CLOSER - Do You Trust Me?

It was God who brought me out. It was God who gave me my family. It was God who gave me this job It was God who gave me my health. It was God who gave me the strength to keep on believing somehow someway I still made it all the way to today and I thought I was gonna die back there. I Swore the divorce was gonna kill me. I swore the time in the hospital was gonna kill me I swore that conflict with my boss was gonna kill me and here I am today So worshiping God man, he's been faithful and good Hey, we have a word for the year and the word for the year is what Closer good job. If you did not know that now you do it is closer and we are defining what we mean by closer closer to Christ closer to his church and closer to his mission closer to Christ closer to his church and Closer to his mission. We don't want to leave up for just debate if you will For over for all of us defining closer by our own terms We're saying this is the direction that God has given us as a church go with me to the gospel of Mark chapter 10 We've been there. Oh for the past couple of weeks. We've touched on this verse I'm gonna pull out a little different part of it. I can get my Bible open here Mark chapter Beginning in verse number 46 we looked at Revelation the Spirit and the Bride say come we've looked at Genesis and when God was moving toward Adam and Eve even after they had sinned you see God still moving closer and they were hiding but in Mark chapter 10 We've talked about this man named Bartimaeus Beginning in verse number 46. It says then they came to Jericho as Jesus as Jesus and his disciples together with a large crowd were leaving the city a Blind man Bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus was sitting by the roadside begging This word begging here in the Greek would mean like asking repeatedly So he's been here in this spot for a long time he's asking repeatedly repeatedly Probably some of us on the sound of my voice you have some things that you've been asking God for repeatedly

Lord, I need this. I'd like for this to change. I'd like for this to be different. I'd like to go on a date Lord, I'm asking over and over and over and over and over and over and over again And what I want to pull out here real quick is when Bartimaeus Begins to shout Towards Jesus and we've looked at this Jesus calls him and Bartimaeus moves closer to Jesus when he's called He doesn't move further away from Jesus when he's called he moves closer But the Bible tells us that what Bartimaeus does is he actually throws his cloak aside? Now whether he was wearing this or was laying down on the ground and everybody was putting their arms on the on his cloak We're not sure but what we do know is he throws his cloak aside And what Bartimaeus is saying here is if if closer requires me to do something I have not done before I am so passionate about answering the call of God on my life that I'm willing to Change even what people know me for so I can do what God is trying to call me to do I am so desperate for where I'm trying to go I'm so desperate for the next level of anointing and grace and strength and connection with God Then I'm not going to allow how I've been known and what I'm used to doing to stop me from moving forward They say it like this You're willing to do something you never You're willing to do something you've never done to have something you never had and that is what Bartimaeus is willing to do here I'm going to go all in for you Jesus because you are calling me and today The Lord is calling every one of us and as he is calling us The question is are we willing to throw aside things that we've gotten comfortable with? That's not my message for today though That's like the the free bread and butter that they give you That's all that's all I've got on breadsticks right there Now we're gonna dig into our text for today for those you're taking notes. The title is Closer do you trust me? Closer Do you trust me? Everybody in this front row right here that's right right here in front of me all of you from Ladarius all the way down Eric too All of you guys you'd be willing to come up here

Just y'all okay, you willing to come to Lauren. I know you're pregnant you okay, okay? I mean you can walk, but I just want Henry come on up here too, man. Yeah, come on up here real quick Yeah This is my buddy right here Henry this guy gives me the biggest hugs, okay? I get the biggest hugs from Henry week in and week out. I love you, okay You guys are you all you guys line up here next to me. This is crazy I was here today. You got to be shoulder-to-shoulder people got to be able to see y'all, okay? Eric you want to get next to your wife, okay? Gabby just left Okay, I know all these what's your wife And the club He's with the baby she's with the baby Love love Cory. I mean I know I know all of these people here They're all amazing and wonderful, and I saw you know Harold and Kaylee here Front row worshiping next to each other. I saw this. I'm like look at our church. This is like We didn't even have to fake this We didn't have to fake you know Harold's 81 years old, too Okay, what excuse do y'all have he's got more energy than all of us in the church. Yes, sir come on doc Helps me preach every single week It's so incredibly encouraging, but seeing all these beautiful people up here I just thought hey, let's continue to protect the beautiful unity that God has given us here at Shoreline City. I Love that it looks like heaven on earth Lauren. I got a picture of her. We baptized Lauren when she was in college Okay, it was the most makeshift baptism. I mean we were maybe a year old as a church Maybe a year old as a church. She's a bit was an SMU student now. Just amazing how many kids y'all have now seven Yeah, 15 kids. They just keep on having babies here. Let's got number four dang on Lederer's and Bri, you know we love you guys so much I mean all of them are so incredibly special But I saw the front row here And I just thought this is a picture of heaven on earth

And I just want to say thank you God and thank you church family for being who you are Now since y'all are up here help me Lisa you can help me with this real quick Lisa you come help me Okay, Lisa Burch is amazing the doctor you ever need some drugs go to her I Mean it's got to be legal I mean Legal drugs legal drugs She's helping us out on plenty of occasion with a little bit of No, never We don't do weed. We don't smoke weed and matter of fact if you are you need to stop Uh Lisa do me a favor. I do want you to we're gonna do the trust fall game. Okay, just fall game So you're gonna catch me? You're locked in How about you turn around I got you go Lisa She didn't trust me you move your foot let's go again. Let's go again. Come on. Let's go again. I'm here Good job Lisa, I give it up for all these guys. Give it up for thank you all for coming up here They didn't know I was gonna call them up. Y'all did so great. Love all of y'all so much Okay, go with me real quick in your Bibles anywhere you want The last book actually go to the last book of the Old Testament, it's called Malachi go to Malachi chapter 1 Malachi chapter 1 Malachi chapter 1 Closer do you trust me Malachi chapter 1 Malachi chapter 1 look at verse number 2 Let's start here in verse number 2. It says it reads rather. I Have loved you if you're still turning if you're in Matthew just go back one book Matthew first book of the New Testament Malachi the last book of the Old Testament Malachi chapter 1 verse number 2 I have loved you says the Lord But you ask How have you loved us? So God says I've loved you and you're like Prove it Skip down with me to verse number 6 a son honors his father and a slave his master If I am a father, where is the honor do me if I am a master?

Where is the respect to me says the Lord Almighty it is you priests who show contempt for? my name But you ask How have we shown contempt for your name? Okay, look up at me in the book of Malachi. There are a bunch of questions that go back and forth Fourth, questions, answers, questions, answers, questions, answers, questions, answers. Some of the questions are rhetorical, but question, answer, question, answer, question, answer. I stumbled, I've read it before, but I stumbled on this book and been digging into it a little bit more. When Lisa Harper was with us in, I think it was December, November or December, she just mentioned the book of Malachi and it kind of sparked my attention. So I went back and read it and it's only four chapters, but man, it's so incredibly rich and it's even connected with Nehemiah, but I don't have time to get into all of that, but there's this questions and answers and question and answers and questions and answers over and over back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Now go with me to verse number seven and eight. Because remember verse six, you got comment, question, comment, question. How have we shown contempt for your name? By offering, verse number seven of chapter one, by offering defiled food on my altar. But you ask, how have we defiled you?

By saying that the Lord's table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you? Says the Lord Almighty. God here is talking to his people and he's like, a son honors his father, slave his master, an employee honors their boss, where's the honor due me? He says here, you wouldn't even give that to your boss. Why are you trying to give it to me? You would not give that to your governor. Why are you trying to give it to me? My beautiful wife and I, whenever we travel, I handle all the bags, okay? All of them, because she's my queen. I don't want to carry nothing except lip gloss. That's it. I got the bags, okay? So her carry-on and roller bag, I have, and then I have my carry-on and my roller bag because I'm not checking a bag, okay? There's no way I'm doing that. That's my goal every time I travel. I don't care if it's for 38 days. Two pair of underwear will be just fine.

So when we're on the plane, it can be tough when you've got four pieces of luggage and you're trying to go down, you know. But I make it work. Sometimes I get stuck with one in front and one in back, and you got to do like a little. But I work it. I work it all the way down the aisle. Hello, good day, uh-huh, what's up? I'm a pastor, uh-huh, yeah, yeah. So I do that. Now, I did not realize that I did this. My wife had to tell me this later. She told me, Earl, you talk to everybody on the plane. And you're always trying to help everybody on the plane. I'm like, really? Now I notice that I do this. Somebody gets on, I'm like, hello. Good day. Glad you're here. A little kid walks down the aisle. I'm like, hey, what's up, man? Give me, you know, give me something right here. And parents are like. I'm just saying hi. But I like to be engaged with everybody that's on the plane and I don't like to inconvenience people because I like to be a good traveler. So like, when it's time to get off the plane, it's time to get off the plane.

Get your stuff, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. None of this, like. We already told you to put your stuff away. We, you knew we were landing, so why are you doing that right now? So I don't want to inconvenience anybody else, so I try to move really fast. And what I found out, and Onika told me this, I didn't even realize I did it. I actually don't want to inconvenience anyone, so I'll sometimes let like other people go in front and I'll have our bags and I'll hit Onika with our bags on accident. I don't know all this stuff is going on around me. I'm like, go ahead, ma'am. Boom. And Onika's like getting hit and getting body blows and I didn't even know I was doing it because she's behind me and I'm telling, I'm trying to let all these other people go and we get off the plane, she goes, honey, why are you treating all of them so kindly and you're not paying attention to me? And it just helped me go, okay. So now, I push people out of the way. You go ahead, honey. Lay there, old lady. Go ahead, honey. I had to, my eyes had to be open.

I didn't even realize that I was treating other people better than I was treating my wife on the plate. And in this text right here, God is saying, do you even realize that you're treating the governor, your boss, your leaders better than you're treating me? What does the honor do me? I'm God. I made you. I formed you. I know you. I called you. I love you. I've restored you. I've been the one that's been there the entire time. Why are you treating me as casual and treating all of them with honor? So over and over and over again, you see this back and forth, comment, question, comment, question. This is like 7, 8, 10, I can't remember the exact number of questions here in Malachi. Now, keep on going with me here. Go with me to Malachi chapter number 3, look at verse number 6, look at verse number 6. As you're turning there, this happens really quickly too, even with a new parent. Here today, we've got the amazing Raises, glad you guys are here with the new baby Wells was just born and he's so, so cute, but it happens with new parents all the time. New parents, you give all your attention to the baby and begin to neglect the marriage. Happens all the time. You start a new job, you give all your attention to the new job, and you begin to neglect the relationships that carried you, prayed for you when you were in between jobs. I got to really succeed here, but then you throw aside all these amazing people that have been with you day in and day out. It's not intentional, we just get locked in. And God here is telling the children of Israel, hey, maybe it is intentional, I don't know,

but you're getting locked in on the wrong thing. I need you locked in on me. So in verse number 6, look at this. I the Lord do not change, so you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, how are we to return? Do you see here that God is telling them, I don't change. I've been steady. I've been consistent in your life. Even in the times that you didn't even know I was there, I still had eyes on you. Even the times you were in bondage, I knew exactly where you were. I had a GPS tracker on you the entire time. There was not one time that I've ever turned my back on you, even when you were in the pit of hell and in the addiction and in the brokenness, in the prison, in the jail, in the whatever you may have been physically, metaphorically, emotionally, I knew exactly where you were and I have been the same the entire time. I have loved you with an everlasting love and you have not been able to get away from it because my love is steady and consistent and it's not based on your behavior. It's based on my character and my goodness. This is who God is. He tells the people I've been there the entire time. Is there anybody who knows that God has been there the entire time, all the moments I turned my back on him and God still had his arms wide open to me. All the times I made the dumbest decisions, hurt people in my life and God says I'll still restore and I'll still put things back together. Is anybody else thankful that God has been so good and so steady? I'm not saying it hasn't been hard. I'm not saying it hasn't felt like I've been busted down on the side of the road.

It has, but even when I was busted up, somehow, someway, I still made it all the way to today and I thought I was going to die. die back there. I swore the divorce was going to kill me. I swore the time in the hospital was going to kill me. I swore that conflict with my boss was going to kill me. And here I am today, still worshiping God. Man, he's been faithful and good. I, the Lord, do not change, he says, even when you do. I don't. Then he says, return to me. Return to me. I want you to come closer. Return to me. Okay, how far away you are right now, return to me. I know you've been dishonoring me, but you can return to me. There's a way for you to get back. Return to me. It's the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ that in that death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior, all of us have a path back to God. Return to me. Then the people ask, how do we return? How do I return? Tell me what I need to do to return. Comment, question. I never saw this until I started studying it over the past couple of months. What I'm about to share with you, I never saw it. God calls the people closer to return. They ask, how do we return? How do we return? And then God answers with a question. And I never saw that the question was connected to closer. Verse number eight. Let me give you verse number seven again. Ever since the time your ancestors, of your ancestors, you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, how are we to return? Here's verse number eight. Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you have robbed me. Here's another question. But you ask, how are we robbing you? In tithes and in offerings. What? I never read it like this. I grew up in church, so I heard about tithes and offerings before. I've heard a lot of messages about it. When I was just reading through this book just for, you know, devotional and just to grow my own walk with Christ, I saw that God is trying to get the people to return. They're asking how to return. And then God answers with a question. Will a mere mortal rob God? But you're robbing me. How are we robbing you? In your tithes and offerings. This is what I know. If you're under the sound of my voice today,

you actually want to get closer to God. There's no one who's online or any of our locations right now and you're just like, no, I want to stay exactly the same. I don't want to take any steps forward in my life. No. You already took the step to be a part of the church family and community. So that's telling me you want to draw closer. Now that you're wanting to draw closer, God gives us a problem that we have in our lives that is blocking the closeness and the intimacy. And it's that we are willing to rob him in the relationship, saying, God, I'm not going to return to you what you gave me. I'd rather keep it. And this is messing, the robbing is messing with the relationship. Y'all, I didn't see it like this before. I just thought, oh, you got to tithe, you know, I trust God, I obey God, you know, whatever might be in your brain. And now I felt the Lord was saying, Earl, I love my beautiful kids at Shoreline City so much. And I know they're wanting to get closer. Share with them something that's blocking and hindering and slowing down the closeness. You ever like somebody who didn't like you back? I did in fourth grade. Janet. I'm glad, I'm glad she said no. I bought her a ring, one of the little plastic rings from the grocery store, you know, 25 cents, I gave it to her. But I was very interested, you know, hey, hey, hey, hey. But she was never interested back. So maybe you have a friendship like that, you're really in it and the friend, you give maximum effort, the friend gives minimum effort. Do marriages work when one person gives maximum and the other person gives minimum? Do dating relationships work when one person gives maximum and the other person gives minimum?

Do friendships work when one person gives maximum and the other person gives minimum? And we have a maximum God. And unfortunately, we're comfortable giving him minimums. And I think God is going, hey, hey, I haven't changed. I'm here. I want to break whatever blocks might be between us. So what I'm giving you, I want you to return part of that to me. Now, when I learned about tithes and offerings, it was always about money, right? This is, there's definitely some financial pieces in Scripture, but there's also like goats and sheep and, you know, wheat and barley, okay? And if you got barley to give, praise the Lord. So this is not like they're getting paid on the 15th and the 30th, you know, here. There's harvesting and culture, harvesting, agriculture, but when the harvest came in, God is saying, when I'm blessing you, you, if you're not going to give and honor me with the 10th and the 20th, you're not going to give. And not even 10th, he says offerings too, which is free will. You get the tithe piece, that's like a standard, but then it's like offerings just to free will stuff. If your heart is not going to be in it there, I'll say it like this. If you want to get closer, I'm giving you a way to get closer. Start bringing the whole tithe into the storehouse. And you watch what will happen.

It does something in your heart. You think God needs goats? God's not like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that lamb right there, yeah, ha, ha, yeah, yeah, thank you. No. Think God needs, you know, $725? No. But what your heart needs is to give it because it reminds you that it's God who gave it to you in the first place. Look with me in book of Exodus. I don't know if I'm going to get through all of this. I'm going to try though. Watch this. Watch this. Watch this. We're about to cook. Okay? We're about to go fast. We're about to go fast. Go with me to Exodus chapter 13. Exodus chapter 13. Go with me to chapter, verse number 11. I'm probably going to skip real quick. I'll go to 11. Oh, my goodness. Okay, after the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, I'm in chapter 13 of Exodus, verse number 11, and gives it to you as he promised on oath to you and your ancestors, because he keeps his word, you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb.

All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord. Skip down to verse number 14. In days to come, when your son asks you, what does this mean? Say to him, with a mighty hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord, the first male offspring of every womb, and redeem each of my firstborn sons, and it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand. Why am I giving this? It's a reminder to me that God brought me out of Egypt. What is tithes and offerings? It's a reminder that God is the one that brought me out of the sin and the slavery and the brokenness I was in. This is not so that I can get a blessing. This is because I'm already blessed that God has forgiven and saved and redeemed me. I put it like this, giving is God's idea. Rather, giving to God is God's idea. He said, you need this and I need this. So he invites us into it right here. Now go with me to Matthew chapter 6 verse 24. I'm gonna give you a couple of the verses. Look at this, Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6 verse number 24. Look at this. It reads, this is Jesus's words, no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Those are Jesus's words. Okay, go with me. I told you we're cooking. First Timothy chapter 6. First Timothy chapter 6 verse number 10. We're getting our Bible gymnastics in here. We're going all through the text. First Timothy chapter 6 verse number 10. It says, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some of us have heard before, money is the root of all evil. It reads here, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. But I want to focus on the second part. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Some people eager for money have actually

wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. If I said to you, I'm going to give you a job for a year, and this job is going to solve all of your money problems, the only thing you need to know is you're not going to be able to be in church, you're not going to be able to be in a connect group, and you're not going to be able to be with your family all that much. A lot of us would go, I'll take it. I'll take it. One year? Just one year? I'll take it. And what I have found is we make one-year deals that turn into two-year, three-year, four-year, and five-year deals. Because do you think the devil is going to say to you, take this and I'm going to destroy your relationship with God, and destroy your relationship with your family, and destroy your community? No, the enemy does not do that. He tells you it's just a little bit, but we're so eager for money we wander from the faith. It's the opposite of closer. I never saw it. So now I think God is inviting us into something different, something holy. Tithe means tenth, or like tenth part. The offerings, they're free will. Some people over the years have argued with me, you know, about tithes and offerings. They're like, well, New Testament, I don't see, like tithing. And I don't, I'm not arguing with people, you know, on stuff. I don't think you're reading it properly because Jesus did it, but anyway, this is what I say. How generous are you? I haven't met a person yet that argues with me about tithes and offerings, and they give over 10%. Everybody that argues with me gives less. The generous people that I know are like, God, what do you want? Because if you want to go New Testament, and I'm down for this, I'm down for New Testament. New Testament is all. Let's go New Testament. I'm down. It's all. They're selling houses, taking all the proceeds, giving them to the, at the apostles feet. So, so if we want to go Bible and New Testament, let's do it. Well, what was happening? They had been so captured by who Jesus is. and what Jesus had done for them and the resurrection that they said God everything I have belongs to you so there I don't care what the number is it was an issue of closeness not an issue of I'm trying to get some blessing from God now I'm all for a blessing as a matter of fact I don't want to go back with Malachi we're gonna be all done the last verses we're done last verses we're done we're done we're done because I want you to be able to want you to go

argue at lunch about this I want you to be able to go convince yourself how what you're doing is just fine and how it applies to everybody else but you you go ahead go ahead do that over lunch look at verse number 10 I love this God put I'm not even I didn't put any of this in here God did bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house test me in this says the Lord Almighty and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out such a blessing that there will not be room enough to store it I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe says the Lord Almighty then all the nations will call you blessed for yours will be a delightful land says the Lord Almighty what is God saying here he's saying hey bring it I love you I just want to take care of you and not just take care of you I want you to be a light to the world that when people see you they're like what is going on with that man or that woman they're single they're married they're in their 20s or in their 40s but look at their lives and people will think about God when they see your life this is about mission it's not about us being rich we're already rich he's given us everything that pertains to life and godliness so now that our souls have been saved God all I have belongs to you I wrote it down like this tithing is a trust test and tipping is a trust tease what's tipping that's when you and I like uh this one kind of thinking kind of kind of decide what we want to do and there is a piece of deciding in your own heart no doubt about that but the the left over mindset the I would not give this to my governor or to my boss but I will give it to God God is trying to attack that mindset saying hey I'm the one that's your provider and your sustainer let me be the one that takes care of you so this is an invitation today Shoreline City to closer and God was highlighting one area there's others too but one where it's like return to me how do I return I want you to look at with what I look at what you're doing with what I gave you are you keeping it are you keeping the best to yourself

talents time money gifts or you saying God with joy and gratitude I return to you what you already gave me bow your heads if you in my church family I just want to let this sit on our hearts for just a second because I know there's gonna be some lies they're gonna be trying to run through our minds some things will have to battle maybe even some experiences we've had with people who have not done right by us even in church where they have not handled money correctly what I would say is don't let the brokenness of human beings rob you from being obedient to what God has called you to so Lord we want to return and we give you permission to talk to us about every part of our lives money time our fears or insecurities whatever it is you can have all of us as your heads are bowed for just a moment If you're under the sound of my voice and you have never given your heart and your life to Jesus Christ, you've never made him first, you've never made him number one, but you're under the sound of my voice today and you're saying, I don't want to go my own way. I want to go the way of Jesus. On the count of three, I want you to do something simple but bold. I just want you to throw your hand in the air and say, yes, that's me. I want to give my heart and my life to Christ. Ready? One, two, three. Just lift your hand up. You're saying, yep, this is me. I want to give my heart and my life to Jesus. This is beautiful. Lift your hand up high. You're saying, I don't want to go my own way. I want to go his way. I don't want to be first. I want Jesus Christ to be first. I see you, friends, at the balcony. On the floor, you're saying, yep, that's me. Friends in additional seating, you're saying, yeah, that's me. I want to give my heart and my life to Jesus Christ. I'm going to ask everyone to do me a favor. Put your hand over your heart right now if you would not mind and I want everyone to repeat this prayer out loud after me. Say, dear Jesus, I ask you to forgive me of all my sins. I admit I made mistakes and today I give you my heart. I give you my life. Give me the power to live for you. In Jesus name, amen and amen. Can we lift our heads up, clap our hands with joy and enthusiasm.