Why are They Running? Various texts Proverbs 28:1

Alright, good morning, good morning, good morning.

Alright, we are in just the right place this morning to hear from the Lord.

I mean, you really can do that anywhere, but together, collected, looking to God to hear

what he might have to say, and we intend to work together to reach new heights in Jesus.

Alright, so we're going to praise God together, spend a little time doing that today, and

what an exciting, so I am so excited to be part of this church that when we celebrate,

we celebrate with service, and that's a great way to do it.

We're praising the Lord, it's our service to God, but it's just due, you know what I'm

saying, we owe him that a million times over better than we could ever do, and then Lord,

we're prepared to be here today, the musicians, instrumentalists, the singers, we've all worked

hard to be here.

I have not worked hard to be here to sing, because I'm not that guy, but I'm glad to

be here to be able to praise the Lord, and then I've studied, and I've prepared, I think

whether the Lord will lay on my heart, excited about that.

Our teachers have prepared their lessons, and fought through the technology struggles,

and went through the Word, and pulled the lessons together for the kids, and you prepared

to be here today, every single one of us prepared to be here today, but it doesn't stop there,

because this afternoon, we get to have a block party outside, and I've already heard people

texting me, calling me, and saying they're coming to block party, and so we get to serve

the community, we get to serve and give, and that way, and of course we'll have a little

preaching the gospel along the way, we'll have a little bit of being taught by God along

the way, a little bit of strength by God along the way, he'll fill us up, and he'll make

us able to reach New Heights in Jesus today, I'm grateful for that.

So today is May 22nd, on this day, six years ago, and I know there was a leap year in there,

but we're not worried about that.

Anyway, so six years ago on this day, we had a nice big contract up here, Constitution

of our Church, and we signed that Constitution to become New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church

of East Toledo.

Previous to that, get this, we were New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church, a mission of East

Toledo Baptist Church, which is up here on Navarre, East Broadway, and they helped us

in our early stages, and some of our folks, including myself, came out of that church

initially to plant, and we're praising God for all of that.

Man, there is some stories, are there not?

And so if you don't know the stories, glad to share them with you, we just had some incredible

times.

You are sitting in a building that formerly belonged to TPS, given by Toledo Public Schools

to the city of Toledo, as long as it would be earmarked for us, they could give it to

them, and they did, and then give it to us.

And so this building, which is worth $10 million, cost us $42.

And that alone is a miracle of God, is it not?

Now, obviously a lot of money went into renovating and getting it ready, but you're sitting in

chairs that were donated, above carpeting that was donated, in front of sound system

that was donated, under lights that were donated, the ceiling was built by volunteer labor from

guys that came from Mississippi, and there used to be a wall right there, and a wall

right there, and they tore those out, 6,000 pounds of block, because they're 14-inch thick

block walls, tore those out, helped bring the baptismal in, and it's mounted, and we

baptize, but we're so blessed with what God has done.

And it's not that there aren't other churches, there are other good, godly churches in the

world, but for whatever reason, God's sovereignty, he said, I'm putting the church right here,

and praise God he did do that, because here we are.

And so I'm grateful.

So that's, six years ago we constituted, obviously we worked for 12 years or something like that

as a church plant, to get to that point, and then also, a few years ago, maybe even a few

years before that, God brought into being our deacon, deacon Tony Brister, this is his

birthday, and what great symmetry that we get to celebrate his birthday and celebrate

the anniversary of the church on the same day, and deacon Tony's probably greatest gift,

I don't really know what his greatest gift is, but I know one of his great gifts is that

he is a servant, and that's what the word deacon means.

And so he is standing in the hallway right now greeting the last of our folks as they

come in, and he has served us as a body and served me and my family, and we are so grateful

for that gift.

So as I open my opening prayer this morning, which I'll do in just a second, I'm going

to pray that God would bless everything that we have in our hearts to do for him today,

that he would send the right folks to hear, that he would help us glorify him through

all of this activity, because we don't want to have a whole bunch of activity, and in

the end find out it didn't glorify God, that would just be a waste of strength and blessings,

we don't want to do that.

So we are going to pray, asking God that he will fill it with that which will glorify

him, and then we are also praying a blessing on brother Tony, because it's his birthday,

praise God, and then we are also praying that folks would come and they would hear the gospel,

and they would know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So let's pray together as we open our services today.

Father in heaven, you are that awesome and powerful God who reached down with a mighty

finger, a strong wind, a Holy Spirit-empowered movement to say, I'm going to put, geographically

speaking, a local body, a church right there on that corner of Hefner and Kelsey.

Lord, I'm so grateful that you decided to do that, and know that there was a lot going

on, and you did miracles for a dozen years in our body before that, miraculous healings,

miraculous interventions, miraculous provisions, you are an awesome God who has blessed his

people for really going on 20 years, and we are not celebrating only six since the Constitution,

because we don't recognize all the awesome things you did before, no, we know that that

was the fruition of those moments, and then from then we have been trying to work just

to glorify you and show that we recognize how many awesome things you have done, and

what you still intend to do, because there are a lot of folks who need to hear.

So Father, we praise you, we ask you to take these songs as praise to your Holy name, use

them as you see fit.

Bless us, yes, but Lord let us be a blessing to you in some way.

And then Father, we pray for this day, we pray that we would do all these activities,

all these things that we have done, all these things we have planned, we brought, our generation

brought the block party wagon, we are parking a lot, so we would be breaking out the candy

machine, the snow cone, the popcorn, and we would be setting up the grill, and some folks

would be slaving over the grill, and folks would be serving in so many ways, the moon

bounces, and the hula hoop challenge, and we have things that are going on, and we don't

want anything to go on that doesn't glorify you today.

So we would ask that you would guide us and correct us and where necessary chastise us,

that's a painful thing to ask for, but Lord that you would lift us up and move us in the

right direction and make us able to work in a way that glorifies you in each of these

activities.

So the one that is coming today just because they are thinking, I want to get me a hamburger,

Lord let them get so much more.

Let them get loved.

Let them get served.

Let them get the gospel.

Let them get faith, Lord, as you will.

Father we pray special blessings upon Deacon Tony and his family today, they served so

faithfully, and he's got strength, but he knows he's got strength that's from you.

He's got brains, but we know he's got brains that's from you.

He's got faith, and he's got faith from you.

Lord we are blessed to have him as part of our fellowship, and we ask you to bless him

today, as he marks out such a large part of his birthday to spend serving other people,

that's just awesome.

That's testimony to who you are in his life and in ours.

And then Father we pray for those who are thinking about coming this afternoon, there's

many, blowing up my phone this morning, sending texts to Facebook and stuff, and they have

all the information that they need to be here, to be on time, to enjoy that which we intend

to present.

And so Father we just ask you to bring them, bring them safe.

We know it's not supposed to rain very much if it rains at all, 15% chance of rain in

our block of time, and so we pray Lord that that holds and it doesn't rain.

And we're able to have fun, and the kids can play and run, so they'll be exhausted, so

they'll sleep good tonight.

The Gospel will be preached, souls will be reached, and people will be served and loved.

Bless it all as your people seek to do your will.

We pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Alright, if you never want to stand up, stretch out a little.

We're going to do a couple more songs.

So those of you that were at New Heights way back when, we were meeting in my parents,

Pastor Dan and Sheri's living room and rec room way back when, can you think of a song

that we used to do that long ago?

I'll Fly Away.

So how about when we first started meeting in this building, and I know this for a fact

because I went back and looked, the very first Sunday that we had service in this room, what

was the song that we started with?

No idea.

Anybody?

I could guess.

Take a guess.

I'll Fly Away.

No?

Not up there.

You can't cheat.

Trading My Sorrows was the first worship song we did in service in this room.

What a great trade.

So we're going to do Trading My Sorrows and I'll Fly Away as tribute to our anniversary

for the next two songs.

Here we go.

I'll Fly Away.

I'll Fly Away.

I'll Fly Away.

I'll Fly Away.

I'll Fly Away.

I'm trading my sorrows.

Okay, Alicia, I'm going to call an audible before we go to the next song.

We're going to take a break for a second.

This will be up in a minute.

Okay.

Apparently Myers is one of the only people that can get cyber attacked on a Sunday.

So if everyone would just have a seat for a minute, just have a seat.

All right, we're going to go to inspiration mode.

Okay.

You'll have this up in a minute.

We're replacing the laptop because it was locked on.

Go ahead.

Laptop's not working.

We're just switching inspiration mode.

Thank you so much.

You know, ironically, this will make you laugh if you think about it.

Over the years, we have had many opportunities to struggle through technological difficulties.

One of the things about being a relatively small, relatively new church is that technology

kind of isn't always the newest thing that's out there, right?

We don't always have the biggest and the best.

We are very blessed to be able to put the words up on TVs and use the laptop to do the

all that.

And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

So you'll have that to do in a minute.

Now, we're at that.

So we've jumped ahead a little bit.

We'll come back to I'll Fly Away.

I don't know.

We may do I'm trading my sorrows again because I didn't get to sing it.

Yeah, it's that.

We probably know that one, right?

Okay.

Anyway, so we'll jump ahead.

If you're following along, your bullet's into the inspirational moment time.

And so you'll see that was supposed to be I'll Fly Away next and then inspirational moment.

We'll go back to I'll Fly Away in a second.

And so in the inspirational moment time, we take a moment to say, how has the Lord been

speaking to you this week?

What has happened in your life or what did you see in the Bible or what did you see in

the Word or what did you encounter that made you go, I think God is at work in that.

And so that's our I know for those of you who were planning on doing it when we got

there, we're there now.

All right.

We jumped ahead a moment.

And so what do you got?

How's the Lord been speaking to you this week?

I got a couple that I didn't get to share last week.

So all right.

So I just think what just happened just now, not the cyber attack, but like trading the

sorrows and I Fly Away was there when we guys were first at the house.

I was thinking of encouraging or re-encouraging.

The thing is encouragement is something you may not know, something you did not hear,

something that gives you courage.

It's encouragement.

And it's like, or re-encouragement is like, I already heard that, but I needed the reminder.

So we were reminded that like we've heard Trading the Sorrow's Offer, but that was

the song we had before we first got here.

That's that re-encouragement, something we need a reminder of.

Here's a verse that I just want to share.

It comes out of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 22 through 24.

1 Corinthians 1:22–24

It says, Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom.

But we've preached Christ crucially, as something blocked to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

But to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the

wisdom of God.

Amen.

I don't have a chance to read the whole chapter, so if you're getting encouragement, just

the whole chapter.

But what I like is that Jews are demanding for signs.

Show me this, show me that.

Because they know the miracles of God.

They know that they've heard it over and over.

I have to see it to believe it.

I have to see it.

And there's nothing wrong with that, because God does show himself through miracles sometimes.

There are signs and wonders, and it does bring people.

But that's all they can think about.

Show me, show me, show me.

And then the Greeks, they're searching for wisdom.

They just can't stop looking.

I'll explain this to you.

Well, I need this.

I need more of this on my plate.

I need this, I need this, I need this.

But Paul says, man, we preach Christ crucified.

We don't need signs.

We don't need wisdom.

We have everything we need in Christ Jesus.

We have been crucified.

And so what I encourage you today is that the quick way to say it is because He died, we

can die.

Not to the things that, you know, there's some great things out here, there's glorious

things, but to die to the things that are not good.

Die to the things that don't do anything for us.

Die to the things that aren't keeping us strong and healthy for God.

And then He lives a weakening.

I've said before, we have everything we need in Christ Jesus.

And we're going to mess up.

We're going to fail.

That's part of the program.

Because if you take a step, you're always going to have something in your way, opposition,

adversity, because you won't take another step.

You know, it's adversity.

It's the things in our life that gets us to keep on walking.

So if nothing was happening, we'd be sinning.

Yeah, that's right.

Someone said, rough times make great men.

And I think Jesus agreed.

He sure went through it on life.

And He said we're not better than Him.

So we're not better than our Master.

He went through some stuff and so will we.

Good stuff.

All right, who else?

This church has been a pundit daily.

We thank for him every day a million times a day, every four Mondays, five Mondays, since we've seen you on Monday.

Good job, buddy.

Way to keep her in line.

And then when we got here, the doors were locked.

He was like, oh no.

But then it all worked out.

Good, good, good.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

All right, anybody else?

OK, let me share one.

All right.

So this last, you may or may not know this, but not this past Friday, like two days ago, but a week ago Friday, I went on a prayer and fasting retreat with some men from our association, really a lot of people from all across the state were there.

And we spent the night overnight in a tent store in a bunk, like it was really was made for kids.

So I stayed in the tent because I wanted to, I mean, the whole point was to kind of be alone with God and I didn't want to be in a bunk room with other people.

And then got there and like everybody could have their own room, so it really wouldn't have been a problem.

I enjoyed sleeping in the tent and I encountered two things and I probably need to do ten, but I have two things that I really felt like I needed to share with you.

And the first one was that evening.

I knew what we were supposed to do, the order of what we were supposed to do, right?

Go set up your tent and then spend time with God.

And I went to set up a tent and first of all, I drove all around trying to find a spot that's kind of secure away for everybody.

But then, you know, if I got to go to the bathroom, I'm not like super far away from a bathroom and stuff.

So I had this perfect idea of where my tent would be set up at.

And I drove and I'm driving along.

That's not the first. That's not right. That's not the right idea.

And then I'm driving, I'm blasting up. It's not quite right.

And then I was driving, I saw two rabbits sitting on a little, it was a kind of a grass road.

There was no gravel either. Two rabbits.

And I thought, oh, maybe the rabbits are a sign.

That's like a really good place for me to camp. I'll sit there, I'll see rabbits.

You know, that'll be cool.

But now that I'm not really a guy in the sign, so I don't think that's it.

So I drove on and then there was a place on the left and I drove on and a place on the right.

Oh, that looks really good.

I thought there might be one better place coming, you know, I mean like down the road.

And I went past that last place that looked really good.

And then the road turned sharply and went down a hill and it like narrowed.

There were bushes sticking in from the sides.

And there was a big old boulder on the right side and a pole on the left side and then the road.

And that was it. So that was the end of the campground. I had driven all the way.

But by the time I got down in there, there was no way to turn around.

I'm driving my white van. I drive a van that's got a turning radius about the size of a white whale basically.

You know, you can turn around and go around like that.

So there was no U-turns. Like the Stevenson-Patton U-turn required like a six-lane highway in that van.

So I'm like, what do I do?

And I'm like, I can back up.

But it's like a hundred yards backing up through the bushes to get back to where I can turn around.

And so I thought, well, I'm going to try to make the sharp turn and get down.

And then I'll get on the road and then I'll turn around and come back in.

And I'll take that spot that I should have taken.

And so I'm trying and I couldn't quite make the angle.

And then I heard this kind of clunk. I'm like, oh, that's it. I hit something.

So I backed up and I got out and I looked and I got back in the van.

Finally, I managed to navigate that turn, get out of the road.

And then I get out on the road and there's a sign as I'm getting ready to go back in.

And it says, do not enter.

And I'm like, OK, well, to get around to the front of the campground, it's like five miles to get back.

It was all the way down to the state route, all the way back around and around.

It was a big outside lap.

And I'm like, do I have to follow the sign? Do not enter.

Can I just, no one's around.

Like it's on private property. So technically that means, you know, I can get away.

And plus I'm a guest of the campground. I had all these excuses.

And so I said, OK, fine.

So I drove back in the road and I navigated that really tight turn again.

I barely made it through it. I went back and I stopped at the campground spot that I should have stopped at in the first place.

So I set up my tent, because that's what you're supposed to do.

So as it goes today, find your campground spot, set up your tent, spend time with God.

This is my agenda. So I set up a tent.

The tent went up great, smooth as silk. New tent.

I've only set up one time before, but I set up the night before so I knew how to do it.

Set it up. Pumped up my air mattress in the van because, you know, I'm an old man.

I can't sleep on the ground like those young men can do.

And so I get in there and I put the air mattress in there.

I got my Bible in there, set up the air mattress and I fell asleep.

Missed the third point of the agenda.

I fell asleep. I was like, it was fine. It was like, it was only like nine o'clock.

You know what I'm saying? I'm going to show my colors here a little bit.

It was like nine o'clock and I fell asleep. I'm supposed to be spending time with God.

And then I woke up and I had no idea what time it was, but it was still kind of dim light outside.

Like it was, it's going to have been too long, maybe half hour or something.

So I grab my Bible and I'm praying and I'm trying to spend time with God.

And I felt like, you know, yeah, I'm hearing some things from God. This is cool.

But it was only like 15, 20 minutes and I fell asleep.

And then I woke up again a little while later. It was dark.

I got my flashlight out and I'm trying to spend time with God.

I'm praying, reading my Bible and spending time with God.

And then I fell asleep again. I woke up. I fell asleep again.

And I woke up. It must have been like three o'clock in the morning.

It was pitch dark and there was animal noises.

We were starting to die down already outside.

And I'm using my flashlight and I'm studying my Bible and I'm praying and talking to God.

And I felt like God was saying some things back to me. It's pretty cool.

And then I fell asleep. The next thing I know, I'm waking up. The sun's coming up.

And so I probably, I went to this prayer and fast retreat and the first meeting was all about rest.

You're going to get rest here. You're going to spend some time with God.

It's going to be restful. You know, rest. You know what I'm saying?

So then these are the things that God told me about.

The first thing is that searching for a campground,

that thing that I did where I'm going to put my tent up,

that is exactly how a lot of people are living their lives.

You can run into a person that knows God, a church that knows God,

a Bible verse that tells you what you need to know about God,

a TV commercial, a radio program.

People are all the time getting the gospel in some sense, right?

And they're going, oh, you don't know that. I'm just going to pass on it this time.

And then later somebody will come up and they'll be like, well, here it is.

Here's rest in the Lord. You can walk with God and serve God and be saved.

And I'll pass on it this time. It looks pretty good. It does. I'll pass on it this time.

And then I had one guy say to me, and he said, well, how do I know?

If God would just send somebody to tell me about everything I need to know about Jesus,

then I would believe. And I'm like, me? I'm right here.

And he's like, I just need a sign. I need a sign.

Brother Tony Tate talking about sign, that verse.

And I thought, man, we look for a sign. We're searching for the Word.

And it's right there. And we keep passing it up.

And then you know what's going to happen?

You're going to get to the end of the road.

And you're going to want to turn around and go back to that place of rest,

that place where you can pitch your tent, that place where you can really spend time with God.

And you're going to see, do not enter.

And I thought, the Lord was telling me, you know, when I give you something,

whatever I give you, just be grateful. Just enjoy my presence.

And then with that, right along with that, I went to set up the tent.

I had to pump the air mattress up. I had to put everything in.

I had to lock up the van. I had to do everything, get all in there.

And then I went to spend time with God, and I fell asleep.

That's what we're supposed to be doing, spend time with God.

I mean, I guess an easy way to do that would be let's spend time with God before we set up the tent.

But then, you know, you're setting up the tent in the dark. You know what I'm saying?

So I think what I discovered when I went to spend time with God is that I've been very busy doing a lot of things.

And they are good things. Don't get me wrong.

But sometimes I think you might need to just say, spending time with God is the most important thing.

It's more important than my shelter, because God will provide that, right?

It's more of not, I don't think God was going to actually set up my tent. I'm not saying that.

But the absolute worst case scenario, I could have slept in the van.

I had a van sitting right there for my tent.

But I just think we get so tired because we are trying to do so many things.

And we need to realize that that tiredness is actually keeping us from God.

So, see, he first became a God, and all these things will be added unto you.

That's what the Lord told me. So I would say, and I've been doing it for a long time now.

So starting next Sunday, we'll start a new episode on spiritual discipline.

For six months we've been emphasizing study.

And for almost that entire six months, first thing in the morning when I woke up, I've been studying my Bible.

I've been a Christian for 25 years. 26 years. 26 years. I've had a loose crack.

And I've never done that before. I've never had time for a while.

I've never said that first thing in the morning when I'm studying my Bible.

And you know what? It's restful. It changes my day.

So, I'm not saying you have to do it that way, but I do think we're supposed to discipline ourselves with study.

Probably could share some more stories, but if God starts to do something in your life,

God's calling you to do something, God's moving you to do something,

and you're thinking about joining in it, or maybe just kind of passing on this one opportunity,

and I'll come back to it later, just remember there may not be any later.

I'm coming back to it, and don't be so tired that you miss those opportunities.

I cannot believe, as much as I love the Lord, I cannot believe I actually said to myself,

hey, maybe those two rabbits are a sign that that's where I should camp.

Are you kidding me? We don't do signs. We just listen to Jesus.

Alright, let's pray together again. And I'm going to ask Deacon Tony.

We already prayed for your birthday, brother, so now I can actually call on you to pray.

Alright, so Deacon Tony, would you lead us in prayer as we transition?

We'll do, I'll fly away, or the offering in whatever order the praise team leads us in.

However they do it, we'll follow them. Go ahead.

Father, Lord, thank you for another day of giving us thanks, especially for this day.

Now, it's an anniversary of me coming into the world, but it's an anniversary of this church,

and it's a good part of it. And I did this morning, Lord, I thank you, Lord,

for many things that you've given me in my life.

Thank you, especially for this church, and the people that you brought in here,

to come and God made it so we're still here as a church and as a people.

I ask the Lord to be with us today, not only this day, but in the days coming up,

the years, the weeks, whatever it may be that you established for us to be here.

And Lord, help us to do the work that you put us here to do.

We're just thankful that we can this day and time to stand and sing.

Yes.

And hear your word preached to us from the pastor that you picked for us,

the people that you picked to be here, the people that haven't come yet, Lord,

not only this day, but in the days to come, the years to come.

Help us, Lord, to be welcoming to them.

Thank you that we are an active church, that we do block park parties, that we work,

we do different things. We're involved in so much.

Just thankful, Lord, that you let me be a part of it.

So I ask the Lord to be of service today, be of every part of it,

be of offering as we pick it up. Thank you, Lord, those that want to give.

And thank you, Lord, that we can give because you've given so much to us.

Jesus, I'm over here.

Alright.

Alright, we're going to stand up again.

You have words now, which means you can sing along.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

Amen.

Okay, you can be seated at this time.

It may make us stand up again in a second.

Alright, so we are going to ask you to stand again because,

and this is not my fault, we changed it all up,

but this is our kids' motion song.

So kids, could you make yourselves a little room?

You can come towards the front if you want.

I am not a kid. I'm going to dance.

So if you all want to dance, here we go.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

I'm going to stand up again.

Alright, thank you, kids. You did an excellent job.

At this time, we are going to release the children to their classes.

So go ahead and follow your teacher.

You can stand or sit or whatever is most comfortable for you.

We probably have to stand again in a second.

Alright, you can stand or sit, whatever is most comfortable for you

and we'll see you next time.

Praise the living morning, the time of the trees.

Praise the believing, the children underneath.

Praise the name of new day, the gentle birds that sing.

Praise Him all who be born. Praise the King.

Praise the King. Praise the King.

Let it ring. Praise the King.

And praise Him for a peaceful voice and happy, chance-less way.

And praise Him for the rolling hills where children laugh and pray.

And praise Him for the wandering souls that never lost their way.

Praise Him all who be born. Praise the King.

Praise the King. Praise the King.

Praise the King. Praise the King.

Let it rain, let it rain

And praise the Father, the Lord, the Father

And bloom the rose that day

And praise the nice of the crew

The guilt, the grief, the shame

Oh, and praise the man whose hand in love

Will still forgive today

Oh, and praise the Almighty, the Lord There is a King

There is a King

There is a King

Let it ring, praise the King. Praise the King. Praise the King.

Let it ring, praise the King.

Thank you, Jesus. You are my hiding place.

You are my hiding place. You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance.

Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. I will trust in you.

Let the weak say, I am strong in the strength of the Lord.

You are my hiding place. You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance.

Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. I will trust in you.

Let the weak say, I am strong in the strength of the Lord. I will trust in you.

You are my hiding place.

You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance.

Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. I will trust in you.

Let the weak say, I am strong in the strength of the Lord. I will trust in you.

I will trust in you. Let the weak say, I am strong in the strength of the Lord. I will trust in you.

One of the great ironies of ministry, by the way, is that while I love to preach the Word,

and I think I would probably just die if I couldn't do it, I feel so compelled by the Lord to preach the Gospel, preach the Word of God.

That being said, my favorite time is praise time. It's worship time. I feel like that's when I'm filled up.

That's when I'm empowered. That's when I'm rested and blessed by God. I'm so grateful that we get to do that.

You may have noticed that I get a little carried away some. I know that they probably sometimes have to really try hard not to listen to me when they're singing,

because I don't sing on tune and stuff like that. I remember years ago I sang in a choir and the guy next to me said,

Can't you sing on tune? I was like, I guess not, because I don't know what you mean exactly.

Yeah, exactly. It's a joyful noise. So don't worry about that. Let's praise the Lord. Yeah, that's it.

So this is a topical sermon. So a topical sermon is where we talk about something, we ask a question of Scripture, or we say,

Okay, let's study this. The first time I ever preached, ever, I preached a topical sermon. My topic was the Holy Spirit.

And you can imagine, it was a very broad topic. Yes, a very broad topic.

And about an hour and 20 minutes later, those gracious people, they just sat there and they listened, and we got to the invitation.

I think it was about an hour and a half, I'm sure I could probably tell you better, hour and a half, hour and 40 minutes later.

And God moved and it was awesome, don't get me wrong. And we learned a lot about the Holy Spirit.

But I learned that if you're going to preach on a topic like the Holy Spirit, you've got to preach a series.

That's going to take a while. You can preach a year on the Holy Spirit. So the topic today is a strange one.

And so I'm going to give you an illustration to understand what I'm talking about.

So some many years ago, I was doing youth ministry and at the time I was still working at Pizza Hut. And I was probably a manager in training, which is like an assistant manager then.

And we had scheduled a flag football, or I'm sorry, not flag football, Ultimate Frisbee.

And what is the other game? Yeah, like capture the flag. That's what I was trying to say.

Capture the flag and Ultimate Frisbee event out at our apartment complex in Prairiesburg, which is where we were living at the time.

And this apartment complex was pretty vast and wide, even had some rolling hills in the middle and stuff.

And there was a big flat ground in the middle. And so you could run for a long, long way.

And so we divided the entire place up and we put the flag on one side and flag on the other side.

You run in like three eighths of a mile, half mile to get to where the flag was on the other side.

But I set up the event and then I was late getting there because I was working at Pizza Hut and I had trouble getting out of work.

And so I got there and my wife had started everything and the other youth leaders had started everything.

And as I came up out in front of my apartment and parked my vehicle, there was a group of teenagers,

two or three girls and I think one or two boys, and they all come running from around the corner and they're running.

And they go, run, run, run, run now, run, he's coming, run now.

And I'm like, I don't know what's going on. So I just ran, you know what I'm saying?

What do you do when a crowd of people runs by running? So I just ran along with them.

And so this is the question. The question is really, why are they running? That's really the question.

And you could break that down a whole bunch of different ways, I understand.

But there is a group of people in the world today that are running. That's what they're doing.

And I know that you could stretch it and say that we too, as Christians, are running, running the race, as Paul put it forward.

But these folks are running, they're running all over the place. They're running in batches.

They're running in groups. And they would have you go with them.

And if you go with them, you will get wherever it is that they're going.

And so we better know why they're running before we decide to run along with them.

And so that is the context that we're talking about in the sermon.

Some years ago, I was a huge Tom and Jerry fan. Does anybody even remember Tom and Jerry?

Some of us are like, oh yeah, Tom and Jerry. Even the young people. Youngish people.

Nicole, Tom and Jerry? All right, yes. We are almost unanimous. Awesome.

So Tom and Jerry was a huge Tom and Jerry fan. I would watch that every day after school.

And even up until I was 17, 18 years old. And so I didn't tell my friends I was watching it.

But I was watching it every day after school.

And there was an episode where Jerry was around the corner from Tom and Tom was stalking up on him.

And Jerry put a light shining just so that it made his shadow really big. It was really huge.

And so he sees Jerry, the little mouse, walking in front of the light.

And he's coming up on the corner and there's the shadow. And it's like, it's bigger than Tom, right?

So twice as big. So it looks like a big, giant, muscular mouse.

And he takes off running. Because he doesn't want to face the big, giant, muscular mouse.

And then you see little Jerry come walking around the corner, right?

So grab your Bibles if you would. We're going to be flipping some. I hope you brought a Bible.

If you didn't, it's okay. I'm going to read every text and I will explain every text that we see.

If I quote it, you can know that I'm quoting it. I've written down. I'm quoting it exactly as I wrote it down.

How about that? But as close as I possibly could to writing it down correctly.

And so grab your Bibles if you would. For those of you who are not normally here at this moment in time,

we'll hoot, we'll holler, we'll say, Amen. Take a breath right now.

This is your opportunity to get out your last noise, your wiggles, your shouts, and focus on the Lord as we go to Psalm 34.

Okay, that was weak. All right. So we need some.

So Lisa, if you can't, thank you. Nina's with me. Brian, are you in, man? I didn't hear you.

Can you say Amen? I will. Amen.

All right. There we go. All right. We're trying to get all at once. Ready? We're going to God's Word, Psalm 34.

All right. Thank you so much. I know it's hard. It isn't easy.

And the reason that it isn't easy is tied up in what we're talking about today. Okay. So now.

Just to clarify, you don't like anyone to say Amen and say everything.

Oh, you absolutely. Oh, no, please. Yeah, no, no, no. You participate.

In fact, I'll say this and it's only come up a few times.

But if you have a question about something that I'm preaching on, this is no, no, no, just raise your hand.

Now, if it's a question that cannot be answered in, you know, and I'll say, well, we need to talk about that more.

Okay. But if it's a question that can be answered and shortly, I would just answer it.

I try to do that like I try to think ahead of what the questions are and try to cover those things.

We don't do Sunday school as adults before church. And so we teach and preach at the same time.

So you're going to get both. All right. But that being said, we're going to go through because we have multiple topics.

Multiple verses to get through. They will go by fairly quickly. And I'll just try to explain.

Now, we we hit Psalm thirty four hard a couple of weeks ago.

So I don't I'm not going to really dig deeply into Psalm thirty four.

But I want you to see a verse and we studied this verse at that time.

And this is the first point. So the question is, why are they running?

And Psalm thirty four, verse twenty one says this evil brings death to the wicked.

And those who hate the righteous will be punished.

And so the first question, the first simple answer to why are they running?

They're running from each other.

When you watch the social media, when you watch TV or something and you'll see.

In fact, this came up in a conversation I had yesterday about talking about how something a plot that seems to be sort of like that has been perpetrated on our country will come to light and it will become evident.

And people will realize that. And somebody else said, well, it may never really come to light.

And the truth is that why? Because you've got people who are pushing an agenda.

And then over here you've got people saying, oh, don't listen to them.

They are this and that. And they're they only they don't want what's best for you and so on.

And then when this people over here get into power and they're pushing their agenda, these people over here will say, well, don't listen to them.

Right. Because everybody wants you to listen to them. Right.

So they're back and forth nitpicking. And it's so hard to really discover the truth of things that you have no firsthand knowledge of.

That's the reality. And so there's a lot of that out there.

And they're sort of trying to devour one another. And that's what's happening.

There is a fight in America. And most people don't realize this in America.

The least of the wealthy who have income. So it could be on SSI disability or something like that.

They have a very limited income. They are in the 95th percentile worldwide for income.

They make as they make more money than 95 percent of the people in the world.

And the people who are at the high end, not like Elon Musk.

OK. Or what is it? What's his name? Elon Musk. OK.

Not like him. Not talking about him. He's a little bit of a weirdo.

But that being said, and you could tell him I said that maybe I'll come to New Heights.

It'll be awesome. All right. But anyway, the point is people who are making, let's say, couple hundred, three hundred, four hundred thousand dollars a year.

Right. Those people, which are rare to us, we think of them as being rare.

They are in the 97th percentile. So all the wrestling that's going on, all this.

I need more money. I need a shiny or this or that. All of that is all happening within two percent of the world's wealth.

It's all in that two percent range. So everybody's struggling to move from ninety five point one to ninety five point one five.

You know, we're all trying to be a little wealthier. It's ridiculous.

And in so doing, the idea by the way you ever heard the saying this actually from Tom and Jerry.

Tom tried to do this a lot. Build a better mousetrap. If you build a better mousetrap, the world will be a path to your door.

That's an old saying. And it was about the American dream.

And if you can invent something or you can get something everybody wants, everybody will give you everything you want, basically your money.

And they'll come by from you and so on. Everyone's trying to do that.

Well, you know what a mousetrap does, right? It catches mice. It kills mice.

It breaks their neck or breaks their leg or grabs onto them, whatever.

And if it just gets their leg, a lot of times you just find their leg there and they've crawled away because they left it behind or whatever.

The point is, everyone's trying to build a better mousetrap and draw everyone else in because that's how they're going to get successful.

That's how they're going to get wealthy. That's how they're going to move from the 95.2 to the 95.7 mark, right?

That's what's happening in the world. So if you join that race, if you run along with them, you will have to devour other people along the way.

Now, if you're comfortable with that kind of spiritual, emotional, and psychological cannibalism, then you probably have a problem with your relationship with God.

Because God is not comfortable with it. We are to be loving and kind and merciful. We are to be patient.

We are to have joy. We are to pour into other people, not devour them along the way to get ahead a little bit.

Psalm 34 verse 21 tells us that the evil and the wicked, they devour each other. And that's what they're doing.

Psalms 34:21

It's very much like what happens in the animal kingdom. The little bird eats the worm and the big bird eats the little bird.

The little bird never eats the big bird. And trust me, there's a bigger bird.

You join in that race and at some point in time you've now become like them. You will devour some people along the way.

You will cannibalize them. You will get them to say what you want them to say. You will get them to encourage you at certain moments when you need it and so on like that.

But the bottom line is, someone else is going to come along and do the same thing to you. Is that a race you want to run?

Is that a running that you want to join? They are prey. The other people, the wicked, the evil in the world, they are prey.

They are to be devoured and really they're to be devoured by other people of the same sort that they are.

So then the second thing I want you to see then is from Leviticus. So if you're following along, flip to the left.

Now it's true that not a lot of sermons get preached out of the book of Leviticus.

I personally have preached out of the book of Leviticus dozens of times over the years but a lot of them don't.

And there's two reasons why that's true. The first is it can be challenging to understand because it is largely written to the Levites who were to be the priests of God

and they're getting some pretty technical teaching in a lot of places and so it's challenging to understand how that applies to us.

I'm going to try to make sure we get that today. Leviticus. 26.

And then the second reason why that's so is because a lot of the teachings of Leviticus are again repeated in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy was the two speeches of Moses that he gave as he's about ready to transition out and no longer be the leader of God's people, the human leader.

And he repeats a lot of what's in Leviticus but the blessing of that is he repeats it and he sort of explains it as he goes.

So a lot of the stuff that we might hear out of Leviticus we would actually preach out of Deuteronomy because Deuteronomy would give us not only the what's going to happen

but also the why and maybe a little bit of why God said what he said and so on.

But we're going to look at it from Leviticus and we're going to start in chapter 26.

We're going to start in 16. We'll take 16 and 17 of chapter 26 and then also 36 and 37 of the same chapter.

So it's just four verses really. So 26, 16 says this. It says, oh wait it's in the middle of a sentence.

So I will do it justice and I'll go back to 14 and just kind of read you into there.

But if you do not obey me and observe all these commands, if you reject my statutes and despise my ordinances and do not observe all my commands and break my covenant.

So he's talking about God's people not doing what God's people are supposed to do.

Then I will do this to you. I will bring terror on you, wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away.

You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will steal it.

I will turn against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies.

Those who hate you will rule over you and you will flee. Listen to this.

And you will flee even though no one is pursuing you.

You hear that? So some folks are running why?

They're running when no one is pursuing them. They're fleeing something. They're running away from something.

But what they're running away from, they don't even know what it is.

The reality is it may actually be nothing. Look at a little further, 36 and 37, skipping down a little ways.

I encourage you to study all that in the middle there. It's all good stuff.

36 says, I will put anxiety in the hearts of those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies.

So this is after he told them that after he kept trying to correct them, he would send them into the lands of their enemies.

I will put anxiety in the hearts of those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies.

The sound of a wind-driven leaf will put them to flight and they will flee as one flees from a sword and fall, though no one is pursuing them.

So they literally begin to run away from nothing. A wind, a little breeze picks up and a leaf flutters along the ground and they're like, what's that?

And they're gone. And you say, well no, that doesn't make any sense.

Why would a human being, and we're essentially at the top of the food chain, right?

This might be a man with a gun or a sword or an intelligent man who has martial arts training or understands the way the world, he knows what the wind is.

He knows what the leaf is. You know, he knows it. He shouldn't.

But according to God, God will institute a situation in which those who survive in the land away from God's great blessings that he intended for them,

because they have not followed the commands of the Lord, wind up running when there is literally no one chasing them.

They're not running to something. Now they may think they are and this actually happens.

What happens is people will go, well, I got to run after that because now I see that having the new Lexus, that's the way to go.

Well, I'm really stepping on Elon Musk's toes today, aren't I? That's all right. I don't mean to do that.

Anyway, the point is it could be the new Chevy, you know, whatever. It doesn't matter.

The new shiny car, the house, the bigger room, the better whatever, better food, a nicer meal.

They think I don't have to go after that. I'm content. And then suddenly that little breeze, that little leaf starts to move.

And they go, oh, I do have to run. Right. When I showed up at that capture the flag event, I thought, well, I don't have to run.

I can go inside and I can find out what's going on, figure out what side I'm supposed to be on.

I'll get all figured out. I could change out of my Pizza Hut clothes and stop smelling like pizza and all that.

But then I thought, no, but here's a bunch of teenagers and they're running and they know what's going on and I'll just figure out later what's going on.

So I'll just run with them. I don't know what I'm running from, but I'll just run with them and later they'll help me figure out what's going on.

And that's happening in the world today. There's a lot of people who are surviving inside the realm of the enemy,

surviving inside the nation that is not the kingdom of God, right, or the kingdom of God is in them, but they're in the nation.

So it can be lost people or safe people. They go, oh, I'm not going to run with them. I'm not going to do it.

And then fear sets in. Well, I better run with them.

In the political arena, and I'm not trying to be political in any way, but the political arena, there is this vast stretch.

And they say there's the far right, the ultra conservatives, and there's the far left, the ultra liberals. Right.

And in the middle is where all the fighting is done. It's trying to get somebody who's moderate to switch over to be liberal or somebody who's moderate to switch over to be conservative.

Right. And most of the time those people in the middle go, well, I'm just not going to do it.

I'm not going to participate in your ultra conservative or your ultra liberalism, which is why there's so much of an attempt to scare people, to get them to go, look, if you stay where you are, you're going to lose this thing that you value very much, or your children are being threatened, or your job is going to be gone, or your prices are going to go up.

And they're trying to get people who are moderate, they're standing in the middle, to suddenly become afraid and to run after that agenda that they first said, no, I won't run after.

And why do they do that? Well, here's the reality. Because they can. Because the people that are living in the middle, they're not standing for anything.

And so they're not standing, they'll fall for anything. They say, no, I won't. I won't do it. And for a while they don't. When I was at Radio Shack, I worked alongside some guys who were really good salesmen.

This was many years ago. And I was never a good salesman. I sold a lot of stuff, but I was never a good salesman. Because I would ask somebody, do you want that? Do you need that? And if they said yes, I'd sell it to them.

But if they said no, I'd be like, okay, well, do you want anything? I mean, you're standing in my store, how about this? You want that? Whatever. I just ask people if they want stuff, and they'd buy it.

But if they ever said no, I just stopped. I never overcame objections. But I worked alongside a good friend of mine who became a good friend. At first I didn't know him.

And he became a good friend. And he was real good at overcoming objections. They'd say, well, no, I don't need that. That's a $400 stereo. I got a $100 stereo sitting at home.

And he'd say, well, you know, this $400 stereo is way better than your $100 stereo. Let me show you. This takes compact disc. This has Dolby Surround. You won't believe what this sounds like.

And it'd overcome the objections. And then he'd sell them something that they first said no, they won't. And so that's happening in the world today.

People are going, no, I'm not going to run along after this agenda. I get that you think I need to be more wealthy, and you think I think I need to be more wealthy.

But I'm not going to go that way. But then it comes along and says, but if you don't try to be more wealthy, you're going to wind up broke.

You're not going to be able to buy that stuff you like. You're not going to be able to live the way you want.

And they go, well, OK, I guess I do have to join the race then. I guess I have to try to be wealthy. And that's actually happening.

Fear is a motivator. And before you say that doesn't make any sense in creation, pray is skittish. Pray is skittish.

The bottom line is the evil are eating the wicked. The wicked are eating the evil. There's a devouring fest going on. It's all about who can rise up to the top.

And you're saying, I don't want to be part of that. And that's smart.

But the reality is if you are not walking with the Lord, you are amongst the evil. You will eventually fall in.

Are you afraid of something? Are you enticed by something? You will fall in line and you'll start running.

And then once you start running, you are prey. And once you are prey, everything scares you.

Some years ago, I used to play a lot of paintball. Paintball is a 60 caliber kind of plasticized paint bullet that will break on your skin and make a mark.

And I used to play James Bond style. So I had this little splat mask I bought up at Woodville Surplus. I paid 40 bucks for it.

And it had a tube of paintballs that would go on the top. It would hold ten shots. And it had a CO2 cartridge on the bottom.

And it would shoot about 50 feet accurately. Now guys are coming out with 400 and sometimes $2,000 paintball guns.

And I hung in with them. But the way I hung in with them is I played James Bond style.

By that I mean I would sneak around, get behind them, and shoot them in the butt.

And I know technically that wasn't James Bond style. But James Bond would infiltrate and when they didn't expect it, that's when he would kill them.

So that's why I called it James Bond style.

It happened that one particular Sunday afternoon, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I was doing what I do.

And I snuck behind enemy lines. And I even picked off a couple of guys. And I got in this village. It was like these little wooden houses that were made up.

And I come around the corner. And just as I come around the corner, and I got a paintball in my gun, just as I come around the corner,

another guy came around the corner in the opposite direction and he had a submachine gun.

And it was about 10 feet apart. That's the perfect range for my Splatmaster. I could shoot anybody in the chest at 10 feet with this thing.

Anybody. It was boom. I knew I had him. And he goes, he goes, pulls the submachine gun and he goes, surrender.

And I went, ahhhh. He went, do do do do do do do do. He shot me from my knee, all up my face, hit me in my privates, blasted my goggles off and paint went in my eyes.

From that moment on, now it took me 6 months to be able to see normally again. I had this little white thing. Every time I blink it would go, eee.

It's going in my eye. And 6 months I could see again. And it took me about 3 weeks to get over this. You know what I'm saying? That really hurt.

And then, and I didn't wear a cup, against advice. So that wasn't wise. But anyway, the point is, so it took me about 6 months to be able to play again.

And when I went out, I bought a paintball gun. I bought a paintball gun that could shoot people at 150 feet, 200 feet actually.

And very technically my then girlfriend, which was Sherry, bought that paintball gun from me. And I still have it in a box.

Because it's kind of technologically behind, but it's fun to play with. But the point is, I was perfectly fine sneaking up on people and shooting them in the back.

Until I realized that somebody might actually be facing me. And then I had to have a bigger gun.

When you're a prey, you've got to do something about it. That's why the wicked are trying to devour the others.

Because they need that fuel. They need something. They need to feel like tonight when they go to bed, that they're not going to be lost by tomorrow morning.

That they're not going to lose their fortune. That they're not going to lose whatever it is they've been working so hard for.

Or that their family's not going to fall. Whatever. They need to feel like they're doing okay. And they get that little dose of being okay every time they eat someone else.

Of course I'm not talking about cannibalism. I'm talking about spiritual, emotional, and psychological cannibalism.

So, still follow along in your Bibles? Go to Deuteronomy chapter 27. So it's just one to the right. Deuteronomy 27.

Deuteronomy 27 · chapter mention

Now remember I told you that a lot of the stuff from Leviticus repeats into Deuteronomy. This is not an exception to that.

But it is different as you'll see. Okay. So 27 and 56 and 57 are the verses. So it's chapter 27 verses 56 and 57.

That's not the right reference. Okay. It's 28. I apologize. 28.

28, 56, and 57. There we go. Alright. We're not lost.

Oh, I hope we're not lost. Don't you hate that? I told you I only write it down just as good as I write it down.

Oh, it's 66 and 6. 28, 66. There we go. 28, 66. Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be in dread night and day.

Never certain of survival. In the morning you will say, if only it were evening.

And in the evening you will say, if only it were morning. Because of the dread you have in your heart and because of what you will see.

And so now we realize that a lot of folks are running. They're participating in that race or they're participating in...

It's all fear. A lot of folks are afraid. And you say, well, no, I'm not doing it because I'm afraid.

People will say, I'm not doing it because I'm afraid. I'm doing it because I want more of this or that.

But the underlying wanting more of this or that is a fear of not being adequate. It's a fear of not having enough.

It's a fear of not having some later. Giving is cut short because I might not have enough for myself. And so on.

So it's an underlying dread. And then we say, well, in the morning we say, I wish it was evening. In the evening we say, I wish it was morning.

We're never satisfied. That's just the time of day. You can't actually change the time of day.

It is whatever time of day it is. If it's morning, it's morning. You can't go, I wish it was evening and actually have something happen.

Like, God's not going to go, oh, poof, I'll make it a nighttime for you. That's just dumb. But that's what we're doing.

We're all wishing it for anything to be something different. I wish it was different.

I'm going to break sorrowful news to you right now. If you're not living for the Lord, you're not following the Lord, you're not doing what God wants, your opinion really doesn't matter.

It really doesn't. I wish it was like 50 years earlier. Yeah.

And there's a lot of older folks who wish it was like that. I'll never forget the man who got saved in his 70s when I was up in Michigan.

And he said, the only thing I regret was that I didn't get saved earlier. We always have regret, right?

Regret comes from fear. It comes from thinking, well, now there's not enough. But if you could go, look, everything I went through to get here or everything I went through yesterday

or all the time I have left before the sun sets today can be something, can be something for God.

There's no dread in that. There's just like God is going to use this to do something amazing.

And it might even be, God forbid that you get crucified or burnt at the stake or something or chastised or cannibalized.

But the truth is, if you don't get in the race, you won't be praying, you won't be cannibalized like a lot of people are. You'll be free in Christ. That's different.

Now, those are the kind of metaphysical things. God says He's going to make us afraid of that leaf blowing in the wind and we start to feel dread and we react in a way that we shouldn't.

Pray is skittish. That's just the reality. Once you start to feel like pray, you will do everything in your power to not be devoured and you'll kind of run on ahead.

I told Ariana and she looked at me like I was kind of weird. If you're in the woods with a group of guys being chased by a bear, you only have to be faster than the last guy.

Right? That's the old saying. And she's like, Dad, that's horrible. I'm like, oh gosh, it is. I've thought that my whole life and I just told my soon to be eight year old that.

And she's like, that's horrible. I'm like, you know, you're kind of right. That is horrible. But that is the reality of society. That's the way it is.

And if the bear is chasing you and you're faster than they take that guy out and you get away. Right? That's just. But is that the way it's supposed to be?

You know, by the way, if there's seven guys in wood getting chased by a bear and they all stop and attack the bear, they win.

Somebody still gets killed, probably because bear is a bear, but they will win. The little guys win if they stand together against the big guy.

All right. So that being said, that's the metaphysical stuff. There's the dread and the fear and the wickedness and the devouring and being prey and all that.

Then there's some various kind of specific intentional stuff that we need to look at.

And so sometimes they're they really are moving away from something that they don't like.

So if you go to the New Testament and Second Corinthians, we're going into the back of the Bible now.

Well, it feels like the back. The Old Testament is two thirds of the Bible and the New Testament is only one third, really.

So Second Corinthians, Chapter two. I'll get there in one second.

Second Corinthians, Chapter two, and I'm going to read from verse 16.

I'll give you a little bit for context. Second Corinthians, Chapter two.

I'm going to read from verse 16. So 15 says to this, For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

OK, so in other words, we got to think on us in Christ walking with God.

We got to smell. We have an odor. If you don't have an odor, you probably don't belong to God.

I'm sorry. That means I'm not talking about body odor.

I'm talking about a metaphysical right. A thing about you that makes you a little bit different or maybe a little bit offensive.

We're about to find out. So 16 then says to some that means to some people we are an aroma of death leading to death, but to others and aroma of life leading to life.

Who is adequate for these things? We do not market the word of God to profit like so many.

On the contrary, we speak with sincerity in Christ as from God and before God.

Basically, as we're serving the Lord in the world, we're going to bother the people around us.

Now, he uses the analogy of a stink. You got to stink on you.

Just get up a good old body odor and then get in your friend's car and see how well that goes.

You know, if they're really your friend, they're like trying not to say anything.

Their eyes might start watering. You know what I'm saying? You're rolling all the windows down.

Dude, you got air conditioning. All four windows are rolled down.

We stink. That's the bottom line. If you truly are following the Lord, you have a strong smell.

Now, here's the blessing of that strong smell to those who are also following the Lord. It smells good.

I love it when I see people serve in their spiritual gift. I love it when I see people giving.

It baffles me and at the same time strengthens my faith in God when I see people doing or giving in a way that I think is beyond what they're actually capable of.

I've seen people spend their midnight oil or give very deeply of their finances or serve and you're like,

oh man, there's no solution here. They show up out of the blue at just the right moment with the right tools or the right strength or the unwillingness to quit and they solve the problem.

That's awesome. That feels good to me. Yeah, it's a stink, but it's a stink. I can just go like, give me more of that.

Just bathe me in that spiritual BO. I'm ready. Let's do that.

At the same time, to those who don't know the Lord, it's bad.

When I was at Bowling Green State University, I had a professor in my second year there and he told me he was a composition professor.

In composition, we had to write a paper every 12 days, a full length paper, 12 pages with bibliography, sightings, quotations, all that kind of stuff.

This was before the day when the computers would do any of that. I was horrible. I've always been bad at formatting bibliographies.

I really struggled with that class, but my writing was pretty good, but my formatting stuff was pretty bad.

I was getting through and we got to the point in time, about two thirds of the way through, and he said,

Okay, so now we're going to write about the topic that nobody ever wants to write about. I'm thinking to myself, well, I don't know what that topic is.

I think I would write about just about anything. I was not saved. I didn't know Jesus. This is what he said.

We're going to write about death. I was like, so? We're going to write about death. Okay, fine. What about death?

Let's start asking some questions, figure out what we're supposed to write. People started asking questions.

Right then, we had a class of 22 people, and right then in the class there were two people who refused to write the essay.

Told him flat out, we shouldn't have to write about that topic. We don't want to write about death.

He said, you know, I get that every year. He said, actually, here's what I've got.

There's going to be those of you in the room who say you won't write about death, and you'll just tell me now, boldly.

Then there's going to be people in the room who say you will write about death, and you'll leave, and you won't do it.

He said, here's what I find. I find that three quarters of the class typically will not write this essay.

He said, I want you to understand, it's worth 8% of your grade.

So, you can still get an A in the class, but you better get an A on everything else if you're going to get an A in the class.

He said, if you choose not to write it, fine. Most people do. Most people choose not to write it.

That day, I'm thinking to myself, as I'm driving home, and I ate at the quad, like out in the sunshine, whatever, my fast food, and I have another class.

I'm driving home from Bowling Green. I'm thinking to myself, why? Why do people have such a wrestle with death?

Here's why. Because people spend their life, their strength, their intellect, their resources, whatever they get their hands on,

they spend most of their time trying to avoid tragedy of any kind.

You ever lost a job, like out of the blue? Like I got a job, and I'm liking this job, it's going pretty good, I feel like I'm doing okay,

and then they come in and they lay you off, or close the place, or just tell you, you know, look, I know you thought you were doing okay,

but actually you really screwed up here, and it's gone now. What's that feel like? It's tragic. It's terrible. It feels like death, right?

You ever have a loved one just like really undercut you, and you're talking to them, and all of a sudden they say something, and you're just going, what? Ow!

That hurts, you know, and you don't show them, you're trying to be strong, but later that day you're going like, oh man, I am just hurt inside so bad about what this is, it's tragedy.

You ever have somebody die on you, like somebody younger, or somebody that was unexpected, didn't have cancer, and fighting it for ten years,

or didn't go through treatments, didn't have a bunch of resections, but all of a sudden they're dead, and you're like, oh man.

So we are busy all the time, it's a natural human state, because why? Because we're trying to overcome the failings of creation.

That's what we were created for, we're supposed to manage it and control it on behalf of God, but ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden it's been messed up,

and we're not able to manage it and control it, so we're trying, we're like, oh, you're not going to die, oh, you're not going to save that, oh.

We're doing everything we can to kind of keep it under control and to avoid that tragedy, but in so doing, we start running a race of avoiding tragedy, and some people are trying to do that.

And then when you get up in their face, and you start loving on them, start serving them, and start talking to them about Jesus, they're like, I don't want to hear what you have to say.

They literally don't want to think about the fact that they're ever going to die, and that they literally could die in the next 24 hours.

They don't want you to tell them, just tell somebody, look, you could die today, and if you die today, will you go to heaven or will you go to hell?

And just see how positive that response is. Now, if God's already been working on them, occasionally they'll go, I'm in, I want to do that, I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

But most of the time, people are like, don't talk to me like that, we tell men.

I have a hard time with that. Talking to people, and I would just prefer to give them the Bible and tell them the truth.

And it should be. And it should be. In fact, the greatest witnessing tool of all time, which I love, is called Share Jesus Without Fear.

And you can just share what God's Word says, and talk to them about what it means. That is a great way to do it.

Because if it's your idea about how to get to heaven, it may not even get them there, right?

Your idea, your picture of Jesus may not be enough to save someone's soul. Jesus is enough, but your picture of Jesus may not be enough.

So the point is, when you get in there and start doing that, you're wrestling with their ability to avoid tragedy.

So you'll find a lot of folks running, a lot of folks trying to avoid tragedy all the time, and your odor will be offensive to them.

That's what we just read. Now, if you'd go with me to Psalm 101.

So now you're going back to the middle of your Bible.

And we are closing in on the conclusion, but we've got a couple stops yet.

Psalm 101.

I'm using a new Bible that has all kinds of new notes in it, so I'm getting used to it.

Okay, so Psalm 101, and it's verses 6-8.

This is what it says. It says,

My eyes favor the faithful of the land.

In other words, those who are following God do what they're supposed to be doing.

God says, His eyes favor them, so that they may sit down with me.

The one who follows the way of integrity may serve me.

No one who acts deceitfully will live in my palace.

In other words, if you get into that mass of tricking and cannibalizing folks, you're not going to make it.

You can say whatever about, like, I'm a follower of Jesus, but if you start running that race,

that's not the way Jesus is going.

He's going a different way. He is a different way.

No one who acts deceitfully will live in my palace.

The one who tells lies will not be retained here to guide me.

Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land, wiping out all evildoers from the Lord's city.

God Himself has pitted Himself.

Now, technically, this psalm is a psalm of David.

So, it's David speaking, and it's kind of musical and like that.

But he's demonstrating God's position while he is king, or will be king, of Israel.

He's saying, this is God's heart.

God's heart is that the wicked who devour each other, those who are running because of dread,

those who are running to avoid tragedy, they will not remain.

They will not sit in my kingdom.

This is not going to happen.

And your odor reminds people of that.

There are people who claim to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They claim to be in the kingdom of God, but they are not running with Jesus.

They are not living for the Lord.

They are not making sure that God is their highest priority in various areas of their life.

And when you come in, I had somebody, I was witnessing to counseling,

they were professing to be a Christian, and I said, well, you know, God says this about that.

They said, well, I'm doing this.

And I said, you know, God says this about that.

And I showed them in the Bible, and I quoted it first, and then I couldn't get it, I couldn't quote it exactly right,

so I opened my Bible and showed them the actual verse.

And I said, God says this about that.

And he says, that person said to me, well, I hear you telling me I'm a sinner and I'm going to hell.

And I said, well, I'm not telling you that at all, but I'm just telling you what the Word is saying.

And this is what it says, you just can't continue on that.

It's got to be changed.

If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you are doing this, those things are in contradiction.

And so now you need to repent and turn to God.

And as soon as I said the word repent, they were like, they were done.

They totally closed off, weren't going to talk to me no more, didn't talk to me for six months.

They're going to continue with their thing.

Absolutely. And Christians ought to be doing it all the time.

But the point is that person was not interested in my stink.

My stink to them was an odor unto death rather than an odor unto life.

And that's where we are.

And don't go thinking that other people got it and they're running from that odor because they're okay, because they're not.

They're running from that odor because that odor reminds them they're not okay.

And so don't join them in running like that.

Then the next one is a light.

And I want to call it our light, but really it's Jesus' light.

So if you go to John chapter one.

John chapter one, so back to the New Testament again.

These verses that I'm going to read to you, if you read your Bible, you studied this before, they may seem a little kind of vaguely familiar.

And somebody might even have them memorized or whatever.

But they have an implication in this topic that we're looking at.

So John chapter one, I'm going to read first verse four and five.

John one, four and five.

It says, in him, now it's talking about Jesus, in him was life.

And that life was the light of men.

That light shines in the darkness.

And yet the darkness did not overcome it.

Okay.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world and the world was created through him.

And yet the world did not recognize him.

He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God.

To those who believe in his name, who were born not of natural descent or the will of the flesh or the will of man.

That just means you didn't get there by any other way, but you got there by God, but of God.

Bottom line is Jesus was a light.

Has anybody in the room ever struggled with cockroaches in your house?

I've dealt with cockroaches.

Thank God, never had them in my house, but I've dealt with cockroaches in a couple of places at different times.

And here's the thing, a cockroach runs from the light.

Those wicked evil folks that we're talking about, they'll run from the light.

They run from the light.

And so it could be you're bringing the gospel, the truth about Jesus in there.

It just could be you're being loving and kind.

It could be you're being compassionate, merciful, gracious, something like that.

And they will run from the light.

We had a situation in the past.

We were on Main Street, this was some years ago, and it was the most bizarre thing.

We had a block party with a lot of people there, servant folks, just like we're going to do this afternoon.

And it was a pretty good one.

There were earlier ones that were pretty well attended, and we got up and started talking about Jesus.

I held the microphone, and I did a little object lesson, and I started talking about Jesus, and I'm sharing the gospel.

And as I'm sharing the gospel, all of a sudden, about maybe 20% of the people on the parking lot got up and literally walked off the parking lot.

They walked away.

They didn't want to have nothing to do with it.

The light of Jesus began to shine, not because of me, but because of who Jesus is, and they didn't want anything to do with it.

Look at John 3, 19.

So just to the right, probably two or three pages, John 3.

And it says this, this is the judgment.

The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

And then 20 says, for everyone who does evil hates the light and what?

Avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed.

Some people are running away from the light because they are comfortable in the dark.

And if you are in the light, and they are in the light, and they start to run, and you go, oh, they're running, and you start to run with them.

Or you go, well, I better run with them because they're going somewhere.

Or you go, I better run with them because I'm afraid of something that might be coming, or whatever.

When you start to run from the light like they're running from the light, you're not understanding the light.

You've missed the point of the gospel.

You've missed the point of Jesus' love for us.

Some people don't like the sound of the truth.

And there's a reference, and we won't go there and read it, but there's a couple of references in Acts 7 and Matthew 7.

And basically, the people that the gospel began to be preached and explained, and they literally put their hands over their ears like this.

In Acts 7, that's the story of Stephen being stoned.

And Stephen, basically what he did was he told the history of Israel and the coming of Jesus Christ.

He told the story.

Now, he told it with a little bit of a caustic tone, right? If you don't accept this, you know, it's a problem.

And then when he got to the end, he said, and this is the Messiah of the Christ.

This is the guy you crucified. You're going to be held accountable.

And they put their hands over their ears like this, and they rushed toward him to grab him, to shut him up, and stoned him to death,

because they couldn't stand the sound of the truth about Jesus.

Some people cannot stand the sound of the truth about Jesus because they can't stand the reality that they have not listened

or accepted the truth of the gospel. They have been wrong.

If I had ran with that group of teenagers and that illustration from the beginning,

and then found out I was actually on the other team, I'd have looked pretty stupid, wouldn't I?

I'd be like, oh, run over here. I'm standing by the flag. We'll guard the flag with you.

And the one I'm just result, I'm going to tag you and put you in prison, because actually you're on the other side,

and we just tricked you to get you to run to our side so we could tag you.

And that kind of stuff actually happens in Captured a Flag. So it could have been like that, but it wasn't.

But that's what happens when the light starts to shine. People go, wait, I'm on the wrong side.

But I don't want to be, I like that I can do this. I can get ahead. I can devour. I can cheat, steal, do whatever I have to.

I can be tricky, and I'm smart, and I'm wise, and God made me good, and God made me this way, and I can live this way,

even though it's contrary to what God says, but God has allowed me the freedom to live this way.

And I can do that, and I want to do that. So I'm going to stay away from the light that's shining,

because it will become painfully obvious to everybody, including me, that I'm not honoring God the way I'm supposed to.

People run from your odor, people run from the light, people run from the sound of truth,

and then the last one is people run from God's wrath.

The wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against the wicked.

Look at Romans chapter 1, and this won't take long, but we're going to go there and look at Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention Romans 1 · chapter mention

Now we could read this whole chapter and on into chapter 3,

because Paul is doing a really good job of describing here why the Gentiles who don't know the Jewish traditions,

didn't know the Word, etc., are just as responsible for their behavior before God as the Jews who did know.

And that means that we are lumped into that original passage of Scripture,

Leviticus and Deuteronomy that we read, we have the same responsibilities when we're not walking with the Lord,

we have the same responsibilities because of what he explains here.

And so Romans chapter 1, verse 18 says this, it says,

Romans 1:18

For God's wrath, and real quick, understand, wrath is God's opposition.

It doesn't mean his anger, it's not that God's frustrated with you or emotionally against you,

it means he's violently opposing. God's wrath is revealed from heaven.

It means it's made known, it's shown against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people

who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

So just their being unrighteous and not being a true follower of God,

not being what God would have them to be, not letting God work in them, etc.,

just that suppresses the truth, their unrighteousness suppresses the truth.

And because of that, wrath of God, not my wrath, that wouldn't be very scary anyway,

wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against those who by their unrighteousness

are suppressing the truth. Since what can be known about God is evident among them

because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes,

that is his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen

since the creation of the world being understood through what he has made.

Do you understand? Some people are running because of who God is.

Some people are running because they're running from the wrath of God.

Running from tragedy is often running from the wrath of God.

The wrath of God is on creation and is on mankind and its sinful nature

because of what happened in the Garden of Eden.

And it's been that way since then. And Jesus didn't want that to be the end,

eternal state of mankind, and so he died. He suffered the wrath of his Father on the cross

to pay the price for sins. And for those who believe that and receive the gift of eternal life,

Jesus Christ becomes Lord. That means he's boss of your life, Savior.

That means he paid the price for your sins. God raised him on the third day

as testament to us that he is the man, he is the one, the way, he is the person

whom we are supposed to believe in. He is God in the flesh.

Because of that, we know we can go to heaven one day. There is life after death.

And you can endure anything that you're going through because ultimately

your eternal destination will be with God. But lest we forget where we began,

we started by asking ourselves, why do some run? Why are they running?

They're running because they're devouring each other.

They're running because they're prey and someone's about to devour them.

And prey is by its very nature skittish. They're running to avoid tragedy.

They're running because of the stink of Christians in the church.

They're running because of the light of God as revealed through His holy Word

and His Savior and His people. They're running because of the sound of the truth

that so bothers them that they would realize that they have not honored God

the way they're supposed to. They don't want to hear.

They're running because they realize the wrath of God is a very real thing

and they don't want to face it.

The last verse of the day, Proverbs 28.

Proverbs is not a book of promises. It is a book of Solomon's observations

of how the universe works. So whenever you read a proverb

and it tells you something about how something works,

you can basically add this disclaimer. That's the way it is.

Take it or leave it. It's still going to be that way when you're done.

That's the way God made it. This is what Solomon wrote in Proverbs 28, verse 1.

Proverbs 28:1

He said,

The wicked flee when no one is pursuing them,

but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

Here is the beauty, though we may run for the cross,

run for the goal set before us, run to be like Jesus,

run to reach heaven one day, run in whatever strength that God has given us,

renewed strength.

Though we may run like that, we never run from the enemy,

we never run from anything that would hound us, we never run from tragedy,

we don't run from the stink of the gospel, we don't run from the sound of the word preached,

we don't run because we're afraid, for if He is for us, who can be against us?

There is no fear in being a follower of the Lord.

You will one day run with Jesus if you are a follower of the Lord,

if you have accepted Him as Lord and Savior, believed and received the truth of Jesus Christ,

you will one day run with Jesus right through death into eternal life.

It'll come for you, it comes for all of us. If Jesus doesn't come again, it will come for you.

You will die. If you're here today going like,

I'll die, but I don't want to die right now, and I'm not quite ready to go,

and I've got to soar all this out, and I'm thinking,

it's possible that you have developed a personality that is running with others who are running,

running with others who are running because you know that someone will devour you if you don't,

running with others because you know that you are prey, that someone is after you.

You hear the movement of a leaf and you go,

well I've got to go over here and I've got to do this,

you see the things that the world offers, I've got to go over here and I've got to do this,

you want what you want, and you don't want somebody like me or somebody like somebody else in this room

to step up into your life and give you a word of truth and honor and justice and righteousness,

which is Jesus Christ has right to be Lord of your life and tell you what to do when you do it.

You don't want that, so you're going like, well I'm putting that off.

You're driving in the campground, and heaven's there, and heaven's there, and heaven's there,

and you're going to get to the end of the road,

and there's no way you're going to get to heaven because you've turned down every opportunity to follow Jesus.

If you are running, and you don't know what you are running from, or what you are running for,

you don't know what you are chasing, and you don't know what is pursuing you,

it's time to stop running that race and turn yourself over to God through Jesus Christ, His Son.

You have nothing to fear when walking with Jesus, because no matter what tragedy you are required to endure,

nothing can separate you from the love of our Savior.

But there are things that the world has, and we are enticed.

Now as we have been talking, we've all been saying, that ain't me, and I ain't running.

I love that this sermon doesn't step on my toes today, because it ain't me, I ain't running.

I would ask you, how often have you retreated into a fantasy world

and streamed episode after episode after episode of your favorite TV,

because you don't want to think about what you did in your day?

Are you at work at 2 o'clock yearning to be home with your family?

Are you at work at 2 o'clock yearning to have more money or figure out how you are going to get somewhere?

Do you want something? I personally want a garage. I wanted a garage for 10 years.

I am right now standing before you repenting of wanting a garage.

If the Lord gives me a garage, that will be great. If He doesn't, it will be fine.

I am still going to make the joke about the little cubby that I have all my stuff in,

and I call that the garage. I am still going to make that joke.

But the bottom line is, if you are wanting something you can't have,

it's probably because you are not following the Lord.

If you are fleeing for something you don't want to have,

you are going, oh, I am so concerned that my kids are not going to grow up.

I am so concerned my kid might grow up and become a missionary.

I am so concerned that if I relinquish this tithe, this offering, if I give my service,

if I don't go do what I want to do now and I do what God wants,

I might not get to do what I want to do later.

If that's your personality, you are running.

You literally have joined yourself to the caravan of individuals that are running away from God.

And you are like, well, God might come in and tell me to do something that's uncomfortable.

Yes, He will come in and tell you to do something uncomfortable.

He will. He will do it today.

And He will say, well, I've got to work in my kid's school.

I've got to work in my kid's program.

If I am not right there holding my kid's hand, he can't do his math work.

If I don't tell my wife what to do, she will do the wrong thing.

If I don't tell my husband how I feel, he is going to keep acting like a little kid.

FYI, he is going to keep acting like a little kid.

She is going to do the wrong thing.

We are all going to get it wrong.

That's literally who we were.

And who we were is still with us in some sense.

God is building a new you if you have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

It's time to stop running to things that make you feel okay in your present situation.

Because there is literally only one thing that is supposed to make you feel any sort of way about your present situation.

And that is the love of Jesus Christ.

And that needs to become your main focus.

The next time you are, woe is me, I have been hurt, somebody is cannibalizing me, realize you are a prey.

They are cannibalizing you because you are allowing it.

Because instead of delving deeper into Christ and focusing on the things that are really important,

you are allowing the emotional, psychological, and even spiritual strain of life to affect you.

When if you are sealed up by the Holy Spirit, if you are regenerated by Christ, if you are living in the Lord,

the rest of that is all going to go like, yep, this happened to me this week, I got a letter in the mail.

It says, well you owe $3,000.

Totally blindsided me.

I had no idea I owed $3,000 and I don't have it.

It's a reality.

I'm like, well we'll have it eventually over time, we'll be able to pay it.

But I'm like, ah, this is really something.

And I went, why did that happen Lord?

I got no answer.

I said, well maybe I screwed something up.

It's probably my fault.

Okay, well if that turns out to be the case, I'm going to have to pay that $3,000.

I'll pay it on payments, I'll pay it in one shot, I'll go without something, whatever.

It's a reality of what it is.

That's my life.

I didn't break nothing, I didn't hoot, holler, shout, scream.

I didn't run away, I didn't tear it up and throw it, pretend it wasn't there.

In our early Christian walk, we had a whole bunch of credit card debt.

And we had two houses going in foreclosure.

We were young Christians and we weren't tithing, we weren't giving to the Lord, we weren't serving.

When we were serving, we went to a new church and they wouldn't let us serve.

And then finally we got serving again.

But the point is, in that period of time, everything went to pot.

Two houses going in foreclosure, overnight, $29,000 with the credit card debt became $89,000 with credit card debt.

Because of all these fees and everything like that.

And you know how many creditors we talked to on the phone?

None.

Because every time they'd call, we didn't answer.

We hid from what was going wrong.

But if we hadn't hid, we could have mitigated a lot of the problems.

We could have solved it, we could have done a better job.

We didn't do that.

We hid from what was going wrong.

Now, I'm going to be like, we're going to take care of it.

I don't know how we're going to take care of it.

We're going to take care of it.

And I didn't get frustrated, I didn't kick nothing, break nothing, shout, holler, nothing.

You don't have to do that.

Because you're okay in Jesus Christ.

You're better than okay.

You're going to run one day over the heads of the enemies.

Check Malachi if you don't believe me.

We're going to run on the heads of all those people right now cannibalizing everybody.

They're all going to be dust on the ground.

We're going to run right over top of them, Malachi says, into heaven for an eternity.

You don't want to run.

You want to stand your ground.

Armor up.

And get ready.

Because the truth is, if you look at the way the world's going right now,

it's probably going to get worse for Christians.

And if it gets worse, we're not going to run.

And if you're running, I'm asking you to repent.

If you're spending a lot of time in things that help you distract yourself,

even though it might not be alcohol or drugs or whatever,

but if you're spending a lot of time to distract yourself to the reality of your life,

I'm asking you to stop running.

And search Jesus Christ as Lord.

I'm asking you to stop running and reach new heights in Jesus.

Grow in Jesus.

Study. Pray. Rest in the Lord.

Serve. Walk it out.

And by the way, we have the same application from Leviticus as they have.

If you know what to do and you don't do it, it's all downhill from there.

Because God will judge us one day by the choices that we have made.

And you say, well, I'm a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not going to judge me.

I'm going to go to heaven. He's going to judge everybody.

This time I ask the praise team to come forward and we're going to have a closing hymn,

a hymn of invitation. This is your opportunity to say, listen, I get it.

I feel like the Lord is asking me to make some kind of a decision.

You might be here today and say, I'm going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ for the first time ever.

I need to in earnest say, okay, I recognize what Jesus did for me.

I'm running with Jesus and I'm not interested in what the world has to offer.

I'm not going to be intrigued to go that way. I'm not going to be feared to go that way.

I'm going to go the way that Jesus would have me to go.

And I'm going to follow the Lord from here on out.

If that's the decision you're making, say you're literally getting saved right now in this moment.

You're for the first time being born again, fresh, new.

Jesus is coming into you and saying, okay, we're going to go.

Bless me and you go be somebody new.

If you're here today and you say, I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, I already know that.

But I listen to this message and I realize I've been running.

I'm running to fantasy. I'm running to falsehood.

I'm running after something that the world offers.

I'm running from something that I'm afraid of.

And if that's you, then I'm going to ask you today to repent and turn to Jesus anew and say, no, I am running with the Lord.

I'm not after what the world wants. I'm not trying to flee what I don't want to see happen.

I don't care if you can crash or you're stung.

I just want to walk with Jesus.

There comes a moment. There always has to come a moment in time when Jesus becomes the most important thing.

And if that's never happened, it better happen now.

And if it's ever happened, it better happen now.

Because Jesus is Lord.

Maybe you're here today and you say, I need a new church home.

I need somewhere I can serve and walk out my faith in Christ.

You keep telling me, you say that's I think God wants me to do that today.

Or I need to be baptized.

I need to confess to the Lord and accept Jesus Christ.

Or maybe right now I did.

And I know that God wants me to be baptized to show people that I put the old me behind and the new me is a living for Jesus.

Or maybe God's calling you to a certain ministry.

You say Jesus is going to want me for a while to do X and I've been putting him off.

And I see now I've got to stop.

Or I'm going to wind up running with the folks who are running for the wrong reasons.

And you commit today to do that thing that God has called you to.

Maybe the Lord has laid something else on your heart.

And as we sing this song you can do it.

You just come down front and say, that's me.

The Lord has been speaking to me.

And we'll deal with it.

And you know, you know that we're looking down on anybody in this room.

We're all hoping for the best for each other.

There's two new heights together.

So whatever it is the Lord has laid on your heart, if there is something then you come.

And if there isn't then you be singing praises to God.

But at the same time praying for those who are wrestling with whatever is going on in their heart.

If you're comfortable and able to do so, would you stand with me?

We're going to sing this song together.

I want to give God the honor and the glory for His word and how it speaks to us.

The song's going to be out on the screen.

They're going to lead us.

The Lord is moving in you.

You come forward and you share with me how He's speaking to you.

Just as I am without one dream,

One that I've got one shed for me.

And that I have been given to me.

You may be awesome.

You may be strong.

You may be great and you may be evil.

But this is how we get to heaven.

I love this.

Shed blood and lamb Jesus Christ.

That's how you get there.

You will not power through one or all.

Righteousness such as it would be without Jesus will be as filthy rags and it will not get the job done.

Accept the free gift of salvation and begin to live it out today.

And if you've already done so, commit yourself anew, a fresh, to be all about Jesus.

Walking with Him in you, not hand in hand with Jesus, but with Him in you doing what it is that He would have you to do.

Being who it is that He would have you to be.

Don't turn away.

Don't cry one by one.

In your heart moving right now, your response.

Oh, yeah.