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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Sebastien Braxton

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I wanna finish out our series today with a very simple message.

You know, I'm a believer in the fact that as a preacher, 1 of the hardest things for me to do is to listen to sermons.

Even though, right, technically I'm listening to myself whenever I'm preaching.

But you find that many times when, you know, preachers preach, sometimes you kind of struggle to know what to take away from.

You know, there's so many different points, there's so many different things, so you're kind of like, What's the very core, simple, wrap my hands around and work on that thing on Tuesday message from this sermon?

And so I want to speak to you very simply, and that's why I chose a very simple title, Only.

So I want you to take your Bibles and go to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 36.

It's great because Esther just mentioned this in her prayer.

So as we've been talking about the heart, we've been dealing with A, on Friday night that we're busy here and there.

We're so caught up in the busyness of life, the busyness of ministry, that we say, oh, you gotta die to self, doesn't literally mean neglect yourself and your own spirituality.

God is not in the business of trading souls.

You go out and spend yourself for others to be saved, only to end up lost.

God wants us to bring souls and yet be rejoicing in his salvation day after day after day after day.

But too often we get so caught up in the service of Christ, the number 1 competitor to Jesus, that we lose Christ himself.

And we are in danger of making a savior out of our activities.

This morning we dealt with the fact that this is where the true story lies, is in the heart.

As we looked at Naaman's story and the fact that, yeah, he had all these accomplishments, but at the end of the day he was a leper and that's where the real story was that's what God saw when he looked at Naaman he saw a leper and he used his providential leadings to allow this young girl to lead Naaman to be cleansed so now if we we take this point about the heart, and we say it's all about the inner life, and it's about who we are in our hearts, as we just sang, Lord, I wanna be a Christian in my heart.

Right, And we talked about the Negro slaves that wrote that song, which only adds even greater significance to the prayer itself.

Because these are people who are oppressed, who are not as free, who are not as blessed as we are.

And yet they're saying to themselves, Lord, I want to have the kind of love in my heart that I can even love the man who's oppressing me.

But that's where real Christianity takes place.

The Bible says, these are the words of God to Israel after they're in captivity.

He says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them.

Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers.

You shall be my people and I will be your God.

And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.

I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you.

And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your field so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations.

Not for your sake do I do this, says the Lord God.

Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.

And on that day I cleanse you from all your iniquities.

I will also enable you to dwell in the cities and the ruins shall be rebuilt.

Because it's in the afternoon and you had lunch, we need to have more of a Bible study.

Keep you awake turning the pages of the Bible, amen?

Now we have a popular text, maybe you know this verse in the Bible, it says, For as a man thinks in his heart, so does he.

You know, we don't often understand the context of this verse.

So I want to read the context with you as we explore Ezekiel 36.

So there in verse 1 it says, When you sit down to eat with a ruler, consider carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite.

Somebody should have put a knife to their throat this afternoon.

Do not desire his delicacies for they are deceptive food.

Do not overwork to be rich because of your own understanding.

Will you set your eyes on that which is not for riches certainly make themselves wings they fly away like an eagle toward heaven do not eat the bread of a miser nor desire his delicacies for as he thinks in his heart so is what he Now let's read what he says and what he thinks.

It says, eat and drink, he says to you, but his heart is what?

So the Bible says, the man is saying eat and drink but his heart is not with you the more so you have eaten You will vomit up and waste your pleasant words So in other words, he says look you need to be careful when you're going in these situations with individuals Cuz he says listen this man's gonna say to you eat eat eat Come to our house for potluck.

And he says, and you don't even realize that his heart is not even with you.

Can you imagine that you have somebody, you know, you're going to someone's house at potluck.

But all they're thinking is calculating all the foods you're eating.

This guy just ate us out of house and home.

We can't be having the college students over again, honey.

This is not going to work for our grocery bill.

And we're sitting there calculating, calculating, calculating, and he says, listen, this man is looking at you, but as he thinks in his heart, that's who he really is.

He will say this, he will say that, but who he really is.

You see, where we're going is we're saying, there can be a contrast of who we present ourselves to be and who we actually are and The answer is who am I really?

Who the man is really is not based on what he said to you.

No, no, this person is totally supportive.

This person is totally my friend because they said this and this.

But you see behavior clearly communicating they're not for you.

You know God goes through the same thing.

She prayed this morning, she said, Lord help me to walk in your ways.

She is doing everything but walking in your ways.

Because as now you look, God says, I want you to see the situation as I see it.

When you look at yourself, when I look at myself, let's stop looking at our words.

Let's stop looking at what we post on Facebook.

Let's stop looking at this is what's on my CV and my resume.

Let's start looking inside to see who I really am.

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