How To Be A Christian Influencer (Proverbs 3:1-6)

Solomon continues his admonition and instruction to his son when he says, "My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands for length of days, all night and peace they will add to you. Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart."

And so finding in the sight of God and trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding all your ways acknowledge him. So, Father, we come before you, Lord. It is awesome recognizing that we are at this point of the 21st century and we're reading instruction, exhortation, information nearly 3,000 years old. And so, Father, we love the fact that you're timeless. And so, we know that your word is timeless. And so God, we pray that today we would be a people serious about learning your truth and then going out and experiencing it. And Lord, much of today, please Lord, help us, much of today's teaching is your truth active within us? How can we give away something we don't have? How can we tell people about something we've never experienced? So Lord, we come as a body of believers asking you to just absolutely take over. We pray in Jesus name. And all God's people said, "Amen."

You may be seated, church. And um as you do, I um I deliberately rolled up my sleeves just a little while ago because that's what I wanted to say in the opening notes, which by the way, you can scan this QR code and get all the sermon notes right onto your device and then you can save those to download or into a file and have them for your reference uh uh until the Lord comes back. But right at the very beginning, I say something to the effect in my notes, it's time to roll up our sleeves. And the reason why I'm putting it that way is because this is so extremely practical, which shouldn't surprise us regarding the book of Proverbs. It's all about that. But you and I are called to be witnesses. We all uh a little less what a little I should say a little more than a year ago, when was it? September 10th. September 10th, our friend Charlie Kirk was martyred. People don't like to hear the word martyred. They try to avoid that word martyred because uh it speaks quite frankly if you understand the word it speaks of nobility in the faith that you belong to. If you're martyred as a Christian, there's a sense of nobility in that. And truly it is. Some have said it's one of the greatest callings to uh be martyred for your testimony for Christ Jesus. And what Charlie stood for was the very testimony of Christ Jesus and his witness and his love for family and for Christ. And it was amazing. That said, he left us a good witness. The word witness and martyr is the exact same word in the Greek language means the same. In fact, in the New Testament, when you look up the word witness, you'll see the Greek word martys where we say martyr. And it simply means for you and I as believers to live our lives on a daily basis right now in this year every day in such a way that we are dying to our own messaging. We are dying to our own story. We are not out to promote self but in all that to promote the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. That how you and I live and announce and speak is all about exalting Christ and bringing Christ to the forefront of our lives. And I must admit, I thank God for the crowd that's here this morning. And uh I thank God that throughout the day, service after service, there's going to be crowds again. Uh but on the grand scale, there's very few of us. If you look around, there might be a lot of us, but in the grand scheme, there's very few of us in these last days. The Bible makes it clear that people uh as we approach the end are going to depart from the faith. But I pray that you and I personally never witness that. I'm happy to report that I only have to answer for this church. I don't have to answer for any other church on the planet. And boy am I glad. Uh and you guys, God knew how weak I was. So he gave me he gave me an amazing group of people uh to make me look good. You guys, I get all kinds of attention, but it's all because of what you're doing. And I want to thank you for all of that. People think, "Oh, Pastor Jack, you're doing that." I'm not doing that. I teach the Bible. They go out and do the Bible. You know what that's called? That's called church. And that's who you are. And I thank God for that.

I want to put some uh introductory uh attention to what we're going to be looking at. Proverbs chapter 3. Watch this. It's pretty cool. And again, it's in your notes if you scan that QR code. Proverbs uh 3:1-6. Note this everybody. Um this is a uh a style of teaching uh that is known as uh couplets uh or twins. You'll see it. It'll be obvious. And I put a little uh help in there. Verse one begins with the instruction. What is it? My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands. Look at verse three, the instruction. Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. Look at verse five, instruction again. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Look at verse six, the instruction. In all your ways acknowledge him. Very powerful. Those are the instructions. Watch the couplet. Next slide. The blessing. So there's the there's the uh instruction. And if you obey the instruction, then the then there's the blessing. Listen everybody, as followers of Jesus, we want the blessing, but we're not too keen on following the instructions. You can't have one without the other. It's impossible. It's not going to happen. You've often heard it said in this church, God blesses obedience. And obedience with God is not a heavy deal. It's not a burden. It is an awesome thing because it brings blessing. I want you and I to be addicted to the instruction of God. Why? We don't obey him for the blessing. We obey him because he's God. He alone is worthy. He's holy and he's just and pure. But the beautiful result of that is blessing. Proverbs 3:2, here's the blessing. For length of days and long life and peace will be added to you or will add to you. Verse four, the blessing. And so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man. Verse six, the blessing. And he shall direct your paths. This is awesome stuff, everybody. This is great stuff in every way. Doesn't matter if you're young or old. This is exactly what we need to be learning about. And I want to say it this way, and I'm not being naive when I say it. If we apply these six verses to our life, your life, my life, I think will be pretty amazing. I can only give you a little bit of a report, but from my own life, I can tell you that when I decided not to do it Jack's way, but to do it God's way, it always turns out awesome. It's always amazing. The only thing in my life that's not amazing are the things where I thought I could do this and um I regret that. In life, we want to wait upon God and be led by him.

So, this is a great instruction. Number one, church, write it down if you would. It's found in verses one and two. And our first argument, our first point is this. It is start looking back for his good. Write it down this way. As a Christian, look back at your life. Listen, not to be filled with remorse or regret or pain about the past because normally in our Christian circles, we always say, "DON'T LOOK BACK. FORGET the past. Forgetting those things that are behind." I understand that and there's obviously a biblical application to that. What I'm saying is what God is saying to us here through Solomon speaking to his son. He's announcing to us to start looking back for his good. In other words, where was God's good in your life even before you became a Christian? This is a discipline people listen. It's not popular what I'm saying because most often we don't want to even look back to the past. And I'm going to ask you to be strong and to look back and even in the hardships, the abuse, the difficulty, the mayhem of life, can you look for God's, as it were, breadcrumbs along the way? There were things that he was doing in your life. You may not have thought it was good then, but it turned out to be good. I'm going to be very transparent with you in this message today. The very things that I not only hated in my life growing up and had done to me or was exposed to [sighs] in in the moment. Those things I thought were not only uh horrible but if you if you let them have their uh natural course you might even uh despair of life itself. Are you hearing me? Life can do that to you. Having survived my BC days, you know BC, right? My before Christ days. By his grace, having survived that, coming to Christ, now I look back at the things that have been in my past through the lens of God's plan, and those are my those are my strengths. Now, the very things that could have led ME TO SUICIDE or to some sort of uh rejection or abuse or violence, God takes those THINGS AND HE WRAPS THEM UP and he presents them completely different in your own life for victory for the believer. You heard Barry. And by the way, what's our excuse? I think Barry's 84 or 85 years old. Okay. I I don't even plan on doing announcements when I'm 85 years old, let alone him driving a global ministry that he does. Wow. Look back at what great things God has done in your life. Look at Psalm 143:5. I remember the days of old. Number two, I meditate on all your works. Number three, I muse on the work of your hands. That means church, you and I are going to discipline ourselves to remember these things by looking back. It's a good thing to do. It's a good thing. And we see it this way. We see it by stopping and uh resisting the forgetting of what's good. We we have a tendency to forget what is good. Far too many times our human nature will gravitate or remember that which was bad. Well, remember the last 10 years? Yeah, when my car got stolen. Really? I I guess your car did GET STOLEN, BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. WHAT ABOUT THE LAST 10 years that God has brought you through? WHAT ABOUT THAT SICKNESS? WHAT ABOUT THAT RELATIONSHIP? WHAT ABOUT THAT ISSUE? WHAT ABOUT THOSE finances or whatever it MIGHT BE? WHAT ABOUT YOUR SPIRITUAL growth over the last 10 years he has brought you through? So, we need to stop forgetting. And look what he says in verse one. In Proverbs chapter uh 3 verse 1, he says, "My son, do not forget my law." Circle the word forget. It means stop it. Stop forgetting. When it says do not, it's in the negative. Stop forgetting my law. It implies that you and I as humans have a tendency to forget what's good and to focus on what is bad. I've said this to you before. I'll say it again. A 100 people in one day on the same day can give you a compliment. And one person can say, "You know what? You're an absolute income poop. You make me sick. I hope I never see you again." And when you lay your head down at night, you are not going to remember the 99 compliments. You're going to remember the one negative cutting statement. Are you not? Why is that? First of all, it proves evidence that we are fallen in nature. And we have this self-destruct mode that plagues us. How do we overcome that? According to the Bible, Solomon tells his son, "Do not forget the law of God, the guidance of God." God. We'll see this in a moment. Do not forget my law. And that Hebrew word means stop it. Stop forgetting. It's a discipline. We got to we have to do that. In Psalm 19 verse 7, the psalmist writes, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." Can you say amen to that? I'd love that. Are you simple? You can become wise. Listen, are you in some way uh not being uh successful or led by God in the things that uh you should be? Listen, turn to him. The very law of the Lord is perfect. The guidance of God. When the Bible here says the law, he's not taking the ten commandments and hitting you with up over the side of the head with them. He's giving you the ten commandments. And for that matter, all the commandments, I even like to go this far. Not only the ten commandments, but all the commandments of God. I'd like to go this far. But everything that is good that is God, God wants to work it into you. I'm a big fan, I think you know this, of learning to be still. We'll see it today if I'm faithful to the notes to be still and discover that he is God. Because I know that I want what is good for me. I often mess up the path to get to that. And I so often pray, God, please keep my hands off of off of this life of mine. I I I don't have my fingerprints be on it. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good prayer. But he goes on to tell us something very interesting. Look at the word forget. It's a powerful word, huge Hebrew definition. It means to uh let loose. So uh do not forget. Don't let it go. Uh don't let it get away. This remember it's in the negative uh don't misplace God's word uh remember it retain it implying to stop letting it happen uh to not allow this or that to be uh that way discipline work to keep his word ever before you. Don't know if people do this anymore but back in the ancient times when there were Christian bookstores we used to buy it was a little plastic loaf of bread. Plastic loaf of bread and inside it had all these promises, daily promises. And we would take them out for the day and we'd put them on uh do we still call call the dashboard a dashboard? We still call it that. Do we do we is that what they're called in a Tesla? A dashboard still? I don't know what they call it, but back in my day, we'd put double scotch tape double-sided and put it there and we would memorize it. We put that word in us. Let God's word guide you and lead you. Don't forget. Don't forget. We will remember so many things that are non-essentials. But we we need God's help to help us to remember what is essential. And this is part of it. It's God's desire for you and I to be educated in the things of God so beautifully. Mom and dad, listen up. Grandma and grandpa, for that matter, hey kids, listen up. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 6. This is awesome. Deuteronomy chapter 6 says, by the way, this is still true. It's the Old Testament. That means it's really old truth. That means it's endured the time. [laughter] And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. That's not expired, people. And shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Verse eight. When and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. One thing after another is summed up in one word in this verse in this passage. Repeat. Watch this. I'll try to do it without flubbing this up. And these words which I command you today shall be repeated in your heart. You shall repeat them diligently to your children. You shall repeat them when you sit in your house. You shall repeat them when when you're on the way. You shall repeat them when you lie down. You shall repeat them when you wake up. You shall repeat them as a sign on your hand. And you shall repeat them as the frontlets between your eyes. You shall repeat them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. You got that? Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Immersion in what God has said. And right here, the scripture says, "Moms and dads, grandpas and grandmas, teach the little ones and repeat it over and over again." How many kids say, "I already know that. Doesn't matter. I already heard that. Doesn't matter." Until you do it, right? Think about it. It's what are we doing? Well, I I've gone to church all my life. And what has it done for you? Were you paying attention? Were you applying what you were hearing? Each and every one of us who have a brain will make a consideration as to what we will do with what we hear. And God says the great thing is to learn by repetition over and over again. Proverbs by the way is tremendously powerful about that very thing. Isaiah 46 verse 9 says remember the former things of old for I am God. So God is announcing you want to understand my way. You want to understand how I work. Remember those things of old. Go ahead and look back and find me in those things. So you have your story. You have your thing, your testimony. And it'd be really good for you to write yourself a note right now and say, "My homework today is to go get a loan and take this challenge that I'm going to look at my past through God's word, through the lens of God's word that I heard today, and I'm going to draw out things. I'm going to ask God to show me things in my life, even my BC life that he was working in."

Now, God has spoiled me tremendously. So, watch how this works. I'm I'm being very transparent and open, but I pray that this is an example. I I I'm a survivor by God's grace. I'm a survivor of an abortion attempt. It failed. My mom was hospitalized and after some two or three weeks in the hospital uh I I was born. And so I didn't know this. Of course not. Of course I didn't know this. I found this out. Uh to me it was an accident. My mom was telling the neighbor lady next door. She didn't know I was in the other room when she was telling her. I was a junior in high school. And you know when you're a junior in high school it's like Well, that's crazy. And you just keep eating your Cheetos and bologna sandwich. IT WASN'T UNTIL LATER I FOUND OUT, AND I GOT to tell you, some of these verses I have in this sermon today is because of what they meant to me. That when I found that out, I didn't go on the other side of the room and slap my mom. No, I was too young to process that. And I didn't even really care about it. IT WASN'T UNTIL I BECAME a Christian THAT I LOOKED BACK AND REALIZED, HOLY, not holy cow. I probably said holy cow, but [laughter] we leave that in Egypt. Jon McGee says that was Israel following the sacred bull. Did you get that mig style? [laughter] Well, when I realized after becoming a Christian, very very quickly after becoming a Christian, realizing, "Oh my goodness, God saved my life when I couldn't even save myself." By the way, have you come to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? You can't save yourself. You need to come to him. You can't get yourself forgiven of sins. You need atonement for that. And that's who Jesus Christ is. Yes. He gives life both physically and spiritually forever. And it's amazing thing. Here's a nice repeat. It's Psalm 77:5 and 6. I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night. I meditate within my heart and my spirit makes diligent search. Friends, you should memorize this. You should take a picture of that. That's something to remember. When I consider, when I go back and I span the years of my ancient times, I will deliberately call up to recollection my song in the night and I meditate within my heart. Think about it. My spirit makes DILIGENT SEARCH. ONLY GOD can answer your life's problem. Whatever is gone, is it is it is it because of your father? Is it because of your mother? Did somebody do you wrong? What's the issue? Take it to God. Do you have issues? We all do. Get in line. We take it to God. Thank God we don't have to get in line to talk to God about it. He's there for us in the most powerful ways. We call upon him and God takes our lives and he causes them to be repackaged in his grace and his mercy and we can be influencers to those that are hurting. God wants to use us.

The second thing is this. The latter end of verse one is that you and I need to grab hold of his good. And when I say grab hold, I mean lay your nails into it. It's time for you and I I hope you share this passion. It's time for you and I to say to ourselves, I love I tell you, I love uh listening to Charles Stanley. Now, Charles Stanley's in heaven, but which I'm very glad about, by the way, because you can't change his mind. His his sermons are amazing. He's safe to listen to. Dr. Charles Stanley, and I love how Dr. Charles Stanley uh repeated a great truth from Charles Spurgeon, and that is what we've been talking about. Preach the gospel to yourself every day. You and I should tell ourselves the gospel. For God so loved. Can you handle this? I don't want to use my own name because I get tired of hearing my name. Give me a name. Nina. For God so loved Nenah that he gave or gifted his only begotten son that if Nenah believes on him, Nenah will not perish. But Nenah will have everlasting life. That's what you and I are supposed to do every day with that gospel. You say, "Jack, I've been a Christian forever. Every day, galvanize yourself with that great truth." Remember that because the joy of it all is grabbing hold of the good that God has for us. And he says here at the latter end of verse one, "But let your heart keep my commands." So don't forget, but look at the positive. Let your heart keep my commands. Remarkable the word keep. I love this word, by the way. Um, do you guys read old books? I'm I'm a maybe I'm a victim of reading old books. Uh, you're probably not thinking the when I hear the word keep, I have I see something in my head and I'm going to show you a picture of it, so forgive me in advance, but it's accurate. Before I show you the picture, the word keep in Hebrew is sees on or seize onto, right? to hold in your hand tightly, to watch, to guard, to be preserved by, protected by, safekeeping, watchmen in the watchtower. The keep, keep my word, keep my wisdom that he's given us, and lay hold of it, hang on to it, and be hungry enough to pull it into your life. Can I say it THIS WAY? BE VIOLENT about it. Be violent about it. TAKING THE WORD OF GOD AND SAYING, "I'M GOING TO REMEMBER THIS. I'M GOING TO TAKE NOTES. I'M GOING TO WRITE THIS DOWN. I'M GOING TO REVIEW THIS." If you and I are not hungry like that, I pray that we get hungry like that. So, the word keep, what comes to my mind is a keep. And this is a keep. That's a keep. Did you know that? In ancient English, that's a keep. You say, "What do you mean a keep?" Kee P. You and I would call it a castle. The castle is the keep. What is the keep? When you go in there, it is fortified. It is strengthened. It's got technologies to protect you. Once you're in there, you are pretty well galvanized against the onslaught of whatever enemies are coming. That's the keep. I want you to remember God's word this way this morning that when you take God's word and you grab on to it, this is what you're doing. You are building, are you guys awake? You guys are building a fortified keep around your very life. Keep that picture in your mind. You are safe. You're guarded. There's a watchman on the wall now. Hallelujah. That watchman is the Holy Spirit. Thank God for him because even the youngest believer, I have seen this happen. So many times and I just rejoice because it's just yet again proof of God's supernatural work. I've watched a person give their heart to Jesus Christ right here on a Sunday and then they tell me Wednesday that having been saved on Sunday, a cult knocks on their door on Monday and they don't know anything about the cult. They've never heard of it, but they know it's wrong and they can't explain it. Pastor Jack, they've knocked on my door before. I didn't pay any attention. Couldn't tell you what group it was, and I didn't care. This time, I cared to avoid them. Like a wall went up. Guess what? That's the Holy Spirit, keeping you in the keep, in the grip. And so, we turn around and we grip on to the good of God. It's very very uh aggressive if I could put it that way. We grab on to that. And so um Psalm 119:10 regarding uh seizing that or keeping that or having it. Psalm 119:10 says, "With my whole heart, all of me, I have sought you. Oh, let me not wander from your commandments." Now I have sought you. This is the psalmist crying out. Um for any of you who who think that well you know what I wish I could be like that. This is the great point to this verse. All of us can say to you that none of us feel sufficient enough that we have sought him enough. I want all of you to know that right now. To those of us, to those of you, whoever you might be, who's seeking God more than anybody else in this room, you keenly are aware that you're not seeking him enough. We're never seeking him enough. But that's the Christian battle. Keep moving. Oh, but they said this and they tweeted that and they printed this and oh, stop it. Come on. Really think about it. When things get very serious, OPINIONS WILL NOT MATTER. When things get really serious, only what God has instructed us will matter. In fact, listen, being at the bed of those that are passing from this world into the next world. None of them SAY, "CAN YOU, PASTOR, CAN YOU READ ME THE HEADLINES OF THE LA TIMES?" No one has ever said that. NO ONE HAS EVER CALLED for their checkbook or their bank balance WHEN THEY'RE DYING. NOBODY SAYS, "CAN you remind me how much money I'm leaving to my family?" Now, the family might say, "Can you remind us how much money he's leaving to the family?" But I've never seen that. Never. Never. Not once in 50 years, I'VE NEVER HAD SOMEBODY WHO'S dying say, "Hey, how much property do I own? Can you remind me?" No. No. No. Listen. Heaven or hell? When they come to that line, they are very focused on what's next. Things get real serious and that's actually a great thing. It's a beautiful thing. But you want to be grabbing and laying hold of and hanging on to that which is good, that which is of God. We're going to blow through some verses here real quick. Colossians 3:1. Colossians 3:1 tells us this. If then you were raised with Christ, speaking of the believer, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, that's where our identity is. Remember that Christian, listen up. If you need this, write it up. Just write it on your arm. Seek those things that are above where Christ is seated because that's where you're at. That's where your name is written. That's where you really live. Stop being controlled by this world and the laws as it were of this world. The law of the jungle, I would put it that way where the the world operates this way. God says, "Listen, why don't you pull up on the yoke, get above the clouds, and level off where I'm at. Above all the storm, above all the darkness, above all the fray, God says, "Nope, this is where you really live. Seek those things THAT ARE ABOVE. POSITION YOURSELF where the things of God are safe. JESUS SAID, "TREASURE up for yourselves these things in heaven." That's where your hope might be, not in the things of this world. He says in Psalm 19:14, Psalm 19:14, he says, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." Isn't this beautiful? Great verses, great instruction. Psalm 121:7. Psalm 121:7. The Lord shall preserve you, keep you from all evil. Hey, listen. Some of us need to hear this. The Lord shall preserve you, keep you from all evil. He shall preserve you, keep you, your soul. The soul mostly referring to your mind, your thinking. Listen, when we get overwhelmed by what's going on, our minds are tormented. And God doesn't want that. He wants our minds to be calm. And let's be honest, you and I allow into our minds what we allow. And we need to stop and ask ourselves, WHY AM I ALLOWING this in? God says, listen, flood your mind with my word. Watch what happens. Last week after service, somebody came up to me and they they made a comment about their life. They just, hey, you know, our lives are kind of sideways. So, are you a Christian? Yes. Where's your Bible? That's you. I told you before, you do not want to have counseling with me. It's you're you're at service. You didn't have you don't have a Bible. This is a Bible church. Uh, get a cookbook or something. Fake it. But best get a Bible. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, why is your life sideways? Well, we don't know. Are you reading the Bible? Uh, no. Not really. Well, no wonder why your life sideways. This world will make your life sideways. Amen. God's word will straighten you up and prop you up and keep you up, give you hope and instruction, but it's like putting food right in front of somebody. You know, when you're sick, you don't feel like eating food, but the doctors tell you, "You got to eat." And they always, you know, especi, you know, put a shovel in my mouth. Just I don't want the other thing to happen. So feed me God. Listen, when we feed upon the word of God, we're we stop being anemic and we start finding the supernatural way of thinking, the supernatural way of living that surprises us more than anybody. That's why I'm I've always had a hard time with Christians who are proud Christians. How can you be a proud Christian? It's so Can I say this? Is anybody in here? [laughter] I'm going to say the word in a minute. My grandson told some friends of theirs, "My grandma says the sword." That's my wife, Lisa, Mimi. And the our grandson told some neighbors of theirs, "My Mimi uses the sword." Now, Lisa was just, "I do not use the sword." And he said, "Yeah, it's that you." Mhm. Stupid. That was the That was the sword. So I have to be careful. We have to be careful. Listen, we have to be careful not to be stupid to the things of God. Everything he has given to us, but we have to eat it. Before we can have any muscles spiritually speaking, we've got to take that in. 2 Thessalonians 3:3 tells us, "But the Lord is faithful." Thank God. Who will establish you and guard you, keep you, garrison around you. Be the keep from the evil one. That's what you and I need. Remember that castle you saw a moment ago? That keep, put yourself inside that. God's trying to show us a picture. You're inside that and I'm around you. You're my child. I'M YOUR PROTECTOR. GOD IS SAYING, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS ON YOUR OWN. I'm your provider. I'm the one that's your redeemer. I will be your keep." And I love that.

Finally, in this before we move on, 1 John 5:18, this is epic. 1 John 5:18. Listen up. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin. The word here in Greek, so you don't lose heart, it means that you do not continue sinning in that sin. In other words, it God breaks the stronghold of that sin in your life. It no longer dominates you. It's it's fading away. The sun is coming up and the night is fading away. When you walk with the Lord, this verse is working in your life. For we know that whoever is born of God, born again, does not sin. Doesn't make intentional plans to go sin. They don't pick up the the uh I was going to say daytimer. What do we use this day and age? Uh they don't grab the calendar and and make plans for this big sin next month. This I'd like to reserve sin for next month, please. The Christian can't think like that. The the temptation might come into the mind, but they can never act on it. They don't want to. They want to run from that. But he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the WICKED ONE DOES NOT TOUCH HIM. SAY AMEN. Oh my gosh. If I'm going to say, Lord, I I WANT TO FOLLOW AFTER YOU. I I've seen your way. I don't I know my way. I want to walk with you, God. I want to be born again. You make that decision today. Or maybe most of us, if not all of us, are born again by the spirit of God. What is our passion? I don't want to be lost in my past. I want to take my past and see the victories of God over my past. And when I look ahead from this moment forward, I know this that God is faithful and he's going to keep me and he's going to keep you. He's faithful to do that. He'll never never give up.

And then also this verse two tells us that as uh we are called to be influencers and we start looking back for God's good in our lives, uh we learn this in verse two that re that we receive his good. We receive the good of God. And look at verse two. Verse two uh tells us this. The here comes the blessing. That was the instruction. Now the blessing for length of days and long life and peace will be added to you. Now I should spend the whole rest of the day on this. But I'm going to ask you to research this more uh in detail on your own. Um it's kind of obvious, but I must mention a few things on this before we move on. Receive his good for your life. And friends, especially young people today, listen to this. Look at the word length. Length. The word length means this is what God wants for you to be long, continuous, and enduring, made able to be productive, fruitful, prolonged, extended. This is what God wants for your life. Listen how sweet this is. When parents or grandparents tell little ones, I I told you, listen, whatever you do, don't do this thing. And they think that you're quenching them out. Why? Why can't I do it? You can do 99 other things. You just can't do this thing. All of a sudden, they don't care about the 99 things. They only care about the thing they're not allowed to do. And then you tell them, "The reason why I don't want you to do that is because you could get hurt." Did you hear, and this is one of those things I felt so bad when I saw this on the news? I think it was up in Santa Cruz. Did you see where the mom the mom knew that the little three-year-old's gift was arriving by Amazon? And so the Amazon guy put the package down on the ground and the mom opens the door and tells little Junior, "Hey, go get go get your package. It's your gift." Did you do you know what I'm talking about? And the little three-year-old runs down the walkway at the house and picks up the bag and turns around and the mom screams, but the baby doesn't get it. The baby's excited about the gift. It's his birthday. It's his birthday gift arriving from Mr. for Amazon. Well, under the package was a Pacific rattlesnake and nailed that little baby in the back of its calf. And they of course they had to get the baby saved at the hospital and all that kind of stuff. But you think for a moment that's the last thing that that mom had in her mind, the mom intended all of it to be good. She intended all of it to be sweet. And is it interesting? The Bible refers to Satan as being a snake. And that poor little kid, I I like you, rehearsed it in my mind over and over again. Man, that kid's not going to want any more gifts. Boy, is that kid going to remember their birthday. But if that kid got locked into thinking that's how old birthdays are, are you you hear me? That's not how all birthdays are. That's an exception. It was sad. It was terrible. But the kids survived and eventually I'm sure he got his little Amazon gift. The point is this. Life will bite. God never intended evil to ravage your life. That's not his plan. Read his book. He created everything including Adam and Eve and said it's all good until self-will, pride, ambition we allowed into our life. God wants good for you. AND SOLOMON'S COMMUNICATING TO HIS SON, I WANT THIS GOOD FOR YOU. SO WHEN I TELL YOU NO, IT'S NOT TO bum you out. Either no, don't ever do that. Or no, you're not old enough yet. Or no, wait till you get married. But I'm giving you guidance and why? Because I love you. But the little Listen, on our end, like the child, we're thinking you just want to take all the fun out of life. God wants to save our lives. And what does he do? He says, "Follow me. Listen to me. You'll have a long life. Your life will be fruitful and productive." Now, all of our days are numbered by the Lord. You're going to die on the day that God has ordained. Did you know that? I don't know if you guys know. I don't know if all of you know that, but you should know. It's in the Bible. God's numbered your days. And he's not going to tell you the number. By the way, can't God tell me how many days I have left? Nope. You'd mess it all up. God knows. And the length of your life. God wants your life to be productive and fruitful and meaningful. In other words, God wants you watch to be a true influencer to the culture around you because you yourself have been transformed by the influence of God himself. He has changed you. And because now you're different, you live for him now. It's not only a joy and a blast and wild and amazing, but other people want in on it. Amen. I think that's the best witness ever. I don't mean to disparage this. I'm probably going to get letters, but I don't mean to be mean about it. I'm not being mean. Only in the West do do crusades work. I don't even know. I don't even know how much so. Crusades. Do you know crusades? Do you know the greatest form of evangelism was what's known as friendship evangelism? Did you know that you if you go do a crusade in Africa, it doesn't work? Do if you do a crusade in Europe, it doesn't work. Nobody comes. If someone's going to come to Christ in those nations, they will watch you for weeks, months, or years and then make the decision based upon how you live your life. Why? Because they're looking to see if the power of what you preach has influenced your life. I like that. I really do. It's a good thing. We want to receive the good that he's given us. Um, but he wants that life of ours to be a length and he says long. Look at the word long here. Are you guys bored? No. Okay. You sound bored because you're so quiet. So, it's hard to see all of you cuz the light I only see some of you because it's very bright, but um I didn't know if I was all alone here this morning. The root meaning is this. To change or to alter, to make different from what was to be. Meaning that without God, life is shortened. Without God, life is shortened. Premature aborted. To die a premature death. Yikes. You, we do know this. I've had friends who died prematurely because they wouldn't obey God. They just kept messing around with drugs. And they knew they weren't supposed to, but they kept doing it. And they went head-on into a telephone pole and went I believe they went to heaven. They struggled with it, but they they had this addiction. They died prematurely. You ever seen people that say, "Well, hey, how you doing? How you doing?" "Hey, so how old are you?" And you know, somebody says, "Oh, you know, I'm 49 or whatever." And you go, "Oh my goodness, you look like you're 25. That's amazing." Or you say somebody else says like, "How you ask somebody, how old are you?" Oh. Uh, I'm I'm 29. And you're like, yikes. The dude looks like he's 60. His face looks like a catcher mitt. You know what I'm saying? It's like, where have you I mean, you don't say this, but just like, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? Your face looks like a road. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN BEAT UP. BEEN LEFT FOR DEAD SOMEWHERE. WHAT'S HAPPENED? ROUGH LIFE. ROUGH LIFE doesn't have to be that way. God wants to use us and he wants to use us all, you know, listen, all the days of our life. Again, I I have to keep going back to uh Barry Maguire's announcement. If Barry was here right now, he's not here today, Barry would tell you that God has been so good to him all his life because he's always put Jesus first. And you might say, "Well, yeah, well, yeah, it's it's easy to follow God when you have the the biggest wax car wax product in the world." No, that happened after he put Jesus first. The star was not like that. And and it's so cute because he's the one that says, "I don't care about that stuff. That stuff just causes me to do full-time ministry." HE'S GOT GOD FIRST. PUT GOD FIRST. You know what? Pastor Chuck Smith put it this way. It's not a It's not a gigantic quote. It's just brilliant. Chuck Smith said, "Keep yourself usable." Isn't that perfect? Just keep yourself usable. Here I am, Lord. And God can use you. It's a great way to live. Deuteronomy 30:19 says Deuteronomy 30:19 says I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you or putting you on notice that I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life. The God of the Bible says choose life that both you and your descendants may live. Can we give God a hand for that? That is the will of God that you live your life for the glory of God. What I don't like is he says, "Choose." Because I don't want to choose. I want him to tell me what to do. But he doesn't want that. He wants me to obey him out of love. Choose today. And so my prayer is, oh God, please don't let me ever choose wrongly. Keep me from me.

And he goes on to tell us, "And peace will add or be added to you." Peace will add to you. Wow. And this is the word shalom. You know that word already. Shalom. Well-being. Uh the tech the actual technical word is welfare or to farewell. Welfare. Be at peace. Be at rest. Be calm of body, soul, and spirit. Be calm. Don't you love that? John 14:27 Jesus said it. He was the personification of shalom. Jesus says, "Shalom I leave with you. My shalom I give to you. Not as the world gives. Why? Because it takes it back. Do I give it to you? Let not

Your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. The opposite of your heart being troubled and afraid is shalom. If you have shalom, your heart will not be troubled.

Secondly in this church is in verses 3 to four and that is recognize what his plan is. And we see this when we possess what he has for us. Recognize it and possess it. It says in verse three, which is an instruction now, let not mercy and truth forsake you. Mercy is that great word that um God says to you, I will give you mercy. We want to pray for the mercy of God. I have to tell you privately, I've been praying for God's mercy to be upon America at this time. very troubling troubling moment the United States is in at this moment and uh only God and I'm praying God please be merciful to us though we do not deserve it.

Mercy is not getting what you deserve. Mercy is when your child commits some crime against you, right? Uh they break the dish or whatever you told them not to do and you uh tell them go to your room. I'll be there in a minute. And they go to the room and they're crying and they're freaking out because they can hear you sharpening the hearing down the hallway and you open the door. And you say to them, "Get in the car right now." And they're thinking like you're going to go drop them off at the end of the pier. They get in the car, they're mortified. Do you know what you did today? Yes. What was it? I broke the plate. Why did YOU BREAK THE PLATE? I DROPPED IT, but why were you holding it? I know I wasn't supposed to. That's right. And then you pull up at BaskinRobins. And they're wondering what's happening and you say, "Listen, I I should let you have it for what you did, but God treats us with mercy." And look, kid, take it in because you're not going to get another break like this for many years. I am not going to give you what you deserve. I'm going to exercise grace and give you what you do not deserve. I'm not going to give you what you deserve, but I will give you what you don't deserve. Mercy in one hand, grace in the other is how God deals with us.

You know how good he is to us every day. Now watch this. You know how good he is with us every day? I don't know. I don't see it. Well, that was my opening argument. Stop and look back. Can you breathe? Yes. Praise God for that. Can you walk? Yeah. Be thankful. Are you hungry? No, I'm actually I'm trying to lose weight. Be grateful. Somebody called this calorie chapel. the hospitality, the beautiful hospitality ministry. They'll feed you. The guest speakers come, they just can't handle all the food. And uh a speaker had once said, "This is this is look at this. This is Cali Chapel. That's kind of cute, but God wants to bless us. And if we walk in his way, it's no big deal. You want to possess what God has for you."

The Bible says in Malachi 4:2, it's great, great, wonderful verse. Malachi, if you're Italian, it's Malachi, the only Italian in the Bible. I'm kidding. It's Malachi. But to you who fear my name, to you who are in awe of my name, the son, su n, of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. Did you catch that? Looks sounds like sounds like a contradiction. Did you see it? Did you catch it? It's not s o n, it's su n. But watch this. But to you who fear my name, this is God speaking. The son of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. This is attributed to the Messiah, the anointed one. It's not the sun as the burning satellite ball that it is the sun. He's talking about when the morning comes, hope is renewed. You know how you suffer at night when you're sick? Doesn't it seem like nighttime's forever when you're sick and you can't wait to see the breaking of the day? It's like, "Oh, finally." If you are in awe of God, if you determine today, that's it. I'm going to make God my my my prime love, my one and only love. God says, "The sun's going to rise like hope in the morning." And oh, guess what? There'll be healing in his wings. What does that mean? I don't know. What does it mean to you? He's the healer. What do you need healed? I know what I need healed. What do you need healed? That's who he is. And it's great. It's wonderful.

Psalm 139 verse 17 and 18 says, Psalm 139 verse 17 and 18 announces, "How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God. How great is the sum of them. If I should count them, they are they would be more in number than the sand. Wow. When I awake, I'm still with you. I love how he's saying this. Watch this. When I when I wake up, I'm still with you. He's not talking about as I was sleeping, I made sure that I stayed with you, God. No, no, no. He's saying as I was sleeping, I'm so thankful, God, that when I woke up, I'm still with you. Are you hearing this?

We're going to have to end. We have to end with this, I think. I think No, you guys are really nice, but I I'm in big trouble. How precious also are your thoughts to me. Listen, if you're in the house, if you're watching right now, God says, I know the thoughts I think toward you. Jeremiah 29:11, I know what I think about you. Now, I don't know what you think when you hear that. God says, I know what I think about you. How do you hear that? Do you HEAR GOD SAY, "I KNOW WHAT I THINK ABOUT YOU." Did you know that even when we were lost in our trespasses and sin and the Bible says we were wicked? He loved us.

Now, it does say in the Bible, you have to be honest, it does say in the Bible, God is angry with the wicked every day. You know, the wicked, they're lost. There was a day when I was in the camp of the wicked. And then he got a hold of me. And this is how he did it. He showed me how wicked I was. You want to see something? Not particularly. No, God. I'm fine. No, I'm going to show you something. Jack, this is you. And if I were to graphically display it, it would it would have been black pages. This is you, Jack. when he shows you you, when he reveals to you who you are on the inside, it's uh it's like being gutted. I would imagine if you're a fish, it's like having your insides taken out. And your first normal response is, "Yeah, God, you see all that darkness in there? That's what people did to me. That's hurt. And you give all of your self-defense. I did it. I gave all of my self-defense. Well, God, I'M ANGRY BECAUSE THAT THAT'S WHAT THEY did to me. I DID THOSE THINGS BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THAT GROUP DID TO ME. And I did that because I never had this. You know what? He never said liar. HE NEVER SAID ENOUGH. HE NEVER said that to me. You know what he did? He waited. He just waits. Basically, I'm fast forwarding now. Are you done, Jack? Yeah, I think so. I'll let you know if I find something else.

And one of the hardest things, listen, a lot of that stuff gets cleaned up quick. You know what really is hard and hurts and it's a part of our sanctifying experience with Jesus and the Holy Spirit is what I call justified hurts. Did somebody rob you? Somebody leave you? Did your husband or your wife abandon you? Did you come home and the house was empty? If we don't know God well, we will turn and blame him for what someone did to us. which is a exhibit of having profound faith that is darkened BECAUSE LISTEN IT'S PROFOUND FAITH BECAUSE YOU'RE TURNING TO GOD AND YOU'RE HOLDING HIM RESPONSIBLE FOR SOMETHING THAT HE'S NOT RESPONSIBLE for but it's dark faith. HOW COME YOU DIDN'T STOP THIS GOD? And then God says, "They wouldn't let me into their heart and into their life." If you think this hurts you, Jack, it hurts me infinitely amount more than it hurts you. You don't even know how this feels. How can it hurt you, God? You're in heaven and I'm stuck down here because I feel everything perfectly. And when you have him do that to your life, like Toer says, he is like the dentist that your mother makes you go see. You're not aware of any problem with your teeth, but he says the dentist will take his probe and he will poke each tooth. And Toer said, "Why can't he just let sleeping dogs lie?" Isn't that a great word? Why does every time I go to the dentist, I'm fine, but he finds something in my mouth that's not fine? Cuz that's his job. And he's got to make a payment on his Porsche. Um, and when he when he finds when he finds that painful tooth, Tozer says he he grabs hold of it with his with his tool and he he's listen he yanks it out root blood and all. That's pretty graphic.

You know what? God does that to us. He does. He's not going to yell at you. He's going to point things out. Some things are easily surrendered to him. Other things, he'll take hold of them like a bad tooth. And it hurts. But friends, listen. It's best to cooperate with God and have him take care of it with one visit. What's worse is when God says, "Well, because you kept squirming around. You kept resisting me. You kept like I have to go to the bathroom." You kept interfering the whole thing. You'll have to come back next week and then next month and then for the next five years because you won't LET ME COOP. YOU won't cooperate with me. Just lay still. I would rather Listen, you have to listen to me because I'm old. I went through this. You have to you have to receive this. You're supposed to show your elders respect. Here it comes. Just be still. Let him pull it. Let let him take hold of it. He's going to grab it and let him take it out. Just hang on because when it's over, it's over and a new life begins and a new purpose and you can live freely. And that work that he's done in you, your ministry is born. Amen. Your ministry is born because you can now turn to somebody because you have a testimony and you can say, "Hey, listen. Do you know God?" "Yeah, I know God." "Yeah, well, okay, listen up. This is what God did for me." And you will influence them to think deeper thoughts about God. Your testimony will cause others to even consider if they even know the same God that you know.

So I close with this. You can stand. I close with this. A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with uh as I mentioned I think I mentioned this recently, but I sat down with Pastor Sun who please pray for him because as he returns back to South Korea. Um he's going he's they have found something else that they don't like about him and they're going to put him in prison. I don't know if you saw him that that Wednesday night when he was here. But um by the way, everything that he's guilty of uh this church has done. He's guilty of calling out sin and the new Korean government forbids that. He's guilty of saying all of you need to vote for those who best represent a Judeo-Christian worldview. He's got all these charges against him. When I looked at the charges against him, I I thought I was looking at a a a South Korean Paul the Apostle. Everything they're suing to imprison him about is godly. And then it dawned on me, if our government changes but little, but just a little, you and I, I know I will be in jail. Maybe you too. At least you if you're not with me, come visit. But the influence of God cannot be cannot be denied. God is on the move. The world is going crazy. He said it would. He said that nations are going to be reaching a level of perplexity with no answers out. We're almost there. Don't lose heart. But the people around you, they're losing heart. The people you work with and live with, know this because you have Christ in you, the hope of glory. Ask God how you can share. God has his unique way of using you in the lives of those who you know.

Father God, we surrender ourselves to you this morning. We ask you, Father, that you'd make us ready I'm reminded, Lord, last night of watching that fighter jet pilot taxi, that fighter jet into position as they got ready to put it onto the catapult of that aircraft carrier. The wings folded down. They hooked that front landing gear onto that hook that would catapult him off the end of that ship. checks all of the controls, checks the throttle and the power percentage output. He is in takeoff mode and then he just relaxes. He salutes and he relaxes. And from that moment, he's just there. He's just there until he goes. And that ship throws that fighter jet off the end of the nose of that ship. And away goes that fighter jet. Lord, I pray that you would receive us right now as we put ourselves into position. We say together as a church, Lord, I'm in alignment with your will. I'm asking you, Lord, to be my strength, my throttle, my power. I'm asking you, Lord God, to be my propulsion. And Father, I pray that you would catapult us out into the world. Father, that we might do what you've called us to do so that we might live a fulfilled, long, productive life that brings you honor and glory. And Father, that when we come to the end of our lives, we will be okay with that time. We won't have any regrets. We can say, "Yep, I'm good with this. It's time to go home. It's time for my life to be given back into your safekeeping. Glory be to the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified on the cross and resurrected from the dead, that we might have salvation in him and him alone. And all God's people said, "Amen." God bless you, church.