Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 9:30.
[00:00:07] Good morning. If I have not had the chance to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. I have the joy to teach from God's word this morning.
[00:00:18] Maybe you've had a similar situation in your home.
[00:00:21] Maybe if you're a little bit older, think back to when your kids were younger. Maybe think back to when you were a kid.
[00:00:26] I'll go up to my children and I will instruct them very clearly, do the dishes.
[00:00:33] Simple.
[00:00:34] I didn't say do some of the dishes. I said do the dishes. Implied all of them. And then time will go by and I'll come back and I will inspect the dishes.
[00:00:43] Invariably, 90%, 98%, one thing left undone, something on the counter. And I'm like, why didn't you finish the dishes? And here's what I get. And I don't think this is just my home or I think this is from a lot of people.
[00:00:59] I get excuses or my favorite is self victimization.
[00:01:05] Why am I the only one ever in all of human history who does the dishes? I do the dishes in everyone's home that has ever existed. And now you're telling me that I have to do the dishes here.
[00:01:18] Okay, let's change scenes.
[00:01:22] Your boss tells you to do something. It is reasonable. It's within the boundaries of your job description. You have more than enough time to do it and you don't do it.
[00:01:32] Whose fault is it?
[00:01:36] You might be tangent. Well, I could come up with an excuse or three, but it's reasonable. It's within the boundaries of your job description.
[00:01:44] You just don't do it. Whose fault is it?
[00:01:47] It's my fault. If I'm the employee, it's my fault. But what do most employees come up with?
[00:01:53] Excuses. Interesting. Okay, you're stopped at a red light and then a car hits you from behind.
[00:02:02] Whose fault is it?
[00:02:06] The car that hit you from behind. Right, guys? Right. And then this is a little bit of pastor math again, but I think it works.
[00:02:14] 7 out of 10 times, do you know what? The person who actually hit the person in front of them while they're stopped at a light, they will come up with excuses. Now, I want to put this on the screen because I want you to see this. And I do think that there's something about this that will resonate with the majority of you. It is truly rare to find someone committed to taking extreme ownership from for their faults and for their failures.
[00:02:39] Now, when I put this on the screen at the 8am I did not get a single amen. And I thought for sure that this would resonate with some of you. Do you see this? Now? I wanna be clear about all the examples that I gave. All of the examples that I gave are things that I did.
[00:02:54] Yes, I hit somebody in the. Literally parked at a light, came right behind them. I was like 20 years old. And do you know what I had?
[00:03:03] I had so many excuses. It was a truck and its trailer bed was down and I ran my friend's Mitsubishi Eclipse into the end of the trail and I'm like. But I had every excuse of why it wasn't my fault. I've had a bunch of bosses and they would give me reasonable things to do and I wouldn't do them. My mom would ask me to do the dishes and I would conveniently forget all of the time to do the dishes. And if I did them, I did them half heartedly again. Might be the only one. I am really good at making excuses. And over the years I've had to learn as other people make excuses, to me that's actually not becoming inspiring or motivating. I actually don't want to be that to anyone else. And so there's this value in my heart is I wanna be somebody who takes extreme responsibility for my faults and my failures. Now with this context in mind of excuses, I want you to open your bibles. Deuteronomy, chapter 30. And so let me set this context. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is giving the nation of Israel the law again.
[00:04:05] The law had already been given to their parents and their grandparents and a covenant was made with them. But now we have a brand new generation. And so God is giving the law to them again, reminding the sons and the daughters and the grandchildren of the now deceased wilderness generation. Here's the covenant your parents and grandparents made with me. You're in the covenant. And let's just remind you of this. So Deuteronomy actually means second law. Deutero means second, namas means law. So what's happening in the book of Deuteronomy is Moses is giving the law again so that now this new generation can know it. And what I appreciate is the extreme clarity with which Moses gives the law. So Deuteronomy, the entire book is like one big final sermon of Moses to the nation of Israel before he dies and they go into the wilderness. And as Moses looks at this generation, there's hope because they are not like their parents. Their parents were insufferable, unpleasable, rebellious, disobedient and for their heart, rebellion. They all died in the wilderness. But Moses looks at this next generation and he's like, there is a difference in your heart from their heart. Now, I want you to consider this question.
[00:05:22] What stood between their parents generation?
[00:05:27] Here's a question.
[00:05:28] Was it too difficult to obey God's word? I'm going to give you the answer. The answer is no. Okay?
[00:05:38] Don't kill your kids.
[00:05:41] Is that too difficult?
[00:05:43] I think we were going to be okay. Don't sleep with people you're not married to.
[00:05:49] Is that too hard?
[00:05:50] Okay, you can hear their response. Well, what about animals? No, you can't do that, right? Hence why this keeps coming up.
[00:05:58] Don't kill people in general or steal their stuff.
[00:06:05] Here's one. Don't go to false temples and worship demon gods, because if you do, you're gonna die. Okay? Are any of these commands too challenging to obey? And everybody. The answer is, of course not. And you can hear their excuses.
[00:06:17] God, this is too much for you to ask of me. Like, what am I supposed to do when I want to go get drunk and worship demon gods?
[00:06:26] Don't do it.
[00:06:28] Okay?
[00:06:29] What am I supposed to do when my neighbor has something I want? I mean, like, I should probably get up in the middle of the night and take it so that nobody sees me, right? And God's like, no, don't do it. Like, you don't have to do that.
[00:06:41] And you can almost hear this like. Like throughout the millennium excuse, but what if I want to?
[00:06:49] What if it's my most authentic self?
[00:06:52] Your most authentic self is broken and sinful. And we don't give ourselves over to our most authentic selves. And by the way, every mom and dad and grandparent in the room said amen. Because our most authentic selves are filled with sin and sinful impulses and sinful desires and sinful. It's like, no, like, part of parenting is to say, your most authentic self. We gotta rein this in and point it in the direction of Jesus.
[00:07:14] I want to just, like, summarize very simply this very important point here, okay?
[00:07:22] It does not matter what the ask of God is.
[00:07:27] You. And they had everything they needed to do whatever it is God was asking them to do. Now, I want to share with you the answer to this question. What stood between the parents, generation and obedience? It's not that the law was too hard. It's not that God was evil and bad. The issue was in their heart. And I'm gonna throw you all a bone here for just a moment. I'm gonna save you a whole bunch of energy.
[00:07:52] You cannot make someone passionate about something they have not, nor do not love.
[00:08:00] You can try. You can spin your wheels, dishes, try as you might, you are never gonna make your children passionate about dishes.
[00:08:10] For most kids, cleaning their room.
[00:08:13] For most people, their job, sexual purity, worshiping God, it did not matter the sticks or the carrot that God put before the first wilderness generation. It did not matter what miracles God did. It did not matter how generous God was. It did not matter that he saved them from slavery.
[00:08:33] That first generation of parents and grandparents would never be passionate about God or obeying his word because they didn't love Him. And but this new generation, there's a chance they have a different heart. Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verse 11. Moses says with hope to this next generation for this commandment. And this commandment is the law. It's the whole book of Deuteronomy. It's all the laws that God is giving them. For this commandment that I command you today, and here it is, is not too hard for you.
[00:09:12] This commandment is not too hard for you. God knows their ability to make excuses is strong. And so one of the things that God is going to do is he's going to take away all of their excuses by making every single law and command doable, manageable, obeyable, and crystal clear. And so Moses can look and all of these Jews going into the promised land, he can say this. You have everything you need to do, everything that God has asked you to do. Period.
[00:09:43] You lack nothing. You have everything you need to do, every single thing that God has asked you to do. Not a single law is too hard for you.
[00:09:54] So if we go back in time to the Old Testament people of God, God gave the Old Testament Israelites four really unique gifts so that they would have everything they needed to do, everything God would ask them to do. And I want to walk through these with you. The first gift that he gave them was the clear word of God. In the Old Testament law, God did not mince words. He was not vague. God gave them step by step instructions for ceremonial laws. He answers their questions that they're going to have in advance. And for the unexpected and the inevitable situation. He put together sort of this legal system with judges and elders so they would solve disputes so that nobody would be left with an excuse anytime, ever. Number two, the second gift that God gave Old Testament Israel was a conscience. And it's a conscience that's bent in God's direction. And we have to be clear when we say this, your conscience is not the Holy Spirit, your conscience. Every single person born is given a conscience as a gift by God that is inside of us, that bends us in the direction of truth, reality, morality and, and God. But here's what we know, Church. Can you corrupt your conscience? And the answer is absolutely. When you go against your conscience, what you know in your soul, in your bones to be true and right, this is the process of searing your conscience. And a seared conscience is a dangerous thing. In fact, centuries ago, Martin Luther, here's what he said, he said to act against conscience is to act against God.
[00:11:24] In fact, one of the things that is most important for your spiritual growth and flourishing is to protect your conscience. The third gift God gave Old Testament Israel was what we call a will.
[00:11:37] A will that enables free decisions.
[00:11:40] Let me define the will and I think this is really important.
[00:11:44] Your will is your God given ability to do the opposite.
[00:11:53] The opposite of what you feel and the opposite of what you desire.
[00:11:58] So just because you. This is gonna blow some of your minds. Ready?
[00:12:03] If I want something, does that mean I have to have that something?
[00:12:08] No. And if I feel something, do I always have to follow my feelings? No, you do not. Because you have what's called a will. It is this God given ability to do the opposite. And in any circumstance of what you want or what you feel or what you desire. And here's what this does. The will gives us extreme responsibility. So that when we do the dumb thing, who is responsible? We are. I am. I am responsible for my stupid decisions because I have the gift of the will. And I wanna illustrate the power of the will. I want you to imagine somebody says to you, you know that secret sin that you have?
[00:12:44] I don't want you to do it for six whole months, whatever it is.
[00:12:49] And if you do, I'll kill your entire family.
[00:12:51] And you know what's gonna happen?
[00:12:53] Their will is gonna be activated and they are gonna have the ability to stop that thing or pick on the secret sin. I don't want you to do this secret sin for six months. And if you don't do it for six months, I will give you a billion dollars. And I will have negotiated with the IRS so they can't touch it and tax you in any way, shape or form. It's like a real billion dollars. And you know what you're gonna find?
[00:13:16] Magically, people have a very strong will.
[00:13:19] Because the issue with us is not our will. It is a matter of we don't really see the consequences as bad enough or the motivation as good enough. And so I use this to say we have a remarkably powerful will. And the will is something also that needs to be exercised. And here's how we exercise our will. We regularly and consistently do the things that we don't want to do because they are the things that are best for us.
[00:13:46] And so let me tell you, I never wanna get out of bed, ever. Some of you are like 3am, right? I don't ever wanna work out. I don't wanna eat well, there's a lot of things I don't wanna do. But every day there's a lot of things I wanna say, but I don't say every day I have to exercise and build the strength of my will so that I can be ready for the big moments where I don't feel like doing the right thing or want to do the right thing. And so the will is a muscle. Every Old Testament saint had a will, fourth gift God gave Old Testament Israel was the people of God to help.
[00:14:21] And let's make this really tactile here. So most of us in our life have one or both encouragers and truth tellers.
[00:14:30] And let me tell you, it's not easy to be a truth teller or an encourager at this time in history. It's not easy to go up to somebody and say that thing. I don't know that that was consistent with God's word. But if you have a truth teller, an encourager in your life who still feels free to say those things, that is a gift. Now here's what we can also do. We can also push away the encouragers and the truth tellers by being defensive.
[00:14:58] Because if you are consistently defensive, guess what those truth tellers are gonna stop doing in your life? They're gonna stop telling you the truth, and you're not gonna hear the things that you need to hear from the people that God has put in your life. And this is why, even if somebod terribly wrong about something that they're confronting you with, watch your defensive spirit, because the next time they might be right.
[00:15:20] Let me summarize. You have everything you need to do, everything God has asked you to do. Okay? So you might be new to the Bible, and I want to share with you something that I think would be really helpful for you understanding what it's like to be a follower of God before Jesus and what it's like to be a follower of God after Jesus.
[00:15:38] So before Jesus, After Jesus, everybody is saved in the exact same way.
[00:15:43] By grace, through faith, not by works Amen. Old Testament saints, they weren't saved by being good enough. They were saved by faith.
[00:15:53] New Testament saints, are we saved by being good enough? The answer is no. We're saved by faith. Salvation is always the same.
[00:16:00] But before Jesus, when they believed God's people did not receive the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit, and after Jesus, when we believed all God's people would receive the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit.
[00:16:13] So the Old Testament pre Jesus Israelites, when you catch this, they didn't need the Holy Spirit to obey.
[00:16:22] They had everything they needed without the permanent indwelling Holy Spirit to do everything that God was calling them to do.
[00:16:31] But let's be honest, if the Old Testament saints had everything they needed, how much more do we have with the resident Holy Spirit?
[00:16:42] I wanna read to you from Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28. And Jesus is actually talking about this thing called a yoke. Not from an egg, a yoke was a Jewish rabbi's teaching and the commandments. And so each rabbi had their own yoke, they had their own teaching and commandments. And a yoke is literally, it's a metaphor for the things that would go to help them carry a lot of weight and et cetera. So the yoke, some of them were heavy and burdensome, some of them were light. Jesus is making a point. Here's what he says. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden. In other words, those of you who follow other rabbis who are putting law after law after law after law, so many laws, nobody could ever follow them. And the weight and the burden of their laws is too heavy.
[00:17:30] All of you who are following heavy laws that are impossible, here's what he says. Come to me and I will give you rest.
[00:17:39] Take my yoke, my teaching, my commandments upon you. Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. And I love. Verse 30, he says, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:17:56] There will never be a commandment that Jesus gives to you that you do not have the ability to obey. Now I wanna bring all this together. God has given New Testament Christians five gifts. The first four are identical to the Old Testament saints. Number one, the clear word of God. Number two, a conscience bent in God's direction. Number three, a will that enables free decisions. Number four, the people of God to help. And number five, the permanent Holy Spirit to help. Jesus has a whole bunch to say on the Holy Spirit. So I'm gonna kinda aggregate in about 15 seconds what Jesus says about how the Holy Spirit helps us in our everyday life.
[00:18:34] The Holy Spirit helps us remember God's word. The Holy Spirit comforts us. The Holy Spirit teaches and illuminates God's word for us. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit keeps pointing us to Jesus and helping us to glorify Jesus.
[00:18:52] The Holy Spirit empowers us to tell non Christians about Jesus.
[00:18:56] The Holy Spirit convicts those people of sin when we share the gospel with them. And the Holy Spirit helps us to obey Jesus commands. The Holy Spirit is unlike any other gift because the Holy Spirit is what we call a multiplier. A multiplier is something that multiplies results unnaturally. So you think about like fertilizer or steroids or levers or some of you like gambling, you think about the multiplier. My favorite multiplier is Sonic the Hedgehog. And so you're like going at a really fast speed because you're sonic and then you hit the arrow and boom. It's like a 10x. And so the Holy Spirit is like your 10x multiplier.
[00:19:35] Listen, if the Old Testament saints had everything they needed without the power of the Holy Spirit to do everything that God was asking them to do, how much more do we, having the permanent indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit, the moment we trust in Christ, have everything we need, hard as some of them might be to do whatever God has asked us to do. So you do. You have everything you need to do, everything God has asked you to do. And I love this and then some. Let's come back to Deuteronomy 30 verse 11.
[00:20:09] For this commandment that I command you today is not to hard for you.
[00:20:16] Neither is it far off.
[00:20:19] It's not in heaven that you should say who will ascend to heaven for us and to bring it to us that we may hear it and do it.
[00:20:28] God's word, God's will, God's ways are not reserved for those who have these supernatural near death experiences and saw the other world and then came back. And you can only know the truth of the if you have these crazy experiences or if you take Ayahuasca or DMT and go off into the netherworld and fly onto outer space and meet all these beings of light and come back. Like that's not how the truth and reality of this world works. In fact God's like, it's not out there. I have put it right in front of you. I have made it so easy, it is so accessible and it's right in front of Your face. And not only is it right in front of your face, I've made it doable.
[00:21:10] This is not a yoke. This is not a series of commands that the human soul can't carry. In fact, what you find as you start to obey God's word, it is life and it is flourishing for the human soul. Verse 13. Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it.
[00:21:30] You don't need to go on a heroic expedition across the sea to a magical island where there's some, I don't know, priests and guru who has the magical words and you bring them back like this is not how it is. God's words are accessible and they are in front of us and they are doable. And God has made it present and clear so that we have everything that we need to do, everything that God has asked us to do.
[00:21:55] Now with that, I'm gonna share with you two. So what's, here's the first.
[00:21:59] Get God's word from your mouth.
[00:22:05] Verse 14 brings this whole passage home.
[00:22:08] He says, but the word is very near you.
[00:22:13] It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it. And I want you to notice something in this verse.
[00:22:24] The word can be in your mouth, but not in your heart. This was the first generation, first wilderness generation of Israelites. They had the word in their mouth, but they did not have it in their heart.
[00:22:39] You cannot make them passionate about something they are not passionate about.
[00:22:45] So what I want to do is I want to take a little bit of time of reflection. And so some people are scared of looking inwards. And I think this is an opportunity where you could bring this message. Actually I want to ask you to not look at Facebook or Instagram or your email or your text messages, or plan your lunch or your meal for the week or where are you going to go to lunch afterwards.
[00:23:07] All the things that could plausibly brought into your brain to distract you. I want to encourage you to use your will, this awesome God given ability, okay? To choose what you're going to think about. And I want to ask you to look inside of your heart for just a few moments. There's a couple questions I want, I want to ask you and then we're going to do some evaluation.
[00:23:26] How do I know if God's word is in my mouth, but probably not in my heart?
[00:23:31] God's word is likely not in my heart if I have no want to or even Some of my favorite phrases want to want to engage it.
[00:23:43] So you're not always going to want all the right things, right? But there is this principle of the, you know, at least I want to want it.
[00:23:51] When the want to want goes away, it's a really sad place to be in. I think the want to want. I spend most of my life in not wanting all the right things, but I want to want it. I think that's actually a really sacred and beautiful place to be. But even when the want to want goes away, the word of God might be in your mouth, but not in your heart. Number two, I willfully disregard God's word when I don't want to obey it. This isn't like this moment where your brain kind of shuts down for a little while and you have a moment. But this is like, no, I am choosing to willfully go against God's word because I don't want to obey it. Number three, I get put off when people talk about the Bible around me too much.
[00:24:31] Number four, I require entertainment from my teachers and my preachers.
[00:24:36] Number five, I avoid going into the service.
[00:24:41] Number six, I don't actually have any regular time in God's Word.
[00:24:49] One of the kind of like, one liners that really helps me take extreme ownership over my life. It's very simple. I just say, I do the things I want to do.
[00:24:59] If I want to do it, I'll do it. And so when you look at this and you're like, I don't want to do it. And honestly, I don't even want to want to do it. At least with the want to want, there's like some opportunity. There's like, action we can take.
[00:25:11] But, like, when we take an honest look at our heart, we just look at our lives and we say, I do the things I want to do. I spend the time where I want to spend my time.
[00:25:18] It helps me take responsibility for this. Number seven, I honestly just don't think about God's word a whole lot.
[00:25:25] I want to share with you something that a pastor shared. Gosh, it was like 25 years ago. My wife and I put on an event when we were at Moody Bible Institute, and we invited, at the time, Pastor Mark Job. So now he's the pastor of New Life Church and he's the president of Moody. But back then he was just the pastor of New Life Church. And he came and he shared something that has stuck with me to this day. I don't have direct quotes, but I have my notes and I want to Just read to you a little bit from my notes from that message.
[00:25:53] He said, one of the most dangerous seasons for a Christian is when we live off the knowledge, experience, and passion of a past season of growth and are not pursuing new knowledge, experience, or passion.
[00:26:14] As if I get married to my wife and we have a great first year, and then I never spend any time creating new experiences, new dialogues, and 25 years down the road, I step back and say, but we had an incredible first year. In fact, let me tell you about how to be a good husband, because what I did in my first year.
[00:26:33] No, in fact, in my marriage, what I wanna do is I wanna create fresh experiences and I wanna keep getting to know her, and I wanna keep having deeper levels of experiences and intimacy. Like, that's what I want. I don't wanna just live off of the first year as if that's enough. Actually, this is the nature of relationship, is that we don't just freeze in a period of time and then relive only the lessons that we learned in that season. No, God's like inviting us into regularly experiencing him and growing with him, because he's actually a real relational and loves you and wants to know you and wants you to know him and wants to grow in a relationship. And so don't get me wrong, I mean, you know, God's word, it's in your mouth. You learned it for, I mean, some of you Bible college youth group, Christian school, Bible classes that season of intense spiritual growth.
[00:27:18] I mean, don't get me wrong, you've got God stories, but they were all from that season, way back when.
[00:27:26] You're not doing crazy things, but your secret life, that's definitely not in submission to God's word. Nobody sees that, though.
[00:27:38] And so the challenge that he gave to moody students was, listen, you're here, you're getting this incredible education, you're learning, et cetera. But one of the challenges is that you can't live off of what you learned. You need to keep pursuing relationship with God and creating new experiences and knowing him fresh every single season.
[00:27:57] All right, let's flip this self evaluation. How do I know if God's Word is actually in my heart?
[00:28:03] God's Word is likely in my heart if I have a desire for more of it. If I have a desire for more of God's word, and I'm not saying 247 like you're starving all the time, but there should be this experience of I want to go deeper, I want more of God's word number two.
[00:28:20] I enjoy God's word. Especially if you're newer to the Bible, you may not always understand everything, but when you do understand it, you enjoy knowing about God and what he wants from you.
[00:28:31] Number three, I have real conviction when I disobey God's word.
[00:28:35] I think one of the most dangerous experiences that we can have is when conviction goes away. Listen, we are all gonna struggle with sin until the day we're dead.
[00:28:44] But when we willfully disobey God's word and experience no conviction, that's dangerous. Conviction is a great sign that there is still a heart beating for God and his Word.
[00:28:54] Number four, the Bible is actually my standard for truth, reality and right living. All right, pop quiz. When your beliefs and the clear teaching of the Bible disagree, who wins the Bible does we bend the knee to the word of God. We change. It does not. Number five, God's word leads me to a deeper felt love for God himself. And again, to be clear, when you read the Bible every time and you spend time in God's word, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to experience this life transforming moment every single time you do it. But over time, what you experience is an increased love for God.
[00:29:32] Okay, maybe you're here and you have become aware because you have the Holy Spirit that your heart and your mouth aren't aligned.
[00:29:43] Your mouth knows God's word, but your heart is not in your heart.
[00:29:49] So how can I get God's word into my heart? And I just have such great news for you guys, it's not rocket science.
[00:29:58] It'll take you using your will, which you can, you can do it, but it's not difficult.
[00:30:06] How can I get God's word back into my heart? Number one, actually read.
[00:30:10] And here's the second part, it's very important, and meditate on it.
[00:30:16] You guys know that experience when you read something and like your brain is reading, the words are there, but nothing is happening. You can be actually dreaming about something different and reading simultaneously. So here's what happens when you wanna actually read the Bible. This is where the word meditate comes in. It's this biblical concept where in meditation you use actively your will to shut out everything else and you use your will to make the decision to think.
[00:30:44] And so here's the deal. If you have two things, you can do this. If you have a will check, and if you have a brain check, it means you have the ability to meditate. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes you'll be meditating and then you'll get distracted. But when you realize you're distracted. You activate your will, and your will says, ah, I gotta put down my phone, because my phone isn't helping me focus. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use my will to think about God's word. This brings us to the second one. Talk about it.
[00:31:16] One of the most powerful things that you can do to get God's word from your mouth and to your heart is to actually begin sharing and talking with other people about what God is doing in your life and what you're learning in his.
[00:31:28] Something striking that happens whenever, like, especially if you're convicted of something or you want to change something or start a new habit, tell people about it. Because as you tell people, it begins to build some accountability around you. And for some of you, you're like, I would really love to read God's word, but how do I do that with other people? The YouVersion Bible app actually allows you to have friends in the app and then to read together. You can do reading plans as friends or as family.
[00:31:56] Number three, choose to stop sinning publicly, but also privately.
[00:32:05] So the publicly part, you get it. You don't want to do dumb things, especially in front of other Christians. Got it.
[00:32:11] My experience has been that the number one thing that stands between the word of God moving from my mouth and into my heart is my private life.
[00:32:19] Most people don't understand. It's like, why am I passionate about God's word? I'm doing all the things he says. It's probably because there's something in your private life that you are not giving over to the Lord. And so this is what it's like. It's like somebody's snow blowing their driveway. And then they point the snowblower to the other side of the driveway so the whole driveway gets clear, and all the snow is just on the other side. Now they have to go over and do it again, and they put it on the other side, and it's like, no, point it into the lawn so it's out of the driveway. It's just an exhausted.
[00:32:47] And you wonder why it's not working. And so this is what it's like if you want the word of God to go from your mouth and into your heart. And you're gonna live a private life where you are willingly and intentionally disregarding God's word and searing your conscience. You're going to struggle to have a passion and desire and love for God's word. Which brings me to number four. Whatever the cost, do what it says. Hands down. The number one way to get God's word from your mouth and into your heart is to apply it. It's to apply it.
[00:33:18] A couple weeks ago, I shared with you something I'm going to kind of just double down on this.
[00:33:23] One of the most challenging, difficult decisions that American Christians can make is not to trust in Christ or to entrust your soul to Jesus.
[00:33:33] One of the most difficult decisions for Christians to make is to commit their life to obedience to Jesus.
[00:33:41] And for some reason, in our culture, we have given ourselves the permission to entrust him with our eternity, but not trust him with our life here and now.
[00:33:50] And this singular problem is standing between people having the word of God in their mouth and having a love for the word of God in their heart, having what God wants, and then a love for God himself. Like your heart and your mind, your heart and your mouth can be separated very easily. And so here's one of the challenges is that as we grow in our knowledge of God's Word, okay, we have to be equally as attentive to our heart, because the human disposition is that we grow in knowledge and don't take care of the heart. And when there's a discrepancy between what we know and our heart, we have huge problems. And don't get me wrong. This is the struggle of my life. I stand up here and I study God's Word for my job. I teach a lot. And so the knowledge of God's Word is almost always outpacing what is going on in my heart. And so this is like the battle of a lifetime. And so what you find is that anybody who is gonna be growing in the knowledge of God's Word, it does not matter to what degree. We need to be attending to our heart at the degree to which our mind is growing. Because one of the most dangerous places that we can be in is when we know more than where our heart is at, because this is the place of willful disobedience.
[00:35:01] One of the most dangerous persons is the smart Christian who has no passion or love for God. And they might say, how do I get it back? And I would start in saying, get rid of the willful sin in your life. You're not gonna have even an opportunity for an emotional passion reset until you stop willingly disobeying what God's word says.
[00:35:22] And so the problem is not with God. It is not with the Commandments. For most people, what I found, it's our private, willful disobedience. And it leaves us with this knowledge and A cold heart. But this is not what God wants for you. What I just love is that Jesus is like, listen, you have everything you need, everything you need to do, everything that I'm asking you to do. And here's what you're gonna find once you start following me. On the other side of this is life.
[00:35:49] It is flourishing, it is peace. It's all the things that we really, really, really want. Like, I can't think of a single time I've willingly disobeyed God and said, I'm happier for that.
[00:36:01] But I can tell you, every time I say no to my flesh, I get to the other side of that, and man, am I at peace. I'm actually kind of proud of myself a little bit. Like, I'm so glad that I did not give into that thing, or I didn't say the thing I wanted to say, or I didn't lash out or whatever. It doesn't even matter. I'm so glad that I used the God given well that I have to glorify God in that moment. I've never once regretted glorifying God. I have regretted not glorifying God a whole bunch of times in my life. Can I get an amen from anyone in the world who's experienced this? Amen. Good.
[00:36:36] So number two.
[00:36:38] Commit your life to Jesus and receive not just forgiveness, but the multiplier, the permanent Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul in the book of Romans actually quotes Deuteronomy 30, and he applies it primarily to non Christians. And I want to read to you from Romans chapter 10, 8, 9, what he says, verse 8. But what does it say? The Old Testament. He quotes Deuteronomy 30. The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim. And one of the points he's trying to make here is that everything you and I needed to be saved from our sins, to be forgiven, to be made right with God, all of it has been made available and accessible and easy so that every person reading the book of Romans would say the word was accessible. I heard it, I understood it, I could say it back to you. I got it and I knew exactly what to do with it. What I love about coming into a relationship with God is that it is not rocket science.
[00:37:44] You don't have to go to the Pope to get secret information.
[00:37:47] You can literally go to the word of God and hear the Gospel, the way of salvation, simply, clearly, bluntly, without vagaries.
[00:37:57] It is one of the most beautiful things. And so listen, if you trusted in Christ, it's because the word of God, God gave you everything you needed to understand how to be in a relationship with him. And then verse nine, so simple. And you all know this because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
[00:38:21] So straightforward confession here does not mean I'm confessing as fact that Jesus is God. That's not what it means.
[00:38:28] Satan confesses that Jesus is God, here's what he doesn't confess.
[00:38:33] Jesus is my God.
[00:38:36] And he says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, master, God, and you believe, trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. And so here's a simple question.
[00:38:48] Do you believe, I mean the whole reason he rose is cause he was crucified. The reason he was crucified is because he died for sins. Do you believe that you're a sinner?
[00:38:56] Like not just in your head, you know you're a sinner.
[00:38:59] Do you believe Jesus died for your sins? Do you believe he was raised from the dead and do you want him to be your God? And here's what I love. Anybody who believes in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and wants him to to be their God, his answer is yes. And his answer is not just yes. Not only do I want to give you forgiveness and salvation, but then he's gonna give you the permanent indwelling Holy Spirit. Try as you might, you'll never ever get rid of him. And so if you're here, Paul applies this to non Christians. Like this, you can be forgiven and you can be saved. If you would make Jesus your God, you would believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus for your sins. And if that is what you want, he wants to forgive you. I say this every week. His hand is extended toward you, offering you relationship. And the only thing standing between you and accepting Christ is your own pride. Or maybe you have unanswered questions. And if Jesus is who he says he is, here's the responsibility you have. Get every question you need answered answered so that you can deal appropriately with Jesus. Because if he's God, you want to be in a relationship with your Creator. If he truly is who he says he is. On the last day of your life, when you close your eyes for the very last time, you want to open those eyes and you want to see Jesus and you want to know that you and him are reconciled and forgiven. Period. And so if he is who he says he is do whatever it takes to get rid of whatever barrier stands between you and trusting in him. Because everything is at stake with this. Amen Village church. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you again for your clarity.
[00:40:37] Thank you again that you are clear not just with what you want us to do, but you made it so clear that every one of us in this room, everyone watching or listening, that if we have trusted in Christ, it's because you have bottom shelfed it enough and put it into the mouth of someone that gave it to us and we could understand it and follow through and apply it. Thank you for that. Thank you that it is not difficult. Thank you that we are not saved by being good enough and always wondering if our good works have outweighed our bad works. I just thank you God that salvation is not by works, but it is by faith, by trusting in Christ.
[00:41:13] God, if there's anybody who has yet to do that, Lord, I pray that you would put on their heart and their mind with such conviction and clarity, not just their sin, but in your forgiveness and what you are offering them. Lord, for every single one of us who have trusted in Christ, may we all in our private and public lives and in our relationships be done with excuses.
[00:41:33] Teach us to take extreme ownership. Teach us to build the strength of our will so that we might obey and honor and glorify you. And God, I thank you Lord that on the other end of obedience is spiritual delight, is life, is joy. God, I thank you that on the other end of everything that you ask us to do, everything we actually want. So we love you and we thank you. We pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
