What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do | Pastor Eoin O'Sullivan

Welcome to the Spring Church podcast.

We are so glad you joined us.

Our mission is to reach the lost by raising up fully trained disciples that are empowered by God to impact their world.

We pray that you are challenged and encouraged as you listen to this week's message.

If you've got your Bibles, you can turn to Ecclesiastes at chapter 11.

I'm gonna read verse 11, or verse 1 to verse 6, or chapter 11, verse 1 to 6.

I'm so grateful for each one of the pastors, the staff that's here, and also the volunteers that are making so much of what happens here happen every single week.

Now I just wonder, would you mind taking a moment and just show your appreciation to all of our volunteers?

All those that are serving back in Kate's ministry.

Make sure you you say thank you.

We have a mission here, and our mission is to reach the lost and to raise up fully trained disciples.

And that's why we've gone to three services is to create some space and some room.

Uh as people there's just a hunger that's there for truth and for the for for God's word.

And I'm believing that as we continue to proclaim the gospel, it will be the lost that will come to know him.

That's my prayer, the lost.

You know, within the vicinity of our church here.

There are people waking up this morning that are waking up with regret, they're waking up with shame, they've then got a hangover, and uh, we've got the answer.

His name, it's not a philosophy, it's a person, and his name is Jesus.

And so, if you're if you're here this morning, we're called to reach the lost.

If you see an empty seat that's open, you have an assignment, you have a seat assigned to you.

And I know here at the 945, there's actually not a whole lot of seats available here at 945, but just pick one and say that that God use my life now to reach somebody for the glory of God.

Reach the lost.

That's why we're sending back Zephaniah next week.

It's going to be an honor for us to pray for Zephaniah and send them back.

We will be uh encouraging missions offering next week to be able to supply the need, not just for Zephaniah, but some of the missions that's coming up here as we continue to support First Coast Women's Services, Teen Challenge, Mordecai Project.

It truly is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

And you know, just even this past week, we're now serving 300 families every single week, just here at Orange Park on Friday.

When I come here on Friday and I look and I just see the cars wrapped around this parking lot, and I just I just I'm blown away at the faithfulness of God, at the people of God who are serving there every single week and making that and making that happen.

Raising up disciples Wednesday nights.

If you've not been in the Wednesday nights, we've got our men's and our women's discipleship groups that's happening.

God's doing an amazing work in there, and we there's still time you can come and jump in and be a part of those men's and women's discipleship groups on Wednesday nights.

Let me pray.

God have your way.

God have your way.

Lord, I thank you for the excitement.

I thank you, Lord, for the sense of praise.

But God help us not get distracted by noise.

God, we need your manner.

We need your breath.

We need your word.

We need your direction.

We need your kindness, your grace today, God.

We need you, Jesus.

I need you, Lord.

Help me, Lord, as I just come before your word today.

I know you've spoken this to me for this very moment, for this morning.

Help me now adequately and under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Preach it's not by might, it's not by power, but it is by your spirit, Lord.

God, move, oh God.

I know that you've got the power to break chains here.

I know you've got the power to, Lord, take people who are lost, Lord, and give them, Lord, life.

God, you've the power, Lord, to redeem what the dreaded locusts have eaten, restore families and homes, God.

You've got the power to send us out from this place.

Thank you, God, Lord.

It's not just up to pastors, Lord.

Absolutely not, Lord.

God, you've called all of us to put our hand to the plow and not look back, oh God.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

Let your kingdom come in earth as it is in heaven.

In Jesus' mighty name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Ecclesiastes chapter one to six.

Let me read this and then give you the title of the message.

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

Give a serving of seven and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.

If clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth.

And if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.

He who observes the wind will never sow, and he who regards the clouds will never reap.

As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything.

In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand.

For you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

Just turn to your neighbor and just let them know this morning you don't know everything.

Come on, just turn to your neighbor there and just let them know, hey, you don't know everything.

You may need to say that with a little bit more emphasis to certain people, but you don't know everything.

You think you do, you might think you do, but you don't know everything.

Now, in these six verses, in Ecclesiastes 11, that's being the authorship has given credit to Solomon, who is known to be the wisest man who's ever lived, a man who accumulated great wealth and had many experiences.

And he's we we draw now from his wisdom literature, his his wisdom.

And you know, if you know who Dave Ramsay is, he's kind of like the Bible example of Dave Ramsay.

He's he's he's he's got a a lot of what he's speaking about is is is finances of investing and reaping.

But I also want to take note this morning that Jesus is written of in the volume of the book.

So as much as you can look at verse one to six and look at it in terms of finances, I believe there is a picture of Jesus that is in this text that is so important.

Now, uh the title of this morning's message is What Do You Do When You Don't Know What To Do?

What Do You Do When You Don't Know What To Do?

We're Living In Uncertain Times We're Living In Troubled Times Chaotic Times You Don't Have To Look Ver to See This Expressed Just This Week As I've just Been Observing What's Taking Place In Europe and the Cous Aggression of Russia, Not Just In Ukraine now, But also Into Other Neighboring Nations, There's Uneasiness, There's Uh Uncertainty, There's Unfamiliar Familiar Territory That We're Now Walking In And There Seems to Be Action That's Beneath the Surface.

Like I talked last Week.

I believe Jesus is coming back for His Church, and I believe Jesus is coming back sooner than we realize, and sooner than we think.

And what do we do when we don't know what to do?

What do we do when we look at these uncertain times?

Now, verse one says, Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it in many days.

I believe the waters in scriptures is often symbolic of trouble or chaos or uncertainty.

And the bread is a picture of the supply of God.

It's the a picture of that manna, a picture of the word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us.

Ultimately, it's a picture of Jesus.

He would say himself in John chapter 6 and verse 35, he would say, I am the bread of life.

John 6 · chapter mention

He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

He would he would self-recognize that he is the bread of life.

We come here today not just to be entertained by songs, we come here not just to be motivated by a message.

We come here not just for a cappuccino in the cafe.

We come here because we need God and we need the presence of God and because he is the bread of life.

And you know, I don't say that I'm the only person that can pass out the bread.

I believe you may have already received the bread through one of our ushers that came in this morning, may have just shared a word with you or encouraged you or uh spoken life into your situation in our foyer.

I believe that there is many people across this house today that have a clear call upon their lives to represent and be image bearers of Christ and to share that word with them.

So cast your bread upon the waters.

In other words, we're living in a time now where we are to take Jesus and we're to sow him in.

There's a a casting him upon the waters of trouble.

And this is important.

I don't want to talk about politics here, and I'm not going to talk about politics, but as we know we're going towards midterm elections, as we know we're going towards a time where the news will say this and that, what are you sowing into the world around you?

What are you sowing into your into your children?

What are we sowing into the next generation?

I believe we're to cast a bread upon the waters.

We're to sow Christ into this world that we're living in.

We're not to sow an idea or an opinion.

You think you know, but you don't know.

The more I walk with God, the more I realize not what I do know, but what I don't know.

The more I read, the more knowledge I try to accumulate, the more knowledge I try to accumulate, the more I realize the lack of knowledge that I possess.

But this I know that I was lost and now I'm found.

I was dead, but now I am alive in Christ.

I was spiritually blind, but God has given me my size.

I was bound, but now I'm free because I have come to know that he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

If you're free this morning, can you just give God some praise here this morning and say, thank you, God, for the freedom that you have given me.

When you don't know what to do, keep doing what God has already told you to do.

When you don't know what to do, keep doing what God has already told you to do.

I remember there was a small river that was close to the school that I attended when I was about 10 or 11 years of age.

And after school, we had bought cheap fishing rods and we would go down to this little bend in the river where the water would gather, and we would, in the lack of knowledge we had, we would take a loaf of bread and pick pieces of bread and put it on a hook, and we would cast it into the water.

And you know, for many hours and hours of fishing, there was the worst fishing tactics of all times.

But every once in a while there was a fish that was just not paying attention.

It was some fish that was he probably just ran into the hook.

He didn't even see the bread, just ran into the hook.

But we were able to pull in a fish.

Now I believe that when we cast the word of God, when we take the bread of life and we cast it out into the void of emptiness and chaos that's around us, that that word shall not return void.

Isaiah 55, verse 11 says, So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth.

Isaiah 55:11

It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I send.

Now I just want to go through the four you don't know's that we see in these six verses, and then I'm gonna wrap it up.

In the first one I want to speak about from verse two is give a serving to seven and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.

Here's the point you don't know what trouble is coming so so generously.

Today is the 14th year anniversary of the Springs Church.

We thank God for 14 years of God's provision, of God's protection.

I believe we've seen revival here for 14 years.

The thing that stands out to me most is just the presence of the Lord.

Just I believe this, if we have the presence of God, we have everything that we need.

And God certainly has supplied and made known to us and revealed to us in many times his provision, his protection, his presence in our lives.

Fourteen years.

The significance of 14 years, you know, seven is the number of completion, oftentimes 14 in the Bible is known of known as the as double the divine work.

And you know, you get to seasons and you evaluate the faithfulness of God and you look over and you see what God has done, and you also begin to reap years of toiling and and ministry and sowing into lives and preaching the gospel and seeing God bringing forth work.

Pastor Lauren shared in our staff meeting recently that for the first time since she joined the staff at the Springs Church, that she has seen a generation grow through the children's ministry and are now entering into youth ministry, and she was full of emotion and thanks, and she was just looking back at the faithfulness of God.

Thank God for that.

A generation coming through.

And then number 14 often represents too a generational blessing.

I I believe here at the Springs Church that part of what we're called to do is pass on what God's done in our lives to another generation, to raise up in another generation, that they might know the work of God even in their own midst.

What do you do when you get to divine completion?

What do you do when you get a return on that word?

I know that it sometimes can be harder when God has blessed you to bless again than it can be when you've actually got nothing.

I know when I was in my late teens graduating out of high school, and I was single as a Pringle, I had no kids, I had uh I came out.

Uh we might have to edit that out later.

We I was I was just in that season.

There was, you know, to go and serve or evangelize or go on missions, it didn't cost me a lot in a sense to do.

But now that I have a wife, I have three kids, I have a home, I have responsibilities, sometimes it can be easier to try and hold on to what God has already done rather than to loose your hand and to sow Christ into another generation and in on into another time, especially when you know that trouble is coming.

Especially, because when trouble is coming, you are more inclined to hold on, to try and keep on.

But that word cast, the original word is to loosen your grip.

Now I believe that we have to be a people that are not just trying to keep Christ and me and my family and hunker down and try and protect just what we have.

No, there's something about God, you have given me so much.

How can I hold on to this?

He would say to his disciples when he was sending them out to heal the sick and to raise the dead and to cast out the demons, he would say, Freely you've received, now freely give.

There's a releasing from what God has given unto you and not holding back what is there.

If you've given seven, then give eight.

In other words, you've gone so far, now go again.

Now I'm I'm I'm speaking to somebody this morning, it feels like you've come so far, you've gotten a return.

Now it's your time to sit back and enjoy the season of life, and to sit back.

Listen, if God's given you breath in your lungs, you deserve to give that breath back to God.

Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord.

Let God have everything.

As long as God has given us life, then that life, God, would you use it for your glory?

Lord, you've given us seven.

Oh, God, help us to give eight.

That's why we started the 8 a.m.

service this morning.

Bright and early, 8 a.m.

I thought it was gonna be me and the pastors by ourselves, but can I testify and thank God that there was a room that was excited to be in the presence of God this morning?

I thank God.

We don't know what's gonna happen.

We don't know what's gonna happen, but we trust God.

You don't know what circumstances will change.

So so now.

Verse 3 and 4 says, if the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth.

And if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in that place the tree falls.

In other words, sometimes we're so concerned about the consequences of what might happen if we trust God.

We there will be challenges, there will be difficulties, but there shall lie.

He who observes the wind will never sow, and he who regards the clouds will never reap.

If you are waiting for the perfect conditions to serve God, you will never begin to sow and serve God.

Listen, I've lived in Florida now for 12 years, and I do not know why we have a weather forecast.

Every day it's at 50% chance of rain.

Every day! I'm like, why do we pay these people?

It's like if you're planning an event, it's 50% good luck, see how you get on.

That's that's just how it goes.

If we're looking at the clouds or if we're looking at the forecast, there will never seem to be the perfect conditions.

Oh, if I just wait until I graduate, if I just wait until I'm married, if I just wait until I have children, if I just wait until they're grown up, if I just wait till I have a house, if I just wait until the mortgage is just paid off, if I just wait until I get into retirement, if you are waiting for the right season and the right circumstances, just for it to be just right enough for you to serve God, you're never gonna end up serving.

You're gonna never end up sowing.

You will always be on the side watching the weather, watching the clouds, watching what's happening.

We're in a time where everybody's watching everybody else and missing the life that God has for them.

I was up walking early this morning one week, or this this morning this week, and as I'm walking through my neighborhood, the the the uh the high schoolers are getting ready to be picked up on the school bus, and there's about 15 of them waiting at the the bus stop, and what I notice is that the sun is rising, it's a beautiful morning, and there's fifty about 15 teenagers, and they're all next to each other, and there's not one conversation taking place amongst them.

But each one of them has a phone out, and the light is just beaming off of their face as they're looking down at their phone.

And I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like, how much of us are just watching the clouds, looking at everybody else, looking at everything else, and missing that God has got a life right in front of you.

Oh, can I tell you God's got a life for you?

God's got a plan for you, God's got a purpose for your life.

I don't want to sit watching the clouds, waiting for the right conditions.

That's not even the gospel, that's not even biblical.

It's not even biblical for us to say, God, you wait on us until the time is right and then we'll begin to serve you.

That's not biblical.

We serve God and we wait on Him to move.

We trust God first, and then we trust God with the results.

We believe by faith, and we leave God the results up to God.

God will do it in his time, in his way.

Look at how the Eugene Peterson said it in the message in his commentary.

He said, Don't hoard your goods, spread them around, be a blessing to others.

This could be your last night.

When the clouds are full of water, it rains, when the wind blows down a tree, it lies where it falls.

Don't sit there watching the wind, do your own work.

Don't stare at the clouds, get on with your life.

Don't sit watching, cast your bread today, and you will see it return back to you, not many days from now.

Number three, you don't know how God is working, so sow in faith.

Many of us think we need to we know how God is working or need to know how God is working.

Can I tell you, God doesn't need your help?

Jesus would say, unless a seed goes into the ground and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it will bear much fruit.

When we say that prayer, we don't need to know how God's gonna answer that prayer.

We just pray that prayer and say, God, it's up to you to bring that to pass in your in your time.

Some of you have been praying prayers for years, and you think that God has been taking too long, and you want to dig up that prayer and begin to work it on yourself.

No, you trust God with us.

You've been ministering to your children, you've been working on your family, you've been uh uh uh sowing into ministry, and you're wondering when will the fruit bear?

You don't know when God will how God works, we sow in faith, the just shall live by faith.

Actually, the Bible says it's impossible to serve God without faith.

It takes faith to walk through and and and go through.

You don't we don't know all how God does it.

Think of Lazarus.

God didn't need anybody's help to raise Lazarus from the dead, and certainly Lazarus wasn't involved in raising himself from the dead, it just took Jesus walking into a tomb and saying, Lazarus, come forth, and life began to come forth from him.

God can do it.

How will God do it?

I don't know, but I know God will do it.

When will he do it?

I don't know when he'll do it, but I know he's perfect, his timing is perfect.

Number four, you don't know which seed will prosper, so keep on sowing.

Keep on sowing.

You don't know which seed will prosper, so keep on sowing.

I was been doing some reading on the on the Gideons.

The Gideons are those who uh take the Bible and they put them into the hotels.

So then when you open up the drawer of the hotel, there's a Gideon's Bible inside in that hotel room and they've distributed the Bible around the world.

I was reading a little bit on the history of the Gideons.

It started in 1898 when two businessmen were in a city that was overcrowded with different events and it was hard to find hotel accommodation.

And so two businessmen ended up sharing a room instead of sleeping out on a park bench somewhere.

And when they went into the room, they began to realize that both of them were people that read the word, that were reading the word together, and it was an encouragement to them because in their travels as businessmen, they realized that so many of those that were on the road were engaging in just debauchery, alcoholism, addiction, gambling, all of these kind of just seeking the pleasures of this world.

And here they found in each other people who wanted to do what God's Word said and be students of God's word.

And so they got a burden in their heart to get the Bible into the hands of people who would be traveling and staying in hotels.

And so they set up the Gideons.

And one year later they had their first meeting together.

And after one year of preparing and planning and promoting this ministry, they got together for their first meeting.

And when they showed up at the meeting, it was only the two of them that was at that meeting.

Now, how easy would it have been to be discouraged and to throw in the towel and say, What worth is all our efforts if nobody is going to go along with us?

But they persevered and they endured and they believed God in the burden that God had given to them for this ministry.

And if you fast forward to today, the Gideons is in 200 different countries.

They have a membership of a hundred thousand different businessmen, and they've given out two billion copies of the Bible today, just with two people.

I was reading a story from the Gideons of an individual, Randy Smith, who went down to Porto Alegre in Brazil and was doing evangelism, and they were passing out copies of the New Testament outside of university.

And they gave it to one young man who began to scoff at them and he said, These Bibles are good for nothing.

The only thing they're good for is they make good frisbees.

And he took the Bible and he flung it like a frisbee and it landed on top of one of the flat roofs nearby.

And the guys kept on preaching, they kept on evangelizing, and as they wrapped up after the day, they're walking down one of the alleys and they see a man there, and he's got tar on his arms, and he's sitting there on the bench, and and and they go to him and they begin to speak to him.

And as they come to this man, they begin to ask him uh what's going on.

He says, Today, he said, I was making plans to take my life because I have messed it up so badly.

But then a miracle happened.

God hit me on the head with this Gideon's Bible.

I have read inside that I can be forgiven and have eternal life.

Would you please tell me?

And he was led to Christ right there on the streets of Port Allegra.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah.

You don't know which seed is gonna bear fruit, you don't know which prayer if God's gonna answer in that moment in time.

Every person we pray for doesn't necessarily get healed in that moment, but I was in the foyer after service, and the lady came up to me and said, ten months ago, you prayed for a condition that I have been facing, and for 10 months I have not had one issue with this lifelong issue that I've had.

We don't know which prayer's gonna come back.

We don't know which one's gonna sit, we don't know which which which altar call God's gonna move and and work in.

There's some altar calls, man.

I feel like I'm preaching my heart down.

It was a home run message, and then and then it seems like nothing happens.

And then sometimes I'll preach a message and I'll be inside just how is the world, Owen?

What are you doing?

You're stumbling over every word.

This doesn't make sense.

You might as well have played a Japanese sermon to them, they have no idea what you're talking about.

You're you're babbling up here, and then after service, people come say, This morning I gave my life to Christ.

Thank you, Pastor Owen, for that word.

Why?

Because God works through the foolishness of the weakness of our humanity.

You just don't know how God's gonna work in it.

You don't know how God's gonna move.

Who are we to tell God how he can move and when he can move?

He does it.

It's his plan, it's his power, it's his seed.

Oh, it's time to cast our bread upon the waters again, because not many days from now we will see it again.

Some of you have been trusting God for years.

Can I encourage your brother?

Keep on trusting the Lord.

Some of you have been sowing in prayer for a year, keep on sowing in prayer and see what God can do.

I thank God He's still a miracle working, God.

I thank God He's still able.

We we uh the Sarah's sister is here with us at the moment, Denise, and she's here with her friends Sharon and Sinead.

I don't know if they're in the service, I'm gonna embarrass them.

Where are they?

Come on, lift up your hands there.

They're all the burnt people back here from uh from Ireland, but they're the first guy.

Anyway, never mind.

So, um anyway, as we were sitting down, we were chatting.

Uh Sharon, who's here, her father, Mike McBride, was one of the first evangelists to come into the Republic of Ireland.

He got radically saved in Britain, and God put a burden on his heart to come to the Republic of Ireland and to begin to evangelize to the people there.

And what Sharon was reminding me of the story just the other day, that for seven years he preached faithfully on the streets in uh in a in a county called Donegal.

He preached faithfully on the streets there for seven years, and there was one gentleman who would uh come out of the pubs and out of the bars, and oftentimes he would be drunk, and oftentimes he would just hurl nasty words uh at Pastor Mike as he'd be preaching the word.

For seven years he preached faithfully on the streets before he seen his first convert come to know Christ, and it was that man, he gave his life to Christ right there in the streets.

Now, sometimes it's important to remember these.

Sometimes it's important to hear the stories of Zephaniah in Pakistan of what God's doing over there because sometimes we don't realize what God's doing right here in Armits.

We can't we can't take it for granted that I think Pastor Jesse said last Wednesday night or the Wednesday before there was like nine kids gave their life to Jesus in a youth service just right here irradiate.

We weekly can report on what on what God is doing.

Now, that individual that gave his life to Christ was he was an amazing musician.

He led worship in Sharon's dad's church for years afterwards, leading in worship as God was growing the church and building the church.

And now, amongst the three of them, including Sharon's dad, there's four churches that's represented.

Sinead and her husband have just planted a church.

Sharon and her husband have just planted a church.

Denise and PJ are in a church that were planted from that church, and there's that original church that's still there standing.

You do not know what God will do.

Oh, you've given seven, you've given seven, go ahead and give eight.

Come on, it's time to loosen that grip again.

Why are we to hold on to what if God has given us the antidote, if he's given us the answer to life?

Why should we get to a place and just try to hold on and catch a grip of what we have and try and bunker down and hold on to this?

No, no, let our lives be used for the glory of God.

I remember a story when we used the grow when I was growing up in the church, we used to go evangelize and we would hand out gospel tracts, and we would hand out hundreds of these gospel tracts written by Billy Graham.

They were called Peace, Steps to Peace with God.

And we'd literally go through a roadmap of the gospel, sinner to salvation.

And we would hand out these tracts.

And I remember one testimony coming back of a lady who took a gospel track and put it in her book and would keep it in her book.

She was just reading uh different novels, and as she was reading novel to novel, she would take the gospel track and she would use it as a bookmark and go from book to book to book and keep the gospel tract there as her bookmark until eventually one day she said, I'm gonna read this thing.

And she took out the gospel tract and she began to read it, read the gospel, was convicted by it, turned it over, found the address to the church at the back of it, went to the church, gave her life to Christ, and God you never do.

You hear what I'm saying to you, church today?

You don't know.

We don't know which ones are gonna prosper or which ones will not prosper.

Our job is not to figure that out, our job is to live by faith and the trust that God will bring the increase and his time and his moment in his way.

He can do what we cannot do.

Cast your bread upon the waters.

Now the waters are pictures of that chaos, that uncertainty, the unknown.

And certainly that can be heavy weight for us to carry.

Knowing that the days are evil, knowing that trouble is on the horizon, knowing that there could be things that will come that will directly affect our lives and how we live our lives.

We can be living all our lives waiting for the gas prices to go down.

Come on, somebody.

We can be waiting all these years for the interest rates to go down, left, right, center, up, and waiting all these years and miss what's right in front of us.

Yes, yes, it can weigh us down.

Yes, there can be fear.

Yes, there can be anxiety.

But we're not just called to cast the bread upon the waters and to sow Jesus into the society that we're in.

But the New Testament also gives us a great promise as well.

In 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 7, it says we are to cast all our cares upon him, for he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7

He cares for you, casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you.

Can I tell you today, he loves you, he cares for you.

You are not designed with the ability to carry the burdens of this world and the weight of the anxieties of this world.

There are some times, as pastor of this church, that I will lie awake at night and turn to my left hand side, and I'll turn to my right hand side, and I'll be thinking about this situation and that situation, and how do we get how get here and how do we get through this and all of the problems and all of the difficulties, then I've got to come back and go all the ways back.

That I have got a great promise in scripture.

This is not my church, this is not Pastor Matt's church, it's not your this is his church.

And unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, they labor in vain.

I thank God for 14 years.

I thank God for what God has done.

But I'm also grateful that the kingdom of God is open today, that God has opened up a door before us that no man can shut.

I thank God today that greater is he who is in us than he who's in this world.

I thank God if God be for us, then who can be against us?

I thank God that he's given us the Holy Spirit.

I thank God that he's given us a strength and a power and a message and he's given us a word to share.

And when I don't know what to do, and I feel the weight of this world upon my shoulders, I'm called to cast my cares upon him, for he cares for me.

Some of you are so crippled by fear, so crippled by worry, so crippled by uncertainty, so crippled by what might you might lose or what might happen if you step out by faith.

Can I encourage you today?

With this word casting in your original language, is to violently throw it upon Jesus, to take it and and with all your might throw it on the feet of Jesus.

I remember back all the way to Calvary.

I remember all the ways back that Jesus took violently my pain, my shame, my this the my own sin, he took it and bore it upon his own body.

Why?

For God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son.

That whosoever shall believe in him, what shall not perish.

You're not gonna perish.

He may call you out upon the waters, he may call you like Peter out of the boat, which seems like it's more comfortable to get you through the storm than walking on the storm itself.

But even if you begin to walk in water and you stumble, he's faithful and true to pick you up and pull you up and take you to the other side.

He's not giving you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

The Bible says that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not comprehend it.

Oh, we've got a great commission, church.

It's not a great suggestion.

We are called to go into all the world and make disciples in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

That's not for Zephaniah, that's not for Ireland, that's for Clay County, that's for where we are right here today.

We don't know what God's gonna do, but God's able.

Can I tell you God's able?

Come on, if you believe God's able, can you give him praise that God is able?

He's able.

And yet our demand is growing.

There's four different ministries that show up to get supplies for their ministries out of what we give out of the food pantry.

The need is growing, the demands are higher, and yet this seemed like the supply was getting less and less, and then all of a sudden, some random ministry on the other side of the city opened up their doors with an abundance of supply that we can take a trailer over there every week, fill it up to the brim, and bring it back over here.

And here's the testimony they say every week.

Here's their report every week.

It's they're like when we look at the line wrapped around, we always think to ourselves, we're not gonna have enough for everybody, and then everybody gets through the line, everybody goes through, and they have enough to give to every single person.

Oh, hallelujah! There's enough bread to go around, there's enough in Jesus to go around.

But just stand your feet across this place.

We're gonna go into a time of worship.

I want to give you an opportunity to cast your cares upon the Lord this morning, for he cares for you.

There is a plan, there is a call, there is a leading, there is a seat assigned to you, there is a ministry he's calling us to.

But do not forget that he wants to minister to you this morning.

He ever lives to make intercession before the Father on your behalf.

And if you're here today and you're crippled by the fears of this world, the challenges of this world, the trouble of this world, and today you want to cast your cares upon the Lord.

Our pastors are here, they would love the opportunity to pray with you and seek the Lord beside you this morning.

As we go into this time of worship, these altars are open.

If you're here today and you're way down by the troubles of this world, you're way down by the difficulties of this world, if you're way down by just anxieties of your heart or your mind, and you're saying, I need God's strength, I need God's care, I want to, I wanna I wanna run to that altar and in a sense violently cast them upon the Lord today, saying, God, I can't carry it anymore.

I can't hold it together anymore.

I need your intervention.

I believe he's faithful and true to supply everything that you need.

As we worship, these altars are open right now.

In Jesus' name, thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Spring Church podcast.

We pray that you were encouraged, uplifted, and challenged by the message today.

If you need prayer or want to learn more about the church, we would love to connect with you.

Visit the New Year page on tcjax.com.

We pray you have a great time.