Repenting Of Corinthian Pride

Let's pray. Lord, thankful for your kindness and your mercy toward us. Your ways are absolutely higher than our ways. Your thoughts toward us can't be recounted. Lord, should one of our hairs fall to the ground, you know. And Lord, I just pray, Father, that you would continue to work in our little group, in our fellowship, that you wouldn't leave us the way we are, but you would help us, Lord, to continue to press on to the upward call of God, which is in Christ Jesus, and that we would be conformed into that same image of Jesus, from glory to glory. In Jesus' name, amen. I wanted to read something from the 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. The Corinthians were a group much like some of us. Not all of us, but some of us. They were a rough bunch. They were a sexually immoral bunch. They were an unclean bunch. Paul ended up over there, preached the gospel over there, and people repented. And the Holy Spirit came. Stuff started to break off of them, and the Lord was working among them. The gifts of the Spirit were evident, but there was something else that was evident, and it was pride. And you know what? As long as we're going to be in this carton, in this flesh, we're going to be struggling with pride, because that's the one thing that is like CO2. It's like carbon dioxide. It's the silent killer. And that's the thing that separates us from God. It's the thing that separated Lucifer and the angels that fell from God because they thought that they could attain to something more than what the Lord had purposed for them to attain to. And they took it upon themselves to fight with God for their rights. And we have to be careful that we don't go beyond what God has given us or appointed for us. And if we feel that we deserve more or better, that we would rather take the lower position and let the other person have the other. If we look here, we see that there's a letter that is written to them. We're starting in chapter 3, and then Paul says, I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but I had to speak to you as to carnal people, carnal Christians, as to babes in Christ. Paul says, I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you're not able to receive it. And even now, you're still not able, for you're still carnal. For where there is envy in the church among brothers, where there's strife, one against another, where there's divisions among you, where there, he says, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? And then when one person in the fellowship says, well, I follow Paul, and then another one says, well, you know what? I follow Apollos. And another perhaps would say, I follow Cephas. That's what it says in chapter 1, Peter. He says, are you not carnal and behaving like carnal men in the flesh? He says, who is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believe, as the Lord has given to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, and God gave the increase. So then, neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now, he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are fellow workers with God. You are God's field, and you are God's building. According to the grace of God that was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it, but let each one take heed how he builds. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear. For the day will declare it, and it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. And if anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he'll receive a reward. But if anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, yet he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. He says, do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. There's a lot in there. What we see is that when we come to the Lord, the Lord accepts us as we are, and then the dealings begin. And we come in, you know, there's an individual temple, and there's a corporate temple. There's an individual body, and there's a corporate body. And like, when you enter a job, Josh recently entered a job, and you start at the bottom. You're the man in the ditch. You're the man that the guys do the jokes on. You're the man that they laugh at. And you got to work your way up, and you got to fight for your rights. And when new guys come in, then you get to put them down and keep them in the ditch. And Josh shared this last Thursday about that, how he had to come to a place where he had to let that go and just take a lower position. But when you become a Christian, it's totally opposite. You start in up at the top. He says he's the cornerstone, the very foundational stone of the foundation, and he's the capstone. He's the alpha and the omega. He's the beginning and the end. When you come in to Christ, and you come into the church, you start in up at the top. I remember I had so much to say, and all the more mature brothers would sit around and listen to me yap. I had no content, but boy did I like to talk so high on myself. And then you got to realize that the Lord is not bringing you down a notch or two, but he wants to bring you down to zero. And then he talks about this spiritual tabernacle, which is more real, we shared last week, than the natural tabernacle, which was built in Solomon's day. We see it now that the whole house is being built up on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Jesus being the first, the cornerstone that holds it all together. You know, we built a concrete wall for a lady. It was really high, and we had to set these large concrete stones. It was a concrete stone wall, and setting those stones, especially the first one, and making sure it's set properly, and getting that corner right, takes time. And when that thing is set, then everything kind of falls into place, and everything squares up. That's Jesus. We get the right Jesus, you get the right gospel going, things start to come together. And you know, what we begin to realize is that the foundation on which the beautiful house sits, this home that we live in, a beautiful house, it sits on a foundation which nobody can see, but it supports the house. And the way you know that it's solid is you don't see everything cracking, you don't see everything shifting. When we were building this house, the framer came in and he said that there was a beautiful house they built in a certain section in town, and he said that from the time he started till now, he said that the house is six inches out of square. Because what had happened is they pre-loaded the ground, it wasn't set on a rock, and as they built the foundation, the foundation was square. They were suing him because they said he put the foundation out of square. He said, I put that thing square, and what they began to realize is that house was on sinking sand. And as the foundation began to sink, the whole house began to crack and to twist, and everything became condemned. They had to condemn the house because it was not set on solid foundation. There was not a cornerstone that was set that was immovable and unshakable. This is the importance of having Jesus in your life, of having a good gospel in your life, and making sure that you take heed to the things that you believe and the things that you obey when the Holy Spirit begins to work. And don't despise the chastening of the Lord. Don't despise it when you're rebuked by him, because whom the Lord loves, he rebukes and chastens, and he scourges every son he receives, from Hebrews 12. Because that is part of the discipline of a good father to his children. If you just leave your children to do their own thing, we see them all at the creek. A lot of them didn't have fathers. Their father was absent in their life, and we see them there on drugs and alcohol, in prison, waiting sentencing, because there was key shepherding missing out of their life. And it's led them on a course like a ship without a rudder, like a sheep without a shepherd, scattered all over the mountains. That's why we need Jesus. That's the importance of Jesus in our life. And so he's the cornerstone and the foundation being built on the apostles and the prophets. You know, holding all the weight. The foundation holds the weight of the house. That's why there is a need of good, solid people who love the Lord, who've been seasoned, who've gone through hard things, who've walked with God, who have the gray hairs and who are wise, and who understand the fear of the Lord, and are able to shepherd and counsel people to walk in a manner worthy of the calling of God. And here is Paul speaking to a young group who are just barely escaping sexual immorality and uncleanness and partying lifestyle and all the lying, put away lying and evil speaking and all these things. He's giving them careful instruction. But there's other people giving instruction to these people. And just like you listen to one fellow speak on a tape and then you'll listen to another fellow on a CD and then when you're driving in the radio you listen to another fellow. Everybody seems to have some truth. Everybody seems to have some light and some good things. But the reality is you may have 10,000 people teaching you about Christ, but you don't have that many fathers. And Paul says I've begotten you in the gospel. You know I've had a lot of teachers, some good, some not so good in my life. And then the ones that were hardest on me, man they never gave me the good grades. I had to work hard for my good grades. And finally I decided, you know what, it was I was in my grade nine year, I says you know what I am leaving this Christian school and I'm going to go into the public school. And my grade 10 year I said dad I want to go to Abbey. That's where my friends from elementary school went. And I want to go and go to that school. They say it's a fantastic school. So I went over there and I began to get better grades. But I began to realize that the teachers didn't care whether anybody did assignments or not. It's on you. It's not on them. They didn't hound you. They didn't ride you. They weren't tough on you. I mean I had one German teacher. He was a Christian man. He was tough on me. Then I began to realize he actually cared about me. He loved me. And I would go to him when I was at that school and I was struggling in grade 10. I would go to him and he became my friend in the Christian school. Even there God had planted a light to be there to help people. And he led a prayer meeting there. And I found another couple of friends that were like-minded. And we would go to those prayer meetings in that public school. I began to realize that even this teacher was working and shaping my character there as I was failing in life. But in school I did okay. And then I decided, you know what, I got light. I realized the teachers that were hard on me at the Christian school, they actually cared for me more. And so the next year I transferred back and I graduated from there, from the Christian school. But Paul now is speaking about you may have 10,000 teachers in Christ. There's a difference between someone who's your teacher, who cares about you, who gives you some good instruction, and a father. A good father will lay his life down for his family. He'll lay his life down for his son, for his daughter. He'll do whatever it takes. I think of a time in my life when I'd made just thousands of horrible small choices that led to a lifestyle. I didn't know about it, but my dad fasted and prayed for me. None of my teachers fasted and prayed for me, but my dad fasted and prayed for me. And it's the love of a father. And recently the Lord put on my heart to fast and pray for my daughter. And I said, Lord, I can't fast like my dad fasted. I'm not able. And I just thought, you know what, just do what you can and I'll give you grace and I'll help you. And don't give up praying because a father's heart is for his children. And what we see that the Apostle Paul, he had a heart for the Corinthians. And he's seeing them now fighting about who they're going to follow. And he's saying, you don't want to follow one or the other. These are people in whom you've believed. And he said, the day is going to become clear on how you allowed them to build on your foundation. I laid the foundation. In other words, he was saying something over here from, if we look in first Corinthians in chapter four, he says in verse 18, now some of you are puffed up. Remember we talked about, they're arguing about who's greater, who's, who they're going to follow. He said, some of you are puffed up as though I'm not coming to you, but I will come to you shortly. And if the Lord wills, you will know not the word, but the power of God for the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. How do you want me to come? Shall I come to you with a rod or in love? In a spirit of gentleness. If we look at verse 14, look how he writes here. I do not write these things to shame you Corinthians, but as my beloved children, I warn you, though you might have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers for in Christ Jesus. What did he say? I laid the foundation. He said, I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore I urge you imitate me as he imitates Christ. We've all had instructors that we've gotten some light from, we've gotten some encouragement from, but there's somebody who was influential in your life, who led you to Jesus, who taught you about Jesus, who prayed with you and has a heart for you that you would finish your race. That's a father. He might not be your natural father. He could be, but he is a spiritual father. And Paul was more of a real father to these Corinthians than their natural fathers ever were because he had a burden for their salvation. He had a burden for their souls. He wanted to see them do well. And it was hurting him that he saw them arguing one with another and that there were divisions there and that they were fighting one with another. He said, the word says you shouldn't call anyone father, just like you shouldn't call the Catholic priest a father. But if someone begets you in the gospel, that person is a spiritual father to you, whether you like it or not. And God puts in them a burden for your salvation, for your heart, for your soul. So this is what Paul's talking about. He's not saying, don't follow Apollos and don't follow Peter. What he is saying, follow me. Now, why is he saying this? You know, Apollos, he says he was mighty in the scriptures. He knew the word of God. Peter, we know that he was very zealous and he was head of the church in Jerusalem. We know that he was a good, good man. You know, we all have our struggles. Even Paul had his struggles. But he says, you know, one thing you have to be careful of is you are God's house. Individually, also, you're God's building. And we have to be careful, even if we have a good foundation, how we build, because you can end up with some pretty shoddy workmanship in a house. I was a builder for many years. And when you start cutting corners, and you start doing things quick, and you start doing things cheap, not counting the cost, someone who has an eye, that's what I was telling the kids yesterday. I said, when you're a builder, and you come in and you're responsible for everything, your eye is going to look for what's crooked. Your eye is looking for what is cracking. Your eye is looking for gaps. Your eye is looking for shoddy workmanship, or some frost in the glass that the pain has given way. You're always looking for the faults. And then once you see a fault, you're immediately thinking, is a foundation crack there? Is something shifted? What's going on there? This is what Paul's talking about. He's seeing some cracks in the foundation, is perhaps, maybe it's a foundation, but now he's looking at the workmanship. And he said, no, it's not with the foundation. The problem is with the workmanship. And if we go back and we begin reading in Corinthians, and he says, no other foundation in verse 11, can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So there's one Jesus. But now you begin to realize that there's many teachers teaching about Jesus. So if you go and you participate in the Catholic church, you get a one understanding of who Jesus is when you become a Catholic. And then you're brought up in the Lutheran church, right? And they have some light, Luther had some light, and then you get some understanding of what Luther believed in you, you say, man, maybe Luther's the guy. And then you say, well, no, no, I'm following Menno Simons, because he's the one of the fellows from the Anabaptists. And Martin Luther had some light, but Menno Simons had more light. And so I'm going to become a Mennonite. And then the Mennonites have a Jesus, and the Catholics have one, the Lutherans have one, the Methodists have one, the Presbyterians have one. So which Jesus are you going to follow? One follows Paul, another follows Apollos, another follows Cephas, and then he says some follow Christ. Now you could say, well, you know, we really appreciate family, we love family, and we love the love that's there. All of a sudden, you get hooked up with the Latter-day Saints, and you follow their Jesus. And then you have a knock on the door, and then there's some Jehovah Witnesses there, and they start telling you about their Jesus. And then you start to wonder, should I follow the Jehovah's? Should I follow the Mormons? Should I be a Catholic? Should I be a Mennonite? Who should I follow? And Paul's trying to give us some instruction here. He's saying, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me, but take heed how you built. And what he's speaking about is the teachings that you believe. Because if you follow the teachings of the Mormons, you'll find a different Jesus. If you follow the teachings of the Pharisees, and you're waiting on a Christ, you'll miss Jesus altogether. If you become a Messianic Jew, you may find yourself caught up in the feasts and uh concerned about foods and feasts and things, and you'll miss Christ. If you get caught up in the wrong thing, it can lead to destruction of the house. And it says, the day will become clear because it will be tested with fire. And the scripture says, don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trials in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 17. The trials which come to you brothers, sisters, as though a strange thing has happened to you. No, this is, this is how God tests the work. You go through hard things to find out whether your faith is in something other than the foundation of Jesus Christ. Jesus, he's the cornerstone and he's the capstone. Everything in between, a house is built. Now when he talks about the house, he says a house is built with precious things and with earthly things. These are the doctrines. Now we might hate that word doctrine, but the reality is these are things. I say, well, you know, I want you to go and build with some number three rottens and go and build that house. And you say, well, I paid full money for that house or whatever. And while I have it here, I'm going to use this rotten wood, right, to build the structure. Then you go there and you say, well, this is just not acceptable. Well, it's going to all get covered up. The plywood's going to hold it. Who cares? No, but if you're actually concerned about building something solid, building something precious, building something good, you'll take a hammer and you'll go smash out every rotten two by four that's there and say, redo it. Because if natural things are important to us, how much more spiritual things? You say, well, you know, it's not a big deal. If I believe that Jesus is a Jesus with a small J, like the Jehovah Witnesses believe it. You know that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a God. Do you believe in that Jesus? Then you may as well quit building. You may as well shut it down because at the end of your life, you're going to find out that you had a Jesus that couldn't save you. The shed blood of Christ that brings salvation to us is not going to help you if you believe in a Jesus with a small J. And then a lot of us sit in all kinds of denominations and we don't believe in the power of God. We don't believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So when Jesus, I shared last week, when Jesus came into that room that was closed, those men were terrified and he breathed on them and he said, receive you the Holy Ghost. They say, that's it. That's it for salvation, brother. But that's not the end. That's the beginning. And then all of a sudden he said, I'm going to go so he can come. Well, who's he? The Holy Ghost. Why do I need him? I already got him in the upper room. Because ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you. You're not going to be able to build if you don't have any strength. How are you going to do anything for God? How are you going to finish the purpose and call of God? How are you going to obey this book? We need grace. Grace comes from the Holy Spirit. It comes from the power of God. To live according to righteous, godly, and this present age. That's what the grace gives us. And the grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passion and gives us the ability to say no when sin is crouching at the door, like it was with Cain and its desirous for us. And the Holy Spirit's going to come and speak to us like God spoke to Cain and said, you need to master it. Cain wasn't able to master it, but you can overcome sin because of what Jesus did. He's the firstborn among many brothers and he has given us tools, brothers, sisters, to finish this house that God has planted. We are individual houses, but we also build into people's lives. We speak into people. So we need to be careful how we build because we can build in a wrong way. Brothers, we can build with pride. We can build with self-righteousness. We can build with all these things and we can make twice the sons of hell as we ourselves are so that we can boast in flesh. I've been guilty of that, but now the Holy Spirit wants to teach us to become wise master builders like Paul. Having a heart for the people like Paul had a heart for the people, not just to be a teacher in the church and be happy, not just to be a prophet in the church and be happy, but to be a father and not just a natural father, a spiritual father where you sincerely care for the state. Paul says among all the brothers, he said he could find no one except Timothy who was like-minded, who would care for the state of the people, who has a heart for the people. And I say, Lord, don't give me more knowledge. Of course I want to know God. Don't give me more power so that I can look good before men. Give me a heart of love that you have for the lost. And then all of a sudden I find myself weeping. Paul found himself weeping because he saw these people, even these people who were leading his babies astray, they were enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. And they're building on their foundation that he planted with carnal things, with things that are going to not stand the test of fire. He says the very man builds with gold, silver, precious stones. I remember growing up, my dad would, he really liked stones. He liked precious things. And he would invest in those things, and some people thought he was crazy. But you know what? The more I read, the more I realize that that which is precious, it has value, and it can stand the test of fire. You might be able to reduce some gold, but after it melts, it's still gold. God is able to shape it into something beautiful, even though it goes through fire. But if you have a building, and we had a building one time, and a heater caught some stuff on fire, and we saw the whole barn go up in smoke. The flames I could see from the Fraser Highway when I was driving, it lit up the sky. And all the investment, and all the work that we put in, all the time that I spent working in that barn, and those barns when I was in my early 1920s, that it all was vanished in one night. It was gone. Can you imagine if you poured into somebody, and all of a sudden in one night, they burn with fire, and if you see them, they're back on skid row again. They're back living in their sin. And I have to begin with myself, and question myself. Did I teach in a wrong way? Did they become proud, and then they fell? Was it me, or did I, do I need to learn something here? Of course, we can't wear everything. People are responsible for their own decisions, but was it because of the way that I built in their life, that they became proud, and fell? I've seen men who had the gifts of the Holy Spirit, mighty men, and you know what happened? They fell into sin. Was sin the issue? No. Pride was the issue. Pride comes before the fall, and haughtiness before destruction. And Paul is speaking to the Corinthians, and he's saying, some say I follow Paul, some say I follow Paul, some say I follow Cephas, some say I follow Christ. He says, who are we? We're nothing. We're just in the foundation, supporting you guys, trying to see you guys overcome, and grow spiritually, and become established in the faith. But he says, if you have to follow someone, follow me as I follow Christ. Yes, perhaps Paul was a mighty in the scriptures, but perhaps Paul had spiritual pride in him, and perhaps some of that has seeped into your spirits now, and now you're arguing one with another. Perhaps that's happened. He's been a teacher in your life, but now I want to take you beyond that, and you're going to have to get some discipline if you're not going to smarten it up, and look, and examine, and test whether you're in the faith, he says in 2 Corinthians 13. Are you brothers even in the faith? What's going on with you? And you know what ends up happening, is it's a slow fade. You just slowly drift. You know, we would be in Port Alberni Inlet, we used to fish there, and it was sunny, and everything. We would just lay in that boat, and all of a sudden, we were like a kilometer up the way. How did that happen? Just do nothing, brother. Sister, just don't do anything. Just a little sleep, a little slumber, just take a couple weeks off, a little folding of the hands. The rest just stops seeking the Lord fervently in the mornings, right? Stop reading your scriptures, stop praying, and all of a sudden, you wake up one day, and you say, where am I now? You're a kilometer away from where you were. You can become a kilometer or further away from God in just a short order, if you just a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding your hands to rest, and so shall your spiritual poverty come upon you like a bandit, and your need like an armed man. The enemy will come in like a flood, because he doesn't take a few days off. He hates us as believers. He seeks to rob from you. He wants to kill you. He wants to destroy your life. He wants to take away your health. He wants to take away your finances. He wants to destroy you and make you so that you say, where is God? And if he succeeds in that, then he's won. If he robs our faith, you know, God allowed Job to be tested. He said, Satan, you can touch all of the things that he has, and you can touch his flesh, but you can't take his life, and then he left his wife there, and he had lost his children in one day. He had lost all of his finances in one day. He had lost all of his health in a short period of time, and he had boils all over his body. You know, he would scrape them with a piece of broken pottery, his boils, because he wasn't so much pain, and then his wife came and said, what has God done for you lately? Curse God and die. His closest friend, his closest alibi, his wife, and he said, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away. Naked I came, and naked I'm going to go, but I'm going to bless the name of the Lord. Now, the end of the matter is his brothers, his close friends, they came and they started saying, well, Job, you know, God doesn't do this unless his heavy hand is on you. You must have been generous with the poor. You must have committed sins. You must have done this. You must have done that. You must be involved with this secretly. You must have done that, and you know what, Job, he kept holding to his integrity, his reputation, and he said, finally, he began to turn that against the Lord, and he said, you inflicted these things against me unjustly, and he started to speak against the Lord that way, and then the Lord began to show him, who are you? Can you put a fish hook in a leviathan's mouth, and are you going to tame that sea beast with your little rod, with your little string on your stick? What are you going to do, Job? And Job got light on himself. God is almighty, and I am vile. I am vile, and you are holy, and it says, and Job began to repent for the things that he had spoken against God. God gave him light on his self-righteousness. God showed him that he was holding to his integrity, and he needed to let it go, and then he had to learn something about forgiveness. All those people who had said all those things against him falsely, he said, Job, I'll deal with your friends, just like I'm dealing with you, and God spoke to his friends, and he said, you go and ask Job to pray for you before it's too late, and God had to prepare Job's heart. He could have said, you know what, you guys, you said all these things. Be gone. I have no use for you. You guys aren't friends. No, God changed his heart. It says when Job prayed for his friends, God restored Job. He dealt with his loving those who hurt him, who grieved him, who spoke evil against him, and he prayed for his friends. It doesn't matter what people have done to you. It doesn't matter who's hurt you. It doesn't matter what wrongs have been done. We heard Sean's testimony. We have to take ownership of it against thee, and the only have I sinned, David said, and done evil in my sight, oh God. Have mercy upon me, oh God. My issue is just between me and God. I can't make excuses. I can't blame people. Yes, people do all kinds of things, but what have I done to the Lord? How am I dealing with the Lord? What is my relationship with Jesus? Take heed how you build, brothers, in your own life, the things you participate in, the things you listen to, the things you watch. Be careful. Job says, I've made a covenant with my eyes. I will not look at a young woman in my lust, in my desire. He was very careful with his eyes. We want to be more careful with our eyes than Job because we are full of the Holy Spirit, some of us. We want to be careful of things that we listen to. He says, offer your bodies a living sacrifice unto God, which is your reasonable act of worship, and so we say, Lord, yes, I can watch whatever I want with my eyes. You've given me these eyes for me to do what I wish, but now I put them on the altar for you. I only want to look at that which is clean and that which is good and lovely and of good report. My ears, yes, I've listened to all kinds of things, gossip, slander, evil things, devil's music, all kinds of stuff, but now I put my ears on the altar for you as a living sacrifice. I want to be holy. Jesus, make me holy. Help me to be holy, set apart for you. I'm not talking about the robe of righteousness. He gives us a garment of salvation, a robe of righteousness. Right now, I'm talking about to those who are being sanctified, to those who are surrendering. You have power in your hand to do what you wish, but now you're giving it to Jesus. You say, Lord, my tongue. I've used my tongue just to cut people down. I've used my tongue just to make jokes and put people in their place. I've used my tongue for this and that. I failed in a thousand ways. Lord, here I am again today, offering my tongue for your service. Let my tongue build people up, not tear them down. Forgive me where I've sinned. I'm sure. Here's my hands. I've used my hands to commit sin, to masturbate, to all kinds of evil things. Lord, I've stolen from people. I've hurt people, but now I surrender them to you. Let these hands be used to help people. My feet, I've gone and I've walked in unholy land. I've gone places where I not should have been. Lord, I've participated in things that are evil and unclean. My feet have taken me places, but now I surrender my feet to you. Please shod them with the preparation of the gospel of peace, that I can bring Jesus to people. It's up to you, brother, sister. How far do you want to go with God? Do you want to just go part way? I think of this vision where the brother, he said to, what do you see? He said, I see from the threshold of the temple, water coming out like a, like a trickle and it's going down the steps. And he said, I want you to walk a thousand cubits. He walked and he said, then the water was ankle deep. And he said, okay, well, what do you, what do you see? And he says, well, it's getting wider now. And it's, it's, it's heading towards a certain direction. And he says, I want you to go another thousand cubits. Well, I'm pretty happy here. Are you going to go further with God, brother, sister? Are you going to keep going with God? He went another thousand cubits. I think, and now it was way steep. Wow. This is, we're really moving in the river of God now. There's good things happening. People are speaking in tongues. There's interpretation. There's prophecies happening. A lot of good things happening. People getting healed. The meetings are powerful. The worship is awesome. He said, brother, I want you to go another thousand, another thousand cubits. Will you walk with me? I don't know, Lord. The current is very strong. It's very powerful. Fear is keeping me from moving forward with you, Lord. Trust me. Will you trust the Lord to keep walking with him? Will you come to a place where one must swim? Will you allow the Lord to have his own way in your life? We sing that song, have thine own way, Lord. You're the potter, I'm the clay. Are you willing to walk in the river of God where you say, Lord, though you slay me yet will I trust you? Or do you still want to keep the tips of your toes fastened to the rocks of the river and stay in some kind of control, even though you're in the river of God? Or do you want to go all the way with Jesus? You say, I have, but still, do you ask for more? May the Lord give us a heart to go further and deeper with God, to allow him to be in control of our life. We say, oh, I made Jesus Lord. Is he Lord? Or do we say he's Lord? You know, when you find out is when you get in a situation and then you see how you respond, whether you really allow the Lord to be Lord, or whether you take ownership or you anchor your feet down in the rocks and try to stay in control and keep hanging on. Well, brother, keep hanging on or just let the Lord have his own way. May the Lord take us into the deep dealings of God, take us into the ocean of his love, so that we might know the breadth, the depth, the height, to know the love of God which surpasses knowledge. Unless you let go and let God, you'll never have a love for people. You'll never become a spiritual father. You'll never have a burden for the lost. You'll never see God do anything that's lasting. You'll just be part of frivolous meetings running here because Jesus is in the wilderness or running there because he's out in the city. Look to Jesus. I had a dream not many years ago and I was walking in this river. I was way steep and all of a sudden I heard the rustling of fish and I turned around and there was all kinds of fish that were coming behind me and around me and I was so excited and then all of a sudden the fish turned and they went to where the deeper waters were and the waters were very deep. It was like an olympic-sized swimming pool and I used to fish in those days and I saw the men with the most fancy gear. They had the vests. They had the scissors with that to cut the yarn and they had all the weight of fish and they were all shoulder to shoulder all the way around this rectangular structure. There was no room to get in. I couldn't even get in if I wanted to and I heard a voice saying, follow me and all the fish left and I said I'll follow you and I didn't see anything but I kept walking and I went around around the corner away from the sight of all those who were fishing around that structure with all the best gear and all of a sudden the fish were back and there were exceedingly many fish and I felt these large fish come under my feet and they were like dolphins but I was not lifted up one inch, one centimeter. I didn't lift up. They were just there and all of a sudden I looked at my skin that began to radiate and glow and the whole place was full of light and the Holy Spirit came upon me, woke me right out of my sleep and I was weeping with joy and I wondered what these things would mean. I wondered what they would mean. A couple weeks later I was reading in Isaiah and I found a passage. Isaiah in chapter 60 in verse 1. Arise and shine for your light has come. This is Jesus brothers. This is Jesus. And the glory of the Lord has arisen upon you for behold the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples but the Lord will arise over you and his glory will be seen upon you the gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising lift up your eyes all around and see they gather together they shall come to you your sons from afar and your daughters shall be nursed at your side then you shall see and become radiant and your heart shall swell with joy because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you when I read that I wept. I said Lord I want to walk with you. I want to make a difference for you and I can't try and figure out at that time in my life I had been to the Pentecostal assemblies there in the in the valley there and I thought you know the only way I'm going to make a difference is if I go and I get equipped with the best tools and I figured which denomination I could yoke up that I could most align my teachings with and it seemed to be the Pentecostal assemblies of Canada and I went there and I got a whole stack of books and I was gonna have to go to school for four or five years and I was saying well Lord I'll make the sacrifice if that's what you want me to do and then I had this dream you don't need to be fully equipped with vests and and all the best tools you need the Holy Ghost. Well they believe in the Holy Ghost. You don't need some men to pack your head with more knowledge. You already have a pride issue boy. You just follow Jesus and I said Lord I will follow you and I just died to my ambitions and my hopes and my plans and I left those books they're still in that drawer. 20 years later they're still in the drawer. I said Lord I don't need to do it my way. I wanted to do it your way. Whatever you have for me have done on the way. We want to make an impact in people's lives. They don't need to come to us but you know what if you have someone who loves you they know that you love them. When they get in trouble when they have a hard time they call you for encouragement. They reach out to you. They show up at your door. I've had it before where some guy his wife kicked him out and all of a sudden there's a knock at the door. The guy's at the door bawling. He was found out. His where to go. I wasn't even a friend of the guy except I'd shared Jesus with him one time. He did blinds for him. The Lord will draw people to where they feel it's genuine. If you are a person who is genuine if you're sincere you might have your problems but if you are genuine and sincere then the Lord will bring people into your life so that you can make a difference. You know what after you put the fire to your life and everything gets burned up and all of our desires to do something for God has God done something for you? Has he done a work in your life like he did for Jacob? You know we read not too long ago Jacob he goes and he gets the vision of the ladder going up and down to heaven seeing angels going and he had placed the stone there and he said this is Bethel. He said he had a meeting with God there and he makes a deal with God because he saw he just swindled him out of his birthright and his blessing and he says if you'll be my God and he says if you will bring me back to this place and you'll keep me warm and well fed and you provide for me and you bless me with this and that and the other thing he says and if I return back to this place and you take care of me then I'll make you my God and 20 years pass and that guy who swindled his brother got swindled by Laban and the guy worked there probably was there 20 years 14 years he worked for those women and he was just a servant there and God had to deal with that guy and now he comes back to them and God had brought him there with family and with herds and with flock and he said listen I remembered what I said here what I told God and here I am now bring me your idols we're going to get rid of all of our idols now we're going to serve the Lord don't be discouraged if it's taken you 20 years and you haven't made a full-hearted decision to serve the Lord maybe you said well Lord if you do this and that for me then I'll make you my God but you remember if you make a promise to God and he keeps it you better keep yours brothers sisters we've had broken down altars we've made promises to God it's time for us to pick up those stones as memorial stones and begin to build the altar of God again and say Lord I am here to offer myself wholehearted for you Jesus they had memorial stones in those days maybe you've made some promises those are your memorial stones when you've had encounters with God in your life and you remember the things that you said before God and the things that God has done for you along your journey and you say Lord here I am I'm going to give myself completely to you because you've been good to me I remember my uncle John said to me one time we're all fired up for the Holy Ghost and we had all the gifts going there in those young years he said you know I'm kind of excited for you I said well I'm kind of worried about you you seem kind of lukewarm and he said listen I got one thing to say to you boys it's not how you start it's how you finish I want to see you in 20 years from now still serving the Lord that's my prayer may the Lord help us to continue to go with God it's not how we start a lot of guys start well right it says they receive the the word with gladness and they shoot up and there's a big spark and a lot of action but then in the time of testing in the time of fire they fall away may the Lord help us to become rooted and grounded in him that we would not be movable that we would become unshakable and steadfast in our walk with God that he would be able to continue to work in our lives and bring forth a blessing he promised us a blessing to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my word you know the one brother says you have set my line in good places the Lord has set my line in good places we want to be faithful to the Lord seek the Lord while he may be found brothers sisters call upon him while he's near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts created me Lord a clean heart renew a steadfast spirit within me cast me not away from thy presence oh God and take not thy holy spirit from me brothers sisters we've sinned and we walked an unholy land but now he says he's wounded us but he will bind us come Lord Jesus help us to finish our race in Jesus name amen