Father in Heaven, Lord, we are so grateful for this opportunity
to gather together on this day that reminds us of all that you
have accomplished for us. Father, in Genesis, it reminds
us that we are created and not evolved.
In Exodus and Deuteronomy, Father, it reminds us that you
are the only one who can set us free from sin.
And in the New Testament, Father, when Jesus says it is
finished, it reminds us that we are to rest in what he has
accomplished and not try to save ourselves.
So, Father, thank you for the Sabbath.
Thank you for this day, for the shelter that you provide for us
each week. And Lord, as we open your word,
we pray that you would be with us and show us, Father, more
about your love than your plan for us.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen. All right, welcome, Welcome.
Welcome to Portland Church. All right, so my question this
morning is what does God want from you?
What does God want from you? Anybody have any thoughts on
that? What does God want from you?
Let's see what your thoughts are.
Obedience. Ah, who said that?
Your heart, yes, that's a typical answer, Joe obedient,
but I'm going to go with the heart, which will lead to
obedience. All right, Obedience will come,
but he, he really wants our heart.
Yes, yes, absolutely. That's what he wants.
He wants us to trust him, right. So we're going to talk about
that a little bit today. So Deuteronomy 31 six, it says
be strong and courageous and do not be afraid or terrified
because of them. So for those that read the
Bible, we know that there are demons out there.
Are there not? Yes.
And we talked about that a couple of months back.
And they try and whisper things in your ears, but God is saying
do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for it is the
Lord your God who goes with you. So who's with us?
God, do you believe that? All right, Amen.
And you'll notice it's highlighted in yellow.
He will what? Never, I should have highlighted
underlying that He will never leave you or forsake you, right?
Never leave you. We can leave Him, but He's not
going to leave you. Amen.
So He'll give you a choice. If you want to walk away, you
can do that. Who walked away?
Of the 12 disciples? Judas decided to do what?
He decided to walk away, right? But even up to the Last Supper,
what did Jesus do to all of the disciples?
What did He do? He washed their feet, including
Judas, who he knew was going to betray him.
Amen. So God stayed with him.
But then Judas got up and walked away.
He walked away from the Savior of the world.
So this was spoken to Moses, to Joshua and the people of Israel
as they prepared to enter the Promised Land.
And are we on the verge of the Promised Land?
Wow, that was lame. Come on.
Are we on the verge of the promised land?
Yes, right. Just look at the news.
It's going to tell you read the read the great controversy and
we got, we got to get some of these out, right?
How many cases do you guys still have?
10. All right, so we got to get some
of these out. We still have, I think we have
four or five still at 3 angels. We've been giving them out, but
we said we need to get these out because this is a powerful book,
but we need to pray before we give it out.
Amen, Amen, Amen. Now also another announcement on
giving stuff out. So I just passed over to Joy
this past week, some memory sticks.
Pastor Tom went down to Tennessee and filmed the insert
into the Thunder in the Holy Land series.
Anybody know what Thunder in the Holy Land series is?
A couple of us. All right.
So it's it's a series that was filmed over.
It was filmed in Egypt, in Israel, and they brought in a
bunch of archaeological information and they had some
young people do it. It's very, it's very well done.
And the gentleman who put it all together offers to have pastors
inserted at the beginning, the middle and the end so that when
you pass these out and people come to visit, they'll know the
person who's there. Amen.
Now pastors in his fourth year. So.
But here's the thing, usually their contract is when the
pastor leaves, the videos leave with him.
But we negotiated a contract where when the pastor leaves,
guess what? We get to keep the videos.
Amen. So it's a 30 minute video,
there's 26 lessons and they have studies that go with them.
It's really, it's really good to do it in a group.
So if you have a laptop, you invite some friends over, you
play the video and then you go through the the written lesson
and they're really, they're really, really very good.
So I suggest you talk to Joy and Fred about that and they'll
explain how that works. All right, let's move on.
Hebrews 13 five, keep your lives free from the love of money and
be content with what you have. So what is God telling us here?
Be content and don't worry about what tomorrow we're getting
more, right? Don't worry about getting more.
Be happy with what you have for he God has said, never will I
leave you, nor will I forsake you.
So once again, we have from the Old Testament, we have from the
New Testament A reiteration. So when God says something two
or more times, what does that mean?
He wants you to remember, right. When somebody repeats something,
they want you to remember what they've said.
So that's important. So first, John 19 says if we
confess our sins, he is what? Faithful and just to forgive us
our sins. And this is important.
And to do what? From how much?
Oh, unrighteousness, right? So God wants us to come to Him
when we fall and confess our sins, and He will.
This is a promise. He will cleanse us from all our
unrighteousness. Now God calls us to confess our
sins and to humble our hearts before Him, while also trusting
Him as a loving Father. So does He have your best
interest in hand? Yes, absolutely.
He has your best interest, right?
Who will never abandoned those who rely on him.
So we saw those two promises from the Old and New Testament.
He says I will never leave you or forsake you.
Too often we live by sight rather than by faith.
Now, faith means believing in the things that we haven't seen
yet, but trusting in what God's Word says.
Amen. So if we want to trust God's
Word, where do we need to be? Sister, you're on the mark
today. You're on the mark today.
Nothing dishonours God more than doubting His truthfulness or
questioning whether He is sincere and faithful to us.
So He wants us to trust Him. Now, trust comes from getting to
know somebody, right? So that means we need to spend
time with him. So Fred, you were talking about
what was one of the things we need to do today?
What's one of our weapons? Prayer, right?
So we need to be in the Word and we need to be in prayer because
the Word is God speaking to us, and prayer shouldn't be us just
talking to God. That's not what it's all about.
It's not just talking to God, it's pausing and listening for
him to speak. Amen.
So it's important, it's important that we pause and
speak. Jeremiah 31 three, the Lord has
appeared to us in the past saying, I have loved you with a
what type of love, everlasting love.
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness, right?
So this verse emphasizes God's eternal love and kindness
towards us, right? Because it says it's everlasting
love, right? So when those who decide to walk
away from Jesus as Judas did, and they're lost, God will miss
them for all eternity, right? How many parents could say that
if they lost a child, they still wouldn't miss that child, right?
That's that's what it's like for God.
It's very important. So Romans 838 and 39 says, For I
am convinced that neither what death nor life, neither angels
nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation
will be able to do what separate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. So there's nothing in this world
that can separate you from the love of God, including your sin.
Your sin does not separate you from the love of God.
It separates you from God, but not from his love, right?
He still loves you. And what does He want for you?
He wants the very best. So He calls us to repentance,
right? Because He has an amazing plan.
God doesn't abandoned us because of our sins.
Though we may err and grieve His Spirit, when we repent and come
to Him with humble repentant hearts, He will not reject us.
Amen. Right.
Barriers must be removed. Cherished wrong attitudes such
as pride, self-reliance and patience and complaining
separate us from God. And God wants us to turn from
those things. But He knows the only way we can
turn is through His Holy Spirit drawing us away from those
things and changing our hearts, right?
Because you and I can't change our hearts.
Though the Bible asks, can a leopard change its spots?
No, right. So can we who are sinners change
ourselves? No, that's what we have to
understand. We can't change ourselves, but
God can change us. Amen.
Right.
So we want to, we want to war from this higher spiritual
ground, which is trusting God in His Word and claiming those
promises. So God desires us to become
learners in the school of Christ, and only Christ's
righteousness qualifies us to receive the blessing of that
covenant of grace. So his disciples, how long did
they spend with Jesus? 3 1/2 years, right?
3 1/2 years of being under the tutelage of God Incarnate right
here on this planet. Isn't that amazing?
Were they still, were they perfect at the end of that time?
No, right? Were they better than they were
when they started? Yes, because they were on a
journey, right? They were still learning.
So don't give up because you're
struggling. Don't give up because you
stumble. The Bible says a righteous man
gets up how many times? 7, right?
Which is a perfect number, which means you just keep getting up,
right? When you stumble, confess to God
and move on, right? Because God is amazing.
He is amazing, right? So for a long time many of us
have desired the blessings and struggled to obtain them because
we're trying in our own strength.
And God has said, stop trying in your own strength.
Trust me. He's saying trust me.
Trust me, I will give you the peace that you really desire,
right? Amen.
Isaiah 55, seven says through
his prophet, the Lord declares, let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return
unto the Lord, and he God will have mercy upon him and to our
God, for he will abundantly pardon.
So once again, here's another promise.
What is he calling us to do? Let the wicked forsake their way
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
So he's talking about our actions and our thoughts, right?
That sound a little bit like Revelation where there's a mark
in the hand and that and the forehead, right?
So we need to forsake those things, turn back to the Lord
says return unto the Lord and he God will do what?
Have mercy, praise God, right? That's all we have to do is turn
back to him and he'll have mercy and he will send you to hell.
Is that what it says? What does it say?
He will abundantly pardon, praise God for that abundantly
pardon. So we are called to trust this
promise that God's calling us to trust his promise not to
substitute it with feelings, but to trust in faith that if we do
what he's asked, very simple, right?
Forsake the way, right? And if you're having trouble,
forsake, if you have a besetting sin, just call out the God and
say, Lord, this is something I, I can't overcome.
Is there any sin you and I can overcome?
Fred, you talked about this this morning.
Say it loud. Come on.
No, there's no sin that you and I can overcome by ourselves.
But with Christ, what all things are possible.
Thank you. Thank you.
When we fully trust God and rely on the merits of Jesus as our
sin pardoning Savior, we will receive all the help we could
ever need. Amen.
All right, so this is from
Spirit of Prophecy. We often focus on ourselves as
if we have the power to save ourselves.
But Jesus died because we can't save ourselves.
So I modify her English to be a little bit more modern.
Is that OK? Is that all right with you guys?
Our only hope is God's mercy giving us the grace, which is
power. Grace is power.
Faith and forgiveness we need. He wants us to understand our
righteousness is found only where only in him, right?
So don't become discouraged or afraid thinking you don't, you
have no strength, right? Because we don't.
Let's be realistic. But when we call on him, and we
talked about this in in the class this morning, when we call
to God, he's going to send angels to help you and then
they're going to encourage you. The Holy Spirit will come to
give you the strength, but it's being willing to admit that
you're too weak to fight the battle yourself, right?
We need the Calvary, you know. You know in the old times they
said, call the Calvary. Well, the Calvary is the angels
of God, and when we call like that, they will come if we want
them. Amen.
Numbers 21/8 says, And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee A
fiery serpent and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass
that everyone who was bitten, when he look at the pawn, it
shall live. So this is the story.
This is from the story in Numbers.
Where, what are the people of God?
Do they sinned, right? And what did God do?
Did he send fiery serpents in? No, what he did was he pulled
back his protection and the serpents that were always there
began to bite people and people began to die, right?
So they were in the wilderness and God allowed the poisonous
snakes to bite the rebellious Israelites.
He instructed Moses to lift up the bronze serpent to tell the
people to look at it and they would be healed.
So what did they have to do to be healed?
What they have to do? Look and believe what they were
just told, right? So they had to look at the
bronze servant and believe that what Moses had just said.
If you look at this serpent, God will heal you, right?
So what do we need to look at? We need to look at Jesus, right?
And Jesus asked us to believe that when we look to him, he
will leave us in sin. Is that what he says?
No, that he will heal us, right? And it says still they focused
on their pain, their suffering, and their coming death until
their strength failed and their eyes grew dim, when they could
have been healed instantly by trusting and obey God's simple
instruction, which is look and live right.
God says, trust my son, Amen, trust my son, look to him.
John 314 and 15 says, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, Even so was the Son of Man lifted up that
whosoever the prostitute, we talked about that this morning,
right? The drunk, the drug addict, the
murderer, the adulterer, whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have what?
Eternal life, right? Because God changes people.
That's what he likes to do. He loves to change people.
So if you're conscious of your sins, don't devote all your
powers to mourning over them. Give your sin to God.
Say God, this sin is yours. Now you deal with it.
I give you permission to work through me to deal with this
sin. Amen.
And he will, He will. If you're allowing and if you're
struggling with the allowance, ask him.
Say, Lord, make me willing to be made willing to allow you to
deal with this sin, right? Praise the Lord.
So say out loud, I have a risen Savior.
Come on, repeat after me. I have a risen Savior.
I trust in Him. He will never let me be put to
shame. Through His name I have victory.
He is my righteousness and my source of joy.
Can you say Amen to that? Amen.
First, John 19 says if we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. Amen.
So come to Jesus, receive that, rest in peace and you will be
blessed. Amen.
So don't think that anyone here is beyond help because you're
not because God is greater than your sin, right?
He is and He's going to speak to you and you may feel
uncomfortable with what He says. I know at times when He speaks
to me, it's is it comfortable? Is it always comfortable?
No, no, because he says, you know what, Daryl, I need to work
on this thing. And I say, really, can't we work
on something else that's easier? He goes, no, I want to work on
this right now. Right.
And if you allow him to, what's he going to do?
He's going to do a miracle. He's going to take care of that
thing, right? So he's, you know, we're broke.
Are you broken? I'm broken.
Anybody else out there broken? I'm broken, right?
But God, he created the earth from nothing by doing what?
By speaking. If He can do that, He can fix
all of us, Amen. But He's just asking us to trust
Him and believe his Word, Amen. Matthew 5-6 says blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be
satisfied. So God's telling us here that if
we really want to be like Jesus, if we really want it.
He's saying you will get it, but you got to want it, right?
Do you understand that? He's saying you will be filled
as Jesus promised, but you need to want it, right?
All right. So some of us may feel like we
need to prove ourselves. Don't get into that trap, right?
Come to Jesus as you are. Don't try and do better.
Just surrender and give your heart to Jesus and let him do
better through you. Amen.
When you sin, don't say God's abandoned me because he hasn't,
right? If you're still breathing and
you can still think and you feel the Spirit talking to you and
say, look, you just sin and go to God, Don't say, well, I can't
go to God. I have to do something else.
But no, no, go to God, right? Then go to God, right?
Then don't wait, right? Because we're sinful, we're
helpless, and we need to be fully dependent on Him.
That's where our victory will be.
Amen. Matthew 1128 says, Come to me,
all you who are weary and burden, and I will give you
rest. Amen.
Romans 58 says, But God shows his love for us and that we were
still what we're sinners. Think about this.
We were still sinners, we hated Him, and Christ still came and
died for us. Think about all those people who
crucified him. Did Christ die for them?
Yes, right. Did he die for Judas?
Yes. Did he die for the Pharisees and
the Sadducees? Yes.
Did he die for the disciples who ran away in fear?
Yes, right. What the Bible says in another
area while we were still enemies, Christ died for us,
right? Think about that.
He died for us while we hated him.
Anybody ever hate God? I'll be honest, at one point I
did. I'll tell you a little story
that you may have heard or may not have heard.
When I was growing up, my, my father's parents, so my
grandparents on my father's side, I used to go over there
and, and spend some weekends with them when my parents were
away and stuff. And I became very, very attached
to them. Very attached.
I loved going over there. They let me.
My grandfather had this old riding mower.
I used to sit on his lap and we would ride and he'd cut the
grass and, and my grandmother would make this amazing toast
with butter. It was so crispy and delicious.
I just, I still remember those things and I had a really good
time. But one one day my grandmother
had a stroke and she was in the hospital and I was praying
fervently. I was raised a Methodist and I
didn't know I could pray for people.
And you know, God, sometimes he heals him.
And I was praying for my grandmother.
And unfortunately, my grandmother did not make it.
She passed. And I became very, very angry at
God because of that, very angry at God.
I was young. I hadn't been taught about God's
promises and that, you know, sometimes he doesn't always
answer in the way we want. And I had nobody to really
counsel with at the time. And so I, I walked away from God
at a young age for years, right? But he got my attention later
on. But I'll, I'll tell you, you
know, there are things in our lives that we may really, really
want. And sometimes God just says, no,
that's not what's best for you right now, right?
And he asks us to trust him. And sometimes that's hard.
As a young child, that was very hard for me to lose that, that
grandmother. It was really, really hard, but
He was merciful to me and he brought me back and I'm thankful
for that. So Jesus is our ever present
Savior. Do you believe that?
All right, so the work he's begun in our hearts, He says
what? I will complete it.
That's what he promises, right? I will complete it.
So here's a short video and I want you to see this is just one
scenario of what we're being called to.
What's the pay? The pay, yes.
The income, the daily rate, housing arrangements, what you
have that all worked out? There is no pay, at least not in
the earthly sense. I'm a rabbi and I'm asking you
to follow me. It was nice meeting you.
You'd be part of changing the world.
Become part of a family. Not of relatives, but of blood
bonds just the same. Spend your days with some of the
most interesting, unfettered, funny, driven, brave, neutering,
smart, strong, passionate, fiery, loyal, loving, imperfect
people to ever walk the earth. You'll see and to things you
cannot imagine will be adored, hated, needed, lost and found.
You will live everywhere and nowhere.
You will lose friends. You will lose all your friends
and your own life. You will go to the ends of the
earth and you'll be part of the beginning of the greatest
movement on earth. People will say you were a fool
and that I was a fool and that it was all a lie.
They'll call us heretics and liars and frauds.
Others will celebrate and venerate your memory and call
you a St. But none of that's the point.
The point is that you will have said yes to the world's no, that
you hoped against hope and believe against belief, that you
surrendered everything and held fast to the very end.
Will you follow Kingdom eternal value?
So the question is not only will you follow Jesus, but are you
willing to be willing to give everything up to follow him?
That's what the disciples had to do.
That was the choice that they had to make.
And we are called to be disciples of Christ.
In Matthew 1038 it says and whoever does not take up his
cross and do what follow me is not worthy of me.
John 1511 says these things I have spoken to you so that my
joy may be where in you. So Christ wants to give us his
joy and that your joy may be with what may be made full.
Matthew 419 says and then he said to them, follow me and I
will make you fishers and men. So Christ is calling us today
not just to follow him, but be willing to follow Him 110%.
Amen. Amen.
Let us bow our heads, Father. We are humbled and challenged as
we read your word. You are calling us to be willing
to surrender everything, Lord, as your Son did when He came.
He stepped down from His throne in the worship of all eternity,
all the universe, Father, all the angels to come to this dark
forbidden planet and to show us the way of life and to show us
how to have joy. Father, please forgive us for
our failings. Encourage us on the path and be
with each of those who are here and those who watched online.
Father, bless them, encourage them some angels that excel and
strengthen might and love for you to encourage each of us on
this path of life. Father, and send your Holy
Spirit to give us the strength and the wisdom we need to walk
your path. I pray in Jesus name, Amen.