Alright, good morning, good morning, good morning.
Praise God, we are right where we were supposed to be this morning,
reaching New Heights and Jesus.
And we are just less than one week away from the crosswalk.
So don't forget to mark out that time.
We will meet here Saturday, this coming Saturday at noon.
Also this week you will probably get some texts and things.
Since you already know what's going on, to be here at noon so we can march the cross.
And then there's a hook out after so we'll feed ourselves and any of our guests.
And then after that we'll be playing, God willing we'll have good weather.
So pray for a little bit of good weather.
And then we'll be playing in the yard and whatever afterwards.
And the pantry will be open at the end.
So be aware of that.
Change in the schedule of the pantry and kind of spread the word.
Invite anyone who will come and march to honor Jesus, to march with us.
They don't have to leave their home church.
Nothing changes.
They can come and represent their church, represent Jesus as we march together.
The message of this event has always been that we believe God is actively redeeming
Toledo and us and the surrounding communities and us by His Son Jesus Christ.
And so Jesus made a great sacrifice by carrying His own cross the best He could.
And then had to have help because He'd been beaten so badly.
Good morning, good morning.
And so that's Saturday at noon.
So if you currently have something and you're just going to go, oh, not a conflict,
well just erase that other thing.
Get rid of it.
Just get rid of the other conflict thing.
Just get rid of that and be here at noon on Saturday.
And then at the end we'll feed you.
And I know there is a waffling or raging debate whether it's hot dogs or hamburgers.
Has that debate been thus settled yet?
It will be hamburgers.
Okay, so we've pushed past hot dogs into hamburgers.
If you want steak, that's going to be like another thousand dollar donation so we can all have steak.
But hamburgers are good.
Hamburgers are like our kind of steak.
You know what I'm saying?
So we're going to have hamburgers on the grill.
It's going to be a good time.
We'll march walking to meet.
If you're not able to march or walk or you know somebody else who wants to come out and support it,
but is not able to do that, we usually will have some cars follow behind and they can do that.
And that's fine.
Okay, but we'll be here at noon on Saturday to march the cross in honor of Jesus.
Okay, praise God.
We prayed last week and we didn't know how much the need was.
But I was here in the store this morning and Michael was telling me how they encountered some pretty fall weather on the way to Mississippi.
Created about a four hour delay for them and they had to sit under an overpass and find shelter like that.
It was pretty rough.
And so we were praying for you.
So I hope God was with you through that and we see that you're safe back and that's that's the most important thing.
I hope you had a good time while you're down there.
We pray for Pappa and the celebration.
So I think it's always a good thing when brothers and sisters lift each other up when they're traveling.
Because you just never know what you're going to run into.
So it's nice to know you have some an army at your back.
Praise and the Lord praying for you.
All right.
Does anyone have a prayer request you'd like to throw up right now?
It's something that's just been on your heart lately and you say, man, I'd like to see God move in that and we're going to pray for that specifically this morning.
Anybody got one?
I got one and I didn't think I had one.
That is I'm praying for my wife with her neck and her back and her shoulder and her arm.
Yesterday she had such a headache last night and those things is getting pretty bad.
So she is scheduled to have an anti-inflammatory shot kind of thing in her back on the 25th of April.
And so if we don't we don't see a miraculous healing before then and we're praying that that will work and it will last for months or years.
And then that'll be the solution and we don't have to go any further.
The surgeon right now saying he doesn't think surgery is the way to go.
So that's that's a blessing.
But we need to really put that to an end because when it happens it pretty well shuts her down.
It's really hard.
So we pray for her.
Amelia did you have something?
Did you want to name something?
Yes.
A few weeks ago I got hurt and it hasn't been getting any better.
And so I kind of.
Mean healing.
Yeah.
I can't really do much at all.
I can't be very active and I'm both being active.
I can barely play basketball.
Where does it hurt Pat?
Well I got my back messed up.
So it's your back and shoulder that's hurting.
Okay.
So we're going to pray for that in just a moment.
All right.
Anybody else?
Go right here.
One of our old coworkers Kim she has to have biopsies on to see if she has cancer.
Okay.
So pray for the results of Kim's biopsies.
And we know God can heal.
He is an amazing God.
I'll get you one second.
There's Kim and Nicole.
Estella back used to volunteer at the life station.
She was diagnosed with 13 spots of cancer in her torso.
Had a PET scan.
That's like the detailed scan to verify they were there.
And then when she went to go and have the biopsies we prayed the day before and God miraculously healed.
And they went, oh we can't find it.
We'll try another one.
They couldn't find it.
And they went through all 13 spots and it was gone.
So God can heal.
We'll pray for Kim and the results of her biopsies.
Miss June?
I'm having a cardiac surgery on Tuesday.
You are?
This coming Tuesday?
Well that's probably a relief to you.
I would think.
Well then the problem is we can't get the other eye done.
Oh okay.
All right.
So we'll pray for the results of that.
And so you've had generally good experience there before right?
With that?
I've never had it.
Not a bad experience.
Your eye doctor is good right?
I'm a junior dude.
Yeah okay.
So a cataract surgery for Miss June Tuesday.
All right and Kim's biopsy.
Amelia's back and shoulder.
Sherry's back and shoulder.
And Nicole?
My nonna's struggling with heart and kidney failure.
Your nonna's struggling with what?
Heart and kidney failure.
Wow.
Okay yeah.
So pray for Nicole's nonna.
All right let's pray together.
And then we'll jump into worship and praise the God in heaven.
He can do something about these things right?
Amen.
All right let's pray together.
Father in heaven you are an awesome God.
A powerful God.
A creator God.
We know in the Bible a lot of times we see the word Lord is talking about you in the Old Testament.
And those letters they're all in caps.
It's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.
We realize that that's Yahweh God.
That's creator God.
That's supreme and powerful God.
When there was nothing.
When there was only God.
You created everything out of nothing.
If you can create all of this out of nothing and it's been running for what to us seems like kind of a long time now.
If you can do that then Lord you can do anything.
We recognize your power and your authority.
At the same time Lord we confess that there have been times where we have not recognized your power and authority.
Maybe someone's sitting here right now and their heart which ought to be all about you.
Is distracted.
We're in this place but we're not really in this place.
We're not focused in the present.
We didn't come here to worship you or to be focused on you.
We came here for some other reason and I ask you Lord to help us.
Forgive us of that failure.
Focus us now.
Make it about the all-powerful God of heaven through his son Jesus Christ.
Lord we thank you for all that you have done.
Pulling this place together.
Giving us the support that we've had.
The protection during the pandemic.
The resources, the building, the chairs, the carpet, the instrumentalist, the practice, the work that's gone in.
The heart, the serve, the love, the mercy, the kindness and the grace that you've shown toward us.
We thank you Lord and our list should really just go on.
We sing praises Lord today.
I want you to hear from us that we are so grateful for all that you've done.
We come to you today listening up these requests that have specifically been mentioned.
Lord I pray for Miss Sherri.
I pray for my sister, my wife.
Any other case that would be kind of creepy but Lord in the kingdom of God it is so.
She is my sister and my wife and I pray for her for healing.
I pray that you will do a miraculous thing.
I pray that we will see before the time of the day that the shot has to be done Lord
that you have reached down from heaven and touched her and let them say,
well that just doesn't happen because doctors say that fairly often when you heal.
It just doesn't happen that way but we know it can.
We know you can and we ask you Lord because you're able and because you love us.
Not because we're worthy of it but because you're able and because you love us.
Father we pray for Amelia.
Lord she fell, she had an accident, she got hurt in her shoulder and her back is bothering.
She's an active kid.
She loves to run and play and spend time with others and she likes basketball
and I see her on her hoverboard and Lord I just pray that you would heal her back and shoulder
that even right now in this moment you do an amazing thing and that she would later today go,
you know what ever since we prayed about that,
ever since we agreed in unity in church I've seen just a change in the circumstances.
Father we pray for Caitlin's coworker Kim.
She's a face biopsy.
That word cancer, it's like people want to write that all in caps,
capital C, capital A, capital N and so on but it isn't.
We know it's just a failing of creation, it's a failing of our bodies.
We're near to the end, near to Jesus coming again
but it's still a dreaded thing to have to face.
And so Father we pray for the results of her biopsy that they will say that either it's not cancer
or that as it's being cancer it's the kind of cancer that's easily dealt with.
Lord if you want to just disappear it like you did in Miss Stella's lungs that would be great.
We pray for Kim for patience and strength and perseverance as she goes through
what she's about to go through and pray for Caitlin's witness to her and others as well
so we can let her know that Jesus loves her.
Lord we pray for Miss June for what's going on with her sight.
It's been ongoing for a while.
She's been looking forward to some kind of resolution.
We pray that Tuesday and then again in the following week that as she has her cataracts
removed and what they do with that, Lord that she'll be able to see clearly,
she'll be beyond it and it'll go smoothly, that she'll have patience,
that she'll be able to stand up under the trial.
Lord that she'll be able to continue to serve you as she does and grow
and enhance in what she can do because you strengthen her.
Father we pray for Nicole's Nana.
Whenever people say heart failure, for those of us in the room who have experienced that firsthand,
those are scary words.
Lord the organs of her body need healing.
Lord she says she believes in you and I believe in you.
I believe that you can heal her.
I believe that you can work in her.
I pray for Nicole's witness as she works with her Nana and tries to draw her closer to you
and her friends and she represents you to all people who are in her life.
Father I pray for every single person that's here.
Whatever reason we came here this morning, let us just be here for you.
We are working together to honor you.
We are working together to help each other reach new heights in Jesus.
And some of us may be so far from you today and yet we have so much to offer for someone
who's trying to draw near.
Others may be so close and it would be easy to be distracted and think I'm okay.
Lord as we praise you, acceptance praises from the mouths of your creation.
We know that you kind of put man on a pinnacle.
You rose us above all the rest of creation.
We have the opportunity to praise you the way no one else can.
We recognize that without you we are nothing.
We want to honor you Father.
Take over the service.
Guide us, be with every stroke of every string, every push of every button, every voice lifted up
such that it is that we be joyful noise unto your ears.
Help us Father as we reach new heights in Jesus today.
As in Jesus name we pray.
And all I've got for people said, amen.
Thank you very much.
Alright if you were able please stand with us.
We're going to speed it up a little bit.
I'm ready in my face.
I'm making this sound to the joy of the Lord.
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes, yes Lord.
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes, yes Lord of man.
I am blessed with my strength and with my ability.
Now the nation's growing.
I feel the comfort of the Spirit for this joy to be my strength.
No sorrow will last for the Lord who taught my plan to fail.
I'm trading my sorrow.
I'm trading my shame.
I'm laying them down to the joy of the Lord.
I'm trading my sin.
I'm trading my pain.
I'm laying them down to the joy of the Lord.
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes, yes Lord.
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes, yes Lord of man.
I'm trading my sorrows.
What a great trade.
When you're old, when you're young, when you're young, trust the Lord.
You're the Savior to me, I'll pass away your every gift, I'm all we need, we will be there.
Hallelujah, everyone, everyone come to the cross.
When you're old, when you're young, everyone come to the cross.
You're the Savior from nowhere, from today to the cross, yes Lord.
Let it be done for everyone, for everyone who comes to the cross.
Now and then we come to the day of the last of you and me, a rich and poor, a mountain free.
Hallelujah, everyone, everyone come to the cross.
Hallelujah, everyone come to the cross.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
You're the Savior to me, I'll pass away your every gift, I'm all we need, we will be there.
Hallelujah, everyone, everyone come to the cross.
When you're old, when you're young, everyone come to the cross.
Oh, oh, everyone come to the cross.
You can be seated at this time. I may lose my voice before I preach. That'll be funny,
won't it? Especially since I don't know sign language.
Praise God, those songs are gonna sound really good coming out of my echo dot.
Praise the Lord. Okay, so we come to that moment of time where if you've seen
something this week and the Lord's been speaking to your heart or you read
something in the Bible and you thought man that really that's shareable or
whatever and you come to that moment in time say what do you got? Share it with us.
Come on. Alright, so Friday when me and you were talking something really stuck out with me and that was how you can go you can read
something in the Bible and then you can go back to it a year two years from now
and it don't necessarily mean something different but it applies differently
and there's a lot of times where I've heard people say oh well it's just the
same thing it's just the same thing but it's not. It's always different and
there's always different ways you can look at it and it's just really cool because you can't do that with any other book.
There's no other book. I mean I'm not a reader. I've read like three books in my
entire life and two of which I had to read for school so I don't read.
It's not been my thing but from the research I've done there's no other book
that anyone's read where they can go back to it a year or two years read the
same thing over and over again and have it applied differently to their life.
It is the living Word of God. That's good stuff. Alright, anybody else?
Hey, I'm supposed to go hear something. So I've always thought about this way whether
watching a movie, a book, a song, everybody's got to get something different out of it.
You know some people might like the explosions and movies, the action.
There might be a one-line you remember, comedy, it just we're all different so all damn different.
So last week we were at a prayer meeting. It was really cool. I was probably just talking about it for a second.
All the different Baptist churches were together and from what I got out of it
everybody had something different out of it. But when I got out of it, we were talking and stuff.
There were three things I really at our table because we all had to sit at their table
talk to people and I thought it was really orchestrated well which I think as a body we can do the same thing.
Just come together, sharing what we're doing, what our concern is, praying for each other.
It was just really cool. But what I got out of it was out of those three things.
The first one was is that everybody had a different ministry and everybody had a
different way they do ministry. The second thing they found out which we already know this,
none of them were perfect. Everybody had a story, back story. They're having hard times.
Even in their ministry. Rags are riches. It didn't matter. Everybody was suffering.
Everybody was going through it. And the third thing I got out of it is and this doesn't make us better.
I want to hear it so everybody knows it. But from what I heard on the other ministry, they all do that too.
But I felt like what we do at Life Station, what we do at New Heights, because I heard some people say it.
They're more practically trying to reach out. But we share the truth.
We're not afraid to let people know the gospel. We're not afraid to tell people that they can be saved by Jesus.
They can turn to God and Jesus to come in their lives. So I thought that was just really really cool.
That's what we placed to the table. Now just recently after that I got so encouraged
and usually when I'm at my highest of my encouraging, I get so discouraged right after.
But I wrote down and I just thought this would be kind of cool because I just,
even getting people on Facebook or this podcast, I just think there's a lot of people.
I call myself a voice to the voiceless sometimes. I'm just going to be that guy first season that's going to say what nobody wants to say.
And I say nobody does it, do it. Or go where you have to go or do what you have to do. I'm going to be that guy.
If I'm going to be a guy that has to share things, I've already heard that a hundred times.
I'm just reminding you and re-encouraging you. I'm going to do it again and again and again.
So anyways, I want to make sure I understand that the word miserable doesn't mean I'm sad, I'm hurting, I'm broken.
It just means I can be sad, I'm hurting, I'm discouraged. So I call this miserably living for Jesus.
Because I'm miserable. But it doesn't mean I can't live for Jesus. People can be hurt and broken every single day.
I've gone through some rough times, I've still gone through rough times. But I still live for Jesus.
So here's what I wrote down and I hope you guys get something out of this. If anything, maybe for the podcast, who knows, or Facebook.
Somebody might hear this. But this is my wrote down. I wrote every one of these down and then I shared the truth.
This is my take and then God's take. But I put, you know, I don't feel like I fit anywhere in my whole life.
That's what I put. I don't feel like I fit anywhere. And where I go, I don't fit anywhere.
But, God says, I have a new outfit in heaven and in this life I can wear at all times Christ's outfit of love, being loved, and love others through forgiveness and compassion to be a wise servant to all.
Then I said, you know what, no one calls on me or thinks about me and it just kind of makes me sad stuff. So I started thinking about it, you know, and I was like, but I can call on God anytime.
And I am called by God because of his merciful relationship he gave to me and anyone who believes in his name and that ultimate and pure sacrifice.
And God never stops thinking about me or any of us who are his. So then I was, you know, I got like three more.
But that's what you know what, no one has ever taken me seriously. And usually and I make a plan or something that, you know, don't go with the other plan.
I know they stand by themselves or someone else. Some of them share these things and not saying that I believe these things are true. You know, people have feelings, they have their concerns.
It don't really matter because when I get down to the last part, it really doesn't matter.
But it's no matter what someone else is doing, I could do all things through Christ who's given me strength to be a wise blessing because I am freely loved and accepted by God.
So no matter what people think or feel about you or how things go, I can do something through Christ, do all things through Christ.
Anybody right now can take a stand whether they don't feel like they're staying home or anybody standing for them.
I mean, you really don't matter what you're going through. No one could stop you from going up to someone and telling someone who Jesus is.
No one could stop you except yourself, but no one could stop you. There's nobody in this free country in America without persecution.
There is persecution. Maybe it's more spiritual, but you could literally go and tell someone or be there or reach out to someone.
This is the last three. I'm angry, bitter and easily ready to give in and give up. That's how I feel. I just want to quit and I'm done.
But I can turn that over to God for sustenance in His love, strength, forgiveness, righteousness and faithfulness.
And I could turn it up one more notch for Jesus because He is worthy of all and His worthiness is in me.
I'm not worthy. I've done nothing to have God's grace at 23 years old, still today at 40, come be soon 41.
But I've done nothing and there's nothing I can do to earn His love or His respect, but because He loved us so much and He died on the cross,
we are worthy because the Holy Spirit, His worthiness lives inside of us.
And then I put this, I am a screw up and screw up a lot of things. I didn't say I'm always a screw up.
Sometimes I feel like touching something is going to work. It's not my thing.
But you know what? We're all screw ups somewhere down in an imperfect and broken world and God is no screw up.
And His faithful salvation, even to death, that should have been our cross, that's us, that should have been us on that cross,
that should have been us dying and eternally separated from God because Jesus was eternally separated from the Father until He rose again.
He was no longer separated. So we would have been eternally separated from God.
He took our place. He took our separation. He took it all.
And then He faithfully got messed up for all messes and was always victorious, but now He's victoriously a risen Savior now and forever.
And God only got broken once. He'll break for us, but He's never even broken again. He is victorious.
Call out to our victorious Savior every day. And then here I put what our church, I really love what our church is doing.
I put our church by the gracious Holy Spirit through Christ's sacrifice has given us the truth
and we are not afraid to share and we know what we are talking about because of what has been revealed to this church body of believers.
And in closing, this was my favorite part. This is where I have no more excuses.
I'm not perfect. It's not like you say this and all of a sudden you become super Christian and you can just fly around and do everything.
Christ is super in us so we can do what we can do right here, right now.
But it says this, the church looks or maybe, so maybe it looks like that, or you even have evidence daily of its shortcomings
or willful rebellion to be a people in the church under the grace but just eagerly waiting for the return of God.
Like just not doing nothing. Just I'm a Christian, I'm okay. Maybe you have all the evidence. Maybe you see it every single day.
But they could be, let me just do it again, instead of being the church willfully and joyfully committed to the Father
and to each other in Christ Jesus. But, and if you don't know where that word butt comes from,
it actually comes from Ephesians 2. There's not many butts in the Bible that Paul would write.
But he put butt God by the riches of his mercy saved us from our transgressions and we could read it.
But here's what it says, but no matter the circumstances, it's not what they can do, but only I can change me through Christ Jesus
to remain faithful, and this is where that music will start playing everybody will say hallelujah but that's fine, because it says right here.
Because this is the truth. This is for all of us. This is for you Facebook, because everybody on podcast, everybody today,
that this is what it was all about because Jesus says to remain faithful through his faithfulness.
So someday either you just read the day that Jesus said good and faithful servant, like you're just going to remember hey it was in the Bible,
because everybody that's a Christian had to hear it someday that Jesus could say good and faithful servant, or you could hear it from himself.
Who wants me to call you good and faithful servant, but you could hear it from himself in glory.
Someday you get to heaven and he just says yes, yes, good and faithful servant. I said it. I know what you went through.
I know what you were going through. I've seen everything you had to overcome through. That was me.
And you did it. You got through it because you trusted in me. So I'm closing. Honestly, there's no closing to this.
We can do this. Anybody can do this. It's a Christ follower. It's just like I tell my friends, I tell myself.
Now that you know, what you're going to do with it.
I was working there. All right. Good stuff. Okay, we're going to pray and then we'll have the offering plates coming around a second for tithing offerings.
And we'll sort of be blessing those and Maya, I know you're out in the hallway watching a little bit.
You step forward long enough to pray for us as we transition to tithing offerings and a little more worship.
Father, we thank you for this place that you've given us and the people being sent to be here that we could worship together this morning.
We ask you to be here with us as we worship, as we listen to your name and as we hear from you this morning.
As you watch over the children, especially as they go to their classes and that they would learn here from you.
And we ask that you bless these offerings and tithes that we're about to take and that they would be used to do your will.
Amen.
Thank you.
All right, children, it's that time on your feet.
What I need you to do is spread out. It's all fair warning. We're going to kick.
So if you're in an aisle seat and you don't want to get kicked, don't say I didn't warn you.
Spread out.
So you can spread forward a little bit. There's like a room up here. Spread out. Give yourself some space.
No video this time. You're going to have to watch us and we're not perfect. So apologize in advance.
So we're going to walk you through it very slow. We're going to do the joy song.
First thing is who knows how to spell the word joy?
Look, it's on the screen. You know part of the words.
All right, listen to what I'm saying.
All right. I've got the joy down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.
Spell it. J-O-I.
Down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.
Where'd it come from? Jesus put it there.
And nothing can destroy it, destroy it, destroy it.
I've got the joy down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.
Okay, we're going to do it again a little bit faster.
I've got the joy down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.
Spell it. J-O-I.
Down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.
Where'd it come from? Jesus put it there.
And nothing can destroy it, destroy it, destroy it.
I've got the joy down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.
Spell it. J-O-I.
Down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.
Where'd it come from? Jesus put it there.
And nothing can destroy it, destroy it, destroy it.
I've got the joy down in my heart, deep deep down in my heart
One more time.
I've got the joy down in my heart, deep deep down in my heart
Fell in jail while I was down in my heart, deep deep down in my heart
Where'd it come from? Jesus would've dared
And nothing can destroy it, destroy it, destroy it
I've got the joy down in my heart, deep deep down in my heart
Woo!
Okay, you can go to your left hand now.
Children are released.
I'm sitting on a delayed reaction.
They didn't let a kick out of turn.
It was like, huh, huh, huh!
It sounded like a...
Well, this works better if you don't do that.
Or if you don't want to yell at someone.
It sounded kind of like that.
It was like, huh, huh, huh!
Echo, it was an echo.
There's a place where mercy reigns and never dies
There's a place where streams of grace flow deep and wide
Where all the world abandons, there's no one left
At the cross, at the cross, I surrender my life, I'm in awe of you, I'm in awe of you
Where can I sin, what, why, I hold on to you, I hold on to you, Jesus
There's a place, a place of peace, a place of peace, a place of peace
My heart is peace with God, I pray that you are
For all the world, I pray that you are
At the cross, at the cross, I surrender my life, I'm in awe of you, I'm in awe of you
Where can I sin, what, why, I hold on to you, I hold on to you
At the cross, at the cross, I surrender my life, I'm in awe of you, I'm in awe of you
Where can I sin, what, why, I hold on to you, I hold on to you
At the cross, at the cross, I surrender my life, I'm in awe of you, I'm in awe of you
Where can I sin, what, why, I hold on to you, I hold on to you
I'm in awe of you, I'm in awe of you
I keep fighting voices in my mind, saying I'm not enough
Every single one that tells me I will never matter
Am I more than just the sum of every heart and every hope
Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know
You say I am lost and I can't feel a thing You say I am just and I think I am weak
You say I am in love and I am full of joy And when I don't belong, oh, you say I am yours
And I need, oh, I need what you say to me, I need
The only thing that matters now is everything you think of me
You are the one I love, you are the one I value, you are the one I need
You say I am lost and I can't feel a thing You say I am just and I think I am weak
You say I am in love and I am full of joy And when I don't belong, oh, you say I am yours
And I need, oh, I need what you say to me, oh, I need
You keep all I have and now I'm laying it at your feet You don't have everything you got
You have everything you told me You say I am lost and I can't feel a thing
You say I am in love and I think I am weak You say I am in love and I am full of joy And when I don't belong, oh, you say I am yours
And I need, oh, I need what you say to me, I need
You say I am in love and I think I am weak You say I am in love and I think I am weak
Is this Jasmine or something?
Anybody else?
Oops, one more.
Oops.
Alrighty, alrighty, alrighty.
Ah.
I'm crying.
I was crying.
That was awesome.
God is so good.
Amen.
It occurred in my life some over 20 years ago, 25 years ago, that the Lord led us to move to Michigan.
And we bought a house, we really weren't supposed to buy a house, we kind of ran on ahead of God.
We bought the house in Michigan, Mason, Michigan, just south of Lansing, next to Holt, Michigan there, it's the county seat.
Beautiful house, we loved living in it, it was a God provided thing, no doubt about it, but we weren't supposed to buy it, we were just supposed to rent it because the Lord knew we were only going to be there for a couple years.
But anyway, while we were there, my daughter, Alicia, was praying that God would move her grandparents, who lived in Tennessee at that time, to near us.
She missed them, she wanted them to be there.
She told me she was going to pray for that, I said, well, okay, but don't get your hopes up.
If you're a dad, that's dad 101, don't do that.
That was a mistake, okay, that's not a good example.
But I said, don't get your hopes up, and she said, well, I'm going to pray and I'm going to believe.
Fast forward about a year or so, we were living in our house in Michigan, and my dad called me up on the phone and he said, we have just been really going through some stuff.
And we think God might be calling us to move to Michigan near you.
And my dad had told me once before that he would never live in the cold again, he's kind of like me and the cold gets in your bones and you get those aches.
And I've been like that for 20 years, and by then he had been like that for 40 years, and I didn't really believe him.
The truth is I didn't really believe him when he said that they were going to move there.
And so then about three weeks later, they came up and they went with us.
We were walking to the Fourth of July fireworks up in Mason, it was a county seat, and they had big fireworks at the fairground there.
And as we were walking down the road, my dad looked at me and we were walking, the kids were walking out a little bit in front of us.
And he looked at me and said, have you told the girls that we're moving to Michigan yet?
And it occurred to me in that moment, of course I had not, which would have been great for Alicia because she had been praying that God would move them to Michigan.
It would have been in her young faith, it would have been a very powerful thing for her to get the answer to her prayer.
And I didn't really know why I hadn't, although I knew my dad had said he would never move north again, and then all of a sudden he was going to say he was going to move to Michigan.
I had doubtful, whatever, I didn't really believe it.
And so we're walking and as we're walking, he said, you know this house right here, this is my dad, he said, you know this house with the big weed growing up in the middle of the yard.
I said, I don't think anybody's living in that house.
And I said, well, I don't know, dad, it looks reasonably well maintained, but I see the weed too.
It can't be, there's a one car driveway and it's right in the middle.
I said, it can't be parking there.
So maybe there's on street parking.
He said, I don't think anybody owns that house.
Long story short, we pursued the house.
It turned out that the government, so there's what's called MISTA, which is state loans, and there's HUD, which is federal loans, and they both thought the other one owned it.
So no one owned the house.
So we got them to sign it up on auction.
My parents bought it inexpensively and about two months later, they moved into it in Michigan near us.
Needless to say, by then I had told my daughter, as they were trying to buy the house, I told my daughter that my parents were going to buy that house.
And they actually came and lived with us for several weeks in our house in Michigan before they moved into that house, which was really cool for my girls because they got to see their grandparents like every day.
And that was really neat.
At the time, my dad was a backslidden Christian.
My mom was not a Christian at all.
The point is, when my dad asked me and said, why is it that you haven't told them that we're going to move here, I didn't really have an answer for him.
Before we get through with this sermon, I'd like you to ask yourself, why is it that the church and people who claim to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are living the way we're living if we're really expecting Jesus to come back at any time?
And I think Jesus wants us to ask ourselves that as well.
Now, if you're living fully for the Lord and you're on fire and sharing Jesus all the time and you've got it all right going on, whatever, and you think that's true, then I would ask you to repent of your pride and arrogance.
And let's take a realistic look at what Jesus would like us to be as we approach the day of His return.
So grab your Bibles if you would, and maybe we do say Amen, we hoot, we holler, maybe it might be your first time, just make a little grunting noise or say Yahtzee or something, as we go to Luke chapter 19.
This is God's Word. If you were not able to join us in that little object lesson that time, perhaps you will eventually be able to do so.
From here on, this is God's Word, not my Word.
So while we read the Bible, we will expose what the text says, meaning we'll try to understand it the best we can.
And then we will ask ourselves a few things out of it that God really wants us to see and maybe do something about.
So it's preaching, it's expository preaching, but it's really God's Word. So we're in Luke 19 beginning in verse 36.
You know we're at Easter time, right? It's not Easter per se. For us it's Resurrection Sunday. It's the day that Jesus came back to life.
And this is what's called Palm Sunday. It's the week before Easter every year, that holiday which moves around because it's linked to a Jewish festival, and that's why it moves around.
But last week we looked at one angle of that triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and today we're looking at it again.
Today, all over the United States of America and all over the world in Christian churches and in places that they would call themselves a church, they are reading this text or a similar text.
So we're all Christians studying the same thing today, which is kind of cool. There are those who probably aren't, but the vast majority of them are.
So it's Luke 19 verse 36, we begin. And it says, And as he was going, they were spreading their garments in the road, or depending on your translation, their coats or their cloaks.
So he's riding on the back of the colt and they're putting stuff down. Now technically since he's riding on the back of a four-legged animal, he doesn't really need anything on the road, right, to pad the feet of the animal.
It's more symbolic gesture. I would ask you that they were seeing this as Jesus, the Messiah, entering Jerusalem, and they were doing whatever they could to prepare his entry, to honor him in this moment in time.
I would ask you, what would you do if you knew that Jesus was about to walk in this room right now while I'm preaching?
I would hope that you would completely ignore me and do something in response to Jesus the Christ, because I am just a servant.
What would you do in response to Jesus coming? Well, they were taking their coats and their cloaks off and laying them down before the hooves of this animal that Jesus was riding on.
They threw their garments on the road. They put some first on the animal, probably kind of by way of like maybe cushioning or whatever, but then there were plenty extra people were wearing and they were throwing them on the road in verse 36 before the hooves of this animal, 37.
And as he was now approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, there's a mountain there called Olivet. It's on the east side of what's called old Jerusalem, the older part of the city.
And as he was approaching that place where you could go up on Mount Olivet, now note that there is what's called the Olivet Discourse, which in Matthew is a two-chapter long sermon of Jesus that happens on Olivet about this time.
But do you know the difference between Matthew and Luke? Are you Bible scholars? Do you read your Bible? I hope you do, because it has all the wisdom for mankind.
So between Matthew and Luke, which one of them was there to witness these events and go up on the Mount and hear the Olivet Discourse? Matthew was there, right?
Luke was not. Luke was a doctor and a learned man, a scholar and a historian, and he interviewed people who were there. So he does not contain in his book, you will not find the full text of the Olivet Discourse because he didn't go up there.
And it's hard to write the full text of something by interviewing somebody. By the time we get done today, you're going to go, well, Pastor Dan basically said this, this, and this today.
But if you would then later, like next week, or for Luke it was a year or years more, that time later, if someone would come and interview me, interview you, interview all of us about what I said today, you'd be like, I can't do it.
I can't put it together. It might get a few points. I remember that day he talked about that, but that's about it.
So it's a little bit more challenging to record somebody's speech as a historian unless you have a written text, which Jesus didn't have.
So he doesn't give us the full Olivet Discourse, but we know that this is about that period of time.
He's at the descent or the place where you could go up, the ascent or the place where you could go up easily onto Mount Olivet.
And as he's there, some things are happening. So this is what it says.
And as he was approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of disciples, this is everybody that said they had believed in Jesus, that was learned, not just the twelve guys, but the whole multitude, everybody that was there who believed in Jesus,
was following, trying to follow his teachings and tell other people about him.
Everybody, it says, began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen.
So there's this huge praise that breaks out. Everybody's praising not Jesus, but God for all the miracles that they had seen.
Now, obviously, we know that Jesus was God the Son, God in the flesh, but they're praising the Father, they're praising God for all that they've seen.
And it says joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen.
A little bit of conviction for those of you who sung meekly in worship. If God has done just one miracle in your life, you need to get loud.
You need to get loud. You say, but I don't sing well. Well, praising God joyfully with a loud voice, there's no notes mentioned, there's no melody mentioned, there's no written music mentioned, and there are no instruments mentioned.
You need to figure out how to get to the point of praising God joyfully with a loud voice for what God has done in your life.
This was spontaneous, and they all sort of, it wasn't like the rumor circulating in the crowd.
On three, we're going to have a flash dance, and everyone's going to dance and scream and yell for Jesus.
Well, we're all going to be there at two o'clock and praise God for what has happened.
They just all began to praise. I submit to you that the Spirit of God and the understanding of what God has done will lead you to joyfully praise with a loud voice God for all the miracles
which you have seen. Verse 38 says, Blessed, they were saying, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.
And we know that comes out of the psalmist, and there's a couple other places where you'll see that phrase, blessed is the king, or the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
In the Old Testament, Malachi 2, I think it's there, but the bottom line is, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord,
peace in heaven, and glory in the highest is composed of a few small parts that I want you to see real quick.
We're not going to dwell hard on it, but I want you to see, first of all, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord means,
blessed means well spoken of, good, happy, it's a good situation.
This king who comes in the name of the Lord, he's got it all going on, and we want all good for him.
Then it says, peace in heaven, and that phrase is weird, isn't it? I'm going to stop there for a second.
Peace in heaven, I mean, is there not peace in heaven? When is there not peace in heaven?
So, you've got to think about what they're singing, peace in heaven, and he says, and glory in the highest.
Whenever you see that word glory in the New Testament, I want you to think that it was highlighted or spotlighted or shined a light on, lit up.
They're saying, light up this one, the king who comes in the name of the Lord, in the highest, to the utmost, nonstop, and all you've got.
Verse 39, and some of the Pharisees, the Pharisees were the conservative teachers of the day.
They were essentially the rulers or leaders of the Jews.
They were teaching, they would travel around and teach the Jews, not unlike what we're doing right here,
but they would travel in circuits and people could understand how to live for God.
They would have been considered like the evangelical conservative pastors of their day.
They were trying to win people over to living for Jesus.
So the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, teacher, rebuke your disciples.
And so the word here is literally, shut them up, stop them, chastise them, tell them no more, don't do that.
What were they doing that was so bad?
They were praising God and saying, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
And you'd think, well man, why would you want them to stop doing that?
Isn't that what the Pharisees want everybody to do?
Well, the Pharisees were doing it because the people were recognizing who Jesus was.
That's why they were praising God. That's why they were praising Jesus.
That's why they're calling him the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
Jesus answers them back and he says, I tell you, if these, referring to all the multitude of disciples who are praising him,
if these become silent, the stones will cry out.
It's interesting that the rocks alongside the road know inherently that Jesus deserves praise.
Human beings in their free will and in their kind of calculating, trying to figure it out, not so much all the time, right?
We don't always think about Jesus and God and how much praise he deserves and how much gratitude we ought to have
and our focus on God and what it should be.
Certainly those who don't know Jesus as Lord and Savior don't do that.
But he's saying that the disciples, if they should stop crying out, the stones themselves would cry out.
Four more verses, 41.
And when he approached, he saw the city and wept over it.
And that's interesting because I studied this text in like three different translations
and then I went through it in the Greek and I found something very interesting in this verse that I didn't know was the case.
It says, and when he approached, he saw the city.
So what city? You know you're talking about Jerusalem, right?
So it's the city of God's people.
It's the seat of God from the Old Testament and his spirit has essentially been removed from the temple by now, right?
But when he approached, when Jesus approached, he saw Jerusalem and he wept and my Bible says, and yours probably does too, over it.
Except there's an interesting thing.
In the original text, the over it is not there.
It's implied.
So he saw the city and he wept would be the literal translation.
But the over it is implied.
And we'll come back and we'll talk about that before we're through.
Verse 42 says, saying, so he's weeping, tears, sobbing, he's weeping, and he says,
If you had known in this day even you the things which make for peace.
So talking to the city, if you will, to Jerusalem, to the Jewish people who live in Jerusalem,
If you had known in this day, like right now, even you, I'll talk about that one second, the things which make for peace.
So he's broken over the fact that the Jewish people, the Jerusalemites, if you will, the people who live in Jerusalem, do not understand what makes for peace.
They don't know how to get there.
Notice that phrase, even you.
Why is that a problem?
Why even you?
If I'm going to emphasize it, I'm going to say, you know, I was hanging out with my friends and they began to pick on me.
Even you.
What do I mean?
I mean, like of all the people that were there, you shouldn't have been doing that, right?
So the Jewish people who had the testimony of the Old Testament, the sacrifices for sin, right?
Which were all pointing to a perfect sacrifice who would be Jesus.
So all the teachings of the Old Testament, you read your Bible, I'm going to give you the Cliff Notes version of the Old Testament.
The 39 books of the Old Testament.
Here's the Cliff Notes version.
Jesus Christ.
There you go. You got it.
That's the Cliff Notes version.
It's all about the coming of the Messiah and how he would be the one who would lead people to God, not only the Jews, but also the Gentiles.
They've known forever that the salvation of God would not only be for them, but would be for all people, all mankind.
And if they've known that it would be for them and for all people, all mankind, then why the heck didn't they get it?
Jesus says, even you have not figured out the recipe of peace.
But now, they have been hidden from your eyes, the things which make for peace.
They have been blocked.
You don't get it.
You're not allowed to see it.
Verse 43, for the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank or your text may say a barricade or a block or a wall before you.
And they will surround you and hem you in on every side.
So the city of Jerusalem, this is a prophecy, and it's a slight prophecy, a summation prophecy of how the whole city would face tragedy and be destroyed.
And so far, the only reason that he is listed is because they do not know the recipe for peace.
Back at the beginning of 44 for a second.
Or I'm sorry.
Yeah, we're at 44.
And it says, and will level you to the ground and your children within you.
And they will not leave you, leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.
And so Jesus is saying they would destroy the city and the ramparts of the city would be destroyed.
The temple would be destroyed.
All the society, the government would be gone.
All would be destroyed, wiped out as they knew it because they did not recognize the time of their visitation.
All right.
So there's a few things in the text here that I want you to see that really leapt out at me and they're powerful to me.
So I hope they will be to you as well.
And the number one thing is we should praise joyfully for our blessings.
Our J and I were talking on Friday.
We're talking about an Ebenezer.
You know what an Ebenezer is?
Most people that when Ebenezer is like a flag, right?
What originally comes from the Old Testament, it's a monument.
It's a marker.
Something happened.
Right.
An example was when the Israelites were crossing the Jordan River and God parted the rivers, they could walk in.
God told Joshua to have the leaders of each of the twelve tribes take one stone and they built a pedestal or a mount, if you will.
They mounted them up like a pile of the twelve stones.
And they said, now for years to come, for generations to come, for all this time to come, when people start to want it from you, you can point back to this.
You can see that mound of stones.
It says you should be faithful to God.
It says you should recognize God for who he is.
It says that the power of God worked to bring us to where we are.
Hear me now very clearly and very simply put, you could not be here today to hear this word if the power of God had not intervened on your behalf.
You would literally not be alive or at the very best you would be dead in your trespasses and sins.
So you could not be here if it were not for them.
Now you say, well, I don't know what miracles God has done to get me here.
If you are here today and you do not know a miracle of God, if God has not moved in you to save your soul and transform you,
begin the transformation process from who you used to be to who God is making you into,
then you're not saved and you need to go to God right now in your thoughts, in your hearts and say,
OK, God, save me through your son Jesus and accept miracle number one that you will be able to nail down and know,
set up an epic and easer, fly a banner and let's get loud, God does miraculous things.
We should praise God joyfully for our blessings.
I love a good joke. I think most people do.
We have differing opinions about what a good joke is.
But when you hear your version of a good joke, there's a sort of a positive feeling that arises in you.
You feel like a chuckle or a laugh. Some people will gaffaw.
That was awesome. That's where we stand. That's who we are.
If God has done a miracle in your life and you have seen it, then day in and day out,
your position is to be joyfully praising God for his blessings.
The cares and the riches of this world trap that because we start to think about,
Oh, yeah, God did that. But now I got to do this.
As if the something that you've got to do is somehow bigger than the something that he's already done.
True praise will transform your thinking.
You will stop saying, Oh, thank you, God, for X. Now, can you please do Y?
And just say, thank you, God, for X. And sing his praises.
And rejoice. Because he's God. And he did X. Whatever it is.
Joyfully praising the Lord will transform your thinking.
It will stop you from thinking of God as a money bags, which he is, or as a miracle worker, which he is,
or as a chain breaker, which he is. And you will start thinking of God as the all-powerful God of the universe
who created everything, including you, who wrote your DNA in Adam and Eve.
He's God. You and I have never seen DNA. Cannot affect DNA. Science is trying to do that now.
But even then, they have no clue what they're doing. They finally map the human genome.
And they're going, well, what if we poke here? And this might happen.
We've come a long way, but God wrote that DNA.
You know there are a lot of works out there, a lot of writings out there that you can go online.
Anybody ever hear the book Sun Tzu Art of War? Sun Tzu Art of War is what you call off copyright.
So you can publish Sun Tzu Art of War. You can put it out there.
And everybody will read it. They'll say it's the Ron Mack Sun Tzu Art of War.
Or the Tom Trammell Sun Tzu Art of War. But you didn't write Sun Tzu Art of War.
You didn't do the research. You didn't think it through. You don't know it.
You could write it a thousand times. You could rewrite it a thousand times.
You could digest every single word. And you still don't know. You could manipulate.
You could go, you write out Sun Tzu Art of War to publish it, and go, I'm going to change the 37th word.
And no one's ever going to know. It'll be funny. It's going to be my big joke on mankind.
And you put it out there. People are buying it and go, Sun Tzu Art of War. Isn't this awesome?
I've got Sun Tzu Art of War by Mike Brister. But the 37th word is wrong.
And you're the only one that knows. And what a great joke.
But Sun Tzu wrote Sun Tzu Art of War. Sun Tzu lived Sun Tzu Art of War.
Sun Tzu figured out how to go to war and how to have peace and how to use peace to win at war.
Sun Tzu wrote that book. Jesus Christ was present at the creation.
Jesus Christ, nothing was created except that which was created through Him.
We've got to change our thought process toward God. He is not your sugar daddy.
He's not your teddy bear. He's not your Santa Claus lap.
This is the God of the universe. He is great and mighty. He is holy and just.
And yes, because of His love, He is merciful and gracious toward us.
True praise for our God will transform your thinking.
True praise for our God will demonstrate your understanding.
I sing praises to God. I'm in my living room and I listen to our church service on my Echo Dot.
And I sing along. And it doesn't sound as good there as it does here, but it sounds pretty good.
And I get to singing. And next thing I'm singing so hard my voice is cracking.
I'm singing along with some special that one of the girls did.
And I'm, tears streaming down my face. I'm sitting in my truck waiting to go to work.
And I'm crying in my lap. And I walk in and I look like I peed myself.
Because I've got little spots all over the place. Because the tears in my face.
Because I recognize what God has done. Who God is.
True praise for the Lord will transform your understanding.
It will change you from the inside out.
But it will also demonstrate that change in your understanding.
When you begin to realize what God has done for you, you will change the way you praise God.
For those of you in the room who are like me who can't sing a straight note to save your life.
If you're not singing, you're just excusing yourself from the very activity that we were created for.
You're going to go to heaven. You go, when I go to heaven my voice box will be better.
I'll get my perfected body and I'll be able to sing praises to God.
God is not worried about your stupid voice box.
He's worried about your heart. Because that's where it comes from.
That's why we know He's not. And then we use that as our excuse as to why we're not.
Praise God and demonstrate your understanding.
True praise flows from a regenerated heart.
You can't decide to praise.
Right now if I'm talking to you and I say to you, you've got to praise.
You're going, next Sunday when we sing, I'm going to sing. I'm going to do it.
I'm going to sing praise songs next Sunday with everybody else.
Just like everybody else did. I'm going to blend right in.
If that's your decision today, you know what it means?
Absolutely squat. It means nothing.
Because true praise for God, the God of the universe, who can barely be perceived by our minds,
but can be known personally in our hearts.
That God, true praise flows from a regenerated heart.
Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Have you contemplated the fact that God of heaven spent His blood, that His stripes would heal your pain?
You think you've done something and nothing you've ever done that will ever compare with what Jesus did to go to a cross
and sacrifice Himself so that those who do not deserve it could have salvation?
And He did that for me and He did that for you.
The parameters of this are contained in one statement and one question.
The first part is, the statement is this, there is nobody and nothing that is greater than God.
They say that doesn't have to be said. Yes it does because some people are still not praising Him.
There is nobody and nothing that is greater than God because of God's character,
because of who God was when He existed alone in the universe, when there was no drop of rain,
when there was no dot of dust, when there was no gnat nor fly, nor shark, nor camel,
when there was not a leaf or a twig or a seed, when there was nothing at all.
The God of the universe because of His great character which includes love for us, He created.
He spoke into nothing and out of nothing came everything.
That kind of God, there is nobody and nothing greater.
You can go without, you can go without whatever it is that you're lacking if you've got God.
I get it. We're driven by our fleshly desires.
Our body wants this, our mind wants that, our eyes see that, our ears hear that.
I get it. But God is greater than all of that.
He is greater than your greatest what? He is greater than your greatest need.
He is greater than your deepest ache, your deepest pain.
If money stands between you and God, get poor. If hell stands between you and God, get sick.
If education stands between you and God, flunk.
If your body and your strength stands between you and God, get weak.
God is greater than all we can speak or do.
And it needs to be said because we should be praising Him for the things that He does.
Because He is that great, He doesn't have to do squat for you.
He could just let you die and go to hell.
But He chose not to.
He loves you enough that not only did He choose not to allow that for anyone who is willing,
but He paid with His very own life.
It was a great covenant between God and Abraham.
And the animals were split.
Half the bodies over here, like a butt end and a head end over here.
And the brazier that represented God floated through.
Normally, the people making the covenant would walk through arm and arm like two kings would go,
okay, we're going to have a peace treaty and we're never going to have a problem again, blah, blah, blah.
And they would walk through arm and arm between the split animals.
But God did not ask Abraham to walk between the split animals.
God floated a brazier to represent Him between the split animals saying,
I will make it so.
I'm not going to depend on you to be good.
I'm not going to depend on you to be righteous.
I'm not going to depend on you to understand.
I'm not going to depend on you to let me work in you.
I will make it so.
And today, everyone who trusts in the name of Jesus Christ as Lord,
that means He says that I do it, and Savior, that means He paid the price for my sins,
will plow, drive, stop, scream, yell, shout, and sing their way into an eternity with God, settled.
God is good.
There is nobody and nothing greater.
But the question then is, if you could pave the way for a God like that to come,
to visit you, to visit your family, to do things in your life, to come to your church,
if you could pave the way for a God like that to be present in you, what would you do?
I suppose maybe that question falls a little bit short.
Because the real question is, if you could pave the way for a God like that to come,
why aren't you doing it?
And they figured that question out.
And they took their coats off, and they laid their coats on the ground in front of the hooves of the animal that he was riding on.
To keep the hooves clean?
If you could do anything to pave the coming of God into your life, in your family's life, in your church, in your community,
if you could pave that to bring God in, to let God do what God wants to do, what would you do?
How far would you go?
Well, there are those who have gone to death, those who have gone to whipping, those who have gone to torture,
those who have gone to preaching when preaching wasn't accepted, those who have gone to serving,
those who have gone to living for God, cutting out the things that they enjoy to make sure that they can serve people
so people can find God.
Would you?
I shared that illustration with you about my parents moving to Michigan,
and I told you that I had not shared with my girls about them coming.
And my dad said, have you told the girls yet that we're moving to Michigan?
And I said, no, Dad, I haven't done that.
And he said, well, why?
And I kind of went, well, that's a nice bush.
Because I had no reason.
But now looking back, I know the reason, I know why I didn't tell my girls that my dad was going to move to Michigan
was because I didn't trust him.
Because when my dad said he was going to move to Michigan, I didn't believe it.
I didn't think he was going to go through with it.
I thought I knew him better than he knew himself.
And I submit to you, that's why Christians of this age, those of us who claim the name of Jesus,
are not living, paving the way for the coming of our God and the lives of our family,
our friends, our church, our community, because we don't trust him.
Because we're afraid to lose what he's already blessed us with,
because we're afraid to lose what we've already got,
we're afraid to let go of whatever it is that we think is important.
Because we've missed the statement that God is greater than all of that.
Trust him.
God is able to bring about in you that which he's begun in you.
Trust him.
Open your mouth.
Sing his praises.
Screech him if you have to.
Tell people about Jesus.
Stand up for what's right.
Do the right thing.
Sacrifice yourself if necessary.
Spend your effort.
Whatever it is that you collect as an alternative to preparing for the coming of the Lord,
you will lose it all when he comes.
The second thing I want you to see in the text that really touched my heart
was that, remember that implied over it?
That implied over it in the text where he says,
he looked at the city and he wept, and the translations say over it,
but in the original text it's missing.
Actually, allegedly, the Jews would say, Jesus wept,
wanted the Jews, his people, even more than he wanted anyone else.
I have a good Christian brother of mine who believes in the Lord by his profession.
I've seen him serve.
I've seen him love God, it seems to.
And he believes that God loves the Jews more than he loves other Christians.
I submit to you that's heresy.
Jesus looked at Jerusalem and he wept.
And our text says over it, but that over it is only implied.
Would Jesus weep over you?
That's the question you have to ask.
You know that Jesus would weep over a lost person
because he wants them to come to an understanding of saving grace.
But would Jesus weep over me?
Well, he would if the same thing is true of me that he saw was true of Jerusalem.
In other words, if Jesus looked at me and saw that I was going to go
the same road to destruction that Jerusalem was going to go,
he would weep over me.
According to this text, Jerusalem would be utterly and completely destroyed.
And the text gives us exactly two qualifiers as to why that would happen.
The first one is because they had no peace, P-E-A-C-E, no peace recipe.
They didn't know what it is that makes up peace.
They had no recipe for peace.
If you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ,
then you understand that there is only one word in the recipe for peace,
and that is Jesus.
The night that Jesus was to be born,
the angels sang, Peace on earth, good will toward men.
Jesus is God's peace toward us.
Jesus said, My peace I leave with you, and not as the world gives you peace.
Jesus came to bring peace between God and man,
the kind of peace, the only kind of peace that could overcome
the effects of the fall that took place in the Garden of Eden.
Thus he is called the second Adam.
Peace.
Jesus came to bring peace between us and God
through atonement, redemption, and reconciliation,
all of which are really big words,
and you may or may not exactly know the definitions of them.
Atonement means it's paid for.
Redemption means it's bought back, and reconciliation means it's put together.
We were paid for, bought back and put together.
Wait for it, with God who is greater than all things,
paid for, and put together with God through Jesus.
Do you know the recipe for peace?
You do! It's Jesus!
And they didn't!
And because they didn't,
they would be destroyed.
I submit to you though,
if you know that recipe for peace,
then there are actions that fly out of it.
You say you know that the recipe for peace is Jesus,
but when you're in your toughest moments,
when your mind is in knots,
when your stomach is butterflies,
and your palms are sweaty,
and your mouth is full of cotton,
is Jesus first and foremost in your mind?
When your health conditions are rising up,
and shouting in your face that you're doomed,
is Jesus foremost in your mind?
Or will you face the problems of this life
not recognizing that Jesus is the recipe for peace?
I submit to you that if you face the problems of this life,
not recognizing that Jesus is the recipe for peace,
then you, like Jerusalem,
are being wept over by Jesus.
Or you will face the destruction
because you have based your life
on the things that you want, see, hope for,
think you can do, your skills, your abilities,
your talents, your gift from God, whatever,
instead of the great nature of God
and His ability to keep His promises.
The recipe for peace is Jesus,
and they didn't know it,
and we had better.
The second piece, the qualifier that's in there,
is a missed appointment.
They missed the day of His visitation.
Jesus spent a lot of time while He was on the earth
talking about how we had better be ready
for the second coming of Jesus.
We had better be ready for His visitation.
In fact, He said it in Matthew 24, 42,
which is in the sermon on Olivet,
the Olivet Discourse.
He said,
Be ye ready, for in such an hour as ye think not
the Son of Man comes.
See, you're going through your life,
and now and then, you're thinking about Jesus
Sunday morning, Tuesday night for Bible study,
or whenever you do your midweek Bible study,
in your devotional time, or whatever,
but in the midst of your trials or your struggles
or your temptations,
in the midst of your earning your bucks or paying your bills,
are you remembering that the recipe for peace is Jesus?
And if you're not, then at that moment when that happens,
if that's when Jesus comes,
then how do you think that's going to go down?
Alright, servant, come on, right now, we're leaving.
Well, hold on, Jesus, I just got to sign it.
Alright, servant, come on, right now, we're leaving.
Hold on, Jesus, I'm listening to some heavy metal here,
and a new song just came out, I've got to get it in.
You're shouting at your kids,
or fighting with your wife or your husband,
or you're waiting for the doctor to tell you
what the outcome of your disease is.
You're in that moment, and your heart's racing,
and you forgot that Jesus is the recipe for peace,
so you don't have any peace in that moment,
and then Jesus comes,
and you not only don't remember the recipe,
you don't recognize Him in His visitation.
There is an appointment, it ain't on no calendar,
but there is an appointment with God,
a moment in time at which Jesus will come again,
and we darn well had better be ready.
Romans 5, 1 says,
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord is the person who tells you what to do,
and you do it.
Jesus Christ.
Christ means Messiah, it's the anointed one,
the chosen one of God who would be the perfect lamb of God,
who would end all sacrifice for God.
Don't think I'm telling you that you have to work harder.
Don't think I'm telling you you have to give more.
Don't think I'm telling you you have to be something
that you're not in your own strength, your own power,
or by your own understanding.
No, I'm saying trust in the name of the Lord Jesus
when you go through what you're going through
because He is the recipe for peace.
He is the one who reconciles us, buys us back,
purchases us with His own blood.
I apologize.
I'm taking a medication that makes my mouth kind of dry,
so sometimes I have trouble saying tricky phrases.
I apologize for that.
Anyway, the bottom line is this.
He buys us back, He reconciles us to God,
He is the one Jesus.
And if He's done that for you,
then every day, all day, praising that miracle,
you don't have time to fret, you don't have time to worry,
you don't have time to work in your own strength,
you don't have time to be concerned about what others think
about the choices that you make in Christ.
You don't have time.
You just don't have time for anything
except for praising God joyfully for your blessings,
doing anything, whatever it may take,
for Him to come into your life, your relationships,
your finances, your health, your job, your school,
your community.
You've got to be taking your coat off
and laying it down in front of the hooves of the horse
upon which He rides.
That brings us to our conclusion then.
A man named Pastor Duke wrote an essay,
and it was eventually published on a blog
or a website called Viral Believer.
And the blog was entitled,
Three Ways We Can Be Ready When Jesus Comes Back.
And I read it and I summarized it this way,
and it's greatly based on Scripture.
First of all, you can be expectantly waiting.
Jesus told a parable about ten virgins
who had their lamps lit.
Five of them did a good job of being ready
for when the groom would come.
And five of them, not such a good job.
And then a little before the groom was supposed to come,
their lamps went out.
But they had to have lamps lit,
so they asked the other five,
can you do it for me?
Can you provide me with oil for my lamps?
They said, no, we have enough oil
to be sure our lamps are lit when He comes.
We don't have enough oil to make sure your lamps are lit.
Nobody can do this for you.
You personally, not your husband, not your wife,
not your parents, not your pastor,
not your teachers, not your boss,
and certainly not your money or your TV,
you personally must be expectantly waiting
for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's up to you personally to decide
to be expectantly waiting His arrival.
And when something that you have
is needed for that process,
your mouth, for example.
If you need to be praising Him
and expectantly waiting,
He's going to say, you come with me, serve it,
and you're going to say, yes, Lord, yes,
then your mouth has got to be properly aligned
with the coming of Jesus.
Your body, your choices day to day.
Be expectantly waiting the coming of Jesus.
Elsewise, you'll be running out,
getting whatever it is.
I fully expect that in minutes
right after Jesus comes,
pastor's phones, they won't have them
because they'll still be here or whatever,
but pastor's phones all over the earth,
they're going to be reading,
pastor, something just happened, I need to talk to you.
Pastor, my pastor didn't answer.
I've been calling my other pastor friend,
oh, he didn't answer.
The phones are going to be ringing all over the planet
because you want to talk to your pastor
about what's going on.
You personally must be expectantly waiting
the coming of Jesus.
If not, then when He comes,
if we're all taken up into the air,
like Thessalonians talks about,
and it happens during this service,
all the others who were expectantly waiting
the coming of Jesus will be gone,
and you'll still be sitting in that pretty blue chair
just like you've been every other Sunday,
or maybe for your first time,
because you weren't expectantly awaiting
the coming of Jesus, and when He comes,
we better be found expectantly awaiting Him.
And right now you can think about in your life
the things that you're doing
that in no way, shape, or form,
they may not be sin, I'm not saying that.
I mean, they kind of become sin
if they keep you from expectantly waiting for Jesus,
but they could be good things,
and you're doing them, and you're like,
but they don't equate to expectantly waiting for Jesus.
If you sit on, I'll give you a very point blank
direct example.
If your first thought when you sit on your couch
is where's the remote,
you are not expectantly waiting for Jesus
in that moment.
If your first thought when you come in,
when your paycheck comes in,
is to make sure your bills are paid.
I had somebody say that to me just this morning.
I know that the bills got to go first.
That's right.
Actually, it isn't right, is it?
God's got to go first.
If your first thought when you have an illness
in your body of some kind of pain
is a medicine, or a doctor, or a nap,
then you're not expectantly waiting
the coming of Jesus.
Now, there's nothing wrong with any of those things, right?
Did I name anything on it as paying your bills, nap,
doctor, TV, any of those things?
Are any of those things sin?
No, none of those things are sin.
But if you don't align the things in your life
that are not sin with expectantly waiting for Jesus,
then you're not expectantly waiting for Jesus,
and you had better be, because when He comes,
if you do not, you will miss your appointment.
The second thing in there is to be literally prepared
for Him when He comes back.
Our job as Christians, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ,
is to work to become a good gift.
I went to Camp You Can last year.
I'm going to Camp You Can.
This is going to sound funny.
You're going to get a little incited
into my oddball personality here.
I'm going to Camp You Can, and I'm packing the van,
and I had all my stuff.
I had all the stuff that they said was on the list,
and I'm thinking to myself,
there's got to be something else.
I know I'm forgetting something, Boy Scout model,
which I never was a Boy Scout,
but I do like to carry around way too much stuff.
I said, there's got to be something.
I thought about some E6000 glue.
You know what I'm talking about?
It'll glue ceramics or wood or just about anything.
It's almost like super glue, but maybe it's a little better.
It doesn't dry quite as fast,
but it literally makes the thing glue just like new.
It's really good stuff.
You buy it in tubes, it's like three bucks,
and I thought, I'm going to take some of that glue.
I have no idea why.
I don't know that I need it.
You know what I mean?
Odds are, if there's something that breaks there
while we're there, they're going to fix that.
They're going to take care of it, whatever it is.
I don't think I need it.
While we were there, there was a young man who did well,
and he got a trophy at the end of camp.
They gave him the trophy,
and he had it for all of about 30 seconds
and snapped the trophy piece off the top of the base.
That young man was in my cabin.
He didn't ride with me there.
It wasn't one of our kids that went,
but he was in my cabin,
and we're getting ready to go back up to the thing,
and he wanted to haul his luggage back up to the building
where we were going to get picked up.
He said, can I ride in the van with you guys to get back up there,
so I don't have to slough it all back up there a quarter of a mile,
three-eighths of a mile, whatever it was.
I'm like, oh, yeah, absolutely you can.
He's carrying his base of his trophy
and the top of his trophy in his hand.
He wasn't saying anything about it,
but he was just carrying the two pieces like this.
It was almost like he was walking around.
He was a living question.
He was like, somebody go fix this.
I just got this trophy and it's broke.
Is somebody going to fix this?
I go to get in the van,
not thinking a thing about E6000 glue, right?
There in the door of the van is E6000 glue.
It's there.
I thought, I bet that fixed that trophy.
Sure enough, we thought we got the glue out.
We roughed the surface up a little bit,
put it on there, glued it back on.
Then he had it.
It takes a while for that to set and become solid.
He had it about 10 minutes later.
We're actually going to drive back up.
I look at him and I see him.
He's carrying around the two pieces of the trophy again.
I'm like, hey, what happened?
He said, well, it just came apart.
I look at it and sure enough, it had started to dry,
but he had stressed it too much at that spot
and it had broke apart or whatever.
We cleaned it up.
We roughed it up.
We glued it again.
I said, we don't have any duct tape or anything.
I wasn't prepared enough to have duct tape put back together.
We're just going to have to be careful with it.
I said, I'll tell you what.
How about you tape this glue?
I said, don't get in trouble with it now.
Don't use it for anything else.
I said, no sniffing it.
Just put it away.
I said, and that way when you get home,
because it's going to be hard to get all the way home.
It's two hours away from home.
It's going to be hard to get all the way home.
You can glue it again.
He went, his jaw dropped and his eyes got big.
He was genuinely touched by the fact that I was willing to just give him the glue.
It was a $3.
I mean, it was probably only about a buck and a half of it left.
He took it.
He took my cell phone number.
We've had limited contacts since camp or whatever.
You'll probably see him again there if we do it again this year or whatever.
But you know what happened?
It didn't stick together again because it was at a stress point.
He stressed it.
He put it away.
He put the glue away.
Then after that, he wasn't walking around with two pieces of a trophy in his hands
because he knew when he got home, it was going to be fine.
There are things in your life that you're bothered by.
I get that.
We all are.
Our job is to be prepared for when he comes back.
Do you think he's coming back?
Because I think he is.
I don't think he is.
I know he is.
And if he's coming back, then whatever you're facing right now, it's going to be okay on that day.
He's going to take care of it.
So why are you still carrying it around in two pieces waiting for somebody to fix it?
Why is it a big deal?
You've got problems.
If we made a list, somebody else in this room, until we get down to the last person who has the most problems
or most creative in making the list, somebody else in this room probably has more problems than you do.
We have a man in our church who's not here today.
He's off and on here because of his health.
He's literally dying and his heart's blocked and he can't get any help.
There's no medication, no surgery, nothing.
You got that?
Anybody else in this room have a heart blockage and they've told you that you're going to die?
You can't get any help whatsoever?
Okay, let's go down to your list of problems that you got and let's kind of check them off
and see how many compare.
What I'm saying to you is whatever your problems are, you need to be prepared for Jesus coming back,
which means you need to take your problems and go, well, I can't do that, but God can do that,
or God can do it through me or through somebody else.
And right now what I'm going to do is I'm going to be working on me to be ready for Him.
So I'm going to become a little more honest.
I'm not going to say you're never going to lie again.
I'm going to become a little more hardworking.
I'm not saying you're ever going to be lazy again.
I'm going to overcome the things that are wrong with me one thing at a time, ready, right,
for when He comes again.
It's not a work salvation.
It will not save you.
But it is a posture.
And without that posture, you are saying you do not know the recipe for peace
and you're willing to miss the appointment,
to which then I would say to you that Jesus is weeping over you today.
Change your posture.
Let's start getting ready for when He comes again.
And then lastly, and singly and most importantly, we must be loved by Him.
That part's pretty easy.
And we must love Him back.
To whom do you belong?
This will sound a little creepy for the men in the room, but whose bride are you?
You say, no, no, no, that's not how it works.
Yes, it is.
The church is Jesus' bride.
And life is about Jesus preparing His bride for Him.
That's Ephesians 5.
You can go and read it.
We won't go to read it together right this second.
But it's Ephesians 5, 22 through 32 where everybody talks about marriage, right?
But He says, actually, this whole idea of marriage, this is all about Jesus and His church.
Jesus gave Himself in order to make you better for Him and for eternity.
He loves you more than His body.
He loves you more than His wants and desires.
Am I going to turn away the cup the Father has put for me?
No, I come for just such a time as this.
Lord, your will not my will be done.
Am I going to bad mouth or yell back or try to talk somebody out of doing to me what they're going to do?
No, I'm going to take every bit of it because I love Dan Stevenson.
I love Tony Tate.
I love Ricky Hartley just that much.
It's personal.
You be expectantly waiting for Him to come.
You be preparing yourself for His arrival.
You be loved by Him and love Him back actively.
Make choices according to that.
To love Christ is to recognize His love for you.
Realize He's processing you to be ready for Him, to submit to whatever He's doing in your life so you can be ready for Him.
And realize that He loves you more than His own body.
Are you here today and you've never accepted Jesus Christ as Lord?
That means He tells you what to do and you do it.
And Savior, that means He paid the price for your sins.
Then probably you've heard a lot about miracles.
You may have even seen God do some miracles in your life.
But you always kind of wonder or doubt or think maybe that isn't quite what you think it is because you've never been saved.
It is not about me.
I love everybody in this room.
And if I have my choice, I'm going to heaven the moment Jesus calls.
And that means if you're not willing to go with me, I'm going without you.
Got it, son?
We're going together.
But if you're not willing to go, I'm going without you.
Got it, Amalia?
I love you.
But if you're not willing to go, I'm going without you.
We are in this together to reach new heights in Jesus.
But it ain't about me and it ain't about you.
It's about God.
Will you go?
Well, if you do not know the recipe for peace and continue to apply it throughout every day of your life.
If you're willing to miss the appointment when Jesus comes again, then you don't personally know Him the way you should.
You don't love Him the way you should.
But you should say, I'm not letting anything stand in my way.
I'm going to work on me, let Jesus work on me so I can be ready when He comes to present to Him the best me I can be on that day.
Nobody's ever going to be perfect.
But if 10 years from now, I said you're, you know, for the unmarrieds in this room, I said you're going to get married 10 years from now to a man or a woman who's going to be perfect for you.
They're literally the embodiment of everything you think is wonderful in the world.
They're great in their faith.
They're beautiful physically.
They're rich.
You'll never have to work a day in your life to be totally taken care of.
All you got to do is work on you so that on that day you'll be considered acceptable to them.
If that's what I said, what would you do to pave the way for that marriage?
Anything and everything and all that you do each day.
You would submit to the knowledge that the God of the universe, as mighty and awesome as He is, has died on the cross to purchase you, to buy you back and to reconcile you to Him.
But it's one on one, you and Him.
Will you accept salvation through Jesus Christ and have Him as Lord?
If you have not, then do so now.
Just say, God, here I am.
I give you the rest of my life.
Do with it whatever you want.
I'm living for you instead of for me.
And if you have and you're here today and you're a believer and you realize that the cares and the riches of this life have been working on choking out that understanding, that chief understanding that arises in you true praise, that understanding that there is nobody and nothing greater than God, that understanding that you should be doing whatever you can to pave the way for Him to come and influence you and your church and your community and your school and your job and your life and your loved ones and your soon to be offspring.
Whatever, whatever is coming.
If you're supposed to be paving the way for that and you realize that's true and because of the cares and the riches of this life, things that you wanted to get into, things that you thought you were doing that were good, things that you thought you were doing for God.
But you realize that those things have now interfered and true praise that should transform your thinking, demonstrate your understanding and come from your regenerated heart is no longer issuing from your lips or from your being.
Then you repent today and turn again to God and let Him do in you what He has already paid for and always wanted to do.
Turn to God and say, OK, God, I get it.
I knew it.
I already knew Jesus died for me.
I already knew Jesus had things for me to be doing.
And I started, I started good.
I got changed.
I said, if it ain't real, I don't want it.
And I wanted it because it was real.
And I was living for Jesus.
And then now cares and riches and things in this world have become more important to me.
And so there's times where I find my peace in a logo or a dollar or a mind numbing episode or or an encouraging word from another human being.
That's where I find my peace.
When really, I understand that the recipe for peace is Jesus alone.
And you repent and you turn back to God today and you say, OK, I'm going to live with the understanding that I have the recipe and the ingredient.
Jesus.
Turn to God afresh today and let it be so.
And then church, let us light up this hill.
Let us show out this truth.
Let us sing out the praises.
But realize if you won't, if I won't, creation will do it without us.
Mass appraised team to come forward at this time and lead us in a closing hymn.
But this is also our hymn of decision.
If you are here today and you're making some kind of decision either to follow Christ and earn us for the first time ever, then you come and you publicly make that decision.
You tell people, OK, I'm living for Jesus beginning today.
Doesn't matter what happened before.
I'm not chronicling a history of how I got here.
I'm just living for Jesus beginning today.
Or if you'd say, I am a follower of Jesus and I know that and you're repenting and you turn to God again today, then you come and say, that's me.
I blew it.
I realized I wandered.
I am turning to God and letting God be in charge of my life through Jesus, his son.
If you're here today and you say, I know Jesus loves me, I'm living for him, but I need to be baptized as scripture commands, as Jesus taught.
And I've never done that.
We're going to baptize next Sunday.
And so you could do that next Sunday.
But if you're here today and you say, I need to do that, then you come and you tell us that.
Or you say, this needs to be my church home.
I need to serve God in this place.
I understand God is calling me because of this teaching or because of what God has said to me while I've been here.
I realize I need to do that.
Then you come and you make that decision publicly today.
If you have a sin that you've gotten into, something, and you publicly repent of that today and you just say, OK, that's me.
I did that.
I realize I shouldn't have done that.
I've not been right by God.
And I'm repenting today.
And I'm asking the people of this church to stand with me in unity to agree that that's never going to happen again.
Whatever it might be that God's laying on your heart, you stand with us and sing.
But if you're responding, you don't sing.
You come.
Just come to me and tell me and we'll share with the group.
OK, all right.
So stand with me and sing this song.
I'm going to get a drink of water because I couldn't sing right now if I had to.
Oh, so are you weary and troubled.
Why's God no older than you?
You've got to get your drink.
The recipe for peace is Jesus.
There's my word of the word of God.
I want to speak to your heart and say, I was saved today, or maybe you did while I was preaching, or you did it yesterday.
You can make that public confession and you come.
And share it with others.
That's the way I look for Jesus.
First time today.
Or you say, I was looking for Jesus, but I allowed things to get in the way.
Things that are important to me.
It shouldn't happen.
But right now, I'm hope-reading God is.
And I want him to be first.
I want him in the utmost.
In the highest position.
And the peace of us will grow strange.
In Sweden, in the light of his glory and grace.
If you're looking to connect up with us, we worship at 255 Hefner Street in Toledo, Ohio.
Every Sunday morning at 1130.
And we'd love to have you join us and blend your voices in together with ours.
We'd love to have you serve within the body or serve right where you live.
If you're across the globe and we know we have some folks who are listening to us from pretty far away.
Then we would both suggest and encourage you to reach New Heights in Jesus right where you live.
Check out our website under what would it take for me to become a member of New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East Toledo.
There is an opportunity to become a member what's called non-resident.
So wherever you may live, you have the opportunity to become a non-resident member of New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church.
And participate in your part of what God is doing here in Toledo and the surrounding land and throughout the world.
God bless you today.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.