Let The Church Say Amen W/Rev. Dr. Royce Evans

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

As we get older, we ought to start to do some things different and better.

Amen.

Okay, I want to make sure of that because too often the church is a place of assumption rather than confirmation.

That's one of them things that'll sneak up on you.

Because we got to be very careful as the earthly agency that God has established to bring others into his magnificent presence and ultimately into his family.

Amen.

So don't think you don't have a job to do, don't think that you don't have responsibilities.

God has invested a lot in his church.

And let me make a very subtle but profound distinction.

There's the earthly church, brick, mortar, you, me, but then there's also the church of spirit and truth.

And when we really want to praise God and honor him, we must worship him how?

In spirit and in truth.

Everywhere you are, you're the church.

Amen.

At the drive-in movie, you are the church.

At least you ought to be the church.

At your job, you're the church.

Okay.

At your recreation, okay.

You fall off your water ski.

Okay.

Praise the Lord ought to be the response, not the one that's being lifted by the earthly church.

And we've got to be committed in that responsibility because so much depends on that.

I was witness too.

I just didn't come to the Lord on my own.

People convinced me through his word and through their relationship with me that there's a better deal in town.

The world is selling me a bill of goods, but it's not the best deal in town.

Being the church, the church of spirit and truth.

It's good to be the church.

It's good to be the church.

It's good to be the church.

You are not hanging your head in shame.

You are in an anointed place.

Matter of fact, God considers you esteemed in his service.

Amen.

Anybody ever work for God?

Boy, every hand in this place should have gone up.

You got to sit there and think about it.

Okay, we got work to do, Pastor.

We got to encourage some folks that you are the church.

You have a responsibility, and you need to be the best representative of that that you can.

You can't be Jesus.

That job's already been taken.

Okay.

But you can be as much like him as possible.

And that's what the expectation is.

So I want to go to the text.

We're in Deuteronomy today.

I've asked my dear friend and beloved uh pastoral, he called me a mentor.

I don't know how you got that twisted, man.

I learned so much from you.

But he's an old testament prop.

So I asked him to be kind and gentle to me as I take some liberties along the way in the book of Deuteronomy.

If you have your book, I want you to go there and read it for yourself.

And we're going to do an exercise that as I read the text, you'll be able to see the call and the response in the text.

I'll declare a truth, just like the priest did.

And then it says that the people all said Amen.

And that is what our sermon hangs on today, fully appreciating what an appropriate amen looks like.

So that's too much of a title to have in your notes.

Let the church say amen.

Let the church say amen.

Are we there?

Deuteronomy 27.

Beginning in the 14th verse.

Everybody there?

Okay.

If not, I can wait for you because I want you to read it for yourself.

I think a lot of the earthly church gets this wrong.

Somebody gives them a message about God.

But God's not in the habit of sending you messages.

He'll speak directly to you, as we'll discover.

We there?

Okay.

So the Levites shall recite to all the people of Israel in a loud voice.

Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol, a thing detestable to the Lord, the work of the craftsman's hands and sets it up in secret.

Here's where you join in.

Then all the people say, Amen.

Cursed is the man who dishonors his father or his mother.

Then all the people shall say, Look at you guys.

Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor's boundary stone.

Then all the people shall say, Cursed is the man who leads the blind astray on the road, and then all the people shall say, Amen.

Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow.

And then all the people shall say, Cursed is the man who sleeps with his father's wife, for he dishonors his father's bed.

Then all the people shall say, And cursed is the man who has sexual relations with any animal.

Then all the people shall say, Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and then all the people shall say, Cursed is the man who sleeps with his mother-in-law.

Then all the people shall say, Cursed is the man who kills his neighbor secretly, and then all the people shall say, And cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person, then all the people shall say, Amen.

And cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.

Then all the people shall say, Amen.

Sounds to me like God is serious about his expectations of his church.

Don't kid yourself, God does not take this lightly.

And when he assembles the children of Israel, he's building a nation.

But he's on his way to building and establishing a kingdom.

Don't miss that.

The way that we read the biblical text is to go as far to the left as possible.

It's called the law of first mention.

And if you really want to understand what God means by, especially in the New Testament, you go like, wow, where did that come from?

That was out of left field.

You go back in the Old Testament and you'll find that it has a precedence, it's been established.

And here in Deuteronomy, God has said what his expectation is for the church.

In case you didn't recognize it, those are the Ten Commandments.

Anybody see that?

If you didn't, keep coming to church.

And those kind of revelations will become automatic.

But God speaks to us.

Praise God.

There were 400 years of silence, and then God decided to give us another opportunity to be who we should have been all alone.

He usually speaks to us in a monologue.

Thou shalt not.

Thou shalt.

And no response is necessary because it's understood, because God said it, that should settle it.

But how many times have God spoken to us and he has to say it again and again for the particularly hard-headed?

Praise God that he's relentless in his pursuit of my affirmation of his truth.

Oh boy, that was a lot to say in one little sentence there.

But God does not leave me devoid of what's necessary to function for him.

And somewhere in there, I ought to come to an enlightened state where when I do what God tells me, it's also good for me.

I I know my wife prays for me all the time, and probably her, I don't listen in on what she's saying to God all the time.

All the time.

I do pay attention, some occasion.

But but I hear her pray for me.

Let him be the husband and the father and the man of God that you have called him to be.

It's her relentless lifting up of me that keeps me in sync with what God has intended.

He usually speaks in a monologue, and again, the understanding is when he speaks, we are listening.

But this passage is different.

He speaks and he expects a response.

He makes everybody stand up.

The Levites read what God has communicated, and then God compels, hear that word.

He compels affirmation with the instruction that they have just been given.

When the last time God gave you a news flash and you went, Thank you, God.

I appreciate you clueing me in before I go too far astray.

Okay.

It's hard to get back sometimes if we're not careful.

And God wants to make sure that all the children of Israel understand what is being said, that they know what is expected.

You gotta love a God like that, that makes sure I know what's required of me.

And here's the beauty of it: we don't need a polysyllabic vocabulary.

God is not impressed by your Webster's dictionary definition of the church.

God is not even particularly interested in what the internet has to say the church ought to be.

He has already ordained and decreed how we are formed and how we function.

How we are formed and how we function.

God could have just gave us instruction to say, now go do well.

Like be fruitful and multiply.

We seem to got that one down pretty good.

But this other stuff with the restrictions, we we see these as handicaps and hurdles rather than the life-building and spirit-energizing activity it's designed to do.

Word, the timing God's word.

Okay.

I think all of us can improve on that.

All right.

So now we say amen.

Here's some important questions that we want to consider.

Do we comprehend the gravity of our response?

God tells me to do something, I say, I got you, Lord.

And then I don't do it.

That's when a woe comes in.

Anyone know that word?

Woe.

Woe to those that have heard the word of God but do not govern themselves accordingly.

It's a lot tied up with my affirmation of the word of God.

And do we know that we are being held accountable?

By our own mouth we condemn ourselves.

By our own lack of activity, we bring chastisement and uh some kind of negative attention that we don't really want to have present in our life.

That ought not be counted.

Paul says it ought not be numbered among you.

Why?

Because you're the church, you're special, you're called out from all the madness of this world to function as a representative of kingdom.

I think some of us are too frivolous and too cavalier when it comes to saying amen.

We kind of hear the words, it's kind of like background noise.

And then because out of ritual and out of practice, we just respond, amen.

But I would invite you to consider that before you slap an Amen on something, you do some due diligence.

Okay?

That sounds like work.

Well, yeah, it is work.

Okay.

If I want to make sure that I'm performing according to God's standards, I need to check myself.

You see a song.

I love this.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

That's still good advice today.

Amen.

When you got an anointing on you and you said, I've been sent to my neighbor to chastise him or her.

Be very careful.

That's the assignment.

Because you can get cussed out and beat up, taking on responsibilities that are not your own.

I know you got this burning urge that everybody gets turned on for the Lord, but be sure you are the one who has been sent with the proper vocabulary and with the proper encouragements and with the proper warning.

Don't just take it upon yourself to be God's instrument.

Okay.

You have to be called to do this stuff.

Okay.

So just some steps that I want you to take when you're considering, once I've been exposed to the word of God.

Once the word of God has been shared with me and I have some understanding and I have some clarity, the church should respond immediately.

God haven't called you to convene a meeting or get a group of your friends together, and you all have to agree on it before you obey.

The call to obedience is immediate.

Right now.

Nowhere in the text, and I read it purposely fast to show you that God didn't give them room for discussion.

He didn't ask them to have breakout sessions.

He didn't say you need a PowerPoint to get this point across.

It doesn't say any of that.

It says hear the word of the Lord and respond immediately with the one appropriate word.

Amen.

And what do we mean when we say amen?

What do we mean?

When I say amen, what am I telling God?

First I'm saying you're right.

That's the first thing I'm getting established.

That God is right and usually I'm not.

Okay.

That don't mean I can't get right, but usually at the get-go, God is right.

Amen.

Ought not sleep with your mother-in-law.

Amen.

Okay.

You getting the point right now?

It should be immediate.

And if you're really in synchronicity with God, ought not be no pause, ought not be no hiccups.

Let me think about it, Lord.

That's how you get smoke.

That's another one of my favorite Old Testament words.

You can end up on the smoke list playing fast and loose with Almighty God.

This is the creator and sovereign of the universe.

And usually when he speaks, it matters.

Okay.

Not usually, all the time.

And so we got to make sure that we respond immediately.

God's word is right, it's true, it's accurate.

We don't have to guess about it.

Um, it's mathematically accurate.

Uh I still haven't got this qubit thing figured out about measuring the dimensions of the ark.

But God said it is cool with me.

It is big enough to hold all the animals that He intends to spare from the flood.

God's word is geographically accurate.

If it says that a place existed in a certain uh area of the world, archaeologists now are finding out that the word of God is true.

I was blessed to be uh in the Israel and to see some of the places.

Uh I'm drawing a blank right now.

The mounds.

I'm trying to think of the word for the mounds.

The what?

Tails?

Yeah, the tails.

Okay, to see them.

I read them in the book, in the Bible, and I thought I had a good idea what that looked like.

And boy, was I surprised when I got there.

This big mound of earth and carrying on.

And uh, I remember visiting the uh oh man.

Where we go?

Yep, Megiddo.

But I'm thinking about the place where the man uh was wrestling for 38 years.

Somebody help me.

There's gotta be more Bible scholars in here than just me.

The pool of Bethesda, is that it?

There, there go.

It's coming back to me now.

Thank God for notes.

But but it's it's not really what I expected.

It was a little different.

It's knowing it for yourself, being there and able to touch something.

I remember we went on Jonathan's dig and it was muddy, so muddy that day.

Oh my God.

I I couldn't believe the whole country was threatening to just be washed away.

And I understood some dynamics like topography.

That rain that starts in the mountains don't necessarily stay there.

By the time it gets further down the journey, it's wiping out villages, etc., and so forth.

Again, geographically and scientifically accurate.

So the church, when exposed to the word of God, should respond immediately.

I've been in some churches where the pastor has to beg for an amen.

That's a shame.

But that's when I know I'm in the earthly church.

Because in this church of spirit and truth, the response comes immediately, almost before the pastor can uh get it out of his or her mouth.

Yeah, I'm in a hurry to hear this blessing, and I'm in a hurry to apply this truth to my life.

Where would you be if God just delayed your blessings and he based it on your response to his holy word?

Because actually that's what's going on with us.

We've been exposed to the word, but we're taking our time about really living into the fullness of what God is expecting from us.

Another thing that the church should do is should respond cohesively, which is a big word for altogether.

We should respond with one accord.

Uh, row one should not be saying something different than row two, and row two should not be saying something different than row thirty, two.

We all are the church, and we should respond cohesively with one accord and with one spirit.

Now, this is a big problem in the earthly church.

There's more than one spirit sometimes present in the earthly church.

Amen.

Backbiters go to church.

Rumor mongers go to church, liars go to church.

Do you know the most faint faithful attendee of at church is Satan himself?

Right now, trying to upset the apple cart, trying to distract us.

Some of us is as simple as our phone buzz.

And all of a sudden, we've lost fellowship with the congregation and church that we are a part of.

Just that easy.

I've got to get this.

No, you need to stay where you are, put that on silence, and get what God has for you.

That's the priority.

God speaks and makes sure that we respond cohesively.

Okay.

There's no special word for the old folks.

There's no special word for the young folks.

It's all part of the same fabric of instruction that God is inviting us to be a part of.

I wasn't uh really that big a fan of school.

And I'm gonna tell myself right now, I I couldn't wait to graduate high school.

And I I put the education in the rear view.

But God got a funny way of having his way.

Because not only did I not come back to school, I stayed there.

I thought to myself, what could God possibly be thinking when I have trouble forming simple sentences, and now I have to have these theological responses that conform to the orthodoxy of the faith.

Huh?

And then I got to inspire others to take on the same mantle of instruction and leadership.

Nothing more frustrating than trying to tell the truth to some people that just won't accept.

It's the truth.

Every time you do this, this happens.

So that ought to be a clue to you that you need to change something.

Amen.

But people will toil for the rest of their life in error and grief simply because they don't open themselves up to instruction.

And the most important instruction is God instruction.

Ought not to be a mystery about who God is.

We're allegedly supposed to know Him intimately.

Amen.

That's where that term beloved comes from.

I love that when you pray for the Greers.

Because I was trying to think what kind of friends were they to me.

I said, beloved.

That's what they are.

They hold a special place, special place, and a special regard in my heart and in my experience.

Amen.

And God calls us his beloved.

So God, we respond immediately when we hear your word.

We respond cohesively.

We do it all together.

And if you see somebody in the pew that's not getting it, help them out a little bit.

All right.

Did you understand what the pastor was just saying right there?

Or you look puzzled.

Okay.

Note that time.

Note that for a time when you can get together out of worship and say, let's talk about what that was about.

What did he mean when he said that?

Because we are supposed to come here to leave with the same understanding.

I didn't say the same level of understanding.

But I don't have to know the Hebrew to know what God has just told me in Deuteronomy.

That these are the absolute minimum standards for acceptable behavior in the kingdom and among God's people.

Okay.

Here's the last one.

The church should respond.

Anyone want to take a guess at it?

Immediately, cohesively.

What's missing?

No guesses?

Promptly?

That's the immediately.

But you're thinking, hey, amen.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Consistently.

It's gonna be hard for some of us to serve God consistently.

Ever have this?

I don't feel like going to church today.

I had a late night.

Whatever the excuse is, God expects you to be in worship, to receive the instruction.

And God is looking for a church that will respond consistently.

God's word is right all the time.

We should obey and support it all the time.

Now I understand if some of you have some reluctance to agree, especially I've made such a big deal out of saying amen.

But amen is a big deal.

God says, I want you to go to blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, can I have some time to think about it?

No.

Immediately.

You see a go?

I'm getting together to go right now, Lord.

Cohesively.

Whoever's supposed to go with me needs to be on the same page before we go.

Anybody set up with a uh, what do they call them, witnessing team?

And all of a sudden some members of the witnessing team got a different idea about how it's supposed to go.

You don't do that out in the field.

You get that straight before you leave the church.

This will be your role when we get there.

And this will be your any objections.

Let's get them out right now.

Because we want to present, we want to present as a unified body when we get out there doing our job.

No sense trying to figure it out when we get there.

We need to know before we go.

We don't have the option to obey some parts or some uh parts of the instruction.

We need to understand that it's one unit.

This is one reason why it's so hard for me to read my Bible.

I constantly run into things I ought not to be doing and stop and don't and quit it.

Because not God's not pleased with my lifestyle as a whole.

He's constantly got me reframing and reorganizing and reprioritizing.

You know, it's a constant process of development.

Where there's no growth, that's a stagnated community, and there's not a lot of profit or product in those entities.

We are designed to be progress.

You shouldn't leave people where you find them.

That's not the way God operates.

I'm so thankful for that because where God found me, hmm, I I can't even share with you where He found me.

But it was so profound that it made an indelible impression on me that I don't ever want to live that way again.

And the way to do that is by constantly growing and developing under the instruction of God.

Let me prove it to you.

The Ten Commandments are not multiple choice, they're ten for a reason.

Another flash from heaven is God does not grade on the curve.

There are standards that must be adhered to, no question.

To blaspheme the Holy Spirit, that's the ball game.

That's it.

You can't acknowledge Jesus as Lord without the operation of the Holy Spirit.

You cannot understand that the text given to us is actual instruction straight from the throne.

It's nothing less than that.

It's all of that.

All the time, every time.

So let's go through them.

The biggest problem in the church is we want to say amen to some things and not to others.

This is hypocrisy and inconsistency, both of which Jesus has condemned.

I used to be like that.

I used to come to church and say, wow, I wish I really wish Roe 15 was listening to this.

I really wish that this bunch of folks over here would really get the message and get on board and start tithing.

But God doesn't use me to call that out.

He uses me to present his instruction and with the work of his Holy Spirit bring you around to where you need to do.

So here we go.

In the 15th verse, it's the prohibition against idol worship.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Okay.

Loud, cohesively, remember he said in a loud voice, all in one accord, all on the same page.

Okay.

So you're right.

You shouldn't have any gods before God.

You shouldn't.

But some people have made the lottery, they're God.

Some people have made the casino, they're God.

Some people have made another image bearer, their God.

Women trapped in abusive relationships because they made some man, or the shoe could be on the other foot.

My wife is my wife.

He's not my God.

I revere her as a wife.

I honor her as a wife.

I love her as a wife.

Amen.

She's not the end of the story.

She's not the end of the story.

And I love her dearly.

I give my life for that woman.

I would.

Man, she might be the only one.

I made a list one time of people that I'd be willing to die for.

It was a short list.

Matter of fact, there's a name on there I didn't even recognize.

I'm like, okay, they must be coming in my life at a later day.

But again, no other gods.

The 16th verse says, Your mother and father.

Well, yeah, you ought to honor your mama and your daddy.

Matter of fact, it's so important that God put a promise with this uh commandment that your days will be long.

So when I disrespect my mother and disrespect my father, all I'm doing is taking years off my life.

Oh boy, y'all looking at me like you don't believe me, but you read it for yourself and you said amen.

We were tricked, we were flim flammed.

Well, I'm spanning that for you to understand.

Be careful about what you say.

Amen to.

The 17th through the 19th verse encompasses social responsibilities, which means messing with stuff that don't belong to us.

Don't move the fence marker.

It's the property line.

That's yours.

This is mine.

Amen.

Why?

Because we can't live together in peace unless there are these demarcations of who owns what and what belongs to who.

But we've got so caught up on stuff that we fail to realize that God's desire for us is that we share with each other.

There ought not be a hungry Christian in the world or a family that can have to do without medical support because they don't have insurance.

The church has been called on to step in and meet those needs.

And we need to take those things seriously.

Amen.

I remember when I was diagnosed with my cancer and I was so busy in my poor me's.

You know how you get caught up in your poor mees.

Lord, why you do this to me?

How could you do this?

I've been so faithful.

The Lord said, be careful with that, because you haven't always been faithful.

And it cast me in the role of a punisher, and that's not who I am.

Cancer is going to happen to whoever it happens to, and I'm going to heal some, and others will not be healed.

It's up to me who I bless and who I curse.

And so I have to be content with leaving it in God's hand.

But this is where we get into trouble.

The Lord says, well, when you start got to deal with your neighbor, show me you can say amen there too.

The neighbor that talks about you, the neighbor that dogs you out.

Think about the worst neighbor you got.

Till you can learn to love.

And I used to tell this story when I preached this sermon before.

Me and my next boy neighbor were bitter enemies because of a property line.

And God humbled me to go to him and ask him for his forgiveness.

That I had been overbearing, overbearing in our relationship.

And I was able to win him as a brother.

I remember when the ambulance took my wife to the hospital just recently.

He was out at the fence asking me, what can I do for you?

And the neighbors from across, and again, we never got along with any of you speak.

I still don't I speak to his wife, but she doesn't speak back.

But but regardless of that, God has not made us to have this enmity with each other.

We only got one enemy, and his name is Satan.

Everybody else is potentially redeemable in the kingdom of God.

And I discovered the 20 and the 23rd verses, the Lord says, Well, here's what I got to say about sexual morality.

Now say amen.

And some, oh, I heard I heard you.

I heard that little amen.

Bless your heart.

It's easy to say amen when he's not convicting me.

Remember, I told you about row 15?

They ought to be listening.

I'm in row 15, even though I might be on row number two.

Are you understanding what I'm saying?

Is it starting to hit home for you?

Because I don't want you to be dogged out about what I'm saying.

I want you to be encouraged.

God has made a way for us to get along.

We just got to put in some work.

God has made a way for our lives to be better.

But again, we've got to put in some work.

In the Old Testament, the word amen is mentioned 25 times.

I was surprised at that.

I thought for sure.

The Old Testament, big as it is, just Isaiah alone, you know.

Only 25 times in the Old Testament, God speaks and people respond with the appropriate response, if not the right behavior.

But then I was further surprised that the word amen only appears one time in the New Testament.

Amen.

I said, how can that be when the greatest preacher in the world, the Son of God Himself, is busying himself making sure that we know what kingdom is about and knowing what God's place is and what our place is.

Jesus has been busy, him and the boys, out there shaking every tree and making sure everybody gets the good news that God is not dead.

And Rome is not the end of the empire.

There's an empire beyond Rome.

Several, as a matter of fact.

And so now we live in this economy where you got to be this, that, or the other.

I'm going to be content being a child of God.

I think that's the highest office that I can aspire to.

Behold, this is my son in whom I am well pleased.

I want God to say that about me.

Amen.

It was great he said that about Jesus.

Jesus has all that coming and more.

But I aspired, God says, to the angels up there.

Look at Royce.

I'm so proud of him today.

The old Royce would have been cussing and slamming stuff.

And wow, that guy, but we mortified him in his flesh and we transformed him into something else.

But all this preaching going on, and nobody goes, you know, that's right.

That that is right.

You don't find that conversation in the New Testament.

And I said, Wow, how did we all miss out on that?

But God fixed it.

My revelation slide.

Can you see that Revelation 3 and 14?

It says, to the angel of the church in Laodicea, right?

These are the words of the Amen.

The faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation.

You can't be talking about anybody else, but Jesus.

Amen.

That's deep.

Because when I didn't have an Amen, Jesus was my Amen.

When the kingdom of darkness sought to kill me and destroy me, they were held in check by the Amen.

And so I can boldly declare today that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Amen, somebody.

Don't you sit there on that amen.

Get that, dig it.

Maybe you got it in your back pocket.

Dig it out right now.

That Jesus is the same.

He won't change on me.

He'll be this.

I can count on him.

Amen.

He's still bread in a starving land.

Amen.

He's still water when I'm thirsty.

He's still making a way out of no way.

He's still healing the sick.

He's still forgiving sin.

He's still raising the dead.

He's still finding what was lost.

Still opening blinded eyes, still opening doors, and still making the lame to walk.

Amen.

Amen.

I had I preached this in some churches where I said, I just say amen all by myself.

If you that mean spirited that you can hear the word of God and the truth of the kingdom and still not say a mumbling word, shame on you.

God is too big for you to withhold your praise.

God has done too much.

Just in the last few weeks, he just brought my wife out of the hospital when I thought I was on the verge of losing her.

My whole world had imploded in that one flash of she's she's breeding, bleeding on her brain.

Woe is me, all is lost.

But then the amen.

Look, look, look, look.

She's in church today.

Where God intended her to be all along, not with all my crying and commiserating.

God supplied his own amen.

I used to be a drunkard.

I used to be a dope fiend.

But Jesus said, Amen.

And I can't tell you what 35 years sober feel like.

It just feels pretty good.

Okay, because I remember the hangovers and I remember the places that I used to wake up in.

Some places I didn't know a soul present.

And none of them had my good on their agenda.

But the Amen.

The Amen.

I still count on it today.

Amen.

I'm still tempted.

I still want to do my own thing.

I still want to go my own way.

Not as much as I used to.

Because I'm not as energetic.

I'm in my 70s now.

So it's time to rain some stuff in.

Shut some stuff down.

I got a knee right here that don't want to cooperate.

But there's an amen for me.

And if you're here today and you know not the Christ and the pardon of your sins, what's wrong with you?

What's holding you back from receiving the blessing that the Lord have intended for you?

And all other people said, Amen.