Unveiling the Divine: God's Sovereignty, Spiritual Boundaries, and Leadership Lessons from History

Committed at the first of the year to give you a financial update occasionally, like every six weeks or so, and that time has come.

So I got good news coming through the summer, which can be a difficult time Giving when people are away and coming and going.

We actually you actually have given 2.2 million dollars so far a year to date here, which is ahead of budget, ahead of budget needs here coming through the summer.

So praise be to God and thank you for your generosity there.

There's another line that's called our unified mission giving and that is all.

I started like a church tithe.

All of that goes straight out the door to career missionaries Across the world.

In North America You've given 63,000 toward that.

The goals roughly double that.

So you're right on target, pretty much there.

For that we started a capital campaign first of the year, if you were around, called Kingdom come.

That was a three-year pledge.

Many of you gave pledges for that.

That amounted to like three and a half three point five million for future renovations here as well as a permanent home for our Pinewood campus With that in it still in its infancy.

You have given one point five million toward that.

Praise God.

That is a lot of cash that we're able to use to get them established day one and to do some other things too.

So I'm just grateful for all of you and your belief in God's vision as Christ followers around here.

If you've not made a pledge, you can certainly do that.

You can give without making a pledge To, to the Kingdom cause, of course, with your tithe each month here Toward our, with our family also.

So we're just glad you're here, guest, super glad that you are here.

There's a little contact card there, love, for you to fill it out.

Just let us know how we can contact you.

All we'll do, basically, is contact to tell you thank you for coming and tell you we're praying for you.

Love to meet you out at the tent.

For those of you that have been here a while, and today is the day to take a next step decision whether it's to be baptized, like you saw the model of today, or join the church, or to come back to Christ in any way.

That's kind of our topic today.

Speaking of how, about turn to Ezekiel in the Old Testament.

We were in Ezekiel 37 last week.

We're gonna have a follow-up conversation in the same chapter.

We did verses 1 through 10 Story.

Some of you know, if you've been around church for a while the dry bones, the Valley of the dry bones, where God Tells Ezekiel, can these bones live again?

And we see the vision there and what that meant.

God brings life to the lifeless.

Today we're gonna pick up with verses 22 through 28, which is a follow-up to that where God is speaking again to the prophet to stay stuff to all the people, so I'll give you a chance to find that.

Ezekiel 37 what's going on in our world?

A lot stuff go, a lot of changes in our world, aren't it?

Russia is always, seems like, in the news for one reason or another.

Lately, they started a war, and they're not having much luck completing that war, are?

They seem like every month they're getting a little bit farther behind and Taking some licks across the world for that.

They also had a contract government group called the Wagner group, which used to be called mercenaries, but they decided they wanted to revolt, as you knew, a couple of months ago, and they spent the week basically moving through Russia like they were gonna try to take over, and they didn't, and then their Leader mysteriously died in a plane crash two or three weeks ago.

The latest, though and this is what I've been intrigued by, because I loved stuff in the space.

You know, put that picture up there.

The Luna 25 Space module for Russia was in a race throughout the summer with India to see who could be the first one to get to the surface of the moon, and they won, but yet they lost.

They got there first, but they crashed right into the moon and Cost them a hundred.

That vessel cost them a hundred thirty three million dollars.

That just is laying in a heap of rubble Now on the surface of the moon.

So Russia's having a tough summer, aren't they?

The learning for us is as Much as things say the same.

They.

They change.

Traditions come and go, our ways of life change.

It seems like with every day there's another change, and that could create a lot of angst, a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry.

So much of it we can control absolutely zero of, but a lot of times we'll just look at those things and say, well, nothing lasts forever.

Nothing lasts forever, or maybe it does.

That's what God's gonna speak into today.

So if you're dealing with a level of uncertainty looking toward the future, we're for your family or your own spiritual life or your direction in life and you're trying to figure out meaning and everything.

Maybe today is Is exactly what God needs to speak into, and I appreciate Braden praying for us because today we're gonna look at.

I think it's good news.

The statement is simply this God controls time because he's sovereign.

He always has, he is today and he always will be in charge of the time frame.

We control the place, as in the place we are with him and the place we are in his kingdom are outside of his kingdom today that you and I have free reign over and that's what's gonna shape so much of our life.

Verse 25 speaks to that.

We'll get into that too.

So, if you're there, let me create a little bit of historical context, because that's important to know.

The timeline here Ezekiel is the prophet, is pro approximately 600 BC now Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful king in the world at that time and Babylon, the number one Enemy in the world at that time.

They have come in there in the middle of three different raids into Israel, where they take exiles out, they take a bunch of loot out, they decimate the country a little bit more every single time.

The first exile got Daniel out of there.

If you read the book of Daniel.

That's where he comes very first out.

The second exile, ezekiel, goes out.

He is now in Babylon with this what he's hearing from God.

At this point, god is not wanting to really talk about the present.

In this case, god is pointing them toward the future, and that's what's so instructional for us today.

If you read through this as I do, he said God says I will, twenty-one times in seven verses I will, I will, I will, I will.

He uses the word unity, or unified, four times.

But here's the big point for me today.

He uses the word forever four times in seven verses, and Hebrew is pronounced olam, hence the title for today.

God is an olam dot God.

He is a forever God and, as you see from the Scripture, that's good news for them was and it's good news for us today.

Okay, so let's talk about some promises that are going to last me and you forever, because this is going to help us to navigate the uncertainty and the disappointment and the things that we cannot control with what we can control.

So, number one look at verse 22 with me.

The first promise from a forever God is there is a forever King that is available.

I will make them one nation.

In the land, on the mountains of Israel, there will be one King over all of them, and they will never again be two nations and will or will be divided into two kingdoms.

Some of you who know your history of Israel, you know that, after Solomon goes, the nation splits apart it's like a mini civil war, and they become not just Israel, but Israel and Judah.

They're still this case in 600 BC.

What God is saying, though, is, when you all come back home, there will be a day you're going to leave Babylon, you're going to come back to the motherland, but when you do, I'm going to unify you as one nation again around one King, because that's really my purpose.

So this King is different, though, than past Kings.

This King will be a forever King.

This King is a supernatural King.

Ezekiel in 600 BC is visualizing the Messiah, who we know today to be Jesus.

Right, this King will be so strong that he can unify.

Just by his words and by his actions, he can unify a people together forever.

Now, some of you are going to say well, wait a minute.

First century, when Jesus was here, everywhere he went there was controversy.

Doesn't look like they were all unified, and you would be right.

But coming through the resurrection and starting what we call the church age, even up to the present, the people of God are together.

The people of God know what binds them together.

The people who call Christ King are the ones who kind of know their destiny and know their identity, which we'll get into more in a second Y'all.

I don't think we're ever going to be the majority and I think if you're still looking to politics and things like that and world events and maybe even military might, those are all important, they all have their place.

But if you've done a transfer to where your world view and your sense of contentment and confidence is based on that, you're going to continue to be disappointed, because those are human institutions run by humans.

This King is none of that, so he has the ability to unify us.

He's going to walk in too and say there's a lot of Kings, small K, but I'm the one King.

That's a capital K.

And that day it was called monotheism.

It still is.

There is one God and he is holy.

Everybody around them.

In 600 BC, all their neighbors of the Babylonians had many.

They had maybe a hundred gods.

They're covering their bases.

How many times have you possibly?

Or people that you know and love?

How many of them are doing the same thing today?

I don't know.

That sounds pretty good there.

I'll grab that.

Your truth is over here.

That philosophy sounds good.

I like the love part of Christianity.

I'll embrace that too.

I'll cover all my bases.

That does not unify.

That splits us apart.

So how do we approach this?

Sometimes the classic writers from long ago who had it figured out still have it figured out.

There's one guy in particular, andrew Murray.

He wrote a book called Experiencing the Holy Spirit.

He wrote several books.

Andrew Murray was Dutch reformed South African pastor of the late 1800s, but what he writes in here is fully, fully applicable even today.

And he makes the point on page 77 that if you are a Christ follower and you are following him, but you're isolated away from, you're cut off from, a family of believers which we call the church, then you'll never be as spiritually healthy as you could be and you'll never be able to fulfill God's goal and His path for you, as you would want to be.

So an easy read, short read, but it's pretty deep and it's pretty probing.

You still get copies today of it and things like that I think Andrew Murray is right.

What Andrew Murray was saying was 150 years ago you better make sure you know who you king is.

And he's not going anywhere.

He'll be around forever.

The second thing is from verse 23,.

We have a forever character expectation.

This is the part, again, that you can control.

Look at verse 23.

They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images are with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, I will cleanse them, they will be my people and I will be their God.

He's talking about an intimate relationship here with his people in the future, if they want it, he says they will be my people.

That's the identity battle.

A lot of us today, a lot of our folks today, are struggling with identity.

We feel like we need to create an identity and follow it almost like a superhero or something.

Well, this is who I am and everybody, everybody knows what that's not at all like you.

There's others of us struggling and lapses into depression and other things because we just don't know who we are.

Can I simplify?

Hope it doesn't sound oversimplified for you.

If you proclaim to be a Christ follower, your identity is not who you are.

Your identity is who's you are.

If you belong to him, he'll settle the rest of it.

If you're just conformed to Christ, who are you?

I am a Christ follower.

That will keep you busy the rest of your life on your identity.

You want some good news about that.

Good news about that is whether it's severe disappointments, knee buckling, failure, whether it's the worst betrayal you can imagine, all of those will not be fun.

There'll be some suffering there, but you will walk through them with a self worth that is not damaged and a confidence that is not in you but in the one leading you, because he will be there to guide you and to go with you every single step of the way.

The other side, y'all of character is we have to establish some boundaries.

That's how we discipline our children right.

That's how we have to live as adults.

I've got to be reminded, I got to know there's certain things I just don't do.

There's certain places I'm just not going to go.

I'm still sinful, I still blow it.

But why presume on God or why tempt God by stepping into activities or places or things or people that are going to always lead me into a bad character role rather than the right character role.

How do we know how to establish those boundaries?

Well, generally, 1 John, chapter 2 is a great place to go.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

If you want to jot that down and read it for a devotion later, some of you might want to turn to it now.

1 John 2, 15 through 17 is a great one.

He says I am.

He says do not have love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him For anything in the world.

The cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, the boasting of what he has and does, comes out not from the Father but from the world.

The world and its desires will pass away, but the one who does the will of God will live forever.

You see where he's drawing those boundaries.

He just says, generally, the world's got nothing for you.

The world's not always an evil place, but there are things in the world, because it's a broken place, that will destroy our character and that's what we have to protect.

So, randy, how do I know if I'm growing in my character or not?

Maybe there's a couple of questions you can ask.

I got to ask myself this when I do the right thing.

Is it out of fear or is it out of duty?

If I fear getting caught, or if I fear just being embarrassed publicly or if I fear looking bad, that's not the best motivation or indication of my character.

If I do it out of duty, because I know I'm supposed to but there's no joy or no attempt to worship or glorify God through it, that's not the right motive either.

The motive is because I love Jesus and I hate the thought of grieving his heart and I understand grace.

He's given it to me time after time after time, and so I'm gonna do the right thing.

I'm gonna be a character man, hopefully, because I just don't want to disappoint him.

Those are the right.

Allen Greenspan His quote is saying this, and I think he's right.

He says rules cannot.

Rules cannot replace culture.

If you're part of a company and their policy manual is about this thick, or if you're part of a church and their constitution and bylaws is this thick, or you're part of a nonprofit and their policy manual is like you can't even read it all in one sitting, that's maybe an indication we're using rules to replace character and That'll never work.

There's got to be a relationship that keeps our character more clean.

You with me, still, everybody with me.

So we got a permanent, forever king, hopefully a forever character, which is gonna get better and better, because once we go into the kingdom of God, like after we die, our character will be spotless then and we'll talk about that on another day.

Third thing is from verse 24 and 25.

We got this forever leader, my servant, david.

Well, it will be king over them and they will have one shepherd.

They will follow my laws.

They'll be careful to keep my decrees or to be obedient and to be faithful.

That's what he's saying.

Because they're following this leader, they will live in the land I gave to my servant, jacob, the land where your fathers live.

They and their children and their children's children will live there.

How long forever?

And David, my servant, will be their prince.

How long Forever?

Get very good.

So wait a minute.

Some of you are confused because again, you're pretty good history students of Israel.

He mentions David two or three times here and you're thinking I thought David lived before this.

You would be right.

David lived possibly thousand BC.

This is in 600 BC.

What in the world is he's talking about?

He's not talking about that, david.

He's talking about the king, the leader who will come after the Messiah, david, the David who is the son of God.

He's talking about Jesus without being able to name Jesus.

This is why he says he will be there forever, and then he says he'll be a shepherd.

So Isaiah taught us about a shepherd shepherds all through the Old Testament.

Guess who else called themselves a shepherd?

Jesus, jesus.

And John 10 has this really good discourse where he says in church one day he says oh, you've been reading about that, you know God's being our shepherd.

Everything been reading about David.

He started out as a shepherd.

I am the good shepherd.

Well, that's that awful, a little bit of a controversy.

I am the good shepherd.

Then he goes on down to talk about how you know it's the right shepherd from the wrong shepherd.

He says, basically, the good shepherd is gonna lay down his life for the sheep.

He's not gonna run away in trouble.

The good shepherd knows his sheep by name.

The good shepherd will protect and provide for his sheep.

That's how you'll know.

Now, david was a pretty fair leader, right, david was also a shepherd.

The most famous poem, I think, in the history of the world.

It turned into a song we have recorded in your Bible.

It's the 23rd song.

Remember how it starts the Lord is my Shepherd.

That's from a shepherd who knows about shepherding pretty well and he's saying he's gonna lead us and one day there'll be a Person on this earth as the good shepherd.

So how do we follow a forever leader?

Y'all?

It's got to be some trust.

When a leader demonstrates to you that he's trustworthy and he has your best at interest, not his, that's a much easier trust mechanism.

And that's where a lot of you are.

That's where some of you are going to be.

You might not trust easily.

There's been some betrayals.

You've been let down, you've got suspicion in you, you've got things going on.

It's hard for you to trust, but the day's coming when you're going to realize that's my only way of engaging with the forever qualities that are going to make my life count in the world is to trust this great leader who is the king.

Isaiah 40 talks about this type of leader who will carry us, not only shepherd us, but when we're injured, when we're hurt, when we're too tired, he's going to pick us up and carry us.

And Isaiah 46, god says through the prophet he said let me remind you something I control all time.

I was there before you were conceived.

I was there at your birth.

I've also been up until now, as you're an old man, I have been carrying you the same language.

So good news for you he's here with you.

He sees you when you have been particularly weak, but yet, wanting to be faithful and trust him, he will actually carry you.

That's your place.

You control the place.

If you stay as close to him and as dependent on him as you possibly can, you'll be always in good position.

Where this, good or bad, we'll go back to David in the 23rd Psalm.

Remember what he says in verse 4?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fall apart.

Right now, I will fear no evil.

Why?

Because I'm fifth degree black belt, right?

No, no, because your rod and your staff.

They comfort me and millions of us have been comforted by that.

There's something about wanting to be in a place where God is.

In September, after Labor Day, lord willing, we're going to start a teaching series called Mountain Men.

You ever see that?

I think it's on History Channel, right?

I don't know why I love that show so much, but Mountain Men, it's going to be a different Mountain Men.

James is going to teach it out there, we're going to teach it here.

It's amazing how many times, especially in the Old Testament, you see people ascending to meet with God.

Much of the Psalms are songs of ascent.

You're reaching up, he's reaching down.

There's something about the high places where God used them to meet with men and give them some vital things that they needed.

We're going to see it time after time and we're going to see the very human, flawed men who make those trips up the mountains.

Some of them are going up there because they know he's going to give them some instructions for the next years of a whole nation.

Some of them are going up there to fight.

Quite frankly, they're fighting some enemies that God has told them is up there.

Some of them have no clue why they're going up the mountain, but they're scared to death because they know the presence of God is up there.

One of them in particular is gonna go up there, dreading it like the day is long, because it's gonna be the worst day of his life and it's gonna probably, as he thinks, ruin the rest of his life, because he has been told and he's trying to obey God where God tells him.

See that son of yours, give him to me.

And many of you know that story.

There's something about making the effort to go meet with God that y'all.

He'll never disappoint us because he's our forever leader.

He's not going anywhere.

We're the ones that sometimes go into retreat.

Number four there's a forever peace.

Let's talk about peace for a second.

Look at verse 26.

I will make a covenant of peace, an agreement with peace, with them.

It will be a how long?

A forever covenant.

I will establish them and increase their numbers and I will put my sanctuary or my residence among them.

For how long?

Forever?

You're right, better than we know what God's saying.

You're in a foreign country.

Everybody around you thinks you're an idiot for worshiping one God that you cannot even see or hear out loud.

They're all worshiping up to a hundred or more of them.

They've got all this hocus pocus stuff going on and they're studying the stars and they're doing all these sacrifices and everything, and you're sticking to your one God.

They've already conquered your nation and decimated it.

They're using that as a portrayal of well you.

God's not all that.

He's not all that after all, I guess.

But he said hang in there.

Why?

Because better days are coming.

It may not be today, but hang on, because I am an olong God, I am a forever God, and let that be your peace right now, in the absence of seeing results.

That's why we should come together every week here and worship, because we're celebrating, if nothing else, we're celebrating who God is.

Some of you are going through extreme difficulties right now, extreme challenges whether it's physically, emotionally, mentally, with children, with aging parents, with jobs it's all across the board.

But the deal with church is you come in and you worship in peace, because God is still God and God still controls time.

Our job is still the same and that is to be in the right place with Him.

We always have an altar call here, here, as you know, every single week.

That's your chance to come and pray, your chance to make a next step decision.

This one is calledthis one, coming in a few minutes, is called First Things First and it was chosen, I think, in a great way because it matches.

I don't want to read the whole thing to you, but let me just read a little bit of what we'll be worshiping to in a minute.

It says all the things I've held dear, the vanities that whispered in my ear.

What would I do if they all disappeared?

Riches and fame and all that they could buy.

I've come to find that they will never satisfy.

What would I gain if my soul is the price?

I don't want to love what the world loves.

No, I don't want to chase what the world does.

I only want you.

I only want you.

So keep the first things first.

All my desires reversed to keep the first things first.

I think that's a great example for all of us.

Thomas a Kempus, who lived way back in the 1400s, wrote this.

He said he who knows best how to suffer will one day know greater peace.

Now, let's be honest.

We don't suffer a whole lot in this country, do we?

But we sacrifice.

If we are willing to sacrifice take up our cross daily, as Jesus said then what we have an expectation and a promise of from the promiser of peace is that better days are coming.

Maybe not today, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.

We can't control the time, but we can control the place we are with God.

We can control the time, but we can control the place we are with God.

Fifth thing there is a forever presence that we can expect.

Look at verse 27,.

My dwelling place will be with them.

I will be their God.

They will be my people.

This is going to sound a little bit simplistic also, I'm afraid, but can I remind us all of something?

If you are here, that means he is here.

He is really here.

God is really in this room because you are in this room.

After the resurrection, the power of God, through the Holy Spirit, starts to come inside of our spirits, of those who follow Him.

As a Christ follower, you and I share the presence of God in us.

It's an incredible thought.

David said in your presence is joy.

I'm full of joy, and so we should be joyful people, not conditioned on our circumstances, but conditioned on who we are following and who saved us, but also where we know we are headed, and that is this place of forever presence of God.

He will never leave us and never forsake us.

That's why baptism is such a big deal.

Baptism is symbolic of a lot of things, but one thing it's symbolic of is he's not going anywhere.

He'll be in you forever and you'll be with him forever.

Whenever that happens, every church that meets today in this world, god will be there.

But can I say this delicately God will not be manifest in every church.

That means it'll not be really apparent in every church that he is here.

And one reason for that, I really believe, is where we can go back and study Cain and Abel just for a second.

In Genesis, chapter 4, the first murder ever recorded is when a brother murders his brother.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

Right, remember that they both are offering sacrifices.

They both are doing the right thing.

One is accepted and one is not.

Why?

Because Abel offered a sacrifice, knowing how broken he was and knowing how needy he was, and he's saying please would you use this blood to atone for my sins and restore me in a good place with you.

The other brother is doing it because it's a duty and it's a routine and it's a ritual and let's get this over and then I'll go on my way.

He didn't see his brokenness and so when one's accepted and one's not, cain gets mad and he doesn't blame God, he takes it out on his brother.

And you know the rest of the story.

The people of God, the churches of God that don't realize how broken we are, are the ones where maybe he's here but he's not manifest here.

So let me read the last verse, 28.

Then all the nations will know that I, the Lord, will make Israel holy when my sanctuary is among them forever.

I'm going to ask Braden and our team to come up and remind us Braden, I'm sorry, remind us that this forever God loves you.

He's going to be.

If you'll let him, if you're in the right place, he's going to be your king.

He will develop your character.

He will be your leader forever.

He will also give you a peace that will be permanent and he will always be inside of you.

So real quick recap how long is God going to be on the throne?

How long is he going to love you?

How long will he forgive you?

How long will Jesus be Lord?

Why don't you stand and let's sing together?

Then See you down front.