Restoration 2019:  Brokenness

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Restoration Ministry

2019:  Evening and Sabbath Meetings

Dean Cullinane

Father of the Fatherless

When God’s Not Around

God’s Quiver

God’s Dirty Underpants

The Seeds of Babylon

The Privilege of Prayer

The Second Milers

Samson and the Holy Spirit

The Darkest Hour

How to Walk on Water

There's a question in Scripture that has been asked a few times by a few very notable personnel.

1 of them went by the name of Nicodemus, another whose name we don't know was simply referred to as the rich young ruler.

How many of you can tell me what the question was?

I would say that behind this question, behind the question, what must I do to be saved, is perhaps, not every time, but perhaps a deeper 1, 1 that possibly permeates through our mind frequently throughout the day.

And instead of just perhaps saying, what must I do to be saved?

Perhaps we're really asking, how little can I do and still be saved?

Perhaps what really prompts this question, what must I do to be saved?

Perhaps really what we're really asking is, what is the least that I can do and still be a Christian?

For many of us, we want to know where the line is.

And for the majority of Christianity, maybe even for the majority of us here in this room, that line is usually where we stop.

As long as we've met these requirements, we term ourselves Christians.

In today's message, I would like to challenge you that perhaps we've been asking the wrong question all along.

Maybe it's not what's the least I can do and still be saved.

What if the question was How much can I do because I'm saved?

Father in heaven, Lord, we thank You so much for the opportunity to gather here this evening.

So, Father, hear Your name be praised, to have the opportunity to speak to You.

We pray, Lord, that You would speak and return to us.

Father, remove any distractions that are in our midst.

Help us to give You our undivided attention.

Father, we have all here sinned before You and before heaven.

And we are not worthy to be called Your daughters or Your sons.

But Father, Your Son, Jesus Christ, will forever be worthy to be called our Savior.

And so we ask that He would speak to us this evening.

The term Christian generally is defined as 1 that is a follower of Christ.

There's a few things that we follow if we put if we put Christ if we put religion if we put God to the side for just a moment, there's normally 3 things that people follow.

I'm not going to ask you if you follow a sports team, but for the men, it's probably a temptation at the least, if not a delight at the most.

I used to follow a sports team very closely.

In fact, I've shared with you my testimony.

Football, the actual 1 where you use your foot to kick a ball, was essentially my life before I found Jesus.

And whenever I used to watch my favorite sports team play, if they won a game, I'd have a great day.

And if they lost a game, I'd be depressed.

Thankfully, since I've come to the Lord in these past 8 years, my team, which used to be the best, is now nowhere near the best.

And the Lord made it that much easier for me to just stop caring.

Because it seemed like they stopped caring as well.

Still hurts a little bit, but I'm getting over it.

But what we often do is we follow sports teams.

But you'll know if you follow a sports team, and you might have met people, maybe you're a fan of a specific sports team, you might have met someone and say, it comes up in conversation, what football team do you follow?

And for you guys, since you probably don't play soccer, let's, you know, what egg hand team, what egg hand team do you follow?

And then they'll respond, and honestly, I don't know 1 single name of any of the teams, so I don't know what they would respond.

But let's just say they responded something.

If it was the same team as you, you'd likely maybe take a step into challenging them to see if they were a real follower or a real fan, you might ask them a question.

You might have a little bit of trivia to see if you guys are on the same level of follow-hood or fan-hood.

And if you ask them a basic question like who manages the team or who's the MVP, who's the star player or even what area is the team from, if they didn't know the answer to that question, you'd probably think, well, They're not really a fan.

Because we know, we've experienced this, that to follow requires to put effort.

Effort must be put forth if you are to follow.

If you follow a sports team, you have to keep up with the results of the team.

You have to make sure that you know who they just played and what the score was and who they're playing next.

When I followed football really closely, I could tell you every single player that was on the team.

Not only that, I could tell you every number that they wore on their back.

I could probably even tell you how tall some of them were down to the centimeter.

And I know that maybe you don't use centimeters, but it was still important to me.

I was like, I'm a follower, I'm invested in this team.

You can't be a follower and not know anything about the team, right?

Something else that we follow, politics, right?

We follow politics, but you and I know that you can't just say, oh, I'm a liberal or I'm a Democrat because people will come and they'll say, okay, well, why?

If you just say, I'm a liberal because I'm from California, then they'll be like, okay, but I need more than that.

If you say, I'm a conservative because I'm from here, then they're going to need more than that.

If you're really going to align yourself with a certain political party, then you need to kind of know what are the things that they believe?

These are the questions that you might ask because you know that to follow requires effort on your path.

A lot of people today, they follow celebrities.

They literally follow them in some cases, which is illegal.

But in a lot of cases, they just follow them on social media and you keep up with everything that they do and they'll tell They'll show you everything because they because you know They're a product so they just want you to buy everything that they've got to invest in all of your time and all of your money and all of these things into them.

So they'll let you see everything in their life and you'll follow them.

You'll know that this celebrity went here and this celebrity lives over here and they're worth this amount and they're on this TV show and etc, etc, etc.

If you follow them, then you're invested, right?

And I believe that this is really what was kind, what the early Christians had in mind.

I know they weren't the ones that first called themselves Christians, followers of Christ.

But I think this is what the connotation was, that you don't just attach yourself to the term, to the name, but you actually are following Jesus.

I know what Jesus said, et cetera, et cetera.

The point was to be actively involved and engaged in the ministry of Christ.

Essentially, I guess the whole lesson behind that is what the Bible teaches that faith without works is dead You can't just say that you believe you have to actually show You have to actually show now if you ask the Christian You're a follower of Christ.

A good answer that they might give you is Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 13.

It says, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, you probably know the verse, fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Now Jesus, when he came to this earth as a man, did he come to change the law?

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Series

2019: Evening and Sabbath Meetings

The Second Milers

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