The Order Is Everything

Well, hello, hello, hello. Once again, welcome to Salt Church. If you're new with us, I'm Pastor Leon, and I'm so excited that you're here with us today. We are in a series in 1 Peter. We're walking through 1 Peter, exploring the scriptures, kind of doing a teaching through a book.

We try to do that a few times a year, and it's been incredible. I've been learning a lot. I'm sure you have been learning a lot. We've been walking through this together. A perfect time to visit 1 Peter, as we're dealing with a lot of things in the world right now.

And it's so relatable to today. It's amazing how Peter and scripture and things that were written, you know, a couple thousand years ago can be applied today. It's just amazing. Isn't God good in His holy word? And that's the reason we come together, so that we can hear His word, be encouraged, and be built up, so that we can go out and make a difference in the world.

I did want to make a few announcements before I got started here. We are entering into November, which is a really big month for us. Okay, guys? A really big month for us. We got November 15th is a big day, okay?

Here's why. We have this annual thing called a turkey drop. How many of you have been a part of the turkey drop in the past, right? Right, right. Last, okay, this is just, y'all were a hard crowd today.

Let me hear you. Turkey drop, okay? All right. I don't know if it was the weather change, or y'all just wore out from yesterday because you played outside so much, and you're here today with some gloomy temperatures. I don't know what it is.

I know there were some people that told me they were going to watch from home, but they're missing out today because we don't have online services right now. But yeah, the turkey drop is amazing what we do. The idea of a turkey drop is that we're bringing in turkeys for families in need. Turkeys are kind of a major thing for any family at Thanksgiving, right? Right?

So we want to provide Thanksgiving meals. So what this means is we have a goal of a number of turkeys we want to bring in. Last year, I believe we, somewhere around 80 turkeys is what we had last year. 80 turkeys. I'm telling you, the JCOC's eyes get this wide when we come up, and they actually called us this year to make sure we were doing it again because we always supply all the turkeys.

Well, our goal this year is 100 turkeys. We want to bring in 100 turkeys, okay? And just to let you know, we'll have something to drop the turkeys. That's why we call it the turkey drop. They need to be frozen ice cold.

Why? Because we don't know if it's going to be ice cold outside. So bring those things ice cold. We're going to have a place for you to drop them, and we're going to aim for 100 turkeys. And listen, we're not only going to do the turkey drop itself, we're going to add some more to this.

We've decided to make it a fall event, an opportunity for you to bring people. So we're going to do something for the kids. Oh, my gosh. Christina, what is going on today? It sounds like, yeah, we get two clan claps.

Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to have some things for the kids. We're going to do some, it's just going to be a fun day.

We want everybody to come out. We want you to invite your friends. If you have kids, you can invite your friends as well, their friends and their kids and their families and everybody. We ask that everybody come in. Also, starting next week, we're going to start this thing called the Random Acts of Kindness period or month.

And as we head into Christmas, we're going to start thinking selflessly, right? So here's what I want you to do. There's these cards at our desk and we've got our welcome center, rather. And they say something extra to show God loves you. And then it has a little bit, it just has our website on the back.

It says, so do we. So what do you do with these cards? You need to grab a handful of them. And I want you to do something random for somebody for nothing else but to show the love of God. That means if you want to extra tip somebody at a restaurant, throw them $100 down, just say, we love you, that's all.

You want to rake somebody's leaves, cut somebody's grass, buy somebody a coffee behind you online. Just an excellent way to practice our faith in our communities. Get outside of just doing it for somebody in church, but do it to a complete stranger somewhere. Amen? We want to do that and be a part of our community, show God's love to other people.

And there's a story I always share about this from another church. A lady got some of these cards and she was in a Chick-fil-A line going through the drive-thru. And she decided to put one of these cards with the person behind her and pay for her meal in the drive-thru. She said, ask the attendant to just take this and give it to the lady behind her and give her the meal and say, God loves her today. It ended up being a young lady who was thinking and considering suicide.

She was grabbing her last meal and she said, God, give me a sign that I am not to do this. And what happened? This came in. God loves you. And here's a free meal for you in the process.

And it changed her life. She went to the church that Sunday, got saved, is actively involved. God is doing amazing things in her life. This little thing goes a long way. Why?

Because a little bit of salt goes a long way. So let's be active. We also have Operation Christmas Child coming up. Christmas is right around the corner. And we'll be giving you more about our Christmas services here soon once we get those dialed in.

But we have boxes already for you to take if you want to start packing your Christmas child boxes. They'll be due the following week after the turkey drop. So as you can see, we've got a lot of things going on. Another thing we have going on that month in November is we want to nominate a family within our church that we want to bless that might need help or might need something such as a Christmas meal, presents for their kids. We're doing this anonymously so that, you know, we don't want to embarrass anybody or whatever.

But we definitely are asking you guys to be a part of this, to nominate somebody. Our leadership is going to get together and see who we can bless this Christmas in our church. These are people in our church because we want to reach in. We know we reach out a whole lot, but we also want to reach in and bless somebody here. We want to take care of our family as well.

So if you have a nomination you want to put in place, be thinking about that. And we'll have a week in November. I believe we're doing that the second or third week in November. We're going to nominate somebody and consider that. So lots of cool things coming up for November.

And then we have Christmas in December. How many of you are excited about Christmas this year? Who cares about COVID? Come on, it's Christmas time, amen? Let's forget about everything that's going on in the world.

Man, I tell you what, this debate, politics is surrounded by this COVID thing. There's still a lot of negativity in the world, right? There's still a lot of darkness. But let me tell you, dawn is coming. Dawn is coming.

The sun will rise. It's going to rise and we can live. We're living before the dawn of the sun, right? We see the lights, we see the beauty, the orange that comes up. We're experiencing that now as believers.

And this is what Peter is getting at in these scriptures as he's writing to a church. And I want to make a statement before we start. The order is everything. The order is everything. The order in which we do things means everything.

If you'll turn with me to 1 Peter 3, we're going to roll through 13 through 16. Follow along with me. And if you have the Bible app, you can, if I can get that graphic up here so people can go to that real quick. Do you have that graphic available? Okay, there we go.

So just to help people navigate to our Bible app, you can go to that real quick. And if you have a paper Bible, obviously you can use that as well, but that's just a great way. Go to more events and then select Salt Church. And you should be able to find it and save it, take notes. Those are ways we can do it without having, you know, physical notes going out because we know that many of you are still very cautious about that.

So here we go. Let's start. Here's what Peter writes to the church. He says, who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good, but even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear their threats.

Do not be frightened, but in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscious so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. God, we ask that you give us something fresh today from your word, God, that you would speak to us so clearly today. And though it, it, we may not be going through trials right now, some of us here, but this, this would sink deep into our hearts so that when that time comes, we can go back to this very message, this very time, and know that you are indeed still good.

And your scripture is something that gives us peace and gives us hope and, and brings us through those times. So God be with us today in your name. Amen. Out of order is an interesting statement. We often see it on signs when we are, when something isn't working or we're heading to, to something and say it's a ride in a park and you're excited about riding this ride and you see that sign out of order, you know.

It's, it's interesting how McDonald's, every McDonald's that you come across seems to have an out of order sign on their specialty coffee station. You know, I asked, I wasn't, do you agree with that? I mean, I don't know why that always happens. You're like the largest fast food chain in America and you can't get your coffee situation right. You know, you're like going for this coffee thing and you can't get it right.

So I was in Suffolk one day coming through there and, and I went through the drive through and they said, you know, I'm, I'm, I asked for a latte or something like that because I felt like a latte. And I said, sorry, sir, our machine's out of order, out of order. I'm like, how is it out of order? Okay. So I head down the road and I'm heading into Virginia beach.

I stop at another McDonald's because their lattes frankly are cheap. I mean, you get a Starbucks lattes like five, six bucks, you know? So I wanted to get my cheap latte. It was only a couple of bucks. And I go into this other, uh, McDonald's and the same thing.

Sorry, sir. Our machine is out of order. You know, like, like, so I asked the guy, I'm like, why is, why is it all like, you're not the only McDonald's that has this issue. What's going on? He says, yeah, it's something about the machine itself, the distributor.

We're all having issues with it. We make a lot of lattes and they just, we have to replace this little thing in there. And I'm like, you're McDonald's, my goodness, you know, get it right. You've got it on your menu in this big signs and out of order. How disappointing is out of order?

Um, I mean, what, what, what does that really mean out of order? Uh, it's, it's kind of a funny phrase, you know, where did it come from out of order? Does that mean like you're out of it that I need to refill my order? Or, you know, you think about that, but the, the term actually comes from the English parliament. And if you ever get a chance to study and think about, uh, or even look at how the English parliament works or did work, it's kind of, it's kind of makes you laugh, you know, a little bit.

They're shouting each other down, they're doing things. And, and, uh, there was a prearranged list or order for the members of parliament in which they could speak. And if they spoke out of their turn, they were called out of order. You're out of order. And what they would do is they would either shout them down, you're out of order, you're out of order, out of order, out of order, you know, or if they spoke, uh, they would not take anything down that they would say.

So that's where we get our phrase from our, our English brethren or where, you know, our origin England out of order. I think about that, you know, things being out of order. There's a lot of things if they're not in the right order and it only takes a little bit of out of order. To make it not work. It's really important that things are in order, or they don't work, right?

I think about a house, building a house. If someone comes into my yard and starts setting up framework, and they're not putting the foundation down first, if they're just going out in my grass and they just start throwing out stuff and putting things around, this is a new method for building a house, I'm going to question them because there needs to be footings, there needs to be foundation, there needs to be something there before you build the framework, and then you put the covering on the house and the roof on the house. If you start in the wrong place, that house won't stand. It will be out of order. It won't.

Order means everything. I think about a plane flight. Now, if I get on a plane and I'm heading somewhere and the pilot's looking into his instructional book to see the order in which he does things, I'm going to question whether I should be on that plane, right? I want things to be in order when I take a plane flight. How does that work?

Well, when you get on the plane, the plane takes off, right? It ascends, it levels out, and then when it comes time to descend, it descends first, and then it lands, right? It cruises, descends, and then lands. Now, I don't want that out of order because if you're taking off and you immediately start cruising, where are you going to go? You're going to go straight into a building.

You're going to go straight into a mountain if you're coming out of the mountains or something like that, you know? It's not a very, very good order to be in. If I'm up in the air and we're landing, we don't just immediately land. We descend. We definitely don't want the order to be out of that, right?

I think about preparing food, you know? The order in which you prepare food. If somebody goes to the bathroom, that's really important, right? The order in which they take, they prepare your food. They go to the bathroom, they wash their hands, and then they prepare their food.

You know, what's going on behind the scenes there in restaurants? You hope, and you know, if you don't think you have any faith, you got a lot of faith walking in a lot of these restaurants to trust them. You practice faith every day, right? We practice it all the time. So there's order there.

Order is important. It's very important. I think about apologizing. I kind of just kind of combing through things that can be out of order. If you apologize to someone, there's a certain order in which you say something that will come off wrong as opposed to come out right, and it's just a few word changes.

For instance, it says this, sorry, I shouldn't have said that, but my feelings were hurt. Sorry, I shouldn't have said that, but my feelings were hurt, okay? Sorry, I shouldn't have said that, but you hurt my feelings. That's where you get that. But if you change the order without changing it around much, you can say it like this, my feelings were hurt, but I shouldn't have said that.

I'm sorry. You see how much difference that makes just changing the order? You know, I think about it like this. Just changing a word around or a letter around in a word makes a big difference. You got Santa.

If I just take the A and move it in one place, what do I get? Satan. Some of you are like, I've been saying that for years. Chill out, okay? It's okay, all right?

It's a big difference. A little bit makes a big difference. A little bit out of order makes a difference. How about this sentence? Randall ate his candy and talked to his mother.

What a nice little thing there, right? But if you switch that around, it looks completely different. Just taking two words and switch them around. Randall ate his mother and talked to his candy. Now, I'm going to, it's amazing how that comes across completely different.

Why? The order is everything. The order is everything. In fact, God put a divine order together for us. Ecclesiastes says it like this, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens.

A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to uproot, and then he goes on and on and on. A time for war, a time for peace, a time for love, a time for hate. There's a time for everything, an order for everything, a period for everything. And then he goes on in verse 11 to say this, he has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also said eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from the beginning to end.

So what this is saying is that when God made the world, he put laws into place. He put things into place, and it's foolish for us to try to fight against those divine laws and those divine orders. In fact, Paul says this in Romans 2 9, when you go against the grain, I love how the message says this. When you go against the grain, what happens? You get splinters.

You get splinters. For example, the person who is frustrated because they're in debt and continues to spend, there's an order there. You know, if you stop spending, if you stop going in debt, then you can get out of debt, right? Or your marriage is in shambles, but you treat your spouse very badly. There's an order there.

If you do what we practiced last week, submit and respect, there's an order there that actually works, that God gives us an order in which works, an order, a divine order. If you can't fit your clothes anymore, what do you do? You go on a diet. You don't just pray and expect God to, you know, there's some order there, and I've done that often. You know, God, just take this, God, bring my hair back.

I had beautiful hair when I was, you know, I know I, I, I pride, I had pride in my hair. You took it, you're taking it away, but you know, God, just take it back. But there's a divine order. When you get The Order is everything. Things end up out of order when they're not in the right order.

So we want to get in the right order. And Peter shows us that there are things that we can do that will result in predictable outcomes. That we can do things, there are things he's put in place, and he uses these truisms, so to speak, these things that these divine orders to help people understand what is going on, what God is up to, and that you can have a practical outcome if you follow those divine orders. There's truisms all through the Bible. Raise your child in the way they should go, and what will happen?

They will not depart from that thing that they are, right? Honor the Lord with your first fruits of the land, and your barns will be full, and your vats will overflow with new wine. Those are truisms. Those are orders in which God put in place and said principles that God positioned for us to follow, to let us know that there is blessing and there is outcome on the other side. Things happen differently when you follow my order because order is everything.

And in verse 13 of our scripture, Peter says, who is going to harm you? Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? You see the order there? If you are eager to do good, who can harm you? He's talking to people who have their citizenship in heaven but are still living on this earth and what they should and shouldn't do.

And the tension for Christians is often, how do I live with my heart in heaven and my feet still on earth? And for so many Christians, that tension just exists because we're like, wow, this bad world, this world sucks. I'm going to heaven. I'm ready to go to heaven. I'm just going to, you know, whatever.

And then, and then we just hate the world. This world is terrible. This terrible world. Oh, we just talk, we just whine as Christians, right? Am I right?

We whine as Christians. This world is just going wrong. It's going, and this is the very world that Jesus loved and gave his life for. And he's telling us we should live the same way Jesus did while our hearts are in heaven and dawn is coming. We should live in the dawn of now as we walk in the spirit and love this very world that Jesus loved, Jesus died for.

God has a plan to redeem and make new. He loves this world. So there lies the tension for Christians. Let's live in this world. Let's not be of the world, but live in the world.

And that's what we've been getting at throughout first Peter. This is his overarching message is how do we live in a world that Jesus loves and we love, even though it's against us and it doesn't like us. And it's not the greatest time or place to live in this period of time. How do we live that way? And Peter is saying, if you do good and we share the heart of God, what will happen?

People will not harm you. How does that work? Now, Peter, now we have to understand that these people were going through very, very difficult times. And, and, and they're, they're, they're, it's, it's a hard, hard world. It's a hard world.

They had a Caesar, an emperor that didn't care much for him, that kind of used him as bait to get what he wanted, hang him up on crosses, tear him apart with, uh, uh, just in, in brutal ways, tie them together, tie them to different chariots and, and then run the chariots away and their, their bodies would dismember and they would do it for fun, for play, for joy, feeding them to lions. I mean, things like this were happening and he was using them for entertainment. And Peter is, is telling them, you know what? If you do good and we share the heart of God for the loss, who can harm you? That's a hard thing to say.

What are you talking about here, Peter? And he says that, that we would care and we would love regardless, that we would reach our spheres of influence, that we would go out and we would make a difference and we would love this world regardless of what people think about us or what people do with us. Because here's the deal. Passion protects. Passion protects.

We will want, people will want to deal with us when we think we, when they think well of us, when we do things right, when we live the right way, when we live with love. And Peter is explaining this here. But what was happening in this scripture is people were not doing very well. And here's three reasons. Some people are just cruel, okay?

People are just cruel. Let's just be real here. There's people that just want to see the world burn. That's just who they are. But some people are clumsy.

They may not want to see the world burn, but they're just not thinking properly or they, they just, they're clumsy with the way they interact with others. Or sometimes people are just clueless. Some people are just clueless. They have no clue that they're hurting you. They had a friend not too long ago that, that did something or said something that, that really hurt me.

You know, it was like, I, it almost made me feel like I'm, I'm not, you know, I'm not really their friend. They don't really care for me the way I thought that they cared for me. And, but what I learned and, and from talking to other friends that are friends with them, they just didn't know. And they had no clue. They didn't think, they don't even think.

And so many people don't really think about how they interact with others and they're clueless. You know, that's just the reality that people are going to be people. They're going to be cruel. They're going to be clumsy and they're just not going to get it. And things are going to happen and you're going to get hurt.

You're going to get bitter or you can get bitter if you allow it to get, get, get to you. Before these Christians, things were getting bad and even getting worse. And Peter knows that. And that's why he is sharing these truism. He's saying, just because things are bad, don't give up.

Don't get jaded. Don't get aggravated. Don't lose heart. Don't give up on the plan that I've given you. Don't give up on the purpose that I've given you.

Step out, move on, move forward, go into the glory of, look at the glory of God and look what he's done for. He says this, but even if you should serve. You are what? You are blessed. You are blessed.

Well, how am I blessed? And he says, do not fear their hearts and do not be frightened. See, Jesus even said that, do not fear people, right? He says, do not fear people or do not put your trust in man, for they will fail you, and we do it all the time, right? And I think about the heart of Joseph.

Joseph, number one, he is betrayed. He is betrayed by his own brother, his own family. Man, that must have hurt. My own brother and my brothers, my blood has betrayed me. They sold him into slavery.

And then he was lied about because he was in Potiphar's house. He was a servant of Potiphar who thought well of him. And he was lied about. He was misrepresented. And he was imprisoned, right?

And in prison, what did he do? He served. And he served these people. He interpreted these dreams. And then the person he interpreted a dream for that he helped and gave hope to forgot about him in prison after he asked him, can you mention me to Pharaoh?

Could you mention me to those who were in charge so that maybe I can get out? So he was forgotten about. And Joseph, but Joseph wasn't like, oh, God, where are you? God, why are you allowing all this stuff to happen to me? Why are you allowing this suffering to happen to me?

Why am I hurting? I just don't understand. I'm doing all the right things. I'm living pure, God. I'm doing everything that you said.

And we get this works righteousness attitude about us, right? If I can just get enough in here, if I can do enough of this, then God should bless me. But Peter is saying, but even if you suffer, I want you to understand you are blessed. And you shouldn't be afraid. You shouldn't be fearful.

None of that. Because you are blessed. You are covered. And what do we see in Joseph's life? He stayed the course.

He believed. He had purpose in his pain. You could have purpose in your pain. That there is a big picture. There is an order in everything.

And Joseph, at the time, we see the big picture. We see the story. We go back to the Old Testament and see. Joseph becomes second hand to Pharaoh. He becomes prime minister of Egypt.

He's making all the calls, but he didn't see that when he was in that prison cell for years. He didn't see that in the darkness, but he understood that there is a divine order to everything. And in Genesis 50, 20, he says this, but as for you, you meant evil against me. But what happened? But God meant it for good in order, in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many, right?

In order. In order. Because order is everything. The way we see God, we have to see it in a divine order. We may not understand.

We may not know exactly what that order is, but we have to trust that there is an order here. And that's what Peter's telling the church. And none of this makes sense, okay? How does this work? What Jesus did doesn't make sense.

That's why Peter threw that in there in verse 18. He says, for Christ died for our sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous. Okay, that doesn't make sense to us, does it? Why would the righteous die for the unrighteous? Why would doing the right thing, what is that all about, right?

To bring you to God, and he was put to death in the body and made alive in the spirit. Wow. So what he's saying here, don't forget that he died for you. Don't forget that you are blessed. Don't forget that what you're going through right now is nothing compared to what Jesus went through.

And Jesus had an order to this, and he's preparing a place for you. There is a dawn coming, and the order is everything. And you must go through trials. You must go through suffering. And we don't like to talk about suffering because nobody likes to talk about suffering.

But suffering is a reality. So we have to stop saying, the story of my life. And start saying, the story of my life is Jesus. How many times? Oh, my tires.

Story of my life. Story of my life. Oh, my issues. Oh, my pain. Oh, the story of my life.

And what Peter's saying, you've got another story. You've got a story greater. You've got a story more powerful. This is the story of my life, which leads me to the second point. Adoration prepares.

Passion protects, but adoration, adoration prepares. Verse 15 says, always be prepared, right? Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asked you to give the reason for the hope that is within you, the hope that you have. So while you are living good, and oh, by the way, nothing will harm you because you are blessed even though you are harmed. Let me say this.

You've got to be prepared. And while you're blessed, you know, if you're walking in this blessed life and you're living prepared and you're living excited, you know what? Your response is going to be, what the heck? What's going on with this guy? Why is this happening?

And they're going to see a hope. They're going to see a hope. What you're doing is sharing a hope. And he says, be continually ready to share. Be continually, as you live out this life, blessed.

And even when it looks like you're being cursed, when you're blessed, guess what? People are going to ask, what in the world is going on in your heart? I want that heart. What are you going through? And you're going to be prepared to share the message.

So he says, continually be prepared, walking with what we call this hope. And it goes back. We've got to connect it back to the beginning of Scripture where he talks about this living hope, this living hope, this active, this breathing hope we talked about, right? This living hope that we have within us. But you can't be prepared if you won't prepare.

You can't be prepared if you won't prepare. I've heard hundreds of sermons about this particular Scripture. And apologists love it because they're like, always be prepared for the hope that lies within you. You know, with gentleness and respect. You know, we need to get out.

You know, we need to talk about this in court. We need to put a defense up for the faith. Apologetics just simply means putting a defense to the faith, being able to articulate, and let me just say this. I love apologetics. I love defense to the faith.

I love sitting down with people and explaining why we believe what we believe. I love talking about God and how God is real and how we can legitimately say throughout all of creation, everything, how God is actually God. I love defending Jesus and his resurrection to show people that he in fact did bodily raise from the dead and we can have proof of that. I love talking about the Bible and how it is divine as opposed to just a bunch of old books that are outdated. I can prove that.

I've got it down. I love that. But this is not what Peter is saying here. He's not saying that. I love apologists.

I've been to Josh McDowell seminars. I sat there right in front of him writing all that stuff down. Ravi Zachariah is still on my podcast. I love these guys. I'm not saying do this.

I love Way of the Master, you know, where you get to watch, you know, them go out on the street and Ray Comfort and his big old mustache, you know, kind of walking around. Hey there, you know, with his accent and stuff. It's awesome to see that. And if that's you, man, I encourage you. I push you to do it.

I tell you to go out there and make a difference, talk to some people, and may the power of God rest on you as you do that. But here's what I want to say. But let it be about your relationship with God and not just facts that you read. Let it be about your relationship with God. And this is what he's saying here.

This is what Peter's saying here. Like, you've got to live an active, living hope. You've got to have a wow inside of you that people have to see, they have to see something. And it's not something that happened 20, 30, 40 years ago on a, in a camp meeting or in y'all don't even, some of you probably don't even know what a camp meeting is. But I do.

In a camp meeting service or a revival service or in a youth camp or when you were five years old, that's when I gave my life to Christ. It has to be something now. It has to be something fresh. It has to be a living hope, something that breathes inside of us. We have to go back.

We have to continually stir that wow factor in us. I remember hearing Chuck Colson talk about his time with Larry King. And if you know Chuck Colson, most of you know, as he was the hit man under the Nixon administration, not a very good person. He got radically changed in prison, started prison ministries, did a huge ministry for prison, people in prison. And he and Larry King were good friends.

And Larry sat across the table from him and says, okay, I want you to prove that God exists. And I'm going to give you, I think it was like an hour or something like that. I'll give you 60 minutes to prove it to me. And Chuck, man, smart as he is, laid it all out. This is why, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, historical evidence, archaeological evidence, prophetic evidence, scriptural evidence, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, airtight argument, showing him exactly what he needs to know in order to believe that there is a God.

And after it's all over, Larry looks at him and says, I still don't believe. And Chuck said, that's the one thing that you have to experience. Because it's not about facts, it's about a relationship with God. Something happened inside of me. He said, something happened inside of me that I can't explain to you.

I can't put on a piece of paper and I can't draw out. That's where me and you have to divide on. Because until you have the relationship with God that I have, and Larry, I desire you to have this relationship with God that I have. But until you have that, I can give you all the facts and all the information, but you will never be enlightened to the truth and to the wow factor of who God is. It's not about facts, it's about truth.

Louis Giglio said it like this, no one likes to watch the sunrise with a meteorologist. Yeah, that's, you know, the chemical composition of the orange is actually a gas, then the molecules and blah, blah, blah. Dude, you're taking the wow right out of it. You know, and that's the same thing with the gospel message. We need to continually have that excitement.

And I've been walking with God for a long time, and every week and every month and every day, I have to wake up in the morning before I came to church this morning. I was on my knees this morning crying, just consumed by the love of God even before I came into this church service. I could have easily come in here just not prayed, not done anything, and been okay because I know my relationship with Christ. But I want to be wowed by God once again. I want to feel Him.

I want to know Him. I want to know Him more. I want to be excited about Him. So when I come up here and share this hope that I have, you can experience that hope as well. I want you to experience it.

It's not something that happened a long time ago. It's something that's alive, active, and breathing now. It's a hope that we can have. I love, in Scripture, the blind man and the Pharisees. And they walk up, and they say, we need to know, we need to know, we need to know all this information.

And he says, I don't know what you guys are talking about, but look, all I know is I was blind, and now I see. I've got proof. I've got living proof that this is God. And I'm not here to try to give a full report, book report on this. All I know is I can see now.

And then in verse 15, but in their hearts they revered or set apart Christ as Lord. Lord, this interpretation, another interpretation for this is worship. It means we've got to get our worship right. We've got to get worshiping God a little more. I love worship.

We need to be worshiping. We need to be at all. We need to keep your walk. You need to keep your walk with God always in the present, not in the past, in the present. Walking with God, excited about God, because there is an order, and it starts with Jesus.

It starts with God. It starts with what he's done and what he's going to do and what he's up to, and that it's a good thing. It's a great thing. It's a powerful thing. It's not just something that's just out there that we can never know, but we can experience it now because we can tap into that wow.

We can walk in the wow, in the opportunity. Always give a hope. Always give that hope. Always be prepared. Prepare your hearts to give that hope.

See, that's why I love corporate fellowship, corporate worship, where we get to come together, come together. Father, and some of you probably came in here and are like, man, these people clap a lot. And sometimes the pastor's even making them clap. I don't really like that. You know, the pastor makes them clap.

I'm just trying to teach y'all about worship. I'm just trying to teach y'all about worship. Praise. I just want to give y'all a picture of what heaven's like. That's all I want to do, because heaven's not going to be just people sitting around looking at the ceiling and throwing pencils up in the rafters.

Like, I'm bored. Heaven's going to be—I'm excited, man. I want to be here. Man, this is great. There's a hope.

It's not an empty hope. It's not a hope that you can't touch. You can touch that hope. And we need to always walk in the present. And the formula is powerful when we put the order in place by worshiping God first and getting our hearts right.

Order is everything. And when you don't do things in the right order, they get out of order. Are you doing things in the right order? Let me just give you an example of the writer of this book, Peter. What did we talk about in week two?

Peter was a bundle of contradictions. It might have been even week one I mentioned it. He's a bundle of contradictions. One minute he's like on God's—on Jesus's, you know, best friend list, and the next minute he's being cursed by Jesus. One minute he's blessed, and one minute he's denying Jesus.

He got it wrong a lot. He was so competitive. He thought ranking meant a lot to him. Ranking meant a lot to Peter. In fact, he wanted God or Jesus to put him on the right hand.

And, you know, even John went up to him and says, can you put me in my brother? They were all about ranking. They wanted to be next to God and in the kingdom. And they were thinking of kings, and they were thinking of ranking. But Jesus told Peter he was going to be—he was going to deny him.

He said, no way. I'm not going to do that. But Peter got the order wrong. He got the order wrong because he says—he said, God, I—Jesus, I love you. I love you.

I would never do that to you because I love you more than anybody else in this world. I love you. But here's where the order went wrong. Peter got it wrong a lot, but he—but he got it—he got it wrong this time because we can't stand on the love we have for Christ. We can only stand on the love that Christ has for us.

We can't just stand on the love we have for Christ because that love is weak. But the stronger love is that when we were—and let me say this loud and let me say this clear—sinners, far from God, he gave his life for us. When you were still living in darkness, he was creating light for you. And the light came from into the darkness, and the Word became flesh, and he dwelt among you. He lived, and he died when you were still a sinner.

When you were still a sinner, he gave his life for you. So Peter got it wrong a lot, but he also got it right on occasion. And there's this situation in Matthew where Jesus actually walked on water, but he waited for Jesus' call. He says, Lord, if it's you, tell me, come out on the water. And what did Jesus say?

Come. Come. Come. Come out on the water. And when Peter heard that, what did Peter do?

He got out of the boat, and he walked on the water and came towards Jesus. He knew the order, and he knew he was under orders. God has called us. He's calling us. He's got orders for us, and he wants us to step out of our boat.

And wherever you are in your spiritual life, wherever that may be, maybe you're far from God right now, and God's calling you. And you hear him say, come. Here I am. I'm knocking on the door of your heart. I open that door, and I'll come in.

Or maybe you're just trying to take the next step. You're ready to do something big, but you haven't taken that step yet. Hey, it's time to get off the boat. It's time to get out of the comfort zone. Walk towards God, because there is an order.

And when God says, let's go, guess what the next orders are? They are under orders to do what you have been called or you have been purposed to do. We can't change the world if we don't follow the order that God has placed for us. Order, and he's calling us. Everything you are going through right now is the order.

Some of you are like, well, what is the order? What is the order, you know? The order is everything. Well, what is the order? Well, everything is the order.

The order is everything, but everything is the order. Meaning that everything that you're going through, every hurt, every pain, every bit of suffering is an order. It's an order so that you are prepared for heaven, that you're living in the now for what is coming in the future. You're being prepared for something much greater. Amen?

We can celebrate that today. We can live that today, no matter what we're facing in this life, no matter what our suffering, no matter what our trouble, because you are blessed. Christ, so my question for you today as we close is, are you under orders? With all heads bowed, no eyes closed, I just want to take a minute. Some of you, it's time to listen.

God's been calling you for a long time, and I'll say this with a full heart. Have you heard the voice of the Lord? Maybe you're here today. You heard the voice of the Lord tell you, you need to go to church this morning. You need to hear me.

Because if you walked out of this room, and I'm going back, there's you that are maybe far from God today. Or maybe your relationship with God is suffering. Are you right with God? Because He became right so that you can become right. And if you walked out of this room today, and you no longer, if you left this life today, would you be ready to meet Him?

The reason I say this with a full heart is because a young man passed away this week of a brain aneurysm. I mean, I got, multiple times I ministered to him, came to church a few times, and sometimes I think, could I have said something or could I have done something different, could I have pushed him to the cross, but all I know is that God was calling his heart out, the conversations we had, and whether he responded or not, I can't tell you. But he was alive last week and he's gone today. And I don't want to stand up here and not give people the opportunity to make a decision for Christ now. Is that you?

Are you ready to make a decision for Christ? Anything could happen today, and I'm not here to scare you, I'm here to give you everlasting life, because that's what Jesus came to do to give you everlasting life. So if that's you here, if that's you right now, if God's pulling your heart and said, I need to make myself right with God, I got to get right with God. God, will you just confess it right now in your heart and in your life? Just pray with me.

You don't have to pray it exactly like I do. Just make that confession, God, I give you my life and I give you my heart. I cannot do this on my own. I believe that when I was a sinner, and I am a sinner, that you died for me. So come into my life, Lord, make me new, transform me from the inside out.

I want to be yours, Lord. I am yours, and I walk with you from this day forth. I give it all to you. We give it all to you. We give it all to you today.

I'm not turning back. I'm not going back. I'm walking forward. I'm never turning back again. I'm walking straight to you, Lord Jesus, into your arms and into that everlasting peace and into that everlasting.

A hundred percent. I'm all in, and I'm yours today in your name. Amen. Can y'all give God a hand clap, a shout of praise for salvation in the house today? Amen.

Amen.