An Inspiring God

Quote that you've heard before says this trust only in movement

because life happens at the level of action.

That's Alfred Adler. Trust only in movement because

there's this biblical principle that these words are reflecting

that our true character is revealed by our actions and only

by our actions. We trust only in movement

because words are deceptive. We can say the right things and

deceive ourselves and deceive others.

Our intentions can also be deceptive, James says.

If your words and your intentions are right, but they

never to the move to the point of doing the word, you're

deceived. So we want to be doers of the

word. The Irish singer Siobhan Miller

says. It's not the fight you dream of,

but those you really fight. It's not what you've been given,

but what you do with what you've got.

We're we're all prone in our mind's eye and our imaginations.

We do lots of incredible things in our dreams.

We're always the the hero of our stories and do incredible things

in our imaginations. But Jesus Christ was a man of

action and he's building a church full of men and women who

are courageous, who are brave, who are willing to shoulder

responsibility, who are to be men and women of action to get

their hands dirty. And Jesus didn't dream about

being the savior of the world. He took on flesh and he saved

the world. And so he is our model.

And so his life is, is many things.

But what I, what I want to say today is not least of all, his

life is an inspiration. His life is inspiring.

And so you should be inspired to lay down your life for the

church and to deal with the consequences of the sins of

other people, because that's what our Savior did.

He laid down his life for the church, and he dealt with the

sins of his people. And so life happens at the level

of action. Your actions reveal your

priorities, your commitments, and your character.

James says so himself. James 217.

Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is what it's dead.

It's nothing, it's vanity. The apostle John first.

John 318 Little children, let us not love in Word or talk, but in

deed and truth, Jesus Christ. Matthew 716 You will know them

by their good intentions and their well wishing.

Oh no, you will know them by their positive thoughts and

regard. You will know them by their

fruit and only by their fruit. This is the only way that we can

test the world. And so he says, show me your

bank statement and I'll show you what you love.

Show me a lot of your time and I'll show you what you serve.

Show me what you do with the gifts that God has given you,

your affinities and your spiritual giftings, and I'll

show you whose Kingdom you're building.

Turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 11.

There's a verb that dominates the passage.

The word is do. We are to be doers of the word

and it's not going to begin with this exhausting requirement.

If you need to do more, you need to do more.

You need to do more. That's not our God and that's

not our Bible. As a matter of fact, it like

that's what Pharaoh did to the Israelites.

You need to do more. We need more building projects.

We need more bricks. Our God begins with an

exhaustive list of what has been done by God on our behalf.

That's where the passage starts. Doing is the verb that describes

God and the goal of Moses in this passage is to inspire you

with the love and sacrifice of God on your behalf.

That's my question for you to consider today is does Jesus

Christ inspire you? Does your Savior inspire you?

Does God inspire you? I looked up inspiration today of

the formal definition in the dictionary and I found

Deuteronomy 11. Listen to this definition.

Something or someone that fills you with motivation, enthusiasm,

and confidence, encouraging a person to feel hopeful and

creative and eager to act. That's exactly right.

That's exactly what this passage is about.

Our God is inspiring. His work is inspiring.

He doesn't love us in Word and in talk, but in deed and in

truth. Look at Deuteronomy 11/3, his

signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt verse 4, and what he

did in the army of Egypt verse 5, what he did to you in the

wilderness verse 6, what he did to Dathan and a Byram verse 7,

emphatically summarizing all of this, for your eyes have seen

all the great work of the Lord that he did.

It begins with a an exhaustive list of his actions.

And what's your response? That's the very next verse.

He begins to pour out what we are to do.

Deuteronomy 11/8. You shall therefore keep the

whole commandment that I command to you today to say it this way.

He did, therefore I do. He did, therefore you do and

verse 32, as you go down to the final verse of the whole

chapter, it summarizes the entire chapter saying you shall

be careful to do all the statutes and the rule that I'm

setting before you today. So it's not confusing to figure

out what this passage is about. You're going to see over and

over. There's a cycle that you have to

do. You have to do.

The word is ASA. That's the verb in the Hebrew,

what it means to give effect, to to do, to be a mover.

And Moses doesn't want you just to will yourself to go and do

great things of God. He wants you to be inspired by

God. And out of the fountain of

inspiration will come all of the giving of yourself to the

Kingdom of God. So the result is works and fruit

and obedience and service, but it begins by sitting at Moses's

feet and being inspired, I don't know, to set it up by saying

Deuteronomy. So far we've seen these cycles.

He likes to kind of communicate in these cycles.

And Deuteronomy 11 is, is like that as well as a cycle.

I want you to see four times as you go through this chapter is

it's very simple. He's going to give a commandment

and then he's going to give an illustration of that commandment

four times. And he's going to give another

commandment that really is the same, but he says it just a

little bit differently and he's going to illustrate it just a

little bit differently. And over and over in the cycle

begins here in verse one with a commandment we'll call the first

cycle. Consider God even more

specifically, consider God in history.

And the first commandment that he gives in the cycle is he says

verse one. You shall therefore love the

Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules

and his commandments always. So he says, you got to you got

to be active, you got to do things and at first blush we

say, well, that's legalistic, right?

I'm supposed to just do that's what Christianity requires is

just to pour out. And before we think that you

look at the first illustration that follows and verses 2 to 7.

Moses actually gives 2 illustrations with this command.

1 positive example, one negative example, as he asked you to stop

and consider God. Look at verses two to seven with

me. Let's read it, he says, and

consider today, since I'm not speaking to your children whom

have not known or seen it, consider the discipline of the

Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, his

outstretched arm, His signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt

to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, into all his land.

And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their

Chariots, How he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as

they pursued after you, And how the Lord destroyed them to this

day. And what He did to you in the

wilderness until you came to this place, And what he did to

Dathan and a Byram, the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the

earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their

households, their tents, and every living thing that followed

them in the midst of all Israel. For your eyes have seen all the

great work that the Lord did. So he draws your eyes into these

illustrations by asking you to consider a couple things.

He says, consider God, consider his greatness, consider his

glory, consider his discipline. So how does he stir you up to

obedience? Does he just say will yourself

to do more? He says consider what God has

done five times in this context. He reminds you of what God has

done in history. He goes down.

The first one, we said there's kind of two illustrations.

The first one's positive. He says remember what he did to

care for you in the wilderness. Consider the wilderness.

Consider God. What did he do to Pharaoh?

Verse 3, His signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh,

the king of Egypt and all his land.

Remember the plagues, remember what happened to the first born,

Remember the darkness, remember the the deliverance.

What did he do to the army of Egypt?

He goes again their horses and their Chariots.

Verse 4, what he did to their horses, how he made the water of

the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you.

How the Lord your God has destroyed them to this day.

And he goes on and he goes and it's personal.

He goes to verse 5 and what he did to you in the wilderness.

He didn't do this for some other people, right?

2000 years ago, 3500 years ago, He did these things, but He does

things for you. I want you to consider yourself.

Has God ever done anything for you?

This is personal. God has moved on your behalf.

Consider yourself. And in showing the great and

awesome nature of God, He also reminds them of what He does

negatively to those who do not obey His word.

He brings judgement to those in rebellion.

Verse 6 is a negative illustration.

Remember what he did to Dathan and a Byram, how the ground

opened up to swallow them whole. That's inspiring in another way,

isn't it? I had a bunch of the engineering

departments at OSU was from the Middle East, and they have a

saying there in Arabic. If you're very sad, If you're

extremely, overwhelmingly sad, they have a saying that they

would say, I hope that the ground opens up and swallows me

whole. And so you can use that on the

day that you get sad. But that's literally what

happened because these people were publicly disowning Moses

and God and grumbling. And So what does God do except

open up the ground and swallow them?

To which we say our God is good, but he's not safe.

So there's no confusion regarding the point.

Moses says again in verse 7, Your eyes have seen all the

great work of the Lord that he did.

Or God does not just well wish. He's not like a deist God who

kind of winds up the universe and then takes his hands off.

He's a God that is a God of action.

He is sovereign. He exercises his sovereignty

through Providence. Our God is a God of Providence

in action. He establishes righteousness and

justice on the earth. He displays His Majesty and his

glory continually for you to see and to be inspired by and so be

inspired. This first cycle is meant to to

move you to action, to draw inspiration for Christian

service by reflecting on what God has already done.

The first cycle is consider God's second cycle, I want you

to see begins in verse 8. We could say, consider his

blessings. Consider God's blessings, the

commandment that comes first, as he says, you shall therefore

keep the whole commandment that I command you today that you may

be strong and go in and take possession of the land that

you're going over to possess. So Moses first says you shall

love the Lord and keep his commandments.

And now he reinforces that and he says, now keep his whole

commandment. Every word that proceeds from

the mouth of God you are to take.

And it's interesting in verse 8 and applicable that he says

their strength is tied to their obedience.

The strength of Israel and their success in the land is tied to

how well they keep this commandment.

And so he says it's it's in part we have to clarify this strength

to possess the land comes in part from obedience to the law

of God. And so many blessings attend to

keeping these commandments. Jesus says this himself and John

1421 whoever has my commandments and keeps them, it's not enough

to know them. Whoever has them and keeps them,

He it is who loves me, and I will love Him, and here's the

promise, and I will manifest myself to Him.

So what a wonderful promise. This is what God says.

If you keep his commandments, all of these blessings are going

to come on you. You're going to be like a

watered garden and your bones are going to be strong and

you're going to establish the foundation of many generations

and Jesus Christ is going to manifest himself to you.

But if you don't, then he says many pangs and sorrows and much

discipline is going to come. Your strength will be sapped.

So John 1317, Jesus says if you know these things, blessed are

you if you do them. So the requirement in the second

cycle is to keep the whole commandment and the

illustration. There's always a commandment,

there's always an illustration. The illustration that comes in

the second cycle is going to be a comparison between the land

that Egypt possessed in the land that Israel is now going to

possess, the promised land. There's this great comparison

and I started circling this week as I went through.

I like to identify the keywords that kind of is Moses's way or

the Bible authors way of pointing you to what's

important. The word land is used 14 times.

It's like all these circles are in my Bible.

He keeps talking about the land, the land, the land. 14 * 7 times

in this cycle he mentions land. And the other word you're going

to see over and over again 10 times is their association with

it, to possess it. There's this land and you're

going to possess it. And it's makes sense because

they're right there. They're looking at it.

And he says it's yours. This land flowing with milk and

honey, it's going to belong to you.

But first verse 23 says they have to dispossess it.

They have to take the people who are there and to move them out,

which is why they need strength and moral courage and the Lord's

help. Verse 10 begins the comparison.

Read verses 11:50 with me this next cycle.

This is for the land that you are entering to take possession

of. It is not like the land of Egypt

from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and

irrigated it like a garden of vegetables.

But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of

hills and valleys which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a

land that the Lord your God cares for.

The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the

beginning of the year to the end of the year.

So the the Hebrew of verse 10 reads literally this way.

This is how the NASB translates it, where you used to sow your

seed and water it with your foot.

And what he's saying by that, what that means is he's he's

drawing attention literally to the irrigation methods and

practices of Egypt where they would use their feet to to dig

these canals. And he's saying you used to have

to put tremendous effort into irrigating your crops.

He said it used to be you'd have to use your feet, you'd have to

work by the sweat of your brow to bring in irrigation from the

Nile. And he says, not so in the land

that I'm going to give you, God himself is going to bring rain

from heaven because he has an eye for the land and he's going

to bring it. He's drawing a comparison.

This will be better, he says. And and with that comes a

different mindset because he says, whereas before it used to

be if you needed water, you would just by your own strength,

go and carve A cistern from the Nile and you would have it.

Because you're coming into this new land where you're going to

have to exercise faith because you can't just go out.

You're going to have to depend totally on God because he's the

one that waters the earth. You see the difference?

One is based on faith and so whereas in Egypt it was a land

of desert and slavery and back breaking labor.

He compares it to verse 9 where he says you're going to live

long in a land that is watered by God himself.

It's going to be flowing with milk and honey we've seen in

previous chapters and iron and copper and wood.

He says verse 12, it's a land that God cares for.

The eyes of the Lord are on it from the beginning of the year

to the end. So why are you inspired to obey?

Why are you inspired to go and do?

Because of the gracious blessings of God that He's given

you. Remember where you were.

Remember where they're going. So many blessings.

Third cycle, we could call it. Consider the alternatives.

The third third cycle begins in verse 13 with the command to

Israel that reads this way. Obey the commands to love and to

serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your

soul. We've heard this before.

Love the good Lord your God with all your heart, with all your

soul. The illustration now is this

illustration of the fullness of God versus the emptiness of

idols. He's making this comparison

between the blessings of God, the fullness that God brings,

and the emptiness and vanity of idols.

Read verses 14 to 17. You see the third cycle.

He will give the rain for your land and its season, the early

rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain and

your wine and your oil, and He will give grass in your fields

for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.

Take care lest your heart be deceived.

And you turn aside either to serve other gods and worship

them. Then the anger of the Lord will

be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that

there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and

you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord your God

is giving you. So the blessing of the land is

conditional. They're given opportunity to

possess the land, but it's contingent on verse 16.

It's contingent on their heart. Take care lest your heart be

deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship

them. So here's the comparison.

He's setting himself up against Baal.

Baal was the God of rain, and Baal is the God of harvest and

abundance. And this is where God is saying

Baal doesn't bring rain, right? He, he is no thing.

And he, he says he intentionally mentions rain and he

intentionally mentions abundance because this is a polemic

against the gods of the Canaanites.

He's saying, I bring rain. I know when you need it.

I bring it in the early rain. I bring the late rain.

It's not like we Yahweh brings this rain.

But then we got to depend on bail for the rest of it.

He says I'm the one who brings all of it, you can trust me to

bring it. He puts himself against the

rain, and then he puts himself against the fruitfulness in the

harvest. And Moses says that these belong

not to Baal, but Yahweh brings the grain and the wine and the

oil, and not only that, He feeds you until you're full.

So take care that your heart is not deceived.

He already got at this in chapter 10 where he said you

think that it's your wealth or it's your power and your

strength and your might that brings you financial blessing.

Bring that into today's. Just to rehearse last week's

sermon or the previous week's sermon is as you think that your

stockbroker gave you the capacity to make wealth and you

thought it was the power of the companies that you're investing

in it. It was me.

You thought it was the power of compound interest, but I created

that and I brought you with the knowledge.

And we think it's our degrees, but he gave you the degree.

He gave you the opportunity for entrepreneurship.

He says those were gifts. Don't attribute them to somebody

else. Those came from me.

God says I provide what you need.

He is the provider. That's what he's emphasizing

here. My mind goes straight back to

Abraham and Isaac when they're they're walking to Mount Moriah,

defined as the the land favored with the vision of divine glory,

the place where God is seen. And Abraham's going there with

Isaac. Jewish tradition says there was

clouds swirling, so they knew right where to go.

And Isaac asked him, you know, here's the wood and, and

everything we need the fire for the sacrifice, but where is the

lamb that we're going to have to offer?

And Abraham says God will himself provide the lamb.

He's going to be the provider. And that the name of that place

after God provided was God provides or the place where God

provides or the place where God is seen, the land favored with

the vision of divine glory. Jesus in the same way is is

obsessed with you understanding that God is the one who provides

for you. He says don't be anxious about

what you're going to put on and don't be anxious about what

you're going to eat or what you're going to wear.

What you're going to drink is, don't you know that God knows

you need those things don't toil to accumulate wealth.

The proverb says take what he provides for you, don't you?

You think he knows that you need rain in the early and the latter

rain so that you can have your crops.

Do you? Is he, is he so ignorant that he

doesn't know that or does he, does he not love you that you

don't think he's going to provide those things?

Jesus says this, this is so important.

If you would just seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness,

everything else would be added to you.

If you would just focus on him, end up doing his will and

serving him. You would have everything else.

That's what Moses is saying in his own words in Deuteronomy 11.

Seek first the Kingdom and his righteousness, and all that's

needed for life will be provided you by God in heaven.

But he shows the other side of disobedience.

What if you don't seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness?

What if you do go after other gods?

He says. In effect, if you want to

worship them, then you can go and enjoy their benefits and it

will lead only to emptiness. There is no benefit and He will

not fill you with every good thing while you attribute His

blessings and His praises to other gods.

Deuteronomy 4. Deuteronomy 5.

Deuteronomy 6 repeated this refrain.

He is a jealous God. You want the benefits of your

idols? Then go worship them, and you

forfeit the benefits and the blessing of God.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all

these things will be added. Be doers of the Word and not

hearers and you will experience the blessing of God.

Obey his commandments and you will be full in the promised

land, but forsake his commandments and you will be

empty. It's the third cycle and the 4th

and finally cycle 4 he turns the he turns the focus on to us and

he says, consider yourself. Consider yourself verse 18, the

next commandment. You shall therefore lay up these

words of mine in your heart and in your soul and he connects

this to verse 22. If you want to skip down with

your eyes, He says for if you do, for if you'll be careful to

do all this commandment that I command you, loving the Lord,

walking in all his ways and holding fast to him, then the

Lord will drive out these nations to maybe you've noticed

this already. A very little new is taught in

Deuteronomy 11. This is a very repetitive book

and I think that's on purpose. All good teachers know you.

You review, you learn by review. If you read the seven Laws of

teaching, the 7th and culminating law is the law of

review because it reinforces the idea.

It's how we remember. It's what life groups in this

church are for, to review what we've learned.

It allows relationships between truths to become clear.

It allows for retention, which for the people of God, retaining

what God has said can be a matter of life and death.

And so we review. And the Jews thought it was

worth reviewing as well. We call Deuteronomy 64 to 9:00.

What do we call that passage? The Shema, the mouth of babes.

Yes, thank you. The Shema here, O Israel, the

Lord your God, the Lord is 1. We say that 64 to 9 is the

Shema. But in the Jewish law, it's 3

passages and their estimation. It's it's Deuteronomy 6, but

it's also Deuteronomy 1113 to 21.

So we're actually here in this cycle in a passage that every

Jewish person reviews twice a day, the first thing you speak

when you can speak, and the last thing you speak before you die.

And they add to it Numbers 1537. So to this day, the repetition

of this passage is a daily meditation for the life of a

Jew. And the final command that comes

here expresses the requirement of God for you.

And in another way, a fourth way, He says, you shall

therefore lay up these words of mine and in your heart and in

your soul. So here we're going to rehearse

and review everything we learned in Deuteronomy 6.

This will sound so familiar. Read with me beginning in verse

18. You shall bind them as a sign on

your hand. There shall be as frontlets

between your eyes. You shall teach them to your

children, talking of them when you're sitting in your house,

when you're walking by the way, when you lie down and when you

rise. You shall write them on the

doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and

the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the

Lord swore to your Father's to give them as long as the heavens

are above the earth. And so we ask, how can we keep

the commandment of God if we don't know them?

You have to know it. And so he says again, he's

written these tablets, his law, onto the tablets.

We have to take it and write it on the tablet of our heart.

He's written it on the pages of Scripture and now we have to

write it onto our heart. How do you do it?

He said you talk about it all the time as you are going take

your children, teach them, sing to them, talk to them.

He says write it on the doorpost of your house.

That's your family. Write it on your heart.

That's personally on your gates. We said that was society, the

gates of businesses and the gates of your town showing that

the word of God is applicable everywhere.

You have to know it if you're going to fulfill it.

And it's a, it's a warning because when you get home today,

if you're inspired and you, you're, you're worked up about

these things, you're, you're going to get home and all the

distractions are there. They haven't gone anywhere.

They're waiting for you when you get home and when you're going

to get home, there's still 24 hours in a day and that's it.

And so, you have to ask, is my Savior inspiring enough to draw

my attention and my efforts away from worthless things and on to

serving His Kingdom and bringing about His glory?

Listen to the. Illustration of this final point

in this fourth cycle. He says you will be blessed in

verse 21 as long as the heavens are above the earth.

That is beautiful. He says, if if you look up and

the heavens are there, if you look up and the Milky Way is

there, he says then so true. The blessings that God affixes

to obeying his commandments are still there.

So he says, my word is eternal. My commandments are eternal.

Here's the hope for you. So are the blessings that attend

to you. If you obey those things, that

is inspiration for you. It was supposed to inspire

Israel. That was to be the source of

their power and their ability to do things that were beyond their

strength, he says. You're going to be girded with

strength to dispossessed nations that you should have no power to

dispossessed. They're stronger than you.

They're more equipped. Than you, they're better looking

than you and he says. But you're going to go and

overtake them. And so Moses.

Brings this subject to a head and he says of them, what are

you going to do? Choose.

Today. Choose.

Today. What you're going to follow

verse 26, I'm setting before you a blessing and a curse.

We'll look at this more in chapter 30.

The blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God,

which I command you today, and the curse if you do not obey the

commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way

that I am commanding you today. So he says choose worship,

choose action, choose service that it may go well with you.

I want I want to rehearse all these commands.

Let it pour over you again. This is the all the commands

that he's given to you as we've gone through verse one love the

Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes and his

rules and his commandments always.

Verse 8 you shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I

command to you today that you may be strong.

Verse 13 obey the commandments to love and serve the Lord your

God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Verse 22, to do all the commandment that I command to

you, to love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, and hold

fast to him. Then again, verse 32 sums it all

up. The summary of the entire

passage, one final call to action, draws it to conclusion.

You shall therefore be careful to do all the statutes and rules

that I'm setting before you today.

Are you confused about what the passage is about you?

Confused about what you're? Supposed to do when you leave

this place. Trust only.

In movement, life happens at the level of action.

God's marshaling this whole chapter to inspire you that you

may be filled with motivation and enthusiasm and confidence,

that you may be encouraged and hopeful, creative and eager to

act. So important.

When we talk about doing the works of God and all the things

that were called to accomplish and Protestant work ethic and

all these things that we love and value, just to go back to

Jesus and remember his words because the crowds ask him in

John 6. Lord, what are we supposed to do

to be doing the works of God very similar question.

What are we to be doing in this world to be doing your works.

John 628 to 29 and maybe you can think about how you would answer

that question if somebody asked you helpful to set this up.

Jamie and I once knew a lady who said I've been waiting for years

for God to reveal to me what I'm supposed to do in this world.

She said I I just been I've been idle.

I I want to do more, but he hasn't shown me what to do yet.

And it was all we could do to say God has given every

Christian in the world pouring themselves out is what is

required to accomplish what God has for the Kingdom of God to be

on the earth. That is the untold work of the

billions of Christians. There is so much work to do.

It's overwhelming and it's exhausting.

But if they come and ask Jesus, what are we to be doing to do

the works of God? And Jesus answers their question

about works plural and an answer about the work singular that

they are called to do. He says the work of God is this,

to believe in the one whom he has sent.

That is the first great work. What do you do to be doing the

works of God? Believe in Jesus Christ.

And once Jesus speaks those words, then he quotes Moses and

he goes back and references him. He says truly, truly.

I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from

heaven, but my Father who gives you true bread from heaven.

So who provided? Was it Moses that brought them

manna? Moses.

Provided nothing, he was the agent.

God provided everything. He says.

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives

life to the world. They said to Jesus, Sir, give us

this bread always. And Jesus said, I am the bread

of life. Whoever comes to me shall never

hunger. Whoever believes in me shall

never thirst. Jesus Christ is so inspiring.

Belief in Him is the great work singular?

Here's the connection that unlocks for you all the great

works, plural, that He has called for you to do in this

life. So we work because we're

inspired. We are literally inspired.

He has breathed into US new life by His Holy Spirit.

We are inspired by His Holy Spirit, and then we are with

that in passages like Deuteronomy 11 and John 6,

inspired emotionally by the beauty of Jesus and by his word

and by his great works. And so we say, God did great

works in Christ. Now you do great works.

Now we say. Now you go and do works, and

Jesus says, and you will do these, and you will do greater

works than I did. Truly, truly, I say.

To you, John 1412, whoever believes in me will also do the

works that I do, and greater works than these will he do.

So God commands you to do heritage churches to be a church

filled of filled with men and women of action.

And so I, I read a document this week that talked about I'm going

to butcher Tim Keller's should have just brought the verse when

the butcher Tim Keller's saying, but basically says that there

lies dormant and every Christian, this insatiable

desire to go and serve. And so somebody asked him, he

says, what do you do about these, these Christians that

they, they seem to love God and their faith seems to be genuine,

but they're not really serving. And he says there lies dormant

in every Christian heart. It has to be awakened by

Christian witness. It has to be awakened by

preaching. But he says, doorman and

everyone is this desire to serve and to love and to pour yourself

out. And that's what I hope this is

for you. That's what I want my words to

accomplish on you. Now, if service is dormant in

you and you are not serving the Lord with all your heart, soul,

mind and strength, begin today. I'll give a whole list of things

that you can do, but the the church needs you and the Kingdom

of God needs to be expanded. And if that is you, I pray that

you come and get involved because that was me.

We had a church in Tulsa that I didn't want to go to church.

I like to golf on Sunday morning.

So that's what I did. But my wife came and she said

you are the spiritual leader of this household.

Why are we not in church? And so wives, if you, if you

need to sometimes come and correct your husband's.

And so we went to church. I was angry, I was embittered, I

didn't want to go. And we've been going for a

length of time. And then they encouraged us to

go to a life group. I went begrudgingly and bitter.

I didn't want to go. And then we went and they had a

day of service. I showed up to church and

they're like, everybody stay after.

If you're not involved in the church, today is the day we want

you to come and serve. And so of course, my wife said,

well, we're, why don't we stay and just see what opportunities

are available. And I'm a, I'm on the front row,

like just upset, visibly upset. And finally they said, well, we

could do so why don't you just greet and you can make coffee,

can serve doughnuts. And I was like, we'll all do

that. Which turned into leading a

Bible study for the church that morning, which turned into

seminary, which turned into pastoring a church.

There lies dormant in our hearts the desire to serve.

It has to be awakened. And so for me, it was awakened

by that church as they called me to serve.

I'm calling you, if you are not serving the Kingdom of God,

serve. Today is the day to come and to

serve, and I want to give. If you're wanting to do

something but you're unsure of what to do, I want to give you

just a few thoughts and needs in our community.

And I I want to overwhelm those of you who do serve with the

vast need. When Jesus says the harvest is

plentiful but the laborers are few, you'll see now what we

mean. We need jail chaplains.

Men. And women at the Park County

Safety Center. Why?

Because there are services every Thursday and every Sunday where

these incarcerated individuals are asking for services and they

cannot have them because there are no preachers, men and women.

And so there are there's there's a the harvest is plentiful.

We need church planters and Allen Gamble prison and for

future church plants, the the need is there and we need

laborers. We need men and women to help

Chris plant a church in Utah. And so if you want to come and

be his azer and his help mate, he needs people to go with him

so he can have a sustainable church and that it can succeed

when he plants it in a few years.

We need court appointed special advocates as Christ was an

advocate for us. We need men and women to be

advocates for children in our community. 5 hour a month is the

only commitment. It's it's high end on the

training. 5 hours a month. And you can be an advocate to a

child as Christ was an advocate to you.

We are. We were told last week that some

130 Casa workers are needed. The harvest is plentiful.

Every child needs an advocate. We're in a mental health crisis

and the doors open from our culture to this church as we

are. We have people calling saying do

you have any Christian counselors?

And our counselors are overloaded and they're

overwhelmed. And so we need help.

We need laborers. Safe families is needing more

workers to temporarily host kids and to get our families back on

their feet in the community. We we have care portal needs.

I think we meet some 93% of the needs, but so few churches and

so few people are are doing these requests.

I would have everyone in this church on that platform, if

nothing else than to see the needs and to be able to pray for

the needs in your community. If you never met a request.

We need a Foster and adoptive parents.

Jacob would tell you that two weeks ago we had six DHS workers

leave in one week, 1 block from this church.

Children were sleeping in the DHS office every night was it's

overwhelming the need. We have 93 foster homes to

recruit. And if you're saying this is

above me, right? I'm I'm new to this Christian

thing. I'm not ready to take in

children in your home. Then come to the church and

serve at this church. Hand out Donuts, make coffee,

meet people. The library team needs help.

The Justice and Mercy team needs help.

There's so many ways that you can come and serve.

Just come and talk and get involved.

Because I believe that if if. All the churches and all the

people in Park County were zealous for the things of God.

These needs would be met. It's so much bigger than even

this church. It's it's our community, it's

all of us coming together that it's you.

Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are

few. For those who are faithful to

obey the commandments and who imitate Christ, who serves as

his hands and his feet. Jesus says greater works than

these, he will do greater works than mine.

Will you do as the church? I want you to listen to how

Princeton's BB Warfield put it in a sermon on Philippians 2 is

called Imitating the Incarnation.

Warfield says he was. Led by his love for others into

the world to forget himself in the needs of others.

Self sacrifice means not indifference to our times and

our fellows. It means absorption in them.

It means forgetfulness of self and others.

It means entering into every man's hopes and fears, their

longings and despairs. It means many sightedness of

spirit, multiform activity, multiplicity of sympathies.

It means richness of development.

It means not that we should live one life, but live 1000 lives,

binding ourselves to 1000 souls by the filament of so loving a

sympathy that their lives become ours.

So we say Jesus. Christ laid down his life for

us. We now lay down.

Our lives for him. And so one of my greatest goals

as your pastor, one of the greatest goals of your pastors

is to kind of create a an ecosystem of health where you

can, you're equipped to do whatever you need to do where

the resources are here and available in this body.

So however God would call you to serve, however you need to be

equipped. This is what the library is that

you can go up there and there are volumes on whatever ministry

you need to create this ecosystem where you can flourish

and what God has called you to do.

So I want to invite the worship team up as we sing our our final

song. And here's what I want you to

reflect on why you're singing. If you need to respond.

To this message by trusting in Jesus Christ as the first and

great work that I invite you to come to the green room.

As a matter of fact, counselors, we're going to go ahead and go.

Let's go now into the green room.

If you need to trust in Christ for salvation, come now.

Even as you sing, as you consider God and his blessings,

come and consider Christ and believe.

And if you've been on the sidelines of this church, if you

have not been serving, then today is the day.

Come and ask. Come and talk to a counselor.

Come and talk to one of the pastors, and we will tell you

how you can serve. We will help you to get plugged

in according to your gifts. Pray with me.

And then we'll consider and meditate together as we respond.

Lord God. You are so.

Inspiring. Jesus Christ.

You are so inspiring that you've taught us what it means to give

up your life, what it means to love other people, what it means

to to suffer for the sins of other people and to come

alongside them and to bring Shalom and to bring healing.

May we participate in this ministry of reconciliation.

Give us the courage to put off our our laziness, to put aside

our indifferent, our indifference, our apathy.

Lord, which I believe is the greatest of the sins, pride and

apathy and God restore to us a desire and a burden for other

people. May we serve, but not out of our

own strength, Lord, but the strength that you give, being

inspired by you. Thank you for your word, for

Deuteronomy. We love you.

We ask all this in Christ's name, Amen.

Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage

Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit

our website at www.heritageshawnee.org.