Bless God, bless God, bless God. So we go ahead and just start. So the name of this message is called Peace for Perilous Times. Peace for Perilous Times. And so let's jump into the first scripture. I'm not gonna do a lot of intro. That's gonna have a lot of ground to cover. But 2 Timothy 3, one through five, I used this in the last message I preached about a month ago. But understand this. that in the last days, there will become times of difficulty. The King James Version says perilous times. For why? Because people will be lovers of self. Lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good. While they're lovers of money, lovers of self, they're not loving good. Treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. The Bible says avoid such people. So we're going to talk about in the last days. Last days is anything from the apostolic period up until the present day. That time period is called the last days. Now, some people will argue that this is more speaking to as the time approaches for Christ's return. But regardless of whether or not it's speaking only, you know, because it was probably very pertinent at the time that Paul wrote it. But as the time waxes toward the end, we know that Jesus prophesied that And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will wax cold. So an indicator of the return of Christ is that cold-heartedness in people will start to be demonstrated because sin is so prevalent. Amen? So the one thing that's critical about this is And I didn't really highlight this in the last point, but when I started it, this is not talking about the world. This is talking about the church. Now that just turned the whole thing up on me. I read it that way. I was like, in the last days, so people will have an appearance of godliness, but denying its power. So here you have people that are calling themselves believers, loving themselves, loving money, loving pleasure, but not loving good or loving God. They have an appearance of godliness, but denying its power. And that's why he says, avoid such people. And so then there's different attributes in there that are indicative of people who love themselves. Because we know that Jesus called us to what? Deny ourselves. So this is a love of self. One of the things I talked to you guys about in the last message that I did, called A Mirror for Your Motives, is that even social psychologists in this day and time are saying there's a rise of narcissism. Yes, it is. That's epidemic that has never superseded anything historically. So we have a culture that is full of ourselves. And the sad part about it is it's crept into the church. Okay, so that's kind of the backdrop for my message. Let's go to the next one. Jesus replied, anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own. They belong to the father who sent me. All this I have spoken while still with you. But the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you. And this is the part that I wanted to hone in on. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. The message that I did prior to the one before was on, was called Jesus Gives Peace to His Disciples. Now when I gave that message in December of last year, Our church was hit with a lot of, individuals were hit with a lot of things. Death of loved ones, health struggles, health struggles of loved ones, and in some cases, very tragic deaths. So the Holy Spirit, it keeps echoing this in my spirit when I'm praying, when I'm praying for the people. You know, that his peace is available for those who follow him. Now, here's the thing. He didn't tell that he had peace to the crowd. He didn't promise his peace to the Pharisees or the scribes or the Sadducees. He spoke to his disciples. Okay, now they weren't perfect. even though they would go on to make further mistakes. Peter, Peter turned around and what did Peter do? He denied him shortly there afterwards, right? At the time of his greatest need. He also, you know, I mean, Peter really messed up a couple of times because in the book of Galatians, Peter was straddling the fence, playing both sides of the fence. So, but that peace was still something that he promised to Peter, okay? They had a resolve to follow him, though, because Jesus, the same Jesus that we always look at is, you know, he just loves everybody, calls everyone and stuff. It's the same Jesus that challenged people. You read them Gospels, I want y'all to read them. Because he would sit up there and go, you want to follow me? The foxes have holes, the birds have... I have nowhere to lay my head. You still want to follow me? Okay, you want to follow me? Let the dead bury the dead. He put people, he challenged them. He's like, look, before you want to follow me, count up the cost. You know what I'm saying? Nobody builds a building and doesn't make sure he has the adequate resources to handle it. No one goes to war without counting up to see if I can take this. Can I make it happen? So he was letting you know, if you want to follow me, it's going to cost you. And it's going to cost you everything. The depth to which he wanted you to, this is what he, I want your all. I want your all. If you don't love father or mother, sister or brother more than me, you're not worthy. Throw it all in. Are you in it to win it or are you in it for the minute? You know what I'm saying? Because fair weathered believers will, soon as the going gets tough, I don't believe that Jesus. He didn't do XYZ for me. So it's all about me. What do you can you do for me Jesus and Jesus like no, what can you you you surrender to me? I'm the king of Kings. I'm the Lord of Lords. I'm the pearl of great price when you know who I am, then you'll be shoot. You'll be doing whatever it takes to fall fall in line with me. Okay, so this piece. is available with people that have made up their mind to have that resolve of pursuit. Sold out individuals. Jehovah Shalom is available sold-out individuals. We know that the Holy Spirit love peace joy gentleness kindness goodness faith temperance meekness. He talks about his peace, but he also talks about the coming of the Holy Spirit and they go hand-in-hand and I'm repeating this stuff because I mentioned this in the last message, but the Holy Spirit is the one who he is God and one of the things he does he brings peace into the situation because he is peace, right? One of the names of God in the Old Testament is Jehovah Shalom, God my peace. And he tells us, I'll keep you in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me. So a lot of times, and this is the reason why the Lord gave me this, is because we need to understand that sometimes we don't have his peace because we're in the wrong place. Okay, but we'll go on to that next. Let me go on to the next. Next slide. Romans 14 17 says for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. He doesn't just say peace and joy. He doesn't just say joy. And he doesn't say joy, peace, and righteousness. He doesn't say peace, joy, and righteousness. He says righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. First and foremost, none of us can say this, I had to state this right off, we're not made right because of what we bring to the table. Let's make that plane right off. You're made right. You don't come because you're worthy. You know, okay, now I got it together. Now I'm worthy of being saved. No, that's not it. He calls you. If you have any appetite to seek him, it's because he's calling you to himself. Then when he calls you, then he enables you to choose him. We have the opportunity to choose him. When we choose him, we're made right positionally, not because of anything we bring to the table. He makes us right because of what he did. Now here's the B part. Because if you read that part, he says, it's by grace we have been saved through faith, not by works listed even in Shavuot. So I might be saying this a little bit wrong, but we were made for good works. So while you're not saved by your works, I say this over and over again, but we're saved for good works. So you're not saved to be sloppy. You're not saved for yourself. You're not saved like the people in the first part to be lovers of self, lovers of money, and lovers of pleasure. It ain't about you anymore. He's like, now you put me on the throne and you let me run your life. And in the process of doing that, you'll display righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. How many of you know, once you came to him and you started surrendering to him, that you started having changes? The stuff you used to do, you don't do like you used to do. You know what I'm saying? You may be a work in progress, but you know it's like, look, I can't do what I did because I know there are consequences to it. That's his work. There's salvation, then there's sanctification. And sanctification requires your participation. This ain't sit back and let God handle it. Okay, I'm gonna get up. I'm about me and mine. I'm gonna give me some money. I'm gonna get me some pleasure, whatever that is. You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna do me and somehow I'm going to look like Jesus. No, it's intentional. He pursued you, now you pursue him. That is the basis by which this foundation of transforming love Christian Center comes on. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God because he was good to you that you present your body as a living sacrifice. You present you. Holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reef. It makes sense as much as he did for you If you realize it then you the least you could do is give him your life. That's what he wants. He wants your life It's shabby. Anyway If all of us can be true, we have some sloppy lowdown dirty no good Janky lives that we were living before Jesus called us to himself. I I was a whoremongering. I mean, if the truth be known, we did everything low down and dirty under the sun. There's nothing new under the sun, but we try to try everything that was out there. And God said, OK, you know what? It's jacked up, and you are an enmity with the cross. I'm still, because I'm good, I'm loving, I'm generous. I'm going to call you to myself. Called you out of darkness, the darkness of your thinking, the darkness of your moral impurity. I called you out of darkness into the marvelous light. Now, I didn't call you from darkness to darkness. I called you from darkness into the marvelous light. So now you're starting to see, and you're starting to see clearly that God has an expectation, and his expectation is good. So one of the things he offers to those who walk in his righteousness is peace, and that peace is supernatural. It's not contingent upon our circumstances. One thing I said before, he said, the peace that I give you, the world doesn't give it to you. It's not the world's kind of peace. It's a different flavor. Right? It's not contingent upon us. It guards our hearts and minds through difficulties. I need this piece. Jesus don't just give stuff to be giving stuff, right? He gives you something because you're going to need it. He told them disciples before he was about to go to the cross. He told the disciples before they were about to go, stuff was about to go down. It was about to go down hard. And I'm telling you, you're going to need this piece. It's not a nice to have, it's a need to have. It's not a luxury item, it's a necessity. I need the peace of God. And I need to value it, appreciate it, and I need to experience it as much as possible. Amen? So let's go to this. And you're going to need it because one of the things he said, if you're following me, the world don't love me, it's not going to love you. So the spirit of this world is going to oppose you, and so you're going to need this peace to stand. Obedience is key. You don't give his peace to rebels or rogues. If you're a rebel or you're a rogue, if you want to go rogue and do you and do your own thing, you can't count on his peace. You can get the counterfeit version, but the new and improved and better version, you can't get it. Okay, so he wants to make us right, and he's going to affect every area of our lives. Behavior, conversation, and thinking, right? So one of the things that was in my mind, and I said this when I was doing the mirror for your motives, is the word is a mirror for my motives. So I got to look in the mirror and see myself and watch. How do we do it? We read the mirror and we agree with him. We read the mirror and we pray that the Holy Spirit enable us to live out the life that he's called us to. Remember, what is the agenda of God once we're saved? He's calling us to himself, but to conform us into the image of Christ. So the more I look at this, the more Jesus I should be seeing. If I don't, something ain't right. If I'm not seeing enough of Jesus in there, that means that maybe I need to do some confessing. I need to do some repenting. I need to do some fasting. I need to recruit some help. Somebody come here, you know, help me with this situation because I'm not growing properly. Maybe I'm not in the word. Maybe I don't even have a mirror. Maybe I'm not looking at the mirror. Maybe that's the problem, right? If you're not in the mirror, you're not looking at yourself enough to allow him to conform you into the image of his son. So we need what I call daily heart checkups. In the word, but praying and asking the Holy Spirit, is there any area that I need, that you need to deal with me on? My attitude, my conversation, My conduct, when I make a mistake, let me be quick to announce it. I mean, I do, you know, sometimes like you sit up there and you got, you got a hold of your tongue, right? But the pressure dials up. It don't stay the same. That fire go up a little bit more. And where you maybe had self-control under the, what is it, 350 degrees, when the oven go to 450, you might not find yourself acting the way you would like to believe you should act. And in which case you say, okay, Lord, forgive me, forgive me. Because by yielding to the Holy Spirit, then I can start to demonstrate the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So I have to read his word and I got to lean on the Lord because as pressures and times and difficulties can happen, you can't do this walk on your own and it wasn't never meant to be that way. It wasn't, it isn't about just being a book reader and all of a sudden like, look, I can pass the test. I got it. You know what I'm saying? Because I'm smart. I got book smarts. No, it is, this test cannot be passed outside of leaning on the Lord. He wants dependence. He wants you to walk after him. Now, he didn't say walk alongside, he said walk after him. Let him lead, let him guide, let him provide. He empowers, he enables. So most of us, like I said, when we came to Christ, we had shabby, jacked-up lives. And we ate off, Dave always says, ate off that tree so much that we had an appetite for the wrong things. And so, and I always tell people, I said, repentance is good, and the sooner you do it, better. Because the longer and farther you walk away, When you turn around, it's a longer way back. So it's like, turn around in the second block. Don't wait till you get six blocks down the line. If he tells you turn now, turn now. Because a lot of us know that one time, because that becomes entrenched into your mode of thinking. It's not beyond his ability to take you from there to there. But because you have ate from that so much, all of a sudden now it's like, okay, this is gonna be a little more challenging. If you drink all the way up until you're 60 years old, that you got cirrhosis of the liver and you sitting up, you can still turn your life over to God and have some victory, but the fact of the matter is that long walk out has some consequences and it's gonna make it a little bit more challenging for you to do because your mind's gonna need to be breathing. So confession is need for cleansing. What is confession a lot of times first? Confession is agreeing that God's word is right. That's premier in this day and time because everyone's trying to rewrite the word, people's trying to invalidate the word, but we got to first let God be true and every man a liar. That means what I feel, what I think, what I perceive of myself is a lie if it doesn't agree with God's word. He is truth. And so you have to have that resolve. Now, two other things that I'm gonna say, and I'm not gonna talk about it today, but resulting in peace, you can confess your sins. These are the things that the Lord put on my heart. Confess your sins, cast your cares, take it one day at a time, dial down your expectations. That's not part of my message, but I just wanna put it out there. Confess sins, because what it is is you're emptying out. We wanna be filled with the Holy Spirit. So we gotta agree with him, we gotta turn it over to him, and we gotta repent. change our mind and start making decisions in agreement with it. So let me go to the next part, next scripture. Proverbs 28, 13 says, whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. And so that's what I'm trying to talk to you guys about here, is when you're in the word and you see something in there that doesn't reflect you or you're not in operation to it, agree with him. If you really want to prosper and walk in God and experience all that he has to offer, including the peace of God, agree with him. Don't agree with the world because the world is becoming more radically and radically opposed to what he's saying. And I'm going to say this because we're in a time where people are rewriting key terms. Satan has worked in the world to rewrite terms in order to veer people from God's divine intentions as divine in scripture. He attempts to make a mockery out of God's original creation by leading people into a counterfeit version. He has worked in the world to redefine what it means to be married in the culture, what gender is in the culture, and to know what truth is. I mean, those are big. If you stop and think about it, now people are saying truth is objective. I mean, subjective is not objective. is what you feel, what you think. There is no objective truth. That gender, now we got 52 pronouns that you have to find out what people want to be addressed by because everything is subjective. It's what do you want to be addressed by, right? And marriage in the culture is not symbolic of Christ and his church. If you're trying to live for Jesus, okay, the world's going to be the world. If you want to do that, go ahead. You go ahead, but deal with the consequences of that. But the fact of the matter is in the church, what are we supposed to be? But this is our authority. So it doesn't matter what the world's saying. They can redefine all the terms they want. They can do whatever they want. They can have the party in the field that they want to, but it shouldn't be in the house of God. Bless God. He has been strategic and methodically incorporating new definition to key areas, the child education system, and even into some areas of our laws and church denominations. The young people are being groomed. They're being conditioned to think that anyone and all that don't agree with this are somehow hateful individuals. And so rather than representing a living creator. Now, let me tell you this. I did everything under the sun. So a lot of things I'm telling you don't do, I did. And I'm telling you, I did it, and I did it big. I did not half step. I was in it. I was in it, so some of this stuff, I lived a gay lifestyle, I did. I did it all the way to, how old was I when I turned around? It was about 10 years ago, or it was a little bit more than that, but 10 years, so I did it all. I buried a lot of friends. Now, some of y'all may say, well, that was during the AIDS crisis. Yes, I buried people that I knew, that I had been involved with during the AIDS crisis. I remember I remember people you go to the club and you'd be like dang what happened to salsa they did I Remember going to church The choir section gone. I remember. I remember people that I kicked it with, and we did all kind of stuff with, and then wondering what happened to them. Oh, they died in 2003. Oh, they died in such and such. I remember. Now, somebody said, well, it's a new day. It's a new time. It's a new era. The reason why people suffered was because of the homophobia that was in the culture. You, Rick, just have a problem with internalized homophobia. You internalize the culture's hostility to homophobia, so that's the reason why you have this problem. I'm like, no. And I'm telling you, I will read articles from people who are pro. I'll listen to people. But I've noticed that some of the same struggles we had back then are still present now. There are still struggles people still have. Now, anxiety and depression highest. in a lot of the, with a lot of gay males. Abuse high in the lesbian community. We used to call it, now I hate to use this term, but no, I'm not going to use the term, but we used to call it D-drama. Because I lived with lesbians. The first people that were, they were lesbians that I was, and we used to come in and then, you know, and they would have their girls come over or whatever. And it was, it was drama. They called it drama. They had a label for it. And the crazy part is that God called me out of it when everyone was going to be for it. So I've always been on the wrong side of the argument. I was living it when everyone hated it, and then I stopped living it when everyone was celebrating it. But I'm like, well, that's all right. I know how to be on the outs. But now for a right reason. So I'm not insensitive to the struggle, because the struggle is real. When people have struggles in their life, dang, you know, it's hard. We don't want to oversimplify, but I'm going to tell you this, and I believe this with my whole heart. The things that we had would not be in play. If sex wasn't so celebrated, it's an entitlement. It's an entitlement. Everyone thinks so. So why wouldn't anyone who's in the culture say, you know what? Look, everyone else is doing it. Why can't I do what I want to do? You know what I'm saying? How are you going to come up against it? If the church had been living like the church during the time, because the divorce rate is high in the church, then it would have been, maybe we would have had a different set of circumstances. But it didn't happen, and so we have what we have. But here's the thing, we have to choose to forsake sin, We're living in a time of itching ear preaching. I'm going to try to get back on track. Itching ear preaching doesn't allow for teaching on forsaking sin. At the time that Paul wrote that scripture about the last days, it's in that same book that he also talked about. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears, right? So at the time when he's saying people will be lovers of themselves, sound doctrine was not being...they were rejecting it. Thank you, sir. So we're still in that time. So through communion and surrenders of the Holy Spirit, we will be a godly people that will reflect God's divine intentions in the earth. These individuals, the people that have that resolve, will experience the peace of God from Jehovah Shalom. Now, I'm going to do something. Let's go to the next slide. And I'm going to put something out here. I pulled some of the scriptures from 2 Timothy 3, 1 and 5, and I want to show you from the vantage point of conversation, conduct, and mindsets, things that should not be in our lives or should be decreasing. Okay? And it's by the word of God. Now, remember I told you the word of God is supposed to be a mirror to us, right? We're supposed to be able to see ourselves. So these are all things that are from scripture. We're not supposed to be boastful, blasphemers, slanderers. That means when you take people's names through the mud. Church folks do do that. I've been around enough church folks. It shouldn't be. But that does happen in the house, but it shouldn't be in our midst. Gossip, we're living in a time where people like Wendy Williams and TMZ and gossip, the gossip is really high prevalent, but it shouldn't be in the church. Lying, we know who the father of lies is, so we shouldn't look like our former daddy. We should be looking like our present daddy who speaks truth, right? So if this finds you anywhere, then you have to agree with God and start to renounce it. And if you need help, call for help. Quarreling, foul speech, and filthy communication. Most of us, before we came, we really surrendered to God. We had foul mouths. We knew every single word. We found creative ways. We had extra words, right. We had extra words. We made up words. Whatever it took to express ourselves. But when we came into relationship with God, we said, okay, now I have to reflect Him. And so I got to make the necessary adjustments. Let's go to the next one. Conduct, actions, disobedient to parents, without self-control. Brutal. Traitors, rather than having a godly, healthy loyalty. Idolatry, giving their hearts over to everything and anything but God. God needs to be premier in our hearts. Drunkenness. Sexual immorality. Stealing. Let's go to the next one. These are all things that are called out in scripture. So I'm not just writing up a list. I actually went through different vice lists and pulled out different things so we could at least throw it up there. Certain mindsets in Edison, we shouldn't be proud, unthankful. Thankfulness actually is a good thing to practice if you want to experience more peace. Unholy, unloving, unforgiving. You shouldn't be the one that sit up and talk about, I hold a grudge. No, you shouldn't be holding a grudge. Because you don't want Jesus holding a grudge against you. Right? We should be not despisers of good. We're not headstrong. We're not haughty. We shouldn't love ourselves. We should deny ourselves. And we actually, through denying ourselves, we should experience more of the love of God. Amen? Let's go to the next one. Lovers of money, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Envying, jealousy, anger, wrath, tick, tick, boom. You remember Big Al used to say, tick, tick, boom. That means you the one saint that don't nobody want to come talk to you because tick, tick, boom. Right? You will explode at the drop of a hat. Tick, tick, boom. That is not godly. Okay, rude. Love is not rude. On purpose. Rude. You're supposed to be kind, gentle. I mean, if you're yielding to the Spirit of God, you're calling Christ your Lord and Savior. Now, we all may find ourselves in this list on one or more occasions, but we should be repenting of those things, turning over to God and finding, because really we want to represent Him. Self-promoting, unbelief, doubt, Now, unbelief and doubt is one thing. Remember, one of the things that the believers, the just shall live by what? Faith. Okay, so trusting God, okay? The other thing is without, it is impossible to believe God for when you misbelieve that he is and he's rewarded them to diligently seek. Well, sometimes we do fall into moments of doubt. Sometimes we stay stuck in doubt. But we can be like that man who went to, he said, do you believe me? He said, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. We can be 100% real. Lord, I'm not trusting you. I know I need you. Please forgive me. Please fix me. Please fix my heart and my mind. Worry. We shouldn't be sitting in worry. Day-by-day provision. Now, sometimes I will worry, and I'll take it to the Lord. I'm thinking about two days ahead from now, five days ahead from now, and the Lord will remind me, dial down one day at a time. Sufficient until the day is a provision that fix me, Lord. Help me to trust you in this day. Dave, quote, is sufficient to the day. He makes provision for the day. Amen. And that same God, and I like the way he said it, the same God that provided for you today is the same God who'll provide for you tomorrow. Lukewarm. Lukewarm. Half-hearted in our pursuit of God. Double-minded. Straddling the fence between two minds, your mind and the mind of God. Amen. Let's go to the next one. Okay, so we're almost nearing the end, you guys, believe it or not. I didn't want to stay long. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power is granted to us all things pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature. So he wants them to be grace and peace to be multiplied to them, but in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and experiencing and knowing God through Christ. And the divine power is the means to that end. So you may be partakers of the divine, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfast with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Okay, grace and peace coming through ever deepening personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we must, by prioritizing and practicing these things that he mentions in here, and I'll go through them quickly, that will foster intimacy resulting in our maturity in Christ, we will experience his peace, the Prince of Peace. We must be diligent in cultivating it. God does not make us holy against our will or without our involvement. Sanctification is collaboration. We co-labor with God. What is necessary is that faith be supplemented by these seven elements, and so I'll go down each one, of holiness, not adding one after the other. So first he talks about virtue. And one of the things they talked about virtue is it's spiritual courage before a hostile world, strength to stand for what is right. So one of the things we need to do is we choose to add to our faith. Right? Now, all of this is going to require dependency on the Holy Spirit, right? But it's still a matter of us putting priority on these things. It's got to be on the radar, right? We need to make ourselves conscious because I can tell you for myself, if I'm not conscious, I can walk into my job and get hijacked by their priorities. I can get hijacked on my job because they're always bombarding on me. You know, these are the values, these are the corporate demands. And then before you know it, you're all about making sure you get your job done, that you don't care how you act in the meantime. And you do a lot of repenting after the fact. So a lot of times I need to consciously go in, making sure that I add to My faith, the following, so spiritual courage before a hostile world, strength to stand for what is right. Now think about it. If the culture is increasingly becoming more narcissistic, if the time is coming where people will not endure sound doctrine, if carnality is in the rise, it's gonna be hostile toward people who stand for Christ. So you gotta have a boldness like Daniel. You have to have a resolve, you have to have spiritual, so you make a choice, you have to resolve. Look, it doesn't matter. people won't like me, I may lose my job. If they find out some of my position and stance, they can turn around and say, look, you don't stand for what are values. But I got to be at, well, I have to stand for his values. And so whatever he allows, I'm going to deal with it as it comes along. But remember, count up the cost. You've got to go in wholeheartedly knowing that it could cost you. Knowledge of spiritual truth is practical wisdom to deal with life. It emphasizes the importance of studying the Word of God and obeying its precepts. So you need to know practical instruction in right living. So you got to be a student of the word. Okay, Lord, please help me. Self-control, self-mastery. Okay, through this we have to learn practical skills, life of discipline. Now, this is one thing that we need to know when it comes to self-control. The believer is not supposed to have a shabby life. They should have a disciplined life, okay? Paul uses the instruction of, therefore I run, not with uncertainty, thus I fight as not one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it under subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself might become disqualified. So what we have to do is learn. We go into this walk learning that it's a disciplined walk. Amen? This is one example that came to my mind, okay? It's like an athlete training for the prize. He has to make up his mind, it's going to take discipline for me to win this, right? I was thinking this came to my mind, 1970s, I'm old, so this is where I go. But Kung Fu, if you guys remember the Kung Fu series, some of you may not be able to, but he had that little pebble in his hand and he said, grasshopper, when you can snatch the pebble from my hand, then you're ready to go. So Grasshopper knew I had to study the master. I had to know what he was about. I had to follow the rules. I had to adhere and be an adherent of the one. That's how we should be at the feet of Jesus. What did he have to say about these things? What matters to him is what matters to me. If I'm going to be disciplined, I'm going to be disciplined under his direction. Amen? So the next one is perseverance. Patient endurance of persecution and adversity. We need to be constantly reminded that the Christian life is a challenge to endure. So you have to have a soldier's resolve. Endure hardness. Now, I'm not one to advocate movies, because a lot of the movies out there are garbage and sometimes, but I did want to see one movie, PG-13, or maybe I shouldn't say, Dunkirk. Dunkirk is about war. is about I think the British some of the British troops that were stranded in France and I think they were right before the British Channel and the what do you call it the people they recruited actually normal people to come and use their boats to come rescue like 400,000 soldiers that were stranded on the beach while they were sitting there, I mean, it was intense. If you see this movie for the, I'm not gonna advocate everything in the movie, but a lot of it was, they didn't show a lot of blood and gore, but it showed you the intensity of war and how it's really a struggle to survive. It's not about a lot of extras when you're in that kind of pressure. I mean every time they were on the beach and every time a plane flew overhead bombs were getting ready. It was just like you can feel the intensity and the desperation that hey, this might be it for me. You know what I'm saying? It's like your priorities change. when you're in that kind of situation. You ain't thinking about luxury. You're thinking about survival. And so in the same way, you have to have a soldier's resolve. The Bible says, no man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who called to be a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ. We got to have this mind, look, if they come take everything, I'm going to be okay. You know, and I always think in those terms. I live day by day. I mean, maybe it's a poor man's mentality. I grew up with nothing. So I know, I'm like, look, I got a place right now. But if worse comes to worse, pack it up. What do I really need? I know how to get by. Some of y'all know from 1990 to about 1997, I was on my homeless tour. I lived on everybody's, Brenda knows, I was on everybody's couch. And I knew how to carry a box. We don't need a whole lot of extra, right? I was on Tanya's couch. I was on Smitty's couch. I was living with everybody. Oh, I need some water. But, so you know how to live with this idea that, hey, look, if I lose it, God will provide. It may not be what I want, but he's going to take care of me. But you got to have a soldier's mindset, where everything lights lightly. Now, the next one is called godliness. Our lives should be like God, and all that means in the way of practical holiness. And so if we're leaning on the Lord, then godliness should show up. You should look a little bit like God if you're yielding to God. You should look a lot like God if you're yielding to him, right? So the thing that came to mind is you live like an ambassador of heaven, okay? Now one of the things about ambassadors, you got good ambassadors, you got bad ambassadors, right? Have you guys ever heard of a thing called diplomatic immunity? So it's like the get out of jail free card. Right? So there have been real cases. I looked at stealing White House phones, cell phones. One diplomat went in to a White House meeting and walked off with everybody's Blackberries. Another one, kidnapped a man and placed his body in a diplomatic bag. Why? Because it's untouchable by law enforcement. So he said, if I kidnap the guy and throw him in the diplomat bag, they cannot legally come into my bag. This is how shady people get, right? Then there was 150,000 parking tickets from 1997 to 2002. One opened a casino in the consulate building, and one murdered. He opened fire on protesters, fatally wounding a police officer and injuring 10 others. And all of these guys got away with it, imposing diplomatic immunity. We are ambassadors of heaven. There is no diplomatic immunity. You do not try to make you don't want to get out of jail. You want to represent and represent rights. We don't want to be shabby. We don't want to be shady. I remember one time it was a couple years back in the Holy Spirit. I had prayer time with him and he says I just knew it was like you're representing sloppy. You're not representing me. At that time, that's how all I knew. You know what I'm saying? I was doing better than what I used to be, but I got complacent. I was like, well, you know, I'm not doing half the stuff I used to be, but it was like, but if he's really trying to conform me into the image of Christ, then complacency will be an enemy of progress. We'll start to look at ourselves and smell ourselves and think, you know, we're most wonderful. Okay, the last two, that has to be brotherly kindness. This is an identifier for us. How will they know that you are my disciples? By your love one to another. And then love for all mankind. He reigns on the just and the unjust. So we love people even when they don't do right by us. We love people even when they come at us wrong. We pray for them that hate us. We bless them that curse us. We pray for those who despitefully use us. That's how we should be marked. So when it comes to it, there are certain things that shouldn't be in our gathering and there's other things that should be in our gatherings. So let's put it in the last one. So we gotta be intentional. You will keep them in perfect peace whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. Now this is the end of it. But how do you want me to end this? If we're pursuing him, if we're making him priority, we will start to look like him. What does he say? Don't be like the Gentiles who chase after things, right? He said seek first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness and everything will be added unto us. We want to seek God and we want his rule and reign to be reflected in our hearts. And as a result of it, There's a place of trust in there. And even when times get difficult, we have the peace of God. I know there are times, I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when things hit, you get a report, I go into panic mode. Panic, you know, and depending on how severe the report is, it will try to be a lasting panic. But I've learned one thing, retreat into the presence of God. Ask the Lord, okay, is there something wrong with my thinking? Sometimes it's you're not trusting me, there's too much doubt, there's fear, there's panic. I remember one time I was praying for a friend's child. They told her that the baby was gonna be born with, this is one of my God kids, He was gonna be born with a certain disorder, Down syndrome or something like that. And I remember getting into the presence of God and I was like, and then I felt like the Lord was like, why are you panicking? And I had to surrender it to him because, and the baby was born without any problems. You know, Leilani's son, right? Christian, Christian don't have no Down syndrome. He's 18 years old, big old boy, tall, right? Healthy, but I had to, surrender up my panic and my fear. So this is one of the things I've said. We want to look in the mirror and we want to be able to confess and allow him, allowing him to fill us. We want to cast our cares upon him and we want to take it one day at a time. We want to abide in the vine, right? We want to stay connected to him. All prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, we want to make our requests known unto him. That's what abiding in the vine is. It's communicating, connecting to the vine, in his word, through prayer, and then making melodies in our heart. Making melodies in our heart, thanksgiving, contentment. And then we experience the peace of God. It may sound complex, but all it really comes down to is you follow him. Get in his word, pray, follow him.