back to index2015-06-28 To Be a Man After God's Own Heart"
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Okay, let me pray for us and then we'll jump into the message this morning. 00:00:10.680 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace. 00:00:15.600 |
We thank you, Lord God, that your love has caused us to open our eyes to see the truth 00:00:24.960 |
And we know, Father, that even our understanding of the Gospel is because you've been gracious 00:00:30.080 |
I pray, Father, God, that your Holy Spirit would continue to convict, renew, strengthen, 00:00:35.400 |
and revive us, Lord God, for the sake of your name. 00:00:38.680 |
We pray that the power of your Holy Spirit would be real this morning, that your word 00:00:44.040 |
would go forth and it would convict us, revive us, encourage us, Lord God, to run this race 00:00:56.960 |
>> You know, a few years back I was helping a doctor friend of mine move from one apartment 00:01:06.920 |
And then he had a bunch of his doctor friends come. 00:01:10.800 |
And I got in a conversation with one of the doctors who was an oncologist. 00:01:15.600 |
And in the context of the conversation, I asked him, "It must be really hard for you 00:01:18.740 |
because part of your job is to tell people that they have cancer. 00:01:23.840 |
And oftentimes when they find out about it, it's too late. 00:01:27.300 |
And so part of their job is to sit down and counsel families and tell them to prepare 00:01:35.320 |
And I asked him, "It must be really difficult. 00:01:39.280 |
And he said, "You know, after a while you just become numb to it." 00:01:43.240 |
You know, he said sometimes he would actually sit, he would have his colleagues who would 00:01:47.360 |
go in and tell somebody, "You have three months to live." 00:01:49.880 |
And then they would come outside and they would just joke and laugh like nothing happened. 00:01:54.040 |
And he said that that's very common in the oncology department. 00:01:57.600 |
So not to say that every doctor is that way, but he says that that's how they've learned 00:02:02.680 |
to deal with what they have to do on a regular basis. 00:02:06.760 |
And obviously it would be very encouraging to be able to help somebody who is sick and 00:02:16.020 |
But again, it was surprising to me how callous we can become toward life and death. 00:02:24.880 |
But as I was thinking about that, I think about how even spiritually we can become so 00:02:31.600 |
callous in the way that we live our Christian lives, where our doctrine and our life is 00:02:37.160 |
so segregated and separate that we say tremendous things up on the pulpit in our daily, in our 00:02:45.560 |
praises and our Bible studies and memorizing scripture. 00:02:49.840 |
But it doesn't always reflect in the way that we live our lives. 00:02:55.020 |
We know if you are a believer, biblical believer of the gospel of Jesus Christ, part of the 00:03:01.560 |
gospel tells us not only are we going to be saved, but he says judgment is coming to the 00:03:10.880 |
So it will be at the close of the age, the angels will come out and separate the evil 00:03:15.120 |
from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. 00:03:19.800 |
In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for every single individual in this 00:03:25.920 |
room who professes to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ must embrace that too. 00:03:31.360 |
You can't just pick and choose certain parts of scripture that I believe. 00:03:35.440 |
And if you, again, if you confess your faith in Jesus Christ, that this is part of your 00:03:40.560 |
confession that there is judgment waiting for those who have not been, since have not 00:03:46.920 |
In fact, he said, the judgment is so severe in Mark chapter 9, 42 through 50. 00:03:53.720 |
He says, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. 00:03:58.480 |
It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the 00:04:06.440 |
He said, this judgment is so hideous that it would be better to have your limbs cut 00:04:12.520 |
off than to allow that limb to drag you into hell. 00:04:16.480 |
Verse 45, if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. 00:04:20.880 |
It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 00:04:29.440 |
Is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be 00:04:33.360 |
thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, for everyone 00:04:42.640 |
I know in our generation that we try to shy away from passages of judgment because it 00:04:53.400 |
It's not a message that we would like to share. 00:04:55.300 |
We want to highlight the grace and love of God, but yet at the same time, the scripture 00:05:01.920 |
The reason why we are in dire need of grace is because of the judgment that is coming. 00:05:07.800 |
It is not because we have a hard time living. 00:05:11.720 |
It's not because we want to have hope that when we die, we're going to go to heaven. 00:05:15.840 |
All of these things may be true, but at the core of why we need the mercy of God and the 00:05:20.640 |
atonement of Jesus Christ is because the scripture says there's judgment waiting for those who 00:05:29.920 |
And so we celebrate as men and women who have been saved from this fire, from this 00:05:37.540 |
And yet, I think we have to say, we have to honestly admit that at times we're no different 00:05:44.840 |
than some of the oncologists that we talked about where we can talk about all of this, 00:05:50.120 |
hear this, maybe even be shocked a little bit for a momentary time, and then we go out 00:06:00.320 |
We maybe share it in Bible study, but we turn it off when we go to work. 00:06:06.080 |
We turn it off sometimes even with other Christians because the reality of what this message says, 00:06:15.600 |
what the reality that is pictured for us in scripture is too heavy to bear. 00:06:26.120 |
We choose to marginalize some doctrines in order that we may live a peaceful and quiet 00:06:42.720 |
Basically what hedonic adaptation is that we have a tendency that if we share, no matter 00:06:47.920 |
how shocking of bad or good news it is, eventually we become numb to the news and we kind of 00:06:59.240 |
Hedonic adaptation is a mental habit of overstimulation of certain things which eventually becomes 00:07:06.800 |
Once it becomes mundane, we become insensitive to hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting what 00:07:17.040 |
It's kind of like when we're riding on a treadmill, we don't think. 00:07:20.600 |
Because it's going, you just go along with it. 00:07:30.160 |
Where you've heard the message so many times, where we don't think much about it. 00:07:35.360 |
That's why Jesus Christ, whenever he said something of significance, remember he says, 00:07:45.840 |
He's talking about an individual who has become so numb to the truth of God that when the 00:07:51.600 |
Lord himself, the Son of God himself is speaking the truth, they could not hear him. 00:08:03.880 |
Maybe there's certain things that we do that we kind of have to learn to turn off the consequence. 00:08:11.340 |
Maybe if you're a police officer and you're seeing horrendous things, that you've got 00:08:14.240 |
to learn to turn that off when you come home. 00:08:16.880 |
Maybe if you're an oncologist, you have to learn to turn that off and not to be able 00:08:22.680 |
But as a Christian, when our heart is not engaged with the things that we profess, we 00:08:30.520 |
Because you and I know that worship is more than what we do physically in this room. 00:08:36.640 |
In fact, if you remember the Old Testament, God deliberately, he forsakes Saul and he 00:08:42.840 |
chooses David, but his rationale behind why he chooses David to lead his people, again, 00:08:52.400 |
He says, "He raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, 'I have found 00:08:56.880 |
in David, the son of Jesse, the man after my own heart.'" 00:09:01.040 |
He says he chooses David because he sees beyond the surface and he sees what's in his heart. 00:09:09.500 |
And as a result of that, he says, he's a man after my own heart, "who will do all my will." 00:09:16.800 |
The one who does his will is the one who understands his heart. 00:09:24.900 |
If we have a callous heart, it affects even the way that we understand scripture. 00:09:30.600 |
What comes through this morning is also contingent upon the condition of your heart. 00:09:38.320 |
What you receive and reject, what seems reasonable and unreasonable, what seems fair and unfair 00:09:44.680 |
is directly linked to the condition of our heart. 00:09:48.120 |
See, the scripture says that you and I receive the mercy of God because he had compassion 00:09:57.320 |
He didn't act simply logically because it would be logical that you and I be punished 00:10:04.800 |
It would only be just if God, a holy God, looked at his creation and said, "These people 00:10:09.440 |
are rebelling against me, dragging my name through the mud," that they deserve judgment. 00:10:15.400 |
So what the scripture says, he had compassion. 00:10:18.680 |
Hosea 11 verse 8, he describes a relationship with his people where they keep forsaking 00:10:23.920 |
him to seek after idols, but he says, "I will be patient with Israel because of my compassion." 00:10:32.580 |
In Micah 7, 19, he says, "Israel is receiving the judgment of God," but he says, "I will 00:10:39.280 |
not remain in my judgment because I have compassion." 00:10:44.880 |
In fact, in Psalm 103, 10 through 13, our salvation is described this way. 00:10:50.580 |
He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities, 00:10:54.920 |
for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those 00:11:00.940 |
As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us, 00:11:04.920 |
as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who 00:11:12.240 |
It is because of his compassion toward us that you and I are here. 00:11:18.400 |
And that's why when he looks at his people, he desires us to be compassionate, that we 00:11:27.500 |
In fact, if you look at scripture, everything God does is an act of compassion. 00:11:35.480 |
In Matthew 14, 14, it says, "When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion 00:11:48.920 |
He said, "He looked upon them and he had compassion." 00:11:53.200 |
Matthew 15, 32, it talks about why he fed the 5,000. 00:11:57.660 |
We know that he did it to prove his identity. 00:11:59.740 |
We know that he did it because it was at the peak of his success, but his underlying emotional 00:12:08.540 |
It was compassion in Mark 1, 40, why he healed the leopards, it says. 00:12:14.540 |
It was because of his compassion, he healed the demon-possessed in Mark chapter 5. 00:12:20.180 |
It was because he had compassion in Luke 7, 11, that he had compassion for the widow of 00:12:27.460 |
The two blind men mentioned in Matthew 20, 30, 34, is because he had compassion. 00:12:38.020 |
Because if we confess that there is hell and judgment waiting, and I know that, again, 00:12:46.540 |
in our culture, that we don't want to talk about this because it makes people feel uncomfortable. 00:12:57.900 |
So we don't want to be at church and talk about heavy things. 00:13:03.340 |
But we would be lying to ourselves if all we do is pick and choose the things that makes 00:13:12.420 |
And you choose to marginalize things that are clearly spelled out in Scripture for us. 00:13:28.180 |
Callousness is described this way in the dictionary. 00:13:49.620 |
Jesus said to His disciples, Matthew 8, 17 and 21, when He was teaching them about Himself 00:13:55.820 |
as the bread and how He was going to go to the cross, He was frustrated with them. 00:13:59.860 |
But in the way He described why they weren't able to understand, He says, "Do you not understand 00:14:13.140 |
Their ability to even understand what Jesus was saying was because of their hardened heart. 00:14:18.060 |
In 2 Corinthians 3, 14, He talks about the Jews. 00:14:28.180 |
For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted because only 00:14:37.620 |
The whole reason why they rejected the Messiah is because their hearts were hardened. 00:14:44.020 |
Hebrews 3, 13, "We are warned to persevere in our faith." 00:14:48.180 |
And this is how the perseverance, encouragement to persevere is explained. 00:14:52.980 |
"Exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened 00:15:03.860 |
Paul says in Acts 24, 16, "I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God 00:15:10.940 |
Now before, when I used to read that term, to have a clear conscience, I just automatically 00:15:15.620 |
assumed he's talking about the way he lived his life. 00:15:23.180 |
But have a clear conscience is more than what you do physically. 00:15:27.900 |
Is more than just a checkoff list to come and say, "I did this, this, this, and this." 00:15:34.280 |
How do we recognize if our hearts are not callous? 00:15:41.800 |
If we are simply fans of Jesus Christ, if we're simply fans of Jesus Christ, we don't 00:15:48.860 |
need to keep our eyes on Christ all the time. 00:15:55.180 |
Maybe once a Sunday, maybe at Bible study, maybe in small group. 00:15:59.660 |
But we don't need to fix our eyes upon Christ all the time. 00:16:06.400 |
But if we're followers of Jesus Christ, the moment we take our eyes off of Christ, we 00:16:12.940 |
There's three instances in the scripture where the Bible describes three sets of people, 00:16:18.540 |
three groups or three different churches that have hardened their hearts toward God and 00:16:26.880 |
And the book of Hebrews is written to these people who are drifting away from God because 00:16:32.580 |
The second group of people were the Ephesians, the church of Ephesus, written in Revelation. 00:16:37.500 |
And he said, "These people were doing all the things that are externally correct, but 00:16:46.140 |
And then a third group of people mentioned in the scripture are the Laodiceans. 00:16:50.160 |
These are people who become so hardened that they felt like they didn't even need Christ. 00:16:54.460 |
And obviously the greatest rebuke goes to the Laodicean church. 00:16:58.940 |
Each one of these churches had a reason why they were hardened and became callous. 00:17:05.820 |
The Hebrews, these are people at one point were passionately and excited for God. 00:17:12.260 |
But they took their eyes off of Christ and they weren't deliberately denying Christ and 00:17:28.060 |
So basically what happened was they just drifted back into their old way of life, the Judaizers. 00:17:35.260 |
And that's why the whole book of Hebrews is to convince them the consequences of drifting, 00:17:43.020 |
allowing your heart to cauterize, to become hardened toward the things of God. 00:17:47.900 |
And so he reminds them systematically that Jesus is greater than the angels, greater 00:17:52.820 |
than Moses, greater than the prophets, greater than the priesthood, greater than the sacrifice 00:17:59.860 |
And the covenant is a greater covenant than the old covenant. 00:18:05.300 |
See the book of Ephesians, these people on the surface would seem like a great church. 00:18:11.860 |
You know, and oftentimes it's a lot easier to just be religious because all we have to 00:18:20.900 |
Just go to church, pay your tithe, serve the church a little bit here and there, you know, 00:18:31.780 |
But he says you have forsaken your first love. 00:18:36.020 |
He said you have forsaken, he didn't say you lost it, he didn't say you dropped it. 00:18:56.460 |
If we remain soft in our heart and eager to listen and eager to obey, it will rock your 00:19:06.740 |
The gospel will force you to take a look at your spending. 00:19:10.920 |
The gospel will force to look at yourself in the way you spend your time. 00:19:15.900 |
And so when we take a step back and we recognize the spiritual reality that is painted for 00:19:20.400 |
us in scripture, it is easier for us to compartmentalize that into church and non-churched. 00:19:27.260 |
So it is easier for me to live my secular life without having to think about these things. 00:19:32.940 |
But when the reality of heaven and hell is real in the way that we live on a day-to-day 00:19:46.660 |
"Well, that's pastor, you know, of course it's easy for you because you're a full-time 00:19:54.100 |
Well, you don't know me, you don't know my job, you don't know how difficult it is." 00:20:00.620 |
Basically, what we're rationalizing is a secular life. 00:20:07.900 |
He says to the Ephesians church, "You have forsaken your first love." 00:20:15.400 |
These are people who are so callous, and there's no mention of wrong doctrine necessarily. 00:20:19.100 |
There's no mention of immorality necessarily. 00:20:21.980 |
It's just that their salvation was their wealth. 00:20:26.460 |
Here was a church who maybe on the surface looked like Christians, but at the core of 00:20:33.180 |
what they believed and what they pursued and what brought joy into their life had nothing 00:20:40.300 |
So even though they may not have verbally said, "I don't need you, Christ," Jesus sees 00:20:46.420 |
He says, "You are lukewarm, and I'll spew you out of my mouth." 00:20:52.880 |
But if you look at all three situations, the solution is the same. 00:20:58.700 |
With Hebrews, it says to fix your eyes upon Christ. 00:21:04.420 |
With the Ephesians, consider the height in which you had fallen. 00:21:10.060 |
Remember the first time when you met Christ, when you first heard the gospel? 00:21:16.740 |
When the first time you found the reality of judgment that's coming upon mankind? 00:21:21.740 |
How that caused you to say, "I need to share the gospel." 00:21:26.780 |
Remember the height from which you had fallen, and look at where you are, and he says to 00:21:35.100 |
Why doesn't he just simply say, "Remember the height," and try to get back up there? 00:21:39.580 |
He says to repent, because it was a deliberate act. 00:21:44.580 |
We deliberately placed ourselves in a place where the truth of the Word of God would no 00:21:58.940 |
But if we're honest with ourselves, we're more fans than followers. 00:22:07.060 |
In Hebrews chapter 12, when he says to fix your eyes upon Jesus, it's not just a casual 00:22:14.220 |
It's to turn your head and see where Jesus is and look. 00:22:17.320 |
The word means to gaze, to intently look, and don't take your eyes off of him. 00:22:24.180 |
You know, when I was visiting China a couple weeks ago, Pastor Alex had two scooters. 00:22:29.540 |
He had one that was more stronger and powerful, and then he had a smaller one that Vince used 00:22:35.620 |
And so, you know, he's the big guy, so he rode the big one, and then him and Flo, and 00:22:42.700 |
So we were supposed to go somewhere to take care of some business, and me and Andy, in 00:22:47.180 |
this little putt-putt thing, we were riding behind him. 00:22:50.660 |
And typically when it's just me and Pastor Alex, we were able to just kind of go, you 00:22:59.780 |
Yeah, it was Andy, and then Flo was riding with him. 00:23:04.780 |
So he would take off, and usually I would just kind of putt-putt and then just follow 00:23:09.140 |
But this day was raining, so I think he wanted to hurry up and get out of the rain, and so 00:23:12.180 |
he was just on his way, and he didn't look back, and he just took off. 00:23:18.540 |
And Andy and I were, you know, we're in a new area, we're not in Wangjin, we're in 00:23:24.660 |
And so it started raining, and we were like, "Where did this guy go?" 00:23:27.180 |
So we were lost in the rain for about 40 minutes, and we got drenched, you know. 00:23:32.640 |
If you are casually just a fan of Jesus, you know, you can go to a stadium, kind of watch 00:23:38.320 |
the game, and go to the bathroom, and get some food, and come back, and rejoin, and 00:23:46.900 |
If you're just a fan, you don't need to be sober all the time. 00:23:52.140 |
You can allow your heart to be callous a little bit, because the consequence isn't that great. 00:23:57.920 |
But if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, the moment we take our eyes off of Christ, 00:24:08.140 |
I've never heard of anybody who just drifts towards Christ. 00:24:22.220 |
Why we are able to say that judgment is coming upon the world, in the church, and then yet 00:24:43.980 |
Because to live day to day with the reality of what the gospel teaches us, would shake 00:24:49.980 |
our lives up to the point where we would be uncomfortable. 00:24:56.860 |
We will be uncomfortable in the things that we pursue. 00:25:09.080 |
If God is looking for people who is after His own heart, what is His heart? 00:25:14.920 |
It is absolutely crystal clear, Luke chapter 15, 1 through 32. 00:25:18.580 |
Jesus is hanging around with the sinners and the Pharisees say, "Why are you hanging around 00:25:25.320 |
The first parable is a lost sheep, that He would leave the 99 to pursue the 1. 00:25:30.180 |
Meaning that God loves the sinner, that He would return. 00:25:39.500 |
So He loses the one coin and He sweeps the whole house. 00:25:43.420 |
And in both instances, when they find a sheep, when they find a coin, they have a huge celebration. 00:26:18.760 |
And that is why He said, "You are the light of the world. 00:26:24.100 |
If you lose the saltiness, what good will it be?" 00:26:29.500 |
The final, last one is the parable of the prodigal son. 00:26:36.260 |
I'm not going to go into it, but the prodigal son, he hits rock bottom and he chooses to 00:26:41.220 |
return and his heart is, "I'll go home and live like a servant. 00:26:47.180 |
And even my dad's servant lives better than what I'm experiencing here." 00:26:52.320 |
And this is how his reception is described in Luke chapter 15. 00:26:57.700 |
His father looks to the horizon and the picture that we see is a father who is there, who's 00:27:05.900 |
The only reason why he's even given his son his inheritance was that it was probably the 00:27:10.620 |
only way that he was going to win his son back. 00:27:22.220 |
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran 00:27:32.780 |
And the whole reason for this parable is to reveal to the Pharisees that you do not know 00:27:41.300 |
It's because your heart has become so callous that even when the son of God is standing 00:27:49.740 |
There's two instances in the scripture where Jesus' compassion was so deep and so strong 00:28:01.100 |
First instance, we mentioned in John chapter 11, 35, Jesus wept, the shortest passage in 00:28:11.340 |
He deliberately takes his time to get to Lazarus' grave because he's waiting for Lazarus to 00:28:18.100 |
He comes and Mary is weeping and all the friends and family are gathered around the grave and 00:28:25.340 |
And Mary comes to Jesus and says, "Jesus, only if you had come a little bit sooner, 00:28:33.500 |
It's in that context Jesus is found to have been weeping. 00:28:37.580 |
A lot of people were kind of debating, like, "Why would Jesus weep? 00:28:46.080 |
If he did come earlier, if he didn't take his time, he would have been there and could 00:28:51.500 |
So the fact that Jesus is there deliberately giving enough time for him to pass and then 00:28:56.900 |
to weep because Lazarus is dead doesn't make any sense. 00:29:01.780 |
In fact, if you look at the word for weep in both instances where the crowd is weeping 00:29:06.580 |
and Jesus is weeping, it's two different Greek words. 00:29:10.260 |
And I believe the meaning behind why he wept is more clarified in the second instance where 00:29:16.500 |
Jesus weeps, is in Luke chapter 1941, where Jesus is entering into Jerusalem on a donkey 00:29:22.500 |
and there's a huge parade for him and everybody is expecting something spectacular to happen 00:29:31.820 |
Some say that there may have been more than a million people in Jerusalem at that time. 00:29:37.220 |
Doesn't mean that all of them were there receiving Jesus, but the crowd, the parade-like atmosphere, 00:29:43.580 |
and yet we find Jesus in verse 41 of Luke chapter 19, "When he drew near and saw the 00:29:56.940 |
He was weeping because he saw Jerusalem, because they completely missed him. 00:30:02.420 |
If you only knew today what would bring peace, destruction would not be coming. 00:30:09.240 |
And he was weeping over the judgment that was going to come upon his own people. 00:30:14.740 |
I believe the reason why he was weeping in Lazarus' grave is because death is the most 00:30:23.340 |
That he wasn't weeping because Lazarus physically died, because he was going to raise him physically. 00:30:31.820 |
He came because there is a bigger and deeper cancer in every human being. 00:30:37.100 |
And the only way to cure that is by the blood of Christ. 00:30:42.200 |
It was in the presence of the judgment of God. 00:30:44.260 |
It was in the tangible evidence of the judgment of God, where Jesus had the greatest compassion, 00:30:58.500 |
If we compartmentalize this truth, and we choose to hear it on Sunday, and block it 00:31:05.960 |
off when we go to work in our homes, it not only causes us to be callous toward the things 00:31:14.220 |
of God, it affects even our understanding of truth. 00:31:19.100 |
It affects our understanding of even being able to hear the voice of God. 00:31:23.180 |
My sheep, they hear my voice and they will follow me. 00:31:29.380 |
In Matthew 24 verse 12 it says, "Because of lawlessness will be increased, the love of 00:31:40.300 |
You guys know about the decision that was made this week at the Supreme Court. 00:31:44.780 |
And I know a lot of people were shocked, but if you've been paying attention, none of us 00:31:52.320 |
But what was shocking to me is not what the Supreme Court said, not what the world is 00:32:03.500 |
Fifteen years ago we would talk about this subject and there would be no rumbling in 00:32:09.780 |
I would go to a Bible teaching church and mention something passing about homosexuality 00:32:14.660 |
and I would get two, three people standing in line to talk to me about it. 00:32:20.260 |
He says, "Because of lawlessness, love of many will grow cold. 00:32:27.020 |
For the last 10 to 15 years or longer, the church has been trying so hard to be relevant 00:32:34.020 |
in our culture, by our music, by the way we preach, the way we dress, the way we present 00:32:42.740 |
And we've been trying so hard to become relevant to the world. 00:32:54.580 |
It says, "Because of increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold, but the one 00:33:05.060 |
When he talks about the one who endures, he says that love of many will grow cold, but 00:33:14.700 |
So when he talks about enduring, what is he saying? 00:33:18.780 |
The one who does not allow his heart to grow cold. 00:33:23.980 |
He's not simply talking about somebody who didn't physically leave the church. 00:33:27.420 |
He's not talking about somebody who's just doing the right thing, like the church of 00:33:32.500 |
He's talking about the love that has a tendency to grow cold when the world's wickedness increases, 00:33:41.460 |
but the one who endures that, the one who endures and his love for Christ remains. 00:33:52.940 |
And then it says, "And the gospel of this kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the 00:33:55.860 |
whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." 00:34:02.380 |
End will come when people who are passionate for Jesus proclaims the gospel to the remotest 00:34:07.060 |
part of the world, he said, "Then he will come." 00:34:12.460 |
Either you are with me or you are against me. 00:34:15.460 |
Either you are among the people who are helping me gather or you are among the people who 00:34:30.760 |
We should not be surprised by just how dark this world can become. 00:34:42.060 |
Jesus did not send us into the light to be a light. 00:34:50.540 |
And if our hearts are callous, we wouldn't even recognize. 00:34:57.020 |
Again, you and I live in a culture where we're not allowed to think critically. 00:35:05.620 |
Everywhere we go, even while you're hiking, you have earplugs in your ear playing music. 00:35:14.420 |
You get in your car, and if it's more than any five, six minutes, you have talk radio 00:35:23.020 |
And we don't have time to sit down and think critically. 00:35:26.660 |
We're constantly being bombarded and told what to think, what to like, what to buy. 00:35:32.640 |
And as a result of that, we become callous to the things that really matter. 00:35:47.700 |
Not just something that you check off so that when we die, that we can say, "Hey, I believe 00:36:03.960 |
Maybe even say, "I might love him," because who wouldn't? 00:36:06.660 |
I mean, he is a man who gave himself to die for people who are undeserving. 00:36:13.340 |
I mean, what culture, what generation would not celebrate that kind of sacrifice? 00:36:20.380 |
But Jesus did not come to make fans of himself. 00:36:34.900 |
When was the last time you pleaded on the behalf of those who are under judgment? 00:36:45.520 |
When was the last time you had compassion for somebody that you profess to believe is 00:36:52.940 |
When was the last time you made a decision to do something because you were moved with 00:37:00.100 |
Have we allowed ourselves to be callous and be okay with it? 00:37:05.580 |
Have you marginalized the voice of God because it's uncomfortable? 00:37:12.980 |
I encourage us, I encourage all of us, never be okay with a hardened heart. 00:37:23.940 |
To come before the Lord and plead, first and foremost, "Lord, my heart has become hardened. 00:37:31.380 |
What I profess on Sunday and what I do during the weekday does not match, Lord. 00:37:56.020 |
If our heart's not broken for the lost, then we lie to ourselves. 00:38:09.340 |
And again, we can easily just file this away because after this we have to take care of 00:38:24.060 |
But I pray with all my heart, today, tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and 00:38:38.700 |
That we're not just building religious people. 00:38:41.780 |
But that what we profess and what we feel and what we do is consistent. 00:38:52.120 |
As our praise team comes up, first and foremost, let's come before the Lord. 00:39:01.880 |
I know already that even in this room, already, that some of you are kind of like, "I've heard 00:39:17.480 |
I'm not asking you to do this for anybody else. 00:39:21.120 |
But for yourself, are you here because you believe in Jesus? 00:39:27.720 |
Are you a worshiper of God in spirit and in truth? 00:39:40.480 |
So let's come before the Lord in honest prayer and not build religiousness in our homes, 00:39:47.200 |
not build religiousness in our church, but to be genuine followers of Jesus Christ. 00:39:55.600 |
Would you take some time to pray with me as our worship team leads us?