LIFE Podcast Show

[00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Life podcast where we offer real hope to real people dealing with real life. We go to our thoughts through God's thoughts and our ways. Through God's ways we pray your blessed by this podcast. Enjoy the show. Welcome back. This is another episode of the Life podcast. I'm super excited to know that you are here and you've been listening. I just want to do a little bonus episode because it's been something in my mind and my heart recently, just really about what it means to follow, be obedient and listen to God's leading our lives. So it's a little bit of a bonus episode for you all today. So one of the main things I wanted to draw out is I don't know about you, but when I was younger I had super hard problems with listening, comprehending and doing what was being called and asked for me to do. So out of all my siblings, I have older brother and older sister. I'm the youngest and I'm the youngest boy. I got all of the most woop ins in the tidy of our household. It was me. I got the most whooping. And because of my rebellion as a young boy and the desire to do what I wanted to do, I had so many issues with authorities and the conflicts that I had to go through and deal with, it really could have been avoided. But me and my cousin AJ laugh about this now. We're both about to turn 30 shortly and we just live by a creed. The young man creed is what I call it of it must be done. And a lot of times because of me and I didn't know about the gospel, I didn't know that we were sinners from birth, I didn't know that it was just sin was so entrenched in our DNA that we just will do it. I didn't know anything about that, but I knew something was wrong. But we just live by a method called we just used to say it must be done. And what added few to the fire is when someone said don't do it. So my dad used to do things like take my hand, lead me to a place he did not want me to go in, or something that he did not want me to touch. And he would grab me by the hand, grab my head and say desmond, do not go in this room or do not touch that. And he said 3 seconds later or 3 seconds to a minute later, I will be doing the exact opposite what he just said. So he just said, you know, him and my mom used to go at a lot over me because my mom used to just be like you just don't like him. You just can't stand desperate. In which my dad would reply I love my son, he's just hard headed as and I can't say the word, but I will say, he double hockey sticks. He's just hard headed. So that was my life, and I paid my debt for my butt a lot of times. One time, my mother was so discouraged by my behavior that she just literally got down on her knee and looked me straight. I remember this. I had to be in the third grade, and I think I was getting suspended in the third grade for just being rebellion, almost an incurrigible child. And she just looked at me one day with tears in her eyes, and she got on her knee and she said, baby, what's wrong? What did I do? What do you need from me? What have I done? What lead you wrong? Imagine. What are you, eight, nine years old, in third or fourth grade? And I was just that rebellious in my life. And I think some of that is just a temperament of a young man, untrained, undisciplined young man. And they will become a heartache and create headaches for their children, for their parents, and whoever else they're around. So I wasn't just a headache for my parents, but I was a headache for my teachers. I was a headache for the leaders at church. I was a headache for my friends. And I definitely was a headache to my big sister and my big brother is because I was on discipline and because I chose to do three things. I chose to reject or ignore my parents command. I chose to forget what they've told me and not pay attention to it, like, proverbs that's clean and then climb my ear towards them, or I didn't properly understand what they were asking me to do. The knowledge wasn't there, so I didn't comprehend or I didn't have the knowledge of what they wanted me to do. Isn't that how we are with God? I just beat myself up a little bit, but isn't that how we are with the Lord? We either ignore what he clearly has said or we reject what he has said. We don't like it. We're double minded. So double minded means I'll do what God says to do if it lines up with what I want to be done, but if God says no to that and to do something else, I'm not going to do it. That's a double minded man. And the Book of James says that man should expect nothing from the Lord. So are you like that this morning? Are you like that this evening as we prepare our hearts for Sunday worship tomorrow? Can you look in your life and just see where you've been ignoring God's word or just flat out rejecting it because you don't like what it says? Another thing that I think we do, like I said a little bit earlier, I think we simply neglect or forget God's word. We neglect or forget God's word. And I'll give you some scriptures on what I mean, exactly why I say that but I think those are some of the things that we do. And lastly, we may just not know what God's Word says. We literally may just not know what God's Word has said. And I think one of the mantras for life, obviously, is living intentionally for eternity. In order to have eternal mindset, you need to be linked with the eternal one. I went to a conference today. He said everything about our world, everything about what's wrong with our world, from creation groaning, to the relationships we had, to our marriages, to our relationships with our children, our co workers, our spouses, our siblings, our fellow church members, our countrymen. Everything that's wrong with the world leads back to an incorrect view of who God is. Or you have an interpretation of God that's not true, which leads to bad application of what you ought to do. Again, you may have a bad interpretation of who God is, and you may interpret that wrong. And then in turn, the application is wrong, leading to a devastating situation for everyone you're around. So just like me as a little boy who chose to forget, neglect, reject, ignore, or just simply did not know the will of my parents, what they expected from me, there were consequences, horrible consequences. A lot of but pain, a lot of broken spirits, a lot of what is wrong with me, with a lot of things going on with me at that age. But it led to consequences in my life. And my parents were simply trying to give me boundaries to protect me so that I could prosper in this world and I could prosper in my household, in my culture. And when I chose to reject that, one of us had to go. And of course it was going to be me. And that's what happened. And it's the same way with the Lord. So I don't want to keep you long because this is a bonus episode. I just want to stop and say I'm so sorry for the audio on the last video, the last podcast I put out. I'm still trying to find a nice quiet place to record and I'm still working on some new technology. So I had used it on the Jason Brown interview, the mics that I used for the recent one, but I don't know what took place, so please forgive me. So I'm still obligated to put out a bonus episode, one that will be more clear. I'm actually in my house right now and I'm in a stationary quiet area for right now, so I pray that this may bless you, but I don't want to be in your head too long. So I just wanted to share some passages of scriptures that helped me as I was pondering these thoughts about what it looks like to reject God, to forget God, and to be ignorant of what God wants from you, and how those can bring consequences to our lives. So first and foremost, when we ignore most of the areas in our lives that we fail to see change in usually comes because of about four things. It's about four things, but in this episode we'll do three. It's about three things that typically happens in my life and maybe even in your life when it comes to why my life isn't changing or my life isn't being transformed and conformed to the image of God's son. So I just want to share with you three things. So the first thing is, when we choose to ignore or reject God's word or wisdom, the consequences are deadly. So let me just share passes with you in Proverbs. So this is Proverbs one, starting in verse 20. It says wisdom calls out in the street, she makes her voice heard in the public squares, she cries out above the commotion, she speaks at the entrance of the city gates. She says, how long, inexperienced ones, will you love ignorance? How long will you mockers? Enjoy mocking and you fools hate knowledge. If you respond to my warning, then I will pour out my spirit on you and teach you my ways. Since I called out and you refused, extended my hand and no one paid attention, since you neglected all my counsel and did not accept my correction, I in turn will laugh at your calamity, I will mock. When terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when trouble and stress overcoming you, then they will call me, but I won't answer. They will search for me, but don't find me. Because they hated knowledge and didn't choose to fear the Lord, were not interested in my counsel and rejected all my correction. They will eat the fruit of their way and be glutted with their own schemes, for the apostasy of the inexperienced will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to me will live securely and be undisturbed by the dread of danger. Let's go back. It says because they hated knowledge, didn't choose to fear the Lord, were not interested in my counsel and rejected all my correction. They will eat the fruit of their way and be glotted with their own schemes, for their apostasy turning away from the Lord of the inexperienced will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But here's the caveat whoever listens to me, will live securely and be undisturbed by the dread of danger. Rejecting God's word feels an eternal blow. Rejecting God's Word, there was an eternal blow, but it also deals a blow that affects your life. Now, how many of us have done things that we're truly sorry for, but still pride? We still have pride and arrogance when we have to bear under the consequences of our decisions. Point. What I mean is we think that saying sorry fixes everything. I was listening. I was watching the show a minute ago called this Is US. And one of the characters, Kevin, says, you remember when you were six years old, you think the word sorry fixed everything. But now he was a 45 year old man. He's learning that's not true. That's a very childlike approach to life. Saying sorry does not fix everything. It's a start. But there are still consequences for our decisions. And we cannot choose how people deal with us after we've wronged or offended them. We have to send out the consequences. But what we don't like that. When I was a boy, I did what was wrong in my parents'eyes and they were right. And when they disciplined me, I had bitterness in my heart towards them. Rage and anger, I'm warranted, because I did what was wrong and they held me accountable and I did not like it. That's how we are as adults when we have to sit under the consequences of rejecting sound counsel or God's counsel. We get upset and we don't like it. And we're attempting to curse the Lord. But a constant rejection of the Lord, a constant stiff arm, and as my pastor say of the Lord, leads to two things active God's active wrath or God's passive wrath. Sodom Gamora consistently stiff on the Lord. They had God's act of wrath on them. Burning so far and fired from heaven fell on them. God destroyed them. But Roman says that God gives people over now to their sins. He lets them, like BK, have it their way. And the natural consequences of their sin, which the wages of sin is death, overtakes them both in this life and the life to come. So, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, it is important and very weighty thing to think about what it means to reject the Lord. When you think about Israel, their constant rejection of God led them into captivity, led them into infidelity. It led them into being an adult relationship with the Lord, taking on other gods. And their life was turned upside down and they forgot who they were. One of the most dangerous things about rejecting the Word of God is you learn and you train your mind to forget the fear of the Lord. And we know that Proverbs constantly says, the fear of the Lord turns us away from evil. So that's the first thing, I think that's really important when it comes to neglecting God's Word. An example of that in the Bible will be Cain and Abel, right? God knew and saw Cain's heart. He knew what he was planning to do against his brother and he tried to warn him with his Word. The word of God came to Cain. Don't let anger get a grip of you because sin wants and desires you. It wants to subdue you, but you must subdue it. Don't do it. Control yourself while you're facing dejected. Just do what's right and I'll bless you. Just do what's right? He adhered to God's warning or did he reject it? He ignored it and rejected. And what did that lead to? I can tell you what led to listen to him. Then the Lord said to Cain, this is in Genesis four. Where is your brother Abel? I don't know, he replied. He lied. Am I my brother's guardian. He's mocking the Lord, right? Like, what am I supposed to know everything that he's supposed to be doing? Then he said, what have you done? This is God. Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground and opened his mouth to receive your brother's blood you have shed. If you work the ground, it will never again give you his yield. You'll be restless. You'll be a restless wanderer on the earth. But Cain asked the Lord, my punishment is too great to bear. Remember the proverbs complacency. You won't have to eat the better fruit of your living with the decisions you make by constantly rejecting the Lord. It's no small thing to reject the Lord. It's no small thing to reject who God is in our lives. Yes, God is gracious. Yes, God is merciful. Yes, God is loving all that is true and praise his holy name that he's those things. But the same time, God will not be mocked. What you sow is what you will reap. And I've seen consequences in my life with that. But if you turn, see what God says about a matter repent, say what God says about that sin act. Forgiveness. He's faithful and just to cleanse you of all of unrighteousness. And he'll forgive you, right? He's faithful and he's just he has to deal with it, right? So that's the first thing. I have many more scripts, I have many more passages, but I think that's the fight, the second thing in our lives where we don't see change or where we see stagnation in our lives where we're kind of confused about what's going on. And this is general. This is talking about kind of the negative side sometimes that the Lord is just a trial, that he has you on it to help you with endurance. Nothing that you necessarily did wrong. He's just testing you, not tempting you, but testing you to see your character, to see if you would depend on your feelings or depend on his character and trust in Him. But I'm talking about things that we do to separate our fellowship with the Lord and from his people. So this is two Christians, brother, sister. If you look at your life and you know there's hidden sin or sinful habits or unforgiving hearts or bitterness or whatever it may be, check these things. The first thing think of, am I ignoring or rejecting God's word anywhere in my life? It's just a good question to ask. Am I ignoring or rejecting God's word anywhere in my life? All right, second. Are you forgetting or neglectful of God's word? Are you forgetting or neglectful of God's word? I think that's another good question. So human beings are the most forgetful beings on the earth. We know elephants, like, remember everything. Animals are built off of instinct. They know where to go find food. They know how to find it, they know where they can find it. All that is reality. But human beings have a way of being very forgetful at very important times. And we're not the most disciplined or trained people. So forgetfulness is one of the things that I think comes with the fall. I think that's one of the things that kind of characterizes human being, that we are negligent and we are very forgetful. Now, some things you can be forgetful for negligive about that may not have too many consequences, but there are things that we should be careful and always take note to remember, especially things that God has called us to do, commanded us, and we know that it's his will. So my passion to help us deal with that is it comes from deuteronomy eight due to around the eight is one of my favorite passes because it's all about remembering. So my remember of God is done, and don't forget it because it can come back to bite you. So listen to listen to Moses. He says, be careful that you don't forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commands, ordinances and statues that I'm giving you today. When you eat in our full and build beautiful houses to live in, and your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold multiply, and everything else you have increases, be careful that your heart doesn't become proud and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. What is Moses and what is the spirit of God saying through Moses human tendency? When God blesses us, we tend to forgive him. All of us have done it, and we all need to ask God forgiveness for it. If Israel can do it, we can do it. If David can do it, what thinks you can't do it? If Moses can do it, what makes you think you can do it? If Abraham can do it, what makes you think you can't do it? Anybody? No. We are very forgetful people, so we must take deadly aim at remembering what God has done for us. Has God delivered you, brothers and sisters? Has got transferred you from the kingdom of darkness? Has God delivered you from the hands of the evil one? Has God turned your life around? Has God changed you to a new person? Oh, that is God's grace. It's his favorite. Is his love lavished on you? We need to remember that. We need to remember what the Lord has done. And I think the greatest temptation for us to forget God is when God blesses us. When we hurt. And when we got to make ends meet and when money is funny and the kids are out of control and the husband is not respecting and not loving and the wife is not respecting and church is going crazy and your finances going crazy. Your boss making you lose your mind. And school is all out of whack. Everything's out of whack. In our life, we tend to be intimate with the Lord, you hear me? I mean, we locked in with God, but then some relief comes, god blesses you. And the children start acting right and the husband starts loving and the wife starts respecting and you get a raise at work and you moving up on a talent pole and life gets a little bit easier and you can relax a little bit. And what happens? We forget. One of the proverbs that I love says, lord, don't give me too much, that I may forget you and mock you, but don't give me too little that I may hate you and I may curse you. Just give me just enough what I need. Paul said, I've learned to be content in everything. I've learned to be content. I've learned the secret to life is to be content with everything. If I have much or if I have little, I'm content. And that's a fight that doesn't come overnight. That takes time and I'm still learning it myself. But I do see that the biggest temptation in my life I know my five days receives complacency and convenience is a big place where I choose what I tend to forget who God is. So I just wanted to share that with you. So that was forgetting and neglecting God's word. That was from Deuteronomy 811 to 14. And that just some context of that passage. They about to go, israel is about to go into the promised Land, and this is God laying down how to worship Him, how to live rightly, righteous before Him, and how to love Him. And he's letting them know, look, I'm going to bless you, but you won't forget. Don't forget, don't forget what I've done. And of course, like us, if you forgot what he did and it went down, there's consequences for that. Lastly, if you made it this far, I'm thankful for you. But lastly, this is more of an antidote to this problem. So the passages isn't really a warning in a sense. It's more like a pudding on. It's a tool in your toolbox to guard your heart from rejecting and ignoring God's word and from forgetting, neglecting God's word. So this is more the antidote. This is a positive reaffirming of if you do these things, I believe that the Lord will guard you, he'll keep you, right? So I'm just going to borrow some wisdom from Peter and Paul and their letters to the church and I hope that this blesses you as we close out our time. So second Peter one three through ten tells us, by his divine power, god has given us everything required for life. And Godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us, by his own glory and goodness. By these, he has given us very great and glorious promises, precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. For this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self control. Self control with endurance. Endurance with Godliness, godliness with brotherly affection and brother affection with love. For if you do possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The person who lacks these things is blind and short sighted, has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your call in an election, because if you do these things, you will never stumble it's. One of the greatest way to guard your hearts is to do what God says. It's like exercising your faith some paths, like the NLC, it says exercise your faith. I was just reading out the CSV, but it says exercise your faith. And as you exercise your faith, you realize how weak you are. First and foremost, when anybody's going to start exercising, you'll start to see really quick. If you've been out of shape and you go back to getting an elliptical, you're going to see you'll be dead in about five minutes. They may crush your spirit, but you keep going. You exercise. The more you exercise, you understand your weakness, you understand your limits. Your limits. But then as you keep exercising and you get a routine and it comes to habit and you start to see growth, you start to grow, you continue to grow, you get stronger. Your stamina, your endurance, everything gets better the more you do it. So this is my exercise of faith passes description. I think it's a good boundary for us as we are very forgetful, but we are doing these things we understand more and more. Man, this is good. I'm remembering God's word. I'm meditating on God's word. I'm enduring, I'm sharing it. I'm growing in these qualities. Makes me want it more and more, which can leave us and help us not forget what God has said because we stored up his word in our heart. So I think that was a good caveat. And one of the things that Paul says, he prays for the Colossians, for spiritual growth. In Colossians one, verses nine through 14, he prays for this church that they may grow in spiritual things and spiritual knowledge of what God has done for them. If you know what God has done for you, it equates your heart to reflect and give God's praise and lay down your life for Him because he's done so much for you. And Paul knows that that's a way to keep you to endure. That's the way to keep you going and keep that fire lit for Christ by knowledge, knowing what God has done for you, and that can keep you on your guard and keep you on your toes. So Colossians 1914 says for this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven't stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. So that you may walk worthy of the Lord. Fully pleasing to Him. Bearing fruit and good work and growing in the knowledge of God. Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. So that you may have great endurance and patience. Joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has enabled you to share in the saints inheritance and the light. He has rescued us from the domain of the darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. God has forgiven you. God has redeemed you. God wants you to know Him. The key goal of every Christian life is to know God through Jesus Christ. That guards us from rejecting and ignoring and neglecting and forgetting who God is, because we're growing in a rapid race. I'm not saying rapid, I'm not saying all of us grow the same way, but compared to how we used to live our life before Christ or even baby Christian, we're growing to love Him more and more each day. So although sol work soul is slow work, S-L-O-W we still start to see us growing more and more. And I think that guards our heart from the things that lead to consequences in our lives. When we reject, neglect, forget and ignore. When we do those things, bad things happen to us. But when we remember, when we pray, and when we exercise our faith, god does a great work in our lives and we can start to see God's blessing over our lives. So lastly, I'll leave you with Psalms 119 nine to six. And I think this is a good caveat, and it kind of sums it all up. It says, how can a young man keep his way? Pier by keeping your word. I've sought you with all my heart. Don't let me wander from Your commands. I've treasured your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you. Lord, may you bless me. May you be blessed. Teach me Your statues with my lips. I proclaim all the judgments from Your mouth. I rejoice in a way you revealed by your decrees as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts and think about Your ways. I will delight in Your statues. I will not forget your word. So to wrap up everything that we've. Been talking about, I think one passage, I love the book of Nehemiah, small book, historical book, but in chapter eight, I think it really emphasizes and really draws on this whole thing that I'm talking about as far as just abandoning and being neglectful about the word of God. So with that being said, I think Nehemiah nine start at verse 15. He's talking about Israel giving a history. So they're confessing sin in Nehemiah, they're confessing their sin of what they've done and they're returning like they're rebuilding the walls. They're going back to their native land. God is showing them favor right now, but because of that, they still have a heart problem and they need to confess their sin corporate and nationally in order to really enjoy God's blessing. So in near Maya nine, starting in verse 15, you'll kind of get a brief history and remember it, and you'll remember what was happening with Egypt kind of going back to do normally eight. So to close, it says, you provide bread from heaven for their hunger. You provided bread from heaven for their hunger. You bought them water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to go in and possess the land you had sworn to give them. But our ancestors acted arrogantly. They became stiff necked and did not listen to your commands. They refused to listen and did not remember your wonders you performed among them. They became stiff necked and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are forgiving God. You're gracious and compassionate. You're slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. And you did not abandon them even after they had cast an image of a calf for themselves and said, this is your God who bought you out of Egypt and they committed terrible blasphemies. You did not abandon them in the wilderness because of your great compassion. Brothers and sisters, if you have neglected God's word, forgot God's word, been ignorant of God's word, there's grace there, there's grace for you. Lord is compassionate, full of mercy, full of grace, slow to get angry, and full and abounded in truth. Step as love. He's faithful. If you will come to Christ, ask for forgiveness, genuinely ask for forgiveness. Turn and apply yourself to knowing the Lord. There's grace upon grace there. And he's standing there like the prodigal, like the Father and the prodigal Son. He's standing there waiting for your return and he's not like, okay, you can come back. I mean, now he runs to you and catches you and restores you. So, brother, sister, you are not too far gone. If this message strikes your heart, change turn. You don't have to go through a one to 112 step program and run through hoops. Just turn. Acknowledge your sin like Peter. Acknowledge your sin and turn and feed the sheep. Do what you called to do, walking a manner worthy of your calling. It's simple. Lord forgive you remember what God's word says, brothers and sisters. Who can separate us? What? And who can separate us from the love of God? What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all. How will he not also with Him grant us everything? Who is the one who condemns Christ? Jesus is the one who died, but even more has been raised. He is also at the right hand of God and intercede for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Confliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No. And all these things we have more than conquerors to Him who loved us. For I'm persuaded that neither death nor life, no angels, no rulers, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, no height nor depth, nor any other creative thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Brothers and sisters, stay in courage. Stay in the fight. If you've blown it, there's grace there for you turn. Get to know Him, spend time with him. Anyone you want to get to know. If it's a girl, it's a boy, you dating a friend. Whoever it is, you spend time with them. Intimate time. You ask questions, you search for them. Do that. The Lord delights in those who earnestly and diligently seeks Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters, don't you dare for 1 second fall into the temptation that I often do. And I'm praying that God will guard you against thinking for 1 second that the devil can separate you from the love of God. That's not his territory, that's far out of his pay grade. Nothing can separate you from the love that sent Jesus Christ. Stay encouraged, my brothers and sisters. Fight the good fight of faith. Love you all. This is the life podcast.