Skip to content Escaping Envy - Summer of Psalms, Part 5 Jul 31 · 59 min ...more
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Support this leader
Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Give
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
156K followers
Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
156K followers
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
0:39 Good morning. Good morning, Waters Church, North Attleboro. Happy end of July. Can you believe it? July is over and0:51 and the year is 1 month closer to ending than it is to beginning. Isn't it amazing how quick the time goes? I don't know. It seems like every time I get a little1:03 bit older, it seems like the time goes faster, doesn't it? Yes, I kind of enjoy that though. It's good to see the time move quickly and especially move quickly to 9 am on Sunday morning1:14 at Waters Church. I'm happy to be here. I hope you are too. Good to be with you. We wanna say welcome to everybody who's watching online at all of our locations as well. We wanna1:26 say hello to Woonsocket, hello to Apollo Beach, hello to South Coast coming soon. Then also, there's another couple. Oh yes, Norwood and Guatemala and everybody here. Welcome everybody there and everybody there. Welcome1:37 us into you. We're all 1 church. And we've got a connect event at all of our locations today after second service here, after the1:49 services at all the other locations. The connect event is an opportunity for you to connect and find your place where you can serve at Wanders Church. How can you get involved in church? Because it's 1 thing to be a1:59 spectator, but it's a great thing to be a participator. And all the serve team members said Yes. Amen. We we want you to see God use you.2:11 Now, you might not know this, but Waters Church is pregnant. We are pregnant with another baby. Amen. No, not my wife and I. Praise god. No.2:23 But our church is pregnant. We're about to give birth. We are in the third trimester of launching Waters Church South Coast. Amen? The2:36 gestation has been happening. The guy who was just up here on the stage before me in this location, North Admiral, Mehdi Chululi and his wife, April, are gonna go down there and and start that church on September2:48 eleventh officially. September eleventh. By the way, in Apollo Beach, September eleventh, 2 services up here in North Attleboro, September tenth, Saturday night comes2:59 back. Lots of great things, momentum building for what's coming up, but we need you. We need all of you. So if you're not participating yet3:11 at any of our locations, we want you to go to the connect event after the last service of whatever location you're at. Now, if you're at a first service like this, well, here's my suggestion. Go out, treat yourself to a3:23 fantastic lunch at Dunkin' Donuts and come on back after second service. Okay. So, summer of Psalms, week 5 and I want to talk to3:34 you about something that we all deal with but we don't want to we don't want to talk about it that much. We're going to talk about a 4 letter word. All the bad things are 4 letters. You ever notice that?3:46 This 1 is spelled e n v y. What's that spell? Envy. I wanna talk to you about escaping envy. If you've got a Bible and you should3:58 and you should have a Bible in the church for heaven's sakes, open your Bibles to Psalm 73. If you don't have a Bible, envy 1.4:12 If you've got a smartphone, you can go to the Bible on your smartphone. Go to watershurch. Guide and click on today's message for today's notes. You can fill in the blank there. Or if you're in house at all of our4:24 locations, it looks like this, and we want you to fill in the blanks and follow along with us. 2 sides today. I'm freshly back from vacation. And then, yeah, it's good to be with you. I haven't preached for 3 weeks.4:36 Bad news for you. I got so much to say and you're not gonna get out of here. Okay? Psalm 73. Let's stand together for the reading of God's word.4:47 This is a psalm that is near and dear to my heart because I have read this psalm to myself on many occasions when I have felt the sting and the pinch of the poisonous spirit of envy. Here's what it4:59 says. Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure at heart. But as for me but as for me, he says, my feet almost stumbled. My steps nearly5:11 slipped. For I was, and if you have a Bible, what's the next word? Envious. Envious. I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of5:23 the wicked. How many of you hate it when the bad guy gets blessed? Yeah. I I I hate that. So does this guy here in Psalm5:34 73. He says, they have no pains until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore,5:46 pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff. They speak with5:58 malice. Loffately, they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues strut through the earth. Therefore, his people turn back to them and find no fault in6:09 them. And they say, how can god know? Is there knowledge in the most high? Behold, these are the wicked. Always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain, I have kept my heart6:21 clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long, I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.6:33 But when I thought about how to understand all this, it seemed wearisome to me. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end.6:46 Truly, you set them on a slippery slope. You make them fall to ruin. How they are doomed in a moment swept away utterly by terrors. Like a dream when 1 of the awakens. Oh lord, you rouse yourself to despise6:58 him as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, somebody say7:10 nevertheless. Has anybody ever acted like an animal toward god? That's what he just said there. I was a brute beast toward you, god. Nevertheless, next line,7:21 I am continually with you. You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel. And afterward, you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven7:33 besides you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For7:45 behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you, but for me, it is good to be near God. I have7:57 made the Lord my refuge that I may tell of all your works. This is God's word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, speak to us. We open our8:09 hearts and our minds and our eyes to you right now. We ask, Lord, that there will be a transformational work taking place in all of us. Help us to hear you. Help us to receive what you have to say.8:21 Most importantly, father, as we pray, help us to see Jesus. Him and him only. In his mighty name we pray and everybody said, amen. God bless you. Have a seat. Envy, E N V Y. Does8:33 anybody like me to struggle a little bit with envy? I remember, I'm old enough to remember when Instagram was just a photo filtering app. Now, it is a heart8:45 wrenching, life sucking, envy producing spirit. You ever do that? Get on Instagram to find out what other people are doing and in 5 minutes, you're8:57 like, my life's that's what it's about. That's what it's really become. That's what social media is. And I I don't know if you're like me, but I I9:09 I I struggle with this sin in particular. If if you ever have gone out to eat with me, my wife, this is what she hates most about going out to eat with me. I am never satisfied with9:21 where we sit, and I am never satisfied with what I eat. And I will walk into the restaurant, and the person will lead me to the wrong table. They always get it wrong the first9:32 time. I wanna be in the back corner, and I wanna sit in the booth. Anybody with me? Booth people? I think we should ban chairs at restaurants. Booths and9:44 booths only. Booths from floor to ceiling. Amen. And just double stack them. We'll sit on top of the lower booth. Right? Like bunk booth. That's what we'll do. It will bunk bunk booth it up and and I like to be in the9:55 corner and I like to be able to face the rest of the restaurant that that's me and so when I see them leading to me to a table, I always just tap. I said, woah, woah, hey, can we go to that booth over there? And I was10:05 like, well, that person just got set. I don't care. Just sit me again. That's fine. And so I always struggle with that. I always sit at the wrong table, so I always move us. And then I do10:17 this little thing where before I eat, I get up and I take this long meandering trip to the bathroom. And I'm walking through the tables. You will see me in a restaurant doing this on occasion, just10:29 looking at people's food items and just saying, whose looks the best here? That's what I do. And then I go and I find a restaurant worker and I say, what's this over here? I wanna eat that.10:41 And then I go back over to my booth and I say, okay, want what that person over there has. That's what I would like. And no matter what happens, my wife, she has this incredible ability to order something I would never10:51 order, and it's always better than what I ordered. And so I always end up switching food with her when she's not looking. And then I always eat whatever she didn't eat, and that's how I get my little love handles. These11:02 are Cheryl's fault right here, okay? So, that's my life. Envy can really wreck your life and and I've lived in, now, this is also true about me and I'm going to be real honest here because I think you guys got the wrong11:14 perception of pastors. Like pastors don't struggle with sin. They never struggle with, you know, the spirit of the age. They never get caught up in in nonsense. That's not true. Some of the best sinners I know11:26 are pastors. Exhibit A right here. And that's why I'm in church today because I need Jesus. Anybody with me on that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why we're here. We're not11:38 here because we're finished. We're here because we need work. And so, you know, I I I've lived in 4 my wife and I and our children have lived in 4 houses in the last 24 months. 4 houses.11:50 And I take my dogs for a walk. I tell you this all time, but this is where a lot of my sermon illustrations come from. But I take my dogs for a walk every morning. And in every house, I've taken walks from the house12:00 around the neighborhood. And every house we've moved to has been upgraded from the previous house. That's God's blessing. Praise God for that. Like like Asaph says, surely God is good. But you know when I walk my dogs12:12 past my neighborhood houses, I start to look at what their houses look like. And I start to get a little envious. And I say, oh goodness, look at them. They have a fifth bedroom. Oh goodness, look at them. Look at12:23 their yard. Look at their maintenance. Look at their car. Look at, oh, look where their lot is. How did they get that lot? I want that lot. And before I know what a what should be a life12:35 giving experience, getting a walk early in the morning becomes a soul sucking experience because here is the thing, we're not immune to the spirit of envy. It's always comparing our lives to12:47 someone else and there's always someone with an that's gonna make you What do you mean What do you mean? There's always someone with a big12:59 house, fast car, high salary, hot wife. Right? There's always gonna be someone with, not in my case. Not in my case, but13:11 for some of you. Okay? Reclaim that time for a moment there. And I was just you know, there's always someone with an and it makes you like wine with god. And13:22 this is what envy does. Envy will suck the life out of you. What is envy? Write this down. Number 1, 2 things. Envy is wanting someone else's life. And envy is resenting our life13:34 because of someone else's life. That's what Asaph does here in Psalm 73. And I love Asaph. This is a psalm you'll see there in your Bibles, in your paper Bibles. It says a psalm13:46 of Asaph, which means that this is not a psalm of David. David wrote a lot of them. He wrote about half the Psalms. But a lot of the other Psalms, some of them come from Moses and several of them come from Asaph. And13:58 we'll talk about who Asaph is later. The only thing you need to know about Asaph is that Asaph was a spiritual leader. He was paid to minister to god's people in the ancient temple of14:10 Israel. He had my job. He had my job and I thank god for Asaph's honesty because Asaph is like, you know, god is good but14:21 sometimes, sometimes, I really don't understand why he blesses the people on this Earth that he should not bless. That's every every I think we've all felt that right. We've all been there.14:33 I don't like when god blesses the wrong people and that's what Psalm is about. Psalm 73 is about written up by Ababa by Asaph and and and here he is this worship leader and he's supposed to14:45 tell everybody how good god is and and all he's thinking about right now in this moment is sometimes I don't think he's all that right great because there's people in life that keep getting away with sin and14:57 keep getting blessed and I see them on and it's poor Asaph. He didn't have a TV but I have a TV And I see them on television, and I see them getting blessed and getting positions and getting prosperous. And I think this15:07 is not fair. That's not how life should work. Is anybody with me so far? Thank God for Psalm 73. Firstly, because Asaph is15:19 honest. You know, you need some honest preachers in your life. You need honest Christians in your life. A pretentious faker is no help.15:31 In fact, some of you left the church and you came back to Waters Church. You came back to our church and a lot of you say this, you know the thing I like most about you pastor is that you're jacked up just15:43 like me. And I was like, yeah, amen. And I'm free to admit it because the human condition is a human condition and just getting saved does not wash you or absolve you of all the temptations around you. But15:55 I thank God for Asaph's honesty to tell us that there was a season in which he almost slipped, he almost lost faith, he almost gave up because he saw how good God was to people who16:07 didn't deserve it. But there's a subtle little reminder there to us, isn't there? You know, there's 2 kinds of grace? 2 kinds of grace in the Bible.16:19 There's common grace and then there's saving grace. Common grace is when god is good to the unrighteous. Jesus said that god is good to the unrighteous and the16:31 righteous. He's good to the ungrateful and the thankful. He makes the sun to rise every morning, and the sun rose for the guy you don't like,16:43 didn't it? Wouldn't it be nice if you could just like assign a little dark cloud over some people? Just be like, just don't shine on that guy. I don't like him. Wouldn't it be wonderful? But god makes the sun rise and16:54 the rain to fall on all peop it's called common common grace and it's a picture not of we deserve it. It's a picture of how good god is. See, when we see god being good17:06 to people who don't deserve it, it should be a subtle reminder that god is good to us because we don't deserve it. Hello? Anybody earn their blessings? We don't earn. We count.17:18 Amen? It's the song's not earn your blessings, earn them 1 by 1. The song is count your blessings. Name them 1 by 1, right? We17:30 don't earn anything and so common grace is for everybody. That means that the the chief leader of North Korea wakes up sometimes and the sun is beautiful to him And I17:41 hate that. But it's God's common grace. And then there's saving grace. Saving grace is the grace that God gives to your heart to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, to remember that you are a sinner, and that you are only17:52 acceptable to God by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. He's the only 1 who earned and deserved all of God's goodness. And He surrendered His goodness on the cross so that you could have it freely by grace through18:03 faith in Him. And the great exchange of the cross gives you what Christ had so that god after Christ took what you deserved. That's the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen. That's what the Bible's all about.18:15 And so let me ask you this question. Can you earn saving grace? So you can't earn common grace? Because it's not about you, it's about God. When we see God blessing someone else,18:27 it's a symbol that God blesses people who don't deserve it. Do you know why God blesses people who don't deserve it? Because those are the only kind of people he can find. Just turn to your neighbor and say, you don't18:37 deserve it. There you go. Amen. You deserve something. I'm gonna tell you about it. It's Sunday. I'm gonna be nice. Amen. Okay? 4 effects18:49 of envy. Number 1, envy sucks. The the fun out of life. Envy sucks the fun out of life. It really does. What should be a nice experience becomes an19:01 envious experience. What should be a fine walk in the morning becomes an envious walk for me And maybe for you, a brief stroll through social media suddenly becomes a soul sucking experience. The writer Joseph Epstein,19:12 he works for The Wall Street Journal, he writes a book called Envy. He wrote the book on envy. And he says, of all the 7 deadly sins, envy is the least fun of all.19:24 Says this. He says, giving into sloth and laziness is rather pleasant. Giving into the loss of temper, losing one's temper, entails a certain release that's not without19:36 its small delights. Lust, greed, pride can bring quite a bit of pleasure for quite a long time. But only envy is no19:47 fun at all. Isn't that true? Number 2, envy severs all kinds of relationships. Wars have been19:59 fought over envy. Friendships have been severed. Marriages have ended. Brothers are no longer20:10 talking to brothers because of envy. It suffers it it makes you an isolated figure whereby you measure the reality of your life by everyone else around you.20:22 Everyone else is a competition now. No 1 is your brother. No 1 is your friend because everybody is out for themselves in your opinion and you think it's your job to 1 up your neighbor. Keeping up with the Joneses is a20:33 theme of American life. And what it does is it separates us from our we never get to know them. We just measure our life against them. It severs the relationship. There are millionaires who despise20:44 billionaires. Can you think about that? There are some people who have millions of dollars, and they despise billions of people. Billions of dollars people. There are people who have 100 employees that can't stand people20:55 who have 200 employees. There are people with 500 Instagram followers who hate people with 600 Instagram followers. There are people who can't like other people. They do this on purpose. I won't like21:06 their post because they have more followers and likes than my post. Are we children? Yes. We are. We're all little kids now. That's what's happened. And depression and21:18 envy is all real and depression and anxiety is largely tied to our social media addiction to measure our lives against other people. Number 3, envy sickens us. A21:30 whole host of research is coming out now of what's really causing our depression. And I love the fact and and the deep end comes back on Tuesday night. The deep end is back on Tuesday night. Woah. Got some deep enders.21:42 Okay. Yeah. We're gonna talk about this. They just released a report. The the the the lie that has been foisted upon this country. Oh, I'm so excited to tell you this because it turns out that I was right all along.21:53 Your depression drugs are a joke. They're a joke. You don't have a chemical imbalance. They just found this out. We should22:05 have known this from the Bible because it's not about some chemicals that's in your body. It's about what you do with your life. The joy of the lord is my strength. We don't22:17 pop pills. We praise the prince of peace. Hallelujah and that is coming Tuesday night. Oh, if you're offended, just log on and get more offended. Amen?22:28 But they are finding out that a lot of our depression is rooted in envy. Who would have thought? Who would have thought that22:40 sin affects our physical life? God. God would have thought that. God has been trying to tell us that for thousands of years.22:53 Blessed are you if you do the words of this book, the scripture says. Jesus says, now that you know these things, you're going to be blessed. The word blessed is in Greek. It means happy. You're going to be23:05 happy if you do them. You're only happy if you do what God wants you to do. I need to say that again because there is no amens. You're only happy if you do what God wants you23:17 to do. The reason why some of you are so stinking depressed all the time is because you're doing what everybody else wants you to do. Or you're doing what your spirit inside wants you to do. You're doing what the flesh23:26 wants you to do. You're doing what the devil wants you to do and they don't have your best interest in heart in heart. You've got to follow Jesus Christ and put your eyes on him and trust that he knows what's best for23:37 you. Get out of this nuts and get out of this spirit of the age. Oh, I feel like I've gotta unwrap the spirit of the age from you every time we gather together on Sunday morning because it's so pervasive. It's so23:48 unending. It's so nonsensical that he sucks the life out of you and it's time to ingest and invest the spirit of Christ in you. Remember that he is with you. He is for you and if god is for24:00 me, who could be against me? Oh, I will go through some sadness. I will go through some times of trouble. I will go through some times of sorrow. Sorrow may last for a night but joy is24:11 coming in the morning. Every morning, his mercies are new. Oh, I'm ready to preach. Envy sickens us.24:23 Psalm 73 16, when I thought how to understand this, it seemed wearisome. I was burdened by it. Proverbs 14 30, envy makes the bones rot.24:35 Sickness. Number 4, envy suffocates our faith. There are people who won't come to church on Sunday because they work too hard all week24:47 and they need a day to themselves. But why do they do that? Why do they work endlessly? Because they are so tied up in envy.25:00 I wanna prove myself to my community. I wanna prove myself to the neighborhood. I wanna prove myself to myself. So I work and I work and I work I work and Sunday comes and instead of having a time with25:12 God, I just give a time with Pastor Pillow and Sister Sheets. Sucks your faith right now.25:25 This is why Jesus said, don't worry about what you're gonna eat, what you're gonna wear, because the Lord knows how to clothe the grass of the field, the birds of the air. He knows how to clothe it with glory. And if he25:33 knows how to clothe grass, he knows how to clothe you. Why? What are you worried about? Don't let don't don't let envy seep in here, cause you to work yourself to death. Psalm25:45 73 2 says this, I almost stopped believing in the New Century Version. I love honesty. I almost gave up faith25:58 because I looked at proud people and how they're doing so well and I thought this just isn't how it should be. So that's the problem of envy.26:10 And I know I'm talking to everyone here, you struggle with it because it's the human condition. What do we do? How do we solve this problem? Thanks thanks for depressing me,26:22 pastor. How do we solve it? Well, that's that's what the scripture is really there for. But what I want you to understand about the Psalms is that the Psalms are different26:34 from all the other passages of scripture because the Psalms are words that God has given us to say to him. See, the Psalms are different from the rest of26:46 scripture. The rest of scripture is god's word to us. God speaking to us but the Psalms are our words to god and that's what you need to do. When26:58 you don't know what to pray or say to God. Open up to a Psalm. There's 150 of them. You have plenty of opportunities and read it back to God. That's what they're there27:09 for. Do you know why they're there? So that you know how to work your issues out with him. Before you talk to the counselor, the therapist, the sister, the brother, the mother, whatever it is.27:22 Before you go on Facebook and post something that's innuendo to somebody else. Work it out with God. Tell god how you feel. That's why there are several different Psalms. Some Psalms are Psalms of praise where we just27:33 focus on how good god is but some Psalms are Psalms of lament where we tell god how sucky life is and and then there are Psalms of wisdom where we start to think and, meditate27:45 on things that are bigger than just the narrow focus of our lives. Then there are Psalms I love these. They're called imprecatory psalms. Imprecatory. They're actually cursing27:57 psalms. There are Psalms that are written by God's people in the ancient world where they just cursed everything in their life. See, I got28:09 nothing against cursing. But if you're gonna curse, curse with Christian cursing. Amen? And that's in the Bible. Psalm 1 37 is a great example. Don't turn there now. But it's28:20 there's imprecatory. So I work I just I just need to tell somebody how terrible everything. Like that's imprecatory psalms. And and so this psalm is kind of an imprecatory psalm because this guy28:32 is just against the wicked. But what he's doing is he's working it out with god. You guys gotta do this. I'm telling you. You can't28:44 be pompous with god. You can't put on a face with god. You can't act like god doesn't wanna talk to you because he already knows what's wrong with you. There's somebody like, oh, I sinned so28:56 much. I can't possibly talk to him. He already knows. He's watching you all the time and so you can talk to him where you are at with what's going on29:08 in your heart and you can be real with God. So 4 questions, self examination for envy. I'm the doctor, you're the patient.29:22 Okay, so number 1 question. Why am I watching? This is a great question. Why are you watching them or29:34 that? Now, Psalm 73 verse 1, truly God is good to Israel. And this is like the Psalm kinda tricks you because it sounds like he's about to just do29:46 praise. Truly God is good. God is good all the time. God is good. The very next verse says, but wait, as for me,29:58 I wanted to stop believing. I wanted to give up. I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. So right there we're supposed to see something. Envy sneaks up on this guy30:09 as he's starting to praise God. And I think we need to talk about who he is now. Asaph was a spiritual30:21 leader of Israel in the ancient world. He was assigned by David to lead God's people in praise every day.30:33 That was his job. He worked in the temple. He didn't have to dig holes or plant gardens or harvest because he worked. He was a Levite. So he worked at a table. The people brought food to the temple. He30:45 ate the food and all day long his job was to just tell people how good god is. Here's what it says in first Corinth first Chronicles 16. It says, David left30:57 Asaph and his brothers there before the ark of the covenant of the lord to minister regularly as each day required. That was his job and then not only did Asaph have the job to be the worship leader like if you went to31:08 the church in the ancient world, if you went to the temple on Sunday, you would see Asaph with a mic in his hand and he'd be singing the songs and leading the people in worship. That's who he was And he was paid to do31:18 that every single day. But that was just part of his job. Look what it says in verse 2 of first Chronicles 25. Asaph who prophesied under the direction of the king. This is31:29 David's personal prophet. This is like the spiritual adviser to the president. This guy had 1 of the most important31:41 responsibilities in life. He had a job that other people would have envied. He had a spiritual job. He got to love god and get paid for it.31:53 How many of you would love that job? I have that job. I love my job. I get to love god and get paid for it but I'm still just like Asaph and what happened was, I think what happened was32:06 that Asaph stopped focusing on what he was called to do and started obsessing over what everybody else's life was doing.32:19 So the question is why are you watching them? And every Christian should ask themselves that when the spirit of envy starts to bubble up inside their hearts, why are you watching?32:32 What about their lives are so important that you need to focus on them? Some of you need to remember your job description. You've32:44 got a calling in Christ Jesus. You are the children of the most high god. You are followers of Jesus Christ.32:56 Amen. You are the church. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are sons and daughters, royal priesthood. You are peculiar people. You33:08 are strange to this world but you are known to your father in heaven and someday, he's coming back for you. Isn't that good?33:20 Why are you obsessed then about what's going on with other people? Maybe you have despised your calling a little bit. Maybe that's where some of you are.33:33 You have forgotten what a privilege it is to be chosen by God because you look at the world and you get caught up in all of its nonsense. First Peter 2 4, as you come to him a living stone rejected33:45 by men. Well, maybe that's part of it. We're just rejected and I don't like feeling strange to the world and I don't like feeling like an outside rejected by men but in the sight of god, chosen and precious.33:57 That's who I am. That's who you are. In verse 2 he in verse 9 he says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. That you, that you,34:09 job description, here it is, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. I don't know if I'm talking to anybody today that34:21 forgot what god has called you to do. God has called you to worship Jesus. God has called you to follow Jesus. God has called you to make Jesus known in this Earth. God has not called you to follow34:33 the dictates of this world. He's not called you to be a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat or a conservative. God has not called you just to do your job. God has not called you just to raise those34:45 families. God has not called you just to feed those kids. God has called you to show the world that there's no 1 like Jesus Christ. That's your job description. That's who34:57 you are. And that's the most important thing you can do on this Earth. Why? Because this Earth is coming to an end. And only those with faith in Jesus Christ are getting to the next35:08 1. We got a job to do. That's why I want you to be involved at Waters Church. That's why I want you to go to our connect meeting after services today. Because some of you are just jacked up in your35:20 hearts because the only person you focus on is the people who have it better than you. You gotta get out of that. That's what the devil's been doing since the Garden of35:32 Eden. God's holding out on you. I'm always amazed at how little it takes for some people to leave the church. How little and I think that the devil, if we go to his if we go to his office35:45 we go to his office in Washington, DC because we know that's where he lives. It's his summer home. Winter in the Middle35:57 East, summer in Washington. That's what he does. We go to his office. He's got a trophy collection. He's got names of former people in the church, people formerly36:08 in the church. He goes and he takes his trophy down. He says, this is Maria. I got her out of the church, all I had to do was convince her that God would never give36:20 her a Christian husband. That's all I had to do. Ask Maria, yeah. Oh, this is John, let me tell you about John. All I had to do was keep giving his brother36:32 raises. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His brother kept earning more and more money. Every time he got a little raise, I would just make sure that his boss gave him a bigger raise and he just left the church because he said that God36:43 kept holding out on him. Where does he get this idea? Where does this mantra come from? The Garden of Eden. Did God say, You can't eat all that? You know what God's doing?36:55 He's holding out on you. He knows that the moment that you eat it, you're gonna be just like him. Isn't he a terrible god? And rather than focus on planting and harvesting and eating all the37:07 good things that god had planted for them already in the Garden of Eden, they focus on the 1 thing that god said no to. Some of you gotta stop looking at everybody else's line. You gotta stop looking. Why are you37:19 watching pagans being pagans? Why are you watching people who are manipulating the system or passing laws in their advantage or getting rich through extortion or37:31 whatever else they're doing. Why are you worried about them? There's coming a day when the god of the universe will balance the scales of justice and every right will be every wrong will be made right and37:43 every person who has put their faith in Christ will be crowned by Jesus Christ as kings of the universe and queens of the universe. That's your job37:54 description. That's why you come to church to make sure you keep that job working up in your life. Number 2, question, what am I really seeing?38:06 When you look at somebody else, always remember that you're looking at a carefully crafted image of them filtered and photoshopped to38:18 perfection. Beyonce made news this week because she released her newest album. This is the game of pop38:29 culture today. Show as much nakedness as possible so that you'll listen to my music. So she's posing, I guess, on this crystal horse naked.38:41 Like, when did we forget that music was just supposed to be music? Like, inspire us with lyrics and tune, not your nipple. Like, seriously.38:54 What has happened to us? Carefully crafted images to take our attention off of God's goodness. That's that's what39:06 it is. And and and so when we look at people, we've got to remember that we're seeing carefully crafted photoshopped images. And this is what Asaph didn't realize. He says, they have look at all the absolutes that he39:16 lists in verses 4 to 7. They have no pains until that. That's not true. Their bodies are fat and sleek. Fat in the ancient world was like thin in the modern world. Fat was a symbol39:28 of prosperity. They're not in trouble. They're not stricken. Pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. Their hearts overflow. He's just talking about all the things39:39 that they don't experience. That's not true. 1 of the best books I ever read was by Doctor. Drew Pinsky. He's a celebrity therapist. He's a therapist to the stars. And in the book, heShow more
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.