We have hope as buds in our soul. At scent of water, at the sound of doctrine of grace, we can spring forth again. There are troubles. The love of many waxes cold. Still, living water can fall on us. As dew comes quietly and life comes again. (Deuteronomy 32:2-4; Job 14:7-9)

Speaker: Thomas Schaller

Sermon 12483
Date: 2023-03-29
Time: Wed 7:00 pm

P. Schaller – Beautiful. Wow.
That’s so good. Worship. Praise the Lord! I thank you, Lord. Yes. Lord Jesus, we praise you.
Just say his name for a moment. Just say his name and praise him. (Prayer). Do you want to
turn to your neighbor and tell them everything you know about grace. Okay. Go ahead. Grace.
Build them up in grace.

Alright. Turn to Deuteronomy 32. There’s just two parts to our message tonight. The first part, amen. Here
we are in faith assembling. And this verse, Deuteronomy. 32:2. Could we say that out loud together? Rain.
Rain coming down. Words. Words coming down. vs. 2. Dew is the moisture in the air distilling
on the ground. So, you have water on the plants and that water I think of as grace. Grace. The
doctrine of grace, the ministry of grace, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of God. Just out of nowhere
grace is given to us. Comes in the air. Comes from the Spirit. Comes in everyday life even when
there is no man.

I’ll read it. You don’t have to turn there. Job 38. It will be up on the screen. vs. 26. It rains even
where there is no man. I like to think where there aren’t even any people, God gives grace.
Even when there is nothing there, God gives grace. In the wilderness, where there is no man.
The whole universe works by grace. It’s all a gift. Look at your hand. It’s a gift. Look at your eye
or observe the power of an eye or a stomach or a foot or a part of life. How about love, how
about joy, how about peace of mind? What a gift that is. So, this is like God is speaking to us.
Go back to Deuteronomy 32:2-3. So, Moses is speaking here and he’s speaking about his doctrine and
his teaching being like water that falls on plants and makes them grow. But we’re not talking
about plants. We’re talking about people. So, turn now to Job 14 and this will be a bit of an
exercise for us. Job 14:7, Phil Norman knows this. Scotty Dubay knows this. Every gardener in
the room. Probably every mom who has a garden and so on. We know you can cut a tree down
and it’s not dead yet. It has roots and it will grow again. Vs. 7-10.

So, we have man who dies. He doesn’t with water spring up again. The plants do. And I want to
use that to illustrate something about you and I, and that is that we have buds. We can maybe
say in our soul, we have buds. We lose our hope and then the water comes and we have our
hope again. We have buds. We lose our love. We lose love or we are cut down in our soul. We
lose our faith. We are hurt in life. We are cut down but at the scent of water, we bud again. Has
that ever happen to you? Do you see it in the Bible that it happened to people when they were
hurt or discouraged but that grace of God, the doctrine of grace, the Spirit of God and you can
smell the water again, the scent of water, and you live again.

So, I want to have P. Gary come up and share a word with all of you. Welcome, P. Gary.

P. Gary Groenewold –

Okay. Just think of that. I was thinking as he was sharing that, I was glad
when they said let’s go into the house of the Lord. So many needs are met in the house of the
Lord. Subjective needs that we can’t even define. There’s like a sprinkling of water and all of a
sudden, there’s a revival in your heart. And you couldn’t revive your heart on your own, and you
get this confidence, this courage in the Body of Christ with the worship service. Seeing a face.
Man, is it great to gather together. Do you guys agree with me? Just to be here. Just to have
your soul filled and flooded and overflowing. God, we think of our dear brother, Ed Canino. What
a man, what he meant to us. I just love that guy. My primary password that I use is actually
something that he taught me, and it’s a secret word. He spoke about fellowship and about going
low for fellowship. It’s something I never forgot. The lower you go, the more fellowship you’ll
have. He told me that over a dinner table one time.

So, there’s an initiative in the city, Baltimore City. It’s peace for the city. It’s an initiative that’s
starting. It’s a Easter Sunday our church is going to participate, going to begin participating in it.
It starts Easter Sunday and there’s going to be a prayer in the city at 6:30. We’re going to have a
bus that leaves from here and goes directly to the prayer down there at 6:30. You can do a

sunrise prayer down there and then the bus will bring you back here and you can go to the 9:00
service. That’s Easter Sunday. At 6:00, a bus will leave from here. It’s going to be a group of
churches that are participating and a desire to pray for the city, for peace in the city. Yeah, we’re
saying amen. It’s something that we desire. And then after that they may get an establishment in
the city somewhere where churches take one week and they pray 24/7. So, for 52 weeks this
would happen in the City of Baltimore. And this is the desire for peace for the city.

I just want to say – that’s Easter Sunday it starts off and you can be a part of that. We’ll keep
you posted as this develops. But just as we think of children, I just think of this in Matthew 19:13. I’m
sure you’ve read this. vs. 13. Imagine their parents bringing them and but then the disciples
almost like it’s too busy. Something else is happening with Jesus. Jesus is ministering on that
level. It’s like don’t bother him. There’s something bigger going on, and they try to define the
nature of God. The disciples. Or they try to regulate his ministry.

And Jesus said this, “suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me and for such is
the kingdom of heaven.” A child. We think of what they get robbed of. We think of the city. They
get robbed of obeying their Heavenly Father. They get robbed of being loved unconditionally by
God. Satan doesn’t want them to see that. Satan doesn’t want them to see all their stains
washed away. To have that experience of being white as snow. This is, and like Christ said
suffer them to come unto me. He wanted to touch them. He wanted to have a ministry to them.
He wanted to give them hope. This is what this prayer and this initiative is for. It’s not for the
churches. It’s for people that are born in this city, that are growing up in this city that are living in
this city. To pull back the blindness on people’s eyes so we can touch the kingdom of God, so a
child can touch the kingdom of God.

I think of our church and this isn’t patting ourselves on the back. Actually, it’s trying to encourage
us to have vision for the children of the city. P. Jim and his wife they pray every Wednesday
night. They pray. P. Jim Hadley and his wife Marie. They pray in the prayer room for the Good
News Club, for Summer Alive. That’s what they do and they go out during the week. They go
into the schools and they minister in the city schools. In the summer, we’re going to have
Summer Alive again. We’re going to give the kids the kingdom of God. Just think of something I
am so, love. We have this girls’ teen ministry. It started for 10-12 year old girls and then
expanded to 9-13. You know how that works.

We don’t have real – but there’s about five, six, seven, eight ladies from our church that go to
this place down in Belair-Edison. It’s a row home that Michelle Chase, her daughter, Michelle
Chase’s daughter is the girl that kind of leads the singing up here when the high school sings.
Her daughter. That’s her daughter. They have a building in the city where they minister from.
They give it to us for free. We’re just there ministering on Saturday’s. Kerry Roberge had this
idea of the foundation of it that kids, that these girls could touch the tree of life and see how
beautiful it is to be around the tree of life and see the fruit that come out of your life when you
are around the tree of life. And if you see – it’s, everybody should be a spider on the wall when
they’re ministering to see the set of gifts that are used in our church.

I always say it’s these older ladies ministering to these girls in the city, and it’s like it shouldn’t happen but the Spirit of God does it and these girls are listening and believing and trusting in them. The ladies reach out to
them and it’s absolutely amazing. We believe the children should see the kingdom of God. They
should taste the kingdom of God. They should be healed by it. They should be in God’s
presence. And that’s what we can do.

Let’s be praying. Easter Sunday, we go out with a group of churches that will be there. It won’t
just be our church. So, this is how the initiative is getting kicked off. Let’s believe God as we
labor in this city to give the kingdom of God to these children. Amen? Amen. Thank you.

P. Schaller –

Let’s go to Job, please. Job. 14 and we will read that text again and think of
somebody’s life being cut down like a tree. Think about that for a few minutes. Somebody
spreading themselves like a big bay tree and then being cut down. I think that’s happening a lot
today in our world that people are losing. They are somehow confused, troubled, disappointed. I can prove it just to you by I notice in 2 Timothy 3 regarding our society and what is happening in this
list. 2 Timothy 3:2, I believe there’s 19 things here listed in this section, and I think it means there’s
trouble in myself, my character. There’s trouble in my family, and the trouble we have in our
family. How could we expect a family to stay together when we are all lovers of ourselves,
blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful and unholy? How does that work? And in a
community, how does it work when we live like that and then in a country.

Sometimes when I look at a Billy Graham video and I look at the audience, I go, wow! What
wholesome looking people! Have you noticed? Maybe our country was greater years ago
because of the character, the fear of God. But this is not the time we are living now. We see a
trouble, a troubled world, vs. 3. How about the love of many waxing cold? How about being
called racist and homophobic and on it goes. And the attacks on different groups.

Hey, wait a minute! Let’s love each other. Let’s love each other. What about love? What about
love? What about tolerance? What about grace? What about forgiveness? What about prayer?
What about fearing God. Wait a minute. So, we have in our metaphor trees that are cut down
but it’s not over because they bud.

In the list here, vs. 4. So, if you’d like to do a little exercise sometime, maybe we can lead you in
that some rap or some sermon. We can go to the opposite words. Opposite words. This
suffering, sacrifice. Let me show you something about this.

Sacrifice. What is sacrifice? I am willing to lose something because of love. I lose something
because of love. It’s a great thought. I think we did teaching here a week ago or so. Let’s move
on. Job 14:7, I want to compare this to people. That people are cut down but there is hope. It will
sprout again. vs. 7. Please don’t give up on people. Please, when they are cut down they can
sprout again. What do they need?

We have two words here. We have water at the center. We have water and in our Bible it’s the
Holy Spirit. It doesn’t take much to know. Christ said we must be born again of the water even
the Spirit. #2. The woman at the well. She said it’s very deep and I have nothing to draw with.
He said I have water that if you drink it, you will not thirst. #3. This he spoke about the Holy
Spirit. The hour is coming that out of your belly will flow rivers of water. And this he spoke of the
Holy Spirit.

So, sometimes it’s so little that it’s like dew. I’ll write that word down here. Dew. It’s vapor. But it’s
enough. It’s enough. A smile. A handshake. A prayer. A word. An expression of joy. The Holy
Spirit does this in our lives. It’s happened to you. You came to church and maybe not a lot was
said but it was something beautiful about it. It comforted me. It helped me. I got hope again.
We got two things. Water is the Holy Spirit and then the doctrine which is the words. Moses said
my words distill like dew. Words of hope. When Peter denied the Lord, he went out and cried.
But in a short time, Jesus will meet him and he will restore him. The tree was cut down so to
speak, but there was a bud there. There was something there in Peter. Life’s not over. It’s not
over. It will sprout again. It will live again. It’s not dead. It’s alive. I just need to meet Jesus. I
need to realize the sun comes up and goes down and the rivers and the birds and everything
about the creation.

You see, you have a very simple formula for life. You have the creation that is very good. You
have the Fall and that’s what we are living in now and it’s filled with trouble. The Fall means
death. The Fall means sin. The Fall means broken hearts, disappointments, our flesh. But then
the third part is redemption. That’s what we have. We have redemption. We have Christ. We
have Christ who came into the Fall, because the creation was very good and from there we can
see God made the world to be good. But we find it to be good and bad. And sometimes people
say a lot of bad and sometimes they say I’ve been cut down. I have nothing. I’ve lost everything.

Sometimes we read about it. Then we have God and redemption and grace and love and the
anointing of God, the Spirit of God. He said I came so you could see I am for you. I raise the
dead. I heal the blind. I walk on water. I still the wind. I calm the storm. I hush up the demons. I
have authority. I am the Redeemer in this world, in this one we are in, in the troubled world. The
tree will sprout again.

So, the last part here, look at chapter 14:8. That’s a real disaster. Everything about it is bad. It’s
cut down. It’s bad in the ground even. Beat up and destroyed and so on, but it isn’t done. It isn’t
done. This is the world of grace. This is when grace comes to the sinner. This is the world of it
will live again. This is the world of forgiveness. This is the world where God loves to give grace,
loves to overcome our sin and say I am victorious over your sin. I am Christ. I came to have
victory over your sin. I came to give you hope. I am God. I came into your world to be God and
to redeem. Creation. Fall. Redemption. That’s where our mind goes. I want to hear about it.
Redemption. I need the scent of water. Let’s read that. It’s a good word.

vs. 9. What does that mean? Isn’t it just the smell of water. Just the feeling that it’s there. It will
bud again. That’s all that people need sometimes. A visit. That’s all they need maybe is a phone
call. I remember I decided not to go to church anymore. I randomly decided that as a new
Christian. I didn’t need it. Then, I got a postcard in the mail like come to church, so I did. That
was all I needed was a scent of water. And that decision was a big one as it turns out because
this is where I get to learn about redemption. Redemption will tell me that my life’s not over.
Redemption will tell me get up and get going cause God is with you or it will say to me, sit down
like Elijah and eat and sleep and be restored and recover. You’ve been through a lot.

Remember, didn’t the story go in 1 Kings 19, Elijah ran a long distance, and then he was
exhausted. An angel gave him something to eat and then he slept. And he woke up and I think it
happened twice. He went back to sleep and he ate again and he went back to sleep. Then when
he ate the angel’s food, didn’t he go in the strength of it for 40 days? That’s powerful food. That’s
powerful food. Like God restoring a saint. God helping us. God forgiving us. God giving us
words. God making our bud sprout.

I wanted to draw one of those. Let’s have the trunk of the tree. It goes like this. And it’s been cut
down something like that. And out of the side you have a shoot. If you magnify it. I’m trying to do
this. It has a little bit of a thing there. It’s a shoot there. It’s a bud. I want to ask you, what do you
think in your life those buds are? What are they in your life when you smell water like God’s
Word, God’s Spirit. What comes alive? What buds in your heart? I remember years ago when I
was in the congregation and I had something in my heart budding. It was a hope for my future or
a hope or desire and then I was thinking it might die. My hope might die or it might be
damaged. Maybe somebody will rip away the thing from me I am hoping for. It’s cut down. I’m so
disappointed by what happened.

But doesn’t it say our youth is renewed like the eagle? Can’t it bud again? Can’t I find that joy,
hope, love again. I will never love again. I will never have that hope again. I will never and we
use the word “never” sometimes. Not true. Not true. It’s there. We are redeemed. We are born
again. We are made to stay young in our hearts. I hope again. I believe again like some of our
brothers and sisters have gone to be with the Lord. That’s hard for families and so on that loved
one is taken away. And maybe I might even feel like my life is cut down like a tree.

But no. The Holy Spirit says to us be encouraged. I am with you. This is my plan. I am with you.
You are okay. I will visit you. I will pour the water on the dry ground. You will, the scent of the
water will make your hope grow again and you will be encouraged. Maybe even some have lost
the desire to even go with God. That can bud again. Maybe someone has lost – they’re tired
somehow or disappointed and they don’t read their Bible or they lost something along the way.
But if you are in a place where the doctrine distills like dew and the Spirit is like water poured
out, then we will sense that. And the bud will sprout again. We will say Jesus is here. Let’s go.
I think it happened to us in Hungary last week or two weeks ago. We gathered together and
there it was. There was a lot of life, a lot of grace, a lot of love, a lot of faith, a lot of fellowship.

No matter what happens in your life in these perilous times that we are living, your heart can get
broken and you can get cut down like a tree. But I want to say to you it’s not over. That God is
the God of all grace. Imagine how many times Paul had to say, hey, I need help. God, I need
help. I’m on a mission and my life has been cut down. But actually again he is alive. He’s alive.
And those buds are growing and he’s alive. It’s not over.

Peter, you denied Jesus three times but it’s not over. Mary Magdalene, you have had seven
demons but I am here. This is redemption. Job, you’ve suffered tremendously, but can you
sense the water that’s there for you. You can live again. You can minister again. I restore you
and I help you.

Now, maybe this is for us and it’s kind of obvious, but I want to suggest to you that out on the
street there are people who, people who’s lives have been cut down. And maybe when they
meet you, when they meet your kindness or your wisdom or your prayer or your love it will help
them. Maybe that’s the kind of revival that God wants in our country. A revival of tender dew on
tender plants. Water and the Spirit and everyday common life where we are able to say in our
hearts, I understand you. But you can have hope again. You can live again. You can love again.
You can be restored again. It can happen for you because God is the God of redemption. Amen.
Would you pray with me.

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.