23 reads oh that my words were written oh that they were inscribed in a book and oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever for i know that my redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth and after my skin has thus been destroyed yet in my flesh i shall see god whom i shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another my heart faints within me this is the word of the lord and before considering it we should pray let's pray father in heaven would you bless the reading the hearing and the doing of your word in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit we ask amen amen i don't know if you know this but this world is designed to stress you out and it feels like sometimes everything is designed to just tap dance on your last nerve and as christians and believers it is often we will attach the responsibility to hard times to satan or those around him i think it's important for us to recognize that when it comes to spiritual warfare as a christian we actually have three enemies there is the world and the fallenness that ensued beyond the abdication of their role as sons and daughters of god that adam and eve committed in genesis 3. the world has become an enemy being in a fallen world second there is the flesh that's inside of us this what this war that rages between spirit and flesh this flesh that always wants to choose self in the world over god and third satan but the reality is as i heard many preachers say before me that satan is not omniscient he's not omnipresent and quite honestly most of us are not important enough for satan to take time out of his schedule to mess up our life the reality is we sometimes attribute too much credit to satan when the real responsibility is either on the world or myself for the suffering that we experience and last week pastor matt fallow preached a sermon on jesus calm in the storm which was so poignant for me and and walking through and feeling like i'm living on this boat that's rocking and i'm asking the question jesus do you care and also the reality is most of us are either coming out of a storm walking right into one or about to or in the middle of one but what happens when satan is directly responsible in part for your own suffering and really what are we to make when god himself seems to hurl our hardship at us himself i think when it comes to the book of job the plot of this book job's apparent suffering in the seeming sense that it seems like he's suffering for no reason offers us an opportunity to take a look at life maybe even your life i know for sure my life this past week and ask three very poignant questions the first question that this text begs us to ask is quite simply is god a god of goodness to put another way is god could from the very beginning of chapter 1 of job we find job is a man who's righteous a man who's blameless a man who follows the lord he's bringing his children up in the fear and the admonition of god he makes a atonement for his sin and the sins of his children he is a man par excellence by which we would all take note of and say he is who we should be like if there was anyone who deserved a sort of easy life a life of blessing a life where god would smile upon him it's job he loves god he provides for his family he's at home and yet a self-seeking satan looks to strip all of this away and job's ensuing plight seems to be sport to god and satan comes asking the question i bet i can get him to curse you and god is like uh why don't you take all of his stuff i bet he still won't curse me god seemingly allowing job to suffer seemingly allowing job to go through this and and i'm no expert but this in chapter one doesn't look like love it doesn't look like mercy it doesn't look like goodness chapter one red in a certain light can look and smells like the work of a tyrant a god who throws suffering onto a person to make a point the question is is god a god of goodness god after all has allowed calamity to overtake job and his entire family god has allowed him to walk through such hardship and suffering and the question is not only is god good but how in the world could a good god allow people to suffer perhaps you're like me and you've asked these same questions yourselves god how in the world can you be good when everything around me seems to be caving in and in order to answer this question we've got to talk about david copperfield not the character from that charles dickens book a long time ago but i'm talking about the 80s and 90s magician david copperfield the long dark flowing locks wearing all black with the million-dollar smile making all sorts of things disappear and christians calling him the antichrist i remember watching a episode of david copper's field making the statue of liberty disappear and they build it and they advertised it and everybody showed up millions of people watched david copperfield stand in front of the statue of liberty in new york city and they are with him is this crowd the studio audience and they're super excited and they're there and they're having all these conversations and all the interviews and then an hour later uh you know they they spend 59 minutes and 15 seconds actually talking about it and 45 seconds i'm doing it and there's david copperfield and they throw up they bring up this large giant black curtain and they cover up the statue of liberty and then they drop it and it's gone and everybody's mind blown it's like how in the world did they do that but little did the audience and you had you been watching know that the entire studio audience was sitting on a platform that was slowly rotating as they were sitting there so as they're sitting on the platform their seats are angled at the statue of liberty and slowly but surely that platform is turning slowly imperceptibly incrementally turning and as it turns these people aren't aware and as it turns they begin to have their attention shift and as it turns they throw up a black curtain they drop it and by the time the platform's done spinning they're looking at a different section of the sky that is not the statue of liberty what's happened is that they've slowly changed their perspective to alter and adjust how they see the world if we have a myopic view of our suffering and only see the hardship we endure as if things are only about us then we become fooled and disillusioned like that crowd but perhaps the word and the plight of job is written so that it might be a blessing to all who would read it friends job's suffering is not just for job it's for you and your hardship is not just for you but it's for those who are watching now i want i want to say this with every ounce of pastoral love and care in my heart toward you friend your hardship is not about you god is a god who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust and he often apportions us to walk through hardship so that it might be a witness to those who are watching and asking us why in the world do you show up to work with a smile on your face and i know what you're going through how is it that you have not crumbled how is it that you have not lost your mind how is it that you are still upright so that we might declare the excellencies of the god who's holding us together the reality is our suffering is not about you so that god might in our joy in our calamity in our pain and in our chaos might cause his children to say for i know that my redeemer lives and upon the last he shall walk upon the earth and after my skin has thus been destroyed still yet in my flesh i shall see god god never ceases to be good our circumstances may change our perspective but god is constant even when he kicks the props of comfort out from underneath us in addition to the question of god's goodness job's book the book of job and this pericappy begs us to ask the question is god a god of retribution is god a god of retribution does god give out blessing for goodness and curses for evil that's a question chapter one opens up and we see everything about job in chapter one he's good he's doing all the right things he's taking his kids to church he's showing up and teaching sunday school he's giving his money and his tithes and his offerings and he's praying to god and he's discipling people wouldn't it not follow if god is a god of retribution that all of his good deeds should lead to blessing and yet in one chapter all of that crumbles apart how are we to make sense of this exodus 21 i encourage you to write it down and go back and look at it in the law god gives prescriptions for his own retribution meaning that what we do god responds accordingly in exodus chapter 21 there's one particularly poignant place where moses writes if two men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and cause harm or miscarriage to the child whatever happens to that premature child shall also happen to you an eye for an eye a two four tooth a hand for a hand a foot for foot a life for life god sets out in the law to show that he is a god of retribution he's a god of equal action and consequence and we expect this right because many of us we operate in our spiritual lives today using a similar principle if i am good then god will bless me if i am bad god will not bless me or he'll punish me somehow in this life there is a conditional aspect to our relationship with god if i'm good then he'll bless me and if you read deuteronomy 18 it would seem to confirm exactly that in deuteronomy 18 god gives blesses for covenant faithfulness and then the next chapter he gives curses for covenant disobedience and you may approach god trying your best to do your best for god wanting to be blessed by god by your goodness but at some point you're going to run into a buzzsaw and that buzzsaw is job what do you do with a righteous and a good man who has everything stripped away from him what do you do with the new testament that says anyone who desires to live a godly life will be persecuted what do we do when god does not seem to apply or operate according to retribution and then to complicate matters in walk bill dad elephants and elihu jobe's three funky wet behind the ears funky nose friends who who then come in to confirm that god is a god of retribution job the reason that you're in this mess is because you've sinned and if you had not sinned or if you have if you repent your sin or you have unrepentant sin then god's gonna release his hand from you he's gonna release uh the suffering from you he's gonna relent and eliphaz comes up and he says the same thing hey job the reason that you're in the position that you're ran is because you got secret sin and you are uh just up to your ears in secret sin you need to repent a lie who comes with the same message even job's wife that tells job give it up god is not good and if he's cursing you he is unjust he has no reason to do this to you you've been good you have no reason to curse you you've been good so job give up curse god and die his wife understands god as a god of retribution bildad understands god as a god of retribution eliphaz and a lie who believes this and i grew up in a church with a similar theology that if you suffer then that's on you but what i want to say is that yes god is a god of retribution but more immediately and primarily god is a free agent who does whatever he pleases he sits high and he looks looks low he sits in the heaven and he does whatever he pleases and the book of job reveals this that while god usually blesses the godly and punishes the ungodly he does not always do so meaning that god causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike and the purpose of this we see in john chapter nine do you guys remember when jesus is walking with his disciples and they come across a blind man who's sitting there and his disciples asked rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind the idea again was the reason that he was blind was because of someone's sin because god is a god of retribution and jesus says neither neither this man nor his parents but this man was born that he might declare the praise of god that is why we suffer we live in a fallen world our flesh gets us in trouble and we got to be honest when our flesh leads us in trouble when our flesh writes a check that our butts can't cast y'all know what i'm talking about and the reality that there are sometimes god causes us to walk through hardship for the sake of other people last week y'all was a week we bought our house we've been in our house three weeks and our stuff just finally showed up on the same day that the movers show up to my house i also have a identity uh theft scare uh that our stuff shows up it's busted it's broken it's scratched they didn't care they left furniture outside it's a whole thing at the same time when i'm at this camp and i'm trying to be faithful and preach the gospel and do all these things from afar it's just it seems like it's just hit after hit after hit and i told courtney that whenever this happens whenever our life completely breaks god's about to do something amazing and i have no idea how he's going to do it i'm so discouraged she's discouraged and then we have three children who are children and it's alive i'm sitting backstage before i preach on thursday i'm like lord i've got nothing to give i'm discouraged my countenance is low i'm weary i have nothing to give these people and what we saw that night was we saw 60 to 100 kids come to know the lord jesus christ as their savior not because a preacher is good at preaching but because i literally had nothing to do and give it was the spirit of god and when i think about my own plight and my own suffering there's so much that we go through that is for the sake of others because what is more powerful than saying hey look at me and how bad this is is to say hey look how bad this is but let me point you to the one who's holding all of this together the the hope is that yes god is a god of retribution and yet even when he does as he pleases his work is for the sake of our good and for our neighbors and for those who come after and third and finally the question that job begs us to ask is is god a god of grace in verse 26 we get a window into what the condition of job would have been the first pass that satan comes by god he takes all of his stuff the second time satan touches his body and i love this he says after my skin has thus been destroyed i wonder if he's more than pointing to the temporary nature of human flesh but he's pointing to a skin disease he's pointing to his flesh maybe falling off some form of ancient near eastern leprosy that after my skin has thus been destroyed yet in my flesh i shall see god one of the things you need to know about this particular passage of scripture is that it comes at one of the darkest times in this book job at this point has listened to his wife and his three friends and he has concluded he has concluded that god must be unjust he believes in a retribute of god he believes in a god who is good and he believes that a god meets out according to our deeds and the only logical conclusion for what i'm going through is that god must be unjust and it's here at the darkest at the lowest point that like a rainbow in a cloud it shines with marvelous splendor and he points to the hope that he has and the grace that he believes in with one word that is the word redeemer now that's a good word you might want to write that down circle it underline it highlight it star it commit this to your memory because that word in the hebrew is the word goel g-o-e-l go l and that word means that it is someone who is an advocate it is someone who provides legal protection so here's job claiming that god is unjust and yet in the same breath he proclaims that he believes that his goel his legal defense his protector is alive in one breath he says that god may be unjust and yet i believe that god is good and in the next breath who is going to stand up and defend job against god now i don't know if you know this god doesn't have a rival there's nobody who's like him there's none who are comparable to him in power in wisdom or in might so who is the redeemer that job points to who would defend him against god unless it were god himself there's something deeper happening here in the text i wonder if you notice what case the r in your bible is in is it lower case or is it an uppercase if it's an uppercase then it points more to the proper name of someone than just the function of that individual i wonder if you're smelling what i'm stepping in job opens the pericope by saying oh that my words were written and inscribed in a book or that the word that there were iron pen and lead that i might write them on a rock job says i need to preserve these words for those who would come after and i need to save these words that someone might read this and find hope and ironically god took these words and he didn't put them on a rock but he put them in the book and in this book today we read that i know that my redeemer lives now i'm getting happy y'all gonna have to stay with me for a minute job doesn't realize he's giving a messianic prophecy that yes he's appealing to a redeemer whose name he does not know but i know a redeemer who was our advocate i know a redeemer who in the midst of injustice stood in my place i know an advocate that when i deserved sin in hell he took it for me i know a redeemer who continues to advocate in prayer right now for me to the father and i know that my redeemer lives and baby my redeemer has a name and his name i wonder if you'll say it with me is jesus and not only does he live and not only does he have a name but there will come a day when he will stand upon the earth and he will bring his kingdom down he will crack the sky like an eggshell come riding on a white stallion and will restore all broken things and make them right and in the words of our uh c.s lewis like aslan this coming king he will make all sad things untrue and here's the reality your suffering is temporary but it's got a purpose your hardship has a time stamp on it for the sake of someone else and i may have a bad week but friends baby there's something coming that is greater than a week and god is the one who looks at a weak and he can't remember it because it was a quarter of a breath and when it comes to our redeemer there is someone right now advocating for you and the reality is here's the reality i want you to hear me that this go well more than just simply being with us it's the one who our very eyes shall behold dressed in a robe dipped in blood job considers god unjust and some of us do too and yet christ jesus is the very answer to the justice of god in our life so job says i may die my life may be over and god may be unjust here but there is a day coming when i shall see for myself that he will not always be this way friends god is a god of grace last question so what do you do when things don't go your way what do you do when things don't make sense what do you do when what you're walking through seems to be unbearable and it seems like god is punishing you will you believe the character and the nature of god that god is indeed good not external actions only but also heart level motivation god is good will you believe that god cares for you and that your pain has purpose and will you believe that god often acts independently of you to use you for the good of others i wonder if there comes a day when you will believe and know that your redeemer lives and at the last he shall stand upon the earth and through your eyes you shall see him and behold his goodness i told the first service this and i got rebuked but it's the reality this life is not about me and my life isn't mine i can walk out here and on woodstock road and get hit by an 18 wheeler you know what y'all going to show up at my funeral some of y'all might cry some of y'all going to be there just because it's the kind thing to do some of y'all gonna show up just to see the spectacle and you know what y'all gonna go to the to the repast uh excuse me y'all gonna go to the meal after the funeral are y'all gonna eat some coleslaw some potato salad you know what y'all gonna do y'all gonna go on with y'all life in the end of the day i don't really matter that much i don't know if tomorrow's gonna be better than this next week i don't know if next week is gonna be better than this week i don't know if the next year or two years is going to be better than the last two or three years i have no way of determining what my future will be nor can i control what these days will be like i could approach that with great anxiety and fear and uncertainty i could look at these days and ask god why why why but i have resolved to know in my heart that i know that my go-el lives and that at the last he shall walk upon the earth and though my flesh may fail still yet my eyes shall see him at the end of the day our suffering our hardship is the proof and the pudding of our camaraderie with jesus that points us to our goel so at the end of every sermon we take some time to pray to respond to the word of the lord let's take 20 to 30 seconds right now just to hear from the lord to respond to his word and to see how it is the spirit would ask us to apply it to our life father in heaven there's never been one second of this life that we've ever been in control and yet the illusion of control would have us believe that we can determine how you act on our behalf father our trust has been in many ways more in our doing than in your goodness turn our eyes away from ourselves focus and fix them squarely upon you jesus that in your resurrection you were our goel you were our advocate and even right now you live to intercede on behalf of these children that you love so help us lord to believe in our unbelief help us to have eternal perspective when it seems as if what i'm looking at right now will be forever and strengthen us oh god strengthen us and wean us off of the lower pleasures of the world like comfort and control and fix our eyes more squarely and firmly upon you lord we love you so much it's your name we pray amen amen amen amen did you guys stand and join us for one more song [Music] is made for your faith in his excellent work what more can he say and to you he has said to you who for refuge to jesus [Music] fear not he is with us so be not dismayed he'll be our defender cause us to stand up hell by his [Music] how our sure and we will not be shaking jesus [Music] the soul that is [Music] [Music] is [Music] and we will not be shaped jesus firm foundation [Music] he's the age to age he stands faithful to the end all may fade away he will remain he will remain i foundation [Music] [Music] [Applause] my jesus [Music] amen the lord is good amen i said the lord is good amen amen please be seated uh this morning i want to invite our current elders and i would like also to invite scott and liz lemons terry and tanner evans and corey and leslie thompson up to the stage this morning we get to install three new elders and um one of the reasons why this is such an important aspect of what it means to be a family of god is that god in christ has appointed under shepherds to serve as christ in guarding the deposit of the gospel and caring for this church um in in ways that jesus would care for her and one of the great blessings of my time thus far you know courtney and i we've been around for a little under three months and one of the great blessings of my time has been what these men have meant to me um and how in my entire life i've got some some trust issues these men have proven themselves trustworthy and they've proven themselves faithful and these men love you and in prayer and counsel as we were praying about including and adding new elders um man it was just pretty it was pretty affirming all of the ways in which god had his hands in this and so just so you know this is uh this is a heavy heavy heavy responsibility um those who are called to be owners of the church especially those like myself who are called to teach will be uh held to a higher standard and as such we want to steward that and steward the care of your souls in such a way that when we add a new elder we are essentially saying that these men are trustworthy and that these are men that we feel god has called to lead us and so i am honored and thrilled uh to get a chance to introduce you all to them i'm going to turn the mic over to my man aaron richardson the elder chair of our elder board and aaron just real quick uh this brother has been a gift to me do you all hear me uh he has been a friend he has been one who's rebuked me he's encouraged me along the way and so i'm excited brother and grateful for your leadership of us in that elder room thank you so much and thank you for the word this morning very difficult but very timely so thank you for the word let's give a hand for the word of god as jason mentioned we spend a lot of time just praying and and seeking god on the behalf of our church and making sure that we are stewarding the church well and that we are loving you well um and that we are putting the church in its needs at the forefront and that we're at the feet of jesus uh on the behalf of our church and so it's it's a pleasure um today to to to pray for um corey and leslie and terry and tanner and um scott and liz so i i look forward to to praying but before we do that um we we often identify our new elders but we we we haven't spent time sharing about those who have rolled off so today i just want to say we're very thankful for three three elders that have rolled off since the last time we installed elders and i just want to thank them so raul velasquez and his wife mildred they have been serving in fellowship espanol raul spent a lot of time with us great time with him danny taylor and his his wife laura again another couple that have spent a lot of time with us in prayer they've become brothers and friends and i just really want to thank our former chairman rob consoley and his wife amy for the time they invested in us it's been it's been great uh getting to know them and we're just thankful for for the time um so i want to go before the lord in prayer and i ask that you would extend your hands uh to this to these couples as we pray for them gracious father we are thankful for who you are we're thankful lord god that you have called us lord to be here at this time lord god in this place lord god o lord to to be an example of christ lord and to steward the church and and lead those souls to jesus lord god as we as we think about the responsibility of an elder lord god and you said that it is it is good for one to desire that role we also know that there is a real live enemy oh lord that would desire lord to destroy us and to separate us and to divide us lord god but lord we ask that you would help us lord together to be an example of the flock lord be an example of a union that is unified lord god seeking you and being led by you so lord through prayer and humility and the leading of your spirit lord i just ask that you would bless these couples lord god not just the husbands but bless the wives lord god that they would also be in prayer lord for their husbands lord this role requires time and commitments lord god and we thank you for for these uh these men who who are giving of their time lord god and as we continue to grow together as a as a board and as a leadership team lord god we want your glory to be revealed we want fellowship bible church to be a church where people come and see jesus lord god we have no other agenda lord god but to honor you to love you and to portray your love lord so we thank you we give you praise honor and glory in jesus name amen amen amen man amen can we give a handclap of the lord with praise and gratitude and thanksgiving and aaron said this but please be praying for us one of the ways that we want in our heart is we want to be available and open we are going to be sharing some some things with you guys coming soon you'll get a chance to peek behind the current uh the candle the candle look it's i've been talking a lot curtain thank you uh words are hard we're gonna give you a peek behind the curtain uh to kind of let you know you'll be seeing all of us collectively as a body a lot more and we're really excited about undertaking that task of serving our faith family be praying for us there are there's a lot of opposition from the outside and there's often some infighting as well but a church is like a boat on a sea and as long as the sea stays out of the boat the boat will float but if the too much of the sea gets out it gets inside of the boat then that boat's gonna sink um and so we're gonna be the ones who are standing on the rails who are uh with the help of the holy spirit fighting off that water and taking buckets and and dumping it out so we we appreciate your prayers in that way i'm gonna invite you to stand we're gonna have our benediction today is we're going to say yeah you'll go ahead you can stand up uh our benediction this morning will be the doxology that we're all going to sing together as we give thanks and praise to the lord for not only how far he's preserved our church but where he's taking us as well so let's sing together praise god from whom all blessings slow [Music] praise him all creatures hear me lord praise father son and holy [Music] go in the grace and the peace of the lord jesus christ we love you have a wonderful week thank you for joining us if you made a decision to follow jesus we want to celebrate that with you today will you please go to fellowshiproswell.org connect fill out your information there and one of our team members will be in touch with you shortly hey if you're out there and you want to talk with someone or you want to pray with someone can i invite you to go to fellowshiproswell.org pray fill out your information there and one of our ministry care team members will be in touch with you shortly and while you're there if you want to set up an appointment with one of those staff members you can do that both either virtually or in person here on our campus in roswell georgia well again thank you for worshiping uh with us today we pray that the message and the worship time was a blessing to you and we hope to see you back next week god bless [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Fellowship Roswell

Views: 158

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: fellowshiproswell, bedisciplesmakedisciples, loveGodloveothers, bible, church, prayer, Fellowship Bible Church, Roswell, love, hope

Id: y3D8slSLne8

Length: 74min 58sec (4498 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 25 2021