ONE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS - S:01 E:21

RECORDED IN THE STRONGHOLD STUDIO IN PALM BAY, FLORIDA

THEME SONG "STAY IN MY LANE" - WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY BURKS

AUDIO EDITED BY U-DIRECT VIDEO WORKS IN AUBREY, TEXAS

PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY JAMES EDWARD BURKS FOR ONE VOICE MINISTRIES

https://www.onevoiceministriesinc.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I want to issue a warning today. Be mindful to not get so caught up in the blessing that you forget the blesser. Let's take a look at that today on One Voice in the Wilderness. Greetings, my friends. This is James Burks. I am the host of One Voice in the Wilderness. It's a podcast of One Voice Ministries. Our desire is to simply reach out with the Word of God and encourage you with the truth that's found in His Word. Encourage you in your journey and your walk with God and point you in the direction of His Son, Jesus Christ. And if you don't know Him, our hope is that the words we share will encourage you to seek Him and answer the call of the Father who is drawing you so that you come into that place of a surrendered life and you've put your faith in your belief in Jesus to be Lord and Savior of your life. Alright? That's our hope. That's the only thing we hope to have be a result of this is that we point you to Him. It's not about me entertaining you, it's not about you in any way praising me. It's all the glory goes to Him. And that's all we want is for Him to receive all the glory and praise. So we're glad you're with us. If we have any new listeners, you got a few episodes to catch up on. We've been doing this for a little while now, and we're so excited. We're having so much fun doing this. I really delight every time I come out to my little makeshift studio out here, I get so excited about what I get an opportunity to do. I feel that the call on my life and part of what God has poured into me is that desire and that want to share the truth about Him, to preach His Word, to talk about His Son. And so any opportunity I get to do that, whether it's a short one-on-one conversation, whether it's preaching from the pulpit, whether it's doing this, is just a joy in my heart. And I get so excited about it. Alright. And so let me just uh uh bring all this before the Lord in prayer, and then let's dive in uh to uh our our thought for today. All right, Father, we thank you for your grace and mercy and your love. We thank you for just another amazing day, a day that you've made, and we're glad and we rejoice in it. And Lord, we thank you for everything. Uh food, shelter, clothing. We don't we don't want to take anything for granted, and we don't want to get fixated on anything you've given us and have it draw us away from you. Have us look away or forget about you, Father. So, Lord, just prick our hearts about that today. Encourage us and draw us and point us to that remembrance of you in all things, in all things, that you would reign supreme, that you would be number one, that you would always be our focus and priority, and that your son is the one that we would lift up, that we would exalt and magnify the name of Jesus Christ above everything. And so just walk with us today, speak to us today, encourage our hearts today, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, folks, we're just again so excited uh to be here for our podcast. Uh as always, we're thankful for uh Udirectworks, U Direct Video Works, uh, for their uh editorial expertise in terms of putting this all together and uh making it available, putting it out there so that you can find it. And my oldest son Jesse uh is the uh architect behind that, and so we're grateful for him. Uh I'm I'm thankful for um and and along with Jesse because uh you know some of these things you you don't do in isolation, you do with support. And so he has an amazing family. Uh his wife, uh Denise, our our daughter-in-love, and he's got three amazing kids, uh Vivian, uh Ezra, and Madeline, and they are just such a delight and such a blessing. And I know they come along and support and encourage uh their dad and all the stuff that he does. And so I'm thankful for them as well. Thankful for all of my family. Uh, our theme song is uh is uh delivered by uh our son Caleb. He goes by the music name Burke, so check out his music, and again, he has an amazing helpmate, our our daughter-in-love Sarah, at his side, and uh again, just such a blessing uh to have her in our life as well. So we're thankful uh for all of them, and um I'm grateful to my daughter Autumn, uh her uh husband, our our son-in-love, Patrick, their amazing daughter, uh Eliana, and uh that that's my my little pumpkin, she's so sweet. And uh again, grateful for my wife, my helpmate uh that pours out grace and walks alongside, encourages me in things like this. All of those things, I mention all those things because all of those things are an amazing blessing that I have received in my life. But what I have to be mindful of, and what I want to encourage you to be mindful of, is never let the blessing distract you from the blesser. Never let yourself get so caught up in the things that you have received from God that you forget who you received them from. Okay? And folks, that's easy to do. It's easy to get caught up in, you know, just being thankful or even worried about your family, your children, that sort of stuff. And it distracts you and it redirects your focus off of God. I'm remembering the story of Peter when he and the disciples were in the boat, and Jesus came to them walking on the water, and uh they were afraid, they thought it was a ghost, and he said uh it was him. And Peter said, Lord, if it's you, then bid me to come. All right, and so uh Jesus said, Come on, come on. So Peter gets out of the boat. It's an amazing, amazing story. Peter gets out of the boat and starts walking on the water to Jesus. Jesus was walking on the water, Peter was walking on the water. Amazing, amazing, amazing. And then it says that Peter saw the wind. I love the way that that's phrased because you can't see the wind. You can see the effect of the wind, but you can't see the wind. Well, to me, I take that to mean what was he starting to imagine? What was he starting to see that wasn't happening? Could he see himself starting to already go down? Could he see himself already drowning? Was he already getting fearful of what the possible outcome could be? Did he suddenly start to doubt, I can't do what I'm actually doing? And I can't do what Jesus has called and drawn me to do. He invited me to do this. I don't know what all was rambling around in his head at that moment, but scripture said he started to sink. And as he started to sink, he cried out, Lord, have mercy on me. And Jesus reached down and picked him up. And miraculously they walked on the water again to the boat. Alright? What happened? Peter took his eyes off Jesus. Folks, it is so easy for us in the distraction of life, even if we're enjoying the blessings of life, to take our eyes off of Jesus in the midst of that. Okay? To get so caught up in the blessing that we forget the blesser, to love the gift so much that we neglect the giver of the gift. To to get so caught up in the creation that we forget the creator. Alright? So so let's let's dive in a little bit further with that and uh talk about that uh uh just a little bit more. Um turn with me to Romans 1.25, because it really says it super clear. Alright. So let's read Romans uh 1.25. I'm in the ESV to start off with here, and listen to what verse 25 of Romans chapter 1 says. It says, Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, watch this, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Why did that happen? Let me back up to verse uh twenty-four. It says, Therefore God gave them up to the lusts of their heart to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Why? Because they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So did you catch what happened there, friends? They started to do things that were uh horrible. They started to um get off track and walk in unrighteousness. And um uh it says that they were claiming to, as they were claiming to be wise, they became fools, verse 22 of that same passage. Um they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Folks, we live in a time now where people put more stock in, more importance in the things that God has created than the one Himself who created those things. Okay? We have elevated things to a place that, truth be told, they just become idols in our lives. We start to worship them and we stop worshiping God. All right. It's easy to do that. It's easy for us in our own mind, thinking we're so wise and wonderful and great, to start to exalt things above God. The the original sin of Satan uh uh in in heaven was to desire pridefully to exalt himself above the throne of God, to exalt his throne above God's throne. Okay? We still do that today, and I want to warn you, I want to caution you. I I just I'm burdened with that in my heart today, that we aren't getting lost in the things of this world and missing out on the one who made those things and made those provisions possible. Okay, there's a wonderful old hymn that says, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And then I love this. As you do that, as you press into him, as you look into God's face, as you seek him, as you desire him above everything else, it says the things of the world will grow strangely dim. I love that. I love that. All of this stuff doesn't matter. All of this stuff has no meaning when God is the priority, okay? And I'm not saying you don't love your family, because I love my family. I love my grandbabies, I love my children, I love my children in love, I love my wife, okay? I love our church family, Body of Christ Fellowship. All of those people are spectacular. I love them so much, all right? But I can't love them more than I love Jesus. I can't lift them up higher than I'm exalting God. Okay? Scripture says that if in comparison to loving God, it should almost seem like I hate mother, father, brother, sister. Not that I'm to hate them, but it's contrast. There should be nothing running close second to Jesus in your life. Okay? Jesus should have his own category, separate from everything else. Okay? Because if things are running close second to Jesus, there is a chance that those things will overtake his importance in your life. And we don't want that. We don't want a heart that is so fickle that we forget the grace, mercy, love, promises, provisions of God, or that we get so caught up in those that we forget him. I guess that's the greater concern. Okay? As we do that, we'll forget those things came from him, was the point I was heading towards. We'll forget those things came from him, and we'll start crediting ourselves. I did this, I accomplished this. When people accumulate wealth, more times than not, it's them celebrating their own ingenuity, their own wisdom. They don't s they don't look to praise the one who made that possible. They start to praise themselves more than they praise God. Okay? Let me give you an amazing example from scripture. Um I was reading recently and uh the Lord led me to this, and uh it was just it it it just spoke to my heart about this very thing. Turn to Numbers chapter 21, and we're gonna look at verses four through nine. Okay. Children of Israel still doing their children of Israel stuff back in the day. All right. Um, Aaron had recently passed away, and so we're in this situation where um verse four of Numbers 21, we're in the ESV, it says, From Mount Hor, they set out by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the people, listen, the people became impatient on the way. Is that not us? Do we not become impatient? Do we not become impatient with the timing of God and the plans of God? And is he going to do it the way we want him to do it when he wants us to do it? And again, our fixation and focus becomes on the stuff and the thing we want, and we're forgetting and neglecting uh him, and we're disregarding and dishonoring him. Watch what happens here, okay? Uh it says, and the people became impatient on the way, and the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? Wow. For there is no food and no water. He gave them food and he gave them water. He gave them manna, he gave them water from the rock, he gave them quail from the ground. But watch what they said about it. And we loathe this worthless food. Wow. They are so wrapped up in themselves and focused on what they desire, they stop praising the one who had delivered them and given them freedom and brought them out of captivity and brought them out of bondage. And they and they start accusing him, Did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Okay? Look at the response here. Okay, I love it. Verse 6. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. Okay. And the people came to Moses, verse 7, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Well, they came to their senses and took a snake bite, but they came to their senses. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. We've sinned against God. We've spoken against God. We've been hostile towards God. We've been unappreciative towards God. Folks, it's so easy for us to get there. It's so easy for us to not think about the basics. You know, I I I pray that I'm remain mindful all the time of the fact that I have a roof over my head and I praise and thank God for that. I don't count it to anything that I've done. I thank him for it. And I'm mindful that there are people that are homeless that don't have that. And so I am grateful to God for what he has given me. Okay? I'm grateful for food, I'm grateful for uh clothing, I'm grateful again for my wife, I'm grateful for having transportation, but I never want to lift or exalt any of those things above him. I have to be most grateful for him. Alright? So watch what happens here. Okay? It says in the verse eight, and the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. Verse 9. So Moses made a bronze bronze serpent and set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. Wow. The Lord provided, even though he was, you know, dealing with the pushback of the children of Israel, he still provided a way for them to recover, to live, to not be ultimately destroyed by their own disobedience and by their own sin. Okay? That became a picture that we find again mentioned in John chapter 3. Okay, so turn there with me, alright? Alright, you there with me? John chapter 3. Let's look at verses 14 and 15. Alright? You just hold that picture of what Moses did building that bronze serpent, hanging it on the pole, anyone that would look on it would live. Watch this. Still in the ESV. John three. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him may have eternal life. Let me go ahead and read John 3.16, because it's amazing. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Okay. In that same picture of Moses making that bronze serpent, putting it on a pole, holding it up, people looking at it and being saved from the death that was going to come, God sent his son. Okay? And he said, If I be lifted up, I would draw all men unto me. Jesus hung on the cross, and those who put their faith and believe and trust in the work that he did on that cross. He was lifted up, and so those who believe in him, okay, according to the verse 15, would have eternal life. In the same way that they looked on that snake on the pole and God delivered them, is the same way that as we look on the cross, as we put our faith, as we repent, as we put our trust in Jesus, then we are saved from death. And we are granted eternal life. Not this temporary life, because we will die, or we will be translated if he comes. Okay? Not that. We're talking about life eternal because there is something after this life. Okay? We are all going to stand in judgment before God. And as he judges us, it's going to be based on this. What did you believe about my son? Did you trust my son Jesus to be Lord and Savior of your life? Did you surrender and give over your life to him? Was he the priority, or did other things start to displace him and become the lords of your life? The things that you worshiped? You put your worth ship in other things other than Jesus. Did you believe? Because if you believed, okay, again, John 3.16, if you believe, you won't perish. Okay, just like those people that were bit by the fiery snakes, if they were bit and looked at this symbol that God had given Moses to create, they would not perish. They would live. Well, if we look to Jesus, that that serpent on the pole was just a foreshadowing and uh uh kind of an image of what was going to come. The greater blessing. The greater blessing is God's Son being put up on the cross. And if we believe on him, we will not perish. We'll have everlasting life. Okay? Now, here's the interesting connection that I want to share with you about those two things. Moses did this, God told him to make this image. This image became, and Jesus even mentioned it as a representative, uh, a representation of him and what would happen as he was on the cross. But what happened to the children of Israel, and what happened to this bronze serpent, and what look let's take a look at that. Turn to 2 Kings chapter 18, verses 1 through 4. In the third year of Hosea, the son of Elah, king of Israel. Please forgive me if I butchered those names. Um Hezekiah, the son of Az, King of Judah, began to reign. Okay, we're still in our ESV. 2 Kings 18, verse 2. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abai, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did, talking about the king here, okay, Hezekiah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that David, his father, had done. I need to pause right there for just a second because the phenomenon that we had going on with Israel, first of all, they wanted a king. That wasn't what God had for them, but he went ahead and allowed them to have a king. So then they got this series of they'd have a good king and then they'd have a bad king, and then they'd have a bad king, and then they'd have a good king. They'd have a good king as a father, and then a horrible king as a son, and then they'd have a horrible king as a father, and then they'd have a good king as the son. And so they just kept bouncing around. So it was important to note here that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He was one of those kings that honored the Lord. Now watch what he did. He removed the high places. These are these places where they worship idols and altars and things like that. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the asherah. And watch this. And he broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it, it was called Nehucht. Here's what happened. Okay? If you look at the same passage, and I'm going to flip there while I'm talking to you, if you look at the same passage in the King James, it adds just another slight detail to it that I want you to catch here. Okay? So basically what happened was the children of Israel delivered from the fiery serpents back when Moses was here, for whatever reason hung on to this snake on the pole. They kept it with them, and they then turned to idolatry. Wow. It says that they were making offerings to this thing. If you look at verse 4, he removed the high places and broke the images and cut down the groves and break in pieces the brazen or the bronze snake that Moses had made. For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and he caused it Nehushton. Wow. They were burning incense to this snake, and they turned something that God had given them to deliver them into an idol. How do we know it's an idol? Because it's one of the things that Hezekiah the king destroyed in his obedience to God. He broke it into pieces because it had become an idol. It had become something that the people were worshiping. Okay? Instead of them trusting in God, they took this object of God and they made it something that they would worship. Folks, we've got to be really careful about that. We can't get into looking for and seeking after relics to worship God. We can't look for archaeological finds in order to believe God. We need to have faith in the Word of God. We need to trust what the Word tells us. Okay? Here's the thing: whether they have found it or not, I don't know, you hear so many reports. If they never find the ark that Noah was in, that landed on Mount Ararat, okay, if they never find it or a piece or a nail, if they never find any of it, I believe God's word that he flooded the earth and that Noah and his family, eight people, survived the flood. Okay? I don't need to see the ark to believe that. I trust what he says in his word. Okay? And in the same way, I don't need to see a shroud. I don't need to see, you know, I don't need to see any of that stuff to believe what the word of God says. Okay? Because my faith is in him and not the objects and the things. Okay. Early churches were collecting relics of things from biblical times and bringing them into the churches and the sanctuaries and the temples and the cathedrals. And it was an object that people were coming and worshiping. Okay? That's not what God wants. What he wants is for you to worship his son. He is looking for true worshipers that will worship in spirit and in truth. Those who will believe and trust and walk by faith, not by sight, believe what the word of God says. Folks, again, I just wanted to just encourage you and caution you. Don't let any blessing that you've received of God supersede God. Don't get so caught up in health, possessions, success. Don't even get caught up in the blessings that God gives in terms of His grace, mercy, love, spirit. Don't let any of those things dominate your heart to the point where you neglect and push God to the side, and you're no longer serving Him, you're no longer seeking Him, you're no longer worshiping Him, but it's more about the stuff and the things, okay? Where you're delighting in what you have and you stop delighting in the provider of those things. Okay? We can never allow our hearts to turn away from the amazing presence of God. That should be our focus. Okay. I'm glad he gave them the serpent to deliver them in that moment of distress from the fiery serpents brought on by their sin. But his intention for that was not to make that an idol, not to start burning incense to that, not to make that a priority over him. And so the king was like, no, we got to get back on the right track here. Our worship and our devotion goes to the Lord alone. Okay, folks, if this rattles and shakes you a little bit, it stirs something in you, it's making you really do a self-examination of your heart and your life, and you're going, whoa, yeah, I see some things that I'm more focused on than I am God. And how will you know you've made it into an idol? I did a lesson on uh on idols on an earlier podcast, if you want to go back and look at it. But how will I know it's an idol? Because if it becomes something I can't live without. For me, Jesus is the only thing I can't live without. I need Jesus. I desire, I want, I'm clinging to that old rugged cross. I cling to Jesus. Okay. Anything else that I decide, nope, I can't live without that. I've turned that into an idol. And I've taken what was maybe intended as a blessing, and I've lifted it above the blesser. I I've taken something that was meant to be a gift, and I've been a giver of the gift. Okay? Be encouraged that it's gotta be Christ alone. It can't ever be Christ plus, it can't ever be Christ and it can't even be, it can't be Jesus in addition to. It's gotta be Jesus Christ alone. It's gotta be Christ alone. It's gotta be him above everything, and set aside all by himself. In those original commandments that the children of Israel were given, it started off by saying, I'm the Lord thy God, and thou shalt have no other God before me. Okay? And you can take that word before me to mean preferred before me, or even brought into my presence in front of or before me. Either way you take it, it's God alone that we should serve. It's God alone that we should trust. Okay? That's the only way. That is the only way. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Jesus Christ. No one gets saved, no one gets redeemed, no one gets forgiven without them putting their faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone. If they don't confess their sins and repent and trust in Jesus, they can't be saved. It's as simple as that. It's as simple as that. Romans said, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, if you understand the work that he did, that he came purpose to take the weight and the burden of your sin, all of your sin was heaped on him. If you get that and understand that, wow, and you put your trust in that, you put your faith in that, you put every ounce of your belief in that. If you surrender to that, if you set aside your agenda, your life, if you are willing to die to self and deny yourself and take up the cross of suffering and follow after him, then you're saved. That is the path to salvation. There is no other way. That is the path. Okay? And as we find that narrow path, as we find that way to Jesus, and Jesus responds and just integrates and indwells our life by his spirit and does all these amazing things. He loves you and he cares for you and he does things to bless you and provide for you. Don't ever let those provisions supersede him. Don't ever let those blessings become more important than his grace. Don't ever let those things take priority over him. Alright? Let's have a quick Malawi moment. Thanks, friends, for joining us. Uh, and we're just grateful for you and your heart. Um, we appreciate your prayers and support of uh the ministry work that One Voice Ministries is doing, uh, prayer for this podcast, um, and prayer for the work that we're doing in Malawi Africa. And I was thinking, what can I encourage you to be praying for along with us when it comes to Malawi? And um the provisions are good. We appreciate the prayers for that. We are in the process of rebuilding a house that was destroyed. Um, we are uh doing some other things and ministering, reaching out in other ways. But most importantly, praying for the salvation of the people of Malawi. We we really encourage you to lift them up. That if there are any that are in Malawi, and I'm sure there are that don't know Christ, that you would pray that they would come to knew that. And if God uses One Voice Ministries to be a part of that, wonderful, amazing. He doesn't need to use us because he's God all by himself. If he does, we praise him and give him the blessing for that. We don't lift up our ministry, we lift up him, okay? But however he chooses to do it, our prayer is for salvation for the people of Malawi. We pray for transformation, we pray for surrender, okay? We're praying for the youth of Malawi. So join us in that as well. A lot of the young people struggling, uh poverty, um, low employment, okay. Um so things are difficult. And when people are caught up in those situations, scenarios, and they're not following after Christ, it's easy for them to turn to you know things of self, okay, and that leads to criminal behavior, it leads to drug use, it loves, it leads to uh sexual immorality, it leads to all the things that if your mind and your heart are just idle, that the enemy will try to draw you to. So pray for those children in Malawi, for those young people, so that they will find the path to Christ, and then they will allow the Lord to order and guide their steps. Okay? Pray for the widows, pray for the orphans, pray for the fathers to be the heads of families. Listen, here's a simple way of saying it all. Everything you pray for in this country and all the needs you see in this country for families, for the government, for everything, pray for that for Malawi as well, because they're going through a lot of the same struggles that we go through, some of them to a greater degree, especially when it comes to the poverty and things like that. But pray most of all that Christ would be revealed to them, to every heart. Pray that they will hear the words of grace, hear the words, the hope of glory of Jesus Christ, and that hearts would turn to him. And once they've turned to him and they come to know him as the giver of life, the sustainer of life, as the blesser, that as the blesser, he will always remain more important to them and to us than the blessing itself. All right? Folks, thank you for joining us and spending some time with us today. Again, this is our assignment, this is the work God's given us to do. We're walking in it. We pray that you find your assignment, that you walk in it, and as you're walking in it, don't even put your assignment above the one who gave you the assignment. Okay? Always keep Christ as the number one thing in your life and in your existence, okay? Because even ministry can become an idol. I can get so caught up in ministry, I can get so caught up in the church, I can get so caught up in building a church, another structure, a bigger sanctuary, that I lose sight of the one who it's all for. All right? So let that be where your heart remains and where your heart rests. We love you. We'll see you next time.