Questions from the Congregation:
Is it correct to say "Bless the Lord" (per the words to the song)? I thought blessings flowed FROM Him TO us. How do WE bless Him?
Is it biblically permissible for an unbaptized believer to take communion?
When we go to heaven we will all know everyone there, but will we remember our lives on earth? Will a mother remember her children or will a husband remember his wife?
Does it say anywhere in the Bible that you will be reunited with your friends and family when you go to heaven?
What does it mean to "fear" the Lord?
Do we, an extension of HBC, hold James MacDonald on a pedestal? Does our leadership here think he does no wrong and/or do we need to copy everything the way they do it in Illinois? I have a lot of respect for James, please don't misunderstand, but I wonder if we think he is somewhat "perfect"?
How does God view Jews now? If they don't believe Jesus was the Messiah and follow Him, can they get in to heaven? They were God's chosen people in the Old Testament.
Note: Read Jeff's blog for the answer to this questions that he was unable to get to during this Q&A service.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
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Pastor Jeff:
00:00-00:03
We'll answer as many as we can in the time that we have.
Pastor Jeff:
00:04-00:14
And any questions that we don't get to, we'll actually put on our website in the form of a blog, just so you don't think that we're avoiding or ducking any questions.
Pastor Jeff:
00:14-00:19
So Mark, as most of you know, he's one of our elders.
Pastor Jeff:
00:19-00:23
But he's also going to be serving as the question asker.
Pastor Jeff:
00:23-00:26
He's going to be representing you today.
Pastor Jeff:
00:26-00:32
So for those of you that submitted questions, Mark is going to be representing you and asking the questions.
Pastor Jeff:
00:34-00:35
So good morning, Mark.
Mark Ort:
00:36-00:37
Good morning, Pastor Jeff, how are you?
Pastor Jeff:
00:39-00:40
Not as good as I'm gonna be.
Mark Ort:
00:40-00:40
That's right.
Mark Ort:
00:40-00:41
I'll
Pastor Jeff:
00:41-00:43
tell you that much, but much better than I deserve.
Mark Ort:
00:44-00:45
So are you ready for this?
Pastor Jeff:
00:45-00:46
I am ready.
Pastor Jeff:
00:47-00:48
I am ready for this.
Mark Ort:
00:48-00:49
You've been studying all week and cramming last night?
Mark Ort:
00:49-00:50
I've been studying
Pastor Jeff:
00:50-00:51
all week, yep.
Pastor Jeff:
00:51-00:54
I've been studying all week and we are ready to go.
Mark Ort:
00:55-01:00
Okay, well, we have a lot of questions to get through, so let's just get started.
Mark Ort:
01:00-01:01
Let's just get started.
Mark Ort:
01:02-01:08
First question, is it correct to say, "Bless the Lord," as in the song?
Mark Ort:
01:09-01:11
I thought blessings flowed from him to us.
Mark Ort:
01:12-01:13
How do we bless him?
Pastor Jeff:
01:14-01:15
That is a really good question.
Pastor Jeff:
01:16-01:23
You know, that's a question that I wonder too, because we use that word bless a lot, but do we really understand what that word means?
Pastor Jeff:
01:25-01:31
You know, every time somebody sneezes, we say, "Bless you!" What does that mean, that we're blessed?
Pastor Jeff:
01:31-01:36
Well, I've got some notes written down here, so I'm going to read some of these things that I have.
Pastor Jeff:
01:36-01:48
When we are blessed, when we talk about being blessed, we understand what that means is we've received some sort of a, for lack of a better expression, we've received a benefit from God.
Pastor Jeff:
01:49-01:56
We could say spiritually, you hear people say, like for example, that worship this morning just blessed me.
Pastor Jeff:
01:56-01:57
What does that mean?
Pastor Jeff:
01:57-02:00
I received a spiritual benefit from that worship.
Pastor Jeff:
02:00-02:02
We talk about it physically, right?
Pastor Jeff:
02:04-02:09
We've been praying for somebody who is sick and we find out that they've been getting better and oh, you know what?
Pastor Jeff:
02:09-02:11
We've been so blessed and he's feeling better.
Pastor Jeff:
02:11-02:13
There's a benefit there.
Pastor Jeff:
02:13-02:14
We pray for it for provision.
Pastor Jeff:
02:15-02:24
Like you could say, well, We were in need of transportation and the Lord blessed us with a car.
Pastor Jeff:
02:25-02:27
So we talk about blessings a lot.
Pastor Jeff:
02:28-02:33
Jesus talked about blessings in the Beatitudes, Matthew chapter five.
Pastor Jeff:
02:33-02:37
You know, the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Pastor Jeff:
02:39-02:47
And the best definition I can give you of what it means to be blessed from a human standpoint is to be happy or successful.
Pastor Jeff:
02:49-02:54
Meaning, because of Christ, you are blessed, you are spiritually successful.
Pastor Jeff:
02:54-03:07
And the Bible actually says in Ephesians 1.3, and this is one of those mind-blowing verses, but in Ephesians 1.3, it says that we have every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Pastor Jeff:
03:07-03:08
Didn't somebody just preach on that at our church recently?
Pastor Jeff:
03:08-03:09
Yeah, I heard
Mark Ort:
03:09-03:10
that recently.
Pastor Jeff:
03:10-03:13
Yeah, it seems to me that we had this guy at our church preach that recently.
Pastor Jeff:
03:13-03:19
And when you think about that, It's not like we have to get something from God.
Pastor Jeff:
03:19-03:22
If you've received Christ, you have it all.
Pastor Jeff:
03:22-03:25
He's given you all of the spiritual blessings in Christ.
Pastor Jeff:
03:27-03:41
I compare it to, if you bought a gold mine, you're in possession of the mine, but what you do in working is getting in there and digging out the gold that's already in the mine.
Pastor Jeff:
03:41-03:44
You see, God gives us Christ and He's like the gold mine.
Pastor Jeff:
03:45-03:51
In the Christian life, our growth in Christ is digging out that gold that He already has provided for us.
Pastor Jeff:
03:51-03:53
That's what it means to grow in Christ.
Pastor Jeff:
03:54-03:58
So that's what it means from a human perspective to be blessed.
Pastor Jeff:
03:58-04:00
But here's the thing, that wasn't the question.
Pastor Jeff:
04:01-04:05
I'm not going to be a politician here, I just completely answered a question that wasn't asked.
Pastor Jeff:
04:05-04:06
I am not going to do that.
Pastor Jeff:
04:07-04:09
In my campaign, I'm not running for anything.
Pastor Jeff:
04:11-04:16
I thought for sure somebody would say amen on that, but maybe they want me to run for something, Mark.
Mark Ort:
04:17-04:19
I'm gonna write you in for president this year.
Pastor Jeff:
04:19-04:19
(laughing)
Pastor Jeff:
04:20-04:21
I don't know if I'd want that job.
Pastor Jeff:
04:22-04:25
But here's the thing, we can't benefit God.
Pastor Jeff:
04:26-04:33
When we talk about we're blessed, we have quote unquote spiritual benefits, spiritual success, we can't benefit God.
Pastor Jeff:
04:34-04:39
There's nothing that we can do to God that's going to make him better, that's going to make him more God.
Pastor Jeff:
04:39-04:45
He's God, He's infinite, He's awesome, whether I worship Him or not, whether this church meets or not.
Pastor Jeff:
04:45-04:47
We can't add to His greatness.
Pastor Jeff:
04:48-04:52
So what does it mean when we bless God?
Pastor Jeff:
04:52-04:53
That actually is in the Bible.
Pastor Jeff:
04:54-05:03
What it means is this, we are praising Him for being the ultimate blessed one and the giver of blessings.
Pastor Jeff:
05:04-05:06
I'm going to read a couple of verses, I did some cross-referencing here.
Pastor Jeff:
05:07-05:09
When we bless God, what does that mean?
Pastor Jeff:
05:11-05:19
Well, when you read the verses, I think it's pretty obvious some synonyms that you can use for blessing.
Pastor Jeff:
05:20-05:22
Oftentimes specifically it means to thank God.
Pastor Jeff:
05:23-05:36
Like for example, Deuteronomy 8.10 says, "And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you." You can substitute the word thank in there and it means the same thing.
Pastor Jeff:
05:37-05:42
Psalm 100 verse four, "Give thanks to him, bless his name." It's the same thing.
Pastor Jeff:
05:43-05:54
"All your works," Psalm 145 verse 10, "All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you." Again, thanks and blessings, same verse.
Pastor Jeff:
05:55-06:04
Psalm 103 verse two, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits." In any of those verses, and there's many, many, many more, couldn't you just substitute the word thanks?
Pastor Jeff:
06:05-06:06
it really means about the same thing.
Pastor Jeff:
06:07-06:10
But this is a really interesting verse I wanted to share with you.
Pastor Jeff:
06:10-06:18
1 Chronicles 29 10, it says, "Therefore David blessed the Lord "in the presence of all the assembly.
Pastor Jeff:
06:18-06:31
"And David said," listen to this, "Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, "our Father forever and ever." And it's clear that David was calling God blessed.
Pastor Jeff:
06:31-06:34
You know, he wasn't trying to give God something.
Pastor Jeff:
06:34-06:37
he was acknowledging something that God already had.
Pastor Jeff:
06:37-06:46
So long story short, when we talk about blessing the Lord, really all that means is to praise and to thank the Lord.
Pastor Jeff:
06:46-06:50
You could put praise and thanks in any of those verses and it means the same thing.
Mark Ort:
06:51-06:52
Yeah, heaping praise on him.
Mark Ort:
06:53-07:01
I was thinking about that Ephesians 1 passage where God is heaping benefits on us, he's heaping blessings upon us.
Mark Ort:
07:02-07:08
And similarly, I guess, David in this passage, it's such a great passage.
Mark Ort:
07:09-07:11
He's just heaping praise back on the God.
Mark Ort:
07:11-07:14
It's mountains of praise back on the God.
Mark Ort:
07:14-07:14
Absolutely,
Pastor Jeff:
07:14-07:16
that's what it is to bless the Lord.
Pastor Jeff:
07:17-07:21
We've received his blessing and it's our way of acknowledging that.
Pastor Jeff:
07:21-07:24
This blessing, everything that I have comes from you, God.
Pastor Jeff:
07:24-07:28
You're the ultimate blesser because you're the ultimate blessed one.
Pastor Jeff:
07:29-07:31
So yeah, praise and thanks.
Mark Ort:
07:32-07:39
Very good. Second question. Is it biblically permissible for an unbaptized believer to take communion?
Pastor Jeff:
07:40-07:47
That is a really good question. My answer to that is, baptism is not a prerequisite for communion.
Pastor Jeff:
07:47-08:38
Faith in Jesus Christ is. You know, we have communion at Harvard's Bible Chapel. It's not, you know, make sure that you were baptized in order to take communion. We always encourage people, if you're a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, He invites you to receive communion. Baptism is, I want to remind, it's the visible God-chosen, God-commanded response to our faith. Baptism is an outward demonstration of what Christ has done inwardly. Just as spiritually we have identified with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, Romans chapter 6, baptism is the demonstration of that, the outward. And I like to compare baptism to a wedding. You know, when two people fall in love, they typically make that public commitment before God and before people at a wedding.
Pastor Jeff:
08:39-09:01
Now, they don't fall in love at the wedding. You know, the wedding is their public proclamation to each other. And that's how it is with baptism. You don't fall in love with Christ or you don't get saved at the baptism. Baptism is your public profession of faith before God and man, I'm identifying with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Jeff:
09:01-09:05
So it doesn't save you, but it is the profession of faith.
Mark Ort:
09:06-09:37
I think people can get confused as a new believer if somebody's telling you, "Well, you cannot have communion unless you're baptized," because that might lead them to think that, "Oh, baptism saves me because Christians are to take communion." How would you respond to somebody that might say something like, "You're being disobedient by neglecting baptism or refusing to be baptized, so you're being disobedient, so you can't take communion." How do you respond to that?
Pastor Jeff:
09:38-09:41
That is a good question, and the Bible addresses that, actually.
Pastor Jeff:
09:41-09:58
In 1 Corinthians 11, it says, "Whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup"—you know, receives communion — drinks the cup of the Lord, he says, in an unworthy manner, will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
Pastor Jeff:
10:00-10:07
Verse 26 says, I'm sorry, verse 28 says, "Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
Pastor Jeff:
10:08-10:17
For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself, that is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
Pastor Jeff:
10:18-10:21
But if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
Pastor Jeff:
10:22-10:26
But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined that we may not be condemned along with the world.
Pastor Jeff:
10:27-10:36
In the Corinthian church, Paul said that some of them were getting sick and actually dying because they were receiving communion in what he called an unworthy manner.
Pastor Jeff:
10:37-10:44
And I think it's really important to highlight here that the remedy for that, he says to examine yourself.
Pastor Jeff:
10:44-10:53
I think there's a huge danger when the church gets in that position, that I say, "Here's my rules for you to take communion." The Bible doesn't say that the church imposes the rules.
Pastor Jeff:
10:54-10:55
Who does the examination?
Pastor Jeff:
10:56-10:57
The Bible says you have to examine yourself.
Pastor Jeff:
10:58-11:00
You have to, and that's true for everybody here.
Pastor Jeff:
11:00-11:03
I need to examine myself, you need to examine yourself.
Pastor Jeff:
11:03-11:06
So in light of this baptism thing, I would just give this caution.
Pastor Jeff:
11:07-11:17
If the reason you haven't been baptized yet is because, you know, I've been meaning to, I haven't had opportunity, I really want to, but it just hasn't worked out to do it.
Pastor Jeff:
11:17-11:18
That's one thing.
Pastor Jeff:
11:18-11:28
But if you haven't been baptized because of some rebellious attitude, like, "Well, I know the Bible says that I should do this in response to my faith in Christ.
Pastor Jeff:
11:28-11:35
I know the Bible says that God calls me to this, but I'm not going to do it." I would tell that person they really need to examine themselves.
Pastor Jeff:
11:35-11:41
Maybe they do have a rebellious thing that they need to do business with with the Lord before they receive communion.
Mark Ort:
11:42-11:44
We certainly encourage baptism here.
Pastor Jeff:
11:44-11:44
Yeah.
Mark Ort:
11:44-11:45
It's a beautiful thing.
Mark Ort:
11:45-11:47
It represents new life.
Pastor Jeff:
11:47-11:47
Amen.
Mark Ort:
11:48-11:49
It's a beautiful thing.
Pastor Jeff:
11:49-11:52
Our next baptism service, by the way, is October 17th.
Pastor Jeff:
11:53-12:02
You're gonna be getting more information about that, but no, I don't think it's the church's job to give the rules for here's who can and who can't take.
Pastor Jeff:
12:02-12:04
The Bible puts that burden on the people.
Pastor Jeff:
12:05-12:06
You examine yourself.
Mark Ort:
12:07-12:08
Okay, ready for another one?
Pastor Jeff:
12:08-12:09
I'm ready for another one.
Mark Ort:
12:09-12:10
Yeah, this is a good one.
Mark Ort:
12:11-12:18
When we go to heaven, will we all know everyone there, but will we remember our lives on earth?
Mark Ort:
12:19-12:22
Will a mother remember her children or will a husband remember his wife?
Mark Ort:
12:23-12:29
Does it say anywhere in the Bible that you will be reunited with your friends and family when you go to heaven?
Pastor Jeff:
12:30-12:32
If you have your Bible, I want you to turn to a couple passages here.
Pastor Jeff:
12:33-12:37
We get asked this question a lot and excellent question.
Pastor Jeff:
12:38-12:40
This is actually two questions, I combined them.
Pastor Jeff:
12:40-12:44
Two different people ask questions and it all kind of falls together.
Pastor Jeff:
12:45-12:52
But I was trying to think of verses that talk about, first of all, let's address, do we remember life on the earth?
Pastor Jeff:
12:53-12:59
One verse that gives us some insight that leads me to believe that there is some, there has to be some memory of life on earth.
Pastor Jeff:
13:00-13:11
In Revelation 6.10, this is talking about martyrs who have been slain for their faith in heaven crying out to God.
Pastor Jeff:
13:12-13:24
And it says, Revelation 6.10, they cried out with a loud voice, oh sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?
Pastor Jeff:
13:25-13:28
That tells me that they knew how they died.
Pastor Jeff:
13:28-13:33
You know, it wasn't like they got to heaven and they completely had no idea of their life on the earth.
Pastor Jeff:
13:33-13:42
This tells me, like God, we trusted you, we were killed for it, we know that you're going to avenge, but the question is how long until you do that?
Pastor Jeff:
13:43-13:45
That tells you that there's some memory of life on earth.
Pastor Jeff:
13:45-13:52
And when Jesus told the story, also in Luke chapter 16, turn to Luke 16, 'cause we're gonna reference this a couple times here.
Pastor Jeff:
13:53-14:05
But when Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, you remember the rich man was suffering apart from the presence of God in Hades, or what we would call hell.
Pastor Jeff:
14:07-14:10
And his concern was that he had some brothers.
Pastor Jeff:
14:10-14:14
So he had that memory of life on earth.
Pastor Jeff:
14:14-14:22
It wasn't like he passed into the afterlife and he completely lost total memory of what life was like on the earth.
Pastor Jeff:
14:24-14:28
So I do believe that we remember lives on earth.
Pastor Jeff:
14:29-14:34
And that often leads to the question, well, that's gonna make me sad because I made a lot of mistakes.
Pastor Jeff:
14:34-14:35
I hurt some people and I sinned.
Pastor Jeff:
14:37-14:39
Christ washes all that away.
Pastor Jeff:
14:39-14:40
He takes it away.
Pastor Jeff:
14:41-15:06
So all the regrets and stupid, rebellious, sinful, disappointing, hurtful things that I've done to myself and to other people, covered under the blood of Christ, taken away by the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, I don't think we're going to be sitting in heaven for eternity mourning our stupidity, you know, our sinfulness.
Pastor Jeff:
15:07-15:33
So Luke chapter 16 concerning are we going to recognize people in heaven? I believe without a shadow of a doubt that we will recognize people in heaven. I'm going to share something with you. I've never heard anybody preach or teach on this and for some of you this might sound really like a crazy concept, but I want you to bear with me here.
Pastor Jeff:
15:34-17:46
I believe that in heaven you are going to have what I call, like I said, I've never heard this taught before, so I kind of made this term up. I believe you're going to have what's called supernatural recognition. I believe in heaven you're going to literally know everyone. And you're like, "Well, that's a bold claim, can you support that scripturally? Well, yeah. That's actually where I got the idea. Look at Luke chapter 16. Jesus tells the parable of the dishonest manager. That's a whole other teaching for another time. But the gist of it is, Jesus said we should use our wealth on the earth to win people for the kingdom. Okay? And I want us to look, Oh gosh, what verse is it? Here it is, verse 9. Jesus driving the point home of the parable. Listen to what he says, "And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings." That there are people that are going to recognize you when you get into heaven because you supported mission and evangelism work with the stuff that God untrusted to you. You know, there are people that they're just automatically going to recognize you. And another verse that leads me to believe this supernatural recognition happens when we die, go to heaven. Remember we were in Mark chapter 9 and verses 4 through 5, the Bible says that Jesus was transfigured. You remember that story? Jesus took Peter, James, and John up and Jesus was transfigured and do you remember who showed up at the transfiguration? Shout it out if you know. Five bonus points. Who showed up? Moses did and who else? Elijah. Okay? Moses and Elijah showed up at the transfiguration and do you remember what Peter said? Peter's like, "Hey, let's build a tent. Like, let's build three tents and have one for Jesus and have Well, one for Moses and one for Elijah.
Pastor Jeff:
17:46-17:53
But when you read that passage, Peter instantly recognized Moses and Elijah.
Pastor Jeff:
17:53-17:56
And my question is, how did he know who they were?
Pastor Jeff:
17:57-18:03
I don't think that they showed up with a big name tag that said, "Hi, my name is Moses." I don't think that's true.
Pastor Jeff:
18:03-18:07
Or, you know, Elijah had his name tag on or a big button.
Pastor Jeff:
18:07-18:09
Yeah, I don't think that they had those on.
Pastor Jeff:
18:09-18:23
I think, and there's other passages we could turn to, I believe when we get to heaven, I believe that we're going to supernaturally, instantly know everybody in the same way that Peter immediately recognized Moses and Elijah.
Pastor Jeff:
18:24-18:33
In the same way that people that you used your money to win to Christ through evangelism, through missions, whatever, when you get to heaven, they're going to know that's you.
Pastor Jeff:
18:33-18:42
You gave to that ministry that reached out to me and I received Christ and I wanted to be the first person to welcome you into heaven according to what Jesus said in Luke 16.
Pastor Jeff:
18:43-18:56
So concerning being reunited with people, when Jesus in Mark chapter 12 was asked about marriage, do you remember He said that there is no marriage in heaven?
Pastor Jeff:
18:57-19:10
On this earth we kind of live under a different set of circumstances that we are called to marriage, procreation, fill the earth.
Pastor Jeff:
19:11-19:12
That doesn't happen in heaven.
Pastor Jeff:
19:12-19:17
Jesus said that we are like the angels, we are not sexual beings in heaven.
Pastor Jeff:
19:17-19:20
And people are like, "Well man, that's kind of a bummer.
Pastor Jeff:
19:20-19:28
Does that mean I'm not going to have my wife in heaven?" I believe that your relationship with your spouse is going to be even greater in heaven.
Pastor Jeff:
19:29-19:41
You know, it's not going to be a sexual relationship, but it's going to be this perfect, free from the presence of sin relationship that's unlike anything that we can understand on the earth.
Pastor Jeff:
19:41-19:52
So I believe that your relationship with everybody is going to be perfect at 100%, including your spouse and your family, who I believe you absolutely will recognize.
Mark Ort:
19:53-19:54
A lot of interesting questions about heaven.
Mark Ort:
19:55-19:57
This is probably a good place for me to make a book recommendation.
Mark Ort:
19:57-19:58
Can I do that?
Pastor Jeff:
19:58-19:58
Yeah, absolutely.
Mark Ort:
19:59-20:01
A few years ago I read this book by Randy Alcorn.
Mark Ort:
20:01-20:03
You maybe can write this down.
Mark Ort:
20:03-20:12
It's just called "Heaven." There's a lot of movies out, a lot of people that have claimed to go to heaven and come back.
Mark Ort:
20:13-20:23
I'm not going to dispute those or what experience they had or anything like that, but we can know about heaven from the scriptures.
Mark Ort:
20:23-20:25
Everything we need to know about heaven is in the scriptures.
Mark Ort:
20:26-20:29
Randy Alcorn does a really nice job in this book.
Mark Ort:
20:29-20:32
This is one of the most encouraging books that I've ever read.
Mark Ort:
20:34-20:44
He answers a whole bunch of questions like what we just talked about directly from scripture or based on things that he knows about the character of God?
Mark Ort:
20:44-20:49
And you may have asked the question, "Is my dog going to go to heaven?
Mark Ort:
20:50-20:54
Well, I see my dog in heaven." And he answers questions like that in there.
Mark Ort:
20:54-21:03
There's no chapter or verse that says, "Yes, dogs go to heaven." But he bases his answer on the character of God.
Mark Ort:
21:05-21:12
He does a study on the character of God, and would God create something just to send it into the ground?
Pastor Jeff:
21:13-21:16
The answer is yes, dogs do go to heaven, but not cats.
Mark Ort:
21:16-21:17
I agree with that.
Pastor Jeff:
21:18-21:19
That's pretty clear.
Pastor Jeff:
21:19-21:23
I can't point you to a book chapter and verse on that, but I'm just...
Pastor Jeff:
21:23-21:25
just call it a really strong gut feeling.
Pastor Jeff:
21:26-21:26
But
Mark Ort:
21:26-21:29
anyway, take a look at this book.
Mark Ort:
21:29-21:33
It's about 500 pages long and you won't be able to put it down. It's that good.
Mark Ort:
21:34-21:35
Okay, do we have time for some more?
Pastor Jeff:
21:35-21:35
Yeah.
Mark Ort:
21:37-21:40
Okay, really good question again. What does it mean to fear the Lord?
Pastor Jeff:
21:41-21:47
That is a great question. Fearing the Lord does not mean that you're scared of God.
Pastor Jeff:
21:47-22:10
It doesn't mean like I hide under the bed because I'm afraid God's going to get mad at me and hit me with a bolt of lightning. Fear of the Lord just means reverence or respect. You know, look through Proverbs 1.7 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Proverbs 8.13 says, "The fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil." Fear of the Lord, Proverbs 14.26, gives us strong confidence.
Pastor Jeff:
22:11-22:27
The fear of the Lord is, Proverbs 14.27, "a fountain of life." Proverbs 19.23 says, "The fear of the Lord leads to life." And we could go on and on and on, but fear of the Lord is just reverence for God.
Pastor Jeff:
22:28-22:30
And you know, we say something here a lot of times.
Pastor Jeff:
22:32-22:40
We say, "He is God and I am not." And the fear of the Lord is fully embracing that.
Pastor Jeff:
22:41-22:43
That He is God and I am not.
Mark Ort:
22:43-22:50
One thing I've studied recently in the Word is how the Word produces certain effects in our lives.
Mark Ort:
22:51-22:54
And one of the things that reading the Word does is produces reverence.
Mark Ort:
22:54-23:14
And there's a passage in Psalm 119.38 that says, "Establish thy word to thy servant as that which produces reverence for thee." And it's this state of awe when you evaluate who you are and evaluate the greatness of God, and you just stand there and you're in awe.
Pastor Jeff:
23:15-23:16
Amen. Amen.
Pastor Jeff:
23:17-23:18
He is God and I am not.
Mark Ort:
23:19-23:40
Another question, "Do we - an extension of Harvest Bible Chapel - McDonald on a pedestal. Does our leadership here think he does no wrong and /or do we need to copy everything that they do in Illinois? I have a lot of respect for James. Please don't misunderstand, but I wonder if we think he is somewhat perfect.
Pastor Jeff:
23:41-23:49
Not at all. We have a lot of respect for James, friendship with him, but by no means do we we think he's perfect.
Pastor Jeff:
23:49-23:53
In fact, he'll be the first person to tell you that he's not.
Pastor Jeff:
23:54-24:05
Even talking with our leadership here, whether it's publicly in our meetings, how much do we even talk about James or Illinois or what's happening out of what we call the mothership?
Pastor Jeff:
24:05-24:07
How much does that even happen?
Pastor Jeff:
24:08-24:12
I mentioned James this morning talking about Harvest University.
Pastor Jeff:
24:13-24:26
But before that, when was the last time I've even mentioned his name. I can't even remember, honestly. So whether it's in church or in meetings.
Pastor Jeff:
24:28-24:30
It does pop up occasionally.
Mark Ort:
24:30-24:30
I mean we have books
Pastor Jeff:
24:30-24:31
out
Mark Ort:
24:31-24:34
there and we listen to them on the radio.
Pastor Jeff:
24:34-24:53
And sometimes it's the way when you meet people, they're like, "How did you hear about our church? Why listen to James McDonald?" So a lot of times you will ask people, "Have you ever heard of James McDonald?" or walk in the Word. But something that I've thought was actually kind of funny, was the people that we've met that have been here, like, oh, we're connected with James McDonald, and they're like, who's that?
Pastor Jeff:
24:53-24:54
Like, you've never heard of James McDonald?
Pastor Jeff:
24:55-24:57
They're like, no, I've never heard of him.
Pastor Jeff:
24:57-25:01
So don't get me wrong, I love James.
Pastor Jeff:
25:01-25:04
He has been a huge encouragement to me.
Pastor Jeff:
25:05-25:05
He's been a friend.
Pastor Jeff:
25:06-25:15
He's invested so much in me, but he'll be the first person to tell you that with his church plans, He doesn't want this to be the James McDonald show.
Pastor Jeff:
25:16-25:23
He wants each church plant to be the local, self-governing, autonomous, independent church.
Pastor Jeff:
25:25-25:29
And at our church here, for example, we have three elders and myself.
Pastor Jeff:
25:30-25:37
And the decisions and the direction and the doctrine and everything that drives the ministry here all comes internally.
Pastor Jeff:
25:37-25:41
We don't get marching orders from Chicago, like here's how you have to do it.
Pastor Jeff:
25:41-25:43
Everything is in house here.
Pastor Jeff:
25:43-25:45
And that's how he wants it.
Pastor Jeff:
25:45-25:51
Our fellowship isn't like a relationship of mandate.
Pastor Jeff:
25:51-25:53
It's a relationship of influence.
Pastor Jeff:
25:53-26:07
So I just remind 1 Corinthians 11, 1, the apostle Paul says, "Follow me as I follow Christ." And I would say in that same sense, James has been a godly example.
Pastor Jeff:
26:07-26:18
And like Paul encouraged the Corinthians, we should follow the leaders in the way that they follow Christ, in the way that they model being disciples of Christ.
Pastor Jeff:
26:19-26:29
But that's different than worshiping, thinking he's perfect, thinking he's infallible.
Pastor Jeff:
26:31-26:32
No, we don't think that at all.
Pastor Jeff:
26:33-26:46
He's been a great pastor of our fellowship and I love him to death, but you know, this is an independent church as far as direction and doctrine and things like that.
Mark Ort:
26:46-26:51
And we would say as James is following Christ, follow James.
Mark Ort:
26:51-26:54
If John MacArthur is following Christ, follow John MacArthur.
Mark Ort:
26:54-26:57
If Jeff Miller is following Christ, we follow.
Mark Ort:
26:58-27:05
I thought about the churches back in the Bible times like Ephesus and Thessalonica and Corinthians.
Mark Ort:
27:06-27:07
I imagine they talked about Paul a lot.
Mark Ort:
27:08-27:08
Yeah.
Mark Ort:
27:08-27:11
Whenever Paul was coming into town, hey, Paul's coming.
Mark Ort:
27:11-27:16
Remember Paul from a few years ago and Ephesus said, "Paul's coming."
Pastor Jeff:
27:16-27:16
Yeah.
Pastor Jeff:
27:17-27:19
And the Bible says to give honor to him honor is due.
Pastor Jeff:
27:19-27:25
So I think there's a right way that we can rightly honor and appreciate James for everything that he's done.
Pastor Jeff:
27:26-27:31
He's the head of this fellowship of 120 churches worldwide.
Pastor Jeff:
27:31-27:33
Much respect given for that.
Pastor Jeff:
27:33-27:49
but as far as worship, as far as thinking he's perfect, I mean, I - Put him on a pedestal. - Put him on a pedestal. I don't see that at all amongst our leadership and the other harvest plants that I know. I don't see that. I just see respect.
Pastor Jeff:
27:50-27:51
Okay, good.
Pastor Jeff:
27:52-27:54
Ready for another one? - Yeah, go. Actually, wait, wait, wait.
Pastor Jeff:
27:55-28:00
It's a little lopsided here because you're asking all the questions. Don't you think I should be able to ask a question?
Pastor Jeff:
28:01-28:03
All right, I got a question for you.
Pastor Jeff:
28:04-28:04
How was Romania?
Mark Ort:
28:06-28:06
Romania?
Pastor Jeff:
28:06-28:06
Romania.
Pastor Jeff:
28:06-28:07
How was it, man?
Mark Ort:
28:07-28:09
I thought you would never ask.
Mark Ort:
28:11-28:12
Romania was amazing.
Mark Ort:
28:12-28:13
It was amazing.
Mark Ort:
28:13-28:18
And if you were on the Romania team, you can come on up and stand up here.
Pastor Jeff:
28:18-28:19
Yeah, bring your team up.
Pastor Jeff:
28:19-28:20
I wanna-- - Yeah,
Mark Ort:
28:20-28:21
let's bring the team up.
Pastor Jeff:
28:21-28:22
I'm gonna sit down here.
Pastor Jeff:
28:22-28:23
I wanna hear this.
Mark Ort:
28:32-28:48
We had a great, great time in Romania doing a building project and Greg Hederman, Jack Ort, my son, Evan Gates, Darla Berry, and Mike Gates.
Mark Ort:
28:48-28:50
We had the team that God wanted there.
Mark Ort:
28:52-28:55
I brought a couple slides with me to show you.
Mark Ort:
28:56-29:04
When I first heard about Romania and this trip that we were going to go on, to be honest with you, I didn't know exactly where Romania was on the map.
Mark Ort:
29:05-29:10
And so I made a map of Eastern Europe, and I think we have that.
Mark Ort:
29:11-29:17
And you can see Romania is to the right of Hungary, and you see Moldova.
Mark Ort:
29:17-29:25
Adarla went to Moldova last year, and it's in Eastern Europe, and it's a beautiful country.
Mark Ort:
29:25-29:30
It's a beautiful country with beautiful people, and there's a lot of history there.
Mark Ort:
29:30-29:37
It's a storied country as far as struggles and wars and communism and things like that.
Mark Ort:
29:37-29:39
A lot of battles fought there.
Mark Ort:
29:39-29:43
And in 1989, they had their communist revolution.
Mark Ort:
29:45-29:50
And we took some tours of the streets, and you can still see bullet holes in some of the buildings.
Mark Ort:
29:51-29:56
And really, really gripping tales of the struggle for freedom there.
Mark Ort:
29:57-30:16
And a lot of the people are still, I get the impression from our talks with different people that were alive at the time or kids growing up with parents who went through that, that big struggle, that they're still struggling with sort of a, "Who am I?
Mark Ort:
30:16-30:20
What's my identity?" Kind of like an identity type of thing.
Mark Ort:
30:20-30:26
And you'll see a lot of people there that drive really, really nice cars and they're dressed to the nines.
Mark Ort:
30:26-30:29
I mean, just really dressed nice in the city.
Mark Ort:
30:29-30:38
And a couple of days into the trip, one of our leaders, our host over there, told us why that is.
Mark Ort:
30:38-30:39
They're looking for status.
Mark Ort:
30:40-30:42
They have the ability to purchase things now.
Mark Ort:
30:42-30:43
They have purchasing power.
Mark Ort:
30:43-30:51
And so they're trying to fill a void with things like really nice cars, really nice clothes.
Mark Ort:
30:52-30:56
Sounds a lot like what we've done here, going into debt.
Mark Ort:
30:56-30:58
If they want to get a nice car, they'll go into debt to get it.
Mark Ort:
30:59-31:02
If they need some nice clothes, they'll do whatever it takes to get them.
Mark Ort:
31:02-31:03
That was in the city.
Mark Ort:
31:03-31:11
And as we went to the outer part of the country, we did see some very poor areas and people that weren't dressed so nice, I guess.
Mark Ort:
31:14-31:17
And they're still struggling with who they are.
Mark Ort:
31:18-31:26
Our mission was to go to Arad, which is the-- I believe it's the third largest city.
Mark Ort:
31:26-31:30
It's not the capital, but you can see I have an arrow pointed to where we were.
Mark Ort:
31:30-31:32
It's about 20 miles off the Hungarian border.
Mark Ort:
31:33-31:43
And it's a beautiful city, old architecture that the designer of Vienna, Austria, designed a lot of buildings here and in some other cities in that area.
Mark Ort:
31:44-31:49
And our job was to go there and help them build a pastor's training center.
Mark Ort:
31:51-31:58
And I have another slide for what's going to happen with this pastor's training center, the influence that they're trying to accomplish.
Mark Ort:
32:00-32:07
They want to have pastors come into this training center and be trained so that they can plant churches in that area there.
Mark Ort:
32:07-32:11
Now, it might expand more than that, but they want to plant churches in Moldova.
Mark Ort:
32:11-32:17
They want to plant churches in Romania and Hungary and that whole Eastern European area.
Mark Ort:
32:18-32:29
And I noticed that the people, when we would walk through the streets, although they were dressed really nice and they drove nice cars, they kind of had a sad look about them.
Mark Ort:
32:30-32:37
And maybe I'm wrong about that, but there were some people that we were with who were from the church there that were just full of joy.
Mark Ort:
32:38-32:41
You know, Christ brings joy into people's lives and we could see that.
Mark Ort:
32:41-32:46
It was obvious that those people that we were around in the church were very full of joy.
Mark Ort:
32:47-32:57
And so their vision there is to spread that joy of Christ through the gospel to that area right there, and that's a pretty large area.
Mark Ort:
32:57-32:59
And they're very aggressive.
Mark Ort:
32:59-33:08
And I noticed that the Romanian people too are a very serious people, and the people at the church are very, very serious about their faith.
Mark Ort:
33:09-33:17
It's not just some passing thing, "Oh, it's Sunday, let's go to church." This is something that's very serious to them, and they're very serious about evangelism.
Mark Ort:
33:17-33:18
It was apparent.
Mark Ort:
33:19-33:27
On Sunday, when we first got there, we got to worship on Sunday with them before we started our work on Monday morning.
Mark Ort:
33:30-33:39
I got to tell you, when I walked into that church, they have two services and there's 300 people in each service, and there wasn't an empty seat.
Mark Ort:
33:40-33:41
They need another building.
Mark Ort:
33:42-33:48
And phase two of the project that we're working on will be an auditorium so that they can go and have enough space.
Mark Ort:
33:49-33:52
And they're even talking about having two services there already.
Mark Ort:
33:54-33:59
So phase two is next summer, to build an auditorium, maybe similar to this.
Mark Ort:
34:01-34:07
But Sunday, when we went to church, and I heard these people singing.
Mark Ort:
34:08-34:12
They sing the same songs that we do for the most part, only it's in another language.
Mark Ort:
34:12-34:16
Four out of the five songs that we sang were songs that we were very familiar with.
Mark Ort:
34:17-34:22
They had headphones for us and a translator was translating the lyrics, but I didn't need the lyrics.
Mark Ort:
34:23-34:25
They had the English lyrics up on the screen.
Mark Ort:
34:27-34:40
I'm not a crier, but it brought tears to my eyes when I sat there, or we were standing and we were singing with people who were singing in Romanian the same songs that we sing.
Mark Ort:
34:41-34:50
And I thought, you know, I get a little bit of preview into heaven here because, you know, this is the first time I've been in a church where people were singing a completely different language.
Mark Ort:
34:52-34:53
And I thought, this is what we're going to be doing in heaven.
Mark Ort:
34:54-34:58
I don't know what that's going to sound like, but if it sounds like what it did over there, it was amazing.
Mark Ort:
34:59-35:06
We were singing, I sang in English while everybody else was singing in Romanian, and it just brought tears to my eyes.
Mark Ort:
35:07-35:09
I thought, "This is what we're going to be doing at the throne.
Mark Ort:
35:10-35:19
We're going to be singing at the throne with these people and other people like them." In every tribe, every tongue, every language, we're going to be doing that.
Mark Ort:
35:19-35:20
So I had a little bit of a preview of that.
Mark Ort:
35:21-35:23
Was that great, guys, or what?
Mark Ort:
35:23-35:24
I thought that was just amazing.
Mark Ort:
35:26-35:41
Well, Monday we started the job and before we went to work, and I'm not going to describe all the work that we did because you know that we went to do some drywall, some framing, Mike did some framing and drywall.
Mark Ort:
35:41-35:42
That was pretty much our week.
Mark Ort:
35:43-35:46
But they took us on a tour of the building.
Mark Ort:
35:49-35:52
It was amazing to me what was going on.
Mark Ort:
35:53-35:55
If you could show the next slide, Brooke.
Mark Ort:
35:58-35:58
That's not the facility.
Mark Ort:
35:59-36:00
That's the neighborhood across the street.
Mark Ort:
36:01-36:04
There's street after street of these new houses.
Mark Ort:
36:05-36:11
I don't know if they were low income or middle income or whatever, but I just know there were a lot of them and they looked alike.
Mark Ort:
36:12-36:13
There were street after street.
Mark Ort:
36:16-36:24
As we were taking a tour of the building, they were showing us this one hallway that It was supposed to be the Sunday school area for the kids.
Mark Ort:
36:25-36:44
They said, "Well, this part of the building caused us some problems with federal mandates and things like that." They had to change some things because these people right here walked over and said, "What's this building?
Mark Ort:
36:44-36:49
What are you going to do with this building?" Well, the hallway we were in was supposed to be the Sunday school area.
Mark Ort:
36:50-36:51
The people asked for a kindergarten.
Mark Ort:
36:52-36:58
These people right here asked them if they would take in their kids and teach them kindergarten.
Mark Ort:
37:00-37:47
And immediately my mind jumped ahead 20 years and thought, "The kids in this neighborhood are going to be coming to kindergarten here and learning about Christ, bringing their parents, people are going to be getting saved, and the next thing that happens after you get saved, Brooke, you got the next one?" pool. Okay? Those kids from that neighborhood are going to be in that pool someday. They're going to be getting saved. Those were the two things that amazed me about our job that week. That if we look ahead, and generations, generations of people are going to be in that auditorium, that's phase two over there, there's going to be seats rising up there and it's that's going to be full of new Romanian Christians.
Mark Ort:
37:48-37:51
And to think that we had a part in putting up some drywall.
Mark Ort:
37:52-37:54
I mean, it was just thrilling.
Mark Ort:
37:55-37:58
And I want to go back there and I want to see somebody getting dunked in that pool.
Mark Ort:
38:00-38:01
Baptism represents new life.
Mark Ort:
38:01-38:04
You know, we talked about that earlier, about baptism and communion.
Mark Ort:
38:05-38:08
And baptism represents somebody who's got new life.
Mark Ort:
38:09-38:12
And so I want to go back there and I want to see somebody getting dunked in that pool.
Mark Ort:
38:14-38:24
Their accomplishment, or I'm sorry, our expectations were they had, what, three or four rooms for us to drywall?
Mark Ort:
38:25-38:31
And we went through the drywall pile, what, by Wednesday morning, I think, or something like that.
Mark Ort:
38:32-38:37
And even the first day, they said, "I think we're going to have to go get some more drywall.
Mark Ort:
38:37-38:45
We didn't think you guys were going to move this fast." And I'm proud of this whole team because they worked, they were incredible.
Mark Ort:
38:45-38:48
Every one of them was working really, really hard.
Mark Ort:
38:49-38:50
I was probably the slowest one.
Mark Ort:
38:51-38:53
I was probably the one holding the scaffolding the most.
Mark Ort:
38:55-38:58
But these guys did an amazing job and I'm really proud of them.
Mark Ort:
38:59-39:07
So we did, instead of three or four rooms that we were supposed to do, we were able to get six rooms done with two layers of drywall.
Mark Ort:
39:08-39:09
They fired regulations.
Mark Ort:
39:11-39:13
They want like a 90-minute burn through or something like that.
Mark Ort:
39:13-39:16
And so there's two layers of drywall in the six rooms that we did.
Mark Ort:
39:16-39:20
And then we did an additional partial three rooms with one layer.
Mark Ort:
39:21-39:25
We didn't finish those rooms, but we got one layer on most of it and part of a hallway.
Mark Ort:
39:26-39:26
And insulation.
Mark Ort:
39:27-39:33
They had some insulation in there that we had to put in and wear masks and all that kind of stuff.
Mark Ort:
39:34-39:40
But the people were so gracious to us and we didn't lack for any food.
Mark Ort:
39:40-39:41
The food was good.
Mark Ort:
39:41-39:44
They just kept bringing food, bringing food, bringing food, bringing food.
Mark Ort:
39:45-39:47
And luckily we were working hard.
Mark Ort:
39:49-39:55
But by the end of the week, we had established some really good relationships with people.
Mark Ort:
39:55-40:00
And one thing about Romanians that we found was that they're very relational.
Mark Ort:
40:00-40:17
And I had asked a couple of them, "Send me two or three of your prayer requests because I want to pray for you long term." And their prayer requests were for wisdom, guidance, and relationship issues.
Mark Ort:
40:17-40:19
They're very relationship oriented.
Mark Ort:
40:20-40:24
That's all they asked for, those three things, without exception.
Mark Ort:
40:26-40:28
All the notes that I got back from these people, it was those three things.
Mark Ort:
40:30-40:34
When we left, we had a couple that we had never met before.
Mark Ort:
40:34-40:36
They drove us back to Hungary.
Mark Ort:
40:36-40:40
We were going to stay near the Hungarian airport at Budapest.
Mark Ort:
40:41-40:45
The driver, I had some real good conversations with him in the dark going back.
Mark Ort:
40:46-41:05
I said, "You're going to get back really late tonight, and you're going to wake up tired for church." I said, "What time are you going to get back?" He said, "I'll get back about two or three in the morning." I said, "Wow, that's going to be hard for you to get up." He said, "No, it won't be hard for me to get up." He said, "God called me to this task.
Mark Ort:
41:06-41:22
He said he appointed me for this job to take you to the airport." And here's what he said, "When God calls you to a task," and he said in his broken English, "When God calls you to a task, he gives you the means to do it." Now, he was talking about himself, okay?
Mark Ort:
41:23-41:35
But when I heard that, I was thinking about our team, I was thinking about you guys, and God called us to a task to go over to Romania and help out with this building project.
Mark Ort:
41:35-41:41
And somebody over there told me that when you go on a missions trip, you take away far more than you bring.
Mark Ort:
41:42-41:42
And he was right.
Mark Ort:
41:43-41:44
He was absolutely right.
Mark Ort:
41:44-41:56
I don't know how much, in a grand scheme of things, putting up drywall in nine rooms, It was significant for us, it was significant to them, but it's a small, small spoke in the wheel.
Mark Ort:
41:56-41:57
It's a small part.
Mark Ort:
41:59-42:01
But God called us to that task.
Mark Ort:
42:02-42:11
And we didn't know how we were going to get the money, we didn't know how things were going to work out, but God called us to a task to go.
Mark Ort:
42:11-42:13
He provided the means to do it.
Mark Ort:
42:13-42:17
He provided the means through generous people outside of this church and here.
Mark Ort:
42:18-42:24
You guys were part of that, answering our prayers for funding to go.
Mark Ort:
42:25-42:28
And so, when he said that, it really struck me.
Mark Ort:
42:28-42:31
When God calls you to a task, He will give you the means to do it.
Mark Ort:
42:33-42:34
And so, we all made it home.
Mark Ort:
42:35-42:37
I don't know how much jet lag you guys had.
Mark Ort:
42:38-42:40
I slept great this week.
Mark Ort:
42:42-42:49
Brooke's back here at the computer, and she did a fantastic job on a video, and we'd like that to you now.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Discuss any of the questions (and answers) from Sunday outlined above. Reflect on the answers given. How would you answer these?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.