The Hills Church Live | October 3, 2021 | 8:30am

hello everybody good morning to you let's all stand up let's sing every praise to our [Music] god every praise is to our god every word of worship with one accord every praise every praise is to our god [Music] sing hallelujah to our god glory hallelujah is to our god every praise every praise is to our god [Music] every praise is to our god every word of worship with one accord every praise every praise is to our god sing hallelujah to our god glory hallelujah is to our god every praise every praise is to our god [Applause] god my savior god my healer god my deliverer yes he is yes he is god my savior [Music] yes he is [Music] every praise is to our god every word of worship with one a call every friend every praise every praise is to our god [Music] is [Music] know that is redeemer is an ever prayed praise for me i know eternal life [Music] i know i know that my redeemer lives i know i know eternal life he gives me [Music] my redeemer lives i know that understand for men is saving grace is [Music] i know i know that my redeemer lives [Music] [Music] wonderful to see i know i know that my redeemer lives i know i know eternal life he gives i know [Music] poor and needy bruised and broken by the fall jesus ready stands to save you full apart for all he is able he is able he is able he is [Applause] sick and sore jesus ready stands to save you full of pity love and power he is able he is able he is able he is able he is willing no more saints and angels join in concert sing the praises of the land while the glimpse full courts of heaven sweetly echo with his name [Music] hallelujah here we now is the proclaim hallelujah [Music] here we now is the proclaim who o lord could save themselves their own soul [Music] our shame was deeper than the sea your grace is deeper still [Music] you came down to find us let us out of death to you alone belongs the highest praise [Music] for when our hearts were far away your love went first yes your love goes [Music] lift us from the grave you came down to find us let us out of death do you alone be long so high as praise we lift up our eyes lift up our eyes you're the giver of life we lift up our eyes lift up our eyes you're the giver of life we lift up our eyes lift up our eyes you're the giver of life we lift up our eyes lift up our eyes you're the giver of life [Music] you came down to find us let us out of death to you alone be long so highest praise [Music] the highest praise [Music] [Music] packets let's continue to focus on the cross on the one who can save us if you're a guest here with us there's uh on that packet there's a smaller packet where you can pull off and reach the bread and the thicker second tab you pull off for the cup of juice remind us of the body and blood of jesus pray with me please [Applause] oh jesus we do praise your name and um you alone can rescue you alone are worthy of praise there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved you alone can deliver you alone are the one who came to this earth the only one who has ever lived a perfect sinless life and therefore you alone could atone for our sins by dying on the cross and again you alone rose victorious over the grave and so right now as we take this bread in this cup we put our trust in you alone to save us thank you for your perfect sacrifice it's in jesus name we pray amen holy holy holy [Music] holy holy around [Music] of him [Music] shall be holy holy [Music] glory may not see [Music] there is [Music] holy holy shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea holy holy [Music] god on zion's glorious hosting [Music] to [Music] hear all who suffered [Music] i am [Music] forever [Music] succession [Music] lord who like me thy praise should see oh [Music] god [Music] [Music] oh [Music] holy is our god can you imagine what it's going to be like one day to be standing before our holy god the god of hosts i imagine just people from every tribe and nation in a gigantic stadium millions and millions of angels all around and we are made new creations new bodies and we are there because of the lamb of god the messiah who has taken away our sin he alone is worthy what's that moment going to be like how are we going to respond how are you individually going to respond how are we all together going to respond when jesus walks into view so this is a song we have been working on for several weeks it's been a blessing to us just to imagine what that moment is going to be like [Music] blessing [Music] [Music] all right [Music] there was a holy hush all over as i walked into the room and as i stood before him face to face i was gloriously made new there was a great and awesome presence and the light is bright as day as i bowed to kneel with the angels i heard the spirit say [Music] all right [Music] to stand before the throne in the presence of the holy lord [Music] as we worship the messiah our eyes [Music] i looked at those all around me with their hands uplifted high then the spirit laid his hands on me and i uplifted mine we were singing hallelujah praises to his name and as i bowed to kneel with the angels i heard the spirits [Music] as we worship is to stand before the throne in the presence of the holy as we worship the messiah our song shall rise to thee [Music] in the presence as we worship the messiah wow good morning church awesome one of the pastors here that was amazing you know i i typically go to the 10 o'clock or 11 30 with our family but this was a gift to be able to come together with our voices in harmony together just feeling the power of god in this room so whether you're with us online or here locally this is what we're about as a church we're about worshipping the god who loves us the god who died for us and the god that is worth giving our lives to amen so welcome to the hills what a way to start off our morning together uh if you look around there's some people of all different sizes shapes forms and ages uh we have our first through fifth graders join us for worship moments like this every single week to inspire us to lift us up to worship god as well and so at this moment you can pop up first through fifth graders and find someone with a green shirt are volunteers back there that'll take you to your bible classes and you can continue to learn about god there now what one of the rhythms that i love that we have as a church is the moment where we acknowledge the generosity of the church and the hills man you guys are so generous i'm inspired my family's inspired to worship with you because of the generosity this church gives out and so we create space every single week for us to give back to god to say god you own it all and even though there's maybe stresses or uncertainties in our lives around finances around where we're going in our future we can say yes to god we know his faithfulness is there for us and so we encourage people to give because we know how powerful it's going to be not only for you but for our community for the people around the country the world that we give that money to as well and so you can give online you can give as you exit today one of the stanchions in the back so again thank you for your generosity and as a family together we worship but there's also moments that we grieve as well and yesterday renee moseley her daughter mandy passed away unexpectedly and so we want to offer sympathy to her and her family during this time of mourning and grieving there'll be more details to follow on arrangements for mandy so keep their family in your prayers yesterday was a big day is there any ladies up in here went to the women's conference yeah a couple yeah she's excited uh my wife went and she was like ross it was in fuego it was on fire the the speakers the energy uh barbara grackey one of our pastor or leaders here she she brought some amazing people in to see the power of god manifest in women the theme was get up and walk and my wife was dancing when she came home she was on fire and so i just want to highlight ladies you had a powerful weekends the spirit was moving and let's continue to fuel that as we go into the fall amen one of the things that we've really focused on in the last month is our new vision nations and generations and last weekend we kicked off uh this 40 days together as a church praying and we actually have a prayer guide if you go to the nations and generations.org website that you can download we have a podcast it's a few minutes a day and today is day seven so it's not too late maybe your new year you want to jump on board get to that website connect with it i think the devotion today is around unreached people groups as i was reading it the spirit stirred up in me to pray for this group of 17 million people in india named the bill people and hardly any of them have heard the gospel and so obviously in our dfw context where we're in the bible belt it seems foreign to us that people wouldn't have heard of jesus before but it's a real fact around the world and so we get together over these 40 days and we pray for people groups like the build people we pray for things and for the spirit of god to move powerfully not just globally but locally and in our country so join us on that journey again if you go to work you can pop in the pop podcast on your iphone or your smartphone in the mornings and and stay connected as we pray together rick mentioned last week asking this is one of the most this is the most important thing that we can do in this vision together is to ask god for nations and generations and speaking of that speaking of uh what god's doing internationally we we have something called a harvest weekend coming up in a few short weeks and this is an annual rhythm for our church at harvest weekend we take up an offering and we give all that money to bless church plants missionaries what god is doing outside of our community and so we're excited about what god's going to do with that in a few weeks and last year we wrapped up our courage campaign where we were able to fully fund our west fort worth campus again because of your generosity and we have an update now on what god is doing with our south lake campus so let's hear from one of our pastors chris hatchett for that update i wanted to give you a couple of updates today on our new campus as you can see behind us we've gotten our building permits and things started moving in august in fact today they're working on the dirt for the addition that we're building and then on the inside demolition is mainly completed and walls have started going up today and so we're on track for a spring move into this new campus and i want to thank you for your courage donations that have helped made this campus a reality the other thing that i want to let you know about today is that when we move into this new campus it's no longer going to be the south lake campus it's going to be the keller campus we're doing that primarily because the address is in keller it's in keller city limits but additionally we wanted to do something new as as god is doing something new in this area and for our campus we wanted a fresh start and as we talk about a fresh start we can still honor the past of being the south lake campus for almost 11 years and before that the south lake church before our merge but it's time for a new thing and a new work that god is going to be doing and so we're so excited we covet your prayers for our keller campus well hey hills church it is an exciting season to be part of this church family and for everybody who is joining us in person or online welcome my name is taylor i'm one of the teaching ministers here and yeah it's just exciting to see what god is up to between the work that's happening at what will become our keller campus and being able to finally host our first in-person conference since about february 2020 uh and i heard great things about women's conference and then to top that all off last month we just launched a brand new five-year vision to ask for nations and generations there's a lot happening and as i talked with our senior minister rick actually he and i were talking about this this launch of the vision last month and and on for both of us we just want to say this has been incredible like we we felt this shared energy as we've talked with members in the church with some of you about about what god is up to about what god's calling us to in this next season as we ask for nations and generations there's a sense of buy-in there's a sense of momentum by god's grace after a season for so long that felt like things were kind of on pause and so we want to say thank you thank you for affirming this new vision thank you for buying in thank you for looking ways to pray and to engage as we pursue the goals that are part of this vision and one of the goals that we are excited about is the call to become a multi-ethnic church in the next five years we feel this call strongly to be as part of our witness to the community but also as an outpost of the kingdom of god in which every tribe and tongue and people belong hills members say amen and so we uh we're going to take a small but important step today towards that goal because we feel god calling us as a local church to make progress in the area of becoming a multi-ethnic church and yet it is hard to make progress if you don't know where you stand today and so i want to invite everybody who's live at one of our campuses to pull out pull out your phone right now we're going to take a small but important step right now a little church family meeting moment we are going to ask you to participate in a very short three question survey now i'll be the first to say surveys are not perfect by any means but they can be helpful to give a little bit of a snapshot of where we are today as a church and so you're going to be able to see up on the screen a qr code that you can you can use your your camera app or a qr reader on your phone and be able to get to that if you prefer uh old school paper and pen we've got that in seat backs around you paper copies of this same survey so if you'd scan that we're going to ask you right now to take that if you're joining us online we would ask if you're a local member of the hills maybe you're watching on online right now for for different reasons but we'd still ask you to scan this and take part if you are a local member of the hills church let's pull that qr code back up for just a second we'll give you just a little bit longer for those who are trying to do that at our campuses and make sure we're going to give you some time right now this is how important this is to take part in this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we want to say thank you for participating in this be able to finish that up if you're doing that digitally or if you finish your your paper copy when we're done with service if you're in person with a paper copy if you just drop that in one of our generosity boxes on the way out thank you so much through this vision there's going to be different different things that we're going to be doing to continue to learn and grow as a church and you just helped us take one of those steps together thank you okay church family meeting over if you got your bibles go ahead and turn to nehemiah chapter 2. last week we kicked off a brand new series called building a future and as as rick explained we are going to be journeying through the book of nehemiah following his story and the people of israel's story and and letting that become a little bit of a platform to talk about the future we're building towards with this new vision and so as we begin turning to nehemiah chapter 2 i want to just point out a little bit of a time stamp between chapter one and chapter two so you'll see that in chapter one when nehemiah begins it's in the month of kislev that was actually in the winter that's actually when hanukkah happens the jewish holiday and so when we start in chapter two it says in the month of nisan now that is about four and a half months later you're in springtime so last week we saw that in the month of kislev in the winter nehemiah gets word about jerusalem capital city in israel in judah and here's the it is in disrepair its walls have been destroyed and he is distraught knowing that this is a shame not only for the people of the city but for god and yet it's been four and a half months and he's been able to do nothing except pray seemingly do nothing anyway and all of that is about to change as we begin nehemiah chapter 2 as he is serving as the cup bearer to the king in persia in the month of nisan in the 20th year of king artaxerxes when wine was brought before him i took the wine and gave it to the king i had not been sad in his presence before so the king asked me why does your face look so sad when you're not ill this can be nothing but sadness of heart i was very much afraid now nehemiah was afraid for two reasons reason number one is that it was persian custom that if you were in the presence of royalty you needed to always have a happy disposition you need to always look happy because it was said that the the king the very king's presence was bringing you joy and so by not being happy in the king's presence nehemiah is potentially offending the king and this is risking not only his job but he maybe even his life that's reason number one reason number two that nehemiah was very afraid is because of what he is about to say next verse three i was very much afraid but i said to the king may the king live forever why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire okay that may not seem like a big deal to us but you need to know that the royal court would have gotten uncomfortably quiet when the cupbearer says this to the king nehemiah is referencing the city of jerusalem but notice he doesn't even say the city's name and that's because of the history that this king artaxerxes has had with the city of jerusalem earlier in his reign artaxerxes got word from people loyal to him near the city of jerusalem that some israelites were trying to rebuild the city and earlier in his reign this is this is the letter that some of those loyalists sent to the persian king they wrote saying this city is a rebellious city troublesome to kings and provinces a place with a long history of sedition that is why this city was destroyed the subjects loyal to the persian king are telling him look there's a reason we destroyed jerusalem you don't want to let this get rebuilt so the king writes back to them the letter you sent us has been read and translated in my presence i issued an order and a search was made and it was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition jerusalem has had powerful kings ruling over the whole trans-euphrates and taxes tribute and duty were paid to them now issue and order to these men to stop work so that this city will not be rebuilt until i so order be careful not to neglect this matter why let this threat grow to the detriment of the royal interests okay so king artaxerxes ordered that jerusalem shouldn't be rebuilt and that it he considered that city a threat to his royal interests now his cup bearer nehemiah has just said well the reason i'm upset is because of that city that you've left in ruins that's the subtext that's the uncomfortable silence in the royal court and then the king responds to nehemiah the king said to me what is it you want now as i was doing research on this passage there are times when a king asks a question that is more of a test than an actual open door and so it's unclear in this moment if king artaxerxes is actually asking sincerely or if he is baiting this seemingly rebellious cup bearer and yet for nehemiah this is the open door this is the moment he has been waiting for for four and a half months he's been praying and waiting and in response when the king says what do you want in the very next sentence then i prayed to the god of heaven we cannot overstate as we pursue this new vision the importance of prayer nehemiah has been praying for four and a half months but that doesn't mean he's going to stop even in the moment when he has his chance he throws up another prayer to the god of heaven in the words of dr tony evans he is talking to one king but he is praying to the king and as he prays he kind of throws this quick prayer and then he takes a deep breath and he answers the king in verse 5 i answered the king if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight let him send me to the city of judah where my ancestors are buried so that i can rebuild it so if you're following the story here nehemiah just asked the king of persia to reverse his own decree to go back on his own word so that he can go and rebuild a city that is supposedly rebellious and seditious against the persian empire what's the word for that stupid bold risky faithful maybe it's a combination of all of those but it is certainly an act of faith and today we are going to highlight what i'm going to call three faith mantras that we're going to need as a church and as a people as we move into this new vision that we see in the faith of nehemiah and if you're taking notes here's the first mantra faith says it's worth the risk what nehemiah did was incredibly risky he's risking his job he's risking his life he is even risking that he might stir up even more wrath from king artaxerxes to pour out on the israelites but faith says if it's right it's worth the risk if it's god honoring it's worth the risk now what we need to see is that risky doesn't mean foolhardy nehemiah is tactful as he makes this request he never says the name of the city of jerusalem he references it in a respectful way he speaks to the king in a respectful way he makes what i would call a strategic risk but it is a risk nonetheless because nehemiah understands that faith and risk are not two things you can separate if you are following god in this broken world now i remember going through a hiring process uh a few years years ago trying to recruit somebody to join our staff here at the hills and they were out of state and their corporate job was paying them significantly more money and if they came on our team they were going to lose some some accrued vacation and so my pitch to this person was basically come work more for less pay you can imagine how that went over in their household the numbers were not in their favor but but god was and they sent this call and they took a step of faith and joined our team and i remember as they were preparing to accept the job on the phone they said you know i think this is just going to be more of a leap of faith than i wanted it to be that's somebody who understands that a step of faith will involve some level of risk and yet faith that acts in confidence in god is willing to say it's worth the risk see here's the challenge many of us would readily say we want to do something for god but but maybe we don't want to take that vulnerable step we want we want to see how we could be faithful to the lord but we don't necessarily want to equate faith with risk but as a church we believe god is calling us into a season in which we need to continue to say it's worth the risk we are supporting missionaries i'm not allowed to name in countries i'm not allowed to reference because lives would be endangered if that information got into the wrong hands but those missionaries have all said it's worth the risk we know there's a chance some of the church plants that we support in this new season won't make it past their second anniversary but we readily say it's worth the risk we know that launching campus four and five will cause us to have some growing pains as a church and even for our launch teams that may be experienced in that first year as a burden especially if they're going to do set up and tear down in some kind of a a school or an auditorium of some kind but we've set as a team it's worth the risk it was worth it for nehemiah and here's how the king responds nehemiah records it pleased the king to send me so i set a time now that on its own would have been incredible enough jaws would have dropped in the persian court that day but nehemiah isn't done risking a little bit more verse seven i also said to him okay pro tip if it seems like you finished a conversation with a king and he's already done you a favor maybe don't go in a second time but nehemiah he's going to take the risk i also said to him if it pleases the king may i have letters to the governors of trans-euphrates so that they will provide me safe conduct until i arrive in judah and may i have a letter to asaph keeper of the royal park so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residents i will occupy okay nehemiah just goes from may i have permission to do something that previously you said i wasn't allowed to do to now saying will you please fund and protect the effort for me to do something you said i wasn't allowed to do and yet at the same time we see in this moment another aspect of an active faith because nehemiah it's clear in this moment was not just praying for four and a half months he was also planning he knew in that moment what it would take in order to accomplish these things even though he didn't know how he was going to get them and yet as nehemiah records what happened that day when he makes this request for the king to basically give him safe passage and then to provide some of the resources and the timber needed for the work that will be done and for his own home he records and he says and because the hand of my gracious king was on me wait look at that verse again that's not what he said and because the gracious hand of my god was on me the king granted my request nehemiah understands man that timber it may be in a royal park but you know what it was made and owned by the sovereign king of kings he owns everything he's sovereign over every highway and if his gracious hand is upon me i will be taken care and at the same time we see a nehemiah who's willing to plan even before he has these things in hand and so here's our second faith mantra plan like god can handle it even before god opened the door even before god provided nehemiah was planning in faith there were many things that were beyond him and yet he believed man if it's beyond me it's on god to provide i'm going to prepare god's gonna be the one who will provide but sometimes we're we're like nehemiah in chapter one sometimes we're quick to pray but sometimes we pray with no plan for what we would do if god actually answered our prayer one of my first jobs in ministry was at this small little community church in louisville kentucky the biggest sunday that we ever had was 65 people and normally attendance was about half that i was uh the church was in between ministers and so i was serving in an interim capacity just for a six-month stint i was the uh part-time interim associate minister so you hear how far down the pecking order i was but but on uh my first day i showed up on the property and i met the the lead interim minister whose name was ron and we were both there to meet bob bob was the one and only elder of this little community church a one elder church i've never seen it before bob toured us around the facility that day beautiful old building built around turn of the century showed us the auditorium showed us some kind of dingy classrooms in a basement showed us a little kitchenette and then bob showed us the baptistry we had to work to kind of get it uncovered and when we did i saw something that i had never seen at that point in my life a dry baptistry bob explained that baptisms were very infrequent at the little church and that on top of that it was a bit of a hassle and even an extra expense to try and keep fresh water in the baptistry and so here it was we were a church with a dry baptistry that is a sad sentence now pause for a moment if you had asked anyone in that church do you pray for more people to come to christ they would have said yes but the baptistry was dry are you asking god for anything you aren't ready to receive standing there that day ron the first thing he said as the lead interim minister of that little church was well first thing we need to do is get some water in there and he didn't know it but he taught me a lifelong lesson about faith that day about faith in action active faith prepares trusting god will provide because it would have been easy to focus on all the things that we couldn't do we couldn't change that church overnight we couldn't magically grow attendance by sunday we couldn't guarantee somebody was going to get baptized that week but we could put water in that baptistery maybe one of the best things for for some of us to do is to begin to realize that the the one of the enemy's tactics will get us to focus on all the things we can't do in order to get us to ignore the things we can one of the best ways to sour nehemiah start in this call would have been for him to focus on all the things that were outside the bounds of his influence and yet for four and a half months it's clear he not only prayed he planned he prepared he was ready when the moment came because it was going to be god's job to provide but his to prepare faith postures itself ready for god to move and by the way live at all of our campuses i want you to know we have baptistries and they have water in them we don't always have baptisms planned every week but we are prepared for god to move and in the back we got we got towels we got shirts we got to change the clothes if you came not ready and yet god was ready to enter [Music] [Music] you [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] 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Channel: The Hills Church

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Id: O9WuHPn__6I

Length: 73min 52sec (4432 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021