A Better Kingdom - September 20, 2026

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast. I have made the

Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

I want you to know this morning that your faith isn't just a hobby That your

faith really is the foundation of all that you are The entire encompassing,

circumference of your whole life Does that make it big enough?

We live in a day where for some faith is just a preference You believe that

and I believe this and everybody's okay,

For some, faith is just a hobby. They find all of their life's experience within,

the scope of a church and their activities.

I'm not saying that's bad, but I'm saying for some people, it is just a hobby.

That's where they connect with people.

For others, faith is just an accessory, something that helps them fit in with

a group of people here, a group of people there.

Again, not necessarily bad in itself, but when we think about what is your faith all about?

I was watching SportsCenter last weekend. Actually, it was not SportsCenter.

It was one of those kickoff shows, you know, the noon kickoff shows.

And as they were there, they're talking about who's going to win this game and

who's going to win that game.

And as they're going through that in the background, you just see all these Jesus signs.

Yay, Jesus, John 3, 16. you see all these signs out there, putting the name

of Christ out there on this nationally broadcasted sports program.

And as I was watching that, I got to think, we kind of live in an exciting time,

where there's all these professional athletes and professional college athletes,

if I could say it like that.

They are making money, some of them, maybe all of them, I don't know,

but they're proclaiming faith in Jesus.

You know, you've got Coach Daniels, when he wins a game, when he's getting an

interview, whether he wins or loses, he's proclaiming his faith in Christ and

thanking Jesus for the opportunity to do what he does in coaching a football team.

We see Jaden Daniels, who's a quarterback for the football team,

professional football team, formerly known as the Washington Redskins,

of which I'm a former fan of the former team.

Does that make it clear enough? Yes, there's a root of bitterness and I'm working

on it. By the way, they play Mary's team, the Cowboys, today,

so we'll see what happens.

We see him publicly professing his faith in Christ. Win or lose,

he gives all praise, honor, and glory to Jesus.

I have a list here on my little post-it note that I scribbled with several other

names that have proclaimed faith in Jesus, proclaimed him publicly.

Trayvon Henderson, Ashton Gentee, we know that name. We know Riley Leonard.

We see other celebrities, not necessarily in the sports world,

Justin and Haley Bieber, of course, Carrie Underwood, Alice Cooper,

Chance the Rapper, Chris Pratt, Dennis Quaid, Denzel Washington,

Bailey Zimmerman, if you know country music, Jelly Roll, Nicki Minaj.

All these people have proclaimed faith in Christ, and I can see some of your faces saying, what?

Or in the old 80s jargon, what are you talking about, Willis?

You know, we hear this and we just have these questions.

And again, any of those names I've written down are mentioned.

I'm not saying whether I believe they're a Christian or not.

I'm not judging their salvation by any means.

But what I'm saying is when we think about our faith, our faith in Jesus Christ,

that makes us a believer in Christ, that makes us a Christian.

It's more than just something that's casual. It's more than just something that's trendy.

It's more than something that just helps us fit in with a group of people for

this reason or that reason.

As a matter of fact, when we read the Scripture this morning,

this book of Hebrews, finishing out chapter 12, praise the Lord,

we're confronted with a God who is loving, who is gracious, who is approachable.

That's what we've been talking about.

But we've got to remember this God is also holy, and this God is also not to

be trifled with or messed around with or just thrown out there so that one can be more popular.

Believers who follow Jesus Christ, and I'm including all of us in here today,

we've got to approach God and we've got to live life with what I'm going to call a holy fear.

And this holy fear is that spirit-given posture that lets us to stand firm in

a world that's shaken and changing all around us because we know that we belong

to a kingdom that cannot be shaken,

that cannot be conquered and brought down.

This passage we're going to read here in just a minute ends with this phrase,

and I've been thinking of this phrase all week, and it ends with this,

that's intended to help wake up sleepy believers.

It's intended to help wake up those believers who are kind of on the fence,

not sure if they want to believe in Jesus or not, or go through with a life that's lived for Him.

And that is the end verse in our passage today, and it just says simply this,

our God is a consuming fire.

It's easy for us just to let faith become another accessory,

one more thing added to our busy life,

until the ground beneath us begins to shake, until the things we set up around

us begin to crumble and crash down all around us.

And so Hebrews addresses our tendency just to live a casual faith head-on when he,

writes this to the first hearers, the first believers here, Hebrew believers,

when he starts to write this in verse 25.

And I would just invite you, if you're able and willing, would you stand this

morning as we read the final verses of chapter 12?

The scripture says this, See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks.

If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we?

If we turn away from him who warned us from heaven.

At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised,

Once more will I shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.

The words once more indicate the removing of what can be shaken,

that is, created things.

So what cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken,

let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,

for our God is a consuming fire.

Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much as we delve into this warning we have in Hebrews.

Lord, also the truth that is there, that is right underneath the text here,

that we can be encouraged by, that we can be strengthened by.

Lord, that we can leave from this place today knowing that, God,

we are part as believers with a faith in Jesus Christ. We are part of a kingdom that is unshakable.

And Lord, we pray that we will be encouraged today. Lord, that we will be enthused

and that God, you will be glorified.

It is in Jesus' name we do pray this morning. Amen.

Thank you all. You can be seated.

So the question I want to try to answer this morning is, what do we do when

everything around us is shaking?

And so this morning I want to give you four actions that you can take,

and then I want to give you five other hints as part of application of how that can be lived out.

And the first thing this morning, the first action I would love for you to take

and that we get from our text today in verse 25 is, we need to listen to the

voice that cannot be shaken.

God is still speaking. He is. He's speaking clearly and graciously through Jesus Christ.

Remember when we started this sermon series long time ago, it seems,

the beginning of the year when we got to one of the first chapters there,

we heard that Jesus is the final word for us. He's the better word.

That in the past God spoke through prophets, but now he speaks to us through

his Son, and we have the revealed Word of God, the revelation of God in Jesus.

So God still speaks to us through Jesus. Now, when we talked about Sinai last

week, we said Sinai was terrifying.

But we also said that Zion is an invitation for all to come and to be part of the presence of God.

Yet, as we started this passage out in verse 25, there's a danger of refusing

God's voice now, even more so greater danger than back then.

Again, as the scripture said, see to it that you don't refuse him who speaks.

If they, talking about the Old Testament folks, the Israelites there at Mount Sinai,

if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth,

God warning his people through Moses the prophet, if they didn't escape,

how much less will we if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven.

How are we going to be off the hook if we now have the full revelation of God in Jesus?

That's a little scary thing, especially for those who have a casual faith.

I learned a word this week that I'd never heard before, and it's this word begged off.

That's not part of our vernacular that we use. And so I had to look this up.

Israel begged off hearing from God in Sinai. You're like, well, what does that mean?

To beg off means to politely decline or to avoid doing something because often it feels.

That you're unable to do it or that you're unwilling to handle it at the moment.

When we think about that weird phrasing, begged off, today we kind of beg off,

on the Lord. We kind of put him off through distractions.

We get so attracted to other things so quickly.

Through apathy. And we just finally get, the world sucks and it just doesn't

care about me, so I'm not going to care about it or them in the world.

We just become apathetic and we lose our feeling for the lost.

We lose our motivation to make a difference because we've tried before and it just hasn't worked.

We beg off God and we just kind of put him off through the busyness of life.

There's enough busyness to go around.

Jesus knew about that. When in the gospel, Jesus said, hey, don't worry about what's tomorrow.

You kind of got your hands full today.

Don't borrow from tomorrow's troubles, in other words, because you need to take

care of what you need to take care of today.

He knew we were busy, but he also wanted us not to be anxious and to worry about what comes later.

And sometimes we beg off God just through selective obedience.

Oh, I'm going to obey God in the easy stuff. But as soon as God starts asking

me to sacrifice, uh-uh, nope.

I draw, I have to draw the line somewhere. I got to put a boundary in place somewhere.

Don't put a boundary in front of God. He's removed the boundaries to get to

you so you could get to him.

So let's not have a casual faith. It's not a modern problem.

The Israelites struggled with it. It's an ancient one. It's a human one.

But we've got to understand that if we're going to listen to the voice that

cannot be shaken, we've got to know that God's grace doesn't make obedience

optional, but it makes obedience to God possible.

We've got to live in to that possibility.

The second action I want you to take is not just to listen to the voice of Jesus

that cannot be shaken, but recognize what God is shaking away.

As we look to the next two scriptures there, 26 and 27, it tells us that God

shook Mount Sinai, and the people gathered around there knew it.

They knew the shaking was taking place.

It says in here that God will shake creation again. There was a time when I

was in elementary school way back in 1982. Yeah, last century. Can you believe that?

I was standing at the bus stop near just outside of my trailer court that I lived in.

And all of a sudden, the road started going like this.

I didn't have a surfboard, man. It started making waves and everything started

shaking. And for those of you that were around at the time and in Idaho at the

time, you know, that was the big earthquake in October that happened all the way over in Chalice.

And yet we were experiencing it here in this area.

And I didn't know what was going on, man. Was the world going to end?

I was kind of hoping that my school would kind of crumble, then I wouldn't have to go there.

But no, it stayed up, even though it was over 100 years old.

It still survived and I still had to go.

But the promise here is, hey, you've seen God shake the world before,

and he's going to shake it again once more, but not just the earth, the heavens too.

There's something big that's going to be coming, and that something big I know

we're still waiting on, something big that God is going to do to shake creation again.

Now, you've got to understand, not every single crisis is God's judgment.

There's a lot of people that want to assign God blame for every earthquake that

happens, every tidal wave that comes, every little act of nature that happens.

And while God might not be causing all of those crises, it does remind us that

everything on this earth is temporary, and everything is fading away.

So what's the purpose then of this shaking, of this shaking away things?

I want to tell you the purpose of God shaking things, not just literally through

an earthquake, but sometimes and most of the times in our lives,

when we hit just these things that rock our world, it's not meant for destruction,

but it's meant for revelation.

It's meant to reveal something. You see, God removes what is shakable in us

so that the eternal becomes visible.

He shakes us and gets rid of everything that does not need to be there.

What are some of the things that get shaken today? First and foremost,

I'll say this, and I've kind of alluded to it already, cultural Christianity.

You know, those things that it's Christian and we do it, but we don't really mean what we're doing.

We proclaim the name of Jesus in things, but if the going were to get tough,

we would kind of bail on Jesus.

Again, it goes back to what's casual. Christianity.

Political idols are something else that gets shaken. Folks, politicians love

to use Jesus for a lot of things, and they don't always use him well or quote

him accurately or interpret what the scripture says about Jesus the correct way.

And I mean, in keeping with the revealed word of God.

So when things start shaking, those political idols can tumble.

Religious nostalgia. you, oh man, there's things that I love about church and

churchianity and Christianity.

There's things I loved about growing up at church that we're never going to

get back, but man, they're still close to my heart.

And when I think about that in the scope of all eternity, yeah,

I miss Sunday night church. Those were awesome times growing up.

You know, not just because we'd go to different people's houses afterward,

have ice cream or maple bars, you know, And the good fellowship and the stories

I got to hear from people that are no longer with us on this side of eternity It's nostalgic,

But when the world gets shaken, those things which help to build my faith are

the eternal things that are important, that help to cement my relationship with Jesus.

Another thing that gets shaken is our self-made identity. I'm a self-made man. Here's how I did it.

Follow these three steps and you can be too. Plus 1995.

That kind of selfish things, when the world starts crumbling and shaking,

you find out what's true and what's not.

One final thing I will just say is that churches that are built on personality,

rather than presence, that are built on the personality of a pastor,

that are built on the little niche a church has, instead of being built on the

presence and the power of God.

Those are dangerous things. We've seen examples all the time.

I could name some churches, very prominent churches throughout my life growing

up that are no longer in existence anymore, or that have crumbled or shrunk,

to just a little bit because they were built on a man,

and not on the presence of God in that manner within that church.

Those are things that get shaken out. There's other things too,

but what I want you to hear is this.

When your life is shaken, That is when grace Exposes what never should have

been trusted In the first place.

Man, when someone's life is threatened, they don't care about how much money

they got in the bank. They're worried about, how is my life going to be preserved?

You know, a robber comes up to you and says, give me your wallet.

It's your wallet or your life. Here, have my wallet. I don't care.

Of course, I'm going to put up a fight if he's going to try to do anything else.

I'm going to go down fighting. But if it's just over my wallet, here, take it.

I can cancel those cards and my bank account's protected, so I'm not going to worry about that.

Those things that we work so hard for just kind of disappear when the going

gets tough, when things are on the line.

And we've got to understand that even when the walls fall down around us,

even when the difficult circumstances happen, that God's grace is still there in the midst of it.

The third thing, action step, I'd love for you to take from this passage today

in verse 28 is to realize that we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

The kingdom, folks, is not a place. It is, but it isn't.

Really, for us right now, what is the kingdom of God? It's God's reign in Christ,

and Christ is on the throne right now.

I know some of you are waiting for a millennial kingdom, and that's great. I understand that.

But don't wait till then to serve Jesus because he's on the throne now.

Don't wait for everything to fall into place according to your eschatology or

according to what you believe. trust Jesus right now because Jesus is on the

throne and he reigns in your heart.

If you've given your life to Jesus Christ.

Is Jesus your king? Have you given him control over your life?

That's where God's kingdom is at. That's why God's kingdom can go anywhere in this world.

Man, it can even go into outer space, even though God's kingdom is already reigning

in outer space, in spaces we can't even dream or fathom.

See, what the scripture says here is you are receiving a kingdom. It's present tense.

We're in the act of receiving the kingdom of God.

Folks, when you choose not to sin anymore, when you choose that I'm going to

follow Christ and I'm going to give my tongue over to Christ and I'm going to

ask him to control the words that come out of my mouth,

all of a sudden we don't say those bad words anymore we used to.

Those curse words seem to go away because we're receiving a new kingdom.

We have yielded that to Jesus.

Those temptations which used to knock us around, which used to drag us down

into the ugly and the dirty depths of sin.

When we yield those to Jesus who sits on the throne and sits on the throne of

our heart, all of a sudden those temptations lose their power over us anymore,

because we don't have to live like that anymore.

We don't have to choose to do those things anymore. Why?

Because we've given it to Jesus and he's shown us a better way.

We are living into the kingdom, receiving the kingdom of God.

This kingdom cannot be shaken because

its foundation is not based on human achievement, but divine action.

Something that God has set up, that God has put together, that God has created.

And so what's our response to knowing that we are receiving this kingdom that

cannot be shaken, that cannot be ripped down and torn down?

I think we're left with gratitude, right?

What else are we able to give if we can't give anything else? It's our thanks.

It's our deep-seated gratitude toward God for what he has done.

Not fear-driven obedience, but I'm going to say awe-filled thanksgiving.

If we look again back here in verse 28, therefore, since we are receiving a

kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful,

what else can you give what do you give to the person that has everything you

give them gratitude say thank you some of the greatest gifts i've ever received is just,

a word of thanks saying hey i know what you did and i so appreciate it there's

nothing i could have done to do what you did thank you say thank you jesus to say thank you god.

And so, the fourth action stems off of this one.

Before we move on, just know I mentioned this word before, but holy fear is not terror, okay?

It's not extreme fright.

But what holy fear is, it's that deep awareness that we belong to something

that lasts forever, and to be aware that we are stewards of this eternal part of us.

And so, leading off of that, the fourth action is this. Worship the consuming

God with reverence and awe.

Worship him. What is reverence and what is awe? Well, reverence is that weightiness,

that seriousness, that intentionality.

Knowing that you revere God, that you respect him so much, you don't want to

do anything wrong in his presence, right?

Look at it on a smaller scale. Let's say that you have the opportunity to go

back in time or to go to present time and meet the president of the United States

that has meant so much to you.

Maybe it was George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Maybe it's someone more current,

and you had the opportunity to go and to be in their presence and meet them

and just talk to them for a while.

When you're going in there, you're not going to wear cutoffs and a T-shirt.

Say, hey, Prez, how's it going?

Just kind of roll up in there to the White House. You're going to dress up.

When you go in there, your demeanor is not just going to be one of an average

Joe looking that you're going to get to high five the president and stuff.

You're not going to go in there picking your nose or passing gas. Right?

Those are common, average, ordinary things that we might do with our buddies or not.

I'm not saying I do. I'm just saying that can happen.

But you're going to have a demeanor, a posture of reverence.

Not that you're worshiping this president, but you respect this president,

if it's your favorite one, and you're going to go and talk to them, be in their presence.

Well, I think we owe God way much more than that when we come to worship him.

Now, I'm not saying about dressing up or anything. That's not what I'm saying.

Again, it's your posture. It's your demeanor.

When we gather together, we're gathering in celebration, but we're gathering in reverence as well.

It doesn't mean you got to be silent when you come in. I went to one church once.

Okay, my whole life I've been to churches that are like this one,

that are friendly. We're talking to each other. We're laughing.

Sometimes we're crying together.

But this church, they wanted it silent as soon as you walk in the doors to the sanctuary.

And I didn't know that. I was just visiting.

And so I was just doing what I normally doing. Hey, how you doing?

Greeting people. And I wouldn't even pastor that church, but just trying to

get to know people. And then I came down and I sat down. I was trying to talk

to this one. They're like, shh, what?

Come to find out they like it silent at that congregation because that was their

time they kind of centered in to focus on God.

And my thought was, dude, I'm already focused on God. I'm here to have a good

time with you guys and to worship this living God.

But that was theirs and that was what they did. And that's okay.

They had a different kind of sense of reverence than I did.

But reverence happens right here in your heart.

Reverence. We need to worship God with that reverence. We're not just coming

to God. He's our best friend. He's our best bud.

This is the holy God of the universe that could strike us down at any time if he wanted to.

So how are you going to approach this holy God?

Well, we can do it like Sinai did and be in terror and never approach him.

Or when we're invited into God's presence, we come with that reverence.

And following that reverence comes this awe.

Awe is just like it sounds. Mouth gaping open because you just cannot believe

at what you're beholding.

It's that wonder. It's that humility. It's that surrender to this God that is so much greater than us.

When you look at architecture in Europe and you look at the cathedrals that

were made, those cathedrals, even in South America, some of the Catholic churches

that were created, they were made so that you have to look up because the structure

just takes your eyes and brings it up,

into this great building that was created so that we admire this great God,

this incredible God.

We think about worshiping God with awe. It starts with our reverence for God.

But in the scripture, our attention is really turned quickly.

After we talk about being thankful and worshiping God with awe and reverence,

it says, for our God is a consuming fire.

Those are frightening words. I don't know about you, but to me.

Not only that, it says our God is a consuming fire. So it's going to eat up

anything that is in its way. There's nothing going to be left.

Down to the very elements that are there.

But I want to tell you this morning, God's fire is not aimed at destroying his people. Okay?

You're his people. He's not wanting to destroy you.

What does our scripture say? God is not willing that anyone should perish.

That means his children too that have given their lives to him.

Those that have come to him because of the repentance.

God is not willing that anyone should perish. So what's this fire all about?

It's not about punishment. It's about purification.

It's about purifying you.

You ever seen them old Western shows that you know I like? Even though we may

have never watched one together except for Adam, and Noah watches for like two minutes, he's gone.

You know, the old cowboy gets shot, and it's a through and through.

There's no bullet in there left. And, all right, we got to fix that wound.

And they got a branding iron in there or a little poker.

They stick it in the fire and let it get real hot, and then they say,

all right, I'm not recommending this.

Here take this swig of whiskey or bite on this stick and they take that and

they plunge it into the wound to cauterize it to purify it you know i don't

know how pure that is but to stop it from bleeding that's a powerful,

painful way to stop and purify try to purify that wound.

I don't think those cowboys ever die in those cowboy movies,

but in real life, I'm sure they probably would without proper medical attention.

God's purpose in this consuming fire is to purify you.

In our tradition, the Wesleyan tradition, Wesleyan-Arminian tradition,

this fire, we're not afraid of that punishment.

We shouldn't be afraid of anything except having that holy fear and reverence for the Lord.

But when we look at this consuming fire, it's not the destruction.

It's the burning away of everything that keeps us from God and living out the

life of love that he's given to us.

Burn it away. And even gold ore has to be refined to burn off the impurities

to get you that pure quality of gold, silver, or whatever other precious metal.

You got to burn off the dross, burn off the stuff that's not going to be there

for the believers to burn off that which is not eternal.

To purify you, to make you the person, the holy person that can stand in the presence of God.

And you know, casual faith, like we talked about earlier, it can't survive that consuming fire.

But I'll tell you that holy love can.

Holy love will be the purifying factor.

They will know we are Christians by our offerings, by our church attendance,

by our mission trips, by our potlucks.

Maybe, no. They will know we are Christians by our love.

Not the love the world puts out there, but the godly kind of love,

the agape love, the self-sacrificing love, the love that goes the distance for

others that don't deserve our love.

Because at once we were those people that didn't deserve anybody's love.

Holy love will survive, will be purified. And so just remember this,

that God's consuming fire, it consumes sin, not his sons and daughters.

And so be strengthened in that this morning, but also be purified. It purifies us.

All right. We've got a few minutes here.

Five quick practices of an unshakable faith. I'm going to go through these really

quickly. You've got them hopefully in your notes there.

First one is listen deeply rather than selectively.

Stop treating scripture as optional advice. We've got to treat it as the voice of the living God.

You know the story. Maybe some of you experienced it. I'll tell you really quickly.

Husband is in the living room watching football game, and it's his favorite

team, and his wife is trying to tell him, honey, I need your help with the laundry.

Yeah, second quarter, I'll be in there. First quarter goes by,

man. Second quarter's intense.

Honey, can you really please help me with this? I can't lift these baskets, and I need your help.

Yeah, halftime, I'll get to it. Halftime comes around, and he's like,

no, I got to see the highlights. I can't leave now.

I got to go refill my popcorn or make me some pizza rolls. I can't do it right now.

And the wife continues to say, I need your help, honey. I can't do my stuff

until my stuff's done. but I need your help to do that. And so she comes up with an idea.

And so instead of saying, honey, I need your help with the laundry,

she says this, honey, I've gotten something special for you in the bedroom.

Well, that changes his mind. He's thinking something else. And so he runs into

the bedroom, willing to leave his football game for some time with his wife.

When he gets in there, he rushes through the door. He doesn't see his wife as he expected to see her.

Instead, he sees their bed with laundry piled high and these baskets ready to

be put away. And she slams the door and says, you hear me now, do you?

As believers, sometimes we practice selective listening.

We only hear God when it's going to be a benefit to us in some way or some form or some fashion.

And we put God off. We bug him off or beg him off. God, that's enough. I don't need that.

But we've got to listen deeply, not just to our spouse when he or she needs

help, but we've got to listen to the word of God.

Secondly, a second practice is we need to hold earthly kingdoms lightly. We really do.

Those things that we set up as our domain or as domains that we want to be a

part of, we have got to hold them lightly.

Yes, I'm talking about political identity.

I'm talking about cultural battles. Hey, both are important.

I'm talking about nostalgia that can't bear the weight, none of those can, of our eternal hope.

Folks, the Democrat or Republican Party is not going to get you to heaven.

Okay, you've got to hold it loosely. Are there important things in that that

we need to champion for? Yes.

Cultural battles there are things we fight we have to keep fighting that i never

thought we would have to fight but i've got to tell you james dobson was right

on a lot of things that have now come to pass,

but that's not where our identity is centered around we're going to have an

unshakable faith that needs to be tied to an unshakable kingdom man politics changes.

Cultural battles are going to continue. They're going to change.

Things that we love that we can't ever go back to, nostalgia speaking, it's going to happen.

We may never go back. Washington may never have the Redskins name again.

And yes, I'm bitter and working on it, but it's something I can't hang on to,

because it has no eternal value for me.

Third practice we need to make sure we're about is welcoming God's refining fire.

And this is hard because we're inviting God to burn away that stuff that doesn't

really matter in our lives,

asking God to burn away that pride to burn away that hidden sin to burn away

the bitterness and even the self-protection those things we set up to protect

ourselves so no one ever has to see the real me,

you invite God burn this away,

purify me get rid of it.

In doing so, boy, our faith becomes unshakable when we're not trying to protect,

these things. We're not trying to hold them up or prop them up when they're

not going to last forever.

The fourth practice is to worship with intentionality. We're not here to perform.

We're not here just to be passive. But when you come to worship,

I pray, my prayer for you is that you're ready to engage with the God who is

present with us right now.

No matter what song is being played, is being sung, you're participating in

the singing with, that you're able to experience God, even if it's not your style of music,

even if it's not what you have on your car radio when you go to leave church later.

I mean, I remember my grandparents, my grandma and grandpa career,

I had the privilege to live with them in kind of a little, not outhouse,

a little room that was outside of the house.

And their routine was this on Sunday morning. All right.

They had one of the very first video projectors there ever was.

I don't know how much they paid for it, but they would set up this big honking

thing in their living room and they had this court go into the VCR and in the

VCR, they would plop in these tapes of the Gaithers.

And for an hour and a half, two hours before church, they were already worshiping God.

By the time they got to church, it didn't matter who was preaching or what was

being sung, they were already in tune with God and worshiping him with whatever

newfangled song was being sung or whatever great hymn of the faith that they grew up on.

So I want you, when you come here, be ready to worship.

Man, if you've got to be rocking out to skillet on the way to church,

then do it and be screaming on the way to church, praising God.

If it's the Gaithers, then sing out in harmony with the radio.

I mean, get yourself ready because it's game time. It's go time when you come

here, ready to worship the Almighty, the living God.

Got to worship with intentionality. Last and fifthly here of this fifth practice,

is to stand firm when the world shakes.

Elsewhere in the scripture, we don't have time to go into it,

but Galatians 6.13, I'll just read this one verse.

Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes,

you may be able to stand your ground.

And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm.

Confidence is not based in the circumstances around you, but your confidence

should be based in the King we serve and the kingdom that we serve. So stand firm in that.

Stand firm in your faith in Jesus Christ, no matter what happens.

So as we conclude, and we're really concluding now, We need to live in the better kingdom, folks.

That kingdom is unshakable. You don't belong to a fragile faith.

It's been time-tested, split, and re-put back together.

I mean, we live and we belong to this unshakable kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.

Casual faith is going to collapse under pressure.

But when you have holy fear, your faith is going to stand.

Your faith will be tested, yes But you're going to come out on the other side of that testing.

Purer than when you went into it. This morning and this week,

I just want you to do this. One action point.

Write down three things that you trust too much that could be shaken.

Hey, maybe it's your job. Job can be shaken. Life changes.

The economy goes up and down. Your job's one of those things.

Maybe it's a friendship.

Sometimes friendships are fickle. Maybe it's a hobby that you have that you

know is fun, but it's not going to last your whole life.

Write down three things you might trust too much. There's more.

But then just ask God, God, would you help me to hold these loosely?

In other words, God, I'm willing to give this up if you have something better

for me to do in your kingdom.

If you want me to do something different in your kingdom.

Be willing to surrender that to the Lord, no matter what it might be.

Why do you want, I want you to do this.

Mike, you always have us do weird things. No, they're not weird in my mind.

But here's why I would have you do this.

By doing this, you embrace God's refining process.

And it might feel uncomfortable as you're trying to relinquish something that

you hold dear, but that you know is really not going to have any eternal value to you.

And what it does, it starts to clear out the clutter in your life so you can

see God's purpose for your life more clearly.

So you can live more purposefully, making room for that joy and making room,

to thrive in those everyday moments, no matter if it's rocking and rolling and

shaking like an earthquake or not.

That you can trust God in those. My encouragement from this whole sermon today is just this.

Live into that holy fear that invites us deeper into God's unshakable kingdom.

Let's live as kingdom people this week. Would you pray with me?

Father, we are part of an eternal kingdom, a kingdom that has been instituted,

is being instituted, and we're receiving it. It's the already but not yet kingdom.

Father, in the heart of every believer, we have yielded our lives to Christ,

and so therefore, Jesus Christ is our King by our choice, but Lord,

not just by our choice, because He's already the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

So, Lord, this week, would you help us to think of those three things that we're

valuing that maybe we don't need to value?

We need to give to you, Lord, to spend more time with you, or more time living

on purpose with intentionality of worshiping and sharing the good news with others.

And Lord, in all that we do, may it all glorify you, we pray.

In the mighty and the powerful name of Jesus, we ask this today. Amen.

Have the praise team come. And as the praise team is coming to close us out

in our final song, thank you for being here today. And just praise the Lord

for you. Would you stand as the praise team comes?

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.