Well, good morning. It's good to see everybody this morning. The call to order, right? Have some announcements that we need to go over. And first, let me read a couple of cards that I have here. The first card says big thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate our 50th. The cards, the gifts meant so much to us. We love you all. God bless. God bless our 48 years here with many more. Our church family is such a blessing to us. Love, Vince and Charlie. We just continue to celebrate with you. You know, 50 and more, right? And on and on and on. Yeah, yeah, so. I have another card. This is the IMB, or the International Mission Board, has sort of revamped an emphasis they've had before, but they've done it again, which is a good thing. They've encouraged missionaries to write cards to churches, and so we did receive one. This says, Dear Cedar Grove, thank you for your support of IMB, which is International Mission Board Missionaries, through the cooperative program, the Lottie Moon Offering, It is exciting to see what the Lord is doing in the United Kingdom. So this is one of our missionaries from the United Kingdom, Jana Owens. So it's good to receive cards like that. Also, this is a, I was told this is about the yard sale, September 9th, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. These little handouts right out here. volunteers that are needed. If you don't volunteer, you will be appointed. And if you don't show up, somebody will hit you. We need a lot of help that day. This is a fundraiser for the schools. We're looking to start a new school here. So let Brenda know where you want to help. Donation room on Saturday, 10th, 13th, and 12th, Wednesday, 6th, and 7th. So anyway, pick one of these up. It'll give you the details about that. You have the other announcements in the bulletin. Just call your attention to the Wednesday nights in August. Beginning this Wednesday night, we're going to start doing outreach training. I want to encourage everyone to come and be a part of this because in September, we're going to kind of lay out a push for evangelism and taking the gospel and sharing the gospel in our community. And we're going to take the remaining Wednesday nights in August and talk about that, train for that. When we get in September, we're going to lay that out. Come, be a part of that training. Also, tonight we'll be back, we'll have evening service tonight at six o'clock. We'll be back in the Book of Revelation. We'll be in chapter five tonight, so if you wanna read that this afternoon, come back and worship again tonight at six. Ready to worship? Have a community today. Have a community. I always say this, folks. Our focus, it's all about our focus. Our focus is on Christ. Our focus is not on anything else. Right now, our focus is not on anything else. It's Christ. Where do I stand with him? That's the most important question and issue of your life. Not some of the other things to worry about. All of those are important, and I said none. I'm just saying what our focus is right now is where do I stand in Christ? We're about to worship him. Let's worship the spirit of the Jewish. Let's pray together and then we'll be in it. Father, we thank you this time, this day. Jesus, Lord, we are so humbled by your love, by your grace, by your mercy shown to us in Christ. So humbled by that. Lord, we come and we worship with a great joy in our heart because of the great work you've done. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. On the day of 55-6, it says, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. When we were young, we used to play a game called hide and go seek. Some of them would close their eyes, count to 100 by 5, and all the others would hide. The person counting would say, ready or not, here I come. And would then come try to find those, find those hiding before those hiding to make it to the home base. The person counting didn't always find those that were hiding. Isn't it extraordinary that the Lord Jesus came to seek and to save those who were lost in Luke 19, 10? Rest sure, dear ones, if the Lord Jesus is seeking you, he will find you. Take a moment to reflect on it. ♪ Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation ♪ ♪ O my soul, praise Him, for He is my health and salvation ♪ ♪ Alleluia, bow to Him, circle around Him ♪ ♪ Shelters me under His wings, yet open He sustains me ♪ ♪ As thou dost say, Thou lightest my way again ♪ ♪ Grant it, O Lord, O Lord, grant it, O Lord, O Lord ♪ Praise to the Lord, who doth foster Thy work and defend Thee. Surely His goodness and mercy will take us gently. Wonder on earth, or need Almighty can do. For our scripture reading this morning, we're in the Gospel according to St. John. We'll be reading a chapter four, verses 27 to 38, Gospel of the Accordion of St. John, chapter number four, verses 27 to 38. I'll be reading out of the ESV version, or you can follow along with your Bibles or on the screens behind me. So starting out in John chapter four, verse 27. Just then the disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking to another woman, but no one said, what do you seek? Or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of town and were coming to him. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said that I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought you something to eat? Jesus said that my food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there are yet four months, then it comes to harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are ripe for harvest. Already the one who reaps in the receiving way is in the gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the same holds true. One sows, another reaps. I send you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. Let us pray, please. Oh, Lord Jesus, how thankful we are for your example. Oh, most of all, we're thankful for your death at the cross and for your work. It gives us the privilege of righteousness. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him in righteousness. So, Lord, we believe you. And we thank you that it accredits us to righteousness because you have deemed it so, not because we've done anything, but because you have. Oh, what a privilege it is to be known to the Lord in that fashion. So we thank you most of all for that, your work at the cross. We thank you, Father, for this word, for the calling that the Lord we are to enter into labor Lord, may the desire of our hearts be to serve you, serve you in labor. And we ask that according to that wonderful, worthy name of Jesus, amen, amen. Please stand. ♪ For the Son of God, for the Son of my God ♪ ♪ For Jesus who died and is now born of God ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hall Praise ye, O God, for thy spirit is on high. Thou hast shown us a man of faithfulness. He has delivered our lives. Alleluia! Thine is the glory. Alleluia! Amen. Alleluia! Thine is the glory. Rejoice, O God, again. ♪ Glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain ♪ ♪ Whom my soul and all my sins ♪ ♪ Have met in every day ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory ♪ ♪ Rejoice with us again ♪ ♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪ ♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪ Our union, our new glory. We are one again. Please be seated. For our reservation this morning comes from the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter three. Colossians chapter three, let's stand, let's say this together. I know you just sat down and did you. It's all right, you need to exercise this morning. Let's say this together. If in you that graces with Christ, see things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died. Your life is hidden from Christ, God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. You also will appear with him in glory. Let's pray together. Father, what an amazing thing you've done. Christ. We we we know we acknowledge our sin before you. There's no escaping. There's no way that we can hide from. There's no way that that we could try to rationalize it. We tried to use it. We tried to even cover it up. But there's no escaping. There's no escaping your knowledge. You've told us you know our hearts. You've told us what our hearts are like. You've told us that we've all fallen short of your glory. And yet, in that, while we were yet sinners, you sent your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for ungodly people. He died for sinful people. He didn't die for righteous people. And he didn't die for his own sins. This is the amazing thing. You punished your own son in our place. He took our place. He was our substitute. We didn't deserve any of this. So supporting your grace, your grace alone. And I pray that you forgive us. I pray that you forgive us when we think. We have thinking in our minds. We have the audacity to think that somehow our words could be some greater substitute to the very love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our words are nothing. The prophet Isaiah tells us that the very best we can do is to spill your rags before you. There's there's blood. There's there's glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That righteousness that's given to us that righteousness that in that great exchange that happens, she took on our sin, called us to himself. The work of your Change us completely. In exchange, He gives us all that He is. He gives Himself. Father, I'm humbled, and I pray that as we open Your Word, Increase our love for our Savior. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. I want you to turn to the prophet Hosea. In the Old Testament, we take a break from Matthew and then Sermon on the Mount, as we do on each communion Sunday, we take a break from where we are, whatever we're going through, and we try to focus in on something. We try to do this every Lord's Day, we focus on the cross, but when we come to communion, some aspect of communion and Christ offering himself for us and the gospel and the cross, and I want to do this out of Hosea. I want you to go to Hosea chapter 10, And if I'm going to read one verse out of Isaiah 10, and that is verse 12, where the prophet says this. He says, sow for yourselves righteousness. Reap steadfast love. Sow your self-righteousness. Reap steadfast love. And listen to this. Break up your foul ground. Break it up. Why? For it is time to seek the Lord. It is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. See where the state starts righteousness and ends righteousness? sow righteousness, seek him, break up the ground, seek him, so that he can rain righteousness. Yeah, there's a good rain late in heaven. But we've seen some good rain. When we get a good rain, we're always, especially this time of year, we're always saying, man, my garden needs it, right? Garden needs it. So, suppose that we're talking about gardening. And you come to me, because this is a conversation that people have been having over the last several weeks and last month or so. How's your garden doing? You come to me and you say, how's your garden doing? I say, oh man, it's doing great. You just wouldn't believe. Man, it's so beautiful. It's just, it's marvelous. It's wonderful. And you say, ah, I want to see it. And I say, OK, come on, let's go. And I take you to where my garden is. And you stand there. It's a beautiful piece of ground. But you stand there, and there's weeds. There's thistles. And I go, hey, look at those tomato plants. And you look at me like, are you seeing things? I don't see any tomato plants. Hey, look at this over here, man. And you're like, look at the squash. And you're like, what? Come on. What gives here? Are you joking? Are you kidding around with me? Are you hallucinating? I mean, what's up with you? This is not a garden. And I say, what do you mean it's not a garden? And you say to me, well, what did you do? What on earth did you do? I said, well, I did what everybody else does. I went and bought the most expensive seed that I could. And I just went out and threw it on the ground. That's what everybody does, right? I just go out there, and this is a beautiful spot, a lot of sunshade and all this, and man, I think it's going to be great. I just throw the seed everywhere. You go, no, that's ridiculous. You can't expect to have tomatoes. You just throw the seed on the ground. The seed's not going to do anything. What you have to do, you have to break up that ground. You have to till that ground. You have to put the seed in the ground. And it's got to be good ground. It's got to be good soil. And when the seed's in the good soil, then you have tomatoes. And you go, I say, well, I thought that that was a funny-looking tomato plant. Yeah, it wasn't a tomato plant at all. It was a thistle. I mean, we laugh at that. And we think, that's ridiculous. Nobody would do that. We might be surprised. Anybody. So think about this. Because as ridiculous as that might be, and I'm trying to explain to you my gardening technique, and you go, you don't get it. Again, you got to break up this ground and seed in the ground. So as ridiculous as that might be, think about this. How about our worship? Now, we're not talking about gardening now. But how about our worship? our service to our Savior. How about the ministry of the church? Oh, well, man, my worship is good. Is it? My service is top rate. Is it? Ministry of the church, why, it couldn't be better. Is it? I mean, really. Is it? Is that the way God would look at it? Is that the way that he would see it? And again, looking at our text, are we sowing for ourselves righteousness? Reaping in steadfast love? Is that what's happening here? Do you see this worship and service, and even the ministry of the church, it flows out of a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not produce that relationship. It flows out of that relationship. You understand that? You'd be surprised how many people get that backwards. They think that it's in my going to church to worship and it's in my serving in a church, it's in this that somehow this is producing a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's not it at all. God saves you, then you worship. God saves you, then you serve us, you serve, you see? That's the way it works. Here's the thing, when it comes to church ministry, the same thing, the same thing applies to church ministry. Oh, we'll get busy and do and get busy doing things, and that will produce the blessing of God. Busyness in the life of a church, busyness does not always equal fruitfulness. Now, trust me, when God moves, we will be busy. And I pray that he wear us out. I pray that he absolutely wear us out. But in a life of a church, and when it comes to ministry of a church, sometimes churches think, just get busy, get busy. What are you gonna do? I don't want to do something. Let's just do it, get busy. Busyness does not always equal fruitfulness. We want genuine blessing from God, don't we? I don't think any of us, I don't think anybody in part of this church would say, oh, we don't want God to bless our church. We pray for it all the time, don't we? We pray, God bless our church. Oh God, move and let your spirit move among us. We want to see real, lasting fruit. That's what we want. We don't want this fly-by-night. We don't want this pop-up here, gone tomorrow. We don't want this fleeting thing. We don't want that that looks good in the eyes of the world, and we pat ourselves on the back and say, look at what we produce. What we produce never lasts. Never lasts. What God produces is last. In fact, the Bible calls it everlasting. You understand that? It's eternal. It's eternal. So, when it comes to asking God to bless our church, and we want to see him move and work, we've tasted some of that before, haven't we? As a church, we've tasted some of that before, but lately, lately, it can seem this way. Lately, it can seem like, well, it's a bit lean as of late. And I'm speaking of the blessing. I'm speaking of the fruitfulness. And it seems like maybe it's a bit lean here as of late. There's been outside threats. We just went through COVID. We just went through all of this that happened and those outside threats and that hampered the ministry of the church, right? There are other outside threats that are all around us, culture and all that's happening in culture. All that's around us, there are outside threats, but there are inside threats as well. And there are inside threats that we need to be aware of. We need to understand. And so we might say, well, things have slipped a bit lately. We've been busy with other things. You remember the prophet Haggai? Remember when we looked at Haggai and Haggai says, listen, it's time. You gotta start building the house. Thought about rebuilding the temple after they had come back after the Babylonian captivity. It's time, you gotta get busy. You've been busy with other things. You've been taking care of other things far too long. It's time. God says get busy. And they put their hand to the work. They went and got the materials, and they built the temple, and God blessed. They got busy. Things had slipped a bit. Maybe the blessing was a little bit lean. There was outside opposition. There was inside opposition. Haggai addresses this. Maybe there's some discouragement. Man, it's just hard work. It's just hard. I know it's hard. I know it's hard. We were never promised that it would be easy. The Christian life, we were never promised an easy path. We were never promised an easy way. God didn't say, I'm going to save you, and then you just kick back. You got a great retirement plan. God saved you and said, get busy. God saved you and said, get busy. It's time for fruit. That's what it's time for. It's time for fruit. We get a little bit discouraged, but here's one, too. I'm tired. I'm just worn out. Just tired. I love Christ. I love the church. I'd give my life for it. But I'm so tired, worn out. But still here, right? Keep your finger here, Jose. I want you to go to Judges chapter 8. Remember Gideon? What was happening with Gideon? Judges, God raises up Gideon. Gideon's going to deliver the people from the oppressors. Media nights. You remember what happens with Gideon and how he puts together a group of people and God says it's too many. Then he cuts it down. He cuts it all the way down to where there's 300 men. and they're gonna go fight against thousands. 300, they're gonna go fight against thousands. And they're in the midst of it, they're in the process of it, and they're winning time and time and time again, and God gives them victory after victory. And then in chapter eight, we see in verse four, and Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over. They've been fighting, he's defeated Midian, he's been fighting, and there's still a little more to do. So he comes over, he crosses over, he comes to the Jordan, he crosses over the river, he and the 300 men who were with him, 300 of these guys, 300, and they've been going up against thousands, thousands upon thousands, and God's been giving them victory after victory. And so they cross over the Jordan, He and the 300 men who were with him, and listen to this, they were exhausted. Can you imagine? Now, warfare in those days was not riding around in a jeep or a tank or anything like that. Warfare in those days, your hand-to-hand combat, it was physical, it was exhausting, it was a physical task, carrying armor and spears and all that. It was exhausting. And that's not an understatement. Here are these 300 men beginning to cross the river, they sit, they're probably wiping the sweat off their brow, and they sit and they go, oh man, we're worn out. We've been working for the Lord, and working for the Lord, and working for the Lord, and he's been blessing, and we've tasted the fruits of that blessing, but gosh, we're worn out. But I want you to notice what it says after that. They were exhausted, yet, what? Pursuing. They didn't quit. They didn't throw a fit. They didn't look at Gideon and say, Gideon, you're nuts, man. You let all these other soldiers go home. We need those people. We need them. It's only, no, they didn't. They were exhausted, but yet they were still pursuing. They were worn out, yet they were still in the fight. They were worn out, but yet they were still trusting God, and they were moving forward. Not backwards. They were not wanting to go home. They were not wanting to quit. They were not blaming Gideon for all kinds of issues and problems. They weren't. They weren't doing any of that. They were exhausted and worn out. God had used them greatly, but they were still pursuing. In short, they were still in the fight. How are we ever going to recover, at least in our minds, as we think about Maybe that's where we are in our minds, and we're thinking, man, there's been great blessing before, but we're worn out, we're tired. But we're still pursuing. We're still in the fight. But my gosh, we're tired. We need to recover something here. We need to recover. Now, the wrong question and the wrong way to think is this. We need to recover and go back to past blessing. That's the wrong way to think. The wrong question is to ask, how can we recover it? That's the wrong question to ask. Because when you ask that question, you're constantly thinking and living in the past. This is not a time to think and live in the past. This is a time to move forward. This is a time to stand in the grace of God with the gospel and to move forward. Tired, worn out, but still pursuing. That's what it's time for. And the right question to ask, and this is where Hosea, this is where verse 12 comes in. the right question or maybe it's a better way to think as we move forward and we say, let's do it, let's keep going and keep pressing forward. Maybe there's a couple of questions here about where and when. Where do we do this and when do we do this? Well, in verse 12, Hosea is gonna answer these two questions. That's what he's gonna do. Let me give you a quick, quick, quick rundown of the book of Hosea. Hosea is a brokenhearted prophet. He's brokenhearted. He's prophesying, he's preaching to the northern kingdom, Jeroboam II is the king. It's a great time of expansion, great time of prosperity. But on the outskirts of all this, Assyria is on the rise. Mike, where you are in kings right now is right just after Hosea. Assyria is on the rise. Assyria is taking country after country after country. And the rumblings of Assyria are out there. Assyria is the big boy. Assyria is coming. And Hosea is sent to the northern kingdom, and he's preached to the northern kingdom. At the time that Hosea begins to preach, Assyria is involved in other conflicts. They haven't turned their sights on Israel yet, but they're about to. They're about to. In 722 BC, they turn their sights on Israel, and they wipe out the northern kingdom. And so what happens, they go from prosperity, they go from prosperous to decline, and from decline to being completely wiped out. Now, Hosea is preaching to a dying culture. That's what he's preaching to. Outwardly, it looks great, but it's dying. And not too many years after this, it will be wiped out. And so this is the culture that he's preaching to. When Hosea preaches, he preaches for about 25 years. At about the same time he's preaching, Greece is in her golden years, not yet the world power, but it's the golden years of Greece. The city of Rome is founded. Of course, we know what ends up happening many years later, Rome becoming the world power. So here's this prophet preaching to a dying culture And what about the people of God in that culture? What about God's people? They've been working, they've been laboring, they've been trying to hold to his commands, they've been trying to stay faithful to their God. They're tired, they're worn out. And this is what Hosea says to them. Hosea preaches, and the first part of the book of Hosea is all about relationship. It's Hosea's relationship with the prostitute whom God tells him to go marry in Gomorrah. And that whole is a picture of the relationship between God and his people. So that's the first part of the book. Then the second part, chapter 4, all the way to chapter 10, where our verse is, Now you get into the second series of mess, or the first series of messages. And God lays out the charges. That's what he does. He lays out the charges. He lays out the case. Go back to Hosea. Go to chapter six. In chapter six, this is what Hosea says. He says in verse one, come, let us return to the Lord. Let us return to him. For he has torn us. He's judged us. He's rebuked us, he's disciplined us. Let us return to the Lord for he has torn us that he may heal us. There was always the promise of restoration throughout all of these prophets. And ultimately the promise of that restoration comes in the Lord Jesus Christ. Return to him. You have to return to him. Look at chapter seven, verse 14. I love when Hosea says this, verse 14. Talking about the people, they do not cry to me from the heart. They don't cry to me from the heart. It's not sincere, but they wail upon their beds. Now remember, this is a dying culture. Handwriting's on the wall. We're about to lose our goodies. We're about to lose our outward prosperous things that we've been accustomed to, that we're entitled to, and we're about to lose it. We're gonna lose our jobs, our homes, our money, our retirement. We're gonna lose all this. And they're crying out, but God says, not from the heart, but they're well upon their beds for grain and wine. They gashed themselves. They rebelled against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. Verse 16, they return, And here's the key. They return, but not upward. They don't return to me. They're not seeking me. They're seeking to maintain their lifestyle. They're seeking to maintain their status. They're seeking to maintain whatever it is that they think they can't live without. and yet they don't realize the very thing that they can't live without, they're not seeking. Does that not sound like our culture? An absolute rejection of God, an absolute rejection of the word of God, an absolute rejection of the gospel. But yet the stock market's doing great. NFL's fixing to start. You see? And then we wonder why God threatens judgment. We may be in the judgment of God right now. We very well may be in it right now. Maybe we're just now waking up to it. So this is what Hosea, this is what God is saying through this prophet to these people, you gotta return to me, it's your heart. You return, but you're not returning upward. And then you get to chapter 11, to the end of the book, it's the last section of the book, it's the third section of the book. It's the second series of messages that Hosea gives. And those messages center around God's love overcoming their sin. I mean, he lays it on them and then at the end he says, listen, my love can overcome your sin. She just got to turn to me. You got to turn to me, because love overcomes our sin. It's a message of restoration. It's a message of hope. Can you imagine if God just said, listen, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and there's a place called hell, and you're all going there? And that was it. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine God saying that? But that's not what he did. He says, all have sinned to come short of the glory of God, and there's a judgment coming, and my wrath is coming, and there is a place called hell, which is eternal punishment, eternal punishment for your sin and your rebellion against God. But, but, for God so loved the world, what did he do? He said, his only begotten son, to die for sinful people. That's what he did. You see the message of hope? This is the message of hope that Hosea is holding out to them. It's ultimately fulfilled in Christ. And so you get to chapter 14, you get to this. This is what he says in chapter 14, verse one. Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. And listen to this, when you return, I love this, take words with you. It's the idea of confession. Confess your sins before God. Let John tell us in 1 John, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to do what? Forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confession. Take words with you, and here it comes again, and return to the Lord. Obedience to him. and say to him, take away all iniquity except what is good. And we will pay with bulls and the vows of our lips. And then you skip down to verse four. God says, I will heal. Verse five, I will be like the dew to Israel. Verse seven, they shall return and dwell beneath my shadow. They shall flourish like the grain. They shall blossom. Verse nine, the very end, Whoever is wise, let him understand these things. Whoever is discerning, let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them." This beautiful hope as the prophet ends in this last series of messages with, yes, you've sinned against a holy and righteous God. Yes, God's wrath is coming. Yes, the Assyrians are coming, and they're about to destroy you. Yes. But here's the hope and faith. Here's the hope and trust in God. But you have to seek me. And here's verse 12, right at the end of that first section with God, or that second main section, the first series of messages where God's laying out the case. This is what you've done. You've let this slip. You've let this slip. You haven't paid attention to this. You haven't paid attention to that. You haven't done this. You haven't obeyed this. You haven't done that. You've been taking care of your own things. You've been doing and running and making sure your stuff's cared for first. And as Haggai says, you have forgotten me. It's time. It's time to seek him. It's time. Now he's going to answer two questions. In this verse, and I think the first one that he answers is where. So where do I seek him? Now, let me say this. In talking about where, this is not about a physical place, okay? I'm not saying where in the sense of there's some physical place, like they would go to Jerusalem. Or like there's some mountain somewhere and we sell everything and we go sit on top of a mountain and we seek Christ. And people have done that, nuts have done that. People have been crazy and done that thinking Christ is coming and sell everything, go on a mountain and seek. No, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about some physical location. Because I don't think that's where God's primary focus is. So when he says in verse 12, back in chapter 10, Verse 12, sow for yourself righteousness. So where is it that we start? Where is it that we start? We need to understand the reality of the situation. We need righteousness because we don't have righteousness. We're not okay. We're not in a perfect world. We're not in a perfect culture. I don't have to convince you of that, but neither are you living a perfect life. Neither are you in perfect obedience. The problem with all of us as believers, we are far more educated than our obedience. There's a gap between what we know and what we're obeying, and we need to close that gap. We need to sow righteousness and seek after him, as we'll see in just a second. So sow for yourself righteousness, reap steadfast love. Reap it. And then notice this, break up your fallow ground, your virgin soil. Remember as I started, I told you to be, you'd think I was ridiculous if I took you to my garden and said, hey, look at this garden. You guys know nothing but weeds. What'd you do? I just threw the seed on the ground. Eh, no, no, no. You gotta break it up, right? This is the image that he's using. He's using farming language. He's using agricultural language. And he's talking about this idea of sowing, sowing. Sowing, sowing. Jesus uses sowing in Matthew chapter 13, and there's the great parable of the sower. And he's sowing the seed, and he says the seed is the word of God. And there's three types of soil that the word of God hits, and it does not produce fruit. It may have looked good for a while. But through various things, Satan snatches it away, then cares of the world and this or that. That was not good soil. That was not soil prepared by the law of God and the spirit of God. And it didn't produce any fruit. There was only one soil that produced fruit. That was what Jesus in the parable says, when that seed hit the good soil, what did it do? Produce fruit. Sow for your self-righteousness. Paul will pick up on this idea of reaping and sowing in Galatians. What you sow, that you will reap. And he says very clearly, if you reap, if you sow to the flesh, the thing you are going to reap is corruption. Live to the flesh, live to the pleasures of this world, live and give in to the desires and pleasures of your sin, and you will reap corruption. We got a call last week. Actually, two calls within the last couple of weeks. Friend of ours at Cosmosdale, their grandson died. Had been on drugs for a while. Died, but apparently he was converted there at the end. But I got another call from a friend of mine about a boy that I taught and coached, and he died of an overdose. 21 years old. And he had lived He had lived the flesh, even in middle school. He was sowing to that. Talked to him time and time and time and time again. The family was not a very good family situation. He kept sowing to that. And finally, he reaped the ultimate, didn't he? I don't think he was a believer unless he came to faith in the last years. But Paul also turns this around and says, listen, if you if you so to the spirit, the things of God, righteousness. Now, what do you read? You read eternal life. That's what you read, you read eternal life. So sowing to righteousness, now we understand, and I will take the time to unpack this fully, only to say this, we understand that when he talks about righteousness here, we understand in the full context of scripture, in the full context of scripture, sowing righteousness is sowing Christ. He is our righteousness. Okay? So sow for yourself Christ. That's what you sow, and you'll reap steadfast love. That's what you reap from him. You don't reap from him judgment. You reap from him steadfast love. Don't sow to him, rebel against him. You don't reap steadfast love. You do reap judgment and wrath. So understand that. So here's the thing. So where do we start? It's not some physical location that we all go meet at. And I say, hey, day at four o'clock, we're meeting at so-and-so up here on Cedar Grove Road. And it's right there we're going to do all this stuff. No, you do all this stuff right in your heart. That's where it is. That's where you're sowing. That's where you're reaping. And I will say this, when you are doing it here, then it's going to show itself on the outside. It has to. You cannot know the love and grace of God without it showing and manifesting itself in your life. If you can hide it away, you don't have it. It will show itself. It has to. It's too powerful not to. So this is where it begins in my heart. Isn't this where we are in the Sermon on the Mount? I mean, what is Jesus doing? Jesus is breaking up the fallowed ground of our heart in the Sermon on the Mount, isn't he? This is his whole point, the Sermon on the Mount. All right, so second question, when? When do we start? So where, it's in my heart, but when do we start? Well, let me just give you the simple answer. It's right now. It's right now. You don't wait till tomorrow. You don't say, maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next year. I gotta get some things, I gotta get some things lined up. I gotta take care of a few things. It is time to seek Christ now. Right now it is time to seek him. And to rain righteousness upon us, his faithfulness, his blessing, his fruitfulness. That's what we want. We want lasting fruit. We want everlasting fruit. Not some flash-in-the-pan stuff. So when do we start? We start now. Salvation, God saves by his grace through Christ alone who shed his blood for our sin, and I cannot earn that. I cannot be good enough for that. I cannot work my way to it. I do not earn it. I just simply, as God changes the heart, look to Christ, gives me faith and dependence, I love you. And then comes fruit. I want you to go to John 15. I want you to go to John 15. One of the I am statements of John, and this is about the true vine. John chapter 15, verse 1, Jesus says, I am the true vine. Now, in Hosea, particularly in chapter 10, Israel's called the vine. But the problem with Israel at the time is they were producing the wrong kind of fruit. That was the whole issue. You weren't seeking me, and you were producing the wrong kind of fruit. But Israel was the vine. Jesus comes along and says, now, guess what? Things have changed. I am the vine. I am the true vine. All of that stuff in the Old Testament is pointing to me. I am the true vine. And listen to this. And my father is the vine dresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does not bear fruit, he prunes. Hebrews 12. Discipline. And that it may bear more fruit. This is what he wants. He wants it to bear more fruit. Okay? Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. The shorthand. You are already saved. You are already saved. Why? Because of the word that I've spoken to you. Now here it comes, verse four. Abide in me. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. You understand that? That's pretty clear. Apart from Christ, apart from abiding in him, you can do nothing. Well, maybe I can do some things. No, you can do nothing. Ah, come on. He's overstating things here. No, you can't do nothing. You don't live without him. So apart from me, you can do nothing. Now follow on, verse six. If anyone does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. Be careful with that. Don't go home and say, man, I want a new car. All of this in context. All of this having to do with fruit bearing. And the asking has to do with fruit bearing. Follow on, continue on. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit. How is God glorified in your life? By you bearing much fruit, without which, without Christ, you can do nothing. Without abiding in him and him and you, there is no fruit. There is no true lasting fruit. So my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Here's first fruit. The first fruit, what is it? Keeping his commandments. That's fruit. You keep his commandments. Look at verse 11. These things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This joy, this fullness of joy, another fruit. Verse 12. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love is no one than this, that someone lay his life down for his friends. Fruit. loving one another. Look at verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. And then your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask, here comes the asking again, linked to prayer. Whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give you these things. I command you keeping his commandments. Look down at verse 26. But when the helper comes, the Holy Spirit whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father. He will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. It's fruit. He spells out this fruit. This is what you asked for. This is what you seek, but you don't seek the fruit for fruit itself. You seek Christ. That's who you see. So when do we start? We start doing this now. We start doing it now. You start seeking him. Now we're about to have communion together. We're about to be reminded, we're about to think very deeply about the death of Christ, His death for us on a cross. We're about to think about that very deeply. It is time to seek Him. And when we seek Him, and when He rains righteousness down upon us, part of the fruit that will be produced in seeking Him is that we will be His witnesses. At one of His commands, is go make disciples. Are we going to keep it? Are we going to bear fruit? That's what he's saying. That's what he's saying. He's not asking. He's commanding. He's not saying, slide this in on your program here. He's saying, this is what you were to do as a church. Now, I've shifted from individual to church now. Because as a church, we have to seek him. And if as a church, we start seeking him, then as a church, we're going to be led outside these walls. You understand that? Because I don't believe seeking him and abiding in him and he abiding in us leaves us right here in some little kind of holy group right here and enamored with us and all about us. I think it what eventually happens is it breaks out of that and all of a sudden there is a compassion and love for the lost people of this community. That's what comes when you seek it. That's what's gonna happen. You start to seek it. It's hard work. And it can't be accomplished with just a few. I pray God move in the very heart of this church and move in such a way that we all see we have something to do in that. Maybe it's all I can do is just pray. Maybe all I can do is just pray and pray and pray. That's an important part of this. I no longer can go knock on doors anymore. I just can't do that. Physically can't do it. Pray, pray, pray, pray. We all have a part in this. It is hard work. It's going to take commitment. It's not easy. I'm not going to try to sell you on some easy three-step program. I'm going to sell you on a, I use the word sell you, I can't, but I'm going to pray that God work in our hearts so that we understand. That what this is, is a commitment. What this is, is giving my life, abiding in Christ, and he abiding in me, and it's seeking him. Above all else, it's seeking him. No program we put in place here will ever work if we do not seek the Lord Jesus Christ first. In a few years, we'll throw it out and look for something else. But if we seek him, it's everlasting fruit. That's what it is. It's hard work. But you see, before, hard work. I have to tell you this. I don't know, I think I came up with this, but I may have read it somewhere. Before hard work, it has to be hard work. It has to be here first. This is where, when, now. What's the result? I pray God, wear us out. I pray that for however much time we have, however much time I have left, I pray that he'd wear me out. You know why? Because our rest is in heaven. That's where our rest is. I have things to do. I have places to go, people to see. Jesus said something along these lines. Let the dead bury their dead. He wasn't being harsh. He was just trying to make a point. Let the dead bury their dead, and you come follow me. You want to see his blessing here? There's no magic bullet. There's no shortcut. There's no magic probe. It is us. seeking the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will reign righteousness upon us. And we'll see fruit of this. We will. We'll see it. Let's pray together. Father, thank you. Thank you for this prophet, the words of this the hope that this prophet presents, the hope of the gospel. Father, let us seek, seek now. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. You're here to tell him. We ask you to stand, stand, stand at our last calling. We ask you to make a true prayer. It's time, it's time to seek him now. For a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise The glories of my God and King The triumphs of His grace My gracious Master and my God Assist me to proclaim To spread through all the earth abroad the honors of Thy name. He breaks the power of counsel's sin He sets the prisoner free His blood can make the world as clean yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah My sins below and sins above The Church, and earth, and heaven It's important to understand that what we're about to do is not something that gives us saving grace. It's not something we do to be saved. We do it because we are saved. And it is something in which we do, in which we are seeking after God. But not to be converted. We are seeking after God. And then we have to play up what the gospel tells us, what the gospel says to us. is that He offers Himself to us. We are to seek Him. We are not just to seek for gifts. You understand? We're not to seek the things that surround us. We're not to seek the things that surround us. So that, what happens is, I stand before a holy, righteous God. There's a righteous, holy, righteous being that comes along. This is the movement. This holy, righteous being comes along, and he takes his wife across the river. He takes her himself across the river. Just hold it right there. When we talk about self-righteousness, seek the sharpness of righteousness. This is what he's talking about. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is what he's talking about. And here's what that screams to me. My sins will never be forgiven. Your sins will unbend and turn to Christ. Peace. Are you the way? Are you the me? You're not prior to that. You're sitting here. It's a student. The night which Christ was betrayed, he took the bread and broke the bread. And he said, this is my body. I'd love to go. Yeah. Yeah. This is my blood, blood of the covenant shed for me. Thank you. All of it? All of it? What does it say? What does it say? It doesn't say anything. It doesn't matter. Let's sing, all right? Let's dance. Your glorious cause, O God, engages our hearts. May Jesus Christ be known wherever we are. We ask not for ourselves, but for Your renown. The cross has saved us so we pray Your kingdom come Let Your kingdom come Let Your will be done So that everyone might know Your name Let Your song be heard everywhere on earth, Till Your sovereign work on earth is done. Let Your kingdom come, strength Oh God and courage to speak wonders deep Lord, use us as You want, whatever the test My grace will make Your Gospel till our dying breath Let Your kingdom come Let Your will be done, so that everyone might know Your Name. Let Your song be heard everywhere on earth, till Your sovereign work on earth is done. Let your kingdom come Let your kingdom come Let your kingdom come Please be seated. Once again Billy's heart with my love May soul be rekindled with fire from above Hallelujah, Thine the glory Hallelujah, Amen Hallelujah, Thine the glory Revive us again We are not saved, we only do. Let's stand and say our verse together. You do this line. You do this verse in prayer. Let's say this together. Now may the Lord have peace in your heart. May you be peaceful all the time, everywhere. The Lord be with you all. I didn't really spend a lot of time thinking of his name, but I was in college, and I thought he'd be a good fit.