Voice of the Nazarene 1-19-2025

Voice of the Nazarene 1-19-2025

Transcript

Unknown: 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 Pator,Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:18

But in the 40th chapter, he wrote these words, He's talking about someone that's going to come. And verse 29 and he that cometh, giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might. He increases strength. And he said, even the use shall faint and be weary, the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. I'm curious. This morning, have you ever been overloaded? You ever been just weighted down with issues of life till it just seemed like you couldn't see any further. Remember dad saying once to my mom, he said, I just like to get in the car and start driving, never stop and never come back. He was loaded. He was overwhelmed as we begin this new year that we're facing, I don't know what all is ahead of us. There's already been some turbulence and some lives and in the nation, but I want you to be able to handle the loads of life. I was reading this week about a guy that had bought in a truck, and he was going into the, what we call the transport business. He was going to haul loads and transport from one location to another. And he put on a sign on his truck for hire. And among the various deliveries, he got a call to haul some chickens, and he loaded the truck up with chickens and started down the highway, and then pulled over and put it in park, and got out and walked back to the rear and with a ball bat hit the back of the truck, went back, got in, started driving again. Every little bit he'd stop, do the same thing, go back and hammer around on the back of the truck, get back in and drive. And unbeknownst to him, was a witness watching all of this happening, and he's scratching his head and trying to figure out what's going on. The next time he stopped, this guy pulls up, puts down his power window, and he said, What in the world? I'm about to lose my mind. I think I'm going crazy. What are you doing? You stop and you get out, and you hammer on the side of the truck with your bat. You get back in, you drive, well, what's going on? Well, he said, I got a half ton truck, and I've got a ton of chickens. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to keep half of the chickens flying up, and keep them in the air all the time. Well, I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like that truck, I mean, I almost get the feeling sometimes that, like this guy, his bottom line, his truck, just wasn't big enough. Sometimes I feel like I've got a half ton truck and got the weight of the world on me. Maybe you felt that way. Apparently, others have 89% of Americans suffer from chronic stress disorder. Nine out of 10. Somewhere between 75 and 90% of the people going to doctors, you know, they call it ills and bills and whatever, and pills too, and they go to the doctor and they they're dealing with physical problems, and doctors are now finding out that most of it is stress induced, if people can just lower their stress level, they're overloaded, they're overwhelmed, and they can't hardly face life. You see, we don't get ulcers from what we eat. We get ulcers from what's eating us, and we get ulcers when we're overloaded and when we're under great pressure. In the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 25 verse 17 and 18, it talks about a group of people and how they were overwhelmed by their enemy. You know, when a person gets stressed, that's when they're the most vulnerable, the most susceptible, and when you're weary, mentally, emotionally, physically, or whatever, generally, we're more susceptible to the devil's attack when we're worn out. He'll come and hit us when we're exhausted. He can come and put a lot of pressure on us. And that's generally when most arguments happen around the family in the house, is when everybody's up tight, overloaded, overextended, and I can't see you, but I imagine some of you are not looking what's going on. We're overwhelmed with life. Now I've got a very fulfilled life. I've said it many times. I'm happy. I have a fulfilled life, but I also have a filled, full life, and maybe you do as well. There's a song that Alabama group used to sing, and sometimes I get the feeling it's about me. I'm in a hurry to get things done. I rush and rush and lives go fun, and when all you do is live and die, I'm in a hurry, and I don't know why. Franklin Roosevelt is the only president elected to four terms in office just months after he was elected for the fourth time, and he and incidentally, he died. It was down in Warm Springs Georgia. He had a little guy from Missouri who was his vice president. Nobody knew him. Nobody knew anything about him. His name was Harry Truman, and they said that he did look very presidential. He had an IQ that had blown out of the water with the highest IQs of any man that ever served as president of the USA. But Eleanor Roosevelt Franklin's wife came into the room where Harry Truman was and said, I need to talk to you. I need to see you, Harry. And she said, Harry, he died. And Harry Truman said to Eleanor, said, What can I do for you? And he she looked down at him and said, Harry, the question is not what you can do for me. The question is, what can I do for you? Because you're the one in trouble. You're suddenly got the weight of the United States on your back, the world's on your shoulders. The next day, Harry Truman met with Congress, and he said to the those guys, he said, You know, I don't know if you guys know how to pray, but if he ever prayed, pray for me. He said that, I don't know if you've ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me the president died, he said, I felt like the moon the stars and the planets have all fallen in on me. So what do you do when you feel like the moon and the stars and the planets are falling on you, because there's times in life when everything seems to be astronomical and we're loaded down. And I've been thinking about that this week, and then my mind hit on the life of Jesus Christ. I thought of all of those that have ever endured pressure. Jesus, our Savior, endured more psychologically and philosophically and emotionally and mentally and spiritually and physically than anyone that ever lived. I mean, the Bible said that he endured the cross. He despised the shame when they turned against him. And there, in Hebrews 12, it says, Consider him that endured that cross, despise the shame, lest you become weary in mind. And I'm simply saying Jesus endured it all. And I was amazed when I started this study about his life again, Jesus never got in a hurry. I'm always in a hurry. I'm trying to catch up with myself, and I'm sure you have as well. Well, Jesus, he never seemed to be in a hurry. So how did he handle the pressures of life? Let me throw five or six or seven words at you. First of all, identification. You say, What are you talking about? Well, think about these verses. Jesus said here in John, chapter eight, verse 12, I am the light of the world. He knew he was the light. He said, in John 1011 I am the good shepherd. He knew sheep needed a shepherd. He said in John 1036, I am the Son of God. By chapter 11, verse 25 he said, I'm the resurrection and the life. What I'm trying to tell you is Jesus knew who he was, and if you don't know who you are, you'll have somebody else telling you who they think you are. And if you have faith in Jesus Christ, you are a child of the Most High God, you need to know who you are. God had made us as a unique person and gave us a unique passion, created us with a for a unique purpose, you say. Well, Pastor, how can you deal with being overwhelmed and overloaded? You've got to realize who you are. Jesus, there at His baptism, heard a voice out of heaven and said, This is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And you'll find every time the devil comes around, he'll try to put you down. He'll try to minimize you. He'll have you questioning your pulse or checking your heartbeat, and he'll have you out of victory every time if you listen to him. But if you know you're God's child and you're in his will, that's called identification. The second word that comes to mind is dedication. I'm looking at the life of Christ. Notice what He said in John 530 he said, I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father. Now here's what I know, folk, there's not enough time in life to do what everybody else wants you to do. You might as well quit trying. There's not enough time in your life to do everything that you want to do. One day you're running out of time and realize you didn't feel up the bucket list. But I want you to know there's enough time in the life of every one of us to accomplish what God wants us to do. Jesus understood I need to be dedicated to the things that God has called me to do, because if you don't, and if you don't do what God's called you to do, you cave in under criticism. Have you ever been criticized? Well, give me your name and I'll work it out for you. I want you to experience everything. Okay, you know, when you're 20, you really care about what people think. By the time you're 40, you really don't care what anybody thinks. By about the time you're 60, you'll find out that nobody was thinking about you anyway, but you gotta be dedicated to what God wants you to do with your life, because if you're not, you cave in under criticism, but also competition. You get it in your mind that others are getting ahead of you. She's getting ahead of me. He's getting ahead of me, that business is getting ahead of my business. I'm lagging behind. But you're really not lagging behind if you're doing what God wants you to do. Now, identification, dedication. But there's another word I want to throw at you, and I'm not going to build a campfire and camp around here very long, but it's organization. Did you know what would help tons of people? Can I just tell you? I'm not trying to upset you, if people would just get organized. Get organized. I mean, if you'd put your keys back in your purse, if you put your phone went back in your purse. You wouldn't have to spend the rest of the day asking the whole family to help you to find it. Zoom. And there I went again. Get organized. It help everybody else. It take the pressure off of all the rest of the family. Give you just get organized you don't want so while I'll look at somebody's vehicle. Somebody to bring me a rental application. I'd like maybe to rent from you. And I look in the car and I think, good gracious, Tarzan would get hurt in there. Get organized. I'm not going to do anymore, and I have to do as a rule for if I can help it. For years, I didn't have to put together receipts, I didn't have to run the checkbook. I didn't have to pay the bills around the house. My wife did it for me, but when she died suddenly, I found I had to get organized. I may not like getting everything ready for the IRS and tax time and the March 15 and maybe an extension and all of that, but I've got to get things together. I've been spending the last couple weeks just getting my receipts down and and who I talked to, what I talked about, because if the IRS looks at that receipt and I don't have that down, they'll pitch it out. They don't want me to get any credit. Anyhow, I've gotta be organized. And I can go on and on about that, but you'd help everybody else. Did you know that Jesus was organized? You knew that boy, you're a smart crowd, when he fed the 5000 that plus the women and the children. Do you notice what he did? He said, I want to divide you up into groups of 50. I want 50 to be seated over here, and 50 over there, and 50 is from 20 to 30, some 1000 people. And he organized him in groups of 50. He was organized you. Even there during the resurrection scene, they interrupt him all up and put him in the tomb and and there in John chapter 20, when they came and the stone was rolled away and they looked in the grave, clothes had been folded neatly, and they had been stacked over here in a certain area, and the head pieces had been stacked in another area. I'm simply saying he was organized. How does your bed look this morning? Well, moving along while you're shouting happy. But don't say he wasn't organized. And you could relieve a lot of stress in a lot of people's life if you just get organized, unless I don't have another service or to write down, don't use that one. Skip that one that don't go over well. But what about delegation? Mark, chapter three, verse 13. Here's what it says. Jesus go up into a mountain and called unto him whom he would. And they came unto him, and he ordained 12 that they should be with him, and they that he might send them forth to preach. One of the most important things Christ did was delegate. He wanted them to preach. He wanted them to share the message and share the gospel and and if you're going to accomplish anything in life, you've got to learn how to delegate. You have to learn that. And there's two reasons why we don't delegate. One's perfectionism. We don't think anybody can do it as good as we can, and maybe they can't. Jesus, he said to his 12 on what you're going to preach. Now, could they preach better than him? No, I don't think so. I think by far he was a better preacher, but he knew he had to trust Him, and the message was to get out. He couldn't be everywhere, and he would die real soon. He had to have somebody to continue to preach. And so if he was going to make a difference, he had to delegate. Let's move to another one. Insecurity is another reason why we don't delegate. We get to thinking, Well, what if they're better than I am? What if they're a better speaker? What if they can accomplish it easy? What are they? A better musician. So we don't want to offer up our seat and let somebody else have it. But I move on to another and that's recreation. When I look at the life of Christ, I think of Mark, chapter six, verse 30, and you can read it all, but I'll condense it for you. Here's basically what he said, If you don't come apart, you're going to fall apart. Once in a while, this brain of ours has to stop working. Now, mine didn't last night, and I laid awake from about four and in the morning all the way up to like just finally rolled out of bed. I couldn't get it to quiet down. Now, sometimes it's my arm that goes to sleep, but it's I guess it's harder or more tired than the rest of my body, whatever. But there are times when you need a little bit of leisure. You need some relaxation, all work and no play, makes Jack a doll boy. Now, somebody told me a few years ago that the best relaxation is golfing. I don't mind golfing. I don't know a lot about it, but I've got other things to do, and it's kind of hard to get out there and relax when you got everything else to do. But they told me, said, You need to golf. Well, I'm out in Delaware in a revival, and it's about two nights into the meeting, and I the pastor tapped a guy standing next to me on the arm, and he said, Could, could you take the evangelist golfing tomorrow? He said, Well, I guess I could. They didn't ask me if I wanted to go. I didn't know if he wanted me out of the way or what, but he said he's going to take you golfing tomorrow. I'll drop you off at the golf course. So he gets me up, and we drive out of the city and over here to a golf course. And I get out and there's that same guy, and he said, You got golf clubs? I said, not with me. He said, Well, we'll get you a set out of the clubhouse. And he did, and we got in this cart, and away we went. Now the day before, I decided to polish my car, and I put this old white kind of polish on, I think it was called Turtle Wax. Anybody remember that kind it's terrible. I'm as slow as a turtle trying to get it off. After I get it on, I rub it in good but boy, to get it off there doesn't show a knife. I rubbed and I rubbed till this shoulder felt like was going to fall off. Now I'm golfing. This side of my body is all tied up, and every time. I'd swing at the ball, of course, he told me my problem later was that the ball didn't go very far from where I hit it. But we started in, and I was pulling every time, and he kept bothering me. Said, you're you're pulling your club. It's causing the ball to go over off the course you talk about getting uptight after being told that about 20 times we're out with it, we're out of the end of the golf game. And I'd gotten out of the cart, and I looked, and I noticed one of the socks had fallen off the one of the wood clubs, and I told the guy, I said, Hey, we're going back to the the clubhouse, and I've lost a sock. I'm going to walk back and see if I can find it. Well, I had to realize, and have to walk to the last, to the next green, all the way back to it. There it was. I picked it up, and there are two guys standing there and and one of them said to me, I don't know. He said, Are you catching on. I said, What? He said, Are you catching on? I said, to what? Well, he said, the game of golf. I said, Does it look that bad? Well, he said, you know, you're with the Golf Pro. I had no clue it was the Golf Pro. I would be the best golfer in the world if I'd have listened. Now an acquaintance of mine, I don't know him well, but he hates the golf, and he had an avid golfer that just stayed on his trail and said, You gotta go golf. And he said, I don't like to golf. I'm not a golfer. He said, You gotta go. You need to relax. And so he took him golfing, and they came to a lake, and he said, I'm going to try to go around it. No, he said, it'll take too long just knock the ball over the lake. And he showed him how to do it. So he stuck the stick in the ground, put the ball on top of the stick, swung at the and it just dribbled down and went into the lake. Manny was upset, and the guy said, hey, just have another ball and knock, knock it across the lake. He hauled off and hit that thing, and it went plop out in the middle like six times. He put the ball in the lake. He was so mad. He went back to the golf cart, grabbed up the whole bag and all the sticks, walked down to the lake and said, there's your buddies in there here, and slung it out into the lake. And the other guy just standing there with his mouth open, he said to that avid golfer, he said, you just go ahead and play the rest of it, and I'm walking back to the clubhouse. Pick me up when you're done. He said, I can't you just threw all my clubs into the lake. But relaxation, whatever it is, find somehow where you can kind of let your brain rest and your emotions rest and your body rests. It's good for you. If you want to deal with overload, you want to deal with being overwhelmed, you've got to find some way to relax. But here's another that Jesus used. Was meditation. Jesus said in Mark 125, and in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. He meditated. He got alone with God. Over and over and over, you'll find Jesus meditating. Now, let me get on to just a little bit of a touchy subject. It's called tithing. Does that offend anybody? You say, Well, preacher, if you're going to get off on that, I'm going to find me another church. Can I just tell you when you get there, tell him I sent you, and when you get there, start tithing to that ministry, because I want to promise you, God will bless you beyond measure. I found there's a principle that when I give to God the tent that belongs to him, he can bless the 90% a whole lot more than I if I kept the whole 100% and that same principle goes over with this. If you'll give God time every day to spend with him, you'll accomplish more from the rest time and from meditating and getting along with him than if you'd ever stop for the break. And if you take every day to read your Bible and to pray, you'll find you'll get more accomplished. And I can rush around and do a lot of things, but I'll get a lot less done if I don't meditate and get alone with God. Here's the last one with some sub points. Transformation. Isaiah, 40 verse, 29 he giveth power to the faint, to them that have no mighty, increases the strength. And then he goes on to talk about eagles, mount up with wings as eagles. Several things about that passage, the problem was the faint. I've been there many times. I've had that problem in life. If I'd be to the point where I didn't feel like I could go on. But here's the provision of stress. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew, renew their strength. I looked up that word renew this week, and found that word in the Hebrew actually means to exchange. So when I renew my strength, what I'm doing, I'm exchanging my weakness for God's strength. That make any sense? And how do you do that? Pastor, it says they mount up with wings as eagles. Now, an eagle can fly 50 miles an hour. I mean, it can cut its way through the pathless yonders, and it's amazing how fast and fleet that an eagle is. But if an eagle sees a storm, every place I've read, they say they never run from a storm, or they'll head straight into the storm, and the eagle, with his wings out, will catch the current, and he'll go up to 100 miles an hour, riding the winds. And I thought of Acts two, two, where it said, and when the Holy Spirit came, it was like a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the place where they were setting. How do you renew your strength? Number one, just simply empty yourself of yourself. And I wondered how many of us have some junk in our life, in our personalities, in our hearts that we do so well to just say, God, I need to empty some of this. Nobody else likes it. I'm getting kind of tired of it, and I don't want to claim victory over it. I've got a mean streak, or I'm an impatient streak, or I get an attitude. Some of us just need to say, Lord, I want to empty myself of myself. And then, Lord, I want you to just to fill me with your Spirit. Just fill me with your Spirit, not only this problem and that provision, but I want you to notice the problem, promise of overcoming stress, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Now, how do you wait on the Lord? Just find an easy chair and you kick back and and you just will go off into La, La Land. Ho hum. And I'm waiting on God. I cannot tell you through the years how many people I've been around and just said I'm waiting on God. God's going to show me what to do. I'm waiting on the Lord. That's not what this waiting means here. That's just sitting on our blessed backside. What does it mean? Well, let me tell you what it means. It means you become a waiter, like they wait tables. You got a guest, and you're the waiter, and you go over and you say, do you need water, sir, what do you need to drink? And and what, what is your order? What can I do for you? And what do you need on the table? And is there something that needs? And you're waiting, and God is saying to us, if you wait on me and serve me, I'm going to renew your strength. And I'm wondering what would happen if God could find a great handful of people here that would say, from here on, God, I need strength, and the way to get that strength is simply to wait on you. You say, Well, preacher, how do you wait on the Lord? Well, he tells you a little bit here in Psalm 62, verse five, wait Thou only upon God. What does that mean? It means to long for him. You long for him. And then in Proverbs 824, Blessed is the man that heareth me, heareth me. That means listen to him. I not only long for him, but I want to listen to his instructions and to do them, and then to look to Him. In Psalm 104, verse 27 they that wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season, looking to Him. And then may I close by saying, we need to live for Him. Proverbs, 27, eight, Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof. You're not going to get apples if you don't raise apples. Some of you, only thing you're going to get is cane. You're going to raise cane. But if you want peaches, you need to plant a peach tree, and you need to tend to it, and instead of you, if you keep that fig tree, you're going to eat the fruit there. So is he that waiteth on his master shall be honored. What are you doing? Preacher, with your life, I'm just going to wait on the Lord. He's my master, and I'm going to serve him. He's the guest of my life, and so I'm going to wait on Him and what happens? He said he would renew our strength. I'm tired of weariness. I'm tired of being faint hearted. I'm tired that when the battles Come, my mind's not big enough to encompass the battles, and I'm simply saying, God help me. I. Not to sit over here in a recliner and said, Oh, I'm waiting on God. No, I'm going to wait on Him by serving Him, not just occupied, but not just preoccupied, but getting involved in the kingdom of God. And if God could take this great ministry that we have and take us to a new level, where we're all waiters. How can I wait on you? Lord, well, I've got somebody I'd like for you to invite to church. I got somebody over here that needs $1 and I need you to get it to em. There's somebody over here that needs some help, and I want you to go as you wait on them, you're waiting on me. When you give away that cup of cold water in my name, it says, giving it unto me. That's what God has called us to do, to be waiters, Father, take the message.

Unknown: 30:48

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 bucyrusnazarene.org, you.