Speaker: You know, uh, James, when you said you hoped, you said the names right.
Speaker: Um, being a product of East Texas with my East Texas sound, uh, I've gotten used to, I'm not gonna say the names right now.
Speaker: I'll just say roll with that.
Speaker: That's, that's easy.
Speaker: But one of the reasons we love David and Julie, our dear friends who came with us today is because.
Speaker: They also get names wrong.
Speaker: For instance, this week when we were driving here, Julia, I think she's telling us about about her Bible study and she's talking about how that she was learning some things about raha.
Speaker: I said, Maha Maga?
Speaker: No, she said In the Bible, raha.
Speaker: So we're thinking about it for a minute.
Speaker: I said.
Speaker: Should you add a B to the end of that where it's Rahab instead of raha.
Speaker: So yeah, we always do that.
Speaker: And of course, my favorite story on David, I've known him, oh gosh, how many years?
Speaker: Uh, can't have a better friend than David, but when we started the church that you guys came about the third year, I think, right?
Speaker: And I was, and Tammy and I were there for 30, so about the third year.
Speaker: And so we wanted to get a men's ministry going.
Speaker: And I thought, well, that'd be great.
Speaker: You know, we need to decide what we want to do.
Speaker: What do the guys want to do?
Speaker: Tammy understood ladies' ministry, and she had a great ladies' ministry and we did not want to do what the ladies did.
Speaker: It just didn't seem a T never was in the cards for us.
Speaker: We didn't care about that and we really didn't want to come and learn how to decorate something.
Speaker: So we got together about five guys, just guys.
Speaker: And started saying, what would we do and what would we like?
Speaker: And it got kind of quiet for a minute and David spoke up and said these words, which I still kind of wonder about.
Speaker: He said, well, if I were a man and I just, I almost hurt my neck turning so fast to think who is beside me.
Speaker: So that, that was David.
Speaker: And we got nothing done in that meeting.
Speaker: But anyway.
Speaker: I'm so glad to be with you guys.
Speaker: We always enjoy being here, and if you, if you want to, uh, look at the text today, we're gonna be in Second Kings Chapter six.
Speaker: And because I'm giving you that text, I'm giving it to you early because not everybody can find the first and second of different Old Testament books, so it's second.
Speaker: So, uh, even I, this week when I went back to study it again, I started reading and I thought, this doesn't sound right.
Speaker: And I was in First King, so it's Second King.
Speaker: Chapter six.
Speaker: How did we get to this passage?
Speaker: Uh, mark Truman and I were talking on Monday or Tuesday of this week, and he, he said something, you know, he, he's, he's shepherding here.
Speaker: He said, you, you know, you're this week at possibly Yeah, I know that Mark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: I, he said, what are you gonna preach on?
Speaker: I said, I don't know yet.
Speaker: I'm, I'm trying to figure that out.
Speaker: He said, well, we had this fabulous devotional brought to us by an 18-year-old young lady from Brazil.
Speaker: Uh, over at Dennison Forum.
Speaker: He said, I, I could not believe how good it was in just 18.
Speaker: And it was so well put together.
Speaker: It's just brilliant.
Speaker: And I said, well, what was the text Second King six?
Speaker: I said, I'm trying to think what Second King six is about.
Speaker: He said, it's about the acts that floated.
Speaker: And I said it.
Speaker: She brought a fabulous devotion out of that.
Speaker: I mean, I, I don't think I've ever heard anybody preach that.
Speaker: Hm.
Speaker: And he said, oh, it's great.
Speaker: He said, I, I, I said, well, maybe I'll try my hand at that.
Speaker: And he said, well, I can send her, send you her outline.
Speaker: I said, sure, go ahead.
Speaker: So anyway, uh, I worked on it, came up with a message, and then I wrote him on, uh, I wrote him yesterday and I said, well, I'm doing two King six, and I don't have the outline from the brilliant young lady.
Speaker: So I did it by myself.
Speaker: And he said, he, he said, okay.
Speaker: He sends it to me and I read it and I wrote it back and I said.
Speaker: This is so much better than mine.
Speaker: This is really sad.
Speaker: But anyway, we're gonna try our best today and, and today I would say that this in Two Kings, chapter six, we'll read it in just a moment, but I wanna say this is something on the smallest side of a miracle.
Speaker: It's not probably one of the top tens in your mind, or maybe not even the top 50 miracles in the Bible.
Speaker: And most folks, however, are really partial to the big miracles.
Speaker: You know the big miracles are when we see something we think, man, that is God really doing something.
Speaker: And that's gonna change people's perceptions, their thoughts, their lives, increase their faith.
Speaker: And in Second Kings, before you get to chapter six, you've already seen some really big miracles.
Speaker: Lemme tell you what I think makes them big.
Speaker: What makes them big is they had big problems.
Speaker: You know, it's when there's a big problem that we need a big miracle.
Speaker: And those are the ones that really stand out in our mind.
Speaker: For instance, in two Kings, we've already seen a widow who had nothing.
Speaker: She's starving to death and she's just going to, with her child, just give up.
Speaker: And then we have the prophet who says, what do you have?
Speaker: She says, I have a little bit of oil.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And he said, go borrow every jar, container pot you can find.
Speaker: Bring it to your house, and start pouring the oil into those.
Speaker: And you're gonna take that and go sell it.
Speaker: Now that doesn't sound like it's something that's right, but she does it and she, the only time the oil goes away is when she doesn't have anything else to pour it into.
Speaker: And she sells it and she has a, a good life from that.
Speaker: And then we have a really big one, a dramatic one.
Speaker: It is a lifeless child, a child that had been prayed to come into this world, comes into this world.
Speaker: And for some reason has this head pain and the, and the, the child dies.
Speaker: And that is an extremely powerful and dramatic miracle.
Speaker: And the prophet comes again and raises the child to life.
Speaker: And then we have a really, kind of a strange one where it tells you maybe men should not cook because all the men get together and they're gonna make a stew.
Speaker: And one of them has gone out and bought, gotten something from the, from the woods.
Speaker: That was not good.
Speaker: Put it inside there.
Speaker: And that is the, the line that always catches me off when he says, there's death in the pot, old man of God.
Speaker: And, uh, I'm like, what in the world?
Speaker: And, and, and the prophet takes a little bit of flour, I believe, and throws it in there.
Speaker: And all the people, none of them die.
Speaker: These are big miracles.
Speaker: It's a big thing.
Speaker: Everyone's poisoned and that's healed.
Speaker: Then we have the, the, the story that you and I loved as children if we went to Sunday school.
Speaker: And that's the story of a Commander Naman, who is a wonderful guy, brilliant commander, uh, very important, and he is dying of leprosy.
Speaker: And to die of leprosy is to die.
Speaker: Is to die a moment at a time.
Speaker: You're just, your body is just basically decaying.
Speaker: And you're not dead, but it's decay.
Speaker: And he hears from a little maid that there is a prophet in Israel that can take care of you.
Speaker: And so he finally decides to go see this prophet and he goes to see the prophet and the prophet says, go and wash in the Jordan River seven times.
Speaker: And he gets mad.
Speaker: You remember that?
Speaker: He got angry about it and said, aren't there better rivers where I come from than this lousy Jordan River?
Speaker: And he starts to walk away.
Speaker: And one of his men that was under his command has enough love for him and enough courage, and it says something about their dynamics.
Speaker: He could actually talk to his commander and he says, if he'd asked you to do something really big, wouldn't you have done that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Just go wash.
Speaker: So he goes down, he washes, he comes up, his skin is like a ba, he just can't believe it.
Speaker: I mean, it's, these are the big miracles.
Speaker: And then we get to two King six, and it just doesn't seem that important.
Speaker: There's no, there's no army coming in.
Speaker: There's no leprosy to face, there's no, uh, people dying of poison.
Speaker: There's not a child that needs to come back to life, but.
Speaker: It's a miracle nonetheless, and there's some lessons because every miracle in scripture teaches us something about God.
Speaker: It does not give us the full picture of God.
Speaker: It teaches us something about God.
Speaker: Just like a window doesn't tell you everything about a house, but it's a part of the house.
Speaker: You see something about the house, and so we see a miracle.
Speaker: We see something about God, for instance, in the New Testament when Jesus calms the storm.
Speaker: One, one of our favorites, right?
Speaker: Jesus comes and says, speaks to it.
Speaker: It, it just goes placid.
Speaker: I mean, it teaches that Jesus God has control over nature, right?
Speaker: So always we see some lesson.
Speaker: So there's a lesson in our text.
Speaker: But before we get there, I wanna say that a miracle is not God breaking his own rules, because God does have rules about this earth.
Speaker: It's when the author of the rules, God steps into his own story as he chooses.
Speaker: This is why it's supernatural.
Speaker: This is why it's big.
Speaker: This is why we have to look at and try to figure it out.
Speaker: And this is why someone who doesn't wanna believe has to scratch their head and say, there's another logical explanation and we'll figure it out someday.
Speaker: But when God intervenes, he's revealing something about who he is.
Speaker: So let's get to the text and we will be, as I said, second King six, and let me read that to you.
Speaker: It says, now the sons of the prophet said to Elijah.
Speaker: See the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us.
Speaker: Let us go to the Jordan and each of us get a log there and let us make a place for us to dwell.
Speaker: And he answered, go.
Speaker: Then one of them said, be pleased to go with your service.
Speaker: He said, I'll go.
Speaker: And so he went with them and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees and as one was fell along his ax head fell into the water and he cried out.
Speaker: Alas, my master, it was borrowed.
Speaker: It.
Speaker: Then the man of God said, where did it fall?
Speaker: And he showed him the place and he cut off a stick and he threw it there, and he made the iron float.
Speaker: And he said, take it up.
Speaker: So he reached out his hand and he took it.
Speaker: This is why I've named this, this, uh, sermon.
Speaker: When things go under, when things go under.
Speaker: Let me, let me just tell you about the story just a little bit.
Speaker: Let's identify first the sons of the prophet.
Speaker: This is not a rigid academic school.
Speaker: This is a place where, um, ordinary men have gathered together and they are not the big prophets.
Speaker: Not Elijah, not Elijah, not standing before Kings, not pronouncing judgments, not calling fire down from heaven.
Speaker: These are the guys that are learning scripture.
Speaker: They're learning how to speak into their nation because their nation needs them.
Speaker: The nation's not at a good place.
Speaker: But what is encouraging about this is they are growing.
Speaker: They, they would not have been on the news.
Speaker: No one would've given a big story about them on any, any cable network that, hey, there's these sons of the prophets.
Speaker: They're growing.
Speaker: It wouldn't have been that.
Speaker: But they are good men.
Speaker: They are obedient men.
Speaker: They are learning, serving and preparing.
Speaker: They were men in training.
Speaker: As the group gets larger, and again, that's the good news.
Speaker: And it's always a good problem when God's people, whatever God's doing grows.
Speaker: And that's the way God's work does.
Speaker: It grows.
Speaker: They weren't afraid of hard work.
Speaker: And so first we look at the growth in ordinary obedience.
Speaker: The miracles, the miracle begins in growth.
Speaker: Growth, as I said, is a natural condition.
Speaker: What God does, and you can see it here with the prophets because the place is too small, so they need to get some timber.
Speaker: They need to get the lumber to go out and to build something.
Speaker: They're cutting wood, and it's right in the middle of faithful, ordinary work that this crisis is gonna happen.
Speaker: Second little vignette here, it was borrowed.
Speaker: The young man is desperate because it's not a simple inconvenience when the ax head falls into the river and he can't get it back.
Speaker: It's borrowed.
Speaker: Borrowed is an important idea in scripture.
Speaker: If you look at the Old Testament, Exodus 22 makes it clear that borrowed property requires restitution.
Speaker: Can't borrow something, lose it.
Speaker: Just say too bad.
Speaker: Not if you have integrity.
Speaker: Psalm 37 21 tells us that the righteous, uh, include repayment we repay when we break something.
Speaker: You may, there may have been a story just flashed into your head right then that you said, I'm gonna talk about this later today to somebody.
Speaker: I remember a time I loaned something out.
Speaker: Even this week somebody was asking me something and I was trying to quote something out of a book and I said, I don't have the book anymore because I loaned it out.
Speaker: It's gone.
Speaker: I don't know who borrowed it.
Speaker: I can't remember that stuff.
Speaker: There's always something missing.
Speaker: But the Bible teaches when something is borrowed, we, we should have the integrity to give something back.
Speaker: And this young prophet's not trying to hide his mistake.
Speaker: He's concerned about his integrity when the ax flies off the handle and sinks in the river.
Speaker: This is the crisis that brings about the miracle.
Speaker: It shows something about his integrity, and I'll put it to you this way about borrowing something.
Speaker: Have you ever borrowed someone's car?
Speaker: I borrowed my dad's car when I was in my twenties.
Speaker: He had a brand new Cadillac.
Speaker: My dad had wanted a Cadillac for years and he finally got his Cadillac.
Speaker: He had driven Lincolns and different and everything else.
Speaker: But for my dad.
Speaker: Was a Cadillac.
Speaker: And of course my dad, if he's gonna get a Cadillac, it's gonna be gold.
Speaker: And it was long.
Speaker: It was the old top Cadillac, big, long, gold Cadillac, leather, gold seats.
Speaker: And he said, I need you to take me out to the d ft airport.
Speaker: Drop me off and you can drive my Cadillac for the whole week.
Speaker: Now I had a Subaru one that I had bought because it was.
Speaker: It was, uh, well, it was totaled and a friend of mine said I can put it back together, and he did.
Speaker: And, uh, I drove that little thing around for a while, but now I've got a Cadillac, so I just want you to understand a little hatchback Subaru.
Speaker: And then you move into a full train.
Speaker: And so I'm driving it around and I'm, I'm living large.
Speaker: I'm, I'm feeling like I big need a big cigar.
Speaker: I'm enjoying this thing, and, uh, I'm driving up to the church.
Speaker: And my Subaru would've made it through the light because it was maybe five feet long.
Speaker: This is 60 feet long.
Speaker: And so as I'm going through, somebody runs through and hits the tail end of that Cadillac.
Speaker: I understand the term help.
Speaker: It was borrowed, and I think, what in the world am I gonna do with a three month old Cadillac?
Speaker: That my dad loves, and it is just torn up.
Speaker: I tried to be careful, but I know the pain of that.
Speaker: I know what it's like to have borrowed something.
Speaker: This man feels the same thing.
Speaker: Now, I, I'm, I'm notorious for not finishing stories, so I, people don't like it when it don't finish the story.
Speaker: Obviously, my dad got back to town.
Speaker: We took it to the place, we got it fixed.
Speaker: He was okay.
Speaker: There it is, but, but God, God cares about.
Speaker: Even small things.
Speaker: You know, you look at some of the parables that Jesus told, they weren't big, they were small things and he's, he's continually trying to tell us that God cares about small things.
Speaker: Ken Geier once wrote that God is not a God of the spectacular, only he's a God of the.
Speaker: The quiet, the unnoticed moments where character is formed.
Speaker: And then third part of the story is that God intervened.
Speaker: He did something.
Speaker: And really something kind of simple.
Speaker: The man asks, uh uh, the prophet says, where did, where did it fall?
Speaker: And the man shows him the place.
Speaker: And Elijah throws in a stick into the water and the ax floats.
Speaker: I've looked at a lot of these miracles and I'm thinking, what made him think to do it that way?
Speaker: Really a stick.
Speaker: I mean, why didn't he need a stick?
Speaker: Why didn't the act float by itself?
Speaker: I don't understand this, but I'm not a prophet and I don't, I wasn't there, but I can tell you it was important to the prophet, and this is a key thing.
Speaker: I think it it, I think it's in scripture for a reason.
Speaker: When the prophet says, where did it happen?
Speaker: And I'm gonna get to that in the second half of this passage.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: There's a second half of the, of the sermon, I'm sorry, but I, I, I re-edited today and cut another two whole pages out of it.
Speaker: So we're good.
Speaker: We're gonna be fine.
Speaker: So he shows him the, the iron floats up and Elijah says, take it up, because what God has done for him that he couldn't do for himself, the miracle happens.
Speaker: And I, I'd say we see something about God in this story.
Speaker: Let me just give you three quick things we see.
Speaker: Number one, and maybe you can put this into your life today.
Speaker: I would love it if you walked out of here today with a couple of these, or even one, just one concept that you might hang on to and think about.
Speaker: Maybe it'll help you this week.
Speaker: Number one, God's not waiting for something spectacular to happen before he gets involved.
Speaker: Now that describes pretty much all of us.
Speaker: Our lives aren't all about spectacular.
Speaker: Our lives most of the time are not spectacular.
Speaker: Most of the time, they're pretty ordinary.
Speaker: God's not waiting for something spectacular to happen before he gets involved, if he can get involved in an ax head.
Speaker: So just ruminate on that a bit.
Speaker: Think about that.
Speaker: How's, how's that work for you?
Speaker: And, and right there in the middle of the faithful, ordinary obedience.
Speaker: This problem happens and it tells you something about God.
Speaker: He's not distant from the routine.
Speaker: He sees the unseen work.
Speaker: He pays attention when his people are simply doing what's right in front of them.
Speaker: That's the first thing.
Speaker: You don't need to have something spectacular for God to notice what you're doing and to jump in the middle of it.
Speaker: Second, God does care about integrity.
Speaker: God really did care that this guy has borrowed an ax and can't repay it again.
Speaker: He's borrowed it, which means he couldn't afford to buy it.
Speaker: That's why you borrow something usually, or you borrow it because you're gonna use it one time and you plan to never use it again, whatever it may be.
Speaker: This guy probably doesn't have two coins to rub together, and he know.
Speaker: He knows he needs to pay it back and he will pay it back.
Speaker: He's not trying to hide it.
Speaker: He didn't go grab someone else's act and say, Hey, what happened to yours?
Speaker: Mine's fine.
Speaker: He didn't do any of that stuff.
Speaker: He cries about it.
Speaker: God gets involved because God does care about integrity.
Speaker: Exodus 2214 talks about the restitution.
Speaker: We just said the Psalm 37, and this man feels something when he loses it.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: He feels a Bible word stewardship.
Speaker: He feels stewardship.
Speaker: He feels he's responsible.
Speaker: The Bible teaches stewardship, that's integrity, and so God gets in the middle of that.
Speaker: God cares about integrity.
Speaker: That's the second thing we learned in this miracle about God.
Speaker: Number three, we learned that, and I love this one and you may feel this one today.
Speaker: God rules what thinks.
Speaker: God still rules over what drops below the surface that you can't get to God.
Speaker: Rules over things that are have sunken.
Speaker: God still does that.
Speaker: God's just not for the person who's always got all everything happening perfectly.
Speaker: God still rules over what sinks.
Speaker: And that's why Aisha says, where did it fall?
Speaker: And that's why he throws in the sticks, because God intervenes and God intervenes.
Speaker: Not because the Acts head is that valuable, but because the man is God intervenes in your life in small things, not because the small thing is such a big deal.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Maybe to you he intervenes because you're such a big deal.
Speaker: I'm such a big deal.
Speaker: That's the way he loves.
Speaker: He loves us.
Speaker: When we have things that are so small, we don't think we should tell him about it.
Speaker: You know, I'm watching with our daughter Brittany, and she had, I I if you were here when I was here a month ago, I, uh, it was nice enough that Sheila showed a few pictures of, of the, of the grand babies.
Speaker: Some of y'all saw those.
Speaker: And the third grandbaby, uh, birdie.
Speaker: Dawn was born January the first.
Speaker: And we are enjoying at the six week period now, uh, I told Tammy, I said, I think she's like a month and a half old.
Speaker: And Tammy said, no, she's six weeks.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, um, at six weeks she sent some pictures out to us and, and Birdie is smiling and I don't think babies smile that early.
Speaker: I think she's special.
Speaker: I think she's brilliant.
Speaker: Um, but she's smiling.
Speaker: We're seeing all that and, and I'm watching.
Speaker: With, with my daughter, and I've seen what she does with, I mean, my goodness, there's a th a little over th three, right?
Speaker: Tammy?
Speaker: A little fin's a little over three, right?
Speaker: She knew right on top of it.
Speaker: And, um, then we've got Jude.
Speaker: So we have two little boys, three-ish and under, and I told you last time, they are, I, I promise you the word banshee is the right word.
Speaker: They are full of energy and just run screaming through that house and they run circuits and their dad is so good with'em.
Speaker: He built some forts and, and, and makes little places for them to balance and do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker: And they're screaming and hollering and running and hitting one another and all the rest.
Speaker: And those are so many stories I can tell you there.
Speaker: But I know that there's times when my, my sweet daughter must just say.
Speaker: God, could you just make him quiet for five minutes?
Speaker: Does God care about your five minute rest?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: God cares about all this.
Speaker: He knows that you are valuable because he loves you.
Speaker: I wanna move the A mirror on ourselves from this passage.
Speaker: 'cause we've talked, we've told the story, so let me kind of.
Speaker: Let me move it as a metaphor for just a moment and see ourselves in the, see the story in our lives.
Speaker: Number one, just like that ax said, your life is borrowed too.
Speaker: Your life is borrowed.
Speaker: When the young prophet said it was borrowed, I would remind you that your life is borrowed and my life is borrowed because Psalm 24, 1 says, the Earth is the Lord's, the Lord's.
Speaker: That's who it belongs to, and the fullness there of everything about it, the world, and all those who dwell within.
Speaker: It's all God's.
Speaker: Your life is God's.
Speaker: What we have is borrowed Romans 1412, so says so.
Speaker: Then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Speaker: Well, why would we have to give an account of ourselves to God?
Speaker: Because our life is borrowed.
Speaker: It's not ours.
Speaker: God gives us the life.
Speaker: Let's, let's live it.
Speaker: Acts 1726.
Speaker: The Lord.
Speaker: Uh, starting verse 24, the God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man.
Speaker: That's the part we usually look at because we understand the sermon in Acts 17, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything.
Speaker: Here it is, since he himself gives to all mankind life in breath and everything, and CH Spurgeon said, your breath is on alone from God.
Speaker: Your days are numbered by him.
Speaker: And I would remind you that borrowed things, bald lives, we are held accountable for this man's ax head.
Speaker: He was accountable for your life.
Speaker: My life we are accountable for.
Speaker: I would point to a second thing to see this mirrored in our lives, and that is that lives go under from within.
Speaker: By the way, no one has called me and said, you need to preach on somebody's life.
Speaker: Kind of dropping and going under, I don't know that.
Speaker: I just know that anytime we meet together, there's somebody who's probably struggling with a life that is going under.
Speaker: And usually when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about spiritually, but it could be a number of ways.
Speaker: I'd put it to you this way.
Speaker: If we look at our life as a ship, a ship does not sink because of the water around it does it?
Speaker: Maybe I should have said a boat.
Speaker: We're at the lake.
Speaker: A boat does not sink because the water around it.
Speaker: It sinks because the water that is around it gets inside of it, and it's not supposed to be there.
Speaker: Ships and boats were actually made for water.
Speaker: That's where they're supposed to be.
Speaker: This goes back to the story, the, the, the question.
Speaker: Sometimes a young Christian will ask.
Speaker: I've had several of them ask me this through the years they come to Christ, they have Jesus, and they realize there's gonna be a struggle in this world.
Speaker: And they realize that maybe, maybe they're a teenager and their parents don't understand.
Speaker: What in the world are you doing?
Speaker: I don't like this.
Speaker: Well, you go any kind of crazy about Jesus.
Speaker: I don't like that.
Speaker: Or I, I remember one man who, who, uh, they started attending our church and he started, uh, really, really.
Speaker: Coming, uh, just a, a strong passion of fire, a love for Jesus, and wanted to do more and more.
Speaker: And his wife said, you're going crazy.
Speaker: Pull back.
Speaker: And finally she pulled him totally outta church because she didn't like him giving that much attention.
Speaker: And you say, well, this is struggle.
Speaker: There's a struggle in this world.
Speaker: And so young Christians will sometimes say, I've had it often say, why didn't, when we come to Christ, why can't we just go straight to heaven?
Speaker: Well, because there's a lot of life that needs to be lived, and you need to live that life in a world that needs to see your light.
Speaker: You're the ship, the world's, the water you're supposed to float in that people are supposed to see what you're doing, lives go under.
Speaker: However, from within the ocean, the water, the lake water, that's not the problem.
Speaker: It's when something starts filling up when it was supposed to be dry.
Speaker: That's how most lives go under anyone who finds life sinking.
Speaker: Their spiritual life, their personal life.
Speaker: It's not because pressure exists.
Speaker: Pressure's normal.
Speaker: There's always pressure, work.
Speaker: Stress is normal or family strain.
Speaker: It's normal.
Speaker: Living in con, really living in a confused culture.
Speaker: We know today it's normal disappointment.
Speaker: That's normal too.
Speaker: And loss is normal.
Speaker: I don't like it.
Speaker: You don't like it either, but it's normal.
Speaker: That is the water around the boat.
Speaker: The problem is if it starts to sink in, let, let me mention a few things that we really don't want inside the ship.
Speaker: That is our life.
Speaker: The boat.
Speaker: That is our life.
Speaker: The first thing I don't want in, I don't think you want it in either, is drift.
Speaker: Drift is quiet.
Speaker: You don't wake up one morning deciding to abandon Jesus.
Speaker: You just wake up one morning and you just don't do the natural things you normally do to stay close to Jesus.
Speaker: And then it gets a little more and a little more, and you, pretty soon you stop paying attention.
Speaker: That's drift.
Speaker: Drift is when somebody is really, really loves the Lord.
Speaker: All of a sudden they just fall away from everything and it seems all of a sudden, because we just noticed it, we didn't notice what was going on inside.
Speaker: Inside.
Speaker: Something had been happening a long time.
Speaker: Something was seeping in drift is one of those things.
Speaker: Another thing would be pride.
Speaker: Pride is harder to detect because pride sometimes masquerades as strength.
Speaker: We start thinking we're fine.
Speaker: We've been walking with the Lord a long time.
Speaker: I've handled worse.
Speaker: I don't need to take this to Jesus.
Speaker: I'm fine.
Speaker: I don't need the same level of guardrails that I once did.
Speaker: And slowly we stop examining ourselves the way we used to those moments where we used to pray and really have a moment with God, and we would pour out our heart, and our heart was broken over things in our lives and what God was telling us and whether or not we were listening, those become fewer and fewer.
Speaker: We don't need that level of intensity anymore.
Speaker: We can handle it on ourselves, by ourselves.
Speaker: That's the pride that sinks in, and probably the biggest thing that I noticed as a pastor.
Speaker: And it's a biggie.
Speaker: Bitterness.
Speaker: You know, we can be bitter at people, we can be bitter at outcomes, we can be bitter at things, we can be bitter at the way our life is or what did happen or what didn't happen.
Speaker: Bitterness.
Speaker: I remember one time I was talking to a, about a 30-year-old guy.
Speaker: And I saw what he was doing.
Speaker: I saw how it was happening and he came to me and he's talking about something he's angry about, something he's getting more and more angry and he's getting more and more dark and, and you can just see it in his face.
Speaker: And finally I looked at him and I said, man, I'm seeing this bitterness grow in you and I wanna remind you that we need to be aware of bitterness.
Speaker: Lest he stopped me cold, he said, I know the verse.
Speaker: I don't need to hear it.
Speaker: I thought, wow, there it is.
Speaker: And I said, you know, the way you just cut me off while I'm saying that, you know, that's bitterness.
Speaker: He said, I'm fine.
Speaker: I.
Speaker: Bitterness, and here's kind of the way bitterness works.
Speaker: You tell me if you think I'm right.
Speaker: Bitterness is when we replay what happened over and over again.
Speaker: I really don't care to watch the same movie twice.
Speaker: Sometimes we do in our home, the Christmas movies start around Thanksgiving.
Speaker: And Tammy, I think she has a schedule.
Speaker: You know, I Elf is gonna play at least twice before Christmas Day.
Speaker: Uh, my favorite is Christmas story with Ralphie.
Speaker: And so that's gonna play usually Christmas Eve.
Speaker: And we're gonna see the great dramatic things like Jingle all the Way.
Speaker: There's a, there's a good one.
Speaker: I mean, all these things just play again and again and again.
Speaker: And I've noticed that she doesn't really watch them.
Speaker: She just has'em playing in the house and she's going from this room to that room, to this room, to that room.
Speaker: She's doing something over here.
Speaker: She's making a present, she's doing this.
Speaker: She's doing what?
Speaker: You know, Bible study, jingle all the way, what in the world, but some people choose to play something again inside their heads and they are focused on it.
Speaker: What happened to me, what they said to me.
Speaker: What she, what he did to me, how they treated me.
Speaker: I was not acknowledged.
Speaker: I was not important to them.
Speaker: Well, I think you get the point.
Speaker: Those are just a few of the things that happen in our lives when our boat, our life is letting in some water it shouldn't let in.
Speaker: When we forget, our lives are barred, we begin to live like it's ours.
Speaker: Hours to run, hours to live hours to make every decision.
Speaker: And from the outside, everything can still look fine because it looks like our lives are still moving.
Speaker: That boat's still moving along, lives are on, people see it floating, but inside is taking on water.
Speaker: That's a really tough thing.
Speaker: I'll tell you, after 30 years of the pastor is seeing people and not knowing what's going on on the inside, and then all of a sudden it happens, like I said, with that young guy and you're like, oh my word.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And many times we don't want, what's the next point?
Speaker: God can lift.
Speaker: What has sunk?
Speaker: He can.
Speaker: He absolutely can.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: I, it may have been Katrina.
Speaker: Uh, that would have had an impact upon, um, South Carolina.
Speaker: Not a big impact.
Speaker: Not like other places, but my son-in-law.
Speaker: Uh, his family is from Hilton Head and they live on the land side of an open water.
Speaker: Across the street is, uh, is a guy who has, has the big boat they use and they go over there all the time.
Speaker: The guys are always going out on the boat, and when I went down there and I met him, he told me about how that he got on a mission to retrieve sunken boats after the hurricane.
Speaker: That a lot of the people, the boats just sunk.
Speaker: And they got their insurance money and left the boat in the water at so many feet and he said, I decided let's get rid of all this debris.
Speaker: And he and his friends started raising those boats.
Speaker: I didn't actually know that could happen, but it can.
Speaker: And you might be feeling that way about things in your life.
Speaker: Can God lift what has sunk?
Speaker: Can he lift the feelings You have, the hurt you have the life you have.
Speaker: I will simply remind you that Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 53, 6, all we like sheep have gone astray.
Speaker: We have all turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord is laid on Jesus, on him, the inequity of us all.
Speaker: I just want to say it to you, sometimes we turn our own way, but we will turn our own way, all of us sometime.
Speaker: That's why Isaiah 53 tells us nobody's perfect.
Speaker: Nobody's sinless.
Speaker: Nobody lives without failure.
Speaker: Nobody lives without sinking at some point or another.
Speaker: The cross was mercy for us, and the resurrection is the declaration from heaven that the debt has been paid.
Speaker: That is the mercy.
Speaker: When Christ walked out of the tomb, it was not only display power is the declaration of completion.
Speaker: Iron floated that day in the Jordan.
Speaker: That was a miracle.
Speaker: But the floating acts was God caring about one person, and God still cares about one person.
Speaker: He cares about you.
Speaker: He cares about me, and he can raise back to life what has been sunk.
Speaker: I started by saying, we like big miracles, fire from heaven, sea split Red Sea cross Graves open, but this miracle happened in the mud.
Speaker: And the God who rules wind and water also carries about a borrowed ax head.
Speaker: He cares about you.
Speaker: He cares.
Speaker: Cares about me.
Speaker: God steps into ordinary responsibility, ordinary failure, ordinary fear, and cares what we do, and takes us away from drift, pride, bitterness.
Speaker: Maybe the miracle that you need today is not one you've thought about needing.
Speaker: You didn't know you needed it, but maybe you do.
Speaker: Maybe you thought that only when something gets this bad, that's when I'll ask God to do something.
Speaker: But up until then, I can handle it.
Speaker: I would encourage you today that it's the steady mercy of God restoring what is lost in us that needs to be accomplished each and every day.
Speaker: He wants to restore every day, every day.
Speaker: Small miracles.
Speaker: It's the ones we need.
Speaker: You probably need it today.
Speaker: I know I do.
Speaker: Let's pray together.
Speaker: We are thankful, Lord Jesus, that you are a God who looks into our lives and so many times.
Speaker: Because when we accept you, when when we are yours, you are pretty adamant about stepping back in, knocking on that door and telling us that we need you.
Speaker: You bring us the sweet mercy of the Spirit's conviction into our lives to tell us that we need to change.
Speaker: You warn us by scripture.
Speaker: You warn us by songs and sermons, and by friends and by things that we see.
Speaker: And there's just moments.
Speaker: You continually work in our lives and you say, I have a miracle for you.
Speaker: I want to do something for you.
Speaker: And many times we say, I'm okay.
Speaker: Instead of inviting you in to ask you, yes Lord, please, please, I wanna be closer.
Speaker: I want to walk with you.
Speaker: I want to pray.
Speaker: I want to talk to you again.
Speaker: I need this.
Speaker: And Lord, I'm not embarrassed to bring it to you, even though it looks a little Im, I need it.
Speaker: And so, Lord Jesus, we know that you, you are a God who loves stepping in and taking care of things because you love us.
Speaker: Pray that as we walk out today, we will remember.
Speaker: We need you and you care about ordinary things, and we ask it in Jesus' name.
Speaker: Amen.