Transcript for:
Galatians 4:1,11 -The Privilege Of Sonship- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2025-09-28

Four one through 11. Now I say that the heir as long as he is a child differs nothing from his servant, though he'd be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed to the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth the son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you're sons, God has sent forth the spirit of the son into your heart crying, Abba Father. Wherefore, thou art no more a servant but a son and of a son than an heir of God through Christ. Howbeit then when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and the beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and times and years. I'm afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Father, we thank you for your holy word. Lord, we desire to walk in all truth. We desire to move and work in the power of the Holy Spirit, not just the letter of the law, not just a dry orthodoxy, but Lord, that your living word, living within us, and just exploding with excitement, exploding with transformation and change in our hearts and lives. Lord, we desire to walk in close intimate fellowship with you, to be abiding with you, Lord. That you'll get us through this tumultuous, crazy, chaotic weirdness in this time in which we're living. And Lord, we don't wanna be deceived. We don't want to just blindly walk along the blind leading the blind going into the ditch, Lord. We wanna tell people of your soon return, that you're gonna make things right, that the world, except those days be shortened, Lord, no flesh would be saved. There's no way this this seven mountain mandate, there's no way these people, Dominion Theology, are gonna fix everything and then you return. Lord, you said, except those days be shortened of the tribulation period, no flesh will be saved. But for the elect's sake, for Israel, you're gonna intervene. You're gonna intervene. People's hearts are gonna be bursting. Men's hearts failing them for fear of what's coming upon the earth. No solutions, perplexity of nations. Lord, I pray that people would embrace the truth and it would cause their eyes to look to heaven and your soon return, that you're coming again. You're coming, Lord. Minister to us, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Would you please be seated? Paul will now describe the unique position and privilege of sonship in the life of the believer. His desire is to motivate those who have regressed. Do you like that word regressed? Have regressed in their Christian experience. Pastor Chuck would say, you have an arrested state of development. So you can be growing, growing, growing in something and then decline, degenerate, or regress in what you, you know, your potential. We see it in athletes all the time, this potential, and they're working so hard. And then the devil with the blue dress comes. No. Drugs, bad friends, bad influences at college. And so this athlete becomes a pothead, maybe. Maybe nowadays they can play well with pot. I don't know. But in any event, they when they were younger and they're focused and everything's gone, boy, the sky was the limit, the potential. But then they regress. They fall backwards. They you've seen the pictures of somebody beautiful and healthy, and then they get involved in methamphetamines, and they regress. They regress in every way. And we wanna rescue them. We wanna get them back right. We wanna, you know, especially as a parent and a grandparent, you look in the eyes of these children, you're like, wow. What potential. And you're watching the growth spurts, and you're watching the excitement, and how smart they are and everything, and and then for many of us, there's a season where they regress. They go backwards. They go backwards morally. They go backwards intellectually. They turn to the pigpen, and it breaks our heart because we had such high hopes. And we we just want them to enter into all you know, we don't want them to go through the suffering we went through and make the mistakes that we made. We want them to to just excel and do good, do great. And then we watch them in a period of regression, and that's what Paul is watching. The church of Galatia had had such high hopes for them and planting the church there, but the Judaizers have come in and seduced them, and now they're falling back into a a very weak and beggarly, a a regression or a a a just a powerless form of Christianity, not even a real Christianity, but a Judaism. They're reintroducing the law, and the law's gonna hold these people down. Jesus, the great emancipator, he came to set them free from the the law. He came to fulfill the law. He came to show them it's a love relationship, not a legal relationship. But they're regressing. They're falling back as a result of embracing the law to simply respond by responding to their father's tremendous love and faith. So Paul seeks to educate these wayward sons and daughters and hope that they will come home to the truth of their sonship, the privilege of sonship, freely entering into all that the father has for them. So Paul now describes three truths concerning their sonship. Three things they need to know if they are to experience the fullness of God's love for them. How many of us have are entering in and realizing our potential? The fullness of what God has for us. How many of us are slowing God down and causing us to just go in circles for forty years because of unbelief? Going in a circle. You could've you could've made it into the promised land, but because of unbelief, because of a trial and you didn't trust God, now you're gonna just go in circles. You're gonna grieve God's heart. You're gonna fail to enter into God's rest because of unbelief. Because you wouldn't trust the Lord in a time of trial, in a time of testing. You begin to murmur and complain and say, I had it better when I was in Egypt. I had such savory food and such fun parties, and you you have a weird memory because you only remember the facets of it that seemed fun. There's pleasure in sin for a season. A pleasure in sin for a season, but the end thereof brings forth death. You you you don't remember the time you spent vomiting on yourself. You don't remember the time you couldn't keep a job and got the DUIs and had to go to anger management. You don't remember any of that when you're in the world. And the Lord emancipates you, he redeems you, he saves you, he brings you out of Egypt. And how are gonna be like a pig going back to the wallowing in the pigpen, or a dog back to the vomit. Why? God cleaned you up. God rescued you from that pigpen. Has your nature changed? Did God change you from the inside? Are you truly a believer? Or is it indicative you're going back to the pigpen indicative of you never were of us? You clean the outside and you scrub a dub and you put a nice pink bow around your neck or your head and called your pig Hillary, but she goes right back to the pigpen, doesn't she? She can meet with the women's group at the Methodist Church, but she goes right back to the pigpen. Bill can run around holding a a bible and act like he's one of them, one of us. Right back to Epstein Island several times because the inside hasn't been changed. They still have old wicked heart that you and I once had, maybe in some ways still have, as the flesh is warring against the spirit. That old nature, that old rick's still there, but now I got help. I've got the Holy Spirit help me. I've got the Holy Spirit more dominant, stronger. As long as I feed, as long as I feast upon God's word and spend time with the Lord, I can have victory over the flesh. I can have victory over that old nature. But every now and then, the Lord lets me fall. God, then I'm reminded my need of the Lord. Then I'm reminded once again, man, I can't do this without his help. I need him every moment of every day. And when we admit that, when we begin to yield once again, there's a growth spurt. We start to grow again. And it's not this self righteous pious puffed up that I'm better than everybody, because no, we don't necessarily forget those times we've fallen. They're still there. It humbles us. And we cry out, oh, wretched man that I am. Who's gonna deliver me from this body of death? The things I wanna do, I don't do. The things I don't wanna do, I do. When am I gonna arrive? When am I gonna be a super hybrid Christian? When you see Jesus face to face, when he finishes that work, it's very humbling being a human being. Our propensity for failure, our propensity to regress, our propensity for evil. You say, well, I only committed one crime my whole life. I always obeyed the law. I obeyed only one time did I did I backslide. Well, what'd you do? I just murdered a guy. Just just one murder, though. Well, that one murder ruin your whole day, ruin everything. Right? You violate in one point, you're guilty of the whole law if you're living according to the law. The first privilege of sonship, number one, the father reserved them for sonship. There was an appointed day. I remember when Jessica was born. Kathy and I were 22 years old. Just kids our cell. And we Kathy had her in the hospital, and she said she's going El Natural, no no drugs. And she's got about a twenty four hour labor time, and I mean, making her insane, just insane. And I didn't feel a thing, but I was there, and and she she finally gave in to, I think, a a little bit of meds to try and alleviate that pain, enormous pain. And then Jessica comes out, and our first child, our first born little girl, and so beautiful. And the nurse says, oh, she's got, you know, lips, beautiful lips like a rosebud, you know, and all that. And and, god, you're just like on top of the world, you know. And then eighteen months later, Kathy's pregnant again, we have Brittany, and again, you're just so on top of the world, and you got your two girls, and man, you have high hopes. Oh, man. Oh, I'm not gonna let them make the mistakes I made, you know. And you're just so excited. Well, if you're if you're a proper Roman father, you would begin to put together the family trust, you begin to put together funds for their education. You'd put together the whole things, planning their lives so that they have the advantages of of a Roman citizenship and you as their Roman father to provide and protect them and and help them into adulthood. And you do everything you could, and you don't want anything to come along that would circumvent it. And you have a day appointed up ahead that when they're 25 years old that they are gonna be appointed. There's an appointment when they're 25 years old to enter into their inheritance. And so too with you and I, your heavenly father appointed a day, reserved a day for you to enter in to all that Jesus has purchased at the cross Of Calvary for you. You're a joint heir with Jesus. You don't get it yet. You may get taste of it now, a little bit here and there. The riches that are ours in Christ Jesus, the abundant life of the spirit, but we're talking a whole boatload more that awaits you and I. A new Jerusalem, a new heaven, a new earth, new glorified bodies that he's preparing for you. Wiping away all the tears and all the memories and all the things that held you down. A whole new fresh beginning. Streets are gonna be made of gold. Angels, people, you and your new glorified you're gonna be able to walk through that wall, not even use the door. You're be able to send up to the throne of God. You don't need a space suit, and nobody's gonna say, you really didn't go to the moon. No. You're you're going. You're going. You're gonna go everywhere. How fast are you gonna be able to travel? I don't know. Speed of thought? You're be ruling and reigning with Jesus as kings and priests for a thousand years in an exalted position, a saint. That's your that that's your that's your future. That's what God has planned for you. And he planned all along that he'd first and foremost make you a son. He says, now I say that there as long as he's a child differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. And as I said in the Roman culture, you'd be 14, you'd be considered a, you know, a son, but it was it was '25 that the blessing of sonship would come to you with all of the recruitments, all of the benefits that your father had been planning for you. Even so, we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. So the law being a pedagogue, we talked about last week, a tutor. So these these Roman children, they would have a tutor, a teacher. We talked Monday night where a Greek guy, Alexander the Great, had Aristotle as one of his tutors. The apostle Paul, a Jewish boy, was raised to the feet of Gamaliel, a very brilliant tutor. So these wealthy families would have tutors for their children and these children were didn't have extra privileges. They didn't have the rights of those privileges just yet. They were treated as slaves and they were under the tutelage of a schoolmaster for the child. The word child speaks of a very young child, the Greek word nepios, until notice it says the appointed day, the day his father appointed. So the father appoints a day, so you're kept by the law, you're protected by the law. When you're young, the law is serving you and protecting you from hurting yourself and helping you to grow. So you're reserved unto the appointed day. In Ephesians one verse three, we read it this way. Blessed, oh, happy be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. All means all. When Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and that more abundantly, he's speaking of the life of the spirit. The prosperity gospel guys are trying to make you think it's all material stuff. Well, you can have all the material stuff in the world and be bankrupt spiritually. The true riches that are ours are spiritual riches, you know, in Christ Jesus. And so he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. You're in Christ, we talked about that. According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. Before he made the world, God knew you and chose you. You might be rejected by a lot of people. You might be betrayed and and treated as dirt by the devil because a thief comes not but to steal, to kill, to destroy. But I've come that you might have life, that you might have it more abundantly. Not just a quantity, but a quality of life, the life of the spirit. And God has predestined you. In his foreknowledge of you, he's called you, he's invited you to be his, to enjoy him for all eternity. Can you wait? Can you wait for it? Or you gotta have it all now? You're gonna you're gonna settle for what's it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what would a man give in exchange for his life? What's your value? What do you value yourself at? God values you enough to purchase you with the blood of his son and to make you an heir, to give you the privileges of sonship, chosen in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy, that's his intention, and without blame before him in love because of the blood of Jesus. Having predestinated us under the adoption of sons. He uses the word in the Greek. So God knew us before we believe. He predestined us on the adoption of sons. There's a divine appointment. So looking back, if I'm looking back, before our conversion, how could that be? I didn't come from a Christian home. How could that be? We're we're the dregs. Before our conversion, during our childhood, the Greek word nepios, when you're really young, in our infancy, under the law, we were subservient to tutors, to governors, having no rights as that of a slave, though we are the appointed heir. Now in 12/17/1993, an airplane crashed in Santa Ana near Edinger Avenue carrying the CEO of In N Out Burger, along with other executives of the inner now In N Out Burger chain. And Richard Snyder, the grandson of Harry and Esther Snyder that started an In N Out Burger the first year they were married, 1948. They were building their business. They were building their private burger empire that we covet today. I'm getting hungry right now just talking about it. I can see those flying Dutchmen in my eyes. Yeah. Out of Baldwin Park. And the father died and the grandmother continued and she had her son, Richard, and she had another son that died a few years later of of overdose from pain pills. But these two sons were to be they were the ones that were gonna take take this business, you know, forward, and we're taking it forward along with some other executives. And they had a rule that they wouldn't all fly, and that day they were flying in a private jet to various locations in the general region to look at places for potential, other buildings and stuff, and they stopped at at one site and the grandma got off because she's feeling sick. And they made one more flight to John Wayne Airport, and on their way to John Wayne Airport, the two pilots and, Richard and some of the other executives, they don't wanna fly together because we want the continuity of government, the continuity of the company. Right? And face down, nose down, crashed, everyone's dead. And now the only one that's left is grandma and a granddaughter, Lindsay Snyder. And she's she's just a little girl at this time. And the will stipulated, she's the only heir, the only one to get this empire. She's worth $7,300,000,000 today. But she had to go from 1993 on to 2017, where upon her 30 birthday, she would enter into her inheritance. She had to wait till she's 35. So too you and I, God has an appointed day where you and I are gonna enter in to all that he's promised us, all that he's prepared as he's preparing you and I to be able to handle what it is he's given us. That's why you don't give a 12 year old the reins of a company like that, or a teenager, or even mid twenties party animals or whatever. My wife follows Lindsay Snyder. She's a Christian. They've got all the little scriptures on the bottom of the cups, the In N Out Burger Chain. Richard Snyder was great with the Republicans and conservatives, was on the board of Calvary Chapels in the area. And so highly revered, godly family, and I just love when I get a milkshake there, whenever you look and you see, you know, Proverbs three, five, and six underneath there. But Lindsay moved her family from California now down to Franklin, Tennessee because California is a rough place to raise your family. So she continues to serve the Lord, and we just applaud the wisdom of grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, and, preparing their granddaughter that she could handle that kind of wealth, that kind of responsibility, to surround her with people that'll help her succeed, and the wisdom in that family trust of waiting till they're 35 years old. Verse three, even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. That word elements means the rudimentary fundamentals, the a b c's of learning. The law is rudimentary, a fundamental necessity in the training of the child, but is only temporary. There's a season of training. There's a season of school of hard knocks. There's a time where you go through that that schooling to get you ready for what God has you. If you're David and you're gonna be the next king, then you're the lowest in your father's house and you're a shepherd boy watching the sheep while the big boys go out to fight Goliath. They don't know who's God's grooming there. They don't know you, the the killer of a bear and the killer of a lion. They don't know your faith in God, your indomitable faith in God that the battle belongs to the Lord, that you're never gonna be afraid of a nine foot six tall uncircumcised Philistine that dishonors your God. You're never gonna back down. And you're not gonna go in the armor of the flesh wearing the wearing the the armor of king Saul. Not gonna work. You're gonna go by faith with what you got, which is a slingshot and five smooth stones. And God's gonna give you a great victory, and you don't stop there. You you pour this faith into the unbelieving hearts of the entire army by cutting off his head and holding it up. And then they go crazy, you know. And God sends Samuel along and anoints you to be the next king, but you're not ready. You're not ready. So God's gonna have you run from king Saul and his jealousy and his rage of you trying to kill you, protect you for ten long years, many opportunities, several opportunities to kill king Saul, but you know you're not to touch the lord lord's anointed, and you know that you have to wait for the appointed time. You have to wait for the lord to deal with Saul. And when he and Jonathan, your best friend, are are, you know, are killed in battle, there's your time. There's where you emerge. Seven years at Hebron, you're gonna have your kingdom. Then later, you're gonna go to Jerusalem. The Jebusites have it, but God's gonna name the city, the City Of David. You're gonna rule and reign. And it had been planned all along. Been planned all the way from the garden. God planned that you would be a king over his people. And that appointed day finally came. He put you in the lineage through Ruth the Moabitess as she's sleeping with her dad after Sodom and Gomorrah is destroyed. A foreigner. I hated for a Moabite. And Ruth begot Obed, Obed begot Jesse, Jesse begot David, and David's the root Jesus is the root and offspring of David. And then you think of Joseph. He's getting dreams, and he's thinking of the stars and all the stuff that's happening. He sees his brothers and his family bound down to him. They want none of it. And he's got the coat of many colors. He's a favorite of dads. And you know the story. Reuben and the boys are thinking of killing him, then they put him in a big hole and they sell him to a Midianite caravan heading to Egypt. He's 17 years old. Where's his appointed day? 30 years old. Same age as Jesus, that appointment with Jesus that he starts his public ministry. Thirteen years of being prepared. Thirteen years of being falsely accused. Thirteen years of being a type of Christ, dreams and visions, imprisonment. And then the day came where he'd emerge. Abraham and Sarah, twenty five years they got away for the fruition of the promises that God gave them that in thee all nations of the earth would be blessed in your seed. In Isaac shall thy seed be called, not Ishmael. Can't help God out. How long has God been preparing you for what he has in store? What school have you been going through? What kind of preparation? What kind of school of hard knocks have you gone through to prepare you for the enormous, unsearchable riches of Christ that awaits you on that appointed day when you see Jesus face to face. There's no paupers. There's no beggars in heaven. You're lavished. You're lavished with the wealth of the king of kings and the lord of lords. But are you ready? When will you be ready? God knows. The rudiment why would you go back to the rudimentary fundamentals of your early upbringing? You reached the age of 35, you gotta, oh, I wanna go back to being a kid again. I wanna go back to the rules and rags and let somebody else run this thing and I I don't wanna enter into this this responsibility, this privilege that God's given me. Maybe you're wondering if you can become a son, an heir of a vast fortune. Maybe you're tired of being treated like a slave in bondage to sin. Maybe you're wondering when the father will call you, what day has he appointed? The bible says now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Believe. And you can start to experience the the privileges of sonship by becoming a son right now. By becoming a believer in Jesus Christ, and you begin to experience the unsearchable riches of Christ, the life of the spirit. Right now. Right here and now. You don't need to be religious. Living according to the law, rules, regs, you can live the life of the spirit, the freedom, the joy, the blessing of being in fellowship with the true and living God. The father reserved them for sonship. Secondly, the second privilege, the realization of sonship, which is adoption. He says verse four, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law. So God's timing is perfect. God sent his only begotten son, Jesus, thirteen hundred years after the law. God sent his son made of a woman, which speaks of his humanity, which speaks of he's the God man, he's the seed of the woman, fully God, fully man. He's the last Adam. In that our first Adam, our first federal head blew it. And the usurper, the liturgy god of this world, took authority over the planet that God said, be fruitful and multiply. Take dominion. And Adam and Eve blew it. And so now, the Lord Jesus has to take on the form not of an angel, but as a man, as the last Adam. And he's completely perfect, and he fulfilled all the demands of the law. He was tempted in all points like we and yet without sin. The God man, the son of man made under the law which speaks of his righteousness, he fulfilled the law. In Matthew three seventeen, his baptism, there's a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Jesus said, I do always those things that please the father. There's a sweet relationship here between father and son, my son. The timing was right. Culturally, the Greeks had established the common language even though the Romans conquered the Greeks. The common language of the day was the Koine Greek. As I said earlier, the New Testament written in Koine Greek. The common people could understand Koine Greek, a very powerful language that would that would define or help to define, help to reveal who God is as we study his word. There was the right they were right religiously in that the Jews were broken of idolatry. God put the Jews in Babylon for seventy years and it broke them of their propensity to emulate all of the little g gods, the foreign gods of the idolatrous nations around them. The Lord just overwhelmed them with idolatry, the center of idolatry in Babylon. When they came out of Babylon seventy years later, they as a nation, they began many began to endeavor in commerce, becoming bankers and business people because they learned there in Babylon. They didn't wanna go back to an agrarian society. They didn't wanna go back by and large to rebuild the temple. They weren't moving in a direction of spiritually wanting to be restored, but a small remnant did with Nehemiah and others. And so Esther the pre Ezra the priest and and Nehemiah, a cup bearer in Artaxerxes government. The time was right, eventually, prophetically. But politically, the Romans, the Pax Romana, the peace, the economic stability, the roads that the Romans established allowed free passage of the gospel disseminating of going all over the known world at the time. The seafaring, the apostle Paul moving by way of ships and all. Pirates not stopping or whatever, robbers and some of that stuff sometimes. But by and large, the the law that the Romans established allowed for the gospel to move forward during that time. So the time was right politically. The time, as I said, was right prophetically. When Jesus came along in Luke nineteen forty two, Jesus told the nation, if thou had known, if you had known nation of Israel, in this thy day, this very day of your visitation. But now your peace is hid from you. Your eyes are blinded. You don't see your peace. In Luke nineteen forty two. What did Jesus mean by that? In Zechariah nine verse nine, it's prophesied five hundred years earlier that there's a day coming, a an exact day, not a general day, not like September 23 Rosh Hashanah that the rapture's gonna happen. And now it's the twenty eighth and it didn't happen. I could have told you if you'd read my book, you'd have known. I mean, I already wrote a book about the rapture. I know the date. It wasn't that date. I'm kidding. Right? You know, I'm kidding. Right? Make a lot of money doing that. '88 reasons why he's coming 1988. Didn't happen. But in this thy day, so Zechariah nine verse nine, five hundred years before Jesus comes on the scene. He's born in Bethlehem, he flees to Egypt, he comes back to Nazareth, he lives as the carpenter's son of Mary and Joseph. His public ministries explodes at 30 years of age. He goes for about three years. He's at the very peak of his of his ministry. It's coming real close to either being received as the king of the Jews or being rejected by the king of the Jews. So one of the ways people could know that he is the king of the Jews, according to Zechariah nine verse nine, he would ride into Jerusalem upon the foal, the colt of a donkey, one that never been ridden on. He's at the Mount Of Olives and he he's near Bethany and Bethage, and he tells his disciples to go and get this this donkey, go borrow it. And if they say anything, say the master has need of it, and God gives it to him. Comes with this donkey. Now Jesus is riding into Jerusalem on this donkey. And according to Psalm one eighteen twenty three through 26, the people, it's Palm Sunday we know today, they're taking palm branches and they're laying them down and they're waving them and all, and they're shouting, hosanna, hosanna, which means what? Save now. Save now. And the religious leaders get indignant and they say, these people are praising you as a king and all, and they're singing and all. Tell them to be quiet. Tell them to stop. And he says, if they did stop, the rocks would cry out. You remember that? Palm Sunday. Now Jesus said, this happened on the very day prophesied. So now we gotta say, where was it prophesied? We gotta go back to Daniel nine twenty five, which we'll be studying maybe tomorrow night if we get that far in the chapter. Right? And so nine twenty five talks about that Messiah would come at a period of time of sixty nine seven. So when the command goes forth, when the command goes forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto the coming of the Messiah, the prince shall be sixty nine seven year periods of time. So it'd be four hundred and eighty three years from the command to go and restore and rebuild Jerusalem. So you're in you're in Babylon for seventy years, and your Cyrus is coming along, and now it's almost time for you guys to be set free from Babylon. And Artaxerxes Lodimeneus, in Nehemiah chapter two verse one, gives the command to go and restore and rebuild Jerusalem. That's on March that the command goes forth. So sixty nine seven year periods of time is four hundred and eighty three years with the Julian calendar. So sir Robert Anderson computed this out. What's Jesus mean by this thy very day? If you'd known, one hundred and seventy three, eight hundred and eighty days later, on March excuse me, April, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on that fall, on that cold, on that Zechariah nine verse nine, five hundred years earlier prophesied. According to Psalm one eighteen twenty three through 26, the people be shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, save now. And he chides them, if you'd have known in this thy day, if you'd have known the time's perfect prophetically, but you didn't recognize your king. And then he weeps over the city of Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you together as a mother hen does gather her brood under her wings. I came to protect you, man. But you would not. Your city's left here desolate now. And Jesus could see up ahead in seventy AD, within forty years, Titus, general Titus of the Romans, would surround Jerusalem, put a siege upon it, and close to estimated couple million Jews would be exterminated there in Jerusalem as a result. And Judaism, the temple, not one stone would remain upon another. Judaism be completely destroyed. Interesting that the age in which we're living, they're trying to get the ashes of the red heifer. They're trying to get the temple rebuilt. They're trying to get a covenant with somebody that's gonna come along and confirm the covenant with them for one week. One week's left, one seven year period of time's left of the 70 sevenths of Daniel, you're living in a very exciting time. God keeps his promises. Very sadly, the people that were shouting out hosanna four days later were shouting out, crucify him. Crucify him. Let his blood be upon us and upon our children. That's an explanation of the spiritual blindness of people that I can't figure out. I can't figure out why people would reject Jesus and not wanna be saved. There's nothing this world has to offer that it it all pales in comparison to the peace and the joy and the blessing that you and I know of simply knowing him. He doesn't ask anything from us. He's just saying, will you believe? And when you believe, when you deposit your trust in him, in his complete finished work, you become a son, you become an heir. And he takes away the confusion of your heart, the guilt of your heart, the sins that are bogging you down. He washes them all away. He transforms. He makes you new. He gives us the capacity to hear his voice, to understand his word, to walk in sweet intimate fellowship with him, and somehow we regress. We act like it's not good enough that I just wanna use his name and I wanna use the the Christian slogans and phrases, you know, to get everything I can now from this world. I love Jesus, but I want all that the world has to offer too. And the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches begins to choke and we regress, and we don't enter into all that he has for us. We don't bear the spiritual fruit, the potential that's there. If we did just yield and allow him to plan our life, allow him to let it unfold and to enter in in his appropriate time, that appointed time and to be redeemed them that were under the law that we might receive the adoptions of sons. That word adoption is speaks of a son. Thesis of placing. So the giving of status of sonship to someone who is not the natural child. So though he was rich, yet for our sakes, he became poor that we through his poverty that we might be rich. I have the privilege of adoption. I've been adopted. And I was adopted and I can still remember it in San Diego, California. I was about four years old, but I remember it. We went to the courthouse and my mom had three kids at the time by three different husbands. And a man named Ralph Lloyd Bodrey married my mom and adopted all of us kids. And he gave me my last name, Bodrey. Now that means he wasn't stuck with me from birth, but that he chose to adopt me. I've been chosen by the father. He chose to give me his name. He chose to lay his life down for me and my brothers and sisters. And God has given his son, And God has made you a son that you might be a part of his family. The riches that are ours, though he was rich, the free exercise of his deity sitting at the right hand of his father, the splendor of heaven, he emptied himself. Though he is rich, yet for our sakes, he became poor. The poverty of humanity, the poverty of setting aside the free exercise of his deity, fully God, fully man, and experiencing the suffering of what it means to be a human being in a fallen world. The times he would grieve, the times he would weep, the times he would groan. And I believe the groaning and the weeping was because of the regression of humanity. As he's watching humanity and as he before the flood, before he flooded, he saw that the thoughts and intention of man was only evil continually. How must grieve God's heart. How it must break God's heart. And then he raises Lazarus from the dead, and and people, you know, people aren't believing that he's gonna do it, that he's the resurrection of the life. And so Jesus wept. And, you know, you think he's weeping because Lazarus dead if he knows he's already gonna raise him from the dead? My thought is he's he's like, you guys are so thick headed. There's so much unbelief. Even when you profess to believe, you don't. And how it must frustrate you as a father, must frustrate you as one that wants them to be an heir. And you're you're grieving. You're agonizing at their decisions, their unbelief. Their propensity to doubt and to murmur, to complain. How it must break your heart when when you know the big picture, when you know what you have planned, and nothing can stop your plans except you. If you don't cooperate, if you don't yield, if you don't go with the flow. And he's not asking you to have a legal relationship, he just wants you to fall more in love, yield to the spirit, wait upon him, and consider him your portion forever. If you have Jesus, you have everything else. Everything bequeathed to him becomes yours. Adoption as a Rothschild. Adoption. You wanna be adopted by Satan? You wanna be a son of the devil? Jesus and John, ain't your father's the devil, you religious pukes. No. You wanna be the son of God. You wanna be adopted by God the father, a joint heir with Jesus Christ, have eternal riches. Verse six, and because you're sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your heart, crying, Abba, father. He uses the Aramaic. Isn't it great when your grandkids call you papa or grandpa? Or my little girls, they'd meet me when I get home from work and daddy. That's what that's what Abba means. Daddy, papa. And they they come outside and they greet me, and they don't even wait for me to get to the screen door to go in the house. They're out there running to papa, running to daddy, daddy. They wanna be picked up. Ruthie does it now. Pick me up. Pick me up. And so you pick them up and all. And one time one time they said, daddy, this is their their mindset. Daddy, you're so strong that you could pick the house up. I mean, that's who they are. You're out there in the world and everybody's rejecting you. They're cutting you down. They're finding your fault. They're they're they're using the law, a standard perfection that you have to meet. They don't meet it, but they're imposing it upon you the letter of the law. It's not love. And then you got these kids that think you're the greatest thing ever. It's just you you it's almost it's almost like they worship you. When a dog comes up and licks your hand, is licking your hand and waving it, that's worship. That's what the word worship means. It's it's that it's that enthrallment, you know, and ascribing worth. You're valuable to him. Abba father, the godhead wants to make their abode in you, speaks of intimacy. Abba daddy papa, wherefore thou art no more a servant, so think of being a servant. The distance between you. You can't walk up to your father and even call him Abba Papa yet, you know? You don't have that relationship just yet. You're kinda distant. It's like a legal business relationship in many respects. You got other people raising you, you know, rather than the intimacy of your dad right there. But a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. So realize your sonship, don't settle for the life of a slave. Don't become a son. You must be born again to become a son. You don't join a church. You don't join up. You don't sign a statement of faith even as you believe in your heart. What must I do to be saved? You believe. So to become a son, you must be born again. Sonship describes the inheritance of believers, our privilege and position in Christ. The first privilege of sonship, the father reserved them for sonship. You were appointed. The second is the realization of sonship, that of adoption. The third is the responsibility of sonship. What's your responsibility as a son, as an heir, to abide. Just stay close to Jesus. He calls you friend. He wants you to be his friend. He calls you a son. He calls you a daughter. Speaks of relationship. Don't kick Jesus out of the church. Don't kick him out of your home, your schools, your culture, and don't bring him in mechanically. If you're gonna bring them in, bring them in all the way spiritually. Allow him to clean house. Allow him to transform and change lives. Teach the bible in your schools. Have bible studies. Have times of worship. Kathy showed me a thing last night that a guy went to one of our state parks. The lady says, $30, and he says, I forget what he said, something that was culturally, something culturally. And basically, he got in there because he was going to pagan, as a pagan, go in and pray in one of our state parks. I forget the word, the buzzword, but she knew, what are you gonna do? And he said this, and then he said, I'm gonna pray. No charge to go in there as a pagan and pray. Do you get that advantage as a Christian? Anybody let you anywhere for free as a Christian? You're gonna pay twice as much as a Christian. You have access to the father. You can enter in, you can boldly come before his throne of grace. Howbeit then, when you knew not God, you did service under them which by nature are no gods. So in your past, you're idolatrous. Your god was money, your god was pleasure, Your god was the false gods of the world. The church of Galatia, they were involved in all sorts of idolatrous practices. They were deceived by the devil. They were blinded. They were in bondage and the glorious gospel came forth and set them free. In first Corinthians ten twenty, Paul said the things that the Gentiles sacrifice under their idols, they're actually sacrificing them under demons. Demons are behind this deception. They were religious, but they had no fellowship with the living God. When Paul was in Ephesus, a space of two hours, the people with, were shouting, great is Diana of the Ephesians, you know. The silversmiths were bummed out because so many people in Ephesus were coming to Christ that their business model was suffering because people weren't buying these false idols. And that's who these people were in the past, sacrificing unto devils. But now, I love that contrast, but now, in the present tense, but now, after that you have known God or rather are known of God, there's a divine appointment. How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? So you've regressed. You've fallen backwards. You're returning to kindergarten. You're returning to a b c's of revelation. The first principles of the law. Why would you do that? Jesus is the alpha, the omega, the sum total. When you get to know Jesus, you've got it all. All the old testament from Genesis one one to the end of Revelation, you have it all. The book of Revelation is the apocalypse, the unveiling of Jesus Christ. Why would you not want to study the unveiling of Jesus Christ? God isn't wanting to hide something from you. God wants to reveal himself to you. Why wouldn't you study? Why wouldn't your pastor wanna study to show himself approved on the God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth? I want you to know the book of revelation. I want you to know the times you're living in. I want you to be a student of prophecy. I want you to be more excited than I am, and I want you to get more and more people excited about the return of Jesus. The appointed time. There's a time. He's coming again. We don't know the day or the hour, but he's coming. We know we're close. We see the birth pangs. We should be excited. A divine appointment. How do you turn back to the weak and the bet beggarly ailments? Why return to the weak that can't redeem you? Why turn to the beggarly of no inheritance? There's no intimacy of fellowship, just slavery, guilt, condemnation. Why? Why would you go back to the letter of law and be condemned? You observe days and months and times and years. You're returning to the shadows. So now I have to address the church wanting to find this deep, the deepness. I wanna go deeper with God. So I'm gonna go to the messianic fellowship in Tacoma, and I'm gonna learn about the Passover feast, Rosh Hashanah, feast of trumpets. You're not going deeper. You're going to the more elementary. You put a yama con, the cape and all. It's elementary, the rudiments. If you are a Jew and you wanna culturally learn of your culture, that's a different story. But to think that spiritually, the mystic Judaism, the mystics, you know, we've got some secret knowledge, you know. Jesus and you guys in the new you don't understand. There's some secret stuff going on. We can teach you the secret stuff, the gnostic stuff. Why do you go back to, I wanna I wanna keep the Sabbath? Why would you wanna do that when you're free? Why would you wanna impose the law upon you or your family? The dietary restrictions. Why would you do that? What point? Don't you want some bacon at Oak Table? I want bacon at Oak Table. I'm not under the law. I'm not going back under the law. You may adopt some of them thinking, well, from a nutrition standpoint, they're pretty smart not to eat the things that crawl on the bottom of the ocean, you know, because those oysters and lobsters and shrimps and all that, they get all the pollutants, you know. Well, you may have something there, but I'm gonna go out with a smile on my face, or my wife's got a smile on her face because she loves that stuff. And we pray over that food, you know. It's sanctified through prayer. Right? You think you're getting wholesome pure food at the grocery store? You're mistaken. It's all been sprayed and genetically altered. And even when it says organic, you better be praying over your food, asking God to sanctify it. We're living in perilous times. I'm not under bondage. Man, if I'm a if I'm a steak eater, rib eye, porterhouse, and filet mignon, why would I go back to eating baby food? Why would I wanna take that jar and look at really, Kath? That's what's for dinner? Yeah, Rick. We're gonna be real holy. We're gonna be real holy. We're going back to the holiness of the beginnings of our faith. You wanna regress that far? You wanna go all the way back to the beginning? To being babies? To be on the bottle? Why would you attend a church that just has people on the bottle? Bottle of milk. I've I've been learning from some of you that the big theme anymore in the churches today is you're all broken. Everybody's broken. And I'm a life coach, and I'm gonna use psychology to help you feel good this morning, to help you with your brokenness. Oh. Oh. Do you think the Christians in Syria are worried about being broken? Christians in Iran, the Christians the first two centuries ran around looking for someone to assassin them in their brokenness. Isn't it time to grow up? Do you wanna grow up? Do you wanna show people your scars of brokenness, the things you went through, but God is greater? Is there anything you've gone through that the love of Jesus isn't greater? I'm talking to so many people that are saying their nervous system's breaking down. Where did that come from? And now you're gonna talk to people to get your nervous system right, your brain right? I thought of any man's in crisis, a new creation. The old things are passed away. All things have become new. Take that junk and put it in a box and bury it. Don't let anybody keep bringing it up and bringing it up. You can't move forward. Forgive those that hurt you. Move forward. God has so much more for you. You're never gonna appreciate and grow into all that he has for you spiritually. Something so much better than the devil reminded of you how you're abused, and I'm gonna keep you here in this abused state, but you're gonna go to church and feel warm fuzzies because we're gonna get butterfly kisses, you know. No substance, cotton candy that doesn't feed you, doesn't build you up. Sentimental sensory lectures to move you emotionally, to entertain you. We focus on the cross. Has anybody suffered more than Jesus? Is he always bringing it up to you and nobody knows. Does he do that? No. He talks about the joy, the love, the how it was worth saving you going through that suffering. God made mistakes? Is your life a mistake? Didn't he have an appointed day that he'd rescue from that stuff from this world? Can't you rejoice in being rescued? You don't have to perpetuate that with your children? My parents made tons of mistakes. I don't meditate on it or dwell on it. I don't look for sympathy from people. I'm amazed he saved me. I have enough sin in my own life. I don't need to spend time blaming somebody else, and I don't need to break down my nervous system. Because you know why they do that? Because they try to convince you it's physiological and that it's not your fault. Or your brain is damaged, that you're sick, your brain's sick. It's not your fault. So that greatly limits the gospel. That greatly limits the work of the holy spirit to transform and change you. The word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, divided asunder of soul and spirit and joint marrow, and is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The problem is the heart, and it's only God's word that can get in there and cut the cancer out of sin. It's only God's word that can get in there and transform the way you think. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Did Jesus say, stop dad. My nervous system's broken. I need a pharmaceutical. I need some shock therapy. He's sweating as it were great drops of blood. The solution is what? Death. You wanna know the solution to your nervous system problem? It's death. You haven't died yet. You have to be crucified with Christ. No longer you living, but Christ living through you. And that's not a message people wanna hear. And once you come to the place of mortifying the deeds of the flesh, reckoning the old man dead, all these words are are words of death, then you get to live the new life. You don't wanna carry around that old baggage, all that junk, and use it as leverage against people of your aberrant behavior, your selfishness, and depression, discouragement, all that stuff. You're too good for that. God has something so much better for you and me. That's the miracle of being saved. Because he didn't leave me there. He saved me. He rescued me from that home. He rescued me from that family and that relationship. And he continues to rescue me from me when I reckon the old man dead. I can't let that old guy in again. I can't let him live. I can't let him dominate my life. That selfishness will destroy me. So I need to abide. I need to abide in the Lord. Oh, Rick, you're so insensitive. I went through so much. Who hasn't? There's no temptation that's taken you, but such is is common to man. I guarantee you, can find 10 unbelievers who are trying to cope right now through drugs and alcohol because they're suffering more than you've ever suffered. They don't have Jesus. So don't wimp out. Be courageous. Allow your faith to grow and to trust more and more as you let go of this world and let go of what you perceive to be your right. You have the right. Who are you to talk to me that way? Try that with God. You think God's gonna say sorry? You think he's say, oops. I made a mistake. Maybe I shouldn't have saved you. How about that? Maybe I shouldn't have sent my son. I don't like him suffering. His nervous system was shot. But it's a way for the psychiatrist to get around to get around the work of the spirit in your life. Cause if they can make it physiological, that your brain is has a chemical imbalance, then they can prescribe a drug. They can do something to massage your physiological nervous system. You might need to take gummies. I don't know. My dad used alcohol to calm him down to get through going through a divorce. People cope in many different ways, but when he came to Christ, he didn't need the alcohol anymore because God saved him, and he forgave my mom. And God had something so much better than he ever knew being a Catholic as a little boy. That he was just so excited about getting to know Jesus, and he spent his time abiding in him, not living in the past. If any man be in Christ, is a new creation. The old things are passed away. All things are become new. And unlike in Jeremiah or in in Lamentations, his mercies are new every morning. There's enough sin in my life that I need forgiveness for every single day that I wake up and I thank him, your mercies are new every morning. I'm not gonna get what I deserve today, which is judgment. I'm free. I can fellowship because the finished work of Jesus upon the cross. So I don't have time to look back and look at everybody that's abused me or hurt my feelings and go into the church. I'm so broken. Jesus sent the comforter. He sent the Holy Spirit to comfort you. The Holy Spirit should be comforting you even now and stirring your heart and giving you a peace that surpasses all understanding. We don't intellectually understand. We don't have to understand. That's not faith. But we trust. We continue to trust. But now after they have known God or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements wherein you desire again to be in bondage? Why would you go back to bondage? Days and weeks and all that kind of stuff. Why would you do that? No intimacy or fellowship, just slavery, guilt, and condemnation. You observe days and months and times and years. So now you're gonna go back to burning incense? Really? You're gonna go back to burning incense. You're gonna go back to lighting a candle for somebody. You're you're gonna go through the door and you're gonna grab some holy water and start sprinkling yourself. You're really gonna go back to that? That's where you came from, the weak and beggarly elements. You never knew the Lord. There was a dogma and a whole religious system around you. It didn't draw you closer to the Lord. It just made you feel good because you didn't have to think. And you could follow a leader, a leader that would lead you in such a way projecting this persona that they're so holy. And if you follow them, you'll enter into nirvana. There's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. I mean, I'll sign your bible, you can kiss my ring. You can get me a pope mobile. I mean, I could play the role, but why don't I just burst that bubble? Why don't I just burst that and say, Peter wasn't the first pope. And who is this potpourri? Who who's he think he is? Well, Rick, I saw the smoke coming from the roof, you know, and it was puffing. It was it was it was white smoking and black smoking. Who comes up with this stuff? Guys gonna lead me spiritually? I don't think so. I have the substance, the fingering the beads. That guy that the Charlie Kirk Memorial, you know, they got the beads. Gonna pray the rosary? You're really gonna go back to praying the rosary and repeating prayers over and over and over again. Alright, Rick? You lied, Rick. You just confessed that you lied. I want you to go up there to the altar and I want you to say four Herald Marys and five Our Fathers. I want you to keep repeating them. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among I can still remember them from catechism. I was like 13 years old. How do I remember that? But I don't know Jesus. Didn't have no inkling of who Jesus nobody ever shared the gospel with me. But boy, went to catechism and learned those rote prayers. It didn't draw me any closer to the Lord. Cathy lived in a Catholic community. They were just like everybody else except they went to church on Sunday. That was the only difference. They smoked the same weed, they drank the same alcohol, they cussed the same way, they did everything a worldly person would do, but they went to mass. And Kathy used to go with them. And then their moms used to go out bowling on Mondays, moms and dads, and Kathy and them would be at Kathy's house drinking and smoking pot while the parents are gone. In the name of what? And then you get saved and you get convicted and it's like, I don't need that anymore. Not that I can't do it. I don't I don't need it anymore. I don't want it anymore. It would regress. It would it would cause my growth in the Lord to be hindered. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. I won't be brought in the power of any. So I choose to do things that strengthen my relationship with the Lord. The pagan ritualism, the protestant church going back to the Catholicism, the n a r, new apostolic reformation, t p u s a, the Mormons, the ecumenical movement. I, you know, I never thought that the mega movement would be able to facilitate the one world religion. I always thought it was a Catholics gonna do that. Never in a million years did I think that protestants would fall for this. I thought for sure that the Calvary Chapel pastors are smarter than this. I I knew they could see through mega. I knew it. I just knew there. Eventually, they're gonna see through it. I'm waiting. JD Frog sees through it. So Dietrich Bonhoeff if they do see through it, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, to remain silent concerning evil is evil itself. I'm offending all of you here. All your sensibilities, all your friends are mega. It's the hope of America. We're gonna get our country back. And meanwhile, the economy's going down. You're going to digital ID. You're going to digital currency, digital everything. And now, the religious system's morphing into a one world religious system. Insanity. I I never in a million years thought that they could get away with this. He says, I'm afraid of you, lest I bestowed upon you labor in vain. The tragedy of unrealized potential, wayward sons and daughters, athletes and drugs, children and gangs, husbands with porn, mothers nurturing a career, which if you can do both, you're super mom. A Christian nation abandoning God, a church in compromise. That's the big one. A church in compromise because of its love of money. That's what mega promises, gonna make you all rich. That's the real root of it. The real root of it is the love of money. It's the economy, stupid. He says with this crypto, with this genius act that the cryptocurrencies, don't you see it? You're all gonna get super rich if you go crypto. Give up your cash. We're going crypto trying to get you to receive this digital currency. Can't go into all of it, but it's it's very enticing, seductive. The tragedy of unrealized potential. God has so much more. He wanted to accomplish in and through us. And case in point, when I talk about this, I have to allude to the Laodicean church again. I know I keep saying it. But the Laodicean church in Revelation chapter three is the last day's church. The proof text that of Maga, the weakness is the love of money, is that the Laodicean church has Jesus on the outside of the church. Men are running his church. And they claim, as Jesus given evaluation of the Laodicean church. Laodicean means people rule. Your feelings are ruling in the churches. I think, I think, I think, not the authority of God's word. And Jesus on the outside knocking. He wants fellowship. He's been kicked out of his church. And the Laodicean church says, no. I'm rich and increased with goods and need of nothing. And Jesus says, I got a real evaluation of what you are. You're naked, poor, blind, and miserable. That's who you are. You're an apostate church. What's the prescription? Repentance. Are you hearing any any call to repentance in any of these mega presentations? Donald Trump said he doesn't know these ever need to repent. Holy smokes. You gotta be kidding me. And that's your believer? That's the one you're gonna follow? The warp speed jab alone should awaken people. Now we gotta deal with all this other baloney. Jesus said, abide in me and I knew as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except to abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me. So one thing the law taught us is we can't do it ourselves. We need Jesus. So don't present a a hero that's gonna do it for you. Whether it's a Donald j Trump or a Charlie Kirk, it's Jesus. It's always Jesus. And when people mention the name Jesus, even it's Jimmy Kimmel mentioning the name Jesus, Don't jump on the bandwagon saying this is proof of revival. Is that proof of revival that Jimmy Kimmel mentioned the name of Jesus? Is it proof of revival all the cabinet of the politician got up there and gave a great presentation of the gospel? Is that proof of revival? Is it proof they're even Christians? Don't you know that AI can give them a script and they can read it off the teleprompter? They're far better actors than we as pastors and as Christians. They can use the gospel as a hook to make everybody think that we're moving in a direction of getting rid of all those people that say anything bad about Charlie, we're gonna we're gonna cancel them. Anybody that questions the official narrative. I remember 09:11, they did the same thing. Abide me and I knew as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can you except you abide in me. So the law can't do it. I need Jesus. Without me, you can done do nothing, Jesus said. So we have a responsibility as sons and daughters to simply abide, to stay in that place of blessing, to keep ourselves in the love of God, as Jude would say, abiding in his love, entering into all that he's prepared for us. Don't miss out on God's best for your life. Enjoy him, calling him Abba, father, daddy, papa. How many of us still worship the Lord with songs and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in our heart unto the Lord. Remember when you're first saved and the Lord baptized you in his love, and you spent time before the Lord just singing or praying in your prayer language, and you don't even know what you're singing or praying. He that speaks an unknown tongue edifies himself. It's not a public thing to edify everybody else. It's a personal means of communication with God by faith, and you're being edified. You're being built up within spiritually. Is that intimacy, that honeymoon experience with Jesus in abiding with, is it still there? Or have we regressed? Have we left our first love like the church of Ephesus? Can we nurture? Can we refan that flame? Can we spend time sitting at the Lord's feet and and just singing with spiritual songs, hymns, melody that the Lord gives us in our heart? Can we cry out to him, Abba, Abba, Father? Except you become as a child, you'll know why he's entered the kingdom of God. There's that aspect of that of that childlike faith, and then there's the other aspect of growing up and doing what he's called us to do. And yet we hear Jesus in the Garden Of Yosemite calling out to him, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. You know, I can hear it I can hear it real loud in the passion of the Christ with Jim Caviezel. Abba. Abba. In Aramaic. Abba. Fear not little flock, for it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Jesus said in John fifteen eleven, these things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. The joy and the privilege of sonship. I have no desire in these last days to regress in my faith, to regress in my walk with the Lord. I wanna be like the apostle Paul at the end of his life, where he said, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I haven't attained yet. I haven't apprehended, but I press. I'm pressing toward the goal. I'm pressing toward the mark of why God called me and what he's purposed for me. I wanna enter into all that he has for me. And then he's able to say, I fought a good fight. I finished my course. He knows Nero's gonna cut his head off. And he's not crying out about my poor nervous system. Do you know what I went through? It's a privilege. He's got the stigmata. He's got the scars to prove his love for God. This proves I love him. I'm willing to suffer for him. That's what it's about. It's not about using it as sympathy, pity. Don't invite me to your pity party. I don't wanna go there. You make this big long list of things, I might just put a thumbs up there. I might just say, praise the Lord. I'm not going to that party. I might go there the first time, the second time. If it keeps happening, you're a dog chasing your tail. You need to quit. You need to grow and move on. Because you're never gonna change all those people and all those past circums you you never gonna change. It's time for us to change. It's time for us to die and then grow. So except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abides alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Now you, Cathy and I, we can talk about things. There's an intimacy in a relationship. We grow, but we aren't in the habit of paralyzing our progress by spending hours talking about how my dad, he didn't love me. He never cared. And then I say to her, honey, aren't I better to you than 10 dads? And she says, no. No. Father, we just thank you. We're gonna make it, Lord. The focus is too much on man, too much on us, too much on me, too much on I. Lord, help our focus to be upon you, to not succumb, to not give in to the introspection of our age. Help us, Lord, to be being filled with the Holy Spirit, to hear from you that our hearts can break for the lost, we can break for those who are perishing, we can pray for those who are deceived. Lord, never let us become those who hate the l b g t q, wokeism, or whatever it is they're trying to get us to hate. Help us to be Christ like, help us to love, help us to be able to say, Judas betrayest thou the son of man with a kiss? Lord, as you loved him, you loved on him. You gave him something to think about. Lord, let your love just flow. Let your love just fill our hearts and lives in these last days. These people are hurting. I agree, Lord, the unbeliever is in a very, very bad place. But Lord, we don't wanna perpetuate that place that we were once in. We don't wanna regress. We wanna grow. We wanna mature. We wanna overcome. So help us, Lord. Help us as we abide in you, that we'd bear much fruit for your kingdom and glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.