This sermon emphasizes the importance of aligning with God's will, focusing on the need for salvation, worship, holiness, being filled with the Holy Spirit, witnessing to others, and making disciples. It highlights the distinction between presumption and faith, urging listeners to wait on God and seek His guidance. The message underscores the transformative power of repentance and restoration in God's plan for individuals' lives.

What does God want from me? What does God want from me? And I found myself in an interesting spot this week because I didn't finish last week's sermon, and I don't want to keep belaboring this point, but I want to at least give you what was in last week's sermon, what I didn't get to, and then just leave it at that. Say, I talked about this, I don't have to talk about it for a while. Okay, so I at least want to give you that, and then I'm going to go right into Matthew 10. But for those who have not been here, we just ended a series on, or if you missed a few Saturdays, go back and watch these. We just ended a series on hearing God's voice. How do we actually hear God's voice? Because we have so many problems in the church and in our homes from not hearing the right voice. We're being led by the wrong voice, and we're living in deception. James says, if you do not do what you know to be true, what you know to be right, what's in God's word, if you don't do it, but you know it, you're living in deception. And it's funny, I remember this this week, actually. I've never been into a dollar store. I know it's hard to believe until last year, and my wife came home with these things. I'm like, all that stuff's in that store? Wow. So I took my kids down there, right, the big one off of 15th street, and I'm getting like notebooks and pens and sharpies and this and this, and I get up, you know, to the register, and she says, oh, sir, that's $82. I'm like, $82? I've got nine things. It's a dollar store. It's $9, not $82. She goes, oh, no, no, no, it's just some of those things are a dollar. But the most, $12.99. I'm like, it's a dollar store. Why do they do that? Deception, right? They need to change the name to some things are a dollar in this store. But I was shocked. I think I'm getting all this for $9, not $82. So you put some of that back. But isn't that the same thing that sin does? And hearing God's Word, it just pulls us right in there. And I went back and forth this week on if I should give you some examples or if I shouldn't, but I've just saw so much. This one area, if this one, if we could just obey the Word of God. I was talking to a man, I guess I can get some of these stories because people don't go here, and sometimes I don't want to do this, but I think it's important. But she has cheated on her husband three times this year, finally decided to leave. And she told him last week, she goes, the first two were an affair, but this guy really liked. And she's posting on Facebook. God loves me. He's not judgmental. The church is judgmental. And these people are in ministry, friends of mine, not here. I'm like, how does that happen? Walk away from your kids and your husband, go meet somebody. Hearing, but not doing. Hearing, but not doing. I know another person had a separation in his marriage. A denomination told him, listen, step back for a few months. Let's fix your marriage. He said, no, I resign. And he goes and plants a church. While he separated, while his wife might file for divorce because of marriage issues. So many of us spoken to his life. Listen, what is going on? This is clearly outside of scriptural bounds. And there's no godly counselor I know that would say otherwise. What happened? Hearing, but not doing. Another person I knew pretty well was on fire for the word of God, working his way up, going to be, who knows, in ministry someday, preaching someday. Now he's back hooked to and using a crystal. His life's falling apart. Within a year, what happened? Hearing the word of God, knowing the word of God, excusing sin, and living in deception. In all these cases, these people tell me that God is on their side. God knows my struggle. God knows my sin. He's a forgiving, loving God. Yeah, but you better read the other half of the book. That's like flipping a quarter and thinking it's tales. It's always tales. Oh, there's the heads. We won't talk about that. And they just look at one side of the coin. And I can give you situation after situation after situation that we're dealing with that nine times out of ten, it has to do with hearing the wrong voice. There's another gentleman that I've talked to. He was separated for a while with his wife. He was saying he was trying for reconciliation for so many years. She just was not willing. It wasn't working out, you know. And I said, you know what? I got to be honest with you, but having a girlfriend on the side for the last five years probably is going to hurt reconciliation just a little bit. Just a little bit. No, it will ruin it. There's no plan B. Yeah, but I need somebody. I need to feel. Hold on. Praying for reconciliation. You guys are separated, but now you've got a girlfriend. Once that happened and she continues to be in your life and you're wondering why reconciliation never happened. Sometimes I just want to scream. These aren't five-year-old kids. These are 25, 35, 45-year-old adults. Where do these problems stem from? Hearing the word of God. They'll quote scripture. God knows the plans for me. Yeah, but you're living in deception because you're living in sin. So be very careful in this area because although God is a loving, gracious father, He also calls us to repentance and obedience of His word. As a matter of fact, I can appreciate His love and forgiveness when I'm repenting and then in right relationship with Him. That's when I feel the love and forgiveness. And it goes down the line, marriages, family issues, everything from hearing the word. They think they're hearing God's voice and they're living in deception because we can't hear and not do and have God's will crystal clear in our life. So that's what we just ended that whole series on. And the last sermon on that was the hidden treasure of fasting. The hidden treasure of fasting. And that's the one that I didn't get to finish everything. I want to just throw some things out there so you have it. I can say I'm done with it. But I was shocked on this message last week to the people coming up after the service. We're getting emails. We had a thousand views in the first four or five days on YouTube and just people saying, oh, I needed to hear that. God was convicting me. I knew it. I knew it. And like so many testimonials on the side of our physical health where sometimes you just, well, let's go put this in the back closet. We don't even need to talk about this. It's all about spiritual things. But God says, well, you live in a physical body. You might want to consider the house if you're doing ministry out of the house. So just seeing the need out there just amazed me. So I want to finish on that and then I'll get right into Matthew 10 if I can. But last week, I didn't even touch base on. And what we were talking about last week was fasting, the hidden treasure of fasting, and basically starving the flesh so you can feed the spirit. And then from that, I talked about the physical benefits of fasting, how it helps our body physically. Because anytime God tells us to do something spiritually, there are physical benefits often as well. The spiritual discipline of prayer, even secular psychologists now are saying, well, prayer helps healing. Prayer helps mental state. That's a no-brainer. And spiritual disciplines help with our physical body. I briefly talked about my background in physical fitness and seeing a lot of people off of diabetic medication, HDL, LDL, cholesterol levels, triglycerides, heart conditions, even hunched over back conditions, neck conditions, everything. Their body's just falling apart and seeing them be revitalized by, again, taking care of the gift that God has given them. And I think it's important to talk about that issue sometimes because we can get so involved in the spiritual that we forget about the physical. And I often go pray with people, as you know, and hear in different things. And I see a lot, pastor, pray for my illness, pray for my diabetes, or pray for my cancer at the beginning stages, or pray for this. And we want to pray. We want to do that. But we can't forget also that we might be contributing to some of these things. You know, a person with a diabetic, you don't want to stop and get a big milkshake and In-N-Out burger on your way home and wake up and have donuts and coffee in the morning. That's not going to help. That's going to hurt. So as I'm praying for people, sometimes I'll feel convicted. You'll see three, you know, three Eggman muffin cartons for breakfast. I'm saying, okay, help with this area. But knowing in my mind that some of these things can cause ailments and illness by not taking care of the body. When the body is not being taken care of, all hell breaks loose. Are you creating an environment that fosters health? Are we creating an environment that fosters health? And I thought of this on Friday. In my old house, when I used to live with my mom when I was younger, we would eat watermelon on the concrete. You ever did that in your front yard or backyard? Watermelon seeds everywhere. Just a mess. And what she would go do is at the end of the night, just get a water hose. Right off the concrete, we're good. Do you know I never saw a watermelon grow out of the concrete? Seeds everywhere. Where did they start to grow? Right along the concrete. Within two summers, we had a watermelon patch you would die for. 50 feet long, right down the property line with the chain link. What was the difference? The environment. The environment for that seed to grow. So many of our illnesses that we're dealing with, mental, physical, diabetic, cancer, leukemia, you name it, not everything, but a lot of things, we are creating an environment on which those diseases flourish. That's just a god-honest truth right across the board. A cancer cell cannot survive in a high pH level, alkaline, different thing, in an environment of fruits and vegetables and God-given food that is killing that. You're removing the fuel source, but you feed it junk food and caffeine and sugar. It fuels it. It's like a fuel that feeds it. So we can't ignore this topic as much as we want to pray for these things. And we should pray for them, but at the same time, we have to wonder how much of our issues are self-created. And I think more people realize this than we think, because often I'll talk with people, and I'm sure you do too, and they say, I know I need to give up such and such. Well, how do you know that? Little birdie told you? No. What conviction? Conviction. God's saying, listen, get rid of that area. I mean, I'll be open with you guys, and I have in the past, and I don't want to make this a whole issue, because I go back and forth, but I'm going to talk about it in a minute. But on this issue of like caffeine, for example, I used to have debilitating back pain, and my back would go out, my neck and muscles and arthritis, and I would feel, and I was just like, I'm only 42, and I'm falling apart. And once I began to, you know, but I knew the background, once I began to wean off of that and just be, the muscles that were so tense would open up, and everything, I felt like I was 25 again. But I knew it, because it's essential nervous stimulant that keeps your body and your fibers and your muscles in this constant state like this all the time. Years, not weeks, years. You're just living like that all the time. So as you free yourself, you see, you feel so much better. HDL, LDL, blood pressure, everything starts to go back to normal levels after you feed the body and you take care of it. God wants us to take care of our spiritual and our physical. We're concerned about what we put in our mind, but not in our mouth, right? Think about that. We're concerned with what we put in here, but not here. And what we put in here affects this. I know this is a convicting message, but I make no apology. Sometimes we need to bring out the truth in all areas of life and say, listen, we are peculiar people. You have a proof text for that? Yep, give me just a minute. We are peculiar people in regard to spiritual things, right? Are we not? People think, oh, Christians are a little off. Why are we not peculiar people in spiritual things? I mean, in physical things? You know, we're going to look a little bit like different than the world. First Peter 2.9 says, but you are chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possessions. And another translation says a peculiar people. What's the point of that? That you may declare the praise of him who calls you out of darkness into his wonderful light. It's interesting that we're peculiar. It's different than what is usual. So God says through Peter that Christians are going to be different than what is usual. In other words, the world looks at, listen, this is different. You're different than the world. Picture somebody walking down the middle of the freeway. Well, that's peculiar, right? That's what we are. That's a little peculiar. That goes against what we watch, what we view, who we associate with, what we worship, our prayer time, our church attendance. We're different, right? You better be right. And it's going to fall in line with this area too. We should be a peculiar people in how we take care of our body. Yeah, we're going to look a little different. People might make fun, but you're taking care of the gift that God has given us. Addiction takes away our control, and it becomes harder to take care of our bodies. Fasting breaks this enslavement. When we're taking care of God's gift, our physical house, and consuming God-given, life-sustaining food, we can say no and avoid addictive foods much easier. See, this is a snowball effect. Once we start to take care of the gift that God has given us, and we fast, and we bring certain things under control, then we want to eat better. We want to take care of our body. We want to walk, and exercise, and get out. And it's funny that God created us in this way to move lungs too. It's interesting. Cancer grows in aerobics. You've heard of aerobics and anaerobic? Aerobic just means with oxygen. Anaerobic means without oxygen. And cancer grows and thrives in that anaerobic state where there's no oxygen. So one thing they encourage people is to get out, walk, breathe heavy, taking clean air, bring in that oxygen that kills these things. So it's a whole lifestyle. Now, I want to be careful. I'm not saying that all causes of disease are because of this, but the majority of what is happening is because of our own poor choices in this area, myself included. Because what we put in is what comes out, and how we take care of that body. So I just wanted to leave you at this point. I put the article in your bulletin. This is how your brain becomes addicted. It's from the Smithsonian Institute there, just to give you an idea of how the brain actually becomes addicted to caffeine. And it's interesting. In reading this, caffeine gives us traits opposite of what the Spirit gives. They give us traits. Do we experience joy, peace, contentment, and gentleness? No. You know what's exchanged for those things? Aggression, agitation, anxiety, irritability, and short-tempered. So when God says be filled with the Spirit of God, and we're putting in substances that directly oppose that feeling of the Spirit, there might be a problem there. Not for everybody. You might be one of the fortunate few who this doesn't affect, but the majority of people, this is what it adds to this. It adds to aggression, and agitation, anxiety, irritability, and fear, and anxiety, and stress, and anger are all heightened when we take central nervous stimulants. You know, black tea, and mahogany guaranate, and ephedra, you know, monster drinks, rock star drinks, you know, venti, large coffees. You're just on high alert. You're in constant, constant anxiety mode. And I'm not just sitting here going, oh, I hope they buy this. I've talked I could read testimonies for the next year on people coming off. My spouse says I'm a different person. My kids want to be around me. Shane, my joy's returned. All from getting off of this. We don't fight anymore like we used to. I'm not so agitated. Everything, not every little thing bothers me. I'm fine in traffic now. How many times do we want to hear this? Oh, there might be something to this. I've been able to go off of my medication now, Shane. I don't deal with fear and anxiety anymore. Once I got off of all that junk that was causing a lot of it. All these people are lying. Moms, kids with attention deficit disorder, and learning disabilities, all these things, now they're studying, they're sitting there, they're calm by removing all this food colorings, and aspartame, sodium nitrates, and caffeine from their diet. I mean, I see a little six-year-olds with a Coke in their hand. I'm like, oh, Lord. Do you know why it was initially called Coke? Yeah. Does it rhyme with cocaine? Cocaine? Coca-Cola? Yeah. Go back and research 100 years ago. And a funny, interesting thing, I've talked to people at Pepsi and stuff before, too. They don't really like me too much. But so why do you put caffeine in those? It doesn't change your taste, does it? No. Doesn't change your coloring? No. Why do you put caffeine in those? Well, it's a long history of our ingredient. No. Why do you put something in there that doesn't need to be in there? Addiction. I need it. Do you know how many people need to go get that after the service? And tomorrow, you think they're going to go the whole day without this addiction tomorrow? Oh, no, sir. They'll go a few hours, and then they'll get agitated, irritable, and aggressive because they need to feed this monster of addiction. And it needs to be crucified, not coddled. How long are we going to continue to allow this? Day, week, month, year? And these aren't little things, oh, it makes me, you know, vacuum the house longer. These are big things where it makes me treat people wrongly. I snap at my spouse. I yell at my children. I'm an emotional wreck. Those are serious things because we're feeding the body. And these things run along the same brainwave as cocaine, amphetamine, mahogany, guaranite. All these things are designed to stimulate the body in an unhealthy way. And people often pray this too. They're just praying, and they'll say, Lord, help me with my anger and my impatience and my fear and my mood swings. Help me as they're drinking 500 milligrams of caffeine. It reminds me of the man who said, Lord, help me save my money as he heads to Las Vegas with his check. Think about that. This is just straight truth, biblical truth, secular truth. These things are affecting our body in a not a good way. When I feed the body what it was designed to consume, it operates much more efficiently. And ironically, what was Jesus accused of? He was accused of drunkenness and gluttony, addiction. You drink too much, and you eat too much, Jesus. Why did they accuse him of that? Because lack of self-control would have disqualified his ministry. They said, he's just a drunkard. He's just a glutton. He parties and drinks and eats too much. He's not the Christ. So those issues are 2,000 years ago, they're important. They're still important today. And how did Jesus answer them? He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wisdom is justified by her children. Wisdom is justified by her children, yes. Wisdom is justified by what results from it. Look at the results of it. Jesus is saying, look at my ministry. The blind are seeing, the lame are made to walk. I'm healing, I'm restoring. Wisdom is shown to be right by what results from it. So let's think about that. Wisdom is shown to be right by what results from it. What is resulting from not taking care of the gift that God has given us? What's been the result? Just think about how these things affect our lives. Don't worry, I'm trying to get through that part real quick. Now on to the real sermon. How many people are saying, man, golly, I'm so convicted. I'm really looking forward to my Pepsi tomorrow, my Mountain Dew, and my tea, my sweet tea. Oh, I just got an email from a guy in Tennessee. He was praying, he was praying a while back. And he had a lot, I guess it's sweet tea back there in the South. His name's Mike. Some of you might know him. I think it's Tennessee. But he emailed me and he said he listened to that message last week on fasting. He goes, man, this is exactly what happened to me. I was in my prayer time and I was fasting and God was saying to him, I want you to stop using this certain drug. And he's like, what? I don't use drugs. And it came to him, get off that caffeine that's making you irritable and anxious and sweet tea. And he researched it and he said, that's exactly, I went off of that, took me about a week and a half. And now I'm a whole, I'm a changed person. So that's, that's why I'm trying to help you guys. I'm not trying to upset. I'm not trying to irritate. I'm trying to help. I'm trying to get rid of those mood swings and all those fights and all that anxiety and all that fear and all that, that road rage of wanting to run people over and everything's not going right. And in my timeframe, and I'm just so anxious and I'm irritable all the time. Help, help, help. Well, God says, okay, take care. I'll help. I'll answer your prayer, but also take care of the, the, the, the, the car I've given you, the vehicle I've given you. It's like, how foolish would it be as we're driving down the road. I see my gas lights on next day, still on Lord, Lord, Lord, give you this, give gas to this vehicle. Lord, would you, would you get me where I need to go for the next week? Lord, give me gas in this vehicle. And then tomorrow I run out of gas and I have to push it and go home. What happened? God didn't answer my, sure. Warning light. Hello? Go fuel up. This is what you need to do to take care of it. Now, now should we not pray, help me, heal me? Of course not. But I think we work in conjunction with God, not against him. I mean, if I'm, if I'm praying, Lord, help me get along better with my spouse and I'm consuming things that make me aggressive, who's the stupid one? Me, right? I'm feeding the very thing that I'm called to fight and to remove from my life. So now Matthew 10, hopefully we'll see some happy faces now instead of sad looks. Oh man, I'm convicted. You have to change your eating plans for tonight, huh? But honestly, you'll feel a lot better. And that's really the goal is to feel better. And I think when we feel better physically, we feel better spiritually. It's powerful when your physical body's feeling good. I mean, some of the best prayer times I've ever had are when I'm just walking for an hour and a half. Oxygen's going, I'm feeling better, Lord. And then everything, everything begins to come together. So I think it works together, the physical and the spiritual. The spiritual is way up here and the physical is down here. They're not to be compared. They don't compete against each other. They complement each other. So with that said, Matthew 10, back into Matthew. Matthew 10, I'm reading from the NIV tonight. These 12 Jesus sent out with the following instructions. Do not, do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. The Samaritans and the Jews did not get along. That's just my own commentary there. They consider what they're called half-breeds. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message. The kingdom of heaven has come near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts. No bag for the journey or extra shirts or sandals or a staff for the worker is worth his keep. I just want to stop there for a minute, kind of unpack that. God spoke a lot into to my spirit, I believe, on this whole area of what does God want from me. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, and drive out demons. Isn't that interesting? Jesus commissioned these people to drive out demons. Can we do that today? We've talked about that before, right? Last week, many of you weren't aware of this, but the 530 service, we had a seven-year-old that we think he was definitely influenced or possessed and was in here. As soon as he heard the worship, he wanted to get the heck out of here. I don't want to talk about Jesus. I don't want to hear about Jesus. And he had to hold and restrain him and try to take him a different room and pray with him. Why? Because when the name of Jesus Christ is mentioned, like the song said, the enemy must flee in that presence. You can't be filled with demonic influence and then come in and praise the Lord. It just doesn't work. And Jesus isn't going to flee. Do you realize that? Jesus is not going to leave the room. Oh, no, I got to get out of here. Anytime the light comes in, do you realize the darkness flees? Have you ever opened your shutters in the morning for the sun? And then, no, it doesn't work. The darkness is too strong. Or go flip on a light switch. It's not working. The darkness is too, never. Light penetrates that darkness and always will and always has. But the first thing I want to take from this, these 12 Jesus sent out with the following instructions, do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. What stood out to me is these 12, not these 2,000, you know, not these 200,000, not this great army of people. So the first point to take from this, don't look at the odds. Don't look at the odds. Many times in our frailty, we look at the odds, don't we? That's not going to happen. Lord, there's no way. We look at the odds, forgetting that a Holy Spirit-filled Christian, one person is more than the majority. So in this case, a minority is more than the majority. When you're filled with the Spirit of God, you are the majority. Jesus said these 12. It's interesting, I looked up online, World War I, we sent 4.7 million soldiers into battle. 4.7 million. What about World War II? A little over 16 million. Korea, 5.7 million. Vietnam, 8.7 million. The Persian Gulf, I guess we got down to 500,000 into battle. But Jesus sends 12, and one of them's a devil, right? One of them's going to betray him. He said, I'm going to send you into cities, I'm going to send you into areas, and you were going to do these things. You're going to cast out demons, you're going to heal the sick, you're going to be my hands and my feet. You're going to go out and do this. 12 people, that's it. 12 guys. I mean, normally, that would just result in utter failure, wouldn't it? If Jesus wasn't in it. But you have to remember that. Don't look at the odds. When you're filled with the Spirit of God, even a minority is the majority. And I hear many people say, I'm useless, I'm hopeless, I'm unqualified. Do you ever feel that way? I'm useless, I'm unqualified, Shane. I'm not going to do what you're doing. Do you realize I'm just a voice? I'm just the voice of West Side Christian Fellowship. We've got feet, we've got hands, we've got prayer, we've got eyes, we've got the brains, we've got everything. We don't just look at the voice. The whole body of believers. You're not useless. We've got tons of areas you can minister to. When you go into these ministry homes, you are doing far more or the same as what I'm doing right now. Sitting with somebody, reading scripture, talking, investing in their life is no different than what I'm doing right now. Do you realize that? I truly believe that. I'm not just saying it to say it. I believe that God looks at that, because God looks at, what have I called you to do? He looks at faithfulness. He doesn't care if there's 2,000 people here, 200. He looks at faithfulness. But also, it's good when we get to a point of saying, I'm useless, I'm hopeless, I'm unqualified. Often, that's when God will say, good. Now, I have you in a position of openness and willingness and dependence and flexibility. God plus humility equals success. See, I think God sometimes, a lot of times, will get us in that position where we say, it's useless. Who am I? I'm unqualified. I can't do this. Lord, I can't do this. Good. Good. Now that you're out of the way, let me minister through you. But then we start to rate success by numbers, right? I want the big numbers. I want my name on the PowerPoint. I want to do this and do this. I want to write books. I want all this. And God says, no, no, no, no, no, just faithfulness. Just faithfulness, not crowd appeal. So don't look at the odds and don't look at the situation. Be faithful in whatever God is calling you to do. Actually, when I was at these hospital homes, I felt more used by God than sometimes I do right here. Isn't that amazing? Leaving there, thanking God, I'm able to invest in lives one, two, three, and four at a time. Because that's ministry. And the quote I used last week, and one really was for this week, from Andrew Murray, pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. Do you catch that? That's a good one to highlight. Put in your Bible, pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. And I've got a book there I recommended, recommended reading, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. How to liberate ministry from the success syndrome. Because we get caught up in success. I got a success. I got to succeed at these things. And this book is a great tool for those who wanting to get into ministry or just getting a proper perspective on ministry. So don't look at the odds. When you're doing something for God, what does God want? He doesn't want you to look at the odds. He wants you to use wisdom, but don't say, oh, forget it. This is too big. I'm not going to go pass out books or pamphlets. I'm not going to go minister. Nobody's listening to me. God says, good, good. Now you're not going to take any credit. Now I'm going to do it. I'm going to work through you as soon as you get your own agenda out of the way. However, big disclaimer, there's a fine line between presumption and faith. Right? Presumption. I presume something versus I have the faith to do something. And I see many people make mistakes because they presume God is leading them when he's not. So how do we find the difference between presumption and faith? And actually this question was asked of me last week. We're thinking about this building, you know, if we move to a different location where we do Sunday morning services, you know, and people like, hey, let's just, I mean, it looks like God's opened the door. Good possibilities. Why don't we just do this? And I said, well, hold on, hold on. We can't presume. We can't presume anything. There's a fine line between, Lord, I had the faith that you might do this, but there's also presumption jumps in the way. And presuming, here's the difference. I think this will help some people. Here's when we presume it's an act of taking something to be true or adopting a particular attitude towards something, especially at the start of an argument or an action. So what happens is something happens. There's an action, choice. You got to make decisions. And we jump to a conclusion. We just adopt, okay, well, it must be this way. Like that quick. You ever do that? Somebody said, okay, I have to do this. That's why God says, wait on me. Wait on me, renew your strength. Slow down. Let the peace of God rule your heart. Just wait, wait. No, no, no, no. So presumption, presumption is people. They just move on things. They hear something, they move on it. I'll just keep using this example, I guess. Hey, there's a building available. Great. Let's move on. Let's sign the lease next week. It's God. It's God. Come on. You don't think that's God? You got, you have no faith then. No, that's presumption. The devil can present nice little things too. Or life can just present things. So you cannot just always presume something. But here's the difference. Faith, faith is an act of knowing something is true. Or adopting a particular attitude of humility while waiting on God. So faith says, you know what, Lord, that might be true. But I'm not going to presume. I don't have enough information right now. I'm going to wait on you and have faith that you'll guide me. You see how they have different attitudes behind them, different actions behind them? So the next time before you rush out and do something, don't just presume God is in it. Because people will move across the state. They'll buy this or they'll go here just assuming that God is in anything. This, he's got to be in it. He's directing me. Now, granted, there's a fine line here too, because faith moves in that realm. When I live by faith, I know that God is leading, God is guiding, God's in control. So I live in that way. But we also have to sometimes put on the brakes, because many of us like to push on the gas pedal, right? Microwave Christianity, hurry, hurry, got to get it, got to get it now. Here's the second thing. To presume something, it's behavior that is perceived as arrogant, disrespectful, and transgressing the limits of what is permitted or appropriate. So when we're presumptuous, sometimes we can be disrespectful, and we push the limits of what is appropriate. We have to get it. God gave it to me. I'm going to push the envelope. But that's not faith. Faith underscored with humility. We are respectful of others and the things of God. We don't want to transgress the limits of what is permissible or appropriate. So here's what happens. Presumption rushes, faith waits. Presumption is fueled by pride, faith is fueled by humility. Presumption is assuming something, faith is knowing. Presumption results in anger, anxiety, and confusion. Faith results in peace in the midst of the storm. And a couple scriptures we're familiar with, be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Listen, I've had to pull out that scripture more times than I can think of. Just be still. Be still and know that I am God. Well, what if I have to make a quick, timely decision? Well, then use wisdom and make it to the best of your ability. But I found that nine times out of ten, we don't need to make that quick decision. We want to make that quick decision. But many times it's in that waiting time that God moves. And God opens doors, He closes doors. I'm so glad sometimes I just wait on God, then I get a call the next day or an email like, oh, geez, you had this all figured out. I'm so glad I waited on you. Or there's other times where I rush ahead and look back going, oh, Lord, I should not have done that. I should have waited on you. Those who wait upon the Lord will get weak, right? Know what the scripture says? Those who wait upon the Lord are going to get weak and tired and misled. Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. So when you wait upon the Lord in that time of prayer and worship, you give it another day or two days or you wait on an email, you just wait upon the Lord, you're renewing your strength. And then scripture says you'll mount up wings like eagles. You'll run and not grow weary. You'll walk and not faint. There's supernatural strength there from waiting on God. So here's the takeaway. I know some people have to get up for the next service, children's ministry. Here's the takeaway. Presumptuous people assume without seeking God, without waiting on Him, they rush ahead to get what they want. Do you ever rush ahead to get what you want? No? You lucky guys. Just me? Rush ahead. I want that. Rush ahead. So waiting on God allows us. Man, I saw this in the real estate market. People rush ahead, offer, offer on homes, offer, offer, offer. The frenzy. Gotta have it, gotta have it. Just frenzy, offer, offer, offer, offer. It's not waiting. Oh, I can't wait, can't wait. Gotta jump on it, gotta jump on it. And bad decisions were made. When you're filled with the Spirit of God, remember this. Even a minority is the majority. If you've been presumptuous and reckless, repent and turn back to God. There is safety in the center of His will. I have so many more points. You see them in the bulletin, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to get to them, so I have to pick them up next week. But I want to just encourage you. Many of us are in situations right now because we were presumptuous. We were reckless. We made wrong choices. We moved too fast. But God doesn't say, listen, too bad. You're done. That was it. He says, good. Now you realize that. Come back to me. Redirect yourself to me. Worship me again. I often tell people, they're a mess. Hey, there's nowhere safer on the planet than to run back to God's arms of safety and protection and in His will. You can position yourself back in the will of God again. Wait, Shane, I'm pregnant. I'm sleeping with a guy I don't even love anymore. A girl said, you're telling me? Yeah, there's consequences, but you can reposition yourself back into God's perfect will. Say, Lord, I repent. I give you my life. Lord, would you steer me clear of trouble? Would you rebuild me? Would you restore me? He says, yes, come back into my arms. Now you're in my safety. Now you're in my protection. Now you're within my will because now your heart's right. She made choices outside of His will, but you can run back to a loving father who will now, okay, I got this. I've got this. Yeah, it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt. There's going to be consequences, but I'm going to be there with you. I'm going to be guiding you and holding you. You see the difference? Being outside and trying to fight against Him, you'd be amazed. Remember I said this a month ago. People say, I've done too much damage, but you'd be amazed at what God does with brokenness and repentance. You would be amazed at what God does with brokenness and repentance. One of the guys, he came last week to the 530 service. I think I can say this here, but I visited the hospital in Palmdale a few weeks back, and he's been a heroin addict for 30 years. And I came over there, his door was closed, and I said, hey, I just want to minister to people. Does anybody need prayer and stuff? And the nurses said, yeah, this guy, he's, man, he's not doing good. So I walk in and you could just, you feel that in the air. And then half hour later, half hour later, he's wanting to go to church. He's hugging me. Thank you so much. His eyes are lit up. What was the difference? Oh, Pastor Shane, come. No, no, no. What I said? Yeah, okay. 30 years, you ruined it. Yeah, absolutely. You've got little grandkids. You've ever seen, guess what? What are you going to do then with the next 20 years of your life? Can you imagine the testimony that you would be to God? If you get your life back in order, now you go help with your grandchild. Now you be example to your son. You could change the course of their lives. You could change your destiny by getting that hope back and letting God rebuild your life and be an example to others. Who cares about the past? Sure, we should be concerned about those things. We should learn from it. But what's God going to do in your life now? Yeah, you've done too much damage. But God, if you've got a breath to breathe, and you're even on your death bed, and there's a week left, I'll be praying and interceding for my family. I don't know about you. But the enemy's not going to come and do a thing until I breathe my last breath. That's it. I did everything I could do. And I remember this clear as day. I was 30 years old. I know it's not very old, but I said, Lord, I've ruined my life. It's over. It's over. I've lost everything. And it was almost, I felt just God saying, no, son, your life has just begun. Think about it. Destroyed everything, financial, relational, marriage, everything, everything. I'm done. I've just ruined everything. Alcohol, arrogance, pride, everything. I'm 30 years old. You're having a kid by now. You're thinking of retirement in 20 years. I've ruined everything. He said, no, son, now your life's just begun. Now that you're back, watch what I do in 10 years, what you couldn't do in 30. See, when God says, I will restore the years to you that the canker worm and locust and all these things took, the chewing locust, the swarming locust, and when I will restore what took years to break down, God can rebuild back in months. What took years to destroy a marriage, He can say, boom, within a month that is being rebuilt again. Listen, I'm trying to get people, I don't know if they'll ever do it, but I'm trying to get people that come here, that last year she was filing for divorce and he was moving away and they hated each other. And now they're worshiping, holding hands, leaving here, ministering to people. But God, see, we can't get away from that. But God, no matter what you're going through, no matter your situation, I've done too much damage. I'm just an old person out and living by myself. I can't use, oh yes, He can. Oh yes, He can. He can visit you wherever you're at. In a little house out in the Mojave Desert or a big church here like wherever you're at, God's going to use that. The problem, you know why people get depressed is because I'm not a rock star. Think about it. And then you talk to the rock stars, why are they so depressed? And they're taking their lives and they're ODing. Why? Because they're not designed to be God. Read interviews from Jim Carrey and all these Hollywood actors that are suffering major depression. We have more hope, more hope than they will ever know. More peace than they will ever know. Why? Where does that come from? So get, we have to get our mentality on the measuring success. If I'm a rock star, if I could just be a big name this, or if I could have a lot of money, or if I, no, God just wants you to say, no, let me just use you who you are. Actually, you have more value to me when you think less of yourself. And that's how God rebuilds. So what does God want? Shane, what does God want? Well, let me end with this. There are some things clearly outlined in God's word for your life. Number one, to be saved. Are you saved? If not, you got to start there. Looking around, I know just about everybody in this room. So I'm assuming this is true. If not, guess what? You can reposition yourself and say, Lord, I repent of my sin. I give my life to you tonight. I'm not playing church anymore. I'm repenting. I'm coming home. Lord, I'm tired of playing church. I'm tired to go through the motions. I repent of my sin. I acknowledge Christ as Savior and Lord of my life. That's his will for your life. Look in your bulletin. Here's all the scripture references if you don't believe me. 1 Timothy, 1 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Matthew. What else is his will? His will is that we be saved and we worship him. Is that interesting? That we worship, that's God's will is we worship him. You know how many people are worried about God's will out here in the workplace or retirement or moving, and they don't even worry about God's written will to worship him? Because when you're saved and you're worshiping him and you're doing everything that his word says, he'll open those doors. So let's close with that. To be saved, to worship him, to be holy, to be set apart for his glory, to be filled continually with the Holy Spirit, to witness to others, to make disciples, that's his will for your life according to scripture. There's all the references you can read. So think about this. If we're not making disciples, these hospital homes or wherever you want, if we're not making disciples, we're not witnessing to others. I talk to Christians. How long has it been since you gave your testimony and you asked them about Christ? Oh, God. Yeah, I don't know if I've ever done that. What? Never? Or maybe six years ago. And we wonder why we're dying spiritually. We're worried about God's will financially, and we're not doing what he says to. This will build us up to be filled with the Spirit of God. All these things are crystal clear. So let's just leave with this final thought. It dawned on me this week. I forgot to write it down. I'm glad I remembered it. But we talk about the cross often and what Jesus did and the perfect sacrifice and God's will. God's will for him was that he go to the cross and die for the sins of the world. And it really, of course, I've always known this, but it jumped out this week, is why do they nail people to the cross in their wrists and their feet? Why do they nail them? So they couldn't get down, right? Well, guess what? If he can call down 10 legions of angels to defeat, he could have. Those weren't holding him. The nails weren't holding Christ to the cross. He could have just went, I'm off. What was holding him? God's will, his love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. The love of God compelled Christ to stay on the cross, to do the will of the Father. I just encourage you, if you've been outside of God's will, get back into God's will. You shouldn't have to be compelled to do it. You shouldn't have to be forced. I've got to do this. And people, God's will should just flow freely and not be so compelled and forced because that becomes religion, not a relationship.