June 19, 2022 Sunday Worship Service (Steve)

Thank you, Kaden. Remind me to add a few more versus next week.

The heart bone is connected to the Mount bone and I will be talking about that today. As we think about the passage that Kayden just read for us before we get there. We've been talkin about the Life of Christ and this is one of those moments in the ministry of Christ where he's at the last six months of his ministry. So he's he's getting ready to go to the cross. In the meantime, he's trying to straighten out and teach his Apostles, what they need to do and what they need to be. And so he's focusing. His attention upon them, this last 6 months, but in this particular scenario that Kayden just read, it's about putting it in someone else. Because they sinned against you and we'll talk more about that in just a second. But as we think about that, couldn't help. But think about this, In 1973 big red was the nickname and it's was Secretariat and Secretariat was the winner of the Triple Crown in 1973. So he won the, the Kentucky Derby won the Preakness Stakes and he won the Belmont Stakes. Here's the Belmont Stakes in all three of those races. All those records that he broke still stand. Today, that no horse. Fifty years later has ever come close to the time that secretary had. And so in this one is at the Belmont Stakes and hear Secretariat wins by 31 lengths unprecedented. No horse has ever come so close to even breaking that record. That's so just because I love Secretariat. Here's another picture that beautiful horse and secretary was born in 1970 died, in 1989 and They did an autopsy on Secretariat and it had weighed 22 1/2 pounds. Now the average thoroughbred horse, the average heart, weight 8.5 lb fish, slow down the faster they go. Where that makes sense. If you're running a race, you start out fast but you can't maintain that speed so you slow down. As you lose your wind and lose your stamina, but Secretariat has a larger heart chambers. And had larger pipes to breathe through, and all of that took place because of she had to, or he had a larger heart. So the pump could more blood, which entailed more oxygen, which entailed that this horse would get faster as the race war on, The only horse that they could say that about. So that was one of the reasons that secretary was great. In fact, in 1999, secretary was voted the 35th greatest athlete of all time. the only animal to ever make the list and so it is with secretary that the greatest thing about that horse was his heart. His heart could keep him going, you love to race. And so when he got to eat all start behind, you know, we starting the rear and then he would just passed out passed and outrun all the other horses in that two mile run and no other horse, as I said as ever come close to the time that secretary and had in those races. But one of the things about the heart of a horse is also true about the heart of a Christian. The heart of a horse was Secretariat was about endurance. Now, Jesus tells us as Christians that we need a heart of endurance as well. That we need to keep fighting through. Sometimes we got to fight through pain. Sometimes we got to fight through spiritual struggles. Sometimes we got to fight through emotional struggles. But whatever it is, we have to keep enduring, we have to keep going forward. And so it is when you have a little pain, some people like to quit. But in all sports, including horse, raising the horses are taught. If you have a little pain, you got to keep going. It's not going to kill you. And so it is with all of us as Christians in our spiritual lies. My question to you this morning. As we begin, is this, how big is your heart today?

You know, if we had the heart of Christ, we can say, we have a big heart and if we have a heart of Christ, I wonder what our worship service would be. Like if we had a part, the bit that is was as big as Christ. What about our relationships with one another? I wonder what our relationship would be like if we had the heart of Christ. Had a big heart. What about our personal evangelism? Would we be sharing Christ because we had bigger hearts and we would just love to share more of Jesus Christ. That's what we're talking about in this particular passage and someone will say well we just read it and I don't see that. Well, the heart concerns, every spiritual matter. Everything we do in this life, concerns, our heart and stack. When Jesus began his ministry, he focused upon the heart. Then he said, you have to have a specific attitude, a mindset. That's the hard he's talking about, It's not talking about the physical blood pumping Oregon, but he is talking about the mindset, the attitude that we had and he says that attitude has to be all in for Jesus Christ. It's all I ask you again. Where is your heart this morning and how big is your heart this morning? Is it big enough to serve Jesus to serve one another, to put his kingdom? His church first in your lives. It wasn't his. He purchased the church with his own blood to Bible tells us. That he died for his bride, the bride of Christ his church. And so that was a love that he had. Would we die for Jesus? That's the question that we have to ask ourselves but the bitter Point, all of this about having a big heart. And about having a christ-like heart is about purity of heart. Purity of heart. The Lord says be ye holy for I am. Holy. It's so you had this. Holy God and we can't even fathom the Holiness that he has. But here we have his Holiness of God. He's so holy and yet he loves his creation so much you and me and we're full of sin. imagine that a holy God loving us even though we were still Sinners but amazing things of a whole and what we just did a few moments ago with the Lord's Supper is that we turn back and look back in our minds I'd Calvary How many saw Jesus died on that cross? Because of his immense love for you. That tells me the size of his heart.

That spiritual heart of Christ. Would you and mine? He willingly died. And so it is as we think about this passage and although it's one about correction and thought about correcting sit in someone else. We have to have the Heart of Jesus. First of all, too correct others, that doesn't mean we're better than them. The Bible tells us in glaciers chapter 6 beginning and verse 1. If a brother sins you who are spiritual restore, such a one In gentleness. We're gonna restore somebody that is going to correct somebody because they're in sin, we do so out of a big heart of love. That's what this is about. Jesus came into the world to save. We talked about this and bible class, he came to save but part of the process, the process of his salvation is that he was pointing out the sins of the people. Remember he came to die for sin. And so the whole point was to bring people to repentance

Jesus also said, that the world hated him because he point out their sin. And a lot of people do that today, they don't like hearing about the sin in their life. But if we love, Jesus, we understand that, we fall short, no matter what, because of Jesus, he has our back so to speak. He's got us covered with his blood and so we can't be perfect, will never be perfect, but he desires us to try. He desires us, not to sin. Remember the idea will of God, in 1st, John 2:1 my little children. I write these things unto you, that you might not send. But if any man sin, let him know. We have an advocate with the father. Jesus Christ, the righteous but has Roy, put it on. His communion, thought his blood covers. His blood covers us as we walked in the Y. Now, what is walking in the light? Mean, it means walking according to his word, does that mean we don't send when we walk in the light? Of course not, we send daily. Ecclesiastes, 7:20 tells us. There's not a righteous man on Earth, that does not send. Not a righteous man on Earth that does not send and yet there was one who was a man who did not send and the reason he did not send his because of you. You, he won't. and he was willing to do that as well not just dying across but not the sin because of you had, he said he would not have been our atoning sacrifice, he would have been I'm wearing that hat spot that had blemish, but he was the unspotted lamb a lamb without sin without blemish. And so, when we think about this passage, which we'll get to, this is kind of a long introduction. But the point is this, we're talking about purity of heart. Now has any correlation with any other means to Book of Revelation. Are there in chapter 1 of Revelation. Jesus is the one he's walking among the churches. He's walking among the seven churches of Asia. And he has his double edged sword in his mouth. Then he's looking for sin because he's looking for sin to get. He's looking for the churches to get rid of there soon.

With the word of God. That's that double edged sword. Give me the word of God, is sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing, do bones and Marrow in joints, and to Soul, and Spirit, even to the heart. When you look at the word of God, you read the word of God. You understand, you fall short. There's an absolute standard, their righteousness. But he says, you need to apply that word to your heart, to make your heart grow to make your heart big. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for Purity, were looking for holiness. And that's what Jesus was looking for in those seven churches of Asia that represent the larger church at home as a whole. Number for seven, churches by Churches. Jesus began. By saying you guys are doing pretty good but I have this against you. And then he says, repent. You got sit in their midst. Repent, there's only two churches there or return to what he said. You guys are doing great. Keep up the good work. Where are we today? Where is Lake Road today? Do we fall into the category of those two churches? Or the five. Well, I suppose since we have individual lives that have salmon in our lives that we can do better. We can do better for Jesus Christ. We can have bigger Hearts. Notice what the Bible tells us concerning having purity of heart and draw near to God and He will draw near to you. There it is. You want to be close to God. Draw close to him. Cleanse your hands. Here's how you do it. Here's how you draw. A cleanser hands. You Sinners purify. Your hearts you double-minded be afflicted. Be miserable who here wants to be miserable?

Aren't you? Glad you came to church today? He wants you to be miserable not because for being miserable for the sake of being miserable. But because of your saying, you recognize your worthlessness, he says, even more blessed. Are they that mourn? Write the Bible says mourn for what? No, not for people dying. That's going to come more for your sins mourn for your shortcomings. And weep how what was the last time you were so ashamed of what you said, or what you did that, it brought you to tears? Let your laughter be turned to mourning in your joy to heaviness. And here's that song that we sing. Here's the context in which that song comes from Home Alone, yourselves in this side of the humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will let you are. There you go. You want to be exhausted by Jesus Christ? Here's what you do. Humble yourselves. That says lord I can't do this on my own. Lord, I need you. Lord, I I sit on a daily basis. I need your blood and I know that going to church is not going to make me a perfect Christian, but yet I need to go to church, I need to read my Bible. It's all part of the plan is all part of the process. When you leave something out of it, you don't have a perfect process. You got something less than what he wants for you. I noticed about the Church of Christ notice he says for I have betrothed. Paul talking talking to the church at Corinth bro. I have a trolls you to one husband another were talking. All you people You became Christians and by the fact that you were baptized into Christ, you are married to price a betrothed. You to one husband that I may present you as a traced to Christ. But I fear lest somehow has the surfing to see if he by his craftiness. So your minds may be corrupted from the Simplicity that is in Christ. You think about the Lord's Bible. You think about his book, you think about the gospel, the New Covenant, the face, however you wanted to find it but you think about that and he says, this is simple. It's simple. In fact, he says the Simplicity that is in Christ, that's what he's talking about. Everyone can know this, everyone can understand it either things difficult

But that's about 2% of what you can actually understand and bring it to your heart. That's what he wants us to do. He says, I want to write my laws on your heart. How is he going to do then if you're not reading it, if you're not studying, and if you're not applying it, Where is he who comes preaching another Jesus whom we have not preached or if you receive a different Spirit which you have not received or a different. So what you have not accepted, you may well put up with it. And they were doing that. Remember in 1st Corinthians, we read in chapter one that there were divisions among them. Some said, I'm a Apollo's cuz he's a good preacher because he's a good preacher, this person. And I am a bad person because they taught me and I like him better than those other guys and some say I'm of Christ. A lot of people like to follow the preacher. Don't follow the preacher. Follow the preaching.

And make sure that preaching. Is in God's word. That's who you follow. You're following Christ. If you've got a good preacher, he's preaching the truth. And a preacher will remove himself from the audience and let God's word, speak for itself. And here, we have the idea that if you're going to be a part of the Lord's, desire to be a chaste virgin for Christ,

Are you chaste? I'm not saying on your perfect. I'm saying, are you relying Upon Jesus and his blood to cleanse you? Or are you walking away from it? There's no power in the blood was saying, there's power in the blood. There's no power in the blood if you'll walk away from the blood. Power in the Blood when you remain in Christ Jesus, that's where the power is. But if you walk away and say, well, it doesn't really matter. But he has an attitude of indifference to the heart and the heart is a heart of the matter. As I said, Jesus began his ministry by pointing out that fact, it all stems and flows from the heart. Everything we say everything we do come out.

And the heart says, this is who I am.

Matthew chapter 18. Here we go. More over brother. If your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. Get that. No, I want yours. The context, the context is this, you need a good heart. You need a good hard for correction. How many here? Never been corrected by somebody.

How many year were so mad at the person correcting? You, you couldn't take a receive the instruction. More. I'll probably guilty of that but a good heart says, thank you for the correction. I see my ear. Nothing wrong with that. We all are. We all have issues problems? We all have sinned. Do we need a doctor? Jesus, is that doctor, hear you say? Listen, if you've got a brother who sins against you, that's where this belongs between you and that brother, or that sister, that's the context. He's not talking about someone who committed a murder over here. Somebody did this over here, he's saying this particular context, he is dealing with one brother who sinned against another brother and now that other brother is going to tell this brother that he's been bothered by If your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone, keep it secret. Don't go say no. Doug said this done said that he did this and he did know. That's not what we ought to do.

Between you and him alone. If he hears you you've gained a brother but if he will not hear take with you one or two more. Now, this is Old Testament stuff. Juju said, in order for you to be found guilty, you needed at least two or three Witnesses. Do we have a court system set up that way? You need to bring Witnesses. You can't just have hair say, but you got to have facts and he got to have witnesses. But if you will not hear them or hear them, take what he wore, two more that by the mouths of two or three Witnesses, every word may be established and if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church, here's where it becomes a public deal. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Now this is Jesus talkin. Because I had to read the words are in red, right? So we know it's a Jesus talking and Jesus said listen Here's the steps you take. These are necessary steps that you need to follow and to follow these steps. You have to have a big heart. You have to have a big heart. Because it takes courage to correct somebody. It takes courage to say, you know what? You did something wrong. And I'm not here to, to demean you. I'm just here to correct you. I'm here to help you. Yeah, right. Might be the response. We don't want to hear that. We don't want to be the bad guy. But he says, this is what you need to do. So if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. And you know what the Jews thought about Tax Collectors, they despised the tax collectors. They were Jews working for the Roman Empire who were taking money from their own Brethren, but they were also requesting more than what their tax was so that they would get paid themselves. So they were extorting and stealing from their Brethren and you can understand why the Jews hate tax collectors. And so Jesus says, if this person in your Miss is unwilling to repent, Let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector. That's some strong language. What are you saying is this Fellowship? This individual withdraw Fellowship from this person until that one decides to repin. It's not because you don't like the individuals that we learned that in 1st Corinthians. There was a brother in the congregation at Corinth who was having sexual relations with his father's wife, his stepmother, And there was people in the church that knew about it. And I just let it fester and they let it go on until Paul got wind of it and he wrote this letter you said hand that guy over Satan. And what did you mean by that? He means remove, if that is not physically remove him but you withdraw, your fellowship from him, show him that you're disappointed, your concern for his well-being. But he needs to repent a machine. That's what this is all about repentance. Remember? Jesus came to seek and save the lost but he did. So by telling him you're in a situation whereby you need to repent. And that's why Jesus said everyone's going to hate me because I'm telling them that their centers. Well that's what's going to happen to you to a lot of people don't like that, they don't want to be told they're wrong. They don't want to be pointed out their sins. Yep, that's our responsibility. It takes a big heart. And Brethren. It takes a big heart to receive instruction and correction understand is done with love. You better be done with love. It needs to be done with love. If it's not done with love, then the correction is worthless. What you're doing? Is you just trying to run down a brother or sister? So it has to be done in love. It has to be done. And what does that mean Done For Love? Done For Love for their soul. Soul. I want you to close your eyes for just a minute and think about the world around us. I don't want you, think about people and when you look at the people you're looking at there, they're outside exterior bodies. But inside is a soul, a spirit the n-word person. The seed of emotion, the mind that person is going to live someplace in eternity forever.

Ever ever, and ever either in heaven, or in torment in hell?

What is a soul worth? Jesus said, it was worth dying for. What about you is your heart, big enough. To say somebody stole from Hellfire. By sharing the gospel message of Jesus Christ. And not only that, but by being an example, The people, you know, a lot of people say, I'd rather see a sermon in Herre, sermon, you can see a sermon and somebody who does good. And they're doing the Lord's work.

So, we need to understand, we need to teach and preach, but we also need to teach and preach through examples being the examples that we need to be. So, we're all teachers in that sense. and so, We don't have time to get to the rest of this, but I want us to understand the significance of having a hard for Christ demands, obedience, and demanding of obedience involves correcting people and accepting the correction. That's the way it needs to be. And so, Jesus said, he that believes and is baptized shall be saved. What is there implicit leessang is that you're in sin? And here's how you can correct the problem. Believing believing my message. The gospel, be baptized, and you will be saved. Peter said, repent, everyone of you, the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. Repent. Jesus also said, in Luke 13:3, repent or perish. He began his ministry by saying repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And all through his three-year Ministry. Repent, repent, repent Durance, and Florence, and Florence. And Why? Because he loves you. There's a hell. And there's a heaven. And he deserves every one of us to be with him in heaven. Looking forward to that day, aren't you?

So when we think about Mark chapter 16, he that believes and is baptized shall be saved. That's a loving promise. Save you from hell. That blood will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. As you walk in the Lord, as you walked in the Life, perhaps you kind of wandered off that path that path of righteousness and Jesus says, that's okay. Just stopped walking in unrighteousness and come back to that path of righteousness. Repent, change your mind, that's what repentance me change your mind about what you been thinking, what you been doing and returned to me and everything will be. All right, if that sounds good to you. Once you come by today, that's Together. We Stand saying