Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother
Pastor Brian: Happy 4th of July, everybody. God bless you. Happy Birthday America, This is a time of year where we remember and we celebrate the birth of our nation. Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who we reflect back on as heroes, they were not thought of as heroes at that time when they did what they did. Many of them were not the power brokers that we might envision them to have been in their day. They were, many of them ordinary people who no longer wanted to live under tyranny. There was an extreme amount of tyranny at that time. I don't need to go into the details of that. There was a tyranny of an oppressive government. What most of us sometimes failed to realize is that in virtually all the nations of the world, up until that time, most nations were governed by a monarchy, a king or queen, where they virtually were the supreme authority over everything. For our founding fathers to make a declaration that was so out of the realm of the understanding of most people, which was this: God has created all people equally.
Everybody is equal under the eyes of their creator. All men are created equal. You have to remember the people that wrote that had been raised up under a monarchy or kings and queen rulership. That's the only thing that they understood up to that point in time. For them to have this revelation as it were, this understanding, this quickening in their hearts that this was going to be something different, this was a big idea. This was a really, really, really big idea and a big thing. The signers had a dream, and that dream was a dream of freedom from oppression, and also the ability to chart for themselves a direction for their lives that wasn't going to be determined by somebody else, especially somebody else who really didn't have their best interest in mind.
It's one thing to be under a government, but, but our government was really created. I know that it feels at times that we've lost sight of this as a nation. But our founding fathers really created our government to be a place where freedom was what was entitled to everybody. Everybody. I know there is contradictions with some of the people who even signed that Declaration of Independence, and they had associations to slavery. Yet sometimes-- do you remember the scriptures that say, "and they spoke not of themselves," or that in the first year of Cyrus King of Persia, the spirit of the Lord stirred him up so that he would make a declaration that the nation of Israel could come back from captivity. Cyrus didn't do that on his own.
How many know that God can stir up people to do things that are completely out of sorts with even their character and how they think? And I believe a lot of that happened. One of the interesting things that we sometimes forget is that God never wanted Israel to have a king. That was not God's plan, to be under a monarchy and a rulership of that sort. But the problem with Israel way back in the time of the judges, was that number one, everybody did what was right in their own eyes. How many know that that can get us into a heap of goop if we just all do what is right in our own eyes, whatever feels good?
But God wanted Israel to be a nation that functioned under his love and his grace and his authority. But Israel wanted to be like all the other nations. Let's quit wanting to be like the world. Let's quit wanting to be like the world and let's desire to be the things that God desires us to be because he made us; we didn't make ourselves. And he's the one that knows how we are to live and the best way to get there, the best way to achieve his purposes. God never intended Israel to have a king. They wanted a king. And even Israel came under this whole kingship, monarchy where the kings end up owning everything or having rule over everything. These signers of our declaration were ordinary men who had a very big idea. I want to talk today about the challenge for the people who have big ideas. Sometimes, I think I have big ideas.
Jacque: I agree. I'm just trying to catch up and stay with you.
Pastor Brian: The problem for people who have big ideas is that they often are the target of small men and women with small minds. And the example that was shown to us from the scriptures, is that we see that we are to think big anyways. I want us to all start wearing a big button that says T B A- Think Big Anyways. God has big plans. Did you know that Jesus didn't come to put limitations on us? He didn't come to put limitations on our thinking. He came to expand our thinking, to lift our vision higher, which is the title of my message today. Let's lift our vision higher.
Jacque: Brian. I think all of us need to just start with think big. Because I think it's safer to not think big. It's less pressure, less work, less risk.
Pastor Brian: Did you read my sermon notes?
Jacque: Oh, no, I didn't.
Pastor Brian: That's okay. But you are right. Those are the reason people don't want to think big: you have to get outside the box at times to do that. I just want to have a disclaimer here. When I use the word small men or women, I don't mean bad or evil people. But if you have a big idea, if you want to think big, you will have small-minded people who will try to undermine and destroy those big ideas, those big thoughts that you have, those dreams that you have.
I was just talking to a person this past week and he said, " I listened to that message when you said your dreamer is broken. My dreamer was broken. And I'm beginning to dream again. I'm beginning to think larger again, think bigger again." There are people who just can't see beyond their world. Their own world is very, very, very small, and they want you to fit into their world. God wants you to fit into his world. His world is very big. His world is without limits.
Throughout history, people who think small have misunderstood and even persecuted people with big ideas. Daniel from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament is an example of a person who really had high standards and a really strong faith, who was targeted and criticized by small-minded, very jealous people. Daniel distinguished himself by his exceptional qualities. We've got to remember the context here. Daniel was taken captive as one of the people that were in captivity. Where he was taken, he began to serve there. He tried to make wherever he was better. He didn't try to overthrow where he was at. He tried to make wherever he was better. And he did it by implementing the principles and things that he had learned when he was a little Jewish kid growing up in Israel.
One of the things that Daniel did was he would pray three times a day. And he didn't pray in secret. He would open up his window to pray. We have to be careful here not to do our good works in front of men. But it's okay to say hey, let's pray together. It's okay at the restaurant to bow your head, hold hands if you want to with the people at your table, and ask the Lord to bless the food and bless the person who made it and bless the server. You don't have to get down on your knees at your booth there, but it's a good thing to do this. It's good to publicly pray. I remember when prayer was taken out of school, at least people thought prayer was taken out of school. But prayer was always in school while there were tests in school. There is still prayer in school if they give tests anyways. You look as though you wanted to say something.
Jacque: No, no.
Pastor Brian: Just ahead prepared. Do you have anything to say?
Jacque: No.
Pastor Brian: No. I don't believe that.
Jacque: I'm sorry. Is this the clue that I have something to say? Is this the cue?
Pastor Brian: No. So anyways, Daniel distinguished himself, through his good character, his qualities, and in fact, he was so good that the king was going to put him in charge of virtually the whole kingdom right under the king. We see that story in Daniel chapter 6, verse 1 through 16. Now you can read this for me. Thanks.
Jacque: Darius the Mede, decided to divide the kingdom into 120 provinces, and he appointed a high officer to rule over each province. The king also chose Daniel and two others as administrators to supervise the high officers and protect the king's interests. Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all the other administrators and high officers. Because of Daniel's great ability, the king made plans to place him over the entire empire.
Pastor Brian: Here's this Jewish guy who has been taken into captivity, and he lets the character and his hard work and his abilities cause him to raise up to basically the number two man in the kingdom, just like Joseph down in Egypt some centuries before.
Jacque: And it was a huge.
Pastor Brian: I would say 120 provinces is a pretty big kingdom. Wouldn't you say? I mean, even if a province was only the size of our counties here in Minnesota, that's still a pretty big area. Now, the king is going to make him the number two man, and the other administrators get their dander up. Is that a right word?
Jacque: That was good.
Pastor Brian: Okay. All right.
Jacque: Then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn't find anything to criticize or condemn. He was faithful, always responsible and completely trustworthy.
Pastor Brian: Well, if we just lived that way where we were always faithful, always responsible, and completely trustworthy, what a difference we would make in this world, right? Those are things within our power to do, aren't they? We don't need a stimulus check to do that. We don't need help from the government to do that. We have the ability, we have the technology. We have the ability to be faithful and responsible and trustworthy.
Jacque: Completely trustworthy I like that. So they concluded our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel will be in connection with the rules of his religion. So the administrators and high officers went to the king and said, long live king Darius.
Pastor Brian: If you are in rulership, if you are in a place of authority and someone comes in and says to you, "I hope you are in this place for just forever," Don't trust them.
Jacque: They probably have a--
Pastor Brian: They had an ulterior motive. They came in. They were placating the king. They were kissing his shoes. They were doing all this stuff. And you know what? It played on his what?
Jacque: Pride.
Pastor Brian: His pride. We all like our pride to be stroked, don't we? But you know what the scriptures say for us to do with our pride? Kill it. Kill it. Put a sword in your pride. Just kill that pride. Because if we don't kill it, then the problem is God will bring things into our lives to kill it. That's sometimes even more painful. Isn't it?
Jacque: It's much better to choose on our own.
Pastor Brian: Yes. It's much better to just-- you know, like I said, let's give God a blank check today for our lives and say, use me however you want. Do to me whatever you want. I'll say yes. Just send Jesus a letter today that just says one word: Yes.
Jacque: I love that line in the song. And before you even ask, Lord, my answer will be yes because I love you.
Pastor Brian: We used to sing a song, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, yes, Lord. Maybe we should resurrect that song. Let's resurrect that song. Anyways, we digress.
Jacque: The administrators went to the king and schmoozed him. We are all in agreement. We, administrators, officials, high officers, advisors, and governors.
Pastor Brian: They lied, by the way. They weren't all in agreement.
Jacque: Because Daniel--
Pastor Brian: Because Daniel wasn't part of the agreement. He was excluded from the plan.
Jacque: Okay. I never saw that. That the king should make a law that will be strictly enforced, give orders that for the next 30 days-- Why not for longer than 30 days? Because they knew they could catch him.
Pastor Brian: I think there were other gods. There were other deities that people prayed to, so to overthrow that on a permanent basis would've been the heights of arrogance on Darius. But he thought, well, for 30 days I think it's a great idea that people pray to me or worship me, whatever.
Jacque: Okay. Give orders that for the next 30 days, any person who prays to anyone, divine or human except to you, your majesty, will be thrown in the den of lions. And now your majesty issue and sign this law, so it cannot be changed, an official law of the Meads and Persians that cannot be revoked. So King Darius signed the law.
Pastor Brian: They appealed to his pride and he yielded, but--
Jacque: When Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done giving thanks to his God. Then the officials went together to Daniel's house and found him praying and asking for God's help, so they went straight to the king and reminded him about his law. Did you not sign a law that for the next 30 days, any person who prays to anyone, divine or human except to you, your majesty will be thrown into the den of lions? "Yes," the king replied. "That decision stands; it is an official law of the Meads and Persians that cannot be revoked." Then they told the king that man, Daniel, one of the captives from Judah is ignoring you and your law. He still prays to his God three times a day.
Pastor Brian: Now, Darius is in a pickle. And here's the pickle. Darius really loves Daniel. He has promoted him. He knows him well. He also knows that if he doesn't uphold his law and his keeps his word, then everybody else in his kingdom is going to be able to run roughshod over his laws and his kingdom. So he really is in a hard place. And I've often said about Darius, he loved Daniel. The problem was he didn't love him enough. He just didn't love him enough. If he would've loved him enough, he would've said, you know what? He would've humbled himself and said, I made a mistake. I should never have made this law. I should never have done this.
And you know what? When you humble yourselves that way and say, I was wrong, I did this, please forgive me, more often than not, that will endear people to you, especially if you have relationship with them. It won't endear the media to you of course, but that's who we are not trying to please anyways. But he didn't do that. And so he had only one other choice. And we see what that was.
Jacque: Hearing this, the king was deeply troubled and he tried to think of a way to save Daniel. He spent the rest of the day looking for a way to get Daniel out of this predicament. In the evening, the men went together to the king and said, your majesty, you know that according to the law of the Meads and the Persians, no law that the king signs can be changed. So at last, the king gave orders for Daniel to be arrested and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to him, "May your God whom you serve so faithfully rescue you."
Pastor Brian: Darius, instead of actually taking the bull by the horns like he should have, he actually put everything on God. And there are times where we'd like to do that ourselves. We put things on God when God is saying, listen, I've empowered you to do this. I want you to do this. I will empower you, I will walk with you, but I want you to do this. We know the rest of the story, of course, that Daniel spent the night in the lion's den. God shut the mouths of the lions. He shut the mouths of the small-minded people also who had targeted him. We see that in verses 24 to 28. This is a little gruesome, but we are going to read it anyways.
Jacque: I know. It hurts me. Then the king gave orders to arrest the men who had maliciously accused Daniel.
Pastor Brian: This is the next day after Daniel is alive.
Jacque: He had them thrown into the lion's den along with their wives and children.
Pastor Brian: That's a tough one, isn't it?
Jacque: Yeah.
Pastor Brian: Let's remember something here that the decisions we make, the decisions I make as a father and as a husband, don't just affect me. They don't just affect Jacque as my wife. They affect my family. They very possibly could affect this church. Our choices aren't just isolated on, on ourselves. I've heard people say, well, I can do this or I can do that. I'm not hurting anybody. But the fact of the matter is they are hurting multitudes of people even, get this, children who are not yet born. They are called generational curses as opposed to generational blessings. We want to create generational blessings for our children and our grandchildren.
I was talking to a person fairly recently. Let's face it, I'm 72. I'm not going to be the pastor of this church for the next 50 years. I'm not. I may not be the pastor of this church for the next 10 years. That's in the Lord's hands. People have talked to me about transition. Well, what's going to happen here at Hope Community? Because you are looking old. You know, ,
Jacque: They do not say that. You are not looking old.
Pastor Brian: Oh, thank you. But got those rosy tinted glasses on again today, baby. One of the things that I've said is this: my plan and what I'm trying to implement is that my grandchildren's grandchildren will have a place that will be sustainable called Hope Community Church. I'm not just thinking who's going to be the next pastor of Hope Community Church. I'm thinking about a hundred years from now when none of us are here, what's going to be happening to this church? I know that some of you are thinking, hey, Jesus is going to come back. Before that. Let me tell you something, people in 1900, literally 1900, 1901 said Jesus was coming back then. I remember in 1988, do you remember what came out in 1988? A book that said 88 Reasons Why Jesus is Coming Back in 1988.
Jacque: There was a 1989 one too.
Pastor Brian: Then there was a 1989, oh I miscalculated something here. There was a big miscalculation. The miscalculation was Jesus said to occupy until I come. We are going to set up plans, we are going to set up future, we are going to set up endowments, we are going to do all these things to keep sustaining the Ministry of Hope Community Church. That's what we need to do. But how did I get off on that?
Jacque: I don't know. But that's a big dream. That is a big dream.
Pastor Brian: Yes. It's a big dream.
Jacque: Can I say one thing?
Pastor Brian: Yes, you can.
Jacque: But the Lord told me several years ago when I said, "What are we doing here, God?"
He said, "You came and captured this corner for me." And that's for the generations to come to come. Our prayers are for that too.
Pastor Brian: I don't know why I got off on that anyway.
Jacque: But it's a big dream.
Pastor Brian: It is. Okay. It's one of my big dreams. Anyways, we go on. The king had these guys thrown into the--
Jacque: With their wives and children.
Pastor Brian: Oh, that's right. And so our choices do affect our families. We have to be mindful of that. These guys that conspired to kill Daniel, the consequences to that conspiracy actually had a direct negative impact on their wives and their children.
Jacque: The lions leaped on them and tore them apart before they even hit the floor of the den.
Pastor Brian: Wow. Pretty gruesome scene.
Jacque: Then King Darius sent this message to the people of every race and nation and language throughout the world, peace and prosperity to you. I decree that everyone throughout my kingdom should tremble with fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God and he will endure forever. His kingdom will never be destroyed, and his rule will never end. He rescues and saves his people. He performs miraculous signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
Pastor Brian: Daniel actually outlived Darius. And then Cyrus who became the king after Darius. He ruled with Cyrus. And then it was Cyrus in his very first year that the spirit of the Lord stirred up his spirit and he sent forth a proclamation that whatever captives could go back. And that's when the remnant returned. We see that Daniel was shot down by small-minded people, but it didn't change him. It didn't change his faith did it. It didn't change him. It didn't change his faith. He trusted in the Lord and the Lord saved him, and he continued to serve God. And I believe he continued to think big. Because you have to think big if you are going to be over 120 provinces. You have to think big.
Jacque: And he prospered.
Pastor Brian: And he prospered in that way. Big ideas are usually about doing something new, maybe something different, making things better. Small men and women feel threatened by change. And many of them don't want things to get better because to get better, things would have to change. There is a mantra that some people have perfected in that mantra is this: We've never done it that way before. We've never done it that way before. I think if we look around us in our world, that seems to be, if I dare use the expression going to hell in a hand basket, maybe we all ought to start doing something different. Maybe we need to reevaluate how we, even as the church are doing things, Jesus himself brought a new gospel and he too was shot down by small men and small minds. In fact, some of the smallest minds that came against Jesus were people from his own hometown. I've got a couple scriptures I want to read there. One with Luke chapter four.
Jacque: When everyone present heard Jesus words, they erupted with furious rage.
Pastor Brian: Now, one of the things that Jesus was teaching here was that the Gentiles were also going to be included in the blessings of God. That was one of the messages of Jesus. This was not met with any warmth and receptivity. Let's read it again.
Jacque: They mobbed Jesus and threw him out of the city, dragging him to the edge of the cliff on the hill on which the city had been built, ready to hurl him off. They were going to kill him. But he walked right through the crowd leaving them all stunned.
Pastor Brian: Jacque and I have been at this spot; it's outside of Nazareth. There is a really big steep precipice. It is really cool to go back and kind of see some of the things from scripture. But they dragged him out of this synagogue. They were furious at his words. They were small-minded people who did not want to embrace the big message of the gospel. But God spared him, and he just walked right through them, leaving them all stunned. We see another portion of scripture that these people in Nazareth said as well: Matthew chapter 13, verses 55 to 58.
Jacque: Isn't he just the craftsman's son? Isn't his mother named Mary and his four brothers, Jacob, Joseph, Simon, and Judah, and don't his sisters all live here in Nazareth? From where then did he get all this revelation? And power and the people became offended and began to turn against him.
Pastor Brian: Nothing good comes out of Nazareth. That was a thinking back then. It wasn't the metropolis of Jerusalem. It wasn't even close to Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, nothing good can come out of Nazareth. Who is this guy, this revelation, all of this stuff. They were offended, and they began to turn against him. And that's when Jesus said--
Jacque: Jesus said, there is only one place a prophet isn't honored: his own hometown. And their unbelief kept him from doing many miracles, many mighty miracles in Nazareth.
Pastor Brian: I can just see Jesus now. Sometimes, we don't ascribe enough humanness to Jesus. That's why I like The Chosen series. There is just this great humanity side of Jesus. When they were not believing who he was, you are nobody. You are just Joseph's son. You got brothers and sisters, I could just see Jesus just kind of scratching his head and just say, man, I just don't believe it. The King James version says he marveled at their unbelief. It's like, oh, it's not computing. Although I don't think the word compute was a word back then.
Jacque: They were so familiar. And we can be that way too. We can with each other. When we are so familiar with each other, we limit each other.
Pastor Brian: But let's do something different. Let's encourage one another to think big. Even if we do have big ideas, if the big ideas of a faithful servant like Daniel, and the big ideas of obviously the son of God himself, were shot down by small-minded people, then we should also expect to be shot down by small-minded people. But it shouldn't stop us. We should think big anyways: TBA. We can start with TB, but then our second button will be TBA. Because we serve a big God, don't we? Shouldn't the things we do reflect the bigness of our God. Shouldn't the things we do reflect the nature of our God? We should think about how we can meet even everyone's basic needs.
I don't think about how I can get someone to agree to go to heaven. What I try to do is help people see how good Jesus is, so that the only place where they would ever want to be is with Jesus. Reflect that wonderful Jesus aspect. We should ask the question of the Lord, how can we meet people's basic needs? How can we meet the food needs that are growing exponentially, even in our own country? How can we meet the needs of people that need clothing and shelter? What about healthcare? Is this just something for the left wing to take care of? Or shouldn't we as compassionate Christians be a part of all of that? And what about education for people and learning and employment? The book of James actually really addresses this really clearly. This is our last scripture.
Jacque: My dear brothers and sisters, what good is it if someone claims to have faith but demonstrates no good works to prove it. How could this kind of faith save anyone?
Pastor Brian: I need to stop you here for a sec, babe. We've always looked at the other verse that has to do with salvation that says, it's not by works of righteousness that we've done, but according to his mercy that he saved us. That is true. We don't get saved by doing good works. We don't do good works to get saved. We can't do any good works to save ourselves. But that's not the salvation that is being talked about in the book of James. The salvation that is being talked about in the book of James is someone who's not saved, who doesn't know the Lord, and your good works to them and for them will open their hearts up for salvation. That's the salvation that James is talking about here. Let's read that again. Dear brothers and sisters--
Jacque: My dear brothers and sisters, what good is it if someone claims to have faith but demonstrates no good works to prove it? How could this kind of faith save anyone?
Pastor Brian: If there is no good works being given to people who are in need, how will they know that Jesus loves them? That's another way to say that.
Jacque: For example, yes, if a brother or sister in the faith is poorly clothed and hungry, and you leave them saying "Goodbye, I hope you stay warm and have plenty to eat," but you don't provide them with the coat or even a cup of soup, what good is your faith? So then faith that doesn't involve action is phony.
Pastor Brian: Ooh, that's pretty strong, isn't it? Faith that doesn't actually have action is phony. How many of you want to be known as a phony? No one is going to raise their hand on that one, right? No one wants to be known as a phony.
Jacque: So when God tells us, and we have a way to meet a need, we say yes.
Pastor Brian: I confess this. When I was preparing the sermon, I began to ask the Lord, what are some things that you would like me to start thinking that are bigger than how I've thought in the past? And the Lord dropped into my heart, how about ending wars? Because you know what? Most of my life, I'll honestly say my whole life, I expected other people to take care of that. How about diseases? How about let's end diseases? How about ending cancer? Let's ask God to help us do something bigger than just find the next meal that we can eat.
Even as a child, I would get so frustrated with hearing older people say, my father owns cattle on a thousand hills, but when it came time to offering time, they ran out the door so they wouldn't have to give. Isn't that a contradiction? Isn't that phony? I think that's phony. We can help eliminate injustice at least in the influence that we have, so that everybody that we treat, we treat fairly and just. Let's not forget about mercy, how mercy and compassion can flourish between people. Let us be facilitators of reconciliation. Paul calls it ministers of reconciliation.
These are big ideas. These are very big ideas that God would love to give us wisdom on how to achieve. God doesn't want all these wars. He doesn't want his kids killing each other any more than you who had more than one child. You didn't like it when they were fighting with each other. God doesn't want all this killing. And here's what we must grasp. And I said this moments ago, and we have to hold tenaciously onto this. Jesus did not teach us about limits. He taught us to move mountains. He taught us to move mountains. Whatever this idea is that's big that you think can't happen, I just encourage you, go back to the Lord and say, Jesus, give me the faith to move this mountain and let's work towards it.
The founding fathers of our country had a mountain. That mountain was called the King of England and armies up the wazoo. And they hardly had a blunder bust to their name that you could shoot it, and it would probably miss an opening as big as these two doors over here from 25 yards. It would be like a paintball gun where the, where the paintballs just go around the corner. These men had a desire. They wanted to have freedom. We need to want to have that kind of freedom for people as well. But freedom from the greatest oppressor of all, the greatest tyrant of all: his name's Lucifer. His name's Lucifer.
We have the ability and the power and the options in front of us today to break the back of the enemy's encampment in people's lives. But we have to lift our vision higher to do it. We can't be content to let people stay in addictions. We can't be content to let people stay in their bondages. We have to be able to say like the signers of the declaration: we are either going to hang together or we are going to hang separately. Ben Franklin said that. We are either going to hang together or we are going to hang separately. But I'd rather hang together. I'd like us all as a church that if we are going to die, let's die doing a great thing.
Jacque: I do appreciate Lou said it today. When she came up, she said the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. We have to get that vision because that is how we can do big things.
Pastor Brian: Jesus didn't teach us about limits. He taught us about moving mountains. On these very special days, I often think a little bit more. My father, who passed away 10 years ago, and my dad was in World War II, so on these kind of patriotic days, I reflect a lot about my dad. My dad said a very interesting thing over and over and over, and this is how he lived. I want us to start living this way too. This is what my dad said: Brian, the difficult we do right away; the impossible, that just takes a little bit longer. The difficult we are going to do right away, the impossible. That's going to take just a little bit longer.
Let's have that idea. Let's have that part of our DNA as people of Hope Community Church. The last words out of our mouth should ever be, well, that's impossible. That can't be done. But rather, well, that looks impossible. It's just going to take a little bit longer to get that done. Let's keep our eyes on Christ. Let's think big anyways, regardless of what the small-minded people say to us, how they might discourage you. You can never do that. That'll never happen. You know what, then if those are the people you are hanging around, let me just suggest that you don't reject them, but you start hanging around other people who can help you lift your vision higher.
Jacque: That's Good. That's good. That's good.
Pastor Brian: Let's lift our vision higher.
Jacque: Oh, Brian, I remember this quote and I tell it to myself a lot. We were born for hard things.
Pastor Brian: Yeah, yeah. We were born for hard things. Big things can be hard. They can be challenging. It might take a lot of work. And you know what, you might be older. Your life isn't over. Let me tell you when your life is over: when you are not breathing anymore. You know what? If you are breathing, check your pulse. If you are breathing and you feel a pulse, then there are big things God wants you to do. Let's use the 4th of July celebration, which I hope you all celebrate the freedom we have in our country. What a wonderful country we have. We have problems, but I wouldn't want to live anyplace else in the world than America. I wouldn't want to live anyplace else but America. When we think and we celebrate the different ways that we do barbecue and what have you, on the 4th of July, let's let that day also be a day where we start to let big ideas start to germinate in our hearts, in our spirits, in our minds.
Pastor Robert with his family in Mount Rushmore this week, taking the little vacation. And Pastor Jeff is with his family, and I hope they are-- if you are not watching-- No, no, no, no. I hope you go, go back and watch this message. We love you guys. we are so blessed that you and your families are a part of Hope Community Church. Pray for them that they just have a great vacation. But when you celebrate the fourth this week, let the Lord start dropping some big ideas into your heart and into your spirit, into your mind that would take his intervention to bring about. But why would we want to only do things that we are capable of doing anyways, right? Let's start lifting our vision higher, and let's do it in such a way that we need all the help from God that we can get to do it. But when it's done, boy, what a legacy. What a legacy. Let's pray together.
Father, I thank you for your grace to us. I thank you for big ideas. I thank you for all the ideas that you gave to the nation of Israel throughout the Old Testament, and how those ideas can be an inspiration to us to think largely, think bigger. And Lord, there will be small-minded people just like those administrators who were around Daniel, who plotted and connived to undermine his future, and in the same way, Jesus, that you had people in your own hometown that didn't believe you, who you were and what you were wanting to do, Lord, there will be people in our lives that will try to undermine the dreams that you've placed in our lives. But Lord, I pray that we would just keep lifting our vision higher, that we would really look to the mountain of God for our inspiration. We would not look to mankind, but we would look to you for inspiration.
And that Father, help us to think that with God, all things are possible. All things are possible because you have overcome them all. You've overcome the enemy, you've overcome all of his schemes, he has been defeated, and Lord, you are reigning and ruling supreme today. As we celebrate as a nation our freedom, this coming Tuesday, I pray, Jesus, that we would also celebrate the freedom we have in you. And that we would, Father, just pour ourselves out to bring that freedom to the countless people that we rub shoulders with, that are actually in fear, living in doubt, living in shame, living in a way where their sins have not been forgiven.
And I pray, Jesus, that you would just give us the power and the strength to bring this wonderful freedom that you've given to us, to every man, woman, boy, and girl, that we rub shoulders with. This we pray, Jesus, in your name and for your sake, and everybody said amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you for being here today. Let's stand together. Let Jacque and I bless you. Jim and Brenda will be serving communion today. We'll also have some people here to pray for you. Adrian's going to keep playing for a little bit. So just kind of sit back and just listen for a few minutes too, because your spirit will be touched by God bless you. Let's raise our hands together.
Now may the Lord bless you. May the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace. And may your heart be filled with big ideas from a big God. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful day and let God drop some big things into your heart this coming Tuesday. Bye-bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 7-2-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.