Ten and Two

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

 Well, good morning, everyone. I hope that you’re doing well. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been loving the sermon series. We’ve been really talking about how life is a highway. And we’re driving down the highway. When the Apostle Paul talked about the subject matter. He talked about walking because that was the primary mode of transportation back then. But today, it’s driving. And Luke, when we drive down the road, we don’t do a G style, do we? We do it with what we do it with ten and ten, and everybody says that with me, Ten. And one more time. Ten and two. The first three rows have got it down. Everybody else is struggling. But today’s message title is what? Ten and two. You’ve got it. Good. Now, we’ve been looking at Ephesians chapter five, and I want to just pick up and these are the verses that we’re looking at for the entire sermon series the last two weeks, today and next week. And I promise you this you don’t want to miss next week. And Paul says.

“Awake, you who sleep. Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation;but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

Ephesians 5:14-21

Now, I don’t know about you. I don’t think that I can ever read that enough because there are so many areas of my life that I’m asleep at, and I don’t even know it. I’m not even cognitive of it. And sometimes, I am cognitive, and I just somehow blow past it. But awake you who are asleep, and I would say that some of you are asleep in your marriage, your sleep, in your finances. You are asleep at school when literally you’re not paying any attention to your grades whatsoever. There are so many areas that we are asleep. Now we’ve been in this sermon series. We have been talking about rumble strips, and rumble strips are those strips that are on the highway that is on the shoulders but also in the middle of the center lane. And these rumble strips have the responsibility of being a text message from the road system or from the highway. And the road sends us a text message. And the text message is very clear, is that you are moving in the wrong direction, is what the text message of the road says, that you’re moving in the wrong direction. You’re headed in the wrong direction. Now, I don’t think any of us would be, I would guess, probably upset because there are rumble strips. Rumble strips are very important. Why they are important because they actually do what they save lives. Now, I don’t know if you know this or not, but it costs $6,000 per mile to put it in rumble strips. So when you think about the interstate, you’re driving down 75 south, and you go one mile, that one mile of rumble strip costs $6,000. Now, that’s very inexpensive. When you think about the astronomical cost of what it costs to put in one mile of highway. Now, here’s what the Department of Transportation has done studies on. And they say, look, this is interesting. When you put in rumble strips on a highway or a section of road that didn’t have rumble strips. Fatalities decrease by 51%.

Now, think about that. When rumble strips are put in, the fatalities on that road go down by 51%. And in America, there are 37,000 people who lose their lives every year on the highway. And so what I think about rumble strips, I think about a good investment of the taxpayer dollar. Would you not agree with me? And I think it’s a good investment, $6,000, but fatalities go down by 51%. Now, not only do we need rumble strips in our highways and our roads, but we need rumble strips in our hearts and in our lives. And this is the reason why we’re doing the sermon series. Last week, when we talked about the internal rumble strips, we talked about the center line, and we talked about our conscience. And remember, we said last week that our conscience is something that’s built into each and every one of us. It is something that is a small steel voice on the inside, and it’s there to keep us from danger. Well, today, we’re going to look at external rumble strips. We’re going to look at the people that God has placed in their lives to keep us from drifting off the highway. Now, here’s my sermon in a sentence.

When you’re listening to the right voices, you avoid the wrong places.

Now, folks, that’s pretty good right there. I’m just telling you that it’s really good. When you’re listening to the right voices, you avoid the wrong places because those people are God’s voice in your life to keep you from living foolishly. Now you know what foolish living is. Now, youth, I want you to listen to me. All the young people in the room that’s probably about 40 and under for me these days. But when you were 49, you didn’t listen to me. Is that foolish? Living believes that what you do today does not impact your future. Whatever you do today will eventually catch up with you in the future. It will absolutely 100% impact your future and the things that you do today. And there are people that are living a lifestyle, doing things that they shouldn’t be doing, and they believe deep down that it will never catch up to them in the future. And you can do whatever you want, and you will get by with it. But one day, it will catch up with you. And what it does in your future, you’re not going to like what you see, I promise you that. Now, here’s the thing. Here’s what Paul said. God bless you. Here’s what Paul says in Ephesians. In chapter five, verse 21, he says.

“Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. ” 

Ephesians 5:21

Now, this is the argument from the passage that talks about how we need the right people in their lives to keep us from going in the wrong direction. Now, there are two phrases that we’re going to look at. We’re going to define, first of all, reverence for Christ. And then, we’re going to define submitting. Those are two very important words for the message. Now, what is reverence for Christ? I mean, what does it mean to be reverent for Christ? Now it means that you are enamored. It means that you stand in all. It means that you’re blown away. It means that you’re thunderstruck by who he is and what he has done in your life. It’s everything that Jesus has accomplished on your behalf. And some of you sitting here this morning go. Well, I don’t think that Jesus has done anything for me lately. And I’m like, What? Hello? What does Jesus do for you? Jesus went to the cross for you. Jesus died on the cross for you. Jesus was buried on the third day. Jesus rose from the grave. He gave you a new name. He called you his son and his daughter, whichever one you may be. He says I’ve given you a new name. I’ve given you a new name sitting at my table in heaven. I have given you the fatted calf. Put the robe on your shoulders. I put the ring on your finger. I have called you to be a part of the greatest mission on earth, and that is world redemption. Is that your part of a movement that’s going to bring world redemption? To tell the whole world that Jesus Christ saves. He is called you and me to feed the hungry, to gather the laws, to clothe the naked, to put a bed out for the homeless, and to translate the Bible into different languages. For people who do not have a Bible and translate it into their language around the world so that they can learn about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. That’s what Jesus Christ has done for you and for me. I mean, that’s what he’s done. Now, here’s the thing. When you understand what Christ has done and then it says in Ephesians 5:21, if we go back to that verse, you submitting to one another, then we submit to one another. Because why? Because we have an understanding of the heart in the Ministry of Jesus. We understand his motivation. We understand his intentions. And then we’re to submit ourselves to one another in the body of Christ. Now, what does the word submission mean? And here’s what the word submission means.

SUBMISSION= voluntarily put yourself under the authority of other people within the body of Christ, within his body.

Now, folks, this is a very important concept. And the most important word there is voluntarily is that you voluntarily submit yourself to the authority of someone else in the body of Christ. You do that whether it’s a staff member, you do it. Whether it’s a life group leader, it’s a serve team leader, or somebody else. You submit yourself, and it’s voluntary. Nobody is going to force you to do it. No one’s going to twist your arm to do it. No one. It doesn’t come from the outside. It comes from the inside out. And why is it that we need to submit ourselves to one another because the people in your life will determine your destiny? Now, let me just give you a couple of points really quickly. Number one is you got to have the.

Right PEOPLE

In your life. Now, young people listen to me very, very carefully. The right people are important because the people that you have in your life will determine your destiny and the trajectory of your life more than anything else. And when your parent says to you that you’re hanging out with the wrong friends, you need to listen to them because they are giving you wisdom. They see things that you’re not able to see because why the right people will determine the destiny of your life. For the large part, look at what it says in Proverbs 13. Verse 20.

“Become wise by walking with the wise; hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces”

 Proverbs 13: 20

You want to be wise. Hang out with wise people. You want to have your life fall apart. Just hang out with fools. Listen to me, my friends. You cannot be wise and hang out with foolish people. It is completely impossible for you to do that. Now, here’s what you need to understand. The people that you hang out with, you will eventually become like them. Now we all know this. Have we all seen this, Right? Is that why we hang out with a friend, and we become and we take on what? Their mannerism. We say things just like they say things. And not only do we take on their mannerism, but they take on our mannerisms. Well, Princeton University did a study, and the study is called the psychological, neurological level of brain patterns. Okay. And in this study, I was listening to it a podcast. Trust me, I wasn’t reading this study. It’s too heavy for me. But I was listening to it. And the point was, is that when you hang out with someone and you hang out with them for a concentrated amount of time, you go to the movies, you hang out on the back deck, you go to concerts together, you go to ballgames together. Is that you eventually take on their brain pattern and their rhythm of life. And you eventually become like the people that you hang out with. Here’s how someone said it.

Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.

Just show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future. Now, some of you right now you’re having a dialog in your own mind, and your dialog is going something like this. But, Pastor, are we called to go into the world? Are we called to go into the world and be a part of the world and be the Sword and the Lord of the Earth? And aren’t we supposed to go out and make a difference? But it sounds to me that you want me to be ostracized. You want me to tell people, No, no, I can’t hang out with you because you’re a bad influence on me. Now, how does that work? What is the tension that is there? And there is tension, right? Because we’re supposed to influence the world. The world is not supposed to influence us. And so there’s this tension. And what we’re great at in Christianity, and I think that you would agree with me, Jake is that we go from one extreme to the other extreme right. I mean, we live at one end of the spectrum or the other end of the spectrum. We would never find a happy balance. Now, over here, on one side of the spectrum, is what I would call the monastery life. You know what I mean by the monastery life. I mean, you take your burlap sack, and you take it, and you fill it full, full of goods, and you go out, and you live in the desert. This is where we get the term desert fathers, you know, from centuries ago. And they believe that the best thing they could do was to go out into the desert, live in isolation, and just commune with God. And they created these little communities of faith that grew over time. And the people who started this movement were called Desert Fathers. And so they’re out there and doing this. And we don’t do that today. I don’t know anybody who’s packed up and moved to the desert and said, you know what? I’m just going to be a desert father. But here’s how we do it. We do it differently in that we only drink milk from Christian cows. We only listen to Christian music. We only eat food from Christian restaurants. You know where I’m going, right? I mean, we only, you know, we do a church softball league because that way we don’t have to play those pagans and heathens that’s out there. It’s always about the church softball, and we’re just going to Christianize everything, and we’re just going to make we’re going to see their kids to a Christian school. We’re going to have Christian mentors, and we’re going to have everything we put them in this Christian bubble.

Well, you know what happened to that Christian bubble? That Christian bubble always is invaded by sin. It is crazy. It is idiotic thinking because you know why? You know how sin enters into the camp you are seeing enters into this Christian bubble. It comes from the heart. A little Johnny and little Sally. It comes from the hearts of their friends. Who’s part of that Christian bubble. We can never keep sin out, friends. Sin always emerges. And so being ostracized, being over here in a Christian bubble, is not the answer. But also, we can’t go to the other extreme. And we live so deeply in the world, and we’re so immersed in the world that we no longer can influence the world because the world is now influencing us. Do you hear what I’m saying? I mean. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, we’re so involved in the world that the world now is influencing us, and we’ve lost our influence. And how do we balance that? And I think we should just do what Jesus did. I don’t know about you. I think it’s a great place for us to start. Just do what Jesus did. And what did Jesus do? Jesus was part of the world. He went to parties. He drank. He did those types of things. He would go to any party. He would hang out with anyone. I mean, he turned water into wine. He did all of those things. And, you know, people would say, well, that was really wasn’t wine. Well, I don’t know what else you want to call it. They got drunk, so I don’t know. But, I mean, you can call it whatever you want. You can Christianize it all you want over here. Great. Christianize the Bible. Make it say something that doesn’t. But Jesus did all of that. But Jesus had core voices in his life. He had a core identity. And there was one in his home group. It was the 12 men that he did live with that were called his disciples. Remember them? They spoke into his mouth. They. He spoke into their lives. And not only that, but Jesus had friends outside of the 12 disciples. He had Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and other people who supported his ministry. Do you understand what I’m saying? These people spoke to the life of Jesus. And here’s the thing. I think that you and I should do the exact same thing. And, in fact, what did Jesus do every time that he did something significant? He had three guys that went with them, James, John, and Peter. There was always with them.

And folks here’s the thing, is that you and I, we should go into the world. We should influence the world. We should be the salt in the light of the earth. We should go into the communities where we work, and we should be the person of peace in that place of work. The schools that we go into, the classrooms that we go into. You and I should be the person of peace. And what I mean by the person of peace. I mean, you’re the person who’s most like Jesus in that arena at that moment. And you should go in and be the salt in the light of the earth. And you should love people, and you should tell people that I’m really a nobody. But somebody saved me. And his name was Jesus, and he’s given me a new identity and a new mission. And we just go out, and we influence the world. And that, folks, means the right people in our lives. But not only do we need the right people, but we need the right spirit. We need to have the.

Right SPIRIT

Now, what is the right spirit? It is humility and gratitude. Now, I’m just going to step on some toes, right now. I’m just going to say in advance you can get offended. And that’s okay. I don’t care. I mean, one of those moves that you don’t care. But. Some of you. You need a rumble strip in your life. Know there are people that are over you in authority at eastside. That needs to speak into your life. And when they speaking to your life, you need to respond with humility in gratitude. Let me give you an example. I’ll just take a lot of group ministry, home groups. A lot of group leaders. Pulls over. This lady says, let’s just have a side conversation. It appears in my life group it has been my wife who’d have this conversation, and she would talk to this lady in my life group, and she would go, you know, every time that your husband starts to tell a story. That you always cut them off. You always tell them, Honey, that’s not how it happened. Let me tell you how it happened, folks. And you begin to tell the story, and you begin to change the whole direction of the story. I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but have you ever noticed what happens when you do that? What would happen if you started being encouraging? Do you think that would change the heart of your husband at all? For some of you, it’s You served team leader. You serve. Team leader. Sits down to have a conversation with you. If they haven’t, they do. Probably because you tell them that you’re going to come to the huddle on Sunday morning or whatever, and, you know, 9:00 comes right 30 whatever the huddle time is. And you don’t show up. And when you do show up, you come breezing in about 10 minutes late. You breeze in as if it’s no big deal, and you give your serve leader 17 reasons why you’re late. He’s your team leader who is gone. But you know what? We all have lives as well. Now, can I just tell you something? When you come breezing in whistling 10 minutes late, you insist everybody else knows what it says to me. It says to me, to everybody else, that this is not important to you. And see if you have the right spirit. If you are full of humility, you will accept that feedback, and you will go, You know what? I know that it took a lot for you to do that. There was awkward, there was heavy, there was probably hard for you to do. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for helping me to have a chance to grow. Thank you for helping me to see the blind spots in my life. Thank you for taking the risk.

But there are some people who go, Well, you think you’re just Mr. Perfect, and you think that you got everything together. And let me just tell you this. No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not how we do it. Look what it says in Proverbs chapter 16, verse 18, says.

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18

And folks, listen to me. You cannot get defensive. You cannot give full of pride because what? Is that you’re craving spiritual community. You’re in a spiritual community, which means that you’re under authority. And as you’re under authority, it is your responsibility to respond with humility and respond with gratitude. But number three, if you take your notes, you got to ask the.

Right QUESTIONS.

Now, what do I mean by that? I pick on Robin and Brian over here on the front row. All right, so Robin and Brian know them. When they’re at church, they come to a leader. Plus, they come to inspire. They come to different things. But I don’t know everything about their life. I don’t see them at work. I don’t see them at home, and I don’t see them cooking meals. I don’t see them doing yard work. I mean, there are a thousand things that I don’t have privy to in their lives, and neither should I because I’m trying to live my own life. Right. And here’s the thing, is that Brian and Robin know what’s going on in their lives. They have nothing no clue about. They shouldn’t wait for me to ask them questions and be a rumble strip in their life. They should say, you know what? God is rumbling something in my heart. Something God is rumbling, something in our marriage. And we need to seek out wise counsel. Here. What I’m saying? It is that you know that God’s doing something, and you need to seek out wise counsel. Look at what it says in the book of Proverbs says.

“Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”

Proverbs 20:5

So here’s the thing, Robin. Brian, they’re dealing with this rumbling that God has placed in the heart. They don’t even know what to do with it. And then, what they do, they start asking questions. They start inviting people into the process. Start asking them to speak about the process. Give me some wisdom. Give me some insight that is bringing them on early in the process and saying we don’t know what God has for us. We don’t know where God’s leading us. But here’s what we do know we need some wise counsel. Can I tell you something, my friends? 99% of the time, when somebody comes to me and asks me for wisdom and counsel, you know what they’re looking for? They come to me. I start asking them questions. And then quickly, you know what, I come to a conclusion now saying this for Brian and Robin, but for them is that here’s what usually happens. Look, they’ve already made their decision.

You don’t want a rumble strip.

You just want a rubber stamp

On their already made decision. Here. What I’m saying is that they don’t want a rumble strip. They just want to rubber stamp. They just want me to prove what they’re going to do. Pastor. God told us to get a divorce. We’re just going to get a divorce. Here are 15 reasons. And they have no wise counsel. They’re just looking for me to rubber stamp. And I go. Just do whatever you want to do. You remove your mind because what? They didn’t bring anybody in the process early on, and you’re dealing with something, something struggling with something. Bring wise people in early in the conversation. But number four, very quickly, you got to have the.

Right POSTURE.

You got to have the right posture. It is that you have people in your life. Who will be a rumble strip to you? But then there will come a day when you will become a rumble strip to other people. Is that you’ll become a voice of caution. You’ll become the conscience for somebody else. And you’ll go, you don’t need to do that. And for some of you, that scares you to death. Some of you right now is your last group leader. And you need to be that voice to somebody in your life, your service team leader. And you need to be that voice to someone in your on your serve team. And you’re going, How in the world do you even do that? How do you even approach that? Conflict scares me to death. And folks, listen to me. You do it with a spirit and an attitude of LOVE love. You have love in your eyes. You have love in your heart. You have love in your tone. You realize that this is an enormous responsibility, and you didn’t ask for it. But God’s giving it to you. And you have accepted the challenge to speak into someone else’s life. And when you speak into it, you speak into it with love, and you speak into it with kindness, and you pray yourself up before you have that conversation. Here’s the prayer that I would pray if I was you.

“God, please help them see how much I care about them and how much I want the best for them. God help them to be unmistakably clear that I don’t think I’m better than them. I’m not relishing the opportunity of pointing out sin in their lives. Let it be with gentle humility.” 

That’s how I would say it. Here’s what the Apostle Paul said in Galatians Chapter six, verse one.

“Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day is out.”

Galatians 6:1 

Mic drop, dang. That’s good, right? This good. You may need forgiveness before the day, folks. It’s not that you’re going in with a hearty attitude. You’re going to recognize that this is difficult. This is not easy. This is not comfortable. You love the person. You want the best for the person. And you go in with the attitude that, you know what, I messed up. There are things in my life that are not going right. There are things that I need to work on. But I just want to put this on your radar. Let me ask you to tell you this. And now, I’m going to put this on your radar, but I’m not going to gossip about it to no one. I’m not going to tell anybody. I’m not going to destroy your name because your name is important. And folks. Isn’t that a game-changing way of doing relationships? Is that? We honor one another. We love one another enough to call each other out when we have the authority, the regional authority, to do that. No messages over the message are over. I won’t put a nice little ribbon and bow on the package. Okay.

And I want to just tell you an Old Testament story. The nation of Israel. We’re supposed to go into the Promise Land. And Moses was designed to be the leader to lead the nation of Israel into the promised land. But you remember that the people in Moses Day listened to the wrong voices and ended up in the wrong places. And so Moses didn’t get the opportunity to take the nation of Israel on to the promised land. That was left to Joshua. And Joshua actually led the nation of Israel into the promised land. Now you have to remember that it was designed for Moses to do it. The nation of Israel just came out of Egypt hot. They just went through the Red Sea and flaming colors. I mean, they were a holy terror that was in the process of moving over into the promised land. And Moses goes, you know, we don’t have any drones, so we can’t find anything over and see the promised land. Here’s what we can do. I got a better plan. We will do a recon mission. We will take one man from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, and we are going to conform, you know, form a committee, and we will send the committee over to the promised land, and they’re going to bring back a report. Now, Moses thought they would come back and go. Bro, man, this is unbelievable. This is fantastic. We should go. But I want you to notice how the story plays out. Let’s look at numbers. Chapter 13.

“At the end of forty days they came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community… They…showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: ‘We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.'”

Numbers 13:25-27 

Now, I don’t know if this is true or not, but there’s a legend that says that two of the 12 came back with a stick, a branch on their shoulders, one in the front, one in the back, and in the middle hung all of the fruit. The abundance of fruit that they brought back from the promised land. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but this is what the legend says. But look what else.

“But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

Numbers 13:21-29

Now you know what is taking place here. They’re giving the excuse of why it’s going to be too hard to go into the promised land. They’re giving all the excuses of why this can’t be done. But look at the next verse.

“Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’ But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” “Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night.They rose their voices in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in Egypt or even here in the wilderness,” they complained… Then they plotted among themselves, Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt.’ Then Moses and Aaron fell face down on the ground before the whole community of Israel. Two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua and Caleb, tore their clothing. They said to all the people of Israel, ‘If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!'”

Numbers 14:1-9 

They are only helpless prey to us. They’re nothing in comparison to the God that we serve. And Caleb and Joshua. Their focus was on God and not the Giants. And notice, my friends, there were ten men who focused on the Giants. And there were two men. Who Focus on God and the sermon title for today. Ten and Two, and to you listen to the wrong voices, you end up in the wrong places. You listen to the right voices. You can end up in the right places. And my friends, we’re standing on the brink of the promised land. We’re standing on the brink of Ephesians. We’re looking out, ready to take a step into the promised land. And there are people who just look at the giants, look at the problems, look at this, and you end up in the wrong places. Well, we can listen to God and focus on God. And end up in the right places. And those giants. Because of the blood of Jesus Christ. We focus on Jesus, and God doesn’t become like grasshoppers in near sights. Would you pray with me, please?

Father, this morning thank you. Thank you for the rumble strips. Thank you. But you that you put people in their lives. They will submit to. There was submit to voluntarily. So we can grow, we can learn, so can develop insights about ourselves that are hidden. Father. Thank you. For these people. Thank you for the opportunity that you’ve given us, not only to be under authority but also to be able to speak into the lives of other people. Help us to do that with care, love, and great humility. Father, we ask that today. That you would continue to make yourself known. Even as we sing this last song together in the name of Jesus. Amen.