In a capsized world, true hearts of humility keep on. Christ makes it so they do not sink. Storms put them under, but they pop right up again. They face enticements and are not carried away. Proverbs 24:16; Deuteronomy 13:6-8

Speaker(s): Thomas Schaller, Natã Oliviera
Sermon 12275
6:30 PM on 3/27/2022

P. Schaller –

Okay. Good evening. We have an Easter play coming up and I think maybe tonight just for five minutes, just
make little groups in the room and have some prayer. This is prayer for the Easter play reaching
the City of Baltimore. For the staff, for the story. I would love it if as it happened to me last
year, I’m watching the play and I’m in the play. I really get into the play. I’m listening. I feel part
of the play, and it was just a great experience just being in that play. The Gospels, Christ
crucified raised from the dead, the message. It was a beautiful year. Let’s see it happen again
this year. Ten people. Turn around in your seat. Move around if you want to just for five
minutes. Pray together however God leads you. This is a few minutes of prayer for the play.
(Prayer)

I have a message from part 2 of our morning, so I’m going to ask if the I.T. folks, the A.V. people
could put up the capsized boat just for the folks that were not here. Is it up there? Okay.
Capsized boat. Proverbs 24:16, we have a capsized boat. It’s anchored to the shore, so it’s not a
loss. But when a boat goes over and it cannot right itself, it’s capsized. There are nautical
designs where a boat that flips over can automatically pop back up so that there are ships that
are that way. I want you to think about this Proverb. It says in Proverbs 24:16, we have that other
boat that’s called a Thunder Child. This will flip over in the sea and everything but will always
come back up. That’s like you and I. Your name tonight is called Thunder Child! You are a
Thunder Child! This is Proverbs 24:16.

But there’s other things about him that I want to point out about why he gets back up. And this
is the heart of a righteous man. The new heart that we read about in our new birth. Christ born
in us. We have a new heart, Ezekiel 36:26. I heard the Federal Hill church service was great this
morning. Praise the Lord! I can tell you are excited! Praise the Lord! Amen. Okay. The righteous
man has a heart that is a righteous heart. He has a righteous heart. He has a – if you put him in
the midst of other people, there’s something different. He’s with other people and the
connection with him and God is real, so what other people say may be accepted to him or it
may not be acceptable to him. If he is with other righteous men, then they have fellowship.
They are marketing in the same coinage. They have the same words, same heart, same values.
They have fellowship with each other like Christ with his disciples.

There was another group of people in the time of Jesus that were together, and they were
reinforcing with each other. I want you to look at a very unique verse. Proverbs 24:16b, wicked will
fall into mischief. They will stay capsized, to use the illustration. They will fall and they can’t get
back. They fall because of their hearts. And what happens with a fallen heart? What the heart
of man is capable of thinking, what he thinks, how he processes life. So, he’s got a heart with a
hole in it. I’ll draw it this way. I always do. And he’s with other people, and they also have
communication but there is something about their fellowship which is wrong. They all have a
problem in their hearts. Their coinage, their marketing, their values and their talking is
different.

They have in Matthew 23, Jesus was angry with them and he said you are blind. He said woe unto
you. These were the Pharisees who could not put their finger on their real problem which was
their hearts. And he tried. He tried. He said if you have a sheep in a pit on the Sabbath day,
won’t you take it out? How come when I heal somebody on the Sabbath, you attack me? But I
know you. I know you and it’s plural. You are a group. You are a den of thieves. You have a
deceitful heart and you all are relating and you hear it like something you hear often in the
world, “everybody does it.” Ever hear that? “Everybody does it.” “Everybody does it.”
“Everybody does it.”

What do you mean? Everybody does what? Everybody steals money. Everybody sleeps around.
Everybody lies a little bit. Everybody does it. Everybody swears. Everybody talks against their
boss. Everybody does it. Have you ever heard that? Is this in our world? What is the world
saying? Some of it is so absurd, it’s unbelievable that people are accepting it. That they are
giving it a nod. Are you kidding me? Is anybody going to say – recently I said to a group of
people. I don’t remember where I was. I said when I grew up and my mother wanted to correct
me, she would use a phrase. It was, “shame on you.” Has anybody else ever heard that phrase?
The old schoolers. Like shame on you. What is the meaning? I did something wrong. I should
have known better. I was wrong. Shame on you for not knowing better, and shame on you for
talking like that. Shame on you for being disrespectful to your elders. And shame on you for
being arrogant. And shame on you for how you are thinking and get a grip and straighten out.
How about that?

But what are we doing in our world today in America? Wow. I never hear that phrase, “shame
on you.” It’s more like. I feel your pain. Or wait a minute. I don’t want to lose our point here.
Wait a minute. Do you realize that this group of people, they were all a group but was there a
Christian or we’ll say it a different way. Was there somebody who had something in their hearts
and minds and they would say I’m not part of that. I don’t accept that. I am different. I am
different. Isn’t that amazing? There is a word in our New Testament for this. It’s called we are
not eye pleasers. Eye pleasers or men pleasers. I think there is the word “servants” also. Colossians 3,
let’s check it out to get it right.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. (Prayer). Give me a little bit of wisdom, a little bit of
instruction. Help me process my life a little bit in some way cause this is good. Colossians 3:22, when
we moved to Hungary in 1990, I got an invitation to a prison in a small town called Barashka.
And the warden, this is a Communist country, shifted. Americans are in town. I got an open
invitation. I got many of them to different places. This warden welcomes us to the prison. We
went down and they had horses and they had a buggy and the warden said to me, do you want
to go for a ride? I said, sure. Wow. So, we go and there’s prisoners outside painting the wall of
the prison. And they’re painting and the carriage passes them. I turn around and look and they
stopped working.

I said to the warden, when we were coming they were working very hard, but after we passed, they stopped working. And he said of course. Because we’re not looking at them anymore. You know. Of course.
How much of our motivation has to do with the group? How much of our heart and we capsize
and we do not have the power. We don’t have the power. We stay in mischief. We are weak.
Another thing about it, is the weakness of this picture here. Follow it with me. It might get
clearer as we go. The picture is that the heart of man as a men pleaser. The heart of man who is
serving only in the presence of other people and giving the nod and accepting things the way
the group wants it. Christ said you are blind. You are hypocrites. He said woe unto you seven
times or eight times in chapter 23. You re blind. You don’t get it. You can’t see your error. You
don’t understand. You have no idea.

Now here is Jesus with the new heart and he’s living in the midst of us loving us but how much
is his ministry based on other people accepting him, other people agreeing with him, other
people reinforcing him? No, the boat turns over when it flips over. It turns over because of it’s
nature. A man, Christ, he is continually, he is right. He is true. He is wise. He has power. He has
energy. This group does not have the energy. It doesn’t have the authority. It only lives in
blindness and lies. It lives in lies and a deceitful heart. And it falls into mischief. It lives the rest
of its life in that blindness.

When you and I were born again, something happened to us that we cannot explain. It is the
birth of a new heart in us. He didn’t change our old one. He put a spear through it. When Christ
was dead and they checked, they put the spear up through to his heart and out came blood and
water. Our minds, we are not capable. Thorns went into his head. Our hands are not capable.
Nails and our feet cannot run the way of God. A nail went through. So, he was judged that we
might have this new heart that we have tonight.

That heart – I’ll put a few words about it here. That heart has communion with God and it has
an ability to be – I know this isn’t the best word but I’m intolerant of lies. You can’t lie. You
can’t. God is not a liar. Titus. 1:2, I can’t lie. I can lie in my flesh, but I’m saying a new heart
means we are in fellowship with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is here amongst us. That is
amazing. We tell the truth in our heart, Psalm 51:6. “Create in me a clean heart; renew a right
spirit in me.” We have a new way. We have a new shop. If you say that in the heart we put a
store there, and that store has coinage, coins and it has a shop and it is interaction with other
hearts. We have words of faith, words of love, motivation of godliness. Righteousness. And my
brother and my sister we have an amen and we have a shop going on in our new heart. And
when we fall over seven times – like seven times, right? It just rolls back up. Cause that heart
cannot lie. That heart is not detached from God’s reality. That’s God. God cannot be defeated.
God is light and no darkness at all.

There’s a difference between a piece of paper – here’s a piece of paper that can get dirty. But
you know what cannot get dirty? A sunbeam. A sunbeam. Right from the sun. A sunbeam. How
do you get it dirty? A sunbeam is from the sun. It’s light. And it can’t get dirty. That’s like God.
The paper that gets dirty is like me. But Christ dwells in you and he can’t get dirty and he can’t
die and he can’t sin and he can’t lie. And he can’t have fellowship with wickedness.

I was thinking or actually reading about a young boy or teenager who discovers in his heart that
he can deceive people. And he’s – I don’t know how old. Maybe 12, 14, 16. And he lies in bed at
night thinking of how he can deceive his teacher, how he can do it, how he can cheat. How he
can make the teacher believe that he is like an awesome student. He’s lying in bed thinking
about and he can do it and then he can do it with his friends. He can be deceiving his teacher.
He could deceive his friends. He can deceive his mother and father and he can think bout it
through the night. He can live in that deceit through the day and he can find his other buddies
who are thinking or doing the same way, and boy do they have a good time together in their lie.
That’s very cute and funny when he’s 14, but it’s not when he’s 24 and 44 and 64. And when his
ship, boat goes over, who is going to wright it? Are his friends gonna? Is there anything in him
where he is able to be corrected?

He’s able to find something bigger than himself? That is why Jesus Christ came into the world. Cause God is saying it is not in man. But a righteous man falls seven times and he has it in him to get up. And he has it in him not to quit.
He has it in him to love the truth. He has it in him to rejoice in it. It becomes so real and
precious to him that he’s like just like thanking God. Thank you, Jesus. I know it’s you, Jesus. I
know it is you. I’m not living a good life because of me. I’m living a good life because of you. I
know this is you. I know it is your Spirit that leads me in truth. And by the way, I have sisters
and brothers not just here, but we have sisters and brothers around the world that know
exactly what we are talking about tonight cause they have the same thing. I am prone to
wander, but Lord I am learning with my new heart.

I’m finishing now. I’m learning with my new heart. This is complete trust and it’s very simple.
It’s just a way of life, 24/7. It’s Proverbs 3:5. It’s hard to agree with a lie. Very hard to agree with a
lie. You can, right? I have lies in me at times. They are from my heart, my flesh. But then I just
thank, you Jesus that you have taken that away and you fill us with your Spirit and it says a
haughty spirit goes before a fall. But it says but honor comes through humility. None of us
would have any of this humility. None of us would have any of it except it was given us through
Christ. That’s where our honor comes from. It’s an honor to have the energy to wash feet. The
honor to be motivated in love.

For a young teenager to be sleeping at night and thinking about Jesus and what Jesus is doing
and how Jesus is for me and what Jesus is saying and what the words of Jesus are meaning. And
to investigate and to be aware of the presence of God. To be aware of the life, the power, the
nature of God. To be alive unto God. To have God in my life. Not to be thinking of how I can steal. I’m thinking of how I can give. Not thinking of how I can fool everybody. I’m thinking of
how I can find that God, my heavenly Father will honor me in my life and crown me with glory
and honor. What a difference it is. That’s our blessing. Okay. Amen. Pray with me for a
moment.

Maybe I’ll how you that one verse I wanted to show you that is unique, and we’ll finish with
that. It’s Deuteronomy 13:6, those are all deep relationships. If your closest relatives, your wife of your
bosom, your friend which is your own soul. Very close relationships. If they – here it is – entice
you secretly, vs. 6. That is a mosaic law teaching. If the very closest person in your life was to
entice you and say secretly let’s go. We can go. There’s a special god over here.
We’ll go. We can worship that god and we will be blessed by that god. The enticement, this is
the meaning of it. Let us go. Vs. 7. You’re not going to be part of it. I’m not part of it. It’s a lie.
It’s against God. I’m not a men pleaser. I’m not caring about what you think of me. My
relationship is – my relationship with you doesn’t mean that much to me. We have a new heart.
I can walk away. I can say not going to happen. I do not accept it.

This whole society is all about us being intimidated and living and accepting what they’re
saying. I do not accept what you are saying. Do you understand me? I do not accept it. I am not
part of that. I do not believe that. I’m not part of that. I don’t like it. I’m not going to believe a
lie. Shame on you. Shame on you. That kind of thing. You get the idea. I think you all feel what
I’m saying and why I’m saying it. It’s the mystery of iniquity that is at work. It’s the mystery of
lawlessness and it’s a capsized boat that cannot correct itself. It’s over and it’s going to stay in
mischief. Stay in a very quagmire, swampy kind of mentality and there is no way out outside of
Christ. Christ and the new birth. Christ and the Holy Spirit. Christ and the Word of God. Christ
and the Spirit of God. Christ and the new heart. Christ and wisdom. Christ in the doctrine of
truth. God our heavenly Father will put our boat right up like this and we’ll just be sailing
around having a good old time with Jesus Christ. That’s the book of Acts. That’s the testimony
of the New Testament church.
And it takes some guts to be able to say this. Not me saying it but all of us in life. This is easy in
front of you in the pulpit with friends and the anointing of God here. This is not necessarily easy
in our society. But don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. I’m not saying make war. I’m not saying
make war but I am saying I am so happy that this is what we can say tonight. I am so happy.
I had a friend who was a doctor in Finland. He was in medical school, and he had to abort a
baby in his training. I said – I remember I talked to him for a few minutes about it. he was
concerned about it. it bothered him. I would say what would you do? What would you do with
that? I cannot do it. I cannot do it. I cannot accept that kind of thing and so on. There is the
politics. There is the community. There is the need for love in our neighborhoods. There’s the
need of communication. There’s the need of understanding. There’s a need that people are in a
lot of trouble and they don’t need a fallen nature, the sin nature of man that is afraid of man

and is afraid of truth. They need a lot of love, a ministry. They need the freedom. They need the
wisdom. They need the liberty. And by the way, because you have Christ it says the truth will
set you free and you will be free indeed. The big key here is that the new heart – I’ll just put this
– the big word is energy. You have energy. What does it mean? You can wash the feet of others.
You can live your life expanding beyond yourself. You have the Holy Spirit leading you. You can
actually come. You can actually talk to people. You can actually go around in the neighborhood.
You can actually care about our country. You can actually pray for people that have problems.
You can actually go on and on and on because it’s just simply the nature of Christ. Okay I said it
enough. Okay. Would you pray again. Let’s try it again. (Prayer).
*****
Nathan (Brazil) –

Tonight is the night of praise and worship so I’d like to share a thought with
you guys about who we are in Christ before we jump into that. So, if you would open your
Bibles in the book of John 11:38-43. Let’s pray. (Prayer) So John 11:38, lately I have been thinking
a lot about the life of Lazarus, the man that Jesus brought back from death. So, vs. 38. Lazarus
had just died. He was dead for three or four days, and Jesus heard about his death. He ran, he
went back to Judea to do a miracle and this is what happens. This is the story many of you
know. Vs. 38-43, I want you to think about this today. I want you to pretend that you are
Lazarus. I want you to picture that in your mind. Like think as if you are Lazarus.

You are on your death bed. You’re dying and one of your best friends is away. He’s your Savior.
He’s your King. He’s your Lord. You wish he was with you but he’s not. He’s away. The Bible says
here in chapter 11 that Jesus loved Lazarus. They were that close. Jesus loved him, and they
loved each other. You’re dying on your bed and all you wish for was Jesus is there with you but
he’s not. So, you close your eyes and you die and you wish you could have seen him one last
time but you didn’t.

My question to you is have you ever been in a situation when you were dying in your sins and
closing your eyes for the last time like in your sins and your trespasses. Have you ever thought
about that? Like, what’s happening in my life right now? I’m completely lost. But then, it was at
that point when you realized you were lost is when you realized you needed a Savior. And you
heard his voice saying come forth. How sweet might that have been for Lazarus to hear the
voice of his friend, come forth. And then he opens his eyes. He’s in the tomb. He’s dead. His
eyes are closed. He didn’t see his friend before he died, but then he hears his voice, the voice of
his shepherd saying come out. How sweet that voice is, the voice of the Lord. How kind and
gentle the voice is. Come forth!

Just in closing, I want you to picture yourself as Lazarus. You just came back from the dead.
Jesus resurrected you and you’re just living your life. Maybe you’re following Jesus. You’re
walking with him. You start hearing rumors about people persecuting him, people trying to kill
him. You start to hear all kinds of bad things about him. You hear that he was betrayed into the
hands of sinners by Judas. And they’re judging him and then they decide to crucify him. Imagine you in the place of Lazarus. My Savior, the one who brought me back to life is being crucified.
He’s about to be killed. What are you thinking? What’s going on in your heart?

You hear about the crucifixion and you start running to the place of crucifixion. They take Jesus
to the cross and you run to Golgotha where he is being crucified. You see the three crosses
from afar and you see a group of people around the cross of Jesus. There’s a crowd of people.
You see him being crucified and you run towards the cross. You run through the crowd and you
start pushing people away. You start pushing everyone away and you fall in front of the cross.
You fall out of the crowd in front of the cross on your knees and you see the man who saved
you being crucified, being killed. You can barely recognize him but you know it’s him. You
cannot even recognize his face. There’s so many bruises and blood on his face. There’s a crown
of thorns on his head. And you go crazy. No! That’s my Savior. That’s my God! What’s
happening? Why? What did he do?

He didn’t do anything. He doesn’t deserve this. And you look at Jesus, and you ask him why is
this happening, God? And he looks down at you. Jesus looks down at you and just smiles. He
gives you a smile. And as soon as he smiles at you, you being a Jew you know the Word. You
know the prophet Isaiah. Your mind goes back to Isaiah 53. “He was pierced for my
transgressions. He was crushed for my iniquities. Upon him is the chastisement that brings me
peace and with his wounds I am healed.” And he understands it. it clicks. It makes sense in his
mind. You’re being crucified in my place. You’re dying for me. This is what you are doing God.
And then you say to him being Lazarus, God, show me your power again. Show me your power
once again.

Turn death into life again for in your hands life was formed. In your hands, life was
created. God, show me your power again. Just like you brought me back to life, bring yourself
back to life. But even if you don’t come down from that cross, God, I will still believe you are
going to come back for me. Because even though your head might be brought low, I know you
are going to lift it up again according to Psalm 27:6. And you are the author of life in Acts 3. The
pangs of death cannot hold you. The pangs of death have been loosed by God. Death cannot
hold you, Christ.

That’s the hope that Lazarus had. That even though his Savior was being crucified, he knew that
he was going to come back to life. Because the same man who was crucified was the man who
brought him back to life. If God had the power to bring a man back to life, how much more
power does he have to bring himself back to life. And this is what he did. So, my
encouragement to you as you go into praise and worship and you think about and you praise
God, just think of the cross. Just think of yourself as Lazarus.

“You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of
this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in sons of
disobedience. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love in which he love you, even when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, he made you live together with Christ.” He
said the words, Come forth! The cross is the place where you find life, where you’re saved. But
it’s also a reminder of how much God loves you, that he gave himself up to you. He was
crucified for you. He died for you. He gave his life away for one reason. You. And that’s
something we can be thankful for for the rest of our lives, for eternity. That the Lamb of God
died for us. He died for me. Amen?

Amen.

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