Helping Others Experience God's Best

[Music] it's an honor to be with you today our topic is helping others experience god's best far too often our only real focus in our faith is how to receive what we want from god how do we be born again what's it mean for us to get our prayers answered in the way we want them to or our children to get the outcomes that we want them to have well at some point we've got a shift from a me centric imagination of our relationship with god and understanding we're his ambassadors that through us god is making an appeal through the world you want the people around you your family your co-workers your neighbors to experience god's best because of your life choices now that's an interesting assignment and it brings a whole new dimension to your life an exciting one grab your bibles in a notepad we're going to learn together with the help of the holy spirit the topic for this session is helping others to experience god's best and i don't know if we ask for a show of hands we would be almost unanimous i suspect that we would all like to experience god's best in our lives that's a commendable objective but i would like to to suggest there's something even beyond that and that's helping others to experience god's best that you not just be a consumer of the blessings of god that you not just go to god with your own laundry list of things that you're requesting that he would give attention to but that you and i would begin to walk into our days and into our lives and and say god how can i help other people experience your best i promise you you'll find god's best more quickly if you're helping others as long as it's a self-absorbed but and your your faith begins with me you are most likely will forfeit the best that god has for you but if you have a desire to help other people find god's best you'll you will find his so if i had to put a little phrase around this what i'm asking you to do is begin to lead with your faith there you represent a very diverse collection of leaders some of you are business leaders some of you are social leaders your opinions matter to many people around fashion or food or decorations some of you are athletic leaders you lead on the sports fields where our children play some of you are political leaders you lead in so many arenas but i find that as a as a general rule we are very reluctant to lead with our faith you know i'll talk to men who have tremendous confidence in a in an operating suite or in a in a corporate setting or women as well and then you ask them to to lead a prayer in public and then there there's a their enthusiasm diminishes quickly and and we just haven't had the faith the courage the practice the permission to lead with our faith folks we've got to change i know you've been trained in your areas of profession or your areas of interest or your hobbies and and you've built lots of information and experience and you've exchanged ideas and and you've cultivated that confidence well it's time to cultivate the confidence to lead with our faith every one of us you need to be able to lead somebody to the lord to pray for somebody who has a need to bring jesus into a conversation no matter where you go from the ball fields to with your neighbors don't go to a social setting and not take jesus if you're going to a social setting and you can't take jesus don't go tell him you're going to stay home until he helps you cultivate the courage to take him with you if you're hanging out with people with whom jesus is not welcome either have the courage to bring jesus into the discussion or you need to find a new group of people to hang out with there's just no such thing as an undercover christian we've got to begin to lead with our faith you don't have to preach you don't have to condemn you don't have to bring judgment you can bring the joy of what god is doing in your life you can bring a biblical worldview no no i don't agree that the government gets to define what marriage is i don't agree that the government gets to decide what gender is they can create as many boxes as they want god hasn't changed the program [Music] lead with your faith well there'll be pushback no kidding you we read it in our bibles week after week we come and hear sermons we pray for paul because he's in prison again god bless him and then we're reluctant to to share our faith in a public setting what will you say when you see paul or do you think you can be that ashamed of your faith and imagine that you will see paul lead with your faith i want to start with just kind of a biblical grounding for this and i'm going to do it pretty quickly but the story we have to tell and the dynamic that's taking place within us that we're inviting people towards is not because of who we are or the church we attend or the translation we read all of that opportunity for us comes to us through the cross of jesus christ the bigger phrase is the redemptive work of jesus his suffering his sacrificial suffering and death on our behalf he took the punishment for our godlessness our rebellion our sin he exhausted the curse that should have come to us so that in turn we might have the fullness of the blessings that were due his perfect obedience that is the point of exchange that's the line in the sand of human history that changed everything for time and eternity so when we invite people it's not about the the depravity of their lives the darkness of their sin the the evil of their choices either that they have participated in or that they have suffered because of the power of the creator of heaven and earth has been released on our behalf through the redemptive work of jesus to deliver us from all the work of the enemy whether we have been participants or we have suffered because of those who do participate darkness ungodliness wickedness evil does not have the power to separate you from god's best now i brought you a brief summary of that and and we'll use galatians i just chose one of the new testament books it's an easy read and i brought you a sampling i didn't bring you all the verses that highlight this but there's five different aspects of deliverance described by the application of the cross in just the book of galatians were delivered from this present evil age then excuse me the new testament describes the current age as evil not everything about it but that evil is present and in many ways predominant jesus affirmed that when he said there's a broad way and many people will enter into it that leads to destruction and there's a narrow way and few will enter into it that leads to life he's acknowledging that the honor god will put you in a minority position so we're delivered from this present evil age we're delivered from the law god hasn't changed his mind adultery and murder aren't okay it's just keeping rules are no longer a means of achieving righteousness and the reason for that is you can't keep them and a 90 score will not get you to the next level you have to either keep it perfectly or you're guilty of the failure on the entire thing so we've been delivered from the law as a means of righteousness thirdly we've been delivered from south our carnal earthly adamic self that part of us that says i want i think and i feel those things no longer have the power to dominate our lives if we choose to say no to them number four we've been delivered from the flesh and fifthly we've been delivered from this world this present world order we're still on terra firma we're still on this ball of matter hurtling through space circling the sun when the new testament talks about the world it means this present world order we have a different authority we have a different set of priorities we have a different allegiance we call jesus is lord and that trumps the citizenship of whatever passport i carry it trumps my southern accent it trumps the fact that i'm a male it trumps every jesus is lord comes first if you're a hyphenated christian you're an idolater is lord now i brought you some of the verses i'll read a couple galatians 1 grace and peace to you from our god and father the lord jesus christ who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age according to the will of our god and father the language is intriguing it's powerful language we had to be rescued we couldn't separate ourselves this present evil age would have led us to destruction if god hadn't sent jesus on a search and rescue mission we can't save ourselves you're not good enough you're not kind enough you're not generous enough you're not loving enough so if you're making choices that dishonor god's righteous principles understand you're on a pathway to destruction no matter how generous you may think you are or kind you are or loving you may feel you are we are not the standard setters galatians 2 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law but by faith in jesus christ justified has a rather specific religious meaning to be justified is to be acquitted to be set free to have your guilt can't canceled in layman's language is to be just as if i'd never sinned all of us should be interested in how we can be justified before god you have an appointment with him you will give an account for your life whether you believe it or not you will and the possibility is held out to us of standing before the creator of all things in his presence acquitted not guilty i'm interested in how to make that appointment that way know that a man is not justified by observing the law but by faith in jesus christ so we too put our faith in christ jesus that we may be justified by faith in christ and not by observing the law because by observing the law no one will be justified paul says in romans if that is true does that mean that sin should just abound should you be able to do whatever you want he said god forbid that doesn't what that isn't what that means our our motivation for holiness and purity is a recognition of the tremendous gift we have been given if you're leading an ungodly immoral deceptive dishonest life you are trampling under foot the sacrifice god provided for you don't lead presumptive lives galatians 3 13 christ redeemed us from the curse of the law he became a curse for us it's written cursed is everyone who's hung on a tree galatians 2 20 i've been crucified with christ i no longer live but christ lives in me it's not my life and my time and my priority they're not my dreams i say over and over god lets your dream grow in me what would it look like if i yielded myself to you more fully if i cared about the things you care about how much time do we spend trying to get god to care about what's important to us and how much time do we spend saying to our old self i will learn to honor what god says i should honor i'm in galatians 5 it says the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace you know those nine things patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such things there is no law nothing will transcend those those who belong to christ jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires that's harsh language if you belong to christ jesus the assignment we've been given is to put to death our old nature nobody else can do it for you you have to choose that you will not dominate me i will not give you first place there are so many voices that permissive voices speaking to us it's it's like standing under niagara falls of ungodliness they just cascade around us immorality ungodliness i am stunned at the degree to which god's people or people that stand with affiliations with the church make choices towards completely ungodly behavior and it's as if their consciences are just not awake we have to change and then finally in galatians 6 14 may i never boast except in the cross of our lord jesus christ through which the world has been crucified to me and i to the world crucifixions were brutal ugly horrific too horrific to look upon them hollywood cannot accurately depict them if they did we couldn't bear to look it was the most inhumane way of torturing people to death it was intended to instill fear abject fear in the hearts of people it was not uncommon if a roman legion came to a new town and the objective was to assert roman authority in that place that they would crucify the first 10 men they met on a public road and i promised you if they had the power to do that the message was very clear to the inhabitants of that community you better cooperate and that imagery would have been very much in the imaginations of a first century audience and so paul is saying i never boast except in the cross of my lord jesus christ i will boast in that he took that punishment for me through which the world has been crucified to me and i have been crucified to the world you see forgiveness is not a small thing in your life or mine it's not some insignificant little oh yeah you know i'm kind of sorry it was a brutal thing that happened that you and i could be free that is such a good message to tell to somebody why wouldn't we say that to people well they'll think we're crazy you think they don't already whose approval are we trying to win whose favor is it we want do we want to be perceived as intellectuals as socially sophisticated is upwardly mobile what exactly is it we're pursuing we want to be perceived as independent nobody i don't want to be labeled with all those christians there's so many i do i want to be counted with the people of god well there's some imposters in there no kidding i was at the grocery store the other day everybody in the grocery store wasn't a chef there were some imposters in there people buying frozen food and hot dogs i was at the gym not everybody in there was an olympic athlete i mean some of us were but there were some overweight people in there what's wrong with us we've been embarrassed of the lord for too long now that's just a very quick walk jog through all that god has done but it does this really very little good unless we know how to appropriate it the theory in your head or on your bookshelf is not particularly valuable if we miss what god has provided it will not be because it's too difficult the concept is not too beyond us if we miss it it's because we will imagine it's too simple well it has to be harder than that there has to be more to it there is nothing complicated in god's plan for appropriating his salvation it's just not complicated in fact our greatest challenge is we think well it's got to be harder than that no it really doesn't the hard part is getting our hearts around it so i want to take the minutes we've got left and talk about this experiential faith how do we move faith from the theoretical from the classroom setting from another class another study how many bible studies do we have to have before we decided we'll start to practice the bible how long do you have to hear the truth of god before you decide you'll submit in obedience how many times do you need to hear that tithing is a biblical principle before you do how many times you have to read a psalm that says look everything that hath breath praise the lord before you decide to participate you see it's not a knowledge issue we just have very small intent when it says don't forsake together the assembling of yourselves well you know i don't have to go to church to be a girl okay so you have the authority to choose the verses that you'll take and the ones you'll set aside i'm not comfortable with that myself experiential faith joshua chapter one verse one joshua is the leader who's given the the rather dubious honor of succeeding moses the greatest leader we have in scripture till we get to jesus and joshua gets tagged to finish moses job it came about after the death of moses the servant of the lord that the lord spoke to joshua the son of none moses servant saying moses my servant is dead now therefore arise cross this jordan you and all this people to the land which i'm giving to them to the sons of israel every place on which the soul of your foot treads i have given it to you just as i spoke to moses now there's two statements in there that i think are essential for understanding the assignment that joshua is being handed god says to him that you and all this people go into the land i am giving it to them i've done that i've signed the title d in fact he says i have given it to you i promised it to moses before we left egypt i promised this to moses at a burning bush long before the plagues and long before the red sea and long before the bitter water and mara and long before the manna or the quail long before the ten commandments or the golden calf i promised to moses i would do this i have given it to you the deed is signed it's yours until today it const brings some consternation to the u.n now you do know psalm 24 1. it says the earth is the lord's and everything in it the world and all who live in it so we can deduce from scripture that god is the possessor of everything so if he wants to give a little strip of land to the descendants of abraham isaac and jacob it's his prerogative well i don't know you don't have to know you just need to know he did it i don't know why he thought gravity was such a good idea but didn't bother me so much when i was 16 but it's more intrusive these days now it seems to me that the israelites could have had two reactions to that announcement that joshua is prepared to deliver and and each of these would have been wrong they're logical but logic would have led them to the wrong conclusion one of them could have been a responsive discouragement the lord said he gave it to us joshua we heard you but we've been 40 years in this wilderness and we don't have anything more than we had when we left egypt so i heard what you said that god gave it to us but it'd be pretty easy to be discouraged at that point wouldn't it it seems that the other extreme and it would be equally wrong would have been a presumptive response they could have lined up on the east bank of the jordan river and said it's all ours all of that over there belongs to us god signed the deed we've got a copy right here yet they would have still had no more than they did when they crossed the red sea exiting egypt legally they would have been right it belongs to us but experientially they would have been wrong in reality at that point in time the canaanites had a better idea of who actually possessed the land now it seems to me that there's some parallels with the church we face a similar dilemma legally once we're born again we stand there and go we're heirs of god and we're joint heirs with jesus christ all the rights and privileges of the kingdom of god belong to us it's all ours everything that belongs to jesus belongs to us yet our reality is we don't yet possess it there's a distinction between the legal and the experiential and we're going to have to allow god to help us understand how to close that gap there are two remarkable miracles that he initiated the israelites conquest to the promised land one was the stopping of the jordan river it says that the water of the jordan river literally piled up and they could cross the miracle that followed that was the destruction of jericho a city that was the defenses were simply too significant to be overcome and so god said i'll do this and the walls of jericho collapsed just because they had a long walk 10 000 steps a day seven days in a row well maybe not 10 000. but from that time on once the jordan river had been piled up and once the jericho walls had come down they had to fight for everything they received the rest of that inheritance required them to go to battle and i humbly suggest that that's true in the christian experience as well the salvation is free it's available to every person the ground to the the foot of the cross is level it's not about iq or economics or gender or skin color or language everybody is welcome to the cross once you have received that free gift you will have to decide whether or not you will experience god's best or whether you'll stand there like the the israelites on the far bank of the jordan river and going all that's ours we've done that for too long we've done that for too long obadiah i know you read obadiah frequently so i brought you a verse i'm sure you can quote verse 17 in chapter one but for the one or two of you that couldn't it says on mount zion will be deliverance it will be holy and the house of jacob will possess its inheritance there's three really important ideas in that simple little verse one that god has provided deliverance for us we do not have to lead our lives under the domination of the kingdom of darkness now that's really important information that god has provided a way for us to lead holy lives and we are not innately holy creatures the only way that we can have a lead a holy life is that authority be given to us from a holy god and we've drifted so far away from this we haven't really cared when was the last time you heard parents talking about their kids saying you know my greatest prayer for my children is they would learn to be holy yeah i know and then finally he said it it says in the translation i give you will possess its inheritance but literally it will possess our possessions god said i've given it to you but we have to learn how to make that our own hebrews 10 14 says by one sacrifice jesus is made perfect forever those who are being made holy that last verb is in the continuing present tense it's describing an ongoing process jesus made a one-time sacrifice that you and i might continue to be made holy so we're going to have to turn loose of the notion that we've done our important god business born again dipped in a pool i've volunteered for all sorts of things i've led a generous life i've been a moral life i've been faithful to my marriage vows therefore there's really not much left for me to know no there's more to know about god than everything we have learned collectively up to this point we're finite creatures as an infinite god we haven't really been hungering and thirsting we've been kind of self-satisfied and complacent complacency is what a milk cow has to give up to become a racehorse and we've been complacent long enough i want to run with the horses in the language of jeremiah as we progress in holiness we will move back into the inheritance god intended us to have so don't think of holiness as a limit a berry or something distasteful like eating vegetables that you don't like it's a pathway to your inheritance the israelites didn't conquer the promised land because of their superior military tactics or because they had superior weapons where they had victories it was because of the blessing of god and if you're familiar with the story you know that the places where they forfeited victories it was because god wasn't helping them do you think we're different do you think it's our architecture or our worship style or our translation of the bible or the triumph of the people of god will come because we are walking uprightly with him and he brings victory and deliverance to us the healing we need in our nation is not a political healing the divisiveness the anger the violence the economic insanity the deception the propaganda all of those say for those things to be reversed we have to have a change we have to align ourselves with god more completely so where does faith come from well hebrews 11 6 says without faith it's impossible to please god because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him so we can deduce a couple of things faith is essential it's not optional faith is believing in what you don't see faith means you believe in spiritual things faith believes you're not denying the reality of matter in this physical world but you believe there are greater more powerful forces at work in the earth than the physical forces that we see and we're most familiar with faith is the connection between your existence and the unseen the spiritual world faith is essential but that verse also tells us that diligence is essential as well you can have faith and be lazy and your faith won't be of much benefit or you can be a diligent skeptic and your diligence will be limited but if you'll combine faith with diligence you can get some remarkable outcomes read the book of acts they said of jesus friends they said these men are unlearned and uneducated these are ignorant dummies but they spent a lot of time with jesus and they have shaken this city to its foundation what are we going to do with them we're educated and we're smart and we've got resources and these uneducated hecks are causing us trouble faith and diligence stop believing the lies that the enemy or somebody else puts in you about what you can't do if you'll put your faith in god and be diligent with it god will use you to impact our generation we have capitulated long enough well how do we get that kind of faith where does that come from romans 10 17 says faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of christ very familiar verse seems to me there's kind of two stages two steps in that you expose yourself to the word of god with an open heart and an open mind and you begin to learn to hear what god is saying and that's a learned process i've learned i have been asked to learn several languages i won't say i've learned them and you have to develop an error for that particular language you learn to start to recognize how the verbs are declined and you start to recognize feminine and masculine you just start to learn to because every language has a bit of a different rhythm to it but you have to listen to it a while to to pick it up and begin to understand it we have to learn to listen to what god is saying and then secondly as you hear what god is saying it will cause faith to develop in your heart you can't wish it there you can't get a vitamin you can't just hang out with people that have it and automatically catch it the fourth piece there you have to be willing to give god some time no i don't know that's awful can't we microwave this sometimes sometimes god sends an angel to you and says mighty man of valor i see you're hiding in a wine press i've come to tell you you are more valiant than you know but be careful if god gives you that kind of big guidance you're going to need it i have come to be very appreciative of that still small voice if you get dramatic guidance you're going to need every bit of the confidence that comes from the drama to withstand what's in front of you so don't spend your time looking for drama say god i'm really don't have to shout at me i'm listening you want to whisper our whispers are good i mean moses needed a burning bush but think how many times moses sat in his tent going what have i done [Music] these crazy people most ungrateful group of people i have ever met if i hadn't seen that bush and heard it talk to me i would sneak out of camp tonight right but you know i've still got that jacket over there it smells like smoke from that stinking burning bush i can imagine sitting there sniffing the smoke in that jacket going yeah that was god that had to be god everything else i've got smells like sheep and that one jacket smells like smoke that was god don't carry that longing in your heart i tell you that because i did for a long time in my life some most of you know i grew up around horses and for a little season i got to take care of them some one of the things i used to say pretty consistently someday one of my horses would talk to me because you walk in the barn in the morning to feed them and water them and they'll knicker or respond because they're used to you coming and feeding and watering them and i thought how cool would it be if you walked in one they said hey bubba you know i'm like my man and there was a godly couple visiting my parents and i i'm sure i was smarting off i know that's hard for you to believe but you know and i said you know one day one of my horses is going to talk to me and evelyn said why would you say that and i said well balaam's donkey talked to him and she said alan have you ever thought about the position balaam was in when his donkey spoke up you mean the angel of the lord was about to sever his head from the rest of him he was in such abject rebellion that the only chance he had of survival was a talking donkey no i really never thought about that but i withdraw the request you don't want big guidance you want to learn to listen to that still small voice to the subtle promptings of the spirit there's time to time god will bring you big guidance but you will need it give god time he doesn't offer instant faith faith doesn't even come just from reading your bible it comes from hearing god and if you're reading your bible just as a sense of obligation perfunctory observation so you can check a box there i'm not saying that god in his grace and his mercy won't meet you there some days he has done met me in those circumstances but it's different when you open your bible recognizing the privilege that that represents and you really have a desire to spend that time with the lord you don't arrive there in a day and it doesn't matter what stage of you are in your development there are some days it still feels like a responsibility but i hope there are some days when it feels like a joy which leads me to the next piece of this let god speak to you you know romans 10 17 we saw it in faith comes from hearing the greek word is rhema and greek words can be overplayed sometimes i think we make up meanings and then blame him on the greek language but in this case there are two greek words for the word word and rhema refers to the word god is speaking at any given moment there's something alive about it vibrant about it the other greek word logos signifies the word of god that's been established in heaven it isn't dynamic it's the foundational it's unmoving i'm the lord and i don't change and you need both in your life i need both in my life matthew 4 4 jesus said it's written man doesn't live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of god we don't live by a printed volume that we call the bible i'm grateful for the bible i'm most appreciative for it i have studied it for a while but i don't worship a book we live by the word that's made real to us personally at any moment by the spirit of god but if you haven't taken the word and put it in your heart you've left very little material for the spirit of god to work with so how do you read your bible remember our topic is helping other people experience god's best i understand this is pretty fundamental stuff but helping people experience god at any level of significance means you have a mastery of the fundamentals or at least a familiarity with them how do you read your bible first is god's word that means you you attach an authority to it you don't read it standing apart from it trying to decide what you believe is real and what you don't believe is real when i open my bible it says in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth guess what i believe i believe god created the heavens and the earth we've been following the new telescope that they've released recently some amazing pictures of the furthest reaches of our universe that we've ever been able to see i've been reading a bit and listening to some of the discussions from some of the physicists and because what they can tell now about the previously unknown reaches of our universe they said it it's just decimated the big bang theory oh how'd god do it i don't know could have been a big bang a little pop i don't know but i read it as god's word first thessalonians 2 13 we thank god continually because you received the word of god which you heard from us you accepted it not as the word of men but as it actually is the word of god which is a work in you who believe see when you hear the word of god that says god hates a lie don't get mad at the delivery system decide to cultivate a commitment to the truth in a new way when you hear the word of god talk to you about the morality or the sexuality don't be offended by it say oh god i've been so far away from that that's right amen read your bible as if it were god's word secondly read it with meekness it's kind of a biblical world with humility with not imagining that you're above it james 1 get rid of all moral filth that's pretty plain get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent do you know who the book of james has written to james chapter 1 to the 12 tribes which were scattered abroad greeting brothers consider it great joy he's writing to the believing community and what's his message to them get rid of all moral filth and the evil that so is so prevalent james is calling on god's people he said there is evil prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you and then the last component of this is moving from legal to experiential seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you if you're seeking it you're looking for it you're looking for opportunities to implement it you don't have to be coached and encouraged and cheered for it to have a let's pray moment you have to be barred from having another one you don't be prodded into having a let's talk moment where you share a bit of your god story with somebody whom you know casually you have to be warned this time you need to be quiet we have to have that intent that desire to to implement those things i'm going to close i brought you we're going to do communion together if you're watching digitally i'll give you a half a minute to go grab a saltine and a cup of water or if you have a little handy-dandy communion pack you can grab it but the lord highlighted a verse of scripture for me it wasn't a part of our daily reading but it was a part of my reading it was psalm 37 then i brought you the first four verses because it's a way when god illuminates something to you it changes your perspective and that first verse says do not fret because of evildoers now i don't know about you but in this season it can be somewhat easy for me to begin to fret be anxious [Music] worried angry annoyed agitated you can choose your word by people who choose to do evil and the biblical assignment here is just don't do that don't fret because of evil doers and don't be envious of those who do wrong now there's a difference in people who do evil and people who do wrong and he's warning us here that it's easy to be to watch people doing wrong and think well if i can do that i can have an advantage that looks like fun i mean i know it's probably not too godly but it looks kind of fun so we're given two instructions don't fret because of people who do evil and don't envy people who do wrong so i had to start by saying god i'm sorry i have been fretting about evil people and god i don't want to have anything to do with envying people who choose to do wrong i don't think doing wrong in your sight is a better path i don't think that's a better option and then he tells us why he said it's not going to work out well for them that's the translation they'll wither quickly like the grass and they'll fade like the green herb but then he gives us a to-do list trust in the lord stop fretting and start trusting in the lord when i'm fretting i'm not trusting and while you're trusting how do you know you're trusting start doing something that's good stop complaining about the evil and go do good dwell in the land in the language of ephesians 6 having done everything to stand just shut up and stand there hold your space be a christian in that dark place take your faith to the classroom say i believe that's sin no i don't really think that's so confusing dwell in the land in this translation it says cultivate faithfulness the translation i first read it and said befriend the faithful that was more simpler for me to grasp go stand next to faithful people i want to be counted amongst the faithful so i'm going to try to find some of those folks you cultivate faithfulness in small things you cultivate faithfulness in community you cultivate faithfulness in serving you cultivate faithfulness and generosity you cultivate faithfulness and obedience i want to go hang out with faithful people they'll encourage me to be faithful and he gave us two more delight yourself in the lord you'll have to build that that's not automatic do i have to go to church on wednesday night no but you could why would you do that because i'm just delighted about the opportunity i'm telling you that because i'm almost done 5 30 it crossed my mind it might have been better just to slip out and gone home delight yourself in the lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart and i took those verses and i just boiled them into a proclamation i'm going to leave it with you i will not fret because of evil doers i will not be envious towards wrongdoers i will put my trust in the lord i choose to do good i will gladly stand where god has placed me and i will practice the discipline of faithfulness i choose to delight myself in the lord believing that he will give me the desires of my heart and we're going to come to the communion table because we need god's help all of the freedoms that is ours come to us because of what jesus did through the cross so we're going to come in humility to repent for those times we've been anxious we've fretted or we have envied or when we didn't trust the lord or we chose not to do good not doing good can be a just about as much about refusing to participate looking away not paying attention europe didn't experience the horrors that led them to those destructive camps because they were overwhelmed by the majority they faced those things because the majority of the people looked away and chose not to do good i'm concerned folks there's too many of us that stand beneath the umbrella of christianity that don't want to pay attention [Music] let's decide that won't be us we will do good we will trust the lord and do the things we know to do we'll use our voices we will stand where we've been asked to stand that we would be counted amongst the faithful but to do that we will need the power of god so we come to the cross all right everybody have your communion do you have your communion at home jesus himself put this in place at the end of the passover meal he took bread he had his closest friends with him he broke the bread he's just about to be betrayed there's horrors in front of him and he's preparing his friends and then they taught us they understood it after the fact more than they did that moment i promise you this bread is my body broken for you as often as you eat this do this in remembrance of me let's receive together and then he took a cup he said this cup is a new covenant sealed with my blood as often as you drink it you proclaim my death until you see me again you know we're going to see the lord let's receive together won't you stand with me i'd like to pray with you i've given you a proclamation you can take that home with you but i'd like the privilege of saying a prayer for you father i thank you for these men and women lord those that are gathered here and those that are joining us elsewhere that we stand beneath your authority i thank you that in your great mercy and kindness and love you've called us out of the darkness and that through the redemptive work of jesus we have been declared not guilty we've been justified sanctified made holy set apart to god we praise you for it that we've been delivered out of all the the hand of the enemy that his authority over our lives is broken we praise you for it tonight or do you know our circumstances where we need health and where we need hope and where we need strength and where we need provision and where there needs to be doorways open where there have seems seemingly been impossibility but we trust you tonight forgive us that we've been anxious or worried or fretful forgive us and we have been envious of the ungodly and the wicked we've looked upon their choices and their freedoms and we thought it looked pretty good lord we're sorry we choose to walk uprightly before you forgive us cleanse us wash us holy spirit i pray you'll bring a new spirit of diligence to us teach us to encourage one another to walk uprightly before you lord may our lives be a declaration of the glory and the goodness and the mercy and the power of our god we praise you for what you're doing in us through us amongst us and in the earth here we are send us in jesus day amen halloween god bless you [Music] hey this is pastor allen thank you for watching this video if you enjoyed it like it and most importantly share it with your friends if you want to be notified when there's new content we post new material if you'll just subscribe to my channel and hit the bell you'll get the notification most of all i pray god blesses you as you continue on your spiritual journey and open your heart to the lord god bless [Music] you

Channel: Allen Jackson Ministries

Views: 6,852

Keywords: grow, grow your faith, how to grow, how to have faith, Bible reading, children, cultivate faith, experiential faith, cross, crucifixion, through the cross, freedom in Christ, know God, still small voice, trust, fret, worry

Id: jOGv9gOG68M

Length: 49min 9sec (2949 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 08 2022