SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Matthew chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: And let me, uh, just by way of clarity, someone stopped me this morning and said, Oh, Pastor, you're dressed up today.
SPEAKER_00: I usually don't dress this nice, but I went and saw my mom this week.
SPEAKER_00: My mom who grew up in Minnesota and grew up a Lutheran and says to me all the time, Oh, I wish you would not wear dungarees in the Lord's house.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Mom, God doesn't care, but your mother does.
SPEAKER_00: And so I told my mom this week, hey, mom, I'll put on some slacks just for you and take a picture.
SPEAKER_00: And so after church, I'll take a picture and send it to my mom, and things will be hunky-dory.
SPEAKER_00: And why do I say that?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're if you're visiting today, no, you was you wear whatever you're comfortable with.
SPEAKER_00: Some people wear shorts here, some people wear, most people wear jeans, uh, some people wear khakis, or my mom calls dungarees.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and my mom talks like that because she smoked for 50-something years and just recently quit.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh, I just want to say, make yourself at home, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh and we're uh in the middle of kind of explaining our mission statement as a church.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been to our website, you saw a page on there that said helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked about helping people to know God.
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like to help people to know God?
SPEAKER_00: It actually involves helping people.
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but secondly, and I want to talk this morning to you about the necessity of enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: The necessity of enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible and it's open to Matthew chapter 13, let me just tell you, Jesus is talking.
SPEAKER_00: You ever go to like a dinner party or a business luncheon or something, and there's the one guy that gets to talking, and he tells one story, and then he tells another story, and people kind of laugh, and then he tells another story, and he just gets on a roll and he won't be quiet.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was that way.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he just got carried away, but when he would start talking, he wanted people to so understand what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He told stories called parables to kind of help hang flesh on what these truths that he wanted people to understand.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happened in Matthew chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: He's on a roll.
SPEAKER_00: This we're gonna read just one little verse, Matthew 13, 44.
SPEAKER_00: It is the fifth parable that Jesus tells.
SPEAKER_00: Because he wants people to understand.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to get this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you just to hear this and leave and go, hey, where are we going to lunch?
SPEAKER_00: Uh he wants you to leave and kind of go, wow, yes to that.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's talking about what what it means to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible talks about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, he's talking about the realm within which what God wants done gets done.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is talking, he says these words in Matthew 13, 44, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.
SPEAKER_00: Then, in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just stop right there and just hear that again.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those things in the Bible you should read, and it's preposterous sounding.
SPEAKER_00: It says the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh the way your mind is oriented towards the truth determines how you see the world, but also determines how you see the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He says the kingdom of heaven, being a Christian, having a relationship with God is like treasure hidden in a field, and a man found and covered it up.
SPEAKER_00: Now, ask yourself, first of all, who finds treasure and then covers it back up?
SPEAKER_00: I was working in the flower bed, I have a neighbor, a widow, that lives a couple hours down from a, and I was working in her flower bed yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just, as your pastor love enough to tell you this, I was digging, I had to dig up two sago palms.
SPEAKER_00: Those things are rooted at the bottom of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: I hate those things.
SPEAKER_00: If you have one in your yard, I can come kill it this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: I killed two yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: I got so mad, the redneck in meat came out, I got my truck in a chain and pulled them out of the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And just to celebrate, I drove around the block with that thing dragging behind me.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's like, hey, you got a tree back there.
SPEAKER_00: That's right, because I'm a man.
SPEAKER_00: And one of my neighbors nudged his buddy and said, He's he's really a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: He really is.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: And if I want to drag this around all week, I think I will.
SPEAKER_00: Because that thing just keeps producing.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like, ah.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: I had to dig down two feet to get under the bottom of that thing.
SPEAKER_00: Had I found treasure in that flower bed, I wouldn't be here right now.
SPEAKER_00: Lance Williams would be up here doing shadow puppets or something.
SPEAKER_00: Because they would have got up and said, hey, Neil said he loves you, but he found treasure.
SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says, and this is Jesus talking, he says, the kingdom of heaven, because see, some of you think about Christianity in lame, pathetic terms.
SPEAKER_00: The way you think about it discounts it from being all that the Bible says it is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like uh hidden, like a treasure hidden in a field, and a man found it and then covered it up.
SPEAKER_00: Who finds treasure and says, I got enough money, I don't need more?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that to get your attention.
SPEAKER_00: And then now that he's got your attention, he says the next sentence, then in his joy.
SPEAKER_00: Circle those three words.
SPEAKER_00: In his joy.
SPEAKER_00: He goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
SPEAKER_00: There ought to be behaviors in your life and my life that can only be explained because of joy.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I want to talk to you about the necessity of joy.
SPEAKER_00: The necessity of enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the good news.
SPEAKER_00: I've only got two points to the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody said, You losers.
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting today, pray for me.
SPEAKER_00: You see what I deal with every day, every Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: The other part is that I've got four subpoints about how you do the two points.
SPEAKER_00: Randy doke on him right there.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see him?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, hey, me and two points.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get out early.
SPEAKER_00: Shut up.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the simple two points, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh number one, to not enjoy God supremely is to be guilty of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: To not enjoy God supremely is to be guilty of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: To not have God as your highest priority, deepest affection, and greatest joy is to be guilty of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Now just check, don't, don't, don't check out.
SPEAKER_00: Just stay with me because this is not going where you think it's going.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to forbid you from enjoying certain things in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what most of you think Christianity is.
SPEAKER_00: They took a poll in San Francisco and they asked people, what do you think about Christians?
SPEAKER_00: What's your first impression of Christians?
SPEAKER_00: And here's the main two responses they got.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, they're against everything.
SPEAKER_00: And number two, they meet a lot.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says that's not it at all.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not about when I say to not enjoy God supremely is to be guilty of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read from Exodus 20.
SPEAKER_00: It'll come up on the screen, but if you want to turn there, Exodus chapter 20, uh, verses 1 to 6.
SPEAKER_00: This is also known as the Ten Commandments, and listen to what God says.
SPEAKER_00: And God spoke verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you read the Ten Commandments, don't skip over that part and just go to the commandments, because if you lose sight of who God is, then you lose value on what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear me?
SPEAKER_00: Now if you lose sight, he says, I am the Lord God who brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: I was telling the first service that when I didn't become a Christian until I was 18.
SPEAKER_00: And when I started, I asked him, I said, I want to understand this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Read the Sermon on the Mount, read the Lord's Prayer, read the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And so the first time I read the Ten Commandments, I thought about my dad.
SPEAKER_00: Because I grew up on a farm in East Texas.
SPEAKER_00: We never got grounded, we never got put in timeout, we didn't get spanked.
SPEAKER_00: We got whipped, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And if we were really bad, we got whooped.
SPEAKER_00: W-H-U-P-P-E-D.
SPEAKER_00: And every time we got whooped, my dad would do this.
SPEAKER_00: He would tell us who he was while he was taking his belt off, okay?
SPEAKER_00: He would say, I am your father, and I'm not going to put up with that.
SPEAKER_00: And then he would unbuckle and grab that buckle, and then the rattlesnake would come out.
SPEAKER_00: That's the belt hitting those belt loops on the way out.
SPEAKER_00: And we just knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_00: And my dad would then put his belt back on and say, Who am I?
SPEAKER_00: And I would think in my mind, you're a man whose pants are about to fall down.
SPEAKER_00: But I never would say that because my dad told us before and after, this is who I am.
SPEAKER_00: He would say, I'm your dad, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I expect more from you.
SPEAKER_00: And he put his belt back on and I would walk away going, My dad expects more from me.
SPEAKER_00: So next time I got to the fork in the road of being smart or being an idiot, I would hear my dad going, I'm your dad, I expect more from you.
SPEAKER_00: So when I read the the the Ten Commandments for the first time, I smiled.
SPEAKER_00: Because God says, I'm the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Hey, what I'm about to tell you to do or not do is rooted in who I am.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says these words, very simple.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone can understand this.
SPEAKER_00: I uh verse 3, the first commandment, you shall love, you shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean when I say to not enjoy God supremely, is to be guilty of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he says, God knew we were prone to idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: You go, okay, I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I got that.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says the second commandment, which is simply this: He says, You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness or anything that is in heaven above or that is in earth beneath or that is in the water or under the earth.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not bow down to them or serve them.
SPEAKER_00: For I am the Lord your for I, the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And again, the way your mind is oriented towards the truth determines how you see the world and how you read the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, oh, God's a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: But the way my mind is oriented, reads it, and sees that, but also says, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are going to be the person that changed the spiritual trajectory of your family's legacy from here on out.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be the guy at the family reunion who's 96, has more ears than teeth, and all the great grandkids are fascinated by you.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking at you kind of going, That's my, that's my that's my grandpa.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get grandpa.
SPEAKER_00: Grandpa's okay, but get a sexy grandpa name like Big Poppy and have it tattooed on your chest.
SPEAKER_00: So when they say, Big Poppy, you want to pray?
SPEAKER_00: You just wear those old school Wrangler denim pearl snapshirt.
SPEAKER_00: You can just unsnap it.
SPEAKER_00: Big Poppy's gonna get his prey on now.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all bow your heads.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you just love to be at a family union and all the little kids are nudging each other, going, see, see?
SPEAKER_00: He changed the our family, it was a bunch of drunkards and men of no integrity.
SPEAKER_00: And he's loved my grandma for 71 years.
SPEAKER_00: And we always ask him, Grandpa, how did you love grandma for 71 years?
SPEAKER_00: And he smiles and says, She's that satisfying.
SPEAKER_00: It just made changed the way I dated people when I was in high school.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Bible means when it says, Hey, showing love to thousands.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Hey, by the way, this is what I mean when I say, hey, to not enjoy God supremely is to be guilty of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I grew up in the church.
SPEAKER_00: I understand God is God and there is no other.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, You shall not make for yourself a graven image.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're we're we'll we can say you shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, everything in your life that you enjoy says the same thing to you.
SPEAKER_00: Everything in your life that you enjoy says to you and to me, everything that I enjoy says, you shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: Your spouse says that, your job says that, your kids say that, your friends say that, your hobbies say that.
SPEAKER_00: But only God has earned the right to say that and to mean that.
SPEAKER_00: The human heart is an idol factory.
SPEAKER_00: We just produce, we can kind of say intellectually, okay, I know that there's one God, I got that, but our heart, and that's why God says here's the first two commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Because your heart can manufacture things that you're gonna love more than you love me.
SPEAKER_00: And to do that and enjoy that more than you enjoy me, God says that's idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: If you read the entire Old Testament, it doesn't preach against unbelief, it preaches against idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_00: Just this past week, conversation, God called and said, Hey, I just want to ask something.
SPEAKER_00: We were talking about this, and and and I said, Well, come by and we'll we'll talk.
SPEAKER_00: So he comes by, we sit down, start talking, and basically the question starts off kind of easy.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, did God know that Adam and Eve were gonna sin?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And it was on from there.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, why'd you got a problem with that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why would God create people if he knew we were gonna sin?
SPEAKER_00: Why'd he just make us perfect?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, think of it this way: God set the world up to where he saves the day.
SPEAKER_00: So you mean to tell me that there's, by the way, there's talking to people, there's what you say, and then there's the way you say it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not four sentences in.
SPEAKER_00: This guy's like talking like he's exasperated.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Hey, hey, well, relax.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, uh, I mean, you mean to tell me that God set it up, set the world up where he just saves the day?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Absolutely, he goes, Well, I got a problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if he knew they were gonna sin, why didn't he stop them?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I don't think you have a problem with the way God has set it up.
SPEAKER_00: I think you have a problem with who God has chosen to glorify.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you you you kind of want to act like, hey, because here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I said, you're in Genesis 3 talking about the fall of man.
SPEAKER_00: Go back a couple chapters to Genesis 1, verse 26, where God speaks, the Trinity speaks, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, pre-existent Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God speaks and says, Come, let us make man in our image.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Who is the plural there?
SPEAKER_00: Who's the us and the oh I go, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Colossians 1 says of Jesus that all things were made by him, and through him all things were made, and for him all things were made.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wasn't an idea that God created at the end of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just pull him out and say, Hey, this thing's gone really bad.
SPEAKER_00: Let's make Jesus and He'll make it all better.
SPEAKER_00: Because me, no God needs an alter ego, smiley, lovey Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's existed all along.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy said, Well, I just got a problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: And it dawned on me, and he's talking to me, and I just picked up my pen and wrote it down.
SPEAKER_00: Limits produce idols.
SPEAKER_00: Limits.
SPEAKER_00: When we get to the limit of our human intellect, we just kind of manufacture stuff and just insist on believing that because it makes more sense to us, even if it's not true.
SPEAKER_00: And I said to him, I said, Hey, here's the hard part about being wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Sure you are.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the hard part about being wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that it's just you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I'm your pastor, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I love you, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you frustrate me.
SPEAKER_00: You think you're the first person to say that to me?
SPEAKER_00: I live with a woman that says that to me all the time.
SPEAKER_00: My wife said to me the other day, You are the most highly functioning bipolar I know.
SPEAKER_00: Wear that like a belt.
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, I mean, why would God set it up where he saves the day?
SPEAKER_00: Who else can God depend on to save the day?
SPEAKER_00: You and me?
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what you want.
SPEAKER_00: You want the glory.
SPEAKER_00: And God says in Isaiah 49, my glory I will not share with another.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're just gonna disagree.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, here's here's the let me love you and be your pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the bad thing, here's the hard thing.
SPEAKER_00: Not just that you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta spend the rest of your life making this look enjoyable.
SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me and said, I understand now why your wife gets frustrated.
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can explain to me.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing that's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: God sets it up.
SPEAKER_00: And because God sets it up that way, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You and I, regardless of your background, your religious pedigree, if you grew up in church, you've never been to church, you started dating a girl, and two Sundays ago she said, or two Saturdays ago, she goes, Hey, let's go to church in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: And you're sitting in here right now, kind of going, I'm here because my girlfriend, you know, kind of let me know that if I want to keep dating her, I got to come to church.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: Relax.
SPEAKER_00: God has set up the world to where you and I now have something that we can enjoy supremely for the rest of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And to not enjoy God supremely is to be guilty of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means you're enjoying something else, the way you were intended to enjoy God.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's nothing wrong with enjoying other things, which brings us to our second point in the talk this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And it's simply this it you set the standard of enjoyment in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You set the standard of enjoyment in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Uh this happens every year.
SPEAKER_00: It's already started happening.
SPEAKER_00: Uh ladies and gentlemen, there's some men in our church that about in a couple, sometime later this month, they'll disappear for two weeks because they have a thing called a dear lace somewhere in Texas.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are in Mexico, New Mexico, and they come up to me.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't I didn't grow up in church, so I didn't know this when I first became the pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Guys would, families would come up and say, No, Pastor, we're not gonna be here next Sunday, and I'd be like, Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So?
SPEAKER_00: And my wife, who grew up in church, is like, well, babe, people feel guilty when they're not in church and they want to tell you so you don't think bad of them.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: I I I don't think bad.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I was on sabbatical this summer.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of Sundays I didn't go to church.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel bad at all.
SPEAKER_00: I heard God saying, You've been to enough church for a while.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a break, Neil.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, but this is what happened because you kind of feel guilty because you enjoy deer hunting, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's your business that you pay money year-round to hunt on this thing for two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: That's your business, and that you put on clothes that you never wear anywhere else, and you put deer urine on you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they do.
SPEAKER_00: And you go out, here's the craziest part.
SPEAKER_00: You go out there and you bait these deer, you feed them corn, you put out all this sin, and then you go over here in your little tree house on steroids with a slit in it where you can stick your rifle out of the heated air-conditioned hunting hut and kill the deer that you've taught to come eat food right there.
SPEAKER_00: That's not hunting, that's assassination, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But, but that's your deal.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my thing.
SPEAKER_00: Don't feel you you've never heard this in church before, some of you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't feel guilty that you enjoy that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't come up to me and go, well, you know, God, hey, I'm gonna be gone for a couple weeks, and you know, and you know, well, you know, I don't want here's my favorite lie you tell.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go, but I've already paid, and so I think it'd be bad stewardship.
SPEAKER_00: And I just think, man, hey, you worked hard on that lie right there.
SPEAKER_00: There's lies you only tell the preacher, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so I always say, enjoy yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And you always look at me like what you're talking about, Willis.
SPEAKER_00: You set the standard of enjoyment in your life and by by the things that you enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me just say this.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is that whatever you enjoy, let that be a reminder of the kind of enjoyment that you're capable of.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00: If you enjoy your grandkids, enjoy your grandkids.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a beach house, enjoy your beach house.
SPEAKER_00: Don't come to me and say, hey, we're gonna miss a couple Sundays because we got a beach house.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited that God has blessed you.
SPEAKER_00: You have a house house, and you have a beach house.
SPEAKER_00: Great! Go to it.
SPEAKER_00: But see, here's the thing we feel guilty when we enjoy things.
SPEAKER_00: And what I'm saying to you, and more importantly, what the Bible is saying to you, is that God created you to enjoy those things.
SPEAKER_00: But he reserved the place of highest enjoyment in your life for him.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have anything in that place, that is idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: So if you enjoy hunting or golf or fishing or four-wheeling or scrapbooking or whatever you enjoy, enjoy that as a reminder of the kind of enjoyment you're capable of.
SPEAKER_00: For example, today, and this is just again the way my crazy mind worked.
SPEAKER_00: I will turn on the TV today, the Texans game.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Baltimore, so don't worry, I gotta holler.
SPEAKER_00: It kicks off at noon.
SPEAKER_00: You'll be home in time to turn on your TV and watch it.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll turn on the TV, and there will be people in Baltimore, Maryland, who live in Houston, Texas, who bought airline tickets and flew up there and got a hotel and went out and ate and drank too much beer or whatever, and they go to the game, and someone's gonna have their shirt off, and they've painted their whole upper body battle red, and they've got a helmet on with deer antlers on it, and they're in the crowd going crazy, and I see that, and everybody expects me to go, oh, that person wasted all that money on that trip.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that.
SPEAKER_00: I think, what's that guy like in church?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you want to come to church next week?
SPEAKER_00: And right down here, somebody who's got their whole upper body painted red with a big flag that says Jehovah Nisi, the Lord our God is a banner God.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you just be kind of going, what does that guy know that we don't know?
SPEAKER_00: There was a guy that went to the Denver Broncos when they were in Mile High Stadium.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they called him, but he wore a brown cowboy hat and boots and a barrel and orange suspenders.
SPEAKER_00: Remember seeing that guy?
SPEAKER_00: And he would, it'd be 12 degrees, and he'd be up there in the stands.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be like, please tell me you got something on under that barrel.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody's like, oh, isn't that dumb?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that dumb?
SPEAKER_00: No, that's pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: That's enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: God created you to feel things deeply, to love things deeply, but he also created you to not love or enjoy anything more than you enjoy him.
SPEAKER_00: So you set the standard of enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: Stop apologizing for enjoying your grandkids.
SPEAKER_00: Have fun with your grandkids.
SPEAKER_00: I got rednecks in here that loves to go shoot stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And so we went and shot stuff a while back out in the pasture.
SPEAKER_00: And just I have a 40-caliber pistol.
SPEAKER_00: I like shooting at.
SPEAKER_00: You break into my house, I'll demonstrate to you how much I like shooting at.
SPEAKER_00: I'll double thumb up on you and I'll kind of walk up on you sideways.
SPEAKER_00: Wrong house.
SPEAKER_00: When I call 911, I'm gonna have our business right here.
SPEAKER_00: We got too many idiots in the world running the place.
SPEAKER_00: We can thin the herd right here.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we'll edit that off the podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But somebody asked me, I'd been out with my buddy Mike shooting, and somebody said, What'd you do today?
SPEAKER_00: I said, I went and shot stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I put about from about 10, 15 yards, I put about five in a pattern about that big, right there in the center, center mass, right in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Pastor, why do you practice shooting stuff just in case the need arises?
SPEAKER_00: And then people walked off and said, our pastor's really violent.
SPEAKER_00: No, I just enjoy shooting stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Ain't nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00: You can't find a verse in the Bible, hey, pastors shouldn't own firearms.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, listen, if our country keeps going the way it is, every pastor is going to need a firearm.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: it's just, it's not, hey, you set the standard of enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: You set the level enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy playing golf.
SPEAKER_00: I really enjoy, I enjoy playing golf.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy playing golf with certain people more than others because I can get in their head and they just go crazy and they just self-destruct.
SPEAKER_00: They'll get ready to putt, and they'll just hit it like nine feet by, and I go, does your wife play?
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really?
SPEAKER_00: I was just curious because maybe she could make that putt.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what it comes down to.
SPEAKER_00: If to not enjoy God supremely is to be guilty of idolatry, and if, secondly, we set the standard of enjoyment in your life, that's the sermon, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: It's over.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: But now, how do you apply this?
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a fourth thing.
SPEAKER_00: So the question ought to arise in you, how do I enjoy God?
SPEAKER_00: If I've got to enjoy God like that, how do I, because that's what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, that's where we started.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 13, 44, the kingdom of God, the realm within which what God wants done gets done.
SPEAKER_00: That's why when the disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray, Jesus said, When you pray, pray this way.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we mean.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom is a place where God's will get done.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you want your life to be the place where what God wants to happen happens?
SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways that makes that easier is that you enjoy God.
SPEAKER_00: That's why, as your pastor, I have to say, hey, hey, there's a necessity to enjoy in God.
SPEAKER_00: And church people aren't good at it.
SPEAKER_00: We feel guilty when we enjoy something.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, when I come to your house, you don't have to apologize for how nice your house is.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime I go to someone's house that has a beautiful home, they explain to me, well, you know, my wife's dad died and my mom died, and we've got that money.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy your house.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a nice car, when I get in your car, don't tell me what a deal you got.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you wouldn't drive this.
SPEAKER_00: You're a liar.
SPEAKER_00: You drive that because you wanted it.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't got to feel guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Just go, hey, I wanted a nice truck and I had the money and I got a nice truck.
SPEAKER_00: It's just you're reminding yourself of the level of enjoyment that you're capable of.
SPEAKER_00: And then your highest enjoyment is for God.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you enjoy God?
SPEAKER_00: Four things.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, experience true conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Experience true conversion.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just being goofy here.
SPEAKER_00: I just think that there's a lot of people in church that really don't have a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And here's how you know that your heart's never been converted is you're trying to take some external rules and press them in on you and convince yourself that you should like doing that.
SPEAKER_00: That's not Christianity, beloved.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Preachers are not here to preserve these cherished phrases, but instead, we ought to stab the conscience and awaken the mind.
SPEAKER_00: And the way we do that is by just simply saying what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: When I say experience true conversion, I say this with some caution because it's not something we can affect in our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches that regeneration happens and then repentance happens and then faith is an expression of these things having happened.
SPEAKER_00: Regeneration is what God does in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's what allows me to repent because the Bible says that I'm dead in my trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_00: Dead people can't do anything about being dead.
SPEAKER_00: That's profound, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And so, regeneration, God, Jesus said, no one can know the Father except those that choose to reveal him.
SPEAKER_00: I'll use my own self, for example.
SPEAKER_00: When I was 16, I had a dear friend of mine that really loved me and cared about me spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: And we were in the back of the church, First Baptist Church, on a Sunday night.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Sunday night church?
SPEAKER_00: Only the really committed ones went in.
SPEAKER_00: And we're back there, and he loved me, cared about me.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't give a hoot about the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: God just hadn't revealed himself to me.
SPEAKER_00: And so he looked at me during the invitation and said, Hey, if you'll go down, I'll buy your dinner.
SPEAKER_00: I was poor, so I was always hungry.
SPEAKER_00: I hopped down there and the preacher shook me and he said, Would you like to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yes, I'd like a breast, a wing, and a thigh, too.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy led me in some prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people will tell you, Oh, Neil became a Christian right there.
SPEAKER_00: No, Neil didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks later, I went back there and I got wet with the preacher, and my heart was not still the same.
SPEAKER_00: My heart was not regenerated.
SPEAKER_00: I was still spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_00: You see, here's the thing the church in America is taking upon ourselves trying to convert people instead of saying what the Bible says and trusting the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Because a couple years later, when my heart was regenerated, I had new affections and desires.
SPEAKER_00: Well, well, I basically had a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: See, Scripture kind of promised long ago that God would devote himself to this work in order to create for himself a faithful people.
SPEAKER_00: You can write these down, they'll come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: This is Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and that you may live.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 24, 7.
SPEAKER_00: God says, this is a captivity verse.
SPEAKER_00: They've been in captivity, and God says, I'm gonna draw these people back.
SPEAKER_00: And look what he says, I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and that they shall be my people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'll give them a heart to know me.
SPEAKER_00: How do you get a relationship with God without getting a heart that just says, I want to know God?
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do this weekend?
SPEAKER_00: I want to know God.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to enjoy all of our stuff as a reminder of the level of enjoyment that we're capable of, because then I reserve the place of highest affection and greatest joy for God, because my heart, honey, just wants to know God.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel chapter 11, verse 19 and 20, and I will give them one heart and put a new spirit in them, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them.
SPEAKER_00: What you gotta hear in this is that God wants you to succeed.
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to be able to do this.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't, he's not Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you made bricks.
SPEAKER_00: Now make bricks without straw.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't keep raising the level, keep raising the bar until you get exasperated and quit.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what God says.
SPEAKER_00: Put that back up there.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what God says in Hebrew, in Ezekiel 11.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give them one heart, a new spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I will put within them, I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: That, why does he do that?
SPEAKER_00: That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.
SPEAKER_00: They shall be my people, and I will be their God.
SPEAKER_00: God takes no pleasure in you failing.
SPEAKER_00: God is not glorified by you saying, I stink.
SPEAKER_00: I'm such a I'm such a worm in the dirt.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's like your wife being married to you for 15 years and kind of going, I used to really love myself, but now I can't stand myself.
SPEAKER_00: What's wrong in that picture?
SPEAKER_00: But somehow in the American church, saying and acting and feeling that way has become spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to get a big amen in a Baptist church, just say this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just a sinner saved by grace.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 36, verse 26 and 27, God says, A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.
SPEAKER_00: I will take out of him your flesh, your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh, and I put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, God's saying, You can do this, you can do this.
SPEAKER_00: All you gotta have is a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I don't want no.
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe this will help make the point.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when I was in college, I did a major thesis on a man named Augustine.
SPEAKER_00: He was a preacher, what we call a preacher.
SPEAKER_00: He later became the bishop of Hippo, this part of Africa, but he was a rascal.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Augustine was a brilliant, womanizing, immoral pagan who he knew God was calling him and he fought it.
SPEAKER_00: And matter of fact, he prayed one time, Lord, give me morality, but not give me purity, but not yet.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, I relate to that.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he said.
SPEAKER_00: He became friends with a man named Ambrose.
SPEAKER_00: He used to go listen to Ambrose preach.
SPEAKER_00: He was like a scarecrow coming to a bonfire, but he just kept coming.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he said.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I was all ears to seize upon his eloquence.
SPEAKER_00: I also began to sense the truth of what he said.
SPEAKER_00: Though only gradually I thrilled with love and dread alike.
SPEAKER_00: I realized that I was far away from you.
SPEAKER_00: And far off I heard your voice saying, I am the God who is.
SPEAKER_00: I heard your voice as we hear voices that speak to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And at once I had no cause to doubt.
SPEAKER_00: But this experience was not true conversion.
SPEAKER_00: I was astonished that although I now loved you, hear this.
SPEAKER_00: I did not persist in my enjoyment of my God.
SPEAKER_00: Your beauty drew me to you, but soon I was dragged away from you by my own weight, and in dismay I plunged again into the things of the world.
SPEAKER_00: As though I had sensed the fragrance of the fare, but was not yet able to eat it.
SPEAKER_00: Hear that last line again.
SPEAKER_00: As though I had sensed the fragrance of the fare.
SPEAKER_00: I smelled what you were cooking, but I was not yet able to eat it.
SPEAKER_00: Years ago, there was a family that went to our church that sat right over here.
SPEAKER_00: The husband's name was Chris.
SPEAKER_00: He was a pharmacist at CVS.
SPEAKER_00: Great guy.
SPEAKER_00: Got to know him.
SPEAKER_00: They started visiting and said, Hey, you know, I don't want to just preach and want to be your pastor.
SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you enjoy doing?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I used to play junior golf in California.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed golf.
SPEAKER_00: How much time?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Let's go play golf sometime.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not that good, but I'm better than the people that work here, and I like to have a good time.
SPEAKER_00: So we go to play golf.
SPEAKER_00: We get there, and he says in the parking lot, Nate, you know I'm not a Christian, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, How can you tell?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Because I can just tell by your countenance.
SPEAKER_00: You're kind of very scientific.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah, and and I'm not easily persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to persuade you.
SPEAKER_00: What'd you say?
SPEAKER_00: As if that was my job.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are like, Yeah, that is your job.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: My job is to enjoy God more than he enjoys everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Because he smells what the rock is cooking, and he wants it then.
SPEAKER_00: So we just played golf, and I said, Listen, I'm just gonna play golf, beat the snot out of you, and you gotta go to work tomorrow and say, I got trounced by a preacher.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, That ain't gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Bring it on, big boy.
SPEAKER_00: We had a great time.
SPEAKER_00: And he would come, he would come to midweek classes, Wednesday night classes.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why I tell you this.
SPEAKER_00: He stopped me right aside these doors over here one Sunday morning, and he said this.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, this is awesome.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, uh, I mean, this church has been so gracious to me and my family, and y'all really helped me, but I'm not there yet.
SPEAKER_00: Should I just like pray a prayer or something and just fake it to let everybody know I appreciate what they're doing?
SPEAKER_00: And I just grabbed him and hugged him.
SPEAKER_00: Just hold me, don't turn loose.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Okay, stop.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, No, we got enough phony people at church already.
SPEAKER_00: No, you hold out as long as you can.
SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me, he's like, What?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You hold out as long as you can because if you can resist it, it ain't the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because when the Spirit of God gets a hold of you, you can't say no.
SPEAKER_00: It will land on you like a herd of drunken monkeys.
SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me like, I never had that happen before, but I want it.
SPEAKER_00: And they came, and then he got transferred to Phoenix, Arizona, and standing right there by those doors, going out that exit, he said, I just I hope you don't think your time with me was a waste.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're not a project, my man.
SPEAKER_00: Chris, we're friends.
SPEAKER_00: And of course I want you to come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But I can't make that happen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to win a logical debate with you.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to enjoy God, let you see what it's like.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Man, you have.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I just I'm used to people just cramming it down my throat.
SPEAKER_00: That's labor.
SPEAKER_00: That ain't love.
SPEAKER_00: Moved to Phoenix, found a church, got an email after Easter.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I gave my life to Christ yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say thank you to you and all the people of Grand Park.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's our pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: That that that that's our pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Are you are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: See, he he was smelling it here, and it was making him hungry.
SPEAKER_00: And he got there, and all of a sudden he realized, you know what, that I can have that meal.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Augustine said.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I can, I could, I sense the fragrance of the fare, but was not yet able to eat it.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I married Paula Dean minus the racial slurs, okay?
SPEAKER_00: My wife is an incredible cook, and I get in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're like, oh, Pastor, you shouldn't joke about that.
SPEAKER_00: Next week we'll talk about self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're here.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes my wife will be cooking, and I didn't grow up in a house where we did not sit down as a family very we sit down every night and have dinner at the table.
SPEAKER_00: And my wife kind of, we have an open floor plan, she gives me an update on how she's coming.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, all right, ten more minutes, five more minutes, plating up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_00: That means she's getting it on the plates.
SPEAKER_00: Because we used to line up with paper plates like white trash at the stove, and my my stepmother would just slap it on you and plate, there, go sit down.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: We got plates.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna put the plates out and we're gonna get our setup on.
SPEAKER_00: And every once in a while we have garnishes.
SPEAKER_00: We never have enough money as a kid to have a garnish.
SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't want to sound like I wasn't thoughtful.
SPEAKER_00: I remember saying to my wife one time, hey, I really don't, you ain't gotta do the garnish.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a sure thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm your husband.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Well, I think appearances matter.
SPEAKER_00: Not that much.
SPEAKER_00: Just trying to say you can save some money on parsley.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes my wife's cooking, and I get in trouble because I'm sitting right there on the couch watching the news, because I'm an old man.
SPEAKER_00: I watch the news every night, and I can't help myself.
SPEAKER_00: I just keep smelling it, and I'll just get up and I'll go in there and I forget that there's a pot on the stove and that it's got fire under it, and that means that the stuff in the pot is as hot as the fire, and I'll get a fork and I'll stick it, and I'll just stick it right in my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, ha, and I spit it out.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, and then I pop it right back in my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the smell of it there's sometimes I go home, I'm not even hungry until I smell my wife's cooking.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, man, what time are we eating?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Augustine said.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I would go to Jerome's church and hear him preach.
SPEAKER_00: And though I was far off from you, God, you were talking to my heart, and you say, Well, why are you making a big deal out of this?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's some of you here today.
SPEAKER_00: You can belong here before you believe.
SPEAKER_00: You can come here and kind of go, you know, I don't think I believe all this stuff, but man, there's something in me that makes me want to think about this.
SPEAKER_00: I never thought about this before.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: He'd come into a town, and people would be like businessmen, like Zacchaeus, were cheating weasels who cook the books, and Jesus came and said, Hey man, I want to go to your house and have dinner.
SPEAKER_00: And he climbed down out of the tree that he climbed up in just to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Lord, if I've cheated anybody, I'll give back four times.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is like, I just want to have pot roast.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: It was that intoxicating to be around him.
SPEAKER_00: See, that when I say, hey, experience true conversion, that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart changes.
SPEAKER_00: You change from the inside out, and it's your pleasure to kind of demonstrate outwardly what God's done inwardly.
SPEAKER_00: What we've done in America is we try to take something external and kind of force it on you.
SPEAKER_00: We don't do that here.
SPEAKER_00: We believe you're men and women and you want the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth, Jesus, that'll set you free.
SPEAKER_00: So how do you enjoy God?
SPEAKER_00: Number one, you experience true conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you you develop your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to talk much about this because we're not an eggheaded church.
SPEAKER_00: We're not like, oh, well, you gotta bring No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, if you don't mature in the way you think about God, you obligate yourself to feeling about God the way you've always felt.
SPEAKER_00: You got two or three answers to every spiritual question.
SPEAKER_00: The ground's level foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: God forgives all sin.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to get tired of hearing yourself say the same thing over and over.
SPEAKER_00: That's your soul saying, develop your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, what like for example, before I move on, I read this past week in Psalm 4, verse 7, where David says, You put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and their wine abound.
SPEAKER_00: See, we we we preach sermons about grain and wine, about, oh, you shouldn't be doing that and shouldn't be doing that.
SPEAKER_00: And David says, You've put more joy in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: And what are you talking about than when their grain and wine abound?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when my enemies have a bumper crop and they're killing it, and they're knocking the top out of their sales goals, and they're getting triple-digit bonus checks on top of their salary.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way they can enjoy that, God, more than I enjoy you.
SPEAKER_00: You've put more joy in my heart than they got when they have a banner year.
SPEAKER_00: You may have a good year this past year?
SPEAKER_00: Personally?
SPEAKER_00: Or at work?
SPEAKER_00: You just kill it.
SPEAKER_00: Look at you.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I'm not raising my hand.
SPEAKER_00: People may want something from me.
SPEAKER_00: You can't let people know how good you've it's been good.
SPEAKER_00: No, don't raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: David in the Bible would say to you and me, hey, I've got more joy in my heart over God than you've got over there.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with having a good year.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Someone saw me this week and said, Man, what are you doing at your church?
SPEAKER_00: Every time I go by there, there's a car and y'all are in three services now.
SPEAKER_00: And oh my gosh, what's going on?
SPEAKER_00: I just tell them the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy said, No, seriously.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not that smart.
SPEAKER_00: If you've enjoyed everything this world has to offer, and you still have this gnawing sensation that maybe there's something more, you're a great candidate for Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Great candidate for Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, how what do you mean, enjoy God?
SPEAKER_00: Let's do the last two and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, spend time with those who enjoy God more than you.
SPEAKER_00: Spend time with people that enjoy God more than you.
SPEAKER_00: Not to go to church more, not that are more religious, but spend time with people that are more winsome and free.
SPEAKER_00: And when they talk about God, you think, I want to think about God that way.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And just, hey, let's spend time together.
SPEAKER_00: And don't do it in an official capacity.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's just crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I like to ask people crazy questions.
SPEAKER_00: Like I went to a Living Water Gala on Friday night.
SPEAKER_00: Living Water is a great organization here in our city.
SPEAKER_00: They drill water wells all over the world, give clean, sustainable water sources.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting next to a man.
SPEAKER_00: I just met him.
SPEAKER_00: And we're talking, and he lives a beautifully textured life.
SPEAKER_00: He's telling me about he started a company and this, and he was doing this.
SPEAKER_00: And da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
SPEAKER_00: And he had a job at one point making 60 cents an hour.
SPEAKER_00: That's how old he was.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, over the course of the, because I can do some small talk, and then there's part of me that just kind of says, let's talk about something that matters.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, you sound like you lived a lot of life.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I said, What's the most difficult thing you've experienced and what did God teach you?
SPEAKER_00: And his wife just reached over and put her hand on him.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to be appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: And my wife's like, Really?
SPEAKER_00: You just met the guy.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody asked that at a dinner party.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you have to be so stupid?
SPEAKER_00: But she didn't say any of that.
SPEAKER_00: My wife, her eyebrow just went up.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that means.
SPEAKER_00: You are such a moron.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy's crying.
SPEAKER_00: His wife put his hand and he grabbed my hand and I was like, Should I just pass it around?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'll have to tell you later.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you later.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: I want to learn from him.
SPEAKER_00: I saw him afterwards, after the thing was over, and I said, Hey, I wasn't trying to be inappropriate.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to learn from you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'll be glad to tell you about that.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm trying to practice what I preach.
SPEAKER_00: I don't spend time with, hey, I've never had a job working for 60 cents an hour.
SPEAKER_00: Until I started here, but that's a whole other story.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, apply the Bible to your life.
SPEAKER_00: Apply the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh yeah, great.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We got that.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Just John 2.5.
SPEAKER_00: It's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: There was a marriage feast in the region of Canaan and Jesus, along with his disciples were there.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus' mom came to Jesus and said, Jesus, they're out of wine.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Why is that my issue?
SPEAKER_00: And then his mom turned and said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you to do.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say apply the Bible to your life, that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Just do whatever he tells you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, I don't mean, and hear me carefully.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things preachers tell you to do that are not in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We practice more behavior modification like B.
SPEAKER_00: F.
SPEAKER_00: Skinner than we do biblical Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, I uh years ago I was in West Palm Beach, Florida, speaking at a Christian school.
SPEAKER_00: I can't speak at Christian schools.
SPEAKER_00: I get in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to get in trouble, but I always get in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: And so I tried not to get in trouble, I got in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: I was speaking, uh I spoke at Palm Beach Atlantic College, and they said, Hey, would you come back and speak at the King's Academy?
SPEAKER_00: Great school.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm speaking in chapel during Spiritual Emphasis Week.
SPEAKER_00: And then they said, Would you go to the Bible class and would you answer questions?
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: A couple questions about what I talked about that morning.
SPEAKER_00: Then the third question is, kid said, Is it wrong to go to a party?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, What do you do at parties?
SPEAKER_00: And I could tell they were like, oh, because you want us to tell you how to live.
SPEAKER_00: We want to give you a bunch of rules, and then you're gonna go out there and go, I'm gonna try to make this make this work.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try to obey.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, uh, so go to a party.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I said, what do you do at these parties?
SPEAKER_00: He said, We we smoke and drink.
SPEAKER_00: I said, You're not talking Marlboro Reds, are you, when you say you smoke.
SPEAKER_00: You smoke the hippie lettuce, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: You're a little pot smoking Baptist kid, aren't you?
SPEAKER_00: And the teacher goes over and gets the intercom and says, Could you send the principal down here?
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, hey, if I'm gonna get in trouble, I'm gonna get in big trouble.
SPEAKER_00: So I said, So you don't you aren't you you're just a pearly white pot-smoking church kid, aren't you?
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yeah, what's wrong with that?
SPEAKER_00: It's not Christianity, but anyway, so is that what you do at your little parties?
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing you and your pathetic rich friends in West Palm Beach don't know how to party.
SPEAKER_00: It's lame and weak.
SPEAKER_00: You are bringing Kool-Aid to a gin party, my man.
SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me, and this kid over and went, what's a gin party?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, So here's what you do.
SPEAKER_00: And here's why.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're visiting today, just bear with me.
SPEAKER_00: There's a method to the madness.
SPEAKER_00: And here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Falsehood has to be falsified sometimes before truth can be verified.
SPEAKER_00: So I said to the kid, I said, here's what you do.
SPEAKER_00: Next time you go to one of your pathetic little parties where your parents are gone to cabo and you got the house all to yourself, you just get up on a coffee table, all right, and get you a big 40 ounce.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a 40 ounce is?
SPEAKER_00: Sure some of you do.
SPEAKER_00: You pathetic liars.
SPEAKER_00: You get you a big 40 ounce is what malt liquor comes in.
SPEAKER_00: It's cheap, high potency, bad beer.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you get you a 40 and get you a big fatty.
SPEAKER_00: Not one of those little pin joints like you keep in your billfold in case of emergency.
SPEAKER_00: Get one of them big fat cheech and chong joints.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta have a tripod to hold it up.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, there's a girl out here, and she's like, oh.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, uh, what else you do at a place?
SPEAKER_00: So every once in a while you hook up.
SPEAKER_00: I said, well, great.
SPEAKER_00: Take all your clothes off, get up on a coffee table with a 40 and a fatty, and just say, here's what you do.
SPEAKER_00: And before they're about to explode, I said, here's what you do.
SPEAKER_00: Just announce to everybody, I'm enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, this girl just snapped.
SPEAKER_00: She got up and kicked a chair across the room.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that and justify it by saying you're enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: I said, You're exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: So here comes the question: How can you live?
SPEAKER_00: And the only explanation for it is to say, I'm enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: That's Matthew 13, 44.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, I thought you were a liberal, telling people to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol.
SPEAKER_00: I would never say it's a bunch of kids.
SPEAKER_00: But the principal got down there and it's like, is there a problem in here?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, these kids have been here since kindergarten and they still don't understand biblical Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: All y'all should be fired.
SPEAKER_00: And the principal said, Well, Neil, let's go out in the hall and talk.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we can talk.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Any more questions, kids?
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that kid found me on Friday and said, My mom and dad will fly you out here.
SPEAKER_00: You just come to our house and just have dinner and just kind of talk more about that Jesus that, you know, because and I said, Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: You think Jesus, you know, you smoke pot because you don't find a pleasure in God that you find in pot.
SPEAKER_00: You think pot is more satisfying than Jesus, which is laughable.
SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing at you.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you're you're not addicted.
SPEAKER_00: You just don't know pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: And your parents are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.
SPEAKER_00: They sent you to this private school because they think it'll fix you.
SPEAKER_00: Only thing will fix you is Jesus, my man, and you don't know how to enjoy him.
SPEAKER_00: And he burst into tears and he goes, I know, don't tell anybody.
SPEAKER_00: They all know.
SPEAKER_00: All the people that come to your little lame parties and sit around and smoke marijuana and drink beer, they know.
SPEAKER_00: So would you come?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my parents are loaded, they'll fly you out here.
SPEAKER_00: No, I've got to go to another Christian school in North Carolina and get kicked out there next week.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a busy man, son.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's the deal, and we're done.
SPEAKER_00: Stop smiling.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to walk out of here and look sad today.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is afraid you're gonna go out there and find something that's better than him.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jeremiah chapter 2 says, God says, My people have committed two sins.
SPEAKER_00: They've forsaken me, the well of living water, and they've dug for themselves cisterns that hold no water.
SPEAKER_00: So God's not afraid you're gonna go find something that's better than him.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you wonder why you don't enjoy yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It's because you enjoy your pet sin more than God.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's the question, and we're done.
SPEAKER_00: How can you live?
SPEAKER_00: What can you do?
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't do a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do what I was telling that kid to do.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't tell him to do it.
SPEAKER_00: I just said, just, hey, I'm enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then what can you do?
SPEAKER_00: How can you so live?
SPEAKER_00: And the only explanation is I'm enjoying God.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says that's what Jesus is saying when he said, Hey, the kingdom of heaven is like a man plowing a field.
SPEAKER_00: He discovered treasure and covered it back up.
SPEAKER_00: And then, in his joy, he went and sold all he had to buy the field that contained the treasure.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have this joy today?
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your patience.
SPEAKER_00: Um stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out if you would.
SPEAKER_00: Your God has so loved you that he has left you an example of the power of joy.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says, of him who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and is set down at the right hand of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you're facing today, there's enough joy available in God for you to not only endure it, but to excel at it.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and give yourself to this kind of living in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you, you're dismissed.