Duck the Drift // Psalm 1

Join us as we kick off summer in Psalm 1!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you guys so much.
It's good to see y'all Welcomeback.
I know we were only gone forone week, but it's good to get
the summer started.
Well, I remember playingfootball in high school and how
many of y'all play sports.
How many of y'all are instrength and conditioning right
now?
Decent amount.
So if you play sports, in youropinion, like what's the hardest
part of the season?

(00:21):
You can answer Off season Okay.
What's the hardest part of likeseason?
You can answer Off-season Okay.
What's the hardest part of likethe actual season?
Conditioning Specifically for meit was the first week of
two-a-days.
Right, we would always go outon the field and you know it
wasn't like anythingspecifically terrible about that
week, like we weren't in padsyet, for whatever reason, the

(00:44):
volleyball coach at our schoolwas a psychopath, so she was
like running those girls todeath Like all the football
players, just like praise God,we're not them because they,
like that volleyball coach stillscares me to this day.
But the hardest part was thatweek, and not because it was
like this crazy week.
I mean we would haveconditioning and everything, but
without a doubt there wouldalways be like five, but without
a doubt there would always belike five to ten kids just like
up chucking in a trash can, like20 minutes in every single time

(01:07):
.
And why was?
Because of the summer?
Because what did most of thoseguys spend the entire summer
doing, colin?
What did you spend the summerdoing?
When you played football?
Exactly, eating 4,000 caloriesa day, playing video games,
staying inside.
That was me right.

(01:29):
And so then, when coach tellsme to go put on a helmet and
strap it on and go sprint fromthat end of the field to that
end of the field five times, itdoesn't really sit well right.
And the thing was, what Ithought was a normal summer
routine was actually setting meup to fail.
Why am I telling you this?
Well, because summer isofficially here and many of you
guys, many of us, are in thesame mindset that summer is just
kind of like a break right,that what I do this summer
doesn't really matter.

(01:50):
The things I give my time, myenergy, my attention to, it's no
big deal.
I'll just pick up with whateverI want to do in the school year
.
But the reality is the next twomonths are actually going to do
a lot to shape you, and I'm notjust talking about the physical
, whether or not you're going tothrow up at two-a-days.
That might happen anyways,right, colin?
Yeah, amen.
So what I'm talking about isalso the spiritual right.

(02:12):
So a lot of us what the summerlooks like, unfortunately, is
like the first month and a halfkind of just like skating by,
maybe you know, living off somestructure from the school year,
kind of getting in the word,kind of doing good, kind of not,
and then you kind of hit theskids like right before camp,
and then you go to camp andcamp's amazing, right, you have
a crying night.
Everybody's boohooing, huggingeach other like it's the best

(02:33):
thing ever, and then,unfortunately, like a week and a
half max later it's back tonormal.
And the thing is, summerdoesn't have to be that way.
You do not have to have thisspiritual drop-off, like God is
not present in the universeduring the summer.
But then the question is, howdo we avoid that Right?
If I were to ask you what wouldit take for you to be closer to

(02:55):
Jesus at the end of July thanyou are now?
What would that look like?
And that's actually what we'regoing to see tonight as we look
in Psalm chapter one.
So if you have your Bible, youcan go ahead and flip it open to
Psalm.
It's the very first one and alittle bit of background on this
Psalm.
For a long time, this Psalm wasactually treated as the
introduction to the book ofPsalms Like.

(03:16):
This was the intro to the wholething.
It was telling you how to readthe Psalms, it was telling you
how to understand them, and soyou'll notice some of that in
here as to why it covers theground that it does so.
Psalm chapter one should beabout in the middle of your

(03:38):
Bible.
We're going to read verse one.
It says the Lord, and on hislaw he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted bystreams of water that yields
fruit in its season and its leafdoes not wither.
And all that he does, heprospers.
The wicked are not so, but arelike chaff that the wind drives
away.
Therefore, the wicked will notstand in the judgment, nor
sinners in the congregation ofthe righteous, for the Lord

(04:01):
knows the way of the righteous,but the way of the wicked will
perish.
Let's pray, lord.
God, we thank you for your wordtonight.
We pray that you would justhelp us to be honest with you
tonight, lord, that in thismoment, as we come before your
word, that there would be nomask that we have on before you.
We're not trying to hideanything from you, god, but we
would just come to your feet andlay it all out and say, jesus,

(04:23):
this is what I have.
God, would you remove what youwould remove, and would you
encourage me or convict me orshape me or direct me in the way
that you would?
God, because we want your willfor our lives more than we want
our own will.
And so, lord, I know that canbe scary, but would you give us
the courage to just have thatposture of heart towards you
tonight, to feel that way.
We love you, we praise you,praise things in Jesus'.

(04:44):
Name.
Everybody said amen.
So how this passage works is itactually starts with a negative
example, right, it's reallytrying to tackle the question
that we asked earlier of whatdoes it look like to grow close
to God, like, how do you do that?
And it starts with hey, don'tdo X, y, z.
In fact, it says blessed is theman who doesn't.

(05:04):
And then it gives three things.
And one thing you have to sayand for those of you who were
there this past spring, we wentover the Sermon on the Mount.
That word blessed does notnecessarily mean blessed with
money.
That word blessed does notnecessarily mean blessed with
happiness or status.
We think of blessings in thatway and sometimes that is what
blessing means, but the Hebrewword that's being used here is

(05:28):
actually more like this psalmistthis author is writing this is
the type of person that's livingthe good life.
This type of people have thegood life.
It's what we talked about inthe Beatitudes.
That's why the Beatitudes, weread it and we say, well,
blessed is the poor, blessed arethose who mourn, like that
doesn't sound like they'reblessed.
Well, it's not talking aboutmaterial blessings, right, it's
talking about this is the personwho has it good?

(05:50):
And then he gives the negativeexamples.
He says who does not walk inthe counsel of the wicked, who
does not stand in the way ofsinners and who does not sit in
the seat of scoffers.
Do y'all notice thatprogression Walk, seed of
scoffers?
Do y'all notice thatprogression Walk, stand, sit.
It's slowing down, right?
And so at some level I thinkthe author is trying to get this

(06:11):
point that, hey, if this is thenegative example, if this is
what it looks like to drift awayfrom God, right, what happens
to many of us over the summer.
It's a process and it startsslowly.
It starts with just walking andthen you kind of slow down and
then you take a seat, likethat's the imagery here.
But again, the main emphasis ofthis is not just on that, but
think about what it's saying.

(06:32):
It says walk in the counsel ofthe wicked.
Does anybody know what the wordcounsel means?
You can shout it out.
It's a small group.
It's like advice, right?
So this would be like thoughts.
These would be taking badadvice, sinful thoughts.
This would be like at the mindlevel, of what you think about.
And then the next line says doesnot stand in the way of sinners

(06:58):
.
We taught about this a coupleweeks back.
We said that there's two waysin life, and when we talk about
way, what we're really talkingabout is behavior, actions.
And so it starts with sinfulthoughts and then it moves to
choosing sinful behavior, thingsthat are opposite from what God
calls us to do.
And then, finally, it says donot sit in the seat of scoffers.
And this is talking a littlebit about like belonging, like

(07:19):
where you find your identity,like to sit with people or sit
in the seat of someone is toidentify with them.
And, at another level, this iswho you hang around.
This is community.
And so you see how this driftstarts.
It starts with what you think.
It begins in the mind.
You think about something, andnot just like a thought pops
into your head because you guysknow we can't always control our
thoughts Like things will popinto your mind and you didn't

(07:42):
put it there.
It could be random, it could befrom something you saw on TV
last night, or it could be fromthe enemy, but what we can
control is whether we feed thosethoughts or not.
And so when you start to feed athought, you feed that thought
long enough and it turns into anaction.
You start to actually act onthat thing, right?
So if I feel angry and I feedthat anger, what action is that

(08:05):
going to lead to?
I'm going to yell at someone,I'm going to be mad, I'm going
to give somebody the coldshoulder, right?
So the action then leads toalmost an identity or a
lifestyle and you start to hangaround those type of people,
right?
So let's use that anger example.
You feed anger in your life andyou start to act angry.
You start to pop off at thatTaco Bell employee because they

(08:25):
didn't get your crunch wrap justright, which in reality it's
never right, it's Taco Bell.
Like set your bar lower right,but you get mad at that waiter
or whatever right.
So you start to choose sinfulbehavior.
But then do you notice likeangry people tend to find each
other.
Like have y'all ever seen that?
Like people who tend to have alot of complaints or negativity
in their lives tend to kind ofgroup together because that's

(08:47):
how it works.
And so what am I trying to saywith all this?
What is the point that I'mtrying to make?
The point is that drifting fromGod does not start with some
huge, life-altering mistake.
Like nobody wakes up one dayand is like, hey, I think I'm
going to go murder someone today.
Or hey, you know what soundsfun Alcoholism, I think I'm
gonna become an alcoholic justbecause that seems like a blast.

(09:07):
No, it starts small.
It starts with a thought andthat thought turns into an
action and that action thenturns into a pattern of action
which eventually shapes you into a person.
And so if we're talking abouthow to not drift, it would be
pay attention to what you payattention to, because that's
where it starts.
One time one of my favoritepastors told this story, and I

(09:30):
don't know if this story forsure happened.
I've heard it from a fewdifferent people, so I'm
assuming at some point ithappened.
I just don't know who came upwith it.
But the story is that he's thispastor.
He's working in this big megachurch in Dallas and some guy
comes in for counseling and heknew this guy.
But this guy had recentlycheated on his wife and so, as
normally happens, his lifeexploded.
His family couldn't stand him,didn't wanna be around him,

(09:52):
everything is in shambles.
And so this pastor asks thisguy hey, man, where did it go
wrong?
And this guy answers he goesman, I really think it started
with the Dr Pepper.
What in the world does thatmean?
How does Dr Pepper cause you tocheat on your spouse?
He said well, here's the thing.
A long time ago at work, I wouldgo to this fridge and I would

(10:15):
open it up and somebody broughta bunch of Dr Peppers and set
them in there and I thought youknow, it's no big deal, I'm just
going to take one, nobody'sgoing to miss it, it's just one.
And so he decided to take thatDr Pepper, and then the next day
he took another one, andanother one, and another one,
and soon it became a habit and apattern where he really didn't
feel that bad about it.
But then, after that, that onecompromise started to bleed into

(10:39):
other compromises in his life.
You know, no longer is itstealing a soda, but it might be
telling a little bit of a whitelie, it's, you know, no big
deal started to turn into ahabit, and that habit started to
shape how he thought aboutright and wrong, and so he
started to stay late at work.
He started to talk more with acoworker, he started giving her
information and sharing thingswith her that shouldn't have

(11:00):
been for her, should have beenfor his wife.
And little by little, that linejust moved a little further, a
little further, a little further, until one day he looked up and
he had blown his whole life upbecause he decided to cheat on
his spouse.
And the reality is, the truth isthat it didn't start with this
affair.
It started with a thought thatled to a behavior, that led to
an identity shift.
And here's the thing.

(11:26):
That's an extreme example.
I'm not saying that, like yousteal a soda and you are
guaranteed to cheat on yourspouse one day.
But the point is, it alwaysstarts somewhere small, right?
An addiction to lust does notbegin, or some of these horrible
crimes that you see, don'tbegin with just deciding to do
something terrible.
It begins with an internethabit or an anger problem to
where you lash out againstpeople.
Does not begin with youdeciding to punch someone in the

(11:46):
face.
It begins with you deciding tohold anger in your heart towards
one of them.
And so, you see, it startssmall, and we all have these
stories in our minds that webelieve about things.
We have stories for our money,for our relationships, for our
sports, for our band.
What do I mean by that?
Well, it's what you believethat exists for in your life.
So an example is if you believethat your relationship's

(12:11):
purpose is to make you happy,that's going to lead you to
think a lot about takingadvantage of somebody else for
your own benefit, and that'sgoing to create a behavior where
you don't respect boundariesand that'll shape you into a
person who uses and abusesothers.
Right Again, it starts in themind what you dwell on and that
will eventually work itself outinto who you become.

(12:31):
And so you have to ask yourselftonight what might be the thing
that you're compromising on whatmight be your Dr Pepper for
lack of a better term, right?
Is it little white lies thatyou're compromising on what
might be your Dr Pepper for lackof a better term, right?
Is it a little white lies thatyou tell your mom and dad Is it
the time that you spendlingering just a little bit
longer on a certain kind ofTikTok or a reel, just a few
more seconds each time?
Is it the kind of music thatyou listen to?

(12:52):
Is it the kind of people thatyou hang around?
The shows that you watch onNetflix, the games that you play
?
Here's the thing.
I'm not trying to fill you withshame, but I'm trying to
lovingly tell you.
The best thing you can do is todrag that into the light and
get rid of it.
Tell someone, confess it,because it's happening.
Just step into reality.
Quit pretending like it's not.
Let someone know so that youcan get help and so that you can

(13:15):
turn away from that.
That's what the word repentmeans.
When we say hey, confess andrepent, it literally means a
change of direction.
That means I'm heading towardsthis direction, right, I'm
heading towards anger.
I'm heading towards lust.
I'm heading towards comparison,I'm heading towards self-hate.
I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna turnaround, I'm gonna go towards
Jesus and that's the mostimportant thing you can do.
Sit here tonight and you say,hey, I've got all this stuff in

(13:36):
my life, that I'm starting tocompromise and that snowball is
starting to go downhill and it'sstarting to pick up speed and
it's starting to get bigger.
Man, stop it now.
It doesn't get any easier thanin this moment, because, whether
you realize it or not, thosecompromises are taking you
somewhere.
But that's the negative example,right?
The real point is not just whatnot to do to avoid drifting,
but what to do.
How do you actually grow closerto God If we're saying, hey,

(13:59):
this summer, that's the goal.
It's one thing to say, don't dosomething, but that sometimes
makes it harder to not do, right?
Like if I tell you hey guys,everybody, real quick, don't
think of a yellow school bus.
What did all of you just doThink of a yellow school bus?
Right?
Because the more you try not todo something, sometimes it
makes it harder.
So you have to replace it withsomething else.
And that's exactly what theauthor of Psalms is going to get

(14:20):
at here in verse two.
Verse two says but his delightis in the law of the Lord and on
his law he meditates day andnight.
So remember he's still talkingabout who's blessed.
So basically this could readblessed is the one whose delight
is in the law of the Lord andon his law he meditates day and
night.
So this is the positive exampledelight in the law of the Lord.
Well, the law of the worldsorry, lots of L's the law of

(14:48):
the Lord is scripture right.
For them it would have been theTorah, it would have been the
Old Testament.
For us it's all of scriptureright.
And so what he's saying here isthat if what you think will
shape what you do and who youbecome, then you need to set
your mind on the one thing withthe power to actually shape you
into who you want to be, andthat's God.
And primarily, that's gonnalook like setting your mind on
God's word, because we believethat the Bible is God's

(15:10):
revelation of himself to us, notonly the revelation of himself,
but the revelation of his planto save us from our sin.
And it's all in God's word andit's good for teaching, rebuke,
correction, and it is allsufficient.
This is what we need to beshaped into the image of God.
But here's the thing it's morethan just getting a bunch of
information about God.

(15:32):
Notice that this doesn't say,hey, read your Bible or read the
law.
It says delight in it.
It says meditate on it day andnight, because growing close to
God is more than just getting abunch of information about him.
There are a lot of people inchurch on Sunday morning who
know all the answers, who have alot of theological knowledge,

(15:52):
who just know a lot, but they'renot even saved Because, at the
end of the day, informationalone has never produced
transformation.
It's the power of the Holy.
Information alone has neverproduced transformation.
Right, it's the power of theHoly Spirit, and you not only
have to have knowledge about God, but you have to have a way to
actually get that in to who youare.
It's kind of like Kobe Bryant,right.
Rest in peace, kobe.
You've probably heard thestories about him and his late

(16:14):
night practices, right, or earlymorning practices 4 am, the
mamba mentality.
But what a lot of people whowere really close to him would
say is that what made him sogreat was not necessarily his
practice on the court, but wasthat he practiced more in his
head than anywhere else, becausehe one time said in an
interview that he wouldvisualize the game, not just
during practice but like all day, and he would imagine how

(16:37):
defenders would guard him, howthe ball would feel as he shot
it, what type of move he wouldput on somebody as they came up
to guard him.
If he was in a car, he wasrunning through scenarios in his
head.
If he was sitting in a meeting,he was picturing footwork and
different plays and things.
Even before he fell asleep hewould run through like the
entire game in his mind.
It's visualization.
We've seen this from a lot ofathletes, right Like.

(16:58):
You've probably seen Aidendoing his like kick-step thing
or Colin deciding to pass rushTyler on a Wednesday night.
But this visualization piece isso important for so many of
them because what makes you goodat a sport is not just knowing
about it but getting thatinformation into your body so
that you can actually do it andlive it out.

(17:19):
And in the same way, if you wantto grow close to God this
summer, you need more than justsome information about him.
You need to set your mind andyour heart on him, which again
begs the question how Like?
That's a really churchy term,like if I were to tell you right
now hey, go set your heart onGod, leave, be blessed.
That wouldn't be helpful toanybody, right?
But the hard thing is there'sno like one size fits all

(17:39):
approach to what it means to setyour mind on God.
A lot of it is kind of figuringout what works best for you.
For some people it could beprayer.
One thing that's been helpfulfor me is this concept of breath
prayers, and what it is is youget a short line of scripture
and when you pray through it youmatch it up with your breathing
, and it sounds a lot morecomplicated than it is.

(18:00):
But for me, one thing I praybefore I step on stage.
As I inhale, I pray to God, notwith words of wisdom, so I take
a deep breath not with words ofwisdom and I exhale, but
through the power of your spirit.
That's short, it's simple, butit has a way of not just
engaging with God with your mind, but also your body and your
breathing, and it has a way ofjust getting that into you and

(18:20):
you can carry that with youthroughout the day.
Some people like to pray throughthe Psalms and what it looks
like to pray through scriptureis, instead of me reading it
like a book, I'm going to readit and I'm going to pray it back
to God, right?
So if I read Philippians 4, 6through 7, do not be anxious
about anything.
Lord, would you help me to notbe anxious about anything but,
with prayer and petition,present your requests to God.
Lord, help me to have thecourage to give my requests to

(18:43):
you, and the peace whichtranscends all understanding
will guard your hearts and mindsin Christ Jesus.
Lord, help me to feel thatpeace, because I'm anxious,
right?
And so you're actually prayingthrough it.
It's more than just reading itlike a book and, guys, sometimes
it's just inviting God intoevery situation in your life,
right?
What would God want you to doat strength and conditioning?
How would Jesus want you to act?

(19:03):
It's the old, everybody's heardit.
What would Jesus do?
But what, in this situation,are you able to use to make God
known to the people around you,right?
Could it be being nice to thatwaiter who was really rude to
you when you were trying to getthe table, or could it be just
doing what that coach says whenyou know he's in a bad mood and
chewing everybody out.
But I'm going to listen, I'mgoing to do my job.

(19:23):
Like what could it be that Godcould be calling and pulling you
to do in that moment?
And honestly, it's hard to kindof explain, but a lot of it is
just practicing.
What I've heard some people sayis like being in two places at
once, and so at one level, I'mdoing my homework, I'm studying,
I'm practicing volleyball orI'm filling out college stuff or

(19:45):
I'm mowing a lawn.
But at another level, I'mhaving an ongoing conversation
with God.
So, even though I'm herephysically, I'm constantly
diverting my mind and my heartback to the reality that the God
of the universe wants me totalk with him in my heart, back
to the reality that the God ofthe universe wants me to talk
with him.
The God of the universe wantsto know me and I know that there
are some of you in this roomwho that's incredibly helpful,

(20:06):
like you're the creative type,you're the artistic type, that's
how your brain ticks, great.
There's another section of youwho you're the math types and I
just spattered a bunch ofnonsense for like 10 minutes and
it's like none of that'shelpful.
That's okay.
It is difficult, it is messy.
There's going to be days whereyou feel like you've just been
walking with the Lord yourentire day.
And there's going to be dayswhere you get to 9 pm and you're

(20:27):
about to lay your head down andyou realize I haven't thought
about God once today.
That's all right, keep comingback.
That's the practice of it.
Nobody's perfect at somethingnew.
They do the first day.
Practice of it.
Nobody's perfect at somethingnew.
They do the first day.
You just constantly when I feelmyself getting distracted.
It's the same thing in prayer.
If I'm praying and I start toget distracted, all I'm going to
do is my eyes start to wander.
I'm just going to say no, bringthem back to God, or whatever.

(20:48):
I'm distracted in right.
If I'm trying to pray and allof a sudden I get distracted
about my homework and this testthat I have coming up, all right
, well, let's pray about thistest, like, let's bring God into
that.
And so it's a lot less blackand white than we like to paint
it, but it's more of how do youjust bring God into every aspect
of your life, because eventhough it's hard, it's going to
be worth it.
And that's where the psalm endsand where we're going to end

(21:10):
tonight.
Verse three says that person islike a tree planted by streams
of water, which yields its fruitin season.
The person who delights in thelaw of the Lord and whose leaf
does not wither Whatever they do, prospers.
The wicked are not so, but arelike a shaft that drives the
wind away.
Therefore, the wicked will notstand in the judgment, nor
sinners in the congregation ofthe righteous, for the Lord

(21:31):
knows the way of the righteous,but the way of the wicked will
perish.
And so the author compares theend result of these two
different ways the way of thewicked, right, the way of the
sinful, the drifting from God,and the way of the righteous,
the drawing near to God.
And the righteous are like atree that's planted by a stream
of water and you're like.
That makes no sense, right?

(21:51):
How am I a tree?
The idea here is that you wouldbe connected to a source of life
.
What do plants need to thrive?
We all learned this in likesecond grade.
What are the three things theyneed?
Water, sun and dirt, or soil,if you want to sound fancy,
right, perfect.
So the idea of a tree beingplanted by a river means that
it's always got that source oflife right.

(22:11):
It's got constant access towater, it's not reliant on rain,
it's got a stream that's, in mymind, spring-fed, so it never
runs dry.
And so when it says that thatperson is going to be like a
tree planted by a stream ofwater, that means you have a
source of life that can't betaken from you.
And here's the reality.
Whether we realize it or not,we are all looking to something
in our lives to be a source oflife.
It might be a boy, it might bea girl, it might be football, it

(22:41):
might be football, it might bepeople's approval, it might be
our grades, and the thing is allof that stuff is temporary.
I'm not saying it's a bad thingto want to be good at, but I'm
saying it makes a really badsource of life because it can be
taken away.
You can fail the test, you canlose that relationship, you can
miss the team, and when thathappens, all of a sudden you're
sent into panic mode becauseyour source of life is gone and

(23:01):
it's going to make you to neveractually be able to enjoy that
thing anyways, because you'retrying to get something from it
Exploit or desperation.
When you're desperate, italways leads you to just
striving and trying to usepeople for your own gain.
But it's saying no, if youdelight yourself, if you set
your mind on God, you will havea source of life, because God's
not going anywhere and it saysthat it's leaf will never wither

(23:22):
.
That's not saying that thingswon't get hard, but that is
saying because, like the seasonschange, right, leaves fall off
of trees.
But that's saying that evenwhen the seasons do change, even
when things do get hard, youhave a hope, knowing that you
have a God who knows you deeplyand loves you and cares for you
and that will use evil, hard,wicked things that are
guaranteed to happen in thislife for good and he can redeem

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them.
And at the end of time, everytear will be wiped and every sad
thing will be made untrue andwe can rest in that hope.
But on the other, in thenegative example, it's all just
temporary, it's fleeting, it'shere and then it's gone, it
doesn't last.
And example it's all justtemporary, it's fleeting, it's
here and then it's gone, itdoesn't last.
And so the offer here, guys, isat the end of this summer.

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If you were to look the next twomonths, not saying that.
If you set your mind on God,everything is going to turn out
okay.
Not saying that if you set yourmind on God, everything you
want to happen is going tohappen.
But I am saying, if you setyour heart and mind on the Lord,
on his word, by the end of thesummer you will be rooted in
something that's deeper thanfootball or a guy or grades.

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You'll have a hope and a future.
And here's the reality, guys,that the point is you've got a
lot of time and you can choosehow to use it, but setting your
mind on God first and foremostis setting your mind on the
gospel, the truth that God madethis world and everything in it,
that we are not perfect, thatwe don't have eternal life in

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and of ourselves, that we've allscrewed up, we've all made
mistakes and God is just and hepunishes evil, and we want that
right.
We want the bad guy to face theconsequences at the end of the
movie.
But what happens when we're thebad guy and scripture says that
all have sinned and fallenshort of the glory of God?
Yet God didn't want us to beseparated from him?
Because the wages of sin aredeath.
What you get paid for choosingsin is death, because you're

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choosing to separate yourselffrom the source of life, from
God.
But God loved us, so he senthis son Jesus to live a perfect
life, die on the cross for oursins.
It wasn't an accident.
He chose to walk into Jerusalemand let people nail him to a
tree so that he could suffocateto death on the side of the road
.
Why?
Because he loved you and onthat cross he became your sin,

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so that when God poured hiswrath onto Jesus, it was as if
your lust, your greed, yourlying, your comparison was being
paid for and punished.
So when the enemy later, if youplace your faith in Jesus later
on, you're like oh, but thinkof all the bad things you've
done.
You know you couldn't really beforgiven.
Like you have no idea, like allthe junk you've done.
No, no, no, god does.
He looked it in the face and hesaid I'm going to pay for it,

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every single bit of it, and yourworth and your value are no
longer tied to performance orearning or trying to earn God's
approval.
Because there was nothing youcould do in the first place.
He freely gave it so that ifyou would place your faith in
him, believe in your heart andconfess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord, you would besaved.
And that is the truth that, nomatter how far away you get away

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from placing your faith inJesus and deciding to be a
Christian, you can never forgetEvery day we talked about this
earlier this week, me and somepeople on the staff is every
single day.
We need to preach the gospel toourselves.
When you look in the mirror andhate the person that you see,
you need to preach to yourself.
I placed my faith in Jesus andI am an adopted child of the

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King and he loves me.
When you look around and youthink, man, everybody else has
it together, like they've gottheir life together.
They know what they're doing.
I don't have any plan, youremind yourself no, god has
given me an inheritance, he'sgiven me gifts, he's given me
talents and he's going to use menot for my own glory, but for
his glory.
When you feel like you're toofar gone, when you screw up the

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same thing that you've beenscrewing up over and, over and
over again and you've sworn off15 times that same thought
pattern comes back that you'vetried to shove so many times.
You're getting sick of it.
You remind yourself that sin,that stronghold was paid for
with the blood of Jesus and I'mfree, and even if I've got to
learn how to walk in thatfreedom, that freedom is still
available.
You never graduate from thegospel.

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So what does it mean to setyour heart and mind on Jesus?
It's to return to the fact thatwe're broken sinners, that we
can't clean ourselves up, thatwe can't do it all on our own
and we desperately need a savior.
But God made a way, the God ofthe universe, put on flesh, came
down, died for our sins, sothat we can be healed, we can be

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made whole, that we can bechosen, adopted into a family,
redeemed.
And there's a group of you inhere tonight who that all sounds
great, but you haven't madethat decision to embrace all of
that yet.
And if that's you, we're notgoing to do small groups or
anything.
So there's perfect time to comeand have a conversation with me
or one of the leaders.
But all of that is available toyou.

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But you first have to take thestep.
Some of you might've grown upin church, you might've grown up
with a Christian family, youmight've grown up around it.
I said this on Sunday look, ifthat's you and you're not sure
about all this, keep coming back.
We're glad that you're here,but eventually you have to make
a decision.
Maybe always defaults to no,maybe never magically turns into

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a yes, and so at some point youhave to put that first foot
forward and says I want tobelieve in my heart and confess
with my mouth that Jesus is Lord, and then you get access to all
of those things I just talkedabout for the past 10 minutes.
And if you have questions,great.
God is not scared of yourquestions and he's not scared of
your honesty.
But if you do have questions,actually try to seek answers,

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make a plan, list them out.
This is what I wanna know.
This is how I'm gonna try tofind it, because I promise you
there's answers, but you have tolook for them.
And so I'm about to pray andwe're gonna wrap this thing up,
and we've got a lot of fun stuffthis summer.
Guys, it's gonna be an amazingsummer.
I'm really excited about whatGod's going to do, but my
challenge to you is don't drift,don't be spiritually lazy, not

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because you're trying to earnGod's love or favor or approval,
but because he wants what'sbest for you.
He wants to just bring you intomore of who he is and he wants
you to flourish.
And sometimes that doesn't looklike what we want it to look
like, but it's always for ourbest because he's a good king
and so let's talk about it.
If you need help with what thatlooks like, find a leader, find

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me, and it's a process.
It's not you're not gonna leavehere all of a sudden, perfect
for the rest of the summer, butkeep coming back and if you're
struggling we thank you so muchfor tonight and the opportunity
to meet here, to gather together, to worship you, to get to read
from your word and Lord, I justpray that as we leave here, god

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, you would do what only you cando, that you would encourage us
, you would convict us, youwould shape us, and, God, that
we would just be mindful of whatwe're thinking, what we put
into our hearts and our minds,and what we listen to and what
we do, and that we would submitall of that to things that are
gonna bring us closer to you,that we would set our hearts and
our minds in you.
That we would invite you intoevery area of our life.

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And if there's nobody, ifthere's anybody here tonight who
has not invited you into theirhall.
Lord, that they would make thatdecision as soon as possible.
God, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for the blood ofJesus.
We thank you that you came downand made a way.
Praise things in the name ofJesus, amen.