Committing to STOP IT!

Years ago, I saw a video. Jimmy usually laughs when I, and you know that I like to put some YouTube videos up every once in a while. And I don’t normally put something like this up unless all of a sudden I just go, “Gosh, that is where we’re at today.” And I saw this years ago. And so I want you to look from a thing. How does that reflect not only the world but maybe even the church today? Don, if you’ll show it now.

That’s a little different than most sermons start, especially with me. Do you not think that God sometimes looks at our lives and how we’re living them, and even maybe how the church is working and Christians and how we’re behaving in the world, or just how the world’s acting, and just says, “Stop it. Stop it.”

You know, not everything in the Bible is gray. There’s a whole lot of black and white here. There’s a whole lot in this book that guides our lives. I’m thinking about the five that got up in the baptistry just a little while ago and said, “I want the Lord in my life. I want Him.” Because I asked them, “Do you want Him to be at the center of your life? Do you want Him to help run and make decisions in your life?” And they said, “Yes,” because they want to stop the things in their life that take them away from Him and stop, you know, killing their future.

The nation of Israel was just like that. I want you to turn in your Bibles today to the book of Judges, chapter 17. We’re just really going to look at one verse. In fact, this verse is actually mentioned four or five times in the next couple chapters. The last four chapters of the book of Judges is kind of an appendix of this book. It’s not really time material after the other. It kind of describes what this book’s about.

I look at this book, and it almost seems like shampoo, you know, wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. I mean, that’s pretty much the book of Judges. What it does is Israel was doing well with the Lord. Then they decide, “No, we don’t need Him anymore. We’ll just worship other gods. We might throw Him on the plate.” And then all of a sudden, they start doing destructive things. They let other people and other communities that they’re having an effect on them, and they go away from God. And they’re about to destroy themselves or about to be destroyed, and God has to bring someone in to rally the day and bring them back to God. And then they go back, and they do the same thing over and over again. And I’m just wondering if we’re like that at times.

You know, I think of University of Georgia fans. What have you done for me lately? How many games have you won for me lately? I think we look at God and say, “God, what have You done for me lately?”

So just go with me with this verse. Verse 6: “In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes.” We like this little video that you just saw. God’s looking at you going, “You need to stop it.” And you just come up with excuse after excuse. You get offended because God said, “Stop it. Don’t go in that direction.” I can look down. You know, God’s saying, “I can look down the halls of history. I see what’s coming, and I see what if you continue in this direction, what’s going to happen in your life?” He sees what’s on the way.

In this chapter, there is kind of a story that goes with it. It’s about a guy named Micah, and it’s not the same Micah that’s at the end, the prophet at the end of the Old Testament. Micah was kind of a popular Hebrew name back then. And what it actually meant was one who is like God. What’s interesting, he had the name. He just didn’t live the life.

Before God can help us to commit to the direction that He would have us to go in our lives, we must first remove the things of destruction in our lives that keep us from Him. And there’s an act. There’s an act that helps us do that. And here’s the act. It’s repentance. That’s the act.

Now, I’ve always told you how I look at repentance. Repentance reminds me of the military. It’s almost like a military term. You know, in the military, when you march, you have Two terms that are kind of alike. You have an about face. You know, all that means is you sit there, plant your feet, and you point in the other direction. To the rear march is a whole different perspective. It’s marching in a direction, but you plant your foot, you turn around, and then you march out of that direction. That would be repentance. And what we’ve got to say is, God, I just don’t want to, you know, it’s not just mouthing the words I don’t want to change. It’s living the life that says, take me to where I change.

I like, someone said, repentance is not like sending the IRS a check for about $150 with a note that says, if I can’t sleep at night, I’ll send you the rest. That’s how we look at coming to the Lord sometime. Lord, I’ll give you a little bit. I’ll add you to the plate, but the plate’s full already, so I’ll kind of move you around, and when I need you, I’ll just kind of come to you. And God’s sitting there saying, no, you need to get rid of the plate. We’ll talk about that in a moment. I need to be what you’re about.

See, the greatest challenge in our lives is going to be, especially as a Christian, for these five that came today, the greatest challenge in their lives is keeping the Lord first. And the only way to do that is to maintain a close, personal, listen to this now, and growing relationship with Jesus. I want to tell you, you get close to Jesus, you change. You get personal with Jesus, you change. I mean, the one thing the Lord wants us to do is grow. I mean, what’s the number one command that He gives us? Go into all the world and make what? Make disciples. That’s growth. And this church will need to grow. You will need to come along and help grow this church and grow each other.

These five behind me are brand new Christians. And there are many of you out there that may be relatively new, or maybe you’re at a place in your life where you haven’t grown and you need to grow. That’s why we come together. That’s why we do things like come to church. I mean, I love Matthew 6:33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things shall be added unto you. Dad, do you want to be a good dad? You put Jesus first, even in front of your family. He’ll make you the best dad you ever thought about being. Moms, you want to be the best mom? You want to be the best wife? Manny, you want to be the best husband? You put Jesus first. You’ll become the best husband that your wife ever saw. She’s looking for you for spirit.

That’s why it was important that Rhett stay up there with his family while they were baptized, that he stand behind them, that he support them, that he help lift them up. Do you see the picture? See, if we’re going to stop destructive influences in our lives, then we must implement into our lives the removal of other gods that surround us. These people didn’t do that, folks. I’m telling you. They couldn’t do that. Let me tell you. The story in here about this guy, Micah. He’s a young man. Let me tell you what he does. He’s got a son. Let me tell you what he does. He steals from his mama.

Now, look at verse 1. Now, there was a man of the hill country in Ephraim whose name was Micah, and he said to his mom, the 1,100 pieces of silver. That’s a lot. The 1,100 pieces of silver which were taken from you about which you uttered a curse in my hearing. Behold, the silver is with me. I took it. And his mother said, bless me, my son, by the Lord, which I find kind of odd that she would say, she would say, well, bless you, son, for giving it back. I’d be upset. Why did you take it? How can he steal from your mom? That’s what he did. But he hears her uttering a curse thinking, oh, I’m not sure I want to go there, so let me just give it back. So, she blesses him.

So, he then returns the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mom, and the mother said, I wholly dedicate the silver from my hand to the Lord for the son to make, listen to this now, to make a graven image and a molten image. Now, therefore, I return them to you. So, when he returned the silver to his mom, his mother took 200 pieces of silver, gave them to a silversmith and a molten image, and they were in the house of Micah. How many things are wrong in this whole passage? My stars. First, he steals from his mother. Then he feels guilty because she’s put a curse on whoever took it. So he returns it to her. Then she makes the vow, which sounds pretty good from the get-go when she says, well, I’m going to give this to the Lord. But she doesn’t do that. What does she do? She takes 200 of it, keeps the rest. And then what she does is she says, let me make a graven image of the Lord, and we’ll worship that.

This takes us back to the top 10 in the book of Exodus and Deuteronomy where it says, don’t make any what? Graven images. See, I always find, why is that such a big deal? Why is it that, you know, because God doesn’t want us worshiping things. He doesn’t want us to worship the creatures. He wants us to worship the creator. He doesn’t want us looking at a graven image. Why? Because graven images are always limited. Graven images are always made in our image. Last time I checked, the Bible says we were made in His image.

So we’re going to stop these destructive influences. The first God we must deal with, and the most important, is the God of I. God of I. What I want, when I want it, who I want to do it with. It’s all about me. Me, myself, and I. Talk about the unholy trinity. And he makes it, and here’s the deal. He lives there, I guess, with his mom, and he’s got to his house. He anoints his son to be a priest. So he can be a priest with God. And they actually have a number of graven images in the home. And so they have their own little service. And then later in the chapter, you’ll find that a Levite shows up. Well, what’s the problem with the fact that he made his son a priest? Well, his son wasn’t from the tribe of the Levite. And so he’s not a priest. He just makes him. And then an actual Levitical priest shows up, and he says, well, why don’t you just stick around? Let me pay you, and you’ll be my own personal pastor.

What’s wrong with that picture? It’s almost like the pandemic. You know, I got used to just staying at home. I like home. I don’t want to travel. I don’t want to be around other folks. I’m comfortable with my lazy boy and got my coffee and my dog sitting next to me. What do I need church for? And guys, I want to tell you, I love David Jeremiah. I’ve heard him in person I don’t know how many times. I love to listen to Adrian Rogers still on the television and radio and Charles Stanley and all those guys. Folks, David Jeremiah is not going to visit you in the hospital. David Jeremiah is wonderful, an incredible pastor and preacher that he is. And you need to listen to Him. I’m not saying that. Don’t do that. He’s got his own church. You need to come into a community of believers in this area, like this place, and grow up together, change this community together, and this world together, and get closer to the Lord together, and influence lives together. That’s what this church has going for it. Got to get rid of I.

See, what happens when I fails you? What happens when you hit rock bottom? What God do you turn to then? So, let’s just real quickly as we get, because we got to move on. What are the destructive realities of the God of I? Number one is this. You place it before God. That means there’s God, and you’re out front. What’s wrong with that picture? Now you’re the graven image. You’re the one in front of God. Number two, if you’re the one out front, then you surrender your life to that. And the problem with that is you will constantly have to face two things, God’s anger and God’s discipline. And who wants to do that? Because God is consistently looking at you and saying, guys, stop it. Stop it. How many… I love the nation, but do you know what’s going on in Israel’s history at this time? There’s a group of people that are plaguing them. There’s a group of people that are constantly just, you know, coming in and giving them their gods and just overtaking them.

Materialistically, physically, I mean, any way they can, and coming into their lives spiritually and taking them away from God. You know who they were? They were called the Philistines. You know where they were from? Area called Gaza. Still happening today. Cities like Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gaza, and Gath. Those cities were bothering them back then or still harming them this very day. God’s sitting there saying, look to me.

So what are constructive ways to have God in His proper place? Okay. God’s telling you to stop. Whatever you’re doing. See, I don’t know, and I don’t need to know. But I want to tell you, that’s between you and God. And I want to tell you, God does know. So everybody in this room, to include this pastor, has things in our lives that we need to sit there and do. No, I need to take a second look at that. And I can have all, like this young lady, I can have all the excuses in the world. And God is looking at you, and He’s sitting there saying, you need to stop it. Quit with the excuses. Sometimes it’s just stop it.

I love the story about a young man. And one day he looked down, and he looked at his little three-year-old boy, and in his hand was a cigarette that he had gotten from a pack that he had laying on. And he had it, and he was putting it into his mouth. Wasn’t lit, but he was just copying daddy. That made daddy quit. That made daddy stop it. I’m telling you, folks, there are things in our lives that we just need to take a step back and say, God, what is it that is keeping me from You?

First thing we need to do is ask for His forgiveness. The Bible says if we’ll ask for His forgiveness, then He is just and faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If I want to go with that promise, first thing I got to do is ask for it. And it’s not that He doesn’t already know. He wants to see us come close to Him. He wants to embrace us. God wants to bless us. God wants to take us through difficult times. He wants to walk with us. Not that you won’t go through them. You will go through them. But let me tell you something about trials. They don’t always last forever. He says, I will walk with you through that. But you must first ask for His forgiveness.

Second, you need to remove and replace the idols. You know, something has to replace them. Something has to replace me. I was listening to a couple that was talking about the pleasure of spending an evening with a former astronaut. His name was Charles Duke. All of them in the room were just in fascination listening to this man talk about being on the moon and, you know, negotiating the rover around the top of the lunar surface. And one of them asked this, once you were there, weren’t you free to make your own decisions and carry out some of your own experiments? You know, sort of do as you please. Maybe stay a little longer than you liked. He said, sure, Chuck, if we didn’t want to return to Earth. He then described the intricate plan, the exact precise instructions, the essential discipline, the instant obedience that was needed right down to the split second.

By the way, they had landed what they call somewhat heavy. What that means on the moon is that they, he was referring to the fuel supply, that they had little more than they thought they had. Guess how much they had? One minute. One minute more. They landed with 60 seconds of fuel remaining. Talk about being exact. You know, I kind of get the distinct impression that a rebel doesn’t fit inside a spacesuit. If you want to represent the space program, you better have a healthy respect for authority.

See, sometimes we just don’t want God telling us what to do. And you know what God will do? He’ll say, that’s fine. Do what you want to do. God will not make us do anything. Tell you what He did do. He went to the cross. That’s what He did do. And here’s the thing. If you don’t remove the idols from your life, they’ll come back. See, you need to do more than just remove them. You need to replace them. Because if you don’t replace them with the things of God, you’ll go back to what you know. I’ve been in the ministry too long. I’ve worked with too many people that had Addictions and had other issues that if they didn’t replace what they had before with something of the Lord’s, they just went back to what they know. I like what one person said, life doesn’t get better by chance. Life gets better by change.

The next thing is just do what it takes to stay close to God. Just do what it takes. Stay close to Him. I mean, He wants you close. There’s going to be times in your life where you’re going to be in a crowded room and you’re going to feel like the loneliest person there. I’m telling you, I’ve been there. I have seen people in that situation. And God said, but you’re never alone. As long as I’m here, you’re never alone.

Let me give you five things that you can do just real quick to help you do that. Number one, develop a regular daily habit of prayer. And I’m going to tell you just again up front, you’re no healthier spiritually than your prayer life. If you have a poor prayer life, you’re poor spiritually. If you have a healthy prayer life, God will get you through anything.

David Jeremiah, again, he’s one of my favorite preachers. And I’ve read most of his books. He said, you know, he said, I didn’t really know what prayer was that I got cancer. He said, I preached on it for years. And then I’m at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. And I realized how much I needed the Lord. He was a television pastor. Wrote a book called The Great Adventure of Prayer, The Great Adventure. Great book to get. But I’m telling you, when you are prayed up, God helps you.

Number two, develop community. That’s why we come to church. This guy, this Micah guy was wanting everything in his home. He wanted to do it privately. You know, I’m a private person. God didn’t make us that way. He made us to be in community. He made us to be with each other. He made us to help support and encourage each other. That’s why you come to church. Come to church to be with each other. There are people here that need you. You have gifts and talents that will help whatever church you’re a member of. And they need you. It’s like, you know, there’s a reason it’s called the body. Can the body work without an arm? Absolutely. Does it work better with two of them? You bet. You may be one of those arms, one of those eyes, one of those ears.

Three, do what it takes to stay close to God. See, there’s a discipline of study. Grow. Everybody that got baptized, they got a study Bible. Not just a Bible, a study Bible. But I want them in it. I want them to learn all the little stuff.

And here’s the last thing. The removal must be total. I’m telling you, you leave a closet in your house open, you’ll know what stuff is in that closet. You don’t get rid of the junk in your life. You don’t stop it and get rid of it, you’ll go back to it. That’s what we do. That’s why we get a discipline of service. We look at others who are role models, present, future. We imitate them. I want to be around people that are doing it right. And I want you to understand this. God’s always around. He’s like the teacher in the classroom. Okay? You know, you’re taking a test. Teacher there? Absolutely. Teacher’s just quiet. He’s always there.

Close with this. This is a story I came across this week that I thought was… I’m going to tell you, it’s hard to live a focused Christian life. Folks, I’m not telling you it’s easy. For the wonderful five that got baptized, I’m telling you, they’re starting a journey that’s amazing. God will walk with them every step of the way. But I’m going to tell you, it’s going to be hard. You already know it’s hard. You already know that when you got saved, especially if you’re in the ministry, you got a target on your back. But I’m telling you, you can do it.

And I want to tell you, we get distracted easy. My stars. Social media, television, I mean, look, I love the Georgia Bulldogs, but I can’t make Georgia Bulldogs my God. Make all kind of crazy stuff gods. But we can get distracted. One Chicago youth pastor came up with a clever way to keep his group on track. They were going on a mission trip to Florida, probably around Daytona, West Palm, those kind of places. And you know how you can be distracted in those kind of places, especially with the beaches and all that kind of thing. So he came up with an idea. He got two pieces of lumber and made it into a cross. Showed it to the group right before they got on the bus. And here’s what he said. I want all of you to remember that the whole purpose of us going is to glorify the name of Christ. We want to lift up the cross, the message of the cross, the emphasis of the cross, the Christ of the cross. So you know what we’re going to do? Wherever we go, inside or out, we’re going to take this cross. Can you imagine those teenagers? Really? So they got on that bus, that church bus, took that wooden cross, put it right there in the middle aisle.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a church bus heading down on a mission trip. You can imagine that thing banging one side or the other. And they’re just kind of going. It’s in the way. And it’s messing up. And it’s crazy. In fact, they took it everywhere. Because they had agreed to do it. It went with them in the restaurants. It stayed overnight in the hotels that they went to. It stood in the sand on the beaches that they ministered on. And at first, lugging that thing around, they were just as embarrassed as they could be as teenagers. But later, came a point of identification. See, the cross was a constant. It was a silent reminder of who they were and why they came. They eventually regarded carrying it as an honor and almost would fight each other on who would be carrying it into a place that they were about to enter.

The night before they went home, the youth leader handed them two nails. Gave two nails to each kid. He told them that if they wanted to commit themselves to what the cross stood for, they could hammer one nail into it and keep the other with them as a reminder. One by one, those kids came up to that cross, took a hammer, and nailed it, one nail into the cross. Fifteen years later, one of the youth, now a stockbroker, called the youth leader, told him that he still keeps that nail with him in his desk drawer. Whenever he loses his sense of focus and he’s struggling with stopping it, he looks at the nail, remembers the cross on the beach in Florida and reminds him of what is really at the core of his life, about his commitment to Jesus Christ.

I ask you this. Do you realize what God went through to stop it? Do you? I mean, we’ve all heard the stories of what the cross was about. Jesus, I mean, the Lord knew the plan from the beginning of time. I mean, the Lord is always in the present. That crucifixion is always in the present. He loves you, folks. That’s what He did to help us stop it. There was no king in you. What’s the king of your life? Who’s the king in your life? There’s no king in Israel when everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes. How do you live in your life? You can’t account for anybody else. When you stand for the Lord, you’re not going to account for anybody else. You’re just going to account for you. What are you going to do? I mean, look at homecoming. What a wonderful thing. The ultimate homecoming, though, is when we’re going to be with Him. I was alive this morning and said, we love this homecoming. We’re going to eat well. We’re getting ready for the real homecoming. Knowing that’s going to be. That’s what it’s all about.

Let’s pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for telling us to stop it. Gosh. And as many times in the word that you tell us to stop it, you tell us to go do this. If we’ll just be about doing the do’s, we don’t have to worry so much about the don’ts. But sometimes to do the do’s, we’ve got to stop it. There are things in everybody’s life here that needs to stop because it takes them away from you. Lord, help us to turn around and not just do an about face, but do a to the rear march. And march towards you and say, God, give me, give me You. Come into my life. Make me different so I can be buried with You in Your death, raised with You in Your resurrection, a new creature. May we do that today. In Your son’s name we pray. Amen.