ONE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS - S:01 E:23

RECORDED IN THE STRONGHOLD STUDIO IN PALM BAY, FLORIDA

THEME SONG "STAY IN MY LANE" - WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY BURKS

AUDIO EDITED BY U-DIRECT VIDEO WORKS IN AUBREY, TEXAS

PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY JAMES EDWARD BURKS FOR ONE VOICE MINISTRIES

https://www.onevoiceministriesinc.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Which thing is leading you? Is it the Spirit of God or is it your own flesh, your own desires, your own agenda? Which one is it? Which one is more important to you? Which one which one is gonna lead to life uh versus the other one that will lead to destruction? All right? Let's talk about that today on One Voice in the Wilderness. Hey friends, James Burks from One Voice Ministries. Glad to have you here for our podcast, One Voice in the Wilderness. Uh we love coming to you each week. Uh we're just excited about sharing the Word of God and we desire it to bless your hearts. We started a lesson last week talking about the works of the flesh, those things that are in contrast to the fruit of the spirit. We didn't get very far, uh, laid a lot of groundwork for the intro. So go back and take a look at that if you missed that episode, um, so that way we can just dive in and go a little bit further uh this week. Um, but we're glad to have you here with us. We thank uh uh our son uh Jesse, who does our video production, uh You Direct Works. Um look him up if you have a project that you need, and our son Caleb for the theme song, um Stay in Your Lane. Uh it's the reminder for me. Every time the episode airs, it's the reminder for me. I simply want to do the thing that God is calling me to do. I I can't do what everyone else is doing. I I can't even worry about what everyone else is doing. I need to do what he's calling me to do, and we're excited to do that, and this is a part of that. So glad to have you here. Let's open in prayer and then we'll go from there. Lord, we love you and we thank you, and we're just so grateful as always uh to be able to share your word. Uh that is life, that is truth, it is what we need every single day. So thank you. Uh Lord, I pray that again, whatever we share, first of all, that it's from you, um, that I die to self, that I take up my cross, that I follow after you, that it's not about me, it's not about um anything I'm trying to do or my agenda, but it's simply speaking what you've given me to speak and doing what you've given me to do. And so, Father, just lead this time, guide it, uh speak to every heart, every listener, and in that, Father, we just give you the glory. You alone deserve it, and we give you the praise in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So we're in uh Galatians chapter 5, and we're talking about the works of the flesh. We did a series on the fruit of the spirit. Now we're looking at the works of the flesh. That thing that runs contrary to the spirit of God is us and our attitude and our junk and the world and the enemy and things like that. Those are the things that run contrary to having a life in Christ Jesus. All right? And so let's look at this list again. We'll read through the list one more time, um, and then we want to continue going a little bit further. Uh, Galatians 5, verse 19 from the King James, it reads, Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variants, uh, emulations, emulations, excuse me, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I also told you in time past, that that which that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Alright? Again, a reminder, that passage isn't at the end is not saying that if you've ever done these things, you can't have eternal life and have salvation in Christ Jesus. It's saying if that's how you choose to live your life going forward, if that's what you're all about, is these works of the flesh, if you aren't surrendered, if you aren't repentant, if you don't believe, if you don't trust in Jesus Christ, then yeah, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. Okay? So we dove in last week. We made it as far as verse uh got through verse 19, and so we're on verse 20. The first one mentioned there is idolatry. All right, and I've probably talked about this in the past, but idolatry is the worship or devotion to anything other than the true God of the Bible, of Scripture. Okay? I am a follower and a believer of Jesus Christ, and so what I use as a guide in conjunction with the Holy Spirit living in me is the Word of God, the Holy Bible. That's what I live by, that's what I read, that's what I believe, that's what I search out, that's where I'm looking for answers, that's what helps me navigate life is the Bible. The Bible clearly gives us a description of God from page one to the very last page. If you read the word of God, you will start to get a picture of God. You will see God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. You will see his son Jesus coming as God in the flesh, Emmanuel, and living a perfect life and then being the ultimate sacrifice to pay the penalty that we owed for our sin. Okay? He rose again on the third day, and in all of that, God was pleased, and so now salvation has been made available to each of us. Okay? This is the God of Scripture. Alright? Other gods with other religions, those gods will have you die for them. What we believe and what scripture teaches is that our God laid down his life for us so that we could have life eternal. But we do have to repent, we do have to believe, we do have to trust, we do have to put our faith in Jesus Christ. Alright? So if you are idolizing, worshiping, devoted to anything other than Jesus Christ, okay? That's idolatry. And folks, it's so easy to make anything into an idol. You can take a blessing and turn it into an idol, all right? The blessing of your family, your children can become an idol, your marriage can become an idol, your job, your home, your transportation, um anything that you have in your possession could be something that starts to become more important than God. That's a work of the flesh. Okay? That is idolatry. Let's keep going. Uh, witchcraft, all right? Witchcraft is sorcery, um, operating in a realm of evil, practicing of magic and spells. What it is, is it's an attempt to manipulate the outcome of something by a power that you think you possess or a control that you think you have. That's witchcraft. And it's really interesting. Um, if you turn to uh 1 Samuel chapter 15, okay, what's happening in 1 Samuel chapter 15 is it's unfolding a story where God had instructed uh the king, Saul, that when he went into this land to uh conquer this particular people, okay, uh the Amalekites, he was supposed to go in and he was supposed to uh destroy the Amalekites and destroy everything that the Amalekites had. Okay, he was supposed to enjoy, destroy the people, and in addition to that, the oxes, the sheep, the camels, um, all of that stuff was supposed to be destroyed. Don't take any of it, don't keep any of it, don't possess any of it, none of that. You were supposed to go into the city and destroy everything. Okay? So the king goes in, and he goes in with uh 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah, okay? And they go in, they lay in wait, and then boom, they destroy the people, they smote the Amalekites, okay? They took the king of the Amalekites alive, they destroyed all the people at the edge of the sword, scripture tells us. Uh, but for whatever reason, Saul, the king, and the people, so, because you're gonna hear an excuse by Saul later, but Saul and the people spared the king, which they weren't supposed to do, and then they took the best sheep and the best oxen and the best lambs that were all good. They didn't destroy them because their plan was we're gonna use these things and offer them to God. All right. That's not what God said to do. All right, he said to destroy all of that sort of stuff. So the prophet Samuel goes, meets up with Saul, and uh Saul rushes out to see him. He's excited. Verse 13 of chapter 15 of 1 Samuel from the King James, it says, And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Verse 14, I love this. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleeding of the sheep in my ear and lowing of the oxen which I hear? Here's what happened. Saul comes running out. He's all excited, he sees the prophet of God, he says, I did what God commanded. And uh, had he done what God commanded, he would have destroyed all the sheep, all the oxes, all the people. He didn't do that. He left the king alive, took the sheep, took the oxen that he thought was good. And so the prophet responds by going, You did? Really? You you kept the command. You're I I I can see you kind of chest is kind of swelled up there. You you kind of have this sense of pride of, yep, I did what God told me to do. Well, then why do I hear sheep? And and why am I hearing mooing? What's that? What where's that coming from? Okay, and so so then Saul says, verse 15, and Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord, and the rest have we utterly destroyed. Okay, not what he was told to do. He was told to destroy it. He didn't say, Make a decision on what you think is good, keep that, bring it, offer it to me. No, he said, destroy it all. Alright? And so um he's challenged by the prophet, saying, Why didn't you obey the voice of the Lord? Okay, um, verse 20. Saul says unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent, and have brought back uh Agag, the king of the uh of Amalek, and utterly destroyed the Amalekites. Okay? But the people, did you hear that? Remember what we said earlier, okay? Verse 9 says that Saul and the people, verse 21, it said, but the people took the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice them to the Lord thy God in Gilgal. Okay, again, you didn't do what you were supposed to do. Alright? So the prophet says to him, verse 22, and Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, listen to this, I love this verse, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Now here's the rebellion connection. This is why I'm reading this passage. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness, stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry, because thou hast rejected the word of God, he has also rejected thee from being king. It was a pretty costly mistake that Saul made by doing that. And so the result of that costly mistake was that the kingdom was taken from him and ultimately given to David. But notice what it said. It says that rebellion against God's word, okay, is the same as witchcraft. Why? Because witchcraft, like I said, you're trying to manipulate and control circumstances by your own abilities and power and what you think you have. That's what rebellion against God's word is. It's you saying, I can do this, I'm in control of this, I can do this the way I think it should be done, I have the power to make this happen the way that I want to. So scripture says that no. Uh rebellion is like witchcraft, and if you're stubborn against God, it's uh like iniquity and idolatry. Okay, and so that's what happens here with uh witchcraft, all right? Is that it is a work of the flesh, and it's you actually working overtime to be in control of something you're not supposed to be. Alright? Uh the next one on the list was hatred. Okay, an extra it hatred is an extreme hostility, dislike, aversion. It's a negativeness towards something that creates this deep bitterness in your spirit. Okay? God does not want us to walk around in hatred, hating people, hating God, hating the things of God. He doesn't want us to walk in this kind of bitterness and hatred. Okay. Um Variance is the next one. Variance is discord or strife, uh, contention, disagreement. Basically, there are these there are these people who just want to be disagreeable about everything. Okay? And they especially want to be disagreeable when it comes to things about God. All right. And so that's what variance is. It's having that attitude of discord and strife. You're the one always stirring up strife, stirring up problems and things like that. Now, listen, within the context of a church, if you bring truth forward, you're not creating strife or discord. You're bringing truth forward. Okay? But if you're the person who's manipulating truth and you're trying to interject your will, your attitude, things of works of your flesh, and you're using that to stir up problems and cause dissension and issues and things like that, okay, that is variance. That is a work of the flesh. And it's a work of the flesh that's very similar to one that we'll see later. We'll see strife, we'll see sedition, which is stirring up this rebellion, all those kinds of things. They're very, very similar and very connected. But God doesn't want us walking in this disagreeableness and having this attitude. That's our flesh at work. Okay? Emulation. Emulation is uh jealousy, it is a uh envy, it is a it is a jealous competition with other people. It is it is a selfish desire to raise yourself above others and surpass others, okay? Instead of humbling yourself and caring about what's going on in the lives of others, all you're doing is trying to one up and one better anyone that you encounter. Okay, and so emulation is that attitude of jealousy, and it creates this uh jealous competition within you, okay? So let me encourage you folks in a couple of things when it comes to that. First of all, we're not in competition with each other, okay? Churches, listen, you're not in competition with each other. You don't have to outdo the church down the road. Just because they did this, you don't have to do this. You need to walk with God and you need to follow after God. Okay? One of the things I love about Body of Christ Fellowship, the church that uh that I'm at, is that we're we're not watching out and looking and spying on what other people are doing. That doesn't matter to us. What matters to us is what is God saying to us. That's what we want to walk in, okay? We're not in competition with anybody. We're not, we don't think we're better than anybody. We're not exalting ourselves up or raising ourselves. We're just trying to be true and sincere to the word of God. We're just trying to walk in the peace and the grace of God. We want to do what God has called us to do. We want to be a living sacrifice, we want to be humble, we want to be submitted to God. We're not in competition with anybody. I'm not trying to outdo anyone. As a preacher, you hear a lot of preachers. Okay, I've I've I've been around, experience a lot of preachers, amazing, amazing uh men of God preaching the word of God. I've seen a lot of great preachers, great teachers, and things like that. It's easy for people to then start to compare, okay, and get caught up. They can do it themselves and start comparing themselves to someone and they're trying to match someone or surpass someone, or they fall victim and pray to other people trying to compare them to other people and this and that and the other. You know what? I preach the word of God as God has given it to me. I'm not in competition with anybody, okay? I at no point do I have a desire to be the next Vodie Bacum or the next Billy Graham or the next uh George Whitfield. I'm not trying to be any of those people. I'm trying to be the one God's called me to be. I'm trying to be James Burks, James Edward Burks. I'm trying to stay in my lane, as our theme song says, and I'm trying to walk that out for the glory of God. I'm not in competition with anyone. This podcast, okay, it's what God's making of it. I'm not trying to compare it with other podcasts. I'm not trying to model it off of any. I'm not trying to surpass any. I don't, I don't go back and check numbers, I don't check views, I don't, you know. The only way I know of you is that, you know, one of the sites like Buzz Sprout will send me an email and it'll pop up and it'll say, hey, you had this many people that tuned in or whatever. Okay. That's the only way I know that. I'm not searching it out because I'm not competing. I'm not going to walk in uh emulation when I could be walking in the presence of God and being led by the Spirit of God. Okay? That's more of my heart. That's more of my concern. That's more of my focus. Not how do I compare with someone else? And and I was going to encourage you a little bit further, too. Folks, don't do that in your own lives either outside of ministry. Guys, don't compare your wife to someone else. Wives, don't compare your husband to someone else. Okay. Um love who they are. Love what God has given you in that person. Love the differences you have. Love the contrast between you. Love the sandpaper effect that you are in each other's lives so that you can help each other walk even better with God and be that helpmate for each other. Listen, the the conflict that you're having, use it as a place to step back, check your frame, take a picture, look at what's going on, and appreciate that person who pushes your buttons because they're helping you recognize your buttons so you can take those buttons to God and no longer have buttons to be pushed. Okay? Thank God for that person that triggers you. Don't hate on them. Thank God for them because God knew what he was doing as he brought you together. All right. And if that person triggers you, then why do you have these triggers? Okay? Maybe God brought them along to highlight those things and challenge you in those things so you could then bring those things and lay them at his feet and be free. There's a freedom God wants you to have. Okay? Don't sit there mad and compare your spouse with someone else's and be jealous of what someone else has and be envious of that and not grateful for what God has done in your own life. Okay? Don't have that jealous uh attitude of competition with anybody else in your life. Okay. Um, be thankful for the blessing that God has given you. Now I'm gonna I try to be As transparent as I can on the show, I'll be the first to admit I didn't always walk that way. Okay? What rub me the wrong way just rubbed me the wrong way. And I didn't appreciate what God was doing in the midst of that. I pray that I've grown to the place now where I appreciate all that's that God is doing and how He has used my wife to help draw me closer to Him. And I love her for that and I appreciate her for that. And I've got less buttons, I've got less triggers, I've got, you know, I'm starting to feel a few smooth spots that the sandpaper has worked on. Not perfect by any means, but I'm being perfected in Christ Jesus. And so I'm grateful. And so I don't need to walk in emulation comparing or being jealous in any way, shape, or form with anything or anybody. I mentioned uh with a smile in the the first part of this lesson on works of the flesh that uh I was gonna try to do it in two episodes. All right. It's very clear that it's not gonna happen in two episodes, it will probably be three and even possibly four. Um, and so again, I love that. I love how God works. It's about Him. I'm giving it to Him. It's what He wants to do, not my plans. Okay. Um oftentimes, folks, one of the struggles that we have walking through life is that we have tried to plan out so much. Uh the way God gave it to me one day is that it's like us getting a photo album, our life, and then we go and we start filling in all the pictures in advance of the photo album, and yet the photo album is each day, each season, each journey, each part of the journey. And so when I get to a certain page in the photo album, I have this picture in mind of what this is supposed to look like. I should have the perfect wife, I should have the perfect kids, I should have my uh white picket fence around my house, I should have my, you know, dog, my cat, whatever it is that I've pictured and I've already inserted that photograph in there, okay? I get to that moment and it doesn't look like that. And then I'm frustrated. I I don't know what to do, I'm challenged by it and stuff like that. Well, part of what you needed to do was not jump ahead of God and fill out all the pages and figure it out for yourself, in part usually because you're comparing it with someone else or something else that you want or desire. Okay, we're just talking about that emulation, okay? I need to just walk out each day with God, and that's really what I want to encourage you to do is just walk it out with God. And where I might have come in with a plan that said, Oh, I'd like to get this done in two episodes, I'm walking in God's plans. And if this takes six episodes, we'll do what we have to do because we want God to be magnified and glorified. All right, but let's keep going. Um, the next one on the list of works of the flesh is wrath. Okay, wrath is those fits of anger, that violent anger. It's rage. Okay? That's what wrath is. Now, when it talks about the wrath of God in Scripture, that is a righteous indignation God has towards sin, and God is the judge and thus the one who can punish sin and pour out his wrath. Can't argue with that. Okay? We, as his children, aren't supposed to walk in wrath. We're not supposed to have violent anger uh directed towards other people. Okay? Folks, listen. Because of that, that, if we walk in that, there should never be episodes of violence towards one another when it comes to uh walking in wrath, walking in that work of the flesh. Okay? At no point, I was taught this as a young man, at no point should I strike my wife. Okay? I shouldn't hit a woman at all, but I shouldn't strike my wife, okay? No excuse. None. And maybe I'm speaking to somebody right now. Maybe I'm speaking to a husband who has crossed that line and done that. Maybe I'm talking to a wife who has allowed that and subjected herself to that. No, that's not God's heart. God's heart is not for us to be pouring out wrath on each other as though we're the judge and the determiner of the punishment someone deserves, and that that punishment needs to be some violence of some sort. That's not our call. That is not how we are supposed to walk in the Spirit of God. Okay? Along with wrath, we have strife. Strife is that rivalry, that uh bitter conflict that occurs uh between people. Okay? Turn quickly with me, and this might be our wrap-up point for today. Turn quickly with me to Romans chapter 12. Because we just talked about wrath and we talked about strife. Romans 12, verse 18 says this. If it be possible, as much as it lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Okay? Reading again from the King James. I'm supposed to live peaceably with all men. I am not supposed to be in strife, in bitter conflict. I'm not supposed to have a rival. Okay? I'm supposed to love everyone. Listen, even if you see yourself as my enemy, God tells me I'm supposed to pray for you, love you, and bless you, even with the title, if you will, of enemy. Okay? I still don't need to see you as a rival. I still don't have to be in strife and in conflict with you. As much as it lies with me, I can't make you be my friend, okay? But as much as it lies with me, I need to live at peace with everyone around me. Okay? If not, if I'm walking in wrath and I'm walking in strife, I'm walking in the works of my flesh and not following after the Spirit of God. All right? All right, let's pause there so that we can have a Malawi moment. Alright, friends, for our Malawi moment today, again, One Voice Ministries, as we minister here in the United States, we're ministering here in Palm Bay, Florida. Uh, we also have an outreach, and God's given us an opportunity and open a door for us to minister in Malawi, Africa. And we get to do some pretty cool stuff there that we're excited about seeing the kingdom work there. One of the things that is led by Pastor Gladstone, one of our ministers on the ground there, is sports evangelism. He has organized a soccer team. Uh, that soccer team goes out, participates in tournaments, creates tournaments in different villages, and as a result of that, uses that as an opportunity to share the gospel. What's been cool is they've been training up the young men to share the gospel as well. It's not just the coaches and not just you know, Pastor Gladsfilm doing it and stuff like that, but they're training the young men. So recently they were invited to be a part of a sports evangelism, sports evangelism event that was hosted by Showers of Blessing Church in Lunzu, okay, in Malawi, Africa. And so they were invited as a guest, and the church partnered with uh One Voice Ministries, and in that partnership, they came together, put on this uh sports tournament, this soccer tournament. Our guys got a chance to mingle with the other players and talk to the people, the spectators, and things like that, and share the gospel. As a result of that, there were many responses and many people who trusted in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior and surrendered their lives to Christ Jesus. Oh my goodness, that's always the good news for me. That's what makes me get so excited about the opportunities that we have in Malawi. So, as a result of that, many people came, gave their life to Christ Jesus, and so we especially appreciate Showers of Blessing Church in Lunzhou for uh partnering with us to be a part of that sharing of the gospel and presenting this sports evangelism opportunity. By the way, One Voice Ministry Soccer team won the tournament. Okay, I love it. These guys are good, they're really good. I love it, they've been working hard, and so that was a blessing. But what really won the day wasn't that they walked away with the trophy or ball or whatever they gave them. What won the day is that there were new souls added to the kingdom. Okay, that's the greatest victory in all that. And we will operate in and use the tools that God gives us to do that. And if one of those is soccer, is sports evangelism, if it opens a door for us to preach the gospel and share the word, that's what it's all about for us. All right, and that's really at the heart of our ministry there. So again, keep them in prayer, keep our soccer team in prayer. We're we're working now currently, you know, trying to uh generate some funds and raise some funds. We want to get them some new shoes because they wear them out over there, uh, uniforms, things like that. Uh so just pray for us. Um, you can uh look at the uh go to the QR code uh that we'll put on the screen here and go to the website and it gives you an opportunity to donate if you would like to do that. We would love to do that because we really want to be a blessing to them. They're doing some amazing ministry work over there, and we want to support that in every way that we can. Okay, so keep them in your prayers, keep our ministers, Gladstone and Moses and their families in your prayers, and uh we'll keep you in your prayer, in our prayers, keep us in your prayers, stay in your lane, do that thing God's given you to do as we walk out what God's given us to do. Let's all do it for the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All right? See you next time, folks, and I'm gonna do it.