SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: Helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit Grantparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, I pray that you would instill in us beliefs today.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus said you would do.
SPEAKER_00: And so we ask you to do what is in your nature to do.
SPEAKER_00: So instill in us belief today so that we can unleash on the world and on our culture the consequence of belief.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a hate crime.
SPEAKER_00: That's a delicious invitation that flows hot out of the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: You said, if anyone's thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
SPEAKER_00: And out of his inmost being will flow rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_00: And by that you meant the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've received the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to understand.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be a bunch of religious know-it-alls, but we want to live from an informed perspective.
SPEAKER_00: So when we open our mouth, the people around us are shaped and formed by what we say.
SPEAKER_00: They're wooed and won.
SPEAKER_00: They're invited to think about spiritual things and they find themselves having a desire for God.
SPEAKER_00: Not religion, but relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, rescue us from religion.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that Jesus, you came to rescue us from just empty religion where we do things we don't even believe in anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And you made possible a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: That relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity, the faith, as the Bible refers to it, is today and will always be bigger than we are, bigger than our experience.
SPEAKER_00: So there's room for us to grow up into that.
SPEAKER_00: We aim to do that today, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So make that our experience, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open to Colossians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest today, we're in a series entitled Questions That Christians Ask.
SPEAKER_00: Questions Christians Ask.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been looking at different things in today.
SPEAKER_00: Probably one of the most often asked questions that I get asked by other believers, and they don't like the answer because the answer is not as easy.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why they don't like it.
SPEAKER_00: They just don't like it.
SPEAKER_00: They kind of look at me like, mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just thought I would preach on this publicly in case this was a question you have.
SPEAKER_00: You will have it at some point in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is simply this: how do I grow?
SPEAKER_00: How do I grow as a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: How do I kind of mature and kind of get beyond where I am right now?
SPEAKER_00: And let me get at it like this.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not careful, the people you asked that question to, I don't know if you know today, there's a football game later this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, it's such a big deal that the pregame is on right now.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you knew that.
SPEAKER_00: The pregame started at 9 o'clock and it will go until 5:30 when they kick off, which is just, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: Can you not run out, run out of things to talk about?
SPEAKER_00: But here's some of the questions that they'll be asked.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not careful, being around asking people like, hey, how do I grow as a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I know I'm going to heaven, got that check.
SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, what do I do?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're not careful, you can become so dissatisfied with who you are and where you are spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: You just give up.
SPEAKER_00: You just quit.
SPEAKER_00: You're just like, I man, this doesn't I and but if you're not careful, you ask some people, it's like when they interview football players, like you'll hear this in the pregame today.
SPEAKER_00: They say, What are the keys to victory?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've got to win the turnover battle.
SPEAKER_00: Each person's got to give 110%.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to win three phases of the game, which are offense, defense, and there you go.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it before.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're not careful, you come to somebody and you say, How do I grow spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: And they go, Oh, well, you've got to trust the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to believe God.
SPEAKER_00: You got and you're like, okay, offense, defense, special teams, think die, blah blah blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you imagine anybody saying, hey, what's the key to victory?
SPEAKER_00: I think if I do half my job, somebody else will cover the rest.
SPEAKER_00: But yet, when it comes to the question spiritual, about how do I grow spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what the answers that we get.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of put all of the responsibility for our spiritual growth on God.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, hey, I became a Christian, and now I'm just sitting here waiting for the current of Christianity to carry me along.
SPEAKER_00: And beloved, the Bible doesn't teach that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start reading in verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to read two verses today and just drill down on these.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: That was so short.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it again.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, therefore, it's because he's kind of uh unpacked some things in the first five verses of chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: And he he's never, Paul's never seen these people face to face.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I want you to know how I'm struggling for you, how I'm interceding for you, how I'm praying for you, that these things would happen.
SPEAKER_00: And he kind of wants to remind them, hey, by the way, you keep on keeping on, keep growing, don't just quit because people were entering in and they were kind of teaching things that weren't, didn't line up with the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: In these two short verses, there's three things that kind of shape the way I want to use to shape the way you think about the question, how do I grow?
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that the Bible tells us is number one, start with regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: Start with regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.
SPEAKER_00: But he starts with, hey, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, regeneration, I taught a class, I teach a class on Wednesday nights here on what's called the order of salvation, which is kind of a 10-step process in how God brings people to faith.
SPEAKER_00: And this past week, we talked about the doctrine of regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll just give you the definition so you'll know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Regeneration is this it's an act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us.
SPEAKER_00: Man is passive in regeneration, and God is active.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God does it.
SPEAKER_00: God creates new life in your dead heart.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 that we are dead in our trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_00: But God, who's rich in mercy, you know he's rich in mercy, right?
SPEAKER_00: That means he's got more mercy than you have sinned.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna think you're gonna outsend the mercy of God, you're just gonna exclude yourself from that which you were created for.
SPEAKER_00: He's rich in mercy.
SPEAKER_00: But God, who's rich in mercy, made you alive.
SPEAKER_00: That's regeneration, okay?
SPEAKER_00: If you're not careful, you say, well, why do you make a big deal of that?
SPEAKER_00: I think we assume salvation just because people come to church.
SPEAKER_00: I don't assume that you you've been converted or saved or whatever phrase you use for it, just because you come to church.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, there's a good chance that there's many of you here this morning that your heart has never been regenerated.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, how do you know?
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Because remember, he said, What's it got to do with the growth?
SPEAKER_00: It's all predicated.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, therefore, just as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, if you haven't received Christ Jesus the Lord, then you have no frame of reference for it just as you receive.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing for you to say, okay, check, got that.
SPEAKER_00: So now what do I do in response to that?
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have that, he said, Well, how do I know I've been regenerated?
SPEAKER_00: Let me uh use this example I used in my class on Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in college, there was a friend of mine, he had a Toyota MR2, kind of a sexy-looking, sporty little car, and it was a piece of junk, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It looked good.
SPEAKER_00: He kept it all waxed and washed.
SPEAKER_00: But remember when you were in college and you were dead broke, and like you couldn't even like like like you just broke, broke.
SPEAKER_00: Like I had 67 cents in the ashtray of my car.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I had.
SPEAKER_00: And we were all sitting around, a bunch of guys in the dorm, talking about, oh man, did you see that girl?
SPEAKER_00: Did you see that girl?
SPEAKER_00: This is before I was in ministry, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and they mentioned this girl, and they said, Man, she's like the most beautiful girl on this campus.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Why don't y'all ask her out?
SPEAKER_00: And won't you, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Big Talking?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Man, I'm dead broke.
SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Well, man, man up.
SPEAKER_00: So I walked over to the dorm phone, picked it up, rang over to Lionberry Hall, and asked for her by name.
SPEAKER_00: She got on the phone.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey, I don't know if you, this is Neil McClinnon.
SPEAKER_00: We have computer science.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You sat across the aisle from me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I'm broke as broke can be.
SPEAKER_00: I got 67 cents to my name, and it's in the ashtray of my car.
SPEAKER_00: I don't smoke, but one of my buddies borrowed it, and I think it probably smells like cigarettes.
SPEAKER_00: I want to come pick you up, go to the 7-Eleven and get a 49 cent big gulp and go to the park and just get to know you.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I'll be in the lobby in 10 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I hung the phone up and said, Holler at a player when you see him on the street.
SPEAKER_00: They were like, No, why?
SPEAKER_00: Are you serious?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Fellas, I'd love to sit and talk to you, but I gotta go take this fine woman out for a big gulp.
SPEAKER_00: And I did.
SPEAKER_00: And we I said, Hey, listen, I didn't bring you to a park because I want to make out, I want to kiss you, try to put a move on you.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to get to know you.
SPEAKER_00: I think you're a beautiful woman, but I think there's also better stuff inside this beautiful exterior.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh! I better dial it back.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to marry this woman right here.
SPEAKER_00: I done got her all just came back.
SPEAKER_00: All my friends like, What hell was that?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you're insulting if all you do is oogle at a beautiful woman.
SPEAKER_00: There's a person inside of there.
SPEAKER_00: Shut up, McClendon.
SPEAKER_00: All right, I tell you what, I got 20 cents left, so I only spent 49 on a big goat.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, whatever, dude.
SPEAKER_00: See, but but my buddy that had the car, it was always, it never would start.
SPEAKER_00: And he always was in the in the lot in the parking lot with his hood up, he'd have jumper cables hooked up to it, and we would come down out of our dorm, he'd go, hey man, how about a jump?
SPEAKER_00: How about a jump?
SPEAKER_00: And we were like, How about get a new battery, dude?
SPEAKER_00: I can't, I'm broke, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it went on for months, and it became a joke.
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna jump him off today?
SPEAKER_00: He would ask girls out on dates.
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a pity thing, and he would get his car jumped and go pick them up, park in front of the dorm with the thing running, pick him up, and they're like, Oh, okay, and go to the restaurant, and he would come out of the restaurant and he'd have it hooked up.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this takes just a minute, I gotta jump off my car.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, dude, buy a battery.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, the guy lived on the second floor.
SPEAKER_00: He was kind of a kind of a redneck, fix-it-all, MacGyver guy.
SPEAKER_00: He just walked by one day, and just in passing, he said, The issue ain't your battery, the issue is your alternator.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know what that means?
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are kind of like Super Bowl today, man.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm in mind neutral.
SPEAKER_00: The alternator is a part is a part on your car that keeps your battery charged.
SPEAKER_00: Regeneration is not getting a new battery.
SPEAKER_00: Regeneration is like getting an alternator.
SPEAKER_00: You have this capacity.
SPEAKER_00: The commands of the Lord are not burdensome.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say start with regeneration, what I'm saying is not it's not just praying the prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just, oh, well, I, you know, I said something, somebody told me I gotta say this and I said this.
SPEAKER_00: And praying the prayer is not a verbal contract by which you obligate God to take you to heaven regardless of how you live in the meantime.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to ask yourself, has my heart been regenerated?
SPEAKER_00: I would go as far as to tell you there's gonna be a lot of people who pray the prayer who go to hell when they die.
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't teach a doctrine of regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: See, in the American church, we teach for, well, we preach for a response instead of preaching for understanding.
SPEAKER_00: And so you need to be a part of a church that loves you enough to teach the doctrines of the Bible, one of them being regeneration, because there's no sense talking about growth unless you start with that, because Paul says in verse 6, therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So as you say, hey, let's let's start there, because that's that that that's what he's gonna compare it to, because he says, so walk in him.
SPEAKER_00: See, number one, start with a regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, has my heart ever been brought to life by the Spirit of God?
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he says, continue.
SPEAKER_00: Continue.
SPEAKER_00: If you have an NIV, it says, and I read from the ESV, it says, so walk in him.
SPEAKER_00: The NIV says, so continue in him.
SPEAKER_00: It's parapeteo, the Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep on, keeping on.
SPEAKER_00: So walk in him.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that you need to, we need to acknowledge this morning is that spiritual growth requires exertion on your part.
SPEAKER_00: You have to put forth, get ready, brace yourself.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say something that sounds crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual growth means you have to put forth some effort.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just become a Christian and just kind of sit there and go, Well, I prayed the prayer and now I'm just waiting for the current to come along and just kind of take me where I want to be.
SPEAKER_00: You, it's just a matter of time, if that's you, before you get frustrated and give up.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read different verses in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They'll come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to hear, all through the Bible, the Bible puts the onus of the impetus on you and I to do these things.
SPEAKER_00: That one of the things I love about our church and about Clyde, our worship pastor and the worship ministry, is that we don't sing God a job description.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've noticed that or not.
SPEAKER_00: We don't sing songs because we have a we have a theological filter and songs have to get through.
SPEAKER_00: Like we don't sing songs where we say to God, wash me and feel me and cleanse me and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, why is that?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: After conversion, I don't get to do nothing and make God responsible for my Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: I have to exert myself.
SPEAKER_00: I have to put forth some effort.
SPEAKER_00: Effort is a four-letter word in most churches.
SPEAKER_00: But what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: How about that?
SPEAKER_00: Colossians chapter 3, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this doesn't go over.
SPEAKER_00: This past week, uh I talked to a 22-year-old who came and I was like awesome.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I said, Why are you here?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I just kind of live in immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean you're hooking up with your girlfriend?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I've kind of been that way ever since I was about 16, and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: And I just came around from my desk, sat down beside him.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I appreciate your openness and your honesty.
SPEAKER_00: And we kind of talked.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, I just kind of wanted to get some advice.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I was like, hmm, you want to get some advice?
SPEAKER_00: How much advice do you need about immorality?
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, what are we?
SPEAKER_00: And I saw I just kind of let him talk and kind of spool it out there, and I said, you know, here's the reality.
SPEAKER_00: If you came to get advice or to, you know, because I was talking and he didn't like what I was saying.
SPEAKER_00: You ever talk?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody asked you a question, you start answering it, and they're kind of looking at you like, nah, this is not what I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that remember that cat food commercial about Morris the cat?
SPEAKER_00: Morris was finicky, only ate certain things?
SPEAKER_00: This cat was finicky.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something, and this is from a heart of love.
SPEAKER_00: If you're living in immorality, you forfeit the right to be finicky, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so I just sat there and he's like, ah, well, you know, uh.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, here, the Bible says, like in Colossians chapter 3, and I reference it, it says, put to death therefore what is earthly in you.
SPEAKER_00: It lists off these things sexual morality, impurity, evil desire, passion, covetousness, which is idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: I just think you're guilty of all these in relation to your girlfriend.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not helping me.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what would help you?
SPEAKER_00: I just need to be encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: You want me to fix this.
SPEAKER_00: This is your responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: It's your immorality.
SPEAKER_00: You kill it.
SPEAKER_00: He looked at me like, how did you get this job?
SPEAKER_00: And so I just thought, we need to go to the next level.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, You're kind of talking, and I said, This is a you want me to like read the point footprints to you.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yeah, I'm familiar with that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, where the man had a dream and he looked back, and there's two footprints in the sand at the lowest points of his life.
SPEAKER_00: There was only one set of footprints, and he asked God why.
SPEAKER_00: Just for the record, you're not gonna ask God anything.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've got a list of, hey, God, you're gonna have to explain this, you might want to put your big boy pants on because that's not gonna go like you think.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I've I've I've been wondering.
SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, okay, but uh, and I said, So you look back, he goes, Yeah, I just I just think right now God's carrying me, and I just need you to, and I'm like, Well, you you you think Jesus, you think you're like getting a piggyback ride from Jesus to the valley of immorality?
SPEAKER_00: You know what I think?
SPEAKER_00: What I hear God saying, he goes, No, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I think I hear God saying, get off my back.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying to your crooked self, hey, hey, you got to ignore, you gotta put to death immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't put this to death, you marry her, or this ends bad, and you marry somebody, and by the way, I ain't shaming the guy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not pointing the finger at him, I'm not telling him you're a bad person.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying the way you think about spiritual growth is unbiblical and flawed, and will not make a hilla beans difference in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You want to make the preacher responsible, you want to make God responsible, but yet if you read through the Bible, like 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 11, but as for you, O man of God, flee these things.
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, steadfastness, gentleness, fight the good fight of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 13, verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus in response to somebody in the crowd called out, Hey Jesus, are there many being saved?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Strive to enter in through the narrow door.
SPEAKER_00: For many I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
SPEAKER_00: Hot out of the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't stop there, it only gets better.
SPEAKER_00: This is 2 Peter chapter 1, for this very reason.
SPEAKER_00: Make every effort to supplement your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Hello.
SPEAKER_00: I actually read this because sometimes I say stuff, I'll quote something out of the Bible, and people will look at me kind of like, are you making this up?
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just, hey, let me let me just show you.
SPEAKER_00: So this is one of the passages I showed the cat.
SPEAKER_00: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, when it says supplement or add to your faith, it's not that your faith is deficient.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that once you become a Christian, once I become a man of faith, I have the responsibility to grow as a believer.
SPEAKER_00: For this very reason, make every effort, there's that word again, to supplement your faith with virtue, and your virtue with knowledge, and your knowledge with self-control, and your self-control with steadfastness, and your steadfastness with godliness, and your godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
SPEAKER_00: For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I came in here wanting to be encouraged, and I mean this is just heavy, bro.
SPEAKER_00: Bro, that's the best you got, bro.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, let me encourage you with these words.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't learn to put to death immorality, it'll plague you the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: It just will.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm just talking to you as a man, not as a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to you man to man here, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So, since we talked about exertion and effort, let me give you five things you need to exert yourself in.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why I say this.
SPEAKER_00: I I know marriage is hard.
SPEAKER_00: I did a wedding last night, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Loved it.
SPEAKER_00: Wedding, nice little outdoor, cool, kind of hip, artsy fartsy wedding.
SPEAKER_00: We had lights and everything, and they had a free bar, they had a big decanter of margaritas on the rocks, and the wedding started late.
SPEAKER_00: By the time the wedding started, that baby was half empty.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody said, Does this bother you?
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible's sitting there and says, Don't drink, says, don't get drunk.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's too late for some of these cats.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Because when this thing starts, I got a captive audience.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm about to set the kingdom down up in Hera.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy's like, Well, uh, I've never seen a Baptist pastor that wasn't bothered by this.
SPEAKER_00: And I went, it doesn't bother me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the general manager of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: I want to help these people get married.
SPEAKER_00: So they come down the aisle, got the gazebo and everything, and they stand there.
SPEAKER_00: First thing I said to them was, Today is the easiest day of your married life.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody in the crowd was like, Whoa! Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy looked like, is it too late?
SPEAKER_00: Can we get somebody else?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Today, you can guarantee the outcome of what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: After this, good luck.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Don't show up 30 minutes late for the wedding and you're gonna get a little something, something.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing marriage is the crucible of transformation, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Because on at 10 o'clock on Friday night, your wife can look at you and say, Gosh, I hate you.
SPEAKER_00: You make me so frustrated.
SPEAKER_00: And the next morning she wakes up and says, Hey hon, what you want for breakfast?
SPEAKER_00: You gonna poison me?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: Like this week, some of you don't know this, some of you do.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is totally deaf in her right ear.
SPEAKER_00: She cannot hear.
SPEAKER_00: So if you stand on her right side and you say something, she can't hear you.
SPEAKER_00: She's doing this to point her good ear at you.
SPEAKER_00: I said something to my wife, hey, would you grab me something out of the refrigerator?
SPEAKER_00: She's right there going into our kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: My house is not that big.
SPEAKER_00: She had to hear that.
SPEAKER_00: So 20 minutes go by, and I'm like, hey, and I say, hey, did you forget about it?
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Did you say something?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, I asked you to grab me something out of the refrigerator.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, I didn't hear you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm deaf in one ear.
SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, so listen twice as hard.
SPEAKER_00: That was about 4:30 yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: We ain't spoken since.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have an opening at your Super Bowl party, I'm available.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, is it hard?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're both redeemed sinners.
SPEAKER_00: If you're Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not, if you're married to an unbeliever, he's just a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Good luck.
SPEAKER_00: You don't share the same belief.
SPEAKER_00: You're not coming at it from the same perspective.
SPEAKER_00: But you gotta exert yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta put in some effort.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because just because it's hard doesn't mean it's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing you need to exert yourself in is the word, the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Most of us read for reinforcement.
SPEAKER_00: We don't read for understanding.
SPEAKER_00: And the church has taught you that because we we preach for a Response.
SPEAKER_00: We don't preach and teach for you to understand stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean the word?
SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks ago, remember we read Romans 12 every day, starting Sunday to the next Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: I got a new chapter for us that I want us to read.
SPEAKER_00: It's real short.
SPEAKER_00: This week I want you to read every day the 119th Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are wondering why they're laughing, aren't you?
SPEAKER_00: Like, eh, eh.
SPEAKER_00: Because it has 176 verses.
SPEAKER_00: And now some of them are short.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, good Lord, it's Super Bowl Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta get my drink on.
SPEAKER_00: Relax.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take that long to read it.
SPEAKER_00: Some man stopped me earlier and he goes, it takes 26 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're a slow reader, dude.
SPEAKER_00: But but here's the thing: it's all about the word.
SPEAKER_00: The 119th Psalm is all about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And what it'll do in you is you just kind of read it over and over.
SPEAKER_00: Every day this will happen is you'll find in you this increasing appreciation for the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a section of it, starting in verse 9, it says, How shall a young man keep his way pure?
SPEAKER_00: And then it just kind of explains it.
SPEAKER_00: See, you've got to exert yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just put that under your pillow and sleep on it and think Osimosis is going to get it in there.
SPEAKER_00: Third area we need to exert ourselves is in adversity.
SPEAKER_00: In adversity.
SPEAKER_00: You say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody in this room is going through something right now.
SPEAKER_00: True or false?
SPEAKER_00: You're all going through something.
SPEAKER_00: To a different degree, this, that, and the other.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing about adversity: adversity causes us to rethink what we trust in.
SPEAKER_00: You say, let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: Adversity causes us to rethink what we're trusting in.
SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, if everyone in this room that has kids had a million dollars in the bank, would you feel better about yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Sure you would.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be so spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: Money's of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Well, give me yours and I'll make it of God.
SPEAKER_00: I will baptize that for you in a hurry.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was traveling, I went to Oklahoma and preached at this church out in the country, and just crazy, wild-eyed pastor, and he picked me up, and he had a 66 or something like that, Chevelle Malibu souped up.
SPEAKER_00: We went to the Sonic and he goes, Now, brother, there's a motorcycle gang outside of town here, and they don't know Jesus, but they love preachers.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, wherever this is going, I'm for it.
SPEAKER_00: We pull up in the Sonic to eat lunch.
SPEAKER_00: He reaches over, opens the glove box, pulls out a roll of 20s with a rubber band around him.
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, no, they know I got a preacher coming to town.
SPEAKER_00: They bring me a roll of money.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is, they they sell drugs.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, this may be drug money, but I'm gonna bless it in Jesus' name, and we're gonna buy lunch or we're gonna fast.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want to do?
SPEAKER_00: Let's just put our hands on that money right now in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And we ate.
SPEAKER_00: And we ate all week.
SPEAKER_00: And one guy pulled up on this, just I mean, have a beard, make Wade collyers look like a soul patch.
SPEAKER_00: That thing, I promise you, there was people hiding that thing.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Preacher, you got enough money to take care of this man?
SPEAKER_00: And the preacher said, I think we're good.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Let me know.
SPEAKER_00: We got more.
SPEAKER_00: Wrote off, and I was like, Do I want to know?
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't.
SPEAKER_00: So if you here's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to think if people have money, they must be bad.
SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
SPEAKER_00: If you had a million dollars in the bank, you'd feel better about yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Of course you would.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing adversity causes us to rethink what we trust in.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: If one of your kids was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and they said, hey, they they've come up with this new treatment in Germany, but it's a million dollars.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to fly your kid over there, and they're gonna be over there for a month.
SPEAKER_00: And all when all said and done, it's gonna cost a million dollars.
SPEAKER_00: Most people don't have that, so we don't know what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you would not just, I mean, before they finish the sentence, it's a mean done.
SPEAKER_00: Done.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get my kid on the plane.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because adversity teaches you to think differently about what you trust in.
SPEAKER_00: Now, not nothing wrong with having a million dollars in the bank.
SPEAKER_00: Just don't trust in it.
SPEAKER_00: Because it could be gone.
SPEAKER_00: Not that this would ever happen, but the price of oil may go down.
SPEAKER_00: Holler.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not making light of that.
SPEAKER_00: Adversity.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of helps us think differently about what we trust in.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth thing you gotta exert yourself in is church.
SPEAKER_00: It's church.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as some are in the manner of doing.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta find a church that teaches the Bible and plug yourself in.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, every word, every time you hear a sermon, it falls into one of two categories.
SPEAKER_00: It's either a now word or a later word.
SPEAKER_00: It's a now word or it's a later word.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That means some Sundays I'm gonna preach or Wade's gonna preach or Aaron's gonna preach, somebody's gonna preach, and it's gonna be, oh man, that's exactly where I'm living.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what I need to hear today.
SPEAKER_00: Like a man come up back to the first service and said, Hey, my son and I are having a conversation about how do you grow spiritually on the way to church this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are gonna walk out and go, I didn't get a thing out of that.
SPEAKER_00: That's because today is a later word for you.
SPEAKER_00: A now word is, man, that's exactly what I needed to hear.
SPEAKER_00: A later word is, I need to think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it this way: in your life, you need formative, or excuse me, you need foundational teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Teaching that just kind of teaches you the basic doctrines of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: That's foundational teaching, and you need formative teaching.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of speaking to where you are right now and what's going on in your life right now.
SPEAKER_00: And every Sunday is not going to be exactly what you are, but it may be something you hear, and three months from now, you're having lunch with a friend, and he just says, Hey man, I'm stuck.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritually, I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't grown in years.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, you don't want to go, oh, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: My pastor talked about this about two months ago.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you listen, don't listen so instantaneously.
SPEAKER_00: Don't listen in the moment right now.
SPEAKER_00: Just listen.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That may not be for me right now, but that may that may be for me later.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Last thing you need to exert yourself in is informative friendships.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll finish with this.
SPEAKER_00: Formative friendships, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Let me read from the Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_00: This is 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 2 to 7.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says to these people, by the way, Paul wrote three letters to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: We have 1 and 2 Corinthians, but between 1 and 2 Corinthians, he wrote another letter that we don't have.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't make it into the canon of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And he kind of got after them.
SPEAKER_00: That's why if you read in 2 Corinthians, he said, Hey, if I if my letter hurt you, I didn't mean that, but it but it caused you to repent.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, he says here in 2 Corinthians 7, make room in your hearts for us.
SPEAKER_00: We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we've taken advantage of no one.
SPEAKER_00: I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together.
SPEAKER_00: I am acting with great boldness towards you.
SPEAKER_00: I have great pride in you.
SPEAKER_00: I am filled with comfort in all our affliction.
SPEAKER_00: I am overflowing with joy.
SPEAKER_00: For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn, fighting without and fear within.
SPEAKER_00: But God, who comforts the downcast, the down, when the Bible says downcast, that's a word for depressed.
SPEAKER_00: But God, who comforts the downcast, the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a few questions based from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For I said that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together.
SPEAKER_00: What formative friendships do you have in your heart right now?
SPEAKER_00: Because here's my concern the older we get, the less formative friendships we had.
SPEAKER_00: Most of our consequential friendships we had when we were in our late teens, early 20s, maybe early 30s.
SPEAKER_00: And then we kind of got into work and house and kids and softball and baseball and this, that, and the other.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have that many formative friendships anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, hey, you're in our hearts to die together and to live together.
SPEAKER_00: Second question I want to give you is who acts with great boldness towards you?
SPEAKER_00: Who pushes through all your nonsense and your half-baked excuses and says to you in love, I don't believe what you just said.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, I am acting with great boldness towards you.
SPEAKER_00: Another question I want to give you about this formative friendship is, who's proud of you?
SPEAKER_00: He says, I have great pride in you.
SPEAKER_00: I have great pride in you.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, Hey, I am filled with comfort in all this affliction.
SPEAKER_00: I'm overflowing with joy because I think about the church at Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, But God who comforts the downcasts, the depressed, he comforted us by the coming of Titus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, we had fighting without and fears within.
SPEAKER_00: I was depressed, and then Titus showed up.
SPEAKER_00: Who's the tightest in your life right now?
SPEAKER_00: You should have some men and women in your life that when you're just sucking wind, you break them off a text or a call and say, Hey man, let's have coffee or I need to have some lunch.
SPEAKER_00: I need to spend time with you.
SPEAKER_00: Or you say, I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_00: I heard this this past week.
SPEAKER_00: You ever you ever get in a conversation and someone says something and it kind of tweaks you?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, and then you walk away, and three minutes later you think of the exact thing you should have said.
SPEAKER_00: That happened to me this week, and I was like, Because somebody said this, they were talking about somebody else, and they were complimenting the guy, and he goes, Well, you know, I don't want to give him the big head or anything, and I was like, And then two days later, somebody, because I was, you know, after the conversation, I was like, Oh man, I should have said this.
SPEAKER_00: Two days later, totally different person said the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I don't want to give him the big head or anything, and I just said, Why not?
SPEAKER_00: And the guy went, What?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You said you were complimenting this guy who's not here to hear this, and you said, I don't want to give him the big head or anything, and I'm just saying, why not?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you want people to walk away from time with you and feel better about themselves?
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Bible calls us to do and calls us to be.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Look at the rest of verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.
SPEAKER_00: Continue, exert yourself, pair a potato, keep on keeping on.
SPEAKER_00: Rooted.
SPEAKER_00: That's perfect tense in the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: That refers to a once-for-all completed action.
SPEAKER_00: You are rooted in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says this: rooted and then built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: See, formative friendships, see, my concern is we had all our formative friendships a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: I remember my first exposure to a formative friendship I was in college.
SPEAKER_00: It was a guy named Marvin that I worked with as a waiter at a restaurant.
SPEAKER_00: Marvin was just off the charts.
SPEAKER_00: He was just different.
SPEAKER_00: We all kind of knew he was kind of different.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how I knew he was different because I'd walk my little girlfriend of the week up to the dorm and was kissing her goodbye, and Marvin was standing there, and this beautiful girl said, Well, Marvin's not gonna kiss me.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'm not gonna be that irresponsible with my affection.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, say, what?
SPEAKER_00: And I looked over, and it was probably one of the most beautiful girls on our campus, and I was like, and he was like, No, no, no, I ain't doing that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna spread my affection loosely all around this campus, and then when I meet my wife, I have nothing to give her.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, every guy.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was just me.
SPEAKER_00: I looked around all the guys over there doing this.
SPEAKER_00: They all stopped.
SPEAKER_00: We were all like, what you talking about, Willis.
SPEAKER_00: And buddy of mine found out, hey, don't you don't you work at the new Western Susan out there?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah, he goes, Have you met Marvin?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, He's that guy kind of got that bright counter.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Hell yeah, you better stay away from that cat.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't stay away from him.
SPEAKER_00: We took break one.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you this, we we used to meet, some guys would meet in our room every Tuesday and Thursday night at midnight, just for prayer and just to just to check in with each other.
SPEAKER_00: One time we were gathered around there, and one guy said, Well, I got a unspoken prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: And Marvin said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, you don't trust us?
SPEAKER_00: I'd never heard that in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Unspoken prayer requests is how you tell people, I'm living in sin, but don't ask me any questions.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You don't trust us?
SPEAKER_00: And the guy went, Oh, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just got some things private going on.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, bro.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you get tired of sin, here's how you know you get tired of sinning.
SPEAKER_00: You're ready to confess your sins one to another so we can pray for you so you can be healed.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be healed or do you want to live in secret?
SPEAKER_00: The whole lot of this going on.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, I'm not pressuring you, but I'm not going to pray some vague prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I ain't praying for an unspoken prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: When it bothers you enough, you'll speak it out, bro, and we'll begin praying over that.
SPEAKER_00: So in one night, when a guy walked in, he got there a little late, about 12:30, and he leaned against the wall and just slid down on the floor and just started sobbing, and he said out loud, I said, What's going on, man?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I just spent three hours in the abortion clinic with my girlfriend.
SPEAKER_00: Guess who everybody looked to in that room?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any formative friendship?
SPEAKER_00: Because here's my concern.
SPEAKER_00: Can you feel what's going on in this room right now?
SPEAKER_00: We all had that when we were younger.
SPEAKER_00: And we outgrew it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have time for it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say to all of us men, ladies, you're included in this, but I'm a man.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, you need some formative friendships.
SPEAKER_00: You need some people in your life that are like speaking into your life.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Bible says, Hey, start with regeneration, continue.
SPEAKER_00: And then thirdly, learn.
SPEAKER_00: That's you're rooted, you're established perfect tense, but being built up in Him and established in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is present tense, which refers to this continual process.
SPEAKER_00: You keep being built up, you keep being established in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Why did you say keep being established in the faith?
SPEAKER_00: Let me say this and I'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Christian faith, Christianity is bigger than what you're experiencing right now.
SPEAKER_00: It's always going to be bigger.
SPEAKER_00: It's always going to be.
SPEAKER_00: You're never going to be as big as the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's always going to be bigger.
SPEAKER_00: It's always going to be better and beyond where you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says, hey, grow up into your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the faith, you're a part of something that is huge, that is deeply consequential.
SPEAKER_00: So when the question comes, hey, how do I grow?
SPEAKER_00: It starts with regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: Has your heart ever been made alive?
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you continue.
SPEAKER_00: You just keep on.
SPEAKER_00: You exert yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You don't go to a church that allows you to sing God a job description.
SPEAKER_00: Wash me and fill me and cleanse me.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter 2, in a large mansion, there are many vessels, vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.
SPEAKER_00: If a man cleanses himself, he is a vessel fit for the master's use.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are waiting on God to do something in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to say to you in love, God is waiting on you to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: And look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Exert yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Exertion is not a four-letter word, it is a difference between intention and experience.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet if you would.
SPEAKER_00: Stand up.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian faith is bigger than your experience.
SPEAKER_00: It is not an indictment.
SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and live in such a way as to respond to the invitation of God to grow up into your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you, you're dismissed.