Not always obvious what is really happening. We can watch God do things. The Father and the Son are revealed. Come unto Me, Jesus said. We can seek the reality. We wait with attention and focus. His yoke fits us. We step into His meek, lowly ways. (Matthew 11:25-30)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon # 11455
6:30 PM on 4/15/2018

P. Schaller

Isn’t that just plain fun! Beautiful. Fun. Praise the Lord. I said gosh, gee whiz, golly gee, gee willikers! Wow. God is moving. Praise.I love the praise. I’m feeling that. Think about it that God is so perfect and holy and awesome and we are to be honest, not good. Really. But. That’s what I mean (Yeah, God!). A new creation, accepted, loved, and the H.S. is our teacher. God is with us. Halleluiah!

Sometimes God is looking for our faith and sometimes praise is a walk of faith. It is. The Lord could say what do you think? If I realize it, it’s pretty amazing. You find a love letter from Johnny to Betty in the street and it doesn’t move you, but if you met Johnny and realized how much he loved Betty, you finish the story. It’s more than paper. It’s real people with real feelings and real love. They adore each other. They really have these strong feelings. He loves her. That’s like reading the Bible. You could be [saying] it doesn’t move me. I don’t get it. But if you met God and the H.S. teaches us and you feel it and realize it you say this is fun. God is on the move and speaking to my heart. I’m believing in the living God. Peter said to Jesus, call me on the water. How did he get it on his mind? He’s a fisherman and probably thought that wouldn’t it be cool if I walked out there. Call me. You can do it. And out he goes. Praise is when we meet God in faith and we are actually looking at the spiritual. Jesus said the spirit is willing. I always try to get ahold of that. The flesh is weak. Flesh isn’t going to do it but the spirit is. The spirit calls you in faith.

I see Helen, Daniel’s wife. Good to have you here.

What has happened in the last week? What did we do yesterday? This is outreach. We had a great day. Scott made breakfast with Bill Greer. I never saw an egg muffin like this one! Not fooling around here with a fruit cup. It was a GG muffin! Then we had a beautiful day. We went out.

Friday night here your girl friends can come. I think John Clark has a couple of them! I have to throw it out there. You can come with all your girlfriends! Even engaged couples and married couples. We’ll be here Friday night. Saturday Fed Hill for married couples.

Salvation at the play. It’s amazing. This lady, she knows who I mean, is she here tonight? She’s not here. She came to the play, to church Sunday night, Monday to the café, Tuesday she came back. (I’m here again!) Praise the Lord. She hasn’t stopped coming. Raymond. I’m calling her Tee. We got something going on here and others don’t understand. She came and comes every day. She said I got problems everywhere. Praise the Lord. I’ve been at a breaking point from not being a good steward. I go past this area all the time. I brought five people with me. You can feel the anointing. I’m seeking God and he’s turning things around like never before. This is what we talked about. Keep coming. Believe God. Let’s say prayers together. God is going to turn it around and he has. P. Ray, do you want to say one thing or two? Whitney was baptized. The whole team has been working on her for three years. She denounced Christ and then at the play she broke. She was baptized today, and is going to rehab today. Sam accepted Christ 20 minutes ago. That’s exciting. You know the Teen Challenge guys who come here. One of them came up to me. He was very touched. He came to TC to get out of addictions. He’s from Texas. He said I’m so touched in this church. God has changed my life. I want to come. When I finish the program in May, I’m coming here to go to Bible college. This morning, his name is John. I met him at the door. He said I finish in two weeks. I’m driving down to Texas for 13 days and coming back here to be here with you folks. I want to go to Bible college. How could that be all these good things going on. That just glorifies God.

Nobody walked across the street to say hi to me if we were all normal. That’s the truth. Guess what happens. We’re not normal! We have the H.S. in us and we make connections. He is the one that is doing the whole thing. Those are great stories.

The lady that had the brain aneurysm did she survive? On life support. She accepted Christ two months ago. She had a brain aneurysm and it’s not good. She’s going to see the Lord maybe unless it’s a miracle. She got in under the wire. Halleluiah.

I believe in what we are doing. I believe in showing up, you and me in a calling. God sent us here and there is something going on that flesh and blood don’t know about because of our prayers together. God is speaking to the hearts of people. I’m so blessed to be part of this gang of abnormal people. Get excited and say to your neighbor you look abnormal to me!

What a great singer! (Emma). Did she get that from which side of the family? She says it’s her side! That was good. She can sing. Very happy she is here. You are a blessing to us.

Mt 11:25, I’m from New York and went to school there. Went to Bible school up in Maine. I found the ministry God was speaking through this church to my heart. I was learning to realize life is not always obvious. People live with the things that are clear in their heart and mind that you can see and handle. The obvious.

In Mt. 11 Christ makes it clear the Jewish people should be receiving him as a nation, as Messiah, but when he came it wasn’t obvious who he was and what he was doing. We would say it was a mystery. Being in Maine I was wondering what is going on. I was in Bible college and there were things said and taught and caused my heart to burn but still a little beyond my reach to understand what is going on. What is God saying, doing? It was a little bit out of my reach. When you are a kid and your mom came home and put the delicacies on top the frig, the cookie jar, it was just beyond the horizon. You had to climb and then got bigger and couldn’t do that anymore so you had to find another hiding place, the attic. Then you got really old and she shot it in outer space!

vs. 25. Those people that really got it together. The smart people. The ones that always got A’s in school. There was one in third grade. She was always perfect. She’s going to be the first president of the United States! I would love it if you felt in your heart you are one of these guys. Do you? You have revealed it unto babes, these people. How many times have we had a rap session or walked out so touched by it. We walked out of a service saying I feel like I’m in the center of the universe that God has spoken to me, to ME!

1972 fall, maybe the second day or fifth day of Bible college I walked out of that room. I remember the place. I felt I was this far off the ground. I felt this is it. This is amazing. Then I woke up! I snapped out of it. I’m living in Maine. I’m in a dorm room and have to find a job and find transportation and get on with my life. Those details of life were somehow eclipsed by this other thing that became clear to me in my heart.

This is what happened here with these people. Here is a huge civilization, the Jewish temple and priesthood, power, clothing, animal sacrifice, hundreds of years of history and then you have a small band of dusty little fishermen. Jesus is there and saying it’s not there. It’s here. Those guys are not the winners. We are the winners. We got it. You got it upside down. You think the whole thing is about this over here. It isn’t. That is going to pass away. I am here. If you overhear the conversation you think it’s ridiculous. What is this man talking about? You have another way of looking at it is the first Christians were Jews. They had animals like a lamb and their great, great grandfather would take a lamb and sacrifice it. Now they are a Christian and taking a cracker and juice and saying this is the body and this is the blood. Which is the reality? They say this is the reality. These people could say you have to be kidding me. This is the reality, real blood, real sheep/lamb, and real temple. It’s not always obvious, not to us or anybody what is actually happening. We need God to show us because we get it upside down. We miss the important thing. Jesus said this is the important thing.

vs. 26. Father you showed it to them. We should be learning things about the Second Coming of Christ. I’m excited about the study. I’m seeing fresh things about the Antichrist and that whole period coming in the future. We are learning about victories in our life and what grace is.

vs. 27. This is what we have seen around the world. We saw Pakistan. They know the Father and have found the Son. They know who the Son of God is. They know who the Father is. This is around the world through church history. It is a work of grace.

vs. 28. Come unto me. What will I find when I come to you? Your thoughts. I’m thinking of a young man struggling in his addiction. It happens to all kinds of people. How to get help. How to find it. How to find the focus. How to be delivered. How to develop those skills where I am believing not everything is obvious to me. Why does one person get delivered in a minute and another in a period of time? Why does someone believe and someone does not believe. Why is there evil? Why is there unbelief? He is saying we don’t know but it’s the Father’s plan and power and he wants to reveal to us the Son of God. We could say GG does the same thing like any group of people. We could be drawn to a form but we are seeing the reality. I’m looking for that which is not so obvious which is God visiting people. I’d like God to reveal to me who he is. I want to find out who God is.

vs. 28. I understand the labor is the severe labor. Different words for labor. Severity, bondage, incredible depravity of strength like a slave. Laboring arduously. Exhausted. Wiped out. Come unto me he says. We talked this morning about finding the will of God for our lives. I don’t believe it’s so difficult. We do struggle sometimes.

I found this interesting story from P. Carl in his book on it. This 22 year old Englishman he was living in England…he enjoyed the roaring hills, he saw the harvest had been destroyed. He thought with a deep sense God wanted him to go to Africa to reap the harvest for Christ. You see a field destroyed and the Spirit of God speaks to you, I want you to go to Africa. He’s thinking I’d like to find a wife. I’d like to get married and live in England. It had been going on in his heart for months to go to Africa and make the gospel known there. The desire and the thought was growing in him. He had been processing it in his heart. Two years he found himself in Central Africa. Across the Atlantic Ocean in an American home a young girl was growing up. She was 7 when her mother died. She became a believer. At age 16 she desired to go to Africa. Not everyone understood her thinking. She went based on the fact that God put it in her heart. She wanted to be a wife and mother but had an inner drive to go to Africa. She traveled to Angola. Hard journey. She went into a little village and there he was. Two years later married and lived 35 years together until he went to be with the Lord. I think we have an amazing group of young ladies in our church not married.

As a pastor I care about it. I’m not a match maker. Pastor Steve is! After this meeting go talk to him! The ladies I know in this church are amazing. I don’t know how to encourage you except to say there is the obvious thing and those things not obvious to us that we can’t figure out. I don’t know how the whole thing works. We know we are called to him. Come unto him. He said learn of me. That is what you and I are doing. We are here just about every night learning of him. We are thankful for what we get. We are able to move and act and live on the basis of what we believe. We know life is not always so obvious to us. In ordinary life it is a marvel. We enjoy a cup of coffee. Getting up in the morning. Moving around, having a friend. Saying a prayer. Ordinary life in the will of God and having some sense his yoke is easy. The real yoke. Not my yoke. My yoke is hard. Not yoke with an institution and smart people and successful and strong people. Another kind of yoke. It’s spiritual. Not by sight. The yoke of God.

vs. 29. Learn by the Spirit. Don’t put me in a box. Worship me. Love me, be Spirit filled. Learn of me. I’ll help you and encourage you. I’m not the big tough guy. I’m the meek servant waiting on you, serving you. I like the picture of the English butler. Dining table and family is there and the butler is waiting. If he’s needed he’s there right away. He’s not doing anything but his focus is there. We that wait on the Lord that means whatever it is you are doing I’m part of it. I’m giving you my attention. I’m available because I know your yoke is the best one. It is easy. It fits. It’s like the contour of your shoulders. It’s a good fit. The yoke of that which is not so obvious to me but I step into it in the person of Christ and he makes know to us the person of grace and he fills us with the Spirit and shows us his way. I have found what I’m looking for. I found J.C. I found the way, truth and life. I found the thing that fits for me. I am a little strange in one sense. We all are by the way. Don’t sit there and say yeah, you are. WE all are! Who’s got it all down? Nobody.

vs. 29. I got to say when I was in the ministry with Dr. Stevens he never made me feel guilty. He never blamed me for anything. I forgot the key. That’s alright. Don’t worry about it. I forgot my shoes. Don’t think about it. I can’t talk. Thank God you can’t talk! You’re in good shape. God is here. The chairs are empty. God is here.

It means when you have the yoke and it fits, you’ll help others find him. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
 

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