I'll fly away, oh, go hurry, I'll fly away
When I die, I'll know you're by and by, I'll fly away
Some glad morning when my life is over, I'll fly away
To that home I've got to fly so sure, I'll fly away
I'll fly away, oh, go hurry, I'll fly away
When I die, I'll know you're by and by, I'll fly away
Sweet home, sweet true home, come and find and carry me home
Sweet home, sweet true area, come and find and carry me home
I've looked over Jordan, what did I see? Come and find and carry me home
Come and find and carry me home
I saw the light, I saw the light, no more darkness, no more night
When I die, I'll know you're by and by, I'll fly away
I'll fly away, oh, go hurry, I'll fly away
When I die, I'll know you're by and by, praise the Lord, I saw the light
Praise the Lord, I'll fly away
I hope you've used every opportunity to serve God this week.
We're going to pray together at this time. I do want to make a quick announcement to remind you there is a team leader meeting today.
So after service, as quickly after service as we can, if we get transportation taken care of, we'll meet in the cafeteria for that.
Everyone is welcome to attend the team leader meeting, but we do ask that team leaders, coordinators, deacons, and pastors are there so we can go over our agenda plan
and network our team together and give God all the glory. Alright, so let's pray together and we'll worship a little more.
Father in heaven, thank you so much for this day. We see it as a wonderful gift from you.
Lord, even in the midst of turmoil around us when things are crazy, schedules are changing, there's a volatile environment in our government, in our politics, in our city.
Lord, even in the midst of hurt and difficulty where healing is needed, where protection and peace are needed, we know that you alone are God.
You alone have everything well in hand. You alone can make everything turn out for the good of the one who loves you and is called according to your purpose.
And so we praise your Father for being that kind of God.
We confess to you that it's easy enough in the midst of all that and we can say it a bunch more ways I suppose.
To get distracted, to become tempted, to be fearful, to sort of misplace our peace.
We confess our weakness to you and we ask you Lord to forgive us, strengthen us, to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
We thank you for that and for so much more.
Remind us Lord just exactly how good we have it. Just exactly how much we're blessed.
Just exactly how much we're able. Whether we can ever put our finger on it exactly to know those things.
Each day we want to get out of bed knowing that you are God, you have it well in hand and we are able.
We are able now to praise you. We are able now to look to you. We are able now to reach new heights in Jesus.
Would you take over and guide us? We've got our agenda.
The sermon which I believe is from you and committed to you is prepared.
The order of worship is laid out on the board.
Under your leadership we absolutely believe it.
Those of us who are here today we know we're here because it's where we're supposed to be.
And so we ask your Father to work in us, work in our midst.
Exactly what you already want to do. Your will be done here as it is in heaven.
We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Oh Lord my God, you have turned my home.
In you when you are by my strings.
In you my little bad blue and green.
That I can't say no, me bad bad bad bad bad news.
Left off all the hands at sea.
Left the faces laid bare.
Oh Lord my God, do I give my head.
Oh Lord my God, do I give my feet.
Oh Lord my God, do I give my everything.
Oh Lord my God, do I give my life.
In you when you are by my strings.
In you my little bad blue and green.
That I can't say no, me bad bad bad bad news.
Left the faces laid bare.
Oh Lord my God, do I give my head.
We can sail and sail by the race.
We can fall and get back up.
We trust, trust in the Savior.
And the promise He's given.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not be afraid.
We come down to the hill and we stay.
We are there to rest for you once.
Jesus walked on the water.
We trust, trust in the Savior.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not be afraid.
I am your God, so do not be afraid.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not be afraid.
I am your God, so do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
Yeah.
Alright, we come to that moment in time where we talk about how the Lord has been working on our lives since last week, since last Sunday.
We don't usually do this on Tuesday night, but occasionally we'll have somebody give a testimony or something like that.
So you've had a whole walk in seven days to collect how has God been working, what has God been saying to you,
have you made some kind of a breakthrough or realized, man, God wants me to do that?
Or maybe you had a moment of crisis and you submitted that to God and He hauled you out.
He is able to rescue, He is able to save.
And His Word, He tells us every page how much you loved us and how much you intended to send Jesus.
And that entire book, the Bible, from beginning to end is about those things.
Perhaps you read something and He spoke to you.
I'm going to share this very briefly, we got the opportunity to go this week to Life Change Camp,
which turned out to be in the middle of nowhere in the Mohican State Forest, which was really cool.
Now I will tell you that I was completely outside my bubble, outside my box to do what I did.
We took a dozen kids and all their stuff ranging in ages from 10 to 16.
And it was packed full, I thought on the way there, I thought, man, you couldn't get another person's luggage or another button to stand.
There's no way, it's 15 fast in your van.
But I thought, you'd have to lay somebody up along the top or something to try to get anybody else in there.
We were packed full.
Then we got there and they made toolboxes out of wood from scratch and painted them.
And I thought, now we've got 12 toolboxes on top of 12 kids and all their stuff trying to get home.
And when I went to pack the van to come home, it was like the feeding of the 5,000.
There was plenty of room.
There wasn't any room for extra boxes. There was room for extra stuff.
We could have put some more stuff in there on the way home.
I didn't understand that.
It was packed completely differently on the way back and it didn't weigh that great of a lot.
On day one of camp, I got poison ivy.
You can see the remnants of it here and on my arms.
It didn't come from the camp.
I got it probably while cleaning out the van or getting out the camp equipment or something.
Didn't know what it was.
I figured out what it was late Wednesday morning that it was poison ivy.
First I realized that's what it was when it spread from my neck to my arm.
And that's one of the signs that it's poison ivy.
And then we tried looking for something to actually deal with the poison ivy and nope, there's nothing near there.
And she said, well, you probably have to have it shipped.
And I went to Amazon and said, have it to you by 11 o'clock tomorrow morning.
And then when I put it in the address of the camp, they said, no, no, I'm sorry, 5 o'clock Friday afternoon.
And I said, well, that won't do it again.
It will be long, long by then.
So I nursed it with calamine lotion, came home, bought the stuff, put it on and right away it started going away.
But I got through three more days, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The Lord took care of it and praised God for that.
A number of great decisions.
I'm not putting anybody on the spot. I don't do that.
If somebody wants to share something that they heard.
Great speakers. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable testimonies of God's grace and his glory.
And it was in the middle of nowhere.
The food was excellent.
One of the cooks was an Amish woman and she cooked Amish homemade snickerdoodles.
If you've ever had that, that's like cookie, but it's a little bit like heaven too.
And so we had those and I ate too much and gained three pounds.
That's not really what I wanted to do, but I did gain three pounds in five days.
So working on that now.
So it was great.
I might have lost three pounds of water during a two and a half hour marathon softball practice yesterday,
which we do have a double header tomorrow night.
So come out and root for us.
If you can't come out and root for us, we'll be crazy, but that's going to be something.
So it's been that kind of week for us.
If a young person wants to share, you can, but I'm not putting anybody on the spot.
Many of them are in this room over half of the young people that are in this room right now.
So what do you got? What's God been doing? Let's hear it.
I'm going to read some of the song lyrics.
Nice and loud.
Says our God is an awesome artist in perilous times.
We seek his grace as the world and times we face and times we face her fate in the face of the devil.
Devil's mirages in the midst of the pain, disdain and the media's push of all this garbage.
I pray that you keep your faith as the whole world breaks and the real get disregarded.
It's about time we take it back.
The weight's too great for the camel's back.
Strong men made life an easy task, and now the weak men feminize every act.
In the church, in the workplace, every class, on television screens, in the state of wrath.
All virtue's gone and it fades black.
We're in hell on earth and it's going to collapse.
Integrity's gone, or integrity's lost.
I don't know what that word is. Modernize?
Yeah, modernize.
God's on the way. The revolution will be televised.
We're not too far. Don't know if we can rectify all those gates. We will testify.
So the biggest one that I like that really sticks out to me is it says,
In perilous times, we seek his grace as the world.
So for me, what I think of is whenever a lot of people go through bad times,
we try to seek help in other people. We try to seek help on TV.
Or maybe we can follow somebody on social media and they'll lead us to the right direction.
Or maybe I need to just quit my job and do something else.
We try to fix all this stuff by the world's view instead of what God says.
And that's why the next line I like, one of the other lines is,
At times we face turnfate in the face of the devil's mirages.
So we have to understand that there's a lot of things that the devil is going to let you see
and put in front of your face and throw in front of your face.
And when he did it to Jesus, he said, I will give you all this land if you just bow down and worship me.
And luckily Jesus, being who he is, said no.
But we as humans, we see that and we're like, yeah, I want that.
And we go for it and realize that by the time we realize that it's usually too late that we're stuck.
And then we have to rely on God's grace to stop the grace of the world.
All right, anybody else?
You know, I've been going through some health issues and physical issues and I had a date planned.
And the last week I talked to guys, I can't do the same.
My body will not take standard on kind of really health.
So I'll come back and face the coming eight, go to the end of the month.
So as of August 2nd, I don't know how long it will take for me to be able to do anything.
I'm going to give up and join the old players club.
Well, we'll let you in as an honorary member.
Well, yeah, I mean, he just told me, Chris, you can't do it, you know.
You got to do it without something.
There's plenty of work for you to do at the King that doesn't require to stand eight to 10 hours on concrete every day.
Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm going to have to do.
I'll have it all under control.
I'll start making a list.
I have to wait for August 2nd.
I think it's big enough.
Okay, you're taking a three day weekend before you start.
Okay.
All right.
What else?
I've had a recent reconnection with my dad.
We went a long time without talking and then hesitantly talking.
And there was something that happened and it pushed us together and we called it things like he accepted what he did.
I accepted what I did.
We're clean slate now.
And I had dinner yesterday with two of my high school friends who were with me when a lot of the disconnect happened.
And I couldn't understand how I could just forgive him so easily and I'm like, oh, God says, you know, we're not to forgive just seven times, but 77 times.
And I didn't realize how much even not talking to him, like just it not being a part of my life, affected my life.
It's having him back in my life.
I am significantly happier.
And it was just something that I was holding onto that I needed to, that I was kind of forcing myself not to forgive him what I should have.
But I had and we are doing great and I'm not here for it.
And I just want to like that forgiveness was a good fix that for me.
And it's been a blessing.
Yeah, I've been around that bend a couple of times and I would always say that you can really hurt somebody by not forgiving them, but you'll never hurt anybody else as much as you hurt yourself by not forgiving somebody.
It hurts and it will it really will stop your growth.
So it's part of who we are, what we do.
And that doesn't mean you have to allow yourself to be tricked again or be abused again or like that.
But you've got to let it go.
You've got to put it in God's hands.
The only way to do that.
It's good work.
Very good.
OK, well, we're going to.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm going to thank God for forgiveness.
I need prayer for me and my family.
I have anger issues.
If I say I can't do something, I will.
I'm not lying.
I can't do it.
Even if it means you've given me directions, I don't know where I'm at.
I'm not going to lie.
I've been that way since I was a child.
I was a real fan of argument because I didn't think it was going to work.
So I was lost.
My phone wasn't working.
But we talked to each other and I went out for the weekend and it worked out OK.
I was around non-Christian people that see something in me that they don't understand.
They want me coming with them.
So I'm going back to family and family too.
And it's like, no, I lost my sister.
We just had a little thing.
That's the way life is.
And I love my family.
I love all of them.
But I'm helping my sister.
We know we forgive each other.
We just have an issue.
We need prayer for this.
OK.
What's your sister's first name?
Dover.
What's your sister's first name?
Connie.
Oh, and she also needs prayer, please, for being catfished.
She lost her husband a couple years ago before I came to be with her.
Her and my granddaughter told me she's been dead for two years.
It's got her bad and she will not talk to me.
She argues with me about that.
Awesome.
And thanks for the ride.
I pray about it.
I know God is bigger than we are.
All right.
So we're going to remember Connie and Kerry.
This is Kerry.
Connie is Kerry's sister.
And just pray for her for wisdom and strength and healing, I think, would be sufficient.
And then for their relationship.
Pray to God.
OK.
So we're going to pray together at this time.
We'll talk a little bit more.
Deacon Tony, would you lead us in this prayer?
And we'll pray along with you.
It's Connie and Kerry and the five conference and our harbor board.
Dear Father, we're thankful for another day of doing this thing for this day that we can come together as your sons and daughters and worship you.
We ask you to give our service with a passion that you carry the message.
We ask you to be the carry of kindness, strength and wisdom.
Lord, that's something we all need.
We all need the strength that you give.
We all need the wisdom that you give.
Lord, we know where to find it.
Sometimes we just have to open your word.
Sometimes that's just an inconvenience, I guess, for us.
And I know I fail many times.
So I want to repent of that.
And I know what to do, too.
Lord, help us to get into your word and focus on you more.
You pray and knowing God that you're going to answer.
Trust you to see us through things that we need to do.
And we'll do that so more people will be able to operate and pick it up.
Thank you that we can give.
It was a portion of the fact that you've given so much to us.
Thank you, Lord, that we can give.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have actually been working through a sermon series and today brings it to a close.
So you may have missed last week or you may have missed the week before or you may be joining us for the first time right now in this sermon series.
So we're going to talk about what we have been and what has been going on and where we are at now.
So here we go.
So two weeks ago today we looked at Second Chronicles 14 and we looked at King Asa.
King Asa is in the descendant line of David and he was a chosen king in the descendant line of David.
In his early life he discovered this truth that if you seek God, God will give you peace and rest and good things will happen.
And the sermon that Sunday was called the Pre-Flight Checks.
He lived his life by an equation that said his relationship and his relationship to the king of the Lord was if you seek the Lord you will be blessed.
And that's not a bad thing.
And it happens to a lot of people all over the world now.
We even had some examples of that over this last week at camp and so on.
We saw some folks who have seeked the Lord and been blessed.
And it's easy enough to begin to think that that's as far as a relationship with God actually goes.
So Asa searched out God and he was blessed.
But this amounts to basically Pre-Flight Checks.
You're just getting started.
You're just getting ready to fly with the Lord.
This is not actually the equation that the chronicler was pointing at.
The person who wrote the books, First and Second Chronicles, gave us another equation.
The equation being that if you seek the Lord, he will reveal himself to you.
And that is a measure of grace.
It's probably the best understanding of grace that they had.
So the great danger that was exposed in that first week is that man may, because the blessings are unfolding,
because good things are happening, man may remain in the Pre-Flight Checks for his entire lifetime.
Whole families, whole societies, whole quote unquote churches may remain in the Pre-Flight Checks
and never really start flying with God.
And we warned ourselves in that sermon that that is not what we desire.
In the second week, which was last week, we looked at takeoff and flight.
We saw our hero of the story, Asa, finally kind of figure it out.
He began following the principle that if he sought the Lord, the Lord would reveal himself.
And we saw Asa, and really all of God's people do that.
They drew a line in the sand beyond which they said after this point, beyond this point,
it is either me and God or me not at all.
So God's not going away. God will always exist.
And you want a relationship with God. In fact, you were created for a relationship with God.
So you can't say it's either me and God or God not at all, even if you're an atheist.
That doesn't actually work because God's not going anywhere.
He's always going to exist.
And you can try to run from him if you want, but everywhere you go, he's going to see you right there and even be right there.
So he did follow the principle that if you seek the Lord, he will reveal himself.
And the text told us that indeed God did reveal himself to Asa and his people.
And that was awesome.
After they drew that line in the sand and said essentially beyond this point, it is us and God or us not at all.
They threw themselves on the mercy of the Lord.
They determined to depend on God alone.
And in so doing, they received the blessings of the free flight checks,
but also the God in line for whatever God ordained for their people, even if what God ordained was beyond their understanding.
They began their flight with the Lord.
And the word says that in Chapter 15 that God revealed himself to them, which means it actually was happening.
God was amongst his people as God promised he would be.
But we were left with the question, as everything was going really well, how long does the flight last?
What happened to the relationship between God and man when unexpected events unfold?
We saw Asa overcome some early turbulence in his flight.
There was a relationship between him and the Queen Mother and it threatened everything that they had done, everything that they had said.
They said beyond this line, it's us and God or us not at all.
And then the Queen Mother, who was the one who basically put him on the throne as far as humans are concerned,
because she put everybody on the throne for a few generations, she began to worship false gods in his house, in his court, in the palace.
And he had to very publicly go and remove the idols of her false god and even remove her from her position of authority.
For many years, it says, Asa remains faithful to the Lord. And that's how Chapter 15 ends.
But just as years of war and prison might change someone, so too years of peace and prosperity may lead someone to treasure these blessings to an unfortunate degree.
And that brings us to 2 Chronicles Chapter 16.
Amen.
Thank you, sir. Are you ready?
Amen.
We are now going to read from the Word of God, 2 Chronicles Chapter 16. Here we go.
In the 36th year of Asa's reign, so he's been doing this for a while now and he's had many years.
If you go back just a little bit before that, it says, and there was no more war until the 35th year of Asa's reign.
In the 36th year of Asa's reign, Baasha, king of Israel, now remember that God's people are separate at this time.
The kingdom has been divided. The vast majority of the tribes went with the northern kingdom, became part of a kingdom called Israel.
But the Davidic throne that was given through David, which would be the throne of Jesus eventually, was the southern kingdom.
And it was really just Judah and Benjamin. It was the largest tribe, Judah, and included Jerusalem.
But in total area, it was smaller because it was only the two tribes.
Benjamin was a very small tribe, kind of surrounded by Judah. They were there by default.
And the other ten tribes were to the north.
And so what begins to happen now is Baasha, king of Israel, those ten tribes to the north, came up against Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming to Asa, king of Judah.
So he blocks the way. He takes the key city in the area where most all transports going through and he fortifies that city against people going up into Judah.
Then Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Ben Haddad, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus.
Saying, so make sure you understand what he just did. He just took gold and silver, stuff that was worth a lot of stuff.
And he took them from the house of the Lord, so from the temple, and from his own house, the palace, put them together to make a great big treasury.
And he ships them off to a guy who's not even involved. It's the king of Aram.
And this is what he says, let there be a treaty between you and me as between my father and you. Behold, I have sent you silver and gold.
Go break your treaty with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.
So basically he just wants him to tell that there's not going to be peace between Aram and Israel anymore.
So then Israel is going to go, oh, wait a minute. Now we have a problem. We're going to have a two front war. And so they'll back off.
So Ben Haddad listened to King Asa. He took all that gold and silver from the temple and all that gold and silver from Asa's palace.
And he sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel.
And they conquered Ishan, Dan, Abelmim, and all the store cities, which is where they kept a lot of like grain and military supplies and stuff like that of Naphtali.
And it came about when Baasha heard of it, that he ceased fortifying Ramah and stopped his work.
Then King Asa brought all Judah and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building.
And with them he fortified Geba and Mizpah. So he took all those big blocks and wood and everything that they were building that city up with.
And they pulled it back from Ramah and they took it and they fortified two other cities.
So that's the spoils of war. Not really their war. They didn't fight. They just went and took it after Israel withdrew.
And then they used it to bless these other cities and to make them fortified. To bring peace if you will. To bring strength into the kingdom.
Verse 7. At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him,
Because you have relied on the king of Aram and had not relied on the Lord your God, therefore the army of the king of Aram has escaped out of your hand.
So this is what he's saying to make it clear. You went to the king of Aram and you said,
Break peace with Israel. Take all this money. Break peace with Israel. And you let them and they became strong.
He gave them a lot of gold and silver. More weapons, more men, mercenaries, siege engines, all that to fight Israel.
And he said, the seer, speaking on behalf of God, is saying, because you gave them all of that to stop this problem you were having with Israel,
Now they're so strong, you're not going to be able to touch them.
That army of the king of Aram has escaped out of your hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim an immense army with very many chariots and horsemen,
In other words, wasn't there this great big army before? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand.
That was true. We read about that back in chapter 14. That's a huge battle. Huge army, way bigger than them.
And God fought on their side and they had an incredible victory. That's kind of how everything got started.
They sought the Lord. God gave them that great victory. But then the prophet came and said, that's not quite enough.
When you seek the Lord, God has to reveal himself to you. And then they made the covenant with God and God did reveal himself.
Now they've got this army and the prophet is saying, look back at that huge army. You could have defeated these guys.
You could have ruled this whole area like you were supposed to. Verse 9 says,
For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his.
Well, you could have that. I could have that as my life verse. For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro, that means looking everywhere throughout the earth,
That he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his.
You have acted foolishly in this. Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars. No more peace.
So notice, what did he lose? The peace. Now he had the peace when? Before he ever started to fly with God, right?
So way back over here, he just sought God and peace came. And he never found God. God didn't reveal himself yet.
But there was peace. Tons of peace. It was going good. But the prophet said, but that's not good enough.
You're going to give your life to the Lord. You're going to surrender to God. You're going to have, and then God in his grace is going to reveal himself to you.
You're going to be with God. You're going to have a relationship with God. You're going to fly with God.
And he said, yes, that's what we want. And they all did that. But then after a while of doing that, here comes an army, right?
And it wasn't the army of Iran that they were really worried about, although they had had conflicts with them.
But they were looking at the army of Israel that was cutting off trade with them.
And to defeat them, they empowered this other army. Think about it, the history of the United States of America.
How often has America empowered one force out there to defeat another force out there only to realize, okay, now we can't deal with this first force, right?
It happens. And that's what they did. They made it, he made a political move to deal with what he saw was a major problem.
And the prophet is now telling him, when you did that, you so strengthened your enemies that now you're going to have, you're not going to have peace anymore.
You're going to have great wars. Almost done with the text. Then Asa was angry with the seer.
Our hero is now angry with the guy speaking on behalf of God. I've been there.
I've been angry with somebody who was bringing the message of God to me. And I've been the messenger and people have been angry with me.
Thankfully, more of the latter than the former. But it's happened both ways. And he put him in prison.
For he was enraged at him for this. And then there's a little, this kind of sub-note, it's interesting, it says, and Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time.
You catch that? Remember, it was all the people who said, we will go with God or us not at all.
Everybody did it. All the men did it. And the women in the households. And they were all on fire for God and walking with the Lord.
And so if Asa is going to begin to oppress the man of God, he's also got to oppress anyone else who wants to stick with God.
Right? And that's what he's begun to do. Verse 11.
And now the acts of Asa from first to last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet. His disease was severe.
Yet even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians.
So in other words, he didn't pray to God. He didn't ask to be healed in his feet. He didn't turn his heart back over to the Lord.
He's lost his peace. And now, if you will, he's losing his life.
So Asa slept with his fathers, having died in the forty-first year of his reign.
And they buried him in his own tomb, which he had cut out for himself in the city of David.
And they laid him in the resting place, which he had filled with spices of various kinds, blended by the perfumers' art.
And they made a very great fire for him.
So today we're looking at the final installment.
Asa had taken flight. In chapter fifteen, it said that God had revealed himself.
You may be here today, and I heard this at camp a couple of times.
Once you've had that experience with God, once you've had a first-hand encounter with the Lord, there's no forgetting that.
That started something in you. You can't turn away from that without risking a serious crash.
And that message plays itself out loudly in the life of Asa.
The first thing I want you to see in the text here is what I call worldly machinations to solve problems.
So what is a machination? It's just a plan and effort, steps that you take.
But notice that Asa, while he's flying with the Lord, while he's walking with the Lord, and God has revealed himself,
begins to, out of his peace, out of his love for his blessings, out of his fear of an army, whatever,
he begins to use worldly methods to be successful as king.
He first sent large amounts of tribute to Aram to get them to fight on Israel and to free Ramah.
He could have gone down and freed Ramah. He could have sent armies down and freed Ramah. He could have done whatever.
There were lots of possibilities that might have been the way. But the one thing he for sure didn't do is he didn't ask God what to do.
He was flying with the Lord, and he didn't ask God what to do.
This is what we might sometimes do that leads to a crash, is as we are flying with the Lord,
we discover something that seems to work. We find results that we appreciate.
It brings a form of peace, absence of war or violence.
It might bring comfort or wealth or what we consider to be success, promotions, financial success, whatever.
Victory even over enemies, healing, whatever.
And we begin to embrace those things. And where did those things come from?
Well, they came from God. God created every medicine, every herb, every drink, everything that is on the planet
that could ever help you if you have an ailment was created by God.
Literally everything is created by God. Everybody that ever gets addicted to oxy, Percocet, whatever,
those things were created from stuff that was created by God.
They are just then being used in a way that is not God would have it, and then the person is addicted.
It's alcohol, it's cigarettes. Tobacco was created by God.
It has purposes other than smoking it in a cigarette that almost nobody ever uses it for anymore.
Because we have all begun to use it, and by the way people say, well, nicotine calms me down.
Nicotine this and nicotine that. We have taken the things that God has made,
and we are supposed to be flying with the Lord, and we are supposed to be using them what God would have us to use them.
And instead we use those very same machinations, those systems, to provide our own idea of peace,
our own idea of overcoming violence, our own idea of comfort, our own idea of wealth, success, victory, or healing.
Many years ago I was about 10 years old or so, and my parents and I went out to the Apple Butter Festival in Grand Rapids, Ohio.
We were out on the river. I almost can't go there now because it's so busy every year, but we went several years in a row.
And we would go out there, usually in the spring, this is back in the day before we had a cell phone or internet to look up the dates and everything,
we'd go out to the park out there on the river and they would have signs posted for when the festival was going to be.
And then that's how we would find out when it was going to be. We'd go out to the festival, we'd go to the flea market,
my dad would buy some apple butter because he used to love apple butter and peanut butter sandwiches, no jelly, just the two of those together.
And like that, right? So one spring we went out there and it was customary for, if we were leaving to go out,
and my brother or I would be allowed to invite a friend to go somewhere.
If we wanted to go somewhere, we could go to the flea market and we'd say, you know, one of our friends could go with us.
And we usually had a vehicle that sat three people in the back seat. And so it was usually one friend.
Well, I checked with all of my friends that day, the day we were going out to the park to find out when the apple butter festival would be,
and none of my friends were available. And then my brother checked with most of his friends and most of his friends were not available.
And there was a man, a young man, a teenager who was a little bit older than my brother, I think one year older or whatever,
who lived on our block. And he happened to be outside. And my brother just happened to ask him if he wanted to go along.
And so sure enough, he went along with us. Now, this young man was quite large. He was a linebacker. He was 6'5", about 300 pounds.
And he didn't fit real good in the back seat with my brother and I. And I wasn't too content about that.
So because I got squeezed up against the door, my brother was bigger so he could kind of force him over in the middle a little bit.
And he kind of overlapped into my side. I got about this much space to sit in on the way there. And it's not a short drive out to Grand Rapids.
We get out there, we go to the park. And in the park they had teeter totters. Anybody remember what a teeter totter is?
Anybody under 18 here who's actually seen a teeter totter? Okay, so they do still exist. Well, back then that was the premier toy at this playground,
was a teeter totter. There was no big huge monkey bars. They didn't have a bunch of slides. They had one metal slide, right?
And they had like 12 teeter totters. And they were these big metal teeter totters, bars with this huge beam that was like this thick.
And there were a bunch of kids playing in the park. And they were playing on the teeter totter.
So this guy from my neighborhood, who's 300 pounds, goes over and he sits down on the one side of the teeter totter.
He needed to say it's on the ground. He's sitting on the teeter totter and the teeter totter is sitting on the ground.
So my brother jumps up and he grabs onto the teeter totter and he swings his leg up over and he gets up there.
And he's sitting on the teeter totter eight foot up in the air. And he says, Danny, Danny, come over here.
Come over here. We're going to see if we can lift this. So I go over and I swing up on the teeter totter
and I sit up in front of the bar, that T bar that hold it. And I'm sitting up there and it's not moving.
He's sitting on the ground and we're eight feet up in the air. And there were some other kids playing in the park.
And I said, oh, we'll help. We'll help. And this little girl comes over. She weighs like a 25 pounds.
She's going to make a huge dent. And she comes up and she gets in the middle where it's at the ground.
And she walks up the teeter totter and sits down in front of me. We got seven people, seven kids sitting on the teeter totter.
And he's still on the ground. We're all bouncing up and down on the teeter totter.
It's like we could maybe move him up an eighth of an inch. Right. And then so then he thinks he's going to be funny.
So he pushes up on his side. We all go down really hard and like five people fall off and the three people that remain get shot up in the air.
And that's the bad part of teeter totters. Here's what I'm trying to explain to you.
In life, there are heavy, big, immovable things. And there are small things.
And the small things will never mount up to be the big things.
The small things are the machinations of man. Your choices, your decisions, your strategies, your idea of how you might use something to better yourself.
You can come up with a thousand plans and live your whole life by those plans.
And you so every time I get in pain, I take ibuprofen. Every time I get tired, I drink coffee every time.
And the list just goes on and on. You're going to have plans and plans and plans on plans and plans.
And if I drink, if I take ibuprofen and drink coffee and that doesn't work, then I'll take Sudafed because it's a kind of wakes me up.
And if that doesn't work, then I'll, you know, and you just got to plan and plan and plans on top of plans.
And you might have a thousand plans and they're not as good as God's very first single one plan.
You understand? This is what happened to Asa. He got airborne with God.
He had a personal encounter with the God of the universe. It says God revealed himself in chapter 15.
And he said from this point on to get God to reveal himself that way, he said, I will live with God.
And it's not me with God, but not me at all. Do you think that the day that he heard that Israel was fortifying Rama
and the merchants were being stopped from coming up to Judah, that he was still living by the idea that it was going to be him and God or not him at all?
No, no, he wasn't. He had so much peace and so much prosperity and so much flying with God, if you will,
that he now said instead I will use the machinations of man, my own plans. I will manipulate politics or government or money.
He even took gold and silver out of God's house to pay the tribute.
It's a dangerous thing to realize that you could literally be walking with God and make a decision or a plan that is contrary to God's plan for you and thereby destined yourself for a crash.
When things seem to work, when we ask ourselves what will be the results if I do this?
And we begin to think, yeah, that should work. I'll just tell them this and then they'll do that.
Or, yeah, if I lose my temper again today, everyone will leave me alone and I can have some peace.
If I break it, everyone will know I'm upset and everyone will come running to me and ask me why am I upset.
If I save all my money all the time and never give and never tithe and never show mercy to people who need it,
I'll have plenty of money and I'll be able to do everything I need and take my ease for the rest of my life.
That plan is nothing compared to just one inkling of doing what it is that God would have you to do.
The question is do you have faith?
They opened that channel of faith when they said from this day forward it's me and God or not me at all and they all did it.
The whole society did it. And then through that channel of faith, God by His grace showed them.
And it's almost like they said, yeah, well, now we've got God. Now we can do it our way.
And that's not how it works.
We must live our lives by Holy Spirit led choices.
God must become the big guy on the teeter totter in your life.
Second thing to notice in here is behold, adversity as headwinds to take us higher, not to bring us down.
We've been talking about flight the whole time, right?
Did you know that little single engine airplane that I flew back in high school, it needed to go, I'm trying to remember exactly,
I think it was like 48 mile an hour to get off the ground. Your car can go way faster than that, right?
But because of the ratio of weight to the wings and so on, it really only needed to go like 48 mile an hour.
Have you ever seen 48 mile an hour winds?
You might have, right? We get tornadoes, we get hurricanes, we get bad storms that go that fast, right?
And so if that plane is sitting on the ground, the engines completely turned off,
and a 48 mile an hour wind hits it in the direction of the propeller, it's gone.
It'll fly. It doesn't need an engine. It doesn't need a pilot. It'll just go. It's gone.
That's why they tie them down, right? Because a gust of wind will make a plane fly if it's a headwind.
Adversity as headwinds are designed to take us higher, not to bring us down.
The chief adversity that humans face is what?
What is the chief, the number one adversity that we face?
I think I know what you want to say, and I think you know what the real answer is.
Do you want to take a stab at it?
What is the chief adversity that humans face? The number one, say it again?
Okay, so temptation or sin. That's big, right? But is it really the number one? It's really up there.
What is the wages of sin? Death. Death is the chief adversity, right?
Sin results, and so they're very close together. They're very tied together.
And I think most people think that temptation or sin is the chief adversity in life.
So you've got people, Muslims, right? They've got their rules and laws that they have to follow.
And when they break them, they say what? I have sinned against Allah, right?
And this is how it works. If you sin less against Allah,
then you do good in your lifetime, then on the day in question,
it will be the flip of a coin as to whether Allah is merciful and you'll either go or go, right?
That's how their program works. At best, you can earn the flip of a coin.
If you follow all the rules more than you break all the rules.
So we understand the concept of sin. Every religion talks about sin.
Don't sin against whatever. Don't sin this way. Don't sin that way.
Here's the tenfold laws of Buddhism and whatever. We've got all these rules, right?
And so everybody thinks the chief problem is sin. But it isn't.
The chief problem is really death because you will die. And after death comes what?
The judgment, right? So after death, we will answer for how we've lived this life.
So the real adversity that no one can avoid, no matter your effort,
even with God's help, your physical body will die.
And then the judgment for how you have spent this life.
And you will be judged chiefly over all creation in how you handled the Son of God.
Jesus said, I did not come to condemn. Rather, they are condemned already by what they have done with the Son of God.
So the chief adversity then is death. But resilience is inherent to God flight.
So that when death overcomes you, what happens next? You fly, right?
That's how it works. We start our flight with God. We talk about abundant life.
Jesus said, I can't. They didn't have life and have it more abundant. That's a flight with God, right?
And then you're flying with God. And then someone kills you or you die or whatever.
And then right after that, you do what? You fly. So we fly, we hit death, and we fly.
It's barely a road bump. It's like a tiny stumble.
And it really isn't even that if you're flying with the Lord as you proceed through it.
I have seen people in their death beds who knew the Lord, and they were praising God for what was coming next.
Even though their heart was about to stop and their brain was going to be not waving,
and they were never ever going to get anything but horizontal ever again in their life.
They were going to lay there until they were dead. Their family already called in.
And they're praising God because it's little more than a road bump.
The greatest adversity that men face is death. So here's what happens.
A lot of these other adversities feel like death. Have you ever lost a job?
Did you ever think you were madly in love with somebody and they broke your heart?
Did you ever say something to somebody and then they said something back to you and it crushed you?
Like you were ripped internally and it just, what does it feel like? It feels like death.
When flying with the Lord, those adversities are just headwinds.
They're just meant to make you fly higher.
That's what Romans 8 means when it says God can work all things together for your good
if you love the Lord and are called according to your purpose.
I'm going to leave that last part off. Go for it. Asa did.
You'd be making a huge mistake because he left it off.
He said God can work everything for my good and then he left off the if you love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
And so he took the money out of the temple and the money out of the palace and he sent it off
and he thought he was doing the right thing. He used the machinations of man, the political, governmental effort to end the problem.
And he did for that moment.
But because he didn't do it God's way, because he did not love the Lord and was called according to his purpose
after he had begun his flight with him, he instead would spend the rest of his life dealing with war.
No more peace. That's what the prophet said.
And so then what did he do? He persecuted the prophet.
Then there were people in the kingdom who still wanted to follow God. What did they do?
He persecuted them too.
You'll be the one shouting I love Jesus. I'm following Jesus. I want to do what Jesus wants me to do.
And a headwind comes and it's just designed to make you fly higher, better.
But you're so wrapped up in how to solve this problem that you're facing
that you start looking, well how does the world normally do it?
Well right away, I've got to do something. I've got to go to a doctor right away.
Or I need a counselor. Or I need to make more money.
Or I need to ask somebody for help right away.
And there's no consideration that the God of the universe is looking all through the world
and everybody all the time seeking how he may help.
So say it with text.
God must be the big guy on the teeter totter.
Because you compile your plans and your efforts and your drugs and your counseling
and all of those other things on the other side of that.
And if God does not say okay, if God does not authorize it, there will be no healing.
There will be no help. There will be no overcoming adversity.
You will not fly. You will not fly for the rest of your life.
And when you reach death, it will be a horrific experience on the other side of which
you will be forgiven in Christ assuming you did truly believe.
Adversity as headwinds is designed to take us higher, not to bring us down.
The chief of these is death.
And many of the things that we encounter in life feel like death.
But resilience is inherent in God's flight.
Does anybody know anything about eagles?
See anything about bald eagles, American bird, you didn't know that.
It's pretty cool. Eagles are awesome.
Eagles will fly for four to six hours at a time.
Hang on. They don't have a propeller.
And they don't flap their wings.
Now you tell me how that's possible.
How do eagles fly for four to six hours at a time
without flapping their wings or having a propeller?
They gain speed diving. That's true.
But if that was all they did, they would eventually land.
Say it again.
Yes, called thermals.
So everywhere in the world, the air is changing places.
Warm air going up, cold air going down.
As it goes up, it expands and thins out and becomes cold air.
So the air is always changing.
So there's a warm thermal coming up.
The eagle, and God is an amazing creator,
the eagle flies where the warm air is and it pushes him up.
It pushes him up just like that.
That's adversity normally.
So you're flying into adversity so that the air can push you up
and they fly up and they don't flap their wings.
They just hit it and it pushes them up.
This is the kind of life that God has designed for you.
This is the kind of life that God has designed for Jesus,
for Jesus' people.
We're to seek out those things in life.
That means you have to seek out adversity.
Not outside God's will.
He still has to remain the big guy on the teeter totter.
So you're not going to go, well, I'm going to go see if I can pick a fight with somebody
and then that will push me higher.
Or I'm going to go cuss somebody out because they didn't do something right
and they're going to be mean to me back and then I'll forgive them
and then that will push me higher.
No, it doesn't work like that.
You walk in the Lord and you seek out adversity.
So you give more, you serve more, you do more, you push harder
to do the things that the Kingdom of God.
You keep your promises when keeping your promises stinks, when it hurts,
when you barely have the gumption to get out of bed,
you still do it and you keep your word.
You do what you said you would do.
Or you say right up front, look, I don't think I'm going to be able to do that.
I'll try. Maybe I can.
But I'm not making any commitments because right now I'm so burnt.
I don't know that I can do it.
And you tell it right up front like it is.
You don't say I'm going to go do it and then don't do it
because that's breaking your promises.
God hears you speak and His eyes are roaming throughout the earth
looking for whom He may assist to do exactly that which they have said they will do.
Are you familiar with the bird the albatross?
A really big bird.
Albatross.
Albatross has lived to be over 50 years old.
They also use thermals to fly.
They find those updrafts and they land on them
and they glide for really long distances.
An albatross can land in the water and will sometimes
but doesn't do a lot of that because they mostly fly over the ocean
and the ocean can be pretty rough.
And so they will fly literally for days at a time and never land.
You can watch an albatross fly all day for 12 hours and never flap his wings.
All day.
Now why did God make it like that?
Well, I think He's trying to teach us something.
An albatross will usually not see land until it's at least six years old.
Is that not nuts?
You want to fly with Jesus like that.
You want to get going.
You want to encounter Him.
Means you need to like Asa figured it out.
We've got to trust in the Lord to do what the Lord has promised.
Therefore I say beyond this line it's me and Jesus or not me at all.
And now I'm trusting the Lord.
Then God shows up.
I've had that encounter with Jesus.
The Holy Spirit's in me.
Now I'm flying with Him.
Now even if I experience peace or success or victory in the way the world experiences it,
God is still the big man in the teeter totter.
God is still in charge.
God still says it or I don't do it.
God still authors it and when He does I carry it out.
Believe.
Faith is in believing in the next victory, not the last or the past.
Oh man, there's so many.
And this happened at camp.
The girls will testify.
How many people stood up there and told the testimony?
I'm just going to very briefly.
Let me give you very briefly a synopsis of the testimony of several of the speakers, right?
I was a dirt bag.
I was empty inside.
I contemplated suicide, using drugs, victimizing everybody in my life.
I was a complete waste case.
I was worthless to the world.
Probably would have died young.
And then somebody prayed for me.
Somebody shared Jesus with me.
I got to church.
I found out about Jesus.
I committed my life to the Lord.
Had an encounter with the Lord.
And now everything has changed.
Now I'm walking with the Lord.
And now God can use me and I'm flying with the Lord.
That's the testimony.
Now the exact details might be different.
For one, it's a different drug.
For one, it's a different violent episode.
For one, it's a different crime.
Whatever.
But all of us were dirty, nasty dirt bags before we ran into Jesus.
You could say, well, I really wasn't that bad.
I never hardly lied.
I was pretty dependable.
Whatever.
If you can't figure out what you were doing wrong before you met Jesus, you probably haven't met Jesus.
Because Jesus radically rebirths people.
That's what he does.
But if all you can do is look back at what Jesus did back then, if that's the only story you got,
the only story you got is when Jesus saved you or maybe for a few years after that some incredible things happened.
Or about five or ten years ago God did another miracle.
If that's what you've got, you ain't got God.
The word says we know the will of God like we talked about last week.
We are looking at the future.
We're looking at where we're going.
We're talking about what it's going to be.
I understand you can't paint an exact picture of what heaven is like.
I understand you don't know exactly what God is going to do tomorrow.
But you can know what it is that God expects from you.
And if God expects you to do it, then you can know to some degree the outcome.
At least the first steps will be taken.
Faith is believing in the next victory, not the last victory or the past victory.
Those things have already happened.
Faith is the essence of things not yet seen.
The things that we're headed into.
Let me tell you what's going to happen.
We're going to continue to share the gospel.
Some of the people in this room are not going to stay the flight with Jesus,
which means they're going to walk away from the Lord.
They're not going to truly stand up.
They're not going to truly do what it is that God would have them to do.
But some of them are going to stay the course.
And more and more people are going to get saved.
We've got young people in this room who will be preaching the gospel.
And we've got teachers in this room who in ten years will not be because they will have gotten,
they will have endorsed ways of men or got addicted to peace or whatever,
and they don't want to take the risk anymore.
When I was at East Soledad Baptist Church as a youth director,
we had the hardest time finding youth leaders to teach to teenagers.
There were so many mature Christians gifted, spiritually gifted to teach,
and none of them would do it.
So for a while it was just me and Jerry.
That was it.
And then some others came and joined us.
And then some people came to Christ, and they came and joined us.
Pretty soon we had ten or twelve leaders.
Meanwhile, the hundred teachers that were potentially able to teach went down to sixty, fifty, forty.
And it all waned and it all fell apart because they didn't do what it was.
Are you flying with Jesus or not?
And if you are, stop being worried about what happened back then.
It's good to know that.
It's good to know that God did a good thing.
But believe for what God is bringing about as the next victory.
When the gospel is delivered, people will get saved.
If you don't believe people will get saved, you probably won't deliver the gospel.
But it is true.
You say, I know what I have seen when in actuality you should be saying, I believe in what I will see.
That is what God called us to.
Asa said, I know what I have seen.
God is with me.
Let's take the stuff out of the temple and the palace and pay for an army to stop this problem.
Instead of saying, I know what I will see.
I will walk with the Lord.
God will be with me.
God will give us the victory.
Trust him to deal with the armies of Aram.
Instead of paying the gold and silver out of the temple and the palace,
after they conquered the armies of Aram,
they would have gotten richer and richer and more and more peace as they had done before.
Are you fighting the battles or not?
Quick recap so we know where we're at.
Beware worldly machinations to solve problems.
Behold, adversity as headwinds to take us up higher not to bring us down.
Believe.
Faith is believing in the next victory, not the last or the past victory.
And that brings us to our conclusion.
There were two speakers at camp that went back to back.
One of them was the pastor for the week.
His name was Drew.
And he spoke to us a number of times.
I thought everything he said was biblical.
Like he really talked out of the word.
I wasn't super excited about him using the New Living translation
because I'm not a huge fan of that translation.
Because it's a little flowery and it doesn't always stick to exactly what the text is supposed to say.
But he did a good job with it and he preached straight up what the Bible says.
There was a young man who came and he goes to Faith's Life Church and he spoke.
And this is what he said.
Hang on to your hats.
He said, God wants you to have good things. Remember that?
He said, God wants you to have good things.
So if you just follow God, you'll have good things.
You can have the $165,000 sports car.
You can have the mansion on a hill.
You can have all these good things if you'll just follow God.
Not sure that message is entirely biblical.
And then Drew got up right afterwards and he said,
The greatest thing that God could ever give you is what?
Jesus.
And I was like, it wasn't even there.
That's it.
Right?
And by the way, the $165,000 sports car doesn't begin to touch the first sip of wine in heaven.
Or the first vision of his glory.
Or the first song of praise.
You cannot find peace amongst the machinations of men.
That's why Jesus said, My peace I leave with you, I give you not as the world gives peace.
Because the peace that Jesus gives you is not just a lack of war.
In fact, you may go to war.
He would have gone to war to have victory over the armies of Ram if he'd have stuck with God.
The peace that Jesus gives you is peace in the face of trials and tribulations.
It is peace that transcends everything that you are experiencing.
And we could go through every one of the fruits of the Spirit and it would be the same thing.
It's okay to have dreams.
In fact, sometimes God will set a dream in your heart and in your mind about being a great professional in some field.
Or a great caregiver in some way.
Or a great financier.
Or a great day trader.
Or whatever.
And he puts that in your heart so you pursue that.
And all along the way you do what God would have you to do.
And maybe the dream comes true and maybe it doesn't.
But you're still serving God.
Because God's the big man on the teeter totter and you know it.
The Bible says God's mercies are new every day.
This is what it says in Lamentations 3.22 through 26.
It says, The Lord's loving kindness indeed never cease.
For His compassion never fail.
They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Therefore I have hope in Him.
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him.
To the person who seeks Him.
It is good that He waits silently for the salvation of the Lord.
God is the big man on the teeter totter.
You've got to consult Him first before you make any effort whatsoever.
Otherwise you will pile on plan after plan after plan.
Resources even stolen from God Himself.
You will pile on.
And when you pile on those resources stolen from God Himself.
Fear not, God is not mocked.
You will reap what you sow.
You may go the rest of your life without peace.
You may live the rest of your life with a break between you and God.
Even though you're saved.
Even though you'll go to heaven when you die.
You could live with death as your constant companion.
If you're working in the machinations of the world rather than advancing the kingdom of God.
Paul wrote to Timothy in the book of sect Timothy.
He said, But you be sober in all things.
Do your hardship.
Do the work of an evangelist.
Fulfill your ministry.
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come.
I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the course.
I have kept the faith.
In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.
Which the Lord, the righteous judge will award me on that day.
And not only to me.
But also to all who have loved His appearing.
We're not wrapped up in the things of the past.
We're wrapped up in the thing of the future that God is doing.
Stay the course.
Keep the faith.
Fly with the Lord.
Consult Him in every case.
You're hurt.
You got a problem.
Don't pick up the phone to call the doctor before praying to Jesus first.
Don't go solve the...don't take the car or the mechanic before praying first.
Don't spend the money before praying first.
Don't give a word of encouragement before praying first.
Don't give a word of discouragement before praying first.
God is first in all things.
If you have encountered the Lord, you already know this.
Because you open your heart to God.
You believe in what He might do.
And He reveals Himself to you.
It's not like you were playing hide and seek and snuck off on God in a bush.
You said, okay God, I'm ready.
And God said, I'm here.
Or did it happen for some other way for you?
Because according to the Bible, that's the way it happens.
God does it.
And if God saved you, then He's big enough to handle your next problem too.
And your next one.
And all of them until He translates you from this life into the next one.
And don't you want to be like Paul and be able to write, I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the course.
I have kept the faith.
In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.
And God is our treasure, every single one.
Could He give you more money?
Absolutely.
Can He give you more time?
Absolutely.
Did you know that there are only three kings in the Old Testament that are described as
dying of illness?
Three.
Of all the kings.
And Asa, who flew with the Lord, who had been revealed, God.
God revealed Himself.
Dies of foot disease.
What a way to go.
Man, He just should have kept flying.
Ecclesiastes 7-14 says, In the day of prosperity be happy.
In the day of adversity consider, God has made the one as well as the other so that
man will not discover anything that will be after Him.
I'm asking you, do you know to whom you belong?
When you fret and worry, you're dismissing God.
When you face adversity and you're frantically trying to solve the problem,
if I just move this piece here, if I just do that, if I just twist this,
if we try a little harder, do the same things we've been doing, but do a little better at it this time,
you're just dismissing God.
But if you just say, Lord, your will not my will be done, like Jesus did,
the flight continues.
The adversity will just push you higher.
There is no reason at all that you cannot fly with God from the moment you receive Christ
forever into heaven.
Now, please understand, Asa did not have God's Holy Spirit like you or I might.
Once you're saved and God's Holy Spirit is in you, He is in you.
He moves in.
And once He moves in, no one else moves in.
Are you following Jesus?
Have you met the Son of God?
Having done so, your flight has begun and now every single thing that happens is under His control.
If you have not done so and you continue to dismiss God,
then I would suggest that you at least take the plan A method of Asa,
which is seek after the Lord and be blessed.
Why do you want to be hurting? Why do you want to be broke?
Why do you want to not know peace? Why do you want to suffer all the time?
At least seek after God.
And at some point in time, you'll be able to actually say to God,
I'm for you, I submit myself to you, you do whatever you want to do,
and God will do exactly what He wants to do, which is He'll save you.
He'll come and begin you anew.
You'll be born again.
And then having been born again, you'll fly with Him.
And when a problem comes up and God says, fix it, do it differently, do something else,
here's what I want you to do, you just do what He says.
You know what Jesus said? Jesus summed up His personal ministry this way.
I can do nothing without God the Father. I do only what I see Him doing.
And then elsewhere, John writes in 1 John, he says,
if we truly are believers in the Christ, then we ought to walk as He walks.
So how did He walk? He did nothing unless He saw God the Father doing it.
That's how we walk.
Decide today whether you want to continue to use the machinations of man.
It might be worry or regret. It might be money. It might be being belligerent.
It might be being sneaky.
Your own plans for God's plans. What's it going to be?
Starting today, God had better be the big man on the teeter totter,
because all the rest of it does not amount to a hill of beans.
If by some means you manage to collect every piece of gold under the sun,
and you owned it all, like Scrooge McDuck sitting on top of a continent sized pile of gold,
the gold would be worthless.
What are we fighting over?
Just need to follow the Lord.
And once you start flying, don't let the good things and the bad things
that come into your life interfere with you following God.
Stick with Him, no matter what. Go to Him first in everything.
That's where Asa failed, and it destroyed his life.
And it pretty much ultimately destroys the kingdom for the Israelites.
And it was done.
I don't know, maybe you'd rather check out from a diseased foot.
Maybe you'd rather suffer under God's wrath after having known His love
and His peace and His grace and His joy and all the hope that is in Him.
No, I think we can all say we'd rather dismiss the machinations of the world
and follow the Lord in all things.
That's what I'm asking you for, nothing less.
And I believe that some of us will do exactly that. I hope I will.
I ask the praise team to come forward at this time and lead our closing hymn.
As we're singing this song, I want you to think about the process of Asa.
We're not seeking the Lord, we're seeking peace. Yeah, that sounds great.
What? Seek the Lord and peace and good things, but unless God reveals Himself,
you're not really saved, you're not really with Him.
Oh, okay. Well, I want to seek the Lord then, and that's all I want.
And if not past this point, if it's not me and God, then I'm out.
And I can just end right here.
Maybe Asa figured out that there is an eternity after this life.
He wanted that. He got it.
And then, we live decades more settled for the machinations of men
rather than loyalty to the Lord.
Take your stand today.
Would you stand with me as we sing this song?
The Lord has laid on your heart to make some kind of decision today.
Commitment or repentance or sin.
You're saying, I'm done messing around, I'm living for the Lord and the Lord only.
Whatever might be.
And if you make known your decision today, are you sleeping?
Are you standing right where you are or come forward?
Whatever's on your heart.
Let's listen to this song again.
Yeah.
Just as I am without one feet,
The path of God was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come.
That means He's calling you.
That He bid you to come to Him.
Just as I am and waiting Thou to win my soul,
Of my dark spot to Thee, who's black and brandish, O Lamb of God, I come.
We pray today for everyone who's in this room.
As we sing, as we're meditating on these words,
we realize there is no way to get from here to heaven without the blood of Jesus,
without a Savior who paid the price for our sins,
without a Lord who tells us what to do every day.
Father, send your Holy Spirit to fill us.
Let Jesus be our Lord.
Forgive us of our foolishness.
And then even after having encountered you, Lord, maybe we've begun to take the machinations of men
the ways that people do things to solve problems.
Hey, it makes sense to me.
That book makes sense.
That meme makes sense.
The writing on that medicine makes sense.
But here's what makes sense, God.
You alone are God, and we need you today, today and every day.
We are looking back at the great things that you've done.
And we want to use those as our propulsion, perhaps.
We want to use those to generate excitement about what you might do in the future.
But more importantly, Lord, we are looking for what you are doing.
This is your effort to take us home with you.
This is your effort to live in us and to abundantly live.
Lord, help us.
Fill us with your gifts.
Teach us your disciplines.
And let us walk in your ways.
We pray these things in Jesus' name.
Lord, speaking to your heart today, because if we finish this chorus, let me know it.
The fact that God was shed for me, and that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come.
I come.
We're ending our service at this time.
If the Lord has spoken to you in some way and you have not made public your decision,
then let me remind you to do that in the very near future.
Let others in your life, let others in your church, wherever you go.
In fact, if you made a decision to follow Jesus Christ and you encountered Him personally,
whether it be today or a year ago or ten years ago, that is a story you never want to stop telling.
That's what 1st John 1.3 is all about.
We proclaim what we have seen and heard.
And you have met Jesus, you should be proclaiming that wherever you go.
Then doing so, you will see others who will have a similar experience.
All you really have to do, I know this sounds funny, but all you really have to do is tempt them.
Just tempt them.
Just say, listen, I get that you're having trouble believing.
Just say to God, God, if you're real, please come into me.
Please affect me.
Please make me know that you're real.
Just tempt them.
And if they ask the Lord to come into their life,
if they believe enough, just believe enough that it's possible,
God's going to do all the work anyway.
That's not our job.
Yes, ma'am.
That is phenomenal.
What a great blessing that is.
That's incredible.
They said if they took Him off the life support, He would not live.
We prayed He would live.
They took Him off and they had to put Him back on.
And now He's breathing on His own and moving to rehab.
That is amazing.
Yes, sir.
On the way here this morning, I was listening to a preacher,
a sermon about really focusing on the fact that Jesus is not just our Savior,
He's also our way through life.
Amen.
So a lot of people get stuck on the Savior part.
They don't realize that it's a two-way street.
A relationship is giving from both sides.
So not only did He give us eternity through salvation,
we also have to give Him our life.
Let Him come in and just change every aspect of our life,
not just when we're gone.
Amen.
Now, I guess to be born again means He'll teach you how to walk again.
He'll teach you how to talk again.
He'll teach you how to eat again.
Just like when you were a baby,
you had to learn everything you had to learn the first time around.
You learned it again, anew, afresh, with new eyes, right?
Opened eyes again after being born again.
Praise the Lord.
And thank you for that miraculous healing report.
Let's pray one last time,
and then we will maybe give somebody the right hand,
Christian Fellowship or Hague or whatever,
and then the team leader meeting will be as soon as we can make those arrangements.
Father in heaven, I do thank you so much for this word.
Thank you, Lord, that you spoke through the life of Asa.
You've done this for a long time.
I'm sure ever since His story was written down,
that you've been touching lives through those words and through His choices,
and that the latter-day choices were, I guess they were way worse than the early choices.
They've been better, in a sense, for His life anyway, for the story of His life,
if He stayed in the pre-flight checks.
But then we also know that because He met you, He surely is with you now.
And so we pray, Lord, that we would learn from the choices of His life,
that we would fly with you, that you would be the pilot, that you would be the crew,
that you would be the propulsion, that you would be the lift, that you would be all of it,
and we could just trust in you for every day and walk as you would have us to walk.
And then without the wisdom that you give us, that would be virtually impossible.
Without your presence, it would be impossible.
Without the forgiveness, it would be impossible.
We're so grateful.
We're grateful for this kind of miraculous story of healing and perseverance and overcoming,
and we know there is more ground to be done there.
We pray that maybe while He's in rehab, He will recognize that you have done something incredible,
and maybe He can get free from the influences that were affecting Him before,
even the machinations of men that were keeping Him trapped.
And although we get Him to start pre-flight checks, that'd be good,
but really ultimately we want everybody that we know to be in flight with you.
Help us, Lord.
For those who are not with us today, we pray special healing, we pray special help for the circumstances they're in,
or overcoming a temptation or distractions, or Lord, adversity, whatever it might be.
We pray that you'll just, you'll weigh in as we know you want to.
Lord, it is great comfort to me to know that even while I was at camp and dealing with poison ivy
and governing, if you will, children every day, all day, that you were watching.
You were taking care of it.
You were teaching me, protecting me, weighing in on my side, affecting my life.
You're doing that all the time.
And that means that when we face something we don't really want to go through,
even if we have to go through it, we can know without any doubt that you are with us through it.
And even if it should kill us, God forbid, we know where we'll be a moment later, flying with you.
Lord, we'll fly away.
We're looking for the day.
But in the meantime, we're flying with you now.
So help us lead others around us.
Help us lead our lives in a way that you would have us to.
Remember that you are the way and the truth and the life.
Lord, we come to the Father through Jesus the Son.
And we want to walk with you every moment of every day going forward.
Help us do just that.
We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.