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Sometimes what you see, destroys what you thought you had

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  1. Welcome to the Cross Power Church podcast.

  2. You're listening to a service from our church in Campbell, TX.

  3. We pray this message strengthens your faith and points you to the

  4. cross. Now let's join the service.

  5. Good to be here tonight. Would y'all turn?

  6. Somebody turn the lights on in the nursery please, in case the

  7. visitor there need it and get to have them tonight.

  8. Heavy Bibles going to be in John chapter 16.

    John 16 chapter mention

  9. Galatians 3 and Galatians 4 had this thought a while back and

  10. you know, I'm getting to the age if I don't write them down or

  11. put them in my notes on my phone or forget the thought.

  12. You ever do that? I was like, man, I thought

  13. something good the other day and now I just got to remember it so

  14. I can preach on it. But I was looking through some

  15. notes and I found this and I begin to recall the setting that

  16. I received it in. And I titled this tonight.

  17. Sometimes what you see destroys what you thought you had.

  18. Can I say that again that that let that sink in.

  19. Sometimes what you see with these eyes, it can destroy what

  20. you thought you had anybody ever been there in a relationship and

  21. a job and career, whatever it is.

  22. But you know, I was looking around when the Lord give me

  23. this thought and I was looking at some calves.

  24. Cattle prices are really good. And I was looking at some calves

  25. and thinking about how thankful I was for what they was going to

  26. bring when I sold them because I've, I've sold some.

  27. It didn't do very well in past years.

  28. But I begin to looking at the caves and thinking about how

  29. they were going to do good at market and bringing over 5-6

  30. dollars a pound. And then I begin to look around

  31. at the rest of them. I thought, you know, I had some

  32. of these cows a while. Some of them is getting old and

  33. they wear out. Tay man.

  34. And while I was looking at this, I just begin to think about that

  35. sometimes what you see can destroy what you thought you

  36. had. We know it's so true in this

  37. life. But you know, when we look at

  38. that, when I looked at that cow, I thought, you know, without

  39. that cow, I don't have that calf because it wouldn't be here.

  40. She wouldn't nurture it. She wouldn't raise it.

  41. It just it wouldn't be possible. So in the near future, I got to

  42. start replacing some of those things or what I thought I had

  43. can begin to crumble. God give me that thought.

  44. And then I did. And then I turned it right to

  45. the spiritual. What we see destroys what we

  46. thought we had. You know, I know when I was in

  47. the drilling business for a lot of years and doing those things,

  48. I look around, I'd have some new equipment, new things, and all

  49. of a sudden, three years later, you're looking at, man, where

  50. did it go? It's wore out.

  51. I got to replace it. I got to, I got to get new to

  52. keep rolling. And that's the way it is

  53. spiritually. Because see, when trials of

  54. sickness come and financial struggles, job problems, anybody

  55. got those broken relationships, friends that's betrayed you,

  56. anybody got those? A contract that's gone bad in a

  57. business deal, The list goes on and on.

  58. Vehicles breaking down that are out of warranty that cost

  59. thousands to fix today and for many it's the addiction that

  60. they thought they had under control a man and it begins to

  61. creep back up and I want to share some things tonight.

  62. This, this message is really real to me because sometimes

  63. what you see can destroy what you thought you had.

  64. I come in the other day and I told my wife, I said, I can't

  65. find this heifer and I went to look for and she's coming two

  66. years old. I've raised her up two years,

  67. got several of them I have. And she's about to have a calf

  68. in the near future and go down there and can't find her only to

  69. find her dead $3000 loss. And you know, my wife's going

  70. through those things that she's going through now with cancer

  71. and things. And she said, she said sometimes

  72. you feel like job, don't you? And I said we do in life, but we

  73. always know that we have a God that's working on the other end.

  74. And see this thought hit me. Sometimes what you see destroys

  75. what you thought you had. It can happen that way.

  76. In John chapter 16 and verse 25, Jesus said he was talking about

    John 16 chapter mention

  77. overcoming the world. And in John 16 and 25, he says

  78. that these things I have spoken to you in figurative language,

  79. but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in

  80. figurative language. He had just got through telling

  81. the disciples that he was going to go away.

  82. And you know, I was reading that today and he said I'm going to

  83. go away. I've been with you for a little

  84. while, but I'm going to go away for a little while.

  85. It doesn't seem like a little while, but yet his time frame is

  86. different than ours. His day is 1000 years and he

  87. says I'm no longer going to speak to you like this.

  88. But I tell you plainly about the Father, in that day you will ask

  89. in my name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father

  90. for you. For the Father himself loves

  91. you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came

  92. forth from God. I came forth from the Father,

  93. and have come into the world again.

  94. And I leave the world, and I go to the Father.

  95. And his disciples said to him, See, now you're speaking plainly

  96. and using no figure of speech. Now we are sure that you know

  97. all things and have no need that anyone should question you.

  98. By this we believe that you come forth from God and Jesus

  99. answered them and he said, do you now believe verse 32 and the

  100. hour is coming and yes has now come, that you will be

  101. scattered. Each one of you, His own will

  102. leave me alone. And yet I am not alone because

  103. the Father is with me. You're not alone tonight.

  104. And in verse 33, he said these things.

  105. I have spoken to you. And this is a very powerful

  106. passage of Scripture because it is just as the promises of God.

  107. It is a truth of Scripture that Jesus said these things.

  108. I have spoken to you that I'm with you is what he was saying,

  109. and that you may have peace, but he automatically changes.

  110. And he said in the world which we live in today, in the world,

  111. you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer.

  112. I have overcome the world. What a promise.

  113. Say man, in this world, we will face trials, we will face

  114. tribulations, but we have overcome the world.

  115. I preached a message one time. The storm's blowing.

  116. What happens? Our faith walk must continue.

  117. We can't stop, we can't lay down, we can't quit.

  118. We will have tribulation, but be of good cheer because I have

  119. overcome the world. Let's go to Galatians chapter 3.

    Galatians 3 chapter mention

  120. We're going to read some more about this Galatians chapter 3

    Galatians 3 chapter mention

  121. and verse 26. Apostle Paul here was preaching

  122. on some things to the church. He was telling us some things.

  123. Galatians chapter 3 and verse 26, he says for you are all sons

    Galatians 3 chapter mention

  124. of God, how? Through faith in Christ Jesus,

  125. for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on

  126. Christ. That's what water baptism is, is

  127. putting on Christ. Everything about it.

  128. There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free,

  129. there's neither male nor female boy.

  130. That rocks some people's world about women preachers, doesn't

  131. it? He said.

  132. When we put on Christ, we don't see those things.

  133. For you are all one in Christ. I like that we're all one in

  134. Christ. And if you are Christ, then

  135. you're Abraham's seed boy. This gets really good right

  136. here. And your heirs according to the

  137. promise, go read what he promised Abraham.

  138. I don't have time tonight, but it's a lot of blessings.

  139. It's a lot of it's a lot of great things.

  140. And in chapter 4 here, in verse 1, he says, now I say that the

  141. heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ from a slave,

  142. though he is master of all, he owns everything, but he's a

  143. child, right? He's a heir.

  144. He's referring to us here, but is under guardians and stewards

  145. until the time appointed by the father.

  146. What is that time until we grow, right?

  147. We're an heir of a lot of promises.

  148. We're a heir of a lot of things. Over 7000 promises in this Bible

  149. that we've been promised. And in verse 3 it says Even so

  150. we when we were children, we're in bondage under the elements of

  151. the world. Anybody remember when you was in

  152. your little Christian walk and you first started and and you

  153. were a you were a babe in Christ and you were still wondering how

  154. the thing work. But when the fullness of time

  155. had come. And what he's really referring

  156. to here is the babes that in Christ that were walking around

  157. under the law, right? And all the things that they

  158. could not keep. He said when the fullness of

  159. time, when you read that in the Bible, the fullness of time, it

  160. was the IT was the completed time designated by God, God that

  161. should elapsed before Jesus came, before the Son of God

  162. would come to the world and see God sent forth his son.

  163. It was God who acted. When we were under the law, we

  164. could not keep the law. Aren't you glad God acted?

  165. See, the law required. What did the law require us to

  166. do? It required man to act.

  167. It required us to do something. If we were still under the law

  168. today, a lot of Christians wouldn't make it.

  169. Amen. They wouldn't make it if we

  170. because they don't really want to do anything.

  171. But man could not keep the law, so Jesus came.

  172. Now we just have to have confidence in what he did at the

  173. cross. And so many people don't have

  174. confidence in what he did at the cross or they would have more

  175. faith in God. See we have to.

  176. I like the word confidence. To me it means confide in to

  177. walk in the newness of life what Jesus did at the cross, paying

  178. the penalty and freeing us. What an awesome God we serve.

  179. And in verse 6 here he goes on to say or read the rest of this.

  180. It says let's go to verse 4 Galatians 4 when the fullness of

  181. time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born

  182. under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we

  183. might receive the adoption as sons.

  184. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his

  185. son where into our hearts. The Spirit of the Son lives

  186. within our hearts crying out ABBA Father.

  187. Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son and if a son

  188. and heir of God through Jesus Christ.

  189. We have many privileges as I preached Sunday about the Spirit

  190. and the gifts of the Spirit because see, we're his sons.

  191. And, you know, sometimes I think I get some looks on Sunday

  192. morning about, you know, the people that that does the way

  193. that I make some churches out to be ignorant of the things of

  194. God. I preach that y'all gather that

  195. sometimes that I, that I, that I feel like some churches are

  196. ignorant of the things of God. I, I had a call with a guy that

  197. a guy that I know a friend of mine and, and I was simply being

  198. truthful about what I preached on Sunday morning and got to

  199. talking about the gifts of the spirit and about people that

  200. have not heard that. And it's a huge charge.

  201. They go to way bigger than we are and do a lot of great

  202. things. And he said, I don't know that

  203. I've heard that mainstream denomination church doesn't

  204. preach on the gifts of the Spirit.

  205. And it's just, it's astounding to me that that, that that

  206. happens. But see when, when you realize

  207. that you are his Son, that God has sent forth his Spirit and

  208. it's been placed in our hearts because as we as we preach

  209. Sunday morning, no one can even say that Jesus is Lord, except

  210. how by the Holy Spirit being within us, a portion of it.

  211. And as we realize that the Holy Spirit's in us, he says we can

  212. cry out ABBA Father, because we are his sons and the Holy Spirit

  213. has been sent to take up permanent residence within our

  214. hearts. Aren't you glad of that tonight?

  215. See, in the Aramaic, when they cried out ABBA Father, it was a

  216. close, trusting, intimate relationship with God.

  217. It was more than, you know, when your kid says, hey, dad, as I've

  218. said many times, and then they come up and they say, daddy, you

  219. know, they're in them. You know, they're wanting

  220. something more. They're wanting your time,

  221. probably your money, right? They're probably wanting some of

  222. those things. When they say, hey, daddy, and

  223. you know, we're like, I just want to be dad for a while.

  224. Let's forget about daddy. But God never does that, thank

  225. God, right? But we cry out ABBA Father.

  226. What happened when it becomes a close and trusting and intimate

  227. relationship with God and see what this means is that the Holy

  228. Spirit, because it's within us, it says we can't even cry out

  229. that Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit being within us.

  230. So that tells me we have a portion of the Holy Spirit and

  231. we begin to cry out ABBA Father, and we long for that trusting

  232. and intimate relationship with our heavenly Father.

  233. What happens? The Spirit is actually doing the

  234. crying, right? It's crying within us.

  235. The Bible talks about that. There's something within us.

  236. There's a hole how many tried to fill in the world.

  237. There was a hole that you could not feel.

  238. No matter how deep you win or what you did.

  239. You could not feel that hole with the worldly things until

  240. you found Jesus Christ. You were empty and alone.

  241. Why? Because the Spirit does the

  242. crying to the Father on our behalf.

  243. You know, I begin to think about this so many people that that

  244. that pray and don't enter into a prayer language of the Holy

  245. Spirit. It's there.

  246. You just got to learn to walk in it.

  247. Praying in tongues is evidence of this crying to have a father

  248. because there's something in you that's crying out repeatedly.

  249. And we cry out to the Father in Romans 8 and 26 says that when

  250. we know what, not what we ought to pray, the Spirit intercedes

  251. for us and makes intercession with groanings that we can't

  252. even express. So don't grieve it, just receive

  253. it. Don't worry about or pay

  254. attention to the sound. Just cry out to God.

  255. Just cry out, ABBA. Father, let the Holy Spirit cry

  256. out. If there's anything that's

  257. lacking in our churches today and in our homes today, and we

  258. need fixes today in every area of our life, it's because of our

  259. lack of simply crying out. Amen.

  260. You're the problems we have. God can fix them, but it's on

  261. his time frame, right? We just have to cry out to God

  262. on a daily basis. And when we do, it says that

  263. we're no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, an heir of

  264. God through Jesus Christ. But what I see and what you see

  265. and what many people see, it only destroys what we thought we

  266. had. You know, I was reading this

  267. today and the Holy Spirit just flooded my heart with this

  268. because there's so many people that get saved and they've

  269. they're told they're saved. They pray the sinner's prayer

  270. and then they walk out into a cruel world.

  271. And, and many of the churches are just watching on our many

  272. Christians. Let me not say churches are

  273. watching on for them to fail. Anybody ever felt like that when

  274. you was a young Christian? Many of us have to think back a

  275. long time ago. And then when you do fail, you

  276. had condemnation. Everything that you wanted to do

  277. was fun, fun. And everything that was fun, the

  278. church said you couldn't do. So you begin to battle in your

  279. mind, right? And you begin to to weigh those

  280. options and what you could see destroyed what you thought you

  281. had. And then you would step out and

  282. you couldn't do what you heard being preached.

  283. You couldn't do what was being read in the Bible and what you

  284. were reading. And it destroys what we think we

  285. have many times. And Satan has become the master

  286. of this. He destroys everything that we

  287. think we have because we're looking with the fleshly eyes.

  288. Ever heard anybody say, well, when I see it, I'll believe how

  289. many found out? That does not work spiritually.

  290. You got to believe it before you see it.

  291. But many take that as a truth. Well, if God would just do it

  292. and I could see it, I would believe it.

  293. Keep watching because you're probably not going to see it.

  294. Amen. Because God is a faith God, and

  295. He does not change the principle of faith for anyone.

  296. But see, when you realize that you're a heir to things that you

  297. can't see, we just read that we're heirs and joint heirs with

  298. Christ, but we can't see heaven, right?

  299. But yet we're an heir to it. We can't see the promise of the

  300. Holy Spirit until we receive it and hear the mighty rushing wind

  301. coming through the through our life.

  302. But I'm an heir and a joint heir with Christ.

  303. Let's go to 2nd Corinthians 5 and 7, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5

  304. and and verse 6. I'm going to start in six.

  305. It says so we are always confident knowing that while we

  306. are at home in the body, you know, a lot of people are at

  307. home in the body. They think it's their home

  308. forever. We're absent from the Lord while

  309. we're at home in the body. You ever had that that just that

  310. just hit me today. While I'm in this body, I'm

  311. absent from the Lord, but yeah, we spend it in our entire life

  312. trying to stay in this body right.

  313. I envy the old people that didn't have doctors back then.

  314. I really do. I envy him.

  315. You lived your days out When God got ready, he called you home.

  316. You didn't You know we go through a lot of pain today.

  317. I believe because we don't just live our lifeout.

  318. We've changed a lot of things. Landry could bout she when my

  319. wife the other day to the reconstructive surgeon and my

  320. wife said about made her sick to see a lady's face that come in

  321. there and her lips were all pooched out and there.

  322. I guess that was the deal and she was worried about when she

  323. could put her lipstick back on. I don't know about you all but a

  324. busted lip hurts me. I'm not going to go get my lips

  325. cut on to affect the way that I look.

  326. You can go up there. You see some crazy things.

  327. You know, I, I fear for a lot of those folks because when they

  328. get to heaven, God may not recognize them.

  329. That's not what I created. Who are you?

  330. Just a thought. I know He can recognize this.

  331. I know. But you know, we do things that

  332. God never meant for us to do, right?

  333. So while we're in this body said, we are always confident

  334. knowing that while we are at home in this body, we are absent

  335. from the Lord. What's the truth?

  336. Isn't it in verse 7 what I really want to preach to you

  337. tonight? When what you see to draw

  338. destroys what you thought you had?

  339. The problem's not with God. It's with us because we're

  340. seeing with the wrong eyes. Because right here at the

  341. apostle Paul says what he says. For we walk by faith.

  342. What is faith? The substance of what we're

  343. hoping for described in Hebrews, the evidence of what we cannot

  344. see. So we're walking somewhere we

  345. cannot see, right, Right. A lot of people have a lot of

  346. problem with this kind of walk because they want to see where

  347. they're going. But it says for we walk by, say

  348. it with me faith and not by sight.

  349. We are confident, yes, well, please, rather to be absent from

  350. the body is to be present with the Lord.

  351. What a promise. We walk by faith and not by

  352. sight. But sometimes what you see

  353. destroys what you thought you had.

  354. That's why I got to walk by faith and not by sight what I'm

  355. hoping for, but with that which I cannot see.

  356. And that gets confusing for a lot of people.

  357. But when what you see destroys what you thought you had, I want

  358. to give you a few points here. What to do #1 We must trust God,

  359. oversight. We must trust God, though we

  360. cannot see. And rely on God's Word instead

  361. of what we see, what we feel, what we think, and many times

  362. what we hear. Because a lot of people aren't

  363. hearing the voice of God. Because God will never

  364. contradict His word #2 we must learn to take action without

  365. full understanding. And we live in a world of

  366. understanding. Today we all are quiet, I said.

  367. We live in a world of understanding.

  368. If you don't understand something, what do you do?

  369. What? I'll say I'm in a different

  370. situation. Because if I got to understand

  371. what I preach to you and I Google it, could it be false?

  372. Can I preach Google and be a truthful preacher?

  373. So what I got to do? I got to pray what to preach and

  374. when I pray and God gives it to me, I can't Google it.

  375. I got to fast over it and I got to realize if what I heard was

  376. from God because I'm going to be judged on a higher level because

  377. I'm delivering it to more people a few times a week.

  378. I can't Google what I preach, but yet some of my friends are

  379. getting sermons Googled to them and it's a lot easier.

  380. It's not very stressful for though.

  381. They just that you can get them set up, you can get them Googled

  382. and and, but I do Google some things and usually the things I

  383. Google, they don't understand. We Googled about the coin that

  384. was in the fish's mouth one time, you know, Jerry said.

  385. I Googled that because I was preaching about the tithe is not

  386. about the 10th as much as it is about the coin in the fish's

  387. mouth, right? About obedience.

  388. And you need it when it's there and God's supplying your needs,

  389. right? And he said, Google said that

  390. it's not possible to go catch a fish out of a brook or a pond

  391. and there'll be a coin in his mouth.

  392. That's what it said, right? Jerry?

  393. I didn't Google what he did, but I just thought, I'm going to

  394. see. I'm going to see what this said

  395. when what you see, I want y'all to get this tonight.

  396. When what you see destroys what you thought you had because it's

  397. happened to me many times in my life going through some things

  398. Now you know when you when you know when you're when you're

  399. going through a trial and and you're preaching the gospel

  400. every week. Sister Linda said she battled

  401. every time she got up here and got this mic, somebody in her

  402. family got sick. And she said, I'm just going to

  403. wait a little while past her, you know, and you go to hearing

  404. these things about what's going to happen if you keep preaching

  405. the God, the devil just keeps poking.

  406. But see, I know that voice. I know that's not God.

  407. But when what you see destroys what you thought you had, Google

  408. says you're experiencing A profound, traumatic and often

  409. sudden dismantling, dismantling of your reality, a phenomenon

  410. sometimes called reality fragmentation.

  411. You know what I got out of that? You messed up.

  412. It's intense. It's traumatic.

  413. See, they're right. When what you see destroys what

  414. you thought you had, it's going to get intense.

  415. It's going to get traumatic in your life and it's isolating

  416. experience where your brain struggles to to reconcile boy

  417. like this. This will preach because many

  418. Christians are in this right here.

  419. Let me back up and read it again.

  420. When what you see destroys what you thought you had, Google says

  421. you're experiencing A profound, traumatic and often sudden

  422. dismantling of your reality that happened at salvation.

  423. Salvation isn't reality. Hey man, it's the truth.

  424. It's not a reality, your reality and trying to live real and to

  425. whatever you're trying to live real and to say you got to throw

  426. all that out when you are believing in something and a man

  427. that died 2000 years ago that made a blood covenant that can

  428. wipe away every sin you ever committed and cast it as far as

  429. E is from the West and bring peace to your life.

  430. Hey man, that's not reality. That was a sacrifice.

  431. But you're experiencing A profound, traumatic and often

  432. sudden dismantling of your reality, a phenomenon called, I

  433. can't say some of these words, reality fragmentation.

  434. It's intense, it's traumatic and an isolating experience where

  435. your brain struggles to reconcile past trust with

  436. present contradictory evidence. Can I explain that?

  437. What it's saying is you get so caught up in the traumatic and

  438. the sudden dismantling of your reality, and the enemy gets you

  439. to look at what you see and think that it's destroying what

  440. you had. And you got to back up and say,

  441. wait a minute, just like David did.

  442. He said, I killed a lion and a bear that was threatening my

  443. life. I can face this giant, I can

  444. whoop. I recall all the past victory.

  445. But see, the enemy wants to get your eye off of the past

  446. victories that God has done and make you think that God can't

  447. pull you through where you're at right now and it messes.

  448. You'll trust up. But when you begin to trust a

  449. God that's never failed, it shouldn't be hard.

  450. He's never failed. He's come through every time.

  451. But see, he reconciles the past trust our brain becomes unable

  452. to do that. I believe that's true for a lot

  453. of people. Grief for the future you thought

  454. you had, wasn't that true? Grief for the future you thought

  455. you had. We see this in marriages a lot.

  456. You know, the little petite lady that marries old great headed

  457. man that's got a fat wallet and they go to the funeral and they

  458. cry like they really loved him. Hello, I watched the show 1 time

  459. and you know what he did? He didn't leave her nothing.

  460. He had it all to his kids. She was grieving for the future

  461. that she thought she had, right? A lot of people are like that.

  462. They come to Jesus Christ because some preacher told him

  463. how he's going to make them rich and bless them, you know?

  464. And then they have grief for the future because it wasn't

  465. thought. It wasn't what they thought they

  466. had imagined, right? The safety you felt and the time

  467. you invested lost. That's what Google says.

  468. When what do you see destroys what you thought you had?

  469. Be careful on Google. You must learn to take action

  470. without full understanding, was the second point I made.

  471. Like walking in the dark. Anybody ever do that?

  472. I don't know why I'd do it. My kids are grown.

  473. I think I got in the habit of when these little babies try not

  474. to wake them up. And you know I try not to.

  475. I just don't like to be woke up when I do get to sleep.

  476. Hey man, do y'all. But some people don't care.

  477. They'll just walk in there. I think it's really rude, you

  478. know, cuz sleep is a special time for me cuz I don't get to

  479. do it a lot. But some people just walk in

  480. there. My wife's good at it.

  481. And I tell her, I tell us I respect when I come in at night

  482. and, you know, should we go to bed a different time?

  483. I said, I'll be really quiet. I walk around in the dark.

  484. I said in the morning you need something.

  485. You'll just flip the light on if you're up before me and just

  486. wake me all up. And I said, I said, let's have a

  487. little respect. You know what she said You

  488. should have went to bed earlier, but walking around in the dark,

  489. you ever done that? I do it all the time.

  490. I mean, I'll go in there, she's asleep, her bathroom doing I

  491. won't turn the lights on, brush my teeth in the dark.

  492. I might have a little night light on, but then when I leave

  493. there, I turn everything off and I don't like the light shining.

  494. And I'm I'm, I know where that counter is and I can follow that

  495. counter. See, I can follow that counter.

  496. It's dark, but I know where I'm going because I've been there

  497. before. I know where the door is at now.

  498. Sometime I may go because the door is shut.

  499. I may hit my head because the door is shut, but I know the

  500. door is there and I got to back up.

  501. That's the way I got it. I might have to back up and open

  502. the door and say, all right, Lord, what I need to do

  503. different. That door is shut.

  504. But I read a scripture that said just keep on knocking.

  505. Hey man. And as I keep on knocking, he

  506. said, the door can be open. But see, that's kind of like

  507. walking in the dark. You're holding on to the wall or

  508. the balance. You know that the doors there,

  509. you don't been through it many times.

  510. See, we must learn to take action without understanding.

  511. I may not know where I'm going, but I know he's leading the way,

  512. right? You don't have to know that.

  513. You don't have to know the future.

  514. You just have to know who holds the future.

  515. And, you know, sometimes they're stumbling blocks.

  516. You know, I was walking through there one night and I've been

  517. through that door many times, But my wife sitting this little

  518. chest out there, it's about that tall and it's got a corner like

  519. a razor blade, and it loves to catch little toes.

  520. You want to test where you're at spiritually?

  521. My son-in-law Ty, I thought he'd come a long way and he would

  522. stay at her house one night and he caught that thing.

  523. He said I had to repent. I said, brother, I caught it one

  524. time too. And I said, oh, thank you Jesus.

  525. It didn't break it. See, I never, I never knew.

  526. I never figured out what doing any good would to cuss

  527. something. It never did anything.

  528. But when I said thank you, Jesus said it didn't cut it off and it

  529. it felt like it just broke it in half.

  530. But see, it felt better when I said thank you Jesus instead of

  531. had I called it a blah, blah, blah, blah.

  532. That didn't do nothing. I ain't curt.

  533. You know, do you ever see anybody's have a custom fit

  534. today? And you think, man, I used to

  535. look like that, I used to act like that, but now the Holy

  536. Spirit's in me and I've learned to take action without full

  537. understanding and I don't have to do that no more.

  538. The third thing, focus on God's plan.

  539. People looking everywhere for God's plan.

  540. You know what His plan is to get you to heaven.

  541. That's God's ultimate plan. And the sad part, I ain't going

  542. to say it's the sad part. It is kind of sad because I want

  543. to go in the rapture. I want to see what the rapture's

  544. like. Hey, man, I want to go in the

  545. rapture. I don't want to go by the grave.

  546. But we don't get to choose. We don't get to set the way that

  547. we go, but focus on God's plan long term spiritual, his

  548. spiritual reality see is over our temporarily earthly

  549. challenges. He's much more focused on the

  550. future Scriptures full of examples of faith in God's word

  551. over rather than visible evidence.

  552. We love the evidence. What would have happened if Noah

  553. would have just simply said it never rained here?

  554. What would have happened? What would have happened?

  555. The fourth thing there would well, there would never been an

  556. ark. That creation might have been

  557. destroyed. We don't know what would have

  558. happened because Noah obeyed even in the midst of a place

  559. that had never reigned. Isn't that awesome?

  560. God spoke to him. What's God speaking to you

  561. tonight? Though it's never happened

  562. doesn't mean it can't happen to you #4 have confidence in God's

  563. promises even when the outcomes are not yet visible.

  564. We have to have confidence in God's outcome even when we don't

  565. see a way out. I'm going to recap these and see

  566. some of your writing. But when what you see destroys

  567. what you thought you had, you must trust oversight.

  568. Trust God oversight. Rely on God's Word instead of

  569. what you see, what you feel, or what you think.

  570. We must learn to take action without full understanding.

  571. We must focus #3 on God's plan, which is getting us to heaven,

  572. instead of our plans and what we can see.

  573. And #4 as you stand tonight, have confidence confiding God's

  574. promises even when the outcomes are not yet what visible.

  575. Trusting in the dark, knowing that God has a plan.

  576. I want to read the rest of that Second Corinthians as we close.

  577. I meant not Corinthians, Galatians and four and eight, it

  578. says, but then indeed, when you did not know God, anybody

  579. remember that time? It's been a long time for some

  580. of us. We did not know God.

  581. You serve those which by nature are not gods.

  582. But now after you have known God, or rather this got me today

  583. when I read this, or known by God.

  584. Isn't that awesome? After you have known God or

  585. rather or known by God. So he says it's the same thing

  586. there to know God. And when you know God, you're

  587. known by God. And then he asked this question.

  588. He says, Paul says, how is it that you turn again to the weak

  589. beggarly elements? But we're good at doing it time

  590. and again. When we begin to walk, when we

  591. begin to walk by what we see, when we begin to walk by sight

  592. and not by faith, we'll become weak and beggarly.

  593. To which you desire again to be in bondage.

  594. You observe days and months and seasons and years.

  595. Look what he said right here. He said I'm afraid for you, lest

  596. I have labored in vain. Thanks for listening to the

  597. Cross Power Church podcast. May you know that true hope,

  598. peace, and salvation can only be found in Jesus.

  599. If you're near Campbell, TX, we would love for you to join us in

  600. person. You can find service times at

  601. crosspowerchurch.com.