Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you've got your Bibles, make your way to Ephesians chapter 5.
[00:00:05] Right before I came over here, team leaned over and said what a blessing it is to have so many people talented to lead us in music and stuff like that. So what a blessing it was when we first started, you know, Tim, me, Karen and the girls, there were none right there that could lead in music. And we brought Andrew in and he was driving up from Greensboro every weekend to do that. And look, we had him for so many years. But what a blessing it's been to watch God grow up so many more, More people to, to lead in that stuff. It's. It's absolute blessing. Especially when you're like me and have zero skill in that area.
[00:00:41] Yeah, I can play a CD and we can go from there. That would be my, my best bet.
[00:00:46] So we're gonna be in the book of Ephesians, we're in chapter five. We're gonna pick up. I'm gonna read verse six, we're gonna start preaching out of seven. But I wanted the context right there so we can catch our. Therefore. So. Ephesians 6, Ephesians 5, verse 6.
[00:01:03] Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
[00:01:10] Therefore, do not become partakers with them.
[00:01:13] For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
[00:01:19] Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.
[00:01:25] Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
[00:01:35] For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
[00:01:39] But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light.
[00:01:47] Therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead and. And Christ will shine on you.
[00:01:54] Let's pray.
[00:02:00] Father, we need you.
[00:02:03] We need you to receive this truth, to understand, to deeply comprehend it, and to be changed by it.
[00:02:11] Father, let us not just hear the words tonight.
[00:02:14] Let them impact our day to day lives, seeking after your glory with all that we do.
[00:02:20] Amen.
[00:02:22] So immediately when I hit this passage, I think about the.
[00:02:26] It's kind of just a big contrast between the light and the dark. And it's following right along with Ephesians chapter two because it's, you know, right after, you know, three chapters later, but following right along and it says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. I mean, it's not, it's not making it any less. It's showing you exactly what it is. You have the, the people of the world that are following Satan and the people that are children of light. And it's giving you those two categories right there. And it's not saying those people are only okay, they're not that bad. It's saying that they are under the rule of Satan.
[00:03:06] It's not, it's, it's.
[00:03:11] It's strong.
[00:03:12] And it's meant to be strong because there's two positions that we have at being in Christ and not in Christ.
[00:03:18] But let's move on to the first picture. Right there, Shannon, you see a beautiful picture of a little girl. And that is Hayden.
[00:03:24] Yeah, that's Hayden when she was, I mean, like a little bit over one. And if you see she's rocking a Duke cheerleading outfit right there.
[00:03:35] If you know me, I'm a Carolina fan. I'm a big Carolina fan.
[00:03:38] And I put this picture up on Facebook and I got a lot of flack from some of my family for it. They were like, what are you thinking? Why? Blah, blah, blah, blah. They put her in this Duke uniform.
[00:03:49] My grandma or their grandma, my mother in law and her best friend are Duke fans. And so they gave Hayden this uniform and we put it on her because it's cute. Because Hayden's cute. She makes the outfit, right?
[00:04:01] And I post the picture. Why? Because I don't care.
[00:04:05] And some other people gave me a hard time. You know, if you're a counter fan, you can't be posting this blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, man, my identity is not wrapped up in this college team that I root for.
[00:04:15] And somebody was really upset that I did it. Like, what are you doing to this kid? I'm like, come on, man. Like, this is not that big of a deal.
[00:04:23] You know, I love sports. I love watching sports. My kids would watch with me sometimes. There's only one sports rule in our family. You can't, like the Eagles.
[00:04:30] You can't root from any team from Philadelphia because Philadelphia fans are the worst fans ever.
[00:04:36] Other than that, pick your own team. I don't care how you pick them. Pick Duke, whatever. I don't care.
[00:04:41] I'm going to, you know, mock you at times because I think that part's funny, but I don't mean anything about it. But some of us, we have our identity wrapped so much in these things that when these college guys lose a game, we lose sleep.
[00:04:56] And they're. I'm not gonna call their names out, but two guys I know used to go back and forth with this kind of stuff, you know, Carolina. One's a Carolina fan, one's a Duke fan. They go back and forth. And some. One of them, if, you know, Duke lost, they threw a remote and busted the TV one time.
[00:05:09] And they would have. They would make bets on each other. And one time when one of them was working night shift during the day, one of them climbed on top of their house. They had a sheet spray painted with the Carolina Duke score and put it on top of the house with big bricks holding it down so it wouldn't go anywhere.
[00:05:26] And it was on. He was working night shifts, so he was basically sleeping all day and working outage. And he couldn't take it down because he didn't have any time when it was light that he could do it. He was working an outage. So he was busy all day long and couldn't do it at night.
[00:05:39] Poor Kent. Poor Kent. Yeah. I'm not gonna tell you their names, but their initials are Kent and Kurt Carver. Just for the record, one time my dad had a bet against my uncle about if, you know, whoever's team lost, they had to put the other team's license in the front of the truck. And my dad's lost, so my dad had to put his Duke license on the front of his truck. Well, he put it on there, and he parked it next to a shop facing the shop and drove his other truck for the next week when he had to have it on there.
[00:06:03] Pretty clever. I have to give it to him. My uncle didn't specify enough on that one right there. All right, Making fun of them. But, you know, the reality is we've seen people like that where it could be sports or anything else, but our identity is so tied to that thing that we have that if it goes awry, our life's messed up for a day or two.
[00:06:22] We just.
[00:06:23] I mean, you know, I'm picking on sports because it's the one that relates to me at some point in time, but no longer. Right. Where are we putting our identity?
[00:06:31] What are we putting it in?
[00:06:35] Point number one tells us this, that as a believer, our new position and identity is in Christ.
[00:06:44] That's what we have to have it. Believers.
[00:06:47] As a believer, another word for believer we learned recently is what you are a saint or you ain't as a saint, as a believer, we have to wrap our minds around that, our new position, identity.
[00:07:04] Three times in Scripture, it tells us, you know, uses the word Christian. I talked about this a while back and over 300 times. It uses the terminology in Christ or in Jesus or Jesus Christ.
[00:07:15] Right. I want us to begin to identify as in Christ, not necessarily the word Christian. Some people might want to argue what being a Christian means, and I don't want to get into all of that, but it's clear that as believers throughout Scripture, we need to identify as being in Christ. We know that our position where we are is in Christ, and that's a stark contrast with being in the world.
[00:07:41] They use this position all the time, saying, basically, being in the world and just being of Satan.
[00:07:49] Why is this so important? Knowing our position, our identity informs and directs what we do with our time, talent, and treasures.
[00:08:01] Believers, what's fueling you from. What's motivating you? What's driving you to get up out of bed every morning and to make each and every small decision?
[00:08:12] What's the why behind your what?
[00:08:17] Some of us get up, we're trying to pay the bills, and sometimes it's like that and it's all right.
[00:08:25] But we have to begin to think and question what's motivating us in all that we say and do.
[00:08:30] Why did you respond the way that you responded? Why did you purchase that thing that you bought?
[00:08:36] Why did you do this and this? And why did you respond this way?
[00:08:42] I'm hard headed, if you hadn't noticed that before.
[00:08:46] Yeah, my wife is also hard headed.
[00:08:50] My kids, they struggling. Man, the apple did not fall far from the tree. So early on, when Kelli and I were young in our marriage and trying to learn to communicate, we stunk. We both did. I was worse. And we began to an argument. And, man, I love winning arguments. And I'm good at winning arguments.
[00:09:07] Even when I, you know, sometimes I won the argument, I actually lost.
[00:09:11] Yeah, I've been there a lot of times, and I would always try to win an argument because I want to feel justified in what I say and what I do.
[00:09:19] And so I'm trying to win these arguments. And then I was like, man, actually I hate fighting with you. It would be part of what I said to her, I don't want to fight. And she looked at me like it wouldn't say anything, but her mind was going, mm. You say you don't like to fight, but your actions do not prove it. And she was right.
[00:09:34] I would say I Want to fight. So I started. I wrote a list down of, like, how can I. What I really want to accomplish?
[00:09:40] And I wrote a list of questions down.
[00:09:42] And the first question was always, are you trying to win the fight? Are you trying to love your wife?
[00:09:49] And usually the rest of the question I had on that little sheet of paper did not matter much when I. When I was confronted with that question, are you trying to win the fight or are you trying to love your wife?
[00:09:58] When I stepped back to see where I wanted to go, my actions changed because I realized that trying to win the argument is not going to take me to a position of loving my wife.
[00:10:11] And so when I realized what my end goal was, what I was trying to accomplish, it changed the little actions that I took to get there or anywhere. It changed it.
[00:10:20] Believers, what is it that's fueling you?
[00:10:25] What is motivating all the decisions that you make?
[00:10:29] I have this question I ask a lot of times when I hang out with teenagers that are sometimes being dumb, and I'm like, what do you want out of life? Where you want to end up in life? And they'll tell me different things they've got going on. This one young man one time said, I want to be a vet.
[00:10:41] And he really did love animals at the time. You know, he mostly had access to dogs. So he was always taking care of dogs and raising them up and training them and. But he was always fighting, always getting in trouble, suspended from school. I said, do you think these actions that you're taking in school are gonna lead you to be a vet one day?
[00:11:00] He's, nah, probably not.
[00:11:02] And I was like, why are you doing them?
[00:11:05] I don't know, man.
[00:11:08] You're responding to a moment and the people around you. You're not responding to what you say your ultimate goal is.
[00:11:16] You're not going to end up at that goal by just doing whatever quick response that you want, by responding to the situation that you want. You have to think longer term than that.
[00:11:26] Believers, do we have our identity in Christ.
[00:11:31] Our position in Christ is what's motivating us for all that we do.
[00:11:37] Number two, we need to align yourself with the people of God to become fit for the purposes of God.
[00:11:47] Tim Bose, you understand what I did there? Yeah. You saw that on the front of our. I think he's in our bulletin. It's also in the front sign, and it says Easter Rock. Our little tagline says, becoming the people of God fit for the purposes of God.
[00:12:01] So I wanted to change that up and line it up with right here.
[00:12:04] We need to begin to align ourselves with the people of God to become fit for the purposes of God. Look at verse 7.
[00:12:12] Therefore, do not become partners with them.
[00:12:15] Who is them? The sons of disobedience.
[00:12:20] Don't be partners with them.
[00:12:22] They're not going the same direction you're going.
[00:12:25] If you're pulling a heavy load, they're pulling against you, they're not pulling with you.
[00:12:30] Sometimes you might think they're pulling with you, but they're not going the same place you're going to. Your path might cross for a season, but it's not that way. Do not be partners.
[00:12:43] What do you take that to mean?
[00:12:46] I'd say watch out how you do who you do business with and who becomes your business partner.
[00:12:51] Because when you have a problem with your business and you're trying to decide how you want to solve that problem, you don't have the same end goal in mind.
[00:13:00] You might have an immediate end goal in mind to say, don't hurt the business, don't hurt the profits. Let's steer the business the right direction. But for the believer, your end goal is the glory of God, right? So even though you might want to handle some things a certain way as a believer, you might say, let's only do it this way so that we can do it for the glory of God. And it might hurt the dollar, the bottom line a little bit. But you're choosing God's glory over anything else.
[00:13:29] Obviously in relationships you can't. Don't date someone who's not a believer.
[00:13:36] If you're single and looking, I would say don't settle for someone who's not a strong believer. Don't make an excuse for their walk with God so that you can just stay with them because you're lonely.
[00:13:46] I've done it. It doesn't end well.
[00:13:51] Don't let your desperation lead you.
[00:13:54] Walk wisely.
[00:13:57] Your friendships, your day to day friendships. I actually mentioned this a few weeks ago when I was going the other section I preached on in Ephesians. But I feel like it's so for a reason. Birds of feather flock together.
[00:14:10] We are heavily influenced by the people that we choose to hang around.
[00:14:14] Psalms and Proverbs both start off talking about the company you keep.
[00:14:19] Psalms right away, proverbs at around 13. I think it's super important that our friendships equally value Christ. Now I'm never going to say don't have any friends that don't love God. That's not the point that I'm talking about. But the Friendships, the ones that we do life together with, the ones that we let in with our struggles, our passions, our dreams, our hopes, the ones that we share everything with. And we're asking for advice and feedback, saying, yes, you should think that way, you should feel that way, you should act that way. Those friendships have to be with the people of God because those are the ones who have the same end goal in mind.
[00:15:04] They're the ones that are living for God's glory. And if you choose people who do not have that in mind, they're not going to give you good advice.
[00:15:13] It might be wise advice in the eyes of the world, but it cannot be the people.
[00:15:20] It can't be the world. You can't make best friends of the world or people who love the world.
[00:15:28] This world is passing away along with its desires.
[00:15:32] We have to free our heart from the love of the world.
[00:15:36] We have to free our mind from the people of the world. Look at how Scripture talks about them. Don't forget it. Oh, they're not so bad. They're a good guy overall.
[00:15:47] Scripture calls them sons of disobedience.
[00:15:52] Their heart is not in the line with God.
[00:15:58] We have to be careful. The partnerships that we make.
[00:16:09] Number three, simply. You got it. We are to walk as children of light. Pretty simple, right? Right out of the words. We are to walk as children of light.
[00:16:20] What does that mean? If we have fellowship with one another, we walk with each other. If we have fellowship with God, we walk with each other. It's right there, right along with what we talked about. The verse Cayce read a minute ago.
[00:16:31] If we have fellowship with one another, man, what else does it mean to walk as children of light? I think the fruit of the Spirit tells us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.
[00:16:50] Walk in those ways.
[00:16:54] Walk in those ways.
[00:17:02] When you walk as children of light, you will begin to look different than everybody else around you.
[00:17:16] Sometimes it's lonely to be different than the people around you.
[00:17:20] It's one of the reasons I believe the church is such an important gift to people.
[00:17:26] Because in this building, we're heading the same direction.
[00:17:30] You get out into the world with people that aren't head that same direction. And if you're living different, you'll feel lonely a lot of times.
[00:17:45] My senior year of high school was when I really began living for God's glory and man. The friendships that I had for so many years, they left.
[00:17:56] They began talking about things I didn't want to. I no longer desired to have those conversations or be around those conversations. And I lost a lot of my friends, most all of my friends, except for two.
[00:18:06] I had three people I hung out with my senior year of high school and had to exist in the school. And I was still friendly with the people around me. I still like several of them. But I began quickly to realize that we're not headed the same direction.
[00:18:20] I mean, my friendship circle stayed small for a very long time.
[00:18:25] And for a long time, I hung out with Tim Care and his girls. That was my circle. Until we hired Andrew at the warehouse. That was the only friends that I had.
[00:18:34] Yeah, you know, it's lonely.
[00:18:38] It was lonely.
[00:18:42] But I had to keep eternal things in mind.
[00:18:45] When this is worth it.
[00:18:48] This is okay to walk this way because I can see in scripture, those who walk in God's way will stand out from the world.
[00:18:58] You will stand out and be different and you will function different.
[00:19:04] And it's worth the sacrifice. It's worth the things that you give up.
[00:19:08] Something I love about the story of Stephen is he was stoned.
[00:19:11] Not that I love the story of Stephen being stoned. It's. I mean, it's terrible, right?
[00:19:16] But to all the disciples around them, they were looking, all the believers around them, they were looking at going, this is worth it.
[00:19:26] They were asking that question, do we give up everything to follow him? They see Stephen shining like a light was about him, and they go, this is worth dying for.
[00:19:39] And they fled for their lives, taking the gospel with them as they went.
[00:19:44] It's okay to stand out from the crowd.
[00:19:46] It's okay to not be like everybody else. In fact, it's more of a chance that you're doing it right if you're not like everybody else.
[00:19:55] Even when everybody else is telling you that you're the bigot, you're the one that's small minded. And that's the story of the world right now, right?
[00:20:03] For the last three years, I believe right now, Christianity in America is now the minority, only a small minority. But for the first time ever, that number switched to 51% of Americans no longer identify as Christians.
[00:20:18] First time in all the history.
[00:20:21] And that's just how they choose to identify.
[00:20:24] Not the ones that are really walking in Christ. And in the light, we will look different as we choose God's glory over our own.
[00:20:38] As we choose meekness, strength, under control.
[00:20:42] We don't have to demand to be right in every scenario.
[00:20:49] Walking as children of light means that we are no longer living for our own glory, but for the glory of God.
[00:20:54] All that we say and do reflects God's glory.
[00:20:58] And we no longer live to build ourselves up, but to build God up.
[00:21:05] And as the passage Casey read a little bit ago, we're going to walk in the same way that Jesus walked.
[00:21:11] We're going to walk the same way that Jesus walked.
[00:21:15] So what does that mean? We avoid darkness.
[00:21:18] But point number four tells us that we don't just avoid darkness, we expose it.
[00:21:26] We go further than avoiding darkness. We expose darkness. What does that mean?
[00:21:33] First, we avoid darkness. Right? We have to avoid it.
[00:21:37] How do we begin to do that?
[00:21:39] Point A tells us that we're going to take a biblical mindset towards sin.
[00:21:47] I believe that one's on the slide there, Shannon the next one, or Mary, whoever's back there. The believer must take a biblical mindset towards sin.
[00:21:57] We can't just view sin the way that we want to view sin and what it is. And a lot of times we want to rank sin of things that are not so bad or some that are so bad. And there's. There's some that I feel more strong against than others. I'll be honest as I say that we have to have a biblical mindset of sin. What does that mean? That all sin is of Satan.
[00:22:14] All sin lines us up with Satan.
[00:22:17] All sin is separating us from God.
[00:22:22] And whether or not we view it as bad or wrong or not so bad, or we view it as. It ain't that big of a deal. All sin separates us from God and it is what is robbing us of the life, the peace, the joy, all that God has for us. Sin is the enemy.
[00:22:39] Sin is an enemy.
[00:22:41] Sin is also not to be celebrated in any form. We don't celebrate sin first. John 1:9. In case you don't know a little bit ago, if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What does confess mean? Homo ligeo. Same word. It means to agree with God. God has already judged sin.
[00:23:11] He said that is wrong. And so we come to a spot where we align ourselves with God's judgment and say, God, you are right. I'm going to live in a way that it reflects. You are right. I. I'm going to align my thoughts and my actions with you.
[00:23:26] That's what confession looks like. It doesn't mean to say that we did it.
[00:23:30] He already knows that we did it.
[00:23:32] We're not hiding anything from him when we confess, we are aligning with God and taking on his mind about sin, that it's not right. It's not good. And we come up with a new way of living his way.
[00:23:49] So we want to avoid darkness. We must think like God and the Scriptures think about sin.
[00:23:57] It's not a laughing matter.
[00:24:00] Next, we begin to call it out.
[00:24:03] Okay, slow down a little bit.
[00:24:08] Are you sure about this one?
[00:24:10] Nobody's telling you to be a jerk.
[00:24:13] Nobody's telling you to take Westboro Baptist churches and get signs and go around and just talk down on people and belittle them over and over again. Nobody's taking that approach at all.
[00:24:28] Nobody's telling you take the approach that you're looking down your nose at somebody and judging them and thinking less of them because of the sin they're in.
[00:24:39] What does it mean to call people out? It means that we speak life to them and we tell them there's something better than what they're choosing, and there's something better than what they've settled for. And there's something better than things that fall apart so easily. There's something better that is eternal.
[00:25:01] We speak truth and life to them and encourage them to walk in the ways of God. Not to judge them, because we have no position to judge them.
[00:25:10] We were once like them and have been rescued, redeemed out of darkness and pulled into the marvelous light. And we're saying, come on this journey with me.
[00:25:19] This world had nothing to offer me, and it has nothing to offer you. Let me show you something better.
[00:25:27] I don't have it down. I'm not perfect, but I've tasted and I've seen, and I want you to also.
[00:25:37] How do we do it? It's not hard.
[00:25:40] Scary.
[00:25:44] It's also incredibly hard. Yeah, it does. Two things I believe are right there. It's not hard, but it's incredibly hard. What do I mean by that? Because when it's got you, you gotta share it.
[00:25:55] And when you care for somebody, you gotta share. It's also incredibly hard because it will mess up friendships.
[00:26:05] It will make people question what you're doing. And maybe at times I'll go, they'll think lowly of you.
[00:26:12] And later they'll look back and go, man, that was the biggest blessing God ever gave me.
[00:26:17] We can't worry about what might happen when we see a brother in sin and go, like, God has something better in store for you. It is difficult.
[00:26:28] Not gonna sugarcoat that part at all.
[00:26:31] We have to begin to value God and his ways over anything else. We have to begin to value our position as in, Christ is the most important thing about us. And Understand that we're inviting them into that.
[00:26:48] We have to stop valuing acceptance and people thinking highly of us is our end goals.
[00:26:57] It's incredibly hard.
[00:27:04] But it's also a simple thing in concept.
[00:27:12] I know what I was rescued from, what I was redeemed from, and I want you to have that. Also.
[00:27:23] You value their long term eternal well being over their immediate praise of you. It's like raising kids, the amount of size I've gotten today alone.
[00:27:39] But I know I'm leading them to better things as we go along.
[00:27:51] We also need to discern what is pleasing.
[00:27:57] How we do that. Romans 12 tells us we need a renewed mind.
[00:28:05] Philippians tells us think about these things. Whatever's pure, whatever's just the things that we dwell on. We have to change what we dwell on.
[00:28:15] We have to change the things that we're putting into our brain over and over again. It means to stop taking in so much of the world and begin taking in more and more of God's word.
[00:28:27] It will have an immediate impact on us.
[00:28:30] It might mean there's a season. Our taste buds need to change.
[00:28:38] You know that in some ways every seven years our taste buds change in our mouth. You know that things that used to taste bad to you might taste better to you. Every seven years our taste buds change.
[00:28:48] I didn't like tomatoes when I was growing up until I grew my own garden.
[00:28:52] Then I started liking tomatoes, especially if they were with bacon and mayonnaise, a little bit of lettuce because you're supposed to have it in bread. But things cause us for our taste buds to change too.
[00:29:04] Other things changed our taste buds.
[00:29:06] I labored over that garden.
[00:29:09] It was a long way from the water hose. So we had a dreaded water hose all the way across the jar. I couldn't just leave it out every time because my parents wouldn't let me. I don't know why, just made sense to me.
[00:29:22] But as we labor in a certain area that will change our taste buds. Also.
[00:29:31] You got kids that love McDonald's chicken nuggets over a real good chicken nugget that you made at home from real chicken. I want that one. Why do you want that one? It's full of everything and barely full of real chicken at all.
[00:29:47] Like, why were you settled for that thing? It's because their taste buds are used to it.
[00:29:51] That's what they desire. We have to change and season our taste buds.
[00:29:57] Let it experience something good and eternal for a while and it'll learn to change and value that thing. That's better.
[00:30:06] When I met my wife, she didn't like steak.
[00:30:09] Tim took us out to Ruth's Chris one night.
[00:30:12] Ruth Chris Steakhouse. She ordered chicken.
[00:30:18] That was during our time we were doing marriage premarital counseling.
[00:30:24] Yeah. Since I almost called it off, I was like, who am I marrying?
[00:30:28] What kind of woman is this?
[00:30:31] Now I've got her eating steak. She's. She's growing, she's growing.
[00:30:36] I've actually got her, you know, we started eating, it was like, I want well done. Now I got her down to like medium, medium well.
[00:30:42] She's growing right. How to eat it right.
[00:30:47] We have to grow up. We have to let our taste buds change.
[00:30:54] And we always have this idea that grass is green on the other side.
[00:30:57] The reality is the grass is greener where you water it.
[00:31:01] Spend time toying in God's word, taking it in, letting it change your mind. Let your mind become renewed and your actions will follow suit.
[00:31:14] Lastly, our pastor tells us to walk in the light and be here for the truth. That's our title. Lastly, be eager for truth.
[00:31:24] Be eager for the truth.
[00:31:29] You know who can be the most eager?
[00:31:31] Little kids.
[00:31:33] Kids can be eager about stuff, man.
[00:31:35] We're taking our family on a trip to Europe somewhere. And in the spring. So all of all five kids of mine are going. My parents are going, my mother in law is going. And it's spring break next year.
[00:31:47] As my wife's idea, not mine. Don't think I'm crazy. I'm just going along, I guess. My wife and my mother's idea.
[00:31:54] They're eager about this. They are so eager they are already arguing about our sleeping arrangements.
[00:32:01] What do you care who you sleep. We were going all the way over there. Why are you arguing about it now? You have no idea what we're going to be doing and you're arguing about this stuff right now.
[00:32:12] Come on, guys.
[00:32:17] You know the hardest ignorant of that one is Ellie. The one who has no concept over time.
[00:32:23] When I get big. We're taking this trip, Ellie. We're taking it this year.
[00:32:27] This year? She doesn't even know what a year is yet. She's still figuring that out. She's just starting kindergarten.
[00:32:33] I mean, you know, she knows she can define it, but she doesn't comprehend it.
[00:32:37] This school. You're gonna start school coming up and we're gonna go during that school year. We're gonna go then when school starts. And now she's like asking us when it's gonna happen. Like next week. No, Ellie. Couple months away and she keeps Going that way. And she. And she. She just keeps talking about, like, it's next week, then it's next time. It's like nine months from now or next time. It's like nine years from now.
[00:32:58] She's eager about it and has no idea how to comprehend what it's going to be. All she does is talk about it left and right. Also, if you know Ellie, all she does is talk anyway. She doesn't stop. And then she talks about that thing. She's so eager about it. It just stays on her mind over and over again. And she won't let it go. And she won't let it go.
[00:33:13] That's my wife's doing, not mine.
[00:33:15] Let me tell you why from the. Because I didn't tell them about the trip. That's only on that side. I'm not talking about her actions. No, no, no. I don't tell my kids about something. We own the way to do it.
[00:33:23] We made plans for Friday night, and I pick him up from school. So we got plans tonight. Not telling you what it is, except we're gonna go home and clean up until it's time to go.
[00:33:32] Cause don't ask me about it. And they keep asking me about it. And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna answer this. I'm not gonna answer this. And we keep going. We keep going. And I'm not gonna tell you. And then I finally tell them what it is, and then Hayden loses her mind and fusses at me.
[00:33:46] And it didn't work out, maybe for that either. But my proposal, I'm just not gonna tell you about it.
[00:33:51] So you ain't gonna ask me a whole bunch of questions. The kids are eager, right?
[00:33:55] Man. Same way we should be. Like these kids. Eager for something.
[00:33:59] But not just something.
[00:34:01] Eager for truth, desire. In that exact same way that we don't let up and we don't back down.
[00:34:15] It's annoying when my kids do it, but I wish I had that same approach to God's word where I wouldn't be satisfied until I was in it and knew God more and knew his heart more and knew his plan for me. More believers, we have been rescued from darkness.
[00:34:36] We deserve death. We deserve hell. And we have been redeemed. We've been pulled out of that and pulled into his marvelous light.
[00:34:46] Do we remember what we were rescued from?
[00:34:49] And we're now a new creation given a new heart.
[00:34:54] Let's be eager and walk in that truth. Let's be eager for truth.
[00:35:01] Honestly, point number five should probably be A subset of point number three.
[00:35:08] But I didn't want to end talking about sin and darkness.
[00:35:11] I wanted to end talking about the pursuit of God. So I made it point number five.
[00:35:16] Be eager for truth. Let's press into it. Let's go there together.
[00:35:21] Let's call darkness out into each other. You should have punk friends like Matt.
[00:35:26] Specifically Matt Acrey. He's a punk sometimes. I don't like him all the time because I have this, like, cool show that I watch. I'm like, did you see this thing? And he's like, no, I've never seen that. That's a really terrible show. Or he'll ask me a question like, what kind of show is that? I'm like, yeah, let's not get into all that. I'm talking about this one scene right now. Let's focus on that part right there.
[00:35:46] And he's like, yeah, sounds like a scene. I don't want to know right now.
[00:35:50] I'm like, shut up, man. You just ruined my good story.
[00:35:54] I'm gonna go tell somebody else. Where's another heathen at around here?
[00:35:59] We need a friend who will lead us in those things that will call us out.
[00:36:03] We need to press into the body because we're going this way together.
[00:36:08] Let's share the same load.
[00:36:10] Let's encourage each other in these things.
[00:36:14] We walk in the light.
[00:36:17] We are in the light. We don't have to get there. We don't have to arrive there. We're already there.
[00:36:24] Let's embrace it.
[00:36:27] Let's go after truth together.
[00:36:31] Because that's where life is.
[00:36:34] That is where life is.
[00:36:36] That is where we.
[00:36:39] We're not.
[00:36:41] The world has nothing to offer us.
[00:36:43] It's not this burnt thing to give it up because it's pulling us down.
[00:36:48] Let's embrace this life, the life more abundant Jesus promised us. Let us enjoy that.
[00:36:55] Let us set our minds around that and wholeheartedly pursue it together. Because it's good.
[00:37:01] It's good.
[00:37:04] Let's pray.
[00:37:10] Father, I rejoice.
[00:37:12] I rejoice that I'm no longer bound to sin.
[00:37:15] I am no longer walking in darkness as a son of disobedience. But you have called me out of that and you have made me an ambassador.
[00:37:25] Father, I don't deserve to sing your praises, but you let me anyway.
[00:37:30] Father, I don't deserve this new life that you're offering, but you give it anyway.
[00:37:37] Father, help us to embrace this new life. Help us to embrace this identity that we have in Christ. Help us to walk in the light as you are in the light.
[00:37:48] Help us to receive more of you. Help us desire less of the world.
[00:37:53] And Father, help us to desire more of your word that leads us into more life.
[00:37:58] More of you.
[00:37:59] Father, we thank you for your many blessings. Amen.
