The Recipe for Joy | LoveKey Church Message of the Week Podcast | Heinz Winckler

I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind. Listen to this,

even to give every man according to his ways.

I want to give something, but it's going to be according to your ways.

According to the, everyone say, fruit of his doings, not the fruit of your intentions.

Music.

Hello and welcome to the Love Key Church podcast, where we share our church's

message of the week. My name is Heinz Winkler, and together with my wife,

children, and our leadership team, we host Love Key Church here in Somerset

West, online, and on this podcast.

It is our mission to help you to encounter God, align with His purposes,

reign in life, and help others to do the same.

We trust that you will find this message empowering, encouraging, and inspiring.

Please share it with your friends and family, and write a review for us.

And a huge thank you goes out to those who have already done so.

So, may you be thoroughly blessed as you listen to this message.

Music.

We are busy with a series based on our word for the year, which is fruit.

That's our word for the year. And I've been sharing a picture with you of this

cycle that we keep on seeing in the word of God.

Everything starts with a seed and a

seed produces a tree or a plant which produces

fruit which produces seed and so

on and so forth and that's why it's so important to know what are the seeds

we're talking about so a quick recap our first message this year was called

be fruitful and multiply and we will find out that God's plan from the beginning

is still his plan he wants us to be be fruitful, and multiply,

both physically as families who grow and disciple our own children,

but also in discipling the world around us. Amen?

The second message was called Positioned to Produce, and it was all about how am I positioned?

Am I positioned to produce what God wants me to produce?

Harvey shared a message called No Fear for the Year, and we spoke about what

it means, how do we live a life that doesn't have a fear of circumstances or

a fear of man, but absolutely and only a fear of the Lord.

And last week, I shared with you a message called What You Sow Will Show.

Spoke specifically about what can happen if we allow certain voices to plant

seeds in our lives and that when those seeds, we allow them in our spirits,

they will will bear fruit, it will show,

so we need to be very careful and very focused on what we allow in our spirits.

How many of you were able to not listen to other voices this week as you fasted?

That's a beginning. That's a start.

Thank you. Did you find that there was more clarity as you did that?

Did you hear more from God, more clearly, less noise? I hope so.

Now, today we're going to build on this. If you've missed any of those messages,

I want to encourage you strongly to go and listen or watch them.

They're all on our platforms.

So before I tell you what today's message is called, I'm going to just ask a few questions.

Like I always do, I like doing that to get us all in the right mindset.

How many of you like to cook or bake or both cook bake both all right how many

of you how many of you hate being in the kitchen anyone all right we've got

a few we've got a few honest people all right how many of you love to cook and

bake but you hate the cleaning part.

If only someone can clean up after you yeah have any of you ever found a recipe

that you wanted wanted to make.

You looked at the picture in the book and you're like, man, that looks amazing.

And then you want to make it. And then you find out you don't have all the ingredients,

which is really frustrating.

But either way, you might be someone who goes, ah, I'm going to give up.

I don't have all the necessary ingredients.

That would be our perfectionist brothers and and sisters.

Then you have our creative, sort of risky brothers and sisters who would go,

I'm just going to wing it.

And I'm going to make this work either way, you know, and they find substitutionary ingredients.

And you end up with something that doesn't look or taste like the picture in the book.

Anyone ever done that? I've done that. I'm guilty.

But either way, Anyway, if you didn't have it, or if you didn't even make it,

you obviously don't end up with the right dish.

Has anyone ever tried to make a new recipe, something you're trying for the

first time, you have all the right ingredients, but still somehow, was it a floppy?

Anyone? And you're like, how did this happen?

And the reason normally is that you lack skill or and experience,

or you missed something about the method, or you just don't have the right tools in your kitchen.

Anyone willing to admit humbly? Yes. All right.

Now, as a cook or a baker, if you have the right attitude, you will humble yourself.

You will learn from your mistakes and you will try again. This time,

you know, using what you've learned.

And this is called practicing.

Everyone say it with me. Practicing. Yes. Very important.

As you exercise, you get better at something.

Thing how many of you know that when my when my

kids were younger they didn't want to understand that

concept let alone try so i'm like you can

do this but it'll take some practice and they want to get it right the first

time anyone like that when i get it right the first time and then and then after

a few tries and falls and and you know skid knees and stuff they're like i got

it i got it i'm doing it look at me and then like five minutes later look no

hands like yeah you went from zero Euro to Euro,

but it came with practice, amen? All right.

Now, our spiritual lives are similar to what I just described.

Today, I'd like to share with you a life-changing, life-impacting recipe.

Are you ready for it? I give to you the recipe for joy. I have it. I know it.

And I'm going to share it with you today. The recipe for joy.

How many of you would like to cook this up?

All right. Wonderful. Now,

Is anyone here in the house today honest enough to say, listen,

I can do with more joy in my life? Anyone? More joy?

How many of you have too much joy? Like, no, please don't give me more.

I'm good. Anyone? No. Okay.

How many of you would like, those of you who are parents, how many of you would

like to see your children be successful? Anyone?

Would you like them to be righteous?

Would you like to have more influence, good influence? Anyone?

All right. Do you want to be wealthy? Be honest.

Who wants to be wealthy? Yes? All right.

Who wants to be generous, known for their generosity? Yes, come on.

How many of you would like to live without fear of people and circumstances?

No fear. Yes, that's a lot of hands very quickly. Sure.

How many of you would like to leave a legacy worth leaving that others will

talk about for a long time to come?

How many of you would like to do business with integrity and generosity? Anyone?

Less hands. All right. the fear thing was quite big.

Would you agree that having some or all of the things that I just mentioned

will give you joy, will lead to more joy in your life? Would you agree?

Some of you are like, especially the wealth one. Yes, I have news for you.

Joy doesn't come automatically with money, but there's a difference between

wealth and just having money.

Now, to find the recipe for joy, I had to go on a journey and I finally turned

to the Cosmic Recipe Book of Life.

I went to the living word of the master of the universe who has the holy scriptures,

the thing we call the Bible.

And our main reading will come from one of my favorite Psalms, which is Psalm 112.

So let's read together. It starts with a phrase that we should start every day with.

Praise the Lord. Everyone say praise the Lord.

Now listen carefully.

With compassion and righteous, a good man deals graciously and lends.

He will guide his affairs with discretion.

Surely he will never be shaken. The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance.

He will not be afraid of evil tidings. That means he will not be afraid of bad news.

His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.

His heart is established. established, he will not be afraid.

Until he sees his desire upon his enemies, he has dispersed abroad.

He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever.

His horn will be exalted with honor. The wicked will see it and be grieved.

He will gnash his teeth and melt away.

The desire of the wicked shall perish.

Come on, can we give the word of God just a praise offering?

Amen. Amen. So good.

Here, the psalmist gives us 17 things.

Some of them you would have heard if you were paying attention were kind of a repetition.

So if you add them all up, I made a list. If you make the list,

there are 17 things that flow from the life that has the two main ingredients.

Obedience, would you agree with me that these 17 things can be called fruit of a life?

This comes from your life. It's fruit of your life. Amen. And that's how this

beautifully ties in with what we are talking about.

What do you want the fruit of your life to be?

When I made the list and I said, do you want to be this? Do you want to be that?

It all comes from the list in Psalm 112.

And all of of you or most of you said yes, especially to the no fear one.

Now, would you agree that this is fruit? And we say, yes, the fruit of a life

of a man or woman whose life lines up with the recipe.

In the New King James says, blessed is the man. That's our first line.

It says, praise the Lord.

Blessed is the man. Other translations say, blessed is the person. Blessed are those.

And the New Living says, how joyful are those?

So we, and the reason is we can ask ourselves, why does it say joyful?

Because that's what blessed actually means in the biblical context.

It means to be full of joy and exceedingly happy.

But we need to take our minds off of our worldly connotation to the meaning of joy and happiness.

So we all have an idea of what the world says happiness is, even joy.

But if we go back to the biblical definition, it's so much deeper and more profound

than the cheap substitute that the world offers.

I want to take you to the Sermon on the Mount quickly.

We did this in depth last year. How many of you were here for the Sermon on

the Mount series called The Teacher?

You can go back and listen to that on our YouTube and podcast.

Jesus sits down. He starts speaking to this massive crowd.

The crowd was there because he did healings and those people stayed and brought

more people and he healed more people.

So a whole crowd of people who already saw that he had healed the masses were

now sitting, paying attention to the seed from the word himself.

I think that's just a beautiful picture. And he starts off with a piece that

we now call the Beatitudes.

In the beginning, he says, every time, blessed are those, blessed are the.

Do you know the Beatitudes, anyone?

Okay. He repeats, blessed is this kind of person, blessed are those.

Things like, we see that blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn. And then he says, why?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful.

And that word blessed, and even the word beatitudes, it comes from the word

that means to be joyful, to be exceedingly happy, to have an abundance of joy. Are you with me?

Now, the Sermon on the Mount is through three chapters of Matthew, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

And we said about the series.

Now, Jesus started all of it with blessed are the following people.

And then he goes into this epic teaching that we covered over weeks and weeks

and stated that he is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

That's one of the big statements that Jesus makes in his sermon.

He then takes a few of what we know as the 10 commandments, and he tells us

that you were told this is a commandment. I'm telling you, it's actually over here.

So you were told murder is wrong. I'm telling you, if you hate your brother,

you've murdered him in your heart.

You've heard that adultery is wrong. I tell you that if you look lustfully upon

someone in your heart, you have committed adultery.

And he takes everything up a notch, and we're like, whoa, and we realize we

actually fall so short of the holiness of God.

And towards the end of the sermon we

get to a part that we looked at last week where

he warns about false prophets we read that last

week and whom we will know by their fruits

and then interestingly straight from there out of talking about false prophets

he talks about that there's a certain group of so-called believers to whom he

will say i never knew you so he first says you you will know false prophets by the following.

You will recognize them by their fruits. And then he says, there's other bunch

of people that I will say, I never knew you.

And that word know, that word knew, it means Ganesco, which means to know intimately.

The word in the Hebrew is Yadah, which is beautiful.

It's that word of knowing. They use that word to say that Adam knew Eve,

Adam, Yadah, Eve, and they had a child. It's that intimate language.

Jesus says...

I will, I never knew you. And then he says, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

You who make a practice, a habit out of not keeping my laws.

Are you with me? So that's all part. He starts with blessed are these kinds of people.

He has all these teachings. He ends with a warning about false prophets.

And then he talks about people that he will say, well, never,

I never knew you. and then he finishes off in a powerful way with a heading

that I like to call hear and do.

Jesus ends his sermon and you can see the same thing in Luke 6 as well by comparing

those who hear his words and do them to a man who builds his house on the rock.

He goes into that well-known story.

He says, those who hear what I say and do what I say are like the man who built his house on the rock.

When I was little, I don't know about you, but when I was little,

I just thought the man who has his house on the rock is the guy who, he just loves Jesus.

He's got a relationship with him. He's a Christian. Anyone else think that?

It's actually way more specific than that. And the difference is life changing.

The difference is that he will either know you or not know you.

It's not just to say, I'm a Christian. It's not just to say,

I go to church. It's not just to say, I know Jesus.

No, it's to hear what he has said and to do it.

And what did he say? What did he say?

And why did he make this analogy? He made this analogy because he knows the

storms are coming. He knows the winds are coming.

And if you are not strong, if you are not settled on the rock,

which is Jesus Christ, but it's not just Jesus Christ, it's the word and it's

doing what the word says. That is the rock.

If you are not founded in the rock, then the winds will come and the storms

will come and you will be thrown aside and your house.

It says the man who built his house on the sand, his house was destroyed.

It was, there was great ruin because of what happened to him because his house

was on the sand. He had no foundation.

How many of you want to build your house on the rock? Amen. Some of you are

like, I'm thinking about it.

Now, where else do we get this pattern? I'm going to read to you Psalm 1.

I've got that on the screen for you. It says, blessed is the man. We see a pattern.

Psalm 112, blessed is the man.

Psalm 1, way back in the beginning of Psalms, blessed is the man who walks not

in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight, remember that word from Psalm 112. Verse 12,

blessed is the man who fears the Lord and delights greatly in obeying his commands.

But his delight is the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night.

What did God say to Joshua in the beginning of the book of Joshua?

Meditate on my word day and night and you will be successful.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its

fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither and whatever he does shall

prosper guys whatever that person does,

shall prosper how many of you want the so-called Midas

touch whatever you do will prosper anyone this is

the key these are the ingredients to the recipe of

joy verse four the ungodly are

not so making a comparison do you

see once again I say this all the time do you see a middle ground

around do you see a sort of blessed man a

kind of walking with god sort of

hanging with the scornful and the sinners no the

ungodly are not like this man who is blessed but are like the chaff which the

wind drives away therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners

in the congregation of the righteous for the lord knows the way of the righteous

by the but the way of of the ungodly shall perish. There are two ways.

Jesus confirms this. You are either on the narrow way or the broad way.

We also get this from Jeremiah 17. I'm going to start though at verse five already.

It says, thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.

So any one of us that right now, if I look at myself and I'm very honest, where is my trust?

Is it in man? Is it in what people can provide for me? Is it in my employer? Is it in my own ability?

Is it in the system around me? or is it truly in the Lord whose heart departs from the Lord?

You see, there's a disconnect with the one who is cursed. For he shall be like

a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the

parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited.

How many of you would like that? No, don't put up your hand.

Now I know you have not been listening. You don't want that.

None of us want to be cursed. okay don't put

up your hand so quickly we we step out of agreement with

that so then we continue this

is the part where i wanted to get to but i first wanted to contrast it for

you verse 7 blessed is the

man who trusts in the lord and

whose hope is the lord not in the

lord his hope is the lord there's not

an in there his hope is the lord for

he shall be like a tree planted by the

waters which spreads out its roots by the river will not fear

when heat comes but its leaf will be green

and will not be anxious in the year of

drought it will not worry when there are problems at

the moment nor cease from yielding fruit no matter what going through a drought

whatever it can be you will still yield fruit the heart is deceitful above all

things that line comes straight out of that part this was Isaiah writing all

the way through no verses no chapters.

Why is that important to read that right there? Because most people are deceived

by their own heart's desires.

Because their heart's desires are not connected to the desires of God.

Because they are not abiding in the vine.

It's all connected so beautifully.

I, listen to this people. I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind.

I want you to imagine something quite horrific. I want you to imagine that God

walks into a room with you. He sits you down on a chair.

He presses on your heart and suddenly everything in your heart and everything

in your mind projects on the wall like a screen.

And he sees it. He hears it. And he tests you based on that.

Does that freak you out? It freaks me out a little bit.

This is what it says. I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind. Listen to this.

Even to give every man according to his ways. I want to give something,

but it's going to be according to your ways.

According to the, everyone say fruit of his doings.

Not the fruit of your intentions.

Not the fruit of your well-meaning But that's not what I mean,

No By the fruit Of your Doings By the work of your life Mind, heart,

Actions, tested Now I know most of you don't like Tests,

But this is one that we all have to face On

a daily basis but definitely at the

end of time when God comes in his

glory and we all have to stand before the white throne of judgment

it will be tested that is why the question of what we are sowing into us is

so important because what you sow you will reap if you sow things that distort

your mind and your heart that is what you will sow.

That's what we'll show. And that's what God will test.

So what do you want God to see when he tests you?

Get the seed right so that you

as a tree is healthy and that the fruit of your life is pleasing to him.

Can we get excited about this? Because the good news is it's possible.

I know not right now, some of you are going, oh, shucks.

You might feel even even condemned, which is not, the Holy Spirit doesn't condemn.

The Holy Spirit brings conviction.

Conviction leads to freedom. So if you are going.

Okay, I need to clean house. I need to make some. That's good.

That's the Holy Spirit going, pressing the right button.

And you're going like, I need to fix this. Yes.

You must go to God. Go to the word. All right. So the ingredients for joy.

We have the recipe for joy. How many of you are glad we have the recipe?

Thank you, Jesus. But we also know that even if we have the ingredients,

there might still be some challenges in putting them together.

But we first have to understand what these ingredients are.

Okay? Now, from Psalm 112, it's clear that we have two main ingredients for

a blessed life, also known as a joyful and exceedingly happy life. We all want that.

How many times have I told you that the Bible is full of if and then statements?

So the blessed man, he fears the Lord and greatly delights in His commandments.

Then the fruit follows. We can't have the fruit without the root.

The fear of the Lord is the first ingredient.

The second one is delighting in obeying His commandments. Do you notice that

it doesn't say obeys His commandments?

It says delights. Not even delights. It says, delight greatly in obeying His. Look at that Psalm.

I took out the greatly because the sentence just got long.

But the fear of the Lord plus delight in your obeying His commands equals joy.

This is what the Bible says.

It's there. It's written.

And the fruit of a blessed life are the 17 things that are listed to you in Psalm 112.

The fruit of this blessed life, the fruit that we can see on a life that is

dedicated to God through the fear of the Lord and delighting and obeying his

commandments are these things and many more that we can find.

But under each of those headings, almost, you can fill in a whole bunch of stuff

that we all would find to be awesome things to have in our lives and that will bring joy.

I've already asked you this question, but I'm going to just take you back.

The list of Psalm 112, how many of you would like to have this in your life?

How many of you have it already, but you'd like to see more?

So many of these things that we see on the list are things that the world offers

to us as well. Have you noticed that?

The world also offers things that sound similar.

But every time the world offers the same thing

it comes connected to you and

yourself and your pride and what you

get how how amazing you are what you

need what you can get out of it it's all

connected to the self but when it's godly

it's all connected to god his kingdom and seeing that i leave a godly legacy

through my children and through those around me that is the big difference What

the world offers will always be temporary and empty and without eternal value. Always.

What the world offers is empty, it is temporary, and it has no eternal value.

Now, there's some things that we enjoy in life. There's nothing wrong in essence

with that thing to enjoy it.

But you know and I know that your hobby is not getting you to heaven.

Seven, your hobby is not necessarily leading people to Jesus unless you are

actively using your hobby to pull people closer to get them to Jesus.

There's nothing wrong with it as a thing. But if you start worshiping the thing,

if you start worshiping, if you start finding your identity in the activities

and the stuff that you do, then we have something we need to be careful of.

But what God offers us is a holy joy,

a righteous joy, a joy where the things on the list is not the point,

but the consequence of living a life in holy fear of a holy God and enjoying

being obedient to His word.

That is the difference. Can you hear the difference? Do you understand it, church?

This is so important for us to get today.

Now, I wonder if you have already picked up on something interesting.

If a person lives with a healthy, holy fear of God, would that not actually

lead to a desire to obey God?

If you truly have a holy, healthy fear of God, then there should flow from your

being a willingness to obey Him.

So ingredient number one actually, in a way, produces ingredient number two. Are you following?

We want to please Him when we fear Him. We want to submit to His will.

So obedience is a natural outflow of the healthy fear of the Lord.

So the first ingredient flows into the second one, which is so powerful.

Now, something that I noticed in this text that I want to just highlight to

you, because I think it's very interesting, and it will actually help us to

further unlock the truth in this text, is that we find different tenses in this presentation.

We've got future tense, present tense, and past tense. So if you don't know

what I'm talking about, go back to school.

But it's interesting to see that the promised fruit of a blessed man,

many or most of the items, it's a will be, it's a promise.

It says that he will be this. His children will be this. He will be wealthy.

I don't know if you've noticed that. But then we also have some present tense

statements, which is he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous.

And I believe that the present tense statements should show us the character,

the state of the character of his heart, which shows us if you have that because

you fear God, because you obey his commandments, then you can know that if this

is, is, then other things will be.

Amen. And we also see some past tense statements where he says that he has a.

He has sown abroad. He has helped the poor and the needy, which also speaks to what he presently is.

He is gracious and giving and generous. So his past experience of being generous,

this what he is now, all of it are building blocks for he will be the following.

And these are the blessings of such a life. Are we following?

Amen. It's so powerful. Now, some of you may ask, okay, cool.

These are the ingredients. I hear you.

But what is the fear of the Lord? I hope that the men who are in Sons of God

and the ladies who are in Daughters of God,

after having studied the book, The Awe of God by John Bevere,

will have a better idea than some of the others may be here of what the fear of the Lord actually is.

I want to just to help us all to understand this better.

There's a quote from this book that says it so well that I'm just going to quote

it to you directly today. day.

What is the fear of the Lord?

To fear God is to reverence and to be in complete awe of Him.

It is to hallow Him, which means it is to greatly respect Him.

It is to esteem, respect, honor, venerate, and adore Him above anyone or anything else.

This is so important. When we fear God.

This is key, people. When we truly fear God, we love what He loves and we hate what He hates.

And He hates sin. He hates unrighteousness.

We know this from the Word of God. So if we truly fear Him, a sign in our lives

will be that we hate what He hates as much as He hates it.

To fear God is to hate injustice. It is to depart from evil in every sense,

thought, word, and action.

Remember what we read in Jeremiah 17, the mind, the heart, and the actions will

be judged, will be tested.

So we have to depart from evil in every sense.

It is to walk in authentic humility before God and mankind.

What does authentic humility mean? It means that I don't have a false humility.

I don't try to impress people by showing them, hey, look how humble I am.

It's also not I'm a doormat or a floor mat.

I'm just, you know, being pushed around. I just kind of let it happen.

No, to be truly humble is to know who I am, what I've received from God,

where I come from and where I'm going.

And I know exactly what my role is. And I present as humble before you because I know who's my king.

But I also love the image of God that you bear. so I will treat you in a humble

way and a respectful way. Amen.

It is to fear God, sorry, to fear God is to give Him the praise,

the adoration, the thanksgiving, and the worship He deserves.

How many of you know that He deserves all our praise, all our adoration,

all our thanksgiving and worship? Amen.

It is to give God all that belongs to Him.

It is to tremble before Him in wonder and awe. It is to give His word and presence our full attention.

Our full attention. How many of you would really enjoy it if the person you

love the most in the world sits with you across from a table and you're having

a deep conversation and they keep looking at their phone?

Would you feel loved? Would you feel that you want to continue the conversation?

If you are normal, then no.

I'm helping you because it seems like some of you think it's a trick question.

It's not a trick question. You should just say, I would hate that because I'm

here with you and I love you, but you keep looking at your phone or you keep

looking over my shoulder to see if there's anyone more interesting in the room.

Imagine how God feels when I say I'm consecrating this time,

but I'm constantly being distracted, constantly thinking of other things,

not shutting my mind down and focusing on Him alone.

Then we have a lack of the fear of God. The good news is we can practice the fear of the Lord. Amen.

To fear God is to obey him. And this is a beautiful way that he describes this

and it links to our second ingredient of our recipe.

He says to fear God is to obey him. They are linked.

An inward force determined to carry out his will. And I do this. I will be obedient.

This is important, church. Please listen up. If you haven't read the book,

please read the book because it goes into detail on each of these.

Just want you to hear these ones to be challenged today because this really challenges

me that I will obey God I will

obey his word and I will obey his leading no matter

what the cost I will obey immediately

because delayed obedience is disobedience I will obey even if I don't see a

personal benefit yo that one's hard I will obey God yes because I see this kind

of can lead there where I'm going to achieve something,

I'm going to get something, I'm going to grow in an area. No.

Obey even if you don't see a personal benefit.

Obey even if it doesn't make sense. I know this one very well, personally.

Anyone else? Obey when it doesn't make sense.

And fifth, and we carry, to fear God is to obey Him to completion.

It's not good enough to be obedient sort of halfway.

And a good example that John also refers to is the story of King Saul,

who was told to destroy, to devote to destruction a whole group of people from

a nation that they had a war with, a battle with.

But he chose to keep some of the price, the choice animals, and he kept the king of that nation.

And in that moment, God turned against him. And he said, you are no longer the

king of Israel. because he fulfilled the obedience 95%, but that 5% made it disobedience.

We have to obey to completion.

Just quickly again, to fear God is to obey him no matter what the cost,

to obey immediately, to obey even if you don't see a personal benefit,

to obey even if it doesn't make sense, to obey and carry it to completion.

The last few ones, what is the fear of the Lord? It is to abstain from any complaining,

any murmuring, and any grumbling.

What happened to Israel in the desert is our example here.

If we complain, if we murmur, if we grumble, it is rebellion against God.

It is not fear of the Lord.

To fear God is to respect, honor, and submit to His direct and delegated authority.

Authority that is your pastors your spiritual leaders and with the only exception

being if that authority tells you to sin the only time that you go against the

people of God that he has put in your life to lead you guide you help you and

instruct you is when they tell you hey go and do that sin then you say uh-uh no.

Every time, every other time, your submission to leadership is a show of your

submission and fear to God.

This is very clear from scripture. And lastly, the fear of the Lord shapes our

intentions, our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

And that's so powerful because it leads us straight back to Jeremiah 17,

where God says he's going to test our minds, our hearts, and our actions.

But when we have the fear of the Lord, then it shapes our intentions,

our thoughts, our words, and our actions into what God wants them to be.

So that when He tests them, He finds them to be fruitful for Him.

Amen? Are you with me, church?

So second ingredient, what does it mean to delight in obeying His commandments?

How many of you get excited about rules? Yay!

You give a little jump for joy because man there's more rules anyone okay i

actually know people who really enjoy rules because it makes life simpler and

it builds you know systems and stuff but i see i see you all a bunch of rebels

apparently no hands went up not even the school principal principle.

What does it mean to delight in obeying His commandments? In fact,

it says greatly delight.

This language, I remember the first time I read this, I've shared this with

you, but some have not heard the story.

My wife and I wanted to have children.

And because God showed me that we will have four. He showed me in 2005,

I will have three boys and a girl.

So I've known all along I had an unfair advantage.

And when we decided it's time to start trying, for a long time,

nothing happened. So we went for tests.

And they told us that we have less than a 5% chance of having children naturally.

And I said, thank you for your medical advice. My God said, we will have children.

So we prayed and we did some of the stuff they suggested, but nothing medically

invasive. evasive, just mostly prayer and trusting God.

And we got pregnant shortly after that, by God's grace.

But then my wife had a miscarriage with her very first pregnancy, six weeks in.

And in that moment, we were unsure, we just know that there's trouble and we're

probably losing the baby right now.

My mom-in-law sent me Psalm 112 verse 7, and it says, the man of God does not fear bad news.

Psalms 112:7

Had a choice. I could be offended because that could be seen as an insensitive

thing to hear when you are in pain.

Or I can lean into that truth of God's word and find out more.

And what I did is I read the whole Psalm 112 and I was blown away by this first

verse that says, blessed Blessed is the man who fears the Lord and delights

greatly in his commandments.

And I saw how blessed his life is. And I'm like, I want this life.

But how do I get to that place where I truly fear him and truly get excited about his commands?

Because from my background, the way I grew up, everything that was in my mind

connected to the Ten Commandments, to the Word of God, It was like,

this is tough. It steals your fun.

It's just there to, you know, control you. I had all those misconceptions about God's law.

I don't know if any one of you may have those misconceptions about His law.

And when I started reading this, I was like, Lord, help me to understand this.

And then God took me to another scripture, 1 John 5 verse 3.

1 John 5:3

It says, for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.

And His commandments are not burdensome. Have you ever heard that verse?

For this is the love of God. So what is the love of God? How do we love God?

Keeping His commandments. Oh, and by the way, the commandments are not difficult to follow. What?

It seems very difficult to follow. What am I missing?

Jesus says in John 14 verse 15, very blunt, straightforward.

John 14:15

I can even imagine Him doing this, looking in the eye going,

going, if you love me, keep my commandments. Boom, drop the mic.

Love me, keep my, and I was like, Lord, help me to understand,

Lord, help me. And he said, Heinz, it's right there in front of you. Love, love.

If you love me, you want to keep my commandments because you love me,

because I lovingly gave them to you,

because I lovingly created you and every other human being.

And I am the creator.

And I know what you are made for. And that rhymes.

And I want you to live the best way you can possibly live. So here's how to live.

And I was like, wow, thank you, God.

And then I realized I love him because he loved me first.

When I was in a pile of sin and mess and mire and losing my life,

running off to things that I thought was important, he rescued me.

And like that song says, he put me on the rock. He is the rock.

He's the lover of my soul. So I love him back.

And when I truly love Him, when I truly realize, man, He gave everything for me, for you,

so that we don't have to live in sin, so that we don't have to be bound by this

brokenness of this world, so we don't have to be led by the prince of the power

of the air, the devil. We don't have to.

We've been freed by the blood of Jesus. We don't have to live this way.

And then He says, live like like this, this is my law. But actually what it is, is this is my love.

I lovingly show you how to live. Do this and you will prosper.

Do this and you will have a life filled with joy and peace.

But at the same time, he says, if you don't do this, there are consequences.

Both have consequences. I have seen both in my life. I have,

after I've given my life to Jesus, done some of the most stupidest,

sinful things in my life.

And I'm so deeply regretful of that.

And every time I go to God and I say, Lord, I'm a mess.

I don't know why I still struggle. I don't know why these things still happen. I'm sorry.

He is gracious and He forgives and I don't deserve it.

None of us do, but that is His grace.

But do you come with an entitled heart and say, oh, I just sinned again,

you know, Just do that thing that you do, you know, thanks, Jesus.

Do you come with a broken and contrite heart, which is the offering that God requires,

with godly sorrow, which the Bible says leads to life, not worldly sorrow,

godly sorrow, and say, Lord, I repent of everything I've done, thought,

and had an intention in my heart that's not of you, forgive me.

And then you can know that you know 1 John 1, he forgives you,

he washes you clean, he makes you new and then he says, come on my son,

come on my daughter, stand up, this is how you live.

Follow my commandments, follow my way of doing things because this leads to life.

Come on, do we get this church?

As born again Jesus followers filled with the Holy Spirit, Third,

we should be like a bride who loves her bridegroom so much that she cannot wait to please him,

to do things the way he likes it and prefers it, all out of a healthy love.

We are the bride of Christ. He is the bridegroom.

And when he says, hey guys, live like this, we should go, I cannot wait.

I greatly delight in obeying how you say I should do life. Amen.

We need to love God back with His brand of love, not what the world thinks love is.

Because the world's idea of love is transactional. It's quid pro quo.

It's I will love you unless you. I will love you until you. If you do this and

this and this, then I will love you. Do you see?

Conditional love. God's love is unconditional, sacrificial.

And serving. improving, now that's the brand of love that we need to love God

back with, unconditional,

God do this and this for me please, and if he doesn't, you go,

oh I'm not a Christian anymore,

I'm not going to go to church anymore, I'm hurt, no, unconditional love means

I love you, no matter what the circumstances,

no matter if it makes sense or not, no matter what happens, I love you because you love me first,

can we see that, and this is only possible to love this way when we We are truly

saved when we are truly have died to self, when we truly have been filled with the Holy Spirit.

And if we truly spend time with him daily in his word, that's the only way because

the Holy Spirit gives us the supernatural ability to love like that.

You can only greatly delight in

the commandments of God. If you are filled with the spirit of God, amen.

And we have it available. Now you still might ask, okay, but what commandments,

which commandments do I need to, Which commandments do I need to get excited about?

Do I need to get excited about all 613 laws in the Torah? Yes.

Greve eogorafi. Some will get that. No.

Jesus said he came to fulfill all the law and the prophets.

In Jesus, through him, we have salvation. Salvation.

Before Jesus, salvation was through keeping all of these laws.

Jesus reiterated commandments from the Ten Commandments.

And he showed us that, hey, you think it's this, it's actually this. He took it up a notch.

Jesus said that I am the Sabbath, which is one of the Ten Commandments.

So if we take all of that in consideration, I think a very safe bet is to tell

yourself, I need to keep the Ten Commandments.

And I need to keep them with the definition that Jesus gave.

I need to keep my mind clean from hatred, hatred

my heart clean from adultery and all

the other things that he said and jesus also said that the

two most important commandments are to love god with all

your heart mind soul and strength how many of you know that if you love

god truly love him with your whole heart mind soul and

strength that when he tests your heart mind soul strength and actions he will

find you in a good place who knew jesus actually told us the right stuff to

do wow and love your neighbor as you love Love as you love, as you love.

Wow, love yourself.

Could it be that loving yourself in a godly biblical way is different from self-love

the world proclaims? Hmm, maybe. What do you think?

Loving ourselves the way that God sees us, seeing ourselves through his eyes,

seeing what he did to save us from ourselves and to realize,

man, if God did that, he must love me.

So therefore, I choose to love myself because he made me for a reason. He made me unique.

He made me for a time such as this. So I'm going to choose to love myself in

a healthy, godly, biblical way.

And then from that place, what do I find? I find confidence.

Confidence, I find a peace, I find a rest.

And now from that place, I can look at my neighbor and I can see how God sees you.

I can ask Holy Spirit, reveal to me how to see this brother,

how to see this sister in Christ.

But Jesus, when he told us to love our neighbor, he told the parable of the good Samaritan.

How many of you know that Jews hate Samaritans? There was was racism between them.

Jesus was speaking to Jews.

His first example was a priest and a Levite who ignored the Samaritan who was hurt.

I'm sorry, who ignored the Jew who was hurt.

The priest and the Levite, the Jews would be shocked.

And then he said, but then a Samaritan came by. Oh, what?

Think of the person that you, if you're very honest, hate the most,

the type of person that irritates you the most. Think of them.

And now you hear me saying, that person you must love like them.

You're going to go, what?

It might even offend you.

Jesus offended the Jews when he told that story. He wanted to show them what love really is.

Love goes beyond my preconceived ideas.

It goes beyond whether I like a person or don't like a person.

It goes beyond race. It goes beyond language.

It goes beyond your what church did you grow up in? It goes beyond all that

nonsense. And it's just, I love you because God loved me.

Can just sit and meditate on those two commandments. If you ask me,

so what commandments? Those two.

Do you get them right every day, all day? No, there's some work to be done.

Don't try to get technical with me. Don't try to name all the laws.

You just get those two right and we talk again because that will keep you busy the rest of your life.

I want you to think of the Samaritan the next time a taxi cuts in front of you in the traffic.

You laugh because you hate that that guy. You need to love him. He's your neighbor.

He's your neighbor. He's your neighbor. I'm convicted by that as well.

I'm not just preaching to you. I'm preaching to me.

At the end of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, if you're still wondering,

so what commandments should I obey?

What commandments should I get excited about? Well, just take the whole Sermon on the Mount then.

Because at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, do all these these

things that I said, and you will be with me in paradise.

If you don't do them, I never knew you.

So church, if you want a joyful, happy life, according to the Bible,

this is the recipe for joy.

Fear the Lord with all that you are and obey his commandments.

And then there's the secret little little ingredient that I showed you. Love Him back.

That's, you know, you know, when they asked Omas about, what's the secret to your recipe?

Ah, you know, I just put a little bit of this in there. That's the love.

Fear the Lord. Obey the Lord. Love the Lord.

Music.

Thank you so much for listening to the Love Key Church podcast, Message of the Week.

I trust that you had a life-changing encounter with God

that will help you to align with his purposes so that

you can be one Step closer to reigning in life and may you be inspired to share

this with others Have a great week and remember to listen again next week or

you can catch us live online or come visit us in person May God bless you and

keep you make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

Music.