Embracing Humility and Hope in Our Walk with God

All please fill that out and drop it in the offering plate, and we'll get back to you.

Um, also we have a new series starting this week. It's called "The Power of Prayer," and we'll be talking about that for the next few weeks, so make sure you come back and check that out.

And then we have a few other announcements. Um, we have a prayer meeting on Wednesday night at seven o'clock, and then we have a men's breakfast on Saturday morning at eight o'clock. So make sure you come out and join us for that.

And then we have a few other things going on, so make sure you check out the bulletin and the website for more information.

And that's it for the announcements, so thank you all for coming, and have a great day.

---

Good morning, Fishery Baptist Church! What a wonderful morning it is to be in the house of the Lord.

Please stand as we begin our service with some worship music by singing "Your Love Awakens Me."

There were walls between us, but by the cross you came and broke them down. You called me into the light, you called my name, and then my heart came alive.

Your love is greater, your love is stronger, your love awakens me.

We shout it out, we're alive 'cause you're alive, and what a love we've found, death can't hold us down.

We shout it out, we're alive 'cause you're alive, and what a love we've found, death can't hold us down.

Your love is greater, your love is stronger, your love awakens me.

Please have a seat as we go into our announcements.

Good morning, church! Welcome to Fifth Street Baptist Church. It's great to see the pews filled this morning.

We have kids' packets for the four-year-olds if you need them, and the hospitality rooms are available if you need to go in there. Make sure they're accompanied by an adult.

We also have a nursery today for kids eight weeks to four years old. If you need to go back there, just see one of our ushers, and we'll take you back there.

Connection cards should be in the back of the pew. If you're visiting, please fill that out and drop it in the offering plate, and we'll get back to you.

We have a new series starting this week called "The Power of Prayer," and we'll be talking about that for the next few weeks.

We have a prayer meeting on Wednesday night at seven o'clock, and then we have a men's breakfast on Saturday morning at eight o'clock. Make sure you check out the bulletin and the website for more information.

Thank you all for coming, and have a great day.

Join us on Sunday, July 16th at 6 PM at Higgs Beach Pier for an ice cream social. Bring ice cream treats to share and a bathing suit if you want to play or swim. Don't forget the ice cream!

Also, on Sunday, July 23rd, we are having a new members class for those who are interested in joining Fifth Street Baptist Church. Child care and lunch will be provided, so RSVP with the office at that time.

Let's continue and praise our God who endures forever, whose love endures forever. He is so good through the ages.

Sing this song together to His steadfast love forever.

Thanks to the Lord our God and King, His love endures forever, for He is good, He is above all things, His love endures forever.

Peace, mighty hand and outstretched arm, His love endures forever.

Sing praise, sing praise, sing praise forever.

God is faithful forever, God is strong forever, God is with us forever.

Praise God that we belong to Him through the ages. He will always welcome us with open arms.

I was lost, but He brought me, oh His love for me, oh whispered I'm a Child of God, yes I am.

His grace while I was a slave to sin, Jesus died for me, yes He died for me.

Yes, I am in my Father's house, there's a place for me, yes I am.

Chosen, not forsaken, I am who you say I am.

Not against me, I am who you say I am.

You are for me, not against me.

Through all things, we serve a good God who loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our sins so we can be chosen and not forsaken.

He is so good to us.

Father's house is a place for me, I'm a Child of God, yes I am.

Hallelujah! Please have a seat as we prepare for our offering to serve a great God.

We serve a God that loves us so much. He's gracious, He's giving, He's so giving that He sent His only Son to redeem the world.

And part of our worship is that we obey our God, and that is also through our tithes.

Join with me.

Heavenly Father, we praise You in all things. We thank You for that You provide to us.

You tell us not to be worried about what we'll eat or where we'll be clothed. We trust in You, Heavenly Father.

You command us to return to You a portion of the fortune that You have given to us, and we know that all things that we have come from You.

We pray that You will take this offering, You'll bless the giver, and that You will multiply the offering that we can command and we can do that which You have given us to do, and that is to take the word of Your Son's redemptive power to this community, to our state, to our nation, and to the world.

Heavenly Father, this we thank You. We love You in Christ's name. Amen.

Praise God that Jesus Christ is the foundation that we can rest on Him when we are weary. When we see the darkness around us, we can rest in His embrace.

No matter what rain comes or storms come, we can be safe in Him.

Christ is my firm foundation, the Rock on which I stand when everything around me is shaking.

I've never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus. So why would He fail now? He won't, oh He won't.

And I've still got joy in chaos, I've got peace that makes no sense. So I won't be going under, I'm not held by my own strength 'cause I've been living my life on Jesus.

He's never let me down, He's faithful in every season. So why would He fail now? He won't, He won't.

He won't fail, He won't fail.

We can rest on Him and on Him alone.

Church, I pray that He is actually the Rock on which we stand today.

Come, rock on which I stand when everything around me is shaking.

I've never been more glad that I put my faith in Jesus. So why would He fail now? He won't, He won't.

He won't fail, He won't fail.

We are so grateful that You will never fail us. You are the reason for all of our praise, for You deserve all glory and praise.

These words that we just sang are such a humbling reminder to us to not only praise You in times of good, but when times are bad, when we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, when all we see are those clouds, let us still focus on You.

Let us still focus on the finished work of the cross. Let us keep our eyes heavenward and not lose sight of the hope that we have because of You.

For we can have a joy and a peace that surpasses all understanding, and that means that it doesn't come from this world.

Because if we look to this earth to satisfy, we will never ever find ourselves whole.

But let us find our rest in You. Let us find our embrace in You by reading Your Word, by praising You in the storm.

Let the world know us by our love for one another.

You are so good, You are so good, You are so good to us.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray, Amen.

Praise God! Church, please have a seat.

All right, it's time for our children's sermon. So kids, come up here. If you're visiting with us and you have kids with you, they're welcome to come sit up here with us for a few minutes.

Good to see you guys.

All right, hey bud, how's it going today? Good.

All right, how many of you guys have ever seen any of the Star Wars movies?

Anybody like even Lego Star Wars or any of the books or seen any video games?

Who's your favorite character in Star Wars?

Um, Skywalker.

You like Luke Skywalker?

You like Luke Skywalker?

Matthew, who do you like from that show?

Darth Vader.

Baby Yoda, he is a classic. He's kind of new to the game though, right?

Anybody else? Who's your favorite?

Amole, R2D2?

What about you, Princess Leia?

Anybody else have a favorite down here?

He.

This is not one of my favorites, but this is Darth Vader.

Okay, well, I don't have any of those masks, but I did have this one I borrowed from Sophie.

Um, what is this guy?

So when I'm sitting here like this, who am I?

Pastor Josh.

But when I put this on, who am I?

I'm a stormtrooper, right?

Is that true? Am I did I just become a stormtrooper?

No.

Why did this change who I am or is it just a face mask?

That's right.

You know, sometimes when we go to the Lord to pray to Him and to worship Him, to sing, when we come into church, sometimes we come into church, we like to put on a mask like this, and we do this to make people think that we're okay, that everything's great in our life, that we're not struggling with anything.

But you know who sees behind the mask?

But yeah, the Lord does.

You know what? That's a good thing.

You know why? Because God wants us.

He doesn't want us to come to Him with a mask on.

He wants us to come to Him and show our needs and the things we struggle with, the things that we're worried about.

He doesn't want us to cover Him up with a mask.

He wants us to go to Him for all the things we need.

All right, and that's one of the reasons we come to church.

We come to worship God and to proclaim to Him the things that we're struggling with so He can help us feel better.

Did you know that?

So leave your mask at home.

We don't need any Stormtroopers at church.

We need to come to God with our real faces and our real needs.

Jesus and His disciples had been up to some amazing ministry.

In Mark chapter 5 and 6, Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people with five loaves of bread and two fish.

On top of that, as Jesus' disciples were going across the Sea of Galilee in a boat, Jesus approached them walking on top of the water, and when He got into the boat, the whole storm stopped.

Most recently, Mark chapter 6, verses 53-56 talk about what Jesus and His disciples have been up to.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret, the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Immediately, the people recognized Him and ran about the whole country and began to carry those who were sick to the place they heard He was.

Wherever He entered villages, cities, or countryside, they were laying the sick in the marketplaces and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak.

As many as touched it were being cured.

Jesus performed signs and wonders as a demonstration of His authority over this world and all of creation and as a demonstration of His identity as the Son of God sent to save the world from our sins.

People were so filled with faith in who He was that just touching the fringe of His garment, the same way that the woman who had been bleeding for years touched His garment and was immediately healed, now hundreds and thousands of people were approaching Him.

At church, people were asked to take out a copy of God's word and look at the words on the screen, open their phone, or whatever they wanted to.

The word of the day was "hypocrite," which means "play actor" or "pretender," someone who says one thing and does another.

Jesus's healing ministry drew the attention of the religious elite.

They promptly confronted Jesus in an effort to discredit His ministry.

This theological confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders raises an important question for the church today: What is my attitude?

What is the attitude of my heart toward the Lord and His leadership of my life?

To illustrate this point, there once lived a man (who may or may not have been me early in my marriage) who wanted to do his very best at performing the duties of a husband.

He got up early one day and took out the garbage, prepared to go to work, and even woke his wife up so that she could get up and start performing her duties.

However, when his wife confronted him about one of the things he forgot to do, they got into an argument.

At the end of the day, the husband said, “Why are you being so hard on me? Can’t you see that I love you? Look at all the duties I just performed for you. I performed all the duties of a husband.”

The wife then turned to the husband and said, “I don’t want you just to perform your duties. I want you to want to perform your duties because you love me.”

The husband was bewildered by this statement.

What did she mean? Isn’t just doing these things enough?

No, it’s not enough because our wives want us to demonstrate our love to them in the way that we perform the things that God has called us to do in fulfilling our roles.

At the end of the day, we all struggle with having the right attitude in the things that we do in life.

This is what we’re going to talk about today.

We’re going to talk about having the right attitude in the way that we worship and follow Jesus.

Look at Mark chapter 7, beginning in verse 1.

It says, “The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem.”

Remember, Jesus and all of His disciples are now performing miracle after miracle.

Thousands of people have been fed, and John writes in his gospel that if one were to write down all the things that Jesus did during His ministry here on Earth, there wouldn’t be enough books in the world to fill all the miraculous signs and wonders that Jesus fulfilled in His time during His ministry here.

Jerusalem was the single most important city in the existence of the religious elite of Judaism.

It was the religious center and the place where the temple of God was.

Jews would go to Jerusalem regularly throughout the year to fulfill Old Testament commands in the law for them to worship God during various festivals.

The people of Jerusalem, especially the religious leaders, were snooty and held their nose up around all the other Jews, especially the ones who lived in Galilee.

The Jews of the Galilee were looked down upon primarily because, to no fault of their own, they lived and mixed and lived life with Gentiles because of Roman captivity.

The religious leaders known as Pharisees were rigorous keepers of the law.

They celebrated the adding on of man-made rules and laws to the original Old Testament law, and they were sort of the keepers of that regular and man-made law.

They ensured that everybody kept those laws.

The scribes were not priests; they were the professors of the day.

They interpreted the Old Testament law, copied it, and helped to enforce it.

When the Pharisees and scribes approached Jesus and His disciples, it was in the middle of one of the most amazing demonstrations of God's power on Earth ever.

People were being fed by the tens of thousands and being healed of diseases that no one could.

By the time Jesus walked on the Earth, the Jewish people were expected to obey over 600 laws, many of which were man-made traditions and laws developed by people and rabbis over the years.

One of these laws had to do with ritual washing.

According to the Old Testament law, only the priests were required to wash, and they were only required to wash before entering the Tabernacle.

Leviticus 15:11 prescribed washing if one had touched a bodily discharge.

However, by the time Jesus walked on the Earth, all Jews were expected to wash their hands before going out into the marketplace, coming home, and especially before eating.

This was not a hygienic exercise, but rather a way to remain spiritually pure and to have a relationship with their Creator God.

When the Pharisees and Sadducees saw some of Jesus' disciples eating their bread with unwashed hands, they had a problem with it.

Mark offers a description of why they had a problem with this.

The Pharisees and all the Jews did not eat unless they carefully washed their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders.

When they came from the marketplace, they did not eat unless they cleansed themselves.

There were also many other things they had to observe, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and copper pots.

In the middle of this context, with healings of the sick, the deaf hearing, the blind seeing, and the dead being raised to life, the Pharisees and Sadducees had an issue with Jesus' disciples not washing their hands.

It was a spiritual rite of purification for the Jews to come home and wash their hands as a ritual act of cleansing themselves from the unclean marketplace.

This particular law is believed to have developed as the Jews and the Roman Gentiles began to interact more and more in the marketplace.

This was a part of the oral tradition, a man-made lie, not something that God gave to the Jews.

The Pharisees took issue with Jesus and His disciples because they were not obeying the tradition of washing their hands before they eat.

The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him why His disciples did not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat their bread with impure hands.

Tens of thousands of people were being healed by Jesus.

There was excitement, joy, jumping, screaming, yelling, singing, praying, and worshiping.

The religious leaders noticed that Jesus' disciples did not wash their hands before they eat in keeping with their traditions.

Jesus responded by quoting Isaiah 29:13, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, but in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men, neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men."

The Pharisees should have seen what Jesus was doing as a demonstration of His identity as the Son of God sent to save Israel from their sins.

Instead, they were recognizing the tradition of men over the commandment of God.

Jesus was speaking to His disciples about the traditions of men.

He quoted the prophet Isaiah and said they were hypocrites.

The Greek word for hypocrite is "hupacretase."

In Jesus' time, actors would put on a mask to represent a character.

Jesus said the disciples were not true priests or followers of God, but were instead play actors, putting on a show.

Isaiah prophesied against Israel and Jerusalem in Isaiah 29.

He said God's judgment was coming because they were pretending to worship God, but were instead involved in pagan worship and ungodly practices.

The Pharisees from Jerusalem confronted Jesus in Galilee and brought up a man-made tradition.

Jesus called them out, just like Isaiah did.

The Pharisees liked to stand on street corners and utter long prayers to God, but none of it was from the heart.

They also liked to go into the temple and make sure everyone saw their offerings.

When it came time for repentance, they would stand next to a sinner and thank God they weren't like them.

Jesus caught them in the middle of their play and called them out for their fake and phony worship.

We are to approach and worship God in the way that He designed for us to do.

This means that our worship should be based on what the Bible tells us.

We preach and teach the Word of God, read it out loud, and pray to Him.

We gather as a body of believers regularly to do so.

To make sure that we have a good attitude of worship, we must approach the Lord with reverence.

Psalm 2:11 says, "Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling."

This means that we need to worship our God with proper fear and respect for His identity as God, remembering His authority as God.

We should not dress up to do this, but rather come with a humble heart.

To make sure that God will be pleased with our worship of Him, we must obey what we are commanded to do.

We must also make sure that we are approaching Him with an authentic heart.

God sees past the facade and right into our hearts.

Jeremiah 17:10 says, "I the Lord search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."

First Samuel 16:7 says, "For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."

We must make sure that we are worshipping God in the way that He has commanded us to do, and that our hearts are in the right place.

We come into this place of worship not just as a nice place like a tavern in town, but as the gathered Saints of God.

We are in the presence of the Lord, and we will give Him proper reverence because of who He is.

Our Lord God has reconciled us, and our Lord Jesus has reconciled us with God the Father.

Now we can approach Him in a way that no one else before Jesus could ever approach God the Father.

We should approach the Lord in worship with a thankful heart because of who He is and what He has done for us.

We had nothing to offer the equation of our salvation, only our sin.

The wrath of God was brought to the cross, not our blood.

Jesus' blood was shed on the cross, and none of us rose again on the third day in fulfillment of scriptures.

The Lord Jesus gave His life, and we should be thankful for the tremendous sacrifice He made.

We come here to receive a blessing from God, and we should approach our time here thankful.

We are thankful because we serve a loving God who so loved us that He sent His one and only Son to die on a cross for our sins.

We had nothing whatsoever to offer in the equation of our salvation, yet rose again on the third day in fulfillment of scriptures.

What we bring to the whole calculation or the whole element of salvation was our sin and repentance, which is brought to our heart through the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

We are thankful because we have nothing at all to offer this process of being reconciled to our Father in Heaven.

It is all by God's grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So when we come into this place to worship our God, we come with a thankful heart because of all that God has done to secure our salvation and our hope in eternity.

Approaching the Lord with humility is important.

James 4:6 says, "God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble."

It seems silly to worship God with pride.

The whole act of worshiping God is us down on our knees, prostrate before Him because of who He is.

This is what it will look like around the whole world when Jesus returns because of His power and authority as Lord over the living and the dead, over everything.

Francis Chan tells an interesting story about how one time he was preaching at a large church in California, and a person came up to him and said, "I didn't like the music today, I didn't really like the message today, I didn't really like the worship today."

Francis Chan responded that it was totally fine because we weren't worshiping the person.

When we gather together to worship the Lord, we are all in the same boat, all sinners saved by grace and in desperate need of God's mercy and loving care.

We all need the same thing and have the same problem, and God is the one who has a solution.

Jesus confronted the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 9:9-13, saying they were hypocrites and were putting the commandments of man above the commandments of God.

He told them to approach God with humility, which was a way to get around the fifth commandment.

And so what they would do is they would say, "Okay, if you don't have the money to take care of your parents, you can just give the guitar to the temple, and then you don't have to take care of your parents."

And so Jesus is saying that's wrong; that's setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

Jesus called the Pharisees and scribes "whitewashed tombs" or "walking dead men" because they loved to walk around and show off their intelligence and piety.

Jesus then pointed out the fifth commandment of the Ten Commandments: "Honor your father and mother."

In the book of Exodus, Moses further explains what it means to honor one's parents, including taking care of them.

The religious leaders, however, had created a tradition called Corbin, which allowed people to break the fifth commandment.

Corbin allowed people to give their possessions to the temple instead of taking care of their parents.

Jesus condemned this practice, saying that it was setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep their tradition.

Here I was like, "I'm gonna have the steak and the baked beans and the mashed potatoes and the poppers and the banana pudding," and I'm like, "Man, I'm so good at talking myself into things."

Brandon's parents were getting older, and he knew he would need to care for them, but he didn't have the money to do so.

A religious leader then suggested that Brandon give his lovely guitar to the church.

This way, Brandon could still play the guitar, but he wouldn't be able to sell it.

When Brandon died, the church would get the guitar.

This meant that Brandon wouldn't have to worry about taking care of his parents, as he wouldn't be able to sell the guitar to get the money.

This practice was popular during the time of Jesus, and He recognized that the elderly were often forgotten.

He called out the Pharisees and scribes for being selfish and not caring for the elderly.

They had deviated from the word of God and created this man-made tradition called Corbin.

Jesus' words still ring true today, as we often talk ourselves into things.

For example, one might plan to eat healthy, but then talk themselves into eating more than they had originally planned.

We are our own best cheerleaders, and it's easy to talk ourselves into what we want to hear.

We come into this place with masks on, wanting to put on a good face for our friends.

But God already sees what's in our hearts.

He already knows what we're struggling with and what kind of week we just had.

Why not just hand that over to the Lord?

Today is the day to make that first repentance of our sins and follow Jesus as Lord and Savior, follow through with baptism, or join this church.

Whatever God is doing in this moment, this is our moment of decision.

This is our opportunity to respond to His Spirit.

Let us continue to be authentic worshipers, walking in accordance with His word and illuminated through the indwelling Holy Spirit among this amazing fellowship of the saints.

We approach God with thankfulness, reverence, and humility.

We ask, Lord God, by Your grace and mercy, that You continue to move in a mighty way in this church, in the families of history on this island, in our state, in our country, and around the world.

We pray Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.

Help us now to respond in this moment of decision in a way that honors and glorifies You.

In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.

At Fifth Street, we have a very well-developed discipleship training process called Fifth Street University.

At several levels, we do it on Sunday nights as well as throughout the week.

The first level is called the Call to Follow Christ, a seven-week training helping us understand the basics of following Jesus.

We have four graduates who recently finished this series, taught by David Ellard.

Noel Grossner, Jane Dia, Jody Yavacoli, and Rocky Avocoli are our graduates.

We thank David for teaching and congratulate our graduates.

We will have another one starting up in a couple of weeks.

If you're interested in being part of the next Call to Follow Christ, you can let me, myself, or David Lavallino know, and we'll get you signed up.

It's been an amazing morning of worship.

God is amazing, and He's so good to us.

I'm going to close this in prayer, and then I'm going to dismiss you guys.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the salvation we have in Jesus.

As we go from this place, help us to go proclaiming Your gospel message, living in the joy that comes from being a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, bought and paid for on the cross and adopted into the family of God.

In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.

Christ is my firm foundation, I'm safe with You, I'm gonna make it through.

Rain came, and I'm safe with You, I'm gonna make it through.

He won't fail, He won't fail, no He won't.

Which is going to start in just a few weeks.