Welcome Home | David Brown | Faithfulness

[Music] they have a new church we're so glad you're here [Music] [Music] is [Music] your love surrounds me [Music] we declare this truth in this place [Music] your feet [Music] for jesus impossible for you come on church [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] tonight [Music] nothing can stand against the power of our [Music] [Music] you is [Music] with my hair oh [Music] i'm so grateful for a god who fights on our behalf amen we [Music] these are the [Music] a days of faith has been gone and i've seen so much still i'm certain that the best has not yet [Music] jesus [Music] you're doing a new thing [Music] is [Music] me [Music] you never give up on me your love up you is give up [Music] is [Music] upon me [Music] is [Music] is [Music] good morning avenue church so good to be with you i'm so thankful for that message that he's not done with me because sometimes i'm done with myself sometimes i've gone to places that i'm ashamed of but god is not done with us and his perfect love he's chasing after us we're so thankful for that love this morning so thankful for the ability to be together and just tell others about that love this morning my name is mark one of the pastors here i want to say welcome to the avenue church especially if this is your first time with us we'd love to be connected to you find out more about where you're coming from the easiest way to do that is to go to theavenchurch.com connect we'd also love to meet you in the hub immediately after the service we have a special gift for you just for being here with us today we want to say thank you for those of you who are here each and every week we are so excited about what god is doing in our church in this season and i want to tell you about three different ways you can be connected in the next few weeks beginning next week we have a lunch called startup and we'd love for you to come be a part of startup if you have been here for a little while you've been checking us out but you're still not connected startup is a great place to learn more about god more about the avenue church and more about yourself here as a member of the church and so we invite you to come to lunch next sunday immediately after this service we're going to have that lunch prepared for you in the cafe and so we'd love love for you to join us you can go to theavenchurch.com startup to learn more about that opportunity also last week we launched a brand new app here at the avenue church and it's a super helpful tool to find out about about all the events and opportunities to be connected here at the avenue on this past friday we had an amazing event for women called renew anybody go to renew this weekend yeah amazing time over 600 women in the room worshiping and being renewed through speakers and just through fellowship with other women amazing opportunity that you could find out about on the app and so we'd love for you to join us on the app you can scan the code behind me and download that or you can go to the admin church.com app and that's just a way to stay connected throughout the week for what god is doing and how god wants you to grow in your spirituality also the third thing i want to mention is a serve day coming up uh in two weeks september 25th a saturday morning we have a family friendly serve day with an organization called convoy of hope now convoy of hope is international organization that meets the needs of natural disasters and so just recently in uh in haiti there was a massive earthquake and convoy of hope was one of the first organizations there to meet the needs and assess the needs last week there was a huge hurricane that came through southern louisiana and convoy of hope was there providing the assistance that necessary for those who had lost everything due to the hurricane and so we had the opportunity to partner with them to make ten 000 hygiene kits it's going to be an amazing opportunity for our church to make a global impact together i don't want to make 10 000 kids by myself so please come and help it's going to be a lot of fun you can find out more information at the avenuechurch.com served it um we're so glad that you're here with us once again we're going to continue to sing and continue to lift up the name of jesus a name that's above every other name a name that is so worthy of our praise so let's do that together [Music] how we doing avenue church we doing all right some of you got a little stand break for those of you that uh want to participate and stand with us as we continue to worship my name is ben just helping to lead some of the music this weekend i guess as mark is is talking there i'm struck by um and this is something i even struggle with doing music equals worship which music is a great form of worshiping god singing our praises to him that's what we get to do in this place but then as he's even talking about the opportunities that we have in this community to serve others whether it's packing a hygiene kit or whether it's meeting the needs of a single mom who needs help or somebody who's sick these are opportunities where we worship god where we prioritize him and what he's done and the practical tangible expression of that is by serving people and that's one of the ways really worship is just our humble response to who god is and what he's done that's all it is and so yes we do that through singing but guess what we do that when we give our tithes and offerings and we do that when we participate in communion by giving priority to his word in this place when we meet the needs of others we're the extension the hands and feet of jesus because that's what he's called us to do and that is saying you know what god what you've done in my life it matters it means something and here's my expression of that and we're going to continue to do that yes through seeing but but i wanted to challenge myself i want to challenge us to make sure it doesn't stop here right we have a brand new song that we want to teach you and the the beautiful expression of this song is that talks about praising the god and the good times and the bad times and obviously when we're on those mountain top experiences it feels amazing and it feels great and even those people that that we might need to serve that you know in in your world in your life in your circle maybe they're going through a hardship and it's harder for them to praise maybe man can we get personal for a second there's price people here in this place i know we see images on tv screens and it's a world away but in your world in our world there's stuff going on and it's hard and it can be lonely and there could be doubts and questions but we serve a god who is the answer to the question who holds the answers who holds the world in his hand it's a powerful thing can i get an amen on that our god is so faithful and the creator of the universe who's in charge is intimately aware what's going on in your life in a mind so i just would love to frame our our attention our focus fix our gaze on him this morning as we give him praise yes the mountaintop experiences but uniting and linking arms together in this moment to spur us onto more together in jesus can we just bow our heads right now let's just seek the lord before we continue on lifting up our voices god we love you so much it blows my mind that the creator of the universe who flung the stars into space planets in the sky huge awesome powerful mighty is also intimately aware of what's going on in our lives god we love you we worship you and then sing these words together oh how high would i climb mountains [Music] if you grace the side [Music] against the rush of descending from the source of its supply in the highlands in her heart [Music] you're just not that hard to find [Music] i will praise you on the mountain i will praise you when the mountains in my way you're the sun and where my feet are so i will praise you when the valley's all the same no less god within the shadows [Music] does your kindness extend apart [Music] to where you sweep the [Music] trace my stairs [Music] and i will praise you in the mountains in [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] from the greatest of all valley come the pasture we call grace a mighty river flowing over from a deeper empty grave we sing this out church i will praise you on the mountain yes we will i will praise you when the mountain's in my way you're the summer where my feet so i will praise you in the valleys all the same no less god within the shadows no less faith [Music] is james chapter 4 the bible says draw near to god and he will draw near to you in luke 11 it says ask and you will be given seek and you will find knock and it will be opened unto you this next song that we're going to sing is a song of surrender a song of allowing god to be in his rightful place in our hearts this is a prayer to our god to do that in our lives today and we're gonna sing about that let's sing this truth and let's sing it loud together here is this is my surrender this is my surrender here is where i lay down every lie and every doubt this is my surrender and now i'll make and i will make room for you my god to do whatever you want to do whatever you want to right here right now have your way here in this [Music] this is my surrender this is my surrender here is [Music] for you [Music] to do whatever you want to [Music] and i will make [Music] to do whatever you want to [Music] [Applause] is in our lives [Music] break down [Music] [Applause] is [Music] you [Music] do whatever you want to do [Music] to do whatever you want to do whatever you want to do whatever we thank you god for hearts that are surrendering right here and right now have your way church you can have a seat take a look at these screens [Music] good morning to the rest of you so glad that you're with us today and listen there's something about coming in into this place and innocent here and being able to worship together and if you're a new person on this journey or you've come to church with somebody worship is kind of a strange thing i mean it's a way for us to connect with god and to get ready to hear the truth hopefully as i share the spirit of god goes through me and out and you hear it in a way that changes your life and that's our goal but with worship if you're not a follower it's just kind of strange i mean everybody's singing it's like a concert but then people have questions you know and some people have two questions at the same time and nobody ever calls on them and so it's kind of confusing to watch but it is something that means so much when you love jesus it's a way of expressing that love and it's a beautiful thing listen this is not the first service we've had we had a weekend of church the ladies came out here and really showed off on friday night it was incredible watching what these ladies did they put on an event that was just as moving and as a dynamic as i've ever heard the first speaker i was listening to her she's a 39 year old woman who about 12 years ago suffered a massive aneurysm in her brain and was not expected to live now she has some physical disabilities because of it and she's had a very hard life and she said in the middle of that hard life there's still joy and she paid up a word she said it's a good hard life and i thought that was beautiful to help people understand even as a follower there's hardness in our world there is a sorrow in our world and we don't need to try to overcome sorrow by putting a bumper sticker that says i love jesus on it we just need to experience the sorrow and know that it's good the second speeder spoke about something that i think we neglect she talked about spiritual warfare in our life and how there's a war going on not against people not against each other we all have a common enemy and that is the principalities of this world seeking to do everything he can to destroy us what a power listen guys you need to step it up because the women are outpacing you by a lot in growth and so we got to do something about that in the future now those of you that have been coming we've been in the book of malachi and i know for some of you it seems like for at least a year but it really hadn't been and we go verse by verse through different passages and malachi was what i chose right now and the reason i chose it is because i think the people in malachi's time that he was writing to are very much like you and me very much like our generation the book was written 400 years before jesus came to the earth at christmas when jesus came to the earth he was bringing a new covenant and before that there were 400 words 400 years of silence and this was the last word that god spoke to his people to prepare them now the people of his time had been following god jehovah god for about 2 000 years and god had a covenant it was called the old covenant and the old covenant was based on if you do these things then i will bless if you follow the law then i will bless that was the old covenant and for 2000 years the children of israel had failed to keep that old covenant i mean they went through a pattern all the time they would get on their own do what was right in their own eyes and then oppression and persecution would come so they'd bow their knee to god and they'd get back on track and god would bless them until a generation later and they would forget again and so the children of israel had come back out of captivity they had come back to jerusalem they had built the temple they were doing what they thought was all the ifs but god still wasn't blessing them and so they had reached a point in this pilgrimage that they thought why are we serving god god is not for us god is not blessing us we have prayed for the other nations to get their foot off our neck and god hadn't answered we prayed for god to bless us so we're not literally starving to death but we're still starving to death and they're looking at the other nations around them that are totally ungodly and don't follow god whatsoever and they're wealthy and so the people were disillusioned with god they weren't just disillusioned they were angry in their opinion god wasn't keeping his side of the bargain and so god spoke god spoke through the messenger malachi and the first thing he says i think is so important the first thing he says in chapter one is i love you i love you now they responded like many of you would respond really you love us really because i don't see it is what they're thinking i don't see it we're doing all these things we're supposed to do but we're not better off and so god being a loving father sits down and he kind of calls a family meeting together he says first of all i want you to know i'm a good father and i love you i love you and then he begins to point out the things in their life the rules that they're not following the areas of the life that they are failing the areas of life that they're giving lip service to but i love the fact that before he lays the rules on him he puts the relationship in proper perspective because rules without relationship equals rebellion rules without relationship equals rebellion but rules with relationship equals security when i was thinking about this i thought about i started in youth industry when i was 18 years old by the time i was 20 i was taking groups of 50 or 60 young people 13 to 18 sometimes 19 down to places like inner city new orleans a dangerous place i don't know what those parents were thinking they just must not love their kids but anyway they send them with me and so we have these rules now i thought to myself why in the world would a group of teenagers do anything a 21 year old youth minister said and it wasn't because i had the authority it wasn't because i had the position it's because i had the relationship they knew i loved them they knew i cared for them and they followed those rules because the relationship they had with me they didn't want to they didn't care about the rules they didn't want to disappoint their youth minister their friend and so that's why they followed when we are in relationship with god we don't mind following his rules now that's up to a point right because all of us get tired of rules at one time or another any of you as a kid ever run away from home your parents love you right your parents care for you but sometimes you've just had enough am i right and you say i'm out of here i'm gone and when you're little you know you run away to the backyard you know you take your blanket you know you're twinky and you hit the backyard about you know two hours later if that long you're back in the house when you're a teenager it may go a little further than that because you're tired of the rules most cases not all what happens when you run away from home your parents pursue you right my mom used to ask questions like what are you gonna do for food i hadn't thought of that you know out here when it gets dark there's no night light i'm back in i'm done i am back in even though my parents prayed that's horrible scary prayer that was better than being in the dark and so that's what happens pursue so god is looking at us and saying listen i know you don't want to follow the rules and some of you have quit following the rules some of you already stopped following the rules you stopped reading your bible you stopped praying you stopped serving and in fact what we're going to pick up today you spoke harshly against god and so before we get into that i want you to see what he says at the top of chapter three the top of chapter three he says i will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me then suddenly the lord you are seeking will come to his temple the messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come now let me break that down for you just a minute i will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me remember this is the last word spoken to the children of israel before jesus he says i will send my messenger a man named john the baptizer came and he's in the wilderness he's proclaiming the way of the lord he's saying prepare for the lamb of god now don't forget he said me which means god in flesh will come into the temple as lord and he will set up the covenant you desire what covenant did they desire it's a covenant we're under see today we no longer have to follow the rules we no longer have to be under the law we no longer have to do all anything out of obedience because we have the mercy of god that shines in our hearts we have the grace of god jesus took the old model and said listen for 2000 years i've proved that you can't follow it for 2000 years i've proved you're not good enough you're never going to succeed you cannot do the things that god needs you to do to be in relationship and so i'm going to give myself for you so you can now be in relationship and then with that relationship we do the things that god wants to do out of that love that he has for us i want you to see so hard so much what the lord does for us so those of you that are angry with god those of you that have walked away you realize that god pursues you every step of the way the wonderful thing about a loving father just like your earthly father hopefully pursued you if you ran away your heavenly father pursues you when you run away when you go and you take that step here's the incredible thing because he's pursuing you no matter how far you get away from him he's one step back one step back you may be so far out there you think you're a hundred miles away from god but god has pursued you with so much love that when you turn to him he will come to you he says return to me and i will return to you the lord god does not change i will always pursue you even though you turn away i will pursue you i will always come after you folks god never changes isn't that exciting he never changes so i have a question for many of you out here some of you out here today you disagree with god on some things and you spoke harshly if you disagree with god who you think needs to change god says i'm not going to change so if you disagree with god today you really need to spend some time figuring out what you need to do because god says i'm never going to change i'm going to stay the way that i am forever and ever and ever i want you to see that so much and then as soon as he says that he starts talking about giving and malachi chapter 3 some of you have only heard this passage as it relates to giving but there's so much more to it giving is such a small part and i struggle so much when we talk about giving because i think people get caught up in what we call prosperity gospel prosperity gospel is something only alive in the united states because this doesn't preach anywhere else you go to the streets of africa you go to thailand you go down to south america you can't preach give to god and you'll be spirit you'll be blessed financially you can't preach that you can't preach give ten dollars and god will give you a hundred and you're gonna live a wealthy life and you're gonna have everything you want that's prosperity gospel listen if you're giving to god to get something from him god doesn't god doesn't bless people because they give god blesses you so you can give and so i want you to get that really right in your mind and once again we give to god not to get back from him but to show him that we trust him to show him that we love him to show him that we trust that he's going to take care of our physical needs that's what that's about but it goes on and that's not where we need to stop because giving is such a small part you see a lot of you will tell me i don't agree with giving and i'm like okay well once again god doesn't change god never changes he says i'm going to stay the same forever and so you can disagree with god all you want he is not going to change the problem with our generation the problem with us today is we've tried to redefine god we want god in our image and god says i never change and so because god doesn't change we try to change him by focusing on one of his attributes great example god is love no argument about it god is love that is true and we can lift that up god is love and god loves all people and it doesn't matter where you are or what you do god loves you and god is a god of love and he would never cause you pain he would never allow you to suffer he would never send you to a hell there's no way any of that can happen because god is love and we want to create this god that loves everybody but we want to forget that there's a holiness and justice in god we want to forget that there's the judgment of god the same god that rained down fire in the old testament is the same god today he doesn't rain down fire why because the grace and mercy of jesus the folks of grace and mercy of jesus doesn't apply unless we accept him as lord and savior i want you to hear this so clearly because we misunderstand when we take one attribute of god and neglect the other we don't have the full picture of god we love talking about the grace of god and it is an amazing thing but god is also truth and those two things have to go together you can't center on grace and try to excuse everything in your life when god says it's not gonna work you've spoken harshly against me in some translations it says you have been critical of me in other translations it says you've criticized me sharply see these people are angry at god and they have said it this way it's futile to serve god what do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the lord almighty this is what they're saying it's doing us no good to serve god and then they look and they say evildoers are prospering they put god to the test and get away with it so they're angry they're saying why should we serve god god didn't do anything for us how many of you said the same thing oh i would never say that i'd never say that out loud psalms 139 says the lord knows our thoughts before they're on our tongue so how many of you have thought that on the 20th year of september 11th how many of you remember back thinking where was god why did god allow that why's god allowed tragedy in your life why has god done these things why has god allowed the sorrow that you were facing today if god is good why doesn't he change it and some of you have talked critically about god or thought critically about god and been upset with god and said things what does god do when you speak harshly toward him he pursues you you speak harshly to me i run the other way you speak harshly to god and he absorbs it and he comes after you still and so i want you to hear today you have spoken harshly against god but god still loves you and he still pursues you and he is still calling you to something greater than you can ever be by yourself the israelites were going through the motions of religion they were showing up on the weekend they were giving a little to god but god apparently wouldn't do anything for them they weren't being blessed we've all felt this way some of you have been serving in the past and you've been burnt somebody said something critical do you know i read an article 1500 preachers pastors are getting out of the ministry every month fifteen hundred now these people felt called to serve god and because of the things in the world and the things in their life and the things going on they just said i'm done i'm burnt out and you know what there's a lot of you today listening and you're right there you're in that same category one time you were serving in the children's area but you got tired and the church took you for granted or somebody said something mean to you there's a time that you were greeting at the door but you thought to yourself it doesn't matter if i show up or not i'm just holding the door somebody else can hold this door i don't want to get up early and you stop serving you got tired you got burned out and you said what good does it do me to serve god i'm not getting anything out of this so you stopped and some of you today just be honest you're barely hanging on to your faith and you just came today because somebody begged you or you're listening online today because somebody's been on your case to listen to this message and you're like you know what i'm barely hanging on i'm barely hanging on so here's the question why'd you lose your faith why are you on the verge of losing your faith is it possibly you're a skeptic and you've grown past sunday school answers see i meet a lot of people who their faith never grew past the third and fourth grade and the simple answers that we give our children don't work in your life the simple answers that we tell our children when you're facing pain when you're facing hurt when you're facing sorrow saying god loves you is not enough and your faith has never grown beyond that childhood experience and it is not enough to carry you today and so you gave it up or maybe it's science you got educated and science means things have to be proven you can't prove god you can't seem you can't taste him you can't test him it's hard to believe an invisible god even more and that's hard to believe when somebody came back from the dead so maybe you just got too smart and you gave up you gave up your faith or maybe you prayed and you prayed and you prayed and god didn't come through you prayed for your marriage to last for your children you needed that marriage to last because you wanted your children to grow up in this home with a mom and dad and they walked out or maybe you prayed for that loved one to be healed and you meant it with all your heart and you believed it with everything in you and you watched them die horrible death maybe life's just been hard for you and you pray for god to take that addiction away and it just keeps coming back over and over and over and the more you pray the deeper you sink and you just reached the point you said i give up but let's be honest i believe that most of you gave up your faith it became inconvenient your faith became inconvenient because your faith is calling for you to do something you do not want to do and just like when you were a small child and your parent asked you to do something you didn't want to do you had one last resort and that was to do what run away and so you've done that with god because he's asked you to do something you don't want to do it's inconvenient i talk to people so many times and i hear the reasons for why they don't believe in god anymore but then i get to the root of it and it's they don't believe in god anymore because it was too inconvenient to follow god i watched one of my children make a decision in their life that god didn't agree with and so for a season of time he gave up god because he didn't believe in god no because it's inconvenient so let's be honest with ourselves about why we've given up our faith let's be honest with ourselves that we don't want god interfering with our life and it's not so much that we don't believe it's we don't want him so what do we do no matter what reason you're struggling with your faith i want you to hear me this is the place for you hear me this is a safe place for you today no matter where you are in your walk you may be on the verge of giving up you may have never accepted christ you may have a ton of questions we're not afraid of them and we're not going to give you sunday school answers because we believe that it's okay to belong before you believe so you may say you know i just don't get all of this i don't know if i'm in on this or not i can't sell out completely on the guy coming back from the dead it's hard for me believing this invisible god good come on and you can serve and you can connect and you can be part of it you know why we allow that jesus allowed it let me blow your mind the first followers didn't believe in jesus for three years they followed this man around and they didn't believe any then they started to believe in him and he died so they stopped believing many then he came back from the grave and they started believing again listen whatever journey you're on is not as crazy as theirs so you're welcome here come and ask the questions now what about those of you that are faithful i mean you know my heart is to preach to those of you that are not but god sees the faithful and god has a passage in this chapter and i love it listen listen listen listen if you're one of those faithful and you think god's not coming through or you know there's nothing in it for me if you're one of those people listen to those who feared the lord talked with each other and the lord listened and heard a scroll of remembrance was written in the presence concerning those who feared the lord and honored his name he says on the day when i act you will be my treasured possession i'll spare you just as a father has compassion and spares the son that serves him and you will see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked between those who serve god and those who do not we can be a treasure to god we're not getting anything out of it we can be a treasure to god god can look down at you and feel love and honor and hope and be a treasure and then one day i'm afraid we'll see the difference between the righteous and the unrighteous and i want you to hear me i don't look forward to that day i don't look forward to it people say oh i can't wait for the day of the lord i can wait there's gonna be a lot of people that haven't crossed that line of faith are you faithful are you a treasure how do you know well he told us in malachi are you serving are you serving inside your church whatever church you go to are you serving are you sitting are you worshiping are you watching are you praying are you having conversations with god are you caring for others are you in your community trying to care for people that are going through hard times are you giving easiest tests in the world and it keeps coming to that for those of you that are giving i want you to understand what happens with that first of all i'm able to do what i do because you give about 60 people on staff are able to do what they do because you give we're able to pour into our community in ways that are unimaginable we even get to affect people around the world a couple years ago i had the opportunity to go to lima peru and because of your gifts alan rogers our cr pastor was able to go down and start a celebrate recovery in peru that has over a hundred people that attend every week i was able to meet that pastor and see his vision and his heart for his country and when the pandemic hit and the avenue soared financially because we had an opportunity to be online and you watched me from your living room and your underwear eating cheetos but the faithful kept giving in fact our budget increased because you kept giving because you did that we were able to send money to them and save their church because they couldn't give online and they couldn't meet you kept a church open in peru because of your gifts are you a treasure you think you're not a treasure to that pastor i want you to hear his own words hello dear friends from the avenue church my name is pastor guillermo aguayo and i want to thank you thank you guys and thank you pastor david for all the support you have given us in lima peru at la casa del padre through pastor allen and celebrating recovery thank you thank you thank you very much for all your generosity and all your support we are expanding the kingdom of god with your help here in lima peru god bless you we're going to give you an opportunity today to continue to worship and we haven't been able to worship like this as a family in the room uh in a while and so today we're going to pass an offering bucket it's a chance for you to respond and worship not out of religion or tradition but out of generosity from what god has given to you to be a blessing to others we're all conduits for his blessing to the world our church is a conduit to the to be a blessing to our community

Channel: The Avenue Church

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Id: 9ybMEGwXvwQ

Length: 55min 19sec (3319 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021