SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information in our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we've come to give ourselves to that exact reality, to the glory of your name.
SPEAKER_00: We want to better understand how we live lives as men and women and students, uh, how we live lives that bring you glory and honor.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that we by nature have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: But it goes on to say that you by nature have redeemed us from that life, from that falling short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: It says that you've redeemed us, you've come to seek and save that which is lost, God.
SPEAKER_00: And so you've restored what we forfeited through disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: You restored through your obedience by dying on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And so your words have a big place in our life today.
SPEAKER_00: As a result of having been here today, Lord, may they have a even a more of a place of prominence in our life, in our thoughts, and in our mouths, God.
SPEAKER_00: May it just come out.
SPEAKER_00: May we be gospel-fluent people.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, speak to us about the simplicity of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We want to hear it, we want to know it, and we want to experience it now.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row that looks a lot like this, because I lost my Bible this week.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you've seen my no, I think I left it in a restaurant where I had a meeting.
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I want if you don't have a Bible, there's one on your road that looks like this.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a Bible at home, take this one home with you.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be our gift to you.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm on page 946.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to preach a little bit, and then I want to shut up.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you for that vote of affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: And then what I want to do is I want to release you in time because I want you to meet some people around you.
SPEAKER_00: Because there, and you say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to leave this room until you meet three or four people around you because there's going to be situations in your life you're going to come up against, circumstances you're going to get in, where the last person you need to talk to is a preacher.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: I heard that, Pete Pierce.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, yeah, let me, yeah, the last person.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying we're not available, we don't want to talk to you, not at all.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that sometimes you're going to look around and you're going to think, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: So-and-so is telling me that about he went through something like this.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's got something to speak or she's got something to speak into my life.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to shut up and give you time to meet some people so that when you need somebody, you have a name and a face in your head.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough?
SPEAKER_00: Let's read what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start reading in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law.
SPEAKER_00: But the person who does the commandments shall live by them.
SPEAKER_00: But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into heaven?
SPEAKER_00: That is to bring Christ down.
SPEAKER_00: Or who will descend into the abyss?
SPEAKER_00: That is to bring Christ up from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: But what does it say?
SPEAKER_00: The word is near you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your mouth, it is in your heart, and that is the word of faith that we proclaim.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
SPEAKER_00: For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: For there's no distinction between Jew and Greek.
SPEAKER_00: For the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: There's three questions in the text that I want to get at today.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is simply this What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Paul talks off, starts off in verse 5, and in contrast, he talks about the righteousness that's based on the law in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 6, he talks about the righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you see the word righteousness in the Bible, think of it this way.
SPEAKER_00: It's asking the question, how does a person get right with God?
SPEAKER_00: Righteousness is how do you get right with God?
SPEAKER_00: Now in verse 5, he says there's a righteousness that's based on the law.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 6, he says there's a righteousness that is based on faith.
SPEAKER_00: The righteousness that is based on the law, he said the person that lives that way, he does those things.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, if you believe by keeping the law, by keeping the rules, that's how you get right with God, then what you've got to do is live your entire life and never break one rule.
SPEAKER_00: Never violate one law.
SPEAKER_00: Never go against any one thing the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you if your righteousness, if you're being right with God is based on that, then you've got to keep all that.
SPEAKER_00: And so how do how do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00: Just one word.
SPEAKER_00: Do.
SPEAKER_00: Just do.
SPEAKER_00: And do and do and do.
SPEAKER_00: But then he says in verse 6, he says, but the righteousness that is based on faith, he says, this is what it says.
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on, but the righteousness that's based on faith, think of it like this.
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of like, hey, what do you mean based on faith?
SPEAKER_00: Faith in all that Christ has done.
SPEAKER_00: And so you think of that and just think of the word done.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't convince yourself this is too hard for you.
SPEAKER_00: Because he picks up.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read.
SPEAKER_00: In about verse 6, he says, But the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will uh who will descend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And he keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: What he's quoting there, actually, I want to read from where he's quoting.
SPEAKER_00: He is quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 30.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn there, it'll come up on the screen, but I want you to get the context because there's something that Paul is saying, and he leaves out this little part that I want to draw your attention to.
SPEAKER_00: But he's quoting a reference from way back in Deuteronomy 30.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Deuteronomy 30, Moses is getting ready to die.
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of his last speech.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to get the context of this, think about it like this.
SPEAKER_00: If you knew you were going to die on Thursday of this coming week, what would you want to say to your wife and kids before you went, men?
SPEAKER_00: Or, ladies, what would you like to say to your parents or to your husband and your children?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Moses is doing.
SPEAKER_00: It is condensed, packed down, rich, alluvial, fertile soil.
SPEAKER_00: Moses stands up in Deuteronomy 30, and this is kind of his farewell speech to these people that he's loved and led for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And he says this starting in verse 9 The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground.
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you as he took delight in your fathers.
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't have time to preach this, but let me just say this.
SPEAKER_00: When he says the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, what you ought to hear in that is that God's intention all along has been to take care of his people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, prospering you doesn't always come with a dollar sign.
SPEAKER_00: You know that, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so when he says his delight, he's always been in he's gonna once again take delight in prospering you.
SPEAKER_00: It is the nature of the father to take delight in prospering his children.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Now, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday at my house, you ever men, you ever get in a situation and you're thinking, okay, I should probably do this, but because if I do this, I won't get a little talking to from my wife, but if I do this, I might just get a little whooping when I get home.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's where I found myself yesterday, because our 10-year-old wanted to go to the American girl store in the Memorial City Mall.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, some of you have been there.
SPEAKER_00: I've never been there, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I got hoodwinked.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Hey, I want to go to the, she's kind of talking about it.
SPEAKER_00: My wife's supposed to take her.
SPEAKER_00: My wife had a crazy day.
SPEAKER_00: Our oldest birthday is today, so she said, I gotta make a cake.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'll take you.
SPEAKER_00: And Sophie's like, well, uh, and I said, Hey, babe.
SPEAKER_00: I came to the fall fest, went home.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you want to go?
SPEAKER_00: She said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So, and my wife said, She doesn't need anything from there?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing it is the nature of the father to want to prosper and bless his children.
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I'm not taking her because she needs anything from there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who needs doll clothes, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, I'm not taking her because she needs it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want her to think that every time she wants it, she's gonna get it.
SPEAKER_00: They don't get everything they want.
SPEAKER_00: Do you get everything you want?
SPEAKER_00: She looked at me and she goes, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Come on, self, we'll go.
SPEAKER_00: I had in my mind, I want to bless my children, okay?
SPEAKER_00: My wife wants to bless our children.
SPEAKER_00: She's not a stingy person.
SPEAKER_00: It's just sometimes I'm the good cop and she's the bad cop.
SPEAKER_00: And so she's standing there, and we're I'm walking out of the house, I turn around, she's standing in the doorway like Batman.
SPEAKER_00: What that look says, you go over and be the good cop.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna throttle you when you get back.
SPEAKER_00: And so we got over there, walked into the American girl store, my lord of gracious, that is the biggest ripoff in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Them clothes cost more than my clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Walked over there, and Sophie just, she's real timid and shy.
SPEAKER_00: She picked up a box and kind of looked at it, and I said, You want that?
SPEAKER_00: Handed it to me, and she just kind of stood there.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, there's grown women.
SPEAKER_00: They got shoulder bags that are about that long and about that deep, and people are just shoving stuff in them.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just kind of, and I said, and I had a little box about like that.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't let those people shame me with the big shoulder bag of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, here, we drove all the way over here to Memorial City.
SPEAKER_00: Get this little box.
SPEAKER_00: I said, You want some more?
SPEAKER_00: Get you something else.
SPEAKER_00: She walked over there, picked up another box, looked at me, I said, You want some more?
SPEAKER_00: Got another.
SPEAKER_00: The whole time I was thinking, boy, this is gonna make my wife so mad.
SPEAKER_00: And there I was at the fork in the road.
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, I'm just gonna take my whooping.
SPEAKER_00: So I said, You want some more?
SPEAKER_00: And she got another box.
SPEAKER_00: Took four boxes up there.
SPEAKER_00: It was almost four digits.
SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't that much.
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, Can you finance this, please?
SPEAKER_00: I need to speak to a credit counselor.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I telling you that?
SPEAKER_00: Not even the sermon, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But here, some of you think that you gotta somehow be perfect and pray some little formula and read some little book and jump some little hoop to get your father to prosper you.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, that's been his nature from day one.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: If you miss that, none of this other stuff matters because it all depends on you.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For the Lord your God will again take delight in prospering you as he took delight in your fathers when you obeyed the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in the book of the law.
SPEAKER_00: When you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, for this commandment that I command you today, this is what Paul starts quoting.
SPEAKER_00: This commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
SPEAKER_00: It is not in heaven that you should say, Who shall ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it.
SPEAKER_00: Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
SPEAKER_00: Notice verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: But the word is very near you.
SPEAKER_00: It is in your mouth and in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where Paul stops.
SPEAKER_00: But Moses keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that last part of verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: He says, It's not it's not far off, it's very new you near you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your mouth, and it's in your heart, and then notice this part, so that you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: So that you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: All along, God's intention is not only to prosper you and by that take care of you, provide for you, but God has believed that you can do this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, so you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's two kinds of responses to that phrase, you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: You hear that, and some of you think exertion?
SPEAKER_00: That's the normal human response.
SPEAKER_00: I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I'm gonna do this if it kills me.
SPEAKER_00: It will.
SPEAKER_00: It's the guy you work with that believes the Bible and is mad about it.
SPEAKER_00: What did you do this weekend, Bill?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I went to church.
SPEAKER_00: What else would you do on the weekend?
SPEAKER_00: I went and worshiped the Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks, Bill.
SPEAKER_00: That's fun.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: So that you may do it.
SPEAKER_00: This is I brought you, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I talk about exertion and enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get that.
SPEAKER_00: But I brought a couple pictures.
SPEAKER_00: When you when you hear you can do it, exertion looks like this.
SPEAKER_00: This is what some of you think about.
SPEAKER_00: It's just, oh, oh man, I'm gonna read my Bible today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try to do better.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what God has in mind when he says so you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does he have in mind?
SPEAKER_00: Looks more like this enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: You ever try to tell a kid stop spitting water in the swim pool?
SPEAKER_00: That's just like telling a kid not to pee in their in their diaper.
SPEAKER_00: It's just human nature.
SPEAKER_00: No kids get in the pool, they start just spitting on each other until the adults say, Hey, by the way, somebody pee beat in the pool.
SPEAKER_00: Never mind.
SPEAKER_00: Leave a picture up there.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible, when God says, so that you can do it, this is what he has in mind.
SPEAKER_00: It's not this, oh man, this dreadful, dutiful work ethic.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's enjoyment.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says, you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: Second question, why does it say it?
SPEAKER_00: I'm back in Romans 10.
SPEAKER_00: Are you there with me?
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 10, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Why does it say it?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9 starts with because.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why it says it.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
SPEAKER_00: Now stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a thinking person, part of you is like, that's it?
SPEAKER_00: You just confess through the mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God's raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: I can do that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can do that.
SPEAKER_00: But saying Jesus is Lord is a weighty confession, my friend.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say again, saying Jesus is Lord, so much so, that was one of the first creeds of the church.
SPEAKER_00: The church would get together and they would confess, Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So when you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you are making more of a statement than you realize.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, you are affirming, number one, that Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Little history lesson.
SPEAKER_00: When they translated the New Testament into Greek, the word for God is Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Y A W E H.
SPEAKER_00: And in their vocabulary, they didn't have vowels.
SPEAKER_00: It was just Y and then W and then H.
SPEAKER_00: And they inserted the vowels to kind of we want to know what to call God, but but out of reverence, they didn't want to use the wrong name.
SPEAKER_00: And so they would just silently skip over that.
SPEAKER_00: But when they translate it in the Greek version uh translation of the New Testament, it's called the Septuagint.
SPEAKER_00: You're never going to need to know that.
SPEAKER_00: But I had to know it for seminary, so I could tell you that.
SPEAKER_00: But here's why it's important today, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: It's because when they translate into Greek, they that Yahweh was God's name, Yahweh Lord, okay?
SPEAKER_00: He was Lord, Yahweh, and they translated that into Greek, it translates into Adonai, which is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So when they say Jesus is Lord, what they're saying is Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_00: So the Bible says, when people say, well, the Bible never says Jesus was God, always has, always will.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's another free mini-sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Don't turn there, but write down Luke chapter 2, verse 11, when baby Jesus was born.
SPEAKER_00: You think about Christmas like, oh, it's so sentimental.
SPEAKER_00: Sweet baby Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: From the very beginning, God was saying, This is God with skin on him.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 2, verse 11 says, Unto you this day is born in the city of David is born a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: He is Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's the Messiah, the fulfillment of all the promises have taken on flesh here in this little wet wiggly baby.
SPEAKER_00: He is Christ, Messiah, the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He is Christ the God.
SPEAKER_00: From day one, he's saying, This is God.
SPEAKER_00: God is broken to the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: And we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: If they're not looking at the only begotten of the Father, they're just looking at another baby.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I got a real problem, mainly our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the other part.
SPEAKER_00: If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and then this part, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a term they use in jury trials that I want to borrow and use this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's called walking it back.
SPEAKER_00: Walking it back.
SPEAKER_00: It helps with your kids too.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you've got to walk your kids back when they say stupid stuff.
SPEAKER_00: To just point to their, and not shame them, but just kind of say, hey, you're talking to your dad, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You can't do this to me.
SPEAKER_00: Like when the Bible says, and believe in your heart that Christ raised him from the dead, let's just start with that.
SPEAKER_00: You will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: How can the Bible say that?
SPEAKER_00: Now, the heart is not the organ that pumps blood.
SPEAKER_00: For them, the heart is the mind, will, and the emotions.
SPEAKER_00: It's the seat of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: It's the core of who you are.
SPEAKER_00: If you believe in that place that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: How can the Bible say that?
SPEAKER_00: Walk it back.
SPEAKER_00: If you believe that God raised him from the dead, let's just start there.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe Christ died?
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: So if he died, let's just walk it back.
SPEAKER_00: Then logic dictates that he had to live at one point.
SPEAKER_00: To die, you gotta be alive.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus lived.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just walk that back.
SPEAKER_00: How did Jesus live?
SPEAKER_00: Now the Bible says that Jesus lived a sinless life.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5 21 said he made him who knew no sin perfect to become sin for us.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So he died, and he died because he lived, and he lived as a sinless person.
SPEAKER_00: He never, fully God, fully man, never ever sin.
SPEAKER_00: Then walk that back and ask the question, then why did he have to die?
SPEAKER_00: Because it doesn't make sense for a sinless, perfect person to have who is fully God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't think he could have gotten out of that anytime he wanted to?
SPEAKER_00: So why does a sinless, perfect person have to die?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Bible says that sinless, perfect person chose to die for all the sinful, imperfect people in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You know any sinful, imperfect people?
SPEAKER_00: You're looking at one.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you can see, it's a big confession to say, I believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now a lot of people say, well, I can say Jesus is Lord, and that makes me a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: They tried that for years.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, they tried that in Jesus' day.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke chapter 6, he says, Well, let me tell you a story.
SPEAKER_00: He says, A good tree brings forth good fruit, and a bad tree brings forth bad fruit.
SPEAKER_00: For out of the heart, the mouth speaks.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says this in verse 46 of Luke 6.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Why do you say to me, Lord, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?
SPEAKER_00: See, it's not just the confession.
SPEAKER_00: The confession is part of it, but it's validated in your life.
SPEAKER_00: To say Jesus is Lord, we need to be saying to in our lives to our city that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And let me give you four areas where we need to kind of live out the Lordship of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is our morality.
SPEAKER_00: Our morality, which is it's not just sexual things, it's oughtness.
SPEAKER_00: Morality is oughtness.
SPEAKER_00: There's a way we ought to live if we profess that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now you and I all know people, they're like, oh man, Jesus Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And they live another way, and you're kind of like, say, what?
SPEAKER_00: Or this is the phrase I hear.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just go ahead and put it out there.
SPEAKER_00: I hear this a lot.
SPEAKER_00: I hear this in town, I hear this in restaurants, I hear this when people come and see me for counseling.
SPEAKER_00: I hear this, people talking around here.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the phrase that I want to just acknowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, Pastor, the world's changing.
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of like that is the deal breaker right there.
SPEAKER_00: That invalidates the whole Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The world's changing.
SPEAKER_00: Kids aren't like they used to be.
SPEAKER_00: What's your point?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Because they want me to jump up and go, oh no, the world is not changing.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, it is.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth never changes.
SPEAKER_00: And see, what happens is, see, the onus is on us to become gospel fluent people.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever situation we find ourselves in, the world can change all at once.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is the same.
SPEAKER_00: So that's our our moral, our morality.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get mad at the world.
SPEAKER_00: How do you expect people don't know God to act?
SPEAKER_00: Don't go scream at them.
SPEAKER_00: When you get into conversation with them, you need to be fluent with the gospel and be able to speak the gospel in any context you find yourself in.
SPEAKER_00: Another area that we need to live Jesus as Lord, not just say it, is our ethics.
SPEAKER_00: Our ethics, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if morality is oughtness, uh ethics is ardness.
SPEAKER_00: Don't tell my mom I said that.
SPEAKER_00: Rness.
SPEAKER_00: A-R-E-N-E-S as.
SPEAKER_00: Who you are is shown obvious in how you live.
SPEAKER_00: When we were remodeling a lot of stuff around here, guys would show up.
SPEAKER_00: They heard we were we were remodeling stuff, construction people, and they'd hand me their business card and they'd say, Notice I've got a fish on there.
SPEAKER_00: I threw those in the trash can first.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you have to tell me, if you think I can come to the church and get a bid because I'm a Christian and I got a fish on my business card.
SPEAKER_00: No, let me see your work.
SPEAKER_00: Let me see how you live.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's who you are, is the most obvious thing about you.
SPEAKER_00: Ethics is about it is about a set of moral principles a person lives by.
SPEAKER_00: You should have some things in your life that you don't compromise on.
SPEAKER_00: I give you a biblical uh uh uh paradigm for it.
SPEAKER_00: First Kings chapter 21, a man named Naboth owned a vineyard, and King Ahab, who was married to a lady named Jezebel, let the name tell you what that was like.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and and and ke uh King Ahab wanted Naboth's vineyard because it was close to his to his castle.
SPEAKER_00: And Naboth said, It's not for sale.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'll give you twice what it's worth.
SPEAKER_00: It's not For sale.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you four times what it's worth.
SPEAKER_00: It's not for sale.
SPEAKER_00: So what'd he do?
SPEAKER_00: He went back and told Jezebel, Laboth won't sell me his vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: And they killed that man.
SPEAKER_00: Because he wouldn't give in to the pressure.
SPEAKER_00: Now you've got to ask yourself, am I going to live by a set of principles or am I just going to cave in?
SPEAKER_00: Like one of my principles is I don't ride in a car with a woman that's not my wife alone.
SPEAKER_00: And not long ago, somebody, a friend of mine, was here and a car was in the shop and said, Hey, can you run me out to so-and-so?
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you're not doing anything.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not doing anything.
SPEAKER_00: I just sit up here and play card games on my computer all day.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I do.
SPEAKER_00: But I ain't getting in the car with you and driving you out to the car place.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to help, but I can't.
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
SPEAKER_00: It's just a conviction of mine.
SPEAKER_00: Well, no one, I mean, you're my pastor.
SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna expect they see you and I riding a car together.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I know that, and you can get as mad as you want.
SPEAKER_00: It ain't changing my mind.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, five minutes just went on, and I said, Is there something else you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_00: Because this ain't happening today, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You're just wrestling with a pig.
SPEAKER_00: The pig is getting muddy, you're getting muddy, and the pig's liking it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not changing my mind.
SPEAKER_00: And say, Well, I'm no threat to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're not a threat to me.
SPEAKER_00: But out of respect to my wife, I don't ride in the car with a woman.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have lunch with a woman.
SPEAKER_00: It's not my wife.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a no-brainer.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean, though, when I talk about a set of morals or ethics of principles that you live by.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's where we kind of dictate.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: A third area we need to kind of communicate that Jesus is Lord is when it comes to our money.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to our money.
SPEAKER_00: Any of you men at the power breakfast this past week?
SPEAKER_00: Can I see your hand?
SPEAKER_00: Remember the video we saw?
SPEAKER_00: Uh a guy, I think his name, I forget his first name, but his last name was Barn Hart.
SPEAKER_00: He owned a crane business, okay?
SPEAKER_00: He's basically said, My family moves heavy stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy starts off and he said, You know, I was a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I was like 23 years old, didn't know if I was called to ministry, was really good at business.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, I realized it's okay to be good at business.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: The man said in the video, we want to be excellent in business.
SPEAKER_00: We want to make as much money as we can.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody in the room looked at me like, hey, preacher, is that okay?
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna go to hell?
SPEAKER_00: Some trapdoor gonna open up under him?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: So do you.
SPEAKER_00: Sure you do.
SPEAKER_00: You're out there like, I do not.
SPEAKER_00: Go to work tomorrow and give some of yours back.
SPEAKER_00: It ain't how much you make, it's what you do with it.
SPEAKER_00: Because then he said this, and then and then I was just like, oh man, this is so good.
SPEAKER_00: He said, we want to make as much money as we can, and we want to give away as much as we can to fund the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, eat my taquito.
SPEAKER_00: Rock on with your bad self.
SPEAKER_00: And it was incredible.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You've heard of 18-wheeler, click, picture comes up.
SPEAKER_00: This is a 240-wheeler.
SPEAKER_00: It's a 240-wheeled mechanism by which all the wheels turn and they steer them.
SPEAKER_00: They move things that weigh hundreds of tons.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'd like to drive that sometime before I die.
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
SPEAKER_00: Took the business over from his parents, and it was still two, and they was based out of two bedrooms of their house.
SPEAKER_00: And he was 23 years old, just got married.
SPEAKER_00: He and his wife said, We're gonna just talk about, and here's the application to the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have this conversation this week.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to talk about your lifestyle finish line.
SPEAKER_00: How do you want to finish?
SPEAKER_00: Because he said, My wife and I sat down, we talked about our lifestyle finish line.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we want to have at the end of our life, and everything above that we're gonna give away.
SPEAKER_00: 23 years old.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you in here kind of thinking, hey, I'm 23 and I'm still single.
SPEAKER_00: You're ahead of all of us married people, because most of us have already convinced ourselves that we need a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Haven't we, married people?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was like, uh, I thought the sermon was about Jesus as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You can say Jesus is Lord all you want to, and then you just lay up stuff for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And people don't believe you.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, if you're get if you're a guest today, I don't preach shame here.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care how nice your car is, I don't care how big your house is, I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: You have to talk with your spouse or single person.
SPEAKER_00: You ask yourself, what do I want my lifestyle finish line to be?
SPEAKER_00: Because then once you get an idea, because if you don't get an idea, and he said, My wife and I, we made ourselves accountable to other comp uh other couples.
SPEAKER_00: We said, Don't let us violate this.
SPEAKER_00: This is all we're gonna need, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And everything else we're gonna give away.
SPEAKER_00: God so prospered, Barnhart Crane, that at one point in there they started an organization within their company called The Grove to manage giving away this money.
SPEAKER_00: And employees can be a part of it.
SPEAKER_00: At one point, they were giving away a million dollars a month.
SPEAKER_00: And the cats at my table, we were like, man, yeah, we want to be more generous.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what it's like.
SPEAKER_00: But see, that's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: When you establish a lifestyle finish line, you say, This is all we're gonna need.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, everything comes in above that when it comes to money.
SPEAKER_00: We want to just give it away.
SPEAKER_00: We want to fund the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, he divested himself of 99% of his company and put it in a charitable trust.
SPEAKER_00: And his son thanked him and said, Dad, thank you for not putting that burden of all that money on me.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all was like, that ain't my kid.
SPEAKER_00: My kid would buy the American Girl Store.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, she's 10.
SPEAKER_00: She added up everything in the catalog.
SPEAKER_00: Kid you not, asked my wife.
SPEAKER_00: Came to my wife and said, Do you have$8,217?
SPEAKER_00: With a calculator, added it all up.
SPEAKER_00: Little monkey came to me, I said, You gotta stop smoking crack, okay?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: But as ridiculous as that sounds, if you don't have a lifestyle finish line, you'll do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: You'll have stuff you use three times a year, and only then to justify to your wife buying it.
SPEAKER_00: So just what is your lifestyle finish line?
SPEAKER_00: What's enough?
SPEAKER_00: Because I told the Lord, boy, Lord, if I was a part of, I owned a company and made millions of dollars, I'd give away the very next day.
SPEAKER_00: I'm up here at the Home Depot on Wednesday on Highway 6, walking out, man's got his hood up, got a pair of jumper cables, just swinging them around his head.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you don't see that every day.
SPEAKER_00: I pulled over and asked the world's dumbest question, you need a jump?
SPEAKER_00: No, I want a jump rope.
SPEAKER_00: You want to go?
SPEAKER_00: I was like, so I hooked his thing up and jumped it off, and he said, Would you leave it on there so it charges my battery?
SPEAKER_00: I got a little redneck in me.
SPEAKER_00: I know a little something.
SPEAKER_00: I said, sir, this ain't gonna charge your battery.
SPEAKER_00: Alternator charges battery, and he just said, Well, I ain't got an alternator, that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Yeah, I just go around jumping this thing off to get from one point to another.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you remember that.
SPEAKER_00: You remember being so broke, your car was jacked up and you couldn't fix it, so you tried to just make it work.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Hello, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It was right here this past Wednesday.
SPEAKER_00: His name's Alden.
SPEAKER_00: He got a crooked foot, and he walks on the side of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what are you, a pirate?
SPEAKER_00: What happened there, man?
SPEAKER_00: And so we were talking, and that cat reeked of some bad wine.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't even good wine, it was bad wine.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, they still sailboons farm here in Sugarland.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't smell that since high school.
SPEAKER_00: Whoa! And so we're talking, and I got him all jumped off, and I unhooked the germ cables, and I went to give them back to him.
SPEAKER_00: That little voice said, Oh, remember yesterday you want to be generous if you had millions of dollars to give away?
SPEAKER_00: I bet an alternator doesn't cost a million dollars.
SPEAKER_00: So I said, Hey, why don't we get you an alternator?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, it's a hundred bucks.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Come on, man, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I priced it.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Where?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Advanced auto parts, remember on Highway 6.
SPEAKER_00: We go down there, he said, Well, you gotta go down to the light and circle back.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why is he telling me that?
SPEAKER_00: Because people have said things to him that they didn't follow through on.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I telling you this?
SPEAKER_00: Because I went to my advance auto parts, he showed up, walked in there, and I said, Hey, my friend Alden here needs an altar.
SPEAKER_00: And they go, Yeah, he comes here and jumps his battery off.
SPEAKER_00: We give a free battery charge.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, well, those days are over because today the kingdom of God has come to you, Alden.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you what, and I whipped out my Grand Parkway credit card.
SPEAKER_00: See how generous I am with your money?
SPEAKER_00: And I slapped that bad boy on the counter, and here's the part.
SPEAKER_00: The guy said, he looked it up, and you know, he said, Yeah, it's uh it's a$194.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, that's a little north of a hundred.
SPEAKER_00: Then I just said, I looked at him and I put my hand on the show, I said, Alden, I pastor a church in the city.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Oh, relax, relax.
SPEAKER_00: I ain't got no sermons in me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: One of our core values, our core values are gospel, community, mission, and blessing.
SPEAKER_00: My church wants to bless you and buy you an alternator.
SPEAKER_00: The guy behind the counter was like, I said, What?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, So this is free today.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, I'm a handyman.
SPEAKER_00: I paint and fix stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I said, No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Let me come do something.
SPEAKER_00: If you came and worked for it, it wouldn't be a gift.
SPEAKER_00: This is a gift.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy said, Well, if he rings the core back and get he can get$35.
SPEAKER_00: I had a little pastoral moment, I said, No, there's you get that$35 out, and there's things you could buy that would be good.
SPEAKER_00: And there's things you could buy that wouldn't be very good.
SPEAKER_00: You tracking with me?
SPEAKER_00: I ain't putting shame on you.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Yeah, I'm tracking with you.
SPEAKER_00: All right, that's all I got.
SPEAKER_00: Got him to the alternator, drove off.
SPEAKER_00: He said, What's the name of your church?
SPEAKER_00: I told him the name, told him where it was.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I might stop by sometime.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Stop by for a cup of coffee anytime you want.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Lance Williams.
SPEAKER_00: It's nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_00: And next time you're short of money or anything, you come by because I'd love to loan you.
SPEAKER_00: I just give you some.
SPEAKER_00: He took out his pencil and said, How do you spell your name, Lance?
SPEAKER_00: It's L A N C E.
SPEAKER_00: The visitors are going, What's so funny about that?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, here's the last thing, and let's let's let's be done.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that Jesus needs to be Lord of is your schedule.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible to live at such a hectic pace that no one believes anything you say.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are the most tired, worn-out person anybody knows.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: You you live at such a pace, you you're just a servant to everything.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're not a son, you're not a you're not a son or a daughter to any of it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you know.
SPEAKER_00: Can I meddle just a little bit?
SPEAKER_00: You know what meddling is?
SPEAKER_00: Uh here's how you know you're living at such a pace.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you older folks like me, they kind of have to take care of your parents and check on your parents when it just kind of gets on your nerve and it's inconvenient that you gotta go check on your folks.
SPEAKER_00: That's your mom and dad, man.
SPEAKER_00: And how I live that.
SPEAKER_00: I got I gotta drive to Quero and take my mom to the hospital to get her blood work done so she can get her medication.
SPEAKER_00: It's 10 minutes up the road.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I drive three hours to load my mom up and drive 12 minutes, go by Whataburger and drive her back and drive three hours.
SPEAKER_00: Because if my mom doesn't know the way, she gets a little shaky and she's like, just come show me the way.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, what's your sorry husband doing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's working, he can't leave the rig.
SPEAKER_00: And every once in a while, I think, man, this is inconvenient.
SPEAKER_00: My mom knows my day off is Thursday.
SPEAKER_00: Calls me on Wednesdays.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the worst part.
SPEAKER_00: She says, I'll give you a hundred dollars if you'll come drive me to the hospital.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, mom, I ain't tell my mother two sorry kids you had, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Because my brothers would take that.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I called one of them a couple weeks ago and said, hey, next time I see you, I'm gonna hit you in your face.
SPEAKER_00: About five times, real hard.
SPEAKER_00: Well, four, you took gas money from your own mother, you sorry rascal.
SPEAKER_00: She offered.
SPEAKER_00: That's the punks I'm related to.
SPEAKER_00: So if you get a call in December, hey, uh, your pastor got arrested, it's because I beat the snot out of my brother.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're visiting today, pray for me.
SPEAKER_00: My mom's done so much for me and my brothers, she don't know us a thing.
SPEAKER_00: I told her, Mom, anytime you need anything, you call.
SPEAKER_00: You call.
SPEAKER_00: My wife and I talked about it.
SPEAKER_00: We tried, we gotta save some money because if something happens to one of our parents, we may have to move one of them in with us.
SPEAKER_00: Is it inconvenient?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, write this down.
SPEAKER_00: Loving people is radically inconvenient.
SPEAKER_00: And you were inconvenient when your little pop knot self was at home.
SPEAKER_00: And she was praying you home from your latest drunken source.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in high school, I can't say this next verse, my kids have been here.
SPEAKER_00: I came home so drunk so many times, I would turn the corner and just put my hands on the walls, and my bedroom was a second door on the left.
SPEAKER_00: And so the second opening, I would just stumble in.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember many nights walking by and hear my mom mumbling, God, thanks for bringing him home safe.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't inconvenience myself and drive.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not to say when I'm driving now, I'm thinking, here I go, three hours for 15 minutes of taxicab service.
SPEAKER_00: I'm human.
SPEAKER_00: You feel what's going on in the room right now?
SPEAKER_00: You don't get a cookie for taking care of your mom and dad.
SPEAKER_00: That's your mom and dad.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't care what your boyfriend thinks, your husband thinks, your wife thinks, suck it up.
SPEAKER_00: Stop being so selfish.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking all big, it may just be a matter of a couple years before I got one of my in-laws living with me.
SPEAKER_00: Or my mom coming up and going, oh now, son, you don't wear dungarees in the Lord's house, do you?
SPEAKER_00: No, mom, that's Wade.
SPEAKER_00: I told you.
SPEAKER_00: I dress up.
SPEAKER_00: I don't wear dungarees in the house.
SPEAKER_00: My mom grew up Lutheran.
SPEAKER_00: My mom thinks it's a sin to wear blue jeans to church.
SPEAKER_00: Like, mom, you know it's not in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but it'd make your mother feel so much better.
SPEAKER_00: What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: Why does it say it?
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly and finally, who does it say it to?
SPEAKER_00: To whom does it say it?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be done here.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: It says, for the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: That means you won't be disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: You won't stand before God on judgment day and him go.
SPEAKER_00: I know you did your best, but you didn't quite do enough.
SPEAKER_00: You know why he's not gonna say that?
SPEAKER_00: Because righteousness is not based on the law, it's based on faith.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to have more faith in what Jesus has done than you have in what you can do.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there's no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you that phrase calls on is the Greek word epicaleo.
SPEAKER_00: I could tell you a lot of stuff about that.
SPEAKER_00: It means that you take a surname that's added onto your name, you come up under a name.
SPEAKER_00: I could tell you all the technical Greek things about it, but let me just tell you this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We've been here long enough, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I let me just tell you, July 5th, 1982, about 9.35 at night, I was at a Christian camp.
SPEAKER_00: 18-year-old kid just graduated high school, heard the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: God was doing something in me.
SPEAKER_00: Started months earlier, and it was coming to fruition.
SPEAKER_00: And I responded to this invitation to the gospel, and a guy sat down on me with a Bible, and he just started reading.
SPEAKER_00: He said, kind of show you some things in the Bible, Neil.
SPEAKER_00: Because at the heart, and on everybody's heart is, hey, what does it say?
SPEAKER_00: What does the Bible say?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know your opinion.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, the Bible says right here in Romans 3.23 that you've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me something I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the Bible says over here in Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: God has a gift he wants to give you, Neil.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden I felt it coming.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh.
SPEAKER_00: And he turned over to Romans 5 and read verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: And God demonstrated his love for you, and that while you were still a sinner, Neil, Christ died for you.
SPEAKER_00: Christ died knowing this day would come, Neil.
SPEAKER_00: Turned over to Romans 10 and read verse 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_00: And he pointed to verse 13 and he said, and it says, He had a King James, that's how long ago that was.
SPEAKER_00: He had a King James version of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, Whosoever calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: He took a pen and he wrote my name over the word whosoever, and I said, You're gonna get it for that.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Now read it.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't get through it.
SPEAKER_00: I read for Neil calls on the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Neil.
SPEAKER_00: That's as far as I could get.
SPEAKER_00: Sitting on a bunk bed in a little camp outside of Hawkins, Texas, and I just stretched out.
SPEAKER_00: I just got out and laid on the ground, face down.
SPEAKER_00: And just all I could say was, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: He knelt down on the ground beside me on his hands and knees and just was patting my back and just rubbing my back.
SPEAKER_00: That's creepy.
SPEAKER_00: Men don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: And he just kept saying, Let it out, let it out, let it out.
SPEAKER_00: And then he just said, Just let him in, let him in.
SPEAKER_00: Just pat me.
SPEAKER_00: Let him in.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, Behold, I stand for the door and knock.
SPEAKER_00: He just said, Hey, Neil, just pull your heart out to him.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I told you a long time ago about that crazy church I went to where they sang out of the hymnals and they sang songs when I was a little kid, like six or seven, that I I I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I was probably in the back row eating boogers or something.
SPEAKER_00: But there are moments in life, they just come into my head.
SPEAKER_00: I'm laying on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: This popped into my head.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't sung this song before or since or anything.
SPEAKER_00: That crazy church back in my hometown, Milligan Drive Baptist Church, they used to sing a hymn and it said, Whosoever surely meaneth me, surely meaneth me, surely meaneth me.
SPEAKER_00: Whosoever surely meaneth me, whosoever meaneth me.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking, What?
SPEAKER_00: And whosoever surely meaneth me, surely.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, This is the lamest thing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, years later, laying on the floor, that was the best sound I ever heard.
SPEAKER_00: Because I heard it in my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking, and I knew.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that means me.
SPEAKER_00: That that everything in that book applies to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I got up off the floor and he said, You want to wash your face?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: And I went in the bathroom, and man, I was a wreck.
SPEAKER_00: But on that night, whosoever met me.
SPEAKER_00: You say, To whom is he saying it?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying it to who, to whoever.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to meet anybody this week that's beyond the pale of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There's nobody you're going to meet that God's given up on, that God just says, Boy, I tell you I don't know what to do with that cat.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you may be right here in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may be here with your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, parents, whatever, just kind of thinking, I don't.
SPEAKER_00: You hadn't gone too far.
SPEAKER_00: That's the simplicity of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God is raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: Whosoever surely meaneth you.
SPEAKER_00: Surely meaneth you.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
SPEAKER_00: Dismiss.