Today we're going to be back in James, we're going to be in,
we're going to be going through 22 to 25.
And I told I told Carl this morning.
So I keep coming up with cornier titles just because they're fun
to come up with. The goal is to have a corny
title and a good message, not a good message or not a good title
and a corny message that you know, I'm hoping the message is
better than the title, but but the power of a balloon right And
what is that? What am I even talking about?
We're actually and he doesn't have it, but God put this this
is we're in James, but I'm going to read in first Peter to start
with and it's chapter one, verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled
and unfaded, fading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's
power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be
revealed in the last times. In this you rejoice through,
though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been
grieved with various trials, so that the tested genuineness of
your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is
tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and
honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Though you have not seen Him, you love Him.
Though you do not know, now see him, you believe in Him and
rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with
glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of
your soul. So, Lord, I just lift up, lift
up the day I lift up this time that you'd be here, Lord, that
you would speak to us and that you would show us your word,
that you would guide and direct us, Lord, that you would fill us
with your spirit. And I pray all this in Jesus
name, Amen. And I just that passage in Peter
just shows us how much continuity is in the Bible when
you as well as we went through James.
I don't know if you read if you're listening to that passage
and Peter how much what he's saying.
James is saying of just seeing the author and finisher of our
faith and knowing that we can go through anything because we know
the author and he's telling the story.
But picking up in verse 22, chapter 1 of James, it says, But
be doers of the word, and not hearers only deceiving
yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the
word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his
natural face in the mirror, for he looks at himself and goes
away, and at once forgets what he was like.
But the one who looks into the perfect law and the law of
liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer
who acts he will be blessed in his doing so that verse 22 but
the doer but be doers of the world word and not hearers only
deceiving yourselves. Now I want to this is going to
be I'm going to beat this verse up a while so don't be deceived
playing churches not being a doer of the word right being in
Christ meanings means his light is reflecting off of this to
always remember that when I gave my life to Jesus, I didn't add
to that light. I didn't I didn't bring light
into his Kingdom. I just reflect his light.
Matthew 721 through 23 or some guys that that we would look at
from the outside and go there. They they know the Lord they're
believers. Verse 21.
It says not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the
Kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father
who is in heaven and it's verse 22.
It says on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we
not prophecy in your name, cast out demons in your name and do
mighty works in your name. And then I will declare to them,
I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
So how does that work? They were doing all these things
right? They they did so much in his
name and I like that if you go to Luke chapter 10, Jesus really
explains this in a, in a, in a way, because he's Jesus and he
does a really good job of explaining himself.
If you just read starting in verse one after this, the Lord
appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him two by two
in every town and place where he himself was about to go.
And he said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers
are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the
Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.
Go your way. Behold, I am sending you out as
lambs a month midst of wolves. So Jesus sent them out to go be
doers, right? He gave them direct instruction
in, in verses 14 or 4 through 16, which we're not going to go
through. You guys can read that for
yourself, but they come back in chapter or in verse 17 and verse
17, they're excited. The 72 returned with joy saying,
Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name and
they were excited about all the things they have done right,
which we would be excited if they've been if I've been
casting out demons and and doing all this stuff.
But verse 18 he responds to them, and he says to them, I saw
Satan fall like a light, like lightning from heaven.
Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents
and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing
shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in
this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that
your names are written in heaven.
So our job is to keep focus on him.
Is he going to do things? Absolutely.
But at no point the the guys in in verse 7 got the idea that
they were doing something and they weren't doing anything, but
Jesus was doing it right. Jesus gives them caution about
it and says don't get excited about the work.
Be excited about the master that's sending you to do it.
So that brings us to the title, the power of a balloon.
So a hot air balloon flies because of the fire, right?
There's a, if you guys know how a hot air balloon works, There's
there, there are, I don't know if it's propane tanks or natural
gas tanks that and then there's a burner and it, it blows hot
air into the balloon. And the balloon because of the
hot air is lighter than the cold air.
It, it lifts. If the balloon was to say,
without me, the fire could not fly, that is, the balloon has
lost its purpose, right? Because its purpose is to be
filled with the heat of the fire.
The fire's purpose is to heat the flying.
It is not the fly, right? The fire's.
The fire's purpose is not flight.
Now the balloon's purpose is flight, and it needs the fire to
do it. God's purpose is to be the I am
that I am the All in all to be God.
My purpose is to be used by him. When I get to thinking that the
the doing that I'm doing is my purpose that I'm losing, I'm
losing focus on what's important.
If we when you move on, I like how the Bible is always, you can
always look at context, right? And as you're going through.
So when you get to Luke 10, verses 38 through 42, it's kind
of funny that after he went through that with the disciples,
now he's going to go to Mary and Martha and he's going to talk to
Martha, right? And, and Martha is an example of
our selfish nature on display because I think we can all be
this person without much effort at all.
And verse 38 it says Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered
a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her
house. And she had a sister called Mary
who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to
him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me
to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.
But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious
and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.
Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away
from her. And we because we're reading
this 2000 years later and we know the answer, right?
Well, Martha's just making a mistake and we need to be like
Mary now be honest with yourself.
Which one do you like right. We want, I mean, I understand
Martha, right? I mean this in this building it
take Matt was just talking about serving, right?
It takes bodies to serve it. You know, there, there is work
to be done, but why are you doing it?
You know, it's in. And that's really where Martha
ran into problem is why was she doing it?
I mean, Martha wouldn't do anything wrong, right?
This famous rabbi comes to her house and she needs to serve him
and his his apostles food. And there's there's there he
goes with the crowd everywhere. So there's, there's work to be
done, but where was her heart in doing it, right?
And this is where Martha's rebuke came from.
Martha was rebuked for serving with a grumbling heart, right?
It's if, if God asks you to serve, first of all, when I
stand up here and teach, the last thing I want to do is teach
what Nick has to say. My, my request to him is if you
got to throw, if you got to crumple up my study and throw it
away, Lord, do that. But make sure that I'm, I'm, I'm
telling them what you want them to hear.
And I want to be out of the way, but that, that goes for serving
coffee or greeting or shoveling snow, right?
Because all those things are going to happen and they don't
need to happen. But why are we doing them?
And I'll let you know if it's, if we're going to go, let's,
let's use the a firewood day. If, if you want, if there,
there's a day that we're going to go and see a bunch of guys
and we're going to stack firewood all day.
And you go because it's a requirement and you feel like
you have to go do it, but you're dreading it.
Don't bother. Because that isn't the heart
that Jesus is looking for, right?
And it's, it's really focused on him.
And that is our, it's about the reason for doing the work.
You know, the 72 that went out and came back excited, he
compared he, he threw a line in there about Satan.
And if, if you listen to that, it was that Satan got
distracted. If you, if you know the story of
Satan, he was Lucifer. He would been the, he would have
been the, the leader of the worship to the Lord.
And he got in his head that he was doing something that that he
was important in the room because when he looked at when
he looked at the Angel worship in the Lord, they were, they
were worshipping towards him. And, and Luke can probably vouch
for this. In the worship community, there
are guys that get that distracted, right, that they get
to thinking that that they're worshipping if they're not
worshipping them, but they're, they're important, right?
If you guys have ever been to a Shane and Shane concert, one of
the Shane and Shane is a duet of guys.
And they are, I don't know them personally, but they're the way
they do their concerts are very how you would, how you would
want to be seen doing that. So they are very unassuming as
far as they want you to worship the Lord, right?
They go through Psalms and do stuff, but at the end when it's
when everybody's clapping and stuff before they, I mean, like
they fade off the stage before they even start.
I mean, these guys don't want you excited because they showed
up. They want you excited because
Jesus is in the room, right? And that's, that is the desire
every day, right. Back to the balloon.
And like I said in the balloon thing that I'm, I'll give you
the whole picture of so hot air balloon blies because of the
fire. And if the like I said, if the
hot air balloon got the idea that it was doing something
because it was carrying the fire, it would be losing its
purpose. And a hot air balloon, like we
saw in the pictures, can sit on the ground and I can get a fan
and I can get a generator and I can I can blow up the balloon.
But will it ever take flight? Does it look like it will take
flight? Absolutely.
Does it look like all the other balloons while they're sitting
on the ground? Absolutely.
If I am, if I'm 2000 feet in the air and I throw the fire out and
I fire up my fan, I'm no longer flying, I'm just falling, right?
So it's important for us to recognize when it says be doers
of the word, what are you doing? And what you're doing is what he
says to do. And that I mean, I was, I was
talking to some of the other day and they've got a choice to make
in in their life. They're they're at a crossroads.
Sorry, that thing isn't loud. They've got a choice to make and
I can share with them. And and they have they have the
right to make either choice. Like biblically they are,
they're good if they go left, they're good if they go right.
And I said and, and there are going to be people out there
that give you advice for the left or the right.
What I'm telling you is you need to get along with the Lord and
you need to ask him to speak. And The thing is, guys, we serve
a living God, a living God who loves you and isn't hiding from
you, right? He wants to speak to you, He
wants to talk to you, but he isn't willing to yell at us,
right. He that still small voice, which
which takes us getting quiet, getting alone and and being
serious about the questions. So in verse 7 or sorry, chap
back in back in Chapter 7 of Matthew, when we were talking
about the guys that he didn't know, they were focused on the
work. They were focused on the on the
heat. They were focused on the
appearance of the balloon blown up, not the fire, right?
And what we need to be focused on, and I'm going to now I'm
going to start doing this back and forth to try and keep it
square, is the capital D doer, right?
There is a, there's a capital D doer.
And then we're the lowercase doings, right?
That we, we go do what he says to do, right?
And he's, he's the big one. And if we're following him and
we understand that what I do doesn't matter, right?
Anybody could stand up here on a Sunday morning if God's telling
me to do it, right? Luke and Jessica, anybody can
worship up there. Because the idea is that you
guys are worshiping the Lord, right?
It's, it's not, we are not special people.
We're just obedient. And being obedient doers of the
Word requires a couple things. First and foremost, you need to
be in Christ. Second, you need to read the
Word right. You can't you can't do what the
word says. If you were here on Sunday and
then you close your Bible and you're not reading it Monday
through Friday, Monday through Saturday, right?
So there are some requirements, but not those requirements do
not get you saved. Those requirements help you
grow, right? They help you fly with the
power, right? The power, like I said, it's a
corny, corny title, but it it's just the picture God gave me is
is he is that he is that heat that he's that heat and we can
get warm, we can reflect his light.
We can do, but I can't be the fire.
So Paul talks about this to the Corinthians.
He rebukes them actually, because they get in their heads
that he was somebody special or Apollos was somebody special.
And what he reminds them is that dead people, he doesn't say it
like this, but dead people don't, don't brag about their
burial clothes. They don't they don't talk about
how good the coffin looked coming up to the stage, right?
Because Paul talks about the old self dies and the new self lives
in Christ. And, and that's that old self is
remembering always that I got nothing.
And I know I'm going to, I'm going to beat that up.
But guys, we are not we, we live in a self help world that if I
just say the right thing, if I just do the right thing, there's
there's a method, there's a brain hack, there's, there's a,
a body hack, there's some way to, to fix the system.
And I'm telling you that there is only one way to be in Christ.
There's only one way to be a doer, and that's for him to do
the work in you and him doing the work in you.
Is is work like walking up like a sheep walks uphill following a
shepherd, right? Is there work there, but the
sheep is just following the shepherd?
First Corinthians 3-4 and eight. This is Paul really rebuking the
Corinthians about about trying to be really denominational is
kind of the the they're just picking and choosing what they
want to hear and they say and he says for when one says I follow
Paul and another says I follow Apollos.
Are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos and what is
Paul servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to
each. I planted Apollo's water, but
God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he
who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth.
He who plants and he who waters are one.
Each will receive his wages according to his labor.
So win or lose, we praise Jesus. If we are successful in this
life that Christ is giving us. Christ is to blame.
And the the success in a life with Christ is the peace that
comes with it, not the winning. I always say Pi, always.
That was my. My learning lesson, you guys
have already heard the story, but my learning lesson was
having a job that I was doing everything as unto the Lord and
not to men and I did that for most of my well, it's one of my
first verses that God gave me and and that's how I worked and
I always came out smelling like a rose.
I just went up and up in my company and I, I'm doing great.
And then I had a job that was kind of set up to fail and I
wasn't worried. I'd been on job set up to fail
before and I did everything under the Lord and came out
smelling like a rose. Well, this job I lost and I lost
bad. It was there was we, we can't,
we came in $100,000 in the hole and when we were done with the
job, I was probably $75,000 in the hole.
So I gained $25,000. But we were still, it was a lost
job. And if it could go wrong, it
went wrong. And my pastor at the time,
Pastor Mitch in the tri-cities, I, I shared the whole that I got
three days off because I had been my Superintendent and got
in a screaming match. And if you are going to get in a
screaming match with your boss, odds are good you're probably
going to spend some time at home.
And I was, I was like righteous indignation.
I did not. I was, I was doing my best and
and my and Mitch looks at me and goes, see, you don't like to
lose and I don't anybody here like to lose.
But what our job is is to do everything as unto the Lord.
Our job is not to win, right? It's it's it's God might ask me
to do something that I'm going to fail miserably at.
And the reason he asked me to do it and knowing that I was going
to fail is because he needed somebody to see that he might
even have needed me to learn from that, which I would tell
you, that's probably why I've had that is to learn how to
fail. But to learn how to fail still
standing in Christ, right, because that was the whole
conversation me and the Lord had on that whole thing was when it
came down to it, he said, Nick, did you lie?
Did you cheat? Did you steal?
Were you being manipulative? And I'd say no, no, no, because
what's your problem? Because I wasn't, I wasn't
guilty of, of doing it wrong. I was just losing.
And if you're, if you're where God wants you to be, doing what
God wants you to do, losing's an option.
You, you can go through the whole list of apostles and see
where they ended up right? In the world, in the world's
view, they were losing. Jesus asked if this cup could be
removed from him and in the world views he went and lost,
right? But he didn't lose and the
fossils didn't lose. It's do you trust the God that
we serve when he says go and do, do you have to do you do you do
it out of selfish reasons? Right.
It's it's that the the kids that say I'm sitting down, I'm
sitting down on the outside, but in my heart I'm standing up.
I'm I'm serving others, but I'm grumpy with all of them.
That isn't the heart you ever want to have, right?
You want to serve just like that.
We were come up a couple times being a cheerful giver or a
hilarious giver. Well, you want to be a hilarious
server, right? There is a joy in serving others
and and if you don't have that, ask the Lord to give it to you
and that that's serving others at work, that's serving others
here, that's serving others in the community, that's taking
care of the guy in front of you in the traffic jam or in the
grocery store line. There is a joy of taking care of
others and ask the Lord to give you that right.
That's part of being a doer is being a doer of his will in your
life, but keeping your eyes focused on him.
Think about the guy in the basket of the balloon.
If he was working to fly, does does he do any work to fly a
balloon? Now everybody, he had their
skill like flying an airplane, their skill and there's that
stuff. But if his skill is not what got
him off the ground, the fire did right?
So you can be a pastor, a teacher can be very skillful and
understand the Bible backwards and forwards, but if he's not
doing it in in Christ, he is, he is not where God wants him to be
doing what God wants him to do back-to-back to the guys.
You know, we cast out many demons in your name.
We we did all these things and I didn't know you.
It's leaning into his plan for your life is the doing.
And if you get back to the, the sheep, sheep trust their
shepherd, right? They, they follow their shepherd
up hills, down, down into valleys.
They do water crossings. They even, they even weather
wolf attacks with their shepherd because they trust their
shepherd. And that's that listening to the
Lord and all that you do is because guys, I don't know if
you know this, but they're, they're struggles in your life
that come up that the world. I mean, losing a job, having,
having any catastrophe going on your life, you have a living God
living inside you. If you're a believer that gives
you a piece that the world doesn't have and and can't
understand. They can, they can watch and go.
Why aren't you freaking out? And that's something we need to
remember as we look at world events, whatever they are,
whether whether there's the guy we like or the guy we don't like
in office or there is, there are there is turmoil around the
world, the World War Three's comet, whatever.
The thing is, guys, remember there is a capital D doer in
charge. All of it.
It's his story. We're in it, but it's not my
story. It's his story.
And when I understand that, then I can now they're still, there
are still things to do, right? We're supposed to vote.
We, we can be active in all the things, but we don't have to get
stressed out about it. We can rest in the fact that he
has a plan. And one of my favorites that I
just to throw out my political side that I like to poke at my,
my friends about, said, does everybody believe that Joe Biden
was the president that God wanted in office?
Now I can, I can, I could probably start an eruption in
here, but the bottom line is absolutely, because God's in
charge. And if you didn't want him
there, he wouldn't have been there, right?
That does. I would say he was the president
what he deserved. But that's that's my country in
a in a nutshell. But that is don't ever think
that the big conspiracy or the big thing has outdone the Lord
and suddenly he doesn't know what's coming next.
You know when you when you hit a wall, it's I will comes seems to
come up all the time, but that's when I was going through my
divorce and I sat down with my ex now and I said 21 years ago
when we got married, neither one of us knew we were going to be
sitting at this table having this conversation.
God did he isn't he isn't up in heaven at any point in your life
or my life and going well, now what am I going to do like that
that's we don't have that Jesus wasn't a response to Adam and
Eve. Do you guys get that?
When God made heaven and earth, Jesus was already part of the
plan. He knew Adam and Eve was going
to fall. He didn't make them fall, but he
knew they were going to fall and he had a plan to redeem them.
They didn't fall. And he goes, oh, now I'm going
to come up with a plan. What am I going to do?
Do you trust the doer that much that when he says do, do you
question it or do you just go do it?
Right. And and, and in America, we are,
I always say we're the yeah. But community because we're
really smart and we always have reasons we don't have to go.
Yeah, but Lord, you know, it's different now.
Yeah, but Lord, no, he just said go, right.
It says do we trust him to do what shepherds do?
John 1421, which is another one of my life versus he who has my
commandments and keeps them. It is he who loves me and he who
loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and
manifest myself to him. When you follow the doer, when
you are when you do what the doer wants you to do, do you
know what happens? He gives you more to do.
He reveals more in your life. He he becomes bigger and
brighter, right? He in the, in the balloon
analogy, he takes you higher and what we need to do is just trust
him and obey and he will do the work.
Then we're going to get into some of the guys that I, I love
the picture they, they show of this and it's Joshua.
If you look at Joshua with the Jordan, when Joshua and the
Levites cross the Jordan, did they do anything to part the
Jordan? They just walked into it.
That didn't part the Jordan. God did that.
But they had to have the, they had to have the obedience and
the faith to walk into a river that was at flood stage carrying
a three to £500 box. You guys imagine there's some
rivers around here that get the blood stage.
You want to wander in there with a 3 to 500 LB box.
There's some faith that's required with that, but that's
knowing the knowing Joshua knew. And we're going to get into why
Joshua knows things because Joshua's story is truly
inspiring as far as a man after God's own heart that David's
called to be. Joshua wanted to be that.
And but there's that scene, there's Joshua and the walls
falling down to Jericho. There is, if you know the story,
Caleb was 80 years old and he was the other spy that went
into, went into Canaan and God had promised him the Hebron,
which was the, the mountain that had giants on it.
And at 80 years old, Caleb said, I want that mountain and charged
up the mountain in front of them and took off the giants, right?
Because he, he had faith that didn't matter that they were
giants. God said, I get that and I want
it. And but at no point did did
Caleb think that he had the power to do it.
He 100% said, if God is with us, who can be against us?
If I'm doing what he said to do for him, I trust him to win.
I don't trust me to win. I trust him to win.
And then you have David, David and his mighty men and they do
some pretty amazing things. But Can you imagine any of them
finishing a battle where, you know, you got, you've got some
of David's mighty men took on 800 men and won when they got
done? Do you think that guy's like,
did you see me out there? I was swinging that sword and I
was just, I was amazing. You know, mostly I'd like
everybody to have me. No, because you know for a fact
that that that guy knows that he could not have beat 800 men.
You know, the, you have the Eleazar, which I've talked
about. You know, they, they beat an
entire host and his hand clung to the sword because it was
weary and the Lord brought a great victory.
Then you, you go on and there's another guy who who stood
against another, another horde and the Lord worked a great
victory, right? So these guys did because that
the Lord told them to go and do. But at no point did they come
back and say, we did all this stuff for you, Lord, look at
look at us. Look what I've done They they
truly stayed in him, but we're going to go to Joshua and last
week I read this and then never got this is how far this is
where we were supposed to get to last week.
So it's good I stopped or we'd have been here for hours.
Exodus 17, nine through 14 says so.
Moses said to Joshua, Choose for US men, and go out and fight
with the amount with the Amalekite.
Amalek, sorry, tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill
with the staff of God in my hand.
So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while
Moses and Aaron and her went up on the top of the hill.
Whenever Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed, and
whenever he lowered his hands, Amalek prevailed.
But Moses, Moses's hands grew weary, so they took a stone and
put it under him, and he sat on it.
Well, Aaron and her held his hands up, hands one-on-one side
and the other on another side. So his hands were steady until
the going down. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek
and his people with the sword. So picture Joshua in the battle
and he's winning, and then he's losing, and then he's winning,
and then he's losing. Now, Joshua's in the battle and
Joshua at that point, Scott, I mean, he's, he's thinking, he's
doing this right there. They're two equally matched
forces and they're going at it and there's winning and losing
and it's going back and forth because I doubt he had time to
look up on the hill and see what Moses was doing.
He was kind of busy. So then the Lord says in verse
14, then the Lord said to Moses, write this is a memorial in a
book and recite it in the ears of Joshua.
So make sure Joshua knows what was going on.
Make sure Joshua knows why the battle was going the way it was
going. And this would change Joshua's
perspective for the rest of his days.
And you can watch that. Read the book of Joshua and you
will watch Joshua. He gets he, he goes through
every one of his battles, right? He, he crosses the Jordan
trusting the Lord, but he, he took over for Moses, you know,
and, and the Lord says be strong and courageous, but Joshua knew
that strength and that courage was going to come from the Lord,
not because Joshua was going to figure it out when he hit you.
At no point when he crossed the Jordan did he think he was doing
anything. He was just listening to the
Lord. The walls fell down at Jericho
and Joshua, because he is a, he is a man like us, had a moment
where he got excited and thought he was doing something and he
sent because, and he had all the Israelites.
And we don't need a big group to go over to AI because look what
we just did at Jericho. It's a small amount and they
went to they went to AI and got stomped and men died because
Joshua lost focus. And and if you, if you read
that, it's it's one of those one of those moments where you get
to watch the Lord rebuke and how he has rebuked me over the years
is because Josh was like, you just brought us out here to kill
us. And if we're just good now we're
going to get wiped out and the Lord goes get up.
That's your you're there's sin in your camp.
You don't, don't don't blame me for this loss.
You were doing it in your own strength.
You were doing it your own way. And you didn't, you didn't come
to me. You didn't ask me.
You just decided you knew best. So you went and did it.
And there was sin in the camp. It wasn't Joshua's sin, but
there was a guy that had stolen from the Lord and they had to
work that out after Joshua wins at AI.
So they worked that out. They they got the sin out of the
camp after Joshua wins at AI. Do you know what he does next?
I'm glad we don't live in this time because what he does next
is he, he does a bunch of sacrifices and reads the book of
the law, all of it. Which means, which means we're
reading at minimum, you know, at minimum three books.
You know, we're reading all the Genesis, Leviticus, numbers.
You guys want to do that like in one sitting.
But that was Joshua going. Let's remember at all times why
we win battles. We don't win battles because
we're the big and mighty powerful men of God.
We win battles because of God and what he does in our life,
and that's being doers, right? Being doers is going OK Lord,
you have work for me to do and I want to do it, but I want to do
it with the right heart and I want to do what you want me to
do, which is that conversation you have to have with him be in
his word listening to him and then at the end of Joshua's
life. He will he will tell you exactly
this chapter 24 verses 14 and 15 says now therefore, and I Joshua
knew the Israelites and don't knock the Israelites as a
straight all they are pictures of every single one of us and
exactly how our hearts can quickly turn to all the other
stuff right. I when I first got saved, I was
going to a Bible study. Probably I'd probably been saved
two years going to a Bible study and we were going through judges
and I can remember, man, the Israelites are just not very
smart. They keep doing the same thing.
And and my one of my buddies looks at me, he been a believer
for substantially longer, looks at me and goes, yeah, he reminds
you anybody. Oh yeah, I guess that's right.
And but this is Joshua talking to them towards the end of his
life. Now therefore fear the Lord and
serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness.
Put away the gods that your father served beyond the river
and in Egypt and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes
to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether
the gods your father served in the region beyond the river or
the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.
But As for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord.
And that's, that's it, guys. That's how to be a doer for the
Lord. That's how to be a doer.
And not just to hear like, Lord, what do you want me to do?
I mean this. This this adventure that we're
on this adventure that we're on coming to Sandpoint and being
pastor and pastor's wife. And as I'm yeah, I started in
2010, so 15 years I've been going to be a missionary in
Uganda. I, you guys want to talk about
the divorce later? We can because I'm bringing it
up. So there might be questions, but
I was a supported missionary, went through a divorce and never
and paused, stepped down from things and and backed away from
everything for a year because I wasn't wasn't capable.
And but I still, I still love those people.
I still took care of those people as best I could from a
distance and didn't, didn't shift.
So when Ben called and asked if I wanted to do this, I mean, I
told him I don't really have time to pray about it at the
moment that I can't, I don't have time to give you.
This is what I'm supposed to do or what I'm not supposed to do.
But I would expect the answer is no, because that was, I mean,
I'm, I'm the burden on my heart is Uganda and and Africa.
And so the the doer and me was like, so unless the Lord was to
say the answer is probably no. But then I spent time with the
Lord and we talked about it and we went through it and the
answer was yes. But there's a lot to that.
I mean, I know you guys and and not complaining at all.
It's an adventure and a lot of fun in a lot of ways, right?
But you know, I am, I am more than willing to do what he says
to do. But if I was, but if I was
coming here with any heart other than whatever you want, Lord,
then the enemy would would twist that.
And just, I mean, if I had, well, I guess we can go do that.
If I had that kind of heart, it would be awful, right?
I, I am in it. I am in the joy of my life being
in the will of God, not the joy of my life doing it the way I
want to do it, right? I mean, my plan was to spend 6
months in Uganda a year and do nuclear outage.
That sounds like fun, right? And that was my plan.
That was that we've been aimed that way and and all of my plan
was lining up. And then God said, well,
actually, that's not the plan. You'll find that happens a lot
in your life with the doer. He may have a different plan,
but our job isn't to do my plan. My job is to do what he says.
That's it. And I get this finally into
verse 23 for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a
doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror and
and going away, not paying attention to it is what it goes
on in verse 24. But it and as a guy, I can
completely understand girls may not be able to understand this,
but I can completely understand how I can look in a mirror and
see what needs to be done and not fix it, not care to fix it.
Just walk away, right? My hair sticking up back when I
had long hair, my hair sticking up and just I don't care.
You know, now girls may have a a less of a time understanding how
you can look in a mirror and not fix what you see.
Like guys. Guys are just I, I me in favor
talk. We're just lazy for the most
part. Like do I have to you know, and
say anybody with anybody with young boys know knows the
wrestling match of even getting them to take a bath, right, or a
shower. It's it's do I have to do that?
Men, the only reason we take baths in showers is because we
found out it was culturally important, right?
And girls don't talk to us if we don't take baths.
It's the thing off topic. God, sorry, God's word.
So. So the mirror that he's talking
about here is God's word and it can and does shine light into
our lives. It shows us broken
relationships, pride, hidden or secret sin, hateful thoughts.
The question is, do we stick our hands over our ears and ignore
him, which is like walking away from the mirror, not fixing it
or like first one and that that'd be like 1st 2024 And it
says he observes himself and goes away and immediately
forgets what kind of man he was. So, so when you're in church on
Sunday, you convicted by something when you're reading
your Bible on Monday and Tuesday, is there are there are
there words jumping off the page and saying the Lord Lord says
you need to fix this. Are you listening?
Are you ignoring him? That's our job is to bend to
that God speaks to us to show us the do's he wants done.
Some of those do's are 100% personal.
They're in your heart. They're the one in my life that
always pops out as a as a do. That was 100% for me to be ready
to do ministry was quitting chewing and doesn't make chewing
a sin to the world. It makes chewing a sin because
he told me to stop and when I when I wouldn't stop.
Guess what we talked about every time I sat down and then I tried
to ignore him completely and went to a youth thing put my
account. I would never convey this is
when you know you're in trouble. I was not, I was not convicted.
And I kept saying it wasn't the Lord telling me to do it.
And then I went to go to a youth event to help out with the youth
and I took my can of shoe out of my back pocket and put it in my
truck so that high schoolers didn't see it, which was
conviction because I knew better.
And I went into the high school. I hadn't quit.
I went to the high school event and I, I didn't actually catch
on fire, but I felt like I did. I mean, I was, I had to get out
of that. I mean, we're worshipping.
I'm in the back. I'm worshipping and I'm going to
hang out with the youth. And I mean, like I said, I
didn't burst into flames, but I felt like I could have and I
knew at that point that I had to do something right.
You don't want to get you don't want to get to that level of
ignoring the Lord, right? He he is going to speak to you
and when he speaks to you, have you pre decided that you're
going to say yes? Are you his slave?
Because a slave does not. At no, no point is a slave hear
their master and then contemplate whether they will
obey. That isn't that isn't what a
slave does a slave a bond a bond slave in the Old Testament is
somebody that voluntarily gave themselves to their master,
which means or a or a knight to a king, right?
We a soldier in an army, right? When it's time to go, you go.
You don't decide on that. You don't weigh the pros and
cons. Have we bent the knee and said,
Lord, I will do as you direct. He is our Lord, the doer of all
things, or do we think that? Tell me what?
Tell me what you want me to do and I will decide if I'm going
to listen. That is that is not.
That's our job as believers is to submit to his leadership.
And when we do that, that's Hudson Taylor called it an
exchange life. And when you do that, the piece
you get is because you have, you have submitted to the author,
you have submitted to the knowledge that hot air makes a
balloon go up. Because when you look at a
balloon, why is it flying? I don't know the physics, but
hot air makes it go up right in Christ.
Listening to Him, I get peace and joy.
I don't have to understand why. I have to understand that my job
is to listen to what He's telling me.
Hudson Taylor says it much better than I do, but I am no
longer anxious about anything as I realize that He is able to
carry out His will for me. It does not matter where where
He places me or how. That is for him to consider, not
me. For in the easiest position he
will give me grace, and in the most difficult one, His grace is
sufficient. He has the power to do whatever
he's asking you to do. It It the the Copenhagen.
That was an example in my life of him having the power to do
something that I knew I didn't have the power to do because as
a non believer and I had probably tried to quit half a
dozen a dozen times and could not like absolutely 100% could
not. And so when he asked me to do
it, I was I knew that I couldn't do it.
And so when he when when I actually quit, I 100% knew that
he did it. That makes sense is I came to
the end of myself. And in everything we do, do we
come to the end of ourselves and say, Lord, you need to, you need
to serve the coffee today. But it's something that simple.
You need to greet the people today, right?
You need all the service that we talked about.
Lord, I want to do what you want me to do, but Lord, you need to
do it. And it's, it's no different than
the guy in the basket, right? The fire needs to do it.
The guy is never going to get the basket off the ground
without the fire. Verse 2025 says.
But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and
continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of
the work, this one will be blessed in what he does If we
take Jesus at his word and and back in James, it said, let it
be implanted in US, right? Let his word be implanted in US
and just follow his path and his direction on a daily basis.
And once again, how do you do that?
You're you're hanging out with the Lord, right?
You're you're with him and say it isn't a it isn't a play
church on Sunday thing. It's a it's a life, right?
You, you stepped into Christ the day you gave your life to him.
And it isn't, it isn't something you added to your life.
He becomes your life that day. When we do that, we will
recognize the lost and dying. We won't dispute with them over
their blindness to their sin, but share with, share with them
the heat that has been given to us, right?
You know, when I'm, when, when you're flying in the air, you
don't yell at the guy on the ground to get the flying right?
And it's, it's the, there's, there's so many different
analogies out there. When you're in the boat, when
you're in the rescue boat, you don't yell at the guy that's
drowning that he's wet and drowning.
Quit, quit being wet and quit drowning.
You, you save that guy, right? But you do that because of where
you're at. And that that in Christ you have
a joy and a peace and a victory in your life.
When you have that exchange that Hudson Taylor talks about that
you understand that in the good days and the bad days, His grace
is what gives me the good and sees me through the bad.
Are we ready to serve the author and master the finisher, the
doer. He is ready and willing to lead
us if you will follow. He's already done that done the
work. You guys get that, that that all
of this is done and we just need to submit climb in the basket
back to my corny stuff, climb in the basket and let his heat fly
us through this. So I am way over and we're doing
communion. I lost track of time, so we're
going to do communion. If you guys want to come up and
you guys will pass it out, why don't we're going to do it like
this. The guys are going to pass it
out and then we're going to take it.
You guys, just as you feel LED, take the take the body and the
take the bread in the cup. But I'll read, I'll read First
Corinthians. This is why we do it.
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you,
that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.
And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my
body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, this
is the cup in the new covenant, in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
So, Lord, just be with us today and this Time, Lord, just as as
we as we ponder and and remember what you've done in our lives,
Lord, if there's anything in our lives that needs to be given to
you that you would take this time with us, Lord, each and
every one of us individually and show us the things that we need
to give to you, Lord, the things you want us to do, but only in
you, Lord, guide and direct us. Speak to us.
She this name. Amen.