Mission Church
Mission Church
Exploring Faith and Transformation: Lessons from Romans and Ephesians
Ever wonder how much power lies in truly honoring God? This episode makes a deep dive into Romans 1, revealing the direct connection between our behaviors, passions, and the level of respect we have for the Creator. We also uncover the potentially devastating effects of endorsing practices we know to be fundamentally wrong. This conversation is a wake-up call to everyone who finds themselves overlooking the importance of fully acknowledging God in their lives.
We then challenge our imagination's boundaries. Can we design a creature that has never been seen before? Drawing from John's vision in Revelation 4, we try to describe the indescribable. However, life seems to be a repetitive cycle, and the quest to find something completely new can be daunting. Using Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb as an example, we explore the spiritual implications of not recognizing God as the ultimate source of light and innovation. We also highlight the moral accountability that comes with this realization.
Finally, we shift our gaze towards marriage, that sacred institution designed by God Himself. Ephesians 5 provides the blueprint of how our marriages should look like, and we explore the necessity of daily salvation and the challenges that arise when marriage is not used as God intended. The conversation concludes with a much-needed prayer for renewal in marriages, individuals, and children, and a plea for a greater presence of God in our lives. Join us for this faith-filled journey of introspection, challenge, and growth.
For everybody else left in the room. I hope everyone is doing well tonight. I do miss the colder temperatures. I hate that it got so hot so soon, but we live in Florida and this is our winter right, like it's cold for a couple of hours and it gets hot again Tonight we're going to jump right back into Romans one and I'm going to give it just a little forewarning. It does get a little rough, especially over the next, like two chapters. All right, so if you have questions, I know at times there'll be a screen that comes up that says you can text questions. Feel free to text any questions. What? That's fine, feel free to text any questions or hit me up before you leave.
Speaker 1:But tonight our big question is this do you honor God as God? And again, just like the past two weeks like you know, we did, you know, not last week, last week was our chunk of treat, but like the two weeks before that, you know we did, we did Do you acknowledge God as God and do you trust in God? For God, like, are you ashamed of God? Like and I know, on the surface all you know, most people will go oh yes, absolutely I honor God as God, but again, I want us to really challenge ourselves on this as we work through this tonight. Is it something I do? Do I honor God as God? So I'm gonna pray and then we are going to jump right in. Father. God, I ask and I pray that as I preach through your word tonight, father, I do so in a way that brings you honor. I do so honoring you, father, and I ask and I pray that that it's not my voice, people here, but your words, father, that are cutting to our heart. I pray we are changed by the power of your spirit from the inside out. In Jesus name, we pray, amen. All right, so we are going to kick this off in verse 24. There's a lot of reading up front. I apologize.
Speaker 1:Therefore, god gave them up, in the lust of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than, or the creator rather than, the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, amen. For this reason, god gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women, exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, god gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they knew God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, not only did they do them, but gave approval to those who practice them.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, but like when I first read through that, I went oh my God, paul is talking about the years of 2020 to 2023. Like, in my mind, I just went that's what it is right there. However, when we really start to dig into this, when we really start to grab a hold and wrestle with everything Paul is talking about here, the first thing that we should notice is this we started off this section by saying, therefore, and anytime we see, therefore, in scripture, we need to stop and look at what the there is for. Okay, what we just read does not stand all alone on a vacuum. It's not just this one piece that we can pull out and go oh look, god hates homosexuals, or God hates this, or God doesn't like this, Like. It doesn't just stand by itself. It is the, the culmination, it is the conclusion of everything Paul has been talking about up to this point.
Speaker 1:He sits here and goes, since we do not acknowledge God as God, because we suppress the truth, because we act like there is no God. Therefore, because all of that, because we do this, this is what God does, and as we were reading through, there was a phrase he keeps repeating through all of that. That phrase is this God gave them up. God gave them up to a debased mind to do it, not to be done. God gave them up to the lust in their heart. God gave them up to go do their passions. What Paul is saying is because we do not acknowledge God, because we act like there is no God, because we worship idols, because we go I go, better, god goes. Hey, you got it. You got this life thing figured out. Have at it, hoss, go do whatever it is that you think is going to bring you happiness. You want to know a secret, though. None of it will bring you happiness. None of it.
Speaker 1:Like right now, we have JT's car parked out in the parking lot because our car is at home with a boat hitched up ready to go. So tomorrow morning, as soon as I wake up which could or could not be early, depending on how late Josh wants to keep us out talking tonight we're going to grab the dog, we're going to load up the boat and we're going to head out and we're going to be on the water. And no, I'm not going to spend all day out on the water, but I know I'm going to spend a couple of hours out on the water. And I know, going into this, that that 30 inch red fish or that 20 pound snook is sitting there ready to be caught. And you know what, when I catch it, I'm going to have the biggest grin on my face, for two reasons One, I'm going to catch it on the same thing JT is using, so it's not the lure, it is the fisherman. And two, I'm going to catch it in front of JT, so that way he gets to go the whole day going. It's not fair, and you know what's going to happen tomorrow night. That fishing trip that we just had, that amazing time out on the boat we just had, is not going to sustain my mood, knowing that Monday comes as soon as I wake up.
Speaker 1:Think about it All of you either ate before you got here or have intentions of eating when you leave here. And when I leave I'll tell you. I don't know what we're having tonight because, again, we dropped the ball this week and have nothing planned out. We didn't plan out the songs, we didn't plan out where we're going, like we didn't do announcements, like this week was just that week. But I guarantee, wherever I go to eat tonight, whether it's tacos or barbecue or burgers, or wherever I am going to leave, going, man, I am stuffed, but you know what's going to happen tomorrow around 9.30, 10 o'clock I'm going to go.
Speaker 1:Man, I am starving because there's nothing in this world that will ever fully satisfy any one of us in this room. There's not a spouse, there's not a child, there's not a job, there's not enough money, there's not a car, there's not a boat, there's not a fish, there's not anything that will ever satisfy you in this world. And what God is sitting here doing is he's going. Hey, since you have it all figured out, since you know what is best for you, since you know how life should be lived, go ahead, have at it. Hoss, you got this. Unfortunately, jt didn't know this beforehand, but he's going to be an example a lot tonight, because I will tell you right now.
Speaker 1:There has been more than one time in JT's life where I went hey, bro, you got it figured out, go do it. And it doesn't ever work out well for him because at 13, he doesn't have it all figured out. And it doesn't work out well for any one of us because, regardless of your age, we don't have it figured out. We do not understand how life should be lived. We don't. Not one of us in this room has a firm grasp on understanding. This is what life is. Because not one of us in this room, not one of us, designed life. None of us, none of us can speak anything to do existence. You know why? Because no one in this room has the power of creation ex nihilio, to create out of nothing.
Speaker 1:I am starving right now. All I've had today is two of the little microwavable bean and beef, cheese burritos or whatever Like. My body is sitting here going. I don't have enough food and no matter how bad I want a brisket to just appear right here in this chair, it will not happen. I cannot will that into an existence. I cannot speak that into an existence because I don't have the power for that. And although, yes, I had a hand in JT, kayla and Gabby being here, I am not the one who breathed life into any of them. I am not the one that caused them to be.
Speaker 1:And to prove my point, because this is what I love to do, we're going to do a real quick exercise, and you don't even have to, like get up out of your seats, because I hate icebreakers and things like that. But here's what I want you to do. I want anyone in this room, anyone in this room, to think of something that has never been thought of before. Think of an animal like it, use your imagination and you create an animal that does not exist. Anyone can do that. I'm open. I did this with the middle school this week. They couldn't do it either.
Speaker 1:We can come up with things that are like a conglomerate of things that we know. We can sit here and go. Oh, what about? Like a snuffalophagus from Sesame Street, if y'all don't remember that he's the big, wooly one. He's not quite an elephant, but he's not quite a wooly mammoth either. He's kind of this like thing, some of us in this room, you could put animals together, you could go well. What if it has, like the head of a lion, the body of a man, the wings of an eagle, like John did it in Revelation right, like it has these things? And we could take things that already exist and we can use those things to make something new. But what we can't do is none of us in this room have enough imagination to think of anything that doesn't already exist.
Speaker 1:In fact, talking about the book of Revelation, in Revelation 4, john and I know we covered Revelation a couple of years ago, but in Revelation 4, john is trying to explain what he sees right, and he says this and he who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Carnelian and around the whole throne was a rainbow that had an appearance of an emerald. See, john is trying to describe. Like John is getting these visions of heaven, he's getting these visions of where God is and he's trying to describe hey, here's what I see. But you notice how he describes it. It has an appearance of. It kind of looks like this. It kind of like like, if I had to, like, if I had to like, put something to it, it would look like Jasper, or it would look like an emerald. See, what he's doing is he's trying to take something that he sees and describe it to people who have not seen anything. Because we cannot come up with anything new, like we can't. If we look at a feat or not, a fission, ecclesiastes one, the writer of Ecclesiastes, says this what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
Speaker 1:Last night, debbie and I were having this conversation. I don't even know how it came up, but like I just had a bunch of stuff that popped into my mind. So I figured Debbie has nowhere else she can go, so why not just listen to what I have to say? Sometimes it is poor Debbie. I should pray for her. I have a lot of things that just pop up, but I just went. I went like this Debbie. I'm at a point in my life where I go.
Speaker 1:Every day is the same day, like it's just like this carousel of days. I wake up, we go to work, we come home, we go to softball practice. We come home, we talk about being up way too late, we take showers, we go to bed, we, we literally wake up the next day and we do it all over again. And then the weekend comes, and I do that in quotation marks, but the weekend comes and it's we wake up and we go to a softball game. Then we get done with the game. I go home, eat two microwavable burritos, we get ready, we come up to service and then we're going to go actually get real dinner after it and then, before I know it, it's going to be Sunday night and I'm going to be like, hey, we're just kicking off another round around this merry go round. We call life and I go. Debbie, I don't know if you feel the same way, but this is just how I feel.
Speaker 1:I understand what the writer of Ecclesiastes is talking about. That book resonates a lot with me because I go. There's nothing new under the sun, like I found myself the other day watching if you don't watch conspiracy theories, like you really should, because there's some like thought provoking things out there, right, but there's a YouTube channel I watch. It's called the Y Files. He does these amazing videos on like alien, like invasions and like into the world stuff and like ancient civilizations, and he just brings up a lot of things where it's like huh. And I caught myself sitting there the other day after he had done one on the apocalypse and I went you know what? I'm ready for that, because at least that's something different. Let a meteor come and hit the world and then let's redo all of this thing we call life, because we don't understand what this thing called life is, because, see, most of us in this room, we go no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:There have been some great inventors throughout the course of human history. I mean, we're sitting in a room, it's nighttime out, right? Oh, and don't forget, clocks change tonight. Okay, throwing that out there, that one just kind of popped in. But we're sitting in a room and you can look out the window and see it's not really like, it's not dark, but it's not light outside, and yet you can see me just fine, right, because we have these magical fire tubes called light bulbs, right? Who made that? Really? No one, thomas Edison, thank you. Yes, like, Thomas Edison made the light bulb, right, he invented the light bulb. But I, I posed this to you. Who created light, like? Who sat down in eternity past and went hey, they're going to need something so that their eyes can work, so they can actually see. So you know what? At some point, god went let there be light, and there was light and it was good. See, thomas Edison didn't invent light. He invented a way for us to use light, but he didn't invent light. God went Nope, I'm going to make this creation and they're going to need something so that they can actually see us.
Speaker 1:Guys, all you got to do is spend like six minutes on social media and you will see, we don't, we don't even know what makes a man a man. Like, we can't even define. This is what a woman is, because it can't be biology, because that's incorrect, it can't be this, it can't be that. So it just boils down to what someone feels in a certain moment. Right, because we choose to not acknowledge God as God. See, god has very clearly defined things throughout our life. Right, but because we choose to not honor God as God, god gives us up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. See, and when we read through that yeah, homosexual. Yeah, homosexuality is on that list, right. And it's easy for us to start looking at things, especially when we get a list like this, and go but I'm a heterosexual person, so I'm good, right, that must mean I honor God. I'm so glad we look at it that way because if we really read through that, we would have seen that we fall into all of that. Maybe not homosexuality. Maybe you're like no, I don't, I don't fall into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Paul also said this and they are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetness, malice. They are full of envy. Anyone in here ever struggled with being jealous of someone? They're full of murder. Now, I know everyone in here will be like well, nope, I have never killed anyone before, okay. But Jesus said if you've ever been mad enough to call your brother a fool, you have murdered. Anybody in here ever been mad enough to call their brother a fool? I've called my brother way worse than a fool before. So, murder, strife. Anyone in here like, okay, anyone in here are strifeful person? Now, I know no one would actually go yes, I am full of strife. Like, I don't.
Speaker 1:I'm not attracted to drama. I hate drama. That's what we all say. But I'm going to argue. If you're sitting in here going no, that's not me the chances are you are probably that one that, like, loves the drama, right? Like there's an episode of the office where Andy and Aaron, like they start dating but they don't want anyone to know because they don't want the drama, and then they start fighting because of trying to keep themselves from looking like they're dating to everyone else in the office and, lo and behold, it comes out. You know Andy has spent this entire episode going. I hate drama. I hate drama. And then he gets to the point where he's like I love it. I know a lot of people like that. Those are people that cause strife in our life. Those are people whose lives seem always chaotic.
Speaker 1:What about deceit? Anyone in here ever lied, and if you didn't raise your hand, you're a liar now. So welcome to the party Militiousness. I know none of us in here think of ourselves as malicious people, but you ever cut someone off in traffic. That's being malicious. They are gossips. Enough said, right? I know no one in here has ever talked about anyone else behind their back. You've definitely never created, you know, a fake account to troll someone. They're slanders. I know no one in here again has ever said anything bad about someone.
Speaker 1:Haters of God, insolent, insolent, right. Insolent is like insubordinate. I know all of us listen to everything those are. They're haughty. Anyone in here really know what haughty is Like? It's one of my favorite words in the Bible because it's so much fun to say Like, don't be haughty. Does anybody in here like? Haughty is just this idea of like. There's a reason why I preach down here and not up on the stage, because I'm prone to haughtiness. Okay, it's that idea that I can how y'all doing down there. That's what being haughty is, right Boastful. I know I've gotten that one before this one.
Speaker 1:Inventors of evil and I know that goes against I said we don't invent anything. God does say we do invent stuff. We invent new ways to be evil. Think about it. Cain killed Abel with a rock. We now have bombs that wipe out entire, you know, miles of civilization. We love some inventions of evil, don't we? What about this one?
Speaker 1:Disobedient to parents? And I know every one of us in here, especially those of us that have kids, that look at our kids and go I never, when I was your age, like my mom said something and my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Friday I found out from one of the kids at school that their mom knows how to curve a sandal, also known as a chacleta, around walls and hit them. Okay, so y'all in here especially if you have kids that go here understand. They tell us everything Foolish.
Speaker 1:Anyone ever been foolish? Faithless? Remember, faith isn't sane. I believe these facts are true. Even the demons believe Faith is saying. Because I believe these facts are true, I will do heartless. Anyone in here ever been heartless? Ruthless. Some of y'all, some of y'all can be ruthless and I will tell you, especially with that ruthless one, guys, just keep this in mind women are way more ruthless than men are. They are conniving and manipulative and like they do good at that, right.
Speaker 1:So, yes, we might be sitting in here right now going hey, I don't struggle with this or I don't struggle with that, but the reason we have a list like this is because some of us have been disobedient to our parents. Some of us have talked about people, some of us have lied, some of us have been haughty, some of us have been boastful. You may not be sitting here going hey, I hit every one of these, but let me ask you this how many do you have to hit until you are no longer perfect? Just one, just one. Now, most of us, if we're really honest, hit way more than one today, but if we're honest, like, all you have to do is hit one of those. See, paul gives us a list like this not to go.
Speaker 1:Hey, this is an exhaustive list of sin. These are the things that you shouldn't do. What he's doing is he's going. Hey, what I want you to understand, christian, is you are just as wicked as anyone else out there. You are just as much in need of salvation. You are just as much in need of Jesus as any of your atheist, agnostic or unbelieving friends and or family. And we need that salvation every single day. Why are we so wicked? Why are we so evil? Why do we need this every day? Because we do not honor God as God. So God pulls his restraining grace back and he goes hey, you got this. You know what life is supposed to look like. Have at it, go, do whatever it is that you think is going to bring you happiness. See, understand.
Speaker 1:From the dawn of creation, we sang this song that said that God predestined us for adoption in Christ. It's actually found in Ephesians one. So that's actually in the Bible, right Since the dawn of creation, before the foundations of the world. Ephesians would say God predestined us for adoption in Christ Jesus. Here's what we know from that verse that God thought of you before creation, that God thought about you before he ever said let there be light. And what that means is from the dawn of creation God went I designed this to go a certain way.
Speaker 1:Does anybody know what the oldest institution in the Bible is? Jt? What is it? Marriage? God creates man, he creates woman. He goes boom. Y'all joined together. I now have marriage. It's the oldest thing in human existence. And when God designed marriage, he designed it a certain way. And when we deviate from the way that God designed something to be used, that is what is called ha-marita, that is what is called a sin to miss the mark. God, when I designed this marriage thing to go a certain way, I designed this thing to be able to function this way, and when we function in a way that God did not design it, that is when we run into problems.
Speaker 1:Think about it like this all right, and I don't care where you stand on a second amendment on gun rights. This, that the other thing, like, yes, I am pro-guns, I am ex-law enforcement, ex-military. Like, yeah, I got guns, like I'm all for guns. Anyone in here has ever heard the argument? Well, guns don't kill people, people kill people. And although that is true and I'm not trying to knock that what I'm trying to say is when I use a gun in a way that it is not designed to be used, bad things happen, like if I were to just take my gun out and throw it across the room. Now, granted, certain guns have certain safeties on them, so understand that. But if I were to just take my gun out and throw it across the room, bad things are gonna happen. Right, because that is not how that is designed to work. So when I do things that God did not design to work that way, bad things are gonna happen, because sin ultimately leads where Death.
Speaker 1:And I bring that up because I go men when we look at our marriages, do you love your wife and understand love is not what you feel on the inside, but do you love your wife the way that Jesus loved his church and gave his life up for her? You understand the weight that Ephesians five is putting on you if you are a man and you decide to get married, that you have to love that woman, that you are married to. The same way Jesus loved his church and gave his life up for her. Here's what that means. You no longer get the right to go. I don't want to. That means I can't just sit here and go. Hey, debbie, you wait on me. I deserve everything in this marriage, like that whole thing. I know we saw it a lot in the 50s and the 60s. You know where the man went to work and I'm the breadwinner and so she serves me at my house and all of that.
Speaker 1:What the Bible would argue is that you lay down every single thing. You are the way Jesus laid down every single thing he was for his bride the church. Which means that tomorrow morning when I wake up and I have the cooler packed and everything's in the boat and I'm walking out the door and Debbie goes hang on, can you stay home today? That I don't act like a little child and go. Why? Like no, I go for what, babe? Hey, I just, I really want to spend time with you today. Then that means I go, absolutely. What you need Now?
Speaker 1:Women on the flip side of that, because if we follow that up, paul does say why submit to your husband as unto the Lord? Now I know that word submission in our language and our day has a lot of negative connotation with it. Here's what it doesn't mean you are now a slave to your husband. That's not what that's saying, because it says submit as to Jesus. So if I'm following after Jesus, then, yes, debbie needs to follow after me. Like that is how God designed marriage to work.
Speaker 1:Like again, we break a lot of stereotypes in our house because you know who does not cook at our house. Debbie, I am as white as white can be. I get that. You know who cooks better rice in our house Me. So therefore, since I do it better, why wouldn't I cook? Because you know how many leftovers we have when I make. You know anything? Not a lot. You know how much leftovers we have when Debbie makes stuff. Our dog is very happy when Debbie cooks.
Speaker 1:I will tell you that right now. And Debbie will tell you I gave up cooking a long time ago. I don't put the time, energy and effort into it that I should, but what submission means? It doesn't mean that Debbie's in the kitchen every night cooking. It doesn't mean that you know, I go, honey, where are my slippers, and she fetches them for me. She would, I have no doubt in my mind.
Speaker 1:But, on the same hand, when we do things differently than the way God designed it, what do you think is going to happen? How do you think something good is going to come out of that? God did not design it to work that way, and it's very easy for us to look at bad examples of this, but I'm going to look at a good example. Let's say Monday Debbie, you need a lesson to this part too. Let's say Monday you went into work and your boss was like hey, you are so amazing at what you do, we're going to give you a raise. You heard me, debbie, where's your extra money going? See, how many of us have a $10,000 raise. That means that $10,000 boat, that $10,000 boat I've been looking at. I can go ahead and get that now, right, because it's, you know, it's zero. Then, right, I'm not out anything, but I didn't earn anything either.
Speaker 1:So, like, we're good, like, where would your money be going at that point? How many of us would go? Oh, we have a turkey giveaway coming up where, and I'm going to go ahead and tell you, guys, we already have 103 families signed up for that. That was less than a week. Yep, I'm not going to lie. There was a point. Yeah, and I'm not going to lie. We got some corporate sponsors going on this one too, and that's amazing that our little church right here can have that big of an impact in our community.
Speaker 1:But see how many of us that would be the first thought. Not many of us, right? See, what would you do right now? I just think this one in your head on. What would you do right now if I just walked up to you and slapped you right across the face? Most of us, if we're honest, our reaction would be I'm going to slap you right back, like. This is going to look like one of them. Russian slapping competitions, right, but what would the Bible tell us to do? Turn the other cheek. What do we tell our kids? Though Someone hits you, hit them back. Understand. You just taught your kids the opposite of what Jesus tells us to do. See, understand, like there's a lot that the Bible says, like when we think about hey, you just got to raise you. Know what the Bible calls you to do Give generously and joyfully Uh-oh. And guys, I include myself in this because there's already like two boats I'm really like looking at because missions sent outdoors. Honestly, we just can't keep up with it because I have a small boat right now I can only fit two people at a time.
Speaker 1:My mailman was driving by our house the other day, I kid you not, and went hey, when can you take me out fishing? Got my number, got my phone number and everything. Like you knew my name. Obviously it wouldn't have been fun. I should have thought about that man. I should have been like I'm not Josh, but anyway I do it with boat collectors, right? Anyway, got my number and I was like, oh cool, I'll give him my phone number. I'll never hear from him again because people say stuff all the time, right? And like the next day he's like hey, this is Hector, make sure you save my number. When are we going? And I was like I guess we're going now, right? Like when do you want to go, hector? But understand and he don't know this yet but when you're trapped on the water with me, I get to dictate what we talk about, right?
Speaker 1:So you hear a lot about Jesus, see, understand, we don't honor God as God. When we define the things differently than God does, we can't do it different than the way the Bible told us to do it and expect it to work out the way it should. Why do you think like? Do you want to do like guys?
Speaker 1:Wrap your head around the fact that they don't even keep divorce statistics anymore, like it used to be like when me and Debbie first got married many, many, many moons ago, when she was the wife of my youth, right, doesn't she? She looks so much younger than I do. It's not fair. But anyway, when we first got married, it was 50% of all marriages ended in divorce, right? So, like, we got married and my brother and her sister got married at the same time. So I was like, look, one of us is going to make it, one of us, not, right, I just need to beat him out and that way we're not the statistic. There are so many divorces nowadays that they don't even keep a track on how many divorces there are. Why are there so many divorces? Because we try to do marriage the way we want to do marriage, not the way God tells us to do marriage.
Speaker 1:Why do our kids act like fools? Dude, I'm a teacher like I'll tell you, most of your kids act like fools when they're not around you. Why? Because we want a parent the way we want a parent, not the way the Bible tells us to understand. The Bible tells you spare the rod, spoil the child. And there's a reason why the Bible tells you that. Because if you're that kind of parent, that goes, you need to think about that. Your four year old is not going to think about that. Your four year old is going to walk to the corner and just wait until you go. Okay, now you can go play. Or worse, hey, here's the iPad again, have at it.
Speaker 1:Understand, when you give your kids electronics, you are giving them everything in the world at their fingertips, that stuff that you used to look at when you were growing up, that you had to do a lot of work to try to find because you weren't old enough to go buy it. Yet that is at their fingertips all day long and all the nasty, perverted and disgusting things you could possibly think of are right there in an electronic and they travel everywhere with it. And I'll tell you, I have no idea what they're doing when they go in the bathroom, like if you parent differently than the way the Bible is telling you to parent. Why do you think it's going to work out good? See, god goes. It is good when we do things the way he wants us to, and again, I can give you negative things like that all day long. I'll give you a positive.
Speaker 1:Let's look at retirement. Okay, because this is a hot button right. Everybody's saving for retirement. Everybody eventually wants to retire. Retirement is not a biblical principle anywhere in the Bible, anywhere in the Bible. Yet we spend our lives building up our retirement. See, understand, your work may look different as you go older, like you may leave a full-time vocational position because now you're sitting here going hey, I got this time, I'm going to go wherever and I'm going to go plant searches. See, we have this idea that eventually, one day, I'm going to save up enough money so that I can just go walk around on beaches and collect cool seashells, as John Piper would say.
Speaker 1:Show me anywhere in scripture where you see a story about someone retiring. Jesus did it till death. Peter death, paul death, john attempted death and then exiled to an island where he continued to do it all by himself and continued to write books of the Bible all by himself. See, we, though, go. No, I only got to do this for 30 years Says who. Where did we get that idea from? That's a man made thing. Because, see, our problem is is we take the Bible as suggestions.
Speaker 1:Understand when Jesus is talking in his sermon on the mountain. He says if your right eye causes you to sin, what does he tell you should do? Pluck it out. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. And we go. Oh, he's being hyperbole, I use that right. Good, no, he's not. Jesus is sitting here going. You should war against your sin so much that, if your eyes are causing you to sin, pluck them out, because it is better for you to enter heaven that's what Jesus says with no eyes or no hands than to live in sin. Yet I look around tonight and all of us have our eyes and hands right. So that means one or two things we either don't sin, which the Bible would say is not true, or we go. We're not gonna take the Bible that seriously.
Speaker 1:And again, I include myself in all of that because I can see both out of both of my eyes and I have both of my hands. See, we think when God says love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul. We think that really translates into this oh, you gotta love God a lot when what God is saying is do not have any other idol in front of me. Does that include my spouse? Yep. Does that include my kids? Yep. Does that include my job? Does that include their baseball games, their softball games, the birthday parties? I have to go do this. I have to go do that. Oh, this came up. Oh, my sister invited me here. Oh, you know what it feels really nice out, heart beating. Yep, it includes all of that.
Speaker 1:When we read in the Bible love others the way that you love you, I'm gonna stop first and go. If we really did that. Some of us, I'm crippled. Some of us come on, man hops a lot, go. Some of us sit here and go. That means I'll give you some extra stuff, right. Like I got some cans in my cabinet that, let's be honest.
Speaker 1:Like if Debbie goes shopping, she buys different food than I do. Okay, debbie buys nasty things that are like organic and come from like. It's just like who's gonna eat this babe? Like, why do no one's gonna eat one can of beets? Why did you get 10? Like. So we go okay, here's what's gonna happen. Debbie will eat it. So we keep one can in the cabinet and the other nine we go hey, let's give these to a food pantry.
Speaker 1:See, do we really love others the way that we love us? Cause I would argue no, because I really, really, really am fond of myself, because again, we sit here and go, I'll give you what's left over, but I'm definitely not gonna get you what's the best. You know, that's why God rejected Cain's offering. Right, that led to the first murder in Bible and in the history of mankind. It was Cain got jealous because God rejected his offer. Because Cain came to God and went hey, here's what's left over, while Abel came to God and went here's everything from the start.
Speaker 1:But yet we do the same things and we expect it to go a different way. See, I understand this. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. If he wants you to give away all your money, guess what you're gonna do? Give away all your money. See, our mission here is very simple so you can save what is lost. That's it. And we do that by creating opportunity for you to serve those around you, for you to share the gospel of Jesus for you to live your life on mission. Come this way, buddy, you sure. Yeah, he does this certain class. It's all good, it doesn't distract me, then it ain't gonna distract me now. See, we create initiatives like 100 tables when we went hey look, we want to share a hundred meals with our friends, with our family, with our coworkers, with our neighbors, because that's how Jesus did his ministry.
Speaker 1:Our trunk or tree, do you like just one story from Chris. So Chris was passing out food, the hot dogs at the trunk or tree and an older gentleman came up and was like hey, can I get six? And Chris was like sure, take six, now, they were for his grandkids who apparently he was raising. So when he looked at Chris, he goes okay, here's six hot dogs, here's six waters, here's six bags of chips. He goes how much do I owe you? Chris went nah, it's free. And a grown man in front of another grown man broke down in tears because who does something like that? And I went.
Speaker 1:That's a sad commentary on the church, because if you go to a church event it should be free, because that's what Jesus would have done, like when Jesus fed the 5,000, he did not go hey, it's 550 ahead. Okay, he wasn't like hey, and I understand, with the 5,000 was more like 20,000, because it was 5,000 men, so when they counted they didn't count women and children. But he wasn't like, hey, I'll give you a good deal because we're a 501C3. He went no, go feed him. See our turkey giveaway. Yeah, we got 103 people to sign up already and, like I said, we're gonna run signups maybe another week, because some of us are getting a little worried if we're gonna have the resources to be able to actually feed 103 people.
Speaker 1:Families, yes, but understand what these families don't realize is when they show up to pick up their food, it's gonna be a young person that goes and loads it up and goes hey, we just want you to know that Jesus loves and sees you. We don't care about what you did in your life. We're not trying to correct all your sin. We're not trying to make you a better person. We're not trying to give you 15 steps to a better version of you. We just want you to know Jesus loves you and he sees you. That's it. See mission set outdoors. When you're on the boat with me Mission media.
Speaker 1:When you're listening to the podcast, mission Academy guys, we get to teach Bible every single day to 25 kids well, 24 right now. Like, do you guys understand that? Like two months ago no, three months ago Debbie and I were sitting here panicking because we'd done all this work. We quit our jobs, we went oh God, we don't even have a paycheck coming in. And then we were like the city took so long to get everything ready, we couldn't advertise. So we were like, are we ever gonna be able to get enough kids to actually do this? Do you understand? Now we are actually sitting here telling families hey, we're sorry, maybe next year, but we're out of room right now. Like that is amazing and that is all God and that gives us an opportunity to sit here and speak to young people and teach math from a Christian perspective.
Speaker 1:And for those of you that sit here and go, how do you teach math from a Christian perspective? We do math every day at 8.15,. You are more than welcome to come, sit in here and hear that After you do a background check, I have a call. After you do a background check. Yes, so you understand. We serve a God that is a God of order, correct? Who took the chaotic of the cosmos and made it ordered. What do you think math is? Those of you that struggle in math, that is what you struggle with. You can add, subtract, multiply and divide, right, like you struggle with order. We are chaotic in our minds and that is what we struggle with.
Speaker 1:See, the question in all of this comes in and do you honor God as God, or is it just the suggestion thing? Is it? Yeah, I'm a Christian, so you know I do the Christian things. Or you sit in here going, no, like 2 Corinthians 318, paul tells us this that we are transformed from one degree of glory to the next. Do you look more like Jesus today than you did yesterday? That is what we are trying for. That is the big theological word for that is sanctification.
Speaker 1:And no one's sitting here going, hey, you got to like boom, immediately be all better, because the Bible would argue that that's not how it happens. You just got to be one degree better today than you were yesterday, and the next day you're going to be one degree better the next day and after a year, you are 360 degrees better, which, for those of us in here, is a full circle, correct? So, as we read through this, there should have been two things that really stepped out to us. We either honor God as God or we don't. Some of us we're really good at playing that church game. Some of us are really good at looking a certain way, at acting a certain way, but we're not honoring God as God. All we're doing is going through the motions of that. What the Bible is saying is there's only two places you can be.
Speaker 1:So as Josh comes up and we close, challenge yourself and think through your life, think through your past week. Would you say that you honor God as God or would you sit here and go? No, I got some work to do on that. See, if you aren't, you're sitting here going. I got work to do. That is why we are here tonight. That is why we gather. That is why we do what we do.
Speaker 1:The hardest thing is is we come in here in our pride and our heart and we go. I don't want anyone else in here to know that I'm not honoring God as God because they on the outside look like they are. And here's the deal. Every single person you see in this room tonight struggled this week with something. Every single person you see in this room tonight is sitting here trying to fight a battle every single day of their life. Every single person you see in this room tonight is just as broken as you. We just got a new turkey thing. The word is 104. And let's not lose the clock.
Speaker 1:Every single person sitting in this room tonight has times in their life where their faith is not strong enough. Where they are sitting here, going, I can't do this. Where they are sitting here going, it's hard to put one foot in front of another. There are 5,280 feet in a mile and some of you in this room Zion, before he got hurt, could have probably ran a mile in a. He probably is in that four minute mile and if you look at me, you can tell I'm not. I'm probably in that 24 minute mile range.
Speaker 1:But you wanna know something If all I do is put one step in front of the other, it may take me longer than it's gonna take Zion to finish that mile, but by just taking one step at a time, eventually I will finish that mile. See, and what we do is we go. I can't do this. I don't want anyone else to know this is what I'm suffering with. I don't want anyone else to know this is what I'm struggling with.
Speaker 1:When God went no, I'm gonna give you the church so you can come together, so you can actually be there from one another to pray with one another, to confess to one another, to sit here and go hey, let me walk through this with one another. The worst thing we can do is every Saturday, we come in here, listen to the word of God being preached and then get up out of our seat and walk out of that door and let it go one ear and out the other, because when we don't do things the way God designed things, then why would we think it would go any different? So tonight, as we close, maybe you're sitting here tonight going. I wanna put a stake in the ground and I wanna go from this point forward. I am going to strive with everything I am to honor God as God.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're sitting here going hey, I wanna pray with someone, I wanna talk to someone. There is someone sitting by you right now that will pray with you, that will talk with you, and if you don't feel comfortable with it, you can always come and find me. I'm either. I'm usually in the back because I do that, because there's nothing magical about up here. There's nothing special about up at this part of a building. What is special is when two or three are gathered there. I am in with the midst of you when God's spirit falls. That's where the special, intimate relationship we have with our Savior, that is why Jesus went. Father, take me and leave them.
Speaker 1:So, father, I ask and I pray as we end tonight, father, that you do just that. That, god, for every single one of us in this room that is thinking through our past week and going. God, I just can't seem to get past this. I just can't seem to get over this. That, god, I take away from honoring you as who you are because of whatever pet sin I have going on in my life. God, I pray. I pray that chains are broken through that.
Speaker 1:I pray, by the power of your spirit, father, that we are transformed through that. I pray, god, that you, through the power of conviction, through the power of inspiration, through the power of everything that you can do that, father, we leave here different than when we walked in. Some of us, father, are gonna take longer to get there, but I pray, god, that you continually strengthen our faith so that we can continue to put one foot in front of the other, knowing we don't have to be an Olympic athlete to do this, that, god, we can finish that race too. So, father, as we do, I just pray for a new renewal in marriages. A new renewal, father, in individuals, a new renewal in children. Father, I just pray for more of you. I pray as we move through this next week. We honor you, father, just for simply being you Now, for what we get, but for who you are. Father, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.