SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: Helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit Grantparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible, I invite you to open it up to the 16th Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: The 16th Psalm, if you don't have a Bible, there's one in your row.
SPEAKER_01: I'm on page 453.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're our guest today, let me say, welcome to Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for looking into a new church.
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome here.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to dress up here.
SPEAKER_01: You can be comfortable, wear whatever you want, anything north of a speedo, and you're welcome, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We are in a series.
SPEAKER_01: Let me explain what you're going to hear today.
SPEAKER_01: We were finishing a series today called Seasons of Faith, where we kind of looked at different seasons because as a Christian, I'm a Christian, I also happen to be the pastor of this church.
SPEAKER_01: But as a Christian, every day is not happy, clappy, smiley.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Some days you just get up and you feel like you weigh a thousand pounds, and you're like, do I have any vacation days left?
SPEAKER_01: Cock calling sick.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to lay in bed and eat fudge and watch Jerry Springer.
SPEAKER_01: So I can be reminded that somebody else's family is jacked up.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: That's winter.
SPEAKER_01: And we started in winter.
SPEAKER_01: Winter is about just you just kind of endure.
SPEAKER_01: It's about it, everything feels dormant.
SPEAKER_01: And then spring, the seed and the sapling kind of break the ground and there's hope in spring.
SPEAKER_01: Last Sunday we talked about summer.
SPEAKER_01: Summer is a time of enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to finish up by talking about fall.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is a time of reflection.
SPEAKER_01: You kind of look around and you see how you stewarded all the other seasons.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as I've done every Sunday, I'm going to read.
SPEAKER_01: This is what fall sounds like, and then I'm going to give you some characteristics about fall.
SPEAKER_01: This is the way the Bible describes what I would refer to as the season of fall.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 16, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
SPEAKER_01: I say to the Lord, You are my Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I have no good apart from you.
SPEAKER_01: As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
SPEAKER_01: The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.
SPEAKER_01: Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out, or take their names on my lips.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.
SPEAKER_01: You hold my lot.
SPEAKER_01: The lines have fallen from me in pleasant places.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.
SPEAKER_01: In the night also my heart instructs me.
SPEAKER_01: I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand.
SPEAKER_01: I will not be shaken.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices.
SPEAKER_01: This is what fall feels like, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, my heart is glad, and my whole being, head, heart, and hand, rejoices.
SPEAKER_01: My flesh also dwells secure, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, let your holy one seek corruption.
SPEAKER_01: You make known to me the path of life.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is a time of uh uh uh uh the the season of your faith where it becomes obvious, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You make known to me the path of life.
SPEAKER_01: In your presence there's fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: Now hear that last verse again, verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Of God, in your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: And here's a question I want to begin with today.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in the room today and and you're you're not at the place of where you believe yet, you don't have a relationship, you've never given your life to Christ, you've never become a Christian, you're cynical, you're jaded, you're atheistic, you're agnostic, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Relax, you're welcome here, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But let me ask you this question.
SPEAKER_01: If the Bible says, as it does, of God that in his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore, here's my question for you.
SPEAKER_01: Where else are you gonna go to experience that?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible is unapologetic in telling us that that's what we were created for.
SPEAKER_01: You were created for a fullness of joy and for pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you heard a sermon in church about pleasure?
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all are like, just don't even say the word again.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds creepy coming out of your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: That's the that that's what fall feels.
SPEAKER_01: Falls when you look around and you kind of go, This is the way it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you five things about fall this morning.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01: Here's some things we need to know about it.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, fall is where we reap what we've sown.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is where we reap what we've sown.
SPEAKER_01: It's where you see how you've managed the other seasons of your faith.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible talks about it like this, and my wife asked me last night, she goes, Well, how are you feeling about tomorrow?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, We're gonna read a lot of the Bible, so there's not a lot, not a lot of time left for me to talk.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: No, not awesome, mouthy wife.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, pray for her.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, this is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Falls where we reap kind of what we've sown.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians chapter 6 says this, do not be deceived, God is not mocked.
SPEAKER_01: For whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
SPEAKER_01: For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.
SPEAKER_01: So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
SPEAKER_01: See, follows where we realize four things.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, we realize that my choices matter.
SPEAKER_01: My choices matter.
SPEAKER_01: The choices that I make in winter when I don't feel like doing anything, and it's just kind of sad, and just kind of like, oh man, it's like Buffalo right now.
SPEAKER_01: They can't even find cars in Buffalo.
SPEAKER_01: They're under five feet of snow.
SPEAKER_01: There's just a big igloo, and there's I saw a reporter reach her arm in and kind of go, there's a car in there up to her shoulder, and she couldn't touch the car.
SPEAKER_01: That's what winter feels like.
SPEAKER_01: But fall is where you kind of see how you stewarded the other seasons and the choices that you made them manifest themselves in fall.
SPEAKER_01: My choices matter.
SPEAKER_01: I am who I am when I do the things that only God and I know about.
SPEAKER_01: That's what fall is about.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing, fall, uh, we realize in fall is that doing good matters.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says in Galatians, he says, hey, and let us not grow weary of doing good.
SPEAKER_01: Doing good matters.
SPEAKER_01: Good's kind of a thin word these days.
SPEAKER_01: We kind of overuse it, we don't really understand it.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible talks about in Philippians chapter 2, it says we hold forth the word of light, uh the word of life, and when we do, in other words, we kind of flush out what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make you religious, it makes you authentic.
SPEAKER_01: It demonstrates that you have a relationship with God that changes and transcends the way you do life.
SPEAKER_01: You don't live out of your appetites, you live out of your understanding.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible says in Philippians that what is that like?
SPEAKER_01: It uses descriptive language and says, we hold forth this word of life and we shine like stars in the universe.
SPEAKER_01: We live in the city.
SPEAKER_01: We don't really see stars.
SPEAKER_01: I think you know, I think you think you see stars, like you'll go out tonight and kind of go, yeah, there's stars.
SPEAKER_01: That preacher doesn't know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Drive to the country where they have no street lights, where my redneck family is from, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Which, by the way, we will drive up on Thursday and see them and drive back on Thursday night and see them.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's like, why we why are we just driving up and driving back?
SPEAKER_01: Because my family is like fish.
SPEAKER_01: After three hours, they start to smell funny.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta get my kids and go get back in the van.
SPEAKER_01: We out of here.
SPEAKER_01: See you next year, people.
SPEAKER_01: And they're all saying they're, yeah, you wanna go hunt something?
SPEAKER_01: No, they sell meat at the stores in the city where I live.
SPEAKER_01: But here's one thing that my family has over me that I don't have.
SPEAKER_01: They live in the country, and I mean you go outside, there's no lights anywhere, but the stars are incredible.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that when you and I live the way God created us to live, that we kind of shine like that.
SPEAKER_01: Doing good matters.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing that fall, we realize in fall is simply perseverance is a must.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, let us not grow weary of doing good.
SPEAKER_01: Perseverance is a must.
SPEAKER_01: The courage to do the right thing, I tell my kids all the time, the courage to do the right thing is not found in looking around and seeing who else is doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: And they come look at me and go, okay, dad, my 17-year-old, is this gonna be a moral lesson?
SPEAKER_01: No, it's about to turn to a whip and you open that mouth again.
SPEAKER_01: Yank this belt off.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get grounded, I didn't get put in time out.
SPEAKER_01: When my wife and I started dating, she goes, I want us to talk about how we're gonna discipline our kids.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, uh-oh, yeah, how do you discipline?
SPEAKER_01: You ask them the questions.
SPEAKER_01: What I tell you to do, what'd you do?
SPEAKER_01: Bend over.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way it was in my house.
SPEAKER_01: And then my dad pulled out the rattlesnake, he'd under his belt and pulled it and went, that's that belt hitting them loops on the way out.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's face was like some of you women in here, like, oh, you abusive pig.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, I think we should talk to them about what they've did and then put them in time out.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, What is time out?
SPEAKER_01: She goes, You never got put in timeout?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: No, I never got grounded either.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, You must have been a good kid.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: No, I lived out in the country where we could see stars.
SPEAKER_01: We got whoopings, W-H-U-P-P-I-N.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, that's not the way you spell it.
SPEAKER_01: The way my dad did it, that's how you spelt it.
SPEAKER_01: My dad would hold you by the hand, you're trying to sit down, he just holds you up like a pinata and just keep hitting you.
SPEAKER_01: Candy come out, my dad throw you down and get another kid.
SPEAKER_01: Saw my dad whip a whole little league team one time.
SPEAKER_01: Stopped about eight kids in, smoked a cigarette, whipped the other eight.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding.
SPEAKER_01: I go back to my hometown, people come up to me and go, hey man, I remember your dad whipped all of us.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01: I remember that as well.
SPEAKER_01: He said, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Hey, the perseverance, the courage to do the right thing and to keep doing the right thing, you can't find it from looking around.
SPEAKER_01: So I just say to my kids, I don't preach to my kids.
SPEAKER_01: I just say, hey, you can't look around and and trust that somebody else is going to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to be the first person who finds the courage to do the right thing and to keep doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes you're doing the right thing, you start looking around and think, hey man, is this matter?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, if you ever think that, there's a guy in the Bible named Elijah that was so, so thought he was the only one.
SPEAKER_01: He said to God, God, everyone else has just turned their back on you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm your man, I'm the only one left.
SPEAKER_01: And God's like, hey, lighten up, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I got 7,000 over here who haven't bowed the knee to Bell.
SPEAKER_01: You just got to keep persevering.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly, we realize in fall that we all have opportunities.
SPEAKER_01: We all have opportunities.
SPEAKER_01: Now, opportunity is a two-edged word.
SPEAKER_01: You have opportunities to do good, and you have opportunities to do evil.
SPEAKER_01: You do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a middle-aged, bald, fat guy.
SPEAKER_01: And probably in the past month, I had women, four or five women say inappropriate things to me.
SPEAKER_01: Went home to my wife and said, Hey, the potbelly stallion still got it up in here.
SPEAKER_01: Just saying, and she never looks up.
SPEAKER_01: She's loading the dish.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's good.
SPEAKER_01: Bring them groceries and put them right over here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing is men, we consume that upon our ego.
SPEAKER_01: But when you're living out of your understanding, what you realize is look how committed the devil is to destroying me.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you get over 40, you start thinking, my wife, all the things she takes me is for granted.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful.
SPEAKER_01: We all have opportunities.
SPEAKER_01: Opportunity is a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.
SPEAKER_01: You can do something good or you can do something really bad.
SPEAKER_01: But remember this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's all this is under this simple point.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is where we reap what we've sown.
SPEAKER_01: You will reap.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be deceived.
SPEAKER_01: God is not mocked.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever one sows, that will also reap.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing about fall is simply this.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is where we see how we've sown.
SPEAKER_01: See, we reap what we sow, but we we we see how we've sown.
SPEAKER_01: I'm amazed at the number of people who sow one way.
SPEAKER_01: No, as they live one way, then they expect to reap the exact opposite of what they've sown.
SPEAKER_01: They live one way and then they expect to receive the exact opposite of how they've lived.
SPEAKER_01: As if God's on trial for how He responds to how you've lived your life.
SPEAKER_01: Friend, let me just love you enough to tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: God's not on trial, but your life is on display.
SPEAKER_01: There's a big difference in those two.
SPEAKER_01: See, fall is where we see how we've sown.
SPEAKER_01: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: This is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: In 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6, Paul says, the point is this.
SPEAKER_01: I love how practical the Bible is.
SPEAKER_01: He just says, hey man, here's the deal, okay?
SPEAKER_01: The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
SPEAKER_01: Each one must, excuse me, each one must give as he's made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
SPEAKER_01: And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in this situation, Paul's writing to the church at Corinth and he's saying, hey, here's the bottom line.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to get he's talking about giving financially to the church, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Relax.
SPEAKER_01: This is not turning into a hey, give sermon.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the principle.
SPEAKER_01: He says, whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever sows generously will reap generously.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's unapologetic and saying, hey, this is the way it is, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But it's not just that way with money.
SPEAKER_01: It's that way with friendship, it's that way with compliments, it's that way with time.
SPEAKER_01: For example, let me indict my own self.
SPEAKER_01: This past week, Thursday's my day off.
SPEAKER_01: I try to have breakfast or lunch with my wife every Thursday.
SPEAKER_01: We've been married 21 years, be 22 in January, and we still have to go on dates.
SPEAKER_01: I still have to ask.
SPEAKER_01: I just got just kind of who else are you gonna eat breakfast with, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But I have she go, I want you to ask me.
SPEAKER_01: So, hey, I text her, hey, can I take you to breakfast in the morning?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Where do you want to go?
SPEAKER_01: Six options.
SPEAKER_01: And then she goes, Well, I don't know, you decide.
SPEAKER_01: And so I said, let's go to Torchies.
SPEAKER_01: Torchies tacos out here in Katie, Las Antera.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, there's one coming to Sugarland, and you will be better people if you go there.
SPEAKER_01: So we drive out there and we're sitting in breakfast, and she says, Hey, I have a gift card to the loft.
SPEAKER_01: You want to walk around and do some shopping?
SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna say?
SPEAKER_01: They got you out there.
SPEAKER_01: I don't live in Katy, and so I'm kind of eating, eating my Wranglers, which I always get, with some torchie sauce on them.
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of thought, I said, Okay, sure, sure.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna walk around.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the loft is up here, we're back here in the very back, and so we've got to go take the long way around the world.
SPEAKER_01: I heard Ronnie Mills tap in the background.
SPEAKER_01: We get to the loft, we walk in.
SPEAKER_01: There's no chairs in the loft for men to sit down in.
SPEAKER_01: And so you feel like a creeper, you're kind of following your wife around.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, hey.
SPEAKER_01: And then I said, Hey, there's benches outside.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go sit outside.
SPEAKER_01: But you said, what's this got to do with reaping and sowing?
SPEAKER_01: Here's how I know that I have been sowing generously to my wife is when she's shopping and I'm with her, she doesn't feel like she has to hurry.
SPEAKER_01: Bam! Get you some of that.
SPEAKER_01: If your wife's laughing right now, you're not sewing generously.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: My work here is done.
SPEAKER_01: So I sit out there on the bench, I'm mining my own business back.
SPEAKER_01: She comes out and she says, Oh, well, they didn't have the color that I was looking for, but they're holding it for me at the Lofton Town Center.
SPEAKER_01: I ain't got that much sewing in me.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say that, I just got looked at her and she goes, Oh, let's just walk around and and and we got in the truck and drove from Los Anteta.
SPEAKER_01: I tell you it's at Cinco Ranch Boulevard off the Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: We drove from there all the way to town center.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'll just drop you off at the door and I'll go park and I'll come back in.
SPEAKER_01: Walked in.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, if they held the wrong color shirt, they don't have it either.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm just gonna look around while I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
SPEAKER_01: It's now 1145, 11:30, 1145.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just eat lunch while we're out and then just keep shopping and we'll go eat supper.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just sowing generously.
SPEAKER_01: The principle is simple.
SPEAKER_01: The principle is hey, fall is where you see how you've sown.
SPEAKER_01: Not just when it comes to giving money, when it comes to giving your time and your priority and your attention.
SPEAKER_01: If your wife feels hurried when you're with her, you are not sowing generously, my man.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, fall is where your faith is most on display.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is where your faith is most on display.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: There's nowhere to hide really during fall.
SPEAKER_01: There's just not.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it you sow and you reap.
SPEAKER_01: If you ain't got nothing to reap, it's an indication of how you've sown.
SPEAKER_01: Well what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Let me read from the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews chapter 6, verse 7 says this for land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
SPEAKER_01: But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
SPEAKER_01: Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that accompany salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Let me stop right here.
SPEAKER_01: So far, what what the Bible has said is hey, land that drinks in rain falling on it and produces a crop that's useful for those who who who farm the lamb, it it it it's great.
SPEAKER_01: It's blessed and it's in a good place.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's if it produces a crop for the sake of those that's cultivated, it receives a blessing from God.
SPEAKER_01: And then the Bible turns the corner.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's not afraid to say what we are deathly afraid to say in this politically correct culture.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed.
SPEAKER_01: And in its end, it is to be burned.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: It's a metaphor of it's a reference to hell and the judgment.
SPEAKER_01: He says, hey, if you come to church and you take your kids to mops and you go to this, that, and the other, and you drink in all the rain, all the resources of the church, and your life never produces any kind of fruit.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that's not a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, where do you get that?
SPEAKER_01: Because he says right there, though we speak in this way, translation, I know this can sound kind of like I'm hating on everybody, but he says, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things.
SPEAKER_01: Things that belong to salvation or things that accompany salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, because to drink in the rain and not produce a crop, that's not evidence that you know God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm in a conversation recently with a bunch of guys in ministry.
SPEAKER_01: There's six of us around the table, and one of the guys says, you know, I've just come to the point where I just don't think you can tell who's a Christian and who's not.
SPEAKER_01: So we just got to be, you know, really tolerant.
SPEAKER_01: And what do you guys?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you agree, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I just looked around the table, I just picked up my dye coat.
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't want to be the first person to talk, because I'm just kind of thinking, hello?
SPEAKER_01: Did y'all just hear what that guy just said?
SPEAKER_01: And the four other guys are kind of looking, and finally the guy looked at me and said, Well, what do you think, Neil?
SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was M and Eight Mile, had my hoodie on.
SPEAKER_01: Rabbit, they're calling your name.
SPEAKER_01: And I had to come out in the music in the moment.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, now you're saying you, yeah, yeah, I just don't think there's I mean, I mean, I mean, my conclusion is I don't think there's any way.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, the Bible says the exact opposite.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says the way you tell is that there's some fruit that's manifested, that's clearly demonstrated in people's life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that just feels like judgment, not really judgment, and the Bible says in John 15, 8, it is to Jesus says, it is to my Father's glory that you bring forth much fruit, and in so doing, you prove yourselves to be my disciples.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Let me just own it myself.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a Christian because I said some prayers back in 1982.
SPEAKER_01: The fact that I'm a Christian is demonstrated by fruit is being produced in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, God's inept and incapable of doing anything in my life except for a period of time.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't change my behavior, he changes my nature.
SPEAKER_01: So my behavior is in keeping with my nature.
SPEAKER_01: Well, now you're just getting all biblical.
SPEAKER_01: All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_01: And these cats all work at churches.
SPEAKER_01: They're standing in front of people right now, today.
SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, man, I referenced the Bob Dylan song on one of them said, Who's Bob Dylan?
SPEAKER_01: I said, That's right there, that's a problem right there.
SPEAKER_01: You don't know the Bible and you don't know Bob Dylan's songs.
SPEAKER_01: That we can't be friends anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I'm breaking up with you right now.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's very clear.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on, he says, Hey, for God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his sake and serving the saints as you still do.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible recognizes what we do, and we desire each of you to show the same earnestness, to have this full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish.
SPEAKER_01: But imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promise.
SPEAKER_01: Are you sluggish today?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, don't be sluggish.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to have this same earnestness, this full assurance of hope, all the way to the end.
SPEAKER_01: See, falls where we get to answer questions like, Am I really a Christian or am I just spiritual?
SPEAKER_01: Spirituality is the big phrase these days.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a spirituality conversation, but if you begin to say what the Bible says, all of a sudden, that's we can't have that dialogue because well, that's just I just know this.
SPEAKER_01: No one's mad at you if you're a guest today.
SPEAKER_01: No one's saying, Oh, I'm just, but I'm not apologizing for what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, land that drinks in rain falling on it and produces thorns and thistles is in danger of being cursed, and in the end it'll be burned.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible, God loves us enough to warn us in the Bible not to live a certain way.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't live that way, and then get to the end and kind of go, What's up, God?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you hating on me like that?
SPEAKER_01: God's like, I loved you enough to spell it out over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Another question we answer during fall is, Am I a disciplined person?
SPEAKER_01: Am I a patient person?
SPEAKER_01: Am I realistic?
SPEAKER_01: Do I tell the truth to myself?
SPEAKER_01: You see, because sowing and reaping leaves no room for excuses or explanations.
SPEAKER_01: Either you got a crop or you don't.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing, or excuse me, the fourth thing about fall, fall is for feasting.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is for feasting.
SPEAKER_01: This is where you take in what you need to make it through the winter.
SPEAKER_01: This is not the time to be on a diet.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just say that, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like going to Thanksgiving on Thursday, and your sister, your crazy sister-in-law, shows up and she's got her little gluten-free crackers.
SPEAKER_01: She never cooks anything, she never brings anything.
SPEAKER_01: She walks in with this little sleeve of gluten-free crackers and she puts them out like, hey, I bought some gluten-free cracker.
SPEAKER_01: And you're thinking, it is Thanksgiving, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I tell you those gluten-free crackers, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It's Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm on a diet.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't bring anything because I can't eat anything, and I just, so I brought gluten-free crackers.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have celiac disease.
SPEAKER_01: You're going gluten-free.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not hating on you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't send me emails.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying it's Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in the Bible, God says it's a sin to be on a diet at Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: It's in there somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is for feasting.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is where you reap the crop and you look around and you weep over how good God has been.
SPEAKER_01: And you're just, you're like baseball players on the Win the World Series.
SPEAKER_01: You got the champagne.
SPEAKER_01: You should show up at Thanksgiving with ski goggles on.
SPEAKER_01: And get the champagne and go, guess what I'm going to do?
SPEAKER_01: And just hose everybody down when they say it.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the thing: my family's going to call on me to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm the designated prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm the preacher in the family.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to bring ski goggles and a big bottle of champagne.
SPEAKER_01: My mom says, Neil, would you like to say that prayer?
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01: I thought you'd never ask.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to pop the lid and just hose them down.
SPEAKER_01: Like Ted Nugent in a concert.
SPEAKER_01: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm just going to drop it and go, is God good or what?
SPEAKER_01: Let's eat.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all think I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_01: My whole family's going to show up with ski goggles on.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because fall is for feasting.
SPEAKER_01: This is the time not to be on a diet.
SPEAKER_01: It's for digging in and enjoying what God has done and is doing in your life.
SPEAKER_01: To not feast during the season of faith called fall.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the older brother in the prodigal son story.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the son comes home, the wayward, screwed-up kid that went off to college and just made a hash of his life, comes home, and the dad kills the fatted calf, and you got a live band, and they're rocking, it's incredible music.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like being on 6th Street in Austin.
SPEAKER_01: You walk by and you're like, whoa, who is that?
SPEAKER_01: And there's a party going on, and the older brother's out there.
SPEAKER_01: I don't listen to secular music.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: You say, what am I saying?
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying if you're not careful, you're gonna be one of those people that's so spiritual, all you know how to do is feel bad.
SPEAKER_01: And fall is difficult for you.
SPEAKER_01: Because fall is for feasting.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, there's in the Bible, God told his people to take weeks, like a week at a time, and just have a big party to him, just to remind themselves how great God is.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you pray to a God whose first miracle in John chapter 2 is he turned the water into wine just for the simple sake of the party could keep going.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, that's about enough.
SPEAKER_01: You watch it, Pastor.
SPEAKER_01: You're about to go over the edge.
SPEAKER_01: I would ask you this question: what happens to those who never go over the edge?
SPEAKER_01: What happens to those cats?
SPEAKER_01: See, here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of those episodes.
SPEAKER_01: See, there's one of the one of the feasts in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Uh this is one of them in Nehemiah chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: And because they found the book of the law and they read basically the Bible, and people were like, We stink.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, we feel so bad, we're just gonna cry.
SPEAKER_01: And God went berserk in Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the Bible says in Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra, the priest and the scribe and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Do not mourn or weep, for all the people wept as they heard the words of the law.
SPEAKER_01: And then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready.
SPEAKER_01: For this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
SPEAKER_01: So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, Be quiet, for this day is holy.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be grieved.
SPEAKER_01: And all the people went their way to eat and drink and send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is a time where you make great rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, if you're a man, I want you to, next time you sit down for to as a family to a meal, I want you to look at your wife and kids and go, hey, I want us to talk about how we make great rejoicing over how good God's been to us this year.
SPEAKER_01: And just prepare for your kids to be loved.
SPEAKER_01: Dad's been out behind the garage again, mom.
SPEAKER_01: See, finally the Bible tells us that fall is for gratitude.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is for gratitude.
SPEAKER_01: Now I say gratitude, I don't mean that that prayer that somebody prays on Thursday before you commit heinous gluttony and watch the cowboys lose again.
SPEAKER_01: That ain't gratitude.
SPEAKER_01: Gratitude is about posture and pitch.
SPEAKER_01: Posture and pitch.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: The 95th Psalm says it like this.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord and let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord is a great God, a great king above all gods, and in his hand are the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountain are his also.
SPEAKER_01: The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, come, let us worship and bow down.
SPEAKER_01: Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand.
SPEAKER_01: See, posture and pitch all change because of thankfulness.
SPEAKER_01: When the psalmist says, Let us come before Him with Thanksgiving, just automatically let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
SPEAKER_01: You don't come before the God of the harvest and kind of go, What's up?
SPEAKER_01: I love to watch my nieces and nephews be around my dad at Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Because they've heard stories about my dad.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was a bad man.
SPEAKER_01: And so they come in, they're just like, and the great-grandkids come in and they all get real slow and talk a little softer around Paw Paul Great, what they call him.
SPEAKER_01: And he sits there in his recliner with a Miller Light presiding over the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: And the kids come in, they're like, oh.
SPEAKER_01: And I just notice their posture changes.
SPEAKER_01: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_01: You know when you're in the room with someone bigger than you, because your posture and your pitch changes.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says don't cower down.
SPEAKER_01: It says speak up, sing out.
SPEAKER_01: He says, come before him with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Let's extol him with music and song.
SPEAKER_01: See, see, verbalizing our gratitude and worship isn't another task on the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: It's the culmination of the one thing we were created for, and that's glorifying God, which is about losing ourselves in the muchness of God.
SPEAKER_01: C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis said it this way in his book, Reflection on the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: It is its appointed consummation.
SPEAKER_01: It is not at a compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are.
SPEAKER_01: The delight is incomplete till it is expressed.
SPEAKER_01: It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is, or to come suddenly at the turn of the road upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur, and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch.
SPEAKER_01: To hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.
SPEAKER_01: The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
SPEAKER_01: But we shall then know that these are the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: Fully to enjoy is to glorify.
SPEAKER_01: In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.
SPEAKER_01: Just hear that last sentence, and we're done.
SPEAKER_01: Enough talking for today.
SPEAKER_01: Fully to enjoy is to glorify.
SPEAKER_01: So in commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.
SPEAKER_01: I began with a question, I'll end with a question.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of God knows everything about every one of us in this room?
SPEAKER_01: You know that, right?
SPEAKER_01: He knows everything.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says the hairs on your head are numbered, your days are ordained before one of them came to be.
SPEAKER_01: Knows everything about you, so he's not put off by your sin or whatever you're into right now.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of God knows everything and but still invites you to enjoy him?
SPEAKER_01: See, the issue today is if you think about it, is not that you've done too much bad stuff.
SPEAKER_01: It's that you've not enjoyed the right stuff enough.
SPEAKER_01: And fall, the season of faith called fall, is where you look around and it's clear what you should be enjoying and who you should be enjoying.
SPEAKER_01: Which is why we began by reading the 16th Psalm, which ends with the psalm is saying in verse 11, in your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: If that's true, then where else are you gonna go to experience that?
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: Fall is a time where you reap what you've sown.
SPEAKER_01: For some of you that's good, and for some of you it's bad.
SPEAKER_01: But your God is great.
SPEAKER_01: He's never gonna change his mind about you.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe during fall, you should change your mind about you.
SPEAKER_01: And live in keeping with what God believes to be true.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now.
SPEAKER_01: And live this way in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you, you're dismissed.