Listen & Obey

I want to speak to you from my heart a word.

How many like the word?

You like the word.

And uh, but here's the thing.

I want to assume something, because if you assume something before you speak, you'll probably do better.

And I want to assume that some of you, you're in a dry place right now.

I want to assume that some of you, you haven't heard the voice of God in a long time.

I think it's important to throw in that assumption that some of you are under a weight, maybe a weight of guilt and condemnation.

But let me remind you, we all need Christ.

Amen.

He loves you.

You're not perfect.

If you think you're perfect, then nobody likes being around you.

And uh, raise your hand if you have issues.

Come on.

If you don't think you have an issue, that's your issue.

We need God.

And I think there's a hesitation sometimes for us to listen and do.

Because we think that God is mad at us, so we don't want to hear what He has to say.

But let me just tell you, it can get to a point where you're not just fake in your relationship with God when you live that way, but you can ultimately be deceived.

And the problem with deception is that you're deceived.

Hope I'm not going too fast for you.

So look at this verse in James chapter 1 and verse 22.

James 1 · chapter mention

Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, but do what it says.

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror.

Now, when I read that, let's just press pause for a second.

When I read that, I can't help but think about men and women in marriage.

The Bible is very, very accurate.

It gets us.

You're either going to listen to culture or you're going to listen to the word.

How many know the word is better?

The ladies in the 80s, remember your hair the way it looked?

Well, you thought it looked good.

It did not look good.

Culture lied to you.

But how about guys?

Short shorts, remember that?

Reebox YouTube socks, a fanny pack?

You thought that looked good?

No.

You call saw that guy now, you probably call 911, you know?

Culture will lie to you, but the word tells us the truth.

Look, the Bible doesn't, in marriage, let me just talk about that for a second.

In marriage, it doesn't tell women to love their husbands.

It tells a woman to respect her husband.

And it doesn't even say to respect him, it says you must.

Because God made that boy.

And he knows what he needs.

In fact, if you ask him what is love, he'll define respect.

But it doesn't just stop there.

It even tells a woman to have joy in her heart.

In Proverbs, it says, uh, a godly woman smiles at the future.

I've never met a man yet that said, I wanted to marry a depressed chick who's mad at everybody.

But the Bible gets women, it also gets men.

Men, every man knows that one verse in the Bible, wives submit to the husband.

We'd put that on the refrigerator if they wouldn't kill us.

But it also says that a man should give his life up for his wife like Jesus gave his life up for the church.

What?

But to prove my point, how the word understands you, it tells a man specifically to love his wife like he loves himself.

This is hilarious to me.

Because it doesn't tell that to a woman.

Because a woman, they don't love themselves like a man loves themselves.

A woman can look in the mirror and find something wrong, even if she's beautiful.

But a man can be overweight, hair on his back, front of the mirror.

We like ourselves.

I got off track there.

Someone who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

That's funny right there.

I don't care what you say.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law, that's the word, that gives freedom, that's the word, and continues in it, that is the word, not forgetting what they've heard, the word, but doing it.

The word.

And what happens?

They will be blessed in what they do.

Now the word of God is not like a preference for the Lord.

It's not a pet peeve, like you get it right.

The fact that he wants you to know that he loves you, it's it's not a pet peeve if you don't.

This is very important to him because he loves you.

A pet peeve, we have have them.

I'm a Cajun, which basically means I love anything that lives in a ditch, I will eat it.

And uh how many people are like that?

All right, the three Christians that really attend here.

But that's just a pet peeve.

Some of you are vegetarians.

That's your pet peeve.

How do we know you're a vegetarian?

You'll tell us.

And uh I love vegetarians though, because they leave more meat for me.

Come on.

Some of you, how many like dogs?

That's a preference.

How many like cats?

What do you like a cat?

I was teaching on heaven one time we did the book of Revelation, and the number one question after, you know, it wasn't anything about post and mid and pre, and it was, it was, is my pet gonna be in heaven?

And so I said, I don't really know.

Maybe your dog will make it, but your cat ain't gonna make it.

All right, okay.

So I'll get emails about that, I know.

But look at this, look at this passage of scripture.

I want you to track with me.

In Luke 14, verse 1, Jesus replied, please, please get this.

Luke 14:1

This is a parable.

And the Bible says in the Old Testament and new, Jesus even quoted it.

He said, When I speak these parables, there's gonna be times where your heart's gonna be calloused and you're not gonna get it.

There'll be times where your ears are calloused and they won't be able to hear.

There'll be times when you have scales in your eyes and you won't be able to see it.

And uh and it kind of leads to deception.

It's very important that we understand the big picture of what God is working on.

And uh, we can get so confused and so far away from the Lord.

1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 1 says that that some will abandon their faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

Well, how do you keep from getting into that?

By being real and looking intently into the word.

Like, Lord, please teach me something.

Because otherwise the Bible says you can get to a place when it's night, you're so confused, you'll wish it was morning.

And when it's morning, you'll wish it was night.

So when we go to the word, it's a time for us to see, to see the truth, to see what God is really working on in your life.

And let me just say, He loves you.

So let's look at this parable.

Jesus replied, A certain man was preparing a great banquet, and he invited many guests.

At the time of the banquet, he sent his servants to tell those who had been invited, Come, for everything is now ready.

Now, in this picture, the banquet host is Jesus.

And let's go, let's go on.

He's saying, The banquet is now ready.

Come, for everything is now ready.

For they all alike began to make excuses.

I've done that before.

The first said, I just bought a field and I got to go and see it, please excuse me.

And another said, I just bought five yoke of oxen and I'm on my way to try them out.

Please excuse me.

Till another said, Well, I just got married, I can't come.

The servant came back and reported to his master.

And the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.

Sir, the servant said, What you ordered has been done.

But there's still room.

Then the master told his servant, Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in so that my house will be full.

Look, God has his hand on this church.

There's a lot of reasons for it.

When I close out, I'm going to give you what I think is the top reason.

But one is because some of you have decided, you know what?

I'm going to the banquet, man.

But there's some that are here right now for some reason, and I don't know why, but some of you are pivoting away from what God wants.

He wants you around, he wants you in close proximity, uh, but you don't get this first point.

Please write this down.

Know this.

He is now ready.

Now.

That verse says, come for everything is now ready.

Now, look, in front of you right now is the Spirit of God trying to draw you to the Father.

The Holy Spirit is amazing at this.

He doesn't bring condemnation, he brings conviction.

Condemnation shows up and shows you where you're weak and it leaves you there to die.

Conviction is from the Holy Spirit, and he tries to draw you to the Father.

Like now is the time.

You can get to the Father now.

In my home, and for years.

I've been in ministry now for 26 years.

And uh my beautiful wife is with me right now in this service.

And but for 26 years, it's always been hard for me to hear the voice of God.

And it's a bummer because it takes a lot of time to do ministry when you do not hear the voice of God.

And so many times I've gotten along with the Lord and say, Lord, why don't you speak louder?

God's your God.

You can crank up some serious decibels, but you always whisper.

What up with that?

In my home, we're loud.

We're all loud.

I'm a Cajun.

Everything we do is loud.

But I have one child who whispers.

And every now and then we'll be a bit loud and we'll hear.

That's like a mosquitoes up in here.

But it's not a mosquito, it's our whisper.

We have to stop what we're doing to get close to a whisper.

Then the Lord showed me the reason why he speaks in a whisper.

The Bible says his voice is a still, small voice.

In the Old Testament, it wasn't in the loudness of the thunder or the earthquake or the fire or the wind.

It was in the whisper.

Why?

Because you gotta be in close proximity to hear a whisper.

And this is the reason why he's invited you to the banquet.

He wants you nearby.

Okay, the reason why I had trouble with that at times is because the church I grew up in.

I grew up in a church that was nothing like this church.

A church I grew up in, it was like a prerequisite.

You had to be mean in order to go to that church.

Everybody there, they hated each other, they hated everything.

But they always looked holy.

They'd squint their eyes and say, Glory be to God all the time.

And uh, but my Sunday school teacher was the meanest person at that church.

And uh, and I was she was teaching me when I was eight years old, so this didn't work well.

Her finger was 30 foot long.

And she would point and say, You were going to hell.

She talked like a man.

Hell is hot, hot, hot.

You're going to hell.

I mean, eight years old.

Don't you want to go to heaven?

None of you gonna be there.

She talked about hell like she was born and raised there.

I wanted to ask her, does the devil wear product?

Because I know you know.

But in this story, in when God is inviting this group, it wasn't like they would say, hey, on this certain date, we're gonna have a banquet come.

No, they couldn't do that because they didn't know the exact time.

Uh they didn't know when the calf was gonna be fattened, they didn't know when everybody was gonna be ready.

They didn't have weather apps to know the right moment.

So they would give you uh proximity, they would give you approximate time.

They would say around a range of date, around this time.

Just be ready.

So you would have to create space.

Many of us, the reason why we're not at the table a lot of times is because we don't have any margin.

We're moving through life at such a high rate of speed.

I'm in on this too.

But how many enduring relationships have you ever built in your life?

Think about the most intimate relationship you've ever been in.

Or when that relationship was at its peak.

Think about it.

You weren't traveling through life with them at Mok II.

You gave some space, you gave some room.

In front of all of us, right now, today, and every day, we have two options.

And some of us are trying to do both.

One option is the world, and this option is the kingdom of God.

Let me describe the two real quick.

The road to the world.

It's extremely attractive.

It's like incredible marketing strategy to get you there.

And the Bible says, fix your eyes on Jesus, who's the author and the finisher of our faith, which means he wants the right things to us and he wants us to finish as we fix our eyes on him.

But our peripheral vision gets it gets in the way, and sometimes we make that what we look at, and then Jesus becomes peripheral.

And it's the world, and let me just tell you why the world does it.

Because the world, and I'll tell you, the world is a blast for a season.

We don't know how long that season is, but if it wasn't a blast, people wouldn't try it.

But at some point you're gonna realize, whoa, this was far a false advertisement.

This was not the truth.

There's something, I've been pumped.

And here's what happens: if you forget about the power of the cross, you'll stay there.

And let me just say, he is really good at forgiving people.

But a lot of people say, Well, I need to get my life straight so I can go and serve him.

But you can't get your life straight without the cross.

He wants to be in on the equation to get you over here.

This road, there's no marketing at all, it's just the kingdom, Jesus.

Here's what I promise you if you'll seek first the kingdom of God, all things that knock you all track will be added unto you.

And there is nothing better than being close to Jesus.

Can I have an amen on that?

Can I have an amen?

Number two, listen and obey without excuse.

Now, this is where I take out my heart, because the scripture says, but they all alike began to make excuses.

Raise your hand if you ever made an excuse.

I got some good ones.

When I was in Bible school, they taught us, they don't do this as much now, but 26 years ago, they they would teach pastors that if you're gonna be in the ministry, that it was lonely, that you had to be alone.

You couldn't have friends, that you're the anointed one.

And that you could never let anyone know where you were weak and having difficult times.

And I remember being in Bible school going, man, I'm not gonna have any friends.

This is gonna be terrible.

There's a bayou in Louisiana where I went to school.

It's called By Yourself.

I was thinking, that's where I gotta live.

And so I bought into their lie that I couldn't have friends.

Well, when I graduated from Bible school, I went into ministry full time and Michelle and I got married.

But our first year of marriage, we were fighting all the time.

And uh, but I didn't have any friends to tell.

So I'd always act like our marriage was doing great.

And uh and I remember, you know that scripture says, Don't go to bed with anger in your heart?

I was staying up for like 10, 12 days at a time.

But I remember one time I was speaking to a large church, Michelle said something that ticked me off, and I yelled at her, shut up, Michelle, I'm sick of you, sick of you, shut up.

And my wife broke, man.

So I went in my office because I was a man of God.

I had to prepare a sermon.

Now I'm just trying to be real with you.

Because that the whole saying, fake it till you make it, it's just not, it doesn't work.

The Bible says, You draw near to me with a sincere heart, and I'll he'll draw near back.

So I went in my office and I said, Lord, I'm gonna just give me a word.

I gotta preach, give me a word.

My wife's crying in the other room.

I mean, no, he was thinking about her.

So I got on my knees and I asked the Lord to forgive me.

And that was cool.

But then I knew I needed to apologize on my wife, and that was hard.

So I walked back in and she was broken and patting her, she looked at her lip, she looked up at me.

I don't remember all the things that she said, but it's probably something like this.

She goes, Who are you?

What's wrong with you?

Are you being real now?

Are you you being real when you yell at me?

Are you you are you real when we were engaged?

Are you real when you preach?

Who are you?

I said, Michelle, I'm sorry, and I apologize to her and I asked her to forgive me, and we made up, and that was great, but then we made out.

First year of marriage, you gotta throw that in.

And we made out again, and then I went back into my office, and this is where it gets really weird, and I don't recommend this for anybody, but it'll prove my point.

I was using all that as an excuse.

Ministry, I'm in ministry, and it was just I was just faking my relationship with God.

So when I went back into my office, the Lord said, Thank you.

I forgive you, and so does your wife.

But when you speak this weekend, I want you to tell the church what you said to your wife.

I said, God, I can't do that.

God, I'm a pastor.

God, I'm in ministry.

God, you need to go to Bible school.

Clear this up.

The first semester, they cover that material.

I mean, no, he didn't go with me on that.

So I'm preaching and it's not going well, and finally just close my Bible and I told them just what I told you.

They were shocked, and I look at my wife, who's more shocked, and I said, Michelle, will you forgive me?

Look, I don't know if it was the right thing to do.

I'm just trying to tell you that in that moment I was closer to the Lord than in any previous moment in my life.

Being close to God is as good as it gets.

Nothing can compete with that.

And he is amazing.

But a lot of us we think, you know, I've just made so many mistakes, and we have these excuses that we throw out.

Have you ever thought about the heroes in the Bible who made mistakes and should have had excuses?

Let's look at some.

Jonah, he ran in the exact opposite direction.

On the map, it's exactly the opposite way, is where God said to go.

Noah, he was the father of all drunks, the original drunk.

Abraham, he was way too old to be used by God.

He was a hundred years old.

The Lord showed up and said, You're a hundred.

Go to babies or us.

His wife was a hundred.

One translation said her womb was as good as dead.

That is nasty.

Jacob, he was a liar.

Gideon, he was afraid.

Moses was a murderer.

Well, we know that, but if you ever thought about it, he's also the one that carried down the Ten Commandments.

One of them happened to say, How do you not murder?

Now you could have just said, Well, I'm not gonna bring these down, or you could have said, and here are the nine commandments.

Rahab, she was a prostitute.

Samson, he liked prostitutes.

David, he was an adulterer and covered it with murder.

Elijah was depressed.

Isaiah, that dude preached naked for three years.

That is also nasty.

John the Baptist, he ate bugs.

Probably my cousin.

Jeremiah, way too emotional.

Probably took bubble baths while listening to Michael Bublet on Pinterest.

Peter did not even knowing the Lord.

Thomas too negative.

Lazarus.

We're talking about excuses.

Lazarus.

He was dead for three days.

The scripture says, bring in the poor, the cripple, and the blind.

Which leads me to number three.

Remember how desperate we are.

Can everybody just look here for a minute?

From time to time, people will ask me, they'll say, Rick, can you give me any advice on how I can lead this small group better, how I can speak better, or how I can preach better if they're a pastor?

And I'll always say, Yeah, for sure.

But just remember that you're speaking to a bunch of people, and some of them are broken, and they're lame, and they're blind, crippled.

But if you really want to get good, remember that you are broken.

Blind, lame.

Look, if you're gonna have a party, these are the last people you're gonna invite for a good party.

But not your Jesus.

And a lot of us, we will not show up with that invitation because we think we have to get our lives together before he'll allow us in.

She was caught in adultery, and these religious people actually found her, grabbed her, and threw her at the feet of Jesus.

Now press pause right there.

The religious people, much like my Sunday school teacher, maybe someone who's hurt you spiritually, but they had the same goal as Jesus.

If you want to be technical, they wanted her to sin no more.

That's what the religious people wanted.

Jesus wanted her to sin no more.

But the way they wanted to do it was to kill her.

The way Jesus wanted to do it was to forgive her.

So they said, hey, we have to kill her.

She was caught in adultery.

She's busted.

And Jesus said, Oh, yeah, you're right.

He said, Let's kill her.

He said, but let's do it this way.

Let's let the one who's without any sin throw the first rock.

And they're all like, what up with this?

And then Jesus writes on the ground, we don't know what he wrote, but we really want to know bad.

But when they were seeing it, Billy Graham said, It's the only sermon Jesus ever wrote.

And as he's writing, they look at these words and they just drop their rocks and walk away.

Okay, this woman, she knows the law.

And it should be over for her, yes, without Jesus.

Without Jesus, it's over for all of us.

We're like her.

And Jesus looks at her and he goes, Okay, woman, like she's all of a sudden having a really good day.

And Jesus said, Woman, we're your condemners and your accusers now.

And she looked around and she's like, They're gone.

And then this is where it really gets good.

He said, And neither do I condemn you.

Now you go.

And you sin no more.

I am totally convinced that she did not run back into a lifestyle of adultery.

Because there is nothing that can compete with looking at the eyes of God eye to eye and knowing that He loves you and wants you around.

There's no way.

Now, if he'd have looked at her and said, Get up, look at you, look at you.

You're a loser.

I just saved your life.

Now you get out of here and sin no more, she would have gone right back.

And some of us, the reason why our cycle is a lot of the world tried Jesus, a lot of the world tried Jesus, is because we have no idea how amazing his forgiveness is and how good he is at it.

Like I said, the cross didn't keep him there with nails.

He stayed on the cross because he wanted to forgive, and he's really amazing at forgiving people.

Number four.

Don't forget the big picture.

The big picture.

This verse.

Look at this verse.

Luke 14, 23.

Go out to the roads and the country lanes and compel them to come in so that my house will be full.

Before I get into this last thing, I want to tell you some of you are prodigal right now.

And uh let me just tell you, you can spend a lot of time out there.

The prodigal son in the Bible, he got so far away from the father, the biggest problem he had is that he forgot how much the father wanted him home.

Because if you read the story, he lost everything and he started thinking, man, I want to go home, but my dad's not gonna have me around.

My dad doesn't want me around, but maybe I can be a slave or a hireling out in the field somewhere.

He certainly doesn't want me back at the table.

And this is what happens when you stay out there long enough, you'll forget how much the father wants you back.

So he starts going home and he's thinking about his speech.

I'm gonna tell my dad this and that.

Maybe I can coerce him and manipulate.

I don't know, he's gonna kill me.

I don't know what's gonna happen.

He's walking to the house, and as the Bible says, as he's far off, the father sees him and starts running at him.

And I am convinced he thought the father was about to kill him.

But the father just wanted to hug him.

He tries to go to his speech, and the father says, Look, all I know is my son was lost, and now he's home.

I love you.

Let's go to the table.

I'm gonna hook you up with some red beans and rice right now.

But the reason why the hand of God is on this church is because this church understands the big picture, the value of a soul.

And I'm gonna say, I I've met with Robert many, many times and the staff here.

I'm amazed at them.

But the thing that they keep getting right is that they keep understanding that a soul is incredibly valuable.

I've never been around Robert where he said, you know, I just want to get 50% of our people doing good, and if we can get about half of them, we'll do good.

No.

He wants everyone to get this.

You will never understand the vision of Gateway until you bring someone broken to this place and you see them find Jesus, get set free, get discipled, and then disciple others and bring their friends.

I'm gonna tell you, Christianity is a blast.

We're going to heaven, but we're not enjoying the trip.

And the way that we get involved is understanding the value of the soul.

When I moved to Arkansas, the Lord asked me to move to Arkansas, and man, I love that place.

The people there are amazing, the leadership, the skill.

When I first thought of Arkansas, though, I thought I didn't understand it.

I was thinking, man, wherever I move, it's gonna dictate who my kids marry, which is gonna dictate what my grandkids look like in Arkansas.

The average person only has like 11 teeth, and three of them are in their pocket.

I was wrong about that, but that's what I thought.

But when I moved there, what really bothered me initially is that many of them they grew up like the people around the home of Jesus.

And they saw Jesus, they knew his name, but he wasn't like the Messiah.

I'm not talking about their salvation.

I'm just saying they they weren't valuing souls like this is the only way to the Father.

One time I told them this story.

My daughter, when she was four years old, she ran away from home, but she she decided to do it because she saw a Hallmark movie.

She was four.

The girl was 13 in a Hallmark movie, but she goes, I want to run away from home.

That just looks fun.

Because she's a strong-willed girl.

Uh I don't know if you're strong-willed, but I would ask you to raise your hand, but strong-willed people won't raise their hand.

And uh, that's the way she is.

So she saw this movie and she thought, I'm gonna run away from home, but I can't do it.

My parents are always holding my hand and stuff like that.

So I'm gonna have to do it at night when they're sleeping.

So we're sleeping, and she thought, I don't want to go alone, I'm gonna bring my two-year-old brother with me.

So she packed the wagon, put her his diapers in there, I think a few dolls, some Skittles.

I mean, you gotta have MMs and stuff like that.

So she packed it, went to sleep.

We're all sleeping.

In the middle of the night, she woke up.

It wasn't her alarm that woke her up.

She didn't know how to work an alarm.

She's four.

Her will woke her up.

Like, it's time.

And she went in and got a two-year-old brother, and he said, Leave me alone, I'm too sleepy.

She said, Whatever, left him there, left our house, grabbed the wagon, left our cul-de-sac, went down the end of the street, took a right, left, and all the way out to a to a four-lane highway.

And then, I mean, with cars that drive, you know, to drive down the street.

And my daughter's going down the road, and the lady pulled over and said, Young lady, what are you doing?

She said, I'm running away from home.

It's so much fun.

Michelle and I are sleeping.

And this lady said, You're not, this is not a good idea.

You need to go home.

Get in the car, I'm gonna take you home.

She said, No, ma'am, I'm not allowed to ride in a car with strangers.

But you can walk freely down this road at night.

Your family is whacked.

So she convinces my daughter to turn around.

My daughter, she's in the car behind my daughter, who's pulling the wagon.

Middle of the night, there's a knock on the door.

I said, Michelle, did you hear that?

She said, No, I didn't hear anything.

Knocked again.

Michelle, somebody's at the door.

Go see who it is.

So I went down.

She came with me, and then we couldn't, there was no peephole, so I was just said, who, who, who is it?

And it was this lady's voice, so I didn't know.

She goes, I have your daughter.

I said, No, ma'am, you don't have our daughter, our daughter's sleeping upstairs.

She goes, No, I have your daughter.

I said, You don't have my daughter, my daughter's sleeping upstairs.

Then my daughter chimes in.

Dad, it's me, Haley.

Open the door.

So we're opening the door, and there's this lady who I don't know, and my daughter, who was sleeping upstairs.

And that's where we started hyperventilating.

I'm looking at this lady and Michelle.

I looked over at my wife.

I was kind of losing it.

Michelle's just like, calm down, Rick, calm down.

So I thanked the lady and we started giving her stuff, like her house.

And then we left, we brought my daughter in, and we closed the door and we just stared, we're staring at our daughter.

Now she's 20 and we still stare at her.

Here's the point.

That's the end of that story.

Let's conjecture a little bit.

If she would have not returned home, I'd still be living in that same house looking for her.

Every day we'd go out and try to find her.

And I would pick my friends.

When the phone would ring, I would run to the phone.

Haley Zit.

And I would pick my friends based on who was helping me find my lost girl.

And that is the church.

There's a lot of lost people who are wandering around, and we just need to get behind them.

Get them back home.

And that's the reason why I think God has his hand on Gateway.

Because you guys ace this.

Let's bow our heads.

No one looking around.

Lord Jesus, I know that there are people here at different campuses that are listening in who they haven't been at the table in a while.

And the invitation, it just doesn't seem, it doesn't seem as fresh as it used to be.

There are some that they're at the table, but they forgot about how great it is to be there.

Lord, we want to be clean and real.

I'm sorry, God, for all the wayward times.

We take your invitation and we say, yes, sir.

And we want to see the value of a soul.

Do not let us forget the big picture of what you're working on.

You want your house full.

And we want in on that.

Move in our lives, oh holy God, and anything that is in our life that keeps us from being close to you, we ask that we're healed in Jesus' name.

Your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks a lot, Gabe.