Voice of the Nazarene 8-30-26

Coming to you from North Central Ohio, we share with you the Voice of the Nazarene, a week-by-week venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene.

We join our pastor, Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the Voice of the Nazarene.

He gave a command of God that's very critical for the hour in which we live.

Fact of the matter, very critical for every generation.

Paul said to Timothy, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

I mean, outside of grace, all we have is our intellect, our ability, our diligence.

And friend, that's not going to carry the day.

Grace.

Grace, that unmerited favor of God to the undeserving and to the unworthy.

Man had sinned, he's at the very bottom of the ladder of total depravity.

He can't justify himself.

He can't raise himself by his own bootstraps.

He has no way to get back to the God of the universe.

And then grace came onto the scene.

And God extended his favor toward us in that while we were yet sinners, he allowed Christ to die for us.

Do you realize that grace is a gift?

It's not a loan.

A loan requires repayment.

But a gift.

Why?

A gift doesn't have to, it has no reason to be returned.

No return is required, except that I accept it.

That I accept Christ and his forgiveness and his atonement.

And to thank God for grace.

Now, God is saying what I'm commanding you to do is to have grace.

And the definition of grace that somebody came up with is simply God's riches at Christ's expense.

Grace is the power of God beyond anything that you can imagine.

Now, if you're saved, you got saved through grace.

For by grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves.

Nothing that you can do, not of works, lest any man should boast.

Now, after you're saved and after you're into this unmerited grace of God, he's telling us something else, that we're to be strong in that grace.

And if I were to ask you on a scale of one to ten where you're at on that scale, do you have great grace with it with one being zero and nothing?

Do you have the great grace of God upon your life?

That's what I'm asking.

So it's a command of God to be strong in grace, a command of God to grow in grace.

And now we come to Acts chapter 4, verse 33, in an amazing statement speaking of the church.

Acts 4:33

God makes this comment.

He said, and with great grace gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

Great grace.

Do you have great grace?

I wonder how many setting here, by the mercy of God and his favor, say, Pastor, I have great favor and great grace of God upon my life.

Now the Bible says they did three things, and when they did these three things, great grace was upon them.

And I promise you, God is no respecter of persons.

What he's done for one, he'll do for others.

And may I ask you, why would you want to navigate your way through life without the favor of God?

Without the power of God, without the grace of God.

So let me tell you how this came about in the scriptures.

It's in the book of Acts, chapter 3, verses 1 through 11.

Acts 3:1–11

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple of the hour of prayer.

They went together.

Here's Simon Peter, I don't know if he's on a cane or not, but he's the oldest disciple.

And John over here is the youngest disciple.

Got this big age gap, but it's more yap than gap.

And Simon Peter is an extrovert, and John is an introvert, and yet they got together and they're heading to church, and on their way into the temple, there's a guy sitting there who had been crippled all of his life.

They would come and they'd lay him at the gate of the temple, expecting to get something from the church folk.

And when he saw Peter and John about to go by, he spoke to them.

He was asking alms, and Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, said, Silver and gold, have I none?

I don't have a jet airliner.

I don't have a five million dollar house.

Silver and gold have I none.

I haven't printed 20 books and multi-billionaire.

Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I the.

Let me tell you something.

Those two boys have the power of God and the grace of God and the favor of God upon their lives.

And I believe the world certainly ought to expect the grace of God to be upon the church and that we have something to offer them.

And if we do, why are we not getting out and sharing our faith with others?

Now, I certainly don't want to leave people as I meet them as they are.

But with Peter and John, I want to get them from the outside of the temple, and I want to get them on the inside.

And so he gave them a helping hand.

He lifted him up, the Bible said.

And the crowd saw this man stand for the first time.

They were unhinged with amazement and wonder.

And everybody knew this man had been crippled from birth.

They saw what God had done.

Let me tell you something.

This world is crippled.

They need a helping hand and they need a lift.

Now immediately an uproar came, and here comes the authorities, and they're upset.

I could stop here and talk for a little while.

And they come to Peter and John and here in Acts 4.7, by what power or by what name have you done this?

And Peter said, I'm glad you ask.

He said, We did it through the power of Jesus, and we did it in the name of Christ.

The same Jesus that you put on a cross.

The same Jesus that you crucified.

The very same Jesus that you put in a grave and after three days rose again.

Aren't you glad you're serving a risen Savior?

Are you glad?

Well, two hands were raised.

It said that name that we we did this.

You tried to destroy him, but you can't destroy him.

He's all powerful.

Well, the authorities got bad, and they said, button it up, stop talking about him, and we forbid you to speak his name.

Verse 18.

And listen, this is happening all across America.

They're telling Christians, don't we say anything about Jesus?

We don't want him mentioned in our schools.

Don't want him mentioned in our courthouses.

If you want to talk about Allah, you want to talk about Buddha, you want to talk about Muhammad, but don't say anything about Jesus.

You want to talk about evolution, that's why don't mention creation.

We're all from a bunch of monkeys.

We act like it too.

And Peter said, no, no, no.

Verse 19, whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.

But we cannot help but speak of the things which we've seen and heard.

And they got bold.

Now they put him in jail overnight.

And remember, these authorities have the power to kill you, didn't mess around with them.

And uh when they let him out the next morning and warned them to silence, and they said, We don't want to hear any more about Jesus being mentioned in our community.

So immediately Peter and John go back to the local church.

And when they get back to the local church, they uh they did three things.

Three things that unleash the power and the favor and the grace of God upon the ministry of that time.

And may I just say this?

I want grace.

I want to grow in grace.

I want our staff here to grow in grace.

I want every person that's a part of this ministry to grow in grace.

Now, three things unleashed the great grace of God upon them.

And here's the first was great praise.

Great praise.

The Bible said, Let everything that hath breath do what?

Praise the Lord.

The Bible says in everything, give what?

Thanks.

And uh people will come and they'll say, Pastor, I've got a great big problem.

What should I do?

I tell them, be thankful.

Give thanks.

Pastor, I'm trying to get help.

I'm hurting.

I've got a problem.

Well, the Bible says in everything, give thanks.

For why?

This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Now, watch how they they did it.

Starting here in Acts 4, verse 23.

Acts 4:23

And being let go, the Peter and John, they went back to their own company and reported all the chief priests and elders that said unto them.

And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God which has made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that's in them, who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage the people imagine vain things, and the kings of the earth stood up, the rulers were gathered together against the Lord against the Christ, for of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles.

People of Israel were gathered together.

For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

Now I don't know what's happening in your life, okay?

A few I do, but not everybody.

I don't know what all's going on.

And there's not just us sitting here, this will be telecast.

We've got viewers watching my live stream, others will watch later on by podcast.

I don't know what's going on in people's lives, but I know one thing.

Now, one thing can get to you that God's not already in control of.

It has to get through the filtered will of God for it to ever touch your life.

God is never caught off guard, he's never caught by surprise, and so God is all-powerful.

And God says, I want you to praise me, and that's why I want to remind you: God inhabits the praises of his people.

Where does God live?

He lives in the praises of his people.

You want God to come, create a little atmosphere.

All this murmuring and complaining and groaning and being negative about life, all this stuff, that doesn't bring God into the scene.

When we draw nigh to God, we just simply start praising him, and God shows up, and when God shows up, the devil's resisted and he flees from us.

Create a little atmosphere for God to dwell in.

Now, when's the last time you praise God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your spirit, and with all of your strength?

That's how you're to do it.

And uh, have you ever noticed somebody watching a ball game?

Hello, keyboard.

Talk to me.

If it does, I'm out of here.

Have you ever seen somebody into a game?

They're not only watching, they're into it.

They got their uh can of soda and they're jumping up and they're screaming and they're spilling their coke, and and uh you'd think they were right out on the field arguing with the referee themselves or the umpire themselves?

They're into it.

When's the last time you really got into worshiping and praising God with all of your mind and soul and strength?

Put your spirit into it.

The Bible said, Lady, everything that hath breath, praise the Lord.

How many of you would like to have God give you another breath?

I sure hope you get one.

Because if the undertaker comes, he'll carry out about six before he finds the right one.

Everything that hath breath.

You know why God has given you breath?

To praise him.

So you better start praising him.

We come to a song service and people act like they're in pain.

Are they gonna sing every verse in the whole book?

Certainly their heart's not into it.

Now you can fool me, but you can't fool God, not all the time.

And if you want great grace, it starts with great praise.

We've got a wonderful staff here, honestly.

You better say so because I'm the one that hired them, and I'm trying to get in ahead of the parade so I look like I'm leading it.

But they can't do that for you.

The only one that can praise God for you is you.

Please begin to praise God.

That's why the devil will do everything he can to stop you, to sidetrack you, to sideswipe you.

Because he doesn't want you to praise the Lord.

Now look at the second thing.

Number one, they had great praise.

But number two, great boldness.

Verse 29, and now the Lord behold their threatenings, grant unto thy servants that with all boldness, that they may speak thy word.

It didn't say some boldness, but it said all boldness.

How bold are you at witnessing?

The command here is to do it with all boldness.

Now, in the last 20 years in America, there's been a profound change.

Every crazy thought, every ridiculous philosophy, every twisted, deviant kind of a concept has spread its way across our country.

And guess what?

God's people did.

They went into the closet.

And some of the other crowd came out of the closet.

And God's people, instead of speaking out, have been quiet.

Can you imagine what would have happened 20 years ago if we'd taken our stand against people getting into our universities and our colleges and teaching socialism?

We quietly sat by and we allowed the evolutionists to come in and tell us that our kids came from an amoeba or something, or some kind of an explosion.

No longer the thought of creation, Bible being kicked out of our school, and socialism being taught until we've got a whole generation that are just gobbling away at socialism.

Find a university to leave and teach capitalism.

Other nations, all of them, if they're going to go to any place they want to come to America.

Socialism, for the most part, has made up most other countries.

And everybody, about half the people living off the government, anyhow, and the other half, they can't hardly stand them.

If you've got something, we want what you've got.

We don't want to work.

And socialism is when the government feeds us all.

Get rid of the billionaires.

Without billionaires, you don't have a job.

So you take from them and you give it to old lazy so-and-so over here, and the next thing you know, it's not just socialism where we all live off.

Pretty soon we're broke as a nation.

And pretty soon we're under their control.

These are crazy days.

And it's time the Christians come back out of the closet and start speaking up.

Of course, they're going to say, go back to the closet and keep still.

But you're commanded by God to have great boldness.

Invite folk to church.

We've never had better tools to do it with.

And yet we've never done less soul-winning and witnessing.

Less than six percent of God's people ever invite another in any shape or form.

That means 94% of Christians don't invite anybody.

And out of the 6%, only 4% are faithful at it, and only one and a half percent ever lead any one person to Jesus Christ themselves.

What would it take for you to have great boldness and great praise?

That's the reason I kind of came up with this little idea.

Everybody bring one for September the 27th.

You haven't forgotten, have you?

Maybe we should call it Friendship Sunday.

I know the part of the card that you tear off and you give to your friend that has the location of the date and the service times, it says Friendship Sunday.

The other side that you don't have them have says, everybody bring one.

I hope you'll at least invite 20 or 30 people.

And there's an address part on that handout that you keep and you bring back to the office, and and Bev will see that a letter goes out the week before inviting all of those folks that you invited to come.

And you don't have to do much of anything.

Just invite them, and we'll endeavor to do the rest.

If you'll just get them here.

People that we don't know, but you know.

And I hope you care about.

Now, I know the culture we live in is different.

I mean, people are literally walking billboards anymore.

I don't even know what to say.

I just.

And I'm not knocking anybody for anything they want to do, it's their body.

And when they cut the head off the giant, he said, I ain't got no body.

Tattoos are dripping off their fingertips.

Rings going all the way around their ear.

Hanging out of their nose.

In their belly button, and elsewhere.

Strange collar hair.

I don't know if the holiness movement's ever going to wake up or not.

But culture's changed a little.

And it might pay for some of us to do something a little different than we've ever done.

I've been thinking all week about t-shirts.

Everybody's wearing t-shirts with something on it.

I thought, I wonder what would happen if the holiness church would start buying a bunch of t-shirts.

And when people look at them, it says, ask me where I go to church.

That opened up a conversation, wouldn't it?

Ask me how to get to heaven.

I'm talking about for souls' sake.

I mean if the children wore those t shirts and said whatever they want to say on it.

If all of our youth were wearing those t shirts, if the prime timers had on their t shirts, if men had t shirts and women had t shirts, asked me what's happening on the 27th.

Happening?

Oh, we're inviting people to church.

Have you seen these people with their hair all dyed strange colours?

Have you seen people go to these sporting games and they got all kinds of stuff on them?

Do you know why they do it?

Because that matters to them.

How much does Jesus matter to you?

Been several years ago.

Tall, slender dude showed up at our church.

I guess in the yesteryears, way back when the church was on Iron Street.

I think he may have been a part of the church then, but somehow got away from family and got away from God and got into alcoholism and lived another life.

But he came back to be Sirus to get right with God.

He knew his time was limited.

Started attending our services, and God did a marvelous thing in Fran Martin's life.

And he was so set on fire that he went down to a painter and said, I want you to put flames on my car, so people ask me, What do those flames mean?

You say, I wouldn't do it.

You didn't, so don't worry about it.

Then he had scripture verses put on his car.

He would show up back here in our office just about once a week, and he'd say to Bev, Could you print me up some verses of Scripture so I can pass them out to invite folk to church?

He had gotten back with God, and it mattered so much that he didn't want to squander another moment of time.

Well, everyone you meet has a destiny with eternity.

Jan had fixed some green beans and potatoes, had them boiling over here in a crock pot or crack pot or some kind of a pot.

And I finally figured if I get any, I'll have to serve myself.

And I was trying to lift the lid on the thing, and that lid slipped.

And I knew if I let it go, it would be scattered glass burning hot all over the place.

And so I held on just for a moment.

And when I did, that steam came up and cooked these two fingers.

I mean boil the skin in just a matter of seconds.

I put the lid back down.

I didn't say anything.

I wasn't like the guy that cursed, and when he got saved, and he hit his finger with a hammer, he said, bad word, bad word, bad word, bad word.

I didn't do that.

But I did go to the other room and I said, What in the world do you do for burnt fingers?

They were throbbing.

It hurt so bad it hurt all over.

I didn't know where I hurt the worst.

I finally got ice cubes as long as I'd keep it on.

And it throbbed.

I could feel my heart beating out here.

And I said to Jan, I said, honey, I'll tell you one thing, I don't want to go to hell.

I don't want to go to hell.

I don't know if you know much about fire, but fire is one thing.

You never lose consciousness when you're being burned.

People who are burned alive never lose consciousness.

Why would anybody want somebody that you're looking into their eyes and they don't know God and you realize those eyes will be lifted up from hell one day and we're doing nothing.

Are you mad at me?

That I'm not doing my job very good, am I?

I hope you live a long life.

I hope I do.

I'm pretty young yet.

I heard that.

There's not a person in this room that doesn't realize that at some point you're gonna come to the end of life.

Life's going to end.

And then what happens?

There's not anybody that you meet but what one day won't stand before God.

Do they know Jesus?

Has anybody invited them to a local church?

You want great grace?

It begins with a great praise and great boldness.

And then the final thing, great prayer.

Verse 31.

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.

And the Holy Spirit came in a mighty rushing, gathering into their hearts and lives and filled the room.

So they had the Holy Spirit not only upon them but in them.

Boy, did they change the world?

In six months, half the city of Jerusalem was converted.

3,000 saved in that first little altar call that Simon Peter gave.

They met for 10 days and prayed, and they were in one accord.

The Bible said now they're continuing in prayer, and when prayer went down, hey, let me ask you suddenly, how's your prayer life?

How how was mine?

Bible says an amazing thing.

It says you have not because you ask not.

What are you asking God for?

Maybe instead of asking God for a new paint job on your blind man's stick, why don't we pray?

Well, God, would you begin to convict my neighbor and convict me to share with him?

Just invite him to church.

The scripture says, ask.

It's repeated eight times, ask, and you shall receive.

What are you asking God for?

You have not because you ask not.

What impossible thing are you asking God for?

God said, if you'll ask, I'll show you great and mighty things, Jeremiah 33, 3.

Do you have a prayer list?

I mean, how do you expect God to do things for you if you don't even have a prayer list?

You won't know if God answered prayer or not.

And you don't know if you're continually keeping this thing before God until God's attention is caught.

When's the last time you said, God, fix my praise?

I don't praise you like I should.

Would you fix my praise?

God, would you fix my boldness?

I'm timid and I need help in this area.

Would you give me eyes to see like you see?

When's the last time you asked God to fix your prayer life?

We're commanded in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving.

Let your request be made known to God.

Prayer will change every bit of the happenings of your life.

Again, why would you want to navigate your way through life without great grace?

Why would you want to raise your family in a culture that's going haywire without great favor of God upon your family life?

Why would you want to go through anything in life without his great grace?

Now hear me.

The devil doesn't care what you've heard this morning.

Because as long as he can get you out of here without making a decision, he doesn't care.

That's why, before I close, I want to just open up the front of the church.

If you'd want to come and stand and talk to God for a moment before you leave and say, God, I need I need some boldness.

I need to get my prayer life together.

I need to start praising you and creating a little atmosphere for you to live in in my life.

The devil loves it when we hear the truth, but we don't do anything about it.

The Bible says that we're to be doers of the truth, not only hearers.

You say, Pastor, my praise is so perfect.

My boldness is so perfect.

And my prayer life is so perfect.

If it is, then would you please start praying for me?

I want to do better.

I want more of God's favor and it's great.

Thanks for being a part of the Voice of the Nazarene.

Visit us every Sunday at 9 a.m.

with BNC's Pastor Ray Lestalle.

For more information regarding BNC, visit UsirusNazarene.org.