[00:00:00] Well, good morning to each and every one of you so glad that you're here and hey, wherever you are on any of our campuses, we are thinking about you. Good morning and welcome to you. And also on our online what they do is say they kind of inform me of some of the people that are online or on the world. [00:00:15] So Canada, from, all the way from Canada, Arnold, thank you for joining us. And in Illinois Liz, wherever in Illinois, you are thank you for being a part of this. And this is the church and this is how it is. I appreciate those of you who are here. Obviously we're continuing to work our way through a pandemic. [00:00:33] And any of you who are not here, I want to let you know, we would love to see you in person. So next week, we're going to start a series on a, just tell you about it from, I mean, literally from toilet paper to hand sanitizer to disinfectant wipes, this last year has taught us how to run out of stuff and how to, you know, fear shortages. [00:00:54] And it's, it's kind of interesting. We were living in a, in a bit of a [00:01:00] scarcity mindset these days. In fact, people are suggesting that the new norm that might come out of 2020 is that we now have the scarcity mindset. The problem with the scarcity mindset is it breeds fear, and it breeds greed. Fear that you're going to not have enough for you. [00:01:15] And greed means you got to get all, you can get. And the problem with that is if there is a God, which of course we believe there is a God, there's more to be said than just, you know, worry and worry and worry. Next week, we're going to launch into a series. I, again, I'm always excited when we start a new series, but we're going to talk about the fact that there doesn't have to be a scarcity mindset. [00:01:37] That there's actually a way to live with a mindset of more than enough. And so I encourage you, man. Don't miss don't miss next week. And then don't miss any weekend that series. Cause I think it's going to be very, very powerful. But today, well, we're going to do is we're going to finish up a series we've been in for the past month. [00:01:51] It's a series called Priceless and we have talked about different aspects of, of how that is that you and they and many, or, you know, [00:02:00] priceless mentality has been on our mind. It came from a passage, just something Jesus said. And it's from Luke 16:15, and we've wrestled with that. It's a, what people value highly is, is detestable in God's sight. [00:02:15] And we've been talking about this tension between the way God sees things and the way the world sees things. And you come into the crosshairs of that you know, conflict. The way God sees it or not. It's not the way the world sees and the way the world sees it is not the way that God sees it. So in this series, we talked about how valuable you are when it just talked about your, your price of your made in the image of God. [00:02:36] And then we talked about the fact that that just as you are priceless, so is every other human being all right. And that, while we might have a tendency in the world to put people in castes, you know, and, and rank people, that's never the way God does it. We're all created by God. And we all have his image. [00:02:53] And then last week we talked about the unborn, the the, the people that our culture is basically say they have [00:03:00] no value and we just challenged that. All right. And you might be well, who else is there to talk about? Well, we're coming back to us. Okay. Today we're coming back to us. And then what I want to talk about with us is we've got to do something with this. [00:03:13] Okay. And let me explain when we started the series, we, we basically set up this, this conflict that we're all living in and let's go back to when we talked about you. Okay. God says you are incredibly valuable in his image for his purposes. You have, you know, you, you have been given a privilege that other creative beings don't have you get to have a relationship with God. [00:03:36] All right. But the world says that's not true at all. You're just, you're one of 8 billion people almost on the planet. Now your life means nothing per se. There's no purpose to it. You're going to live die and go to nothing. The problem is is that you and I are caught in the middle because. We hear this and we hear this. [00:03:58] And at the end of the day, we have to [00:04:00] decide, you've got to make a commitment as to whose voice are you going to listen to. And that's a dilemma for you. And that's a dilemma for me. You go, why can't I just agree with both? You can't agree with both because those two are like diametrically opposed to one another. [00:04:15] They're not just different. To affirm the one is to deny the other. To be loyal to one is to be disloyal to the other. To honor one is, is to dishonor the other. To promote one is to argue against the other. So we're going to look at that dilemma of having to make a choice as who is going to be [00:04:36] God's values. We align ourselves to. Or is it going to be the world's values. This is very personal to you. Okay. It's very personal to you. You're going to have to decide yourself. I can't decide for you. All right. You got to, you got to sort that out. Now to get us going on this. I want to take us somewhere. [00:04:51] That's going to seem so random. So out of the blue, I want to take us to San Jose, California. All right. We're gonna go on a little field trip here. Okay. So San [00:05:00] Jose, California, there is a house there. It was once the residence of Sarah Winchester. All right. Sarah Winchester was married to William Winchester. [00:05:09] It's called the Winchester mystery house. And if you've never been there or seen it, this is what it looks like. All right. I want to tell you about this house when to tell you the history of it. All right. William Winchester was the guy that founded the Winchester, repeating arms company, Winchester rifles, which was known as the gun that won the West. [00:05:27] He made a fortune big dollars on the invention of the gun that rifle. And he, he and his wife, Sarah were married, but they, they suffered a horrible tragedy. They lost a daughter when she was like six months old to a disease. Not. Not right after, but following that William died. And so Sarah had all of this money and all of this grief and didn't know what to do with it. [00:05:54] They lived in New Haven, Connecticut. And so the, she decided she was going to move to California. She [00:06:00] packed up the car or whatever, and off they go and off she goes. And so she ends up in San Jose, California at Santa Clara area. That Valley and, and she buys a farm house on 160 acres, and then she decides she's going to renovate this house. [00:06:17] And so she starts in on the renovation. Now, let me just explain something. The construction on the renovation began in 1888 and it was not concluded until 1922. 1988 to 1922, almost some say around the clock construction, although that's kind of refuted. But just all those years continuous building. Now, what do you get if you spend that long building a house, let me explain to you some of the dimensions, some of the details of this house. [00:06:46] So if you're looking for a home, here you go. 24,000 square feet, 10,000 windows, 2000 doors, 160 rooms in this house, 40 [00:07:00] of which are bedrooms. There are 40 staircases, 47 fireplaces, six kitchens and 13 bathrooms, which seems a little low, frankly. All right. But here we go. In fact, the numbers 13 is kind of prominent. [00:07:19] You'll see the number 13 in a number of ways in that design, as you'll see stained glass, just kind of all over the place, but it's called the Winchester mystery house for a reason. And it's what it's known for. What is known for is the design that doesn't exist. There is no blueprint that was ever used to build this house. [00:07:40] It was a come as you go, design as you go, think it out and make a decision on the, on the spot. So because of that, it's a senseless design and that's what makes it so intriguing. All right. Let me explain if you were to take a tour, which you can't right now because of COVID, but if you were to take a tour, you would find doors that opened into [00:08:00] walls. [00:08:01] Doors had opened into drop-offs. Okay. Doors that go nowhere, staircases that end in a wall, it's just a staircase to an upper wall. It doesn't go anywhere. It's just goes there. Staircases that take seven turns to go up like seven different angles to go up one flight of stairs, crazy. Windows that overlook other rooms windows that are down by the floor. [00:08:27] The stair risers on these staircases that are of different heights. And so a staircase would have, you know, you, you would have no rhythm. You'd have to be very, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. This house served as the master idea behind the haunted house at Disneyland. Walt Disney use this house to get the idea. [00:08:47] You could say it's a nice place to visit, but you would not want to live there. All right. Now, here's what I want you to think about. How does a house become so disordered? If the [00:09:00] mind of the creator is disordered, the creation will be like, and we know that Sarah's, there's a lot of chaos in her life and this house is reflected. [00:09:10] No. Why am I telling you about the Winchester house? Because it's no, I want you to hold that image in your mind. I want to compare that to the house. God made you when he made you. He put you on a planet in a universe. That is it's an incredible thing. All right, Sir James Jeans, who is a British astronomer, he said this, the universe appears to have been designed by a pure mathematician. [00:09:35] It is incredible in its precision. Again, we can spend a long time on this. Let me not do that, but let me just say this, the slant of the earth, as you know, It's at 23 degrees and that's what gives us our seasons. And so we understand clearly as it's tilted the way it is if it were not tilted the way it was vapors from the oceans would move both North and South and the [00:10:00] continents would pile up in ice, but it doesn't happen because of the precise angle. [00:10:05] The moon you probably know is roughly like 240,000 miles away. I say, roughly, because you might not know this, but the moon is sometimes closer and sometimes farther. It's not a perfect circle. It's kind of got an elliptical orbit. What we know is the moon, as it moves closer and farther affects the tides. [00:10:25] And because it is right where it is, the tides are, they go up and down, but they're, they're not overwhelming. But if, if the moon is like 50,000 miles away, You have no continents, it would be covered in water. It would be go it would recede. It would flood and recede. Okay. It'd be crazy, but it's not because it's the right distance. [00:10:44] If the crust of the earth had been only 10 feet thicker, there would be no oxygen, no life. At the depths of the ocean. Okay. Were 10 feet deeper. This is what they come up with. Carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and no vegetable, no [00:11:00] life. Okay. Nothing. You also might not know this, but I, I, you don't think about this. [00:11:07] Do you feel dizzy right now? You feel like you're. Do you understand that? The earth is orbiting around the sun? Of course, we know that now it's orbiting around the sun. Do you understand that it travels about 600 million miles every year, 600 million miles. We go on around the sun every year. Let me break that down for you. [00:11:30] We are traveling right now through space at 19 miles per second. That's about 68,000 miles an hour. We are traveling right now. You're going no wonder I feel dizzy. We are humming right now. This is a ride unlike anything you've ever been on. The vastness of space is so incredible. They say, if you were to take a dime. [00:11:56] And you were to hold that dime out and close your, close your eye, and look [00:12:00] at the dime and hold it at arms length that behind that dime, if you have the power of your eye to see the distance 15 million stars and planets behind that in various it's astounding. Now, why am I telling you all that? So we talked about the, the Winchester house and the chaos of that. [00:12:20] We talked about the universe and the precision of that. Now, let me take you to the very beginning about when you were created, the house got created for you. So open your Bible to Genesis, which first book in the Bible, Genesis one and two, tell us about the creation. Okay. Very clear. It tells you this way, and then it kind of says it that way. [00:12:39] So in Genesis one and two, you, you kind of get into the mind of God is to, what was he designing when he designed this place for you and why that he design this place the way he designed it? And, and I, I find this absolutely fascinating when he created you'll you'll pick this up very quickly. If you just read [00:13:00] through it, w this was good and this was good, and this was good. [00:13:02] And this was good. And this is good. All right, so let's do this quickly. Let me just walk you through and encourage you. Always, always, always bring a Bible. One of the best things you can do with your life is become friends with the Bible. All right. And when I say become friends with the Bible, get to where you're not threatened by it, where you just, my buddy. [00:13:17] I know my way around. We're friends. We we talk. And so we encourage you to look these up on your own, but if you didn't have having to bring a Bible, it'll come up. But don't become dependent on that read in your own Bible. So you become familiar with it. All right. So here we go. Genesis chapter one verses 26-28 says this, then God said, we've read this before, but now I'm going to read it a little more deeper being. [00:13:41] God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness. So that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over all the livestock and all the wild animals. And over all the creatures that move along the ground, all of creation was created. And then the apex of it was you all right? [00:13:59] Man all [00:14:00] right. There we go. Men and women. So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. God blessed them and said to them, all right, be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish and the sea and the birds of the sky. [00:14:15] And over every living creature that moves on the ground and you are special. You are not just another one of them. You have my very image and you are you, you are to rule. All right, that's cool. You good? Finished that chapter, go down to verse 31 and God saw all that he had made and it was very good. [00:14:35] I, this is awesome. In Genesis chapter two, look at verse 15. And I want to say this often people think that work is a penalty for what happened in the garden of Eden. No work happened before the penalty of the work is a gift from God to have a purpose for your life. So Genesis 2:15, the Lord, God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work [00:15:00] it. [00:15:00] And to take care of it and the Lord, God commanded the man. Now you, you are, this is an awesome, awesome, awesome. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. So to borrow the phrase from the Lego movie, everything is awesome. [00:15:21] Everything is awesome. And God goes okay. But one thing, just one thing. There's one thing you can't get close to. One thing, one tree, one thing, all that other trees. Cool. Not climb them, knock them down and do whatever like knock yourself out. One thing is off limits. What happens when you're told not to do something? [00:15:45] How do you handle it? Isn't that a weird quirk of humanity? Like, and I always say it this way. If there was a closet right here. And I said, Hey guys I'm going to run to the restroom. Hey, while I'm gone, whatever you do, don't open that closet [00:16:00] door on all this, but just telling you not to do something, I've you fixate on it, right? [00:16:05] We do this. Yes. What did you have to tell me if you'd have just ignored it? I'd have ignored it. And now you're pointed out. Now I got to know what's behind the door. What are you hiding? What are you keeping? What are you? You know, whatever. So the, okay, now let's go to chapter three. All right. We're just moving along here. [00:16:28] Chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty. Now we can pause on that. You got to think about what, what, what, what, what does that mean? The serpent was more crafty. All right, then any other wild animals? The Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? [00:16:52] The woman said to the serpent, we may eat from the trees in the garden. We can eat fruit from any of them, but God did say you must not eat [00:17:00] fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it, or you will die. So the serpent who was very crafty, he says, did God really say. [00:17:13] Very crucial forwards. Did God really say? And the woman goes, yes, he did. That's exactly what he said. That's exactly what we heard. And that's exactly what he meant. Did he really say? And then look at verse four of Genesis three, you will not certainly die. The servant said to the woman for God, knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil. [00:17:43] Now something's definitely going to die here. All right. But he's messing with her mind. Now she want to point out a couple of crafty things that he did that you just don't want to miss. Number one directly contradicted what God did [00:18:00] indeed say. Did he really say? Did God really say? Yes. That's exactly what he said. [00:18:07] Okay. Direct contradiction and number two. Creation of doubt in the creation about the heart of the creator. Oh, you know why he said that he said that because he doesn't want you to have something you could have, if you would just do it differently than he told you. In other words, he he's, he's holding out on you. [00:18:29] He's keeping something from you. He's, he's not as good as he comes off as being, and I just need to understand this, I think is how Satan always. Works. You see what Satan's doing here? Undermine credibility of the creator. All right. Now, can God be trusted? Here's the reality. You and I are in the middle of, God's says this, the world says that you and I have to make a decision. [00:18:56] Am I going with God? Or am I going with the world? Am I going to [00:19:00] trust him? Or does he just set rules? Arbitrarily? Does he just make values out of the blue? Is he. [00:19:09] Is there a reason when he says do something, is there a reason why he says that do something or is he just playing it by the hip? Now I want to take you to something Jesus said back in the new Testament in John 10:10, he says something very important. And this is crucial. All right. In John 10:10, Jesus said the thief. [00:19:34] This is a reference to Satan comes only to kill, to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. Now you got to stop here. Okay. Let me translate. Jesus is saying, I am for you. Satan is against you. I want what's best for you. God wants to bless [00:20:00] you. Satan does not want that. [00:20:02] And he's trying to dupe you into believing that he's got your best interest at heart, but he's truly motivated to steal and kill and destroy. I can tell you, God loves you. You're not going to hear Satan does the same. All right. Now, that's what you got to wrestle with. His Jesus's values are directly opposed to Satan's values. [00:20:25] I can't say this anymore clearly. John 8:44. Jesus said of people. Your your father, the devil. He is a liar. He is a deceiver. He has been for all time. He speaks to deception. That's his native tongue. And when you lie, you know, you're like him. You're like your father. So what you need to understand is Satan in being more crafty tells you things that aren't true, but it's very good convincing us that they are true. [00:20:52] He's a master deceiver. He's been on destroy us, but he can't play his hand. He can just cut out. Here's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to destroy [00:21:00] you. Because I, unlike your father who loves you, I'm just want to see you go down. So instead of doing that, obviously he sows doubt and confusion and distrust in the goodness of God as our creator. [00:21:16] Why? Because if you do what God says, you will be blessed by God. If you don't, you won't. And he simply doesn't want to bless you. So he's got to get you to not do what God wants you to do, read a little further in the scripture. You realize it. Something scary is going on here. I mean, literally put your guard up, put your, and get your spidey senses working here. [00:21:38] Okay. Because in second Corinthians 11:14, it says, and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. The demon of darkness knows how to disguise himself as the angel of light, making really good cases for things that God says, don't do that. [00:22:00] And so we start to realize what's at stake here. [00:22:04] How does he masquerade around while he still seeks to convince you? And I'll put four things on the table that God did not mean what he said. That God doesn't have your best interest in mind. That there's a quicker and easier way to live a blessed life. And that disobedience is actually the path to a blessing or to be blessed. [00:22:24] Now this is pretty subtle folks and how's he going to get me to do that? We just got to find that thing. He's got to find that thing in your life that will cause you to trust him more than you would trust your creator. I always go in my mind to two places. When I think to thought the first is to James 1:13-15. [00:22:42] Let me read this to you. All right. And I'll tell you the second place. This first always takes me number the James one first point when tempted. Okay. Because Satan wants to tempt you when tempted. No one should say, God is tempting. Me for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he him to anyone, but each person I'll watch this carefully, but each person [00:23:00] is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. [00:23:06] Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown, gives birth to death. You see the progression, you see the, you see the pattern. So something's got to entice me. And then it's going to run up. It's going to run a course in my life as it, but how's it going to go? It's going to be something that's in my own evil desire. [00:23:31] I'm going to be dragged away by something in my own evil desire. And it's going to entice me now. I can't think about that verse without thinking about fishing. And I'm sorry about this, but I got to tell you, I'm going to just say I wouldn't let a little secret out of the bag here. If you're a good fisherman, you are a good liar straight up from one. [00:23:54] What do you mean? No, no, no, no, no. Listen to me, it's not. And the fish was this big. That's not what I'm talking about. [00:24:00] What I'm talking about is if you're going to be a good fishermen and let's just say a bass fisherman who uses bait, that's not a worm, but you're actually going to take something fake and you're going to give it life. [00:24:16] You're gonna entice with deception. That's what good fishermen do you, you are the better you are at that. The better you are at fishing now. And again, if this is like not the world you live in, let me, let me walk you through this. All right. You have to convince a fish that something that is not real is real. [00:24:37] That's something that is harmful is good. And you have to stay out of sight. Or if you're in any way detected, you have to convince the fish that you're not trying to any harm. That's what it takes to be a good fishermen. And to get this thing done, it takes the don't miss the word. I'm going to say it a certain way. [00:24:56] Just to make the point you use what is called [00:25:00] a lure, a lure, a lure is something artificial. That if you look closely, you'd figure out that's not real and it's got hooks in it. So just right now, let's just picture that I've got a, what's called a jerk Bay because you jerk it through the water. It's it's a long thing. [00:25:18] It looks exactly like a certain kind of fish and it's got three sets of treble hooks hanging off of it. I just want you to picture that in your head. Mine. It is a lure. Okay. What do you use it for now? Don't miss this don't miss this. Don't fail to make you have to catch the eye of the fish. Before you could ever catch the fish, but if you catch the eye of the fish, you could probably catch the fish. [00:25:41] How do you catch the eye? You move it in such a way that something that's not real looks real. That sounds bad for it as good for it. That you're up to good. Not no good. And you convince a fish and it catches the eye. If you catch the eye, you can catch the fish. Here's the question. What catches you your eye? [00:25:56] What catches your eye? [00:26:00] James says we're carried away with our own evil desire. What's your own evil desire. Because I can tell you this about all of us. It's not the same thing for each of us because you know what, when you go fishing that bait, I just described, it works some days, it doesn't work other days, some days, you need a longer one. [00:26:14] Not that long, but the longer one works. And other days a little shorter, one works some days, this color works someday that

Someday, those aren't going to catch anything you have to understand. And this is why fishermen, who fish have all kinds of baits in their boat because that's not working. I'm going to try this. [00:26:27] And so you go to an artificial warm what's that it's an artificial worm. What are you trying to do? Make it look like it? Well, that color is not working today. So try this color. That's that rig, isn't working. Try this rig. I'm telling you as much deception as it takes is what you have to come up with to get the fish to fall. [00:26:47] I'm going to be the great deceiver of fish by the way on the record. But you know what Satan is. He's a great deceiver of people. Cause he comes along with something that's not real makes it look real. That's [00:27:00] not good, but makes it look good. Not in your best interest makes it look like you're going to win. [00:27:06] So what does Satan have to put before you folks? Once you got to put before you and believe me, this is all driving to a point you're not going to miss in just a minute. If you pay attention, that's not working today. How about this one? That colors. And how about this. In second Corinthians 4:4 which I'll read in just a moment. [00:27:23] He's called the god of this age. Do you know that? Satan is called the god of this age in the scriptures. The god of this age is trying his hardest to get you not to follow the God who created the universe. They are not the same entity and they do not have the same motive. So go hide it. I don't want to, I don't want to fall for this. [00:27:43] How do I, how do I avoid? Well, the answer is simple. Listen to God's word. Let God inform you and get your values from God. Not the world. Jesus said this in John 17, I have given them your word and the [00:28:00] world has hated them talking about you. I've given your word and the world hates them. They are not of the world any more than I am of the world. [00:28:12] My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world, sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth. How do you avoid getting captured in this thing? Getting caught, getting snared, getting hooked. You, you become so familiar with the word of God that you're sanctified by it. [00:28:37] You're, you're set. You're set apart. You're you're safe. Now here's what you got to understand folks. And this is why all this matter. We are witnessing a wholesale sellout of confidence in the word of God in our era. It's not the only time it's happened through history and it's not going to be the last time. [00:28:54] If Jesus doesn't return, it's just another time people are abandoning their confidence. [00:29:00] God knows what he's talking about. And he has their best interest in mind and it's not going to, it's not going to come without a price. So we want to disregard everything God says, and we expect a better outcome. [00:29:12] Let me explain something about perfection you were created and you were made the way God wanted you. And you were put in a perfect universe. And when you tamper with perfection, there is nowhere to go, but down and what we are creating in our culture, listen carefully. We're creating our own Winchester house, no design, no forethought, no master plan, no blueprint. [00:29:36] We're just designing it as we go out of the disorder in our own minds. That's our culture. [00:29:46] Now again, unless you wonder, like, what's he talking about? Let me just give you a couple of examples. I'll go quick. Before I give you any of these, I want to remind you of something that's very, very important. People matter most to God, not things okay. [00:30:00] Not thing's not accomplishments. People, people matter most to God. [00:30:05] And so I want to remind you of something. This is very important. You are priceless you are priceless, regardless of whatever Satan has done to you. No matter whatever dumb decisions you've made that you regret, no matter what wrong turns you've made, no matter what muck you've been stuck in, none of that affects your, your value to God. [00:30:30] You're priceless. You're just priceless. Now I need to say that because I'm not, don't miss what I'm about to say. The more, you distance yourself from God's word and make decisions that he would never have you make. Don't miss what I'm about to say, you're going to feel worthless. Oh, you're priceless. You start doing the things God said not to do. [00:30:56] You're going to start to feel worthless. [00:31:00] And what does Satan want you to do? Feel worthless. That's why so important. Let me give you some examples. Okay. So you don't have to get married. Okay. Nobody's making you get married. You don't have to get married, but you know what the word it says. If you get married, you get married for life. [00:31:15] You get married for life. We go oh come on. Ah, no, no. See we say divorce and we've made it so easy to divorce and we multiple marriage, multiple divorce, all of that. You get it. All right. You see, we live in a culture, says you're supposed to be happy and all what? And then we say what God wants for you. [00:31:33] Angel of light disguised. It's actually the angel of darkness is you're supposed to be happy. You're great. As good as your happiness, what God cares most about is you're happy. That's absolutely not true. He cares about your holy, not happy, but we bite on the idea of I'm supposed to be happy. So we're supposed to divorces. [00:31:54] It comes along. All right. God's word is clear. Marriage is the sacred union of a man and [00:32:00] a woman. We go, Oh, come on. How archaic is that? If God created us, we can choose whoever we want to marry. And there's nothing wrong with that. And so just kind of marry can be marriage could be whatever sexes want to marry. [00:32:16] There's no, and we go, that's the way it's going to work. And by the way, we don't even say you have to marry. We just cohabitate now. We just go didn't even you skip all that, man. You ain't got to go through that hassle. Just live together. So we're watching people live together. All right. Scripture sex is to be preserved and reserved between a man and a woman in a bond of marriage. [00:32:39] We go, Oh, come on. We're living in the hookup culture. This is the Tinder age. All right, come on. And Hey, this a woman that I, I work with really hot and it, yeah, don't, we, that is not adultery that she and I have this thing going, it's not adultery. [00:33:00] So what we're doing here. Scripture is very clear. [00:33:05] He made us male and female just made us male and female. He made you. So what you are on the inside is what you are on the outside of what you are on the outside is what you are in the inside. But we live in a culture that says, Oh, come on. No, no, you get to choose your own gender. You get to pick. You, you, you might feel like, but you're not, or you might not. [00:33:27] But, and this is just going down younger and younger and younger and folks, we're throwing our world into confusion. I wish I had an hour to talk about that. Scripture says sex is too again, a man, a woman. And by the way guard your mind because we live in a world that is proliferating, impurity and lust, and we live in the world of pornography and we go, yeah, a little bit, a little bit. [00:33:57] Scripture says life is sacred. We go [00:34:00] no, Nope. Abortion's not what it appears. And Racism's okay. Because we do value people differently. And let me go, is that all you got? No, we can just keep going folks. We can talk about the anger and how we justify our anger, how we justify our gossip, how we lie, how we cheat. [00:34:19] We talk about gluttony. We can talk about selfishness. All we need to understand is Satan seeks to destroy you and something in that list is your biggest vulnerability. There's got to do is catch your eye, catch your eye, and you know how he's going to catch your eye when you are enticed by your own evil desire. [00:34:41] And yours is not mine and mine is not yours. He's got to figure out what falls causes you to fall. And he's gotta figure what causes me to fall. Once he got to throw before you to get you to trust him more than you trust God. So let me finish, let me close. All right. You were made in the image [00:35:00] of God. [00:35:01] You were a one-off creation of a master designer with incredible value. [00:35:09] Satan wants to make you feel worthless and wants to take away all your esteem. All your value is going to do that by trying to get you to a, not believe in God, not trust God. That's what he's going to do. Now, let me show you that verse about him being the God of this age. Watch very carefully. I want to show you something. [00:35:27] Second Corinthians 4:4 the god of this age, talking about satan the god of this age has blinded. Blinded the minds of unbelievers go. Whew. I'm glad he's not talking about me. Listen to me. Listen to me. If you don't trust God's word, you are not a believer in God. You're a believer in a deceptive, something [00:35:58] strong stuff, folks, [00:36:00] powerful stuff. I'm not an unbeliever. I believe in God. You don't trust his word that when he said this is not the way it's to be and you go well. Yeah, but I don't think he didn't know what he was talking. You're an unbeliever. And what, why is he trying to keep you to be an unbeliever so that. [00:36:14] What's he doing? So they cannot see the light of the gospel of the displaced, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. He doesn't want you to discover who you are and what you're all about. He wants to blind you and he's going to do whatever it takes. He's got to get you to trust your creator. He's got to convince you that your creator doesn't have your best interest in mind. [00:36:33] That he's not good. He's not wise. You see what he's doing here. And here's the bottom line guys. You've got to choose. You and me. And honestly, I can't choose for you and you can't choose for me. And I couldn't lie to you and you can lie to me. And none of it's going to matter because God knows, and the integrity of our lives will stand for what we actually believe. [00:36:56] So what happened was the, the, the, the [00:37:00] Israelites were given the promised land and. And they go in and, but to get there, there's all kinds of distractions. There's all kinds of stuff going on. And God's word is really clear. Keep your eyes on me, keep your eyes on me, keep your eyes on me. But that's not what the people did. [00:37:13] They were in Egypt. They got all kinds of stuff going on, either they, and they went in to the land. There was all kinds of stuff going on in the land. They had all these customs and all these stuff. And so the people come into the land and they're looking everywhere. Joshua gets the people together and the end of the book, Joshua chapter 24, he says these words very famously. [00:37:29] And I think they're a great place to land. He said, now fear the Lord and serve him people serve him with all faithfulness. Now throw away the gods, your ancestors worship, beyond the Euphrates river and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day, whom you will serve, what are the gods, your ancestors beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. [00:37:56] But as for me and my house, we're going to [00:38:00] serve the Lord. And he puts it out there and he goes, I'll tell you where I am. I'm going to serve God. And I'm going to trust Him. I'm going to align my life to him and his values folks. God, isn't going to make you follow him. He's not, he's not going to come along. [00:38:17] He's not going to stop you from doing anything you want to do. You have the freedom to do it. It's called free will. Volition. What I just need you to understand is you were made perfect. You were priceless. And you start disobeying God and what'll happen is you're going to start to feel worthless if whatever it is that you are enticed by was good for you. [00:38:41] God, would say do it .And we forget what's at stake. So last thought this would be the big idea. Every choice that takes you away from God is a choice for something less. [00:38:57] You're so valuable to God. You're so [00:39:00] priceless. Don't let Satan convince you you are worthless. Day by day we make choices and the consequences to those choices. Let me pray. So father in my life, I've made some bad choices and I trust that every one of us do. And sometimes I'm enticed by the absolute wrong thing, caught my eye and never should of. [00:39:22] And God I don't want that to be the pattern of my life when I'm going somewhere and doing something or whatever, I shouldn't be doing. God, I pray that you would just really quickly open my eyes to what's actually going on. I'm being duped and I'm being, I'm being fished. So God, I I pray for every one of us, everyone in this room with me, everyone is on any of these campuses and God, anyone who's online. [00:39:52] God, I pray for every one of us. Show us. What's actually give us a glimpse because we don't want to create a spiritual Winchester house. [00:40:00] And that's just total chaos. And a perfect design was given to us. God, teach us your design, teach us to follow, teach us to trust. I pray for us in this in Jesus name. [00:40:14] Amen. Thank you guys very much.