Who Told You That | Week 2

What if the verse you’ve always treated like a warm blanket is actually a wake-up call? We take a hard, hopeful look at James 4:8 and discover that “draw near to God” isn’t about vibes or goosebumps but about culture, movement, and surrender. We share a tangible generosity update—kitchens, dorms, and classrooms coming to life at a Kenyan orphanage, plus an adopted neighborhood school—and connect it to the deeper question underneath it all: what culture is shaping your heart?

We unpack James 3–4 to contrast two competing cultures—heaven-down and hell-up—and show how the fruit of your life reveals the soil beneath it. Envy, selfish ambition, and constant conflict don’t just happen; they grow from a culture we’ve chosen, often by drift more than decision. You’ll hear why nearness requires agency (you move first), why drift is inevitable without intention, and how simple, honest rhythms—a guarded first 15 minutes with God, gathered worship, service that costs, and obedience that sticks—can reorient your days.

Along the way, we demystify spiritual “signals” that aren’t biblical, revisit God’s own preferences for worship, and sit with a surprising truth: the Almighty yearns jealously for your nearness. Not a transactional meeting, but a life shared. We end with a clear pathway to reset—submit to God, resist the devil, cleanse your hands, purify your heart, humble yourself—and an invitation to choose a heaven-down culture in the places that matter most.

If this challenged you or sparked a needed reset, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find the show. What one step will you take today to paddle back to nearness?

Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Chapters

• 0:00 Worship and Praise Lift-Off
• 20:45 Gratitude and Offering Update
• 25:13 Kenya Orphanage Impact and Giving
• 31:56 Facilities Progress and Serve Day Thanks
• 36:28 Series Setup: “Who Told You That?”
• 43:12 James 4:8 Isn’t Cozy—It’s Corrective
• 49:40 Four Truths About Drawing Near
• 57:29 Drift vs. Intention: The River Analogy
• 1:02:58 Nearness Is Specific, Not Sentimental
• 1:09:00 Heaven-Down vs. Hell-Up Culture
• 1:18:18 Motives, Conflict, and Cultural Fruit
• 1:26:32 God Yearns Jealously for Your Time

Transcript

SPEAKER_07: 5:19

Good morning, everybody. Why don't you stand to your feet as we work with our kingdom this morning?

SPEAKER_05: 5:38

But I can take it to myself. Don't know that I said that to let us say that all that beautiful and glorious and boy is my full and our boy. We the better voice.

unknown: 6:07

Give the money on that.

SPEAKER_05: 6:10

All together way. All this is for you.

unknown: 6:23

That's my case. Without one of the chorus, the one and a clothes to make the woman.

SPEAKER_05: 6:43

This is all the angels.

unknown: 6:45

A dress for the angels. Amen set up. Who is talking about? That's my fish.

SPEAKER_06: 7:06

We declared for it.

unknown: 7:08

Get the woman beyond it.

SPEAKER_06: 7:11

All together worthy.

unknown: 7:12

Who is talking about? That's my fish.

SPEAKER_06: 7:16

That's the one before you.

SPEAKER_05: 7:21

All of this is for you.

unknown: 7:22

Who is talking about? That's my fish. That's my key.

SPEAKER_04: 7:32

Oh, that's my key. That's my God. That's my shepherd. My protector. That's my key. That's my love. That's my nature.

unknown: 7:52

I'm to defend. That's my key. That's my God. That's my love. That's my shepherd. Oh that's my key. That's my love. That's my nature. My dear finger.

SPEAKER_05: 8:19

We decide the boy. Give them all the other. All together worthy. Who's talking about that? That's my fish. We decide the body. Give them all the father. All together worthy. Who's talking about?

unknown: 8:37

That's my faith.

SPEAKER_05: 8:39

There's no body. All the body. Who's talking about? That's my fault.

SPEAKER_06: 8:50

That's my fault.

unknown: 8:56

Oh, that's my faith. We think that's my teeth. That's my teeth. That's my faith. Hallelujah. Come on and give them some praise this morning. Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_06: 9:21

Father, as we declare your glory, we thank you for taking us glory to glorify. We honor you. We ask you, God, to saturate this atmosphere, God. Created from death. You take that live. You took God. You walk in a hand. You shall you lay down your life to save. You took our shape. On the cross in the shape. And you take it as higher. So we go from glory to glory to glory.

unknown: 10:23

We'll never be the same. Would never be the same. But we go from glory to glory to glory. We'll forever change. We'll forever change. You call me afraid.

SPEAKER_06: 10:50

Right into your letters kingdom. By the blood hours made, no longer slave. And then it's making us higher. Cause we go from roam to roam to roam. I've never been the same.

unknown: 11:13

I've never been the same.

SPEAKER_06: 11:22

We forever you took on the grave. So not even death can stray. Now you're taking this high.

SPEAKER_07: 14:41

We praise you on today, Lord God. We give you blood. We give you honor.

SPEAKER_05: 16:02

There's no one like the law. Can they praise to him alone? There's no one life to know.

SPEAKER_06: 16:22

There's one other is worth being so many.

unknown: 19:23

There's no one like the glory. Come on and give the glory.

SPEAKER_07: 19:30

There's no one like our God. There's no one like the Father. We exalt you this morning, God. Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:39

When I was a little girl, my dad would say, We need a praise break. Tell me how good the Lord is. Give him a hand. He is good. He is to be magnified. If you don't have any other reason to praise the Lord today, it's that you woke up this morning with breath in your lungs. You had cold or hot water at your tap. You could go to your refrigerator, maybe not get exactly what you want, but there was something in there that is a miracle in itself. He is a good, good father who gives good, good gifts to his children. And maybe somebody needed to hear that this morning. He is a good God. And he loves you. My name is Pastor Angel, and I am so glad that you were here today. If it's your first time, please connect using the Connect card. If you have a prayer request, fill it out, put it in the offering bucket. I want to give you a little update today, so have a seat. Something we don't talk about near as much as we should, but I want to give you a second to fill out that connect card. The ushers are coming. You may not know this, but a few years ago, we got asked to partner with a little orphanage in Kenya who was building things. They were keeping the children in little cots, big one-room spaces. They didn't have a kitchen. They didn't have dormitories for the girls and the boys. And over the last few years, you have built this orphanage a kitchen. Come on, somebody. You have built this sweet. Show us the sweet babies. Show us the babies. You have built these sweet babies, dormitories. They're no longer sleeping on the floor. And now, whether you know it or not, you're building them a school, and their classrooms. Show me their classrooms are starting to get finished, and hopefully before the rainy season, these babies will be inside at desks, learning about the Lord and learning how to read. Come on, somebody. That is your generosity relate. Your love spreads around the corner to your elementary school. Did you know you adopted an elementary school around the corner? And around the world to the sweet, sweet babies in Kenya. And one day when you get to heaven, maybe one of them will run up to you and say, I learned to read because you gave a few dollars in an offering. And that is a miracle. So as you prepare to give, there's lots of different ways to make sure that you're faithful, that he will bless your obedience and around the corner and around the world, his name will be praised. Let me pray for you. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the ability to give. We thank you for the ability to be a generous church. To make sure that all of you hear the glory of you. Lord, we thank you that you are the last thing that we will be. That you are the last thing that we will have to do.

SPEAKER_06: 23:06

We give you glory, God. We give you praise. Your presence, God is what we want, God, to come and separate this place, God. We worship you, God. We honor you, God. I give you glory for all you got to be through. And now I'm ready for whatever you want to do. I'm moving forward, I'm finding after you, and now I'm ready for whatever you want to do. Your presence is an open door. We want you lay like never before. Your presence is an open door, so come now like never before in every season. Your grace has been loved, and I'm believing the best is yet to come. The cause is for me, I hope all things above. And in you, Jesus, the best is yet to come.

unknown: 25:13

Your presence is a competitor. Like never before.

SPEAKER_06: 25:35

So come down like never before. So we need to have anticipation for this breakthrough. If we wanna we have to have faith and believe that every believe every word of God. So in this moment, I need y'all to help me sing this part.

unknown: 26:00

Come on.

SPEAKER_06: 26:01

I know when you is coming. I see a miracle. Make me a promise and it won't stop. I need y'all to stay with faith. Come on, I know when you is coming. I see a miracle. When you see a spirit, when you see Father, we believe, God, that a breakthrough is only sway. We have faith in you that you can do exceeding above all things, God. We honor you, God. We thank you for your presence. See to our Father. Your presence is an open door. We want you more, God. We want you love like never before. Your presence is an open door. So come by God like never before. We anticipate your breakthrough. We're waiting for you, God, to show through. We need you. Gotta have you, God. Come on. I know this is a declaration. Breakthrough is coming. By faith, I see a miracle. My God, I think it promises. I know. Breakthrough is coming. By faith.

unknown: 28:39

My God. I know. We believe you God. We object.

SPEAKER_06: 29:34

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We exalt your name, God. We thank you, God. We honor you, God. Now with that same expectation and that same happiness and joy, I need you to greet your name and say thank you that you are here because your breakthrough is coming. And believe and have faith in God. Hallelujah.

unknown: 30:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 30:07

That was amazing, right? You guys look so good. I'm so excited to see you all. For those of you that don't know, my name is Jackson, and I love being able to serve with y'all and serve alongside y'all. I was sent up here to tell y'all y'all's plans for Wednesday, I think. Uh the first Wednesday is this Wednesday at seven, right here. I hope and can't wait to see you all there. It's gonna be so amazing. We're just gonna dive into a word to worse of it. It's just gonna be an amazing service. Can't wait to see you all there. Oh, y'all look amazing. Y'all look ready for another work from Pastor Sean, right? Yeah. Here's week two of who told you that.

SPEAKER_01: 31:38

I know there are lots of great options, great communities, great churches. But we're here together today, and I am excited that we get to do this together. Just tell somebody sitting next to you, I'm glad you're here. And now tell your second choice. I'm also glad you're here. Just not as glad as the other one. You gotta be careful. Come on, man. Today we're in week number two of a series called Who Told You That? And uh before we get to it, I just want to take a quick second and I want to say a bunch of thank yous to those who came out to our serve day. For a long time since we bought since we purchased this building, and then about a year ago when we moved into this building and started having church, it's been uh serve day coming out for set almost six and a half years. We did Serve Day and it was always a community outreach program. This building has been our community outreach, but I'm just letting you know from now on when we do uh a survey here, we are all we are almost finished. We're about 90% finished with the building. We finally got the fence. Uh a bunch of you guys yesterday were out yesterday helping to seal it and to to we didn't we did clear seal and um this week we're working on the parking lot, so we'll have more. Hopefully, next by next Sunday, we'll have more parking spaces, and then in the next month or two, 60 days, you should start to see some parking spaces come together. I know some of you guys have told me, I don't know where to park, Pastor Sean. I'm just out here in the grass. That's okay. Just find a spot, and uh there's a uh I know when you're coming down our little road here, you're hitting a uh a huge dip now that we put drainage in, and all that's gonna change this week. So it should be uh a better experience next Sunday for those of you who are thinking my feet are getting muddy and dirty, and this is um it's it's not gonna be perfect, but we're getting better every week. We're getting better. Uh, also, we had guys up in the attic. Um, I won't tell you who or when, but not too long ago, we had somebody fall through the attic, and it prompted us hey, if we're gonna store all the stuff in the attic, we should probably put down plywood on the floor. So they did that. Uh a bunch of bunch of guys yesterday were cutting wood and um furniture in the foyer taken apart and sanding and just the just the the final details of a lot of things that have been waiting to happen. And so won't be announcing work days uh over the next few two 60 days or so, but we'll be finished. Our goal is to completely finish this building by the end of the year. There's just all of the the final touches and uh to make your experience better and smoother, dropping kids off and getting the and by the way, our um this week launches also. Our I had the contractor in this week, this last week, to uh begin the process of new carpet for upstairs. Some of somebody said amen on that one. If you haven't said amen about that, you don't know what what changing the carpet means. I'll just tell you this we have cleaned the carpet um extensively, many, many, many times. But when we moved in, the previous tenants to this building were raccoons. Just saying. So that's really their carpet. It's a hold over a holdover from the previous tenants, and um, very soon, even though it's clean, it doesn't always look clean. And we're gonna so that's being changed, and they're gonna be um all new kids decor upstairs as they get a complete and total makeover. And um it's it's great, it's exciting, lots of very cool things. So you guys continue to be faithful with your uh with your time and your talent and your treasures. This is not an offering, I'm just telling you that um it's it's thrilling to be able to take care of God's house the way that you guys and your generosity have provided for us to be able to do that together. So, with that said, we're gonna dive right in. Uh, if you're watching online today and this is um not your church, then I'm thrilled that you chose us to worship with. And before we open up the word, can we just give a hand for everybody watching online right now? All right. We are in week number two of a series called Who Told You That? The idea is basically this: very simple. There are lots of times in life where you say something or someone else says something, and then you hear, Well, who told you that? Like that's not even that's not even partially true. Sometimes it's partially true. The the verses that we're unpacking, the verses that we're choosing over the next last week and the next few weeks, are scriptures that we tend to uh carry, we tend to quote, we tend to put them on uh the doily on the wall at your grandma's house or your phone home screen. It's the ones that are kind of cozy and heartwarming, and yet they don't always mean exactly the they're not meant the way we use them. And so I want us to get them right. And uh some of the the power in these scriptures is not the cozy, heartwarming part. The power is when we get it right, and so tell tell somebody next to you, get it right. So last week it was John. Um last week we talked about a lot of really, really powerful things. Uh, Romans 8 28. Give we unpacked the whole chapter, I think. But if you weren't here for it, go back and watch it. That's one of the verses that is probably more quoted than almost anything else, that God is working all things together for my good. But it's more than that. It's way more than that. So today we're in James, James chapter 4, verse 8. We're gonna give you a lot of scripture today. So pull out your notes, get your pen ready. We are a note-taking church. We want to put it in our hearts in a way that it stays with us longer and we're able to process it. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. That verse, if we just isolate that part right there, it's it's heartwarming. You might want just saying it makes you want to have a cup of coffee in your hand. Last week we made coffee on the stage. This is not that verse. This is a verse, you can have coffee, you can pull, get all cuddled up and cozy on your couch next to a fire with the coffee. And it's some of you can't wait till the weather gets cooler. You can light that fire up and get cozy. But as soon as you read the verse before or after, it no longer is a cozy verse. As soon as you start, as soon as you really start to see the context of the words draw near to God and He'll draw near to you, it's no longer cozy anymore. So instead of this being a cozy, encouraging verse like it first appears to be, I need you to know that it's a bit of a correction. Nobody likes a correction. If you do, you're weird. I'm gonna read before and after just a little bit, starting with verse 7 in chapter 4. And you're gonna right away, you're gonna be like, oop, let me go ahead and pull my toes back. Let me go ahead, and uh, maybe you won't be so eager to take notes. You won't be so eager to sit on the edge of your seat. But watch this. Therefore, James says, Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he'll draw near to you. And then we get to the harsh part where he says, Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Almost as if he has his finger out, pointing right at you, pointing right at me. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. That's almost like him saying, You hypocrite. Lament and mourn and weep. Wait a second, I don't like this, Pastor John. I don't like this kind of verse. I like to change uh sadness for joy. I like to change dark for light. I want to go in the right direction. Actually, this is going in the right direction, but watch the way he says it. He says, Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Everything is not good. And you're gonna understand why it's not good in a moment. And we can't say it's good if it's not good. If we're going in the wrong direction, then you can't keep going in the wrong direction and saying, Yes, I'm drawing near to God. Let's get cozy with Jesus. It says, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. So now we kind of got a little bit more of light shined on the context of this verse, but I want to give you just four real quick. I'm gonna try to go through them very quickly. The first service I took way too long, just on the four um the elements. If we're just unpacking, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. The first one is to draw near, you have to move. To draw near, you have to move. That means I'm not sitting on my couch with the covers up and the TV on and my Bible opened here on the counter, thinking, I'm spending time with Jesus. And here's a question for you. In fact, James, the book of if you've never read through the book of James, I just want to issue a challenge. And I usually say, go read Matthew, go read Mark, go read John, Luke. Go read James this week. It is so powerful and so challenging to a believer who wants to be near Jesus. And it's short, just a few chapters, you can read through it, probably in an hour. But how powerful it is to question. He asks question after it's one of the ways that he teaches. I think if there are different strategies and methods of teaching, this is his method. He's at he asks questions. You think about it, then he goes ahead and answers it for you. But here's a question for you who does the drawing near first? Top quiz. Who does the answer? Who does the drawing first? Who does the drawing near first? We do. Draw near to God, and he will draw near. That means he's waiting on you. We think if God would just show up, if I could just get God to move, he's waiting on you, probably. You gotta you have to move. That's sad. There's actually something really powerful about there's something you and I do that that gets us close to God. It's not just us waiting on God, seeing what he'll do because he's all powerful, almighty, omnipotent, omnipresent. It's not just that he's this all-knowing God and he'll do what he wants when he wants to. He said, the door's open, balls in your court. It's up to you. Let's go. That we determine the level of intimacy and the level of relationship that we have with the Almighty God. He is all powerful, he is all-knowing, he is everywhere, but you and I get to set the pace of our relationship. How many relationships in life do I get to set the pace in? Usually it's kind of a back and forth. Oh, well, see, I don't want if you go on a first date with someone, you're like, I don't want to get too much too too close, too fast. I don't want to come on too strong. God says, draw near, doors open. Go as deep as you want to go. It's easy to think that they're like superstar Christians who have everything all together and they know God so much better than I do, and they have an intimacy and a relationship, and God must be speaking to them. You probably can think of some names in your head, maybe like Billy Graham or Oral Roberts or T.D. Jakes or any of the TV preachers, megachurch pastors. Well, they must be so close to God. What about the ones in the Bible? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, we know of them, Andrew, Peter, James, Bartholomew, the guys who they're the 12. God must have loved them extra special. Here's what I think. Here, this is this is my speculation, and I don't give this all the time because usually we like to read the Bible, and this is what it says. But watch this. It says that Jesus walked along the beach. Here comes Peter, he's working on his nets, and Jesus says, Come follow me. Peter leaves the nets and follows him. But it doesn't tell us how many times how many people does Jesus say that to? We don't know all. He could have said that to 20 people, 50, 100, maybe said it to a thousand people, but only 12 said, I'll come get close to that guy. This feels this feels right. I'll leave what I'm doing and I'll go that way. I think the same is true in this room. There's not like 12 special people that God wants to be with. He's saying to every one of us, hey, come follow me. Draw near, and then I'll draw near to you. Doors open. If you want to be a part of what God's doing, you gotta move. You gotta step out. Here's the next thing drawing near isn't accidental. Like the drawing process. Okay, you're not gonna accidentally draw near to God. You're not gonna just like one day, well, we'll see how this week goes and uh see if we got time in the schedule, then we'll just do all the things. And you know, I'm thinking about reading my Bible more, Pastor. And if I will see if I have time this week. You're not gonna accidentally spend time with God when you wake up in the morning and read your Bible and pray and spend some time in worship. It's not gonna happen. You gotta intentionally, okay, tomorrow I'm gonna spend time with God. We talk about the first 15. That's five minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading your Bible, five minutes of worship. That's 15 minutes. In 15 minutes, I can do a whole devotional time that will change not just my day, but my life. Maybe that's a start, maybe you can't even start with 15. That's a gr 15. First 15 is is amazing. But maybe you've only got the first five. God, I got five minutes, and I'm gonna spend it with you. But if you don't decide, if you're not intentional about it, then we're giving God the leftovers. It's not by accident. And here's the thing there's a big difference between drawing near and just drifting. You're not gonna drift into Jesus, you're not gonna drift into a relationship with God that is stronger. Well, when life calms down, uh, you know, I'll be able to uh attend a small group, or I'll be able to uh be at church more often, or I'll be able to give more, or I'll be able to serve, or I'll be able to uh just read my Bible more, or you have to decide what's important in life and draw near to God. So, my family, how many people in the room you guys like to tube the river? Got any river tubing fans? That's about some of you guys are ashamed to be river tubing fans. You're like my kids will tell you that we are river rats. We have camped and I would live on the river if that if it was possible. I love I love any river. It's not one particular. We'll go to the Guadalupe River, the Comau River, the Blanco River, the Seguin River, the Frio River, just all the rivers. Love being in the river. But here's something that happens. If you've ever tubed the river, you know this. You get in get in your tube, and then everybody has their own tubes, and we kind of this weird, everybody's floating in different. And then once we've all kind of settled in, then you have to kind of work to get together. Because if you're just settled in the river and relaxed, and you you can fall asleep right there, but when you wake up, you won't be near anyone you know. You'll be a part of a new family. And hi guys, I'm in your family now. Pass me some snacks. That's what happens on the river, but we you have to work, so you have to start paddling to get back with your people. And sometimes you get so separated, you can see them way down there, and you have to either go upriver or you have to get out of your tube and walk, or go up on the shore. And you got to work to stay close. Your relationship with God is the same way. If you're not paying attention, you're drifting. You're going the wrong, you're going wherever the current takes you. Or we put it in somebody else's responsibility. Hey, I'm with you guys today, keep me together with you. Can I just tell you if you're expecting someone in this room or someone in your faith walk or your family to keep you in the right path or to keep you near God, that's not how it works. It won't work. It won't work. So if you're drifting, wake up and let's start drawing near to God. That might look different for different people. Jesus says the same thing. It's almost a parallel verse for draw near to me, draw near to God, and he'll draw near to you. In John chapter 15, we see this Jesus is giving them the example of how he is the vine and we are the branches, and we he says, Remain in me as I also remain in you. There's this effort that has to take place where it's not you, even if you're planted, even if you got roots down, this still takes effort to decide I'm staying right here in God's presence. I'm staying right where God wants me to be. The next thing is this that near God is a specific place. It's not the it's not the moment where you just, ooh, I can't tell you how many times somebody told me, ooh, I just I got I got chill bumps all over. That must be the Holy Spirit. Okay, might be. But just because you got the chill bump, just because you got uh goosebumps all over your arms doesn't mean sometimes people will do this to me. They'll they'll have their sleeve open and then they'll say, Look at that, Pastor Sean. I'm like, Okay, what? What are we looking at? That's the Holy Spirit. I got chill bumps. Okay, but just because you feel cozy and just because you had a uh rush of adrenaline, or just because you like the way it feels where you're at, that doesn't mean it's God. I had a whole list, I'm not gonna share them all with you, but a list of things that sometimes we associate with God and they're not God at all. They might it might not be, it might coincidentally be maybe one is cleanliness is next to godliness. I do want you to take a bath and put on your deodorant and do all the things, brush your teeth, but that doesn't mean that that puts you in God's presence. How about God helps those who help themselves? Something we like to say, but not in the Bible. Or if I just dress this way, or if I just hang with these people, or if I just do this thing because my grandma did it, or my pastor does it. Or if it was God, it wouldn't be that hard. Wait a second. Sometimes there is an effort or a pain involved in the draw near or the remain. Or how about this? Follow your heart, God gave it to you. Well, you know, it also the Bible actually says that the heart is deceitful above all things. Your heart might be lying to you. Has that ever occurred to you? I'm following my heart, Pastor. Uh, yeah, your heart's lying to you, and you're way off bath. You're you're way off base. How about I feel peace? It must be God's will. I need to move on because I could keep going. But God has a preference of how we approach Him. In fact, we do worship uh on stage. Uh, for to start the service, we do worship. We sing and we clap our hands and we raise our hands, and it might not. We always tell everybody, you do what you want to do, and we'll do what we want to do. But don't stop me from doing what I want to do. Because maybe I want to raise my hands or clap or sing out loud or shout or whatever it looks like. But I I hope that what we're doing is for God and not for me. We're not doing it because I want to. We're doing because the Bible says, clap your hands, raise your hands, bow before the Lord, sing, shout, praise the Lord, give thanks. Come into his house with thanksgiving. So we're trying to follow God's idea, and sometimes culture, the culture of the world around us is different than the culture that God wants us to have. And if we're following other culture, I there's a lot of examples of this in the way that we date, in the way that we woo a potential partner. If you're dating today, I'm gonna give you some things not to do because I found in colonial America there was a a um a particular culture where they would use a courting stick. And I got a picture right here, if you don't believe me. It's a long hollow stick with an earpiece and a mouthpiece at each end, allowing young people to converse and flirt with each other without being too close with their parents around, and like they could whisper to each other. So I think that might work for Angela and I. She said no. There's some things that if you did them nowadays, if you said, hey, baby, here's my courting stick, let's talk. Thumbs down. And there's a there are a lot of things that you just would get looked at, like, who told you I like that? Who the where did you get the idea? But culture evolves and culture moves, and people make up things and traditions arise out of, ooh, I like to do this, so it becomes the thing to do. I will share with you that I was thinking about not telling you about this one, but in England and Austria, there was uh in flirting, there was what's referred to as an armpit apple. Women in rural Austria and earlier England would place a slice of apple in their armpit while dancing at a ball and then offer it to put potential suitors to eat. And this served as a physical and olfactory sign of attraction, so I I don't even know how that connection was made. But somebody said, hey, this would be very, very cool. Sometimes we come up with some ideas of how I'm gonna worship God, how I'm gonna spend my time with God, how I'm gonna draw near to God, and God is saying, uh, who told you that was a good idea? This is not a good idea. This is not taking, this is not bringing you into my presence. This is you're in someone else's presence. Just because you say you're drawing near to God doesn't mean you are. But when you spend time with someone, like I spend time with my wife, I know what she likes. She knows what I like. I don't have to ask her, I don't have to do something weird and try to get her attention. Deuteronomy 4.29 gives us uh in fact, there are multiple examples throughout the whole Bible of uh that show us that there is an effort to be made to draw near to God. There you will look for the Lord and you will search for him with all your heart and you will find him. He doesn't say that you'll look for him and you'll find him. It says you'll look for him when you look with all your heart. Like there's this effort that has to be put into a surrender of, okay, I'm all in, God. Let me let me find you. Another verse in Hebrews chapter 11 says, Anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who, one word, earnestly seek him. Those who earnestly seek him, there has to be this effort put into the pursuit and the drawing. The last one that I want to tell you about, and then we're gonna we're gonna unpack the scripture a little bit with context is this that it's not a step, it's a journey. God's not looking for a transaction with you where, like, if you'll just take a step, and we talk a lot about taking steps. I'm all for taking steps, but God is not saying, okay, you take a step, and then I'll take a step. That's like a transaction. You go to the grocery store and and and you're you're there's a price tag on the item you want. You say, Let me count out my unfortunately$2.49 for a pound for the apples that I like. I'm willing to pay the cost, but it's a transaction. God is not looking for a transactional relationship with you, He's looking for a nearness, an intimacy that requires if you'll just come close to him, then you'll be close to him. It's not a tit for tat or quid pro quo where God, you said if I would just take a step, then you'd take care of me. That's not what God wants from you or for you. God doesn't want to have a meeting with you, he wants to do life with you. Okay, I'll be at the meeting. No, God doesn't want a meeting with you. He wants to spend time with you. If a meeting gets him with you and spending life with you and doing life where your life is surrendered and your life is near him, that's what he wants. I try to I love a meeting, but I also want to spend time with my kids. Sometimes my kids come over, we're having dinner, and all of a sudden we're in a meeting. They didn't even ask for the meeting. And we have a rule at my house that it's not a meeting if you don't have uh paper and a pen or you don't have to pull your phone out. So I use that rule for my advantage. We just we're meeting, we're talking, we're discussing. I'm spending time with them. But is there ever a time where you're spending a moment with God that's not organized and planned? Like, okay, God, I'm reading my Bible. Okay, God, I'm I'm gonna say my prayers. Okay, from this time to this. Like, are you ever just in God's presence? Okay, God, I'm here for you. What do you want to do? Are you ever just waiting on God to speak, or are you just saying what you gotta say, and then you get on to the next thing? All right. For the rest of my time, I want us to really unpack this. And then for us to do that, then I have to give you a breakdown really quickly that the book of James, like every book in the Bible, was not written with chapters and verse numbers in them. They were written as letters. If you wrote a letter, you wouldn't write. Okay, chapter one, verse one. You wouldn't do that. We did that so we can find it in the Bible. It was broken down so that we could go find it again really quickly. So when he writes it, he's not writing chapter three. Okay, now I need to go to chapter four. Chapter three and four are really the same idea unfolding. And so we're gonna back up into chapter three a little bit. And it starts with verse 13. We're gonna start with verse uh chapter three, verse 13. There's a lot of he asks a question and then answers it himself. But I want you to watch this as we start in verse uh 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? Question. He's trying to get us to look at our lives. Like, take a look at your life. You would know if you were wise because of the result. You you would know if you ult in for me to translate in in Pastor Sean's translation, it is take a look at your life. Is it working right? If you were doing things right, the result around you would be obvious. And he says, Let them show it by their good by their good life. Like if you were wise and doing the right things, show me with your life. By deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But on the other hand, a different kind of result might be obvious. If you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambitions in your heart, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but it is earthly, unspiritual. Demonic. So just right off the bat, I want you to recognize like the difference between he's saying that there's a way you can live that comes from heaven, comes from above, it's it's coming down, or there's a way that you can live that's demonic and earthly and unspiritual and ultimately comes from hell up. As there as we continue to read this, I want you to see the two contrasts that there is a way that you can live. He says there's a wisdom that comes from above or a wisdom that comes from below. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. Like the if the results of your life are turning evil, and you got the wrong result, and you can't show me good deeds. You can't show me uh that your life is working out right. He says, But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sh who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. He's describing two different kinds of life a kind that comes from heaven down or a kind that comes from the other way. Two different cultures, two different wisdoms. There's a bunch of ways to say it. This week we began the month, the month of October, and I would say probably more than a month ago, I don't know how long ago, my neighborhood, maybe like your neighborhood, there are already my neighborhood is covered in demons and werewolves and vampires and I'm serious. All of the Halloween decorations are out in people's yards, and it's the month where we openly celebrate all that is evil, right? It's all in fun, all in uh fun and games, but it's the one moment where we say, I'm reaching for, and it's part of our culture. I'm reaching for the culture of evil, and it's fun and it's a game, and it's it's playful, right? But can I tell you that there are evils in the world that are even worse than vampires and demons and um werewolves out in your yard? It's envy and strife and pride and all of the evil that comes from below that is demonic. We just like to think that we like to think that hell and the culture of hell is like we think of the movie Exorcist and people's heads spinning around and vomit and all of the all of what it would look like to cast out demons. And can I tell you that the culture that hell is pushing toward us, it may not be vampires and demons. It produces destruction in our lives, and we're reaching for it and embracing and adopting this culture that is not from heaven. And what James is saying is which culture have you chosen? All you have to do to figure out is look around at your life. Show me what's wrong in your life. Show me if if the results in your life are the kind that are produced by a heavenly culture, or are they the kind that are produced by a culture of demonic, unspiritual, earthly things? I told you that this was not an encouraging message when we started. This is you and me being given the option of life or death, the culture of heaven or the culture of hell, and even though one day we're gonna leave this earth and our hope is to be with him in heaven, today you have to choose which culture you're gonna live in. Which culture are you gonna live in? A heaven-down culture or a hell-up culture? We'll keep reading in uh in James. And this is where we finish chapter three, but it you'll see that it's as the conversation is the same. Continuing from chapter three to chapter four, he says, What causes fights and quarrels among you? Again, asking this question, and I'll paraphrase what is wrong in your life? What's the problem that you can tell me about your life? He says, Do they come from your desire? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? Your desire, you desire, but you do not have, so you kill. You covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. And when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. And then it gets really harsh. So just prepare your gird your loins because you adulterous people. Here's that finger again. Don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity with God, against God? Like the two cultures available to us, a heaven-down culture or a hell-up culture, you gotta choose one, and they're both against each other. If you choose the earthly hell up culture, then you're actually against God. You can't have them both. Therefore, if anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. And if you think that you're a friend of God and yet you've embraced the culture of the world, he's saying, What's going on in your life? I can show you exactly which culture you chose based on the results that are happening in your life. Not to say that if you follow God, everything's perfect in your life. But the fruit of your life is different, even if you're sitting in a jail cell, even if you've been falsely accused or accused, if you've been given so many wrongs, if you've been dealt so many wrong cards and your hand is bad. The fruit of your life is still better if you've involved embraced a culture of heaven. So if I ask you in your life this morning, just like James, I think is asking, what's the conflict in your life? I think every we go around the room, I could go around the room and say, hey, what's going on in your life? Kelly, tell me what's wrong going on in your life, what's wrong in your life. Like sitting down at uh your therapist. What is going on this week? Tell tell me about it. Or if we just go down the list, Jackie, tell me about what's going on. Tell me, give me the rundown, give me the list of all the problems. Probably I can tell you because I've heard all of it and I have my own. The list probably looks something like this. Well, that woman at my job, she's gotta go. That guy, my boss, my neighbor, that HOA. I'm telling I'm going to war with my HOA. It's a we got a list of people who are on our bad list. We've got a list of problems that are bad. We got a bill that's not that's due. We've got something that's not lining up, but what I think what James is saying is tell me what's going on in your life. The problem is not the thing that's going wrong. The problem is you've chosen and embraced and adopted the wrong culture, and it's producing the wrong results in your life. Because even if you've got all the wrong things going, if you've got God's culture from heaven, then things don't work out the same. I'm not telling you that if you'll just do it God's way, everything will be perfect. I'm telling you that you can look around at your life and I'll just say, How's it working for you? How's that hell, demonic, unspiritual, earthly culture? What's it producing in your life? You can complain about it or you can do something about it. So, why do I have this conflict? Why do I have this struggle? Why do I have this envy? Why do I have this strife? It's not the strife, it's not the envy, it's not that person that's your enemy. We don't struggle against flesh and blood. The thing that you're struggling with is would you just say this out loud? It's a culture problem. You got the wrong culture and you don't want to address the culture, you don't want to acknowledge it. You've just chosen and embraced and adopted the wrong culture. Let's keep reading. Because I would like to finish this. Or do you think scripture says that without reason, that he is he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? This is amazing. Like you can choose either you either culture that feels good to you. You have a choice. He said, I'm giving you, you can draw near. We're gonna go at your pace. You get to decide what culture you're living in. God's not gonna punish you. You're gonna have the results in your life of the culture you choose. But he jealously longs that you'll choose the right culture and spend time with him, that you draw near to him. And then it says this, but he gives us more grace. So even if we choose, even if we make the wrong choice, even if we go the wrong way and choose a hell of culture and we choose uh demonic things, he still loves us. He's still gonna give us grace, but he wants us to choose him. That's why scripture says God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. In the New King James Version, instead of jealously longs, it says yearns jealously. God is yearning for time with me. That's that's hard to think about because oh, he's God, he's out there, he's got a lot going on, but he yearns jealously for my time. That puts a whole new spin on uh reading my Bible and worship time and the first 15. God, like if I have a date with my wife set for Friday night, which we try to do every week, if something gets in the way of that Friday night date night, I'm upset about it. If you text my wife and say, Hey, can you meet up with me on Friday night? I'm mad at you. And when God when God has time scheduled with you, imagine I got first 15 tomorrow morning. I got the first 15 coming. I God longs for it. It says he yearns to spend time with you. For your spirit to be near him. There are times in Angela and I, I've been we've been married 25 years. Amen. But there's times that she does not yearn to be with me, I'll tell you that. Yesterday, yesterday they were doing the uh bridal shower at our house for Grace and uh Jackson, and the house was beautiful, and I can't tell you, there's just stuff everywhere I turned, the little sandwiches which I wanted to eat but couldn't eat. I was rejected. This is not for you. And we worked all morning at the uh serve day, and we were sweating, and all you guys who came out, you know that some of you guys left very dirty. I got home and I'm yearning to spend time with my wife and hang out, and I'm gonna go in for some smooches. I'm trying to keep a PG for you guys, just to let you know. She said, No, sir. At that moment, I was too dirty, too unclean for her to yearn to be with me. I think I imagine that God, there's no there's no moment where he doesn't yearn to be. There's not a moment where you're so unclean or that you're you're not right, or that you're not, you don't fit into his program, but he absolutely wants you to spend time with him. He loves you enough to take you however you are, but he loves you too much to leave you there. He wants you to walk into his presence and not be too busy. In fact, Psalm 139 says this that David said if he could count the thoughts that God has about us, it would be more than the sands, more than the grains of sand. That is so many, that's like you think somebody loves you, you think someone cares about you and thinks an awful lot about you. I can tell you that I don't probably think more than about a shoebox full of sand. All the thoughts I've ever had about Angela are probably fit into a shoebox. They say a cubic foot of sand is about a billion grains. How many thoughts does God have about you? He's been thinking about you from before you were born. He loves you, he desires you, he yearns for you. He made us to have communion and intimacy with him, and yet we wake up, oh God, I'm too tired. I'll get you next week. I want to close with just a few ideas, and we're gonna read the the last the last passage back to draw near to God. I think this culture thing is the culture at my house, for instance. I love to have dinner with my kids and my family and uh mother-in-law, everybody's around. Now Jackson is becoming a part of our family. We're all sitting around the dinner table. It's a beautiful, I love that time with them, but what would happen? What would happen if I came home one night and they told me dinner's ready and the chair that I always sit in, my chair around our table. What if another guy was sitting in that table that I didn't know? And they said, Oh, uh dad, in the in the just in the in the heart of diversity and inclusivity, we're just gonna bring in a few other guys to take your place for, I'm telling you right now, that wouldn't last. This table only exists because of me. And God is much more gracious to us when we put other people at his table. We bring other people in, and we've got all of our own reasons and all of our own excuses, and we say, God, I know you love me, and this is your table that you made, and you brought us all here. But we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna bring in a few other dads. We're gonna bring in a few other changes that we've been talking about. We don't like to think that we would do that, but we do it every day. Ultimately, I think it is comforting to know that no matter how bad, no matter how far, no matter how much drifting has gone on, no matter the things we participated in and the ideas that we've had, ultimately God is ready for us to draw near to him. I think the biggest provision in this verse is that he's not gonna slap our hand and say, No, you had your chance. He's saying that if we'll draw near to him, he's still ready to draw near to us. He loves us that much, he's yearning for us that much. But there also is this sense that we need to approach him the way he wants to be approached. There has to be a fear of God. I wish I could do a whole message this morning on the fear of God because we have totally lost it. You're not gonna find the presence of God in a place where he's not respected. You're not gonna bring the presence of God into your life if your life doesn't respect and honor and fear him. We're gonna read the last passage. It says, Therefore, submit to God, resist the this is the this is actually the um the prescription, the answer to how do we solve this problem that we are we've chosen the wrong culture or that we're going the wrong way, or that we have this conflict in us. Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Choose the right culture, draw near to God, and he'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. You can't have both. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He'll lift you up. I'm gonna invite the band to join me, and we're gonna close in worship and close with prayer. But I need you to get this that there are moments in your life where you have to have a reset. Maybe you've had a hold of the wrong culture, maybe you've been going in the wrong direction. Maybe you need a cultural reset. I'm not too proud to admit that in our family over the last 23 years, my son's 23 years old. There have been a few moments where as a father, I've had to put down my pride, and things are not going like if I just look at the scope of our family, not all the circumstantial things of like, oh, he said this and she said this, and they did this, and I came in as the dad, and there were rules and this and this and this, like all the things we get caught in with our lives, the excuses. But as a father, I have to look at the the full scope of our home and our family and our relationship. And if they're not going in the right direction, it's on me to do something about it. And so, several times over the last 23 years, I've called a family meeting and said, All right, guys, I'm not talking about every week. I'm talking about we do we routinely live together, work together. Now my kids are moved out, so things are changing. I tell all the stories of when they lived with me. But there were several times where I said, Look, I don't care who's wrong, I don't care who's right, the whole thing is wrong. Like all the way around, the culture of the house right now is wrong. So I'm gonna apologize. Call a family meeting, I'm gonna apologize and just start off by saying, I was wrong for allowing this to happen. I was wrong for allowing it to get to this point. I'm not standing on principle, and how dare you say that to me, and I'm not gonna let you get away with this. And we will have order in my house because I could have said all of those things. But what I did say was it's it's on me to fix this, and so I'm repenting. Repenting is just turning and going the other way, and I want you to go with me. So I apologize to you. Let's fix this, let's get our hearts tender before the Lord, tender between each other. Let's live in humility, let's wash our hands of it, let's have a reset, let's have a fresh start, let's start over. Sometimes you cannot untangle the mess that you've made to the point that you can't that you it'd be better just to go to God and say, God, I don't know how to fix this. But let's have a family meeting and reset. Some of you in the room right now, it's time for a reset. I'm done with the message, but maybe that's you, and you you're in a position where you need to just maybe you need to call family meeting. Maybe you just need to have a meeting between you and God. Maybe it's on the way home from church today. All by yourself, or before you leave, right now in the altar, right now at your chair, right now in this next worship song. You need to have a reset where you cleanse, wash your hands, submit to the Lord. Okay, God, I'm tired of running, I'm tired of drifting, I'm trying, I'm tired of doing my thing. I think you get the point. So I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna leave you to it. I'm gonna ask you to just, would you stand on your feet? Whatever decision that is that the Holy Spirit is leading you to right now, to reset your culture, to let go of the things of the world, you can't get close to God as long as you're holding on to the other things. You gotta let go. Step into what He has for you, the culture of heaven, let go of the culture of hell. And if you'll lean on the Holy Spirit and trust the Holy Spirit, he'll guide you through it, he'll coach you through the process. If it seems overwhelming, let's just lean into the Holy Spirit today. We're gonna worship for just a moment, and I challenge everyone in the room to have a reset culturally. Repent, wash your hands. Let's take a moment and then we're gonna pray together. So let's lift up our voices and bow our hearts before Him. In Jesus' name. Starting over. Would you just open your hands in front of you as a sign of surrender? God, I relinquish everything in my hands. I'm open, I'm available, making room right here for you. So I want us to say this prayer. Whether you are that person who's you may have been going to church for a long, long time, but then you've been drifting this way or drifting that way, or you've picked up different pieces of the wrong culture, and it's time to reset. Or you've never given your life to God, you've never chosen to follow the way of heaven and follow Jesus. We're gonna make that commitment together. So with your hands open in front of you, would you just repeat these words and let's have a reset together? Dear Heavenly Father, today I choose to follow you. I surrender my life to you. I choose to follow the culture of heaven and not the culture of hell. So help me to know the difference, God. Lead me by your Holy Spirit. Help me to pick up what's yours and put down what is not yours. Help me to close my eyes when I need to. Help me to stop listening when I need to, and help me to focus on you every day. Forgive me of my sin, forgive me of going the wrong way. From this moment forward, I'll follow you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's put our hands together. I am proud of you guys for continuing to follow God and make decisions, making decisions every week that get you closer and closer into His presence. The prayer team's gonna join me up here at the front. If you want to pray with someone before you leave, would you come down? Otherwise, God bless you. You're dismissed, and we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:17

For giving your attention and your focus and just on the Lord God. Thank you for being with us and let go and let God this week.