SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if you can have a seat, if you got a Bible, I invite you to take and open it up to 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest today, uh, we are when the seasons change, we go from summer to like more into a fall schedule.
SPEAKER_00: We tried to kind of speak a uh a shaping word for that time.
SPEAKER_00: So we've taken the past two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: This is the third and final week, uh, where we talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks ago, we talked about the gospel and mental health.
SPEAKER_00: And last week, on short notice, Wade Burgess talked about the ultimate marathon.
SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk to you about making the most of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Making the most of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me just confess, that sounds so cutesy, you kind of want to throw up in your mouth, but just stay with me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just say that today.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, we've been we we're going through the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: We typically are preaching expositorily through a book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And we took a break uh at the end of June.
SPEAKER_00: Next week, we'll pick back up in Acts chapter eight.
SPEAKER_00: You can start reading.
SPEAKER_00: We left off, they had their first martyr.
SPEAKER_00: I got him Stephen, and in chapter eight, they'll have their first missionary.
SPEAKER_00: Typically, one fuels the other, but we'll talk about that next week.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when I talk about making the most of the moment, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say today that you're sitting here and you're kind of like coming out of the summer, you're like, hey, I gotta kind of get back to it.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of got laxed in some disciplines.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, six months from now, I'd like to be a different person.
SPEAKER_00: I want to understand more, I want to be more patient, I want to be a better husband, a better father, more joyful, more spiritually mature, more forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever your more is, uh, here's the question.
SPEAKER_00: It's great to think that it's all well and good, but what are you gonna do and what process are you going to submit to in order to get there?
SPEAKER_00: You see, we make the most of our moments long before the moment arrives.
SPEAKER_00: Allow me to explain.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a story in the Bible of the story of David and Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever heard of that story, say amen.
SPEAKER_00: The story of David and Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: David, best we can tell, was about 12 or 13 years old.
SPEAKER_00: He goes out to the battle line, sees this nine foot, six-inch tall guy out there, bad-mouthing God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Is anybody go out and fight this guy?
SPEAKER_00: I'll go out and fight him.
SPEAKER_00: And his brothers were like, dude, you who do you think you are?
SPEAKER_00: You're a little kid.
SPEAKER_00: Here, put on my armor.
SPEAKER_00: David puts it off.
SPEAKER_00: And David's like, No, I'll go out and fight him.
SPEAKER_00: And they basically said, You're just showing off.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to show us up by showing off.
SPEAKER_00: And David said, No, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is what I mean by making the most of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: And you make the most of the moment before the moment arrives.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you're asking God to give you this experience you've never had.
SPEAKER_00: David said, Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: When I was with my father's sheep, a lion and a bear came against the sheep, and I killed them with my own bare hands.
SPEAKER_00: And this guy's gonna be just like one of them.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, David understood a principle we need to understand.
SPEAKER_00: God will never exalt you more in public than that which he already has in private.
SPEAKER_00: And you make the most of the moment long before the moment gets there because you've prepared yourself for that moment.
SPEAKER_00: And so, how do you how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: How do we as people spiritually we kind of get ourselves ready for the moments to come that we cannot control, but we will have to experience?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Bible speaks to this in 2 Peter chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start reading in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read the first 15 verses.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, Simon, excuse me, Simeon, uh, excuse me, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us uh to His own glory and excellent, who called us to His own uh glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us these precious and very great promises, so that through them we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
SPEAKER_00: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement or add to your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
SPEAKER_00: For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from becoming ineffective and unfruitful or unproductive, some translations say, in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.
SPEAKER_00: For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12, he kind of turns the corner and he says, Therefore, in other words, because these things are true, I am never going to get tired of reminding you of these qualities.
SPEAKER_00: Though you know them and you're established in the truth that you have, I think it is right, as long as I am in the body to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, Listen, I know I'm getting close to the end, but I all the way between now and then, I'm gonna stir you up by way of reminder every chance I get.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what has this got to do with making the most of the moment?
SPEAKER_00: I think there's four things in the text that help us make the most of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: So we're not walking away from conversations going, Golly, I wish I would have said that.
SPEAKER_00: We ever have a conversation with somebody, and two minutes after it's over, all these things you could have and would have said come to your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And you want to call the person back and go, hey, I've got some ideas now.
SPEAKER_00: No, you want to be people that make the most of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: Four things from the text.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, you increase your understanding of God.
SPEAKER_00: You increase your understanding of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I think I know it's easy to hear that and go, oh, great, that's what your preachers say.
SPEAKER_00: That makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that important?
SPEAKER_00: Because nobody has a greater capacity to change you and me than God.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't make, keep this in mind, he didn't make bad people good.
SPEAKER_00: He has so much power, he made dead people alive.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to notice basically the consequential nature of two things from the early part of the text.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the first one is the righteousness of God, and the second one is the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: We'll just take them in order.
SPEAKER_00: But what the consequential nature of two things from the text.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Look again at verse one and two.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Simeon Peter or Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours, hard stop.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is Peter.
SPEAKER_00: This is Peter, the guy that cut off a uh a dude's ear with a sword when they came to get Jesus in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: This is Peter who Jesus says upon you and people like you, and people who confess and understand, I will build my church.
SPEAKER_00: And this guy says this, he says, Hey, you have a faith that is on equal stand of equal standing with ours.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody in this room ever put you in the same spiritual category as Peter?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: We'd like to scoff at you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter himself says, now, how is this possible?
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the next word.
SPEAKER_00: By you've obtained a faith of equal standing with ours.
SPEAKER_00: How'd you do that?
SPEAKER_00: By the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Your faith is on par with that of Peter because you've got it the same way he did by believing in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You could never be righteous enough on your own.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is humanity's problem.
SPEAKER_00: This is the thing that vexes people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying you can never be righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying matter of fact, I will say you can be generous, you can be nice, you can do good things.
SPEAKER_00: You're capable of all that on your own.
SPEAKER_00: But there's no way for you and I to become righteous in the eyes of God based on our own effort.
SPEAKER_00: We do not have a means of becoming righteous with God apart from a relationship with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is all through the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Never more clearly in a verse, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21, that says, For our sake, he, God, made him to be sinned who knew no sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's a reference to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So that in him, circle those two words in your imagination.
SPEAKER_00: In him.
SPEAKER_00: There's things that only available in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In him, we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what if I don't believe that?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's very simple.
SPEAKER_00: This is your heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I talk to people all the time.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Hey, I respect you.
SPEAKER_00: I think you're a straight up dude.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, and I don't like preachers, but I really like you.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy you.
SPEAKER_00: I like getting coffee with you.
SPEAKER_00: I like getting lunch with you.
SPEAKER_00: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: But I simply do not believe.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: I say, Oh, it's it's real simple.
SPEAKER_00: This is your heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Earth, here, is is your heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have to listen to friends of men from North Richmond on playback the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's just this is this, in other words, this is as good as it gets.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, and and my friend said, and for you, for uh as a Christian, this is my hell.
SPEAKER_00: This is as bad as it gets.
SPEAKER_00: It's a big difference in those two.
SPEAKER_00: See, uh, this is the fundamental core problem of everyone in this room.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you can't do good stuff, it's not that you can't be a nice person on occasion.
SPEAKER_00: You can do all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Your problem is that you can never achieve righteousness on your own.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the Bible talks about and prioritizes a relationship, not just religion.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I would say the Bible never prioritizes religion, it always prioritizes relationship.
SPEAKER_00: So the first consequential thing in the text is the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: The second one in verse two is the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says, verse two.
SPEAKER_00: He says, May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: His divine power, verse three, has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him.
SPEAKER_00: We'll just stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I say the knowledge of God, uh you experience four things uh through the knowledge of God, and you you experience them proportionally.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's a big word.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Uh proportionally, or like in in relation to uh think of it like an arm loan.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody know what an arm loan is?
SPEAKER_00: Say amen.
SPEAKER_00: A few of you.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, none of you never had that.
SPEAKER_00: An arm loan, basically, it's what's called an adjustable rate mortgage.
SPEAKER_00: Like, men are competitive, we'll compete about anything.
SPEAKER_00: How long it took us to put our barbecue grill together, like we drove uh the like Friday.
SPEAKER_00: I've had a crazy few days.
SPEAKER_00: We got up at four o'clock Friday morning, we drove uh to Birmingham, uh, got there in 10 hours and 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh now there's four other students in our church that go to Stanford University besides my daughter.
SPEAKER_00: And I was texting one of the guys, and he goes, dude, it took us over 12 hours.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, When?
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm like, where did you guys go?
SPEAKER_00: Did you guys go down to New Orleans and loop around?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I need to get you on the fast track.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we went there Friday, Saturday morning at 10 o'clock, had to move in.
SPEAKER_00: I caught a plane yesterday, too, flew back, got home last night about 5 30.
SPEAKER_00: Crazy, crazy couple of days.
SPEAKER_00: But men are competitive by now.
SPEAKER_00: We're always kind of, we don't overtly say it, we just kind of quietly.
SPEAKER_00: I used to have a neighbor that lived across the street from me, and uh, he was clowning on me when we first moved in because I had a conventional 30-year mortgage, fixed rate mortgage, and he goes, dude, I got this great rate on this adjustable rate mortgage.
SPEAKER_00: Adjustable rate mortgage is prime plus a certain, you know, a point or two.
SPEAKER_00: I think his was prime plus 2%.
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, it was prime was like 0.5, it was nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And then within about 18 months, we experienced what's caused a housing crisis.
SPEAKER_00: This was the year 2008.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody remember that?
SPEAKER_00: And so we're out in the cul-de-sac, our kids are playing stick ball and dodgeball, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: And he's looking down, and I said, What's going on, man?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Dude, we are going broke.
SPEAKER_00: This adjustable rate mortgage.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, the thing you bragged about and rubbed in my face for the past 18 months?
SPEAKER_00: You see, what happens is when the prime rate goes up, your mortgage goes up.
SPEAKER_00: You owe more and more and more because they are in proportion to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what the Bible says right here is that uh your experience with four things is proportional to your understanding or your experience with the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's not enough to simply believe in God or believe that God exists.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me, because you were created to know Him.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to say you believe in God or you believe that a God exists or a higher power.
SPEAKER_00: You were not created just to believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: You were created to know God and to grow in your knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's four things that you experience uh that are proportional to your knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: They're listed out there in the text, starting in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He says, May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, may it get bigger.
SPEAKER_00: May you understand grace more, may you experience more peace.
SPEAKER_00: Yoga is not gonna bring you more peace.
SPEAKER_00: Pilates is not gonna bring you more peace, ladies.
SPEAKER_00: A glass of Merlot at the end of the day, as good as that is, is not gonna bring you more peace.
SPEAKER_00: Grace and peace, then he goes down in verse 3, he says, His divine power is granted to us all these things that pertain to life and godliness through our knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: So, according to the Bible, here's the four things that we we experience in growing measure as we as we deepen our knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, peace, life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when the Bible says life, you if you've been here 10 minutes, we love to beat this drum.
SPEAKER_00: I'll never get tired of saying this.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Greek word Zoe.
SPEAKER_00: The other word for life in the Bible is bios, which is biological existence.
SPEAKER_00: Zoe refers to this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the definition: it refers to the absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical, the kind of life that only God can provide, life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new experiences, among them a more perfect body and to last forever.
SPEAKER_00: When he says in the early part, it refers to absolute fullness of life.
SPEAKER_00: You should think of Jesus saying in John 10, 10.
SPEAKER_00: He explains why he leaves heaven and come to earth with these words.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I am come so that you may have life and have it to the fullest.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you're smart people.
SPEAKER_00: Why would Jesus talk to people who are already alive about this thing called life?
SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you understand that he's not talking about just existing, just breathing, just going to school, just paying your bills, just passing algebra, just having a boyfriend, just having a girlfriend, just getting into the right sorority.
SPEAKER_00: That's bias.
SPEAKER_00: That's not Zoe.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about life on another level.
SPEAKER_00: It says, See, here's the thing about Christianity: it is not just forgiveness for the natural life you live, it is a whole nother plane of existence.
SPEAKER_00: That the Bible is it's so drastic, the Bible uses a totally different word to describe it.
SPEAKER_00: Zoe.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he says, hey, you when you when you understand, when you increase in your knowledge of God, that you this grace and this peace, but also your experience of life gets bigger.
SPEAKER_00: The last one is godliness.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: You become more like him.
SPEAKER_00: If you read the Bible very long, one of the things you'll see is that God places the high priority on knowing and understanding God.
SPEAKER_00: Back in the Old Testament, Jeremiah chapter 9, he says it this way in verse 23 Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me.
SPEAKER_00: How big of a narcissist do you have to be to say that?
SPEAKER_00: Unless, and of course, your God who's infinitely perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Let him who boasts, boasts in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.
SPEAKER_00: For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Before you go to bed tonight, I want you to ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to ask anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's too awkward and too personal, but I want you to ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_00: What do you really boast about?
SPEAKER_00: Do you boast about the life you get to live?
SPEAKER_00: Can you not wait to work into the conversation, your last experience that you had that nobody else had?
SPEAKER_00: So you feel kind of up here and they're kind of down here?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you boast about, oh man, I just I just know the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: And the more I grow in my knowledge and my understanding of Him, man, I'm a more graceful person, I'm more forgiving, I'm more peaceful, my life is fuller, and I'm becoming more and more like Christ, as crazy as that sounds.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing you do to make the most of the moment is real simple, and right from the text, you increase your understanding of God.
SPEAKER_00: Again, not just your belief in, but your understanding of.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the second thing from the text: you put yourself in spiritually formative environments.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 says, by which we have great he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, have an escape from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what do you mean put yourself in informative environments?
SPEAKER_00: You put yourselves in environments that are dominated by the word.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you may be thinking, okay, uh, exactly what is a spiritually formative environment?
SPEAKER_00: It's a great question.
SPEAKER_00: Let me define it and then I'll describe some for you, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is what I mean by a spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: It is any environment that increases your understanding of and experience with the truth of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: It is any environment that increases your understanding of and experience with the truth of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And one thing that happens is it increases your capacity to partake, which that will make more sense in in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: And I talk about a spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, let me give you an example of what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: This room right here is a spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, every time you walk into this room, somebody, myself, Leo, Wade, Blake, somebody on our staff is gonna open up the Bible and they're gonna say what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna hate, we're not gonna be harsh, but we're also not gonna be apologetic.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: We are not life coaches, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We're not here to improve your life, pep up your marriage, and give you a better self-esteem.
SPEAKER_00: We simply believe that if you grow deeper in your faith, you'll bring more to all the relationships in your life and all the environments you occupy.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: If you simply grow deeper in your faith, you will bring more to all the relationships in your life and all of the environments that you occupy.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we tend to focus on God and the gospel instead of chasing every little cultural trend that comes along.
SPEAKER_00: So when I talk about spiritual formative environments, this is one right here, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, another one happens right across the parking lot in the adult building next hour at 10:30.
SPEAKER_00: They're called Bible studies.
SPEAKER_00: Some people still call it Sunday school.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, don't say that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a 1950s word.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what do you want to do?
SPEAKER_00: Bring back training union?
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody remember training union?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so that happens over there.
SPEAKER_00: They're smaller environments where other people teach classes on different topics, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Happens in that building right across the street, happens for our children right next door, both hours, happens for our students the next hour at 10:30 out at the warehouse.
SPEAKER_00: Last week they had 172 people out there packed in that room.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: It's a spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: They're called D groups, discipleship groups here at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: It's groups of three to five men and women.
SPEAKER_00: It's all men and all women.
SPEAKER_00: We don't mix them together.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we go through a book of the Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people will go to the training and go, yeah, yeah, we're going through the book of the Bible, and they'll lead their group through a book.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why we don't, we we we don't, we're not really jazzed about you leading people through a book because the Bible says these precious and very great promises that God's given, so they are the means by which we have we've escaped the corruption that is in the world and we become a partaker of the divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: If you're leading a D group and you're leading your people through a book you read four years ago, you're lazy and you're using D group to meet friends.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what they exist for.
SPEAKER_00: They exist so like I'm in a D group with two guys and we meet, and we didn't know each other that well when we first got in the D group, and frankly, they were like, I'm in a D group with the pastor.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah, you guys are really bad sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Your pick your wife signed you up for this.
SPEAKER_00: And now we we print out like we last semester we went through the book of James and I printed out in a little binder so they could write, and they come with questions, and we get together, and I'm like, hey, what stirred your head and what sets your heart off?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does this right here mean?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_00: Like one of them said, hey, it seems like God's kind of getting at rich people, like it doesn't, like he's mad at them.
SPEAKER_00: I said, no, no, no, not at all.
SPEAKER_00: But he says, hey, weep and howl you're rich because they've got so much and they're doing nothing with it, and people all around them are suffering.
SPEAKER_00: So the Bible's not against having money, the Bible's against being indifferent, and it's like, oh, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: All right, great question.
SPEAKER_00: Any other question?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I got yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And they they ride out and circle and put a question mark, and it's great.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because these two men and myself, we have all changed for the better because we sit in this spiritually formative environment called a D group.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you about one other spiritually formative environment that actually starts next week.
SPEAKER_00: We'll call them midweek classes here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, there first of all, there's like a ladies' Bible study, ladies' Bible study, or first of all, Christian beliefs.
SPEAKER_00: We'll take that one.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is the women's study.
SPEAKER_00: It's on Tuesday morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's women only.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of them meet on Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: But the ladies' Bible study, Tuesday morning, uh it meets from 9 30 to 11 30.
SPEAKER_00: There's child care available, and that's a list of all the different teachers Sally Collier, Christy Golson, Cynthia Jeter, Shelly Johnson, Marcy McClendon, our women's pastor.
SPEAKER_00: They will all take.
SPEAKER_00: Turns teaching, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so, ladies, what will happen is you will be taught, you will be provoked, you'll be stirred up to be reminded and remember what it is that Christians believe.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this will make you a better mother, a better wife, a better friend, and a more consequential human being, okay?
SPEAKER_00: That starts this Tuesday, all right, at 9 30.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, today is the last day.
SPEAKER_00: There's free child care, but today's the last day to register.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a friend of mine in town, he's a pastor, he asked me, he said, Hey, do you guys provide free child care for your Bible studies for ladies during the week?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He said, How much does that cost?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I couldn't tell you.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, You don't keep up with that?
SPEAKER_00: I said, No, what I keep up with is are women being exposed to the truth and to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Does socialization and transformation happen?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I care about.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of it will sort itself out.
SPEAKER_00: Another class, this is on a Wednesday night class that happens.
SPEAKER_00: This is called Bridges to Connecting with Muslims.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's taught by Lindy White, who he and his wife are missionaries that have worked with the Muslim people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, uh, we live, I don't know if you know this, but we live in one of the most culturally diverse counties in the nation.
SPEAKER_00: And so Muslims are not the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Muslims are not bad people.
SPEAKER_00: Someone asked me, they said, You seem to be really comfortable around people of all yes, I'm myself in every environment.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Muslims want, okay?
SPEAKER_00: They want their kids to have a better life than they did.
SPEAKER_00: They want to have money to pay their bills, they want to take a vacation and have fun every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: Remind you of anybody.
SPEAKER_00: That's you.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're like, hey, I want to get better at kind of speaking cross-culturally, this is a class for you.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the caveat: this thing is capped at 20 people uh because we don't want more than that in there, and it is filling up.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want into this class, you need to rest your suit, okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's another uh spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of our core classes is Christian formation.
SPEAKER_00: This is taught by Leo Almeida, our teaching pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, this is a class where basically you will look at different disciplines that form you and help you to become who the Bible says you are and who deep down inside you want to be.
SPEAKER_00: This happens on Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: Another class, this is emotions, basically learning the art of dealing with feelings.
SPEAKER_00: This is not we're gonna get together and just all just blitz.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna understand.
SPEAKER_00: I I if I could say this, if I could just beat this drum, let me just say this.
SPEAKER_00: If you most people, you won't you know what you feel, you don't know why you feel that.
SPEAKER_00: This class helps you understand why you feel that.
SPEAKER_00: And it will turn down the volume.
SPEAKER_00: I said to somebody this past week in counseling, are you aware of how shrill you are?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: That right there.
SPEAKER_00: That is not enjoyable.
SPEAKER_00: People will move away from you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, that happens.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people, I mean, I have I have really intense, and I said, short-lived friendships.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: I said, because it is like unbearable.
SPEAKER_00: Are you saying I'm unbearable?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: The the energy with which you talk is just, whoo.
SPEAKER_00: This person knows what they feel.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me, they don't know why.
SPEAKER_00: When you understand why you feel what you feel, your life gets a lot simpler and a lot clearer.
SPEAKER_00: So, emotion, that's another class on Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: True worship.
SPEAKER_00: This is a class get get giving worth to God with with our entire life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about singing songs.
SPEAKER_00: This class is taught by Clyde, our worship pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this also happens on Wednesday night, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I think that uh, this is the last one.
SPEAKER_00: Financial peace for you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's taught by Thomas Brown and Wade Burgess.
SPEAKER_00: Wade's the guy that preached last week.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas is a financial planner.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, he works in finance.
SPEAKER_00: He is a member of our church.
SPEAKER_00: Great man.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Dave Ramsey.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Thomas himself went through this.
SPEAKER_00: I won't tell his story.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but this man, he and his wife, they were had a certain amount of debt, and he took these principles and retired that debt in a matter of months.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and and and he's he's a satisfied customer.
SPEAKER_00: I'll say it that way.
SPEAKER_00: But financial peace for you, by the way, that doesn't mean you're having financial troubles.
SPEAKER_00: That means you want to understand money and make it work for you.
SPEAKER_00: There's a way.
SPEAKER_00: Ramsey says it like this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you'll live the way other people aren't willing to, then later on you can live like nobody else can.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this is all about.
SPEAKER_00: Getting to the point where you're debt-free and you can be the most generous cat anybody knows, okay?
SPEAKER_00: All of these are opportunities to put yourself in a spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: We have a midweek meal uh that we serve from 6 to 6:30 in the adult building over there.
SPEAKER_00: It's Chick-fil-A with all the trimmings.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you may like, I don't like Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_00: Eat at home and then come for classes.
SPEAKER_00: Classes are from 6:30 to 8.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we don't need to hear your opinion about Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my favorite, he may be in this room, but we have Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_00: We break it up, we have canes in it and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the guys walked in towards the end of the semester or time and he goes, Man, I'm starting to not like Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Don't say that in front of your kids.
SPEAKER_00: They never not like Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, here's the great thing about the midweek meal: your wife doesn't have to worry about dinner one night a week.
SPEAKER_00: It's six bucks a person, a max of$24 for family.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we have a couple families in our church that have 14 kids.
SPEAKER_00: They put me in a poor house.
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, yeah, we don't do the math.
SPEAKER_00: We want it to be a blessing, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So when I talk about spiritually formative environments, this is what I'm talking about, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to see something in verse 4, and then we'll skip on because we don't talk about this enough in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 4 again.
SPEAKER_00: By which he is granted to us his precious and very great promises.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: So that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
SPEAKER_00: Now, having become a partaker of the divine nature, you are free.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: If you hear anything this morning, hear this.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing has changed me and the way I think about God and enjoy my Christianity than this simple verse right here.
SPEAKER_00: When this landed on me and I understood it, I begin to live differently because, especially in the church, he says that you have become, you may become partakers of the divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: Having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire, having escaped this past tense.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: You have already escaped the corruption in the world.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't need any more culture warrior preaching, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I cannot go to one more nonprofit's fundraising, breakfast, lunch, or dinner and hear about we gotta fight, we gotta take back the sinners, we gotta take back the White House, and I'm just sitting there eating this overrated free food and going, you need to be a partaker of the divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: You've already escaped.
SPEAKER_00: Stop telling me I gotta go back and try to do something Jesus has already done for me.
SPEAKER_00: Partakers, partake, partake.
SPEAKER_00: Left my 20-year-old at college yesterday, and I said, Hey, there's a lot of goodness out here.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, I'm just sad.
SPEAKER_00: We've had a lot of sadness in our life recently.
SPEAKER_00: We have friends that experience tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: We lost a friend to lung cancer, never smoked a day in her life.
SPEAKER_00: My 20-year-old is like that.
SPEAKER_00: Dad, I'm just I said, Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody that lives in a fallen world is gonna be subjected to injustice.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying don't be mad, Sophie.
SPEAKER_00: Be mad.
SPEAKER_00: Just don't sin in your anger.
SPEAKER_00: That's easier said than done.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: But I said to her, hey, partake.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say, hey, you're 20.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to sneak in bars and drink because the legal drinking age is 21.
SPEAKER_00: No, you've escaped the corruption in the world caused by sinful desires.
SPEAKER_00: You, you, you have already escaped.
SPEAKER_00: You've been taken out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
SPEAKER_00: Eat, partake.
SPEAKER_00: Partake is not a word we use.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a visual partaking.
SPEAKER_00: About a year ago, I did a wedding, one of them highbrow, swanky, formal weddings.
SPEAKER_00: We had the wedding, beautiful venue, and then they had the cocktail hour, which was two hours long.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, We're gonna take a lot of pictures.
SPEAKER_00: We've got an extended family, and we're gonna have heavy hors d'oeuvres and an open bar.
SPEAKER_00: That is a recipe for disaster.
SPEAKER_00: And so they had heavy hors d'oeuvres.
SPEAKER_00: So they come by with this silver platter.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to these guys I didn't even know.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, hey, man, that was great.
SPEAKER_00: That was, I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that was, oh man, do you do this?
SPEAKER_00: I said, no, I just do people for weddings for people in my church or people that I know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have like a side hustle.
SPEAKER_00: Man, you should.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you what, the DJs give me a card.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you got a card?
SPEAKER_00: I want, I want to recommend you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't recommend me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Dude comes by with white gloves on and a black tuxedo and a platter full of bacon wrapped shrimp.
SPEAKER_00: And they weren't these little bitty pinky things you get off the food bar at the Golden Corral.
SPEAKER_00: These were like prawns.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone know what a prawn is?
SPEAKER_00: It was like a seahorse.
SPEAKER_00: I could have ridden one of these things home.
SPEAKER_00: It was so big, it took two pieces of bacon to wrap the entire thing.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy was standing to you, he was standing, he goes, Oh, whoa, whoa, come back here, bro.
SPEAKER_00: And he just grabbed, he had a little plate, he just grabbed his hand, and I was like, We're not formal anymore.
SPEAKER_00: He said, sir, please use one of these skewers.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, skewer nothing, man.
SPEAKER_00: Give me some of those.
SPEAKER_00: And we stood there, and he goes, Hey, every time you come out of that serving area back there, you stop right here.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll be standing right here.
SPEAKER_00: Over the course of about 30 minutes, that guy ate nine of them.
SPEAKER_00: And then we went to the sit-down dinner, which was a filet and a piece of grilled salmon, a little surfing turf.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't either or, it was both.
SPEAKER_00: The dude ate two bites of a steak and he goes, I'm full.
SPEAKER_00: I go, imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: You know what his problem was?
SPEAKER_00: Look at me, listen to me, look at me, listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: His problem was he partook of too much.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have any appetite for the main course.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine your life where you just partake so much of the divine nature?
SPEAKER_00: You don't have appetite for sin anymore because you realize I've escaped the corruption that's caused by evil desires.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to escape, I'm not fighting.
SPEAKER_00: We got to take back the culture, we gotta win.
SPEAKER_00: No, you gotta shut up.
SPEAKER_00: You're making you're getting me dizzy.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're desperate determination, all you're doing is fundraising.
SPEAKER_00: Would you please stop?
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to get up the last go.
SPEAKER_00: Don't write checks to this organization.
SPEAKER_00: This is a waste of your money.
SPEAKER_00: But my wife had her thumb on my thigh under the table.
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
SPEAKER_00: You're a petulant 10-year-old orphan.
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
SPEAKER_00: These people are being lied to.
SPEAKER_00: They're overstating the urgency just to meet the need.
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time somebody stood up and said to you what the Bible says?
SPEAKER_00: You've escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
SPEAKER_00: And now, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: All that's left for you to do is just partake.
SPEAKER_00: You feel how foreign that is to you?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, eh, I like the other part.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it makes you feel spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: When you get genuinely converted, you're made spiritual by God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to engage in extreme behaviors to convince everybody around you that you really are spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: You're just yeah, it's like, hey, I've escaped that.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't interest me at all.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna partake, I'm just gonna feast.
SPEAKER_00: Or as the Bible said, I'm gonna taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself this morning: is your experience of Christianity more about escaping or partaking?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the third thing you make the most of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: You exert yourself spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's verse five.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Verse five, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
SPEAKER_00: For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted.
SPEAKER_00: You're not just nearsighted, you're so nearsighted that you are blind, having forgotten that he has been cleansed from his former sins.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.
SPEAKER_00: For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.
SPEAKER_00: For in this way there will be richly provided you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You exert yourself spiritually, make every effort.
SPEAKER_00: Few people understood this better or on a deeper level than the philosopher.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Christian, he taught philosophy at USC, University of Southern California, a man named Dallas Willard.
SPEAKER_00: He said this, talking about uh effort and exertion.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We've been taught that grace means you can do nothing to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Such thinking has been extended to, quote, you can do nothing to have spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: So spiritual transformation occurs according to this thinking in one of two ways: inspiration or information.
SPEAKER_00: Inspiration means that in one golden moment, one great experience, you will be transformed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to criticize experience.
SPEAKER_00: I've had many wonderful experiences with God, but they don't transform you.
SPEAKER_00: The other view, uh information is the means whereby you pour truth into your head and suddenly you're transformed.
SPEAKER_00: Inspiration isn't going to do it, and information isn't going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: The only way human character is transformed is with grace is by discipline and activity.
SPEAKER_00: Discipline and activity.
SPEAKER_00: My D group that I referenced earlier, one of the guys in my D group texted me, texted me and the other guy just a couple days ago.
SPEAKER_00: And with a quote, he said, I read this this week.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yes, he said the discipline the difference between the person that you are and the person that you want to be is discipline.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says it like this in verse five: make every effort.
SPEAKER_00: This is said to people who already have faith.
SPEAKER_00: They've been set free from, but they've also been set free for.
SPEAKER_00: Make every effort to add to your faith or to supplement your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Not that your faith is lacking, but a lot of you, when the moment arises, all you can tell is, Well, why I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Why is this happening?
SPEAKER_00: Or wait a minute, why, why, what?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta make every effort to add to your faith.
SPEAKER_00: When you list these things out, uh, and and and and people have done this, they list them out and they ask people, pick the two on this list that best describe your life.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the list.
SPEAKER_00: I want you just to look at it and just ask yourself, hey, which one of those two?
SPEAKER_00: Not out loud, just to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Which one of those they have best described to me?
SPEAKER_00: My Christianity, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love, ineffective, unproductive, ineffective, uh, unfruitful.
SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
SPEAKER_00: See, these people, if you're not careful, you'll go to church your whole life and you'll live and labor under this feeling of I'm ineffective and I'm unfruitful, I'm unproductive, because you got faith and you just sat down.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it like this: faith is opposed to earning, but it's not opposed to effort.
SPEAKER_00: It's opposed to you can't earn it, but you do have to put forth some effort.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the last thing we'll be done this morning.
SPEAKER_00: How do you make the most of the moment?
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly and finally, you be around spiritually consequential people, you be around spiritually consequential people.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Peter's talking about in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a question for you.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you have in your life that constantly reminds you of things you love to forget?
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities.
SPEAKER_00: Though you know them and you're established in the truth that you have, I think it is right as long as I am in this body to stir you up.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another question: Who stirs you up?
SPEAKER_00: Who loves you so much that they tell you the truth?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it makes you angry.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go through life just surrounded by yes men and yes women.
SPEAKER_00: That's hell.
SPEAKER_00: Over drinks, but still hell.
SPEAKER_00: To stir you up by way of reminding.
SPEAKER_00: Since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus has made clear to me, I will make every effort.
SPEAKER_00: See, he's telling these people to make every effort.
SPEAKER_00: And now he's saying, by the way, I'll make every effort.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to do anything I'm not doing.
SPEAKER_00: I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is that for these people.
SPEAKER_00: Be around spiritually consequential people.
SPEAKER_00: Who is who do you have in your life that you're consistently around that is spiritually consequential for you?
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a very vivid picture of what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: This happened a couple years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Lady's husband died, battle with cancer, died, left her a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: She said, I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: He he talked to her, financial planner.
SPEAKER_00: They said, Hey, you're good.
SPEAKER_00: We're good, you're set for life, you don't have to work.
SPEAKER_00: The kids, everything.
SPEAKER_00: Kids, the youngest was in college, the rest of the two are out on their own.
SPEAKER_00: We're good.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe this is incredible.
SPEAKER_00: He dies about four months later, she's on social media, and an old high school boyfriend reaches out.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And so they start talking, da-da-da.
SPEAKER_00: And she just says to her friend, they played tennis and they went and had salad at the club.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, You know what?
SPEAKER_00: I've kind of reconnected with so-and-so from high school.
SPEAKER_00: And her girlfriend reaches over and said, No, you did not.
SPEAKER_00: He is a loser, he's lazy, he doesn't have a job, he's a gold digger.
SPEAKER_00: Cue up Jamie Foxx, okay?
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Yeah, but he's so sweet and he didn't have to work.
SPEAKER_00: I have all the money we need.
SPEAKER_00: You are lonely.
SPEAKER_00: You're not making a good decision.
SPEAKER_00: She says, Well, I mean, I'm just, I don't I don't want to be rude.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying be rude.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying be done.
SPEAKER_00: Well, things rocked along there.
SPEAKER_00: She said, she didn't bring it up.
SPEAKER_00: About three months later, the lady, the spiritually formed a friend, and her husband were in a restaurant having a nice dinner over a glass of white wine.
SPEAKER_00: She gets up to go to the bathroom and a whole other section of the restaurant.
SPEAKER_00: Guess who she walks upon?
SPEAKER_00: Her girlfriend and the old high school flame having dinner together.
SPEAKER_00: And she just walks over.
SPEAKER_00: She's such a jerk.
SPEAKER_00: You should pray to God you have friends that are this rude, ladies.
SPEAKER_00: She grabs her purse off the back of the chair and grabs her and says, You're coming with me.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, You sit there and you shut your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: No, you're coming to have it, you're eating at our table.
SPEAKER_00: We need an extra table chair at our table.
SPEAKER_00: Walks her back across the restaurant, sets her down.
SPEAKER_00: We need the restaurant's like, Yeah, we'll get a chair.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy's like, What do I do?
SPEAKER_00: Go home.
SPEAKER_00: Go home or go to somewhere else that starts with an H.
SPEAKER_00: Get out of here.
SPEAKER_00: She is lonely, and you are taking advantage of her.
SPEAKER_00: Get out of here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that was a little over two years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Six months ago, that lady married a very, very godly man who had no idea of her financial standing.
SPEAKER_00: And when their relationship matured and got serious, he said to her one time, Hey, by the way, I don't want you to worry about having to work.
SPEAKER_00: God has blessed me.
SPEAKER_00: I've sold two businesses, I'm set for life.
SPEAKER_00: And now they're happily married.
SPEAKER_00: Guess who she asked to be?
SPEAKER_00: Her maid of honor at her second wedding.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: No discipline in the moment seems enjoyable.
SPEAKER_00: But in the end, it yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: You need people in your life that love you enough to say, no, we're not doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that you feel this is valid, but that feeling is not truthful.
SPEAKER_00: So stop living in that.
SPEAKER_00: They stir you up.
SPEAKER_00: They remind you.
SPEAKER_00: Who reminds you?
SPEAKER_00: Who stirs you up?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you not have people in your life that are that way for you?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is how it's one of the ways you and I learn to make the most of the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest, just relax.
SPEAKER_00: We like to teach the Bible and give you some space to think about it.
SPEAKER_00: So a voice of prayer, Clyde will come, he may play or sing something over us.
SPEAKER_00: Some questions come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: This is simply for your consideration as you think about what you've heard today.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for the truth.
SPEAKER_00: It sets us free, it's liberating, it's life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's unchanging, unbending, unyielding.
SPEAKER_00: It's not harsh.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: It's just sometimes not our preference.
SPEAKER_00: We're like water, God.
SPEAKER_00: We want to take the path of least resistance.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be ruled by what we feel instead of what we know.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we uh before we leave here, cause us to subject what we feel to what we know.
SPEAKER_00: Now brood over us, Holy Spirit, and love on us.
SPEAKER_00: Reveal truth to us.
SPEAKER_00: Give us clarity where there's fogginess.
SPEAKER_00: And give us light where there's a little bit, a little bit dark.
SPEAKER_00: Father, our prayer today is that we never outgrow the childlike nature of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we start getting old in our faith, we start believing the lie that it all depends on us.
SPEAKER_00: We got to control everything.
SPEAKER_00: Our confession today, God, is that the world in which we can control everything is really small and it gets smaller.
SPEAKER_00: The world in which you control everything is really big and it gets bigger.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you're responsible for everything that happens.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you're sovereign and you're good.
SPEAKER_00: We can trust you.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we don't understand, we trust you.
SPEAKER_00: We lean on our knowledge of God, and it sustains us.
SPEAKER_00: So, Holy Spirit, thank you for the word today.
SPEAKER_00: We receive it with kindness and gladness, and in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest, I want to say thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_00: You're always welcome.
SPEAKER_00: You say, you may be like, hey man, I came in.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know any of those songs.
SPEAKER_00: Neither did I when I first started coming.
SPEAKER_00: But I stuck around for a while and now I know them, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Same thing will happen for you.
SPEAKER_00: Relax, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Put yourself in a spiritually formative environment.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have one, I would love for this to be that environment.
SPEAKER_00: But if you have any questions about anything you saw or heard today, some of our pastors will be available down front.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to answer any questions you may have, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And for all of us, if today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity, you can take care of that.
SPEAKER_00: There's offering boxes by the doors, or you can give online like a lot of people do, all right?
SPEAKER_00: Would I conclude our service with a spoken blessing?
SPEAKER_00: So if you would.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: And partake.
SPEAKER_00: Taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_00: Christ died so you can be a partaker of the divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: That makes you more Christ like and less you like, and that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Depart into now into these realities in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.