First John chapter number two, please. First John chapter number two. Thank you, Pastor Sean, for entrusting me again here. I do appreciate it. Thank you so much. First John chapter number two. It's good to have my friend Dwayne Frost from our church in Hickory, Sandy Ridge Baptist Church, where I have, yes, and he is, he's been my friend for nearly five years since he started coming to the church. He drives How many miles one way is it to our church? About 30 miles one way. He and his wife come and they do it three times a week. And I'm just so thankful. So they come past a lot of churches to get to ours. And I really appreciate him. And then taking me up on the offer. He's a 30 year Navy guy, retired in 2004. And so he goes back a minute. He was a missile guy in nuclear submarines, and eventually was, let's see here, was your terminal billet as NATO Atlantic Forces Senior Enlisted Advisor? That's good enough, huh? Chief of the boat for several chiefs of the boat? All right. So we thank God for good friends, and I'm hoping the Lord will return. because he's 20 years older than me, and I don't want to do his funeral. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I want him to outlive me if possible. 1 John 2, 28, and we're going to be reading a few verses here. When I say a few, I mean many fews, because I have been assigned one or two verses here. Bottom line up front, this message will not be helpful to all of you in every way, but I hope that it will be helpful to you in some way. And, um, you're going to find out that, man, I hate to be a downer. Um, I'm not the man I was a year ago. So life happens, doesn't it? And you made me stronger this morning by singing. And I just want you to know that that helped me a great deal hearing you sing. hearing men sing, and I appreciate that. And many of you men, led by example this morning, and you sang in front of your sons. You gave your sons permission to sing unto the Lord, and it's so important. because they're looking at you to wonder if it's all right. And you say it's all right, don't make it all right. But seeing you express thankfulness and gratitude to God is so unusual because many of you are so strong, so tough, so resilient, so self-confident. sufficient. You do a lot of things wonderfully. Some of you are running companies, others platoons, potentially a brigade. I don't know everyone here. Many of you have been in places I have not been, done crazy things you don't want to tell even your wives about for your country. You sat in church a week after you did unspeakable terror on behalf of your nation. And I know you and I see you, even if I don't know your name just now. And you're carrying around a lot of stuff that you hope you never have to tell your sons. And that you hope that they never have to relive. And one of the blessings of the Lord's return is that we'll have less secrets to keep about the things we've done for the people we love. And I'm looking forward to all of that. And may God help us in this minutes to follow, to ascertain the difference between two things. Here we go. objective guilt, and subjective guilt. Now this matters because the gospel matters. The gospel doesn't matter at all if there's no objective guilt with which we must deal. This is judicial guilt. This is guilt that the court of law puts on us. This is guilt that we have every right to dread because we have sinned against God. Our biggest concern this morning, you might think it's therapeutic. I can promise you it's not. your biggest concern today is though you might feel better after the sermon. Your biggest concern today, brothers, is that you are right with the Lord and objective guilt is a real thing. It's something you may not feel and you may not even know about until some good gospel preacher comes through your way and connects the dots and tells you why you might be feeling the way you do or why some things aren't connecting or why you feel like a blind man groping in the dark. Um, I don't know, but that's objective guilt and everyone in here is born with it. I was shaping an iniquity and sin. My mother conceived me. Psalm 51, four man springs forth. Job 14 says from the mother's room speaking lies. It just comes so natural. We're just fantastic at doing evil. Yeah. And we are very creative. Romans 1 says we're innovative in the ways that we take simple things and corrupt them. Everything from the internet to you get married so that you can have a good neighbor to go to bed with and treat her right. And then you end up using her for affirmation and making her make hard decisions for your family. And it's hardly anything. We desperately need God's pardon because we end up taking his good gifts and putting them in a place where only they are, where we think they can give us the affirmation that only the king of all the earth can give us. And so your kids will never live up to the burden of making you feel like God says you are. You'll notice in my biography, it's very, very deep there. It says that I like to read basically a lot and stay home. And so, It also says that one of the hardest things for me to do is to believe what God says about me. Now, that seems so stupid because I've been a pastor now, by God's grace, and many of you here today that have been kind to me, for more than seven years, I was a pastor at Berean Baptist Church. And it's hard to imagine, it's hard to believe, but I have been at Sandy Ridge as long now, this month, as I was a pastor at Berea. I can't hardly believe that. And then before that, I was a Sunday school teacher when I was a squad leader at Berean Baptist Church. And before that, you know, I was in Fort Belvoir thinking I never wanted to move to North Carolina because it's too hot. And it's not wrong. Which I found out is a really great way of saying, you're right. I use that one on my wife a lot. You're not wrong. And she says, you're saying I'm right. No, I'm saying you're not wrong. Whatever's between those two is not wrong and totally right. But let's talk about subjective guilt for a minute. Subjective guilt is what people can put on you. It's what you can feel. It's circumstantial. Perhaps. It can come along through a number of things. It has nothing to do with your standing with God. It just makes you feel like it has something to do with your standing with God. Subjectivity means it's something you're experiencing and therefore usually making it factual. It means that you have a hard time separating fact from feeling. It means there's a dissonance between what you believe in your gut and what your mind is telling you. It's harmful because you can forget who you are for a while because everyone's busy telling you. And then if that's not bad enough, you try to be so many different people for so many different people. And then you find out you don't even know who you are. It's so difficult because you're muscling through this thing trying to figure out who in the world am I? Now, look, I'm not a skeptic and I'm not an agnostic. I make a terrible agnostic. You'd have to look at a lot of evidence and forget about it. So I'm a Christian today and a Bible believer, but I am a struggling soul who happens to be a pastor and can't resign without splitting a church. and can't get a breather to figure out who in the world am I? And the truth is, every morning, it is a desperate thing, brothers, that you do the right thing and open your Bible and pray. You do it for survival after a while. You don't do it for accountability groups after a while. You don't go to church on Sunday after a while because you have to. You go there because if you don't, you're pretty sure you're gonna drop off into oblivion. So I'm coming to you today as a fellow surviving saint, not as an expert. And all I have for you this morning is grace and truth. I wish I felt this way a year ago. I might've been more humble. But it is what it is. So, 1 John 2, 28. Some people tell jokes to get, you know, to feel right with people. And I guess I just stand up here and sob. Anyway, verse 28. Now little children abide in him. And when he appears, we may have confidence. and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he's righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of him. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know him. Beloved, now we are the children of God. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him. We're gonna see Him just like He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He, that's Christ, the one he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there's no sin. Whoever abides in him doesn't sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor knows him. Little children, don't let anyone deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous just like he's righteous. He who sins is from the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning for this purpose. The Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. And whoever has been born of God doesn't sin, for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin, because he's born of God." That's the imperfect tense there. It's linear. It's referencing your habits. It's not saying that if you sin, you need to get saved again. It's saying that if you're saved, you won't want to sin. And if you do sin, you're going to look for a way really soon to get that right. That's what born again people do. Whoever has been born of God does not sin. Verse nine, his seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he's born of God. In this The children of God and the children of the devil are manifest, and whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you've heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not like Cain. Who is of the wicked one? That word out of, from the wicked one is ek. It's where we get word ekklesia, ekkaleo. It's, it means you actually were spawned. So you have like these two things happening in this passage. You have birth from above and you have birth from the devil. That's exactly how this passage is being used here. He says, Cain was hatched from the wicked one. You can look at verse 13. So don't marvel my brothers, if the world hates you. I mean, don't, That's not a shocker. We know that we pass from death to life because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that none of those have eternal life abiding in them. By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does God's love abide in him? My little children, don't let us love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth. Amen. I'm sorry. I have the New King James, and if it seems like I'm messing up the wording, it's because sometimes what I'm reading doesn't come through my face. So just hang on a second. By this we know that we are of the truth and assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, What a verse. If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence towards God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and that we should love one another as He gave us commandment. Now, He who keeps His commandment abides in Him, and He in Him. I mean, this we know that He abides in us and by the Spirit. By this we know that he abides in us by the spirit he's given us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit. Can you believe I'm still reading? But test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many prophets, many false prophets have gone out into the world. And by this you know the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard was coming. Thank you, brother Mike, for that devotional this morning. You've heard he's coming and we heard this morning, but he's already here. And here it is again. You've heard he's coming and he's now already in the world. You're of God, little children, and have overcome them. because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Isn't that wonderful? They are of the world, therefore they speak as of the world, and the world gives them plenty of attention. We're of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God doesn't listen to us. And this is how we know the spirit of truth and the speeder of air, the spirit of air. That is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. My Lord and King, I come before you. I and all that I have is yours. I pray that you'd use this passage and these notes and feed your sheep. Work through me, please. but work around me if you must to feed your sheep. Break down every idol, cast down every foe, wash me and I'll be whiter than snow. I pray, oh God, that when we're done here in just a few, that we will know we have met with God. I wanna thank you for the good music. I wanna thank you for the psalmist that wrote that melody this morning. I want to thank you for his friendship. I want to thank you for so many good men under this tent that have borne long with me these last 15 years. I want to bless your name for the wonderful blood of Jesus Christ. I want to thank you for the comforting Holy Spirit. I want to thank you for the instructive, soul-nourishing Word of God. So please show us Christ and hide me somewhere in obscurity to be forgotten until you're coming. In Christ's name, amen. This may be the shortest sermon you've heard in 2023. We'll see. Might be the longest one too, but I have my doubts. We're in a world where we're being taught that if you have an unhealthy mind, you don't fix it to match what is. We're being taught in things like transgenderism that you take an unhealthy mind and you take a healthy body and you maim it to match your unhealthy mind. And hopefully what I'll be able to do today is show you, without any difficulty, the truth of verse 19 of chapter 3, the truth of verse 21 of chapter 3. Look at it with me. Chapter 3, verse 19, you'll notice it says, by this we know that, by this we know and will assure our hearts before him." By this, verse 19, there's two groups of people that are definitely in John's mind today, those who need to be assured because they are truly saved, and those who need to be told that they're lost because they are. And you see in verse number 21, beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence towards God. So we have this, here's how you can know, and here's what happens when you know. Here's how you can know in your heart. Here's what needs, here's what will happen when your heart is assured. Verse 20 has my attention. It has had my attention since I was 18 years old. I have loved verse 20 and have grown to love the context of verse 20 ever since. Who are these people that need their hearts assured? We can describe them in this passage seven ways. We read it all. You look at chapter two, verse 28, through chapter three, verse three. These are people that John assumes their hearts will be assured, 319. How would we describe them? 228 to 33. These are people that are waiting for the return of Christ. Listen, they're doing their best to provide a good home for their family. And they also know you're not going to get heaven on earth, not before the coming of Christ. They're realistic that and this is difficult because sometimes we can have we can have good things that we are expecting to provide heavenly realities. We so desperately because we're hardworking men who love God and love our families. We are so desperately trying to get heaven on earth. And we're trying to cram all the billowing realities of an eternally unfolding new heaven and new earth into today. and we're trying to get all the wonderful conditions of heaven to today. I think I can say with some authority that the reason Jesus did miracles was to give us a little portal into what life will be like when he returns. He healed blind people so that you would be assured everyone will have perfect eyesight in the world to come. This is what it means in the kingdom. Get a good look. I love that. These people that need to be assured, they have a different expectation. In their hearts, there's always something while they're bouncing their healthy grandchildren on their laps, while they're loving 20 and 30 and 40 years of marriage with the love of their life, while they're enjoying a measure of prosperity at their jobs, they know ultimately deep in their souls, It ain't everything it's going to be. The best is yet to come. That has a way of assuring the heart of someone who wonders if they're truly converted. The second way is verses 3 through 10. These people that need to have their hearts assured, 319, 321, these people that need their hearts assured are people that are growing basically disenfranchised with their sin. You can see it, they don't sin, they hate their sin. They're deciding that they don't loathe being caught as much as they loathe what they know to be true of themselves when they look in the mirror. How many of you know what I'm talking about? You know that the worst person on the planet is not your wife, it's you. And you know when you're like old Prince Spurgeon used to say, my critics are only half right, I'm far worse than they think. They know that deep within their soul, they pander and look at their existence from the cradle to the grave and find nothing in themselves but a fitness to be damned. if it were not for Christ, who came to destroy all the works of the devil and to put away our sin. Verse four, I love it. The third way that they can be described in verses 11 through 19 is that they love different people. This is, I think, the heart of Brother Steve's first point last night is that, and I just think he just didn't want to reach over and grab my text, but here it is. If you have to be pulled to church, ask yourself why. Verse 14 says, if you have new life, this is not a struggle. There's something in you that says, I would rather go to be around other believers. I won't be the same if I'm not around other believers. Nothing can satisfy my soul like being around other believers around the word of God. When the Lord returns, we will gather around Jesus. Right now we have to settle for his word in written form. So we gather around that. When he returns, we'll gather like the church of the firstborn. Every name in the Lamb's book of life, we'll gather around him. But now we get a sneak peek of it. Every Lord's day, we gather around the word and we like it. If you don't like it, you are not saved. Verse 14. Well, I don't like being judged. I get it. I don't either. Maybe we should just move on. Number four. Because we certainly don't want to offend you. I don't want to push you to hell number two. Verse 21. There is no hell number two. That's my point. Verse 21. These people who need their hearts assured have a prayer life. Now, I know we're moving slow right now, but I need you to make sure that the points I'm making, I'm making from the text. I do not need you leaving this tent thinking, what a great speaker. I don't give a rip about that. I really want you to see the text laid bare. Verse 21 and 22, if a heart can do not condemn us, we have confidence towards him at whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his. Whatever we ask, we receive from him. Is that your testimony? Look, I'm not trying to say if you don't have answers to prayer, you're not saved, but you're going to find out in 5.14, that's pretty much what we're saying. If you can't look back at any communion with the Lord that has brought an answer to prayer, He's not your daddy. But if you get an answer to prayer every now and then, that means that God is listening. He loves listening to His kids. Don't you? You know, I know that we're told often that we should not make a God like us. I get that, but there's something to Jesus saying, if you being evil like to give good stuff to your kids, how much more will your heavenly father give good gifts to those who ask him? Somehow. Somehow we are almost like Adam in the garden, where we think that we're going to be like God. And so we craft a God-like unto us. And that means that we totally discount the fact that God expects us to look at our failings and then presume his goodness because of our failings. Because we dads are a picture of the perfect father. And we use our failings as an opportunity to preach the gospel to our kids. I have botched it up, young man. And I am sorry, but we have a Father who will not let you down. And He has forgiven me for falling short in the way that I have served you as my son. I am telling you, a lot of people say being married is the hardest work in the world. Not really. To me, raising a son is the hardest job in the world. Maybe that's why He only gave me one. Man, what a privilege, but I could have choked him 79 times. And I've only been tempted to do violence to my wife a handful of times in our early parts of our marriage, but my son, he carries me all the way through his 24th year. Are you uncomfortable hearing that a man has struggled with violent thoughts? No. Okay. That's pretty normal. Some of you are liars. That's all. Verse 23, these people that need assured hearts, verse 23, these are people that have a truth of belief in the gospel. They're look, You've got major issues if when you're told to give your testimony, you struggle to go back to Grandma Ma's bedside and talk about how you prayed the sinner's prayer. We're talking seriously about you trusting the work that Christ did for you on the cross. Verse 23 tells us we're believing truth about what Christ has done. These are the people that need their hearts assured. Number six, verse 24. These are people who have an experience, a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Somehow the spirit abides in us, and you're going to know when the spirit abides in you, just like you would know if I moved into your home, because I'm going to drink the stuff in your fridge. I'm going to use the remote for your television. You're going to know when I move in. I'm probably not gonna leave my socks on the living room floor, but you're gonna know that I lived there. And for us to say, I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit, but I have not experienced any movement of the Holy Ghost in my life. You're as lost as you can be. Number seven, comes from chapter four, verses one through six. You need to be assured in your heart because you know how to tell a liar when you see him. Verses one through six. It's very clear he tells you how to do that. He tells you to do it in verse 1. He tells you some certain tests of preachers in verses 2 and 3. And then he tells you how the Holy Spirit will guide you to the right voices in verse 6. The voice of truth, if you're a Casting Crowns fan. I don't remember if that's who did that. Then there's verse 220. I mean, there's this verse 19 reality. Here's why you should have your hearts assured. Here's verse 21. Here's what will happen if your heart is assured. And verse number 20, what happens in this process of you becoming confident in what God says about you? You're my son. Jesus is your big brother. He is your Savior. Heaven is your home. The Holy Ghost is your inhabiter. In all of these things, it seems so strange that you could have a heart that still feels condemned. How could that be? How can you be living in a verse 20 world because if our hearts condemn us? He says in verse number 19, here's how our hearts can be assured before him, because, verse 20, we have hearts that might condemn us. And if they do, God is greater than our heart and knows everything. So God superintends these evidences on a heart that is not assured, a heart that feels condemned by itself. Very strange. So I want to say this again. You have been objectively declared not guilty. If you were to ask the Apostle John, am I saved? He'd say, yep, you pass all the tests. If you were to pull up to this morning's devotion, you'd leave here saying, I'm gathering people to Christ. And yet, for whatever reason, your heart still condemns you. What do you do? Why does this happen? What can cause this? What can cause this is a lack of faith in what God says He has already done with our sin. The truth is, we can often remind ourselves of our own sin, and that can be detrimental. How else can you feel still condemned subjectively, even if you are not condemned objectively? Christ has borne your sin. Right. You know, who will condemn us? It is Christ who died, yes, rather than is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who even makes intercession for us. Who will lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Right. So, these are truths about how you are objectively not guilty. John 3, 18, he that believes on the Son is not condemned. You trust Christ, you have the fruits of conversion, and you therefore are not condemned. But there is still this overlording sense of doom that follows you through your life. What causes that? I'm not an expert, but I am definitely a student. Lack of faith in what God says he has done with your former sin. Micah 6, he's thrown in the deepest part of the sea. Isaiah 57, he's thrown him behind his back. He has done, or if you just go with King Jesus, Revelation 1-5, he's washed him from us in his own blood. Amen. Other things that can cause this dissonance is an obvious lack of fruit in what we thought was our spiritual gifting. I just want to be very bold with you for a moment. Some of us under this tent think we're gifted in a way spiritually. And one of the ways to tell whether you're gifted at something spiritually is that it brings fruit. Here's how we can tell the difference between a talent and a spiritual gifting. A talent is something you could do before you were converted. A spiritual gifting is something that you can only do because you're converted and it brings fruit. Sometimes we can do what we thought we were created to do. Now I'm going to go something just as crazy. Some of you think that you should be singing solos every Sunday morning and for the life of you, you're perplexed that Pastor Jonathan doesn't give you a microphone. I just want you to know it may not be a talent or a gifting in your case. If that's a little too close to the corn and you get up and leave, everyone will know I was talking about you. What else causes this dissonance? Maybe some former non-sinful failures to move on from some circumstances in your life. Let me say that slower and more deliberate. Some ways that you can feel condemnation from a source other than the one who is in you, 1 John 4. some ways that your heart might not be assured. You're in this window of 320. I know that the truths of the scripture should be pouring assurance into my heart, but I just feel like everything I'm touching is failing. Like everything I'm touching is failing. They can happen from non-sinful failures to leave behind circumstances you couldn't control. Just picture Naomi returning from Moab. Just call me bitter. Just call me bitter. That's how I feel right now. And sometimes nothing but time can fix that. And as we sung this morning, there are some tears, C.S. Lewis said, that can only be dried on the golden shore. Other things that can affect this are you can be surrounded by negative people who claim to have the gift of discernment. Spurgeon said it rightly, some people would find it quite fitting if they had their own ministry for a while. If they were seating under their own ministry of discernment. Other things that can cause this feeling of doom, and I know I'm speaking to at least three or four of you, if not all of you at one point or another. Maybe you're just tough. I don't know. Health issues. Chemical and neurological issues where you believe right, you know you believe right, but there is something that is muddying your mind and you can't push through the haze and the darkness will not lift. William Cooper, it's pronounced Cowper, was a backyard neighbor of John Newton, and he wrote the song, God Moves in Mysterious Ways. As far as we know from John Piper's book, When the Darkness Will Not Lift, it never lifted for William Cooper in this life. always lived, and we're talking about the guy who wrote, There's a Fountain Filled with Blood. He wrote, God moves in mysterious ways, and one of the lines of the song is, behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. So how was this experienced? How is this dissonance where we feel like we're condemned but we know we're not? We have a heart that condemns us in God through good helpers like brothers who have the gift of encouragement, and good pastors, and good preachers, and good small group leaders, and good discipleship groups, good micro groups, good small groups, a fantastic marriage with an encouraging wife, children that are dispositionally bubbly, These are gifts of God to us to fill our hearts that are typically melancholy. My wife makes fun of me because every song of mine that I enjoy is in the minor key. It's not nice, but she makes fun of me anyway, and we have good times anyways. Always wondering, this is experienced in three ways. Always wondering if you're failing at something when there are no indications that you are. Just a looming sense of, I suck. Number two, confusing so-called premonition with a sense of anxiety that again could be connected to who knows what. We are so complex and I came from an era where any issue is a spiritual issue and if you have any physical problems it's because you're weak spiritually. Another way it can be experienced is physiological uneasiness. We're always trying to treat, in a fallen world, heart issues, literal heart blood pumping issues. And these could be those who are, along with these seven tests that they pass in 1 John 2 through 4, at least the verses I covered, These could be those who are not feeling well after they do what they believe in their heart is correct. They go to bed every night with a clean conscience and still they feel like there's a distance between what God says about them and they just can't make it past the feels. These could be those who are not feeling well after they correct what they've done wrong. They've apologized to everyone. They've chased everyone down and no reconciliation appears to be available. These could be those who are feeling well after being assured that they're trusting the gospel. They know the gospel. They trust the gospel. They know they're saved. Actually, heaven is their home, and they know they're going there. So, what do we do about this? All right. Got a couple ideas here. Nine, actually. So, four couples. I know it's a little less than the 17 I brought last year, Steve, and several less than the 23 I brought before that. I have nine ideas for you. Here we go. Plus the seven that we've already done. Those are exegetical. Those don't count. I was going to say. Oh yeah? You're keeping track too? I think this is cute. Bless you, brother. May the sheep bears of the woods come out to you soon. Proverbs 12, 25. This is before number one. These are three verses, write these down too. Proverbs 12, 25. Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad. Proverbs 15, 15. All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who has a merry heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 18, 14, the spirit of man will uphold him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit? Step number one, memorize some helpful verses. I know I have 10 points, that was number one. Number two, walk in the light and receive his cleansing. Now I'm gonna move quickly. We're gonna try to do one every 90 seconds. Walk in the light and receive his cleansing. This means that we should ask God to move me to the truest truth about myself, the truest truth. To show me the internal workings of my heart and to move me past a cognitive awareness of what they are into an emotional response of what they are into a deliberate repentance from what they are. In other words, don't expect any clarity if you are harboring sin. That's number two. Memorize helpful verses, number one. Walk in the light, receive his cleansing, number two. And walk in the light to the point where if there's anything doubtful, back away from it. Stop trifling and scrolling endlessly through our social media until we finally see a woman scantily clad and then we're down a rabbit trail we can't seem to get out of. Number three, stay in your community of faith so that you know comfort with good counselors, like Caleb in Numbers 13, who said, hey, I see things y'all don't see. We can beat these giants. Or like Job's friends who've had it right in Job 15, 11 says, why do you count the comfort of your friends as such a small thing? So number three, stay in your church. And here's the second part of that, have a pastoral relationship with your pastors. It's partly your fault if you think the only time you hear from them is when you're missing church. Build a relationship with them. Number four, keep moving and doing the right thing. Don't allow uneasiness and feelings of dread to keep you from doing the right thing. So, since I'm not the pastor here, I'm gonna take some liberties and say, go to church all the time, and if you can, if it'll help, move closer to your church. I'm always amazed when I come back here, there are some of you who are newly discovering old things that Pastor Sean says, like, there's not a Berean in every town, And you're like, yeah, but we'll probably do all right. You're not doing all right. You owe him an apology. The truth is sometimes we need to build our lives around the church geographically. Go somewhere and find a home around a church and then decide you're going to stay and pray that man through his slumps. Because he's going to have them. That's what I'm talking about. you get an attitude, you have weeks to fix it. You go on leave, you take your four-day weekends, you get to go to the cabin in the beach house, you get to go and get by yourself and kind of make things right and blah blah blah. He's got to be right by Sunday. So have mercy on your pastors and build a relationship with them and have some kind of substance where he can count on you. And it's not always an item of prayer where we're going to be on Sundays. Talk to your wife. That's hard. Keep moving in that direction. Keep schooling your children and having family alter and tucking them in and reading them pointless books sometimes just to spend time with them. Pushing them on the swing that hangs from the oak tree in your backyard. Do simple stuff, hit the 50 meter target, then get philosophical about why you feel so bad. Right. Number five, actively Sabbath. If you don't... You'll find yourself breaking off and making decisions while you're tired and you will ruin your life in about 10 seconds. Actively Sabbath. Don't amuse. Don't go into some kind of binge on Netflix where you don't have to think about anything. You turn it off and you're just as exhausted because all of your problems have been undealt with. Handle a Sabbath and do it rightly. Have mental discipline. Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication. With Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God. I'm sure you know that verse. Number six, take careful note of your own peculiarities and call them out. Careful note of your own peculiarities. Here's what I mean. Note the time of day when you feel the way you do. The weather, how you're laying, how you're standing, the lighting, the music that's being played, memory triggers, what you're smelling, things that have a strange effect on you they don't have on anyone else. Look around you, see does anyone else struggle like you struggle, and find out what makes you you even as it applies to really wimpy sounding things like colors and sounds and volume and activity and how you rest. It wouldn't hurt some of us to put our phone in the other room. Think about those times in the past when you felt certain ways and they turned out to be incoherent with reality. In other words, and this is not on the list, in other words, think about the time when you felt some way, it turned out not to be that way, and use that as a license. Get this now. I need you to get this if you've never heard it before. Use those past opportunities where how you felt turned out to be different in the way that it transpired and use that Memory as an opportunity to doubt your doubts. All right, use that as a license to doubt your doubts. Number six, which is now seven. Experience the Holy Spirit's domination. If you're pretty sure he's having you do something, don't ask him, don't deliberate, don't confer with flesh and blood, obey immediately. Number, where in the world am I? What number, help me out, number eight. Keep a journal of God's smile on your life. After all of these struggles, you might need to, for survival's sake, take notes on when God peeked into your life and cared. I was so dry several weeks ago, I needed God to give me an answer to prayer. See, I've been telling our folks, we have prayer meeting Wednesday night, and I've been telling them, come ready, we're talking about an answer to prayer. Be ready to share an answer to prayer. The battery went dead on my wife's vehicle. It's not a bad vehicle. It's a good vehicle. I took it to the parts store, changing out the battery. The very helpful man, close to closing time, lost the bolt to the bracket that holds the battery down under the hood. And I'm just sitting there thinking, dear Lord. I can just joke him. I need your help, Lord. For one thing, this man is incompetent. And for another thing, I shouldn't feel this way about him. I mean, that is so self-entitled for me to hold him accountable for this. I'm sorry. And tomorrow's Wednesday, and I don't have an answer to prayer to share. So it'd be really great if you could help me find that stupid bolt And I moved my foot and I was cramming it under my shoe the whole time. And I was telling you, I was, I went home and turtled immediately. All right, here's another one. I'm in the hospital Monday visiting someone from our church and someone gets on the elevator and it's a doctor and her last name is P-A-T-E-L. And I'm thinking that sounds Indian, but she looks Spanish, so I'm going to try it. I was going to say, Because I'm trying to get the gospel to people. But I'm like, man, that didn't work out so well. When I thought a Native American was a Spanish guy in high school, he almost beat me up. So I think I'll just keep all my ethnic guesses to myself. So I went over Tuesday night to a church neighbor, to a church member's house for a cookout. And he says, I got this coworker. I said, what is her name? How can I be praying? He says, she needs the gospel. She's Hindu. She's Hindi, which refers to where she's from. She's from India. And I almost said, how about her last name's Patel, isn't it? I mean, it's almost like saying every Middle Eastern guy's name is Ahmed, right? I mean, it just seems like an appropriate joke. And so I did not say it because I didn't want to be a stumbling block to this believer at his house. Instead, I thought I'd just say it here in front of a hundred of you. which makes a lot of sense. And so help me. Her last name was Patel. And I thought, this is just amazing. I journaled about it because I was desperate. John chapter four, you might remember when Jesus sent a man to go and see if his servant was healed. And he went and the man came and reported. Actually, the man went home and this was so good. This was so good. Human needs met. On his way home, someone comes out and says, the servant's okay. And the man said, What time did that happen? You wanted to see a connection between his seemingly pointless actions and God's good grace. Man, I've got all kinds of that stuff in eight books now. Starting in 2019, I was so desperate to know that God gave a rip about me. I know the gospel says he did, but I've got to have a God who answers prayer and cares about my life. So I started journaling everything. That's number whatever it is. Thank you. Number nine, don't romanticize your dilemma. If you're feeling bad, try to find a way around it. Babylon Bee, which is a source that I hope you are following, it's very helpful. They did a survey on the health of church members. And I found these findings were very helpful. I hope they are helpful to you. They said that after surveying about a thousand men, 95% of them are doing fine. to say that many of us ask, how you been? And we really don't really care at all how the other person's doing. And so we have to find good ways to speak in faith. How am I doing? Well, we're steadily moving on. How are things at Sandy Ridge? We're still sailing. How's things in the pastorate? I'm still moving forward. What text are you preaching this Sunday morning? One that I certainly hope works. What you doing Sunday night? I'm going to feed the ones that come. What are you doing in between? I'm going to preach a funeral for a man that was under this tent one year ago. Sometimes we speak in faith because we believe that God cares more about us than we care about ourselves. He's more concerned about our quality of life than we are. And I don't know how to make that fit with my selfishness and my lack of faith, but the gospel that I believed and the Bible that I believed a year ago, I believe today. It's just sometimes you keep walking when there's a cloud overhead. And my prayer for you today is that you'll know and never forget that if your own heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart. and knows everything. And Father, it doesn't take us long to get through Exodus and we find out in chapter two that your awareness is not a simple cognitive omniscience. It is an intent to act. The Lord saw their labor. The Lord heard their cry and he sent Moses. So in this moment and in this hour, take this message and assure someone under the burden of Pharaoh's yoke that deliverance is on the way and very soon the cloud will lift. So keep assuring us with the fruits of conversion and help some of us who are given to a disposition of weak-mindedness. Help us to be real with our brothers who love us, and to be strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.