The Flavor Of Forever | Pastor Paul McGee

Hey, man, it's good to be in the House of the Lord.

See each of you today in the House of the Lord.

Amen. My wife has already went through

all the list of names, but we are so, so glad to have each one

of you. Years ago, we used to preach for

a elderly couple and whenever they talked about their family,

they didn't call them their tribes.

She always says, well, my people, she said my people, she

would say. And so we're glad to have the

Nos people. We're glad to have the Nos

people this morning, Amen. Amen.

In the House of the Lord. So good, so good to see each of

you, some that have been gone that are back, Amen.

We're glad to have you back. I don't know if you noticed this

morning, but our world's greatest grandmother, Sister

Cox, had four of her grandchildren with her this

morning. Amen.

That that's how she gets the title.

I'm just saying that's just how it works, Amen.

So we're glad to have them with us today as well.

I'm going to turn to the book of Job this morning.

Job chapter #20 and we'll look at the word of the Lord.

We had celebration around here yesterday for Bishop and Sister

McGee celebrating 60 years of marriage.

And so we honor them today for 60 years of marriage.

Amen. Going to start reading verse #12

today, Book of Job. I know there are some that are

familiar with all the tragedy and the suffering that Job went

through in his life. And that's not really my focus

today. My focus is Job.

Had three friends and each one took a turn.

They would say stuff to Job and sometimes what they had to say

was true. It was just not applicable to

Job. All right.

And So what we're picking up here in verse #12 is something

that is true. It just wasn't necessarily what

Job was contended with or the purpose of him.

But it doesn't retract or detract from the fact that it

was true. And so I wanted to see here.

This is what his friends so far had to say in verse #12 He says

the wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under

his tongue, though he spirit forsake it not, but keep it

still within his mouth, yet his meat and his bowels is turned.

It is the gall of ass, which was a serpent within him.

He has swallowed down riches, and he had vomited them up

again. God shall cast them out of his

belly. He shall suck the poison of ass.

The viper's tongue shall slay him.

He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and

butter. So he's describing something

that a person would take and want to savor, but whenever it

got to their stomach, it was like bitter.

And by virtue of savoring what they were savoring, they were

missing some other things that were there tasted good to them

to begin with. But it didn't end that way.

For that matter, nothing that we taste is forever.

It seems it's fleeting. So a little while this morning I

want to speak to you on this. The flavor of forever.

The flavor of for in a world of where it where it's always

temporary for a taste, I want to talk about the flavor of

forever. Amen.

Can we go to the Lord right now? Father, I thank you Jesus, God,

for the songs that have been sung here for the people that

have gathered here on this Sunday morning.

I pray, O God, that you're able to touch our hearts and touch

our minds anew and afresh by your word.

God. We know, Lord, the things of the

Scripture, Lord, that Lord, can, Lord, apply to each of us.

We can learn of them. God help us today to learn.

I pray God of your word and of you in the name of Jesus Christ

that I pray and the church say Amen, Amen.

You may be seated this morning in Jesus name, the flavor of

forever. Have you ever noticed in today's

world, particularly today, it doesn't matter whether it is ice

cream, chips, coffee, whatever it may be, there are so many

different flavors out there today.

Coffee shops right now are rolling out the old pumpkin

spice, you know, for the fall. And there's peppermint mocha

that's showing up now, you know, winners already, you know, just

right around the corner. Salted caramel drinks

practically now all year long take place.

Ice cream parlors. They have some of their favorite

flavors they like to present. And sometimes you got to take a

date, a double take on some of these flavors.

Like they have things out there like birthday cake, you know,

cotton candy. Birthday cake used to be

something you could only have once a year and that's when it

was your birthday. But now you can have it whenever

you want it. You can go get birthday cake or

you can get cotton candy and get bubble gum, bubble gum, ice

cream. They even got some out there

That's garlic. Any garlic lovers out there?

I guess not. OK, garlic or even sometimes

bacon. Now there we go.

We everybody likes bacon. Give me a good old bacon

flavored ice cream. What's good with that soda

companies, right? They have their their cherry

vanilla, they have their mango urbanero.

I'm just saying all these different flavors, pickle

flavor, soft drinks, they're there folks.

Amen. And don't even get me started

with all the seasonal candy, right?

Peppermint bark, pumpkin truffles, right?

Someone's getting hungry right now.

You now and not only that flavor and color right Easter peeps.

You can get them almost in any color and they shouldn't even

exist some of those colors. And so we live in a world of

endless flavor. You can taste almost anything

you want for a moment and it's exciting to do so your your

taste buds light up, you savor it.

But the catch is this is that none of those flavors last, that

the pumpkin spice will disappear with, with November, maybe

December coming. And the minty mocha is gone, of

course, by February. And then that weird bacon ice

cream, if you ever dare to have it, it melts away and it's no

longer there. Every sweet, every spicy, every

strange delight, all of them are just temporary for a temporary

moment, for a temporary pleasure.

And it's eventually gone. And life, in many regards, is a

lot like that. We chase in our everyday lives.

We chase experiences and indulgences and pleasures that

seem to be sweet, but they fade with time.

The thrill of them, the excitement of them, the flavor

of them, if you will, they just do not last you.

You try to savor it, but it just slips away, leaving you wanting

more. But I'm asking today, what if

there was a flavor that never faded?

What if there was a taste that did not change with the season,

that that did not disappoint, that never ran out?

What if there was a satisfaction so deep, so complete, that

nothing in this world could compare to it?

So far, so far, the friend of Job, he's right in here in our

text, and he's using imagery about eating and about taste,

along with things like the process of digestion.

And if you look at the few verses that I read, you start

seeing words like sweet and mouth and tongue and meat and

bowels and suck and swallow and I know vomit and belly and honey

and butter, all these things relating to like taste and to,

to the digestive system and to, to eating.

And so, so far as using this image, because what he's trying

to relay is this is that people sometimes enjoy wickedness and

ungodly things and even sinful things because we're born into a

world of sin. Just like they enjoy their food.

They, they put it in their mouth and they taste it and they roll

it under their tongue and they spare it.

They don't forsake it. They're wanting to keep that

savory taste upon their mouth and in their tongue as long as

they can. And that's that's the reason why

even in the book of Psalms, we see this over and over again.

The psalmist said that a man's mouth was full of cursing and

deceit and fraud, and that he liked to hold under his tongue

mischief and vanity because he wanted to savor it.

The Bible says Solomon said concerning the one he loved, He

said Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb.

Honey and milk are under thy tongue.

It's, it's a little provocative, but he's really describing a

very passionate kiss to his love that not only was it upon her

lips, but he wanted to savor it. It was honey under her tongue.

He wanted that to last a little while.

It's fascinating when you talk about something under the

tongue, and it brought back a childhood memory for me.

Whenever we were growing up, we we were poor.

At least that's what mom and Dad told us, that we were even too

poor to pay attention. And so we were poor growing up

and we didn't have like all these board games or card games

or stuff like that. Those were limited in a family

of seven. All right, So we came up with

our own games. Dad would be very creative and

come up with some games in the house.

And so one of the games that we played around the McGee house

was all about hard butterscotch candies, the little disc with

flat ones, hard butterscotch candy.

And this was Dad's game for all the kids.

Everybody got a butterscotch candy at the same time.

You put it in your mouth. And the one that can make the

butterscotch last in their mouth the longest, they won.

Now looking back on that, I think sometimes that was one way

for him to try to keep his quiet.

And but he, he would give us these and we would put them in

our mouth. And so your saliva is doing its

thing. It's going.

But I learned after playing this game so many times that if I

push it under my tongue, a lot of times it would last longer

than than what it it would typically last.

And not only that, the longer something is your mouth, the

longer you can savor it, but the longer I can make it last.

I think that's what so far was Speaking of a little

metaphorically here in the Scripture, how humanity likes to

try to take all the things of the world and just place it in

their mouth and they put it strategically in place.

It's just so they can savor it a little longer because they know

it's never going to last. Try to taste it just a little

longer. It's the same thing we see from

Scripture, from Genesis to Revelations.

It's the savoring that Eve tried to do with the tree that was in

the garden. She studies it, she admires it,

she desires it. The Bible says she even savors

the thought of what it could offer her.

It was pleasant to the eyes and it was desired to make one wise.

It's the savoring impact. Wouldn't you hold on to it just

a little longer? It's Lot's wife leaving Sodom

and looking back, not for a glimpse, but gazing back up on

that city that she had lived in, wanting to savor it.

It's David on the roof rooftop, right?

He's there and he's lingering on the rooftop as Bathsheba base

below him in eyesight. He's just wondering, if you

will, to take that sight and roll it under his tongue.

Just just make it last and savor a little bit longer.

It's the flirting indulgence, a man of Samson whose head is on

Delilah's lap, and he's prolonging that moment by

telling her everything else where his strength is and not

not really giving it away because he's savor.

He's wanting to taste it just a little bit longer.

It's the sweetness that even the nation of Israel had in their

tongue around their golden calf. As the Bible says, they ate and

they drank and they dance. They're wanting to delight in

what should have made them sick and will later.

It's played out in the story of the New Testament.

There's a man by the name of Herod who took off the head of

John the Baptist, but there's a girl there, Herodias daughter,

that's dancing. And the Bible says that this

man, Amen, found pleasure in that dance.

He's wanting it to last, but it doesn't always last.

Even Judas, the betrayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, he wants to

row the possibility of the prophet that he got from selling

out the Lord under his tongue. But that savor, that taste just

will not last. And so far emphasizes, he says

that sweetness, that pleasantness, he says it's only

there for a moment. And he says, here's the danger.

In order to keep it, in order to savor it, he says you must not

swallow it. The Bible says there's sometimes

there's sweetness to to wrongs in our life.

Proverbs says that stolen waters are sweet, bread eaten in secret

are pleasant, but so far makes a distinction here.

He says what's in the mouth? There's a distinction between

what happens in the mouth and what happens in the bowels, He

said. There's a sweetness in the

mouth, but he says the meat in the bowels is turned.

It's not as sweet as it was when it was in the mouth.

It's turned bitter. He says it's turned into the the

poison, if you will, of a serpent.

Amen. And he says, so if you want to

keep savoring it, you got to keep it in your mouth.

But if you swallow it, it will turn what was sweet to the

mouth, what was sweet to the mouth will become bitter to the

stomach. And so the advice that he gives

them concerning consuming wickedness or even sin is don't

swallow, don't, don't internalize it.

Don't. Don't embrace it.

Don't make it a part of your body in your life because

temporarily it's already have an impact, but if you fully accept

it inside, that which was sweet is going to turn sour.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've all had experiences where

we thought there was something sweet to something that we have

tasted in our world and our society, only to find out days

from there, months from there, that we wish we never put it in

our mouth, wish we never wrote it under our tongue, wish we

never had any introduction to it, to our lips because it

doesn't always stay sweet. It can't always continue.

It's not a perpetual sweet taste up on our lips.

They say if you play something under your tongue, this is

science, that there's more blood vessels and stuff underneath

your tongue in order to allow that thing to absorb into your

bloodstream, and it allows it then to bypass your digestive

system. I thought so far knew what he

was talking about. He was telling people, hey, if

you can bypass the bitterness of what happens in the belly if you

put it under your tongue, maybe you'll get by.

But if you swallow it, you can't bypass it.

And folks, there's not anything I've ever put in my mouth that I

haven't had some saliva that go down my throat.

It's going to get to my belly. I cannot bypass, if you will,

that thing that will turn bitter from sweet from my mouth to my

belly. So far said, he said one.

And he was speaking about riches gained unjustly, but it really

could be any wickedness or sin. He says he'll get in your belly.

It'll turn so much. And I know this is graphic, he

says, But you'll vomit it back out.

And with that, you'll regret the results of having put it in your

mouth. But here's here's the scary

part. You don't like the consequence,

but you still crave the flavor. And so as the Old New Testament

and Old Testament Proverbs says, then we are like washed pigs

going back to wallow in the mire.

We are like dogs going back to our own vomit because although

we don't like the consequences, there's just something about the

initial flavor that draws us back and draws us in, and we

want to savor it just one more time.

We're willing to deal with the consequence just to get a little

bit more flavor. Another little savory moment, if

you will. The Bible says in Proverbs 20

and verse 17, bread of deceit is sweet to a man.

But afterwards, and his mouth shall be filled with gravel.

It was sweet in the mouth. But afterwards, it was like

having a mouth full of gravel. I, I remember doing that as a

kid. If you never sucked on a rock,

you just haven't lived growing up.

Hey, man. But nonetheless, it's gritty,

it's metallic, it's bitter. It scrapes your teeth and your

tongue and it grinds the teeth. It has an unpleasant taste.

He says it starts sweet, but it'll end like gravel that's in

your mouth, folks. It is the story I know.

We see the savory thing that Eve seen in the garden, but when she

and her husband realized they were naked and that they would

be disbarred from paradise, that which was sweet had turned

bitter. I know Lot 1 Lots Wife went to

look back one more time. But we have the forever memorial

of lots Wife turning to a pillar salt.

The sweet had turned bitter. We had Bathsheba.

Hey man, David had in her company.

It would play out in havoc and lost in David's family, four of

his sons. Where did the Bible the parables

made? He would lose four of his sons

as a result of that. It started sweet, but it ended

up bitter. The sweetness of Delilah's lap

where Sampson's head was had. It was the poison of gold

because Sampson's going to be led by a boy because his eyes

sight has been taken, his head has been shaved.

He's being made a sport of that which was sweet turned sour.

They're going around the golden calf.

This is the best thing ever. But the Bible says in one day,

3000, men of the Israelites lost their life around that

pleasurable thing, around that golden calf.

It was sweet, but it turned sour.

And the same thing in the New Testament where the Bible says

it pleased Herod, it says later it made him sorry the profits

from selling Jesus. He ends up Judas throws him back

to the high priest. Those very pieces of silver

become the purchase price for a burial ground that Judas will

find himself in after he's taken his own life on the gallows.

Oh, it's sweet, but it doesn't stay sweet.

And so we're like, man, we'd just be better off.

Just keep it in our mouth where I can savor it as long as I can

because I understand it. It really can't promise much,

but Moses in the Old Testament caught a glimpse of this concept

of something being sweet and changing to bitter.

And in the New Testament we hear his thoughts and the opinions of

Moses on what took place in that day.

Because he was made, if you will, in line to the throne of

Pharaoh by Pharaoh's daughter, taking him and rearing him and

raising him and being taught by the Egyptians.

The Bible says though somewhere in Moses is alive, he refused to

be called. The son of Pharaoh's daughter

choosing rather to suffer the affliction with the people of

God than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season.

What are you saying? I'm saying the Bible never says

there's no pleasure in sin. Never says that.

But it does deny the duration, the duration of that pleasure.

I'm born into sin. I'm a human being.

I was born into sin as a Sinner, and I strive as a Sinner when I

was born into this world, to prolong the pleasurable side of

my humanity, the pleasurable side of sin.

But I got to understand it won't last.

I'll have pleasure, yes, but it won't last.

That's right. Why?

The psalmist said something else in contrast to the seasonable of

sin, the fleeting pleasure of sin, he said of God, oh, taste

and see that the Lord is good and he said at his right hand

are pleasures forevermore. Folks, do you realize what's

going on? You can either have the pleasure

of sin for a season or you can have the pleasure of the divide

forevermore. It's all about temporary and

eternal. It's So what?

Say yes, you can taste it, You can savor it, but the thing with

the Lord Jesus Christ is one that's touched your lips, one

that's touched your life. It does not lose its flavor.

It does not lose its intensity. It does not lose its impact it

and that's how as humanity we get caught in the trap.

We got to go from one thing to one thing to one thing to one

thing. It happens to see it all the

time. Try this that don't work.

Only bring satisfaction in life for a little while.

It's the new car, new car man. I got to get a better car new

house. That's all right.

Got to get a bigger house, better job, car, incorporate.

No, I got to get more money. New relationship.

Come on. Yes, what is it?

All these things are just trying to savor something that won't

last. But the old timers used to tell

me it gets sweeter. Speaking of the Lord, he gets

sweeter and sweeter as the days go on.

It's not fleeting. It's not losing intensity.

It's becoming more intense. That's the difference between

the world and your God. That's the difference between

being born in a life of sin and being redeemed.

It's the difference between temporary and eternal.

That's the flavor of forever. So while I'm attempting, I mean

think from what would you prefer, a season of pleasure or

a forever pleasure? I know the answer to that, but

we're trying to derive pleasure, some lasting pleasure from

something that's seasonal. Sister Ray, Sin will never be

able to produce the forever pleasure.

Can I tell you today? And I'm a little aggravated

because we've been duped by sin. All right, come on.

This whole imagery of being sweet in the mouth but poisonous

in the belly. It's strange.

And I'll tell you why it's strange because naturally.

Naturally, poison taste off, it tastes bad.

They said sin will taste good in the mouth, they'll turn in the

belly and they'll be poisoned to you, I tell you what, it's what

the writer of Hebrews calls it. It speaks of sin as the

deceitfulness. Hebrews 3313 calls it the

deceitfulness of sin. Tell you we've been duped.

We've been duped. It's so deceitful that so far

says that a man who favors wickedness and sin, you look at

it in verse 16, that eventually he'll suck the poison of ASPs.

He'll suck the poison of a serpent, the savoring the the

unavoidable swallowing. It's going to happen.

But it would deceive us to the place that we would even suck

the poison of a serpent straight.

It would undermine us and and be our demise.

He said they'll be slain by the viper's tongue, that they'll be

so deceived that they'll be slain by the sin.

Is defeat deceitful, ladies and gentlemen?

Because what we enjoy in our mouth, we're doing that, that

we're unaware many times that the venomous saliva is going

down the back of our throat, running down to our bellies, and

we don't even realize that we've been bitten, so to speak, if you

will, having the bite of death, of the poison of what we seem to

be enjoying in our mouth. We're preoccupied with the

enjoyment part. We're preoccupied, Amen, with

what we're savor in our mouth. And it didn't even allow us to

register the threat of what's inadvertently been swallowed in

our life. Sin is deceitful.

It'll make a mockery of you. So far says, while we're

savoring sin, you look at it in verse #17 He says, while we're

doing this, he says what we're missing, we are missing the

blessings of every day. Let me explain, he says while

we're savoring that, he said we missed the rivers and the brooks

and the streams and and the floods of honey and butter.

That's basically mean this. Of course, we know the butter is

made from milk. It's really an illusion to milk

and honey. We see this terminology

throughout the word of God. The promised land was even

described as a land that flows with milk and honey.

It wasn't so much that milk and honey were luxuries, but milk

and honey were just the staples of life, the staple blessings of

life, and it was used to describe the promised land.

So far, it's so far saying you'll get so caught up and

savoring what's in your mouth from wickedness and sin that

you'll miss just the the the standard fundamental blessings

of life. As a result of this, you'll be

blind to it. Amen.

Your taste and your appetite, Amen, will be ruined to a

certain degree by the simple pleasures of sin.

Go back to the garden real quick now.

So brother trout, because Eve savored one tree she wasn't

supposed to partake of and missed all the other trees that

were present in the garden by savoring 1.

There is only one thou shouldn't and thou shalt not.

And there's all these other trees in the midst of the

garden. See, that's how deceitful sin

is. It'll get you captivated by the

one, and you'll miss everything else that's there for you.

So sin robs us. So we're born into sin.

I got a real dilemma on my hand. I'm born into sin with an

appetite for then. And here's the fact of the

matter. And I read the verse #12 in

different versions here this week.

But the fact of the matter is this, there isn't anything

repulsive about sins. Taste to the Sinner.

The contemporary English version states verse 12 like this.

Sinners love the taste, the sin. They relish every bite and

swallow it slowly as worn the sin.

I have an appetite for sin. My story really ambered in a

certain degree as I'm a sin addict.

The more I indulge, the more I crave.

And the psalmist even said there comes a spot then sometimes in

people's lives that their table, he said in Psalm 6922, their

table becomes a snare before them.

Because if I put on the table what your appetite is leaning

toward, then you're going to want to sit at the table and

protect what's on the table. The table can become a snare.

It can lure you. It can draw you in.

And I was born a Sinner, Brother Reese.

I understand New Testament Scripture, James one and verse

14 tells me, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of

his own lust or his own desires and enticed.

What's that tell me, Bishop? It tells me that man doesn't

just sometimes do wrong, but man even actually sometimes likes

doing wrong and my taste reflects my desire.

Sister, she was talking the other day.

I've been trying to get her on some bag tuna.

I eat bag tuna a lot for lunch. You know, it's in a bag, little

pouch. Some of you may see it, maybe

avoid it, I don't know. She grabbed a ranch one, sent me

a picture with this green face emoji, said this is gross.

I tried it. I said I won't necessarily like

the ranch one either, but there's other ones besides that.

So I guess what I'm trying to tell you is taste reflects

desire. I'm not going to be in Tyson

sister Sheila with ranch flavored tuna because she just

don't have a taste for it. But sin is sweet when the

appetite desires. Sin is sweet whenever you have

an appetite for it. Let me say it like this.

Sin is sweet when you don't have a a renewed changed appetite.

Sin will not become repulsive because sin changes because sin

don't change. Sin only becomes repulsive

whenever there's a change on this side of the equation.

So the the, the the answer to sin.

And I know something to say. Well, just deny it.

Well, yeah, we should. But it's not that alone.

You got to have a replacement for the old pleasure.

You can't just break a sinful cycle with starvation.

There's got to be pleasure substitution.

Sin can only become repulsive when we change and our appetites

and desires get rewired. And so the question that we OFT

times entertain, Sister Sheila, I'm preaching to you right now,

is how can we acquire a taste for something new?

I've heard people tell me I've just not acquired a taste for

that. How you know I don't like

spinach? I'm not acquired a taste.

Forget about the colored greens. I'm not acquired a taste for it.

You know, I used to. People would ask me if I drink

coffee, and I said I'm too young to drink coffee.

Someone said the other day, I think it was one of my sisters.

You drink. I drink coffee now.

I said, yeah. I said I guess I'm old enough to

do it. But you acquire a taste for

things. Listen to me.

This is very simple today. This isn't just something that

happens. You got to try something new in

order to develop a taste for the new.

Just just, is everybody OK? Just just a few literal steps.

In our world today, they say if you're going to acquire a taste

for something new, number one, you need to have repeated

exposure #2 I'm going to explain this.

You learned. You have learned association

with what you're eating. There's an association that

comes #3 there's cognitive reframing of how you look at

what it is you're eating, how you think about that #4 there's

a physiological adaptation that takes place in order to acquire

a taste for something new. When we talk about repeated

exposure, when we taste something for new for the first

time, our brain and our body don't know what to do with it.

Just being honest, the flavor can feel and seem a little

unpleasant #1 it's unfamiliar to us and our brain.

Though overtime, this is what happens in your bodies.

Your brain starts to associate flavor with safe experiences

where they be emotional and social experiences, and then

they start to reward that to yourself as enjoyable.

When you go out with friends and having a good time, that is a

good time to try something new because when you try that new

thing that your body is unfamiliar with, it's taken in

the whole experience around you and and saying, when I tasted

that man, I felt pretty good. So you have to have repeated

exposure of those type of things in order for you to develop a

taste for something you never tasted before.

Again, the psalmist said, O taste and see that the Lord is

good. Part of our spiritual

transformation, part of our spiritual maturity involves

acquiring a new taste. What are you saying this

morning, preacher? I'm saying this, you might be

here today and say, brother McGee, I've never tried God

before. There might be others that say I

I even don't know much about God.

There may be others that say you talk about prayer.

I've never even tried that or, or worship or praise or any of

that. I've never tried any of those

things before. I understand that.

But the more you attempt Amen, prayer and God and praise and

taste that in the atmosphere where you're getting pleasure,

you're going to begin to associate pleasure with God and

pleasure with worship and pleasure with prayer.

And it's going to start. But it just doesn't happen once.

You got to keep exposing yourself to the House of God,

keep exposing yourself to the presence of God, because what

might begin as foreign to you, you're going to adapt a taste

for and you're going to want it more and more and more.

And brother child, it's the flavor that's forever you got.

Hallelujah. So hepatite follows exposure.

The more sister Sheila go and get you a few more packs.

Expose, expose, go somewhere, have a good time with your

sister and eat your tuna. Expose and expose.

It happened. You just you got to retrain the

brain. It's learned association, so we

acquire the taste through through conditioning.

Again, the it's the positive company that's around you.

It's pleasant memories that happened whenever you were

eating that thing or that food. It's the emotional satisfaction

that you get Your brain again learns to connect that flavor

and that pleasure. I love what the writer said in

the gospels of Matthew 5 and 6. This is what Jesus said.

He said blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after

righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Or if I may, they shall be satisfied.

Folks, there's some type of association that happens when

you partake of God and His service and His presence and you

leave and you say I've never felt so satisfied in my life.

I don't feel like I got to look for anything else or try

anything else. I still have the taste of it on

my lips and it's not turn bitter in my belly.

Yes. What happens?

There's a sense of satisfaction that comes associated with

hunger and thirst and after righteousness, there's a I got

to run. There's a cognitive reframing.

We learn to like things again because we we reframe their

meaning. When you're young, there's

certain things that may seem gross to you.

Yes. As a young man, you know, coffee

wasn't all that to me, but I've reframed it.

It's a mature drink and I've just reached a certain level in

life now. Took me 47 years to do it.

I'm mature enough that I think I can go to Starbucks, you know,

have my wife go get me a drink. You got to reframe the way that

you think about things. Listen, when I come to church on

Sunday, I'm not thinking, oh, I'm going to go to church.

This is just taking, this is taking time out of my weekend.

No, I've reframed it. I get to go to church.

I have no idea what God might do today.

I couldn't be spending my weekend in any.

But there's a reframing that used to a foreign you might look

at and brother, he said, I don't know what's wrong with those

folks. Three times a week, man, that

seems just a little crazy. But now he shows up every

service for some reason. Why he's reframed how he's

looked about it. There's been an experience,

there's been a feeling, there's been, and it's forever.

OK, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

The physiological adaptation, body chemistry changes.

I like this because transformation doesn't just

change behaviors. You know your your taste buds do

renew periodically. On the spiritual side, the Paul

right into the Corinthians. In 2nd Corinthians 517 he said

if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

Old things are passed away. Paul even talked to Titus about

a washing of regeneration, A regiming, the washing of a

regeneration and a renewing of the Holy Ghost.

Folks, when you become a new creature in Christ, there

becomes a new hunger for Christ. There's a physiological, if you

will, adaptation. Hey, man.

And so when we look at all these things, please understand me

this morning that that acquiring the new taste, Sister Sheila,

that's not something that is forced, but it is about trying

something new. And over time, the more you're

exposed to, the more you have associations with it, trying

something new. Something begins to unfold over

time, and the new food and the new flavor it becomes.

Pleasurable because they become a part of your story that that

it's one of the reasons why you've heard me say it a lot

around here. I'll say it again Nelson y'all

listen I know in in apps and stuff on our phone a lot of

times they give a seven day trial then you start paying.

I tell the church, I've said it a lot often here lately.

Here at the first after the church, we want to give you a

seven week trial and there's no cost even after seven weeks if

you continue. But this, what are you doing?

Repeated exposure, the reframing, the learned

association. I want you to come here once and

get a taste on your tongue And after you say, you know, I'm

going to go back. That tasted kind of good and you

go back again and again. And before long, Amber, you just

drive a long ways to get here because you just like how it

feels and you like the pleasure and you like what God is doing

in your life. Stay with me.

He's in too close. So, so far was right.

And we can't deny this. Sin is sweet in the mouth, but

it doesn't stay there. Soon what was sweet will become

a toxin. What was sweet to the tongue

will turn sour. That's why God's invitation to

the Scriptures basically stop tasting sin, but taste and see

that the Lord is good. Because the only way you can

stop a craving that is killing you is to taste something better

that can satisfy you. The problem isn't that sin

tastes good, it's that I'm a broken man with broken taste

buds and I'm savoring poison. I'm savoring the world.

I'm savoring sin. But when Christ walks in my

life, brother Fred, as it did yours many years ago now,

appetites change. The Lord doesn't just forgive

what you've done. Here's the awesome thing about

God. He doesn't just forgive what

you've done. He'll change your desire

compared to what your desire was before.

The things that once appealed to you, they'll lose their

sweetness. And the things that used to seem

porn and indifferent and plain to you, they'll become precious.

So the question this morning is, this is somewhere between the

sweetness of sin and the bitterness of its consequence.

Every one of us has a choice to make.

Will I keep savoring what will sicken me?

Or will I finally taste and savor and hold on to the

goodness of God? And it's the difference between

temporal and eternal looks. I've said all so many times, I

I've stood and sat and been in the hospital at too many

bedsides. The people that were serving the

Lord, I've never heard a single one of them ever come across

their lips. You know what?

I wish I'd never lived this life.

I have never experienced that. Never experienced a single one

of them say, you know what? I've just wasted a lot of years

living forgotten never. But I have heard the inverse of

that, of people that hadn't lived for God.

Hey, what have I done with my life?

Why? Because everything's fleeting.

It's a finish line you're always approaching and never reach.

But every good and every perfect gift coming from above, from the

Father of lights. Can we bow our heads in this

place this morning so far as trying to give us some wisdom

here that we do not have to continue in the path that we

were born into, of being a Sinner and having the desires of

just all of the elementary and carnal and playing things of

world riches, career, houses, homes, so on and so forth.

But there is something beyond the temporal.

There's a pleasure forevermore and the pleasure that the Lord

gives. Listen, it just bowed.

What I mean by that is this. It's not deceitful like sin.

It's not going to be a bait and switch and it's going to turn on

you. No, no, no, no.

It's sweet in the mouth. It's sweet in the belly.

It's sweet on Monday, it's sweet on Friday.

It's sweet in the valley. It's sweet on the mountain top.

It's sweet when when disease is riveting my body and it's sweet

when I'm healthy. It's sweet when I have money in

my pocket, and it's sweet whenever there is no money in my

pocket. And again, as the old timers

used to say, it just gets sweeter and sweeter as the days

go on. We're going to open these altars

today. Whether your altar is your Pew

or whether your altars up here at front or standing or

kneeling, it matters not. But I challenge you today, just

do an inventory on your life and ask yourself, how many things

have you chased? How many things have you put in

your mouth and savored for them just to dissipate and be

fleeting and fade? I'm asking you today, if you've

never tried the Lord, if you've never tried Him, the only way to

acquire the taste for something new is you got to try something

new. You got to try something new.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

I'm telling you today, the Lord wants you to find pleasure in

Him. He wants you to find pleasure in

him. Hey, man, He's done all these

things, the Book of Revelation says, even the creation of the

world, He's done some of these things for his pleasure.

He's made you and He wants to be your God.

Not just that he gets pleasure from you, but that you can

derive pleasure from knowing him.

Can somebody today just be honest with God and say, God,

I'm willing this morning to give you a chance.

I'm willing this morning, God, to try to acquire a taste for

some nothing different than what I have chased you through my

whole life. Lord, here am I.

I need you. I want you.

Hallelujah. Church family, can we lift up

our voices all across here right now?

Can we begin to pray? Can we begin to pray?

Hallelujah. I don't want to be duped and

deceived by sin. I want to be accepted by heaven

and I want to enjoy what Heaven has taught for me.