The Nature Of My Game

So, we are finishing up a series on 1 Peter called Dawn Is Coming. And Dawn is surely coming. Some of you feel like it's kind of dark and there's no end in sight. Some of you are going through some tremendous things, but can I encourage you today that Dawn is coming and we will be finishing up this series with that promise. Next week we'll be going into more of a Thanksgiving series.

We're going to talk about generosity and how generosity can really change lives, change the world, bring salt to the earth, and bring light to the world. So, we're going to be changing it up next week. But you have hit a really good week. This is a really good message. And I don't say that because I prepared the message.

I say that because I believe that God's anointing was over this message today and somebody needs to hear it today as he was speaking to me. So, if you will pull out your Bibles or your apps, you can pull out the Bible app. You can download that, a YouVersion Bible app. Most people know what that is. And we have an event set up in that app.

So, if you want to go and get our main pieces of the note, you can save it. You can add notes in there as well and follow along with us. And we would love to have you read along with us. So, we're going to be in chapter 5, 6 through 11. That's what we're going to deal with today, 6 through 11.

I'm actually in Titus right now, so let me skip over to Peter. I don't think you all want to hear from Titus today. Maybe you do. But it says this, beginning with verse 6. He cares about you.

He cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him. Stand firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world, some versions say brothers and sisters throughout the world, are undergoing the same kind of suffering.

And the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen. Amen. There's this thing that Savannah and Max do as of late.

They like to hide and scare you. They're good at that. They hide around the corner. They go into their room or whatever. They just do it and they don't even, they just think it's funny, you know.

You know, Max has this kind of Michael Myers way of doing it where he, where you come into the room and everything's silent and everything's quiet and you don't see him at all and you're looking for him. It's early in the morning. You open up the door. He's not in the bed. So you kind of like, where is he?

You go to the bathroom. He's not in the bathroom. You go around the house. Where is Max? And then you walk back into the room and as you're staring at his bed, silently you get a touch on the shoulders and you're like, whoa, you know, and he scares the mess out of you, right?

Savannah's a little different. She's a little younger, so she doesn't understand the concept quite as much. She'll run in front of you and like race to another room and, but you see her hide. You know, she kind of skips around the corner and she's like, I'm going to, I'm going to hide, you know, and then you, you kind of pretend because that's what daddies do. They pretend and then she'll come out and roar, you know, and come after you and scare you.

It's interesting that this roar, this roar or this growl is, is something that, that kids kind of demonstrate as, as a scary thing. And all of us do. I find that an interesting method of scaring. But I believe what Peter's trying to get at here about this enemy that he's talking about, which, by the way, today, if you haven't understood where we're going with this, is we're going to talk about our enemy, Satan. And where Peter's getting at here is that it's not just a hide-and-seek of a child that we're talking about here.

It's not just a game that we're playing. It's a war we're waging. It's not just a game. In fact, when we often think of Satan, we probably think of it as a game. Oh, Satan's got horns.

He's got this red devil suit on, right? And he's hiding around the corner and he's waiting to creep out and scare us and boo us and growl at us. But the growl that he's talking about here, what Peter's trying to get at is this growl is not just any growl. This isn't just a growl that you see when you see a lion at the zoo. This isn't a growl you hear when you're walking down the path in a zoo and you look across and a lion's growling.

He's talking about a hungry lion, a hungry, furious animal, a beast that is desperate for food. A slobbering, salivating, angry, hungry, infuriating beast. It's like a shark that senses his prey by just a single drop of blood from miles away and heads for that prey. This is who our enemy is. He isn't just an innocent lion.

He is a powerful, strong, angry, hungry, ferocious being. And he is the master of deception. He deceives us. He uses deception to deceive us. And that's his primary method of destruction.

In fact, here's what John gets at when he talks about Satan. He says he was a murderer from the very beginning, not holding to truth for there is no truth in him. And when he lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies. He's a liar and the father of lies. His native language is all he speaks.

It's deception. He speaks nothing but lies. He is the father of lies. This is your enemy. Dawn is coming and we have joy and we have hope.

But until then, we're going to be fighting an enemy. We're going to have to wage war. That's why I had you. These songs were perfect today because you're dealing with an enemy. You're dealing with the enemy and you need to raise a hallelujah when the enemy comes out after you.

And he uses deception. Why? Because God only gives him the ability and the permission to do what he's capable of doing. God has complete control of how far Satan can go. He tries.

So he tries to come in the back door. He can't come in the front door. He can't slam the front door open because God will not allow that. So what he does, he tries to come in the back door. He tries to deceive us.

He has to creep in and he tries to manipulate our situations with these lies, these deceptive lies. We see a reality of this in Job. When you go to the book of Job, you see a picture of heaven when Satan is with God and God looks at Job and he asks Satan, have you considered my son Job? Of course, Satan says, oh, I'll make him fall in a heartbeat. Just let me at him.

God says, okay, go for it. But only this much. You can't take his life. You can't do anything. See, God puts heads of protection, puts walls of protection around those who believe.

So in a sense, you're kind of immortal in some way. You know, you're indestructible in some way. As long as you are in the will of God, he is protecting you. He is putting things in place. The devil's not as powerful.

He's not a big bad wolf like he wants you to make him out to be or wants you to think that he is. He can't blow your house down. He cannot kick down the door. He has to come in the back door and he will use deception to... In a more literal sense, we are more dangerous to ourselves than Satan is, because we fall into the deception.

I think of the Rolling Stones song, Sympathy for the Devil, and that's the title of my message series, is a lyric from that song, The Nature Of My Game. That lyric, What's Puzzling You Is The Nature Of My Game, and that's what puzzles us. And I think about that song, I was a big Rolling Stones fan, and as I listened to that song, he uses different world events, they draw out different world events that have happened throughout history, and how people are basically Satan. But the truth is, Satan uses people. Satan doesn't do it on his own.

He can't just show up here today and come on our stage and just blow you all away. He's limited in his power, so what he does is he deceives people, he comes underneath people, he uses people, he deceives you with lies, and he's deceptive. So we're going to learn about the nature of Satan's game today, and I'm going to give you four lies that Satan tells us that Peter shares with us here. First of all, the first lie he says, you have something to prove. You have something to prove.

I've got something to prove. It's the lie of pride. That's why Peter says, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Pride is the root of every single sin that has ever happened. The underlining root, the ground zero of every sin is pride.

Think about it. The very first sin was pride in heaven, and when we get a picture of heaven in Ezekiel, and both Ezekiel and Isaiah, we get a look at Satan and how he was in heaven, and he put his heart, he lifted his heart above God. He wanted to be like God. In the Garden of Eden, we see Adam and Eve and sin enter into the world as Eve took of the apple, he ate of the apple and was convinced by Satan that she could be like God, that she could know good and evil like God. Therefore, pride stepped in.

She took the apple because she wanted what God had. Sin is the root of a lot of sin, and because of pride, we feel we need to prove ourselves. I've got to prove myself. I've got to prove myself to others. I've got to prove myself to this world.

I've got to prove myself by doing more, by wearing this, by acting this way. Prove it and prove it, prove it, and that's what Satan says. You've got to prove it. You've got to prove yourself. You've got to prove yourself.

You've got to prove yourself, and the enemy says you've got to do it in order to be something, and that's not what God says about you. I think it's interesting that in the temptations of Jesus and Matthew, we see this very thing happen. As Satan was tempting Jesus, he said, I'm going to use the prove it method. I want you to prove it. Jesus, you need to prove it to the world that you are the Son of God.

In fact, if you look at Matthew chapter 4, verse 6, it says, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, and he even used Bible to make him think this, right? He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone. So he says, throw yourself down and prove it, Jesus. But Jesus didn't have anything to prove. He looked to say, I don't have anything to prove to you because my Father says who I am.

My identity is caught up in who the Father says I am. I don't have anything to prove to you, and let me say that to you today. You have nothing to prove. You only have to prove who you are to God, be approved by God, and he's already approved of you because when you were still a sinner, he died for you. That's who your proof is.

That's where your identity lies. It doesn't lie in what other. People think it doesn't lie in what this world thinks. It only lies in the hands of God who says you are most certainly my child approved by me. We look to the cross for approval.

So that's why Peter's so adamant about this humble yourself factor. Humble yourself. Because here's what pride does. Pride is deadly. It inflates us.

Inflation. Paul, rather, talks about puffing up. Puffing up. We puff up ourselves, right? The literal definition of that is inflammation.

And if you know what inflammation does, inflammation is deadly. All causes of death outside of incidents is inflammation. It's infections and inflammation, and it causes death. So when Peter's saying this, he's like, Humble yourself under the mighty head of God because it's deadly. All pride leads to death.

All self-pride. Believing in myself and proving myself. And it all leads to death. It's deadly. But then he says, and in due season.

Now that's important because blessings given out of season become burdens. If you're not ready to receive that blessing, then it can become a burden. Because we're not in God's time zone. God's time zone is different than our time zone. God's due season is different than our due season.

See, we want it yesterday. We live in a want-it-yesterday culture. And you want it now. We want it all now. An instant gratification culture.

But Jesus' culture, God's culture is harvest. It's a harvest culture. It's a culture where there's sowing and reaping and reaping and sowing. And there's time put in it. That's God's culture.

That's God's timing. That's God's alignment. He's a God of the harvest. And that's his timetable. So get in the rhythm of the seasons, guys.

You've got to get in the rhythm of what God is doing, his seasons. We will reap a harvest if we do not what? Lose heart. Do not lose heart because he is reaping. You are seeding some things that are going to come.

See, Peter had to learn it the hard way because Peter was not a very patient guy. Peter knew this when he was writing this out. You know, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and in due season. When he said that, he knew very well what he was talking about because he was not a guy who would do things in due season. He was Peter.

That's why Peter is probably the favorite of the apostles because people can relate to him a little more. He wanted it now. He was told by Jesus that he would be the disciple that would deny him. No, I will never deny you, Jesus. Absolutely not.

I'm Peter. Come on. Come on, Jesus. I'm Peter. Come on.

I'm a guy beside you. You know, I'll cut off the ear of this guy here. You know, this is Peter. I mean, these other guys, I don't trust them anyway. I mean, they might do that.

Except for Judas. I think Judas has got something here. Yeah, I think he's going to be on your side. But the rest of those guys, I don't know. But I'm Peter.

And what do we know about Peter? He was puffed up. He was very puffed up. And so that's why he wrote this. Clothe yourself with humility.

One translation refers to it as putting on an apron. Putting on the apron of humility. We need to wear an apron when we go into battle. Peter understood it was wearing an apron. It was a servant's heart.

It was putting on the apron of humility when you walk out. Because think about it this way. Peter refused to wash James' feet. James refused to wash John's feet. John absolutely refused to wash Bartholomew's feet.

But Jesus was willing to wash Judas' feet. The apron of humility. Clothe ourselves in humility. Let's put our apron. Because our apron is our armor.

Our apron is our armor. Secondly, you'll never... The next lie he'll say is... I call it the lie of worry. And it says this.

You'll never make it through. You'll never make it through this. It's just here, I'm never going to get through this. That's why Peter says, cast all your anxieties and cares on Him because He cares for you. Cast all those anxieties, all those cares on Him because you worry about this and that.

And what is this? What is this? Those things that you make up in your mind. Those things that you worry about in most cases are things that you're just thinking about too much and you start predicting the future, a future that isn't there. You're making things, whether they happen or not, you're making those things happen in your head and we have this imagination about our future.

I like to always play it forward. I think it's important to play things forward when we start having times, you know, play it out a little bit and figure out what it is that...and for me sometimes it's... There's a lot of things that bring anxiety and fear into my life, but one of those is our ministry here. Sometimes I have these fears.

What if I forget how to preach or what if I do a terrible job one Sunday morning and then everybody decides to leave my church? I get here on Sunday morning and everybody's gone and we have to close shop because nobody's here, not even Miranda's here. It's like, where's Miranda at, you know? And then I play that forward and I say, that's kind of ridiculous. So everybody, absolutely everybody that attends every one of our services every month and online and all over the place, you know, that is connected with us, they're just all going to stop showing up.

Is that what's going to happen, you know? No, that's not what's going to happen. And then your wife's even not going to come, huh? I mean, it's going to be that bad, really? I mean, come on.

Come on. I mean, when you start playing it out, you think, well, it's not so, it's not as bad. And even if it did, even if it happened, if I, if I weren't pastoring Salt Church tomorrow, what would I be doing? Well, if I play it out, I'd still be preaching because this is what God's called me to do. This is what God's gifted me to do.

This is what God has anointed me. He has called me to preach the gospel, to preach the word of God. And whether I'm doing it here or wherever I am doing it, I'm still going to be fulfilling the purpose that he has for me because his purpose is greater than my worry and I can cast my care on him. So I think it's important to play it out. I was listening to a podcast by a lady named Dr.

Lori Santos, who's a psychologist. And she was talking about this thing called psychological immune system systems that, that, that we're, built inside of us is a psychological immune system. It's much like a physical immune system where our bodies are so incredible that, you know, when we, when we're cut or when we get hit or something happens, our bodies start reacting right away. There's chemicals that just start rushing to that area to heal, to, to, to cover the pain or whatever it is. It's amazing how our immunity and our system really works.

And she's talking about this thing called a psychological immune system that works through our psyche in a way that protects us and helps us. And, and, and she was, then she mentioned cognitive bias. Some of you psychologists in here understand this really well is, is we mistake the things in the future that are going to be way, that, that are going to happen as being way, way, way better than they will be. Or we say that these things that are going to happen in the future are going to be way, way, way worse than, than they are really going to be. And she uses the example of Paris, a trip to Paris and, and gum surgery.

So, so a trip to Paris doesn't sound too bad, you know, like, oh, wow, a trip to Paris. Wow. I would take that. You take that. Right.

But then you think about gum surgery. You're like, holy cow, that's, you know, who wants gum surgery? They cut your mouth. They cut in your mouth. Who would want that?

But you take that trip to Paris and, and you find out, you know, Paris has its moments, but most of Paris is, is not pretty at all. If you've been to Paris, you know that it's actually kind of a dump. In fact, my Europe issenland has some kind of a dump. No, have you ever seen a dump. There is a interrupt because going to prevent certain things completely from that, like I said going to pass you to the Sorry, all of you people from France here, but it's so true.

My European uncle would tell you that Paris is the armpit of Europe, okay? So you go out there expecting this Lady and the Tramp experience, and you get the smell of a tramp, right? And Paris just isn't all that you thought it was going to be. You had these high expectations of this romantic place, this place of art, and this, you know, this European glorious scene, you know, and then you go there and say, wow. But then, on the flip side, gum surgery sounds awful, but anybody who's had gum surgery are like, well, it really wasn't that big of a deal.

I made it a lot worse than it actually is. Why do we have those expectations about our future? Because there's something inside of us that craves more. There's something built inside of us that Scripture tells us that we crave eternity. We crave something more.

So that's why we make things way, way, way, way more. We put high expectations on those things that are actually going to happen, and we put very low expectations on the things that might not be so bad, because we are striving for something greater, for something better, because inside ourselves, we all long to be with our Heavenly Father. We all long to be in Heaven. We all long for something better than we're currently experiencing, and that's why this built-in cognitive bias is a part of us. And then she talks about this thing called hedonic adaptation, hedonic adaptation.

Amen? Lisa Marie, she probably knows all these terms. She's like, yeah, we're in my field right now. And that is we're so resilient that we can adapt to just about anything. We are fighters.

We are fighters. We can hold on. We can hang on. And she gives the example of J.R.

Martinez, who was injured in Iraq. He was caught on fire in a Humvee, and I think 30-something percent of his body was burned, was hideously burned. And he spent his 20s in excruciating pain. Just an awful experience for him. But while he was experiencing the pain, while he was going in for the treatments, he was getting these skin grafts, he said the skin grafts were worse than the actual pain of the burn, because they have to pull healthy skin off of your skin.

They basically have to cut it out of your skin to graft it to the rest of your body. And he talked about those experiences. But in the middle of those experiences, he saw concern. He saw a need. He saw the concern of other people as they were going in.

And he started helping and encouraging and ministering in a way to others that were there. And they asked him, you know, if you had to go through this all over again, would you change it? And he says, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

If you don't know anything about J.R. Martinez, he ended up being a soap opera star. They saw him one day. He was on, I think, All My Children.

And then he was on Dancing with the Stars, which he won that year in Dancing with the Stars. And he goes on to write a book. And then he travels the world helping people, helping vets, helping burn victims, starting organizations. And it's because he has this psychological immunity about him that instead of focusing on his pain, instead of focusing on the things that were happening to him, he began to serve. And he began to begin to build him up.

See, the lie of worry says that you'll never make it through this. But God says, and Peter says, cast all your cares. Don't just slide your cares. See, what we usually do is like, well, I'm going to slide my care over here, God, but I'm going to grab it back when it gets hard again. He says, cast your cares.

That's just a phrase that, just cast it away. Get it away from me. Throw it away. Cast our cares. Not push it, but cast it because he cares for you.

You know what that literally means? Cares for you? Because he is concerned for you. You are of his concern. You ever had your parents talking when you were little and says, it's not of your concern.

It's not of your concern. This is none of your concern. You need to go, this is none of your concern. You got to stay away. This is none of your concern.

Well, Jesus says this is your concern because I'm concerned for you. He cares about you no matter how little or how great. I love how the NIVR says it. Turn all your worries over to Him. He cares about you.

He cares about you. He really does care about you whether it's big or small. He cares about them and you are of them. He cares about you. So cast your worries to Him.

Don't believe the lie of worry. The third thing is God doesn't care about you. That's the lie. God doesn't really care about you. That's the lie of pain.

When we're going through pain, that's what we often experience. Peter talks a lot about pain in these scriptures. Dealing with pain. He doesn't really care about you. I heard one pastor say it like this.

When I'm going through a hard season, there is a I feel like there is no God and He doesn't care for me. There is no God and He doesn't care for me. Well, that doesn't make sense. So there is no God. He doesn't exist.

And he, oh yeah, also He doesn't care for me. That just doesn't make sense. Why is that? Because the devil lies in irrational ways. That's how he works.

It often has us think in certain ways that aren't clear. But here's what you need to believe about God. God, first of all, that He is madly in love with you and He has a plan for you. He is desperately, madly in love with you in a way that you can't understand and you can't explain and you can't give back. And He has an assignment for your life.

There's a reason for your pain. There's a reason for your struggle. There's a reason you're going through the things that you're going through. And sometimes He gives us things that we don't know what to do with, to be quite honest. And there's certain times, what do I do with this?

Have you ever had somebody hand something to you and say, can you put this here? And you're just like, what do I do with this? Where do I put it? Where do I put it? Maybe you're at a friend's house and you're helping them unload the dishwasher or something like that.

And you're pulling things out and you're like, okay, I know this and I know this, but I have no clue where this goes. Could you help me put this somewhere? You know, and then when you figure it out, it's like, oh, okay. Ah, yeah, that's where it goes. That makes sense.

I think about a puzzle, you know, when you're putting the puzzle together and the pieces are scattered all over the place and there's different colors and there's blues and reds. And you're looking at the blues and reds and you're like, I'm looking at the picture and I don't even see the blues and reds in this. So you don't really know where to go. Where do you put this? I've been given these pieces, but I don't know where to put them.

And then as the puzzle is being put together, you start, it starts becoming clear. It starts to become clear and you start seeing, you start putting it. You're like, wow, that does, that does fit. Oh, okay. It was that piece of the, of the puzzle or piece of the picture.

And that's a lot of like what God does with us. He brings us through these painful moments and sometimes he gives it to us and we don't know what to do with it. So we trust him anyway, because one day we will know because there's an overarching plan for our lives. So hang on because eventually you will get it. You will have that, oh, moment.

Oh, okay. That makes sense. That's how we deal with pain. God gives great gifts, but he doesn't always wrap them up the best way. They're wrapped messy.

They're wrapped all over the place. You ever gotten a gift and it's all like, just look stupid, you know, and you're like, there's nothing good in this gift. It's just a bag. It's a Walmart bag, you know, like, like here's a gift, you know, okay. This is probably some candy or something like that, which might not be a bad gift for some people, but, and then you open the, open it up.

And it's like the very thing that you wanted all along. And that's what God does with us. He makes those, he brings us those, those messy wrappings on the outside, but inside is something beautiful, something that, that, that is living and life. Life-giving. I'm reminded of the story I was actually reading about Evander Holyfield, who is the only boxer who has won four heavyweight world titles.

He is it. And when he was starting off boxing, he had the idea, and it was unheard of at the time, that you would—and look at this guy. I mean, goodness gracious. I mean, he's a monster, you know? I mean, do you want to go in the ring with this guy?

And he was the first of his kind that would say, hey, we can combine—or his trainer, at least—we need to combine weightlifting and weight training with being quick and nimble, because in that time, you wanted to be as light as possible so that you could be quick to the target, right? As a boxer, you want to be nimble, you know, like Muhammad Ali says, you know, we want to float like a butterfly, and that's kind of what they wanted. But he said, you can be big, and you can be bulky, and you can be powerful, but you can be light as well. And as an interviewer was asking him, how did he combine those two together and make that the next thing? He says, well, my trainer mentioned this and got me into this, and it was ballet.

He's like, excuse me, where's this interview going, you know? Did you say ballet? Yes, ballet. In fact, she even taught me how to do the splits and stuff, you know? Like, ballet was—how does that fit in boxing?

And look at that guy. I mean, and he said, we couldn't tell people what we were doing because it would defeat the image, you know? Look, but ballet, he incorporated ballet into his routine. And in times when things don't make sense, like ballet just doesn't make sense, but it won titles. He was able to beat people.

He was able to do amazing things. He beat the best in the world. He was the man. He still is the man. He accomplished many things because he incorporated something that really didn't belong and didn't make sense.

So hold on. At times, things don't make sense in your life. They don't really seem to work, but ultimately they will work in God's will and God's plan when we go through pain, when we go through troubling times. So don't believe the lie that God doesn't care because he absolutely cares. And he goes on to talk about it.

Amen. And he goes on in 1 Peter 5, verse 9. And I love how the Passion Translation says that. He says, Consider the worldwide brotherhood. And it says, Take a divisive stand against him and resist his every attack with strong, vigorous faith.

For you know that you are believing, that you are believing brothers and sisters around the world are experiencing the same kind of trouble you're enduring. And that's encouraging because we not only do we have other believers around the world that are facing the pain, and we're not alone. That kind of encourages us and picks us up. But we're able to encourage others, right? We're able to go through this and encourage those that are coming up.

High schoolers, for you, there's middle schoolers that are looking up to you right now and watching what you do. You are able to encourage them. Middle schoolers, there's elementary schoolers that are watching you all the time and watching how you handle situations and how you handle trouble, and you're being an example to them. And it goes on down. There's 50-something-year-olds here.

There's 20-something-year-olds that are looking up to you because we are a worldwide brother and sisterhood of the faith in which we are encouraging each other in the faith and walking this out together. Don't forget about your brothers and your sisters. Be encouraged that God cares and that you are showing others that God cares as well. We're going to get through this together. Amen.

And then the fourth and final. Point. And I think this is probably the most important. I think this is the most deceptive thing that Satan does. And I call it the lie of prosperity.

And it's that you can relax now. Because if you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and in due time, he will exalt you, is what scripture. At some point, when you are in the will of God, you are going to be exalted on the other side, right? You're going to get through it. It's going to be okay.

And it's going to be really good on the other side. So you get to those places in your life where things are going good. And then we let our spiritual guard down. And then Satan finds a way to enter in our prosperity. Because when you get through those seasons, when you have those hard times, there is prosperity on the other side.

In fact, he says this in scripture, Peter says this, and the Lord and the God of all grace will himself restore you, right? He's going to restore you. We trust and believe in that. And he will make you strong, firm, and steadfast. And when you're handed something great, you enter into the greatest test of all.

When you have something great, this is when you're going to be most tested. Because times of blessing have destroyed people that persecution couldn't touch. Times of blessing have ruined people when they go through pain and when they go through aches that have actually strengthened them. Every bit of that strength is taken away as soon as they enter into prosperity. So what he's saying is you have to claim victory all the time.

You have to walk in that. Don't give up. Let's not take the gas off of serving and growing and giving and coming together. Let's not take a break from what God has just because we're living in times of prosperity. Let's not relax.

Amen. So the key point, that's why it's important to know that blessings aren't just for us. There to flow out of us. The reason we're blessed is not so that we could have these things in our lives and just say, Whoo! Hallelujah!

I can stay out of church now. I can exit the spiritual family. I can, you know, do my own thing again. I can pray less. I can, you know, practice less spiritual disciplines because I'm in a time of prosperity.

That's when you actually lean because you're in the greatest test of your life. It's God's plan for you. It rains on the just and the unjust as I speak of every week. And some of you are believers and you've got it raining and pouring blessings on you. And God says it's an outpouring so that you can bless.

And we must continually come back. It's like a cyclical effect that takes place, right, in our lives. That when we go through pain, we're encouraged, we're strengthened, and then we get through it. And then we have blessing. And then we remind ourselves that we've got to put on that apron of humility because when we put on that apron of humility, it gives us strength to walk even in prosperity because the trials will come again.

And then you go through the trials and then you build up more. And then you put on the apron of humility as you walk into our prosperity. And it just goes on and on and on again. And we're always reminding us. And Peter is always trying to tell us, remind yourself that Jesus washed Judas' feet.

Jesus humbled himself on a cross. So it really comes back to the simplest thing. And that's just walking with Jesus. Simply walking with Jesus. That we need to just walk it out with Jesus.

That we need to just come back to Jesus. I never want to get away from being close to Jesus. I never want to get away from having... To trust Him and depend on Him, even when times are up and times are low. And this is what Peter's getting at in this scripture.

Hey guys, you are going through. Dawn is coming. Dawn is coming. Be encouraged. But until then, put on your armor.

Put on your apron. Serve. Live for Jesus. Look, I'm getting ready to go. Peter knew his time was coming.

He did. He just watched Paul beheaded just recently. He knew his time was coming. It wasn't long for him. And he's encouraging the church, you know what?

My time's coming. But be encouraged because dawn is coming. We're going to be in heaven. We're going to be with God. And you cannot get through this life unless you trust and lean on God and you walk with Jesus.

He said, I walked with Jesus. I know Him personally. Church, I want you to know what it's like to walk with Jesus. What does it mean to walk with Jesus? And there's many people in different places in their spiritual journey here today and online watching this.

Wherever you are, you are on a spiritual journey. That's why we have this church here to help people take that next step. But for some of you, that next step of walking with Jesus might be just knowing Jesus or having a relationship with Jesus because He deeply cares for you. He loves you. He's madly in love with you.

And He's already paid the price for you. And He's beckoning you to come to Him and sup at the table and eat the feast that He has prepared for you. So if that's the step that you need to take today, I want to give you that chance. Jesus, with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, is that you today? You need just to make a decision for Jesus.

You need to make your relationship with Jesus real. That you've never even taken that first step today. And if that's you, I want you just to pray this because He says in Scripture, in Romans, if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart, you will be saved. So just confess with your mouth today and believe it in your heart. And you are a child of Christ.

That's available for you, a free gift, not by works. Every other religion says you've got to do it by works and maybe you'll make it to heaven. But today, I can tell you confidently, under the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who shared this with you, who shares this with you, you can have a relationship with Him by believing in Him, by confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart. So pray that with me today. Lord, I believe that You are the Son of God and that without You, I am far from You.

Without Your blood, I am far from You. So today, I receive Your blood. I receive You, Jesus. I make You Lord of my life. Come into my heart.

Change me from the inside out. I just want to simply walk with You. I want to take that first step. I give it all to You. I have decided to follow You, and there's no turning back.

There's no turning back. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, we pray this. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen.