Can having too much actually be a test of our faith?
WATCH
3-2-1: A Call to Prayer, 1 of 4 from September 7, 2025
"We must choose God-dependence over self-confidence in both easy and hard times."
Hosea 10 by Michael Lockstampfor (@mikocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon explores "the test of wealth" through Hosea 10, revealing how abundance can be a greater spiritual challenge than scarcity. Pastor Michael explains that humans naturally spend wealth to increase personal control rather than trusting God, and challenges the congregation to "choose God-dependence over self-confidence in both easy and hard times" as they launch the Grove Initiative to develop leaders and plant churches.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What areas of our life do we want more guaranteed control over?
💬 What gifts from God are we taking for granted?
💬 How are we investing God’s blessings in God’s glory?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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PLEASE NOTE: The following transcript is automatically generated and may contain errors.
Good morning, church.That's not good. I just looked down at my notes for the day, and the first thing on my note says, "Story?" which is a note for me to think of a story to open up with. And so, oops, it's okay. We're gonna get rolling. You know, sometimes, though, that feels like a test, right?
It feels like when you've got something, when you're missing something, that feels like a really, really big test, you're like, oh, no, I've got to overcompensate. I've got to figure out how to solve this problem. Right. Charma is like no, I got that. I can solve that problem.
Well, this is my improvising story is that the thing that we often feel like is a big test is when we don't have enough of something. I don't have enough notes. I don't have enough in the bank to make it this month. I don't have enough patience. Like, those things really feel like tests, don't they?
Yeah, I think usually those are the kinds of tests that get our attention and our prayers. We're like, God, I don't have enough in me. You are the one who has all of the things. And so I'm just gonna ask you to provide for me. Lord, help me figure out how to connect these dots.
Lord, help me figure out how to make these ends meet. Lord, help me figure out how not to strangle these people. Because jail time is not really going to look good on me. Right. We come to God oftentimes in the midst of tests of.
I'll call them. Let's call them tests of poverty. Right? We don't have enough. And we're going to God to ask him to fill us up, right?
To ask him to give us more than what we need. And I think we're pretty familiar with those experiences and those tests. Who are we and how do we act when we don't have enough money or enough time or enough resources? But I think what's fascinating about the Scriptures and something that has really weighed on my heart a lot over the last couple of months is that Jesus asks us to consider a different test. Not the test of poverty, but he asked us to be mindful of the test of wealth.
Because across human history, the oldest writing that we have in Scripture is a group of guys who have gathered together to confront their. Or not confront. Well, they've gathered together to comfort their friend who is suffering. And the thing that they keep trying to comfort him with is, well, if you do good God will bless you. If you do good, you get good.
And so if you want good stuff, you got to do good stuff. He's in a test of poverty. And God is saying in that situation's like, well, what if I gave him everything and he ends up doing that? Like, if I give you something, if I give you a bunch of blessings, what actually is that showing about who we are and what we'll do? What does the test of wealth show about the condition of our heart?
Who are we and how do we act when we have more than enough of everything? I was like, well, Michael, I'm glad that you brought this up. I would like to know what that test of wealth might be like. I would like to sign up for that test of wealth, please. Right, so we'll talk about that.
But before we do, let's pray together. It's our habit to pray the disciples prayer. And I just love that we kind of pray it together. And so if you say this with me, I think that'd be beautiful. But more than that, like, let's just pause and think about the words that we're saying, whether we have them memorized or not.
If you don't have memorized they on the screen, but let's think about these ideas as we pray them together.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. We pray that together at our Christian school and we use trespasses.
And I thought I actually worked this morning to try to change the slide because it's not about the words, right? I was going to go to the old thing and then I couldn't find the translation that says trespasses. So they've all been updated. Anyway, that's. Sorry.
That's what's in my head. I'm sorry. Let's read the Bible together. Yeeah. I don't know where they went.
Like even King James had something different today. So I was looking online though, so I'll have to look at some of my other books anyway, that's all not at all the point of what we're doing this morning. I'd invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Hosea and the book of Hosea in chapter 10. Specifically, it's in the Hebrew scriptures in the Old Testament. If you want to follow along in the blue Bibles that are probably scattered around tucked under the chairs.
It's on page 950, page 950 in the blue Bibles. And if you don't have a translation to the Bible that's easy for you to read and you find you like this one, just write your name in that and take it home. We're not gonna do any security as we're leaving, but this passage today is actually gonna take a look at the test of wealth and is going to lead us to answer some big questions kind of about who we are as individuals. And I wanna ask the question of what the test of wealth tells us about who we are as a church. You okay?
Okay, cool. We're blessed. And so what are we gonna do with that blessing? So this book is written by a prophet. His name is Hosea, and he is writing this book.
And God gets a hold of him and uses his life to preach a message to, to a nation of people that are really, really wealthy. This is a time of incredible, abundant economy, but it's coming in the midst of a season where they're all kind of spiritually compromised. So there's a spiritual compromise. People aren't walking with God, they're doing bad, but God is giving them good. Mistreating other people, they're walking away from God, they're worshipping false gods, but God is actually blessing them with material blessings.
The economy is going good, gas prices are low, everybody has a job and everybody's got extra money to spend. Like that's the economy that they're living in. But their heart is far, far away from God. This nation of people, they started as slaves in Egypt, but now they're like a legitimate sovereign nation with a real life king and everything. Like they started from nothing and now they have a bunch of stuff and things are going really, really well.
And they did it all without the help of God. Or so they think. Their blessing is a test.
Hosea, chapter 10. Starting in verse one, the name of this nation is Israel. Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built. As his country improved, he improved his pillars.
Their heart is false, and now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars and destroy their pillars. For now they will say, we have no king, for we do not fear the Lord. Yahweh and a king, what could he do for us? We're just gonna pull a couple of verses out of this chapter.
I'm not gonna read the whole chapter, but I want to, like, paint this picture. Israel's described as luxurious. They've got, like, the fancy coffee, right? They've got the nice sheets on the bed. Like, they're described as luxuriant.
Again, like, the gas prices are down and everybody's got some extra money. Like, things are going well. Israel is a luxuriant vine. Not only are they blessed and they get what they need, but they are producing fruit. They're able to sell their extra, extra.
And they take that blessing and they use it in a really interesting way. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built. As his country improved, he improved his pillars. It's like, what are altars and pillars? Like, that's an odd thing to think about.
These are some old ones, but there's the best picture I could find. What they do is they take this material blessing and they invest it into altars and pillars of other gods. And they are taking these places of worship of lesser gods and places of worship of demons, and they're kind of improving these things. So they take this blessing that they have and they give it to these other beings or these. Not even beings.
They give them to these lesser gods, and they're spending it in ways that I think they think are is actually a good thing. In their mind. They're thinking, well, I have all this money, so I'm going to donate to charity. I'm going toa spin this in a way that looks and smells and tastes really religious. I'm going toa take the blessings that I have, and I'm gonna invest them into these altars and these pillars.
I'm gonna make it so that the building can be a bit more polished. I want things to look nicer, and I want other people to notice just how generous I am. These are expressions of idolatry. Worshiping false gods instead of Yahweh. Now that's odd in the sense of.
For us, culturally, I think that that's an odd thing. Like, who this week thought, I can't believe they're investing in those altars or those pillars. Like, as we were going through our week this morning, we were not thinking about, like, worshiping false idols and polishing them up and making sure they get a fresh coat of paint. This would be different if we were living in a country, I think, like India, where idol worship is much more prevalent. But why would these people turn from Yahweh, the living God, and instead trust in these idols?
And I prayed about this and really tried to figure out, like, how can I encapsulate what I think is happening here? Okay, So I think what they're doing is they're going to gods. They're going and turning to religious systems which can be manipulated.
These false gods operate by a system of some variety of. I call it manipulative magic. There are all different kinds of ways that this gets expressed. They're all different kinds of ideas to understand. But the idea is basically this.
If I do this religious thing, then God is required to give me this thing that I actually want. I, as the worshipper, am going to manipulate the God into giving me what I want. Okay? So I'm going to give a little bit of money to the God, and the God is going to multiply by money 25%. Right?
Because this is what is guaranteed. They want to take their money and they want to invest it in a place where they can guarantee the results. The thing about Yahweh is he does not play that game. The God of the universe will not be manipulated by you. The God of the universe is not a.
What's our favorite term? A cosmic vending machine where I put a tithe in and I get blessings out. The machine, like Yahweh doesn't play that game, but the idols do. The idols will promise you the world if you just give a little bit of compromise. And so these false gods operate by manipulative magic.
They buy into that draw in our heart that says, if I do good, I'll get good. And it seems safe and controllable for them. It seems safe and controllable, and it has the air of religiosity, charitable giving. But what does he say in verse 2? Their heart is false.
They're lying to me, and they're lying to themselves. Now, this is a principle that I observe here really clearly. O hey. This is a principle that I observe here really clearly. But I think it gets repeated over and over again in scripture.
And maybe now that I share it with you, you will begin to see it, too, in the stories that we read. I put it like this in your notes. Humans naturally spend wealth on things that increase their own personal control. So left to ourselves, without spiritual influence, humans naturally spend wealth on things that increase their own personal control. I want to have more control of things.
And so if I have a little bit of money, I'm gonna invest that money in a way that I make sure that I get the return that I want out of it. I want control. We would look at somebody who took a little bit of money and Gave it away without any kind of say or any kind of hope of return. We would look at that person and say, you're dumb. That's a bad investment.
Humans naturally spend while on things that increase their own personal control. Now we don't always know what is actually gonna help us have more control, but we have some ideas about what it ought to be. But even like when we turn to spending our money on substances, the substances that we use, we want to use them to control how we feel. I have a certain way that I want to feel. I don't like this stress, I don't like this anxiety.
And so I'm gonna go to this substance. I'mnna spend my money on this substance so it can give me a feeling that is guaranteed. And the enemy will always offer you a guarantee that he has no intention to keep. He'll say, hey, you just start this and you'll feel that way. And then you feel that way and you're like, oh, this is so great.
And then you buy the same amount and it's like, I don't feel the same way anymore. Maybe I need to buy more. And then you buy some more and you get to that feeling again. But then it's harder and it takes more and more and more and more and more. But we're spending our wealth to increase our control.
And the enemy tricked us into him taking control of how we spend our wealth. Well, are we tracking good? It gets worse. We want to guaranteed return when we spend our money. And we're skeptical of giving control to others.
I don't trust you with my bank account. I trust Jesse, but I don't trust any of you all. And you're great people, I'm sure you do great. But like we don't. We struggle to give others control and we struggle to give the God of the universe who created us and who cares for us control.
The God of the universe who has blessed us with every rich blessing that we have ever enjoyed. We take those gifts and we say, I thank you for this. If we bother to thank him, we take them from his mine. And I don't trust you with it.
I trust me so I spend money so I can have more control.
So what areas of our life like do we want more guaranteed control over? Because anybody feel like they got perfect control over everything that's going on in their world because I need to sign up for your class. What are the areas of our life that we want more guaranteed control over? As I'm talking about that, you're thinking, oh, Yeah, I do want more control over this. I do want more control over that.
I hadn't thought about it this way, but I'm using this resource in order to get more control for me. What are those areas? Because I suspect that that might be a battleground for what the enemy wants to do in reshaping our hearts.
I spend my money so I can have more control. And when that gets left unchecked, we spin into this cycle. I put it in our notes this way when we spend and I think of that as like self confidence. I'm gonna spend my money so I have more control because I have confidence in me that I know what's best, right? So when we spend our wealth self confidently, we take every gift for granted.
When we spend our wealth or our blessings in a self confident way, what that does to us is it convinces us that we deserve the gift that we got for free.
When we spend our wealth self confidently, we take every gift for granted. This happens over and over in scripture. This happens over and over in my heart where I receive a gift and I'm like, yeah, of course it makes sense that this gift would come to me. I'm pretty great and I'm going to spend it in a way that makes sure that I can continue to be in control of things because I'm pretty fabulous.
I was reading a book yesterday and it's a really interesting story. There's four or five brothers. I think there's five brothers. And it's actually a play off of inspired by the life of David, but kind of it's actually a really interesting book. It's the life of David played out in basically the environment of Florida, like in swamps and stuff.
But it's like in medieval times, so like everybody's got swords and stuff. It's the weirdest thing. Anyway, there's five brothers. There's five brothers. And following the story in one and two, Samuel, the youngest brother gets chosen to be the king over the whole nation.
But the second brother is really, really frustrated by that. The second brother because a, he's second so he wasn't even first. He never was guaranteed to get an inheritance. But now he's been working hard to show off. He's been working hard to get his father's favor.
He's been working double time and overtime to try to impress people. And he's still only second born. But now his little baby brother gets chosen over him to be king. And he's screaming at his younger brother. He says, you don't deserve anything that you got Everything you got was a gift.
It was just handed to you. Life has always been easy for you, he says. And the youngest brother kind of takes this to heart. He goes and he's talking with a friend, he's like, I think he might be right. I think everything I've ever gotten has been a gift.
And his friends is like, yeah a-duh Then the same thing is true for him. The difference is he's refusing his gift and the ways that he has s been blessed and demanding yours and it will eat him alive. He'll die in bitterness when he refuses to accept the grace that's been given to him. I thought, wow, that's perfect for the sermon. I wish I had written that, but I didn't.
When we spend our wealth self confidently, when we're trying to build ourselves up with the gifts that we've been given, we take every gift for granted. And the people Israel here, they're forgetting God's role in their story. They're forgetting that they were slaves in Israel. They were not an army that they could rise up in a rebellion and defeat the Egyptians, they were slaves, they didn't even have weapons. And so if they were going to get out, God was going to have to bring him out.
And you know what he did? And he used a whole bunch of water to make sure that they got out safely. But having been delivered into the promised land, they assume that the promised land was their inevitable inheritance. Of course God blessed us. Of course God chose us.
Of course God delivered us. Look how great we are.
Of course I deserve every good gift I have. I'm really great. And the heartbreaking thing is that we often use God's blessing to harden our heart against his love that God. I receive from you what you've given to me, but I don't trust you to tell me how to use it. Now this is a consistent testimony throughout scripture.
I hope you'll begin to notice it as you read in scripture. I hope you begin to notice it as you're talking with your friends and your family. Because these ideas have taken deep root in us and in the human soul. So my friends, let me just ask you this morning. What gifts from God are we taking for granted?
There may be something that's come to mind as I've been talking, like, oh, maybe I don't deserve the thing that I think I deserve. Maybe it was not inevitable that I would have this blessing.
What gifts from God are we taking for granted?
Lord, I pray that if there's something that you have in mind for us that you would bring that to mind right now. Lord, what are the ways that we are taking your good gifts for? Grant Christ had mercy. And so our big idea for the morning is this just from these couple of verses and we'll do a couple more before we go. But this is like the big idea.
We must choose God dependence over self confidence in both easy and in hard times. Hard times. It's easier. I think in hard times we realize, yeah, this is really rough. I'm not gonna make it.
If God doesn't show up, then I'm probably just gonna be left flat on my face, right? Hard times is pretty easy to be God dependent because we realize we need God, but when God blesses us with stuff and then we receive that stuff and then we begin to think like, maybe I didn't need God all that time because I'm pretty great. In the easy times, it's actually more difficult. But we must choose God dependence over self confidence every day of our life. We must, we must, we must, we must choose it because naturally you will choose self confidence.
Naturally you will choose to spend God's blessings on yourself in a way that gives you more control.
Naturally I will. We must choose God dependence over self confidence. This is why I think our Lord has asked us to pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. I choose today to depend on you over what I know how to control.
And then forgive me as I forgive others. We must choose God dependence over self confidence in both easy and hard times. So what does that look like?
Let's read a couple more verses. Let's scroll down to verses 11 and 12. Hosea, chapter 10 verses 11 and 12. Ephraim is another word that sometimes is used to describe the nation of Israel. So we're talking about the same people.
Ok, the northern kingdom of Israel is called Ephraim sometimes, and this is going to get weird, but the pictures are actually going to help us by the end. So Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh. And I spared her fair neck. But I will put Ephraim to the yoke. Judah must plow, Jacob must harrow for himself.
Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love. Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek Yahweh, that he may come and reign righteous upon you. So as the Lord is looking at this people, this nation of people, that they have taken God's Blessing and spent them in self confident ways. They have elevated their heart to think that we have no need for God. God says to help, let me help you.
Because what I have done for you is I have just blessed you. I have spared your neck. I have made it so that you didn't have to work. I have just given you a bunch of extra stuff. He calls him a heifer that loves to thresh.
Like, I love it when God calls people cows. It. It makes me laugh every time.
So here's some cows. There's some horses in there too, but there's at least one cow, which made me feel justified in using this picture. But what they are doing here is there's a bunch of wheat on the ground. Do you see? And so on stalks of wheat, the wheat seed is locked inside of a hard casing.
It's almost like plastic wrapping, but it's not plastic wrapping. It's just a hard casing and it's hard to break up. And so when you have to process a bunch of wheat at the same time, kind of the easiest way to do that is to get a bunch of cows to walk back and forth across the wheat so that their hooves smash up that outer coating. And then they would do this up on top of a hill and they would take a fork and they would throw everything up in the air and all that outer coating and everything that was kind of light would get blown away by the wind and the seed would fall down and then they could just pick up the seed. That's what threshing is like.
This is an old idea. So God says Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh. Cows love to do this job. Why a buffet at your feet? You get to eat while you work.
And this is awesome. I get to walk in circles and just stuff my face all day. Yes, please sign me up.
Ephraim was a like, doesn't that just sound like a good deal? Like, I don't have to convince you if I could. And there are some preachers who would. If I could just say, all you have to do is walk around in circles and stuff your face. God will continue to bless you'be.
Like, yes, sign me up for that. Like, sign me up for the test of wealth.
I spared her fur neck, but I'll put Ephraim to the yoke. Judah must plow. Jacob must harrow for himself. The plowing is a little bit of a different idea. The plowing is out in the middle of the field.
The plowing is dirt and dingy the plowing is hot and laborious. Hard work. Drag the plow through the dirt. Guess what? Nothing to eat.
Got to wait for break time and then sow. Like sewing sounds like it'd be pretty easy, but you're still out in the field in the dirt and you're just scattering seed. There's nothing to eat, nothing to enjoy before like iPods and stuff. There's nothing to listen to. You just have to sing to yourself.
You alone with your thoughts.
So God's looking at this people and saying, look, I have blessed you abundantly. I've made it so that you don't have to work and you love just getting to eat the harvest. But here's the deal. You forget that there are steps that go into making the harvest.
We like the easy times, we enjoy the harvest. But by God's mercy, he's going to use challenging external work challenging external work to re win his people's hearts. He says, your heart is far from me. You've taken my gifts, you've used him in a self confident way. And what I want is your heart.
And the way I'm going to get to your heart is I'm going to give you some challenging external work.
I found yesterday that push ups go a long way to negate any kind of conflict in the household full of boys. External work can reshape our heart. Suddenly the way that my brother offended me is not that great. If I'm going to have to sweat afterwards, right? I can just overlook this.
This is fine, right? But if we wait expectantly for the harvest without ever plowing or planting, the harvest is never going to come. So like personally, do I have to do any more work to kind of help you to consider personally, what are some ways that you can apply these principles for yourself as an individual? Did I bring those dots pretty close together? Okay, cool.
Because the question that I want to ask together this morning is like, what does this have to do with us as a church? What does this have to do with us as like a group of people who are working together to follow Jesus? Like, I'm not Israel, I'm not Israel. Not, I don't even know. Like, life has been hard.
Like we've got a lot of work that we've been doing. Like what does this have to do with us as a church? We love to see lives changed by Jesus, but the real work of ministry is not sexy. It looks a whole lot more like dragon sticks through the ground.
Most of the time the question would be we are blessed, we are Blessed. We are blessed. I have coffee every single morning. I listened to a podcast. It's been a couple of years ago now.
I listened to a podcast where they talked about how coffee was such, like, the thing of royalty. It was so foreign to people for most of human history. And we drink it and like our snobs about it. I't know this isn't as fresh as I like it normally. It's a little bit cold.
I probably oughta heat that up, right? Like, it was mostly Kings and royalty that could. Could afford to have coffee now we all have access to it every single morning most of the time. And if you're a tea person, that's okay. Tea also.
But like, we are blessed.
We are probably not concerned that we're going to have enough food throughout the rest of the week, which is not true for most of the people, I think, globally, and certainly not true for most of the people globally across human history, we all got here without having to break a sweat. I mean, if you had small kids, you had to wrangle, maybe you did. But like the actual traveling to the church building, like, you get in the car and you turn on your air condition and you drive on your paved roads. Paved roads, they're smooth. Even if they have a pothole, they are paved.
Like, we are blessed.
And more than just the material things, like, we're blessed as a church, as a body. So let me just share some history for you. If you didn't know. We belong to a fellowship of churches called Charis Fellowship, and we've just spent some time going through the doctrinal statement. It's a beautiful family of churches, but it really does operate like a family.
It's kind of interesting. Less like a denomination, more like a family. But in the 1950s, we had zero churches in Florida, and by 1980, there were more than 30. From 1950, zero, and by 30, there were 80. That's incredible, right?
This period of explosive growth was only possible because in the seasons before 1950, our fellowship was equipping leaders who were then unleashed to start new churches. Leaders were equipped through years at Grace College and Grace Seminary. And there were all of these leaders who were ready and looking for an opportunity to go out into the field to begin. And then in 1950, they just sent them. I was like, okay, here you go.
So it went from zero to more than 30 in 20 years.
Without that plowing and that preparation work, there would have been nobody to sin. If they looked up in the 1950s and go, there's no churches here. We should start some churches. Well, who are we going toa send to start some churches? I don't know, maybe we should like find somebody to go.
But in that period of time they looked up and said we should start some churches there that FL don't. You know, Florida needs the light of the gospel. And they looked at Florida and said that's a dark place, we need to send some churches down there. And so they looked around and they said, hey, here's some guys that are. They've done the work, they've plowed the ground, they're ready to start something and they just sent them and then supported and tended and cared for him.
And we stand sit here in this room today because of those men. I could list them off but you wouldn't recognize them. Guys like Chuck Davis.
Who else? R. Paul Miller. He still gets mail here.
Steve Shipley. Yeah, Shipley is still down in Fort Myers. There's a generation of people that just left everything where they were at in Ohio and moved down to Florida to start this thing. And we sit here today because they started that. Somebody bought this land and then built this building and then gave sacrificially so that when I moved here 11 years ago, this property was completely paid for, there was no mortgage, it was just sitting here.
We're blessed.
And the air conditioner works now. Hasn't come without cost, but we are blessed as a body. So the question is like what are we going to do with all of this fruit? What are we going toa do with all of the blessings? May it not be said of us.
Neighborhood church is a luxuriant vine and they invested in self confident ways.
And so this morning you've noticed a couple of different posters that are around here. These ones are relatively the same as our values for 11 years. I said we're not gonna put our mission statement on the wall because I want people to know it before they can see it. And I've finally like over the last year I thought when I ask people what our mission is, everybody says inviting our neighbors to meet and follow Jesus. And I'm like okay, cool, we can put it on the wall now.
Like if that is who we are, if that is what we are doing now, we can put it on the wall. But we're not gonna put it on the wall if it's not who we are. Right? And we put Jesus first. We trust the Bible, we journey together.
Those are all things that I think touch on something about our hearts and who we are as individuals and how we Work together. We collaborate rather than compete. We work with other churches. We're not the only show in town. We want Jesus to be made big in Florida.
We hold God's gifts with open hands. We're generous. We're not grabbing onto things. We're sharing. And we hold fast the mission while adopting our methods.
Those are all things that have been true for us.
But as we look at the ways that God has blessed us, the journey that he's brought us through, what are we going to do with those blessings? How are we investing God's blessings into God's glory? And so we came up with a name for it because everything's easier if you have a name. And we just call it Grove Initiative.
Neighborhood Church in Ocala and Neighborhood Church in Lakeland and Neighborhood Church in Sebring are partnering together on this project that we're calling Grove Initiative. And we've talked about it a couple of times in different ways, but today is the start day. It starts today. What are we going to do? How are we going to work together?
How are we going to invest God's blessings in God's glory? Choosing God, dependence over self, confidence in easy and hard times.
It's an idea where we are working together with the other neighborhood churches for a harvest that is beyond what we could possibly reach for ourselves. We're going to do the work of plowing the ground, of developing leaders, of doing the hard work of calling people up out of their normal life into spiritual leadership and doing the work of training them so that they are ready to go. A hundred new leaders that are trained and equipped and ready to take the gospel out. There are s not even 100 people in this room today. And in 10 years we're working together with the other neighborhood churches to train a hundred leaders.
Hey, that's dirt work.
Teaching people, training people, letting people make mistakes, letting people learn from their mistakes, letting them try stuff that you know is not going to work. All of that's dirt work. It ain't pretty. We're going toa plow the ground and trust and be dependent on God for what he wants to do in people. We're gonna sow the seed.
We're to take some of those 100 and we're gonna start some more churches, like brand new churches. There's three neighborhood churches now. And I think we like love what God has done in our culture here in Neighborhood in Ocala. And we can turn inward and be protective and say, of course, God bless us because we're such great people and we just love each other so well and we just pray for each other all the time. We can turn inward and assume that God was always going to bless us with that instead of taking what he's blessed us with to share it with others.
And so we're going to plant three new churches in 10 years. We're going to sow the seed and ultimately the thing that we like is the harvest. We want to reap a harvest. We want to celebrate new life as God is doing works in the hearts of people. That as we're training leaders, as we're planting churches, that a thousand more people in the state of Florida are going to trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior and be baptized a thousand we must choose God.
Dependence over self confidence in both easy and hard times. Jesus told his disciples that the field was white unto harvest. But if the field was whitened unto harvest, it was only possible because seasons of plowing and sowing and God sending the rain at the right times had already gone before. And here's the thing that I think we are quick to overlook. As we think about a thousand people trust in the Lord.
As we think about three new churches, as we think about 100 new leaders, it can be overwhelming or we can look at it and say, God, you better do that. But here's the deal. God uses people to prepare a harvest just as he uses people to reap a harvest.
And so as we like start working on this, as we become people who are working to prepare a harvest, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna celebrate over some plowed dirt.
We're going to celebrate throw and seed and hoping something sticks because we are not going to move forward into this in a self confident way where we have figured out the system and we are making sure that we do good so that God gets us the return that we want. We're saying, lord, we've been praying for you to show us what it looks like for us to work together as these three neighborhood churches. You've had your hand on this for years, making this happen. What is it you want for us to do? And this is where as we've prayed through, this is kind of where we landed.
And we're not saying God now you have to do this stuff. We're saying God, we're gonna depend on you and do the work that you've entrusted to us. Because God uses people to prepare a harvest as he uses people to reap a harvest. The problem is we often just balk at the cost of what seems like a Futile job of turning over dirt. Soil work is hard.
Don't you know loving somebody who's obstinate, who's opposed to God is difficult. Waiting patiently for God to shift the stones out of their soul that are blocking them. Don't you know it's not exciting when you see that God's moving and suddenly some distraction comes in and sweeps all those things away.
Dirt work ain't fun.
But that's exactly what God is calling us to do.
We believe that the key task is to call and equip and unleash leaders is preparation work. It's going to take time and effort, and there is no guarantee that will succeed.
But we must choose God dependence over self confidence in both the easy and the hard times. So how do we choose God dependence?
There's kind of three things that I'm thinking of this morning, and we're going to spend the next couple of weeks unpacking the first one, the first is prayer.
Does anybody else find it hard to, like, ask for help? Like, you can be in a situation where it's clear to everybody in the room that you need help, and everybody in the room is just waiting for you to say, hey, can you help me? Right? And everybody is watching in. Maybe this only happens to us men.
I was just saying everybody's watching us, like, really trying. I can handle this. I can handle this. I can handle this. And it's really hard to just say, I need help.
And so we're gonna ask. We're gonna ask that God would help. We cannot do this on our own. We cannot do this as Ocala. We're gonna have to ask that God is working because we can tend, we can plant, we can pray for rain.
But if he doesn't send the rain and if he doesn't give the growth, there's nothing going to happen. And so we're gonna have to ask him for help. We're gonna spend the next three weeks working through a sermon series. I've got a book that I only have one copy of today, but we're gonna have these next week to start a sermon series that we're gonna actively be praying every day for the people in our lives. And then Friday, September 26th, if you want to add it to your calendar, we're gonna set aside as a day of prayer and fasting specifically for this.
So pray. How do we choose God dependence? We ask for help. We ask him to shape our hearts. We ask him to be involved.
And then there's obedience.
I was really excited.
There's Obedience we tend to like. We can come and we can ask for help, but when we ask somebody who's better at things than us for help, and they come to help us, oftentimes they have better ideas than us, right? Sometimes.
And it's crazy that we'll look God in the eyes and we'll say, God, I need a miracle. And he'll show up and say, okay, this is what I need you to do. And we'll say to God, but God, that's not how I want my miracle to work. And God says, it's a miracle, dummy. You can't explain it.
Do what I told you to do. If we're going to have the audacity for God to pray, to do something incredible in our communities, we need to have the audacity to obey him when he tells us to do something. God may have a different vision for your life than the one you are currently imagining this morning.
And so we need to agree with God that he has a better plan and obey him when he gives us instructions. And finally, we got to collaborate. We got to be in this together. None of us can walk alone. We all journey together.
But a spirit of collaboration means not getting your own way in everything. So as we are praying and as we are obedient, we bring our obedience to the group.
And I'll read this passage as we close Philippians 2 verses 4 and 5. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Having this mind in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus, we must choose God dependence over self confidence in both easy and hard times. Let's pray together:
Lord, there's a lot and it's heavy. But Lord, you use normal, human, boring, dirty, jacked up, broken hands to do incredible supernatural work.
And so we're asking for your help, Lord. We've been praying for years that you would guide us to be able to communicate what it is that we're working together for. And so, Lord, we thank you for your answer to that prayer.
We thank you for the ways that you have blessed us. And Lord, we pray that you would help us, that you would bless our imaginations to remember more blessings and to thank you for them.
But I'm reminded that you stirred the hearts of the Levites to go home, and then you wrote every single one of their family's names down. Lord, you remember when we're stirred by you and we respond in obedience, so Lord, I just pray that today you'd start a little stirring, Lord, that if there's something you've been stirring for a while that today would be the day we choose to obey.
And Lord, I pray that you would help us even as we move, even as we step out, even as we trust, even as we obey, Lord, that you would grow our dependence on you.
Would you meet us this week? Would you give us ears to hear and hearts to follow? It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
