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ABIDE In Worship
What does it mean to belong through genuine worship rooted in abiding relationship with Jesus?
Pastor Jonathan shares vulnerable stories of struggle and honest correction, offering practical steps for you to reconnect with God and repair your center of worship - whether you feel balanced or off-track.
Learn how fruitfulness, humility, and repentance open up new possibilities for growth and meaning.
Scriptures Referenced
2 Chronicles 7:14, 7:17-18, 36:15-16, 36:21; Nehemiah 8:5-6; Matthew 3:8; John 15:1-27; Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 6:15
Key Insights
- Practical worship begins by responding in obedience, humility, and a willingness to be pruned.
- You are not alone in losing focus or struggling––we all stumble and need belonging and correction.
- Abiding in Jesus means balancing truth and love, so your life reflects Him authentically in community.
- Repentance and humility are actionable steps everyone can take, regardless of past mistakes.
- Maintaining true relationship with God matters more than perfect details or performances.
- God welcomes you back, patiently preparing a place for your fruitfulness, even after seasons of exile or wandering.
https://springhouse.captivate.fm/episode/abide-in-worship
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Gathering Times
- Sundays, 9:00 AM
- Sundays, 11:00 AM
- Thursdays, 6:00 PM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Transcript
Well, good evening, Springhouse. Can we show our
Speaker:appreciation for, uh, the cafe tonight for
Speaker:preparing a meal for us? And we're glad that you're here to kick
Speaker:off Abide 2026, our Springhouse Conference. I'm
Speaker:so, so delighted to see you guys here. You know, one of the things about
Speaker:these, um, uh, missions and outreach opportunities
Speaker:that I love is not only do we support— these are not
Speaker:These are not just random outreaches that we selected. We
Speaker:actually trust the men and women behind the mission, but more than that, we trust
Speaker:the Jesus inside the men and women behind the
Speaker:outreaches and missions. Now, Sherri and I, we're gonna sow into
Speaker:every one of the outreaches that are here, gonna be speaking through the conference.
Speaker:Hal, could you real quick, and I didn't ask you this, I want to instruct
Speaker:people, how can people give if they wanna sow into this? How can they give?
Speaker:Can they go on the app and do that?
Speaker:Denote at the bottom? Okay, on the check, or is there a
Speaker:way on there in the app to denote that? Okay, all right, we'll make
Speaker:sure to have that cleaned up for sure tomorrow, but if you feel
Speaker:led to give specifically to these different missions and outreaches
Speaker:as they're sharing, we want to make sure that you have an opportunity
Speaker:to do that, okay? Praise the Lord! Are you ready for tonight?
Speaker:Man, the Holy Spirit is He's been doing some things.
Speaker:And one of the things last night that we had the privilege to do is
Speaker:we gathered all of our leaders and we were at a table, and the question
Speaker:was, "What was one of the things that you appreciate about SpringHouse?"
Speaker:And one of the things that Rhonda actually had mentioned
Speaker:that she appreciates about SpringHouse is the variety of speakers. Not
Speaker:variety, just variety of speakers, but that we have multiple gifted and
Speaker:anointed speakers here at this house that are able to
Speaker:handle the Word of Truth in the right way. And guys,
Speaker:You guys, we are in for a treat tonight, because Pastor Jonathan doesn't only
Speaker:carry an anointing for leading worship, but he carries an anointing
Speaker:in teaching the Word. It's not his favorite thing to do, and
Speaker:it's what makes it more powerful though, because he's going to bring what he
Speaker:believes he's convicted to bring. Would you guys welcome my— one of my
Speaker:closest friends, Jonathan Grisham.
Speaker:One day we'll get one of those tables that lifts
Speaker:up out of the stage and goes back in when you've
Speaker:talked for too long.
Speaker:Good evening. Welcome to night one of
Speaker:Springhouse Abide Conference. I'll be your host for the evening.
Speaker:I am grateful for the opportunity to teach. I'm super
Speaker:thankful that I don't have to follow any of the other
Speaker:sessions that we have planned. Um, so we'll see.
Speaker:I think the greatest place to start is reading the word together and
Speaker:praying together. So if you would please stand with me as we read,
Speaker:get ready for it. Here we go. I am the
Speaker:true vine and my Father is the gardener. He
Speaker:cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.
Speaker:While every branch that does bear fruit he prunes
Speaker:so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already
Speaker:clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
Speaker:Remain in me, and I also remain in you.
Speaker:No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must
Speaker:remain in the vine. Neither can you bear
Speaker:fruit unless you remain in me. I am the
Speaker:vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me
Speaker:and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart
Speaker:from me you can do nothing. If you do not
Speaker:remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away
Speaker:and withers. Such branches are picked up,
Speaker:thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain
Speaker:in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever
Speaker:you wish, and it will be done for you. This is
Speaker:to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit,
Speaker:showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the
Speaker:Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
Speaker:Now remain in my love. Keep going, come on. If you keep
Speaker:my commands, you will remain in my love, just
Speaker:as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in
Speaker:his love. I have told you this so that my joy may
Speaker:be in you and that your joy may be complete.
Speaker:My command is this: Love each other as I
Speaker:have loved you. Greater love has no one than
Speaker:this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
Speaker:If you are my friends, if you do what I command,
Speaker:I no longer call you servants, because a
Speaker:servant does not know his master's business. Instead,
Speaker:I have called you friends, for everything I learned
Speaker:from my Father I have made known to you. You
Speaker:did not choose me, but I chose you and
Speaker:appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit,
Speaker:fruit that will last. Come on! And so that whatever you
Speaker:ask in my name, the Father will give you.
Speaker:This is my command: Love each other. If the
Speaker:world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me
Speaker:first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you
Speaker:as its own. As it is, you do not belong
Speaker:to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
Speaker:That is why the world hates you. Almost there.
Speaker:Remember what I told you: A servant is not greater
Speaker:than his master. If they persecuted me, they
Speaker:will persecute you also. If they obeyed my
Speaker:teaching, they will obey yours also. They will
Speaker:treat you this way because of my name, for they do
Speaker:not know the one who sent me. If I had not come
Speaker:and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin,
Speaker:but now they have no excuse for their sin.
Speaker:Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.
Speaker:'If I had not done among them the works no one else
Speaker:did, they would not be guilty of sin. As
Speaker:it is, they have seen and yet they have hated
Speaker:both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill
Speaker:what is written in their law: They hated me without
Speaker:reason.' Can you do one more? 'When the Advocate
Speaker:comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—'
Speaker:The Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, He
Speaker:will testify about Me, and you also must
Speaker:testify, for you have been with Me from the
Speaker:beginning. Father, we thank You for Your Word.
Speaker:Holy Spirit, I pray that You would help us to
Speaker:calm and quiet the worries we have brought into this place.
Speaker:Holy Spirit, I pray that you would help me teach with clarity.
Speaker:Help us all to receive with humility.
Speaker:Help the greatest, the deepest treasure of our heart be
Speaker:to glorify you, Jesus. In your name we pray,
Speaker:amen. Church, you may be seated.
Speaker:Okay, first thing I want to say, congratulations to all
Speaker:of you you have completed your Bible reading for
Speaker:the day. You don't have to worry about it. You've been
Speaker:given a launch pad to continue on with us through the
Speaker:conference and through the rest of the year. And if you've already
Speaker:completed your Bible reading for the day, I guess I'm sorry I
Speaker:made you read more scripture.
Speaker:So I'd like to ask you some questions. I want you to be honest, and
Speaker:I want you to be honest quietly to yourselves if you can. Handle it.
Speaker:Have you ever wondered why we stand together and
Speaker:read scripture? At any point
Speaker:when we were standing and read— reading that, did you think, man,
Speaker:he's got us reading a lot of verses tonight?
Speaker:At any point when we were reading that, did you think,
Speaker:I'd rather be sitting down while we read all these verses tonight?
Speaker:At any point while we were reading that, did you zone out?
Speaker:You have no idea what was in the middle there. And, um, if your
Speaker:answer, uh, was no to all those questions, that's amazing. So let
Speaker:me expand the parameters a little bit. Have you ever had those
Speaker:thoughts ever during a service here, or
Speaker:even while reading scripture at home by yourself? Have you gone from point A
Speaker:to point B of a passage and just gone, what in the world
Speaker:did I just read? And I wanted to
Speaker:expand those parameters as far as possible because I think if we're going to
Speaker:feel some conviction about something, let's do it together
Speaker:in unity. Amen. I will
Speaker:be the first to answer yes to all those questions.
Speaker:And when I was studying for this message, I spent a whole lot of time
Speaker:in 2 Chronicles and Ezra, Nehemiah, and I, I saw something
Speaker:familiar to our services and relevant to those
Speaker:questions. And it caused a new question to stir in me
Speaker:that I'm kind of hoping stirs in all of you tonight as well.
Speaker:And before we read it, the context leading up to this is that
Speaker:God's people had been in exile for over 70 years at this
Speaker:point. And that time of feeling separated from
Speaker:God's presence and their homeland created desperation
Speaker:in them, a desperation to return to a
Speaker:place of abiding with their Father. And it says when they
Speaker:came back home, they worked to rebuild themselves as worshipers, worked
Speaker:to rebuild the temple, which functioned as their
Speaker:center of worship in hopes that God might come
Speaker:and abide with them again. And during this process, they
Speaker:gathered together as an assembly, and they asked Ezra, who
Speaker:was a scribe and a priest, if he would read the book of the Law
Speaker:of Moses. And it says that he did this from
Speaker:early morning until midday for several
Speaker:days. Talk about a lot of verses.
Speaker:And here I am struggling to figure out how I'm going to,
Speaker:uh, find time to do Psalm 119 every time it comes up in our Bible
Speaker:reading plan. As I read,
Speaker:uh, read Nehemiah 8:5-6, try to play this out in your mind
Speaker:like a movie, and I'll put it up here.
Speaker:Ezra opened the book All
Speaker:the people could see him because he was standing above them.
Speaker:Sounds familiar. And as he opened it, the people all
Speaker:stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the great
Speaker:God, and all the people lifted their hands and responded,
Speaker:Amen, amen. Then they bowed down and
Speaker:worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
Speaker:So that moment in Nehemiah comes after centuries of
Speaker:Israel drifting from God, engaging in idol
Speaker:worship and compromise and cultural conformity from being
Speaker:in exile, as detailed through 2 Chronicles. And but
Speaker:I imagine it's hard for me not to imagine that at this
Speaker:moment when they come to the word of God, that
Speaker:surely they knew it was going to challenge and
Speaker:uproot their lives as they knew it before.
Speaker:Yet out of their desperation to abide with God again,
Speaker:opening the scriptures became a holy moment.
Speaker:It became something worth standing at attention for
Speaker:and leaning into and remaining
Speaker:in for a while
Speaker:and worth responding in
Speaker:worship. It was worth bringing their lives into
Speaker:full submission to the Word of God. Now that I know
Speaker:that this story exists in Scripture, my question is not,
Speaker:what can we do in our church services to replicate what they're doing?
Speaker:My question is not, can we incorporate more and
Speaker:longer Scripture readings to stretch that muscle a bit?
Speaker:My question has become,
Speaker:God, can you help me be
Speaker:more desperate for your word
Speaker:and for your presence, more desperate for your
Speaker:love, and to remain there so
Speaker:that I will be more capable of responding in worship
Speaker:in a way that brings you glory?
:1-2 says, therefore I urge you,
:brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies
:as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is
:your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this
:world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then
:you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good,
:pleasing, and perfect will. So Pastor Wayne Berry's
:definition of worship is obedient service
:manifesting through self-sacrifice. I like that definition.
:It holds up for me over time. And so when I say worship
:during this teaching, you can think of something like that. Worship is
:obedient service manifesting through self-sacrifice. And in
:Romans 12, I believe Paul is showing us that it's a
:response of worship. Our response of worship is a response in
:obedience to the revelation of God's mercy
:in our lives. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view
:of God's mercy Worship. It's a
:response. And also likewise in Nehemiah, our
:worship is a response, an obedient response to the
:revelation of who God has called and
:created us to be according to his word.
:What they're saying in there is, so be it unto me according
:to your word. He has
:created us to be transformed vessels with
:renewed minds and regenerated hearts on a mission
:to bring Him glory.
:And what I find fascinating about this story in Nehemiah is we
:don't see a people who know the whole book and
:already have it together and all right. We see a
:people working through the book and being
:diligent to apply what they're learning
:Becoming the worshipers God has called us to be
:is a process that requires patience, but
:it's also a process that demands diligence
:and intentionality.
:Our primary objective as worshipers is to bring
:glory to God. Our primary objective as
:worshipers is to bring glory to God. So anytime
:we see, or I see, language in scripture that looks like bringing glory
:to God, my antennas go up. I want to know about it.
:8 says this:
:Abide. This is to my Father's glory,
:that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my
:disciples. So according to that, the way we bring
:glory to God as worshipers is through bearing fruit. And
:the way we bear fruit is through abiding, which means remaining. You'll
:probably hear this a bunch this weekend— remaining, dwelling
:in Jesus, in his word, and in his love.
:And I think of fruit as something external. It's something you can
:taste and see. Certainly the world around us can
:taste and see. And if we aren't remaining in
:Jesus, if we aren't remaining in his word, and we aren't remaining in his
:love, then the fruit being produced through us won't look
:like Jesus. It won't sound like Jesus, and it
:won't feel like Jesus. And ultimately, it will not
:bring him glory. And I see this as
:a problem that exists today in the modern church
:in two ways. On both sides here, we have a lot of people,
:I feel like, who are in Jesus attempting to
:reflect his love to the world. Without the use of biblical
:principles found in his word. And on
:the other side of that, we have a whole lot of people who are
:in Jesus attempting to share the treasure of his
:word with the world without love.
:So instead of piercing hearts, it looks like getting
:beat over the head. Has anyone been on social
:media lately? Good.
:When our abiding is unbalanced, our worship,
:our fruitful output is unbalanced and doesn't
:look or function like it should. I heard this story
:recently of Charles Spurgeon, the famous preacher,
:and he was walking down the street one day and there was a drunk man
:across the street who yelled out to him, "Hey, Mr. Spurgeon!"
:And he said, 'Who are you?' And
:the guy said, 'I'm one of your converts.' And he
:says, 'Well, you must be one of mine because you're certainly not one of the
:Lord's.'
:I didn't say it, Spurgeon did. What? What? What?
:Although this man claimed to be in Jesus, the fruit of his
:life seemed off. His speech slurred,
:his walk stumbled. John 15,
:Jesus says, hearing the word has made us clean.
:He calls us friends because all that he has heard from his Father he has
:made known to us. That tells me that turning and
:tuning our ear to the words of our Father
:is critical for our worship.
:I'm going to put 2 Chronicles 36 up here.
:In 2 Chronicles, it says God's people had been turning away from
:him and his voice for so long
:that it caused this deep suffering in them
:and their dwelling place with God at the
:temple. And the temple to me represents their center of
:worship. And chapter 36 says that out of
:compassion that God had— and compassion is not the same
:is love. Compassion is being stirred from the deepest place of your
:being because you're seeing suffering. So he's seeing suffering in
:his people and in his dwelling place that they can't see. And
:out of that compassion, he sent messengers
:carrying his word over and over to try and restore their
:abiding and repair their center of worship. But his messengers
:were mocked.
:And his word was despised. So the Lord allowed them to be taken
:over by the Babylonians, and their temple, their center of
:worship, was left in ruins. So their
:refusal to remain in God's presence,
:their resistance to his word, and their insistence
:that they knew better than his word
:cost them their entire center of worship.
:Sorry, guys. I don't know.
:I believe God still speaks today. He
:still speaks through His word, and He certainly still speaks
:through people who carry deep reservoirs of His
:word. Sometimes it looks like encouragement. Sometimes
:it looks like correction. And I want to get better
:at turning and tuning my ear to His voice
:because He may be trying to repair my center of
:worship and fix a suffering in me that
:I'm unable to see. There was
:a time very recently I was going through something very difficult
:mentally and spiritually, and all I'll say about it is I
:was going through what I call an intense moment of
:fellowship with people that I love and respect very much. And I got that
:from Mario and Mel Gallione, so you'll know this. A
:decade ago, they taught at a marriage conference here, and they said they never
:got any fights. They've never been in any arguments, but they've
:been in a lot of intense moments of fellowship. And I
:thought, I love that lie, and I'm going to take
:that. That's amazing. So
:during this, these intense moments of fellowship, I would come
:home every night and over dinner I would share with my
:wife Brittney about my day, what I was going through, what I was struggling
:with, uh, the right and wrong of things, all that stuff. And she was very
:patient. She was very understanding. Day after day
:after day, she was listening to me until eventually
:she could see I was starting to shift a little bit. And she said to
:me, you know, I think all of this worry and all
:of this heaviness that you're carrying is
:affecting your peace, and it's
:starting to make you critical, and I'm
:worried that your worship is going to be affected
:from that. And I remember not
:caring for that at all when she said that, and
:intensely, intensely I said,
:what do you mean I don't have peace? I've tried everything I know to be
:peaceful. I am peaceful.
:I said it like that. I, yeah. On an
:unrelated note, a couple nights later, coming
:to my wife, this is totally unrelated, and I'm frustrated.
:I'm telling her I gotta buy a new pair of shoes because in the last
:6 months I've gone through 3 pairs of shoes and
:every pair of shoes, the sole had become detached on one of the
:pairs of shoes. And I'm just, I'm peacefully
:telling her, I want to burn the shoe industry
:to the ground because they've got it out for me. I just
:know it. And I see this smirk on her face and
:I know she's thinking about something. I'm like, and I, you know, what are you
:thinking about? And she says to me something that I imagine
:every man in here can only dream that his wife would say to him.
:She said, You walk funny.
:Okay. I was not prepared for that kind of
:negativity, I'll tell you that. But it caught me so
:off guard, I couldn't even be mad at it. I had to just be
:like, what do you mean I walk funny? And she said,
:on all 3 of the pairs of shoes, it's your right
:shoe that the sole is becoming detached on.
:You walk heavy on your right foot,
:and I couldn't see it. Then she told me the
:reason she can see it is because over a decade ago we were in a
:really bad car accident together where she sustained a pretty
:bad foot injury that required physical therapy. So she
:walked funny at one time, and one of the ways in which they
:helped her was as she was walking there, they would push on her
:back and they would add pressure in the direction that needed to be
:corrected. And absolutely
:nothing about what she's saying is registering to me
:spiritually at this point. I'm still going through all the
:same stuff. So the next day, you know, just
:lost in my thoughts, I'm like, well, I need to go on a funny little
:walk with God, I guess, and, and just
:get alone and get in prayer.
:And I get out there and I start praying, and her words, "You walk funny,"
:just start piercing my heart
:and softening it up. And I went, you know,
:I feel like I might have been fighting for the right things but in the
:wrong way. And I
:couldn't see it,
:but God sent me a person abiding in Jesus,
:abiding in the word, abiding in his love, to be able
:to pierce my heart and help me get my heart back on track
:into that abiding place with Christ and repair
:my center of worship. And after that, after I
:was kind of doing all right, I made the mistake of looking up. I
:thought, you know, I wonder what shoes and feet represent in the armor of
:God. And I went to Ephesians 6:15 and it says,
:and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the
:gospel of peace.
:I am peaceful, he says.
:So spiritually, after that, I started to take
:steps to correct my walk. Okay,
:physically, I still walk funny. I just do it with
:a better pair of shoes. And I was really nervous about sharing this
:story because I'm like, people are going to be like, yeah, he does kind of,
:you know, or whatever. Don't do that.
:Emotionally, I still wonder if there may have been a better way she could
:have said that to me. But the deal
:is, guys, let me take that
:off. The deal is pruning doesn't feel good.
:It involves getting cut. It involves getting
:cut back and getting rid of what needs to be gotten
:rid of. And John 15 guarantees
:that fruit-bearing branches will be cut back so
:that they can continue on in fruitfulness.
:As I was reading through 2 Chronicles, I saw a
:pattern over and over again of some kings that would
:turn from God, and this was most of the kings. They would turn from God
:and they would totally miss it. Then there were some kings who
:would be following the Lord for a long time, but like when it mattered most,
:like at the end of their life, they would turn away and they would totally
:miss. And then there was a small amount of kings who stayed
:connected to God and they got it right, or they
:stayed faithful. And if I'm honest, I can see myself in all
:three of those patterns. But I do think it's easy
:to read scripture sometimes. And, you know, I'm all these thousands
:of years ahead and I see something, somebody doing something stupid,
:and I'm like, look at that dummy. And I forget all
:the time, I'm the dummy in scripture. I am
:not the hero. Jesus is.
:And the common thread in all those stories in Chronicles, 2
:Chronicles, is that the kings that missed it stopped depending on
:God, and the kings that got it right always
:remained careful to depend on God.
:Abiding in worship requires total dependence
:on God. We are unable to bear fruit that brings
:him glory without total dependence on Jesus.
:There was a string of services we had here, I want to say
:2 years ago. The series was all Holy Spirit
:theme, and we did the Fruit of the Spirit, the Gifts of the
:Spirit, and it was just really incredible. And I felt like it seemed like
:every single week there were just these incredible altar
:call moments and move of God in our church, like in
:worship and at the end of service. It was incredible week
:after week after week. And there was one week in particular, so
:many people came up that we didn't have enough people prepared to
:pray. And there were so many people that it was hard to see
:who needed prayer. But I'm up here in this position and I kind of have
:this view. And I see a guy come down that I have never seen before,
:and I've never seen since, just look so
:desperate to hear from the Lord, so desperate. And
:I'm sitting here going, okay, how can I keep facilitating this
:moment but get this man prayed for? And I'm looking around for leaders,
:but everybody's kind of already praying with somebody. And
:I see a guy who's kind of new to our church, but he's raising up
:into leadership. But his eyes are closed like this, and he's in worship.
:And it takes me a minute to get his attention, but I finally do. And
:I point to him to go pray for that guy. And he does. And he
:comes up to me after the service and he says,
:I want you to know that the Holy Spirit spoke straight
:through you today because I saw that man come into the
:altar space and God told me to go pray for him.
:And I said no. And I closed my eyes.
:And I went back into worship.
:I want to be better at opening my eyes and
:responding when an opportunity for true worship
:comes walking into our lives.
:That's crazy stuff. It's so exciting when somebody
:tells you something like that and you got to be a part of it.
:Yeah, I mean, it's just like, what? I mean, I was riding
:that wave for a couple weeks after that, riding that
:wave, and I thought, man, that's an awesome testimony. I can use that
:in a sermon someday. I feel like there's a lot of content that,
:you know, you could just think through that and sit on that for a while.
:Not even 2 weeks later, I find myself over here
:at Kroger. I'm walking in to just get a few things,
:and the Lord illuminates to me a man who's walking with his
:daughter and says, I want you to buy his groceries.
:And I wish I could say that I was still riding that
:wave and had the faith that I had that day.
:But instead, I closed my eyes and I
:thought, God, is that, is that really your voice? What if, what if I don't
:have enough money to pay for what he's wanting to get? What
:if he gets too many things and I, I played that little game with the
:Lord until the opportunity to be obedient walked out the
:door. And I thought
:to myself, I guess that'll make a pretty good sermon
:story too.
:I'm learning to be comfortable with the fact that I'm going to be
:teaching from my failures for quite a while.
:I do not enjoy the feeling of missing God.
:Even though 2 Chronicles 36 shows that God's people
:were ultimately sent into exile because they turned away—
:there are consequences to our disobedience, they were sent into
:exile— verse 21 says something so
:incredible that when I read it, it
:absolutely filled me with hope and wrecked my
:heart in the best way. And I pray it does the same for you.
:It says, during this time of exile, the land enjoyed its
:Sabbath rest. All the time of its desolation, it
:rested until the 70 years were completed in
:fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.
:So during their exile, during this time of consequence,
:God was causing the land to rest.
:In other words, God was already preparing a place
:for His people to be fruitful again
:if and when they returned and remained in Him.
:He already began healing and redeeming and
:reconciling the land before they ever accepted it,
:repented, or enter back into it.
:God is patient. God is kind,
:more merciful than we can possibly imagine.
:As worshipers, we should be concerned with how scripture teaches us to bear
:fruit and concerned with how scripture teaches us to
:access fruitfulness again. 2
:14. If my people who are
:called by my name will humble themselves and pray and
:seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from
:heaven. I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
:8 is an echo of that. Bear fruit in
:keeping with repentance. Repentance keeps us
:fruitful because it keeps us in
:Christ. I
:repented of that moment several years ago, and
:I try to remain more intentional about
:implementing disciplines of humility,
:seeking God, remembering to stay dependent on him.
:The thing is, like, if we don't get intentional about
:that, I mean, we'll— it's so easy to miss
:it. It'll just, it'll just slip right by.
:And about 2 weeks ago, I'm preparing for this message, preparing
:that I'm going to share these stories, preparing to talk about fruitfulness
:again. And my wife comes to me one night and she says that she's got
:someone on her heart that she would like to give to.
:And I say, that's great, how much? And she says, I don't want to tell
:you because we
:don't have the amount we need to do it. In our giving account,
:but I want God to tell you how much, because then
:I'll know that it's right and there'll be confirmation. Talking
:about dependency, talk about no pressure.
:So I pray, God gives me an amount, I go to Brittney, trembling,
:go to Brittney, tell her the amount. She says, that's exactly
:the number he gave me. So we found a
:way to get the money. And I'm just going, God,
:thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for the
:opportunity to bear fruit again.
:And in all those situations, all the highs and
:lows, all the rights and wrongs, I want to get better
:at being brought down to the same place
:of dependency on him. The
:story in Ezra and
:Nehemiah of God's people returning to him and abiding in
:him is nearly a perfect redemption story
:until it's not. They rebuild the temple.
:They submit to the counsel of his word. They have praise
:services. They, they're intentional about confession. They're intentional
:about repentance. They consecrate themselves. They're reading the
:law and applying it in real time, and they try really,
:really hard to be set apart as the people of God.
:Yet as soon as Nehemiah leaves, the people begin
:to fall apart. They stop taking care of the
:Levites. They stop taking care of the temple. They start to backslide.
:They did not bear fruit that lasted.
:And even though they got it right in so many of the details, the
:story shows how easy it is for God's people to lose
:focus on what matters most—true
:relationship with Him.
:When my wife and I first started dating, I remember her telling me
:one of her dreams was to be on a boat
:at night playing a piano. When I heard that,
:I thought, I need to remember that. I need to tune my ear to that.
:And remember that detail. So I stored that. Fast forward a
:little while later, she said she always wanted her engagement
:ring, like the primary stones in it, to be pearls instead of
:diamonds. And I thought, I need to remember that. That's
:an important detail. Fast forward
:and I'm ready to propose to Brittney. I've saved the money. I've
:bought this custom ring, and I'm thinking, how am I going to do it?
:And I think, and that memory comes to me on a boat
:at night with a piano. And I'm like, okay,
:I just have to get Brittney and this ring on a boat with a piano
:at night, and this will be the most perfect
:proposal story of all time. I found out really
:quickly that's very difficult to do. There are no
:nighttime piano boat rental places. In the
:greater Nashville, Smyrna, Murfreesboro area. I don't—
:there used to not be. I don't know. So I, I,
:I began thinking like, how can I make this easier on myself? Shift this
:up a little bit, but still let her know that I've paid attention to the
:details. And that's when I thought, you know, like getting a
:piano is hard. Getting a keyboard's
:a little easier. I can get that somewhere. And we were youth
:worship leaders at the time. And, you know, I was thinking like,
:the keyboard's really good. If I buy her a keyboard, it serves two
:functions. One, it's kind of an investment in our future together.
:Two, it's really going to sweeten the pot of this
:proposal that I'm about to do. She could— there's a chance she says
:no to the ring. She says no to a ring and a keyboard.
:Can't help her. You know what I mean? So now
:I'm just like, okay, I get the keyboard and I'm like, Now I just got
:to get Brittney, the ring, and the keyboard on a
:boat at night, and it'll be
:nearly the most perfect proposal story of all time. So I
:start looking for boats, and what I find out, I used all my money on
:the other stuff, so my budget's pretty skim. I don't have the money to rent
:out the General Jackson. So I'm like, what, what kind of boat exists
:that has enough floor space where I can put a
:keyboard on it, plug it in, and kind of walk around and propose? And
:My budget only could afford a pontoon,
:and I was like, you know what? That floats. That counts. That's a boat.
:It's getting redneck really quick. Okay, I'm from
:Woodbine, but that is a boat. This is nearly the
:most perfect proposal story of all
:time. So I rent the
:pontoon, and the only— and I couldn't rent it at night. That was a
:whole nother thing. I'm like, oh, whatever. You know, the details are getting crazy at
:this point. It counts. I go to rent the pontoon and
:I just pick the— they don't have the date I want and they give me
:like, I want the— I get the next available date. When I sign on the
:dotted line, I walk away. I find out that's the same day as the
:Smyrna Air Show. Do you know how
:crazy it gets out there on the water? So I'm going, okay,
:I'm going to have Brittney and a ring and a piano, a keyboard
:actually. On this floating floor, not under
:a peaceful night sky, but kind of like
:probably like with Lynyrd Skynyrd blaring in the background or
:something from all these other boats. I'm just going, this is
:crazy, but it's going to work. It's going to be
:fine. She'll understand the details enough to know that I
:cared. So I invite her on this date. I
:say, hey, I'm going to take you on a date. It's a surprise. I can't
:tell you where it is. She says, what should I wear? This is a big
:deal. Okay? And I know there's going to be pictures. I know there's going to
:be videos. So I say, wear a nice dress. That's all I say.
:Everybody already knows. This is crazy. I mean, that's— I
:didn't know. Okay, so I pick her up. I pick her up and she goes,
:I need you to tell me right now. We're going to go to the lake.
:I need you to tell me right now where we're going, because I feel like
:I don't know if I'm overdressed or underdressed. And I'm like, I can tell her
:we're going to the lake. Without ruining it. So I tell her we're going to
:the lake to meet some friends on a boat. Turns out a nice
:dress is not optimal for that scenario.
:There may have been an intense moment of fellowship
:that happened on the way to the lake, but
:it kind of— it was a nice juxtaposition against the moment that was about to
:happen.
:So we get to the lake, we get on the floating boat thing,
:and, you know, way off on this side, there's all the other boats that are
:there to see the Smyrna Air Show. But out on the right over here,
:it's totally empty, like this big cove or
:something, just totally peaceful. So we drive over there, and the keyboard
:is covered up. She has no idea what it is. It looks like it's a
:part of the boat. We drive over there, We get settled,
:and with a shaky voice, I start to remind
:her of what she told me when we first started dating. All
:the details about the ring and how I
:remembered that and filed that away, and about the details of wanting to be
:on a boat with a piano and blah, blah, blah, blah.
:And as I'm doing that, I just wanted her to know that I cared that
:much. I cared about the details. And I, I uncover the
:keyboard, which, by the way, don't put a keyboard on a boat.
:That's crazy. Love will make you do some stuff, man. I'll tell you.
:I uncover the keyboard. I pick up the ring. I
:open the box. And as I go to get down on my knee,
:and I'm not going to do it because I haven't tested it in these pants,
:okay? I haven't tested it. Um, I kind
:of fall over a little bit. Not totally, but it's
:super not graceful. And
:I remember, I realized in that moment all of the effort that I put into
:all of the details surrounding the moment, I forgot
:to focus my intention on the most important
:moment of the whole thing, when I would be
:face to face with the one person that I love most.
:And I had forgotten to practice the posture of
:getting down on my knee.
:There's a young man that was getting, uh, that was going to propose
:to his girlfriend 6 months ago that attends here, and I told him, I was
:like, practice getting down on a knee and put
:on the pants that you plan to do it in. Okay, this is very important.
:This is wisdom. But here's how, here's how God's grace
:works. Brittney said yes to me. Praise the
:Lord. Thank you, Jesus. And a few moments later, the
:first planes of the Smyrna Air Show fly over in formation.
:To this day, I have never told Brittney how I was able to make that
:detail happen.
:And the funny thing is, is although she loved all of the details,
:she never played the keyboard. On the boat.
:She assured me that she would have said yes regardless.
:2 Chronicles 7:17-18.
:God honors all the work that Solomon and the people had put
:into this beautifully ornate temple. He agrees
:to make that a place of abiding. However, this is what he
:tells Solomon privately. 'As for you,
:if you walk before me faithfully,' and that means walk in my
:presence, with my presence, 'as David your father did,
:and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I
:will establish your royal throne as I covenanted
:with David your father when I said, "You shall never
:fail to have a successor to rule over
:Israel."' That to me shows
:that God cares deeply about us doing all that
:he commands, but the priority of his heart is
:that all of it flows from a true relationship with
:him. And when we do that, true
:and lasting fruitfulness comes.
:The details do not give meaning to our relationship
:with God. Our relationship with God gives meaning to
:the details. Worship does not
:give power to our relationship with Jesus.
:Our relationship with Jesus gives power to our worship.
:So let's endeavor to stay in that abiding place. Worship team, you
:can go ahead and come out. If you guys are out there, back there,
:please stand with me tonight, church.
:Hmm. We have just a few more minutes. We have a little bit of time
:this evening, and, and if we can, I would love to spend it with you
:all in worship.
:There are still places in my life where God is
:correcting my funny little walk
:and calling me into deeper relationship.
:And maybe that's something the Lord is speaking to you about tonight or
:this weekend. And maybe your walk feels a little off
:balance. Maybe the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit is, is bringing
:gentle correction or just leading you to a place of rest.
:If that's you, the altar is open. I'm not going to ask
:anybody to come down for, uh, to pray with anybody,
:but I felt like it would be a good moment as we lead this together
:just to reorient ourselves at the feet
:of the Father
:to say, God, I am ready to hear what you have to
:say for me, and I'm ready
:to respond in worship.
:Let's wish.
