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Welcome to the live big broadcast with Derek Greer. We believe this teaching from God's Word will empower you to live a full, impactful life in Christ. Let's dig in.
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Hebrews 6:10. The writer of the book of Hebrews. Some say that the Apostle Paul wrote this book. Others say Barnabas. We're not exactly sure, but we do recognize it as the Word of God. And they've done that for centuries, ever since the book was written. And in verse 10, the writer makes a declaration. He says, God is not unjust. People may be unjust. Circumstances at times may be unjust. Our world is often cruel and unjust. But if you want to make it in life, you gotta stop confusing God's will with everything that happens in your particular life. If everything that happened on the earth was God's will, we'd already be in heaven. But I'm convinced that God allows us to go through some hell on earth to teach us where we don't want to end up forever. And the good news tonight, no matter what room you're in in this building, is if you decide to choose and follow Jesus, this life is the closest to hell you'll ever get. Psalms 7 and 11 tells us God is a just judge and watch this. And God is angry with the wicked every day. Every day. If you're from D.C. every day, every day. But I want you to imagine and think about the self control that God exhibits. Letting the sun rise and letting the sun set every day, both on the just and the unjust. But what I want to tell you is God's been waiting for you this long, despite you, because somehow in his mind, he thinks you're worth it. But here's the deal. God won't wait forever. Don't be that person that spends all this time trying to wait for the perfect opportunity, but misses the last. And the right opportunities. Don't wait until it's too late. Psalms 37:28 tells us more about God. It says this. He loves justice. So God is not only just, he loves justice. God has never had a moment where he's regretted making wrong, wrong and right right. Then he said, and he will never forsake his saints. God will never abandon the cause, his people. Sometimes, you know, we do everything right, but things still go wrong. And then we're tempted to ask, where is God? But I've learned that God's silence is as full of love as his replies. And that the teacher is the quietest and the most silent during the test. And real spirituality is when you do Right just because it's right, and not necessarily because of an immediate reward. Back to Hebrews 6 and 10 for God is not unjust. Make this statement your screensaver. Tie a ribbon around your finger. Tattoo it somewhere else on your body where you don't already have a tattoo, but a place where you can see it. God is not I don't care what happened this year. The devil is a liar. Life can be cruel, but God is not unjust. Yes, life can be unkind. Yes, what happened may have been wrong. Yes, sometimes life really hurts, but God is good all the time. David said it this way in Psalms 27:10 though my father and mother forsake me, when those nearest and dearest to you drop you, when those who you have the deepest ties, the one who should be most loyal and faithful, go sideways and turn their backs on the promises that they made, he said, though my mother and my father forsake me, though even the strongest ties that bind us together are broken or dissolved. Watch this the Lord if it had not been for the Lord on my side, where would I be? He's pulled me out of pits, pulled me out of bad relationships, kept picking me up in times I did not even deserve it. Though my mother Though my father forsake me, the Lord will receive me. He may correct me, he may chastise me, but he will never ever forsake me. He always receives me, dusts me off, and encourages me to walk on. Back to Hebrews 6 and 10 for God is not unjust. But watch what he calls unjustice or injustice in this next clause. He's not unjust to forget. Your spouse may have left you. Your friends may have stopped calling you, your child may have stopped visiting you. Some places may no longer welcome you. But God is not unjust to forget. Now God may delay, but God will never, ever, ever forget. Now watch. The thing he will not forget, in fact it would be unjust or injust, is for him to forget. For God is not unjust to forget your work. Now if we ask him, he'll forget all our sins. If we ask him, he'll forget all our mistakes. But the one thing God promises that he will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever forget is your faithfulness to his people and your loyalty to his kingdom. Cause. Now here's what I know when it comes to this subject. Your reward may not come next week, it may not come next month, it may not even come next year. But I've been around long enough to know it's coming. Because God Always repays. People will forget you. Even you will forget. But God is not unjust to forget your work. Every prayer you prayed this year, every seed you sowed, every hand you held, every person you helped. And he'll not forget your labor of love. Now here's the question. Is Mom's cooking really better than everyone else? Everyone said yes. I just want to postulate something. Is it the cooking or is it the love she puts into the food when she stands over that stove, when her feet hurt, her back hurts. And because we know what she puts in it tastes like nothing else. But nothing great in this world is produced or accomplished without some passion. And God said, I will not forget your work. The passion, the love which you've shown didn't just feel, but shown toward his name. When you really love God, you don't just feel it. You look for ways to show it. But watch how they show their love in that you have ministered to the saints. You know, in the prescreens, we saw a lot of the work we've been doing around the world. Why do we do it? How do you bless the one who already has everything? By blessing those who don't have anything. This is why in 2025, we got to keep going into the highways and the byways with this message of Jesus Christ and his love. You hear what I'm saying? And the good works of the kingdom to show this crazy world that Jesus cares. And then he continues. And it'll get good in a moment. We'll just learn some things in the meantime. Thank you. But watch what he says and that you have ministered to the saint and you continue to do or continue to minister. Now, what's happening here? What I'm trying to say to you is scripture is very gently cautioning us about resting on our laurels. Thank God for what we've done in the past, but yesterday's home runs won't win today's games. That was Babe Ruth. Salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit. But sharing God's word is the work of every Christian. And the best ways to overcome your pain, your disappointment, is to help someone else with theirs. So, by the way, if you haven't already gotten plugged into church, you know, in 2024, make sure you get plugged in in 2025 so you're part of something bigger than yourself. Verse 11, he said, well, you did it in the past, but I need you to continue. And then he says, and we desire that each one of you show the same diligence this epistle is called the Epistle to the Hebrews because it was written to Jewish believers who faced extreme hardship and persecution because of their newfound faith in Jesus the Christ. And what had began to happen is after a while, their passion began to wane and they stopped showing up at church, they stopped volunteering, they stopped praying, they stopped giving. And many of them just kind of felt like giving up. And the Book of Hebrews was written to encourage them to stay in the fight. Somebody said that death is not the greatest tragedy in life, but what we let die inside us while we're alive. And they began to die on the vine. They loved the Lord, but had some experiences with God. But life happened and they began to deal with negative circumstances and consequences that were bad for doing good. And after a while, their fire began to die down, just like we talked about on Sunday. Regarding Timothy, he said, and we desire that each one of you, not just a few people, but everyone, show. And he used this big old word, diligence, which means hanging on and just holding on. He said, my heart's desire is not necessarily that God stops it, but that you show diligence. His prayer wasn't that God would necessarily block it, but his people would persevere. I feel like God is saying to us tonight, I'm not always going to stop it. I'm not always going to block it. But if you persevere and hang in there, you will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. But you got to do your part in order for God to do his part. My advice to everyone, livestreaming everyone in this room or in the overflow that's hurting, my simple advice to you is stay at it. Because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He did it for Joseph, sold into slavery by his own brothers, falsely accused of a terrible, wretched crime. And then he was left in prison by someone who had the power, the authority to get him out. But he didn't. But then God was still working out a plan. And while Pharaoh was sleeping, God gave him a dream. But it was a dream that only a dreamer could interpret. And the man that had forgotten about her remembered that there was this dream interpreter he met in prison. And out of the pain of all of that rejection, the denial came. Promotion. If he did it for Joseph, And if he did it for Job, Job lost his seven sons and three daughters, his wealth, his reputation. It all seemed to happen like almost in a day. But if you read this story, a lot of folks focus on how did God let this happen to A righteous man. But if you read the story, you might be missing the point. Because in the end, God gave him back twice everything he lost. If you hold on, God will give you double for your trouble. But you gotta persevere. You gotta show some diligence. You got to hang on and hold on to his unchanging hand. Do what you gotta do, and then trust God to do what only God can do. If he did it for others, he'll do it for you. If he did it for others, he'll do it for you. Why are these stories in the Bible? Just to give us something to read. Are these narratives or examples? What he did for Joseph, he wants to do for you. What he did for Job, he wants to do it for you. And if he did it back, then he can do it right now. Stay with me. I'm going to land this plane pretty quickly. And we desire that each one of you. He didn't say, I'm going to stop it all, but show the same diligence to the full assurance. That's some strange language, but he was saying that in the midst of your crisis, I want you to be absolutely assured, not just half cop, you know, cock wishing and the hope in it. The text is saying that God wants to help you even before you face anything, reach the fullest level of confidence and conviction to the place that there's no doubt that God is on your side. He wants to get you to the place that you know that you know. That you know that he who's begun a good work in me shall complete it. In other words, to use today's vernacular, you didn't come this far to only come this far. Now, I don't know about you, but I've invested too much in this thing, and I've come too far to give up right now. But then it says that this full assurance, it says you gotta keep it until the end. I'm so happy about your start, but it's how we finish that matters most. He said, there's full assurance until the end. A woman had just finished milking her cow, and she sat her bucket down. And somehow these two crazy frogs, when she wasn't looking, jumped in. And after they jumped in, you know, they recognized the water, the milk was deep, and they kept trying to jump to freedom, but the bucket edge was too high. And after a while, the first frog got tired, thought, you know, this is useless, and he just stopped jumping and the frog drowned. The second frog also felt equally discouraged. The edge of the bucket was high, but he didn't stop jumping. But eventually, as he kept at it, his persistence churned the milk into butter. But then from that hardened surface, after he hung in there, kept trying to get out. Because the milk turned to butter, the frog was able to leap out. A winner is just a loser that keeps on trying. He wants each one of us to show that same diligence to the end. Watch this. That you do not become sluggish. I may not be able to change all the things that have happened in my life, but I can refuse to be diminished by them. Yes, stuff happened in 2024, but in 2025, I'm not slowing down. I am moving on. The train is going to leave the state once again. Now, here's the caution that you do not become sluggish. See, what happens is first we lose the desire to press on. Then we lose the desire to go on. Now, I've been there and I've done that, and I'm not letting it happen again. I am moving on in 2025. That same diligence that you do not become sluggish. Not everyone who started with you has the stuff to finish with you. But no matter what anyone else does, you got to be able to move on and keep going. That you do not become sluggish and. And weepy and weak and don't have strength and lazy and don't feel like it anymore. You see, when you go through persecution and things don't work as planned and people are coming against you, it's easy to just kind of just get into the fog and a depression and just, you know, just get sluggish and just kind of a cloud hangs over your head. But he said, do not become what? Sluggish. You see, I can't control your house. I can't make choices for you. But as for me and my house, we gonna let the dead bury the dead. We gonna move on. I know some things happen, but I'm gonna move on. There's one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind me, pressing and straining toward those things which are ahead. One of the reasons that I got to move on is because I recognize, even for the devil, it's harder for him to hit a moving target. See, the only way you're not going to become sluggish is this word diligence. To persevere, to stay at it, to encourage yourself to fan into a flame that fire on the inside of you. No one's going to do it for you. These are things sometimes you got to learn to do yourself. Like I said on Sunday when you get that call, 2 o' clock in the morning, the worship team's not there, the band's not playing. You got to know how to call on that name that's above every name for yourself. When your child comes home walking differently than they ought and you're like, what's wrong with this? But listen, you got to know how to encourage yourself in the Lord. Now listen, a thousand children may fall in my lap, but it shall not come to my house. I will not accept that in the life of my child. You can't become sluggish and sleepy and weak. You got to persevere and show some diligence and God wants to put some fire in you that you do not become sluggish. I may dream, and I do have dreams, but I'm not going to sleep on what God has prepared for those who love him. And tonight my prayer is that you wipe the sleep and discouragement from your eyes. And what I want you to do, stand to your feet and tell your neighbor, I'm moving on I'm moving on. Not sure about you but I'm moving on. I'm leaving some things behind in 2024 I'm moving on I'm letting it go I know what they did, I forgive them I release it I'm moving on I'm pressing on toward the mark for the prize I'm not going to let nobody hold me and keep me in what they did in 2024. I'm letting it go I salute it Bye bye bye bye bye bye behind me get get deep behind Bye bye bye bye bye bye. There ain't nothing but air between where I am, where you are right now, and what God has for us next.
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Thank you for joining us. Until next time, remember you have what it takes in Christ to live big. We also invite you to partner with Derek Greer Ministries in bringing the life changing and impactful teachings of God's Word to the world. Get started by visiting Derekreer.com by clicking the link in the description.