Truth Moments: Episode 21

- I got it. - True moments. - Where'd that make a moment? - Early moments. - Early moments. - Who used to call it, early moments. - Early moments. - Early moments, you know, just, you know. - Getting it. - Getting that alarm going off at 4.45. - 4.30 for me, yeah. But I stayed in bed for another 20. - So, I always do. - Just thanking. My mind just starts, but it's like, it's trying to putter. It's like, I wake up. It's like, oh, I've got thoughts. And I'm like, mm, and then it's like, the world's happening. And I'm like, hold on, I'm like, God first. You know what I mean? And then the world's like, the business of the day, just the day itself, it's like, what tasks, it's tasks that are going on. And then it's like, hold on, Jesus. You know what I mean? And then it's back. And then it's, anyways, and I lay there on a wrestle with flesh and spirit for 20 minutes, strong. And then I get up and decide, you know what?

I'm not gonna let the day. I'm not gonna dictate how I feel right now until I get this cup of Folgers in me, man. - Yeah, I gotta get coffee. - And once I get that cup of Folgers in me, coffee in the word, and then the rest of the day. - Then I get into that word and have coffee with Jesus. And then we can start the day off. - No, I know. No, I know why the Hebrews were God's people. - Yeah, yeah. They were, I mean, coffee in Jesus, it just makes sense. - And if you're not in it, and I'm kind of suspicious of people like not with coffee. And Jesus. - That's the fact, like, you know what I mean? - Oh, what's going on here? - Yeah, like, I have a couple of friends that don't drink coffee. - Yeah, it's like, how do you? - Pastor Jesse from Troy. - Oh, really? - Don't drink coffee. - Really? - But he does have a little bit better reason. He used to drink coffee, but he had some kidney issues. - Okay, okay, some health stuff I can understand. - Yeah, well, 'cause when I very first found out, we were in Barundi, of which Barundi has pretty good coffee. And I remember he said he don't drink coffee,

and like, I found this inner struggle, trying to evaluate our friendship. - Right, yeah, I mean, I mean, they even trust you. - Everybody listen, and they know that they're drinking coffee. We're drinking coffee. You're pulling up the cup. Because he was the thing, we just had the admissions team, had a missions team, and had to reach guys. We had a dinner or whatever. And then Forrest is like, you know, it's like seven o'clock in the evening. And usually we're having some coffee. We're having Bible study, and we'll always make a pot. You know, matter, we start Bible study at 7 p.m. But we got a thick pot brewing. And then Forrest is like, do we need to make coffee? You know, and this missions team's like, their heads are like, coffee. - Yeah, you know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, dude, we're full of convicts up in here, man. We gotta be pouring up a shot at 7 p.m. but making a rack. - Yeah, but anyways, we're excited. We're ready to rock and roll, man. You preached a hard sermon last Sunday. - Yeah. We're a week behind on our podcast right now. - Okay. - But, yeah. - So we just need to make sure we're, I guess,

maybe mentioning the name of the message or something so they can associate it in the same time. - Yeah, what was this one? - The story isn't over. - Story isn't over. - Story isn't over. - Yeah, it's good. - Yeah, so you can go back in. Yeah, it just, I mean, it didn't, when I was preparing it, I didn't feel like it seemed that weighty. - Yeah, but when it was a weighty and there was no, didn't it? - It is, man. I just enjoy the fact that I get to witness it. Most of the time I get to witness it twice. I get a dull dose, but I get to sit back there and take it in and allow it to minister to me as well. And, yeah, you can feel it in the room. - It's for service. - Yeah, and so, but, but, but, well, well, why though? You know, like why, why is it hit? And it's, it's hidden because, you know, a lot of the applause that your people give and a lot of the shouting downs, all those things, man, those are for, man, people love to hear, man, that they're forgiven, they are loved to hear that they're beautifully and wonderfully made. They wanted to hear that they are chosen. I mean, these are some, these are some, I mean, yeah, man, nothing boosts it.

Nothing gets you going with the amen like that. But then there is a portion of time when you're told, hey, man, once you have, There is a level of You learn you learn but it don't make it feel any better, but you do learn That the hoop law is often for things that people are already Yeah Complying with yeah a lot of the time when the room's quiet. It's not cuz your preaching sucks. Yeah, it's cuz it's cutting them to the heart It is yeah, I was in crossroads and I did something once and you know It was a quiet room and and then I thought to myself it leaves you insecure Yeah, I was like well, you know, and then my wife was like oh, they were listening, you know, and it's like okay cool There's all you listened. Yeah, you know, I mean like the point is that you heard Don't it is different Yeah, so we we'll jump in there's like we said. This is the one on the story isn't over and so I would encourage you to to go back and watch the message if you haven't watched it any time you do one of these the structure that we've got these set up with now as they always piggyback off of a Sunday's message and so I encourage you go back and watch if you haven't watched it pause this go back watch the message the story isn't over and then come back and Find a couple of friends and get them together Have them watch the message prior to and then bring them into a group and then you guys can Look at the PDF document that we even post and use that as just a guideline or a launch pad to kind of use it to discuss this and and you know, let it let God's word change you and and a Discuss it apply it to your life. See where it fits most and kind of just go through it and so Yeah, no, it was it was a good message. We're still in acts three where you know Peter is just addressing the the crowd and You know, they had just seen the Pentecost and all of these things and they were still kind of

Unamored by that and you know It had me thinking kind of like a a movie You know and and how someone might have stopped a movie before the ending was over and you know oftentimes we can assume that the plot wasn't Complete or that the pain was pointless or that some of these other things You know and and oftentimes we just stopped watching it too soon and and it made me even think about You know a guy that attended our church for the last eight years Honestly, I think you started coming when our church was about a year old year and a half old and a committed suicide this last week man and You know, I'm actually doing this funeral today and I bet you there's hundreds of people that show up and you know, it just makes me think of like And he stopped watching the movie too soon, you know, yeah I feel like you just walked out of the movie. Yeah, you know and The potential that even his life had let alone many of these other lives that You know We write ourself off or we think that God, you know, it could never use somebody like us and And you know, one of the things that that Peter says and this was that You know God seen that it was done in ignorance, you know, and and I would Imagine that a majority Especially watching right now would probably be in that ignorance Category not calling anybody stupid, but no one is the lack of knowledge You know, that's that's what ignorance is and so because even even with Going to church on a Sunday from my mom, right taking me I Still had very little seed planted in my heart because of the veil it was still it was still I was still Scales over my eyes, right because I remember a young adulthood of Destruction but dude, I never had been really in the presence of the Lord like that brought myself powerful in a sermon and he said, you know, there's good news and there's bad news, right? And the good news is that yeah, the good news is that you can be forgiven and that there

is salvation and there is a plan that God has and that plan is always included in redemption. That's great news. The bad news is once you do hear it and once you receive it and once you know it, it's like no longer is anything else, but any of that life, the pull that you will have, that's what I think. That's where my heart goes to our friends so much is because like the Bible clearly states that whatever God comes and he cleans up in your house, in your heart, in your soul, whatever he cleans up and you allow compromise to happen in your life, you start to give in and you allow the truth of God to become secondary to lies in your life, the enemy who is prowling around and he's looking and watching comes back seven times harder, okay? And the enemy's plan is for you to end your life. That's it. That's the enemy's overall goal. If he can get you to end your life or life period still kill and destroy that's that's what he's that's what he's in it for and that's why it is so harder to shake it's it's harder to shake back each time because now you're fighting some that it's like God does not design us. He's not designed you to fight that his design is that you would hear it and that you would receive it and you would receive it with gladness right and it would be on good soil and you would obey it and then you would walk with him. It wouldn't be that you would receive it it would fall on okay soil and maybe rocky and then it would be in your heart and then the enemy would snatch it away and then and then now you're drawn away because you know where you're supposed you know where you're supposed to be but you're not there you're not there you know and that that's a that's a that's a scary place because every time man that we see someone decide to choose a life that is different than what we've seen them walking in and they go the other direction no I I I worry the most that it's like how will I see you again. I don't know that out of the the the the to me the fight of you coming back is so much harder I know that biblically I know that so so so biblically speaking this the statistic of the fight being losses is higher every time and it's not it's not like I learned a

list on last time man I don't got out in 2014 I figured out what I needed to do I done did it before and this time no dude is a spiritual man this is not no this is not you you put one hand to work and another hand and this plan to work and this success and all of a sudden they build and they come into a strategic six um um result though dog I'm talking about this is straight spiritual yeah oh it is a spiritual man yeah and if you ain't fighting spiritually you're gonna lose um in this world no matter what man do I know and it takes discipline and and uh let me let me get in here because you know one of the passages when I was doing the preparation it took me to one of my commentaries took me to numbers chapter 15 and honestly I'd never I'd never seen this before I think this is actually 0.2 in the yeah yeah laws concerning what kind of what kind of version is it new to James I don't know how this is going to read but um and so this is this is the thing that I love is when you're reading scripture honestly like if you're reading through Acts 3 you would just read right past um some of this you know like um by him saying you did it in ignorance but like you know you have to know the context like what was he meaning and like he was speaking in a dialogue that they understood and so when he starts talking about the law yeah like they understood that he doesn't say recall the law on numbers 15 but here's what he's talking about in verse 22 he says if you sin unintentionally do numbers 15 verse 22 if you sin unintentionally and do not observe all these commandments which the Lord has spoken to Moses, all that the Lord has commanded. your generations, then it will be if if it was unintentionally committed without the knowledge of the congregation that the whole congregation shall offer one young bull as a burnt offering. What version are you reading in LT? Here, let me read that. That's what I like. Verse 22. "But suppose you unintentionally fell to carry out all of these commands that the Lord has given you through Moses. And suppose your descendants in the future fell to do everything the Lord has commanded through Moses. If the mistake was made unintentionally or ignorantly and the community was unaware of it, the whole community must present a young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. And it must be offered along with its prescribed grain offering and liquid offering with one male goat for sin offering. With it, the priest will purify the whole community of Israel, making them right with the Lord and it will be forgiven. For it was an unintentional sin. They have

corrected it with their offerings to the Lord, the special gift and the sin offering. The whole community will be forgiven, including the foreigners living among you for all of the people involved in the sin. We're involved in the sin. If one individual, so that's if a community of people ignorantly sin, if one individual commits an unintentional sin, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering. The priest will sacrifice it to purify the guilty person before the Lord. And that person will be forgiven. These same instructions apply both to the native born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you. Verse 30 says, "But those who brazenly violate the Lord's will, whether native born Israelites or foreigners, have blaspheming the Lord, and they must be cut off from the community. Since they have treated the Lord's word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his command, they must be completely cut off and suffer punishment for their guilt." And when I read that, dude, I had this small revelation because I've always low-key kind of wondered what blasphemy really meant. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, you talk about God in the wrong way. You kind of mock the Lord and some stuff like that. I've always kind of thought that was, in a sense, because in my mind, mocking the Lord is knowing what the Lord said, but you're going to use grace as an excuse to do what you want to do. And you know, it's like, that's brazenly violating the Lord's will. And I just think like, man, how often do we do this exact thing? And I believe that if somebody repents even then, say, for eight years of your life, you worshipped Satan and literally was a wick-in and you did devil worshiping. And you mocked God and you knew what was going on and you just kept on going forth. But you surrendered your heart and came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and said, "Hey, today I'm done with that." And you repent of your sins and turn to God, like he says in Acts 3 and 19, so that your sins may be wiped away. I believe that Jesus will meet you right there and wipe all of that away. So even in the ignorance, now, I don't know what the weight of all that looks in eternity and in glory, but you know? Yeah, I'd prefer. I'd prefer just go ahead and keep my side of the street clean. Because here's the thing, it's dangerous. It's a dangerous thing without real reverence and fear of the Lord to decipher and view sin differently. Hear me on that, right? So you start viewing sins differently and what is easier to happen in your life is compromise to start sinking in because justification happens through that. You still have to identify, though, even though

the Lord is viewing the sin like this, right? And here's how his punishment is towards sin, categorized in a way. We also know that the weight of sin, they weigh the same. And Paul Now we can start kind of getting into some dangerous thinking there, you know what I mean? We still have to hate the sin that is going on. Whatever sin it is that we're struggling with in our life. It has to be at the top of our list of what we hate and we worked our trying to get through. Yeah, you know, we was one thing and then I'll come back is, you know, it's a dangerous place in comparison because the Bible is called the canon, right, like it was canonized and all of that canon. The word canon, biblically, literally means measuring, right. And so it's like, to me, when we are looking at Billy Bob saying, well, he's full on the Lord and he's doing that. He's getting away with that. So I could, I should be able to do this. We're not supposed to measure according to Billy Bob's gospel. Yeah, we're supposed to measure. That's how good God is, man. He personally ministers to your heart. He meets you exactly. He's like, he works on that one thing. He works on a lot of things at once, but he specifically works on one. And it's like, that's what our work called to do. It's like, what's that one? What's that one that you're working on? You start working on that. You start panting for that, repenting, turning away from it. And then you start working on the next one. And that's how that, that's how that gets to looking like that. Yeah, just Catherine and I were talking last night, you know, just, I spent yesterday kind of preparing for this funeral and whatnot. And I got to finish this morning. But I was just thinking about, you know, what, what do you say in a situation like this? I mean, you're going to have a full room captive in a terrible situation. Wow. And there's somebody else that's going to be speaking that's part of his family for just a moment. And I was talking to him last night and that guy was, he's an evangelist. So he goes and kind of speaks at different churches or whatever. And he was telling me, you know, one of the things that he always remembered about him was that he, he displayed love for people. You know, he was just a loving person. And that's very true. He really was. But he's like, you know, I just recall Jesus, you know, telling us that the greatest commandment was to love God and love one another. And I've seen him as an example of that. And, you know, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I get that, you know, and then I kind of told the guy, I was like, you know, but I also know who is going to be in the room. You know, and I don't want to paint this picture that, hey, if you've seen this example and you believe that this is what a life of Christ looked like. That's painting a false image to somebody to say that this is what a life of a life with Christ looked like. Because it's not. It's not. Now, I can't determine where this individual is in eternity. But if I look according to my understanding of scripture, which I'm not saying my understanding is perfect. But if I look according to my understanding, my heart breaks, dude, because I can't make assurance that if we're looking at eternity and what and the validation and the authenticity of what the Bible says about it. Yeah. And then what's important is that there are lives inside of that room that are still that still have a chance. Right? Because here we are. We all are there. We have a gift of life and I wake up and I guess I have a routine of this. But when we my wife pray and I say all time, God, thank you for the gift of life you've given us. It is a gift. And why I say that because it puts my heart in a posture saying, man, today, dude, today is I want to make sure that today, today, no matter what it is, whatever I have on my list today, I'm not. still bring Christ into every one of those situations, bro. I could still glorify Christ in every single one of those situations, and I could hang my hat at the end of the day and say, "Man, I believe that I glorify Christ in that day." And so that's heavy, man. And that's a lot. Well, I just think on this end, there's a portion that God can do, and that's the grace, that's the forgiveness. But through repentance, there's also something that man must do. And I can't explain it, dude. All I know is I wake up every day, and I do my best to fight my flesh every day, and I've just gotten a little bit more equipped with my sword over 15 years. I mean, that's the whole thing. I can say, I don't have a magic

potion, I don't have a great one, two, three do this, and it's all going to work out. No, wake up tomorrow and do better than you did today, and just keep fighting your flesh. Just keep putting it off. Keep fighting it. That's it. And if you fell, come back, and don't fell again on the same thing. Don't keep making the same mistake twice. Resolved? Never to give over, nor in the least, and to slacken my fight with my corruptions. However unsuccessful I may be. This is like, man, you can make a choice, you can decide that I am not going to give up. You can decide that at the end of the day, no matter what happens, I am not going to give up. I'm not going to give up. You can have that. That has to be a value rooted inside of your heart. Values are what drive decisions. It's a value, man. It's a value. All the cognitive learning and doing all these things, none of that, all this stuff, every decision is driven by a value, man. It's driven by a deep seated value. And if your deep seated value is, man, no matter what, I will walk with the Lord. That's it. I will not give up on Jesus Christ, man. I won't. No matter what. If that's the value, then you can any tragedy, anything that comes along, any detriment, whatever it is, you will resort back to your value. You feel grief. Your fight will slacken. You will lose to some of the corruptions in your life. You will fall to your flesh. You will do all of those things, but you will not give up, dude. You won't give up. That's a serious mindset that we have to, and here's the thing, to promote that, you have to stay sober. You have to stay sober. You have to stay sober. Your mind has to still be clear, dude. You know what I mean? One of the biggest, you start allowing the substance in, and the substances are so powerful, man. And like I said before about this being spiritual, they are spiritual. Hear me? The substance is spiritual. The pot smoking is spiritual, okay? And haze goes over your mind. You believe everything is fine, and everything's great, or everything's more fun. That is an tactic that the enemy is using to cloud through your mind, literally cloud through your mind, right? The drinking? Yeah. The drinking of it. I mean, they can go, man, will they blow me up right in, man? Do you know Jesus drink wine? And I got you. Well, I'm talking about it, don't matter. Your drinking is allowing toxin and poison into your heart, into your mind. I mean, that's a, you know, it's over been drunk and thought about God. I never just, and started to free, you drink something, you start to feel something else.

No matter what, man, I don't care if you're one person that has a single wine glass, right? You drink it in a calmness comes about you, right? I mean, that is not Jesus Christ. That's not, that isn't, that isn't the Lord doing those things. So how do you stay resolved and stay, the first thing you have to do is stay sober. You start to allow the, the thought, the outside forces and substances into your mind. You're, you're, you're losing spiritually. Yeah. I even think, you know, and in terms of, you know, some of these people, you know, could be caught off in something that, you know, because realistically, every person that we have seen, even before addiction, every person that we have seen that has went wayward, it started with a relationship that we didn't honor God. You know what I mean? And almost, and I mean, honestly, not trying to be masculine in all of this, but like, it goes throughout the Bible to like, if you see a bunch, you'll see a bunch of relationships go, you know, I mean, Solomon, David, you know, I mean, I mean, Samson, I mean, you can literally, you know, and it all draws back to the purity. That's what it all draws back to. And I was like, dude, you just have to, that resolve is resolved to be pure in all areas of your life. Isn't that the other one thing? I learned through seven years of sobriety, I learned to love myself, bro, sober, bro, I love who I am sober, man. Let me just how I know I love myself so much sober. I got boys in ivy a couple of weeks ago, all over me. I was itching. I took a Benadry, go to sleep, right? What happened when I took the Benadryl? Dude, just, you know what I mean? Like, I was not myself, bro. I was not myself, right? I tell my kids every night, man, I bring my kids to bed. I give them the huggies, love ease, and we pray, we whatever. I literally was so not myself that I got up from falling out, you know, God said, good night. And I went to bed, dude, right? And it was like, that wasn't me, you know, it was me on Benadryl, right? But that's just a portion of his fact. It's like, dude, I, you have to give this thing some time, dude, stay sober for a while to learn yourself. Right? Yeah, you know, I mean, like, I get it, but I, I love who I am, man. I love who God has created me to be. I love my sober self. I don't want something else to cloud that my I want to stay. I want to stay, I want to stay clear minded, man, and myself. One night I was sick. And I mean, dude, I was sick. And this was like maybe a year ago. And somebody at church, Ryan had told me Redmond, he told me, he said, uh, he's like, well, the answer, man is, is mucinex DM. Oh, yeah, that was morphing. That that'll do it, dude. And so true. Yeah, he said, he said, he said,

he said, that's the, that's the ticket right there. Yeah. And so I was like, all right, I guess I'll try it. You know what I mean? So I went and got some mucinex DM. Yeah. And I took it one night. And I was like, I don't know. Maybe it was maybe needed more. Maybe it was helping, right? Yeah. And so then throughout that day, I was like, man, I don't know. I think I need a, I think I need a Z pack. Yeah. Well, I've got this Burundi antibiotic, right? That, that, that Doug brought back from Burundi. Well, they aren't FDA approved or whatever, you know what I'm saying? And so then I'm like, I think I definitely need an antibiotic. So I take one of these, and they're a stronger antibiotic. Like it's like double dose of what a American antibiotic is. So I take one of those, and then I'm like, you know what, I think I need another mucinex DM to take one of those. Yeah. So then I take one of those, and now you're, you're, now your legs are just, hey, I'm sitting in the recliner. I'm sitting in the recliner. And I'm like, I'm just like, I'm just, I'm closing my eyes. And I'm like, oh, I think I'm swallowing my tongue. So then I get to go on, and I'm biting my tongue because I think, hey, dog, I'm not kidding. I'm, I was contemplating writing my wife a note. Oh, letting her know how I died. I thought, I thought if I go to sleep, I'm going to swallow my tongue, and I'm going to be dead. Dude, I was so jacked up, all freaking mucinex. And I didn't know if it was the combination of this African antibiotic, you know, like, did they get me? Yeah, no, bro. And I mean, I was, I was tripping. I mean, like, like, for legitimately hallucinating, you know, and I was like, I don't like this. And I'm like, what do I got? Do I got to drink milk or like, what am I, you know, be sober be sober minded be vigilant well we know we got the questions on the PDF man we didn't even get into any asking questions any I just talked about one of the points but let's all right but get it get in there because there's some great ones man there's there's three awesome questions in there open ended we really encourage you guys to just talk through those men have some holy conversations and allow the Holy Spirit to kind of help motivate each other to a disciple each other and and to grow in your faith not only in Christ but growing your faith with each other man build some fellowship and start up start having these conversations be holy man so we thank you Lord we thank you for this chance and this opportunity to come here and just to what is the fellowship and talk about your goodness and your grace Lord and we pray that eyes will be open the ears would hear and that scales

will be removed from eyes God and that we will be able to see the truth and in what you have written long ago for us God that it is the same when you wrote it as it is today God and it is applicable in so many situations Lord so we pray wisdom over our brothers and sisters God we pray just knowledge and not only just head knowledge Lord but heart change God so we thank you Jesus and we love you we love you peace out. [MUSIC PLAYING]