What many of you are aware of and
why I'm speaking today is on this whole
area of my testimony.
And I titled the message, Hope for the
Prodigal.
Hope for the prodigal son, hope for the
wayward daughter, hope for those who have drifted
from God.
And it was challenging.
If you could see my notes, I would
probably redo this sermon.
Because there's lines, there's squiggle marks, there's this.
And a two hour testimony turned into 30
minutes and then I wanted to add this
and I don't need to talk about this.
And what I also want to do though
is not just talk about shame, but what
God has done in my life.
And pull in scripture references and get back
to why we're here, the God's word and
how it applied to my life.
But at the same time, I want to
give people a better understanding of who I
am and where we came from with our
church.
With the churches considering, the churches coming together
and who exactly am I?
And how has God worked in my life?
And I want to just define first the
definition of a prodigal.
If you have your Bibles, you can turn
to Luke 15, that's a wonderful passage.
Luke 15, 11, I'm actually going to read
it.
But a definition given by Clovis Chapel really
sums up what a prodigal is.
It says this, whenever you make up your
mind to refuse to go where God wants
you to go, and to do what God
wants you to do, you must make up
your mind at the same time to renounce
the friendship of God.
You cannot walk with Him and at the
same time be in rebellion against Him.
It is mockery to say, Lord, Lord, and
then refuse to do the things that He
has commanded you to do.
Isn't that true?
A good definition of a prodigal is knowing
what's right and then turning from what is
right.
And as I was putting this together, it
dawned on me that the church in America
is in a prodigal state.
Our nation is in a prodigal state.
Haven't we not wandered from the truth?
And I don't mean to offend, but when
you can have Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
running for the highest office in our nation,
and then have Lady Gaga do the national
anthem, we are in an interesting place.
We've drifted from God's truth.
We've drifted from what it was built on.
We've drifted from the fear of the Lord
and preaching the righteousness in our pulpits again.
I was reminded also, actually this morning, I
saw a quote that I forgot all about.
It's a very interesting quote.
For some reason, it goes deep into my
spirit, and I feel that there's hope for
this nation sometimes when I read quotes like
this.
I can't pronounce his name, so I'm not
going to attempt to do it.
But he wrote a book called Democracy in
America.
He was a Frenchman in the 1800s.
It's not really found in any of his
work, so it's hard to point where the
quote came from.
But he actually set out to find out
why America was so great, even in the
1800s.
Why this huge military, this force to be
reckoned with.
And he said that he sought for America's
greatness across her fertile prairies and her boundless
fields, and it was not there.
He sought for her greatness in her shorelines
and in her gold mines, and it wasn't
there.
He said, it was not until I went
to the churches of America, and I heard
her pulpits aflame with righteousness, that I understood
why America was great.
And if America ever ceases to be good,
she will cease to be great.
And that's a powerful truth, that when God's
pulpits were aflame with righteousness, not anger, with
God's holy righteousness, that you could actually turn
that nation, turn that people back to God.
And God would bring revival.
He would bring awakening.
I can take you to the first great
awakenings in the 1700s with people like George
Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards.
And one of the sermons that sparked revival
was titled, Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God.
And it was okay to proclaim God's truth
and get people to turn back to Him.
And that's really where my heart is, and
a passion for returning back to Him.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That's our hope.
Our hope is God's truth, a healthy fear
of the Lord.
And that's another thing we don't want to
mention much, fear of the Lord.
But the Bible says it's the beginning of
wisdom, it's the beginning of knowledge, it's the
beginning of understanding.
The fear of the Lord is very healthy.
So with that said, let me read Luke
15, 11.
Then he said, a certain man had two
sons, and the younger of them said to
his father, Father, give me the portion of
goods that falls to me.
And so he divided to them his livelihood.
And not many days after, the younger son
gathered all together.
He journeyed to a far country, and there
wasted his possessions with prodigal living.
That's where we get the word prodigal child.
What's happened, the son is due to get
his inheritance, probably later on in his life.
He asked for it now.
He took everything he had.
And what would be compared today, your dad
gives you 500,000, and you say, thank
you, I'm moving to Las Vegas.
And that's basically what is going on here.
But when he had spent all, there arose
a severe famine in the land, and he
began to be in want.
And then he went and joined himself to
a citizen of that country, and he sent
him into the fields to feed the swine.
And he would gladly have filled his stomach
with the pods that the swine ate.
And no one gave him anything.
But when he came to himself, that's a
very important part of this text.
But when he came to himself, there has
to come a point in every prodigal's life
where they come to themselves.
They realize that they are going in a
wrong direction.
They basically repent in their heart, and they
say, God, I've drifted from You.
They come to their self, they come to
the realization that they are far from God.
And he said, how many of my father's
hired servants have bread enough to spare, and
I perish with hunger.
I will arise and go to my father,
and I will say to him, father, I
have sinned against heaven and before you.
That's a very healthy thing to do.
That's how you get back on track with
God.
I have sinned against heaven and before you,
and I am no longer worthy to be
called your son.
Make me like one of your hired servants.
And he arose, and he came to his
father.
But when he was still a great way
off, his father saw him, and compassion, had
compassion on him.
And he ran, and he fell on his
neck, and he kissed him.
And the son said to him, father, I
have sinned against heaven and in your sight.
And I am no longer worthy to be
called your son.
But the father said to his servants, bring
out the best robe, and put it on
him.
And put on a ring, a ring on
his hand, and sandals on his feet.
And bring the fatted calf here, and kill
it, and let us eat and be merry.
For this my son who was dead is
alive again, and he was lost and is
found.
And they began to be merry.
And that's a prodigal son story we see.
And we often see this vision of God
that, yeah, you go be my servant.
You miserable person who did this.
But we see a loving father here actually
waiting for his son to come home.
And waiting for that repentance to take place.
So that's the introduction.
That's the theme.
That's the foundation on which I want to
briefly just talk about my life, my testimony.
And I have to break it up into
the years.
So I want to first talk about the
years, just being born and up to 12
years old.
Many of you know, a lot of you
know that I was born here in Lancaster,
California, 1969.
Back when there was almond orchards at the
bottom of Goaty Hill.
Rancho Vista was a desert area.
Did a lot of dove hunting in Rancho
Vista.
And we had one first stoplight was on
K and 15th by the freeway.
And growing up in this area.
My dad was very instrumental in working and
building Courts Hill Little League field.
And it's named after us.
Half of the name there.
And in the 50s, 60s I believe.
And building the other field in the 80s.
And just playing baseball.
That was my passion.
We had a batting machine before anybody had
batting machines and nets.
And my dad would really just emphasize that
many times.
And as I've shared before, I came from
a hard home as far as from my
dad's side.
Angry a lot.
He was from the farms of Oklahoma.
And if you know anybody on the farms,
it's a hard life.
And it was a hard walking on eggshells
kind of childhood.
You didn't know if it was going to
be anger or joy.
And so I have compassion for people that
have to deal with that.
So obviously after much practice, I did very
well in baseball.
And they brought out the gauge of miles
per hour.
And I was throwing in the mid and
low 60s in Little League.
And just everybody was, oh, he's going to
play professional or college or something.
But then this happened.
Arm surgery.
I had elbow chips that were floating around.
A lot of pain I couldn't throw anymore
when I was 12.
And I still can't straighten my arm all
the way.
Because of it.
And went down to surgery.
And when you lose a year of athletic
ability at that age, there's no catching up
really.
So I never really caught up.
It was humbling.
It was humiliating for sure.
1 to 12 was hard because of my
dad and pressuring us and getting this injury
and gaining weight from it.
And that, I think, is what started an
early childhood problem with gaining weight.
And fighting that and being in crutches and
different things as I got older in my
teen years.
But I wanted to just stop on this
point and remind the parents that these are
the formative years.
Formative means having a profound and lasting influence
on a person's development.
So those who are blessed with little children,
between 0 and 12, even sooner, they say
0 to 6 or 7, you are actually
forming that child.
And in many ways, how they'll think, how
they'll act, how they'll treat their father, how
they'll treat their mother, how they'll treat God,
how they'll look at God.
These are very important years.
And the Bible says in Proverbs 22, 6,
to train up a child in the way
he should go.
Even when he is old, he will not
depart from it.
In Ephesians 6, 4, fathers, do not provoke
your children to anger, but bring them up
in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
That we're provoked there is like you would
take, well you know up here, you see
rattlesnakes sometimes, and you take a shovel and
you just keep, what's going to happen?
You're provoking that snake.
You're provoking that trouble.
And many times, Scripture warns the father, train
up the children.
Father, teach your children this way.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,
because the father, as God designed it, is
designed to lead the home.
But all too often, it's the women who
encourage Bible study, it's the women who encourage
church attendance, while men are sitting on the
sidelines and watching the game.
And God calls the men to lead and
lead their families.
That's why I often tell men, stop the
silly video games.
Get off Facebook and kill your porn habit.
Start leading your family and dying for your
children and raising them up in the fear
and admonition of the Lord.
We're the reason the country's in the moral
collapse it's in.
Oh, that gets people upset, but it's the
truth.
The spiritual health of the nation is the
direct result of the spiritual health of the
family.
And it falls directly upon our shoulders, but
instead of repenting, we blame everything from God
to the government.
That's our excuse.
That's our way out.
And men need to be challenged.
They need to be hit with a right
punch and a left one, because that's when
we wake up.
That's when men, when they're confronted with the
truth that we are not leading our families
the way we should, that we need to
wake up, that we need to repent, that
we need to spend time on this altar,
and we need to weep and we need
to cry before God so we can go
home and lead our families.
That doesn't happen much anymore.
They're hooked to everything but God and leading
their families.
But there's hope in that because God can
rebuild your family.
He can rebuild your life.
These types of messages aren't meant to leave
you in a negative state.
They're meant to awaken so that change takes
place.
So the hope there, hope for the prodigal,
at this age I'm really offering hope to
the parents, that you can reestablish that connection.
And as parents, you need to remember and
remind your children what God did for you.
You were blind and lame and He opened
your eyes.
He cleansed you from your sins.
He redeemed you.
He paid the price for you.
Let your children know that.
See, it's interesting.
They should want to desire the Christ they
see in us.
What I talked about last Sunday.
They should desire the Christ they see in
us.
Does our character push them away from Christ
or closer to Him?
There's not a middle ground there.
And then once I got up into the
teen years, year 13 to 17, my teenage
years, it's interesting, I want to side note.
I go back and forth on this often,
but I believe, and then sometimes I'll say,
I'm not sure.
But at 12 years old, I went to
a Christian camp and was mightily impacted by
God.
I believe repented, filled with His Spirit.
And then I often wonder, where did that
go?
When I got back and drifted.
And that's why I believe I was in
that prodigal state because even though I had
that relationship with the Lord, I drifted from
Him.
And I believe that's why I was convicted
about the sin I was in for so
many years.
It's because of what God began to do
in my heart at a young age at
12.
And then high school, obviously, I went into
high school.
Believe it or not, I went to Paraclete
High School.
Catholic high school.
And now when a lot of my friends
find out I'm a Protestant pastor, they kind
of don't appreciate that.
Because once you're Catholic, you stay Catholic.
And that would be a whole other sermon
if you're interested on the difference there.
But the short definition is Protestant comes from
the word protest.
And you have men like Martin Luther, Urich
Zwingli in Switzerland, John Calvin in Geneva, John
Knox in Scotland.
And they were taking the people back to
the Word of God.
They were not saying that the papacy is
in control, that the Pope is the final
authority.
They were putting Christ back on the throne.
They were putting the inerrancy and the Word
of God back in its rightful place.
That is all you need for church doctrine
and conduct.
And there's not something overneath that that changes
that.
And they would bring this back to the
people.
So they protested the church, Protestantism, and that's
where it grew.
And that's where the flames of the fire
of the Reformation actually sparked revival.
Because anytime you get the church back to
the Word of God and away from man
-made authority, you're in a very good spot.
So once I became a pastor, now going
to the school reunions is definitely funny, but
they're not real open because once you're caught
in that...
Well, I'll be careful there because some people
listen to this, to my testimonies too.
Let's just say this.
Do your research.
And you'll see that Mary worship and indulgence
and confessional and all those things, and a
priest is not biblical.
It's just not.
There's no scriptural support for any of that.
And I would carry that to my grave
looking at the Bible.
High school is very difficult.
If any of you have had a learning
disability like dyslexia or things where...
I mean, I couldn't get through geometry.
I couldn't get through hardly anything.
Even reading that Prodigal Son story was difficult.
I had to focus on every word and
make sure in numbers, remembering numbers.
It's very hard.
I almost had to cheat my way through.
And graduate high school with a 1.8?
Pretty good, right?
Didn't make it much through college.
And people go, don't tell people that.
We want kids to go to college.
Yes, get an education.
Yes, increase your knowledge as much as you
can.
But God used those years of humiliating me
and that brokenness.
And it's funny because people often will...
I'll barely graduate high school, how can you
be pastoring?
Well, you have to remember that I'd rather
have a degree from the master than a
master's degree.
There's a big difference.
Now, am I minimizing any of that?
Of course not.
I think it's very important.
But sometimes we get so focused on the
degree and not what God is doing in
the heart that we forget really who puts
us up here.
It's not the PhD on the business card.
It's God saying, I've called you.
I've anointed you to be a voice for
my people.
I've put my spirit upon you.
And that's when God calls a person.
This also was a time that, because high
school was very difficult, didn't fit in, gained
some weight.
I remember that I still have my yearbook,
and I'm on crutches, and underneath it says,
Stuffed Pig.
It's like, why would you do that to
a kid?
Now you see why I've got all this
emotional pain, right?
No.
I've got through that because now when I
go to the reunions, everybody else is out
of shape.
And you can just throw that in there
for no good reason.
So high school is when I was introduced
to everything from alcohol, to crystal meth, to
cocaine, to the party lifestyle.
You could get away from my house, my
parents.
I think, Rita, you're here.
You live right down the street from us
during those years.
And that was very difficult because I should
have died numerous times, rolling vehicles, not knowing
how I got home.
I remember I went to Vegas with a
drug dealer.
I was 17.
I didn't come home for two days and
didn't sleep.
I don't even know how I got home.
I didn't know where we were, just this
whole life.
But the reason drugs and alcohol are so
prevalent is because there's so much brokenness in
the home.
And that's their outlet.
Now the big thing is heroin and injecting
heroin and different things.
As I moved out of high school and
I started to get into the gym industry
and working out, and that's when steroids was
introduced to me.
And here, take these little blue pills and
white pills.
And then, wow, now I'm getting bigger, I'm
getting stronger.
And then they start introducing the testosterone.
They call it testosterone seponate, propionate, suspension, all
these different testosterones that aren't good because you
already produced testosterone.
So that's why men are more aggressive.
That's why men are more upset.
And that's why they lose their hair often
is because of the receptor sites and testosterone,
how it binds to those.
And that's a whole other thing.
But I would actually start taking shots.
You can get it right in the glute
in a 21-inch gauge needle.
It doesn't hurt too bad.
So I see this body just dying.
I mean, everybody thought it was great physically,
right?
You're bench pressing 400 pounds.
You can beat up everybody.
But they call it roid rage for a
reason.
You're out of control.
And so this is that season that this
happened.
And I would actually, it struck me because
last night, the message last night was, save
me from myself.
And if you go online, we should have
it on our website pretty soon.
Save me from myself.
And I was reminded, and I was talking
about the story of where God throws this
huge banquet.
And He invites all the guests.
Come, come to this banquet.
Come to the wedding feast.
And people say, no, we don't want to
go.
They just made light of it.
They made light of eternity.
And that's what happens through our younger years.
Often people, teenagers in high school, or even
in my younger years, I made light of
the invitation of the gospel.
And that's what our culture does.
Every Saturday night live skit that makes mockery
of the Christianity, every Hollywood play, every movie,
everything that makes light of the gospel will
someday stand before God.
And they will be silenced.
And we can't make mockery.
We can't take lightly these things that have
eternal value.
I mean, think about that.
Right now, when we fear something, we say,
oh God, help me.
But what do you do when you stand
before Almighty God, and there's fear and trepidation
unlike anything you've felt before?
Who do you call on then?
You've just rejected Him all of your life.
There's nobody to call on.
It's too late.
That's why they call it the judgment seat,
the great white throne judgment, where all of
our life will be bare before God, and
everything we mocked, everything we ridiculed.
These guys on late night TV, they mock
Christians.
It's some weak, limp-wristed, this person, this
person.
Look how they treat.
And they just mock what God has done.
And that's not biblical.
So the point I can take away from
my teen years is this.
The hope is this.
Don't delay.
Get your heart right today.
I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but
it did.
Don't delay.
And that's why I tell young adults all
the time, don't delay.
Get your heart right today.
Don't delay.
There's no, we always say, oh, there's no
for sure tomorrow.
And, oh, yeah, that's true.
And you might die in a car accident.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
But that's the truth.
There's no reason a person should delay.
And I opened up, I think, a few
weeks ago here.
A couple years ago, we had two young
adults die of a heroin overdose.
And another young mom who OD'd on pain
meds in a hotel on Sierra Highway.
And we had to go there and grab
her three-year-old out of the room
and have her three-year-old playing in
the grass while the mom lays dead waiting
for the coroner.
And I'm sitting here going, we are playing
with life and death, heaven and hell.
This is reality.
There's no delay.
Whenever you can turn your heart back to
God, you should.
It's by the sheer grace of God that
a person is allowed to continue in their
sin and mock God.
That's His sheer grace.
That's His loving grace to allow a person
to continue to do that.
So there's always an urgency in my preaching,
if you haven't figured that out yet.
There's always an urgency.
Always an urgency.
And I remember reading D.L. Moody's biography.
It said that he preaches in this auditorium,
and he didn't give a message, an invitation
for people to repent.
And that night, the Chicago fires took over
and devastated and killed, I don't even know
how many people, thousands of people.
And he said, I will never, ever again
not give an invitation for people to repent
and believe in the gospel.
The urgency.
I mean, if you think about it, there
is no way in this room, no way
in the world that I will speak to
everybody in this room again.
Some of you will not be here next
week.
Some things will not happen.
Now I see there's a lot of people
in the balcony now.
And you up there, I won't see you
again as well.
There's an urgency there.
Any time we hear God convicting us and
drawing us and wanting us to make changes,
don't wait.
Don't wait, because God doesn't say, oh, He's
not going to change.
All right, forget it.
He'll keep pressing and convicting and orchestrating circumstances
until it gets so bad, you're eating with
the pigs.
And then you'll come to yourself and turn
to Him.
So there's hope in that, though.
Don't delay.
Get your heart right today.
And that's one of the things, if you
do any studies on young adults nowadays, I
don't know how they get, compared to when
I was a young adult, I can't even
imagine.
The Internet, the bullying, the sexual perversions that
are out there, they're calling teen suicide an
epidemic.
Why doesn't that break our hearts?
I mean, that should break our hearts.
I remember two years ago or so, I
don't know exactly when it was, but there
was a man up at the front.
There was a whole group of people up
at the front, and he was weeping.
I was in the back.
And this really woke me up to the
fact of not judging people.
You know, because sometimes, well, gee, I would
never do that.
I mean, poor guy.
What's wrong with him?
And the guy, his friend who brought him
said, hey, can you go pray with him?
I said, sure, what are you going to
do?
And he said he found his son
hanging in the garage, and I couldn't pray
with him.
I just cried with him.
See, folks, that's what we deal with.
This is life.
Where's the seriousness?
Where's the heart of God to help save
these kids?
I mean, I couldn't even imagine that.
That wouldn't even cross my mind.
How do you go and cut your son
down?
Lord, is this happening?
Wake me up from this nightmare.
But this is what's happening in the church,
in the church, and as young adults are
feeding their mind with witchcraft and the occult
and darkness and seances and the devil is
going, yay, great, and they're filling their minds
with all this darkness when we should be
letting the light of the gospel penetrate their
hearts and giving them hope.
That's all they need to know.
They need to know their love and appreciate
it, and here's the hope.
Don't look at your friends who are bullying
you.
They are lost.
Get off Facebook.
Get a healthy environment in your homes.
But if you think of all the top
movies and things that kids are watching, it
has to do with witchcraft, vampires, the occult,
and we wonder, has anybody made a connection?
I see a connection here.
Vampires, the occult, witchcraft.
I love Lucy or Little House on the
Prairie.
What's going on?
Because when you feed darkness, that's what's going
to reign, and that's why they're cutting.
They'll actually just take razors and cut their
arms because it's self-humiliation.
They just feel so bad.
Nobody loves me.
When they don't realize that there's a God
who died for them, why don't we tell
them?
Why don't we tell them the truth?
Are we ashamed of the gospel?
Listen, I can show you the hope.
Here's the hope.
And then you pick one to mentor, and
you lead them in the right direction.
And they want to prescribe everything from Xanax
to this to that, and here's what they
need to know.
They need to get their mind out of
that filth and garbage and get their mind
back into the Word of God.
That's where real change takes place.
And I get psychologists mad at me all
the time.
Well, no, there's predisposition.
There's cognitive learning behavioral patterns.
Well, the Word of God changes and renews
the mind.
You are body, soul, and spirit.
As a man thinketh, so is he in
his heart.
What you put in here is what you're
getting out.
You actually can renew your mind, and you
can re-change your focus.
You can give up addictions.
You can change bitterness.
Everything by renewing your mind through the Word
of God.
I mean, either we believe it's living and
powerful, as God says, or we don't.
And it does.
It changes the mind.
It refocuses us.
And then years 18 to 28, this is
when I said, give me my inheritance.
I'm spending it.
I'm living in riotous living.
And it's interesting, the Puritans used to say
that the same sun that melts the wax
will harden the clay.
And the same Word of God that should
melt us sometimes hardens us.
And I would get harder and harder, because
my mom at this point was a praying
woman.
She was fasting.
She was praying for me.
She put the Bible on top of my
ACDC albums and Motley Crue and Metallica and
all those.
She just claimed the blood.
This is not allowed in my house.
And she would just plead.
And it actually got me harder and harder.
I didn't want anything to do with God.
Let me have fun.
Mom, don't pray for me.
Let me have fun tonight.
I want to have fun.
But then you wake up hungover and miserable,
not even knowing where you're at.
That's not fun.
That's depression.
And then you go through this cycle, because
the enemy keeps deceiving and deceiving.
So finally, at age 18, I got into
construction.
Right when I left high school, I learned
to operate heavy equipment.
My dad would seek me out in the
desert and say, here, dig a hole for
the next three hours.
And so I learned heavy equipment.
I worked underground, trenching, miles of trenching, pipeline,
utilities.
And it's very hard work.
And I thank my dad for that, because
that kind of hard work can instill very
hard work ethics.
And that's one thing I'm concerned for with
our kids growing up on this.
Or this.
I mean, give my son a shovel.
He's like, what's this for?
I mean, they would say, here's a shovel
and a digging bar.
I'll be back at lunch with blisters.
I mean, you worked hard, and you felt
good about it.
You would go home exhausted.
A day's hard work, that's what that meant.
And so I was raised in that construction
environment.
And then around 1990, I think it was
1990, well, whenever the economy collapsed.
What was that, 1990?
One or two, right in there.
And that's where I was pretty much out
of work.
And I went to college.
It lasted about a month.
And at the same, I just couldn't focus.
And really, I didn't have a passion for
it.
Now I read all the time, because I
have a passion for God's word.
But I started, because I was working out,
I started working at 24-Hour Fitness in
Lancaster in 1992, and took that work ethic
in.
And obviously, you can sell a lot of
memberships when you look the part.
And just God used that time to propel
me up into management very early.
And then they gave me multiple clubs.
Back then, it was called Family Fitness Centers.
And we were managing partners.
And you were actually, you were a partner
in the profit shareholding.
So it was very good income.
The people above me were making 25, 30
,000 a month.
And that was our goal, to retire at
40.
And they paint this picture.
And then 24-Hour Fitness, many of you
heard it, they came and they took over.
And I stayed with that.
But during this time, it was not satisfying.
I was still drinking.
I was still arrogant.
I was angry.
Money was my God.
And in that time, I got married, 1994.
I was married.
Both of us not walking with the Lord.
It lasted about four years.
And what happened was adultery and abandonment.
And God used that season in 1998 to
bring the prodigal son home.
So when I read that he was in
want, this is the point where I cried
out to God.
And God used this time to redirect my
entire life.
And throughout the next 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
those were the years that I just sought
him.
I fasted.
I prayed.
I contended for my marriage back then.
God changed my heart.
And I was praying for three years.
And this is an interesting topic because there's
not a month that goes by.
Last week, I got one.
The email said I'm on my way to
hell.
I need to repent because I'm living in
sexual sin because Jesus said there's no grounds
for adultery.
And there's a group, I'm sorry, there's no
grounds for remarriage.
There's a group that believes, say John Piper,
that remarriage is never allowed except when your
spouse dies.
And then you have people like John MacArthur
and others who see that in Jesus' statement
there that whoever divorces his wife except for
sexual immorality, in that word there's pornea.
It's not actually adultery.
In the Greek, it's pornea.
It's any sexual activity that happens outside the
context of marriage.
And what I believe, what I teach, and
what other men of God teach, and I
know there's division here, but is that there
is biblical grounds for divorce if adultery takes
place.
And there's always hope too.
I've just talked to a couple recently who
just went through this and there's hope for
building your marriage.
That's ultimately what God does.
He hates divorce.
He loves restoration.
So people think ultimately that I'm for divorce.
I'm not for divorce.
If you've read my books, if you've heard
my sermons, I am for making it work
and sticking it out.
But I believe there's a provision when God
says that a person cheats and cheats and
cheats and they abandoned you, Paul would talk
about in Corinthians that a believer's not under
bondage in such cases and they abandon that
covenant relationship that there are biblical grounds to
move forward.
Actually, they're very slim biblical grounds.
And I don't throw any of the responsibility
off on the other party.
I take full responsibility.
I was a jerk husband.
I know exactly why this happened.
Because when, happy wife, happy life, right?
So if that's not the case, we weren't
walking with the Lord, there's scriptural release there.
And that's what people don't understand.
They think that you can't remarry ever again.
But two things.
God, I believe, during that season began to
call me to the pastorate.
Because I don't know any single pastors.
Maybe there are, but I don't know any
single pastors.
So God was calling me to the pastorate.
He was also, I used three years of
praying and contending for my marriage.
I felt a release because of adultery, abandonment.
It was ongoing.
And there was a complete release there scripturally
speaking.
If you look at the scriptural course in
that case.
So it's hard to talk about this because
you do walk around like you have a
big D on your forehead.
And people don't realize that divorce is devastating.
It's painful.
And people haven't been through it, can't relate.
And there is hope for the hurting.
With that said though, we are in a
no fault divorce crisis.
Everybody's leaving for this reason or that reason.
So we at Westside are big proponents of
marriage and restoration.
God hates divorce, we know that.
And when people email me and say, I'm
going to hell, I need to repent.
I said, brother, I repented for three years.
I sought God, I fasted.
I'm convicted if I run a red light.
I was not convicted to not move forward
in my relationship.
Well, the word of God says this.
Well, it also says that a person is
released when sexual morality takes place.
You can look at John MacArthur, Chuck Smith,
wonderful Bible teachers believe that.
So I just want to emphasize that in
case there's any confusion on what is going
on in that area.
Led to divorce 1998.
And that's what God used to redirect me.
I confessed.
Because the prodigal son state is very difficult.
The Bible says no one will strengthen himself
who lives in iniquity.
And hard is the way of the transgressor.
So hope is found in returning to God.
The Bible says return to me and I
will return to you.
See, that's a promise you can take God
to the bank on.
When you return to him, he will return
to you.
There's no question there.
No question, no gray area at all.
So God used this time.
He used this time in my life to
redirect me back to him and I thank
God for him doing that.
But back to the prodigal son story, this
sentence here.
But when he had spent all, there arose
a severe famine in the land and he
began to be in want.
Thank God for famines.
Because that's when a person comes back to
God.
It's often during that famine time where God
begins to strip things away from him.
Then they come back to him.
Listen, I didn't come here this morning to
play patty cake with the devil.
I came here to pull down those unfruitful
works of darkness.
And the way you pull them down is
by exposing them.
Sometimes he keeps people into that blessings and
riotous living and that lucrative lifestyle so they
don't turn to God.
But we thank God for the famines, at
least I do in my life.
And then what happened at 29 years old,
from about 29 to current, I call it
the coming home years.
In 1999, repented, but it still took about
a year because you still have all those
old influences that are knocking at the door.
Well, no, no, I'm trying to serve God.
And I remember I'd have Christian music on
and it was this time of finally severing
everything and giving my heart to the Lord.
Once you do that, a big thing happens.
All your desires, all your interests, all your,
everything changes.
So instead of country music television that would
make me very depressed, I knew all the
George Strait songs, right, about getting drunk and
mama got out of prison and all those,
and just fill my mind with this stuff.
I don't want to watch that anymore.
I want to put on worship.
I want to put on, I want to
read the word of God.
And there was this fire and this hunger
I couldn't contain.
I just couldn't get through the Bible enough.
That's when I started reading books on systematic
theology and church history and pneumatology, which is
a study of the Holy Spirit, and sodrology,
which is a study of salvation, and hermeneutics,
how to study the Bible, homiletics, how to
preach, all these things that people tease me
because I don't have a degree.
I actually went and read all the books
that many people don't actually read.
But God gave me that hunger.
I was just getting through tons of books,
tons of biographies, and I love books on
prayer and revival and bringing that old-time
religion back to the church, following those old
paths again.
So in 1999, about 2000 is when all
this started to take place.
I eventually resigned from 24-hour fitness, gave
my notice, and that was very difficult because
it went from a very good income to
moving back in with my mom.
And you know, at 30 years old, that's
not fun.
It's humiliating.
I'm driving the new Dodge truck with the
V10.
I just built a custom home.
I had to sell everything.
To move back with her is very humiliating.
I told you before, that's when I went
and worked with my brother, digging up septic
tanks, any type of construction work I could
get.
I was a laborer, hard work.
Here's $100 for the day.
I'm like, I would make that an hour.
It's just so much humiliating.
But I was reminded, and I like what
A.W. Tozer said, it is doubtful whether
God can bless a man greatly until he
has hurt him deeply.
It is doubtful whether God can bless a
man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.
Here's why.
Hurt and humility begins to remove all the
self from our life.
When you are so humbled, and people who've
been there are going, hey man, people aren't
there saying, what's he talking about?
Well, I would just encourage you, humble yourself
under the mighty hand of God.
In due time, he will exalt you.
Because if you don't humble yourself, God will.
And humiliating, I would walk out there and
I'd be in these work clothes, and they're
like, what are you doing here working at
my house?
What happened here?
And people asking me, humiliating.
You went through a divorce?
What happened?
And just God was humiliating.
So I would go back and I would
just cry out to God and say, God,
I don't know what's going on, but you
need to rebuild me.
You need to restore me.
And from that time, in his word, he
would give me a fire, unlike anything I
felt before.
There was this, I was actually giving fitness
seminars during that time, too.
I'd speak on weight loss to groups like
this, and I would just feel this, where's
this coming from?
I just wanted to preach to the people.
And like, I can't do this.
They're wanting me to talk about carbohydrates and
exercise, and they're losing weight and getting their
body in shape.
And I'm just, repent!
And I feel this desire coming up.
And I say, God, if this is you,
you've got to redirect me.
You've got to show me, because I don't
want to keep doing this either.
Now granted, I saw and I still see
a huge parallel between our physical health and
our spiritual health.
I think that we should try to take
care of this wonderful gift that God has
given us, and not continue to treat it
as garbage and fill it with a bunch
of junk.
Because the better you feel physically, the better
you'll serve God physically as well.
So I see tremendous parallels.
I see people going through difficulty and anxiety,
panic attacks.
I'm like, well, it might be the thousand
milligrams of caffeine you're on.
Or there's cancer, and they're fighting the body,
and so you've got to stop McDonald's and
Burger King every day.
These foods actually kill you.
There's no nutritional life.
There's nothing, because it's interesting.
God created it to where the life of
the food is to be deposited into the
body.
You eat an apple, that's dying.
You get the life.
You eat a banana, that's dying.
You get the life.
The nuts.
That's when people say, what do you eat?
Anything that God created.
Because it brings life to the body.
You eat things that are designed in a
factory where a McDonald's burger can look the
same 10 years later, you're in trouble.
It doesn't give anything to you.
So we wonder why we're dealing with diabetes.
We wonder why childhood obesity's on the rise.
And that concerns me, because that's the fault
of the parent.
That's the fault of the parent.
Well, what about genetics and predisposition?
Oh, sure, there's things working against you and
me.
If it were up to me, I'd weigh
300 pounds.
But you have to bring that body into
subjection.
I think somebody by the name of Paul
said that.
I discipline my body daily, and I bring
it into subjection.
To study that reference, he's talking about beating
your body up.
I beat up my body black and blue.
I bring it into subjection.
Part of the Christian life that we forgot
about is we tell the body, no, it
doesn't lead us.
We tell the flesh, no, that's part of
fasting, is you kill the flesh.
You crucify it.
But we're led around by the flesh.
Oh, I get up in the morning.
I want a donut and a coffee.
Better go get it.
I'm led by the flesh.
I want to sit down and relax.
I'm led by the flesh.
I want to go eat.
And we're just led by the flesh all
day long.
But the Christian life is one where we
bring the flesh into submission.
So that's where God put that desire on
my heart to start preaching right then.
And I worked on it in my first
book, What Works When Diets Don't.
And it was interesting.
I met with a publisher in 2001 or
2, I think it was.
And they wanted to take it.
And I said, no, I'll just want to
do it myself.
I'm not really into fitness.
And the next book they took that year
was The Maker's Diet.
And as many of you know now, it's
a national bestseller, millions of copies.
I actually met the author last week when
he was in town and told him, hey,
you can thank me for turning down my
manuscript, and they chose yours.
And people ask, do you regret that?
Not at all.
I don't want to be the guy on
TBN selling vitamins.
I'm glad that God's called me to do
this.
But God began to put that desire to
write.
So I wrote a book on what works
for young adults, men's book, a relationship book,
One Nation Above God that shows where our
nation was and where we're going now.
The latest book is Desperate for More of
God.
And I don't promote those things at all.
It's things that God has put on my
heart.
I don't know why.
I mean, the last person who should be
writing a book is a person who barely
graduated high school who needs his mom to
edit everything.
But God says the foolishness to confound the
wise.
Because then when I get up here, and
when the books do well, I say, but
God, how do you do it?
But God, He's done everything.
Because through that brokenness and humility and that
dependent relationship, we begin to rely on Him.
It's all His work.
And that's what happened during those years.
And then obviously I met Morgan in 2001.
I encourage you to meet her on your
way out.
What a wonderful wife that God has blessed
me with.
I'm so thankful.
And it's hard to try to be the
husband that she needs because I don't feel
I measure up often because of that brokenness
in my family.
We've talked about that before.
The fractured relationship with my father.
Not knowing how to be a father.
Not knowing how to lead a family.
And God brought that together.
We have four kids that we're just so
thankful for.
And then in 2010, after much confirmation, and
running from a call to plant the church,
there's no way.
Because I pictured pastors as wearing glasses and
smiling all the time, and just these nice,
oh, let's turn to here, and what do
we have?
And I wasn't that type of preacher.
I would travel and I would preach, and
people would be saved, and to the altar,
and this fire I feel in my, I
didn't think that was a pastor.
I thought that was more of a preacher.
And so I was wrestling with God about
this, and I don't want to do it,
I don't want to do it.
I kept ignoring it.
And then finally, I think it was, I
don't know when it was, she took the
kids on a three-hour drive, and it
took me all three hours, right to the
end, to finally say, okay, Lord, if you're
doing this, if you want to plant a
church, I will, you know, I just couldn't
get it out.
Because once you tell God that, you just
redirected your destiny, and your career, and everything.
And I said, I will do it.
Okay, I will do it.
End of story.
Told my wife.
She goes, okay, well, we'll see.
And we tried a few buildings, and nothing
was available.
I said, okay, well, I tried it.
Went to lunch with the pastor of the
current church we're renting out on Saturdays, and
he said, hey, just use our building free
on Saturday nights.
Oh, man, how do you, how do you,
you know, say no to that?
But then I would tell people, like, Saturday
nights?
Nobody starts a church on Saturday nights.
Are you Seventh Day Adventist?
No, it's an open building.
But nobody church, saying nobody starts a church
on, I've never even heard of that.
I haven't either, but God.
So we start with 10 people, you know,
and God just grows it.
We're two services now, and God grows the
church, and the most miraculous thing I think
he's ever done is he took this, I
listen to myself on the radio, and sometimes
I just turn it off, because I, it's
like, I don't, it's hard to listen to
myself, because I see the insecurities, I see
the messing up, and I see I said
tonight instead of this morning, but God's used
that to where the radio reaches tens of
thousands of people each week, and the internet,
we hear from people from Australia to Uganda
to Africa to Switzerland, Canada, emails all the
time of people being transformed by his word.
So we just look at all that and
say, God, I can't believe that you're doing
this, and that's what I meant by that
state of humility and brokenness, and people say,
oh, so you're humble?
I say, no.
I'll tell you right now, I am a
prideful man working on humility by the grace
of God.
Quoting a man by the name of C
.J. Mahaney.
That's a true story.
Every man should say that.
I am a prideful man working on humility
on a daily basis, because nobody's a humble
person, because pride wants to come back up
and take us down.
So we planted the church.
We've looked for buildings in Lancaster, but God's
closed those doors, and then fast forward to
now where we're here, talking with Leona Valley
and just praying about what God has for
us.
We're fully content on whatever his will is,
and at first, like I shared before, the
first few weeks this idea came up, I
was fighting it because I never thought, I
never even pictured this.
I pictured buildings in Lancaster.
I have a background in real estate, too.
I should have added that.
God put me into real estate for a
while after 24-hour fitness and before kind
of planning the church, and that happened at
the same time.
And so I was looking for buildings, and
then this kind of opened up opportunity-wise
for both churches to benefit, and the first
two weeks, I'm like, that doesn't make any
sense.
But then I told my wife, well, if
God's in it, if he's doing this, then
I just need to step out of the
way, because I do not want to be
fighting against God, and he will direct one
way or the other.
So that really calmed my heart.
I saw that God could be doing something
like this.
I saw Pastor Steve put his house up
for sale.
It sold really quickly.
He was able to move, and you see,
so I'm watching all these pieces on how
God works and the response and the growth
and the people.
I mean, the really, how you gauge God's
will, the biggest way for me is God
being honored.
Are people being saved?
Is the captives being set free?
Are people on fire for God?
Is the church raising up the next generation
of leaders?
That screams God.
That has God written all over it.
So we look for these kind of things.
So that's where we are here.
So that's 46 years in 30 minutes.
And that's kind of my story in a
nutshell.
Of course, there's bits and pieces.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
People do have questions on the marriage and
remarriage.
I'd be happy to answer.
I'm pretty sure I've written about it in
my books.
It's in my articles.
Oh, I also write for the Christian Post
each week, Charisma News.
A lot of the major news organizations pick
up the articles that are in your bulletin.
So God's given us a national platform, Westside,
in that area.
Again, it's God.
I'm not trying to build a large ministry.
Ask my wife.
She'll tell you, I don't like it.
I don't like the limelight.
I don't like to go into Trader Joe's
and know everybody everywhere I go.
But I just, I like that, I like
to go up in the high Sierras and
go camping and hiking and fly fishing and
just to kind of get away.
But I feel that, I see that also
God has given us this ability to help
lead a church with Westside Christian Fellowship.
And it's a blessing.
I'm just sharing some of my personal struggles.
I'm not, you know, I'm not trying, I'm
not a, let's write the word is, I'm
more of an introvert.
And my wife's an extrovert and it's hard
to find that balance.
But as a closing note, I wanted to
just encourage you that hope is found in
God's faithfulness.
God is, hope is found in God's faithfulness.
This is interesting.
Back to the prodigal son story.
His father saw him and had compassion on
him.
So as the prodigal son was coming home,
it's this vision of the father waiting for
his son.
He had compassion on him and he came
and he embraced him.
The father was waiting for the son to
come home.
I think we forget about that with God.
God's not like up in the universe doing
something or hiding something He's actually waiting for
the prodigal son to come home.
So if there's anybody in here that'll hear
this or later on the radio or wherever,
if you're in that state of that prodigal
state, wondering God's going to hate me, I've
done too much damage.
No, you haven't.
All you have to do is come home.
It's a loving father saying come home.
Would you just come home?
And then people say, no, I can't.
I've done too much damage.
I'm stupid.
I've been beat up.
I have no self-esteem.
God, no, no.
You don't realize, you need to realize something.
Somebody died for you.
If you can get people to understand that
God came down from the eternity, took on
the sinful human flesh in the form of
a child and grew, born to die.
That baby was born to die for the
sins of the world.
That's why we call it imputed righteousness.
It's a big theological term.
It just means that we take on the
righteousness of Christ.
So somebody who feels heartbroken and they're lost
in drugs, they've lost their child to department
of social services and Shane, I'm gone.
No, you haven't.
All you have to do is cry out
to God and let him restore you and
rebuild you and come home.
That's the message of the prodigal.
Come home.
And that's what I just want to leave
you with.
If you're in that prodigal state, come home.
But if you're a believer and you just
need to be encouraged, let me encourage you.
Allow brokenness and humility to run its course.
Because there's too much pride in the church,
folks.
There's too much pride.
People should not be arguing and fighting each
other.
They should be spirit-filled believers on fire
for God.
And I would just encourage you, humble yourself
under the mighty hand of God.
And as I closed last night's message, I
thought it might be relevant this morning too.
I'm not going to read the whole passage.
But many of you know, it's that story
where a rich man dies and a poor
man dies.
And the rich man is saying, I'm in
torment.
I'm in hell.
And the poor man was in Abraham's bosom.
And he was enjoying eternal security now with
God.
And the rich man was, it's so hot
in this place.
Can he just dip his finger and give
me water?
And he said, no, he can't.
What about going and warning my family?
Can you tell my family not to come
to this place?
And Abraham said, they have Moses and the
prophets.
Let them minister to them.
Let them convict them.
And the man said, no, but if you
go back from the dead, and Abraham said,
not even if a man raises from the
dead, will they listen.
And it just dawned on me, can you
imagine being in this place of eternal torment
and saying, oh my God, I misled my
family this whole time.
I've got children that are on the broad
road to destruction.
Or a mom sitting there.
I've got children.
I brought new age philosophy into my home.
I never talked about God.
Oh God, please go back.
Please go back.
And warn my children.
God, please.
And it won't, because the door's been shut.
That's why this has eternal consequences.
Do you realize that Jesus Christ spoke more
about hell than heaven?
Jesus spoke more about hell than heaven, so
why do we avoid it?
Why don't we tell people there are eternal
consequences.
You won't be able to stand before God
and give a sales pitch.
You won't be able to stand before God
and say, well, what about this person?
Don't let this person.
No, this life we live, there is eternal
consequences.
There's heaven, there's hell.
There's good, there's bad.
There's evil, and there's good.
And we have to get our hearts right
with God.
And people say, Shane, you're scaring me.
And I want to say, no, I'm preparing
you.
It's okay to wake people up sometimes and
say this is the end result.
This is what's going to happen.
So I would just encourage you, like D
.L. Moody, I don't want to not give
the opportunity, but if you're here today, here
in the balcony up there, if you don't
know, if you don't know, I'm talking about
really having a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Because a lot of people in church say,
oh, I know Jesus.
He died on the cross, but they've never
repented.
And they've never confessed him as Savior and
Lord.
And you have to do both.
There's something, a big debate a while back
called the Lordship Salvation.
John MacArthur was, and people would say, well,
you can have him as your Savior, but
not your Lord.
I don't read that anywhere.
If he's not Lord of all, he's not
Lord at all.
They would call him, Jesus Christ Savior and
Lord.
He's Savior because he saved me, and then
as a result, he's Lord of my life.
And there's people in the church, there might
be people here, you've never repented, you've never
given your heart to the Lord, don't wait
until the day of judgment and say it's
too late.
You can do that this morning.
All you have to do, the Bible says,
if you confess with your mouth that Christ
is Lord and believe in your heart that
God has raised him from the dead, you
will be saved.
Not you might be saved, not God will
consider it, not he'll put you on a
lottery like we said last week.
You will be saved.
Because you're banking on a God that never
lies.
And I'm not gonna embarrass you or have
you come up front or raise your hand,
but you do have to be sincere and
you have to say, Lord, I repent.
God, I need you.
And you know what?
That's very healthy for the prodigal to say
as well.
If you're in a prodigal state, if you've
drifted from God, all you have to say
is, God, I'm sorry.
I repent.
Can I come home?
I've never ever heard him say no.
Never.
This is a loving father who's waiting.
Actually, he's waiting for you more than you're
waiting for him.
Think about that.
The Bible says, if you seek me, you
will find me.
Who does that rest on?
The person.
God's not hiding.
If there's distance, it's not God, it's the
person.
God says, if you seek me, you will
find me.
If you do this, you will do that.
It's all conditional.
If my people who are called by my
name, right, one of my favorite verses, if
you haven't figured that out.
If my people who are called by my
name, because that's a formula for revival.
Anytime that somebody wants to fix their marriage,
they want to be revived again with the
passion of God, that's a wonderful verse.
If my people who are called by my
name will humble themselves and pray and seek
my face, and don't forget about number four,
turn from their wicked ways, then I will
hear from heaven and I will heal their
land.
I wish I could put that all over
Christian television, go on CNN, Fox News.
Who are you voting for, God?
A return to Him?
And I would just encourage you, no matter
where you're at, that you just turn to
Him afresh.
What I mean by that is we have
to be continually filled with the Spirit.
It's a daily, a daily area of surrender.
The more you surrender, the more He fills
you.
The more you surrender, the more He fills
you.