Guest Speaker Dr. Johnny Hunt - Psalm 103

amen wasn't that a great worship time let's give the lord a round of applause all right and uh it's great to have you here again and uh we have a special sunday this sunday as johnny hunt dr johnny hunt is going to come and bring our message i'm so grateful i said the first hour to call him a friend and a mentor from a distance he's helped me out a lot he's always willing to listen always willing to to share what's going on in his life in his church as well and he pastored first baptist church of woodstock georgia for 33 years and during that 33 years they grew from 200 to 6400 in attendance and now he is the vice president of evangelism and pastoral uh care at north american mission board which is the arm of our convention that ministers to those in america plants churches in america and so as he comes today i'm telling you the first first hour hope it brings the same message because it was what a blessing it was to our people at 9 30. and i know you're going to want to um listen up and i know you're going to enjoy and be challenged by the message today so let's give dr hunt a round of applause brother johnny if you'll come and deliver the god's word well thank you pastor and let me say what a joy it is to be with you i am grateful to god i have so enjoyed uh myself already in the sense of worship the worship was incredible uh the songs uh minister to me they even i feel like were used to affirm the message that i feel god would have me to share i love your pastor dwayne and pam it meant a lot to me and they're major encouragers in my life any time i'm around them we've been friends a long time and i'm just grateful for them let me encourage you to turn in your bibles to psalm 103 if you don't have a bible look it up on your phone look on with someone that may have a bible with you i really want you to see it you know sometimes you can leave a service and say what'd you think about what that preacher said well i want to be honest with you i'm going to do my best to cause you to leave here saying it's what god said i want to be a proclaimer of his word and so let me share a couple of things about the psalms and see if i can draw you in over 10 years ago i started this habit of every single morning reading a chapter of the psalms and there's 150 so reading through the psalms one a day and then i just start over again the psalms deal with just everything in life they deal with our troubles and trials they deal with illness they deal with bad choices and it really gives you helpful truth uh to apply to your own life say for instance let me just share a couple of psalms with you what's happening there in psalm chapter 3 for instance it's referred to by scholars as a morning devotion so what do you mean by that in verses 1 and 2 of psalm chapter 3 the psalmist is about to go to bed and yet he's he's overwhelmed he says uh they say of me there's no help of him even of the lord and then the bible says then very next verse that he went to bed and he slept and he said when he woke up the next morning though i have ten thousand enemies i will not be afraid god had done something significant in his life between when he fell asleep and when he woke up with the promises of god now there's not a chronological order to the psalms so what do you mean by that well psalms chapter 51 occurred before psalms chapter 32. now periodically when a psalm was written it spoke of such significant truth that i believe god knew would help us that he would encourage the writer of that psalm to give that psalm to the chief musician down at the temple for instance listen to this psalm 51 if you're familiar with that it's david's confession of his sin with bathsheba and how god had had mercy on him and forgive him of his sin and then the bible says that he gave it to the chief musician it means that give this to the worship leader at the temple and they're going to sing it in one of their worship services question wonder if david was present when the choir sang about his sin by the way have you ever heard a song in service and you felt that's my song they sang that for me this morning hey i hope you all enjoyed it but that was a special word just for me and by the way we often refer when a person trusts christ as their lord and savior that they enter a personal relationship with him and that's just how personal god is that's why sometimes someone will say to you i just read the best book in my life you've got to read this and you get into the first chapter and you think i want to read it because i told them i would but i'm just going to be lying all our pants on fire i am not reading this this is it it says nothing to me why because god uses it to personally speak into their situation so what's happening in psalms 103 and i'm going to read it in a moment but i want you to to hear this because i feel like sometimes we can set it up it may speak to right where you are listen to the first two verses bless the lord o my soul and all that's within me bless his name bless the lord o my soul and forget not his benefits and you may say what benefits and by the way you need to know what the benefits of trusting jesus christ are because they're not just temporal they are eternal scholars say that they believe that when the psalmist ended verse number two that he laid down his sacred pen and then he raised his hand and he gave reference to five benefits as to why he ought to praise the lord and that's what we're gonna look at this morning i'm gonna walk you through five things i was telling pastor and last service that i was over in a church in dallas just a couple weeks ago and pastor just said it just happens to be one of those that has outrageous numbers of people that tune in online and he said you know pastor johnny if sometimes you can just look toward the camera and and these are the words we use be concise be clear and be compelling and tell them what it means for a person to have a relationship with jesus and so let me just say this by way of introduction what it really means to have a relationship with jesus say for instance in my life i was raised by a single mom my dad checked out when i was seven so i was raised in a project five siblings when i turned 16 i dropped out of high school for the next four years of my life i managed to pool room my life passion and goal at the age of 20 was to be a professional pool player and so people ask me sometimes you play any sport my answer is normally yes eight ball and so i really just gambled on that table and stayed in and out of trouble but when i was 20 years old someone invited me to church never owned a bible never been to bible study never been to evening worship couple of sunday morning services but i went and had the privilege to set under someone who made clear the gospel and i'm telling you as jstrack says that god stepped out of heaven and that sunday evening stepped into my heart and i'm telling he changed the direction of my life by the way i quit school because i wouldn't give a public book report and then i get saved and i've been reporting ever since for 43 years i've been preaching i preached four services a sunday for 17 years at first woodstock of the 33 years that i was there so what what does it mean to be a christian when you say you came to christ that night you you were saved jesus said you must be born again and you'll never see the kingdom of what does he mean and then i'm gonna show you in the text three things in particular number one means your sins are forgiven i mean it means that jesus christ doesn't matter what you've done sometimes person says to me i don't know if i can be forgiven you don't know how bad of things i've done to which i say your your attention's in the wrong place it's not what you've done that's so bad is what god did that was so good at calvary to make a way for us to be forgiven so sins are forgiven so i thank god clean slate god forgave me i was studying it just this week the bible uses this terminology to refer to a person being saved it says they're justified freely the word justified means just as though you've never sinned in other words god takes your sin puts them to his account and he takes his righteousness puts it to your account so my sins have been forgiven number two he's come to live within my life my dad checked out when i was seven but the bible says in hebrews 13 5 the bible says he will never leave you and never forsake you adrian rogers put it this way my heart is not a hotel he don't check in and check out when jesus christ comes into someone's life he comes in as a permanent forever resident and that's exactly what he did now being a man hanging out in a pool room thinking i was tough here is my mindset i don't know that i can hang out with these guys i don't know that i can hold out i don't know that i can live the christian life but here's what i had to come to learn it isn't me living for jesus it's me yielding my left life to jesus and letting jesus live his life through me and so it's the overflowing life when they baptized a moment ago he said you're baptized really it's in the likeness of his death and we're raised to walk in newness of life and that's exactly what we just saw and heard but then number three is though it's not enough that jesus forgave me in my sins that he's come to live in my life the bible also teaches that he's given me the gift of life everlasting i was privileged to be invited to billy graham's funeral they quoted d.l moody and billy graham owned this saying as his own but when his son franklin got up to do his daddy's funeral he said daddy said this to me just a few days before he died franklin people are going to see my name in the obituary column and they're going to say that billy graham is dead remind them i'm not dead i'm more alive than i've ever been that's the hope of the cross is what we're just saying about the hope of the resurrection so with that in mind i want you to listen i'll pick up at verse three since i quoted verses one and two so listen to this benefit of five he lays his pen down here's the five things he says number one who forgives all our iniquity who heals all our diseases who redeems your life from destruction who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy and who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle you know to really understand and appreciate what's happening here you know needing a little bit about the context the psalmist and it happens to be identified as david in this passage he has grown sluggish in his worship uh i'm just going to make a general statement coveted like it or not has done a number not just on our nation but on the world when a person is reserved to their own home for months or some places around the world where our missionaries are that i communicate with they can't even go out unless they've got a letter and then it's only for the market so they're in for just months on end it can cause you after a while you didn't ask for this to become somewhat sluggish in fact like it or not you know what they're saying they're saying that somewhere between 32 and 50 of the people who went to church before coveted will not be coming back i hope they're wrong but they're the leading pollsters in the world so so it's really done a number so for whatever reason in the psalmist's life and he doesn't identify he's grown sluggish in his worship so this is what we refer to in the language of the old testament as a self-transcendent prayer and you say what is a self-transcendent prayer it is where the psalmist is having a talk with his soul but there's nobody here but us and god so i'm going to ask you a question you don't have to answer if you don't want to but here it is do you ever talk to yourself no thank you i'm glad i'm not the only one i get up in the morning and study i have a prayer journal that i go through and uh i do some devotions scripture reading and then after a while i go out for a long walk i ran for 40 years and now thanks to my knees it's speed walking but nonetheless and i think through my day i pray through my day had a lot of things on my heart this morning as i normally do but let me tell you something else about this particular prayer there's this is unusual not a single request in it let me ask you something did you pray this morning can you say that when you prayed this morning you did not have one single rep request everything you did was bless the lord bless the lord bless the lord thank you for your benefits it's hard to do that there's just so many needs and so god's work in his heart so this self-transcendent prayer he's actually having a talk with his own soul and really what he's doing it's like he's trying to motivate himself he's he's sluggish and he says i just need to get up and worship how many of you have ever been to church when you didn't feel like it well i hope you're not saying you mean like now but anyway that attitude but then when you leave you say i'm grateful to god that i came god met me right at the point of my need and so the psalmist is is speaking to himself and he starts with adoration and it's all blessing and the word blessed there is the word for praise so what they were doing is praising i think the psalmist would have been thrilled to be part of our worship just a moment ago i got excited to be honest i was thinking if i was youngest this young girl here on the right i would be jumping too while she's singing but instead i'm just going to jump inside and applaud along with her so he's blessed the lord it's a self-transcending itself david speaks to his soul and he blesses god and he says with all that's within me look at me for a moment you ever heard somebody say you get out of worship what you put in it this is wholehearted worship it's with every five of my being with all that is within me my mind is part of the service my heart is part of the worship i'm here physically emotionally i'm really engaged and i'm telling you it's in that context i believe god will meet you at the point of your deepest need and then he talks about the benefits which the benefits of what god has done for us serve as a great aid to worship it's kind of like i want to say these things and sing these things that i may never forget what christ has done for me i like to remind people that if you're not careful you'll get over getting saved you'll forget what it was like to be lost and i'll tell you it will hinder your worship and make your soul sluggish so there's the adoration but then let's dive in in our time we've got together look at these other words the second word i deal with is the word foundation he simply says in verse number three he forgives all your iniquity forgives your iniquities pastor johnny is that a big deal well let me answer it and you tell me the word forgive is used in the scripture only as god's forgiveness of sinners so god forgives sinners it's a word that speaks of in this context the psalmist would use three words he would use sin transgression and iniquity sin means i missed the mark in my life uh transgression means i overstepped god's law iniquity is an ingrained perversity and there's we come into this world believe it or not based on the authority of almighty god we're twisted in our view of who god is that's why when somebody comes to a service and maybe they hear the gospel they say i just don't get it i don't know that i believe that i want to tell you until the lord jesus christ uses the gospel and god the holy spirit lifts the lights and and removes the blinders from our eyes and shows us the light of the glory of the gospel in the face of jesus christ our lives are veiled to the gospel the scripture says and so he sees himself as being forgiven so as a sinner he's been forgiven eight of the 33 years i was at woodstock the governor of georgia was sonny perdue sonny perdue not only attended woodstock for eight years he taught a couple's bible study class and so contrary to what some people think about some people he's a very godly man and both his kids are in ministry and he's just meant a lot to me but we had a lady in our church that had a really jaded past this lady this dates me used to own a go-go club i mean what's a go-go club not good but anyway bottom line is uh somewhat of a house of of irrepute a house of prostitution go-go dancers in the windows trying to uh draw men in but then somebody started sharing the gospel with her actually going down there asking her to come outside share the gospel i've heard a story over and over again her name is irish blue iris said that she knelt one night on the sidewalk she said every time she thinks about this she can feel the vibration from the music in the go-go club she said i knelt a and i stood a child of god god radically changed her life and so you need to know that we're not talking about just overnight i'm talking about dozens of years she has traveled around the world sharing her story of how christ changed her life so she came to me one time and asked me a question she said do you think you could ask the governor to pardon me to give me a pardon i've never been involved in anything like that i've heard where the president and governors before they leave office have that opportunity to pardon people so anyway we started the process he said tell her to write her story and make the request so i gave it to the governor and the governor was near the end of his term and the bottom line time ran out before he could pull it off but i got involved in it so i began to learn something of it it really spoke to me did you know that in order to receive a pardon in the united states from a governor or president you must first of all acknowledge that you were guilty that there can be no pardon given unless you acknowledge your guilt did you know on the authority of almighty god and his son the lord jesus christ hear me carefully no one can ever be pardoned until you acknowledge that you're guilty the bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of god to say there's no none good no not one occasion you tell someone you know you're given the gospel and you say uh do you realize you're a sinner and it's not unusual for somebody to say well i'm not that bad okay do you realize all you've got to do is commit a sin to be a sinner and i think we all i can let me just say this when the gospel was shared with me no convincing was need all right when somebody said you rise yourself i'm thinking are you kidding good night of course i do and and so that was it i had to admit that i was guilty in order to receive a pardon but let me give you another statement about forgiveness and then we'll move on in both the old testament and the new testament the idea of forgiveness is to take away and put somewhere else did you hear that to take away and to put somewhere else so i didn't read this far but in verse number 10 of psalms 103 the bible says he has not dealt with dealt with us according to our sin with a question if god has not dealt with us according to our sin who did he deal with he dealt with jesus uh it's a big word it's a big word but the church ought to know it why because it's in the bible but in 1st john chapter 2 and verse 2 the bible says that jesus christ is our propitiation not just for our sins but for the sins of the world what why why propitiation it's a word that means that the judgment i deserved god gave it to his son here's what it translates wrath absorber wrath of zerva in other words it's not that god turned the wrath away from us it's that god turned the wrath on his son so if you want to really have something to sing about and that's why i get so excited when people are singing about what he's done to bring about salvation in my life jesus received the punishment that johnny hunt deserved and you say well well we're we've got it made then haven't we yes you receive his gift of forgiveness and if not that wrath of god still abides on us and listen to this nor same verse nor has he punished us according to our iniquity so if god's not punished me for my sin who got punished for my sins are y'all with me jesus got punished for our sins so the bible begins by saying listen your soul has grown sluggish whatever maybe has just gotten you not where you felt you were in your relationship with god i want to remind you of the benefits of knowing almighty god number one is he forgives all your sin and so he's getting excited about that number three is the word restoration he heals all your diseases in luke chapter 6 verse 17 and following the bible gives this running account where jesus is in the region of capernaum and the bible says he is healing all types of diseases and you may say well what is it that's significant about that well some of the diseases that the bible would reference is guilt fear doubt depression anger lust hate jealousy greed i do a men's conference every year at woodstock i started it right at 29 years ago i do it on super bowl sunday weekend i just i just felt that uh i wanted to really influence the men where i lived and i never dreamed what would happen that has happened and that is it's become it's the largest men's conference and a local church in the united states last year 31 000 followers online and five thousand were in the room i mean it's just it's just incredible the men that have joined us in that and the reason we had to go online we couldn't hold them in the room twelve thousand men showed up twelve thousand we seat seven thousand i mean so bottom line is i mean god just raised up all these these men to come so a couple years ago we we did a theme called prison break and and so what we do we have a team at our church and they build the stage out to match the theme so if you come in our church we had these real high barbed wire fences up on the platform i mean real deals we actually had the lights like they used in a penitentiary i don't know where they got those from and it really had the scene like you were i was standing in front of a prison preaching but i had them to install a door and the door was a reminder that when you come to jesus christ god sets you free of your past of your sins but let me tell you what i noticed and i really reminded men of this and some of you men some of you women may be struggling with the same even though god sets you free and you came out look at me you're still dragging the ball and chain you you still are living under the guilt of your past jesus came not only to release you of the grip of sin he came to release you of the guilt of sin he actually says that he cleanses your conscience with the blood of christ so that your minds will be free and you can know that whom the son sets free is free in deed but then my favorite is the next word verse four redemption who redeems your life from destruction a little word simply means i've been rescued it refers to the consequences of god's healing he redeems your life from going to waste now don't ask a question i don't think you can answer it but you can reflect on it i don't know how long you've known christ but here's the question where would you be today had jesus not intersected your life and changed you when he did jesus didn't just save us from our sin he saved us from ourself so see we can self-destruct i um mentioned the pool room i managed to pull him for four years and uh charles hadn't spurred and said when he got saved he lost 80 percent of his vocabulary and that's how i felt coming out of the pool hall had quite a vocabulary and so um so i was gone so listen what happened i got converted in january this is what dates me i'm i'm 68 years old now i was 20 when i got converted 48 years ago time flies and so um was converted on a snowy sunday night wilmington north carolina's where i was raised i was born in lumberton i'm a native american lumbee everybody's asking what kind of indian are you others are saying does he go to the tanning bed every day all right so i'm trying to figure it out three years after i was converted i'd never owned a bible in my life three years i started pastoring my first church that's scary i tell everybody god push me in the deep end so that means i went off went off to gardner-webb college in the western part of north carolina then finished there pastored the whole time and went over to southeastern baptist celestial seminary and pastored the whole time i was there and so long story short i've been out of wilmington away from wilmington for 45 years all right 45 years so that means that i've lost connectivity with most of the people i was raised with not all but most i mean you never see each other we're different paths different lives but one of my cousins uh started showing real interest in the gospel he's a really tough guy his name's james oxendine and so i had the opportunity to invite him to come hear me preaching scottsdale baptist church just a couple of years ago and that night when he came jesus changed james's life he joined northside baptist church was baptized there he and maryland started going regularly but sin had done a number on let me just ask you a question how many of you know sin will do a number on you plea please hear me somebody needs to hear that sin will do a number on you and so it did a number on him and so a couple years later james ray was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and it was not long and so we spent some really precious time together trying to disciple him and so when he passed away maryland called me and asked me if i did the funeral let me tell you what happened at the funeral i was not expecting this when i got there the place was full but it was full of my old buddies it was like a pool room reunion and i'm just thinking good night so they lined up you've been in this situation somebody asked me last night uh my friend from france asked me last night said uh man you run into people everywhere you travel all over the world do you know everybody you see and of course not i can't uh so so bottom line is they were lined up and they'd come forward and say hey john do you remember me and i would look and it'd been over 40 years and i think help me and and ronnie you know ronnie ronnie smith and then here's what you do you check it out and you say dolphy did ronnie i wouldn't know we'd embrace another good night he used to hang out with him but 40 years ago and so i spoke to all of them i shared the gospel and then i said this here's what i said at the end of service never done it my entire life i said we're going to leave here we're going to green lawn cemetery that's where we're going to bury james by the way my mother's buried there but the preacher told me just a moment ago i've been going for so long there's a brand new seafood buffet next to the church any of my old buddies that will come back i want to buy you dinner so after the cemetery meet me here i'll buy you dinner and then i got to thinking why there's a lot of people there one of them is going to take me up on this guess what 40 came are you with me 40 of my friends came there was only one problem every one of them want to sit at my table you say where are you going with this johnny all right listen to me carefully when i got saved hustling pool and jesus changed my life you know out red fox saloon getting drunk couple nights a week rested for stealing rested for fighting somebody says you're not very tall i'm wound tight uh bottom line rested for drunk driving i mean i'm not i'm ashamed of that but that was my life before christ and so when you get saved out of that type life people just begin to talk man what in the world happened that guy good night some even wanted to say man that's what i think i need in my life and so i saw a lot of my friends even the owner of the pool room i led him to faith in christ j.c bullard but most of the people would ask you what had happened and you tell them and they wouldn't respond so i have a theory they didn't respond verbally but they responded here's what they said i said jesus changed my life their thought we'll see they ain't got to hear anything they're going to watch to see does christ change lives so i would witness to him but i was a new believer and they'd listen some but when i went back to that funeral i'd been saved over 40 years i believe the reason so many of them came they thought i believe he's serious he he'd been hanging in there you know what i mean i mean he didn't just walk with the lord for a week he didn't just say something happened last week the man's embraced something he's had time to abandon this but the truth is repentance genuine repentance is never temporary it is always eternal god changes me forever any man in christ is a new creation oh things are passed away that means god changes your want to's and he changed my life so he said he saved me from a life of destruction so you you don't know i'll tell you where do you think you'd have been john i'd either be in prison or in hell you with me and almost made my way to hell before i got saved and i'll leave the story there you want to read it from the pool room to the pulpit check it out 27 pages just my life before i came to faith in christ quickly on these last two number number six is compassion who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies it means god lavishes positive blessings on you as well um augustine wrote in the three hundreds i've had the privilege this is just kind of huge i've never said this before in my life i was over in north africa in the middle east a couple of years ago and i actually went to the church that augustine in the 300s preached in just foundation you know one thing that's left there the seat of augustine so you ought to be impressed pastor i sat in augustine's seat so is there something big about it let me just tell you this in 333 it was there where i sat that they decided these are the books of the canon that are inspired it was a big deal he's blessed us how can god take a boy out of a project high school drop out no father involved in his life give him a men's ministry to everybody else's father augustine said this this is the best i've ever heard in my life god has been good to me listen to the language he's given me more than i need but he's shown me others that need it how about martin luther i've held many things in my hands i've lost it all but everything i've placed in his hands i still possess mom he's crowned us then last of all i'm through sort of who satisfies your mouth now if you're a student a good student i believe all of you are but i'm gonna show you something that it's almost like throwing you a curve it's one of the the most different translations that i know of anywhere in my bible so let me read it and then i'll comment and i'm through who satisfies your mouth with good things the word mouth there and the hebrew translates old age or duration of years now i want you to listen an 80 year old lady came up to me after pastor and she was crying and she said young man and i thought say that again and she said uh you will never know this side of heaven how you encouraged this older lady today i'm 80 and she was weeping and it really convinced me that god said something and it was this verse that god said something no matter how old we become god can satisfy the needs of our life and the spiritual desires of our heart let me tell you what i wrote when i was writing this sermon i wrote these words in bold print this passage describes a happy old person i do senior adult conferences i mentioned this in the last service and my add kicked in and i didn't say anything else about it somebody asked me one time said do you ever preach and forget what you're going to say next yes what do you do keep preaching till i remember and stay so if i get long my wife says he's forgotten senior adults were asked recently if you could live life over again what would you do differently number one they said we'd reflect more i translate perfecting looking out a window with no agenda and thinking about where you are where you've been and where you would like to see god take you before this life is over number two they said we would invest more in that which would outlast us and number three they said we'd take greater risk you know what the bottom line is some of us get to an age and god has been so good to us but you know what we do to our own harm in our christian walk we play it too safe we play it too safe nobody's ever done anything great that didn't take somewhat of a risk to really just trust god and believe him and so he said he satisfies no matter how old they become something's happening in this passage you see it so that your youth is renewed like eagles let me tell you what i know about this passage david is aged he's older he's reflective and he's thinking back of when he was young and he says god can satisfy me and actually once again renew my life with youthfulness just like he does the eagle i'm going to give you a word and if you want to study this more because i'm going to close the sermon but here it is it's malting m-o-l-t-i-n-g you were to google that word m-o-l-t it's something that happens to an eagle it'll remind you that when eagles are younger they build their nests on the highest peak they enjoy a good storm they fly into the storm allow the wind to cause them to rise above the storm but when they get older you won't find them there let me tell you where you'll find an eagle when they're older in a valley by a brook walking slowly but something's happening while they're in that valley they're losing their wings but almost unnoticing to them it is innate because of the creator god they grow new wings that's what he's saying he's saying we get old and we begin to lose some of our wings but while we walk in those places and reflect god grows new wings it's exactly what isaiah chapter 40 means so let's put it in this context those who wait upon the lord will renew their strength they will mount up with wings like eagles they will run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint you know what that is he gives them the wings of an eagle so at 68 i don't want to slow down my friend charles stanley announced he's going to step away from his church last week he turns 88 the last last of this month but he's still leading one of the largest television ministries the world's ever known within touch he says he doesn't see retirement in the bible occasionally somebody says to the pastor pastor you need to just let the young people take over i've kind of done my thing here and my i'm sort of through no you're not through when you're through we will be very much aware of it they'll even write an article in the paper about it and we'll hold a special service when you're through but until then you're not through robbie zacharias was a close personal friend just died recently robbie the last time he spoke for me said this he said uh in my research i found that a man's and woman's most leader most productive years of service is their 60s and the second most productive years of a leader is their 70s you can't hardly remember when there was a president other than obama that was not in their 70s that led the united states leading the largest free world and they're in their 70s leaders it's no time to sit down my nephew was here last service and i didn't say it and i want to say it now i said it was my last story but it was close my favorite character and this is it favorite character in the bible is caleb caleb why i wrote this one morning caleb's 85 years old you can find this in joshua 14. he's 85 and here's what he said he's he's talking to joshua he said i'm as strong today as i was then when is then when he was 40. so he was 85 years old that was strong so what was happening is joshua was dillying out the land you know they conquered the promised land it's god's land and they started giving it you go there today if i take you to caesarea philippi caesarea philippi is the land of dan so why'd you bring that up there's 12 tribes of israel all of the land is no there's judah ephraim so the lands were still named by that in those regions when you go and study in the land of israel so they asked caleb caleb what would you like and here's what he said i want you to give me the mountains what's he talking about hebron what do we know about hebron that's where he started he said i want this land and i want to be there where the giants are and he said maybe god will let me take on one more giant he's 85. so here's my my writing i love caleb because caleb wanted when he was finishing what he wanted when he started you know why some of our lives go sideways because we no longer want in our walk with god what we wanted when we got started how about you do you love him more back then than you do now was there a time that you were quote on fire zealous in your faith with god your commitment to jesus christ the one who has secured your eternity for you if not today would be a great day to come home father in the name of jesus thank you for our time together speak deep into our hearts in this invitation have your way in each of our lives with heads bowed and eyes closed whether you're in this room or you're watching by internet or if you're watching by television i want to encourage you to surrender your life to jesus the single greatest decision you'll ever make is when you turn from your sins place your faith in christ question is if you were to die today do you have the calm assurance that you would spend eternity with jesus if not and you say god's been dealing with me god's been speaking to me i need to surrender my life if that's your sincere desire why don't you do it right now why don't you just say to the lord if this is in your heart lord jesus i need you i know that i cannot save myself come into my life forgive me of my sins cleanse me and have mercy on me thank you this morning for hearing my prayer and for saving me now help me to live the rest of my life for you i pray you've made that type commitment in your heart and that you'll live for him and follow him

Channel: CrossLife Church

Views: 3,352

Rating: 4.8222222 out of 5

Keywords: Baptist Church Orlando FL, christian church Orlando fl, Orlando church, evangelical church Orlando fl, christian churches Orlando FL, HD, First Baptist Oviedo, FBCO, First Baptist Oviedo Worshjp, Worship, Contemporary Worship, loop community, production, Praise and worship, Worship arts ministry, Dr. Dwayne Mercer, Church worship, Community, Love, Jesus, Christianity (Religion), Baptists (Religion), Ministry, Orlando, Oviedo, Preaching, CrossLife Church, CrossLife, CrossLifeFL

Id: Cf7kat3O7ns

Length: 42min 58sec (2578 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020