The Life God Blesses Part 1 | Rex Johnson

good to see everybody good to see everybody i'm going to get everybody in a bad mood right now man had a dream one night he dreamed that the lord visited him and said when you wake up in the morning if you remember this dream ask me what you want and i'll give it to you so the morning when the man woke up he remembered the dream and he said the lord said what do you want he said lord you know i'm afraid of flying and i've always wanted to go to hawaii could you build a bridge from los angeles to honolulu across the pacific ocean and god said well that's not really in my things to do today he said well lord if you can't do that can you help me with a wife and three daughters the lord said do you want a four-lane bridge or a two-lane bridge [Applause] that's pretty cute now i heard that from a man that pastors a large church so if you run out on me i'm going to tell you where i heard it and then you go get on him cause i got it from him it's good to see everybody tonight are you happy to be in church on wednesday night hallelujah it did great isn't it great you know i had a goal in my mind of what i wanted to see here tonight in number and we've already exceeded it well beyond what i even dreamed about tonight because i knew the kovad and i knew things were going to be tough getting back into the rhythm of wednesday night but folks when you get into this rhythm i promise you it is the greatest night of your week wednesday night halftime time out time at christian life austin i promise you tomorrow and the next day and saturday will be so nice for you it's just like it's just like watching something for an hour on tv only you don't get to get up and go get a coke or go use a bathroom you sit here for about an hour and you listen to the word of the lord and you walk out of here feeling good because there's nothing can lift you like the washing of the water by the word amen nothing can lift you like that nothing where's roger and carolyn bain where are you folks where are you sitting i i lost you where are you sitting where was roger and carolyn sitting where are you at where are you y'all stand up would you stand up stand up right there roger and carolyn bain and mark and sandy godfrey mark and sandy would you all stand up where's sandy she's in life group okay y'all see this couple right here you'll see that gentleman right there that's lost his wife right there these are our care pastors and i want us to salute them they are such behind the curtain workers they absolutely take care of people in this church continually both of these men are retired their wives are such capable encouragers and i want us to give them a great handclap tonight of appreciation for all they are amen i love you folks i love you folks i love you i love you mark i love you roger love you carolyn that's good people right there that's good pete good folk you may be seated wow what a joy i just felt like introducing them tonight and while i met it hello everybody and everybody that heard that i love you i love you now i want to talk tonight and start a series on the life god blesses is that big enough my sermon won't be quite that great but that is a big sign if you can't see that go to the eye doctor tonight not tomorrow and let your wife or husband drive home tonight you stand i'd appreciate it i'm talking tonight on the quality of the soul the quality of the soul we're talking about souls tonight romans chapter 12 said i beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of god that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto god which is your reasonable service and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good acceptable and perfect will of god give the word a hand clap the life god blesses if you're a guest here tonight and you're standing by somebody and you turn to them and say i'm a guest i want you the one that you turn to i want you to give them a high five not a air five but a high five and then wash your hands with that stuff and be seated give them a high five new people tonight let's give them a hand all right god bless there's not a person in the house here tonight that does not want to be blessed by the lord am i right everybody we all have desires to have god's favor and blessing on our life and as bad as you desire this god wants it for you more than you want to have it it's his desire so let's get started on the story today i want to tell you a story of michael plant he was an awesome seaman he dominated sailboat racing back in the 70s and 80s here's his picture there he is good looking old boy he'd be nice on the front row wouldn't he and he had a boat called the coyote that's his boat right there the sleek coyote he wanted badly to go to france leave it up and defeat the elite french in sailboat racing and one day in 1992 he set sail to go to france on a boat called the coyote actually it was a sale around the world trip that included stopping in france and he said in kicking the frenchman's boats and beating them sailboat had all the trappings of excellence he was a master at what he built ever conceivable high-tech mechanism was on it the finest radios the finest back-up radios the sails the finest boat building not one thing on the coyote was second rate yet eleven days into his journey michael plant disappeared and he disappeared for life never to be found again scientists went out people that study oceans went out and finally found the boat but they never found mike and they discovered that the reason that mike lost his life was that the four-ton steel ballast that was attached to the keel underneath the water line that four-ton ballast had somehow detached itself in the roughness of the water and the sailboat with no underwater weight no stability flipped and all was lost and michael plant was never found again which causes me to want to teach tonight these life lessons that people that i pastor need to stay afloat on the ways of life that we don't need to be capsized we don't need to be turned over that the strength of this life is not what is seen but what is not seen the balancer of life is what is below the water line not what is above the water line it matters not what people see at you or see in you it matters what they know about you and what your soul and your heart's all about first peter said let it not be the outward adorning it's not how you dress yourself up but let it be the hidden man of the heart and which is not corruptable even the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit which in the sight of god is a great price so for the next four weeks we begin a journey talking about the soul the unseen part of man the part that's under the water line the part that can't be seen when a boat is coming at you it's that part called the ballast that attaches itself to the keel and holds you steady the soul god's breath part he breathed into man the breath of life man became a living soul the soul the fulcrum of life man is a spirit with a soul in a body he's not a body with a soul and spirit he is a spirit god created spirit first with a soul wrapped by a body and and that soul is the fulcrum between flesh and spirit i've said it before i'll say it again the soul is your decider it's your decision maker it's the thing that says this is what i will do today and this is what i will not do today that's the soul david said in psalms 23 he restores my soul he restores it the soul is mentioned 341 times folks in the old testament and 100 of those are in the book of psalms david talked about the soul a lot he said in psalms 30 oh lord it's not on the screen you brought my soul up from the grave he said you will not leave my soul in hell in psalms 35 he said my soul shall be joyful in the lord my soul pants for you o god psalms 42 he said my soul thirst for god the living god psalms 42 and 5. you got to get this now he said why are you cast down o my soul hope in god for i shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance why are you cast down on my soul and folks not only in 42 and 5 did he write that verse in 42 and 11 he wrote the same verse again he had some soul talk in chapter 43 verse 5 he wrote the same phrase again because david did not want to live with a cast down soul i don't want a person that i pastor to ever feel like their soul is cast down i want you to have a soul that is enriched by the favor and the blessing of god i want your decision making to be a wonderful time in your life and i want you to understand that god is for you and if god be for you who can be against you and i'm going to do the favor of god in my life the soul the soul so allow me to speak about spirituality tonight not just about a spiritual experience but about spirituality there's a difference and learning how to discipline the soul and how to have what i call soul talks like david had like the woman that had the issue of blood had she said if i can just touch his garment i will be made whole that's a soul talk and understanding that spirituality is far greater than a spiritual experience let me say it again you've got to understand that spirituality is far greater than just a spiritual experience christians that have below waterline strength are different from folks who do not have that they have a peace they have a tranquility and they have and they are in this thing called christ until they finish and they will finish strong let me back up and ask you are you going to finish stronger than what you started come on now you're going to finish are you going to finish it's not how you start come on let's hear it it's not how you start it's how you finish it's not how you start it's how you finish we got to have a kick in the last 10 yards we got to finish strong i want to finish strong in this church i read about a man who spent his life in oil and gas exploration and had been very successful and he knew the business and his last few years were tough he had his shares of ups and downs and oil and gas but due to prices in the hostile encounter economy he was just about to exit from the business flirting with bankruptcy then he had a reversal of fortune one final drill he said let's do it one more time guys just for fun and it produced immediate results a reservoir of natural gas was struck and it proceeded it produced 3.5 million cubic feet of gas in one day great enough to produce plants for a second drilling and after all they could double the production so joy and happiness and thrills in their heart filled the air but 45 days folks into this bonanza the flow dramatically diminished 45 days to 1 million cubic feet a day hardly enough to cover cost of drilling and production the results deep deep disappointment and the man felt foolish and he was embarrassed allow me to discuss some things tonight the difference between hidden quality versus visible quality beneath the water line versus above the water line i want to tell you how i feel about preaching this tonight i need my soul to produce in this hour i don't need to be a man of words i need to be a man of actions i need to make decisions that will favor my family and favor this church and favor my life and favor what god wants to do in my life i need to make the proper choices and that's why we come to church to understand how to make the right decisions in life clap your hands real big i need my soul to be still and know that he is god i need my soul to have something beautiful for god to be resourceful for others and to be stabilizing for me i'm preaching to me before i preach to you here's a question is my soul like a well is it like a well whose output if sustained will lead to prosperity of spirit or is it one a promise just promised with initial output yet performing just long enough to disappoint here's the real question i want to ask can i last can i last a lot of preachers i started with in seminary cemetery whatever you want to call it i'm sorry forgive me sister galbraith but your old testament history class was as boring as anything i've ever had in my life and i know you're going on to your reward but when i see you one day we're going to talk about your history class your old testament history can i last that you need to ask yourself those questions or am i just a blast am i just a 45 day performer has my per cubic output diminished in knowing god all these years or have i replenished and gotten stronger in my service to god is my faith better than it used to be is my spirit greater than it used to be and i'm cli am i climbing or am i diminishing and i'm going forward am i crescendoing or am i doing your mind am i going backwards where am i at in this thing is my faith getting louder or is it getting quieter is my faith can it stand the test or will it not pass the next trial that's where we are tonight it's called soul talk and i don't want to be somebody that can't last i want to last in this thing i want to last in this thing i have discovered please understand i'm not throwing stones but i have discovered some people during this covet time have gotten into bad bad habits and they have forgotten their commitment to god into giving and to the principle of righteousness but i thankful for you and you that are listening online tonight that can't be here i'm grateful that you have kept your commitment to god because there's nothing greater than going through a whole year of crisis and never wavering in your faith as one old boy used to say that came out of devil worship and became a christ preacher he told he told us one time he said i've walked over bigger than you get into a fight he tore an old boy one time and i'm going to tell you something we're going to walk over bigger things than kovid get into the glory world but we're still here come on we're still here we are still here we're still here abraham and lot uncle and nephew came to the promised land where abe went lot went when a prospered lot prospered if you would have visited both you would have been impressed with both you might have been drawn to lot because he was younger he was more energetic and abe was probably bald-headed in about 71. you might have said about lot he has a deep soul he's greatly blessed of god he gushes with personality would it we had all been wrong even though he was called in the bible a preacher of righteousness there were two different men at the soul level it came to the surface after they separated one took the well-watered plains the other the heel country one became a better man the other a worse man abraham's life ended awesomely god's hall of fame in hebrews 11 lost tragically he sired two sons by his own daughters after sodom and gomorrah burned and his wife was turned to a pillar of salt in zoar and created the moabites and the ammonites two of the greatest most fierce enemies of god's people lot was a streak in comet in life then lost his direction he looked good under the right circumstances influential connections yet he looked awful under wrong circumstances and bad connections he was a product of man's influences not the influencer lot's life was simply this sudden promise then sudden loss can i declare not to this church but to the church in general around america there's too much of that in the church today sudden starts high hope and then sudden loss let me tell you something every day is not going to be just a great great day but every day is going to be a god day once you come in contact with the god that i'm preaching about right now oh i feel like clapping my hands right now every day won't be a great day but every idea be a god day a god day in your life lot's life was simply this there's too much of what lot was but the man abraham practiced authentic spirituality lot practice spiritual experiences i bring this church two concepts tonight spirituality say spirituality versus spiritual experiences now i am not trying to put one down and lift the other high one will last the other will not and i'm not far from finishing probably about another hour and a half [Music] let me define let me define spirituality it's a long thing so if you want to take pictures of the screen it's a long phrase it's the efforts involved and the benefits gained when one chooses to organize his or her life around the soul and its capacity to commune with god spirituality number two is a journey in the company of the creator in which he is permitted to guide the way and provide strength and offer sustenance number three it means taking one's cue not from the world around you but the inner world out of which bubbles convictions and decisions and discernment it refers to the inner demeanor the conduct and character of a person and number four it's charity that suffers long it is the imminent something beneath the water line the ballast the stabilizer the anchor the unseen man hallelujah [Applause] hallelujah somewhere in your life you're going to have to come to a point in your life where you say god if i get down to nothing i'm still going to serve you i'm going to love you there's an old testament word that means that if god does nothing else it's called dinu if god does nothing else for me it does not matter i'm going to serve him till the day that i see him one day you hear me we're not promised green lights and paved roads all the way to heaven but we are promised a god that will walk with us and stand beside us and go to down with us and pick us up i feel that here's what spirituality is not it's not knowing more bible stories it's not memorizing more verses it's not hyperactivity in church activities it's not necessarily possessing a highly defined doctrinal position regarding biblical issues and fussing with everybody that don't agree with you it's not expounding deep theological mysteries that wow people it's not necessarily more dreams and more visions and more more glossola more tongues more manifestations that puts one person in the spotlight and takes the focus off of jesus it's not none of those six but it's a life of purpose i want every father in the house to say purpose i want every mother in the house to say purpose i want every single in the house to say purpose i want everybody that's not that same purpose amen not aimless not reading mark's gospel but knowing the author of mark's gospel knowing the source the quality as one writer put it i love this it's gonna be one of my favorite lines tonight it's the cave of the tiger it's the cave of the tiger which means god is to be totally respected in every phase of my life wow you know when the old testament in the old testament when they wrote when they wrote the name of god in in the word they would take a break and go wash themselves and wash their hands and change their garment and come back and write some more because the name of god was so holy i want our soul to capture that i want our soul to capture that because i want this church to be blessed i don't want god this to be an afterthought i don't want god just to be an asterisk i want god to be the sinner not the circumference of my life i want him to be right here in my thoughts in my ways and my disciplines i don't want to ignore him i don't want nothing about jesus to be second i want him to be right here i wanted to be my hope not just hype i wanted to be my praise not just performance i wanted to be my worship not just a magic wand or a butler waiting on me i want jesus to know that my soul my soul cries out to him hallelujah praise god for saving me hallelujah anybody feel like just giving him a praise tonight anybody feel like giving him a praise tonight glory glory so what is a spiritual experience i don't want to sound sacrilege but sometimes it's just that an experience it's a quick fix for the emotion of the mind rather than the soul it's just for the moment it's more tranquilizing and stimulating than anything spirituality gives please understand this please your life started in christ with a spiritual experience mine did i found jesus at seven receive the holy spirit at nine i got baptized when i was eight i had a seven eight nine years of goodness in my life but we need those continued touches from time to time we need rekindling the disciples received the holy spirit in the acts 2 in the upper room but they went back in acts 4 and got her refilling that's necessary in your life that's why it's good the people came for a refill and the fire needs to glow we need to take in services and we need to take out services we need both we live in a world of intensity 30-second spots on tv will absolutely stimulate you on sunday during the during the super bowl in fact that may be my favorite part of the super bowl the commercials it gives you every emotion it lifts you up and then it's over it's over i heard about an old preacher in fact i heard him preach he said he was beside the road one day with a flat and there was a bunch of trash on the side of the road and said an 18-wheeler came by and it caught some napkins and threw those napkins up in the air the wa the force of the air underneath them and the breeze of the truck elevated those napkins then when the truck left and the air was gone the napkins floated back down to the earth great eruption then a fizzle i don't want my life to be this and then this this and then this i understand i'm not teaching against spiritual experiences but we must develop spirituality from our experiences in god sometimes somewhere somehow why not now why not right now why repeat 101 again why don't we go up a class why don't we get into middle middle school why don't we go to high school why don't we try to get in a college course with jesus this year why don't we keep elevating our soul to him and saying god i want to go deeper in you i want to go greater with you i want to do more than i've ever done in my life now would be a good time to start right now on this first wednesday night of 2021 in church we need to be like job that understood that god gave and he took away and he said though he slay me watch this yet will i trust him i will trust him though he slay me i'm going to trust him not though he slayed me i'm going to quit him but though he slayed me i'm going to trust him or how about the hebrew boys that told the king nebuchadnezzar our god is able but if not it's all right with us we'll just go out in the blaze of glory that's why kenny rogers sung that song about the hebrew boys no i'm teasing but it's it's all right to understand that god is for us so much in our life that we can trust him when we're down we can believe in him when everything's going against us that's spirituality that's not emotion that's saying whatever comes my way i will trust in you all my days [Applause] i'm finished randy if you'll come yates wrote my 50th year had come and gone i love this i set a solitary man in a crowded london shop an open book an empty cup on a marble table top and while on that on the shopping street i gl i gazed my body for a moment blazed and 20 minutes more or less it seemed so great my happiness that i was blessed and could bless what was happening mr yates nothing except just sitting there and feeling presence not an experience not a parade going by an empty coffee cup a book folded and he's sitting there for 20 minutes and just feeling a rush of blessing that's what god wants to do to your soul he wants to give you that spirituality is a well that never runs dry a spiritual experience is impressive but short-term here it is here's a spiritual experience breakfast is cereal and sugar instant energy two hours later it's gone but spirituality is fruit filled carries you through the morning a spiritual experience makes you want to shout makes you want to dance makes you have fireside services and logs on the fire and you pull it out and tell a story and the fault log finally goes out because it got out of the fire i did something last night wasn't good but i will be better you make those confessions some of these last no more than the next sunday please understand their exceptions always are but here's what i want to declare this is very simple it's not the will of god to leave here on sunday and not be able to live seven days in the presence of god all week what's your point pastor i want to separate spiritual experiences and spirituality spiritual experiences tend to center on three perceptions you can see them on the board you take pictures reflects powerful feelings of regret we have about something that has or has not happened in our past you know that's true number two we build up on a profound feeling of ecstasy we have about the present stirred by music and talk and a sense of camaraderie are a shock of something terrible happening or number three it occurs as we're drawn to some great feeling of resolve or intention about the future simon peter the third of these perceptions got him he said jesus i will die for you if need be jesus knew his heart he knew he wanted to do right so he said you feel good now simon but when crunch time comes you will deny me and simon did there's four things about spiritual experience it requires little discipline of the soul a person can get stimulated have intense feelings jesus saw this on palm sunday they waved palm branches and said hosanna they crucified him on friday people can change it's a matter of motion more than anything else how many of y'all still when you hear the star-spangled banner get those those goosebumps the hair on your arm stands up on your neck oh say cat i wish they'd let me sing one time i'd preach that song but doesn't it feel good to hear the star spangled banner it makes one feel proud and then you hear about drive-bys and people getting murdered and killed kind of takes away the joy emotion swings you can't build your life on motions number three spiritual experiences have shelf short shelf life peter walked on the water one day for a little while some people dream of this used to be a guy in this church that his dream was always to walk on water and one day was coming back from waco we'd gone to a conference and there's an icy day and there was a pond that had ice on it and one of the one of the members of our church still goes here said pastor stop the van hey buddy you can go walk on the water it's ice go walk on the water that's been your dream that doesn't prove anything but here's what you got to understand when peter started sinking there was a man named jesus picked him up and carried him back to the boat that's who you ought to give glory to that's right and the fourth thing spiritual experiences bring it tends to bring perverse horror of exaltation to the actor in the experience instead of the jesus that blessed you with the experience please listen man's chief end is to glorify god not man and when self is exalted god is probably not present one of my heroes of life was the music ready to go one of the heroes of life in my life was a man named tom barnes pastored in mendon louisiana he was a fabulous faith healer if i had a sickness i'd want to drive to minden that brother tom barnes prayed for me he was powerful but when he was a young man he had this concept that he that he wanted to have a a healing revival so he made this big old sign big old sign said tent revival come see tom barnes healing crusade and he went to pray and god said tom i hope you have a good time tonight trying to heal them people you didn't even reference me and tom went out and tore that sign up and made a new one said come tonight jesus heals took his name off sin sin wants to come on all of us temptation wants to come on all of us one man said it this way ma'am if you knew who i really was on the inside you wouldn't even speak to me people who live from spiritual experience to spiritual experience suffer burnout and spiritual fatigue i want you to stand to your feet jesus was in the garden praying he asked three disciples can you not watch me for just one hour his crosstime was near fatigue had set in to him and three men those boys had left the upper room very high went to the garden dry no disciple but john was at calvary and when jesus was questioned about his doctrine and disciples by pilate he talked about his doctrine he said i spoke openly in the temple i have nothing to hide about my doctrine but he never said a word about his disciples because he couldn't there were no shows three things spiritual experiences can do it can leave us cynical resistant to further blessings and sometimes make people look foolish and unreliable and this is my final story and i close my little boy and i had a favorite show we used to love to watch it was called the lone ranger the lone ranger if you've got a problem with that we'll talk in heaven don't talk to me about it now he was mine in my son's hero from the pages of yesteryear the masked writer for the plains with his faithful indian companion that made me feel like i could whip the world when i heard those three words faithful indian companion can i tell you i can preach the gospel because i have a faithful god companion he ain't going away he's not going to retire you can't put him out of business and you can't defeat him and my soul is hungry for his blessings on my life i want to be blessed by the god of heaven amen i want to have a spirituality in my life i want to walk with him i want to live the life he wants me to live if it's here i'm going to walk if it's there i'm going to walk if it's on the plains i'm going to walk i'm just going to walk with him every day because he is my god

Channel: Christian Life Austin

Views: 287

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Church, Christian, Life, Austin, South, Worship, REx, Johnson, Preaching, The Life God Blesses, Bible, Teaching, Jesus, God, Holy Spirit

Id: qktwbo1JPHo

Length: 37min 11sec (2231 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021