SPEAKER_02: You were created by God to feel the full range of human emotion.
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
unknown: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: God, that's our understanding today.
SPEAKER_02: We believe that you're going to complete your work in us, which means if we're still breathing, you're not done.
SPEAKER_02: You're still working in us, you're still working on us.
SPEAKER_02: And so we yield to both of those.
SPEAKER_02: And the reason we do, God, is because our heart has found its treasure.
SPEAKER_02: Our treasure is not in this world.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says over and over that the kingdom of God is like a man plowing in a field and discovers treasure.
SPEAKER_02: And he covers it back up and he sells everything he has to buy the field that contains the treasure.
SPEAKER_02: God, we're gonna we're willing to sacrifice whatever's necessary to get the field that contains the treasure.
SPEAKER_02: You're that valuable.
SPEAKER_02: The kingdom of God is that valuable.
SPEAKER_02: You're the pearl of great price, not our future husband, our future wife, not our kids, not our bank account.
SPEAKER_02: Our heart was made for treasure.
SPEAKER_02: And we're not gonna settle for anything else.
SPEAKER_02: And you're treasure, so we're coming hard after you today because the gospel comes hard after us.
SPEAKER_02: And that's a that's a beautiful reciprocity.
SPEAKER_02: And so we don't, we're not backing away from that.
SPEAKER_02: We rise to that because that's what we were created for.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you that you gave us a heart that was created for treasure.
SPEAKER_02: We forsake everything else.
SPEAKER_02: All the cheap trinkets that this world manufactures and the idols that our heart produces, we say no, because our heart was made for treasure.
SPEAKER_02: So, Lord, deliver us from trinkets in pursuit of treasure, we pray.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: If you get a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to John chapter 16.
SPEAKER_02: John chapter 16, and uh uh I want to talk to you this morning about what God will not save you from.
SPEAKER_02: What God will not save you from, because if you're not careful, you come to church and and and well-intentioned but dead-wrong preachers make it sound like God's gonna deliver you uh from everything.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're Christianity is just the way out.
SPEAKER_02: No, Christianity is the way through.
SPEAKER_02: Big difference in those two.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but but let me just kind of tip my hand.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, what God will not save you from is the experience of just being human.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and we'll unpack that more when we get into the sermon, but I want to start reading in John chapter 16.
SPEAKER_02: I'll start reading verse 12 so you can kind of get the flow of thought because verse 16, where we're gonna start the sermon today, it sounds like, well, what is he talking about?
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're our guest today, we're going to the book of John.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's called Expository Preaching, uh, where basically you just kind of read the Bible and tell people what it what it says, what it meant back then, what it means for us nowadays, and at the end, we'll give you some soul space to kind of think about it.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, the great thing about expository preaching is you have to think about things you normally wouldn't think about, because love to ourselves, we preachers would say the same six things every Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but the Bible is it's irregular and it's jagged and it's thought-provoking and it's inviting and it's funny uh uh and it's revealing all at the same time, okay?
SPEAKER_02: That's why we go through books of the Bible most of the time.
SPEAKER_02: Every once in a while we'll do a topical series, but we're usually plowing hard and deep through a book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: John chapter 16.
SPEAKER_02: Let me start reading in verse 12 so we can kind of get the feel of what's happening.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is talking, here's the context.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross.
SPEAKER_02: He's talking to his disciples, and he's telling them, hey, getting them ready for his absence.
SPEAKER_02: He says in verse 12, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
SPEAKER_02: When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
SPEAKER_02: He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
SPEAKER_02: All that the Father has is mine.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 16, a little while and you will see me no longer, and again a little while, and you will see me.
SPEAKER_02: So some of his disciples said to one another, What is this he says to us, a little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me?
SPEAKER_02: And because I go, I am going to the Father?
SPEAKER_02: So they were saying, What does he mean by a little while?
SPEAKER_02: We do not know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him.
SPEAKER_02: So he said to them, Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, A little while and you will not see me?
SPEAKER_02: And again a little while and you will see me?
SPEAKER_02: Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.
SPEAKER_02: When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hours come.
SPEAKER_02: But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
SPEAKER_02: So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
SPEAKER_02: In that day you will ask nothing of me.
SPEAKER_02: Truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give to you.
SPEAKER_02: Until now you have asked nothing in my name.
SPEAKER_02: Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_02: Now there's four things I want to point out in the text, okay?
SPEAKER_02: The first one, in order of the text, the first one is simply this is that waiting is a part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_02: Waiting is a part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 16 starts off with this little, these three little words, a little while.
SPEAKER_02: A little while, a little while.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to frustrate your kids when they ask you a question, do not say yes or no, say in a little while.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it will not go over well, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Just in a little while, because we are we we God created us to be hardwired to wait.
SPEAKER_02: And here's here's one of the the truest indications that you're not God and that I'm not God, is because you have to wait sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: Uh like I went to the dermatologist the other day, uh, and and there was nobody in the waiting room but me.
SPEAKER_02: And that there was like six women back there all chatting it up about what they're gonna have for lunch and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, hello, hello.
SPEAKER_02: Over here, one person, six of you, a bunch of doctors, what are we doing?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the pharmaceutical reps are here.
SPEAKER_02: I don't care what the pharmaceutical reps are doing.
SPEAKER_02: I'm here, I'm paying you, they're not paying you.
SPEAKER_02: And the lady goes, Well, they brought us lunch.
SPEAKER_02: That did not help my waiting, okay?
SPEAKER_02: I started losing my peripheral vision.
SPEAKER_02: I was just like walking back and forth, like maybe if I walk around, they'll see me.
SPEAKER_02: It didn't help, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: Waited 27 minutes.
SPEAKER_02: And I walked back, and the lady's breath smelled like fajitas.
SPEAKER_02: I was not happy.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I was lunch.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's great.
SPEAKER_02: The pharmaceutical reps brought us fajitas from Papasitas.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know what they brought me?
SPEAKER_02: Bubkus, okay?
SPEAKER_02: I've been out there for 28 minutes waiting on you people to digest your lunch and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: And then it dawned on me.
SPEAKER_02: This is frustrating because it's just a little reminder, I'm not God.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, because you're not God, you're going to have to wait.
SPEAKER_02: You're not going to get what you want all the time.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're 23 and you're not married and you thought, wow, by the time this time I thought I'd be married, I'm sick of waiting.
SPEAKER_02: If you're not careful, you will create for yourself this tower of Babel, something that you can build and create to say, see, I'm not alone.
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_02: Because waiting is a part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus says, Hey, a little while you'll see me no longer.
SPEAKER_02: And again, a little while you will see me.
SPEAKER_02: This is not the first time Jesus just pulls this up out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_02: All through the Gospel of John, Jesus says, over and over, in a little while, in a little while, in a little while.
SPEAKER_02: He says in John chapter 7, verse 33, Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer, and then I'm going to him who sent me.
SPEAKER_02: John chapter 13, verse 33.
SPEAKER_02: Little children, yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me.
SPEAKER_02: And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come.
SPEAKER_02: A little while, a little while.
SPEAKER_02: Drives them crazy.
SPEAKER_02: We drive to Pensacola to see my in-laws.
SPEAKER_02: My kids, when they were younger, could not handle it.
SPEAKER_02: We would, every 15 minutes, how much longer, how much further till we get there?
SPEAKER_02: And I would say, in a little while.
SPEAKER_02: And one day, from the backseat, my spirited seven-year-old pushed the back of my seat and said, What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: Woo! I'm about to show you what that means.
SPEAKER_02: I taught my kids to drive.
SPEAKER_02: Now they're 21 and 16, okay?
SPEAKER_02: I taught them to drive by saying, Hey, when you when you go to hit the brakes, don't stop.
SPEAKER_02: It's like there's a bird under the brake.
SPEAKER_02: You just want to hold the bird in place.
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to crush the bird, okay?
SPEAKER_02: You just consistently depress the brake until the vehicle slows down.
SPEAKER_02: I crush the bird.
SPEAKER_02: She kind of bounced forward.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Hey, I'll come back down that back seat and help you get it sorted.
SPEAKER_02: You need help getting it sorted?
SPEAKER_02: No, so I can get it sorted.
SPEAKER_02: I just don't want to hear it in a little while anymore.
SPEAKER_02: Well, welcome to the club, because you get older, you're gonna hear it more.
SPEAKER_02: Not just from me, but from God.
SPEAKER_02: So get used to it.
SPEAKER_02: You know why you're gonna hear that?
SPEAKER_02: I don't care.
SPEAKER_02: Because you ain't God.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you sash me one more time, we're gonna pull this van over and you're gonna see who the authority figure is.
SPEAKER_02: I adjusted that mirror and I said, Your mom does the same thing, it doesn't bother me at all.
SPEAKER_02: Cross your arms all you want, I could care less.
SPEAKER_02: Stas me now that she's 21, we've driving down the road, I'll stomp the brakes and go down and go, bow to dad, bow to dad.
SPEAKER_02: They don't think that's funny either.
SPEAKER_02: Not funny, dad.
SPEAKER_02: Not funny.
SPEAKER_02: See, waiting is a part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_02: And see, so a little while, it's imperative because it's part of the human experience, we're all gonna do it.
SPEAKER_02: It's imperative that we ask the right question in the context of a little while.
SPEAKER_02: Because if you don't learn to ask the right question in the context of a little while, a little while starts to feel like forever.
SPEAKER_02: And you look around and you say things like the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: See, God's people have never been good at waiting.
SPEAKER_02: The children of Israel said this about Moses when he went up on the mountain to get the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_02: They said, Hey, what's taking so long with this Moses guy?
SPEAKER_02: We don't know what happened to him.
SPEAKER_02: Then they looked at Aaron and said, Come, hey, make gods for us.
SPEAKER_02: We can't stand the silence and the waiting.
SPEAKER_02: We want something to fixate on.
SPEAKER_02: That's where idolatry comes from, beloved.
SPEAKER_02: When you get tired of waiting, you create an idol, it gives you something to look at.
SPEAKER_02: You and I were not created to live in bondage to the visible, we were created to live in bondage to the invisible, which is why the Bible says Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, faith is a substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
SPEAKER_02: If you live in bondage to the visible, you're always responding, and you got a response.
SPEAKER_02: You gotta realize, hey, there's some things that haven't happened yet, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_02: I can trust God for those.
SPEAKER_02: I don't have to create something for me.
SPEAKER_02: I can trust God for what God wants to bring to me.
SPEAKER_02: Here's two questions that help us wait uh a lot better.
SPEAKER_02: Two questions to ask ourselves while we're waiting.
SPEAKER_02: Number one is this what is God doing in me?
SPEAKER_02: What is God doing in me?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you say, why?
SPEAKER_02: This is uh because sometimes we're not ready for what's coming.
SPEAKER_02: That's why it hadn't happened yet.
SPEAKER_02: And when I say you're not ready, that's not punishment.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's preparation.
SPEAKER_02: It's I give you a biblical context.
SPEAKER_02: It's 1 Kings chapter 19, got him Elijah, has this incredible experience.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, in chapter 18, where he defeats all these false prophets of Baal, and then the next day he's just like, God, that's enough.
SPEAKER_02: I want to die.
SPEAKER_02: I'm tapping out.
SPEAKER_02: I'm done, okay?
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to do this anymore.
SPEAKER_02: This has just worn me down.
SPEAKER_02: And and and he just goes out in the wilderness and sits under a tree and just says, I'm done.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_02: And God comes to him and says, Buck up, soldier, and that's the No, God comes to him and says, Hey, hey, he falls asleep, he wakes up, there's a jar of water and a cake of bread there, and God says, Get up, eat and drink.
SPEAKER_02: And then God says this lay back down and go back to sleep.
SPEAKER_02: Don't you love a God who says, get more sleep?
SPEAKER_02: He says, Lay back down and go back to sleep.
SPEAKER_02: Because he says this.
SPEAKER_02: This is why I tell you, it's not punishment, it's preparation.
SPEAKER_02: He says, the journey is too great for you.
SPEAKER_02: I know what's coming, you don't.
SPEAKER_02: And what God is saying to Elijah, what he says to us is, hey, I'm not punishing you by if you're waiting for something right now, I'm not punishing you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying the journey is too great for you.
SPEAKER_02: This is a time of preparation.
SPEAKER_02: So you have to ask yourself, what is God doing in me?
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, you have to ask, what is God doing through me?
SPEAKER_02: What is God doing through me?
SPEAKER_02: Because God acts, he works in us before he works through us.
SPEAKER_02: And so you say, Well, when I ask the question, what is God doing through me?
SPEAKER_02: The question, the answer is nothing.
SPEAKER_02: Then go back and see question number one.
SPEAKER_02: Because you are the medium.
SPEAKER_02: You and I are the meaning, our lives are the medium through which God's will and ways find expression.
SPEAKER_02: You you you you you you you are created by God to kind of be his megaphone to the world to kind of say, hey, this is kind of what God is like.
SPEAKER_02: Watch the way I live.
SPEAKER_02: I'll demonstrate to you.
SPEAKER_02: This this is why Matthew picks up on this in Matthew chapter 5, about verse 16.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Um, it in the same way, let your light shine before men so they see your good deeds and they glorify your father who's in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: People are gonna glorify God when they see the way you and I live our life.
SPEAKER_02: This is what we were created for.
SPEAKER_02: And so when I say waiting is a part of the human experience, yeah, I mean, Jesus says to his disciples, in a little while, in a little while, in a little while.
SPEAKER_02: It's not yet.
SPEAKER_02: He's getting them ready.
SPEAKER_02: He has said, all through John, okay?
SPEAKER_02: And so we're all gonna have to wait because we're not God, but because we're not God, which is a good thing, amen.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you can wait on the God who really is.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the second thing the Bible says to us today, that Jesus knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_02: You say, I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, verse 17, he says, So some of the disciples said to one another, What is this that he says to us?
SPEAKER_02: A little while, and you'll you you will not see me, and again a little while, you'll see me, and because I'm going to the Father, he's talking about the ascension.
SPEAKER_02: When he he's talking about the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus is what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_02: And then the ascension is when Jesus goes back into heaven, okay?
SPEAKER_02: In verse 18, so they were saying, What does he mean by a little while?
SPEAKER_02: We do not know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, now hear that.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus knew what they wanted to ask him, so he speaks to their question.
SPEAKER_02: If you knew that God knows the questions you really want to ask, what would you go ahead and ask?
SPEAKER_02: You ever have a question in you that feels so big, you're kind of like, I can't ask that.
SPEAKER_02: That sounds disrespectful.
SPEAKER_02: That sounds horrible.
SPEAKER_02: That sounds Jesus already knows.
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible says right here that Jesus knew they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, Is this what you're asking yourselves?
SPEAKER_02: What I meant by saying, A little while and you'll not see me, and again a little while you will see me?
SPEAKER_02: And then he goes on and unpacks, he says, truly, truly, which means of a truth, of a truth.
SPEAKER_02: Hear ye, hear ye.
SPEAKER_02: Don't miss what I'm fixing to say.
SPEAKER_02: And what he's saying to us is he's demonstrating to us that, hey, I know what's coming.
SPEAKER_02: I'm very clear on what's coming now.
SPEAKER_02: You may think, you may ask yourself, well, he knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_02: Why didn't he stop it?
SPEAKER_02: If Jesus knew what was coming, he knew these people are out to get him, why didn't he stop it?
SPEAKER_02: I was talking to a guy one time.
SPEAKER_02: We were having a little spiritual dialogue, uh uh, I'm sharing the gospel, and the guy asked a great question.
SPEAKER_02: By the way, people that don't believe have great questions.
SPEAKER_02: Don't insult their intelligence.
SPEAKER_02: He said to me, he said, So you're basically telling me that Christ came to save me.
SPEAKER_02: How can I trust a God to save me who couldn't save himself?
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, hmm, Kimosabe, you speak truth.
SPEAKER_02: And it caught me off guard, and I was just kind of like, uh, uh, uh, now there's a verse in the Bible in 1 Peter that says, Don't worry about what you what to say, because in that moment the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say.
SPEAKER_02: And so this question came out of my mouth, kind of like a burp, like, oh, that was unintentional.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, excuse me.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what leapt out of my mouth I was talking to this guy, because he could he could tell I was kind of caught off guard, and I was like, uh, and then all of a sudden, out it came.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, if Jesus didn't die for you, how else would you know God loved you?
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, that's good.
SPEAKER_02: I hope, yeah, yeah, yes, let's go with that.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_02: What I'm saying right there.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, What?
SPEAKER_02: And I said, if Jesus doesn't die for you, and by the way, no one takes Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, because he said, you know, Jesus was a good dude, but he hacked off some religious people and they waxed him.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I do you feel dirty saying that?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, and I said, No, actually, Jesus didn't hack off a bunch of religious people and they waxed him.
SPEAKER_02: No one takes his life from him.
SPEAKER_02: He lays it down.
SPEAKER_02: He goes, Well, he didn't save himself.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Okay, ask yourself the question: if Jesus doesn't die, what context do you have for knowing that God loves you?
SPEAKER_02: He's like, That's a great question.
SPEAKER_02: Why do you ask that?
SPEAKER_02: I said, because the Bible says in Romans chapter 5 about verse 8 that God demonstrates his love for us in that while we're still sinners, Christ died.
SPEAKER_02: He died for us.
SPEAKER_02: How else would you know if he doesn't die?
SPEAKER_02: See, Jesus knew all along that he came to die.
SPEAKER_02: It didn't catch him off guard.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't, you read the Bible, you'll never see these two words coming out of the mouth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02: Shut up.
SPEAKER_02: No, he knows fully well.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, he's surrounded by people who don't.
SPEAKER_02: They don't get it.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a great line from an old western, encumbered by idents.
SPEAKER_02: We pressed on.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is just surrounded by numbskulls.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, hello.
SPEAKER_02: Matter of fact, this is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: At one point, he's they don't understand.
SPEAKER_02: He says to them, Have I been with you this long and you still do not know who I am?
SPEAKER_02: Answer, yes, they do not.
SPEAKER_02: Now, when I say, Hey, Jesus, no, here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_02: This is John chapter 10, verse 17.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus says, For this reason the Father loves me because I laid down my life, crucifixion, that I may take it up again, resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
SPEAKER_02: I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
SPEAKER_02: This charge I received from my Father.
SPEAKER_02: The death of Jesus, the Bible teaches us, is necessary, but it's not final.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Hey, no one takes it from me.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus didn't get killed, Jesus died.
SPEAKER_02: Big difference.
SPEAKER_02: If there was a death certificate, the cause of death is not murder.
SPEAKER_02: The cause of death is sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: He dies.
SPEAKER_02: He says, No one takes my life from me.
SPEAKER_02: I lay it down, crucifixion, and I can take it up again.
SPEAKER_02: Resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: Why is this such a big deal?
SPEAKER_02: Because Jesus is demonstrating that this is an essential element of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't simply die because God is loving, he dies because man is sinful and therefore separated from God.
SPEAKER_02: You can't just say, Oh, God is loving.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, God is loving, but God is also just and a just and holy God.
SPEAKER_02: God's just and he's also holy.
SPEAKER_02: God has more attributes than just one, just love.
SPEAKER_02: He is just, which means he's the God of justice, and he's holy.
SPEAKER_02: He cannot break his own law.
SPEAKER_02: And so he says, in the Bible, the Bible says there's no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood.
SPEAKER_02: So either our blood has to be shed for our forgiveness, or a perfect sacrifice has to be made.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says it like this in 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: It says there's one God, there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_02: Now look at that.
SPEAKER_02: You're smart people.
SPEAKER_02: Four things I want you to see in this one passage in the Bible these two verses.
SPEAKER_02: Number one, the first five words, there's one God.
SPEAKER_02: There's one God.
SPEAKER_02: There's not a bunch of gods, Oprah's wrong.
SPEAKER_02: There's not a bunch of gods, and all roads lead to God.
SPEAKER_02: There's one God.
SPEAKER_02: Monotheism.
SPEAKER_02: There's one God.
SPEAKER_02: There's not the God of Islam, there's the God of Muslims, and the God of these people, and the God of Christians, and the God of Hindus.
SPEAKER_02: No, there's one God.
SPEAKER_02: Are you saying that there's one God and everybody else is wrong?
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't gloat in that because a lot of people are deceived in the name of religion.
SPEAKER_02: There's one God.
SPEAKER_02: Matter of fact, the easiest way to deceive people is to do it in the name of religion.
SPEAKER_02: You should never just hear what I say and listen to what I say.
SPEAKER_02: You should always take it to the Bible, look in the Bible and say, is that really in there?
SPEAKER_02: Is that God just making that up?
SPEAKER_02: You should think and ask questions.
SPEAKER_02: You're smart people, okay?
SPEAKER_02: There's one God.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, he says, and there's one mediator between God and man.
SPEAKER_02: There's one mediator between God and man.
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking to my buddy.
SPEAKER_02: They were having a spiritual conversation.
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm I'm quoting this verse to him.
SPEAKER_02: I said, there's one God.
SPEAKER_02: He goes, So you mean you have the audacity to say there's one way to God, your way, and you're right.
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying, it's not my way.
SPEAKER_02: It's the way God set it up.
SPEAKER_02: There's one God and there's one mediator.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, You know what the word mediator means?
SPEAKER_02: He goes, No.
SPEAKER_02: I said, You ever been divorced?
SPEAKER_02: He goes, twice.
SPEAKER_02: I said, You had a mediator.
SPEAKER_02: It's called your lawyer.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Did you ever go to mediation?
SPEAKER_02: He goes, No, I got a lawyer because that crazy mind's like, I don't want to hear about your ex-wife.
SPEAKER_02: Took me for everything.
SPEAKER_02: He said, My first wife took me for everything I had, so I lawyered up the second time around.
SPEAKER_02: A mediator is someone that takes two parties that are at odds, they're enemies, and reconciles them together.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says there's one mediator between God and man.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, there's one way only.
SPEAKER_02: There's one God, but there's also one way to get right with God.
SPEAKER_02: And he says, Hey, it's the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom.
SPEAKER_02: As a ransom.
SPEAKER_02: What does he mean for as a ransom?
SPEAKER_02: Now, when I say the word ransom, most of you think of a Mel Gibson movie.
SPEAKER_02: Give me back my son.
SPEAKER_02: No, when the Bible says as a ransom, what it's teaching us and telling us is what it teaches all along is that, hey, man is a slave to sin.
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean that he can't do good.
SPEAKER_02: If you're in this room right now and you're not a Christian, I'm not telling you you can't do good things.
SPEAKER_02: Matter of fact, a lot of times non-Christians do good more good than Christians do.
SPEAKER_02: How about that for confession?
SPEAKER_02: Here's the issue for the non-Christian.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that you can't do good, but because you were born by nature as what the Bible says is a slave to sin, just like me.
SPEAKER_02: So you are ransomed.
SPEAKER_02: He gives himself as a ransom.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because from God's perspective, we're held hostage to our sinful nature.
SPEAKER_02: And the issue, look at me, is not that you can't do good, it's that you can't stop doing bad.
SPEAKER_02: That's the issue.
SPEAKER_02: And this is why he pays a ransom to set you and I free from our sinful nature, which means that things that you used to think things in my life that I used to struggle with are not even an issue anymore.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because my ransom was paid and I was set free from that.
SPEAKER_02: So he says there's one God, there's one mediator between God and man who gave himself as a ransom, which is a testimony given at the property.
SPEAKER_02: Time.
SPEAKER_02: At the proper time.
SPEAKER_02: Now, why is that a big deal?
SPEAKER_02: Why do I say it's given at the proper time?
SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes you'll hear the gospel two and three and four and five times.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you have been coming to the church for years and you've never responded to the gospel because it just wasn't the proper time.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you noticed when we opened up, if you were here, some of you came in late because you had to beat your kids on the way to church this morning.
SPEAKER_02: We've it's okay.
SPEAKER_02: We understand they probably deserved it.
SPEAKER_02: But those of you who are here when the service started, did you notice the song that we began with?
SPEAKER_02: The song called Wave on Wave.
SPEAKER_02: Did anybody recognize that song?
SPEAKER_02: Because I see your hand.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Y'all are like, that's not a Christian song.
SPEAKER_02: No, that's from a Texas singer songwriter named Pat Green.
SPEAKER_02: And before you die, go see Pat Green at Green Hall in Green, Texas.
SPEAKER_02: You'll be a better person for it, okay?
SPEAKER_02: And dance with your old lady while you're there.
SPEAKER_02: You'll be a much better person.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Now the song Wave on Wave is really, if you just hear it, you think, oh, that's a country song about a man and a woman.
SPEAKER_02: We think it's a song about progressive revelation.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Down here in the third row, somebody did Scooby-Doo.
SPEAKER_02: Oh?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: He says, You came upon me wave on wave.
SPEAKER_02: Just listen to the song next time and think progressive revelation.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: Is that God progressively reveals more and more of himself to you?
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like if I was pouring coffee into this cup, which would be a great thing.
SPEAKER_02: If I was pouring coffee into this cup, if I kept pouring, eventually the cup would overflow.
SPEAKER_02: Progressive revelation means that God reveals himself to you just a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you, your cup's about right there.
SPEAKER_02: You're sitting here right now and thinking, I hope my wife likes this because I'm here because she just rides me all the time.
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me.
SPEAKER_02: Keep coming.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, my lady wears me out, telling me I need to come to church and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: Keep coming.
SPEAKER_02: Because here's why.
SPEAKER_02: Because we believe that God's going to reveal some more and some more and some more and some more.
SPEAKER_02: And eventually your heart is going to overflow and you're going to want a relationship with this God.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we don't do pressure here.
SPEAKER_02: That's why we don't do like at the end, we don't dim the lights and while the bus just wait, you're in the back.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because you're adults.
SPEAKER_02: And God speaks a language you understand.
SPEAKER_02: We don't have to manipulate you.
SPEAKER_02: We trust the efficacy of the Bible and the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to you.
SPEAKER_02: Because the testimony given its proper time.
SPEAKER_02: I had people witness to me because I was not a good person in high school.
SPEAKER_02: I got witness to a lot, and I was like, thanks.
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for sharing.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I'm done smoking weed and raising hell, but anyway, enjoy your church services.
SPEAKER_02: By the way, I went last Sunday, and if I had a pipe, I'd have beat myself to death, okay?
SPEAKER_02: That was terrible.
SPEAKER_02: Now that's horrible.
SPEAKER_02: But yes, I said that to people.
SPEAKER_02: Because I was just like, Y'all do this every Sunday?
SPEAKER_02: No way.
SPEAKER_02: Now it was a little bit different back then, okay?
SPEAKER_02: It was pretty hardcore, pretty just a fat guy screaming at you.
SPEAKER_02: Y'all are like, like, we don't have that right now.
SPEAKER_02: I saw the look on some of your faces.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, uh, have you looked in the mirror, big boy?
SPEAKER_02: You about a biscuit shy of two fitty, anyway.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, shut up.
SPEAKER_02: I've been to Green a few times.
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's one God, one mediator between God and man, the man who gave himself as a ransom.
SPEAKER_02: Again, remember, the issue is not that you can't do good.
SPEAKER_02: You can do good, but look at me.
SPEAKER_02: You can never do enough good to take away the bad.
SPEAKER_02: Only Jesus can do that.
SPEAKER_02: And so this is the testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_02: Today may be the proper time for some of you.
SPEAKER_02: It may be this afternoon.
SPEAKER_02: You may look at your wife or your kids or your husband, and you may go, you know what?
SPEAKER_02: I think that guy was talking to me.
SPEAKER_02: I got my heart kind of filling up inside of there.
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: See, see, we I mean, we are going to wait.
SPEAKER_02: That's just part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus knows what's coming, but he does it anyway.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: So you can be free.
SPEAKER_02: That's why he gave his life as a ransom.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the third thing.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_02: The disciples didn't.
SPEAKER_02: I say this not to make fun of the disciples, but to say to all of us in this room who don't know everything, who don't understand everything, that you're in great company.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, I don't know how this all fits together.
SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
SPEAKER_02: It's important that we grasp uh uh what Christianity teaches, not just about life, but about death, about what happens after death, because we live in a culture that's fear of full of curiosity about what is going on and what's gonna happen, how is this all gonna go down?
SPEAKER_02: I got a neighbor that's deathly afraid of me.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and he sees me coming, he sits in his garage, I think it's just beautiful, in silk pajamas and smokes all day.
SPEAKER_02: Uh now I'm not narking on that.
SPEAKER_02: I'm moderately jealous, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Because I don't think the dude works.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, did you win the lottery?
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_02: And he just he laid back with his mind on his money and his money on his mind.
SPEAKER_02: He's just in there smoking.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I walk to the mailbox and I'm like, hey, I'll be back when I get the mail and come back.
SPEAKER_02: He waits for me to get right to his driveway.
SPEAKER_02: He gets up, hits the button, and closes his garage door on me.
SPEAKER_02: It happened again yesterday.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, hey, I'm not gonna run up there and throw religious literature under the door while it's going down.
SPEAKER_02: I asked him one time and I said, Hey man, I snug up on him.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't see me coming.
SPEAKER_02: I went on the way to the mailbox.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Hey, you ever have a burning desire to go to church?
SPEAKER_02: I'm standing right there, and he said, Went, no.
SPEAKER_02: And he just kept looking over here, and I'm like, hello, I'm right here.
SPEAKER_02: You ever been ignored?
SPEAKER_02: It's a kind of awkward feeling.
SPEAKER_02: You don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_02: Should I clog?
SPEAKER_02: What should I do?
SPEAKER_02: So I was like, all right, good talking to you.
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't talking.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, you know why?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't want you to think every time I share the gospel, people fall to their knees and say, What must I do to be saved?
SPEAKER_02: They don't.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Here's why.
SPEAKER_02: Because it just wasn't his proper time yet.
SPEAKER_02: Now just rest in that.
SPEAKER_02: He's not a project, he's a person.
SPEAKER_02: He's got a wife and got kids.
SPEAKER_02: There's a story behind his face.
SPEAKER_02: Just like every one of you in this room.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_02: The disciples didn't know what was coming.
SPEAKER_02: They live with this, like we sang about earlier, they're walking through this valley of darkness and they didn't know what was coming.
SPEAKER_02: Here's why the fourth thing.
SPEAKER_02: Because of this, because they didn't know, and because we don't know, we will experience the full range of human emotions.
SPEAKER_02: This is the part, man, you're gonna text me later and go, thank you for that, loser.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he says, you're gonna weep and you're gonna lament and then you're gonna have this great sense of joy.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and then he says, by the way, while you're weeping, the world's rejoicing.
SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes as Christians, we're out our emotions are out of sync with the world.
SPEAKER_02: But here's what I want to say to you when I say you're gonna experience the full range of human emotions.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you're not careful, look at me, I'll give you a visual.
SPEAKER_02: The human psyche is created by God to be like a pendulum, it swings back and forth.
SPEAKER_02: Great joy and deep sadness.
SPEAKER_02: If you're not careful, and some of you have, I had trauma as a kid growing up.
SPEAKER_02: What happens, especially to us men, is the pendulum of your emotion gets about right here.
SPEAKER_02: It just kind of calibrates and it's real functional.
SPEAKER_02: You're a great employee, you're very loyal, very hardworking, because that's how you control things and you ward off what you're afraid is gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: But but you don't, your wife, you kind of feel like your wife's kind of wearing on you, asking you questions all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Like, I said to my wife one time, because she's always pursuing me, uh, she I said, You're kind of pecking at me like a chicken.
SPEAKER_02: Could you just stop?
SPEAKER_02: And she's like, What?
SPEAKER_02: And I said, It's just yeah, I don't, I feel nothing.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you feel something.
SPEAKER_02: No, I don't.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because this is the way you protect yourself from feeling what it felt like when you were a kid, and you were like, ah, ah, and things happen that never should have happened to some of you.
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, I will be safe right in here.
SPEAKER_02: What happens is you calibrate to that, and then your personality conforms to it.
SPEAKER_02: And you start telling yourself, this is who I am.
SPEAKER_02: And you tell yourself, well, I don't, I don't, I, I, I, I just don't feel that.
SPEAKER_02: I just don't have that.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, you do.
SPEAKER_02: You don't let yourself go there.
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus says to his disciples, hey, you're gonna weep and you're gonna lament and then you're gonna be joyful.
SPEAKER_02: It's the full spectrum, it's both extremes and everything in between.
SPEAKER_02: Because this is what you and I were created for.
SPEAKER_02: Now, let me just say this: we're not very good in the church because if you're not careful, you think, oh man, I gotta be joyful all the time.
SPEAKER_02: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_02: Listen very carefully to me.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I I see a lady for counseling, she's kind of new to our church, and she's like, Yeah, uh, because she'll tell me about her life, and she's talking, and and then it's just horribly painful things, and she's like, and I don't know, you know, I just I'm believing God and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Are you sad?
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm sad when I hear you talk about your life.
SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, you know, sometimes you just gotta fake it till you make it.
SPEAKER_02: I thought she was scared.
SPEAKER_02: I said, What would you say?
SPEAKER_02: She goes, Yeah, my last church, my pastor taught us that sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it because it doesn't look good on Christianity if we're sad.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Could you just I I I think I know the church you go to, and then and she's like, Well, I went to First Baptist, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Not the church I was thinking.
SPEAKER_02: What?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, our pastor told us, you're thinking the same place.
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't trust anybody that smiles all the time.
SPEAKER_02: I wish I did, but I don't.
SPEAKER_02: And here's why.
SPEAKER_02: If you're visiting today, here's why I don't trust people to smile all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Because life is painful.
SPEAKER_02: And stuff happens, and you're just like, oh, Jesus, can we hunt those people?
SPEAKER_02: Like this happened this week.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody had a baby somewhere in another state and wrapped it up in a grocery bag and put it in the woods.
SPEAKER_02: Did anybody see this?
SPEAKER_02: I had to go outside in my garage and walk around because I want to take a pipe wrench and go hunt those people.
SPEAKER_02: I was like, and then the firefighters, they rip the bag open, all of a sudden these burly men turn into maternal mothers.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're okay.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I'm trying and I want to smash people with a pipe wrench.
SPEAKER_02: That's not good.
SPEAKER_02: And my wife said, I'm like, don't stand behind me, boss.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, Kevin Coster in open range.
SPEAKER_02: Don't stand behind me.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, men are gonna die here today because I'm gonna kill them.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, by the way, I'm not kidding.
SPEAKER_02: Now I wasn't getting in my truck and going to find people.
SPEAKER_02: I did watch the news to I can see what state it was in.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_02: I hate injustice because God hates injustice.
SPEAKER_02: Now, that does not give me permission, men, to go act unjustly.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, got quiet now.
SPEAKER_02: No, get back to that part, but yeah, no.
SPEAKER_02: But I was just like, I was so enraged and then so full of joy that that little baby India and people are lining up to adopt them, and I'm like, well, I'm not going that far.
SPEAKER_02: But uh.
SPEAKER_02: That's the full range of human emotion.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the he says, You're gonna weep and you're gonna lament.
SPEAKER_02: Back to my lady, I see if you can't.
SPEAKER_02: I just said, you know, lament is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: Lamentations is a whole book in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: And she goes, I don't know what lament is.
SPEAKER_02: After the first service, a young lady who sat right here in the front row texted me and said, uh, I learned a new word today, lament.
SPEAKER_02: Lament's a great lament is just being sad to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02: It's not faking it till you make it.
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to be sad.
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to just, matter of fact, you should ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_02: Here's a question, ladies, I want you to ask your husband before he goes to bed tonight.
SPEAKER_02: And you're welcome, men, in advance.
SPEAKER_02: You're welcome for the thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh ask your husband this question: what does your life feel like these days?
SPEAKER_02: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, because you were created by God to let yourself feel.
SPEAKER_02: Because look at me, if you don't let yourself feel what your life feels like, you're gonna have to self-medicate with food or alcohol or work or solitude.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you just self-medicate with solitude.
SPEAKER_02: Uh some of you ladies are like, that's why my husband has seven shiners three nights a week.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Because it's like I just can't let myself feel this.
SPEAKER_02: I gotta push it down, and sometimes I gotta pour something on top of it to keep it from getting me.
SPEAKER_02: No, Jesus says you're gonna weep, you're gonna lament, and you're gonna have joy.
SPEAKER_02: Lament.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the difference in praising and lament.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to fake it.
SPEAKER_02: When you're happy, be happy, okay?
SPEAKER_02: But here's the problem.
SPEAKER_02: If you're always, but let me tell you, lament.
SPEAKER_02: Uh praise is bringing heaven to earth.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says in Psalms that we enter God's courts with thanksgiving, and we enter his gates with thanksgiving, we enter his courts with praise.
SPEAKER_02: And when there's a picture of the throne room of God in the Bible, our heaven, there's praise and worship going on.
SPEAKER_02: So praise is bringing heaven to earth.
SPEAKER_02: Lament is taking earth to heaven.
SPEAKER_02: It's saying to God, I just this is jacked up, man.
SPEAKER_02: And not shaking your fists at God, going, do something.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's just, man, I worked for this company for 27 years, and now they tell me I don't have a retirement.
SPEAKER_02: I can't fake that God until I make it.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I'm gonna make it.
SPEAKER_02: I think my whole life has amounted to nothing, and I'm mad and I'm sad.
SPEAKER_02: That's lament.
SPEAKER_02: I have a friend whose father is aging and getting to the end of his life, and we I called him on the phone on the phone the other day, check on him.
SPEAKER_02: I said, How'd the day go?
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Well, I had to get my dad in the shower just to clean him up.
SPEAKER_02: I just like, oh God.
SPEAKER_02: You gave your dad a shower.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Come on, dad, get in here.
SPEAKER_02: I gotta clean you up.
SPEAKER_02: And I said to him, we talked a little bit, and I said, Hey, I want to say to you, you're a good son.
SPEAKER_02: And he got quiet.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, and then I heard, and I said, I you're a good son.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that is humbling and it's vulnerable, and it's powerful that you're bathing your own dad in the shower.
SPEAKER_02: More silence.
SPEAKER_02: Because see, my friend, who's a man's man, had to feel the mortality of his father.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Hey, when you're around mortality, stand close to it.
SPEAKER_02: Don't look off.
SPEAKER_02: It'll make you live your life better.
SPEAKER_02: More silence.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't jump in.
SPEAKER_02: I just said, I just I'm proud of the way you're you're being a son to your father.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, good talking to you.
SPEAKER_02: Which is man talk for that's enough.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that'd be enough.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's lament.
SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
SPEAKER_02: If you do not let yourself learn to lament in a godly way, you're gonna be inordinately angry the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_02: It's just it's just gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: Now, by the way, if you're always in lament, then people feel responsible for you and they move away from you because they want to help you, but the their helplessness, they can't help you because you're stuck in lament.
SPEAKER_02: They move back.
SPEAKER_02: But if you're always joyful, people move away from you because they envy you.
SPEAKER_02: Either way, you get abandoned.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Which is, you gotta have the full range of human emotions.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're in this room right now and you're a young person, I want you to listen to me.
SPEAKER_02: Pastor Neil, you're like, oh, Pastor Neil's always in a good mood.
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm typically in a good mood, but there's some days I get up, I'm just sad.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not depressed.
SPEAKER_02: I say I'm wintry.
SPEAKER_02: My wife's like, You're wintry?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just kind of winter.
SPEAKER_02: Everything feels dormant.
SPEAKER_02: There's two feet of snow.
SPEAKER_02: I want to stay inside and binge watch something all day.
SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Well, you have a job, but we have bills.
SPEAKER_02: Shut up, woman.
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, let me just have my 30-second escapist fantasy where I could just do nothing.
SPEAKER_02: 27, 28, 29, okay, go to work.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: Let yourself feel what your life actually feels like.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're not careful, uh uh, if you're not careful, what happened is if you don't let yourself feel, everything you end up feeling is just anger.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just angry.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, if if that's you, if you're like in traffic, you're just people make you crazy, your boss makes you crazy, the TV makes you crazy, then there's a good chance that under all that anger is this big reservoir of fear.
SPEAKER_02: So let me close by giving you three questions to ask yourself, to diagnose and discern what's really going on here.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, number one, what do you fear is happening?
SPEAKER_02: Like in the moment?
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, what do you fear is going to happen in the future?
SPEAKER_02: And then thirdly, what do you fear is never going to happen?
SPEAKER_02: What do you fear?
SPEAKER_02: What are you afraid is happening right now?
SPEAKER_02: Like, this is very helpful.
SPEAKER_02: My wife and I will get in a disagreement or we're just having a conversation.
SPEAKER_02: And she said to me one time, this was like, it so caught me off guard, I was like, nothing?
SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Yeah, just sit with that.
SPEAKER_02: Like, in my mind, I was like, I don't know why, but I feel very threatened by that question.
SPEAKER_02: Uh what my wife said to me was, hey, what are you afraid is happening right now?
SPEAKER_02: And I guess my facial expression changed.
SPEAKER_02: I went from this to nothing.
SPEAKER_02: And she's like, yeah, something's going on.
SPEAKER_02: And I, men, let me, this is free.
SPEAKER_02: There's a difference in being emotional and being vulnerable.
SPEAKER_02: I can be emotional and not be vulnerable with my wife.
SPEAKER_02: What my wife wants, needs, and deserves is my vulnerability.
SPEAKER_02: Emotional is kids on my nerves and blah blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_02: That's emotion.
SPEAKER_02: Vulnerability is like, it is as threatening as it sounds.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: I was in marriage council one time with a couple, and the guy said, Well, this went pretty good.
SPEAKER_02: What are we gonna do next time?
SPEAKER_02: I said, I want to talk about vulnerability.
SPEAKER_02: He jumped up, told me heaven's that way.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and walked out.
SPEAKER_02: Another satisfied customer.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me, and I'm done.
SPEAKER_02: Look at me.
SPEAKER_02: It's because, especially as men, women too, but especially as men, we're way more comfortable being emotional than being vulnerable.
SPEAKER_02: One of them is an external expression, one of them feels like an internal threat.
SPEAKER_02: But again, you were created by God to feel the full range of human emotion.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_02: We like to just teach the Bible and give you some space to think about it.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna pray a brief prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Some uh questions come up on the screen for you to think about.
SPEAKER_02: Don't try to rhyme down.
SPEAKER_02: You put out your picture, your phone, just take a picture of them.
SPEAKER_02: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_02: God thinks that uh the Bible is uh profound and it's practical.
SPEAKER_02: It's just like, hey, uh, you're not robots.
SPEAKER_02: You live in a world that that's under the penalty of sin, and so some jacked up stuff is gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: And so we're gonna have to feel some things.
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean we're sissies.
SPEAKER_02: We as men have been told since we were eight, you know, hey, big boys don't do that.
SPEAKER_02: And so we have this deep reservoir of unprocessed emotions that motivates us to work hard, to protect ourselves from things, but it doesn't make us available to the people that need us the most in the ways that they need us to be available to them.
SPEAKER_02: So, Holy Spirit, just brood over us during this time.
SPEAKER_02: We pray this and we think now in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: God thanks that uh thanks that uh you're not gonna rescue us from being human.
SPEAKER_02: For anybody in this room that's trying to hide behind the Bible or their faith or Christianity or Jesus and pass themselves off and says, Yeah, I just don't have all that.
SPEAKER_02: That's a lie.
SPEAKER_02: That's just a little girl in them protecting the woman in them that doesn't know how to feel these things.
SPEAKER_02: It's just a little boy in them that's protecting the man, but very efficient, but not very available.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus, you came and made the Father available.
SPEAKER_02: And you wept and you got angry and all these things.
SPEAKER_02: It reminds us that God is empathic towards a human condition, He understands our plight.
SPEAKER_02: So, Holy Spirit, let us walk out of here today with what we need to take with us to think about this week.
SPEAKER_02: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: If you're a guest, let me say thanks for being part of our service.
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, hopefully you've had an opportunity to pull those guest cards in your row and fill it out.
SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't, would you do that now on your way out in just a minute?
SPEAKER_02: Drop one of these wooden boxes by the doors on the way out.
SPEAKER_02: That's also where we receive our offering.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you consider this your church and today's the day, you worship God through obedience or generosity when it comes to giving.
SPEAKER_02: That's where you take care of that as well.
SPEAKER_02: I have a few things we want to make you aware of by way of our announcements, so give your attention to the screens.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a look at what's happening at Grant Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: Does Christ plus the American church equal Christianity?
SPEAKER_01: American Gospel is a documentary that examined how the prosperity gospel has distorted the gospel message and how this theology is being taught here in America and next quarter abroad.
SPEAKER_01: Join us on July 7th, 14th, and 21st at the call at 1130 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: as we watch this film, followed by a common discussion, led by one of our pastors.org.
SPEAKER_01: International coffee hour happens on the first Monday to each month.
SPEAKER_01: We'll meet the warehouse at 60 coffee.
SPEAKER_01: Provide 50 or 40 of gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Our Romania Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Team is currently on the ground and bringing the gospel to bear on the people around us.
SPEAKER_01: Please continue to listen to this minute with you have questions about anything you've heard today, or you would like someone to pray with you.
SPEAKER_01: Some of our pastors and elders will be available at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.
SPEAKER_02: We'll be showing in the fellowship hall.
SPEAKER_02: Start next Sunday and for the next three Sundays.
SPEAKER_02: It's two hours and 15 minutes long.
SPEAKER_02: We're breaking it into 45 minute segments because we want to dialogue after it.
SPEAKER_02: I will facilitate the first two, and Blake will, our new uh spiritual formation pastor will facilitate on the 21st.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we capped it at 60 because we want to have uh uh a dialogue instead of you know a throng of people.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and it's not about oh, the prosperity gospel is bad.
SPEAKER_02: We want to reinforce and be clear about what the gospel is uh because it creeps in in ways that a man stopped me after the first service and said, Man, I realize something I'm kind of that way.
SPEAKER_02: I I think when I've been obedient for a long time, God owes me something.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Yeah, it it creates it's not just I don't know live in a mansion and have a$65 million jet.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the prosperity gospel just manifests itself in the subtlest of ways.
SPEAKER_02: And here's the easiest one: a sense of entitlement.
SPEAKER_02: A sense of my car breaks down and I think, I work for God, this shouldn't happen.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it happens.
SPEAKER_02: It happens.
SPEAKER_02: The paint's flaking off my wife's van.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, this shouldn't last longer than this.
SPEAKER_02: It happens.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to life in a fallen world, okay?
SPEAKER_02: So that's what that's about.
SPEAKER_02: It's capped at 60.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what we're at nowadays, but uh what the restoration is.
SPEAKER_02: But once we get 60, we will close restoration because we want to have a meaningful dialogue, not just like a flea market of people back there.
SPEAKER_02: All right?
SPEAKER_02: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_02: If you have any questions, we'll be available down front.
SPEAKER_02: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_02: We'd like to close our service with a spoken blessing.
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing that you feel or no question that you have that God is not prepared for.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, bring it all to you.
SPEAKER_02: In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Bless you, Jesus.