0:00 Good afternoon, NCCF family. So, good to see everyone today. So, for the past 18 weeks, we've had the privilege to go through the Sermon on the Mount series. And so, I want to ask everyone a very simple question that I've also asked 0:15 myself. In the past 18 weeks, have you tried to apply practically any part of that Sermon on the Mount in your life? Is there any part of that series that you've taken seriously and said, "Hey, I need to make a change here. I need to repent. And I need to 0:32 work this out in my life." Maybe it's the area of anger. Maybe it's area of worrying. Maybe it's the area of being merciful to others. But, is there an area you can think of in the past 18 weeks where you've taken seriously and said, "I'm going to take 0:49 this part seriously and I'm going to make a change in my life." And I hope the answer is yes. But, it's also quite possible that maybe for some people the answer might be no. And that's what I want to talk about today. Making sure that we don't simply hear 1:02 these things in the church, but that we apply it practically in our lives. My fear is that sometimes we can go through a series like this and we can have what's called a a checkbox mentality. It's like, "Oh, we've gone through the 1:14 Sermon on the Mount. Check. What's next?" And I'll say what's next. What The what's next is the real work that's going to happen, which is actually applying it in our lives and not looking for something new. And that's that's the 1:26 burden I have on my heart today. That I really hope that for us the church every single brother and sister, every family can be like that house built on a rock. And Jesus didn't say, "If the winds and the rain and the floods will come." It's 1:40 going to come. There's no if. But, the question is, will we be like people whose houses are built on a rock? And that is my desire for this church, that every family is like that house built on a rock. But, the only way that's 1:53 possible is if we apply in our lives the things that we've heard and specifically the past 18 weeks, the Sermon on the Mount. So, there's a couple of things I wanted to share on today. And number one, I want to share on the privilege 2:05 that we have to be able to hear things like this in our church. And secondly, I wanted to share some hindrances that cause us not to obey the Lord and apply things in our life. And then lastly, I want to share some encouragements for us 2:18 to apply apply and apply these things practically in our lives. So, first of all, let me start with Matthew chapter 13. If you could turn there with me. About the privilege that we have to hear some of these things living in 2:32 the new covenant age. Matthew 13 and verse 17. Matthew 13 and verse 17. And so, the context of this verse is that Jesus just explained to the crowd or told the crowd about this parable about the the sower, which we heard a 2:49 little bit earlier or which we heard earlier from our brother Sunil. And then, Jesus is alone and his disciples come to him and they ask him, "Jesus, what does this parable mean? Can you explain it to us?" And as he explains it 3:01 to his disciples, that's where this verse 17 comes. And it says this, "For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it. And to hear what you hear and did not hear it." 3:17 And so, the way I see this is imagine these righteous men and these prophets that Jesus is talking about. Let's say a prophet like Isaiah. Or a righteous man like Daniel. What is Jesus saying? Jesus is saying that these men would have 3:32 done anything to see and to hear the things that these disciples could hear. And I apply that in the same way to us today. Cuz what Jesus is talking about here isn't simply hearing the parables, but it's hearing the explanation of the parable. That's 3:46 what was so so precious. And so, in the same way I think about ourselves as a church where we get to sit in the church and hear some of these things like the Sermon on the Mount being explained to us in such a simple, practical, and 3:58 clear way. You know what's going to happen one day when we go to heaven? I really believe that Isaiah is going to go to us and say, "Wow, you guys got to hear this?" Or Daniel is going to talk to us and say, "Wow, you guys could hear 4:08 this? I would have done anything just to sit in your church service for for a day." I really believe that's going to happen based upon this verse. So, I want to emphasize that it's a tremendous privilege we have to be able to hear 4:21 things like the Sermon on the Mount explained to us in a simple way. But then, we also have a big responsibility then to apply it in our lives. So, question is then, what hinders us from applying things in our life? What 4:34 are some of these hindrances that block us from applying? And I want to share three things. The first is that comparison. When we compare ourselves to others, it leads us to complacency and that causes us not to want to follow and obey God. 4:49 And we read in the Sermon on the Mount that one of the first Beatitudes is blessed are the poor in spirit. And so, what was one of the characteristics of someone who's poor in spirit? Well, someone who's poor in spirit is aware of 5:00 their own need. They said, "Lord, I'm the needy one. I'm the one that's that needs help. I'm the one." And when we compare ourselves with others, that attitude changes. And we say, "It's actually, Lord, I'm not the one that's 5:11 in need. That person's the one in need." And that becomes the the problem to obedience. And one of the parables that Jesus talked about was he mentioned there's one time there's these three servants and to one servant he gave five 5:24 talents, to the other servant he gave two talents, and to the last servant he gave one talent. And you guys know the story of that where the person who got five talents earned five more. The person who got two talents earned two 5:35 more. And the person who got one talent didn't earn anything. And for this particular example, I want to focus actually on the people who had the five and the two talents. And what I really like about this story was that I felt 5:47 like those two people were an example of people who did not compare themselves with each other. For example, the person with the five talents, he didn't look at the person with two talents and say, "Hey, this guy earned two more. Well, 5:58 all I have to do is earn two more and then I'm I'm done for the day." No, he didn't say that. He said, "I'm going to still earn and make five more." And similarly, the person with two talents didn't look at the person with five and 6:08 says, "Wow, he earned five. What am I doing here? I'm only earning two." He said, "No, the Lord gave me a lesser amount of talents, fine. But, I'm going to use that and make the most out of it." And so, I thought that was a 6:20 beautiful example of what it means to live a life that doesn't compare. And I believe for those two servants, one of the reasons why they finished the course that God prepared for them in that parable was because they didn't compare. 6:32 They just looked at the talents that the Lord gave them and they made the most of it. And that was an encouragement to me to not compare myself cuz comparison will lead to complacency. The other reason for not obeying I've 6:44 noticed in my life is an emphasis on knowledge and not life. And I'll say that again. It's an emphasis on knowledge and not life. And especially for us who live here in the Bay Area where so much of intellect is such a valuable thing. It's very easy to say, 7:00 "Lord, I can understand this Sermon on the Mount. I can even explain it. But, just because I can explain it and I understand it, doesn't mean necessarily that it's it's life." And I've learned that it's really important to have life 7:16 much more than knowledge. And I'll share a personal example of for that. Several years ago, I had a chance to join a church outside of NCCF when I was single. And so, we had some time on I had some time on Friday and Saturday. 7:29 So, I I would go to this other um on the side. And when I went there, there was a couple who opened up their home for us to to go visit. And so, me being a single one I had at the time, I would go on a Friday night. And at their 7:43 home, they would have a home-cooked meal for us, me and some like other singles. And we'd have a Bible study at their home and we'd have some time to hang out afterwards. And during my singles days, those were some of the most precious 7:54 memories that I had as a single person. And when I was there, we had some Bible studies. And I noticed immediately that, "Hey, I actually think I know the Bible better than this couple who was organizing this this Bible study." It's 8:07 like I knew more verses than them. I had more knowledge than them. And I thought, "Hey, I'm a little bit better in this area." And I felt like I think the Lord was trying to correct me in this. He says, "When I, you might 8:18 have more Bible knowledge than them. But, look at look at their life. And look what they have. Here's two couples Here's a couple who out of their own resources, they're cooking a meal for you every single week. They're opening 8:30 up their home for you so you could go and hang out and gives you an opportunity to meet other singles when you're in this season of your life. Doesn't that say something? And for me, that helped me realize that, "Yes, Lord, 8:41 I might have a knowledge. But, this couple here, they have a life. They have a love where they cared for other younger disciples." And that made for me a big difference in my life. So, this was just a reminder to me that, "Yes, 8:53 it's good to have knowledge. It's important to understand. But, much more important than that is life." And life comes from applying these things in our life. And then, the last thing I'll say about a hindrance for our obedience is when we 9:06 live before man and we don't live before God. So, please turn with me to Proverbs chapter 27. Proverbs chapter 27 and verse 21. Proverbs chapter 27 9:25 and verse 21. I'll just read this. It says, "The crucible is for silver and the furnace for gold. And each is tested by the praise accorded to him." And so, when you look at a piece of silver and you or a piece of gold, how 9:43 do you know whether that piece of silver or gold is pure? Well, what you do is you take it and you put inside the fire and you burn it. And once it melts, the impurities come. And that's how you know how pure this piece of metal is. So, if 9:57 that's how you look at the quality of a piece of metal, then what does God use for men? And it's interesting in this verse, it doesn't talk about trials. He doesn't say through the trials we will be tested, but it actually says here 10:10 that it's through praise. And so our reaction to praise, when people praise us, that's a reflection of our spirituality. So, it's one thing if people praise us and we say, "Oh, thank you. It's not me, it's the Lord." But 10:23 you know how inside the heart you say, "Hold on. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> I really enjoy that that compliment." Those are the tests that really sees our test of spirituality. And we really have to be careful when there's compliments 10:34 that come and those get ingrained inside our lives cuz that will slow us down spiritually. I remember one time I was talking to a brother and he was telling me in the context of parenting that he was saying, "Hey, when I 10:46 if one day people compliment your children, be careful because that's when you're very in a very dangerous spot, okay? And I this spirit of what he was saying is that when people compliment you and your children and they're doing good and you 10:59 relax and you think, 'Hey, all's well. I don't have to be so vigilant anymore.' That's when we're in a dangerous spot. So, I believe that's applicable for not only parenting, but for spiritual life as well. So, when people praise us, it's 11:11 really important in our hearts to say, "No, Lord, I still have to work out my salvation. Thank you for the compliment, but I still need to to work things out." And if we're careful about these things, then this won't hinder us from from 11:22 obeying the Lord. So, just to recap, three things that causes a hindrance to obedience. One, it's comparison with others. Secondly, an emphasis on knowledge and not life. And then lastly, when we live before man and not before 11:36 God. So, those are some of the challenges to obedience, but I also want to share some encouragements to obedience. And so for this one, um tech team, if you don't mind, could you pull up that that picture? And we turn with me to Luke chapter 8 11:51 and verse uh 15. Luke chapter 8 and and verse 15. So, this is the parable of the the sower that we heard a little bit earlier. And just a quick recap for those who haven't heard it. So, this is the story of someone who went to sow seeds and the 12:07 seed represents the word of God. And if you look on the left-hand side, there's um three uh types of bad ground. One is a path, so the birds come and eat up all this the seeds. You got this rocky soil which you heard about earlier where 12:19 these plants didn't have any roots and the sun came and they they they withered and died. And then you also have this third thorny ground where the seed that grew up into a plant, but there was thorns like riches and the 12:31 worries of life and it just choked up the seed. So, on the left-hand side, these are all the the bad types of ground. But on the right-hand side, that's where I want to focus on. This is the good soil. And you notice in the good soil, 12:43 there's three types of good soil. There is ones that have 30-fold harvest and then you see the one over where it's 60-fold and then a one all the way to the right, 100-fold, okay? And so the question is, how do we make sure that 12:57 we're part of that 100-fold harvest? And for this particular parable, this seed, I want to apply this to say this seed represents the Sermon on the Mount which we've heard for the past 18 weeks. We've heard the Sermon on the Mount, but 13:11 as we look at our own lives, which of these categories of soil are we? And I want to argue that it's not enough to avoid the bad soil, but we must seek to be in that 100-fold soil and that comes through obedience. So, please turn with 13:26 me to Luke 8 and then verse 15. And so I want to talk briefly about what it means to have this good soil. And here's the characteristics. Luke 8 verse 15. And it says this, "But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the 13:44 word in an honest and good heart and hold it fast and bear fruit with perseverance." So, there's four characteristics mentioned here for what it means to have good soil. And so let's go over one at a time. The first is that it's honest. And when 14:00 I think of honest, I think, "Lord, you've allowed us to hear this Sermon on the Mount. It's my responsibility to see, Lord, how honest am I about my own spiritual condition versus what this series has has shown me." And if I'm honest about 14:14 it, that helps me to be in a good spot, to be in this this soil. The opposite of honest is we can lie to ourselves and say, "Lord, I'm fine. I actually am good here." And that puts us in the the bad soil. So, that's the first important thing, to 14:26 be honest. The second characteristic here is that it's a good heart. And when I think about a good heart, I think about a heart that has a good attitude towards God, that's good attitude towards other. So, in other words, this is a heart that 14:39 wants to do the will of God and this is an heart which says to other people, "I wish the best for others. I don't want to hold any bitterness towards anybody. I don't want to hold any anger towards anybody, but I want to have a good heart 14:50 heart towards them." And that's a characteristic of a good soil. The third is that it says it holds it fast. In another translation says, "Cling." It clings to it. And I like that word cling better than holding it fast. Um you know that phrase clinging 15:04 for dear life? And sometimes that shows like a picture of a person grabbing onto something like they're going to fall off a cliff and they're clinging. They're like, "I got to hold onto this, otherwise I'm going to fall." 15:13 That's what it means to cling and to have that attitude towards the Lord and not say, "Oh, I've checked the box. I can move on to something else." But to hear it and say, "Lord, I want to cling to the Sermon on the Mount. There's 15:23 something very precious here. I don't want to let go." That's the third characteristic. And then lastly, it says bear fruit with perseverance. So, in other words, it takes time. And for all of us who've planted anything, 15:36 you know it it just takes time for that seed to grow up and that we shouldn't give up in this time, but we should hold fast and one day it will bear fruit. And so those are the characteristics of the the good soil and not just a good 15:48 soil, I believe the soil that bears 100-fold fruit. And so what I want to do is I want to share an example of somebody in the Old Testament and that I believe is someone who heard the word of God, made a radical repentance and lived 16:02 out a 100-fold life, okay? And this is the example of King Josiah. So, if you could turn with me to Second Kings and chapter 23. So, I want to briefly show you the story about King Josiah. So, Second Kings 16:23 and chapter uh 23. Actually, we could start in chapter 22 real quick. Second Kings and chapter 22. So, Josiah was a very young king. He became king when he was 8 years old. And in this particular story, he's about 26 years 16:41 old right now. So, someone in his mid to to late 20s. Still a very very young guy. And one day there the people are working in the temple and they discover, "Hey, this is the book of the law and we've lost it." And they suddenly discover it. 16:55 So, in Second Kings chapter 22, yeah, around verse uh 10, these scribes read to King Josiah this this book of the the law. And look what happens in verse 11. "When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes." 17:14 And for me, that was like, "Wow. That's that's quite a reaction." He only heard it once. He only heard it once and then he had such a radical repentance. And he had such a radical repentance that he did a tremendous number of reforms in uh 17:28 in Israel at the time. So, tech team, if you go to the next slide, uh please. I don't have time to go over the next chapter, uh chapter 23, but just to summarize, you can see here briefly the types of thing that King Josiah does. 17:42 And it's really interesting, if you look at the Old Testament at some of these good kings even, and some of these good kings, they got rid of idols. And the Bible would list maybe like three to six verses about those kings. But in King 17:54 Josiah, it's completely different. It wasn't three verses. It was like a whole chapter. The whole chapter 23 is dedicated to all the reforms that he did. And you can just see just going through the categories how thorough he 18:05 is with the changes. And we can see in King Josiah that heart of someone with a good soil. For example, he was honest. How was he honest? He heard the scribes read the book of law to him and he tore his clothes. He was repentant and he he 18:20 was very sorrowful. So, he realized the condition of his his country. He says, "Lord, I we have to do something about it." But he was honest. That's number one. Secondly, he had a good heart. He had a good heart towards the Lord. He wanted 18:32 to honor the Lord. And not only honor the Lord, but look what he did in verse uh two. Second Kings chapter 23 and verse two. If you look at that verse, he basically gathers all the people together. And look in the second half of that verse. What did he 18:48 do? He says, "He read in their hearing all the words of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord." So, King Josiah didn't just ask some scribe to come, "Hey, why don't you read this to the people?" The king himself went 19:01 through the book of the law and read it to all the people. So, you can see the heart and the burden he had for other people. So, he had a good heart not only towards God, but towards other people as well. And [snorts] then in Josiah, we saw that 19:12 he held it fast. Clearly from his actions, he he clung to it. And then lastly, he had perseverance. And if you look at all the reforms that he did here on this PowerPoint, it's not trivial. It's not something that would have taken 19:24 a day, it probably taken months if not maybe even years for some of these things to actually uh be be executed. But he stuck onto it. He didn't give up and he persevered in it. And so for me, King Josiah is someone of an example of 19:36 someone who heard the word of God and made a radical repentance. And the way I apply this to to myself for the Sermon on the Mount is this. You can see how when King Josiah made the reforms in the country, there were many different areas 19:49 that he did this in. He did this in the temple, he did this in like the the shrines, he did Passover, Passover, all these different areas he made changes. And when I think of these areas, I think of myself in this age today about the 20:01 Sermon on the Mount. For example, we've heard that there is nine good attitudes and there's nine bad attitudes. And if I were make a PowerPoint chart of myself and put those nine categories here, can I say that for each one of these 20:14 I've done something in this area to take it seriously, to make a change? And I can't say the answer is yes, but that's what challenges me when I see someone like King Josiah in the Old Testament. He was so radical about every single 20:26 area and it challenges me as well that as we heard the Sermon on the Mount that Lord, I want to examine all of myself in the nine good attitudes, the nine bad attitudes and have a radical attitude like Josiah. So, if you look at 20:40 um verse 25, 2 Kings 23 and verse 25. I want to put our names in here for a second. So, 25 it reads this, "Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul and with all his might according to 20:58 all the law of Moses." So, I'll read that again, but let's put our own names in there. Okay. There was no disciple like Put your own name there. There is no disciple like your name who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his 21:14 might according to all of the Sermon on the Mount. That's the way I read that uh verse and that's the challenge for me. And so, in in closing, I wanted to share one final encouragement about obeying the commandments of the Lord. So, if you 21:28 could turn with me to John. John chapter 14 and verse 21. This is a beautiful verse and a promise about those who keep God's commandments. John chapter 14 and verse 21. It says this, 21:48 "He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and will disclose myself to him." So, there's three things I want to point out about this verse. First is the word 22:02 keeps. "He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me." And that word keep, if you look at the way it's translated into other parts of the Bible, in the book of Acts it's used in the context of like a jail, like guards. 22:15 So, remember Peter was in in jail in the book of Acts? It says the prison guards kept him. It's the same word that's used here. And so, it gives you a sense for what it means to keep. It's not just simply I I just obey, but it's like 22:27 imagine a guard watching over someone, making sure, "Hey, this person doesn't go away." That attitude, that vigilance, that's what it means to have keep. So, if we have that attitude like a guard, vigilant about God's commandments, 22:38 that's number one. The second thing here is that if we are like that, it means that we love Jesus and he who loves me will be loved by my Father. Now, some of us can read that and think, "Well, to be loved by my Father, but we read 22:52 that in John chapter 3 verse 16. God so loved the world. God already loved me there. What's the difference with this this love here?" And I believe here this is talking about a special type of love that God has for those who obey him. And I think of it 23:06 like this, as a parent I can understand this. I have a couple kids. I love them all equally. But sometimes, you know how when there's that one kid who's really good and they help you with the dishes and they do a lot of stuff for you, they 23:16 really obey Mommy and Daddy, there's a special love that I have for particular child because they're obedient. And I believe the same way is true here. Yes, God loves the world, true, but at the same time I believe he has a special 23:29 love for those who keeps his commandments. And then lastly, this is the best part. And if we obey him and God loves us, here's what Jesus will do. "I will love him and will disclose myself to him." And disclose is also translated as reveal. And we've 23:47 heard many times in this church that the great need in the church is not for knowledge, but for revelation. Where does revelation come from? Well, it comes from one, humility, but here's another source of revelation. It comes 23:58 from obedience. And Jesus says, "To this person I will reveal myself to him." And I love the Amplified Bible translation of this. It says, "I will make myself real to him." I love that. I will make myself real to him. I've seen people who've gone ahead 24:15 of me in the Christian faith and I see how much Jesus is like a real person just standing next to them in every situation. I can't say my life is like that, but I would love to get to that that state. What is the pathway for 24:25 that? One of those pathways is obedience to the Lord. So, tech team, if we could just go back to the the picture on the um on the um the parable real quick. I just want to close with this this picture. So, dear brothers and sisters, that seed is the 24:39 the Sermon on the Mount. And may we each of us judge ourselves and I hope that all of us can be in that last category where this series we've heard can bear fruit a hundredfold. Thank you for giving me this chance to hear.
