Quote that you've heard before says this trust only in movement
because life happens at the level of action.
That's Alfred Adler. Trust only in movement because
there's this biblical principle that these words are reflecting
that our true character is revealed by our actions and only
by our actions. We trust only in movement
because words are deceptive. We can say the right things and
deceive ourselves and deceive others.
Our intentions can also be deceptive, James says.
If your words and your intentions are right, but they
never to the move to the point of doing the word, you're
deceived. So we want to be doers of the
word. The Irish singer Siobhan Miller
says. It's not the fight you dream of,
but those you really fight. It's not what you've been given,
but what you do with what you've got.
We're we're all prone in our mind's eye and our imaginations.
We do lots of incredible things in our dreams.
We're always the the hero of our stories and do incredible things
in our imaginations. But Jesus Christ was a man of
action and he's building a church full of men and women who
are courageous, who are brave, who are willing to shoulder
responsibility, who are to be men and women of action to get
their hands dirty. And Jesus didn't dream about
being the savior of the world. He took on flesh and he saved
the world. And so he is our model.
And so his life is, is many things.
But what I, what I want to say today is not least of all, his
life is an inspiration. His life is inspiring.
And so you should be inspired to lay down your life for the
church and to deal with the consequences of the sins of
other people, because that's what our Savior did.
He laid down his life for the church, and he dealt with the
sins of his people. And so life happens at the level
of action. Your actions reveal your
priorities, your commitments, and your character.
James says so himself. James 217.
Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is what it's dead.
It's nothing, it's vanity. The apostle John first.
John 318 Little children, let us not love in Word or talk, but in
deed and truth, Jesus Christ. Matthew 716 You will know them
by their good intentions and their well wishing.
Oh no, you will know them by their positive thoughts and
regard. You will know them by their
fruit and only by their fruit. This is the only way that we can
test the world. And so he says, show me your
bank statement and I'll show you what you love.
Show me a lot of your time and I'll show you what you serve.
Show me what you do with the gifts that God has given you,
your affinities and your spiritual giftings, and I'll
show you whose Kingdom you're building.
Turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 11.
There's a verb that dominates the passage.
The word is do. We are to be doers of the word
and it's not going to begin with this exhausting requirement.
If you need to do more, you need to do more.
You need to do more. That's not our God and that's
not our Bible. As a matter of fact, it like
that's what Pharaoh did to the Israelites.
You need to do more. We need more building projects.
We need more bricks. Our God begins with an
exhaustive list of what has been done by God on our behalf.
That's where the passage starts. Doing is the verb that describes
God and the goal of Moses in this passage is to inspire you
with the love and sacrifice of God on your behalf.
That's my question for you to consider today is does Jesus
Christ inspire you? Does your Savior inspire you?
Does God inspire you? I looked up inspiration today of
the formal definition in the dictionary and I found
Deuteronomy 11. Listen to this definition.
Something or someone that fills you with motivation, enthusiasm,
and confidence, encouraging a person to feel hopeful and
creative and eager to act. That's exactly right.
That's exactly what this passage is about.
Our God is inspiring. His work is inspiring.
He doesn't love us in Word and in talk, but in deed and in
truth. Look at Deuteronomy 11/3, his
signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt verse 4, and what he
did in the army of Egypt verse 5, what he did to you in the
wilderness verse 6, what he did to Dathan and a Byram verse 7,
emphatically summarizing all of this, for your eyes have seen
all the great work of the Lord that he did.
It begins with a an exhaustive list of his actions.
And what's your response? That's the very next verse.
He begins to pour out what we are to do.
Deuteronomy 11/8. You shall therefore keep the
whole commandment that I command to you today to say it this way.
He did, therefore I do. He did, therefore you do and
verse 32, as you go down to the final verse of the whole
chapter, it summarizes the entire chapter saying you shall
be careful to do all the statutes and the rule that I'm
setting before you today. So it's not confusing to figure
out what this passage is about. You're going to see over and
over. There's a cycle that you have to
do. You have to do.
The word is ASA. That's the verb in the Hebrew,
what it means to give effect, to to do, to be a mover.
And Moses doesn't want you just to will yourself to go and do
great things of God. He wants you to be inspired by
God. And out of the fountain of
inspiration will come all of the giving of yourself to the
Kingdom of God. So the result is works and fruit
and obedience and service, but it begins by sitting at Moses's
feet and being inspired, I don't know, to set it up by saying
Deuteronomy. So far we've seen these cycles.
He likes to kind of communicate in these cycles.
And Deuteronomy 11 is, is like that as well as a cycle.
I want you to see four times as you go through this chapter is
it's very simple. He's going to give a commandment
and then he's going to give an illustration of that commandment
four times. And he's going to give another
commandment that really is the same, but he says it just a
little bit differently and he's going to illustrate it just a
little bit differently. And over and over in the cycle
begins here in verse one with a commandment we'll call the first
cycle. Consider God even more
specifically, consider God in history.
And the first commandment that he gives in the cycle is he says
verse one. You shall therefore love the
Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules
and his commandments always. So he says, you got to you got
to be active, you got to do things and at first blush we
say, well, that's legalistic, right?
I'm supposed to just do that's what Christianity requires is
just to pour out. And before we think that you
look at the first illustration that follows and verses 2 to 7.
Moses actually gives 2 illustrations with this command.
1 positive example, one negative example, as he asked you to stop
and consider God. Look at verses two to seven with
me. Let's read it, he says, and
consider today, since I'm not speaking to your children whom
have not known or seen it, consider the discipline of the
Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, his
outstretched arm, His signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt
to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, into all his land.
And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their
Chariots, How he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as
they pursued after you, And how the Lord destroyed them to this
day. And what He did to you in the
wilderness until you came to this place, And what he did to
Dathan and a Byram, the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the
earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their
households, their tents, and every living thing that followed
them in the midst of all Israel. For your eyes have seen all the
great work that the Lord did. So he draws your eyes into these
illustrations by asking you to consider a couple things.
He says, consider God, consider his greatness, consider his
glory, consider his discipline. So how does he stir you up to
obedience? Does he just say will yourself
to do more? He says consider what God has
done five times in this context. He reminds you of what God has
done in history. He goes down.
The first one, we said there's kind of two illustrations.
The first one's positive. He says remember what he did to
care for you in the wilderness. Consider the wilderness.
Consider God. What did he do to Pharaoh?
Verse 3, His signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh,
the king of Egypt and all his land.
Remember the plagues, remember what happened to the first born,
Remember the darkness, remember the the deliverance.
What did he do to the army of Egypt?
He goes again their horses and their Chariots.
Verse 4, what he did to their horses, how he made the water of
the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you.
How the Lord your God has destroyed them to this day.
And he goes on and he goes and it's personal.
He goes to verse 5 and what he did to you in the wilderness.
He didn't do this for some other people, right?
2000 years ago, 3500 years ago, He did these things, but He does
things for you. I want you to consider yourself.
Has God ever done anything for you?
This is personal. God has moved on your behalf.
Consider yourself. And in showing the great and
awesome nature of God, He also reminds them of what He does
negatively to those who do not obey His word.
He brings judgement to those in rebellion.
Verse 6 is a negative illustration.
Remember what he did to Dathan and a Byram, how the ground
opened up to swallow them whole. That's inspiring in another way,
isn't it? I had a bunch of the engineering
departments at OSU was from the Middle East, and they have a
saying there in Arabic. If you're very sad, If you're
extremely, overwhelmingly sad, they have a saying that they
would say, I hope that the ground opens up and swallows me
whole. And so you can use that on the
day that you get sad. But that's literally what
happened because these people were publicly disowning Moses
and God and grumbling. And So what does God do except
open up the ground and swallow them?
To which we say our God is good, but he's not safe.
So there's no confusion regarding the point.
Moses says again in verse 7, Your eyes have seen all the
great work of the Lord that he did.
Or God does not just well wish. He's not like a deist God who
kind of winds up the universe and then takes his hands off.
He's a God that is a God of action.
He is sovereign. He exercises his sovereignty
through Providence. Our God is a God of Providence
in action. He establishes righteousness and
justice on the earth. He displays His Majesty and his
glory continually for you to see and to be inspired by and so be
inspired. This first cycle is meant to to
move you to action, to draw inspiration for Christian
service by reflecting on what God has already done.
The first cycle is consider God's second cycle, I want you
to see begins in verse 8. We could say, consider his
blessings. Consider God's blessings, the
commandment that comes first, as he says, you shall therefore
keep the whole commandment that I command you today that you may
be strong and go in and take possession of the land that
you're going over to possess. So Moses first says you shall
love the Lord and keep his commandments.
And now he reinforces that and he says, now keep his whole
commandment. Every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God you are to take.
And it's interesting in verse 8 and applicable that he says
their strength is tied to their obedience.
The strength of Israel and their success in the land is tied to
how well they keep this commandment.
And so he says it's it's in part we have to clarify this strength
to possess the land comes in part from obedience to the law
of God. And so many blessings attend to
keeping these commandments. Jesus says this himself and John
1421 whoever has my commandments and keeps them, it's not enough
to know them. Whoever has them and keeps them,
He it is who loves me, and I will love Him, and here's the
promise, and I will manifest myself to Him.
So what a wonderful promise. This is what God says.
If you keep his commandments, all of these blessings are going
to come on you. You're going to be like a
watered garden and your bones are going to be strong and
you're going to establish the foundation of many generations
and Jesus Christ is going to manifest himself to you.
But if you don't, then he says many pangs and sorrows and much
discipline is going to come. Your strength will be sapped.
So John 1317, Jesus says if you know these things, blessed are
you if you do them. So the requirement in the second
cycle is to keep the whole commandment and the
illustration. There's always a commandment,
there's always an illustration. The illustration that comes in
the second cycle is going to be a comparison between the land
that Egypt possessed in the land that Israel is now going to
possess, the promised land. There's this great comparison
and I started circling this week as I went through.
I like to identify the keywords that kind of is Moses's way or
the Bible authors way of pointing you to what's
important. The word land is used 14 times.
It's like all these circles are in my Bible.
He keeps talking about the land, the land, the land. 14 * 7 times
in this cycle he mentions land. And the other word you're going
to see over and over again 10 times is their association with
it, to possess it. There's this land and you're
going to possess it. And it's makes sense because
they're right there. They're looking at it.
And he says it's yours. This land flowing with milk and
honey, it's going to belong to you.
But first verse 23 says they have to dispossess it.
They have to take the people who are there and to move them out,
which is why they need strength and moral courage and the Lord's
help. Verse 10 begins the comparison.
Read verses 11:50 with me this next cycle.
This is for the land that you are entering to take possession
of. It is not like the land of Egypt
from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and
irrigated it like a garden of vegetables.
But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of
hills and valleys which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a
land that the Lord your God cares for.
The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the
beginning of the year to the end of the year.
So the the Hebrew of verse 10 reads literally this way.
This is how the NASB translates it, where you used to sow your
seed and water it with your foot.
And what he's saying by that, what that means is he's he's
drawing attention literally to the irrigation methods and
practices of Egypt where they would use their feet to to dig
these canals. And he's saying you used to have
to put tremendous effort into irrigating your crops.
He said it used to be you'd have to use your feet, you'd have to
work by the sweat of your brow to bring in irrigation from the
Nile. And he says, not so in the land
that I'm going to give you, God himself is going to bring rain
from heaven because he has an eye for the land and he's going
to bring it. He's drawing a comparison.
This will be better, he says. And and with that comes a
different mindset because he says, whereas before it used to
be if you needed water, you would just by your own strength,
go and carve A cistern from the Nile and you would have it.
Because you're coming into this new land where you're going to
have to exercise faith because you can't just go out.
You're going to have to depend totally on God because he's the
one that waters the earth. You see the difference?
One is based on faith and so whereas in Egypt it was a land
of desert and slavery and back breaking labor.
He compares it to verse 9 where he says you're going to live
long in a land that is watered by God himself.
It's going to be flowing with milk and honey we've seen in
previous chapters and iron and copper and wood.
He says verse 12, it's a land that God cares for.
The eyes of the Lord are on it from the beginning of the year
to the end. So why are you inspired to obey?
Why are you inspired to go and do?
Because of the gracious blessings of God that He's given
you. Remember where you were.
Remember where they're going. So many blessings.
Third cycle, we could call it. Consider the alternatives.
The third third cycle begins in verse 13 with the command to
Israel that reads this way. Obey the commands to love and to
serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul. We've heard this before.
Love the good Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul. The illustration now is this
illustration of the fullness of God versus the emptiness of
idols. He's making this comparison
between the blessings of God, the fullness that God brings,
and the emptiness and vanity of idols.
Read verses 14 to 17. You see the third cycle.
He will give the rain for your land and its season, the early
rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain and
your wine and your oil, and He will give grass in your fields
for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
Take care lest your heart be deceived.
And you turn aside either to serve other gods and worship
them. Then the anger of the Lord will
be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that
there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and
you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord your God
is giving you. So the blessing of the land is
conditional. They're given opportunity to
possess the land, but it's contingent on verse 16.
It's contingent on their heart. Take care lest your heart be
deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship
them. So here's the comparison.
He's setting himself up against Baal.
Baal was the God of rain, and Baal is the God of harvest and
abundance. And this is where God is saying
Baal doesn't bring rain, right? He, he is no thing.
And he, he says he intentionally mentions rain and he
intentionally mentions abundance because this is a polemic
against the gods of the Canaanites.
He's saying, I bring rain. I know when you need it.
I bring it in the early rain. I bring the late rain.
It's not like we Yahweh brings this rain.
But then we got to depend on bail for the rest of it.
He says I'm the one who brings all of it, you can trust me to
bring it. He puts himself against the
rain, and then he puts himself against the fruitfulness in the
harvest. And Moses says that these belong
not to Baal, but Yahweh brings the grain and the wine and the
oil, and not only that, He feeds you until you're full.
So take care that your heart is not deceived.
He already got at this in chapter 10 where he said you
think that it's your wealth or it's your power and your
strength and your might that brings you financial blessing.
Bring that into today's. Just to rehearse last week's
sermon or the previous week's sermon is as you think that your
stockbroker gave you the capacity to make wealth and you
thought it was the power of the companies that you're investing
in it. It was me.
You thought it was the power of compound interest, but I created
that and I brought you with the knowledge.
And we think it's our degrees, but he gave you the degree.
He gave you the opportunity for entrepreneurship.
He says those were gifts. Don't attribute them to somebody
else. Those came from me.
God says I provide what you need.
He is the provider. That's what he's emphasizing
here. My mind goes straight back to
Abraham and Isaac when they're they're walking to Mount Moriah,
defined as the the land favored with the vision of divine glory,
the place where God is seen. And Abraham's going there with
Isaac. Jewish tradition says there was
clouds swirling, so they knew right where to go.
And Isaac asked him, you know, here's the wood and, and
everything we need the fire for the sacrifice, but where is the
lamb that we're going to have to offer?
And Abraham says God will himself provide the lamb.
He's going to be the provider. And that the name of that place
after God provided was God provides or the place where God
is seen, the land favored with
the vision of divine glory. Jesus in the same way is is
obsessed with you understanding that God is the one who provides
for you. He says don't be anxious about
what you're going to put on and don't be anxious about what
you're going to eat or what you're going to wear.
What you're going to drink is, don't you know that God knows
you need those things don't toil to accumulate wealth.
The proverb says take what he provides for you, don't you?
You think he knows that you need rain in the early and the latter
rain so that you can have your crops.
Do you? Is he, is he so ignorant that he
doesn't know that or does he, does he not love you that you
don't think he's going to provide those things?
Jesus says this, this is so important.
If you would just seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness,
everything else would be added to you.
If you would just focus on him, end up doing his will and
serving him. You would have everything else.
That's what Moses is saying in his own words in Deuteronomy 11.
Seek first the Kingdom and his righteousness, and all that's
needed for life will be provided you by God in heaven.
But he shows the other side of disobedience.
What if you don't seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness?
What if you do go after other gods?
He says. In effect, if you want to
worship them, then you can go and enjoy their benefits and it
will lead only to emptiness. There is no benefit and He will
not fill you with every good thing while you attribute His
blessings and His praises to other gods.
Deuteronomy 4. Deuteronomy 5.
Deuteronomy 6 repeated this refrain.
He is a jealous God. You want the benefits of your
idols? Then go worship them, and you
forfeit the benefits and the blessing of God.
Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all
these things will be added. Be doers of the Word and not
hearers and you will experience the blessing of God.
Obey his commandments and you will be full in the promised
land, but forsake his commandments and you will be
empty. It's the third cycle and the 4th
and finally cycle 4 he turns the he turns the focus on to us and
he says, consider yourself. Consider yourself verse 18, the
next commandment. You shall therefore lay up these
words of mine in your heart and in your soul and he connects
this to verse 22. If you want to skip down with
your eyes, He says for if you do, for if you'll be careful to
do all this commandment that I command you, loving the Lord,
walking in all his ways and holding fast to him, then the
Lord will drive out these nations to maybe you've noticed
this already. A very little new is taught in
Deuteronomy 11. This is a very repetitive book
and I think that's on purpose. All good teachers know you.
You review, you learn by review. If you read the seven Laws of
teaching, the 7th and culminating law is the law of
review because it reinforces the idea.
It's how we remember. It's what life groups in this
church are for, to review what we've learned.
It allows relationships between truths to become clear.
It allows for retention, which for the people of God, retaining
what God has said can be a matter of life and death.
And so we review. And the Jews thought it was
worth reviewing as well. We call Deuteronomy 64 to 9:00.
What do we call that passage? The Shema, the mouth of babes.
Yes, thank you. The Shema here, O Israel, the
Lord your God, the Lord is 1. We say that 64 to 9 is the
Shema. But in the Jewish law, it's 3
passages and their estimation. It's it's Deuteronomy 6, but
it's also Deuteronomy 1113 to 21.
So we're actually here in this cycle in a passage that every
Jewish person reviews twice a day, the first thing you speak
when you can speak, and the last thing you speak before you die.
And they add to it Numbers 1537. So to this day, the repetition
of this passage is a daily meditation for the life of a
Jew. And the final command that comes
here expresses the requirement of God for you.
And in another way, a fourth way, He says, you shall
therefore lay up these words of mine and in your heart and in
your soul. So here we're going to rehearse
and review everything we learned in Deuteronomy 6.
This will sound so familiar. Read with me beginning in verse
18. You shall bind them as a sign on
your hand. There shall be as frontlets
between your eyes. You shall teach them to your
children, talking of them when you're sitting in your house,
when you're walking by the way, when you lie down and when you
rise. You shall write them on the
doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and
the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the
Lord swore to your Father's to give them as long as the heavens
are above the earth. And so we ask, how can we keep
the commandment of God if we don't know them?
You have to know it. And so he says again, he's
written these tablets, his law, onto the tablets.
We have to take it and write it on the tablet of our heart.
He's written it on the pages of Scripture and now we have to
write it onto our heart. How do you do it?
He said you talk about it all the time as you are going take
your children, teach them, sing to them, talk to them.
He says write it on the doorpost of your house.
That's your family. Write it on your heart.
That's personally on your gates. We said that was society, the
gates of businesses and the gates of your town showing that
the word of God is applicable everywhere.
You have to know it if you're going to fulfill it.
And it's a, it's a warning because when you get home today,
if you're inspired and you, you're, you're worked up about
these things, you're, you're going to get home and all the
distractions are there. They haven't gone anywhere.
They're waiting for you when you get home and when you're going
to get home, there's still 24 hours in a day and that's it.
And so, you have to ask, is my Savior inspiring enough to draw
my attention and my efforts away from worthless things and on to
serving His Kingdom and bringing about His glory?
Listen to the. Illustration of this final point
in this fourth cycle. He says you will be blessed in
verse 21 as long as the heavens are above the earth.
That is beautiful. He says, if if you look up and
the heavens are there, if you look up and the Milky Way is
there, he says then so true. The blessings that God affixes
to obeying his commandments are still there.
So he says, my word is eternal. My commandments are eternal.
Here's the hope for you. So are the blessings that attend
to you. If you obey those things, that
is inspiration for you. It was supposed to inspire
Israel. That was to be the source of
their power and their ability to do things that were beyond their
strength, he says. You're going to be girded with
strength to dispossessed nations that you should have no power to
dispossessed. They're stronger than you.
They're more equipped. Than you, they're better looking
than you and he says. But you're going to go and
overtake them. And so Moses.
Brings this subject to a head and he says of them, what are
you going to do? Choose.
Today. Choose.
Today. What you're going to follow
verse 26, I'm setting before you a blessing and a curse.
We'll look at this more in chapter 30.
The blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God,
which I command you today, and the curse if you do not obey the
commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way
that I am commanding you today. So he says choose worship,
choose action, choose service that it may go well with you.
I want I want to rehearse all these commands.
Let it pour over you again. This is the all the commands
that he's given to you as we've gone through verse one love the
Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes and his
rules and his commandments always.
Verse 8 you shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I
command to you today that you may be strong.
Verse 13 obey the commandments to love and serve the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Verse 22, to do all the commandment that I command to
you, to love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, and hold
fast to him. Then again, verse 32 sums it all
up. The summary of the entire
passage, one final call to action, draws it to conclusion.
You shall therefore be careful to do all the statutes and rules
that I'm setting before you today.
Are you confused about what the passage is about you?
Confused about what you're? Supposed to do when you leave
this place. Trust only.
In movement, life happens at the level of action.
God's marshaling this whole chapter to inspire you that you
may be filled with motivation and enthusiasm and confidence,
that you may be encouraged and hopeful, creative and eager to
act. So important.
When we talk about doing the works of God and all the things
that were called to accomplish and Protestant work ethic and
all these things that we love and value, just to go back to
Jesus and remember his words because the crowds ask him in
John 6. Lord, what are we supposed to do
to be doing the works of God very similar question.
What are we to be doing in this world to be doing your works.
John 628 to 29 and maybe you can think about how you would answer
that question if somebody asked you helpful to set this up.
Jamie and I once knew a lady who said I've been waiting for years
for God to reveal to me what I'm supposed to do in this world.
She said I I just been I've been idle.
I I want to do more, but he hasn't shown me what to do yet.
And it was all we could do to say God has given every
Christian in the world pouring themselves out is what is
required to accomplish what God has for the Kingdom of God to be
on the earth. That is the untold work of the
billions of Christians. There is so much work to do.
It's overwhelming and it's exhausting.
But if they come and ask Jesus, what are we to be doing to do
the works of God? And Jesus answers their question
about works plural and an answer about the work singular that
they are called to do. He says the work of God is this,
to believe in the one whom he has sent.
That is the first great work. What do you do to be doing the
works of God? Believe in Jesus Christ.
And once Jesus speaks those words, then he quotes Moses and
he goes back and references him. He says truly, truly.
I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from
heaven, but my Father who gives you true bread from heaven.
So who provided? Was it Moses that brought them
manna? Moses.
Provided nothing, he was the agent.
God provided everything. He says.
For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives
life to the world. They said to Jesus, Sir, give us
this bread always. And Jesus said, I am the bread
of life. Whoever comes to me shall never
hunger. Whoever believes in me shall
never thirst. Jesus Christ is so inspiring.
Belief in Him is the great work singular?
Here's the connection that unlocks for you all the great
works, plural, that He has called for you to do in this
life. So we work because we're
inspired. We are literally inspired.
He has breathed into US new life by His Holy Spirit.
We are inspired by His Holy Spirit, and then we are with
that in passages like Deuteronomy 11 and John 6,
inspired emotionally by the beauty of Jesus and by his word
and by his great works. And so we say, God did great
works in Christ. Now you do great works.
Now we say. Now you go and do works, and
Jesus says, and you will do these, and you will do greater
works than I did. Truly, truly, I say.
To you, John 1412, whoever believes in me will also do the
works that I do, and greater works than these will he do.
So God commands you to do heritage churches to be a church
filled of filled with men and women of action.
And so I, I read a document this week that talked about I'm going
to butcher Tim Keller's should have just brought the verse when
the butcher Tim Keller's saying, but basically says that there
lies dormant and every Christian, this insatiable
desire to go and serve. And so somebody asked him, he
says, what do you do about these, these Christians that
they, they seem to love God and their faith seems to be genuine,
but they're not really serving. And he says there lies dormant
in every Christian heart. It has to be awakened by
Christian witness. It has to be awakened by
preaching. But he says, doorman and
everyone is this desire to serve and to love and to pour yourself
out. And that's what I hope this is
for you. That's what I want my words to
accomplish on you. Now, if service is dormant in
you and you are not serving the Lord with all your heart, soul,
mind and strength, begin today. I'll give a whole list of things
that you can do, but the the church needs you and the Kingdom
of God needs to be expanded. And if that is you, I pray that
you come and get involved because that was me.
We had a church in Tulsa that I didn't want to go to church.
I like to golf on Sunday morning.
So that's what I did. But my wife came and she said
you are the spiritual leader of this household.
Why are we not in church? And so wives, if you, if you
need to sometimes come and correct your husband's.
And so we went to church. I was angry, I was embittered, I
didn't want to go. And we've been going for a
length of time. And then they encouraged us to
go to a life group. I went begrudgingly and bitter.
I didn't want to go. And then we went and they had a
day of service. I showed up to church and
they're like, everybody stay after.
If you're not involved in the church, today is the day we want
you to come and serve. And so of course, my wife said,
well, we're, why don't we stay and just see what opportunities
are available. And I'm a, I'm on the front row,
like just upset, visibly upset. And finally they said, well, we
could do so why don't you just greet and you can make coffee,
can serve doughnuts. And I was like, we'll all do
that. Which turned into leading a
Bible study for the church that morning, which turned into
seminary, which turned into pastoring a church.
There lies dormant in our hearts the desire to serve.
It has to be awakened. And so for me, it was awakened
by that church as they called me to serve.
I'm calling you, if you are not serving the Kingdom of God,
serve. Today is the day to come and to
serve, and I want to give. If you're wanting to do
something but you're unsure of what to do, I want to give you
just a few thoughts and needs in our community.
And I I want to overwhelm those of you who do serve with the
vast need. When Jesus says the harvest is
plentiful but the laborers are few, you'll see now what we
mean. We need jail chaplains.
Men. And women at the Park County
Safety Center. Why?
Because there are services every Thursday and every Sunday where
these incarcerated individuals are asking for services and they
cannot have them because there are no preachers, men and women.
And so there are there's there's a the harvest is plentiful.
We need church planters and Allen Gamble prison and for
future church plants, the the need is there and we need
laborers. We need men and women to help
Chris plant a church in Utah. And so if you want to come and
be his azer and his help mate, he needs people to go with him
so he can have a sustainable church and that it can succeed
when he plants it in a few years.
We need court appointed special advocates as Christ was an
advocate for us. We need men and women to be
advocates for children in our community. 5 hour a month is the
only commitment. It's it's high end on the
training. 5 hours a month. And you can be an advocate to a
child as Christ was an advocate to you.
We are. We were told last week that some
130 Casa workers are needed. The harvest is plentiful.
Every child needs an advocate. We're in a mental health crisis
and the doors open from our culture to this church as we
are. We have people calling saying do
you have any Christian counselors?
And our counselors are overloaded and they're
overwhelmed. And so we need help.
We need laborers. Safe families is needing more
workers to temporarily host kids and to get our families back on
their feet in the community. We we have care portal needs.
I think we meet some 93% of the needs, but so few churches and
so few people are are doing these requests.
I would have everyone in this church on that platform, if
nothing else than to see the needs and to be able to pray for
the needs in your community. If you never met a request.
We need a Foster and adoptive parents.
Jacob would tell you that two weeks ago we had six DHS workers
leave in one week, 1 block from this church.
Children were sleeping in the DHS office every night was it's
overwhelming the need. We have 93 foster homes to
recruit. And if you're saying this is
above me, right? I'm I'm new to this Christian
thing. I'm not ready to take in
children in your home. Then come to the church and
serve at this church. Hand out Donuts, make coffee,
meet people. The library team needs help.
The Justice and Mercy team needs help.
There's so many ways that you can come and serve.
Just come and talk and get involved.
Because I believe that if if. All the churches and all the
people in Park County were zealous for the things of God.
These needs would be met. It's so much bigger than even
this church. It's it's our community, it's
all of us coming together that it's you.
Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are
few. For those who are faithful to
obey the commandments and who imitate Christ, who serves as
his hands and his feet. Jesus says greater works than
these, he will do greater works than mine.
Will you do as the church? I want you to listen to how
Princeton's BB Warfield put it in a sermon on Philippians 2 is
called Imitating the Incarnation.
Warfield says he was. Led by his love for others into
the world to forget himself in the needs of others.
Self sacrifice means not indifference to our times and
our fellows. It means absorption in them.
It means forgetfulness of self and others.
It means entering into every man's hopes and fears, their
longings and despairs. It means many sightedness of
spirit, multiform activity, multiplicity of sympathies.
It means richness of development.
It means not that we should live one life, but live 1000 lives,
binding ourselves to 1000 souls by the filament of so loving a
sympathy that their lives become ours.
So we say Jesus. Christ laid down his life for
us. We now lay down.
Our lives for him. And so one of my greatest goals
as your pastor, one of the greatest goals of your pastors
is to kind of create a an ecosystem of health where you
can, you're equipped to do whatever you need to do where
the resources are here and available in this body.
So however God would call you to serve, however you need to be
equipped. This is what the library is that
you can go up there and there are volumes on whatever ministry
you need to create this ecosystem where you can flourish
and what God has called you to do.
So I want to invite the worship team up as we sing our our final
song. And here's what I want you to
reflect on why you're singing. If you need to respond.
To this message by trusting in Jesus Christ as the first and
great work that I invite you to come to the green room.
As a matter of fact, counselors, we're going to go ahead and go.
Let's go now into the green room.
If you need to trust in Christ for salvation, come now.
Even as you sing, as you consider God and his blessings,
come and consider Christ and believe.
And if you've been on the sidelines of this church, if you
have not been serving, then today is the day.
Come and ask. Come and talk to a counselor.
Come and talk to one of the pastors, and we will tell you
how you can serve. We will help you to get plugged
in according to your gifts. Pray with me.
And then we'll consider and meditate together as we respond.
Lord God. You are so.
Inspiring. Jesus Christ.
You are so inspiring that you've taught us what it means to give
up your life, what it means to love other people, what it means
to to suffer for the sins of other people and to come
alongside them and to bring Shalom and to bring healing.
May we participate in this ministry of reconciliation.
Give us the courage to put off our our laziness, to put aside
our indifferent, our indifference, our apathy.
Lord, which I believe is the greatest of the sins, pride and
apathy and God restore to us a desire and a burden for other
people. May we serve, but not out of our
own strength, Lord, but the strength that you give, being
inspired by you. Thank you for your word, for
Deuteronomy. We love you.
We ask all this in Christ's name, Amen.
Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage
Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit
our website at www.heritageshawnee.org.