Beyond Sunday S2 Ep3 "Pursue a God Sized Vision for Your Life"

Welcome to be on Sunday, an extension of the preaching

ministry here at Leamington EMC. My name is Jonah Chitty and I am

joined as always by Pastor Joe Penner.

Woo. Hoo woo, it's really cold

outside today, Joe. It is bitter.

I got I got a funny story. This will be this will be coming

out on Wednesday of this week. And I would do.

We just heard that they're cancelling school in in Alabama

where we're from because it's going to get really cold, really

cold, like in the 20s in Fahrenheit.

I don't know. That's like, plus, I don't know,

I don't even know what it is it. Would be like minus I I don't

know either. Probably a -, 2 or 3 or 4 or

something like that. In their defense, it's supposed

to sleet and have like ice storm and they have no infrastructure,

but they're going to can't they cancel school from today, which

is Monday all the way to Thursday.

Wow. I know it's like, hey, I know

kids enjoy it, right? If you're from Florida, Alabama

area and you're getting sleet and snow, just know we had a

foot over the last week and everybody just kept doing

whatever they do. Well, it's funny, I know.

Maybe not a foot, I don't know. It was probably more like 6 or 8

inches. I don't know.

I know a lot of people here at our church would know people

from Manitoba and I have family there too.

And like they, they have, they cancel school when it gets too

cold, but that's like -35 or like -40 which I don't know what

that would be in fair. Enough.

I think they're the same -35 and -40 I think that's when they

meet and they're the same, yeah -40 is -40.

That reminds me of a, a comedian that I was listening to, I think

it was Jeff Allen and he was talking about like North Dakota

or something like that. And he's, he's there and he's

like, I went there and he's and it was negative 80 and he's like

and that means it could warm up 80° and it would only be 0.

That's crazy. Oh man, that's cold.

That is freezing. Yeah, it is very cold.

Very, very cold today. So my Florida feet are freezing

because I'm still wearing Crocs. You know, Crocs.

I'm wearing socks, though. I'm wearing socks.

Crocs and socks. Crocs and socks Joe, you preach.

I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it like very

proudly, like your last two sermons have been like some of

the best ones I've heard you preach.

So I, I really appreciated your sermon Sunday.

I'm not trying to like make your head expand so you can't walk

out the door or anything like that.

I just felt like the Lord used it and maybe that's just because

of where I needed to be. You know what I needed to hear

at the right time where I am in my own personal spiritual walk.

But you preach the sermon from Nehemiah chapter 2.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

You started at verse 11 and went all the way to the end of the

chapter. Yes, Sir.

And your sermon was pursue a God sized vision for your life.

You want to give us a recap? Yeah, yeah.

So I I started out with the illustration from from

scripture, the Tower of Babel in these people who are trying to

make a name for themselves. Wait, hang on there.

I think we're just going to plug Bible reading.

Yeah, because that probably came from.

Absolutely. OK, You're reading in Genesis.

Yeah. And you're studying for Nehemiah

and and also in the Lord. The Lord shows you an example or

an illustration from Genesis that would be useful in your

sermon in Nehemiah. Yeah, your Bible reading

matters. It does.

I can't tell you how many times that happened last year, whether

it was, you know, our New Testament plan that we were

going through or it was like our Scripture memory, you know,

memorizing the Sermon on the Mount.

Like I can't tell you how many times that tied in exactly to

what I was preaching or going through that week.

Or singing I noticed sometimes the you would use the songs like

the the scripture from the like between the song and the opening

scripture and then the benediction would come from the

Bible reading from that week. It is so true it it it does

matter. It does help absolutely.

It helps shape and form you, So anyway, right?

And for? Everybody else, I mean, you

know, you're not preparing a sermon, but it will do the same

thing for you, for things that you're going through in your

life. Like also you'll be like, wow,

this ties in exactly with what I'm.

Going I was having a conversation with someone on

Wednesday night just about that same thing, 'cause we're talking

about Bible reading as a discipline in my class.

And it came up, they were just like, you know, it's so crazy

how often that what I'm reading is so applicable to what I'm

going through that week. And I'm like, you know, it's

not, it's not, it's not really coincidental.

It's not a surprise. It's not at all the Lord knows

and and again that just to sort of like emphasize that a bit

thinking that, you know, like last year, I remember one time

we picked First Corinthians at the beginning of the year.

Yeah. And then, you know, in October,

as we're in, you know, First Corinthians chapter 14 or

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

whatever, we're in and I'm like, and that what I'm reading in the

Bible plan is exactly coordinating with where we're at

in that chapter in First Corinthians.

I'm like, man, the Lord is. Just he knows.

It's like, you know, he knew this way ahead of time.

And it's, yeah, he knows. He knows what we need at the

right time. Yeah.

And that's that's so comforting. It is his sovereignty is so

comforting. It is so comforting.

I cut you off. I'm sorry.

You started with an illustration in Genesis from Tower of Babel.

Yeah. And so these people are trying

to make a name for themselves and the Lord sort of interrupts

what they're doing to, to, to fulfill what he's trying to

accomplish, right? So they, they found themselves

working against God. And so God had to come and

redirect them so they would accomplish what he is trying to

accomplish. And so my whole point in that is

that we need to pursue a God sized vision for our lives.

You know, we need to come alongside what the Lord is

doing, which is exactly what Nehemiah does, you know.

You know, he found himself in a specific place at a specific

time in history, and he came along.

What God was doing, you know, the Lord was working in his

heart. He was bringing about these

events in his life. He was sharing what was going on

in Jerusalem. He was finding this out.

And the Lord laid this vision on his heart for something that

like he might not have picked himself or might not have

recognized himself, but the Lord began to put this vision on his

life. And maybe he was comfortable,

maybe he was happy. Maybe he was content to stay

there. I don't know that he would have

been right, but maybe he was. And he's like, you know what?

I have a lot to lose here. You know, I'm in a pretty good

situation. And he was willing to give it up

for something bigger than himself, something that God was

doing, a God sized vision. Yeah.

And so my points throughout the text were first, that you need

to seek a God sized opportunity. And so as, as he goes back to

Jerusalem, he begins, you know, fleshing out this opportunity.

And you know, as he's seeking out the opportunity, he's

seeking God in secret, right? He's going out in the rubble by

himself. He's not telling anybody else

what, what God is revealing to him.

And he's seeking God in the rubble.

And he's, he's trying to discern exactly what God wants him to

do, how he's going to do it, making his plans, right, but

seeking God in secret. And he hasn't shared it with

anybody yet. And so I sort of tied that in

with an illustration about a dam, the Saint Francis Dam, and,

and it has these leaks and these cracks and they didn't take it

seriously. And I sort of applied that to,

you know, it led to disaster, but I applied that to our lives.

And how many times do are are we unwilling to go to those hard

places, right. Nehemiah went to the rubble and

he sort of sat in the brokenness.

And we need to do that so that we look at the brokenness and

look at what does God want me to fix in my life?

It's something that I didn't really mentioned in the sermon

that I kind of wanted to tie in a little bit more was that a lot

of times it's like we we can see those cracks and leaks in our

life and for now we're just sort of OK with it.

Yeah. Let's talk about your Bible

reading being relevant. Well, this morning I read about

Lot and a lot like God warns him to get out of the city.

And it's like it says, but lot lingered.

And it's like, man, how many times do we just linger in our

sin? But think, if I continue to do

this, where is that going to take me in five years, in 10

years, in 15 years, in 20 years? It's like, where is this going

to lead me? And do I want to go there,

Right. And so like, recognize those

warning signs and do something about it.

But again, don't do hasty things because I think so many times we

just make empty promises, right? Like, oh, yeah, I need to do

that. I need to stop that.

I'm going to I'm going to do this.

And it's like it's an empty promise because you haven't

really felt the pain. You haven't even, you haven't

really sat in the rubble and sought God and what God is

trying to do in that situation. But all in that rubble, in those

broken parts of your life, that's a, that's a God sized

opportunity for him to do something great in and through

you. And then I moved on to .2 like

now share your God sized vision. This is where Nehemiah shares

with the people what he's doing. And so a God sized vision

requires teamwork. It requires people to come

alongside you and help you can't do a God sized vision on your

own. And it also requires God, he's

going to be working behind the scenes doing things that you

can't do. And so I, I sort of tied that in

with an illustration about Samson and, and his tendency to

trust in himself and applied that to us and go, you know, we,

it is so easy for us to think that we can do things on our

own, but we need other people. We need God and we need to learn

to trust in those people. And so calling people to, to

share that vision with other people, have other believers to

come alongside you, to help you as you trust in God, to work in

and through you. And then my last point was

submit to a God sized God. You know, enemies are going to

come. That's what happened at

Nehemiah. They started to come and slander

them and, and try to make them feel bad about what was going

on. But Nehemiah trusted in God.

And my, my sub points there were that when your plans are God's

plans, they will succeed. Nehemiah trusted that God was

going to make them prosper. And when your enemies are God's

enemies, they will fail. You know, even they were rising

up against them. Nehemiah knew it's like, you

guys don't have any right? You don't have any claim.

You don't have any portion of what we're doing here because

you're you're an enemy of God and you're going to fail.

And I used an illustration there of David and Goliath that, you

know, David, you know, the only Israelite who is trusting in a

God who is bigger than what their enemies look like.

And you know, we need to do that as well that, you know, we need

to have this holy stubbornness that TJ Betts that quote that I

mentioned that when enemies rise up, we just need to have that

conviction that we're we're doing what God has called us to

do. That's been clear to this point.

And so therefore, we're just going to continue doing what

we're doing because we know that God is going to give it success.

And then at the end of the sermon, I sort of tied this in

this whole, this whole book really.

But this section is tied this section of Nehemiah into like

Christ, because the Old Testament points us forward to

Christ. You know, when when Jesus was

walking in the road to Emmaus, he showed his his followers, his

disciples, how the Old Testament scriptures prophesied about him.

And so, you know, Nehemiah comes to Jerusalem and that's exactly

what Jesus did. We see as sort of like.

Parallel or. Parallel or like typography or

typology is the word. Yeah.

It's like Christ is Nehemiah is a type of Christ.

He actually foreshadows what Christ was going to come to do.

And so we see Christ coming to Jerusalem, inspecting the

worship, inspecting the city, watching their corrupt worship.

He comes and he, he, he preaches and he teaches the truth that

the Kingdom of God and he shows that he is the way to to peace

with God and that relationship with God.

And he's willing to suffer and die even in the face of his

enemies because he's trusting in God.

And so it really points us to Christ and all that he is going

to do as a fulfillment of God's promise.

And so that we should trust in Christ and follow that same

example and be willing to give our lives for the sake of what

He's doing and has done for us. Yeah, yeah, it was a good

sermon. A lot of good stuff in there.

I like the typology stuff at the end.

I'm a little nerdy and when it comes to stuff like that.

So I get really excited when I see those when when they're

pointed out. And you did a really good job

pointing it out like and and going back and forth in the

sermon. You you went, I think I don't

know how long it took you maybe two or three minutes of of going

back and forth and giving us example after example of how

Christ perfectly did what Nehemiah was doing here.

Yeah, it's good. Oh, what did I write down?

It was on Oh, your first point under seek a God sized

opportunity. I, I I'd really like thought

about that seeking God in secret part in the your first sub

point. And I was like, I don't know.

I don't know if I was convicted or what, but I, I Nehemiah, it

just, he wanted to be, he wanted God to be the influence in his

life and not someone else. And like, how often am I just

like so quick to avoid prayer and to go to you or to go to

someone else and say, Hey, what do you think about this?

Right. What do you think about that?

Yeah, maybe you should do this instead of like, really like,

OK, no, I need to, I need to spend some time with the Lord

and let him influence me. Yeah.

And instead of others. So I thought that was really,

really helpful. That is so true.

It's like it's God is not, not our first resort.

A lot of times it's like, like I said, it's like if, if I want an

answer or if I want to think of something, it's like I'll go to

Google or yeah, I'll, there's got to be a good book that

somebody wrote about this or like, like you said, a friend or

a counselor or somebody around you.

Which are all good things, right?

They are. But I think that that when

they're our first, like our first option is to not go to

God. That's the that's where we mess

up. And man, I, I was just convicted

by that. Nehemiah wants God to be the

influence and he didn't tell anyone what he was doing.

He wants to go and inspect, just sit in And sitting in the rubble

was another thing like, and you've mentioned that you were

preparing for this for like 2 weeks.

So you were, you were, you were sitting with this text for, I

don't know, two or three weeks, 2 weeks at least and talking

about sitting in the rubble and just really like, like being

willing and open to pain. I don't know if that's, I don't

know how many people are willing to do that.

It's hard, Yeah. Because I have, I have to

wrestle with the fact that I'm failing, right?

And that's why it's so hard because none of us wants to feel

like a failure, right? And, you know, that goes men and

women, it doesn't matter who you are.

It's like you. We feel the weight of of us

being a failure. And that's where you really have

to be discerning about what voice it is that you're hearing,

right? You know, because is it the

voice of God or is it the voice of the enemy?

Because the voice of the enemy is going to be much like

Nehemiah's enemies here. It's like it's going to be a

discouraging voice. I mean, what do you think you're

trying to do? Like you can't do this.

Like you really think this is going to work?

That's the voice of the enemy. When that's the voice in your

head. You need to know that you're

under spiritual warfare and spiritual attack and you need to

run to the Lord. The Holy Spirit is.

This is why it takes discernment because the Holy Spirit is

similarly wanting to make you holy and righteous.

But that voice is not like, oh, you can't do that.

That voice is, hey, that area of your life.

Like I'm not content with that. You need to surrender that to

me. You need to come to me.

There's better things for you. It's, it's like a, a conviction

to, to become more holy and more righteous.

That is the voice of the Lord because he wants you to

experience fullness and wholeness.

And so when it's a, when it's a voice that is not content to

leave you, you know, in your sin, that's the Lord.

It's the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

When it's a discouragement or like beating you down, it's like

that's the voice of the enemy. That's that's really helpful

thinking about because they're, I don't know if they're telling

you the same thing, but you can't do it right.

Whatever it is, right, you can't beat it.

So like the enemy's telling you that in a discouraging way.

The Holy Spirit's telling you that saying, hey, you know what,

you need to like you said, surrender this to me.

That was really helpful. Yeah, that's really helpful.

Shift in thinking. It's subtle, but really like,

yeah, you need to surrender that.

That's something you need to let.

I'm not. And I like the way you said that

too. The Holy Spirit says, I'm not

content with this in your life. Surrender that to me.

Like basically like that CS Lewis story.

And I told back I don't know how many months ago now, like just

let me kill it, right? Let me kill this thing in your

life. Surrender it to me and let me

kill it. But we're just like lot, right?

It's like we linger and we just sort of like, man, I really want

to give this over to God because I mean, the reason we give in to

sin is because sin feels good, at least for the moment, right?

It's never as satisfying as we think it's going to be, right?

But in the moment it's like we don't want to let go of our sin.

Yeah, we do enjoy it. But as far as like, as far as

like seeking God in the rubble, I, I really thought like just

practical hands on like what should somebody do?

Like I'm thinking of an even in my life like schedule.

I'm literally like schedule a time.

And I need to do this for myself this week too, like put an hour

in my schedule where I'm just going to go for a quiet walk and

I'm literally just going to pray and ask God to show me leaks and

cracks in my life. Because, I mean, I, I think as I

was preaching through that as people were listening, you're

probably getting a sense for areas of your life.

Yeah, for sure. You know, maybe it's like, hey,

you know what? I don't pray with my kids.

We're not reading the Bible together as a family.

I'm not praying with my wife. We don't attend church as

regularly as we should. We don't come to Bible.

I'm not reading my, but whatever it is, right?

Like I can feel myself starting to take slippery roads at my job

where it's like I'm more willing to be dishonest or whatever it

is you you're noticing. Maybe everybody got a bit of a

sense. And I think you need to sit

alone with the Lord for an hour and think through that and pray

through that and help him. Have him help you come up with a

vision of like, all right, what steps can I take to avoid that?

Yeah. And what plan can I put in

place? Again, not an empty promise

like, oh, yeah, I will do that. No.

Give yourself actionable steps and then go and have someone

come alongside you to hold you accountable and help you with

that. Yeah, yeah, something like an

indicator, probably not like the problem, but an indicator of a

problem in your heart. Like I've I've been reading a

poultry book called Dangerous Calling.

It's a book for pastors. But one thing that he keeps

saying in there, he kept keeps saying like an indicator that

you're, there's something going on in your heart.

Is this like if you're numbing yourself with like, like hours

of mindless television or social media scrolling and it's he, he

repeats it. And like, if you spot yourself,

OK, my default now I just want to like withdraw from everybody

and I want to scroll in my phone or I want to watch a show for

four hours, you know, whatever. Binge watch something that's an

indicator of a real problem in your heart.

And you know, you would you would say it's not I'm just I'm

just relaxing or I'm just trying to like decompress.

But it's really an indicator that you're just trying to

withdraw from, from the world around you, right?

And I was convicted by that. So it's like a crack that's like

you're looking for a crack. OK, You want to see that in your

life. And then like, OK, what's really

causing me to want to like do this?

Because it's not the show, right?

You know what I mean? It's not, it's not that

interesting, right? There's nothing that interesting

unless it's like a football game.

It's like playoffs, right? Yeah, which are interesting.

I'm just defending myself for watching 8 hours of football on

Saturday. So anyway, no, oh man.

But no, you know what I'm saying?

It's like it's not that interesting.

There is, there is a deeper problem.

There is a crack or a leak somewhere in your life that

you're you're trying to plug with something else.

Yeah. And so I think it's really good

to think about like, like the taking that one hour and just

asking the Lord to reveal, yeah, our sin to us, like the, the

things that we think we don't have.

Like, you know, I was thinking back to Kyle's sermon.

People think they're sinless, You know, somebody's think

you're sinless. No, you need to confess that.

You need to ask the Lord to show you where you're.

Yeah, where you're sinning because you are.

Yeah. There's something in your life

so. Yeah.

And something I, I last week, I had this, this thought as I was

thinking, you know, I was thinking about, you know, like I

start the day off with, with the word and with prayer and

spending time with God. And I always feel very refreshed

and energized and strengthened by that.

And I was thinking about how I schedule my day, you know, you

know, busy, like really deep work gets done in the mornings.

I try to like set that time aside.

But that was as I was thinking about, I was like, you know

what, I should schedule things that energize me.

Because it's like, you know, here, it's like I'm pouring out,

right? I'm, I'm researching, I'm

studying, I'm like, I'm preparing a sermon.

I'm preparing whatever it is that I'm doing.

And I'm pouring out, right? And for everybody out there

who's listening, it's like whatever job you're doing, it's

like you're pouring out. It's like, I'm, I'm building

this house, I'm building this wall, I'm working at this

factory. It's like I'm, I'm pouring out.

I'm doing things for other people.

And I had this sense that it's like, you know, I should

schedule things in my life that pour back into me so that I can

now have strength. So one thing that I was thinking

was I feel energized by like a like going for a coffee with

someone or like having a good conversation like that energizes

and strengthens me. But as I was thinking about it,

I was like, you know, I really ought to spend time with the

Lord because he does that. That is his, that is him pouring

into me. But I think the way I I needed

that shift in my mind to happen because I think a lot of times

the way the reason I avoid going to God, whether it's reading or

prayer, is because for some weird reason, I think I'm

pouring out. I'm doing something for God, but

I'm not right. I'm not doing something for God.

I'm, I'm creating a, a way for him to pour into me by me coming

to him in his word, by me praying, by me seeking his

wisdom and his guidance. He can pour into me.

And so I needed that shift in my mind to go.

I need to go to the Lord because that's His opportunity to fill

and strengthen me again with His Spirit and give me energy and

strength to get through the rest of the day.

That is like taking it from. I'm checking a box exactly.

I'm spending time with a person. Exactly right, because again, a

lot that that's why you checked the box.

You're like all right, I did that thing for God.

Now God's happy with me again and we don't say that we we

don't talk like that. That is, but that

subconsciously. Is what you think, right?

Yeah. Oh, man, that's good stuff.

Solid gold. Really good.

OK. I liked the whole.

I love the whole sermon. I like the teamwork part.

We can't do it on our own, you know.

Yeah. And then that Samson story, I

love the the part where you said that his pride led him to

believe that his strength came from his hair and not from God.

And as you were saying. And I was like realizing it,

like his sin was not that. And it was, it was thinking that

that his vows, his Nazarite vow is what gave him strength.

Yeah. And how often, how often are we

like caught up in that? Like this mentality, like, OK,

it's our tradition or it's the ceremony or whatever this thing

is that does it for us, that gives us our strength, our power

or whatever. Even meeting on Sunday, we

started to think like prioritize these things.

Like this is what gives us no, God gives you anything.

It's all him, right? And dude, it's just such a big

view of God like that that Samson had a small view of God,

right? He said OK, my my abilities come

from what I do for God, My vow I gave to him and not from him

himself. Yeah.

And did that's something to think about like it requires God

and then. Well, and like and like you're

saying too though, that it like that again, changes it from

checking a box to like pursuing God.

Yeah. It's not a + B = C It's like if

I do this, if I do that, then God will bless me and God will

reward me. God doesn't operate like that.

I mean, God does have standards for his people and he does have

rules and instructions to them to follow, but God is not a God.

It just like it's, it's like a science experiment and you're

always going to get the same result every time you do

something. It's not right.

I've been thinking of like Ezra and Nehemiah here.

You have two different guys who go back to begin rebuilding what

was broken down in Jerusalem, right?

Nehemiah, We've just Pastor Jake talked to us about talked to us

about this last week where it's like he asked the king to go.

He asked the king for letters so that he would get safe passage.

He asked for timber to rebuild the walls.

He you know what I mean? And he gave him an escort and he

wasn't ashamed to ask for all that stuff, which seems like

maybe that doesn't seem weird. But Ezra, when he goes back,

he's like, I was way too ashamed to ask for anything.

He didn't even ask for an escort or anything because he was like,

he recognized, well, if I'm saying that we trust in a big

God who can protect us and deliver us safely, that seems

sort of contradictory for me now to ask for an escort.

And so he was just trusting in God, right?

So here you have two different guys who did things very, very

differently and yet God bless them both in what they were

doing. And I think for us to put God in

this sort of box that makes it seem like if I do this, that I

will be blessed. That's just not how God.

Operates I know and you think to like all through Scripture.

I'm going back to the reading plan.

Last week we saw the the covenant that God made with

Abram, right? Like, like what happened?

What happened when it came time to make the commitment, Abraham

is put into a deep sleep. Yeah.

He's not even part of it. He doesn't go through.

He doesn't. God is the one who makes the

commitment. Abraham's not even God knows

that Abraham can't keep it. Yep.

So I'm going to keep it like I am the one who is faithful.

Yeah. And how do we just forget man?

Yeah. That God cut the covenant.

Abraham didn't. Right.

And it was God's promise to Abraham, not a like a joint

venture, not like a handshake. OK.

If you do this, I do this. No, it's not that.

Right. God says I'm going to do this.

Yeah, and here is my commitment to you.

It's crazy for us to think of right?

Well, and the interesting thing about that I was sharing this

with my D group on the weekend is that who Who does God swear

by? Himself.

Himself because it's like. There's no higher authority,

right? There's no higher authority,

right? When we make a contract, if you

and I make a contract, if you break your, your end of the

deal, it's like I can go to the, I can go to the local authority

or some, some court or some lawyer, some judge and he's

going to judge between US and he's going to make you fulfill

your end of the. Agreement.

It's based on whatever law of the state or a province you live

in. Yeah, it's based on those laws.

Exactly. And God is like, he's so

powerful, so mighty. It's like, who is going to hold

God accountable? Nobody, no one can hold God

accountable because he's God. But he swears by himself because

he's good and just. And it's like he is going to do

the right thing. And so we're, we're some people,

their view of God is that he's a tyrant or he can do whatever he

wants. And that's a scary thing We look

at and go, well, God, He swears by himself because he alone is

righteous. He alone is just.

He alone is good. And man, what comfort should

that give to us? Because he is going to do the

right thing, man. It should.

It it If it doesn't blow you away, there's something wrong.

Right? Like it's it.

It's mind boggling. Yeah, it is mind boggling.

Well, and we see today, even in, in today's writing, right, like

in Genesis 18, where Abraham's going to God, God's like man,

what are we going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham

sitting there going, he's like, man, if there's 50 righteous

people in there, are you going to sweep away those righteous

people? And like his questions are

intense. Like he really, I'm just going

to quickly flip there so I can read it because it, it really

blew my mind that he is, he seems really bold to God.

And he says, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with

the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous

within the city. Will you then sweep away the

place, and not spare it for the 50 righteous who are in it?

And then listen to that. Far be it from you to do such a

thing, to put the righteous to the to death with the wicked, so

that the righteous fare as the wicked.

Far be that from you? Shall not the judge of all the

earth do what is just? And I was really thinking about

that this morning. I'm like, where does Abraham get

his theology, his understanding of who God is at this point,

Right. And it just really struck me

though, because I feel like God, God was really patient with

Abraham in my mind because he's very bold in what he asks of

God, but he calls it like me. He's really stating that like

God is the judge of all the earth and he should do what is

right and God shows God's like, yeah, you know what?

If there's 50 righteous I will spirit.

But it's like Abraham understands that you know God.

He keeps going right. He goes down to 10, right?

Yep, he goes all the way down to 10 and and God shows his, his

mercy, his grace, even in that moment to do what is right, to

do the right thing. Where does he get his theology

about who God is? Is gets it from God himself,

right? He's spending time with him.

Yeah, that's the lesson for us there, right?

Man, that's really good, really, really good to think through

when you're on God's side. Like we talked about this some

last week, not on podcast, but as as you were preparing your

sermon talked about like, is God against you or are you against

God? Like am I?

I just think we're pushing against an immovable force when

we're trying to do something. He's not in his will.

So my question for you is like, all right, So thinking about the

sermon, think about our our context and thinking about all

sorts of things that's going on, like what would be like, what do

we need to do with this text? Like, like, I know there's

personal things, what we talked about our personal things like

corporate laser or something. What's the God size vision?

Like what is God doing in Leamington?

I don't. Know yeah, well, I, I mean, I

alluded, I, I didn't just allude to it.

I, I shared that in my second point that I really felt like,

you know, God has been, you know, giving us as pastors and

and a leadership as a church that he's really giving us this

vision of discipleship. Right.

And we've really just seen like, I guess the broken down wall

would be that. And it's not our church.

It's it's churches in general that, you know, in the 80s and

the 90s as churches, we, we moved to, you know, they thought

the best thing for the church was programs that they shifted

towards programs. And so for every, every felt

need that we have, right like I need to be a better husband.

We need, you know, to reach moms who are, you know, struggling

with their kids at home. And so, so whatever need there

was that we all start a program, we'll start a program that will

specifically meet that need. And so the problem that that

created was it made people, church members, consumers, and

it turned them into people who come to church to get my need

met and to help me with this specific area.

And so at the end of at the end of that, you know, 2020 to 25 to

30 years later, what they recognized was, and I know one

of the churches, the name of the church is escaping me right now.

But they actually did a study because they were tracking this.

They were one of the churches that that were leading this

movement. And they realized after after a

number of years, it failed. It didn't work.

People weren't growing. They were just as helpless as

they were before. But it created this dependency

for people to be dependent on the church, which is exactly the

opposite of what we want, right? And so now in the last five to

10 years, churches, there's been movements of people moving

towards discipleship because we recognize that meeting felt

needs, having programs doesn't make disciples, right?

And so when we're talking about discipleship as a church, I

guess I want people to know that, like, this is not

something we're coming out out of nowhere.

This is something that like worldwide, we're recognizing

that Christians just aren't maturing as they should be.

And and this really came to light during COVID when people

couldn't go to church. You know, a lot of churches were

shut down, at least for the beginning, right?

People had, no, they weren't, they weren't growing.

They had no way to feed themselves.

They had no way to grow. They were so dependent on the

church that they didn't know what to do.

And so we recognized that like, we'd failed.

Churches had failed. People weren't, you know, in a

close enough relationship with the Lord that they could feed

each other and feed one another. And so as we move towards

discipleship, we're we're leaning into what Jesus modeled

for us, which is discipleship with his, with his followers.

He had personal one-on-one relationships with them in a

larger group and in a smaller group to help them grow.

Because you need to teach to obey all that he has commanded

us. That's that's what.

His. Yeah, that's the Great

Commission. That's what we're doing.

And the way that you teach others to obey Christ is to

disciple them, to walk with them as they grow in God's word and

to teach them to, to follow God's word.

And so, and again, one thing that we've got from, from some

ministry that we follow, replicate ministries is that the

establishment process isn't complete until the person being

discipled is discipling other people.

That's when you know you've arrived or you know, quote UN

quote arrived. Is that now someone's been

pouring into me and now I can begin to pour into other people.

And so that's sort of like that's sort of the measure of

success that it needs to be being passed on.

Yeah. To other people.

And it's not dependent on specific like church leaders or

whatever. So I think that's sort of the

broken down wall that that, you know, we're not maturing as we

as we ought to. Hebrew.

So the problem would be that they're the church is not

producing mature believers, right?

They're still drinking milk. Yep, Yeah, Hebrews 5, right?

You, you, you guys ought to be teachers by now.

That's exactly what, you know, the writer of right?

Writer of Hebrews is saying. Yeah, if you've been in a

church, if you've been a member of a church or been a like a

believer for any, any amount of time longer than like a year or

two, you should be further along than you are.

But like, there's people I can think about from my past and

like, there are people who have been in the church 30 plus years

and still drinking milk. You know what I mean?

Like they're just not. They're just not not committed

because like you said, they've been fed just baby food the

whole time. Like, OK, come here for this or

that event, this one specifically to becoming like

more manly or this one's today we're going to be talking about

whatever it is. I don't know.

It's just like programs. So yeah, dude.

So the problem is people are not mature.

They're drinking milk. What's the what's the the God

sized vision then? Well, I again, I think the God

sized vision is discipleship. I think the God sized vision is

and I, and I want, I don't want people to feel overly guilty

about that. Right.

You know, you know, maybe God is asking you to sit in the rubble

of the fact that, you know, maybe you should be farther

along, but God isn't telling you that.

So you'll feel horrible about yourself and feel destroyed.

No, it's just like that. Just the Holy Spirit nudging.

Exactly. You need to let this go.

We need to. We need like, let me take, take

you somewhere else, right? Take you out of this.

Exactly. Like, you can lament the fact

that like, yeah, I should have been here 30 years ago, but

you're not. And God is asking you to start

rebuilding from where you're at now because you can change your

trajectory for the future. And so I don't want people to

feel guilty about that because the truth is, you know, I've had

this question asked of me and it's like, who discipled you?

I was in a book that Robbie Gallery wrote.

He's like, OK, well, how many of you have had an example of

someone who who pulled you alongside and said, I want you

to join me. And I'm going to disciple you.

I'm going to show you how to do this.

I'm going to show you what it looks like to pray for your

wife, to pray with your family, to lead your family in devotions

and just honestly like. Almost never will anybody say

they had somebody. Yeah, almost nobody has ever had

that modeled for them, right. And so you don't know it's, it's

not your fault in that sense that you haven't been shown how

to do it right. And so you'll need to take some

responsibility, but there's also a responsibility that's placed

on the church, right? And so we need to do our part as

a Church of creating an atmosphere, an environment of

discipleship in our church where people can grow spiritually.

That means you're gonna have to do the work, right?

Yeah, we're not feeding you anymore.

You know, it's like that's you. You can't come here and just

get, I mean, you can still, you can still come here to get

stuff, but it's like you're just not going to.

Grow The thing is the programs change like the things that we

do here at the church would have to change, right.

Or they're going to. Yeah, like you may have already

noticed it. Like there there are things that

are just different, like they're Wednesday night things.

Well, Wednesday night exists, right.

So here. So it's one thing that wasn't

happening for adults. There's there's study, but

things are different now than they used to be, right.

At times. And that's not a bad thing,

right? Like the, the things that are

happening are focused on maturing as believers.

And so like, so like if you're, if somebody taps you on the

shoulder and says, Hey, you want to be in AD group, you should

probably say yes, because it's not just us trying to fill a box

and like to say, Hey, we got, you know, 85% of our people in

discipleship groups. It's we want you in the word

with other people, growing closer to the Lord, maturing as

believers so that you'll have the strength to endure what's

coming. Because we think, I mean, who

knows what's coming, right? Yeah, persecution is coming.

And you won't, you won't be able to survive it if you if you're

not mature. And so, yeah, I think you're

right, man. I think discipleship is.

And then it's a buzzword and a lot of people like, oh, it's

what does it mean? It can, it's all-encompassing.

Like we mean people reading the Bible together.

Yeah. Talking about what they read

together, talking about how it has shaped their life that week.

Yeah. And then praying for each other,

holding each other accountable for all the different

disciplines. That's what I mean when I mean

discipleship. Exactly.

It's word centered. Yeah.

Like it's all centered on God's Word because that's how he

reveals himself to us. Absolutely.

You know, and it's, you're gonna grow together as you share in

God's Word together, Maybe someone will challenge you and

say, Hey, I'm not sure that that's what that means.

You know, like you may be corrected.

And, and it's like you're going to learn like through the, the

here journaling method that we use, you're going to learn how

to faithfully take God's word and apply it to your life.

And like you said, have people holding you accountable.

And it's like, man, you, you just will grow.

Like I guarantee that you will grow based on what the Lord, If

you are a believer and you know you're trusting in the Holy

Spirit and those people, it's like you're going to grow in a

year in a way that you you will not believe when you look back

over the last year. You say a year that's just kind

of like timeline that that generally they they last.

That's kind of what the model is set up for us.

So you commit to each other your group for a year and then after

that, the idea is that you go out and start your own group or

part of you go out and start another group so that more

people are able to be discipled. So like, I don't know, God size

vision would be the whole church, like from yeah, from

like adults all the way down to youth, I think should be

figuring out some way to do discipleship together.

That would be God size vision I think.

Absolutely. Because if you're if you're

3040, fifty years old and you know you've never been discipled

and you go through a year of discipleship, guess what?

You can disciple a fifteen 2025 year old person and give them

what you never had. That's exactly right.

And disciple them so that they don't have to wait until they're

50 to finally be shown how what it means to be a follower of

Christ and how to read the Bible and how to pray and, you know,

how to just do everyday Christian things that we should

be doing. Yeah.

And I think it's so important to just to use a reading plan to go

through that because there I've, I've had conversations with

people recently like, you know, I never knew that story was in

the Bible. And I'm like, that's a pretty

basic story, right? You know what I mean?

It's like, it's not, I wasn't like critical or anything like

that. It's like, oh, OK, that's

interesting. But like, it's a pretty basic

thing that was popping up. And I'm like, it's because you

never read your Bible. You know, it's not like a, it's

not an obscure story. I don't remember exactly which

one it was, but it's important for you to read the whole Bible.

Absolutely. Read your Bible.

He wants us to read it all. The whole thing.

And. We, we had an Old Testament

professor, I don't know if Doctor Betts he, that's the one

we're using this commentary for Nehemiah and I remember him.

He would joke that it's like, you know what, I'm just going to

read the Bible that Jesus had. And it was drawing to this point

that like when Jesus was alive, the only Bible he had was the

Old Testament. He didn't have the New

Testament. They didn't.

Call it the Old Testament, they just.

Called the scriptures, right, right.

And that's, that's what he had. And so he would always make that

joke. But it's like, you know, all

your New Testament people, it's like you read the New Testament.

I'm, I'm an Old Testament professor.

I don't know anything. About or the, the Hebrew people,

the guys who loved Hebrew would always talk about the Greek guys

like, oh, we just like to read in the, in the language that God

uses, not man's language, right. So it's so funny.

Yeah. But I think part of the reason

this is a God sized vision discipleship is because it's not

a quick fix. You know, if anybody thinks, oh,

this is just a fad, it's just, no, it's not.

It's, it's a long term goal because it takes time.

You know, you, you think about a group, it's like, well, we, I'm

going to pick three guys and we're going to meet together for

a year. So that means for an entire

year, there's just, there's just spiritual growth going on in US

4. But but the beauty of this model

is that, you know, after a year, maybe maybe you maybe all four

of you split off and go start new groups or maybe just you

break off in twos, right, and start new groups, whatever it

is. That's where multiplication

starts to happen, right? And it doesn't take, it doesn't

take that many years until, you know, potentially the whole

church can be reached and then you can start reaching out into

the community and invite like, you know, and, and again, this

is discipleship for, for our church that we're specifically

trying to grow the people in our church.

But if at some point, you know, there's three people, three

members of a church and one guy who's like, you know what,

there's a believer at my work and you know, he just, I really

sense that he needs to be in our D group.

And you bring somebody from the outside, it's like, you know,

that's OK too. And that gives them an

opportunity to grow. And, you know, the vision

becomes so much. That's where the vision starts

to go into our community, right? And how it can influence, you

know, people outside of our church. 100% yeah, that's the

thing. Like, but there's so many people

in our church that aren't in one right now and they need to be

like if if you're just just don't be shy about it, right?

Like just just try it. Yeah, it if you try it and, and

you're a believer, the Lord will use it in your heart and you

will see how it can help you. And if you're, and honestly, if

you maybe you say, I don't need that.

I'm older. I've done this, I have been

discipled or I, you know, I feel like I am a mature disciple.

You need to be doing it. You need to be discipling other

people. You need to be pouring into the

lives of, of those around you who, who haven't.

And so this is a, it's just a great way and it's centered on

the word, not on what I want. It's not a program.

It's not on like I want to learn more about XY or Z.

Well, you're going, you're going to, yeah.

It may not be in the time frame or anything that you're you're,

you're expecting, but you're going to learn, you know, you're

going to you're going to read it in the Bible and you're just

going to come up next to it. We're going to have a chance to

talk about it. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that's, I think that could be, could be.

I think it is the answer to a lot of the issues that we see in

our church and like our church and everybody else's church.

It's like the reason people aren't growing is because

they're not reading their Bible and they're not and they're not

being, they're not, they're not sharpening each other.

Not just not reading your Bible. You could read your Bible all

day long. But if you're just in an echo

chamber and you're only, you're holding it to yourself, you're

not sharpening each other like you sharpen me, I sharpen you.

It's just one of those things and it's not comfortable sitting

in because sometimes you got to sit in the rubble.

You're going to go painful things are going to come up.

It's not fun like this book that dangerous calling book not fun

to read right. It points out pride in my heart

all every time I pick it up and I sometimes don't want to pick

it up, but and. That's God's word too, right?

Exactly like God's Word. You know, I had a professor who

had always, he called God's Word like it was a piercing comfort,

the piercing comfort of God's Word.

Because on the one hand, it's like, if you're reading it

right, yeah, it's piercing it. It divides between joint and

marrow and like your heart and your intentions and all that

sort of stuff. Like it is uncomfortable if

you're reading it right. And but then it gives you the

comfort of what? Of the fact that God has made a

way for you to be forgiven, for you to have a relationship with

God, for how you'd have peace with God through Christ.

And so it's like, on the one hand, it's like it hurts to show

you the pain, but then it gives you that comfort of how you move

forward and you continue to grow.

And this is like, you know, the analogy is like of medical

field, right? It's like a lot of times it's

like you have to do something painful to fix what's broken,

right? And so that's a good thing.

The Lord is going to grow us as we spend time at His Word.

Man, really good final thoughts on your your sermon from chapter

2. Yeah.

Well, I guess just from there, like this God sized vision, you

know, us as a church and everybody individually, it's,

it's that we're trusting in God to do the work, right?

That this is the plan that, you know, again, like churches

around the world, organizations around the world are recognizing

that discipleship is the missing link, You know, that that we've

sort of strayed from as churches.

And this is God's vision for the church.

If we follow in Christ's footsteps and his model of

discipleship, it, this is God's vision, This is what he's trying

to do. And as we disciple one another,

it's like we can just be confident.

This is what God has in store for us.

And so when enemies come up, when opposition comes up, it's

like we can just continue forward knowing that it's like,

you know what, God is going to make this prosper.

And we're going to continue doing it because we believe it's

from God. And we just know that he's going

to he's going to make it successful.

Yeah, that's true. We need to spend time trying to

figure out and discern what God is doing in our community,

right? Yeah, We need to.

Yeah, That's that. I think that would be like when

you're sitting in the rubble, you're trying to sit there and

like, like, let's look at the walls.

Let's figure outlook for cracks, look for leaks.

Like that's me. I'm thinking like, we got to

figure out what is God doing in Leamington?

Yeah. What is God doing in our church?

What it, what it, what is he doing?

And then get on board with that. Yeah.

And stop trying to push against what he's doing or like to go

the opposite direction. That's where I'm getting from

this from as we're reading through this book and, and

really studying it, it's like, no, Nehemiah, you, you said it

earlier. He, he saw he was just in the

right place at the right time. He saw what God was doing.

And he just like, I'm just going to be a part of that.

However I can be, however I can be useful.

He was, he was in the right place at the right time.

He had the ear of the king God. And God nudged him and said OK,

And then he just said yes. And so I think that's what we

have to, we have to keep that in mind, Joe.

I don't. It's just because if we're not,

we're just pushing against the like a like an immovable force.

Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway. Absolutely.

That's encouraging. Yeah, for sure.

Anything else today? I think that is.

Everything OK? It was really good.

That was a fun podcast episode. Yeah, I hope it's helpful.

Yeah, I think so. Joe, would you would you mind

praying for our church and for our community?

Yeah, I, I, well, I guess I'll say before I say that, No, I

just, I, I'm just, as I go into the prayer, I don't know if

people have recognized this, but it's like, you know, the first

sermon in Nehemiah that I did like, you know, I, when I

preach, OK, I, I scour over the text, you know, some of the sort

of the advice I got with sermon prep is like, man, you really

ought to read the text, you know, 10/15/20 times just to

wrap your head around what's going on.

And every time you read it, it's like the Lord reveals something

different to you. But the positive side of reading

a text that many times in a week is like you sort of have it semi

memorized, right? And so people have probably been

recognizing this, but it's like over the last like 3 weeks, it's

like almost all of my prayers, even my personal life and my

public prayers, it's like they're being shaped by

Nehemiah's prayer. That's awesome.

And sort of the flow that it comes with.

And I just encourage people, I encourage people all the time

pray the Bible. And when there's prayers in the

Bible, model those prayers and pray those prayers back to God.

And you know, pray the words that are written there And then,

and then you can sort of add to it from your context, right?

And so I'll probably do that right now and just encourage

people to pray the Bible back to God.

That's his word and you're praying it back to Him.

Sounds awesome. Lord, we come before you this

afternoon and we're grateful that you are the great and

awesome God. You are the great and mighty

God. You are the Lord the God of

heaven, and you are above all of the things in this world.

And we are so grateful to know that that you are in control of

everything that comes in our life.

And we pray to you, a God who keeps his covenant and keeps his

steadfast love with those who love him.

And Lord, we come recognizing that you are faithful to those

who are faithful to you. And so we recognize that

promise. We recognize your faithfulness,

your love, and and we recognize how far we fall short of that

standard, that even though we want to be faithful to you, we

want to love you. We recognize in our own hearts

our failures and Lord, we confess our own sin as we come

to you, not having lived up to the standard that you have given

to us, but trusting in the way that you have made for us, that

Christ has come and offered himself as the ultimate

sacrifice, the once for all sacrifice that we can be

forgiven. And when we come to you in his

name, he is the way, the truth and the life, and we can have

peace with you through him. And we thank you for that Lord.

And this gives us the confidence to pray now, to pray in Jesus

name that whatever we ask, Lord, you've promised that, that you

hear it and that we have the request that we ask of you.

And, and we learned from Christ our Savior to pray in your will.

And so we pray, we try to pray in your will.

We, we pray that our, our prayers would be saturated in a

desire to make your name great. Not just that we would have all

of our requests and our wishes and our desires met.

But then in our prayer, we would be seeking to make your name

great in and through us as a community, Lord.

And so we pray that you would strengthen us to rebuild the

walls as we talked about today with discipleship that we have

your people who have been saved by your grace.

And our our Commission, our mandate is to make disciples to

help people grow in their faith, that they trust in Christ, that

they read his word, that they obey his commands and walk in

his ways. And in the promise that we have

is that you will be with us until the end of the age.

Lord, thank you for the fact that you are with us through the

power of your spirit. Would you strengthen us to be

bold as we trust in your power and your strength?

In Jesus name we ask, Amen. Amen.

Well, we are praying for you, LMC, and we appreciate you

joining us. Until next time.