Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South
Australia. Well, it's great to have you
guys here this morning. I really enjoyed, you know,
Justin's message last week. I think he did a great job.
I think it's more than just doing a good job.
I think that God is speaking and you know, he was talking about
how we can prepare ourselves to run and some of the ways he had
like 6 points for us to, to seek revelation on so that we can be
prepared to for the coming seasons that God's leading us
into as a church and as a people.
So one of the things that stuck with me out of that was this
point of knowing God. It's just like, oh, we're going
to talk about knowing God again. Of course we're going to talk
about knowing God again, you know, and something that Justin
did share last week was he said that, you know, not just knowing
God and how wonderful he is and how amazing saviour and all
these things, but knowing the things that God likes and in
knowing the things that God dislikes.
That's really important for us as a people following the Lord
to know what is pleasing to God and what isn't pleasing to God.
Isn't that true? Like I want my children to know
the things that bring me joy that I'm pleased about.
And I'll definitely want them to know the things that I want them
to stay away from, right? That's what a good parent does.
And I'm not, I'm not saying, hey, look at me, I'm a good
parent, but that's what good parents do.
They want their children to grow up and to be healthy and strong
and fruitful. And us in the church, we want
our children to grow up to be healthy in the Lord and, and to
run and to take the things that God's put in us.
We want our children to catch that and take it further and
beyond ourselves. And so, you know, to know God
and to know what he likes and what he doesn't like is just a
way that we can follow him, right?
Like if we don't know the things that are pleasing to the Lord
and the things that aren't pleasing to him, we're going to
have a hard time following him because we're, we're following
the Lord and he's guiding us and he's giving us steps to take.
And the Lord's never leading us astray.
He's never leading us in the wrong direction.
So his ways are always good. And those are the ways that we
want to follow. And I was thinking about, you
know, all of these things as I was preparing.
And I thought, I thought about where it all went wrong.
Where did it all go wrong in Genesis?
Where's Genesis three? Yeah, It's like that's where it
all fell apart. And like, you and I are living
in a world today that is a result of what happened there
and that those things haven't been changed yet.
Jesus has come and done a good work and changed us from the
inside out, but we're still living with the fool.
Can I just say that again? We're still living with the fool
guys. You know our bodies are going to
die one day, right? And I know that Jesus is
powerful and mighty and his will is for life and all those
things. But Jesus hasn't moved death out
of the way just yet. Can I just say that?
So we're still living with the fall, OK.
And so where it all went wrong in the Garden of Eden, God said
he, he, he, he, he said all of these trees, you can eat that
one. Just stay away from that one.
Don't eat that one, you know. And then there was 2 special
trees. There was the tree of life, and
there was the tree of the knowledge of and good and evil.
That one. Stay away from that one.
Don't eat that one. And I asked myself, I asked
myself this question. I'm going to ask all of us this
question. If you were Adam and Eve,
knowing all that you know now, knowing all that you know about
the things that have unfolded through the fallen, through sin,
and through God's word and through all of the Scripture
where he's leading his people and, and revealing himself and
all of those things. If you knew all of that and you
went back, would you eat from the tree?
I hope not, right? But this is an interesting thing
to ponder, right? So we're going to unpack that a
little. And so, you know, since the
fall, the pattern has been God speaking and people doing
something else. And it's been on repeat over and
over and over again. Like we, the church would just
look at Israel and go, oh, what are they doing?
What about us? What are we doing?
You know, like, because God's speaking and we're doing
different things sometimes. So we don't get off the hook
here, guys, you know, But Genesis one, I'm just going to
read some verses here. Genesis one, verse 11, sorry,
I'm going to read verse 12. It says that the earth brought
forth grass, the herbs that yield seed according to its
kind, and the tree that yields fruit whose seed is in itself
according to its kind. So the key point out of that is
that that seed produces after its own kind what God made.
God put seed in it and it could only produce after its own kind.
And we read on when God created the animals, verse 21.
I'm just going to read a couple of points.
You don't have to go here, but it says again, it's the same
thing according to their own kind, God created these animals
and told them to be fruitful and multiply, but they could only be
fruitful and multiply after their own kind.
You know, like a a bear can't have a elephant calf.
It's just it's just not, not the way that God structured this
right? So only after their own kind.
And if we pick up together in Genesis one verse 27, I'll just
read all of this. It says that so God created man
in his own image, in the image of God.
He created him male and female. He created them.
Then God blessed them and God said be fruitful and multiply,
fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.
So God puts a seed in mankind and it's a good seed, you know,
for God to create mankind in his own image and then tell them go
be fruitful and multiply. God's wanting himself to go and
fill the earth. God's glory would fill and cover
the earth God made after his, his in his own likeness.
And he said, go reproduce this seed, good seed that, and fill
and subdue the earth. This is God's plan.
God wants to be glorified in you and I as people.
This is not like he hasn't got a new plan now with the church.
That's the plan God wants to put Himself in US and for us to be
fruitful and to multiply. So I'm just going to look at the
command that God gave Adam and Eve in Genesis 2.
In verse 16 He says, and the Lord God commanded the man
saying of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not
eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
So the all knowing God, the creator of all things is telling
them the truth. He's giving them knowledge, he's
giving them wisdom, understanding.
He's saying don't eat from that tree.
You will die. Eat, eat of all of these other
trees. Be fruitful, you know, multiply,
enjoy. Let's do this together.
Just don't eat of that thing because all of this will change.
This is a good God giving good promises and saying good truth.
So he's giving them knowledge and the knowledge is what's
right and what's wrong. He's saying what you have here
is great, these ones here good, right?
Choose those that one here wrong, evil.
Don't do it. Do you see?
God is revealing good and evil. And so Adam and Eve has a choice
to make now. And So what is the choice that
Adam and Eve had to make? They could either trust and
believe God was right or that God was wrong.
So or that you know they could, they could either trust what God
was saying as true and right, or they could just they themselves
could decide what was right. Do you see the picture?
Trust God, follow him, do what he's asking, do what he's saying
for the good or make up your own mind.
You decide what's right and wrong.
And so it's interesting because the tree is called the knowledge
of good and evil. So God's giving them a choice to
either trust him for what's right and wrong, for what's good
and evil, or eat that tree and find out for yourself.
Right? And the thing with going to the
tree for the knowledge of good and evil is you are going
somewhere other than God. You've got, you're going to go,
you're going to turn away from God and you're going to go
looking for something for yourself.
And so you've, you've just decided that God himself, the
creator of all things, the one that put you in this garden
here, that he doesn't know what he's talking about, that what he
says is right and wrong is invalid.
I'll go find out for myself. He could be wrong so that we
better find out. Do you see what I'm saying?
There's there's no trust in the Lord in this.
And so Eve does this, she eats from the from the fruit, but she
has some help, right? So Satan's there twisting God's
word. So in Genesis 3 verse 5, it says
this is what Satan says to Eve. He says for God, I'll put in the
King James Version here. So just bear with this, right?
For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then
the eye, your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as God's
knowing good and evil. Now Satan doesn't exactly lie
here, not blatantly, but he always twists the truth and
highlights things that aren't to be highlighted.
Right. And I'm going to come back to
that in a second, but catch Eve's response just before she
eats of this of this tree of the fruit in verse 6.
She says so when the IT says so. When the woman saw that the tree
was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and the
tree was desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit and
ate it. So she seeks knowledge in the
wrong place. God had already given her
knowledge, and God, you know as he walked with him when in the
garden, He would have continued to give them wisdom and
understanding and leading and guiding.
But she chose to take that for herself.
And again, it was just from another place that wasn't from
God's mouth. And so then Adam eats of of the
fruit as well, and the seed enters mankind's heart, the seed
from this tree, as we've read, the seed enters their hearts.
And what is this seed? What's a seed of death?
It will produce death. And every person is born with
this seed from that point after. But this is a this is a seed of
self seeking. This is a seed to know good and
evil for yourself, that you would judge what is right and
wrong. That's the seed that is in here.
And it's from within ourselves, that seed, when you think about
it, that seed to that we would want to decide what's right,
what's wrong, what I can do, what I shouldn't do.
This is attitude in people. That's just like, don't tell me
what to do. Who are you to tell me what to
do? People say this in the church,
like, what do you, you can't tell me what to do, right?
There's a that, that there. That's the seed.
That's the I I'm my own king. I'm my own boss.
You can't tell me what to do. I am yielded to no one, to
nothing. And that's that seed in the
heart of men is the reason why our world is in such a mess
today. This is the reason why people
could believe things that are so ludicrous because they've just
gone so far away from God's truth.
The truth and truth has just become whatever they think it
should be. Have a look around in our world
at the moment. Like we read here that God made
them man and woman. That's up for grabs now.
Do you see how crazy things have gone?
So that's the seed that is in our hearts that we're born with.
And so, so there, there was a relationship severed when
mankind decided that we could decide what's right and wrong.
We'll find out for ourselves. We won't trust the Lord and His
word. There was a relationship severed
between man and God. God wanted to walk with mankind
in the garden and in the cool of the day, and he wanted to tell
them the truth. He wanted to be the one to
reveal truth and give them knowledge and lead them in the
paths of righteousness and all of these things.
And that's always been God's desire that because that desire
has never changed, but that relationship has been severed.
So God wouldn't continue to walk with them anymore.
He drives them out from the from the garden.
That's that's brutal. That means that now because of
our choice to decide what's right and wrong, God takes a
step back and goes, I'm not going to walk with you.
Then if you want to decide, go and decide.
That's a very scary thing. And we can see where that's LED,
right? And so I said that Satan didn't
exactly lie. I'm going to get back to that
now. Genesis 3 verse 5 For God doth
know that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
So that's what Satan said. You'll be like God, you'll be
gods, you'll be able to judge, you'll be able to know good and
evil, you'll be able to make a a choice what's right and wrong.
And God actually confirms this strangely, strangely enough.
So after the fall and after the curse, listen to what God says
Genesis 3 verse 22. He says then the Lord God said,
behold, man has become one of us to know good and evil.
And now unless he put his hand out and take from the tree of
life and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him
out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground in which he was
taken and he drove the man out and he placed cherubim at the
east of the garden of Eden, a flaming sword which turned every
way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Do you see what happens? God says, OK, they've become
like us. They will decide what's right
and wrong now. And he goes, but not in my
house, right? So he closes the gate and he
says off you go. Then go and do that over there,
you know, because that's not going to be taking place in my
presence because I'm the Lord and I only stand for truth.
I do not allow liars to to be in my midst.
I don't allow these things to be in my house.
You know, the Garden of Eden is like God's house.
He made it perfect and he made people in his image.
And it was like as soon as they turned from him, out you go.
Then you can't be with me anymore, right?
And so Adam and Eve found out first hand that what they did
was evil, didn't they? They realized, oh gosh, we have
made a mistake here because now we're tilling the ground by the
sweat of our brow. Now things are hard now.
Now the earth is producing thorns and thistles.
Things are bad now, you know, so they realized, so now they have
this problem. They're cast out from the
presence of God. They can't take freely from the
tree of, of life, right? And they can't put that God's
seed in them any longer. The seed of life to live and to
have perfect, to live in perfect creation.
The seeds been taken away, but worse than that, this is the
worse than that. They can't be directed by the
Lord. They can't follow him anymore.
That that there the fool that there that God has had to remove
himself from people when he can't.
He won't lead them anymore. That's the worst thing that
could ever happen to anyone. That's it.
To be separated from God. That's what hell is, isn't it?
To be separated from him that he wouldn't be leading you.
He wouldn't be, you know, teaching you and and and helping
you. That's the worst of it.
You know, not that they had to like work hard now and not that
they're going to die and you know, it's just that God's not
there anymore. I hope you guys grasp the the
amazing God who's made a way for us to know him through Jesus,
that he would put his spirit in US.
I don't think we realized this. See, I'm trying to help us to
understand that that Jesus has fixed the biggest problem in on
in history. They're being separated from the
Lord. He's made a way for the Spirit
of God to come and live back in US, that we would be alive
again, that we would be able to to, to eat and have the seed
back in US. Yeah.
So this is the pattern of Scripture all the way through
God coming to save his people with his word, giving them
direction, showing them what's right and wrong.
This is like, read the Scripture, guys.
This is what God's about. After the fall and after they
cast out, what does God do? God starts to make a way for him
to teach them, for him to lead them.
So he raises, you know, Abraham and it goes down the line and I
can't get into all of the things.
Just read and and open your eyes and see it.
But God raises up the Israelites, a nation to know
him, to be led by him, to have his word.
That's a very special thing. This is why Israel is a special
nation, because God's with them, because God chose them to show
them the way. That's amazing.
This is like God dealing with the curse in people in humanity.
God wants to show them what's right and wrong, but people just
consistently through the Scripture, as I said, just
constantly fall out of God's will and just come up with their
own ideas and their own way of doing things.
And it never ends well. It's always like the Garden of
Eden all over again. God has to separate himself
from. And then when we start again,
God raises someone up. He draws it near to do you see
what I'm saying? It's over.
And over, you know, I'm reading this morning in my reading, I'm
like, Oh my gosh, I've just sorted out again.
It's in, I was reading in Exodus.
And this is like when Moses goes up the mountain to get the 10
commandments and Aaron's down there and they come to him and
say, oh, we don't know what happened to that dude.
Like maybe we should just worship God the way that we want
it. You see, like God's given
various specific instructions. This is how you're going to
worship me. Oh, well, he's not around
anymore. Let's OK, guys, let's just make
ourselves a calf and let's worship the Lord, right?
We'll just do like, whatever we think is right or wrong, we'll
just do that. And God will be happy with that.
No, he won't. You know, Moses comes down the
mountain. What does he do?
What? What was he coming back with?
What was Moses coming back down the mountain with?
He's got the word of God. He's like, oh, these, these
people have been faithful. These people have been waiting.
I've gone up to get the word of God where God's going to speak
to his people and lead his people.
No, I just missed it. So what does Moses do?
He he shatters it. He throws it on the ground.
He's like, well, hey, if you want to choose what's right or
wrong, then we'll just we'll, this can just be destroyed then
not for you. Do you see Moses as righteous
anger? It's just like, well, you don't
deserve the word of God then if you're just going to do your own
thing and not be patient and wait for the word of God, fine,
do your own thing and it ends bad.
It's just it's just terrible. But it's funny because you read
on and let me just read this here for us.
This is verse sorry, chapter 33. This is just after all of this
happens and the Lord says, for, for I will not, not go up in
your midst anymore. And he said, and this is what
this is what it says in 33 verse 7.
It says Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp,
right? And everyone who sought the Lord
went to the Tabernacle of meeting, which was outside the
camp. What is the picture that we're
reading here? God is separating himself.
People decide that they're going to do things their own way.
God goes, all right, fine, but I'm separating myself because I
won't be a part of this. You will see this over and over
again in the Scriptures. This is what God does.
God won't stand for unrighteousness.
How much more in his church, God's, how much more in the in
the body of Christ? God is not pleased with
unrighteousness. God is not pleased with us doing
things the way that we think we should do it.
We have a very specific road map for life, how we conduct
ourselves, how we treat one another, how we serve the Lord
in the House of God. We have to do things His way.
God hasn't changed his mind about the seriousness of His
word. Can I say that I hope this is
getting our attention, guys. So the Bible is like a lifeline
to us, right? It's like to eat from the words
of this is like to eat from the tree of life.
Again, this is God's word. This is where life is.
Jesus says I am the word we're partake of of the seed of God.
Jesus even says in in Luke 8 verse 11, this is what he says
about the word. He said this is the parable of
the soul. All right.
Jesus says the seed is the word of God.
The word of God is seed. That means that when you partake
of it, read it, know it, absorb it, chew on it, live it out, it
produces something in us. It produces fruit.
It produces good fruit. Amen.
And and just further down in in Luke 8 here it says, but the but
the ones that fall on the good ground or the good soil of their
hearts, the seed that falls on the good ground of those having
heard the word with a noble and a good heart, keep it and bear
fruit. Catch this next bit with
patience. With patience, that means that
if things don't go the way that we think they should, like for
Aaron and the Israelites, where's this Moses?
Why is this taking so long? Oh, let's just get on with it.
Patience, trusting the Lord for what he says.
If you haven't seen it yet, patience, faith.
If it's written, it's true. If it's written, it will come to
pass. You can, you can take it to the
bank. You know this word is true.
Have patience, trust the Lord, speak his Lord and and wait on
him. Wait on him patiently.
So Satan is still twisting the word of God today.
I hope you realize that. Do you know where he's doing it?
In churches? Think about it like the word of
God's not really being preached anywhere else.
So where's Satan twisting the word of God?
That's a scary thought, isn't it?
And not just Satan. We twist the Word of God in the
same way that, you know, Eve added to the word of God And,
and, you know, we say things that are out of context
sometimes we can twist the Word of God.
You know, we've got to be careful with the Word of God.
We've got to handle the Word of God carefully.
One of the biggest twistings of Scripture that I just run into
all the time in relating to God's Word is that for you are
not under law, you're under grace.
You are not under law. This thing's just this heavy,
weighty law that you're no longer under.
You're under grace. Be free, just do whatever you
want. God has forgiven you.
That is not what that's saying. For you are not under law, but
you're under grace. You know, we would use that out
of I see that used out of context all the time.
What about like, you know, one example.
And please, if anyway, I'm just going to say it, if we teach
tithing, right, we teach the word of God.
The word of God teaches tithing, whether you like it or not, it's
in it, right? It's a pattern.
It's it's in scripture. It's good.
God's word is good. He says if you tithe, you'll
reap harvest. It's good.
That's good seed that you'd be selling, right?
So I hear people, you know, that just don't want to be generous
with their money. They just want to keep
everything for themselves. They just go, well, I'm not
under law. I'm under grace.
I don't have to tithe. That's law, right?
And, and you could go on and on and on with the commands of the
Lord. What I want to do that.
So I'm under grace, you know, I'm not under the law.
I'm under grace. That was just there, but we're
here. So if I'm under grace and not
under law, and I can just do whatever I think's right, does
that mean that God's always happy with the choices that I
make? Of course he's not.
Does that mean that God is willing to bless me if I'm
living contrary to his word? No, Sorry, guys.
Like it's just not true, you know, we can't just go because
I'm saved, because the Lord's died for me and because I've
received salvation, and because I've come from death to life and
He's put His Spirit in me, that now the Lord is forced just to
bless whatever I've touched my hands to.
It's just not true. God does not bless things that
are contrary to His Word. It's just not what He does.
He can't, He won't. So let me just read you this.
I'm no longer under law, but under grace.
Let's just have try and grab a bit of the context here, right?
Romans 6, verse 13. I'm just going to read a few
scriptures. You tell me what this is talking
about, and do not protect. Present your members as
instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves
to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as
instruments of righteousness to God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under
law, but under grace. What then?
Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?
Certainly not. Do not.
Do not know that whom you present yourselves slaves to
obey. You are the one slave whom you
obey, whether sin leading to death or obedience leading to
righteousness. Right, like this is talking
about obedience and righteousness and not living in
sin and choosing righteousness and not unrighteousness.
How on earth are you and I are going to understand
righteousness and unrighteousness without the word
of God? How?
Tell me because without the word of God, you know what we're left
with? We are left with our own
understanding of what is right and wrong.
We are straight back to the the beginning where all of this fell
apart because God spoke and gave his word and gave truth and we
decided that we would make our own truth.
Amen. It's important, guys.
Gosh, I could just go on and on. Hey, I'm just, I'm going to skip
some things because it's just like it's over and over and over
again in the scripture. So how do you draw near to God?
How do we draw near to him? Obedience.
Oh, it's what did you say? Yeah.
Humble humility, Right. God's way, doing things his way.
You know, I think that we've been deceived into thinking that
drawing near to God is just crying out to him and saying,
Lord, help me, Lord, come and fill us.
You know, like, like the drawing near to God would just be in a
meeting where the the music's really getting you pumped up and
you can just go, come, Lord, fill this place, you know, like
that that's drawing near to God. And there's a sense of that with
when you're crying out of your heart that you're hungry for him
and you want him, right? So this is kind of true.
But drawing near to God, we draw near to him through his word, we
draw near to him through obeying him, through following him.
Jesus said, follow me, right? He said, come, my yoke is easy.
You know what a yoke is? It's something that is put on
you so that you you're like where we become bond servants to
Christ. We don't like saying that, do
we? Servants, bond servants like
that. The Lord would put his yoke on
me and I'd just do what he tells me to do.
Oh my gosh. You know, like it's been so
twisted that that sounds like, you know, it sounds like what
sounds like what Satan was sort of saying in the garden, that
this is what freedom looks like. No, freedom looks like putting
the yoke of God on you and submitting, being humble and
following him. That's what true freedom looks
like, guys. And so you can draw near to God.
We should draw near to God. But it's through knowing his
ways and following him together. It's the primary way that God
speaks through his word. And you might be saying, yeah,
yeah, I know all this. Like I've been in church my
whole life. I've heard it all.
I've heard all this, but I
started with, you know, I asked us this question.
I said if you were in the garden, if you were Adam and Eve
and you knew everything that you knew right now, would you eat
from the tree? We say no, but do we still live
contrary to the Word of God sometimes, right?
Do I still put aside God's word and his command and just go in
this direction because it's what it feels right to me?
Do you know what that is? That is eating from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil? So I'm scared, I'm like, if I
get put back in that garden again, I might mess this up,
right? Thank God that Jesus sent his
Son. There is only one righteous and
holy and pure. There is only one that is only
about the Father's will. Jesus.
That's it. The only reason that you and I
are saved, can come back to the Father, can come and hear the
truth of the word of God, can be led by him again.
It's because Jesus lived a perfect life and laid it down on
the cross for you and I. That's it, that's it.
And so I don't think I could do it.
I think if you put me back in the garden before long I think
I'd mess it up. I don't want to like I, I, you
know, like, because we all see her and goes, of course we
wouldn't eat the tree. Really.
What about 1000 years later? Like, you know, you're not going
to make a mistake. You're not going to do something
that the word of God doesn't tell you to do.
Do you see what I'm saying? We're in trouble, guys.
But Jesus, thank you, Lord. Oh my gosh.
That's why we that's why we hold him so high.
That's why we seek him with all of our might because he is the
one that did that went before us, and he is the one that has
the words of life, only Him. Amen.
So, you know, like I'm just, I'm imploring us as a church to go
after these things. We got to live for something
bigger than ourselves. You know, the church matters,
guys. It's like it's God's plan for
salvation across this earth. And the part that you and I play
on it matters in it. But you know, the part that we
play is, is obedience and willingness to turn from our own
ways and seek the Lord for his ways.
And you know, there's a reason why this church is called the
Way Church. We want to find out God's
direction. We want to find out the way that
he's leading us for our lives and for the church.
That's it. It's a pretty simple equation,
isn't it? What do you want us to do, God?
I want you to follow me. I want you to drop everything.
I want you to leave it all behind.
I want you to come get behind me.
Come follow me. You know, And so I think about
our lives. I'm, I'm bringing this to a
close now and I think because I've been thinking about this
stuff a lot and you know, how I go about living my life, how I
parent the sort of husband that I am, the sort of leader that I
am here. All of these things.
You got to consider the life that you live.
You got to consider the things that you give yourself to.
And it's not enough just to go. I think I'm in the will of God
in this, you know, God's OK with that or whatever.
We've got to find out what this says, you know, and this is what
we're, we as a church want to do when we gather together in our
community groups, when we gather together as men, when we gather
together, you know, on Sundays and when we're together
one-on-one, stuff like that, you know what we want to talk about.
What does the word of God teach? What is applicable to our lives?
Because you know, there's areas in all of our lives that we
haven't considered God's will in.
We're just going through the motions.
We've just made a choice that this thing that I'm involved in
is OK. Have you asked him?
Have you gone digging and saying, Lord, is this a good
thing for me to be a part of? Is this a good character trait
for me to have? If this is this a good
representation of your heart in this thing, you got to go
looking. It's like if you don't know what
the word of God says, how could you, how could the seed get in?
How could you reproduce? How could you see the fruit of
God in your life? We got to we got to pick up the
pace. I think we got to be more
diligent in asking each other what, you know, what are the
things that we're struggling with?
What are what are the things that God's saying?
You know what's what's going on in your life and have a
conversation and talk and then just go cool.
All right, Wonder what the word of God says about that, right?
Always I wonder what the word of God says about that.
Oh, you guys are having some problems in your marriage.
I wonder what the word of God says about that.
You guys are going to get married next year.
I wonder what the word of God says about that, right?
For all things. I'm having some health issues at
the moment. I'm struggling.
I wonder what the word of God says about that.
I'm I'm struggling financially. I don't have a lot of money.
I wonder what the word gods. I'm just, it's just, you
wouldn't run out of things, right?
I wonder, like I wonder what short sort of food I should be
eating. I wonder what sort of lifestyle
I should be living. I wonder what the word of God
says. This has the answers to all of
life's issues, you know, not just problems.
This has the answers that contain the promises of God.
This is how you partake of the promises of God.
But it's not just a one-on-one thing.
This is how we help each other. We've got to help each other,
guys. It's not the the days for us
just to meet up and talk about football and talk about, you
know, housework. I don't know what ladies talk
about, but but you know, like honestly, especially in the
church, like if we're just standing around talking about
our work and you know, hey, how are you going?
Oh yeah. You know, I've just been not
been working and it's been hard. And So what like, what does the
word of God say? Like how do we build each other
up? How do we strengthen, strengthen
each other? How can we ask questions of each
other that stir the word of God in US and through us because we
need to. So I am going to close here and
I'm just going to read Psalm one, the first of the Psalms.
It's an amazing Psalm. Blessed is the man who walks not
in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of
sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is
in the law of the Lord and his law.
In his law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that
bring forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall
never wither, and whether whatever he does, he shall
prosper. The ungodly are not so.
But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement, nor
sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of
the ungodly shall perish. Isn't that a beautiful picture?
Like they we would be a tree planted on the waters and that
our leaves would never wither and that there would be fruit,
good fruit. See, the Lord knows what he's
doing. He knows what he's talking
about. He knows that those that give
themselves over wholeheartedly to the word of God and to his
ways will prosper. That's it.
I hope we want to prosper. I hope that you've got it in
your heart for this church to prosper, right?
Fruitfulness, for us to multiply, for us to see the hand
of God, for, you know, for the, for the neighbors and the
friends and the family around you.
Do you want to see those people come to the Lord?
Do you want to see fruitfulness? Well, then we need to get the
seed in. That's for us personally, but
more so for us as a people. We got to help each other grow.
Amen. Awesome.
Let's just pray. Would you just stand with me?
I think like standing is a good thing in that we can respond to
the Word of God. So when we're standing together
here, what we're saying is we trust you, Lord.
We believe that your word is true.
We want to follow you, Lord. And so that's a declaration that
we stand to our feet. So let's pray, Father, Lord, we
thank you for who you are. We thank you, Lord, that your
desire from the very beginning would be to lead us, to guide
us, to grow us, for us to be fruitful, for us to multiply,
for your glory, to fill this earth.
And so we thank you today. We we stand here, expectant
Lord, that you're going to reveal something of yourself to
us, that there's areas even right now in this room, areas
that you will highlight for us. This is a way that you are
walking away from me. I'm calling you back.
So, Lord, we just yield to you as as Dudley reminded us, Lord,
we come humbly knowing that you are the only way that knows
truth and life. And so we come to you, Lord
Jesus, we honour you in this place.
We thank you, Lord, that if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be
back, You know, into the Father's arms.
That is what you've done that's brought us home.
But salvation, Lord, is is to know you, is to come back into
your presence. But from that place, Lord, we
want to be pleasing to you. We want to honour you, we want
to follow you. We want to be transformed into
your image. And we ask Holy Spirit in this
place today that you would do what only you can do Convict us.
Lord, ask for your deep conviction in our hearts that we
wouldn't be able to get away from the things you were saying
to us and that you would give us courage and strength.
And even the peace Lord that we spoke about earlier.
The Peace Lord, to be able to walk this out well and to enjoy
this wonderful life you've given us in Jesus mighty name, Amen.
Thank you for joining us for today's message.
For more information about The Way Church, please visit
ourwebsite@thewaychurch.com dot AU.
Have a blessed day.