How To Hear When You Don’t Want to Listen

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Father, thank you for the uh awakening reality of the gospel.

It summons us Godward, it calls us out of what is ill-fitting and no longer necessary into what is proper and necessary.

And so let our lives get a little lighter.

That doesn't mean easier.

It just means that what you said, Matthew 11, of yourself is true in our experience of you.

When you said, Hey, come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and you'll find rest for your souls.

You'll get rest at a place that a new mattress won't take you to.

You said, Come and you'll find rest for your souls.

And then you said, Jesus, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And so I pray for the lightness and the ease of your being to be on us today.

And I pray this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to Exodus chapter 6.

Exodus 6 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, uh, there's one on your row.

I'm on page 48.

Uh, and if you're a guest today, let me say welcome.

My name is Neil, I'm the lead pastor here at Grand Park Way, and we are preaching through the book of Exodus, kind of episodically.

It'll pick up as we get going into the narrative as it gets uh unfolds.

But today, I want to read uh from starting in uh Exodus chapter six, verse one.

And I just want to read the first nine verses.

But while you're finding that and getting settled in and locating a pen to write stuff down, all that good stuff, I want to uh I want to say something to you.

I tell you something that happened to me this weekend.

I spoke at a men's conference in San Marcus, Texas, Friday and Saturday.

And then yesterday I was driving home.

There's two ways to get back to Sugarland from San Marcus, Texas.

You can come out of San Marcus on 35, take it left on Highway 80, and follow that for a little bit.

Then you pick up 183, which goes to Lockhart, which is where Christ's barbecue is located.

And if you've never been there, you need to go there before you die.

Amen.

Uh but but if you sail 183, it'll take you right out uh uh to the interstate in Luling, where the big Buckies is on I-10.

Uh and so if you go left on 10, yes, get I get a whoop for Buckeys.

There you go.

Uh so but and then you got you go on on I-10 for about 30 or 40 miles, and then you got options.

Most people, because they're sheep, they just get on I-10, put the cruise on 73, and they take I-10 all the way down to the Grand Parkway, get off on the Grand Parkway, go left on West Airport, and come out to my house over here.

I ain't that guy, okay?

Uh, and so I'm on the I-10 for a little bit, and then I exit on Highway 90.

You know there's Highway 90, and then there's Highway 90A.

They're not the same thing.

Highway 90 kind of parallels I-10.

But if you get off, the first chance you count on Highway 90, and then you'll see a road called, um, you'll come to a little town called Flatonia.

If you've never been to Flatonia, you need to go to Flatonia sometime because in Flatonia, there's a road 95, you go south, and if you go south on 95, it takes you, you go to a little town called Moulton.

886 people live in that town.

There will be more people at our church today than live in the whole city of Moulton.

But after Moulton, you come to a little town called Shiner.

And you know what's in Shiner, right?

A candy shop.

Y'all are all going to hell.

Bunch of lushes.

There's a candy shop there.

They make homemade candy and fudge in Shiner.

I promise you, I'm not making this up.

But if you go to Shiner, that's where you hit Highway 90A.

And you hang a left on Highway 90A, and you follow that out from Shiner, you drive for a little while, you'll come to a town called Hallettsville.

Hallettsville's home of the fighting Brahmas, okay?

And after Hallettsville, you drive a little bit further on Highway 90A, you'll come to Eagle Lake, and right there at the big light, there's a Buckeys right there.

Got plenty of Buckeys everywhere you go, because God's a good God.

Amen.

But after Eagle Lake, and you start thinking, okay, what do I got to do this week?

What I got going on Tuesday, Wednesday, blah, blah, blah.

You come to a town called East Bernard.

Can I get an amen for East Bernard?

It's also home of the fighting brummers, okay?

And in East Bernard's a little joint.

I can't remember the name of it.

It's a barbecue place slash grocery store slash Vincent's, thank you.

And they have this summer sausage that's rolled in cracked black pepper.

Now, if you've stopped in Shiner, you've got to stop here.

Because they also have jalapeno cheese.

I mean, yeah, jalapeno cheese summer sausage, dry summer sauce, all kinds at the meat market, and you can get them to cut it as thick or as thin as you want.

They got cut you off a piece and hand it to you and say, there you go, they'll help you make your mind up.

You'll be like, nah, I want all of it.

And then after East Bernard, you get to Rosenberg, and then you get to Richmond, and then you get to Sugarland.

Now you're probably thinking, why do you tell us this?

Because coming home from San Marcus is like reading the Bible.

If you read the Bible, most people don't really ever they stay on the interstate.

They read kind of the same 10 or 15 stories in the Bible they're really familiar with.

And rarely do you get off the interstate and take a side road.

And so today I want us to take a little side road and get off the beaten path.

I want us to look at something that we don't look at very often in the church, but every one of us in this room feels at some point.

If you haven't felt it, you may be going through it right now.

Your time will come.

I want to talk to you this morning about how to hear when you don't want to listen.

How to hear when you don't want to listen.

The Bible says this in uh Exodus chapter 6.

Exodus 6 · chapter mention

Uh we'll start reading Acts at the end of chapter 5 and verse 22.

Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, Oh Lord, why have you done evil to the people?

Why did you ever send me?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he's not done evil to this people, he has done evil to this people, and have not, you have not delivered your people at all.

But the Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.

For with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out with his hand uh out of his land.

God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty.

But by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them.

I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they live as sojourners.

Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

Say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment, and I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

I will bring you into the lamb that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

I will give it to you for a possession.

I am the Lord.

Verse 9.

Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and their harsh slavery.

They did not.

Now you would think, just take that in for just a minute.

The Bible says that God speaks to Moses and says, Here's these incredible things I'm gonna do.

You go tell the people, they go tell the people.

And the Bible says that the people did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and their harsh slavery.

What do I mean?

How to hear when you don't want to listen?

There will come times in your life where your circumstances are so difficult, so overwhelming, so just, are you kidding me?

Can one other thing go wrong in our lives right now that you're so overwhelmed, you don't want to hear anybody?

As a matter of fact, you're so low that when you get around happy people, you want to harm them physically.

You just kind of, you don't say anything.

You just kind of look at them and you just think, really, really, is this real?

Because I'm just telling you, if you knew half of what I was walking in, you wouldn't be so chipper there, Skippy.

So just ratchet it down if you're not just.

Of course, you don't say that.

You just kind of stew in your juices there.

Just kind of like, what do you do?

Well, let me point out a couple of things, and then I want to get to the one verse that I want to talk about.

First of all, I want you to notice in verse 2 uh when God says, I am the Lord, this is the first time in Exodus that God reveals himself by his name.

Back in chapter 3, he said, Moses said, Who shall I tell them sent me?

And God says, Tell them, I am sent you.

And he says, I am that I am.

But here, God says, by the way, I told you earlier, I am that I am, but now I want you to know what I mean by that.

I am the Lord.

Now, if God says, I am the Lord, where's the good news in that?

The freedom in that is you don't have to be.

You don't have to be in charge of the world.

Somebody else runs the world and they do a pretty good job at it.

My wife says to me with a smile on her face often, hey, hey, the job of general manager of the universe has already been taken.

And I'm like, I hear you.

But God says right here in verse 2, he says, I am the Lord.

He tells him two things.

Number one, he tells him his name, and then he reminds him, I've given you my word.

Here's my name, and here's my word.

What's his word?

It's the covenant.

He says, Hey, I made myself known to you.

He said, I spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I didn't make myself known to them like I'm making myself known to you.

But he said, I also, but what I did do was I established a covenant with them.

So God gives them his name and he gives them his word, okay?

Then I want you to notice in verse 6 to 8, there's seven I wills in these verses.

Seven times, and they're bracketed by God saying, I am the Lord, and then seven times God says, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.

And then it ends with, I am the Lord.

And now think just for a second.

If there were seven things that you've been wanting God to do in your life, in the life of your kids, in the life of your family, what if God said, You can ask me for any seven things and I will do those seven things, what would you ask him for?

Just think about that for a second.

Because these are things that the children of Israel have heard about their entire lives.

And all of a sudden Moses shows up and says, Hey, God says, Go tell them this.

I am the Lord, and I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I am the Lord.

And Moses goes to the people, and the Bible says this in verse 9.

Moses spoke thus to the people, uh, but they did not listen to Moses.

Why?

Because of their broken spirit and their harsh slavery.

These seven I will statements go into four categories.

Let me just give them to you briefly.

Number one, uh, liberation.

Liberation, that's the first two.

When he says, I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them.

What does that mean for us today?

Look at me, beloved.

Whatever you're feeling right now, if you're going through a hard time, a difficult patch, a low point, you will not always feel the way you feel right now.

And you need some people around you to kind of look at you and kind of go, hey, it's not always going to be this crazy.

It's just not.

God says, hey, liberation is the first category.

Second one is redemption.

Redemption.

It's what he says when he says, hey, I will deliver you from slavery and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

Third one is adoption.

Is adoption.

Look what God says.

He says, I will take you as my people.

Verse 7, I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Now, we talk a lot in the church about adoption.

I could talk to you about the theological ramifications of adoption, but if you want to understand adoption, find a little kid about five years old and take them to the animal shelter.

And say to them when you get in the animal shelter, you can play with all the dogs in here for five minutes.

And then at the end of the day, you can only take one of them home.

Some of y'all are like, I don't get it.

You've never taken a kid to the animal shelter, have you?

When I grew up, they called it the dog pound, but that's apparently not politically correct.

And so, because every year when in December, when we go see my in-laws for for about four or five days over the holidays, one of the things my kids want to do is they want to go to the animal shelter.

I don't get it because we have two dogs.

But apparently we've had these dogs for five years and they're not sexy, fun, shiny anymore.

And my kids want to go, and the dogs are in these cages and they get down their knees.

Oh, yeah.

My kids always gravitate to the kid, to the dog's got three legs, got his tail chewed off by a pit bull, got one eye gouged out in a dog fight, and it's gotten maned, and it hops around, and it makes noise when it breathes, like, uh, uh, uh.

I'm like, that dog sounds like my father-in-law snoring right there.

And my kids always ask the same question, Dad, can we get this one?

And I'm, I gotta be the bad cop because my wife, she's a bad parent, takes my kids to the animal shelter and just kind of sets back and goes, Okay, girls, look around.

For what?

What are we looking for?

We got dogs, okay?

You don't even, I gotta tell you every day, feed these dogs you've got.

You don't love these dogs.

Who makes you think you're gonna love that dog?

But daddy, he doesn't have a home.

I want somebody to take me home from the dog panel.

And so I'm just kind of sitting there, just kind of thinking, and my wife just lets this spool out because she's the irresponsible parent.

And I gotta be the one who says, okay, time's up, because for me, this is just make-believe.

We ain't taking a dog home.

Because we got two dogs.

We got a cat.

Oh, Dad, look over here.

There's 66 kittens in a box.

There's a lot of unwanted things in the world, ladies.

Get used to that.

And my wife's like, Really?

That's your take on that?

I'm like, really?

This is the way you parent these kids?

And we'll go again this December.

We went last December.

We went to two different animal shelters because they wanted to see more dogs.

Now you should be wondering, why am I telling you this?

Because if you want to understand God's heart for adoption, you watch a kid go to the animal shelter, because here's what happens: they can't fathom not doing something about all these unwanted animals.

And the Bible says, when God adopted Israel, he says, You were like a baby that was born and just thrown out into the field.

No one even cleansed you up.

And God says, I came along and I adopted you.

Translation, I wanted you when no one else wanted you.

When you feel like you're not worth being wanted, God says, I want you.

That's adoption, beloved.

The last category that these statements fall into is possession.

God says, I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession.

Now, I read and preach from the ESV, the English Standard Version, and it kind of misses the beauty of this passage.

So anybody in this room have the New International Version, the NIV?

Could I see your hand?

You got that version of the Bible.

Does it not say in the NIV, the phrase they leave out of my translation is this?

God says, I swore with uplifted hand.

Isn't that what it says?

Hello?

Yeah, with uplifted hand.

What does that mean?

What that means, Jerry Ryder, is that you ever seen anybody sworn in?

They put their hand in the Bible, they say, Raise your right hand, put your hand in the Bible.

Do you sold me swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you, God?

I do.

God, he's talking about the covenant he made with Abram back way back in Genesis.

God says, I swore with uplifted hand.

I used to have a preaching professor in college that would say, Hey, when God's got his hand up, you need to drill down.

Build your life on these things, boys.

Build your life when God says, I swore, because that is going to come to pass.

God says, Hey, these things, these I will statements, they are as certain as my nature.

Why?

Because I swore.

Now, what does God swear by?

Remember when you were a little kid and you'd be in dispute about something, somebody say you're lying, and they go, You swear on your mother's heart?

That's what my little thug, white trash friends would say.

And I was like, I don't even like my stepmom.

I swear on her heart, I don't care.

And then there was a day a little Italian kid came to East Texas and he used to say, You swear on your mother's eyes?

And I was like, What are you?

In the mob or something?

Now, what does God swear by?

Why does God swear by himself?

That's exactly right.

The Bible says, God says, hey, here's why God swears by himself.

Because he says, hey, he looked around and he says this, since I found nothing greater to swear by, hello.

God says there's nothing as certain as me.

Now, either you're really arrogant or you're God.

To actually believe that.

God says, since there's nothing greater to swear by, I swore by myself.

That's how certain these things are.

Why do you tell us all that?

To get to this.

This is what I mean when I say how to hear when you don't want to listen.

Look at verse 9 again.

We're about done.

You with me?

Y'all are like, you're not about done.

We've been here before.

We're not falling for your tricks.

Gotta watch old Gus.

He's tricky here.

Look at verse 9.

Look at what he says.

After he says all this, I will, I will, I will, and then he says, I am the Lord, verse 9.

Moses spoke thus.

That means Moses said these exact things to the people, and the people were so beat down.

The Bible says, because of their broken spirit and their harsh slavery.

That phrase, broken spirit, that's the Hebrew word, kotseir.

Kotsir.

Broken is koatsir.

Spirit is ruha.

And their broken spirit.

Literal translation from the Hebrew is their shortness of spirit.

Their shortness of spirit.

In other words, they just couldn't take anymore.

They said, yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up.

We don't want to hear this.

Now, contrast that with the last time God spoke at the end of chapter 4, and the people were so moved.

The Bible says they put their faith in God and then they bowed their heads to the ground and worshiped God.

And then Pharaoh comes along and says, Now I want you to make bricks without straw.

And now are we not going to give you straw?

You got to go find your straw, and the quota is not going to be lowered.

It's your boss that comes along and says, Hey, you know, the Dow dropping a thousand points.

I want you to come in an hour early, stay an hour late.

We're going to lay off this department, merge this work with your department, and so I'm going to need you to do twice as much for the same pay.

And you start thinking in your gut, I about taking all I'm going to take from you.

Coach here.

Coach here.

I'm a little short in the spirit.

Here's what you don't say, I'm a little short in the spirit.

What you do think to yourself is, I'm about out of Jesus when it comes to you.

You better get out of my office right now.

Because you're about to get all the Jesus I got available right now.

If that hadn't happened, some of you are all dignified, like, oh brother, I would never think that.

Thank you.

You liar.

So, how to hear when you don't want to listen?

What do you do?

Let me give you four things and we'll be done.

Number one, ask the practical question.

Ask the practical question.

Life is not just spiritual, it's also physical and emotional.

And the practical question, what do you mean?

This happened a couple years ago here.

I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I'm going to.

I got a text from one of our senior adults that said, hey, I'm headed to the emergency room here in Sugarland.

My heart's kind of all wacky.

And so I thought, she's a widow.

I thought I don't want her sitting there by herself.

So I jump in my truck.

I go down there and I sit with her, and they keep her in OR, I mean in the ER overnight for observation.

And about 2.45, she finally started drifting.

They gave her some medicine, help her go to sleep.

She started to go to sleep.

And I thought, well, she's going to sleep.

I don't want to sit here and watch her sleep.

And so I'll come back and check on her in the morning.

I go home, get home about 3, 3.10, get up the next day, come to the office.

About 2 o'clock, I hit the wall.

I was so tired.

And in my mind, my first thought was suck it up and just push through, man.

Ministry's hard, but you gotta.

And then I heard this little voice that kind of said, take a nap.

And so I have a little partition, a little cover that goes over the window and my door.

I put that up.

I turn the lights out.

If you've ever been in my office, I have two chairs in front of my desk.

I got in one, turned the other one to face me, put my feet up, and I laid back.

I woke up an hour and five minutes later.

Mouth breathing.

My mouth was all dry.

Because I said, I'm just gonna close my eyes for a little bit.

It's kind of like your wife when you drive somewhere, she doesn't sleep, she rests her eyes.

Yeah.

Well, I said, I'm gonna rest my eyes.

I was so physically depleted, I rested my eyes and I was like, I woke myself up snoring.

And I was like, I looked at the clock and it's been an hour and five minutes, and I just laughed, and I got up and I walked out across the hall, and it got me some water, and I came back.

One of the guys at work here came down a few minutes later, and he on my door, he goes, Hey man, I didn't want to interrupt you early.

I saw you had your your shade up over your window and the lights were out.

I just figured you were with the Lord.

Oh, I was with the Lord, all right.

But because look at me, your greatest temptation is to manage people's impression of you that I was at the fork in the road.

And a little voice in my head said, Yeah, I tell him you were with the Lord.

I ain't got the energy to lie though.

I said, Yeah, I wasn't with the Lord.

I was taking a nap.

Amen.

Oh, do the elders know?

I'll tell them at the next elder meeting.

Well, what happened?

I said, I was at the hospital late last night, into the morning.

I'm just tired, and I just sense the Lord just saying, Hey, just take a nap.

This isn't spiritual.

Why when you why when you're out of sorts, do you think something's wrong with you?

It's not maybe, maybe the issue is not you're not doing the right thing.

Maybe you're just maybe it's not even a spiritual thing.

Maybe it's an emotional thing, maybe it's a physical thing.

So that's what I mean when I say.

Ask the practical question.

Remember Elijah in the Bible?

He has this great victory over all these false prophets.

And the next thing you know, he's under a tree and going, God, I just want to die.

I don't want to live anymore.

I just take that.

You can have all of this, God.

I don't want to do it anymore.

Remember what God said?

Hey, have you having your quiet time these days?

No.

God put him to sleep.

He woke up, God fed him.

You know when you eat a big meal, you get sleepy, you won't just go get back in bed.

God fed him, he went back to sleep again.

God said, go back to sleep because the journey's long.

You need to get rested up for this.

Ask the practical question.

Secondly, get to where you see God.

What do you mean?

How to hear when you don't want to listen.

Get to where you see God.

What do you mean?

Don't turn them right out.

Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

The story is about John the Baptist.

He told the truth and it got him in trouble.

Matter of fact, got him killed.

And he was in prison.

He's fixing a diet.

He sends his disciples to ask Jesus this question.

And the question was this: hear this.

Jesus said of John the Baptist, he was the greatest man ever born of a woman.

And John the Baptist said this at the end of his life.

He sent his disciples, his friends to ask Jesus, Are you the one to come or should we expect someone else?

Translation, are you really God?

Because I'm about to get my head cut off, and I want to just make sure that I'm dying for the right person.

And Jesus says, and I quote, go tell John what you hear and what you see.

The blind receive sight, the lame are healed, the sick are healed, the lame can walk, and the good news is preached to the poor.

What does he say?

Hear the first part.

Go tell John what you hear and what you see.

You will get to this point where you just can't hear anymore.

Some Sundays, I know this is hard to believe, but some Sundays the thought of coming to church will not set right with you.

You'll be like, I can't hear that guy talk anymore.

He's loud and he doesn't shut up and just know.

That's not a statement about you, and it's not even a statement about me.

What it is is that you need to see some of what you've been hearing.

Does that make sense to anybody but me?

You need to see Christianity.

You can't just hear Christianity.

If all you do is hear Christianity, you'll have some opinions, but you'll also have a thin veneer of cynicism over you.

Because you'd be like, I don't, I mean, this is what it is.

It's just me coming to church and singing and hearing a God talking and leaving.

I'm good.

Hey, look at me.

Not only is that not all it is, that's not what it was ever intended to be.

Now, I'm not saying this isn't important.

I'm just saying this is not all there is.

So get to where you see God.

Now, here's the deal.

I told the first service, I might as well tell you.

Come November, there's a certain season that happens in the first week of November.

It's called deer season.

And women don't understand.

Like some of you sorry rascals, like last weekend one of our men went to the deer stand.

I said, Where's your husband?

He said his deer.

He said it's deer camp.

I'm like, deer camp?

Was he building a house out there?

And she said, I don't know when deer season is, but it must be getting close.

And I thought, it's November the 7th.

This is August.

That sorry rascal has you fooled.

Here's the thing, ladies.

Your husband, here's where your husband goes to see God.

To be reminded that there's something bigger in the world and better than just his job and all the junk we got to put up with.

You go to the deer camp, you don't shave for a week, you shoot stuff, okay?

You eat whatever you want.

Your wife's not going.

Did you have a protein and two vegetables?

No, I had meat three times a day, and that was it.

And I and I had some of that sausage from the place in East Bernard and some of the candy from Shiner.

And no one's saying, hey, yeah, yeah.

You just do what you want.

You ain't got to brush your teeth.

I said to a lady, I said, hey, your husband needs to go be primal.

Men are not supposed to be domesticated.

And she's like, well, that sure explains a lot.

Yeah.

I said, and by the way, they know napkins at the deer lease.

She went, excuse me?

I said, no, no, no.

Because we don't need them.

What do you wipe your hands on?

Your shirt.

Each other.

Just here's what I'm saying.

Some of you, when you get to deer lease, look around and see where you see God at work.

That's all I'm saying.

Get to where you see God.

Third thing, how do I hear when I don't want to listen?

Spend time with people who restore your soul.

Spend time with people who restore your soul.

Now, let me say what you know.

Not every friendship in your life is reciprocal.

This is not.

There's some people your wife says, Oh, we're going to dinner with the so-and-so's on Tuesday, your first thought is.

Oh, why?

Oh, oh.

We have friends like that.

We're having dinner with some friends tonight.

It's mutual and it's reciprocal and it's just easy.

When we go to their house, they say, hey, make yourself at home.

I take my shoes off.

My wife's always like, What are you doing?

They said, Take your shoes off.

I take my shoes off when I get home.

I go look in the refrigerator and they just laugh and go, make yourself at home.

And my wife, who was raised on Emily Post, is mortified.

I mean, my Southern Bell mother-in-law is, I mean, she's in she's turning red in Florida.

I'm looking to the fridge.

You guys are out of mayonnaise.

You know that?

No, no, we don't do mayonnaise.

We do miracle with.

Well, you need some mayonnaise in here.

And I just helped myself.

So we're having dinner with them tonight.

It's easy to be with them.

And then there's some people that we're friends with.

My wife likes her, or I like him.

My wife likes her.

And I kind of think of him, hey man, it's hard to be with you because I want to say things to you, but we're not good enough friends for me to say to you.

Your marriage is jacked up because you're selfish.

That doesn't go well over dinner.

And we got some friends that the woman, I just want to say, hey, when you talk, I want to hit stuff.

Can you just shut up?

Well, you know, my husband drinks.

If I was your husband, I would drink excessively too.

That ain't good.

So my wife says, Oh, we're going to dinner with the so-and-so's.

I'm like, that ain't dinner, that's a mission trip.

That's not the kind of people I'm talking about.

When you are just to the point where I know God's good, but my circumstance, I am sucking air here.

I don't want to hear any of that.

I love Jesus.

I believe in the church.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You need to get with some people who help restore your soul.

When they just kind of look at you, you're just kind of like, I'm sorry for all the things I've been thinking.

You know what I'm talking about?

That's the kind of people.

Fourth thing I would say to you when you get this way is talk to yourself.

Talk to yourself.

Don't just listen to yourself.

Because what we do is we just kind of hold up and we just listen to ourselves, and pretty soon we got ourselves talked into a dark place.

Pretty soon you are Eeyore.

Hey man, how's it going?

It's hurricane weather.

And you're and here's what you can't get.

You're thinking, why does nobody enjoy being around me?

You don't even enjoy being around you.

Why do you want to impose that on us?

I say, talk to yourself.

Don't just listen, talk to yourself.

Most common example is a place that I go to in the Bible where I just kind of got to read it to kind of hit the reset button on my life, okay?

You say, What is that?

When the psalmist says, Praise the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

Why does the psalmist say, Praise the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits?

Because we are hardwired to forget how good God has been to us.

Somehow we got this in us that says, God is all out of goodness, and in my current situation, it's going to be the way it is for the rest of my life.

And now on a good day, you know that's not true.

You know that, hey, stuff happens.

You go through crazy stuff, it just happens.

But the Israelites in Exodus 6 aren't having a good day.

God says, I am the Lord.

I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.

I am the Lord.

And they're like, Yeah, yeah.

Talk to the hand, dude.

We we we we're beat down here, okay?

And and and and and I'm working 712s at the plant and then working an afternoon shift at the pick and pay on Sunday just to get my kids new clothes for school.

So don't come tell me God's good.

Shut up.

And if you haven't been there, you're gonna be there someday.

Where your spouse is gonna turn the light on and go, okay, let's get ready for church.

And the first thought through your mind is gonna be, do we have to?

So what do you do?

Let me just close by reading.

This is one of the places I go to in the Bible.

When I get to it, I'm just kind of like, oh, we're a long way from the garden.

How do I hear when I don't want to listen?

Let this wash over you this morning.

This is the 103rd Psalm.

David says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.

Bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit.

In other words, you're not going to be down here for the rest of your life.

He gets you up out of this, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is steadfast love towards those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As the Father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame.

As for man, his days are like grass.

He flourishes like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it, and it is gone.

And its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.

Translation: it's hard for finite people to understand the infinite, loving, compassionate mercy of God and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commands.

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens.

That means when the stock market crashes a thousand points, God's throne doesn't rock off its foundation.

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.

Bless the Lord, oh you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word.

Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will.

Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Let me close by asking you a question this morning.

Who is David talking to in this psalm?

Say it again.

When you listen to yourself these days, what do you hear yourself saying?

Let's pray to God.

One of the hardest and yet most necessary disciplines in the Christian life is to talk to yourself.

Don't just listen.

So I want us just to close this morning by just taking a moment and just kind of saying, bless the Lord, all my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

I want you to think about how good God has been to you.

I'm not saying it may not be hard right now.

It may be.

Some of you may just be, this is a really hard point for me.

But I want you to deliberately just to choose.

You say, hey, I need to hear, but I don't want to listen.

That's okay.

Remind yourself.

Hey, hey, I don't want to forget all God's benefits.

I don't want to act like God's out of goodness, and now I gotta I gotta take it from here.

No, you don't.

Let's just think about his benefit for just a moment.

When you listen to yourself, what do you hear?

When you look at your life, what do you see?

Father, we uh, we just want to pause and just kind of remind ourselves that there's gonna be times where it's hard.

The Bible's clear about that.

There's gonna be times when it gets difficult, but you're faithful.

The Bible says that your righteousness is to our children's children.

So you got so much goodness and rightness in you that our life can't contain it.

It's gonna spill over to our children and to their children.

So your intentions for our grandkids are better than ours.

So we don't have to make an idol out of them.

We don't have to obsess and worry about our kids.

Your righteousness is to our children's children.

That's how much goodness you got stacked up and stored up for us.

Let us get our head around that.

And let us get our hands on it because of Jesus.

This is our prayer today.

We pray it in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Hold your hands out and speak a blessing over you.

God always speaks of his mercy, compassion, and kindness in infinite terms.

Don't limit what God says is infinite.

When he says as far as the east is from the west, he means that.

Depart now and live in the infinite goodness of your heavenly Father.

For it's in his name, in the name of the Son and of the Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.