[00:00:00] You're listening to the message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here, and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways. Let's listen in.
[00:00:20] Are you alive and awake? You got air in your lungs? You got a reason to be thankful this morning? Amen. You could have gone anywhere this morning. You chose to come to church. You're in church. I'm so excited that you made that decision to start your week in the presence of God. And so for those of you watching online, we're so glad that you're with us. Doesn't matter where you're at right now, whether you're at home, you're driving, you're on vacation, you're sick. We love you. We're praying for you, and we're excited that you're with us. And so today we're going to dive Into Deuteronomy, chapter 6. If you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles, you want to turn there in the app that's we're going to be teaching out of today. And I'm so excited about the opportunity to get to share with you guys. If you don't know me, my name is Pastor Zach and I have the honor of being on staff here at the church and getting to oversee all online and creative ministries. And I love my job and I love this church. I love our pastor. I love Pastor Tim. Anybody love Pastor Tim? Come on, come on. Give him a little love. Give him a. Give him a shout out. And I'm feeling for him today because he's actually in Fort Worth at the High Ridge campus there. He did a marriage conference over Friday, Saturday, and then today, they're running him ragged. They're preaching him. They're preaching him. He's preaching at High Ridge, Fort Worth, and then jumping in a car and speeding over to High Ridge, Parker county, and preaching at two locations in one day. He's acting like one of them celebrity preachers, you know, can't tell me. I can't believe for a $60 million jet. Come on, somebody. And so. But I'm so excited to be underneath his leaders. And if you don't know, I get the honor every single week of watching our pastor come in here and lay hands on every single seat and pray every week. I've seen it for years.
[00:02:04] And so I want you just to know that that you have a pastor that loves you, that cares about you, and that I am so honored to be underneath his leadership. I didn't plan on crying 30 seconds into my message today, but I love them so much. One thing I want to just echo that Pastor Tim says every single week, is that you are such an incredible church body. You're generous. I don't know that you truly know how rare of a thing we have here.
[00:02:32] You serve, you give, you make a difference. And one of the wins that I wanted to share with you guys is that this week we had our very first youth serve day, which was awesome. And so the youth got together and they provided a night out to parents. So they provided free child care here at the church on Wednesday night. And so several people took them up on it, dropped their little ones off, and they had a great time. And we believe in marriage, we believe in healthy relationships, and we believe in taking a break from your crazy children in Jesus name.
[00:03:04] And so I'm so grateful for the youth team that put that together. And it's just so cool to see our young people getting DNA to serve, to make a difference in people's lives, right? And not just be consumers. Not just here to take, but here to give back to what God is doing. And so, okay, so today is February 9th. It's Super Bowl Sunday.
[00:03:28] It may be somebody's birthday today, but other than that, is there anything that makes February 9th special? Not really.
[00:03:36] February 9th is just another day, right? It's just another day that I get up and put my shoes on one shoe at a time. Unless you have some really cool strategy to get them both on at the same time that I don't know about.
[00:03:47] But February 9th is just another day. And as I was getting ready to prepare this message, the Lord showed me that it's been 25 days since we wrapped up our time of prayer and fasting together. Who was here for Discover Services?
[00:04:03] Who thought Discover Services rocked? Discover Services are awesome, right? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It's a time that we pray and fast together as a church. And the only reason that we do that is one reason we want to hear from God. That's the only. We value that here at Higher Edge, we want to hear the voice of God. We want direction for the year. We want to know that we're not just living, repeating the same year every single year for the rest of our life. We want to do what God wants us to do, right? And so with that, we find ourselves now in this place. We're 25 days out from that, and hopefully most of you, that got to be a part of that. You feel like you got something from the Lord. You got a directive for the year. You feel like you got some direction.
[00:04:45] You got something that, okay, this is going to be a year that I make a change. It's going to be a year that the Lord leads me into a new area.
[00:04:52] And if you didn't get to be a part of that, I want to encourage you to just plan on that in the future. It's an incredible part. It's one of my favorite things that we do here at the church. But now we enter into the season of the great struggle.
[00:05:07] Anybody know what the great struggle is? It's changed. It's actually doing it, right?
[00:05:14] Change. Becoming something new, believing something new.
[00:05:19] One thing that I've realized in my own life is that change is really hard.
[00:05:24] Change is one of the most difficult things that you will ever do as a human being. Change is not easy. And I've noticed it on even another level as a parent. Right. I've got these young ones that God has somehow entrusted me with that I've got to try to help mold them and shape them and encourage them. And I don't know about you guys, but every once in a while, I'll just look up and be like, something needs to change around here.
[00:05:49] I don't know what's happening, but this is not going to keep going this way. Right? So then we got to come up with what needs to change.
[00:05:57] What things am I actually going to change? And by the way, this is hard in and of itself. What actually needs to change is it routines? Is it rhythms? Is it the way that we communicate with our family? What is it that we need to change to get the outcomes that we want to get from our children? We want to raise great people. Right? We want to raise great young kids that love the Lord and love people and act. Right? Right. And so that's the first step is we got to figure out what needs to change. Then the second thing is they got to change, right? Who here has tried to change children?
[00:06:32] It's very difficult. They didn't tell you that in the instruction manual that they didn't give you when you brought them home from the hospital, Right? It's very hard to get your kids to change. And then it's hard to remember that we changed something and that I want them to change a week later, two weeks later, a month later, we drift back into old habits. So I can't just be upset with my kids that don't listen and are obedient. I gotta be upset with me the fact that I didn't remind you, I didn't talk about it. I haven't had the self control or the adherence to the new schedule or the new thing. Right. Change is hard. It's very difficult. And something that I heard a few years back that has stuck with me is this quote that says we need to.
[00:07:19] Let me start over on that. We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught.
[00:07:25] We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. Teaching typically happens in one setting or maybe a few settings. But the actual benefit of what we learn comes from doing the thing that we were taught. It comes from leaning into the change that has to happen.
[00:07:44] And I think a lot of times we struggle when God tells us to do something. Especially maybe if we're earlier on in our walk with the Lord. We struggle to take God at his word. Because if we can all be honest, our parents and our authorities have sometimes told us things that we found out later didn't really make a lot of sense. Let me give you some examples.
[00:08:05] Don't cross your I's or they're going to get stuck that way forever.
[00:08:10] Right. Here's one that was terrifying.
[00:08:15] Make sure that you never eat any watermelon seeds. You're going to have a watermelon grow in your belly.
[00:08:20] As a six year old boy, this was my greatest fear.
[00:08:25] Let's make sure that, you know, if we've got to tape our mouth shut when we're sleeping, I just don't want any watermelon seeds to ever make their way into my system. Right. This was terrifying. This one, I don't know if this is true or not. This is probably just a quick Google search, but my parents always told me to hurry up and get out of the shower because it's storming outside and you're going to get electrocuted if you're in the shower. Is this true? Have you ever heard of anybody actually getting electrocuted in the shower? I never have, but it was like one of the laws on the tablets on our wall, right? Like if you're taking a shower and it's storming outside, you need to hurry. Even to this day, I still hurry to get out of the shower if it's storming outside. Okay, the last one, this one, and I'll be honest with you, this one I made a note of and I have used this one on my kids.
[00:09:11] You won't like it. It's spicy as I'm Eating cookies and cream. Ice cream. You wouldn't like this. It's spicy, right? And so after hearing all this, I'm not gonna lie. It's. It can be hard to trust sometimes. It can be hard to, like, really take our authority or our parents at their word. But one thing that I know is that when God gives us a word, when God gives us direction, we can take it to the bank and we don't have to question its truth. We don't have to question God. Even if we know it's true, though, it can still be hard to stick with what we know to do. And what's funny is, you know, my whole life, I have felt that change is hard. But I've started internalizing it and thinking about it more. And as I'm doing this and I'm reading in Scripture, I'm finding that God knew that we would stink at changing. God knew that we would not be good at it. God knew that we would struggle with it. God knew that he was going to have to remind us over and over and over and over and over.
[00:10:14] He knew his people would struggle. He knew that we would be stubborn. He knew that we would even reject him and fight him, but he still loved us anyways. And so when we look at this book of Deuteronomy, we find God doing the same thing. He's reminding his people of all that he's done, all the miracles he's already performed, all the things that he's already done, and reminding them of what is coming in the future.
[00:10:37] He's already spoken to the people of God, and they have a head full of knowledge of what to do.
[00:10:43] But let's look and see what God is saying in Deuteronomy, chapter six. We'll go ahead and start in verse one. Let's read this together.
[00:10:50] These are the commands, decrees, and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you. This is Moses writing this, by the way, on behalf of God to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children, and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you and so that you may enjoy long life. This is kind of like one of those like. Like, sneaky, backhanded encouragement slash threats. You know, like when somebody says something, you're like, are you threatening me? And they're like, no, that's a promise. Right? That's what God did right here. He's like, you need to do this so that you can enjoy long life. Right? Otherwise you will not enjoy long life. Okay? Verse three. Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey. I want you to file that away for a second. Careful to obey. And be careful to obey so that it may go well with you in that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. When the Lord your God brings you into the land, he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you a land with large flourishing cities that you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig in, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.
[00:12:50] Then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for your house. We thank you for your people. I pray that your word would come and it would encourage, it would strengthen, and it would edify your people in Jesus name. Everybody said, today I want to bring you a simple and straightforward, but I believe a timely message titled Remember, turn to your neighbor and say. Remember, turn to your other neighbor and say, don't forget.
[00:13:28] When we read this passage, it's clear that the Lord wants the Israelites to remember a few things. And he's laying out a couple concepts that are there to help the Israelites thrive in the new season that they're walking into. Here's the first one.
[00:13:42] Remember that obedience is God's love language.
[00:13:47] Remember that obedience is God's love language. Verse 3 says this. It says here, israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey. We just talked about how difficult it is to change. We talked about how difficult it is to adhere to what we know we should do. And the truth is, is that we rarely struggle with knowing what to do. We struggle with doing it.
[00:14:13] We all know that we should probably eat A little bit healthier and exercise, but most of us really struggle with that. We all know that we should try our best to save some money for a rainy day, but there's just so many cool things to buy, right?
[00:14:27] We all struggle sometimes with knowing that we shouldn't text and drive. I've seen some of you drive, and you should just tell somebody that you were texting, okay?
[00:14:36] And so we struggle with these things, right? We rarely struggle with knowing what to do. We struggle with the doing.
[00:14:44] But what I love is that God makes promises first. God makes promises first, and then we have the choice to walk in it. The Bible says that he knew me before he formed me in my mother's womb. He had a plan for me, but I still have to choose to walk in line with what God has for me, right? This is this idea of a promise and a premise. A premise is I get the choice. I get the choice to lean into the promises of God or not. In this verse we just read, we find that if we walk in obedience, we will greatly increase, just as the Lord, the God of our ancestors, promised. You also note this. He said, be careful to obey.
[00:15:25] Careful to obey. What does this mean? Well, I don't know about you guys, but if I'm not careful, I don't drift toward obedience.
[00:15:34] I don't drift towards submitting myself to the Lord. I drift toward disobedience. I drift toward apathy, not really caring anymore, not remembering what God has done.
[00:15:46] Obedience must be chosen consistently. It must be weighed daily. And we don't obey by being careless. My kids don't drift to obedience.
[00:16:00] When my kids go unwrangled for 30 minutes, I can walk into the living room in the kitchen, and my children are standing on the kitchen island without clothes, covered in chocolate.
[00:16:14] And I'm like, how did you get here? Like, what, What. What process did you follow to end up here? And they're like, honestly, dad, we have no idea. We, we, I. How. Then they start blaming the other one. You put me up here. You somehow, right? We don't drift to obedience. We drift to disobedience. We drift to doing the things that we know better than to do, right?
[00:16:36] And it's the exact same way for us. Obedience requires a commitment. Obedience will only flow freely when we see the value of being obedient to the Lord. And for a lot of us, that's the problem. We hear, we come to church. We hear, you should be obedient. You should do what the Lord tells you to do. But on the end, deep down, if we were to be honest, I don't want to. I don't want to do what the Lord has told me to do. And I don't see the value in doing it right.
[00:17:03] We fail to act in obedience because we want to wrestle with God's plan for our life. We have a plan and God has a plan. Let me just put it to rest. God's plan's better than yours.
[00:17:17] Your best life is lived inside of God's plan, not your own. But we wrestle. We spend all of our time deciding whether or not we're even gonna listen to God instead of just choosing immediate obedience. My mom used to tell me this. She said she would say, delayed obedience is disobedience.
[00:17:34] I don't like that.
[00:17:36] But some of us need to hear that today. What has God asked us to do that we're wrestling with, that we've been wrestling with for the last week, that we've been wrestling with for the last year for some of us? What has God told you to do that you've been wrestling with for a lifetime that you haven't walked in? You haven't done it because you're afraid or you're discouraged. You don't believe that you have what you need to do it? Just a reminder. He's not going to call you to do something that he's not going to equip you to do. He's going to give you everything that you need in order to do what he's called you to do.
[00:18:05] Something else I want to highlight in the scripture above is that God said, be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly.
[00:18:13] A lot of times we think, okay, God, you just want me to obey because it's good for you. God, if I do what you tell me to do, but that's not the heart of the Father.
[00:18:23] God says, listen, you should obey. You should be careful to obey because so that you can increase greatly.
[00:18:31] God is concerned with your obedience not just because he wants you to do what he wants you to do, but because he wants you to grow and become the man or woman that he's always planned for you to be.
[00:18:40] Obedience is the best life. Obedience is the life where you have favor and doors are opening that you can't open through your skill. Obedience. When you're walking in obedience, it feels lighter than when you're trying to do it all yourself.
[00:18:59] And something that I want to just encourage you with. If you're taking notes, you may want to write this down. Is that the Win doesn't come from just receiving a word from God. The win comes from living out that word of God.
[00:19:11] It comes from living it out. We don't just win. When you come to discover services and somebody calls your name out of a crowd and gives you a word from the Lord, that's a cool moment, that's exciting. And we all come asking, like, lord, hope that you speak to me. But that's not the win. The win is now walking out what God has asked me to do or told me to do, or encouraged me to do, or empowered me to do, the life that I get to live on the other side of the Word is the win.
[00:19:39] We value the word of the Lord here in this house. We eagerly desire to hear from God. And if you're here today and you still haven't gotten direction from the Lord for your life, that should be one of your number one priorities, to hear from God. But once you've heard from God, that's when the real work begins, living out the word that he gave you.
[00:19:56] If we were as enamored by living out the word from the Lord as we were by hearing a word from him, we would never, ever run out of direction.
[00:20:05] I think sometimes the Lord gives us direction, gives us a word, and then he waits to see how we're going to handle it, to see what we're going to do.
[00:20:16] And for some of us, when the Lord speaks, you act in obedience. You do what he's asked you to do. And we call this spiritual maturity.
[00:20:26] Spiritual maturity is not how long you've been saved. Spiritual maturity is not what teams you serve on inside of this church. Spiritual maturity is not even how much you give in the tithe or offering box. Spiritual maturity is when God speaks, do I obey immediately?
[00:20:40] And we have people in the church that have been here for 50 years that from the outside looking in, people would say, you are one of the spiritual mothers or fathers. You're a saint. But if you were to ask yourself, am I obedient when God asked me to do something? You have to be honest.
[00:20:59] We have young people that are 13, 14, 15 years old right now that are on fire for the Lord, that when God speaks, they act, they move. And God can use people like that. God wants to use people that when God speaks, we don't have to fight him, we don't have to wrestle with Him. We just respond in obedience. And what's so great about this is that it's the best thing for me.
[00:21:23] It's not just good for God, it's Not just good for the kingdom of God or for the church. It's good for me. My best life is on the other side of obedience.
[00:21:33] If you're here today and you haven't heard from God in a while, let me ask you a question. What's the last thing that he said to you, and have you done it?
[00:21:41] Have you been obedient to it?
[00:21:44] In John 14:15, Jesus reminded us, if you love me, you'll obey my commands. If you love me, you'll obey my commands. I love when Jesus would say stuff like this, because sometimes being a Christian feels really complicated. Sometimes being a Christian, it's like, man, there are thousands of ideas or topics that. That pastors preach on and teach on. There's tons of daily devotionals. There's all these things I need to start doing, all these things I need to stop doing. And it feels a little overwhelming sometimes. But Jesus simplifies things with phrases like this, if you love me, you'll obey my commands.
[00:22:16] When we love him, we walk in obedience. And what I love about this is that sometimes we think, I got to get a handle on my obedience, I got to get a handle on my obedience. But obedience is not leading the way. Love is leading the way.
[00:22:30] Love for the Lord leads the way and makes obedience way easier.
[00:22:35] My kids. I've got three kids. Two of them are pretty easy to kind of correct and guide through life. They respond to correction. They're submitted to me. One of my children is not.
[00:22:47] And I try to force her into obedience at times.
[00:22:52] And then the Lord showed me, just love her.
[00:22:56] And so now when I want my daughter to act in obedience, you know what I do?
[00:23:02] I lay on the couch with her and snuggle her and scratch her back for an hour, an hour and a half. To be quite honest, it's inconvenient for me, but she gets up, Dad, I love you so much.
[00:23:17] What do you need? She's six years old.
[00:23:21] Can I make you a sandwich? You want me to get you anything? I'm dead serious.
[00:23:25] When I deposit into that love tank, obedience flows out of it. And I just want to remind you of all the deposits that God has made in your love tank, all the places that God has brought you from, all the muck and the mire that you found yourself in when you didn't deserve it. He did it anyway because he's good. He has good plans for you. He loves you.
[00:23:49] It's not about, lord, increase my obedience. It's about, lord, help me to just increase my love for you. Because Everything's going to change when that happens.
[00:23:58] Here's the second thing that we find in this scripture, in Deuteronomy, that God is wanting to highlight to the Israelites and wanting to highlight to us today. It's, remember the Word from God and look at it every single day. Remember the Word of God and look at it every single day. We're going to jump back into verse five. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
[00:24:24] Impress them on your children. And this is where it gets super practical. And I love this, by the way. Sometimes we think God just gives us a bunch of riddles that we have to try to figure out. This is incredibly practical. What I'm about to read to you, God, is telling them, I have done things for you. I have spoken to you. Now do this. Talk about them. When you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. The thing about symbols is they're really loud. And what's cool is when we walk and live with the Word of God attached to us everywhere that we go, we just change the room that we walk into. There's something about somebody that's living from a place of gratitude, remembering all that God has done every single day. You know those people, you're like, you're so nice.
[00:25:15] I think there's something going on here. What's going. You have to question it. That's when the Holy Spirit is really at work in your life.
[00:25:25] Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. You know, the thing about door frames and gates is we walk through them and drive through them every single day.
[00:25:37] He said this because he wanted the Word of God to be visible.
[00:25:42] And if I can be just completely transparent and honest with you guys, this message is birthed out of a place of conviction for me. I've gotten words from the Lord and heard God's voice and been walking with God for a long time now. And I get to discover services. And I open a note section in my phone and I write down all kinds of great things that the Lord tells me. And then by February 9, that note is buried under 10 other notes and it's not visible. And so I get to June or July or August. I'm like, what did God tell Me again.
[00:26:15] And the Lord challenged me this year and said, I want you to make it visible. I want you to see what I've spoken to you and I want you to remember it and live in it every single day.
[00:26:26] So this is incredibly practical. I want to give you something that can change your life, that can change your walk with God. And it's a practical tool. It's this. Write down what God has said and post it where you see it every day. Write it down. If God has given you a specific directive, if God has put something on your heart, if God has given you a big dream that it's so big you're even afraid to tell people about it, write it down. Look at it every single day, you know. There was a study done by a doctor, her name was Gail Matthews, at Dominican University on goal setting statistics. And the results were pretty incredible. The study revealed that if you write down your goals, you are 42% more likely to achieve them. 42% just by writing them down. But do you know what's even better than writing down your goals? Writing down what God has spoken to you personally.
[00:27:22] We all have goals. We have things we want to accomplish. But what if we were living from a place where we saw and lived the word of God that he gave me specifically every day?
[00:27:33] Habakkuk2.2 says this. It says, then the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it.
[00:27:45] That he may run who reads it. You know what that means? That means when I see the vision and it's clear and. And I look at it every single day, I can move quickly into my future. I don't have to live the same year again and again and again. I don't have to be living the same mistakes that I made last year or the year from that. I can move past all of my hangups. I can move past all of my failures. I can move into the future that God has for me. I can run full of faith. You can move quickly. Let's go back to verse quick. Verse six, real quick. Sorry. The Lord said, these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
[00:28:21] I want to spend a second here. Verse 7 says this. Impress them on your children.
[00:28:26] Impress them on your children. If I can be again vulnerable for a minute, the Lord speaks to me. He encourages me. He reminds me of things. He reminds me of all that he's done in my life. And sometimes if I'm not proactive, I can catch myself being like, lord, you've got my kids. I trust you with my kids. And that's a good thing. It's a good thing that we trust the Lord with our children.
[00:28:50] But he told us in his word right here.
[00:28:53] Your kids should know your story. Your kids should know all that God has done. Your kids should be aware of where you were and who you used to be and how far he's brought you. Your kids should see the goodness of God in your life. And sometimes we just delegate that to the Lord. God. We know that you're going to do it. Well, he is going to do it and he takes care of them. But if the Lord tells me here in Scripture to impress them on my children, I should take that to heart. I should leave today. You know what? You know how good God has been to me. You know where he's brought me from. Let me tell you a little bit about my story.
[00:29:33] Verse 7 continues. Says, Talk about them. When you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, you should talk about the word of God. You should talk about. And I'm not just talking about Scripture. I'm not just talking about what's in the Bible. But if the Lord has spoken to you specifically and given you direction, you should be talking to your friends about this. You should be talking to your spouse about this. You should be talking to your pastor about it. You should be constantly living in a place of, you know, God said it, I want to live it. God said it, I want to do it. God said it, I want to fall underneath his authority in it. Verse 8 said, Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on your door frames, in the houses of your houses and on your gates. So what is God saying, my friend? He's saying to remember, remember.
[00:30:19] Remember all that I've done.
[00:30:21] You know, in the Old Testament, they would build a monument. When God did something miraculous, they would stop everything and they would build a monument in that location so that they would have a visual representation every single time they walked past that thing. They would remember the miracles that God did make the word of God visible and choose to remember. Here's the final thing that the Lord wanted to remind the Israelites of.
[00:30:48] Remember that God does the heavy lifting.
[00:30:53] Remember that God does the heavy lifting. Verse 10. When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give you, this is where it gets good. I want you to hear this. A land with large flourishing cities that you did not build houses filled with all kinds of good things that you did not provide, wells you did not dig and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant. Then when you eat and are satisfied, we get the benefit of it. When you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord. For most of us, not all of us, but for most of us, we live in houses that we didn't build.
[00:31:36] We didn't run the water line to our house. We didn't dig the well.
[00:31:42] We eat and are satisfied consuming from places that we didn't plant.
[00:31:46] So why is God reminding the Israelites of this fact? Because he wants you to understand that he does the heavy lifting. If you'll just walk in obedience.
[00:31:58] When you look at this entire story and the Israelites trying to move into the promised land, they were outmatched in every way. It didn't make sense for them to be able to do.
[00:32:10] Shouldn't have happened.
[00:32:13] But the favor of God rested on them. Not because of their skill, not because of their achievements or their accomplishments, but because of their obedience.
[00:32:23] Obedience opens doors. Nothing else in your life will.
[00:32:27] He says all these things, do them and enjoy them. But when you do it, make sure of just one thing. Do not forget the Lord.
[00:32:37] Don't forget how far he's brought you. I want to read this word for word. I want you to really internalize this. Some of us today need to remember the lowest places in our lives. And we need to remember the fact that when you encountered the presence of God, everything changed.
[00:32:55] Some of us need to remember the addictions and the depression and the suicidal thoughts and the discouragement. Some of us need to remember that Jesus did the work. Come on, church. Somebody needs to remember today that you didn't get yourself here.
[00:33:10] You didn't do that.
[00:33:12] He opened doors that you fought your whole life to open.
[00:33:16] Psalm 41:3 says this. I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. This is where it gets good. Verse 2. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, A hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him Today as we finish up, let me just encourage you to remember.
[00:33:47] Remember what God has done in your life as we wrap up. I'm not here to teach you today. I'm here to remind you of the goodness of God. I'm here to Remind you of where you used to be, the life that you've come from, the house that you grew up in, the small town.
[00:34:07] You shouldn't be where you are.
[00:34:10] For some of us, we should have been dead a long time ago.
[00:34:14] For some of us, we should be in prison.
[00:34:17] For some of us, we don't deserve what we have. But his goodness and his faithfulness did the heavy lifting. And you can't save yourself, my friend.
[00:34:27] Jesus did it. He did it on the cross. He did the heavy lifting.
[00:34:32] What has God commanded you to do or challenged you to do in this season?
[00:34:40] And what if the difference between another year, just another year, and the best year of your life was just remembering and living out the word that God has given you?
[00:34:53] Get the vision. Write it down. Make it plain. See it every day. Live from it every single day.
[00:35:02] You can go put up your devices, put up your notes. We're going to pray with all heads bowed and all eyes closed. If you're here and you know that God has told you or asked you to do something, he's put it in your heart, and for whatever reason, you haven't done it, you've been discouraged. Or maybe you just haven't had enough faith to see it out. Or maybe you've just been wrestling with God, like God, is this plan actually better?
[00:35:40] If that's you all across this place with all heads bowed and all eyes closed. If that's you and you've been wrestling with God, can I just see your hand?
[00:35:48] Hands all over the room. Thank you for being honest. This is not for me. It's for you.
[00:35:53] I want to pray for you right now. Father. I know that you have good plans for your people.
[00:36:00] I know that when you speak, what you say is the truth.
[00:36:06] I know when you call us to something, you're going to equip us to do it.
[00:36:10] I know when you give us big dreams that seem so much bigger than we are, that we're going to greatly increase as a result of walking in obedience to fulfill the dreams that you've pursued in our hearts. So, Father, all across this room right now and watching online for everything that you've said, our answer is yes.
[00:36:32] Yes, Lord, I trust you with my life. I trust you with my plans.
[00:36:39] You can have it. I'll do it.
[00:36:43] Lord, I'm so grateful that you speak. So grateful that you don't leave us wondering, but that you do speak to your children.
[00:36:50] So, Lord, we move in faith. Today, our answer is yes to all that you've asked.
[00:36:55] With heads bowed and eyes still closed. If you're here today, and you'd say, you know what, Pastor Zach, if I'm being honest, I just don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, but I want to.
[00:37:07] I want to know him. I want to walk with Jesus.
[00:37:11] Well, I just want to encourage you that you thought February 9th was just another day, but God had a plan and ordained it, that you would meet him and you would start the next chapter of your life today.
[00:37:25] And so what I'd love to do is I'd love to just lead you in a simple prayer. This prayer isn't anything fancy. It's just an introduction to Jesus, who died for you on a cross so that you could walk with him forever.
[00:37:43] And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say this prayer and I'm gonna pause at the end of each sentence to give you a chance to say it with me. So if that is you, I want to encourage you. You can say it out loud or in your heart, it doesn't matter. But say this prayer with me. Goes like this. Jesus, I believe that you're the Son of God. I believe that you came and died and rose again so that I could have life and freedom and forgiveness of my sin.
[00:38:13] Jesus, I repent and I turn away from anything that I've done that did not honor you.
[00:38:21] You can have my past, you can have my present.
[00:38:26] And Jesus, I trust you with my future.
[00:38:29] Thank you for just now saving me with all heads bowed and eyes closed. If that was you and you said that prayer with me maybe for the first time or rededicated your life to the Lord, can I just see your hand all across this place?
[00:38:50] If you said that prayer with me today, I just want to encourage you to look up at the screen behind me and we've got a phone number up here, 844-HRCTXT. Or if you said this and you're watching online, you said this prayer with me today.
[00:39:04] Text the word I prayed, all one word to that number. And the reason I want to ask you to do that is because the worst thing that I could do is lead you to this moment where you give your life to the Lord, but then you don't know what to do next. And so what we want to do is we want to send you a five part video devotional series of what your next steps are, what it looks like, how do I read the Bible? What does it look like to pray, to worship? What am I supposed to do now? We want to actually equip you to walk with Jesus for the rest of your life.
[00:39:35] So, High Ridge family, y'all go ahead and look up at me and stand to your feet. Thank you so much for your time today. I'm gonna go ahead and call the elders forward.
[00:39:42] And I just want to encourage you that we're still at the very beginning of a brand new year. And if God has challenged you, has given you a word, that you can walk this year out and it can look different than every year that you've ever had. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna pray and we're gonna dismiss.
[00:40:04] If you need prayer for anything, I mean, absolutely anything, if you need prayer, we're here to pray with you. That is one of the primary functions of the church is to be here with you, to support you with what you're walking through. So it'd be so silly for you to come to church, hear a message and really need prayer and leave. So if you need prayer, we want to encourage you. Once I pray and we dismiss, I want you to come up to the front and receive prayer. Okay. We're going to somehow pray that both teams lose the super bowl today.
[00:40:33] I've never seen it done, but I believe God can do it. I'm not going to put God in a box. Okay, so let's pray and we'll be dismissed. Father, we thank you. We thank you for this house. We thank you for this church. We thank you for every single heart in life that's represented. Father, we thank you for our pastors, Pastor Tim and Tina. I pray right now that you're with them as they minister. I pray that you're keeping them safe as they travel from one campus to the next. Lord, thank you for our pastors. Father, I pray just this word would find fertile soil in our hearts, that it would sprout something beautiful in a life that's changed and walking in obedience. Lord, as we go this week, be with us and somehow, someway, make both teams lose in the Super Bowl. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for listening in today. Prayers that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review wherever you're listening. If you want to be a part of our online community, connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv or you can check out our
[email protected] lastly, if this ministry has impacted your life and you'd like to support its work, visit highridgelv.com give we appreciate your support and we're believing with you today for God's best in your life. Have an incredible week and we will see you next time.
