Words To Live By - Part 1 - "No"

I'm starting a new series today that will take us all the way to Easter. I'll finish on Easter Sunday. I'm going to talk today about words to live by. And the first word that I'm going to start with and you may doubt why I would start with this word, but it's this what I feel like is right for today is the word no.

Are you aware that no is a complete sentence? It is. You can simply say no and put a period behind it and it's that's it's a complete it's a whole sentence. It's there. I'm going to go a little slow to start because I feel it important to establish some groundwork today that will continue to lead us going into the next few weeks as we move forward.

No, such an important word. It can liberate you. It can it can free you. It can help help you set boundaries that you need in your life. Whether you know this or not, we all need boundaries. I know that there are seasons of life, especially the younger seasons that come where we find ourselves not liking the boundaries, but as you mature in life and as you mature and you walk with God, you realize just how wonderful boundaries are.

They are. They're they're wonderful. There there was a time when you were very comfortable with the word no. And what I mean with that is if you've ever raised a two or three-year-old, they really grab a hold of that word no fast. Even before they can verbalize it, they can physically manifest no.

One of my daughters, I don't remember which one it was when they would before they got the able to verbally say no, they would they would do it with an arm. No. No nose there, you know. And then you go through raising them and you were still comfortable with that when your mom and dad would say clean your room.

No. Eat your peas. No. Share your toys. No. Then over time you realize that people like you better if you say yes instead of saying no. We learn this that yes creates opportunities for problems. When you say yes to your boss all the time as he continues to ask can you do this and you say yes, especially if you're someone who likes to please people.

But by saying yes to schedules and yes to meetings and yes to obligations and yes to burdens and yes to stuff that we're going to buy that we don't really need and yes to people who barely know us even though we don't like them, we still say yes and eventually our lives become very crammed full.

Schedules and things around us and then you wake up one day and you're like, I don't know why I have all this. I don't like any of it. Or you find yourself meeting with someone and in the meeting you look at the you're look at them and you say to yourself, I don't even like this person.

Why am I here? So we need this word no. The author Shauna Niequist writes in her book Present Over Perfect and I'll quote directly from the book. And so if you, like me, have said too many yeses and found that all the hopeful, exciting, wide-opening intentions have actually left you scraped raw and empty, the word that can change everything is no.

I know, I don't like it either. Yes is fun and sparkly and printed on tote bags. No, what if you saw someone wearing a sweatshirt that just said no? You don't want to sit next to that person because you know they're not a bundle of fun, but no became the scalpel I wielded as I remade my life.

What I feel today is that God's going to give us a scalpel in this service for us to evaluate some areas in our life that we need to be able to say the word no. To reestablish some boundaries. And what I know myself is that God's desire is for you and I to invite him into the everyday of our life, but if we filled it up with so many other things, and they can be good things, but yet it's too many good things.

There's no room for God, and God's not going to ring the doorbell in your life and demand that we make a spot for him, but he's always there waiting for an invitation. And what I'm hoping over the next few minutes is to bring to our attention some things that are not more than likely not going to be mind-blowing to you.

They're going to be self-evident things that are there, but we have a way of glossing over those because of personalities or peer pressure or the way our society and culture is, and what I'm trying to bring us back is to the reality of truth. That you and I, we need God. I'm depending on him, and when I lean on him, my life goes a lot better than when I lean on myself.

The Bible, among other things, is a book that is filled with amazing no's and wonderful no's and glorious no's. There are many stories that I could have started with. I could have started with the life of Joseph, one of the main characters in scripture, especially in the Old Testament, young man who was full of dreams and full of passions and full of opportunity was there even though his path to get to where God wanted him to be was not a path that made logical sense at the beginning.

He was there and along the way he was presented with opportunities that he could have said yes to. But those yeses would have caused him to not arrive at where God wanted him to be. They would have stunted what God was trying to do. They would have ill-prepared him for the position that God had intended all along.

There was an opportunity when a married woman in the house in which she he was enslaved presented him an opportunity to lie with. Yet he realized because of his understanding of his identity and his mission that he had to say no. He had to say no. There are some young men and there there is names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and their lives turned out pretty bad.

They were they were taken away in captivity. They were mutilated. They were given other names. They were taken from their homeland, separated from their family. They were invited to worship an idol because ladies and gentlemen, we are always being invited to worship idols. But they knew their identity. They knew their mission and when the time came they stood up and said no.

And I made that sound really easy, but if you go back and fully understand their story, that was a difficult no, but it was a right no. One of the great stories in the Bible involving leadership is about a man named Nehemiah. He too had been taken captive. He loved his homeland. When he heard the stories about how it lay in waste and how the gates had been torn down and it broke him down and we read about how he weeps and he cries for how things were and he was in a position where there was a potential where he could do something, and he took advantage of the king's kindness.

And he went away and fulfilled his mission because he knew his identity, and he knew his mission. But in the middle of him fulfilling what God called him to do, in the middle of all of this, there were some people who were trying to interrupt him, who were trying to get his attention.

And we see in Nehemiah 6, verse number 3, "So I sent messengers to them saying, I'm doing a great work so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?" But they sent this message four times, and I answered them in the same manner.

No. No. No. No. There's a principle that is involved, that if you clearly understand your identity, and if you clearly understand your mission, and when you're clear on when you should say no, that's how you can fulfill what God has called you to do. And this is what we have to understand, and I'm setting this series up today by telling you the problem with our lives is that we can find it so crammed full of stuff and burdens and obligations and resentment and business and hurry, that there's absolutely no space for God.

There's no place or opportunity to be fully alive, not the way God intended. And because of this, Center Point, I want you to know that no is a wonderful gift. The reason to say no is you can realize that saying no to a lesser good gives you the opportunity to say yes to a divine moment.

That's why we love the word yes. And Pastor Michael is going to unpack yes for us on Wednesday night. That's his word, but my word is no. My word today is no. We need to figure out just where we are in life and understand that we should have spiritual activity as a part of every moment we're alive.

We've got to be careful because my to-do list can come crashing down on me and the weight of all of the good things that are there can often times crush and prevent me from doing what God has asked me to do. As I've said from this pulpit on many occasions, if the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy.

Either way, it accomplishes the same thing. Even busy in the church can distract you from fully fulfilling all that God has for you to do. So, this is not a message about you resigning from all of your volunteer positions. God help us. We need you. But, this is a message about learning to be sensitive to where you are walking with him.

And sometimes no needs to be said. When I look at the life of this man in the Bible, someone who lived on this earth who mastered the art of saying no, he said it to the most powerful and creative ones that were around in his time. He was He had the ability to say no in a way that was so unique.

His name is Jesus. He ministered interestingly enough, it doesn't If you look at how he started, it didn't start with a yes. His ministry started with three great no's. And what I want to do today in this sermon as I begin to unpack it is to look at the temptations of Jesus Christ.

Cuz there are amazing opportunities for you and I to evaluate where we are through the lens of what he did. So, that's what I'm going to do today with the rest of our time is I'm going to go to Luke chapter 4. We're going to dive in here. We're going to go see that Jesus, before he got involved in all the wonderful and amazing miraculous things that he did, he started off by saying no three times.

Why? Cuz he had to. He understood his identity. He understood his mission. And these things that were laid before him were going to cause that to never is going to cause an abortion before it ever took place. So, let's go to Luke chapter 4. As we pick up, Jesus has just been baptized, and he's just heard his identity affirmed from the heavens.

Chapter 4, verse number 1. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for when 40 days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing, and afterwards, when they had ended, he was hungry. And the devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread."

But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." Now, I love this, and we have those of us who've been in church for any length of time, we have heard how wonderful it is that Jesus quotes the word of God in a response to temptations that are there, and that is powerful.

We need to have the word of God in us, so that when temptations come, we can counteract what the enemy's trying to do. But there's a deeper point here that I feel like often times gets looked over that I'd like to start out by saying this. He quoted the Bible, but it's really important context that was there that he's trying to bring out, and that's the bread alone statement.

To understand this, we have to go backwards in time into the Old Testament, back to the Torah, back to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse number 3 reads this way, "So, he humbled you, allowing you to hunger and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord."

See, in Israel, they had been taught that you lived by bread. In their enslavement and captivity in Egypt, Egypt was prosperous. Egypt was the superpower of the day. Egypt had the ability to do what it wanted. They were dominant. Now, Israel over time had became enslaved while they were in Egypt. We don't have the why behind that story.

We just have the truth that they had become enslaved, but around them the culture and the society was a prosperous one. It was It was It was one that was pro-bread. It was It was pro-stuff. It was pro-if you want it, if you desire it, if you have an appetite for it, then go get it.

And after God delivered them out of that certain set of circumstances and situation, he gets them out into the desert to try to teach them a new principle that you don't live by the bread alone principle. In our world today, in our culture, in our society, we find it to where you can be your own man, you can be your own woman.

But God goes contrary to that. He says, "I want you to trust me. I want you to lean on me. I want you to I want you to learn to count on me to be your provider. Not that we sit back and do nothing, but that we understand the talent and the ability and the intellect and all of our giftings are from God, and he has given them to us for a reason and for a purpose, and we rely on him to guide us and direct us in how we should use these things when they come into our life.

You know, rabbis back in the day used to say that no one could really receive the Torah or the word of God who had not received the manna or the care of God or the love of God. You can't get the one without the other. You got to understand that God loves you so he gives you his word.

He gives you his commands in order to live by. Not if you find them convenient or not for you to drag out in a time of trouble, right? I see that happen a lot. People get themselves in trouble and all of a sudden they decide to get the word of God out. They're like, "Well, I've been reading my Bible for a week."

Well, that's awesome. Anytime you read the Bible, it's good. But it's like when you only get the owner's manual out of your car when you got a problem. Now, I'm not saying that it's page-turning reading. Everybody go home today and get your owner's manual out and be like, "All right, pastor says I need to read this."

But we in our lives every day sometimes only go here when we can't figure it out ourselves. And what God's desire has always been is why don't you come to me first? Let me guide you. Let me direct you. Let me walk you through this. And because of that, we see this first temptation.

If I could put it in today's world, okay? You probably have never heard this taught this way. You probably never heard anybody any preacher preach this temptation this way. But give me a moment. I really do feel like God has given me a little bit of insight for this moment, for where we're going in this series, for today.

The temptation number one in a the way our world is right now is you are what you have. You are what you have. The world is going to try to convince you and I that we are what we have. That you should live by bread alone. Again, when it's talking about bread, it's not talking about just the food.

It's not talking about the stuff we make toast out of. And bread can be a temptation. Can I get a witness? Chastain has started making sourdough bread. It's dangerous. Now, the first loaf of two you made, it was it was decent, but we were missing some stuff. But girlfriend has worked hard on that.

And she's figured out how much salt you need to put in there, and how much olive oil you need to put in there. She's figured out the right way to do that. And now I'm struggling. Cuz I walk in sometimes and the house smells like warm bread. Y'all feeling that right now? It's the first time some of y'all have even paid attention.

Hi, how you doing? I'm glad you joined us. Yeah, so bread can be a temptation, but this we're not talking about that kind of a temptation. We're talking about the stuff. See, see, we are we are a big bundle of appetites. Have you noticed that? Yeah. Especially those of us who have have have kids, right?

You mean there's there's always these needs. They show up into where you and I, we showed up with a whole lot of need. And when we were little, we just cry and somebody tries their best to accommodate the need. You know, whether we've we've made a mess and we need to be cleaned, or we're hungry, or we need a nap.

And somebody's right there to just try to handle all those situations for us, to make sure that everything's okay, just so that we will be quiet and content again. Now, the problem is we don't stay little. We get big. And sometimes we get better about acclimating into society, and sometimes we don't. But we have all these appetites.

And here's the deal with appetites, and I'm taking a minute to set this up. Is appetites are God-given. Say that. Say God-given. The appetites are God-given appetites. And we need those, right? If we did not have an appetite, if we didn't get hungry, a lot of the times we would be so busy, we would never eat.

And you can go a lot longer than you think without food. I just I just gave somebody a word they needed today. That was free. But over time you do have to bring in nourishment. Some of you don't need as much as you've had, but we need nourishment. So it's there.

Now the problem is when the appetite runs out of control. What happens? What happens if we eat too much? I know you don't like admitting it, but what happens if we eat too much? We do. We get It's a Nobody likes saying it, right? We get fat. We get fat. Some of you don't like the word fat.

So we use the words like you get fluffy. You little plump. Pudgy. Girth. I could keep going. I mean, define the word that works for you. That's what happens, right? When it goes When it goes too far. Now that's just hunger. Let's talk about what other appetites we're given. We have the appetites like there's a God-given appetite for companionship.

It's there. But if it goes wrong, it goes too much, it goes it goes into areas it's not supposed to be, it becomes detrimental. There's There's a God-given appetite for intimacy. And we got all our little ones with us today, so I'm going to use words by code. I hope we I don't have to explain it, right?

But it's it's a God-given thing. And it's a special thing. And what an amazing God it is that he created that for a man and woman to enjoy inside of marriage. When it's outside of marriage, it has a way of binding you to someone that you have not committed your life to. And then when it doesn't work out or for convenience sake you just don't like them anymore or it was just a moment of irresponsibility or whatever the case may be.

You can describe it away, but it binds you to people over time. And then it causes and sows in confusion. Because it was never intended to be that way. The appetite goes through outside the bounds we're supposed to be. Again, I could go on and on. I think we I'm making the point here is that we have these appetites and they're the appetites are there.

God's given us but our society says, this is our culture, this is the world we're living in today is if you feel it, do it. Be true to you. If that's what you want to do, then go for it. As long as you're not hurting somebody else, why does it matter? Well, the problem with that is over time it does hurt.

It does confuse. It does cause problems. Cuz it's not what it's intended to be. God never intended for those things. He gave you those appetites because you did need those appetites, but those appetites have a boundary that needs to be set. And when you run outside the boundaries, all of a sudden you have this notion that you are what you have.

I heard a man tell a story about he's he and his wife got married and after a while they realized that they're having money problems. Now, his occupation, he was a CPA, and so he was the one to handle the books. And as he goes through the books, he realizes his wife has a spending problem.

I know there's nobody in here that identifies that, but he had a spending problem. All right, so he goes to his wife and says, "Hey, I think we got to work on this. It seems like you really like buying expensive clothes. And right now we're not able to do that. We need to save up for that.

We just can't continue to do that." So, they come to agreement. And he says, "Look, you know, I know this is a real temptation for you. I know you struggle with this. So, hey, let's be scriptural, right?" And anytime you're faced with this temptation, just look at that temptation and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan."

Plays into our story today. So, she agrees. The next month he's going through the bills and he sees that she's spent an exorbitant amount of money on a dress. So, he calls her back in and says, "Honey, what's going on? I thought we agreed about this." "Oh, we did. I'm sorry, but I had to buy it."

He goes, "What do you mean you had to buy it?" "Oh, I went to the store. I tried the dress on. You shouldn't have done it, but I did. I tried the dress on. I'm looking in the mirror and I just had to have it. It was just It was so perfect. I had to have it."

He said, "But our agreement was you were going to say, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.'" "I did say that. And when he got behind me, he said he agreed the dress looks good, too." Yeah. So, we can find a way to justify anything we want. But, man can't live by bread alone. He can't.

One theologian said it this way, "When we live by bread alone, listen, this is important, there's never enough bread. Not enough even when you bake so much that some of it rots away. When we live by bread alone, we always want more and better bread." See, this is where our world is today.

There's never enough. We're never satisfied. There's always something better. There's always something new. There's always something flash. There's always It's always There's There's always going to be somebody who's going to have more than you. There's always going to be something that draws your eye, your attention to. But, if you're constantly trying to be fulfilled by more, it always leaves you empty.

It never fulfills. Maybe in a moment, maybe temporarily, but it's not lasting. It's not sustaining. Because there's always a craving. There's There's this word that the Bible has that helps us here. It's a four-letter word. You got to be careful with those four-letter words, right? This one starts with an F. Fast. I don't know where y'all were going.

What y'all were thinking there? Then you can come to the altar later. Talking about fasting. See, fasting is denying yourself. Fasting is realizing that there are some things I need to not always do. See, what I have realized in my life, and there are many of you who stand a witness to this in this room today with me that know that there are times that I am hungry, but I don't always have to eat.

What I have found is that when I do fast from food, it has this ability to bring back some clarity of how dependent I am up on God. See, when I find myself being too caught up in some things, there are sometimes I need to back away from from this. Because it's being distracted.

As we spent last four weeks on Wednesday nights talking about the impact of this. Sometimes you need to fast this. You need to say, "I don't need this distraction in my life. It is consuming too much of my time. I need to withdraw from that so that I can draw closer to God."

But let me let me debunk some things about fasting, all right? Because we've got to be careful about this mindset that goes in. Fasting is not bending God's arm behind his back like a hunger strike. Well, God needs you to do something. So, I'm just going to sit over here and not eat for a month so that you're going to do this.

All right, I don't I don't know who you are, but you can't take and put God over a pickle barrel. You can't. Fasting has nothing to do with you making God's will align with yours. Fasting has everything with you lining your will up with his. That's what fasting does. Fasting makes me realize that I'm too dependent on me and nowhere near enough dependent on him.

See, that's what culture says is did you live by bread alone? But sometimes you need to withdraw from some things so that you can understand that there's more to life than me satisfying that appetite. That that appetite, even though it's God-given, I've let it go out of control and it's caused me to drift away from him and I no longer can hear what he's trying to say because I have too much bread in my life.

Too much to And we're trying to manage all this stuff. You know, we have the ability, you and I, we possess the ability to say no. That I'm not going to be held captive by my appetite. And there are some of you in this room today that this is a direct word from you.

That you've been struggling with some things, but you have refused to separate yourself from those appetites that control you. And it could be food. It could be an addiction. It could be pornography. I could go on. I could I could make this list long. But you're a sharp group. I think you understand the point that I'm I'm preaching a word that is very convicting today and I'm going slow with this because I know that God told me that there are some individuals in this place who need to understand that your appetites are out of control.

And that you need to learn how to say no, and it's a complete sentence. How to get these back in check. For me, you know, one of the things I learn about myself when I fast and my wife may shout. Y'all may sit here and take a lap right now. Is that one of the things fasting reveals to me is that I'm always in too big a hurry.

See, God showed me that, babe. That things don't always have to go according to my plan. That's what fasting reveals to me. It's because what I have found is by me sticking to my schedule, which I do like and it's a good schedule. And me always worried about this is it has limited time with him.

That there are times when God divinely interrupts my life and instead of me asking God, are you trying to get my attention, my rational brain goes into rerouting so that I can get back on my schedule. And sometimes God's just trying to say, "Hey, I just want to spend an extra 5 minutes with you.

It's okay if you spend 5 minutes longer with me." I know you may thinking who would who would be crazy enough to think they could control God with a schedule? Well, I've tried. I failed, but I've tried. See, that's what fasting is. That's me. I'm being transparent with you. What is What is you What is yours?

What is your appetite? What is What is your thing? What is your bread that you need to abstain from? The temptation that you and I have is to believe you are what you have. And the practice that we need to do is to go without so that I can be able to say no.

That was the first temptation. The second temptation, back to Luke 4, verse number 5. Then the devil, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, "All this authority I will give you and their glory, for this has been delivered to me and I'll give it to whomever I wish.

Therefore, if you will worship me, worship before me, all will be yours." And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." So, here, my idea here is Jesus could have had this impressive resume, right?

At this point, and this is a deeper study. So, I'm going to ask you to go with me for just a minute, but encourage you to study this out yourself, right? Don't ever just take my word for it. You can get in the word yourself. Don't ever just take my word for it.

But, if you'll give me give me a moment to give you a brief explanation here, is the devil at this point had the ability to fulfill what he said he could do. He did. This goes back to the fall in the garden and some dominion issues that took place, and it's it's a deeper study with you.

And again, I'll be glad to explain it if anybody's interested on a deeper level. But, for the sake of time today, I need you to understand this point as he had the ability to do what he just said he could do. He could turn those things over to him. So, we know that Jesus came to establish rule, right?

And what we see is the enemy saying, "Hey, I can do this for you. Like, we can skip ahead. You don't have to do that whole cross business. We don't have to do all that like like like I can take a lot out of the equation here. If you'll just look, it's just me and you.

It's just me and you. Nobody's around watching what's going on. If you'll just do a little worshiping right here, I can I know I know where you're going, and then you can have the ability to shortcut. Nobody's going to know what's going on right here. This is just something between us. Just between us.

This sec- second temptation and I feel like I'm putting it in today's culture and climate. This here it is. All right? The second one is you are what you worship. You worship work, you sacrifice your life, your heart, and your soul, your family at the altar of achievement. See, the first temptation is you are what you have, and the second temptation is you are what you worship.

See, this is one of the reasons why, and we don't talk about this near enough, and we Pentecostal Apostolics are the worst at what I'm fixing to talk about. We are the worst. Just say that we say we're the worst. I'm glad you agree. We are the worst at this. You don't even know what we're the worst at yet, and you agreed to that.

Why would you do that? Exodus 20. Most of you know Exodus 20 is the what commandments? That wasn't a trick question. There's only 10 of them, right? Yeah. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughters, nor your male servants, nor your female servants, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Now, Sabbath, the way I put this in our world today because I know you some of you like, "Well, that's just not our society today.

Things don't stop." That doesn't mean just because the world has embraced something that we have to embrace it. Having a regular period of time where you're not working, all right? I'm going to I'm going to say it this way. Now, please understand me when I say it the way I'm going to say it because I intended exactly by the words I use.

Having a time where you are not creating value. When you're not being important. Now, for some of you that means you know, I said that you're just you're just like well, I do that all the time watching Netflix. No, that that's not having a Sabbath. That's not having a Sabbath. You need to have a time where you're not carrying the world around on your shoulders.

Where you are alive like a child just enjoying what all is around you. Free from earth. Do you remember None of us know when that moment changes. When when everything is just good right where a kid growing up and we don't even understand what a bill is. We just get up every day, right?

And there's somebody's got food there on the table. We just saunter up, right? And we're like hey, this is we eat it, you know. What do you want to do? I'm going to go I'm going to go play. And you just go play and there's like nobody's restricting you. You're just like lost in Legos or Barbies or whatever it is.

You're on sticks and you're just you're just having a grand old time and you just do it and then all of a sudden it's dark and somebody makes sure you get cleaned up and you get fed again and then they encourage you to go to sleep and for some reason you fight it for a minute and then you give in to it and then you wake up and you repeat it all over again.

We didn't realize how good we had it. And one day we want to go outside the boundaries and want to be all independent. We're going to be all me can do it. And that comes with bills and pressure and stress. But see, the Lord understood this. God in his divine wisdom knew that we would get ourselves worked up.

So he sets an example and says, "Look, you got to you got to be productive. You got to provide for your family. You got to work the land. You got to till. You got to tend. You got to do all those things that are there. But there there needs to be a break every week.

After 6 days of doing that, you need a time opportunity you to stop." And you dedicate a day to just resting. For some of you, this is the favorite message you've ever heard me preach. You're like, yes, Lord, let there be rest. I feel like we're doing ourselves an injustice. Look Look at what he did.

Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, he goes into the wilderness driven by the spirit, and for 40 days, he doesn't give a talk, he doesn't draw a crowd, he doesn't recruit a team, he doesn't train a disciple, he doesn't write a book, he doesn't heal a disease, he does nothing because nothing is really important at times in your life for you to do.

Nothing. Now, for some of you, when I say that, you get all twitchy. You don't know how to do that. Cuz your whole life has been drawn up into do, do, do, do, do, accomplish, accomplish, accomplish, be, be, be. And you don't know how to do it. I'm telling you, it's robbing us of God-given principles, of things that he has desired for you and I to do, that that we are so bound up in trying to make a life that we miss life, that it's passing us by.

May I ask confession time? Kevin Allen is not a good follower. I hope you don't think less of me by saying that. Again, the members of the Allen household at 115 Brent Gail Lane will tell you that if we're going somewhere, I'm going to be leading. If you are ahead of me, at some point, I will pass you cuz I'm quite certain you don't know what you're doing.

There's been times that my wife knows where we're going, I don't know where we're going, and yet I'm ahead of her. There's been a time when she turned around and said, "If you're going to follow me, you have to get behind me." I don't like that. I like the front chair. I like being I like seeing what's coming.

I don't always So, I'm not a good follower. Am I Am I saying that okay? I'm preaching a good word today for myself, aren't I? Yeah. A lot of the times you and I are saying we're following Jesus, but we're not behind him. How can you follow if you're not behind? You're not following anything.

You're out on your own. You're out on your own mission. You're out doing your own thing. You're hoping he's going to catch up. And more often than not, he's on a completely different path. But, I'm following him. I don't know how that's I don't know how that's possible. He's way over there. Come on.

Some of this is understanding that I need to stop some things in my life so that I can recalibrate and figure out where he's at. That the path I'm going is not been productive for me. Oh, it may be productive by the world standards. The world may be saying I got everything going on, but why do I feel so lonely?

Why do I feel so broken? Why do I feel so hurt? Why am I dealing with all this anxiety? Why do I have all this pressure? If it's what I'm supposed to be doing, then why are all these things there? BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT FOLLOWING HIM. YOU'RE CAUGHT UP IN A cycle of lies that the enemy has tried to use to distract and destroy you and to keep you from being fulfilled in what he wants you to do.

In order to truly have a Sabbath, it requires you saying no to things in your life. Jesus, he goes off in the wilderness for 40 days. He does nothing. He goes off when it when and he finds a dark and secluded place. He goes off to a mountaintop when it's beautiful. He goes into a garden when life is really difficult and pressure gets great.

All these times he's going, what's he doing? He's going back to reset. Some of you need to learn Look, look, I'm just going to say this, all right? And respectfully, I hope you love me. I mean I mean this with good I really mean this from a good place. But, this is the Lord's day, not the Lord's 2 hours.

And I'm saying that to me, too. Cuz those of us in ministry, we're the worst at this. But a Sabbath is a biblical principle. Brother Shock said this before, Brother Terry Shock, I love him. He says we're nine commandment people. Cuz we won't take a Sabbath. Last temptation for the second time today.

Going back to Luke 4, verse number 9. Then he brought him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written." Isn't it interesting that the devil can quote scripture?

Verse number 10, "For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone." And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, you shall not tempt the Lord your God." Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

At some point, I'm going to preach about that opportune time, but then not today. Here's this temptation. You know, Jesus, you could do something spectacular, and everybody would just be like, "Wow, look at that. He jumped off the pinnacle up there." And before he hit the ground, angels just swooped down and caught him.

You could do this. You could have the ability to do every Everybody would have doubt, like, "Wow, he is the son of God. Look what he did. Look how powerful that is. Be spectacular. You could please the people. You could You could get everybody's approval, because right now they disapprove of you."

If you stop and think about Jesus for a moment, let me ask you a difficult question to grasp. Who in Jesus' life did he not disappoint? You heard me say that right. I'll say it again. Who in Jesus' life did he not disappoint? Go go look read through the scripture read through the gospel accounts they're there.

The crowd said to him, "We want you to be our king. You can defeat all of our enemies." And he said, "No." He disappointed them. The religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees they said, "You're not living up to our standard of righteousness. You're hanging out with sinners and prostitutes. You're hanging out with all the wrong people.

You need to stop doing that." And he says, "No." He disappoints them. His mom and his brothers come up and said, "You're acting crazy. You need to come home and stop all this insanity." And he says, "No." He disappointed them. Herod said, "Do a miraculous sign so that I can be wild." And he disappointed Herod and he said, "No."

James and John said, "Let us sit on your right hand and on your left." And he said, "No." He disappointed all of them by saying "No." As I bring this to a close and musicians can come on. The takeaway for us in this one is that you have to realize you need to be able to live this life without human approval.

You need to be able to not seek after someone affirming you. That there are going to be I promise you this. There is going to come times if you're if you're passionately following after him, he is going to lead you down a path that that that the majority of the people in your life are going to look at you and think you've lost your mind.

The culture and society says it's not necessary to do that, but yet he's he's saying, "Come on. Come on." And if you go back and you really study out his life, at every crossroad that was there, there was an opportunity to give and in all those opportunities he disappointed when he walked away from those who thought he was doing the wrong thing.

He said a complete sentence when he simply said, "No. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to elevate you. I'm not going to stop having interaction with those. No, I'm not. I'm not going to allow you to crown me to be your king. I'm not going to do that because if I do that it prevents me from fulfilling what I came to do.

You see, what I feel today as I start this series is we're talking about words to live by. As I feel like there are many of us in this room who need to understand the power of saying no. Not because not because it's like well I don't I don't I don't want to be with you so no.

All right, I don't want to do that. That's hard work. No, that's not what I'm talking about. If that's all you've taken then I have have completely completely done a just an absolute wreck of delivering this message today. I hope you understand that if you look at the temptations that he went through, say no to something you need to say no to that you ought to say no to.

That he has a plan for you. He has more for you than you could have ever dreamed. You see, some of you don't realize the ministry that he has waiting for you. And he's waiting on you to truly follow him. But you're you're caught up in living a bread alone life. You're caught up with the idea that I am what I worship.

I am what I'm what I'm caught up in. Are you caught up in having to have the approval of man? That was the third temptation is trying to walk away from the approval of man. When I accepted this position to come on full-time, not not the pastor, but just to come on ministry.

I had wonderful opportunities and many of you've heard me tell that testimony, but there there was a time when I turned in my resignation and I told these other job offers that all came in the same week by the way. Then now I'm going to the church to work full-time. They thought I'd lost my mind.

And there was a moment or two I wondered if I didn't. But I knew I knew what God wanted me to do. I knew where he was leading me. I knew what I knew what he laid in my heart. I remember I remember being 14 and pouring my heart out before him. I remember him telling me if you will just follow me, I will always take care of you.

I didn't even know what that meant at 14. I just knew that I had to give up some things. I remember at 19 when I finally got tired of running from God and I fully embraced the call of God in my life. I remember going to my friends and saying I can't do this.

I can't I can't go there. I can't hang out. I'm not I'm not doing that. I'm I'm walking a different path and I remember the lonely times that I had. I remember that. But I also remember the embrace I had from him and the encouragement that I that I got in pouring my heart out before God because I'm going to be honest with you.

Maybe maybe yours wasn't like me, but it hurt my feelings some of the things I had to walk away from. Is it okay that I say that? It just hurt my feelings. I liked it. There were some people in my life that I genuinely I loved them, but I couldn't have them in my life anymore because they were bad for me, and I had to I had to break off relationships and there was stuff I had to go because there was a higher purpose for my life.

And I want you to know I'm speaking to somebody. There's a higher purpose for your life. And there's going to be an opportunity for you to say no, and I'm encouraging you that you're going to have to say no if you ever going to be all that he wants you to be. It's okay to have somebody be disappointed in you.

It's It's okay. Some of you have spent too much time trying to please people that are never going to be pleased. I'm speaking to somebody today. You have put far too much weight on man's approval, and in the process you've forgot about God's approval. You need to say no to something that needs to be said no to.

And be okay sometimes when people are not happy. Don't try to change their mind. Don't try to make sure that your reputation is built up in them because you are not what you have. You are not what you worship. You are not what people think you are. You are a child of God.

That is your identity. Jesus had to say no throughout his entire life. It wasn't just at the beginning. Over and over again, right up until the end, Jesus was hanging on a cross. Some of you know the story. The crowd's crying out, "You can save yourself. You could You could save You could save others, but you can't save yourself.

Come down from that cross." And Jesus, one last time, gave a final no. But that no became God's yes to humanity. The cross, which looks like the triumph of no, actually becomes God's yes to forgiveness and grace and mercy and life and love to all of us. The last thing I'll say to you is this, often our no today is setting us up for a divine yes tomorrow.

Our no today is setting us up for a divine yes tomorrow. Now, I feel down deep that God's doing something special right now. So, I want to close this message this way. If you don't mind, if you're comfortable just closing your eyes and maybe bowing your head. And I'm going to pray. Holy God, I've delivered my heart today to your church.

I've tried my best to be obedient to where you led me. I've tried to speak it in love and in truth. But God, I'm going to step out of the way now and turn this over to you. I pray God that you would draw men and women. That you would bring us to a place where we could do an evaluation of where we are and where we need to be.

That we could learn, Lord, that there are things in our life that we simply must say no to. But the no we say today gives us an opportunity to say yes tomorrow. In Jesus' name we pray. And amen. It's It's time for prayer. This altar is open. I don't know what you have need of today.

I don't know what you're desiring, but I feel I feel strong that there's a restoration of ministries in this place. That there is healing that's in this place and salvation for those who seek it today. I'm going to ask you right now, be honest with yourself. Do you need him? And if you do, why don't you come?