Get Wisdom

So glad that you're here today, and thank you Anderson Coral,

and we get to hear a couple more songs from

them at the end of the service, looking very forward

to that, and also a couple of songs that you

guys have already sung this morning. I grew up in Middletown, Ohio,

and that was a part of our almost weekly repertoire,

and it was so good to hear some of those songs.

So thank you so much and thank you. They had

to wake up about five o'clock in the morning to

be here for us today and that crazy, sweet, kind,

wonderful thank you, thank you, thank you. And so today

is and in between week from series. We just finished

up our series and we're about ready to start a

new series next week. So it's called a one off.

And So when I was thinking and praying about what

should I speak on today, at first I was thinking

about all the college students that we would have here

today and thinking about what did I need to hear

when I was in college? What do I wish I

would have learned when I was in college. But then

as I started thinking about it, I like, and I

don't know a person in this church not being like you,

I mean like you know, the church worldwide that doesn't

need to hear this message or be reminded of this

message today. So I'm excited to share with you God's word.

Let us pray and prepare our hearts. Father God, we

pray God that you will speak to our spirits today,

give us insight, show us how to apply your word

to our life today. And Father God, we give you

praise in Jesus name. Amen. There was an Aerosmith video

that absolutely rocked when I was in high school. It

was so awesome. And the car in that video was

a black on black Mustang GT convertible. And let me

tell you something, I knew that I needed to have.

That car had a really good job. And so I

found one up at a dealership in Dayton, Ohio, and

I said to my dad, I said, Dad, can we

go check out this car? Look at that? I mean,

you get that? That is sweet. That's a five point

zero engine, Okay. And so my dad and I we

go up and we go to test drive the car.

But the car is a stick shift. Guess who has

never even been in a stick shift? Me? So my

dad says, I'll test drive it. For you. So my

dad's test driving and we're going around this little town

and he says to me, James, you've got to get

this car. And so we get back and my dad

co signs alone for me. I can't remember for seventeen

or eighteen thousand dollars, which was you know, that's a

little bit of a chunk of money. But like I said,

I had a good job at that time. And so,

you know what, I had the coolest car in my school,

in my town. I mean, you can just imagine how

cool I was. Right, this was awesome. So all of

a sudden I come to christ and guess what doesn't

matter to me anymore? This? And then I get called

in the ministry and then Gina and I start talking

about getting married, and we're not ready to get married.

So and I'm thinking, you know what, I don't need

car payments. This isn't wise. And so I went out

and I traded this car in my black on black

Mustang GT convertible five point zero, and I traded it

in for a black on black four door four cylinder Corsica. Okay,

this was not a cool car, didn't even deserve a

picture today. And so I have it for a little while,

and then all of a sudden, we're doing any I

was a youth pastor and we're making a video and

the video called for the use of a lobster, a

dead lobster, and I accidentally left the lobster in my

vehicle overnight. The next morning, I come in and let

me tell you, I don't know if you know this.

You can't get lobster smell out of your car if

you leave it in overnight. And it smelled like the

ocean meets the Apocalypse. It was horrible. And so you

know what I started to do. I started to hate

my black on black four door, four cylinder Corsica. Hated it,

and man, summer was starting. I'm at Gas America on

the corner of Roosevelt and I'm dripping sweat because that

car is stupid. And I look and there's a guy

that comes by in a red Mustang GT convertible to

the new model. And let me tell you something. This

man looked happy. He had purpose in his life, he

had joy, and it looked like man, it just felt

like the Holy Spirit was with him. And so I

decided I'm gonna go and I got a have one

within thirty six hours. I own a red Mustang GT convertible,

just like that guy had. And I show up to

the church with my other staff colleagues and I have

them come outside and I'm like, guys, you're not gonna

believe this. Check this out. And I was shocked at

their response because one person said to me, are you

sure you can afford this? By the way, that person

also set my salary, so that was kind of a

other pastors of saying, aren't you am not ready to

get married? So I sort of had this hunch. I

had the sense that just maybe, just maybe, just maybe

I might have made a bad decision. And it wasn't

the first time that I had made an unwise decision,

and unwise decisions are always costly. They're always costly. And

so what I decided to do is, like, you know

what I've made a give you of these costly, unwise decisions.

And I want to be a man of wisdom. I

want to be someone who honors God with the way

I make decisions in my life. And so here's what

I did. I actually wrote a letter to ten different

businessmen that I consider to be very wise, and I

said to them, I said, will you each write me

back your steps for making a wise decision. I got

the letters back, I compared them, I came up of

a list. I taped it on my desk at church,

and I read that every single day until I knew

the steps of making a wise decisions, until it was

second nature to me. And because I want to be

a person of wisdom. And here's the thing, what I

want you to do today as I want you to

think about some of the decisions you've made in your

life or how you're going to move forward and making decisions. See,

making wise decisions, they don't come naturally to us. You

know why. I'm going to tell you why two things. One,

we tend to be selfish, okay, and a wise decision

is almost always self less, okay. And number two, we

have a hard time making a decision with a long

term outcome in our mind and because we want immediate gratification.

And by the way, this is born in us. Okay,

this is innate to us, even from a little child

on I can tell you this right now. I've never

heard someone come up to me and point to their

little child and say, you know what, my child is

a selfless child who consistently delays all forms of gratification

until the appropriate moment never been said to me, and

I could prove it to you. Have you ever been

to a four year old's birthday party? Have you ever

watched them open up a savings bond? All right? And

then they open up a dumb toy that's worth absolutely nothing,

that's gonna be thrown away here from now, and it's awesome,

and it's awesome movie. We went through this with my

daughter for years because my grandma always loaded her up

with savings bonds, and Kate LeMond go he and it's

a mom and then go for the worthless thing. Well,

guess who's in college now. Guess who's praising God all

the time for these savings bonds? Why? Because she had

a wise grandma. Okay. And so there's something in us

that we are naturally bent to wanting to make the

decision that first of all benefits us and we get

to receive the benefits of it immediately. Okay. And so

here's what I want to do at the very beginning today.

I want to talk about what is our definition so

that we're all on the same page for what is

a wise decision. Here's what a wise decision is. A

wise decision glorifies God while it honors others. Okay, I'm

gonna say that again. It glorifies God while it honors others.

That's a wise decision. And so here's what we're gonna

do today. We're gonna look at a guy who is

known for his wisdom. Okay, We're gonna look at a

guy named Solomon. Okay, if first of all, we're gonna

look at his heart, and then we're gonna look at

some practical steps on our way out of here today

on how to make a wise decision. So, first of all,

let's look at the wisest man in history, King Solomon.

Here we go at Gibeon. The Lord appeared to Solomon.

And by the way, Solomon's a young man. He just

inherited the throne. Okay, so here we go. He appeared

to Solomon during tonight in a dream, and God said,

ask for whatever you want me to give you. How

many of you could handle that question if the Lord

came to me. Let me tell you why the Lord

hasn't came to me and asked me that question, because

I would have a brand new bass ranger boat. I

would have an unlimited spending card to kabel Us or

maybe Amazon. Have you ever noticed that our culture has

been on that even do you all remember some of

you who actually remember when some of these songs were written? Sorry,

bad joke, but that wish list seers book that used

to come and did you notice that they've just updated it?

Because they know how we are on Amazon? They have

a wish list, and so we keep piling things into

our wish list until we can get them, because we're

always looking for that next thing. And there's something inside

of us that it's always wanting more and more and more,

and that's where we make a lot of our wrong decisions.

And speaking of being online, if you were to go

online and do a search, I did the search what

do people wish for? You can probably name the top

three with me. Number one thing that people want when

they wish for something they want wealth, secondly, health, number

three happiness. Okay, that's pretty consistent. Now. I don't know

about you, but those are pretty good. It doesn't wrong

with those answers who would hear could not use a

few more million upon the millions you already have? Right?

Who in here doesn't want to be healthy. Who here

doesn't want to be happy? So it would make a

lot of sense that when God came to Solomon, this

young man and said I'll give you whatever you want,

Solomon could have said this, I want to be a

king that is unrivaled. I want to have more wealth

than anyone's ever had. I want to live to be

one hundred and fifty. And he could have named anything,

God that I will give you whatever you want. What

did he say, Let's look at this. Solomon answered, you

have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David,

because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright

and heart. You've continued this great kindness to him, and

you've given him a son to sit on the throne

to this very day. So then he answers the question.

He says, now, Lord, my God, you've made your servant

king in place of my father David. But here's the thing.

I'm only a little child. In other words, I'm a

young man, and I do not know how to carry

out all of my duty. Your servant is here among

the people that you've chosen, a great people, too numerous

account or to number. Say, here's what I want you

to do. Lord, will you give your servant a discerning

heart to govern your people and distinguish between right and wrong?

For who is able to govern these great people of yours. Remember,

he could have asked for anything, and what does he do?

He says, Lord, give me a discerning heart, so that

I can lead your people to honor you, to obey you.

He didn't ask for something for himself. Part of being

a wise decision, and it is selfless. It glorifies God

and it honors other. Solomon's request was not about him.

Matter of fact, when we look into Hebrew, this phrase

discerning heart leans towards meaning that Solomon wants to be

able to hear from God. He wants to be able

to hear from God. But here's what we need to understand.

Hearing from God in the Old test means something different

today when we say we hear something. In the Old Testament,

if you heard something, it was not heard until you

actually obeyed it. That's a little bit different. So he

wanted to hear from God, but the whole point of

hearing from God was so that he could obey God. Again,

you didn't hear from God until you obey God. Now,

think about this. We've spliced that up today, haven't we.

So we could hear from God, but we consider that

it's been heard, whether we obey it or not. Think

about our children, you know, we tell them to do

something and they're still running around doing dumb things. And

how many of you have ever said this? Do you

hear what I'm saying to you? Because what you're saying

is you're not hearing me. Why because do you hear

something means that you will obey it. And so Psalomon says,

I don't want to just hear from God so that

I know a lot about God. I'm a great theo

log just so I'm a great philosopher, so I have

all this wisdom for myself. No, no, no, he wants to

hear from God so that he can obey God, so

that he could impact the nation and lead them. So

how does God respond to this request? It says the

Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So

God said to him, well, since you've asked for this,

and and then he mentions the things that we just

talked about, not for a long life or wealth for yourself.

Think about that times have changed. But the concerns are

still the same, right, we all want money and we

all want health. Now, this is very interesting because that

shows you the place of the king, he says, or

the death of my enemies that did not make the

top ten list on the internet. The death of my enemies.

But anyways, different times, okay, he says, But for discernment

and administrating justice, I'm going to do what you've asked.

I will give you a wise and discerning heart so

that you that there will never be anyone like you

now are in the future. It seems like God was

really impressed with Solomon. Matter of fact, it seems like

God had joy in his heart because the heart of Solomon.

He says, give me, give me your wisdom so that

I can honor you and lead your people. So what

does God do. He gives him a gift of wisdom,

not like just like a talent or a spiritual gift.

He actually gave him the gift of wisdom. Solomon today

is still considered the wisest man whoever lived. He wrote

a couple books Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. They're mostly accredited to him,

and what are his books called wisdom literature Wisdom literature.

And so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna benefit

from this gift today. I can't imagine anybody in this

room who doesn't want to make wise decisions, okay, And

whether you're trying to discern a business decision, who to marry,

decisions in parenting as you get old, there are some

decisions on retirement and when to do that. We all

need God's wisdom and direction. So here's what we're gonna do.

I'm just gonna ask a simple question today and we're

gonna answer it. How do you make a wise decision?

Here we go. Number one, you want to gather the facts. Okay,

the very first thing when you have a decision that

you have to make, you want to gather the facts.

Proverbs eighteen says as to answer before listening. That is

folly and shame. In other words, if you do something

before you have the information that you need to respond

to that, well, it's gonna lead well through some ignorant decisions, okay,

potential embarrassment. Have you ever made a decision only to

say later if I would have known that, I would

not have done that. All of us have My friend

from childhood in Middletown, Ohio. He decided to get in

on the eBay sells explosion about twenty two years ago.

And so what he decided to do was he decided

that he was going to buy a box of one

thousand music CDs for five hundred dollars. And so he

kept telling me for weeks until it came in, I'm

gonna make a ton of money. I'm gonna make a

ton of money. And I praised the Lord God Almighty

that I was there when he opened up this box

of one thousand CDs. Because as we opened up this

box of one thousand CDs, it was one thousand CDs

of musicians and artists that no one on this earth

has ever heard of. In other words, there's record companies

with distribution channels who could not get rid of these

one thousand CDs. But they found some dude in Middletown,

Ohio that was willing to take one thousand of them

off their hands with no distribution systems. And so, of course,

I mean, he's heartbroking. I'm not one for comfort in

those moments. I'm dying laughing, just going through like, oh,

I bet this is good. Oh Latin Morocco everybody. People

are gonna love this over here in Kentucky. Anyways. You know,

what if he'd have done some research, say, for instance,

what if he gathered some facts like number one. This

might sound crazy, but what if you have ask what

CDs am I? By? Just a little research would have

saved him five hundred bucks and me not telling a

story every year of my life for the next twenty

two years. So we do some research, you know, before

we hire a person, well, we look at their work history.

Before you buy a car, you better get on carfax report,

before you purchase a home, look at your budget, can

you afford it? Look at make sure you listen to

the people who expect it right. You want to gather

the facts Principal number two. Today you want to seek

wise counsel. You don't want to make a decision by yourself.

You want to seek wise counsel. What does it say

here for lack of guidance, nation falls. But victory is

one through what many advisors. You want to surround yourself

with wise, godly people, people of integrity. This is so important.

Let me tell you something. Great decisions are made by

people who are surrounded by great people. That was not

my notes. I wish I had put that in my notes.

That was a good quote. You should write that down.

Great decisions are made by people surrounded by great people.

And let me tell you something, it's important to find

people who are full of integrity too, because here's what

I have found, especially in our younger years, our friends

are sometimes not the best people to give us advice

because they're going to give us advice based on according

to what they think. You know, we want them to

hear from us, and so you get comments. I've literally

heard people give advice like this where they say, you

know what, your husband is a jerk. Of course he

deserved to be cheated on. He doesn't appreciate you anyways.

Or you know what, you should go to your boss's

office tomorrow morning and tell him exactly what you think

about his leadership style. Is that a good wise? No? Lord, No, See,

here's what happens. Our friends tend to tell us what

they think we want to hear from them. But when

you're making a very important decision, here's what you need

to do. You need to have people around you check

this out that trust in God's opinion way more than

they fear your opinion. Of them. I'm gonna say that again.

You all should have amen after I said that. Okay,

I'm gonna say this again. All right, here we go.

You need to surround yourself with people who trust in

God's opinion, care about God's opinion more than they fear

your opinion about them. Oh My God, Revival Church, the Crossing. Okay,

here we go. Here's what you want to find. You

want to find people that follow Proverbs three five, where

they trust in the Lord with their whole art. They

don't lean on their own understanding. In all of your ways,

you acknowledge him because He's gonna make your paths straight. Now,

here's the thing. Almost every single week since I've been here,

I meet with a team called my advisory team. It's

three people from the former boards elders who represent you.

Then I have three staff members, and then I have

one outside pastor. What we simply do is we get together.

I put up all the decisions things we're thinking about

the church. And you know what they just they can

ask any question about it, they can push. Their job

is not to help me figure out how to make

things happen. Their job is to protect the church from

me making a dumb decision. I've put that in place,

and so therefore they can push back on anything. And

they push back, and they push back, and they push

back and they push back. Now, once we get to

a place where we say, all right, this is a decision.

We're gonna make this decision. You know what they do next,

then we have long conversations about how to implement a decision.

Here's a little freebie today. When you're in leadership, how

you implement a decision. It's just as important as a

decision you make, because you could make a good decision

and blow your company up. Okay, sometimes it takes ten

steps to pull off that one decision. So you need

that discernment in your life. And so I have these men,

and here's the thing. These men, man, they're not afraid

to come in and push me, you know, push hard

at my thoughts. And let me tell you, there's a

lot of thoughts. I've had a lot of ideas I've

had for this church that by the time I say

it out loud, they're like, oh, oh, was that in

a dream? Or like is that for real? And is

this so good? To get that fleshed out? All right?

So you need to bring some people around you that

you trust and who are close to Lord number three

run the scenarios. It says that the naive believes everything,

but the prudent man considers his steps. In other words,

you want to think about the calls and the effect

before you make a decision. You always got to ask

this question, if I make this decision, how is it

gonna affect others? How's it gonna affect company? How's it

gonna affect my family? You got to think through the

ripples of your decision. How's this gonna affect? So? For instance,

you want to think through the possible outcomes of your decisions.

For instance, before you send an angry email at midnight,

maybe you should consider the possible outcomes. Could that go

bad for you? Uh? Before you post your unsolicited opinion

on Facebook or Instagram or whatever you're using today, you

might want to consider if this could possibly call some

heated debates and your words might be twisted back against you.

Here's a question I wish I would have asked myself

ten years ago. If I buy two puppies within a

year or so of each other, what's the odds of

me not replacing every squarefoot of carpet in my whole house.

That's a simple question I could have asked. Nowadays, I

live in a all wood floor, leather furniture house. They're

trained now, but still I'm ready for whatever comes. You know,

you need to think about things before you decide to

do them. What are the possible consequences. In Brazil, this

is a true story. In Brazil, there was a beer taster.

I didn't even know that was a job. There's a

beer taster at a Brazilian brewery who actually took his

company to court and sued them for making him an

alcoholic because his job was a drink sixteen to twenty

five small glasses of beer every day, and then every

day he was sent home with another bottle of beer. Okay, so,

by the way, he won forty nine thousand dollars. I

don't even know what that is in Brazil, but anyways,

he won forty nine thousand dollars because you know, the

court found that was an unsafe job to have someone in. Now,

this beer taster could have ransom scenarios, like he could

have asked some questions. I don't know. I made up

some questions for him, like I wonder what my life

will be like if I get paid to drink beer

all day? Good question. Question number two, does drinking beer

every single day call someone to crave more beer? Good question?

And what's the odds of drinking twenty five glasses of

beer a day and at not completely messing my whole

life up? Another good question? Okay, see the pipebolet calls

for us to be people of wisdom, and there's some

consequences for action number four. Now this is the most

important one. But you might be surprised that I have

this at number four, and that is to pray. I'm

wist explain to you why I have it at number four,

not at number one, even though it's the most important one.

All right, So remember prayer is so important. Proverbs eight

says this, I love those who love me, and those

who seek me diligently find me. Now here's why I

put this in at number four. Often, if we go

to God with a big decision, then we just pray.

What you want to do is you want to invite

Him into the process of you making that decision. But

if you go to God at the very beginning of

a big decision, say God, show me what to do,

more likely God is gonna answer. Probably should do some research,

You probably should run some scenarios. You should probably think

about this and get some advisors around you, like my

scriptures have taught you instead of me just giving you

a yes or a no, because we can often mess

up hearing from God if we go to him and

we're like, well, I feel like he's saying this. Here's

what I have found. After I go out and get

godly wisdom, after I've studied a situation, after I've ran

through all the scenarios, I go to God. I say,

oh God, I've done my due diligence. Will you give

me wisdom? What do I do? And here's what I

find that God often does. God very often does not

tell me yes or no. Very often he says, yes,

but I think you should do it this way. All

of a sudden, the Holy Spirit gives you insight that

I didn't even read. I didn't even research. Also, because

I've done all this stuff and I prepared myself to

be before the Lord, the Lord will take one little

comment that someone said when I was gathering advice, or

one little thing I read when I was gathering information,

and he says, all right, move in this direction, or

are go in this direction. I'm often surprised that when

I go before the Lord, I'm often surprised at his creativity.

Often my answer is not something that anybody said, nor

is it a thought that I thought before I went

into prayer. Our God is a creative god. He is

a wise god, and he delights to help you. You

know what, something pretty awesome. It doesn't matter who you are.

He loves to help you. Look at what James says.

James says this. He says, if anyone of you lacked wisdom,

which we can say all of us, you should ask God,

who would generously give to all without finding fault. It

will be given to you. God loves to give you wisdom.

Number five. As we're closing up today, only got a

couple more here. Number five. Don't let others rush you.

Proverbs nineteen says this enthusiasm without knowledge is no good.

Haste makes mistakes. And let me tell you, almost every

time in my ministry that I've made a decision while

looking at a clock, I've later on maybe not regretted

the decision, but realized I could have made a better

decision with more wisdom. And here's the thing I hated

during the pandemic was often during the pandemic you had

to make decisions on the clock because things were happening

so quick. And let me tell you something. When you

are making decisions based on a clock and you have

to make the decision, often you will look back with

twenty twenty high sight and says, I would have done

it this way instead that way, if there is any

way possible possible. Don't let anyone rush you into making

a decision. People, often your bosses as you get a

little bit older, Just so you know, your bosses are

gonna want you to make that commitment today. Why because

they want to check it off their agenda and get

back to work. It's okay for you to say, let

me think about that for a day. Let me pray

about that. Parents, how often do your kids come to

you with all these emotions? They want this, they want this,

they want this. You know what, You don't have to

make that decision right there, you' say, give me some

time to think about it. Why because good decisions are

made uh when we actually have time to process it.

Bad decisions are made on the clock. Don't let anybody

rush you, okay, And lastly today, Okay. Unfortunately, when you

go before God and ask him to help you make

a decision, Unfortunately he does not call you to go

out into your backyard and grab a stone hammer, and

he's not gonna tell you a B, C, D, E

F G. Here's what you do. Often you're gonna be

led by the spirit and he's gonna help you, but

at the end of the day, you're probably not gonna

hear an audible voice telling you what to do. So

often I get to these situations where I really feel

like this is what God wants me to do, but

I'm not one hundred percent sure. So here's what I do.

Whatever decision I make, I make sure I'm gonna take

a step of faith. I'm gonna trust in the Lord,

and I'm gonna make a decision that honors the Lord.

At the end of the day, if you don't know

what to do, make a decision that you believe will

best glorify God and honor others. Because if you make

a decision and then a little bit later the decision

maybe wasn't the best decision, you could rest well at

night knowing this, Hey, you know what I did due diligence,

and at the end of the day, I made a

decision that I really believe honored God, but glorified God

and honor others. If it doesn't go well, my family's

gonna know that I honored them, honored my coworkers, honored

those involved. I'm gonna close out by simply sharing this.

I was going for a jog back in Middletown, and

it was a very slow jog in case you're wondering,

and I'm running down this hill and this ferocious you've

just seen it, like, had murder in its eyes. A

fifteen pound poodle came running at me and I thought

for sure he was gonna bite me, potentially take my

whole leg off, And so I tripped on an uneven sidewalk,

went up into the air, landed on my shoulder, and

immediately it was destroyed. My shoulder was destroyed. The most

painful thing. I broke my back, I broke my ankle.

This was the most it. I had to have surgery,

all kinds of things afterwards. Now, the lady whose house

and who had the poodle, she actually helped me, took

me to the hospital, stayed there to make sure I

was taken care of. And she called me a couple

of days later and said, you know, I'm just going

to ask you a favor. Please don't sue me. And

she said that she was married to a pastor who

recently divorced her, she didn't have anything, and she's barely

hanging on. And she said, if you sue me, I'm

going to lose everything. And she was also broken at

this point. And so I said to her, you know what,

I think the insurances are going to cover my medical bills.

I'm not losing paychecks from work. And I said, you

know what, I give you my word, I'm not going

to sue you. Now, the lawyer from her company, insurance company,

came to me and he says, we want to settle today.

I go, well, there's no settlement. I just want the

medical bills covered. I don't want any money for pain

or suffering or whatever. And then he just didn't want

to take that as an answer because he was afraid

it will come back later. And he says, and then

he pushed the paper and it was more money than

I had ever had in my life, and it was

thousands upon thousands of dollars, and he said, just sign here,

we'll settle today, it'll be over. And I said, I

can't sign that. I gave her my word. Now, I'm

not telling you that it's not okay to sue for

pain and suffer. I'm not telling you that at all.

What I'm telling you was that there was a lady

on the edge and she just asked me not to

push her over. A Christian asked me not to do something,

so I said, I won't do it. And let me

tell you something. My shoulder still hurts, but the Lord's

taking care of every need I've ever had. God is faithful.

And I don't regret that decision. Why because I glorify

God and I honored her through it. At the end

of the day, when you're in weird situations like that

was a weird situation, there is no what do you

do here? But you know what, when you're in one

of those situations where you don't know what to do here,

what will glorify God and what will honor others, that's

what you do. So here's what we're gonna do today.

And we're gonna put the principles of making a decision

back up on the screen, and I'm gonna give you

about three minutes to have some prayer time here this morning,

and I want you to look at which one of

those do you need to grow in. But at the

same time, I want you to think about that thing

that's big in your life right now. Maybe it's a decision,

maybe it's a burden. And here's the thing. You might

be sitting here today thinking, well, James, I don't have

a business decision to make right now, but I will

say this. Maybe God is the decision is God wants

you to forgive somebody today. Maybe the decision is that

God wants you to love on people. Maybe the decision

is not something that is a yes or no, but

but it's an action God's calling you to do this.

Or maybe it's a decision today to share your faith.

Maybe it doesn't have to be this weird, big decision

about what car do I buy? Won't you ask the Lord?

If you don't have something to say, Lord, what is

something that you've been calling me to do that today

I need to make a decision to say yes to.

Or maybe the decision you need to make today is

to make a decision to say no to something or

stop doing something because it doesn't honor God. So here's

what I want to do. I trust that the Holy

Spirit will speak to you, and so we're going to

go into a time of prayer for about two to

three minutes before the crowd comes back up, and just

allow the Lord to speak to your heart.