WEBVTT 00:00:07.364 --> 00:00:09.804 Good morning, good to see all of you. 00:00:09.804 --> 00:00:16.625 My name is Randy and I'm so glad if you're a guest today, especially for the first time, and I've met some of you this morning. 00:00:16.625 --> 00:00:22.532 We are more than excited to see you and we're always blessed that you're here with us. 00:00:22.532 --> 00:00:29.804 We believe that everybody who is in the room today or watching online out there is here for a divine purpose. 00:00:29.804 --> 00:00:39.248 Maybe, if only for today, there's some reason that we all are together here today, so we're glad that you're here and out there. 00:00:39.248 --> 00:00:40.972 Thank you for viewing. 00:00:40.972 --> 00:00:49.267 A lot of you are unable to be in your place of worship or a place of worship wherever you are, and so a quick welcome to you. 00:00:49.267 --> 00:00:57.646 Also, and specifically, I just want to give a shout out to two people in Fountain Inn, south Carolina, mark and Kimberly. 00:00:57.646 --> 00:01:01.690 We're so glad that you watch every week and hope you'll continue. 00:01:01.690 --> 00:01:08.944 And for all of you out there, there's a host that you've already met and also he will conclude the service together. 00:01:08.944 --> 00:01:16.946 So he's there to help you and to handle any prayer requests, follow those along or any next step decisions you make. 00:01:16.946 --> 00:01:23.946 And here in the room we will have an invitation time in just a few minutes and that's your invitation. 00:01:23.946 --> 00:01:28.569 Jesus constantly was coming up to people and saying, just simply, follow me. 00:01:28.569 --> 00:01:37.712 Right, and that's our symbolic way of honoring His Spirit, inviting us to follow Him. 00:01:37.712 --> 00:01:45.405 And so today, as you just saw, is a little kickoff to a series that will lead us right up to a very important day. 00:01:45.405 --> 00:01:50.730 Did you know that there's only seven weeks, 49 days, until Easter? 00:01:50.730 --> 00:01:52.542 And it will be here? 00:01:52.542 --> 00:01:58.945 And it is a big deal around here, as it should be, and we're already excited about that. 00:01:58.945 --> 00:02:07.149 So now we can be in the mode of, as we say, building and bringing those relationships to come with us on Easter Sunday morning. 00:02:07.149 --> 00:02:09.426 Heard some big plans last week. 00:02:09.426 --> 00:02:31.890 So Easter we always have three worship services to create enough space for everyone, and then after that the plan is to go, of course, to stay with the three services there and shout out to everybody up in the balcony how y'all doing up there Ran into a couple of my friends up there and they got an early start. 00:02:31.890 --> 00:02:33.145 They thought it started today. 00:02:33.145 --> 00:02:36.306 So they got here for the 8.15 service this morning. 00:02:36.306 --> 00:02:42.125 So they'll be well-practiced by you know. 00:02:42.125 --> 00:02:45.552 Seven weeks seven weeks for now, I guess. 00:02:46.040 --> 00:02:50.953 So open your Bibles to the book of James in the back of the New Testament. 00:02:50.953 --> 00:03:06.943 Back of the New Testament, james was the half-brother of Jesus, so if anybody knew a thing or two about following Christ, I would think it would be one of his own brothers. 00:03:06.943 --> 00:03:09.887 Right, and he's a very straightforward. 00:03:09.887 --> 00:03:15.972 He writes a lot like a guy in the Old Testament by the name of Solomon, very direct. 00:03:17.240 --> 00:03:19.126 Speaking of Solomon, can I tell you a quick story? 00:03:19.126 --> 00:03:24.927 It's Italian, 950 BC roughly. 00:03:24.927 --> 00:03:28.968 Solomon is the king, newly appointed king. 00:03:28.968 --> 00:03:36.913 What happened right before that, in the transfer of authority from David, his father, to him? 00:03:36.913 --> 00:03:46.105 Another son of David, adonijah, decided I see an opening, I'm going to take it, I'm going to seize the throne. 00:03:46.105 --> 00:03:52.566 And he does, and he pronounces himself king and he has a large following already. 00:03:52.566 --> 00:04:00.293 David steps in at that point and says no, my choice, because he was God's choice, is Solomon. 00:04:00.293 --> 00:04:07.271 I will anoint him king, I will put my crown on his head and recognize him. 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:19.709 So the vast majority of the masses turned and go right back to Solomon Adonijah, who fancied himself as the second David. 00:04:19.709 --> 00:04:23.963 He was handsome, like his dad, he was dashing, he was bold. 00:04:23.963 --> 00:04:28.030 He realizes uh-oh, I'm now in big trouble. 00:04:28.030 --> 00:04:41.925 In those days, if you had a rival going on and you step onto the throne, you quickly eliminated the rival, even if it was a brother of yours or a relative, and so that was his expectation. 00:04:41.925 --> 00:04:57.191 Solomon, in a very unprecedented move, allows him to live as he will promise to not create any more problems and not try to revolt again contrary to the throne. 00:04:57.191 --> 00:05:23.651 Adonijah promises, and so he basically is telling him you'll have it made, you'll be still part of the royal family, you'll take advantage of all the protection and all the blessings of being a part of the royalty if you behave Well in one of the most knuckleheaded decisions in the whole Old Testament, guess what? 00:05:23.651 --> 00:05:26.081 Adonijah thinks? 00:05:26.081 --> 00:05:36.372 He's smart, he's going up against the smartest man in the world and somehow he thinks I'm going to outsmart Solomon, my brother. 00:05:36.372 --> 00:05:47.823 And he goes to Solomon's mom and says I've noticed a servant girl of my father when he was still living and she's like not married. 00:05:47.823 --> 00:05:52.031 Would you ask the king to allow me to marry her? 00:05:52.031 --> 00:05:57.348 He goes innocently to Solomon and Solomon says that's it. 00:05:57.348 --> 00:06:01.163 Don't you see what he's doing? 00:06:01.163 --> 00:06:07.977 He's once again aligning himself as the preferred of David by taking her his servant. 00:06:07.977 --> 00:06:09.924 And he's got to go now. 00:06:09.924 --> 00:06:13.406 And with that Adonijah loses his life. 00:06:13.406 --> 00:06:20.906 This is he sabotaged his own welfare in his life. 00:06:21.045 --> 00:06:26.624 Why is it that we in lesser ways reject what is best for us? 00:06:26.624 --> 00:06:29.745 We all have that capacity, don't we? 00:06:29.745 --> 00:06:39.215 You all could probably think back to a time in your past, as, like I, knew full well that this was not the best plan for me, and I did it anyway. 00:06:39.215 --> 00:06:49.093 So, 950 years later, jesus comes along and he has the same invitation to all of us. 00:06:49.093 --> 00:07:09.768 If you'll just submit, if you'll just surrender your life to my atoning grace and the resurrection of what that symbolizes and the gift of freedom in me, that's what's best for you, the plan is best for you you'll be part of royalty. 00:07:09.768 --> 00:07:16.972 If you just stay aligned with where we are headed, it will go well with you. 00:07:16.972 --> 00:07:21.448 And we fail time after time after time after time. 00:07:21.448 --> 00:07:27.751 Well, the core of all of that, let me just say very succinctly today, is the matter of prayer. 00:07:27.751 --> 00:07:30.747 Prayer is surrender. 00:07:30.747 --> 00:07:42.609 That's how we're going to define it today In verse 7, we're going to read 7 through 10 of James 4, describes that in, I think, a very brilliant but a very direct way. 00:07:43.300 --> 00:07:52.403 If prayer is all about surrender, how much time do I and you spend on the essential quality of prayer? 00:07:52.403 --> 00:08:00.122 And that is just a relationship, basically, between a heavenly Father and His earthly child. 00:08:00.122 --> 00:08:11.004 That's the presence being in each other's presence, and so that's where we'll launch into this, before we do what's going on. 00:08:11.004 --> 00:08:17.468 He starts off with the context, and a great read would be later today or this week, read all of James 4. 00:08:17.468 --> 00:08:25.134 But in James 4, 2 and 3, he basically cuts right to the chase and he says hey, here's your problem. 00:08:25.134 --> 00:08:28.348 A lot of you guys are really in misery right now. 00:08:28.348 --> 00:08:28.881 You're not. 00:08:28.881 --> 00:08:30.567 Things are not going well with you. 00:08:30.567 --> 00:08:35.446 You're unhappy, you're backbiting each other, there's conflict among you. 00:08:35.446 --> 00:08:41.490 You know what your problem is You're not praying, and when you pray, you're asking for the wrong thing. 00:08:41.490 --> 00:08:43.125 No wonder, no wonder. 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:48.031 And then he gets around to addressing it in verse 7. 00:08:48.031 --> 00:08:57.844 So why don't we today, as people, always choose what's best for us, knowing at least in part what is best for us? 00:08:57.844 --> 00:09:00.528 Why has every generation been the same way? 00:09:00.528 --> 00:09:03.710 Well, I'm going to give you three reasons right out of the Scripture. 00:09:03.710 --> 00:09:08.471 The first is in verse 7, and that is our enemy is too powerful. 00:09:08.471 --> 00:09:14.730 When we decide I got it from here, I think, lord, I can take it the rest of the way. 00:09:14.730 --> 00:09:20.725 That's the first recipe for danger right there, because we have this enemy. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:22.346 Look at verse 7. 00:09:22.346 --> 00:09:24.225 Submit yourselves then to God. 00:09:24.225 --> 00:09:28.969 Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 00:09:28.969 --> 00:09:36.928 Resist, sending them for surrender, that means come under his authority, no questions asked. 00:09:36.928 --> 00:09:40.908 And then he says resist the devil. 00:09:40.908 --> 00:09:42.480 Literally y'all. 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:46.930 In the Greek that word had to do with draw the line. 00:09:46.930 --> 00:09:51.067 That's what Solomon did in 950 BC. 00:09:51.067 --> 00:09:51.709 That's it. 00:09:51.709 --> 00:09:54.105 Got to draw the line right here. 00:09:54.105 --> 00:09:59.571 How many parents in the room A few of you, a lot of you. 00:09:59.571 --> 00:10:03.005 Some of you don't even want to admit you're a parent, right? 00:10:03.005 --> 00:10:11.067 Have you not ever said that in some way to a child of yours? 00:10:11.067 --> 00:10:14.985 That's it, boom, I'm drawing the line right here. 00:10:14.985 --> 00:10:18.605 We all have, we all should have, that. 00:10:18.605 --> 00:10:32.721 This is where I have to step in, this is where it ends, and if we do that clearly and early against our enemy, our adversary, the better off we'll be. 00:10:32.721 --> 00:10:37.635 Because what he say here and remember promises are really. 00:10:37.635 --> 00:10:38.859 They come true. 00:10:38.859 --> 00:10:39.442 In the Bible. 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:41.283 We resist the devil. 00:10:41.283 --> 00:10:42.346 What happens with him? 00:10:42.346 --> 00:10:49.632 He flees, and our vernacular that means he runs like somebody's chasing him. 00:10:49.632 --> 00:10:52.363 Because that's what the case is. 00:10:52.363 --> 00:10:58.730 He runs and the Holy Spirit is making sure that he gets out of town. 00:10:58.730 --> 00:11:00.522 Now he'll be back. 00:11:00.522 --> 00:11:01.445 We all know that. 00:11:01.445 --> 00:11:11.887 But when we do this on a continual basis, we don't deal with him near as much and we're not influenced by him near as much. 00:11:11.887 --> 00:11:16.299 Now, honesty, check here time, don't? 00:11:16.299 --> 00:11:21.431 We spend a significant amount of time actually reversing the order? 00:11:21.431 --> 00:11:27.110 We resist the Lord and we submit to the devil. 00:11:27.110 --> 00:11:30.427 Now we don't realize that that's him. 00:11:30.427 --> 00:11:41.645 We don't realize that you know we're being influenced by a third party like that, but we are, we're being set up. 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:50.523 Verse 7 through 10 of James 4 is a great manual, if you will, a great instruction guide for repentance. 00:11:50.523 --> 00:11:53.105 So let me clarify that word right now. 00:11:53.105 --> 00:12:02.113 Repentance is a vital, it's a necessary discipline of following Christ. 00:12:02.113 --> 00:12:08.692 The seven transformational habits are just another way of saying we all need spiritual formation. 00:12:08.692 --> 00:12:21.230 We all need spiritual disciplines in our life to make us more mature and more like the image of Jesus, because we're wanting to be more pleasing to him. 00:12:21.230 --> 00:12:29.746 We will not ever be successful doing that if we don't learn how to, on a very regular basis, come to repentance. 00:12:30.560 --> 00:12:39.426 That means to agree with God that what we are about or are like, or thinking or attitude or actions are not in line. 00:12:39.426 --> 00:12:40.570 We've missed the mark. 00:12:40.570 --> 00:12:42.046 It's called sin. 00:12:42.046 --> 00:12:46.389 Jesus said anything not of faith is flat out sin. 00:12:46.389 --> 00:12:51.571 So there's plenty to repent of, sometimes, just in a general nature. 00:12:51.571 --> 00:12:57.272 When we do that, that means in our mind we decide to turn in another direction. 00:12:57.272 --> 00:13:03.312 We're not going to say I'm sorry, please forgive me today and keep repeating the same thing. 00:13:03.312 --> 00:13:05.539 That's not repentance. 00:13:05.539 --> 00:13:11.331 Repentance means it grieves my heart, it busts me open, so bad that that's detestable to me. 00:13:11.331 --> 00:13:24.490 What once was so attractive now makes me want to throw up and I'm not repeating that pattern and I, with God's help, am going in the opposite direction. 00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:35.450 That's the prodigal, that's the purpose of the prodigal son story that Jesus told, and we all are prodigals in some way, shape or fashion. 00:13:35.450 --> 00:13:40.147 That's repentance Sometimes, certainly not every time. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:58.308 Sometimes the conflict we have with God, where we're not on the page with Him or not on the path with Him, is because we have conflict with other people and we allow that to come into our life with Jesus. 00:13:58.308 --> 00:14:23.605 Sometimes we have a conflict with Jesus, but we don't want to or we're subconscious in it, don't realize we are, we're mad at Jesus, but we will take it out on people and we will create this unity or harm or broken relationships with people, and really who we're aiming at is God Himself. 00:14:23.605 --> 00:14:28.162 So time out Y'all. 00:14:28.162 --> 00:14:56.803 It's okay to have doubts, it's okay to see things that happen, or to experience things, or things that happen to loved ones, let's say, and to not be able to reconcile that with a loving, holy, righteous God, and to take that to God and say I know that you're not obligated to explain anything to me, but I got a problem here. 00:14:56.803 --> 00:15:06.927 I have a problem in my faith, lord, and this is a reason, or this is stimulating it, or, lord, I'm going to be flat out honest with you. 00:15:06.927 --> 00:15:07.864 I'm mad. 00:15:07.864 --> 00:15:09.182 I'm just mad. 00:15:09.182 --> 00:15:17.323 I'm disappointed, I'm hurt, I feel let down. 00:15:17.323 --> 00:15:26.924 That's okay if we do it in the right way, because he understands that he sees everything anyway. 00:15:26.924 --> 00:15:29.748 He already knows what's going on y'all. 00:15:29.748 --> 00:15:32.447 We might as well just be honest and confess it right? 00:15:32.447 --> 00:15:39.989 Have you ever gotten up the courage to confess something to some family or loved ones or inner circle, at work or something? 00:15:39.989 --> 00:15:48.827 And you say you know, I finally realized I had this problem with this or that, and everybody's just kind of sitting back looking at you like well, we've known that for a long time. 00:15:48.827 --> 00:15:50.806 I'm glad you finally got on track with it. 00:15:50.806 --> 00:15:53.164 What was your big revelation? 00:15:53.164 --> 00:16:06.724 We could have told you that that's God, I think he's like well, yeah, glad you're on board, we need to do that, we need to do that. 00:16:08.461 --> 00:16:09.524 Satan, y'all listen. 00:16:09.524 --> 00:16:15.969 Satan is powerful, he's dangerous, but he is limited. 00:16:15.969 --> 00:16:23.611 He only has a few signature moves and he's been using them ever since the fall. 00:16:23.611 --> 00:16:27.466 That's all he's got, but he is really good at using them. 00:16:27.466 --> 00:16:30.185 He is deceitful. 00:16:30.185 --> 00:16:31.384 He is a liar. 00:16:31.384 --> 00:16:33.385 Jesus called him out on those things. 00:16:33.385 --> 00:16:36.626 He's the master of confusion. 00:16:36.626 --> 00:16:39.407 He is the great slanderer. 00:16:39.407 --> 00:16:41.105 He's the great accuser. 00:16:41.105 --> 00:16:47.501 How many of you have heard that little voice at two o'clock in the morning when you didn't mean to wake up? 00:16:47.501 --> 00:16:57.269 But you wake up and it's like, oh no, here he comes and that's when he decides to tell you what a rotten individual you are. 00:16:57.269 --> 00:17:00.585 We all hear that at times. 00:17:00.585 --> 00:17:02.884 That's the accuser at work. 00:17:02.884 --> 00:17:03.125 Why? 00:17:03.125 --> 00:17:05.799 Because he's wanting to condemn you. 00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:10.530 He's wanting to eliminate any hope in you and hope in your future. 00:17:10.530 --> 00:17:10.851 Why? 00:17:10.851 --> 00:17:13.384 Because he wants to destroy you. 00:17:13.384 --> 00:17:21.019 His ultimate aim for you and me and your family and everybody dear to you is to kill you. 00:17:21.019 --> 00:17:26.707 He is the reason there is such a thing as death. 00:17:26.707 --> 00:17:36.230 So once we become aware of his moves, we can be a little bit more wise. 00:17:36.270 --> 00:17:38.501 Tojohn 844, man. 00:17:38.501 --> 00:17:39.894 I love John 844. 00:17:39.894 --> 00:17:43.024 This one of those conversations, john 8, is a good read for this week too. 00:17:43.024 --> 00:17:50.343 He's in Snot Too Long Before the Crucifixion and he's like everywhere he goes, people are jumping him, trying to set him up. 00:17:50.343 --> 00:17:51.519 These are the Pharisees. 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:57.505 They won't know part of him, they think he's a fraud and they're trying to lure him into a trap again. 00:17:57.505 --> 00:18:11.218 And how knuckleheaded can you be, how unaware can you be to not know that you are matching wits with the Creator of the universe here. 00:18:11.218 --> 00:18:16.424 And so Jesus in 844 says you belong to your father or the devil. 00:18:16.424 --> 00:18:19.963 They said, hey, don't get after us. 00:18:19.963 --> 00:18:23.201 We're descendants of Abraham, we're special people here. 00:18:23.201 --> 00:18:24.558 Let me remind you of that. 00:18:24.558 --> 00:18:29.923 And he says well, you belong to your father or the devil. 00:18:29.923 --> 00:18:35.279 You want to carry out your father's desire, who is a murderer from the beginning. 00:18:35.339 --> 00:18:39.080 Not having the truth, for there is no truth in him. 00:18:39.080 --> 00:18:45.586 When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and he's the father of all lies. 00:18:45.586 --> 00:18:47.539 Pretty much sums it up. 00:18:47.539 --> 00:18:52.527 He says he's very fluent in lying. 00:18:52.527 --> 00:18:54.842 That's the one language he has down pat. 00:18:54.842 --> 00:19:01.381 So just be aware of that when we struggle with these moral dilemmas of life. 00:19:01.381 --> 00:19:04.448 There's an honest reason behind it. 00:19:04.448 --> 00:19:18.188 There is a being behind it sometimes, who's trying to rob us of the truth and replace it with a lie, which is a thinly veiled truth, mostly wrapped in lies. 00:19:18.188 --> 00:19:30.565 That's what he falls for, that's what Adam fell for, that's what Judas fell for, and isn't he doing a great job today in our society, doing that? 00:19:30.565 --> 00:19:34.000 This used to be what everybody thought was true. 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:37.480 Weren't we naive to believe that? 00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:40.082 Weren't we unsophisticated to believe that? 00:19:40.082 --> 00:19:49.519 Let me re-fashion that for you, because this really is the way it is now, and this ought to be celebrated. 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:56.561 It's the same trick, it's the same old move, but it's working very well. 00:19:59.154 --> 00:20:33.401 Robert Oppenheimer was one of the chief scientists in the Manhattan Project, which we know today is the invention of the atom bomb that ended World War II, and he, we know now, struggled mightily with the moral aspect of being a brilliant scientist, a quantum mechanics expert, probably the smartest one in that field in the whole country, one of the three smartest in the world. 00:20:33.401 --> 00:20:45.863 And as they got closer to, I think we actually can make a bomb that onedrop one of them that will literally wipe out tens of thousands of people. 00:20:45.863 --> 00:21:00.449 The moral dilemma the just and the unjust will die under this thing, and is this even something we humans ought to beare we going into an area here that we shouldn't do? 00:21:00.449 --> 00:21:07.082 And at one point he's trying to recruit one of the other really good scientists to get on board and help them with the project. 00:21:07.082 --> 00:21:11.440 And the other scientist says I'm not in, I'm not going to do it, why not? 00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:12.763 He said same thing. 00:21:12.763 --> 00:21:15.583 He said basically, too many innocent people will die. 00:21:15.583 --> 00:21:19.782 And what's bigger he said is and this is an ideology discussion. 00:21:19.782 --> 00:21:25.962 He says can we trust our government with a weapon this powerful? 00:21:25.962 --> 00:21:39.440 And Oppenheimer says I don't know, but I am certain of this we cannot trust the Germans with one, and that's why I'm working on it. 00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:44.984 And with that, the ideology shift of an idea. 00:21:44.984 --> 00:21:50.721 His friend joins him and was a chief reason that we did develop the bomb. 00:21:50.721 --> 00:21:54.404 I'm not here to debate the moral dilemma of that. 00:21:55.095 --> 00:22:06.326 I appreciate the honest struggle with people like Oppenheimer because we need to be doing that on a smaller scale today with who we are. 00:22:06.326 --> 00:22:11.326 So the challenge for knowing our enemy by ourselves is too powerful. 00:22:11.326 --> 00:22:14.122 You're going to lose that fight every single time. 00:22:14.122 --> 00:22:15.595 What do we do Y'all? 00:22:15.595 --> 00:22:20.385 We've got to become more thoughtful in our following Christ. 00:22:20.385 --> 00:22:22.760 We need to learn how to think. 00:22:22.760 --> 00:22:51.686 We need to be people who are independent thinkers, well enough to take the standard which is this and to be able to digest it, to struggle with it, to ask questions of it, to pray through it, to absorb it, to the fact that then, when we make decisions, when we have ideologies because, let's face it, wars start for one reason and that is ideas. 00:22:51.686 --> 00:23:02.279 Churchill said that All future wars now will be started by ideas, idealists, and that's exactly true. 00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:09.547 Our thinking ability under Christ will be an incredibly important thing. 00:23:10.355 --> 00:23:12.000 John 6 is a great example. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:28.522 John 6, jesus knows, in His infinite wisdom and timing, it's time to challenge, and he challenges all the people following Him and listening to Him and flocking Him like a rock star, and at that point a large portion of them walk out. 00:23:28.522 --> 00:23:34.422 They had to be hurtful and at this point I think I'd have hurt. 00:23:34.422 --> 00:23:37.423 Jesus turns to us 12 and he says what about you? 00:23:37.423 --> 00:23:39.419 Are you going to leave too? 00:23:40.515 --> 00:23:46.499 Now, peter, we like towe like to talk about Peter, because you know at Peter, what's he going to say next? 00:23:46.499 --> 00:23:49.040 He's the loose cannon of the group. 00:23:49.040 --> 00:24:01.141 Well, of course he speaks up in this occasion also, but this time he gives evidence of he had actually been thinking and what he said where are we going to go? 00:24:01.141 --> 00:24:09.626 You have the words of life and Jesus says you're exactly right. 00:24:09.626 --> 00:24:23.768 And Jesusand Peter decides to stay in it because he has been convinced he's now a man of conviction that I don't know where we're going, but I do know this. 00:24:23.768 --> 00:24:36.146 I'm going to follow this man because he has what I have been looking for all my life and I happen to believe he may have what everybody else needs for the rest of their life too. 00:24:36.146 --> 00:24:39.943 And is that not a cause worth following Absolutely? 00:24:39.943 --> 00:24:43.043 Is that not a cause worth us following here? 00:24:43.043 --> 00:24:44.578 Absolutely, it is. 00:24:44.578 --> 00:24:45.998 Let's move on real quick. 00:24:45.998 --> 00:24:46.701 That's the first thing. 00:24:46.701 --> 00:24:51.256 The second reason we don't do what we're supposed to do a lot of times is our corruption is too deep. 00:24:53.055 --> 00:24:53.336 Verse 8,. 00:24:53.336 --> 00:24:56.724 Come near to God and he will come near to you. 00:24:56.724 --> 00:25:01.104 Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. 00:25:01.104 --> 00:25:02.488 You double-minded. 00:25:02.488 --> 00:25:03.336 Double-minded. 00:25:03.395 --> 00:25:08.607 He mentions in chapter 1 verse 8 also, and it literally meant two minds your split. 00:25:08.607 --> 00:25:23.921 Your brain has been split, and you thinkremember the old cartoons where you'd have a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel or a person on the other, and you're hearing both of them. 00:25:23.921 --> 00:25:27.858 That's exactly what I mean. 00:25:27.858 --> 00:25:35.085 He could have been an artist for Warner Brothers, the cartoons, because that's exactly what we used to see on the cartoons and everything. 00:25:35.085 --> 00:25:46.685 But he's saying the way out of that is admit who you are and purify and wash, which were ceremonial terms back then, and theyeverybody knew that. 00:25:46.795 --> 00:25:53.118 So let's pretend something, because I know a lotpretty good segment of this country don't believe there's even a literal devil. 00:25:53.118 --> 00:25:57.262 So hey, if there were not, let's play that R. 00:25:57.262 --> 00:26:00.998 Let's say, oh yeah, there's a devil, but let's pretend somehow. 00:26:00.998 --> 00:26:03.923 This afternoon we get word he just died. 00:26:03.923 --> 00:26:08.218 Don't you wish the devil died? 00:26:09.434 --> 00:26:11.300 So what's that got to do with us now? 00:26:11.300 --> 00:26:23.787 Does that mean that we have the capacity to keep getting better and better, to where we're perfect one day and we're able to maintain perfection as human beings? 00:26:23.787 --> 00:26:28.365 There have been theologians in past days that thought you actually could. 00:26:28.365 --> 00:26:32.903 You press into what's good and noble enough. 00:26:32.903 --> 00:26:38.263 Christ's hard enough, good enough and diligently enough, you will get there. 00:26:38.263 --> 00:26:41.598 So now let's just go. 00:26:41.618 --> 00:26:42.683 We talked about scientists. 00:26:42.683 --> 00:26:44.592 Let's go to something more scientific. 00:26:44.592 --> 00:26:45.795 Let's study the data. 00:26:45.795 --> 00:26:50.836 How many people out of billions and billions of people in the history of the world have ever gotten there? 00:26:50.836 --> 00:26:52.502 Like zero? 00:26:52.502 --> 00:26:56.534 I don't think our odds are very good, do you? 00:26:56.534 --> 00:26:59.319 I don't think with or without. 00:26:59.319 --> 00:27:00.403 So what's going on? 00:27:00.403 --> 00:27:03.036 It's inside of us. 00:27:03.897 --> 00:27:09.291 That's back to the Bible, back to Genesis, chapter 3, they sin. 00:27:09.291 --> 00:27:17.255 They now inherit, as Paul says later, a sin we, each generation after that, a sin nature. 00:27:17.255 --> 00:27:20.065 Sure enough, chapter 4 of Genesis. 00:27:20.065 --> 00:27:21.329 They have a couple of boys. 00:27:21.329 --> 00:27:26.310 There's always sibling rivalry, but this one overboard, one of them kills his brother. 00:27:26.310 --> 00:27:42.313 And every generation since we have seen the reproduction of the first sin, that means we inherit the propensity and the draw and the magnetic ability to do our own sinning. 00:27:42.313 --> 00:27:53.507 Let me put it in the mental thing, because it always has to formulate as lack of thinking or actually consciously deciding to do a sin. 00:27:54.349 --> 00:28:06.832 One writer of a book I think it's called the Principle of the Path, said let me just remind you every bad decision that you've ever made, you were there for it and I was too. 00:28:06.832 --> 00:28:10.322 I was in the room for every bad decision that I made. 00:28:10.322 --> 00:28:13.431 So who's to blame here? 00:28:13.431 --> 00:28:17.938 Me, and it's the same with you too. 00:28:17.938 --> 00:28:22.184 Who is the worst person to lead? 00:28:22.184 --> 00:28:25.362 Some of you are responsible for hundreds of people at work. 00:28:25.362 --> 00:28:34.556 Some of you got large families, some of you now the patriarch of your families or your head of these civic groups and everything. 00:28:34.556 --> 00:28:40.638 I'm reallyevery day I'm more and more impressed with the quality of the leaders in this room. 00:28:40.638 --> 00:28:45.554 So who is the worst person to lead in all of your organization? 00:28:45.554 --> 00:28:49.842 Well, I'll tell you right now who it is. 00:28:49.842 --> 00:28:56.323 At Somerville Baptist Church, the worst person I have to lead here is Randy Harling. 00:28:56.323 --> 00:29:02.257 It's me and my guess is it's the same with you. 00:29:05.003 --> 00:29:12.637 This is the person you know the best but have, some days, the least control over my goodness. 00:29:12.637 --> 00:29:20.978 My goodness All the more important to come near to God every single day. 00:29:20.978 --> 00:29:37.743 I'm only as good as my surrender to Him, my prayer, my time with Him, my meditation, which is just extended thinking with Him during the day when the Bowses pray without ceasing. 00:29:37.743 --> 00:29:42.332 That doesn't mean we go around with our eyes closed to head down all the time mumbling a prayer. 00:29:42.332 --> 00:29:46.142 That means we have Him in us through the Spirit. 00:29:46.142 --> 00:29:50.597 Why don't we just commune with Him all during the day? 00:29:53.944 --> 00:29:58.736 It should always be from an attitude, from a position of surrender. 00:29:58.736 --> 00:30:02.145 What you want is what I need to do. 00:30:02.145 --> 00:30:06.298 What you want from this is what needs to happen. 00:30:06.298 --> 00:30:08.966 It's not what I want. 00:30:08.966 --> 00:30:17.326 I have a lot of wants and I'm terrible at second guessing the Lord and giving counsel to the Lord. 00:30:17.326 --> 00:30:35.912 But what I should be is a simple, loving Son who is also a slave, who got bought his freedom and now I have the ability to just stay in this family and all will be well in the end. 00:30:38.155 --> 00:30:42.144 We said it last week two or three times it can't be about me. 00:30:42.144 --> 00:30:49.730 It has to be what's best in this context for the body of Christ and it can't be about you. 00:30:49.730 --> 00:30:50.872 I'm sorry. 00:30:50.872 --> 00:31:09.702 It's got to be about the body of Christ, because he showed us clearly how to do that for 33 years and we're still enjoying the fruit and the benefits of that Third thing real quickly. 00:31:09.702 --> 00:31:17.128 You know we're too corrupt, the enemy is too powerful, but our self-confidence is too high. 00:31:17.128 --> 00:31:23.909 We have much more faith in us than we should have, don't you think so? 00:31:23.909 --> 00:31:34.543 Sometimes Some of the worst jams I have ever gotten in I put myself there thinking oh hey, I can figure that out. 00:31:34.543 --> 00:31:37.826 Have you ever said how hard could that be? 00:31:37.826 --> 00:31:42.505 I've said that many times before. 00:31:42.505 --> 00:31:49.201 Losing probably 10 years of my lifespan are a tremendous setback. 00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:54.364 Let's read 9 and 10. 00:31:54.364 --> 00:31:59.392 Grieve, mourn and wail change your laughter in the morning and your joy to gloom. 00:31:59.392 --> 00:32:09.827 This is not one of thoseyou don't typically text this verse to your friends at 5 am to encourage them for their day, do you? 00:32:09.827 --> 00:32:14.122 But we've got to read further Grieve. 00:32:14.122 --> 00:32:23.444 I just read that humble yourselves before the Lord and he he, not us, he will lift you up. 00:32:23.444 --> 00:32:29.653 Humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up. 00:32:29.653 --> 00:32:35.028 Jesus in Luke 1, 52 says humble yourself. 00:32:35.028 --> 00:32:49.070 Says this basically, he has brought down rulers from their thrones but he has lifted up the humble and he is speaking to a lot of humble people of His day who he knew the future for them. 00:32:49.070 --> 00:32:56.790 They're going to be lifted up and people in 2024 will be reading about them. 00:32:56.790 --> 00:33:07.611 James is one of them and Luke is one of them who captured that quote of Jesus. 00:33:08.059 --> 00:33:08.923 What causes grief? 00:33:08.923 --> 00:33:18.365 Well, of course, the loss of a loved one, the loss of health, the loss of a job, career significant loss always causes grief. 00:33:18.365 --> 00:33:18.961 But you know what? 00:33:18.961 --> 00:33:21.608 There's two other things that cause grief. 00:33:21.608 --> 00:33:33.068 The Word of God should cause grief on some days in my heart, because there's times I read this and I don't see myself in it. 00:33:33.068 --> 00:33:42.054 I am saved, but my point is, I read the Christ-like characteristics and I've got to say that's not me. 00:33:42.054 --> 00:33:47.586 That wasn't me yesterday, at least that should bethat should grieve my heart. 00:33:47.586 --> 00:34:04.626 The other is sometimes when we intercede on our knees for other people that are close to us and they are far, far, far away from that ideal that Jesus brought them into this world for, and that should grieve us too, shouldn't it? 00:34:04.626 --> 00:34:11.548 We should be grieved over the plight and the direction of our nation right now. 00:34:11.548 --> 00:34:15.503 That should bring some days action. 00:34:15.563 --> 00:34:28.482 Tears to our eyes, daniel, and Daniel 9 is weeping over a nation and he starts off the prayer by saying judge me first. 00:34:28.482 --> 00:34:33.648 He was not who his nation was. 00:34:33.648 --> 00:34:39.291 He was in captivity and exile because of the sins of people in his country. 00:34:39.291 --> 00:34:49.665 But he is saying I share some of this burden and some of this guilt just because I am a Jew and I am from that nation. 00:34:49.665 --> 00:34:54.422 That's what humility is. 00:34:54.422 --> 00:35:08.525 So our attitudes got to come before our actions, and the result is we become more humble. 00:35:08.525 --> 00:35:21.133 But check this out In among our humility, we become bolder and stronger and braver and more convicted. 00:35:22.382 --> 00:35:23.546 Well, how do you know that? 00:35:23.546 --> 00:35:25.423 Read the Gospels. 00:35:25.423 --> 00:35:32.407 There's a man named Jesus who was all of those things, and nobody was more humble than Jesus. 00:35:32.407 --> 00:35:35.748 Can I tell you another quick illustration story? 00:35:35.748 --> 00:35:43.765 There was a man in the Old Testament that is in print called the most humble man who lived to that point. 00:35:43.765 --> 00:35:44.761 Know who he was. 00:35:44.761 --> 00:35:50.959 Tribute it's Moses. 00:35:50.959 --> 00:36:00.439 Now, moses supposedly wrote the book that said that, so I don't know if that means he was like. 00:36:00.439 --> 00:36:07.071 If Moses was the most humble man, let's watch what he's doing in the book of Exodus, though. 00:36:07.071 --> 00:36:30.151 He goes into town and takes on the most powerful autocrat in the whole world at that time, demands that he basically bankrupt his economy and let a bunch of free workers go free and leave them and leave all these building projects stranded and decimate their economy. 00:36:30.151 --> 00:36:32.583 How's that for a bold ask. 00:36:32.583 --> 00:36:37.743 So what happened to Moses? 00:36:37.743 --> 00:36:41.284 Moses had a sense of justice. 00:36:41.759 --> 00:36:47.844 The humble Moses in the beginning identified with the slaves more than he identified with his royal family. 00:36:47.844 --> 00:36:52.710 He realizes he's a Hebrew and he's got a high sense of moral justice. 00:36:52.710 --> 00:37:05.208 He sees a slave owner beating down a slave and he takes the law into his own hands, kills the Egyptian and realizes, uh-oh, I've just lost everything. 00:37:05.208 --> 00:37:06.130 He flees. 00:37:06.130 --> 00:37:20.841 He goes to the backside of the desert a long way away, refashioned, refigures out a life as a humble shepherd, scratching out a living with a family that he's starting and all like that, and he goes to the burning bush. 00:37:20.841 --> 00:37:24.734 God appears to him and he says I have a mission for you. 00:37:24.734 --> 00:37:26.740 And he says what's that he said? 00:37:26.740 --> 00:37:34.146 I'm sending you back to the scene of the crime that you committed 40 years earlier and we're going to get it right this time. 00:37:34.146 --> 00:37:38.168 And there is nothing in Moses that wants to participate in that. 00:37:38.168 --> 00:37:43.495 And Moses finally says well, who am I supposed to say sent me? 00:37:43.495 --> 00:37:47.649 When they start questioning me on what right do I have to march in here and do that? 00:37:47.649 --> 00:37:51.327 He just says, as you know, the famous, I am who I am. 00:37:51.327 --> 00:37:56.545 He goes in, he does exactly as he's asked to do. 00:37:56.545 --> 00:37:57.228 He's humble. 00:37:57.228 --> 00:38:07.246 He's brought to his knees repeatedly, but he is also now a bold, on fire servant prophet of the Lord Almighty. 00:38:07.246 --> 00:38:13.570 He goes into the Egyptian throne room, makes his demands a pharaoh and you know the story. 00:38:13.570 --> 00:38:15.032 Probably Did it work? 00:38:15.032 --> 00:38:19.839 It worked, it worked. 00:38:19.839 --> 00:38:24.471 Now Egypt is upset with him again and his own people are upset with him. 00:38:24.471 --> 00:38:28.888 Their life just got incrementally more miserable. 00:38:30.479 --> 00:38:37.933 This is a key defining moment for Moses, because this is the same pattern that happened 40 years earlier. 00:38:37.933 --> 00:38:39.645 He failed 40 years earlier. 00:38:39.645 --> 00:38:41.024 He's on the road to failure. 00:38:41.024 --> 00:38:47.089 That appears the second time, only in a much more public way this time. 00:38:47.089 --> 00:38:50.023 What's the difference? 00:38:50.023 --> 00:38:54.517 If you read I think it's Exodus 3, 4, 5. 00:38:54.517 --> 00:38:58.948 Along in there he keeps calling on the name of God. 00:38:58.948 --> 00:39:00.993 Only this time it's Jehovah. 00:39:00.993 --> 00:39:02.923 Jehovah will deliver. 00:39:02.923 --> 00:39:04.287 I don't know how we're gonna do. 00:39:04.287 --> 00:39:07.397 Bricks now to Jehovah will show us how. 00:39:07.397 --> 00:39:09.763 I don't know when the powers come. 00:39:09.763 --> 00:39:11.386 Well, yeah, I do, it's Jehovah. 00:39:11.386 --> 00:39:14.012 You know what Jehovah meant deliverer. 00:39:14.012 --> 00:39:16.923 Here's the difference. 00:39:16.923 --> 00:39:20.288 He acted alone 40 years earlier. 00:39:20.288 --> 00:39:31.232 Now he walks back into town with the great deliverer Walking with him, who has made a promise, and he's never backed up on a promise. 00:39:31.232 --> 00:39:33.528 Moses chooses to believe him. 00:39:33.528 --> 00:39:45.588 So, as the most humble man in the world, he's now also the boldest and probably the purest Walking with God of anybody up to that point. 00:39:45.588 --> 00:39:56.351 And the two of them change a nation's destiny and future and Set the course for the whole world to be changed when Christ comes. 00:39:56.351 --> 00:40:04.365 That's how Humble boldness works. 00:40:05.622 --> 00:40:08.392 So, as a close out here, can I give you an application? 00:40:08.392 --> 00:40:10.966 I think we all need some go-to verses. 00:40:10.966 --> 00:40:15.605 My definition of a go-to verse it may include your omission verse. 00:40:15.605 --> 00:40:23.750 Why are you on this earth If there's a verse you can Grab and memorize and try your best to monitor your life and live by? 00:40:23.750 --> 00:40:25.513 There's so many great ones. 00:40:25.513 --> 00:40:26.942 That's one of them. 00:40:26.962 --> 00:40:37.872 But what I'm really talking about today, how do we do the daily discipline of prayer With the Lord, if we're gonna start and end our prayers with surrender to him? 00:40:37.872 --> 00:40:39.706 Well, let me give you three or four. 00:40:39.706 --> 00:40:42.085 Romans 721. 00:40:42.085 --> 00:40:46.619 Paul says when I seek to do right, evil is right there beside me. 00:40:46.619 --> 00:40:48.245 Y'all know how that works, don't you? 00:40:48.245 --> 00:40:53.085 Every time I try to do something good, evil is right there with me. 00:40:54.321 --> 00:40:57.665 How about all of chapter Of Psalm 51? 00:40:57.665 --> 00:41:02.059