Some say you're just a play, some say you're a cry, some say you are really brave, but I say you're a cry.
Some say you're just a play, some say you're a cry, some say you are just a man, but I say you're a god, you are my god.
And I will shout your name till the end, and I will lift your name all the time, and no one will know you're brave, and you are my god, I will shout your name.
I know that you're just a play, you don't like what we do, and I know you're the only way, Jesus you are god, you are my god.
And I will shout your name till the end, and I will lift your name all the time, and no one will know you're brave, and you are my god, Jesus.
And I live a life that shouts your name, and I live a life that shouts your name.
Jesus lives on the side of the hill, and he lives a life that shouts your name.
He's gonna start the slides a little bit,
But look, he's gonna shout it from high.
...
Alright, alright. You know if I recovered from yesterday?
It was kinda like...
Meh. That's the thing, right? Well praise God, we get to be here to worship,
and learn. I'm a little excited. The worksheet is a little lighter
today than it normally is.
We'll do that shortly. The whacked out simple stuff. So tonight,
for whacked out simple stuff, we'll do something just a little bit different, a little bit simple, but a little bit easy.
And I'm gonna talk about tonight's service. It came up this week,
I was talking to somebody, and they said, well when I was growing up, we always had
a Wednesday
service. Why Wednesday or why Tuesday? Does anybody know why?
Because we're different.
A lot of people do Tuesday, that's true, right?
I mean a lot of people do Wednesday, actually, that's true.
Why would you do Wednesday? Middle of the week, right?
Okay, so you have Sunday, and then you get a couple days life, and it starts to get a hold of your mind,
things are going on, whatever, and then you have Wednesday, you go up to God, do Bible studies,
and then you go back Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and you're back on Sunday. So it breaks up
the week. And so whether it's Tuesday,
and that's only really Monday in between, and then we do it from Tuesday,
we've got from Tuesday to Sunday, that's kind of a long gap.
But there's nothing biblical about it. The truth is, how often
should you do your Bible? Every day.
That's an easy answer, right? So every day, and even when you're not reading it,
you should be living it, thinking about it, doing whatever it is
that you know to do from it, holding on to that which you've already attained, right?
And we do that by memorizing the Word and studying and all that kind of stuff.
How often should you be praying?
Lots, right? Second Corinthians 5 says, pray without ceasing,
and that's kind of hard to pray when you're sleeping, but you can go to
bed with a prayerful attitude, and wake up with a prayerful attitude,
and then kind of pray all day long. And actually you kind of can pray
all the time if you think about it. Like people, you're always having self-thoughts. You want doubt,
you want, oh I think I could do this, or I think I might do that, whatever. You're always having thoughts
running through your mind. You can train those thoughts to be aimed at or to
God, or asking God or talking to God, and just like that, suddenly, you're
praying all the time. How about giving in
service? How often should we be giving and serving?
A lot. A lot, okay, always.
You're going to say one of those two? Okay, yeah, so it's
a lot, right? Jesus said, the greatest amongst you shall be your servant.
So it's a great opportunity to serve when the body comes together.
There are people who will teach. There are people who work. People who prepare
desserts, like whatever, you know. People who pay to eat the lights on,
that's giving, right? That kind of thing. And so, we could get
together on Thursdays, although that would interfere with you,
on Friday, too. So we could do Tuesday and Thursday. We could do Tuesday
and Wednesday and Thursday, and if there ever was a time where we really needed to be
plugged into God for some reason, something amazing was happening in our country, or we were under a lot of persecution,
or there was a lot of trouble or difficulty, or that kind of thing, we might meet more often.
We've had a time where we had a service, had a break, and had another service.
So that could happen. You could come on a Sunday and we'd be like, hey, we're all getting together
again in another hour for more Bible, more Word, more God
working in us, right? So it's not just a matter of just
two days on Sunday. When we started this church, we said it was going to be an all
and every day, all week thing. And so I encourage you to go out and live with the Lord
all week long. So we do Tuesday nights, as Ardys said, because we're
a little bit different, okay? We could have done Wednesday, and sometime it might be
Wednesday, but it's been Tuesday for the last twenty years,
about fifteen years, so probably it's not going to change.
But it could. If you wanted to, it could. We decided as a church. And then why do we do it
the way we're doing it right now? Because we as a church decided to do it this way.
That's all. Not me. It's not one guy hiding in a corner
writing the checks, right? It's the church. We decided the church to do it
the way we're currently doing it. And so if we decide next month to do
Wednesday instead of Tuesday, as a church, then we switch into Wednesday.
Right? We make those decisions as a church. Alright, so let's pray together.
And then we'll do another song of worship, then release the kids, then a song, and then go to the next one.
Father in Heaven, I thank you for
this evening. But it's still Christmas to us.
Some of us are kind of shaking off
the sugar from yesterday, or retired, because we did a lot. We went around
to folks' houses, or we got together with our family, or we sat at home
with our
nuclear family, I guess you could say, or close family.
There was a lot of shopping in a lot of cases, and there was some crafting,
and there was just a lot going on.
But we want to be busy for you all the time.
We want to be focused on you all the time.
As we worship you now, even if it's only a couple songs.
It really isn't a real long time. I thank you for those who blocked out this time to be here
tonight to learn something more from you, and about you. And I ask you to work in
this place that you see fit. And I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Thank you.
Even though I'm all through the valley, got my shadow of you
Through perfect colors casting out the moon
Even when I'm hot in the middle of the storms of this night
Where the world turned back and I know you are here
I would fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
No blame shall I feel
No blame shall I pay
Oh no, never let go, through the coming through the storm
Oh no, never let go, never having every love
Oh no, never let go, Lord, you never let go of me
I can't believe it's night, that it's coming
Through the hot black holes, the glorious land beyond all the air
The air being run, through these struggles, but until that day comes
I'm meant to know you here on this earth
I would fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
No blame shall I pay
Oh no, never let go, through the coming through the storm
Oh no, never let go, never having every love
Oh no, never let go, Lord, you never let go of me
I can't believe it's night, that it's coming
Through the hot black holes, the glorious land beyond all the air
The air being run, through these struggles, but until that day comes
Still I will praise you, still I will praise you
I can't believe it's night, that it's coming
Through the hot black holes, the glorious land beyond all the air
The air being run, through these struggles, but until that day comes
Still I will praise you, still I will praise you
Oh no, never let go, through the coming through the storm
Oh no, never let go, never having every love
Oh no, never let go, Lord, you never let go of me
No blame for me, to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, child and child
With thanks to me, I'll be however
A sanctuary for you
No blame for me, to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, child and child
With thanks to me, I'll be however
A sanctuary for you
No blame for me, to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, child and child
With thanks to me, I'll be however
A sanctuary for you
With thanks to me, I'll be however
A sanctuary for you
I'll just put the light in in advance, huh?
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
While those are being passed out, I want to share with you that on Sunday
I talked about how I personally had been under some
attacks and I had been struggling with
anger and how the one particular time
I had been struggling with anger, I had asked for God's joy
as we talked about in our Bible study, to devour, or in our Sunday service
to devour my anger and it worked. And then
so since then, I'd love to say to you everything's been great, but what
actually has happened is I have been under attack today
I broke a water pipe at my house
this morning, so I heard it sound like a gunshot and then water
was draining all over the floor in our laundry room and it rolls down into Ariana's
room and it broke at the bottom of our hot water tank, which meant there was no hot water in the
house and so I'm out there
struggling to try to get the water turned off and I did and then I had an hour and a half
two hours spent cleaning up all the water and then about an hour and a half trying to figure out how to fix
the pipe and then went to the store and bought the stuff and fixed the pipe only to find out
that the pipe had another leak in another spot and so then that was another hour
figuring that out and putting a different valve on so I could at least get some water operational
in the house and so yeah, that's what my day has been like today
but the good thing is I have not been angry
in the midst of all of that. Even when I was sitting down there
as the service began and I broke the little clip that holds my microphone
and I thought, things are just breaking like
crazy, but I didn't get mad, I just figured out some other way. So if this looks a little
goofy, I apologize, it's different the way I normally clip it because I broke the little clip
Okay, alright, so we are going to
talk about that today's lesson is bait or no bait and in case you're
not 100% familiar with fishing, this is kind of the way fishing works
I was going to have Larry do this but I didn't want to put him on the spot
This is a fishing reel that has a whole lot of dust on it because
it was in storage for a real long time because I haven't been fishing in a real long time but this here line
goes up through these little hoopy things and this is a
heavy duty fishing reel and this is a heavy duty line
and this will catch you a big old fish, in fact, in our waters
Larry will probably tell you, you might not catch all that many fish because this line is so thick they might see it
Yeah, good for bigger fish
So it goes up through these holes like this and then once
it gets through the holes over here it comes off and it goes to maybe a bobber
if you're going to use a bobber to kind of keep your hook at a certain level in the water
but then it goes to a hook, okay, you might have a sinker on the line too to keep the hook
stretched down low, that kind of thing, but the hook is what's
dangerous, the hook is what gets the fish
or so you would sink, okay
because if you just put a hook in the water
probably not going to catch all that much fish, right Larry?
There might be a few places, there might be a few places, if you put them where they're
spawning, like bluegill especially where they're spawning, you drop a hook
in there and they might jump right on it, that kind of thing because they just think it's a bug in the water or something
they're kind of dumb and whatever, yeah, something shiny
whatever, so the point is the bait can be key
to get the fish on the hook, but we're not talking about
hooking fish, we're talking about hooking people
and I wish it was in the context of the fishers of men
that we could talk about that, but actually that's a net, not hooks at all
we net people, we don't hook them, and so
we teach them and then they realize, hey I need to pay attention to this and they come to Christ
so, but really what we're talking about is hooks, the painful
kind of catching fish, so you have your
worksheet, you'll see it's a little simpler than normal, I took it a little light
today as far as the total number of blanks and things that we have
by the time we are done, you will be able to circle
either bait or no bait in the upper right hand corner, but in the left
upper left hand corner right there you have two blanks and the blanks go
missing directions, that's the words that go in the blanks, missing
directions, so the bottom line is, this is what we live in, right
we don't know everything we're supposed to do and we don't know exactly how we're
supposed to do it, so as a child you learn to wash yourself, dress
yourself, to feed yourself, to go to bed when you need to and so on, then as a teenager
you kind of rebel against a lot of those rules and you go, well do I really
have to go to bed by ten, maybe I can stay up to one and still get up for work on time
and you question all, and you figure out what's, and then it goes through a cycle
and later you figure out that most of those things that you were taught actually was right
after you make a lot of mistakes, I'm not judging teenagers, I was one, I'm talking about
my own personal experience, that's kind of how it goes, right, you question a lot of things, now
the sooner you adapt to what really needs to be done
right, the sooner you accept the right ways, the smoother
it goes, right, so there are people who go through high school and they do their homework,
they study, they listen, they take notes and whatever, and
usually they get good grades, but that's not a necessary
outcome, but what it is, it does flow pretty smoothly
it just kind of goes along, but if you don't know to do
those things, then you have a problem, so
we're dealing with missing directions, not knowing exactly what to do, some
years ago we got a Lego set, I think Alicia
was maybe a dozen years old or so, and we got a Lego set and
it was one of the first really big Lego sets that I had ever seen, it was probably about, I don't
know, maybe a thousand pieces or something, and all those little Legos
not the, you know, back when I was a kid, Legos were big, and then they made them
smaller and smaller and smaller, and you get little Legos, now some of those pieces are so tiny, you clip them on there, you're like
is it on there? Yeah, it's there, and you look at it from a distance and it makes a picture, but when you look at it
up close it just looks like nothing. This set
of a thousand Legos, we first thought, oh well, let's build something, so we built
something out of it, and then after that we put it away, and then we got it
back out, we're going to build something again, and the directions were missing,
and we looked and looked and could not find the directions, and they might have gotten through, it was a
Christmas present or a birthday present, whatever, they might have gotten thrown away with the wrapping paper, that kind of thing,
but the bottom line is, we could not build what we were trying to build.
If you've ever been there, you realize you can build a lot
of things out of Legos, but without directions, it's hard to build what,
these massive things that take like eight hundred or a thousand Legos and make it look
exactly like what they show you, right? Well life is kind of like that.
In the midst of that then, there are those who will say to you,
you can do it this way, here's the directions, here's what you want,
here's the results that you're looking for, okay? And let me say to you
that there are worldly benefits to betraying
Jesus, okay? To not doing it God's way,
to not doing what God has taught you to do, there are worldly benefits to that.
For example, if you go to work and you cut
corners, you don't do it quite right, so you don't do it as if you're doing it for God,
you do it cut corners, or maybe your boss tells you to cut corners and you do it, or you
steal a little money here or there, but never so much that you get caught, whatever,
there's profit in that, there's money to be made, there's money
in the bank, right? Now there's a lack of integrity, you're going to struggle
psychologically, you might have guilt issues, you're always looking to see somebody looking over your
shoulder, very suspicious, paranoid, whatever, there's a lot of
issues that can arise out of it, but in the meantime, there are benefits.
But woe to those who take those benefits, because what looks
good is more often than not bait.
God is not surprised when people betray Him, He knows all,
even that which we cannot know. So when you choose to do something
because it looks right, but you actually kind of know, oh, I think that's
right, right? God knows, is it right or not?
Why doesn't God just make it easy? Why don't you walk around
and hear somebody doing something and you think, I don't know, that might be a sin, and
like a sign pops up, or there's a glowing outline
that says, don't go here, right, dangerous, right? Or what
is that saying from that game from a long time ago, the cake is a lie, right? Don't do
that, it may look good, but it's not. Well, in some sense, it is
like that, God is very obvious,
but what God is really trying to teach us is
how to be, right? Anybody here ever dealt with
a young person or somebody who had a question and you told them what to do, and they
did it and it worked, and then later they had a similar
problem, and they came back and asked what to do
instead of just doing what you already told them to do, right?
Because you told them what to do, not how to be,
right? So, we have, Ariana has rules,
for example, she's nine, she has rules where she can have dessert once a day, but if she comes
in the middle of the day and she asks for something sweet, and we
say yes, then now in the middle
of the day every day, it's, hey, do you mind if I have this? Do you mind if I have that? Is it okay if I have
this? Even though she's supposed to have dessert after dinner, she'll ask for it, and that's where
she's at right now, because enough times we've said yes, especially in the Christmas
season, that she'll ask for something sweet pretty much every day, even though the rule is
after dinner, right? So,
what we're trying to do is teach people to be, and the
rule, only eat after dinner, doesn't actually accomplish that, does it?
If you only eat your dessert after dinner, that doesn't actually accomplish that, because what will you be
if you always only eat your dessert after dinner? You'll be a person who eats dessert after dinner
every day. Is that anything?
Is there any great value in that? I mean, it'll restrain you from overeating dessert, but
what if you eat a big dessert? What if you eat a whole chocolate cake, like ten pieces after dinner?
See? Now you've eaten way too much. You've eaten your entire calories
for the day. So, it doesn't solve the rules. Don't get it done. God is
not trying to teach us rules, okay? So, we're going to the fork here.
So, you follow the big fat arrow down, and you've got three possibilities. And I'm going to
start on the left, okay? And the first one is
that big word there is betrayers.
The big long line is betrayers. So, these are
betrayers of God, or betrayers of Christ.
Okay? And so, who is the most
famous betrayer of Christ? Alright? So, let's
look at the night that Judas betrayed Jesus, there was a dinner,
and you can find it in Matthew chapter 26.
Okay? And I'm going to read verse 20 to 25.
Now, when evening had come, he was
reclining at the table with the twelve disciples. And as they were eating, he said,
truly I say to you, that one of you will betray me.
And being deeply grieved, they each one began to say to him,
surely not I, Lord. And he answered and said, he who dipped his hand
with me in the bowl is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man is to
go just as it is written of him, but woe to
that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better,
it would have been good for that man if he had not been born.
And Judas, who was betraying him, he was in the act of doing it, Judas had already made
the arrangements, right? Who was betraying him, answered and said,
surely it is not I, Rabbi. And he said to him,
you have said it yourself. Notice that the
betrayers right here fit in. And that's your other
two little blanks. They fit in. They all do the same thing.
They all say, not I, Lord, right? So it's betrayers
fit in across that middle side of three blanks. Not I, Lord, right?
They all said, not I. Every one of them, even those who it wasn't them.
And Judas, who it was. And every one
of them showed that they were saddened, that he would even say that, that one of them was
going to betray him. They were like, oh man, that's terrible. You say that. How could it possibly
be that one of us twelve would betray you? That's terrible. And
even to the point of acting out the rituals of remembrance. They were at
his essentially last supper, right? And so
he was handing them the food, they were passing
it, they were talking, they were being polite. Everything was going on. The rituals of remembrance
were happening even for those who were betraying him,
and those who weren't.
And in Judas' case, even while in his heart, he had already
taken the bait. He was already hooked. He was already
going after it. The money had been offered, he made the agreement, all he had to do was betray
Jesus. And yet, he was saying, not I. And he was saying,
oh man, I'm sad that you would even think so. And he was taking part in the dinner
together, which by the way, that dinner was sort of representative of the
Lamb of God. It was representative of the one who would be sacrificed for the sins of mankind.
So the betrayers fit in.
So the problem with that is then, you have to ask yourself, could you be a betrayer?
So far we've filled in the blanks where it says, missing directions on the top left.
And then we've filled in, betrayers fit in. This is the
problem, betrayers fit in. So now we're going to follow the fat arrow
down so we're staying to the left.
And you see what looks basically like the front of a barn.
Now there are two stories in
the Bible about the wheat and the tares. And if you can summarize
these stories for me, then we don't have to go there and read the text. So who wants to give it a shot?
Anybody want to give a shot at wheat and tares?
Okay, how about there's a farmer
and he has his servants go out and plant the field. He sends
his servants out to plant the seed. And then the crop comes up and what do they see?
This part, so this is the easy question.
Right, so there's weeds
and wheat, both. So he sees there's both.
And they say to him,
yeah, eventually what do we do? The first thing they say is,
did you buy bad seed?
Remember where we started this whole conversation? Missing directions.
So we're accusing God of not giving us enough information, which leads us
to taking the bait. So now here they go, oh, did you buy bad seed?
Because we planted it and the wheat came up, but a bunch of weeds came up too.
And then he says, no, the seed's fine.
And they say to him, somebody said, what do we do?
We go up and tear out all the weeds. We're sorry we planted it and
all these weeds came up, so we'll go tear out all the weeds. And the master
says what? Say it again.
Yeah, it was an enemy who sowed the weeds. And should they go tear all the
weeds up? Anybody?
Okay, he says, no, don't go tear all the weeds up. And then
it's because the roots of the weeds are intertwined with the
wheat. And if you tear up the weeds, you'll tear up the wheat.
That's what he said. He said, so don't do that. Don't go tear up the weeds, because if you do, you're going to mess up
the field. You're going to tear up the good stuff too.
So he says, then wait until the harvest is ready.
And then we'll harvest the weeds and we'll harvest
the wheat. And what are they going to do with the wheat when they harvest it?
The paper's a clue.
Eventually, yep, you're going to take it into the barn.
He says take it into the barn. And then he said, and what
are we going to do with the weeds? Also a clue on the paper.
Burn them.
Yeah. And so the other story is
very similar. Does anybody know it?
Okay. Bottom line is this.
God will sort when judgment comes.
If anybody wants to read those later, I can give you the references.
Okay. God will sort
when judgment comes. Do you have blanks for the references next to your barn?
I'm going to give you the references now then. That's good. Matthew 13,
24 to 30.
And Matthew 13, 36 to 43.
So
you notice that, by the way, that there are similarities between wheat and tares.
Have you ever heard that? If you look at a tare before wheat comes in,
before the wheat becomes fully harvestable, it looks a lot like a tare.
They look very similar. Okay. Then once the wheat grows,
you can walk up and take the wheat. You can actually take the scourmables like this with your hands
off the top of the wheat. You won't get much. But you can take it out and you can pop it right in your mouth
and eat it. But there's nothing on tares that you
do that with. It just drops wheat. It's weeds.
And they spread really, really fast.
So with people, have you noticed that
the Bible says, and it's true, that all humans have sin?
We're all alike. We all have sin. Even after getting
saved, usually you can see the sin in people's lives. So there's sin.
And then in the church, all people
profess to be in the kingdom. We all say, I'm part of the kingdom.
Right? And then
if you're a betrayer,
you're actually a tare, not wheat.
And then he says, in the end, I'm going to
harvest it all and I'm going to burn
the betrayers. I'm going to burn the tares.
And I'm going to let those who are not betrayers,
I'm going to bring them into the barn. That's what that's all about.
And then it's clear in the story that we summarize,
it's not our job to sort. So while this is
true, that bait is dangerous because there's a hook on the back
end of it, and it'll get you hooked. Right? Whose job is it
to see to it that you don't take the bait? Say it again.
It's God's job. And God has already provided you
with everything you need to make sure that happens, which means if you now do it,
you're culpable. Understand? So if
you know what to do, or if God would lead you to
do the right thing, either way, and you do the wrong thing, you're
culpable. You're a betrayer. You went after the bait.
Go back up to the fork there. And in
the box is the word bait. So the middle
prong of the arrows is the word bait. And notice that then there is an arrow
that goes down to Betrayers Fit In.
So if you started with Missing Directions, and either you went straight to
Betrayers Fit In, or if you go down and you go through bait to Betrayers Fit In,
either way, you could arrive in this room tonight, studying
this word tonight, talking about this thing tonight, and actually be
a betrayer. You could actually be somebody who has been
hooked by someone or something that you want
that basically
is deadly. It's ungodly. So you have to ask yourself,
are there things that I want more than following
God? Are there things that I want more than letting
God work through me? Because if there are, then you're in
danger because at some point in time, you'll be going after those
things while God is trying to do something else.
And heaven forbid that you arrive at the end of the road and you're going after
those things when Jesus says, come on, let's go.
Because you'll be hooked and you won't get to go.
Now you have a fishing pole in the middle there, and I
put some examples. I should probably just compare these and then I'll know where the blinds are.
There we go. I put some examples of things
that you could get hooked on and you'll notice that one of the little tags
there is empty, and that's for you.
What is yours? You put in the box,
what's your potential temptation?
What could hook you? It's hooked into the
last word in. So it says, betrayers fit in and then there's a hook on the
end and there's a box and there's a line and you can put something in that box
that's your temptation. If I had
to do it today, I'll just tell you probably my temptation is anger or frustration. That's what it's
been recently. That's been my struggle. I get frustrated. I get angry when things
are not going right. What's yours? It can be
entertainment. It can be TV. I've got examples already in the box.
It could be the name of a person. You could be pursuing somebody
that's not Jesus. And you put something in there.
But notice from missing
directions there's a big fat arrow around to the right. We're making
great progress.
Big fat arrow around to the right because the goal is for God
to teach us or show us or walk with us as we learn
what to be. Not what to do.
Your mom or your dad or your police officer or your teacher
they're going to teach you what to do.
The rules. The governors. They're going to teach you what to do.
Now in Ohio, you drive down the road, texting
on your cell phone, you can be pulled over by a police officer and given a ticket. Because in Ohio
it is not acceptable by law to do that.
Now you have to make a choice whether or not you're going to do that.
And if you do it and they pull you over you may get a ticket. And then you do
it again later. They pull you over and you may get another ticket. And ultimately you could get
pretty big debt and maybe lose your vehicle and bunch of points in your license. I don't even know what the
actual penalties of it are. But the bottom line is you can get all kinds of trouble. And you could
have an actual accident. If you're texting while driving it does create
a distraction. But also man a cell phone can sure be a hook.
It's very tempting. A text comes in while you're driving to read it.
Or to respond real quick. So the bottom line is
there are a lot of people in place.
And I might be one of those. I try not to teach people what to do. I'm not
most of the time I'm not trying to teach. My family is different.
I'm required to teach my children and folks like that on a personal level.
But as a pastor I shouldn't be teaching you what to do. I should be teaching you what to be.
When I talk about giving and serving and I say you should give and serve. What I mean
is you should be a servant. The greatest of monks you shall be your servant. That's what God said.
Jesus said. And so the top blank
in the box then is B. B.E. I did capitals.
Because it's important. But you can do it however you want. The top blank is B.
So some examples of things that then God has given us to teach
us what to be are. We talked about this already.
I'm going to give them in the order that I would have listed them. But that's not in the order of importance
or anything. Prayer. So you're with God.
Talking to God. Listening to God. You should be praying. And it really ought to be pray
every time anything happens. It's the starting point
of every conversation. Every train of thought. Every research.
Everything you do. It ought to be prayer. We pray before we eat because we're grateful
for our food. But we don't pray before we talk to people because I guess we're not grateful for them.
Or whatever. No. Be grateful. And if you realize what God's doing, then pray
all the time. Every time it pops in your head. When I was doing the youth group
back at East Lido nearly over 20 years
ago. There was a guy in there who was struggling with anger
and frustration. And I learned about popcorn prayers.
If you know what a popcorn prayer is or not. But basically it's where you realize
all of a sudden that you have a problem and you jump right into prayer. Just like that. You say, OK God.
You turn away from whatever it is you're paying attention to right now. Whatever
your focus is. Whatever you're struggling with. And just start praying. You realize
I had to stop working on the pipe. There's no water on in my house right now.
We have no water. I had to stop working on the pipe to finish up my lesson.
Because that's important. So what's important
to you if you start getting frustrated, angry, struggling, trying to solve a
problem? Have you prayed? And I would suggest that you should
at least do it. And I would suggest that you should try to stay in a
state of prayer while you're dealing with whatever significant problem you are. Because that's how
God will teach you what it is you're supposed to be in that circumstance.
Because He's there. He is with you. Prayer.
And then the Bible. And I genericed this one. The Bible.
So reading, study, memorization,
meditation, application. It's all Bible intake and
usage. So you read the Bible. And the more you read it
or have it read to you if you're using the Bible app listening to it. Which is by the way is not as good as
reading it in your own eyes. But it's still good. It's better than not doing
it. But reading, study. It becomes study when you write something down.
You're doing study about scripture right now. So you're taking notes on a
worksheet. You don't always have a worksheet. You can make worksheets for yourself. You can outline things
for yourself. There was a lady who had a third grade education who
undertook to rewrite the whole Bible in her own handwriting. She didn't understand
what many of the words meant. And she just copied over the exact spelling.
And I think that's a noble pursuit.
I wouldn't quite call that study if you don't understand it.
But she was writing down the Word of God and getting it in her.
If you get the Word of God in you, it'll be available to you when you need it to
do whatever it is you're trying to do. Why? Because you'll be
being whatever it's teaching you to be.
And then when something happens, you'll know what to do.
Giving and service. Right? And I
lump those things together on the next line. Giving and service.
Giving is when you give something you have, money, whatever.
Whatever it might be. And you give it. And you give it with no strings attached.
It's not alone. Right? Or if it's alone, you say, if I don't
ever get it back, I'm not going to hold it against you. I would like to get it back. But if I can't,
I can't. Whatever. Here it is. Giving. We know what that is.
Service. Service is when you do something for somebody else. It may be they could
completely do it for themselves. In fact, that's the best time. When they could do it for
themselves and you do it for them instead of letting them do it for themselves. I got it. I got it.
No. I already took care of it. Service. Right?
And that is a tool where God is teaching you
how to be, who to be. We're going to be like Jesus. Jesus was a servant.
We're going to be like God. God is a servant. Right?
Work. Man was created to work.
And we are going to work.
Counting my lines real quick.
One, two, three.
Okay. Encouraging others.
Encouraging others. That was on the next line.
God is the extreme encourager.
He creates things in people's lives and they are always positive, always loving, always kind,
always gentle. Right? And when you're going the wrong way, He will as gently
as possible try to steer you back on course. But having failed to do that,
He will... If He has to.
God is good. Encourage others.
And then the last thing is
Christ
not me. And this is the hardest one of all.
The goal is for Jesus to live through you. It actually says
in 2 Corinthians 5 that we now live for the one who died for us.
Right? He brought you back to life so that He can
live through you. And as you pursue to do that,
He will wait for it, not take the bait.
The last four blanks are don't take the bait. Don't take the bait.
I'm going to read one last reference to you.
Now your
list of be things may not be exactly the same as mine,
but they all have to be from God, if you will.
And as He is teaching you to be those things, then when the bait comes along
and looks good, you'll say, no thank you. You won't have time
to worry about
one of these other activities
interfering with what it is that God is trying to do, because you'll be busy doing
what it is that God is trying to do. Okay? And so it's 1 John
2, 19-23. I already gave you the reference there.
1 John 2, 19-23.
And the blanks are don't take the bait.
Don't take the bait. 1 John 2, 19-23.
And it says,
They went out from us, but they were not really of us.
For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out
in order that it might be shown that they are not of us.
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.
I have not written to you because you do not
know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie
is of the truth. Who is the liar?
But the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist,
the one who denies the Father and the Son.
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son
has the Father also. Bottom line is, it starts at the top.
There are missing directions. I'm just going to be playing with you. God is not going to
tell you everything you need to do. It's not going to happen. If you came to Christ so that Jesus
could tell you every single thing you need to do, every moment of your day, you came for the wrong
reason. You're looking for a controller. You're looking for somebody to protect
you from any mistake. Somebody, whatever, it's not going to happen. He will walk
with you. You ever take your kid to the store, or
a friend to the store, or whatever, and you've got to get something, and they're getting something,
and they're going to go one way, and you're going to go the other way, and they start to head off to the bread aisle
even though they said they were going for milk. You're like, hey, do you run up
to them real quick and grab their arm and say, that's the bread aisle.
Go to the milk, and kind of grab by the waist and shove them toward the dairy
department. No. You say, didn't you say you were getting milk?
Yeah, I said I was getting milk. Well, you're going toward the dairy aisle.
I mean, you're going toward the bread aisle, not the dairy aisle. Oh, yeah, that's right.
You don't run over and grab them by the waist and shove them toward the dairy department.
That's crazy. That's not how we work.
If you're with somebody and you care about them, they start to go off course,
and they say, hey, wait a minute, don't go off course, and that's what God does for us.
The Antichrist shows you what you want to see
so that you'll go after it. It's bait, then
you're hooked. Now, you're a betrayer, not truly
with God, not becoming like God. You can still act like
the things you're supposed to be. You can still come to church. You can still read
your Bible. You can still do things, but you're not
being anything but a betrayer.
So, it happens then, usually,
that the betrayers go out. That's what usually happens.
They make themselves known. They step out of their
house. They get mad because somebody said something they didn't like.
Or they throw a fit because things didn't go the way they wanted.
Or it lasted too long,
or it was too loud, or the list just goes on and on, of all kinds
of reasons why they have decided that this is not for them anymore.
The real reason is because they had already
become a betrayer. I'm not judging anybody's salvation. That's not my job.
But the real reason, according to scripture, is that that person had already decided
that there was a way that they wanted to go. They had taken the bait.
They were already hooked. And now this is their opportunity
to stop their own hypocrisy. Stop
pretending to be what they're not. And then
they go out. That's what John was talking about. They went out because they were
not really of us anyway. Now it's become obvious. And the
anti-Christ is against what God says. So you've got people in the world
for example right now, and I'm not trying to get political in any way shape or form, or whatever,
says that the church should be open and affirming and support all lifestyles.
And that we should be pro-abortion because it's women's rights.
And all kinds of things like that. And they'll tell you all kinds of things about why you should be a certain
way. There's a lady who said
you can't be overweight and be a Christian.
You can't wear skirts and be a Christian.
All these things, this make it look a certain
way. And that person that's trying to make it look a certain
way probably isn't even a Christian themselves.
The standard is will you learn to be the kind of
person that Jesus is making you to be?
The question is bait or no bait? And I told you up in the upper right hand
corner, God does not bait. The word says God
does not tempt. God empowers us to pursue Him.
He places in our hearts the desire to pursue Him. He gives us with
enough information to pursue Him. Yes there are missing
directions for the same reason that God allows the deceiver, the world, our flesh, to offer
up the bait, free will. So that by the end all will
know the answer to the question, do you love Him? When you stand before Him
and are required to bow on one knee, when you are
required to bend your head, will you do so in anguish and frustration?
Or will you do so out of gratitude and love for Him?
Because all knees will bow and all tongues
confess. And will you bow your knee and confess Him
because you love Him? If you love Him, then you are filled by His
love and you do not need the bait.
Hungry fish eventually bite.
Every fisherman knows.
But the fish that are full, that have eaten well,
they are not going to take the bait. So fill your life with the
things of God and you won't have to worry about the bait. When people come
by and they say, well let's go do this. You can say, no, no, that's not what God
will want me to do. That's not the person. And it isn't even that. And I make
that mistake a lot. We shouldn't say, that's not what God would want me to do.
We should say, that's not the kind of person God is making me into.
I know who I am in Christ
and I don't need whatever, drugs, sex,
entertainment to be whole. I don't need praise.
I don't need any of that that the world is
offering me if I'll do what they want me to do. Because I'm okay
in God. God's got me. I'm all full up.
And in that sense you can say to the Antichrist, there's no
room at the end.