Welcome to be on Sunday, an extension of the preaching ministry here at Leamington EMC. My name is Jonah Chitty and I am joined as always by Pastor Joe Penner. Woo. Hoo woo, it's really cold outside today, Joe. It is bitter. I got I got a funny story. This will be this will be coming out on Wednesday of this week. And I would do. We just heard that they're cancelling school in in Alabama where we're from because it's going to get really cold, really cold, like in the 20s in Fahrenheit.
I don't know. That's like, plus, I don't know, I don't even know what it is it. Would be like minus I I don't know either. Probably a -, 2 or 3 or 4 or something like that. In their defense, it's supposed to sleet and have like ice storm and they have no infrastructure, but they're going to can't they cancel school from today, which is Monday all the way to Thursday. Wow. I know it's like, hey, I know
kids enjoy it, right? If you're from Florida, Alabama area and you're getting sleet and snow, just know we had a foot over the last week and everybody just kept doing whatever they do. Well, it's funny, I know. Maybe not a foot, I don't know. It was probably more like 6 or 8 inches. I don't know. I know a lot of people here at our church would know people from Manitoba and I have family there too.
And like they, they have, they cancel school when it gets too cold, but that's like -35 or like -40 which I don't know what that would be in fair. Enough. I think they're the same -35 and -40 I think that's when they meet and they're the same, yeah -40 is -40. That reminds me of a, a comedian that I was listening to, I think it was Jeff Allen and he was talking about like North Dakota
or something like that. And he's, he's there and he's like, I went there and he's and it was negative 80 and he's like and that means it could warm up 80° and it would only be 0. That's crazy. Oh man, that's cold. That is freezing. Yeah, it is very cold. Very, very cold today. So my Florida feet are freezing because I'm still wearing Crocs. You know, Crocs. I'm wearing socks, though. I'm wearing socks. Crocs and socks. Crocs and socks Joe, you preach.
I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it like very proudly, like your last two sermons have been like some of the best ones I've heard you preach. So I, I really appreciated your sermon Sunday. I'm not trying to like make your head expand so you can't walk out the door or anything like that. I just felt like the Lord used it and maybe that's just because of where I needed to be. You know what I needed to hear at the right time where I am in my own personal spiritual walk.
But you preach the sermon from Nehemiah chapter 2. You started at verse 11 and went all the way to the end of the chapter. Yes, Sir. And your sermon was pursue a God sized vision for your life. You want to give us a recap? Yeah, yeah. So I I started out with the illustration from from scripture, the Tower of Babel in these people who are trying to make a name for themselves. Wait, hang on there. I think we're just going to plug Bible reading. Yeah, because that probably came from.
Absolutely. OK, You're reading in Genesis. Yeah. And you're studying for Nehemiah and and also in the Lord. The Lord shows you an example or an illustration from Genesis that would be useful in your sermon in Nehemiah. Yeah, your Bible reading matters. It does. I can't tell you how many times that happened last year, whether it was, you know, our New Testament plan that we were going through or it was like our Scripture memory, you know, memorizing the Sermon on the Mount.
Like I can't tell you how many times that tied in exactly to what I was preaching or going through that week. Or singing I noticed sometimes the you would use the songs like the the scripture from the like between the song and the opening scripture and then the benediction would come from the Bible reading from that week. It is so true it it it does matter. It does help absolutely. It helps shape and form you, So anyway, right?
And for? Everybody else, I mean, you know, you're not preparing a sermon, but it will do the same thing for you, for things that you're going through in your life. Like also you'll be like, wow, this ties in exactly with what I'm. Going I was having a conversation with someone on Wednesday night just about that same thing, 'cause we're talking about Bible reading as a discipline in my class.
And it came up, they were just like, you know, it's so crazy how often that what I'm reading is so applicable to what I'm going through that week. And I'm like, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not really coincidental. It's not a surprise. It's not at all the Lord knows and and again that just to sort of like emphasize that a bit thinking that, you know, like last year, I remember one time we picked First Corinthians at the beginning of the year.
Yeah. And then, you know, in October, as we're in, you know, First Corinthians chapter 14 or whatever, we're in and I'm like, and that what I'm reading in the Bible plan is exactly coordinating with where we're at in that chapter in First Corinthians. I'm like, man, the Lord is. Just he knows. It's like, you know, he knew this way ahead of time. And it's, yeah, he knows. He knows what we need at the right time. Yeah. And that's that's so comforting. It is his sovereignty is so
comforting. It is so comforting. I cut you off. I'm sorry. You started with an illustration in Genesis from Tower of Babel. Yeah. And so these people are trying to make a name for themselves and the Lord sort of interrupts what they're doing to, to, to fulfill what he's trying to accomplish, right? So they, they found themselves working against God. And so God had to come and redirect them so they would accomplish what he is trying to
accomplish. And so my whole point in that is that we need to pursue a God sized vision for our lives. You know, we need to come alongside what the Lord is doing, which is exactly what Nehemiah does, you know. You know, he found himself in a specific place at a specific time in history, and he came along. What God was doing, you know, the Lord was working in his heart. He was bringing about these events in his life. He was sharing what was going on in Jerusalem. He was finding this out.
And the Lord laid this vision on his heart for something that like he might not have picked himself or might not have recognized himself, but the Lord began to put this vision on his life. And maybe he was comfortable, maybe he was happy. Maybe he was content to stay there. I don't know that he would have been right, but maybe he was. And he's like, you know what? I have a lot to lose here. You know, I'm in a pretty good
situation. And he was willing to give it up for something bigger than himself, something that God was doing, a God sized vision. Yeah. And so my points throughout the text were first, that you need to seek a God sized opportunity. And so as, as he goes back to Jerusalem, he begins, you know, fleshing out this opportunity. And you know, as he's seeking out the opportunity, he's seeking God in secret, right? He's going out in the rubble by
himself. He's not telling anybody else what, what God is revealing to him. And he's seeking God in the rubble. And he's, he's trying to discern exactly what God wants him to do, how he's going to do it, making his plans, right, but seeking God in secret. And he hasn't shared it with anybody yet. And so I sort of tied that in with an illustration about a dam, the Saint Francis Dam, and, and it has these leaks and these cracks and they didn't take it
seriously. And I sort of applied that to, you know, it led to disaster, but I applied that to our lives. And how many times do are are we unwilling to go to those hard places, right. Nehemiah went to the rubble and he sort of sat in the brokenness. And we need to do that so that we look at the brokenness and look at what does God want me to fix in my life?
It's something that I didn't really mentioned in the sermon that I kind of wanted to tie in a little bit more was that a lot of times it's like we we can see those cracks and leaks in our life and for now we're just sort of OK with it. Yeah. Let's talk about your Bible reading being relevant. Well, this morning I read about Lot and a lot like God warns him to get out of the city. And it's like it says, but lot lingered. And it's like, man, how many times do we just linger in our
sin? But think, if I continue to do this, where is that going to take me in five years, in 10 years, in 15 years, in 20 years? It's like, where is this going to lead me? And do I want to go there, Right. And so like, recognize those warning signs and do something about it. But again, don't do hasty things because I think so many times we just make empty promises, right? Like, oh, yeah, I need to do that. I need to stop that. I'm going to I'm going to do this.
And it's like it's an empty promise because you haven't really felt the pain. You haven't even, you haven't really sat in the rubble and sought God and what God is trying to do in that situation. But all in that rubble, in those broken parts of your life, that's a, that's a God sized opportunity for him to do something great in and through you. And then I moved on to .2 like now share your God sized vision. This is where Nehemiah shares
with the people what he's doing. And so a God sized vision requires teamwork. It requires people to come alongside you and help you can't do a God sized vision on your own. And it also requires God, he's going to be working behind the scenes doing things that you can't do. And so I, I sort of tied that in with an illustration about Samson and, and his tendency to trust in himself and applied that to us and go, you know, we, it is so easy for us to think that we can do things on our
own, but we need other people. We need God and we need to learn to trust in those people. And so calling people to, to share that vision with other people, have other believers to come alongside you, to help you as you trust in God, to work in and through you. And then my last point was submit to a God sized God. You know, enemies are going to
come. That's what happened at Nehemiah. They started to come and slander them and, and try to make them feel bad about what was going on. But Nehemiah trusted in God. And my, my sub points there were that when your plans are God's plans, they will succeed. Nehemiah trusted that God was going to make them prosper. And when your enemies are God's enemies, they will fail. You know, even they were rising up against them. Nehemiah knew it's like, you
guys don't have any right? You don't have any claim. You don't have any portion of what we're doing here because you're you're an enemy of God and you're going to fail. And I used an illustration there of David and Goliath that, you know, David, you know, the only Israelite who is trusting in a God who is bigger than what their enemies look like.
And you know, we need to do that as well that, you know, we need to have this holy stubbornness that TJ Betts that quote that I mentioned that when enemies rise up, we just need to have that conviction that we're we're doing what God has called us to do. That's been clear to this point. And so therefore, we're just going to continue doing what we're doing because we know that God is going to give it success.
And then at the end of the sermon, I sort of tied this in this whole, this whole book really. But this section is tied this section of Nehemiah into like Christ, because the Old Testament points us forward to Christ. You know, when when Jesus was walking in the road to Emmaus, he showed his his followers, his disciples, how the Old Testament scriptures prophesied about him. And so, you know, Nehemiah comes to Jerusalem and that's exactly what Jesus did. We see as sort of like.
Parallel or. Parallel or like typography or typology is the word. Yeah. It's like Christ is Nehemiah is a type of Christ. He actually foreshadows what Christ was going to come to do. And so we see Christ coming to Jerusalem, inspecting the worship, inspecting the city, watching their corrupt worship. He comes and he, he, he preaches and he teaches the truth that the Kingdom of God and he shows that he is the way to to peace with God and that relationship with God.
And he's willing to suffer and die even in the face of his enemies because he's trusting in God. And so it really points us to Christ and all that he is going to do as a fulfillment of God's promise. And so that we should trust in Christ and follow that same example and be willing to give our lives for the sake of what He's doing and has done for us. Yeah, yeah, it was a good sermon. A lot of good stuff in there. I like the typology stuff at the end.
I'm a little nerdy and when it comes to stuff like that. So I get really excited when I see those when when they're pointed out. And you did a really good job pointing it out like and and going back and forth in the sermon. You you went, I think I don't know how long it took you maybe two or three minutes of of going back and forth and giving us example after example of how Christ perfectly did what Nehemiah was doing here. Yeah, it's good. Oh, what did I write down?
It was on Oh, your first point under seek a God sized opportunity. I, I I'd really like thought about that seeking God in secret part in the your first sub point. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I was convicted or what, but I, I Nehemiah, it just, he wanted to be, he wanted God to be the influence in his life and not someone else. And like, how often am I just like so quick to avoid prayer and to go to you or to go to someone else and say, Hey, what do you think about this?
Right. What do you think about that? Yeah, maybe you should do this instead of like, really like, OK, no, I need to, I need to spend some time with the Lord and let him influence me. Yeah. And instead of others. So I thought that was really, really helpful. That is so true. It's like it's God is not, not our first resort.
A lot of times it's like, like I said, it's like if, if I want an answer or if I want to think of something, it's like I'll go to Google or yeah, I'll, there's got to be a good book that somebody wrote about this or like, like you said, a friend or a counselor or somebody around you. Which are all good things, right? They are. But I think that that when they're our first, like our first option is to not go to God. That's the that's where we mess up. And man, I, I was just convicted
by that. Nehemiah wants God to be the influence and he didn't tell anyone what he was doing. He wants to go and inspect, just sit in And sitting in the rubble was another thing like, and you've mentioned that you were preparing for this for like 2 weeks. So you were, you were, you were sitting with this text for, I don't know, two or three weeks, 2 weeks at least and talking about sitting in the rubble and just really like, like being
willing and open to pain. I don't know if that's, I don't know how many people are willing to do that. It's hard, Yeah. Because I have, I have to wrestle with the fact that I'm failing, right? And that's why it's so hard because none of us wants to feel like a failure, right? And, you know, that goes men and women, it doesn't matter who you are. It's like you. We feel the weight of of us
being a failure. And that's where you really have to be discerning about what voice it is that you're hearing, right? You know, because is it the voice of God or is it the voice of the enemy? Because the voice of the enemy is going to be much like Nehemiah's enemies here. It's like it's going to be a discouraging voice. I mean, what do you think you're trying to do? Like you can't do this. Like you really think this is going to work?
That's the voice of the enemy. When that's the voice in your head. You need to know that you're under spiritual warfare and spiritual attack and you need to run to the Lord. The Holy Spirit is. This is why it takes discernment because the Holy Spirit is similarly wanting to make you holy and righteous. But that voice is not like, oh, you can't do that. That voice is, hey, that area of your life. Like I'm not content with that. You need to surrender that to me. You need to come to me.
There's better things for you. It's, it's like a, a conviction to, to become more holy and more righteous. That is the voice of the Lord because he wants you to experience fullness and wholeness. And so when it's a, when it's a voice that is not content to leave you, you know, in your sin, that's the Lord. It's the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When it's a discouragement or like beating you down, it's like
that's the voice of the enemy. That's that's really helpful thinking about because they're, I don't know if they're telling you the same thing, but you can't do it right. Whatever it is, right, you can't beat it. So like the enemy's telling you that in a discouraging way. The Holy Spirit's telling you that saying, hey, you know what, you need to like you said, surrender this to me. That was really helpful. Yeah, that's really helpful.
Shift in thinking. It's subtle, but really like, yeah, you need to surrender that. That's something you need to let. I'm not. And I like the way you said that too. The Holy Spirit says, I'm not content with this in your life. Surrender that to me. Like basically like that CS Lewis story. And I told back I don't know how many months ago now, like just let me kill it, right? Let me kill this thing in your life. Surrender it to me and let me kill it. But we're just like lot, right?
It's like we linger and we just sort of like, man, I really want to give this over to God because I mean, the reason we give in to sin is because sin feels good, at least for the moment, right? It's never as satisfying as we think it's going to be, right? But in the moment it's like we don't want to let go of our sin. Yeah, we do enjoy it. But as far as like, as far as like seeking God in the rubble, I, I really thought like just practical hands on like what should somebody do?
Like I'm thinking of an even in my life like schedule. I'm literally like schedule a time. And I need to do this for myself this week too, like put an hour in my schedule where I'm just going to go for a quiet walk and I'm literally just going to pray and ask God to show me leaks and cracks in my life. Because, I mean, I, I think as I was preaching through that as people were listening, you're probably getting a sense for areas of your life. Yeah, for sure. You know, maybe it's like, hey,
you know what? I don't pray with my kids. We're not reading the Bible together as a family. I'm not praying with my wife. We don't attend church as regularly as we should. We don't come to Bible. I'm not reading my, but whatever it is, right? Like I can feel myself starting to take slippery roads at my job where it's like I'm more willing to be dishonest or whatever it is you you're noticing. Maybe everybody got a bit of a
sense. And I think you need to sit alone with the Lord for an hour and think through that and pray through that and help him. Have him help you come up with a vision of like, all right, what steps can I take to avoid that? Yeah. And what plan can I put in place? Again, not an empty promise like, oh, yeah, I will do that. No. Give yourself actionable steps and then go and have someone come alongside you to hold you accountable and help you with
that. Yeah, yeah, something like an indicator, probably not like the problem, but an indicator of a problem in your heart. Like I've I've been reading a poultry book called Dangerous Calling. It's a book for pastors. But one thing that he keeps saying in there, he kept keeps saying like an indicator that you're, there's something going on in your heart.
Is this like if you're numbing yourself with like, like hours of mindless television or social media scrolling and it's he, he repeats it. And like, if you spot yourself, OK, my default now I just want to like withdraw from everybody and I want to scroll in my phone or I want to watch a show for four hours, you know, whatever. Binge watch something that's an indicator of a real problem in your heart.
And you know, you would you would say it's not I'm just I'm just relaxing or I'm just trying to like decompress. But it's really an indicator that you're just trying to withdraw from, from the world around you, right? And I was convicted by that. So it's like a crack that's like you're looking for a crack. OK, You want to see that in your life. And then like, OK, what's really causing me to want to like do this? Because it's not the show, right?
You know what I mean? It's not, it's not that interesting, right? There's nothing that interesting unless it's like a football game. It's like playoffs, right? Yeah, which are interesting. I'm just defending myself for watching 8 hours of football on Saturday. So anyway, no, oh man. But no, you know what I'm saying? It's like it's not that interesting. There is, there is a deeper problem.
There is a crack or a leak somewhere in your life that you're you're trying to plug with something else. Yeah. And so I think it's really good to think about like, like the taking that one hour and just asking the Lord to reveal, yeah, our sin to us, like the, the things that we think we don't have. Like, you know, I was thinking back to Kyle's sermon. People think they're sinless, You know, somebody's think you're sinless. No, you need to confess that.
You need to ask the Lord to show you where you're. Yeah, where you're sinning because you are. Yeah. There's something in your life so. Yeah. And something I, I last week, I had this, this thought as I was thinking, you know, I was thinking about, you know, like I start the day off with, with the word and with prayer and spending time with God. And I always feel very refreshed and energized and strengthened by that.
And I was thinking about how I schedule my day, you know, you know, busy, like really deep work gets done in the mornings. I try to like set that time aside. But that was as I was thinking about, I was like, you know what, I should schedule things that energize me. Because it's like, you know, here, it's like I'm pouring out, right? I'm, I'm researching, I'm studying, I'm like, I'm preparing a sermon. I'm preparing whatever it is that I'm doing.
And I'm pouring out, right? And for everybody out there who's listening, it's like whatever job you're doing, it's like you're pouring out. It's like, I'm, I'm building this house, I'm building this wall, I'm working at this factory. It's like I'm, I'm pouring out. I'm doing things for other people. And I had this sense that it's like, you know, I should schedule things in my life that pour back into me so that I can
now have strength. So one thing that I was thinking was I feel energized by like a like going for a coffee with someone or like having a good conversation like that energizes and strengthens me. But as I was thinking about it, I was like, you know, I really ought to spend time with the
Lord because he does that. That is his, that is him pouring into me. But I think the way I I needed that shift in my mind to happen because I think a lot of times the way the reason I avoid going to God, whether it's reading or prayer, is because for some weird reason, I think I'm pouring out. I'm doing something for God, but I'm not right. I'm not doing something for God. I'm, I'm creating a, a way for him to pour into me by me coming to him in his word, by me praying, by me seeking his
wisdom and his guidance. He can pour into me. And so I needed that shift in my mind to go. I need to go to the Lord because that's His opportunity to fill and strengthen me again with His Spirit and give me energy and strength to get through the rest of the day. That is like taking it from. I'm checking a box exactly. I'm spending time with a person. Exactly right, because again, a lot that that's why you checked the box. You're like all right, I did that thing for God.
Now God's happy with me again and we don't say that we we don't talk like that. That is, but that subconsciously. Is what you think, right? Yeah. Oh, man, that's good stuff. Solid gold. Really good. OK. I liked the whole. I love the whole sermon. I like the teamwork part. We can't do it on our own, you know. Yeah. And then that Samson story, I love the the part where you said that his pride led him to believe that his strength came from his hair and not from God.
And as you were saying. And I was like realizing it, like his sin was not that. And it was, it was thinking that that his vows, his Nazarite vow is what gave him strength. Yeah. And how often, how often are we like caught up in that? Like this mentality, like, OK, it's our tradition or it's the ceremony or whatever this thing is that does it for us, that gives us our strength, our power or whatever. Even meeting on Sunday, we started to think like prioritize these things.
Like this is what gives us no, God gives you anything. It's all him, right? And dude, it's just such a big view of God like that that Samson had a small view of God, right? He said OK, my my abilities come from what I do for God, My vow I gave to him and not from him himself. Yeah. And did that's something to think about like it requires God and then. Well, and like and like you're saying too though, that it like that again, changes it from checking a box to like pursuing God.
Yeah. It's not a + B = C It's like if I do this, if I do that, then God will bless me and God will reward me. God doesn't operate like that. I mean, God does have standards for his people and he does have rules and instructions to them to follow, but God is not a God. It just like it's, it's like a science experiment and you're always going to get the same result every time you do something. It's not right. I've been thinking of like Ezra and Nehemiah here.
You have two different guys who go back to begin rebuilding what was broken down in Jerusalem, right? Nehemiah, We've just Pastor Jake talked to us about talked to us about this last week where it's like he asked the king to go. He asked the king for letters so that he would get safe passage. He asked for timber to rebuild the walls. He you know what I mean? And he gave him an escort and he wasn't ashamed to ask for all that stuff, which seems like
maybe that doesn't seem weird. But Ezra, when he goes back, he's like, I was way too ashamed to ask for anything. He didn't even ask for an escort or anything because he was like, he recognized, well, if I'm saying that we trust in a big God who can protect us and deliver us safely, that seems sort of contradictory for me now to ask for an escort. And so he was just trusting in God, right?
So here you have two different guys who did things very, very differently and yet God bless them both in what they were doing. And I think for us to put God in this sort of box that makes it seem like if I do this, that I will be blessed. That's just not how God. Operates I know and you think to like all through Scripture. I'm going back to the reading plan. Last week we saw the the covenant that God made with Abram, right? Like, like what happened?
What happened when it came time to make the commitment, Abraham is put into a deep sleep. Yeah. He's not even part of it. He doesn't go through. He doesn't. God is the one who makes the commitment. Abraham's not even God knows that Abraham can't keep it. Yep. So I'm going to keep it like I am the one who is faithful. Yeah. And how do we just forget man? Yeah. That God cut the covenant. Abraham didn't. Right. And it was God's promise to Abraham, not a like a joint
venture, not like a handshake. OK. If you do this, I do this. No, it's not that. Right. God says I'm going to do this. Yeah, and here is my commitment to you. It's crazy for us to think of right? Well, and the interesting thing about that I was sharing this with my D group on the weekend is that who Who does God swear by? Himself. Himself because it's like. There's no higher authority, right? There's no higher authority,
right? When we make a contract, if you and I make a contract, if you break your, your end of the deal, it's like I can go to the, I can go to the local authority or some, some court or some lawyer, some judge and he's going to judge between US and he's going to make you fulfill your end of the. Agreement. It's based on whatever law of the state or a province you live in. Yeah, it's based on those laws. Exactly. And God is like, he's so
powerful, so mighty. It's like, who is going to hold God accountable? Nobody, no one can hold God accountable because he's God. But he swears by himself because he's good and just. And it's like he is going to do the right thing. And so we're, we're some people, their view of God is that he's a tyrant or he can do whatever he wants. And that's a scary thing We look at and go, well, God, He swears by himself because he alone is righteous. He alone is just.
He alone is good. And man, what comfort should that give to us? Because he is going to do the right thing, man. It should. It it If it doesn't blow you away, there's something wrong. Right? Like it's it. It's mind boggling. Yeah, it is mind boggling.
Well, and we see today, even in, in today's writing, right, like in Genesis 18, where Abraham's going to God, God's like man, what are we going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham sitting there going, he's like, man, if there's 50 righteous people in there, are you going to sweep away those righteous people? And like his questions are
intense. Like he really, I'm just going to quickly flip there so I can read it because it, it really blew my mind that he is, he seems really bold to God. And he says, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place, and not spare it for the 50 righteous who are in it?
And then listen to that. Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to the to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked. Far be that from you? Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? And I was really thinking about
that this morning. I'm like, where does Abraham get his theology, his understanding of who God is at this point, Right. And it just really struck me though, because I feel like God, God was really patient with Abraham in my mind because he's very bold in what he asks of God, but he calls it like me. He's really stating that like God is the judge of all the earth and he should do what is right and God shows God's like, yeah, you know what? If there's 50 righteous I will spirit.
But it's like Abraham understands that you know God. He keeps going right. He goes down to 10, right? Yep, he goes all the way down to 10 and and God shows his, his mercy, his grace, even in that moment to do what is right, to do the right thing. Where does he get his theology about who God is? Is gets it from God himself, right? He's spending time with him. Yeah, that's the lesson for us there, right? Man, that's really good, really, really good to think through
when you're on God's side. Like we talked about this some last week, not on podcast, but as as you were preparing your sermon talked about like, is God against you or are you against God? Like am I? I just think we're pushing against an immovable force when we're trying to do something. He's not in his will.
So my question for you is like, all right, So thinking about the sermon, think about our our context and thinking about all sorts of things that's going on, like what would be like, what do we need to do with this text? Like, like, I know there's personal things, what we talked about our personal things like corporate laser or something. What's the God size vision? Like what is God doing in Leamington? I don't. Know yeah, well, I, I mean, I alluded, I, I didn't just allude to it.
I, I shared that in my second point that I really felt like, you know, God has been, you know, giving us as pastors and and a leadership as a church that he's really giving us this vision of discipleship. Right. And we've really just seen like, I guess the broken down wall would be that. And it's not our church.
It's it's churches in general that, you know, in the 80s and the 90s as churches, we, we moved to, you know, they thought the best thing for the church was programs that they shifted towards programs. And so for every, every felt need that we have, right like I need to be a better husband. We need, you know, to reach moms who are, you know, struggling with their kids at home. And so, so whatever need there was that we all start a program, we'll start a program that will
specifically meet that need. And so the problem that that created was it made people, church members, consumers, and it turned them into people who come to church to get my need met and to help me with this specific area. And so at the end of at the end of that, you know, 2020 to 25 to 30 years later, what they recognized was, and I know one of the churches, the name of the church is escaping me right now. But they actually did a study because they were tracking this.
They were one of the churches that that were leading this movement. And they realized after after a number of years, it failed. It didn't work. People weren't growing. They were just as helpless as they were before. But it created this dependency for people to be dependent on the church, which is exactly the
opposite of what we want, right? And so now in the last five to 10 years, churches, there's been movements of people moving towards discipleship because we recognize that meeting felt needs, having programs doesn't make disciples, right? And so when we're talking about discipleship as a church, I guess I want people to know that, like, this is not something we're coming out out of nowhere.
This is something that like worldwide, we're recognizing that Christians just aren't maturing as they should be. And and this really came to light during COVID when people couldn't go to church. You know, a lot of churches were shut down, at least for the beginning, right? People had, no, they weren't, they weren't growing. They had no way to feed themselves. They had no way to grow. They were so dependent on the church that they didn't know what to do.
And so we recognized that like, we'd failed. Churches had failed. People weren't, you know, in a close enough relationship with the Lord that they could feed each other and feed one another. And so as we move towards discipleship, we're we're leaning into what Jesus modeled for us, which is discipleship with his, with his followers. He had personal one-on-one relationships with them in a larger group and in a smaller group to help them grow.
Because you need to teach to obey all that he has commanded us. That's that's what. His. Yeah, that's the Great Commission. That's what we're doing. And the way that you teach others to obey Christ is to disciple them, to walk with them as they grow in God's word and to teach them to, to follow God's word.
And so, and again, one thing that we've got from, from some ministry that we follow, replicate ministries is that the establishment process isn't complete until the person being discipled is discipling other people. That's when you know you've arrived or you know, quote UN quote arrived. Is that now someone's been pouring into me and now I can begin to pour into other people. And so that's sort of like that's sort of the measure of success that it needs to be being passed on.
Yeah. To other people. And it's not dependent on specific like church leaders or whatever. So I think that's sort of the broken down wall that that, you know, we're not maturing as we as we ought to. Hebrew. So the problem would be that they're the church is not producing mature believers, right? They're still drinking milk. Yep, Yeah, Hebrews 5, right? You, you, you guys ought to be teachers by now. That's exactly what, you know, the writer of right?
Writer of Hebrews is saying. Yeah, if you've been in a church, if you've been a member of a church or been a like a believer for any, any amount of time longer than like a year or two, you should be further along than you are. But like, there's people I can think about from my past and like, there are people who have been in the church 30 plus years and still drinking milk. You know what I mean?
Like they're just not. They're just not not committed because like you said, they've been fed just baby food the whole time. Like, OK, come here for this or that event, this one specifically to becoming like more manly or this one's today we're going to be talking about whatever it is. I don't know. It's just like programs. So yeah, dude. So the problem is people are not mature. They're drinking milk. What's the what's the the God sized vision then? Well, I again, I think the God
sized vision is discipleship. I think the God sized vision is and I, and I want, I don't want people to feel overly guilty about that. Right. You know, you know, maybe God is asking you to sit in the rubble of the fact that, you know, maybe you should be farther along, but God isn't telling you that. So you'll feel horrible about yourself and feel destroyed. No, it's just like that. Just the Holy Spirit nudging. Exactly. You need to let this go.
We need to. We need like, let me take, take you somewhere else, right? Take you out of this. Exactly. Like, you can lament the fact that like, yeah, I should have been here 30 years ago, but you're not. And God is asking you to start rebuilding from where you're at now because you can change your trajectory for the future. And so I don't want people to feel guilty about that because the truth is, you know, I've had this question asked of me and it's like, who discipled you?
I was in a book that Robbie Gallery wrote. He's like, OK, well, how many of you have had an example of someone who who pulled you alongside and said, I want you to join me. And I'm going to disciple you. I'm going to show you how to do this. I'm going to show you what it looks like to pray for your wife, to pray with your family, to lead your family in devotions and just honestly like. Almost never will anybody say they had somebody. Yeah, almost nobody has ever had
that modeled for them, right. And so you don't know it's, it's not your fault in that sense that you haven't been shown how to do it right. And so you'll need to take some responsibility, but there's also a responsibility that's placed on the church, right? And so we need to do our part as a Church of creating an atmosphere, an environment of discipleship in our church where people can grow spiritually. That means you're gonna have to do the work, right?
Yeah, we're not feeding you anymore. You know, it's like that's you. You can't come here and just get, I mean, you can still, you can still come here to get stuff, but it's like you're just not going to. Grow The thing is the programs change like the things that we do here at the church would have to change, right. Or they're going to. Yeah, like you may have already noticed it. Like there there are things that are just different, like they're Wednesday night things.
Well, Wednesday night exists, right. So here. So it's one thing that wasn't happening for adults. There's there's study, but things are different now than they used to be, right. At times. And that's not a bad thing, right? Like the, the things that are happening are focused on maturing as believers.
And so like, so like if you're, if somebody taps you on the shoulder and says, Hey, you want to be in AD group, you should probably say yes, because it's not just us trying to fill a box and like to say, Hey, we got, you know, 85% of our people in discipleship groups. It's we want you in the word with other people, growing closer to the Lord, maturing as believers so that you'll have the strength to endure what's coming. Because we think, I mean, who
knows what's coming, right? Yeah, persecution is coming. And you won't, you won't be able to survive it if you if you're not mature. And so, yeah, I think you're right, man. I think discipleship is. And then it's a buzzword and a lot of people like, oh, it's what does it mean? It can, it's all-encompassing. Like we mean people reading the Bible together. Yeah. Talking about what they read together, talking about how it has shaped their life that week.
Yeah. And then praying for each other, holding each other accountable for all the different disciplines. That's what I mean when I mean discipleship. Exactly. It's word centered. Yeah. Like it's all centered on God's Word because that's how he reveals himself to us. Absolutely. You know, and it's, you're gonna grow together as you share in God's Word together, Maybe someone will challenge you and say, Hey, I'm not sure that that's what that means. You know, like you may be corrected.
And, and it's like you're going to learn like through the, the here journaling method that we use, you're going to learn how to faithfully take God's word and apply it to your life. And like you said, have people holding you accountable. And it's like, man, you, you just will grow.
Like I guarantee that you will grow based on what the Lord, If you are a believer and you know you're trusting in the Holy Spirit and those people, it's like you're going to grow in a year in a way that you you will not believe when you look back over the last year. You say a year that's just kind of like timeline that that generally they they last. That's kind of what the model is set up for us.
So you commit to each other your group for a year and then after that, the idea is that you go out and start your own group or part of you go out and start another group so that more people are able to be discipled. So like, I don't know, God size vision would be the whole church, like from yeah, from like adults all the way down to youth, I think should be figuring out some way to do discipleship together. That would be God size vision I think.
Absolutely. Because if you're if you're 3040, fifty years old and you know you've never been discipled and you go through a year of discipleship, guess what? You can disciple a fifteen 2025 year old person and give them what you never had. That's exactly right.
And disciple them so that they don't have to wait until they're 50 to finally be shown how what it means to be a follower of Christ and how to read the Bible and how to pray and, you know, how to just do everyday Christian things that we should be doing. Yeah. And I think it's so important to just to use a reading plan to go through that because there I've, I've had conversations with people recently like, you know, I never knew that story was in the Bible. And I'm like, that's a pretty
basic story, right? You know what I mean? It's like, it's not, I wasn't like critical or anything like that. It's like, oh, OK, that's interesting. But like, it's a pretty basic thing that was popping up. And I'm like, it's because you never read your Bible. You know, it's not like a, it's not an obscure story. I don't remember exactly which one it was, but it's important for you to read the whole Bible. Absolutely. Read your Bible. He wants us to read it all. The whole thing.
And. We, we had an Old Testament professor, I don't know if Doctor Betts he, that's the one we're using this commentary for Nehemiah and I remember him. He would joke that it's like, you know what, I'm just going to read the Bible that Jesus had. And it was drawing to this point that like when Jesus was alive, the only Bible he had was the Old Testament. He didn't have the New Testament. They didn't. Call it the Old Testament, they just. Called the scriptures, right, right.
And that's, that's what he had. And so he would always make that joke. But it's like, you know, all your New Testament people, it's like you read the New Testament. I'm, I'm an Old Testament professor. I don't know anything. About or the, the Hebrew people, the guys who loved Hebrew would always talk about the Greek guys like, oh, we just like to read in the, in the language that God uses, not man's language, right. So it's so funny.
Yeah. But I think part of the reason this is a God sized vision discipleship is because it's not a quick fix. You know, if anybody thinks, oh, this is just a fad, it's just, no, it's not. It's, it's a long term goal because it takes time. You know, you, you think about a group, it's like, well, we, I'm going to pick three guys and we're going to meet together for
a year. So that means for an entire year, there's just, there's just spiritual growth going on in US 4. But but the beauty of this model is that, you know, after a year, maybe maybe you maybe all four of you split off and go start new groups or maybe just you break off in twos, right, and start new groups, whatever it is. That's where multiplication
starts to happen, right? And it doesn't take, it doesn't take that many years until, you know, potentially the whole church can be reached and then you can start reaching out into the community and invite like, you know, and, and again, this is discipleship for, for our church that we're specifically trying to grow the people in our church.
But if at some point, you know, there's three people, three members of a church and one guy who's like, you know what, there's a believer at my work and you know, he just, I really sense that he needs to be in our D group. And you bring somebody from the outside, it's like, you know, that's OK too. And that gives them an opportunity to grow. And, you know, the vision becomes so much. That's where the vision starts to go into our community, right? And how it can influence, you
know, people outside of our church. 100% yeah, that's the thing. Like, but there's so many people in our church that aren't in one right now and they need to be like if if you're just just don't be shy about it, right? Like just just try it. Yeah, it if you try it and, and you're a believer, the Lord will use it in your heart and you will see how it can help you. And if you're, and honestly, if you maybe you say, I don't need that.
I'm older. I've done this, I have been discipled or I, you know, I feel like I am a mature disciple. You need to be doing it. You need to be discipling other people. You need to be pouring into the lives of, of those around you who, who haven't. And so this is a, it's just a great way and it's centered on the word, not on what I want. It's not a program. It's not on like I want to learn more about XY or Z. Well, you're going, you're going to, yeah.
It may not be in the time frame or anything that you're you're, you're expecting, but you're going to learn, you know, you're going to you're going to read it in the Bible and you're just going to come up next to it. We're going to have a chance to talk about it. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that's, I think that could be, could be. I think it is the answer to a lot of the issues that we see in our church and like our church and everybody else's church.
It's like the reason people aren't growing is because they're not reading their Bible and they're not and they're not being, they're not, they're not sharpening each other. Not just not reading your Bible. You could read your Bible all day long. But if you're just in an echo chamber and you're only, you're holding it to yourself, you're not sharpening each other like you sharpen me, I sharpen you.
It's just one of those things and it's not comfortable sitting in because sometimes you got to sit in the rubble. You're going to go painful things are going to come up. It's not fun like this book that dangerous calling book not fun to read right. It points out pride in my heart all every time I pick it up and I sometimes don't want to pick it up, but and. That's God's word too, right?
Exactly like God's Word. You know, I had a professor who had always, he called God's Word like it was a piercing comfort, the piercing comfort of God's Word. Because on the one hand, it's like, if you're reading it right, yeah, it's piercing it. It divides between joint and marrow and like your heart and your intentions and all that sort of stuff. Like it is uncomfortable if you're reading it right. And but then it gives you the
comfort of what? Of the fact that God has made a way for you to be forgiven, for you to have a relationship with God, for how you'd have peace with God through Christ. And so it's like, on the one hand, it's like it hurts to show you the pain, but then it gives you that comfort of how you move forward and you continue to grow. And this is like, you know, the analogy is like of medical field, right? It's like a lot of times it's like you have to do something painful to fix what's broken,
right? And so that's a good thing. The Lord is going to grow us as we spend time at His Word. Man, really good final thoughts on your your sermon from chapter 2. Yeah. Well, I guess just from there, like this God sized vision, you know, us as a church and everybody individually, it's, it's that we're trusting in God to do the work, right?
That this is the plan that, you know, again, like churches around the world, organizations around the world are recognizing that discipleship is the missing link, You know, that that we've sort of strayed from as churches. And this is God's vision for the church. If we follow in Christ's footsteps and his model of discipleship, it, this is God's vision, This is what he's trying to do. And as we disciple one another, it's like we can just be confident.
This is what God has in store for us. And so when enemies come up, when opposition comes up, it's like we can just continue forward knowing that it's like, you know what, God is going to make this prosper. And we're going to continue doing it because we believe it's from God. And we just know that he's going to he's going to make it successful. Yeah, that's true. We need to spend time trying to figure out and discern what God is doing in our community, right? Yeah, We need to.
Yeah, That's that. I think that would be like when you're sitting in the rubble, you're trying to sit there and like, like, let's look at the walls. Let's figure outlook for cracks, look for leaks. Like that's me. I'm thinking like, we got to figure out what is God doing in Leamington? Yeah. What is God doing in our church? What it, what it, what is he doing? And then get on board with that. Yeah. And stop trying to push against what he's doing or like to go
the opposite direction. That's where I'm getting from this from as we're reading through this book and, and really studying it, it's like, no, Nehemiah, you, you said it earlier. He, he saw he was just in the right place at the right time. He saw what God was doing. And he just like, I'm just going to be a part of that. However I can be, however I can be useful. He was, he was in the right place at the right time. He had the ear of the king God. And God nudged him and said OK,
And then he just said yes. And so I think that's what we have to, we have to keep that in mind, Joe. I don't. It's just because if we're not, we're just pushing against the like a like an immovable force. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway. Absolutely. That's encouraging. Yeah, for sure. Anything else today? I think that is. Everything OK? It was really good. That was a fun podcast episode. Yeah, I hope it's helpful.
Yeah, I think so. Joe, would you would you mind praying for our church and for our community?
Yeah, I, I, well, I guess I'll say before I say that, No, I just, I, I'm just, as I go into the prayer, I don't know if people have recognized this, but it's like, you know, the first sermon in Nehemiah that I did like, you know, I, when I preach, OK, I, I scour over the text, you know, some of the sort of the advice I got with sermon prep is like, man, you really ought to read the text, you know, 10/15/20 times just to wrap your head around what's going on.
And every time you read it, it's like the Lord reveals something different to you. But the positive side of reading a text that many times in a week is like you sort of have it semi memorized, right? And so people have probably been recognizing this, but it's like over the last like 3 weeks, it's like almost all of my prayers, even my personal life and my public prayers, it's like they're being shaped by Nehemiah's prayer. That's awesome. And sort of the flow that it comes with.
And I just encourage people, I encourage people all the time pray the Bible. And when there's prayers in the Bible, model those prayers and pray those prayers back to God. And you know, pray the words that are written there And then, and then you can sort of add to it from your context, right? And so I'll probably do that right now and just encourage people to pray the Bible back to God. That's his word and you're praying it back to Him.
Sounds awesome. Lord, we come before you this afternoon and we're grateful that you are the great and awesome God. You are the great and mighty God. You are the Lord the God of heaven, and you are above all of the things in this world. And we are so grateful to know that that you are in control of everything that comes in our life. And we pray to you, a God who keeps his covenant and keeps his steadfast love with those who love him.
And Lord, we come recognizing that you are faithful to those who are faithful to you. And so we recognize that promise. We recognize your faithfulness, your love, and and we recognize how far we fall short of that standard, that even though we want to be faithful to you, we
want to love you. We recognize in our own hearts our failures and Lord, we confess our own sin as we come to you, not having lived up to the standard that you have given to us, but trusting in the way that you have made for us, that Christ has come and offered himself as the ultimate sacrifice, the once for all sacrifice that we can be forgiven. And when we come to you in his name, he is the way, the truth and the life, and we can have
peace with you through him. And we thank you for that Lord. And this gives us the confidence to pray now, to pray in Jesus name that whatever we ask, Lord, you've promised that, that you hear it and that we have the request that we ask of you. And, and we learned from Christ our Savior to pray in your will. And so we pray, we try to pray in your will. We, we pray that our, our prayers would be saturated in a
desire to make your name great. Not just that we would have all of our requests and our wishes and our desires met. But then in our prayer, we would be seeking to make your name great in and through us as a community, Lord. And so we pray that you would strengthen us to rebuild the walls as we talked about today with discipleship that we have your people who have been saved by your grace.
And our our Commission, our mandate is to make disciples to help people grow in their faith, that they trust in Christ, that they read his word, that they obey his commands and walk in his ways. And in the promise that we have is that you will be with us until the end of the age. Lord, thank you for the fact that you are with us through the power of your spirit. Would you strengthen us to be bold as we trust in your power and your strength? In Jesus name we ask, Amen. Amen.
Well, we are praying for you, LMC, and we appreciate you joining us. Until next time.