So today, before we got into the message I wanted to start with a story. This story happened on the Titanic. You know for the young people here, the Titanic is an actual thing. It’s not a movie, it really happened in history. We’re not talking about Jack and Rose. We’re talking about a different story that happened on the Titanic.  This story is about a guy named John Harper. John Harper was a Pastor from Scotland and he was a widow and he had a six-year-old daughter and he had plans to go to the Moody Church in Chicago - it’s a famous church, it’s still there today - to go preach at this church, but he heard about this mighty vessel that was gonna launch and he actually delayed his trip an entire week to be able to go on the maiden voyage, on this Titanic. So he gets on and we all know the story of what happened on the Titanic and the Titanic hits the iceberg and all of a sudden everybody’s in a flurry of action and this is where Pastor Harper’s story really comes alive. 

He grabs a life vest, he puts one on himself and one on his daughter, and they run to the lifeboats and he takes his daughter, his six-year-old daughter, and he puts her around the lifeboat, and he looks at her in the eyes and says, “I will see you again one day”. And then he shoves the lifeboat out into the water and he looks and there’s a guy next to him without a life vest on and he says, “Sir are you saved?” And the guy says, “No I’m not saved”, and he takes off his life vest, puts it around this guy's shoulders, and says, “You’re gonna need this more than I do”. He goes on and he starts helping the rest of the lifeboats get loaded and he’s quoted as sitting at the lifeboat yelling out saying, “Women, children, and the unsaved onto the lifeboats! Women, children, and unsaved onto the lifeboats!” When all the lifeboats were filled, he went to the orchestra, and this is actually in the movie Titanic, he goes to the orchestra and he says, “Listen I want you guys to play a hymn”. It’s an old hymn, it’s called Nearer, My God, to Thee. And then he stood in front of the orchestra and began to preach the gospel to all that would listen trying to convert as many as he could. When he eventually ended up in the water, he was seen swimming from person to person, imploring them to give their lives to Christ.

Of the hundreds of people that went in the water that day, only seven were plucked out alive. Fast-forward years later there’s a church in Canada and they’re having an altar call and one guy in the church stands up. This guy’s name is Aquila Webb and he stands up and he says, “I want to say something.” And they say, “ Okay Sir go ahead.” And this is an exact quote for what he said. “I am a survivor of the Titanic, when I was drifting alone on a spar that awful night the tide brought Mr. John Harper of Glasgow who was also on a piece of wreck near me. 'Man he said are you saved?', 'No, I said I’m not.' He replied, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved'. At that point waves wore him away, but strange to say the same waves brought him back a little later. He looked at me and said, 'Are you saved now?', 'No,' I said, 'I cannot honestly say that I am.' He said to me, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved.' Shortly after that, he went down and there, alone in the night with 2 miles of water underneath me, I believed. You see, I am John Harper’s last convert.”

What an amazing story right? What an amazing story! You don’t see that in the movies, but I look at this man - what could make a man act like that? What could make a man look and not see the surroundings and see everything that’s going on around him? He had such a bad circumstance with what he was surrounded with, but what could make a man deny what was going on around him so strongly, look, and not see his circumstance, but instead, see a desperate need for salvation of those that are surrounding him? This type of mentality comes from someone who has fully and wholly rejected the truths of this world and come into the truth, the one and only truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see this path, of what Pastor Harper did, it’s laid out to us in the Word.  It’s about rejecting the way of the world, it’s about turning your back to the way of the world, and instead coming into the Word of God. Turning your back on all your worldly ways to see things how they actually are. Today, my sermon is about turning your back on the ways of the world and coming into the kingdom. The title of my sermon is "Turn Your Back".

So today we’re gonna talk about what it means to turn your back on the world and instead learn to live in the kingdom of God. First, I’m gonna talk about turning your back on your slavery. Turn your back on your slavery.  When I say turn your back, there’s actually something that happened that made me think of this and it was a really crazy moment.  Do you guys remember Mayor De Blasio from New York City? So he goes to this cop event. I don’t remember what it exactly was, I think it might've been a funeral. And there’s all these cops in the audience, and he goes in front of the people, and he stands up and the craziest thing happened. All the cops stood up as one and turned their backs. It was jarring to see and this guy got up and he kind of looked down at his speech. And he started to stutter and he tried to deliver what he was trying to say, but it was so jarring, that he actually had to just get off the stage. It’s that you can almost feel it in your chest. 

Why do wordly principles still hold sway over Christians? And in some of the worst cases, still lead the American church. Why do they still exist, because we have not turned our back on the things of the world.

"Why do wordly principles still hold sway over Christians?"

We are still lending an ear to these leaders, to these things, to these normal ways of doing things, that we go and we lend an ear to them and instead of turning our back in the way we just did, we instead say, "Well what do you think?" "What do you have to say?" "I know what the word says, but let’s play devil's advocate. What do you think?" "What is your opinion on the matter and then I’ll make a decision." You see, no leader, no thing would come and stand before people to try to convince them of something if their backs were turned to them. And what happened, I saw it in Mayor DeBlasio and I also saw it in Mayor Lightfoot in Chicago, the same thing happened again. All of a sudden they looked and they said, "I gotta step down because, I’m looking around and there’s not a single person that is willing to hear what I have to say", but you know what the problem is? It’s when people do this, and they say, "yeah, I know I’m supposed to listen, but what do you have to say?" 

I’ll tell you, if any of you turned your back and looked at me like that, I would say, "Oh I got an in and I can keep going!" and it would empower me. And that’s what happens every single day when people, when the Christians, instead of turning their back, they kind of listen to both sides, they try to take and they try to mix the two together together. That’s not what God has called for. In fact, Scripture gives us a perfect example of this. When the Israelites came and they were in Egypt and they were in slavery and they were going through such a hard time. What did God do? They began to call out for deliverance and God answered them in the form of Moses and Aaron who went and began to speak on their behalf.  All of a sudden fast-forward through all the plagues, what did they do? They get up, they turn their back and they begin to walk away from their slavery. Now listen, I’m not saying that they were perfect. These are people that were not filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had not come and filled man like that, they were imperfect people.  I’m not saying they’re not, but you know what they did do? They got up on their own feet and they begin to walk away from their slavery. 

And they walked, and they walked until they couldn’t walk anymore, until the situation became impossible. When all of a sudden there’s a big body of water in front of them and behind them there is an army that was coming for them. There was nothing else they could do in their own strength. And what happened? God brought a cloud to separate them. 

In Exodus 14:20, it says, “So the cloud came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one and it gave light by night to the other. So that one did not come near the other all that night.” I love that. It’s a cloud that comes on one side as fire, on one side as darkness. It must have been like a supernatural, oppressive darkness that came to the slavers, that came to the ones that were trying to put them back in the slavery, but to the people of God, to the Israelites, it was warmth and light to the ones being brought into freedom. You see, in that moment, it didn’t matter how great their chariots were, it didn’t matter what steel swords and weapons they had, it didn’t matter how mighty their steeds were. It was nothing in the face of a mighty God who had proclaimed freedom over the captives, in fact as they were crossing the Red Sea, God said he made the wheels fall off the chariots, and they got stuck in the mud until when? Until the the waters closed. And we all know the rest of the story, the horse and the rider fell into the sea. Amen.

The question is: What is holding you in slavery today? Is it an addiction? Is it the way you reason, the way you think, the way your mind works? Is it your past and the heartache and the pain or the things that you have done? Why do they still have a say in our lives? It is because we have not turned our back on these things. It is because we continually tend to lend an ear to what they have to say. We know the truth, we know the Word, but yet we want to hear what they have to say today. God is calling you to turn your back on your slavery, to stop giving the ways of the world, the demonic principles that live in this world that run everything else. Stop lending an ear to it. Turn your back, turn it away to a point where it has to leave you because it knows it no longer has a home with you. 

Our eyes must remain fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Our eyes have to remain glued onto him. Don’t turn an ear!

"Our eyes must remain fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ."

  The Bible says whatever rules you, is what masters you, right? Whatever rule you were following. Whose rules are you following in your life? Are your decisions ruled by worldliness or godliness? Are your rationalizations, are your reactions? If they’re based off of anything besides God, then I tell you, you are following a different rule. But let me tell you what the Word of God says in Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, stand firm then, and do not allow yourselves to be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.” Let me tell you something, Christians are not a bunch of cowards. The Kingdom of God is not made up of the meek, it is made up of the mighty, the ones who are warriors, the ones who are willing to stand. My wife preached it last week. She said, this is a year where God is proclaiming freedom over the captives. The Israelites, they were willing to go. They were willing to stand up. They called out for deliverance and it wasn’t a lightning bolt, it wasn’t some Holy Spirit movement. They just got up and began to walk and turn their back on all the things of the world, on all the slavery that had been with them, and they walked and they walked until their feet could not carry them anymore. And in their moment that they needed God, they called out to him and he came and he delivered them. 

You must be willing to go and fight for your freedom. To call out for deliverance to get on your own two feet and say God I won’t do it anymore. God, the ways of the world have led me to destruction, but in you there is life, my eyes will not leave you. God, my eyes will stay on you and I will walk into my freedom, and I will walk towards you, and I will find you, and my eyes will be glued on you. And you know what? When it gets so bad and I can’t do it anymore, you will raise up a cloud behind me. It’ll be warmth and it’ll be light to me and you will proclaim freedom over the captives. That is what God is calling for.  There is a jarring thing that God asked you to stand up. Turn your back, and stop lending an ear to the ways of the world. That is how we find freedom in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So turn your back on your slavers, turn your back on everything that has held you and that ruled you.

Secondly, turn your back on worldly thinking. Sometimes I forget, I was doing something in my Bible this week, and I really came to truth. When I was looking, I forget sometimes how opposed the Word of God is compared to what the world says. I forget sometimes, and as I read the Word and I open it up, it reminds me that what the world says, and what God says. They are in enmity to one another. The thing is that what the world says, it sounds good. It's like a catchy little phrase that they call us to live by and they sound so nice and it’s like these Hallmark movie moments and they sound good, but the truth is they are in enmity to God. 

I know you guys probably don't believe me, so I prepared some examples today. Let's have fun. We’ll play a little game. It’s called what the world says versus what God says. The first one is "Follow your heart", which sounds really nice. Follow your heart, whatever is in your heart you follow it and you’re gonna find it no matter what. The problem with this one is when the church begins to take this and God and they kind of mix it together to get something that’s not good. Because people, this is the rationalization, you follow your heart on this side, but on this side, well this Pastor one time told me that if I just said a prayer, Jesus was inside my heart. And if I just said one prayer, I’ll be going to heaven no matter what I do, no matter what I say, no matter how I live, it doesn’t matter Jesus is in my heart. So one plus one equals two, if I’m following my heart and Jesus in my heart then I’m actually following Jesus, right? And this is how Christians live. Christians live in this thing where you just gotta follow your heart. But Jesus is in my heart probably, so I’m following Jesus. But what does the Bible say? In Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it?” Ah, I guess I can’t follow that. I guess I shouldn’t follow that because what is that talking about?

"Come and learn his voice, come and learn what he says"

  It stops putting it on you, it stops being about you, it says stop following your own thinking, your own surmising, your own ways, your own rationalization, your own thinking, put it all away and instead follow the Word of God. Come and learn his voice, come and learn what he says, come into the church of God where the words can be confirmed and you can move as one entity, come and you will know the truth, and you will no longer be following your own ways.

Alright let's go to the next one. "Be true to yourself". Aw, that’s nice, right? Be true to yourself, Hallmark moment, and everything will be okay. Matthew 16:24, ​​​"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.'” Amen. So the world says, be true to yourself. God says, deny yourself. Take up that thing Jesus hung on you. You know the thing that killed him, that he was crucified upon. Take up your cross, put it upon your shoulders and begin to follow him. Begin to seek after him; I know the burdens of this world can be heavy, yet as we take up all those things, God releases them off of our shoulders. We find salvation, and in the end, if we deny ourselves and follow him, we will be with him for eternity.

Number three, "believe in yourself". Believe in yourself and you’ll probably get there, right? We watch movies that tell us just believe in yourself and you’ll overcome against all adversity but what does the Bible say in John 14:1? “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me”. And right before that in verse six, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” You see, there’s certain things in life you can believe on as hard as you want, but when it comes to the judgment of God, it doesn’t matter how much you believe in yourself unless your belief is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the gate, he is the way, he is the truth, he is the life. 

And next is my favorite, "live your truth", right? That's like College 101. That's like you know Rutgers, OCC. You just got to live your truth, man! So live your truth and you look at somebody and say, "Hey live your truth." Well, listen, I’ve seen Christians fall into this trap before where they say, "Well truth can’t be relative. It can’t just be your truth and truth is true for everybody." And then they would say, "Well do you believe in God? I don’t believe in God so that’s not true for me so it can’t be true." Ah, man, right? They got you. But what is this saying? Truth is relative. They say why can’t you prove your truth to me so all truth is relative, so your truth and my truth are different, so we just have to follow our own truth. But what does John 8:31 say, “To the Jews, who have believed him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.'” You see, it’s no longer about our truth. It’s no longer about anything we believe, it’s the universal church of God and everybody forgets that first verse. It says, "If you hold to my teachings you will be my disciples, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." All of a sudden, truth isn’t relative. Now there’s a standard.

And my final one, "As long as you are happy that’s all that matters", right? As long as you’re happy.  I understand you’ve been through all sorts of hell, you’ve been through turmoil, but as long as you’re now happy. You gotta do whatever you gotta do to get your happiness, but what does Mark 8 say? “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul or what can anyone exchange for their soul?” What is our happiness compared to our soul and eternity with God where you will find joy and peace and love and goodness and grace? Which brings me to my main verse, Romans 8:6, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace.” 

You see, we have to be governed by God. Stop being governed by these worldly ways. I have a friend at work who stopped eating sugar, and the craziest thing, she cut all sugar out of her life and now when she takes a little bit of sugar, you know what she says? She says it tastes like chemicals and it’s disgusting. Why? Because she had detoxed herself off of all of the taste of sugar. People of God, we need to detox ourselves from all of the ways of the world, that sounds so nice so good. When you go through a detox, you’re gonna find that when one of these sayings come in. It’s gonna taste disgusting in your mouth. It’s gonna no longer gonna sound catchy. You know why it sounds catchy? Because we have spent so long in the world not turning our back to the things of the world, but lending an ear to all of these things and then trying to make a mix with God you see there’s a name for that is called rationalization. You can rationalize anything away. I’ll tell you right now, I did it for a long time. You can rationalize anything that you want to do.

Think about raising a kid, right? You take a little bit of this and a little bit of God and you try to draw a line somewhere in your life. You’re like I know what the Bible says, but that’s been very literal. So instead, we’ll make the line like somewhere in the middle. Here’s God, and here’s the world. The line will be like right here, and then the next time it’s right here, and then the next time it’s right here. Until guess what? Your line that you’ve made is no different than everything else in the world. And then it becomes, as long as you’re happy, son, daughter that’s all that matters. And you know what that leads into when they become an adult, another one of my favorites. Well, all the struggles that I’ve been through have made me who I am today so I’m staying thankful for them. What a horrible thing to say, right? What a horrible thing to say. Because God doesn’t intend that, God intended that you would come in and be transformed by the truth, that there would be a standard and that you would realize you can’t make the standard on your own and you’d begin to call out to God for freedom from your slavery,  that you begin to call out and God would empower you in might and that you would get to stand up and begin to move towards your freedom, and then somewhere along there God delivers you and then you become a mighty man or woman of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, no longer filled with things of the world. I’m not telling you that you  just go through struggles and as long as you’re happy with how it turns out the other end. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, God has a plan for your life to deliver you and transform you by the word of God. 

We can rationalize anything away, because it becomes about our truth, our relative truth, and not about God‘s truth. But what does the word of God say in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. There was a point in my life, where I was coming into Christ and I still had these connections to the world, and I was almost like living in both. I had a fence down the middle and I had my feet on both sides of the fence and the craziest thing started to happen. It’s when the word of God started to come alive to me and God started to speak to me, all of a sudden the fence got bigger, all of a sudden they gap between the world and God started to grow, so I had to put my feet a little wider, then a little more truth and I had to put my feet a little wider. Before you know it my feet were so wide, something was gonna split. I had to make a decision. I couldn’t have both feet in both worlds anymore. There had to be a moment of decision, where I had to make and thank God I had enough truth in my life. Thank God I had pastors who loved me. Thank God I chose the right side, but how easy would’ve been for me to rationalize myself over to the world side and say well I can still be a Christian, yet still live like the rest of the world.

I had all these rationalizations. They sounded something like this, you can joke just don’t be too crude right, there’s a line. You can be present, you just can’t drink like them. You can have a good time, you just have to have a line you can’t act like them totally. And that gap got bigger and bigger and bigger, and I was someone who had built these relationships with people of the world, for some kid, for a kid who had a trouble belonging. He had issues with belonging already, it was painstaking for me to try to let go of these relationships that I built, but there came a point where the gap grew too much, my prayer today is that the gap would grow that the truth of God would touch you in such a way that you would not be able to have your feet in both sides of the world. And I tell you Pastor Janeth preached about it yesterday, there is a time coming where everything is being uncovered. Where no longer can you have both feet in both worlds. Where God is bringing truth, the gap has become too big. 

People of God turn your back on all your worldly thinking, on all your worldly rationalizations. Turn your back on all the things of this world, all the sayings, all the mixture, all the things that we try to bring from the outside and put it in the house of God. It is not gonna work here. There must be a drastic move of finality in your life to shut the door to the things of the world, and to embrace the kingdom of God. 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” You see there is a temptation to compromise. There is a temptation to take those nice earworm sayings that can just burrow right into your brain, but what does the Bible say, we demolish arguments, and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

"There must be a drastic move of finality in your life... to embrace the kingdom of God."

These things of this world are setting themselves up against the knowledge of God they have infected our youth. They have infected the school system. They are wormed and twisted and braided into every teaching that happens in colleges. But my prayer today is that God would raise up a mighty solid people of God that have turned their back on all the ways of the world that are no longer lending an ear looking over their shoulder seeing what the world has to say, but instead are willing to stand on the truth of God to look him in the eyes. 

We must turn our backs, look in the eyes and say God, my eyes will not leave you. I’m not going to be like Peter who looked to the left and saw his circumstance and looked to the right and saw the rationalizations and looked down and saw all the water and everything that was coming up against them. You see, that is when we run into trouble and we begin to drown, it’s when we remove our eyes from the Lord Jesus Christ. God is saying keep your eyes on me. I will be your rear guard, I will be the fire that brings warmth and light to you and cold darkness to your enemies. Trust in me, keep your eyes upon me and I will deliver you. I look at Pastor Harper and I say, How can a man end up like that? How can a man completely turn his back on what he was surrounded with, and what he saw and everything going on? How did that happen? I’ll tell you, it wasn’t a lightning bolt. It didn’t happen in the moment. It came from a life of someone who had turned his back on all worldly things and instead embraced God. And I’m not saying it was even easy for him. His daughter actually lived to 80 years old. She died in 1986 which isn’t even that long ago. That was when I was born right, that’s not that long ago, that is crazy to think that she went on to live. How hard would it have been to put your child on a boat, yet he looked at her and said it's only going to be a moment. It’s only gonna be a moment and we will see each other again. That is someone who has been convinced of the kingdom of God and it comes from a life of living that way.

I look at somebody who is freed from slavery. What’s the first thing that needs to change? It’s their mindset. They need to stop thinking like a slave. You see the church needs a mindset change, they need to stop thinking like slaves. We need a mindset change to stop thinking like slaves and instead come into a freedom mindset. Remember that verse said, whatever rules you masters you. This verse we just read says the mind governed by flash is death. What is governing you, because I’m gonna tell you what the Bible says, at the end of all the arguments, at the end of all the rationalizations, at the end of all the “Pastor you don’t understand let me explain it to you”, at the end of all the worldly thinking and reasoning, you know what the word of God say, Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Now all has been heard…”, all the rationalizations, all the worldly thinking has been heard, “...Here’s the conclusion of the matter, fear God and keep his commandments for this is the duty of all mankind.” Amen. That’s a hard verse to try to get around isn’t it. The whole rationalization, worldly thinking stuff like how can I twist this? That’s a tough one, you’re not getting past that, right. This is the standard for all mankind that God is calling us to turn to. 

So finally the last thing we need to turn her back on, is your obligation. Turn your back on your obligation, I’ll start by saying I’m not calling you guys to say like turn your back on your obligations like stop feeding your kids, and stop bringing the soccer practice right and like stop paying your mortgage and I don’t want anybody like moving to like a covenant in the middle of the woods and like just like giving up everything and making your clothes out of figs and stuff, that’s not what I’m talking about. I will say that this is a pretty high standard and I don’t think a lot of people have reached it in the church of God. When I say obligation I’m talking about the continued struggle to live up to what you are supposed to be doing, I’m talking about the motives of your heart. You see, doing what you’re supposed to be doing is a very old testament way of thinking and we so often try to live like this and live out Christianity like this. It’s a test of the motives of your heart to say, are you living to just what you’re supposed to be doing or is your heart's motive to honor and love God, there’s a big difference. And there’s a really good test to see which one you’re living in and it goes something like this, When the time comes where no one is expecting you to do something, where you had every excuse not to do it, where no one would ever question you if you didn’t do it, do you do it? That’s the test because someone who is not supposed to do something, is not going to do it. Someone who has a heart that wants to honor and worship and come into his kingdom and say God may you receive all the glory, you see that person is going to do it and when they do it, God is going to receive the glory. 

I think about that cloud that separated the Israelites from Egypt. On one side it was a cloud of darkness, on the other side it was a fire, it was light, it was warmth. It was life to the Israelites, what was in the middle of the cloud? The Lord Jesus Christ. He was in the middle of the cloud; he was the thing that brings us from the cold darkness of trying to just do what we’re supposed to do, into the warmth and light, and to God‘s kingdom, into his word written upon your heart. Into having a heart that says, God I just wanna honor you, God I just wanna know you, God I believe in your truth cause your truth has sent me free, God I know who you are and I’m gonna spend the rest of my life honoring you. There’s two sides of the cloud, and I’m telling you that God is calling you to change your motivations, to come into one who sits in the new way in the way of just living in honoring God. Don’t get me wrong, our actions are gonna be judged just like it did in Ecclesiastes, just in that verse. That’s the standard, our actions are gonna be judged, but I tell you when you come into the other side you’re still gonna do the things, you’re still gonna do the right thing; the only difference is you’ll be doing it in joy, you’ll be doing it in peace, you’ll be doing it in God‘s love you’ll go further than you ever thought you could. You’ll do things that you never thought you could, the Bible says you’ll do greater things than even I said, Jesus. Why? Because you come into his light, you come into the other side of the cloud, your motivation has changed, God’s spirit lives inside of you, and you spend a life wanting to honor him. So the question is, what is your motivation? Romans 7:6, “But now by dying to once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we may serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” 

Look I’m not saying the wall is abolished right, my wife caught me on that one. She said, make sure you don’t tell them the law is abolished. I agree, the law is not abolished. Why? Because if the law was abolished, then most Christians would just do whatever they wanted. There would be a free for fall, and it would just be that you can live however you want and still go to heaven. So I’m not saying that the law is abolished but what I am saying is that you will fulfill the law with God‘s grace and God‘s goodness and in love, and in joy, and in peace, and the law will be fulfilled even in your hearts, but it will not be a law anymore, it’ll just be wanting to honor God. We need a motivation test, there’s this guy he puts out these motivational quotes and he’s like a motivational speaker. The cops love them, they gobble up what he has to say, like his doctrine. And he’s a seal team captain so he led some really gnarly missions into enemy territory, he was a captain of the team, so he does a lot of leadership stuff, but he does this one talk and he talks about how people would bring bad news to him all the time, he called it the crisis of the day. So his team will come to him and say, hey this happened, we didn’t get this, our mission got canceled, our training got canceled, our weapons broke, and they would bring in this crisis every time and he would say the same thing every time and he would say good. 

And his team started to come to him getting upset and they were getting annoyed, and they said, I don’t even want to tell you what I have to say because I know what you’re gonna say, you’re gonna say good and it’s kind of annoying and he’s like why do you say good? And he looked at him and said you know why it’s good? It’s good every time a crisis happens because it gives us a chance to overcome, so the training got canceled? Good, we can work on our team work more. Your equipment order got denied? Good, you can stop relying on your equipment and learn to get better. Our mission got canceled? Good, we can spend more time training and I look at that and I look at the Christian. When you’re too tired, when you’re too busy, when you’re too sick, when no one would ever question if you didn’t, you weren’t able to do something, Are you saying good God, because this is an opportunity for you to come and empower me in your Holy Spirit and do something that is not about me, but it’s completely manifested by the power of your spirit that you would receive the glory. So you’re too tired, you work too much, good. God you have to do it in me today. I’m still getting up there, I’m still gonna honor you God, good you’re going to do it. Are you too sick? Good, you know my wife came up here last week and she was coughing all morning. Before service last week, she was worshiping, screaming out to God, Pastor Janeth and I were kicking her telling her to shut up because she was blowing her voice because she had been coughing all week and I didn’t know how she was gonna get up here and do it. Are you too sick? Good, God your glory has to come through and do this work in me, Amen. 

We need to turn our back on what you should be doing and what you think is the right thing based off of some weird written code. God is calling you to a different standard. God is calling you to a new standard, not a worldly standard. Get rid of that mindset and come into the mindset of just wanting to honor God because of how good he has been to you in your life, fulfill the law, but do it from a place of joy. I heard my wife telling my son the Samaritan woman story the other day. They were talking about it at the breakfast table and I was listening, because I was curious how she’s gonna explain the five husbands to my son, but as she was going through it she got to the end of the story and the Samaritan woman looks at Jesus and says, Hey listen my ancestors worship on this mountain, your ancestors worship on that mountain, what’s the right thing to do? And Jesus looked at her and yet a time is coming and now has come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For these are the worshippers that God seeks. 

The time has come, Spirit and truth is what God is looking for. The truth of who he is, the truth of knowing God, and his character and his goodness, and the spirit coming and empowering you to do things that you aren’t supposed to do, but that God just does because you’re a heart that wants to honor him. In Romans 2:14 it says, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts…” Anybody whoever tells you, you get a stamp and you can do whatever you want and live however you want and still go to heaven this verse combats that right there, the gentiles the ones who were disgusting to the Jews, the ones who had been outside of God‘s provision, yet here they are doing the very things required by the law for no other reason then having a heart that wants to honor God. What do you think? You think the Jews were burdened or do you think these guys were burdened? No. These guys were doing it in joy and love and peace, they were still fulfilling, yet their body has been governed by the spirit. This is childlike faith, this is just wanting to honor God. Modern Christianity says, live free, do whatever you want, you’re still going to heaven. This verse says that, fulfill the law, fulfill the law, fulfill the law, but let it come from a motivation in your heart of wanting to love and honor God.

I look at John Harper, how he could get to a point in his life where he could be a man that lived in such a way. He has spent a lifetime denying the things of the world and living godly, and when the time came when the rubber hit the road, when the time of crisis and calamity came, guess what? He was not living by the rules of the world, but he was living in the kingdom of God. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard, I’m not saying it wasn’t trying for him, I’m not saying he was just some wacko who wasn’t seeing what was going on around him. No, he was seeing it, yet God‘s truth was greater to him than the truth of this world. What truth are you living by? Is it God‘s truth? Is it the world’s truth? Or is it a mixture of the both? Anyone would’ve looked at him and said, listen John, there is no obligation for you to go do those things. The boat’s going down around you, you have every right to save yourself. Worry about your own skin, your own future, your own daughter, you're a widow. He was a widow, his daughter was all he had. You have every right to get on that boat and go raise your daughter. Who’s gonna take care of her? Who’s gonna do this? Who’s gonna do that? You see the circumstances dictated that no one would blame him if he did what they saw as the right thing, yet God had a different plan. Yet, God called him to something different. Yet, God stood up and he was brought up through the truth of God and said, no, I will stand on the truth of God. Daughter, it’s okay in a little while, we’ll see each other. As soon as my head goes below those waves, I’m gonna open up my eyes, I will be in heaven, and you will be right behind me because that is a man who stands on the truth of God.