What If God Was More Like Google

I wish God could be more like Google. I'm just

being honest with you because I have a great relationship

with Google. Google knows what I want to ask it

before I finish the word. What I like about Google

is Google seems to anticipate what I need to know,

and God seems to be the opposite because I'm begging

him sometimes to let me know what to do about

this relationship, about this decision? What if you could invest

your money with the kind of knowledge with which David

went to Hebron? What if God would tell you which stock?

What if God would tell you how to balance the portfolio?

What if God would tell you which position to apply for?

Wouldn't that be amazing? If God would order your steps

like that, what's that Amazon? What's it called? Echo? Echo?

Somebody sent us an Amazon Echo recently. I would suggest

putting it on your Christmas list. It's an amazing device.

This is not a product endorsement, but it's amazing. Do

any of you have it? It's voice activated, because sometimes

you can't be bothered to have to use your thumbs.

So I like Alexa. That's her name, Alexa. I have

a relationship with Alexa where I say her name, I

say Alexa, and she lights up, kind of like Holly

when I say her... What? She's nodding. And I can

tell her what song to play, what task to perform. Alexa,

and she lights up, and she answers me. She hears

me when I call. She's like the Lord. Well, yesterday

I walked in and Graham was doing his homework. But

I want you to see something. I caught it on

my video camera because I've never seen anything like this before.

If 88 minus N equals R. Alexa, what is 19

plus 9? The sum of 19 and 9 is 28.

Are you kidding me right now?

Are you kidding me? What?

Are you kidding me right now?

About what? How you're doing your homework.

I am checking.

He's checking on me. I like that. Checking. Checking. Touch

your neighbor and say, I'm checking. I'm checking. I'm checking.

I already did the work. I'm just checking. And see,

I have a feeling when David inquired of the Lord,

where do I go next? He was already on his way.

He was just checking. Because when you walk in God's ways,

you will know God's will. All you got to do

is check. Jesus said, if I leave, I'll send you

the spirit of truth and he'll show you the ways

to walk in.

I'm checking.

I'm checking. I'm checking. I'm checking. See, I don't have

to ask God about every decision. I don't have to

stress about God's will. When I live my life in

God's ways, I have the confidence that my steps are ordered.

Where's my organ? My steps are ordered by the Lord

because I delight in his way. Why aren't y'all on

your feet? I'm trying to tell you, you don't have

to worry so much about what. When you get your

why right, when you walk in the ways of God,

When you submit to him. Because God's strategy is submission.

And now you can sit down because you're not going

to like this part. The other S word is submission.

And in all of the steps that David took away

from the throne for 15 years, into the land of

the Philistines, into the place of Ziklag, While it looked

like he was moving away from the promise God had

made him, he was moving into submission. Submission. The steps

of a good man are ordered. Wait a minute. That's

what they do in the military.

Ordered.

And I found out a lot of people will rejoice

over the sovereignty of God, but resist submission. And to

believe in sovereignty without embracing submission is not faith, it's

fairy tale. If I say my steps are ordered by

the Lord as a way of excusing my decisions, I

have misunderstood the implication of Psalm 37, 23. I wonder

how much differently we would respond to Psalm 37, 23

if we considered the word ordered. Because when David went

to God, David didn't give God his opinion. He asked

God for his next order. Now, when you live like that,

you can have complete and total confidence in every move

you make, every breath you take. And whether you're moving

away from your goal or toward your goal, you can know,

I'm in submission, so I'm at peace. Submission brings peace.

When you try to get the strategy before submission, you're

out of order, and it doesn't work. When you say

God orders your steps, understand what you're saying is not

that God will take the step for you. It's that

he will tell you which one to take. So when

I asked God to heal my relationship with my dad,

God did not do it until I submitted to the

way that he wanted me to do it, which was

to humble myself and go into my dad. Instead of

proving how right I was and how wrong he was

to find a point of connection But that required submission

and when I submitted myself to God's way I experienced

God's will a Lot of the things that are not

working in my life are because I'm out of order

I Sometimes when your finances are out of order, you

have the money you need. It's just not in. I

think I preached us into a funeral. It's because God

is really not first in your priorities. I can tell

by your ledger. I can tell because everybody else gets

your first and God gets what's left. When you give

God your best, he blesses what's left. When you give

God what's left, how can you believe him for his best?

You're out of order. The three times that me and

Holly have fought in 15 years of marriage might be understating.

But when we fight, it's not because we don't have

a blessed marriage. It's because something is out of order.

Something is out of order. There's a step I'm skipping. See,

when I talk to my wife and I need to

work something out, the thing I got to do before

I can explain myself is to empathize, which does not

come naturally to me. To listen to your wrong point

of view before I give you the correct one. But

sometimes there's something I need to learn about how you

see it so I can come over onto your side.

That's why we have so much racial and religious tension

in our nation. We're out of order. We're out of order.

Before we even listen to one another, we're giving a

lesson to the other, but you can't give the lesson

until you're willing to listen. so we're out of order.

Now we're frustrated because it's not working, and we don't

know what to do. But David's life is interesting. When

he was in order, everything had a flow to it.

The oil flows when you're in order. The Bible says

he inquired of the Lord, shall I go up to

one of the cities of Judah, which was not, by

the way, the ultimate capital, because everything God does, he

does in steps and stages. It would be seven and

a half more years before David would come into the

fullness of his calling, but all you need for now

is the next step. David had been making moves see

here he had been he had been working toward this

this moment where he would go to Judah and he

had sent the men of Judah gifts and he was

set up now and he asked God is now the

time because I don't want to move to you want

me to move and in one sentence God taught him

his next move because for 15 years, God had taught

him to submit. If you can receive this message today

and submit your desires, God will tell you what to

do when you delight yourself in his way. That's what

Psalm 37 says, that he delighteth in his way. I

thought that meant, I'm so stupid. I thought that meant

for the longest time. I don't know why I can't

get this stuff the first time. I thought that meant

God delights in his way. The steps of a good

man are ordered by the Lord. Put it up there.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the

Lord and he delighteth in his way. I thought that

meant that if I'm a good man and my steps

are ordered, God will delight him. Well, of course God

delights in the way that he orders. That doesn't make

any sense. It means that when I delight in his way, See,

he delighteth in his way. Who's he? The man whose

steps are ordered. When I delight in God's way, I

will be in God's will, and my steps will be ordered.

And I can stay on this step as long as

I need to stay on this step. And I can

stay in this season as long as I need to

be in this season. Because God, I don't want to

go into any greater responsibility or influence until you say

I'm ready. I don't want to come out of this

oven until I'm ready. I don't want to enter into

the promotion until I'm ready. And when you say step,

I step and my steps... are ordered. It's a statement

of submission.