The Fruit of Reverence | Pastor Jason McKinnies | Purpose House Church

I want to thank you for joining our broadcast on the Pando App. We love you and we're praying for you. If you've got a Bible, Proverbs, chapter 14, I want to move quickly. It's good to see all of you in the House of Lord to fill that purpose house today. All right. So while you're looking for Proverbs, chapter 14, I'm going to give you four points today. I'm going to give you one for your nervous system, give you one for your mind, we'll probably one for your wallet, and then one in relationship with God, and I know the board said something about giving. We noticed that when the tax bills went out, giving went in half, that's where the offset has been. And so that has been my reason why I have brought attention to the property taxes is because I see what it is doing to all of you. I would tell you that the only way you're going to make your bills is to continue to trust God. So today I want to talk about just the third session here, The Fear of the Lord, and I'm going to talk about the four things that having the fear of the Lord will produce in your life. I mean, you like to have something being produced in your life. So last night I had faith, and Loser State University got beat by Ole Miss, and I produced something out of that. As you don't know what that means, that means LSU got beat last night, and I was so thankful. So thankful. Bunch of coach, robin, team, people. No bitterness at all in my part, but when you get, when you start producing and stuff in life and you start, how many of you would like to grow plants? So I grow centronella and lemongrass, those are my two plants I grow, and I'm pretty good at it. I got one that's about seven and a half feet tall, and I got a centronella plant that's about three and a half foot wide.

I was going to bring it today, but I just couldn't pick it up and get it into building. But what happens is when we plant a seed, we only begin to know that it's growing when it comes above the soil. We think, man, what is above the soil, that's what produces everything. In fact, it's the root that actually produces visible fruit. So today in this series about the fear of the Lord, nobody is planting their life and their heart into living in the fear of the Lord, and then expecting nothing to grow from it. We're living for the Lord, and we're planting ourselves in His care, and it should produce something. So I want to give you the four things that the fear of the Lord actually produces in our life. Because if we're talking about the fear of the Lord and it being the reverence of God in our lives, if the reverence of God doesn't change anything in our life and how we live and how we operate and how we talk, then why would Solomon spend an entire book connecting the fear of the Lord into a daily wisdom that we should live in? When in fact the fear of the Lord actually produces a lot in our lives. The book of Proverbs gives us at least four, at least four concrete outcomes, if you will, of living, operating, and moving in the fear of the Lord. First it produces security, Proverbs chapter 14, verses 26 and 27. In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge. I love that because sometimes we'll also take that His children, meaning the person who's living in the fear of the Lord. His children will have refuge, but that's also a capital H, meaning God's children who fear Him, they have a place of refuge. In verse 27 the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to turn one away from the snares of death. This might be one of the most counterintuitive promises that you will ever read in the Bible. That fearing God produces confidence. I don't know about you, I'm not much for haunted houses, I'm not much for any of that.

Not one time is that guy with the chainsaw that chases after you when you come to the haunted house, has it ever produced any confidence in me whatsoever? It has produced some other reactions in me, but it has never produced confidence. In fact, the first time I saw it, it produced an anxiety in me. But here the fear of the Lord, it produces confidence because when God is the biggest reality in your life, everything smaller than God doesn't matter. God is the biggest thing that everything's cycle, it begins to creep down to its actual proportion, because it is not as big as God. So you stop being whiplashed all the time by every threat. In fact, I was saying this to Melissa, I don't know about you, but I see different gas prices about every hour. Can you imagine being a gas station owner right now? Like you're on your phone all the time because if somebody tweets something, oil skyrockets or it died bombs and you're trying to keep up it being whiplashed all the time. And I feel like that that is what the enemy does to many of us is that we see something, we heard something, we read something, we see it on social media, we do all this and we're being whiplashed all the time trying to react to everything and adjust our sales for everything that is going on. But if you are anchored in Christ Jesus, it doesn't matter what the news cycle is saying or Facebook is saying, you are anchored and you don't have to have whiplash about all that's going on, because your security is not in all those things, your security is in Christ. So think about what keeps you up most of the nights. You're thinking about what will people think? What if the money doesn't stretch? I got news for you, it doesn't. What did I just see on the news? Some Solomon here is not saying that those pressures disappear. He actually is promising that they stop being the ultimate care of your life. When the fear

of the Lord occupies the top shelf of your life, nothing else can be on the top shelf. If you're thinking about God and you're thinking about the goodness of God, how can you think about how bad life is? You've got to get God and his holiness and his greatness on the top shelf of your life and feel your life so much with Christ that nothing else can invade your life. So let me give you just a little word here and a little word study, the word confidence. It's rooted in a Hebrew word, the word confidence there is rooted in a Hebrew word, which means to trust or to lean on. It isn't a feeling that you talk yourself into. A lot of people want to be talked into things. It's the state of actually being secured to something. It's like the way a climber who's climbing a mountain, which they're psychotic, who anchors a bolt into the side of the mountain and then ties a rope off into that knowing that if he falls, the strength of what he has tied himself to will not let him fall all the way. This is what it means to have confidence in God, to have confidence through the fear of the Lord is that if you fall, you know that you're not going to fall all the way down and be destroyed completely because you have tied yourself off to something that is stronger and bigger and immovable than you are. Now if I was a rock climber, let me just tell you right now, these guys, they put these little things into the rock ever so often. If it were me, I'd be putting them about every six inches because the fall itself would be enough for Jason to go onto the sunny banks of sweet deliverance, not the sudden stop at the end. So I would say to many Christians, you need to operate in that same way. You need to be anchoring yourself every day, every day, sometimes multiple times a day, off to something bigger than

yourself. I worry about the Christians who are locked the right, a lot like the rock climber who only do it every six or seven days. You only come and anchor yourself on Sunday. You need to be anchoring all the time and anchoring yourself in the Word and anchoring yourself in the character and the knowledge of God and in the fear of the Lord. And I promise you, when you fall or if the enemy tries to tell you he's going to push you, you have something to trust in and lean on that is far bigger than you are. That's living in the fear of the Lord. So Solomon is into a little one that made this promise. The psalmist even paints the same portrait but he does it from the inside. Solomon's talking about it from the outside but the psalmist writes it in Psalm 112. He says, "Praise the Lord, blessed is the man, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in his commandments. He will not be afraid of evil tidies. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established and he will not be afraid until he sees his desire upon his enemies." And some of you all are underlined in the last line of that until I see the desire that I have on my enemies. First of all, you need to be established in the Lord and let God deal with your enemies and not yourself. Notice what's doing the work though in verse 7. It's not the absence of bad news but it's a heart that has already Sted fast on God before after the news has arrived. You should develop a relationship with God before the news arrives. Tie yourself off, anchor to something that can hold you when all the world is going crazy. Be an anchor and get anchored. Oswald Chambers said it like this, if you don't know who that is, that's an old biblical theologian. He said the remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else. Whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else. Let me say that again to you. When you have the fear of God in your life, you fear nothing else.

But when you don't fear God, you fear everything else. And I think we need to get God back in the right position in our lives and begin to fear God so that we don't fear anything else. Everybody good? Trying to figure out what's happening here, aren't you? I'm going to run for you. Now, the security of trusting in God and feeding the Lord isn't just personal. It's actually generational. Even the children will have a place of refuge. So a parent's reverence for God and a parent living in the fear of the Lord winds up being a shelter that their kids can stand under. Sometimes it might even be for the rest of their lives. Your own reverence for the Lord begins to be a protection over your children. You're building it for your children as you operate in the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord brings security into our lives. Point number two is this, the fear of the Lord produces contentment and safety. Proverbs chapter 19 verse 23, the fear of the Lord leads to life. It leads to life. And he who has it will abide in satisfaction. He will not be visited with evil. Now, I'm going to probably tell you some things that you probably already know, just a man them. We live in a culture right now that is built on manufactured dissatisfaction. We live in a world right now that they advertise to your dissatisfaction. Our politicians, they politic towards our dissatisfaction. Every ad, every algorithm is engineered to make you feel like you're missing something and you're on the out if you don't have what everybody else has. So it is built around dissatisfaction. Can I tell you that is the complete opposite of how God operates. God wants you to be satisfied. He wants you to be in contentment. And then we see how the devil operates is to get you into a constant flow of dissatisfaction. And then if you're not dissatisfied, they'll manufacture something to make you dissatisfied. How many of you all love your refrigerator that you've got at home right now? Do you know that there are refrigerators out now that'll scan the barcodes of everything that you pull out of the refrigerator and then make a grocery list for you. And then you can have Kroger to live everything that just came out of the refrigerator. This is how it works in my house. Melissa, I am out of Grader's black cherry ice cream. Now, I could go home and look at my refrigerator that I bought just four years ago. It's pretty new. It's supposed to last 20 years. You're already dissatisfied and say, man, I don't think we can live without a brand new refrigerator. We could go to cars. Melissa, car paid off. It's a wonderful car. She sees ones that is electric because Dave works for Tesla. But Melissa doesn't want to be like Dave. She wants a different electric car. And all of a sudden we have manufactured dissatisfaction

because Dave has a Tesla. And we can't let Dave have an electric car without us having an electric car. So we got to get rid of our Volvo and buy an electric car, Dave. Dave is manufacturing dissatisfaction with Melissa's car. And then he says, hey, you should drive my car. It'll drive for you, which I was thrilled for because have you ever ridden with Melissa? And now I'm ready to buy a Tesla because it has auto driving, but she doesn't want a Tesla. And all of a sudden what happens is what we are satisfied with all along becomes something we're dissatisfied with because we thought we saw something better. sitting in our garage. That's a whole other story. Manufacture dissatisfaction. And it's not because God wants you to acquire everything you've ever desired in your heart, 'cause we used that verse, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. It's because God sees that your ultimate hunger is not a flesh one. You're trying to satisfy in the flesh what is really, your soul. Your soul has a hunger, and the hunger that your soul has is to be rightly related to God. I'm gonna slow that down. It is to be rightly related to God. There's a word that we use that many of us don't understand what it means. It actually, that's the word righteousness. To be right standing before God, your soul man, your spirit man desires to be rightly related to God. And when we are not rightly related to God, and please don't pick on Melissa

because of what I'm gonna say, when you are not rightly related to God, or you're out of sorts in your relationship with God, you begin to go try to fill that longing in your soul with everything else. Your credit card statements show you how dissatisfied you are. You go on binge shopping trips thinking that that's going to get you somewhere, and it doesn't get you, you need to be rightly related to God. And when you get rightly related with God, you become satisfied. You get a satisfaction. And it isn't just a mood that you get into. Solomon's not describing, hey, you're just in a good mood, you're satisfied. No, he's saying, listen, when you get satisfied, it's because you are in the righteousness of God. When you are right standing with God, what can move you? If you're right standing with God, what does it matter what car you drive? If you're right standing with God, what does it matter the brand of your clothes? If you're right standing with God, what does it matter where you live? Or how you live? If you're right standing with God, if God is everything in your life, what does all this other stuff matter? And we have been tempted in the church

to show this dissatisfaction, even in how we shop for church. Because we want lights and we want this, but if you're right standing with God, what does it matter? They could sing whatever they wanted to sing. I'm just worshiping God because I am in right relationship with God. And what happens is we have to turn the church upside down to keep people satisfied with church because they are dissatisfied with their relationship with God. And if we would get right with God, we could throw solvest on the floors and have sols and spoons up here and people be running the house and hooting and hollering why, because we understand what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. (congregation clapping) And so when you get in righteous gifts with God, right standing and right relationship, then all of a sudden your life becomes increasingly lined up with his character instead of against the character of God. And we need to get back to being right standing with God, related with God, and our character now begins to line up with God's character. And so we need to make sure that we're producing a right relationship with God. And so when we get right with God, we have nothing left to prove.

And a person though who is still scrambling to fill this hole that's on the inside of them, nothing you do is ever going to fill it. Jesus put Solomon's whole point into a single sentence. He said, blessed are those who do hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Notice what actually fills the hunger. It isn't comfort, it isn't approval. It's not a healthier bank account, righteousness. That's what fills it. Right standing with God is the one meal that's going to satisfy every appetite. And every other meal that you sit down to will leave you hungry just in a few hours. How many of you like to go to eat Chinese food? How many of you are hungry about an hour after? You have all the choices out there. And it fills and satisfies. Sweet and sour chicken is good. About an hour later, I'm ready for a Big Mac. Because the food, the drugs, the alcohol, the vices, your hunger wasn't actually asking for any of that. It was actually your soul crying out within you to be right with God. And what we need to do is stop answering people's questions about what they're hungry for, by telling them, hey, I want to invite you to church. I want you to hear the preacher. I want you to hear the worship leader. None of that will satisfy them until they're in right relationship with God.

So Solomon isn't even inventing this idea. He's just the first economist of it. David, his dad wrote the same principle in Psalm 34 verses nine through 10. He said, oh, fear the Lord, you, his saints. There is no want. There is no want to those who fear him. The young lions laugh. shall not lack any good thing. Those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. Now think about this text here. He brings into this little story here, lions, young lions. Young lions are built in predators. They're the apex of the food chain. But he said, even the people at the apex of the food chain, the king of the jungle, they go hungry. Now David is saying, hey scarcity is a good thing. He's saying everything in the universe that is created in the order of it all, it is the desire or a want. That's what motivates it. The lion gets up, he wants something. So he's out hunting for it. Every appetite though, because we were all created in the creation order, it runs on want. And the enemy knows that. So he advertises to your want, something that you think will satisfy your want, and then once you get it, you realize there's no satisfaction in it. And this is where the modern church has got to change how we do church.

The enemy has tempted so many people into satisfying their want, that that want has now turned into an addiction. And this is why the enemy is finding the gifts of the spirit so strongly. Because now in order to get people to know Christ, you first have to evict what they are addicted to. It's gonna get tied in here a minute, okay? So we have to have deliverance in the church because you cannot try to fill them with the spirit of God when they are filled with the demons and devils. And now that their want has turned into an addiction and they get so addicted, they don't feel like they can live or operate without their vice. This is why we have invested so heavily into celebrate recovery. Why? Because once you have recovered them, and once they are empty of everything that is a vice in their life, they get filled with Christ. But now you gotta keep pouring Christ in so that there is no room for the enemy to tempt them again. Everybody good? So he says, the lions they want and they're even hungry. But he says, those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. That is not a promise that you'll get everything you want. It's a promise that you'll have everything you need. And then you need to be rightly related to God. And then when you're rightly related to God, there is no need that is ever left unmet.

Now, I had to bring out a treadmill. This is not your normal ordinary treadmill. This is one that goes under your desk so that you can be super productive. Now, let me try to use my notes at the same time. So there is a psychological test that was done. They studied people who had won the lottery. You ever watched some of these studies? And the study that came out of this was called the hedonic treadmill. It was, they got satisfied for a little while with all their money. And then eventually they wound up in the same mental space, the same satisfaction that they had prior to winning the lottery. Because they thought that winning the lottery, they could buy whatever car they wanted to buy. They could buy whatever they wanted to buy. Keep my balance here. Trying to talk, listen, remember my notes. Focus on Jesus and hear the word of the Lord at the same time. I'm super productive. I put a desk up here, let's go. I'll be in five, six websites at the same time. And so what happens is you're now on a machine that is designed to give you every sensation. Make you sweat, you're walking. It gives you every sensation that you are going somewhere. But it was also designed for you to accomplish nothing. Because as fast as I walk, as long as I walk, when I get off of it,

I'm still in the same spot that I was when I got on it. And what the enemy does is he has designed things that you put into your life, thinking that it's going to take you where you want to go, to give you every sensation of what you were designed to feel. You'll feel the rush, the high. You'll feel it all. But when you get off of it, you're in the same spot you were when you got on it. The only thing that will take you where you want to go and not leave you in the same spot as what you were when you got on it is in the presence of God. We have way too many Christians who I found the word interesting, Pastor Pete, who are on the hedonic hedonism, designed it so that unless you keep going with it and keep going on it, you're going to wind up getting tossed off of it. And then we've told that the church doesn't have the answer. My friend, the church has the answer because the church has Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ was not designed to leave you where you are because one day the dead in Christ shall rise first and then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet them in the air. He is not going to leave us in the same place he found us. So it is time for the church to get off the treadmill, to get off and then get into the fear of the Lord so that we can have contentment and safety. And for times sake, I'm just going to jump down. So Paul writes to us a very interesting verse and I believe this part of Hebrews was written by Paul. And anybody had the experience that could write this way would be Paul. Paul tested this from both directions. He wrote it down. He said to Timothy, "Godliness with contentment is great gain. Godliness with contentment is great gain." And to the Philippians from a prison cell of all places he said, "I have learned in whatever state I am in to be content." Learned is the operative word there. Contentment in Scripture is never presented

as temperament for some people, lucky enough to have it. No, you have to learn how to be content. Then we quote this verse all the time in Hebrews chapter 13. It says, "Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have. For he himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" Now, we always quote the second half of that, but he's saying, "Listen, how you get content and how you are settled and satisfied is that I'm never going to leave you and I'm never going to forsake you." But we say that as a claim to a promise. He's never going to leave us. He's never going to forsake us. They're right. But that is the foundation of what the Apostle Paul was saying. How you get contentment is that God is always with you. And if God is with you, who can be against you? And if God is with you, what can be against you if God is with you? So he said, "I'm never going to leave you." That's the floor of the promise, but it brings contentment into your life. And people say, "I just wish I had. If you have Jesus, you have enough." David said it like this, "I shall not want." David isn't bragging about his financial portfolio as 401(k). David is saying, "Hey, listen, the reason why I'm never going to want is that I know who my shepherd is. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." But if you take away the shepherd, that whole verse falls apart. If you take away that the Lord is your shepherd, you're going to be wanting because you need a shepherd. And sheep without a shepherd is going to lay down and die. You need a shepherd. And so if you don't want to want in your life, then you should make sure that the Lord is your shepherd. Number three, the fear of the Lord produces honor. Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 4, "By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches in honor and life. By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches in honor and life." Notice the parry here. Humility and the fear of the Lord are traveling together in this verse. Everybody see that? They're traveling together. You cannot have one without the other. A truly reverent person is by definition a humble one. See somebody who has pride in their life, they do not have the fear of the Lord. A truly reverent person is a humble person because reverence requires an accurate view of yourself and the only way you're going to get an accurate view of yourself is to have an accurate view of God. So Solomon says his pairing is rewarded, not punished. Our culture often assumes that humility before God equals weakness. And then you're weak, you get exploited. No, when you are humble, you have the fear of the Lord in your life.

Solomon actually says the same thing twice more in the book of Proverbs. Almost word for word, Proverbs 15, 33, and Proverbs chapter 18, verse 12. He said, "Before honor is humility." Psalm is making sure you don't miss the order. Honor doesn't precede humility. You're never going to get big in God and then be humble when you get there. The only way you're going to get where you need to go in God is to be humble before you get there. Humility comes first, then honor follows behind it. Peter takes the same principle and gives it in a New Testament form. First Peter chapter 5, verses 5 and 6. Be clothed with humility. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Anybody ever read that verse? Here's the part that gets us. That he may exalt you. Oh, yes, I let it loo you. End due time. Peter doesn't say God exhausts the humble instantly. He's saying end due time, which means humility before God at some point will feel like it's not working. There will come a point where you're like, I've been humble and I've been honorable and nothing has happened. It's gonna make you feel like it isn't working. And then there's a gap between humility and end due time. And that's exactly where most people quit and grab ahold of honor on their own. So Solomon and Peter both saying the same thing. They're saying it's a very uncomfortable thing. The weight is not evidence that the promise of God has failed. Waiting is actually the shape that the promise always takes. You're gonna have to go through, thank you, Ms. Helen.

You're gonna have to go through a process called waiting and it stinks for they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. So humility, Andrew Murray said it like this. Humility is the only soil in which God graces root. The lack of humility is the sufficient list of this. There's a power line, the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. That's a hard sentence to kind of sit with, isn't it? Because it means every defect in us traces back to the same root cause. Not a dozen separate problems. See when people come to us, they're like, I got all these problems. No, you got one problem. It's a root issue. And your root issue is you've not humbled yourself under the mighty hand of God. And to be humbled under God means you're gonna have to wait so that he can exalt you in due time. Don't kick doors down on your own. Solomon doesn't say humility a voice is asked or he says it produces something in your life. It produces riches, it produces honor, it produces life. This isn't a promise that humility just merely keeps you safe, it's a promise that God responds to people who are humble and he resists people who are proud. God put it actually in writing. So let me read it to you first, Sam in chapter two, verse 30. For those who honor me, this is what God's saying,

for those who honor me, I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. We could call that the honor principle. God is not a passive spectator when it comes to humility. He is an active rewarder of it. Actually Hebrews says it like that. He is a rewarder of those who do what? Diligently seek him, Hebrews 11-6. So Solomon and Samuel, the right of the heaters, put it side by side, you can put it like this. If you'll humble yourself before God, you will not disappear into obscurity, but instead you'll put yourself directly in the path of God's reward in your life. You wanna know how God can help you financially? Humble yourself under the might of the end of God, and watch God exalt you in due time. Let me give you just a Bible story, and I was showing Pastor Ed just a line that caught me in this story, and actually my daughters came home and asked about this very specific parable. It's in Mark chapter seven, there's a Gentile woman, she's a Greek woman, the Bible says she was a siro-foenician by birth. She is an outsider by every category that mattered in that culture. She comes to Jesus and she has a request. She has a daughter that is tormented by an unclean spirit, and automatically,

right in the modern church, that's bad. That's bad because we don't believe in deliverance. But your daughter's tormented with an unclean spirit. Yes, take her shopping. No. Get her some more clothes. Maybe we'll put her on Facebook. Get her an Instagram account, and what you're doing is feeding that spirit that is already tormenting her. Because you think stuff is what will satisfy her. No, a right relationship with God is what will bring satisfaction to your children. So, she summons the Jesus, and she's like, listen, my daughter's tormented by an unclean spirit, and she falls at his feet. She begins to beg him to drive the spirit out. And Jesus, his answer on the surface sounds almost just like a cold shoulder to her. He says in Mark 7, 27, let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. There's no miracle yet. There's been no deliverance. There's not even any comfort. It's just a hard sentence, given her. And this hard sentence is standing between what she came for and her miracle. Now, most people, when we get told no by God,

and that matter, we're like, mmm, I'm out. Listen to what she says. This is where the honor principle shows up. She does not argue that she does not. She doesn't even walk away offended. In fact, she takes the very word that Jesus used and now she builds on the word that he just said and gives it back to him. She builds her whole case on the word that he said. He said, listen, I'm gonna feed the children first and then the dogs get the crumbs. And she said, oh, yes, Lord, yes, Lord. Get even the little dogs under the table, eat from the children's crumbs. Now listen, that's Proverbs wearing a face and getting on the floor. Humility didn't demand a seat at the table. She didn't say, how dare you call me a dog. She said, listen, I know who you are and even a crumb from you is better than sitting at anybody else's table. I don't need to sit at your table. I don't need to have my name in lights. All I want is a crumb because I know a crumb from you will kick the devil out of my daughter. And here's what many of us want. We want our name in lights and we want all this other stuff. And listen, God will say, listen, even a crumb will elevate you. Even a crumb from my table will exalt you and do time. But you want all this big stuff

and you haven't even gotten the crumbs that he's been leaving. He's like, she's like, all right, God. Even the little dogs. And listen to what Jesus says. This is interesting. Mark 729. Listen, look at the first few words of this verse. And he said, because of this saying, because of this saying, what you just said, go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter. Now, listen, some of us, we thought, we want to see all this amazing stuff. He just said, because of what you have said, because of how you responded to me, the devil cannot stay in your daughter. Be careful how you respond back to God. Because if you'll fear the Lord, you won't argue about whether or not you're at the right table or not. If you're humble, you'll just say, listen, a crumb will be just fine. And the many of us, man, we want the whole meal and a crumb will kick the devil out of your kids. He said for this saying, go your way. The demon is going out of your daughter. No delay, no end to time. Just instantly full answer the woman. She had every reason, if you will, to demand honor instead she's low enough to receive the crumbs.

And I think some of us are missing. Can I just say it like this? We're missing the miracles of Jesus because we want to be at the head and not at His feet. I want to be up here and I'll be satisfied being down here and she washed His feet with her tears. Who gets mentioned in the Bible? The one time they're argued about where they're gonna sit, He's just probably sitting there going, you gotta be kidding me. I'm gonna get crucified and all you guys care about is where you're gonna sit. And we get caught up into the same things in the church. Why? Because we find satisfaction in our position. We find satisfaction about titles before our name. We think that's gonna bring satisfaction. Let me tell you something, a title before your name will wear off in about eight months. Because then the reality of the job that the title brings sets in and it's not satisfied because you're dealing with people who are dissatisfied with their life thinking that if they could have your title, that will satisfy them. Instead, it's right relationship with God. Lastly, number four, it produces, the fear God produces moral clarity. Proverbs chapter eight, verse 13. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogance in the evil way in the perverse mouth I hate.

Now, this is often the one fruit that the fear of the Lord produces that makes us probably the most uncomfortable. A real reverence for God doesn't make you feel calm. It actually is recalibrating what you love and hate. If you fear the Lord, you will increasingly hate what he hates. Pride, arrogance, deceit and evil. The word hate there is a Hebrew word and it means sane. That's S-A-N-E. It's the same word scripture uses for a settled aversion, not a flash of a temper. There's a distinction here because we're not talking about an emotional outburst of hatred. We're actually talking about something that is a fixed orientation away from pride and arrogance and deceit. Sane is less like a fight and more like a compass needle. It doesn't get worked up, it just consistently points away from what it was set against. It points north, meaning it's pointed away from south. And when you fall in love with Jesus, there should be something that happens inside of you that you love what he loves which means you have an aversion from the things that he doesn't like. This is why I should have struggled my whole life. Let's use this term with pastoral standards. Because if I preach what God has given me an aversion to and try to give you reasons why

you should avoid the things that I avoid, as soon as you're out of my presence you no longer avoid those things. However, if you get in a right relationship with God and you and God are walking together and talking together and God says, I need you to avoid those things, then all of a sudden there's an aversion that is built in the side of you that says I need to stay away from those things. And now it doesn't matter whether or not you're doing it in front of people or behind in people's backs, you're serving a God who you can't build a fence to keep him out. Holiness is not dictated from a pastor's office. Holiness is dictated through right relationship with God. And so when you get in right relationship with God it should bring you moral clarity. Can I just, I want to say this as kindly as I can. I think the church has gotten too good at protesting. I think we've gotten too good at screaming and hollering from the mountaintops about what we don't like. We are fighting, we're fighting the fruit of an issue and not dealing with the root of an issue. I am against abortion, I am against it, but I'm not going to go scream at people on a sidewalk. What I need to do is show them the love of Christ so that they'll get a root in their life

of a right relationship with God. (congregation applauding) I can take any issue that the church wants to scream about and we're screaming about homosexuality and we're screaming about transgenderism and we're screaming about all those things. And yet we're wanting to argue about the fruit that's in their life and never once said, "Can we change where you're rooted?" Because if you get them to fall in love with Jesus did he not say that I will lead them into all paths of righteousness and of truth. And so the church needs to exalt Christ instead of denouncing their sin all the time. And it will exalt Christ and bring Christ into the picture. They'll fall in love with Christ. And then he, because most of the stuff, I don't know how you all are, but most of the stuff, I can't figure it out. I ain't got time to sit down and read 500 books on transgenderism. I need to read one book about how powerful Jesus Christ is and if I can introduce them to Jesus Christ then he can change their mind. But we're trying to argue against a mind that has been blinded and we need to open them up to the light of Jesus Christ instead of hollering about the darkness, be the light. But listen, you cannot denounce their root when you have no fruit.

So he's like, "Hey man, listen, we need to make sure "we're not having these emotional bursts, but man, "let's get fixed, to get an orientation." And this in Psalm 97, he said, "For you who love Lord, "hate evil, Romans 12-9, let love be without hypocrisy, "a bore, a bore, what is evil?" I hate it, clean to what is good. Love and hate in Scripture were never meant to be opposites pulling against each other. They're meant to move together, pointed in opposite directions at the same time. If I love God and I'm heading towards God, that means I'm running away from the things that he hates. But if I turn my back towards God, I'm now pointed at the very things that he hates and you've got to get the right orientation in your life and we want to keep pointing people back there to their sin, you need to be pointing them in the direction that you're headed, and you should be headed in the direction of Christ. Hate what's evil. Can I also say like this, a love that can't hate anything is not a deep love. It's a love that's lost, it's aimed. If the church just loves, but has no hate in it, means we're not even oriented, we don't even know what direction we're going. But if I love God, I will hate evil. I will hate pride, I will hate arrogance, I will hate a lying tongue.

And this is not about being harsh or judgmental towards other people. In fact, I want to be quite the opposite. It's actually saying to the church, we need to have an inward recalibration about what and where we're headed. I mean, you get recalibrated, you'll find yourself less tolerant of these things in your own heart first. John Owen said it in this book called The Mortification of Sin. He said, you need to be killing sin or it will be killing you. So if you want to love what God loves, you need to head towards God. And in loving what he loves, you're running away from the things that he hates. that says these are all the things we are against. My dad told me one time it's easy to preach against things. It takes study and it takes prayer and it takes consecration to preach for things. And so man, guys used to get up and they would rail on everything. They'd preach against Christmas trees, they'd preach against red shoes, they'd preach against open-toed shoes, they'd preach against fingernails, they'd preach against fingernail polish. You have a laundry list of things to preach against, but it takes study, prayer, and consecration to get into the Word and say, "Lord, let me see you for who you are

so that I can present you to the people." But man, it'd be easy to get up here and just rail on Democrats and Republicans and rail on everything that breathes and you all be like Nebuchadnezzar. That's how I grew up. We ate grass and drink water. 'Cause everything else that sends you to hell, and never once will we tell people how to make it to heaven. And we need to be presenting the good news. A.W. Tozer in his book, "The Knowledge of the Holy," and I have this written in my Bible, it says, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is actually the most important thing about us." Well, listen, we would do these things with the staff and we would go around the room and we'd actually just did it again in a staff meeting like two or three weeks ago and we asked them to give us one attribute of God, the first thing that came to their mind. And it was interesting by the personalities of the people that were in the room, I could almost guess what they were going to say. Because whatever comes to mind about God is what's really important to us. And so people who say, and you're going to get judgmental on this and I don't want you to. I'm trying to explain this.

He's loving. Love is what is important to that person. He's peace. Peace is what's important to that person. He's healer. Ah, they must need a healing because that's the first thing that came to their mind and that's what they're thinking about God and they know that God is a healer. You see, so all of a sudden, what we begin to think about God is what's really important to us. And I would ask you, do you know enough about God that you know the attribute about God when you're in the most need in your life? And the fear of the Lord will produce clarity about who He is in your life. And so when I need Him to be a healer, I can say He's a healer. When I need Him to be a deliverer, I know He's a deliverer. When I need joy, I know the Apostle Peter said that He gives joy that is unspeakable, full of glory. When I need peace, I say, I know Him as the peace speaker. Do you know enough about God that you can define Him in a way that you need Him? Can I help you with this? You can know all the attributes of God.

I'm gonna give you one word that you can use anytime you have a need. You ready? This is gonna shock you. It's gonna blow your socks off. You've probably never heard this word. Jesus. For in Him dwelled the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the fullness of God is wrapped up in Jesus Christ. And while the church is arguing about all these other things, we have forgotten. We may not even be able to articulate it right. But if I need a healer, I just say Jesus. If I need a peace speaker, I just say Jesus. If I need joy, I just say Jesus. For in Him dwelled the fullness of me. If you think about that verse, Pastor, peace is gonna lay some numbers on you tonight that's gonna blow your mind. But if you think about the fullness of God, who is omniscient, all-knowing, omnipresent, ever-presence, who is omnipotent and all-powerful, and in Him, Jesus dwelled the fullness of God who said the earth is mine and the fullness thereof. He even said, the earth is my footsto, my enemies are under my feet, and the fullness of God led in Jesus Christ. Forget about all this other scientific stuff and all this religious stuff and all this theology is just. And when you're getting in trouble,

listen, when you're driving down the road and that semi-driver can't read the signs because he doesn't even know English and he's cutting you off in that construction zone. Yeah, but one word, it happened just the other day. Jesus. Do you think that God is getting all philosophical with you and saying, did you quote the verse right? Did you quote that right? No, if you know Jesus and you are in right relationship with God, he'll satisfy the needs of your life. (congregation applauding) clarity. So God brings to our minds what we have need of in our lives. And you are the fullness of it. Lord, let our roots grow deep. See, most of us think in our modern world, and this is where the church has got it wrong. We can take a picture of fruit that is zip tied onto a branch and call that fruit. My friend, the church needs to get a root so deep that it produces fruit. Josh, can I use you just for a moment? I want to shake you. Yeah. Josh is planted. I just felt the Holy Ghost. I laid my hands on you. So I'm just going to make this personal to you. We were standing over the bedside of your mom. The enemy was shaking, trying to get all the fruit off of you, trying to get it all out of you. Every time that goofy doctor would walk in and tell us there was no hope and Josh is claiming on hope and everybody, and he's just shaking him. And yet here Josh stands today not because of the fruit in your life, because of where you're rooted. And what the enemy wants to do is shake you to where your fruit falls off. Well, shake me all you want. The fruit may fall off, but because I'm rooted,

the fruit will grow back. And the church needs to walk in the fear of the Lord so that you get a root. And the root then produces fruit in your life. And so I would say to all of you that operating gifts, be careful operating in gifts. If you're not rooted in the right place in producing fruit, because operating in the gifts of the Spirit without the fruit of the Spirit is a very dangerous thing. If you are just every head bowed and with every eye closed, then thank you for your time. Heavenly Father, I can sense the storms. I can sense the waves. I can sense the wind. The enemy is shaking. He's doing all that he can to hang on to knock the fruit off of our lives. Lord, may we grow deep roots, deep roots so that when our fruit comes up that we are not tossed about with every wind and we were doctrine, but they were rooted and grounded in you. And love when we find ourselves in trouble, we find ourselves in need. May we just call on the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus Christ, and you come running. And you have given us authority in your name, not just to survive the storm, but to outlast it and to come through on the other side, tried and come forth as pure gold. I ask that you would bless the people of purpose house and you'd bless them Lord immensely with your glory and with your presence. And may we be rooted and grounded in who you are and stand in right relationship with you. In Jesus name, I pray, and all of God's people would say then. We're just having me and my prayer teams would come. I know it's late. I appreciate everybody sticking with us. Thank you for your worship today. It was beautiful. So now this moment here, if you have a need in any area of your life, pass the list of the team. I've seen one more song during the song. If you need prayer, I know the hours late. If you have

to go, may the Lord bless you. I'll see you next Sunday. But if you have a need in any area of your life, our prayer teams are available. If you need to talk to God on your own, that's what this middle part is for. Come and talk to the Lord and get rooted and grounded in who He is and be satisfied with Jesus Christ in your life. May God bless you. We love you. (gentle music)