Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:01]:
And that happens when I turn my mic off to save the battery, which I shouldn't have done. So. Yeah. So we. It gives us a great opportunity. For me, it's like, at times, it's so easy to go to my house and not really engage with my neighbors. Anybody else know what I'm talking about? Right. And so often it's that kind of a thing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:23]:
But when you're there, you're being a blessing to somebody's kids. And you know what? When you're a blessing to somebody's kids, you're a blessing to them, right? I think all of us knows that. Right. Like, if you've ever got a. Your kids ever got a gift from somebody, it's like, you know, your friends or other people, it's like we're blessed, too. And so it's a way for us to bless the community, bless our neighbors, bless their kids. And at the same time, we want to be giving them invitation not just simply to come to church, but to seek Jesus. You know, I had a great opportunity to talk to somebody that I very.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:58]:
Actually very close to. I've known them for quite a while, but there's language barriers. You guys know, there's, like, from Japan. And, you know, I know that they've kind of. You ever talked to somebody, kind of give you the vibe, like, yeah, I'm good, right? Yeah, I'm good. I'm glad you go, right? Everyone's. There's. And.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:18]:
But I just sat with them and I asked them, hey, can I share something with you? And you know what I shared? I just shared a simple track, and I. I had old bilingual track, so it was in Japanese and English, and used it for when we did missions and stuff like that. And I just went through it with them, and there were some things totally heard, some things never heard before. Right. But it was the word of God. And, you know, from. From that time. They're wanting to go to church now.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:46]:
And the thing is that when you step out in faith and people can only respond, guess what? If they have something to respond to. If we never tell them, if we never invite them, sometimes it's not that they don't want to respond. We just never gave them something to respond to. So this is a great opportunity to give people something to respond to. That makes sense, guys. Yeah. So we wanted to be able to do that together. Hey, you know, as we're rounding out coming up to the end of the month, how many of you guys feel the holidays looming around the corner? Right? So some of us probably anybody already Christmas shopping.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:02:25]:
Ah, well, praise God, you guys. Not really. Not too many people just kind of feeling that pressure, right? But, you know, one of the things I love about the holidays, it's also signals. I don't know if you guys noticed it corresponds with the end of hurricane season, because hurricane season goes, you know, basically from August all the way to the, say, to the end of November. But when hurricane season happens, you know, there's always those checklists that come on the scene. I'm sure that you guys have seen stuff like that. Talk about, you know, develop your evacuation plan, get your supplies together, like food and water and batteries and all that kind of stuff. Get your.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:02]:
Get your paperwork together, have cash on hand, right? All those kind of things. And if you ever go to any one of the city or the state, this is the state's kind of a thing. They get a nice colorful checklist that you can download and print for yourselves. And it tells you all the things and when the. Check it for all that, when you get something completed. And if you're like me, you know, to be honest, sometimes I don't really take these too seriously. You know why? Because I know I have a bunch of that stuff in my house already. It just hasn't all been organized.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:37]:
And. And when you're in that kind of a situation, I think it's easy to say, I got it together. But, you know, when you really know that your checklist is complete, Often it's when it's in the middle of the storm, right? It's often in the middle of things when you try to look for something. I've been on trips where I thought I packed everything I needed. And then at the same time, when I'm overseas, we were in Fiji last year and I packed everything except my adapter. So in other words, I couldn't plug in my computer, my phone, any of that kind of stuff because I forgot, because it had been so long that I forgot. They have a different outlet over there. They run 220 line and, you know, just that kind of a thing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:04:21]:
And thankfully, you know, Dr. Hale has like, all that stuff in his bag. And so I was able to cockroach something to borrow from him. But here's the thing. Sometimes the best way to stand in the storm is, is to prepare before the storm. And it's the same in physical storms, it's the same in spiritual storms. And when we're talking about standing strong in the storms of life, it's not because everybody's going through a storm, because for some of us, it's a great season. For some of us, it's a good season.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:04:50]:
And if that's you, praise God, we're so excited for you. But we all know no one is immune to the storms of life. So this evening, we want to look at. For those of us who are not in the storm, those of us who are in the middle, it's a good season. It's not the season to pretend like nothing will ever happen to you. It's not the season to say, hey, life is good. It will always be good. You know what's always good? God's always good, right? But if we're real honest, not every season is good.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:05:22]:
Not every day is good, although God is always good. And so we need to be prepared. Part of it, he says, is in the good days, you know, that we prepare. In the Book of Proverbs, it talks about coming up, that the ant prepares its kind of its nest for kind of a leaner days, right? In the midst of summer, in the midst of abundance. We see it's working, and it's kind of like working always, right? And so it says, consider the ant for us to not get lazy. But Jesus gave us an illustration, not an illustration. He gave us some instruction that we're going to read together in Matthew 7, verses 24 to 25, about how to be prepared. So would you do me a favor? Let's stand reverence for God, reverence for His Word.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:06:10]:
And we're going to read that together, Matthew 7. And this is what it says. Let's read. Ready? Begin. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock, let's say. Wise man, right? Right. So how do we become wise? He says not only that you hear the Word, but that you act on the Word, right? Everybody who hears these words and does them, and then it goes on and it says, and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded the rock. And I'm sure everybody here, you've been through storms.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:06:53]:
And for some of us here, we're currently in storms. But this instruction tells us, you know what, that when our life is built in the right way, in the right place, right? With some preparation, you know what it's saying? Not only can you stand, that you can stand the worst that life can bring. You can stand. You can be unshakable, your faith can be unshakeable, your life might get shaken, but it won't fall. That's his promise, right? That's his instruction. And so he's saying to us, but it takes preparation. So before you're seated, do me a favor, turn to your neighbor and say, you and I, we can get prepared. Preparation doesn't sound sexy, but it makes all the difference in the world, right? It makes all the difference in the world because everyone faces storms.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:07:51]:
No one is exempt. But one of the things that we'll see is that how do you build a life? How do you build a house? In this metaphor that he uses, how do you build that in such a way that it can stand not just in the good times, because all of us can stand in the good times, right? You don't see. Sometimes we don't even need God's help. It seems like in the good times, because I'm already doing it, right? That's how sometimes we feel. But he's saying it's not that we wait to call out to God till when the times get rough. He says, sometimes the biggest thing is listen. Now, when it comes to building something, when it comes to building something that lasts, I think we understand that structure and location determines outcome. You know, I used to think that sometimes when I would see people whose lives seem so out of balance, but somehow it's working, right? And I would never have done that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:08:46]:
I've given counsel to do the exact opposite of sometimes the way people are living. It's like, you know, when people whose schedules are totally upset on married couples, that they never see each other because they're working in opposite days, working at opposite times, and they're just kind of running and gunning, going from one thing to the next. And. And I would say, you know, like, my wife and I, we made conscious decision that even though it would cost us financially, even though it would, you know, yeah, we do without, that we live on less, is that we wanted somebody to be home. Because my schedule is so up and down, and sometimes I'm, you know, called to situations where, you know, we don't want to be in a place where we're missing. I didn't want to want to ever have that time where my wife and I could never connect, right? And so she stayed at home. And it's not. Maybe it's not the right choice for everybody.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:09:44]:
That's just the choice we made, and we're glad that we did it. But when I've seen other people do that, to be honest and thinking, well, I guess, you know, maybe it just works for Somebody, unfortunately, over time, what I found is it can work for a season. But to be honest, if it looks like it won't work, it generally doesn't, right? And it's because we understand that it's not sustainable. And so when it comes to building a life that lasts and a life that can stand, it takes a couple things. We ask ourselves, what kind of structure are we building? Are we building something? Are we building a life that can stand in the hard times? Or we're only building a life that lasts because everything is good, right? If all you want is a life that only is good when everything's good, I can tell you this. You don't need Jesus. You don't need Jesus, because not everybody's life is hard. Everybody will have a hard life in certain seasons, right? If you want to be able to stand, then, right? If you want to be able to stand before God at the end of your life, you want to be able to stand in other seasons.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:10:55]:
To be honest, you really need Jesus. But to be honest, if all you want is a good time and it's a good time now, you could ride that wave for as long as it'll last. But we all know it doesn't last. But the other part of it is where you're building, because when you're hunting for a home, or even when we were looking for a new ministry center facility or we're looking for a place in Kapolei, we. We're looking at location, right? And so when we chose this location, it was because there was no place else to go, frankly, this particular place. So sometimes that's why when you guys come, and many of you, when you come to this place for the first time, I love the reaction. Sometimes it's predictable. When they walk inside, he goes, wow, it's nicer inside than I thought.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:11:45]:
It's because. Why? Because the outside location doesn't look so good, right? But to be honest, when we're in. When we went to Kapolei, we wanted to choose a place that was central. We wanted to choose a place that was bright. We wanted to choose a place that was welcoming, open. And Hookele elementary is a great location. Because what's the. What's the old proverb when it comes to kind of starting a business or kind of doing something in a place? It's like, location, location, location.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:17]:
We all understand that. But it's not just about businesses. It's about a life as well. Where do you build your life? And Jesus gives this message when talking in Matthew, chapter seven. He's talking as he's overlooking the Sea of Galilee. This is the tail end, to be honest, this portion is the tail end from the Sermon on the Mount. And so he has been preaching. If we look back, it disturbs.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:43]:
This message started in chapter five. But we're coming in on the tail end of this and he's overlooking that place and he's saying that there's different kinds of materials out there and different places that you can build. But there's the sense where it's a wise builder and a foolish builder. And he goes on in this passage, and he says this in 7, 26 and 27, he says, and everyone, everyone, let's say the word. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And it's not some, it's not saying some who hear these words of mine and don't do them will be a foolish man. He's saying, everyone, everybody, there's no exceptions. He says, because.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:13:35]:
And the rain fell and, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was fall. Why is that? Because it was built on the wrong place. And if you've ever been to Galilee, if you've ever been to Israel, they have sand on the shore. But the sand is totally different than Hawaii sand. If you've been to the desert in some places, you, you might see a very fine kind of dusty sand. Very different than the Hawaii sand. What does Hawaii sand like? Pretty, pretty round, Right. Pretty smooth, white, shiny, glisteny.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:14:17]:
Right. And you know, nice. I mean, pretty small, but not the smallest. Sometimes they call it a medium grade sand, but it's a very kind of a shifting sand. So when you walk on sand that has dried, is it hard? No, it's soft actually. Right. It's very soft. You can walk on the sand.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:14:37]:
So it's good training for some of us that in your younger days or in your days of sports, maybe you ran on the beach, right? That's a hard run because you sink in that sand. The sand in Galilee is different. The sand in Galilee, they call it an alluvial sand. It's a sand that has happened as the erosion of a river has brought down little aggregates, little pieces of rock that have been loosened and worn down and they're not as smooth as regular sand in Hawaii. Right. Because the sand in Hawaii has been pounded continually from the coral, broken coral, right. Over hundreds, if not more years and we have this fine sand that's on our seashore. But in alluvial sand, it's often made from rock.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:15:30]:
In that area, it's balsalt and, you know, other kinds of rock, but it's not so smooth. And so what happens is, when it settles, it actually kind of locks together a lot better because there's little angles and parts to it. And so it actually becomes quite hard. And if you walk on that sand, it almost feels like pavement. Some. In some places, when it's hard, some of you maybe that if you do you build that, you get, like, concrete dust. You get that. Not concrete dust, but granite.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:02]:
And they use that as a compact. They use that as a thing to put under a pavement. Why? Because the way that it packs is different than, like, beach sand. Right. And so. But what we find at the same time is when the water hits it, when the storms come, when it's been agitated, all of a sudden that thing that you thought was solid is not solid. It doesn't stand up. And so he says that's why when the rains come, the floods come, and the winds blow.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:36]:
He says, great. Was it fall. None of us plans to build a life that falls, falls. Neither do we hope to live in a house that it falls. It's just that you don't always know what it looks like, because sometimes looks are deceiving. But when the rainy season comes, sometimes it shows itself. I have some very good friends who used to be a part of our church and had moved to the mainland, and they found a gorgeous home. And they were always telling me, glenn, come and visit.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:17:10]:
Come stay over. Come, we'll go fishing and all that. And when they say, come, stay over. We'll go fishing. And there's a little part of my brain just goes, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Maybe that sounds good. And one day I finally. I was already going to be up for a conference, a convention in Seattle.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:17:28]:
So I swung down, and it was a fair drive right down. But when I was driving to the house, it was one. It was a beautiful location, you know, forested, nice and cool, green, like, really green. And as I'm driving on, I was thinking, man, they're. They're kind of out there. But as I. As I make the drive in, I just go, oh, my gosh, this place is amazing. And there's a giant lawn that is out there.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:17:59]:
All of a sudden, the trees break. There's a giant lawn. I see this big house, and I get out, and I walk out, and it's like, oh, my God. This is like this Is like. Looks like it should be an inn. You know, it looks like somebody should pay to stay here. It's kind of that kind of a house. It was a big house.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:18]:
Inside was nice. They're the most hospitable people. They have an amazing gift of hospitality. So their house is decked out for to have like the. The kids from the church that they're going to at that time that. To have them over singles. Their house was just kind of decked out like that. And right around the house was this creek that flowed of beautiful crystal clear water.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:45]:
Salmon comes up that stream. We got to wet the line a little bit, right? So I was just thinking, I got to bring my wife, right? I got to bring the kids. We're going to come. And then it was. It was a beautiful house. Till one day there was a rain and a storm and they called it the hundred year flood. And all of a sudden that little tiny stream or creek or whatever it is, that that thing was not just dirty and high, but it overflowed its banks and flooded their first floor. And they had to get out.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:19:24]:
And literally, that my friend, she was literally floating away in her car. And if it wasn't for Frank who reached out and grabbed her and pulled her out, she would have been gone with the rest of the storm. Needless to say, they sold the house, right? And they moved on, right? And because as beautiful as it looks in the great season, you want to be able to stand in the midst of the storm. And what makes the difference? Sometimes it's where you build, sometimes it's what's under your feet. Because whether it comes once in a lifetime like that, it would have ruined the rest of his life had something worse happened. Thank God Jesus is faithful, right? How many of you guys can say, thank God Jesus was faithful? Because if you face storms, if you face storms, and sometimes we go like, man, I don't know if I could make it right. But God is faithful. But he does tell us this in verse 24.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:33]:
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And what he's calling us to do is, is simply to reset to obedience in many ways. To reset to obedience that when we're in a place of moving through in our lives. He says this in John 14, 15, 17. He says, if you love me, what? Obey my commandments, right? He says he doesn't say hear my commandments, right? He didn't say hear. He says he assumes you've Heard. He says, obey my commands. Then he says this, and I will ask the Father and he will give you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:21:16]:
Let's say, give you. Sometimes. You guys ever find that it's hard to obey? Right? Yeah. I'm with you. I know what it says. Sometimes I don't know if I can do it on my own, but this is what I love. What it says that he will give you. He will give you another advocate.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:21:34]:
It's not just you. When you try to obey Jesus and you don't do it only on your strength, you ask the Spirit to help you, you have another advocate who will never leave you. He is who, the Holy Spirit, who leads you into all truth. He says this when you reset to obedience and that you're saying, it's not just because I'm going to prove to God how faithful I am. I'm going to prove to God how strong I am. I'm going to do all this stuff because that's who I am. No, we say sometimes when it's too hard, we ask for God, call out to him, ask for help, ask for mercy. But this is what he says.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:22:12]:
I'll give you the help that you need. The Spirit himself will hear you. That you and I. To be honest, it's not impossible to obey God. Do me a favor, turn to your neighbor and just say, it's not impossible to obey God. Right? It's not impossible. Right. Last week we looked and it says, these commands I give you, that you are to do, they are not burdensome, right? It's not burdensome.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:22:40]:
In fact, it leads to life. The reason why he wants us to reset to obedience is because they provide life for us. It's life giving to us. How do we do that then? How do you reset to obedience? To be honest, sometimes you got to stop making excuses. Sometimes you got to stop making excuses. How many of us that we have something that we know God has called us to do, but we have said, not right now, Lord, why? Because I'm busy. Because I'm not doing as great as I want to, right? Because I say it's like, because I don't know if this person will be open to what I say. And we have excuses.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:29]:
We all have excuses. But I love what the old saying says, that delayed obedience is actually disobedience, right? That when God tells us to do something that be quick to obey. Sometimes we have to. For some of us, we have to pick up the pace of our faith. Because some of us, we hear, right, that we're just like a puppy Dog. You guys ever see that? You guys ever. How many of you guys? I know that we have a lot of dog owners here, right? You guys love your dogs, but when you call your dog, what happens to the dog, right? And it's maybe first thing he does kind of one of those. But the next thing, what does he do? Doesn't he normally just come running to you, jump in your arms, lick your face, right? All that kind of a thing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:24:22]:
But I have cats. What happens when I call my cat smokey, squeaky, you know, Momo, come here. You know what I see? Sometimes just the ear kind of goes in that direction and they're thinking about it. They know their name, they just know come, right? You know what? God wants you to be more like a dog than a cat. I have cats. I want to be more like a dog than like a cat, right? So. Because to be honest, it's not that they don't know, it's not that they don't hear. They hear.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:25:02]:
They just slow, you know what, you know what they say? Literally, research says cats are evaluating in their mind whether it is more beneficial for them to come when you call or to just do what they're doing. How many of us, that's what we think, right? That's what we think versus a dog. The dog is much more relationally connected and a relational animal. And so he comes because you're his or her master, because your his or her people, because you're his or her tribe. And that's why they come. They define themselves by their relationship. And God wants to invite you and me to define our lives by our relationship to him. Because he says, because when you hear, when you respond, when you obey, he says, you know what? What happens is your life gets unshakable.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:26:07]:
But when we delay and how many of us have had that situation come, it's like, lord, I was just about to get to it before something breaks down, something blows up, relationship goes crosswise. For many of us, we were not totally blindsided. We knew God was telling us, but what did we say? Not now, not right now. So how do you get back? Stop making excuses. I make excuses like the rest of us. And when those times happen, I want to kick myself on those that said. I knew you told me earlier, right? I knew you told me earlier, but let's be quick, Be quick to listen, be quick to believe, be quick to move. You don't have to finish sometimes.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:27:09]:
Sometimes you just need to step in the right direction sometimes. When he says to contact that person, just make the call, just shoot the text, just do the drive by. Just stop by, just check in, right? Sometimes he says, I want you to move in this direction. You don't even know why you're moving in that direction. Just start moving because you don't have to have it all figured out. That's one of the things that's a misconception in the Christian life, is that we have to have a great understanding. We have to understand everything before you move in that direction. That's cat theology, right? That's cat faith.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:27:44]:
Have dog faith, right? Have dog faith. I love dogs. I don't have dogs. Because we don't live a dog lifestyle, right? Because that's like having a baby. Cats give them food, give them water, they're fine. But they don't come when you call, right? They don't always listen. I want to be more like a dog than I want to be like a cat. And so here's the thing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:28:08]:
How else do you do it? Sometimes you and I, we need to hear the Word of God and be in a place to read the Word of God because it does something to us. So that we get in the habit, not just of hearing the Word, we get in the habit of responding to the Word. I love what Jesus said in John 6:63. Let's read what it says together. Ready? Begin. It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:28:44]:
You know, I have seen people and I never experienced it too, I'll be honest, is that when they're doing great in life, they long and look forward to reading the Word of God. It's the first thing you do. It's the first thing you do in the morning. It's the thing when you get off work. It's that thing when you do before you go to bed. It's that thing that when you're driving, you're listening to maybe a message, you're in this kind of a situation. And then I've seen others of us that when it's a hard season in our life, when we're drifting and we're off the reservation, right? We're kind of not in a good place. There is no way you want to open this book.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:29:29]:
And what the old saying, how the old saying goes is true, that sin, this book will keep you from sin, sin will keep you from this book. And so one of the reasons why we have to be in the Word of God, because when you hear it, he says this, it's Life, right? You want more life? He says, get the word of God in you. Why is that? Because it opens your eyes. Because it releases possibilities. Because it tells you the truth beyond what your emotions say. It gives you a hope that does not change. It's a revelation of God. And he says this in 2nd Timothy 3, 16.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:11]:
Because all scripture. Let's say all scripture, right? All scripture. It's not just Jesus's exact words. He says all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable. For teaching, for reproof. What is reproof? Reproof just shows you when you've stepped out of line. Why is that important? Because if you never knew when you stepped out of God's will, you know you'll never know until you're in a place when your life crashes. Sometimes God has to tell us certain things.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:42]:
You know, Glenn, this part of your life's not right in line right now. Why is he saying that? Because he doesn't like me. Because he's trying to pick on me? No, because he doesn't want me to suffer the consequence. So he says he'll give me that reproof. He'll give me that sense of understanding that I'm not quite in line. And then he says this. There's for correction. What does that mean? I know how to get back in line.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:31:09]:
I know how to get back in line. For some of us, we don't know how to get back in line. You know something is not right. You just don't know how to get right. But the scripture says this. It's just good to give you information and to teach you or to show you where you're out of line. But it helps you to get back in line. That's correction.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:31:26]:
And then for training in righteousness, which means how to stay online, how to stay on track, how to stay strong in him. That the man of God may be complete, let's say complete. What is it saying? That you have everything that you need? Does it mean that you're perfect? No. You and I will never be perfect in life, right? That's not the goal. The goal of life is not to be perfect. The goal of life is not to be sinless. If your goal is to be sinless or never make a mistake, you know what you'll do? Nothing. You're going to do nothing because you're going to be afraid of making a mistake.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:04]:
You're not going to step out in faith. You're not going to try to follow God. Because I might fail in some ways. So we do nothing. We do less. That shouldn't be the point of life. God knows you will make mistakes. He knows you will fail.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:21]:
But would you rather fail? Would you rather fail when you're trying to do something bold for God to obey him, or you did something off because you just trying to hide? Right, Right. I'd rather fail forward than fail backward. And so this is what he says. All scripture is breathed out. It's not about just how to live in the world, Right. It's how to live beyond this world. Right? It talks about. Yes.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:51]:
Your relationships. It talks about marriage. Yes. It talks about work and, and how to succeed. There's stuff like that in the Bible. How to gain favor at work, how to get influence. It talks about at the same time, the depths of God's plan, the depths of God's thoughts, the things that are eternal, the things that last forever. And it talks about finances, right.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:33:12]:
And it talks about dealing with money. It talks about when you're not doing well, when you're sick, when you're in this place. How do we deal with these things? You learn it by being in the word of God, right? It's an encouragement if through the ages, it is the word of God that does not change. Seasons change, culture changes. You know, even our culture in the last five to six years, have we noticed any cultural changes? Oh my gosh. It's like a roller coaster, right? But guess what? The word of God never changes. If we're a Christian and all we try to do is follow what's popular at the moment, you'll have the worst roller coaster rides of your life, right? But when you live by the word of God, you know what? That even when the things that the scriptures say are out of favor, you know whose favor you'll have? You have God's favor if you're right. But guess what? If you're just riding the wave, so often the things that the world says are right the world's way, you can be popular in the world, but you can be very unpopular with God.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:34:29]:
That makes sense. I would much rather live for the approval of God than the approval of the world. Because God's word will never change. Culture changes, right? Things change, but God doesn't change. His word is eternal. And in fact, he says if you don't know how to take a step in the next season, he says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Right? It deepens our understanding. Right? There's a depth to the Word.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:35:04]:
The Word of God is not just teaches you the Word of God doesn't teach you five steps, how to be happy, right? It doesn't teach you three steps to success. There's a deeper sense to this thing, right? It teaches us about what? The substance of the way God is the substance of life. And sometimes because you're in a different place, right? That some of us, we can be in this place that we have read. And how often have I talked to people when they have said this? I read this passage before, but it never hit me like this before, right? Why is that? Why does that happen? Well, sometimes we didn't understand what it said in the first place, right? Sometimes that's the case, you're just getting the gist of it, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. It's okay, right? The first time you read something, the first time you heard something, you don't know all that's in there. To be honest, I've read this maybe 25 times all the way through. I don't get the gist of all of it, right? I don't know it all for sure.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:36:17]:
I'm not even close. But here's the thing that the more you're in it, the more you'll get. And the thing is that sometimes what happens is sometimes your understanding gets deeper. So you do understand something. But most times, this is what I think. Our life is in a different place. Our life is in a different place. So if you read this evening we sang a song that's based on a passage from Isaiah 56, that 54, that you turn our mourning into dancing.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:36:56]:
And that part of that passage goes on and it says, and you give us beauty for ashes, right? And then it talks about how that God is for us and not against us, and that no weapon that's formed against you shall prosper, but that he will vindicate you because this is your heritage as saints in the Lord, right? You can read that passage when everything is great and you go, oh, that's nice. Oh, that's nice. That's a nice verse. But when you're in the midst of a deep time, you're in the middle of a storm, things have gone backward for you, you suffered loss, you're not sure how to move forward. You read that passage, it means something else. The hope that it gives you can be something else. And so often the word of God, the spirit of God, will illumine the word of God to speak to you in the different seasons of your life, right? And some of them you're going to be in a season of great opportunity. And some of them will be because you need to extend yourself and go beyond where you are.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:38:08]:
And for some of us, you're going to have to hold strong in those moments. But it always speak to where your life is. In fact, I will say this, this book has truth in it that will reveal to you more than you ever can know about yourself and your own life. When it says this, that for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. What is it talking about? It's talking about that sometimes that you will read the word of God and you will find yourself and you go like, this is me, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I am going through and I didn't even have the words for it. And God will say to you, this is you at this moment. And you know what? It reads you when you read this word. This word is reading you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:39:20]:
And it's not to put you down, it's to help you. Sometimes it's to teach you, sometimes it's to reprove you, sometimes it's to correct you, sometimes it's to help you to stay on track. But it's this word that we need, you and I. We need the word of God. Do me a favor, turn to your neighbor. Says we need the word of God in our lives. In fact, Hebrews 2:1 says this, let's read what it says. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:39:58]:
It's not talking about have a cursory reading of the word. No, we all start in that kind of a place. But it's saying we need to pay attention to the word reset towards obedience. Be quick to obey, be quick to believe, Right? Because why it's towards you, blessing and so that you don't fall in to the wayside, right? So that you build a life that is strong and unshakable, not one that collapses in the midst of the storm. And we need to practice, to be honest, we need to practice obeying God's instructions and commands. Thank you, Ben. You know, I think, you know, I'm just looking out in the congregation and I know that, that some of us have been through some pretty rough things, but There was a 2006 medical study that revealed how difficult it can be for people to change. And it was surveying 600,000 people who had heart bypasses that were going in the US right And these people, when they've had their bypass surgery that they're told about a few things that they got to do, what do they have to do? Generally got to exercise, right? You got to eat a little better, right? You know, you got to get proper rest, all this kind of stuff.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:41:28]:
And it's stuff that to be honest, all of us should be doing, right? How many of us that is that rocket science? We got to eat better, right? We got to get exercise and we got to have proper sleep. Anybody here that's like, oh my gosh, I never heard that before, right? There's nobody in this room we haven't heard that before. But for people who have had heart surgery, people who have a heart condition, they have to change their diet. For many of them, they got to quit smoking and drinking and they got to reduce stress and exercise is great part of that. And in essence, what doctors are saying, if you want to live, do these things, unfortunately, what they have found, this is the statistics that come up, that 90% of heart patients over a two year span do not change their lifestyle, right? The first year or two they might try, but basically end up 90% says remain the same, living the status quo. And so what some doctors or medical people are saying is that if you don't make a choice to change, you're choosing to live a shorter life, right? And so change is difficult, right? It's difficult for the majority of patients. Now I've heard people say they've gone through that surgery and they've been there and they go through this thing and then people have told them, but you're not going to do them. I think that's, I think the wrong approach.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:43:02]:
I don't think that's how the medical people should tell it, but they should be saying, you can change and you can do just will require something. You got to change your habits. And when it comes to changing our habits, I think for many of us, we look at that and we say if they were to say you have to change how you eat, for instance, right? If you have to change how you eat, that a hard one. Yeah. All the people that we change our diet, we know how this is not easy, right? But this is one of the things. And I've had people, my friends, who never changed the way that he ate. He's with Jesus now. And so when, when you guys say to me, it's like, well, Glenn, you lost plenty of weight.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:43:55]:
How did you lose weight? It's like, I never want to lose weight. I just wanted to get some Stuff under control. And what was the result? I lost weight. Right. But even with my friend who I was talking over and over and over, Brian, we're concerned about, you said, yeah, but you know what, Glenn? Healthy food tastes junk. But this is what I said to him. And I've learned this from experience. Most things, when you change, taste junk till you do it long enough, till your tastes change.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:44:44]:
When you change, there is a lag. But if you make that change over a period of time, you know what happens? Your taste change. You know how I learned this? From doing the Daniel Fast every year. I'm not a vegetarian. I don't pretend to be a vegetarian. I don't want to be a vegetarian. If you're a vegetarian, God bless you. I don't want to be a vegetarian.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:45:07]:
Right. But this is what I found out. I could do it if I needed to. Because the first three, four days. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Sometimes it's like, oh, my gosh, this food, there's no taste or whatever it is, right? But you know what happens by the end of four or five days, my tastes change. And then I start going, oh, this is pretty good.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:45:33]:
My wife and I, we end up saying often, hey, we should eat like this more often, right? Because if you commit to a change, you know what you'll find? Your tastes change. And reason why we quit is because we don't get to the place where our taste starts to change. And God says the same thing. There's certain habits that you have. There's certain habits that I have. There's certain things that God might want to put his finger on. And you say, I can't even imagine doing it right? But how many of us are in this place? I couldn't imagine Jesus being good. And then what happened? You tasted and saw that the Lord is good, right? That you tasted and saw, like, you know, from experience.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:46:24]:
You know what? Keep going. You find the same experience, right? When we say, move towards fellowship, right? Move towards other people. Right? Move towards God's word. Sometimes we go like, I don't know. I don't know if I want it. But if you keep doing it, you're going to find that the Lord is good, that fellowship is good. Right? That the word of God is good. But sometimes what has to happen is I got to die to myself.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:46:55]:
I got to put away something, right? The way that I've always done it. And I think it's in those kind of moments that what we find and what I'm finding is I don't know where I put My page is that what? The good news is that God says this, Even if you have built your life on the sand, that it's possible to make a change. There is a wealthy city that once wanted to build a building to be the centerpiece in that city. And it would be a place that would be the center of town. It would set the kind of call to worship, and when prayer would happen, when civic events would happen, it would be a warning time in signs of emergency. It would be a place that was of great renown in the city. And so it began with great pomp and circumstance in building this tower, really a bell tower. And it started well, but after a few years, there were some wars, there were some financial constraints, and work was paused for almost 100 years.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:48:16]:
And it took 199 years for it to build eight stories of this building and for it to be completed. And they call it the Honolulu Skyline Rail System. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding, right? They open the next segment at least. But maybe this picture will help you to think, what am I talking about? And this probably is a familiar picture, right? It's called the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And in this picture, though, this isn't how it looked 200 years ago. It's not even how it looked 30 years ago or 35 years ago, because since its building, since the inception of its building in 1173, it didn't take them long to realize that there was something wrong about where they were building the building. It was because it was on a clay soil.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:49:16]:
And if you know anything about construction and clay soils, it's very subject to expansion when it's wet and dry and it can move up and down. And so what happens is that it began to lean. In 1350, the lean was 1.4 degrees. In the 1800s, it was 3 degrees. In the 1990s, it was 5.5 degrees. In other words, 15 over 15ft off vertical. And so at that point, engineers feared that collapse was imminent. Right.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:49:52]:
So what did they set out to do? They set out to renovate. They set out to do some retrofitting. And after some significant engineering effort, they figured out with some things that if they were to excavate the clay soil, replace it with something that was solid expansion, they added weights on one end and cables in different areas as they did this construction, that they not only stopped the lean, they actually brought it back a bit. Now, they didn't bring it back to perfectly straight. You know why? Because it's called not the straight Tower of Pizza. It's called the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They just wanted it to stay in a place that would be picturesque and people would come, but not in a place that it would fall. In 2008, they said that it had stopped shifting and it stabilized at that about three and a half degree kind of an angle.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:50:58]:
And so all of that happens. Why? Because the good news is that God allows renovation, right? God allows renovations. And what he wants to renovate so often is our hearts. It says, I love what Jesus, the word of God says in Ephesians 4:17. And he says this, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentile do in the what futility of their minds. He's saying this. Don't live like the world that thinks everything that they want to do is the right way. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to what their hardness of heart.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:51:49]:
What does God want to renovate? To be honest, it starts with your heart, right? It starts with your heart. So that when we hear the word of God, we don't just say, yeah, that's nice, God, but I have my way, right? It's nice, God, but that's not the way the world works. It's nice, God, but this is not. You know, I want to put my thought in what God says more than what the world says. He says they have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality. What is sensuality? Sensuality is like your senses, pleasure, right? That kind of. It feels good. Do it greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:52:30]:
But that is not the way you learn Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off what your old self. All of us. This call is to all of us to put off your old self. There's an old you. We all know what that's like. Everybody has an old new, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed. What, in the spirit of your mind, be renewed and put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:53:11]:
And so being in the word of God, being quick to believe, not making excuses. And I'll say this, if you stop making excuses, will your life be perfect? No, it won't. But I really believe it'll be better. Why? Because I much rather attempt to please God and fail and claim the grace of God than to be like what this passage is saying, and be darkened in my mind and live like the world, be alienated from the life of God and have a hardness of heart. And I won't get forgiveness. You know why? Because I'll never ask for it. Because when your heart's hard, you won't even ask for forgiveness. When your heart's hard, you won't even want to be.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:54:09]:
When your heart is really hard, you won't even want to be right? But even in the parts where you're doing your best and you don't quite measure up to what God's called you to do, there's a grace, there's a mercy that God has for us. We just have to enter through the narrow gate, right? We just enter through the narrow gate. In a few verses before this passage that we've been reading, Jesus said this, verse 13 of chapter 7. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, let's say wide. What is wide? The way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:55:09]:
You know, I think everybody has hardship in life, right? Everybody. Nobody skates through life without hard times. You might smile, you might laugh, you might. But. But when we get together and kind of in a place, people can be open. Everybody has hard seasons in life. When it says that the way is hard, that leads to life. I think sometimes that there's hard decisions.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:55:44]:
I think sometimes there are hard things because they're hard things for everybody. But when you choose Jesus way, that what we've found. I believe that for most of us, when we choose and we live in God's way, you will say what King David said in the future in your life, you'll say this, that the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. You know what he's saying when he says that? That God's been really good to me. I've tasted and seen that the Lord is good. In the years of my life that I'm not. I'm not the oldest guy in this room, but at this stage in my life, I've been through a lot of difficult seasons. I've had things go sideways.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:56:46]:
I've had people betray me. I've had, you know, people oppose me. I've lost loved ones, things not work out. But along every step of the way, God has been faithful. He's been merciful, he's been kind. He's been a very present help in time of trouble. And when I look at My life. And I look back, I don't just see like a bunch of difficulties, to be honest.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:57:19]:
I have to think about it sometimes to remember all those things. And, you know, I was talking to a friend and there she was saying that, you know, somebody would watch online, one of her friends would watch online and say, oh, you know, it's easy for him to say. Talking about me. Easy for him to say because he doesn't know how hard life is. And then she said, what are you talking about? And she kind of went off all these things that have gone. And she says, what? Really? That he doesn't look like that's what he's been through. Why? Because God said this. When you build your house on the rock, when the winds come and the rains fall, he says that house will stand.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:58:21]:
Yes, everybody will go through a storm at some season. But you can stand not in your strength, but in God's strength. And I can say, not that I've unscathed, not that I don't have my scars, but I can say that the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. I'm blessed. I'm blessed beyond what I deserve. I'm blessed beyond what I had actually hoped. Because God's best been good, because that's who he is. Never changes.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:59:00]:
He's never changed. I've changed. And I'm not perfect, but I'm glad I'm not the same. And I think Jesus uses this picture of our doorway because. And it's a narrow doorway. And what is it saying? Why is it narrow? Because you can't bring everything with you that you brought in life. Sometimes there's some things that. If you've ever carried a bag, then and you want to go through this narrow passageway.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:59:36]:
We tried to do this. Maybe we try to do it like this, to try to squeeze through, but the best way, you just leave that stuff behind and move forward. You won't fit. If you want to bring everything the world's given, if you want to bring everything that the world says, if you want to bring everything that you know, it's telling you what you should do and be doing and get all these likes or whatever it is that it won't fit. But it's saying this, that when you get through the door, what will you find? You'll find Jesus and you'll find life. That makes sense. Yes, it does. Hey, so we're going to just bow our heads.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:00:24]:
We're going to close in a word of prayer. Father, I know we've talked about a bunch of things Tonight. But would you speak to your people about what you want them to hear? Lord, we've read your word and your word is true. And, Lord, I think that you're calling each of us to choose to obey what you say, not to somehow prove that you have all the power and control in the world, because that's true whether we obey or not, Lord, that you don't call us to obey so that you can feel good about yourselves. You call us to obey so that we might be blessed and be a blessing. Thank you. We don't. You don't need us, but we confess.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:01:31]:
We need you. And the Lord's been speaking to you about something in your. In your life. He's been speaking to you about something that he wants you to do. A place he wants you to trust him. And you know that he's been speaking. And to be honest, you're like most of us. Sometimes we make excuses.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:01:57]:
And if he's saying today, he's just saying, hey, can we. Can you make a move on this area in your life? Can you respond to what I'm saying to you? If that's you today, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, would you just raise a hand to God? Say, God, I get it. I know I haven't been listening. I know I haven't responded. But today I'm choosing. It always starts. The biggest things that happen in our life, they always start with a decision. That's all it is.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:02:36]:
Start with a decision. If you're here today and you're saying, God, I hear that's you, that you're talking to me, I'm going to choose. I'm going to follow. I'm going to obey. I'm going to take a step. You don't have to finish it all. Take a step. Sometimes it says as simple as writing on your note, I'm going to call tomorrow.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:03:01]:
I'm going to take a step tomorrow. I saw a few hands that are out there. I also just want to say this with our head bowed, eyes closed. You know, when it says in this thing about the narrow gate, it's. I know it's. It can be a challenging passage because it actually says that. Yeah. To follow the ways of the world.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:03:28]:
There's a lot of people who do it, and there's a lot of people who do it even in the church. And they'll teach a gospel that says, you don't have to ever change. You don't have to ever give up anything. You don't have to ever put anything aside. You Know, because God's loving. But what the scripture says is there's only one way. And his name is Jesus. And if you've never said yes to him, you've never surrendered your life to him.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:04:01]:
Maybe this is his opportunity. This is your opportunity to do that. If you don't know that right now that if you were to stand before God and that you could be assured of heaven because he died in your place and you trusted in him and you know him and you believe in Him. He's inviting you to put your trust in Him. He's not asking you to pay for what you've done. He's not asking you to make everything right. He's asking you to do this. Trust me.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:04:43]:
Put your trust in me. Because Jesus is the way he says is having a personal relationship with him and being willing to turn aside from the things that you know are wrong, from the things that he'll show you. And if that's you, he says this, welcome, welcome. That's all you got to do, is just to choose Him. If you've never done that before, whether you're at home or you're in the house, that's you today. Would you just raise your hand to Jesus, say, lord, today, if you're not sure, if you're six, I don't know, maybe six. Some of us, we're like a three, we're four. If you're.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:05:28]:
If you're not sure, I'd like you to be sure. I'd like you to know. Just. Would you respond to Him? I'm going to pray, a very simple prayer and ask you, would you join me? Lord Jesus, I recognize and sometimes I've made excuses and I've heard your voice and I've done my own thing. But today I confess. I know I'm a sinner. I know I've made my mistakes. But thank you that you died in my place.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:06:11]:
I want to receive that, Lord. I want to trust you to lead me and guide me. Because, Jesus, would you come live inside me today? Because, Jesus, you died in my place. Thank you for your forgiveness. Would you cleanse me, renew me and lead me? Would you show me more of who you are, that I can follow you and love you like you have loved me? Thank you for calling me. Thank you for choosing me. I choose you. In Jesus name I say it.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [01:06:58]:
Amen. If you said that prayer, would you know that he heard you today? Can we just say congratulations to those folks? Hey, God bless you guys. Have a great week.