Well, good afternoon, here it is, 1.15 on Monday. Hard to believe we're starting another week here. I would ask as we get started, if you'd remember to pray for Cindy's dad. He's battling COVID right now. We thought he was gonna get out of the hospital today, but he had another episode this morning, so they're gonna keep him at least another day, and Cindy's gone to be with her mom. And so if you would just pray for him, we appreciate it. Also might remember to pray for Steve Foster's dad who had an incident yesterday concerning his health also. They thought at one point he might be having a heart attack and then as the day went on they kind of ruling some of that out. But just pray for brother Foster, Steve's dad, that God just touch his body also. So it's a new week. It's my week. I'm so excited to be able to share this responsibility of these devotions with the young men that God's blessed us with here at Shawnee Mission. I appreciate Brother Richard's devotions last week. And I want to, I know he was using a day in Baptist history. But I want to go back to the book that I've been using, Elements of Godly Character. I think there's a lot of good character qualities that most Christians can use to develop even more. I know even as I read these things and prepare to share them with you, it's convicting in my life. I want to be more like Christ, and as our theme is this year, I want to be established in the Word of God and the things of God. that I might not fail, that I might remain faithful until that time that God calls me home. So today we're gonna start a new little series on submission, and submission's an important thing. I've got a quote as we start, it says, I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. You know, I'm afraid in day and age in which we live, a lot of people don't worry about honesty and character. And yet that's one of the character qualities that's really important in our lives. And I want to be known as an honest man, just as George Washington wanted to be known as an honest man. I want to be an honest man because I know that's what God wants of every child of God, to be honest people. And so praise the Lord for that. So we're talking about submission today. And subtitled this would be, Why You Can't Resist the Devil. You ever have issues resisting the devil? You know, hard to keep him at bay. It seems like, you know, Flip Wilson years ago made famous the statement, the devil made me do it. You know, the truth of the matter is, Christian friend, if we've fallen to sins because we didn't resist the devil the way that we should. The devil did make you do it, but the devil made you do it Because you didn't put your armor on okay, and so you know as funny as that might have seemed At the time it's still not something that we as a child of God Should seek to use in our life because God has given us all the tools we need to succeed it'd be like being stranded on an island and there was a pool of crystal clear water and And you had to walk across the island to get to it. Let's say, you know half a mile and you'd say well But there's so much water right here in front of me. This oceans all around me. I want to drink this water and You know you die and you go to heaven and you go but God all this water was right in front of me I wanted to drink that water and God goes but I gave you a big pool of water there on the island to drink So we've got to realize that as men and women of God We have to come to the point that we put us aside, that we're willing to submit to the plan that God has for us. So submission is absolutely necessary for anyone to develop godly character. You're never going to develop godly character unless you're willing to submit who you are and what you do The Lord in James 4 7 the Bible says submit yourselves therefore to God Resist the devil and he will flee from you if you know if we're going to preach us right now We could call the site of the sermon why you can't resist the devil and And you know the truth of the matter is we can the scripture tells us what we need to do But we have to submit we have to be in submission to God so that the devil doesn't get the victory in our life Most people are not having great success at resisting the devil, and one of the reasons is that they're not living godly lives. They seek to walk hand in hand with the world and Jesus. And I want you to know, the Bible makes it quite clear, you cannot serve two masters, for you'll love the one and you'll hate the other. And so we need to decide who we're gonna love. It'd be like if I told my wife, well, honey, I love you. This is my girlfriend. She's gonna move in with us. Well, first of all, you could rest assured that your preacher would be dead, okay? My wife wouldn't put up with that for a heartbeat. And yet I've seen people who would put up with things like that, and I'm thinking to myself, why in the world would you do that? The truth of the matter is, is that the man or the woman, whoever it is that has the extra lover, the truth of the matter is that they don't want to just have one. They don't want to submit to what is right and what is proper. We need to realize when it comes to resisting the devil, God's given us a way, God's given us a plan. We just have to submit to that plan. We have to seek to live godly lives. We have to seek to fill our life with more of God and less of the devil. We cannot walk hand in hand with the world and with God and think that we're gonna be all right. We must live beyond this world. Our living and our loving and All that we do, our thinking, it needs to be on the world to come. We cannot be drugged down by the world around us. And so we need to be victorious in our Christian living, and that comes by submitting ourselves unto the will of God, by allowing the word of God to change us and to mold us to be in the image of Christ. God is a God of order. Man, I'm so glad that he is. When God talks about things in scripture, there is a consistency to the order. He always says, you repent first, then you get baptized. He always says, you obey first, and then the blessings of God follows. He always says, You give first, then it will be given unto you. He always says that submission to God comes from the power to resist the devil. And so if we will submit to him, we'll have that power to resist the devil. There are a lot of people who don't want the devil to run their lives, but he still does. And the reason he still does is because not only do they not want the devil to run their lives, but they don't want God to run their lives either. They want to run their lives. They want to be in charge of the show, if you would. The truth of the matter is there's only room for one. Whether it's the devil or whether it's God or whether it's you, you make the choice. And by the way, if you choose you and you have the opportunity to choose God, which one do you think is smarter? Well, you know, if you think that, you know, in choosing you, then you think you are smarter. But truth of the matter is, God created you. He's Creator God. He knows the ends from the beginning. He knows all that you need to do. We just need to learn to trust Him. Submission is not some excitable thing. Submission is a conscious decision of willingly putting myself under the authority of another person. Submission and consecration are closely related. For a woman to be submissive doesn't mean that she thrills and tingles all over. What it means is that she willfully puts herself under the authority of her husband. Same way children. You know, I'm sure that children are not always so happy when it's time to go to bed. Although when we were raising Nathan, a lot of times we'd look around and go, where's Nathan at? And he had already gone to bed. He put himself to bed. You know, but children need to be submissive. They need to realize that their parents are over them in the Lord for a reason. Parents, you have the responsibility to train your children and the way you train them will be reflected in the way that they live when they become adults. And so you need to take that responsibility. I'm going to train up my child in the way of the Lord, not going to train them up with secular Input and secular thinking I'm gonna raise my children in the light of what God says and they have to learn to be submissive to that a Husband and a wife have to learn to be submissive to God and God has placed the man As the head of the home and the wife must learn to be submissive to him But the wise husband will not use that as a brow beating Place, you know woman you're under me. You got to do this that and the other thing a wise man will learn to listen to his wife, will pray with his wife, will seek wisdom from his wife, that he might lead and guide the home and realize that with this great responsibility of being the one that everyone submits to, that means that the buck rises and falls on you. And it also means that when it comes to standing before God and answering For your home. You're gonna be the first one in line. You are the one that's going to receive the most difficult out of that Because God has placed you in charge and so submissions not some excitable thing, but it's something that's important It's a conscious decision for us to submit our will to the will of God, you know That's what Jesus did When it came to the fact that he was headed to the garden, he submitted himself to the will of God. He said, Father, not my will, but thy will be done. You'll find several people in the Bible who submitted themselves to God. In Acts 9, 6, when Paul got saved, he said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? That's a submissive state. He didn't say, Lord, here's what I'd like to do. Lord, here's what I want to do. Lord, I don't want to do that. When he called Jesus Lord, he meant that sincerely. He said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Jesus said I'm submitting myself. I'm putting myself under your authority I'm gonna let you dictate to me what I do and when I do it and how I do it So many people want to do the will of God, but they want to do it their way They want to do the will of God, but they want to do it in their own timing What we need to do is realize that God has a perfect plan, a perfect timing for our life. We just need to submit ourselves to him. God, whatever you would have for me, give me the wisdom, the insight. to trust you and to love you and to know that you're leading and guiding in my life. If we can grasp and get a hold of that idea that God wants to lead us and guide us, we'll find ourselves to be much happier as we live this life before us. Hey, I'm gonna wrap it up for today. I just want you to know that I love you. I'm looking forward to this week, being able to have this time with you. Thank you for sitting down and enjoying I pray that it's a real blessing to you, and I'll be back again tomorrow dealing with this issue of submission. Love you very much. Have a great day. Goodbye.