Sermon - Pastor Tim Johnson | Deut. 6:1-9 | The Nail part 2

Welcome to the Avenue Community Church's podcast. We are a family of Christ

followers seeking shalom in Memphis.

We pray that you are encouraged by today's message. As you listen,

may the word of God shape you to be more like him.

So we are our opening series of 2025 is this series I'm entitling The Nail.

Which is our attempt to really kind of hone in on what it is that we do here at the Avenue.

And so if you are a visual learner, maybe you could think of concentric circles

kind of starting broad and coming on in, maybe at a macro to a micro.

There is, we started last week with me trying to do my best job to explain to

you a story that is really the through line throughout all scripture,

that basically our story is not contained in we sinned, we need a savior.

That's a limited view of the biblical story, that the biblical story is actually

a four chapter story that begins with a good God who created us to flourish under his loving rule.

We rebelled against it, but he wasn't content, praise God somebody,

to just leave us in our rebellion, but that God put on flesh.

Is that not the craziest thing in all the religions you ever heard?

God actually so loved the people that he condescended himself,

put on flesh, and died for the sinful human beings he created. Now, that's crazy.

Let me just pause right there. That's what we actually believe.

That's wild, man. I wouldn't do it if I was your God. I'm just telling you right now.

I don't do it with my lawnmower that don't do what I want it to do.

I don't do it with my TV that won't function the way that I want it to function.

I don't do it with anything else in my life. I don't forbear with it.

Can I just tell you how strange your God is?

Stands alone, totally unique.

But says, yeah, for my creation, I will redeem them, taking their place,

freely taking on what they deserve so that one day I could bring them back to

this place of complete flourishing and harmony.

That's your story, right?

Everything else in Christianity is not going to make sense unless you understand the through line.

It really is going to be disjointed. Why do we got to obey? Why we got to use

faith? Why we got to pray?

Something, those things are part of the grand narrative.

And I started big so we can try to understand like shalom is a big deal for us, right?

We were created for it. We were redeemed for it. And then we're destined for it.

And that's really what I was trying to get across to you last week.

And so for us, one of the ways that we hold on to shalom, we get shalom in us

and we keep it on the forefront of our minds is that we really got to concentrate

on getting the shalom in.

And we want to really do it in three ways. I'm calling it G3.

Everybody say G3, not G4.

We got a G4. I'm talking about G3. Y'all know who G4 is?

Some of y'all do. All right. Well, ask George Moore. He'll tell you.

But g3 for us is that we really need to grow you

in a couple ways we want to grow you in knowledge that's what

we'll talk about today we want to grow you in christ likeness

right we want hopefully after the 10 years 20

years 30 years 40 years 50 years that you spend with us when god bless it we

bless you and we send you on into the next life we hope we send you better than

we found you you look more like them than the first day you met us if you don't

look more like jesus than the First day you met us, we done let you down.

Or you weren't cooperating one another. Or maybe a combination of the two.

Come on now. How many of y'all have been at the Ave long enough to say,

I don't do the things I used to do.

I'm a little more patient. I'm a little more kind. I know how to resist.

We got to build you in that. And that's an intention of ours.

But then we want to grow you in union.

We want to grow you in a loving, trusting, dynamic relationship with the full

Trinity, especially the one who's the God of this age, who's the primary superstar

of this age. His name is the Holy Spirit.

I know y'all don't like spirit stuff, but I'm just telling you what it is.

So we'll talk to you about those ways that we want to grow you.

I'm preaching to you today from Deuteronomy, which is the final book of the Pentateuch.

Everybody said the Pentateuch. Torah.

You know what I'm saying? Get up in there. It's a collection of these first five books of the Bible.

And it is clear that there is Deuteronomy, Deutero, second law,

second giving of the law.

So the law has been given once already, but now it's been given twice in Deuteronomy. Everybody say, why?

Because the first group didn't heed it. That's why. So we got to run it back.

Because can I tell you how grace appears?

I'm not going to let your children suffer for your sins. I'll give it to them again.

I'll repeat it again in hopes that they don't suffer the fate that you suffer.

So Moses and the first generation of Israel, they won't be going to the promised land.

And as they stand on the precipice of Canaan in the promised land,

God instructs Moses to give it to him one more time.

Let me give you these laws and commands. And so here's where we stand today.

I think Al Mohler said this about the reason why we have Deuteronomy.

He says this book was essentially written because Israel needs to know how to

be able to possess Canaan, but not become Canaanite.

Israel needs to know. remember now here's the

deal Warren preached on it a couple weeks ago Joshua

1 and 9 hey Moses my servant is dead but

don't be no pump bro I got the battle plan just keep the words of the law on

your lips in your heart be careful to do them meditate on them day and night

it's gonna be successful wherever you go so remember this is just one big long

sequence and they're standing God has not.

This period of biblical history, you move from the Exodus to now conquest, right?

So the land that God is giving them is occupied by their enemies.

The land that Yahweh's telling them to go to is occupied by people who don't

live like them or worship their God. But yet he telling them to go.

He says, your land. And he's giving them the law one more time so that they

could know how to be in that land, possess that land without becoming like the people of the land.

Amen. Lights and walls.

I know if you can't say amen, you just say, ouch, amen.

You can say one or the other, or you can say nothing at all if you don't feel

like being Black and Pentecostal today.

So here we go, man. I want to talk to you today about the centrality of the Word.

I want to talk to you about the obligation we have to pass on the Word and the

obligation we have to remember the Word.

So let's just start first with the centrality of the Word. I'll just start reading again.

These are the commands, Deuteronomy 6. These are the commands,

decrees, and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe the

law in the land that you're crossing over in the Jordan to possess.

So pause. We see right now, we can't contextualize obedience to the law.

It don't matter where you're in, Juneau, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, it's still the same.

We got to obey the laws and decrees, whatever the Lord has commanded, right?

It don't matter. You're going into hostile territory, but here's the battle

plan. You're still going to be the Lord.

So that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord,

your God, as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you. Just pause.

This is a redundant kind of commonly used phrase, fear the Lord,

especially in Deuteronomy.

It's it's just one of the ways that

the hebrew writers try to capture fidelity and

fealty in the totality of love and obedience that

we'll keep talking about late later if you got notes

fear just means not scared this is not watching you know saw or scary movie

whatever the case may be this is this is what they call reverential awe it's

you know we're getting ready to have an inaugurated president and i know that

makes some of y'all feel really good and some of y'all may feel really bad.

Some of y'all don't care.

And there's some area for growth in all three of those buckets. Amen, somebody.

That's okay. You don't have to stop coming to the avenue just because we talk about inauguration.

But what you will see is, what you will see tomorrow, maybe tomorrow,

is all kind of dignitaries.

And you'll see men and women dressed in their finest military garments because

there's an honor thing happening, right? This is not a casual thing,

whether you voted for the dude or not, right?

This is still the highest office in our land, and you will see people act appropriately.

One of the hardest tensions to navigate in Christianity is how do we deal with

the God who loved us so much that he put on flesh, he died in our place,

he's Emmanuel, he's God with us, but he's still transcendent.

So we can't ever treat him like, oh, he just.

Now listen, we can have a lot of conversation about how you dress and all that kind of thing.

I think New Testament and grace has really ripped all of that to shreds, right?

These exteriors about how you express to God that he's important to you.

However, it doesn't matter really how you do it, but how you approach God should

look different than the other relationships you have in your life.

Now, we're not here to be the judge of that, but I'm just saying,

and you know in your heart, I'm just going to church.

I'm just reading my Bible, okay?

No, God says, fear me. There's a reverence there. I'm not your boss.

I ain't your mom. I ain't your daddy.

I'm the preexistent, self-existent God of the universe, and I will be treated as such.

But then there's an awe, there's a beauty to it, right? We love our God.

And so it's this mixture of like, man, delight and respect. And somehow this

is what the Hebrew writers tried to capture.

It's like, man, we need to fear him. We need to hold the fact that he's beautiful,

he's tender, he's loving, he's compassionate, and he's utterly transcendent.

Because when you hold that, I think you are in better position to be able to

fulfill all the things that really the writer of Deuteronomy is trying to help us to understand.

It says, fear the Lord, this verse two, so that you, your children and their

children may fear the Lord your God as long as you live, keeping all his decrees

and commands that I give you so that you may enjoy long life.

Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey. Everybody say, careful to obey.

So that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in the land

flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord your God of your ancestors promised you.

And here's the Shema.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. love the Lord your God with

all your heart your soul and strength we'll come back to it and deal specifically

with that in a few moments but let's just start by really kind of trying to understand,

this balance between obedience and flourishing we touched it a little bit last

week but it's driving home here like there is no flourishing without obedience

to God's law point blank period it, right?

Let's just follow this back. Even before the law was codified,

before it was written down, what do we have in the garden?

We've got a command. The Lord issues a command. You can eat everything.

Don't eat of this tree, right?

And inside of that, what we have, even if we didn't have it written down,

we have God's command to us, right?

And so when the law actually gets written down, it's still the same principle.

When we obey, when we yield to God's commands, flourishing comes.

So when we hear the Shema, hear, oh, Israel, you see the first chain in the

sequence. You can't obey anything you've not heard.

That's what Shema means. If I'm not mistaken, this is what our Jewish brothers

and sisters in the morning or when they go to tabernacle or say,

this is what they hear, oh, Israel.

It starts first with, you got to hear something.

You can't obey what you don't know. and if you can't obey God, how can you please him?

So first, Israel, first church of Jesus Christ, hear me.

Hear me first. Hear, O Israel.

And then we see this beautiful line, the Lord our God is one.

This is not necessarily a advocation or this is not necessarily a place where

we're talking about the internal unity of the Trinity, which we kind of see in Genesis 1, 26,

let us make man we see that pluralization of

us we're like oh who's the us gotta be the trinity

right but when we see in the shaman that the lord our god is one

this is not necessarily one of those oh see there's a

trinity what this is is this is a clear exclusive kind of claim no the lord

israel's god yahweh is one he's preeminent and he don't actually need no helpers

and in the middle of and in the midst of the doorsteps of you going into Canaan

where all they have is a polytheistic mess.

You need to know, Israel, you only got one God and you don't have to play the

sun gods, rain gods, and infertility gods.

You got one God. He don't need no help. He stands on his own.

You got one, Israel. We good.

We're good. And because the Lord Yahweh alone is Israel's God,

because he's in a class by himself, utterly unique.

He commands Israel to respond with absolute fidelity.

You know, it's like, yo, if you can get, you know, if you can do one-stop shopping,

why is there a need to look anywhere else for help, Israel?

If I can be the God over all your life and sustain you in all the seasons,

no matter what, you don't ever have to worry about sacrificing the other things,

building calves, other gods, you don't have to worry.

So if I am all sufficient, the only appropriate response is absolute fidelity. Don't you see it?

Why do you have multiple credit cards if you got one that can do all the things?

So he says, yo, I need everything.

How does he express it? He says, you to love the Lord, your God with all your

heart, your soul, mind, and your strength.

We'll talk a little bit more about that later. But I love all of these different

pictures of fidelity too.

Because it's really messing with it. It should be, you know,

lighting, all your sensory processing things should be going off in your mind

because, you know, you don't, you kind of get, hey, obey me, obey my commands.

But then he says, hero Israel, I'm one, love me.

And he says, love me with all your heart. Love me with all your soul, all your strength.

He's like, man, you got all these things happening, which maybe in modern English

seems to be contradictory. Maybe they're clashing, but the whole idea is basically

love me with your entire being.

Everything you are, your intellect, your strength, your passion,

your mind, your body, everything.

I wrote a song once that says, I command my body to praise the Lord.

Sometimes we got to talk to ourselves. Mind, get it together.

He's our God and we love him.

Body fall in line he's our god

and we love him so get yourself together

so we love him he's our god he's

got us and i think in modern christianity we got all these false dichotomies

right you got heady christians you got heart christians you got action christians

i think we got a bunch of false dichotomies we got a bunch of christians who

are like oh we're the intellectual christians like we're heady Christians, right?

We're the knowledge Christians, right? And then you got the passion Christians, right?

You know, we just, we, you know, it don't matter what the knowledge is.

We just love, love, and passion, and sweat, and just tears, and we the passion,

heart Christians, right? Heart on the sleeves Christians.

And then you got the doer Christians, the action Christians.

I'm saying right now, if you ain't got all three, you ain't doing Christianity, friend.

I'm talking about the heady christians who are

just all about the i wrote it out

the sat christians right you you give them a

test they got all the doctrine in order they got

the systematic theology in order they got the eschatology in order they know

all the names they know all the periods of biblical history but they don't have

no experience with the god of that history and it's evident because their lives

don't look more like him he's like man you sure do know a lot about him but i don't smell him on you.

I see the way you treat your spouse. I see the way you show up at the job.

It don't look nothing like the God you know a whole lot about. Yeah, I'm preaching.

Then you got the vibe, Christians. Oh, the vibe, Christians.

You know, there are churches now where all they do is worship.

Can I just tell you, friends, with everything within me, I don't think that's

a biblical church where there's no clear proclamation,

the prophetic office standing before God's people, calling them to something,

teaching them who he is. What do you have?

Nothing. You ain't got Christianity.

I was watching America. You got to be careful, too.

This is why we embrace at the Avenue, the spiritual, mysterious nature of Christianity,

because I do believe there's something really powerful about vibes.

I was watching American Idol, one of the reels, and some young boy was just

tearing some contemporary Christian worship up. It was beautiful.

And everybody in there didn't look like there was one dry eye in the house.

And then there were judges who I know are the creators and the propagators of

so much godless stuff who were literally taken aback.

They were like, man, this is amazing.

But brother, I got to tell you, it's more than that feeling.

Everybody gets feelings.

Everybody's moved by things, I believe, because God in his transcendence has

created us in the way that really all of us are supposed to engage him and he can engage.

But unless that vibe and that feeling terminates on the real person of Jesus,

it's a vibe that's leading you to hell.

It's a feeling that is swooning you in the moment, but it's leading you nowhere, friend.

And we could tell some of you in here, you just mind the church for what you

feel and worship, But you don't actually want to be a christian because when

the god of the vibe appears and he says obey me You don't want to obey him You ain't no christian.

He's not the God of the vibe. He's the God of the whole man. And he wants all of you.

And then we got the action Christians, right? And she's like,

you so tired of doctrine.

You know what? We're just going to do the works of Jesus. We're going to be

kind. We're going to be compassionate.

We're going to feed hungry people. We're going to give cold water.

We're going to shelter people.

My friend, I got to tell you, you can do that. And that's beautiful.

But you're not doing shalom if you're doing the works of Jesus apart from his

teachings and sayings. That ain't Christianity.

He needs your head. He needs your heart. And he needs your hands.

Israel, love me with your whole heart, mind, body, and strength.

Music.

And your head, your heart, and your hands. Church of Christ now in 2025.

He needs your head, your heart, and your hands. And don't divorce one from the other.

So he says, love me with your whole heart, mind, soul, body,

and strength. You could tell this is important.

Because what is Jesus doing in Matthew 22? What's he doing in Mark 12?

What's he doing in Luke? He doubles down.

He just affirms it. He's like, yeah, there's the greatest commandments.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, soul, and your strength.

The way love is being used here, it is synonymous with obedience,

and we can't tear those things apart.

In our attempt to try to get our hands around what legalism is,

we've created a Christianity that's robbing us of the substance.

Because there is no shalom if there's no obedience to God's law.

And so when we see this, the loving, when we see obedience, we need to start

seeing those things as inextricably linked together. You don't love a God, you don't obey.

You don't. He makes that clear. John 15, if you love me, then do what?

Keep my commandments, right?

But here, I just want to, just so you get this one free. The only time in redemptive

history that there was perfect obedience demanded to have right alignment with

God was Adam. That was it.

Every time, everywhere else you have heard a command to obey,

it was understood you won't be able to do it perfectly.

Go back and look at Israel. Did they die every time they sinned?

No, friends, they didn't. It was mercy all over the Old Testament.

Nobody ever fully got what they deserved, except for Adam.

Everybody else was swimming in mercy and grace.

That's why God could say with a full conscience in Romans 4,

like I was working with them people on credit.

Because I already knew what I

was going to do with Christ. I saved Old Testament believers the same way.

You got to read your Bible. I'm just saying. I saved them the same way I saved the church now.

I just did theirs on credit because I knew one day a sacrifice would come.

When God calls you to obedience, he's never calling you to, he's never expecting

a perfect, errorless Christianity.

That's what I'm saying. That's a lie.

But he still calls you to obey nonetheless less because he knows the obedience

is your best shot at experience fullness.

How many times do you see obey me so you can have long life?

Obey me so it can go well with you.

He's trying to get you a full life, but the only way it's being blocked is by disobedience, yo.

God's people have a moral obligation and responsibility as people who have been

delivered to be set apart and distinct in the world and to reflect God's character

and his virtue in the world.

When it's Deuteronomy written, it's written and God always reminds them,

I am the God who delivered you out of slavery, who mounted you up on eagle's wings.

So he doesn't start giving them the commands until after they have the concrete

evidence of his deliverance.

We don't call non-Christians to obey God's commands, friends.

But we do call people who've been saved.

You've been delivered, live like it.

We need to be set apart. We need to be distinct. We need to reflect his character

and values because how we live in the world testifies to the greatness of our

God and our satisfaction in him.

You know the enemy just sits on the prowl you can see all

the canaanites you know that we always got ourselves in trouble

the midianites the gergesites amalachites all

the ites and especially all of

them will all be sitting there trying to lure us away yahweh's not that good

he can't do this he can't do that come with us we will marry outside of the

tribe and we get swept away all these things and so i i wrote down in my notes

i know this won't play with everybody's like i just man this like an R&B song, you know?

I love the things. I'm sorry, but this is, you know, a little joke. Sorry. You know?

It's always trying to be seduced away. You are always, Canaan is real, yo.

And you are always being prayed on. And you're always being seduced away.

I can do the things God won't do for you. I can do it. I can make you happier.

I can make you healthier, stronger. I can bring you peace.

If you, if your Christianity is not lived with a full awareness of that,

my friend, you are on the verge of a big disaster because the enemy's after you.

Canaan is real. So I love this.

One of our primary witnesses, I think Mulder said this too, is when we live

in a land that is absolutely non-interested is the nice way in our commandments.

We live in a world where we live by commands that people don't understand.

And many people think it's oppressive. And we live like we're actually satisfied.

We actually believe that, man, when we follow God's law, it is well with us.

That is our greatest apologetic.

You don't even got to go pass out a thousand tracts. I guarantee you this much.

If you live by God's word and hold it and cherish it, people be like, man, why are you so?

How is, man?

Because they're desperate for some shalom, friends. They were created for it

and part of them knows it too.

It's echoing in their heart and people are thirsty for any place that they can

find peace and joy and rest.

But we can't really be distinct in the world if we duck if we dodge in the commands,

going straight out the way look at this man so that's

how central the word is there's a command in here

to pass on the word i love this here verse four

hero israel the lord our god is one love the lord god with all

your heart with all your soul your strength these commandments i

give you today are to be on your hearts verse seven impress them

on your children talk about them when you sit at home when you

walk along the road when you lie down when you get up there's a

clear command that we got to pass this thing on if it's

valuable to you if it's central to you you got to pass it on you want to pass

it on right you know gina is she'd be so excited she'd come in she'd be like

babe guess what guess what i got on the kroger kroger kroger group she just left she's She's like,

babe, look at what we just shared on the Kroger deal.

If you use this coupon, you can come out with 50 different creamers and it all costs $2.

I don't know if that's lying or how she beat that, but it just, you know.

But she's so excited. When she sees something that's life-giving and beneficial

to all, she's just ready to share. She's ready to pass it on.

And this is what we're supposed to do, right? Like, we're supposed to be passing this thing on.

And I can just tell you one clear way that can indicate how serious you are

about the centrality of God's word.

Are you committed to getting it into the hearts of our descendants?

Is it that serious to you that you are making sure you are passing that thing

down the line? That we have legacy.

Talk about M3. It's the fact that we want to grow you in Christlikeness.

We want to grow you in knowledge. We want to grow you in union with Christ.

But what makes us a little bit unique is that we want to do it in these three multis.

We want to do it in a multiracial context. We want to do it in a multi-class

context. We want to do it in a multi-generational context, right?

That's important to us. And so we'll sacrifice on the things sometimes that

are super specific to have a really dope singles ministry or a really amazing

young adult or really, because we all actually believe in an all thing,

that when God gives a great commission, he's not segmenting them out.

Like, no, this was just for this ministry.

No, no, actually when he does an all thing, like it's the whole tribe and we

ain't gonna leave one of you behind, not the single ones, the married ones,

the young ones, the elementary or the children. And it's really difficult to figure out.

I'll be honest with you, it leaves me scrambling, but I'm just telling you,

that's what we're committed to because this thing has got to get passed down.

And there have been really dire consequences for people who have assumed that

the things they hold value, the next generation will.

There have been dire consequences for assuming that the things that were really

central to who you are, your kids would just automatically suck it up and eat it up and carry it on.

And as a matter of fact, When we look around the world now and we look at maybe

even just indigenous communities that that probably do this the best,

like they have a thing and they're just like, man, you in this, we in this.

And what we do, we exoticize them, right?

We other them. That seems so strange and foreign to us when actually that probably

looks a little bit closer to what this was happening in Deuteronomy.

Christianity was not meant to work with every man for himself,

doing whatever they want to do with no uniformity and no unity.

It wasn't designed to work like that.

But to a traveling tribe who knew that they were fighting for survival and permanency,

everybody got to pull a little bit for everybody.

And one of the main things we gotta do is make sure our children understand

what we're doing here cause it's so central to our existence,

part of this message I just wrote it a couple times in my how can we.

Properly communicate, effectively communicate how central knowing God is to us.

So we pass the word on because it's central. And we got to remember it.

We got to remember the word. Canaan's trying to get us.

One preacher just said that the greatest danger is not when we are homeless,

but when we become housed. And after he says, write them on the doorframes of

your heart, on your houses, on your gates. Look at verse 10.

When the Lord God brings you into the land, he swore to your fathers,

to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you a land with large flourishing cities

you did not build, houses with all kinds of goods that you did not provide,

wells you did not dig, vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.

When you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord who

brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

My friend, you are more vulnerable. Come on, it's a word.

How many of y'all had the worst 2024 of your life? It was the worst year of

your life. Stand up real quick.

How many of y'all are in a season of just pain? Come on, stand up.

Come on, you're just in a season of just pain and turmoil. Let me just speak a word.

Let me just speak a word. I just want to speak a word.

You are safer in your suffering than you are in your prosperity. Do you hear me?

You're more vulnerable when you have the things that you think you need and

want than when you're on your knees depending and looking upon him for everything.

So praise God for a season where you can ill afford to forget.

God, I need you. I can't take a...

Music.

Jesus. We talked yesterday that he's using, he uses the pain.

Sometimes he disciplines his children. Hebrews 12, it never feels warm,

but there is a harvest of righteousness that is coming.

And because of this, because the word is so central to our prosperity,

we got to remember it. How does he say, I love this.

Tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads,

write them on the door frames of your houses and your gates.

I guess we need more coffee mugs.

What would it look like for us to have a Christianity where you actually believe this?

Where it wasn't just feel good kind of Christianity or cultural Christianity

where we're just trying to virtue signal to people like, hey,

this will, you know, it's like, I don't care who sees it or not.

I don't care how nice it looks or not, but I got note cards everywhere.

I wake up. I look at the ceiling. It's Proverbs 3, 5, and 7.

I go out the door. It's John 3, 16.

I look on the coffee pot. It's Romans 8. I walk out my door.

It's Philippians 4. I go in the car. It's Psalm 100.

I get to my job. It's Psalm 90. I sit down at the computer. It's Psalm 23 because I need it.

I got to have it. I can't live without it.

He's trying to say Christianity was never designed to be an accessory to your life.

Either it is the whole thing or it's nothing to you.

He says, Deuteronomy 30, our three LR scriptures, clinging tight to the word

because it is my very life. It is my life.

Being a Christian without a commitment to know God is like being a fish without

water, a human being without oxygen. It's a non-compute.

Is that the impulse of our Christianity?

Quick. Just look up at the screen. Just give me some applications.

You got to learn the information. You have to learn the information.

And Brian Chappell would say that what God is going to do with the information

is that the Spirit works by and with the Word in our hearts,

and God teaches us all that is needed for our spiritual lives.

So you got the twins, they working. The Spirit with the Word,

and they're going to teach us all that we need.

You got to learn the information. You cannot be a Christian if you're not committed

to studying God's word, memorizing it, and applying it.

I don't want to hear no more garbage in this church.

We got to establish a culture, not of judging one another, but when people come

up and they look like they're gloating about what they don't know about God. Oh, no, dog.

That's not actually funny to me. We got learning disabilities.

We got all kind of things, but we don't proudly, big smile.

Yeah, man, I don't really know my scripture well. What we doing, bro?

We're not proud of that. We acknowledge it. We don't gloat in what we don't

know about our God. Never.

We got to commit to studying it, to mineralize it, putting it in us.

A couple big boxes. You need to learn.

Go ahead, Sarah. Oh, how about that?

That's me. Gina said, I told you to fix the sentence. I learned it.

What it says is, hey, I'm buying time.

Y'all can fix the other ones. But that one is to learn the imperatives.

So as we read our Bible, there are imperatives. There are commands of scripture.

Remember, we talked about that ad nauseum. You can't please God if you're not

actually doing what he says. You don't love God if you're not committed to doing

what he's asked you to do.

That's not legalism. It's just a relationship.

Hey, Tim, scratch my back. No, I'm going to take the trash out.

I didn't ask you to do that. Maybe I did, but not right now. That's right.

What all relationships look like. You demonstrate your love and as you do what

your loving partner has asked you to do.

We need to learn the narrative scripture.

Yay! Oh, we got that. We need to learn the narrative of scripture.

We got to build our understanding of what Christ has done, what he's doing,

what he will do in redemptive history. You're not the star of the show.

We're a piece in a long story. God has been doing a thing. He is doing a thing.

And we need to know where we're headed because we got to understand how to frame up our lives.

You know, right now, everybody's talking about story work and story this,

story that, but it's really talking about your story.

But what happens is if all you're doing with your psychotherapist and whatever

is talking about your story and you're not subordinating it to God's story,

you got an idol happening.

You are forming your own idol and then the other pieces of your life won't make

sense. And when you try to throw some verses in there. It don't make sense.

The only way your story can actually make sense is inside of God's big story,

what he's doing with all of those who place their faith in him.

And we got to rehearse that and know that. Keep going.

We got to learn the, we got to learn God's character.

Don't be a vibe Christian because you never know. You could be worshiping the

God of Elvis and Prince. You got to know what your God actually acts like, right?

Understanding and knowing God is vital to navigating this world and preventing mistaken identity.

Know your God. You might get swept away. Learn the indicatives.

Indicatives are different than imperatives. Indicatives are just statements of fact.

God loves you. God is mighty. And what indicatives do, they're statements of

fact that shape your identity and your behavior.

It's because these things are true, then now it starts to shape who I am,

right? Look at Romans 8 and 37.

And all these things were more than comprehensive through him who loves us. So God loves us.

And so then that means because God loves us, we're more than conquerors.

That no matter what the situations are in our lives, that somehow we are victorious

in ways that are hard for human beings to wrap their minds around.

This is the story of the world that we deeply believe in any attempts to seek

shalom, this harmony and fullness without God's word and the knowledge of him is utterly hopeless.

This is what we believe. this church, any attempts to create harmony and flourishing

in this world without shalom, without understanding and pursuing knowing God, it's hopeless.

Reaches and crew, y'all can come back up.

Y'all know my favorite morning show? Okay, I just want to see this.

No, you don't. My wife does. My wife and her bestie.

But if y'all don't You know, it's a crazy thing happened, man.

Hoda Copy is no longer, she's no longer a co-anchor of the Today Show.

Craig Melvin is now a co-anchor of the Today Show. And they had his family,

and they were sitting down, they were talking.

He was really celebrating his new appointment.

And as they were talking, it was so mushy. He was there with his dad and the mom still alive.

He was there with his young children. They wrote him note cards. And it was so sweet.

The little girl she wrote dad I love the way that you tickle me,

something like that and I don't know if I'm alone in this but as a 42 year old

dude I walk around with a lot of parent guilt, dad guilt.

Not spending enough time with them not creating enough memories not having enough

conversations is not playing with them.

That's kind of like a resting thing that I got to constantly be in the name of Jesus.

And so I immediately, I felt that.

I was like, I wonder if my kids would be like, I love the way that dad laughs at that or whatever.

And then I was prepping for this message. And it was just like immediate contradiction. Yeah.

Kid's life going to be better off because they had more positive interactions with their dad?

Or is my kid's life going to be better off because they know God's word and

they're committed to obeying it?

That's real faith, friends, because those are two different things.

Those are two completely different things. And praise God.

God can use my positive interactions with my children that both bless me and them.

But aren't you glad that whether or not your children's life are full is not

dependent upon your ability to be an amazing parent.

That you have a God who wasn't just a God of your life, but he's made promises

to your children that aren't dependent upon you.

Some of you in this room know that.

That God has allowed wholeness and harmony to hit your heart and you know it

ain't have nothing to do with your parent.

Some of you in this room know that God was a father to the fatherless.

And he was a mother to those who didn't have and despite what you didn't experience

God had a dynamic divine chain at work that if you were just plugged up by the tree of living water,

you'd flourish no matter the season.

My friend would you know him and would you commit to getting to know him more today Amen.