The Remnant and the Work

Last week was so awesome. I needed last week. It was just a great week. We had someone in child care and we had the altar full and um it was beautiful.

Um God is good. Uh >> we can all the time and all the time God is good. the uh it's so funny.

We um we go through things and and you obey God and you step out in faith and stuff, but every once in a while you can get down and God is faithful and in those times he has come, you know, just when I needed it and gave me something that I that I needed just then and that'll keep me going for the next six months, you know, until there's another meltdown and uh he has to come in and and encourage me again. So God is good. Amen. >> So this week is this message is called the remnant and the work.

Um I think God is calling us to be a remnant church. A remnant is a small surviving portion of God's people who remain faithful during times of judgment, crisis, widespread apostasy, just during tough times. Okay, which some will say we're in. But a time is coming where the war will be greater and the the the the churches that are lukewarm are going to splinter.

Okay? And so I want us to be a faithful church. And we're going to we're going to talk today about what that remnant faithful looks like. Okay?

And um and then the work that God's given us to do as that remnant faithful. So, we're going to start in Isaiah 1:9. Isaiah says, "Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom. We would have been made like Gomorrah."

God was judging the people at that time. They were they were turning towards other gods. They were they were whatever. But there was a remnant that stayed pure.

And because of that remnant, they were saved. Okay. Through through through through all of history, a lot of times the remnant is someone who um a group of people that band together and they stay true to the Lord. Okay?

And that's what I'd like us to be. You know, over one-third of this book is war. It's either a war, they're going into war when they took over the uh promised land, or it's prophets talking about future wars. Okay?

War is everywhere in this book. And truthfully, once you ask Jesus into your heart, you're indoctrinated into a war. Also, the devil doesn't want you being productive and fruitful, and you are in a war. So, it behooves us to be bold and strong like warriors should.

Okay? Trials and tribulations are not new, but there will always be a small faithful remnant. Isaiah 10:es 20- 22 says this. And it it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel and such have have escaped of the house of Jacob will never again depend on him who defeated them but will depend on the Lord, the holy one of Israel in truth.

The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob to the mighty God. For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will return. the destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness. There's a lot about this that pertains to the end times.

I'm not going there today. Um I'd have Zach come up and talk about that piece probably. Um [laughter] but I want to talk about h what we are to be like as a remnant. Okay?

And and you see here that in battles and tough times, who do they focus on? It says they will depend on the Lord, the holy one. Okay, that is who we are to depend on. Okay, during whatever times come our way.

Now, the remnant is discussed in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggi, Amos, Micah. I mean, there's lots of mentions of the remnant. Not too much for this uh forum, but one that really I liked in the Old Testament was Zephaniah 3:13. It says, "The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness and speak no lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they shall feed their flocks and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid."

Now, we were grafted in to the promise. Okay? Paul says, "We were grafted into the promise." So, you may say, "Oh, this is Old Testament stuff.

It's just talking about Old Testament." No, the Ten Commandments apply to us. You know, we're not being above the law does not mean you avoid the law. It means you keep it on a higher level.

Okay? The law doesn't even matter because you are operating above that. Okay? That's what Jesus said.

He said, "It's not just good to not murder. You don't even think a bad thought about someone or else you're committing murder." Right? So Jesus amped it up.

And and so to say that Old Testament is gone and washed away is silly because there's a lot in here that matters to what we do and what we are. And Jesus came himself and fulfilled that Old Testament. He didn't abolish it. So we need to be careful.

And and here he talks about them being truthful, not having deceitful, not being truthful. Okay, let me read it again. And the remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness and speak no lies, nor shall deceitful tongue be found in their mouth. And they will not be afraid.

No one shall make them afraid. So when tough times come, and they're going to come into everybody's life, they're going to hit everybody soon. Okay? Even people that feel like things are going their way, that stops.

Okay? We need to be faithful, true, clinging to God, and honest with each other. Unless you think that it's just the Old Testament, tall Paul talks about the remnant in Romans. Romans 11:5.

Give her a chance to get it up. Even so, then at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. God's grace, not our effort, is what sustains us during times of trial and crisis. Right?

It's God's grace. And he allows the remnant to rise up and survive well. Not just survive, but survive well. All right?

God will raise up a remnant. We are all We are to be that group, that group that sticks together. Get our hearts ready. God promises that if we get our hearts and our minds ready and we prepare, he will supernaturally protect us in Psalm 91.

So, we have a lot to be uh excited about. First John 2 15-17 gives another key thing here. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away. And the lust of it all forever. Okay?

Isn't that good stuff? That's a good word. [clears throat] The world is passing away. So, so it should be our business to strive to overcome ourselves, overcome our desires that we struggle with, okay?

The things that we know we shouldn't be doing, okay? And daily to gain strength over ourselves to grow closer and closer to Christ and to his purpose. That's that's what we should be doing. Amen.

Like like it's a process. It takes time. All right? Everyone here has something that they can lay down.

All right? that they are struggling with in some area. All right? And so some their struggle may be greater than others, but that's just for a time.

We all face it. Okay? So what does a remnant church look like? Revelation 12 verse 17 says, "And the dragon was enraged with the woman and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring."

Now that word rest there is improperly uh translated in this King James version. Um when you go to the root it's loy poi which means remnant. So I don't know why they chose to interpret that one as rest instead of remnant because it doesn't make sense how it should read and it does in some other versions. It says, "And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the remnant of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

All right. So, what did Jesus say? We learned it last week. If you love him, you'll obey him, right?

You obey his commandments. Love God, obey his commandments. So, it says here, that's the great commandment, right? Love God, love others.

Then it says they keep the testimony of Jesus Christ. Guess what? That's the great commission. Okay?

We're going to tell people about Jesus. I hate to break the news to you, but hell is a real place. Okay? The Bible talks about it.

It's real. It's not a fairy tale. It's not something made up to spook you at bedtime stories. It's a real place.

And the people who go there are the people that reject Jesus. And it's our job to tell anyone we have about it. Okay? And how it constantly talks about being weeping and nashing of teeth.

Okay? You heard that weeping and nashing of teeth. Weeping. The people in hell that are going to be weeping are the people that heard the message and chose to walk away.

They're going to be weeping because now they're burning for all eternity. And they just had to accept Jesus. That's all they had to do. And they didn't do it.

And now they're suffering for all eternity. But the people who are weeping or nashing their teeth, that's different. They're mad. Oh, they know you're in heaven and they're like, "Why didn't Jim, we'll say, Jim, why didn't Jim tell me about this?"

Now, the truth is God says his word is everywhere. Okay, that when we see the sunrise, that speaks to God. And so this person's incorrect when they're blaming just Jim, okay, for it because they heard it, all right, they heard a message. But you know how people are, especially sinful people.

We're not going to take the blame for it. We got to blame Jim. But I don't want anyone that I know sitting there in he in hell. Why didn't Brian tell me about G?

There's not a person who doesn't that I don't know that I can think of that doesn't know about Jesus or or hasn't heard it from me. You know, I'm a pastor. That opens up the door for me to talk about Jesus. It's great.

That's the part I like about being a pastor. What I wish is I was a music guy really because those guys have the life. It's great. It's great being a music guy.

But but if you're afraid to talk to your mother because she's become a Buddhist or she's about religion, not relationship, and you're afraid to talk to her. Don't do that. You got to tell her. [snorts] You don't have to hammer.

Tell her. Then she can't nash her teeth and say, "You you you didn't, you know, tell me." Okay? Then she's weeping because she chose to walk away.

And if someone rejects you because of Jesus, the Bible says you get rewards in heaven. So it's like you can't lose by telling your mom um about Jesus. Okay. So the great commission commandment, the great commission um Revelation 12:11 tells us we're to be overcomers as well.

Okay. 12:11 says, "And they overcame him, him being the antichrist. and they did not love their lives to the death. Okay, last week we were laying it down on the altar.

Every day you have a chance to lay it down in wherever your altar is to confess and repent. And what washes you clean? The blood of the lamb. That's we learned about last week, right?

So the blood of the lamb is what gives us the protection, the power, the ability to rise up and have joy in the midst of struggle. Okay? It's the blood of the lamb. It's not us.

It's nothing we can do. But we have to stay focused on him because he wins the battles, not us. So we focus on him. And they you need note this last piece.

And they did not love their lives to the death. Oh, you got to focus on God. See, the devil has a scheme, and that scheme is to get you focused on yourself. Okay, this phone, oh, I left it down there.

The phone, the algorithms, the way all of that works to keep you focused on yourself and the things you like and everything, that is all a work of the devil. Okay, I know AT&T or Apple or somebody created the algorithms but it that's that's a work of the devil. All right. The churches, in many churches, their focus is the person.

They want to make sure it's that the they've got c, you know, Starbucks coffee and everything in the things. They want to make sure the messages are teaching you about how to be a better person and and all this other stuff. But repentance is what needs to be preached in the church today. Okay?

And when I hear a preacher preaching repentance, I'm like, "All right, that guy's okay. I'm good with him." All right? We're supposed to focus on Jesus.

Okay. How do you focus on God? The Bible and prayer. This Bible.

Okay. And prayer. No one can take the word of God away from you. There will be a day in America where it's illegal to be Christian.

If you're only listening to podcasts and that's your whole world of of thing, there's going to be a day where that person who posts that podcast might die for posting it, that person who posts those cute little things about the the whatever could die from posting it. That can happen and the Bible says it's going to happen. Okay? And so if but no one can take it away if it's in your heart.

All right? If the word is in your heart, no one can take it away. And no one can take your prayers away because that's just you and God, right? No one can mess with that.

You can be praying in the car. You can be praying when you're cut off in traffic. You could be praying you probably need to pray when you get cut off, you know, by someone in traffic, right? You you can pray anywhere and no one can take that away from you.

That's how you focus on God. And it's something no one no government authority, no devil can take away from you is prayer. and the word of God in your heart. So, you got to spend time in this word.

Repentance is the most important message today. I uh was so I don't listen to other pastor's podcasts. I just don't. Um but blips of their podcast will come across my feeds and stuff and sometimes depending I'll listen to it.

And there's this guy Philip Anthony. Is it Michael or Mitchell? the guy I I've not heard a lot of his stuff, but the other day flick through and he was going on about repentance. Okay, he was going off about it and I'm like, that guy can preach first off, but then second off I'm like, all right, I don't know.

I haven't heard all of his things, so I'm sure he's might have said a thing wrong here or there, done something wrong. None of us are perfect. I know because he's got a big ministry, he's got to worry about pride, okay? Pride can sneak in.

So, I know he has struggles and he's someone, you know, so I don't know everything, but he was preaching about repentance, so he's all right in my book, you know. Um, because that's the message that America needs to hear, and it's not being taught in the lukewarm churches. So, what are we talking about? You you when the Holy Spirit convicts you, you repent, okay?

And you take every thought captive. And if you sin, you confess it. Okay? And let Christ once again take control.

That's the essence of living in the Holy Spirit. All right? You're just constantly the Holy Spirit will convict you on a sin. Man, when he does say, "Gosh, I raised my voice at Mary on Friday.

Had to forgive her and and repent." Okay. I I she really irked me, but I was wrong. You know, and um Bible says, "Be angry and do not sin."

the Bible. So, you know, I'm a sinner. Sinner. James 5:16 says, "Confess to each other and pray for each other."

Okay? Or to confess our sins to each other. So, we're a church now. We're a body.

You're not in this by yourself. We can share with each other. We're supposed to confess. Don't be don't be secretive about your sins.

All of us are sinners. There's not one of us is perfect here, including Preacher Boy. So, so be open and then ask people to pray. Next week, we're going to anoint someone and and pray over them because he just revealed to me that he's got a healing thing.

So, Lord, I got to get with you on that. We got to bring some oil. But, um but but open up to each other, love on each other, and pray for each other. Ask each other to pray for each other on things that are tough with you.

There's that's that's good. That's family. Okay. [clears throat] Loving God, loving others.

It's having each other's back. It's great. Philippians 2 3 and 4. All right.

Is another key piece. Humility. It says, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition, ambition or conceit, but in loneliness of mind, esteem others better than yourself. Let each of you look not only to your own interests, but also for the interests of others.

We humble ourselves. We care." New guy came, Joe. He's hanging out up out front.

I asked him about his his history and his past. He goes, "Well, I'll tell you my story sometime, but it takes a long time." And I'm like, "All right, you know, we're starting church soon. Snip it, you know, a little quicker."

But I wanted to hear it. Why? Because he matters. Okay?

And so, and so that's us being humble. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Okay? Ain't none of us lifted above anyone else.

Even the worship guys, you know, even though, you know, [laughter] um, so we're on a journey, okay? to love God, to love others, to support each other, okay? And to grow together and to have the testimony of Jesus Christ to where we're reaching the lost and teaching them to obey God. That can be people that can be people who identify as Christians.

Not every Christian who says they're Christian is saved. So, we got to be we're going to talk I was going to have that as next week's message, how to how to talk to those people because I'm learning that, but God hit me with something today. We got a good message set up for next week. Now, I I'm excited.

Everyone in this church will need to hear it. And I'm looking forward to uh laying it out because I'm going to learn it because I need to learn it, too. Okay? It's a great meth man.

I'm brushing my teeth and all of a sudden it came to me and I'm like, so what I was going to preach on next week will be the following week. But you're part of something here is what I'm saying. Okay. Um it's not always going to be easy.

Christians will be attacked. Okay? [snorts] Posting and all those things that we've talked about will happen where you get in trouble for that stuff. But but we're here together.

So what is a In in in in summary, what's a remnant church look like? What does this church need to look like? All right. Ready to stand up in tough times, persecution and war.

Because you can't read the news headline and not see that this stuff's coming towards our shore. Okay? It is. And so that stuff's going to happen.

It's going to get worse, not better. The costs of things are going to get worse, not better. The Bible says so. The third seal is incredible inflation.

Okay? It's not something to be scared of. It's something for us to team up together. Okay?

And support each other. God, and focus on God because God will take care of us. Okay? He will.

So depend on God solely, not man. A big thing of the remnant church is they depend on God. Okay? They focus on loving God and loving others.

with this word, getting this word into your heart. All right? And prayer, they love on others, putting others above themselves. Be thinking about how you can help others, not yourself.

I know we got a lot of people like that in this church. It's really beautiful. All right. This is a beautiful, beautiful little church.

Um I was told by Lordis today, don't say little, say family church. It's a family church because nothing's little. I don't know. So I'll try to do better, Lordis.

But uh confess and pray together and don't allow ourselves to be deceitful. Let's be open and honest with each other. Okay? Let's be supporting each other.

All right? If you're taking notes, these should be notes. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and continually wash in the blood of Jesus. It's very important to confess and repent and repent as you turn and you try not to do it again and then [snorts] and then you let the blood wash over you.

Okay? Humble and broken before the Lord. God is with the humble and he opposes the proud. So we should always be humble.

We should always understand how much we really do need him. Okay? It's not just us. and [clears throat] keep the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Reach and teach the great commission. All right. We got to reach people. The time is short, man.

Oh, I'll get Man, it's so short. And you're not promised tomorrow. So, you got to talk to everybody you can now. All right.

Me and Mike were golfing a couple weeks ago and there was a guy and and I forget his name now, but he works at Publix that got added to us and and it's like the fourth hole we're starting to open up to each other and talk to each other and and I'm like, I'm going to ask him what what church he's going to and start that conversation with him. Well, not but one hole later. Um Oh, no. It's two two holes later.

I'm thinking I'll probably I'll I'll bring it up around the ninth hole, something like that. Well, a thunderstorm comes in, pouring down rain. We play about one more hole and we're like, we can't do it anymore. So, we left and I didn't get them.

Why? Because I was waiting to the back nine. There was no back nine. Okay?

There was no back nine. It got rained out. So, don't wait until the timing is right. Today, the timing is right.

Right now, the timing is right. Okay? Don't wait. Let's talk to people about Jesus.

We do these things and we'll have what we sang about it. The first song, the joy of the Lord. Okay. Nehemiah 8:10.

The L joy of the Lord is my strength. All right. One other thing, be bold. We read about that to be bold.

Revelation 12:11 said the word of their testimony, "And they did not love their lives over even to death." What happens if a time comes where you might get murdered for posting something? Do you think I'm going to not post something? As long as I have tech people to do it.

I don't know how I don't know how to post it, okay? But it's going to go up. Um and and that means I may die, right? Okay.

To live is Christ and to die is gain. You know what Jesus described heaven as? Paradise. If I die, [sighs and gasps] hey Jesus, I'm in par.

Like, that's a good solution. I don't have to worry about nothing else anymore. I'm there. I'm done.

I'm good. Right? What happens if I don't? I get to live for Christ.

There's no downside here for followers of Jesus. We get to have the joy of the Lord as long as we're bold, man. We need to be bold. We need to be talking to people about it.

So, we invite God calls. Remember, you you you just have to say the stuff. God's going to call him or not. It's not on you.

You just have your job. Just like Jesus did everything at the cross, right? He took care of it at the cross, but we have to invite him into our day each day, right? We We have to invite him in.

We can't just count on what he did 2,000 years ago and pay him no mind because ah, he's got a cover. No, no, no, no, no. Okay? We have to daily.

Jesus said, "Pick up your cross daily and follow me." It's a daily deal. We got to repent daily. We gotta We got to lay it down daily.

All right? But all you got to do is be faithful where you're at. You don't have to change the world. You don't have to become a missionary and go somewhere.

Now, if God calls you to do that, do it. You don't have to. But there are people in your sphere of influence that I can't reach unless you invite them here. Okay?

There are people that you will talk to that I will never talk to. All right? Who may not be have internet access, may not even look listen to any preachers. Okay?

You've got a job. And remember, hell is real. All right? So, helping others understand Jesus and pointing them to Jesus is huge.

We want to get as many people into a real relationship with Jesus Christ as we can. Okay? That's where it's at. But you're not in it alone.

You got a family. We're here. We're a family. I like your family church.

The more I'm saying it, I like it. It's a family church. All right. Does that make me grandpa?

Am I the old guy? Uh [clears throat] but but we're a support team. You're not alone. You have a mission.

Okay. Go and reach and teach. You have a vision. Love God and love others.

Jesus is the one who's going to do the hard work. You just have to invite him in. All right? It's not this unbelievable thing that you can't do.

You can read this book. You can pray. You can invite God into your life. Okay?

You can do it. And so, as we do it together, all right, where two or more gathered together, life is easier. All right? We're there for each other.

That's a remnant church. That's who my heart is that we become and we get there. Okay? Focus on God.

and you stay connected to the vine. John 15, we we taught on John 14, but we didn't teach on John 15. I'll probably do that sometime in the future. But Jesus says, "I am the vine.

You are the branches. You have to stay connected to me." A branch that's not part of the vine is is dry. It has no fruit.

We want to be fruitful. Okay? We have to stay close to Jesus and we will bear much fruit. Jesus is the guy who does the heavy lifting.

We just have to invite him in. Okay, we just have to invite him in. So, as you guys come up, we're going to go into a response song. Now, I want to talk about the response because this is a time of personal time with you and God.

Okay? The response is just you being alone. Forget about anyone else and and doing whatever God is leading in your heart. If you're convicted on something, God tells you to come up to this altar and lay it down.

You come up and lay it down. If you feel led to lift your arms up because you want to praise, lift your arms up. Don't worry about what other people going to think. Don't be looking around.

This is between you and God. Okay? If you just want to stand there with your thing in your pocket and just just praise it and you feel good that God's telling you to do that, do that. If you want to dance, I may even join you.

But, you know, you don't want to see that, but you know, you can do whatever you want. Just make sure that you're spending the the time focused on the Lord and you just do whatever you feel led by God to do. Okay, that's a response on doesn't have to be a full altar. It doesn't have to be people everybody raising their hand.

It's whatever you individually feel led to do. It's between you and God right now. We're going into time right now. It's between you and God.

Okay? Let's enjoy it and let's worship it. We're going to talk about Jesus Messiah. That's a song we're going to do like