And so if you blame someone. But it's great to be with you and thank you for welcoming my wife This is Janet Price, AKA, Perfect.
So the Lord's blessed us much this year and we've taken more trips than we have in years past together.
And this is her last trip with me for the rest of the year. So you are the recipients of her of her presence.
So thank you. And thanks to my wife. So we've been married 38 years as of August 30 first.
I only had one regret that I didn't marry her when she was younger. So we would have been married longer.
But it was illegal in our state to marry a 13 year old, so I couldn't do that.
But, I can tell you that we we have loved every minute of our marriage even those that have been difficult.
And so we're very excited to be here. Not to mention that we don't have any children here right now.
So there you go. Many. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, Gracie. So as you know, we have 9. The 3 at home are Patrick and William and Gracie.
The oldest is 2117, and 12. Gracie is obviously our youngest and she's going through that find phase of life of a child to young womanhood.
So we haven't dealt with that in about 12 years, so we're going to go what's wrong with her?
But. But comes back kind of quick. The 2 young men are doing well in the house.
Patrick is working and he can run the house so efficiently he's smarter on our own home.
I can push this button on the phone. Everything turns off security on, lights out. I love it.
So I said he can't leave. So I'm making it very easy for him to stay.
My 17 year old and he's a servant. He's like a deacon without the name deacon at the assembly.
A very big servant. The 17 year old He is. Happy and he is enthusiastic about the Bible.
He was on campus. He's taking college classes and there is a open air preacher there who we knew so he went over to kind of look at what there was going on and there was a guy sort of milling around.
So William says, well, what do you think about all this? And so the guy got into around it to a 30 min conversation.
William said, would you like to have a little Bible study next week? The guy goes, yeah. So here's Will you be so pumped he's coming out.
I got this bottleneck on it and I did it. I said calm down young Jedi it's okay.
It's really neat and he has quite a Quite a thing for the gospel. So and then Gracie as I mentioned she's really growing in the Lord you prayed for her with her penisitis and then all that happened and she's really has Quite a taste for the Lord.
She wrote a I got it on my phone. I'll read it to you this weekend, but it's really, really sweet.
So anyway, that's a short update where we are. Janice Dad still lives with us. Bob Rockhold, he was here in the past not to this conference but other things here at Lake Geneva.
And he had 3 major health problems. His last, 2 years. And we are now seeing him recover from the third one to his.
98% of what he used to be. And we're very impressed. He turned 90.
He said, I think I can get my driver's license. We went. And I took him, he drove my car, which I thought was a great step of faith.
And he passed the test. I mean, with flying colors. And so we ask them to do short errands that are around the city during the daytime.
And he just has become even more. Happy to have independence. So, so we were very grateful for all that.
All right, that's our short history of late. I would like to pray and then want to introduce what we're going to talk about this weekend.
Dear Father, as we come to you, we have come to a place where we need to ask the blessing of heaven upon the people of this earth.
Now we think of that in terms of the gospel, Lord, but I'm asking you to take your watchful eye, the eye of the eagle, and to focus it upon this little dot on the globe.
The This little.at conference point. Where we would like to ask you to put your hand a blessing upon us in a way that would no doubt Please the Savior and bring glory and honor to Him.
But may the Spirit of God lead us and guide us. May your Spirit teach us and open our eyes to that which you would have us to consider.
Before you in Jesus name. Amen.
It was
Excuse me just a second here.
It was 1981. July seventeenth.
There is a gala. At the Hyatt Regency. Downtown Kansas City. There was somewhere around 4 or 500 people at this event.
And. No one who went to that event got up that morning thinking that it would end in this way.
As the event unraveled in the evening, they had 3 catwalks. There were suspended from the ceiling.
That were towards the windows of this gigantic hotel.
As the music played the people on the catwalks began to bounce in unison on all 3 levels.
To the beat of the music.
It was around midnight. When 64,000 pounds. A concrete steel. And human body fell.
Killing a hundred 11 people.
That was a year before I started med school. The people that were on the scene. Paramedics, the firemen.
They had doctors on the scene. Those are the ones that train me. It was a catastrophic event of untoward proportions.
And as you can imagine, there was a huge investigation as to why this would happen.
And all that happened, all that twisted metal and severed body. Happen because of one small decision.
The created great instability.
The catwalks were supposed to be suspended by a solid piece of metal that a rod that ran from the ceiling all the way through each catwalk to the bottom one.
But during the construction process without approval. They change the design by making one poll. Go down to an I-beam and a separate pole.
Go down to the next one. And so on. And they were placed in the middle of the I-beam that was welded together.
So as a result of that, it created weakness. No one knew about this decision. It was done at the spur of the moment by the engineer on site.
But approved to be massively fatal. Massively unstable. Why do I tell you that story?
Because stability in our marriages is absolutely important. It's vital. For the survival and preservation of your marriage.
So we're gonna have to look at some of the maybe. How shall we say, subtle decisions that are made?
That can cause great catastrophe. If unaddressed. Now this is very dear to me because in the last I don't know, 5 years.
There are approximately 14 marriages that I pray for regularly. Of course, they come to my, to our plate because they're in trouble.
And they come to us because we've known them and they've decided to confide in us.
And in every single one in which we have had contact there have been subtleties of stress fractures, of weaknesses along the way.
That went unaddressed that over time created a weakness that with the right pressure applied. The whole marriage collapsed.
As I speak to today out of those. 10 to 15 families over half of them are in divorce. The other half are considering divorce.
Only one is hanging on. But hanging on by a thread, they don't sleep in the same room.
So this is kind of serious to me. To watch the disintegration of Christian marriages in front of us.
And it happens so subtly. When I was in one. Marriage counseling setting. There was so much accusation back and forth.
So much, so much if you would just do this, if you would just fix this, if you would just and the list could be endless.
How do you stop that madness? How do you, how do you end the feud that seems to have gasoline as its only source of energy?
I don't know, but I do know this. The flesh is rampant. And marriages today.
That's the weakness. That's the problem. No. I want to be sensitive because I know that you have just lost a dear friend at the chapel.
So I don't want to come here and act like I'm going to to beat you to death.
That's not it at all. But I also know. That if we ignore some of the weaknesses and fatal decisions of our marital charter, our marital schematic.
Then what'll happen as you run the risk of catastrophic failure. So I'm gonna be talking a little bit about the flesh this weekend.
The one thing that we don't want to talk about. I'm gonna talk about it through the eyes of James.
Because when James deals with the flesh he deals with it in no uncertain terms. So this weekend, we may talk about things that a few things that may prove to be.
Exceptionally difficult to hear. I don't say them with any arrogance. I say them because I've been convicted and indicted on the same accounts.
I bring my wife here so she could provide collateral evidence of such indictments. But she's so gracious, she probably will miss smile and say.
That's not exactly how it happened. But nonetheless, you should know. But these are the kinds of things.
That are life and death for you and me. So we come sort of in a serious note. I come in in a very sort of direct way.
A way that the scripture will lead us. Now tonight we're going to look briefly and I say briefly because it's Friday night and I think we're all kind of tired.
But I want to look briefly at James Chapter one and begin to establish the sort of the thematic element of the weekend.
And the first thing I need you to know is that the theme will be over one word. It'll be over the word stability.
What is it that will bring stability in our marriages? What is it that will put the flesh at rest?
Or I should say in prison. So that we do not continue to have constant feuding and accusation.
So that our marriages are free from the from the the hooks of the enemy the the strongholds where the enemy can absolutely cause havoc.
Well, this is the theme. Stability by dealing with the flesh. It's a hard discussion.
It's hard to give. But our first concept tonight. Will be the stability of faith. I don't mean that you know your doctrine.
I'm pretty sure you know your doctrine. Corrupt by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone and faith alone in Christ alone.
No doubt you know your doctrine. No doubt you understand that the filling of the spirit is necessary for you and I to be transformed into the image of Christ.
No doubt you understand that so think that the sanctification process is a long-term process. You were saved and set apart.
That's your position. Now we have the procedural element, the process element where we now live what's been happened to what what happened to us and declared for us at the cross and and you understand that you understand that the Lord is coming back quickly.
Amen. I'm pretty sure the wars and rumors of wars that you and I hear are not just CNN items.
I think they're on the schedule. The schedule in which the Lord Jesus will return. I don't think Ecclesi's or eschatology is our problem, nor do I think the whole idea of ingeology or soteriology is a mystery.
But that is a far cry. From the practicality. Of living what we know. The problem is, is that we know a lot.
And we live very little. So we're going to talk about faith. That it's not just the faith of a base of knowledge, a fund of knowledge, but we're going to talk about faith that is a living faith.
That has colour to it, that has vitality, that has application as James will say is a doer of the word and not just a here only.
How many of us in our marriages have been frustrated with one another because you know your partner should do this and they didn't do that and they're living in sort of stubbornness against God.
And you can you're sorrowful because they're in agony you're sorrowful because they're they're they're stressed in ways that they shouldn't be because they need to surrender to the Savior.
Well, that's what we're going to talk about. That kind of thing. All right, let's read the text and we'll just read a few.
Verses I'll read from one to verse 12. As soon as I find these things called my.
Classes. There we go. James, a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes, which are scattered abroad greetings.
Very safe. Very safe introduction. My brethren, counted all joy.
When you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, But let patients have its perfect work.
That you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be it will be given to him but let him ask in faith.
With no doubting. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea and tossed by the wind.
For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable.
In all his ways. Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation. But the rich in his humiliation.
Because as the flower of the field as the flower of the field, he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat.
Then it withers the grass. And it's flower falls. And it's beautiful appearance. Parishes.
So is the rich man. So the Richmond awesome will fade away. In his pursuits. Blessed is the man.
Who, I'll stop right there, excuse me. Now, the reason why I read that and someone a deliberate fashion is because we're gonna have to deal with this concept of faith.
And the way that and the faith is again not this idea of the fund of knowledge but it's the living of the faith that we have.
And so he begins by talking about trials and the word there is testing. And, and when he does so, the whole emphasis, the whole emphasis is pointed at becoming stable.
So let me just show you where that is in the text, all right? It says this.
My brethren counted all joy, excuse me. Counted all joy. When you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith That's more than the fund of knowledge is talking about the application of that faith, living by the doctrinal truths.
Produces patience. So let's just consider this verse for a second. It says, count it, that means to know it.
You should know this as a matter of not just fact, but of a matter of reality. The issues of life that come upon you, it says that you fall into that's a very interesting word that word simply means that that that things that light upon you're walking along the way and things come crashing in your door.
Now this is what happened to me a week or so ago when I was getting ready to go to another conference.
And I had, I had, boy, it was about 5 things. And one of them as I was criticized in a Q&A session, right?
So I was doing a Q&A session back in New Jersey and this fellow wanted to have a sparring match, you know, I don't handle that real well.
And, I don't know anybody that does. My coworker did, I didn't.
And, and, and that just really bothered me through the week. And then we get through the weekend, 2 more things happen that are inexplicable and then on the Sunday morning in the breaking of bread I get another text of somebody really criticizing some ministry and over the weekend we had a conference and 2 2 young people had big questions that they were sort of accusatory and so come come the next trip I was sort
of filleted. Raw you know and and i was getting irritable and grouchy and defensive as any man ever been irritable, grouchy and defensive here?
Thank you. Thank you. You will be proven wrong, but nonetheless. And, and you know, I was just really getting.
I don't know. Sharp. And that I just I just was a lousy Christian.
What can I tell you? And I, and, and it took a little bit of time to recognize that I have lighted upon many trials.
I didn't ask for them. I wasn't overtly sinning that I knew of. Or that was unconfessed and and yet this just came heavily upon me and the one thing that I did not want was trials I said to the Lord Lord don't don't you see I'm trying to get ready for the next events Why are we having all these trials?
And the Lord said, don't you see? It is more important to me that your Christianity is more than verbal expression of divine truth.
It is invaluable to me that your Christianity is lived in a manner that will be speak of who I am because I am in you.
Now when you talk about a Christian marriage, that's exactly what it's about. It is not 2 people surviving to get to the next vacation.
It's not about 2 people having the time of their lives because they're they're living their early years of romance.
It's not about fulfilling the dream of raising a Christian family. You know what it's about?
It's about Christ in you. In this marriage. I want to say this nicely, but I'm gonna say it directly.
Get your eyes off yourselves. That's the bottom line. It's about the kind of faith that has Christ at the sinner and that it is expressed.
In the through the trials of daily living. I was failing. And I'm ashamed of it.
And yet the scripture is clear. Brethren. Counted. Steve, keep it in your mind.
Know it that this things that's happening to you and they're coming from all sides it says various trials that means it's multicolored it can look like a dent in the car one day and it can look like a sharp email the next day.
It can look like a crossword between the husband and wife and wife and husband on another day.
And Akees has all kinds of colors to it. Has all kinds of shapes and sizes, but the issue.
Is not the focus on the various trials. The issue is to focus on what the Spirit of God is trying to do through those trials.
So know it! I don't know what echoes in here, but that's really cool.
Alright, and what does he say next? Let it. Know it? Let it.
These the Greek word is echo. And it simply means experience it. That's what it says. Read it.
Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience. You gotta let it.
Our brothers and sisters of all the things that you should know in life. The Christian life is the only battle.
That begins with surrender. Did you hear that? Alright, do you remember this guy named Joshua?
Sure. Joshua. Was at Gilgal. Gilgal was a staging area for Israel before they went after or went and marched around Jaredako.
At Gilgal, it was late one evening, appeared to be nights. It was only the general, Joshua.
And the campfire. And in that little meeting in Joshua chapter 5. Someone else shows up.
It says that someone else had their sword drawn. Now, if you're gonna fight Jericho the next day.
And somebody comes with a sword drawn which means I'm going to I'm going to take you on I'm going to duel with you.
Who you think it is? Probably a jarconian out on Night Watch.
So Joshua. Reaches for a sword. And he caused and he calls out through the dancing flames of fire and the smoke that clouds one's vision.
And he says, whose side are you on? Are you for us? Are you against us? And the voice on the other side of the fire says no.
I'm not on your side nor on their side, but as commander of the army of the Lord of hosts.
I have now come. You know what he's saying? You actually, sir, are on my side.
Joshua understood that. How do I know? Because the next verse says he fell on his face. That means that he was in a position of worship.
Or a position of surrender. That's what you do when you're in battle and you get you blade on your weapon. You're down on the ground.
Remember, hands up. I'm not going to fight back. Get down on the ground, right?
That's what happens even today in law enforcement. And that's what was happening then and he was saying your key to victory tomorrow.
Is your surrender today? Now most of us in the Christian journey. Never deal with daily surrender.
I need you to know that this particular walk of faith, a vital faith where faith has vision and color and life to it.
Begins by your daily surrender to the authority of Jesus Christ.
You don't have to buy it. That it's a book on discipleship that just came out last week.
There are many that authored it. I had the privilege to write the chapter. Walking in the spirit or abiding in Christ.
And in that chapter, which I hope you read.
It talks about what it is to daily surrender to the Lord Jesus. I've realized that that is the most important part.
So for the last, I don't know, months, the Lord's Waken awakened me 15 min before the alarm goes off.
You know, that's like, Lord, please, I need those 15 min. And the Spirit of God whispers in my ear not audibly but of course by conviction.
No, you don't. What you need. Is to begin this day by surrendering to me.
I woke up that way this morning. My wife says I wake her up too early. I said I'm just praying.
She says pray on the other side of the bed.
I go, yes ma'am. And the Lord and I talk and I say you know Lord this day is a day that I could easily jump out of bed and run into it like I used to always do but You didn't wake me up for me to get a shower.
You woke me up. So that you and I could talk. And I'd like to talk by surrendering to you.
I want to let patients have its work. I want to let your hand do what you wanted to do and you know some days are hard in those days I was getting the hate mail that was hard.
I wanted to rebel and I wanted to walk away and you know that was part of the faith aspect.
And I'm gonna ask you brothers and sisters that you make a a vow if you will. That every day that I roll out of that bed I am going to consciously make a decision that this day will be the day that I have surrendered with my neck exposed as he has a sword.
What would you have your servant do? Not my will but yours not my my thinking but your thinking and not my emotions but your emotions Not my word, but your word, not my spirit, but your spirit.
My body doing what your body would do. You have total control. You have the con.
That's it. You see this journey of faith. Requires the first step called surrender. And I don't know if you're anything like me and you're probably not.
Surrender is not the first word that comes to my mind. So I want you to see that. It says this, counted or know it.
Then let it. Now let what? Well, that's this patience thing. And what is this patients thing?
Well, this patient's idea is this idea that you will have a sense of Perseverance, you'll have a sense of what's the word I'm looking for.
A kind of of endurance to you. And then it's uses endurance, this word endurance and or patients sort of as and now let patients have, and it says that it will produce in you 2 things.
It'll say, or excuse me, knowing that the testing industry produces patients, let patients have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete.
Now, what does that mean? Perfect and complete. It's redundant when it uses the word Teleios, which is perfect, use twice, and then the word complete.
How do those words differ? And the word tell us is this idea that's perfect. This idea of finished product.
Finished product. Recently I had or we had Father's Day. And my son-in-law had some wood from my dad's old woodshop.
And it was I think black walnuts. So he made a picture frame for me. Was very moving actually.
And it was in honour of my parents who passed. And we, it was perfect. The color was perfect.
The seams were perfect. The the stain was perfect. The the matting was perfect. The whole thing was absolutely perfect.
Every detail was absolutely complete. With fine workmanship. That's the word. Tell us are perfect.
What about complete? Complete is more referring to the whole thing. Nothing is missing. You see, there are many ways that we can put a vehicle together, and yet it doesn't necessarily have to have every single part.
For it to run well. think about it. We have cars that are the basic model and cars that are the high fancy model, but you don't need all the fancy things for it to actually take you from point A to point B.
What the word complete means is that nothing is missing. Everything. You got the deluxe version is the idea.
And being perfect means all of it works right. That's what it means. And so he's saying in a sort of double emphasis way.
Letting this process of whatever trials and colors that may come your way have upon your faith the vitamin of what it is to believe in Christ the vitality of it.
What happens is you will be not only fully equipped for every part will be there to the highest level of exquisite craftsmanship, but it will all of it will function at the intended level.
And that's what he wants for you. You know what we call that Christ likeness. That's what that is.
That's a perfect man. That's Jesus Christ. And he's saying, I need you to understand something that the thing that's killing the Christian is instability and the way to go from instability to stability is to let this this this process of shaping and molding and yes breaking.
Have its way with you. Really what he's talking about, surrender. What fighting me. Quit resisting me.
Could having a stiff neck quit quit being an independent person quit being procrastinatory and do what you want to do anyway let my will come upon you And the marriages that I seen that come to us and their tattered way.
They're not 2 people that have surrendered. They're 2 people claiming their rights. They're 2 people claiming their turf demanding an apology.
I'm gonna ask you how many times in your life when you demanded an apology that you actually receive one?
That doesn't happen! The what needs to happen is a transformation of the soul where you surrender to the Lord in totality.
So whatever trial that is, whatever argument that is with your spouse, whatever problem in the children or the job or whatever you're doing, the criticism.
Let God. Work with you. Let God in. Know it?
Let it. But there's more. Ask for it. It says this.
Look. Let patients have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. You're gonna notice that lacking nothing.
It's very interesting construction, not not lacking one single thing. You want to be a better man, a better woman, a better father, a better husband, a better wife, a better mother.
Well, this is the way. It's not pretty. It's not pleasant. But it's necessary to have faith.
And living color. He says this, if any of you lacks wisdom, what is that? What is he saying there?
Well, I understand. That this can kind of be a little bit baffling. And when I was getting those trials of the last couple of weeks, it was baffling.
I was saying, Lord, what's what are you saying to me? Am I doing something wrong?
Should I cancel the marriage conference? Jim said no. I said okay. Any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of who?
Who's the title there? God. You know who many of us ask? Other people or we ask ourselves, how's that going for you?
Ask yourself, hey Steve, what do you think? I don't know. And then go well.
You always get the wrong answer or sometimes the the right or the the repetitive answer ask of God.
God, what do you what do you want from me? What is it that you're after? I will give it, let me know.
I surrender. My neck is on the ground. Put the cold steel of the Word of God in its place.
Let my jugular be under its blade. You speak, I listen. Ask for it. Now what's wisdom?
You're going to find out what wisdom is in chapter 3 of this book. And wisdom is a quality that has the perspective of God at its heart.
And excuse me, the perspective and character of God at its heart. And so you'll read that wisdom is first pure, peaceable, righteous.
You'll read that in chapter 4, chapter 3, and the idea there is that you're saying I need to see this as you see it through your character through the lenses of your character through your holiness through your righteousness through your justice through your grace through your mercy through your kindness through your hassed of the Old Testament.
I need to see it your way. That's what wisdom is. I tell you many times I do this, Lord, I don't get these trials and I think they kind of stink.
I'll tell that to they're very arrogant and I should say inappropriate, but yet God is saying, Steve, that's not the attitude.
You need to ask what I think from my perspective and from what I know is the perfect way. You see, when we do that as an individual husband or an individual wife, What happens is God begins to transform you.
He has the freedom to transform your spouse. The vitality of your faith has now got a heartbeat.
The vitality of your faith has now taken its first breath. And that's what he wants. So let those trials let them have its way with you.
Let the patients that it produces, the endurance that it produces brings a whole completed unit with all the working parts.
And if you don't know what's going on, ask for it! Let him, if any of you, lacks wisdom, let him ask of God and look at his God is very generous he gives liberally he doesn't say now Steve this is your 20 fifth time you've been asking me for wisdom in the last 72 HI think you need to lay off a little bit.
That God doesn't say that. He goes, oh, I wish you would have asked for more because I got a lot more to give you.
You ask away. I'm not gonna be stingy. I'm not gonna say take one because there we don't have many left.
I'm going to say take 400. I have a lot of it where it came from. Let yourself fall into my liberal, my, liver, generosity for you.
Don't you know? I want to give you this. I want you to help my wisdom. I want you to have my perspective and I want you to have my character through which you see life.
Ask me! Many of us don't. Many of us get into those situations and we withdraw from God.
My friend, that's the time you want to draw near to God. Not your way, Drawing near is the thing that he loves about you.
And so he says, let him ask. Now, how do you ask? Are you ready? This is the key verse.
Let him versus verse 6, let him ask in faith. See that? The stability of faith. No doubting he's using the contrasting statement.
Let him ask in faith without the doubting. He's saying and not this way. So by definition faith has no doubt in it no question mark no what are you doing now no sense of distrust in God.
Oh, if we could only understand that this idea of living post-conversion by faith is the normal Christian life.
How do I know that? Well, thank you for asking. Galatians 220.
Are you ready? And the life that I now live, I now live, this current. I live by faith.
And the Son of God. You are saved by faith. This is Galatians 3 now. You are saved by faith by which you receive the Spirit of God.
Why do you now try to live Oglacians outside of the Spirit of God? And how did you get the Spirit of God?
By faith! You see, fate is the thing. And I don't mean just believing that God exists, but you rest in his character and providential plan.
You are at peace with how God is, is leading the boat, driving the boat. That's what you're going to be.
And lastly, it says in Second Corinthians, Second Corinthians, 5 18.
He had, let me read that one because I'll miss quote that 1. Second Corinthians 5 7.
I said 18 my apologies Second Corinthians, 5 7.
Where we walk by faith. Not by sight. We are confident, yes, well, please rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
Verse verse 7 is the key. Walk by faith. See, in this James passage, he's saying, I, out of all the things that you do in life.
If you do not have vital active faith, that demonstrates itself in the capacities that James is talking about.
You cannot please me. Did you hear that? So what's that last thing you did? Well, we put on a fall event so we could witness to our neighbors.
Did you do it in faith? Well, no, we just kind of planned it and it seemed like it came together.
We had a lot of workers and we all can, you know, yeah, and so we did it.
Did you do it by faith where you were? Dependent upon God. See, that's what faith does.
It makes you dependent upon God, not independent. Dependent. Well, no, we didn't quite do it like that.
Well, then I have some bad news for you. You did not please God. What do you mean we didn't please God?
We had 155 people come to our event. How does that not please God? Did you do it by faith?
Well, no, we. We did it by site. Then you didn't please go. Without faith.
It is impossible. That means it does not happen. To please God. You know what we need brothers and sisters?
We need stability in our walk with the Lord Jesus. And when we have stability in our walk with the war, Jesus, as he takes the trials and various colors of what we go through and uses it to shape and modus like the craftsman on the potter's wheel.
What happens as you respond in that faith element and you trust him more. So faith is, is an important aspect.
Where we remove this thing called double-mindedness. Look at that. For let not that man suppose he will receive anything.
So what does that mean? That means your prayers are thwarted if you don't ask and faith believing in the character of the person.
And this is a key thing. When we talk about faith, it's not so much that we're, it's not so much the power of positive thinking or saying, well, I hope it'll work out.
That's not it at all. Faith is dependent upon a person who has proven himself to be trustworthy, to be faithful himself.
That was the whole problem with the children of Israel. They trusted Excuse me, they failed to trust and the God who proved his faithfulness by delivering them from the Egyptians in the Red Sea and how he provided water in the desert and how he provided food and how he provided all kinds of blessings along the way.
And now they had all this evidence to say God has taken care of us before he will take care of us again and what happened as they separated the 2 and the Christian can do that too.
God, I don't see how you're gonna work in my marriage. I don't see how it's gonna come about.
I don't know how you're gonna fix my children. I don't know how you're going to take care of my extended family.
I don't know about my aunts and my uncles or my cousins or my brothers. As we talk tonight.
Every family has a story and none of them are pretty. None of them. God, I need your help to.
Faith. This is what he's talking about. If you don't have this kind of faith, this idea that you can, you, you can trust in the person, the object of your faith.
That you can trust in his integrity and his fidelity. You can trust in his personhood that he is a good God.
See, Satan wanted to rob that. Eve, God is not like you heard. He is not good.
He's choosing to withhold from you the knowledge of good and evil. Look what it's gotten you.
You're missing something. Was all a lie. It was absolutely a lie. That's the opposite of faith.
This is why I think James takes it on and he says, saints. You want to have a good marriage?
You need to be stable with God.
And a lack of this faith. Makes you a 2 minded person. That's what it means, double minded person.
Now what is a double-minded person? Well, in medicine, they call that schizophrenia.
So I would never apply that. Defined medical term to this situation. But the idea is similar. That you have part of your head saying, I believe in you, part of your saying, I doubt you.
And you know what that produces in a husband or a wife. A father or a mother. It produces the most unstable person in the whole world.
Look at read it unstable in all. Their ways, his ways. So maybe you're looking at your family life, your marriage life right now.
Maybe you're looking at how things have been transacted. The last 5, 1038 years.
And you're kind of scratching your head and saying What's wrong with this? Why are we not?
Is closer. Why are we not?
Woven like we should be. I'm gonna turn your attention first of all. To your individual responsibility before your heavenly father.
And I want to ask you. I'm going to plead with you. Are you letting? God, sculpture, you.
It's part of the faith journey. And if the answer is well, not so much. And I hate to tell you this, but I mean it nicely.
You and you are an unstable person. And that instability bleeds to your marriage and leads to your kids.
Let's stop the madness. And individually. Have business done with your heavenly father.
That's what I want to tell you tonight. May God bless the weekend together. You've been so kind to endure this last few minutes.
But I pray that this will be a weekend. That transforms your very lives. I pray that you would become.
Like the Savior. Father, as we come to the end of this session. We do so with absolute dependence upon you through your spirit and his word.
We will not pretend that any of us, especially me, has any answers of worth remembering. But what we will do is believe that through the Word of God, your Spirit can bring about the most amazing transformations and glorious sanctification.
That when the day is done we won't be remembered for what we were but we will be remembered for being like him.
This is our prayer. Whatever this scenario it is, whatever the merit of problems it is or whatever the marital joys of there are, may they all be brought under.
The surrendered nature to a surrendered nature to Jesus Christ. I pray for each couple. Thank you for the safety.
I know many others are coming. Please encourage them in their way. Lord, the enemy will try to steal the seed.
This is not his seed to steal, nor is it his territory to walk through. This is where the Lord God is our King.
We ask you as King O Savior to grant your people. The most blessed. Of times. With your spirit and his word.
In Jesus name I pray, amen.
Thank you, Steve.
Okay, so tonight we're just free to move about the cabin and Tomorrow morning, 7 30 am coffee at the dining hall.
If you don't have One of these couple.