back to indexBerean Community Church Sunday Service 5/29/2022
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We will now begin our service this morning with the worship of our king, who is worthy. 00:15:42.000 |
We want to jump right into the announcement this morning. 00:15:45.000 |
First of all, our college students are at the end of their quarter, and so next Sunday, 00:15:51.000 |
there's going to be a study hall that's going to be from 6 to 2 a.m., 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., Sunday through Tuesday. 00:15:58.000 |
We announced that the building that we have next door, where the cafe, the other side that the other group is renting, 00:16:06.000 |
they're actually leaving this week, and so we're going to have access to that, but there's going to be some construction going on. 00:16:12.000 |
And so there's some things, the gates over there and then the various things that we're doing construction. 00:16:20.000 |
So when you come to church, we don't know exactly when that's going to take place, but it's going to be sooner than later. 00:16:25.000 |
When you come on to church and you see that around, especially if you have small children, 00:16:31.000 |
we're going to ask you guys to kind of be more mindful of that, and we're hoping that all of it will be set up before the VBS 00:16:37.000 |
so we can have access to that side, but I want you guys to be aware of that. 00:16:40.000 |
And then sooner than later, our outdoor service is going to slowly get shut down because of the construction that's going to be taking place out there, 00:16:48.000 |
so I wanted to give you guys a heads up on that. 00:16:50.000 |
And again, for the college study hall, because they are studying like we do, we're asking the church to kind of donate your food, encouragement, 00:16:59.000 |
and just drop it off at church so that they can study better. 00:17:04.000 |
So that's happening next Sunday from 6 to 2 a.m., Sunday through Tuesday. 00:17:10.000 |
Next Sunday, there's going to be communion service, so please prepare for that. 00:17:15.000 |
And then after our prayer for the offering, we're going to have our sister Lisette. 00:17:21.000 |
She's going to come up and give her testimony, and then she'll be baptized this morning. 00:17:24.000 |
So again, if you are new to the church and you need to give your physical offering, there's an offering box underneath the big clock, 00:17:30.000 |
and those of you who are outside can come in and drop it off there, and those of you inside, as you're leaving, you can drop it off there as well. 00:17:42.000 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord God, for the blessing that we have in you. 00:17:48.000 |
I pray, Father, that if we've come into worship, Lord, with distractions and busyness of heart, 00:17:56.000 |
help us, Lord God, in our singing to be reminded again, Lord God, of how central you are and why we live and move and have our being. 00:18:05.000 |
We pray, Father God, that you would help us as we desire to worship you in spirit and in truth. 00:18:11.000 |
I pray that even this offering that we give, help us, Lord God, to use it wisely. 00:18:16.000 |
May it be multiplied 30, 60, 100-fold for your use. 00:19:00.000 |
Church family, would you please stand with us as we continue with worship. 00:28:31.000 |
I'm married to Josh and we have two wonderful children, Jason and 00:28:37.000 |
I was raised in the church since pretty much when I was born. 00:28:41.000 |
My parents are, they were and are still very active in the church. 00:28:47.000 |
I was the youngest of three children going to church every Sunday 00:28:49.000 |
followed by Sunday school, followed by whatever meetings my parents had to 00:28:53.000 |
During the week my parents would also take us along as they attended 00:28:59.000 |
Bible studies and as they attended choir practice. 00:29:01.000 |
So I just, I grew up going to church, very involved in everything that 00:29:09.000 |
Grew up with all the other children of the church and I was the only 00:29:15.000 |
So I grew up with all the other children of the church and it was 00:29:17.000 |
just all normal and expected for what our family does. 00:29:19.000 |
So through it all I was a generally good kid I like to think. 00:29:25.000 |
As I grew older I struggled with being the youngest of three 00:29:31.000 |
children and living up to my siblings' reputations. 00:29:33.000 |
I became lazy and developed the mentality of aim low and avoid 00:29:43.000 |
I was still active in the church, joining the youth group and serving 00:29:47.000 |
But doing it was only because it was expected of me or for my own 00:29:53.000 |
I treated Bible study like a social gathering with a side of 00:29:59.000 |
biblical teaching rather than its true purpose to learn more about 00:30:03.000 |
I tried to use my own logic and limited experience to help my 00:30:11.000 |
As time went on I could see my friends growing in their faith and 00:30:15.000 |
I wondered to myself why I wasn't experiencing the same. 00:30:23.000 |
And I was always wondering to myself why do I keep trying to 00:30:27.000 |
pretend to hold this image of what I think others expect of me 00:30:31.000 |
I was always wondering why do I keep trying to pretend to hold 00:30:37.000 |
this image of what I think others expect of me when I know it 00:30:41.000 |
There were many church events that we had, the joint 00:30:47.000 |
fellowships or the harvest crusades that we attended and 00:30:49.000 |
there was always a call to faith and an invitation to repent and 00:30:57.000 |
But I did not truly invite Jesus into my life. 01:07:29.000 |
Our sanctification is believing what we already have in Christ. 01:07:33.000 |
To continue to believe and strengthening our faith to know what we already have in Christ. 01:07:41.000 |
Sanctification is not a lifelong pursuit of gaining more things. 01:07:45.000 |
Sanctification is a lifelong process of believing with all our might what has already been promised to us. 01:08:07.000 |
How well do you believe that? How deeply do you believe that? 01:08:17.000 |
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 01:08:24.000 |
He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? 01:08:31.000 |
Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. 01:08:35.000 |
Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus, he who died. 01:08:38.000 |
Yes, rather who was raised. Who is at the right hand of God? 01:08:41.000 |
Who also intercedes for us? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? 01:08:44.000 |
Will tribulation, distress, persecution, or famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? 01:08:50.000 |
Every part of what he says here, we already have. 01:08:57.000 |
I want to conclude with something that was so challenging, rebuking, and encouraging to me this week. 01:09:05.000 |
I already shared this with our leaders, but you know, for about a month now, their family is not here. 01:09:14.000 |
I don't think they're here. I didn't want to share because I didn't want to embarrass them. 01:09:17.000 |
But we had a missionary family that came to visit us. 01:09:21.000 |
They're in a remote part of some country. I'm not going to say. 01:09:26.000 |
For safety reasons, I'm not going to mention their name. 01:09:29.000 |
But they've been worshipping with us for maybe the last three weeks to a month. 01:09:33.000 |
And then they're headed out to the East Coast this week. 01:09:37.000 |
They're not here today, but they're going to be there. 01:09:40.000 |
And then from there, their home church is going to be at their home church. 01:09:43.000 |
And then they're going to go back out to where they came from. 01:09:50.000 |
I was grabbing breakfast and we were sharing different things and struggles that they have over there. 01:09:56.000 |
And the reason why I know him is that he was in my youth group when he was younger. 01:10:00.000 |
But he was one of those guys that all the parents used as a measuring stick. 01:10:06.000 |
That if you got 4.3, it wasn't good enough because he got 4.7. 01:10:12.000 |
And what I remember was either he got a perfect score in SAT or his younger brother got a perfect score in SAT. 01:10:17.000 |
And at that time, it was very rare that somebody got a perfect score. 01:10:21.000 |
But you had two brothers in the same family who either got a perfect score or one of them got a perfect score. 01:10:26.000 |
And so they actually made the local news because of that. 01:10:29.000 |
And accordingly, he went to a great school, became a doctor, did several fellowships. 01:10:36.000 |
And so he could have easily been a millionaire, the position that he was at. 01:10:42.000 |
In fact, his younger brother is a millionaire. 01:10:44.000 |
But about seven years ago, he got convicted with his wife to drop all of it. 01:10:50.000 |
That everything that he accomplished, he dropped all of it and went out to a remote area. 01:11:02.000 |
And the area that he's working is a remote area. 01:11:06.000 |
So he has to drive four to six hours to get there. 01:11:11.000 |
And then some of the people in the villages would come down and visit them. 01:11:16.000 |
So basically, especially now with all the missionaries that have left because of the persecution and the pressure, 01:11:26.000 |
And so I asked him, "How can I pray for you?" 01:11:29.000 |
And as he was sharing with me just typical stuff about health and fruitfulness and ministry and fellowship, 01:11:35.000 |
and then he started sharing with me how much his children loved being here for the last three to four weeks. 01:11:41.000 |
He had one in high school, one I think graduating elementary, and another one in elementary school. 01:11:46.000 |
And then he said, "Hmm, what is it about the church?" 01:11:50.000 |
And in my mind, I'm thinking, "Oh, their teachers must have been doing a great job." 01:11:54.000 |
Maybe they recognized that the Bible said it. 01:11:56.000 |
He said, "They love so much just being with other Christians." 01:12:03.000 |
You know, just singing with other people singing. 01:12:12.000 |
And as he was telling me this, he was tearing up because he's concerned for his children. 01:12:17.000 |
Because after two, three months, he has to go back. 01:12:21.000 |
And he was explaining to me that out there, that, you know, even the people that he's ministering to, 01:12:31.000 |
he has maybe about 20 people, and out of that, a majority of them are not Christians. 01:12:36.000 |
And some of them professing, but he says that there's no real faith in them. 01:12:41.000 |
And so the government really is cracking down, especially on anybody who's evangelizing to children. 01:12:48.000 |
So when they have their meeting together, it's behind locked doors. 01:12:51.000 |
They say you have to lock the outside and the inside. 01:12:53.000 |
And then the children who are there, most of them are children of parents who aren't true believers. 01:12:59.000 |
And because he's a medical doctor, a lot of them are coming for attention, and then he ends up witnessing to them. 01:13:05.000 |
And he said, "My children don't have fellowship. 01:13:14.000 |
They don't have other missionaries, you know, much fellowship. 01:13:18.000 |
And they just love so much just sitting with other Christians and praising God together." 01:13:34.000 |
They actually joined us this Friday when we had praise and prayer. 01:13:38.000 |
And as we were leaving, I grabbed him and I said, "The Lord is going to bless you for your sacrifice." 01:13:44.000 |
And then he looked at me with tears rolling up in his eyes, and he said, "Jesus is my reward. 01:13:57.000 |
If Jesus was not my reward, it wouldn't be worth it." 01:14:00.000 |
And he said, "I tell my children this every day, that Jesus is your reward. 01:14:07.000 |
That every sacrifice that you made to live out here, it's not about the fruitfulness of ministry. 01:14:14.000 |
It's not because he's going to make a name for himself or there's going to be a grand church at the end of his life. 01:14:25.000 |
If he passed away, outside of his friends and a few of his family, they don't know who he is. 01:14:30.000 |
They don't know what sacrifices that he made." 01:14:42.000 |
If Jesus is not our reward, we will make something else our reward. 01:14:56.000 |
We will make honor from other people our reward. 01:15:03.000 |
We would make our children going to good schools our reward. 01:15:09.000 |
Everything that you and I need for life, abundant life and godliness, has been given to us in the knowledge of his son Jesus Christ. 01:15:20.000 |
But the fundamental question every single day, every single week is, "Do you believe that?" 01:15:31.000 |
You have the son of God, the Holy Spirit, indwelling, our life in God, secure for eternity. 01:15:38.000 |
That when he comes in glory, we will be glorified with him. 01:15:41.000 |
And this life that Jesus has given us, no one can take away. 01:15:46.000 |
The God of the universe, who is holy and holy, holy, loves us enough to count our very hairs. 01:15:53.000 |
And yet we profess that, sing that, memorize that, and then live every day in want? 01:16:19.000 |
I pray that that would be our true confession in the Lord. 01:16:26.000 |
Heavenly Father, we confess we are distracted. 01:16:46.000 |
We want acclamation more than your attention. 01:17:00.000 |
Open our eyes, Lord God, to see what it is that we have in you. 01:17:08.000 |
That we would not live day to day in want, but in celebration, in joy, in proclamation. 01:17:16.000 |
That as we believe with all our heart that everything that we need, everything that we desire is in Christ. 01:17:24.000 |
That we would live the rest of our lives so that those who do not know you would also come to know you as well. 01:17:31.000 |
May Christ's name and his name only be magnified. 01:18:06.000 |
Farmed through the fiercest drought and storm. 01:18:47.000 |
Fullness of God in hell, his faith, his gift of love. 01:18:55.000 |
In righteousness, scorned by the ones he came to save. 01:21:51.000 |
He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all. 01:21:56.000 |
How will he not also with him freely give us all things? 01:22:00.000 |
Lord help us to believe this with all our heart. 01:22:04.000 |
Help us Lord God to know what it is that we have. 01:22:07.000 |
What a tremendous privilege Lord God to be called your children. 01:22:12.000 |
Help us Lord to live a life worthy of the calling that you've given. 01:22:18.000 |
So wherever you send us this week, whether at home, whether at work, whether in leisure. 01:22:26.000 |
Help us Lord God to proclaim the true hope that is found in Christ and Christ alone. 01:23:05.000 |
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lived.