The Centrality of God’s Will | Matthew 12:46-50 | Pastor Neil McClendon

Oh, and listen very carefully.

I don't want to be confusing, but obedience doesn't make us Christians.

It is a life of obedience.

By living a life of obedience, we identify ourselves as the brothers and sisters of Jesus.

What do you mean when you say obedience doesn't make us Christians?

We'll see somebody in the culture do the right thing, and we just think, oh, they must be Christian.

Like, watch football today.

Somebody will score a touchdown and they'll bow down for just about two seconds, and you're like, oh, that's great.

There's a popular athlete.

He must be Christian.

Then he gets up and acts like a fool.

And you're like, oh, never mind.

I take that back.

Yeah.

And so I'm not trying to be semantical.

I'm just saying, just because you have episodic obedience, so I call you have episodes where you do the right thing.

That doesn't make you a Christian.

Here's how you know who Christians are: they live a life of obedience.

And by doing so, they kind of out themselves as, hey, that's the brother and the sister of Jesus.

It is doing the will of God, not just believing in the will of God or praying for it, but actually doing it.

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit our website at grandparkway.org.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together, church.

Uh Lord, we uh we could we confess that we understand all that you've accomplished.

And so we're not here trying to win some battle.

We're here to appropriate what God has already won on our behalf, in our place.

And so, Lord, that keeps us from being obnoxious like some political ad this time of year, where we slander everybody else and accuse everybody else of doing wrong.

No, we're we're not here to accuse everybody else of doing wrong.

We're here to do right.

We're here to unleash good on the culture around us because this is part of God's will for our life.

Holy Spirit, expand our understanding of the will of God and our enjoyment of the will of God today.

From your word and by your spirit, we pray for these things.

And we pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, don't sweat it, okay?

It'll come up on this big screen here behind me.

Uh, like I said earlier, we're preaching to the book of Matthew, and we're to this little section at the end of chapter 12.

But if you're not careful, people, most people just skip over it and go to chapter 13 because Jesus starts talking in parables, and we like parables.

Uh, we're familiar with that.

Uh, but I don't want us to miss uh what God's saying in these five verses right here.

I want to talk to you this morning about the centrality of God's will.

The centrality of God's will.

Now, here's my confession, uh or my concern, really.

My concern is that the church in America, we talk about the will of God a lot when you're in college.

You go to a college Bible study, there's a series on dating, and then there's a series on finding the will of God.

And how you know, and basically by the will of God, what we mean is what am I supposed to major in and do for a living, and then who am I gonna marry?

And once you answer those two questions, most people stop thinking about the will of God.

Like, ask yourself this question: when's the last time you and your wife sat down and said, Hey, let's let's really discern what what the will of God is in this situation?

Because I want to make sure that we're doing God's will.

Usually after we get vocation and spouse, we're like, hey man, my life is just about my will.

And I'm gonna submit to you this morning that there's a centrality to the will of God that we were created for, uh, that most of us don't even think about much anymore, because I think the church has stopped talking about it.

And so let me just read Matthew chapter 12, verse 46.

Matthew 12:46

It says this, while he was still speaking, talking about Jesus, while while he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.

But he replied to the man who told him, Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

And stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers.

For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Now, at first blush, you read that and you're like, Okay, like I sent the tomorrow email yesterday, and someone wrote me back, What are you going to do with this passage?

And I wrote back, I'm going to preach it.

And he wrote back, there's not much in there.

And I wrote back, You don't have eyes to see.

Uh and I saw him this morning.

He's like, real funny.

Uh, I can't believe you talked that long about that thing.

That was actually pretty good.

And I'm like, do you have to use the word actually, okay?

Uh so what do I mean by the centrality of God's will?

Look at me, I want to make two points, and then I'll have five applications.

Two points and five applications of the will of God.

What do you mean?

Here's the two points.

Number one, Jesus is not disowning his family.

Jesus is not disowning his family.

He's making a statement when he says, Who are my brother and my brothers?

He's not making a statement about priorities.

He's not disassociating from his family.

Because I say that because some people try to use this passage because it says right there, while Jesus was speaking to the people, behold, his mother and brothers stood outside asking to speak to him.

Because I do a lot of counseling.

Every once in a while, people come to me, and it's called familial emancipation.

It's a big thing nowadays where your kids get grow up and they get usually it's right after they get married, and their new spouse convinces them that you're so toxic that y'all gonna take a break.

We gotta step back.

We can't be around your family.

And every once in a while I get looped into these conversations, which I don't mind.

I'm not, hey, I guess I know your parents, and I know, and I know, yeah, and I know y'all, I love everybody.

I'm just gonna speak the truth in all situations.

Uh, and but they they say, I've had people say, you know, well, Jesus, you know, he's separated from his family and he prioritized his disciples.

We're just prioritizing our marriage and our relationship, and his parents just need to understand.

Like a couple years ago, there was a couple that came to me, and I knew the guy, I knew the guy's family, uh, and he got married, and about 18 months into the marriage, all of a sudden, his parents were just knuckleheads who did everything wrong.

And so he went to his parents and said, Hey, by the way, we're gonna just step back and hit the pause in this relationship.

And so don't reach out to us, and we'll reach out to you if we need something, but we're just gonna take a break.

We need a break.

And here's the magic word.

Uh, somebody sent me a podcast this weekend because two years ago I said to this person, listen, the word toxic is a therapeutic uh crowbar that we use to leverage ourselves out of whatever situation.

So he was like, My parents have just become toxic, and we don't need any toxic relationships.

And I said, You go to counseling, don't you?

And he said, How'd you know?

I said, Because you overused the word toxic.

And counselors teach you, oh, well, this toxic relationship should be, you should protect yourself.

And he even referenced, well, well, in the book of Matthew, it says that Jesus, you know, he had his ride or dies in the house, and his his mother and brothers were outside and waiting for permission to speak to him.

I went, that is not what's happening there.

And this is all I'm saying when I say Jesus is not disowned his family.

You cannot assign this motive to Jesus using this passage right here, okay?

Uh, and you may be wondering, I'm not very good at counseling.

I don't want people come.

So here was my counsel to this young couple.

And after 18 months of marriage, his parents are just, I said, so let me get this right.

Your parents who raised you, supported you, paid for your college education, bought you the first three vehicles you had, and then a year after y'all, when y'all first met, you said your dad said, Who his dad's been very successful?

Your dad said, Son, don't waste money on rent.

Let us help you get in a house so you can start building some equity.

So these people did all that and gave you a fat-down payment on your house.

All of a sudden they're toxic.

Yeah, yeah.

I know it's hard to believe.

Oh, it's really hard to believe.

But here's the thing: I pulled my phone out and I put it on my desk and I slid across the desk and I said, Let's you call your dad right now.

Matter of fact, he's one of my contacts.

Let's call him right now and tell him to instruct your family lawyer to cut you out of the wheel because you don't want any of this toxic money.

And she reached over and grabbed his arm and said, Oh, we're not saying that.

I said, Oh, but but let's just extend toxicity all the way because I mean it's like you live next door to Three Mile Island.

And in that moment I realized I'm old and they're young.

Because she goes, What's Three Mile Island?

I'm like, Oh, don't compliment it too with me.

No, sir, young lady.

I said, It's, it's, it, it, I, I'm old.

Three Mile Island, if you're under 30, was a nuclear plant that melted down and almost destroyed America years ago.

And I said, You talk about his parents like they're so toxic, like, oh my gosh, we live next door to Chernobyl.

And she goes, What's Chernobyl?

Oh, Jesus.

Oh, it's it's it's just Google it anyway.

But all of a sudden they didn't want that.

I said, So you want the resources, but you don't want the responsibility.

I'm just reflecting back to you what you're saying.

But I'm not saying that.

Yeah, you really are.

And here's all I'm saying: don't say, well, Jesus did that.

Jesus just owned his family.

No, he didn't.

Here's the second thing I want us to see.

Obedience is evidence of conversion.

Obedience is evidence of conversion.

Uh, verse 49, and stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, Hear my mother and brothers, for whoever does the will of my father who's in heaven, that's obedience, is my brother and sister and mother.

Let me say it like this: just because you repeat something, that doesn't mean you actually believe it.

Just because you repeat something doesn't mean you actually believe it.

How you live is what you believe.

And see, the people who are part of God's family are those who obey.

Not just this one-time act of obedience where you give your life to Christ or you begin a relationship with Christ or you were converted or you got saved, whatever language that you use.

Uh, it's not a one-time act of obedience where we surrender our lives to Jesus, uh, but this is a surrender that produces a life of obedience where we do the will of God as a lifestyle.

Let me see.

Here's how you know who the Christians are.

Christians aren't people that say, Yeah, when I was 14, I was obedient.

I surrendered my life to Christ.

I went through confirmation, catechism, whatever your religious tradition was.

Tradition Christians are people who, yes, they there was an initial act of obedience where they submitted their life to Christ.

And here's how you know who those people are.

They now live a life of obedience, okay?

Where where they consistently uh submit their will to God's will.

Let me say it again.

They consistently submit their will to God's will.

Now, it's an important distinction to make.

Oh, and listen very carefully.

I don't want to be confusing, but obedience doesn't make us Christians.

It is a life of obedience that by living a life of obedience, we identify ourselves as the brothers and sisters of Jesus.

What do you mean when you say obedience doesn't make us Christians?

We'll see somebody in the culture do the right thing, and we just think, oh, they must be Christian.

Like, watch football today.

Somebody will score a touchdown and they'll bow down for just about two seconds, and you're like, oh, that's great.

There's a popular athlete, he must be Christian.

Then he gets up and acts like a fool, and you're like, oh, never mind.

I take that back.

Yeah.

And so I'm not trying to be semantical.

I'm just saying, just because you have episodic obedience, what I call it.

You have episodes where you do the right thing.

That doesn't make you a Christian.

Here's what here's how you know who Christians are: they live a life of obedience.

And by doing so, they kind of out themselves as, hey, that's the brother and the sister of Jesus.

It is doing the will of God, not just believing in the will of God or praying for it, but actually doing it.

And I said earlier, the will of God is more than just when you're in college, what am I gonna major in?

Who am I gonna marry?

What company am I gonna get on with?

Uh actually, when you pan the camera back, you'll start seeing all through the Bible that the Bible talks about the will of God a lot.

And so here's what I want to do.

I just want to pan the camera back and say, hey, folks, let's not miss how central the will of God is to every area of our life.

And say, let me just tick off about five areas where we need to apply the will of God.

The first one is to our mind.

Our mind.

Change starts in your mind.

You mean change starts in your mind.

Yes, your mind has to be, think of it like this, like a remodeling project.

You strip it down to the studs.

Chip and Joanna gained show up, and Joanna's like, I've got a design, and Chip's like, yeah, we can do that.

And you strip it down to the studs, and then you basically you remodel, you rebuild your mind around that which is new.

I'll give you a great example of an older what I call a natural mind.

It's what's going on in Cornell University right now.

Uh, horrible incident in the news.

I won't go into the details.

Horrible incident.

Someone reached out to me and said, Hey, can I just pick your brain about this?

I said, Sure.

Uh and he said, Okay, I'll call you at 8 3:30.

I just think 15 minutes.

And he said, How do you explain this?

And I said, This is the natural mind.

This people's mind has not been renewed by the gospel.

This is how you treat people.

And he's like, Well, that just seems really simple.

And I said, No, not just what they did, but how they talk about it after the fact.

This is when people say, Oh, man's inherently good.

Explain this.

This is the now, what do you mean?

It's Romans chapter 12, verse 2.

Romans 12:2

He says, This do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

See, change does not happen.

Look at me.

Change does not happen until your mind is renewed.

You don't have the capacity, the capacity to change.

You can hate yourself and want to change, but change happens when your mind is renewed.

He says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

See, when your mind gets renewed, then you're able to discern and see and figure out what is the will of God.

Because change starts with how you think.

Without renewing your mind, you'll conform to how the world thinks.

You should ask yourself today, how how have you how has your thinking changed since you became a Christian?

How has my thinking changed since I became a Christian?

Now, I know we talk about renewing your mind.

It's like, what exactly is that?

Let me give you real three practical things you could really do that will begin to change the way you think.

The first one is read.

Read.

Like someone's in my office the other day, and they looked around and they said, You read all these books?

I said, No, they're just for decoration.

And he goes, I said, but by the way, I don't read books, I read chapters.

He goes, What?

I said, This changed my life years ago.

Like, I don't set out to read a book, I set out to read a chapter.

Like if it's 9:30 at night and I'm just thumbing through channels, or I find myself watching a movie I've seen before.

You're like, oh well, there's a good part coming up.

I just said, I'm not gonna do that anymore.

So if I'm just like, nothing really interests me, my soul is saying, I need something else.

You're feeding me this, I'm not hungry for this.

So I'll turn off the TV, go get a book, and I'll just say, before I go to bed, I'm gonna read a chapter.

And sometimes I get on a row, I'll read one chapter, like, oh, that was really good.

I'm making notes and highlighting stuff, and I read another chapter.

Sometimes I read one chapter and go to bed.

Sometimes I read six pages and go, ooh, I'm sweepy, I'm going to bed.

I don't beat myself up over it, but I just read.

I'm constantly exposing my mind to different things.

Here's a second one.

Think.

If you want to renew your mind, you have to think.

I mean, just spend this is very simple, but it's harder than you think.

Spend five minutes before you go to bed tonight thinking about your life and how it's being lived.

And ask yourself, hey, what do I need to change anything about the way I engage the world, about the way my mind works?

Here's the last I'm going to start by this one dialogue.

Dialogue, not lecture, but dialogue, a conversation.

Just a back and forth conversation.

Somebody reached out to me a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine, and just said, hey, we have an opportunity.

And while they said, Hey, I want to get dinner with you and Marcy.

Can you guys?

I said, Yeah, I can do it, you know, on this date.

Uh, what works for you guys?

We'll meet you anywhere.

Come to the house.

I don't want to talk in public.

And so we're driving there.

My wife is she's got to know everything.

And she's like, What is this about?

I said, I don't know.

We're gonna get a free meal.

Well, what do they want to talk about?

I don't know.

Well, I mean, how do you prepare for that?

I ain't gotta prepare.

The Bible says, be ready, instant, be instant in season, out of season.

Always bear.

I I well, how do you go into it?

I go into this, I just say, make sure I'm full of the spirit.

And I I know these people, whatever meal's gonna be, it's gonna be good.

Rock and roll.

So we walked in and he said, Hey, here's what we want to talk about.

Because we got kind of did chit-chat, kid talk, and then he goes, Here's why we wanted you to come to my house.

We had this opportunity, and I want to pick your brain.

It was a great dialogue back and forth across the dinner table.

The wives were chiming in.

He and I were chiming in.

He's like, I can get my phone.

He's taking notes, and he goes, You might have to write that down.

I don't care at all.

Write it down, whatever.

I don't care.

Uh and then he said, Hey, I want to show you something.

He's got a little cool man shack out there.

He's got a putting green and some leather club chairs, big flat screen TV inside this little uh uh cabin he built inside his airport hanger.

And I was like, the house.

I told my wife, you can have the house.

I want that little cabin and the airport hanger.

That's like a man cave on steroids.

And and in the back of it, all you grandparents, he has a theater where him and his wife and the grandkids watch movies.

I was like, Oh, then my wife goes, What's the big deal about the putting green?

I stopped my truck, I'll make you walk home and you say that again, woman.

But the dialogue was very, it was just refreshing.

And he said, He said, I said, Hey man, we're gonna get out of here.

He said, Man, thank you so much.

Ah, gave me a lot to think about.

You should have dialogue back and forth with people who leave stretch marks on your soul.

Where you're just like, ooh, ooh, thank you.

I'm so glad I got to spend time with this person.

So uh we apply the will of God to our mind, secondly, to our body, to our body.

Central to the will of God is what we do with our body.

I say it like this: your body is the canvas of sanctification.

Translation, the place where your spiritual progress is most on display is in relation to what you do with your body.

You say, I uh what do you mean?

I just read from uh 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 1 says this.

1 Thessalonians 4:1

Finally, then, brothers, hear this, hear how this starts.

This is the type of people you can receive instruction from.

He says, Finally, then, brothers, we ask and we urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing.

Don't miss that part.

Just as you are doing.

Hey, you ask us, hey, how you ought to walk and please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

This is free.

If you're in leadership in a company, use your power to make people feel more secure, not less.

Use power to make people feel more secure.

Start conversations like this.

Hey man, I just want you to know that we we kind of told you we want to do blah, blah, blah.

I just want you to know not only are you doing that, you are crushing it.

And then people open up and they'll receive more from you.

So he goes on to say in verse 2 for you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

For this is the will of God.

Hello.

There it is again.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

This is the will of God.

Sanctification means that you become more and more like Christ and less and less like your old self.

This is the will of God, that you be sanctified.

And one of the ways that you demonstrate your sanctification is that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Love Island.

Anyway, some of you like, easy Pastor, that's my binge.

You're rotting your brain.

But anyway, uh uh, by the way, most TV is programmed around this right here.

That each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Now, by the way, ask yourself before you go to bed, hey, what two words would you choose to describe your body?

Not what it looks like, but what it feels like to be in your body.

Because the Bible says, hey, you should control your body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Let no one transgress or wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these things.

As we told you before, and we solemnly warned you, for God has not called us to impurity, but in holiness.

Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

Now, a lot of times in counseling, I'll be talking to people, and we talk about what I call the body ethic or the ethic of the body or your sexual um your your your morality as it c as it applies to sex.

And they'll go, well, I mean, I don't want to offend you, preacher, and everything, but I uh that's just your opinion.

You know, this is 2026, and I say, No, no, the Bible's very clear.

It's verse 8 there.

If you disregard this, you're not disregarding me.

I'm just a man.

You're disregarding God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

Now, you're smart people, look at me.

Don't miss this.

Why does he finish this by saying, Who gives you his holy spirit?

Because he puts his spirit inside of you, in your body.

It's why the Bible says, Do you not know?

Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

You've been bought with a price, therefore, glorify God in your body.

When he says right here, hey, you're not disregarding man, but God who gives you his Holy Spirit, you are grieving the spirit of God that lives inside of you when you subject your body to immorality.

This is what the Bible's teaching.

And it's not a man's opinion.

And I I told a couple recently, I said, listen, you know who's having more and more sex, not just more sex, but more satisfying sex?

Married people.

Because the guy's like, dude, I'm I'm never getting married.

He's divorced, I'm never getting married.

I'm just gonna I'm just gonna play the field.

And I looked at the lady and said, You live with him.

Did you hear what he just said?

What are you gonna do when he finds a prettier player?

He's gonna kick you out.

And she goes, Well, he didn't mean that.

Yes, he did.

He just said it right out of his filthy pie hole right there.

And she's like, Well, we'll work that out later.

And I'm like, Oh gosh.

I said, by the way, this is not rooted in how you feel about him, this is rooted in how you feel about you.

If you valued yourself more, you wouldn't you wouldn't let him treat you like this.

He's just like, Are you serious?

I said, I'm more than serious.

And then he does this.

He turns sideways and goes, watch it, bro.

I just tell the section right here.

In a brief nanosecond, I got real happy at the thought that he was gonna blow up.

I wish I'm lying, but I'm not.

Because I just thought, oh, sweet Jesus, say something.

I could hear Doc Holliday in my spirit say when.

And I said, What are we watching?

That's enough.

Okay, whatever.

Here's a third area we should apply the will of God, our gratitude.

Our gratitude.

What do you mean?

This is more than saying thank you.

It's living connected to the God that provides it all.

In the last service, we a family dedicated their little baby son, Jameson, little milk nugget.

I mean, he's about that big, just wobbly, sleeping all the time.

Why people carry him around?

I was jealous.

And they picked this verse for their son.

Here's a verse rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Now hear that again.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.

Notice it says, in all circumstances, not for all circumstances.

It is naive and not even Christian to go, oh, oh, hey, you should thank God for that cancer.

You should thank God for that divorce.

No.

But he said he's not saying thanks for.

He said give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Big difference in those two.

You don't, it's naive to go, I thank God for that.

I have a friend, my friend Dave, he died of cystic fibrosis.

This is before they got that drug that made all the difference.

He died back in 97.

But at the time, he was the oldest living survivor of cystic fibrosis in North America.

He had CF in his lungs and polio in his legs.

He goes, Look at me.

I look like Gumby.

He walked kind of funny like this.

I'd walk behind him in a restaurant and he'd go, I see you back there.

Because I would say, table for two.

And he was like, I tell you what, if I could, I'd whip you right here.

And I said, Listen, I'll slap a cripple in front of God and everybody.

Sit down.

And we just had that kind of relationship.

He's hilarious.

He was from Edina, Minnesota.

And I was like, Oh, you live in Minnesota.

Yeah, you betcha.

He goes, That's not even close.

Shut up.

But Dave was one of the most authentic people I'd ever met.

Like, people would come up.

He was a speaker.

He and I did the same.

That's how we met.

And so he would say, Hey man, I'm in a wheelchair now.

Can you come push me?

And I'm like, absolutely.

I'll push you around.

And so people would come up to him after he'd preached, and they'd be like, Oh, you know, Dave, remember, the Lord doesn't give you more than you can handle.

And Dave would go, Well, I wish God wouldn't trust me with so much.

And I remember standing there holding the handles, kind of thinking, either he's really rude or he's dishonest.

And I come looking, he was just honest.

And people come up and say, Oh, David, one lady came up, I'll never forget, she was kooky.

She said, You know what, David?

You know, if you just what could heal you is if you had coffee enemus.

And I just turned loose to the wheelchair.

I was like, I don't want any part of this.

I started backing up.

And as I'm backing up, I heard David, see, this is what you get when you come to the third service.

Other people didn't get this.

He said, out of his mouth, see, if you think Christians are phony, you haven't been around the right Christians.

He said, he reached out and grabbed her and said, Come here, ma'am.

And she's like, All right, he goes, I've been healed of my need to be healed.

I'm gonna die, sucking air through a straw.

I'm gonna basically suffocate and God's feel good.

And all of a sudden, people that were standing on the on the peripheries all just stepped towards him.

It was 40 minutes before I unlocked the brakes and wheeled him out.

Because everyone's just longing for an authentic, honest Christian just to tell the truth.

He said, I'm so sick of Christians coming putting their bumper stickers on my forehead.

But Dave would also, he had a he he couldn't sleep at night.

He would call me at 3:08 in the morning.

I'd answer the phone.

Hello, says Neil, you got an hour.

Oh, well, Dave, I'm sure I do.

It's 3 07.

I know what time it is.

I got a clock.

And Marcy would just pat me on the leg and she said, Go in the living room.

Tell Dave I said hi.

And this is how honest he was.

He would say things like, I said, Dave, what's eating at you tonight?

I'm dying, and not enough people care.

And don't you tell me I pity, I'm I'm drowning in self-pity because I'll come through this phone and choke you.

And I'm like, oh, okay.

All right, I'll be choked out by a cripple.

All right.

Well, I'll tell you what.

But I was one of the six men that carried him to his day, to his grave.

I was his pall bear.

Not only was he on, his wife was on.

We were standing at the back of the hearse, and his wife just came and jumped up on the casket and was laying with her feet off the ground over the casket, sobbing.

And some good church lady came out of the crowd and grabbed her and pulled her off and said, It's okay, Luana.

He's in a better place.

And she pulled away and said, No, he's not.

No, he's not.

The better place is right here with me.

Would you shut up?

And I thought, man, she got the disease too.

And we're standing there holding his coffin, and people at the back of her is just like, uh-huh, uh-huh.

That just got weird.

And God looked at me and said, I said, that's not weird.

That's just Christianity.

That's what real Christians, they're just honest.

If you're a Christian, you're not naive and stupid, and you don't lie about what it's really like.

I went to the bathroom before we drove to the, and they said, folks, if you want to, it's a long drive to the grave side, you're just going to use the bathroom.

I go in the church used the bathroom.

There's a guy standing next to me, bawling his eyes out.

And I just looked over, like, we don't make eye contact at the little trough here.

And and I I just, I was like, Do I care for him?

And I said, Hey man, are you okay?

And he just stared at the wall and he said, Yeah.

Yeah, I heard him speak.

I was a heroin addict.

And I thought maybe that guy could help me.

And he did.

I got off heroin and then he died.

I'm really mad at God.

They let that guy die.

And walked off.

And there I was, just staring at the wall.

Okay, I was done.

Yeah, look at me.

Authentic people call out the authenticity of other people.

The reason you don't have authentic friends is because sometimes you're phony.

And the world doesn't need our religious phoniness.

They just don't.

No.

See, gratitude.

What do you mean gratitude?

Gratitude is gritty.

Again, it doesn't say give thanks for all things, but in all things.

There's a lady named Helen Rosevere.

She was a missionary to the Congo.

She had a horrible experience on the mission field.

Horrible experience.

And she just couldn't get her head around how good God would let this happen to her.

She's like, I worked for you.

I I left everything in America to come over here and these people treat me like this.

And then she wrote in a journal one day, she said, and then I sense God asking me this question.

I brought you the question.

Here's the question that God asked her.

Can you thank me for trusting you with this experience, even if I never tell you why?

And she's like, ah, ooh, I don't know.

See, gratitude has some grit to it.

Here's the fourth area we need to apply the will of God, our eternal security.

Our eternal security.

You say, What do you mean?

Our relationship with God and the confidence that we have in it.

Too many people base their security, their spiritual security, uh uh uh around their relationship with God on something they did in the past instead of what they're currently doing right now in the present.

You say, What do you mean?

Here's a question that I wish I didn't know, but I know, and so I have to ask myself this question every once in a while because it jolts me awake.

And here's the simple question: whose will is being realized right now?

In other words, who's getting their way right now?

Because this is just me.

Pray for me.

I'm a sinner, I happen to be your pastor, but pray for me.

Because sometimes I want to get my way so badly, I don't even think about God's way.

I want my my kingdom to come and my will to be done.

I don't think about God's will.

No, I'm I'm just like, oh.

So when I say eternal security, see, see, I have uh certainty about my relationship with God, not because I prayed a prayer in July of 1982.

Look at me.

I have certainty about my relationship with God because look at me, I subject the will of Neil to the will of God.

Even when I don't want to, because I know it's better, I know it's the right thing to do.

The Bible says it like this in Matthew 7, Jesus is talking, he says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, or enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

Once again, the will of God pops up.

Not everyone says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But the person that does the will of my father who is in heaven, do you have the capacity to do the will of God, not as an event, but as a lifestyle?

On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, do not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do might, many mighty works in your name.

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Look at me.

They said the right things and they lived the wrong way.

And Jesus says, There's no security for you.

I'm not hating on you, I'm loving you enough to tell you this.

If you spend your life doing whatever you want, living out of your will, and then asking forgiveness later, you'll never have a sense of security about your relationship with God.

And hear this part: you shouldn't.

And that's not hate, that's love.

You shouldn't.

Here's why.

You don't have a relationship with God, you have a series of transactions.

It's like going to the ATM.

Oh, I'm out of cash.

Somebody go, oh, I got drunk and said some things I shouldn't have said to my wife.

I felt bad.

Oh, that's a transaction.

Until 18 months later, you need another transaction.

That there's a difference in a transaction and a relationship.

You say, I don't know what you mean.

It's not about, and I'm not saying doing good, not doing bad.

It's not about works-based righteousness.

It's about this the fact that evidence that I'm a Christian, I'll use myself.

Evidence that I'm a Christian is that I do the will of the Father.

I practice what Jesus practiced and modeled in the Garden of Gethsemane right before he went to the cross.

Remember that?

He kneels down to pray.

Now he's surrounded by his disciples.

And don't miss this, they fall asleep.

He's like, hello, I've invested in you for the past three years, and this is the thanks I get.

Jesus is so overwhelmed with what's coming, he is sweating blood.

There's a medical term for it.

I mean, it's just, and he says to his father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

This is what my friend Dave Busby understood.

Dave was like, I'm I'm gonna ask for everything to be possible.

If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

I don't want to do this.

But nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

See, you have to, some of you can't get to the will of God because you can't admit what you think is possible.

I lost you there, didn't I?

Y'all like, well, that sounded good, but I don't know what that means.

If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

I don't want to experience this.

But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

You got to ask yourself this question.

What helps you find your nevertheless?

What helps you get to that point and say, this is how I really feel?

But nevertheless, I need to subject what I want to what I believe God wants.

Happened twice yesterday for me.

My wife knows this, okay?

She knows that I do not like to smell like when we eat supper, because I don't like to smell my food that I just ate 30 minutes later, an hour later, sure not the next morning.

Because I grew up in a home where my stepmom was just lazy.

She would cook and she'd leave all the dishes and the pots and pans on the stove.

And the next morning we'd get up and you'd smell it.

And I was just like, ugh.

And it doesn't smell like leftover food, it smells like poverty to me.

That's why I hate it.

I have a visceral reaction to it.

So uh our youngest came home from grad school from Baylor this weekend, and we're hanging out last night.

We're having dinner, of course, whatever she wants, my wife cooks.

I'm like, what about me?

So we had what my daughter wanted for dinner.

Uh, and then I go and then I said, Well, they were gonna go for a walk.

I said, Oh, y'all have some mother-daughter bonding time.

I'm gonna go in our room and watch football.

I'm sitting in a dark room in a club chair in the corner of the room, my big flat screen fired up, all by myself.

And my wife walks in and says, Hey, I'm gonna get the dishes when I get back.

I don't want you to think I've forgotten.

I said, Okay, I appreciate that.

Because you know, I don't like, I know you don't like the smell of it, it smells like poverty.

I don't need that.

I got it.

She walked out of the house and I was like, Well, I've trained her well.

Turned up the volume on the Alabama-Georgia game, and all of a sudden that little voice in me just comes a knocking and says, Hey, whose will do you think is being realized right now?

Marcy's.

She said she wants to clean the kitchen when she gets back.

No, she said she will clean the kitchen when she gets back.

So let me just frame it for you, Potsy.

She cooked all afternoon, and now she's walking with your daughter, and you're sitting in here watching, and I'm just, I just reach for the remote, I turn off the TV, I get up, I go in the kitchen, I clean the kitchen, I load the dishwasher, I wash the pots and pans.

Before I wash the pots and pans, I had to put up the pots and pans.

They were in the dish drain.

They're like a mountain of stuff.

It's been there for three days, but I digress, and then I look over, I'm like, oh, the stove top.

So I took the grates off the stove, cleaned it, and I got some Windex and I Windex the top of it, put the grates back, I cleaned the microwave, it is shining like a diamond, okay?

I lit a candle and went back and sat in my room in the dark, watching football all by myself.

My wife comes home, breezes through the master bedroom, and says, Hey, thanks for doing the dishes.

And I was like, You're not gonna disrobe in front of me and say, Oh my gosh, I owe you everything, Neil.

I know I'm the only man that thinks those kind of thoughts.

And I wanted to go, did you smell the Windex, how clean it is in there?

And then she breezes right out of our master bathroom, through the master bedroom, back in there to hung out with her daughter.

That little voice said, How do you like the will of God now?

See, you don't always get a cookie when you do the will of God.

You know, sometimes you just have to die.

What page is that on?

How about Jesus in the garden?

If it'd be possible, let's just cut past through me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm at Home Depot yesterday, unleashing good on the culture around me.

I go to get a weed eater, a trimmer, a gas pad.

Guy, well, you want a battery pack?

No, man, I want something.

Wham, runs on fossil fuel.

Punch a hole in the ozone.

And they got them in a cage, locked up in a cage.

And I said, What's the deal?

He goes, Oh, people walk off of these things.

They just put it down their pants and just walk out.

You can't see them.

He said, No, they do walk out, but we can't stop them.

And I was like, What?

He said, Yeah, we can't stop them.

It's all insured.

So we just walk out.

We don't do anything.

And I said, Listen, I'll apply for a job.

I'll stand at the door and shoot fools that steal stuff.

This lady manager walks up.

She goes, sir, is there a problem?

Yeah, apparently I snuck up on you today.

I wanted to buy something.

Y'all weren't prepared for that.

So you don't have it locked in the cage, but it's on the top of a rack somewhere.

And we got to get a forklift and some grown man with two orange flags doing this, walking in front of him.

Just clip somebody with that.

We're not going to tell OSHA.

Come on, let's go.

I said, listen.

She goes, Oh, sir, I'm sorry this is taking so long.

Me too, because UT, Oklahoma kicks off in 20 minutes.

All right, let's get the show on the road here.

What are we doing?

Who's running this thing?

And while I'm talking to her, the Holy Spirit says, Whose will's being realized right now?

And then out of my mouth, I said, you know, I'm just messing with you.

I said, it's just time.

I'll be fine.

I said, but it has taken a while.

She says, I am so sorry.

There's a guy in our church that works there.

He's some kind of manager.

I said, Hey, is Chris here today?

She goes, No, he's not.

And I said, uh, she goes, how long has it been?

I said, 26 minutes.

And she goes, are you keeping time?

I wish I weren't.

And she goes, no, seriously, seriously, you you want a job?

Yeah, see, here's what's wrong in America.

Foolish, lazy thieves just take what they want and there's no consequence.

So you invite more theft.

I wouldn't kill them, I'd just shoot them in the leg or something.

Or we could have like a group of retired men who just hang out the doors at the exits drinking coffee, and we go, we got a shoplifter.

They just go beat them up in the parking lot and take stuff back.

I'm looking for retired men.

Who's with me?

You got a lot of anger issues, you can get it out.

Yes, I see that hand.

Yes, other others.

The bustles away, start down to the front.

And the lady, and then she goes, I've got to ask, what do you do for a living?

And then she goes, What time are your services?

I said, Listen, what's wrong with this country is we just kind of sit back like we don't have a brain or a gun.

And she goes, No, seriously.

I said, Oh, chitty chitty, bang, bang.

I would bust a cap in people, just a flesh wound.

We'd put them on the Monty Python cart.

And she goes, Who's Monty Python?

You are in danger of hellfire, lady.

You see, the will of God, it's central.

It's central.

If it be possible, let this cup pass from it, but nevertheless, I'm my will, but your will be done.

Is the will of God central to your life?

Or are you still in the bondage of the smallness of your will?

Here's the last one.

We'll be done.

Y'all laughing too much.

We gotta get out of here.

Authority.

Authority.

What do you mean?

In this political season, it's good to be reminded that God's will applies to politics too.

Hear this, 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 13.

1 Peter 2:13

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.

Heart stop.

See, we act like the individual is over every institution in America.

You can't tell me what to do.

I'm an autonomous, free-thinking human being.

I wouldn't use thinking to describe much of what you do, but go ahead.

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.

Home Depot, the DMV, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, the president, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil.

That'd be ice.

Uh-oh.

Spell my name right when you send me the email.

Who do evil and to praise those who do good.

Here it is again.

For this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

Live as people who are free.

Not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Hear it again.

For this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

The foolish people are not the emperors or the governors, it's the people who respond to them in evil ways.

It's an Antifa.

We have these, you know, we just pop up protests, they all got pre-made signs.

They all say the same thing.

Oh, okay.

Thank you, George Soros.

See, here's the thing, and we'll be done.

You still let me say amen.

See, here's the thing in our country.

There's so much concern about the negativity of the news cycle.

I see it as well, but what I don't see are Christians out there unleashing good on the world around them and said, We're withdrawing from the public square, and we're talking about how toxic the culture has become as we plan to exit stage left and then escape to our own personal violence somewhere in the hill country, right next door to Kirk Cobain.

And I'm like, I oh oh okay, but the Bible says, for this is the will of God that by doing good you should put the silence, the ignorance of foolish people.

I had explained to the lady yesterday at Home Depot that she said, Well, sir, you're getting this tremor and this blower and all this stuff.

You're doing God's right.

I said, It's not for me.

It's for somebody.

I got word that somebody needed this and didn't have it, and so I just want to unleash good.

Well, why do you want to unleash good?

Because I actually you said what I do.

I passed her a church.

And she goes, Yeah, yeah, that's right, you told me that.

And I said, We just got our debt paid for uh like like like 10 days ago.

And so instead of just sitting around going, Oh, we're gonna just hoard this, I just want to unleash good.

All this does is increase our capacity to unleash good on the culture around us.

I'm not gonna curse the darkness, I'm gonna spend my life lighting candles.

And she said, Whew, yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

And I said, Yeah, yeah, I have a meeting uh tomorrow with James Patterson.

He's gonna be a commissioner in Fort Bing County, uh, because one of our men was out walking, and Commissioner Pastor was riding his golf cart in the neighborhood, and and and our man said, Hey, just told him the good news that uh, hey, we had an anonymous gift.

It's great.

My church is super excited.

We have a plan for what we're gonna do.

We're just gonna increase what we ought to do, do it even more so.

And Commissioner Patterson said, Well, I have a foundation that works with underprivileged school-aged children.

You think your pastor would like to meet with me?

We're having lunch tomorrow.

Yes, yes, I want little kids to get what they need, be school supplies, shoes, whatever.

And I have a meeting on Tuesday morning with a company, an organization called Dulas Partners out of Birmingham, Alabama.

They finance indigenous people reaching their people.

Translation, we don't need white people to get on planes and go to every part of Africa.

We got people on the ground in Africa who don't have the funds to do it, and we're gonna give them some of ours.

Yes.

And this lady is like, all right, all right, all right.

I'm ready to just recruit all the Home Depot employees and just bring them here to church.

You say, Well, well, uh listen, here's the thing, and I'll I'll I'll be done, I'll shut up.

My concern is our flat screen TVs have gotten bigger and our involvement with the world has gotten smaller.

Because we withdraw from the world, and when you do that, the salt loses its saltiness, and evil prevails.

I find myself saying this, I'm sure it's just me, that every commercial is about negative this, and Ken Paxton's the devil, and James Talarico, I'm just like, ah, and then every movie is demonic and dark, and people get killed.

And so I just find myself saying this out loud.

Evil doesn't win.

Evil, I said three times out loud yesterday.

I'm like, I'm morphing to an old man.

Evil doesn't win.

Evil, no, I push back on that.

I say no to that.

Evil does not win.

Evil does not win.

And if you embrace the centrality of the will of God, you realize, hey, that by doing good, I can put to silence the ignorance of foolish people and not waste my life complaining about it.

This is why the will of God is central to your very existence.

This is what it's all about.

You get to not you don't sit around talking about how bad the world is.

Oh my gosh, can you believe this?

No, just unleash good.

Just unleash good on the culture.

And that's what he says, this is the will of God.

This is what by doing this, you put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

You're tired of hearing the ignorance of foolish people, then unleash good.

Does that make sense?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you that you've increased our capacity to unleash good on the culture around us.

And we see that opportunity and we seize that opportunity.

So we want to turn up the volume on the goodness of God.

And so, Holy Spirit, press into us whatever we need.

Give us ideas even this week where we can unleash good to silence.

We're not just silencing the ignorance of foolish people.

We're inviting those foolish people into a relationship with you because we were them once.

We're not better than them.

We said dumb stuff that we really believed back then.

But you're so full of mercy that you revealed the truth to us, and our minds got changed, and so our lives got changed.

Holy Spirit, if that's never happened for anyone in this room, I pray that today would be the day.

Even now they would say, Lord, change my mind because I want my life to change.

Lord, now we're gonna spend just a minute thinking about this.

So brood over us, press in on us what we need to remember.

God, we're grateful today that the Bible is so textured and so consequential, and it invites us to be those kinds of people.

We don't have to have a big loud personality, we can be quiet and demure, and it's great.

You use all personality types because there's people that will only listen to certain kinds of people.

That's why the body of Christ, the church, is diverse.

And so, Lord, we don't want to waste our lives just cursing the darkness.

We want to unleash good on the culture around us, and we want to explain to people why we're doing what we're doing.

And so, Holy Spirit, give us those opportunities, and we will be a good steward of that, we say in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Thank you for listening to this message.

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