God, I love you.
Listen, I'm not being mean. I'm just being real. Some of y'all have been serving the Lord for years, and you've probably told Him, "I love you," two or three times. Maybe you got saved just because you didn't want to go to hell, and praise God, that's the best reason, and that's the main reason. That's why Jesus came, was to save us from hell, but He has more planned for us than just that.
The same love that God had for us that led Him to send Jesus to pay for our salvation, He still has for us now, and He wants us to have a relationship with Him. He wants it to last. He wants to establish us with His love and us reaching out to Him and knowing Him. And whether it may just seem different to you or, you know, maybe you're a guy and you're thinking, "Well, that's not, you know, love and all that stuff. That's not very masculine." Man, that's dumb. He gave His only Son to pay the price for your healing, your salvation.
Pay the price for the sin of your life. Love Him back. Don't be afraid to love Him back. I encourage you to love Him back with everything you have, all that is within you. Love Him back.
I love you, Lord.
Father God, as we come into Your house, lifting up Your name to sing Your praises and to bring You glory, God, I pray that You, as You have already rested in our presence, would stay here as we continue the rest of this service. God, I pray that You would prepare our hearts even now to receive You, to receive what Your word has for us today.
God, I pray that those who have made a consecrated decision to trust You with whatever they're going through, God, that they will leave here empowered and encouraged as they realize that You are indeed more than able to take care of every one of their needs. You're an omnipotent God. You have all the power, all the ability, You have all the supply that You're ready to apply to our natural if we just reach out to You.
And I thank You in advance. As Bianca was saying, I thank You in advance for the work that You've already begun. And if you're receiving that, in Jesus' name, just say amen. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Come on, let's give the Lord a handclap of praise.
Turn around, talk to other people. We've said it already. Angela said it a minute ago, but Happy New Year. I hope that you hit the ground running. Amen?
If you saw, as you came in today, one of these on your seat or on the seat next to you, that's for you. Take it home. Put it wherever you look a lot. If you're one of those people who stares in the mirror for three and a half hours every morning, put it on that mirror. If you're one of those people who raids the refrigerator three times a night, put it on that refrigerator. Find a place in your car where you can put it.
We're just trying some things different. We heard some great advice from somebody that said, you know, the best way to make sure that people are always aware of what's going on is to change the way you're telling them. So this month, instead of having all the announcements scrolling up here for two or three minutes before I come up, we just made you a little take-home thing, a little description of what's going on at Harvest Fellowship. And it's got some times there. It's got some dates there. Stuff. Stuff you need to know about the marriage conference coming up. Come on, somebody say amen.
Marriage matters is our theme for this year. I like it because it's got a double theme. Marriage matters. It matters. It's a value. And marriage matters. That's the things within marriage. Things that marriage has to do with marriage. See how that works? It's going to be awesome. We're doing a one-day event this time. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Instead of having you, you know, try to negotiate kids and jobs and everything for a Friday night and then a Saturday and try to figure it all out, it will hit the ground Saturday morning with some food and some fellowship and some sessions here and just worshiping God and growing together.
And then we're going to end the night with our amazing banquet and dance and all that fun stuff. Cool? So put that on your calendar for February the 8th. Amen? I'm glad three of you are showing up. That's going to be a phenomenal night.
Rough Cut Men's Conference is coming up. Come on, somebody. Yeah. Now, first of all, for you single guys that yelled, that's okay. For you married guys, if you yelled more for the men's conference than the marriage conference, we'll be having prayer following the service. Amen. Good stuff. March 7th and 8th. It's going to be wonderful.
We're going to have some amazing people coming in for both. Marriage conference this year, a good, dear friend of mine who was here at the men's conference last year. He's a friend of Angela and mine. He's one of our coaches out in the Dallas area. His name is Peter Pignon. He's coming back for the marriage conference. And those of you who know him know he's phenomenal. And you're going to love him. So just take all that into consideration and be here. Amen.
Man, I wish I had an amazing joke to tell you to start the year. I heard one the other day, but I can't remember what it was. And, you know, that's the way it goes sometimes. So, instead, let's just jump in. Amen.
I want to say thanks to Pastor Zeke who spoke last week. He did a wonderful job. And he kind of set up the stage. We're starting a new series this January. And it's an amazing series. It's full of encouragement. And it's going to challenge you.
And the name of the series, and I'll talk about it later, is "Have You Not Read?" Have You Not Read? Now, Zeke set this up by talking about, and one of the points from his sermon last week that really kind of laid a foundation. You know, set me up really good, tee me up good to start this series today. He made the point that scripture is the anchor that keeps us tethered to the truth. And the truth is Jesus. Amen.
I'm not going to re-preach what he said. I'm not going to expound upon it a whole lot, other than saying that Jesus is the word. He is the truth. He's everything that we need. And scripture is Christ. And it's the word of God. And it anchors us. It keeps us going. And that's fantastic.
And we're going to this series. Now, likely, this statement will be read every week. You'll hear some form of it every week in this series. And that's okay. I hope to say it so much that you can commit it to memory. Amen.
I had a pastor one time who returned to the same topic every week, it seemed like, for a month and a half. He read the same verse every week for a month and a half. I couldn't really tell you what his point was. But I promise you, I know what the verse said. Okay? So, that's kind of where I'm going. I hope you get this.
The overarching theme for this "Have You Not Read" series is this: The first, primary, and last resource for righteous living is God's word. Read in context and unadulterated by any rationality. Okay? That's a lot. I'll read it again. Probably a couple times. I'll let you look over it for a second on the screen. If you want to take a picture, feel free to take a picture.
The first, primary, and last resource for righteous living is God's word. Read in context and unadulterated by any rationality. And we're going to unpack that a bit today because there are some points that we need to understand that are foundational to the series. And I want us all to be together.
But before we unpack the statement, let me encourage you, let me challenge you that this series will challenge you, okay? Wake up your neighbor, say, "Hey, listen to him for a second." This series will challenge you. I don't care how long you've been saved. This series will challenge you. I don't care how long you've been going to church. This series will challenge you. I don't care how many classes you've taught. I don't care how many people you have personally discipled. I don't care how anointed you are when you're using the gift that God gave you. This series will challenge you.
As a matter of fact, I'll be so bold as to say this: If this series doesn't challenge you, and specifically if this statement doesn't challenge you, then you are living a lie.
Now, why would I be so bold to say that? Because God's word says, and I'll give you a couple of quick verses, 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
And some translations interpret that last word a little bit differently. It says, "for training in righteousness." And we never stop training. You talk to anybody who has any kind of skill in their life, and they will tell you they have to train constantly to maintain their skill.
Any professional athlete, you know, they'll take a week or two off, they'll go sit on a beach, they'll do whatever they're going to do. But at some point, if they really care about their job, if they really care about the sport that they're being paid to play, they're going to start an off-season program to at least maintain their skills. And the good ones are going to do something every year to add to it.
The great German Dirk Nowitzki, who played with the Dallas Mavericks for 21 years, one of my favorites, okay? He made the statement one time that he tried to add something to his game every summer. Every year, every off-season, he tried to add something, not just maintain the skill he had, but to add something new that when he stepped on the court the next time, he would be better than he was when he left.
We never stop training. And there's lots of quotes. Some of them are attributed to any number of people. Many are unknown because they can't really say who said it for the first time. But I want to give you just two. One, I'll give you an author, and one that's unknown.
By the way, these quotes work both spiritually and naturally. Whether you're talking about your walk with the Lord and discipleship and your growth with Him, or if you're talking about some skill or something you're trying to accomplish in your life, these work both ways.
The first one is an unknown author. He said this: "You are always training. Either you're training for something or against something." And that's deep, and I could preach a whole sermon on that right there. You're always training. Either you're training for something or against something.
And let me tell you something. In your walk with the Lord, we need to pray just as much and train just as much against a few things as we're training for a few things. And if you don't believe me, let me just remind you of a passage where the devil challenged Jesus with God's word.
The devil knows the word of God. There are a lot of people out there who do not believe in God whatsoever, have no faith in Jesus Christ whatsoever, and they can quote the Bible better than you and me. Okay? So we need to be training not just to know God's word, but how to apply it, how to apply it properly to our lives so that we can train against people like that who are coming against our faith. Amen?
Against situations that rise up, against the easy road that may seem like the right way to go, but in reality, it's going to take us somewhere we don't want to be. We have to train either for something or against something.
Another one, I like this. This is by Archilochus, and you can pronounce that however you want to. He was Greek, lived about 2,500 years ago. He was a soldier and a poet, and this statement is powerful: "Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion. You fall to your level of training."
Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion. You fall to your level of training. If you're not ready and things get tough, odds are you're going to fall a little short of where you wish you were. Why? Because you didn't train to get there.
And we've seen it. I mean, we've watched it. There've been these Cinderella stories of basketball started, the NCAAs, and they'll be the big dance eventually coming in March and all this, and we'll see some Cinderella story of some team who just plays out of their league one day, and then, man, these guys are going to go all the way, and then they get beat by 40 points. Why? Because the pressure was on, and they fell to their level of training. They didn't have the skill set in place. Had nothing to do with talent, by the way. Had to do with training and practice.
Free one, not in my notes. God gave you your gift, but your level of skill is up to you. He gave it to you. Will you train? Will you practice? Will you grow? So we need to know this stuff, okay?
1 Corinthians 9, verses 24 through 27 says this: "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus," he's saying, "I run like this, not with uncertainty. Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified."
We never stop training. Whether it helps you to realize in this process that it helps you think about it this way, maybe you realize just how unholy man is. We never stop training because we are born into a sinful world, a world full of sin, and in our lives, there's a constant struggle between the sinful man and God's Spirit within us. Amen?
And so we need to train because the world is messed up and jacked up. Amen? There's lots of sin out there, and sin always looks good. So maybe that helps you. Maybe it helps you to realize just how holy our God is, and we need to train and be holy because He is holy. As God's Word says, it even says one time, "You be perfect because He's perfect."
We need to train to constantly strive to be where He's called us to be, which is to be like Christ. We've got to train. We've got to keep working on it. We never stop training.
So if you love Jesus, if you desire to please Him, and if you desire to grow in Him, then this series is for you. We'll challenge you. Amen?
Just got to lay that groundwork as we're going in. So going back to our theme: The first, primary, and last resource for righteous living is God's Word, read in context and unadulterated by any rationality.
And we'll talk about some of those details later, but just going to unpack it real quick. When striving to live a righteous life or simply when trying to figure out what to do in a difficult situation, the same applies, okay?
By the way, I believe the answer to every problem you have had or will ever have is found either directly or indirectly in God's Word. I believe that with all my heart. Every problem, whatever you're facing today, there's an answer in God's Word. It may say exactly where, it may say and allude to, and indirectly tell you what to do, but there's an answer in God's Word.
The hardest part isn't that we can't find an answer. The hardest part is we don't want to live with the world as an option. That's not going to work. The problem is the life that the Word calls for us to live to get the answer we want. We want to find a different answer.
But I believe that the answer to every problem is God's Word. We can have that discussion later if you don't believe me. See me; I'll help you figure it out.
But the first, primary, and last resource for righteous living is God's Word, read in context and unadulterated by any rationality. First, start here.
And here's the thing. It's simple. I know many of you get this, but let me just say it for a second. Maybe you're a young believer. Maybe you're new in this whole Christianity thing. Maybe you've been serving the Lord for a long time, but you're finally to a place where you're trying to grow, not just be a Sunday morning Christian, not just be a pew filler, right? But you're actually trying to grow in your relationship with the Lord to walk in the power and the anointing that God's Word says you can.
Start with His Word. So when a problem comes your way, when a situation arises in which you need to figure out what to do, start with God's Word.
And it's so easy today. There was a day, and for you people who are north of 50, and I am just by this much still 50. February is coming; I'll be 51. I'm not sure if I'll make it; I'll be fine. But for those of you like me, you remember a time that if you wanted to find some kind of topical answer from God's Word, you didn't have very many resources.
One was if you were lucky enough to have a good Bible, there was a concordance in the back of that Bible, and that's really cool. And for those of you who don't know, let me tell you, many times that concordance was like three or four pages. It was super thin. So if your issue wasn't in those three or four pages, good luck; it wouldn't help you.
Or you had this other hard copy paper device; it was a book. It was a concordance, and it was about this thick, and it had every word from the Greek or the Hebrew written out, and you could open that up. My favorite is Strong's Concordance. You can open it up, you can find your word, you can find what it meant in the Old Testament in the Hebrew or the New Testament in the Greek, and it will give you the citations of where to go, and you can go and find it in the Bible.
But most people never owned one that thick. So if it wasn't in their thin concordance in the back of their Bible, and they didn't have a thick concordance to consult, and they didn't want to go check one out of the library or whatever, the third option was to find somebody who was probably more spiritual than them and say, "Hey, what does the Bible say about this problem?"
With that one, even 50 years ago, we all still were full of pride and didn't want to tell people we had issues. Amen? So if we couldn't find it easily and we didn't have the ability to find it in a thick book, we probably just let it go right there and made a decision on our own. That's just what it was. That's just how life is.
Some of you are still living that life, and that's okay, but there's a better option. And we live in a world today, technology, which by the way, most of us probably have a love-hate relationship with technology. Can I get an amen?
I have this one device. I won't tell you what it's called because I don't want you to judge me, but it's a lot of fun, and it makes car rides really cool when it works right. And it was on my Christmas list for two years before my amazing mother-in-law bought it for me. I'm not sure she knew what it was; she probably wouldn't have bought it.
And it took me six months to get it to work right the first time. I had to exchange it, call the fine people, started an email thread, got a new one, and got it set up, and it's amazing when it works right. And it's really, I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it's really cool.
And the problem is, it can work right for an hour or so, and then it stops working altogether. And there's no reason. And Angela and I have sat and started the car, stopped the car, opened the door, shut the door, started the car, stopped the car. Right? And eventually decided, "Okay, it's not going to work. Let's just go."
It's fun, but it's frustrating at the same time. But the fun side of it, the cool side of technology is this. And listen, I'm being real; I'm being honest. Please hear what I'm saying. If you have a question, if you have a problem, if you have an issue, if there is some topic in some situation by which you are confused and not sure what God's Word would have you to do, you're being lazy.
Because if you have this thing called a computer, if you have this thing called a smartphone, all you gotta do is type it in to Google and hit enter, and you're going to get something. It may not be the most amazing something, but you're going to get something.
There's all these things. You know what? ChatGPT, did I get it right? Do you know what knows the Bible? Don't build your theology off of it. But if you go to it and you say, "Hey, what does the Bible say about stealing?" it's going to give you lots of words and context.
The other day, I was looking for something that came to my mind where it was. I just wanted to see, "Hey, what will chat say?" So I typed in there, "Hey, as a Christian, what should my attitude be about this?" And it answered it as a Christian. It said, "I mean, it said, you know, as a believer in Jesus Christ and blah, blah, blah," and it just gave me the whole thing. It gave me scripture citations and everything, and it was easy.
So if you're sitting there, and you're like, "Oh, I don't know," I'm not being mean; I'm just being real with you. Can we be real in 2025? It's 2025. Can we please be real? All right? I've got enough fake going on in the world. We need a little bit of real.
If you've got a situation you don't know the answer to, just do a little bit of effort, a little bit of searching, and you'll find it. You don't know how? Come see me. We'll find it together.
My favorite Bible app is Logos. It's spelled L-O-G-O-S, and no, that's not logos; it's Logos, okay? And it's amazing. They have a free version, and they have just changed, where now they have a subscription model. I was a little bitter because I have literally invested thousands of dollars over the years. Angela and I pay for it personally every year, and now they come to this thing that just for like $15 a month, you can get what I've been paying for.
But praise God that they did it. Because anybody can go to logos.com, I said logos, logos.com, and just beep, subscribe.
Can I tell you a little secret? Oh. This isn't, mm, who's going to say amen? I need somebody to help me here because I'm going to, mm, I just got convicted.
For less, well, I'm going to set you up. How many of you pay for a streaming service? If you're sitting next to somebody who doesn't know what a streaming service is, I don't have time, okay?
How many of you watch television on some kind of streaming service, okay? How many of you, like myself and Angela, pay for more than one streaming service? Just for fun. How many of you pay for all of them? Come on.
Can I just shatter yourself just for a little bit, help you understand just how real this sermon is? For the cost of less than one premium streaming service a month, you can have total access to thousands of theological resources, the Bible in just about any translation you want, Bible studies pre-made and said, and the really cool thing is, because Logos is a Christian company, they understand that the two are one, right? So the husbands and wives get to share the same subscription. You don't have to pay for it twice. Isn't that awesome?
So when you have a problem, the first thing you need to do is consult God's Word and see what it says. Go there. I've got weird problems. It's okay. I promise you, you can find an answer. All right?
Now, second, primary, why did I say this? It's okay to look at human resources. I believe that God gave us wisdom. I believe that God gave us intellect and knowledge. I believe that God gave us the ability to be smart people. Some people haven't chosen to use that ability, but they have the ability. Amen?
And again, you can practice and repeat it. For you people who are avid readers, praise God. I'm an avid listener. But you could grow in knowledge, and you could get that. And I believe that God made smart people.
I believe that God even gave the propensity to different people to be smart at different things. I think some people have an amazing resource of common sense. There are a lot of people who have an amazing resource of book sense. And when you can get those two people together, you can rule the world.
There's nothing wrong with consulting people. The Bible even says that there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors. When I have a big decision, I'm going to, I'll just tell you right now, it doesn't matter what it is. I'll get my phone out and I'll text two or three people on staff. I'll text all my board members. I'll text some people who I know. I'll text pastors from another state. And I'll say, "Hey, I'm praying about this. Pray about this with me. And if you hear anything or if you feel anything, let me know. What do you think about this?" I love doing that. Amen.
I don't mean the literal, yes, they exist. I know they exist. I'm not saying that. I believe it's okay to use them. I believe that the wisdom and intellect that they have, the knowledge they have, they have because God gave it to us. They put in the effort to study it, and they know it. And I think that's awesome.
I have no problem with going to a doctor. I have no problem. I have no problem going to a doctor. I was talking to somebody just yesterday, and I quoted Juan Calderon, who years ago said that he went to the doctor to find out how to pray. I have no problem with that.
I believe in taking medicine, and I believe in praying for healing. And I sometimes pray for the medicine I'm taking, believing for healing. It's okay. It's okay to consult human counsel, earthly wisdom. It's okay to consult resources. It's okay to consult psychology and philosophy and sociology. It's okay to study history. It's okay to break into that. It's okay to receive some counsel. It's okay to study history. It's okay to study counseling. It's okay to study and figure out how to better yourself in all these natural ways. That's all fantastic. I recommend you do it.
Okay, but God's Word is the primary source. It's the first. It's the primary. What I mean by that is after you've done that research, after you've talked to your five closest friends, after you've consulted Wikipedia and all the other pedias, and after you've done the Googles and after you've got on the interwebs, and after you do the chat, GPTs, TSS, S is four plus whatever, and you did all the research and you've got all that information, you need to double back and come back to God's Word because it's also the last resource.
It's the last resource. We got to get there. We got to say that because I don't care how cool the advice you got was. If it doesn't line up with God's Word, it's wrong. I don't care how much sense it makes. If it doesn't line up with God's Word, it's wrong. I don't care how easy it is. If it doesn't line up with God's Word, it's wrong.
It's not complicated. It's very simple. If God's Word says do this and you choose not to do this, you are doing wrong. We want to complicate it. We want to say, "Oh, but the Bible was written so many years ago, and it's different than the world we live in today." Have you read it?
There's some pretty graphic stuff that happened back then, and God addressed it. Now, it might make you uncomfortable. It might be difficult, but I promise you it's applicable. You must come back to the Bible as the final litmus test before you make a decision.
No matter how much evidence you accumulate, God's Word has the final witness test. You must come back to the Bible as the final witness test. You must come back to the Bible as the final say.
God even tells us this. This is just from one of the Psalms. I could have given you dozens and dozens of verses to support this point, but let me just give you three from the same chapter. Psalm 119, starting verse 9. It says, "How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word." Pretty easy, huh? By obeying your word.
Now, it's complicated. We'll get into this. We may talk about this more in a few weeks, but in order to obey the word, you have to know the word. Okay, I'll go back there.
Then going down to verse 11, same chapter says, "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." What amazing advice. That if we memorize and we know God's Word and we apply it to our life, then we come into a situation where we are being tempted, and baby, you're going to be tempted. If you know what God's Word says, it will help you to not fall into that temptation. Amen.
And then jumping down to verse 105. There's over a hundred verses in this song. 105 says, "Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and the light for my path." Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light, a light for my path. It's powerful. It's powerful.
Let me give you another one. Hebrews 4, because here's the thing. Even now, even after all the illustrations, even speaking as plainly as I have, and as simply as I can project what I'm telling you and what God is telling us in the series, there's still somebody out there who's trying to rationalize their problem and make it bigger than what God's Word can handle.
But they don't know the power of God's Word. Okay, let me read to you Hebrews 4:12. Many of you know this: "It is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between the soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires." That's pretty powerful. Amen. That's pretty detailed. That will handle every situation.
God's Word will speak to your complicated life. I promise you. I promise you this. And as I said, this series is going to challenge us all. I almost called the series "Do Better." It probably wasn't popular. It probably wouldn't have got a lot of amens. It doesn't sound near as nice as "Have You Not Read?"
But I could have easily called it "Do Better" because in some of these conversations we're going to see, this series is going to challenge us to do better. I've said for years from a spiritual perspective looking at healing, I've made the comment that whatever you're dealing with in life may be physical, but everything is spiritual.
Here's the thing. The spiritual answers we seek can't be found if our physical choosing, if we are choosing to live a life physically that is contrary to God's Word. Amen? Amen?
We, in essence, disqualify ourselves from His protection and His blessings when we go against His Word. You got any biblical references? I got a million of them. I don't know; I didn't do math. I got a lot of them. Let me just give you two.
This dude named Moses. Would you all agree that Moses is a pretty cool guy? Wrote a lot of the Old Testament. He's mentioned a lot. He's very, very instrumental. He's one of God's people, right? And Moses got disqualified from entering into the promised land just because he disobeyed God's Word.
He was even doing a good thing. God said, "Speak to the rock and it'll bring forth water." And last time he struck the rock, and I guess he decided he didn't want to look silly or whatever, so he struck the rock again. And yeah, God brought forth water. But because Moses was disobedient, he got to see it from a distance on the mountaintop, but he didn't get to enter the promised land.
He disqualified himself from that blessing because it went contrary to God's Word. You ever heard of this dude named Saul, King Saul? Saul, Israel decided they wanted a king. "Give us a king." And the prophet said, "You don't want a king. You got a king. It's God. Follow Him." "No, we want a king." God said, "All right." And He gave him a king. He gave him Saul.
And what an opportunity to be the king of Israel, right? God's people talk about a great position, and Saul messed it up. It was a simple instruction. God said, "Go into the land." You can read it later. "Go into the land, destroy everything. Kill them all." It's a whole other sermon.
But Saul thought he had a better idea, and he kept some of the best stuff for the Lord. And even if he was sincere, he was still disobedient. And do you realize that one thing disqualified him from being the king of Israel? And God told the prophet to go and anoint somebody else.
There's a process. It took time, but Saul lost his opportunity because he disobeyed what God told him. And that's what God told him to do. Amen?
So many. God is so gracious that He has given us a plan. He's given us His Word. We have no excuse. We can read it in this country we live in anytime we want to. There are countries where somebody could go to jail for even having parts of a Bible.
And that's how they worship. That's how they learn. They literally have torn out pages from a Bible, and they pass them from family to family in secret so that they can read God's Word. And we live in a country where not only are we free to read God's Word when we want to, we can own as many Bibles as we want.
And I know some of you, like me, probably own several. And that's fantastic. But we can't learn by osmosis. Having them on the shelf will not make us a better Christian. We have to read them. We have to study them.
It's a roadmap to our life. Listen, I'm not necessarily talking about salvation today. Hold another application, talking about that. I'm talking about righteous living. I'm talking about discipleship. I'm talking about growth. I'm talking about living an abundant life and living a blessed life.
God is more than able. Live His way, and He'll provide. I've said time and time again, if you have no other reason to tithe to the church, to give 10% of what God's increased in your life to His church, to your house, which is the church that you're a part of, if you have no other reason to do that, then here's your reason. If you do that, then God will take care of everything else. It's His responsibility, not yours.
And when somebody comes to my office, they say, "Hey, man, we're struggling financially." One of the first questions I'm going to ask them, if they're a child of God, I'm going to say, "Okay, are you faithful in paying your tithe?" And if the answer is no, we can't go anywhere else.
Because everything else is earthly wisdom, and it may be fantastic, but if they're doing something that's contrary to God's will, then they're setting themselves up for a curse. God's will, not mine. All these situations apply.
Don't come asking God to bless your marriage if you are flirting with every girl you see who's not your wife. I'm not doing anything. Yeah, you are. You're being a moron. You promised to treasure her. Everybody else, and you're not doing that. Amen? Ladies, it goes both ways.
We've got to live according to His Word to have the blessings that we want to have, and we're going to, listen, we're going to break this down over the next few weeks. Have you not read? Jesus, that's a literal quote from Him. There's problems that they bring to Christ, and His response is, "Have you not read?"
One time He even says, "Have you not even read?" He's basically saying, "I've already answered this. We've covered this. Do better." That's just my interpretation.
Do you want to just bow your heads with me for a minute? Sometimes we get stuck and confused because we don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. And we take some things out of context.
I said that it's God's Word read in context, right? And we can start preaching in Christianity that's not true. We can start preaching in Christianity that says that if you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can do whatever you want, live however you want, and whatever method you want, and God's still going to make it all come out for you. Well, that's not actually true.
But Pastor Ronnie, the Bible says that all things work together for good. Keep going. It said, "All things work together for good for those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purposes." Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commands. You will obey my teaching."
So we put all that together. All things work together for good for those that love the Lord, for those that obey the teachings of God's Word, that live according to the life, according to what His scripture says we should live it. Then you can walk in confidence and know that no matter what tragedy you're going through, it's going to work out because you're doing it God's way.
If you're here today, and maybe, you know, you're hearing all this, you say, "Man, that sounds amazing," but you keep talking about this thing about salvation and living for Him and by Him dying for me, what does that mean?
We were all born into a sinful state. We were born in need of a Savior. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. It's what you get when you plant sin; you reap death. But it goes on to say that the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord.
What that means is God sent Jesus, who was born of a virgin birth. He lived a sinless life, yet He died on a cross, a death that was reserved for sinners, for thieves, for all these different people. He paid that price that we owed from our sins. But He didn't stay dead. God rose Him from the dead. He's ascended. He's with the Father. He's with the Son. He's with the Holy Spirit.
And He's made it possible for us to be forgiven of our sin. He's made it possible for us to have the confidence and assurance that when we take our last breath here in this messed-up world we're living in, we will open our eyes in eternity to live forever with Him, to have eternal life.
And all we have to do is just confess that He's the Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead. That's what God's Word says. Make Him the Lord of your life.
I'm going to lead us in a prayer I do every week. And I encourage you, if you're here today and you haven't said this prayer, if you haven't, it's nothing magical about the prayer. It's just enacting what God's Word says. If you haven't put your faith in Jesus, do it today so that you can have that assurance of eternal life because we have no promise of tomorrow.
If you're here today and through this time of teaching this morning on some heavy stuff, laying some groundwork, I promise I'll do my best to make it full. And as we go, but maybe you've been convicted about some things you've been doing. You've rationalized some decisions. You've made some choices based on your own opinion or somebody else's opinion or this world's opinion.
And you know, it doesn't line up with God's Word. You want to just get that right before Him. You want to confess that today so that you can go forward and grow in Him. Just say this prayer with us too, as a confession, as a refocusing.
Do what everybody say this prayer loud with me from your heart.
Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me and for sending Your Son to pay the price for my sin and the sin of this world. Jesus, I believe You are the Son of God. I believe that God rose You from the dead. I believe that You did what You did for me. And I'm grateful.
I ask You now, forgive me of my sin. Be my Lord, be my Savior. I'm going to serve You the rest of my life. And it's in Your name I pray. Amen.
Father God, search our hearts. You know where we're at. You know what we have going on. God, I pray that we would be open to You. Help us to seek Your Word and Your truth. Prepare our hearts for what You have for us in this series in Jesus' name.
We're going to take communion together as we dismiss. And this is what we're going to do. The guys are coming. They're going to spread these trays out across this stage. Just encourage you in a second. I'm going to have you all come forward, and you can take a package with you, and we'll take it all together.
If you're visiting today, we practice what we call open communion. If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, if He's the Lord of your life, we want you to take this with us; you're more than welcome to. If you haven't, don't do it. But everybody else, whether this is your church or not, as long as you know Jesus, we welcome you to take communion with us this morning.
So as Pastor Oscar leads us in this course, just make yourself come down this way, avail yourself of these emblems, and I'll pray, and we'll take them all together in a minute.
If you would, let's be served.
If you would, just remove the top or the bottom in this case and take your cracker there and just hold it in your hand. Recognize this represents the body of Jesus Christ that was broken for you. That He willingly allowed Himself to be scourged, to be beaten, to be mocked, to be made fun of, to wear a crown of thorns, and to go through everything He did because He loves you.
On the night that He was betrayed, after they had eaten together, He took the bread and He blessed it and He broke it. And He told the disciples, "Take and eat this, for this is my body." And as often as you do, do it in remembrance of me.
So that's what we're doing right now. We're remembering what Jesus did for us, that He willingly surrendered His body for crucifixion.
Father God, thank You for salvation. Thank You for Jesus. Thank You that He was willing to give Himself up for us. Thank You that He was willing to come and be a part of us, to be a man with us, fully God and fully man. Thank You for the sacrifice of His body. Bless this cracker today as we celebrate and remember Him. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
You may eat.
You may eat.
The Bible says He went on to take the cup after supper, and it was a cup of wine. He said, He blessed it and He passed it around to take a drink. "This is my blood."
So much teaching we can do on it. But the blood of Jesus is powerful. It saves our souls. It cleanses us from all unrighteousness. It washes us white as snow. It's the blood that atoned for us because without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sins.
It's the blood that sets us free. And He willingly allowed His blood to be poured out for you and for me.
Father God, this juice that we have here representing the blood of Jesus, I pray You bless it. Lord, as we partake of it, I pray that You would help us to recognize and remember the salvation made possible through Jesus. Jesus, we're so grateful. There's not enough words to fully express the gratitude we have for You. Thank You for saving us. Thank You for the blood.
In Your name we pray. You may drink.
I'm going to pray a prayer of dismissal, and you're welcome to go when I'm done. The band's going to just worship as we go out. Hope to see you on Wednesday night. We're back on our family nights. It's going to be awesome.
Thank you for being here today. We look forward to seeing you every week in this new series.
Father God, go with us. God, in the directness in everything we do, help us to be Your hands and feet extended everywhere we go to love people, every person we come in contact with, with Your love. Help us to chase after You with all that we have, Lord. Help us to live according to Your Word, and I rejoice for the blessings that we will get to walk in as we do that. You're an awesome God. We ask all this in Jesus' name, amen.
on Jan 05, 2025
