February 23th 2020 - BrotherAustin Steward

What a way to start a morning. Quick shout out to Hunter, man. I asked him to sing that song. I didn't know he was going to do that. I was in the back tearing up. My gosh, that was beautiful. All right.

Good morning, guys. How is everyone? So good to see everyone. This morning, we're coming together to talk about commitment. This is going to be the second part in a three-week sermon set where we're discovering the partnership of, I believe, some of the most key characteristics within your sanctification.

Last week, Jeremiah talked on humility, and he did a phenomenal job breaking down the different aspects of humility and how it applies to your life. If you weren't here, we've got a YouTube channel. You should check it out.

30 minutes, you should go watch it. This morning, we're going to talk about commitment and how the partnership between humility and commitment is going to equal what Josiah will be preaching on next week, which is going to be obedience.

Before we dive too far in this morning, I want us to take a quick moment and reset our perspective. Right now, as we're meeting our individuals across this world being slaughtered for their faith, we have the ability to come here this morning and sing loudly and boldly.

And there are people who simply say, I believe in God, and they're dead. So throughout the sermon, when those moments of confusion come upon you or distraction, whether or not you want to go to QE's or Chili's afterwards, please block those out.

You got a cool opportunity this morning, so let's make sure we take advantage of it. Let's go before God. Father, thank you for bringing us here together this morning. I pray you get me out of the way so that your word can be heard.

Amen, amen. So this morning, I pose two questions in the topic of commitment. The first question being, why should we commit to the cross? And the second question is, once we are committed, how do we stay committed?

Now, the amount of evidence that has been pulled and built together over the years for the evidence of why you should commit to the cross is extensive. If we were to truly dive into it, it would take weeks on weeks on weeks to get through it.

So I did my best to break it down and do a simple test, something that is easy to wrap your head around and something that is worth listening to that you apply this week, because that's why we're here, right?

Is we're to learn something so that we can apply it, not just have the head knowledge. There's a question posed pretty consistently when it comes to the difference of religions or faiths. Are all religions not fundamentally the same but superficially different?

This is incorrect. All religions are fundamentally different and, at best, superficially the same. And so there's this very wise man, Ravi Zacharias, who I believe he is the first one to come up with this test and pull me aside if it dates back to someone else afterwards.

But this test is he poses these four questions to apply to a religion to see whether or not it is worth committing to. These are the four questions of the test, origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.

Got notes? Pull them out and take these notes right here. This is the test you need to focus and apply this next week. Is origin, morality, or meaning, morality and destiny? And then once those four questions are answered, those four questions must then pass through another gauntlet of two more questions.

The next two must be every particular answer must correlate with truth, whether that be empirical or logical reasoning. And the second one is when those four answers are put together, they must cohere, and they must not disagree at any point.

So those are the two tests posed to those four answers. And I challenge you this next week is to dive in, take the religion of your choice, Islam, Buddhism, you name it, apply these tests to it yourself.

Because I could break them down all this morning, but that's not what we're here. That's not the topic. This is to prepare you and equip you to go and do your own research. Learn yourself. I'm here to just get you going.

Hit the Start button. Now it's up to you to finish the race. The only one that's going to pass all those tests, I'll spoil it for you, is going to be the Judaic Christian worldview. It's the only one.

So sorry, ruined the end of that story. The second question that's posed is once we are committed, how do we stay committed? And within that, I broke it down to three points. Very easy, simple, and concise.

The Need to Read and Memorize Scripture

Before we get any further, let me just take a quick look. It's kind of funny, isn't it? I'm a grown man drinking out of a baby bottle on a stage talking to a bunch of people. It's a funny situation I'm placing, is it not?

And yet that's what many of you are doing with your faith. You come here on Sunday morning, and you listen to a, I don't think I'm doing pretty well, a decent sermon. And then you go home, and you never pick up your Bible again.

You never pick it up. You want to say, I want to be a better Christian. I want to be a better person. I want to enhance my commitment to the cross. And yet, you never read the word of God? Perfect. Well, you're just talking, Austin.

Where's your backing? Perfect. I got some scripture for you. Good question. Psalms 119, 105. The word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Romans 15, 4. For everything that is written in the past was written to teach us, so that we may, through endurance, through the scriptures and in encouragement, may provide might we hope.

Matthew 4, 4. Jesus answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. First Peter 2, 2. Like a newborn baby, creates pure spiritual milk, so that it may grow up in your salvation.

And I got one more for you. Psalm 71, 19. Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens. You who have done great things, who is like you, God? Out of these verses that I just read, any of those have you never heard before?

It's a real question. Think about it. Those are just a couple of verses backing the point that I just made. There is miles and miles and miles of other scriptures that back the same point. But because you lack your ability to read your Bible outside of this place, you don't know them.

If you hear nothing else this morning, the only point that I stress to you is after Sunday morning, you must go home and you must read your Bible. You must dedicate it to memory. You must dedicate it to memory.

And you're saying, well, why? What is the point? Come on. It's an old book. It's been proven by atheists and Christians that it's a historical document worth being read. Outside of just the faith, it's a historical document, proven.

I mean, it was written by hundreds of men over thousands of years. And yet, somehow it makes sense. So I mean, it's the only book of its kind. But why should I still read it? What is the big deal? We don't have to look any further than the third chapter of Genesis.

If you've got your Bible, go ahead and pull this out, because this is the one I want you to highlight. This is the one I want you to focus on this morning. Genesis 3, verses 1 and 2. Yeah, 1 and 2. Literally right at the beginning.

Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that God the Lord had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, verse 3, but God did say you must not eat from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it or you will die.

I think there's an aspect of this verse that we look over is the knowledge that the devil has of the situation. See, at some point within God speaking to Adam and Eve, the devil was around and he was hearing all of that, because he knew what God said.

And so what he did is he posed it in such a way to just tweak it just a little bit, because if the devil is crafty enough and he can get Eve to doubt the word of God, then she will doubt the existence of God.

So your lack of education in your own spiritual walk with Christ is going to hinder you in the long run, because when you are faced then with issues and you don't know scripture, you have nothing to rely back to.

And so what you do is you rely back to things of this world, which are shaky and not worth standing upon. Of all sin is unbelief. Some of us are in illicit and immoral relationships, which stem much deeper than loneliness.

It's surface level. In fact, where it really stems from is a place that is the lack of belief in God that he is not the source of all comfort. Some of us are struggling with turning the other cheek when we're wronged by someone, but that's because we don't believe that God is just and vengeance is pure.

Some of us deal with legalism because we believe that that's how we are made to work, because we don't believe that God works efficiently enough. Sin doesn't just happen because sin happens. It's because somewhere in our own minds we have concluded that God cannot be trusted.

We assist the devil in the desire to trick us when we are unclear on what God said to us in his word. Your lack of memorization is hurting you more than any trial you're going through right now, period.

There's not a further explanation. There's not a three-point sermon on that. There's not 40 books. That's it. Your lack of memorization is what is hurting you. You got the word of God. Why don't you just open it up and read it?

That's all we're trying to do here. That's it. This is what I find so ironic, is we live in a society which wants God to be loved but not judged. That's not how that works. The irony lies in that we are committed to dealing with the injustices and the unjust treatment of people that you think you would delight in the God who does not overlook our wrongdoings.

I can go on for a long, long time on that. That's a whole sermon in itself, so we're not going to stay too far on that. We've got to move on. Another sub-point within the level of commitment is trust.

But like I just said a few moments ago, this point is completely dependent on your obedience to the first point, which was what? Memorize. Because how can you trust something you don't know? How can you trust something you don't know?

The Bible truly is a proven historical document that is worth reading, that is worth memorizing, which is worth committing to. And it is a gateway into the mind of God. And why do you lack obedience to it?

I don't think you'll get this, so let me break it down like this. Are you anxious about your future? Because in Proverbs 16 .3, it says, commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.

That's about something. Perfect. In 1 Peter 5 .7, it says, cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Are you struggling with depression, despite that I have on a daily basis? But I have to remind myself, and I have to read my scripture, because it says in Isaiah 41 .10, so do not fear, for I am with you.

Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, and I will help you, and I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. You name the struggle, and I can find a verse for it. Doesn't matter what you go through in this life.

The road map has been set before you already. It's right there. I can get up here, and I can scream, and I can shout for 30 minutes. We can do this again next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, and the week after that, and the week after that.

At the end of the day, if you do not apply what you learned here in this morning, then it is for naught. That is why we're here. We are here to teach you how to apply things, and then for you to do the back end work.

You're saying, Austin, come on, man. You've been on this for a minute. I know. It's a big deal. If this is all I say this morning, this is worth listening to. When was the last time you memorized a verse?

This is something that he was talking about. Pastor Jeff was talking about how we get together, and we have these accountability meetings, which if you don't have an accountability partner, I highly suggest you get one.

It's kind of, you know, in Scripture, it's kind of something you should do. But we have these meetings, and within those meetings, recently we're sitting there, and we're discussing some things, and something came up, and we're like, well, when was the last time we actually memorized something?

We challenge each other we need to read, right? We have a goal to read every day, but yet we don't memorize it. So reading is great, learning about it is great, but because of the lack of memorization, it equals the lack of application.

Let me say that one more time, because I can see some of your faces glazing over. Your lack of memorization dictates your lack of application, because if you don't know the game plan, you can't follow the game plan.

This Bible is designed in such a way to bring comfort to the child. The progression, and women, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have a child, so. But they're supposed to move from the mother, then to some formula coming out of a bottle like this, and then to some softer foods, you know, like the mash stuff, and then you're moving on to the maybe slightly softer foods, like some steamed carrots or something, and then hopefully one day they'll get big and strong, and they'll eat a steak and not become a vegetarian.

But it all starts here, does it not? It all starts here. That's what this morning is for. This morning is the bottling. We're trying to feed you just a little bit to get you going, to get you hyped up.

But however, if all you do is come on Sunday morning, listen to this, and then possibly maybe review it once or twice during the week, well, guess what, you're going to stay at this level right here. You want to eat a steak?

Let me tell you, a good cooked steak is something else. But if you never had a steak, you don't know what you're missing. You don't know what you're missing. And so your lack of being obedient in the first step, and then the second step, and the third step, and the fourth step, and the fifth step, is hindering your ability to experience all of life.

Life is different when you have God in it. It's not the same. Is it not? And if you don't know what I'm talking about this morning, there's this really cool book that I've been talking about for a little bit.

It's called the Bible. If you're still confused, pick it up. And if you're still confused past that, there's a big old guy right there, Pastor Jeff, who would love to talk to you, and, oh, everyone else here.

Because I'm preaching a sermon, but I'll tell you what. This is one of those sermons that, out of all of the churches in Memphis, I would say this is one of the points that we do pretty good on. We can still improve, but past a lot of other churches, we do pretty good here.

Because we're here so often, we hold each other accountable. Where are you Wednesday night? Here. Where am I Monday night? Here. Not for church, but because I have an accountability meeting. Where am I Sunday?

Here. Where am I Sunday night? Here. Where are my closest friends? Right there and right there. And I don't know where they are. There, there's one over there, and they're just kind of scattered. Yeah, the big bald one right there, too.

This is where I find my family. When I look around this room, I see people, and it's crazy, because the more I get to know the individuals in the room, the more I get to see the face of God. Because I can see your struggles.

I can see your pain. I can see your hurt, because I know you well. And I keep directing you towards the Bible, but then you keep coming back to me. You're like, oh, this still hurts. Because you're not willing to submit to the word of God.

It's the same issue we're dealing with in accountability groups. Sometimes we keep trying to rely upon ourselves, instead of relying upon the one thing that does not move. One thing that I found kind of funny is typically the mood that you are in when you make a commitment to something is not always the same mood that you are in when it is time to fulfill it.

Who made a New Year's resolution? The hand being raised means raise your hand if you did. Okay, so clearly we didn't make any resolutions. Great. Self-improvement, not something you need to work on. Don't worry about it.

Keep living your pitiful life. It's all right. Run into the wall a couple of times. You'll get somewhere. If you don't truly have goals that you're working towards, guys, I don't think you're going anywhere.

You might want to shut down. Even if you don't want to label it a New Year's resolution, label it something else. Just follow a goal, please. Nothing else. Perfect. You have a goal. Okay, so I guess this is typically the young side.

I know there's some older people scattered in, so I apologize. But for this side of the room, you all have lived long enough that throughout your life you've made a New Year's resolution a time or two.

Okay. And it's really easy on New Year's to be like, all right, I'm going to eat right because I want to be better. I want to feel better. I want to look better. Oh, I'm ready. Woo! And then two weeks later, when that chocolate cake's walked through the door, woo, your mind changes a little bit.

I'll tell you what, a good chocolate cake, I'll forget about anything else. It's beautiful. It's delicious. It's not the same mood that I'm in. It's not the same mood I'm in. So we can be hyper and we can be excited and we can enjoy the moment we are in right now because it's a beautiful moment.

However, two weeks from now, when you're battling with depression and you put a shotgun barrel into your mouth due to your lack of work throughout that two-week period, that's why you find yourself in that situation.

And I love you to death, and I'll cry at your funeral, and I'll miss you. But this falls on you, man. We spend so much time praying to God, God, send an answer. He did. It's you. God, show me a way out.

He did. It's you. There's a story that I love telling because it's one of my... I don't know why, it's just my favorite story in the world. There's a gentleman and his wife, and they're standing on the roof of their house because it's flooding and the water's rising and the water's rising and the water's rising.

And a boat comes by to rescue them. And it pulls up next to them. Hey, come on, buddy. Let's go. It's flooding. It's time to go. And he goes, no, no, no, it's all right. God's got me. Okay. All right.

Cool. All right. So a helicopter comes next. Helicopter comes. Hey, dude, this is the last chance for you. Get on. You're about to die. No, dude, God's got me. Don't worry about it. I'm good, homie. So the water rises, of course, and he's a poor swimmer, so he dies.

He gets to the pearly gates, and he looks at God, and he says, God, what happened, man? What happened? I prayed for an extraction plant. I thought you were going to send in the SEAL team. Come on, man.

What was going on? I thought you were going to send a chariot of fire down and swoop me up and carry me on. He did. He sent a boat and a helicopter. And a lot of times in your life, you are that boat, and you are that helicopter.

But because of your lack of memorization and because of your lack of studying, you do not know Scripture enough, so you cannot be a useful tool within the kingdom of God. I hope you all remember this point at the end of this.

So let's move on to Focus. Or I guess we're in Focus right now. Did anyone watch that movie Mulan? I like it. It's a cool movie. I think it's like two bucks on YouTube, so you should go watch it after this if you haven't seen it.

But the premise of the movie is this. There's a girl, and she's her father. They come to get her father to put him in the army, but his father's too old. He can't really walk, so she's like, I'll go serve for you.

So she jumps on the horse, and she rides in, and she pretends to be a dude for the whole movie. So it's kind of interesting. But there's a scene in the training session. They get to the training camp, and they get ready, and they get going, and they get geared up, and they look cool, and they look tough.

And they're starting to practice, and there's this scene where there's a peninsula of land. So there's a peninsula of land. There's some water, and then there's the rest of the land. So between the two bits of land, there are telephone poles driven into the ocean floor, and they have to walk across these telephone poles while carrying a pole with two buckets of water on both sides.

And you're going, Austin, wow, this is getting really long description. I understand. Keep with me. And so the first time they go across, right, whew, we got it. But what happens? They fall, because the water hits the side of the pole.

They get distracted. They focus more on the water sloshing around the buckets to the side, and so they end up in the water. But then what they do is they go back, and they practice, and they practice, and practice, and practice, and practice, and they go through a bunch of other things.

The movie gets really, really interesting. They go through a bunch of other stuff. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Then they get to the back end of training. This is right before they deploy. They do it again.

This time, they run across without spilling a drop of water and without thinking one more time. Same thing in your fate. We're going to keep correlating this back to what? Memorization and reading. They were nervous to take a step, because they didn't really trust the poles, because they didn't really know whether or not they were starting in the water, and so every step they took, as the issues of that moment, the issues of your life start hitting the sides of that pole, relationship issues, depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, starts hitting, so then you become unbalanced, because all of the other things that are on your back, your family, your kids, your bills, yada, yada, yada, everything else starts failing as well.

Before you know it, you're in the middle of the water, but that can all be avoided. All that pain, all that turmoil, all that fear can be avoided if you know who you're trusting in. If you don't memorize scripture, you don't know who you're trusting in.

I like to read scripture and then meditate on it and then read it again, because what I've found is that through that time period of reading it once and reading it again, something changes, so my perspective on that scripture changes.

So if you're struggling to find anything interesting, well, pick a verse that you really, really like, read it once, and I promise you, read it again at the end of the week, something's going to have happened that's going to make you think something different about that verse.

And if it's nothing's going wrong in your life, mazel tov, good for you, yippee. It's going to be a lonely life at the end of things, but good job, man, I guess. It doesn't really mean anything. It's not worthwhile.

It's not further in the kingdom of God, so in the end, it will all be for naught, because I can be a good person if I'm not living for God, not living for anything, and everything that I do and everything that I say and everything that I think will go to waste.

My goal this morning is not to rail on for hours and hours and to be the typical Baptist preacher and throw the Bible at you, because that's not the point. I'm here to encourage you. I'm here to bring you joy.

The world out there is hard. You have to deal with a lot of different people in a lot of different instances, and this moment right here is meant to, for us to come together as one, is to uplift you, is to guide you, and is to encourage you to take on the outside world.

I talked about this a couple of months ago, but I know you don't remember the sermon, so I'm going to review it today. I'm here to help you. I'm not here to scream at you. Pastor Jeff is here to help you.

Ms. Gwen is here to help you. Sticky's here to help you. If you've got a problem, come in here and share it. Jeremiah touched on this last week, and he did a brilliant job breaking it down. You're... You think it's humility by not sharing your problem.

It's not. It's not. It's hurting you, and it's hurting those around you, because what you don't realize is that she may be going through the same thing that I'm going through, and because of my lack of obedience to God to share it with her, it's causing her to feel alone.

It's causing her to stumble, and in turn, it's causing me to stumble. My God is so good. We don't need to talk about that. There's one more verse I want to direct us to this morning that we're going to break down, and this is the bit of the message that I hope you find the most encouragement from.

I'm going to direct you to Psalms 85, 11 -13. Give me a shot when you get there. Psalms 85, 11 -13 says, Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from the heavens. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.

Righteousness goes before him and prepares a way for his steps. Psalms 85, 11 -13. I want you to take two seconds and reread that verse for me. But as you're reading through the verse, and this isn't scriptural, this is the Austin version, so listen to the Austin version for just two seconds.

I want you to substitute your name for faithfulness in that first verse, and I want you to substitute God for righteousness in that second sentence. So let's read it like this. Austin springs forth from the earth, and God looks down from the heavens.

The Lord will indeed give you what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps. God is a trustworthy God. We know this because the Bible is a historical document proven across the board to be worth reading and to be worth, to be trusted in, right?

So if we can trust it for a historical point, we can trust it, i .e., for what? Our faith. You don't have to see God, you don't have to touch God, you don't have to feel God, because guess what? All of that, all of those senses that you're feeling that you're relying upon are here around you, but because you aren't relating those to God, you aren't seeing them.

God created you and me. The beautiful face of God is the beautiful face of Pastor Jeff, you know? He speaks to me through a lot of different ways. So because I'm obedient in prayer, because I'm obedient in memorizing Scripture, because I'm obedient in what I need to do to the day-to-day, he is able to speak to me, and I'm able to hear him.

When you live outside of the Word of God, you miss so much. You miss so much. He's showing us his dedication and his beauty within this verse. He's also revealing the intricacy and the depth of his plan, which is a point that we really haven't talked about this morning.

It's his plan. You have a plan for your life and where you want to go, do you not? Or, I don't know, we talked about goals a couple minutes ago, and no one really had one. You have a plan, or hopefully you have a plan that's in a direction for your life, and yet you keep relying on the things of this world to support that plan.

Do you not? Do you not? You have relationship issues, and so the first thing you do is you turn to your best friend and you go gossip about it instead of simply opening up the Word of God and saying, how does this relate to scripture?

Where do I need to be heart-wise? You need to be in humility. You need to be in humility. You get the call that no one wants to hear of your kid getting wrapped around a telephone pole and won't be home for dinner.

Because of your lack of understanding of who God is in itself, you then have to go through a grieving process that is ten times worse than it will ever be. There is a time to mourn. There is a time for sadness.

I'm not discrediting that. But it is different when you approach it from the perspective of the Bible. Because I find comfort knowing that in the end of things, I will see that person again. I will see them again.

I find joy in that. But it forces me to keep living. See, who played sports in here? Show of hands. Go ahead. Raise them high. Be confident, please. Played sports. Did you play sports? I didn't think you did.

No. I played a lot of sports. I played soccer. I played football, briefly, before I tore my ACL. So I really didn't play, but I wore the jersey, so it was cool. I was on a team. Played baseball for a little bit.

And I thought about this this past week. Wouldn't it be so cool if every game I went into, I knew I was going to win? I'd walk onto the field a little bit different. Would you not? Man, if I knew I was going to win, I'd probably buy the shinier cleats.

I'd fix my hair just right. Something I already do. Man, I'd step into that because I know I'm going to win. Let me make this easier. I walk to the ref and I hand him a bag with six million dollars in it and say, I don't care what happens throughout the game, at the end of the game, make sure the score reflects us winning.

Easy enough example, right? Same thing with your life. The bag's been handed to the ref. You're going to win in the end. But what's so funny is that that first play when you get tackled, you still got to go through it.

You still have to feel the pain. You still have to feel the sorrow. You still have to go through it. You still have to rely on God through it so that you can take what you have learned in that moment and you can turn around and you can help someone else with it.

But if you don't do this, then you can't do that. If you don't memorize and know scripture and trust on God, so then, who does that hurt? Who does that hurt? It doesn't really hurt you so much. I mean, it does for a little bit of time, but eventually you get over it.

Where it really hurts is over here. Because they need your help right now. I guarantee you, right now in your life, whether or not the person comes to your head right this moment, there's one to two people in your life right now struggling with the same thing you're struggling with.

There are. I'm looking around this room right now and I know two people who are struggling with some of the same sins I'm struggling with right now. And over the years, because of my lack of obedience to Christ and because I did not speak the word of God to them, we have now found ourselves in a situation that is irreversible.

I wasn't a useful tool in the kingdom of God. God doesn't need me. Keep in mind, let me clarify, God doesn't need me, but God wants to use me. He wants to use you. But it takes you first taking up the mantle and saying, I'm ready to go to work.

Put me in, coach. I'm ready. Without that, you're not ready to help anyone else. There's a young man that I'm helping out with right now and he consistently says to me, Austin, I want to counsel somebody.

I want to counsel somebody. Okay, that's good. Just the day before, he was telling me how depressed and anxious he was and he didn't know how he was going to wake up the next morning. He wasn't solid where he needs to be.

God's not providing with, God will not provide someone for him to counsel for because he is not first relying upon God. So you are seeking, you are seeking these things within this life, right? You're seeking, well, happiness, solid family, solid home, but you try to back up all of that heavy lifting with you getting a good job, making sure you wear the right tie to the interview so you get the good job.

You're relying on the superficial parts. You're not relying on the fundamental parts. The fundamental parts are simple. And you say, Austin, you've been almost talking for 30 minutes on the same subject.

I get it. I'm fully aware. I wrote the sermon, I know. It's because the point is so important. I've heard sermons like this multiple times over but the reason why it never really meant anything is because I never applied it.

And so I'm hoping at some point this morning something hits you. One thing hits you enough for you to say, alright, it's time to apply it. It's finally time to open up the Bible. It's finally time to memorize some scripture.

It's finally time to walk into the building and say, I don't know what I'm doing, someone help me. That, it, it, sorry. I had to do that. I'm an arrogant dude sometimes. I am. If you were to ask anyone in high school, describe Austin, it's arrogance.

That's the one word they use. I'm working on it, I promise you. But it took me walking up to Jeff and saying, dude, I'm arrogant, I need your help, man. Where am I messing up? What am I not doing right that causes me to be so arrogant?