WEBVTT 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:01.919 Go ahead and get your Bible in hand. 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:04.879 I'm going to ask you to open the book of Psalms in just a moment. 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:08.080 But I've got to tell you something that actually gets the message going. 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:10.720 Our uh granddaughter. 00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:23.199 She's uh just entered her teenage years, and like uh uh teenage girls, uh there is such a some somehow the speed of speech increases as soon as you turn teenager. 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:28.480 And uh the the the talkativeness, especially of girls, that's an untended amock. 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:40.799 In fact, it has its own cuteness to it, but became a problem when she had recurrent slips of tongue in which she said things that were really just funny and and two or three things that were just very, very embarrassing. 00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:47.679 Unwitting, it gets out, and she just, oh, yeah, oops, you know, and she has her hands over her face, just feels so embarrassed. 00:00:47.920 --> 00:01:03.520 And uh we've I won't even give you a sample of those because they well, a couple of them border on the indecent, though it doesn't get all the way there, but it had to do with word slips and uh double meanings that could be drawn from something the kid never intended and so forth. 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:19.519 But she uh was with her mom after one of these things happened, and her mom, who's uh one of our two daughters, of course, said uh said, you know, you're really gonna have to, you're gonna have to be more careful. 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:24.079 And you need you need to think about what you're saying. 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:31.359 And she was being very respectful to her mom and said, you know, I just I want to do that, what you say. 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:42.239 A couple of days later she came back and she said to her mom, she says, You know, mom, she said, I've thought a lot about this, and I'm I want you to know that I want to become a thinking person. 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:46.959 And she was very serious and respectful. 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:55.760 She said, I'm gonna become a thinking person, and I'm I'm gonna start saying something, and then I'm gonna think about it after I say it. 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:05.120 And uh her daughter said to her, honey, I think it's the other way around, you know. 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:08.800 So it was a classic case of the very thing she'd been doing. 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:21.199 But uh the message I have for you today is uh something that uh has been said, and I want us to think about it. 00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:29.759 And it has been said first in a broad and sweeping way, in the book of Psalms, in one verse, I'm gonna ask you to turn to with me. 00:02:30.159 --> 00:02:34.159 119th Psalm, which is the longest chapter in the Bible. 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:36.400 It has 176 verses. 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:45.840 In every verse of the 119th Psalm, there is a synonym for the word of God used there, sometimes the word, your word. 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:46.719 It will say that. 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:51.280 It's in this text it says your law, statutes, your judgments. 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:57.039 And that idea of judgments is judgment as an instrument of deliverance, the way the judges of Israel. 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:02.800 When we think about God's judgments, there this is not just a matter of God running around with a sledgehammer. 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:18.479 This is a matter of God making ways of being freed from or deliverance from things that would entrap, the way that the ancient judges of Israel did, the way that when justice is dealt, people go free, at least somebody does. 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:37.520 And the instance of this text sets us forward this morning, Psalm 119, verse 165, verse 165, and like few chapters in the Bible, so you may have to turn a couple pages to get there if you were at the beginning of the Psalm, because it, as I said, is a very long chapter. 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:45.199 And the word in this chapter, in verse 165, is the one that uh I mentioned a moment ago. 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:48.479 It's the word law, for it's talking about the word of God. 00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:53.199 Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble. 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:54.319 The words are here on the screen. 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:55.599 Read them aloud with me. 00:03:55.759 --> 00:04:00.560 And read it loudly, would you, right where you are, and let's fill the house with the sound of the word of God. 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:01.439 Reading? 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:07.039 Great peace are goes to love, and nothing causes. 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:12.240 That feels so good to not say it myself and to listen to you saying it. 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:13.039 That was great. 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:16.639 Nudge the person next to you and say, You you maybe you ought to preach sometime. 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:17.839 Go on, tell them. 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:25.759 Great peace. 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:36.959 The word shalom, as most of you have probably heard sometime or another, the word peace in Hebrew, which would have been used here, of course, is the word that spans the spectrum of every part of our lives. 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:44.480 It is not just peace in a political sense internationally, as beautiful as that would be if such a thing were to take place. 00:04:44.800 --> 00:05:00.560 Uh not just peace in the internal sense of our own comfort zones being in a good position, but the the it's the word for health, it's the word that relates really to everything that has to do with wholeness and completeness. 00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:20.160 And it says, great completeness will be the portion, and I'm going to move into the areas of how we relate to people, how influence flows out of the sort of person we let God's word help us to become. 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:22.959 How many people there are? 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:38.319 I'm not suggesting there's any necessarily in the room, but how many people there are that think in terms of that if you do what the Bible says you'll become a religious person, and a religious person, how many people will say, Well, I'm not religious? 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:55.920 And uh they have, if you were to ask them to define what that means, it usually is some kind of rigidity, an inflexibility, a judgmentalism, it has to do with some kind of a piety that seems out of touch with realism in the society around you. 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:07.600 The wholeness of life that the Lord offers to us does have boundary lines because it guards us from the things that make life unfruitful and unproductive. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:23.279 But the wholeness is broad in its scope, and when it's truly lived out in the Lord's way, especially relationally, the way we relate to people around us, in every way, all the way from the way that we communicate, the way we think and feel. 00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:37.759 I'm going to conclude in about 20, 25 minutes, and I'm going to have told you a story by that time of how an attitude I didn't even realize how destructive it was in myself that I had, knowing full well better, I knew the Bible. 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:57.120 I was, I'd been in the ministry for about 10 years when the when this uh not that long, uh I'd been in very involved in Christian life for about six or seven years, but I technically at that point had not actually entered the ministry yet, because it starts back right at the time Anna and I were married, and I'll tell the story in a bit. 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:13.839 But the point is that I knew better, but I was very, very guilty of something that was possibly, and there's no way of diagnosing it precisely, but when you hear and I'm done with a story, you'll say, yeah, probably entered in somewhere. 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:25.360 It's hard to figure out how the chemistry of things in the invisible realm of our relationships and what happens to people we would want to influence in very positive ways. 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:31.759 Not just to help them know the love of God and come to Christ, but to show a friendship that begets friendship in response. 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:36.480 Show a generosity that begets generosity in response, shows a neighborliness. 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:54.720 How many of us have had, I suppose most of us one time or another, a neighbor that was horribly frustrating and seemed an impossible circumstance to deal with because of unreasonableness on their part or behavior or whatever the antagonism may have been. 00:07:55.920 --> 00:08:00.959 We can respond in ways that block potential influence. 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:26.480 And as we step into the new year, this message really is brought with the hope that for every person in the room it will do something at the level where your being encounters the truth of the book, that it integrates in a pragmatic way that results in your becoming a person of broader influence. 00:08:27.839 --> 00:08:32.159 That is what will make the way for any witness you have to bear. 00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:43.600 So many times people think of witnesses grab a flag and wave it, put the Bible in somebody's face, quote scripture, make mildly incriminating remarks about things you disapprove of. 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:48.399 And those things come through with such counterproductivity. 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:59.919 And the Lord is not calling us to be passive or indifferent toward things that are offensive and impure, unrighteous, and destructive to people. 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:11.440 He's not saying those things make no difference and be passive about it, but he's saying the way that you're going to be most active is by relating in ways that he has taught us in his word. 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:16.480 I want to talk about a promise that's in your lap. 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:17.519 Would you say those words? 00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:19.600 A promise in your lap. 00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:20.559 Say it, please. 00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:23.039 A promise in your lap. 00:09:24.159 --> 00:09:28.159 Now, really, this message is about prophesying your future. 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:34.399 And I've used that title, and the primary statement of what it's about is a promise that's in our lap. 00:09:34.480 --> 00:09:38.240 And I'm going to elaborate that in a minute, then tell the story. 00:09:38.799 --> 00:09:47.519 But the prophesying of your future is not an arrogant suggestion, as though we can concoct something and say, I will dictate my destiny. 00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:52.559 I think one of the most ridiculous statements you will hear all the time, and you hear it a great deal in sports reports. 00:09:52.720 --> 00:10:13.600 I'm very interested in athletics coming up and coming toward the end of the pro season, the playoffs are in motion, football, as you come into the uh finish of the climaxing games of the Hollywood of the college season with the BCS championships and coming about in other parts. 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:20.000 Those of you that have interest in this, as I do and many of us do, and by the way, uh don't let the room explode. 00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:24.559 But many people are here as pleased as they can be that TCU won yesterday. 00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:31.360 And congratulate them on a 13-win season. 00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:40.159 But the whole point is, and I'm from Los Angeles, and so I but I'm serious about college football, especially with pastoring all my life. 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:48.399 You know, Sunday's pretty well tied up, and I haven't been into the pros as much because uh the whole day is shot to heaven. 00:10:48.720 --> 00:11:14.559 But uh when you come to when you come to the concept of prophesying your own future, it's based on what the Bible teaches, and these words don't occur in the scripture, but it's the the laws of reciprocity or reciprocal response. 00:11:14.799 --> 00:11:17.039 Given it shall be given unto you. 00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:19.840 Judge not, you won't be judged. 00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:23.039 To those who hear, more will be given. 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:29.039 To those who don't hear, even what they've already begun to get, they'll begin to lose. 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:35.919 It's the principles of life that rebound on you. 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:43.440 And they can rebound with blessing and fruitfulness, or they can rebound with the opposite. 00:11:45.759 --> 00:12:01.519 In the words of Jesus, in just a package of about five verses in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, is one of the ones that you know in this congregation, if you're an ongoing part of the church, probably better than a lot of people do, though, it's one of the most quoted in the Bible. 00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:18.159 And you would be very aware of it because it probably, as much as any single text beside John 3.16, and then other essence, essential verses concerning our coming into a walk with God, the principles within a walk with God, where given it shall be given unto you. 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:27.440 I'm going to note two words that follow later in that verse, but precede it by where that passage begins, about three or four verses before in the sixth chapter of Luke. 00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:33.600 Because it's there that the Bible says, judge not, Jesus is the one who's doing the talking here, by the way. 00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:37.440 Red letter edition of the Bible, it's right there, bright and clear for you. 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:43.120 And Jesus is saying, Judge not, and you will not be judged. 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:46.480 Condemn not, and you won't be condemned. 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:50.639 He says, Give and it shall be given unto you. 00:12:51.039 --> 00:12:53.039 Laws of reciprocity. 00:12:53.360 --> 00:13:07.440 Then it goes on with that last verse and says, pressed down, shaken together, and overrunning, running over, will, listen to this, please, because it's central to the point I'm making before I tell the story. 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:19.919 Press down, shaken together, ring it over, shall men, or shall people, people around you, shall people heap into your bosom? 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:27.600 Almost every translation uses the word bosom there, and it's talking about this part of our being. 00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:33.600 In other words, if something were to be given to you, the other day Anna and I did some post-Christmas shopping. 00:13:33.679 --> 00:13:38.159 There's some really good sales on, and we were doing some shopping already for next Christmas. 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:44.000 And I walked out of a store and I had a group of boxes post-Christmas, not to mention going into Christmas. 00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:47.200 These things happen so much of carrying sizable boxes. 00:13:47.279 --> 00:13:55.120 There's there was there in this circle of this area that is referred to as bosom in the Bible. 00:13:55.360 --> 00:14:02.080 I'm carrying these things that had been heaped on me as a result of Anna's and my shopping and carrying them out to the car. 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:05.519 Shall people heap into your bosom? 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:07.840 Give, shall be given unto you. 00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:13.519 It's the concluding of those three: judge not, condemn not, then give. 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:23.679 And that package probably centralizes the whole idea of the law of reciprocity as much as any, though it occurs in many regards to life. 00:14:23.919 --> 00:14:28.240 And in places where it doesn't say it so succinctly, it is nonetheless there. 00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:53.600 And that's why the 119th Psalm says, Great peace of those who love or they embrace or welcome into their heart what turns out to be a welcoming, they will not only not stumble, but there will be much that comes from the contacts of people around them that heap back toward them. 00:14:53.840 --> 00:15:24.720 In short, the Bible is very clear in saying you relate to people in a way that is gracious, that is non-judgmental, get over the spirit of condemnation toward others, come to terms with letting the Holy Spirit show you where you have been embittered to the place that is just as your point of concern or irritation may be, that anybody would say that's wrong. 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:36.639 That the Lord is saying that while I loved and received you when you were way out of line, I'm calling you to learn, to learn that. 00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:38.480 Let me grow it in you. 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:40.960 And it doesn't come easily. 00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:53.919 And how readily, even though we know the Lord and are seeking to pursue his way in our lives, how readily we can give place to it unintentionally, is the story that I'm going to tell. 00:15:54.399 --> 00:16:09.679 But I want to first talk about this shall men heap into your bosom, because it's a fascinating thing that the word that is in the New Testament, kolpos, is the Greek word that's translated bosom, and it occurs in most translations, but there's a few that it says it in different ways. 00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:40.240 And it's a difficult word because it describes something about our being that is encircled in this area that if you were in a seated position as you are right now, but leaning together to where your head and then chest and then came down to your lap, this curve, would form, if you were to turn it sideways, kind of this shape, which occasions the use of the word in the 27th chapter of the book of Acts, translated a bay. 00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:53.600 It's talking about the passage where the Apostle Paul is on a ship, there's a storm, and they they put into there's a bay, and they attempt to enter the bay after the storm is over. 00:16:54.720 --> 00:17:21.279 And I want to take just a minute of the topography of uh just very the geology that forms a bay, because it's formed by streams that come down and erode sufficiently that it uh just causes over long-term period of time, occasions the formation of a bay where there had been water streaming through and then washing out the area in around where the streams came in and converged. 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:25.279 Then it's into that that the tide comes. 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:58.480 And this picture that is given helps us see, I think, of how God is saying, I want the way that you relate to become like a bay, where something is shaped in you by the stream of my spirit flowing down like the mountainside that begins to wash out in you stuff that opens up an area in you where there can sweep in not just the goodness of God to you, but sweep in the favor of influence with people. 00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:11.839 And not because you're looking for what you can get out of them or what you can manipulate or what you can gain, but because there's something about you that becomes winsome, something about you that makes people trust you. 00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:30.480 The word is used, kulpas was a word that was used for people that were welcomed into the membership or environment of a culture they would not have been otherwise, except for whatever reason occasioned their being welcomed, which we would doubtless was a pretty positive reason. 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:39.279 It's a word that's used, interestingly, for sitting at a place of honor at a meal. 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:48.400 It's a word that is used to applied to uh intimacy of trust between people. 00:18:48.799 --> 00:18:58.480 In other words, people begin to recognize you as somebody they can trust, somebody that they're happy to have in their circle of friends. 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:04.319 Somebody to whom they'd say, I like that person. 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:14.720 And if it was, as it was used in those times to be a member of a society or a club, they'd say, I would like them in an association I'm a part of. 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:22.160 And it's something that happens attitudinally in people, not necessarily in a formal way, other than a relational way. 00:19:24.079 --> 00:19:27.119 There's something about that that's seen so beautifully in Jesus. 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:30.720 Everything about Jesus has this quality. 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:33.200 Everything about Jesus. 00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:35.119 People came to him. 00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:54.480 And the people that were criticized, Jesus was criticized because the religionists who missed the whole heart of God were looking at God incarnate in their midst and as people who didn't know the love of God and wanted it, saw in him something that drew them to him. 00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:58.240 And the scripture says publicans and sinners came to him. 00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:05.519 It's talking about people that would have been deemed completely unworthy of anything by the religious culture in that particular community. 00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:07.920 Jesus had this quality. 00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:31.839 A witness for Christ really is this kind of person, and it's what opens the door, it's what provides the platform for you to be what we call a witness without it becoming something we suppose by waving flags or imposing scriptures or making people feel mildly guilty because of the way we comment on something, as though there's a certain moral superiority on our part. 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:36.720 That's something that will come through by a life that we live. 00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:47.519 And it's not being passive with our witness as though that's not important, but it's establishing the grounds for a witness to be presented because doors open. 00:20:48.079 --> 00:21:01.279 People say that's a kind of person that they'd finally come to say that if I thought of how Jesus must have been, and they know anything about him at all, I'd say that's one of them. 00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:21.839 People will heap into your bosom as a result of that attitude that is that non-judgmental attitude, and it'll bring a greatness, expansiveness of the peace of God, not only in you, but what it breeds of contact with people. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:26.240 Blessed are the peacemakers, they'll be called the children of God, the scripture says. 00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:32.960 There's something about them that shows the reproduced image of the Lord in their life, children of God. 00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:37.759 And that something becomes winsome like Jesus, draws people. 00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:42.000 Winsome is what I wanted to be toward Leo. 00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:45.359 Leo was Anna's brother. 00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:49.200 And we had gone back to visit her family for the first time. 00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:52.160 We'd only been married a matter of days. 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:59.359 Let me tell you right now, young couples anticipating marriage, don't plan on a honeymoon at the in laws. 00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:04.240 We didn't really have trouble. 00:22:04.319 --> 00:22:07.039 It's just really not the way to have a honeymoon. 00:22:07.359 --> 00:22:10.160 And but we were kids in college. 00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:14.880 We were moving into our senior year of college, and we got married that summer. 00:22:15.119 --> 00:22:20.240 And as we went back to Nebraska, where Anna's from, we were in college in California. 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:27.200 So we went back there to, but it was my meeting, her family, for the first time, took place at that time. 00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:32.960 We got married in California instead of her home because all of our friends were there, the college kids we wanted in the wedding. 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:34.720 I was raised in Oakland, California. 00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:35.920 We went up there, got married. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:38.720 The kids were able to drive up, wasn't that far, it worked better. 00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:45.599 Then we went immediately back to indicate to the rest of the family our respect, regard, and love for them, and that's how when I met Leo. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:47.279 Anna's one of nine children. 00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:49.680 Leo is the one that's next older than her. 00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:52.480 He's the sixth in the family, and Anna's the seventh. 00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:54.240 That was the perfect one. 00:22:55.119 --> 00:22:56.319 Number seven. 00:22:57.200 --> 00:22:58.640 Anne of the nine. 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:06.799 I was looking forward to meeting Leo because he would have been really the closest to my age of the guys. 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:18.880 And as I looked forward to that, I was aware of what Anna had told me because when Leo came back from the military, he had stepped away from any real commitment of his life to Jesus Christ. 00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:36.160 Raised in the way of the Lord, walked very active as a believer, but things happened during the period that he was away from home, that whatever it was when he came back, he was less than, not only just less than zealous, wasn't antagonistic, just distant from anything of a walk with God. 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:49.519 And I realized that the last thing in the world that he was uh that he needed to see was a a new brother-in-law who, being a preacher of the gospel, was coming with hot gospel to splatter it in his face. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:56.319 And uh I wanted to just show him that I was ready to be a brother-in-law, just a friend. 00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:04.640 I understood that Leo really enjoyed bowling, and when I met him the first time, we talked a little bit, and I told him my own interest at that time in my life. 00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:14.319 Earlier before I went to college, I'd bowled some and was reasonably good, and I said it would really be enjoyable to go out and bowl with you during these days that we are here. 00:24:14.559 --> 00:24:19.680 And I that was the only real overture that I made beside just a little bit of a visit. 00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:36.559 He was courteous, but I recognized even then a little bit of a caution, which I understood to be because Jack is preparing for the ministry, and he probably knows where I'm in my spiritual life, and I'm not interested in going anywhere like that. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:51.759 Over a span of 20 years, with the occasional visits that we had back to Nebraska, every one of which I attempted to make some kind of friendly approach to Leo. 00:24:52.319 --> 00:24:53.599 Nothing happened. 00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:57.920 Not only did nothing happen, but you could feel the frostiness that there was. 00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:01.519 He was never impolite, never outright rejection. 00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:06.240 There was just a very cool distance that was there in the air. 00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:11.279 I don't even know to what degree he calculated it, but it certainly came through. 00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:19.119 I found myself coming to the place that I was increasingly bewildered. 00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:24.319 I couldn't just even find any of a willingness to establish friendship. 00:25:24.559 --> 00:25:35.599 I'd made it clear by this time, being around enough, that it wasn't anything I was trying to con him into a return to Christ or set him up in order that I could knock him down with the gospel. 00:25:35.839 --> 00:25:37.839 He knew all the gospel he needed anyway. 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:42.319 What I was looking for was a chance to just verify I liked him. 00:25:43.440 --> 00:26:01.200 But the absence of response, while it was not an aggressive rejection, was something that was increasingly becoming to some degree frustrating to me, which I never did show on my face, always sought to be cordial just as he was cordial. 00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:11.519 Always had some kind of effort to what's a door you could knock on and possibly make contact and show him I just wanted to be a friend, but it never worked. 00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:22.720 Something happened on the last time we were there for the Anna's Folk's 50th wedding anniversary, and this is when it happened. 00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:28.880 We were out in the backyard of the folks' house and we were visiting, and I don't know what it was I said, but there came this thing. 00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:31.359 You could feel it, it could be felt. 00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:42.880 Nothing that was said outright, never impolite, never a verbal rejection, just but you could feel that the wall was there again. 00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:51.759 And I thought this thought, and this is the thing that I don't like to admit, but it's I wasn't aware of it to the degree of its impact at the time. 00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:54.400 I thought, you know, I'm through. 00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:57.519 I'm through with Leo. 00:26:58.559 --> 00:27:00.319 I was thinking I'm through trying. 00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:02.400 I'm not through with Leo, I'm through trying. 00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:10.240 But I'm, for all intention and purposes, I was through anything that I had to make any effort to care about Leo. 00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:21.440 And I didn't realize the degree to which that sunk in my spirit from that moment until six months later, when I walked into the kitchen on Valentine's Sunday morning and reached over on the table. 00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:25.119 I was eating a bowl of cereal before I went over to church for the first service. 00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:32.559 And I showed her there's a Valentine there, and I opened it because you could see it was a humorous card by the design on the front and the words. 00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:36.400 I went looked to see what the punchline was, and I don't remember what the punchline was. 00:27:36.559 --> 00:27:43.920 The real punchline that came to me was in handwriting at the bottom from Leo's teenage daughter, who had written a letter. 00:27:44.079 --> 00:27:53.440 Both the girls were 13 to our teenage daughter, and wrote her and said this, Becky, I just wanted to say thank you in your last letter. 00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:55.200 The girls were pen pals. 00:27:55.440 --> 00:28:02.559 I wanted to thank you in your last letter, how you mentioned you're still praying every day for my daddy to come back to Jesus. 00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:08.000 It's emotional to me to tell that to this day. 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:12.400 And what I'm describing you took place for me 30 years ago. 00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:17.440 And what happened in that moment is I my knees went weak. 00:28:17.599 --> 00:28:24.240 I felt like, I suppose you would feel if you had a sort of ice go right through the center of your being. 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:27.839 I went weak. 00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:30.720 And I in fact positioned myself. 00:28:30.799 --> 00:28:40.079 I didn't fall flat, I had a controlled, go to your knees because I had to get down, but then I prostrated myself all the way down. 00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:56.480 Because I was blown away by the fact that it suddenly dawned on me that from the day I stood in the backyard and said, I'm through with Leo, to that day six months later, I had not prayed even for Leo one time. 00:28:58.559 --> 00:29:04.640 He had gone off my prayer list without my calculating, put him off your prayer list, because I would never have done that. 00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:17.440 There's something about attitude in us of people that we feel build walls against us or would. 00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:27.279 That even when we're at our best, in our most sincere mode of wanting to be what we ought to be, we get in our own way. 00:29:27.599 --> 00:30:31.039 Probably a classic case, loved ones, is the whole Christian, not the whole, much of the Christian community in our own land has become oftentimes so offended by things that are represented in government, in leaders, in a community, in circumstances of moral stances that are in the culture, that in our unwillingness to accept the mores that are being washed away, that violate human sanity and health and well-being for people, that it comes across so often to culture and breeds something in us as more than just a position we've taken, but an attitude that may go often deeper, that builds a wall against the tide of public opinion, recognizing there is an openness to it because there's a bay of generosity where the word has streamed down from the mountain of God through his word and fixed an openness in our hearts when Jesus says, judge not and you won't be judged. 00:30:31.279 --> 00:30:33.759 Don't condemn and you won't be condemned. 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:35.759 Let me give you an example of condemning. 00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:36.880 I'm through with that. 00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:38.640 I'm through with Leo. 00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:42.000 Is that what you meant to do, Jack? 00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:42.559 No. 00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:45.039 But I repented that day. 00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:46.799 I cried. 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:56.640 I went to church that day, a better pastor, a better believer, a better guy in terms of God's purpose for me. 00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:59.920 I don't know how it played into, but I know this. 00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:09.680 Six months later, after Leo had been away from the Lord for about 25 years now, we came home from a Sunday night service. 00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:26.559 Anna went in the kitchen to get a snack for the kids, and I was in the uh, I'd gone in to take a shower because it was a hot July night, and I'd ministered that night, and I was uh perspiring, and I went in to shower and I had put my bedclothes on. 00:31:26.640 --> 00:31:28.799 I'm just sitting there putting my slippers on inside of the bed. 00:31:28.880 --> 00:31:29.920 It's such a clear memory. 00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:37.039 And the phone rang right there beside the bed, and I picked it up, and Anna had picked it up in the kitchen at the same time and said, Hello. 00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:43.759 We said it simultaneously, precisely, and the voice on the other end said, Hi guys, this is Leo. 00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:56.960 And there was a different sound to his voice, and he said, Listen, he said, I just wanted to call you guys tonight to tell you that tonight I went to church and I came back to the Lord Jesus and have returned to him. 00:31:57.599 --> 00:31:58.559 And I was. 00:32:01.599 --> 00:32:10.079 We both rejoiced and we talked for a few minutes, and it wasn't a long conversation, but it was a happy and a rejoicing and praise-filled one. 00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:14.079 It happened, I hung the phone up and I laid back down on the pillow. 00:32:14.240 --> 00:32:22.640 I laid on the pillow, turned around and just and and wept for a minute or two, not profusely, but just tears coming down. 00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:30.559 But while I was weeping with gratitude, the thought entered my mind, Lord, I don't know, and it doesn't make any difference now. 00:32:31.359 --> 00:32:37.200 But I don't know to what degree for all those years that there may have been something in me that blocked. 00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:37.680 I don't know. 00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:40.240 You say, don't put that on me, Jack. 00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.759 I'm not putting it on you anymore than I'm putting it on me. 00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:58.720 I'm only saying this: that Jesus says himself that there is something that will block the release of that circle of your welcome in people's attitude toward you. 00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:04.880 The tide of openness toward you because you are open toward it. 00:33:05.200 --> 00:33:06.880 The bay, the bosom. 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:10.160 People, men will press into your bosom. 00:33:10.319 --> 00:33:35.359 People will move into relational association with you at a dimension of trust and openness as a result of something that is non-judgmental, non-condemning, and we are so vulnerable to that dominating little unrecognized parts of our life, and sometimes justifying it because of what has been done, acted out, or is going on around us. 00:33:35.599 --> 00:33:47.359 And what Jesus is saying to us is not that the values for which any of us would stand or the gospel we want to communicate are the values are wrong or the gospel ought not be spoken. 00:33:47.839 --> 00:33:59.039 He's saying that what is going to make it work is the way you stance yourself toward society, toward people, toward your neighbor, toward members of your own family. 00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:04.720 And when that takes place, he says the tide's gonna start coming in. 00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:10.960 And loved ones, that is the tide of influence, of trust, and of welcome. 00:34:11.119 --> 00:34:39.599 And it's what I ask God to grant all of you great peace, health, welcome, trust have those who let this book, this word, ruin their lives so their ear becomes tuned to the Holy Spirit when he finally gets through as he did to me, too many years later, but after points of internal aggravation that I won't attempt to justify. 00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:44.320 God bless you with a new year of influence. 00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:57.920 God bless you with what becomes more winsome openness and winning for the glory of Jesus Christ, because it will draw people to you and thereby to Him. 00:34:58.239 --> 00:34:58.960 Let's pray. 00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:09.280 Father, in Jesus' name, work these things in us and launch any point right now where there's been blindness in any way. 00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:11.599 In your holy name we pray. 00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:12.559 Amen.