Churches in Jacksonville

“And that's where faith collides. That's the moment in my life and your life where we have to sit back and say, not only does this situation make no sense, but this solution doesn't make no sense, but I'm gonna trust your sovereign hand in the midst of this. And that's why this book is such a rich and needed book in today's world. It's because I'm too afraid in my own life, I'll speak for David, that I I have requests, concerns, problems, issues, whatever. And I want God to answer them cleanly, neatly, nicely, and perfectly. God uses the Chaldeans at times. And it just doesn't make any sense.”

“From the beginning of history, humanity has pulled every trick out of the bag through philosophy, through religion, and attempts to avoid that chasm, but yet Jesus Christ did that for us. On the cross, he bridged that. And John implies here in this statement and makes it clear in the letter, and as we're gonna continue to see, that fellowship with God is not possible unless we have fellowship with Jesus. And even those two fellowships are not possible with believers if we don't have the other fellowship going on. We have to come to all those. Think truly of this idea of fellowship not just on this level and this level but on the three d kind of level because all too often we look at things on a singular line. Where God is working and doing, we see his greater things. So fellowship with God means that we share mutual interest, devotion, and activity. Truly, fellowship with God means that we have gone into business with God and that his enterprises are now our enterprises. We talked about this before, being kingdom minded, being about the kingdom business, not our business, not our things, but what he has for us. Which means as believers in fellowship with God, his heartbeat becomes our heartbeat, his mission becomes our mission, his goals and plans become our goals and plans. We love what he loves, we desire what he desires, we hate what he hates, his will becomes our will.”

“Biblical faith is not a a stoic face. Biblical faith, and I study this book, biblical faith is is me taking my laments to God, my my unedited lament to God. That read verses one through four, and you see an unedited lament. How long? You're not doing nothing. When are you gonna pay attention to me? That that the place is whole place is falling down. It's an unedited lament to God. And in me taking it to the Lord and laying it down before him, and to instead of taking it and complaining to others.”

“``In fact, the main idea for our sermon today and the entire book of Habakkuk is this. When God's actions conflict with our expectations, true faith brings raw, honest laments to him, trusting his sovereign power even when his solutions shock us. That's this book. God's actions conflict with our expectations. Ever had that happen? I'm sure you have. True faith brings raw, honest laments to him, trusting his sovereign power even when his solutions shock us, which we're gonna see today.”

“But beloved, that's exactly how we pray and live our lives. Stay with me. lay our laments and cares before the Lord, and we're like, God, here's a really good solution. Would you just heal this? Would you restore this? Would you meet this need in a special way that only you can? We want a new king to rise up like Josiah. We don't want the Chaldeans. But sometimes, God answers our request by saying, I'm going to use the Chaldeans.”

“Think about that. John comes back to a statement that I think many of us miss in our lives, and that is joy. And not just the moment of joy, but the eternal value of joy in our life, to be made complete. And it includes, again, here, our, our joy. John includes himself in it. He includes the readers at the time that are reading it, the readers later that would be reading it, us who'd be reading this. This is our. This is to each and every one of us to understand. John says the joy would be complete and he shares the mutual fellowship as he writes to us as we're gonna see and he does into this. He has that care for each of us as he writes us, he says, to the children of God. But he makes the phrase there, may be complete, meaning permanently full or permanently filled. In essence, he's saying when we when we have fellowship with you, our joy is full. Now I don't know, have you ever hung out with someone and walked away going, that wasn't a very good time? But on the other side of that, have you ever met someone randomly out of the middle of nowhere, found out they were a believer and then walked away with pure joy and you couldn't explain it? Why do you think that was? Because that horizontal and that vertical fellowship was working and what God would have us to be as believers.”

“And the last challenge is this for this week, locate my joy. This is a reality check. Look at the banner flying over your castle of your heart. Is it a banner of anxiety, comparison, frustration, anger? Is it a mist? If your joy depends on your circumstances, it will change with the wind and your flag will change as well. But if your joy depends on King Jesus, it will permanently be filled. It will permanently be a banner of joy. So this week, the challenge for us is when troubles hit this week, stop and declare my circumstances are messy but my king is on the throne and my joy is secure.”

“``Understand this, John did not write this letter to inform our intellect, he wrote it to transform our life. If the chasm is bridged, if the king is in the castle, we cannot walk away unchanged. We make a statement on our page that everyone is welcome but you will not walk away the same. Why is that? The love of God changes each and every one of us. And if that love isn't changing, I'm gonna tell you it's gonna go back to that fellowship part to begin with and that beginning is what matters and having that right beginning. So this week, I'm gonna give us three direct challenges for our life”

“You know, as we have this time where we recognize all of these academic achievements and life achievements that our family members go through, it's important for us to think about what is most important, and that's our walk with Christ. And it's scary to think that so many of us in this room are maybe still operating on a kindergarten level of faith. That we're still operating on the basics and the foundation. And so it's important for us to be reminded of how important that foundation is because if we get it wrong or if that foundation is cracked or is not steady, is not a firm conviction, then everything else will not be firm either. Everything else will not fall into place correctly.”

“You give back to the Lord first and generously. You are in the word and prayer on a daily basis. Doctrine and theology, there's a multitude of complexities to our faith, but there are basics and a foundation that we must get right and must cover every area of our life. If we're gonna make the confession that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, that he is Lord and sovereign over our life, and that he is the only way it will be evident in our life. Would you bow with me as we have a time of response?”