Keep The Fire Burning

Today we're going to go into no series before Pastor Miles comes next week and starts a new series called Dress for Success. And this is the title of today's message, keep the fire burning. Keep the fire burning. So as I prayed for what to share with you today, God led me to a one-word question, and that is why.

I was like, okay Lord, where are you going with that? And he led me to Paul's letters to the churches. And as I was reading, I was just noticing a common denominator. He constantly and in a strong way encourage them, don't lose your why.

Don't turn to the left or to the right. Make sure that you continue to remember why you are moving forward as a Christian. What Jesus did for you, don't lose your why. And it made me think of us.

Why do you do what you do every day? Why do you get up? Why do you brush your teeth? Why do you get going?

Why do you go to work? Why are you here at church today? Was it to check a box or was it to encounter the living God? Why?

Why do you do what you do? Even the simple tasks every day, right? Like washing the dishes, washing the clothes, making the kids get to where they're supposed to be, making sure they get fed. All these different things we do every day.

The mundane tasks of life, the multitude of tasks, it's easy for us to get into a rut. And it's easy for us to get down, isn't it? To lose our passion in life. I was in sales for seven years.

And management all the time would try to talk to us about our why. You've got to keep your why at the front of your mind. And you've got to think about it all the time. Because you're going to face people who are going to be mean to you, who are going to hang up on you, who are going to do all these different things.

And you've got to remember why you are here and why you need that commission check. But that's sales and that's a commission check. I'm talking about our lives here, right? Because we will face opposition in life.

We will face all kinds of things that will try to beat us down and keep us down. And it very easily turns into us getting into a rut and losing our passion. And usually we lose our passion in life because we've lost our why. So for our church, we are a GMI church.

The mission of GMI churches is transform lives for Christ. TLC, baby. This is what floats our boat. As a church, this is our why.

And everything we do, it's all to reach that goal. Transform lives for Christ. And I wonder if you go to this church, if you're a regular tender or a member, is this something that fuels your passion in life? You are a member of this church, right?

So this is our mission, this is our why. But also personally, you might have a why that God has given you to fuel your passion. And I just wonder, is it fueling your fire? Is it keeping your fire burning?

Do you need your fire reignited? Do you have a fire lit, but you want it set ablaze? Or have life's tasks caused you to forget about why you do what you do every single day? You see, the Apostle Paul, he understood the human condition and he understood that we have the propensity to let our fire go out.

And so he sent these strong words of encouragement to the churches in his letters. And anybody's taking notes today, I'm just going to give you a disclaimer here. I'm going to go through these quickly, so you're not going to be able to write them down if you want to take a picture or just watch. It'll all be on the screen.

But these are strong words of encouragement that Paul sent to the letters to the churches in his letters because he understands the human condition of us to have the propensity to let our fire go out. So let's read a few. First Corinthians 1613. He tells the Corinthians Church, be on the alert.

Stand firm in the faith. This is for the men. Act like men. Be strong.

Verse Corinthians 1558. Be firm. Imovable. Always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

I was preparing this. I just felt, man, I just felt the Lord telling me there's some moms in the room that are going to need to hear that verse today. Always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. It is not your labor will lead to success and results.

You may not see them today. You may not see them this week, this month, this year. But they are coming and God sees what you're doing and he will bless it because you are working as unto the Lord. Amen.

First thessalonians 3 8. Stand firm in the Lord. Second thessalonians 3 13. Do not grow weary of doing good.

Second Corinthians 4 1. Do not lose heart. Are you starting to see where Paul is going with this? He sees that we have the propensity to let our fires go out.

So he's trying to encourage, encourage, encourage, keep the faith. Stand firm. Be immovable in your relationship with Jesus Christ and what you believe about him. Hebrews 6 verse 11 and 12.

And we desire that each of one of you demonstrate the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end. So that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and endurance inherit the promises. Oh man, how many of us we let our fire go out and we become lazy. We become sluggish.

We just like we're just going through the motions in life. And I know that all of us have experienced this before and all of us could use either reigniting or for our fire to be set ablaze for the Lord. And all of these verses that we read here, they are based on an assumption. Did you catch it?

The assumption that God lit a fire in those people. A fire was lit in those people, but in order for that fire, that passion, that zeal for the Lord, whatever he's called you to, to not go out. It is not up to God to keep the fire burning. It is up to us.

There's something about what we need to do that is going to keep the fire burning. All of these directives, did you notice it? It's not what God is doing for us. All these directives from Paul to the Christians of what to do.

They are things that we need to do. It didn't say, you know, God will cause you to not lose heart. God will make you not grow weary of doing good. And God will make you stand firm in the Lord.

No, no, no. He's just telling them straight up. Stand firm in the Lord. Don't grow weary of doing good.

Don't lose heart. Amen? Be on the alert. So to keep your fire burning, we have to do some things.

We are in charge of some things in this equation. And life in God can become burdensome. It can. But only if you let it.

Okay? Only if you let it. We have to be willing to put the work in. We have to be willing to make sacrifices.

That's a word that we throw around a lot. It's an interesting word. We have to be willing to put our wants to the side and to seek God's will and the needs of others. So we talk about sacrifices a lot.

But I want you to think about this. With the right perspective, is anything really a sacrifice if it advances God's kingdom? Right? I want you to think about this.

It's spending five extra minutes in a day because your child had a question about God. Or your child had a question about scripture. Or maybe that you were writing in the car and you had a worship song on. And they're like, why are they singing about this?

Is spending an extra five minutes to explain it to them and to pray with them? Is that too much of a time sacrifice? Man? That's advancing God's kingdom in their life, isn't it?

Is buying good books and reading them? To mature you as a Christian? Is that too much of a time or money sacrifice? Right?

Is talking to a stranger because you heard the voice of the Lord say, go over and talk to that person. Well, what am I supposed to say to them? No, no, no, just go over there and I'll give you the words. I'll be there with you.

Just go talk to that person. Is that too much of a comfort sacrifice? Is anything really a sacrifice if it's advancing the kingdom of God? See, the word sacrifice is just interesting to me.

Do you view this term as positive or negative? And it also makes me think of this question. What are you willing to do to seek lives transformed? What are you willing to do?

Well, first of all, what are you willing to do to seek your life transformed? Because God will come into your life and he'll transform your life. But there's a process to maturity in the Lord and sanctification and holiness. And there's a process to growing in your relationship with God and it doesn't just happen by osmosis.

It doesn't poof. I'm mature. Poof. I have a great relationship with Jesus.

No, no, no. He died once and for all and he saved you. But now we're in a process of becoming more and more holy, becoming more and more righteous. Amen?

And so what are you willing to do to see your life transformed? But also the people around you? What are you willing to do to see your spouse transformed? To see your kids transformed?

Your family, your household, this church? Amen? The community, your co-workers, your friends transformed for Christ. What are you willing to do?

Well, man, one thing that's really important if you're going to do that is you've got to make sure that your fire doesn't go out. You've got to make sure that your passion and your zeal for the Lord and growing his kingdom. It doesn't dwindle. It is set ablaze.

So we're just going to talk about three ways to keep that fire burning this morning, okay? Because we all need it. Amen? Amen?

Right. We all need it. Number one. First way to keep your fire burning for the Lord.

Be like Jesus. Spin time in God's presence. I know how foundational and fundamental and how simple this sounds. But if you look at scripture, it is so vitally important.

We have to start here. We can't go anywhere else. We have to start here. You know, when the going gets tough, some people choose to isolate.

Anybody that person? Yeah? See, I have to be disciplined myself. My natural tendency is to isolate and not just from people but from God.

If left to my own devices, I will isolate from everything. See, I used to try to avoid God because it seems like if I'm just by myself, then there's no trouble. I don't mess with anybody or anything and nobody and nothing can mess with me. But instead of my problems going away, the more I suppress them and push them down, they would keep bubbling to the surface to where people could see them.

I could see them. I couldn't hide from them and I was forced to deal with them. And what I've realized in that progression, in growing in my relationship with Jesus, man, at that time, just sitting at Jesus' feet, sitting in His presence is invaluable in my life today. I experienced this recently.

We just moved. Prince God, God, just showed up and gave us this awesome house. It's going to be great for homeschool and great for ministry and we're so excited about it. But when we were preparing to move, I was in the middle of three different weekends of CRTC, our men's conference, and I was teaching at them.

After the first weekend, God told me, hey, I want you to get away at Cares Canyon, our conference retreat center, and I want you to spend time with me, just you me. I said, okay. And then he said, I want you to do it before CRTC, number three. And I'm like, well, God, we're moving and we're putting things in boxes and we're packing and we're doing all these every single day.

I can't do that right now. I don't have time for that right now. I can't afford to do that right now. I can't do that, I can't do that.

She's going to be doing a lot of this by herself and I'm going to be gone for like five days if I do that because I have to be gone for CRTC. I'm saying all these things to God, give them all these reasons. I can't afford to do this right now. And he spoke to me very clearly.

He said, you can't afford to not do this right now. Come sit at my feet. And can I tell you, I didn't know how much I needed that. I did it because I did it.

I was obedient. And we had a lot of talks about it. And Kate got happy with it because she's not going to get in the way of what God is calling me to do. And she also knows that I'm willing to help anytime, anywhere with anything.

This is not me trying to avoid packing or anything like that. But I was out at Cares Canyon. There were many moments, but I just want to tell you the story about one moment because this is how good God is. And these are the kind of moments that will keep your fire burning and why we have to go to him first and sit in his presence.

I fastened for two days. The second day I climbed up the mountain. I was kind of surprised because usually I just do that with ease. But I was fasting and I had to take a couple breaks to start getting dizzy.

But I got to the top. I'm sitting at the bench like a lot of you have done at Cares Canyon. And I'm just sitting there for a long time and I'm just telling you, I'm grateful for this and this and this and I'm just going down the list and I'm just having this sweet time with the Lord. I can feel his presence.

And then I just asked him a question, a simple question. It wasn't a demand or anything like that. It wasn't going to change my relationship with him. But I just said, hey, Lord, could you show me that you're here?

I know you're here, but can you show me that you're here? And I've been up there for at least 30 minutes already. But all of a sudden this strong wind just hit me in the face for five seconds. And it was totally different than the wind patterns and everything that had happened up there.

And I just started, tears just started coming out my face. You're so good. You didn't have to do that. There's so many things going on in the world.

You just loved me that much. And if nothing else, you wanted to make sure that I knew, maybe him telling me to go up there was just for that one moment right there to remind me that I knew. And he is good and he is with me and he loves me. Amen?

He's so good. And I'm telling you, like, I've thought about that every single day since then. It's been a couple weeks now. And it's fueling my fire.

It really is that simple little moment we got to get away and we got to get with God. See, sometimes instead of total isolation, we need to isolate ourselves with God. And in those times, I'm telling you, you'll get refueled, repurposed, redirected. And most importantly, if you'll keep doing those times, he'll mature you in the faith.

He'll show you who you are, what your faults are. And then he'll show you what your sins are. And then he'll show you how to overcome them and he'll empower you to overcome them. See, spending time with the Holy Spirit, it helps us to understand God's heart and to develop God's heart in our own.

And it's no surprise that it will lead when we are seeking the Holy Spirit and we're seeking to be led by him. It'll lead to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Or otherwise known as the fruit of the Spirit. Right?

These are the very characteristics of God that he wants to help you grow in. And we need to stop relying on and trusting in ourselves. We need to rely on and trust in Jesus. We also need to realize that God's not a lip reader.

He's a heart reader. We can talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. But he really just wants to know what's in here. What's underneath everything?

What are your insecurities? What are your true feelings? What are your true motivations? The Bible says that he resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble.

You know what grace is? It's God's ability to help you do things you can't do in your own strength. And if you are prideful, he won't give it to you. But if you are humble, he would love to give it to you.

He gives grace to the humble. So we must church humble ourselves. We are not good enough. Can you say that with me?

We are not good enough. Just get happy with that. Right? It reminds us of our need to depend on the Lord.

We need His power. We need His guidance. We need His counsel every single day. And can I ask you, if you're in a rut, who is in the driver's seat?

Who's taking charge here? Who's leading this thing? Who are you listening to? Who's presence are you spending time in?

Right? I started this by saying, are you in a rut? If you're in a rut, ask yourself these questions. The common denominator is you're probably not spending time in God's presence.

Because in His presence, He gives you His goodness. He pours into you. You change. Just straight up.

You will change. But will you actually set aside time and spend time with Him? Another important aspect, and I just love this one. If we neglect to seek God's presence instead of His feet, we lose our source of joy.

His presence is the source of our joy. Let's look at Scripture in Acts 2. Peter addresses the crowd. And he quotes Psalm 16, Acts 2, 28.

He says, you have made known to me the paths of life. You fill me with joy in your presence. Where do we find joy? We just read it.

Yeah. Interaction. It's a great thing. Right?

It's, it's, yeah. I'll just leave it. Okay. You will fill me with joy in your presence.

Psalm 21, verse 6. For you will make Him most blessed forever. You make Him joyful with the joy of your presence. How does God make us joyful with the joy of His presence?

Isaiah 9, 3. You will increase their joy. They will increase, or they will rejoice in your presence as with the joy of harvest. So one of the first things that you lose when your fire is going out is your joy.

I don't think everybody would say, well, yeah, of course. When I feel like I'm overwhelmed, when I feel like my fire's going out, when I feel like I'm jaded, when I feel like I'm burning out, all those different things, I'm not joyful. Yes. True.

But it's not because your fire is going out. It's because you're not spending time in God's presence. Right? If your joy tank is on E, everything is in life is becoming a burden.

You need to spend time in God's presence. See, the presence of God was vital to King David. King David repeated these words in three separate verses. He said, in Psalm 42, 5, 42, 11, and 43, 5.

All of these have this little section in here. He says, why are you in despair, my soul? Why? And why are you restless within me?

Anybody there there before? Your soul is your mind, will, and emotions. Right? And you are in despair.

And you don't even know why. And everything ain't right. And you don't even know why. What is David's remedy for this?

Wait for God. Wait for God. I will again praise Him for the help of His presence, my God. Where does our help come from?

Our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, from His presence. Amen? We need to adapt the heart of David in times of struggle. You're having a bad day.

You're having a bad season. How fervently will you seek His presence? How long will you wait in His presence? Psalm 51, 11.

This is David's heart. Hear the heart here. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. You think He understood the importance of God's presence?

See, many Christians, they avoid sitting in God's presence, and they would say that they want to, but they're too busy. Is anything more important than this? I mean, what are we talking about here? I think so many people that I've talked to, and I've done this too, we get things turned upside down.

Our priorities are just literally upside down. We think we've got to go, go, go, go, go, go, go. We've got to do this, we've got to do this, we've got to do this, we've got to do this. We don't make time for God, and then our life just, and we wonder why?

Because we're not spending time in God's presence. So when I say spend time in God's presence, what do you think? Right? Because I've heard sermons like this before, and I'm like, you keep saying it, but what do I do?

So I'm a big believer in practicality. So this is, I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can spend time in God's presence. I think we did in worship today. Show up to church, it'll happen in worship.

Here, I know. I don't know what other churches do. It'll happen here, right? But also one on one with God.

Very simply, shut out all the noise, put your phone away, and unless He tells you to go get it, put your Bible to the side. And just say, God, I want to be with you. Would you meet me right here where I'm at? Speak to me, Lord, I'm listening.

I just want to spend time with you, and then wait. And I got to tell you, any of you know, or any of you that know me, you know that I'm go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, like I'm just, and it was a very humbling experience when I went to Cares Canyon for two days, because it took most of one day for me to just shut my brain off. But when I did, well, God just started pouring into me, started encouraging me, started talking to me, the wind. Man, I needed that.

And all of us do. Amen? See, David had his priorities right. He knew the true source of life and success.

That's why he wrote Psalm 140, 13. And this is a song that he wrote. We should sing this. Certainly the righteous will give thanks to your name.

The upright will dwell in your presence. How often do you dwell in God's presence? Yes, this should be an everyday thing. I think this should be an everyday thing, and then every once in a while, you should do something like I did.

Cares Canyon. And I think it's even more powerful if you can fast. Man does not live on bread alone. I'm not worried about all that.

All I'm worried about is encountering you, God, and just sitting at your feet. See the concept of seeking out and talking to and listening to a God who we can't see, it's foreign to the Western world. It's foreign to America. Most people that don't believe in Jesus, if you talk to him about this, they'd be like, dude, you're off your rocker.

What are you even talking about right now? And in fact, experiencing the supernatural, God healing, and God doing all these things. You could tell them, and they would just write it off as something else. That's not God.

I don't even know if you're true if that didn't even happen. The supernatural is foreign to our nation, not to this church and not to a lot of Christians in our nation, but it's a foreign concept to a lot of people we do life with outside of this church family, isn't it? But it's normal in other countries, in India and Africa and other countries, and all the other religions in the world, they require you to be the source of anything good. And if you know anything about how God designed things, it's literally the opposite, right?

God is the source of anything and everything good. He is the inventor of good. And he, when you spend time in his presence, he will provide the supernatural faith, energy, peace, healing, comfort, courage that you need. But just as Jesus modeled it for us, we only achieve this by spending time one on one with God.

Men, he is the only true and reliable source of anything good in this world. And therefore, we need to put him in his rightful place, and Ecclesiastes 5, 2, gives us some wise words and just cuts straight to it. It says, do not be quick with your mouth or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven, and you are on earth.

Therefore, let your words be for you. Now, I'm going to give you a little window into how I read scripture sometimes. So I read that in minutes, powerful, it's amazing. And then I just think, wow, God, that's like your polite and nice way of saying, sometimes you just need to shut up and listen.

Right? Because he's in heaven, and I'm not. He's a lot smarter than me. He knows everything, I do not.

His ways are higher than my ways. And that's not just me, that's all of us. Right? Wow.

We simply don't have the time required to do a full study of the presence of the Lord, but I encourage you, do a word study in the Old Testament. And you'll find that in the presence of God, this is where battles are won. This is where the promise land is conquered. This is where enemies flee, and justice is served.

Lastly on this point, I want to look at Acts 3, 19. So good. Therefore, repent and return so that your sins may be wiped away. In order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

Man, I want you to think about this verse. Don't just read it and go on to the next thing. Think about this. God hates sin.

He hates it. And what happens when we repent and we return to the Lord to his presence? What does he do? Times of refreshing.

Where we would probably think, man, I did it again. I'm sorry, God. We forgive me. And then we probably think that he's distant and he's looking at us like, yeah, I forgive you.

That's not our God. You come to him and you say, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm done. I want to do things your way, God.

I'm done with that old man. I am a new creation. Help me walk in at Lord. And he just begins speaking into us and loving on us and encouraging us.

He forgives us and he walks with us and he refreshes us and he fills us with his joy. Come on. If you haven't developed a discipline of getting into God's presence or you've fallen off the wagon, there's no better time than this week. Amen.

To get on it. Sit in his presence and drink in what he wants to share with you. Amen? That's number one.

The second way to keep that fire burning is to start an encouragement revolution. Start an encouragement revolution. Raise your hand if someone in here has encouraged you before. Yeah, same thing happened for a service.

Very encouraging church. Love this church. Raise your hand if you have encouraged someone this week. Ooh, a couple less hands.

Raise your hand if you make it a habit to encourage someone every single day. I knew Hope's hand would go up. She's one of the most encouraging people that I know. Encouragement is vitally important.

It's so important. It's like oxygen to the soul. One word of encouragement to someone can fuel them for a day, weeks, a month. I mean, it's who enjoys being encouraged.

Come on. It's so important for us to receive it and to give it. And the church of Jesus Christ should be the most encouraging environment that exists on planet Earth. Amen.

Come on. It should. And that's one of our goals here. We're going to be one of the most encouraging places that you can ever, I mean, in Hayes County.

It's going to be at least top five. Right? Let's go for number one. Why not?

Right? Just be the most encouraging place you've ever been in. I mean, we have the one objective truth that leads to eternal life. That's Jesus Christ.

That's the gospel. Amen? So let's spread the gospel and let's encourage people. Now, we're going to look at what encouragement actually means here in a minute.

But we looked at some verses of Paul encouraging the churches. That's the first thing we did today, right? Why did he do that? Why was it so important for Paul to encourage those Christians over and over and over again?

Well, it's because if you just read through scripture, he understood that encouragement strengthens the weak. It builds faith. It keeps us from sin and it brings unity and purpose into focus. That's what encouragement does.

Now, when you see encouragement in the Bible, it's going to come across as translated to English. It's going to say encourage, encouragement, or encourage in the past tense. And the New Testament, that's all coming from the same root word in the Greek, percaleo. And Greek is a picture language.

You get these deep, amazing pictures from a word that you just don't get from words in English. And I want to go through the meaning of pericaleo because it's so different than what we think of when we think of encouragement. So here's what pericaleo means. It means to address or instruct, to exhort, to admonish, to bag, urge, appeal, to comfort, encourage, or strengthen.

Wow, that's a lot packed into one word, isn't it? And this word is different from the English word encouraged because when we think of encouragement, we think of building someone's confidence or giving them support or just pumping them with hope or these different things. But pericaleo, it has more urgency to it. It's not just giving somebody a pat on the back.

It's giving them instruction, along with comfort, along with love and encouragement. See, it has to be within the context of pointing someone to Jesus. True encouragement is not just making somebody feel better about themselves. There's enough of that happening in the world.

True encouragement is making someone see what they're doing and helping them to run to the throne room. To run to the feet of Jesus, amen? To do things Jesus' way. And speaking the truth in love, it's so different than what we think of in the English word encouraged.

And I wanted to show you some examples of this in the New Testament. For the note takers, they're just going to hate me on this message because I'm not doing things in a normal way. Because you would just be sitting there going, and you wouldn't be listening. So I'm intentionally leaving some things out of the notes.

But these are all straight from scripture, word for word, straight from scripture. And I want you to hear these because every first word of every sentence that I'm going to read, they are pericaleo. So listen, this is pericaleo, and it's awesome when you hear all these together. It's like it paints a beautiful picture of what this word is.

I urge you to abstain from fleshly lusts. I'm appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith. I urge that there be no divisions among you. Comfort those who are in any affliction.

I urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. Be comforted. Be like-minded. Live in peace.

I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of your calling. I encourage one another and build one another up. Comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word. Encourage them to remain true in the Lord.

Encouraging them to continue in the faith. It's interesting, pericaleo, it's not like we think of encouraging the English. There's urgency. There's comfort, but also urgency.

And all of it is directed to Jesus. This type of encouragement or appeal, it's used to refocus, comfort, strengthen, and exhort people to keep their faith, to persevere, to keep from sinning. And each one of us needs to take ownership of this kind of encouragement in this house. This kind of encouragement will lead to the fire continuing to burn.

Because ultimately, it's the hidden sins we have in our lives that just knocks the fire out, just like that. I mean, the flame is gone. That's why we need each other. That's why God's word in James 5 16.

It says, to pray for one another, to confess your sins to one another, and to pray for one another because the prayers of a righteous person are both powerful and effective. Because we need others in our lives to push us to Jesus too. Sometimes it looks like pushing. Lead us to Jesus, but sometimes we need a little kick, right?

In love. But that's the kind of encouragement we need to be open to, and we need to give in this church. Men, to be strong in our convictions, to build a culture of this pericoleo type of encouragement. Because it's hard to extinguish the flame of a faith-filled believer who is surrounded by encouragers in the faith.

Pericoleo encouragers. Men, that's number two. Here's number three. Third way, that we keep the fire burning.

Plant trees you'll never see grow. Plant trees you'll never see grow. True Christ followers are stewards of the future. They take responsibility for adding to the legacy.

Who's legacy? Christ's legacy, of course. And what a legacy. Just outside of that, what a legacy we have built for us in GMI.

If you've been around here for any length of time and you've heard the stories, man, there are great, great men and women who sacrificed, who bled sweat in tears and prayers. They built this network that we're in. It's unbelievable. Everything that went into it.

The finances, the resources, the hard work. Wow. Decades and decades. So that we can sit here today and enjoy this building.

Worshiping together, getting into God's Word. It's incredible. And I realize when I look at my day-to-day, I think about the legacy of GMI and I think of GCF and GMA in 20, 30, 40 years. And I realize that what I do today, tomorrow and the next day, will honor those who have gone before me.

But I also realize I'm planting seeds in people when I pray. I'm planting seeds in people when I encourage them. I'm planting seeds in people when I'm meeting with them and I'm doing life with them. And I pray for those seeds to grow up into oaks of righteousness as scripture describes.

And I understand that some I may see grow, but others, I hope that a lot of them, I don't see them grow. I just want to be a seed plinter. Planting seeds of Jesus. Planting seeds of God's goodness all around.

And then maybe when I get up to heaven one day, I'll get to see, wow, I didn't see it. I didn't know half of what, well, I didn't know it, 10% of what you were doing. Wow. And I pray that those seeds that I plant, that they'll produce a harvest long after I'm going.

Come on, who's with me? Amen. But in order to do that, we got to get outside of ourselves. Life can't be all about me.

And man, if you just drink in what the world out there wants you to drink in, it will lead you to making life all about you. Every single time you sit down in marriage counseling, the primary problem is selfishness. Me, me, me, me, I'm not getting what I need. When did this become about you?

Where in the Bible does it say, well, I need to worry about my feelings. And I need to worry about my emotions. And I need to worry about what I'm getting and what I'm not getting. Where does it say that?

It doesn't say that. No, actually, if you do a word study recently, I did it fascinating how selflessness and love are interconnected. It's unbelievable. I mean, it starts with Jesus, right?

And it starts with the Father really, selflessly giving His Son. And then Jesus selflessly giving His life for us. That's the model. Amen?

We have to be others focused, people focused. When I think about people focused, I think about that great quote from Henry Ford. You ever seen this one? He says, you can take my factories, burn up my buildings, but give me my people, and I'll bring my business right back again.

Man, that was a guy that valued people. That's amazing. I just wonder if we all value the people around us, man, what can we do? Like, burn this place to the ground, but give me my people and watch what God can do.

Amen? Come on. Philippians 2-3. Says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.

Well, that's pretty straightforward. But with humility, consider one another as more important than yourselves. So if you're firing your passion for life or for ministry or your job or whatever has gone out or is going out, good question, ask yourself, am I being selfish? Is my life about others or is my life about me?

See, we always talk about building generationally around here in our church and in our church network. In order to make that a reality, we must see others as more important than ourselves. And as we pour into the next generation, I know this because I've experienced it over and over and over again. You will find so much fulfillment, so much joy when you pour into others, when you serve others, when you make life about taking care of the people around you and serving them and loving on them instead of just me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

And I've experienced this first hand this last Wednesday. I was here for Youth and Kingdom Kids' Worship and, oh my gosh, that Youth Worship team, I had nothing to do. I was not at rehearsal. I had nothing to do with their song choice, with their rehearsal, with how much prayer went into it.

They just absolutely knocked it out of the park and then grand slam. It was unbelievable. The presence of God was thick in this way. And yeah, Kate was here with me.

The presence of God was thick in this place. I mean, God was just ministering to people. It was amazing. Like the song choice and the mash-ups they did, I'm like, what in the world?

Who are these kids, right? And the excellence that they brought into it, it's amazing. And a lot of you know, or if you don't know, I spent a few years building up that team, because we needed to start a Youth Worship team. And I have the background and the experience and the training to do that, so I helped them do that.

But man, they have just taken off with it. And it's amazing. Now I'm getting to see the fruit of pouring out and pouring out and pouring out and pouring out. And so Youth Worship team, if any of you are in here, I hope you can see.

Now it's been poured into you. Now it's time to pour into others. There are Kingdom Kids that are ready, that are looking forward to being a part of that team one day. You go pour into them.

But this is just a small picture of the Youth Worship team, right? What about all of us? Where are we at in life? Are we making life all about us?

Or are we making life about others? Man, you'll be so fulfilled and filled with joy. God will just fill you with that when you serve others and pour into them. See, Jesus planted the ultimate seed that leads to salvation.

Didn't He? He came to this earth to save the world. The single most selfless act in the history of the world. And we must continue in His legacy, continuing to plant seeds of the gospel of the Kingdom.

Quote from Danny Thomas, man, this one will hit you. If nothing else doesn't this message. Hopefully. All of us are born for a reason.

But all of us don't discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others. Gosh, I love that.

Gosh, I love that. Alright, let's end here. Isaiah 58, 10 and 11. It says, and if you offer yourself to the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then your light will rise in the darkness.

And your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you. And satisfy your desire in scorched places and give strength to your bones. And you will be like a watered garden.

And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. What amazing promises from Father God. Amen? Come on, who believes that today?

The Bible is a book full of promises. And we just see so many of them in Scripture. It's just amazing. Here it is right here.

Your light will rise in the darkness. Your gloom will become like midday. The Lord will continually guide you. Satisfy your desire in scorched places.

Give strength to your bones. You will be like a watered garden. Like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. But what's the condition?

What do we need to do? What's our part? Offer yourself. Satisfy the needs of people who need around you.

Amen? And look at those awesome promises. And we don't do it to get the promises. We do it because God has given us a heart for people.

But there is a sewing reaping principle in the Bible too. It just happens to happen that way. And God is just so good. He's ready to pour out blessings.

But are we ready to pour out ourselves? Who reads that and goes, man, I want some of that when you read. He'll make you a spring whose waters never fail. So if you can pour into others even as you feel empty, even as you are hurting or feel like you're broken and you have no business pouring into others, if you'll do that, God will start a miraculous work in you.

He will fill you with an everlasting abundance of living water to keep you going. And the world won't understand it and they may even make fun of it, but you know it's straight from God. And always remember, this isn't on the screen, 2 Corinthians 12 9, my grace is sufficient for you. For power is perfected in weakness.

And then keep the fire going. Three things. To keep that zeal, that passion for the Lord going. Spend time in God's presence.

Start an encouragement revolution. Plant trees. You'll never see growth. Amen?

Y'all stand. Let's pray.