Ex 13:21-22
21 And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud
to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them
light, that they might travel by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by
day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. ESV
Nu 21:21-23
Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites,
saying, 22 "Let me pass through your land. We will not turn aside into
field or vineyard. We will not drink the water of a well. We will go by the
King's Highway until we have passed through your territory." 23 But Sihon
would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. He gathered all his
people together and went out against Israel to the wilderness and came to Jahaz
and fought against Israel. ESV
Mt 22:36-40
36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the
Law?" 37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the
great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the
Prophets." ESV
This past Friday night
LuLu and Ayanna bravely and successfully ministered to the rest of the youth
and the youth staff with their sermons. I think many ministers can attest to
the fact that when they hear Pastor or another staff member ask them if they
are willing to minister the primary message of any service (Sunday school, Kids
Church, Youth, or a primary service English or Spanish), they respond similarly
to Ayanna’s point about FEAR. At the end she redefined FEAR and coupled with
Lulu’s message saying “What if we would just do it,” I can say they ministered
to me and for that I’m grateful. We have another young person slated to tag
team with Jesus, Matthew Medina, and I am excited to see how God will use
another one of our youth. These three young people are only the beginning of
the beginning in answered prophecies and prayers over this church. I would lump
them with the rest of ministers here under Pastor Sibley and say that we are
all part of the first fruits that God will harvest through this congregation to
impact global ministries. It’s one thing to see God doing what He plans
in others, but it’s another to see and allow and it in your own
life (preaching to myself). So if you would allow me, I would like to address the Jesus church tonight. I ask that you stay with me as I attempt to
build a foundation. What I plan on
bringing to you tonight is the only way we are going to see God fulfill his
plans for this church. I would like to
speak to us tonight about a fuel that fuels the fuel. Prayer, fasting, reading
God’s word, praise and worship unto the one true God are very important
fundamentals in living in God’s kingdom. They fuel us, yet even they need their
own fuel. A Love that Endures.
PRAY
We are the Jesus church. We are a church that
claims, and not only claims but “is”, to be led by the Spirit of the
one
and
only true God of the universe.
We are not the first, we won’t be the last and here in this present day
I thank God we are not the only ones contending for the Faith! Thankfully only
minor similarities exist between the story of the Exodus and that of our own. If anyone can claim to be led by God I think
the Israelites had a perfect case. I have not personally ever seen God
demonstrate His power in such a magnificent way. I’ll shed all pretense of humility to say
that I do beg God for such demonstrations.
As a “recovering” gamer, where the phenomenal is the norm and the drive
for the game play, I have begun to translate my addiction to the realm of some
creative author’s mind to a desire to be in the realm of and mind of THE
AUTHOR of reality, the author and finisher of our Faith! I pray that we
would all be able to see and be used in relation Mark 16:17: “17 And these
signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons;
they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands;
and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their
hands on the sick, and they will recover."
The Israelites were on a
mission planned and executed by God. He heard the cries of the Israelites and
decided enough was enough. He saw a land that deserved a nation who was more
faithful to Himself. It was land that
would become a key a geographical location through trade between continents,
enabling the Israelites to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, called to
minister to those who would travel through their lands. So it was His will to take them out from
Egypt’s oppression and enact a larger plan that was beyond the Israelites.
I would like to remind us
tonight that what we see and what we know is just a piece of the puzzle as
God’s ways are higher than our ways.
Where the Israelites only saw freedom, God saw opportunities that would
impact a larger population. So it is
here in Castroville. Tuesday night
Brother Sibley poured out his vision and burden as he has done so in front of
the church in the past, reiterating the words of prophecy spoken over this
church. Castroville is not a primary
trade route but as Pastor may detail at some later time, we do have
opportunities to be a part of a revival larger than us. God forbid that we would lose track of the
larger vision only to be content with a facility that’s air is better
controlled, acoustics are less chaotic and whatever else you could possibly
become satisfied with. We will be moving into a new building that has more
desirable restrooms, I hope that’s not the only reason that we want to move
into it! These amenities are blessings for sure and something we ought to thank
God for but let’s not lose sight of the grander plan! Let us also remember that
there is still a road to travel before we get there.
Israelites experienced
many things upon their journey to the Promised Land. They experienced divine
intervention from God to provide food and water, divine protection from
militaries and miraculous interventions to overcome obstacles that would
prohibit the advancement of God’s plan. Before I speak on that, I would like to
also remind us that obstacles came to the Israelites when they were not
expecting it and even attempted to be honorable in paths they sought to take.
I’m referring to the second
text. King of Sihon. Going to read it one more time: Nu 21:21-23 “Then Israel sent
messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying, 22 ‘Let me pass through your
land. We will not turn aside into field or vineyard. We will not drink the
water of a well. We will go by the King's Highway until we have passed through
your territory.’ 23 But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his
territory. He gathered all his people together and went out against Israel to
the wilderness and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel.” ESV
At this point of the story of their
exodus, the Israelites have already received judgment from God six chapters
prior because they did not trust God to hand the Promised Land over to
them. He made very strong decrees due to
their lack of faith and though it is not mentioned I’m fairly certain they were
no longer being led by that magnificent pillar from the first text. We would attribute the primary reason for the
judgment to be the lack of faith. In a moment I would like to present a more fundamental
reason in my own personal opinion. First
I want to point out a word of warning and or caution. Preventative maintenance if you will.
Though
maybe a bit of an extrapolation from this story, because I am not saying we
have walked outside of the original plan of God such as the Israelites have, I
do want to submit to you that whether you are walking in the original plan of
God or if you are on plan “xtdwvqqi3r2fkrep,” you can count on finding
opposition and resistance no matter how polite and accommodating you may be to
a people who have absolutely no regard for the things of God. I liken this part of the story to the
experience of getting our church name changed. Sure there are plenty of differences to prove
they are hardly analogous but I think the principle is the same: Try moving
forward within the plan of God without expecting resistance. Whether it is from complete strangers, to
coworkers, to family and friends who you count as loved ones, someone, somewhere
will fight you. Where at on the timeline
is completely dependent on the story God is writing for your life but as for
our church moving forward, literally, in Jesus’s name, the first resistance has
already started. It took us, what, a
year to get the bank to follow through? A fairly easy battle all things
considered, I guess it would be better related to the Egyptians army where at
the proper time God let the waters take out the enemy without a single sword or
arrow being used by the Israelites (as far as difficulty goes). Yet, as we move further forward we need to be
prepared and understand that resistance should be expected from the outside no
matter how well we attempt to deal with them! That’s not really the problem
though because God fights our battles; when He is in control he will ensure the
victory for His people and His plan! The problem comes when the resistance is
on the inside!
The
whole reason for the Israelites having to be in the specific situation we read
was because God was unpleased that 10 of the 12—16.6666….%– of the people who
just witnessed the most awesome display of God’s power yet denied God’s ability
to go forward and influenced the entire congregation. As pastor recently preached, the force that
can stop the plans of God here in the
Jesus church is not outside of
these four walls, it lies within us who are supposedly the called of God! I don’t know the full count of “family units”
that exist in the church but I think our % is much higher than what Joshua and
Caleb had to deal with. Praise God that
we have a church body who as far as I know is in unity about moving forward,
ready and excited to claim the promise of God for our city. I’m looking forward to new Sunday school
class rooms, the larger sanctuary. I’m
REALLY looking forward to having the same A/C that the rest of the church is
enjoying while going animal on the drums! If you are not on board spiritually
or financially I would like to personally plea with you to be willing to submit
to the plan God has for this congregation and support it! Without you the plan is modified, detours and
unplanned rerouting, yet with you there is less reason for delay, a more direct
route which means the timeline is expedited!
But
who, what, when, where, why is it possible for any number of people to fall
astray from the plan of God and cause delay? How could the Israelites turn
their backs on God so fast with the golden calf, then later with the spies’
ordeal that ended in a 40 year detour? I believe the answer is not their faith,
I think something else fuels faith after a certain time in every believers
life. If you remember my third text,
then you know the answer—Love. Yet I think there is more to it than first meets
the eye. It’s my opinion, and Pastor can
correct me if I’m wrong, that their Love for God was not sufficient to sustain
the level of faith God required of them in order to claim the full promises of
God.
What
it will take for us to see God’s plan with our
1. Church
2. Ministries
3. Our own personal lives
Mt 22:36-40
36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And
he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first
commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." ESV
First, I hope that we all can agree
that Jesus is our Lord and our God! If you are going to Love God at all you
must Love Jesus, our redeemer, our savior!
This means that Jesus is the Author of our faith! Jesus is the Alpha and
the Omega, the one who is sitting on the ONE throne in heaven! Between John
chapter 14 and 15, we see Jesus say multiples times, if you Love me, keep my
commandments.
The greatest commandment
given was to Love God. As most of us know the word in the Greek for Love in
this verse is a form of Agape. It’s the only type of love that can be commanded
of someone. It refers to holding something in high esteem. To agape, it is
choice without emotional attachment (and sometimes not visibly logical either). To love in an agape form is to sacrifice
convenience if need be as well. I think
there a few reasons why God chose to use this style of love.
God wants people who will
use their brains and be good stewards with what He has given us while at the
same time using stepping out on Faith in God’s promises! Pastor and the board
have been in discussions regarding the building plan for some time. During
these discussions Pastor mentioned several times that at least 2 different
ministers spoke a word from God telling him that he was planning to small. The
board and the Pastor knew the finances of the church, the difficulty and cost
of such project and whatever else they considered and had what they felt were
realistic plans. So as Pastor was
receive these messages from God I’m not entirely sure what was going through his
and the boards mind. I know they didn’t sensationalize the words and began
planning a 1000 member auditorium! Yet, pastor and the board wrote up mock plans
in that they felt were faithful to God’s direction! God took that act of faith and said, “To help
you out, here’s an architect who understands growth and he’ll work on a design
that enables cheaper expansion! While also giving you what you claimed by
faith.” I’m sure that there is more information that they could share showing
that they are simply acting on what God has provided for them, an act of agape
love towards our God which is an act of Faith; and God honors faith!
In regards to our local
ministries, must learn that agape speaks to a strong commitment that supersedes
other cares. What I mean by this is
simply stated by my favorite verse in the scripture:
Lk 9:57-62 As
they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you
wherever you go." 58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and
birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his
head." 59 To another he said,
"Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my
father." 60 And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own
dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61 Yet another said, "I will follow you,
Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62 Jesus said to
him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the
kingdom of God." ESV
You see if we are going to follow God
and to perform the ministry that God is calling us to we must be willing to set
aside conveniences and things that we care about. God wants and deserves our all. It’s hard to
get hyped up emotionally for God when he said here’s a rock for pillow, forget
going to your loved ones funeral and saying bye to those who remain! I may personally take this scripture to an
extreme that I feel is biblical but please hear my plea: to fulfill the
ministerial needs that will inevitably come we will need all hands on deck and
consistency no matter what are mood is or what the environment around us
dictates! If God has called you to do something for his Kingdom (music, Sunday
school, preach, bible studies, service in general) then know that conflicts
will arise. It’s not mere distractions
but it’s what really matters to us! I can’t (or more like won’t) say skipping a
single event breaks this scripture; if it does then I’ve sinned against it
simply to go on a date with an extremely beautiful preacher girl only to have a
bible study at Starbucks and fall more head over heels in love! But am I putting
non-kingdom minded people and situations over God’s kingdom on my list of
priorities? Jesus said that we must seek first the kingdom and His
righteousness; that God’s kingdom comes first and there is nothing that He
takes backseat too. This does not mean
that serving God is drudgery! You get what you put into it! You want a fun
exciting ministry than it’s up to you to bring the fun and excitement!
In
our own personal lives within our families and relationships amongst ourselves,
we must learn that God comes first. He told us to love Him, and that if we did
love him to keep His commandments. There
is no point to keeping His commandment if you have not yet first become a
citizen within his Kingdom. Same book,
Jn 3:3ff Jesus
answered [Nicodemus], "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born
again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 4 Nicodemus said to him,
"How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his
mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to
you, unless one is born of water and
the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ESV
I was at Bible College when I first
heard it and I think this helps me understand a lot when dealing with
separation of church and state. The Bible is not written to anyone but the
believers. It was not written to an unbeliever who had no interest rather to
the believer who needed guidance and instruction as to how to continue on their
path in God! So unless you get entry part done the rest of the Bible won’t do
you any good. It would be as though I
started to live by the rules of Russian as an American without holding any
citizenship and no means to even go because in God’s kingdom, there are no
passports or visas. It’s citizenship or
nothing at all. After you got this down then I strongly recommend you follow
the direction of the Pastor in regards to your walk with God. Here’s a hint, attend bible studies / bible
reading, pray, fast, get involved and become faithful in attendance and
finances.
It’s easy to see a list
of things to do and say well, that’s what I have to do and start checking
things off however there’s 2 more things I want to throw at you that deals
again which our Church, Our Ministries, and ourselves!
The second commandment is
to love our neighbor as ourselves! This again is agape. It’s not new to the New
Testament church, it’s found first in Lev
19:18b…but you shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. ESV It’s nothing new and we saw Jesus
quoting this, stating that on these 2 commandments hangs all of the law and
prophets! Everything, EVER-Y-THING, is based on these two things.
However how can we do
such a thing as a church? Well, if you are a really a faithful servant of God
and you believe in the power of prayer, that’s a good start. Churches have
neighbors (other churches regardless of denominations). I personally pray that
all the pastors in town get a revelation of truth. Keep their churches until they get kicked out
once their organizations realize what happened, come here and we send them to
start new churches or takeover others that need real pastors! In regards to
neighboring UPC or other Oneness churches, participating in fellowship and
prayer can mean a lot! As a youth group Sis pearl keeps tabs with Floresville
and we have participated with them and will likely do so again in order to
encourage one another. Our sectional youth leader, Nathan Caruthers whom some
of us are already familiar with when he served here under Pastor, is seeking to
bless the Bro. and Sis. Jean in Uvalde by organizing a rally and outreach that
our sectional youth participate in and there are ways to get involved besides
just youth rallies—shameless plug, if you would like to see about helping their
church, see Pastor Sibley and or get in contact with Bro. Nathan, now back to
your regularly scheduled programming! If
we want to grow our church we must learn to love other churches as our own and
not become selfish in our endeavors to grow!
The second commandment is
practically the heartbeat for all local ministries. We’re talking about serving people through
Blessed threads and bible studies and all the face to face ministries we have
available and that will become available.
I really don’t know how to break this down more potato head style,
what’s the point in being part of any ministry if you’re not in it for the
people you’ll be impacting?! Cleaning the church might be the only thing that
is not directly connected to people yet it’s so important to be a good steward
of what he has given us and it’s probably the most underreported first
impression a person gets. They expect churches to be clean so it’s not new when
it is but if a church was rundown, it doesn’t matter how nice the people are,
they will feel awkward! At least I was when I visited; I reserve the right to
be wrong. So all things considered, if you don’t like people, we still have
opportunities for you but just know that you still are impacting people. I’ll let pastor and God deal with the rest of
your issues.
On an individual level,
we cannot become so self-absorbed that we become a stench in the nostrils of
God. What good is a Christian who has no passion to do anything for God’s
kingdom (which is 98% entirely based on your relationship with other people—yes
that’s a made up number but I went with my gut instinct if that counts for
anything and I think it’s somewhat close). If you have no desire to love your
neighbor as yourself, then you don’t deserve anything you have. It was taught
to me at college that to really live by this scripture, when it comes to food
and clothing, if I’m not willing to buy 2 of whatever I want and give 1 to someone
under a bridge with no strings attached, then I don’t deserve to have one for
myself. Strict / harsh, maybe but I would like to point out I’m 27 years old
with my own house and car and though I’m not perfect and we don’t preach /
believe a prosperity doctrine, it’s very hard for me to stand up here and tell
you there is not some truth to this as I’ve obeyed this and many at the sound
of my voice could testify to that. Now that I ruined my heavenly reward, my
prayer is that you take what I’m saying and earn up 100 fold times what you
would have normally received by showing God that you really do love your
neighbor as yourself! Mt 5:43-48
"You have heard that it was
said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you,
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be
sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and
on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love
those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do
the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than
others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect. ESV
Folks, it’s not enough to love those
equal to yourself. There is no sacrifice there. I’m sure each of us can list
examples where we did go above and beyond to give of ourselves to help someone.
If you never have, then you never received a revelation of loving your neighbor
as yourself. There is a Christian comedian by the name of Jeff Allen. He wasn’t
always Christian and during the trials that brought Him to God, someone told
him that “The smallest package in the world is human wrapped around himself.”
All
of this was about Agape love and unfortunately I don’t think this really answers
the entire problem of what we found in the Exodus story. Half of it, yes, but
not all of it. I’ve discussed with you
the dos / don’ts and things regarding an agape style love that is sacrificial
in nature and not particularly emotional. Well, in obedience to the Passover
plague people did as was asked and was permitted to God on a journey that God
had planned and ordained yet the same people who obeyed God were the people who
eventually turned on him. They
definitely did have a lack of Agape love but I think they lacked something
more.
I
was praying after Pastor asked me to speak and one word came to me for my
topic, love. In my mind I’m thinking, you gotta be kidding me for 4 reasons. 1)
I just did one last year with the men and guy youth which only like 5 people
attended, I’m not bitter I promise ;) 2) What more could the congregation learn
about love that Pastor hasn’t already hammered into us 3) I’m not married so it
has nothing to do with that. 4) Michael was watching the Christian music
channel and I guess there’s a show about a young couple who decided to travel
the entire globe and preach at different preaching points. Being non-apostolic I was not surprised when
they said they kept being drawn to teach God’s love, in my mind I’m saying,
yeah because that’s all you know. Which
is fine and dandy but now here I am being told to teach on love. Next time I
make light of a preacher / sermon I’ll pick something about revelation to see
if God gives me a prophetic vision ;).
I
did find something I think is very worthy of notating and something I think is
possibly not preached enough, at least in this manner. Phileo love is the Greek word which refers to
emotional love. It gets the bad rap of
being something with rash decision making.
Yet I’m not sure after this last few times of studying that I’m entirely
willing to agree at the risk of contradicting myself. I say this because of a few scriptures
(remembering I’m still talking about what it takes to move forward in God).
Here are a few examples
of scripture where phileo is used rather than agape (keep in mind agape is only
type of love that can be commanded, phileo is more emotional which it’s
difficult to command someone to be emotional).
(Stand)
Mt 10:37-39
7 Whoever loves father or mother more
than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is
not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not
worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his
life for my sake will find it. ESV
Jn 16:27
for the Father himself loves you,
because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. ESV
1 Co 16:22
If anyone has no love
for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come! ESV
Rv 3:19
Those whom I love, I
reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. ESV
We were commanded to agape God yet
here we see example after example where an expectation of something beyond
agape exists. I would like to submit to
you that the real reason Israelites fell and the real fuel that we need to move
forward in all things Godly is this: We need a personal relationship with God
to where we become emotional attached to Him.
Bro. Norris wrote in his book “I AM: A oneness Pentecostal theology”
that God uses covenants as a means to relate to us. Each covenant is a deeper relationship and
that it is impossible to know anything about God until you enter a relationship
with Him. Not being attached makes sin
too easy. There is no consequence (or so you think) for running away and doing
your own thing which just so happens to be totally against God. But if you ever grow beyond the place where
it’s no longer something you have to do
simply because God is God and He can demand whatever He wants, and it turns
into a personal relationship where you are invested into His being and His
purpose, you will not be easily shaken and you can be part of the generation
that see’s God’s promises fulfilled for the church, for the ministry and for
yourselves! We have to get a hold of
this for ourselves! Every last one of us! Otherwise we are nothing more than
the Israelites who God passed judgment on and kept them from the promises He
had ordained for them. We need a Love
that Endures (a mixture of agape and phileo is probably where it’s at)!
There was another church
that I think had similarities to ours and earned God’s love (agape love). I’m
still talking about what it takes to accomplish Gods will for our church, our
ministries and our own personal lives! I
could break this down and do another extrapolation of an analogy but I’m asking
that you do that now, let this resonate in you and let God speak to you from
this.
Rv 3:7-13
7 And to the angel of the church in
Philadelphia write: 'The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key
of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. 8 I know
your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to
shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and
have not denied my name. 9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan
who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie — behold, I will make them come
and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. 10
Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the
hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the
earth. 11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize
your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of
my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my
God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down
from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' ESV
**Unfinished thought that I typed
only to remind myself to cover this, the following is not what I said
verbatim.**
You know, I’m wondering if was
supposed to simply preach that God loves you. Not sacrificially because he said
he would, but because he really does with an emotional connection like a
friend. Jesus told his disciples that he
called them friends
