My daughter and grandson were here all last week and then they
had surgery prep on Monday and surgery on Tuesday.
And I sat down today and kept getting up.
I'm like, I am never going to make it through an actual study
of first John. So we're going to go through
Living Water. And the reason that is, is
because it's something that if you guys don't know, the premise
of me going to Uganda is that I was going to build a water line
across Africa, which is still, which is still happening in his
time when he wants it, wants it move forward.
And it may be moving forward as we speak.
But that water line, when I started it, I thought I was
going to build an actual physical water line because I
worked for a excavating company and I assumed that they needed a
water line. So I was going to go and dig a
water line because I'm not very smart.
And Long story short, God bad at me on the back of the head and
said, living water, Nick. So, So with that, there's a
study of living water and what that means.
And we've we've all heard John 737.
This is Jesus talking. And it says on the last day, the
great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, if
anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.
He who believes in me, as the Scriptures has said, out of his
heart will flow rivers of living water.
But he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom these, those
believing in him, would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet
given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
And Lord, I just lift up this time and everybody here and
everybody at home, Lord, and just be in our midst, Lord, just
filling us up. Lord, guide and direct us.
We are, we are just to be about your business Lord and and
that's really our heart, that's our desire.
And I pray this all in Jesus name, Amen.
So then you look at Jeremiah 20 or Jeremiah 213 and it and this
one, this one will hit you between the eyes.
If it doesn't, you have to think about a little bit for, for my
people have committed 2 evils. They have forsaken me, the
fountain of living water and a hewn for themselves, broken
cisterns that can hold no water. So this is truly speaking about
Israel. And if, if you have the choice
between a, a fountain of water coming out of the ground or a
cistern. And if you guys don't know what
a cistern is, and I I think here most of you guys do, but it's
basically it was hewn out of rock and usually underground.
There could be big ones and little ones, but it was
somewhere they could store water in the rainy season or store
water in the rainy season for the dry season.
And they didn't live in modern did this water was not ultra
clean when it went in the in the cistern.
So it was not ultra clean in there, right.
It was it was they had to like take the scum off the top of it
to get to the water. It was not, you know, you're
boiling the water or you have a, you have a, a fountain of fresh
water coming out of the ground and, and God is saying, and this
is they have committed 2 evils. They have forsaken my fountain
of living water and made for themselves their own cisterns.
And when you look at that, guys, that is the principle here is
God has the power for us to do the work he has.
He has living water for us. And when we do it on our own, he
doesn't say, oh, look at them trying.
He says that's evil. We're we're supposed to be doing
it in his strength, right? Isaiah 55 one says everyone who
thirsts come to the water and you who have have no money come
buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine, milk without
money and without price. God says to all come to the
fountain and drink. You will be filled to
overflowing and your overflow of living water will change the
world. And that's.
And that is something that we as believers, I think especially,
especially in America and I, I say that because we and I, we
were talking before service about culture.
The American culture was built on the opposite premise of that,
not because they didn't love the Lord, but Americans what it
what's one of our favorite redneck sayings?
Get it done right, America, get it done right.
And that is Americans are adventurous.
They are I mean, and that is, you know, the the Mayflower, the
the people that came to the East Coast and came across this
country, by definition of what they were doing, they were
willing to to take risks and go out and do right.
But we can we can lose sight of our that it, it's about what I
do, not about what he did. And if we're and if we lose
track of what if it being about what he did, then he calls that
evil. He doesn't call.
I mean, that's that's my point is, is that when we think that
we have something to offer, he doesn't he doesn't pat us on the
head and say good try, but I'll give you a little extra.
He says, if you're doing it outside of my strength, I'm not
blessing it. I'm not I'm not in that right.
I need you because and when you, when you look at all the
principles of that through the Bible, when you look at Gideon,
you know, God's point in in the battle with Gideon was that he
showed up with not enough men to beat the other army.
And he said, but it's too big because you would say that you
had something to do with it. So then he shrank that.
And I don't have all the numbers, so I'm not using them.
But he shrank that. And then he said, you're still
too big. You'll still take credit.
And it was a fraction. It was, it was nothing.
So he brought it down to such a number that they absolutely knew
the only way that they were going to win is if God did it.
That's the God we serve. He wants us to know that he does
it in. He's doing the work right that
we're not. And in Ephesians 28 it says for
by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of
works left. Anyone should boast and that's
that principle. It's God gets all the glory
because he is the only way that the work got done.
And that is and the work, the the work we're talking about.
And there's two different kinds of work.
There's I call them capital Kingdom work and lowercase
Kingdom work, which is there is the only work that really
matters. The stuff that's going to last
is capital Kingdom work, right? I mean, what I do for a job,
the, the, the, the size of your church, the, all of that stuff,
you know, if you have a, you know, I'm doing this for a job
now. So I, the size of the church or
if I'm a construct, if I work in construction, I've, I've worked
myself up to Superintendent and I have a big company and we're
successful and we do millions and millions of dollars worth of
work. Guys, none of that matters.
And when I, when I say none of it matters, I don't mean that
that God doesn't want us to make a living.
What it's to remember that eternity is a long time and
we're not a long time. I, I go to the bookstore in
Bonners. I use this a lot, but it's, it
really the bookstore in Bonners, just the way it's set up, they,
they have a go to the very back wall and it's a used bookstore,
used new bookstore. And the back wall is full of
biographies and they're random. They're biographies and
autobiographies, and there's probably 3 or 400 of them, and I
probably know 15 of them. And there are some people that
might know 100 of them. But those people that got
biographies written about them were important people in their
day and age. They were important enough to
have the biography written or important enough to write an
autobiography and have a publisher publish it.
And when I read the names, I, I mean, I might pick up the book
and flip through it and go, oh, that's who that guy is.
But by their name, I don't know who they are.
And my point of that is all that will last is what we do in
Christ. The rest of it is all just
Haywood and stubble, right? It is it is literally our and
and that doesn't mean that we we aren't here on earth and that
that businesses don't get made and all of that stuff, but we
need to be doing it with a heart of Jesus.
What do you want me to do? How do you want me to move
forward and to remember that as we move forward that being in
Christ is and this is, this is one of those truths that as you
get it, you it's a, it's a difference is if you are in
Christ, you don't work for love, you don't work for joy, you
don't work for peace. You don't go to Jesus and say,
give me peace. You don't go to Jesus and give
me love. You don't go to Jesus and say,
give me joy. If you are in Christ, Christ is
love. Christ is joy, Christ is peace.
So if you are in Christ, you have joy, you have love, and you
have peace. It's he doesn't have a tank that
he goes and gets and when you're low, he fills you up.
It is, it is something that you have.
But if you're doing stuff, it's the way I have it on my notes
here. The fruit is in the tree and it
and that is, you know, the SAP comes up and fills the branch
and then the branch produces the fruit.
But it wasn't because the branch went out somewhere and got the
fruit or the tree went out and got it somewhere.
He it was in the tree, right? It it is produced within that
and so staying attached to Christ and and his living water
in that that that's how it flows out of us.
Isaiah 12 three says, therefore, with joy, you will draw waters
from the well of salvation. Simply said, do we do we believe
that the Lord is enough or do we believe that that we've got
we've got stuff we could add. I say it on Sundays.
A lot of the only thing I brought to salvation is my need
of it. And I mean, and that's something
guys, I can stand up here and, and say, but it's something that
it is important for me to truly remember on a regular basis that
that no matter how long I'm a Christian, no matter how long I,
I am blessed to be able to stand up here or teach, teach others
about him. No matter how long that goes on.
The only thing I brought to this is my need of it, right?
I get the joy of studying His Word every day and spending time
with Him, but just because I'm the guy that's standing up here
doesn't make me any any more or less special than anybody else.
It is. It is about Him and His Word and
His desire for each and every one of us, right.
The picture that God gives us of this living water versus a
broken cistern. I kind of had a picture in my
head. I've got a couple here, but one,
does everybody remember being a kid?
I know we're all a little older now, but when I was a kid and
had a little Datsun 210 and when it had, when it had a gas used
to be $0.99. And when I had like 1/4 tank of
gas, I would, my, my gas pedal foot was as light as you could
get. And you know, and then I'd, you
know, what friends would, friends would ride home and we'd
get pocket change and I put a couple dollars in and, you know,
and then Monday I'd roll around and I'd get my allowance and I'd
fill the tank up and suddenly I got a full tank of gas.
And my foot is substantially harder, right?
I am, I am, I am floor, you know, I'm ridiculous.
And that's because I had a full tank of gas.
What God's telling you is, is that no matter what kind of
power it looks like you have, if I am there, a puddle of water is
more than Lake Pend Oreille. If it's me, right?
If, if my fountain is creating a puddle, you can take as much out
of that puddle as you want forever.
I, there's more water in that puddle in, in potential than
there is in Pond Oreille. And we don't trust that, that
that's really what it comes down to is, is that a lot of times
we, we look at what the Lord's asking us to do and we go, well,
I don't know how that's going to happen.
You know, it's, it's, I think Mark is the one that said it
when we were going through this process of figuring things out
is God is never late, but he's rarely early, right?
And that is something for us as we're talking about living
water, like I don't need, I don't need more than 1/4 tank in
my car. It will get me wherever I, you
know, that that'll get me. It's running now.
I, I need more than an empty tank.
But God doesn't have to fill the tank.
He can, he can give me enough, right?
And then, and then what do I have to do is, is use my faith
to move that for, is to move forward in that grace, right?
That that that's the direction he wants me to go.
When I crushed my foot back in 2013, it was the only trip we
had sold a house in in late March, early or late April,
early June. And we had enough money that we
actually paid for a trip to Uganda in September.
And it was the first time that I'd ever just written a check
and I didn't have to like way to figure out how we were going to
pay for it. And I was excited and we were
doing all this stuff. And then I crushed my foot and I
can remember just chuckling because the reason that God gave
me the money was because I was supposed to be in Uganda in
September. And if he'd have given, if he
would, if he'd have had me wait like normal, I wouldn't, I would
have been too scared to give the money.
If that may, I wouldn't have paid for the try to cancel the
trip because I'm broken. I can't go and say hi, Nick,
you're too stupid. We're going to get, we're going
to have you. I'll pay for the trip in
advance. It's the only one I ever paid
for in advance. The rest of them as time went,
we had the money for it and and it was a fun as you do that over
and over again. It's fun to watch how God is
going to answer those questions. We, we got on the plane one time
in the Tri-cities and we were meeting one of our team members
in London. And when we got on our plane,
her ticket hadn't been funded yet, but she was sure it was
going to be. And when we got off the plane in
London, five hours later, she got off her plane.
Somebody had paid for a ticket, right?
And those are the things is, is that's, that's that God said,
and I don't know how he's going to do it.
I don't know why he's going to, I just know he said, and we're
just going to move forward, right?
Trusting that that's that, that's that trust.
And, and there's a going back and forth to Uganda over the
years. That was something I told people
is, is once you put your deposit down, and the reason deposits
were important is that until you put your deposit down, you were
still being wishy washy. You were, you weren't relying on
him, right? You were just thinking about it,
you put your deposit down and then he did.
You got to see God move. And by the time you were in
Uganda, I tell people, I said, you start with this little baby
step. And then as you're moving
through the fundraising process of just talking about it and
random people coming up and giving you money that you, you
take bigger steps and bigger steps.
And then you get to Uganda and you're running on faith that
God's going to do something amazing.
And that's that trusting in his living water versus our broken
cisterns that I think I have something to offer that I can
bring enough money to do this first King 1712 is another place
we see this in action and this is the when Elijah goes to the
widow and it says so she said as the Lord your God lives.
I do not have bread. I only and only a handful of
flour in a bin had a little a little oil in a jar and see I am
gathering a couple sticks that I may go in and prepare it for
myself and my son that we may eat it and die.
She is not in a good place mentally.
I just thought I'd help you out with that.
That's that. I mean, that's that's low.
So she is not like full of this is not the position you would
think that a widow would be in that is suddenly going to have
this big step of faith, right? And she and Elijah says to her,
do not fear, go and do as as you have said, but make me a small
cake, cake from it first and bring it to me.
And afterwards make some for yourself and your son.
For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the benef flowers shall
not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry until the day
the Lord sends rain on the earth.
So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah,
and she and he and her household ate for many days.
But then a flower was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run
dry, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by
Elijah. Now this lady, this lady is not
an Israelite. She, the Elijah, I mean the Lord
of the Israel of Israel, is not somebody she knew.
And this guy, this random guy shows up and and he's a prophet
of the Lord. Now, she may have heard about
the Lord, but she didn't know him.
But what did she do? She chose to have faith in him,
right? That's all she brought to this.
She didn't bring the ability to
make more flour or the ability to produce oil.
All she did was have faith in the word of God from Elijah in
this case. And Elijah didn't do the work.
Right, because he had to have faith to go and tell a widow,
give me the last bit of your food and God will provide,
right? This isn't this is, I mean
Elijah, the the faith Elijah has to have to do that is just to
trust in the Lord. But neither Elijah or the widow
had anything to do with making more flour or making more oil,
right? All they had was faith in the
God that could do it, and then God did it right?
Now we have very similar orders in Acts.
Jesus gave his disciples orders like this, right?
Acts 14 Being assembled together with them, He commanded them not
to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the
Father, which he said, You have heard from me.
For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized
with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him,
saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the Kingdom?
And he said to them, It is not for you to know the times of the
season which the Father has put in His authority, but you shall
receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you
shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and
Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
So each one of the men Jesus was talking to had a mission to do,
right? And Jesus did not say to them,
go this instant. What he said to them was wait
for the promise, right? Wait for the promise of the
Father. And for us, that looks like you
got to know what that promise is.
And I mean, the promise is to be filled, but the promise that
he's telling, I mean, each one of those guys, each one of the
disciples, they went places, they did things right.
They did them directed by the Holy Spirit.
And when you look in the the word, it's we should be spending
time in our word. We should be spending time in
prayer right waiting on him. Joshua 18 says this book of the
law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in
it day and night that you may observe to do according to all
that is written it written in it.
For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will
have good success. So we cannot be successful of
ourselves, right? Not, not in not in capital K
Kingdom ways, right? We cannot do what the Lord wants
us to do outside of the Lord's power to do it.
And I will tell you, it's like my, my buddy and you are in in
the tri-cities that when I was deciding whether or not I was
going to stay in the tri-cities or I was going to come up here
and he looked at me and he goes, really doesn't matter what you
want to do. What's the Lord telling you to
do? You know it And it, and it was,
you know, I was doing a pros and cons list of of should I do this
or should I do that? And and really, Bruce was just
Nick. I tried to go against what the
Lord told me to do one time. And it was the most miserable
six months of my life. And he picked what he and that
was one of those. He just picked the job because
it was a good paying job. And this is where you know, I'm,
I'm doing this stuff and guys, money won't get it done right.
If you, if you, if you decide that you're going to go the
direction of money and not the direction the Lord wants for
you, it's going to go badly. And it's one of the first
questions I ask anybody, like whenever anybody's moving or
anything. Do you have, do you have another
church? Do you have a body of believers
that's going to come around you, right?
Doesn't matter if you're moving to Nebraska because there's a
new multi $1,000,000 job. If you have no fellowship there
and God isn't telling you to go there, then you don't need to go
there, right? There's and now if God's telling
you to go there, it doesn't really matter about the
multimillion dollar job, right? It's that that's our that's what
we should be leading with is what's the Lord telling us to
do? Because guys, once, once I
agreed and gave my life to the Lord, that's the marching orders
I have is to be about his business, right?
And and Deuteronomy 11/10 is another one of this this
principles of God wants the credit and he doesn't want us to
think that it's about the sweat of my brow.
And like I said, as in America, it is at a one of my good
friends in in the tri-cities. Jason says all the time.
He said, Lord, just give me a list.
Just tell me what to do. Give me a list and I'll check it
off. I'll just do the list.
Well, that's not how God works, right, because if it was all
stuff I could do without him, then he, he isn't getting the
glory right. And, and at the end of the day,
he wants people to look at my life.
He wants people to look at your life and go.
The only thing that explains that is God's doing work in
their life. That's what he wants, right?
He wants me to be a mystery to the world that they come and
seek out what's weird there. How it how is that happening?
Deuteronomy 11/10 For the land which you go to possess is not
like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you
sowed your seed and watered it by by foot as a vegetable
garden. But the land which you cross
over to possess is a land filled with hills and valleys which
drink water from the rains of heaven, a land which the Lord
your God cares. The eyes of the Lord your God
are always on it from the beginning of the year to the
very end of the year. So this is clear to the
Israelites that that this land is not something they're going
to irrigate, that they're going to work and make better, that
the Lord is going to do the watering, right.
Egypt, if you guys don't know the, the different types, Egypt
is a type of the world. So when I, before I got saved,
my job was to work hard and make the, the, I mean the American
dream, right? The get the get the, I think
it's 2 1/2 kids, which that, or maybe it's 2 1/2 cars and that
second car is hard to drive and two kids and, and a wife and and
a three bedroom house and live in a suburb and have a good job,
right. Well, I checked all those boxes
and I wasn't, I wasn't content in the world.
I mean, I had everything the world said I should have and I
wasn't wasn't content. And the problem was they didn't
have Christ right. And Canaan is, is a picture of a
of our life in Christ. It's not it's not being saved
because the Israelites were saved when they left Egypt.
They just refused to go into the land and have have that that
victorious Christian life which is relying on the Lord right to
do the work is to be in him letting him do the work in US
and and God is telling the Israelites the only way Canaan
is going to grow is if I water it in Egypt.
They could dam the Nile River. There was the the and it would
flood and they could water right.
They, they had control here. And God is telling them in no
uncertain terms that they don't have control and they're going
to have to trust him. And and, and when you I mean, as
we're going through Exodus on Sundays, you will see that God
just double S down on this over and over again that they have to
learn to trust him that he is the only way they're going to
survive any of it. Right.
This is back when I was going back and forth to Uganda, my
safety guy that I've talked about before in the Tri-cities,
Bruno, he's one of those he just loves the Lord and it is just a
joy to be around and is, is convicting just to be around him
because of the love he has for the Lord and his just, he just
has a, a very he, he gets this that he has nothing to offer but
me and him. You have some pretty good
conversations. And something I told him, I
said, said, Bruno, this is kind of where we're at.
I keep planning and coming up with ways to pay our way to the
water line across Africa because I because I mean, I work, I
mean, at that time, that was my job.
I, I, I just kept, you know, I'll work more overtime.
I'll figure this out. And God finally said, Nick, all
your effort couldn't afford to build a drinking fountain across
Africa or couldn't afford to build a drinking fountain.
And I'm asking you to build a water line across Africa.
So it's literally that Gideon idea.
I was know all the money I could come up with all the ways I
could come to earn money wouldn't even scratch the
surface of what was going to be needed.
And when you when you recognize that there's a rest in that
Lord. If you want to do this, you're
going to have to do it because I can't and it is it is truly
something that as believers we need to settle into the Lord is
asking us to do stuff right. He might be asking us.
I mean, for me at that time, he was asking me to go to Africa to
the ends of the earth. But there are many places God
could send us right? There's, I mean, he could send
you the Sandpoint for all you know, but no matter where you're
at, there are homeless, orphans, widows, right?
There's India, there's South Africa, there's South America,
there's the 10:40 window, there's Europe.
These are, these are all places that God could send you could
ask you to go, but he isn't going to ask you to go because
you have the money or the resources or the the talents to
do it. He's going to send you because
you're his to be sent wherever he wants to send you.
But how how you are prepared is by understanding that all of the
resources that you need are in him, right?
And that is when you pray and just wait on the Lord, right and
say, Lord, I am willing to do whatever you ask me to do, but I
don't have the resources to do unless you do it through me,
right? And that's that not forsaking
the living water that he's giving us, right?
Not trying when I try, I mean, like I said at the beginning of
this, when I try to do it in my own strength, he doesn't pat me
on the head and say, well, that was a nice try.
No, he calls that evil. If you're the what our
requirement as a Christian is to rely on him.
And like I said, I've shared, you know, it's get in, sit down
and hold on, right? He's running the ship, he's
running the boat, right. And the the fun thing is, is
that we are here and bridges Sandpoint, right, This little,
little tiny 1919 building. And I say little tiny.
It's not tiny to me, but some might call it tiny.
And we are in downtown Sandpoint and completely in a position for
the God, for the God of the universe to do amazing things
with a people that is willing to just drink of that fountain of
living water and let him do the work right.
Let him come come into us and flow out into this community and
this and I say this community, I, I say Sandpoint because we're
in downtown Sandpoint. But guys, we in this building on
any given Sunday cover about 100 square miles from from I think
it's we are Bonners Ferry to Clark Fork to Priest River to
Silverwood. And that's a pretty big area and
a lot of people. And so in that there are there
are there's the ability to shine light into people's lives,
right? There's there's the ability to
flow water into their life, right.
But how we do that isn't by isn't by anything that I can do
in my flesh, in my strength. It's spending time with the Lord
and saying, Lord, what do you want me to do for you today?
You know, and not in a let me check that box.
Lord, what do you have for me to do today?
What what have you built me for? What appointments do you have
for me? And that's that that morning
conversation that we have with him is, is Lord, I want to be
about your business, whatever that business is and that I am
not because I have the strength to do it.
Because guys, I will tell you that as he moves life forward
for us, he shows me that more and more all the time that that
I am weak and feeble in my own strength, and that the only way
that I move anything forward is in him.
Matthew 2818 says, and Jesus came and spoke to them saying,
all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nation, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all things I have commanded you and lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the age.
So guys, it is not if we should go right or if he has work for
us to do. It is do we trust Him to give us
the the power and the ability to do the work that he's asking us
to do. Not not.
Hey, I didn't, I'm not I'm not somebody who speaks well and
like he tells Moses in Exodus 4, which we'll be talking about
this Sunday, who made your mouth right?
Who if if God asks you to do something, he will empower you
to do it. And, and really, if you are not
a good speaker, that is exactly the person he wants upfront
speaking because at no point I will tell you, at no point do I
do I ever take credit for being a, a good orator, which is a
good speaker, right? I think that's the word proves
my point. This is not what I thought I
would ever do. This is not anything that
anybody in the world that knows me thought.
Hey, you know what Nick's going to do when he grows up?
No, I, I guarantee you there is, there is nobody that thought
this is what Nick's going to do when he grows up.
And that's the kind of people God uses not not he doesn't use
people like Nick Adams. He uses people in positions that
they're not qualified for. And he does it because he wants
the glory of that. He wants people and, and not
because God is like selfish, I want the glory.
He wants people to look at your life and my life and go, what's
weird? How?
I mean, I, I honestly tell you that I, there are, there are
people in my past that I don't know if they, if they, if they
know that I'm a pastor, any of that, but I, there are people
that I know for a fact, if they saw me doing this would go what
in the world? What kind of weird church is
that? I mean, that's when I got saved.
Guys. I went to, I walked into church
and Richard Shook, one of my good friends.
But at the time, the last time me and Richard Shook had seen
each other was after being in Santa Barbara, CA and that was
blurry. If you don't know, if you're in
Santa Barbara and you're a 19 year old from Washington, you
look 26. Don't ask me why that is, but I
guess Californians don't age as fast or something.
But so for somebody who drinks or drank at that time, looking
like a 26 year old was not healthy.
I'll just leave it at that. And Richard and me left the I
mean, that was the last time we saw each other when we parted
ways in in Bend, OR. And then I go into Calvary
Chapel Tri-cities and I dropped my daughter's off and I'm not a
believer at this time. My my wife then was had
rededicated her life and wanted to take the kids to church.
And I'm like, yeah, we can do that.
And we drop the kids off to Richard Shook and his wife
Candy. And I'm like, that kind of weird
place is this, it's who's that? And then and then I go inside
and this is the this is this is the God we serve.
And this is he wants these, he wants these reactions from those
people that know us the most and know us from our past.
He wants us to stand out and go, well, I know they didn't do
that. And so I go in the sanctuary
that first night and Steve Westermeyer is inside.
And Steve Westermeyer is an elder or he wasn't an elder.
He was just a like a Deacon, but he was, he's in the leadership.
And so everybody's why? Why do you care about Steve?
When I was 20 years old, I rolled my best friend's toe to
pick up on my 20th birthday as a designated driver.
My 20th birthday as a designated driver.
Not a good idea. But I had just been to Steve's
house, the guy I'm meeting in church now to buy me a cake,
That was the last time I saw Steve Westmeyer.
He was going to buy. He was going to buy underage
Nick a keg of beer. That was last time I saw him.
And now I see him in church and he loves the Lord, right?
My point of that isn't that I was ridiculous as a kid.
It's that God got a hold of those guys in in a radical way.
And because those guys were there when I got there, I was
not planning on taking any of it serious.
But when I got there and they were there, it made me go, well,
maybe there's something to this, if that makes sense.
That's that God wants to use your life.
He wants to use my life in those around us lives.
And how he does that is by filling us with his water, not
not through my strength, right? Job 2912 to 17 And this is
something I think all guys should look at these passages
and and really this is, I would say, the something we should be
the business we should be about. Because I delivered the poor who
cried out, the fatherless, and the ones who had no helper.
The blessing of the perishing man came upon me, and I caused
the widow's heart to sing for joy.
I put on righteousness and it clothed me.
My justice was like a robe and a turban.
I was eyes to the blind and I was feet to the lame.
I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the case that I
did not know, and I broke the fangs of the wicked and plucked
to the victims from his teeth. Those are great things, right?
That's that's the description of a man about God's business.
But if at any point I'm doing those things as a checklist
outside of what of of God, of knowing that the only way that I
do any of that stuff is through what God is doing in me and I'm
pouring into others. If at any point I think that
those things are things I do to make myself more righteous, then
I am completely. I'm back into, I'm back into
broken cisterns. If I'm not doing them completely
from the position of Lord, I can't.
You have to. If I do, then they're just hay,
wooden stubble, right? They're a waste of time.
They are doing it in my own strength.
Like I said, God is not impressed. 1st Corinthians 311
says for no other foundation can anyone lay then that which is
laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if anyone builds on the
foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay,
straw, each one's work will become clear for the day, will
declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire
will test each one's work of what sort it is.
If anyone, anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he
will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he
will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved yet through fire.
So all of that to say is if I stand up here every Sunday, like
I talked about this week on Sunday, if I stand up here every
Sunday, if I'm here every time the doors are open, but I'm
doing it because I want you guys to see me.
If I'm doing it for my own gratification, if I'm doing it
at all in my own strength, guys, it is a waste of time and it's
not going to condemn me to burn in hell forever, but it is a
complete waste for the Kingdom, right?
When, when I get to heaven, I'm going to be Casting Crowns at
his feet. If I'm doing anything for
selfish reasons, I'm not going to have any crowns to cast
because we all will be revealed in the end, right?
If we'll just, we'll use Billy Graham because I think we all
all really believe his heart was in the right place and he was
doing it for Jesus. But if he wasn't, if he was
doing it for the crowds, if he was doing it because he was, he
was the big man on campus, even though thousands upon thousands
got saved for him, he will suffer loss if he was doing it
for the wrong reasons. So that is and, and I believe
that Billy Graham would have taught that exact same thing,
right? Is that the only reason to be
here is to be in Christ about his business.
And that gets us back to that, that fruit of the Spirit.
And what is the fruit of the Spirit?
Galatians 522 But the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace,
long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and
gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its
passions and desires and what that guys Christ is all of those
things. If you are in Christ, you will
have that fruit right? It isn't you don't you don't
struggle all we struggle with guys, I mean 100%.
I can guarantee you what your struggle is on a daily basis,
what my struggle is and around the world is selfishness.
And I, and that's not that is we are a Adam suffered from
selfishness. I suffer from selfishness.
That's it. Because as soon as you get rid
of that, suddenly it is really easy to have patience with
people because why you don't have patience with them is
because they are irritating who self they're irritating you.
So you don't have patience. Why is it hard to love people
because they're irritating you, right?
I mean, and I, and I say that who steals your joy when
somebody, somebody is stealing your joy because it is affecting
you, right? I mean, that is really, and I, I
don't want to say that in some because there are real things
that really happen that really hurt.
And, and I'm not, I'm kind of kind of messing with it in a lot
of ways, like like a traffic thing.
But I'm, I get that, that there's real hurt and there's
real struggle and there's real pain.
What, what we need to as believers in Christ have to
understand is that he gets it and he paid for it.
He paid for them. He paid for you, He paid for me.
And in doing that, he gave us the power to just exchange all
that for him and what he gives us right and and being filled
with his living water. God is never never impressed by
my effort right? That's that's that Jeremiah 213
for my people have committed 2 evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and
hewn for themselves. Broken cisterns of that hold no
water, right? It's he accepts faith in his
ability to use the tool he has made for the work he is doing.
So what he accepts is my faith in him to do the work he's
asking to be done. But my faith isn't that.
My faith is not that I have the power to do what he's asking.
My faith is he has the power to do what he's asking.
And Galatians 51 and this is 51 says stand fast.
Therefore, and if you read the therefore Paul in chat the end
of chapter 4 is talking about Hagar, which was the bondwoman
and Sarah, which was the free woman and Abraham trying to make
the promise with Hagar and making Ishmael and instead of
having the promise that came through Sarah.
And when we when we go back to to trying to make the promise we
we entered back into bondage. And it says stand fast
therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free
and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
When we try to do it on our own strength, not only is God not
impressed, but it is exactly where the enemy wants to take
you. He wants to wants to take me
right back into bondage in to work harder.
And God's desire for us is to truly rest in Him and accept
that living water. Yeah, that good, guys.
Living Water is pretty cool, isn't it?
Anyway, Lord, I just thank you. I thank you for Living water.
I thank you that you give us all we want, Lord.
Let you feel it's overflowing, Lord.
And that you would just out of this room, out of these people,
out of out of this place, Lord, that it would just become a
place known for weird people because of the, the work that
you have for us, Lord. That we would just be a peculiar
people that were out in our community doing your work, Lord,
and your power and your strength, Lord, pouring into
into those around us. And I pray this all in Jesus
name, Amen.