Voice of the Nazarene 5-3-26

Voice of the Nazarene 5-3-26

Transcript

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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 Lassawa, and the Voice of the Nazarene.

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Well, good morning. Did you enjoy the music? What a blessing. I thought the choir was exceptional. I think they ought to have a raise. So they're looking for you to give a good offering if they're going to get that raise. Now I suppose there'll be a discussion after service about a raise. How many would like to have a visit from God? Some of you'd be pretty upset if you had that. You'd be a little nervous. God sent an angel to a man back in Judges chapter 6. And the angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak of Oprah that belonged to Joash, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, The Lord is with thee. Thou mighty man of valor. And some renditions say this the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. And his response is why has all of these things befallen us? And where are all the miracles? I mean, if God is so good and we're doing so well, where's the miracles at? And why all the problems? You know, everybody's looking for a perfect situation, perfect timing, perfect marriage, perfect church, perfect spouse, perfect kid, favorable condition. Some years back, I had read an article about a house for sale. Went to see it and showed up, and I said, that's not the house in the picture. Let me check this GPS address again. Maybe maybe I'm at the wrong place. And yet, looking back sometimes, what seemed to be the very worst situations in our families, some of the greatest memories were made. Sometimes when your life and situations you have seem the most wrong, it's then that God is busy working behind the scenes all things together for your good. We serve a God who says, when conditions seem so bad, that's when I do my best work. So the story begins here in Judges chapter 6. About a man named Gideon. Gideon is at a low season, he's in a downtime, he's in a low place. His conditions are not favorable. The last seven years he had been tormented by a people by the name of the Midianites. Nearly drove them senseless. The reason he's hiding out in a wine press down under cover in a valley, threshing wheat, is to try to keep what little bit they had to keep body and soul together. For seven years the Midianites waited to the Israelites, raised their crops, fattened their sheep and oxen, and then they would sweep in like locusts and devour the good of the earth. They would take their crops, take their cattle, take their sheep, take their oxen, everything they had. They were hiding out in caves for fear of their very lives. And when God appeared to Gideon in a very, very low place, his condition was not truly not favorable. God takes Gideon and raises him up to defeat the Midianites. And he becomes a judge over Israel. Four things stand out that I see from this account. And four things when our situations, our circumstances are not right. And uh we say, I'll start serving God when things get better. Well they may not get better. But I want you to notice the place God appeared. Remember, Gideon's a very, very low place. He's threshing wheat in a wine press. It's a low place, it's a terrible spot, and he never dreamed he'd be in. And I'm convinced that when you're in a low place, you may do things that you thought you'd never do. It's easy to look around and say, Well, I'd never do that. But you don't know how low a spot somebody else may be in, so be careful of your judgments. And I believe there's a couple reasons that God appeared to Gideon in this time. God appeared to Gideon when he was all alone. Judges 6, 11, you find him by himself. Matthew 11, 6, but when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father in private. Then your father, who sees everything, will reward you. God speaks to us better when we're all alone many times. The psalmist in his writing said, Be still and know that I am I'm God, and I will be exalted among the nations, and I'll be exalted in the earth. Corey Tim Boom said, You may never know that God is all you need until he's all you have. Letter Ravenhill said, Tell me what time you spend alone with God, and I'll tell you where you are spiritually with God. God took Saul, who became the apostle Paul, and took him to the backside of the Arabian desert so he could get his attention and talk to him. God allowed Moses for to some years wandering around alone so he could speak to him. John the Baptist lived in the desert. And God was close to him. And I'm convinced that God can't get to many of us in our lives because he can't get through to us to speak to us into our lives. We're busy with our phone, with our calendars, shadowing kids, working jobs. And he desperately wants to speak to us. And the Bible says that he uses a still small voice. And everything around us is too loud. And it's crowding out that voice. And God appeared to get it when he was all alone, and God wants to spend some time with you. Do you want to spend some time? You want to hear from heaven? Well, God's wanting to speak to his children, and I think that's usually when we're all alone. And when you eliminate the distractions of your life that's keeping you from him. I wonder what would happen in our churches. I wonder what would happen in our marriages. I wonder what would happen in our very lives if the first form of media that we pick up would not be the cell phone, maybe it would be the Bible. So God could speak to us. Just saying. And what would happen if we prioritized time for our God? He'd speak to you like maybe he's never spoken before. But secondly, God appeared to Gideon while he was working. Not only all alone, but he was working. Judges 6, 11, and 12 said he was thrashing the wheat, doing the work of his hands, just routine, ordinary, mundane things. But if you can't work with your hands and do what you need to do, why would God give you something bigger than that if you're not doing what you could do? And so God worked with him while he was just quietly working. Not the grandose things. You say, is that how God operates? Yes, in Exodus 3.1, Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, it said, in Exodus 3.1, who was his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God, just tending sheep. And God found him, faithful over little things. And because of that he said, I'm going to send you to the Pharaoh to see that my people are delivered. Priscilla Shearer teaches that God often uses ordinary, routine, and mundane moments to reveal himself. Meaning, ordinary is frequently a disguise for the divine. Constantly waiting for grandiose events causes us to miss the intimate moments, she said, in our relationship with God that occur in daily simple circumstances. Now in verse 11, it said, the angel of the Lord came to Gideon and sat down on his own. But in verse 12, it said it appeared unto him. And what's the difference between verse 11 and verse 12? I really don't know. I only know this Gideon saw the angel. And that's really something that made a difference. And I believe in every one of our lives, God's wanting to do something. I believe even when we don't see it, God's at work. And God is saying, I want to talk to you. And we're walking around and we're saying, God, I'm trying to seek a blessing. And God, I need a word from you. And I want something special. Would you give me a sign? It's almost like we think God has to speak to us on a billboard. And that's not the way that God operates. God wants to speak to you when you're alone, when you're working your job. But notice not only the place, look at the person that God chose. Gideon's not feeling very confident. Look at verse 14 of that chapter. The Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might. He didn't think he had any. And thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor, and I'm the least in my father's house. And one rendition says, Pardon me, O Lord. Are you talking to me? I don't want to be rude, but I think you got the wrong guy. I said that years ago. I didn't know anything about Gideon much. But I knew that night when I knelt down in my dorm room, and God began to urge my heart that I was called to preach. And I said, John's in two rooms down. And his name is John. And it seemed like the spirit whispered, but I want you. Yeah, but John is up there and he's already thinking he's called. He's already passing out cards, whether he's called or not. Why don't you call him? If you want me, I'm not John Wesley. You'll have to dig him up. And God said, I want to use you. Pardon me, you got the wrong guy, he said. And he said, I'm the youngest, and generally the oldest are the most organized in any family. The youngest, you know, they don't even know where their keys are. I mean, they show up at the party and they think they are the party. And when God called Gideon, he called one who was the most least like his own self. He called the weakest, he called the youngest, and he chose the most least likely person to do his work. Look at what the Bible says in Acts 4.13. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. They didn't even have a PhD degree. They couldn't name any university they had attended. They'd never graduated seminary, but they took note of them. God uses some. And God wants to use some folk here in this building and people watching by live stream. He's looking for people that he can use. That he could use. His dad walked out of his life when he was just an infant. He hung around home with his mom, and by the time he was 13, she said, I don't like the way you look. I want you out of here. And put him out. 13 years of age, he was homeless, living on the streets. And he began to beg his buddies to let him stay at their house, and he would stay from house to house to house. By the time he was 18, a boy by the name of Leslie challenged him to a basketball shootout. And they shot some shots together, and he said, Why don't you come home? Mom fixing supper. He said, I got a stepdad, it's my mom, and there's six of us kids, and she won't even know you're there. And uh he went to their house. And Michelle Lambert to mama, she had a special love for everybody. And uh let him hang around a little while and finally she said, Why don't you just live with us? There's six kids. How would I know there's an extra? Made him welcome. Helped him to finish high school. They got him into college there at Marquette University, and he struggled in school, but he found he had a gift for basketball. He had a passion for basketball. And uh he made it to the NBA, NFL, rather. And he became a great player. Fact of the matter, it was the NBA, and he won all kinds of accolades. He became what we would call the a six-time All-Star, five-time uh all-NBA player. His name was Jimmy Butler. They called him Jimmy Buckets because he could hit more and defend the ball better than anybody else. Became a great dame in the world of basketball, but it had a terrible beginning, a terrible start. And you may say, you don't know what I've done, you don't know what I've said. I've had a terrible start. Well, you can have a brand new start today if you want one. For God is looking for people that's not going to take all of the glory but simply say, God, I'm nothing. But if you want me, you can have me. It was like the little boy that went to church without any parents, not knowing they would pass an offering basket, and when they were passing it, his pockets were empty and he knew he had nothing to put in. They were dropping money all down the, and when they came to him, he put the offering plate on the floor and stepped into the middle of it and said, All I have to give you is myself. That's all God's asking. You don't have to make all the improvements. You don't have to paint yourself up or do anything. All you've got to do is just simply say, God, here I am. And I believe that God's looking for people. God uses faithful people. Matthew 25, verse 23. Well done, my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'm going to put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. Gideon, just busy minding his own business, thrashing the wheat. And God said, Because you're willing to do something meaningful, I'm going to use you. I believe God uses weak people. Gideon said, God, you got the wrong guy. My clan's the weakest, and I don't even believe in myself. And surely you don't want me. And I believe probably there are people in this house watching my live stream that the enemy has thrust all kinds of defeat into your mind and makes you feel worthless. I want to tell you something. God's got a good plan. And God can defeat the enemy. I like what 2 Corinthians 12, 9 says, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses that I'm nothing. So that Christ's power may rest on me. God's power is made perfect in weakness. Then I believe God uses fearful people. You say, Pastor, I'm scared to death. You don't know what I'm dealing with, what I'm going through right now. Well, you may have an uncertain future, but I want you to know this much. God uses even the fearful. How do you know God uses the fearful? God told him, I want you to go and destroy all the idols of Baal. He said, I'll do it, but I'm going to do it at night. I'm scared to death. I don't want anybody to see me. And not only am I going to do it at night, he said, I'm going to do it under the cover of darkness because I'm terrified. Now, how did God use somebody that's so weak? Well, Deuteronomy 31, 6 said, Be strong and courageous. I know my knees are hitting each other. Do not be afraid or terrified because of this, for the Lord your God goes with you and never leave you nor forsake you. If you're in the house and you're terrified, let me tell you something. I don't know what any of us are facing, but I want you to know the Lord's with you today. God's got a good plan. John Wayne said, courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. And then there's a posture that God requires. It's Judges 7, 5. If you throw it up on the screen, I'll not even read it. Do you have it? You see it? I don't. But you can. There it comes. It's slow on the back wall. The sharper folk must be good. Here's just a side note. I think that sometimes we think everybody we've ever met in life needs to go with us all the way through life and help us to fight every battle. And that's not so. You're not going to take everybody with you. I've lost a number of people through the years. And it wasn't all through death, even though I helped plan it. That's on humor. It didn't go over well. Let me not use that in the second service. Remind me. Some people you'll outgrow them. Some people, as far as I'm concerned, you'll outstretch them. There's people you can outwork. I've got a lot of buddies, but they're not about to put out the energy I put out. They would have never gone to two services. Let alone three services like we did for six years. You think they'd get on the radio? It takes a lot of energy to make a radio broadcast. You think they'd take a chance on television? No. When finances were tight, you know what I did? I said, I'll just get some rentals. And there were nights that I worked till three o'clock in the morning, painting walls, cleaning up the debris that people left, hanging cabinets. Why? Because there's so many hours in a day, and if somebody else wants to sleep all of it, that's fine. I'm gonna work. And sometimes you'll just stretch away right past some folk, but we need to let folk go. Maybe we take a different road. But there's a posture required of God. It's a posture of obedience. Get the backdrop of the story. Verse one the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Midian. Seven years. They got in the jam they were in because of their evil lives. Seven years. Because they lived wickedly. And then when Gideon began to try to turn things around, Gideon starts out with 32,000 guys. I'm not saying they were warriors. They were not warriors. They didn't know a sword from a plowshare. But he had 32,000. He's tried to train them. And the enemy had 135,000. Now I'm not a mathematician, but that's the odds pretty bad on that. That's more than four to one. And then God whispered, Gideon, that's too many. I want you to lower the number. I want you to take them down to the brook. And I want you to have them drink from the brook. And I'm going to help you pick out how many you're going to use of those soldiers. 32,000 gathered down there by the brook. Some laid on their stomach, totally unaware of anything going on. But 300 dropped down on their knees, lowered themselves, and begin to reach down to the water and cup up the water and drink it and look around. What were they doing? They were checking out, not wanting the enemy to slip up on them. I wonder how many of us the enemy slipped up on us because we were just too busy drinking and not being careful. I don't care how great you can be, if you're not aware of the enemy, you can go down. More than a hundred of the preachers of the largest churches in America lost their credentials this last year. Never been anything like it in history. And we don't know how many others are in trouble. I don't know about you. I'm going to keep looking for the enemy to show up and mess up my life. Now you can feed whatever you want to. You've got a black dog and a white dog, the Indian said. And if you want to feed the black dog, it's going to get stronger and take over. If you want to feed the white dog, you can feed it more. And every time you sit down, you can either pick up a good book and begin to read and feed your mind and your spirit, or you can reach over and play with Facebook and squander time. Whichever you're feeding is going to become the strongest. You'll be better by a good book than you will messing with an echo chamber, people that don't even know what's going on, giving their opinion. Who cares about their opinion? Well, moving along while you're shouting happy. They ended up with only 300. Now, 300, I mean, he he eliminates 29,000 soldiers and 300 against 135,000. Again, I'm not a mathematician, but the odds are not good. And Gideon's probably saying, Lord, I don't understand. I'm scared, it doesn't make any sense, but I'm going to obey you. And it's a posture of obedience. I'm going to trust you. God, even when I can't see, I'm going to follow you. John 14, 21, those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my father will love them, and I will love them and reveal myself to each of them. But also a posture of humility is what God uses. And these men, they knelt, they lowered themselves before God. Matthew 11, 29 is the only place in the entire Word of God where Jesus describes Himself, the only place. And he said, I'm gentle and humble in heart. And we need to say, I need to be more like the Lord. I want him to be lifted up. I don't have to be front and center. I don't have to be the star of the show. You know what God is using? People who are not looking to be a showboat, but just want to be used of God. G.K. Chesterson wrote, How much larger your life would be if yourself could become smaller in it. And then lastly, the power that God uses. Gideon's introduced at a threshing, threshing wheat at a wine press. Anybody that knows anything, you do not thresh wheat at a winepress. It's down in the valley. And so if you're threshing wheat, what that means is you're tossing it up in the air in that day that didn't have machinery. And the wind would blow away the shaft, or the grain would fall back on the threshing floor. The wind made all the difference. But they're down in the valley. He's hiding. He knew the Mennonites would take everything that he had raised and trying to save. They would take it that have nothing to eat. So he's hiding. But there's no wind to separate. But the wind blew away the shaft. Then you fast forward, Judges 7, verse 19, and I'll not read it from the wall. Gideon's leading 300 men, and God is saying, This is what I want you to do. I want you to take a trumpet, and I want you to take a fire stick. And you're to light that fire stick and you're to put a jar over the top of it because they're going to travel at night. And he said, I want you to take this trumpet. You're going to blow the trumpet. You're going to smash the jars. And you've got to understand, down in the valley where the wine press was, there was no wind. But up on the mountain was where the wind began to blow. And God was showing them to use wind instruments. That instrument that when you blew life into it, sound would burst forth. And when they would smash that uh that jar, immediately the wind would blow it and it would create combustion and become a great blaze. Do you get the picture? The wind is what made all the difference. And when the enemy heard all of those trumpets coming from all directions where everyone was standing, and suddenly there's balls of fire all over the place. Let me read it to you, verse 20. The three companies blew the trumpets, broke the pictures, held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumps, trumpets in their right hands to blow withal. And they cried the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place round about the camp, and all the hosts ran and cried and fled. The wind made the difference. Now, do you know the Hebrew word for the Holy Spirit? You know what it is? It's ruash. Ruash. And what that word means, it means wind or it means breath. The Holy Spirit is that wind, that breath that brings life into a service. You want something that'll change the circumstances of your life? Allow the Holy Spirit to move in and begin to blow away the chaff until there's nothing but the wheat left. And he begins to bring power and break down the barriers and the strongholds. And he can transform churches, transform marriages, change your lives. You say, Well, I don't really know about that. Well, look at Ezekiel 37, verse 4. Valley full of dry bones, prophesy to these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord. Behold, I will cause breath. Remember Ruash, the Holy Spirit, wind, breath. I will breathe, I'll cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live. Very same thing that happened in Acts 2.1. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, roaring, mighty wind. And it filled the house where they were setting. And setting up on them were cloven tongues of fire. Wind and fire. Take trumpets, take the fire sticks, blow breath and wind through that wind instrument, create a sound like they've never heard, break those jars and let the fire begin to burn. And it's amazing how God can take dead circumstances and God can breathe life literally into it. And even when conditions seem bad, the power of the Holy Spirit brings new life. Charles Spurgeon said, without the Spirit, we do nothing. We're ships without a wind. He said that we're branches without sap and coals without fire. We're useless. And we can let the breath of life into our situations. He's reading about Orville and Wilbur Wright, the Wright brothers. Remember them? They were born right over here and lived over here in Dayton, Ohio. But when they wanted to launch that first flight and create history, they chose the outer banks to try to get their little plane into the air. Do you know why? Because they knew the wind blew the best out there on the outer banks than any place else. I close by saying, why don't you let the Lord appear in your life? Some of you need an angel to show up, and maybe God's got one on the way. I don't know. In the weakest moments of life, when all looks lost, God can look at you when you feel your lowest and say you're a mighty warrior. And I can use you. I got a place for you. He wants to meet us when we're all alone, and God's a gentleman, he never intrudes. Maybe he's saying you're the person that I'm trying to choose. You think? You think he'll never use you. Because of what maybe I've done, what I've said, but I've come this morning to tell you God's got a place for everyone in the house. You say I'm scared, I'm nervous. Well, just be willing to be obedient. That's all. And submit to whatever God has and let Him take you to the next step. And aren't you glad there's no age limit? Caleb was 80 years of age when he took that mountain. None of us can walk out of here and say, God can't use me. God wants to use every one of us. And Isaiah. God spoke to him. And he said, I'm an unclean man and I dwell in the midst of an unclean people. And God said, Who am I going to send? And he threw up his hand and said, Here am I. Send me. And if some of us today would simply begin to say, God, I'm sitting out here in the seat. I've come to church all the time. It's time that you come to my life and begin to find my plan and develop it and give me my purpose. And God, whatever time I have left on earth, I'll use it. Lord, for your glory. And you'll get all of the praise. And I thought of John Kelly, and I'm done. John Kelly, in his final years, began to make calls and visit people in town. I'd see him suddenly hear a noise outside the window of my office, and he'd be out there spraying weeds, trying to do something around the church. But he'd stopped over at Jack's house. Nobody'd gotten through to Jack, but John Kelly, in the final year of his life, led Jack in prayer and led him to Jesus Christ. John Kelly's life, he led somebody to Jesus. It's only going to be a matter of weeks now, and we're going to start a program. Everybody bring one. I'm going to pass out cards. And I'll explain more about the cards. But if everybody here and everybody at our other campuses brings one person, we'll double over that one Sunday. I'm planning on bringing about 10 because I can't trust my one. So I'm going to get about 10 of them. And if I even get half of them, that'll be five times more than what I would run otherwise. And if we can get them in the building, Friend A did it. Passion Play does it. Totally Christmas does it. Sunshine preschool does it. Upward basketball has done it. People have come on all these special occasions, and now you're a part of this ministry. And all because every one of us allowed God to use us in our own small little way. Father.

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Thanks for being a part of the Voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9 a.m. with BNC's Pastor Ray Lasalle. For more information regarding BNC, visit UsirusNazarine.org.