September 8, 2024 • 41 mins
Your Whole Heart
Text: Deuteronomy 6:5-9
- God’s 1st String Picks
- God’s 2nd String Picks
- God’s 3rd String Picks
Podcast Info
PHSA Church (Potter's House Salmon Arm)
#201 231 Trans Canada Hwy.
Salmon Arm, BC, Canada
604-997-8446
Email: pottershousesa@icloud.com
Church Website: https://www.phsachurch.com/
Podcast Website: rss.com/podcasts/phsa
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@PottersHouseSA
Support/ Giving: https://www.phsachurch.com/give
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located in
(00:12):
beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship Ministries with
3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism, discipleship, and
church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church and other sermons from
throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be your host for this podcast.
(00:33):
I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing to you and bring you closer
to God. Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House podcast. My name is David Bickford and I
am the pastor here in Salmon Arm. So today's message is entitled, Your Whole Heart, The Rest
(00:57):
Will Come in Time. So we have a quote here from John Wesley, is your heart whole with God, full of
love and zeal, to set up his kingdom on earth? Do you continually remind those under your care that
the one rational end of all our studies is to know, love, and serve the only true God and Jesus Christ
(01:20):
whom he has sent? So again that comes from John Wesley. So the text that we're going to be using
today as our jumping off point is Deuteronomy 6 verses 5 through 9 if you want to turn there.
And as you do, I want to bring to your attention some screen time ideas or percentages
of the amount of time people are using screen time and how it's changed from 2018 to 2021 when this
(01:46):
survey was conducted. So in 2018 you had people who were spending
quite a bit of their time on the screen still today. So you had 38% of people in 2018
spending less than two hours of their day on screen time. You had 35% of people spending
(02:12):
two to four hours per day of their screen time and 27% spending more than four hours.
So you probably can guess but this has changed considerably in just the few years between 2018
and 2021 but now you see things actually flip in large parts. So now it's 28% of people
(02:34):
spend less than two hours. That's up or down from 38%. The 35% of people still spend two to four
hours of time. That holds steady but here's the problem. 37% are spending more than four hours per
day which is up from the 27% in 2018. So everybody is spending more time on their devices, more time
(03:03):
focusing on something else and maybe let's be honest, maybe you're spending some of that time
in the Word of God. Maybe you're spending some of it focused on furthering the Kingdom of God. I know
that my daughter has taken over some of the responsibilities of the Instagram page for our
church and some of the video stuff. So she's on her phone more now for the church than she was
(03:27):
before which is great and it's a blessing but oftentimes that's not the case. So what does
that all mean? What are we going to look at here today? What are we focusing on? Let's look to our
text in Deuteronomy 6, 5 through 9. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul and with all your might and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
(03:53):
You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house
and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise you shall bind them as signs on
your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts
of your house and on your gates. Let's pray. Dear Lord God, I pray that this message will impact
(04:16):
people's lives, that people will turn to your word, that they will inscribe that word upon their
hearts. It will be their identity in you in Christ Jesus, that they will make their life
focused on you in Jesus name we pray. Amen. So this is an important topic about focus
(04:38):
and we want to like take a look and think about how we're living our lives today because we're in a
very difficult time in history. There's a lot of stuff happening, a lot of stuff happening very
fast politically, you know socially and we need to recognize that these changes are happening so
fast and how they can be very distracting to us as Christians. We need to focus in on what's
(05:01):
important though keeping God as our focus, keeping our Savior as our focus as we move forward. So
here I found this fun illustration called the Fairhaven Camp Duncan and Dave. If you've ever
been to Camp Fairhaven you've probably met Duncan. Duncan is not a person, he's a dog.
He belongs to Dave who is currently one of the directors of the camp. I've never seen a dog quite
(05:25):
like Duncan. I've never seen a dog so devoted to his master. If Dave is in the camp office Duncan
will stand just outside the office door and stare at him. Doesn't matter if Dave is in there for
three hours, Duncan is content to stare for three hours. Duncan follows Dave everywhere. Once when
Dave ended up on the opposite side of the lake from Duncan, Duncan didn't wait for Dave to come
(05:49):
get him. He swam all the way across the lake to get back to Dave. If I open the door of my car and
Dave opened the door of his truck I have no doubt which view is going to be the best.
If I stood there and called him by name I still have no doubt which vehicle he would get in.
And if I stood there and called him by name while holding a doggy treat for him there is absolutely
(06:12):
no doubt in my mind that he would still get in Dave's truck instead of my car. This is devotion
pure and simple and in Deuteronomy 6.5 we are told that we should be wholeheartedly devoted to God.
We should have the same love and devotion that Duncan has toward Dave. For us there should be
no one else who steals our attention and devotion for God. But how often does Satan hold out a
(06:37):
doggy treat of temptation to me or you and say here you go come on but I have no qualms about
getting on board with him. I wanted to be so devoted to God that when Satan tries to get my
attention I don't want to even stop and consider the possibility of betraying God. Amen. In John
(07:01):
3 16 through 17 this is my favorite scripture one of them of course and it's really because of verse
17 that it's my favorite. It says for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world
to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. So as we join in
(07:25):
looking into the word of God this morning we want to focus in on why does God pick the misfits the
outcasts in the hyper focused. Throughout the entirety of the Bible we see a trend the trend
is that God's choice for oddballs and rejects and misfits. This permeates the Old and New Testament
after the fall of man being cast out of the garden it became clear that many of the earthshakers in
(07:48):
the kingdom of God were characters they were not perfect but they had one thing in common they
strove to give their whole heart to God. The story of Noah gives us this beautiful picture of a man
and his family building the temple of God. The story of Noah is a story of a man and his family
building this massive ship far away from the oceans and the sea. How crazy of a man this must
(08:14):
have been to have such faith to start a project of this type. Then he went on for building this
this project for years and years while dealing with the mockery and the ridicule of his community.
Are we strong enough to stand up to the mockery of our community? As we labor here as a pioneer
(08:36):
work here in Salmon Arm it can be tough sometimes to think about when you're when people go oh well
you're a church how many people are you running what are you doing how's it going and you go well
it's tough because we're looking for people who are going to be converts to Christ who are going
to allow Jesus Christ to impact their life to see them change to see them set free from the bondage
(08:59):
of their sin. We strive not to be like a religious church or try to steal people from other churches
if you're part of another church thank you for listening to the podcast it means a lot
but I'd really like to see you dive in and become more involved in the church you're planted with
because I do believe as our fellowship teaches and I believe as well in myself
(09:23):
that God has an address for your destiny and so if you've been planted somewhere you should allow
God to water and cultivate you there and you should put that focus into building a life with
Jesus Christ with where you've been planted. That being said we know things happen you know I'm
(09:43):
I'm in Salmon Arm British Columbia and I wouldn't have thought that I would have ended up here myself
you know years ago but God does amazing things if we give him our heart and our life so just like Noah
are you going to be strong enough though to build where you've been planted?
It's it you know even though you might be mocked you might be ridiculed
(10:06):
for standing upon the word of Jesus Christ standing upon your faith in God.
We can look at this story and we can move it into our day and age yeah as I've kind of done a little
bit but when we think about the oddities of life we can think about oddities in the sense of the
secular world like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla and many others who were
(10:31):
committed innovators and they gave their entire life to their what their vision of their heart was
but how much more powerful would it be if these men gave their life to Jesus Christ?
You know a lot of people have turned to Elon Musk lately because he's come out in
in huge support of free speech he's expended unbelievable amounts of money
(10:52):
to secure free speech in the digital world and we're very thankful for that if you're a free
a free speaker if you believe in and the freedom of speech is an idea that's integral to a strong
democracy and I do believe that but how much more powerful would it be if Elon gave his life to
(11:14):
Christ if Steve Jobs before he passed would have given his life to Christ?
It takes men like this though to push societies forward but we also see it takes men like that
in the kingdom of God to move nations closer to a relationship with Jesus Christ to move to move
people to repentance and ultimately what we hope for which is revival.
(11:37):
Now when we go back to the word of God we see this thread continued though
we have the faith of our father Abraham as we venture into that storyline we have Jacob and
Joseph and Moses and Judges and King David the prophets Mary and Joseph.
God works through these outcasts these oddballs if you will and he works with them
(12:00):
because he knows that their faith is going to going to allow them to follow through
they're going to be willing to preach unashamed of the gospel and rise above their humble beginnings
and fully serve our Savior. In Romans 12 16 it says live in harmony with one another do not be
haughty but associate with the lowly never be wise in your own sight. In Matthew 10 13 it says
(12:25):
or Matthew 9 verses 10 to 13 it says and Jesus reclined at the table of the house of the
house and behold many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his
disciples and when the Pharisees saw this they said to the disciples why does your teacher eat
with tax collectors and sinners but when he heard and he said those who are well have no need of
(12:48):
physicians but those who are sick go and learn what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice
for I came not to call the righteous but the sinners. God has this weird way
of picking his first string and it's very different than what we oftentimes would pick
(13:09):
as our first string and that's my first point this you know this evening or this morning
whenever you're listening. Imagine you're having a conversation with Jacob explaining to him
your God to the polytheistic pagans that are around you. Most of the world at this period of time
worshiped many gods carried idols with them everywhere. Now if you ask Jacob to explain
(13:31):
his God you can picture him saying I don't carry an idol for my God for he is spirit and invisible
to man except that time when I wrestled him and he broke my hip and changed my name to Israel.
How crazy does it sound in context of the time that you're in the church and you're in the
church and yourself and your brother and brother is nagyonir for you? How crazy does it sound in
(13:54):
context of the time but how much more crazy does it sound to our ears today? Joseph is similar when
he came when you consider his dream of ruling over his brothers and his father Jacob or Israel.
It was it was so out there that his father rebuked him and he and he was such a reject
or a misfit that his brothers sold him into slavery. This didn't stop Joseph though he clung
(14:17):
He clung to it even in his dire circumstances.
And eventually he rose to be the salvation not only of his people but of the Kingdom of Egypt.
When he became the second most powerful person in the Kingdom of Egypt.
So we look at Noah, we look at Jacob and Joseph, but we haven't even scratched the surface of God's first string.
(14:44):
You have the story of Moses. You know I met my God in a fiery shrub.
In the book of Exodus we're introduced to Moses given up by his mother and by God's hand he was adopted into the Pharaoh's house.
He was raised as a prince but became an outlaw and a murderer.
Fleeing into the wilderness after being rebuked by his own Hebrew brothers.
(15:06):
He stayed in a desert, found a wife and became a shepherd. He probably thought his life was over.
Much of us think that our life is over when you get past 20 or when you get past 30 or get past 40.
But how much of our life is in the hands of God when we give our faith to God?
How much can he do with what's left of your life?
(15:29):
But it was here in the backside of the desert that he encountered the burning bush.
In the depths of his obscurity he met with God and he was led back to free his people from the rule of Egypt.
Moses was called out of the shadows and he remained an oddity even to those he served.
It was clear that God was with him but regardless he was still isolated.
(15:52):
King David was the lion slayer, the giant destroyer, but he was a sinner.
But even more than that, he had a heart after God.
This is my most favorite person in the Bible is King David.
I think my next favorite would have to be our apostle, the apostle of the Gentiles, Paul.
But King David, yes I know that the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit are the primaries of the Bible,
(16:20):
but the story of King David shows us how we can serve God in humility despite our own failings.
David was taken from the fields.
His own dad overlooked him when the prophet Samuel asked to see the sons of Jesse.
He was the son who rose up for Israel and defeated Goliath and his reward was to be hated by the king, by King Saul.
(16:46):
Hiding and running from Saul until Saul's death, King David was in these dire circumstances.
But once coronated as king, he succumbed to temptation that gets so many men.
He became an adulterer. He conspired to kill in order to hide his sin, kill the husband, his friend, the husband of Bathsheba.
(17:11):
It is through all of this though in David's ups and downs we see how we can still come to the Lord and be forgiven.
David's life was very different, but he is noted in the Bible as a man after God's heart.
His ultimate claim to fame is not his nobility, his royalty, but rather that he was a servant of the Lord.
(17:32):
Then we have the prophets, Elijah, Elijah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, who goes on and on.
But in the calling of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, we see in verses 19 through 21 this story.
So he departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was the plowing with 12 yoke of oxen in front of him.
(17:54):
And he was with the 12th. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.
And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me kiss my father, my mother, and then I will follow you.
And he said to him, Go back again, for what have I done to you?
And he returned from the following or from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrifice them and ate the boiled,
(18:15):
ate or sacrifice them and boiled their flesh with the yolks of the ox oxen and gave it to the people and they ate.
Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him. What a crazy idea.
So you have to understand this in context of our day to day.
This would be like you're like, let's say you're a taxi driver.
You own your own cab or you own your own Uber or whatever. You're a driver.
(18:39):
Some guy who you know to be like a prophet of the Lord, but he comes and he casts his cloak upon you, which means, Hey, man, you're going to be my successor.
You know it's an honor, but you go to him and say, Hey, let me close off my business.
Let me do what I need to do.
And he says, Go do what you need to do. I didn't I didn't do anything to you.
(19:03):
So your response, your your faithful, godly responses that you just sell the car for whatever it's worth right there to someone on the street and you go and you follow Elijah.
What an oddity.
This amount of faith and Jeremiah one five it says, before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
(19:29):
These people like you know God knows all of us in the womb.
But to be formed and consecrated it set aside as a prophet and Jeremiah had such a tremendously challenging your life and ministry.
Ezekiel three 17 the son of man. I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel whenever you hear the word from my mouth you shall give them a warning for me and then and later on in 26 through 27, and I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you
(20:00):
shall be mute and unable to approve them for they are rebellious house. But when I speak with you I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, thus says the Lord God, he who will hear, let him hear, he who will refuse to hear, let him refuse for they are rebellious house
so here we have the prophet the mighty prophet Ezekiel who had this interesting, you know difficulty in his ministry is that whenever he wasn't prophesying his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth for he talked to you like this.
(20:33):
What an odd, what an odd thing.
But God uses this.
He uses this because these men have their entire heart their entire life focused in on their faithful service to the Lord.
God shows us through the Old Testament that he is sufficient.
When we focus on him we will be fulfilled.
(20:55):
This is hard for us to comprehend because we all want to feel connected to those around us.
The reality is that there is a choice. Will you seek the fulfillment of your heart in the world or will you find your fulfillment in the Father.
All of the Old Testament examples show us men who choose God above all else.
(21:18):
They are all heroes of our faith but off but too often today, we discount their sacrifice and make excuses for only a half hearted following of our God.
The other question I used in the very beginning about screen time, how much of your screen time is dedicated to the Lord.
If we look at this as simply just an act of tithe, part of your tithe, are you giving at least 10% of your screen time to the Lord.
(21:48):
How much of your time is sacrificial in service of your Savior.
It's a powerful idea in that if you are not spending enough time in the word of God, if you are not spending enough time focusing on the things of God, are you really sacrificing, are you really giving the fullness of your tithe.
(22:09):
Or are you just tithing with your finances and you think that's good enough.
But God tells us that he prefers obedience over sacrifice.
How much more can you show your obedience by giving him your attention.
So let's look next to Jesus in the second string picks.
And we start off with John the Baptist in Matthew 3 verses 1 through 6 reads, In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea.
(22:38):
Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, for this is he who is spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his path straight.
When John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey, then Jerusalem and all of Judea and all by the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan confessing their sin.
(23:13):
The idea of John the Baptist out there in the middle of nowhere, building a church based off of repentance. How much more is that needed today.
You know as we labor and toil to build a church here in Sam and are, and a lot of our other pioneer works I was just preaching and hope. A few days ago, hope BC, one of our fellowship churches, it was a tremendous opportunity as a blessing and I, I think pastor Dean
(23:37):
was the one that was letting me come.
But the reality is that it doesn't take flashy lights it doesn't take the best song service or the best technology. What it takes is the word of God, and the preaching of the word of God.
(23:59):
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
This is what sets apart, john the Baptist. This is why he was able to prepare the way for our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so the wind go for for that or from that, knowing that Jesus comes and gets baptized by john the Baptist and then we see him picking his disciples, and who are the first people that he picks.
(24:27):
He doesn't pick royalty. He doesn't pick rock stars, we're always looking and you know politicians always like to use rock stars or actors to to give them their, you know,
to pick them for whatever they're running for office the endorsement that's the word I was looking for.
I was looking for endorsements from, you know, the rock Dwayne the Rock Johnson, or, you know, from Taylor Swift who she gonna endorse all this kind of silly garbage, because what did Jesus do.
(24:58):
Jesus didn't care about the Pharisees and the Sadducees or the kings and the royalty or any of this stuff no he went to Simon Peter, son of Jonas, a fisherman with a bad attitude.
He was an impetuous man he was emotional and always spoke whatever was on his mind and he was horrendously impulsive.
(25:20):
And then his brother, Andrew.
These men were not the cream of the crop and society if you will they were fishermen, they were looked down upon like the dregs you know we, you know we think about you know in society today they tried to tell us for years and years and years
to go to college you have to do all these things that they're going to make you know be successful in life.
(25:45):
And then by saying that they diminish the greater impact that the tradesmen the craftsman and our society, bring to the table.
I don't think of Jesus came on the scene today that he picked people from universities No, I think that he would pick people from the trades.
Rough, raw, people that are, you know, builders that understand hardship.
(26:13):
Then next up he picks James and John the sons of Zebedee.
These men were powerful men.
James was the first of the apostles to be martyred.
He was the only one that's actually recorded in the Bible from the apostles in Acts 12 to these are powerful mental they're called the sons of thunder.
(26:40):
So they're brawlers in their own right.
And then we come to Judas Thaddeus now I think that it's pretty interesting.
This is Jude or Lebiah's he was the son of Alpheus or or Cleophas and Mary he lived in Galilee, and he was a brother of James the younger.
He is also called Judas the zealot. So like Simon, who we will talk about in a minute he was an intense violent nationalist with the dream of world power domination by God's chosen people.
(27:13):
So today we think of you know you might hear the derogatory term used against Jews called the Zionists and stuff like that well this is kind of what the zealots were like back in that time, not that I believe fully in the, in the slander against the
government today. You know there's there's definitely, you know, bad people in any group. And I don't mean to, you know, downplay any of that, but we want to focus in on this today so he was a zealot so he was like a Jewish nationalist that wanted to
(27:43):
overthrow the government.
And then we also come to like the next level of the disciples the lesser knowns if you will there's just less more info less information about them but Philip.
And then you have Bartholomew or Nathaniel who's true is your Israelite and whom there's nothing false that's all we know about these two.
(28:08):
And James also called James the less was the son of Altheus and Mary he was also the brother of Jude, which we touched on lived in Galilee.
And unlike James the greater he's one of the most obscure of the apostles, and then we come to the distributed that is this, sorry the disreputable apostles.
(28:30):
And then we have Matthew also known as Levi son of Altheus who lived in Capernaum. He was a tax collector.
One of the most despised people in Jewish culture at the time.
After all he made his living off the backs of his Jewish brothers for the for the Roman Empire.
(28:51):
And then we have Thomas often referred to as doubting Thomas living, he lived in Galilee. He was known to be a pessimist and a bewildered man, a man who couldn't believe until he had seen it with his own eyes.
And we have the other zealots I'm in the zealot. It was a canine I who lived in Galilee.
And he's also one of the lesser known disciples in the Bible.
(29:13):
And his name was only mentioned three times in the Bible so we don't know about him except that he was a zealot zealots for these fanatical Jewish nationalists I already talked about.
They were crazed with their hatred for the Romans and this is who Jesus called to for his disciples.
These men are who he called.
But we can't leave out the last of the disciples right.
(29:37):
The betrayer.
Judas Iscariot.
The interesting thing about Judas Iscariot is that he was considered to be good with money.
And he was designated the treasurer of the group so we get this picture of Judas as being the only person educated the only person with, you know, some savvy or some, you know, upbringing.
(30:03):
And we know from John 12 verses four through six that he was also completely untrustworthy. He was a covetous man who sought the recognition of the governor.
He betrayed Jesus with a kiss into the hands of the enemy for 30 pieces of silver.
So why is it that we get this picture of Jesus Christ with his disciples.
(30:26):
Later to become apostles all but one.
The one that the world would say is the most qualified.
But in reality was the one to most quickly betray our Lord and Savior.
So in the end we come to my final point which is the third string pick or picks the least likely apostle.
(30:50):
And so I already mentioned how King David's my favorite Bible character.
But a very very close second is the special apostleship of Paul or Saul.
This is the office given to the man who is the apostle for the Gentiles.
He had a very public ministry of Jesus.
(31:12):
And he stands as a witness for the grace of God.
The apostle to the Gentiles it is this very unique purpose that we find in our brother Paul.
He wasn't part of the 12 even when they replaced Judas.
He isn't one of the 12.
He's the 13th apostle.
(31:33):
And we can see that I.
They said he was accepted by the 12 apostles as someone sharing their tasks and responsibilities in second Peter 315.
But what makes him so interesting is that Paul was a former persecutor of Christians.
And countering Jesus through the blinding light that met him on the road to Damascus.
(31:58):
So one day he's holding the coats of men who are stoning.
Stefan the Saint as he witnessed to the crowd about Jesus.
So he is condoning the murder of a Christian.
And then when he's traveling he encounters this life changing interaction with Jesus Christ.
(32:21):
By the grace of God and the good news of Jesus Christ he comes face to face with our Lord.
So he's considered the apostle for those that don't belong to the tribe of Israel.
So now you have this kosher.
Trained educated.
Jew.
And his mission is now to go and preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
(32:45):
What a crazy idea.
He's a Pharisee.
Here he is an educated.
You know raised within the political sphere of the ruling or the elite class of Jewish society.
And what does he get?
What does God do?
(33:06):
He makes him the apostle to us the Gentiles the people that are not from the tribes of Israel.
What an amazing mystery.
What a powerful testimony.
Paul was the least likely to be called by Jesus.
But regardless he came face to face with our Savior and that meeting left Paul blind and all of his beliefs shaken.
(33:30):
This led to his powerful conversion and he moved from persecutor and killer of Christians to one of the most devout and important preachers of all the gospel.
As the apostle of the Gentiles it was Paul that we have the most to thank for his ministry and bringing the good news to the Gentile world.
(33:52):
And his challenging of even Peter to live according to the words of Jesus Christ and the mission of Christ.
So where do we stand today?
Well we are the oddballs and the misfits.
Many more of Jesus' followers were thieves, prostitutes, Gentiles and others that society deemed unworthy.
The key of all this is that we are never beyond redemption and salvation.
(34:16):
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and you know he works in fire services for like a fire hall.
And there were some seminary students that came and he was just really remarking at how good these boys were and you know how diligent they worked and how polite they were.
And I was like that's great. These are Christian kids raised in Christianity and they obviously were the cream of the crop because they want to be in the fire service and it's very good.
(34:46):
But what I pushed my friend on I said you want to know something that's even more amazing?
Is if you ever met a sinner radically saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have our pastors in Russia. We have our our fellowship churches all throughout the world.
But I use Russia as an example. I use some of our churches in the southern United States or the southwest rather where we have gang members.
(35:12):
Rough tough gang members, Russian gang members, Latino gang members.
I've known personally of at least two people that previous to coming to Christ had been shot in the face.
No joke, shot in the face.
I don't mean to sound like Joseph Biden by saying no joke, but it's no joke.
They were shot in the face.
(35:34):
And luckily they survived in the grace of God was able to come into their lives and now they are powerful preachers.
We have drug addicts. We have all these people who God reached in and pulled them out of the mire.
And now they are a force for Christ.
That's what we're lacking in today's church.
Largely is these powerful, powerful men.
(35:58):
I'm looking for the next generation of people that are out there right now that are sinners that God is going to be able to put his hand on and change them.
And that powerful conversion is going to be able to change their life, just like it changed Paul's.
So that is why even when it's the we look at it being the end times, we're called to push forward.
(36:23):
We are meant to recognize the time and continually move forward with the purpose of Christ.
We are called to preach to every living creature.
You can't shut down when you're fearful or when you feel unworthy.
It is Christ in you that empowers us, empowers you and will work through you.
So we have to remember all of these outcasts misfits and understand that God loves all of us and is often the most unlikely people that God chooses for the highest and most impactful ministries
(36:58):
like Moses in the wilderness or David in the fields, God chooses those who will give their heart to him.
Judas Iscariot had all of the training and skills, but he refused to give Jesus his heart.
And it was here where he became willing to betray our Savior.
Jesus chooses us and he's chosen you to and Ephesians to eight through 10 for by grace, you have been saved through faith.
(37:28):
And this is not your own doing.
It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
So in closing, it is time to give Jesus your heart, give him your heart fully.
(37:50):
And all of the rest will come in time.
He will strengthen you. He will help you. He will lift you up.
He knows that it is not easy.
He knows that there are times when we falter, but he will be there to pick you up again.
Give him your heart because he has already given you his life as a sacrifice that you might be saved.
(38:14):
If I could have every head bowed, every eye closed, wherever you are, if it's safe, I just want to quickly take a moment to close this message off.
If you haven't given your life to Jesus Christ, now's the time.
There's no time but like right now.
Don't let a moment go by.
If you know that this message is spoken to you and it's hit you in your heart and you want to signify that you it's time and you know it, you can do that.
(38:44):
Raise your hand. I can't see it, but God sees it.
Raise your hand. Don't wait.
Raise your hand.
If you rose your hand and you meant that I want you to repeat after me.
Dear Lord God.
I know that you sent your son, Jesus Christ, to die for my sins, and I know that I'm a sinner.
I repent and turn away from my sin, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
(39:11):
And I thank you for the salvation that comes through grace and grace alone.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
If you pray that prayer, then your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You meant that.
And it's a powerful thing and I want to commend you for it and I ask you to reach out.
(39:33):
Let me know you prayed that prayer. I want to pray for you.
I want to help you.
If you're in Sam and Arm, please come to church because a podcast is just a podcast.
But coming to church and being part of the body of Christ is really what God wants you to do to have that real world fellowship with other believers.
(39:54):
So with that, I want to thank you all for listening to this message today.
And I want to welcome you back next time.
And in the meantime, I hope that you'll subscribe, like and share this podcast.
I'm going to be trying to change things up. I promised you guys before that I'm going to put up some other conference sermons from a you know from some bonus ones from this last conference.
(40:19):
And then I'm going to also put some up from earlier conferences, just so that there's always something for you to listen to so that you can carve off that tithe of your time to listening to and diving into the Word of God.
Because God wants to help you and he wants your focus to be on him so that he can speak into your life.
So again, thank you for listening. God bless and I can't wait for you to come back next time.
(40:47):
Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A. Potter's House Sam and Arm podcast.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at pottershouse underscore Sam and Arm to keep up to date on what we're doing.
Join the conversation and discover how Jesus Christ can revolutionize your life.
Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located in
(00:12):
beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship Ministries with
3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism, discipleship, and
church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church and other sermons from
throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be your host for this podcast.
(00:33):
I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing to you and bring you closer
to God. Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House podcast. My name is David Bickford and I
am the pastor here in Salmon Arm. So today's message is entitled, Your Whole Heart, The Rest
(00:57):
Will Come in Time. So we have a quote here from John Wesley, is your heart whole with God, full of
love and zeal, to set up his kingdom on earth? Do you continually remind those under your care that
the one rational end of all our studies is to know, love, and serve the only true God and Jesus Christ
(01:20):
whom he has sent? So again that comes from John Wesley. So the text that we're going to be using
today as our jumping off point is Deuteronomy 6 verses 5 through 9 if you want to turn there.
And as you do, I want to bring to your attention some screen time ideas or percentages
of the amount of time people are using screen time and how it's changed from 2018 to 2021 when this
(01:46):
survey was conducted. So in 2018 you had people who were spending
quite a bit of their time on the screen still today. So you had 38% of people in 2018
spending less than two hours of their day on screen time. You had 35% of people spending
(02:12):
two to four hours per day of their screen time and 27% spending more than four hours.
So you probably can guess but this has changed considerably in just the few years between 2018
and 2021 but now you see things actually flip in large parts. So now it's 28% of people
(02:34):
spend less than two hours. That's up or down from 38%. The 35% of people still spend two to four
hours of time. That holds steady but here's the problem. 37% are spending more than four hours per
day which is up from the 27% in 2018. So everybody is spending more time on their devices, more time
(03:03):
focusing on something else and maybe let's be honest, maybe you're spending some of that time
in the Word of God. Maybe you're spending some of it focused on furthering the Kingdom of God. I know
that my daughter has taken over some of the responsibilities of the Instagram page for our
church and some of the video stuff. So she's on her phone more now for the church than she was
(03:27):
before which is great and it's a blessing but oftentimes that's not the case. So what does
that all mean? What are we going to look at here today? What are we focusing on? Let's look to our
text in Deuteronomy 6, 5 through 9. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul and with all your might and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
(03:53):
You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house
and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise you shall bind them as signs on
your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts
of your house and on your gates. Let's pray. Dear Lord God, I pray that this message will impact
(04:16):
people's lives, that people will turn to your word, that they will inscribe that word upon their
hearts. It will be their identity in you in Christ Jesus, that they will make their life
focused on you in Jesus name we pray. Amen. So this is an important topic about focus
(04:38):
and we want to like take a look and think about how we're living our lives today because we're in a
very difficult time in history. There's a lot of stuff happening, a lot of stuff happening very
fast politically, you know socially and we need to recognize that these changes are happening so
fast and how they can be very distracting to us as Christians. We need to focus in on what's
(05:01):
important though keeping God as our focus, keeping our Savior as our focus as we move forward. So
here I found this fun illustration called the Fairhaven Camp Duncan and Dave. If you've ever
been to Camp Fairhaven you've probably met Duncan. Duncan is not a person, he's a dog.
He belongs to Dave who is currently one of the directors of the camp. I've never seen a dog quite
(05:25):
like Duncan. I've never seen a dog so devoted to his master. If Dave is in the camp office Duncan
will stand just outside the office door and stare at him. Doesn't matter if Dave is in there for
three hours, Duncan is content to stare for three hours. Duncan follows Dave everywhere. Once when
Dave ended up on the opposite side of the lake from Duncan, Duncan didn't wait for Dave to come
(05:49):
get him. He swam all the way across the lake to get back to Dave. If I open the door of my car and
Dave opened the door of his truck I have no doubt which view is going to be the best.
If I stood there and called him by name I still have no doubt which vehicle he would get in.
And if I stood there and called him by name while holding a doggy treat for him there is absolutely
(06:12):
no doubt in my mind that he would still get in Dave's truck instead of my car. This is devotion
pure and simple and in Deuteronomy 6.5 we are told that we should be wholeheartedly devoted to God.
We should have the same love and devotion that Duncan has toward Dave. For us there should be
no one else who steals our attention and devotion for God. But how often does Satan hold out a
(06:37):
doggy treat of temptation to me or you and say here you go come on but I have no qualms about
getting on board with him. I wanted to be so devoted to God that when Satan tries to get my
attention I don't want to even stop and consider the possibility of betraying God. Amen. In John
(07:01):
3 16 through 17 this is my favorite scripture one of them of course and it's really because of verse
17 that it's my favorite. It says for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world
to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. So as we join in
(07:25):
looking into the word of God this morning we want to focus in on why does God pick the misfits the
outcasts in the hyper focused. Throughout the entirety of the Bible we see a trend the trend
is that God's choice for oddballs and rejects and misfits. This permeates the Old and New Testament
after the fall of man being cast out of the garden it became clear that many of the earthshakers in
(07:48):
the kingdom of God were characters they were not perfect but they had one thing in common they
strove to give their whole heart to God. The story of Noah gives us this beautiful picture of a man
and his family building the temple of God. The story of Noah is a story of a man and his family
building this massive ship far away from the oceans and the sea. How crazy of a man this must
(08:14):
have been to have such faith to start a project of this type. Then he went on for building this
this project for years and years while dealing with the mockery and the ridicule of his community.
Are we strong enough to stand up to the mockery of our community? As we labor here as a pioneer
(08:36):
work here in Salmon Arm it can be tough sometimes to think about when you're when people go oh well
you're a church how many people are you running what are you doing how's it going and you go well
it's tough because we're looking for people who are going to be converts to Christ who are going
to allow Jesus Christ to impact their life to see them change to see them set free from the bondage
(08:59):
of their sin. We strive not to be like a religious church or try to steal people from other churches
if you're part of another church thank you for listening to the podcast it means a lot
but I'd really like to see you dive in and become more involved in the church you're planted with
because I do believe as our fellowship teaches and I believe as well in myself
(09:23):
that God has an address for your destiny and so if you've been planted somewhere you should allow
God to water and cultivate you there and you should put that focus into building a life with
Jesus Christ with where you've been planted. That being said we know things happen you know I'm
(09:43):
I'm in Salmon Arm British Columbia and I wouldn't have thought that I would have ended up here myself
you know years ago but God does amazing things if we give him our heart and our life so just like Noah
are you going to be strong enough though to build where you've been planted?
It's it you know even though you might be mocked you might be ridiculed
(10:06):
for standing upon the word of Jesus Christ standing upon your faith in God.
We can look at this story and we can move it into our day and age yeah as I've kind of done a little
bit but when we think about the oddities of life we can think about oddities in the sense of the
secular world like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla and many others who were
(10:31):
committed innovators and they gave their entire life to their what their vision of their heart was
but how much more powerful would it be if these men gave their life to Jesus Christ?
You know a lot of people have turned to Elon Musk lately because he's come out in
in huge support of free speech he's expended unbelievable amounts of money
(10:52):
to secure free speech in the digital world and we're very thankful for that if you're a free
a free speaker if you believe in and the freedom of speech is an idea that's integral to a strong
democracy and I do believe that but how much more powerful would it be if Elon gave his life to
(11:14):
Christ if Steve Jobs before he passed would have given his life to Christ?
It takes men like this though to push societies forward but we also see it takes men like that
in the kingdom of God to move nations closer to a relationship with Jesus Christ to move to move
people to repentance and ultimately what we hope for which is revival.
(11:37):
Now when we go back to the word of God we see this thread continued though
we have the faith of our father Abraham as we venture into that storyline we have Jacob and
Joseph and Moses and Judges and King David the prophets Mary and Joseph.
God works through these outcasts these oddballs if you will and he works with them
(12:00):
because he knows that their faith is going to going to allow them to follow through
they're going to be willing to preach unashamed of the gospel and rise above their humble beginnings
and fully serve our Savior. In Romans 12 16 it says live in harmony with one another do not be
haughty but associate with the lowly never be wise in your own sight. In Matthew 10 13 it says
(12:25):
or Matthew 9 verses 10 to 13 it says and Jesus reclined at the table of the house of the
house and behold many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his
disciples and when the Pharisees saw this they said to the disciples why does your teacher eat
with tax collectors and sinners but when he heard and he said those who are well have no need of
(12:48):
physicians but those who are sick go and learn what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice
for I came not to call the righteous but the sinners. God has this weird way
of picking his first string and it's very different than what we oftentimes would pick
(13:09):
as our first string and that's my first point this you know this evening or this morning
whenever you're listening. Imagine you're having a conversation with Jacob explaining to him
your God to the polytheistic pagans that are around you. Most of the world at this period of time
worshiped many gods carried idols with them everywhere. Now if you ask Jacob to explain
(13:31):
his God you can picture him saying I don't carry an idol for my God for he is spirit and invisible
to man except that time when I wrestled him and he broke my hip and changed my name to Israel.
How crazy does it sound in context of the time that you're in the church and you're in the
church and yourself and your brother and brother is nagyonir for you? How crazy does it sound in
(13:54):
context of the time but how much more crazy does it sound to our ears today? Joseph is similar when
he came when you consider his dream of ruling over his brothers and his father Jacob or Israel.
It was it was so out there that his father rebuked him and he and he was such a reject
or a misfit that his brothers sold him into slavery. This didn't stop Joseph though he clung
(14:17):
He clung to it even in his dire circumstances.
And eventually he rose to be the salvation not only of his people but of the Kingdom of Egypt.
When he became the second most powerful person in the Kingdom of Egypt.
So we look at Noah, we look at Jacob and Joseph, but we haven't even scratched the surface of God's first string.
(14:44):
You have the story of Moses. You know I met my God in a fiery shrub.
In the book of Exodus we're introduced to Moses given up by his mother and by God's hand he was adopted into the Pharaoh's house.
He was raised as a prince but became an outlaw and a murderer.
Fleeing into the wilderness after being rebuked by his own Hebrew brothers.
(15:06):
He stayed in a desert, found a wife and became a shepherd. He probably thought his life was over.
Much of us think that our life is over when you get past 20 or when you get past 30 or get past 40.
But how much of our life is in the hands of God when we give our faith to God?
How much can he do with what's left of your life?
(15:29):
But it was here in the backside of the desert that he encountered the burning bush.
In the depths of his obscurity he met with God and he was led back to free his people from the rule of Egypt.
Moses was called out of the shadows and he remained an oddity even to those he served.
It was clear that God was with him but regardless he was still isolated.
(15:52):
King David was the lion slayer, the giant destroyer, but he was a sinner.
But even more than that, he had a heart after God.
This is my most favorite person in the Bible is King David.
I think my next favorite would have to be our apostle, the apostle of the Gentiles, Paul.
But King David, yes I know that the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit are the primaries of the Bible,
(16:20):
but the story of King David shows us how we can serve God in humility despite our own failings.
David was taken from the fields.
His own dad overlooked him when the prophet Samuel asked to see the sons of Jesse.
He was the son who rose up for Israel and defeated Goliath and his reward was to be hated by the king, by King Saul.
(16:46):
Hiding and running from Saul until Saul's death, King David was in these dire circumstances.
But once coronated as king, he succumbed to temptation that gets so many men.
He became an adulterer. He conspired to kill in order to hide his sin, kill the husband, his friend, the husband of Bathsheba.
(17:11):
It is through all of this though in David's ups and downs we see how we can still come to the Lord and be forgiven.
David's life was very different, but he is noted in the Bible as a man after God's heart.
His ultimate claim to fame is not his nobility, his royalty, but rather that he was a servant of the Lord.
(17:32):
Then we have the prophets, Elijah, Elijah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, who goes on and on.
But in the calling of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, we see in verses 19 through 21 this story.
So he departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was the plowing with 12 yoke of oxen in front of him.
(17:54):
And he was with the 12th. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.
And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me kiss my father, my mother, and then I will follow you.
And he said to him, Go back again, for what have I done to you?
And he returned from the following or from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrifice them and ate the boiled,
(18:15):
ate or sacrifice them and boiled their flesh with the yolks of the ox oxen and gave it to the people and they ate.
Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him. What a crazy idea.
So you have to understand this in context of our day to day.
This would be like you're like, let's say you're a taxi driver.
You own your own cab or you own your own Uber or whatever. You're a driver.
(18:39):
Some guy who you know to be like a prophet of the Lord, but he comes and he casts his cloak upon you, which means, Hey, man, you're going to be my successor.
You know it's an honor, but you go to him and say, Hey, let me close off my business.
Let me do what I need to do.
And he says, Go do what you need to do. I didn't I didn't do anything to you.
(19:03):
So your response, your your faithful, godly responses that you just sell the car for whatever it's worth right there to someone on the street and you go and you follow Elijah.
What an oddity.
This amount of faith and Jeremiah one five it says, before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
(19:29):
These people like you know God knows all of us in the womb.
But to be formed and consecrated it set aside as a prophet and Jeremiah had such a tremendously challenging your life and ministry.
Ezekiel three 17 the son of man. I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel whenever you hear the word from my mouth you shall give them a warning for me and then and later on in 26 through 27, and I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you
(20:00):
shall be mute and unable to approve them for they are rebellious house. But when I speak with you I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, thus says the Lord God, he who will hear, let him hear, he who will refuse to hear, let him refuse for they are rebellious house
so here we have the prophet the mighty prophet Ezekiel who had this interesting, you know difficulty in his ministry is that whenever he wasn't prophesying his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth for he talked to you like this.
(20:33):
What an odd, what an odd thing.
But God uses this.
He uses this because these men have their entire heart their entire life focused in on their faithful service to the Lord.
God shows us through the Old Testament that he is sufficient.
When we focus on him we will be fulfilled.
(20:55):
This is hard for us to comprehend because we all want to feel connected to those around us.
The reality is that there is a choice. Will you seek the fulfillment of your heart in the world or will you find your fulfillment in the Father.
All of the Old Testament examples show us men who choose God above all else.
(21:18):
They are all heroes of our faith but off but too often today, we discount their sacrifice and make excuses for only a half hearted following of our God.
The other question I used in the very beginning about screen time, how much of your screen time is dedicated to the Lord.
If we look at this as simply just an act of tithe, part of your tithe, are you giving at least 10% of your screen time to the Lord.
(21:48):
How much of your time is sacrificial in service of your Savior.
It's a powerful idea in that if you are not spending enough time in the word of God, if you are not spending enough time focusing on the things of God, are you really sacrificing, are you really giving the fullness of your tithe.
(22:09):
Or are you just tithing with your finances and you think that's good enough.
But God tells us that he prefers obedience over sacrifice.
How much more can you show your obedience by giving him your attention.
So let's look next to Jesus in the second string picks.
And we start off with John the Baptist in Matthew 3 verses 1 through 6 reads, In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea.
(22:38):
Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, for this is he who is spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his path straight.
When John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey, then Jerusalem and all of Judea and all by the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan confessing their sin.
(23:13):
The idea of John the Baptist out there in the middle of nowhere, building a church based off of repentance. How much more is that needed today.
You know as we labor and toil to build a church here in Sam and are, and a lot of our other pioneer works I was just preaching and hope. A few days ago, hope BC, one of our fellowship churches, it was a tremendous opportunity as a blessing and I, I think pastor Dean
(23:37):
was the one that was letting me come.
But the reality is that it doesn't take flashy lights it doesn't take the best song service or the best technology. What it takes is the word of God, and the preaching of the word of God.
(23:59):
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
This is what sets apart, john the Baptist. This is why he was able to prepare the way for our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so the wind go for for that or from that, knowing that Jesus comes and gets baptized by john the Baptist and then we see him picking his disciples, and who are the first people that he picks.
(24:27):
He doesn't pick royalty. He doesn't pick rock stars, we're always looking and you know politicians always like to use rock stars or actors to to give them their, you know,
to pick them for whatever they're running for office the endorsement that's the word I was looking for.
I was looking for endorsements from, you know, the rock Dwayne the Rock Johnson, or, you know, from Taylor Swift who she gonna endorse all this kind of silly garbage, because what did Jesus do.
(24:58):
Jesus didn't care about the Pharisees and the Sadducees or the kings and the royalty or any of this stuff no he went to Simon Peter, son of Jonas, a fisherman with a bad attitude.
He was an impetuous man he was emotional and always spoke whatever was on his mind and he was horrendously impulsive.
(25:20):
And then his brother, Andrew.
These men were not the cream of the crop and society if you will they were fishermen, they were looked down upon like the dregs you know we, you know we think about you know in society today they tried to tell us for years and years and years
to go to college you have to do all these things that they're going to make you know be successful in life.
(25:45):
And then by saying that they diminish the greater impact that the tradesmen the craftsman and our society, bring to the table.
I don't think of Jesus came on the scene today that he picked people from universities No, I think that he would pick people from the trades.
Rough, raw, people that are, you know, builders that understand hardship.
(26:13):
Then next up he picks James and John the sons of Zebedee.
These men were powerful men.
James was the first of the apostles to be martyred.
He was the only one that's actually recorded in the Bible from the apostles in Acts 12 to these are powerful mental they're called the sons of thunder.
(26:40):
So they're brawlers in their own right.
And then we come to Judas Thaddeus now I think that it's pretty interesting.
This is Jude or Lebiah's he was the son of Alpheus or or Cleophas and Mary he lived in Galilee, and he was a brother of James the younger.
He is also called Judas the zealot. So like Simon, who we will talk about in a minute he was an intense violent nationalist with the dream of world power domination by God's chosen people.
(27:13):
So today we think of you know you might hear the derogatory term used against Jews called the Zionists and stuff like that well this is kind of what the zealots were like back in that time, not that I believe fully in the, in the slander against the
government today. You know there's there's definitely, you know, bad people in any group. And I don't mean to, you know, downplay any of that, but we want to focus in on this today so he was a zealot so he was like a Jewish nationalist that wanted to
(27:43):
overthrow the government.
And then we also come to like the next level of the disciples the lesser knowns if you will there's just less more info less information about them but Philip.
And then you have Bartholomew or Nathaniel who's true is your Israelite and whom there's nothing false that's all we know about these two.
(28:08):
And James also called James the less was the son of Altheus and Mary he was also the brother of Jude, which we touched on lived in Galilee.
And unlike James the greater he's one of the most obscure of the apostles, and then we come to the distributed that is this, sorry the disreputable apostles.
(28:30):
And then we have Matthew also known as Levi son of Altheus who lived in Capernaum. He was a tax collector.
One of the most despised people in Jewish culture at the time.
After all he made his living off the backs of his Jewish brothers for the for the Roman Empire.
(28:51):
And then we have Thomas often referred to as doubting Thomas living, he lived in Galilee. He was known to be a pessimist and a bewildered man, a man who couldn't believe until he had seen it with his own eyes.
And we have the other zealots I'm in the zealot. It was a canine I who lived in Galilee.
And he's also one of the lesser known disciples in the Bible.
(29:13):
And his name was only mentioned three times in the Bible so we don't know about him except that he was a zealot zealots for these fanatical Jewish nationalists I already talked about.
They were crazed with their hatred for the Romans and this is who Jesus called to for his disciples.
These men are who he called.
But we can't leave out the last of the disciples right.
(29:37):
The betrayer.
Judas Iscariot.
The interesting thing about Judas Iscariot is that he was considered to be good with money.
And he was designated the treasurer of the group so we get this picture of Judas as being the only person educated the only person with, you know, some savvy or some, you know, upbringing.
(30:03):
And we know from John 12 verses four through six that he was also completely untrustworthy. He was a covetous man who sought the recognition of the governor.
He betrayed Jesus with a kiss into the hands of the enemy for 30 pieces of silver.
So why is it that we get this picture of Jesus Christ with his disciples.
(30:26):
Later to become apostles all but one.
The one that the world would say is the most qualified.
But in reality was the one to most quickly betray our Lord and Savior.
So in the end we come to my final point which is the third string pick or picks the least likely apostle.
(30:50):
And so I already mentioned how King David's my favorite Bible character.
But a very very close second is the special apostleship of Paul or Saul.
This is the office given to the man who is the apostle for the Gentiles.
He had a very public ministry of Jesus.
(31:12):
And he stands as a witness for the grace of God.
The apostle to the Gentiles it is this very unique purpose that we find in our brother Paul.
He wasn't part of the 12 even when they replaced Judas.
He isn't one of the 12.
He's the 13th apostle.
(31:33):
And we can see that I.
They said he was accepted by the 12 apostles as someone sharing their tasks and responsibilities in second Peter 315.
But what makes him so interesting is that Paul was a former persecutor of Christians.
And countering Jesus through the blinding light that met him on the road to Damascus.
(31:58):
So one day he's holding the coats of men who are stoning.
Stefan the Saint as he witnessed to the crowd about Jesus.
So he is condoning the murder of a Christian.
And then when he's traveling he encounters this life changing interaction with Jesus Christ.
(32:21):
By the grace of God and the good news of Jesus Christ he comes face to face with our Lord.
So he's considered the apostle for those that don't belong to the tribe of Israel.
So now you have this kosher.
Trained educated.
Jew.
And his mission is now to go and preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
(32:45):
What a crazy idea.
He's a Pharisee.
Here he is an educated.
You know raised within the political sphere of the ruling or the elite class of Jewish society.
And what does he get?
What does God do?
(33:06):
He makes him the apostle to us the Gentiles the people that are not from the tribes of Israel.
What an amazing mystery.
What a powerful testimony.
Paul was the least likely to be called by Jesus.
But regardless he came face to face with our Savior and that meeting left Paul blind and all of his beliefs shaken.
(33:30):
This led to his powerful conversion and he moved from persecutor and killer of Christians to one of the most devout and important preachers of all the gospel.
As the apostle of the Gentiles it was Paul that we have the most to thank for his ministry and bringing the good news to the Gentile world.
(33:52):
And his challenging of even Peter to live according to the words of Jesus Christ and the mission of Christ.
So where do we stand today?
Well we are the oddballs and the misfits.
Many more of Jesus' followers were thieves, prostitutes, Gentiles and others that society deemed unworthy.
The key of all this is that we are never beyond redemption and salvation.
(34:16):
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and you know he works in fire services for like a fire hall.
And there were some seminary students that came and he was just really remarking at how good these boys were and you know how diligent they worked and how polite they were.
And I was like that's great. These are Christian kids raised in Christianity and they obviously were the cream of the crop because they want to be in the fire service and it's very good.
(34:46):
But what I pushed my friend on I said you want to know something that's even more amazing?
Is if you ever met a sinner radically saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have our pastors in Russia. We have our our fellowship churches all throughout the world.
But I use Russia as an example. I use some of our churches in the southern United States or the southwest rather where we have gang members.
(35:12):
Rough tough gang members, Russian gang members, Latino gang members.
I've known personally of at least two people that previous to coming to Christ had been shot in the face.
No joke, shot in the face.
I don't mean to sound like Joseph Biden by saying no joke, but it's no joke.
They were shot in the face.
(35:34):
And luckily they survived in the grace of God was able to come into their lives and now they are powerful preachers.
We have drug addicts. We have all these people who God reached in and pulled them out of the mire.
And now they are a force for Christ.
That's what we're lacking in today's church.
Largely is these powerful, powerful men.
(35:58):
I'm looking for the next generation of people that are out there right now that are sinners that God is going to be able to put his hand on and change them.
And that powerful conversion is going to be able to change their life, just like it changed Paul's.
So that is why even when it's the we look at it being the end times, we're called to push forward.
(36:23):
We are meant to recognize the time and continually move forward with the purpose of Christ.
We are called to preach to every living creature.
You can't shut down when you're fearful or when you feel unworthy.
It is Christ in you that empowers us, empowers you and will work through you.
So we have to remember all of these outcasts misfits and understand that God loves all of us and is often the most unlikely people that God chooses for the highest and most impactful ministries
(36:58):
like Moses in the wilderness or David in the fields, God chooses those who will give their heart to him.
Judas Iscariot had all of the training and skills, but he refused to give Jesus his heart.
And it was here where he became willing to betray our Savior.
Jesus chooses us and he's chosen you to and Ephesians to eight through 10 for by grace, you have been saved through faith.
(37:28):
And this is not your own doing.
It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
So in closing, it is time to give Jesus your heart, give him your heart fully.
(37:50):
And all of the rest will come in time.
He will strengthen you. He will help you. He will lift you up.
He knows that it is not easy.
He knows that there are times when we falter, but he will be there to pick you up again.
Give him your heart because he has already given you his life as a sacrifice that you might be saved.
(38:14):
If I could have every head bowed, every eye closed, wherever you are, if it's safe, I just want to quickly take a moment to close this message off.
If you haven't given your life to Jesus Christ, now's the time.
There's no time but like right now.
Don't let a moment go by.
If you know that this message is spoken to you and it's hit you in your heart and you want to signify that you it's time and you know it, you can do that.
(38:44):
Raise your hand. I can't see it, but God sees it.
Raise your hand. Don't wait.
Raise your hand.
If you rose your hand and you meant that I want you to repeat after me.
Dear Lord God.
I know that you sent your son, Jesus Christ, to die for my sins, and I know that I'm a sinner.
I repent and turn away from my sin, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
(39:11):
And I thank you for the salvation that comes through grace and grace alone.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
If you pray that prayer, then your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You meant that.
And it's a powerful thing and I want to commend you for it and I ask you to reach out.
(39:33):
Let me know you prayed that prayer. I want to pray for you.
I want to help you.
If you're in Sam and Arm, please come to church because a podcast is just a podcast.
But coming to church and being part of the body of Christ is really what God wants you to do to have that real world fellowship with other believers.
(39:54):
So with that, I want to thank you all for listening to this message today.
And I want to welcome you back next time.
And in the meantime, I hope that you'll subscribe, like and share this podcast.
I'm going to be trying to change things up. I promised you guys before that I'm going to put up some other conference sermons from a you know from some bonus ones from this last conference.
(40:19):
And then I'm going to also put some up from earlier conferences, just so that there's always something for you to listen to so that you can carve off that tithe of your time to listening to and diving into the Word of God.
Because God wants to help you and he wants your focus to be on him so that he can speak into your life.
So again, thank you for listening. God bless and I can't wait for you to come back next time.
(40:47):
Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A. Potter's House Sam and Arm podcast.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at pottershouse underscore Sam and Arm to keep up to date on what we're doing.
Join the conversation and discover how Jesus Christ can revolutionize your life.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!