Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.
Speaker 1: Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in His presence, growing in His family and living on His mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.
Speaker 1: Visit us online at thelookoutchurch Amen, if you have your Bibles open up to Matthew, chapter 7.
Speaker 1: That's where we're going to start here in just a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a quick recap.
Speaker 1: Last week, as we're starting the first few weeks of the year, we're just kind of slowing down a little bit, giving some space to explore this larger theme called our vision is Jesus.
Speaker 1: You guys, we just read the vision statement together and it's something that we build on.
Speaker 1: This is something that's important to us as a church community.
Speaker 1: Just to remind ourselves, there's a lot of things that we could pursue, but at the end of the day, everything we do, we're arranging our lives, we're arranging our community around one pursuit and that is the face of Jesus and abiding in His presence and His family and, ultimately, living on His mission in the world.
Speaker 1: And so last week we talked a little bit about one of the nuances of abiding in Christ and in the presence of God and in a year like this, I believe one of the things that means is that we have to be prepared and ready to move in the opposite spirit of what is happening in our land and in our day.
Speaker 1: You guys know that living into the kingdom often times involves a discernment and often times it's moving in opposite spirit.
Speaker 1: So in a time right now that is marked by volatility and hostility, but not only that speed and busyness and noise and these types of things it's critical that as a church, we recover the ability to be with Jesus in quiet and solitude and stillness and unrushed pace in the presence of Jesus.
Speaker 1: And so we.
Speaker 1: Last week we talked a little bit about that living in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: You can go and listen to that online.
Speaker 1: But what that means is it doesn't mean that we're just monks sitting on a hill levitating all day with Jesus, alright.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that we're just distant from the world, not a part of the world.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: You know I like to use the word missional monastics, or you could say supernatural contemplatives.
Speaker 1: We're the type of people that learn a way of life, of being able to retreat into the heart of God but then be faithful with the work that he's called us to do.
Speaker 1: He's called you to a good work, by the way, and I hope that you work hard.
Speaker 1: I hope that whatever he's given you to do, that you work with all of your might with the assignment and the call of God on your life.
Speaker 1: I know I do, but it's critical that we also recover moments of silence and solitude, in a way of being with Jesus every day, where you're not even filling the space with words, you're just allowing yourself to be with Jesus, because some of us, when it comes to prayer tell me if this sounds familiar some of us, when it comes to prayer, the only way we know how to be with God is to fill the air with a lot of words.
Speaker 1: Right, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: There's prayers of petition and intercession.
Speaker 1: It's all over the scripture.
Speaker 1: We fill the air with words, but in silence and solitude, God fills our space with His word.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes we only know how to fill the space with our words, but in silence and solitude is where we learn to be filled with God's word.
Speaker 1: We give space for Him to speak.
Speaker 1: Who wants to hear the word of the Lord in their life?
Speaker 1: Who wants 2024 to be marked by the word of the Lord in your life?
Speaker 1: I hope that's all of us, because that's what gives life.
Speaker 1: So again, you can go back and listen to that talk from last week.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into Matthew 7, and I'll give a little context after we read this together.
Speaker 1: So, starting in verse 21,.
Speaker 1: Okay, skipped under verse 21.
Speaker 1: This will be on the screen if you don't have your Bible.
Speaker 1: Jesus is saying this.
Speaker 1: He says On that day, many will say to me Lord, lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?
Speaker 1: And then I will declare to them I never knew you.
Speaker 1: It's a part for me.
Speaker 1: You workers of lawlessness, all right, so that it's the kind of passage that should cause, like, the hair on the back of your neck to bristle up a little bit.
Speaker 1: And it's a reminder again, just piggybacking on what we're just saying, the primary call of a follower of Jesus is to know Him, is to know Him, to know His Word, to know His face.
Speaker 1: And it's possible to do a lot of things for Jesus without knowing Jesus.
Speaker 1: Relationship with God is critical.
Speaker 1: And so do you know the Father?
Speaker 1: Does the Father know you?
Speaker 1: And so Jesus starts here, right, he starts with this call towards intimacy, but he does transition into this last little segment.
Speaker 1: This is key here, verse 24.
Speaker 1: He says this Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.
Speaker 1: And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell.
Speaker 1: Great was the fall of it.
Speaker 1: Again, it's a hard saying of Jesus and in this context, just so you know this, matthew 7, it's coming on the tail end of a long sermon.
Speaker 1: We call it the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1: On a hillside he's addressing crowds of people Matthew 5, 6 and 7.
Speaker 1: And after having spoken everything that he covered a lot of ground, all right in the Sermon on the Mount, but then he ends with this stunning visual picture of everything you know and basically he like it.
Speaker 1: He says listen, everything I just told you.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 1: He said you must be a people that not only hear my words but actually do them, and he likens it to building a house that lasts versus building a house that falls apart.
Speaker 1: He likens it to wisdom is not just listening, but doing what you just heard, and foolishness, according to Jesus, is defined as listening and not doing anything about what you just heard.
Speaker 1: He says it's like a house that at one point another is going to fall apart.
Speaker 1: Okay, now this should hit us in a couple ways, you know.
Speaker 1: First of all, is that convicting?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: According to Jesus, not only were his words meant to be listened to, but not just simply admired.
Speaker 1: Right, his words were meant to be lived into, they were meant to be transformational.
Speaker 1: It brings a little bit of comfort knowing that the first century listeners has the same problem, that we do a tendency to listen and then consider optional whether we'll do anything at all about what we just heard.
Speaker 1: All right, this is not a new problem, this is a very old problem, and parents every parent in this room knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Most of my conversations with my kids are around the general category of did you hear anything that just came out of my mouth?
Speaker 1: Are you here?
Speaker 1: Did you see it?
Speaker 1: There's a head nod.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, my kids seem to know a lot.
Speaker 1: They know a lot, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's great that you know.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like you know enough to do anything about it.
Speaker 1: So help me understand what we're doing here, and I feel like a lot of.
Speaker 1: Can I just raise my hand as that kind of parent that tends to have a tendency to snap at my kids from time to time Because I'm like where is the disconnect here?
Speaker 1: But this is not just a kid thing, this is a human thing.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 1: And so, in fact, in the message paraphrase Eugene Peterson as he translates this passage he uses some stronger language.
Speaker 1: Let's look at this Matthew 7, 24.
Speaker 1: These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner, improvements to your standard of living.
Speaker 1: They are foundational words, words to build a life upon.
Speaker 1: If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock.
Speaker 1: Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit, but nothing moved that house.
Speaker 1: It was fixed to the rock.
Speaker 1: But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter hey, that's his words, not mine.
Speaker 1: Okay, you were like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach.
Speaker 1: When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.
Speaker 1: And so, in other words, what Jesus is getting at in this particular passage is he's telling his followers, he's telling those who had ears to hear Listen, don't just read the scriptures, don't just listen to sermons, don't just go to church for a little inspirational.
Speaker 1: Pick me up to make sure you did something quote spiritual this week.
Speaker 1: Make it a priority to live into what God is saying, and if you do so, you'll actually build the kind of life that can last.
Speaker 1: And this is the core of everything that Jesus came.
Speaker 1: We have to be reminded of this.
Speaker 1: This is the last instruction that Jesus would give his disciples before he, before he sent it to heaven, in Matthew 28, 18 or 19 through 20.
Speaker 1: He says this he's commissioning his disciples.
Speaker 1: We know this is the great commission.
Speaker 1: He says to this Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey, teaching them to what?
Speaker 1: Okay, come on, come on guys, come on, teaching them to everything I have commanded you, everything I have.
Speaker 1: What commanded you?
Speaker 1: Teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.
Speaker 1: Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Speaker 1: Can we just pause here for a moment that when Jesus was instructing his guys on how they were, how they were to go out into the world, how they were to have conversations about him, he didn't said to teach them about him.
Speaker 1: He said teach them to obey.
Speaker 1: Okay, which which, in our culture, I know, listen, if you're here, you know, today you might even have this reaction.
Speaker 1: I know we have a certain allergy to words like obey and commands.
Speaker 1: All right, it's not even.
Speaker 1: It's not even really a great tactic if you're inviting friends to church, hey, hey, listen, you want to come to church with me today?
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about all these things that Jesus commanded us to do and how we're going to be obedient to them, because he's our master and ruler and we've given up our lives and we've surrendered everything.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's so exciting because we're going to go die to ourselves today, because we have a ruler and a king who who we surrendered our entire lives to, and so you want to come obey Jesus with me?
Speaker 1: Right, but this is what Jesus is talking about.
Speaker 1: He doesn't mince words, and that's the thing is.
Speaker 1: Can we just be reminded this morning that coming to Jesus isn't we're not coming to him as just an inspirational teacher.
Speaker 1: We're coming to him as a master and a Lord.
Speaker 1: There is no other Christian life apart from that.
Speaker 1: It's not actually possible.
Speaker 1: We can't use Jesus as an inspirational, motivational speaker.
Speaker 1: He only transforms us as we're willing to live into his words.
Speaker 1: Not to think about them, but to live into.
Speaker 1: This is the core of discipleship people learning to live under the rain and the rule of God.
Speaker 1: It sounds so good when we're singing about it.
Speaker 1: Right, you rain above it all.
Speaker 1: God, our God, reigns.
Speaker 1: But to live under the reign of God means I don't just get to decide what I do with my life.
Speaker 1: I get to hear, I get to put up my attendance, I get to hear the voice of the spirit, which thank God that God speaks to us.
Speaker 1: But part two is it's not actually interesting to only be a hear.
Speaker 1: We must also be doers of the word.
Speaker 1: That's super exciting to all of you.
Speaker 1: I know Heers and doers.
Speaker 1: Don't just be shears, but be shears and doers of the word.
Speaker 1: So let's look at this for a second.
Speaker 1: One of the things that helps me map this out is graphs.
Speaker 1: Let's overlay hearing and doing.
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at this for a second, all right.
Speaker 1: So on the vertical axis we have hearing and doing.
Speaker 1: Just nerd out with me just for a moment.
Speaker 1: All right, can you just humor me?
Speaker 1: All right, Even if this is sucking the life out of you.
Speaker 1: Just humor me for the second.
Speaker 1: Just picture hearing and doing.
Speaker 1: Just imagine the top line is really good at hearing and the right line is really good at doing.
Speaker 1: The left line is terrible at doing.
Speaker 1: The bottom is really bad at hearing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what happens is what happens when we're really good at doing but bad at hearing.
Speaker 1: What happens is our lives become full of activity, doing things for God and for others, but we're not actually driven by His voice.
Speaker 1: It's a body disconnected from the head, which is disastrous, and we could say that that is a detached life.
Speaker 1: We're actually detached from the head, which is Christ, and there's a lot of Christians who actually do this.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who do this.
Speaker 1: We busy ourselves with things without ever taking time to listen to what His Jesus actually said and what His ye commanded me to be, then there's no life in that, there's no life in a detached lifestyle, any more than it's possible to be a body without a head.
Speaker 1: Right, the opposite is also just as bad.
Speaker 1: So what happens if we're really good at hearing but really bad at doing?
Speaker 1: That means our let's see here, hold on a second.
Speaker 1: That means that when we hear God's word but don't have the bias, but don't have the tendency to lean into it, we settle for.
Speaker 1: I'm going to think about it, I'm going to study it, I'm going to memorize the Greek and the Hebrew of this word, right, I'm going to maybe tell it to my friends, but we don't have any plan or any intention to respond to His word.
Speaker 1: What happens is, in our culture, our brains actually think that we've learned something when we fill our brains with knowledge.
Speaker 1: But according to Jesus, we haven't learned something until it becomes embedded into our lifestyle, right?
Speaker 1: And so what happens is we grow in knowledge, but we don't grow in action.
Speaker 1: We're actually growing in disobedience.
Speaker 1: This is a critical.
Speaker 1: This is critical that we get this.
Speaker 1: We have more content in our day than we ever have in human history.
Speaker 1: You can listen to the best preacher.
Speaker 1: You don't even have to listen to the sermon, you just go podcast somebody else, preacher of choice around the world.
Speaker 1: Right, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: The books, the amount of Bible translations and the books about the Bible it's stunning.
Speaker 1: It's actually unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But what happens is, when we become the kind of people who grow in knowledge but aren't growing in action, we're actually growing in disobedience, and so it's a frightening thing to know that every time you hear God or you hear the word of the Lord, but don't put it into action, you're actually living a disobedient life, which, again, that's not a comforting word, but it's true.
Speaker 1: And listen, I'm telling you that because I love you and I care for you, and this is true for me too.
Speaker 1: We're not here to build an audience, we're here to build an army.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's not what we're doing.
Speaker 1: We're not here.
Speaker 1: The last thing I want to do is stand before the Lord and say, god, I pass her to church of super inspired people that thought about the things that you did but didn't really fall in love with doing anything about it.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not saying that's you, I'm not putting that on you.
Speaker 1: I'm saying as a teacher and as a people, we have to hold this before the Lord.
Speaker 1: Are we growing in obedience as much as we're growing in our listening?
Speaker 1: So what happens if we're not doing or not hearing?
Speaker 1: Well, we're just dead.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's what you call dead Christianity.
Speaker 1: You can substitute the word dead with another D word, which would be dumb, all right.
Speaker 1: So you can do that as well.
Speaker 1: And basically, if you sit through church service and your spirit has not yet been quick and born against, you hear the voice of God, and if you have no interest in doing anything about what you hear, it's that only leads to death.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's punchless Christianity.
Speaker 1: Do I do enough today to consider myself a spiritual person?
Speaker 1: But not.
Speaker 1: You're not actually settling into the voice of God.
Speaker 1: That would be dead Christianity.
Speaker 1: But the opposite of all this hearing and doing as you gas like hearing and doing.
Speaker 1: If you're a listening person, if you're organizing your life around the voice of God, and not just the voice of God, but the intention and the action that comes through living into everything he does and he speaks, everything he commands, that's how Jesus would define discipleship.
Speaker 1: Right and listen.
Speaker 1: We don't always know what we're supposed to do when you read the scriptures.
Speaker 1: It's not like every passage.
Speaker 1: You know immediately this is what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 1: That's a work of God, right, the spirit of God has to deliver that to us.
Speaker 1: But here's what I'm saying as a people.
Speaker 1: Listen to me as a people.
Speaker 1: We must have a bias towards movement.
Speaker 1: We must have a posture.
Speaker 1: We must have a posture towards living into something rather than just considering something.
Speaker 1: Now, all of us, when we're reading the Bible, have a bucket called I'm gonna think about that later, all right, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: I have the same bucket.
Speaker 1: So when you're reading the scriptures and you come across a passage like the Nephilim, you don't know what to do about that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put that in the bucket of.
Speaker 1: Let's deal with that later.
Speaker 1: Okay, to even survive, you have to have that bucket of.
Speaker 1: We're gonna deal with that one later, all right.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying you don't have to have questions.
Speaker 1: You have to know exactly what you're reading all the time.
Speaker 1: But in your relationship with Jesus, do you have a predisposition to think God, what are you inviting me into and how do you want me to live into this today?
Speaker 1: Where do you have a predisposition of?
Speaker 1: That's really cool.
Speaker 1: Let's move on right, because, according to Jesus, that's the difference between wisdom and foolishness.
Speaker 1: That's the difference between a house that lasts and a house that falls apart like a house of cards.
Speaker 1: All right, james wasn't easy on this either.
Speaker 1: Disciple James and James, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: He, he's talking to the church too, and again he's pastoring them through a letter that he's writing to you know, believers that are dispersed, and he says this in verse 22.
Speaker 1: He says but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.
Speaker 1: Or if anyone is here of the word and is not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror, for he himself and for he looks at himself and goes away and once again forgets what he was like.
Speaker 1: But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres being no here, who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing Right.
Speaker 1: So, according to James, he uses a different word picture here.
Speaker 1: He says when we hear what happens is we get a quick glimpse of our image?
Speaker 1: Okay, and so you got to appreciate the context here.
Speaker 1: They didn't have mirrors Like you probably have a nice huge mirror in your bathroom, right, full body.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 1: They didn't actually have mirrors.
Speaker 1: It was very rare to get a glimpse or a port Like you don't even know what you looked like, unless it was really high polished brass, okay.
Speaker 1: So it was a really.
Speaker 1: Even the mirrors that they had were just not wasn't like perfect.
Speaker 1: It was probably all warbly and just enough to like, oh, that's how big my nose is, right, interesting, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, that's great, thank you.
Speaker 1: And so you didn't get much.
Speaker 1: But what James is saying is like listen when you hear the word, it's like getting that glimpse.
Speaker 1: But if you want to remember what that glimpse is like, you have to become a doer of the word.
Speaker 1: It's only when you become a doer that you remember the image that you were born with.
Speaker 1: And it's like the image of God.
Speaker 1: And think about it from the New Testament perspective.
Speaker 1: God came to us to restore his image.
Speaker 1: We are not made to forget what we are supposed to look like, but as we do, as we live into every word that God speaks, what happens is we actually that the image becomes embedded inside of us, that we get to remember the image, remember what he's called us to do and as we live it out.
Speaker 1: It's how we not forget the image that he's called us to.
Speaker 1: And it's the difference.
Speaker 1: All of this, listen, guys, it's a difference between information-based discipleship to obedience-based discipleship.
Speaker 1: Much of the church has been defined by information-based discipleship and I believe we're in a season it's not just a sea, this is all of time but it just seems to be heightened, at least right now that God just wants to remind us.
Speaker 1: Listen, I want to reveal more of myself, but I'm gonna reveal more of myself to the degree that you're willing to do something about it.
Speaker 1: Obedience-based discipleship and this is a word for me, listen, I love reading, I love books.
Speaker 1: You guys know that.
Speaker 1: I love online courses, I love podcasts, I love deep conversations.
Speaker 1: But as a culture, we have to acknowledge that we are addicted to inspiration, information and consumption.
Speaker 1: We are addicted to those things, but technically, you're not a learner unless what you learn becomes embedded into your behavior.
Speaker 1: This is what a learner or a disciple means.
Speaker 1: We have a bias towards responsiveness.
Speaker 1: A bias towards responsiveness.
Speaker 1: Okay, now a couple practical things on this and we'll wrap up.
Speaker 1: I know we're going a little bit, we're gonna go a little bit longer today, but here's the deal.
Speaker 1: Responsiveness requires readiness.
Speaker 1: Are you ready to hear the word of the Lord?
Speaker 1: Let's just take Sunday mornings.
Speaker 1: We have to be honest.
Speaker 1: Many of us are not actually prepared, when we come into the house of God, to receive the word or respond to it.
Speaker 1: How might we know that?
Speaker 1: Okay, we could say how many of us have our Bibles.
Speaker 1: Now, listen, there's a pass on that, because we put it on the screen.
Speaker 1: I would encourage everybody to actually have a physical Bible, because I think there's something about having a relationship with something physical, like an actual physical book.
Speaker 1: That's really important.
Speaker 1: But most of us have trained ourselves to listen without even taking notes, which means one of two things.
Speaker 1: Either we come in with a sense of I'm not certain there will be anything worth remembering today, so I'm going to wait to see what happens until I take notes, or I'm confident that my brain is like 100% and I'm going to remember every single thing that they just said.
Speaker 1: Right, I've got a sharp brain and listen, I'm going to leave this place.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to crush it.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to think about it all day.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to chew on what we just talked about.
Speaker 1: I'm going to chew on it all day, but the reality is, when you guys walk out of the room, 5% of you will remember anything that was said today.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just statistically, I'm not trying to heap a thing on all of us.
Speaker 1: 5% of us will remember the sermon three hours from now.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because the Packers are playing the Cowboys this afternoon, because you have those three emails that you have to respond to before Monday, because when you get to Smashburger after church and they have a limited time burger that you have to get, like today and I'm telling you, when you're at Smashburger, you're not thinking about anything else but that Smashburger the amount of things that start to crowd in.
Speaker 1: It's not because there's no malicious thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not keeping this as a judgment.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying, though, is, as a people, if we want to be ready to receive the word of the Lord, we have to be ready to write down every word he speaks, as if he wants us to do something about it.
Speaker 1: If that feels convicting, it's because it is convicting, okay.
Speaker 1: So here's an example.
Speaker 1: During worship, marie brought a beautiful word about grave clothes.
Speaker 1: It was awesome.
Speaker 1: It was a beautiful word about how God wants to take grave clothes in our lives, like maybe a season of death or despair or grief.
Speaker 1: Meet us there, but to also move us from there, right.
Speaker 1: So that word was for some of us in the room.
Speaker 1: Now, maybe during that word, you raise your hand, you say yes, lord, woo, that was a great word.
Speaker 1: Some of you.
Speaker 1: That's not enough.
Speaker 1: You have to write it down.
Speaker 1: You need to go home and you just say, god, reveal to me the places where I'm still wearing grave clothes in my life, refill to me the places of death that I'm holding onto as if they're still true about me, and would you show me, as I write these things down, how to actually no longer live into places of death but live into places of life, because this is your word that you just proclaimed to me.
Speaker 1: Do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: We don't just remember to do those things as an athlete, as an army, as a people that come with intention.
Speaker 1: We have to train ourselves to move it from our heads into our hearts and into our bodies, and we do that by remembering the words of the Lord.
Speaker 1: Listen, when you come to church, do you expect God to speak?
Speaker 1: Do you expect that God will be speaking?
Speaker 1: When was the last time you prayed before you got to church.
Speaker 1: You prayed for the worship team.
Speaker 1: You prayed for the speaker.
Speaker 1: You prayed for the children's ministry team.
Speaker 1: You prayed for the leaders and, like God, let your word come through them.
Speaker 1: When was the last time you prayed before reading your Bible?
Speaker 1: Or you read it until you felt like God was speaking?
Speaker 1: So listen, responsiveness for us also means readiness and preparedness.
Speaker 1: What does a ready people look like?
Speaker 1: I just want to encourage this.
Speaker 1: It means coming with intention in our heart.
Speaker 1: We're not coming up just to see what might happen.
Speaker 1: We're coming up confident that we're meeting with the living God who will speak to our hearts and transform us as we hear His voice.
Speaker 1: We pray before we get here.
Speaker 1: We take notes, we write it down.
Speaker 1: We say God, I'm ready when you speak.
Speaker 1: I'm going to write this down.
Speaker 1: I'm going to revisit this this week.
Speaker 1: I'm going to revisit this later.
Speaker 1: I don't want to miss a word that you speak.
Speaker 1: I want to take it seriously.
Speaker 1: Because, why?
Speaker 1: Because I want to continue to hear your voice in my life.
Speaker 1: And we ask God at the end of every time.
Speaker 1: With Him, jesus, what is it that you're inviting me into today?
Speaker 1: And even if you don't know what that is, to even confess.
Speaker 1: Maybe your response is God, I'm getting confessed, I don't know what to do, but I trust you and I thank you that you're my life and you're my source today.
Speaker 1: Would you lead me from here on?
Speaker 1: Are you guys hearing me today?
Speaker 1: So we come as a people prepared.
Speaker 1: And another thing I want to encourage you.
Speaker 1: Out in the foyer we have kind of our new.
Speaker 1: We call it Bred 2024.
Speaker 1: It's a daily Bible reading plan.
Speaker 1: So if you guys already have your own reading plans, that's great.
Speaker 1: We don't want to take over what you're already doing.
Speaker 1: Some of you are looking for a way to kind of share a journey with this community.
Speaker 1: You can go out to the info hub and get this today.
Speaker 1: And what it is.
Speaker 1: It's just selections of passages every day and this Bred acronym B-R-E-A-D, it's a way of being with Jesus, not just for consumption but for encounter.
Speaker 1: Right, it's not just for consumption but for encounter.
Speaker 1: Bred is to be still.
Speaker 1: R is to read.
Speaker 1: A is to encounter God.
Speaker 1: How are you coming to me through this passage?
Speaker 1: A is to apply, how would you like me to respond and take seriously everything, to obey everything that you're commanding me today.
Speaker 1: And then D is to devote, to end in prayer and say God, take what I have here and let it be for your glory.
Speaker 1: I just want to encourage you all to pick one of these up in the foyer.
Speaker 1: It focuses not just on consumption but encounter and listen.
Speaker 1: This morning, here's what I want us to remember as we head into this year.
Speaker 1: I believe that God wants to speak more clearly, but this came out even when we were praying as a team this morning that any time God speaks clearly, it raises the standard of our need to obey.
Speaker 1: If you are praying for God to speak clearly in your life, that means that when he does speak clearly, it puts a demand on us to be a people who are responsive and to obey, and I believe this is your.
Speaker 1: God wants to unlock our hearing.
Speaker 1: He wants to unlock our seeing, but that's not just on him, that's on us to be responsive people, to be ready to receive, to write it down, to carry it in our hearts and carry it into our lives.
Speaker 1: Are you guys with me here today?
Speaker 1: So let's close our eyes for a moment.
Speaker 1: A couple questions today.
Speaker 1: Let's just take this morning before the Lord and say is there one thing you heard today, maybe during worship, maybe in a conversation, maybe in the sermon, that you sense the voice of Jesus speaking to you?
Speaker 1: And if that's true, what would it look like to respond to it?
Speaker 1: To put it into practice, is there anything that God spoke to you today that deserves a response?
Speaker 1: And whatever that is?
Speaker 1: I would encourage you to take out your phone, get, find a piece of paper, write it down before you leave.
Speaker 1: Write it down, just write it out.
Speaker 1: You could pull out your phone, it's okay, nobody thinks you're texting or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Just write it down.
Speaker 1: Some of you here have been asking to hear God's voice and listen.
Speaker 1: In a few weeks, we're actually going to take several weeks and talk about hearing God's voice, because I know that's difficult sometimes and it's like I don't even know how to know if God's speaking to me.
Speaker 1: There's no shame in that.
Speaker 1: Okay, pressure's off.
Speaker 1: We're going to do some teaching on that.
Speaker 1: But listen, some of you have been asking to hear God's voice and maybe you've heard God's voice before, but you're always looking for the next thing he wants to say, the next prophetic word, the next amazing revelation.
Speaker 1: But here's a question for you today have you done anything with the last thing that he spoke to you.
Speaker 1: Have you done anything with the last thing he spoke to you?
Speaker 1: So maybe you're here today and it's felt dry, like you haven't heard God's voice in a while.
Speaker 1: Just want you to maybe reflect on Jesus.
Speaker 1: What was the last thing that you spoke to me?
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you want me to do to respond to that?
Speaker 1: For some of us, that could be.
Speaker 1: He asked you to forgive your mother-in-law.
Speaker 1: Maybe he asked you a few weeks ago to go apologize to your coworker for snapping at them and being short with them.
Speaker 1: They didn't deserve that.
Speaker 1: You just didn't have your coffee that morning.
Speaker 1: Maybe for some of you it was to actually take time and go bless your neighbor, go make them a meal or go say hi, and you, kind of like, always said I'll wait for the right time, but the right time hasn't come.
Speaker 1: Listen, go back and do the last thing he told you to do, and I bet once you do that, something new will unlock in your heart and your life, because that's what we're made for.
Speaker 1: That's what we're made for A people that hear and respond.
Speaker 1: Eventual response is not obedience.
Speaker 1: Eventual response is still disobedience until it becomes obedience.
Speaker 1: So this morning, lord Jesus, I pray for us as a people as we're heading into this year.
Speaker 1: We just declare again our vision is you, jesus.
Speaker 1: We do want more of you because your word brings life, but I pray for us as a people that we're not just the people who hear, but a people that are positioned and postured to respond and to do.
Speaker 1: I thank you, father, that as we do that, I thank you that it is a year of more clarity.
Speaker 1: As of year, I believe that you're going to continue to bring more visions and dreams and pictures and speak to us in powerful ways.
Speaker 1: That I thank you, lord, god, that we're transformed when we receive your word into the good soil of our hearts and we let it produce a crop of faithfulness, lord.
Speaker 1: So I bless my friends, I bless my brothers and sisters in their hearing and their doing, and we thank you that it's only in the power of your spirit, god, we're not left alone.
Speaker 1: It's through the power of your spirit that you tell us what's important to you.
Speaker 1: So I bless us, lord Jesus, as we leave this place.
Speaker 1: Lord God, let us be found faithful in your eyes, people you know and who know you and are faithful with your word.
Speaker 1: And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Speaker 1: Amen, amen, amen.
Speaker 1: Let's stand up today, guys.
Speaker 1: Let's stand to our feet.
Speaker 1: It's good to be part of the people of God.
Speaker 1: It's good to serve a God, to serve Jesus, who is alive and who's active.
Speaker 1: He's going somewhere and we're following him.
Speaker 1: He's moving and we are following.
Speaker 1: It's the only way to live and listen.
Speaker 1: If you haven't taken that step yet, if you're here and you haven't entrusted your life to Jesus, today is the day, it's the only place of life, and this one encourages you to invite him into your heart.
Speaker 1: You don't need to pray a fancy prayer which is to say Jesus, I want you and I need you, and you can even come up after the service and pray with our ministry team and I'm going to ask our prayer team to come up and listen these people that have purple badges you can come and talk to them, and if you need prayer for anything maybe it's healing in your body, maybe it's praying for forgiveness, or praying for something in your heart or something that we talked about today these are people you can trust to do that, and parents will encourage you guys to go grab your kids and bring them back up to the auditorium as soon as we end, and if you're a guest here, you're going to see a white sign in the back that says connect with us.
Speaker 1: We're going to take you to our secret layer and get all kinds of information from you.
Speaker 1: No, I'm just joking.
Speaker 1: We're going to.
Speaker 1: We just want to meet you.
Speaker 1: We'd love to introduce ourselves and as we go, let me bless, bless us as we go.
Speaker 1: We're going, we're going as full participants in the kingdom.
Speaker 1: So put your hands out.
Speaker 1: Let's just put your hands out like this, as if you're receiving a gift.
Speaker 1: Close your eyes.
Speaker 1: May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Speaker 1: May he make His face to shine upon you.
Speaker 1: May he be gracious to you and give you peace.
Speaker 1: Go in peace, guys.
Speaker 1: Stay warm, stay safe.
Speaker 1: We'll see you guys soon.
Speaker 1: Love you.