Voice of the Nazarene 11-24-24

Voice of the Nazarene 11-24-24

Transcript

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:01

Coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share with you the voice of the Nazarene a week by week. Venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our Pastor Reverend Ray LaSalle and the voice of the Nazarene. Join me in the book of Jude and the 20th verse, But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourself in the love of God, looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto everlasting life. And he said on some have compassion. Others save with fear, pulling them from the fire, building up yourselves on your most holy faith. Have you had a workout lately? All kinds of private fitness clubs, workout gyms and smalls for the undernourished, the overfed, the out of shape, the underperforming. We've got hospitals and doctors for those who are struggling with their physical health, counselors and psychiatrists to help you with your mental and emotional instability. We've got the Dave Ramsey's on the networks and all the other financial gurus trying to help you with your money struggles. But I ask you this morning, where is the gym for the spiritual unfit? For those who spiritually are malnourished, out of shape, unconnected? I mean, we've got all kinds of religious sects. We've got denominations that are so busy plucking their one string, the big deal to them. Whatever it might be, go through your cities, check em out there. There'll be one. And their emphasis is, you gotta worship on the Sabbath day. And that's their big string, and they're plucking it about every Saturday. Somebody else is plucking their string. That they've got some kind of an unknown language. Somebody else is plucking their screen. We got an eternal glue that'll hold you forever. Somebody else is talking about their works, and somebody else, we've got the only priest you have to come in through our channel. And the poor world is struggling. They're trying to figure out where they're going to eat next, according to Matthew chapter six, verse 31 the world is asking those kinds of questions. I mean, if they're saying, Take no thought, The Lord is saying what you shall eat or what you shall drink wherewithal you shall be closed. And the world's saying, what restaurant are we going to eat at next, and what kind of a bar and nightclub and hell hole and Honky Tonk, but we get our next drink, and do do we go to a store, or do we go with Amazon online to get our clothes? God is screaming from the heavens, and he's saying, but Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things shall be added unto you. We need to get healthy. We began our little series about relational health, and I talked to you about how a frog has the evange advantage that he can eat whatever bugs them. We don't really have that luxury, because we need the right people in our life. And if you're always eating people up behind their back, it gets around in a little town, it gets back and people know. And soon we don't have any real friends that we can trust. We're the people business. I think we've forgotten that we think that we sell hamburgers or we sell cars, but if you're rude to people, you'll soon be out of whatever kind of business you think you're in, because we're in the people business. Churches need to realize that we're in the people business. We're irritating each other all the time. It won't be long. We'll be back to four and no more. And then we we talked about financial health, and soon we'll be in that season of the year where it's Jingle Bells and then juggle the bills, and we endeavor to talk about physical health, and people are on one or two extremes. They're either idolizing their body or they're ignoring their body. About a month from now, we'll be into what they call new resolutions, and it doesn't start much of a did you know that those that make new resolutions generally only about 80 or about 8% Sin ever achieve those goals? Did you know that? And how is it that those 8% how do they achieve their goals? This is about six common denominators. One, they make few resolutions. Dave Thomas, founder of Winnie's Wendy's, he said, only do a few things at a time and a few in a lifetime. Over red and bucker, he said, only do one thing and do it uncommonly well. But it is biblical. Philippians, 313, brethren, I count not myself to apprehend it, but this one thing I do, do you know that a dog chasing two rabbits, both of them get away. And the second thing, they make themselves accountable. And that's biblical. James 116 Confess your faults. Course, some of you don't have any, so you wouldn't have any confessions. Do I need to repeat that? Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. They hold one another accountable. And the third thing, they break the goals down into a series of time based steps. And that's biblical Exodus. 2330 by little and little. You see, most of what you accomplish in life will be a little by little, not massive steps. How to eat an elephant one bite at a time. And the fourth thing, they write down their goals. And that's biblical Habakkuk, two, two, Write the vision, make it plain. 95% of the people don't write down their goals out of the 95% that do they accomplish? 95% and here's the seventh thing, they regularly remind themselves of the benefits. If we didn't think there was a heaven to go to, most of us would have lost hope a long time ago, right? If you didn't think life could get better, most of us couldn't hold our head up, but we believe there will be a brighter day. It gives us hope. David, when he faced the giant, it wasn't just a happens. Whole thing. He asked, first of all, if you defeat the giant what? What's the reward? Do you get anything out of this? They said, Well, you get to marry the king's daughter, and she's a looker, and you'll never pay taxes again. Boy, I'd work hard for that one, and you get financial success, you gotta stay focused on the promise of your goal and then purpose not to give up Daniel one eight, but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. He purposed. Now I want to deal we've dealt with relational and physical and and financial. I want to talk to you about spiritual health this morning, and I left it to last because I wanted to leave it on your mind and I wanted to lay it on your heart. Genesis 126 says, And God said, Let us make man in our own image. Now he was talking to someone, and it wasn't the angels. The angels are not into creation. God said, Let us make man in our own image, and if we understand God to be a Triune God. Now I'm not going to argue the Trinity theory to try to understand it, you'd lose your mind, and if you deny it, you'd lose your soul. But I'll tell you this much, everything that God made, he made in threes. Explain that one to you. I can't get my mind around it. I mean, you just go out in the universe. You have the sun, the stars and the moon you get here on Earth, and it's Earth and and water and gasses. And when God made us, everything is in threes. If you get a four legged chair, if you don't have a real level floor, it won't set very well. It'll be like some of the tables up at the restaurant, with paper wadded up under it. But if you want a perfect something to set, try a tripod. Try a tripod, three legged stool. It'll set anywhere. And God made us as a tripod, our triune being. Did you know, your eyes is made up in three parts, and your ears is made up in three parts. Your brain has three sections to it. You have a head, you have a body, you have limbs. Everything is made in threes. And so when God said, Let us make man in our own image, God being a triune, God made you and I as a triune being. 18. And that's why, in First Thessalonians, 523, the very God of peace sanctify you holy. That's entirely completely. And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has an experience that will keep you. It's not a eternal glue. It's the power to live victoriously. You can choose to have victory and be preserved blameless. God will keep you. Now, even the Egyptians understood this whole preservation thing. That's why, when they built pyramids, they're in a triangle, like a triune, and they can preserve bodies for 1000s of years. They came out here a while back with a special accompanied with razor blades for they'll get dull over time, even in a package, but they made them in a little triune package, like a pyramid. And here's God building us in His own image, and he made us as a triune being. And first of all, may I say that you have a body. Let's stick with the notes. You have a body, and it has five senses. You have taste, you have smell, and you have sight, you have ears to hear and and you and you can feel. You have a body. And the secondly, it's not just a body, but you also have a soul. And that word soul comes from a Greek word Psaki. It's where we get the word psychology from. And you have a soul and and what is the soul? The soul is the mind. It's the will and it's the emotion. So you have a body, you have a soul. But that's not all. You also have a spirit. The spirit is what separates us from the dogs and the animals. The dog doesn't have a spirit so it cannot connect up with God. God made us in His image, triune being gave us the spirit so we could connect up with him. They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And if you look at God's Spirit as a capital S, and man's not so quit getting so wrapped up in yourself. So there's a spirit, and that part of us that connects with God, the body has the motion and the soul has the emotion, but the spirit has the devotion. It can connect with God. Can worship God. They that worship Him, must worship him in spirit. So you are a spirit that has a soul that's housed in a body. So let's talk about the steps to spiritual health. And if you'll take these steps, it'll revolutionize your life. If you take them, it'll change your life. It'll change it for the better. And I'll only give it to you in four steps this morning. First of all, I want to talk to you about salvation, assurance. Where did you get that word? I needed an S and the old English word for assurance. Assurance, you okay. Can you handle that? Remember, I said, all of us have a spirit. Every person has a spirit. Look at Ephesians, two, one, it says, and you have He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. We all have a spirit, but that spirit was quickened or made alive when we accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, that spirit was dead in every person and is only made alive through the Holy Spirit. That's why Romans, chapter eight, verse 16, The Spirit itself, bear the witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. His Spirit, again, is capitalized. Now listen, you were a dead spirit, but when the Holy Spirit quickens you, it made you alive. And here's what we've got to understand, that's the confirmation of our salvation. Have you ever watched a film about a little child that was born and it's deaf and cannot hear, and they develop some kind of a special hearing aid, whether they put it in the inner cochlear or not, but they'll hook that little kid up, and you get to watch there on the film, and suddenly its eyes get big and it looks around, and it hears something coming from somewhere it never heard before. And it looks up at Mama and a big smile begins to break across its face. He can't believe he can hear he never heard before. My boy, I've been you blame for telling stories on your kids. That's at least. That's what my kids have blamed me all their lives. You always gotta get up. To pull, but tell the story on us. Well, I didn't have anybody else, just you two. If you'd done better, I'd told better stories. I didn't tell them that just after thought here, but, but my boy, he got up to to bat when he's just a little shaver, and they're throwing the ball, and they hit him the first time, and he said, I never play ball again. But his mother talked him into it and got back up and got hit again. He got hit the first five times at bat. He got hit by the ball. I thought kid move out of the way, but he didn't. And we finally realized that maybe there might be a problem. Took him to an eye doctor. The kid couldn't see. They put glasses on him, and he got up to play ball, and he said, stop. He told the referee, stopped. And he went over and said to his mom, it was a, um, okay, he but he went over to his mom, and he said, I can see the ball coming. He'd never seen the ball. He didn't know how to get out of the way. Couldn't see it riding down the highway. He said, Mom, did you see that? That's a big, great, big sign. She said, Yeah, it's been there all along. He said, I never saw it before, and I watched him on film when they put eyeglasses on a little child and they'd never seen him, suddenly their eyes get big and they're gonna growl, and they reach out and they touch their mother's face. And you, who were dead, are made alive when the Holy Spirit quickens you. And suddenly you come alive, and you begin to see things you'd never seen. You begin to hear things you'd never heard. It's the confirmation of our pastor. Is there anything any better than being saved or a Christian? Well, yes, there is. It's being saved or knowing it that's even better yet. Out in California, there's a city called San Francisco, and there's a little bridge across the waterway there, called the Golden Gate Bridge. And it just spans what the water I mean, it just goes on and on until it finally disappears. It's still going Golden Gate 1937, when it was built, 23 men accidentally lost their lives, and somebody came up with the idea, and they put a safety net under that bridge, and something happened. Productivity went up 25% people quit worrying about dying all the time and begin to get to work. If some of us would realize that God has forgiven us of our sins and He saved us, and get over having a nervous breakdown about it and just begin to serve God. It'd be amazing, and that's the kind of assurance that God wants to give us. DL Moody said it best, I've never known anyone to be good in the service of the Lord unless first of all, they had the assurance of their salvation. And ladies and gentlemen, you're not prepared to live until you're prepared to die. And that comes to that assurance that God is our Savior. Christ is our elder brother, John 316 that none should perish but have everlasting life. I like that. Our problem is we want to put our safeguard in performance. You know, I don't drink and I don't chew and I don't run with women that do no but what else do you do? So we try so hard to perform, to impress God and others. My question is, how good is good enough? When do you ever get good enough that you please God or please the pastor, please somebody and then others. They're more dependent upon some place. I've I've heard a whisper, I've even heard a testify stand and said, I can't wait till I make a home run and I slide into heaven and the doors click shut behind. Hey, wait a minute. There were some angels that got kicked out of heaven because they sinned. So I'm not putting all of my assurance and all of my security in a performance or in a place I'm putting it in a person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm going to put my faith where God put my sins, and that was on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's my certainty, he's my assurance. He's my safe guard. And if you're going to be spiritually healthy, you gotta quit running around trying to have a nervous breakdown. You're like the lady, you know, she just got over a nervous breakdown. Was right in the middle of another one and had another one planned that that one didn't work. Get over it. Get spiritually healthy. And here's the second thing, if going to be spiritually healthy, you need self esteem solution. You've got to base. Your values on the fact that you're a child of God, Child of God. You know the enemy wants to come around, and he wants you to base your values and on the facts that how people treat you. I can hang around that one a while, people, Hey, are whatever achievement you feel like you've accomplished, or your size, or maybe your looks or what you own. But the problem with all that, all those stuffs, that stuff comes and goes and stuff changes, and you gotta base your value on the fact that you're a child of the Most High God. Think about this. God looked down from heaven in Luke chapter three and verse 22 and he said, This is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Right down there, that's my beloved Son. And did you know that Jesus hadn't performed one miracle yet, he hadn't opened one blinded eye, he hadn't unstopped one deaf ear, he hadn't cleansed even a half of a leper. He had never steal the storm. He'd never walked on the water. He'd never fed a multitude of people with a handful of fish and couple biscuits. Not one miracle. And yet God said, That's my beloved Son. And you know that God looks at us at whether he sees all these spectacular things going on, if you've given your heart to Him, He's saying, that's my child down there, and I'm pleased. Boy, the enemy doesn't like that, does he? Child of God. Devil came in the very next chapter, chapter four, and and he tried to get Jesus to place his assurance of a number of other things. One was performance. We've already mentioned that, but he tried to do that with Christ. There in verse three, the devil said, If thou be the Son of God, the devil will always come around, and he'll tell you if you're really a Christian you wouldn't feel if you if you were really the person you think you are. If, if, if. And it said you're hungry. 40 days you've been without food. Why don't you turn those stones into bread so you could eat? Why don't you pull off a miracle once you perform performance, and the devil come along and he wants us to get our self esteem out of performance if you do this or don't do that, and we can brag about what we do and we don't do but that didn't work, and then the devil hit him with possessions. Verse five, taking him up into a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. If you want all this, just bow down to me. You can have all this. You have possessions. Do you know what you can be a child of God, whether you wear Gucci or goodwill, it doesn't impress God one way or the other. It didn't matter that the God, if you got a you go, you got a Rolls Royce might feel better at one or the other, but you gotta make payments, but it's not in possessions. So the devil tried popularity there in verse nine, took Him to Jerusalem, up to a high pinnacle, and said, Why don't you jump off and let the angels catch you and make you so popular you'll be holding crusade soon. And you know what? The devil wants us to get our self esteem from popularity. But I found out a long time ago, you can be a peacock today, but you may be a feather duster tomorrow. Jesus rolled into Jerusalem. They all said, Hail him before the day was over, the next morning, Dawn, and they were saying, nail Him to a cross. You don't get yourself esteem from performance, possessions and popularity. You know where we get it? Oh yes, oh yes. I'm a child of the King. His royal blood now flows through my veins. That's where our assurance comes. That's where we get our self esteem. We know that. We know that we're a child of the King. Could you throw up that jersey That's Tom Brady? In case you didn't know it, he makes a little bit more than me. Not much, but a little bit more. Do you know they sold that jersey? Do you know how much it went for? It went for a half million dollars. So I checked it out, I went online, and I found you could buy the same thing with the same number for $49 i. God. You know what makes that soul worth so much because of who it belongs to? You know where your value is? It's to whom you belong to. I'm a child of the King. I'm a child of God. That's what it all amounts to. You want to get healthy? Then thirdly, I'd say, search the Scriptures. John, chapter five, verse 39 says, search the Scripture. Want to find eternal life, I'd suggest, if reading is tough on you, get you a little devotional. There's plenty of em, and most of em are good, and have at least a devotion time with God every day where you read a story and read some scripture. I'd even encourage you more even to get into the Bible and just begin to read the Bible. My wife called me. She was on her way to the other campus and and I said, Hey, I just saw something I never seen, and I just told her the day before of something, I said, listen to this sermon. Idea, everything turns into a sermon, but every time you read, you'll see something new. Search the scripture, and you don't have to read the Bible all the way through in one year. I don't know who said you needed to. I mean, it took 1600 years to write it. Who's to say you had to read it one year? I'd rather get into it and have it get into me, to get discouraged and not read it at all. And may I also add, when you search, get into a prayer time. Pray. Pray. Can I give you a simple little outline on prayer? If you'll throw up a hand, there we go. Do you ever see this illustration? Do you ever notice when you hold up your hand, you know what the that little thumb there is closest to you. Do you ever notice it's closest when you pray? I always say, Pray for those closest to you. You don't like your wife, well, I'm pretty upset at him. Just pray for it. You'll get over the upset a little bit more, and pray for your husband. Pray for your sister. Pray for Mama. Pray for that pray for those who are closest to us. If you need and you're struggling and want to pray for just use the hand method. The next is that finger that's always pointing. Pray for the pastor he's always pointing at you. Pray for that Sunday school teacher. Pray for the music guys. They always got a stick point at you. Their hand pointing at you. In fact, the matter, I need the prayer, and you need the practice. And then that finger that's the longest finger. Pray for those that are in authority. Pray for the mayor. You might even hang up and find out what his name is. Pray for the governor. I don't like the governor. That don't matter. Pray for him anyhow. Maybe we'll get another one. Pray for the President, boy, we better be careful here. Well, I wish I could tell you everything I'm thinking, No, you wouldn't want to hear it. Pray for those in the leadership. Pray for the police. Pray for those that are risking their lives. Pray for soldiers, those who are in authority, those who give us the peace that we have. May I add that next finger said to be the weakest finger, sometimes that's where they wear a little golden ring around it. You know what I mean, wedding band. Back when I was growing up, they'd send you to hell for having to ban the gold around your finger. Boy, I'll tell you what. We got a lot of people with the itch for gold in their fingers. I'm not sure which is the worst, but the weakest finger. Pray for those who are weak, those who are struggling, those who are struggling with their health, struggling with their finances, struggling with their marriage. Pray for those and that little finger that's you, pray for you. Pray that God will keep you humble. But somewhere there have prayer. And then may I also add, not only searching the Scripture, not only have a prayer life, but may I encourage you to get into church. Somebody said that go 90% of going to churches habit. Well, it's more true than you think. If you'd get into habit, you'd be here every Sunday. And if you don't get into habit, you. Won't be salvation, assurance, self esteem, solution, searching the scriptures. But may I close by mentioning serve with significance. Nobody was saved to sit. We were saved to serve you, say, Pastor, I'm looking for the perfect church that I can just slip in and set back and go unnoticed and nobody bother me. And I Hey, there's plenty of em. I'll help you to find them. But it's not here. Everyone of us need a job. We need some place where we can fit into the body of Christ and we can serve. Do you know the difference between success and significance? Success is about you. Significance is about others. Do you know that I get a call every month, sometimes two a month, sometimes three a month, from a guy that I've never met, and I've got him now for the last 10 or 15 years, just out of the blue, he'll be calling me from some other country, calling me from across over there by the Pacific Ocean. I'll get this phone call, and it's Ron on the line. His wife, Nikki, is in the background and and he's called, How you doing, preacher. Is the church still there? Are you alive? I'll say how you doing. And we've never met each other, but he calls me. I don't know what all he owns, but it's more than I do. Last count, I knew he had property up all over the area, up in Nova Scotia. I knew that he had at least 50 some apartments and and and business fronts and and offices in the Idaho area. I know he's got a property down in Arizona. He's mentioned to me several times there's a house down there. You can run down there, you and your wife can stay. It's furnished, it's ready. It's right near the stadium. Help yourself. He'll make a deal on a on a property for a million and a half or 500,000 and it's like pocket change. And she's in her 80s, and he's almost 80, probably 1000 properties, not only in the United States, but in other parts of the world. And when our own denomination that out in the state of Washington, no longer wanted to have a campground, said it's too expensive, but it's a headache. Got rid of it. Rather than see it closed, they went in and bought it. I don't know if they spent a half a million or a million dollars, but they bought the campgrounds hundreds of acres. You Yes, went in there almost he was almost 80, and she's past that, and begin to work the campgrounds, trying to get the grass cut and get the buildings back in repair, and crawling under those things and getting the drains to work or the lines fixed where they busted. And now they've got the campgrounds the last couple years every summer, open all summer, along with group after group after group coming in and experiencing the presence of God, keeping that campground. And yet, they got all this other property and houses to keep rented and things to work on and and I got a call just a couple years ago. Ray, I said, Yes, sir. He said, We just bought a campgrounds down in Ecuador, hundreds of acres. Said we getting little trees, Coffee Bean Trees, growing to make itself sufficient for the future. We let people come in and have camp meeting. We've got a board that they fly in from over in Ireland and and we're flying down right now. We're here at the airport, and we're flying down to Ecuador, and we're meeting with the one that's over young life in the entire nation and going to serve on the board. And fact the matter, said there's a property right next to the camp there on the ocean, and and we we ask him, well, what would they want? They want? 350 What do they want for it? He said, I'll check back. And they call back. Said they just donated it to the camp. He said, Ray, you and Jen, can just come down if you want. You can stay in that house on the ocean, right next to the cat grass. When are you going to fly down to the cab? At some point, success wasn't satisfying anymore, and they wanted to find significance, and they found it in running a large camp. Time there in the state of Washington and buying and putting together a large camp turn another nation down in South America and Ecuador. I've never met him. I met his brother one time. His brother was a Nazarene pastor. The two boys went to high school at Bucha High School, and the two brothers, their daddy pastored the church and built the church building over on Iron street a number of years ago. Dad's in eternity and his brother's in eternity. But to have significance, he said, I'm just a layman. I didn't get the call to preach like my brother. Never was called a preacher like my Daddy, but we're trying to run a campgrounds. Never plan to here. He said, I'm shoving seven and nine, but we're going to make it work. We're making the camp grounds and getting it ready and making it work in Ecuador, building up yourselves on your most holy faith. Anybody in the gym? Anybody wanted to get fit? Anybody wanted to get spiritually healthy around here? You need to meet me in the gym. It's at the church. And not only is it that the church, when we come in here and and we get fed, and I hope you're getting fed, and I hope the music is speaking to your heart. And I hope having relationship with others and others holding us accountable and and steal against steel begins to sharpen us, and we begin become better and and we catch the vision, and we go out. Did you read the rest of that verse? Not only keep yourself in the love of God, praying in the Holy Ghost, looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto everlasting life. But he said on others have compassion, and others save with fear, pulling them from the fire. I'm talking about when we leave the gym and after the workouts over, and we leave on a Sunday afternoon and we go out into the work week, we're meeting people that we need to have compassion on, not be judgmental, but be so full of compassion and others save with fear, pulling them from the fire. Do you realize that people are dying all the time and are slipping into hell, and the only hand that will reach for them is the hand from a burdened heart. And if we're not spiritually healthy, and we don't have the eyes of Christ, and we're not seeing people as lost souls, and our heart is not burdened and we're not broken, our hands are not going to reach out to save them. Nobody else is going to save them, but the spiritually healthy God give us a burden for something besides ourself, to sit and sour, but to begin to serve and begin to look for people that we can bring to church, bring them into the gym, bring him into the fitness center so they can get a workout too, and the God can work on him. I'll tell you, the town is dead in trespasses and sin and needs to be quickened by the Holy Spirit. And it'll happen one by one as we win the lost to Jesus Christ, that ought to be we work our jobs just to put food on the table, to keep body and soul, not to separate. But we need to live for Christ. We need to live for the kingdom of God. And if I'm out and I'm doing a little bit of work someplace, I'm looking around and trying to figure out where I gotta have a little influence. And God has put everyone of you where you're at on purpose, not to be an attorney, not to be just a school teacher, not to be just a factory where God put you where you're at, to have an influence in that area, to have compassion on folk and others, save with fear, pulling them from the fire. No wonder the devil fights us like he does. He's grabbing a hold of folk and trying to keep him and we're standing at the very gates of hell and trying to pull him back from going through the door of the lost in the damned and get him into the kingdom. And I want to tell you something. We're running out of time to do that, and some of us better get spiritually fit. We're malnourished and we're underperforming, and it's time we get spiritually healthy. Let the Thanksgiving meal be a meal that puts some health on our bones. And let's give thanks to God. And let's go to work. Let's have the workout that God intends for us to have. Let's build up ourselves in the most holy faith. Anybody joining joining me in the gym next Sunday, father? Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with B and C's pastor, Ray LaSalle, for more information regarding B and C, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org, you.