December 1, 2023 • 45 mins
Join us as Pastor Scott leads us in week 2 of our brand-new sermon series titled "Your Next Step."
and be sure to visit our website https://defiancenazarene.org/
& did you know you could give online? https://defiancenazarene.org/online-giving/
and be sure to visit our website https://defiancenazarene.org/
& did you know you could give online? https://defiancenazarene.org/online-giving/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have spent the last three weeks going through steps
what our next steps would be. We have our mission
and we say, okay, these are the things we want
to accomplish at the church. This is what we believe
that God has called us to God for some reason.
And I don't know that reason, but I think for
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some reason, God decided to put this church on this
corner at this time in all of history. And because
I believe in that is why I'm here, and I
also believe that's why you're here. And I believe that
because He put us here, that he gave us a purpose,
and he gave us a mission for things that he
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wants to us accomplished before he comes back. Now, every
day in the United States and around the world, churches
are shutting down each and every day. They don't open
the doors. They go up one Sunday and nobody shows
up and they're done. One of these days that may
be our future. But until that time comes, we are
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here to accomplish God's purpose. Anybody with me on that, Okay,
So let's bring it up. It's our mission is who
I want you to repeat it with me. Our mission
is to love God, love others, grow deep and repeat. Obviously,
we say that every week, and we've been pushing that
very hard. It's in our emails, it's in in our messages,
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and we've been pushing that, and we were going to
continue pushing that because we want our people, we want
to be a people that our community knows that we
love God, we love others, we're growing deep in our
faith and we're going to repeat that. We're going to
help others to love God, to love others, to grow deep,
and to teach others how to repeat. Right, that's our goal.
(01:50):
And so for the last three weeks, we've we've gone
through these these uh, these steps, and let's pull those
steps up. So in step one, we said no, Jesus, yes,
we want everyone to We believe in provenient grace. It's
this grace that God is working beforehand. God is working
in the lives of people. God is creating moments that
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that people can come to know Him. And so God
has been doing that with people and bringing them in
and and and so in that in that period of
time of knowing Jesus, we're asking people to listen, to
learn to pursue and to be pursued, to recognize God's
pursuit to experience experience God and in all the different
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areas that that he's working in their lives and through
their lives and experiencing it through the people that we
come in contact, and we want him to experience that.
And then we also during this no phase where it's
about connecting, it's about connecting to to other believers, and
they're sharing who Jesus is. It's it's sharing who who
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that is and and and just creating relationship that can
demonstrate Jesus to them. And the next one was receive Jesus.
And so we don't want you just to know about it, and
we don't want it just here. There's a lot of
people in this world who, oh, I know Jesus. In fact,
some of them know more about Jesus than you do.
They've read the Bible, they've got it all right up here.
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They think they got it all together, but they haven't
moved it from here. They haven't moved it that one foot.
They haven't moved it from here to here, and they
haven't received Jesus as their Lord and savior. And there's
a big difference. There's a massive difference between saying I
know who Jesus is. Satan knows who Jesus is. Satan
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knows the word. We have to move it from here
to here, and so we went through our ABC's. We
have to admit there were sinners. We have to admit
that I can't save myself, that I am not in
the place that where I can be good. I can't.
I can't do anything but God. The world is filled
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with sin. I am filled with sin, and I have
to admit that the first step to healing is knowing
that I am a sinner. And I have to believe.
I have to believe that Jesus is the savior of
the world. If we don't believe that, if we think
he was just this good guy, he's got some great teachings,
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he just got some great words and makes us feel good.
If we think that he wasn't God, that that I
can only I can just be good enough on a
regular basis, and I just gotta that's not it. We
have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He died
on a cross, and he rose on that grave, rose
from the grave for us. And then because we believe that,
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when we've got to get to the place where we
confess Jesus, I am a sinner. I'm a sinner. Forgive
me for my sins. I want you in my life.
Take these sins me. I cannot save myself. I am
not a moral person. We've talked about the word moralism.
I cannot earn my way into heaven by how good
I am. And then we changed it. We said baptism,
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but we added to to to d this, this this
word of dedicate or declare that, and I I am
a believer. And thus I'm going to declare to the
world that I am a believer. I have died to
my sins, and I have been raised in righteousness through baptism.
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Baptism UHH is the act of being submerged in the
into the grave and raised to life in Christ. And
then finally we went to follow Jesus. And Pastor Tara
talked about this last week and and it's it's this
sanctifying grace. It's this this understanding that we need this
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second work of God working our lives. It's where I
set myself apart. I'm not just saved and saying whooh,
I got my fire insurance covered. But it's this understanding.
It's this where the Holy Spirit in dwells within us,
and I give him all of who I am, every
part of who I am, and it's being sanctified holy
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in Christ. It's an all in. You use those words
all in. It's it's not like one foot in, Oh
the water's cold. It's jumping all in, head first, all
of who I am, every bit of who I am
as a being. I'm going to give you all of
who I am. We're gonna have to grow. We're not
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going to be who Jesus wants us to be. Without
spending time with the Savior. We cannot be who Jesus.
It's like a baseball player is a professional baseball players.
They want to be a professional baseball player, but they
never practice. They never swing a bat, they never throw
a ball, they never catch it, they never run the bases,
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they never exercise. They just sit and watch it on
TV and say, I'm a professional baseball player. Take that
analogy a little further. I want to be a Christian
and all I want to do is sit in a
chair on Sunday morning. I never want to read my Bible.
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I never want to spend time in prayer. I never
want to go to church. I never want to be
involved in this ministry or be involved in that ministry.
I don't want to go to a small group. I
don't want to go to Sunday school. I don't want
to learn more, and I don't want to invest more.
And I don't want to be a part of that.
I just want to sit and absorb it. And I say,
I understand the sport. Thus I'm a professional. We have
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to grow. We have to love God. That's in our mission.
We have to love God. We have to spend time
in worship. We have to spend time loving God with
all of who we are. We to begin to grasp
the heart of God by spending time with Jesus. We
can love him because we can trust him. I love
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that line. We can love Jesus, we can love the
Savior because we can learn to trust in him. It's
really tough to love somebody if you don't trust him.
You have a real hard time liking them, let alone
love in them. If there's somebody out there that I
can't trust, I just I don't want to be around him.
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If I didn't believe anything that they said or did,
I just don't want to be around him. But I
could tell you today goes back to what I said
while ago about being alone. You can trust in Jesus
you are not alone, and then we have to learn
to love others. Part of following Jesus is loving others.
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Jesus Jesus lingered with people. Do you ever read that
in scripture? He hung with people. He didn't avoid people. Now,
I understand not everybody's personality is my person. But Jesus
made it his his intention that if somebody was there,
he was going to be there for a while. He
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spent time, and it was his purpose. And I think
there was you know, there was disciples. I don't know
if that was necessarily their strong suit, but they did
it anyway. They stretched themselves. People are hurting in need,
in search of hope, and we hold the hope in
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our hands. Our world is in need of hope, and
we have it with us. Jesus goes after the sheep
if it's his only one. Tara brought up the going
for the leaving the ninety nine behind for the one.
You are the one, and so is the person next
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to you, and so is the person next to your house,
and the person you see at the gas station, and
the person you see at the store. They are the one.
The coin was lost, and it was even lost in
our own house. Excuse me, I've been struggling with a
cough this morning. The coin was lost in our own house.
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And I know some of you are struggling with the
lost coin in your home, and that's a struggle for you.
But Jesus is searching for that lost one in your home,
that lost one in your household. But we are responsible
to search for them as if there are lost coin
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as well. We have to love others. So no Jesus,
received Jesus, follow Jesus. And step four is serve Jesus,
serving Jesus. We've got these four steps and we're kind
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to walk us through of I don't know Jesus too,
to the point until you get to man, I want
to serve Jesus with all of who I am. Can
you see the path? I mean, I remember when I
was here. I remember when I was here, and I
remember as I started working my way through this. And
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I'm not saying I've got this all all completed by
any stretch of the imagination, but I can see my
path and I can see where I didn't know Jesus
and I can remember when I got saved, and I
can remember when when I began to follow him, and
I begin and I remember some parts of my life
when I began to serve him and I got sanctified.
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And so let's bring up Ephesians. Excuse me, Ephesians two
eight through ten, for by grace you have been saved
through faith. And this is not your own doing. It
is the gift of God, not as a result of work,
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so that no one may boast. For we are as
workmanship created in Christ Jesus, for good works which God
prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So I
have this reminder, the reminder. I talked about this a
couple of weeks ago. It was about moralism. And the
first reminder is that faith leads to good works. It's
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not the other way around. Good works do not save us, don't.
We don't go the other way around. Like I can
be good enough. Oh, look at pastor terror just helping
me out. She's trying to be sneaky like you won't
see her. Thank you so much. Got this tickle in
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my throat. But we don't work it the other way around.
That if I'm good enough, then Jesus will save me.
It's the other way around. Jesus saves me, and then
I take what I do in order to serve him.
I begin to serve him. I begin to do the
good works because he saved me. Thank you. I begin
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to do the things that are good and holy and
righteous because I am thankful we just came through thanksgiving.
I do the things that I do as a believer.
I preach because God saved me, and I've got something
to say about it. I do the things that I do.
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I align my life towards doing the things that God
wants me to do. Not because I think I can
earn his favor, not because of anything like that, but
because I am so grateful that he saved me, and
that he has brought me to this place, and he's
given me certain abilities, and he's given me certain talents,
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and he's given me certain resources. And because he's given
it to me, and because he gave me everything, I'm saying, God,
it is all yours, and you can have it back,
and I'm going to do all I can to serve
you and help you and do whatever I gotta do
because I've got a good message today. I've got a
message of Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ can be
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the savior of your life as well. And I want
to share that. And so we have to remember that
we do not save ourselves, but Jesus saves us. Our
good works come as a result of that. For we
are what He has made us. We are created in Christ.
We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
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God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. That's
in verse ten. Read that again. For we are what
He has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life life.
He prepared us in advance to save us and use
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us to be people of good works. And our good
works are the byproduct of what God has done in us.
They reflect God's glory, not ours. I don't do what
I do in order to get your praise or anyone's praise.
I don't try to show things off and say this
is what God has done so that I everybody goes, oh, Scott,
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you're so good. And I know I am. I'm probably
the most humble person you're ever gonna meet. You got
some of you caught that, But I don't do it
for you. I don't do it for you. I've always
foult it, found it kind of feeling kind of weird,
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and I appreciate it. Don't don't take this wrong. But
after we preach a lot of times the pastors will
walk down and we'll go back and we'll shake your
hands and you're like, oh, it's such a good sermon today,
and I'm like, thank you, And a lot of times
I want to ask, well, what was good about it?
Did you learn anything? Because it feels good. Don't misunderstand me.
I want you to encourage me. I don't want you
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to be like, man, that was awful. That was the
worst sermon you've ever preached. Thank you. I'll go home
and ponder that. I don't want to hear that. So
I will probably still go back there today and you
can shake my hand and say, Scott, that was the
best one ever. It'll make me feel good. But that's
not why we do it for right, it's not why
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we serve. We don't serve for all the glory for us. First,
Peter says, this show hospitality to one another without grumbling,
as each has received a gift. Use it to serve
one another as good stewards of God's very grace. Whoever speaks,
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as one who speaks the oracles of God, whoever serves
as one who serves by the strength that God supplies,
in order that in everything God may be glorified. Through
Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen,
Did you catch all that? We have all been given
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a gift, one, the gift of salvation, the grace that
God has given us. We've received that grace that God
decided for whatever reason. It's love, But I don't understand
his love. He decided to reach out and love me
and save me and call me his own. And I've
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been given that gift. But on top of that gift,
he has given me all kinds of other gifts. He's
given me high abilities, whatever they may be. He's given
me people in resources and things and opportunities, and all
those are laying out before me, and all those things
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are sitting out here. And it says each has received
a gift, Use it to serve one another. Use it
to serve one another. It's not a like, hey, if
you got it, maybe you could use it to serve
one another. And then how as good stewards of God's
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varied grace? Why because so that God may be glorified
through Christ Jesus. So the word stewards is thrown in there,
and I want to talk about that's a pullback from
this passage out of Matthew. And so I'm gonna I
don't have it on the screen, So I want you
to listen to it. And I didn't put it on
the screen because it's a long story and I want
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you to engage, and I want you to listen and
use your imagination a little bit instead of just following along.
So listen to this story. It's Matthew twenty five fourteen.
For it would be like a man going on a
journey called his servants and entrusted them to his property.
To one, he gave five talents. Now let's stop here.
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Talents is not like my skills. It's not that it's
not to one he gave him five skills. He gave
him a talent, which was money. And I tried to
figure out what that what how much is a talent worth? Well?
How much was it worth? And the answer I got
amazed me. I didn't think it was this much, But
hold on, a second. I don't want to cough at
you again. A talent according to what I researched, and
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I saw some varied ones, but one that came across
was a talent was twenty years of wages. Think about that.
Take your whatever you earn the last twenty years. That's
one talent. Just add it up. It's a lot, right,
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So keep that in mind. To one he gave five talents, okay,
to another, to another, two to another, one to each
according to his ability. Then he went away. He would
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receive the five talents, went at once and traded with them,
and he made five more talents. So also he who
had the two talents made two talents more. But he
who had received the one talent went and dug a
hole in the ground hid his master's money. No, after
a long time, the master of the servants came and
settled accounts with them, and he said to and he
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who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five
talents more, and saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents.
Here I have made five talents more. His master said
to them, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been
faithful over a little I will set you over much,
Enter the joy of your master. And he also, who
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had the two talents, came forward, saying, Master, you delivered
me two talents. Here I have made two talents more.
His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servants.
You have been faithful over a little. I will set
you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.
He also had received the one talent, came forward, say, Master,
I knew you'd be a hard man, reaping where you
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did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed.
So I was afraid, and I went and hid your
talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.
But his master answered him, you, wicked and sinful, slothful servant.
You knew that I reap where I have not sown,
and gathered where I'd not scattered no seed. Then you
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ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and
at my coming I should have received what was my
own with interest. So take the talent from him and
give it to him who has the ten talents. To
everyone who has will be more given, and he will
have an abundance. But from the one who has not
what he has will be taken away and cast that
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worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, I find
it interesting that the Master goes away and he gives
them this money, and he and he and he says, here,
here's here's one hundred years. The first one. Here's one
hundred years, one hundred years worth of money of salary.
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Next one he gives two those talents because forty years.
The last one he gives twenty years. And I find
it interesting when the when the Master comes back and
he says, you have done much with what a little?
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Do you do? You get the irony of that. Jesus
doesn't look at what we have is a lot. We
may think we've got everything, and it's like, oh, and
I've got all this stuff. Jesus says, I have given
you what you can handle. It's nothing compared to me.
It's nothing compared to what I have. I've given you
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a little. I've given you one hundred years of salary.
You've been faithful with that little bit that I've given you.
Jesus is understanding and our understanding of what we have
are two different worlds. I think I've got a lot,
and I hang on to that, and I hang on
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to us so tight. And Jesus is sitting there saying,
if you will only give me what you have and
be faithful with what you have, that's nothing. Let me
show you what I got. Did you catch that? I've
got so much more that I can give you. So
the question of the day is why why do we
do this? And Matthew continues, and this is going to
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be on the screen. When the Son of Man comes
in his glory and all the angels with him. Then
he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will
be gathered all the nations, and he will separate the
people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep
from the goats. And we will place the sheep on
his right, but the goats on his left. Then the
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king will say to those on his right, come you,
who are blessed by my Father inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundations of the world. For I
was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty,
and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and
you welcomed me in. I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me. I was in
prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will
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answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry
and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink?
And when did we see you as a stranger and
welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did
we see you sick or imprison and visit you? And
the King will answer them, truly, I say to you,
as you did for the least of these of my brothers.
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You did it for me. Did you catch that? But
then he will say to those to his left, depart
from me. You cursed into the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and
you did not give me food. I was thirsty and
you gave me no drink. I was stranger and did
not welcome me in naked, you did not clothe me
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sick and in prison, and did not visit me. Then
they will answer also, answer saying, Lord, when did we
see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked,
or sick or in prison and did not minister to you.
Then he will answer them, saying, truly, I say to
you as you did not do it for the least
of these. You did not do it for me, And
these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous
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into eternal life. Those are some hard verses. But when
we go back and we look at this word and
says be good stewards of God's very grace, it's talking
about being a good use the things that God wants
us to use that He has given us to do,
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these incredible things for those who are around us. So
how do we do this? How does the rubber? Where's
the rubber meet the road? When it comes to all
of this, what is? What is? These are the great
stories Scott, It's in the Bible. You didn't have to
write it. It's a great story. And I feel it.
It feels good. I get it. But how do we
do it? One we grow deep. It's part of what
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we've been talking about of following Jesus and knowing Jesus
and so forth, But it goes even further than that.
It's part of our mission. That part of serving is
growing deep, and we have to grow deep in our
relationship with Jesus, and in order to do that, we
have to serve others. Part of growing deep and being
a follower of Jesus is being a follower of Jesus
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where we serve other people. Jesus didn't go around, We
don't read a scripture. Was Jesus was always saying, Hey,
give that to me. Hey, I'm gonna sit here. You
guys go and do oh. I realize you're paralyzed, but
you know whatever, Jesus was a servant. In fact, we
know that Jesus, though he was the king of kings
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and Lord of lords, he knelt down and washed the
disciples feet. We know he served us by going to
the cross. We know what his whole life was about
to come and to save the lost and to serve
the lost. We know that. We understand that. But in
order for us to grow deeper in our faith, we
have to take that next step and grow deep and serve.
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We have been given. Grace has been given to us freely,
and we need to begin to use grace towards others
and serve them freely. We need to start looking at
our lives that way. We have a gift, We have
lots of gift, and we need to share it. We
need to share it. Second one is I said God
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values everyone. Everyone means everyone. God doesn't just value me
more than he values those in Palestine. Right now, I'd
like to think that to be honest, when it comes
to Hamas, these people who go out and do all
these works. But God looks at people and says, that
is my child, and they've gone so far away. Some
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of you have children that have gone so far away,
and you know the pain that that brings in your life.
God looks at each one of us and he says,
that is my child. I need them to be doing X,
Y and Z, and I love them and I value them.
God thanks the person next to you, the person who
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lives next to you, the person you will see at
the store and you see on TV or the computer,
are just as invaluable to him as you are. John
three point sixteen says, for God so loved the world,
not your world, not my world, but the whole entire
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world and everyone in it. God loves all of us,
and we need to begin to serve people and value
people and grow deep that way. So the second one
I put here is we need to give and belong.
Now this is a little more difficult and it's going
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to run into different things, but you know that when
you serve people. It stretches us, it really does. There
are things that I really don't like doing, but God
makes me do them anyway. There's things that God doesn't
make me do, but I know it's the right thing.
It doesn't mean I like it. Okay, let's be honest.
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How many of you enjoy taking the chairs down and
setting them up every week? I mean some of you
may just go, yes, we get to take the chairs
down and then I get to put them up again.
I've never felt that way. I just gotta lay it
out there. I've never felt that way, but I know
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that in order for you to have this nice comfortable
seat that you're sitting in, that is I am as
currently in my physical condition. Though it may not be great,
I can still set up and take down chairs. I can,
and so I am willing to do that for the
Body of Christ so that we can worship together. Right.
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That's an example, not saying it now. It's great if
you all want to do that one of these days again,
but that's just an example. There are things that we
don't like to do, but God stretches us and does
the things that we don't want to do. Some of
you are in I get it, And you don't like
shaking hands. When we say go and meet somebody this morning,
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make them feel welcome. I don't want to. I don't
want to meet anybody. I get it. There are people
in this room who don't want to do that. But
we do it anyway. Why Because everybody's valuable and they
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need to be felt like they belong. And it stretches us,
It moves us, It asks us the gives of ourselves
and what we have. Growth happens in our muscles when
we begin to stretch them and use them. A trophy
happens when we don't. Right. Anybody who's done any kind
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of exercise understands that serving stretches us because it connects
us to others. We have to realize that we are kinsmen.
We are all part of this big family. One in
our church, we're all part of this big family. But
outside of that, we're all part of the family that
God has created. They are brothers and sisters all outside
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this building who don't know Jesus, and we need to
find ways to reach into their lives. Everybody's a stranger
until you meet them. When I came here, I didn't know,
but a handful of you, and I only knew you
because I had met Dawn and we came back a
couple times, and I came to a couple of services
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and you were like, Hey, that's her boyfriend, or they
that's her fiance. And eventually I got to know you. You're
not strangers to me anymore. But everybody is a stranger
until you meet them. And we've got to get to this, like, well,
I don't know them. Of course, you don't know them
until you meet them. It stretches us and it's not comfortable,
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but we realize that they are part of our family.
I put on here that joining the body Believers is
also part of church membership. Now, we've been having membership
classes and we like, why do we have membership in
a church? Why do we even talk about membership? I mean,
what's the advantage there? Used to be an ad you know.
Membership has its privileges. Remember that it was a credit
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card for those who were my age or older. Membership
has its privileges. It does it does. Church membership has
its privileges, opportunities and responsibilities. We ask people to join
the Church of the Nazarenes, specifically this church for a
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couple of reasons. One it says that I believe in
what we're doing. I want to associate with this group
of people. These are my people. This is my church.
This is the people that I believe in what they're
doing and what they're saying. And there's there's something about
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that that I do that with my family, don't you know.
There's a couple of my family. I don't do that well,
but there's But for the most part my family, I'm like,
they're my family. This is my people. And the truth is,
if you attack my people, I'm coming after you, right.
I will defend and protect my people. And I can't
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just run away from my family. I'd like to occasionally,
but I can't. And they and the reality of that
is they can't run for me. That's the reality of it.
They can't just leave me. I won't let them. I will.
I know when they're gone, and I know when they're
there they're mine. And so church membership says this is
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my church. Now, we have lots of people. We have
people throughout our community who said that's my church and
they haven't been here in twenty years. There are people,
there are there are kids, There are kids who grew
up in our church, and if they had something going on,
if they needed a funeral or a wedding, they will
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call us and say, you're my pastor, you're my church.
That's my church. But is it? Is it? We have
had an effect on their lives. We have been part
of their lives and they are part of us. But
that is not the same. It's saying this is my church,
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these are my people. It's an agreement. So I said
there was some privileges and some opportunities. You know, if
you are not a member of this church, you have
no rights to vote for the leadership of this church.
You can't be on the church board, which is in
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a very important position. You can't beyond one of our
leadership roles in our church. If you're not a church member,
you cannot help guide and lead this church. Your voice
does not count in that respect because you've determined that
you don't want to be a member. But the truth
is you're important. Your voice is important. I want you
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to vote vote on the board members. I want you
to be on the board. I want you to be
in leadership, and we can't because you're not a member
of our church. So membership is important, and there's a
responsibility with that, but there is an opportunity with that
to serve God in different capacities that you cannot do
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outside of membership. And so the last thing I put
in this section here is this parable is not about investing.
It's about not hoarding. This parable is not about you know,
oh he gave me. We see what happens when the
one holds it and buries it and doesn't do anything.
And it's not about and it's about taking what God
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has given us and investing it into the Kingdom, Taking
everything that we have and investing it in the Kingdom.
Verse ten and one, Peter four says, as each has
received a gifts, use it to serve one another as
good stewards of God's very grace. This passage is about
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the church serving the church. I'm sorry, I'm running a
little late today. We belong to each other and are
responsible for each other. We are to use our gifts
to build the Kingdom of God and build the Family
of God. By pouring ourselves into each other and committing
ourselves to each other. We are saying, I will take
this journey with you and prove it. I will help you.
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Why because I love you. I wrote down here ties
and offerings. Yes, this parable talks about ties and offerings,
not just your spiritual gifts or your talents and your attitude.
Tewod Corinthians nine says, so I thought it necessary to
urge the brothers to go on ahead of you and
arrange advance the gift you have promised, so that it
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may be readily ready and a willingly, a willing gift,
not as an extraction. The point is this, whoever sows
sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also
reap bountifully. Each one must give what he has decided
in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, For God
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loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make
all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency
in all things, at all times, you may have bound
in every good work. We're gonna keep moving. Number three
multiplication Tewod Corinthian says for the ministry of the services
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not only for supplying the needs of the saints, but
is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. The point
of what we do, the point of serving, is not
so that we help ourselves. But it is to multiply
the kingdom. Pastor was up here about Cuba. Why would
he ask us to give toilet seats? How can that
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possibly be important? Because it will help multiply the kingdom.
Something as simple as a toilet seat. We give of
what we have. So self examination time. We're gonna wrap
this up with this. The last four weeks we've talked
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about the steps, the four steps. So today I'm going
to have you give yourself an exam and I want
you to think about it. Nobody likes exams, but think
about this. What is our mission at DCN To love God,
love others, grow deep, and repeat. So over the past
four weeks we've outlined the four steps. We believe there
are steps we need to take as a body to
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reach our mission. Now's the time to evaluate where you
stand in the steps. Step one, Know Jesus. Are you
trying to figure Jesus out? Are you recognizing His work
around you and experiencing it? Are you trying to listen
and learn more about Jesus by attending a life group, Sunday,
school class or other group. Are you coming to His
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services on Sunday in order to worship and learn the
moret about Jesus consistently. Step two, Have you received Jesus?
Have you accepted Jesus as our savior? Have you admitted
you are a sinner who needs a savior because you
can't save yourself and can't be good enough to do it.
Do you believe that Jesus is who he says he is,
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the savior of the world, who came to save sinners,
who died on the cross and rose from the grave
for you and for me. Have you confessed your sins
to him and asked for forgiveness for those sins? Have
you declared to the world you have been forgiven, buried
in your sins, and resurrected in righteousness through baptism. Step
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three following Jesus, are you in this? Are you all in?
Have you made Jesus lord of your life, not just
your savior? Have you been sanctified, set apart for God's work,
not your work? Have you released yourself into God's hands?
Are you growing in your relationship with Jesus daily? Are
you spending time with Him in prayer and Bible study,
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in community and worship consistently? Are you learning to love
God more? In each day. Are you worshiping him? Are
you loving others? What about others outside your group? Are
you intentionally trying to interact with others and be Jesus
to them? Or are you judging them harder than you
are loving them? And Step four? Are you serving Jesus
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not because you think that'll save you, because God has
called you to serve. Are you serving Jesus as a
way to demonstrate your love for Jesus and thus helping
you to grow deeper in your relationship with him? Have
you joined the church and membership being part of the
Body of Christ that says we are together in one accord,
a community of faith with common goals to love and
serve each other. Are you sharing your money with the
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Kingdom building process through your tithes and offerings and gifts
to the church to help it provide for ministries and
the mission. Are you giving to others? Are you serving
by sowing the seed of the Gospel, the good News
of Jesus in your community, your friends and family. Are
you inviting others to experience Jesus through you and our church?
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Are you doing this consistently and repeating the process over
and over and over again. In others' lives, helping them
to find Jesus and pointing them in the right direction.
That's a whole lot. And I said it real fast.
But where are you in the steps? Not saying you're
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going to have it all completely down, but what step
do you think you're in where you find yourself. Maybe
there's parts of that that you need to be working
on in each of those steps to help with the
mission of Christ. In this church, we're on this journey together.
This path we're setting before you is the path that
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we believe that can bring people to Jesus. I think
it's amazing that church that he had in Cuba had
ninety four people in it. We average about ninety five
people on Sunday mornings. Here. Look at all the empty seats.
Wouldn't it be cool if we had to add seats.
Wouldn't be cool if they were standing out in the
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hallways trying to listen. That's our responsibility working with God.
That's our responsibility working with God. So last thing, what
do you do with this? Now? I'm going to suggest
I got three things that I would like you to do. One,
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I would love for you to tell one of the
pastors where you're at sometime maybe today, next week, this week, Wednesday.
I don't care like you to say and examine yourself
and say this is where I'm at in the steps.
Be honest with yourself and with somebody else. That's hard
to do, but it's but it's it's necessary. Second thing
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I'd like you to do is what is you figure out?
What is your plan to move forward? Once you tell
one of us, tell us what your plan is to
move forward. And the third thing, if you're not serving,
tell us you want to serve. Tell one of us
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that you want to serve, and we will help you
find a way that you can serve Christ amongst our
body that sound all functional. Tell us where you're at,
tell us how you're moving forward, and tell us if
you want to serve. Let's stand. God, you are good.
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I thank you for this time today. I thank you
for your people. I thank you for your blessings. I
thank you for this week that you gave us to
celebrate all the things that you've done. Got to pray
that this message, this series on steps, that you will
help us to reach the people for Jesus, help us
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to reach our world, help us to grow in our faith.
Help us to grow deep, help us to love you more. God.
That's why you have this church, that's why you have
this people. Help us to be your people the way
you want us to be. Don't let us be stagnant,
don't let us just be sitting still. But help us
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to grow and help us to change the world. Right
here in defiance, Ohio, we love you God, and we
thank you for everything in Jesus' name. Amen.
We have spent the last three weeks going through steps
what our next steps would be. We have our mission
and we say, okay, these are the things we want
to accomplish at the church. This is what we believe
that God has called us to God for some reason.
And I don't know that reason, but I think for
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some reason, God decided to put this church on this
corner at this time in all of history. And because
I believe in that is why I'm here, and I
also believe that's why you're here. And I believe that
because He put us here, that he gave us a purpose,
and he gave us a mission for things that he
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wants to us accomplished before he comes back. Now, every
day in the United States and around the world, churches
are shutting down each and every day. They don't open
the doors. They go up one Sunday and nobody shows
up and they're done. One of these days that may
be our future. But until that time comes, we are
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here to accomplish God's purpose. Anybody with me on that, Okay,
So let's bring it up. It's our mission is who
I want you to repeat it with me. Our mission
is to love God, love others, grow deep and repeat. Obviously,
we say that every week, and we've been pushing that
very hard. It's in our emails, it's in in our messages,
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and we've been pushing that, and we were going to
continue pushing that because we want our people, we want
to be a people that our community knows that we
love God, we love others, we're growing deep in our
faith and we're going to repeat that. We're going to
help others to love God, to love others, to grow deep,
and to teach others how to repeat. Right, that's our goal.
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And so for the last three weeks, we've we've gone
through these these uh, these steps, and let's pull those
steps up. So in step one, we said no, Jesus, yes,
we want everyone to We believe in provenient grace. It's
this grace that God is working beforehand. God is working
in the lives of people. God is creating moments that
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that people can come to know Him. And so God
has been doing that with people and bringing them in
and and and so in that in that period of
time of knowing Jesus, we're asking people to listen, to
learn to pursue and to be pursued, to recognize God's
pursuit to experience experience God and in all the different
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areas that that he's working in their lives and through
their lives and experiencing it through the people that we
come in contact, and we want him to experience that.
And then we also during this no phase where it's
about connecting, it's about connecting to to other believers, and
they're sharing who Jesus is. It's it's sharing who who
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that is and and and just creating relationship that can
demonstrate Jesus to them. And the next one was receive Jesus.
And so we don't want you just to know about it, and
we don't want it just here. There's a lot of
people in this world who, oh, I know Jesus. In fact,
some of them know more about Jesus than you do.
They've read the Bible, they've got it all right up here.
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They think they got it all together, but they haven't
moved it from here. They haven't moved it that one foot.
They haven't moved it from here to here, and they
haven't received Jesus as their Lord and savior. And there's
a big difference. There's a massive difference between saying I
know who Jesus is. Satan knows who Jesus is. Satan
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knows the word. We have to move it from here
to here, and so we went through our ABC's. We
have to admit there were sinners. We have to admit
that I can't save myself, that I am not in
the place that where I can be good. I can't.
I can't do anything but God. The world is filled
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with sin. I am filled with sin, and I have
to admit that the first step to healing is knowing
that I am a sinner. And I have to believe.
I have to believe that Jesus is the savior of
the world. If we don't believe that, if we think
he was just this good guy, he's got some great teachings,
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he just got some great words and makes us feel good.
If we think that he wasn't God, that that I
can only I can just be good enough on a
regular basis, and I just gotta that's not it. We
have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He died
on a cross, and he rose on that grave, rose
from the grave for us. And then because we believe that,
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when we've got to get to the place where we
confess Jesus, I am a sinner. I'm a sinner. Forgive
me for my sins. I want you in my life.
Take these sins me. I cannot save myself. I am
not a moral person. We've talked about the word moralism.
I cannot earn my way into heaven by how good
I am. And then we changed it. We said baptism,
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but we added to to to d this, this this
word of dedicate or declare that, and I I am
a believer. And thus I'm going to declare to the
world that I am a believer. I have died to
my sins, and I have been raised in righteousness through baptism.
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Baptism UHH is the act of being submerged in the
into the grave and raised to life in Christ. And
then finally we went to follow Jesus. And Pastor Tara
talked about this last week and and it's it's this
sanctifying grace. It's this this understanding that we need this
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second work of God working our lives. It's where I
set myself apart. I'm not just saved and saying whooh,
I got my fire insurance covered. But it's this understanding.
It's this where the Holy Spirit in dwells within us,
and I give him all of who I am, every
part of who I am, and it's being sanctified holy
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in Christ. It's an all in. You use those words
all in. It's it's not like one foot in, Oh
the water's cold. It's jumping all in, head first, all
of who I am, every bit of who I am
as a being. I'm going to give you all of
who I am. We're gonna have to grow. We're not
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going to be who Jesus wants us to be. Without
spending time with the Savior. We cannot be who Jesus.
It's like a baseball player is a professional baseball players.
They want to be a professional baseball player, but they
never practice. They never swing a bat, they never throw
a ball, they never catch it, they never run the bases,
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they never exercise. They just sit and watch it on
TV and say, I'm a professional baseball player. Take that
analogy a little further. I want to be a Christian
and all I want to do is sit in a
chair on Sunday morning. I never want to read my Bible.
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I never want to spend time in prayer. I never
want to go to church. I never want to be
involved in this ministry or be involved in that ministry.
I don't want to go to a small group. I
don't want to go to Sunday school. I don't want
to learn more, and I don't want to invest more.
And I don't want to be a part of that.
I just want to sit and absorb it. And I say,
I understand the sport. Thus I'm a professional. We have
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to grow. We have to love God. That's in our mission.
We have to love God. We have to spend time
in worship. We have to spend time loving God with
all of who we are. We to begin to grasp
the heart of God by spending time with Jesus. We
can love him because we can trust him. I love
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that line. We can love Jesus, we can love the
Savior because we can learn to trust in him. It's
really tough to love somebody if you don't trust him.
You have a real hard time liking them, let alone
love in them. If there's somebody out there that I
can't trust, I just I don't want to be around him.
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If I didn't believe anything that they said or did,
I just don't want to be around him. But I
could tell you today goes back to what I said
while ago about being alone. You can trust in Jesus
you are not alone, and then we have to learn
to love others. Part of following Jesus is loving others.
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Jesus Jesus lingered with people. Do you ever read that
in scripture? He hung with people. He didn't avoid people. Now,
I understand not everybody's personality is my person. But Jesus
made it his his intention that if somebody was there,
he was going to be there for a while. He
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spent time, and it was his purpose. And I think
there was you know, there was disciples. I don't know
if that was necessarily their strong suit, but they did
it anyway. They stretched themselves. People are hurting in need,
in search of hope, and we hold the hope in
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our hands. Our world is in need of hope, and
we have it with us. Jesus goes after the sheep
if it's his only one. Tara brought up the going
for the leaving the ninety nine behind for the one.
You are the one, and so is the person next
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to you, and so is the person next to your house,
and the person you see at the gas station, and
the person you see at the store. They are the one.
The coin was lost, and it was even lost in
our own house. Excuse me, I've been struggling with a
cough this morning. The coin was lost in our own house.
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And I know some of you are struggling with the
lost coin in your home, and that's a struggle for you.
But Jesus is searching for that lost one in your home,
that lost one in your household. But we are responsible
to search for them as if there are lost coin
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as well. We have to love others. So no Jesus,
received Jesus, follow Jesus. And step four is serve Jesus,
serving Jesus. We've got these four steps and we're kind
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to walk us through of I don't know Jesus too,
to the point until you get to man, I want
to serve Jesus with all of who I am. Can
you see the path? I mean, I remember when I
was here. I remember when I was here, and I
remember as I started working my way through this. And
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I'm not saying I've got this all all completed by
any stretch of the imagination, but I can see my
path and I can see where I didn't know Jesus
and I can remember when I got saved, and I
can remember when when I began to follow him, and
I begin and I remember some parts of my life
when I began to serve him and I got sanctified.
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And so let's bring up Ephesians. Excuse me, Ephesians two
eight through ten, for by grace you have been saved
through faith. And this is not your own doing. It
is the gift of God, not as a result of work,
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so that no one may boast. For we are as
workmanship created in Christ Jesus, for good works which God
prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So I
have this reminder, the reminder. I talked about this a
couple of weeks ago. It was about moralism. And the
first reminder is that faith leads to good works. It's
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not the other way around. Good works do not save us, don't.
We don't go the other way around. Like I can
be good enough. Oh, look at pastor terror just helping
me out. She's trying to be sneaky like you won't
see her. Thank you so much. Got this tickle in
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my throat. But we don't work it the other way around.
That if I'm good enough, then Jesus will save me.
It's the other way around. Jesus saves me, and then
I take what I do in order to serve him.
I begin to serve him. I begin to do the
good works because he saved me. Thank you. I begin
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to do the things that are good and holy and
righteous because I am thankful we just came through thanksgiving.
I do the things that I do as a believer.
I preach because God saved me, and I've got something
to say about it. I do the things that I do.
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I align my life towards doing the things that God
wants me to do. Not because I think I can
earn his favor, not because of anything like that, but
because I am so grateful that he saved me, and
that he has brought me to this place, and he's
given me certain abilities, and he's given me certain talents,
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and he's given me certain resources. And because he's given
it to me, and because he gave me everything, I'm saying, God,
it is all yours, and you can have it back,
and I'm going to do all I can to serve
you and help you and do whatever I gotta do
because I've got a good message today. I've got a
message of Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ can be
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the savior of your life as well. And I want
to share that. And so we have to remember that
we do not save ourselves, but Jesus saves us. Our
good works come as a result of that. For we
are what He has made us. We are created in Christ.
We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
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God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. That's
in verse ten. Read that again. For we are what
He has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life life.
He prepared us in advance to save us and use
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us to be people of good works. And our good
works are the byproduct of what God has done in us.
They reflect God's glory, not ours. I don't do what
I do in order to get your praise or anyone's praise.
I don't try to show things off and say this
is what God has done so that I everybody goes, oh, Scott,
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you're so good. And I know I am. I'm probably
the most humble person you're ever gonna meet. You got
some of you caught that, But I don't do it
for you. I don't do it for you. I've always
foult it, found it kind of feeling kind of weird,
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and I appreciate it. Don't don't take this wrong. But
after we preach a lot of times the pastors will
walk down and we'll go back and we'll shake your
hands and you're like, oh, it's such a good sermon today,
and I'm like, thank you, And a lot of times
I want to ask, well, what was good about it?
Did you learn anything? Because it feels good. Don't misunderstand me.
I want you to encourage me. I don't want you
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to be like, man, that was awful. That was the
worst sermon you've ever preached. Thank you. I'll go home
and ponder that. I don't want to hear that. So
I will probably still go back there today and you
can shake my hand and say, Scott, that was the
best one ever. It'll make me feel good. But that's
not why we do it for right, it's not why
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we serve. We don't serve for all the glory for us. First,
Peter says, this show hospitality to one another without grumbling,
as each has received a gift. Use it to serve
one another as good stewards of God's very grace. Whoever speaks,
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as one who speaks the oracles of God, whoever serves
as one who serves by the strength that God supplies,
in order that in everything God may be glorified. Through
Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen,
Did you catch all that? We have all been given
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a gift, one, the gift of salvation, the grace that
God has given us. We've received that grace that God
decided for whatever reason. It's love, But I don't understand
his love. He decided to reach out and love me
and save me and call me his own. And I've
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been given that gift. But on top of that gift,
he has given me all kinds of other gifts. He's
given me high abilities, whatever they may be. He's given
me people in resources and things and opportunities, and all
those are laying out before me, and all those things
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are sitting out here. And it says each has received
a gift, Use it to serve one another. Use it
to serve one another. It's not a like, hey, if
you got it, maybe you could use it to serve
one another. And then how as good stewards of God's
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varied grace? Why because so that God may be glorified
through Christ Jesus. So the word stewards is thrown in there,
and I want to talk about that's a pullback from
this passage out of Matthew. And so I'm gonna I
don't have it on the screen, So I want you
to listen to it. And I didn't put it on
the screen because it's a long story and I want
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you to engage, and I want you to listen and
use your imagination a little bit instead of just following along.
So listen to this story. It's Matthew twenty five fourteen.
For it would be like a man going on a
journey called his servants and entrusted them to his property.
To one, he gave five talents. Now let's stop here.
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Talents is not like my skills. It's not that it's
not to one he gave him five skills. He gave
him a talent, which was money. And I tried to
figure out what that what how much is a talent worth? Well?
How much was it worth? And the answer I got
amazed me. I didn't think it was this much, But
hold on, a second. I don't want to cough at
you again. A talent according to what I researched, and
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I saw some varied ones, but one that came across
was a talent was twenty years of wages. Think about that.
Take your whatever you earn the last twenty years. That's
one talent. Just add it up. It's a lot, right,
(19:53):
So keep that in mind. To one he gave five talents, okay,
to another, to another, two to another, one to each
according to his ability. Then he went away. He would
(20:13):
receive the five talents, went at once and traded with them,
and he made five more talents. So also he who
had the two talents made two talents more. But he
who had received the one talent went and dug a
hole in the ground hid his master's money. No, after
a long time, the master of the servants came and
settled accounts with them, and he said to and he
(20:35):
who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five
talents more, and saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents.
Here I have made five talents more. His master said
to them, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been
faithful over a little I will set you over much,
Enter the joy of your master. And he also, who
(20:57):
had the two talents, came forward, saying, Master, you delivered
me two talents. Here I have made two talents more.
His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servants.
You have been faithful over a little. I will set
you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.
He also had received the one talent, came forward, say, Master,
I knew you'd be a hard man, reaping where you
(21:18):
did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed.
So I was afraid, and I went and hid your
talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.
But his master answered him, you, wicked and sinful, slothful servant.
You knew that I reap where I have not sown,
and gathered where I'd not scattered no seed. Then you
(21:41):
ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and
at my coming I should have received what was my
own with interest. So take the talent from him and
give it to him who has the ten talents. To
everyone who has will be more given, and he will
have an abundance. But from the one who has not
what he has will be taken away and cast that
(22:03):
worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, I find
it interesting that the Master goes away and he gives
them this money, and he and he and he says, here,
here's here's one hundred years. The first one. Here's one
hundred years, one hundred years worth of money of salary.
(22:29):
Next one he gives two those talents because forty years.
The last one he gives twenty years. And I find
it interesting when the when the Master comes back and
he says, you have done much with what a little?
(22:50):
Do you do? You get the irony of that. Jesus
doesn't look at what we have is a lot. We
may think we've got everything, and it's like, oh, and
I've got all this stuff. Jesus says, I have given
you what you can handle. It's nothing compared to me.
It's nothing compared to what I have. I've given you
(23:13):
a little. I've given you one hundred years of salary.
You've been faithful with that little bit that I've given you.
Jesus is understanding and our understanding of what we have
are two different worlds. I think I've got a lot,
and I hang on to that, and I hang on
(23:34):
to us so tight. And Jesus is sitting there saying,
if you will only give me what you have and
be faithful with what you have, that's nothing. Let me
show you what I got. Did you catch that? I've
got so much more that I can give you. So
the question of the day is why why do we
do this? And Matthew continues, and this is going to
(23:55):
be on the screen. When the Son of Man comes
in his glory and all the angels with him. Then
he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will
be gathered all the nations, and he will separate the
people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep
from the goats. And we will place the sheep on
his right, but the goats on his left. Then the
(24:18):
king will say to those on his right, come you,
who are blessed by my Father inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundations of the world. For I
was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty,
and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and
you welcomed me in. I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me. I was in
prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will
(24:40):
answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry
and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink?
And when did we see you as a stranger and
welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did
we see you sick or imprison and visit you? And
the King will answer them, truly, I say to you,
as you did for the least of these of my brothers.
(25:03):
You did it for me. Did you catch that? But
then he will say to those to his left, depart
from me. You cursed into the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and
you did not give me food. I was thirsty and
you gave me no drink. I was stranger and did
not welcome me in naked, you did not clothe me
(25:25):
sick and in prison, and did not visit me. Then
they will answer also, answer saying, Lord, when did we
see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked,
or sick or in prison and did not minister to you.
Then he will answer them, saying, truly, I say to
you as you did not do it for the least
of these. You did not do it for me, And
these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous
(25:47):
into eternal life. Those are some hard verses. But when
we go back and we look at this word and
says be good stewards of God's very grace, it's talking
about being a good use the things that God wants
us to use that He has given us to do,
(26:10):
these incredible things for those who are around us. So
how do we do this? How does the rubber? Where's
the rubber meet the road? When it comes to all
of this, what is? What is? These are the great
stories Scott, It's in the Bible. You didn't have to
write it. It's a great story. And I feel it.
It feels good. I get it. But how do we
do it? One we grow deep. It's part of what
(26:33):
we've been talking about of following Jesus and knowing Jesus
and so forth, But it goes even further than that.
It's part of our mission. That part of serving is
growing deep, and we have to grow deep in our
relationship with Jesus, and in order to do that, we
have to serve others. Part of growing deep and being
a follower of Jesus is being a follower of Jesus
(26:59):
where we serve other people. Jesus didn't go around, We
don't read a scripture. Was Jesus was always saying, Hey,
give that to me. Hey, I'm gonna sit here. You
guys go and do oh. I realize you're paralyzed, but
you know whatever, Jesus was a servant. In fact, we
know that Jesus, though he was the king of kings
(27:21):
and Lord of lords, he knelt down and washed the
disciples feet. We know he served us by going to
the cross. We know what his whole life was about
to come and to save the lost and to serve
the lost. We know that. We understand that. But in
order for us to grow deeper in our faith, we
have to take that next step and grow deep and serve.
(27:49):
We have been given. Grace has been given to us freely,
and we need to begin to use grace towards others
and serve them freely. We need to start looking at
our lives that way. We have a gift, We have
lots of gift, and we need to share it. We
need to share it. Second one is I said God
(28:12):
values everyone. Everyone means everyone. God doesn't just value me
more than he values those in Palestine. Right now, I'd
like to think that to be honest, when it comes
to Hamas, these people who go out and do all
these works. But God looks at people and says, that
is my child, and they've gone so far away. Some
(28:35):
of you have children that have gone so far away,
and you know the pain that that brings in your life.
God looks at each one of us and he says,
that is my child. I need them to be doing X,
Y and Z, and I love them and I value them.
God thanks the person next to you, the person who
(28:57):
lives next to you, the person you will see at
the store and you see on TV or the computer,
are just as invaluable to him as you are. John
three point sixteen says, for God so loved the world,
not your world, not my world, but the whole entire
(29:17):
world and everyone in it. God loves all of us,
and we need to begin to serve people and value
people and grow deep that way. So the second one
I put here is we need to give and belong.
Now this is a little more difficult and it's going
(29:38):
to run into different things, but you know that when
you serve people. It stretches us, it really does. There
are things that I really don't like doing, but God
makes me do them anyway. There's things that God doesn't
make me do, but I know it's the right thing.
It doesn't mean I like it. Okay, let's be honest.
(30:01):
How many of you enjoy taking the chairs down and
setting them up every week? I mean some of you
may just go, yes, we get to take the chairs
down and then I get to put them up again.
I've never felt that way. I just gotta lay it
out there. I've never felt that way, but I know
(30:24):
that in order for you to have this nice comfortable
seat that you're sitting in, that is I am as
currently in my physical condition. Though it may not be great,
I can still set up and take down chairs. I can,
and so I am willing to do that for the
Body of Christ so that we can worship together. Right.
(30:45):
That's an example, not saying it now. It's great if
you all want to do that one of these days again,
but that's just an example. There are things that we
don't like to do, but God stretches us and does
the things that we don't want to do. Some of
you are in I get it, And you don't like
shaking hands. When we say go and meet somebody this morning,
(31:06):
make them feel welcome. I don't want to. I don't
want to meet anybody. I get it. There are people
in this room who don't want to do that. But
we do it anyway. Why Because everybody's valuable and they
(31:27):
need to be felt like they belong. And it stretches us,
It moves us, It asks us the gives of ourselves
and what we have. Growth happens in our muscles when
we begin to stretch them and use them. A trophy
happens when we don't. Right. Anybody who's done any kind
(31:49):
of exercise understands that serving stretches us because it connects
us to others. We have to realize that we are kinsmen.
We are all part of this big family. One in
our church, we're all part of this big family. But
outside of that, we're all part of the family that
God has created. They are brothers and sisters all outside
(32:11):
this building who don't know Jesus, and we need to
find ways to reach into their lives. Everybody's a stranger
until you meet them. When I came here, I didn't know,
but a handful of you, and I only knew you
because I had met Dawn and we came back a
couple times, and I came to a couple of services
(32:32):
and you were like, Hey, that's her boyfriend, or they
that's her fiance. And eventually I got to know you. You're
not strangers to me anymore. But everybody is a stranger
until you meet them. And we've got to get to this, like, well,
I don't know them. Of course, you don't know them
until you meet them. It stretches us and it's not comfortable,
(32:56):
but we realize that they are part of our family.
I put on here that joining the body Believers is
also part of church membership. Now, we've been having membership
classes and we like, why do we have membership in
a church? Why do we even talk about membership? I mean,
what's the advantage there? Used to be an ad you know.
Membership has its privileges. Remember that it was a credit
(33:19):
card for those who were my age or older. Membership
has its privileges. It does it does. Church membership has
its privileges, opportunities and responsibilities. We ask people to join
the Church of the Nazarenes, specifically this church for a
(33:41):
couple of reasons. One it says that I believe in
what we're doing. I want to associate with this group
of people. These are my people. This is my church.
This is the people that I believe in what they're
doing and what they're saying. And there's there's something about
(34:03):
that that I do that with my family, don't you know.
There's a couple of my family. I don't do that well,
but there's But for the most part my family, I'm like,
they're my family. This is my people. And the truth is,
if you attack my people, I'm coming after you, right.
I will defend and protect my people. And I can't
(34:24):
just run away from my family. I'd like to occasionally,
but I can't. And they and the reality of that
is they can't run for me. That's the reality of it.
They can't just leave me. I won't let them. I will.
I know when they're gone, and I know when they're
there they're mine. And so church membership says this is
(34:46):
my church. Now, we have lots of people. We have
people throughout our community who said that's my church and
they haven't been here in twenty years. There are people,
there are there are kids, There are kids who grew
up in our church, and if they had something going on,
if they needed a funeral or a wedding, they will
(35:07):
call us and say, you're my pastor, you're my church.
That's my church. But is it? Is it? We have
had an effect on their lives. We have been part
of their lives and they are part of us. But
that is not the same. It's saying this is my church,
(35:30):
these are my people. It's an agreement. So I said
there was some privileges and some opportunities. You know, if
you are not a member of this church, you have
no rights to vote for the leadership of this church.
You can't be on the church board, which is in
(35:52):
a very important position. You can't beyond one of our
leadership roles in our church. If you're not a church member,
you cannot help guide and lead this church. Your voice
does not count in that respect because you've determined that
you don't want to be a member. But the truth
is you're important. Your voice is important. I want you
(36:12):
to vote vote on the board members. I want you
to be on the board. I want you to be
in leadership, and we can't because you're not a member
of our church. So membership is important, and there's a
responsibility with that, but there is an opportunity with that
to serve God in different capacities that you cannot do
(36:33):
outside of membership. And so the last thing I put
in this section here is this parable is not about investing.
It's about not hoarding. This parable is not about you know,
oh he gave me. We see what happens when the
one holds it and buries it and doesn't do anything.
And it's not about and it's about taking what God
(36:56):
has given us and investing it into the Kingdom, Taking
everything that we have and investing it in the Kingdom.
Verse ten and one, Peter four says, as each has
received a gifts, use it to serve one another as
good stewards of God's very grace. This passage is about
(37:19):
the church serving the church. I'm sorry, I'm running a
little late today. We belong to each other and are
responsible for each other. We are to use our gifts
to build the Kingdom of God and build the Family
of God. By pouring ourselves into each other and committing
ourselves to each other. We are saying, I will take
this journey with you and prove it. I will help you.
(37:40):
Why because I love you. I wrote down here ties
and offerings. Yes, this parable talks about ties and offerings,
not just your spiritual gifts or your talents and your attitude.
Tewod Corinthians nine says, so I thought it necessary to
urge the brothers to go on ahead of you and
arrange advance the gift you have promised, so that it
(38:02):
may be readily ready and a willingly, a willing gift,
not as an extraction. The point is this, whoever sows
sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also
reap bountifully. Each one must give what he has decided
in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, For God
(38:23):
loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make
all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency
in all things, at all times, you may have bound
in every good work. We're gonna keep moving. Number three
multiplication Tewod Corinthian says for the ministry of the services
(38:45):
not only for supplying the needs of the saints, but
is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. The point
of what we do, the point of serving, is not
so that we help ourselves. But it is to multiply
the kingdom. Pastor was up here about Cuba. Why would
he ask us to give toilet seats? How can that
(39:08):
possibly be important? Because it will help multiply the kingdom.
Something as simple as a toilet seat. We give of
what we have. So self examination time. We're gonna wrap
this up with this. The last four weeks we've talked
(39:30):
about the steps, the four steps. So today I'm going
to have you give yourself an exam and I want
you to think about it. Nobody likes exams, but think
about this. What is our mission at DCN To love God,
love others, grow deep, and repeat. So over the past
four weeks we've outlined the four steps. We believe there
are steps we need to take as a body to
(39:51):
reach our mission. Now's the time to evaluate where you
stand in the steps. Step one, Know Jesus. Are you
trying to figure Jesus out? Are you recognizing His work
around you and experiencing it? Are you trying to listen
and learn more about Jesus by attending a life group, Sunday,
school class or other group. Are you coming to His
(40:14):
services on Sunday in order to worship and learn the
moret about Jesus consistently. Step two, Have you received Jesus?
Have you accepted Jesus as our savior? Have you admitted
you are a sinner who needs a savior because you
can't save yourself and can't be good enough to do it.
Do you believe that Jesus is who he says he is,
(40:34):
the savior of the world, who came to save sinners,
who died on the cross and rose from the grave
for you and for me. Have you confessed your sins
to him and asked for forgiveness for those sins? Have
you declared to the world you have been forgiven, buried
in your sins, and resurrected in righteousness through baptism. Step
(40:54):
three following Jesus, are you in this? Are you all in?
Have you made Jesus lord of your life, not just
your savior? Have you been sanctified, set apart for God's work,
not your work? Have you released yourself into God's hands?
Are you growing in your relationship with Jesus daily? Are
you spending time with Him in prayer and Bible study,
(41:16):
in community and worship consistently? Are you learning to love
God more? In each day. Are you worshiping him? Are
you loving others? What about others outside your group? Are
you intentionally trying to interact with others and be Jesus
to them? Or are you judging them harder than you
are loving them? And Step four? Are you serving Jesus
(41:40):
not because you think that'll save you, because God has
called you to serve. Are you serving Jesus as a
way to demonstrate your love for Jesus and thus helping
you to grow deeper in your relationship with him? Have
you joined the church and membership being part of the
Body of Christ that says we are together in one accord,
a community of faith with common goals to love and
serve each other. Are you sharing your money with the
(42:02):
Kingdom building process through your tithes and offerings and gifts
to the church to help it provide for ministries and
the mission. Are you giving to others? Are you serving
by sowing the seed of the Gospel, the good News
of Jesus in your community, your friends and family. Are
you inviting others to experience Jesus through you and our church?
(42:25):
Are you doing this consistently and repeating the process over
and over and over again. In others' lives, helping them
to find Jesus and pointing them in the right direction.
That's a whole lot. And I said it real fast.
But where are you in the steps? Not saying you're
(42:46):
going to have it all completely down, but what step
do you think you're in where you find yourself. Maybe
there's parts of that that you need to be working
on in each of those steps to help with the
mission of Christ. In this church, we're on this journey together.
This path we're setting before you is the path that
(43:08):
we believe that can bring people to Jesus. I think
it's amazing that church that he had in Cuba had
ninety four people in it. We average about ninety five
people on Sunday mornings. Here. Look at all the empty seats.
Wouldn't it be cool if we had to add seats.
Wouldn't be cool if they were standing out in the
(43:29):
hallways trying to listen. That's our responsibility working with God.
That's our responsibility working with God. So last thing, what
do you do with this? Now? I'm going to suggest
I got three things that I would like you to do. One,
(43:50):
I would love for you to tell one of the
pastors where you're at sometime maybe today, next week, this week, Wednesday.
I don't care like you to say and examine yourself
and say this is where I'm at in the steps.
Be honest with yourself and with somebody else. That's hard
to do, but it's but it's it's necessary. Second thing
(44:14):
I'd like you to do is what is you figure out?
What is your plan to move forward? Once you tell
one of us, tell us what your plan is to
move forward. And the third thing, if you're not serving,
tell us you want to serve. Tell one of us
(44:38):
that you want to serve, and we will help you
find a way that you can serve Christ amongst our
body that sound all functional. Tell us where you're at,
tell us how you're moving forward, and tell us if
you want to serve. Let's stand. God, you are good.
(45:03):
I thank you for this time today. I thank you
for your people. I thank you for your blessings. I
thank you for this week that you gave us to
celebrate all the things that you've done. Got to pray
that this message, this series on steps, that you will
help us to reach the people for Jesus, help us
(45:25):
to reach our world, help us to grow in our faith.
Help us to grow deep, help us to love you more. God.
That's why you have this church, that's why you have
this people. Help us to be your people the way
you want us to be. Don't let us be stagnant,
don't let us just be sitting still. But help us
(45:46):
to grow and help us to change the world. Right
here in defiance, Ohio, we love you God, and we
thank you for everything in Jesus' name. Amen.
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