The Value of a Redeemed Soul

Praise the Lord, that's really a wonderful, wonderful word, Luke, and wonderful worship. Nate, thank you guys for helping me get us set up in the right way. Title of my message today is The Value of a Redeemed Soul. The value of a redeemed soul, and as you guys know, we are in the second half of John 10 today. But before we get to that, I want to do something special. Josh is going to be graduating in a couple of weeks, and I have something to say to you, Josh. Your parents right there, is that right? Can't wait to see you guys. Josh, if you will make the Lord your shepherd, allow him to be your shepherd, I should say, you shall not want. You will find that he will make you, whether you want to or not, lie down in green pastures at times, and you will find that he's going to lead you beside quiet waters. And I think this is already true, that he has restored your soul, and he's going to guide you in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Maybe we should just graduate now. This will be your speech. And even though there may be times that you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you're not going to have to fear evil. Praise God, because the Lord is with you. And his rod and his staff, you will find, will be a great comfort to you. And you will find that he'll prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, and that he has anointed your head with oil, and you will find your cup overflowing. And you will find surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That psalm is, it's really a picture of the journey of a true believer, of his life. Let me get all emotional. But it also is a backdrop for this chapter. And, you know, to keep things in the proper context, you have to sometimes go back to the Old Testament to get a sense of where do these thoughts come from. Look at John 10, 14, for instance. I think, Pastor Ed, didn't you preach on this a few weeks ago? Jesus said, I am the good shepherd, and I know my own, and my own know me, even as the Father knows me. And I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. That is all the backdrop for the second half of this chapter. I want you guys to get that, because, all right, it's like Dustin said last week. Every week we feel like, okay, here's the Jews attacking Jesus again. And it kind of almost feels redundant. And, you know, that was the reality of what he faced, though. And they were attacking him in this situation. They understood that when he said, I'm the good shepherd, he was equating himself with Yahweh. They understood that. In fact, in verse 30, Jesus, just to make sure they understood, says, I am the Father. I and the Father are one. You know, so the vitriol that comes out towards Jesus from these Jews has to do a lot with what he was saying earlier. All right, let's read these. I'm just going to read a few of these verses, starting with 22. At that time, the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. The Jews, and that means the Jewish leaders, anytime you see that, the Jews then gathered around him. Some versions say encircled him, which is really the way it was, trying to intimidate him. Gathered around him and were saying to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Well, I think he had already showed them in every possible way. But this is what he said to them. And what he said to them, okay, he's dealing with them. Jesus is so amazing. He can deal with them, but he can also lay out things in such a way that believers in following generations and centuries would be able to apply these words to their own lives. And that's what I want to get at for you guys. So let's see what he says here. I told you and you do not believe the works that I do in my Father's name. These testify of me, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Do you get the sense of how that corresponds with Psalm 23? If there's one thing the enemy hates, it is that God loves and cares for his people. He hates it because he hates people and he hates God. He's riddled and consumed with hatred. But the Lord is just the opposite of that, of course. But I'm not going to focus on the devil. I'm not going to focus on these Pharisees. What I want to talk about is God's blueprint for your life that's embedded in these words. You didn't know that, did you? Because you don't study hard enough. You're doubting me, aren't you? I can see it in your face. A lot of doubt out there. I'm going to prove it to you. Just hold on. Everything you need to know about your future is in these words. And really, just three of them that I'm going to focus on. Three words Jesus used here. And the first one is hear. Look at verse 27. My sheep hear my voice and I know them. If you're going to live out the will of God, you've got to be able to hear his voice. Because you're not going to know which way to go if you're not able to hear him. In fact, in verse 4, he had said, talking about himself as the good shepherd, he said, he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. Hearing God plays a huge role in the life of a true believer. You guys come on in. Have a seat. Don't worry about it. But you know, in the past, you guys didn't hear his voice very well, did you? Because sin had stopped up your ears. Who knows how many times the Lord tried to reason with you? How many times he tried to warn you? How many times he tried to compel you to go a different direction, but you were dull of hearing and you were so fixated on your idol that you did not have ears to hear. If you're going to follow the Lord, you must learn how to hear his voice. And one of the unfortunate characteristics of the Jewish people back then and Christians today is that we can sit in services and we can hear wonderful messages and then walk out of the building without the slightest intention of applying the principles that pastor has just shared with you in your daily life. How many hundreds of sermons did you hear that you did not apply to your life? Right? It's going to be different now, right? I love the way the passion translates James 1.22. James says, don't just listen to the word of truth and not respond to it for that is the essence of self-deception. So always let his word become like poetry written and fulfilled by your life. That is powerful. I mean, there are two different thoughts there, but the second one's the one I really love. It's like the Lord has written your story. He has a script written, a biography of your life all written out. Don't make the mistake of rejecting it in favor of your pathetic version, right? Hearing without responding leaves you with nothing but hearsay Christianity. You know, hearsay Christianity, meaning you know how to hear all about Christianity, but the living of it is another matter. Hearing is of paramount importance to the Lord, hearing and responding. And actually I didn't have time to get this into my message, but the Old Testament, the word for hearing has with it as part of that is it understood that when you hear you are responding. There is no such word in the Hebrew as just hearing something, or at least that's not the word they use in the in scripture. And you see this illustrated, for instance, in the parable of the sower and the seed, the four different types of soil of hearts, right? The first example are those who hear the word but treat it with indifference, and the enemy comes and snatches it away. I was that person once. And the second group are those who excitedly hear the word but pretty soon their interest wanes and they lose their excitement. I was that person once. The third group are those who allow the things of the world to crowd in so much that it just pushes the word out into insignificance. I was that person once too. All of these examples are shallow-hearted listeners to the gospel message. Only those who hear and actually live out the words of Jesus are accepted into God's kingdom. And you better get that into you guys. Please don't leave this place with the misguided, delusionary—is that a word? Delusionary? We'll just say that's a word. Delusionary thought that you can just go back to the old way of just hearing a message and going out and not living it. Hearing the word but not responding. If you won't listen to the Lord's commands, you're not going to be able to hear his leadings. He can't guide a rebel. It's like trying to lead a horse that's unbroken. It's impossible. They've just got a mind of their own. The Lord can't do anything with a person like that. God has a definite plan and purpose for your life. And the first step to going down that path is to know how to listen to him, to hear him, and to obey him. That makes sense, doesn't it? All right. So, hearing is the first word. The second word is follow. Also in verse 27, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. That sounds a lot like Psalm 23, right? He leads me beside quiet waters. He guides me in the paths of righteousness. These are the important things for the Lord. What's important for us isn't always the same as how the Lord sees things. Earlier, well, let me say this. As I was kind of putting this message together, I was trying to figure out, okay, now, does the following come first, then the hearing, or is it the hearing and then the following? I finally decided I'd put hearing first because there's a call that goes out, and you hear the call, and you respond to the call, and that's where it all begins, right? So, I decided to go that route, but I will say this, that as you are following the Lord, your ears become more attuned to his voice, and you will hear him more clearly, and he will speak to you more clearly, and yeah, it just gets easier and easier. It just does. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus said the sheep will not listen to the thief and the robber. His sheep will not listen. What was that? Let me just look at that first. Yes, a stranger they will simply not follow, but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers, and he goes on to talk about the thief and the robber. Who is who? Who is that? Huh? Yeah, Satan. Satan has a plan for your life, and you guys did a pretty good job of following it before you got here, right? You did pretty good at that. One day, you just got so weary of paying the price that comes with sin that you managed to eke out a little cry for help, and that little tiny pipsqueak cry that came forth from your heart was a resounding boom in heaven, and the Holy Spirit immediately got to work. That set him in action to start planning a way. I don't mean to make pure life the big thing, okay, but it is for you, you know, and he immediately allowed the Lord to go to work to start paving a way to get you here because he knew what would happen for you in this place, that for nine months you would be undergoing a transition and a change in the direction of your life in the past. You kind of followed the Lord, but you followed him from afar, right? You were kind of like, he was out there, and you kind of see him, and you kind of follow him, but the truth is he was on the narrow way, and you were on the broad way. Your broad way fit in all the junk of the world that you wanted to fill your heart and your mind and your life with, and so you're kind of following here, and you're going over here. Occasionally, you would cross the narrow way. You would spend a little time on it here and there, but that isn't what it means to follow the Lord. You were following your own instincts, your own desires, and lusts, and so on. So Amos says, or he wants to know, can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction? What do you think? I'm waiting to see if this guy's going to wake up. Stay awake, buddy. Get me? You're in a program. This isn't church. You're not going to sleep here. Jesus has a path ahead of you guys, right? He's got a path, and he's out in front of you, and he just is saying, come and follow me. Come and follow me. Walk behind me. I've got a beautiful life for you. So he says, if anyone wishes to come after me, all right, is that your wish now? Raise your hand if that's what you wish. I think every hand, one up in here, Pastor Ed. Huh? We'll hold you to it. Okay. This is a conditional promise or a conditional something. If anyone wishes to come after me, here's the requirement. He must deny himself and take up his cross daily, every day, and follow him. You know, following Jesus means that you are no longer being led by the nose, by your own lusts and desires, right? It makes sense, doesn't it? You have a new master now. It's not your self-life. It's no longer going to be in control. You've got to get to the place where you renounce yourself controlling your life and the direction of your life and what you're doing. You have to get to the place where you renounce that in order for Jesus to be able to step in and lead and guide and direct. And I will tell you this, until you deny self, you will never know the peace of the Lord. You won't. Until you deny self, you won't know what it means to live in that peace that passes all understanding. You'll be clueless about it. You'll hear about it in church, but you won't be experiencing it. What you will be experiencing is the same kind of frustrating life that got you here in the first place. Always being driven by your passions and never able to really fulfill them. Just a life of dissatisfaction and frustration and unrest inside. But when you can get to the place where as you come up to different situations and you say, not my will, Lord, but thine, that's when you will start to experience the peace of God and you'll start to experience rest inside. All right, so now what? You know, you've decided that you're going to follow the Lord, so now what? What's going to happen to you when you leave this place? Well, your counselor, if you bring it up with him, I would just advise you not to, because he's going to tell you, don't worry about that. You just need to worry about taking care of what you're here to take care of. That's what your counselor is going to tell you. And for good reason, because we've, you know, been doing this many, many years and we've had a lot of experience with guys who already, you know, what's Proverbs say, the fool has his mind on the ends of the earth, right? And so he's already, he's already out there. He's already in his mind, oh yeah, yeah, I'll graduate and then I'm going to, you know, do this, I'm going to do that, and I'm planning on this, and I'm, he's making all these elaborate plans and stuff. And in the meantime, because his mind and his heart is way out there, he's missing what the Lord has for him here right now. You've already had that life out there, men, and it didn't go well for you, right? So you've got to get what God has for you while you're here. So he's going to tell you to just don't worry about what's going to happen in the future. But I know, you know, being very realistic, that you're going to think about that. You're not going to be able to, I believe this belongs to you, Luke. I put my notes down and I felt this soggy thing over here. Yeah, yikes. That totally threw me off, Luke. I was really on a roll too. You know, the problem with thinking is that in your thinking, your desires are all intertwined in there. So when you're allowing your mind to play out the future, it's going to be played out with all your lust and desires and fantasies and all that's all intertwined in your thoughts about the future. So here's my advice to you. Would you like to hear it? Could you act a little more interested? Don't think. Pray. Don't think. Just shut the mind down and just start occasionally, you know, just as you're going through. You don't have to make this the main focus, but it's fine for you to pray. Lord, I don't know exactly what's going to happen when I get out of here. Some of you have a family that you're returning to. Some of you are in the process of divorce, maybe. Who knows what God can do? But thinking is not the answer. You need to go to God and let him, you know, my wife, she had shut the switch off. We were done in her mind. It was over. Done. No way. You know, women have that little switch in there. And once you push things too far, they can just shut that switch and it's short of a miracle. That switch is never going back on. But God does work miracles. Praise the Lord. You know, they have a will, a free will, and they have a right to whatever. But I'm just telling you, if you will pray instead of thinking and scheming and planning and trying to manipulate and talk to them and talk them into, convince them and all this stuff. Just forget all that, just talk to the Lord. He's the one that needs to be your intermediary, not you. You've done that in the past and you did nothing but mess things up and they see right through it. He's just the same. He's no different. Look, he's still trying to manipulate and control me. Just shut that all down and take it to the Lord and let him be your advocate. And if you are changing inside, he will make them see that. All right, now I didn't mean to get into marriage stuff, but I'm just, it's just an example of how to proceed forward. And you know, when you're looking at the will of God, just thank the Lord, you know, and just come to him and just say, Lord, you know, when the right time comes, bring the right girl into my life. I'm not going to go out looking. I'm not going to go on one of these stupid Christian dating websites. I'm not going to do that. You just bring the right girl into my life because I will just screw it up if I'm involved at all. And when the right time comes, bring the right job to me, you know, open the right doors. If I'm to be used in ministry in some way, Lord, open the right doors. In Revelation 3, it says, he who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut because you have a little power and you have kept my word and not denied my name. And Zach Poonen, he uses this to explain how the Lord works, and he really is pretty awesome. He said, it's like, you know, these automatic doors when you walk up to a store and you don't have to do anything. You don't have to convince the door to open. You don't have to bang on it or slam it or anything. You walk up and it's just miraculous. You walk up and it just opens. Who could ever imagine such a thing back in Jesus' day? And that's the way, you know, when you are taking your future to the Lord in prayer, you will find you don't have to make stuff happen. You don't have to, you know, schmooze your way through things. You don't have to try to convince people. You don't have to try to look a certain way, put an image out there. You don't have to, like, manipulate people or like if someone's, you know, the hiring person or whatever. You don't have to do any of that. You just show up and just quietly just explain and answer their questions or whatever. If the Lord's in that job, that door's going to open up through no effort. You know, just let God do the thinking. You'd be a lot better off if you just let God do your thinking for you. In the past, you couldn't find the will of God. You were like a blind man just fumbling around. What's happening here? Are you having an emergency? Okay. You were like a blind man just fumbling around in the dark and you couldn't find his will because your sins separated you from him. You didn't really care enough to seek him about it or you just had some fantasy in your mind about what your future should be and you didn't want anyone messing with your plans. But it's going to be different now. All right, we got to get moving on. The third thing, third word that he mentions here is work. Verse 25, the works that I do in my Father's name, these testify of me. As you listen and follow the Lord, you will discover that he's got something for you to do. Something for you to do as part of his kingdom plan. There's a lot of statements in scripture about work, but I just settled on Ephesians 2.10 because to me it's a beautiful statement Paul made. We all know eight and nine, right? We are not saved by works, right? But by grace, you are saved. Yeah, my memory isn't working so good. Here's what I'm getting as verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. And people love verses eight and nine. They love to hear that, oh yeah, I don't have to do anything. It's all God, you know. Yeah, but it's not quite like that. That is an Americanized version of scripture. Americanized meaning I want all my luxuries and all my worldly living, carnal stuff, and all that, and I don't have to do anything. God's grace saves me. All I got to do is go to church. Okay, well, that can be your version if you want, but that's not what the Bible says. You know, I was reading the parable of the talents yesterday in Matthew 25, and it's really amazing how much it's saying the same thing here as here in Ephesians 2.10, where he's saying we were created in Christ Jesus for good works. There, Jesus is talking to these three servants in their judgment day, looking at what they did with their lives, and he's saying you were given all these abilities and opportunities. What did you do with them? And that's what the Lord has done. He's created you for a certain type of work in his kingdom. It's special. Pope Commentary said we are not saved by works but unto works. Salvation, if it be salvation at all, is unto good works. Good works not being the root on which salvation grows, but the fruit which grows upon the tree of life. That is perfectly exactly right. Jesus said, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. And in John 14, he said, truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these he will do because I go to the Father. That's awesome. Really, what it is, is he's going to do the works through you. That's what it is. It's not really that we do our own thing and just kind of, they're going to be similar to Jesus. No, it's him in you doing his work. Paul said in Colossians 1, told them that they should be bearing fruit in every good work. First Timothy 5, they should be having a reputation for good works. First Timothy 6, instruct them to be rich in good works. Second Timothy 2, they should be prepared for every good work. Titus 2, in all things, show yourself to be an example of good deeds and zealous for good deeds. Titus 3, they should be ready for every good deed and be careful to engage in good deeds. You know, if you have a healthy spiritual life, good deeds are just going to flow forth from your life on a regular basis, guys. That's the way it'll be, and it's such an awesome lifestyle. It really is. The word work in the Greek is ergon, and it's used five times here in this passage, and it's closely affiliated with the word energeo in the Greek, and they're really coming out of the same stem, and energeo, of course, is where the word we get for energy, and in the Greek it just means activity, you know. That's really what it means, and ergon work, it's, in our mind, work is one thing, but ergon is a different, you know, it doesn't line up exactly with the English equivalent, so sometimes it does have to do with doing actual work, but really it has more to do with just your daily activity, what you're doing with your life. In verse 25, Jesus said, the works that I do in my Father's name, these testify of me, and here's what I'm going to say, guys, is if he is in you, he is going to be doing his work through your life, and that work is going to testify about him. Such an awesome thing, and I'll tell you this, on judgment day, you will want a lifestyle being shown of mercy. Good works will be your advocate before the Lord, and you will want something like that. All right, so I'm going to wrap up, and what I'm going to do is, the way I'm going to wrap this up, and we're going to sing a song to finish, we're not going to have an altar call today. I want to just kind of address three misconceptions that are common. You guys, come on in. Three misconceptions that are pretty common today about God's will. The first is that living in God's will is some vague thing, and it really only means obeying a few outward rules, while really the reality is you're just doing your own thing in life. That is a misconception, and it's not true. In the iBook, I took a big chunk of that first chapter to talk about your uniqueness as a person. You remember that? You guys who have read that, I said no two human natures are exactly alike, and I went into all these different comparisons and stuff that creates people. We're all unique and different, and what I want to say is that just like you are a unique creation of God, he has a unique work for you that is tailor-made for you, for who you are and what you are. Your gift, your abilities, your opportunities, where you live, the people you're around, he has some exact thing he wants you to be involved with. It doesn't necessarily mean ministry per se. It really has more to do with just the way you live your life, really. He's got a definite purpose for each of your lives, an absolute distinct definite purpose, and it's not this vague superficial thing of, oh yeah, I go to church on Sunday, and then you're just kind of doing your own thing in life. No, that's not it. That's not the Christian life. The second misconception is that failure means final defeat. All of us guys have failed, but praise God, failure does not mean defeat. You know, I love what Pastor Ed shared Thursday night about, I mean, I don't know about you, but I've heard him share that a couple of times, and I can just feel the utter hopelessness that he was in when he came here. Just, I will never be happy. I'll go to that place, but I will never be happy. And then, you know, a couple years later, he's skipping to work, practically. Could you do that for us right now? A bad knee. And if you've been here long at all, you've heard Josh Rowan talk about his life being in a, just a heap of ruins when he was on the mission field and failed, got in sexual sin, and it looked like everything was done forever. Just a pile of ashes. And Dustin's the same story, too. Actually, many. You guys would be surprised how many guys, how many ministers. You know, one of the things I say to ministers, are there any extra ministers in here? Raise your hand like you mean it. Is there four? Okay. Guys, I want to say something to you four guys, and it may be hard to believe, but I'm telling you it's the truth. Your greatest days are ahead of you. Your greatest days are ahead of you. And what I mean by that is there was something going on in your life. You, yeah, you were going through the motions of ministry, but there was a worm in your inner life. And so God was limited on how much he could use you. Maybe you had a big mega church. Who cares? That doesn't mean anything. I'm talking about the work that was coming out of your life, you guys. If you allow God to do what he wants to do inside you, he is going to use you again one day, but it's going to be far more pure than anything you ever did in the past. And he will accomplish far more out of your life in the days ahead. Believe me, I'm telling you the truth. And I say that to all you guys, all of you. You guys, man, what God's got for you. It's just an awesome thing. The third misconception is that a common normal life has little value in God's kingdom. Meaning that, okay, the only way to do anything significant in God's kingdom is to, you know, maybe pastor a enormous church or be a great evangelist, great writer, great something or other, great, great, great. All man's ideas of success. But God's ways are different than man's ways. Ours is built in pride and how it makes me look and all that kind of stuff. I thank God he set me free of that horrible thing, because it was in me when I started in ministry. And it took a lot of painful experiences I had to go through to put that thing to death in me. And now I could care less about any of it, probably more than I, yeah, should feel that way. What you want is success in God's eyes. I'm reading right now a story of Reese Howells. And Reese Howells, you talk about a nobody. He was a miner. And, you know, back in the days, a hundred years ago, back in the days when you went into a mine and you had a pickaxe and you came out full of black, just hair, black everything, just covered in soot and all that stuff. And, you know, that was, he did that however many hours every day, probably 10 hours a day. But this man had the gift of intercession. And he quietly, no fanfare, people didn't know, but he was so under the control of God, of the Holy Spirit, that God would come upon him in a very powerful way. And he would start interceding and revivals would be breaking out. And he would never be known. He was not the one that was behind the pulpit being seen. He was off somewhere else. No one had any idea. Not known by man, but well-known in heaven and well-known in hell. Don't judge your life by man's standards. He's got so much better for you. Who cares what people think anyway? Because, you know, people just, what he said, and right now, that's well put, Boaz. Couldn't have said it better myself. He's still going on. The Lord's not interested in man's ideas of greatness. He's interested in people who will listen to him, follow him, obey him, and be faithful to him. That's what is great in God's kingdom. I'm going to finish by reading this passage out of a sermon that was given probably 150 years ago by a man named Horace Bushnell. The title of the sermon was Every Man's Life, A Plan of God. God has a definite life plan for every human person, girding him visibly or invisibly for some exact thing which it will be the true significance and glory of his life to have accomplished. There is then a definite and proper end for every man's existence, an end which to the heart of God is the good intended for him, that which he is privileged to become, called to become, ought to become, that which God will assist him to become. The tallest saints of God will often be those who walk in the deepest obscurity and are even despised or quite overlooked by man. Let it be enough that God is in your history and that the plan of your biography is his. The issue he has set for it is the highest and the best. Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan cherished in the heart of God, a divine biography marked out. This life, rightly unfolded, will be a complete and beautiful whole, an experience led on by God and unfolded by his secret nurture, a divine study that shall forever unfold in wondrous beauty, the love and faithfulness of God, great in its conception, great in the divine skill by which it is shaped, above all great in the momentous and glorious things it accomplishes. What dignity does it add to life? What support does it bring to the trials of life? We live in the divine thought. We fill a place in the great everlasting plan of God's intelligence. That is the truth, man. Don't sell short what God wants to do through your life. I'm just telling you, don't sell it short. You don't have to be some big mega whatever. Don't worry about any of that. Who knows? You know, David was just a shepherd kid in the back hills of Judea, a nobody. He never thought he was going to be anything, but God saw something in his heart and had a plan and, you know, nurtured it along and eventually he became the king. All that. Okay, so there's those kinds of people, but there's far more people who just live a normal Christian life. They love the Lord, they serve the Lord, they're faithful to him, and he has a way of shining through them and affecting other people around them. God has a plan for you. Your job is to find it, and the way you find it is to ask him to pray about it. All right, so we're going to end with a song today. Nate, come on up, you guys, and let me go ahead and pray as they get ready. Lord, I do thank you that your hand is on every one of these men, that you have carefully laid out what you have planned for them, that you brought them here to turn things around, to get their lives going in the right direction, so that one day good works would come forth through them, so that your name would be glorified on this earth in front of humans, saved or unsaved, in front of angels and devils, that your name would be glorified in this universe through their lives, and Lord, I pray that you will make that real to them and give them hope for their future. Let none of them feel like Pastor Ed felt when he came in here, that his life was done, that it was over, it was ruined, there was no future, no future happiness. Let none of them feel that way, Lord. I pray that you would get it into them, the reality that you have a wonderful life laying ahead of them, in store for them. Make that real, in Jesus' name, amen. The issue isn't what you do on Sunday morning, the issue is the way you live your life from Monday to Saturday. The issue is who has your heart. What you cherish in your heart is what you are becoming like. My friends and I are walking down the street, bam, Playboy magazine, totally rocked my world. This lifestyle that I was living just got out of control. In a very short time, my life spiraled completely out of control. The whole time I've been looking at pornography, the longer I looked at it, it began to get progressively worse. I couldn't really explain what it was, but I was instantly addicted. You cannot take steps down a path and avoid arriving at the destination. God wants your heart, Satan wants your heart. Whoever has your heart will control you. Every time you sin, your desire for the things of God dies a little bit. Your faith dies a little bit. Your desire to be free dies a little bit, and with it, the hope to get free. So how do we win this war and emerge with the victory that Christ has earned for us? What's missing is God's power to transform a person. For God to come in and do a work to set us free up of something that has taken hold in our lives, that we have allowed in there, requires surrender. The Lord was able to show me that, yes, I can set you free from this, and hope for me was actually within reach. That was something I've never felt before. I don't care what kind of sexual sin you're involved in, I don't care how bound up you are, if you will sincerely apply the principles that are in that book, God will absolutely set you free.