Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Well, it is great to see you this morning. And let's take our seats. Have you got your Bibles or however you read the Word of God this morning? And just as we were in worship, there was that lovely, you know, the minor prophets, you've got, like Habakkuk, Micah and all them. And I was. I was trying to look for that verse.
[00:00:25] It was in Habakkuk at the end. I was going through Zephaniah. You know, it says that when there's nothing budding. All right, this is my version, because I've got to go and look for it. But, you know, when there's nothing, there's no leaves on the trees, nothing seems to be growing. All right. Yet I will still praise the Lord.
[00:00:42] Yet I will still praise the Lord. And it's what Phil was saying about, you know, whatever we're going through, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord. And I know many of you and some of your journeys that you're on right now, and that has been your testimony. You've said, jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord. And right. We're going to come around Luke, part of our Fullness of christ series, Luke 19 today, and this is actually the final one before we start our Christmas series.
[00:01:12] We'll be finishing off the Book of Luke. For some of you who may not know, we have gone through the whole of 2023 in the book of Luke, and it's been called the Fullness of. Of Christ. And we finish that February. We will finish that February and then come on to some other stuff later on in the year. But, Father, we just thank you for your word this morning.
[00:01:32] Lord, I pray that your word would move in each of our lives. I pray, Lord, that your word would do us good. And I pray that you would glorify your name this morning through your word. So, Luke, chapter 19.
[00:01:47] How many of us know that God's leadership can be trusted?
[00:01:57] We're in a time when everyone's looking to leaders, even leaders in the church, sadly.
[00:02:03] Okay, and leadership hasn't been good. It's not good.
[00:02:09] There's no integrity or there's a very little integrity, little honesty, little truth.
[00:02:18] But I want to say this morning, very publicly here, that God's leadership can be trusted.
[00:02:23] And his leadership can be trusted. Not just in a past generation when we look at what he did in the Old Testament, but God's leadership can be trusted in the present generation.
[00:02:36] Right now, what he says is for us now, He. His leadership can be trusted. It's for a lifetime. So I hope church for Those of you in Christ that you are holding onto his leadership for a lifetime, that you're holding onto it for a lifetime. And we have gone through, as you said, the book of Luke, and there's been this incredible message through the book of Luke about the kingdom of God. And I'm going to just go over some of these things. We've got a few new Christians in our church this morning. But this is primarily about the kingdom and governance of God.
[00:03:12] This is his reign. This is his rule. This is it.
[00:03:17] If you want to follow something that is trustworthy, something that will last through the ages, it is the word of God. It is God's leadership.
[00:03:29] And so this whole message of Luke is God showing us, through the person of Jesus Christ, his kingdom, his governance, his reign, and it's all in Christ. You know, if we want to see the Father, we look to the Son.
[00:03:47] We want the Father, the Heavenly Father to be revealed to us. We look to the Son.
[00:03:55] There is this amazing passage in John 14. Philip, the disciple, says, jesus. And Philip's with Jesus. And Philip says, jesus, show us the Father. And Jesus turns around and says, how can you say that to me? How can you say, show me the Father?
[00:04:12] Have you not seen the Father? Have I not shown you the Father?
[00:04:15] If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. In Hebrews one of my favorite passages, Hebrews 1:3, it says, the Son is the radiance of God's glory. This is Jesus we're talking about.
[00:04:29] The sun is the radiance of God's glory. The exact representation of his being sustaining all things through his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of majesty in heaven. There's the Gospel.
[00:04:47] There it is, right there in Hebrews. So let's turn this morning to Luke 19, the parable of the 10 miners.
[00:04:56] Okay? While they were listening to this, of course, we listened to Zacchaeus last week. While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable.
[00:05:06] Because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.
[00:05:14] He said, a man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and and then to return.
[00:05:23] So he called 10 of his servants and gave them 10 minors.
[00:05:27] That's about three months wages.
[00:05:29] Put this money to work, he said, until I come back. But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, we don't want this man to be our king.
[00:05:43] He was made king, however, and returned home.
[00:05:47] Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money in order to find out what they had gained with it. The first one came and said, sir, your Miner has earned 10 more. Well done, my good servant. His master replied, because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of 10 cities.
[00:06:07] The second came and said, sir, your miner has earned five more. His master answered, take charge of the five cities.
[00:06:15] Then another servant came and said, sir, here is your miner. I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow. His master replied, I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant. You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in and reaping what I did not sow.
[00:06:42] Why then didn't you put my money on deposit so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?
[00:06:49] Then he said to those standing by, take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has 10 Minas. Sir, they said, he already has 10. He replied, I tell you that everyone who has more will be given. But as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
[00:07:11] But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me.
[00:07:21] Just be quickly before we dive into this this morning and apply it to us as a church. This parable has some historical background to it, okay? So we all know Herod the Great, okay? And Herod was the one who commissioned the killing of all the newborn babies, those babies that were two and under at the time when Jesus was born. And Herod had a son called Archelaus. And Archelaus wanted to go to Rome. In fact, he did go to Rome. And on that journey, he wanted to be king. He wanted to take more authority over the land. Okay? And this is king. This is King Herod's son, all right? And he wasn't a good king. He just wasn't, alright? And that's why Jesus was talking about how the people hated him. They did not want him to be king. This is not talking about Jesus. It is and it isn't. Okay? So I'll explain it a bit later. So there is some historical background to this, all right? But I want to dive into some really concrete themes this morning that I believe the Lord wants us to hear.
[00:08:23] There are some big themes in this passage of stewardship, of life.
[00:08:30] I want you to do a bit of looking inwardly this morning.
[00:08:33] Stewardship of life, responsibility, rewards. We all love them, don't we?
[00:08:41] Diligence, rejection of Christ and the return of Christ.
[00:08:48] So some big themes coming through. Last week we looked at Zacchaeus. Thank you, Kev, for preaching that message to us. And what I love about Zacchaeus is that Jesus came looking for. For us.
[00:09:00] Anybody testify to Jesus coming looking for you?
[00:09:05] Right. Jesus came looking for Zacchaeus. I want to thank God this morning that salvation is a free gift. Can everyone agree with that? It is a free gift to you.
[00:09:18] All right? And so this free gift of salvation is for all those that say, I accept the message of Christ, that He came, that he died for my sins, that he was buried and he rose again, that he ascended to the Father, and soon one day he will come to collect his church, his bride, and he's preparing a place for us. That is a free gift for us. And if you today here have said yes to following Jesus, okay, you are in Christ.
[00:09:52] It's a free gift.
[00:09:53] All right. But the free gift of salvation.
[00:09:57] Here we go.
[00:09:58] Doesn't mean that that's a done deal. We've accepted Christ or we've rejected him, because there's still some people that reject Christ, and then we carry on with our lives and do nothing.
[00:10:14] I always say to people, when you put your hand up to receive Christ, great.
[00:10:18] And you've received salvation if it's a genuine. If it's a genuine hand up. I think sometimes I remember getting saved about 100 times when I was a kid. Anybody do that?
[00:10:30] I do think probably on the 50th go, it was genuine. I think the first 50th, five times or 10 times, I was just putting my hand up because my friend Rachel put her hand up, but I had no idea what I was doing. Okay, so a genuine hand up. We have to make sure that when we respond, however we do, whenever we do that, it is a genuine. A genuine decision from the heart.
[00:10:53] All right? But when we make that decision, we have to then do something with our lives.
[00:11:01] Something is demanded, required from our lives.
[00:11:04] Okay.
[00:11:06] When we accept Christ. Did you know that eternal life for you starts at that moment?
[00:11:13] Eternal life has come to you.
[00:11:16] We don't wait till we pass through this earth. We die, and then we go to heaven and, oh, we're now in eternal life. Eternity has started right now for us, so that kind of impacts how we live now. All right, so eternity starts the minute we say yes to Christ.
[00:11:33] We are responsible for stewarding our lives before Christ.
[00:11:41] We are responsible, each of us, when we say yes to Christ.
[00:11:45] We've heard over the weeks what it means to be a disciple.
[00:11:50] These questions keep coming out. Will I follow Jesus with all my life?
[00:11:55] Will I count the cost to be the man, to be the woman that God has called me, purposed me, destined me, created me to be? Will I be that person throughout my life?
[00:12:10] Will I obey him with my life?
[00:12:13] And so when we come to this parable, there are three outcomes for our lives. As disciples of Christ or not as disciples. Three outcomes. Let me go through them really quick, quickly. Right. This parable is actually really, really simple. It is a very simple message. But the trouble is it has life changing, life impacting consequences if we do not heed what Jesus says.
[00:12:41] All right, the first outcome is this. Those who receive Christ and put their lives.
[00:12:46] Sorry, those who receive Christ, put your hands if you've received Christ in this room.
[00:12:50] Brilliant, Brilliant. There are those who have received Christ and have put their lives to good use.
[00:12:57] That's the first one.
[00:12:59] And that's what Jesus is talking about. The person who had the minors and went out.
[00:13:05] He put his life to good use for us. That means if we are a disciple of Christ, that we've used every opportunity possible to go out and faithfully serve God so that at the end of our lives, whenever that may be, we have something to show for our lives.
[00:13:28] That's the first outcome. You're a Christian, you're following Jesus, and at the end of your life, you've got something to show for your life because you've used what he has given you, your talents, your gifting, your resources for eternal value.
[00:13:52] Not only will we have something to show, but there is an added little extra. And we don't actually talk a lot about this in the church. And it's called rewards.
[00:14:01] There will be rewards for people who have taken the call to be a disciple, seriously have something to show for what they've done. God is going to give rewards to those Christians, to those disciples of Jesus.
[00:14:19] Verse 26 says, Everyone who has.
[00:14:23] If you have things to show for your life, a life in Christ, then you will be given more.
[00:14:31] That kind of excites me.
[00:14:35] And the reward might not necessarily come on earth, although I do think it does come on earth, but there's going to be a reward into eternity where God is going to assign people responsibilities and roles for stewarding things in the kingdom. I find that so exciting.
[00:14:56] I remember the first time I became a Christian.
[00:14:59] I wanted to.
[00:15:01] I Just, I love serving the Lord like, I love serving him, and whatever that looks like. I remember serving on different areas of my local church, and I remember serving sometimes because you wanted the pat on the back. Anyone done that? No, of course you haven't.
[00:15:20] But then I started. As I started my discipleship journey to love the Lord, I decided actually, I want to give him everything.
[00:15:29] Not just a little bit. I want to pour it all out.
[00:15:33] And these rewards aren't just for now. And God has rewarded us for laying our lives down for him, but those rewards as well are going to come in eternity.
[00:15:42] I want. When I get to eternity, I want the Lord to go, esther, you've been faithful on the earth.
[00:15:48] I've got you to steward this in eternity.
[00:15:51] Can you imagine being given nothing in eternity to steward?
[00:15:56] Can you imagine what it must be like to have responsibilities in eternity?
[00:16:03] Revelation 20:2. Jesus says, Look, I'm coming soon. My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.
[00:16:15] 1 Corinthians 3:14. It says their work. It's talking about us. Our work will be shown for what it is. Because the day. That's a capital D. That's talking about the day. The day of Christ. The day will bring it to light. The fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a great reward.
[00:16:39] So the first outcome, disciples who have done something to show for their lives will get an incredible reward in the life to come.
[00:16:50] We don't have to. We don't hear that a lot, do we?
[00:16:56] I'm not going to be political. I was going to say a political statement, then I won't.
[00:16:59] I'm not going to say it.
[00:17:02] Second one. There's another outcome for the way that we steward our lives. There will be those disciples, and you're not going to like what I've got to say. But it's biblical.
[00:17:12] Those disciples who have done nothing with their lives, They haven't done anything with what God has given them.
[00:17:24] If I look back in my life, I have missed opportunities that I know God gave me, and I missed them because I was too busy or too distracted doing something else for my own pleasure and my own good.
[00:17:37] And I've missed those opportunities.
[00:17:41] But there'll be some disciples who do nothing of eternal value. If we go on to 1 Corinthians, it goes on to say, if what we have done burns up. So if. If our works have not had any eternal value or anything to do with. With Christ and His church, if it is burnt up, the builder will suffer loss, but will yet be saved, even though only as one escaping through the flames.
[00:18:07] It's a bit hard hitting this one this morning, isn't it? A third outcome. You ready for the third outcome?
[00:18:14] Those who simply will not make Jesus king.
[00:18:18] That's the third outcome. People who will not accept Christ at all. Okay, they will, tragically, there won't be any access into the kingdom of heaven.
[00:18:34] We know so many people, we've invited so many people here at Christmas and they are really good people that we've known over the last couple of years of moving down here, but they do not know Christ.
[00:18:49] For all those who don't accept Christ as king and Lord, there will be a complete separation, eternally out of the presence of God.
[00:19:02] Let me just go through those again. The first one. The first outcome, disciples who put their lives to good use.
[00:19:12] And then on the day of Christ, their works will last on into eternity. They'll be fruitful in their lives and they will reap the rewards of that. Two, there will be another outcome for Christians, disciples who have said yes to Christ, but they simply don't do anything with their lives.
[00:19:31] And they will, yes, get to eternity, but they will kind of just get through, escape through.
[00:19:38] Third outcome. People who don't accept Christ at the end of the ages.
[00:19:43] Let me just talk about this really quickly. At the end of the ages, there's going to be two types of judgment. There'll be a judgment for the believers and there'll be a judgment for the unbelievers. Okay, Judgment for the believers and a judgment for the unbeliever.
[00:19:58] Everyone will sit before the judgment seat of Christ. Can I just say as well, can you see why Jesus is saying all this before he gets to Jerusalem?
[00:20:08] Yeah, it's like, it's really hard hitting. But he's doing it because literally in a week's time, he's going to the cross, like he's close to the cross and he's kind of throwing out these power. He's saying, I need you to get ready. I need you to get ready.
[00:20:23] And so there's this judgment that will come. And all of us will sit before the judgment seat of Christ, all of us.
[00:20:31] And we will receive what, what is due to us. We will be judged by what we have done and what we haven't done.
[00:20:40] All right, let me just say the judgment. For Christians, this will not be a judgment of are you in heaven? Are you not? Are you in eternity? Are you not? That is not that Kind of judgment. All right? Let's just make that really clear. I want to make that really clear. Right? If you are in Christ, okay?
[00:20:59] We are now firmly held in Christ, all right? For the believer, for the Christian, there is now no condemnation. For those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no judgment in that respect for us, we're in. Praise the Lord. You can look happy about that.
[00:21:17] But what should concern us.
[00:21:20] What should concern us is that while there's no condemnation, because our works cannot earn our salvation. And we've already said that this morning.
[00:21:30] It doesn't matter how hard you serve this church. It doesn't matter how hard you go and feed the poor, doesn't matter how nice you are to your neighbor. Those good works will not give you the ticket into eternity. You simply have to say, I receive the free gift. All right?
[00:21:46] So our works cannot earn us salvation, but our works do get us rewards.
[00:21:55] Our works do get us rewards.
[00:21:57] And so the judgment for Christians, it will not be about whether you make it into eternity or not.
[00:22:03] All right? You know, when Jesus went to look for Zacchaeus, and I love this, Zacchaeus wasn't a clean man.
[00:22:10] Zacchaeus wasn't a righteous man.
[00:22:13] Zacchaeus wasn't a good man.
[00:22:17] He hadn't done good deeds at that point.
[00:22:21] Jesus went after Zacchaeus because God's grace and his mercy, it's God's grace and his mercy every time that leads us to repentance, that leads us to receive Christ. So salvation is freely received.
[00:22:40] But there are greater rewards waiting for those who faithfully put what they have been given to good use in God's kingdom.
[00:22:50] I want to point out here that as we. As we look at this this morning, All that we are given, okay? We are all given. I need to make sure I get this really good so we understand it, right? We are all. When God assigns things to us, he assigns gifts and graces over our lives. Yeah. All right? He may give some people.
[00:23:20] In fact, he gives us things all different, right? There's different gifts that he gives us, all right? For some here this morning, God has given you the opportunity to serve five people, right? Five people.
[00:23:34] God may give you a business to serve 100 people, all right? There are different gifts upon each of our lives. That's what God does. He assigns us different gifts upon our lives, all right? And so God can distribute however he wants to whoever he wants, okay? He does that. All of us here have gifts that God has given us to use. All of us. There's gifts and graces on our lives to use. All right?
[00:24:05] And what I love about this, the reason why God is the one that chooses what gifts to put on our lives is because he knows us really well.
[00:24:14] He knows what we can handle. He knows what we can't handle. God knows that I would not be able to handle a guitar at the front singing a song.
[00:24:23] I won't be able to handle that.
[00:24:26] God knows I won't be able to handle six children.
[00:24:29] Some people are very good with children.
[00:24:32] All right? So God knows. Yeah. And God knows this.
[00:24:38] So God can distribute, however. And this parable this morning, it's not. It is and it isn't, but it's not the parable of the talents.
[00:24:46] All right? This is something else.
[00:24:49] This is something else. And I'll come on to that, okay?
[00:24:52] We should not assume, when we look at each other, and I think this is where we fail sometimes in the church, we should not assume that because somebody appears to have a larger gift, all right?
[00:25:08] That they somehow are more important.
[00:25:11] Right. Can I just throw that out?
[00:25:14] If anything has taught us over the last couple of years about large crowds, mega churches, celebrity leaders, and all that kind of stuff, and I don't need to go into it too much, all right. Is that we should not assume that the size of equals fruitfulness, okay?
[00:25:34] That size equals healthy God honoring places, okay? We shouldn't assume that. And I think human nature does that, all right? And I think for too long, the church, what we've done, we've looked at somebody over there, whether it's been on social media or wherever, and we've got so focused on what they're doing that we end up comparing ourselves to their ministry or their thing that we feel inadequate.
[00:26:05] And I think because of that, the church has gone, well, I'll just give up.
[00:26:10] Honestly, when I talk to people, particularly a younger generation, they go, I could never live up to that.
[00:26:16] So I'm just going to give up. And what we do is we get so sidetracked looking at other people and their progress that we neglect what God wants to do in and through our lives. We may be given different gifts, but let me tell you, it is judged the same whether you have little or we are judged the same.
[00:26:38] And if we are faithful with our little gift, right, God will multiply it anyway.
[00:26:45] But we have to be faithful, and it's all going to be judged the same.
[00:26:54] We are all here to run our race.
[00:26:57] You all have a race to run, and that's so exciting. I wish the church would get so excited about running Their race.
[00:27:05] I really, really do.
[00:27:07] Running in your lane faithfully, not looking to the left, to the right, but saying, lord, I want to steward faith faithfully and diligently. What you have called me to do. I think a church would look stunning.
[00:27:21] A church could look truly stunning. If they say, this is my gifting, I'm going to run in my lane. I'm going to do it. I'm not going to look over there, I'm not going to look over there. I'm going to diligently run my lane for Christ. I'm not going to compare, but I'm going to run it. Well, Luke 12 reminded us Jesus said, the servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows.
[00:27:49] That's quite sobering, isn't it, as some of you are going to leave this place this morning, going, lord, yeah, I need to be a bit more diligent with my life. There's an interesting story in 2 Chronicles. I love this. I've been going through this. And 2 Chronicles 24, King Joash, he was seven when he became a king. Can you imagine being seven, being a king?
[00:28:14] Yes, King.
[00:28:16] Do you want some milk?
[00:28:18] Do you want some Frosties?
[00:28:21] I don't know. Do you want a teddy bear?
[00:28:23] But he was king, and this is what happened. King Joash, he decided under his leadership, some many years later, to restore the temple of God. If you go in the Old Testament, they are constantly rebuilding the temple of God and then it's. They go into exile and it's taken down and it's bashed by their enemies, and then they have to rebuild again. So it's constantly doing that.
[00:28:44] And King Joash decided that under his leadership, he was going to restore the temple of God. Now, the temple of God was important in those days because it represented the presence of God where God was. It put God central. It put God back right in to the center of of God's people. All right? And Joash decided to restore it. And this is what he did under his leadership. He called the priests.
[00:29:11] He says, come on, Levites, I want you to come here. And he gave them instruction. And this is the instruction. He said, I want you to get the tax of Moses, I want you to go and collect an offering throughout the land and bring the money. And we're going to rebuild the temple with the money, with the collection that comes in, right? So he assigned the priests to do that, the spiritual people who should be spiritual.
[00:29:35] All right? Do you Know what happened, right? Joash said, you can read it in Chronicles 24. He says, do it now. Do it now. This is important. Do it now. Okay. They failed to do it.
[00:29:48] They failed completely to go and collect the money to restore the temple. What that kind of tells me is that they didn't care diddly squat about the house of God.
[00:30:05] They couldn't care about the house of God.
[00:30:10] And this is what King Joash did. All right, He.
[00:30:15] I'm going to say something really simple now.
[00:30:18] You'll never guess what he did.
[00:30:20] You're never going to guess this. I'm going to be a bit.
[00:30:23] He followed it up.
[00:30:31] He followed it up.
[00:30:35] In other words, he took responsibility to make sure it was done on his watch.
[00:30:50] He wasn't a king who gave his orders and went, go on with it. And then 10 years later, someone goes back, have we started the temple yet?
[00:31:00] Has it started to. Have they started building it? Well, no. Oh. Oh. Did they not do it? No, he followed it up.
[00:31:10] And I get passionate about this because the church needs people who will follow it up to. To get a job done for the glory of God.
[00:31:21] And so Joash followed it up. And when he realized that nothing had been done, all right, this is what he did.
[00:31:31] He got capable men.
[00:31:35] Other men or women.
[00:31:40] He got other men and he put them in charge. And he made sure he took responsibility that this building of the temple would happen.
[00:31:52] Some of us might say it was an intentional thing.
[00:31:56] I call it diligence. In fact, the Bible calls it diligent living. He took matters into his own hands because the presence of God was far too important to neglect.
[00:32:10] The church of Jesus Christ is far too important for the church to neglect her.
[00:32:22] Verse 13. I think we've got this on screen. Have we got verse 13? This is what it says. Says the men in charge of the work were diligent and the repairs progressed under them.
[00:32:34] Let's just slowly read that.
[00:32:37] The repairs progressed under them.
[00:32:43] They rebuilt the temple of God according to its original design. Are you ready for this? And reinforced it.
[00:32:55] The book stops with me.
[00:32:58] God has given me responsibility to see this ministry through, to see this thing through. I am not going to be negligent. I am not going to neglect this thing that God has called me to do.
[00:33:14] I'm going to see it through.
[00:33:16] We're going to progress.
[00:33:19] We're going to reinforce.
[00:33:25] The takeaway this morning. Matt, will you come up?
[00:33:29] Got the children coming in this morning. I just. I just. I don't know. I think God wants to do some work Amongst us this morning, Diligence.
[00:33:46] We've got so many diligent people in this church. You know, we're three. We come up to being three years old. We celebrate three in January.
[00:33:55] And sometimes when you're planting church, we said, like I said last week, it can be really difficult.
[00:34:04] You're building. Building is difficult. It just is.
[00:34:09] Building is difficult.
[00:34:12] Our desire is to see a whole church buy into the church.
[00:34:18] A whole church buying into the church.
[00:34:22] Sam, I love what you do. Whether there's three there on Friday night or there's 20 of them.
[00:34:27] You're diligently there.
[00:34:30] That is diligently getting on.
[00:34:33] Nate, you say to me, you say, esther, I know how I can use my gift to kind of do some extra things around here.
[00:34:44] That's diligence.
[00:34:48] That's diligence.
[00:34:51] Just let God speak to your heart. This morning, a couple of things. Number one, be diligent to the very end.
[00:34:57] Church. Can I say to you, do not give up.
[00:35:03] I know church has been hard. I was born in church.
[00:35:07] I know church can be hard and messy.
[00:35:10] I know what it is when you walk out of a Sunday and no one said hi to you, bye to you.
[00:35:17] I know what it is when no one seems to have contacted you in the week and checked in. I know all those things.
[00:35:25] But we somehow have got to leave those things to aside, including me, because we're all human.
[00:35:34] Leave those things to aside and go. But, Lord, if this matters to you, I need it to matter to me.
[00:35:44] And I need to be diligent.
[00:35:47] The church being diligent right to the very end. Let me speak this over you.
[00:35:54] Shed a load of people in this place. Hebrews 6:11. God is not unjust.
[00:36:00] He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.
[00:36:12] We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end so that what you hope for may be fully realized.
[00:36:27] We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who, through faith and. And patience, inherit what has been promised. Dave Pickett.
[00:36:41] Faithful to the end.
[00:36:44] Diligent server of God's house.
[00:36:47] Continuing to input into our lives.
[00:36:52] But your race isn't finished yet.
[00:36:55] You got to go to the end and be diligent in all that God's got for you.
[00:37:01] You've been faithful. And you, Alice, as well.
[00:37:04] Faithful to the end.
[00:37:06] I don't know why I called you out, but I did. Sorry. I'm sure you're okay with that.
[00:37:13] Don't Be a static Christian.
[00:37:17] You see, we're not meant to stand still.
[00:37:19] The Christian walk is constantly growing, constantly progressing.
[00:37:24] Hard work, isn't it?
[00:37:27] Hard work.
[00:37:28] I didn't want to get up this morning. I didn't want to come here.
[00:37:33] We'd been at an event last night, got in really late and I'm like, oh, but we love you like we love this church.
[00:37:45] We believe that God is just going to do incredible things amongst us.
[00:37:50] But we have to take that step forward when it's uncomfortable.
[00:37:55] We have to. We have to.
[00:37:58] 2 Peter 1. Let's just read it on screen. It says this. It says, for this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith. Goodness. And to goodness. Knowledge. And to knowledge. Self control. And to self control. Perseverance. And to perseverance. Godliness. And to godliness. Mutual affection. And to mutual affection. Love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measurements, they will keep you. They will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting what they have. Sorry. Forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sin.
[00:38:38] The fourth one, develop diligence. You're going to have to work at it.
[00:38:43] This is not a working to earn your salvation, but you're going to have to work to be diligent. You're going to have to.
[00:38:49] You want to progress and then we've got to take personal responsibility.
[00:39:02] Take personal responsibility.
[00:39:05] Let's not assume that someone else is doing it.
[00:39:09] Even practically when we leave this hall, if you're strong enough, you're able to stack a few chairs.
[00:39:17] Let's all take personal responsibility. If we want to see this house built, we have all got to take personal responsibility.
[00:39:24] We are a family. This is a home.
[00:39:28] You know, a great starting point to develop diligence.
[00:39:32] Two things that we have neglected in the Church.
[00:39:36] It is the study, the diligent study of Scriptures.
[00:39:40] You don't need a Bible scholar.
[00:39:42] You don't need to go to a theological college.
[00:39:47] You need this precious Word of God.
[00:39:50] You need time, and we've all got time.
[00:39:54] And you ask the Holy Spirit to come.
[00:39:58] I'm not saying Bible college isn't great. I've got a theology degree. I'm not saying those things aren't great. Please hear my heart.
[00:40:05] But I'm saying the word of God some time and space.
[00:40:10] And you ask the Holy Spirit to come and reveal his word to you.
