Transcript (Experimental)
Awesome. I hope you guys can all join us downstairs afterwards if you already have plans can cancel ’em. It’s for its for a great cause. You know there’s there’s there’s nothing, in my opinion is that there’s nothing greater that you can do for the kingdom than to encourage young people in the Lord. You know Jesus was pretty passionate about kids. You know, he’s pretty, pretty passionate about youngsters, and he has some he has some tough words, is anyone who would cause one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for that man to have a millstone hung around his neck and be thrown into the sea. That’s like sleeping with the fishes man. Like a pair of cement shoes. That’s how Jesus felt about people messing with kids and the faith of little ones and stuff like that. So, I feel my belief is that we are in when we are encouraging young people In their faith, God’s happy. And I don’t know about you, man, but I want God to look down at what I’m doing and say, I’m happy with that. I want him to be pleased with what I’m doing. I got enough problems. You know what I’m saying? I don’t know about you. It’s like, I got enough problems. Every time I have an opportunity to do something, right. Every time I have an opportunity to do something good or do something for the kingdom, man, I want to I want to jump on it. I want to jump on it. Because I want to hear that well done good and faithful servant. You know, and it’s not it’s not dependent. I love what Dan always teaches us, man. It’s the mark of a righteous person isn’t how many times you fall it’s how many times you get up. You know, that’s it. That’s what Mark says righteous. press forward. Man, whoever you are sitting here today. press forward in your faith, press forward. Do not allow the enemy to get you knocked off course. Do not allow the enemy to distract you because Make no mistake about it. He is at work to do that. Every single day, and he will use any means necessary to knock you off course, whether it’s whether it’s so anything, anything, insert your thing here, you know what I’m talking about. Right? This is what I love about what we do. This is what I love about the Bible. I don’t have to sit up here and try to customize it for you. Right? Now, that’s what the Holy Spirit does. So when we preach the word always our prayer is is that God would speak to each one of you individually. You know, someone over here might be getting why the Lord really showed me this. And someone over here might be getting something completely different man, the Lord really showed me this today, through the Word of God. It’s so silly for a preacher to try to presume to give what we call a message, you know, and I’m not trying to like knock over the establishment or anything. I’m just saying, like, the message is not from me. Can you imagine if that’s what you had to count on? It’s from the Lord. And so that’s why we gather here together today that will study the Word of God together, we’ll read it together. And hopefully, the Holy Spirit will show you something today, how you might draw closer to Him. So we are in the book of Leviticus. And we are in chapter 19. there’s a there’s a bit of a break in the Scripture, when you go from chapter 17 of Leviticus to chapter 18, where God has been speaking to Moses about ceremonial, religious, the religious laws, all the implementations of the tabernacle worship and the way in which the worship was to be done and all of the different sacrifices. And now God starts getting into the behavior of the people. The things that the people must not do the things that the people need to refrain themselves or keep themselves from, and the things that the people do need to be doing. And even though this is the Old Testament and the Old Covenant, we know that as believers in Jesus Christ, we’re not under the law. We’re under Grace, that the handwriting of requirements The Bible says, which are against us because it’s contrary to our very nature. We’re law breakers by nature. We’re not law keepers by nature. Right? Is this news to anybody today? We’re law breakers by nature. That’s what I’m good at. I’m not good at keeping the law. I’m good at breaking the law. And the Bible says if you’ve broken one portion of the law, you’ve broken, you’ve broken the whole thing. And it’s amazing. Just Just think about in regular life. How many of you here go the speed limit? Really, what’s wrong with you, man, like, get with it? You know? Like, always, you know what 45 means to me. I can go, I can go 54. I stay under 10 over. And I’m good. I’m good. And this is true. I just just as free information. I’ve never ever been pulled over blowing past the state trooper. When it’s 65 miles an hour. I go 74 and I’ve been Never ever wants been pulled over for that now. Maybe the Lord is just like, let’s sprinkle a little more grace on this moron. I don’t know what that’s all about. But that’s always with and and and so to me in my mind, I’ve made this agreement with myself and the agreement with myself is I’m going 74 so I’m not breaking the law. Is that true?
I’m a law breaker. I love it. Is this is the truth. I thought a four way stop. It’s a rolling stop. Right? a year. There’s when you come out of here and you’re going back up north and this road is that there’s a stop sign. It should be a yield sign. The people are wrong. They put a stop sign there. I don’t need the stop sign. I go like this. If there’s no headlights, I’m going right when I’m going to work in the morning. I’m a law breaker. And and it’s funny and we can all laugh because we can relate to that. And it’s one thing to break some break, man. laws, right? Mrs. Doubt del, I’m sorry. She’s sitting over there like I will. But we do the same thing with God’s laws. We make agreements with ourselves. We make self determining statements to ourselves about what is sin and what’s not saying, Well, I think it’s okay. Well, I’m only doing it this much. Well, it’s so it’s this. It’s this. See it? I’ve encapsulated it within this. So it’s okay. And so see, it’s not really that sin is sin. Jesus Christ did not come to earth so that men would be able to feel justified in their behavior. Jesus Christ and it was no coincidence that he was that his precursor was john the baptist who was met message Was repent, repent, repent. Jesus, his message was specifically to show all people that we are on done. That we are law breakers that we all of us have broken God’s holy and moral codes. And it is that is that’s what the definition of sin is. And it is sin that separates us from God. And so I cannot claim to have a relationship with God. I cannot be claimed to be a person that belongs to God when I have sin in my life. And the reason that it was so important for Jesus to get this point across to the people was so that his sacrifice could be clearly seen as exactly what it is. And that is Jesus doing it for us. Jesus covering our sins, I can never attain to the level of holiness that it would take to enter into the presence of Almighty God. But Jesus did. I can never offer any sacrifice that could fully atone for the sins that I’ve done. But Jesus did. And that’s the message of the gospel. That’s the message of the cross. But it all starts with this brothers and sisters, self awareness, understanding and knowing it is not my will, that matters, but God’s will.
It is not my truth that matters, but God’s truth. I simply have to agree with God. That’s the most important thing. I have to agree with God and with what with the fact that what His Word says is true. The Bible says let God be true and every man a liar. That’s not say guys, just like just go around. Lying is Don’t know what it means is compared to God, even my truth is a lie. That’s why the Bible says all of our righteousness is like filthy rags before God. There’s just no way we can ever even approach it. It’s all about what Jesus did. And yet for us, there has to be there has to be a surrender. hard for us Americans. We don’t ever want to surrender. We don’t ever want to give anything up. How do you rednecks feel about Cuomo gun laws? You know, you bunch of flag waving? lunatics in here, right? You see scientists, it’s rebellion, man. It’s your guy. And I’m not talking about I’m not saying it’s cool. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t add doesn’t matter take off. What I’m saying is in our hearts. rebellion thrives in our hearts. rebellion is alive and well. And when it comes to our relationship with God, we have to be honest, we have to be honest. And we have to acknowledge God what you say is true. What you say is what matters. It doesn’t matter what people are saying. It doesn’t matter what the culture is saying.
We have huge, massive examples of this in our history. You know, nobody gave anybody a past who followed Hitler, or they were just following orders when they were just doing with it. No, no. Every single individual is responsible for their own actions. And in the face of evil, a person has a responsibility to stand up and say, I will not go that way. And I will not do that thing, though. It costs me everything. And there were many in Germany who did that. But there was so many more who just went along and the Nazi movement swept through the country, and that invaded the next place and the next place, man What an example we have. We sit around and we make agreements with ourselves about our sin. We make agreements with our culture as to what’s right and wrong. slippery slope, slippery slope. So Leviticus chapter 18. And now we’re going into verse 19. This is God saying, This is my code of conduct. This is the lawful way that we ought to conduct ourselves and live our lives. Last week dad was talking about sexual morality. We went through that now in verse 19, Chapter 19. Dad went down to verse nine, verse eight. So we’re going to start with verse nine. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the Gleanings of your harvest, and you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard, you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger I am the Lord your God, you see that what just happened right there, God makes a statement. And then he signs it at the end. You ever see the old movies, when they got the wax, and they’re writing the secret envelope to get and they and they drip the wax on the seal of the envelope and they have their seal their signet ring of honor seals, and they market with their seal. And that’s how you would know that it was from the person who you would know who was there. You would know who the letter was from, you would know that the message was authentic, because of the seal. And if the seal was broken, you would then suspected have been tampered with. I am the Lord your God. This is how God seals not just whole books or chapters, but individual statements. Anytime you read something in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, and then God says I am the Lord your God. So you know do do Is this what you think you know what I mean? If you don’t agree that’s okay. We can agree to disagree. I am the Lord your God. Okay, so what did God just say here? When you reap the harvest basically, I don’t want you to go over your field twice. This is what he’s talking about. If you guys have ever read the story of Ruth, if you’ve ever read the book of Ruth, phenomenal book for those of you girls who like romance for those of you guys who like romance but won’t admit it to anybody, the book of Ruth is a great book. It’s an amazing book. And it’s even more amazing because not only is it a fantastic love story, but it’s a story. It’s a prophecy about God’s Redemption of us. Here’s Ruth she’s a MOA vitesse. She comes from a land of idolatry. She’s a pagan, and yet she meets this family and she marries one of the sons of this family and she’s drawn to their faith. She’s drawn to their belief system to the to the fact that there is one true God and His name is Jehovah. And she’s she’s becomes a woman who is completely given over to that so that when her husband dies, and her mother in law says Listen, go back to your own families finds another husband’s You’re too young to mourn forever. And Ruth says No way. This is my interpretation, no way. Wherever you go, I’ll go, your people will be my people, your God will be my god. I’m going to live with you. And when when when you die, I’m going to die or would not die, same time. But wherever you’re buried, that’s where I want to be buried. And she says, may the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything, but death separates you from me. Wow. This young woman, and it wasn’t just it wasn’t just Naomi. It was the faith. It was the belief that drew her there.
And there was this idea that God was planning in the heads of his people of redemption. Even though she was a Gentile. This is for us guys. She was a Gentile and she was an idolatry. She was going to be redeemed. She was going to be made one of the people and be put in the very lineage of King David Eventually a Jesus Christ Himself. But in the beginning of that story, when they come back to the land of Israel, they’re very, very poor. They’re very poor. They have no way, you know, without a man in the house, they they’re on their own. You’re, you’re basically on welfare at that point in time, you can either bag, or this is this law, what God’s talking about here. It was the law, God’s law, that if you owned vineyards, or if you owned a field, when you went through at harvest time you go through, you gather what you can, and you’d leave all of the stuff that gets left behind all of the leftovers, anything that’s still on the branch, you don’t go over it again, you go over at one time, and everything that’s left over, that is for the poor people. That’s for the poor people to be able to come in, and it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful, because for the poor person, they’re not just being given a handout. They have to get up in the morning and they got to put on their bag and get on their gleaning clothes and they’ve got to go to the field and they gotta work hard for the day. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it’s not a handout, they’ve earned it, and it’s been given to them by God. This is God’s holy law. This is God’s ordinance. And it’s in that that’s where Ruth ends up meeting Boaz. You know, and of course, Boaz shows her all the special fact read it, you read the book for yourselves. It’s great. It’s a great book of the Bible. But God’s mercy This is the heart of God later on in the kingdom years when God is upset with the people and he sends the prophets to them to rebuke them. One of the things that he is always getting after them for one of the main things, the very first thing is idolatry. That’s the very first thing that’s the main thing that God always gets after his people about you’ve gone after other gods you’re serving after other gods for you and I, that would be other interests. There’s things in your life that are more important than God. There’s things that are going on in your life that are more important that will Nothing’s more important. Show me right Show me all you guys in here who are married. You know? I love you prove it. Right? I love you. You don’t act like it ever hear that? You guys ever get that one? Well, if you love me, you know, and you and you’re like, this marriage stuff is hard. You know me, you know, but you understand. It’s not enough for me to just tell Nikki, I love you. I love you. I love you. When you come home, you know? Oh, I don’t know someday, but I love you. I love you. I haven’t seen you in six months. That’s okay. Here’s the only thing that matters baby girl. I love you. She’s gonna be like, you are so full of it. It’s coming out of your ears, right? You don’t love me. If you love me, you would want to be with me. Hello.
Show God. I love you, God. Show God. Show God’s not a lot of religious obligation. Not because there’s a star going to go next to your name. It’s very simple. You will No a tree by the fruit that it bears. And it’s every fruit that my tree is bearing is the opposite of something that has to do with God. There’s something going on and the roots down here. I need to get that straightened out. But the second thing that goes along with that, remember Jesus said it, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength in the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. And the children of Israel during the kingdom years, they became steeped in idolatry, number one, and the other thing went right along with that as their relationship with God drifted as they began to move away from God and true worship, they began to miss treat one another. They began to miss the sound familiar. You seen anything like this in our country? Have you noticed? I don’t know about you. A little bit of mistreatment of one another. We’re not very happy with one another. In fact, I would put so far as to say we hate one another. Oh, you believe that? Well, you’re an evildoer. Oh yeah. Well, you’re a piece of God. You know, it’s unbelievable. But make no mistake about it guys make no mistake about it. We have gotten away from the root. We have gotten away from the things that we used to cling to. That was based on God’s law and God’s righteousness. We’ve never gotten it. All right, we know that. But there was a basis there was a foundation that is now completely disavowed, completely disavowed. And so we’re mistreating one another. I don’t care what the world’s doing. I don’t care what your neighbors doing. I don’t care what your coworkers are doing. What are you doing? That’s what God’s concerned with? What are you doing? If I’m on a side, how can I minister to the other side? If I stand for one specific thing, how can I minister to people who don’t? If I mean the people, if I’m angry at people, how can I do minister to them. Anytime that I’m not showing love to people, God says in his book in James, this is a direct indication that there is something very wrong with your relationship with God. And this is what God is saying. You take quit take care of the poor people, take care of the orphans. Take care of the widows. These are the two things the prophets railed on. God got to the point where he said your new moons, your Sabbath’s your feast days, my soul detests. I hate them. Well you’re the one that told us to do them. I hate them. Why? Because your hearts You honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. And I see that clearly not only in your idolatry but in the fact that you mistreat people who need you.
God forbid, God forbid we have one rule at Berean Calvary Chapel one, be nice. That’s the only rule. I’m a jovial guy. If I see you being mean to somebody, I’m going to jump all up in your biscuits. I guarantee you, don’t let me see you be me. I don’t care how big you are. Don’t let me see you be mean to somebody. We don’t do that here. That is God’s law. That is something that we cannot escape from. That is not something that we can get away from. Be kind, one to another. BE kind. That’s how I know you got a good relationship with God. You can come up to me and you’re down and you’ve had a horrible week and a bunch of stuff’s going on. And you let a cuss word fly, and you’re just you’re Listen, I’m never going to review for that. I want you to be real. I want you to be who you are. I want you to be honest. I’m going through it. I’m hurting Broken inside, and I can pray with you. And I can point you to the cross. But someone who doesn’t, doesn’t act like they have any problems, and yet they’re mean to people and they’re not kind to people. There’s something wrong with that person’s heart. Verse 11, you shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God. Here it is, I am the Lord. I am the Lord. Don’t lie, don’t steal don’t deal falsely. And don’t swear by my name falsely or profane the name of the Lord your God, I am the Lord. Verse 13. You shall not cheat your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of Him who was hired shall not remain with you all night. until morning. Now, this is God’s dealing with the employers. Some of you may have an employer who may deal falsely with you from time to time or not pay you correctly from time to time. You know, you get your pay stubs, right and you go through it with a fine tooth comb on, Josh, make sure you didn’t take anything. Wait a minute, I had 43 hours, you know, but this is what God is saying to those who would employ other people take care of your employees. Again, again, show me that I’m your God. Show me that I’m your God by how you treat the people that I’ve put into your life. Take care of your employees, and they pay him at the end of the day. Pay him Don’t ever hold pay, don’t have any don’t hold anything over somebody’s head. And it’s interesting how God puts this right together with dealing falsely lying and blasting and blast screaming his name. Blast screaming his name. You know All I can think of is any kind of person who would claim to be a Christian would claim to have a relationship with God and be dealing falsely with people. Like, have you ever met somebody?
And they start talking, and you’re just looking at him? like they’ve lived like 15 lifetimes. You don’t I’m saying they were like a professional late like a special forces, you know, sniper. And they played in the NFL and the hockey league at the same time. They were president, the United States. I don’t know where I was there during that during that four years. And you listen to them talk and you’re going, What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? That scares me. And always when I meet people like that, I don’t know how to deal with them. You don’t I’m saying because if you come out and say, as I tried this, you’re a liar. You’re a liar. Like, dude, do that. What everything you’re saying is garbage man. Like you expect anyone to believe that who knows anything? And usually you get attacked very quickly. By doing that, I don’t know how to deal with that. But here’s what I always say, God, let me know. Please, please don’t ever let me get to a place in my life where I’m living a lie. And I’m not talking about crazy stories or crazy stuff like that.
Any lie, some agreement that I’ve made with myself, I got everybody convinced that I’m doing things right. I can everybody can Oh, man, that that Frank Jr. He’s got it all together. He’s doing the right things. I try to always be open and honest with you guys, and let you see me for who I truly am. So that you can say to yourself, I don’t know. I just Is he really supposed to be up there? I mean, I, if ever, God if ever there’s a moment in my life, where I’m living some sort of a lie. expose it, expose it, even if it means my house gets knocked over spiritually, expose that in my life. God does not deal well with lying. Verse 14, you shall not curse the death, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God. I am the Lord. Now, you know, hopefully you would not have to preach a whole message on why you shouldn’t trip blind people. Right? Or curse. Curse the Deaf, you know, where they can’t hear you me anyway, Laura, you know, what, what does it matter? You shall not curse to death, or put a stumbling block in front of the blind. I think that you can, you can probably add a whole bunch of stuff into this don’t show anybody who was weak. Anybody who is disabled in any way. Anybody who struggles anybody who is sick, anybody who is hurting.
Don’t you make it harder for them. Don’t you put stumbling blocks in front of them? Don’t you give them one more barrier to climb over to get to Jesus. But show them kindness and love and mercy and compassion, man, I think that goes across the board. I don’t know. But when I was a member in high school, and I was a bad kid, you know what I mean? I was really not a kid. But when people would pick on the special ed kids, man that used to just I mean, it would, it would just cause such indignation in my heart.
Why would you do that? You know what I’m saying? Like, do you understand like, what the abortion laws and all that What’s that, ladies? What’s the test they have you take when you’re pregnant? So you can see if your kid has downs. You know what I’m talking about, right?
Yeah. Wow.
I can’t believe you knew that brother. That’s amazing. I thought it was going to come from Jen. She knows she’s like, well let one of these other idiots dance, right. You know what that’s for. So if you find out that you’re kidding Is has downs you can have boredom. I like and I’m like, I don’t want that test. What do I need? I don’t need that test. If my kid is born and he has Down syndrome, that’s a blessing man. That’s some that’s God is like here. This is for you to protect and love and cherish and take care of. I’m giving you that responsibility. That’s an honor.
God help us. God help us. I mean, it’s going crazy around here. And you know what it is when the whole abortion thing? I’m getting off on a tangent who cares, right? With this whole abortion thing. People are lying to themselves. Well, the reasons there’s abortion is but in case of this thing that happens one out of 8 billion things, you know what I mean? It’s because the, you know why there’s abortion? No, there’s a clamor for abortion, because people don’t want to be bothered. Because people don’t want to deal with the responsibility because people don’t Want to be saddled? Because people don’t want to deal with something that’s not right. That’s for God to decide. Now listen. Alright, nevermind. I’m just a man I, you know, I mean, whatever I, we protect, we protect if God chooses I mean, I always go back to my buddy Anthony, you guys have told you guys 100 times I told you guys on it and I’ll tell you right now I know for a fact, if Anna would have known that either of those boys would have been born as disabled as they’re born. She would not have aborted them. I guarantee you that she would have had that challenges the same and loved them like the way they do, man. I’ll tell you that right now. So anyway, you can beat me up after church. If you don’t agree with that, but verse 15, you shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty, and righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor. I was reading this week that that within the Jewish law, if there was a trial going on, they would never even allow one person to stand. Well, another push person SAT, everything had to be equal on both sides of the fence. When they were doing having a judgment, everybody was treated exactly the same. There was no partiality shown, and I love it that God says and that includes to the poor. That includes the poor. You know, we shouldn’t treat poor people like they’re unable to do for themselves. You know what I’m saying? For people have a responsibility just like rich people do. It’s not the rich person’s responsibility to take care of the poor person. It’s the rich person’s responsibility to be kind and to be compassionate and we take care of our neighbors. But every single person has a responsibility in this life and in this world to do Things that are right you guys know this. In second testimony is chapter three verses 10. Of course, Paul writes his testimony in church because he’s, he gets them all hopped up about the second coming of Jesus Christ. And so the people start quitting their jobs, and they’re like living up on a mountainside and stuff and waiting for Jesus to come back and Paul’s like, stop it, you know, yeah, we can’t wait for Jesus to come now go back to work. And in that context, he says in second, Slovenians 310, for even when we were with you, we commanded you this, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. And that’s the beauty of God’s welfare program here with the gleaning is that the poor person had to get up and go out in the morning and earn it. Right. And yet provision was made for them. Everybody took care of each other. That’s the way God and God intended it to be. You know, people get things out of balance all the time, but I love that you don’t show partiality. Whether they’re poor, or whether they’re rich. Here’s a good one. You shall not go about as a tale bearer. Your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor, I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, you shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. I like this one. You shall not go about as a tail bear. You know what I’m talking about? Right? Do you hear about so and so? Do you hear about so and so? I mean, I think that’s why since Facebook was invented, like, there’s one of these things, it’s like, did you hear about that? It’s, it’s, I’ll tell you what, man it’s easy to get caught up in. It’s easy to get caught up in talking about other people running our mouths about other people. You know, and you know why we do it. Self justification to hear about this one? Yeah, I don’t do that kind of stuff. That’s too bad about him. You know what I mean? I’m praying for him though. I’m praying for you want to know I’ll see it. Let me tell you what else he did. And it goes from house to house was in church to church, it goes around. God says don’t do that. And don’t take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. Don’t take a stand against the life of your neighbor, you shall not hate your brother in your heart, you shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not their sin because of him. I like that if you’ve got a problem with somebody, go to him. You shall not hate your neighbor. If you’ve got a problem with somebody, go to them. Talk to them about it. Even if you don’t agree when you part ways there can be peace. It’s crazy. When people hate each other, and they never talk. They have a problem with one another and they never talk about it. They never bring it up. They never discuss it. If you have a problem with somebody, you should go to that person, you should talk to that person. Because even if you don’t come to some sort of an agreement, they’re still going to respect you for not talking behind their back.
And notice what he says verse 18, you shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Lord. It’s another lie that people, people people tell themselves Now, when it comes to mental illness, I’m not a psychologist. I’m not a learned man at all. Okay? And I know that there are people, plenty of people who have legitimate, legitimate issues that they deal with every single day. Okay? But in our society, and in our culture, the whole self esteem thing was blown way out of hand man was blown way out and everybody’s problem. You just don’t love yourself enough. And most of those people, their problem was they love themselves way too much.
Like Dad always used to yell at us about. If you really didn’t like yourself, you’d be glad when things didn’t go your way. Well, good. I hate me anyway. You know what I mean? But I get freaked out and lose my mind when things don’t go my way. It’s not because I don’t love myself. It’s because I love myself. If you only think about yourself, if you only think about your needs, if you only think about the things that you want to do, you’re going to get On out, I guarantee it. I guarantee it. This is why God says love your neighbor as yourself. Self love is assumed. Right? At the end, it is assumed that you love yourself. It is assumed that you’re going to take care of your own needs. You know what I’m saying? never wake up in the morning. You know, I? I’d like to brush my teeth. Tastes like I’ve been chewing on roadkill all night. You know what I mean? But you know what? Who cares about me? You know what I mean? Hi, honey, you know? Who cares about her? Apparently, they’re gonna call you obviously, I take care of myself. God says good. That’s great. That’s wonderful. I created you that way. Take care of your neighbor the same way.
Andy did you brush your teeth today? I think your, anyway, all right. We’re going to stop there before it gets really out of hand. We’re gonna we’re going to share communion together. You know, everything comes down, everything comes down comes down to this. God loves you. God wants to have a relationship with you. And if you know anything about a successful relationship, whether it’s your spouse or your fat anybody in your family or whatever the case may be, you cannot have a good relationship and a right relationship without honesty. Without honesty. This isn’t a place that we come together to feel good about ourselves all the time, right? Like, what the heck’s up with that? Dude, I’m just supposed to come in here. So I’m saying You guys are awesome. You guys are the best. You guys are great. You deserve great things. You guys are wonderful, then that feel good. But that may not be the truth. That may not be the truth. God wants honesty from us. He wants us to be able to come before him and say, Lord, here I am. Here I am. You know all the things in my life that are displeasing to you, you know all the things in my life that don’t support With your word, you know those things, Lord, I’m coming to you anyways. I want to be covered with the blood of Jesus Christ. I want to have relationship with you. And Lord, I want you to help me be better. I want you to help me have victory over these things in my life. That’s what it’s all it’s all about. But first and foremost, before we worry about us and our relationship with God, churches to glorify Him, right churches and we come together at church, it is to glorify God because he’s worthy. It is to glorify God because He is God. Because He is the Creator, because He is worthy of all of our praise man, that’s first and foremost, again, the further you put yourself down the line, the happier you’re going to be, as long as it’s done appropriately.
I remember a great story about Tom Landry, the great football coach. And when he came in to coach the despicable Dallas Cowboys, his first team meeting with them, his first team with them, he said, All right, I’m put on the chalkboard here. There’s a my priorities in life and he wrote God. Family. Football. And one of the guys is telling the story. He goes, I thought, we’re done. We’re done. That’s it. It’s over. This guy’s got his priorities exactly backwards. They’re exactly backwards. It’s supposed to be football, then family, then God. Well, proof is in the pudding. Tom Landry was pretty decent coach, pretty decent coach. But he understood here’s a guy who understood priorities.
And if we make the priorities in our life, if we prioritize the things in our life correctly, you unlock blessings that you can imagine that you can’t believe. I’m not talking about a pot of gold, okay? Or you’re never going to get sick again. I’m talking about an eternal spiritual blessings that you can’t even imagine is waiting to be unlocked. When we put our priorities in the right order. Man, God wants to be first and foremost in our life. That’s what this is about. That’s what communion is about. Jesus Christ. It’s Passover night. Remember, he said to his disciples, all man, I’ve been looking forward to sharing this with you guys so much. Because on that night, Jesus took the Passover Seder. And he turned it into what we call the Lord’s Supper, what we call communion.
That was the same matzah bread, and it was the same wine that was used for the Seder dinner. And yet Jesus gave a whole new dimension to something that they would say they had celebrated every single year since they were little tiny kids. He said, I want to do something brand new with you guys tonight. And he talked to them about love. And he talked to them about service. But before he did any of that, remember what he did, he washed their feet. He washed their feet. And then he began to talk to them about service. And he began to talk to them about us being used by the Lord and he began to talk to them about the power of the Holy Spirit, He washed their feet and he sent him first. And during that supper, he took the bread. You guys all know the story and he broke it. And he said, the the matzah bread was always representative of a life without sin. You remove all of the leaven from the bread, leaven is a picture of sin. And so you remove all the leaven not only from the bread, but from the entire house, the Jewish people would go through and remove all 11, which was a symbol of sin from their house. They themselves would take the sin, proverbial or symbolically out of their house. And Jesus is saying not anymore. Not anymore because you know why? You can’t. Instead, this is my body and it’s going to be broken for you. Because you can’t remove you no matter how hard you try, and how much you sweep and how much you flail. You can never remove the From your life. And so this is my body, which is broken for you. And then he took the cup and he said, This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you, as a propitiation as an atonement for sin. Awesome. And Jesus Christ gave this to the disciples, and not only to them, but to the church after that. He said, as often as you share this meal together, do it in remembrance of me. And I like to combine scripture sometimes. And Jesus said to share this meal and read be remembering him. And he also said that were two more of you gathered there I am in the midst of you, right.
So this very appropriately, let’s have a meal with Jesus. Let’s have a meal with Jesus. This communion. It’s just this is from Wegmans from the kosher aisle. Okay, this did not fall from heaven, like, Oh, yes, the communions here, you know same thing with the juice. It’s not even real wine. I’m sorry. It’s Welch’s grape juice, I believe, right. And it may not even be like actually Welch’s. It might be see all these brand. I don’t even know what’s going on here. You know what I mean? cheapskates are this, this, this means nothing without your face. Without your face. There’s nothing here.
But if you choose to believe what the Word of God says, If you choose to believe what Jesus said, then get ready to share a meal with Jesus. Because that’s exactly what this is. That’s exactly what this is. And so that’s why the Bible says that a man ought to examine himself for you have dinner with Jesus, right? So tomorrow, Jesus calls Hey, I’ll be over at six for dinner. What happens next? hole My goodness, first, you got to get rid of the kids first thing, right?
Clean it Listen, clean your room. I’ll kill you. You better click you know and you Clean unit and you How would you make sure your house looked? Who care? Yeah, throw something on that, you know, you would be right. So so a man ought to examine himself for we have a meal with Jesus.
Let’s pray. Right. So as the ushers come on down, I love to call them down and then they start preaching again. Just a mess with them. Sorry, guys, as yesterday’s come down, and as they’re passing out the elements, pray, this is your opportunity to go before the Lord just you and him. Just you and him and say, You know what, Lord, you know every single thing about me, you know, the whole deal. Lord, forgive me, cleanse me, purify me. I’m ready to have a meal with you. I’m ready to break bread with you, Jesus. I’m ready to have that kind of a relationship with you. Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai