Women's Bible Study - September 27th, 2023
First B Jackson
2023-09-27

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Yeah. That would be awesome.

Right? You can't hear yourself in the monitor. Do you need that? I can. But

Yeah. I'm stand... I'll stand back here

if want. Her her harmony was loud, and Good morning, everybody. Good morning, attentive. Come in. Come in.

Come in. Julia's going to make an announcement real quick.

Good morning. Please take a seat. Good morning. Good morning, ladies. If you don't mind, please taking a seat.

One, two, three. Eyes on me. Good morning. Well, before we get started this morning with our praise music, I just wanna make a couple of announcements. Welcome to the halftime show.

You've made it halfway through the fall study. Congratulations, and thank you so much for attending. I hope you're beginning to feel some transformation. Do I get an amen on that? Amen.

Amen. Let's let's start feeling some transformation. It may seem like the changes that you are making are small, but each of those little baby steps makes a huge difference to our God. So continue walking forward even if it's in baby steps, and your vine will go stronger as you step on more fertile soil and absorb God's word. I hope that by this point, you're looking to Jesus daily to help you with your decision making throughout the day.

Remember that your foundation is stronger when you stay rooted in him. So we wanna make sure that we're not gonna crumble or wither. Every day, look to him. And your spiritual formation's requiring training. So how are you doing with that?

How are you doing with your spiritual disciplines and making your your changes? Are you asking the Lord to help you in the morning, get through your day, and make sure that your actions are matching your priorities? We know that our actions do match our priorities. And then, mamas, if you haven't told your little ones that here, start now. On that note, how are you reflecting Christ to others?

Have you looked back to see what did you do this week that just you loved on someone that didn't even see it coming? Did you pay it forward somewhere? It's my favorite way to spread love is to pay it forward. Buy a cup of coffee for the person behind you and walk out, not even letting them know. That's pretty easy to do at Persephone's, you know, Unless they're gluten free, then there's a problem.

But I could share one quick idea. I love paying it forward. I don't know if very many of you noticed Robert dancing on the bridge when they were doing all the construction, spinning around. Pull over and talk to Robert sometime. He's a great guy.

Have you put someone ahead of yourself? These are all little things that we can do to show God's love and be humble. Be humble by it. You don't need the recognition. It's all on him.

Several of you have asked how this ministry is supported, and I wanted to share with you that we fully operate based on love offerings we receive each week. It takes about $2,000 to put this on for the fall between supplies and setup and childcare. So if you are ever moved to give, there's always a box out by Anne Marie where you can drop a donation, and we appreciate that. If you'd like to sign up to provide a meal for the community high school on Thursdays, I put that in last week's roundup, but you can go to mealtrain.com and support the high school ministry Ascent that Natalie supports. And my final invitation is to attend a workshop this weekend at PCJH.

That's the Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole. The church is honored to host doctor David Goatley, the current president of Fuller Theological Seminary. We don't get people of this level here in Jackson often. So if you aren't doing anything else on Saturday morning from nine to noon, it's a workshop, and it's gonna be interesting. I'm actually quite curious.

His topic is making room for one more. What might the church have to offer a world of growing segmentation and fragmentation? Are we gonna be comparing fruits of the spirit to fruits of the flesh? So if you if you feel moved, please join us over at the Presbyterian Church at 09:00 on Saturday. And on that note, we're gonna praise the Lord.

Yes, we are. Thank you, Julie. Let's stand together. Does anyone else in this room just need a big, like... I walked in and I didn't even realize I walked in the room and I just like sighed out loud.

Carl's like, no. That kind of weak already. So did I do that out loud? So Lord, we just come before you. We just exhale in your presence.

We tell you you're worthy. And no matter what we come in here with today, burdens, joys, We can only do that in intimacy with you. So that's what this worship time is. That's what this study is, is to grow more intimate and fall more and more in love with you, Jesus. That's our goal.

So let these not just be words. Let this just not be checking a box, but let this be an intentionality in our hearts today to listen to your voice and tell you we love you, Jesus. Let's just sing this verse again and just invite him to come and speak to each and every one of us today. When we sing those words, I'd love your voice. Just give him permission today.

Give him permission to come and speak to you. His word says that he's a gentleman and he stands at the door and knocks, but we have to open it. So just as we sing this, if there would be anything that would keep you from freely opening that door to him today, just do some business with him. Lord, maybe there's unrepentant sin, distraction that would keep us from entering in and hearing your voice today. Speak to each and every one of us.

Just as you sing this, give him permission to remove any barrier today. Yes, we will. We run to you this morning, Jesus. We declare that, Lord. Put a lens over our eyes, Lord, to see your goodness.

Where we get distracted and look to the right or to the left at the world, and we've failed to look through the lens of your goodness. Whenever I sing this song in the... All my life you've been faithful, I always get this picture in my mind of a thread. It's like a... In my mind, it's like a red ribbon from, like, the moment I was born before I was even born.

Just a red thread woven all through my life before I even knew he was there. And then he had a plan and purpose purpose for me. And even when I was walking away or being disobedient, he was there. He had a thread of my life. He's always been there.

And sometimes, it takes a minute for us to remember that. It takes a minute for us to remember that he's good. We don't have to understand all that's going on around us or in our lives, but if we stand on that truth, we root ourselves in that. Our perspective changes. So, Lord, root us in that truth, that you are a living savior, alive and active in our lives, and you've sent the Holy Spirit to be with us now so we can be intimate with you.

Worship and move into the next kind of praise of honoring his word. Let's sing hallelujah to him. Lord, we give you all the praise in this place today. And as Deborah comes, we just pray our hearts would be open and that spirit of revelation would come in this place today, that your word would become alive to us today. Maybe we've read a certain scripture a million times, but today, Lord, our eyes would be open to hear and see your heart in a different unique way today, a deeper way, a more intimate way because you always have more for us.

Thank you. Thank you for who you are. We just ask that you would anoint Deborah's words today. Thank you for all the time that she's put into these studies. We believe a harvest.

A harvest is coming in Jesus name. Amen. You can have a seat.

Aren't they awesome? Well, thank you, ladies. Thank you, Carl and ladies. Alright, ladies. Spiritual disciplines.

Did you take the challenge? Raise your hand if you even looked at the challenge. Yay. I love it. Okay.

If you were not here last week and you wanna know what the challenge is, there are copies on the table when you check-in. Alright. Let's ask the word... Lord to bless his word. Father, thank you for this time.

Thank you for this glorious morning, and you are the best artist in the whole wide world. Your colors are magnificent. Thank you for giving us eyes to see them, and now we ask that you open the eyes of our heart to see your word, your truth, and your love. May we walk out those doors today falling a little more in love with you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Okay. Spiritual disciplines. What are the spiritual disciplines? Do you remember? Why do we do them?

They're practices that lead us closer to Jesus. My favorite definition is the spiritual disciplines are practices that close the gap between Jesus and me. Because is there a gap between Jesus and me? Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't think the way Jesus thinks, and I don't do the things that he always wants me to do.

So the disciplines help us close that gap. And I wish that you all could have been with me this past weekend. I'm just listening to some of the conversations I was having because Greg and I flew back to DC to attend a friend's son's wedding, and it was like this reunion from so many couples that we knew in California, the church that our family grew up in, the only church we attended in California. And there were all these couples, and I've lost touch with some of them because, like me, a lot of my friends have left California, and some of them are in Texas, some of them are in Tennessee, Tennessee, and just conversation after conversation was so encouraging because twenty, thirty years later, these couples who have practiced the habits of Jesus, you're starting to see real fruit and how this works, how it pays off. One of my friends in particular, I remember way back in the day, she had three little kids, and her husband left her with three kids, a single mom, and the difficult journey that she had raising these kids.

And now today, her son, who's my son's age, this big beautiful man, I was gonna call him a boy, but he's a man now, is really struggling through a horrible cancer. And I said, Mary Anne, man, you have had a rough journey, girl. How are you? And she said, I'm okay, Deborah. Jesus has been faithful.

He has seen me through. When I have fought, I I... I'm not gonna make it. I have all these needs. He shows up every single time.

And that was the story I heard over and over. Not that my friends haven't gone through what we all go through. Prodigal children, kids on drugs, divorce, cancer, financial issues, but story after story, their story was the same. He is faithful. This stuff works.

And it was so encouraging to me. It just lit a fire under my fanny for you today. I'm so excited. And Paul said, you know, Paul was talking to the church in Corinth. And remember Corinth had this huge arena.

And Paul's like, our our walk with the Lord is like those professional runners that run into this arena. And this is what Paul said. I'm gonna read from the message just because I like how he kind of explains it better from first Corinthians nine. Paul's looking at Christians back in the day just like you, and he says, well, you haven't been to the stadium in Corinth, but he says, you've all been to the stadium, and you've seen the athletes race. And then he said, you run to win.

All good athletes train hard. Remember, we've been talking about the difference between trying and training. We can try not to sin, but what happens? We always do, and then we feel like a big fat failure. Paul's like, don't try.

Just show up every day and say, Jesus, I'm here. Help me, and he will help you. Train hard. He's like the runners that are running into the arena into the arena, their gold medal eventually tarnishes and perishes and fades away. You run for eternal gold because that's what we're living for.

Eternal gold. Roseanne is saying, amen. I don't know about you, Paul says, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. We don't wanna be caught sleepwalking in this life and get to the end and the Lord say, well, what did you do with the life I've gave...

Given you? And I wanna just pause here and drill down on a point of theology that has seeped into the American church, into the Western belief system that is a little bit off. The American church has, for a long time taught this theology of just believe ism. Yes. I believe in Jesus.

I had my emotional moment with him. I'm good to go. But the question is, can we really believe that he is our savior without submitting to him as our Lord? And I don't know. Scripture kinda says, no, you can't do that.

And last week we talked about there's a big difference between what I believe and what I do, and who am I really? I'm what I do. I... And what do I love? I love what I do.

That's who I am. I can say it's a great... I believe I believe I believe that it's a great idea to be in great shape and never exercise a day in my life. I can say a lot of things and never ever implement. I can say that I believe in Jesus.

I can say I believe every word of this. But at the end of the day, when we stand before our creator, he's not gonna ask us what we believed. You know what he's gonna ask you? What did you do about it? What did you do?

And I was thinking, you know, that first week when we talked about the resurrection that our... It does require faith, but our faith isn't blind faith. It isn't it isn't based on no evidence. There's a lot of evidence that our savior was resurrected. He was real.

He walked to this earth. Hundreds, if not millions of people saw him after he was resurrected. Was Mohammed resurrected? Was Gandhi resurrected? No.

That is the Dalai Lama? Is the Dalai Lama? Well, think he's reincarnated, but he is not resurrected. Why? Because only God could do something so crazy like that.

Because none of us are on our way to a funeral thinking, I wonder if the person in the casket is gonna give a speech today. We we don't think that because we know it's over. But Jesus came back and he did something that only God could do. So my question is, if that is really true, shouldn't it not cause us to consider to live the way he asked us to live? Should that not cause us to pause?

And just to drill down on this point even more, you know, Satan believes in Jesus. He knows he's real. He believes in this. He was there when Adam and Eve were created. He was there when David was king.

He was there when Jesus was crucified and resurrected. He and his demons know it's true, but I have a question. Is Satan a Christian? No. Why?

Because he is not gonna submit to the... Our Lord. He doesn't do what this says. Our faith is made complete by what we do. Not by what we say.

Our faith is made complete by what we do. You and I are building a life and choices, and those choices are the actions we take every day. And here's the thing. Paul says, someday, you and I are going to enter an arena at the very end, and we are gonna stand before our judge. And he's going to review what we did with this life.

Now my husband and I were talking about this, and my husband said, oh my gosh. Is he gonna put, like, everything up on the big screen, like, all my sins? And I said, that's the great news, honey. For us Christians, the cross took care of that. Never again will Jesus revisit our sins.

He's not... For the believer, he is not gonna put those up and review those with you because because why? There's no condemnation in Christ. But he is going to review what we did, the choices we made in this life. Paul wrote in first Corinthians three, on judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each one of us have done.

The fire will show if a person's work has any value. If the work survives, the builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, paw causes wood, hay, and stubble, it's just burned up, it's gone. You will suffer great loss. Yes, you will be saved, but someone barely...

But as though you are someone barely escaping through the flames of fire. And I've said this in past studies. I don't wanna enter heaven with my hair smelling like smoke. I don't wanna do that. I want the Lord to say, instead of what did you do with your life, we all want him to say, well done.

Well done, good and faithful servant. You know, James gives a very practical example of something we can do. James says, what good is it if you claim to have faith and you do nothing about it? And he said, suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or food, and they come into your life. And I'm paraphrasing, but you say, well, bless your heart.

Go in peace. James is like, are you kidding me? I'm paraphrasing again. That faith is dead. He did say dead.

It's dead. He's like, you need to reexamine where your heart is because no, we cannot save the world, but we can save the people the Lord brings into our world. And if we don't with our time, our money, or our efforts, then we have to stop and evaluate what am I doing. And James says in James one, don't just listen to the word. Don't think you're okay because you go to church or even come to Bible study.

He said you you actually have to do what it says. It's like opening a mirror and seeing a big smudge of chocolate on your face and just walking away. He's like, why would you do that? That's stupid. And you...

We don't do that. We look in the mirror because we're gonna do something about it. Right? We're gonna wipe the chocolate off our face. He says, when you look in the mirror of God's word, do something.

CS Lewis, I think this is in your study guide. Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you into something a little different than you were before. The things we do do something to us, good or bad, and we get to choose. We're free agents. God says you're a free agent.

You get to choose. There is a verse that I wanna unpack for the rest of my time with you from Galatians six verses seven through nine. And I'm sorry I didn't put this on your handout, but you can look it up later. Galatians six verses seven through nine. Paul says, do not be deceived.

I don't think there is one person in this room that wants to say, oh, you know what? I lived a life of deception. I was deceived. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

We reap what we sow. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life. And don't become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, you will reap a harvest. That is a promise from God.

You will reap a harvest if you do not give up. Now, I wasn't even gonna include this, but based on a very intense conversation I had last week after I left you all, I thought I better include this point about reaping and sowing. So we live in a culture where you'll hear, oh, you know, something happened to you. Oh, that was karma. And last week, I I had this conversation with a very educated man who is a Buddhist.

And so I was just so curious about his faith. And I said to him, because he told me he meditates a lot. And I said, really? Like, I'm a Christian. I meditate too.

I meditate on God's promises. What do you meditate on? And he said, oh, I meditate on my breath. And I was like, your breath? Like, does that give you peace to meditate on your breath?

And he's like, well, it does calm me down. And then we had this conversation about karma. And he really believes that, you know, good behavior brings you good things in life. Bad behavior brings you bad things in life. In other words, we get exactly what we deserve.

And my question was, well, I mean, we're all made of gold and dirt. Like, sometimes I do good things, but sometimes I do bad things. So then what happens? And he can't really answer that question. And I'm like, well, what is the end goal?

Like, what happens? Let's say that you do reach this point of only doing good things, which I don't think it's humanly possible, but what happens? And he goes, well, we come back either in the womb of a human or the womb of an animal. I was like, oh my gosh, you could come back as a bat? And he was like, that's not my goal, but yeah, it is possible.

And I was thinking about this, and all I could think was do not be deceived. Do not be deceived. Like, is a spirit of deception rooted in what religion? Hinduism and Buddhism, which comes from little g gods, not the God of truth. But furthermore, all I could think of was, thank you, Jesus.

I don't wanna get what I deserve. And as a believer, there is a mantle of mercy over us, a mantle of grace over us. Jesus says, my mercies never cease over you. In fact, they're gonna be new every single day. And do you know what the definition of mercy is?

Is him not giving me what I deserve. Oh, praise God for that. And then I was thinking about Jesus. Like, he is my Lord and savior. And it's funny because the guy...

I was looking at him a couple of times like, this is the craziest stuff. Like, I cannot believe you believe this. And he said to me, he goes, I know I know your Christian faith. And he goes, you know, your faith gives you solid answers. I was like, well, isn't that the goal?

Like, I do wanna know. I think God puts those questions in us. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?

Thank you, Jesus, for answering that. How kind of you? And then I was thinking about Jesus, like, the kind of God he is. You know, he doesn't zap us with lightning when we deserve it, And the greatest example of that is when he was on the cross. I mean, he he was in such emotional pain.

His very inner circle was backing away from him. Peter had rejected him. And then he was beaten, his skin torn to shreds. He's in excruciating pain. I mean, heck, I would have said, okay, father, those bolts of lightning anytime.

You know what Jesus did? He showed unbelievable love and he said, father, forgive them. Forgive them. No karma here. Forgive them.

Jesus shows mercy to all people, even really, really bad people. He offers agape love. We talked about agape love in Kathy and Julia's group last week that it is not human love because we put conditions. If you love me, I'll love you. If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you.

If you forgive me, I'll forgive you. Jesus isn't like that. He says, learn my ways. Learn agape love. Love your enemy.

Love your enemy? What? Like, agape love isn't conditional. It's just love because he is love. And David said, just to conclude this thing on karma and sin, because my thing to this guy was, well, if you're constantly be...

Being reincarnated, like, how do you ever break the cycle? Like, how do you ever get forgiven of your bad choices? And he really didn't have an answer. David said, if you, Lord, kept a record of my sins, who could stand? I mean, but with you, there is total forgiveness.

And furthermore, Jesus says, when you repent, I'm not gonna bring it up to you again. I'm gonna bury it in the depths of the sea. And as Cory Timbun says, then he puts up a no fishing sign for you and me too. Like, don't go back and revisit it. It's done.

You're forgiven. Hallelujah. Okay. So reaping and sowing. This is on your handout.

Reaping and sowing has nothing to do with what we deserve. Thanks be to God. Rather, reaping and sowing determine the direction of our life and the life we experience as a natural consequences of our choices. So sowing is the road that we choose to travel, and I pray. This is what I'm praying to the Lord.

May that road be Lord right in the dust of my rabbi. That's the road I wanna be on. And reaping is the life that we end up with. And you know, in DC, I was just so overcome with emotion. One day, Greg and I walked to the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, and there are inscriptions all over DC about our Christian heritage, about what this country was built on, why this country is the greatest country there ever was.

Ronald Reagan said America is the shining city on the hill. Do you know why he said that? Because we're not a Christian nation, but we were a nation of Christians. And because we were a nation of Christians, we were the first nation when others needed help. We were the first responders.

We were the first that sent our time, our money, and our efforts to help people, to love on people. We generously share Jesus in a very dark world, but something has shifted. And today, we've allowed the doctrine of demons into our government, into our media, into our school system. We're teaching our children Marxism. Are you kidding me?

We can look back on history as we've shared and see that Marxism created the greatest genocide of millions and millions and millions of people. This is evil. This is not good. And the entertainment industry is constantly speaking a message over us that is not from the Lord. I mean, have you noticed how it is almost impossible to even watch anything on TV.

And I read a lot during the day. So at night, I'm exhausted. I don't want to read anymore. I just want to kind of take an hour to veg out. So I said to my husband, okay, Virgin River.

How bad could Virgin River be? Like, that's gotta be okay. Right? So we've been watching it. So far so good.

Then last week, Greg is like dozing off, and I jump up and I'm like, are you kidding me? He's like, what? What just happened? And I I said, Greg, oh my gosh. Did you see the scene that just played out?

So three ladies in Virgin River were all having problems. So they write... They decided to make a bonfire and write their problems out. And because there was a full moon. So they write their problems out, then they give their problems to the moon because the moon is going to give them peace and enlightenment.

And Greg is like, you know, half asleep. He's like, okay. Now, what... I know that's bad, but why is it really, really bad? I said, Greg, be...

Because the subtle message here is we're just pushing Jesus out of everything. Did you all know that the moon is the primary goddess of the Wiccan religion? Did you know what the fastest growing religion in America is today? The Wiccan religion, Satanism. Today, 21% of Americans forget the Wiccan's, another 21% proclaim to be atheist, or our millennials call themselves nuns.

They believe in nothing. It is estimated that within fifty years, okay, fifty years, the spiritual landscape in America is gonna shift so dramatically, we're barely going to remember our Christian roots. And I kept thinking about that in DC. Like, it used to be just part of our heritage. John Mark Comer has this saying that Jesus haunts America.

That Jesus haunts us at every corner. We know there's something to him. We're just not acknowledging him. And then Julia sent me a message about these millennials in LA that have decided to celebrate secular Sabbath. And I'm like, Secular Sabbath.

What does that even mean? So reading the article is very interesting because they want a god, but this is what one of the girls said, but I don't want the dogma of this. In other words, they they want all the blessings of his kingdom. They just don't wanna worship the king. But I think a revival's coming.

I do think people are waking up, and that's why this sowing and reaping is so important because I think if you and I become super intentional about sowing the love and truth of Jesus in our heart, it's not only gonna change us, it's gonna change our families, it's gonna change our community, and it can it can bleed out into this country. God can do anything, but it starts with us as individuals. That's why Paul said it's so important that you understand. You have a choice. You're either sowing to please the flesh, which is gonna reap destruction, or you're sowing to please the spirit, which is gonna reap eternal life.

What did Paul mean by that? Okay. On your handout, sowing to please the spirit means I'm depending on God, and I'm seeking to please and promote God. Okay? And sowing to please the flesh means I'm depending on myself and I'm seeking to please and promote myself.

So the flesh is just all about me. And this is hard because the flesh really is that spirit or attitude in me that is in opposition to the Holy Spirit that is within me. And when we become believers, unfortunately, we just don't get downloaded a whole new narrative, and we just don't completely change our life all around. It takes time, and there's gonna be conflict. But I wanna encourage you, if there's no conflict within you, ask yourself if the Holy Spirit's within you.

Because even Paul who walked in the dust of our rabbi, Paul said, why do I think the things I think, and why do I do the things I do? I know better because there's conflict. But the more time we spend with the Lord, the greater we can overcome the conflict within. We give the Holy Spirit more and more room to work. And when Paul says, when you sow to the flesh, you reap destruction.

This was really interesting. I looked up what that word means in the original language, and it's so interesting to me because Paul say everything you do for yourself, like, it's gonna it's gonna perish. It's that wood, hay, and stubble that just burns up before the Lord. It has no eternal value, and you are an eternal soul, and we are going to eternity. So this is why Paul says, don't reap to the flesh.

It has no value. But when we reap to the spirit, we are reaping eternal value into our souls. There's this really fascinating book by Neil Postman, and he asked the question. This is about reaping to our flesh. He says, are we in America amusing ourselves to death?

He's... He maintains in his book that we are numbing ourselves into submission by consuming an endless stream of trivial entertainment. It's just junk. We become uninterested in serious matters. We have very serious matters in our country today.

He's like, we become uninterested because we have placated ourselves into inaction by an overwhelming barrage of distracting entertainment, which causes us to lose awareness and insight of... To even recognize the tyranny, let alone do anything about it. I call this living in a time of gotta goes, gotta haves, and empties. And we live in a time where if you're not living by the spirit, just notice your conversations. The only thing people talk about is where they're going and what they're getting or buying and these gotta haves and empties.

And it's just gonna be puff someday. Absolutely nothing. And I'm not saying scripture says, God gives us blessings with no regret. I'm not saying we can't take a vacation. Greg and I take vacations.

I take Jesus with me on vacation, and I look for opportunities to plant seeds. I don't just leave him at home. The... It's okay to take vacations. It's okay to have things, but you have to ask yourself, who am I that's all taken away from me?

And hello, I think we saw that experiment play out during COVID. When that was all taken from us, people left the church. The church is down 30% because they were feeding the flesh and not the spirit. When we feed the spirit, we are going to reap a great harvest both in this life and the next. So I wanna talk to you in closing six principles on about sowing to the spirit in our life and how important this is and how we do it.

Paul says, number one, we reap what we sow. We know this, don't we? I mean, you can't plant an apple seed and grow a watermelon. That would be really bizarre, wouldn't it? And in our families, in our lives, I can't be ugly and mean and have a spirit in my home of kindness.

I can't say harsh, angry words, and my home and my relationships have a spirit of peace and joy. It just doesn't work like that. Even in friendship relationships, I can't sow gossip and slander about you and have an intimate relationship with you. So God tells us these things because they're really for our good to bless us. The law of the harvest says sooner or later, your choices will have consequences.

And I love this saying, I know you've all heard it, but it bears repeating with the spiritual disciplines and sowing and reaping. When we sow a thought, you know, Paul said it starts with our thoughts, this life that we can do. We reap and act. When we sow an act, we reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character.

Sow a character, and reap a life. Okay? Matthew sixteen twenty three, Matthew asked, yeah, you can have a great time on this earth. Party down. Go ahead.

Live for yourself. Would you repeat that to what she

was asking? You just said? Yes.

Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. So this is what the spiritual disciplines do. They teach us habits. So the day will come when it won't won't even be hard for you to spend time with the Lord.

In fact, if you don't, you're really gonna miss him. That's why we do that. So a habit, reap a character. This is the godly fruit that Galatians talks about. Galatians five speaks about the fruit of the flesh.

Read Galatians five and six, the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. Sow a character and reap a life. A life. A life that's worth living. Yeah.

And we can sow to the flesh. We're free agents. We can do what we want with this life. But here's what Matthew says. Jesus is speaking in Matthew.

He says, what is it if you gain the whole world prestige and power, all the pleasures this world has, but in the process, you lose your soul? Like, what a bummer that would be. We're not gonna do that. We're not gonna do that. Number two, sow generously.

Paul said in second Corinthians nine six, remember this, whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly. Whoever sows generously will reap generously. What is Paul saying? He's like, be generous with your love. Don't worry about getting something back for it.

Jesus will take care of you. Be generous with your forgiveness. Let Jesus handle that person. You just stay clean before him. Be generous with your time.

Be generous with your money. It's God's money. Be generous with it. Be generous with it. Reap generously.

Number three, sewing is hard work. I don't want to mislead you in any way. Like, it's much easier just to be lazy and sleepwalk and eat, drink, and be merry. It is. It's much easier.

And I remember my kids were in high school, and I was really frustrated because I raised them with the Lord. I raised them in the word. They knew the truth. And I was crying out to the Lord saying, I need a word from you, Lord. This is hard.

I don't like where they're at right now spiritually. And he gave me Psalm one twenty six five and six. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They cry as they go to plant their seed, but they sing when they return with the harvest. Okay.

This doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. It takes a lifetime. My son came home in college and declared at the dinner table he was a deist. And I'm like, a deist?

He goes, yeah. You know, mom, I'm not gonna deny God, but he's not really personal. He doesn't really care about me, my prayers, or what I'm doing. I thought he was gonna lose my mind in that second. And we just had a great conversation about it.

I kept praying for him. Well, fast forward a few years, he prayed after being very frustrated with his dating scene that God would send him a Christian woman, and God did. Married her. Fast forward a couple more years. I'm gonna cry telling you this.

He has two sons, a two month old and a two year old. And our two year old, oh my gosh, he is so yummy, and he does not like to go to bed. I... In fact, I had him this summer for a week, and I put him in a playpen, and Anne Marie gave me this playpen. And I called Anne Marie and I said, how in the world the playpen comes up to here?

And I said, Griffey, it's nap time. Go night night. No night night, nana. I said, oh, yeah, you're very tired. You need to go night night.

And I'm... He's in my bedroom. I'm in the kitchen and I see something out of the corner of my eye. And I turned around and I screamed it was him. And Greg comes running down the hall and he's like, is there a grizzly bear in the deck?

And I'm like, no, there's a baby sugar bear in the kitchen that was supposed to be in the playpen like how did he get out? So two weeks ago, we were in Casper celebrating his second birthday, and I said to Grayson, I said, is he... Does he still cry every time he goes to bed at night? And Grayson's like, well, up until this week. And I said, well, how how are you not...

How is he not crying? And Grayson goes, well, you know, I usually put him to bed because Grayson works all day. And he said, so I read him a story, then I tell him a story. And he goes, but I started doing something new. I started praying over him.

My son, who was a deist, is praying over his kids and he said, mom, it's the craziest thing. He just goes right to bed. He says, night night daddy, and goes to bed. The harvest will come. It's not gonna happen overnight.

Hang in there. I mean, that's been ten years. Right? So keep praying. Hang in there.

Paul said, let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time. We will reap a harvest if we don't give up. And point four, we reap in a different season than we sow in. I know that we live in a time of instant gratification. We live in a drive through window era.

We live in a time of instant response. Right? Like, I mean, no one's even showing up at the Kelly post office. So forget sending me anything by snail mail, but no one does that anymore. Rarely, I text you, I expect an answer within thirty seconds because instant response in this environment that we live impact on us.

We expect Jesus to respond instantly too. But he says, wait. Wait for the right time. Just wait. And what is he doing in the waiting?

He's showing me he can... We can trust him. Right? He's building our godly character, patience, and perseverance, and self control. When the time is right, the harvest will come, and it will come.

That is a promise from him. And number five, we reap more than we sow. What an amazing Lord. You know, one apple seed doesn't produce one apple. It produces a whole tree of apples.

In Matthew 13, Matthew wrote, when the seed fell on good soil, it produced a harvest a 160 or 30 times more than was sown. And I think about this in my life, how people have impacted me, how one word of kindness when I needed it, it didn't just change my day, some of those words changed my life. Or how you and I can plant a seed of forgiveness over someone that may change a stronghold over a family for generations. We produce a 160, 30 times more than we plant. And finally, we can't do anything about last year's harvest, but we can start today and do something about this year's harvest and next year's harvest and next year's harvest.

Jesus is calling us today. This is a very special time we live, and I believe he is going to help us like he never has before. And we don't wanna stand before him and have him say, what did you do? We wanna have him say, well done. You make good choices, and let me show you the harvest.

Thank you, Jesus, for your word. Thank you for these beautiful souls in this room. Bless us and teach us, Lord, how to make good choices. In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's just take a minute before we move on and just close your eyes and list. Let anything that the Holy Spirit is trying to speak to you specifically, just let it make that 18 inch drop from your mind to your heart. Just with your eyes closed when I sing that line, just this just rises up in me that maybe there's people in this room who don't feel like they belong. And not like maybe in this setting or that just don't feel like they belong in a bigger sense and maybe there is a lack of intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Because when you have that Holy Spirit presence in your life, you just know where you belong.

And at the same time, we weren't made for this earth to stay here forever. There's a heart sickness in our heart to be face to face with Jesus. So press into that. If you are one of those people who just kinda feels like they don't belong, just ask the Lord, Lord, just draw me close to you. Draw me close to you because I know that I belong in you.

Just press into that. Welcome to the place where you belong. Well done. Lord, that's our prayer that when we see you face to face, not because we're striving to earn, not because we're striving because we deserve anything, but we're striving to be close with you. That's what we want.

That you would say well done with what you've given us on this side of heaven to bring your name glory. That's what we care about. Break our heart for what breaks yours, Lord. That's our cry. Let us sow into the things that are important to you that are eternal.

We tell you we love you. Bless our conversations at the... Our tables today. Draw us close to you in Jesus name. Amen.

Do we have any other announcements? Deborah, do we have any other announcements? Okay. Oh, yeah. Leaders.

Where are the leaders? Oh, yeah. Why don't the leaders stand up real quick and then just go around and say your name and then where you're gonna be meeting because I know it changes a little bit. Nancy's gonna start. That's fun.

And then this 100, our group will just meet right here.