Time to Build | Week 7 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

amen and amen. So, to kind of step where I wanna go, I've gotta tell you a quick story, okay? So, one of my like favorite memories as a kid, we were my folks are actually in town and we were talking about all the like fun stuff we did as kids and one of the things we did, again, growing up in San Diego, we'd come out here to you crazy people in Arizona, and we would rent a houseboat out at Lake Mead. And again, it's an amazing thing that when you go rent a literal house that is on a boat that you're going to drive around an open body of water, that there's no like qualifications

or training programs you have to go through to get the house on the boat. They just are like, here you go. You know, bring it back in a few days. It's for those of us who have had a kid, it's like a similar experience. The first kid you get, you're like, wait, there's no vetting there's process. There's no training manual that comes with this kid. They just give it to you and trust you're going to take care of it, I guess.

And so we a bunch of families rented these two or three houseboats. And just had a ton of fun. You drive around. They've got slides off the back of them. And they're a good time. And then at night, you've got to find, you know, like a little cove or something. You pull in there and you drop anchor, and that's where you just kind of sleep for the night and then get up the next day and kind of go cruising. Well, the first night that we were there,

we set up in a cove and dropped an anchor. And all of a sudden, you know, an hour or so later, we realized that the tide was kind of pulling us back out. And instead of being in the cove where we wanted to, we're like it was safe and there wasn't really any waves or anything.

It started to pull us back into the middle of the lake. And so the dads had to kind of scurry around and pull the anchor back up and then bring it back into the cove and drop the anchor again and they did that two or three times and every time the boat would just drift back out to sea or drift up out back out to the middle of the lake and finally, think somebody saw us and they're like, well, these guys have no idea what they're doing. Right? Like, they clearly skipped the houseboat safety class you're supposed to go through. And a guy got on our boat and he showed us in the cove part that we were in the place that you needed to drop the anchor so that the anchor would attach to some of the more rocky parts of the, you know, the the bed of the lake so that it had something to to anchor to. And then once we had some rocks to attach to, then it was fine and we're able to sleep there and your, you know, greatest fear as a child of just drifting out to the middle of the lake and waking up in the middle of the night never never came to pass. And the the reason that that I start there is I think the visual is powerful if you can see it. Because I think just like our lives,

we have a tendency to just kind of drift away when we're not anchored to something that that is solid. And the danger about drifting is drifting usually happens slowly and incrementally.

And sometimes you don't even realize that it's happening until often there's something that comes in your path. And in your drifting, you you hit something. And then there's usually a moment of collision that you wake up and you kind of go, wait, how did I drift so far into this area? Like, how how did I get here? I swore I would never I would never be here. And I think if we're not careful,

our lives can just drift into some unintentional places if if we're not careful. But what I want to try to show you today, again, we we've been journeying through the book of Nehemiah over the last few weeks, and we've been looking at this guy named Nehemiah recorded in the Old Testament that

was instrumental in the rebuilding of God's people at a critical juncture at their moment in history. See, the nation of Israel was struggling to live into their god given purpose and identity because they had a nation that they couldn't establish any type of commerce or business or government

because the walls around their city had been in disrepair for almost one hundred and fifty years and we've been watching over these last few weeks as Nehemiah led a group of people to rebuild the walls and we saw last week that the walls were completed in fifty two days and now, we're going to kind of turn the corner where the the project is no longer a a building project and now,

it's about building the people of god and the construction is going to turn internally and the entire purpose of the wall around Jerusalem was to create an opportunity for the people of god to be rebuilt back into the people that they were supposed

to be and what I want to try to show you is what takes place in their life. What we're going to read today in Nehemiah seven and Nehemiah eight, I believe are some of the same keys for us if we're going to try to rebuild some of the broken and ruined things that are in our life as well. So I think you and I need an anchor point that we can trust our lives with. What I want to try to convince you of, if you're taking notes, I wrote it down this way. I believe that God's word is the anchor that turns ruins into revival.

I believe that the word of God is the anchor that we can trust our lives to. It is the bedrock foundation that will never disappoint us. So, again, if you're joining us, Nehemiah chapter seven,

just so I didn't skip the whole chapter. Most of Nehemiah seven is just a list of names of people coming back into the city. It's kind of like a roster call and I've already butchered a bunch of names a couple weeks ago. So I figured I would save myself the pain of doing that again. But I didn't want to skip the chapter completely. So we're going to read one verse from Nehemiah seven verse 73.

It says, so the priest, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and some of the common people settled near Jerusalem.

The rest of the people returned to their own towns throughout Israel. In October, when the Israelites had settled in their towns, now flip over Nehemiah eight verse one, It says, all the people assembled with a unified purpose at the square just inside the Water Gate. You're like, wait, Nixon is in the Bible. Like, yeah, it's it's in here. You gotta search for it. If you don't know who Nixon is or Watergate, ask your parents after church, okay? They they asked Ezra, the scribe, to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the lord had given for Israel to obey.

So, on October 8, which is an important date because it's my daughter's birthday, so shout out Mckenna. On October 8, Ezra, the priest brought the book of the law before the assembly, which included the men and women and all the children old enough to understand.

He faced the square just inside the water gate from early morning until noon and he read aloud for everyone who could understand. All the people listen closely to the book of the law. Here's what's happening. The people of god are for the first time living in a city with peace.

They have walls that are protecting them from the people that were taking advantage of them and for the first time in literally almost two hundred years, they're not worrying about, hey, can can we survive another week?

And for the first time in a long time, the people of god are starting to think, wait, what does it feel like? What does it look like for us to not just survive but to begin to really thrive and god starts to do something in their hearts and the scripture say that they gather

in this courtyard, right? They don't really have a temple that's big enough for all of them to gather. So, the people of god, they just gather in the courtyard and they start to ask not for Nehemiah but they ask for Ezra.

Again, Nehemiah eight is where Nehemiah kind of takes a backseat. He was the the governor, the construction guy but now, Ezra is going to step in the scene and Ezra was like the pastor of the church. Again, if you read the Jewish Bible, Nehemiah and Ezra were always one book. We've separated them. It's a whole long story but they they they go hand in hand together.

Nehemiah finishes the wall and now, Ezra steps to the forefront and he begins to get to pastor the people again and what we're going to see unfold over the next few weeks in Nehemiah is this amazing revival take place inside of the church

and again, revival, you can filter that word through the context of your cultural and church upbringing but what I mean by revival is literally just this moment in time and it happens throughout history where the spirit of god falls on the people of god and what takes place in a few days is something that usually would take years and decades to come to fruition.

There are these moments throughout our history where god will just pour out his spirit in what usually takes years and decades is accomplished in in days and weeks and we are about to watch a church experience revival.

Our prayer has been from the very beginning of Echo's church is that god would allow us to be the people so crazy that we could begin to usher in another revival in our generation.

That we would be a part of the reviving of our lives, the reviving of our our homes, in our communities, in our our states, in our countries that that we are believing god audaciously enough to believe that he can use our faith to impact generations beyond us and I want to show you again in here what I think are some of the the precursors

that have to begin to be birthed inside of the church if god's going to trust us with another move of his spirit. If god is going to be primed to pour out another revival in his people. What we're seeing here is the first of what I think are are four precursors if you will. Four four markers of a church that is ready for revival.

The first one that we see here that's taking place. It's not it's not the church leaders. It's not the pastors. It's not the the the religious people saying, hey, guys. Come on. Let's all get together and talk about the things of god. No, the people of god are desperate for the word of god again. There's an insatiable

hunger inside of their hearts. Again, I wrote it down. The first point is that the first sign of a church that's on the verge of revival is there's an increased desire for god's word. I I heard a revivalist say years ago that hunger is the kindling that feeds the fire of revival.

See, what was burning inside of the hearts of the people was this desire for god's word to be spoken again because it had been hundreds of years since they've been able to gather like this and for the church to be the ecclesia, the the church for us to gather and lift up the word of god and to watch what god does as his word is proclaimed

and I think my fear, my fear is that you and I are living in a country where where where Bibles are everywhere. The word of god is everywhere and it's just another thing that we have.

It's just something that that is there and I look at a group of people that are asking for Ezra, bring out the book of the law and you realize the book of the law is the first five books of the Old Testament. Okay, these are the sections of scripture usually that we skip over like the year through the Bible reading play. Like the book of Leviticus,

Ezra reads it for six hours and nobody goes anywhere. Why? Because they've been so deprived spiritually for so long. They're just hungry for the word of god again.

I think my hope and my prayer is to remind us that that you and I are are not just physical bodies. The scripture say that we are both physical humans. Yes, but we also have a spirit and just like your physical body needs to be fed, so does your spirit. I don't know if you've ever gone to the grocery store. For me, the worst time to go is right after I get done working out and I'm like ravishly hungry and I look and I'm like, wait, what did I buy? I got 14 things of ice cream and three things of peanut butter and double stuffed Oreos. Like, what I like I blacked out. You know, like, what what happened?

You just make really poor decisions with your nutrition when you're starved and you're hungry. I think the reason that so many of us are settling for far less than god's best for us is because we're we're starved not physically but spiritually. So, you gotta remember, Jesus tells us Matthew chapter four verse four

that the scripture say people don't live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of god.

That that you and I are people who are supposed to be dependent on the word of god. We're supposed to consume it and eat it and allow it to go into the innermost parts of our being and yet when we deprive ourselves of it, we wonder why we settle for so less than god's best. The prophet Jeremiah in chapter 15 verse 16,

he says that when I discovered your words, I I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart's delight.

Do you think so many of us, we we treat the word of god as some religious duty that we we like have to check the box of because we've been told that there's like some someday when you get to heaven, you get to the pearly gates, there's going be a moment where they look and they look at all the days that you read your Bible and if the amount of days that you read your Bible is slightly more than the days you didn't read your Bible, then you get like a better house in heaven or something, right? We've been sold that it's like it's like a religious duty that you you have to do and if we if we're lucky, we'll begrudgingly read the Bible maybe one or two times a week and the truth is they've done all kinds of comprehensive studies on what reading the scriptures will do and if you only read your Bible once a week, it doesn't really have much impact.

But the data is clear that if you read your Bible more than four times a week, it has significant impact in almost every arena of your life. There's a reason why the enemy

has convinced you and I that this is something that's just it's an archaic book written thousands of years ago. What wasn't it basically just a big game of telephone where one guy told a story to one guy that then win a town over and told another guy who told three other people? Like, how can you even know if these stories are true or real?

And I'm here to tell you that this is without a doubt the most important manual that we have been given as the followers of Jesus. You wanna know the number one way that God will speak to you? It's right here.

It is why there's a spiritual battle being waged over you being in it. And for those of us who sit here, if we're honest, we just don't have a huge desire for it. We've got to start and just acknowledge that and begin to ask, God, would you change my desires? God, would you begin to change what I'm seeking after?

And for some of us, if you don't desire it, it's just like working out and eating healthy. At some point, you just gotta start somewhere. You've gotta start with discipline and just force yourself to do it. And if you force yourself to work out and eat good for three or four weeks, you go try and have McDonald's after four weeks of eating healthy. You're like, wait, how do I eat this four times a week? Like, my body can't deal with this because you start to change your appetite.

But what we have to see is that discipline is not the place we're supposed to stay in our faith journey. Eventually, god has to win the affections of your heart. Again, I wrote it down this way. The discipline discipline may start your journey, but transformation happens when god god wins your desires.

What I love what's happening to the people of god in Nehemiah eight is nobody's forcing them to read their Bibles. They've moved from a white knuckle faith to a pure love for the scriptures

because they know that god's plan for our life is better than our plan for our life. And so they're standing in a courtyard and they're having Ezra read the Old Testament for six hours to them. Their desire for the word of god is changing. Here's how here's how it continues. Verse four, Ezra,

Ezra the scribe, stood on a high wooden platform that had been made for this occasion. To his rights, stood a bunch of people that I can't pronounce their names. So, we'll skip to verse five. Ezra,

Ezra stood on a platform in full view of all of the people. When they saw him open the book, they all, they all rose to their feet and then Ezra praised the lord. The great god and all the people began to chant, amen and amen and they they lifted their hands and then they bowed down and they worshiped the lord with their their faces to the ground and some of you were like, what? The first church in Nehemiah was a Pentecostal charismatic church, right? Because those are the only people that shout amen and raise their hands and maybe worship with with their bodies. See, what begins to happen is literally,

there's an elevation of god's word again over the people of god. It says that Ezra build a he built a platform where he was supposed to stand above and it's like this physical elevation of the word of god again.

What is happening in their hearts is they're returning back to the reverence that they used to have for the word of god. Do you think my prayer that the second kind of precursor

that a church is ready for the revival of god is that there's this increase in our our reverence for the word of god. See, again, I think one of my greatest fears is that scriptures, one of those things that we just we kind of trip over like it's it's not that big of a deal to us And I'm telling you, it is one of the greatest lies of the enemy to convince you that this thing that wars have been waged over, that people have died to have in their possession

is just another book that really can't speak that much into the things that you're walking through today. The enemy has convinced you and I that the data says have two to three of these things sitting in our homes that it really is not that important.

It's too hard for you to understand. There's no real reverence again for the word of God. And at some point, you and I have to come to this realization that in your faith journey and following Jesus, if you don't get to the point where you realize, hey, the the greatest

book that we've been given, the instruction manual is this thing and it's more than just something that has good advice, but this is actually divine authority. If you don't get there, I'm telling you, you're going to struggle with a lot of following Jesus.

You will get angry at me for things that I say thinking that it's my idea when again, most of my goal up here on a Sunday morning is just to do what's happening in Nehemiah eight to read from the word of god, to teach us to revere the word of god again, and to then encourage us to go out and live out the word of god again but here's the problem. You and I live in a culture where a Gallup poll in twenty twenty twenty says that only about 30% of Americans or only 20% of Americans even think the word of god is actually trustworthy.

That this is something that is worth building your life on.

And then they ask people that go to church every weekend. Hey, do you believe that the Bible is actually the word of god that you can trust and build your life on? That this is not a book of just good suggestion but it is literally the revealed word of god inspired

through the holy spirit and only 30% of Bible believing Christians say, yes, I believe the word of god to be true and accurate and complete

and I'm telling you, I say it with love in my heart but if you're sitting here this morning and you're trying to follow Jesus and you're not sure if you can trust the Bible, like, that is a, you gotta stop right there. Don't pass gold. Do not collect $200 Like, do not move on to step two. You have to answer that question

because to throw out things like, well, how can you trust it historically? I'm not sure if archaeologically, this is a book that can be trusted. It only tells me that you haven't looked into it. You realize there's never been a single, not one archaeological

discovery since the canonization of scripture that has ever disproved a single thing inside the Bible. Not one. There's so many other religions where we'll discover something archaeologically

and it disproves something core to their faith. Yet for us, every discovery that is made, it just confirms this to be true and accurate and real.

And if you are struggling with that with love, I tell you, you've gotta go there. You've gotta look into it. There's resources that can help you get there because the Bible is not just mere advice. I'm telling you, it is divine authority.

The scriptures talk about themselves in second Timothy chapter three. It says that all scripture is inspired by god. It is useful to teach us what is true, to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It it corrects us when we are wrong and it teaches us to do what is right.

Again, we have five core values as a church that we walk through a few months, but one of them is that the Bible is our foundation. The reason that that is one of five of our core values is because we are living in a cultural moment where even for the church,

the church isn't always in agreement that the Bible is the foundation that everything is built on. I said something in that series that I had some people get offended by, but I'm going to say it again to reinstate what what I mean by it. I said then and I say it now, we do not change the Bible to match our lifestyle.

We change our lifestyle to match the Bible. See, we live in a moment in time where culture will tell you that there is no such thing as absolute truth and truth is how you feel but the Bible says that you and I, our heart, our feelings, and our emotions are above all things deceitful

and wicked and it is a terrible guide for your life And if truth is subjective, then who gets to be true? See, what we believe is that the word of God stands above all of us, and we do not bring the word of God down to match our lifestyle.

No. We, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we figure out how to elevate our life to the holy and elevated standard that the word of god makes so clear. If there's ever a moment which is going to happen as a follower of Jesus where you read the Bible and you go, wait, I I don't know if I agree with that.

You're not at a crossroads. You get to make a decision. Who is ultimate in your life? God and his revealed word or you and your feelings? We are going to make a choice that we do not change the Bible to match our lifestyle. No. We change our lifestyle to match the Bible. Amen?

Story continues verse seven. The Levites, Joshua, Benai, again, bunch of names I can't pronounce. They instructed the people in the law while everyone remained in their places. Verse eight says that they read from the book of the law of god and they clearly explained the message of what was being read.

Helping the people understand each passage.

Then, Nehemiah, the governor, Ezra, the priest, and the scribe, and the Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, don't mourn or weep on such a day as this. For god is a sick, for today is a sacred day before the lord your god. For people had been weeping as they listen to the words of the law. Again, here's what's happening. They're gathered in the courtyard and Ezra is reading the word of god to them. The desire for the things of god is growing in their heart. The reverence for the word of god is returning to the people of god and what begins to happen. They start to understand

what's being spoken.

Do you think so often the reason we don't read the Bible is because you're like, well, I I I've tried it before. I did the thing where I was like, okay, god, I want you to speak and you open it up and you're like, Song of Solomon chapter three and you read a couple verses and you're like, wait, what is this? Like, what are we talking about here? Like, this is how how do, I I don't I can't understand this

and I think sometimes we don't read the Bible because we're we're intimidated by it and what I love about the stories, there's two things that are happening. The spirit of god is meeting the word of god in the hearts of the people and the spirit of god is teaching people and helping them understand it

but then also the church leaders. It says that Nehemiah and Ezra and the other leaders are in the community and they're helping people understand it but what it's saying is that god has given us so many different vehicles with different people and primarily the power of the holy spirit to understand what sometimes can be hard and difficult to understand but

I promise you, I promise you, if you seek the heart of god, you sit down and you ask for the spirit of god to reveal the things of god to you as you read the word of god,

the power of the holy spirit will come in you. The Bible says that you have the same spirit that rose Jesus from the grave alive and active in you. It's not a spirit of of fear, but one of power that will give you a sound mind and it'll give you self control. I promise you, the holy spirit will help you understand

the Bible. What is happening to these people is not just a desire that's growing, not just reverence that's growing, but an understanding of the things of god is returning to the people of god

and as it's returning to them, as they're listening and remembering who they are and they're remembering the calling on their life and

they're remembering the things that they've settled for that are so far from god's best for them and they're remembering the promises that have been spoken over them as the children of god. They are beloved people. They are chosen and set apart. They are not just what they've done. They are not just what's been done to them. They have a purpose and a calling and god wants to do something significant through them. All all of a sudden, the people just start weeping.

There's like this holy, sanctified sorrow that begins to hit the hearts of people and again, I think some of it is twofold.

Some of it is like literal joyful tears remembering like, man, our best days are in front of us. The the promises of scriptures, it doesn't matter what has happened in our past. The good news of the gospel is that our our best days are in front of us not because of what we've done but because of what Jesus did on the cross that it really is, it is finished and I can live into this incredible life that god has preordained for me to have but yes, there's also this this holy sorrow that is convicting the people of god that have for one hundred and fifty years been living however they wanted to and the spirit of god is reminding them. You're settling for something that you thought was going to give you more out of this life but all it's doing is taking from you.

You're trying to find your identity and all the things that are around you. When I've always told you who you are and all of a sudden, this sorrow begins to hit the people of god and there's weeping and there's worshiping happening like it's such a a beautiful picture of the people of god remembering who they are.

Remembering the promises that have been spoken over them and here's why I think the enemy is is so

convinced so many of us that the Bible just isn't for us because he doesn't want you to know who you really are. Here's the truth. When you read the Bible, the more you understand the Bible, the more you will understand yourself. For you and I to realize, we are created beings. We are not creator.

We have been designed and there's a designer that has created us and he honestly, he's created a manual that when you live this out, it is how you thrive as a human but there are things in there that you will read. You go, wait, that that doesn't make sense to me.

Why would the scripture say that you should wait to have sex until you're married? It makes sense to me logically that you test drive a car before you buy it.

Logically, it makes sense to me. But what's mind blowing to me is that the data tells us that couples that cohabitate before they're married have almost the double the divorce rate of couples that don't.

And then you go, well, there's the scripture say that there's a way that makes sense to man, but in the end is what leads to death.

And there's all of these different practices and rhythms of our life that go, wait, maybe God really knows what he's doing. And maybe his plan is better than our plan. So, then, when we read something that says, wait, you're supposed to trust god with your income. You're supposed to take 10% of your income and bring it back to the church and bring it back to the storehouse. You go, that's crazy

or maybe, maybe God has a better plan for our lives than we do. And maybe the life that we really want to experience is on the other side of doing some stuff that we're we're terrified to do.

But I promise you, the more you read this thing, you'll begin to understand who you are. And you will remember that what you do is not the identity that God sees you as.

You will remember that what's been done to you is not the greatest defining moment of your life, that you are who God says that you are. You have a hope and a future. The scripture say that you're a part of a royal priesthood. You are a holy people. You are set apart, and god wants to do something significant through your life. What will begin to happen is you remember who you are is just like the people in Nehemiah eight. You'll start to walk with a little bit of swagger again. You're like, man, I I'm ready to do this thing. Let's let's live this life and the enemy wants you to walk around defeated.

He wants you to walk around scared and timid not knowing who you are and I'm telling you, god is here so that you can know who you are. Hebrews chapter four verse 12 tells us the word of god. It is an amazing thing because it's the only book that is alive and powerful. It it is sharper

than the sharpest two edged sword cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

There's so many things that the scriptures say that the scriptures are to us, but one of them, it says this is the only book in the world that is alive and it is powerful. It is sharper than a two edged sword. It means that it has the ability like a scalpel to come in with medical precision

and heal and restore the parts of your life that are broken right now.

And in the same vein, it has the ability like a powerful sword to come in and just chop off the parts of you that are decaying and that are causing you to live a life of ruin and not blessing. That's what this thing can do for you but as long as you just leave it on your shelf thinking it's an archaic book that can't speak in today's issues,

I'm telling you, you will never get to experience the blessing of god. He tell a story. He kinda starts to wrap up in verse 10. It says that Nehemiah continued

and he tells them, go and celebrate. Talk about the best command in the Bible. Go and celebrate with a feast of rich food and sweet drinks. Let's close in prayer, right? Celebrate with rich foods and sweet drinks and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared.

This is a sacred day before our lord. Don't be dejected and sad for the joy of the lord is your strength

and the Levites too, they quieted the people telling them, hush, don't don't weep. For this is a sacred day. So, the people went away to eat and drink a festive meal, to share gifts of food, and to celebrate with great joy because they had heard God's word, and here it is. They understood them.

See, the the thing that the enemy is trying to stop you from experiencing is the reality that you can sit down not just on Sunday mornings when when somebody gets up here with a microphone and explains the Bible to you, but you can on Monday morning and Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening.

You can sit down. You can read the word of God, and you can understand it, and you can begin to live a life of incredible blessing. You can begin to walk in the promises of God.

The people of God in Nehemiah eight for hundreds of years have just been living a life of ruin, and God is now ushering them into a season of revival by anchoring them back to the word of god. The rest of this whole chapter is all about them just walking out the obedience that they now have clearly understood

through the power of the holy spirit. See, the rest of it is all about where the rubber meets the road for us. I think the truth is for a lot of us here, it's not a lack of understanding that is stopping us from experiencing the blessing of God.

I would say that for most of us, the thing that is stopping us from experiencing the blessing of God, it's not understanding. It's it's a willingness to be obedient. K? The last thing, the the fourth marker of a church that is ready for the revival of God is there's an increased obedience

to God's word. See, it's always obedience that ushers in blessings. It's always obedience that brings breakthrough but what we want, we want to have our cake and eat it too, right? We want to live how we want to live. We just want god to bless it.

We want god's blessing on our finances but we want to have control of our finances.

We want god's blessing in our family but we want to do what we want to do with our family. We want god's blessing when it comes to our future marriage but we treat our singleness like it's our own. Who we want all of the favor of god without any of the faithfulness as revealed in the scriptures

and I'm telling you, we just don't get it that way. There are so many times throughout the scriptures that tell us. James chapter one verse 22, it says, don't just listen to god's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you're only fooling yourself

to know what the scriptures say and to choose to not do them. All you're doing is you're fooling yourself. You're making a fool of yourself and honestly, truthfully, some of us were making a mockery of god.

John chapter 13 records a story where Jesus is with his closest disciples and he's trying to teach them what the kingdom of god is like which was so different than how they had thought the kingdom of god was going to operate and in John 13, he spends most of the evening washing the disciples' feet,

showing them that the kingdom of god that he's ushering in is one that is not ushered in through power and prominence and prestige but is one of service. He says, if you want to be great, you gotta become least and he who's supposed to be the king of the universe is doing a servant's task

in washing their feet and look what he says, John chapter 13 verse 17.

He says, now that you know these things, you would think you would end right here. You will be blessed. Now that you know that it's greater to be served than to or it's greater to serve than to be served, you would think just knowing it would lead to blessing, but that's not where Jesus stops. He says, you will be blessed if

conditional statement. If you think about them, have good intentions to do them one day, if you do them, you will walk in the blessings of god if you obey the teachings of god

but we go, no, no, no, no, like it's it doesn't work that way. I just think like and we come up with all of these theoretical reasons of why we're the exception to the rule. But I'm telling you all throughout scriptures, there's this connection from God's blessing to our obedience.

Again, don't don't hear what I'm not saying. You can get to heaven without ever giving the church a dollar of your money. See, tithing is not a salvation issue but you know what tithing is directly connected to? The level of god's blessing and provision you will experience in your finances on this side of heaven.

Sure, you can get to heaven one day without ever tithing but you will not experience the blessing of god's favor on your finances without walking in the obedience of what the scriptures teach on giving. You won't experience the blessing of your future marriage

unless you you actually live out this season of singleness and you fight for purity in a way that is in alignment with the scriptures. See, you can't do whatever you want on Friday night and expect Saturday to just be blessed by God. There's this direct connection between his blessing

and our obedience. I wrote it down this way. Some some blessings are only experienced on the other side of obedience. And so the question has to be asked, where in your life are you refusing to be obedient to God? See, I'm just convinced that the church could change the world tomorrow,

and we don't have to learn another Bible verse. If we would just live out the Bible verses that we already know, I I promise you, we we could change the world.

Most of us is in in this room. I don't even have to ask you to pray about it or think about it but if I were just go, hey, what's the one thing in your life right now?

Not a sin of commission, the thing that you've been doing that you need to stop doing. Okay, we all have those things and those are usually what we focus on but specifically, the thing in your life that you know that god has told you to start doing, that you just are so hesitant to trust god there.

I would venture to guess you know exactly what it is without even thinking about it. My my gentle encouragement to you this morning is if you want to see ruins brought into revival, maybe it's going to require you saying yes to some things that you're uncomfortable with.

Some things that you don't necessarily completely understand right now. I I can't encourage you enough this week. Go read the rest of Nehemiah chapter eight. See, the rest of the story is talking about this thing called the festival of booths

and literally, it was this once a year thing that the people of god would do to remember the provision of god after their season of captivity in Egypt. Say, for forty years, they wandered in the desert before they got to the promised land and once a year, god would tell the nation of Israel

to stop and leave their homes and go outside and get a bunch of sticks, get a bunch of bushes, and build for their families a temporary home outside.

Imagine for a moment, truthfully, that I said, hey, guys, it's October 8. This is the beginning of the festival of the booths. So, here's what we're to do this week. I know you've got and air conditioning and in Arizona, October, it's like 110 degrees. We're going to go outside and we're going to build a little makeshift thing with some sticks and some leaves and for a week,

we're going be in the middle of the cul de sac and we're going to live there because it'll remind us of the provision of god. You go, that's crazy. What are my neighbors going to think about me?

And you know what's amazing to me? Is that I don't fully understand exactly why god had him do it that way because it would have made him look really silly. It would have made him look really funny in front of their friends and I think sometimes the obedience that god asks us to step into,

it is one that sometimes it it hits at our our pride and we go, wait, I I just don't I think I want to look like that. I don't want my friends to know that I really believe god enough to do X, Y, or Z and

and again, I just wonder, I wonder if the thing that you really want out of life, if maybe it's not on the other side of trying something you haven't tried before. Doing something you haven't done before.

And maybe the foolish thing that God is asking you to say yes to could be the very key to your breakthrough. I I close with one one simple verse. This is what Paul I think was referring to in first Corinthians chapter one verse 18. He says, remember, the message of the cross

is foolish to those who are headed for destruction but we who are being saved know that it is the very power of god. What is Paul saying? Paul saying, guys, you gotta understand. For those of us who are here who put our faith in Jesus, the very

idea of us giving our lives to a god who couldn't save himself from dying a criminal's death, it was the greatest criticism of the early church. How can you trust a god who wasn't even powerful enough to stop a couple people from putting him through

persecution. He couldn't stop his own trial. He couldn't stop his own crucifixion. He died not a hero's death but a slave's death, a criminal's death. For so many people in the early church, their greatest obstacle to following Jesus was the fact that he died a criminal's death.

Paul says, to the world, it looks like it's foolish. It looks crazy. It looks like it's ludicrous but for those of us who have experienced a life with Jesus, you understand what looks foolish to the world. It is salvation for those of us who have walked in it and maybe, maybe the rest of your faith journey with god,

there'll be some moments that are scary and seem foolish but maybe just like saying yes to Jesus. It will begin to usher in not burden but blessing and maybe obedience is the key to unlocking some of the things that you want most in life. So, the question is this morning, what what is your life? What is it anchored to?

Is it something that you can trust? Maybe,

we have to stop and ask god. God, would you, would you again increase my desire for your word? Would you increase my my reverence for your word? Would you increase my understanding? Would you increase my obedience to your word? And watch what god will do with a life completely submitted to him. Let me pray for you. Father,

god, I thank you. Lord, so much for your word. That god, your word is life. As the scriptures say, it is a lamp into our feet.

It is the thing that gives us enough light to see the next step of obedience in front of us. The next step of faith that you're asking us to make and god so often, I think what we want is a spotlight into our future. Yet, you offer us a lamp unto our feet. A thing that will give us enough

courage to take the next step and then once our feet are there, then, we'll see what's next after that. So, father, would you give all of us sitting here today the courage to take whatever the next step of faith is for us?

Would you give us the courage, the boldness, and the audacity to say yes to where it is you're pressing on our hearts right now. Jesus, we know you're speaking. We know that you're moving, you're convicting, you're challenging, you're comforting, and so we just ask that you would

give us the ability to take those moments we've had with you this morning and to transition them into action this week. It is in the mighty name of Jesus. All god's people said, amen and amen. Now, you guys are amazing.