They're impressed, but it's not like you would
like them to be impressed.
And on that occasion, I never forgot the
presentation, because they said, Pastor Jack, we're making
you an honorary member because as a minister
of the gospel, we understand you're in fire
prevention also.
And there's a...
You know, I've got to tell you a
story this morning, has absolutely no relevance to
anything I'm going to say, but I like
it so much, I just heard it, and
I've got...
Can I tell you a joke?
Tell you one thing I've discovered about this
story.
I just ran a test.
I was speaking this last week, or a
little over a week ago, to a group
of pastors and their wives in Nebraska.
And the week before, I had been with
a group of people, and there were men
and women there also, husbands and wives, as
is the case in many cases today.
And I discovered that this story doesn't really
ring it with women, and I don't know
the explanation.
I was trying to do a psychological study
on it, because it has nothing to do
with understanding.
I don't mean by that I think the
girls are less quick-witted or anything like
that.
I really don't.
But I don't know why it's not...
So, don't feel embarrassed, sweetheart, if it doesn't
strike you funny, okay?
But the guy next to you, he's going
to like it.
See, I've obligated him to like it now.
Jake was a pastor in a mountain village,
Colorado.
And the thing that impressed everybody was not
only the quality of Jake's spiritual leadership, he
was a man of real character, strength, and
purpose, and everybody admired him.
But he was also particularly admired because he
was a remarkable sportsman.
Jake was the best fisherman in town.
And the thing that impressed everybody is that
even on times that the guys who were
good fishermen in town would go out and
catch nothing, Jake would come back with a
boatload.
And that was really something that just was
terrifically impressive.
One day the game warden in the community
said, Jake, you know, there's nobody apparently who
seems to have the skill you do, and
I'd just like to know what your style
is.
Would you feel you were betraying a confidence
or, you know, a secret you want to
keep?
If I went out with you sometime, watch
your technique.
Jake says, no, warden, you're welcome to go
with me.
So they set the date, and when the
date came, they got in the boat, went
down to the far end of this enormous
lake, they went down to the far end,
cut back in a cove, were back in
a corner there when they pulled up, Jake
got the boat anchored, and he got seated,
reached under the seat where he was sitting,
came out with a stick of dynamite, lit
it, threw it in the water, and, you
know, and fish just came stunned, bellied up
to the surface of the water.
He, uh, no, that's not it.
You helped me understand why women don't get
it.
But, Jake, uh, Jake started reaching over
to gather in the fish, and the warden's
sitting there looking at him, just the other
end of the boat, just absolutely, you know,
just startled beyond words.
He's speechless.
Finally he says, Jake, I can't believe what
I just saw.
He says that kind of illegal thing, you
know, he says, you've always been such a
man of character, I can't believe you'd do
anything like that.
And he says, besides Jake, he says, I'm
here.
He says, I mean, you know, the warden.
When we get back, Jake, I hate it,
but I'm going to have to arrest you.
Jake just looked at him a minute and
didn't say a word, reached under the seat,
pulled out another stick of dynamite, lit it,
slid it across the bottom of the boat,
it went under where the warden was sitting,
and he said, Warden, is he just going
to sit there and chat, or are you
going to fish too?
We were, the other day, Anna and I
were home, got a phone call from Becky.
She's our oldest child.
She and her husband pastor a congregation up
in central California in Merced, and they have
three of our five grandkids.
And Kyle, who's the middle of the three
kids, this happened, I said the other day,
it was a few months ago, and Kyle
was just starting to talk.
He was approaching his second birthday at the
time, and just beginning to talk.
It occurred to Becky this particular morning, Scott
had already headed off for the office, and
Kyle's older brother Brian wasn't awake yet.
Kyle was there, and she'd just fixed his
cereal, and was ready to take his hands
and just say, Kyle, let's pray, and usually
she would help him say a prayer, but
he had never entered into it.
He would just bow his head and listen
to Mama pray.
But now that he was starting to talk,
it occurred to her, this is a good
chance to teach him to pray, to say
his own prayer.
He was used to joining with the family
and hearing Daddy or his older brother or
Mama pray, but she says to him, she
says, Kyle, this morning Mama's going to help
Kyle say the prayer.
So you can say the word, because Kyle
is getting to where he can talk now.
So he apparently was a little excited about
that.
Well, now for you to really understand the
story, I need to leave them there at
the table with their hands joined, just a
minute ready to pray, and I need to
give you a piece of background information.
Kyle and Brian are among perhaps the four
or five million children who every morning, five
days a week anyway, watch Sesame Street.
And Kyle's favorite character, for some peculiar reason,
is the Count.
Now those of you that don't have kids
at home probably don't watch Sesame Street.
If you do, I wonder about you.
But at any rate, if you aren't familiar
with Sesame Street, and I've lost touch with
it, I think you can appreciate, so I
needed to be updated on who the Count
was.
And the Count is called that.
He's actually called Count Count.
And he's a takeoff on Count Dracula.
But it's not as sinister and as fierce.
But the character is used to teach the
children to count.
That's why he's called Count Count.
And he talks like Bela Lugosi did.
You know, Lugosi spoke of that kind of,
I don't know, the Hungarian, I don't know
if you call it drawl.
Maybe in southern Hungary they do, I don't
know.
But at any rate, Lugosi, you know, well
the Count, the way he does, he'll go,
one, two, three.
Well, because he goes slowly, it helps the
little children learn the numbers.
And he always laughs.
He always laughs like, you know, after he
does the counting.
And that, of course, creates the climate of
happiness in and around a child's first exposure
to numbers that are said slowly enough that
he can understand them and so forth.
So it all works in the program.
Well, Kyle really likes to count.
Now you need to know that and that
he really tunes in.
Okay, now we're back at the table.
Becky's got his hands.
Kyle, we're going to pray.
And she says, all right, Kyle, you say
what Mama does and so I'm going to
have to be both of them.
So Becky says, dear Jesus.
Kyle says, dear Jesus.
Thank you.
Four.
Five.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Well, now that story I told on purpose
this morning, not because it's only cute and
enjoyable, but because it kind of underscores a
point.
We probably don't analyze the funny things that
little kids do, but if you took a
minute to think about it, you would know
that Kyle didn't really do that to be
funny.
He didn't know he was being funny.
As a matter of fact, that's what makes
the things children do so funny is they
don't know they're being funny.
There's an innocence about it.
And an innocence that we don't use the
word ignorance because ignorance sounds like an insultive
term.
But ignorance simply means that you don't know.
And they don't.
And they're learning.
And in that case, he was trying to
fit together two pieces of information, some that
he got off television, and some mama was
feeding him right then, and he didn't know
how to integrate the two.
And his inability to integrate the two came
off with a rather cute kind of episode,
and we all laugh at it and we
enjoy it because it reflects that simplicity of
a child in a very real sense.
I wonder how frequently in our own lives
that we, not knowing how to integrate things,
end up with something that maybe really isn't
all that funny, however.
And that the only way that we can
really learn how to put the pieces together
is to acknowledge what we really are, and
that's children.
I've mentioned already this morning, we sang John's
birthday greeting, I mentioned standing within my 50th
year of life, and we gather on a
wide spectrum of age categories here, but all
of us are people of mature years, but
measured against the greatness of the wisdom of
God and the fact that He, according to
Scripture, is the eternal Ancient of Days, it's
small wonder that the Bible refers to all
of us as children, irrespective of years.
We're children.
And there's something about coming to acknowledge that
and how much we need to, very humbly
and simply, acknowledge our dependency for wisdom and
for mutual support and help to be circled
about with people that care.
That comes to all of us with some
difficulty.
There's a ferocious compulsion that drives most of
us to verify our adequacy by saying we
basically don't need anybody.
Ironically, that's only in the private areas of
our life.
There's not any group that I could speak
to anywhere that would be more ready to
acknowledge their need of one another professionally than
firefighters.
You guys have a phenomenal sense of teamwork
and absolute dependency upon each other, not just
to get a job done, but for your
very survival.
So I don't need to talk to you
about the need of one another in those
terms.
You're not only trained that way, you understand
it.
It's gut level to you, it's not just
intellect.
There's probably a few men here that don't
owe your life to somebody else because of
that recognition you not only need each other
for the work to get done, the job
to be accomplished, you need each other for
survival.
I spend, and John mentioned it a moment
ago, I spend a certain amount of my
time just talking to men.
It's nice to be with you ladies and
pastor of a congregation.
I, of course, have an awful lot of
people in both genders that I'm privileged to
call pastor.
Tomorrow I'll probably speak to 5,000 or
6,000 people, and that's a special thing.
But nothing's more important than the time I'll
get together with a few hundred men every
month in my church.
And when I was asked to come and
talk here this morning, it didn't take a
long time to make the decision.
Not only because I so respect you men,
not only for what you do vocationally, but
who you are in terms of your commitment.
Most of you would have walked with Jesus
Christ in a desire to be his ambassador
where you go, a representative of him and
his life.
And I honor and respect that.
But frankly, it was because it's a chance
to be with another group of men.
I like to be with men.
I believe in men.
I believe in people.
But I feel that something special happens when
a man comes to recognize the true source
and fountainhead of his life.
Not only in terms of his relationship with
the Lord, but in terms of the need
to grow into an openness of relationship with
other men.
An open relationship.
Let me read just five verses from the
first letter of John.
1 John chapter 1.
John wrote these words.
This is the message, he says, which we
have heard from him, that is from God,
has a capital H here, which we've heard
from him and declare to you that God
is light and in him is no darkness
at all.
Now if we say we have fellowship with
him and walk in the darkness, we're lying
and not practicing the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as
he is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another and the blood of Jesus
Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin, we're
deceiving ourselves.
The truth is not in us.
But if we confess our sin, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I'm not particularly proud to relate this episode
to you, but it's the best way I
know to get into what I want to
say.
It happened about, well, maybe four months ago.
We have about 85 people on the full
-time staff that works at our church, and
of those, there's five that work closely with
me.
Four of those five are women, very gifted
women.
And my personal staff helped me sort out
a lot of the very demanding details of
my life.
There's my personal secretary that coordinates everything, and
I have a correspondence secretary and an editorial
worker who handles writings and manuscripts and books
we're working on, and a receptionist for the
office.
Those are the women.
One of those came into my office to
go over some material on that day about
four months ago, and it's nothing unusual about
that day, except I don't want to sound
either self-righteous and I hope not to
sound too corrupt, either one, when I tell
you what happened.
But what did happen is that when she
sat down in the chair next to my
desk and put the material on this to
start going over it, I had something go
on in my mind that I'm not going
to pretend to you had never happened in
all of my life, but I hadn't experienced
anything like that, certainly not with regard to
this young woman who was sitting there at
the desk.
I don't think I'd have experienced anything like
that as foul as what was happening in
my mind for quite a while.
And I couldn't even explain to you why.
I didn't have any designs on that girl.
But all of a sudden, while we're working
on, as a matter of fact, what we
were working on is a very spiritual kind
of material.
And all of a sudden, my mind is
flooded with the foulest, most corrupt, sensual, and
sexually impure thoughts that you can imagine about
that girl and me.
And the whole duration of the thought going
on in my mind lasted about this long.
It started like now and stopped like that.
And the reason it stopped is because I
stopped it.
I think most of you will understand what
I mean when I tell you I didn't
start it.
What I mean by that is that thought
just came full blown in my mind.
I wasn't anticipating it.
I wasn't sitting around thinking dirty thoughts.
I hadn't just left a room where I'd
been pouring over a piece of pornographic literature.
All of a sudden, it's just there.
There's not a man in this room who
can't sympathize with me with the fact that
we're bombarded with so much pollution in our
culture that to maintain a pure mind really
isn't a matter of being able to say,
I never had an impure thought.
It's what you do with it when it
comes.
It determines.
Everybody gets them.
I suppose the girls face them, too.
But I think there's something of a point
of unique vulnerability that we fellas face.
I don't think it's because we're less pure,
basically, than any of the women are.
I think there's just a special point of
vulnerability we face.
And I cite that not because my remarks
this morning have to do with sexual impurity
or pornographic thinking or obscenity of the mind.
That it's just an illustration to get to
a point.
That particular thought, like I said, probably lasted
if we timed it three seconds before I
stopped it.
Now, the worst part of the story is
what happened the next day.
Because I stopped it.
We went ahead and finished that.
And the next day, I don't remember what
point it was in the day that the
same girl came in and we were going
over some probably the same material.
I don't know, because it was a thing
that was being done in continuum at that
point.
And I'd forgotten what had happened the day
before, because I'd shut that off just about
as quickly as it started.
But that same thing started in again.
Now, you need to know, because many of
you don't know me, and I'm making myself
fairly vulnerable to you, and I don't feel
awkward in doing so, but you need to
know that, to begin with, she's a very
gracious woman.
There's nothing suggestive about the way she carries
herself or dresses.
There's no commentary on her.
I don't really think it's any commentary on
me either, other than the fact of my
humanity.
But that thing started in again.
And here's the part I don't like to
tell.
That it went just about the same amount
of time, but instead of shutting it off
thereafter, about the third beat, where I recognized,
I'm thinking, my God, where's this garbage coming
from?
That's what's going on in my head.
That's what I thought the day before.
This day, I'm thinking, I don't believe it.
This is coming again.
And then, for about that much longer, I
let it go, and then stopped.
And that bothered me.
It really bothered me because I've come to
learn a few things about myself, and that
when I'm dishonest with myself to the point
I will tolerate.
See, I hadn't welcomed that.
I probably ought to admit to you, there's
times in my past, I guess all of
us have done this, times we've all welcomed
fantasies of different kinds, not just sexual fantasies.
There's times I've welcomed things in my past,
but I think I've outgrown that.
I don't say that condescendingly, but I think
I have.
I don't entertain those things on purpose.
But this was coming, as I said, unwelcomed,
except for those two extra beats there.
Then I entertained it.
Are you following what I'm saying, okay?
That bothered me.
It bothered me because I was being dishonest
with myself.
See, I don't feel guilty at all for
the things that bounce in on me.
You know, all of a sudden, oh good
lord, what's that?
You know, and then when you handle that.
But when you give it place, then I
become accountable.
After I finished going over probably five or
ten minutes, whatever we were working on, and
she left the room, I buzzed my personal
secretary, and Janet came in, and I said,
Janet, see if Dennis is going to be
clear any time this morning.
I want to talk to him.
Dennis is my right hand in the ministry
of our church, and a very gifted young
man, phenomenal, strong.
I'm honored that he calls me his father
in the things of God.
I'm not quite old enough to be his
father.
He's 34.
But he calls me his spiritual dad, and
we've been related for about 18, 19 years.
And I was his dean of students when
he was preparing for ministry.
And we have a very strong relationship, and
he's a strong man of God.
So I said to Janet, see if Dennis
can come over.
And about 45 minutes later, Dennis came into
the office.
He said, Janet said you wanted to see
me.
So I closed the door and sat down.
The conversation went something like this.
I'm going to have to take longer to
tell it, I guess, maybe than it did
with us, because there are a lot of
things we already mutually understand.
Maybe the best way to tell you is
this.
Of the 21 guys that partner with me
in pastoring our congregation, we have a covenant
between each other.
And the covenant is basically this.
We work, to begin with, besides the fact
we're just men, fallible men, who need the
strength of one another, we also are men
that have to work very close with people,
and oftentimes with people in deep difficulty, sometimes
in deep grief, points of real emotional vulnerability,
to where you're counseling, especially with a woman.
You can become very vulnerable to an infatuation
that, as a good and godly man, you
certainly don't intend to indulge, but you can
become very deceived and very vulnerable.
And so we've had the agreement that among
one another, that any time we ever felt
we were being taunted by temptation toward a
woman that we knew we were supposed to
shepherd, as a shepherd does a sheep, and
to care for, and if we ever felt
anything impure were coming in, we would come
to one of the other guys on the
pastoral staff and acknowledge it so that we
could...
There's something about acknowledging a thing like that
to somebody else that cripples the power of
the temptation against you.
You become strong, because you're not trying to
stand in your own strength.
And I know that the whole mentality of
so many people who know the Lord say,
well, all you just need to do is
tell the Lord.
But I've known people that tell the Lord,
and it's not that God's incapable.
It's because His plan is that we know
a strength with one another, a partnership with
one another.
And that's in this passage I read, but
I want to wait to talk about the
passage after I finish the story.
I said to Dennis this.
I said, Dennis, I asked you to come
by for a minute because something happened yesterday,
today, and then I told him what I've
already told you.
But without being lurid, or graphic, or crude,
I described a little more the kind of
thoughts that had come.
And they were rotten.
And I said, I said, I don't, I'm
not really having any emotional difficulty with, and
I said the girl's name.
It's on the staff.
It's not a matter of really feeling temptation.
It's just that I despise the fact that
I gave those extra few seconds of thought,
and I felt I needed to acknowledge that,
just have you agree with me.
Now, you need to understand that Dennis didn't
feel that the need was for him to
bolster me up because I was about to
fall into adultery, because I wasn't.
About 20 years ago, I nearly did.
As a godly servant of Jesus Christ, in
a role of spiritual leadership, I came so
close to falling into adultery that I learned
to distrust my own resolve.
It's the grace of God that I didn't,
and I'm thankful for that.
I could have lost my marriage.
I could have lost my ministry.
I could have lost my relationship with the
Lord.
None of those things were lost, and I'm
very, very grateful for that, but it is
no tribute to greatness on my own part.
That has its own story, but that's not
the point of the morning.
The point of the morning, in spite of
the fact that I'm using it as an
illustration, really doesn't have to do with sexual
purity.
The point of the morning has to do
with the need of each other strengthening one
another in the Lord.
Now, this passage of Scripture says, if we
walk in the light as He is in
the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
cleanses us from all sin.
And I learned some years ago, something except
the blood cleanses us from sin, but it's
a verse that has to do with a
powerful principle of mutual dependency in the fellowship
of brethren.
Let me say it to you in a
broad kind of amplified Bible sort of way.
Using that situation, if Jack and Dennis walk
in the light of Jesus, the way that
Jesus is light, then they're going to become
more tightly knit to one another in the
love of God, in fellowship with one another.
And as they walk in that kind of
mutuality, it will give place for the power
of Christ's cross to penetrate their lives with
increasing liberty.
Jack, where does it say that?
Well, let me say it to you again.
If we walk in the light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ,
literally the Greek tense says, keeps on cleaning
us from our sin.
Let me say that again.
Keeps on.
Most of you have known the Lord long
enough to know that when you receive Jesus
as your Savior, you're forgiven completely then.
But see, the problem is not just the
record of my sin that is instantly forgiven.
The problem is the fact of my sin
nature that still abides with me.
I don't just have a record of sin.
There's a reality of it that lives with
me as long as I live in this
clay.
I think, as I said, I think I'm
growing.
You probably are too.
I don't submit to the same kinds of
things I once did in other times in
my life, but I'm still haunted by other
things.
And the power of Jesus Christ, God has
ordained, is not something that only is released
on a vertical level of relationship, where, well,
Jesus, it's you and me, but on a
horizontal level relationship, where I enter into relationship
with other brothers in Christ and live in
transparency and openness with them.
There's an episode in the Old Testament Scriptures
that impacted me powerfully just a while back.
The story of a man that was about
to, really about to violate, to compromise righteousness,
and God spoke to his heart.
I won't digress into the story of Abimelech.
Abraham's involved in the story.
It's in Genesis 20.
But the powerful thing that came to me
came out of a phrase.
When Abimelech said this to the Lord, he
said, Lord, I've walked in the integrity of
my heart.
What he was basically saying is, God, I
didn't know, excuse me, I didn't know I
was about to do something wrong.
And God's word back to him was this.
I know you were walking in the integrity
of your heart.
And that's the reason I stopped you.
Because you didn't know.
There's a message wrapped up in there that
says, when a person will walk according to
what they know is right in their heart,
that God will keep them from making destructive
mistakes.
But they have to walk with what the
Bible calls a heart of integrity, or in
other words, a perfect heart.
I want to define the word perfect because
it can be terribly intimidating.
The word perfect, as it's used in the
Scripture, does not have to do with accomplished
perfection.
Would you say that with me?
The word perfect in the Bible doesn't have
to do with accomplished perfection.
Say it.
The word perfect used in the Bible does
not have to do with accomplished perfection.
By that it means you haven't attained unto
it.
Perfection in the Scripture has to do with
more a wholeness of commitment, more than it
has to do with a holiness of accomplishment.
Let me say it again.
It has to do with a wholeness of
commitment more than it has to do with
a holiness of accomplishment.
There's not a person in the room that's
likely to accomplish perfect holiness in your lifetime.
I'm not saying that I'm indifferent about it
because of that.
I'm just simply saying you're not going to
make it.
Now I know that somebody could say, well,
if I'm not going to make it, why
try?
Well, I'll tell you a lot of reasons
not to try, the main one being that
you can never accomplish it in your own
strength.
But a reason to be interested is because
people who make up their mind to let
God work holiness in their life, and I'm
going to define holiness in a minute, so
be patient with me.
People who make up their mind to let
God work holiness in their life, those people
are going to find something of a deep
sense of satisfaction of God endorsing the details
of their lives.
It's like the Lord coming to subscribe and
say, I'm going to work with you.
Now what do we mean by holiness?
Well, we don't mean religious prudery.
We don't mean some kind of stained glass
snobbery.
I'm not talking about some condescending looking down
your nose at everybody else around you and
saying, you haven't quite arrived.
I mean, there's a sort of a conceitedness
that some people think holiness has to do
with, and it becomes absolutely out of the
question for most men I've ever met.
They feel, forget it, baby.
I'm never going to arrive there, and if
you ever really were holy, you'd be such
a kind of a panty-waisted, less than
manly person anyway who'd be interested.
But I want to talk to you about
just two holy guys that I know of.
One of them is Jesus Christ.
There's nothing panty-waisted about him.
He's the man of history, and he was
the only person in history that was absolutely
holy.
And strong men respected him and trusted him,
and women weren't afraid to be around him,
and little children came to him and wanted
to be with him.
Holiness basically has to do with completeness.
Whole and holy are related words, cognate words
in our language, and that's not accidental because
they carry the idea of completeness.
Another holy person in the Bible was David.
David's renowned, among other things, besides being a
great warrior and a great king, he's also
known as a man with a classic case
of murder and immorality to his record.
And the Bible still calls him a man,
listen to this, with a perfect heart.
Now it certainly wasn't perfect when he murdered
and when he was involved in that affair
with Bathsheba, but the fact is, the Scripture
says the record was his heart was holy
after the Lord.
And that it was the perfection of a
heart that wants God entirely.
These are David's words.
He said, Lord, unite my heart to reverence
your name.
Listen to that word, unite.
Have you ever seen the way that they
make French fries and run that thing over
a potato and make all those little square
strips rectangular solids that make that by just
running that thing through?
Imagine a heart that has that done to
it.
Not your physical heart, but your attitudinal heart,
the spiritual you.
We get fragmented.
We get cut into pieces.
Our interests, our goals, our objectives get shredded
and how many people get going ten directions
with things that, things don't just come together.
It can happen like what I described in
my office.
It can happen in your mind and there
are those things that want to turn your
mind away from where your commitments ought to
be.
David, recognizing that in himself, said, Lord, unite
my heart.
Take the pieces that are trying to be
shredded apart and draw them all together.
Unite my heart into one because I want
a perfect heart.
That's a holy heart for you.
Well, God worked that in David and he
becomes a great man of history because of
the perfect heart being worked in his life.
He was committed to.
When Jesus comes and teaches us how to
live, the main thing that he says in
his word is that you're going to need
other people.
So he trains, when he trains the men
to work with him, he trains them to
be in groups and never to be in
less than pairs.
He always sends people out in twos when
he makes a commission.
Peter, James, and John are three of the
twelve.
Sometimes people made the mistake of thinking he
liked them better than the rest.
What you have a case of is Jesus
teaching people that they need to be in
smaller groups.
You can count on it that the whole
group of the twelve broke up into smaller
groups.
There was that one Jesus was training in
a special way and he would one day
say wherever two or three are gathered in
my name, I'm in the midst of them.
And he wasn't talking about church services.
He was talking about the specialness of what
happens when people determine that there will get
a group that live in the light, in
fellowship with one another, so that there can
come the ongoing power of the cross of
Jesus Christ in their lives.
The blood of Jesus Christ keeping on cleaning
them from their sins.
Purifying, refining, and developing.
I was just working on my calendar the
last 24 hours and was setting apart the
times in the next few weeks that I
will be with a group of three men
I meet with.
I need guys just to grow around.
Guys that will hold me accountable.
Guys I'll open up myself to and say
I'll trust my life to you.
I want to say something without condemnation at
all.
But I'm going to guess.
I'm just going to make a guess.
The guess is on the second thing.
The first thing I know is true.
But I'm going to guess the second thing
is true.
The first thing is, I'm talking to a
group of men, every one of you, move
with a circle of guys in a company
that you trust your life to.
But to move in the life of Jesus
Christ, I'm going to say, and I guess,
the majority of you don't have a circle,
a company of two or three that you
move with that you trusted your spiritual life
to.
You say, well, Jack, I just trust my
life to Jesus.
That's enough to get you to heaven.
But see, the challenge is, we're not going
to heaven today, probably.
Reminds me of a little kid that was
in a church service and the pastor says,
everybody want to go to heaven, stand up.
And everybody stood up except the little boy.
The little boy didn't stand up.
He says, son, don't you want to go
to heaven?
He says, yeah, I want to go to
heaven.
He says, why didn't you stand up?
He says, well, I thought you were getting
up a group to go right now.
See, all of us want to have time
of life now and we're going to.
The grace of God got a lot of
years.
What we be and become during that period
of time, you need a circle of people
where the life of God is infusing that
fellowship and developing and building you.
Two things I want to say and then
I'm done.
The first is that there's a need for
you to make up your mind.
That you really need to make up your
mind what I'm saying.
Not just to think, well, that's an interesting
thought.
Yeah, I really like what he said or
whatever.
You decide you're going to find a circle
of two or three brethren.
They don't have to all be firemen.
The people in the church you go to.
Guys you know that walk in Jesus.
Don't get together and talk about the Super
Bowl results or what the impending baseball season
is going to be or how the Lakers
are doing or what's going on with your
car or like that.
You don't even get together to have a
Bible study though that certainly is worthy.
You get together and talk about where you're
at in your own growth and your own
response to God's word in your life and
what things are trying to sneak in and
shred your heart so that it's not united.
What things make you to become more of
the man that God would use to change
your surroundings.
Not because you're a chest thumping wonder that
impresses everybody but because you're just a plain
duck like the rest of us that's learning
to walk in Jesus or would grow in
him.
I believe the Holy Spirit would hold you
accountable to think and respond to that word
somehow.
No way I can monitor it.
No way anybody at the table can monitor
it.
You just decide what you're going to do
about it.
You contact some guys and you say hey
I want you to think with me about
it.
One thing you could do if they'd never
thought about it order through John's office however
you do it get one of the tapes
of today and sit down with those guys
play that and say this is the kind
of thing I'm talking about.
Get started if you don't have something like
that going and I'll tell you because I
know men I know people.
At least four out of five of you
don't have a circle like that and like
I said that's not condemnation.
I think it's revelation.
I think it's something God's saying to his
people today.
He wants it to happen.
How many of you nod your head and
say hey that sounds right to me.
You agree?
Yeah.
It's happening.
The other thing has to do the second
thing and I said two things and I'm
done.
This is the second.
Have you ever begun your life in the
Lord Jesus?
Have you ever come to know the Lord?
Now most of the people in the room
here have already begun their life in Jesus
Christ.
Firefighters for Christ obviously people have begun their
life in Jesus Christ but there may be
two or three or more or less I
don't know who have never begun their life
in the Lord.
Now inside every human heart there's a monitor.
An awareness.
I say monitor in the same way we
talk about TV monitors.
In fact they're surrounding this room.
And you get a picture every now and
then.
You get a picture that says this is
what I know I want to be and
what I really know inside me I am
or what I'm not.
And that monitor is the picture God gives
not because he wants to shame you into
humiliation but because he wants you to catch
a vision of what you could be if
you'd let him make you complete.
And the truth of the matter is none
of us can come complete on our own
terms.
That's another one of the illusions most of
us are trained to live in.
Just like some of us think we can
be strong in Christ without the help of
brothers.
It's built into the fabric of our race.
Say you're going to you will become what
you make up your mind to become and
so it's all up to you.
Go for the top.
You know what you were created to be
and so forth so you can arrive.
Well we were created for better things than
we usually arrive at but you don't arrive
there on your own steam.
By getting in touch with the one that
created us and the only way that can
happen is if we reestablish communications which our
own sin and failure have broken.
And the way that those communications are established
because God sent his son to establish it.
By coming to Jesus Christ we not only
get forgiveness of sins but the beginning of
a power for life.
He gives us the power of his spirit
to live for him.
And if you are getting the picture this
morning that says you really do need to
get back in touch with the Lord and
begin with him.
And I want to invite you to make
a decision this morning too.
Say Lord I want you in my life
today.
Say well I don't know if I could
just start today.
Yes you do know.
You don't start by saying I'm going to
be a nicer guy today and tomorrow.
You don't start by saying I'm going to
rush off to church tomorrow because the fact
is probably most of you are going to
rush off to the station tomorrow.
But you make up your mind that you
are going to give your life to the
Lord.
And he begins on his side of things
working a power toward you that is more
than you can imagine until you open up
to it.
I don't know if I can live it.
Somebody says well I'll answer that question for
you right now.
We'll make it easy on you.
No you can't.
That's why you need him.
That's why you need to come to him
and he'll work his life in you.
This morning I think I probably have the
year of a couple hundred guys that know
the Lord that are saying yeah I really
am going to figure out how I can
pursue relationships that will help me become a
man of a perfect heart who walks in
the light and finds the power of Jesus
increasing because of living in that way.
And maybe there's a half a dozen or
more or less I don't know.
I don't know but who say Jack I
need Jesus today.
Maybe just one guy here that's the case
that I want to open my heart to
him today.
To that fellow or woman I want to
say that nothing would rejoice me more than
for you to let me be the second
party in an agreement Jesus said people could
make.
Here's what he said.
He said if any two of you agree
concerning anything they ask God will do it.
That's Jesus' words.
In other words if you and I just
come to a moment of agreement we don't
even have to shake hands on it.
We could just let our eyes meet and
we agree this is the moment this is
the day.
The Lord says I'll do what you agree
on and in just a minute when we
all bow our heads so we can give
the privilege of privacy to everyone in the
room I'm going to ask anybody in the
room that's inside saying that thing of I'm
getting the picture Jack the monitor of the
Holy Spirit in me is giving me the
picture and I need the Lord and I
want him in my life today and I
want to open my life to him.
I do today open my life to Jesus
Christ.
I'd like to agree with you on that
and God's going to do something because we
agree.
Not your power or mine but his promise.
So when we pray in a minute I'm
going to ask you after we've all bowed
our heads I'll ask you to lift yours
and I won't embarrass you just when our
eyes meet I'll just say I agree with
you this is coming to the beginning and
start your life with the Lord today.
The rest of us can be at prayer
about what we're going to do and we
can talk about his call to us to
walk in the light through fellowship with each
other.
Let's all bow our heads shall we.
Heavenly Father we come in prayer right now
because we need you and we thank you
for your love to us that reaches out
with a powerful embrace right now.
Lord it's been such a beautiful morning.
The beauty of the music has always been
ministered and the truth just the enjoyment and
breakfast.
Now we come to this moment I ask
that by your Holy Spirit you would take
the word and make it life in the
heart.
I'm going to pause in that prayer while
all of our heads are bowed.
I'm going to finish the prayer in a
minute but I'm going to just put a
comma there.
While our heads are bowed and as I
said the courtesy of privacy is given to
everyone how many are there that would say
just with your eyes Jack I've never received
the Lord and maybe you didn't you walked
with him long ago but you drifted a
thousand miles away like it was and today
you say I'm coming to him I'm opening
my life to him today and I want
to agree with you Jack this is the
day my life begins for Jesus Christ I
open to him today.
While nobody else is looking around I'm scanning
the room to see how many would just
lift your head right now and let our
eyes meet and I promised I wouldn't embarrass
you but the encounter of our eyes is
your way of saying not with words but
with a glance this is the day you
open your heart to Jesus Christ you want
to begin you say I want God's power
in my life and I agree to it
lift your head right now I'm scanning the
room you see that's why you're looking at
me right now I agree with you I'm
really grateful for that are you with her
whisper to her whisper to her you're receiving
the Lord today go ahead are there others
look this way Jack I'm beginning my life
with the Lord today just the encounter of
our eyes you're looking at me right now
I agree with you too is that your
wife or what just whisper to her you're
receiving the Lord today that's power in that
agreement anybody else just a signal of agreement
sir you look at me for that reason
boy listen I agree with you that Jesus
Christ began his work in your life today
would you just tell the guy next to
you one of the guys just whisper to
him there's power in that go on speak
to one of the guys just tell him
I'm beginning my life in the Lord today
thank you Lord for each of these I'm
going to take one more sweep with my
eyes here if I missed you that time
around would you signal me with your hand
if I missed you so our eyes can
meet in that agreement anybody else boy I'm
so thankful let's all just with prayer thank
the Lord for men opening their life to
Jesus Christ right now Lord we do give
you praise on Thanksgiving and pray by your
Holy Spirit you establish and extend your righteous
purpose in men and for all of us
who come like children today we say help
us grow up in your way with a
perfect heart in Jesus name amen amen amen
amen amen it has been super to be
with you God bless you while listening to
this tape perhaps God's spirit has been talking
to your heart if you felt the need
to draw closer to your creator why not
start today God has provided a way for
man to enter into relationship with him forever
through his son Jesus Christ Jesus said I
am the way the truth and the life
no man comes to the father but by
me the Bible says that as many as
receive him to them give he power to
become the children of God you too can
receive him right now by asking him to
forgive you of your sins and asking him
to come into your life and to be
lord and savior of your life if you
would like to receive Jesus Christ into your
life today you can do so through a
simple little prayer just open up your heart
and repeat this prayer with me Lord Jesus
I admit to you that I am a
sinner I believe that you died on a
cross for my sins please forgive me of
all of my sins please come into my
heart and into my life please make my
life acceptable unto you thank you lord for
your gift of eternal life and I receive
you this day in Jesus name I pray
amen now if you prayed that prayer with
me right now you are a new person
all your past sins and faults have been
forgiven by God and in his eyes you
are a brand new creature the bible says
that if any man be in Christ he
is a new creature old things have passed
away and behold all things become new now
as a new born spiritual infant you should
seek the sincere milk of God's word so
that you may grow by it so read
your bible and pray to the lord often
and seek out other Christians and enter into
fellowship with them we'd love to hear of
your decision for Christ we'd love to give
you a free study of the book of
john on cassette by pastor chuck smith Jesus
never turned a spiritual or hungry or thirsty
soul away but filled everyone who asked so
we'd like to do the same for you
in his name so please write to us
at the address on this tape and tell
us of your needs and what the lord
has done for you today may the lord
bless you now and keep you in everything
you do and everything you say welcome to
the family open our eyes we
want to see