Sunday Service 9 AM 01/2/22
by Darrell W. Johns
January 2, 2022 · Atlanta West Pentecostal Church (Lithia Springs, GA)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Proverbs 22:28, Colossians 3:1-2, Judges 17:6, Proverbs 23:10-11, Isaiah 40:8, Romans 3:4, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Matthew 6:33, Colossians 2:12, Colossians 3:2, Philippians 3:18-20, Psalms 112:7, Jeremiah 10:23, Jeremiah 10:24

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/darrell-w-johns--sunday-service-9-am-01-2-22
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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well thank you for joining us online and what i just prayed is true here in the mostly empty sanctuary today that where a few of us are gathered together to produce church for you the presence of the lord is here in a mighty mighty way i'm so glad that you're joining us online as brother joel mentioned earlier thank you for understanding this unique season our challenge today was with the number of volunteers who are not able to be at church because of covet or coveted symptoms or exposure to people with covet or covet symptoms and so through the coveted season we use the phrase out of the abundance of caution so many times that i wanted to throw caution to the wind but we believe in using caution when it is wise so thank you for joining us today and as brother joel also mentioned church wednesday night will be online brother herring was going to be here wednesday night to teach on fasting but we work this out where we can safely have church and do the right thing this weekend i trust that you've been engaged in worship and that you will respond to the word of god as i minister the word of the lord today and we've learned how to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances we've also learned what sounds cliche but every setback is really a set up for the lord for him to show himself strong in our lives and uh we're postponing communion until next sunday but lord willing i will preach the message sunday i intended to preach today i wrote about it in our article happy renew year and we'll receive communion together and start 2022 today and next sunday just right i appreciate your prayers for our family as we honor the life of my mom this coming thursday night and you'll see the details about that again as brother joel mentioned on our website today as i prayed about what to speak today i at first thought i would preach the original message that i had been working on but i felt like i should save that till next week and so i began to pray and ask the lord to guide me so today i want to speak on a subject to preach a message that i actually preached on january 1st 2012 10 years ago and i'd like for you to open your bibles to the book of proverbs proverbs chapter 22 verse 28 if you're in your home if you're able to stand you might want to do that that's been our custom through the years proverbs 22 28 remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set and then to the new testament the book of colossians chapter 3 colossians chapter 3 verse 1. if you then be risen with christ seek those things which are above where christ sitteth on the right hand of god set your affection on things above not on things on the earth i'd like to minister on the theme today entitled calibrate god bless you if you're standing you can be seated and if you would engage with me with the holy word of god well my message starts with a story it was a dark night in the woods i was on osabel island which is a beautiful island off the coast of georgia near savannah it's 26 000 acres of maritime forest title wetlands it's described as an unspoiled place set aside by the state of georgia as a heritage preserve for natural scientific and cultural research and education to me a particular interest has always been the fact that to preserve the natural environment the wild game population mostly of deer and hogs is controlled by the sport of hunting so once every three years or four years by a drawing i'm privileged to be a part of a hunting group that goes to asabao and thank you to brother alex sayche for introducing me and my boys to asabao when i first became pastor here now this time is three days of moving in moving out camping and long days in the woods and it is wonderful you are dropped off and then picked up at a particular hunting area first come first served there's a little marker on the side of the road now you know that george is a very wooded state and osibao is no exception to the woodlands there are miles of huge oak and pine trees thick underbrush and coastal marshlands on that island i love just about every minute ago of being there on osabel island now i think i mentioned that it was a very dark night in the woods and i would had set up a climbing tree stand and mark my location on my gps this has been replaced by a newer model but this is the gps that i had with me on osabel island global positioning system i also marked the location of my pickup point on that woodland road and i was from uh right on the edge of a marsh at ausabau i had my gps in hand it was very dark there was no moon that night and generally i just had to get two tenths of a mile through the thick brush to the grassy road where the game and fish officer would pick me up and take me back to camp two tenths of a mile is not very far at all and covering that distance is no problem in the daytime but it was dark and there was no moon so the woods were dense and i didn't want to miss my mark so i just followed my trusty gps i knew that it would take me right out of the woods and precisely to the spot where i was dropped off or so i thought so i was walking confidently toward that road and i knew that it was taking a lot longer than i anticipated i walked and walked and walked some more i was sweating i was getting a little frustrated i was watching my gps that would take me out of the woods in that area the woods looked the same everywhere at dark and i realized that i was not getting anywhere i looked down at my tracks on my gps and i was literally going in circles and i told you i was sweating frustrated and i was a little angry at myself for not being able to find a simple follow a simple electronic device and so finally i stumbled out of the woods down the road to find the marker on the tree with my flashlight and safely made it back to camp i think the ranger had come past me and then came back because he thought i was maybe hopelessly lost anyway the next morning at about 5 30 a.m i was standing on the side of the road needing to go back to my tree stand spot it would be in a northeasterly direction about two-tenths of a mile since it was dark i didn't want to follow my instincts i got my gps out my reliable gps and i started following it once again i was wandering and going in circles not getting to my point and where i wanted to be in a tree before daylight again i was sweating frustrated it's not good to sweat when you're hunting getting nowhere i was ready to give my gps a heave-ho into the woods never to be seen again and instead i just sat down i waited for daylight i knew about where i was going i walked to my tree stand when i finished that morning hunt i was determined to use my gps to get back out i wanted to see what was going on so i followed my gps and literally i was going in circles the electronic compass compass or my gps was unreliable i was ready again to give it to the woods to throw it away but then i had this moment of sanity so i sat down i got my gps i went to the menu that says setup i scrolled through the options and found an item called calibration when i got there it read to calibrate compass slowly turn two full circles in the same direction while holding the unit level so i press calibrate i think and then i turned slowly in the same direction two times they want you to hold it level and when i made two full circles my compass was calibrated it worked i got back on track i got out of the woods and i was thankful that i was not quite as technologically challenged as i thought i was i just needed to calibrate when i got back to civilization i googled gps compass calibration and i learned a simple fact that when you change the batteries in your unit you lose calibration and you have to calibrate your compass all over again such a simple solution to what was to me a complicated problem now what does it mean to calibrate that's my theme today when you calibrate any instrument such as a gps you are adjusting that instrument to operate in a certain way but you are measuring that instrument against a standard another word for calibrate would be to standardize now when you realize that something needs to be calibrated you're assuming that there is a higher standard against which to measure the instrument cannot be calibrated until it matches the standard in the case of my gps when i change the batteries i lost its calibration it no longer matched true north or magnetic north whichever the case may be and it was constantly shifting i'm not even sure i can explain what happened but as i was in the woods and i turned to follow my compass it's like my gps position shifted to another random direction it was like north was here and north was here and north was here it's the weirdest thing i've ever experienced in my life when i look down at the screen that shows your tracks i was literally going in circles because i did not have a calibration to my compass now you might have heard that when people are lost in the woods they tend to walk in circles so after this happened to me uh i started reading up on this and there are lots of theories of why people tend to walk in circles i i read a a survey or a study that was done in germany it was later posted in national geographic i've read a number of articles about this walking in circles and they took some people put them in the woods they gave them a gps tracking device that they could not follow but it gave them the data for later examination and it found that these people that were put in the woods they literally walked in circles that's what the gps that they were carrying but could not refer to shown there was an article i read online that referenced the same um experiment and followed up with another they challenged 15 people to walk straight while blindfolded and when they couldn't see at all these walkers ended up walking in small circles with a diameter usually less than 66 feet some folks in our church after i preached about this in 2012 tried this experiment and found that it is mostly true for everyone these blindfolded walkers walked in circles now some people used to believe that you may have one leg stronger or longer than the other and that's why you walk in circles but but people who have studied this said that what really happens is that they're little mistakes in the brain that add up to what finally and when you think it is straight it is actually something that is round the results aren't surprising another cognitive neuroscientist said he said most dead hikers are found within a mile of where they got lost these hikers without a compass or without a gps tend to walk in circles and eventually die of exposure or starvation because there is no true sense of calibration of true north of direction to get them out of the woods and when you think you're doing what you should do what they have found as your body might end up doing the opposite of what your brain intends to do it reminds me of what took place morally in the book of judges from a natural perspective it is true that you cannot walk in a straight line by instinct alone but spiritually it is also true the book of judges tells us disastrous stories of self-direction the summary is in judges chapter 17 verse 6. in those days there was no king in israel every man did that which was right in his own eyes it's fascinating that judges does not say they did that which was wrong in their own eyes they did that which was right in their own eyes in their culture a king represented authority and set a standard of conduct when there was no king in israel but back in the days of moses and joshua at least there was a leader to give direction under the authority of god it was a theocracy that was directed by god and a god-appointed leader but when there was no king in israel the culture tended to circle morally and really spiral downwardly the book of judges depicts the moral drift of people who are not calibrated to the higher standard of the word of god now i think all of us would can see this without me elaborating too much that we live in a culture we live in a culture that is not calibrated to almighty god and his word in america the word of god has been our fixed standard but a growing percentage of americans are abandoning god for their own ideas about how they should live the religious landscape of the united states continues to change at a rapid clip there is a research poll 2018 and 19 released in 2020 i believe that said that 65 of americans described themselves as christians when asked about religion that sounds good but it's down by 12 percentage points by the previous decade 10 years before the religious unaffiliated group that share of our population has increased by 26 from 2009 to 2019. in other words there is a a moral drift in our culture we see it in the news we see it in the results of what takes place in our country and someone said that we are slouching towards sodom and gomorrah as a culture there's a reason that god gave us landmarks in the bible principles by which we should live our lives our first text today was from proverbs chapter 22 28 when the bible said remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set landmarks in those days were property boundaries they were set up to protect the poor and the innocent against the corrupt and the crooked people of that day landmarks guarded the weak from the oppression of the strong a similar proverb warns against entering the field of orphans with the motive of trying to steal their property proverbs 23 10 remove not the ancient or the old landmarks and enter nod into the fields of the fatherless for their redeemer is mighty he shall plead their cause with thee in other words the lord said if you go into the field of someone who cannot defend himself you should be careful because god will defend them so here is what is true that god took property boundaries very seriously those boundaries assure the right of property ownership that would revert back to the original family owners in the year of jubilee the principle of the proverb is that god honors boundaries that are set with integrity he is redeemer of the defender of those boundaries in israel each plot of land was legally transferred to a family those boundaries let that family know where their boundaries where their property or land started and also where it stopped these landmarks were standards of measurement they would be to be respected and they were to be defended and when those landmarks were removed there could be property disputes and those would erupt and weaker citizens could lose their land so it's very important to understand the biblical principle of landmarks of boundaries that god set up in his word amen and i want to apply this today because as we go into 2022 we need to be fully aware that god in his holy word set up principles principles to be lived by to be obeyed that will guide us toward a successful life but we we are not calibrated to that higher standard we do when we do not respect the biblical boundaries that god established then we are set up for disaster in our lives and in our culture today i want to to mention three important standards which we need to calibrate and of course there are many more but we need to calibrate our lives to the infallibility of the bible we must calibrate our lives to the lordship of jesus christ we must calibrate our lives to the reality of eternity and of course all of these are tied in the truth that is found in the bible we must calibrate our lives to the infallibility and the authority of the word of god as you go into this new year and into your future there are many voices in our culture but you need to listen to the voice of the word of god you need to set or calibrate your life to the higher standard of the bible the bible is the infallible word of god and it must be the final authority in our lives we should apply the bible to our lives and we should determine to follow it whatever the cost those are what you would call convictions not preferences it is what we live by and what we are willing to die for it is the eternal word of god that is forever settled in heaven not just the objective word of god that we believe is true but the objective word of god that we have applied to our lives personally you see a conviction is a biblical principle that i have determined to follow whatever the cost and if you do not want to wander in circles or if you wonder why the world is wandering in circles it is because they have removed the bible from their lives and they are doing what they think is right in their own eyes it's clear in the history of america that at least in public schools and public life when the bible and prayer were removed from public schools that they decided to give up on calibration that they decided to calibrate to subjective reality instead of the objective reality of the word of god there were two bans on prayer in public schools by the supreme court the first came in 1962. there was a second case that came against the bible in pennsylvania that went to the supreme court the result of it all was in 1963 in an eight to one ruling by the supreme court that government-sponsored religious activities in public schools were deemed unconstitutional so it was unconstitutional to officially read the bible in school not a student on his or her own but in school it was unconstitutional for a teacher to lead in prayer if you go back to the early 60s if you see what has transpired in our cultural culture since that time you realize that when we took away the bible when we took away prayer we became a culture drifting without an anchor point drifting without something to which we should calibrate the result has been disaster in american culture so let me just remind you that the bible is true all the time everywhere for everyone the apostle peter called it a more sure word of prophecy the psalmist said that thy word o lord is forever settled in heaven god's word is a lamp and to our feet and alighted to our path isaiah said that the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our god shall stand forever and jesus said heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall never pass away paul in romans said that god be true and let every man be a liar in other words it does not mean matter it does not matter what polls say it does not matter what you think or what i think what matters is what does the bible say and i must bring my life into alignment i must calibrate my life to the holy word of god the apostle paul ii corinthians 2 timothy 3 16 wrote all scripture not just a few scriptures the bible does not just contain the word of god it is the word of god every word god breathed in the original language and trusted translations all scripture is given by inspiration of god and is profitable for doctrine for proof reproof for correction for instruction and righteousness that the man of god in the church of god may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works so today we must calibrate our lives to the eternal word of god that means we understand that there is one lord one faith when baptism that except a person is born again they cannot see the kingdom of god that unless they obey the new birth message of repentance baptism by water in the name of the lord jesus christ for the remission of sins and receiving the gift of the holy ghost they cannot be born again nor enter into eternal life that is the truth of the word of god and when we calibrate to the bible we understand that all principles of scripture are applicable to our lives principles of finances the ten commandments respect for other people the golden rule and i could go on and on and on the bible is not just a rule book it is a guidebook for life it is how to get from here to heaven the second point of calibration is we need to calibrate our lives to the lordship of jesus christ now jesus was god in flesh he was the word made flesh so when we calibrate to the lordship of jesus christ it is inclusive of calibrating to the holy word of god but here's what i want you to think about today and you should really decide this that jesus is not just your savior he's your lord he didn't just pull you out of sin so you can live your own life the bible said that we should no longer live unto ourselves but we should live unto jesus christ the one who died for us you see it is at the name of jesus that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess amen it is jesus christ who should have the preeminence in our lives the bible is his word and when the bible speaks jesus christ speaks the bible jesus christ have the final say in my life in every decision i make and in every direction that i take jesus said in matthew 6 33 but seek you first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you in 2022 i challenge you to seek first the kingdom of god to calibrate to the lordship of jesus christ and allow god to allow everything to be added to your life the apostle paul wrote it that we are bought with a price that we are not our own that we should glorify god in our body and in our spirits which are god's the bible is clear that we are disciples of jesus christ and that we must forsake all to follow him that we must calibrate our lives to the lordship of jesus christ if you will you can go through that straight gate and down that narrow way that leads to eternal life but if you do not calibrate your life to the word of god and the lordship of jesus christ then you will by default wander in circles because your life is not calibrated to the standard of god's word and to the lordship of jesus christ i know people and you know people who want to be the lords of their own lives no authority figure can give them a directive no one else can guide them with direction they make their own rules they set their own standards without regard to spiritual authority of any kind they will not listen to a parent to a civil authority to an employee employer to a pastor or to jesus christ himself but unless we lose ourselves in following the lordship of jesus christ we will never truly find ourselves so let me ask you a question in the boardroom of your life who is the chief executive officer do you sit at the head of the table do you have the final say while you may listen to other people when it is all said and done do you just do what you want to do does jesus christ have a vote or does he have the vote for in the boardroom of our lives if we are disciples of jesus christ he doesn't just have a vote he has the vote he has the final say when our lives are calibrated to the lordship of jesus christ thirdly we must calibrate our lives to the reality of eternity calibrate to the word of god to the lordship of jesus christ and to the reality of eternity colossians chapter 3 verse 1 our second text if you then be risen with christ seek those things which are above where christ sits on the right hand of god and paul says risen with christ is making a reference back to a previous chapter chapter 2 colossians 2 12. we are buried with him by baptism wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of god who has raised him from the dead so since we are risen with christ we should seek those things which are above to seek means desire to seek means intention and when we seek the things that are above we are calibrating our lives to the reality of eternity colossians 3 2 set your affection on things above not on things of the earth now the word set is not calibrate but it's the same idea that we are to fix our hearts we are to set our lives on things above and not on things of the earth we are to find the higher standard that is absolute that does not shift that does not change that is not subjective and and accountable to the whims of an opinion but to a higher reality of eternity there is no hint in this scripture that you or i have an option that we can choose for ourselves we don't really have a say in the matter if jesus is the lord of our lives we are to set our affections it means to be minded to align ourselves to set our mind we're to seek heaven we are to think heaven we are to keep on thinking these are original word studies from the greek on this passage keep on thinking about heaven and the reality of heaven you see what you think about determines how you think about your life and if you only think about today or tomorrow or the week or if your life is set for retirement then you're not really setting your affection on things above and the reality of eternity we are to love heavenly things study them set our hearts entirely on them be engrossed by heaven and not just on the earth we are converted and heaven is our goal and heaven is in view heaven is the source of the calibration of our lives now i grew up and i heard an expression used from time to time someone would say that that person is so heavily minded that they are of no earthly good while i would like to assert today that i've never met that person that is so heavily minded that they are of no earthly good now to qualify that statement i have to tell you that i've met some kooky people i've met some really weird people that pretended to be heavenly minded because they couldn't carry on a conversation they were avoiding reality by pretending to be spiritual i'm not talking about a lazy person i'm not talking about a kooky person but i can tell you that the most practical person the most effective person in this life is someone who has calibrated their lives to the reality of heaven philippians chapter 2 verse 18 tells us the alternative of a person to a person who is not calibrated to the reality of heaven paul said for many walk of whom i have told you often and now tell you again even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of christ whose end is destruction his god is their belly whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things paul writes about people who have not calibrated their lives to the reality of eternity they are locked in on now to the appetites of their belly they glory in things that are shameful and they mind earthly things verse 20 paul said but our citizenship is in heaven friend when it's also we eagerly wait for the savior the lord jesus christ we set our hearts on heaven amen and we focus on things that are not temporary but on those things that are eternal so today as we begin this new year i am challenging you to set your affection on things above to set by an act of your will your life in a direction the bible uses the word the phrase often my heart is fixed amen in other words i've taken my heart and i've calibrated it to the things that really matter amen the psalms are full of passages that say that my heart is fixed one passage in psalm 112 7 said my heart is fixed trusting in the lord and when our lives are calibrated to the reality of heaven then our hearts will not fail us by fear the fear of the political landscape the fear of the economic forecast the fear of cultural collapse the fear of covet or any other dreaded disease because we know that to live is christ but to die is gain and death is what life is all about and we're not seeking things below but seeking things above so it is time to calibrate again you notice earlier i said that when i changed the batteries in my gps it lost its calibration so i had to do it again you can't just get saved and never calibrate your life again but over and over as we change the batteries as we change the calendar to a new year as we go into a new season of our lives maybe it's you're having children you're getting married you're going into retirement you're going from middle school to high school and high school to college at any point in our lives when there is a change we should calibrate again or we can lose our calibration on what really matters so it's january this is a season of renewal and it is time to calibrate our lives to the reality of the scripture the lordship of jesus christ and the reality of heaven i think maybe sometimes people think that they're an exception to the rule that they can blindfold themselves to the bible and they can walk in a straight line that they can live in the days of the judges and do what was right in their own eyes and never mess up but i'm here to tell you that it is virtually impossible jeremiah the prophet wrote something that is so powerful jeremiah 10 and 23 it is a confession it is a prayer oh lord i know that the way of man is not in himself it is not a man that walketh to direct to steps in other words jeremiah said lord i i understand that i cannot calibrate to myself that the way of man is not in himself i am not self-contained i cannot be self-governed that it is not in man that walks to direct his steps i feel this so strongly today that we live in a culture of people who want to try to figure it out on their own why should you live like that would you confess with me today on the second day of 2022 that i cannot live my life as an autonomous being i must live my life under the lordship of jesus christ guided by his word with my heart fixed on eternity you may think you're doing right but it is virtually impossible for you to do the right thing without the guidance of jesus christ we need the infallibility of the bible we must calibrate to that we must calibrate to the lordship of jesus christ and we must calibrate to the reality of eternity i know you say you're living by your conscience but your conscience is not reliable you can trust you have a good conscience your conscience may convict you it may be a weak conscience you may have seared your conscience the conscience is unreliable it's calibrating to yourself to your own feelings to your own set of beliefs but today i'm calling the church family of atlanta west pentecostal church and anyone who is watching or listening online i'm calling you on this first sunday of 2022 to calibrate your life to what really matters today would you confess with me what jeremiah said oh lord i know that the way of man is not in himself it is not a man that walketh to direct his steps i challenge you today to calibrate your life to jesus christ a global positioning system is always calibrated to a higher standard there are satellites that circle the earth some say 24 some say 27 but when my gps starts looking for satellites it locks on one or two or three or more i can look down and i can see the satellites my gps begins to lock in on those satellites a a higher authority and then those satellites allow my gps they a process called triangulation they triangulate my position and they can pinpoint exactly where i am that's how it works with the global positioning system but today i know that there is a higher power it is more true than any satellite or set of satellites it is almighty god and he knows exactly where i am and he knows exactly where you are and i want to encourage you to not stumble in circles to not spend your life trying to figure it out that is why god gave us his holy word that is reliable i'm calling you today to stop in your tracks to sit down if you will to do what i did in the woods that day to take your bible more accurate than a gps and to ask god to direct your steps jeremiah in verse 24 jeremiah 10 24. he said o lord correct me but with judgment not in thine anger lest thou bring me to nothing he said lord i know that i can't figure this out on my own lord i know that i must rely on you and i'm asking you god to correct me to align my life if you would to calibrate me to what really matters would you bow your heads in prayer right now dear lord god today lord i am calling your people to respect the ancient landmarks that you established in your word i'm calling your people lord to calibrate to the word of god i'm calling your people to calibrate to the lordship of jesus christ i'm calling your people lord to calibrate to the reality of eternity i pray o lord that as we embark on the journey called 2022 that you would help us avoid the chaos and confusion of a life that is adrift without an anchor a life that is without a point of calibration i ask you in jesus name hallelujah help us lord to calibrate our lives i'm praying right now for a person that may be walking in circles frustrated that they're not getting anywhere but determined to keep trying their joy has been replaced by drudgery they have goals but seem to never really hit the mark something's always lacking they're missing that sense of fulfillment things are not going as planned while they think they're going straight toward the mark on an honest day in an honest moment they would admit that they are just going in circles facing the same circumstances over and over broken-hearted not getting anywhere so today we stop today lord we calibrate today lord we start this year with something that will never lead us astray in jesus name