Have you ever considered that your darkest moments might be forging you for something greater? Tough times are not merely obstacles but are, in fact, shaping us for our personal 'Promised Lands.' The struggles we endure can carve out a character ready to embrace the blessings and callings meant just for us.
Through the trials of the Israelites, we glean lessons about divine discipline as a form of love and preparation. Just as they were provided manna, we too learn the importance of relying on something greater than ourselves. Documenting our spiritual journey, we uncover how past obstacles equip us with insights for the challenges ahead. It's a testament to the power of a teachable spirit and the virtues of humility and openness — qualities that are indispensable for anyone on the path to their own 'Promised Land.'
Have you ever considered that your darkest moments might be forging you for something greater? Tough times are not merely obstacles but are, in fact, shaping us for our personal 'Promised Lands.' The struggles we endure can carve out a character ready to embrace the blessings and callings meant just for us.
Through the trials of the Israelites, we glean lessons about divine discipline as a form of love and preparation. Just as they were provided manna, we too learn the importance of relying on something greater than ourselves. Documenting our spiritual journey, we uncover how past obstacles equip us with insights for the challenges ahead. It's a testament to the power of a teachable spirit and the virtues of humility and openness — qualities that are indispensable for anyone on the path to their own 'Promised Land.'
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message Today we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1:Trial is training to do you good in the end. Trial the difficulties we all go through is training to do you good in the end. This is the called dirt pills. If you've been around, you've heard me tell stories about my dirt pills in the past. I'm not telling any of those stories right now. You have to go on YouTube and watch all of our sermons from the past 15 years. But they help repopulate the flora in my gut which counteracts the autoimmune disease I began to experience when I was 21.
Speaker 1:I had that for four and a half years. It was really bad. It was tremendous pain. There was also, after a while, a feeling of uselessness. My wife had to go back to work for us. I mean, I had to eat oranges and rice. I couldn't do much else as I grappled with why is this happening? And there were days I would ask I don't know if you've ever done this before, but I would ask I'd be like what are you trying to teach me? Whatever it is, I will do it. And I said that on year one and two and three and four. I don't know what you want. Whatever you want, I will do it. I'm not unwilling. Just tell me and I will do it. But you know, god doesn't always work that way. Sometimes he's trying to soak us in something, he's trying to steep us to get a deeper work done. Do you believe it's possible that God could use something painful in your life to bring about something good? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1:We've been in this, the Road Up series. This is the second series in the book of Exodus, and this is really all about maturity. We came out of difficulties in figurative spiritual slavery in the first part and now the Israelites have made it past the Red Sea and we're going to look at their story of going through test after test after test before they get into the Promised Land. And we're not going through the same test as they are, but we go through our own tests and we're going to learn some lessons from them. Remember. This word remember is said five times in today's passage. Remember the Lord, your God, remember what he did. Remember not to fall back into old patterns.
Speaker 1:These Israelites, these are like the main characters. They're headed into the Promised Land. You've heard that phrase before, but just so we understand what that is. This is the land that they've been as slaves. Their parents were promised this land that would be their own. They could finally worship their God and do things the way he wanted things to be done. And so they've been praying about this and planning about it and prepping for it for 40 years. Like they're excited to get in this place. And it got warns them. He says, guys, before you go in, they're on the edge of the Promised Land. Okay, this is, after all, the tests on the edge of the Promised Land. They're about to go in. And Moses, speaking for God, says, guys, you got to be warned before you go in there. Just know you're going to fall into the trap, maybe, of thinking you did this, that you got yourselves in here, that you were smart enough, you were strong enough, and I'm telling you don't do it. It's going to go very, very bad if you forget the Lord, your God, and how he has blessed your life and used you.
Speaker 1:Now we're talking about this idea of Promised Land. There's really lots of different ways to talk about the Promised Land. Okay, so there's the literal Promised Land. This was the actual geographic land that Abraham, isaac and Jacob, all down through Moses and all the Israelites, they were all promised. This land they're going to go to. That's a real thing. Now you got to remember, even in the Promised Land I mean, it was still life on earth there's still crappy days, dude, you know. There's still sin, people still getting fights, there's all kinds of stuff that doesn't go great in the Promised Land. That's the literal Promised Land. There's also we could talk New Testamentally about, an increasingly blessed life is a version of the Promised Land.
Speaker 1:As we begin to grab Jesus' hand, we start to walk relationally with him and he reveals his will to us through a degree, as we cooperate with what we understand. He begins to just bless different circumstances in our lives. He begins to bless relationships. He begins to bless families. He begins to bless finances, and not for everybody all at the same season, at the same time. It doesn't work all the same way for everybody, but anybody who begins to follow Jesus Christ. You're going to experience. You're going to experience difficulty, but you're going to experience Him leading you into you. Just call it spiritual abundance. Things are just going great here. Sometimes those are just for a season. For instance, when my kids were really little, they were awesome. That was a version of a Promised Land. Honestly, that Promised Land is gone now. Now we're in a little bit harder lands sometimes, but that was a version of a Promised Land. But then, even as my daughter gets married, that's a Promised Land. We've been praying for that since before she was born. So this is a fulfillment of a Promised Land type of thing.
Speaker 1:The Puritans talked about particular calling. See, they thought and they were right. The Promised Land wasn't just a geographic area. Everybody has a unique calling on their life, not like a ministry calling, not like pastors, but whatever you're gifted to do, if you're in the right place, doing your work as unto the Lord, you're doing your best to follow Him. You are fulfilling your particular calling. You're just being the best version of that. Where you are, you're being the best mom, you're being the best salesman, you're being the best fill-in-the-blank. If you're being the best, you are fulfilling your particular calling, and that's a version of a Promised Land.
Speaker 1:Then, in another sense, there's just knowing Jesus Christ personally and relationally. That's a Promised Land. That's what the Israelites did not have. Jesus Christ comes into our lives and he invites us to come to Him and he begins to reveal that he wants to walk with us. He begins to speak to us through His Word and the relationship itself. Walking with Jesus is a type of Promised Land. It's something that is unreachable unless God gives it.
Speaker 1:Listen to this Paul talking about this very idea of 2 Corinthians 5-5. Now, the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. Did you know, when you begin to follow Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you and Paul just said that person of the Holy Spirit of Jesus is a deposit of what is to come. Those of you who know but maybe you've bought a house you know that when you're going to buy a house, there's earnest money you put down, there's a deposit. You throw down a chunk of money and you're saying I'm serious about this now, like I'm not just walking through. I'm telling you here's a whole bunch of cash. I'm really into going to have this house. That's what God has done when he gave you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit to counsel you, to convict you, to help you act more like Jesus, to make you aware of his will and his wisdom. That Holy Spirit of God, that person, that relationship, he's a down payment. He's earnest money. He's like.
Speaker 1:This heaven thing is real, like I'm a taste of it. It's not the fullness, but this man, when you get there, it's like me, all over the place, times, infinity. And then there's that there's heaven. Heaven is the most real, biblically speaking, the most real promised land. It's the day where there are, it's the place. There are no crappy days, there is no sin, there is no fighting. Peter says this and we have a precious in Terence. See, he's talking about inheritance, promised land type ideas, an inheritance that is kept for you in heaven, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of decay.
Speaker 1:Hey, just a little side note. There's a movie called After Death. It came out on Amazon Prime recently. You should probably go watch it because it's only about six bucks. You'll spend more than that probably on Starbucks and you'll remember this movie way longer. It's based on a book called Imagine Heaven by John Burke. I've actually mentioned it here in church before, but it lays scripture alongside some near death experiences. Beautiful movie, it's gorgeously produced, but it will stir you up. It's not saying these people's testimonies, the same thing is scripture, but it will stir you up about the promised land of heaven. We watch that show and I'm like can we just go today? Like what is stopping? That's going to be so doggone dope as a promised land.
Speaker 1:When Bob will talk about remembering this remembering thing that we're doing today. It is not just like recalling the stuff to your frontal lobe or wherever that goes for you to have a memory. It's not just reviewing past stuff, it's not even an alert that remember, you have a class at 2.30 today. It's not that kind of remember. It's the remember where you go into the past and you get something that you need now for the future.
Speaker 1:Many of you, of course everybody, knows about Dr Martin Luther King Jr, national hero Round the world. He's a hero, you'll see it. You'll drive past a street with his name on it. You'll drive past a school with his name on it and you'll be tempted from the statue with his name on it, with his image on it, and you'll be tempted to think, hey, he's a really good guy, like, that's what he was, so good. They give him a statue Like what a guy, that's awesome. Thank God for him. And if you do that, you won't be wrong. But you won't be getting it.
Speaker 1:See, when we see the statue of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, what we're supposed to do is reach into the past and see his character, see his decisions, see his courage, see his willingness, see his goals. We're supposed to see that and be like that's what I need now. I'm going to bring that with me into the future. So God gives us memories and experiences and he says you don't just need those back here, you need them here, but you need to regularly review what I did and how I helped you and who I made you and the lessons I taught you, because you don't just need them in the past, you need them in the now and in the future. Are we hearing this? Okay, this is a silly but real, practical version of how this could work.
Speaker 1:So many of you know, I just recently finished my doctoral studies. It was a two-year process. These are my masters degrees. Before that, these were my two master's degrees. What I did when I started my doctoral studies, I was intimidated. I'm like Coco Dizzle, can you do this Like, are you sure? And so what I did was I took these and I put them right in front of my desk. Okay, so, like my monitor's here and here's these things.
Speaker 1:And this was a reminder. I was reaching into the past. It wasn't because I was impressed with myself, it was to remind me all right, dude, you and God have done hard stuff before you can do it again. So every time I'm typing and I'm getting discouraged, look at that thing that God and you did in the past and pull out of it the mindsets and the discipline and the oomph that you had back then. Now, that's a goofy illustration, but hopefully it illustrates what we're talking about. We've got to go into the past to grab something that we need for the now. Now, the problem is, all of us probably under-consider some of the tests, some of the lessons, some of the amazing things that we've already learned. That would be very profitable. We just need to remember them. Okay, I'm going to make you deal.
Speaker 1:As we go into this message, you're going to be tempted to hear it for someone else. You're going to start thinking about someone else. You're like doggone. They need this message. Maybe they do, but don't miss it for you. If you're thinking about their situations, send this to them later. Go to our YouTube channel and subscribe, and tell them to subscribe and give them all the videos, including this one. You need to think about your stuff and how God wants to challenge you.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to jump to the end we started last week in the series we start. They just get out of the Red Sea. They're ready to go with very beginning first test. Now we're going to jump all the way to the end of the movie, so to speak. Now they're at the promised land. Now Moses is telling them hey, you're about to go in. Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:Let's look back on the purpose of a lot of these tests, because it's way easier if you're watching a movie like Jason Bourne. You don't really know what's going on for the first while, but then you see the end. Let's see Jason Bourne. Come on, give him some cred. There he is. But once you kind of know I'm not going to tell you but once you know what's going on with him, everything in the movie makes more sense. Right, I mean we're not going to use six cents again because we've overused that one. But you know, once you know what's going on, everything is the same but it's different now.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to go into the end of this section of Exodus and we're going to look at what were the lessons they were supposed to be learning. So when we go back, coming next week, and start learning these lessons, we're going to know the larger level meanings that God was trying to get across to His people. Are you ready? Okay, the trial is training to do you good in the end. It's training to do you good in the end, deuteronomy 8.
Speaker 1:There they are, on the edge of the promised land, the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today. You shall be careful to do that. You may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to give your fathers, and you shall remember all the way which Yahweh, your God, has led you in this wilderness, these 40 years, doggone, 40 years that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart. We're gonna visit some tests over the next few weeks. It's gonna involve manna, it's gonna involve running out of food, it's gonna involve all kinds of stuff, and you need to remember, right now God is already telling us ahead of time.
Speaker 1:For us, one of the major purposes was to humble them, testing them to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you, and he let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh. We're not gonna talk too much about manna because there's a whole message on that, but the point is God gave them just enough. He gave them just enough to keep them alive and to keep getting humble and keep learning. You know, there were days when I was sick and I was like, golly, I'm getting just enough, like I have enough energy to make it to the bathroom maybe, and then Jesus maybe, will make it back. I was getting manna, I was getting just enough to live, but it certainly didn't feel like abundance because it wasn't the promised land.
Speaker 1:Your clothing did not wear out, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. Now, normally after 40 years your stuff's gonna wear out, but not here. God supernaturally preserved them. Verse five Thus you shall know in your heart that Yahweh, your God, was disciplining you. Check it out. Just as a man disciplines his son, so you shall keep the commands of Yahweh to walk in his ways and fear him.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about God's discipline for a second, because discipline is very much out of fashion, but in the Bible it's very much a good thing. It means you care about who your kid becomes, or your child or, in God's case, your creation becomes. That means you provide a little bit of discomfort to get them to go in such a way that later on people like them and they do good things and they're not selfish and self-centered. And God says, believe it or not, we all need this and listen to how he describes it in a new testimony. He says endure hardship as discipline. Are you undergoing any hardship recently?
Speaker 1:Well, it's not that God's trying to punish you, but he does want you, from a certain point of view, to look at it as God is disciplining you. God is treating you as his children. For what? Children are not disciplined by the Father? If you're not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you're not legitimate and not true sons and daughters at all. Meaning dude, if God really left you alone. It would mean he doesn't care. So the fact that he caters the tests to you means he cares deeply about you. Moreover, we've all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful Later on. However, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those trained by it.
Speaker 1:Memories I got some memories I remember, pretty positive. I was wearing this fleece it's an old Navy fleece as my family and I. I was very sick at the time. I was used to chronic pain. I was used to I feel pain, but nobody knows it. And I was wearing this and we walked into. I don't even know if it was Macy's yet, maybe it was Carson's period, it's got first or still but we walked into that place and it just dawned on me, like I've been sick for a couple of years now and it dawns on me. Wow, I just never thought about this before. I never thought there's people all over the place, probably just like me, who are in all kinds of pain but they won't tell you, you'd never know. They're like it's killing them on the inside, but you wouldn't know it. And right there, this little crack in my heart began to appear, and it produced compassion for people I don't know. I don't know their stories, but maybe they're experiencing something a little bit like me, and a guy like me needed a lot of dunks in that thing. I needed compassion, and it was the discipline of God that it was that pain that caused me to clue in to other people's pain. I love this. We just gotta complete it.
Speaker 1:Earlier in Deuteronomy, talking about the same idea, verse 31, and in the wilderness, where God saw how the Lord, your God, carried you. Carried you, not discipline, you carried you just as a man carries his son. In all the ways which you've walked until you came to this place. I'll tell you, man, there's awesome rewards about being a dad. One of my favorite moments, though one of my promised land places was when any one of my kids was about just you know, maybe monkey size, so you can hold them like this, and they put their little head on your shoulder and you carry them and, dude, as a father, you're like this is my thing. I will die instantly for this thing, but there's nothing on earth more precious to me than this. That is how God carries you around. Though you don't feel it, that's how he's feeling about you. So, yes, there is discipline. He disciplines you like a child, but nobody values you more. No one feels affection for you more than him.
Speaker 1:Let's get back to the text, for Yahweh, your God, is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and water or fountains and springs flowing forth in valour. And he just starts to. He gives them the brochure. Here's all the awesome things about the promised land. He goes on through verse 10. Or, sorry, verse 11.
Speaker 1:Beware lest you forget Yahweh, your God, by not keeping His commandments and His judgments and His statutes, which I'm commanding you today, lest you eat and are satisfied and build good houses and live in them and your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold multiply and all you have multiplies and your heart becomes lifted up and you forget Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through this great and fearsome wilderness, with his fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there's no water. He brought for you out of the rock rock of flint All tests we're gonna talk about in the series. In this wilderness he fed you with man in which your fathers did not know that he might humble you and that he might test you here. It is to do good for you in the end.
Speaker 1:Man, that's hard to see. It's hard to see when we're in it. Man, if it's painful, now it's hard to imagine. How is this gonna be good? How am I possibly gonna get through this? Lest you say in your heart my power and the might of my hand has made this wealth that he may confirm his covenant covenant, it's an important word for later covenant. What she swore to your fathers. He made a deal with them, abraham Isaac and Jacob, deal based on himself. He would definitely fulfill his word.
Speaker 1:As it is this day, that will be one more warning. If you ever forget Yahweh, your God, and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, and I testify against you today that you will surely perish Like the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you. So you shall perish because you would not listen to the voice of Yahweh, your God. The tragic story of Israel is over the centuries. That's exactly what happens. They at first they go through spurts of revival and then there's even the kingdom of David, which is incredible. But then they do exactly this. They forget the Lord, their God, and they ultimately get disciplined by getting kicked out of the land for a little while to shape and sharpen their heart-trileless training to do you good in the end. So let's talk about this. Recall God's mercy to humble and train. You recall it. Recall it the wilderness.
Speaker 1:Wilderness is hard man. For those of you who've been in the wilderness and we've probably all been in types of wildernesses the wilderness is where you learn you need God. You already maybe know it, but you learn it for real there. This is where you feel desperate. This is where the ground is barren. This is where nothing works. There's no way out. There's not a way for you to fix it. You know that you're in the wilderness when it doesn't matter what you try, even like your successes don't work, because God is keeping you in a place of maybe even intense or even mild pain in order to get you this message. You need God for everything you do. This is where we learn that God is a vast ocean and we are a little itty bitty, bitty, bitty, bitty bitty robot on that ocean. We're just a little thing. This is where we learn that God does things slowly and God, in his mercy, cultivates.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad he cultivates, see, he does discipline, but that's part of his cultivating strategy. We cultivate things. We cultivate like fruit trees. You know this. If you're gonna cultivate it, if you want more fruit from the fruit tree, you're gonna prune it. You're gonna make it go through some hard stuff because you can get more fruit out of it. But even like if you're an athlete, there's a degree to which you're cultivating your own talent. Right, it's when you sure you're born with some talent. But then you go to practice and then you start to mess with the way you eat, and now you're being cultivated. Now the potential that was in you, oh baby, now you're getting down to it. By the way, strong amen is over here. Great job, guys. I might need you to turn it up to 11, because I don't know. So if you can just dial it up, or you guys could just start amen, and that'd be good too.
Speaker 1:And God cultivates us to make us teachable, to come against the pride that is in the sin virus that is within us. When I was in junior high, I had a basketball coach named Coach Mike. I don't even know what his last name was, we just called him Coach Mike. And Coach Mike this is where I got introduced to suicides. Just running the floor back and forth, just back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. He was definitely disciplining us and he was saying hey, the problem is your lungs don't have the capacity to do what I need you to do. Your small capacity lungs are in the way, and when God brings us through the wilderness, it's kind of like he's making us run suicides. And he's saying the problem is your pride is in my way and I've got to like sand it out so that you can be easily led by me. You can love the way I would love You're going to start doing the things that I would do.
Speaker 1:And the way he does it is. He places us in impossible, stressful positions where only way to get through it really to get through it well is to call it to God and learn to hold his hand through the entire thing. Think about it. This is what, if you just pay attention. This is what happened to both Peter and Paul. So Peter, before Jesus' crucifixion, he thought he was all that in a bag of chips. I mean, he's like man, I'm strong, jesus, I'm ready to go, and you just put me in Coach.
Speaker 1:And after he fails, that's when he's, after. He comes against his own self-deception. Somebody say self-deception, that's what the wilderness is a lot about. See, he's not really that strong, he just thought he was. And now Jesus has convinced him. No, peter, you're not all that. Paul is the same way. Paul is convinced I'm the right one. This group of Christians, these guys need to be killed. That's what they need. I know God's will the best. I'm a Pharisee of Pharisees. I've done all the right things. I'm in the right family. I'll do it. He learns, paul, you're entirely exactly wrong. Your Paul knowledge got you physically blind. That's what happened with them. That's what happens with us.
Speaker 1:So you might experience, you might have been in some past relational conflict with somebody, but you went through it and now you've learned understanding. You might be going through a difficult situation right now, but because you trusted God that he would turn your trial into a blessing, now you've got some wisdom. Now you've got some strength. Yeah, you did fail, but then you decided, instead of run away and hide, I'm going to use my failure. And then you became more and more helpful to everybody else. You did have limited resources, but then you decided to press on and those limited resources made you more creative. You were stuck and alone and you said I can't find a way out of this. But because you stayed, a new pathway opened up when you never would have taken. But now you even see it because you were stuck there.
Speaker 1:Are we hearing it today? Here's the thing that I just want to commend to you. This is one of my early journals. Some of you binder people are going to love this. How many Leslie Noobs we got in the house. So I didn't even know what I was doing. Man, I'm 18 years old and it was really my gift mix starting to appear.
Speaker 1:But I would just start categorizing scriptures. I'm just like, well, this goes with this and this goes with this, and I'm just running it down. Now, some of these, you read this and you're like that's cute, but what it really is, it's a chronology, it's a testimony of Jesus and I walked together and figured some stuff out way back then and that means I'll bet you man that's almost 30 years later. I'll bet you he and I are going to keep walking and figuring some stuff out. Can I challenge you? However you do it, you know now I use an electronic version, but maybe you want to put it on your wall. Wherever you put it, make a chronology.
Speaker 1:And, my friend, the plan I want to give you today is you got to go back and look at that stuff, because some of your answers for here were written down here. Like God trusts us with this stuff, we got like sometimes like, oh, that's a cool thought, I'll just store it away. God was like no, I imparted that to you, so you would use that later on in the fight. Are we hearing it Now? Here's where trial is training to do you good. In the end, what we would be really wise to do is now think about now. Okay, here I am now and there's probably some of my pain, some of my hardship, some of the things I'm going through. This is about then. I need to learn the lessons I'm supposed to learn now, because future me needs those lessons to be written down, and what it means really. It means you're cluing into what God is actually doing in your life. Right now You're saying, god, would you teach me? Would you make me teach a bull? Would you open me up? Would you give me a soft heart?
Speaker 1:What the parents of this generation of his rods got wrong, god tells them, is they had a hard heart. God brought them through all this trial and they hardened up and said Forget God, let's try to figure out a way on our own. They leaned away from God. God says no. When you're in that hardship, baby, your best play is to lean in and ask for a soft heart, because what happened to those Israelites can happen to us. What happened to those Israelites was they all died in the wilderness. A different way to say it is not that we're all going to die in the wilderness. It's that God wanted to do stuff in our lives, like he did with that first generation of Israelites. But they kind of disqualified themselves because they hardened their heart and said no. And God says Wow, there's this cool adventure I wanted to take you on. There's cool stuff. There's cool promised lands I wanted to bring you into. And now you don't get to participate because you hardened your heart and leaned away. That means we've got to be corrected. Sometimes. We've got to be open to being corrected. You know mature Christians, dude, they're open to being corrected, and immature ones aren't.
Speaker 1:One of the worst lessons I learned that didn't go the way I wish it would. I was with a mentor and we were talking, and I so looked up to this guy and we were talking we're talking with some theological idea and I just kind of got heated. I was like no, my way is the right way. I'm explaining it correctly, because I was a punk that didn't know what he was doing. The truth is, I didn't deserve to be in the car with this guy. I was a man of God. And here I am going on missing the wisdom of just like. If I could talk to myself now back then I'd be like Moron, be corrected. Idiot, be corrected. This guy's already forgotten more than you'll learn in the next 20 years. Be corrected. Drink anything he will give you, and then we better off.
Speaker 1:Well, I think because of that, we kind of grew apart, like we're still friends. But I think he was just like oh, this kid is just not teachable. I've got about 70 that are. I'm going to go invest in them. That kind of thing is real, man. So I just want to challenge you Like. If you're ready for this, you're ready to take the next step. I'm not saying that people should just be chewing you out Absolutely not. No one should be like hurting you in the way that they're talking to you, but there should be a sense of like. I would love to hear feedback if you think there's some that would help me get this lesson, so that I can move on and be blessed in new promised lands later. Come on, somebody, let's, let's wrap this up. I don't know what you're going through, but, whatever it is, god has a purpose and his purpose is to do you good in the end, even if you dropped the ball, even if you're the one who messed up, even if you're the one who got it wrong, because Jesus is attracted to failures.
Speaker 1:Listen to verse two. We already read it, but listen to it again, testing you to know what was in your heart whether you'd keep his commandments or not. You know, the truth is, god already knew the answer to that question. Would their hearts do his commandments? The answer is no, they wouldn't. That's the story of Israel. They absolutely don't. Their hearts are too sinful to hold on to just exteriorly, if that's a word. Obey the law. But God had a plan. His plan was Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:And so, while these, these folks are in discipline, in exile Ezekiel prophesies this and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. God says the problem is your heart and you can't even fix it. I'll fix it, I'll fix it, and to do that I've got to pay for your sin, die on the cross so I can give you the Holy Spirit. And Jesus talks about this covenant. There was a first covenant with the fathers. Now Jesus makes a second covenant on this night before he dies Matthew 26, 28,. This is my blood of the new covenant. The new covenant, it's a better deal. It's not based on a physical promised land, but it's a better deal and a better promised land. It's a better deal. It's a better covenant.
Speaker 1:All of your sin gets forgiven and you get a new heart that is responsive to intended to and doesn't get everything right by any means, but has a guide through the promised land. And the guide's name is Jesus Christ. He says I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you, and if you get some lessons wrong and if you're kind of oblivious and you don't get them, check it out. I will never leave or forsake you. I'll keep working with you. I'll just keep doing it until you and I get there together.
Speaker 1:Are we hearing it? Here's what he does. He says I took you through a lot of pain and it was to shape you. It was to change you kind of into a different person. I wanted to put my character in you and on you so that you would look a whole lot more like me all the time. Can you believe with me today? Let's open our hearts to the idea. There's things God wants to do in you. There's things he wants to do through you. He loves you so much and he's like I'm so excited. I just want to use them in all these ways, but they've got to be open to the lessons. Let's all be open to the lessons together.
Speaker 1:Let's invite Jesus over this series. Now would you come like? Renovate our hearts, make us people that are super responsive, that are reviewing our old lessons and pressing into amazing promise lines. Because we're getting all these lessons so clearly, should we bow our hands and pray? Yes, lord, I pray for those ones that you remember where we were, jesus. I remember the hopelessness, physical pain, the emotional questioning. I pray for those ones right now. God, deposit faith and hope into their heart, believing God has a purpose to do them good in the end and that it will be good, that it will be awesome, that it will be worth it. God, we all stumble in many ways, so we pray that, whatever the tests are that we're supposed to review and take and understand, we would help us to understand those, to find them and review them for all the ones that we're really just not supposed to get like it's the business of God and we're never going to get it. Help us not get stuck on that and just keep leaning in toward you with a soft heart. Would you come powerfully inhabit this series, jesus, amen? Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out Fierce Church. We'd love for you to join us either digitally or in person. Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit Fierce Church for more information. If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or whatever. You would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person. Thanks again for listening.