Pastor Ronnie, if you would come. And there's somebody I want to recognize today.
This wasn't in the plan, but what do I
do with the plan? I always. But is. Is
Ms. DJ in here? She was sitting back there.
No, she was here. She was. She was. She was here.
Well, Praise the Lord. D.J. matthews has served in children's
ministry for 16 years, and here she is.
Okay. She doesn't have to come down here unless she wants to. Oh,
you want to come down here? Come on. Come on down here. Okay. Come
on.
Ms. DJ has served Children's Ministry for 16 years
and is stepping down after many years of
faithfulness to our kids ministry. And I've asked Pastor Ronnie to come and share a
few thought.
I. Yeah, I'll give you a hug here.
I want to say thank you. From. The
bottom of my heart for what you mean and
have meant to my family.
Margaret was here. You were the most faithful person
she had in the children's ministry.
And I know that it wasn't easy. I know that there were times when it
was hard to get the money together for the gas, and there were
times when the car didn't want to start, and there were times when
you didn't feel well, but, oh, my goodness,
she could always count on you. And then
my little ones. I'm only sad that
you're doing this because June's not going to get to
have you as a teacher. But Jack and Bo,
oh, they would talk about Ms. D.J. all the time. She
meant so much, so very much to them.
And, you know, what God rewards
and what man considers to be, you know,
big and important, has nothing to do with what God rewards.
God rewards faithfulness. And
there's a. When I. When I think of you.
Kevin asked me as I walked in the church this morning to say
something, and I said absolutely. The
first verse that came to mind for me, though. Here.
Did I leave my phone with you? Michelle.
Michelle will bring the verse. The first
verse.
I know you've not had children of your own,
but I'm also very confident
that one of these days on the other
side, you're going to find out how many children you've got.
And the verse that came to mind is Isaiah
49:21. Then you will say in your heart,
who has borne me these? I was bereaved
and barren, but who has brought up these?
I was left alone. From where have these come?
They've come from your faithfulness. And there's going to be a
multitude of young men and young women. I don't know how young
they'll be. Maybe they'll look old. I don't know. Maybe. But
they're going to be coming up to you and going, thank you. You really meant
so much in my life. And I just want you to. Just
want you to know that. I don't know what, Kevin, I hope he's giving you
a house or a car or something, but
that's up to him. But. Yeah,
I love this woman. She's been faithful. Amen.
Yeah.
Well, Stan, let me give you a blessing.
God is so good. And not just because Hal got a hole
in one on the golf course yesterday, but
because he is who he is. God is faithful.
And, man, I'm just so grateful. Well,
today's going to be one of those messages, and
I just pray that your hearts are open today.
Okay. I'm not going to say what I was thinking to say there. Before
we get started, I want to remind you we started midweek this past week, and
if you are not here, you missed a treat. Pastor Barbee opened her series, the
Eye of the Needle. And really, truly, if you haven't seen it, you can go
online and watch it. But I invite you to come and be
a part of it. It was so rich, and it's going to continue to be
rich. The youth ministry met, children's ministry is up and going. Young
adults following that. So really, if you have capacity Thursday night, six o', clock,
come and join us. And then today, we have open tables right after
service today. So it's. Open tables is an opportunity for you to connect
with people here in the church. And all you need to do is go to
the app. You can sign up there for a restaurant. They're listed there. You can
see Cole. She's right here. And she'll get you pointed in a direction,
because if it's one thing I know about church folk is we like to eat.
Okay? So let's do it together. All right? Today we're
continuing the greatest stories ever told. And we're going to talk about a man
named Jeremiah who's known as the Weeping Prophet.
And so we're going to stand today, and you guys are going to read this
to convince me that you're awake and ready to receive what God has
for us. Okay? So with gusto. Are we ready? Here we go.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
How then can they call on the one they have not
believed in? And how can they believe in the
one of whom they have not heard? And how can they
hear without someone preaching to them. And
how can anyone preach unless they are sent
as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those
who bring the good news. And one verse from Jeremiah,
if you've raced,
how can you compete with horses? Father, thank you for your
word. Thank you that it brings life. I pray, Lord, that you would pierce
our hearts today. And Lord, that you would remove the distractions today
so that we can lean into the eternal thoughts and purposes of of your
plan today. We love you and we thank you for this great gift. In Jesus
name, amen. You may be seated. This morning,
we're going to talk about Jeremiah today. And one of the main
reasons I put Jeremiah 12:5 up there, because that's actually a life
verse of mine. I love
the book of Jeremiah and I believe that it conveys some real important
reminders and truths for us. Going to do a little bit of a flyover of
Jeremiah and get kind of to the crux of what I want to talk about
and draw from Jeremiah's story,
Jeremiah's book. But before I do, I've got to give some historical context
to kind of set up where I want to go. So Israel, the nation
Israel was really divided up into 12 tribes. And you remember we
learned about King Saul. The people said, we want a king. And the Lord said,
all right, I'll give you a king. And he gave them Saul. And Saul actually
started out as a pretty good king, but he went
downhill pretty fast. And his son David took over the kingdom and
then King Solomon. And so these kings ruled The Israelites,
the 12 tribes, Israel. And then Solomon
died and his son Rehoboam became king. Now when
Rehoboam became king, the people went to him and said,
hey, we want you to lessen the taxes and lessen
the burden of work you're placing on us that your
father did. And instead of listening to the people and doing that, he
listened to some friends of his. And his friends said, no, you should
multiply the taxes, you should multiply the work, make it harder. And that's what
he did. And what that did is it caused a division with.
And what happened is they divided into two different sections.
The 10 tribes broke away, 10 tribes
rebelled and broke away and went to
created the northern kingdom, which was Israel. And two tribes, Judah and
Benjamin stayed and were the southern kingdom.
So at this period of time, we've got two the divided
nation. We have Israel and we have Judah. And this is the makeup of
the tribes. And Israel in
the north, as is in keeping with rebellion, Israel in the
north started to walk away from the Lord started to
dabble into sin, get into sin, get into false gods, and get
into some things that they obviously shouldn't have been getting into. But they
basically walked away from the Lord. Now in the southern kingdom, that's where Jerusalem
is. And that's where. So they disconnected from everything. They moved away.
And guess what? What happens when we rebel is we.
We lend ourselves to destruction. And so in 722 BC, Assyria
conquers Israel because of their sin.
Israel is destroyed at this moment. These people are destroyed.
They're conquered because of their. Because of their
sin. Sin lends to
destruction. And the tribes of Judah, the two
tribes of Judah watched it happen.
And the reason I wanted to set this historical context is for this
point right here, the tribes of Judah watched
Israel be taken over by the Assyrians because of their
actions. And in the context of today's message,
I would like to suggest that in our world and the
people we see and walk alongside every day, I believe that the church
is watching it happen too. The church
is watching it happen too.
So this downfall happens with
Israel. The two tribes are watching it. And all
of a sudden what starts happening in Judah is
that they start to. They start to dabble their toe into some
sin. They start getting comfortable and complacent and. And they
start to listen to some false prophets. It wasn't that Judah stopped
believing in God, but they got real comfortable
that they started to listen to some voices that paraded around
as if it was coming from the Lord, but it wasn't coming from the Lord.
So the Lord raises up a true prophet by the name of
Jeremiah. And I love how the book starts in Jeremiah because
he. He looks at Jeremiah and he calls him, and he says, jeremiah,
I want to use you. I knew you before you were
even created. I knew you in your mother's womb. And
I believe that. I want to use. Lord says, I want to use you
to be my mouthpiece. I'm gonna put my very words
in your mouth and I want you to be obedient to speak them. I love
how the book starts, because here's the thing. When God calls you to something, when
he raises you up for something, he always equips you. And he will give you
his word. He will always. He will always provide the foundation
that you need to walk on. And because it comes from him. And he raises
up a Jeremiah who's going to car the very
heartbeat of his God, who's going to carry the very heartbeat
of his God. And so he raises up
Jeremiah. And Jeremiah goes around and he begins to proclaim
the word of God. And he says to the people of Judah, he says,
listen, turn from your wicked ways.
Turn to the real true God. Don't
dabble in this sin or you're going to be exiled.
This is going to happen. And some other false prophets
were conveying a different message, an opposite message.
They were saying, there's going to be peace. There's going to be peace.
Jeremiah, moved to tears, continued to
proclaim what God was saying to the people of
Judah. Move toward God. Look at God. God
doesn't want you to be exiled. But this is going to happen if you don't
turn from your ways. Well, lo and behold, just like people, they continued
in their ways. They continued in their ways
and they were exiled. In 586 BC they were exiled
to Babylon, just like Jeremiah foretold.
So that gives us a flyover of what we're dealing with here with
Jeremiah. And we're going to focus in on Jeremiah
and his heartbeat and his posture toward people and the people. In
Jeremiah 6 it says this. They dress the wound of my people as though it
were not sin serious. Peace. Peace, they say, when there is no peace.
This is coming from the mouthpiece of the false prophets.
There are people who are parading around as if they knew Jehovah,
God, and they were proclaiming this false word. Can I
tell you, it's dangerous to listen to false prophets. It's
dangerous to listen to people who are proclaiming a
gospel or a truth that does not line up with the word of God.
But whose responsibility is it to know the difference?
It's yours. It's yours. Jeremiah 9
says this. Oh, that my head were a spring of water, my eyes a fountain
of tears. I would weep days and night for the slaying of my
people. Jeremiah, weeping, crying,
heartbroken over the condition of the
people, the condition of the people
of God. And so this brings us to the crux of what I want to
talk to you today about. And it is this.
Do you have tears for the lost?
When was the last time
you shed tears over someone's
eternity? When was the last
time you shed tears for someone
who was lost? When was
the last time you even thought that there were people who were lost?
There's coming a day when God is going to split this sky open
and he hasn't done it yet. Why do you think he's relenting to do so?
Why do you think he's not in the heavens yet? Why?
Why do you think he's not open the skies because there are people, there
are still people who need to hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And so today I want to
examine three possibilities of why we may not carry tears
for the lost. The first reason is this.
We are so distracted.
We are so distracted. And many times the
biggest distraction in our life we carry around
because we will open our phone, we will look at our phone, we will talk
on our phone mo more mo mo
talk on our phone more than we will open the word and talk to the
Lord. We will be
devastated if we lose this thing. Some of us are trying to find where the
last place we put our Bible was so we can make sure we have it
for church.
We are so distracted. Culture, society
moving so fast. Distraction, distraction, distraction,
distraction. Constant things in front of us
that just take our focus off of the things that would allow
our hearts to break for what breaks his. We
are so distracted. My wife and I took our kids to the Grand
Canyon a couple years ago. If you ever get a chance to go to the
Grand Canyon, I highly recommend it. I was so excited for my kids to see
the Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon is vast and
majestic and beautiful. And so we were driving out there. And if you ever made
that drive, it's a drive. You gotta plan your day to get out there.
So we got out there to the Grand Canyon, and I'm so excited to show
Hadassah, Lucy, Ruby and Nora. I'm so excited to show them the Grand Canyon.
And we get there, and my breath was literally taken away.
And I just wanted them to see this moment, to remember
this moment. And they were so excited
when they got there and saw this squirrel.
They spent our entire two or three hours chasing this squirrel
and paying zero attention to the wonder that was right
before us. Can I tell you that you
have a God who's standing right before you? But we pay too
much attention to the squirrels all around us.
Some of us are too distracted that the pastor didn't say hello to us this
morning, that we can't listen to the word or worship or get through it. We
are so distracted by the things that don't matter. We're so
distracted by things that come by so fast and move us so
fast, by the text messages and the sounds and the phone
and the ads and the reels and the Instagram and the Facebook and
all of the things that we're so distracted that we can't focus
enough to really hear the voice of God, let alone carry the
heart of our sovereign God. We are so
distracted.
And what happens in the distraction? I want you to go with me for a
minute here. What happens, I believe, in the distractions
is we only pick up from fragments of what the Lord
is actually saying to us. But when we are in a
mode to project or to share or to rend what God's
given us, we speak fully from a fragmented position.
And what happens is the truth begins to get diluted and
shallow because we only present the gospel from a
shallow perspective. Because we take a fraction and we make it the whole thing.
Can I tell you, this is what happened in Judah, this is what happened in
Israel, is that generation after generation is getting
fragment of who this glorious God is. And so they begin to tip their
toe into sin, but try to keep their toe in the kingdom. And I want
to say we're not too far from that, folks. Can
I tell you today that Satan, our
enemy, he is after your kids. He is
after the generation to come. And this little
booger of a devil, he is the most. One of the
most patient beings on the earth. He will just
wait. Because if he can plant a seed,
one little seed in your life to distract
you enough, he doesn't have to do any destruction. You'll destroy yourself.
You'll destroy yourself. The enemy is after
our kids. Why was Moses put in a
basket? Why was he literally put in a basket? He
was put in a basket because he was. They were trying to save his life.
Kill the kids. Why did Jesus have to flee to Egypt?
Kill the kids in our society,
in our generation, what is the enemy
doing to attack the next generation so that the word of God doesn't go
forward? Well, let's make sure divorce happens in the homes so that we
lose the sanctity of marriage and we pollute
marriage so it's not attractive to kids to get married.
So let's have broken homes. Let's distract
them enough and numb ourselves enough that we don't even know how to have a
common conversation and shake somebody's hand and say hello, let's get
distracted enough. Why? So that there's no connection
between individuals. They just hook up.
Abortion, let's kill the kids.
Identity issues in our generation so that there is no
procreation, there is no supplying the
next generation, because guess what? He wants to kill off the generation.
Are you following me? You have a responsibility,
parents. Because here's the problem. And in pews across
America, parents come and sit in sanctuaries in the
pews, will shout hallelujah and amen and show their kids something
different when they get home, we're part of the problem as well,
because we will come in here and we'll put on a smile. I love you
so much. It's so good. I love you. Oh, you're so great. And then we
will get home and we will gossip, we will chatter, we will slander, we will
watch things, we will do things. And we are painting for our children
something completely different than we are projecting when we're around the things of the
Lord. What does your life look like? We are so
distracted. Why don't we have tears for the lost? Maybe it's
because some of us are lost ourselves.
Tears for love. We are so distracted. It's one of the reasons why you cannot
convince me that children's and youth ministries are the most important ministries of a church.
It's the most important because we are investing into
undeveloped minds every day as parents
and in the church, raising kids up who are
hearing the word of God's truth and man. I can
tell you, in that undeveloped state as an educator, in that undeveloped
state of. We are training them by our actions when we render
some type of truth. They are watching you to see if you walk out. What
you say you believe
the enemy's out. The enemy's out to kill generations.
And the people of Judah were distracted because they had one foot in the
kingdom and the other in the world. The second reason I believe that we don't
have tears for the lost is because we accept the counterfeit.
We are willing to accept the counterfeit.
Let's look at some counterfeits today, shall we? If it's not Mountain
Dew, it's got to be Mountain View.
If you've not seen the Lion King, check out the lion thing with
Chufasa.
Looking for something to dip in your milk? Try cream between.
Now, I love me some Adidas, but I'm not too fond of AIDS.
And I've washed my body with Dove. But I'm not so fond of washing it
with Dave.
I can't believe it's not butter. Well, how about I think it tastes like
butter
and if it's not Sony, it must be phony.
Listen, the enemy's greatest talent is creating
counterfeits that look like the real thing. The
enemy's greatest talent is creating counterfeits that look like the real
thing. I used to. This is no shame, what I'm about to say, so let
it fly out. Don't be offended. You know, I
used to go to Kroger or somewhere and I
would be buying chicken. I like some Chicken. And I would
just go and get the cheapest chicken. And then one day Ronnie
said, have you ever actually had real chicken? He actually said,
have you had like real chicken? And I'm like, why eat chicken? You know? He's
like, no, no. Have you had no injection, like actual, like real
chicken? And so I went out and got some $30 chicken piece
and I put it in a fry pan. It's
the best chicken I've ever tasted in my life.
But I had become so accustomed to counterfeit.
I become so accustomed that I didn't even really know that
there was something better. I believe that in
our lives we can get to a place where
we so lean into the counterfeit that we actually take
God's label and we slap it on the counterfeit. We say, this is my God.
Counterfeits are dangerous because they keep you comfortable until
it's too late. Over in Second Corinthians, Satan
himself masquerades as an angel of light. Is it
not surprising, then his servants also masquerade as servants
of righteousness? Their end will be what their actions
deserve. And I tell you that the
enemy of your soul knows how to put on a shirt that says I love
Jesus. He knows how to smile. He knows how to speak
the lingo. But here's the thing,
when it comes to counterfeit, they actually employ people
in this country to look for counterfeit dollar bills,
okay? If you get employed to look
for counterfeit dollar bills, you don't spend time
with the counterfeit learning what the counterfeit holds. You spend time
with the real thing so that when the counterfeit comes, you can recognize this
is real. And can I tell you, the way that
you recognize a counterfeit is by spending time with the real
God, by spending time with truly who he is, by getting
in his word. Because let me tell you, the counterfeit
sounds very familiar. This is why when you go
to that store and they, you give them a 20 ounce counterfeit, they have to
hold it up to the light because they're trying to make sure. Why? Because it
looks just like. Looks just like it. And
some of us will order our entire lives based on a
counterfeit because we don't know the real thing.
Reason we don't have tears for the loss is because we settle for the
counterfeit. And the people of Judah accepted the counterfeit.
Might I suggest today that counterfeits don't just live on shelves, they live in
pulpits, playlists and priorities.
We turn on the TV and we just hear somebody, as long as they say
Jesus Whatever else they're saying, we just buy into it and believe it. In fact,
some of you have mailed checks for 1999 to people that have just said Jesus
and the rest of it was garbage.
Playlists that we have in our ear, lies just feeding into us. And we just
buy into them and we just live our lives with the lie.
Priorities. Now, I'm all about some
boundaries. You read that book, Boundaries. I'm all about some boundaries, okay? But sometimes we
use that as an idol in our life to not do the things we're supposed.
Supposed to do. Your
priority is what the God of the universe tells you to do.
That's your priority. And for Jeremiah, it was go share my word and
they're going to throw you stones at you, they're going to spit at you.
That was Jeremiah's priority because it was God's calling
in his life.
And lastly, I believe it's because we settle for the shallow.
We settle for shallow.
A deluded truth. This is what 2 Timothy
tells us. @ the end of times, there's going to
be terrible things that happen. People will be lovers of
themselves, lovers of money,
boastful, proud, abusive,
disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self
control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash,
conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Having a form of godliness but denying its power.
Do you know any of these people?
And then he continues. He didn't stop there, does he? He says, don't have anything
to do with these people. The people
of Judah,
rubbing elbows with people who are all of these things,
building strong friendships and relationships and marrying the people who
are engaging in all of this stuff,
and it leads to their exile. Might I suggest to us
that we need to have our eyes open to the areas in
our lives that this might describe.
Why is this important? Because we need to have tears
for the lost. We need to
shed tears. Why should. Why do we need to. Why should I cry for the
lost? Because we're talking about a matter of life and death.
We're talking about a matter of life and. Can I, guys,
Can I just.
If my kid runs out into the road and a Mack truck is
coming at one of them, there is nothing on this
planet that would stop me from jumping as far as I can into that street
to push them out of the way. And Jeremiah's heart,
his heartbeat, and the love that he had for the people was to say,
destruction is coming at 100 miles an hour.
And he's willing to jump out in front of that Mack truck to push them
out of the way. What about you?
What about you? What about us?
It's the same heart problem as Judah's day.
And as surely as. And just as surely as Babylon came for
Jerusalem, Jesus is going to return for his church.
He's going to come back. Here's the good news. The gospel is
this. Jesus Christ came and he lived an impeccable
life, a perfect life. Why? Because God the Father
told him to go. And he said, yes, I'll do it. He came down, he
lived a perfect life. And guess what? We sin. And
there's a penalty for our sin. There's a penalty for all these things, and that
penalty is death. And Jesus came. Jesus Christ came to this
planet to pay the death penalty because
only he could pay it. And so he pays this death
penalty. But here's the power behind the story. He told us that
three days later, I'm coming back to life. And guess what? He did. He
came back to life. Today he's sitting by the right hand of God. I believe
he's alive and well today. And because of the power of the
resurrection, you and I can now have eternal life with Jesus
Christ forevermore. And that's something to be excited about. That's
something to. If you want to praise him for something, don't praise him because he
met your water bill. That's a good thing to praise him for. Praise him because
there's food on the table. That's a good thing to praise him for. Praise him
because you went from death to life. And not only from death to life.
The promise is, is that he's coming back one day for you. He's coming
back. And there's somebody here. I believe there's somebody here today.
All in my spirit. There's somebody here today that you feel as if you have
gone so far that you have no way back. Can I tell you, this verse
is coming up later. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies are new every single morning. And I believe that
today, if you are here in a place and you're. That this guy could have
anything to do with me because you don't know what I've done. Let me tell
you. He knows everything you've done. And this morning he said, I want you. This
morning he said, I love you. This morning he said, come to me. Come to
me. I will change your life and show you things that you can.
Indescribably extraordinary things. And it's available for you today.
Let me tell you, there's a dying world out there that also needs to hear
that message. And there's a dying world out there that you are passing by
every single day. Guys, do you have tears for the lost? Do
you have tears for those whose eternity is going to be separated
from the Lord? It is dangerous to walk a lukewarm
lifestyle. It is dangerous when you've got one foot in the world and
one foot in the Lord. It's a dangerous thing because you taint the gospel
when somebody's looking at you and say, do you really model what you're saying, what
you preach, what you're wearing on your shirt where you say, I love the Lord?
Jeremiah was rendering actual truth because who he was
listening to was the mouth of God.
The God you've created can't save you from the hell you ignore.
See, we like to believe because. And we do, we serve this
glorious God who is a promised, abundant life, and we lean into that so
much. But, guys, I just have to tell you as your pastor,
there's coming a day where those who have not acknowledged the
Lord Jesus Christ are going to be separated from Him. Now,
will there be a lake of fire and all those things? That's what the scripture
says. But let me tell you what hell is. Hell is separation from God. Hell
is separation from God if God is
love, joy, patience, peace, if God is all. I mean, none of that.
And we create many gods all the time,
and he can't. They cannot save you from the hell you
ignore. And so I would suggest to us this
morning that we not mistake God's patience for God's approval.
Because if you're wallowing in sin and you're living a lifestyle and you're doing
this thing over and over and over again, and you've just decided God is so
patient with me, I'm just going to continue to lean into it. Do not mistake
in God's patience for his approval. His patience is there
because He's. I believe that he so is. Is pursuing
you and wanting you to come home. But there's going to come a point where
he says, that's enough. And the reason
we have the story of Israel and Judah and the
exile is because there comes a time when God, when he says, enough
is enough. It's going to be enough. When he splits the sky. It's really
going to happen. It's not a myth. It's not a fairytale. It's the truth.
And so there is an urgency. Why is there an Urgency because
people are dying. Why are people dying? Because we live in a sinful world.
The urgency also comes because we don't know the hour or day. We could decide
to go to open tables today. And glory to glory. The trumpets are sounding.
Will everybody at your lunch table be going with you?
Lord, would you break our hearts for what breaks yours?
God, would you put something in us that gets our
mirror out of our face? Where every decision, everything we do has to
start with how this makes me feel, how this makes me look.
Tears for the lost. It's a matter of life
and death. Look at your neighbor and say, it's a matter of life and death.
Went shopping yesterday, and I got this fish.
He matches my blue here. It's a blue
fish. I didn't know that God created fish that look like this.
And it's pretty cool. Do y' all see them back there? You see them over
there? Let me help you.
I'll just kind of pull him out here.
Let's see here. Come here, little buddy. This is Max, by the way.
Max, let's see here.
He's got a little leaf in here. Come here.
All right, now I got him. All right, who wants to see him? Oh, stop
wiggling. All right, anybody want to see him?
Want to see him now? If he flies out in your dress, don't be mad.
See a blue. Look how this blue. I didn't know he made blue fish. This.
This blue. Look how blue that is.
Max landed in somebody's dress last service. Yeah.
Oh, look at him. Oh, he's kind of convulsing like something's wrong. Okay,
let's see here. Oh, he's shaking. Come here.
He must be nervous to show Charlotte. Come here. Oh,
Melanie, look at this blue fish. Oh, come
on now. Yeah. Oh, he's
kind of moving slower now. Wonder what's going on with that. See,
it's a blue fish. You see? See the blue fish?
Huh?
What? Oh, you want me to put him
back? Oh. Oh.
Now, Tina, why did you come and take that fish out of my hand?
Because the fish was dying. There was an urgency in you because the fish was
outside of the environment that it's supposed to live. Guys, we care so much more
about fish than we do the people around us.
And you have got to have the boldness and confidence to do
whatever it takes to introduce the dying
people to the world and the kingdom to which they should belong to.
Are you bold enough to actually even say the name
Jesus at the supermarket to your
waitress or waiter? Are you? I
mean, while you're cutting that person off the road,
right? Or why they're cutting you off
when you get overcharged?
Because here's the thing, I don't know why it is. Barbie, have you ever expected
a non Christian to act like a Christian?
I mean, so here it is. We get offended
as Christians who are supposed to be bringing the truth, expecting
non Christians to act like we're supposed to act. But then we return the favor
without acting like a Christian. Now where's that going to lead us? Let me tell
you. To exile. That's where it's going to lead us.
I believe somebody said, turn the other cheek. Now, he
wasn't just talking about when you get punched in the face, turn the other
cheek. When somebody wrongs you, turn the other cheek. Guys,
do our lives look like him? Do our lives look like him?
The part of having tears for loss isn't just about streams of water
coming down your face. It's about doing something about it. Listening to the
Holy Spirit, being willing to be a Jeremiah in
a world that needs to hear the truth of God's word.
We are a people who have hope. In Jeremiah
31, I have a chick fil a story I'll tell you sometime. It's not going
to happen today. Jeremiah 31, it says this.
The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of
Judah. Now I want you to pay attention to this. Remember
we talked about Israel at the top of the message? This
tells me that God doesn't forget about anybody.
Israel was destroyed. It was captive, it was taken by
the Assyrians. Guess what? God has not forgotten about Israel. And God has
not forgotten about you. He's not forgotten about that person who did
X, Y and Z. He's not forgotten. He says, I'm going to make a new
covenant, a new promise. We lament, we cry
because judgment is real. But we hope because salvation
is still available. Salvation is still
available. It's available right now. It's available today.
And so Jeremiah 29:11 says. For
I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for you to
prosper you, not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a
future. Let me tell you something. Driving down the street, this was the
chick fil a story. Driving down the street and I'm in a car with another
guy. He sees a billboard. And the thing that was on the billboard led to
his salvation. If God can use a
billboard, he can use any scripture in his word
to speak to people. I Understand that we talk about how the word of
God is written for us and not to us in some instances.
But don't tell me God can't take a verse and minister to you with it.
His word is alive and active. He has plans for you people.
He has a hope and a future for you. I can lean right into that
scripture and claim it all day long, but guess what? It makes
me want to learn more so I know the entire context because there's much more
to be learned. I don't just take that as a
fragmented verse and stand my whole life on it and say, well, there's nothing else
for me to do. It encourages me to grow more.
Jeremiah 29:13. You will seek me
and find me when you seek me with all of your heart.
Guys, we just come with that half. Little piece of my heart.
Little piece of it. No, all. All of our
heart. But this
I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord
never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every
morning. Great is your faithfulness.
Worship team. You can come back.
I cried so much in the first gathering
because I'm asking the Lord to break my heart for what breaks his.
I want to be a church who sees the lost
that we're not. Guys, we have. We have a beautiful
facility. We have great
programs here. We have wonderful things you can
participate in and be a part of. Somebody told me today that the Kate
is doing an amazing job in the cafe as they ate that gooey cinnamon roll
this morning. Got some hot coffee out there. We got all of these
wonderful things. But, guys, none of that is the purpose. Purpose. All
of it has to do with this essential truth that there are people dying
and there's life available to them.
And so our lives must model Christ.
And if you don't get anything right. Listen, if you don't get all that religious
stuff right, you don't do everything. Let's do that. How about we love, right?
Let's just start there. Let's just. Let's just lean in. If you can't think, oh,
man, I'm not supposed to do this. I'm caught up in this. Okay, forget about
all that for just a moment. Let's just lean into love. Let's just examine
and learn. What does God say about how to love?
Lean there. And I think that rest of that stuff will start to just creep
in there because guess why. Guess. Here's the thing. This is cool how this works.
You start to learn about how to Love others. You're going to start learning you're
actually loved by the creator of the universe as well. And then
your identity is no longer in question. Right? He
begins to move. Guys, we are at war,
and we win the battle in the end. There's some
casualties on the way, and you might literally
be sitting next to one of the casualties just because you were
not obedient to introduce them to the God of the
universe.
And so today, this is what I want to do to close the service. I
have some chalkboards. Would you roll those out for me, Pastor Barbie?
I have some chalkboards here, and we're going to turn them around because there are
already some things written on them from the early gathering.
I chose chalkboards this morning for a reason.
We're going to put names up here of people
that we're believing for salvation for. And
I put them on chalkboards because we're going to believe that the names are going
to be erased off these boards and written in the Lamb's Book of life.
And when they're written in the Lamb's book of life, they ain't going anywhere, okay?
So here they can be erased. We're going to erase them off of here because
we're going to believe the Lord. If you came today and you've got somebody on
your mind, maybe it's somebody that you were supposed
to minister to. Maybe it was somebody. Maybe you missed it. Maybe it's. Maybe it's
somebody, and that's okay. There's great. Hey. The steadfast love of the Lord never
ceases. His mercies are new every morning.
But today I'm going to invite you to come and add a name to this
board, okay? If you've got somebody who you believe
needs salvation. But. But there's
more. If you're a leader here and you're planning to pray with
people today, would you come on up right now before I have everybody standing?
I believe that sometimes it's easier to believe for somebody else
rather than. Or more so than it is to believe for yourself.
And I. You know, I sometimes miss the Holy Spirit,
but I believe this morning the Holy Spirit told me there is somebody who's
eternity is going to change in this room.
And all of these people behind me have laid down their lives
not so that we can have wonderful programs and coffee and all that.
They've laid down their lives because they want to introduce people to Jesus.
And so if you're here this morning and you have never
asked Jesus to be in your life, today
is the day of Salvation. Salvation. He who calls upon
the name of the Lord will be saved. Will be saved.
And the Holy Spirit of God knew that you were coming to church this morning.
I'm talking about the one who had to rush out to the car. The kids
were screaming, you were in a bad mood. You ran the red light. He knew
you were coming this morning in your mess.
He knew it. And in
knowing that, he's saying, come,
leave the life. It's okay, come.
Doesn't matter what you come is what he's saying.
And so if that is you today, I'm going to invite you to come this
morning and pray with one of these people up here. And it will
be the greatest privilege and joy of any one of these people's lives
to lead you to the God who breathes stars.
And so we're going to come for three reasons. Number one reason is to
write names on this board of people that we need to be believing for.
Number two is if you want today to change everything, let me also say this.
I'm going to really step on a toe here. Are you ready? Some
of you say, oh, I'm saved because I've been in church all my life.
Some of you say, I'm good. I'm good because my parents have faith enough for
me to believe. Let me tell you why you can't ride on the
coattails of your parents, because your parents aren't Jesus.
So I'm saying to you this, and I'm gonna get real Baptist on you. There
needs to be a point in time where you point back and say, everything
changed. There needs to be a point. He says, whoever confesses
his sin, then he's just to forgive. Forgive his sin. So today may be
a day where you've been, you've been walking around and you've been participating in the
things of the kingdom, but you, you've never acknowledged him as Lord with someone.
You never had that moment where you said, God, I'm
a sinner and I need your blood. Would you forgive me?
I need your blood. I accept you into my life. I want to live for
you. If that's you, today's the day of salvation.
So that's number two. Number three, some of you are sitting
here, some of you are crying right now because you know somebody right now that
either needs to hear this message, it's not saved. It's probably the same person. You're
gonna put their name on this board, come to one of these
believers, and let's believe together for the people's
names. We're Writing on the boards, there's somebody you want to pray with. And,
guys, this is. If you're. If you're praying with people, let me have your eyes
for a second. Here's the prayer. We're gonna pray for salvation,
okay? But you're gonna pray that the Lord gives that
person the courage and the confidence to be the conduit of grace for that
person's life, okay?
Once all of that happens and we start moving here, the
prayer for the church that I have this morning that I need for my life
is break my heart. God, give me tears for these names. Give
me tears for Josh and Tasha and Caleb and Chris and Rich and John
and Michaela. Give me tears for these people. And so as you go
back and worship, it's not the time to suck down your. Your latte. It's time
to lean in. Lean in and carry and
ask the Lord. And maybe you don't feel anything. Maybe you're emotionless toward it. Then
just stand there and go, Lord, would you break my heart? Lord, would you break
my heart? Well, Lord, would you tender up my heart so I can see them
the way you see them? I believe Jeremiah, he wasn't coming at them like
this. He was coming at them broken with tears.
So, Lord, would you break our heart as a church to the
names that we're going to render before you today. Would you stand with me? We're
going to worship three reasons to come forward, to write names on the board,
to pray for people who need to hear salvation. And if you
today want to change your eternity forever, come and
pray. Let's worship.