YP Talk—Stephen Rule
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Let's pray.
Our godfather, we just give thanks for the huge privilege we have of only as our father and we ask that the little family have a head a few minutes that we would spend our time listening to live voice in front of us. We're here for ourselves and we would enjoy the privilege of hearing that. We're going to continue that for a blessing on every aspect of time together and interaction and half a time talking.
Press my name or Jesus.
Get in front of you a sheet of paper or maybe you're sitting on.
Every year I brought not enough, but I've got 24 pencils and two pens and hopefully you've got some. So raise your hand if you need it. Ready to implement and umm, try to share. I'd like to thank all of these colleagues here for school.
Activity.
Before we get started, before I tell you what.
My heart or what? It's the one that's giving me the cocktail this evening and tomorrow evening I'd like you to do something for me. Uh, let's have a piece of paper and then you're gonna have to write somebody else in the back. Before I tell you what it is, you have to show it to anybody.
You need it when you're done, it's gonna be I just want you to submit the paper for yourself only. Not me, not for anybody else, but by writing it down to kind of force you to really think about.
And then I will hold on tonight. I have a lot of them for billing tomorrow night. Umm, this is not a piece of paper, right? At the top of it is a large number of the door at the same thing. Right? But that's vacation.
And on the back, your reputation on the front. And on the back, I want you to write one big word character.
Take some offside character on the other. Now I'm going to define them the way I want you to think about it, and then I'm not mixing their eyes. Look it up.
Have they been for the purpose of actually tomorrow night for recitation will be the way other people see you know the best that you know your reputation is.
Right, what you think other people see you as. I'll give you an example. Umm, a simple example. Suppose if it's classroom work at school, or academic work or something like that. Other people see you as smart, not so much, and you don't really want to write it down.
Do other people look on you as friendly? Do they look on you as helpful? Do they look at you as kind? That kind of thing. As far as you know, what do you think? Your reputation?
It is right. It's tiny if you want, but do write it down on that piece of paper.
And I'll give you a minute.
OK, that's a reputation how other people see you at least as best as you think it is. Now flip it to the other side. Take character and write down what God sees in you. That is I'm not looking through their blood with noise that look at this in the Bible and you don't know exactly but not look meaning how does God see you as to your umm standing before God in Christ with that bless their words mean something to you, not the way God looks at you because.
Your regime by the precious flow of Christ, but to the best of what you believe the Lord is saying to you at the moment. Maybe he thinks you your little selfish, maybe you thank you. I'm working on you in kindness and your kind yesterday. I'm not asking for an accurate who would grade it anyway, right? This is what God sees you as and I want you to take a moment to reflect. How does God see you at the moment? What does he see? Write it down. We'll give you a minute.
S.
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10 more seconds.
OK.
That's my question for you.
Umm, not what's written on your paper. Which side of that paper was easier? How many of them was easy? But which of those two sides of the piece of paper was easier to fill out? How many say just raise your hand? Let me know if you think the reputation side was a little bit quicker and easier to do.
How many do you think no character side will be easier?
I'd have to have my end up on the first one. I'd have to say honestly that I would be easier for me to fill out the reputation size and the character side. But I'd like to think that today, tomorrow, Lord would help us work to make it a little easier to say. What does God see me have? So tonight we're going to talk about four things we gain when we live in the fear of God. I'll define it in a moment. Tomorrow we'll talk about 5 things we lose.
When we live in the fear of man.
Reputation is the way other people look at it and when we live for our reputation, the leap they're quite along the federal 5 and realize they probably get all of them. So I thought.
Those are at least five things you'll lose if you live for how other people look at you and five, four things and the 40 is the 50 minutes or whatever is scheduled here. 4 things we gain when we live for what God sees enough not sees us, but what we care about is what God thinks is really what I want to get out. So the fear of God, I would define it as a reverence and an awe.
Of God and and.
Concerned to live for what he thinks and in his presence and not worrying about what other people think.
And I need to I need to say clearly.
As umm.
I believe I'm gonna ask who the eldest person in the room is, but I think you can let them. You don't stop learning. Ever. Uh, we are not less than they have learned, but rather things I wish to pass on because I think it's God's truth that's relevant to you. Whether you're 3 and nobody hears 3 all the way on up to the day you go home to be the floor, it's relevant. Wanting to live in the presence of God every single minute of our life is way more important than wanting to make sure that somebody else thinks something.
About so let's hear God first one that you can gain living in the fear of God is found in Genesis 17. We just somebody would read just a few verses.
So give me a moment. Genesis 17.
And the first 8 verses.
Living in the fear of God, the reverence and an awe.
Of God.
The respect and honor for him is the one whose opinion counts.
The fear of God.
Thank you, volunteer of the ground. Wow. We're virtually not quite almost segregated, Male, female.
Umm.
I don't see anybody on the stock. I will read them if one of you gentlemen over here doesn't need them, but I'll give you a second or two to thank you. First eight versus Genesis 17. And when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and we will multiply thine and will multiply the exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face and got talked with him, saying.
As for me, behold my covenant with the and also be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name anymore be called the room, but thy name shall be Abram. For a father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make the exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of being king. So come out of this, and I will establish my cognitive between me and me, and my seed after thee and their generation, for an everlasting covenant to be a Godwin city, and to thy seed after thee.
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And I will give until the until thy feed after the the land we're in our stranger, all the land is came in for an everlasting possession. And I will be their God.
Oh I should tell you something, answers from anyone here and those 8 verses we read.
What's that Abraham say?
Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What did Abraham do?
Thomas 6.
User thread 8 verses and all those 8 verses you've got part of one and verse 3 Abram fell on his face. That's what you read about Abraham. The rest of it is what you read about God, what God says, right?
Go back through and look at the verbs. This is an English class. I've never been an English teacher, but give me the verbs. Give me one more lady through the side. Give me one of the verbs when God is talking verb.
I am, thank you. Verse one, give me a subject verb, and verse two, somebody else on my right, your left, left side of the room.
I will. Thank you verse 4.
Says he says Behold, As for me, behold verse 5.
Do I have? Yeah, first five subject, verb, somebody on the right side of the room. Pardon, I have. And something else in the verse.
5/8 verse six I will, verse seven I will, verse seven I will. Verse eight I will. Verse eight again I will. It's God talking.
Abraham flat on his face.
I just encourage everybody here, all of us, to have some time every single day where we're living like that.
Let me get to the point a little bit slowly. I love to take.
Uh, I want to take photographs about my camera along. Bought a couple of lenses to go on it and I got a new one after saving up for a year and a half. Left September.
So this spring when we're at the garden center or wherever at my camera out and they would do the work of looking for the plants we need for the yard and I would do the work of looking at the flowers through the macro lens. How many of you have ever taken a really good look?
At a flower.
OK. Hey, OK. You don't have to worry about your reputation. Somebody looked at you and said, oh, how can I get all the hands here and all you have here? Nobody here has ever looked at a flower carefully. Wow.
You're missing out.
Umm, I found, you know, there's flowers inside flowers inside flowers, almost like a triple flower. If you look at the semen, there's a little flower on the end of the stamen. And then you look at the, there's, there's some that are almost like a jewel in the middle and a little jewel case. And you don't tend to notice them. You walk by, you see blah blah, horns, blah blah bread, blah blah, blah, right. But if you get up close and you take a picture and you take it with a macro lens and then you blow it up on your screen and you look at it and you say, wow.
There's a lot in there. How many have had the same experience that looking through a microscope?
How many of you have ever tried, honestly tried to do more than oh, started throughout the night, gone where there wasn't a whole lot of light, laid down and looked up and enjoyed the canopy of the heavens?
Good. See if you haven't, maybe I didn't hit your example of looking at the wonder of God's creation. I love looking at birds too. What's the behavior of birds and how they act? They're an awful lot of it. It surrounds you of God as the creator.
Abraham.
How time did Abraham waste reading books?
How much time did he spend? Uh, how much light pollution was there when he walked outside his tent at 1:00 AM and looked up toward the heavens? Ah, there may have been a camp fire or two, I don't know. But when Abraham was living in Israel, Abraham had at least some had the opportunity for some sin of an awe and a reverence of God that put it his neighbors, They had the same opportunities. Abraham lived.
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In the fear of God.
And in this case, when he lived in the fear of God, he got one thing that I think is probably more important than anything else.
To go out and you'll see throughout the book and one of the chance to look at it. Abraham got intimacy with God.
So the first thing that I think that we gain when we live in the fear of God, in the presence of God, in the conscious sense that God sees into the depths of your heart, and the depth of my heart knows exactly what's in there.
And has the power to make it what he wants it to be, loves you, cares for you, and we're living in the presence and constant sense of it. We'll get to it later on. That's all the day long, the whole day begin. Then we gained something that you can't get anywhere else. Nothing, nothing. A true deep intimacy. What does he find out? He finds out the character of God. We don't have time to go through it, but God seeks, he listens and he learns what God will. I will, I will I will mostly future right, but it's also I made I am. He learns about God.
What did Abraham have to hide from God?
Did Adam enjoy intimacy after he had sitting in the garden?
You know, right? But to make sure, what did he go and do?
After he's sitting in the garden, that's the first thing Adam did.
Thank you. He did, absolutely. He went and hit himself among the trees of the garden, and then he may sowed an apron of thickly to cover himself. So he hit again, He hit none, He hid, He put as many layers in there as he could get. And when we sin, we break that intimacy with God. But when we're open and honest in the presence of God in the morning, middle of the day, and throughout the day, we gain an intimacy with God that you cannot replace with anything.
Before my wife and I were married, we uh.
Lived in the same city for 2 1/2 years. I was finishing college. We were.
Publicly engaged for about a year of that, engaged privately for a couple of years. And so we talked every day. I learned a lot that a lot heard a lot.
And without knowing it hit a lot. Follow this because I didn't know it.
About myself, couldn't have said so. It's because I wasn't entirely sure.
How it would be received and?
Umm, it was the reputation side of things, so I didn't say anything.
I enjoy a whole lot more intimacy now, shared common thoughts and communion, but I won't tell you that I always tell my wife everything right away.
Maybe there's certain things. I'm not talking about sin, so maybe there's certain things you just, well, if she asks, I'll definitely tell her.
But I don't think I'll mention by the way, I ran the car into the house there and Joe saw me too, actually, uh, but there's only a little thing about that big on the back frame. I'm not making that up.
See, I don't mind on a detail like that. Most of us don't, right? But there's a whole lot of other things that we would tend to mention. But in God's presence, you're fully known by God. I'm fully known by God.
And we can enjoy that intimacy that Abraham has that I have lost because of sin.
Go to the second one. I think we gained intimacy second one.
Before I do it, I want you to kind of remember the lessons. So I'll give you a lesson 1St and then I'll, uh.
And I'll give you what we gained, and we'll read the verses.
So I hear a can of those in the back, some of those in the front next knot. It's actually a harder than it used to be. You know, I used to buy cans of these for demonstrations to physics glass. It's easy to find one with lots of peanuts, but all the cans at Walmart yesterday bragged how few peanuts they have, but this one is less than 50% peanuts. That's like it did eat a lot of peanuts for this example I have on the top uh.
Somebody in the room please favorite kind of nuts that you get in these cannons. It's a Brazil nut, right. So this is the kind of stuff you don't want other people to see that you're aware of that's in here and I'm going to kind of cut it down underneath the surface. Tell me honestly, how many of you have come to a can of mixed nuts and kind of I want the cash tube or whatever and pull it out and left the peanut all right that's why they say less than 50% peanuts, right? In fact, definitely we often are with our.
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Patient management, right?
Texas up don't want other people to see each other a little down under the surface and get it out of sight and grab the pieces that are nice right, but God has a way of working with us in our life and I'm going to illustrate the verse before we read it. Take this can and if you really want to do that, feel free with, you know, keep up the can of things and you want to give somebody else the peanuts and you really want the almonds and cashews. Here's how to do it conveniently. Just need to shake it up right and as you shake it.
Just basic physics, all the bigger stuff. It's, uh, your center of mass is going to move.
Certain the density of this thing is going to change so all the less dense stuff is going to come to the top that's why things float on ponds and so on and uh here's uh Brazil nut and that was in there umm but the nice big one the other one's here on the side all the peanuts are going down all the almonds and cashews are coming to the top that's why your cereal box when you have Raisin bran, if you want the raisins shake it you'll move them to one side and they'll move the plate to the other but.
That's how I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this for you because I'm patient enough and if there's enough shaking here, if I didn't do this wrong.
That's something else to show you. Boy, all these nice things are coming to the top of the morning. No thanks. Wow anybody else? Uh con common yes no silver sure one more.
OK. Before the CNF, that's fine. If I think it's a little bit more.
I'm almost there, but you can't tell. In fact, you probably didn't.
Now let's read the verse. Oh, what is it?
For those of you who are playing ping pong now before the meal, not a ping pong ball down there, but it's not played after. It's right here. I did watch it with soap and water and all. I hope it. Let's read the verse.
You just illustrated it. We've just illustrated, but I want to turn to it. Is it Luke Chapter 12? If you remember nothing more from the.
I would like you to remember this part.
1St 2:00.
For there is nothing covered. You know that word can be read covered up.
That shall not be revealed, neither hid.
That shall not be known.
Let me illustrate and hopefully it'll make it so you'll remember it.
I have something on this particular one, but the one that's right over here on the other side, I said Brazil, not on top. Didn't want other people to see it. I covered it up. I think that's the meaning of that first word. Covered. It's covered up. I cooked something, I knew it was there and I put it out of your sight.
All right.
And then I shipped it, and I shook it and I shook it. Took a little more than I realized it would. I'm using ones that are more than 50% peanuts. But it worked its way back to the serpent, didn't it? It came back up. There is nothing covered up.
Is not coming back up.
There's nothing you or I have ever done in our lives that doesn't have to come into review at the judgment seat of Christ is going to be the majority of it. There's nothing we've done in our lives. It's not coming up covered up.
That show not when you get it so that I can quote it right covered up.
That shall not be revealed.
You know, there was, uh, Brazil out there, you know, I hit it and it came back to the top.
Honestly, again, how many do one of these right here?
I asked Mark for one earlier, maybe today, I don't know.
Nobody else saw me put it in there, but I know it was in there.
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And with another shaking, it worked its way to the top.
You may not know, and I'll guarantee you that I do not know everything that I can.
If there's a person, the one that you could have intimacy with, that's exactly what's in there. In fact, there's a person that is currently shaking you gently in your life to bring one thing after another surface so you can pick it up and move it out.
Chris likes the peanuts, so we're gonna use that part of the analogy. Suppose what God really wants in your life for the peanuts. What's happening with all the other ones? Shakes. Comes to the surface. Pull it out.
Shake again. You just know that stuff was there. Some of the stuff you annoyed me, it was there. It was his.
It was it from you. It was hit from me, but God revealed it. It's going to come out.
It will come out between your soul and God, not necessarily before other people. We're talking about between your soul and God. Maybe it's going to come out publicly because it needs to. Maybe it only comes out between your soul and God so it could be judged, picked up, and removed. Ping pong ball Gulf belong in cans of nuts. But that's not an important point. The important point is that things that are hidden in our hearts that don't belong because they're not like the Lord, come out and go.
Need to be left behind.
For nothing that's hid.
Accurately.
There's nothing covered or covered up.
That's what we do.
Let's jump off your review. Neither hit that's what's there that you and I don't know.
It's not a negative thing. It's not a negative thing. What delight God is that intimacy.
I'll tell you, there's nothing better than having absolutely no barrier between you and another person.
Not having anything you need to hide, that's living in the fear of God.
Nothing to hide. I don't have to worry about where that person is going to laugh or not. You know, when you're, this is really jumping ahead a little bit tomorrow, but I wanna create a contract so you can see the fear of God in the light of the fear of man. Part of my reputation in 9th grade is that I was a good student and I was definitely a reputation that I carefully managed and polished to the best of my ability.
And in 9th grade English class, there was a Friday and apparently the teacher wrote on the board something about a reading quiz on Monday. And I was just, I guess I was talking, I didn't pay attention. I didn't know. Monday came, we had our reading quiz and I thought, oh.
Five points. Five points in virtually, uh.
Spanish in the grave anyway. And so I didn't care. I did the best I could. I got two out of five creatures, created the papers the next day. You know, I don't know if they still do it this way. We got cotton. Teaching is cool not to do it this way, but this is the way they did it. They come to the front. They would sort them into rows, rub papers right, come to the front of the row and hand us back the path to the back and then the next one's back. What do you do? Does that happen to you in past?
Oh, you shouldn't do that.
So pass back and say sitting in front of me is Joe Vasili. And Joe Vasili, I had six, I'm afraid, English with him, eighth grade English with him. And uh, then I was in 9th grade English with him. In 8th grade English, he got umm.
Moved out to another English class.
And uh, so Joe Basili gets the papers, he pulls out his and the next one is even rule apps two out of five written. I would like to be red ink. I didn't get my paper. Joe Vasilli took that piece of paper. Hey, I'm saving this. Look, what do you got? He made sure that everybody in the room knew exactly what I got on the reading quiz and he was talking. He wouldn't hand it to me and he didn't actually, he hung onto that piece of paper. Here's my point. You can't manage your reputation with other people. I didn't care in that particular case.
A lot of other things that matter to you cannot control your reputation. You try to manage it. You can try to massage it. It's not something you were in control of. Talk about. We talk about the fear of man tomorrow, Lord willing, but the fear of God. That's something that is so much more valuable. It's something that brings intimacy. And here's something, there's lots more in this passage. If you want to read it on your own, you can read the 1St, the last few verses, the prior chapter, all of the 12, the 1St 12 of this chapter.
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Umm, just read one little piece for context and the verse one of chapter 12. Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is.
That outward shell of reputation hiding in inward character that God hates.
It's managing that outward shell. God calls them another place. So white is sepulchre, right? It's all painted whitewash. Looks good on the outside. What did you say is on the inside? Inside are.
Ten men's bones doesn't, I'm saying.
But the pilot, that's what he called the Pharisees. And in this passage, the Lord is getting his disciples ready to go out and preach, to speak. And you're going to be among people that are like this. Don't be like that. You're going to be up there in public. Don't be like that. What is inside will come out.
I live in my presence and don't worry about what they say. Here's the fear of God. That's passage already, the verse.
Verse 5 But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear, Fear Him, which after he has killed his power to cast into hell. Yeah, it sends you fear him. And I think you get the full context of it. I'll read verse 6. Two, are not five sparrows sold for too Farthing? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Like the purpose of verse five, talking to the disciples is not to make them tremble, because God can throw you into hell.
The point of the verse is to remind them that this is the one that has all the power that matters.
The next first, he has all the care, the love and the knowledge that matters.
So facility and I were friendly acquaintances before and after. It was very spontaneous person, so I was completely within character to grab something and wave it and yell at the class.
But what he thought didn't really matter in the long run.
Well, he didn't hold a whole lot of knowledge of who I was.
He cared, he was friendly, he was nice. I asked him to him and.
28 years probably.
Hasn't written to me. I don't know where he is. I don't know if he's living, if he's not living.
But God was watching us. Has the hairs on my head counted? I can careless about a detail like that. The point of that is he knows things about us so we don't know about us or even care about us. You know this is fully he loves us fully who are made of fear. Who are we to have that awe of and concern for what they think?
God.
We'll get to a balancing verse at the end. It's not like we say I don't care what people think, I do what I want. That's not the point versus the end just for violence will come to.
But what I want to emphasize is the fear of God is living in the presence of God all day, every day.
And because what we gain here, you can put it a couple different ways, but we gain courage and gain confidence. There's two different ways you could describe it. Disciples were going out where they were going to be Ma titles were going out where they were going to be rejected. Disciples were going out where the message was not going to be popular. The Lord is preparing them, and as he prepares them, he says consider what really matters.
It's what I got think of you, not what they are going to say about you. That's what counts.
What they are?
It's gonna be revealed. It's gonna come out.
If I could ask you to raise your hand, I am going to ask you to think about this. Have you ever been?
Flanders.
Tell me to tell me about you that wasn't true.
And immediately, what's our reaction?
So I want it, OK, We want to make sure that everybody else knows, but that's not true and there may be reasons to bring out truth to the circumstance.
The main point that I wanna make at the moment is this.
True or not true, what they think about us shouldn't be the central point. What they think about God is the central point. That's what should matter at the end of the day. That's what's most important. What do you think about God? How does it make God look? When the Lord was in front of Herod, he had all kinds of things that were said about him that were false. What did he say to defend himself?
00:35:17
How many words did he speak when he was in front of her?
Didn't answer his questions.
Was enough to manage his reputation. He lived in the presence of God.
So we gained into the sea, Abraham, we gained confidence, or we gained courage. If we live in the fear of God, in the presence of others, being encouraged because in one sense we have nothing to lose. We're not managing our reputation. Let's turn to the next one.
In Proverbs, there's two verses we'll read there.
Robert, Chapter 9.
And verse 10.
One of these gentlemen read Proverbs 910 for me.
Thank you.
Here's the Lord at the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding.
OK.
And one more.
In Proverbs 23 and verse 17.
Slow down on here and hear the words of wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge.
Thank you.
Umm.
Prayer, the Lord, is the beginning of wisdom. This may not be the best example of it, but I wanna give you, I'm gonna mention the fact that I'm talking about Abraham.
Here at the Lord, Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It says, I think in the first chapter of this book as well, dear Lord, at the beginning of wisdom.
I want to give a very simple example, maybe not the best one, something that happened a week and a half ago with our family that I think illustrates that.
We were having access 2 weeks ago roughly. We're heading out for family vacation in North Carolina and then going to a wedding. And so before the trip, generally we try to grab track cars, track, something like that on the way out the door. And my wife was something for track. I didn't know it. I had neatly put them in a box over in a corner. I got all painted up a day or two before, you know, getting ready for a trip, make sure everything goes nightly. Leave it so that when you come back, you don't come back to the mask just like you did coming here, right?
I didn't, but not, but I'm trying to learn that. So this is something I was trying to learn and I cleaned up that part of the living room like that could meet me in a box. I put them over in the corner.
And I said something about it while she was busy cooking in the kitchen, but it wasn't the idea of communication. So she came ready to leave. No tracks anywhere. So she thought, well, I want to take something and a stack of gospel CDs by the door where we keep the stuff normally. So she grabbed a little stack of gospel CDs on her way out the door. And I thought.
I mean, take a couple, but.
Take us back.
I mean, those aren't convenient. You can't put them in your pocket. Go to their restaurant, you want to get one or you stop somewhere, you want to see somebody, want to hand them. But.
OK.
We're coming home and, uh, got some Merrillville IN and the sky ahead was a real car. And so it turned on the radio to the weather and the weather said that there was hail at the head that was hailed and there was this guy wasn't green and it was super heavy rain, etcetera. So we thought the report says it should be gone in 1/2 an hour or something like that short period of time. We pulled into, uh, Wendy's.
Parked right in front of the door, ran in and was already dumping green.
And, uh, each pride is on prophecy for half an hour. Let the rain go. Came back out, sat down in the car, turned the key on.
10 Kian, 10 Kiyon, and the thing wouldn't go cool. Umm.
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That's fine stop raining, put the hood up, look underneath, do that next to nothing that I know what to do without under the hood of the car. Get back in and try again Doesn't work well, while I had the hood slipped up, there's a feeder Mustang right next to us and uh, the door is literally bashed in this guy there when they rolled down the older wife next to him because the cowboy hat on he's watching me through the window. I get to give uh, you know, worrying about reputation right? I said at the beginning.
Umm.
These are things you learn your whole life long. I'm sitting in front of the car wondering about my reputation with somebody I've never met about dealing with this car and uh since uh can I help you? I don't know I'm gonna try something here first, but thanks for the offer. I appreciate. I may pick you up on it. That's all that's happened to me. Don't worry about it. So get back try it and all that I got the cables out hooked up to my battery hooked up to his battery and uh. He jumped the car came back over to me and pulled the Gables off his battery.
Current circuit across the battery and so the whole thing.
Go up, got to do it again. We're going to do it again. Start the car's outgoing, but when he's pulling out the jumper cables and putting them on his battery, I noticed in the front and he was from Indiana. They don't have to have front license plates. And it says forgiveness begins with the foot of the cross. Oh, that's wonderful. So when we're all done, I, uh, pulled out a track card. I said, I love what you've got on the front of your car here. I, this is where I work and here comes it for you all. He says, I have a ministry to motorcycle games or ministry of motorcycle riders. And oh, we had a nice, very brief conversation.
May 15th pilot of the car and he pulled out the taxi because you know the one that we grabbed was what do I get now and that's the top that Obama had to a motorcycle game listing off all kinds of things perfect at the top of motorcycle gang that might sack like that. They were rejected BTP by the way because of the printing on the label. The quality inside was great but there's a little fading at the bottom. So I think it's that now exactly what that I had to do with planning out that event.
How much credit was given? Zilch. I thought it was kind of done to bring the sack in one or two, right? I didn't plan it.
And I want to suggest that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You know, I could have sat down before the script and made careful, calculated analysis of the population between here and North Carolina and back, and what kind of demographics and trying to take the exact right. What does that mean?
By the way, the Lord has held them up because of the rain as well. So they arrived at security and.
Fear the Lord.
It's not going to come from inside. It's not going to come from clever planning. It's not going to come because we have, uh, the right vital routine in the morning. If you don't read the word of God with the intimacy of communion that Abraham had there falling on his face and listening with Reverend off to God and something missing from your my daily routine.
The beginning of the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom. There are things that God knows about you and your life and everybody else in it and how it's going to cross and how it's going to connect and exactly what form of shaking he's doing. Just like earlier, it was shaking and shaking and shaking and nothing was coming to the surface and exactly what's going on. This isn't very comfortable. I don't like it. Nothing's happening. Why are you doing that?
Because there's something that he's working on and if we try to rationalize and figure it all out and get the right analysis of the whole thing, we're going to be the losers. I did. It's just a flash through my mind. I didn't say anything or any. I just kind of, that's a little off. Oh well, at least you've got something.
That's my analysis. That's the beginning of wisdom that begins in my heart.
But God has done goes far beyond that, and in the verse we read a second it says, Let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.
You know what we're talking about.
Isn't 6:30 to 7:30 Christianity?
We're not talking about July 2nd through, depending on how long you're staying, maybe July 6th Christianity.
Talking about.
00:45:04
The privilege because his wisdom and his knowledge of everything that's going on in your life is far beyond yours and mine. So what do we gain? We gain intimacy. That was Abraham gained courage. That's what we saw in Luke 12. What do we gain here in Proverbs when we live in the fear of God?
More than one second? Can you check one or two?
But corporate revenue is.
In chapter one I mentioned knowledge and there's another if you want to chatter up to look at it.
You can look at Proverbs 3, verse seven tells you something else that pro the fear of the Lord's death, but we'll cover more of that subject a little in the last one. Turn to Genesis.
Chapter 39.
Genesis chapter 39 and I read the chapter for sure, but I just want to hit a couple of phrases of the.
Just 39 verse one and Joseph was brought down to Egypt in Potiphar, and officer of Pharaoh kept in the guard Egyptian bottom with the hands of the Ishmaelites which had brought him down dessert.
And the Lord was with Joseph.
Yourself in those shoes for a moment.
How many here have siblings?
OK, OK. How many here have at least on one occasion or another, had at least a mild argumental siblings?
How many have had a sibling sell you to a slave trader to send you a different country?
Yeah.
Might have to show of hands because there are parents and children here that show me a hand in your heart. Umm how many here have ever heard or seen or observed a slight at least disagreement or difference of opinion of your parents?
Umm.
You may have had with the parents. I'm not trying to uh, just that you don't. But we all were born with the flesh and it keeps when it comes out, it comes more than the case.
What kind of home does Joseph grow up in?
Many of you have hormones in the house.
All right, good. Umm.
OK, must have been one confused household, right?
Uh, exactly why was Leah?
Rachel and whoops show up the head forgot. Umm and.
Yeah, you'll see my first name.
All right, what's the first name? Zilpah, Leah, Rachel and.
Pardon.
Silhouette, thank you.
So got four in the house and there's reasons for arrival throughout, right? But at least his brothers were a sterling character, right?
And I have to go back a couple chapters to read about his UMM, Simeon and Levi.
Could flip around a little bit and read about Reuben.
All right, let's back to the previous back two chapters and read about.
So here you are, Joseph, and you're arriving and you're standing in a slave market in Egypt.
And there's somebody bidding on you over there, and they buy you and they take you home as their slave. Let's read it again. The next verse says, and the Lord was with.
Chosen.
What did Joseph have that he could point to that proved it?
00:50:02
So did he have to point to? Did somebody else could see that prove that the Lord was with us? Hi Joseph, you grew up in a nice home. Well.
What do your brothers like? Yeah.
So how's your life going? Where do you work? Oh, I'm a slave for Potiphar. He just bought me for X.
And the war with Joseph.
Go down in the chapter just a little bit.
And read umm per seven, can you back up to these things that his pastor's wife cap, I'm sorry, I want to go back one other phrase in verse two. It says and he was a prosperous man. He was a house master and it says in verse.
For six, because that's all that he had in Joseph's hands. Verse 7. And it came to pass after these things, that his master's life cast her eyes upon Joseph. And she said, Lie with me. But he refused said unto his master's life. Behold, my master wadeth not, or doesn't know what is with me in the house. He had committed all that he has to my hand. There is none greater in this house than I. Neither hath He kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art is life. How then can I do this great wickedness?
Ten against God.
What did he have to show for it?
Could he go out and find the beautiful person to marry at that point?
Sir, wait, uh, do we need to burst?
Said that he was.
Umm, and a beautiful face and a beautiful form. I think what that means. He had a beautiful body and a beautiful face.
Go and find the beautiful wife.
This is master Pick somebody for him. I suppose he could have had a while. He couldn't go out and find a wife.
Did he say, well, God gave me some mess of a household, he gave me a mess of a brother, he sold me into Egypt and now at least I can take something I want.
What's his answer?
How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So what did he get for his honesty?
What does he get for?
His behavior in the circumstance.
He asked for God, and what does he get?
If you're standing there, sitting next to Joseph in prison, you're going to hear him complaining, right?
And at least one or two head shaved fingers. Apparently that's what you're about to us, yeah.
It says.
UMM, goes to jail, she lies. There's some very fascinating parts of this chapter. Umm, just as fast in verse 20. He took him and put it to the prison, verse 21. But the Lord was with Joseph in the verse 20, said he was there in the prison, verse 21, but the Lord was with Joseph, showed him mercy and faith. What happened to Joseph's reputation?
Alice with his master. I am amazed when I read this story. There was a providential hand of God back in there and I can't imagine being any tips in those circumstances that he didn't get executed.
Have you heard that story and said why did he get executed?
I sure have a lot of time. The only answer that I have for it is the Lord with those things.
Jordan made a promise to him about something that was still future and it says in the poem that the word of the Lord tried him. You will experience. You have experience, I can say with confidence, situations in your life where what God is doing seems contrary to what makes sense. I did this for him. Here's what I got. Logic says Joseph could have done it in, but Joseph lived in the fear of God and it says the Lord was with him in prison.
00:55:09
And you know, the end of the story, it's almost nice when we know the end of the story. He receives after Nathan's wife, he's going to have children. He's going to be the the ruler over the whole land after Pharaoh. He's going to be restored to his brother and his father is going to be brought back into a beautiful relationship with the Lord at the end of his life. That's going to end up with that kind of happiness. Joseph's going to be mentioned in Hebrews 11. We're going to read about Joseph's call Knights from here forward, right? Not from here forward, but from the day he comes up out of that prison.
You know the end of the story.
Now.
How many of you here are younger than 30?
The vast majority of 130.
You know how old Joseph was when things started to go right? It was like.
You can read it a couple chapters down when I, I think, go Redmond's life, right? Put the commas on there, put the quotation marks on there when everybody else could see that things were happening in the right direction.
Thousand He turned 30.
His grandpa, when he got the answer to his lifetime awaiting, was.
You don't find them normally outside a nursing home, but if there's one, his grandpa was what, 99100 when Isaac was born?
Coming here under 100. Safe, right?
He didn't see the answer to what God was doing in that area of his life. He was 100. So there's not a single person out of here that can say, well, I've got 45 years, I've got 15 years, I've got 11 years, I've got 70 years, I've got 60 years and it's not been finished up yet. My time to take over. We live in the fear of God all the day long and all the life long. And Joseph answers weren't out yet.
But it says the Lord was with Joseph.
Play games there. And the way that he acts in far more than this, but I wrote down games integrity, his integrity by living before God instead of before man, he had an integrity. Eventually the keeper of the prison saw the integrity. Pharaoh saw the integrity. His brother saw the integrity. His father saw the integrity. The entire land of Egypt benefited. The entire living world benefited from it. But at that particular moment, God saw the integrity. At that particular moment in his life, God saw the character.
And Joseph lived in the presence of God, not the presence of man.
Joseph reasons based on what God has said, not what his circumstances dictated. I only know how the story ended. We just don't know where in our life we're going to see it. Maybe the judgment seat of Christ may not be in this life, but let's live in the fear of God all the day long.
All right, Jesus, we did that so each one of us would grow. It would grow in the privilege it is to live before thy eye. We live with a sense that everything is seen and known. Live with a desire to have our life pleasing to thee and not live in the fear of man. So we die and the immor Jesus, Amen. Amen.