Father, we ask you Lord that tonight, as
we look to this topic, this portion of
our Disciplines of Life series, Lord, that you
would invade right now by the power of
your Holy Spirit.
Lord, the process, the recesses of our mind,
the very depths of our soul.
Lord, it is so great to be not
only one of your children or all of
us tonight, your children together in corporate worship,
but Lord, it's so great to have you
as a real, true living God.
We don't have to drum you up, we
don't have to do incantations or shout, jump
up and down, go crazy to try to
get ourselves into some lather to maybe sense
or feel something.
You are so awesome to have made the
gospel as it is, that from Old Testament
to New Testament, you said that you would
inhabit your people.
And Father, we just pray right now that
you would just be inside of us by
the power of your Spirit.
And Lord, I just rejoice tonight, I just
have an extra appreciation tonight that we're not
Christians this evening because maybe in America or
some part of the world where we've heard
the gospel, that it was just the thing
to do.
We're not Christians because we're in a club.
We're not here tonight because there's nothing else
going on in the city.
We're here, Lord, because we've come to worship
you, because we've encountered you.
And it's amazing, Father, from all walks of
life and various levels of life we've come
together around the name Jesus.
The very one in your scripture that I
love so dearly, Lord, in Proverbs, thousands and
thousands of years ago, written in the book
of Proverbs, you're asking Israel right then and
there, what is my name and what is
the name of my son, if you can
tell me?
And I thank you tonight that we can
say it's Jesus.
And we praise you for that.
Bless our study time, bless our worship.
And it's in your name we pray.
Amen.
Well, church, grab your Bibles tonight and turn,
if you would, this evening to Philippians chapter
one.
Philippians chapter one.
And you know the verse by now, Matthew
28, those two locations, Matthew chapter 28, Philippians
chapter one, we're looking at our titled special
series.
And the special title tonight is the Discipline
of Detail.
And what does that mean?
The Discipline of Detail?
We are in week 16 of our 31
week series together.
Philippians chapter one, verse 21.
But first, Matthew 28, 18.
Jesus came to his disciples and spoke to
them saying, all authority has been given to
me in heaven and on earth.
Go therefore and make disciples of all the
nations, all peoples.
The word there is ethnos, all peoples, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things that I've
commanded you and behold, I am with you
always, even to the end of the world.
And now Philippians chapter one, verse 21.
This is where we'll spend our time in
tonight.
Paul said to the church at Philippi, for
to me, to live is Christ and to
die is gain.
One of the most radical statements made by
a disciple of Jesus Christ, none other than
by the apostle Paul, a man who knew
something about religiosity.
He knew something about formality.
The man was a Pharisee.
He was a Jew.
He was a leader in the nation of
Israel regarding Judaism.
And he had achieved, he had the status
that today in the world, probably nobody can
claim.
And he gives a litany of his both
God-given rights, his birthrights and his achievements.
Paul says that he was a Hebrew of
the Hebrews, that he was circumcised on the
eighth day concerning, and of the tribe of
Benjamin, mind you, concerning righteousness and the law.
He was blameless before men.
Nobody could accuse Paul of any wrongdoing.
Can you imagine?
By the way, that's the way you and
I are supposed to live.
Now, let me explain that for a second.
I love what my pastor Chuck Smith says.
He said, listen, you stand up and you
take a stand and you're going to be
accused.
Just make sure there's no bite to the
accusation.
That's cool stuff.
If you take a stand, you're going to
be attacked.
Let them attack.
And listen, you don't need to defend yourself
when they attack.
If you know that those attacks are false,
he was an amazing witness for Judaism.
And Paul goes on to say, you know
what?
When I encountered Jesus Christ, I threw my
Judaism out the window.
And I don't mean to say that in
a derogatory way.
He says it himself that all of the
things that he did to meet the requirements
of righteousness, he did all of these things.
Imagine religious zealots today.
They do all of these things to earn
a status or a position with God.
And they're never quite sure if they're good
enough.
That's how legalism is.
You're never quite sure if you're going to
make it.
You're never quite sure if you're walking straight
enough or or whatever.
You're always insecure.
Legalistic people who are trying to earn their
way into heaven or impress their God or
gods by their performance are are terribly insecure
people.
That's what legalism does.
And Paul, though, was not like that in
the sense that he said, man, I've looked
at the requirements of the law, and I've
met the requirements.
Now, that's what he believed in his mind.
And that's what he did in an outward
performance.
But what Paul admits was the spirit of
knowing God.
That's what the New Testament is all about.
Don't think for a moment that the Old
Testament and the New Testament, those are two
separate books and they don't relate to one
another.
Not at all.
They're exactly a dovetail connection.
It's not some different thing.
The Old Testament declares the holiness of God
and the demands that he places upon man
if he's going to try to be perfect
to get to heaven.
And the beautiful thing about the Old Testament
is that if you read it carefully, for
that matter, just read the Ten Commandments carefully,
you'll come to the conclusion that you can't
be good enough to get to heaven.
That's what the law is all about.
In the book of Galatians, Paul used the
word to the church at Galatia that the
law is in the Greek, it's pedagogous.
In the English, the closest thing we can
use is the word schoolmaster.
You know, we don't even have schoolmasters anymore.
You know what a schoolmaster is, though?
A schoolmaster is that person that's in class
that actually makes you do your homework to
the point of death if necessary.
They walk around, you know, really high-end
private schools, they have a schoolmaster.
And the guy or the gal walks around
kind of dressed like Hitler.
And if you're cheating, you know, they'll whack
you.
I mean, they're just...
You say, Jack, really?
Yeah, that's what the Bible says regarding the
law, that the law was to walk around
and look at you and bust you the
moment you stepped out of line.
And the Bible tells us that by the
works or keeping of the law, no man
shall be justified before God.
Yikes.
That's why when you read in the Bible,
Abraham's life, when you read David's life, these
guys had New Testament lives in the Old
Testament.
God tells Abraham, I love this.
This has nothing to do with my notes.
I haven't even started yet.
You guys, I love this about Abraham.
Abraham, oh, listen, because this generates mail every
time I say this.
And yet, because it really hits feelings, it
hits emotions.
But it's theologically perfectly accurate.
Check this out.
Abraham, Abram, before he was called Abraham.
Do you know, does anybody know where he
was from?
Ur, of the Chaldees.
Okay, Abraham came from the region that today
would be more Babylonian than our mind of
thinking.
Well, he's a Hebrew.
Yes, he's a Hebrew.
He's a descendant from Eber.
Eber was a guy.
He was of the DNA of Eber.
Yes.
But Abraham, we say is a Hebrew.
But listen, God tells Abraham that he's justified
by faith.
Right?
It's in the Bible.
God declares Abraham righteous.
Guess what?
How could God declare Abraham righteous when Moses
hadn't even been born yet?
There was no law.
There was no 10 commandments when Abraham was
walking around.
Moses came later.
And God says, you're righteous.
Why?
To rub it into our hearts and heads
that you can't get to heaven by keeping
the law.
And then God says to Abraham, you're, you're
my friend.
You're justified.
The just shall live by faith.
God said that to him before he was
ever circumcised.
Abraham was a Gentile before he was a
Jew.
I've said that in Israel and almost got
killed.
I'm not kidding.
It is true.
God says, you're my friend, you're righteous.
I declare that so because you have faith
in me.
He was not circumcised.
He was not able to keep the law.
The law didn't exist.
Why?
Because it is all by faith.
And Paul comes along and encounters Jesus Christ.
On that road, as he was heading to
Damascus, Syria, 2000 years ago, he encounters Jesus
Christ.
And Paul says, everything that I racked up
in my religious achievements, all of my degrees,
all of my successes, all of my power
and being a Pharisee, all of my wealth
evaporated in the second.
I've counted all things lost that I may
gain Christ.
Do you know that in your life have
you encountered God personally to where you know
you're his?
And if listen, if you know what it's
like to love and to care and to
concern and to show emotion, you being one
created in the image of God, how much
more does God show those things toward you
and wants that relationship with you?
It is awesome.
And so when Paul meets up with this
God of the Bible, he says, you know
what?
For to me to live as Christ and
to die is gain.
You can't stop someone like that.
Paul, what are you doing?
I'm living life.
What for?
What's your purpose?
What's your meaning?
What's your cause?
Christ?
Well, what are you going to do when
you're dead?
What are you going to do when you
die?
What are you going to do if I
kill you right now, Paul, to get I'm
just going to gain you want to want
to help me out, send me to the
gain.
You want to put me into retirement, retire
me.
Isn't that amazing?
You can't stop somebody like that.
He's got a purpose.
He's got a reason.
And that's the great thing about detail tonight,
the discipline of detail.
It is this our God is a God
of detail in the Bible.
You find that out clearly consider his creation.
Our God is a God of detail.
Consider yourself being a created being.
You are an amazingly detailed human being.
Your blood cells, your, your very DNA genius,
brilliant, unbelievably amazing.
When you're conceived in your mother's womb and
all of the science that's going on, there's
an explosion of information.
When sperm and egg come together, that is
unparalleled in the universe.
There's more data taking place.
At conception, then Mars and Jupiter and all
the stuff and their astronomical angles and speeds
and gravities, it's amazing.
God is a God of detail.
It's the details of life that make life
worth living.
Think about that.
We're people that have a tendency to skim
over the details.
And the more listen, the more you and
I are in a rush, the more danger
it is for you and I always in
a hurry, always in a hurry.
This is a danger of our culture.
I, it may be incurable unless God knocks
us out and we have to lay down
for a while, constantly going, constantly moving.
And you know what?
We can miss the details and life is
lived in the details.
You guys, I think you know this.
I've said this before.
I love graveyards.
I love old graveyards.
I love taking black and white photos of
an old graveyard.
This is just awesome.
And it's amazing because you've got all of
these names and stuff.
And you've got this guy born in 1796
and he died in 1834.
And what's between the two years of those
what's between those dates is a dash.
Who cares?
Who cares when he was born?
Do you think anybody really cared?
Walked around life saying, when were you born?
Nobody walks around saying, hey, when were you
born?
Oh, look, look, that's the year he died.
We look at a tombstone and we go,
that guy, he was born then and he
died then.
And if you've ever, does this sound morbid?
You ought to try it sometime.
Go to a really cool old graveyard and
look and think for a moment.
And you wonder what's, how was the dash
part?
What's how'd the dash part work out?
Who is this guy?
It's the dash that you live your life.
It's in the details that you live in
your life.
This is an amazing thing because you and
I can be in such a great hurry
all the time that we've lost the art
or discipline of detail that God is in
the details.
You know, it sounds corny, but you know,
slow down and smell the roses or whatever.
You know, people will say that, hey, listen,
there's a lot of truth to that.
Slow down in spiritual matters.
We need to slow down.
It's a dangerous time where we are a
15 second media soundbite generation.
And I'm afraid churches like that.
I've noticed some Christian programming on radio.
Now they'll, they'll teach for 10 minutes and
then they have to have a commercial in
between the 20 minute program.
And you find out, you call them, you
know, Hey, why do you guys do that?
Well, because people don't have attention span.
So what do we, we feed that next
is going to be every five minutes.
You have to have a commercial.
What's the matter with us?
Jesus said in John 10, 10, I have
come that you may have life and that
you have, that you may have it more
abundantly.
And we rarely take notice of that.
The details is where we encounter God.
The Bible says in Psalm 139, verse one,
listen, Oh Lord, you have searched me and
known me.
You know, my sitting down and you know,
my rising up, you understand my thoughts from
afar off.
This is how awesome he is.
You comprehend my path and my lying down
and you are acquainted with all my ways.
That's the God of the Bible.
That's detail.
Now, listen, everybody, if God's acquainted with all
of your ways that should dictate how you
and I live our lives.
He knows what you're going to do tomorrow
morning, tomorrow afternoon, and three weeks from now
on a Wednesday morning, he knows if he
knows that.
And we meditate on that.
It should affect our lives.
It should, we should slow down a woman.
What happened to us today?
What happened?
What's going on in our lives?
God knew calm down, slow down.
He is acquainted with all of your ways.
Psalm 139 goes on.
Verse 16 says your, I saw my unformed
body.
All the days ordained for me were written
in your book before one of them came
to be.
God saw you coming together in your mother's
womb.
How precious to me are your thoughts?
Oh God, how vast is the sum of
them?
Where I, where I to count them, they
would outnumber the grains of the sand of
the sea.
That's what he's referring to.
When I awake, I'm still with you.
Every believer knows that sense.
Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, you're going
to have the sense that God's with you
and his thoughts for you.
And, you know, listen, I'm telling you this
right now.
And if you're not paying attention, if you're
not paying attention to detail, this goes right
over your head.
It's like, oh yeah.
Oh, I've heard that before.
But do you believe it?
If you believe it, that his thoughts toward
you are more than the sands of the
sea, then that's very encouraging.
And your worry scale is going to go
down about 99%.
Details at first are often overlooked by us
in life.
And yet God is in those details.
So listen, point number one is this tonight,
the discipline of details.
It's seeing the Lord in all things.
It seems so obvious.
You see, that's a ridiculous point.
Everybody knows that, but we don't practice this
seeing the Lord in all things and everything.
And we're going to define what that means
in a moment.
Some of you are in college.
You need to hear this because you're getting
hit with this.
Number one is this.
He's in the good stuff.
The first thing we want to realize is
that seeing God in all things is obviously
he's in the good stuff.
He's in the good that happens in the
world.
The Bible tells us clearly in our humanity
and, you know, in our weakness, we want
to be people who notice things that are
good.
And when we do good things, don't you
want to be noticed for doing a good
thing?
You're going to act all humble tonight and
say, no, I'm...
But it's human nature to want to be
noticed for doing a good thing.
I'm not saying it's humble, but it's human
nature.
But that's because you want to be appreciated.
That's the human side.
God's in the good stuff, not to be
appreciated for the reasons that we seek appreciation.
But God is in the good stuff because
God is good.
He's good.
And people will say things like this, and
we'll talk about it more in a moment.
But God who is good, says the Bible,
a person will come back and say, well,
if God is good, how can there be
bad?
I don't understand that question.
Honestly, I don't understand the question.
You can't have bad without good.
And by the way, if you've had a
class on logic and debate, bad is once
or was once good that's gone bad.
If a person is a real weirdo, just
a real strange weirdo.
Look, no, I'm talking to weirdo.
I'm talking about a person who's dangerous to
the society.
They are.
They'll kidnap somebody and they'll drive around the
country with them and and talk to them.
And and then it winds up what happens?
They wind up abusing them and maybe even
killing them.
Why does that happen?
People will say, how can God, how can
your Christian God exist when that happens?
What is that?
I don't understand your argument.
The funny thing is, if I listen to
what you're saying, you're actually upset with the
God that you claim not to believe in
for, in your opinion, not doing something about
it.
Your very criticism announces that you believe in
the God and you think he should do
better than what he's doing.
When in reality, the whole Bible has built
in the answer to that a person who
was out kidnapping and holding captive somebody and
then winds up molesting them or killing them.
Where does that come from?
It comes from good gone bad.
Did you know that?
They they want to they want to have
a sense of a relationship with someone.
Now, you've got to admit it's sick and
wrong and dangerous and godless.
But their desire is something that was good
and it went bad.
Good always has to be in existence before
bad.
It was very good in the garden of
Eden.
And then it went bad.
Why?
God did the good stuff and man comes
along and does the bad stuff.
But then somebody will say, well, then God
made a bad man.
No, God made a good man who chose
to go bad.
And therein is your dilemma doesn't have to
be, but it is.
No one in this universe appreciates anything that
is pre-programmed.
When it comes to a relationship.
You are a person of individual choosing, you
you have a sense of sovereignty.
You can choose who you will love and
who you will hate or who you will
choose to be with or not be with.
You can hear him saying the Bible tells
us that God is in the good.
In Psalm 2713, the Bible says, I would
have lost heart unless I had believed that
I would see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
It's the psalmist that says God's good.
That's what kept my feet on earth.
And he wants us listen.
Yes, of course, God wants us to speak
well of him, not because he needs to
hear that is because it is true.
In the details, listen, church, are you speaking
well of God in your life?
Well, no, it's because you're not focusing on
the details of God.
It's the small things.
Is it not the details when Elijah's in
the cave and the thunder comes and the
earthquake comes and the storm comes and all
that stuff's going on and Elijah says, well,
I didn't I didn't find God and all
that stuff.
And then came the still small.
I like to substitute voice for this study,
the still small detail.
Huh?
It was the Lord.
He always speaks gently.
He's always speaking softly.
And if you don't take the time to
listen to his details, you'll miss him and
you'll get caught up in religion.
You get caught up into fanaticism.
You'll get caught up in a mass movement
of people all running in the same direction
and they're all flying down the path.
And.
God forbid, somebody should stop and say, what
are we doing?
And yet God wants you to stop and
say, what are we doing?
The Bible says in James one seventeen, every
good and perfect gift is from God or
is from above and comes down from the
father of lights with whom there is no
variation or shadow of turning.
Isn't that awesome?
God's nature never changes.
You can trust him.
He is good and he's in the good
stuff.
All the good that happens in life, and
I got to tell you, I confess I'll
be the first to tell you, I rarely,
rarely thank God for all the good.
We made it here tonight, people.
And if you're hungry right now, you'll probably
satisfy that after service.
You won't starve to death.
And if you're broke and you don't have
a pen in your pocket, guess what?
We're not going to let you go hungry.
You have clothes on.
There's a roof over your head.
You're you're comfortable right now.
Isn't that good?
Last night, you guys on my street, just
my street, all the power went out, was
out for hours and then it was out
again this morning.
And you know what you start learning?
Neighbors out there with candles and flashlights last
night, you know, you know what you start
learning.
Wow.
God, thank you for things like flashlights, candles.
Isn't that amazing?
And it's kind of fun because, you know,
there's all the neighbors have their own, have
their different thing.
My one neighbor, they had, he comes out,
he's got it.
He had his popcorn.
He had just got done popping popcorn and
all the power goes out.
He comes out, he's got his popcorn and
he loves, he loves fires.
He loves, uh, uh, like a, you know,
campfire and he goes, let's have a campfire.
And my other neighbor, neighbor to the north
of me, he, um, runs out to his
truck cause he was in his garage watching
a game, an angel game, runs out to
his truck and turns on the engine so
he can listen to the game.
And he's, and he's in his robe listening
to the game, the angel game.
And it's just funny how people respond, but
listen, all those things, if it was expressed
or not, they're thankful.
They're thankful.
And we're hardly thankful enough.
I need to slow down and appreciate the
details.
Why?
Because God's in those details and they're good.
Second Thessalonians two 13 says, but we are
bound to give thanks to God always for
you.
Paul said to them, brethren beloved by the
Lord because, and he goes on and I
stopped right there though, because you feel in
that because, because what, because what God is
so good.
We could write a book on that.
And first Thessalonians five 18, the Bible says
in everything, give thanks for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus for you,
man, that right there is look at that
verse.
First Thessalonians five 18.
We could go home right now.
We, we could put that.
We, we, if we stapled that onto our
head and walked around, can you imagine we'd
walk around here?
It's on, we have to see it.
It's on everybody's head.
Oh yeah.
And everything gives thanks.
Man, that'll change.
Give this to your kids tomorrow, put it
in their lunch, put it in their lunch
bag.
If they even eat lunch bags like that
anymore, give it to your wife, your husband,
your girlfriend, boyfriend, give it.
What a great thing that is.
And everything give thanks.
That'll change, that'll change your life.
Oh man, someone scratched my car.
And, and everything.
I know this personally, and it's great to
be, it's great to be older now.
And I've already gone through all that stuff.
I remember buying my first new car when
I was a kid and I'd go to
the South coast Plaza and park a mile
out in the parking lot.
So nobody parked next to it had to
walk to the mall.
As long as nobody parks next to the
car.
And then I took her to church.
Okay.
And, and at church, somebody drug a key
across to that church.
Let me tell you something.
I came out of church praise the Lord,
man.
I was in the flesh that fast.
And you know what, when I calmed down,
took a couple of weeks.
When I calmed down, when I calmed down,
I felt the Lord.
I've never heard God say jerk, but I
felt him say that car is too important
in your life.
And he was right.
What do you do with that?
You're right.
He's good.
And you give thanks there and they, Hey,
you know what I drew?
I didn't walk home from church.
I drove home in the scratched car, but
I had a car to drive home and
we get all crazy and weird about stuff.
I thank God for this economic peril.
It's all evaporating.
We don't have nothing much left anymore.
Praise the Lord.
It's just anchored to our hearts.
Anyway, it's messing us up.
Guess what?
Americans can live.
Okay.
That's if we focus on the details, God
is good.
And listen, he's in the bad stuff too.
God's in the bad stuff.
I always have to think of bad stuff.
If you know God, is it really bad
stuff?
Feels bad, looks bad, smells bad.
And if I didn't know God, it would
be very bad, but I know God, he
knows everything's going on.
So it ain't that bad.
Many Christians today have a pagan view of
God.
We would never admit that, but we do
because listen, when you're lightweight in faith, listen,
thoughts like this go through your head.
God can only be involved in the good
stuff.
He's not involved in the bad stuff.
He's absent.
He's nowhere.
He can't be there.
God's not involved in Iran.
He's not involved in North Korea.
He's not involved in what?
What?
He's the God of the whole earth.
Oh my goodness.
But he's not, he's whoa, whoa, whoa, wait,
wait, wait.
What do you have?
You have some little fragile God.
What kind of God is this you're worshiping?
He knows all about the bad stuff and
he uses it.
Listen, he doesn't create bad.
Man creates bad.
Satan creates bad, but God uses the bad
to bring about good.
Tragedy does that.
One of the greatest ways to test your
culture.
I know right now this broadcast is going
out over a bazillion cultures around the world
right now.
160 different countries right now, different cultures.
Listen, test your God or your gods.
When a calamity comes, how do you act?
The God that you worship, what has this
God or gods that you worship embossed upon
your heart when calamity comes?
And you'll see that and how a culture
mourns and how a culture grieves in our
American culture, we've lost sight of God.
And so now when people lose control, get
hurt, get upset, get angry, they riot.
Why?
Because the Bible says where there's no God
in your mind, every man does that which
is right in his own eyes.
Our culture has removed God from the public
place.
So what do you expect?
People, you listen, it's a double, it's a
double whammo.
You remove God from the public square and
then you've been breeding your kids with the
knowledge they're just animals from a primordial mud
hole.
They're just a big tadpole.
And then we expect them to be civil.
It's the biggest ridiculous contradiction in history.
You cannot tell a kid that he's an
evolutionary byproduct and expect him to clean up
his room.
No, I'm serious.
Why should he?
Who are you to tell him that?
He's younger than you.
He can run faster than you.
He's going to start working out and playing
sports and he can beat you up soon.
Yeah, really?
So survival of the fittest, is it not?
No, you have to act civil.
Why should I act civil?
I'm an animal.
I've been hearing that for 13 years in
school.
13.
Did you count?
Now when I go to college, I'm an
animal.
It's amazing to me.
No, you're not an animal.
Bambi's an animal.
You are creating the image of God.
Okay.
That's why you have that struggle down deep
inside.
God's even in the bad stuff.
Romans 8 38 says, Paul speaks to the
church at Rome.
He says, for I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth.
Isn't this beautiful?
Nor any other created thing.
Man, fill that in.
Shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus,
our Lord, man, you can almost, you can
almost see him in our Lord.
Right?
I mean, it's like, yes, you can hear
all those Italians going.
It's amazing.
He's on a roll there, man.
He's just nothing can separate us from God.
That implies bad stuff.
This guy was left at sea beaten on
Malta.
Remember he got bit by the snake, just
the snake comes out of the fire and
he bites him.
That would, that enough right there would enough.
That just freaked me out.
Bitten by snakes beat up.
The Bible says he was attacked by false
brethren, stoned, not with drugs, with rocks stoned
left for dead.
The Bible says he was left for dead.
Paul gets back up, walks back into the
same city that just stoned him with rocks.
What would you have done?
You could, they, they, they cute.
They think they killed you with rocks.
Maybe he did die.
I don't know.
Gets back up.
Oh man.
Goes back into town.
My third point was, can you imagine how
do you stop a guy like that to
live as Christ to die is gain.
He was in the details.
He's a man who lived in the details.
He saw God in everything, in the good
stuff, the bad stuff, in the ugly stuff.
God's in the ugly stuff.
When I talk about ugly, this is what
I mean by ugly.
I'm talking about the stuff that requires death
to ourselves.
This is something that no other religion on
earth even pretends to believe in death to
self.
Hey, I'm not talking about strapping a bomb
on yourself and I'm not talking about jumping
off some building death to self.
Only the Christian understands that this is our
God who in the details is in the
ugly.
I call it the ugly.
Cause you know what the ugly is.
Maybe you won't appreciate it, but it's, it's,
it's, I like it.
It's this way.
Living the Christian life is the hardest thing
on the planet to do.
Maybe that's why Paul said to live as
Christ to die is get me out of
here.
Why?
Because we have a keen understanding, man, this
is tough.
There's people, there's people.
I don't even understand how this works.
You guys, you're looking at a guy who
was raised by a Marine, who was raised
to hate.
And then Jesus comes into my life.
And I remember freaking out over people I
didn't like and was maybe this far from
Hayden.
And then I got Jesus in my heart.
And you know how you know what I'm
talking about?
If it's happened, you know that when he
puts love in your heart for some person
in your life that you couldn't stand before.
And you wind up having this bizarre internal
impulse that you're wrestling with.
What in the world am I thinking?
Am I freaking out?
Who am I?
What is going on in my life?
I actually want to do my enemy some
good.
I need my head examined.
And the Lord is saying, that's me.
Just do what I'm telling you to do.
You take all the religions of the world
tonight.
And if you're an atheist this evening, which
religion would you pick if you wanted to
have a good, nice sleep tonight without worrying
about who's sleeping next to you?
You think about that for a minute.
The guy next to you could hate you,
but if he's a Christian, it's like, man,
I have to love my enemies.
That's the ugly.
That's denying yourself daily, the Bible says, and
taking up the cross and following him.
Mark 8, 34 says, when he had called
the people unto himself with his disciples, he
said to them, whoever desires to come after
me, let him deny himself, take up his
cross and follow me.
What kind of a recruitment program is that?
Is that amazing?
Can you imagine Tony Robbins?
Hey, this is Tony Robbins.
Pick up your cross, deny yourself, follow me.
I'm asking you to come and follow me
with a life that you're going to surrender
all your rights and you're going to live
for the glory of God.
And it's not about you.
It's Jesus went on to say, whoever desires
to save his life will lose it, but
whoever loses his life for my sake and
the gospels will save it.
He's not talking about dying.
He's talking about dying every day, not dying.
You die once it's over to live as
Christ, to die as gain.
As a Christian, listen, it's easier.
You guys truly, truly easier.
If, if tonight we were to die and
go see Jesus, that would be easier than
if the Lord said tonight, Hey, all you
guys at Calvary, I know you love me.
Hang in there because I'm not coming back
for 30 more years.
Tell me what's easier to die for Jesus
tonight or to live faithful for the next
30 years.
It's easier to die for him tonight.
You can only die so long.
The ugly stuff in life is stuff like
this.
It's when it's hard to see God in
the situation.
That's ugly.
That's reality, man.
Are you going through something right now?
And you're wondering, you want to kind of
pound your fist because you can't see God
in it.
That's the ugly stuff.
He's in that.
You'd want to cry right now.
You hold him back tears.
He's in that big time.
You can't figure out the answer.
Seems like the heavens are brass.
It's an ugly time.
He's in it.
What about the stuff, the, the evil stuff
of life?
If God is good, as I said earlier,
people will say, well, then why is there
so much evil?
But you can't have evil without good.
Why is, what's with all the sickness in
life?
The Bible tells us, Jesus said that when
sin came into the world, it was Satan
coming to rob and to kill and to
destroy.
And what about the pains of life?
Life hurts.
I heard someone say recently, my life hurts.
Why is God so angry at me?
Isn't that a heartbreak?
You just want to hold that person.
God's not angry with you.
You need to understand that God is in
the ugly, but you'll never know that you'll,
you'll wonder back and forth.
Well, what kind of a God is he?
Who are you?
You will always ask that question until you
get into the details of who he is.
I have a little saying of mine.
I don't practice it always.
I practice it a lot.
I'm getting better at it, but I'm not
perfect at it.
If it blesses you, steal it, use it
for yourself.
And it's this, when I don't understand what's
going on, I default automatically.
I punch default.
I go, I default to his nature.
What in the world?
I don't get it.
This doesn't seem right.
That's unfair.
What?
I can't wait.
Whoa, whoa.
Default.
Who is God?
I've read his book.
I've read it.
I'm not saying that because I need to
commit.
He's good.
No, I've read the book.
He's good.
Well, what about your situation right now?
I don't know what the answer is, but
I'm going to stand here and wait.
I'm going to press default and trust in
his nature.
I know his nature.
I may not know the answer to my
ugly right here, right now, but I know
his nature.
That's why Paul said, because he knew his
nature.
What can separate us from the love of
God?
That's what he's saying.
He says, I've been persuaded to know this.
I love that.
It doesn't mean I've been bribed to know
it.
I just chanted it into my life.
I went to Sedona, Arizona, sat on a
rock and put a crystal in my navel
and went, hmm.
Right.
They do that.
I've been there.
I've seen it.
You don't have to do that.
He's real.
He's alive.
And he's in the ugly of life.
And he'll get you all the way through
it.
Ecclesiastes 311 says he has made everything beautiful
in its time.
He has also set eternity in the hearts
of men.
Yet they cannot fathom what God has done
from beginning to end.
Press default.
It's awesome.
He's in the ugly stuff.
You don't know what ugly stuff is.
This to me, this would be ugly.
According to Jewish history, based upon some pretty
serious verses in the Bible, mind you, when
they were building Solomon's temple, this has always
been passed down and told among the Jewish
communities.
Pretty cool.
That when the temple was being built, Solomon's
temple, the quarry, because that was in a
distant location, the quarry sent up to the
temple mount, the cornerstone and the supervisor of
the project on the temple mount didn't know
what to do with it.
Maybe somebody lost the node, who knows what
we'll just park it right there.
And they're building and they're building and they're
building.
And years later, the supervisor says, you get
this stone's ridiculous.
We keep falling over it.
We keep tripping over it.
And they pushed it down the Kidron Valley.
Many of us have been there.
You've seen it.
They've rolled it.
They rolled it down into the valley.
And then they're, they keep years go by.
They're building and building and building and building.
And then the supervisor calls to the quarry
manager and says, get it.
Okay.
Time for the placement of the cornerstone.
Bring it up.
The guy sends a messenger.
I send it to you years ago.
You've had it for years.
And they remembered that ridiculous stone that kept
getting in the way.
We're stumbling over it, tripping over it, falling
over it.
We pushed it down the hill, get it
back up, get it, bring it up.
And the second time around was way harder
than the first because they had to bring
it up the Kidron Valley.
That's why later on the psalmist, a psalmist
wrote in Psalm 118, the psalm of ascent,
the stone, which the builders rejected has become
the chief cornerstone.
This was the Lord's doing who would have
thought it is marvelous in our eyes.
Is that amazing?
Isn't it amazing that the new Testament says
that for the Jewish people, Jesus was the
rock of stumbling that they stumbled over and
they rejected him.
And he's known as the cornerstone.
It's interesting.
The Bible says in Old and New Testament
that he'll come back to them.
There's a day when he comes back.
They had to become a nation first before
that could happen, but that's already happened as
well.
And we have nine minutes to go through
the second point and we'll do it right
here, right now.
The discipline of detail is this, is letting
the Lord guide in all things.
And listen, he knows where he wants us
to go, you guys.
He knows where he wants us to go.
There's no such thing as a destination unless
you have a target, unless you have that
destination in sight.
We're, you don't, you don't, I mean, this
sounds kind of fun.
You start driving.
Where are you going?
I don't know.
We know we'll know when we get there.
No, you don't.
You'll run out of gas and that becomes
the spot.
Where are we going to stay tonight?
We don't know.
We'll know when we get there.
No, that's not a destination.
That's an accident waiting to happen.
But when you, listen, can you imagine the
pilot getting on an airplane saying, okay, we're
going to New York City now?
That dude, he's just, there's satellites guiding that
plane to New York City.
In fact, that pilot doesn't have to touch
the yoke of that cockpit of that plane.
He doesn't even touch it.
The plane can land by itself.
Why?
Because it has a programmed destination on it.
God has that for your life.
And we're so, here's, here's us.
God, it's right here.
We start here and he wants us to
go there and we go like this.
Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
And the Lord says, man, could have flown
direct by letting me lead you.
All these detours you and I throw in.
Why?
These detours are not in the details, but
he's with us, but he knows where he
wants to take us.
You guys know this verse too much.
You're so familiar with it.
I'm afraid you've missed the detail of it.
Jeremiah 29, 29, 11.
He says, I know the thoughts that I
think toward you.
You keep the, keep that up on the
state, on the screens.
You guys, it's almost like now I know
God cannot get frustrated.
He's, he can't, but listen to this.
For I know the thoughts that I think
toward you.
My insert, God would say, so stop telling
me how to do my job as God.
I know what I'm thinking.
You have, you know, you talk with somebody,
you know, like a husband or a wife.
I know what I said.
I said this.
No, you didn't.
You said, I know what I said.
God is saying, I know what I know.
And this is what I know.
The thoughts that I, he says, the Lord,
the thoughts of peace and not of evil
to give you a future.
And I hope then you will call upon
me and go and pray to me.
And I will listen to you.
This is the God of the universe talking
to us.
And you will seek me and find me
when you search for me with all your
heart.
Is this not, is this not an amazing
relational God?
He's awesome.
Listen, letting the Lord guide in all things
is this.
He holds the map for our journey.
In Psalm 32, eight, the Bible says, I
will instruct you and teach you in the
way you should go.
Isn't that great.
I will guide you with my eye.
Do not be like the horse or like
a mule, which have no understanding, which must
be harnessed with bit and bridle else.
They will not come near you.
God says, don't be like a donkey.
Don't be like a horse.
The guy's fighting with it.
Got a yank on it.
That bridle and that bit pinches on its
tongue and its mouth and the horse got
says, come on, let me guide you.
Walk with me.
I've got a map here for your life
real quick, the map.
He's been teaching us this.
Think about the Exodus events of Israel out
of Egypt.
Think about Joshua and the crossing.
Think about the promised land and all of
the wars of the promised land and go
from there on and on.
It goes roadmap.
God holds that for us.
And then finally this lending the Lord guide
in all things.
He knows what time will arrive.
This is a big one because you know
what?
We're always in a hurry.
You guys were always in a hurry.
Come on.
We rush.
I remember growing up and I don't know
what the deal was, but we'd go on
vacation and it was like not even a
vacation because you get in the car.
You're going to think I'm telling the truth
here.
This is wild.
My dad, we'd get in the car and
he's been rigging the car up for a
week.
We get in the car and he gets
going and can we have a drink?
No.
Why?
Because then you'll have to go pee.
Yeah.
And we're not stopping.
I mean, it was, everything was down to
the military minute and what are we driving
so fast for?
Oh, look, there's this, look right there.
There's a historical monument right there.
And then listen, then we get to the
destination.
Oh, here we are.
I couldn't tell you what we went by
the States.
We blew by just what's in them.
I don't know.
It's all a blur.
We live like that.
Come on, let's go.
What are we doing?
It's a day off.
Let's go.
Okay.
And it's, listen, God says, he said from
the beginning, I want you to learn how
to Sabbath.
I want you to know how to rest.
You guys, we think that's a sin to
relax.
I do.
I don't get anything done when I relax.
I feel like I'm sinning.
And God says, I don't want you to
get anything done right now.
Think about it.
We got to do this.
And even in our business, even in our
lives, even in our families, even in our
existence, we go, go, go.
Have you noticed you guys?
And I'm ending.
We're truly done.
We're done.
I'm ending.
I even have time left right now.
Remember when you were young, time just seemed
to go by so slow.
And then you get a little older, then
you get a little older.
And then I remember it slapping me in
the face at about maybe junior or senior
in high school.
It was like, hey, I'm going to have
to grow up soon.
That's a shock.
You know what I'm talking about?
And then you're involved and you got your
school or you've got your career, you got
your career in school and you got all
this stuff going on.
And have you noticed that it just all
races by so fast.
And now, now you're older, but your mind,
your time zone in your internal clock is
about 10 to 15 years behind the person
you see in the mirror.
You know what I'm talking about?
Every morning you get up and you go,
what is that?
I don't.
Why?
Because time is something God controls the Bible.
We don't get this because we don't slow
down to study this.
The Bible tells us that in Isaiah chapter
nine, verse six, it's about Jesus Christ, the
Messiah of the world.
It says there that he's the counselor, the
mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of
peace, everlasting father.
It's about how does that it's Jesus?
How the word everlasting father, the word in
Hebrew is he's the governor of time.
He controls time.
He's the possessor of time.
Jesus, according to the Bible, old Testament, Isaiah
nine, six, he's the one that controls time.
So what does that mean?
That means you are going to arrive at
your destination with him at just the right
time.
What does that mean?
Stop worrying about it.
Tomorrow, when you go to work, tonight, when
you get home, the day you die, whatever
goes on, whatever's happening.
That doesn't mean that we listen.
That doesn't mean that we relinquish everything.
It doesn't mean we become a bunch of
crazies.
Did you guys see in the news recently,
at least that's the way it's being spun
in the news?
I don't know.
But some people went out in the desert
in California this last week waiting for the
rapture.
They're just that's what the news is spinning
it.
Oh, only God knows what the truth is,
because you get it from the news.
You don't know what you're getting.
But supposedly, they said on the news, they
believe the rapture was coming.
Well, wait a minute.
So do I.
And they went out in the desert and
they were singing songs.
That's cool.
Why not?
That's fun.
Sometimes a bunch of guys get together, we'll
go in the desert, take water and our
Bibles and telescope and freak out and praise
the Lord.
That's great.
Okay.
But they were waiting for what, you know,
supposedly they're waiting for Jesus to come back.
Well, some of the Bible, the Bible doesn't
say to do that.
Bible says to occupy till he comes.
You know what that means?
That means regarding about arriving at the destination
and God's timing.
It means guess what?
It means that you registered to vote and
you go vote this November.
It means that you it means that you
get a job.
I'm waiting on the Lord, man.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you wait on the Lord at your
job.
You got a son hanging out, man, you
know, just waiting on Jesus waiting on Jesus.
Yeah, you go wait on Jesus with a
lawnmower in your arms right now.
Get out there.
You know, I'm saying he doesn't need our
help.
He requests our help.
He doesn't need it.
He allows us to be involved.
And that's how we'll arrive.
But as we arrive starting tonight, let's not
lose the details.
He's in them.
That's where he'll speak.
That's will instruct.
That's where he'll teach us.
We just need to slow down.
We're going to get to the destination.
Let's just get there in his time.
You get there too soon.
You're just going to stand around.
You want to do, Father, we thank you
for your word and Lord right now tonight.
We rejoice and we can be bold and
we can be.
Almost silly with joy over the fact that
you rule and reign in our lives.
And father, that just gives us such a
liberty and such a freedom that it's in
some degree almost intoxicating in our hearts.
But father, I pray that this evening, if
there's a man or if there's a woman.
A boy or a girl who does not
have this joy in this piece.
In fact, their life is evidenced by the
worry they have lost sense of detail and
they're consumed by the negative, the the painful
part, the ugly.
What they perceive is bad.
They don't see you in it.
They need you.
My friend, as we are in an attitude
of prayer tonight, if if tonight you have
never understood nor heard perhaps that Jesus Christ
from Genesis to Revelation, since the beginning.
In the Garden of Eden, it was prophesied
by God himself that he would provide the
covering for you.
That the innocent had to die for the
guilty, that sacrifice, atonement, forgiveness was invented
by God for you.
That tonight you can choose Jesus.
The Bible says that he died on the
cross for our sins.
The Bible said he would do that before
he was ever born in the very city
that the Bible said he would be born
in, Bethlehem.
That very same Bible said that you'd recognize
him when he would do this, that and
the other thing.
On and on it goes.
The mathematical odds of him not being savior
are impossible.
They are actually mathematically impossible.
He is the Messiah.
The Bible has shouted this clear.
That same Bible has said that he would
die in our place, take our punishment, that
he would be raised from the dead three
days later, says the scripture.
And that by doing that, he would guarantee
your justification forever.
Not only did he die, but he rose
again from the grave to enforce his work
for you.
But here's the catch.
You have to come to him on his
terms.
And he said that you have to believe
that he died and rose again from the
grave and that you have to listen, you
have to agree with him, that you need
him as savior.
We use the old English word repent.
It's an old nautical term about turning your
boat around.
Means to turn or change your mind.
Well, heads are bowed and eyes are closed.
Maybe tonight you're saying, you know what?
This is the God I want.
I want to be set free like Paul
was set free.
I want to be set free like Abraham
was.
I want to be set free like all
the rest of you in here tonight.
And I want to confess tonight that Jesus
Christ is my Lord and savior.
Well, heads are bowed and eyes are closed.
If that's your vote tonight, if that's your
decision, will you raise your hand wherever you're
at?
And the Lord will see your hand go
up.
And the reason why I'm asking you to
raise your hand is because throughout scripture, everyone
who was called, they called publicly.
God bless you in the very back.
Anyone else on the aisle over here?
God bless you.
People were called publicly, even Nicodemus.
God bless you in the back.
Even Nicodemus eventually came public with his faith
in Christ.
Anyone else tonight?
Does the Holy Spirit speak in your heart?
I want to, before we wrap this up
inside, if any of you sense this bizarre
pressure, like everybody's looking at you, no one's
looking at you.
And you've got this feeling inside your stomach
area, just in your chest.
And it's like, man, I need to do
this, but I don't want to do this.
What's happening to me?
That's his finger saying now's the acceptable time.
Today's the day of salvation.
Is that happening to anybody?
Put your hand up.
God bless you.
Anyone else?
Yep.
You and you.
Cool.
Beautiful.
Let this prayer fall from your lips.
Lord Jesus, I come to you now.
I ask you to forgive me of my
sins.
I thank you for speaking to me tonight.
I pray that you'd write my name in
your Lamb's Book of Life right now.
Save me, Lord, and do that thing I
heard tonight.
Work on me.
Come inside.
Do your thing from the inside out, not
religiously, but relationally.
I confess you tonight as my Lord and
Savior in Jesus' name and all God's people
said, amen.
Amen.
Listen, before we stand up, those of you