Skip to content The Way to Fruitful Living - Joe Koudelka May 28 · 39 min ...more
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Support this leader
Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Give
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
156K followers
Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
156K followers
0:00 So my name is Joe. And just to give you a little background about myself, my wife, Lexi, and I have been coming to Waters Church for a little over 5 years now. You know, after we got married, we we had graduated from0:11 physical therapy school together. We got married. We were looking for a church in this area and we had bounced around a couple places and someone said to me, hey, have you ever been to Waters Church? And I said, no. And0:23 they said, well, the Holy Spirit is alive there. Amen to that. Right? Amen. And so we are grateful ever since then we've been a part of this church. And we've grown so much here. We love this church. We're raising 30:34 beautiful young children in this church. So we couldn't be more grateful to be here. I also wanna say thank you to our lead pastor here, our shepherd here, pastor Tim, for this opportunity0:46 to you know, he he humbly steps away from the pulpit to allow other people to preach God's word and that's a tremendous humility and great leadership for him. So I'm grateful for this opportunity and I know0:58 I've got a word for you guys to hear this morning. Amen. But before we get into that, I just wanna ask with a show of hands, who here has heard of Golden Oak in Disney World? Has anyone heard of1:10 that place? Yeah, a couple people, a couple scattered hands. It was the same thing as last service. Most people hadn't heard of that though. So Golden Oak is a world embraced by luxury, privacy, and the magic of Disney.1:22 This magnificent resort style community offers whole ownership of custom single family homes at Walt Disney World Resort. You could buy 1 of these homes, it's between 2 and 20000000 dollars, I believe.1:36 Crazy, I know. And then you get to enjoy concierge style services at Disney. You if you think Disney's a paradise, you get to live there. You get to watch the the fireworks show from Magic Kingdom right on your property1:47 because it's so close. You get door to door shuttle services from your house straight to 1 of the theme parks. You get all access to the parks at any time. You don't need to book them advance. You don't need to go and1:57 book your FastPass lines in advance. You get to just enter and go. So I first heard about this place from a friend of mine named Mike and he told me I could share this story. But his friend had2:09 a property down there and invited him to go to Disney and so he was blown away by this luxurious experience. He enters this gated community. He's seen these beautiful homes everywhere.2:21 He saw a bunch of famous people, football players and there were Hollywood personalities there. And, he just didn't realize what he was stepping into. And he didn't realize as a guest of his2:33 friend, he was gonna inherit all these great privileges of being at Golden Oak in Disney World. And he explains 1 of the days to me where they went to the theme park and they went to go on the Fast Pass line to get into2:44 a real popular ride at Disney. And, you know, they they go into the line but an employee stopped them and said, you know what? We're way too busy. This ride's too busy today. You're gonna have to come back tomorrow. And2:56 so my friend Mike went to turn and leave, but his friend confidently looked at the employee, looked him in the eyes and said 2 words. He said Golden Oak? Held up his bracelet to show that he was a Golden Oak3:08 person and the employee's face changed to this big customer service beaming smile. And he said, I'm so sorry sir. You know what please? Right this way. He whisked them right to the front of the line. They cut everybody3:18 and then they went on the ride a couple more times. So again, my friend, he had no idea the privileges he would have to enjoy that place. All he all he did was say yes. He didn't pay anything3:30 to be there. But when he did learn of it, he enjoyed every moment of it. And I would when I put back to you guys church is, do you realize the free immediate access3:42 you have into the presence of God? Yes. Amen. Amen to that. And I know I said free. Right? It is free to us, but it cost Jesus, our savior, his life3:54 to give us perfect peace with God. Not only do we have instant access to God, but do you realize the privileges you have when you're in Christ? God's word says, he who did not spare his own son but4:06 gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things. Now that doesn't mean if you ask, God's gonna just hand you keys to a golden oak home if you want. But what it means is when we ask4:18 for things in accordance with the will of the heavenly father and we're in Christ, we can be confident it will be provided for us. Amen. Amen to that. And how do we know how do we know what's according to the will of4:29 God? It's in his word here. And so we're gonna study that in a moment. But what I wanna unpack for you guys today is how you are to have confidence to enter God's presence and how that consistent4:41 fellowship drawn near to God produces a fruitful life for you. And and a fruitful life that that doesn't mean a life filled with lavish things and just blessings or that God makes your life easy all the time because4:52 that's not the case. Right? I'm sure we could say an amen to that. Right, church? I mean, following Christ, there are trials, there is discipline we go through. But a fruitful life is a life filled with a a deeper5:04 obedience to God because of our faith in him. It's a greater hope for our eternal life to come and and we have a love for our brothers and sisters in the faith where we put their wants and needs above5:16 our own. So take out your notes now if you're gonna take notes. You can also go to waterschurch dot guide and click on the sermon notes tab. The title of this message is,5:28 The Way to Fruitful Living. And in a moment, we're gonna read, from the letter to the Hebrews, but I just wanna give you a little5:39 context of why that letter was written. We we don't really know the author of the letter, but we know it was written to Jewish people back after Jesus' death and resurrection. These were people who put their faith in5:51 Jesus because he was the new and living way for them to have fellowship with God. So they left the old Levitical system. So all the laws of Moses, they left that behind to follow6:03 Jesus. And and I called it a new and living way because the the laws of Moses back if you go back and read the book of Leviticus, you're you're gonna see tons of laws and rituals and rules. It served a great6:15 purpose for Israel back then, ancient Israel. God gave them these laws to follow because he wanted them to set up be set apart from other nations. So he wanted them to stand apart as holy and he gave them these rituals6:26 to cleanse themselves and purify themselves before God. But the other thing that these rules did was it highlighted the vast separation between man and God.6:38 Right? And so they constantly had to do these animal sacrifices to cleanse for their sins but those things were never enough. And let's pull up the picture right now of of the temple. I'll highlight kind of6:50 1 area here that and and we're gonna read it in the text shortly, but just to show that separation between man and God. When you look in the back of the temple, you see that big curtain and there's the Ark of the7:00 Covenant. That place is the most holy place. It's and the curtain separates people from going into that place. It doesn't just people in Israel cannot go into that space nor could the priests.7:12 It was once a year that the high priest could go through that curtain to offer a sacrifice to atone for all the sins of Israel. Once a year, that was it. But what this is speaking to, what7:24 God is trying to communicate to his people and to us is that curtain, that curtain needed to be torn down so we could enter his presence. The curtain represents Jesus. His flesh had to be torn. His blood had7:36 to be shed. And when that happens, again, we have eternal peace into and and we have access to that most holy place. So this letter, it's written to for these Hebrews because they were undergoing such7:48 intense persecution and temptation to go back to that old lifestyle, to that old ritualistic way out of fear of death because they they they8:00 could lose their lives for following Jesus. So this is a letter of encouragement for them. Don't waver in your faith. Stay firm. Jesus is the better way. These promises are better. This is a living way.8:12 That's what this letter is all about. And so let's actually stand now to read God's word. We're gonna open up Hebrews chapter 10 and we'll read verses 198:24 through 25. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,8:36 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with8:48 our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. And let us9:00 consider how to stir up 1 another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging 1 another and all the more as you see the day drawn near.9:13 That is the reading of God's word and let us bow our heads in prayer. Father, we thank you for this word and we thank you that you you lay out your will so clearly for us in this word. I'm grateful for everybody who you9:24 brought into your house this morning. And I pray God that you move me out of the way, speak powerfully through the Holy Spirit into everyone's lives here. Show us God how to confidently draw near to you9:36 and be obedient to you. And we say all this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Good. You guys can have a seat now. So diving into the notes right away, if you9:48 guys have paper notes. If not, again, you can go to waterschurch dot guide, click on the sermon notes button. Point number 1, there is only 1 way to enjoy10:00 God's presence confidently. 1 way to enjoy his presence confidently. Well, what what are the ways we can't10:12 we can't enjoy God's presence? Well, we can't do it on our own. We we can't, you know, we're not good enough. Why is that? God is perfectly good, perfectly holy. We have a sin nature. Right? So we can try to10:24 be good. We could try to do a lot of good things. We'll never get to God's presence that way. Who here has tried to be good before? I have. I've tried it. Yep. A lot of hands going up there. I tried to be good before I10:35 was a Christian. I tried to be good after I was a Christian. And and it doesn't work and and C. S. Lewis' quote is so true here. No man knows how bad he is till he's tried very hard to be good.10:47 Right? Amen. Yeah. Amen to that. Amen. And so again, praise God for sending us a savior. How about can the world bring us closer? Can the world get us closer to10:59 God? No way. Right? The world actually tells us you could be your own God. You think of what came out of of COVID and isolation that's happened. Right? We could work from home. You've got your11:11 iPhone. You've got all your streaming services. You could stay at home and watch whatever you want to. You can order groceries from home, have them all delivered to your house. You can just live in isolation and in a11:20 sense, be your own God where life is all about you. And and how about the mantras of this age? Right? Right? Do whatever you feel. Or I think the the 1 of the worst things you could say, and I've heard this ever since I11:32 was a little kid, do whatever makes you feel happy. Personally, when I've pursued relationships with girls the way I thought it would make me feel happy or when I've pursued just my11:44 wants and my desires and my dreams, it left me with a whole lot of anxiety actually. Not I was not fulfilled. And we've heard the statistics today, right, that that suicidal ideation11:55 is at an all time high in adolescence. That there's a loneliness epidemic. And I just read another Surgeon General report that stated social media could pose profound risk of12:07 harm to young people's mental health. So what the world offers by itself, it moves us very far away from God and we're not fulfilled in that. So getting back to the12:19 point, the 1 way to enjoy God's presence confidently, we find that in his word and that's what we should trust above anything else. Let's look at verses 19 through 21 again.12:31 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence Confidence to do what? To enter the holy place. Remember that image, that's that the holy place that represents God's presence.12:43 How do we have the confidence to do it? By the blood of Jesus. That's the only way. And this was so meaningful for this church. Again, these these Jewish Christians back12:55 then because again, they were used to this ritualistic system of constant sacrifices that they needed lots of sacrifices to cleanse themselves. But earlier in this letter, let's read13:07 verse 14 in your notes, the writer says, for by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. 1 offering, 1 sacrifice from13:19 Jesus and we're perfected. And I say that and acknowledge, I'll take a step back. Right? Well, you know, we we still struggle with sin here. Right? We struggle and wrestle in our flesh, but that's what we've got to know13:29 this word. Our position in heaven is perfected. Our position is that God has fully forgiven us. And it's this word and that13:40 sacrifice that transforms us to be closer into the image of Christ. Jesus made it clear also in the gospels. In the gospel of John, he says, I am the13:52 way and the truth and the life. No 1, right church, no 1 comes to the father except through me. Jesus is the only way14:04 there. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. And if if this is new for you, if you feel like what you've heard about Christianity is, well, know, I've got to do enough good things and when I do a lot of good, I get goodies from God.14:14 Or if I keep these sacraments, like I'm safe and I'll go to heaven. But if I do bad things, no, I can't go to church because I'm not good enough. God's not gonna hear me. That's a lie from the enemy. That's not the14:25 gospel. The gospel is all about what Jesus has done for us, and when we identify with Christ, that's what's transforming. So if you feel like you're in a place where you you haven't heard this and and you14:37 lack purpose, you lack direction, draw into this word and understand that the God of the universe, the God who created everything, the heavens and the earth, the God who knit you together in your14:49 mother's womb, the God whose thoughts about you outnumber the grains of sand in this world, That God sent his son for you to rescue you out of love. It's out of that place that15:01 he changes us. And we'll get into that in a moment how his love changes us. But if this gospel isn't new to you, if you feel like, you know what, Joe? I I've heard this a number of times. I get it. I know15:13 what Jesus did for me, but man, I'm struggling. I've I've got problems. I've got stress. I'm praying to God. He's not solving my problems. I don't understand why why I'm in this season. Church, I've been there15:25 and I I am there now. I'm I'm in a place in in my work life that, you know, I really don't know what's going on and and, you know, we we we may lose kind of all of our benefits. A lot of my friends have been laid off.15:36 It's a difficult place. And sometimes it's like, God, make it easier. God doesn't solve all of our problems right away because he cares about us so deeply that he wants us to be obedient to his15:47 word, confidently enter his presence. And it's when we draw near like that that we're reminded of there's there's no greater privilege to have than to have eternal peace with God.15:59 It's not about the things in life. It's not about grabbing that thing or or having a problem solved. When when we draw near, there's nothing better we could have. That's what changes us. It shrinks our16:11 problems. There's a great great quote from AW Tozer that I put in your notes here. It says, when I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more16:22 Christ like, it resolves a great deal of anxiety. Amen to that. How do we get that attitude? We can't will it into ourselves. It16:34 comes from drawing into God's presence and soaking in his word. It's out of that place that that where where our ultimate purpose which is to become Christ like in everything happens.16:46 That moves me right into point number 2 here. You guys can write this down. The saving work of Christ is the beginning, middle, and end of your life journey and it leads16:58 you to your ultimate purpose. Again, the saving work of Christ is the beginning, middle, and end of your life journey17:10 and it leads you to your ultimate purpose. So starting backwards from this point, what is our ultimate purpose? Well, think that that quote17:22 that I I just summarized from a w Tozer, I think that kinda nails it. In everything happening to you, God is shaping you into the image of Jesus. Alright? And17:34 that frees us from a whole lot in life. It frees us from being stuck in life. Right? Our purpose is not in picking the right job, going to the right school, God giving you the right ministry to do that's gonna fulfill17:45 you. It's not in in achieving your life goals that you have. Our purpose is is in whatever path you go down, whatever path you take, what God cares about is that you're17:57 giving him all the glory in that and that you're surrendering more and more to him. And so going back to kind of that the the initial part of 0.2,18:09 the the saving work of Christ. Right? It's the beginning, middle, and end of our life journey. What what does that mean? It's it simply means that throughout our whole faith walk here on earth, right, before we get to18:21 heaven, we need to constantly see and preach the gospel to ourselves. We need to see Jesus' saving work and preach that to ourselves because it's out of that that we're18:32 transformed. And again, I'll I'll point us back to the word to make that clear. In verses 19 through 21, it says, since we have these 218:44 things, what are the 2 things that we have? We have confidence to enter God's presence by Jesus' blood. Again, that's the simple gospel. That's what Jesus has done for18:56 us. The second thing we have in verse 21 is, we we have a great high priest over the house of God. And what that means is Jesus, he's our advocate in heaven. And why do we need an19:07 advocate? Again, because we still wrestle in the flesh here. So we can have a confidence that when we sin, when we're tempted and we fall to that temptation, instead of again shrinking away in fear,19:19 what we what we know is is that God, when we're in Christ, looks at us through the lens of Jesus and we're forgiven. So out of those 2 things that we need to cling to and hold on to,19:31 out of that is how our fruitful living happens. You know, the Greek word to have, you know, I said since we have confidence, since we have a great priest, it it19:43 literally does mean to adhere and to cling to, hold on to those truths. But it also means to have in the sense of wearing, like wearing clothing. So write this down church.19:55 Are you dressed in the gospel daily? What happens if we're not dressed in clothing20:07 daily? Right? And a couple little chuckles, and there were a lot of them at first in in the first service, right? And you don't even have to picture it and envision it if you don't want. But if we're not dressed in20:18 clothing daily, we're we're gonna lose a whole lot of confidence going about our day. We're gonna be embarrassed, ashamed. Right? There's no way you could focus on your job or the task at hand with no clothing because20:29 you'd be so consumed with covering yourself up. In the same way, if we're not dressed in the gospel, what naturally happens because of our sin nature is selfishness. We're20:41 so consumed with chasing our desires. We get tunnel vision where we think life is all about us. And then we go after those things that we're after and we get it but it's not good enough and it's not fulfilling. And20:53 if we're not, again, dressed in the gospel, we'll keep chasing the next thing, chasing the next thing and and we'll be we'll be stuck in a cycle. So when we're dressed in the gospel, it fills us like I said with our true21:05 identity. Chosen before the foundation of the world, blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ, able to do all things through Christ who strengthens us. These are things that we want to flow out of21:16 our lives but we have to know his word for that to happen. Dressed in the gospel frees us from our daily inner struggles and lack of direction in life. So since21:28 we have Jesus' saving work and we have Jesus in in heaven as our advocate, now 3 things are gonna flow out of us. And let's start with letter a.21:41 Jesus' saving work allows us to confidently draw near to God instead of turning away in guilt. Amen to that. Yes.21:56 So verse 22 says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed22:08 with pure water. So we're called to draw near to God with a heart that has the real nature of what it should be. And what should our hearts be like when we're in Christ?22:21 We we should we should be obedient to God. That's the real nature of our hearts. And we're gonna look at Ezekiel in a moment. This these verses from Ezekiel chapter 35,22:33 it's highlighting a new covenant that God established with Israel when he brought them back into their land. But this is a word that's true for us also. He says, I will sprinkle clean water22:45 on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your22:56 flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. So God's given us a23:08 new heart and it makes us obey him. So if that's the case, then we ought to draw near to God with a desire to be obedient. And so church, I want you to lean23:20 in on this point because this this is so important and I I don't want this to be misconstrued. Daily, we wrestle with our sins. Daily, we23:32 struggle with our flesh. Roman 7 makes that clear when the writer said the Apostle Paul writes, you know, I I I do the things that I don't wanna do and the things that I do wanna do, I don't23:43 do. Wretched man that I am. We will never have perfection this side of heaven. Amen. But with that being said, knowing that God's word says he's put a new heart23:55 with within us that makes us follow him, we should take our obedience seriously. And so to help you guys up, I wanna help you unpack this a little bit more. If you're someone, you feel like24:07 you're struggling in sin, you're struggling to obey God, if you feel like, you know what, Joe? I I I've heard this and and I'm having a hard time though. Why won't God just take this away from me and make this easier for24:17 me? I just wanna say, I've been there. And I'll share a personal story shortly. I've I've wrestled. I've walked directly in the opposite direction of God while trying to follow him.24:29 Okay? And so to help you unpack that though, let's look at 1 John 1 verses 5 into chapter 2. This is the24:40 message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, right, that's saying if we're saying we're24:52 we're following after him while we walk in darkness, while we're walking intentionally in sin and disobedience, we lie and do not practice the truth. But25:04 if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with 1 another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.25:17 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.25:28 My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation. It means he's the guilt25:40 offering for our sins and not only for ours, but the sins of the whole world. So what what God's word is saying here is if we do we don't have fellowship with him25:52 while walking in intentional sin. Right? What it means is if if we're saying we're we wanna chase after Jesus and and we're putting our faith in in him, but again, we're walking in26:04 disobedience somewhere, we're gonna lose confidence in our faith walk. Again, this word, it doesn't call us to perfection. It makes it clear. It it in fact, when we are sinning, we're26:16 cleansed by the blood of Jesus. So we need to come to the throne of grace and and receive grace. His it's his blood that cleanses us. We need to confess our sins. And it says he's faithful to26:28 forgive us. So if you're lacking confidence in your faith walk because you're struggling, what I wanna share with you here is again, I've been there. So I I hear you. My heart hears you26:39 there. You know, back when I was in my young twenties, I I just graduated college and Jesus took a hold of my life and I was ready to run the race in my faith to chase after26:50 Jesus. And and at the same time though, from my earlier college years, I I had a girlfriend. I was dating someone and and we did not have a godly relationship at all. We were it was not centered in27:02 Christ. We we were doing our relationship the way we wanted to. So God changes me, transforms me, but not my girlfriend at the time. And so I struggled and wrestled with this. I continued27:14 to stay in this relationship, doing the relationship our own way, and and I wrestled with it for month after month for over a year. And again, I had no confidence though in in my faith walk.27:26 I'm trying to follow Jesus. I was constantly praying, praying for change for my girlfriend, trying to draw near, and I just wasn't confident. And why? Because I'm saying I'm following him and walking in27:37 direct disobedience, the exact opposite direction in a major area of my life that God, you know, in in how I was living. So the answer became clear like it was like over a27:49 year and I kept drawing near, drawing near. And and God kinda said to me, look, you could either choose this girl or you could choose me. Repentance had to happen. It was so hard. It's28:01 not easy. I kept living in that sin, but but I I ended up breaking off that relationship. And again, it was it was such a horrible experience at the time, but after that my faith took off. Amen. And no28:13 question, I've I've wavered and struggled with other things, you know, into my faith journey, but but if you're struggling with something similar or a totally different circumstance, what28:25 I call you to do church is you can write this point down. The throne of grace is a place to draw near, not fear. The28:37 throne of grace is a place to draw near, not fear. And I don't have this in the notes so you can write this 1 down too, but Hebrews 4 16 says, let us then with confidence draw28:49 near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Who needs grace and mercy right now, church? I need it. Yes. Hands are flying29:00 up. Draw near to the throne of grace. You'll find exactly what you need. Jesus says, whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. And this water will become a spring29:12 welling up to eternal life. It's out of that place of constantly drawing near, seeing what the blood of Jesus has done for us that will give us the strength to29:24 repent and the desire to turn away and and follow God obediently. Because once we taste, right, what Jesus has to offer, it's far better than anything we're living in. Amen to that29:36 church. Let's move on to letter b. So Jesus' saving work allows us to stand firm in what God has promised29:48 for us. Again, Jesus' saving work allows us to stand firm in what God has promised for us. Verse 23 says,30:00 let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. So there's a lot of things that we hope for in Christ, but the greatest thing we hope for is the30:11 eternal life to come. This is something God promises for us. Right? He's the 1 who's always faithful. When we're not the ones faithful to live, right, I I just shared with you. Christ changed me and saved30:23 me. I was not faithful to him. God is the 1 who is faithful to deliver me to eternity and to cleanse me and and to make me into the image of Christ. So kind of working backwards from that verse if30:35 you're looking at it, the way we continue to follow Jesus in the face of temptation, in the face of trials, without wavering, is by fixing our eyes on the promises God30:47 declares over us. And we wanna hold on to those promises even if we don't feel it in the moment because he is the 1 who's faithful to keep us firm in our faith. What30:59 does this look like in action? Well, I know I shared earlier that this letter was written for these Jewish people who were undergoing intense persecution. Like I said, to the level where they31:10 were they were afraid for their lives. And so they had such a temptation again to leave leave the faith and go back to that old way. So the way that the that this writer31:22 encourages them directly, because again, this letter is written to them directly, is by fixing their eyes on the eternal life to come. So if we go to Hebrews 4 14 in your notes, it says,31:34 since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. They didn't receive that promise31:46 yet of heaven. Right? They weren't in heaven. They were undergoing again intense attacks. Later in that letter, the writer talks about all the brutal ways that that followers of Christ were being put to death.31:58 So their encouragement was, don't waver in your faith because fix your eyes on the eternal life to come. It's coming. It's coming. Amen to that. In a totally different32:10 way, right, it's a different context for us today because here in America, we're we're not facing death for our faith. There are other places in the world that still do. So in a different context though,32:22 we are tempted to return to our old way of living. Right? We're tempted tempted to return to those sinful habits. But look at at the word that we have here in 132:33 Corinthians. This is strength for us. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful.32:46 He's the faithful 1. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may might be able to endure it. Sin32:58 is gonna feel rewarding at times. It's gonna feel that way. But it never gives you what it promises. Only God is the faithful 1 when he makes promises to deliver on it.33:10 So a way that we stand firm in our faith then, it's not just doing crazy good things for God. Right? It's not just, well, I'm in Christ so I've gotta show people that my faith is strong. I need to33:22 go in and do mission trips and I've gotta feed the homeless and I've gotta give up all my wealth. Do those crazy good things if you feel God has led you to it. Those are great things to do. But displaying faith33:33 day to day happens when we don't succumb to the temptations of the day. When we don't return to our old way of living because we trust God's word that says you're you're a new creation now.33:46 Putting trust in God's word over your feelings demonstrates his power working through you. So proof again of Jesus' saving work enough in us. So proof that fruit is33:58 flowing out of our lives. It's when we're not wavering in our faith. And let's move on to the final point, letter c. Jesus' saving34:09 work moves in us to love our brother and sister instead of focusing on selfish desires. And I'll let you guys write that before we read a34:21 couple of the verses here. But going to verses 24 through 25, it says, and let us consider how to stir up 1 another to love and34:33 good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging 1 another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Notice right in that text, the34:45 way that we stir up 1 another to love and to do good good things for God, it's when we assemble as a church community. There are many other ways we can think of ways to to inspire each other in our faith,34:57 but it's gotta start in community. It has to start meeting when we meet as a church. What are the reasons why we we skip out on church? Sometimes it's, well, I've got something more important to do. Or35:09 or, you know, I feel convicted and guilty so I I don't wanna come back. I can't go back to church. Sometimes it's because someone has hurt us in the church. And and I those are valid valid feelings that we35:21 might have in the moment. But look at Ephesians 3 for a big piece of our motivation to assemble. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that35:33 you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints. Circle, underline, with all the saints. So what what that prayer is35:45 is that you're gonna be able to comprehend something together in this community of believers. What is it that he wants us to comprehend? What is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love35:57 of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. The only way to to know God's love fully and to be filled with it is when we are36:09 connected in a church community. It says it's a love that surpasses knowledge, meaning we we you can't just study it on your own by yourself and be a lone Christian. You need community. And36:20 again, a quick personal story I'll I'll I'll share to that to that truth. And after Jesus took a hold of my life when when I was after I graduated college, I was part of a church after that, and I was growing in this36:32 church. And and then I went back to school, back to college for physical therapy. And I I really didn't have community when I went back to college. I had very loose community, but I was arrogant in my faith.36:45 And I felt like, well, I'm a Christian and I'm gonna bring everybody to Christ on the campus and I'm gonna live so solid for Jesus. And instead the exact opposite happened. I backslid. I got back into the partying36:57 scenes, you know, drinking, drunkenness, and and I had such a pride in me about people looking at me as a Christian as if, oh, he's such a good person. Look at all the good things he does rather than point people to37:08 Jesus. It's going to happen if we don't have community. This is the way I there's no way I was filled with God's love living that lifestyle. We need to be filled with the fullness of God. It happens37:19 together. And another quick point of what community does for us is it makes us live out the sacrificial work of Jesus. Let's look at Philippians 2 real37:31 quick. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own37:42 interests, but also to the interests of others. So the way we display the love of Jesus to people, to people outside of the church, but especially people in the church when we need encouragement, is when37:54 we we take on each other's burdens. When we love each other in the way that Jesus did. Jesus, what does it say? He had all the power of God. He was God. He didn't leverage that power for himself. He he38:06 laid his life down for us. And there there are gonna be moments in our faith walk where we need to take on burdens, serve people in a way that it it it might be hard for us, it might hurt38:18 us, but we're imitating Christ when we do that. To love in this manner is only possible when you confidently enter God's presence and you know the sacrificial38:30 work Jesus has done for you. So sermon in a sentence, you can write this down. If you feel far from God, he invites you to draw near38:42 and to place your faith in his work which will shape you for fruitful living.
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.