Thank you for this, the first Sunday of a new year. And Lord, we look to you for all things. While we may look to you for the year ahead, we look to you for the day ahead, for the hour ahead for the time we have together. I pray Lord that you would help in as we look into your word, that we will understand and clearly hear the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and we will hear your word, that would help us to be hearers and to be doers of the word.
And I pray Father for those who are not feeling well today, there's a number of folks that are just not able to be here today because they're not feeling well, or that you would heal them, that you would strengthen them, and that you would encourage all who are not able to be here. We know there are some who are discouraged and having difficulties, and we just pray Father that you would help them as well to look to the Lord Jesus, and to be strengthened and lifted up. And I pray Father for any who may be here this morning who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. May this be the greatest year as they come to know him, that they put their faith in him.
We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Here we are, 2022. It seems like yesterday that we brought in 2000. So remember that Northbrook get together that we had, and I look back and reflect on that, and I think of how many people that are here that were there, and it's very few of us now.
Some are with the Lord, some are somewhere else, some are perhaps not walking with the Lord, we don't know. But may the Lord help us in a year ahead to walk with him, to look to him, we need it, and we need to be there. So happy new year. I saw this little verse, you crown the year with your goodness, and your paths drip with abundance, happy new year.
So one of the things that I notice that happens every year, I don't watch the news very much, I'm actually kind of off that whole juice. And, but I do notice that you get the recap of the previous year, and then you get the predictions of what's going to come. Now, I spoke, I just look back, and I spoke two years ago for 2020, and I put up the predictions, here are predictions for 2020. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but then this happened.
So, so it was a colossal fail. Any of the predictions for 2020, we're definitely overshadowed. And that stupid thing is still with us. So we look at it and think, yuck.
So predictions, like, well, I don't know what brings us to making predictions about a new year, but it happens all the time. It happens every year. It's in the papers, it's in the news, it's on the internet, it's on Facebook, it's on the blah, blah, everywhere. So here are some predictions that have been made in the past, some are accurate, some aren't.
In 1987, Apple predicted the iPhone. 1987, remember that's like before some of you were even born. So they predicted that this thing, that was about the size of this, and that's your phone. I think Levi's also predicted they'd have to make bigger pockets back then.
But so this iPhone was going to be able to have a camera in the front so you could talk on the phone and look at the person on the other side. Hey, came true, we do that all the time. We chat with our family across the street, or down the street. Voice command, search the internet.
There was no internet for us in 1987. It was probably an intranet, but there was no out there wide to the masses internet in 1987, at least not that I was aware. And then even more bizarre than that, there's this guy, John Elferth Watkins. He predicted in 1900, 1900.
So that's 122 years ago. The digital color photography would take place. And that you would be able to take photographs and send them around digitally. What?
1900. Not made up, I checked it up. And that news from wars would be transmitted within hours of the events and seen by all. Not something that was just going to be like, the way it happened in the First World War.
You sent your son off to war. If he got killed, you may not find out for weeks or months before the news got back. But he predicted that at some point in time, we practically watched wars live on CNN, if you watch CNN. That Americans would be too interested in the dollar.
And they are. That wireless mobile phones would span the world. What? I mean, the phone was hardly anybody had a telephone in 1900.
But he said that there will be wireless phones everywhere. Well, some of us have two phones, three phones. We have a work phone, a home phone, a personal phone. My wife has a phone.
We have phones everywhere. Here's some not so accurate ones. 1967. It was predicted by the experts then, by 2000.
Technology will take over. They're right. Technology has taken over just about anything. Everything.
The chip goes in my car. I can't come to church. It's just the way it is now. However, they thought because technology is going to take over, we would now have a 22-hour work week.
We would work 27 weeks per year. And we would have so much leisure time on our hands, we just wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. I think they were wrong. I think the work week has gotten longer.
I think the work day has gotten longer. And leisure time, I don't think people have time to sit down and say, I wonder what I can do today. It's just not realistic. So what is 2022 going to be like?
I'm going to give you my prediction. I don't know. I have no clue. I've given up.
I've never really tried. I actually find the New Year's thing. I've always found a little, and please don't get me wrong. It's good to celebrate.
We've got into it a year. I find it kind of silly. We take a calendar down. We put a new calendar up.
And the same old problems that we had the day before are just there before us. I got up yesterday and was having breakfast. If you're on Facebook, you saw what my breakfast was. No, you'd have to be on the Cape Breton Cook book to see what my breakfast was.
So I'm sitting there having that. And I opened up my iPad and I thought, I'll just check the news out. And Esther's reading the news at the same time. And she says, Tony is the guy who was killed down at the optometry clinic.
What? What do you mean? Tony? Yeah.
So this guy that I've known for 30 years there when I've gone into my glasses and things like this, the kindest, nicest guy in the world, murders right there in the clinic last week. I thought, that's the first news I get for the year. I thought, wow. Okay.
We got a new calendar. That's what the New Year means to me today. We got a new calendar the same old, same old is just coming from last year. I don't mean to be a downer about that, but we don't know.
We don't know what the world is going to bring us. But here's the thing I want to encourage you with. After I kind of got out of that little funk for a few minutes, I realized, you know what? I don't know, but I know somebody who does.
The Lord knows what's ahead. He knew all about COVID long before it even showed up. He knew all about today before we even got here. Corey Tienboom, if you're familiar with her, if not, Google Corey Tienboom, it's an amazing person.
She said, never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. So I don't trust my future to those who make predictions. I don't trust my future to the people who read and make up the news, or tell the news rather. I don't trust my future to you.
I need to trust my future to God. He knows the future. He is the one who has made us all. He's made the world.
He knows everything. Someone once said we don't know what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds tomorrow. Now, those are the things we need to remember. And even though the world might see my control right now, we know that God has this all under control.
You know, God's not stressed out at all. Ever. God's not saying, wow, didn't see COVID. Wow, that shocked me.
You know all about that long, long, long, long, long time ago. God doesn't say, well, never knew that he was going to do that, or she was going to say that. He knows the end from the beginning, the beginning from the end. He is God.
Turn in your Bibles, please, to Ephesians 5. I want to look at three verses with three points, and we will go through this, and hopefully it encourages you and directs us in what we can do. I think that we can take 2022. And if we walk in the Word of God, if we take the Word of God into our hearts and apply it to our lives, we can really turn our world upside down.
And I don't mean our world like in the little tiny world you live in. I think that we can make an impact. But it has to start with you and I. So Paul was writing this to the Ephesians Church to encourage them, to admonish them.
He's not with them. He's writing from a jail cell. Now, there's a commentary, actually Mike Condon, I were talking about this a couple weeks ago, by Watchman Knee, and it's called Sit Walk Stand, and it kind of is a three-word summary of the book of Ephesians. In the first three chapters, we learned about who we are in Christ, the wealth of the believer.
We sit, and we learn of our wealth. And then chapters four and five are about how we ought to live for Christ, the walk of the believer, our lifestyle, how we move forward. And then the last chapter, we learn how we stand firm in this world. So to summarize chapters four to five before I read the text, it says in, it talks about chapters four to five, speak of the walk of the believer, how you ought to live for Christ, how you ought to live in Christ, the walk of the believer, the lifestyle.
It says in four to, walk in humility. I think I have this on here. Yes. Walk in unity, four verse three.
Walk in unity from a different world where we are, four, 17 to 31. Walk in love, five verse two. Walk in light, verses eight and nine. And what we'll look at today, walk in wisdom, 15 and 17.
Here's the text. Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil, so they do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. So you know, ladies, you're not off the hook in that first verse. It says not as unwise men.
And it doesn't mean that it's only men that are unwise. Do not walk as unwise men, women, young people. Do not walk as unwise. So three simple things to encourage you as we navigate through this new year.
Walk carefully, watch faithfully, and work thoughtfully. And we'll look at that this morning as we go through this passage. I'm fascinated with ships. Now, you may, if you can tell your boss that, I can come over and work with you and help you with your shipbuilding project that you're working on.
Not really. I'm not going to go on a cruise. A few years ago, my wife and I got to go on a cruise. It was really something, really, really something to be on a ship all day, all night, for, well, we did go to get off in ports.
But spend most of our time on a ship and sailing around. This big monster ship with over 5,000 people on it. It's a floating city, but it was pretty cool. It wasn't until later on that I found out that there's this room up above, that I could go in and stand behind glass.
With all the instruments as the harbor pilot could see them in front of me and on the sides, all the charts of the harbor, everything was all there. And I could stand with the perspective of being right behind him, the captain, as he took the ship out of the harbor. And it was this narrow little harbor, big city, but it had a narrow harbor in a passageway. And as it was going through, like beacons would start lighting on this screen that was there.
And you'd watch as he's going. Now, you think of a captain there with a big wheel, turning the thing and going on. He's actually sitting there with a little most ball. This is the wheel now for the ship.
And he's got this thing going and he can see the ship just slowly turning. And these beacons are there to show him where he should go and how he should avoid going here or going there. They're different colors. I didn't understand any of that stuff.
But it was really, really cool to watch that. And so we need to learn how are we going to navigate our way through this year. We're here today. We obviously navigated our way through last year.
But how are you going to navigate? Well, first of all, you need a beacon. You need beacons to guide you. You need many beacons to guide you because there are many hazards in this world.
Let me propose to you, your beacons are found here. There are so many beacons found in here to guide you, to direct you, to lead you, to help you avoid the hazards, not to run into the rocks and rills, to wreck your ship, wreck your life. So the first verse that we looked at in chapter 15 that says, therefore, be careful how you walk. Now, that's because I read the new American Standard.
If you're reading King James, New King James, it says, walk circumspectly. We don't usually talk like that. I'd say, hey, John, have a good trip. Make sure your walk circumspectly when you're there.
No, John, walk carefully. It's icy out here. Walk circumspectly. No, we wouldn't say that, would we?
Walk carefully. But circumspectly is a good word. Circum, around. Spectacles.
Look. Watch around. Look around as you're walking. When I was on a trip one time, a business trip in England, in the UK, and John, you're familiar with these because you've been there many times.
They have these signs. Look, laugh, look right. Do you know why that is? Because I'm from here.
So automatically, when I'm going to walk across the street over here, let's pretend that's going across Victoria Road. And I come up and I go, what do I do? I look, uh-oh, wrong way. Because the car is going to smoke me coming this way.
Because they drive on what they might say the other side of the road, on the wrong side of the road in England. They're on the wrong side of the road. So when you go to step out, you live there. You know what happened.
Those signs are at every intersection. Look left. Look right. Look around.
Look both ways. We tell our kids. Don't cross the street until you've looked both ways. Walk carefully.
The world is a dangerous place. Don't get smoked when you step out there. And you can and you will if you're not walking carefully. How do we walk carefully?
We live with exactness, with precision. We have purpose in each step. We have principles in our lives governing how we walk, how we're going to interact, where we're going to go, what we're going to do. The other thing is there's hazards on the road.
Now I walk on the trail. Every day just about people, a lot of people walk on the trail. But do you know what else walks on the trail? They're dogs.
Now if you're a dog lover, I just want to go on record, then I'm not. That's the end of that. So, but they're dogs can leave stuff on the trails, if you know what I mean. And so I have to walk carefully, not to ruin my walk.
Because there'd be nothing worse to getting back in the car. And I'm going home for lunch and now I don't want lunch because that is vile. What happened? Oh, no.
That has happened. I haven't been watching my steps. Looking around, walking carefully, walking circumspectly on the trail. Inspecting my path as I go.
This guy. Now Esther, she's not here, so I'm picking on her. Hopefully she'll hear me in the nursery. This guy's name is Nick Willenda.
And he's of this family, famous family called the Flying Willenda. Has anybody ever heard of them? A couple people have heard of them. Okay, they've been higher wire act tightrope walkers for over a century.
His father, his grandfather, his great grandfather, I think his grandfather died from falling off a high wire. And I watched this event actually, when he walked over Niagara Falls on this tightrope. Now here's the thing. I watched him.
Actually, he quoted scripture and prayed the full time on the walk. This guy's a believer. And he's walking, but he's not going, oh, well, look at the falls down there, man. Look at that.
The man of the mist. Whoa, cool. He did that. He's out there and he's walking like this, better than that.
But he's doing that. He's watching every single step. He's watching. He's walking with precision.
And he made it across the falls. He walked carefully, free of distractions. And was there distractions around? Oh, absolutely.
There's this gorge with two waterfalls on the Canadian side. They're going down into this gorge. There's mist coming up. There's lights of the city.
There's casinos and boom, boom, flashing lights, everything else. He made sure he walked free of distractions. When you walk in this world, there are so many distractions to take your eye off your walk with Christ. So many things around us that are distracting us.
Don't be distracted. Measure your steps. Make sure that there's a precision and an exactness in the choices that you make, that you will walk with the Lord and not be distracted. The next part of this is to walk wisely.
Be careful how to walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Now, wisdom here, wise, is not speaking of your intellectual acumen. It's not talking about how many degrees you have or diplomas. It's not talking about any of those things, what your IQ is or any of these.
It's the application of knowledge. It's the applying of what you know. To walk wise, there are many people that know much of the Bible, but they don't apply any of it. They're not wise.
They just try to live their lives, ignoring what they know. They should do. Ignoring what the scriptures teach. Wisdom is taking the knowledge that you have from the scriptures and applying it to your life.
There's that little graph, a little article talking about knowledge, how knowledge has increased over the years. In the 1900s, as the benchmark, knowledge started to double every century was the measurement at that point in time. From 1800 to 1900, I don't know how you measure knowledge, but the information that people knew doubled by every century. 1945, knowledge was increasing whatever 25 years.
Washing machines got somewhat more sophisticated. The travel vehicles got a little more sophisticated, a little bit more, but they were basically advancing slowly. But in 1982, knowledge was doubling every 12 to 13 months, so every year. By 2000, IBM, or 2020, IBM, International Business Machines Incorporated, was predicting that knowledge would be doubling every 11 to 12 hours.
I think that's a bit of a stretch, but we've seen it increasing like crazy. The stuff that you may just show me, he got a new iPhone, new to him iPhone. It's much better and faster than the old one, isn't it? You know what?
You can go today and buy a new one that's much better and faster than the one you've got in your hand. And then you know what you can do is when the next specials come on for Easter, you can get one that's doubled that. That's just the way things are going. Knowledge is increasing, but is wisdom increasing?
I don't think it is. Daniel, the prophet, in the last chapter of the book of Daniel, you read, but as for you, Daniel can seal these words, which is the words of the prophecy, seal up the book until the end of time, the end of time, which we are approaching. Men will go back and forth, or two and fro, it says in the King James, and knowledge will increase. Is God surprised that knowledge is increasing?
No. Is wisdom increasing? No. You can be smart and foolish at the same time.
In 2 Timothy 3, it speaks of those who are always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. You can be intellectual, intellectually smart, but very unwise. You see, the Psalms, in Psalm 14 verse 1, it says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. But if you look at that in your scriptures, there is, is in italics.
It's not there, originally. It's added for context, for reading. So what it says is, the fool has said in his heart, no God. What do I mean by that?
Does that mean that everybody who is a fool is an atheist, or every atheist is a fool? But it's not that. So if I go to a restaurant and I look at the menu and I said, I'd like that salad, that nice salad there, no feta. Does that mean I don't believe in feta?
I don't believe feta exists? That there's no such thing as feta? No. No feta for me.
No feta cheese for me, please. I can't stand it. I'm saying no feta, meaning no feta for me. So the fool has said in his heart, no God for me.
It's interesting because you talk to a lot of people and then they have to go and bury a loved one. And they've said, no God, no God, no God, no God. And please say something nice at his funeral. He's in a better place.
He's golfing on the great golf course than that. But people say that because you know why? They don't believe that there is no God. They're just saying, there is no God for me.
I don't want a God in my life telling me what to do. How many people, John, who weren't you talked to? That's the case. Okay, you might be right.
You know what? I don't want to live my own life. I want to live in my own sin. No God for me.
And that's what this verse is speaking of. It's a very unwise way to live. I don't want God making any claim on me. And as a Christian, we have to be careful that we don't live as practical atheists in our lives, that we're living our lives as if there is no God with ownership over us.
We are his. If you are a believer, you are his. And you need to obey him and what he tells us to do. Don't live like the world.
Let there be conviction and conviction from knowledge that you may have wisdom before God. Knowledge is good. Knowledge is necessary. In fact, Hosea said, in Hosea four verse six, my people are destroyed or perish for lack of knowledge.
Warren spoke a few weeks ago about you have, uh oh, facts, then faith, then feelings. If you don't have the facts, what do you put your faith in? You need to have the facts first. That's why we have the word of God.
That's why we preach the word of God. So you get the facts. Here's the facts. You're a sinner.
You need a savior. Fact number three, there is a savior. Fact number four, you can trust that savior. Fact number five, you can be forgiven of your sins when you trust that savior.
Those are facts. And then you put your faith in those things. You believe those things. You believe the facts.
You accept the facts. You apply those to your life. Knowledge should be converted into wisdom by its application, by the choices you make, the places you go, the things you buy, the company you keep, the movies you watch, the things you read. All of these things will come out of having wisdom in your life.
I'm going to move along. This is awesome because I clocked down there. It's stuck on eight o'clock since Thursday night. I have no idea what time it is.
Watch faithfully, redeeming the time it says for 16, making the most of your time because the days are evil. It says redeeming the time. We're governed by time in our lives. We all know time is relative.
That's what Einstein says. I guess that's right. We have a new year, 365 days. That's what we get.
365 and a bit. So every once in a while they add a day on. I saw that they're going to add a leap second on this year because the earth is spinning a little faster than they thought. In biblical times, they said that you're going to live 70 years.
Psalm 90 verse 10 says that. The four score in 10. That's, no, wait a minute now. Three score in 10.
The four score in 10 is something else. Anyway, three score in 10. Three score. A score is 20 years.
20, 20, 20, 60 and 10 more years. So that's the case. Today happens to be six months before my birthday, half a year before my birthday, July 2nd. Remember that?
July 2nd. Okay. So that's the case. And I was shocked because I just took my calculator and thought, let's have a look at that.
I have 2740 days left to 70. 2740 days. That seems like nothing. It seems like nothing at all.
It's astounding. 90% of it's gone. I have 10 left. It's crazy.
The scripture says in Psalm 39 verse 4. Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. This is from the NLT. Remind me that my days are number, how fleeting is my life.
I watched a TED talk by Billy Graham. It was very good. If you ever want to watch a good TED talk, go on. Look up, TED talk, Billy Graham.
He gives a really good, really good talk. And he was asked, what's his greatest surprise in life? And he said it's brevity. How quickly it's gone by.
This is 25, 30 years ago. How quickly his life is gone by. I am shocked. I am seriously shocked because I remember things that I did as a kid.
I sat down with my mom last week and we were sitting around the table talking. We were talking about things when I was a kid, talking about things when I was a teenager, and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, that seems like yesterday. But it wasn't yesterday. Much of my life is past.
That's a hard thing to face. But it's true. There's a clock that you can buy that you can feed in your date of birth and blah, blah, blah, blah. I think it's based on 75 years.
Which, if that's true, if I'm 75 years, I've got 4,383 days. That makes me feel slightly better, but not much. So imagine how to clock in your house that's counting down to your last day. I'd hate that clock.
I'd hate that clock. But you know what, in reality, there is a clock that is counting down to your last day. You know what, all this math that I'm giving you and all this stuff, I could be totally wrong. Because you might not have one more day.
You might not have one more day before eternity. And then what? Then where will you be? Then what happens?
I pray that if there's anybody here who's not got a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, who has not come to him to have their sins forgiven, you are not going to go to heaven on that last day when your day comes. Whether it's today or 2700 days from now or 4300 days from now or 21,000 days from now. You need to deal with that in your life more than anything else, more than college, more than who you marry, more than your job, more than anything else. You need to have a Savior.
You need to be right with God. I've read this morning for God, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Time is passing us by. It is just flying by us.
The word for time is chronos. It means minutes, hours, calendar time. My dad had this fancy car back in 1975 called the Chrysler Cordoba, known for its so-called rich Corinthian weather. If you're going to ask Warren if you knew what the main feature of the Chrysler Cordoba was, according to Ricardo Montablant, it's rich Corinthian weather.
I've checked with one of my Greek friends and he says no such thing. So there's some false advertising for you. But it didn't have a clock. It had a chronometer.
Chronometer. That's how I learned. That's what it is. I learned a little bit of Greek.
Chronos, time. It's passing by. It's going. We are given this time.
We are given an opportunity. And the day is going to come when you enter eternity and they're gone. For the believer. I already talked for the non-believer.
If you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I plead with you to come today. It's not that your life depends on it. Your eternity depends on it. Forever.
And your life does depend on it. Your life will change. Your sins forgiven. Freed from all of those things.
For the believer. What are we doing with our time now? Are we making the most of our time? Are we redeeming the time?
Jesus said it must work. The works of him who sent me wild his day. Night is coming when no one can work. You see, right now you have opportunities.
And the day will come when you won't have opportunities. You can't evangelize in heaven. No need to. Everybody's their beliefs.
You're not going to be making phone calls. You're not going to encourage a person. You're not going to preach a sermon. You're not going to write an article.
You're not going to write a book. None of those things. You're not going to share the gospel with anybody in heaven. I think that was what turned you to evangelism, John.
You read a book. The one thing you can't do in heaven. The time is here. The time is now.
The time is on earth to share the gospel with the lost world. The time is now to make the most of your time. There's a book called It's About Time by Someone Named Leslie Flynn. And it subtracts all of the things that are necessary in life.
You're sleeping, working, answering emails, doing chores, hygiene, all of that stuff. If you take it all out, if you're 30, something years old, you've got 500 days left. He says, if you take out all the necessary things, 500 days, if you just look at the time that you have free, I probably don't have any left. So if you have that, do you want to spend them on Facebook or TikTok?
Or do you want to spend them doing something that's worthwhile for the Lord? Because if you do spend it doing things worthwhile for the Lord, you will have treasure in heaven. The Bible assures us of that. And as I said, your life is a vapor.
It's gone in no time. James 4 verse 14 says, whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Do you ever go out in the really cold weather, which we have lots of opportunity to do here in Canada? You go, and you see that vapor, that cloud? And it's gone like that. The Bible describes your life as that.
Make the most of it. Do everything you can with it. Redeem the time. Because the days are evil, it says.
The days are evil. Time is not our friend. I just reminded it this morning when I went to the mirror and I thought, I'm not going to do anything about it. But it's just like you look at it and think, where do these bags under the eyes come from?
Where does this thing come from? Where's all that? What's with all that? Time.
Time. It's ticking by. It's not coming back. Make the most of your time.
Don't waste your time and sin. Don't waste your time in petty affairs. Don't waste your time in shallow activity or going to the wrong places or gossiping or petty arguments and discussions and conspiracies and all of this stuff. This is what has kind of got me going a little bit because we spent so much time debating stuff that is totally meaningless all the time.
And it's just a waste of our time. As we do this, this vapor is evaporating into space. Make the most of your time. There are good things that can rob your time.
Ask the Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? It's time flies. It's really up to you to be the navigator.
I put this point down here, the airport. I don't want anyone to travel more than John. Thankfully, not as much now as you did. But what kind of a crazy person we need to think John is if he walked into the Air Canada terminal and much of all the airport and he looked and said, you know, just watch him here.
I think next time I come through here, I'm going to bring some pictures from home. I hang them on the wall. We need a carpet in here. I'm in the business.
I can do something about that. These stalls, they should be different colors on the doors. In the mirror, let's put a frame around that. This was with his paper towel.
I like plush luxury towels. I'm going to... Janice, I'm not going to be home for a while. I got stuff to do.
Where? The airport. Montreal. Work back up.
No, no, no. I want to spend some time here and kind of fix it up and give it some attention. You know what? As funny and silly as that might sound, you and I do that all the time.
We are in the airport on the way to home. We are just... The Earth is our airport. Our destination is heaven.
Why do we spend so much time getting caught in petty little things, trying to repaint the doors of the airport, trying to put new carpet down in the airport? When we should be thinking about where are we headed? Don't put your focus here. Focus where you are going.
Bring souls with you. Tell somebody else that you may bring them with you to the destination. I remember one time getting stuck in the airport. I'm thinking, oh man, I'm never going to get there.
Guys says, hey, if you want to jump in with me, I'm going to rent a car. Really? Yeah, won't cost you a cent. Just jump in with me.
I'll get you there. I was so thankful that he got me in his car and we got to the destination. You know what lost in her? They'll be very thankful.
You shared with them. Hey, if you jump in this car with me, Jesus Christ will get you to heaven. Send treasure on ahead. All right, my last point.
Worked fluffily, understanding his will. So then, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Second Corinthians 5 verse 7 says, we walk by faith, not by sight. So how do I know his will?
That's a hard question. People have asked that. I'm not going to be young Christian. People are saying, oh, I've only known the will of God.
Do you know how to figure out the will of God? I remember asking that question all the time as a new Christian. How do I figure that out? I don't know what it is.
There is a way to figure it out. There is a way to know it. Do you know what? This right here.
This will give you what is known as the general will of God. He may have specific will for your life, specific things you can do, but it will always, always, always, 100% of the time, measure up to what the scriptures teach. Thinking about a new job? You know what?
I got to a point one time. I was thinking about a new job. I opened up the scriptures. I'm reading through first Timothy.
I've got all these things about money. Don't do it for the wrong reason. Don't do it for this reason. Don't do it for that reason.
You might want to just think about this. You know what? The scriptures guided me through my decision. Through every little thing.
The one thing that I probably should have checked out was the time that I got the same color car and the same model as my boss and really ticked him off. Anyway, I didn't check that out. But there are some things that, like everything in your life, if you're saying, what does God want me to do? If you are in the scriptures, he will guide you to those things.
So I put up in closing five areas that the Bible reveals exactly what God wants, exactly what he wants. God wants unsaved people to become safe people. 100%. You can just put your stock in that.
2 Peter chapter 3 verse 9, the Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all come to repentance. If you're not saved, God's will for you is he wants you saved. If you have an unsaved neighbor, God's will for him, he wants him saved. He wants her saved.
He wants the children who come on rejoice. Saved. That's his will. 1 Timothy 3 verses 2 verses 3 and 4, God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
God's desire, his will, is for all men to be saved. All people to be saved. You can count on that. God wants saved people to become holy people, especially in the area of sexual morality.
First Thessalonians 4, 3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, your holiness, your becoming more holy each day in your walk. That is that you abstain from sexual immorality. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 16, because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. I've kind of taken on a little project recently as I do my daily readings in the scriptures.
Every time I come across, it is written. I highlight that or that the scriptures might be fulfilled or the scriptures say, it is written. You shall be holy for I am holy. I was shocked when I saw that this week.
I said, oh, it is written. I better look that up. Six more times that is found in the book of Leviticus. Be holy, because I am holy.
God says, he wants us as safe people to become holy. Third thing, God wants holy people, safe people to be humble people, submissive to spiritual and governmental authority. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 13 to 15, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him or the punishment of the evil doers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that in doing right, you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.
God wants us to obey those who are over us, to be in submission to those who are over us. Ultimately, I'll put in this as well because I just read this yesterday. There comes a point where the scriptures say we ought to obey God rather than men. So the ultimate authority that you need to obey all the time is the God of heaven.
Be clear on that. The fourth thing is sometimes God wants saved holy, humble people to suffer. Well, that's a hard one. Well, really?
He wants me to go through a hard time. I look back on the past year, actually the past two years, and I think it's been rough on a lot of people. People have lost loved ones. I've lost a friend in the past year.
I've had another friend who has been having great challenges in his life. I've had the challenge of looking for work. Many others have had the challenge of looking for work. People have had kids go astray.
People have had all kinds of trouble and hardship in their life. But God wants us to go through some of these things. Why? Well, so we won't be shallow Christians.
So that we'll be strong in the Lord. So that we will look to Him, not to ourselves to our own resources. So that we grow up. Sometimes I used to take my kids and do stuff and they said, I want to do that.
Except for Sam, he's up for everything. But I don't want to do this. I'd say, well, yeah, you got to do this. Why?
So you grow up. You grow up. It's part of growing up. It's part of maturing.
Suffering is the will of God. In 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 14, it says, even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. God wants his people to be blessed, to be changed, to be mature, to grow. And finally, God wants his people to be thankful.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 18, and everything gives thanks. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. It says, give thanks in all things. I've heard one of my brothers here say, Lord, we thank you for COVID.
And I almost want to say, well, stop. Hang on. What did you just say? But he's right.
Even in that we need to give thanks. Even in the hardships that we have, we need to give thanks. Why? I need to give thanks that I know the Lord.
I know the Lord Jesus. I have one who comforts me in these things, one who strengthens me. And I believe if we did these five things that we would understand the specific will of God in our lives. George Mueller, who founded the Bristol orphanage in England, and served over 10,000 orphans, said 90% of our problems are solved when we are ready to do the will of God whatever that might be.
So if we know the will of God, I'll thank you for putting the time up there. I have another half hour. I'm just kidding. If we, if we as a church, if we as believers together in the coming year agreed to just do these five things to focus on these five things that are the will of God, five specific things, we would turn the world upside down.
I really believe that. We would preach to the lost. We would become more set apart for Jesus Christ. We would have pure lives.
We would have humble and submissive honoring people around us. We would not complain because we're thankful in all things. We need to remember these things. Even in the hardest of times, we're navigating waters that are quite rocky these days.
Let's keep these three things lined up. Let's walk carefully. Mine going blank. Oh, I hate what that happens.
It's a prayer of only heaven, heaven, heaven, heaven, heaven. Let's walk carefully. Let's watch faithfully and redeem the time. And let's work thoughtfully.
Let's do these things. These are the things that are lined up in our harbor as we sail through. I don't usually do this kind of strange thing, but I'm going to read to you. Irish people are good people.
I like some of them. They have these little sayings that are a little bit weird. I hope you're in heaven half an hour before the devil finds out you're dead. That kind of foolishness.
Don't put your stock in any of this. I came across this little Irish prayer for a new year. John, you'll get it, I hope. It's kind of light, but it also wraps up what I've just said.
The Irish prayer says this. During the new year, may you have enough happiness to keep you sweet, enough trials to keep you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to keep you happy, enough failure to keep you humble, enough success to keep you eager, enough friends to give you comfort, enough wealth to meet your needs, enough enthusiasm to make you look forward to tomorrow and enough determination to make each day better than the day before. I kind of like that. I'm not much for proverbs and poems and Irish prayers and stuff like that, but when I read that I thought there's some things in that.