Everyday Church
What Is God Telling You To Do?
(upbeat music) - Hello, friend. Welcome to today's podcast, Everyday Church, with Pastor Jason Keefer. Everyday Church is a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. - Hey, my friend. What's great to be with you today again on the Everyday Church podcast, and I hope you're having a great day today, and hey, you just wanna take a minute, and as always, there's a lot of ways to get plugged in, and this is just one way to learn together and grow together. And oftentimes, people come across this, they have other questions about different things in life. We wanna be a help to you and encouragement to you, so one of the things you can do is go to astattulabaptis.com. That's astattulabaptis.com, and you can go there, and it'll give you all kind of different information and steps and ways that you can get connected and grow with us at astattulabaptis church, or just as individuals, maybe you already attend a church. We certainly are thankful for that. We don't ever wanna pull anybody away, but certainly there's resources there that can help you to grow in Christ. So I wanna encourage you with that, okay? And so, a couple other things. We've been talking about something in our church past couple of weeks, and I've just been talking about this with individuals. The idea of passionately serving Christ, passionately serving Jesus. Man, the Lord spoke to my heart a few weeks ago, we had Pastor Brian Sams from River City Church in Jacksonville, was down and preached for us, and just really challenged my heart. And I walked away from that week with this thought, am I willing to passionately serve Christ? Am I willing to serve Christ in a way that my life is gonna look different? Where my day-to-day walk with Christ is gonna look different than it did a couple of weeks ago. My schedule is going to look different. The things that I do are going to be different. The ways that I serve Christ are going to be different. My evangelism, the way I reach out to people and share the Gospel is going to be different. And I just wanna take a couple of minutes today and just, I wanna challenge you to assess where you're at in that, especially if you've made that commitment and maybe you haven't made that commitment with us, I think it's worth still assessing your life and just asking yourself this question, do I passionately serve Christ? Do I passionately serve Christ? I'm reminded of some men in the Book of Acts and in fact, I'm just gonna turn over there. I'm reminded of a group of guys in the Book of Acts that they had just, they had really went through the ringer when it come to serving Christ and Peter and these other apostles, they had faced so much adversity. Peter had already been put in prison. They had already several times been brought before the council and told not to do what they were doing and Peter stands up and he makes this statement. He makes this bold statement in Acts chapter five in verse 20 and he said, "We ought to obey God "rather than man." You know, I think that's one of the, one of the probably clearest ways to find out whether or not you're passionately serving God is am I willing to obey God at the cost of maybe going against the grain, going against the flow of everybody? I just felt like in my life over the past few weeks, the way the Lord kind of dealt with my heart was I just kind of get in the flow of everything and yeah, it's what everybody's doing and it doesn't mean everybody, it doesn't mean I'm doing bad things. It's just what everybody's doing and I have to stop and ask myself, okay, that's what everybody's doing but what does God called you to do, right? What has God, you know, what has God told you to do? What's God told you to do in your personal life? What is God? What's some things that God's dealing with you in your family? What's some things that God is dealing with you about serving in the church or serving through a local church or whatever that may look like? But what's God telling you to do when you're having a hard time with it? Because you know if you step out and do it, you're gonna go against the norm of your circle, right? You're gonna go against the norm of those who have influence over you and share influence with you, whether it be your friends, your coworkers, whether it be family members. We struggle with that, you know, you and I, we both, we all do, I do, I struggle with that and I find great, sometimes when I know God wants me to step out in a direction, I find it sometimes terrifying. And these men, Peter stands up and he makes this statement, he says, "We all obey God rather than men." He goes and preaches and they beat them for this. They beat them, they let them go, but they beat them and said, "Look, quit, stop." Now, don't do this anymore. And verse 41 of chapter five says this, and they departed from the presence of the counts of rejoicing that they were counting worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not, that's what they told them. Stop teaching, stop preaching, stop going around, doing what you're doing. And just so they, to put emphasis on it, they beat them. And the Bible says they rejoiced that they were kind of worthy and that they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Man, think about that for a moment and kind of let that sink in. And then ask yourself this question, "Where am I holding back? "What does God call me to do? "And why am I holding back? "Why am I not being a witness like I should? "Why am I not standing out, stepping out? "Maybe you're afraid of your family. "That could be a tough one. "That could be a hard one. "Maybe you're afraid of what your family's gonna say "and it's gonna put you at odds. "Maybe you're afraid you're gonna lose friends. "You may very well lose friends. "You may very well lose friends. "Maybe you're afraid that it's gonna cost you something "in your career or maybe it's gonna cost you financially. "I don't know, but I know this, "that if I'm gonna passionately serve Christ, "how life's gonna look different? "It's gonna look different. "I'm gonna make some choices. "I was just speaking. "I was just speaking with Pastor Josh, "our family ministry's pastor just about an hour ago. "We were sitting right here in the office talking. "And I told him, I said, "Man, look, "I committed to passionately serving Christ "and I've got to make some decisions." And one of the decisions I told him I said that I'm gonna make is, I'm gonna start being more of a witness to Christ. I just, it's easy to kind of get caught for a pastor. We get, we kind of let the pulpit shield us if we're not careful. It's what we do. We preach and we teach God's Word on Sundays and Wednesdays and whenever. And man, I want to get back to me in more of a voice, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, every day of the week, passionately, sharing the hope of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with people, okay? And so, I know this is not First John, I'm gonna get First John on here in a second. And, but I just wanted to share that with you and hopefully that'll encourage you, right? And it'll encourage you and help you to think about it. What am I doing? Hey, listen, if you and your families watching this, ask each other, what are we doing? What are we doing? Dad's look at, Dad's look at your kids and say, what are we doing to passionately serve Christ? Kids, look at your parents. Husband, look at your wife, wife, look at your husband and begin to have that conversation with one another and say, what are we doing that would let people know that we're passionate about Christ? And you may have to step back and say, you know what? I don't think we're as passionate as we think we are. And that's okay, that's okay. Because there's grace, there's mercy, there's help and goodness with the Lord, amen? Hey, so first y'all, chapter two in verse 27. Didn't mean to ramble there. He says, he jumping in there and he says, "These things I have written unto you concerning them that seduce you." So last time he said, I'm not writing these things because you don't know the truth. This time he says, I am writing these things to you about those that would deceive you. We've been talking about deception. Verse 27, "But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you. But as the same anointing teach you of all things and is truth and is no lie, even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." Man, what a verse. Verse 27, the anointing, the Holy Spirit that you have received, right, that we receive upon the moment of salvation. And he's telling them up, when you got saved, you received that spirit. Now notice what he says there in verse 27 and how much it is like what Jesus says over in John 14, 15, and 16 about the Holy Spirit. Remember, John, not only did he write? He recorded those things. He wrote those things down in the Gospel of John, but he was there, right? He knew that because that's what Jesus said. And he's almost saying the same thing. Remember Jesus said, he said, I'm gonna go away. I'm gonna send the Comforter who's gonna help you. He's gonna teach you in all things. In fact, Jesus said, you're not gonna need that any man teach you, the Holy Spirit's gonna teach you in all things. And John says the same thing. He says, you need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing, teach it you of all things. That's the Holy Spirit and is truth. Remember Jesus in John 15 calls him, or John 16 calls him the spirit of truth, the Comforter, the Holy One, that helper that comes alongside of us and enables us to do what it is that we need to do. That is the spirit of truth. And he says, he's in you, he dwells in you. Think about that for a moment. The spirit of truth dwells in me as a believer. I don't always understand everything that God's Word is telling me, but I have his spirit living in me. And he's identified as the spirit of truth. And that spirit of truth will begin to expound God's Word to me if I would just open my eyes to it, right? If I would just, I mean open my physical eyes, like get in God's Word and begin to read God's Word. And listen, the Holy Spirit is going to teach you. He's going to put the pieces to the puzzle together. He's going to instruct you in righteousness. He's going to instruct us in how to walk and how to live and how to live a sanctified life. And so I don't have to worry about being seduced if I'm walking in the spirit and I'm walking in truth because the spirit of truth is just that, it's truth. And so talking about living passionately for Christ, knowing that he, knowing that he, the spirit of truth lives within me. And when you get off this podcast in just a moment, that same spirit dwells in you. And he's going to be what enables you to walk the truth and to talk truth and to live in truth. You don't have to be intimidated by truth. Maybe as a dad, maybe you find it hard to instruct your family because you're intimidated by the scriptures and that can be that way for any of us. And maybe it is worth sitting down and maybe going through some discipleship and learning God's Word, but ultimately you have to depend on the Holy Spirit. Maybe as a mom, you feel intimidated with your children, helping them in truth. And I want to tell you, listen, the greatest confidence you can have in the truth is the Holy Spirit, bearing witness with your spirit, praying the scriptures, growing in the scriptures, right? Knowing that the Holy Spirit, that spirit of truth has anointed you, he fills you, and he beckons you to walk with him today. Man, I tell you, look, think about what we talked about today. I know this is a little different than normal, but that's okay, if you know me by now, I'm a little different, I'm kind of odd. And so, yeah, so let's go to the Lord in prayer. And if we can help you or be a help in any way, please let me know, I want to be a help to you. Share this, like it, get it out there, it always encourages me when I hear people say that this is a help to you and encouragement to you 'cause that is my goal and that is my hope to help you. And there's no help, like that of the Word of God. Amen, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for your mercies, for your goodness to us, for your love for us. Thank you for your compassion that fell not. Father, for your mercies that are new every morning. I pray for my friends today as they go throughout the day, God that you would bless and that you would guide and lead us in truth. Father, that we would passionately serve you. We love you and thank you and your name we pray. Amen. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Everyday Church, a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. If this episode was an encouragement to you, be sure to hit like, share it, and subscribe for future content. (upbeat music)