March 2, 2025 • 37 mins
Thanks for listening to this episode of A Worship Warrior's Podcast. In it, I, Sarah, discuss what it means and looks like to serve God constantly.
Links for this episode:
How to actually pray - according to the Bible - Podcast Episode
Praying regularly should not be intimidating - Blog Post
https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/post/praying-regularly-should-not-be-intimidating
Psalms prayer cards - part 1 - Free Digital Download
https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/_files/ugd/c25c0a_a6efe4c37a164863bf3a7c6b62fa58be.pdf
Check out my:
Website: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/
Blog: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/blog
FREE Digital Resources: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/general-7
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey guys, welcome back to a Worship Warriors podcast.
(00:03):
Wow, of course Mike, dog, and cat are fighting as soon as I start recording.
Hey guys, welcome back to a Worship Warriors podcast.
Alright, well, if you're new here, my name is Sarah Lee and I'm the host here and I also have a blog and a website and some free digital download resources on my website.
(00:26):
The link is always in the notes underneath the episode.
And yeah, so I've got some good free stuff on there and actually at the beginning of March, if you are a member on our website, which is free to be a member, you will get some extra free resources starting in March.
And I don't have a rhyme or reason as far as like how often you're getting stuff for free yet.
(00:50):
I might in the future, but as of right now, I've just got some things that I'm making for members and then I send them out.
And I announced them through an email and then I send them out whenever the time comes.
But anyway, so the first thing that you'll be getting if you are a member on the third, it's a Bible reading plan and I will be doing Bible reading plans on and off for members and they have themes to them or topics, however you want to say it.
(01:16):
And yeah, it's just a really cool way to maybe get some new ideas of different books to read.
Maybe once you haven't read yet or maybe there are ones you've read, but it's been a while or passages and whatever.
So yeah, just something different.
And also, it's really sometimes helpful for me.
I don't always do topical Bible reading plans or anything like that.
(01:40):
But when I have done them, what's really fun for me and interesting is whenever you know that you are doing like you're reading this book, you're reading this passage with a certain topic in mind, then it's like you put the lens of that topic.
If the topic is, say, gratitude, you put like a gratitude lens over your eyes so that you almost like as you're reading the passage, you are thinking of like how gratitude is pointed out in this passage because that's what the topic is.
(02:12):
And so you might find new things in the passage that you didn't see before.
So it's really interesting and it's just something different.
So that's kind of why I want to do it.
We need to root our relationship with God by spending time in his word and talking to him.
And then the third thing would be obedience to him.
But it starts with being able to hear and see him.
(02:35):
And you can't hear and see God clearly if you don't talk to him and read his word.
So that's why the first one of the first things of, you know, and excuse me, words.
Wow. One of the first things I wanted to put out there for members is a Bible reading plan because it's not about this podcast and what I say.
And it's not about the blog. And yes, these things are tools that God uses so well.
(02:56):
But it's not about that. It's it's really just to point out God and how we should all have a relationship with him.
And so that's why I wanted to do a Bible reading plan, because that's what it's all about is talking to God and reading his word.
So, yeah, and and along with that on the Bible reading plans that will be coming out in the future, there's always going to be at least one, if not more,
(03:19):
journaling prompts or heart probing questions is another way to put it stuff that you can journal.
Or if you don't journal, you could at least just really think through it and look back at the passage and think through the prompt.
It is really cool if you do journal. I'm not a big fan of journaling, but I do journal more often now.
And when you do journal, you can always look back later on and just say, oh, yeah, like I, you know, that was, you know, a really good point that I made when I journaled that, you know, and or that prayer request came to fruition or whatever it is.
(03:49):
You know what I mean? Just looking back and remembering what was going on when you wrote that and what God has done since then about since then about that topic.
So anyway, OK, enough blabbering. We're just going to jump right into it.
So also, though, if you do want to become a member, it's super easy.
Go to the website and scroll all the way to the bottom.
(04:11):
This is the easiest way to do it. At least there's two ways you can do it.
Go all the way to the bottom and there's a button that says become a member.
Click on it. It will pull up a login page or whatever.
And at the top of it, it says sign up and you just hit sign up and then you put in basic information, just like a lot of other websites.
You just do your email and a password.
And when these things come out, they will be sent to your email.
(04:34):
But also, if you are a member, you will have access to it.
There will be like a private page just for you as the member and you can access the free resources that came out for just you.
So anyway, I forgot to say that. So there's that.
If you ever have any questions, there's a contact page and I do look at my email and I do respond quickly.
And so you can always reach out to me and I will respond within a day to two days or whatever.
(04:58):
So there's that. OK, anyway, now moving on to the topic.
Today's topic is about, as you probably saw in the title, missional viewpoint.
And this sounds like it could be obvious, but it may not be obvious as to what I'm meaning by this.
But if it's not, it's totally fine. I'm going to explain it.
If it is, then please listen up because this is a really good reminder for you as well as it has been for me.
(05:22):
And I do have my notes on it.
But also, as always, the Holy Spirit does lead sometimes in a different direction.
So we'll just see where we go with this.
But so a missional viewpoint, we as Christians should have a missional viewpoint every day.
And what that means is everywhere we go, everything we do, every person we encounter, our mentality should be how in this moment can I serve God and others?
(05:51):
Another way of putting this is how in this moment can I pursue God?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. My apologies. Ignore that.
How in this moment can I do act out the mission that God has given me as a Christian?
(06:13):
There you go. That's what I should have said.
How in this moment can I act out the mission that God has given me?
But this the best way that I could put it is the first question I said.
And it's how in this moment can I serve God and others?
That's the simplified, not simplified.
That's the more detailed, more specific.
(06:37):
That's the word I'm thinking of. Maybe this is a bad idea.
It's past 10 o'clock. I should not be doing this right now.
My brain is not functioning. Well, good thing I have notes.
OK, maybe we will stick to the notes.
How in this moment can I serve God and others?
And that is the essence of what it means to act out the mission that God has given us,
(06:58):
is to serve God and serve others, because that's what he wants us to do.
We're going to talk about that.
So that is what a missional viewpoint is.
Everywhere you go, everyone you see, every person you encounter,
how in this moment can I serve God and others?
How can I grow and strengthen God's kingdom in this situation?
Our purpose as Christians, as true followers of Christ,
(07:20):
is to lead souls to the Lord and to encourage other Christians.
You know, and man, my husband and I talk about this often.
Well, I talk about this often too.
My husband, I should say, he sits there and listens.
I talk about how as Christians, our ministry is growing and strengthening God's kingdom.
(07:46):
Our purpose is to lead people, so grow God's kingdom, to lead people, lead souls to the Lord.
That's what growing God's kingdom is.
And then to encourage other Christians, helping strengthen,
this helps them like strengthen their relationship with God.
And this is what I meant by strengthening God's kingdom.
So you're growing and strengthening God's kingdom.
And both are so important.
You can't do just one of them.
(08:08):
You've got to do both.
But here's how do we do this.
Okay, so this is where we really get to talking about what the missional viewpoint is
in the practicality, like in the day to day, the week to week.
So how do we do this?
How do we have a missional viewpoint?
How do we do this on a day to day?
(08:30):
We have to constantly be in a mentality of service, serving God, serving others all the time, y'all.
This is something that should never end.
And I'm saying this to myself as well because I suck at this sometimes.
Because I'm a human being.
I want to be selfish.
And I'm not going to lie.
I mean, obviously, if I did lie, you'd be like, well, I'm not listening to this podcast ever again,
(08:54):
because that's clearly not true.
Everybody is selfish without God.
And even with God, we fail.
Should we?
No, we should not.
But we, this is hard.
Constantly being in a mentality of service, we're constantly serving God, constantly serving others.
Now, this is not me saying, though, that you need to exhaust yourself by serving others,
(09:19):
even if you are in legitimate need of rest.
Because just a reminder, or maybe you didn't know this,
God designed rest.
We see it in Genesis.
He designed rest, and he designed it for a reason.
And so we should prioritize rest.
Rest, true biblical rest, glorifies God.
This is not laziness.
This is rest in the spirit.
(09:40):
Rest glorifies God.
And we'll kind of touch on this, I think, a little bit later.
At least I think I have a little bit more on my notes about that.
We'll see if we hit on it.
But so anyway, I just wanted to say that.
So this is not me saying to exhaust yourself when God is telling you, OK, it's time.
Today, you need to rest today, or whatever.
You do need legitimate rest at times.
(10:03):
So that is important.
But back to the point.
Constantly being in a mentality of service.
So there's a verse in Philippians.
Philippians 2, 3 through 5 says,
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
And let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
(10:24):
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
OK.
So.
We I read this and I'm like, you know, most people will be like, OK, this is not possible.
And I will say if you have the spirit inside of you and you are constantly obeying him,
(10:47):
constantly constantly obeying the spirit inside of you, this is possible.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.
Constantly be humble and count the other people around you.
More significant than yourselves.
So the reason I put this in here, we have to know first before we can even start focusing on this service mentality,
(11:13):
this missional viewpoint mentality.
It starts with your heart and you have to humble yourself and you have to get in this first.
Firstly, you have to get in this other mindset, this other behavior of treating others as if they are better than yourself.
This is not to say that they are in worth better than you,
(11:37):
because that would contradict the Bible in and of itself and how God created us and everything.
And, you know, anyway, so it's not saying that you are legitimately lesser than them.
What it is saying is you should basically pretend like they are better than you, but be genuine in your actions.
(11:59):
I'm not saying pretend in your actions also, but pretend in your mind.
Just say this person, I'm going to treat them as if they are better than me.
And act upon your service to them with that heart set, that heart posture, that mindset of I'm going to do this because they deserve it.
(12:21):
I don't.
And that's the way we should go about it.
And because also that is what Jesus did.
Mark 10, 45 says, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
So are you living a life?
Am I living a life that shows that we are treating others as if we are beneath them?
(12:45):
We are humbling ourselves at God's feet and saying, I give my life to serve others.
And by doing this, I'm glorifying and serving you.
Are we doing this? Are we being like Jesus?
And that is the first thing you need to ask yourself.
Am I humbling myself to that degree?
(13:09):
And treating others as if I, as if it was Jesus who just walked in the room and I'm treating him?
Am I serving them as if it was Jesus that just walked up in front of me?
And he was the one I was serving because that's what you're doing when you serve others.
You're serving God. Let me rephrase that.
(13:30):
When you serve others with a God-glorifying mindset, meaning you're serving them in order to glorify God with that serving of them.
When you do that, you're also serving God.
But if you serve others just because it's like you want to look good or you feel like you should, but you don't really want to,
(13:58):
so you just do the good deed and then move on or whatever and it's not really genuine.
When you're doing that and you don't glorify God with it, then it's just pretty worthless to be honest.
I mean, nothing eternal more than likely will come from that.
I'm not saying God can't do anything from that because he's God so he can.
But in general, you do need to be genuine in this and you need to genuinely be glorifying God in these acts of service.
(14:27):
Because when we do that, eternal benefits come from it.
Christ showed a life of servitude and we as Christians should be, as we grow closer to the Lord, be exuding more of the fruits of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
And the more we are exuding these fruits of the Spirit, the more we look righteous, which means we look more like Christ as it should be.
(14:56):
We should be looking more like Christ the closer we grow to God.
If we are reading our Bible and praying every day, but we're not looking like Christ 10 years down the road and we've read and prayed every single day,
that shows me right there that we are not being genuine in that.
We are also not obeying God and we're not repenting.
And so this is something that as you grow closer to God, you're repenting of your sins,
(15:19):
meaning you are saying sorry and actually actively trying and doing your best with the Lord's strength to turn away from your sin and not do it again.
When you're repenting, you're obeying him when he tells you to do something or to not do something.
When you're in your word, really just reading it and soaking it all up and listening to God in that way.
And then you're also in return talking to him.
This is how you grow in your intimacy with God when you are growing closer to him.
(15:44):
And as you do that, you're going to be exuding these fruits of the spirit. You're going to be exuding this humility in your heart and this this mindset of I want to serve others
because that's how I can glorify God the most in my servitude and my hospitality.
(16:05):
I want to look like Christ in this way. You're going to want to. It's not going to be like I have to.
I need to. I mean, you do need to. But like, it's not like you feel like, oh, I should, but I don't want to.
No, you genuinely will want to. This is a guarantee. I promise you, you will.
But you also that we do need to talk about how it's not easy.
(16:26):
This is only possible with the strength and guidance from God. You have to pull from his strength.
You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.
And yes, I was talking about contentment if you look at the context of that passage.
But I really do think you can apply it to other things as like simply just other things that align with its principles like this.
So this attitude, this mindset of this missional viewpoint, this servitude, hospitality, being selfless,
(16:56):
and putting, you know, humbling yourself where you are thinking of yourself as beneath people so that you can serve them better in that way.
You know, this is only possible with the strength and guidance from God.
You literally cannot fully be selfless without God. It is not possible.
It is not possible. People try to argue this all day, but it is just not possible without God.
(17:25):
We have to align our thoughts with God's. His thought processes.
They are they are naturally righteous, whereas ours are naturally selfish.
There is a passage in Matthew 14 and it it's 10 verses, but I'm going to read it and I don't want you to skip over it.
(17:46):
I did it in a simple. I typed it out here or copied and pasted it in a simple translation.
That way it was easy for you to hear. So please just listen as if it's a story because it is a story is a true story, but it's a story.
Now, when Jesus heard this, oh, so he had just heard about John the Baptist, his cousin, his death.
(18:07):
John the Baptist was beheaded. It was persecution. He was preaching the gospel and living a life for God.
And he died in the end because of it. So now when Jesus heard about John the Baptist's death,
he drew he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
When the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
(18:29):
When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, This is a desolate place and the day is now over.
Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.
But Jesus said, They need not go away. You give them something to eat.
(18:51):
They said to him, We have only five loaves and two fish. And he said, Bring them here to me.
Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish.
He looked up to heaven and said a blessing.
Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
(19:12):
And they all ate and were satisfied.
And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
And those who ate were about five thousand men besides women and children.
Immediately, he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.
And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
(19:38):
That was Matthew 14 13 through 23.
I'm going to point out a couple of things.
First off, whenever we're looking with our lens of servitude, our lens of a missional, like this is our missional viewpoint,
and we are looking through Jesus's perspective here like Jesus, we are in his body looking out and trying to put ourselves in Jesus's shoes.
(20:00):
In this instance, he had just heard that his cousin died.
I'm sure he was mourning. I'm sure he was grieving.
And I'm sure there were some other things going on because this was a heavy, heavy weight because he knew it was, you know,
it was coming closer to the time of where he was going to be crucified.
And and all of that was going to happen.
And so there's like a heavier weight on him than anyone else.
(20:22):
Whenever he heard about this, I'm sure like there's a lot of stuff going on and inwardly possibly.
And so, yeah, first thing about that.
So he just heard about this. So he's going to go and withdraw for a bit.
He's going to go rest. He's going to go grieve.
He's going to maybe withdraw because, you know, he is a very hot topic and he just knows it's not the time for, you know,
(20:43):
the Pharisees or the Roman guards or whoever to really get a hold of him because it's just not time for all of that to happen yet.
So maybe he was withdrawing for that reason. Maybe not, though.
We don't know for sure. It doesn't say.
But I'm sure there was some sort of grief, some sort of probably a righteous anger. Maybe.
I mean, I could see that happening.
I mean, just think about all of the emotions that could happen from this instance of like him hearing about his cousin being killed.
(21:12):
OK, so we're there. We were sitting in that for a moment.
So he was going to withdraw from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
So he wanted to be all alone with the father.
Now, when the crowds heard it.
So this is the crowds. This is a lot of people, five thousand men, not including men or women and children.
(21:34):
So over five thousand people.
And they followed him.
Thousands and thousands of people followed Jesus as he was trying to go spend some time alone.
Now, think about what you would be thinking in this moment.
I'm just going to pause and be silent for a few seconds.
I want you to think about if you were Jesus in this instance, but it was you, not God.
(22:00):
What you like, you just heard about this.
You have a heavy weight on your shoulders and you need to go rest.
You need to go grieve, whatever it is.
Thousands of people are following you.
To get something from you, they want your service to them.
That's why they're following you.
What are you thinking and what are you doing?
(22:24):
Not what you should be thinking and doing, but what are you naturally thinking and doing?
OK. They followed him on foot from the towns.
When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd.
(22:45):
Ready for this? And he had compassion on them.
And he healed their sick.
Y'all, I'm not saying that every single one of you is thinking the same way I am,
but I can probably guarantee you that a majority of us would not be so selfless in this moment
(23:13):
to where as we are trying to withdraw after hearing of this terrible news
that we still just have the most compassion for thousands of people
and still no matter how exhausted he might have been emotionally or whatever physically,
(23:40):
he healed these people instead of saying, you know, he could have very easily
and I really don't think anyone would have blamed him for this if he had said,
listen, I hear y'all. I see you. You know, I love you. Whatever.
But I've got to get out of here. You know, I've got to go.
And if he had explained the situation or whatever about he just heard about his cousin, whatever.
(24:05):
I'm sure a lot of people would have been like, oh, we understand.
Maybe not all of them, whatever. I don't know. But I'm sure some of them would have.
But no, he literally no one would have blamed him for that, right?
I would not have. I would have been like, oh, yeah, Jesus, you go, dude.
Like you go take some time for yourself. That's hard to hear about.
But no, he literally had compassion on them and he healed their sick.
(24:32):
Then you go even further. Let's go down. OK.
So the disciples were like, Jesus, lots of these like there's a lot of people here.
They need to go eat. Let's send them into the villages so they can go buy food for themselves.
And Jesus then said, instead, you know, again, one more thing would not have even blamed Jesus for saying,
yeah, you all need to go buy some food. Y'all are probably hungry.
(24:53):
That doesn't even sound like a bad thing. The disciples probably had really good intentions with this.
You know, so like would not have blamed Jesus for setting that boundary as well and saying, go buy food.
But he still says, no, they don't need to go away. Y'all feed him or you all feed them.
And then he performs a miracle.
(25:14):
So he is just performing miracle after miracle after miracle, having compassion on people, not even focusing.
He's not even checking the time, you know, he's not like, oh, it's oh, my gosh, it is five o'clock.
I still need to go. I want to go sit on this mountain and go pray.
I want to go to a despl- er, to go to a private, private quiet place and go talk to the Father.
I am sad. I am angry. Whatever the heck his emotions actually were in this moment, whatever they were.
(25:40):
No, he literally, miracle after miracle, had compassion on people and preached to them and fed them.
Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine? I personally would not be like this. I know I'm not like this.
Are you? Because if you are, I know you weren't just naturally like that when you were born.
(26:01):
This was this is something that we have to train ourselves to be like, because this is so far against what we naturally want to do.
Our desires are so selfish. OK, so he feeds them, right?
Then then there's another thing that I feel like a lot of people skip over that I noticed earlier when I was reading it.
(26:24):
He told the disciples after all of this, he made the disciples get into the boat and go without him to the other side.
While he, Jesus himself dismissed the crowds, he didn't make he did not make the disciples dismiss the crowds with him for whatever reason.
(26:45):
He instead said, y'all go ahead. I am going to dismiss the crowds.
So that's another act of service. What a long day. What a long day.
It's not about us guys. It is always about God.
(27:07):
We have to again. I am hardcore preaching out myself right now.
I this is this is oh, my gosh. It is not about me. It is not about you.
It is always about God. I know he loves us. So I'm not saying that you don't need to take care of yourself and think of yourself at times.
I do think that we do need to think of ourselves and take care of ourselves, obviously.
(27:32):
For many reasons, but I just want you to know that it's really still not about you first and foremost.
And when you start prioritizing God and glorifying God first or only glorifying him, I should say,
then you naturally will be taken care of because God is taking care of you while you're glorifying him and stepping out in your faith.
(27:58):
Jesus, the son of God, made it about the glory of his father.
And it glorified him. Yes, because he is a part of the father. He is God.
But he always pointed it to the father to show us that it's not about us.
(28:20):
Again, he will take care of you. And I'm not saying like, don't do stuff.
Make sure you're saying and doing things, no matter how big or little the situation is, that aligns with God's principles,
because when you do that, you will be taken care of 100 percent. You will be taken care of. God will take care of you.
First Corinthians 10 31 says, So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
(28:46):
This verse right here instructs believers to conduct every area, every aspect of their lives to glorify and honor God.
So you should all to the glory of God. I have mentioned here and there, but I want to say and I have it in my notes here.
Boundaries are important. Taking care of yourself is important.
(29:07):
You should still be serving others first and listening to the spirit's guidance on how and when to set those boundaries and rest.
So boundaries are important, in my opinion. But you just need to serve God, serve others, glorify God in everything you do.
He will show you through the spirit's guidance. He will show you how and when you need to rest, and he will take care of you throughout all of this.
(29:33):
I want to say one more little quick thing, and I'm just going to kind of quickly go through this for anyone who does not know.
Maybe it's a reminder for someone how to hear the spirit's guidance in these moments of when you need discernment on when to say no or when to go do something for someone or whatever.
(29:55):
There are daily habitual things that we should be doing in our relationship with God, and it's not like a checklist kind of thing.
It's just things that as we grow closer to him, we will want to do these more. And I mentioned them earlier already.
That's why I'm just going to very quickly go over this.
First of all, you need to be reading your Bible. So do I. This is God's inspired word.
(30:16):
These are things that he has told people and people have written it down.
And I believe every word in it because God's word never lies. God's word never fails.
Everything in it, I believe, is true because God is God. I believe that 100 percent.
(30:37):
And it aligns with his. I mean, literally, it's full of his principles.
So if we are filling up our mind and heart with his word, with the Bible, then naturally we're going to be thinking of his thoughts and his words that he put out for us to know.
The more and more our mind and heart is filled with the Bible, the more and more we exude things from the Bible, those principles, those fruits of the spirit.
(31:06):
That's the first thing. The second thing is prayer. We need to be talking to God, you all.
I have a podcast out, an episode called something about prayer. I can't remember what I titled it.
If I remember to, I will link it in the notes below. But it's about prayer.
And I also have a blog post that talks about how prayer is not as intimidating. It should not be as intimidating as we make it out to be.
(31:29):
And so I talk a little bit about that in the blog post and then I talk more about prayer in the episode.
So you need to go check those out because that was somewhat recent. Yeah, it was good stuff.
But prayer is just simply talking to God about anything and everything all throughout the day.
You could set aside time to like set aside 15 minutes a day or whatever to pray to him if you want to.
(31:51):
But also, like you don't have to do that. You I think you should set aside some quiet prayer time.
I think that is really beneficial. And honestly, for me personally, it's basically a necessity at this point for my life.
But also, it's important to remember that we need to pray without ceasing.
And that doesn't mean that you need to get a certain time of the day or whatever you get down on your hands and knees and you just pray.
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No, that is not what I mean. And you can't do that all day because pray without ceasing means you're constantly praying.
You can't. It's not realistic to get down on your hands and knees and pray literally all day every day.
That would be silly to say that. What this means is all day, every day, whatever you're doing,
whether you're driving in the car, whether you're sitting at your desk at work, whether you're driving your kids to school,
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whether you're going to the doctor's office, maybe you're sitting in the doctor's office, whatever the heck it is, you name it.
You just have this constant conversation with God.
It's like if he were sitting in the car with you and you start talking to him about something and then you all get kind of quiet,
you know, you don't say anything for a few minutes, but then maybe a few minutes later,
one of you see something and it reminds you of something and then you start talking about that something.
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So it's like that all day. Like you just talk to each other on and off throughout the day. It's like he's always with you.
You always have your companion with you because he is. He's genuinely there with you.
So that's the other thing. Read your Bible, pray. And then the third thing is obedience to him.
Obedience and the things that we're doing day to day, minute to minute, hour by hour or hour to hour.
Like you just live a life that aligns with God's principles, with his what he wants you to do.
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And then also that's obedience, but also being obedient when he tells you to do or say specific things.
Go do and say those things. Or maybe he's telling you to stop doing or saying something.
So you need to stop doing and saying those things. And as you do those three things,
you will grow closer to him. And the closer you grow to him,
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the more you will be able to recognize when he's saying things to you and how and what he's saying things to you.
OK, so there's that. Just the daily habitual things.
But also how to hear the Spirit's guidance is repentance.
OK, I was just my husband and I were just talking about this in the car tonight.
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When we sin, we are building up walls in between us and God.
Sin is literally the debt by definition. It is doing something that goes against God's principles and it separates us from God.
So with that knowledge, when we do sin, when we do something that does not align with his principles, with his belief system,
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we are putting bricks and just stacking them higher and higher.
And we're putting where they're sticking together to where it is hard.
You can't just poke it with your finger and knock over.
When we sin, you're building this wall and it's growing stronger and taller.
And this wall is in between you and God.
When we repent, that means we're saying sorry and we're actively pursuing God
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and actively relying on his strength and guidance to turn away from this sin so that we in hopes we don't commit this sin again.
And every time we sin, we should be doing this.
And when you do this, when you repent truly, you are knocking the walls down.
Repentance is essential to our relationship with God.
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And it's not something you do once and you're done.
It's something you do regularly every time you sin.
It sounds exhausting.
And sometimes it feels exhausting, I'm not going to lie.
But the more you do it, the more you want to do it.
Because if you don't, then you're going to feel further from God and you're going to miss him so much.
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The anxiety that comes, the anger that comes when you are not close to God is unreal.
And also you just miss the companionship, the fun and the peace that you get when you hang out with God is like no other.
So we need to repent and knock those walls away.
If there's a wall between you and someone else and it's just getting bigger and stronger,
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it's going to be harder and harder as time goes on to hear them and see them, right?
You won't be able to see them anymore and you probably won't be able to hear them very well.
It's going to be very muffled if you can even hear them at all.
But when you knock that wall away, you'll be able to see them clearly because they're standing right there in front of you.
There was just something in between you.
But then you won't knock it away. You see them and now you can hear them too.
It's not muffled anymore.
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And that's the picture we see that we need to remember when we start sinning, when we need to repent.
That's how you hear God. That's how you see him.
The last thing I want to say, I'm just going to read it real quick so that I don't mess it up.
Serving others without the intention of glorifying God in that service is simply an act of kindness that leads to nothing eternal.
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But serving others with the intention of glorifying God in that service is an act of kindness that could potentially lead to another soul living eternally with the Creator instead of eternally suffering in hell.
It starts with your heart.
Alright, well that is all I have for you guys.
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So I hope and I pray that so many of you listen to this, you share it with other people, and that all of you grow closer to God through this.
And I want you to go to your word and start reading it more, start talking to him more, and start obeying him more, and start repenting more so that you can hear his guidance on how to serve others in each situation you encounter.
Hey guys, welcome back to a Worship Warriors podcast.
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Wow, of course Mike, dog, and cat are fighting as soon as I start recording.
Hey guys, welcome back to a Worship Warriors podcast.
Alright, well, if you're new here, my name is Sarah Lee and I'm the host here and I also have a blog and a website and some free digital download resources on my website.
(00:26):
The link is always in the notes underneath the episode.
And yeah, so I've got some good free stuff on there and actually at the beginning of March, if you are a member on our website, which is free to be a member, you will get some extra free resources starting in March.
And I don't have a rhyme or reason as far as like how often you're getting stuff for free yet.
(00:50):
I might in the future, but as of right now, I've just got some things that I'm making for members and then I send them out.
And I announced them through an email and then I send them out whenever the time comes.
But anyway, so the first thing that you'll be getting if you are a member on the third, it's a Bible reading plan and I will be doing Bible reading plans on and off for members and they have themes to them or topics, however you want to say it.
(01:16):
And yeah, it's just a really cool way to maybe get some new ideas of different books to read.
Maybe once you haven't read yet or maybe there are ones you've read, but it's been a while or passages and whatever.
So yeah, just something different.
And also, it's really sometimes helpful for me.
I don't always do topical Bible reading plans or anything like that.
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But when I have done them, what's really fun for me and interesting is whenever you know that you are doing like you're reading this book, you're reading this passage with a certain topic in mind, then it's like you put the lens of that topic.
If the topic is, say, gratitude, you put like a gratitude lens over your eyes so that you almost like as you're reading the passage, you are thinking of like how gratitude is pointed out in this passage because that's what the topic is.
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And so you might find new things in the passage that you didn't see before.
So it's really interesting and it's just something different.
So that's kind of why I want to do it.
We need to root our relationship with God by spending time in his word and talking to him.
And then the third thing would be obedience to him.
But it starts with being able to hear and see him.
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And you can't hear and see God clearly if you don't talk to him and read his word.
So that's why the first one of the first things of, you know, and excuse me, words.
Wow. One of the first things I wanted to put out there for members is a Bible reading plan because it's not about this podcast and what I say.
And it's not about the blog. And yes, these things are tools that God uses so well.
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But it's not about that. It's it's really just to point out God and how we should all have a relationship with him.
And so that's why I wanted to do a Bible reading plan, because that's what it's all about is talking to God and reading his word.
So, yeah, and and along with that on the Bible reading plans that will be coming out in the future, there's always going to be at least one, if not more,
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journaling prompts or heart probing questions is another way to put it stuff that you can journal.
Or if you don't journal, you could at least just really think through it and look back at the passage and think through the prompt.
It is really cool if you do journal. I'm not a big fan of journaling, but I do journal more often now.
And when you do journal, you can always look back later on and just say, oh, yeah, like I, you know, that was, you know, a really good point that I made when I journaled that, you know, and or that prayer request came to fruition or whatever it is.
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You know what I mean? Just looking back and remembering what was going on when you wrote that and what God has done since then about since then about that topic.
So anyway, OK, enough blabbering. We're just going to jump right into it.
So also, though, if you do want to become a member, it's super easy.
Go to the website and scroll all the way to the bottom.
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This is the easiest way to do it. At least there's two ways you can do it.
Go all the way to the bottom and there's a button that says become a member.
Click on it. It will pull up a login page or whatever.
And at the top of it, it says sign up and you just hit sign up and then you put in basic information, just like a lot of other websites.
You just do your email and a password.
And when these things come out, they will be sent to your email.
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But also, if you are a member, you will have access to it.
There will be like a private page just for you as the member and you can access the free resources that came out for just you.
So anyway, I forgot to say that. So there's that.
If you ever have any questions, there's a contact page and I do look at my email and I do respond quickly.
And so you can always reach out to me and I will respond within a day to two days or whatever.
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So there's that. OK, anyway, now moving on to the topic.
Today's topic is about, as you probably saw in the title, missional viewpoint.
And this sounds like it could be obvious, but it may not be obvious as to what I'm meaning by this.
But if it's not, it's totally fine. I'm going to explain it.
If it is, then please listen up because this is a really good reminder for you as well as it has been for me.
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And I do have my notes on it.
But also, as always, the Holy Spirit does lead sometimes in a different direction.
So we'll just see where we go with this.
But so a missional viewpoint, we as Christians should have a missional viewpoint every day.
And what that means is everywhere we go, everything we do, every person we encounter, our mentality should be how in this moment can I serve God and others?
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Another way of putting this is how in this moment can I pursue God?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. My apologies. Ignore that.
How in this moment can I do act out the mission that God has given me as a Christian?
(06:13):
There you go. That's what I should have said.
How in this moment can I act out the mission that God has given me?
But this the best way that I could put it is the first question I said.
And it's how in this moment can I serve God and others?
That's the simplified, not simplified.
That's the more detailed, more specific.
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That's the word I'm thinking of. Maybe this is a bad idea.
It's past 10 o'clock. I should not be doing this right now.
My brain is not functioning. Well, good thing I have notes.
OK, maybe we will stick to the notes.
How in this moment can I serve God and others?
And that is the essence of what it means to act out the mission that God has given us,
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is to serve God and serve others, because that's what he wants us to do.
We're going to talk about that.
So that is what a missional viewpoint is.
Everywhere you go, everyone you see, every person you encounter,
how in this moment can I serve God and others?
How can I grow and strengthen God's kingdom in this situation?
Our purpose as Christians, as true followers of Christ,
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is to lead souls to the Lord and to encourage other Christians.
You know, and man, my husband and I talk about this often.
Well, I talk about this often too.
My husband, I should say, he sits there and listens.
I talk about how as Christians, our ministry is growing and strengthening God's kingdom.
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Our purpose is to lead people, so grow God's kingdom, to lead people, lead souls to the Lord.
That's what growing God's kingdom is.
And then to encourage other Christians, helping strengthen,
this helps them like strengthen their relationship with God.
And this is what I meant by strengthening God's kingdom.
So you're growing and strengthening God's kingdom.
And both are so important.
You can't do just one of them.
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You've got to do both.
But here's how do we do this.
Okay, so this is where we really get to talking about what the missional viewpoint is
in the practicality, like in the day to day, the week to week.
So how do we do this?
How do we have a missional viewpoint?
How do we do this on a day to day?
(08:30):
We have to constantly be in a mentality of service, serving God, serving others all the time, y'all.
This is something that should never end.
And I'm saying this to myself as well because I suck at this sometimes.
Because I'm a human being.
I want to be selfish.
And I'm not going to lie.
I mean, obviously, if I did lie, you'd be like, well, I'm not listening to this podcast ever again,
(08:54):
because that's clearly not true.
Everybody is selfish without God.
And even with God, we fail.
Should we?
No, we should not.
But we, this is hard.
Constantly being in a mentality of service, we're constantly serving God, constantly serving others.
Now, this is not me saying, though, that you need to exhaust yourself by serving others,
(09:19):
even if you are in legitimate need of rest.
Because just a reminder, or maybe you didn't know this,
God designed rest.
We see it in Genesis.
He designed rest, and he designed it for a reason.
And so we should prioritize rest.
Rest, true biblical rest, glorifies God.
This is not laziness.
This is rest in the spirit.
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Rest glorifies God.
And we'll kind of touch on this, I think, a little bit later.
At least I think I have a little bit more on my notes about that.
We'll see if we hit on it.
But so anyway, I just wanted to say that.
So this is not me saying to exhaust yourself when God is telling you, OK, it's time.
Today, you need to rest today, or whatever.
You do need legitimate rest at times.
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So that is important.
But back to the point.
Constantly being in a mentality of service.
So there's a verse in Philippians.
Philippians 2, 3 through 5 says,
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
And let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
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Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
OK.
So.
We I read this and I'm like, you know, most people will be like, OK, this is not possible.
And I will say if you have the spirit inside of you and you are constantly obeying him,
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constantly constantly obeying the spirit inside of you, this is possible.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.
Constantly be humble and count the other people around you.
More significant than yourselves.
So the reason I put this in here, we have to know first before we can even start focusing on this service mentality,
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this missional viewpoint mentality.
It starts with your heart and you have to humble yourself and you have to get in this first.
Firstly, you have to get in this other mindset, this other behavior of treating others as if they are better than yourself.
This is not to say that they are in worth better than you,
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because that would contradict the Bible in and of itself and how God created us and everything.
And, you know, anyway, so it's not saying that you are legitimately lesser than them.
What it is saying is you should basically pretend like they are better than you, but be genuine in your actions.
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I'm not saying pretend in your actions also, but pretend in your mind.
Just say this person, I'm going to treat them as if they are better than me.
And act upon your service to them with that heart set, that heart posture, that mindset of I'm going to do this because they deserve it.
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I don't.
And that's the way we should go about it.
And because also that is what Jesus did.
Mark 10, 45 says, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
So are you living a life?
Am I living a life that shows that we are treating others as if we are beneath them?
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We are humbling ourselves at God's feet and saying, I give my life to serve others.
And by doing this, I'm glorifying and serving you.
Are we doing this? Are we being like Jesus?
And that is the first thing you need to ask yourself.
Am I humbling myself to that degree?
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And treating others as if I, as if it was Jesus who just walked in the room and I'm treating him?
Am I serving them as if it was Jesus that just walked up in front of me?
And he was the one I was serving because that's what you're doing when you serve others.
You're serving God. Let me rephrase that.
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When you serve others with a God-glorifying mindset, meaning you're serving them in order to glorify God with that serving of them.
When you do that, you're also serving God.
But if you serve others just because it's like you want to look good or you feel like you should, but you don't really want to,
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so you just do the good deed and then move on or whatever and it's not really genuine.
When you're doing that and you don't glorify God with it, then it's just pretty worthless to be honest.
I mean, nothing eternal more than likely will come from that.
I'm not saying God can't do anything from that because he's God so he can.
But in general, you do need to be genuine in this and you need to genuinely be glorifying God in these acts of service.
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Because when we do that, eternal benefits come from it.
Christ showed a life of servitude and we as Christians should be, as we grow closer to the Lord, be exuding more of the fruits of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
And the more we are exuding these fruits of the Spirit, the more we look righteous, which means we look more like Christ as it should be.
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We should be looking more like Christ the closer we grow to God.
If we are reading our Bible and praying every day, but we're not looking like Christ 10 years down the road and we've read and prayed every single day,
that shows me right there that we are not being genuine in that.
We are also not obeying God and we're not repenting.
And so this is something that as you grow closer to God, you're repenting of your sins,
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meaning you are saying sorry and actually actively trying and doing your best with the Lord's strength to turn away from your sin and not do it again.
When you're repenting, you're obeying him when he tells you to do something or to not do something.
When you're in your word, really just reading it and soaking it all up and listening to God in that way.
And then you're also in return talking to him.
This is how you grow in your intimacy with God when you are growing closer to him.
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And as you do that, you're going to be exuding these fruits of the spirit. You're going to be exuding this humility in your heart and this this mindset of I want to serve others
because that's how I can glorify God the most in my servitude and my hospitality.
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I want to look like Christ in this way. You're going to want to. It's not going to be like I have to.
I need to. I mean, you do need to. But like, it's not like you feel like, oh, I should, but I don't want to.
No, you genuinely will want to. This is a guarantee. I promise you, you will.
But you also that we do need to talk about how it's not easy.
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This is only possible with the strength and guidance from God. You have to pull from his strength.
You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.
And yes, I was talking about contentment if you look at the context of that passage.
But I really do think you can apply it to other things as like simply just other things that align with its principles like this.
So this attitude, this mindset of this missional viewpoint, this servitude, hospitality, being selfless,
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and putting, you know, humbling yourself where you are thinking of yourself as beneath people so that you can serve them better in that way.
You know, this is only possible with the strength and guidance from God.
You literally cannot fully be selfless without God. It is not possible.
It is not possible. People try to argue this all day, but it is just not possible without God.
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We have to align our thoughts with God's. His thought processes.
They are they are naturally righteous, whereas ours are naturally selfish.
There is a passage in Matthew 14 and it it's 10 verses, but I'm going to read it and I don't want you to skip over it.
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I did it in a simple. I typed it out here or copied and pasted it in a simple translation.
That way it was easy for you to hear. So please just listen as if it's a story because it is a story is a true story, but it's a story.
Now, when Jesus heard this, oh, so he had just heard about John the Baptist, his cousin, his death.
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John the Baptist was beheaded. It was persecution. He was preaching the gospel and living a life for God.
And he died in the end because of it. So now when Jesus heard about John the Baptist's death,
he drew he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
When the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
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When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, This is a desolate place and the day is now over.
Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.
But Jesus said, They need not go away. You give them something to eat.
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They said to him, We have only five loaves and two fish. And he said, Bring them here to me.
Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish.
He looked up to heaven and said a blessing.
Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
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And they all ate and were satisfied.
And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
And those who ate were about five thousand men besides women and children.
Immediately, he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.
And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
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That was Matthew 14 13 through 23.
I'm going to point out a couple of things.
First off, whenever we're looking with our lens of servitude, our lens of a missional, like this is our missional viewpoint,
and we are looking through Jesus's perspective here like Jesus, we are in his body looking out and trying to put ourselves in Jesus's shoes.
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In this instance, he had just heard that his cousin died.
I'm sure he was mourning. I'm sure he was grieving.
And I'm sure there were some other things going on because this was a heavy, heavy weight because he knew it was, you know,
it was coming closer to the time of where he was going to be crucified.
And and all of that was going to happen.
And so there's like a heavier weight on him than anyone else.
(20:22):
Whenever he heard about this, I'm sure like there's a lot of stuff going on and inwardly possibly.
And so, yeah, first thing about that.
So he just heard about this. So he's going to go and withdraw for a bit.
He's going to go rest. He's going to go grieve.
He's going to maybe withdraw because, you know, he is a very hot topic and he just knows it's not the time for, you know,
(20:43):
the Pharisees or the Roman guards or whoever to really get a hold of him because it's just not time for all of that to happen yet.
So maybe he was withdrawing for that reason. Maybe not, though.
We don't know for sure. It doesn't say.
But I'm sure there was some sort of grief, some sort of probably a righteous anger. Maybe.
I mean, I could see that happening.
I mean, just think about all of the emotions that could happen from this instance of like him hearing about his cousin being killed.
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OK, so we're there. We were sitting in that for a moment.
So he was going to withdraw from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
So he wanted to be all alone with the father.
Now, when the crowds heard it.
So this is the crowds. This is a lot of people, five thousand men, not including men or women and children.
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So over five thousand people.
And they followed him.
Thousands and thousands of people followed Jesus as he was trying to go spend some time alone.
Now, think about what you would be thinking in this moment.
I'm just going to pause and be silent for a few seconds.
I want you to think about if you were Jesus in this instance, but it was you, not God.
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What you like, you just heard about this.
You have a heavy weight on your shoulders and you need to go rest.
You need to go grieve, whatever it is.
Thousands of people are following you.
To get something from you, they want your service to them.
That's why they're following you.
What are you thinking and what are you doing?
(22:24):
Not what you should be thinking and doing, but what are you naturally thinking and doing?
OK. They followed him on foot from the towns.
When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd.
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Ready for this? And he had compassion on them.
And he healed their sick.
Y'all, I'm not saying that every single one of you is thinking the same way I am,
but I can probably guarantee you that a majority of us would not be so selfless in this moment
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to where as we are trying to withdraw after hearing of this terrible news
that we still just have the most compassion for thousands of people
and still no matter how exhausted he might have been emotionally or whatever physically,
(23:40):
he healed these people instead of saying, you know, he could have very easily
and I really don't think anyone would have blamed him for this if he had said,
listen, I hear y'all. I see you. You know, I love you. Whatever.
But I've got to get out of here. You know, I've got to go.
And if he had explained the situation or whatever about he just heard about his cousin, whatever.
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I'm sure a lot of people would have been like, oh, we understand.
Maybe not all of them, whatever. I don't know. But I'm sure some of them would have.
But no, he literally no one would have blamed him for that, right?
I would not have. I would have been like, oh, yeah, Jesus, you go, dude.
Like you go take some time for yourself. That's hard to hear about.
But no, he literally had compassion on them and he healed their sick.
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Then you go even further. Let's go down. OK.
So the disciples were like, Jesus, lots of these like there's a lot of people here.
They need to go eat. Let's send them into the villages so they can go buy food for themselves.
And Jesus then said, instead, you know, again, one more thing would not have even blamed Jesus for saying,
yeah, you all need to go buy some food. Y'all are probably hungry.
(24:53):
That doesn't even sound like a bad thing. The disciples probably had really good intentions with this.
You know, so like would not have blamed Jesus for setting that boundary as well and saying, go buy food.
But he still says, no, they don't need to go away. Y'all feed him or you all feed them.
And then he performs a miracle.
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So he is just performing miracle after miracle after miracle, having compassion on people, not even focusing.
He's not even checking the time, you know, he's not like, oh, it's oh, my gosh, it is five o'clock.
I still need to go. I want to go sit on this mountain and go pray.
I want to go to a despl- er, to go to a private, private quiet place and go talk to the Father.
I am sad. I am angry. Whatever the heck his emotions actually were in this moment, whatever they were.
(25:40):
No, he literally, miracle after miracle, had compassion on people and preached to them and fed them.
Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine? I personally would not be like this. I know I'm not like this.
Are you? Because if you are, I know you weren't just naturally like that when you were born.
(26:01):
This was this is something that we have to train ourselves to be like, because this is so far against what we naturally want to do.
Our desires are so selfish. OK, so he feeds them, right?
Then then there's another thing that I feel like a lot of people skip over that I noticed earlier when I was reading it.
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He told the disciples after all of this, he made the disciples get into the boat and go without him to the other side.
While he, Jesus himself dismissed the crowds, he didn't make he did not make the disciples dismiss the crowds with him for whatever reason.
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He instead said, y'all go ahead. I am going to dismiss the crowds.
So that's another act of service. What a long day. What a long day.
It's not about us guys. It is always about God.
(27:07):
We have to again. I am hardcore preaching out myself right now.
I this is this is oh, my gosh. It is not about me. It is not about you.
It is always about God. I know he loves us. So I'm not saying that you don't need to take care of yourself and think of yourself at times.
I do think that we do need to think of ourselves and take care of ourselves, obviously.
(27:32):
For many reasons, but I just want you to know that it's really still not about you first and foremost.
And when you start prioritizing God and glorifying God first or only glorifying him, I should say,
then you naturally will be taken care of because God is taking care of you while you're glorifying him and stepping out in your faith.
(27:58):
Jesus, the son of God, made it about the glory of his father.
And it glorified him. Yes, because he is a part of the father. He is God.
But he always pointed it to the father to show us that it's not about us.
(28:20):
Again, he will take care of you. And I'm not saying like, don't do stuff.
Make sure you're saying and doing things, no matter how big or little the situation is, that aligns with God's principles,
because when you do that, you will be taken care of 100 percent. You will be taken care of. God will take care of you.
First Corinthians 10 31 says, So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
(28:46):
This verse right here instructs believers to conduct every area, every aspect of their lives to glorify and honor God.
So you should all to the glory of God. I have mentioned here and there, but I want to say and I have it in my notes here.
Boundaries are important. Taking care of yourself is important.
(29:07):
You should still be serving others first and listening to the spirit's guidance on how and when to set those boundaries and rest.
So boundaries are important, in my opinion. But you just need to serve God, serve others, glorify God in everything you do.
He will show you through the spirit's guidance. He will show you how and when you need to rest, and he will take care of you throughout all of this.
(29:33):
I want to say one more little quick thing, and I'm just going to kind of quickly go through this for anyone who does not know.
Maybe it's a reminder for someone how to hear the spirit's guidance in these moments of when you need discernment on when to say no or when to go do something for someone or whatever.
(29:55):
There are daily habitual things that we should be doing in our relationship with God, and it's not like a checklist kind of thing.
It's just things that as we grow closer to him, we will want to do these more. And I mentioned them earlier already.
That's why I'm just going to very quickly go over this.
First of all, you need to be reading your Bible. So do I. This is God's inspired word.
(30:16):
These are things that he has told people and people have written it down.
And I believe every word in it because God's word never lies. God's word never fails.
Everything in it, I believe, is true because God is God. I believe that 100 percent.
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And it aligns with his. I mean, literally, it's full of his principles.
So if we are filling up our mind and heart with his word, with the Bible, then naturally we're going to be thinking of his thoughts and his words that he put out for us to know.
The more and more our mind and heart is filled with the Bible, the more and more we exude things from the Bible, those principles, those fruits of the spirit.
(31:06):
That's the first thing. The second thing is prayer. We need to be talking to God, you all.
I have a podcast out, an episode called something about prayer. I can't remember what I titled it.
If I remember to, I will link it in the notes below. But it's about prayer.
And I also have a blog post that talks about how prayer is not as intimidating. It should not be as intimidating as we make it out to be.
(31:29):
And so I talk a little bit about that in the blog post and then I talk more about prayer in the episode.
So you need to go check those out because that was somewhat recent. Yeah, it was good stuff.
But prayer is just simply talking to God about anything and everything all throughout the day.
You could set aside time to like set aside 15 minutes a day or whatever to pray to him if you want to.
(31:51):
But also, like you don't have to do that. You I think you should set aside some quiet prayer time.
I think that is really beneficial. And honestly, for me personally, it's basically a necessity at this point for my life.
But also, it's important to remember that we need to pray without ceasing.
And that doesn't mean that you need to get a certain time of the day or whatever you get down on your hands and knees and you just pray.
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No, that is not what I mean. And you can't do that all day because pray without ceasing means you're constantly praying.
You can't. It's not realistic to get down on your hands and knees and pray literally all day every day.
That would be silly to say that. What this means is all day, every day, whatever you're doing,
whether you're driving in the car, whether you're sitting at your desk at work, whether you're driving your kids to school,
(32:41):
whether you're going to the doctor's office, maybe you're sitting in the doctor's office, whatever the heck it is, you name it.
You just have this constant conversation with God.
It's like if he were sitting in the car with you and you start talking to him about something and then you all get kind of quiet,
you know, you don't say anything for a few minutes, but then maybe a few minutes later,
one of you see something and it reminds you of something and then you start talking about that something.
(33:03):
So it's like that all day. Like you just talk to each other on and off throughout the day. It's like he's always with you.
You always have your companion with you because he is. He's genuinely there with you.
So that's the other thing. Read your Bible, pray. And then the third thing is obedience to him.
Obedience and the things that we're doing day to day, minute to minute, hour by hour or hour to hour.
Like you just live a life that aligns with God's principles, with his what he wants you to do.
(33:29):
And then also that's obedience, but also being obedient when he tells you to do or say specific things.
Go do and say those things. Or maybe he's telling you to stop doing or saying something.
So you need to stop doing and saying those things. And as you do those three things,
you will grow closer to him. And the closer you grow to him,
(33:50):
the more you will be able to recognize when he's saying things to you and how and what he's saying things to you.
OK, so there's that. Just the daily habitual things.
But also how to hear the Spirit's guidance is repentance.
OK, I was just my husband and I were just talking about this in the car tonight.
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When we sin, we are building up walls in between us and God.
Sin is literally the debt by definition. It is doing something that goes against God's principles and it separates us from God.
So with that knowledge, when we do sin, when we do something that does not align with his principles, with his belief system,
(34:39):
we are putting bricks and just stacking them higher and higher.
And we're putting where they're sticking together to where it is hard.
You can't just poke it with your finger and knock over.
When we sin, you're building this wall and it's growing stronger and taller.
And this wall is in between you and God.
When we repent, that means we're saying sorry and we're actively pursuing God
(35:04):
and actively relying on his strength and guidance to turn away from this sin so that we in hopes we don't commit this sin again.
And every time we sin, we should be doing this.
And when you do this, when you repent truly, you are knocking the walls down.
Repentance is essential to our relationship with God.
(35:26):
And it's not something you do once and you're done.
It's something you do regularly every time you sin.
It sounds exhausting.
And sometimes it feels exhausting, I'm not going to lie.
But the more you do it, the more you want to do it.
Because if you don't, then you're going to feel further from God and you're going to miss him so much.
(35:48):
The anxiety that comes, the anger that comes when you are not close to God is unreal.
And also you just miss the companionship, the fun and the peace that you get when you hang out with God is like no other.
So we need to repent and knock those walls away.
If there's a wall between you and someone else and it's just getting bigger and stronger,
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it's going to be harder and harder as time goes on to hear them and see them, right?
You won't be able to see them anymore and you probably won't be able to hear them very well.
It's going to be very muffled if you can even hear them at all.
But when you knock that wall away, you'll be able to see them clearly because they're standing right there in front of you.
There was just something in between you.
But then you won't knock it away. You see them and now you can hear them too.
It's not muffled anymore.
(36:35):
And that's the picture we see that we need to remember when we start sinning, when we need to repent.
That's how you hear God. That's how you see him.
The last thing I want to say, I'm just going to read it real quick so that I don't mess it up.
Serving others without the intention of glorifying God in that service is simply an act of kindness that leads to nothing eternal.
(36:58):
But serving others with the intention of glorifying God in that service is an act of kindness that could potentially lead to another soul living eternally with the Creator instead of eternally suffering in hell.
It starts with your heart.
Alright, well that is all I have for you guys.
(37:20):
So I hope and I pray that so many of you listen to this, you share it with other people, and that all of you grow closer to God through this.
And I want you to go to your word and start reading it more, start talking to him more, and start obeying him more, and start repenting more so that you can hear his guidance on how to serve others in each situation you encounter.
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