Sunday Morning Sermon with Pastor Jeff - Psalm 137

All right, well, we're going to be in Psalms chapter 137, and I think this is really appropriate because we're dealing with some hard times, and we're dealing with some despair, and we see protests start creeping up, and I think this thing's going to be over with a lot sooner and later, and people are speculating, was it an overreaction and all that other stuff.

I don't know, and I don't want to comment on that here. I think maybe a little bit it was, but whatever the case, the reality is, it's not just this situation with this pandemic or this coronavirus.

We all get discouraged. We do. It's just part of life, guys. We get discouraged, not just emotionally, but spiritually.

I'm going through a little bit of that right now. It's just part of life, and the question becomes, like with everything, when you get down and discouraged, what do you do with it?

When you get into that despair mode, when you get into that frustrating mode, what are you going to do with it?

Well, I'm going to give you a little bit of history, okay, for you history nerds, snuffy, you're going to like this.

For some of you others, it's going to be like bah humbug, but let me give you a little history, all right?

Understand how everything in God's plan started, okay? I want you to go all the way back.

Now, most of you who understand scripture or you grew up in church, the

Israelites or the Hebrews, I should say, they weren't Israelites back then, but the

Hebrew people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were in Egypt in captivity, okay?

They were there about 430 years, and God sent

Moses to help deliver them from the bondage of Egyptians. The Israelites or the

Hebrews moved out, and then God started calling them Israelites, the people of God, and they wandered around because they had some disbelief issues.

They wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years, right? But God kept saying, hey, I'm telling you, there's a day coming when you're going to occupy the promised land.

You will do it. I promise you that. So they wandered around 40 years, and then

Moses died, Joshua took over, and the people of God, the 12 tribes of Israel who were descendants of the 12 sons of Israel, of Jacob, moved into that land, and they took over.

And each of those 12 tribes got a piece of the whole promised land. So think of the 12 tribes as 12 states,

Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, I guess Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, so on and so forth.

So these 12 tribes were like 12 little states in the nation of Israel, okay?

Everybody with me? Hey, 1051 BC, they got a king named

Saul, okay? And Saul was taller than everybody, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that's why they elected him, because he promised them hope for the future.

Anyways, so he became king, but he walked away from God. Yes, Paul, Texas is included too.

He walked away from God, and God basically removed him from the throne.

He was killed in battle. And David, King David, you know, the guy with the little sling, you know, that killed

Goliath, he became king, all right? And man, at that point, Israel started dominating.

They became a military powerhouse, and those 12 states, those 12 tribes united under King David became the major power in the

Middle East. Well, David passed away. His son Solomon became king, and the wealth, the economic prosperity of Israel just exploded.

And when that wealth and power kind of went up, the people started relying more on their military, started relying more on the economy, started relying more on everything than on God, see?

And so they started having little squabbles in themselves.

Well, of those 12 states, those 12 tribes, the 10 northern tribes up here were kind of jealous of the two southern tribes, because Judah and Benjamin, the descendants of Judah and Benjamin, these two states down here, this is where Jerusalem was.

And when they went to the temple of Solomon, all they had to do is go bloop, right? And they were right there, right?

But all the other, they had to come all the way down to go to the temple. And to be honest with you, the people of Judah and the people of Benjamin, you know, they thought they were all that in a bag of chips, you know?

They thought they were really something special, right? Well, the next king,

Rehoboam, the 10 northern tribes and the two southern tribes reached a point where they were like, you know what?

Why does everybody from Judah get to be king? We want to have a king up here. We want to have a king, a representative from us, right?

And so a civil war started, and these 10 northern tribes pulled away, made their own capital, made their own king, and God said, hey, this is not my plan.

And in 722 BC, now remember, this isn't a Bible story, okay? Now, y 'all need to listen to this.

This is not a Bible story. This is history that happened. And these 10 northern states, these 10 northern tribes rebelled, and in 722,

God let the Assyrian nation come in and wipe out those 10 tribes.

They were wiped out. And so the only two tribes that were left were Judah and Benjamin down here.

And they were like, see, you mess with us, you mess with God, because we're God's chosen people, right?

I mean, we're southern Baptists, you know? You don't mess with us, man. You don't mess with us, right?

Because we're God's chosen people. And God started saying, hey, guys, don't get so full of yourselves, because if you do wrong,

I'm going to punish you as well. And Judah and Benjamin were like, yeah, whatever. And so a couple hundred years later, in 586

BC, God allowed the Babylonian nation to come in and destroy

Judah and Benjamin. So what once was a united country under God, even though they had a king, they were under God.

They were once the strongest military and the strongest economy in the world. They walked away from God, and God said, it's time for a spanking.

And the people of Judah in 586, man, they were just,

I mean, butchered. And then a lot of them were carried away into slavery. Now, I've told you all of that to bring you to Psalms 137.

Can you see, Psalms 137 is a song of despair.

It's a sad song of despair from one of these peoples who are in Babylon.

And they're sad that their country's gone. And they're sad that they're in their situation, and they're a slave in a foreign land.

Hey, Micah, hey, Bree. And so they make up this song, they write this song.

It's like a really bad country song. They write this song to talk about the sadness, and that's where we are today.

Hey, Rhoda, now I want you to take what I just told you and apply it to the

United States of America. Apply it to the church in America.

Apply it to your family. Apply it to your life, okay?

You may have trusted in, we may have trusted in that we live in the greatest country in the world.

And the United States is, I'm sorry, it's the greatest country in the history of mankind. But my hope and my trust and the peace that I have right now is not based on the fact that I live in the greatest country in the world, it's based that I serve the

King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Because my destiny is secured, the hope that I have is not in the

U .S. economy, okay? It's great if it does good, but either way, one day I'm going home.

One day, no matter what happens, no matter how many times I fail, no matter what happens in this life, one day

I'm going home. This is all going to be over. Guys, I know some of you out there bleed red, white, and blue.

Well, I love America too, but I'm here to tell you the only kingdom that's going to last is the kingdom of God.

That is the only kingdom that's going to last. Everything else is going bye -bye, okay? So all this is temporary.

So let's look and compare Psalms 137 and Psalms 138.

Let's compare the two and look like what should Christians look like during moments of despair?

Psalms 137, it starts out by saying this. Verse 1, by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept.

When we remembered Zion, remember Mount Zion is the hill, one of the hills,

Mount Moriah, Mount Zion is one of the hills in Jerusalem. We remember Mount Zion, we hung up our lyres on the popular trees.

For our captors there asked us for songs, and our tormentors for rejoicing.

Sing us one of the songs of Zion. And so they were mocking them. They were sitting there going, hey, you people believe in God so much, sing us one of your praise songs now.

Why don't you and one of y 'all break out in amazing grace now, you losers? Now let me show you not what the problem was with the world, okay church?

Now listen to me on this. The situation they were in, we want to blame the Democrats.

We want to blame the Republicans. We want to blame guns and drugs. We want to blame all this stuff.

But the reality is, where is our heart? So let's look at this individual, this person of God, and see where they were.

Number one, these people are stuck in the past. Ladies and gentlemen, when you fight despair, you can get stuck in the past.

I know a lady, God bless her little heart, she can't see all the good that's going around her today because she remembers with fondness way back when, when the church was doing

A, B, and C. Oh, it wasn't like that in my day. Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something, brothers and sisters, what was relevant in your day is irrelevant to the people of God today, okay?

It doesn't matter what programs you had 30 years ago. It doesn't matter what you were running in school 30 years ago.

Our best 15 minutes in life is still ahead of us. The best part of our experience with Jesus Christ is still in the future.

No matter how great the praise and worship music is in your church, I promise you it falls very short in comparison with the angelic host in heaven and the saints of God praising him day and night.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

Don't get stuck in the past. Christian, let me tell you something. Don't be one of those people that look at your past, your best five minutes of Christianity.

People tell me all the time, you know, I want to say that I'm saved. I know I'm saved, but I don't have that feeling that I had when

I first was converted to Jesus Christ. Listen, stop looking at the feelings you had five years ago or 30 years ago or three months ago or whatever it is.

Look forward to the promises of God waiting to be fulfilled in your life.

Hey, Pastor Ben. Hey, Miss Louise. Love y 'all. Sorry, I won't get unfocused. It says this, they sat down and wept.

One of the things that I taught my kids is this, and I hope

I'm teaching it to my church family, is you don't have a right to quit.

You don't have a right to quit. There is never a time when you quitting what

God has assigned you to do is ever going to be appropriate, even if it costs you your life.

Once again, Revelation 12, they overcame Satan by the word of God, by the blood of the

Lamb, by the word of the testimony, and they love not their life even unto death. Ladies and gentlemen, these people had suffered a defeat, but what they were lamenting was losing their identity, what they thought was their identity, and they sat down and wept.

Listen, sitting down and weeping, there's nothing wrong with crying.

There really isn't. Some of us are a little bit more passionate than other people.

I personally have never cried. I have excreted testosterone from my eyes on several occasions.

I'm just kidding. But in reality, there's nothing wrong with crying. There's nothing wrong with showing emotion.

The difference is, are you serving your emotion or are you serving your God when you sit down? When you stop doing what you're supposed to be doing, you're going to give up and you're going to quit.

Now look at what the problem was. They sat down and wept. Now listen, look at this next part of this verse.

Now watch. It says, when we remembered Zion, have you ever had someone who a pew or a pulpit or a preacher or a song was more important than the sovereign will of Almighty God?

I had a lady tell me one time, we changed our fellowship hall. The fellowship hall at my church building used to be the sanctuary, but we outgrew it and so moved down into the gym, changed the gym into a sanctuary.

Now the fellowship hall was just not being used, except for a gathering every once in a while.

I put carpet on it and started teaching martial arts in there.

And now we have a Hispanic church in there and we use it for staff meetings and it's used for all sorts of things, okay?

It's a multi -purpose room now. Well, this lady was so offended, she left our congregation because this is what she said.

That is the place my children were baptized. That is the place my children were married.

You see, she thought that the location was the most important thing.

She actually thought that that building and that corner and that was what was holy.

Listen to me. It is not the building. It is not the structures that are committed by these hands.

It's what's in those structures built by the spirit of the living God. They sat down and wept because they remembered

Zion. What they should have been doing is sat down, wept, and repented because they remembered from where they had fallen.

See church, you understand what I'm saying? Stop going back and saying, oh man, the church was so much stronger in the 1950s.

Listen to me. It might have been a good time in the 1950s for the church if you were white.

If you were white, guys, you can't sit there and talk.

You want to know when the best time for the church is? It's not back then, or here, or this year, or that year.

It's when the church is united, on their knees, repenting of their sin, and moving forward with the plan of Almighty God.

Guys, don't get stuck in the past. Don't give up and quit. And then the last thing.

Here it is. Now, here's what some people have actually done. Verse two.

You know, they're getting made fun of, right? They're getting made fun of. Verse two.

We hung up our lyres. Now, some of you, Stanleys and some of you others, are going to get this.

Bring me a small lyre. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't. Sorry, I just had to do that. A lyre was a musical instrument,

L -Y -E -R -S. It was a small, like a little harp or something, you know? I don't know.

I'm not a music guy. But they hung it up.

Christians, come here for a second. Have you repented, fallen again, repented, fallen again, repented, fallen again, repented, fallen again, repented, fallen again, and then finally you were like this?

You know what? At least I won't be a hypocrite, so I'm just going to hang it up. See, there's a difference between sitting down and crying and then just hanging it up.

Some of us out there have flat hung it up. We have just not just sat down for a moment and wept.

We have hung it up. Our Christian experience has been in a steady decline for years.

I've been there. It's not a fun place to be because on the outside, you still got to play the religious game, right?

But on the inside, man, you are dead as dead can be because you've hung it up. Guys, discouragement can bring you to that point.

You sit there and you see your failures and they're so big in your little brain.

They're so big, God can't possibly love you anymore. Your failures are so massive,

God's grace can't cover them anymore, and you so focus on your failures, table of one, you focus so much on your failures, you can't see

God's grace backing you back into the game. God's grace is enough not to cover your sins of the past.

It's to cover your entire sin nature. God did not forgive you of the individual sin.

God has made you righteous and clean to stand before him. He has obliterated the nature, the penalty of the nature of your sin.

And although you may fail and you may quake and you may backslide and you may do all that, in our faithlessness,

God is still faithful. We are never going to have to have a time where we hang it up and quit.

We are never going to have to have a time where the call of God on our life becomes irrelevant because our failures,

God found us in our failures. God redeemed us in our failures. God is sanctifying us in the midst of our failures and God is going to call us home in the midst of our failures.

When we stand before God, it's probably going to be at a time when we were not doing what we were supposed to do, yet God is still going to call us to his side.

Christian, let me give you some hope. Don't quit and hang up.

Don't do it. Repent and be filled with the absolute peace and joy of God that you are doing what you're supposed to do, even in the midst of your failures.

You're not a loser. You're a child of God. Your destiny is not hell or worm bait in the ground.

Your destiny is to be a co -heir, a joint heir with Christ. So when we get to that point and we want to hang it up, what do we do?

Well, Pastor, hey, Diane, hey, Pastor, I identified with some of what you said right there, or more importantly, what the

Word of God said. Now what? Go over one chapter. Let's look at Psalms 138.

Psalms 138. Tennessee folks, help Mississippi folks.

Just one chapter over, guys. One chapter over. I know.

I'm so funny. 138 verse 1 says this.

I will give you thanks with all of my heart. I will sing praise before the heavenly beings.

I will bow down to your holy temple and give thanks to your name. For your constant love and truth, you have exalted your name and your promise above everything else.

On the day I called, you answered. You increased strength within me. Let me just keep reading because this is good.

All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, Lord, when they hear that you have promised. They will sing of the

Lord's ways, for the Lord's glory is great. Though the Lord is exalted, he takes note of the humble, but he knows the haughty from a distance.

If I walk into the thick of danger, you will preserve my life. From the anger of my enemies, you will extend your hand.

Your right hand will save me. The Lord will fulfill his purpose with me, Lord. Your love is eternal.

Do not abandon the works of your hands. I guess the first thing I would have to say is this.

Hey, Cheyenne. Hey, Kendale. How are you doing, son? I'm glad you're back, buddy. I love you,

Kendale. You're a good kid. Or I should say a fine young man nowadays. Guys, you know one of the hardest things to do is to make a decision.

Man, it really is. This morning, some of you may be out there and you're realizing you're where Psalms 137 is, and you're really not getting the fact that it's not going to be at the behest of a preacher or a beautiful song that Bunny sang.

It's going to be at the decision for you to submit. It's amazing.

Absolutely amazing. Watch this. I will give you thanks with all of my heart. I will sing you praise before the heavenly beings.

It says, verse three, on that day I called, you answer me. You know, the first thing you got to do to change your perception of things is you got to make that choice now.

You know how many people I've talked to that says, man, I want to be a Christian. I want to do right, but I know I'm going to fail, so I need to get ready, and I need to get better, and I need to get stronger so that I won't fail when

I make that decision? Come over here for a second, guys. You're going to fail. You are going to mess up.

Wrap your head around this fact, okay? You're going to mess up. Christian, if you are still in that place where you're looking for those infantile feelings of newness and rejoicing when you were first converted, you are looking for feelings to dictate a fact of what

God's Word says, and it's not the feelings that are going to get you through. What you're really looking for is peace, and you're confusing in your brain the difference between peace and feelings, or peace and emotion.

Guys, don't look for emotion and peace. Don't look for those spiritual warm fuzzies. Look for the peace of God that passes all understanding, and the reason it passes all understanding is because no matter what your condition is physically or emotionally, your spirit positionally is still hanging on to the anchor of Jesus Christ.

There is nothing that's going to move you. Paul stuck in a prison said, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again,

I say rejoice. Christian, you are more than a defeated blob of flesh.

You are more than a sinful, pathetic hypocrite. You are a child of the living God with the inheritance of the kingdom of God laying at your feet.

In other words, choose to start believing truth rather than the lies and the guilt that are wearing you out in your heart and mind.

Listen, man, it's hard to do. Man, it's hard to do.

But on that day that you call, whether it be today, whether it be right now, or two days from now, or two years from now, depending on how much scar tissue and baggage you want to have still in your life, if you choose right now,

I can promise you this. God will answer. God will answer. How do I know that?

On the day that I called, you answered me. On the day that I called.

That moment right there. It ain't like calling the government to find out where your stimulus check is. Where my check,

Carrie? Where my check, Rebecca? It ain't that. It's an inside joke in the style.

It ain't trying to find out where your stimulus check is, and you get the IRS, and you're going to be on hold, right?

On the day you called, God is going to answer. Make that decision to start right stinking now.

There's power. Listen to me. There's power in a made -up mind. Hey, Brother David.

Hey, Misty. Hey, Sean. Hey, Sean. There is power in a made -up mind.

There really is. The first thing you're going to do is you're going to sit there and go, well, I want to make this decision, but I'm afraid

I'm going to fail. Don't do but, okay? Just say, I want to make this decision.

I want to do what's right. I want to focus on what God has called me to do.

So there's power in a made -up mind. Decide today that nothing will keep you from experiencing

God's peace. And then look at this. It says this. I will give thanks, verse 1, chapter 138,

I will give you thanks with all of my heart. Man, this is tough.

Man, this is so tough. Hey, Sean Bennett. Hey, Jackie. Hey, Misty.

I don't know if I know Misty. Do I know Misty? I'm sorry. I'm getting distracted. I can't help it. I just love seeing all my people.

Who's that? Kelly? That's my co -worker. Oh, hey, Kelly. How are you doing, Kelly? Yeah, Miss Gwen.

I know she don't work hard for you, but just every once in a while, you know, just get a cattle prod.

She'll move a little bit quicker. It's just the right amount of voltage that gets her motivated. But anyways, give thanks with all of my heart.

There used to be a song that says, give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks.

And I remember one time we were singing that, and I was singing the words that I was listening to the, what's it called, the blending melody.

I was listening to the melody and stuff and I was kind of like, man, this sounds stinky and this is a slow song and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So as I was singing, give thanks with a grateful heart, all I was thinking about was the song, the music.

You know, one of the choices we got to make, I will sing your praises. Guys, I'm going to let you in on a secret, okay?

Now you can't tell anybody this, all right, because this is a secret for just us pastors. But sometimes

I got to choose to worship God because I don't feel like it. I don't.

You know, sometimes during praise and worship, I'm thinking about how lousy my sermon is. I'm thinking about why

Mrs. So -and -so is still a curmudgeon and won't repent. Or I'm thinking about, are we going to be able to keep the lights on around here next week?

You know, was the giving enough? I start thinking about all this stuff, and I know maybe y 'all need to find another pastor.

I'm just being honest. Sometimes even in the midst of singing praises to God corporately,

I'm thinking about something else, right? When it says, I will praise you with all of my heart, it's not saying with my mouth.

It's not saying with my brain. What I need to do is let my spirit, I need to let the

Holy Spirit be in charge of my spirit. Then my spirit under the power of the Holy Spirit will put my brain in check, and then my brain will keep my body in check.

And if those things are lined up just like this, if they're in the right order of how it's supposed to be, right?

Then I'm praising with all of my heart because one's following another, following another, and ultimately following the

Holy Spirit of God. If you are in a praise and worship service in your church, and you're thinking about how horrible the music is, you are not praising

God with all of your heart. Listen, some of the best praise and worship times I have are in my truck.

They are. I'm just being honest. It's when I'm not focused on everything else.

You know how you drive sometimes, and you're driving, and then all of a sudden you look around, and you don't realize that you've been driving 10 minutes, and you don't even remember driving those 10 minutes?

You know what I'm talking about, or am I losing my mind? Jeff, am I losing my mind? You know what I'm talking about? Okay, it happens all the time.

Good. Guys, listen, that's how our brains somehow track, right?

You need to forget about everything else because you're so focused, you're so focused on God.

You know, I'm sitting there sometimes daydreaming about being in the first grade and saving Darla from pirates, you know?

And, you know, you men understand what I'm talking about, you know? You know, the pirates swing in the windows, and you grab

Darla, and she's like, and you're the hero, and you've daydreamed this entire thing when you were a little kid.

It doesn't happen no more. You daydream this, and you don't even remember what's happened in the reality that's sitting around you, right?

Use that with all of your heart. Focus so much on God that it doesn't matter if the piano is off key.

Now, we don't have that problem at Witten because Miss Carla's never off key, but if the piano's off key, if the guitar dude is, you know, some hippie biff with Birkenstock sandals, and he's off tune, or if the music minister can't sing, or the pastor looks ugly, or whatever it is, you are so focused on God that what emanates out of you is a reflection of how you see

God, not your surroundings. Guys, it's easy to get discouraged and depressed, but if you make a decision and make it today, right now, no matter where you are, to eat the praise and worship with all of your heart that you're so focused on Him, you're so focused on Him, here's what's going to happen.

Your focus will get off of you, your failures, your sin, your predicaments, and that will become not the power you're focused on, but the real power that can change who and what you are.

Now watch this. Guys, it says, I will give thanks to your name, now watch this, for your constant love in truth.

Verse two. Did your mama love you?

Did your daddy love you? Did your dog run away? Does no one like you, and everybody hates you, and you're just going to go eat worms?

We've all felt unappreciated. We've all felt rejected. We've all felt abandoned.

But I want to praise God, sometimes not for creating the universe, or being this holy, powerful, omnipotent, sovereign being.

Sometimes I just need to praise God because of His constant love and truth.

One of the ways we fight lies is with truth. It's with truth.

When your mind calls you a big, fat, stupid poo -poo head, God's word calls you more than conquerors.

Guys, we need to come to a place where we realize that no matter how we feel about ourselves, or how we think

God looks at us, like some earthly father, like, Oh, really?

How many times do I got to tell you? The reality is God's constant.

Even in the midst of your failures, His love is constant, and His truth is constant.

It says, I will give thanks to your name, your constant love and truth, and your promise above everything else.

All those who come unto me, I will in no wise cast out, for this is the will of God, and that all which

He has given me, I will lose none, but will raise it on the last day. Now, you may feel that the will of God for you is that He hates you, or that He's abandoned you, or church people,

Me and God are, I can't do it in the camera, but me and God are this far apart. Listen, you and God aren't, if you are a born again child of living

God, you and God aren't this far apart. His love is constant. And how you come to that, you start listening to truth rather than looking at your failures or listening to your feelings.

Man, I praise God this morning, right here, right now. I praise the name of Jesus, that He is constantly faithful and loving to me, even when

I am faithless and without love. Guys, stay focused, make a decision, and stay focused on that fact.

Now, listen to this. It says this, verse four, All the kings of the earth will give you thanks.

Can you imagine the United Nations opening up in prayer? That would, to Yahweh, not to Allah, not to Buddha, not to the atheist

God of science. By the way, science is a religion. Trust me, if you don't believe me, go watch, listen to some scientists.

I love how they always say, we base it on facts, but we're not sure, but we believe. Yeah, belief.

All right, anyways, guys, I want to let you in on something that's really cool.

Here's some hope for you. God is going to win.

It's really even funnier than that. God has already won. It's even funnier than that.

There never really was a fight, okay? Remember back in the 80s, that Carmen song, where it's

Jesus and the devil in the boxing ring, and the devil lands that right hook, and Jesus goes down, and he dies, but then he rises again, and the devil's shrieking, oh no, oh no, it's the

Mr. Bell show. Sorry. Guys, there was no fight. There was no fight.

Listen to me. You know who wrestled the devil? An angel.

You know why? Because he ain't in the weight class of God, okay? You aren't fighting

God. You're not, it's not, he don't even have to step in the ring, okay? This is the same being who created the universe and could drop it into his eyeball and not even blink.

That's how big our God is, and one day, no matter what happens, all the kings of the earth will show homage and humility before almighty

God. He is the king of kings and lord of lords. There is no mistaking it. The reality is

God's already won. We're just waiting for the victory parade. That's all we're waiting on. When you get discouraged and you get in despair, remember this, that God has already won the fight.

Now listen, and this is the last thing and I'll be done, okay? I want you to understand, whether it's in raising children, your

Christian life or whatever, let me give you a hint here, okay? The hint is this, consistency.

Losing weight, like some of you have asked, man, you look good, pastor. What do you weigh, about 180, 190?

I weigh 195. On the right side of me is 195.

But anyways, I know how to lose weight. I would consistently exercise and consistently not eat things that were bad for me, and I'd lose weight, right?

But here's the problem with that. God invented steak and pork chops and mashed taters with the butter and sour cream in them with a bunch of black pepper.

Man, they good, right? That's the reality, okay? The reality is my problem is a lack of consistency.

Parents, with some of your children, the whole one, two, quit doing that.

Be consistent. If it was wrong yesterday, it's wrong today, right? And if it got them too lit yesterday, it don't get them grounded from their iPhone today.

It's consistency. I want you to read with me verse eight.

The Lord will... Notice the emphatic word, cornbread. Oh my gosh.

I just had Vidalia onions with little bits of ham in it with turnip greens and some cornbread with like three inches of butter on it.

Butter's our friend. All right, anyways, look at verse eight. Psalms 138. Look at verse eight.

The Lord... Sorry, mouth's watering. The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.

Lord, your love is eternal. Do not abandon the work of your hands.

Someone put double cut thick. Stop it. Stop it.

All right. Guys, if you want to focus on the facts, focus on the fact of your inconsistency does not change the attributes and character traits of God.

It does not. Guys... Jason Momona is preaching.

I know, I look just like him. I'm gonna be his body stunt double in Aquaman 2.

All right, guys, consistency, one of the greatest things that will bring you peace is knowing that God is consistent even when we're not.

Do you realize the arrogance that we must somehow reach to think that our failures thwart the plans of God?

He is not James Kirk on the Enterprise where all of a sudden he's caught off guard by the

Klingons and he yells out red alert and everybody starts running around a bridge with no jobs to do.

But, you know, on TV land, they're just all running. There's chaos. There's pandemonium. Spock is going and everybody's just going nut.

God's just waiting for his enemies to be his footstool and for his children to come home. And you know what he's waiting for?

His plan exactly in his timing for it to happen because his love is eternal.

His plan is eternal. It's not going to change. It's not going to be pushed to the side.

Nothing's going to catch him off guard, right? It says this. Do not abandon the work of your hands.

Philippians 1 .6 says this. Brother Josiah, six o 'clock on Sunday nights here on this channel or whatever it's called, page, has been going through the book of Philippians.

Philippians 1 .6 says, he that began a good work in you will complete it.

By the way, if you're old and retired and so you're done, you don't work in the nursery anymore, you don't teach

Sunday school because, well, gosh, gee, you're just too old. That's not the plan of God for you. Here's when you're too old, when you're dead.

That's when you're too old, okay? If you draw breath and you're a child of the living God, you need to be going to work.

You need to be working in ministry somewhere at your church, somewhere. And if you can't find a place at your church,

I guarantee there's 800 ,000 other churches out there or ministries or people that need help, okay?

God's work that he began in you, it wasn't till the age of 65. It wasn't till you were feeling better.

It wasn't till you had one of them, oh, Jesus, come home, come home moments. It's going on right now in your life.

I don't care how bad your Christian life is right now. Understand that, that God is working on you right now.

Maybe the scripture right here is the tool that God is using to kind of smack you around a little bit and say, hey,

I'm calling you, get back in the game. Guys, understand this, that no matter how bad things are,

God is never gonna quit working on you. He is going to eventually glorify you through this sanctification process.

You one day will be in glory. Now, I want you to finish with this last thing. It says this, you will fulfill his purpose for me.

Oh, what is God's will for my life? Pastor, I just wanna know what

God's will for my life is. What is God's will? Is it his will to marry little

Mary Jane Kowalski? Is it his will for me to go to UT over UGA?

The answer's yes. What's God's will for my life? And you come to pastors.

I'm gonna let you in on a secret. I can't tell you what God's will is for where do you go to college or who are you to marry, okay?

Sorry, I don't have that much insight. Maybe you need to go check out bennyhen .com or something, but I personally never got that memo on for who you need to marry, okay?

But what I can tell you is this. Here's the will of God for your life. Are you ready? For you love

God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength.

And to love your neighbor as yourself. I guarantee you 100 % that's the will of God for your life.

And when you do that, people say, well, what about witnessing? When you love God and you love each other like you love yourself, that covers it.

What about going to church? See, you're in that mode and mindset of I go to church to get something.

You wanna know the best thing you can ever do for your church is don't go expecting to receive anything.

And that includes a handshake or a God bless you. Go to church to minister to someone else, okay?

Guys, if you wanna get back out of the despair and discouragement and get into where you need to be, find a place to serve.

If you are so focused on your own hurts and your own feelings and your own fears, the best way to deal with that is go wash the feet of someone else.

I promise you, your perspective will change. Guys, it is a great day to be alive in Jesus.

And Jillian, play this back over and help Daniel through the hard parts with like the big words, like and.

For the rest of you, I love you so, so much. Man, I love you so much.

And I cannot wait till we are back together in his family.

But until we're back together, the key of life is simply this, obey father, love him with all of your heart and love each other as you love yourselves.

And in this, you fulfill the entire law of almighty God. May God bless you, may

God keep you and may God give you the peace that you so desire. All you have to simply do is follow his word.