Open them to Matthew chapter 28.
You know that that's our theme verse for
this series.
And as always, Matthew chapter 28.
But we're going to send you after that
over to Jeremiah 42.
Matthew chapter 28.
It's all about discipleship and disciple making.
That's what this series is about.
And discipleship is having a disciplined life.
And so in this Discipline of Life series,
Matthew chapter 28 verse 18.
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying,
All authority has been given to me in
heaven and on earth.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, teaching them to observe all things.
That's what we're doing on these nights together.
That I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, even
to the end of the world.
And now tonight, Jeremiah 42 verse 6.
Just turn a whole lot to your left
to the book of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah chapter 42 verse 6.
There the scripture says, Whether it is pleasing
or displeasing, we will obey the voice of
the Lord our God.
And he goes on to say that it
may be well with us when we obey
the voice of the Lord our God.
Christian tonight, listen up carefully.
God's certain comforts.
That is available to the believer, the Bible
reading Christian, and we need to revel in
that fact over and over again, we talk
about God's word and the need or the
necessity to have it at work in our
lives.
And yet God's word not only speaks about
our future, speaks about our current, speaks about
the past, but it is a book that
is alive.
The book of Hebrews tells us that it's
sharper than any two edged sword.
It is the word of God that that
lives and breathes.
And it causes us to experience a victorious
Christian life.
And so when we talk about the disciplines
of life and the disciplines tonight of decision,
it is absolutely imperative that we understand something
from the get go.
And that is our God is perfect.
God is holy.
God makes no mistakes ever.
I'm not saying that because I want that
to be true.
I'm saying it because it is true.
That's one of the reasons why he's my
God.
If he was a God that made mistakes
or was capricious, changed his mind, was unstable,
I'd have nothing to do with him.
You can trust him.
And if we are Christians and we are
and if this is the word of God
and it is, then why can't we make
better decisions in our lives?
This is a very critical issue, and it
plagues the church today.
I think if we decided to follow the
word of God and make godly decisions, I
think that we would spare ourselves a lot
of grief.
Not only that, we would in making the
right decisions bring to our lives a lot
of great blessings.
Look, you guys know me by now.
I am not a positive confession, word, faith
movement person.
I believe that's heresy.
But I will tell you this.
God blesses obedience.
There's no doubt about it.
Ask Abraham.
Ask Isaac.
Ask Jacob.
Ask Daniel.
Ask Jeremiah.
Ask God's people throughout the word.
Ask God's people throughout the world.
God blesses obedience.
So we should have some fun tonight.
And I noticed that when we were worshiping
tonight, a lot of young people were coming
in.
That's good, because let me tell you something.
If us old folk can teach you young
and some wisdom from the word of God
and it spares you some grief, then hallelujah.
Then praise the Lord.
The disciplines of decision.
Number one, jot it down in your note
taking.
It's this.
And that is be willing to ask for
his guidance.
Number one thing that you want to write
down about making godly decisions is be willing
to ask him for his guidance.
The Lord is desiring some verse 32 or
excuse me, some chapter 32 verse eight says
this.
And this is a great promise.
Some 32.
I will instruct you and teach you in
the way that you should go.
That's God speaking.
I will counsel you and I will watch
over you.
Do not be like the horse or like
the mule who have no understanding, but must
be controlled with a bit and a bridle
or they will not come to you.
Many are the woes of the wicked, but
the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who
trust in him.
Boy, I tell you, that's a great promise.
You want to be blessed in life.
Listen, you want to be blessed in life,
seek God and find out what he wants
by asking him for guidance.
What's that old song?
Help me out.
It's go something like this.
Oh, what needless pain we bear when we
fail to take it to God in prayer
or something like that.
I'm close.
Asking God, listen to this, God, where should
I go to school?
My goodness, in our culture, in our society,
should you go to school?
You got to get a bulletproof vest and
everything else.
Who should I marry?
Should I take that job?
What church should I be going to?
Where should I be serving?
What should I be doing with my life?
Did you know that God's got the answer
for every one of those questions?
Every one of them.
Be willing to ask him for his guidance.
Jot this down.
Be willing to ask this way.
Recognize your limitation.
We need to recognize real quick that we
are limited.
Can we all admit to that?
I don't need to bend your arm, right?
I mean, you're the Wednesday night group.
You guys are smart.
We are limited in what we can see
and what we can know.
Listen, I've shared this with you guys in
the past, but it's happened to me time
and time again.
So listen, I'm going to share it again.
Whenever I'm coming home and I've got to
get back home to my house or to
the church quickly, and I when I say
coming back home, I'll be flying in either
into LAX or John Wayne Airport coming into
land.
I'm always looking out the window to check
out the freeway conditions.
I'm serious because I know I've got to
either get from LAX to this church or
from John Wayne Airport, you know, to my
home here or whatever.
And I'm looking, looking, looking.
Why?
Because from that vantage point, you can see
everything.
I don't need some traffic report when I
can see it on my own.
From that vantage point where God is at,
he sees it all.
You need to believe him regarding that.
You need to trust him regarding that he
knows everything.
He knows exactly what you're going to be
going through next week, next month, next year.
There's nothing that surprises him.
So in that recognize that you and I
are limited in how far we can see.
We're limited in how much we can understand
you and I.
We don't know everything.
And so we need to humbly ask God
for help.
I truly believe, listen, if you today began
to discipline your life, to start asking the
Lord.
15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes a day
before your day happens, Lord, lead me and
guide me.
Didn't I share with you this last week?
I think it was where your daily Bible
reading, take your daily Bible reading and convert
that into your prayer topic.
It's very powerful.
And if you look at this last week's
daily Bible reading, and if you use that
time for prayer, like many of you have,
and many of you do, you're never at
a loss for prayer.
The topics are more than enough and how
they apply to your life.
And as I challenge you guys, you begin
to see God answering.
He wants to answer our prayers, and especially
when you and I are limited because we
can't see everything.
The Bible tells us in the book of
James chapter four, verse two, he says, you
lust and you do not have.
He says that you murder, that is, you
hate someone and you covet and you cannot
obtain.
You fight and you war, yet you do
not have because you do not ask.
My goodness, look at that verse.
All of these things that are going on
in your life, that's a negative, James says,
is present because you don't ask God for
help.
Lord, help.
Lord, I'm limited.
Lord, I'm weak.
God, I need your guidance.
And he's faithful.
The Lord is our well, as it were,
to draw water from.
In Psalm 145, verse three, the Bible says,
great is the Lord and greatly to be
praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.
Church, that word unsearchable means you cannot find
the bottom of his wisdom and knowledge.
So, look, you guys, if he's our God,
is he not?
If he's our God and we are his
people, then we have unlimited resources to tap
into, though we ourselves are limited.
It's OK for us to be weak because
he's strong.
It's OK for us not to know everything.
First of all, we don't have the capacity
to know everything.
Study all you want.
I mean, you should, but you ain't going
to know it all.
But he does.
He can give you the wisdom to all
that you're acquiring in this world regarding knowledge.
Wow.
Understand the limitations.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven, ask and
it will be given to you.
He's almost begging us to ask him, Lord,
I need your guidance tonight as a church.
We should be praying, oh, Lord, I need
your guidance in my life.
Man, don't we all need that?
I mean, how many times in a day
do we need his guidance?
Ask, he said, and it will be given
to you.
Seek and you will find.
Knock and it will be opened.
And everyone who asks receives.
That's a tremendous promise right there.
Jesus is saying, come on, ask, ask.
We ask.
Ask me.
He says, seek.
You're going to find.
Knock.
I'll open it up for you.
Is that a great promise?
So let's see.
So, Jack, you know, what are you getting
so excited about?
Because if I'm limited and he's not and
I need to make the right decisions in
life, don't you?
Then why don't we talk to him and
get his answer on the matter?
Listen, I'm going to say something that's going
to kind of shock you.
You and I do not have to make
mistakes.
We don't have to make them.
Why do we make them?
Can we all agree that when we make
them, it's because we either we don't listen
to God or we'll talk more on one
of the things in a moment.
We thought it was God or we talked
ourselves into thinking it was God.
That's a big one.
We try to answer for God.
It's almost like we're like in a different
world where we say, oh, man, I need
an answer for this thing.
And, we ask the question of God or
we ask for his guidance, but we really
don't want his input because we want it.
We already know how we want it to
turn out.
So we pray like this and then we
get on the other side and we answer
like a lunatic, like someone who's talking to
himself.
Pretty amazing.
Well, how do we in asking for God's
guidance, overcome the limitations, tap into his unlimited
knowledge?
If we don't do that, we're going to
have a problem being submitted to God.
And that's the next thing I want you
to jot down.
How do I make a good decision?
Yes, ask God for his guidance.
And in that we're recognizing our own limitations,
but also under this we're responding or we
respond in submission to him.
If he knows everything, it's smart for us
to come under his leadership.
Submission to the Lord, it's kind of a
mind place.
It's a mindset of great power.
I want tonight to be a little bit
personal and it should be because of these
topics.
And this one right here, when I say
that it's a mind place, I wrote down
in my notes that submission under the Lord,
it's a mind place of great power for
me, Jack, personally.
It causes me to ask for the God
thing to get done in my life.
I'm big in my private prayer life of
asking the Lord for the God thing to
get done in my life.
Lord, I want you to do the God
thing.
And here's the fun part.
Somebody asked me, what's the God thing?
I have no idea.
That's the cool part.
I want to come to the Lord and
I want to pray and ask him, Lord,
do your God thing in my life.
I'll be honest with you in my home.
I will pray over my family, even though
now they're married and moved away.
I'll still pray, Lord, cause this home, this
family, this church to be an object of
your affection.
And Lord, according to your wisdom, spoil us
as your people.
So what does that mean?
I don't know.
I don't care.
He knows exactly how to answer that prayer.
That's the God thing in my life.
God, you do it.
You do your thing.
His thing is better than any plan you
and I could ever can conduct and master
and put together and draw.
The more we plan things out, the less
faith we have.
Oh, my gosh.
It's huge after all.
We give up.
We're simply to respond in submission to his
will.
In Luke chapter 11, verse one, it says,
now Jesus was praying in a certain place.
This is how you make godly decisions.
Pray.
And when he had ceased from praying, one
of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach
us to pray, as John also taught his
disciples.
And so Jesus said to them, when you
pray, say our father in heaven, hallowed or
holy be your name, your kingdom come.
Here it is.
Your will be done on earth as it
is in heaven.
Bring heaven down to your situation.
Do you have a situation, my friend, right
now?
What is it?
Is it?
What is it?
It's your thing.
You know what it is.
You got it.
Is it an issue?
Is it a problem?
How big is it?
It's so big.
It's huge.
Good thing it's gigantic and massive and it's
bigger than you.
You get to call in reinforcements from heaven.
For some reason, we think that it's so
gigantic.
The answer that we need to get from
the Lord is so impossibly gigantic that it's
never going to come our way.
And yet our God is a big God.
He's awesome.
Oh, and he's he ever faithful.
The great thing is to submit to him.
Second Corinthians chapter 12, verse eight, Paul gives
us a great example of biblical submission, and
you can count on the answer.
Paul was sick, you know, very sick.
Paul lived a life that was filled with
sickness.
It appears from not only the Bible, but
church history.
And the second Corinthians 12, verse eight, it
says there that Paul said concerning this thing,
I pleaded with the Lord three times that
it might depart from me.
He's asking God to heal Paul praise three
times.
And the Lord, he said to me, my
grace is sufficient for you.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
Notice Paul's answer.
Therefore, or in light of what I just
heard from God, most gladly, I would rather
boast in my infirmities.
That's my weaknesses, my problems, that the power
of Christ may rest upon me.
Paul found a secret.
And that verse has been dear to us
and for generations, for the how many of
Christians raise your hand and need the encouragement.
Yes.
For us who are Christians, when we are
weak, we get to say, Lord, I'm weak.
Be my strength.
It's a dangerous day when we say, God,
I've got it from here.
Take it easy.
I'm sure angels go, oh, no.
But why do so many Christians make so
many huge mistakes in decision making?
And I've noticed maybe you have certainly in
ministry, we hear it all the time.
But if you just wait around long enough,
somebody will make a decision.
It's a horrible decision.
And then later, when it all falls apart,
guess who gets the blame?
God does.
I don't know why the Lord did that
in my life.
Oh, let me tell you.
As a pastor, that's the, you know, the
rod and the staff, they comfort me.
He's not talking about the staff sitting over
there behind their desk.
And he's not talking about some guy named
Rod.
There's a staff and there's a rod and
the rod is used to knock the side
of the head of a lamb.
Hey, wake up.
I don't know.
You know what?
I just I did this thing and the
whole thing imploded and I lost everything.
And I don't know why God did that
to me.
Boom.
Don't blame God for your inability to wait
on him.
And when we won't submit to God's will,
we get all pumped up.
I got to I got to have an
answer.
I got to do this thing now.
Listen, Christian, God is never stressing, wiping his
brow.
Oh, my gosh.
Jack, will you hurry up?
Come on.
Hurry, hurry.
I got to get going here.
That's how I am.
That's not how he is.
Submission is key.
There's a discipline here to learn.
James chapter one, verse six says, let this
man who's asking of God, asking faith without
doubting, don't doubt like God, will you hear
my prayer?
He probably won't.
For he who doubts is like a wave
of the sea, driven and tossed by the
wind.
For let not that man suppose that he
will receive anything from the Lord.
He's a double minded man and he's unstable
in all of his ways.
This is a very, very serious thing in
the Christian church today.
Men and women, young men and women as
well, need to be people of faith that
comes from the Bible.
Romans 10, 17 says faith comes by hearing,
hearing by the word of God.
And this is the deal.
When we pray, we pray Bible.
And when we pray Bible, we can pray
believing.
We can pray trusting he will answer his
word.
And here's the cool thing.
You don't have to be unstable about your
request, meaning that when the answer comes, you
don't have to back up and wonder, is
this God or not God?
Church, listen.
Don't pray.
Generic prayers.
When you pray that when you see the
prayers in the Bible, they're very specific prayers.
Don't pray like, Lord, bless me.
I mean, you can pray that, but when
he blesses you, how are you going to
know if he's blessed you and answer the
prayer?
If you say, bless me, what does that
mean?
Well, if you take a breath the next
after you pray the prayer, he's blessing you.
Isn't he?
He's blessing you.
But what are you asking for when you
submit to him and you in that moment
of submission and you're saying, Lord, I'm asking
you in my life to answer me in
this thing or to bring this about in
my life, if it be your will.
Pray specifically.
Watch what he does.
Are you a young man here this evening
and you're praying for direction in your life?
You want God to speak to you?
You want direction?
Pray specific.
The moment you begin to pray specific prayers,
I believe God goes to work in your
life because you're going to recognize the specific
answer when he answers.
Your faith will explode.
And the next prayer you pray will be
bigger than the one you had prayed earlier.
Why?
Because you're pumped up now.
You're ready to go to battle.
You're right now ready to take on those
dark things in your life or the dark
things in your son's life or your daughter's
life or your wife or your husband's life.
You're ready to go to war because you
know God's listening.
There's nothing like it.
Well, he's always listening.
But we don't always catch the answer.
James four, verse three says you ask and
you don't receive because you ask a miss
off target.
That you may spend it on your own
pleasures.
We make a lot of jokes about that
verse, you know, when we say, oh, Lord,
you know, allow me to win the lotto
and I'll give it all to you, God.
You know, and then winning numbers, you're scratching
them.
Nobody would do that because that's gambling and
you don't gamble with God's money.
That's where people go to some other church
and they're scratching the numbers 5, 22, 36.
What did I say, God?
Did I say I'd give you everything?
How about 50 percent?
And the closer you get to the winning
number, you start backing off of your commitment.
That's ridiculous.
You pray to ask something for your own
self.
Oh, Lord, if you just I can make
it to hospital visitations much quicker if I
had a Ferrari.
It doesn't work that way.
I mean, people might pray that way, but
it doesn't work that way.
And then also this, we need to be
willing to ask for his guidance and that
we are to react from a position of
strength, from confidence.
When we begin to ask.
You have a journal.
If you don't have a journal, you ought
to start a journal.
And you got to stay at it.
I'm horrible at journals.
I have journals all over the house.
None of them are completed.
I've never finished any of them.
Now I have one on my computer, which
is kind of cool right now.
It's working pretty good, actually.
And it's kind of fun, but I think
this is important.
When we ask God for guidance, we need
to react after we pray.
We need to react from a position of
strength and confidence.
There's nothing like it, church.
You know this, that if you've spent time
with God before you go out into the
day.
Have you noticed that there's a skip in
your spirit?
There's a little bit of what the old
Puritans called an unction in your life.
Somebody walks by and says, hey!
And you just go, what?
You want Jesus?
What's the story?
You want a piece of him?
You want me to witness to you?
I mean, it's just different.
Start the day with God.
It's different.
And when you come out of that corner,
the whole day, the whole ministry, the whole
marriage or school or job or projects different.
Even if some in that gathering won't cooperate,
it's still different for you.
Strength and confidence.
James 1, verse 5 says, if any of
you lack wisdom, let him ask of God
who gives to all liberally and without reproach,
and it will be given to him.
Man, that's a promise.
How many of you need to be wiser?
If I had five more hands, I'd raise
my hands.
Wisdom is a funny thing because it has
nothing to do with knowledge.
Somebody could be here right now with 10
PhDs, and they could be as unwise as
I don't know what.
Have you ever seen real smart people academically,
but man, they make the most bozo decisions
in life, and you go, man, if that's
schmatt, I don't want it.
Right?
Have you seen that happen?
I used to know a guy in high
school.
The guy was a genius.
Went off to work for NASA.
You know what?
At school, the guy, they almost had to
put a helmet on him.
He'd walk through glass doors.
He would run into poles.
He's like, put the books down.
The guy got hurt.
Put the books down.
Look around when you walk.
Smart, but not all that wise.
Listen, wisdom is the appropriate application of knowledge
gained.
How do you apply the knowledge?
That's called wisdom.
People on the street have great wisdom.
The application of that knowledge.
Very important.
Confidence, strength.
Here's a great verse for all of us
to be confident and strong with.
Psalm chapter 1, verse 1.
Blessed, happy.
You know, it's interesting.
The word in the Hebrew means welfare, not
according to our government welfare.
Welfare means farewell, welfare, to do good, to
do well in life, to be blessed and
prospering, to be happy.
Psalm 1.1. Happy is the man who
walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor stands in the path of sinners, nor
sits in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the what?
The law of the Lord.
And in his law, he meditates.
That's the key word.
He meditates day and night.
Strength and confidence to meditate in the word
of God.
How do I make a good decision, Pastor
Jack?
Meditate in the word of God.
And here's the temptation.
Oh, come on.
Isn't it going to take a long time?
Nope.
I'd rather spend 40 minutes gleaning from God's
word and waiting for an answer than a
lifetime of trying to correct a mistake.
Number two, our second point tonight.
The disciplines of decision is this.
We need to be willing to wait for
his guidance.
Oh, this is the killer.
We need to be willing to wait.
We need to be willing to wait for
his guidance this way.
Waiting favors our cause, church.
So be patient.
Waiting favors your cause, Christian.
So be patient.
Patient.
We need to wake up to this.
Listen, we...
I don't know how old you are.
I forget how old I am now.
I'm 52 or something.
I don't know.
I'm getting close to the Denny's afternoon special.
That's all I know I'm getting.
But I know that in my lifetime growing
up, I was raised in an interesting time
because there were no fast food restaurants when
I was growing up.
And then all of a sudden, I think
it was about 12 or 13, when some
guy, some guy down in San Diego invented
McDonald's and a McDonald's came to Orange County.
I said, what is that?
Wait, you know, you actually go by, they
actually, you drive by and they put food
in your car.
What?
From that time on, a culture was born
of impatience.
Now, if you don't get your Taco Bell
stuff, you know, you wait like three minutes.
If they don't serve you up in three
minutes, it's supposed to be like discounted or
something.
I don't know what their thing is.
Fast, fast, fast.
Come on, come on.
So we go like this.
Dear God, answer me now.
Let's go.
I need this answer.
God, I'm going to give you two minutes.
Come on, I got to get to work.
And you wonder why you don't get an
answer.
He doesn't work like that.
He'll never change.
No matter what she wants him to do,
he'll never change.
He's patient.
If you can hear God's foot just tapping
up in heaven, it's tapping all the time.
Jack, slow down.
Just wait.
Waiting favors our cause as a believer.
The book of Habakkuk, Habakkuk chapter two, verse
three, Habakkuk chapter two, verse three says, for
the vision is yet for an appointed time.
But at the end, it will speak and
it will not lie, though it waits or
tarries, wait for it, because it will surely
come and it will not tarry.
What does that mean?
That means God knows what's up.
He knows the answer that he's going to
give you.
You wait.
Oh, this is the one where we just
have such a hard time with.
We want stuff to happen.
We look around at people.
We look around what's on the TV or
we look around what might be in the
movie theater and we start thinking about our
own lives.
My goodness, I'm 21 and I don't have
this and I don't have that and I
need to make it happen.
This is a scourge in our culture.
I'm 30 and I still don't have this
or I'm 40 or I'm this and I'm
that.
And then we have one of these things,
midlife crises.
What is that all about?
What is that thing?
What is that?
I don't know.
You see guys, their shirts are open down
to here with a gold chain.
They you know, they take their suburban and
they get a little red convertible Yugo or
whatever and they have this big what's what's
the deal?
I thought I would have had more in
life by now.
Well, we can fix that.
We'll just ship you to Mexico for a
month and get your perspective fixed.
Think about it.
You have shoes, don't you?
We've got this thing where we begin to
judge our status in light of what the
world offers.
You and I will never, never achieve what
the world is trying to sell us.
It's Madison Avenue.
Wake up.
Well, I don't look like him.
You'll never look like him.
Well, I don't look like her.
You'll never look like her.
First of all, they're all a bunch of
airbrushed things.
But you look at that.
Hey, wait a minute.
Wait on God.
We cannot outweighed him.
See, Jack, what if I wait too long?
I don't think it's possible.
You can disobey him once he speaks.
That's a problem.
That's our third point where I'm getting ahead
of myself.
That's obeying him.
But when you're saying, Lord, lead me, Lord,
guide me, show me if he hasn't showed
you yet.
Wait, I won't name any names.
It wouldn't be right.
Someone came up to me about a week
and a half ago and they were a
little bit upset.
I could tell.
Because things aren't going good in their family.
And so the person said, you know what?
I mean, God, I mean, you have really
two wonderful son-in-laws.
They love God and your daughters, you know,
you never had any problem with them doing
drugs and stuff like that.
And they're serving and almost to the point
where I felt like I should be apologizing.
I'm sorry.
And I felt I felt the Lord.
I didn't hear any rumbles of thunder or
anything, but I felt the Lord say, bless
me now, Jack.
This is your opportunity, bless me now.
And I don't know if you know what
that means, but I knew exactly what it
meant.
I told her, I said, listen, first of
all, when we got pregnant with these kids,
we laid our hands on her tummy and
prayed for God to fill those babies with
the Holy Spirit.
And when I used to pray, I used
to say, Lord, bless this baby.
I'm not joking, you guys.
I told you I was nuts, but sometimes
there's a benefit to being crazy.
And we led them in the way of
the Lord every day of their life.
So now their life's blessed because God blesses
obedience.
And I'm supposed to apologize for that.
I can't do it.
It'd be robbing God of his faithfulness.
Can't do it.
God blesses obedience.
But that's the third point.
We're not there yet.
We're talking about being willing to wait for
him.
Psalm 37, seven says, rest in the Lord
and wait patiently for him.
Do not fret because of him who prospers
in his way because of the man who
brings wicked schemes to pass.
Just wait.
Church, listen, just wait.
I know it's hard.
You wait.
And if we're all waiting together, we can
encourage one another to wait.
Let's wait together.
It's going to favor our walks, going to
favor our direction in life and all.
Also, this waiting disciplines our emotions.
This is a big one.
So we need to be biblical.
Waiting kills our emotions.
Come on, let's admit to it right now.
We hate it.
We want answers now.
Emotions get all pumped up and we want
something now.
But listen, waiting disciplines those emotions.
You know how you spank emotions?
You make them go sit in the corner.
Emotions get us in trouble.
Can someone say amen?
Is that not true?
We need discipline our emotions.
First Peter, chapter one, verses 13 to 16.
This is tough stuff.
Peter gives tough love.
Here it is.
He says, therefore, he's so subtle, gird up
the loins of your mind, put your brain
back in your head.
Peter is saying, be sober.
He's not talking about put the drink down.
He's talking about think right.
I'd love to hear him say this.
Wouldn't you love that, Peter?
Come out here and rest your hope fully
upon the grace that is to be brought
to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ
as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the
former lusts.
In other words, stop going back to your
old life.
It's a dead end and you know it.
As you're as in your ignorance, but as
he who called you as holy, you also
be holy in all of your conduct because
it is written, be holy for I am
holy.
What a great statement.
He's saying, listen, God's holy.
Yeah, that's right.
And God, because now you are hidden in
Christ, you're a Christian.
You get to be holy also.
What does that mean?
It means you don't have to make the
wrong decision anymore.
You just wait for him.
Lord, what do you want me to do?
You understand that really blesses his heart.
I'm not moving God to talk to me.
Gideon did that.
Remember Gideon?
A lot of people make fun of him.
I think he's awesome.
Do you guys know who I'm talking about?
God, I'm not going to do anything unless
you take this skin of this animal and
you make it all wet and all the
ground around it dry.
So it happens.
OK, God, I'm not going to do anything
until you make the skin wet and all
that.
And he reverses it back and forth, back
and forth.
And people go, man, Gideon's got no faith.
Exact opposite.
Gideon had so much faith.
He's asking God to answer him so Gideon
would not make the wrong decision.
I would be a Gideon any day.
OK, think about that.
Oh, God, you don't speak to me.
And when you ask God, are you into
fleeces, Jack?
Are you talking about fleeces?
Because no, listen, what I am saying, because
some people say, God, if you want me
to marry that person, have the sun come
up.
That ain't going to happen.
That's not good.
Gideon was seeking hard after God's minds to
get the answer.
And Peter says that we get to be
holy now because God is holy.
We belong to him.
We are holy.
He pronounces us holy.
Is that radical?
So listen, if that's true and it is,
the Bible makes it very clear we are
now declared holy.
We are now born again.
We now have been given the mind of
Christ.
Then why do we make stupid decisions?
Because we don't wait.
Also, this waiting brings to you and I
his joy.
So we need to rest in that Psalm
1611.
Psalm 1611 says, You will show me the
path of life in your presence is fullness
of joy.
And at your right hand, there are pleasures
forevermore.
What an awesome God we have.
Well, here's the verse that we're moving off
from tonight.
It's Jeremiah 42, verses six and seven.
Check it out.
Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, that word
means whether it's going to be comfortable or
uncomfortable for us, we will obey the voice
of the Lord our God.
Skipping ahead a little bit that it may
be well with us when we obey the
voice of the Lord, our God.
Obey him.
Watch what happens.
Verse seven.
And it happened after 10 days that the
word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.
Now, I don't know about you, but after
10 days, Jeremiah got his answer in 10
days.
If you ask me, that's pretty quick.
Have you been asking God for stuff for
years?
I have.
There's some things going on in my life,
and I'll tell you right now, it's just
it's just us right here.
I'll just say it that, Lord, I mean,
this is a great opportunity for you to
show yourself mighty.
This is a great opportunity now, God, for
you to answer that thing I've been praying,
praying for.
He is not.
He's not listening to what I'm saying.
We have a relationship, him and I.
I talk, and he answers me with what
he wants to answer.
And I've learned over a lot of years,
that's a good thing.
You can thank God right now that he
has not answered all your prayers.
I'm going to give you four verses, just
jot them down real quick.
You guys all know this one.
This is the best.
Isaiah 40, verse 31, famous verse.
But those who wait on the Lord shall
renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 30, verse 18, therefore, the Lord will
wait.
That he may be gracious to you, and
therefore he will be exalted, that he may
have mercy on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all those who wait for him.
Isaiah 49, verse 23, down back into that
verse.
It's a big verse.
Then you will know that I am the
Lord, for they shall not be ashamed who
wait for me.
Wow.
Notice that.
If you will not wait for God and
go do your own stubborn decisions, because you
want to have it your way, and this
is what you want, and it must be
God, because it's what I want, and you
go do it, and it all falls apart.
Notice this.
You're going to be put to shame.
Your friends might pat you on the back,
but when they walk away, they'll say, Bozo,
don't be fooled.
This is vital.
Ecclesiastes 3.11. Ecclesiastes 3.11. Solomon wrote
this.
He has made everything beautiful in his time.
Also, he has put eternity in their hearts.
He has put eternity in their hearts.
He makes all things beautiful in his time.
God's goodness to cause time to make sense
in the end is remarkable to me.
Young people tonight, listen.
You need to slow down.
Just slow down.
It's okay.
Just slow down.
You're not going to miss anything.
Somehow, he makes everything beautiful in his time,
which means in my time, I can destroy
everything in my time.
Third and final point tonight, the disciplines of
decision is this.
We need to be willing to obey his
guidance.
When God says it, do it.
Wow.
This way, he knows what's right.
When we trust him, we will agree.
He knows what's right.
Come on.
Did any of us make the moon?
I mean, some walked around on it, but
we didn't make it.
What do we know for sure regarding us?
What do we know about him?
He is absolutely the sum of all that
is perfect and beautiful and grand.
He's lovely, says the Bible.
So, check this out.
He knows what's right.
Jeremiah 42, verse 3 says, the Lord your
God will show us the way in which
we should walk and the things that we
should do.
You got to memorize that.
Are you young right now?
Memorize that verse.
Jeremiah 42, 3, the Lord's going to show
me the path that I should take.
UCLA, Florida, Washington.
What is it?
Where are you going to go?
Lord, show me the way.
Think about it.
Him, her, this direction, that company.
He has promised to answer.
And he knows what's right for us.
Imagine that.
We know that that's native to the human
heart.
Have you ever driven around?
I don't know, thank God, if it's anywhere
in this region.
If it is, don't tell me.
I don't want to know.
But for some reason, you drive around some
old town somewhere and eventually out in the
front of some old converted house, there's a
sign out front and it says, Poem Reader.
It always cracks me up.
Why?
Why would you go there?
You remember that woman, Cleo?
Some of you raise your hand.
Anybody remember Cleo?
She's from.
She said she was from Jamaica.
She wasn't.
She lied about that.
And I can't do accents, but she would
talk like this and you call me and
I'm going to tell you the future.
And I will tell you what to do
with your money and with your future and
with your time and you can become rich.
Did you know that she went bankrupt?
Did you know that?
How can somebody who knows the future and
is going to tell you about the future
go bankrupt?
Remember Dionne Warwick?
Do you know the way to San Jose?
Why would now she's in his like seances
and crystal ball.
Why would I talk to Dionne Warwick who
can't even find the way to San Jose?
Let me tell you how to run your
life.
I don't know where San Jose is, but
I'll tell you.
Come on.
Oh man, I get my palm read.
For what?
It's demonic.
It's in the human heart though to try
to peer into the future.
Your God knows your future.
He's the only one.
I have to do this because here's a
great verse.
I thought, man, they're going to freak when
I tell them that, but you know what?
The Bible tells me that I have to
give a report card to God regarding you
guys in the end.
Did you know that?
First of all, listen, Jeremiah 3, 15 says,
I will give you pastors according to my
heart.
They shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
I just, I've been giving you a lot
of verses tonight for this.
Three fantastic verses about pastors.
Hebrews 13, 7 says, remember those who rule
over you who have spoken the word of
God to you, whose faith follow concerning the
outcome of their conduct, meaning we're going to
stand before God and get in a lot
of trouble.
If we misrepresented his word, just remember how
big trouble Moses got into because he goofed
up.
See, why are you saying all this stuff?
Because I got to tell you this stuff.
No palm readers, no horoscopes, no.
Bible, God, prayer.
Let him answer you.
Listen to this.
Hebrews 13, 17 says, obey those who rule
over you and be submissive for they watch
out for your souls as those who must
give an account.
Let them do so with joy and not
with grief for that would not be for
that would be unprofitable for you.
Hebrews 13, 24, greet all those who rule
over you.
Say hi to me because I'm to give
an account for your soul in the end.
That's why we're in the Bible.
That's why you need to be willing to
obey his guidance because if God is working
in your life, he's going to speak to
you from this book like that.
OK, critical, clear, very important, very quickly.
He wants what's best for you and I.
Aren't you glad God is nuts about you?
Is it true God's watching me all the
time?
It's because he can't take his eyes off
you.
That's why he's watching you all the time.
He's crazy over you.
He wants what's best for you.
Micah, chapter six, verse eight says, he has
shown you, oh, man, what is good and
what.
Does the Lord require of you, but to
do justly and to love mercy and to
walk humbly with your God is beautiful.
You guys know this, Jeremiah, 29, 11 and
12.
I know the thoughts that I think toward
you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, not
of evil, to give you a future and
a hope.
Then you will call upon me and go
and pray to me.
And what I will listen to you.
Third, right here, be willing to obey his
guidance because he does what's good.
He does what's good.
Romans chapter eight, verse twenty eight.
For some of you, I notice that we
had some new believers coming in here tonight
from last week.
This verse can be brand new to you.
Check this out.
Romans eight, twenty eight.
And we know that all things work together
for good to those who love God, to
those who are called according to his purposes.
Verse twenty nine, for whom he foreknew that
is, he's always known about you.
He also predestined to be conformed to the
image of his son.
That means God is at work in your
life and he's going to do what's good.
This is a big one.
So, yeah, but you know what?
I accepted Jesus on Sunday.
I got hit by a truck on Monday.
God is in your life working for good.
Listen, the world is out there throwing curveballs
at us, but God takes them and turns
it around and makes it for good.
This is a very dangerous world you and
I live in.
And it's getting nuttier by the minute.
I was so grieved.
I went home last Sunday after church, I
went home, I turned on National Geographic program
just to get upset.
Turned it on there and they were showing
the kidnapped capital of the world.
Kidnapped capital of the world.
Absolutely disgusted.
I turned it off.
Did you know that?
This world's nuts.
My God's not nuts, though.
My God's right on target.
And what he's doing, he's doing for good.
This world's crazy and this world will hurt
you.
But when my God works in my life,
I tell you, if you're not a Christian
tonight, you're in danger zone.
You're not a Christian tonight, you're flirting with
eternity.
Man, don't live like that.
Very quickly, listen to this.
These are the dangers of an undisciplined.
Life or undisciplined decisions, undisciplined decisions, listen, Proverbs
chapter one, verse twenty eight says, then they
will call on me, but I will not
answer.
They will seek me diligently, but they will
not find me because they hated knowledge and
did not choose the fear of the Lord.
They would not have none of my counsel
and despised my every rebuke.
Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their
own way and be filled with with full
with their own fancies.
For the turning away of the simple will
slay them and the complacency of fools will
destroy them.
Now, listen to the blessings of a disciplined
decision.
But whoever listens to me, I will.
Listens to me, will dwell safely and will
be secure without fear of evil.
My son, if you receive my words and
treasure my commands in you so that you
incline your ear to wisdom and apply your
heart to understanding.
Yes, if you cry out for discernment and
if you lift up your voice for understanding,
if you seek her as silver and search
for her as for hidden treasure, then you
will understand the fear of the Lord and
find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth,
come knowledge and understanding.
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
He is a shield to those who walk
up rightly.
He guard guides or guards the paths of
justice and preserves the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity
and every good path.
Final verse right here.
Wonderful verse.
Ecclesiastes 12, 13.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole
matter.
Fear God, keep his commandments for this is
man's all for God will bring every work
to judgment, including every secret thing, whether good
or evil.
So what do you do with that verse?
Lord, lead me in the way of making
the right decisions.
And all God's people said, Father, tonight we
pray that in fifty five minutes.
Trying to do a study that even just
a little bit of it, there's enough verses
in this study that if we applied them,
our lives would never be the same.
That's a guarantee.
I have no doubt about that.
And so, Father, tonight we pray that we
would make the right decisions, that we would
slow down, pause, wait, that we wouldn't be
foolish and emotionally driven.
God, that we would get alone with you,
that we would consult you, ask of you.
And that we would never be in a
hurry, that there would be a peace that
presides over our lives.
It may drive other people crazy.
But we will wait on the Lord.
So, Father, in all of our life decisions
and actions, we ask you to reign supreme.
And Lord, as we leave this building now,
may we put these things into action.
If any one of your kids right now
being pressured by someone to do this or
to do that, may they remember that you're
not in that.
If somebody is forcing them to do this
or do that, that you're not the God
that forces.
If someone in this room has been given
an ultimatum, you're never in a hurry.
May we find our strength where it is,
and that is in you.
Thank you, Lord.
And all God's people said, Amen.
Church, let's all stand together.