Fielder Church

We reject the wisdom of God because it doesn't match our expectations nor does it always give us what we want. The gospel teaches us that our expectations and desires are selfish because they focus on building our own kingdom. Our kingdom is temporary but the heavenly kingdom is eternal. Takeaways: In Matthew 11, we observe that even the most faithful servants, like John the Baptist, can experience profound doubt amidst dire circumstances, revealing our human vulnerability. Jesus responds to doubt with compassion, reminding us of His track record of faithfulness to instill reassurance in our hearts during times of uncertainty. The act of bringing our doubts to Jesus is not only acceptable but essential, as it allows us to confront our fears directly with the truth of His character. Doubt does not equate to a lack of faith; rather, it signifies a critical juncture where we must choose to rely on Jesus and His promises against our uncertainties. The importance of recognizing that God's plans transcend our immediate expectations is illustrated through the narrative of John the Baptist's imprisonment and his inquiries to Jesus. Ultimately, Jesus calls us to mature in our faith, urging us to trust in His divine wisdom and overarching plan, even when our circumstances seem contrary.

We long for comfort. We want ease and assured freedom from suffering in our lives. We won't admit it, but we act like Jesus owes us a life like that for saying we believe in him. This causes us fear and doubt if following Jesus is really worth the cost when the life He promises includes suffering. Belief in the gospel shows us that the American dream isn't the standard for our lives. Jesus is the standard. In this life, we will suffer because He suffered first. His suffering was worth it because through his obedience to suffer, we were rewarded. In the same way, our suffering is worth it as well because others will be rewarded through our obedience. Jesus is worth the cost!Takeaways: In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus prepares his disciples for adversity they will face while preaching, teaching, and healing, highlighting the challenges of their mission. The notion of being sent out as 'sheep among wolves' serves as a metaphor to illustrate the inherent dangers and hostility that the disciples will encounter. Jesus underscores the importance of enduring through persecution, stating that those who persevere in their faith will ultimately be saved and rewarded. The call to acknowledge Jesus before men emphasizes the necessity of public faith, wherein believers must openly declare their allegiance to Christ despite potential repercussions. Through the teachings in this passage, we learn that genuine faith in Jesus will triumph over fear of man, enabling believers to navigate trials with confidence and hope. Ultimately, the cost of following Jesus is significant, yet the promise of eternal reward far exceeds the challenges endured in this life.

When we don't care about the harassed and helpless, we'll do nothing to tell them about the hope and peace found in Christ, which is stinging hypocrisy since someone told us about the very hope we're keeping to ourselves. Since Christ stepped into our pain and healed us through the cross, we are indebted to him. So, we must accept his call and let him send us to bring peace and healing to others. Our faith in the gospel compels us to go! (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

When we don't believe in the miracles of God, we don't do anything to posture ourselves to receive them. If Jesus could conquer sin and death, then there is nothing he cannot do. It is time for us to exercise genuine faith, right here and right now, and posture ourselves to receive what only he can give.

We tend to misunderstand what we most need from God. We think we need Him to meet our expectations and change our circumstances. When our greatest need is the forgiveness of our sin, being called out of life and being brought into a new life in Him. Jesus came to meet our greatest need. His life demonstrated that he had the authority to meet our greatest need. He has authority in word and work to forgive sin, call sinners to himself and bring a new way of life, in his kingdom, that cannot be contained in an old religious system.

We tend to focus on building our own kingdom, so we view Jesus's power as simply a means to get more for ourselves instead giving more of ourselves. We forget that he is building his kingdom and not ours. Jesus is the supreme power of the universe and rightful owner of everything, so we must relinquish the right to build our kingdom and seek to build his kingdom alone. When we repent of selfish pursuits and instead trust in his rule, we experience his full power in our lives.

When we don't recognize who Jesus is and the power he holds, we don't come to him with expectant faith for him to do what seems impossible to be done. Jesus's death and resurrection prove to us both that Jesus has the willingness to meet us in our need and the power to do something about it. So, if we believe this to be true, we will be compelled to come to him with our needs and experience his impossible resurrection power in those needs.

Because our hearts are wicked and desperately sick, we don't even have the power in ourselves to do what God's word tells us to do, so we always miss its blessings. Christ died to redeem our wicked hearts so that we could finally obey the word of God and receive its blessings. In Christ we have the power to obey. Now we just have to choose to do it.

We know the Golden Rule: treat others the way we want to be treated. But the truth is, we can't live it out on our own. We fail because we've never fully grasped that Jesus lived it for us first.The gospel reminds us that Christ considered our needs above His own. He left heaven, gave up His body, and shed His blood so we could have life. When we see what He's done, it changes how we love, serve, and treat the people around us.The Golden Rule isn't just a good idea — it's a response to the grace we've received in Jesus.

On Easter Sunday, we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus — the moment that changed everything. Through worship and the preaching of God's Word, we were reminded that because Jesus rose from the grave, hope is alive, sin is defeated, and new life is possible for all who believe.Whether you missed the service or want to revisit the message, we pray it encourages your faith and draws you closer to Jesus.

We have not because we ask not. If we really knew what was available to us through prayer, we would never stop praying. But we just can't see it, so we don't ask for it, seek for it, or knock on the door for it. The gospel reminds us that our Father only gives good things to His children, the greatest thing of all being His Son. We can ask for anything, boldly and often, and trust that He'll give us exactly what we need when we need it.

We are experts in seeing the faults of others while staying blind to our own propensity to sin. We want to judge others and not be judged. But it is our condemning judgement of others without self reflection that will lead to our ultimate judgement. Jesus calls us to deal with our own sin, so that, from a place of gentleness and love, we can confront and work to restore our brothers and sisters who have erred. This is why we need to inhale the gospel every day. It confronts us with own need for mecy from God, and believing it compels me to point others to that same mercy and love from God.

We worry because we don't trust that God will take care of our needs. This mindset forces us to operate under the delusion that we can control our circumstances, and when those delusions prove false, we get anxious. Our Father knows what we need, and He will do whatever it takes to meet those needs. We can believe that because we know He was willing to ask His own Son to die on a cross to meet our need of salvation. When we trust God and seek Him, anxiety fades away and provision shows up.

Matthew 6:19-24Our hearts tend to be ruled by money, and we find security in earthly wealth instead of heavenly treasures, but the gospel teaches us that we find our security in the generosity of Jesus instead of the wealth of this world. Worldly wealth isn't evil; the love of it is. When we stop pursuing it, we will be outcasts from this world but will be blessed in the kingdom of God.

When we live for the praise of men, we miss the power of God. Settling for the reward of people's admiration is a sad substitute for the reward God has for us. When we live to delight God and God alone, we discover His righteousness and His reward in our lives. Jesus is the prime example of this. He lived for an audience of One and received God's praise as His reward. We must confess our hypocrisy of seeking man's praise and lean on Christ for forgiveness and for the power to live in a new way.

We all want to be shown mercy when we hurt others, but we all want those who hurt us to beshown justice. But this heart will cause us to reap what we sow, a selfish, hate-filled heart. Christ's sacrifice for undeserving sinners shows us what perfect love looks like. And if Jesus is our King, then in his kingdom, we must display his perfect love by loving those who least deserve it.Though this is humanly impossible, when we receive his perfect love, we can then give it.

Our character is naturally flawed. Because of this we tend to take shortcuts in relationships and use them to satisfy our own desires. The gospel teaches us to relate to others to bless them and not to harm them. This is only possible when Jesus transforms our character to reflect his character. His character allows us to live a blessed life.

We think if we follow the letter of the law without the heart of the law, God will be pleased. We forget the heart matters as much as the letter (if not more). Jesus both taught us and showed us what it really means to fulfill the law. It means to love God from the deepest part of the heart, and to allow true and costly obedience to flow from that.

We are hardwired to think that blessing comes from self advancement. The more power, money, and success we can make for ourselves, the more satisfied we will be. Blessing comes from building our own kingdom. Jesus calls us to “change our minds” about what blessing is and where it comes from. The greatest satisfaction and blessing in life comes from turning away from self advancement and building your kingdom, so you can live for the advancement of of his kingdom. A kingdom that he has given us a role in advancing. True satisfaction and blessing comes from Jesus as King.

If the life of Christ is not poured into us by others or we are not pouring the life of Christ into others, the power of Christ will be absent in us and around us. The power of Christ is available to all of us, but we can't attain it alone. We need the Spirit's transformation that comes through people who lead us into the light (power) of Christ.

The devil knows our weak spots and with his age-old tricks, he'll exploit those weak spots to take us down. When we don't recognize his schemes, we are easy prey. Jesus both shows us how to defeat the devil and he passes the test for us. Now we can lean on his A+ grade as a replacement for our F, and that's how we get victory over the devil. If he cannot accuse us when we fail, he's schemes no longer work.

When we try to make ourselves right with God or please God in our own effort or by our own behavior, we end up offending God instead of pleasing God. He sees through our mask. Christ is the only one who can please the Father. If we want to be right with God, it can only happen when we join ourselves with Christ in baptism. Then we'll see his power released in us through it.

When we let pride, legalism, distraction, confusion, and hard-heartedness keep us from welcoming and inviting in Jesus, we miss all the abundant life he offers. Christ came to earth not just to die for our sins but also to bring abundant life and Spirit- power to us. But we must get our hearts ready for that work and prepare the way. This begins a multi- year journey through the gospels to prepare our hearts and our church for more of Jesus!

We don't like interruptions because they always lead to sacrifice. Sacrifice, by definition, is difficult and difficulty is something we naturally avoid, especially when it comes to our families. Jesus shows us that the cost of sacrifice (Luke 14:25-33) for his sake is always worth it. When we do this his promise is to turn our mourning into dancing. (Psalm 30:11)

We seek God in the wrong places because we have the wrong system of values. And because we don't know what has worth, we miss God's greatest gifts. God's greatest gift was not kingly rule or earthly power, but the simple God-in-flesh baby who was born to save humanity from their sins. God must interrupt our rule and flip our idea of what has value on its head for us to see it. But when we do, and when we find Christ, how else can we respond except with worship and sacrifice?

We tend to get frustrated with God when life interrupts us. We fail to realize that every interruption of our plan is God using life's interruptions to move us into his plan. Every encounter with God is an interruption of our plans. God interrupts our plan to bring us into his plans. God is sovereign over every single one of life's interruptions, and he uses them as opportunities to bring us into his redemptive story. There is no greater interruption than the cross. But it was this interruption that made a way for us to be brought into God's redemptive story.

We hate it when God (or anyone else for that matter) interrupts or disrupts our lives and our plans, and so we hardly ever get to see what God is up to. God does His greatest work in the midst of our hardest interruptions. The lineage and coming of Jesus shows how God uses disruptions to accomplish His divine purpose. If the interruption of the cross in Jesus' work could bring real life, then God can use any interruption to bring His abundant life. 

People are dying daily and we are not doing anything about it. Jesus died so that all the nations would know him and have salvation. And the church has to do something about it. What will it take for us to say yes to the calling?

Because we hate suffering, we end up avoiding the one thing that most releases the power of the Spirit of Christ in us. Our self-preservation ends up destroying us. Christ experienced the supernatural power of the Spirit because He obeyed the Spirit completely and immediately. But his obedience was learned through suffering, a suffering that took him to the cross. When we follow his example and die to self, we experience the “greater things” power that Jesus promised us. The power of God is on the other side of the insane decision to obey even if there is a chance of suffering in the obedience.

When we aren't willing to live with insane faith in an insane (from the world's perspective) God, we miss the insane power of God in our families. The best way to care for our families is to live insanely for God. His insane plan was to give up His only Son for us, and that made us family. When we give up our families for Him, we end up seeing His insane power in our families.

We naturally tend to seek glory for ourselves over anything or anyone else. The gospel teaches us that we were made to bring glory to God but we couldn't do this on our own because of sin. Jesus defeated sin so that we would gain access to the spirit who is the one who can help us fulfill our purpose.

We do not know the Word of God well enough to test our thoughts against it and to find the author of life in it. Because of this, we suffer confusion at best and wickedness and death at worst. Christ died so that the Word wouldn't just be a book we read but a living power that transforms us and comes inside us. Thus, we need to commit not just to reading the word of God but ingesting and memorizing the word of God.

We struggle to hear the voice of God, because we don't want to hear what he has to say. It is hard to hear a voice that calls you to selflessness and sacrifice when you are selfish by default. Jesus calls me to walk in what he walked in. He calls me to the end of myself. Choosing to follow Jesus isn't giving up my wrongs, it is giving up my rights and emptying myself of my will for the sake of us will. It is in daily remembering the gospel that puts me in position to hear the voice of God, because belief in the gospel makes it my will to do his will. It is from this place that I can hear the voice of God, because I have already told him yes before I hear what he has to say.

Because we think the will of God isn't knowable, we choose to live according to our own will and desires, and that always leads to destruction. Christ died not only to redeem our souls but also our spiritual ears, so we could hear his voice and obey his will. When we listen and obey, we experience intimacy with Christ, blessings from above, and power through His Spirit.

We want freedom when it benefits us but often agree to deny it for others if it doesn't directly benefit us or even feels like a threat to us. That is hypocrisy, and in the end, it doesn't allow for true freedom. God made us to be free creatures, and Christ died to set us free. But freedom necessarily means a choice to respond to the gospel and choose God or reject Him. We must uphold the freedom to choose in matters of faith, or it is not faith at all.

We tend to view politics as a means to shape the country to benefit us, and when we do we miss the power of the cross in our country and in our lives, and we lose our witness in the process. When we strive to be Christlike by considering others more important than ourselves in how we participate in politics, we show the power of the cross and lean our country deeper into God's blessings.

When we value some human life above others, we negate the glory of God by rejecting those who bear His image. Every human being has dignity both because they bear the image of God and because Christ died for their salvation. Therefore, we must fight for the good of all human life in every stage and condition of life.

We tend to put our hope in an earthly kingdom and an earthly king and so we either give too much loyalty to a person or party, or we live in too much fear of what will happen if our person doesn't win. The crucified Lamb is our only hope. We must put our faith solely in him, follow his ethics above all else, and live for his glory alone.

We often try to handle life on our own, avoiding the messiness of relationships, even within the church. But God designed us for community, where we grow and are shaped into His image. True growth comes from engaging with others, despite the challenges, as it helps us develop humility, gentleness, and patience. We need each other to be spiritually healthy and to grow in our faith. As we begin a new season, let's commit to being part of this community, trusting that God will use these relationships to transform us.

We find so much identity in our work, both our physical and spiritual work, we depend on it to make us feel worthy instead of the finished work of Christ. As such, far too many of us live as slaves to work, even if that work is spiritual work. We are made holy by Christ's sanctifying work on the cross, not by our work for God's approval or man's approval. Our ability to rest shows that we trust in God's work and not in ours.

We tend overestimate our own ability and underestimate our need to be filled with the Spirit of God. We think we need the Spirit for the sensational or miraculous work, not the “everyday” work. The will of God for our lives is that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit not just for the Supernatural, but for the miracle of transforming a disobedient person into an obedient person belonging to God. This is what the belief in the gospel does. Belief in the gospel drives us to an understanding that we are completely dependent on the filling of the Holy Spirit to do the work of God, that Jesus saved us to do with whatever ability he has given us or lane he has given us to work in for his glory!

We think we can save ourselves because we forget there is a high price to be paid for for our salvation. Jesus paid the price for our salvation once and for all. To remember this we need to constantly renew our minds through the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit sanctifying our lives.

We neglect our time of prayer because we fail to remember that Jesus has not only justified us, but he also intercedes for us at the right hand of the Father. The altar of Incense reminds us that we can elevate our prayers to God daily because we have been granted access to the Father through Jesus, who is our intercessor in heaven.Sign up to receive a Tabernacle Resource Guide with personal and group application questions by filling out this form https://www.fielder.org/tabernacle

Because we don't understand the cost of holiness, we don't appreciate what Jesus did through his sacrifice on the cross and live for his glory. When we look at all that it took for the priests to be made holy it allows us to understand the cost of being made holy is greater than we could ever imagine. The gospel reveals that Jesus didn't just pay the price for my sin, but he paid the price for me to be forever made holy and in right relationship with God.

We miss fellowship with God and the blessings of His hand because we instinctively know that we are not dressed for the occasion. Our sin and shame make us feel naked and exposed, so we stay away. Just like the priests had to dress for the occasion to meet with God, so we too must be dressed to meet with God and cover our sin and shame, but our clothing is not a breastplate or an ephod but Christ himself (Gal 3:27).

We let the defilement of the world spread to us and through us because we don't receive the full anointing of the Spirit of God to change us and purify us. Christ was crucified in our place so we could become pure vessels that receive the full measure of the Holy Spirit. When we trust in Christ, we are made holy and become agents of God's holiness to a defiled world.

We are afraid to approach God, so we keep our distance when all the power and blessing of God is found in getting close. Jesus Christ is the gate to God's presence and the sacrifice that gives us the right and gumption to His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.

We tend to want to find another way to relationship with God besides sacrifice and shedding of blood. We look for a backdoor to heaven by trying to make ourselves good enough for God, hoping to find a way around the bloody, smoky altar of sacrifice. There is no other way for sinners to come into relationship with a holy God without atonement being made for their sins through the shedding of blood. The Altar was the first thing they saw. It stood in between them and the presence of God, reminding them that sin must be paid for with blood. This is the price of sin since the fall. God instituted it by making the first sacrifice in Genesis 3 to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness, and God finished it by sending Jesus to pay for sin once for all on the altar of the cross. Through belief in the gospel, we can now enter into relationship with God forever.

We think experiencing God is something reserved for the elite rather than something attainable by all people through Jesus. The gospel teaches us that because of Jesus breaking the veil of the temple, God is now attainable to all through him.

We live in darkness because we don't seek or depend on the light that Jesus Christ can bring us. God is our source of true and pure light, and until we learn to trust in His light, we will never experience the knowledge, blessing, and healing His light brings.

We work endlessly trying to provide for our own needs because we fail to recognize God as the provider who has provided everything. God is our provider who loves us and provides for all our needs, the most important being fellowship with himself.