[SPEAKER_00]: Greetings, this is Dr. Darahaw and I want to welcome you to the Wake Community Church podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in our series, called Ready, as we are focusing on First Peter Chapter 3 and thinking about the implications of what it means to be believers who are obedient and prepared to give a reason for the hope in our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in the hopeless world and people see the hope in us and they need for us to be able to explain where we get it from.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to encourage you to grab your Bibles.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can follow along with a transcript of this podcast or on the Bible app.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find these notes that study guys were.
[SPEAKER_00]: Grab your Bibles and join me in the book of First Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Peter chapter three is where we're going to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those who've spent New Year's Eve with us, I know I'm pretty sure you were blessed by our top together when we visit that same verse and look at it from a different perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Peter chapter three, first number 15, you know, I should say from a deeper depth.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are using a smart device, you can find these notes on the Bible app.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to go there, these notes are there for you, search events, the way community charged.
[SPEAKER_00]: And click on it and you will see all of the notes laid out there for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Peter chapter three, first number 15,
[SPEAKER_00]: is where we aren't going to read this verse at our hearing in the new American Standard Bible, when she found it or located on the screen with you and I was about saying Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word of the Lord says, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: always be in what church, ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with gentleness and respect, I want you to turn to your neighbor and say neighbor, this year you got to stay ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to stay ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: You made me see that in
[SPEAKER_00]: of the living God.
[SPEAKER_00]: This year, you may not have time to get rid of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're going to have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: The road I get, the more stuff I carry with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just so I can stay rid of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I live in the same world you live in, so I carry some things, most of the time concealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, just in case, so it pops off.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, how do you get the more you just want to keep around you, you know, like lotion in the car?
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to keep that motion concealed until you get ashy after you wash your hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: You understand, because you're not an nasty person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so because I wash my hands and try to keep them clean, ash is no longer a result and call whoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I keep me some motion only, or I keep some mints on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understanding the usually the person who turns down the gong is the person who needs to come over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I try to keep it on me and in case somebody throws me a hint.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can just pop up with me and thank God that nothing has popped off in my life why I need the things that I carry in order to stay ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you always want to be ready and not needed instead of needing it in the moment and not having time to get ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of all the things I'm ready to do at any given moment, I'm surprised I don't carry with me a deck of play and cards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because right now I'm ready for a game of full handspace.
[SPEAKER_00]: right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I got to finish this argument, but I'm saying right after the right after the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got two sprays partners in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom and my best brain wheel.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them is here right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any same sprays in the house who want to gain the photo game?
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, let me finish this right fast and take this short mirror off.
[SPEAKER_00]: The concept of staying ready is the idea of a preparedness.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a soul that is that is fuel about that is alert.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the insides that refuse to be low to sleep by what's happening on the outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understanding that times of the essence and things are too important for me to be asleep as it were at the wheel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got to be ready to enter a pair of state and hear me now for whatever life might bring, whatever leadership might require, or whatever the lower might allow.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those who have members of the way are ready to return to us of T.O.C.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guy and Guy, and you understand that our mission is simple and unchanging, and that it is to show people the way to life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: But every year, we pick one word that is our theme.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a prophetic rallying cry.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something we can circle around to discern what the Holy Spirit is.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're only doing through us, corporately, and get insight into what the Lord might want to do in our lives in the Visitor.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, in 2024, our theme was B.
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2025, our thing was growled, and this year if you haven't guessed it already by now.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 2020-2016 thing is ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the church say, ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've heard the phrase, stay ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is used by competitors and by people and combat a light.
[SPEAKER_00]: People in competition and people in combat have a readiness factor about them understanding that when the moment is the most crucial,
[SPEAKER_00]: you do not have time then to get ready at that time you must have necessity be ready when we think about some of the most fierce competitors that we've ever experienced are surely the name of the late great Kobe Bryant current tomorrow
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you were not a basketball fan, even if you've never watched the NBA, you've heard his name before, and likely after he's, or timely demise, you have heard stories about his mom-bo-ming mentality.
[SPEAKER_00]: This tenacity about him that made him always...
[SPEAKER_00]: ready for the highest level of competition on the basketball court.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stories that even told about other great NBA players of how great Kobe was in comparison to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, the Bryan James and Carmella Anthony tell the story of being at the Olympics with Kobe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they had went out for a night on the town and they were coming in from the club around three or four a.m. And while they were coming in from the club, Kobe was going out to the gym.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even among the grades, this ethic of staying ready can make you superior.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not just in competitors, do we see it?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all also seeing it combat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who serve this country like my father, my bonus mom, my brother and my brother-in-law who will all either retire or in the military now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever been in combat or in one of our military areas, you understand that staying ready is a part of being ready to defend our freedom and constitution.
[SPEAKER_00]: that military units will run drills that allow them this live action filling over what might happen should the worst come to pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if the worst come to pass, in a moment, the unit doesn't have time to get ready, the unit has to watch our church be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've heard this time, stay ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't have to get ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might think it comes from a song.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if your musical bag is real, real deep, I'm not talking about holy hymns of the church, I'm talking about a hillbomb of the culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a song in the mid-90s called Starrated, so you don't have to get rid of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you might think this phrase comes from that rapper, but in an interview that rapper said, the phrase came from his DJ's mama.
[SPEAKER_00]: That sound like something mama was saying on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the good mama always got some good wisdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mama would tell you, stay ready so you don't have to get ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which you may mama put your clothes out tonight for school too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so mama's wisdom mediated through a hip-hop song now co-opted by me and baptized in the name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a baptizing before I use it or flexed to true tenor of Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see really the world thinks it invented things that are really kingdom-based.
[SPEAKER_00]: This concept of staying ready of alertness of preparedness is a kingdom principle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Peter takes, pen to paper, haven't been inspired by the Holy Spirit, and needs to leters and rights to believers like you and me who are walking in the way but living in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I do, Ralph, when I'm walking in the way, but I live in the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: and the trueer of Allah my life to kingdom principles, the more I realize I am not at home in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: This world is, is a system that is, is humanistic, it is demonic, in is essence, and it is certainly defines the dark values by which the unredained think movement act.
[SPEAKER_00]: is a course of being a way of life, a culture, that determines how people in that space move and shape.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you walk into the kingdom, you understand that the world and the kingdom run against one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: That they are complete opposites.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why Jesus invaded the world and brought the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus can't preach and regret for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was Jesus saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: What Jesus was saying is, I'm invading your culture to bring you an alternative culture and you can't stand in both that same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are so paradoxical, so anti, so opposite and opposing that you have to choose to either be in one and then also be out of the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: but even when I choose to be in the kingdom, even when I choose to walk in the way that don't mean I don't have the stress of living in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because see what the world of the world will knit and not at the fabric of your faith and have you at a place where you're still cautioned if you really believe or if you have really been redeemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Peter writes to them,
[SPEAKER_00]: in a way he's writing to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how you conduct yourself, walking in the way, but living in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And essentially what he says throughout this book, there's a thread that says, hey, be prepared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay ready, be sober, be on the alert.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's why, because you live in enemy territory.
[SPEAKER_00]: You live in a surrounding that does not relate to or support the heart that God has for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so from that standpoint, we have believed this work ready to be our prophetic thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: As your pastor, I want you to be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what that means?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be stabilized from the inside, even when there's instability on the outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to know that even when crazy things are happening above you, that the ground beneath you is firm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to have a quiet strength that makes you laugh in the face of a parent danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be okay when things are not okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And before you can arrive at that paid place, you have to get there before it's time to be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's some things that's going to happen in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some things that's going to happen in our world that's going to require us to be there when it's time to be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so again, first Peter chapter 3 verse number 15 is our thing, verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is on our own bands.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, it is the text of our preaching today.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, it is the framework of our year, believe in that God is, readying us for something great and for something glorious.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've already read it to you in the North American Standard Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me now read it to you in the message Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word of the Lord says, through thick and thin polls, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my kind of language.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what that means?
[SPEAKER_00]: That means in 2026, you're going to face some thick, and in 2026, you're going to face some thin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through ups and downs, through good and bad, you understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep your hearts at attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: In adoration before Christ, your master, be what church be,
[SPEAKER_00]: Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks you why you're living the way you are and all most with the utmost courtesy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've adopted this verse as our thing verse for the year and our big idea for the year is simply this that God develops readiness through repeated obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing is too small for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we miss moments of small obedience, we don't just miss the moment, we miss the compound effect of what the moment is developing in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: In every small moment that we can be aware and alert of what the Holy Spirit is doing in our life in those moments, we're being ready for bigger moments, more crucial moments, more pivotal moments.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so let us respond with hearts that are open to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every other Holy Spirit may say, on an average Tuesday when nobody's watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: because on that average Tuesday, when nobody watches, you're training yourself to either succeed or to stumble when the stakes become high.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we got to be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: On New Year's Eve, we got together.
[SPEAKER_00]: spent time in what I like to define as a it was like a doodling session where we came together with these notes and we could begin to chart out and draw out and sketch out the practical application of this this corporate thing and if you were here then I hope that you were blessed and if you were not let me review what we cover very briefly what we looked at on New Year's Eve is this in 2020
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2026, leadership is going to be heavy, and in 2026, the lower is going to have something for you to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got to be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what 2026 holds for you, and I'm not speaking more, but more importantly, my goal that you're passed in brother and Christ is really to speak with clarity, so that
[SPEAKER_00]: through whatever thick a thing, you're going to be okay, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to be ready because life may cause us fear or uncertainty or pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to be ready because leadership may create for us failure or success, which are mean fear or uncertainty or pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life may cause us to fear, file lives, fear for our well-being, fear for our future, so we have to be ready mentally.
[SPEAKER_00]: which are mean uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life may cause us uncertainty about ends meeting, so we have to be ready financially.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life may cause us pain physically, so we have to be ready what physically.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then we have to be ready for leadership, whether you hold a office or not, if you have influence over anybody, you are a leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the goal of the leader is to succeed more than we fail, but I can assure you in 2026, your leadership is going to be called upon.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to make a decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to give some advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to decide to go this way a that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leadership is going to be required, and there's no way to shut that burden wants to load this place that on your shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you want to be ready for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the goal of leadership is not perfection.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal of leadership is to learn, be ready to learn if I fail, but be ready to steward if I succeed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Failure is a part of leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is just not to fail twice in the same area.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, help us Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: failure is a part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is to learn when I fail, but then success is a part of leadership too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the goal with success is to sturd it well that my heart is ready so my success don't go to my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can sturd with the Lord bless me when the last of all we must be ready because the Lord may call on us this year, which you mean calling you, the Lord may call you out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got to be ready to repent.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the Lord calls you out about something that's out of pocket, that's not in the moment to get up in your pride.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the moment to say thank you, Lord, for calling me out, because here's what I understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be called out is not to be judged.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's to be saved from judgment, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What leads to judgment is getting away with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or so I thought, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we all have stories in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we thought we was getting away with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lower half mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until you realize you wasn't, so if the lower car you out in this year consider yourself blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: be ready to repent, be ready to turn around.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the Lord calls you up this year, be ready to represent.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean up, Reverend?
[SPEAKER_00]: If the Lord exalt you, if the Lord gives you a platform, if the Lord shines a light on your life or your skill set, be ready to represent.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing worse than being in the spotlight is being in the spotlight and you weren't ready to represent.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never know what the Lord may do in your life, so be ready before He does it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then last of all, not to be morbid, but to be transparent and authentic, the Lord may call you home in 2026.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is out of my control.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to consider myself a young man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm entering middle age, and I'm embracing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm 39 of the Lord, let me see my next birthday, I'll be 40.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I grateful?
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause I couldn't see my life past 30.
[SPEAKER_00]: I promised you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I accomplished all my wildest dreams by 33 and was terrified because I didn't know what it would do.
[SPEAKER_00]: What else do you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: I ain't think I would make it this way I'd be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a lower cause you're home, you gotta be ready to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, and we talked practically about what that means, how that feels if you missed New Year's Eve, you can retrieve that on YouTube or...
[SPEAKER_00]: on our podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how big I do for the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've already said it, but let me reset again and I want to say it together on the count of three, one, two, three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obedient believers stay ready so we don't get ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, how can I stay ready?
[SPEAKER_00]: I stay ready number one when the Lord is my Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stay ready when the Lord is my Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing we can do to unmake Jesus who Jesus already is.
[SPEAKER_00]: All we can do is decide for Jesus to be to us who he already is to every other created thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me say this way, even if Jesus is not your Lord, Jesus is still the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: While it's that important, that's important because we live in was Zach S. Swine defines as a post-everything world, post-everything means post-modern, post-Christian, post-biblical.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means we're living in a time past a time where a concept of right or wrong and morality was a lot clearer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a great time where nothing is completely right, and nothing is completely
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we live in this culture or this world, the locus of truth has moved from the outside to the inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_00]: In the world we live in, no longer is truth determined outside of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, truth is determined by us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once I decide what's true for me, who are you to tell me that is false?
[SPEAKER_00]: So what that means is we have taken hold of our free will and our agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to pause here and say that there is absolutely not a wrong with protecting your free will or your agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a matter of fact, your agency is a gift from your creator.
[SPEAKER_00]: God never meant for one human being to take another human beings free will away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in all the ways we violate each other's free will, in those ways, we treat each other unlike God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Free will is a gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: God said, I'm gonna make you in my image and to prove that you in my image, I'm gonna give you one modicum of intelligence that no other created thing has.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna give you free will.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when the Lord gave us that free will or that agency, he gave it as a gift, it is a gift we can, and a gift we maintain, you should appreciate and use your free will.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, we air when we think that in my free will because I can choose was right for me, I can choose was right for all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, we say stuff like follow your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: The implication of that is your heart no wrong for right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And your heart can decide for you what is true and what is false.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once your heart has decided was true, who is anybody else to tell you is false?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's danger there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's why, because if I make them a steak of thinking, I can choose what's right or what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can build my whole life on what my heart told me to do and find out in the end, I could only decide for me, I can decide for everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let me sit in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: People in the world may not know the whole experience, but you know what they do know?
[SPEAKER_00]: A fake religious person when they see one.
[SPEAKER_00]: People in the world may not know Scriptures, they may not know church songs, they may not know the stories of the Bible, but you know what they can detect or funny when they see one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because here's what a religious phony does.
[SPEAKER_00]: A religious phony makes a decision for what they think is right for them and then holds everybody else to their preference.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't live up to this preference, then you don't cut it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually that preference is something exterior, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when a person who don't know the Lord, come and ask you for the reason of hope that's in you, if you are religious, you might respond to say something like, well, I'm the way I am because I don't smoke and drink.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that religious person gonna say, well, I do smoke and drink.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose to stop, but I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I may smoke and drink, but I'll tell you what I'm not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a fake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where you get your religious veneer for him, but I get my joy from the top shelf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my telling the truth?
[SPEAKER_00]: The religious use exterior things to measure what can only be measured from the inside out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then try to hold other people to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the issue with that is that you think that because you have a rabbit the truth, that you can determine what's true for somebody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can only make your mind up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't make nobody else's mind up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you make your mind up to the person who does not adhere to the Lordship of Jesus, I want you to hear me what I say to you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can decide for Jesus not to be your Lord, but what you can't decide is for Jesus not to be the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a limit to your agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a limit to your free will.
[SPEAKER_00]: His authority is superior.
[SPEAKER_00]: And saying that Jesus is Lord is not religious talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: saying that Jesus is Lord is Resurrection talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because He got up to prove that He's Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because He got up from the dead, He is Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because He did, with everybody else did, and did one thing, nobody else did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody died, so did Jesus, but nobody just got up on their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, the Lord raised him up.
[SPEAKER_00]: God raised him up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He raised from the dead and victory over sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, He is lower.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do with it what you will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you decide not to rock with Jesus, that don't make Jesus not the rock of salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then those less than the role who are aiming to be ready, the goal is to be righteous, not religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: You picking up what I'm putting down?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a difference there, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Readiness, here's a major key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Readiness is not in religiousness, but in righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, where would you mean righteousness?
[SPEAKER_00]: We already read the key verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's read the verses before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at first feet of chapter three, first 10 through 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says for the one who desires life to love and see good days must keep their turn from evil and their lives from speaking deceit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He must turn away from evil and do good, he must seek peace and pursue it.
[SPEAKER_00]: for the eyes of the Lord, onto a wetchurch, the righteous, and his ears attend to their prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the face of the Lord is against evil doors.
[SPEAKER_00]: And who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?
[SPEAKER_00]: But even if you should suffer for the sake of what you are,
[SPEAKER_00]: righteousness you are blessed and do not fear their intimidation and do not be in dread.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's our thing verse verse number 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sanctify Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's happening here?
[SPEAKER_00]: What Peter is saying is look you live in the world that is anti-kinga.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to have a long full life you have to be a person of peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be a person of good deeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you do good deeds you reduce the
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's just say, you do suffer for doing the right thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not fear the person who threatened you with wrong, when you do right, just make the lower, your lower, and when the lower is your lower, it no matter where nobody says you know you're going to win in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many of us like, yeah, doing the right thing, may reduce my suffering, but doing the right thing is the exact reason why I have suffered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever suffered for doing the right thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you had a boss who was unethical.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were carrying corners in private, they know about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this boss kind of simmer nudge you to do the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you knew that if I do the wrong, I can keep my job, but I can't keep my conscience.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I do right, I can keep my conscience, but I may lose my job.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you do when your livelihood is threatened by somebody above you who wants you to do wrong or at least turn the other way when they're doing wrong?
[SPEAKER_00]: What about choosing it?
[SPEAKER_00]: What I choose then is to sanctify crisis, lower them my heart, because if I suffer for choosing right, the Lord is gonna make sure I win in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might reduce the probability of suffering, but we can't completely eliminate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'd rather suffer for doing right than suffer for doing wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that is a sign of true righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church say righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question is, are you having this whole conversation right about righteousness and religiousness and people in the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: How does one become righteous?
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer is, sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you become righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think that I become righteous by going in the church, that's how you become religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think I become righteous by not smoking in drinking, that's how you become religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think I become righteous because I started giving an offering, be careful that's how you become religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: You become righteous first by sanctifying Christ as Lord in your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you like rev, I know a lot about Jesus, too shank, but stuff about Jesus in your head ain't the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's sanctifying Jesus in your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a two different things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing about Jesus and sanctifying Jesus, don't necessarily reflect the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got to be very careful of thinking what I know and ask the question, have I sanctify the Lord?
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean sanctify?
[SPEAKER_00]: It means to venerate, to hallow to make something holy and separate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to give something that you need a unique place in my heart that my heart only responds in allegiance to this person in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: sanctify Christ is a little bit hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meaning, in my heart, Jesus is a bubble,
[SPEAKER_00]: and controls all, and my heart responds to Jesus in a way my heart don't respond to nothing and nobody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it means to sanctify, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like how my kids used to treat me, but how my doll still treats me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, my boy's was a little, and I will come in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daddy, daddy, daddy's home, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They were respond to my presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I have to follow them like goodness and mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta go seek them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not my dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, let's, let Zoe loves me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something I'm gonna feel bad because I think Zoe loves me more than I love Zoe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Soon as I get to the door, Zoe comes to the door, she'll come to me, she'll bark, she'll turn back and bark, she'll come back to me and bark, turn back and bark.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she's letting everybody know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our Lord is home, our Lord is home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Zoe has sanctified me in her heart because Zoe knows even if I don't put the food in the bowl on the source behind the resource.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she responds to me differently than she responds to anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a picture of how we ought to be to Christ when we realize we're in Christ's presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: There ought to be an alertness about us that nothing else and nobody else can get.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a heart that understands that even if the resource came from this, you are the source behind every resource.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not anybody who can give God praise for the thing that the Holy Spirit helps you see who Jesus really is.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you make Christ, Lord, in your heart, you not only become righteous, but then you become ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ready for what, Ralph, for whatever I may face in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the Lord becomes my Lord, I'm righteous and I'm ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I ready?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready because he told me in John 1633, be a good cheer, I've already overcome the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is to say, when I make the Lord my Lord, that don't mean I can avoid stuff that happens in his world, it just means I know I'm an overcomputer because he's already overcome for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then the victory is a sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how can I be ready?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready when number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is my Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, and now I be done, when the gospel is my hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the church say, hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: I become ready when the gospel is my hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopelessness can sit on a person's chest, like a 600-pound gorilla, that we feel like cannot be moved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us have felt hopelessness, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Haven't we?
[SPEAKER_00]: We felt hopelessness trying to overcome an addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing it was wrong, but not being able to quite shake it, without some real help.
[SPEAKER_00]: We felt the hopelessness of being unable to repair a broken relationship, realizing that a season had changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: and what was no longer is and having to deal with the part we played and the relationship that no longer exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: We felt the hopelessness of feeling like we would never be physically healthy again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I got a diagnosis that started with a little pain that I didn't think was a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then when I found out it was a big deal, then I thought,
[SPEAKER_00]: before I could grab hold to hope, hopelessness came and set on my chest, and I just doubt if I ever be well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We felt the hopelessness of being twice as capable but getting half as far.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only so long can you run with hope before you watch people lap you, who you know, not as capable as you, not as loyal as you, not as committed as you,
[SPEAKER_00]: We felt hopelessness, desiring for financial freedom, but realizing that the whole we dug was so deep that we couldn't get free without going through bankruptcy.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I do when I knew the financial principles, I just didn't practice them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here I am buried on the hall of this wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have felt the weight of hopelessness,
[SPEAKER_00]: you cherish the weightlessness of hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't really appreciate hope until you first remember how it used to feel to be hopeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: For when you have felt the weight of hopelessness then you cherish the weightlessness of hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if hopelessness is a 600 pound gorilla that sits on my chest, hope is the wind beneath my wings.
[SPEAKER_00]: That lifts me high above any height I have a thought I could reach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, first Peter 3, verse number 15 says, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the wet church, the hope that's in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I mean hope that term hope means enduring expectation of good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us said happy new year, but we ain't really mean it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you could have told a true view to say, dreadful new year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have an enduring hope of expectation for good?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a joyful, confident expectation of eternal salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what it means to really be hopeful is, when the Lord becomes my Lord, the gospel becomes my hope, the gospel tells me that the same Lord who died and rose again is the same one who's coming back to get me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my hope is, is that in the end salvation will be mine and since that eternal hope is real, it gives me earthly hope that whatever I face, I know I may stumble in the moment,
[SPEAKER_00]: but then they end out standing victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there anybody who's grateful for the fact that once I grab hope to the Lord, I got some real hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until my real hope, hope success can give you.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people with money got to take their own life for you to realize?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope that fame can give you.
[SPEAKER_00]: how many celebrities, the darkness of their life, the closet of their life gotta be open for you to see their enough skeletons to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're being popular, don't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until my real hope, something that can anchor you in a hopeless moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the thing about hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know hope is real, because when you really got hope, it can fuse people who don't have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: They got everything you don't have, but they don't have what you do have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they can't figure out how they've done all this exterior work, but you still got some from the inside that just don't make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they'll ask you, well, you get this from.
[SPEAKER_00]: I make more money than you, but you just say, well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your boss, but you seem to have something that I can't give you or take away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be called dead, driving a car you drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're seeing the half, something that stuff don't give or can't take away.
[SPEAKER_00]: People in the world are dumbfounded by true hope, because they know they don't have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just don't know what the idea is.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have.
[SPEAKER_00]: when they see it in you, they look at you and say stuff like, you always got it together, and you're like, whoop, whoop, whoop, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
[SPEAKER_00]: You feel like you fall in the park, but the hope in you will give you a show in the world that they see you in a way that you don't feel and then you got to decide which one is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: How about feel in the moment or what the Holy Spirit is showing them about me?
[SPEAKER_00]: So when people come to you and they want to know the secret to your globe, they want to know where you really get it from.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because in that moment, you don't have time to get ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your mean, Ram?
[SPEAKER_00]: If somebody come and even say, what is something about you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really know what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what do you get this self-hue from?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you can say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me call my pastor and see if he can explain it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can explain it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Pastor Ha, I know you're playing in spades right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I got a question real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you explain to my friend where I get this hope from?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you can't do in that moment?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me call my grandma and see him.
[SPEAKER_00]: My grandma can tell you the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me when I was, no, no, no, you got to be ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you give them the reason for your hope, make sure you don't blame it on something that's not really the source of your hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people come to you and they say, when you get this glow from, you say, oh, it's this new skin and the regimen that I'm in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they like, well, I exfoliate, and I got shade but on, but I don't have the glow.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you get this go from, oh, it's this new diet I'm trying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've lost all this weight in all this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, I'm smaller than you, but I don't have what you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm smaller than you, but I don't have what you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you don't give the credit to the wrong place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you give a reason for that hope that really holds you together, it's a who and it's a how.
[SPEAKER_00]: The who is Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I promise you I'm not being religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not talking about the religious Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the one that really sets you free.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the one that really takes your story in turns that upside down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the one that can do more with your mess than you ever thought could be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it baffles you how amazing your life is turned out with all you know you did to make it turn out the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Jesus I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you give a reason for your hope, tell these people about Jesus, but it's not just who is how you do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you tell them about Jesus, don't do it like a religious person.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, make sure you give a reason for the hope that lies in you, but he is how you do it with gentleness and two things, religious people are not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Religious people are not gentle.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't have pride and be gentle at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they think that they're higher than you and forgot they on the same level as you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're gonna give a reason for the hope that lies in you, don't blame it on something that is not really and don't make them measure up externally without telling them the internal truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's my question.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people have turned away from Jesus because somebody religious was unkind to them?
[SPEAKER_00]: I came to you asking you for the reason I hope that lies in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And before you could even tell me the good news, you start criticizing my outfit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you will have hope if you can get those tattoos off of your neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second of all, once you put a tattoo on, it's hard to get it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, just because I can see your tattoos on me, my tattoos are worse than your tattoos.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you get them a religious reason?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, oh, you will be alright if you stop doing this and if you stop doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I look at you and say, oh, my bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought you had somebody in half.
[SPEAKER_00]: By your nastyness, I can tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to keep doing me because I would rather be like this than to be like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, when you tell somebody to hope, tell them the who, but also how, here's why you got to know for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you want to know for yourself, the reason why you got to hope you got, then you're going to be passing down misinformation when you share your story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'll hurt a story about the young lady who asked her mama.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you teach me grandma's recipe for her roast?
[SPEAKER_00]: Mom and she said, sure, maybe I'll hurt a story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mom and she said, sure, I'll teach you grandma's recipe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they got two roasts for their mom and her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Use one as the example for the daughter to follow along.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got the roast they let it though out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They made sure that it was a nice piece of roast.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got a pan to cook the roast in.
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew the exact temperature.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to put it on.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had to drive real up for the outside, a little injection for the inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then right before they put it in the oven, they cut the end off the roast and threw it in the trash.
[SPEAKER_00]: They cooked the roast, sure enough, it cooked to juicy, wonderfulness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pulled the roast out, it was tender.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm tongue out, amazing, fall off the bone, threw some potatoes with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, blessed a lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, well, after a few times of learning how to cook grandma's roast, the daughter just mustered up the courage to ask her mama, mama.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I understand why we cook it low and slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I get while we season it and inject it with the stuff we got.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I know why we use the brine and the broth and I think I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mama is one thing I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we cut the side off the rose before we cooked the rose?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Mama started laughing and said, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why we cut the side off the rose before we cooked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just saw a way he's did it that way because that's how Mama did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I tell you what, let's call your grandmother and see if she won't tell us why we cut the side off the rose.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the daughter and the mother call the grandmother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, Mama, I got a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm teaching baby girl how to make your famous rose and she almost got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she had a question, and now I got a question, and we just want to know, why do we cut the side off the ropes?
[SPEAKER_00]: The grandmother started laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The grandma said, now I know y'all not throwing the lower as good ropes in the trash.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to repeat right now in sackcloth and ashes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Falling in good ropes, y'all don't throw it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But mama I cut the side off the rose because you cut the side off the rose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why you cut the side off the rose?
[SPEAKER_00]: She said I cut the side off the rose because I was using your grandma's pan and the pan was too short for the whole rose So I cut it also I can fit in the pan come here all our coming to tell you ends the religious beat doing stuff And you don't even know why you doing it you just doing it cuz you saw somebody else doing it But the truly righteous know I got a reason for the hope that's in me and because I know the reason
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you the truth of all Jesus, is there anybody who can give God praise?
[SPEAKER_00]: What a fact that you got hope and you know why.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I got hope, I'm not passing on misinformation for somebody who don't ask the right questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got hope because of the one who's given me hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man church?
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, give a lot of handclap a praise if you would.