July 7, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Alright. The psalms and the proverbs are called wisdom literature, and that’s because they contain, you guessed it, wisdom. And wisdom is really how to take information and knowledge and apply it in the best possible way.
And it doesn’t come necessarily with being old. There are old fools out there.
Alright. One of the advantages of growing old is if you pray for wisdom, I think your wisdom can increase as you grow old, as you observe life, and as you learn from life’s lessons.
But not everybody learns from life’s lessons. Not everybody.
And the Bible says that wisdom comes primarily from asking God, not from growing old. All right, so there you go.
But Psalm 1 starts off the whole Psalms, and it starts off the Psalms with an exhortation to plant your life in the instruction of God. And then the rest of the Psalms and the Proverbs give us the instruction of God. And the Psalms and the Proverbs basically teach us, if you’ll do this, there’s wisdom, your life will go well. It’s not an absolute. Doesn’t mean you won’t have problems.
I mean, the book of Job comes along and says, well, Job did most of that and he still had hard times. But it does mean that this is the way that God has designed for people to live in such a way that they have joy, blessing, abundance, fruitfulness, and ultimately eternal life.
And so Psalm 1 is just a great psalm to start the psalms on wisdom, on the wisdom of God and how to have a planted life. And so I’m going to read Psalm 1 to you. It may be my favorite psalm.
I don’t know. There are so many psalms I like. But I do love Psalm 1. And it says this:
1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. 2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. 3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. 4 But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. 5 They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly. 6 For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalm 1:1-6, NLT)
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock, our strength, and our redeemer.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14, NLT)
And so I love this. I love this psalm. It starts out, oh, how joyful or how blessed is. And then it says, people who don’t do these three things. It starts off with a negative.
It reminds me all my movie illustrations are old movies. I haven’t watched a new movie in 40 years, few exceptions, but this one’s a classic. And it was from way before I was born. And it comes from mix time. And so, you know, this is the. This is the. This is the movie.
And now I can’t even remember. Oh, the quiet man with John Wayne. Yeah. See, I knew Mick would know it. It’s a great movie. It’s a great movie. The quiet man with John Wayne. And it’s about an Irish American.
He goes over to America. He immigrated from Ireland to America and becomes a boxer. In the boxing ring, he accidentally kills a man. He’s filled with remorse. As a way to reorient his life, he’s made plenty of money boxing. He’s got enough money to live on for the rest of his life. He goes back to the simple life of Ireland, and it’s not that simple, because he falls in love with a woman.
And for all the charms and beauty and grace and all the wonderful things that women add to the life of us men, I just need to say, simplicity is not at the top of the list. Just saying. But don’t worry. All the other blessings way outweigh that.
But he comes back looking for the simple life, but he falls in love with the woman. He doesn’t get the simple life, but he does get the woman. And that’s better. That’s a better prize.
But at the beginning of the movie, he gets off the train.
And how do you get to Innisfree? How do you get to this little village? You know, how do you get to this place? I’m going.
And the conductor in the beautiful Irish brogue says, well, let me tell you something. You see that path there? He goes, yeah. And it goes over. Goes over that hill there, and it goes across the brook down the way. He goes, yeah. He goes, well, don’t take that. He wants nothing to do with that.
That’s how Psalm 1 starts. It starts off with, blessed is the man.
Joyful is the man who. And you’re expecting, all right, who does what? And then he goes, don’t do this. And three things he says, three descriptions he gives. He says blessed is the man who does not take the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners or join in with the mockers.
Blessed is the man who does not take the advice of the wicked. And we’ve talked about this before, wickedness. When wickedness is spoken of in the Bible, it doesn’t necessarily mean what it usually conjures up in our minds.
In our minds, when we think of wicked, we tend to think of people doing really horrible things. But the root of wickedness, it leads to horrible things, often leads to horrible things. But the root of wickedness is simply being unhinged. It’s simply being in a place where you’re not attached to that which has substance.
You’re like a ship. In fact, you’re like. You really. You’re like a ship without an anchor. Just the wind and the waves will toss you with whatever. Or as Psalm 1 says, you’re like what?
You’re like the chaff around a kernel of wheat. There’s no substance to you. There’s no weight to you. There’s nothing. You’re just blown away by the wind.
And basically, when the Bible says, don’t take the advice of the wicked, it’s saying, don’t adopt and live your life based on a worldview that has no substance. Most people don’t think of worldview, but we have one. Everybody has a worldview. A worldview is simply the lens through which we look through life. And the culture in which you live will shape a worldview.
If you’re like Ats and you are a double-cultured person, you understand this. You understand, oh, there’s a worldview in Japan, and there’s a worldview in the United States. And people look at the world. I mean, it’s the same world, and there are people, but there are differences in how people look at the world.
In fact, there’s a worldview of western Washington, and there’s a worldview of eastern Tennessee. And those worldviews are going to be different. All right? And so everybody has a worldview.
And the Bible says, blessed is the person who does not listen to a worthless worldview and adopt a worthless worldview. Most folks will simply adopt willy nilly whatever worldview is foisted upon them by the culture, the family, and the media that they are surrounded by. And the Bible says, that’s wicked. Don’t do it.
Now, there are two broad worldviews in our culture that I think are wicked, and I think the Bible would say are wicked, and they are largely adopted by our culture. The first one by people my age, baby boomers.
And we were taught a worldview. I would call it, or it’s called, materialism or naturalism or scientific naturalism or atheistic naturalism, atheistic materialism. Basically, the worldview is all that exists is matter. That’s all that we can know, that’s all that we can study, and therefore we ought to constrict our worldview to matter.
So whether you believe in God or not, functionally, your worldview is atheistic. Matter explains everything. Science, observing matter, testing matter, seeing how matter operates through the laws of physics, that explains reality.
Schools were instructed not to teach religion, not to teach God. And so schools tried as best they could to teach a neutral worldview. No such thing. To abandon a worldview is to teach another worldview.
And so we were taught this worldview not because the schools intentionally wanted to teach atheism or were intentionally anti-God. A lot of Christian teachers, I grew up with a lot of wonderful people. I’m not bashing the schools.
I’m simply saying by the very fact that they believe the Constitution of the United States and the separation, which, by the way, isn’t in the Constitution, separation of church and state. But the state shall not, the establishment clause, the state shall not establish religion, that they could not teach a worldview that had any concept of religion.
And they thought, well, we can do that fine, and families and churches can do their part. But in fact, it’s not a neutral worldview. It’s a worldview of scientific naturalism.
And I want to say that the atheistic view of scientific naturalism is a bad worldview. It’s a wicked worldview. And in fact, every naturalist who denies miracles, denies the existence of God, has to explain six miracles from their worldview.
So this will get a little, maybe a little philosophical or something. It may bore you. If it does, yawn widely, and I’ll move as quickly through it as I can. But I think this stuff is kind of interesting. And so every naturalist has to explain these things. Existence comes from non-existence.
I mean, every materialist has to admit, there’s matter, there’s energy, let there be light. A Christian worldview says, oh, yes, a pre-existent, eternally existent God spoke, created matter, energy, let there be light.
Okay, an atheist will say, well, you have no proof for God. Well, we don’t in that sense, in a naturalistic sense, but we do have this: that everything that has a beginning has a cause. And you say, well, that’s a big stretch to say a God out there said, let there be light, and there was light. Maybe that is a big stretch.
Let me tell you what’s a bigger stretch. Everything came from nothing. I’m a man of faith. But I got that faith. Everything came from nothing.
It’s one thing to say God created the heavens and the earth. Well, that takes some faith to believe that. Yeah, it might. It’s another thing that says nothing. And then there was everything. And naturalism has no explanation for that. No explanation.
The explanation before Einstein’s theory of relativity, the explanation before the Hubble telescope, the explanation before was that matter had existed eternally.
But now, almost all of science, or I think all of science, has come to the agreement that there was a beginning. Christians argue about the time of that beginning, but we all have said, yep, you finally caught up to us. There was a beginning, and everything that has a beginning has a cause.
And so miracle number one, if you hold this worldview, is that existence comes from non-existence. Order comes from chaos. Well, everything in observed nature says the opposite.
Okay, you have a yard. Does your yard get better? Do the weeds get less?
Does the lawn reach the desired height and stop? Do the edges of your lawn stay clean and edged properly as you ignore and allow the natural processes to take over your neighborhood? Take over your yard? No. What happens?
Well, I’ll tell you what happens. If you live in a neighborhood with a strict HOA, some little lady is going to come down the street with a ruler and measure your lawn, and you’re going to get a picture of your lawn and a letter of non-compliance and the threat of a fine if you don’t. What?
Bring some order to that chaos. And as much as I don’t like those little Nazi HOA ladies, they make a point. And the point is that, in fact, chaos breeds more chaos. Order comes from an orderer.
You know, the farmer was out looking at his orchard, and some guy came up and said, didn’t God do a great job creating this orchard? The farmer said he did, but he said, you know, you should have seen it before I got ahold of it.
What’s the farmer saying? I’m an orderer. I’m an orderer.
In fact, there is incredible complexity and order in the universe and the world in which we live. A naturalist has to explain how random mutations have led to more precise and defined order instead of more chaos. In everything we observe, unless you accept that as an a priori assumption to be true, the opposite is the case.
It would be like saying, if I took this and all the ingredients that made up this, and I just broke it all apart. Just took it all apart. Broke it all apart.
And then I put it in the blender, and I turned on the blender, and I let the blender run for a couple million years. After a couple million years, I opened up the blender, and the iPhone came out. Nobody believes that. Nobody believes the blender would come out. Nobody believes.
If you flew thousands of airplanes over a pristine, you know, Long Island before it was inhabited by anybody, New York City. And you.
And in those airplanes, you had cement and steel and metal and concrete. You just opened up the bomber doors on those airplanes over Manhattan. As those bombers dropped all that chaos and all those ingredients, boom, skyscrapers would appear.
The naturalist has to explain how order comes from chaos without intelligence and an orderer behind it. The naturalist has to explain how personhood, personal, comes from the non-personal. What do I mean by this? I mean, when life comes, life comes in higher forms of life with consciousness.
And they have to explain, how is it that that consciousness is differentiated from the matter that makes up that body?
Here’s what I mean by that. When somebody dies, the matter that makes up their body is still there. But we all say, and we all agree, the person has left, right?
You know, I told you the story of my mother-in-law recently dying in our house, all right? And, you know, she was there. The person was there at 3:00 in the afternoon, and at 3:30 in the afternoon, the person was no longer there.
The matter that made up her body was still there, but she was gone.
I told you I tested that, right? I told her I was going to vote for Biden. I’m not really, but I tested it, and she didn’t rise up in huge revolt and say, what do you mean you’re going to vote for Biden?
And, you know, say her beautiful. Her beautiful statement that, you know, we were going to put on her gravestone. Democrats have no common sense.
And so I figured there’s several of you out there right now, and I know who you are, who aren’t saying it, but inside you are articulating Sidney’s affirmation. You’re saying, sweet, we like your mother-in-law, sweet. I could have gotten along with her all right, but the person had left.
How does personhood enter into the non-personal? Matter is not personal. Rocks aren’t personal. How did there come a thing of first life and then consciousness and personality? No explanation. Again, how does life come from non-life?
Anybody grow up with a theory that there was some primordial swamp, and it got hit by lightning, and that brought together the proteins and the acids necessary to create the first cell? Wonderful theory. Nobody believes it anymore. Nobody believes it. It’s like, nah, that didn’t happen.
The goalpost about how life first emerged on earth apart from God, the scientific goalpost for that is actually every year moving further and further away from a purely naturalistic viewpoint. It’s like, nah, proteins and acids and molecules don’t work that way. They don’t come together to form a cell.
They actually move in such a direction that they move apart. How does life come from non-life? I’ve heard this one. Well, it was aliens. Well, that’s the dumbest answer ever. Because what does that do? That just begs the question. Right, exactly.
Sidney, sweet, you know what begs the question means. I know. See, I’ve always said you had a good mind. Thanks. Reason comes from non-reason. How is it that our brains can actually… How is it that an atheist can come up with the ideas of atheism and naturalism?
How is it that atheists can study the universe and measure the laws of physics, and non-atheists as well, and make reasonable arguments?
How is it that atheists can debate theists about whether or not God exists and use reason? In fact, if everything that’s going on between their ears is simply the billions and billions of years of random mutations in the soft gray computer between your ears that simply exist as random mutations, and there’s no individuality to it, there’s no real person to it. It’s just matter. It’s just matter.
Well, if it’s just matter, why do you trust the reason there? It’s just how the electrons ended up firing off in your computer. Why argue? Why argue? Why do you trust it? It’s just the product of billions of years of accidents in matter and nature.
And finally, how does morality come from matter? How does morality come from matter? How is it if you kick the atheist in the shin and he says, don’t do that? Why? It’s wrong. No, it’s not wrong. It’s just what my body, my matter said to do.
In fact, every argument being made today to embrace perversity and different sexual identities. Okay, what’s the basic argument that we hear for the sexual revolution, the gender revolution that we’re undergoing today? This is who I am. Well, why is it who you are? It’s because this is what I feel.
Okay, if that’s the bottom line argument, where are the breaks? Pedophile. This is who every pedophile I’ve met has said. This is what I naturally feel. I didn’t teach myself this. This is what I feel. Rapist. Every rapist. This is what I naturally feel.
Every serial killer. This is what I naturally feel. I’ve heard people say, be your authentic self. I’ve seen the authentic self that lives inside of here. No, I want to be the Jesus self, the authentic self that lives inside of here. You would not like. You think, well, we don’t like you anyway. But it would be worse. It would be worse.
Kevin, you’re just. You’re sarcastic. I’d be worse. I’m telling you. You know, Jill would not have hung around for 43 years with the authentic self.
Listen, I hope this is true for you because this is true for me. I don’t say everything that comes up on the screen. I sometimes say too much of what comes up on the screen. I don’t always edit perfectly, but I don’t say everything that comes up on the screen.
Listen, you know, my, you know, my, my wife, she never put me through this test, but I know men. You know, it’s like, don’t say everything that comes up on the screen. Your wife comes out and says, does this dress make me look fat?
Don’t say everything that comes up on the screen. All right? Don’t say no, it’s your butt that makes you look fat. Don’t say that. It’s a bad answer. Just ignore. Just pretend you didn’t hear.
For years, she’s known that you don’t hear everything. You’ve got an excuse. Now, how does right and wrong come from mere matter? In fact, we don’t ascribe right and wrong to our pets. We train our pets. We even use words like bad boy or, you know, good boy, good dog. But you know what?
We just kind of assume, oh, they’re just doing what comes naturally to them. But with human beings, we say, no, you need to restrain that behavior and practice that behavior.
Atheists say, you need to restrain that behavior. Well, where does that come from? In matter? It doesn’t. There’s no morality in matter. It only comes when God says, this is what’s right and true. This is what’s broke and wrong.
So naturalism is a wicked worldview. Postmodernism, don’t worry, I won’t take as long on this one.
Because postmodernism is simply naturalism from people who don’t want to admit that they’re naturalist. Postmodernism is not my generation. It’s my kids’ generation.
Postmodernism says two absurd things. Basically, they say there is no metanarrative, there is no grand worldview that speaks of the truth. And of course, the minute you say that, what did you just do? You created a new metanarrative. Here’s my metanarrative, here’s my grand scheme.
And then the one that gets me. And people are catching on. They don’t say this as much, but they used to say it all the time.
You know, pastor, there are no absolutes. And I love that statement because I always come back with this question: Are you absolutely sure there’s no absolutes? And they say, yes, I’m absolutely sure. And you can keep pressing it and see how long it takes, right, to go, well, I guess there’s one, you know, the one I just made up. In fact, it’s nonsense.
Don’t be like, don’t take the advice of the wicked. Don’t adopt an empty worldview, but be intentional about how you think about what’s true and what’s real. Truth matters. Truth matters.
Don’t join in with sinners. It’s gonna. This is not as good. It’s gonna be. This is gonna be quick. Don’t join in with sinners.
Well, Jesus says be a friend of sinners. Yes. Be a friend of sinners. Well, where do I draw the line? Can I go to bars? You know, some people say, oh, don’t go to bars. I think you’re fine going to bars. I think Jesus would go to bars. I think you should go to bars.
Well, you know, should I go? You know, where should I not go?
I don’t know where you should not go. Well, they sin there. Okay, now I know what to do. Don’t do that. Go to bars. Okay. Go to bars. Well, they get drunk there. Yeah. Don’t get drunk. Be friends with sinners. Don’t sin. Right.
Now, I know that’s complex. That’s deep. You have to meditate over that for a while. But seriously, right? It’s not that hard. I mean, it may be hard to do, but the concept’s not that hard.
When the psalm says, don’t stand with sinners, what it’s saying there is, you don’t participate in the lifestyle. You don’t go there and behave in such a way. But Jesus comes and he befriends sinners. He hangs out with prostitutes. He befriends prostitutes. Oh, my gosh. Do you know what kind of woman you’re standing next to? Yes, I do, and so does the father. And the father wants her as a daughter. And I am going to make, you know, Jesus. You know, and people will say to us Christians, will you judge sinners?
It’s like, no, no, listen. Jesus didn’t hang out with sinners to accept their identity and encourage their sinfulness. He hung out with sinners to love them and invite them into repentance in a new way of life and so should we. Don’t isolate yourself at church and none of it. Most of us can’t. We got jobs, we got lives, we got neighborhoods.
Well, be a part of the workplace, be a part of the locker or be a part of the water cooler conversation, and be a part of the neighborhood conversation. You know, join in and be a part, and I’ll tell you, I have had the best Jesus conversations over the last ten years of my life at cigar bars. I’m just sitting there smoking a cigar, which, by the way, is not a sin. That’s a sin. It’s like, show me in the Bible.
You know, I think it is an offering of incense and a pleasing aroma to the Lord. But I’m sitting there, and guys would be talking, and they’d be dropping f bombs right and left.
And here’s what I do. I don’t drop the f bombs. I don’t talk like that. I think it’s rude to talk like that. I think it’s offensive to talk like that. I think it’s a sin to talk in those kinds of terms.
And then the conversation inevitably, it’s so fun. This is so fun.
After they’ve been spending an hour dropping f bombs and complaining about their boss or their wives and telling dirty stories, and I’m just sitting there listening, then they say, hey man, what do you do? I’m a pastor. It’s so fun to see the color come out of their face. And then they, oh, man, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I say, I don’t come here expecting people to talk my language. But then here’s what happens.
After they get over the embarrassment, they start saying, yeah, man, I was divorced three years ago, and I don’t know how to connect with my kids. I love my kids still. And, you know, it’s hard and I listen.
At the end, all of a sudden this guy was dropping f bombs and had the world all figured out. At the end he goes, hey, I got to go. I said, yeah, I’m going to go too. He said, hey man, before you go, you want to pray? And the guy’s like, yeah, you’ll pray with me?
Yeah, I’ll pray. Give me your kids’ names. We’re gonna pray for your kids. And you get done. And these guys’ eyes are moist, right?
Hey, thanks, man. You’re gonna come back here? You betcha. You betcha. That is not an isolated conversation that I have had. Because I hang out with sinners. I know where to find them. They’re everywhere. It’s real simple.
Don’t stand with the sinners. Don’t join in their sin. But Jesus says, be friends of sinners. Absolutely. And finally, he says, don’t be a mocker. Don’t join in with the mockers.
Whenever the Bible talks about mockers, it’s about mocking the holy, about mocking the things of God. It’s not about joking or teasing or anything. It’s about mocking the things of God.
And when you mock the things of God, there is an air of arrogance. And I would say of all these sins, wickedness, participating with sinners, the most dangerous is mocking. Because mocking then is the arrogance that comes closest to blaspheming the Holy Spirit. It comes closest to seeing God actually work and saying, that’s not God. I’m more clever than that.
Nobody is more dangerous, in my experience, than this, than seminary students. Seminary students are the most. There’s no pride worse than spiritual pride. When I was in seminary and others were, and I was hanging around with seminary, we thought we were so smart. We thought we knew so much about, you know, God and the ways of God.
How many of you are familiar with the Christian Broadcasting Network? Not CBN, but the other one, TBN, Trinity Broadcasting Network. They were run by charismatics.
And these charismatics weren’t brilliant theologians who ran that at all, but they were, you know, and we would look at them and in our arrogance, we would watch those shows.
But instead of watching those shows to be edified or hearing about what good thing God was doing, we would watch those shows and we’d play a little game because we were so smart and we knew the Bible so well, and we were so deep, we’d watch those shows and we’d play a game called name that heresy.
We knew all the historic heresies.
But I’ll tell you, as I watched those shows, I was attracted to one person who, to this day, I don’t think is a good preacher. He doesn’t espouse deep theological truths that move me or inspire me. But I’ll tell you what. When he would get done talking, which I was always relieved he did, and he would turn to the choir and wave his coat and say, touch, three-fourths of the choir would fall. There’s something in me that goes, what the.
Now I got to tell you something. I say, what the? But I never finish it. So you don’t have to get nervous. My wife, when I say, what the? She’s like, don’t go there. What the, I’d watch that. And I’d just go, what the?
And I’d hear the critics of this guy and say, oh, that’s psychosomatic. That’s what hypnotism are. Those people were pre-programmed. They say, hey, when he does this, you guys fall. It’s not true. I’ve been to those meetings now, I’ve been in those crowds now.
I’ve been one of the people that’s fallen now. And nobody told me beforehand, oh, you fall. And I’ve been with people who said to me, oh, I don’t fall. I’m not going to fall. And I felt the power.
Is it the power of the devil or is it the power of God? That’s the next criticism. Oh, that’s the devil. That’s the devil. Well, I don’t know, because I saw people get healed of terminal diseases and crippling diseases at those meetings, and they were healed in the name of Jesus.
And I’ll never forget watching one of those television programs. And a little girl came up with rheumatoid arthritis at ten years old. And you watch and you go, this girl ain’t faking. She’s stunted in her growth. She’s in a wheelchair, her mom’s car. These are people, right? And she’s all crippled up.
And this flamboyant healing evangelist, who still to this day comes under much criticism, and maybe some of it is justified, begins to pray for her. She begins to cry as her hands begin to move, and her mom begins to cry. Her mom says, I brought her three years ago to one of your events, and you didn’t have time to pray for her. She said, I went home devastated. She said, the Lord spoke to me and said, it’s not the time yet, but the time’s going to come.
And that night was her time. And that little girl got healed of rheumatoid arthritis. And I began to cry. This was back when I had testosterone and didn’t cry. It would be no big thing now for me to cry.
I did a friend’s funeral the other day. It’s so funny. My wife and I, we’ve completely flip-flopped. When we were newly married, she cried all the time. I would mock her, like, oh, you crying, you girly girl. Now, she spent 20 years working 911. She didn’t cry at anything.
She’s like, she’s like cop hardened. And I’m now, you know, I’m now just a soft, you know, sentimental old man. And, you know, a commercial comes on TV.
But I was, you know, this, this friend, he… I buried my friend. I did his funeral, and his son came up and gave a moving testimony. I told my wife a story about what the son shared about his father, my friend. And I began to cry as I was telling this story.
And then his father showed up at the door, and they spent the day together. They spent the day together. And my wife’s laughing at me, you big wood. It’s like, shut up. But this was back in the day when I wasn’t like that. I never cried, but I began to cry at this girl’s healing.
I heard the voice of God. Kevin, has that ever happened in your ministry? No. Would you want it to?
Well, what kind of Munster wouldn’t, what kind of monster wouldn’t want to see a little girl with rheumatoid arthritis stretch out her fingers for the first time in ten years?
I said with all my heart, I want it to. And I felt like the Lord gave me this rebuke. Stop criticizing and learn. And ever since then, I’ve tried to learn.
And I’m not going to sacrifice theology. I’m not going to sacrifice what I believe to be biblical and orthodox. That’s dear to me. But I’ll tell you what.
The places that parade their orthodoxy the most, I don’t see that. Sometimes the places that get criticized the most by the online guardians of the faith are the places where people get out of wheelchairs.
And I got to say, I’m not going to be a mocker of that anymore. I might not have all the answers. And I’m not saying there are false signs and wonders and miracles. They are. There’s such a thing.
But, you know, I’ve seen some amazing stuff. And so I do not want to mock the holy.
I want to never lose my wonder at what a good God can do.
All right, three things not to do, then. Don’t take the advice of the wicked. Don’t join with the sinners. Don’t mock the holy.
What do we do? Well, we ground our lives in the logos of God. Blessed is the one who delights in the law of the Lord, Old Testament, in the law of the Lord, in the Torah, in the stories of God, and the law of God, who takes the wisdom of God. And they intentionally invest their lives.
What does that mean? For us Christians? Blessed is the one who invests their lives in the Scriptures, Old and New Testament, who invests their lives in Jesus. That’s where you’re blessed and that’s where you’re called to be intentional.
Be intentional about grounding your life in Jesus. Don’t be wicked. Wicked simply lets the wind and the waves take you wherever they will. They simply let the culture and the world that you live in take you wherever it will. They don’t question things. They don’t ask. They don’t say, what does God say about that?
What does the Bible say about that? What does Jesus say about that? I want my life to be intentionally grounded in the worldview and logos of God.
And the Bible says you’re like a tree planted by streams of water. That’s where life, that’s the rootedness. It’s the exact opposite of wickedness. Wickedness is unhinged, unrooted, unanchored, like chaff.
But the intentional investing of our lives in the things. And I’m preaching to the choir tonight. You’re here. You’re here. If you’re here, you’re doing that to some extent. Good for you. Sweet.
My daughter-in-law will come to me again, a dangerous question. What is it, ladies? Do they, like, do you go to dangerous question school? It’s like, hey, here’s a question that’ll get a man in trouble, make him sweat.
My daughter-in-law comes to me and she’ll tell me about her and my son’s strategy in parenting and then ask me if I think it’s okay. It’s a dangerous question, right? Because if I disagree, then I got a spat with my daughter-in-law. And, you know, it’s like.
And if you agree, it’s like, well, do you really think so? I got my answer. I know my answer. Here’s my answer. And it’s actually true. I’m not lying.
I say, the very fact that you and Michael are intentional about that is already a sign that you’re good parents. And the strategy that you employ is not nearly as important to me as the fact that you are intentional parents. See? Clever, huh? I’m clever.
And she goes, you say that all the time. I say, you’re right, and I always will. And it’s true.
When I was in Oakdale, pastor in Oakdale, homeschooling was becoming popular. And there would be the debate. And I got to say, I’m not picking on anybody, but the most stringent and militant of the homeschool debaters weren’t the public school teachers. It was the homeschool moms. All right, my homeschool mom, like, this is the way, the only way, you know, and all that, like, all right. And they’d always. And everybody tried to recruit me.
We had a lot of public school officials and teachers in our church, and they’re like, we’re okay, aren’t we, Kevin? Yes, you’re great. I love the fact that you are there. I love the fact that light is there.
And we’d have Christian schools, you know. Well, we take our kids, and we have the homeschool moms, and we have the whole thing. The homeschool dads, too. But I’m just saying, you know.
But here was my deal. I said, I don’t have a dog in this fight.
Here’s my only thing. Parents, not the government, are the best people to make the decisions about what’s best for their children’s education. That was my. That’s the dog I had in the fight.
Parents need to have the power to do what’s best for their children. And we had one lady, she had three daughters. One went to the public high school, one went to a private Christian school, and the other was homeschooled.
And I thought, she knows what she’s doing, or she’s just a crazy woman, but I think she knows what she’s doing, because she was looking at as an intentional mother. She was looking at each of her children saying, where will they thrive? Where will they do best? What will help them the best? And I’m going to place them in that situation.
Be intentional about walking with the logos, the word Jesus. And so you apply the Christian disciplines. You use the disciplines not legalistically, but lovingly, because God.
Well, how do we be intentional?
Well, you know, there’s something, you know, read the Bible. That’s a good start.
When I first became a Christian, my mentor said, have a daily quiet time. What does that mean? Read the Bible every day and pray. Now, I later learned in life that was not the sum total of Christian discipleship, but you know what? It wasn’t wrong either.
But here’s what happened. As I read the Bible and I prayed, when I first started, I had that first love experience. Oh, the Bible is awesome. And God’s talking to me, and this is great.
And I pray, and he answers my prayer. And then about two, three years into it, what happened? I was reading the Bible. It’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Okay, I got that done. And I was saying my prayers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that done. And all of a sudden, it was dry and dusty.
And so here’s what I’ve discovered. Jesus talks about it to the church of Ephesus. Be intentional about first love.
And so, read the Bible, say your prayers, go to church, serve the poor, share your faith, be generous with your money. All the Christian disciplines, all the things Christians normally do, just avoid doing them legalistically. Do them lovingly.
And you’ve heard me. This is Kevinism. You’ve heard it a hundred times, but you know you’re going to hear it 101, dear ones. You’re not going to ever come to this church and have me say you have to read your Bible. You’re not going to hear me say you got to say your prayers.
You’re going to hear me say, what you get to makes all the difference.
God wrote a book. Hey, I want to read that book. The God of the universe says, when you turn to me in prayers, I hear from heaven and answer your prayers, and I am present with you because I love you.
Well, I’d like to hang out with. I love to hang out with people who love me. Those are the best people to hang out with. You know, I hate to hang out with people who hate me.
I love hanging out with people who love me. And so, practice the Christian disciplines. Walk with Jesus. Be intentional about the logos. Just don’t become a legalist about it, because then you become obnoxious. Just keep the relationship fresh.
All right. Nothing would be worse if I took my wife out on a date and said, yeah, I got to get this one done. But when I take her out on the date, I actually take her out on a date to enjoy her.
I like her company, and we laugh and we have a good time, and it’s fun. And we now live in a world with the four best worlds ever. And some of you are going to reach that world at some point. No pets, no kids. It’s a great world. It’s a great world.
All right, so, Sydney, when you leave, your parents are going to cry. It’s like, oh, Sydney’s gone. We’re going to miss her. And then two weeks later, they go, it’s okay. Kind of like when Sean left, you were like, oh, he’s going to leave.
And now it’s like, it’s okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. What are the results of this? The Bible says you have a joyful life. This is the way to the, you know what’s Joel Osteen’s phrase, your best life. Now this is the way to your best life. Now listen, following Jesus is not just the way to eternal life, it’s the way to eternal life. Well, it is. And eternal life starts now. You are not going to live a better life on this earth.
Don’t wait till you die to convert to go to the good place because you’ll feel like you’ll miss out on all the fun. And so you’re betting, well, maybe when I die I’ll have time to convert. No, no, no.
You’ll have all the fun you want. You will have the best possible life. You can live in this world and you can live in the next.
Is being a friend of Jesus intentionally investing yourself in the logos of God? Just do it. You will have a joyful life. You will have a fruitful life.
It will matter for all eternity. You will have a successful life not based on what our worldview and our culture says is successful, but based on what the Bible says is successful.
All right? It doesn’t mean you’ll just get rich. Listen, I love America. America is the best place to live. I’ve been to other countries. I’m going to Africa in October. I don’t want to go. Why don’t I want to go? Because I love being in America.
I love hot water. I love conveniences. I love Coke Zero. You know, I love watching baseball highlights at night on my TV that streams millions of channels. I love it all. I love a soft bed. I love America.
But I’m going to go because my friends asked me to, and I told God because part of investing for me in the Logos is obeying God. And I told God, anytime anybody asks me to preach, unless providentially I can’t, I’m going to do it.
So by the way, if you just want me to come preach at your house and invite me, I’ll do it. Nobody raised their hand right away. Okay, that’s fine. I’ll do it. All right.
But you will have your most abundant, fruitful, successful life. Let me tell you something, America is great, but the American dream simply means work really hard. So for the few short years after you retire, you have enough money to play golf every day. That stinks.
That ain’t worth, that ain’t a life worth living. Even if you love golf, whatever your hobby is, just living so you have enough money to indulge yourself in your hobby till you die is not a successful life.
A successful life is a life that lives and bears fruit for the kingdom of God. I don’t care what your 401k says when you die. I don’t care what my 401K says when I die.
Here’s what I want to hear immediately after I die: Well done, good and faithful servant. That’s a successful life. Live for that.
Be intentional, and that’s the reward. As if you are intentional. That’s what happens. You bear fruit in season. You will live a successful life. You will live a kingdom life, and God will use you for his purposes on earth. Then you will inherit eternal life, and death will no longer be your enemy. It will be done with. Pain and suffering will be done with.
You will live in glory and in his presence and in love, and the troubles of this world will be behind you. People, it is going to be so good.
We have no eye, has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man or woman. Conceive what the Lord has prepared for us. This is the path to that.
But, dear ones, it’s not universal. Not everybody takes that path. And listen, there is no ultimate middle ground. There is no heaven kind of heaven. There is life and death, heaven or hell.
And so the results for the wicked, a wasted and useless life. A wasted and useless life. But I made all this money, wasted and useless. The rich and the poor die alike.
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? And you come under the judgment of God. It’s not that God is mean. God just tells the truth.
What did you do with the life I gave you? You wasted it. You took the advice of the wicked, you joined in with the sinners, and you arrogantly sat with the mockers, and you wasted your life. And now you’re like chaff, you’re blown away. You’re worthless. You’re eternal refuge. That’s what hell literally is. It was the garbage dump.
It was the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where they burned the garbage. Gehinna, the valley of Gehinna, that’s where we throw our trash.
God has given you a great gift in life. Blessed is the one who intentionally, with faith and obedience, roots themselves in the logos of God.
And so I want to say to you, good fruit, good on you for coming to church tonight. Good on you. Turn to somebody next to you and say, you made a wise decision tonight. You made a wise decision, all right.
You intentionally, you know, nobody came here by accident, right? You didn’t just like drive and your car ran out of gas and said, oh, I’m gonna go in that building, right? So blessed are you. Blessed are you.
So the Lord bless you tonight. And bless. And he says, all right, this is part of the intentional. Come to my table. Come to my table. Eat with me. Feed on me. This is an intentional meal, right? This is an intentional meal. I want the food of God. It’s not.
You know, a dietician wouldn’t tell you that these wafers are the healthiest thing, or the wine or the juice. But how many of you have ever gone to, like, a health food store?
Okay. All right, Ats, the rest of us. Me neither. You know, I haven’t. I’ve never gone to a health food store. Do they still exist? I don’t even know if they exist. Do health food stores exist? I don’t know, but good on you, Ats. That’s intentional. That’s good.
But I promise you, I promise you, you may not trust me as a dietitian or a nutrition expert, and that would be wise of you. That’s not my strength. But I do know this. This is the healthiest food you’re ever going to eat. This is the best food you’re ever going to eat.
On the night of his death, Jesus took the bread, and he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and he said, this is my body, which is given for you. In the same way.
After supper, he took the cup. He poured it out, gave thanks to his Father in heaven. He said this is my blood. Drink this, all of you. This is my blood. It’s the blood of the new covenant, and it is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
And when you gather together, do this, and the implication is, and I’ll be there. I will be there. I’ll be at the meal. And we believe in the meal. He’ll be there to feed us with his life. So be intentional and come and eat.
You’re invited to.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
