Voice of the Nazarene 1-4-26

Voice of the Nazarene 1-4-26

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Ray, 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 La Salle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:18

Well, 2025 is gone, and it may have been a tough year. We have buried our dead. We have said and wept together. We have watched lives nearly torn apart and things tough enough to make us wither, dry up and be discouraged, but we've made it through the year. David said, I'm going to look under the hills from whence cometh my help. In other words, I'm going to get my eyes up a little higher and look toward God. Caleb was 80 years of age, and he said, you see that mountain? I'm going to take that mountain. Some of us need a Mountain View. We've been watching the swamps and and we need to look up high and begin to believe God for a great, great year, I felt my attention pulled and I felt my heart drawn to this 13th chapter of the book of Luke, a little parable, and Jesus Christ, the great Son of God, is sharing this, not only with them, but he's sharing this with you for this new year. And I looked at it, and I thought, This is the message that I believe God wants to say to all of us. It's in that sixth verse He begins. He spake, also this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and he sought fruit thereon and found none been a bad year. And it Then said he unto the dresser of the vineyard, behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on the fig tree and find none cut it down. Why cumbersome? Why is it using up good ground? And he, answering, said unto him, Lord, this is the dress of the vineyard. He said, Lord, let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dunk it. Did you catch that? Lord, would you just let it alone this year? Give it another year. Maybe you're saying, God, give me another chance. Give me another opportunity. Give me another moment in time to see if I can get life together and see if I can get above the problems and see if I can soar and find my wings and find where my life really ought to be elevated to, God, give me another year. And then notice he said two things, I'm going to dig about it, and I'm going to dung it. You catch that? I'm going to, I'm going to dig it. And he said, I'm going to, I'm going to dung it for three years. This, this tree has not produced been in the same rut for three years. Maybe, maybe that's where you feel like you are. Now listen to me closely. The owner planted the tree. Didn't bury it, but he planted the tree in the soil, and he knew what it needed, soil wise, location wise to bring out the greatness, to make it fruitful, to produce you and I don't get the right to choose The soil. We don't get to choose the pain and the brokenness. We don't always choose what comes our way, the problems, difficulties, the challenges that God plants you in. But if he planted you in a particular soil, it's only because he knows what it's going to require, not always an easy life, not always luxurious sand it may require, require a pain, maybe, maybe a problem in life that produces the greatness. And if you notice in the story, you got to catch it, the soil is not the problem because there were other trees all around that were producing fruit, except this one. And it's the response of the tree to the soil that it was planted in the pain the problems in life, if we're not careful, they can overwhelm us, and we can get in a rut just trying to. To exist. And the thing that got me about this story is God kept coming. Now you know, the owner is God, and the tree is you and and the tree is me, and the tree, instead of producing in the soil, God's planted it. And God comes year after year, and he's checking, he's looking at it, and when he allows us to go through pain, problems, circumstances, adversity, he backs off, and he looks at us, and in the story, he came annually, he came back the first year, and he came back the second, and he's not expecting whining. He's not expecting complaining. He's not expecting a dried up tree or a dried up life that's become puny, barely any roots, no fruit of the Spirit. And he's not expecting that. He's expecting it to blossom where he planted you to prosper, where he planted you. And the thing that got me about the story been three years. God keeps coming back, and he gives me another chance, and he shows back up, and he offers me another opportunity to produce something fruitful in my life. And he keeps coming, and then he shows up and he finds I've got an unfruitful marriage. And he shows up and he finds that I'm not making any move toward him, and I've got a questionable testimony year after year after year. And if it's not any better, then that could be your family tree, it could be your family, and the soil seems difficult. The enemy wants us to accept that, but God comes back and says, This isn't meant to destroy you, and what I've allowed to come your way isn't meant to wipe you out. The pain, the rejection somebody else right next to you might be going through the same rejection, maybe the same kind of a divorce, maybe the same kind of a loss of a loved one. And instead of letting it throw them for a curve, they blossom become more fruitful in long suffering. For you see the fruit of the spirit's love and joy and peace, long suffering, patience, kindness, goodness, and it had to come up in the kind of soil that was difficult and not easy. And I don't know what God is saying to us during this time of the year, that maybe we don't need to be around a lot of friends. We need to get maybe alone with him. He knows what it's going to take to bring greatness. Most of us, if you're like to like me, I want to be happy and blessed and have a wonderful life. And we don't understand, usually, more to the story than a beautiful tree blossoming. Sometimes, for that tree to go high, it has to start out low and listen, he said, It's been three years. The owner said, and if I come back and it's not producing, I'm going to cut it down, going to burn it. What I've come to preach to you today is this. I've come to say to you, this is your year, and this is my year. You ought to be saying, this is our year, and we're going to we're going to make a difference in 2026 different than any other year that we've ever existed in. It's my opportunity to catch a big dream. It's my year to have production in my life and see the glory of God. Three years had passed, and maybe you feel like that tree. You just feel like quitting, you feel like giving up. You feel like I just might as well try something else. I I just might as well move on, because I'm caught in a cycle of maintaining a deferred dream I've tried, and here I am in the same place that I was last year and the year before and the year before that. And the enemy wants to come and wants you to settle. But when God's about to say, cut it down, throw it into the fire, the most beautiful thing happens is this little parable. Suddenly, the dresser of the field. That's who he's called. He walks up and he stops the owner and said, Oh no, give it one more chance. You've turned the vineyard over to me. Allow me to dig around it and dung it. Allow me one more here. Who is that? Can I give you a hint who that dresser of the field was it's Jesus. Jesus steps up when I've failed and when I've come up short and I've missed the mark. And he puts himself between an angry God and my withered up excuse making life. And he said, No, I want to step in and I want to help. Ray la salle. I'm going to give you a little more opportunity. You catch those words. He answering, said unto him, Lord, let it alone. This year also said, I shall dig about it and dung it. In other words, he's saying, if there's any vindication, if you're angry with him, and if you've got some problem with him, don't talk to the tree anymore. Talk to me. I'll take the place of that tree. Fact of the matter, he's saying, I'll die on that tree. I'll take the curse. I'll take what he deserves. I'll take his wasted life. I'll take the ramifications. And Jesus, in that moment, becomes the middle man between the tree and you listening. You're not here by accident. This year 2026, is your year, a year for fruitfulness, but it's going to require some things. We can't just coast. Got to dig in. You can't drift through life. You need to say, This is my year. This is my year. You need to say, God, give me one more year. One more year. I know I feel like quitting. I know I could just walk off and nobody would miss me. And I know things don't ever seem to change, and I can't seem to get free from this addiction. I can't get my marriage well, and I can't seem to get things put together right. But I've I've got a word from you, from God this morning. Let this be your year for a breakthrough. It's time to get happy. It's time to be conquerors. It's time to wipe away the failures and saying, I'm going to move into a year of fruitfulness, a year of winning, and even in a soil like we're in, we're still trying to climb out of covid. We're still trying to get our lives together and our businesses together. And the political scene is so divided. The financial world is Tipsy, Topsy and trouble everywhere, pandemic, and we're not even particularly through it. But even in a soil like this, God can say, I can take your year, because I know what I'm doing in my vineyard, I'm still working on them. And he said, Don't quit this year. Give it one more year not to keep doing what we've always done. Don't give us another year so we can just cross our fingers and wish for something better. No, no. He's saying there's two things that need to happen to you. If you'll give me another year notice. What he said, I'm going to dig around you, and I'm going to dung you, and I'll just stop for a moment. I'll get back to it. You know what dung means, don't you? It's called manure. So he said, first of all, I'm going to dig you. What does that be? That means he's going to literally tear up the environment around us so we get uncomfortable where we are, and we quit settling down and and we quit losing our dream, and we quit losing the vision for something better and making a difference in our community. That's what he's saying. And he said, You're becoming soft and and you're not listening to my spirit, and spiritual nutrients are not getting through the soil to your soul, and you're more buried than planted. So what I need to do is tear up some things. A lot of us know what it means to have God dig around our lives. I know I've been there. I don't have to tell you. I can sit at a hospital. I can sit at the bedside of somebody that's losing a loved one. I've been there, and I know what it's like when the soil around us gets disturbed and God has to dig deep. Did you know that everything that is needed is right here in this earth for us right now. God put oil in the ground, God put gold in those mountains. God put coal under those layers of rock to keep us warm, but he's put it out of reach of the lazy people. And this year, if you want some change, you're going to have to dig deeper than you've ever dug. If you want God to do something, I'm not going to another year of defeat. I'm not going to through another year being sick and tired of being sick and tired. This is our year, a time to dig deep. That means we dig deep in this word, don't just come to church and hope the preacher can pack it in in about 20 minutes. You've got to get the book out and you've got to get the book in you and you in the book. You've got to get on your knees and pray. Some of us need to get out of bed and be at church on every Sunday of 20. 26 sometimes I don't feel good, but I still show up. I'm going to be there. You see, it's when I'm not there that Thomas, he'd missed the service, and he missed the visitation of Jesus, and sometimes we miss the best thing when we lay out. I'm amazed that some of us, you look in our past, I mean our past we we lived up to a G, L, L, but God wants to tear up our lives in another way and make make us fruitful and give us some growth. There was a player by the name of George shotgun shuba. He played seven seasons for the Dodgers. Some of you know him better than I. He was a pinch hitter, and he was the first pinch hitter in history to hit a home run during a World Series game. He knocked it over the fence. I'd like to do that every sermon. I'd like to put it out of the ballpark. Sometimes it goes over their heads, and you just got to stand up there and teach. But he knocked it out of the ballpark and and the one calling the game, the announcer, he came over the sound system and he said, his swing is as natural as a smile. And everybody began to quote that. After the game's over, they're standing around quoting his swing is as natural as a smile. And somebody went to him and they said, shotgun, did you hear what they said about you? He said, No, I was playing the game well. He said that your swing was as natural as a smile. No, no, no. He said, No. He said, Every day I swing a weighted bat. 33 ounces, 600 times a day. That's 4200 times a week. Nothing natural about it. I just do it until it becomes normal, till I can do it without thinking. And you know, we get to looking around at people in the church that seem to be more spiritual and and their lives is more blessed and they have more faith. They said, well, it's just natural with them. No, it wasn't natural. They got up out of bed and they went to church. They got the good book out and they read it where they didn't feel like reading it. They got into prayer and they got into fasting and they got into believing God and obey until they knew what it was like to be blessed, and they knew what it was like to have faith, to believe God for anything. It didn't just come naturally, but sometimes God has to dig around us to make us uncomfortable. But I want to move to a second thing. Jesus, in the parable the dresser of the vineyard, he said, not only going to dig it, I'm going to dung it. Now, if you haven't figured that out, again, it's manure. It's bad. And sometimes God takes the most horrible things in life to bring out the greatest miracles. For our year, that one thing that may be the most obnoxious in your life and you can hardly stand it is the very thing that God takes and he throws on a fruitless tree to make it come alive. Did you know without fertilizer, a tree doesn't produce? Fact of the matter, it can die, and fertilizer is never pleasant. Have you figured that out? I used to grow a garden. I know what it's like to have them bring in a whole truckload of molded leaves and and had been turned over and turned over. They were beginning to rot, and I worked it into the soil. I know what it's like to have them bring in a whole truckload of horse manure. Why? Because I wanted a crop. I wanted corn and potatoes and beans, and I was trying to work my my garden. Without it, you're not going to have any production. And I know that sometimes manure stinks, isn't this a great sermon? And I don't know of any relationship, even a marriage, but once in a while, it can stink. And sometimes that job you work, it just stinks. And sometimes maybe your finances stink. And it may be over this last year, your health stink, but God said I don't waste that. I take it and I use it for fertilizer. Now I know people give up, and people give up instead of growing. And the time that God's going to do the greatest thing in our life is sometimes when we walk off and we throw in the towel and we quit, when God starts tearing up things around us, and then he starts throwing the mess on us. Here's the good news. You say, Well, preaching, this is not a very encouraging message. I thought it was till I got here. What I'm trying to tell you, God is going to dig in your life, and he's going to throw some dung on your life, and you can't do a thing about it. But there is another option. If you don't like that, there's another option. There's only one other option left. Remember he said, I'm coming back at the end of the year, and if you didn't let me dig around you, you didn't let me dung you and throw a mess on you, it can make you sour, but it can make you productive. And I believe, more than ever, this little thought, when things are going against me the most is the very time that God is working all things together for good in my life, I'm more convinced of it. I'm not discouraged, and when your tree begins to blossom, here's the thing that we ought to be excited about. How many just feel like God's been digging around my life. Last year, anybody in the house, he's been digging around my life. I've faced some big things. Pastor, I never dreamed I'd face. How many of you like maybe this be pretty plain, God just kind of threw the mess in the dung and fertilizer. Later on my life, some of you have. Well, here's the good news, the only thing left is to cut you down and to burn you. Aren't you glad that instead, God's willing to dig us and willing to dung us, instead of cutting us down and burning us, God's not through with us, and God hadn't given up on us, and he's given us one more year now? What if you knew? What if God told you this is your last year to get things right? What if you knew this would be your last chance to fix some things going on in your marriage? What if you knew this was your last chance to change and change some things, and begin to enjoy life and the soil and the situation God's planted you in. If he comes back and you're still discouraged and you're still defeated, maybe God will give you what you complained about. You say, Well, Pastor, it's not blessing me this morning. You're blistering me. I know I'm a preacher. It's what I'm called to do. I got a license. And I'm not only telling you, I'm preaching to myself, God, if you need to dig in my life, and if you need to dung my life, if you need to put fertilizer in there and make me uncomfortable and maybe things kind of stink for a while, I know that you will get the glory. And you're the dresser of the vineyard. It's your vineyard. I'm just one of the people in it, and so do whatever. Now watch this. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians, 38 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered, the loss of all things, and do count them, but dung that I may win Christ, He's saying all these things that I've been through, I've lost, I've been shipwrecked, I've been beaten with rods, I've been stoned, I've been lied on, I've been misrepresented. I've been left for dead. I've been run out of town. I've been tortured. But I can tell you this, he said, I counted all but dung, all of this fertilizer. God put me everything through, and he put it on me, and out of that, I was able to write half of the New Testament. And if God hadn't thrown a mess on me, I'd have never come up with a message the vineyard, the dresser, the vineyard knows what he's doing and the very thing sometimes that we want to hide, and we come and we act like we've got it all together, and we're sitting there hurting, and our life isn't together, and we can't even speak to our spouse and and the kids are going another direction, where all The we want to hide all of that. And when Jesus walked into that temple and he saw the man with the withered hand, he said, stretch forth the hand. And he could have reached out and showed his good hand. All man, you're cured and looked perfect, but he had to reveal the ugly side if he wanted a miracle. I thought of David in Psalm 83 verse 10, when he said, My enemies, those who wanted to destroy me. He said, You made them fertilizer. They're just dung. And here in Luke, chapter 11, Jesus arrives at the tomb of Lazarus, and the sister comes out, and she says, If you'd have been here three years ago, that's really not what she said. She said, This is day four. He's dead to dead, dead, dead, dead, dry to dry, dry, dry, dry, doll to doll, doll, doll. It couldn't be any worse. And you finally show up, and you're late, and that's the statement she says, by now, he stinks. This is bad. This is dung. And Jesus just smiled and said, No, this is the soil that brings supernatural miracles. This is the soil that I can get the most glory. And he said, I'm going to dig it and I'm going to take the most obnoxious things you'll ever drink. Dream that you've run from, and I'm going to throw it. And if you'll stay rooted, and if you'll submit to the digging and the dunging process, and give me one more year, don't quit. Don't give up, don't throw in the towel. Give me one more year, and I'll bring fruit out of your life. And that's the promise I'm hanging on to. And do you know who said it the dresser of the field Jesus. He said, I'm the one. I'll take I'll take the shame, I'll take the mess of their life. I'll take the curse. He said, I'll take the failures. I'll take all the wasted years, wasted relationships, terrible decisions, and I'll turn it into fertilizer and I put it on that fruitless life, that fruitless tree, and one more year's time, I'm telling you, if you'll give God another chance, and if you'll give God this year, I promise you, as pastor, you'll never dream what will come out of the Ministry of your life. Let God have a chance to do something in your life and everything that he takes us through the weaknesses, the brokenness, the abuse, the hurt, the failure, the addiction, the pain, he'll use it as fertilizer. Just let him break you up a little, and we can leave this place with a new faith, to believe God for the greatest and we can leave this face alive again. And before the year is over, God can give every one of us in the house and those that are watching, he can give us a turnaround. And some of us need a turnaround. God's checked on us year after year after year, and we're no further along spiritually than we've ever been. And God said, I'm through. And Jesus steps up and said, No, give them one more chance. Give them one more opportunity. It's my vineyard. I died for them. Let me let me hang on a tree for them, and let me bring fruit out of their life. How many would like to produce fruit this year? How many would like to just get above the heartache and the pain and the hurts and everything that we have dealt with and say, God, this is going to be my year. And I give you this year you want to dig around in it. It couldn't be any worse than it was last year only. I never got any good out of it, and if you want to dung around, whatever you need to do, just don't cut me off. Give me one more opportunity. And God, you'll be amazed at the production. With you and I working together, all things are possible to them that believe father,

Unknown: 27:36

thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with B and C's pastor, Ray la salle. For more information regarding B and C, visit you. Cyrus nazarene.org, you.