and came into the city and Absalom came into Jerusalem.
Dear God, please fill the past and with your spirit
and please give us years to hear the preaching
and may be blessed and go over our day
with the wisdom we gain today.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Man, the title of my sermon this morning
is accepting the things that you cannot change.
Accepting things that you cannot change.
There are many things in our life that we cannot change.
Circumstances that we find ourselves in,
things about ourself or other people
that just simply cannot be changed
and we need to learn to accept those things
and not to just constantly lament or be angry
or worry about things that we have no control over
and that we can do nothing about.
The Bible says, you don't have to turn there,
but the Bible says in Matthew chapter six verse 27,
which of you by taking thought
can add one cubit unto his stature?
Worrying and stressing and fretting,
you can't make yourself any taller
because your height is something that you can't change.
The Bible also says in Luke 12 25,
which of you with taking thought
can add one cubit to his stature
if ye then be not able to do that thing which is least,
why take ye thought for the rest?
And what the Bible's basically saying there
is that if you can't do anything about it,
then why even sit around thinking about it?
If you can't change it anyway,
if there's nothing that you can do about it.
Now, if you would flip over to 2 Samuel chapter 12,
2 Samuel chapter 12.
And the Bible says in 2 Samuel chapter 12,
this is where David has sinned with Bathsheba
and one of the punishments for David sinning with Bathsheba
is that the child that is the product of that union
is going to die, his baby is going to die
and several of his children end up dying.
But if you would look at 2 Samuel 12 verse 15,
and Nathan departed unto his house
and the Lord struck the child
that Uriah's wife bear unto David and it was very sick.
David therefore besought God for the child
and David fasted and went in
and lay all night upon the earth
and the elders of his house arose and went to him
to raise him up from the earth but he would not,
neither did he eat bread with them.
So David's very upset, he's refusing to eat,
he's just laying on the earth crying, weeping,
praying to God and it says in verse 18,
and it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died
and the servants of David feared to tell him
that the child was dead for they said,
behold, while the child was yet alive,
we spake unto him and he would not hearken unto our voice.
How will he then vex himself
if we tell him that the child is dead?
They were afraid to even tell him because they're saying,
look how bad he's doing while the baby's still alive.
If he finds out it died,
it's gonna push him over the edge.
But in fact, the opposite happens.
He perceives that they're whispering about this
and so it says in verse 19,
but when David saw that his servants whispered,
David perceived that the child was dead,
therefore David said unto his servants,
is the child dead?
And they said, he's dead.
Then David arose from the earth
and washed and anointed himself and changed his apparel
and came into the house of the Lord and worshiped.
Then he came to his own house and when he required,
they set bread before him and he did eat.
And this really confuses the people around him.
Why was he upset while the child was alive
and now all of a sudden he's fine
now that the child is dead.
It says in verse number 21,
then said his servants unto him,
what thing is this that thou has done?
Thou didst fast and weep for the child while it was alive.
But when the child was dead,
thou didst rise and eat bread.
And he said, while the child was yet alive,
I fasted and wept for I said,
who can tell whether God will be gracious to me
and the child may live, but now he is dead.
Wherefore should I fast?
Can I bring him back again?
I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
And so what we see here is that David
was able to accept something that he could not change.
While the baby was alive,
there was still a chance that he could change it.
Even though God told him the child will die,
there are many times when God makes pronouncements
like that in the Bible,
but if people repent and they weep
and they beg him for mercy,
he'll often go back on that.
Like for example, he said in the book of Jonah,
yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
And what did the people do?
They mourned, they wept, they prayed to God, they fasted.
Did God destroy Nineveh?
No, even though he'd said,
and he didn't say, Nineveh shall be overthrown
if you don't do X, Y, and Z.
He just said in 40 days, Nineveh's gonna be overthrown.
But because they begged for mercy,
because they besought him,
he was entreated of them and he ended up sparing the city.
There are lots of other examples like that in the Bible.
We have of course, you know, Hezekiah is told,
you're gonna die, he prays and begs God for more time.
God gives him another 15 years.
And there's an important lesson in that,
that a lot of times when we think that things are hopeless
and that God is just mad and there's nothing,
look, God's mercy endures forever, the Bible says.
And his mercies are new every morning.
And so don't ever get to the point
where you think that it's futile or pointless
to beg God for mercy.
Oh man, I've just messed up my life too much,
there's no point.
Hey, never get to that point where you think
that getting right with God isn't gonna fix things.
People get that way, they think to themselves,
well, I've messed up so much
that even if I were to now get right with God, it's too late.
It's never too late.
If you're a saved child of God and you are breathing air,
it's not too late to turn again to the Lord.
And you say, no, no, no, I've already destroyed my life.
But here's the thing, God can fix things.
And you might think that you're doomed
and even when God even just looks at you and says,
you're doomed.
Sometimes you're still not quite doomed
because God is so merciful and compassionate
that if you do at least give it a shot, it can happen.
That's why David said, who can tell?
Now it's not always gonna work
because here we see David crying and fasting
and begging for mercy and you know what happened?
The child died.
So a lot of times the consequences of our sin
are going to happen, a lot of times we are doomed
but it doesn't hurt to try
because there are plenty of examples in the Bible
where it worked.
And you know what, it never hurts anyway
just to worship the Lord and pray and fast anyway
because those are just good things to do anyway.
And getting right with God is always worth it
for other reasons even if we don't get what we want
from God.
So the point is that while the child was alive,
David believed that there was a chance.
He said, this is something I can change.
This is something that I might be able to fix.
And so he gave it his best.
He cried, he fasted, he prayed.
Once the child was dead though, he knew this is over.
That's my answer from God.
The child's dead.
And so at that point he accepted something
that he couldn't change.
And that's what we need to do in our lives.
When something happens that we can't change,
we need to accept that and move on.
Now one example of course in this passage
would be the death of a loved one.
Now here's the thing about this.
Obviously when a loved one dies,
there's gonna be a period of mourning that goes on.
It's totally normal.
We should be sad, we should be grieving, we should mourn.
And we see examples in the Bible where people died
and they'll have a month of grieving or a week of grieving
or 30 days, 40 days, whatever.
The Bible gives examples of that.
But remember the Bible says we don't mourn
like those who have no hope.
We do not mourn like those who have no hope.
And so after that period of grieving, it's time to move on.
It's time to move on at some point
and understand that the Lord gave
and the Lord had taken away,
blessed be the name of the Lord.
And it's hard to lose a loved one.
But life goes on and we still have a job to do.
We still have other people that are still here
that we need to love them and take care of them
and be a blessing to them.
And we have work that we need to do for Christ.
We don't wanna get swallowed up with over much sorrow
and mourn like people who have no hope.
We have to be able to accept something that we can't change.
And probably the last person we would ever wanna lose
in our lives would be a child.
Having a child die has gotta be one of the most
painful things that you could go through,
one of the most painful things you can endure.
But here we see David going through that
and he's gonna go through it four times over.
I wonder if it was worth it that night with Bathsheba.
No way.
But he ends up going through this pain four times over
but he understood the fact that look,
once that milk has been spilled,
there's no use crying over it anymore.
He'd already done the mourning.
He'd already done the grieving for a week leading up to it
and he said, you know what?
I'm just gonna worship the Lord.
I'm gonna praise God and I'm gonna move on with my life.
In fact, this isn't in my notes,
but in fact that expression even comes from the Bible,
the expression about not crying over spilled milk
because in the Bible it talks about water
that's spilled on the ground
and it can't be gathered up again.
There's nothing you can do about it.
You can't put that back.
And so there is truly no use crying over spilled milk.
And this is an extreme example.
If you would flip over to Jeremiah chapter 29.
So what are some things that we can't change
that we just need to accept?
Well, how about the past?
We cannot change the past.
So there's no sense at all beating yourself up
about mistakes that you've made in the past.
We've all made mistakes in the past.
There's nothing you can do to change that.
So sitting around and lamenting that, mourning that,
beating yourself up about that is pointless.
You need to accept the things that you can't change
and the past is one of them.
The apostle Paul said, forgetting those things
which are behind and reaching forth
unto those things which are before.
I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
And many people beat themselves up
about sins that they've done in the past.
But you know what?
If God has forgiven us of those sins,
then we ought to be able to forgive ourselves
and move on and dust ourselves off
and go forward in our lives.
And not just spend all our time thinking about the past.
Now again, just like we talked about
with the loss of a loved one,
yeah, there's a period of mourning.
There's a period of grieving.
And when we commit some grievous sin,
we ought to feel bad about it.
We ought to mourn about that.
We ought to confess it to God and be sorry and feel bad.
But once we have confessed and forsaken that,
once we've said we're sorry, we've made restitution,
we've moved on, we're not gonna do it again,
and we go forward, there is no reason
to ever think about that again.
There's no reason for that to ever be brought up again.
There's no reason to just sit around
and think about what you would've, could've, should've.
No, it's over.
Move on, move forward.
And that can hold you back in your Christian life
when you're just constantly hanging on to bad things
from the past and thinking about them, talking about them.
And here's how you can forget the things which are behind.
Because the Apostle Paul said,
forgetting the things which are behind
and reaching forth onto those things which are before,
how are we gonna reach for the high calling of God
if we're being dragged down by our past?
Here's how you forget about your past.
Quit talking about it.
The things that I remember from my childhood
are the stories I tell over and over again
from my childhood.
And if it's a story that I don't tell,
I'm probably not gonna remember it 20 years later,
30 years later.
Have you ever noticed that some people
just remembered nothing from their childhood?
And you run into old friends and you wanna,
hey, remember this?
They're just like, nope, nope, nope, don't remember.
Other people vividly remember everything
about their childhood.
That's because some people think about their childhood
and talk about their childhood and some people don't.
Because if you don't talk or think about something
for 10 years or 20 years, you're not gonna remember it.
You're gonna forget about it.
It's constantly bringing things back up
that makes you remember them.
And so if you have a bad past that you wanna forget about,
quit thinking about it and quit talking about it.
Don't sit around thinking about it and talking about it,
all the things you would have done and could have done.
Forget the things which are behind
and reach forth under those things which are before.
And that's what the Apostle Paul is talking about.
Obviously, if you have good memories,
sit and dwell on those good things.
If you have good things that you've done
and good experiences, yeah, meditate on those things.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report,
if there be any virtue and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
It's from the same book of the Bible, Philippians.
But when he says forgetting the things which are behind,
he's talking about the failures, the mistakes,
the bad things because the Apostle Paul
had done some embarrassing things,
some things that he was ashamed of, some wicked things
because he had persecuted Christians.
And obviously, the fact that he persecuted Christians
was a bad thing that he did.
And he can't just let that hold him back.
I can't really be as good of an apostle because of my past.
Peter and John are gonna have to do the big works
but I'm gonna have to hang back a little bit
because I'm being, no,
he actually ended up being the greatest apostle.
He did more than the 11 disciples
that Jesus actually handpicked.
He did the most and he even said
under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,
I labored more abundantly than they all.
By the grace of God, I am what I am.
And he ended up doing great things for God
because he did not let his past drag him down.
Don't sit around talking about your wicked past,
thinking about your wicked past, just move on.
You're a new creature in Christ.
Old things are passed away, all things have become new.
Move forward.
What's another thing that we can't change?
Because the title of the sermon
is Accepting Things You Can't Change.
Well, often, your life situation
is something that you can't change.
Now, obviously, there are certain things
about our situation that we can change,
but there are some things about our situation
that we can't change,
certain circumstances that we find ourselves in
that we can't change.
Here's a great example of this from the book of Jeremiah.
Look at Jeremiah 29.
And in fact, let's just jump down to verse 28
just to get the synopsis
because these are Jeremiah's accusers
repeating back what he said,
but they kind of summarize it nicely for us.
Thank you, enemies.
It says in Jeremiah 29, 28,
for therefore, he said unto us in Babylon,
saying, this captivity is long.
Build ye houses and dwell in them
and plant gardens and eat the fruit of it.
I mean, can you believe that?
He's telling us this is gonna be a long captivity.
You know what he's telling them?
Accept it.
Don't try to fight against it.
Don't try to resist it.
Don't try to undo it.
Don't get there and not settle in
because you're thinking, this is just temporary.
We're going back next year in Jerusalem.
No, it's not gonna happen.
Settle in.
You can't change it.
You are gonna live in Babylon
and you're gonna die in Babylon.
That's what God has decided.
And he's telling them to do what?
Accept it.
Look what he actually said.
If you back up to Jeremiah 29, verse four, it says,
thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel
unto all that are carried away captives
whom I have caused to be carried away
from Jerusalem unto Babylon.
Build ye houses and dwell in them
and plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.
Take ye wives and beget sons and daughters.
Take wives for your sons.
Give your daughters to husbands
that they may bear sons and daughters
that you may be increased there and not diminished
and seek the peace of the city
whither I've caused you to be carried away captives
and pray unto the Lord for it
for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
Now look, that actually sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
I mean, build a house, plant trees, plant gardens,
have kids, your kids get married, you have grandkids,
live in peace, seek the peace of the city that you live in.
This doesn't sound like a bad life, does it?
And you know what God's saying?
Hey, make the best of your situation.
You didn't choose this life,
you didn't choose this situation, but guess what?
You can't change this situation, so make the best of it.
And this is what we need to do in our lives.
You know, when there are things in our life
that have gone wrong, mistakes we've made in the past,
situations that we find ourselves in,
all we can do is make the best of the current situation
and understand this is something I can't change,
I'm gonna make the best of it, I'm gonna enjoy it.
I can still serve God here, I can still love God here.
Look, think about the worst things that could happen to you.
You know, the worst possible things that could happen to you
you know, one thing that nobody wants is to go to prison.
Right, I mean, that would be bad.
Who wants to go to prison for a decade
of their life or longer?
That would be a disaster, wouldn't it?
But you know what, if you ever go to prison,
make the best of it.
Enjoy it, settle in, right?
Figure out a way to serve God there.
Figure out a way to win people to Christ.
Figure out a way to study the word of God
and to make friends and to do something with your life
because you know what, if God ever allows you
to go to prison, there's a reason why you're there.
Now it could be, the reason is,
because you're an idiot, but it could also be,
but let's say it's because you did something stupid.
But guess what, if it's in the past,
you can't change it at that point.
So at that point, even if it's through your own stupidity
that you end up going to prison,
all you can do at that point is just move forward
and make the best of that situation and try to excel.
Or you can just sit around and just,
or you can say, you know what, hey, this is the day
which the Lord has made, we'll rejoice and be glad in it.
And that's kind of an extreme example
because hopefully none of us are headed for prison.
But here's the thing though,
that example could apply to a lot of other things
that maybe aren't as bad as going to prison,
but yet maybe we're in kind of a prison
of being in debt or something,
or prison stuck in a house that we don't want
or a life that we don't want or whatever,
but you know what, you can always make the best of it.
And hey, if Jesus goes with me,
I'll go anywhere, as the song says.
So you always need to look for the good in your situation,
make the best of it.
There are certain things that you can't change,
so you gotta just accept it.
The Bible says the devil shall cast some of you into prison.
Most people aren't going to prison.
Most of God's people aren't going to prison.
Most Christians aren't going to prison,
but the devil shall cast some of you into prison.
Someone could go to prison,
maybe through no fault of their own,
maybe because they're being persecuted
for the cause of Christ.
But whether it's through their own stupidity
or whether it's for the cause of Christ,
it doesn't change the fact that once you're there,
you make the best of your situation.
Because you can't change it,
all you can do is move forward, okay.
And maybe it's not prison,
maybe you destroyed your health.
Maybe in the past you smoked a bunch of cigarettes
or smoked a bunch of dope or whatever you did
that destroyed your body, you drank a lot of alcohol
or whatever you did in the past, you can't change it.
Whatever situation you're in right now,
build the houses, plant the vineyards,
have the kids, live your life, worship the Lord,
seek peace and ensue it because you cannot change the past.
And there are certain things about your situation
that you might not be able to change.
So there's no sense being a complaining murmurer,
being down, being angry, being sad, being upset,
being just, and look,
this is how a lot of people are right now.
Even in 2020, you know, this whole coronavirus thing,
you can't change it.
Have you ever heard the expression,
you can't fight city hall?
You ever heard that expression?
It's true, it's real, I've lived it.
Hey, I fought the law and the law won, all right.
I'm telling you, this is life.
And look, I'm not interested in spending my life
trying to bring about some kind of a political change
because that is a fool's errand.
It's not gonna happen, folks.
Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,
deceiving and being deceived.
Our country is going downhill
not because of a political problem.
It's not like, oh man, we messed up at the ballot box.
It's a spiritual problem.
There's a spiritual problem,
there's a moral problem, cultural problems.
It's all back to not following the Lord.
That's what it all goes back to.
That's why we're here where we are.
Because our country has not followed the Lord.
And guess what I can't change.
You know what I can't change?
What other people do.
I can't change what other people do.
There's only one person I can control, myself.
That's all.
I can control one person on this planet, myself.
I can't control what anyone else does.
Now I can get up and preach and scream and yell
and rattle my cage and try to shake some sense into people
that they would do right, that they would love the Lord.
But you know what, I can't make anybody change.
I can't change Arizona.
I can't change Phoenix.
I can't even change Tempe.
Okay, Tempe is doomed.
There's nothing I can do about that.
Now I can pull the individuals out of the fire
by winning them to Christ, by preaching them the gospel.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
I can go out and preach and talk to people
and try to influence people.
But as a whole, we are not, let's just expand it
beyond just America or Tempe or Arizona.
Let's expand, we cannot change the world that we live in
from into a godly place.
We're not post millennial around here, folks.
We are not gonna change this world into a godly place.
The world, the Bible says, love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world.
If any man loved the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh
and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life
is not of the Father but is of the world.
And the world passeth away and the lust thereof,
but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
So here's how life works.
You go through life doing the will of God
and you come out a winner.
But you don't just reconfigure the whole,
we're gonna turn this into a godly place.
Revelation's gonna get canceled.
Folks, we did such a good job at soul winning
and preaching and living right.
Turns out, Revelation's been canceled.
Now look, I hope we can cancel some judgments
that were slated for Tempe, Phoenix, or Arizona.
Maybe that's realistic, but here's the thing,
even that is just a postponement.
It's just a postponement is what that is.
And hey, I'm for it, let's postpone it, amen?
And guess what, when you read the Bible,
you'll see a great king will rise up in Israel
and he'll do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.
How about Josiah, right?
Josiah does everything that's right in the sight of the Lord
brings the greatest revival
that anyone could have possibly imagined.
And you know what he did, postponed the judgment
because God said he would not pardon the innocent blood
that had been shed by the previous kings.
And so he blessed Josiah, blessed his reign,
blessed his kingdom, but guess what happened?
As soon as Josiah's gone, it's unpause, unpause.
And what did he do?
He destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed Judah,
they went into captivity
because the innocent blood that they've been shedding.
Our country has shed innocent blood.
Even today we continue to murder babies
and do all these horrible things
and we've got all this immorality and sodomy and wickedness
that's going on in our country.
And look, God isn't just gonna turn a blind eye
to those things and you know what?
The rest of the world's got problems too.
We live in a fallen world.
Now maybe you grew up in a little bubble
where everything's been sweetness and light
and many kids that are growing up in our Christian homes,
they grow up in this little bubble.
They don't really understand
quite how bad it is out there, unfortunately.
And then sometimes they could even have a tendency
to wanna dabble in sin
because they don't realize how bad it is.
Let me tell you something, it's bad.
The dark places of the earth
are full of the habitations of cruelty, the Bible says.
If you go to places where sin has totally taken over,
where wickedness has totally taken over,
let me tell you something, it is horrific.
There are places in this world that are just horrible.
Horrible places.
You're so blessed, I'm so blessed to live here
in a beautiful place of freedom and prosperity and peace.
But you know what?
Not everyone in the world lives in a place like that.
In a lot of ways, we're reaping the benefits
of a Christian heritage and a Christian background
because there's a delayed reaction
as people turn away from the Lord and turn away from God.
But it's starting to go downhill a little bit, isn't it?
Lately.
We've been preaching our whole lives,
God's gonna judge America, God's gonna judge America,
God's gonna, and then all of a sudden,
God starts judging America, we're like, what?
What's happening?
I'm shocked.
It's like when they're praying for Peter
to get out of jail and act.
They're like, oh God, get Peter out of jail.
Peter comes and knocks on the, that's not Peter,
that can't be him, he's in jail.
No, it's him.
You saw a ghost, all right?
Let's go back to praying for him
to get out of prison, all right?
And then finally, he's banging on the door,
they just leave him there.
He finally gets in the house and they're shocked.
Don't be shocked when God answers your prayers.
Well, guess what?
Don't be shocked when God judges America,
when every Baptist preacher in America virtually
has been preaching that for the last 40 years,
that it's gonna happen, and probably even before that.
And so we need to understand that we can't change the world.
We can change individuals,
we can change their eternal destiny,
we can pull them out of the fire,
we can save one, we can save 10, we can save 100,
we can save 1,000, but this world is on a certain course
toward doom that cannot be stopped, okay?
This is what the Bible teaches.
And I'm not trying to preach a big prophecy sermon
to prove that to you, but I think if you even just have
a basic understanding of scripture,
you know that this world's on a downward trajectory.
And it's only gonna be divine intervention
that's gonna fix things,
it's called the second coming of Christ,
which is a major theme of the New Testament.
If you reject the second coming of Christ,
you're not left with much left in the New Testament
because you'd be gutting it of a lot of material.
The second coming of Christ is a major theme,
major teaching of the New Testament.
The second coming of Christ is necessary
because of the fact that that's the only thing
that is going to fix the world that we live in.
Look, if I spent my life trying to fix Tempe,
that'd be a frustrating life.
That'd be a depressing life.
If I spent my life, I'm gonna fix Arizona,
that would be a depressing life.
But you know why my life's not depressing?
Because if I spend my life trying to get people saved,
success, spend my life loving the Lord,
serving God, pastoring a church,
teaching people the Bible, success, winning.
But if it's like, you know, changing the lives
of Christians, getting people saved, winning.
But if I'm like, well, we're just gonna change society
and make it godly.
Folks, you cannot change the fact that the heart of man
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Man's heart is desperately wicked.
Okay, and look, this year, 2020, hey, it's a rough year.
And let me tell you, it's a result of sin.
It's a reaping of what we've sown as a nation.
And frankly, it's probably gonna get worse.
This is probably just the beginning.
We don't know what a day is gonna bring forth.
But you say, well, that's too depressing.
No, it's not, because I don't think about it.
It doesn't depress me at all,
because I accept the things that I can't change.
And you know what I can't change?
I can't change the past.
I'm not gonna sit around beating myself up
for mistakes I've made in the past.
You know, I've often sat around and fantasized
about if I have a time machine,
I go back and fix this, fix that.
But you know what, at the end of the day,
that's a vain line of thinking, isn't it?
You know, I can't change the past.
I can't change our country.
I can't change the situation that we're in.
I can't change coronavirus.
You know, and yet we see people
that all they talk about all day every day
is the corona, it's so terrible, it's so bad,
and oh, the masks, and oh, the inconvenience,
and oh, man, and it's all they talk about.
All day, every day.
The reason that I don't wanna indulge with them
is because of the fact that I don't like
to talk about stuff I can't change
and think about stuff I,
because there's so much that I can change.
There's so much that I can do.
You know what, I'm thinking about
all the things I can do right now.
You know, I can read my Bible, I can pray,
I can win someone to Christ, I can preach a sermon,
I can spend time with family.
There's lots of things that I can do.
I can change myself.
I can get right with God.
I can make myself grow as a Christian
and get closer to God.
You know, I can preach a sermon.
You know, that's the stuff I wanna think about,
stuff that I actually have control over,
and not just lamenting and down about,
you know, corona this, corona that.
Frankly, it just gets depressing after a while,
because there's nothing that you can do about it.
You know, and you know, I get so sick of everybody
just calling everybody an idiot all the time
for taking precautions about coronavirus.
Okay, or it's still at this date
saying that the virus is not real.
I just got a call last night.
Somebody's saying, hey, pray for me.
One of my parents was in the hospital with it.
My second parent just went in the hospital with coronavirus.
A young guy, both his parents are in the hospital with it.
I've known people that have gotten severely sick.
We have people right now in our church
that are very sick right now and going through this.
And you know, to me, it's just,
to me, it's a dumb thing to fixate on.
I'd rather fixate on the Lord
and on spiritual things or at least,
and look, if you don't wanna spend your day
meditating on the things of God
and Christian things and spiritual things,
how about this?
At least why don't you spend your time
on something that you can actually fix or actually change
if you wanna fixate on something else?
If you don't wanna get that spiritual,
you know, I recommend delving into this, amen?
Delve into the things of God.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
But you know, if you wanna fixate on something else,
but to me, it's just people have become so obsessed
with this issue and then just anyone who doesn't see it
their way is an idiot to them.
And like, I can't even count how many times
I've seen people in news articles
and in Facebook posts and stuff, they said this,
hey, if you're driving down the road
in a car by yourself with a mask on,
you're the biggest idiot in the world.
Who's seen people say that?
Something like that.
But here's what I say to that.
You know why that person is driving down the road
in a car by themselves with a mask on?
Because they forgot to take it off.
Because they went somewhere where they had to work
with it on for eight hours or four hours
or five hours or whatever and they forgot to take it off.
Because you know what I found myself doing?
And here's the thing, I only put on the mask
like once or twice a week because I don't really do shopping
or anything, that's my wife's department.
She takes care of that.
So I don't typically wear it.
It's rare that I wear it.
But you know what, every time I wear it,
you know what I do when I'm done wearing it?
You know what I do?
I drive down the road with it in my car
with it on by myself.
And you wanna know why?
Because I forgot to take it off?
Because I'm not thinking about it?
Because I'm not obsessed with it?
You know what I'm saying?
So just be careful that you don't just lash out
at everybody right now and everybody's an idiot
and everybody's a sheeple and everybody's so stupid
and everything like that.
You don't know what people's situation is.
If you wanna lash out at something,
why don't you lash out against false prophets?
Why don't you lash out against the sodomites?
Why don't you lash out against things that God hates?
Instead of just, hey everybody, I'm superior
because I lick doorknobs in public and don't wear a mask.
You know what I mean?
It gets old.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.
But it dawned on me, it dawned on me
driving down the road the other day wearing a mask,
thinking to myself, why am I wearing this?
Because I'm like, I forgot to take it off.
And then I'm like, that's why everyone else is doing it too
because they are also as scatterbrained
and absent-minded as I am.
It's not because they think they're gonna infect
themselves in the car or something,
that they're gonna infect themselves
or be infected by themselves or however that would work.
That's not possible.
That's not what they think, folks.
They just forgot to take it off, all right?
I don't know what that has to do with the sermon.
Go to Romans chapter eight if you would.
Accept things that you can't change.
And you know what, pretty much all of my plans
for this year have been canceled.
I had tons of plans, they've all been canceled.
And you know what, I don't really care
because of the fact that all the plans that I was doing,
the things that, let's say, what did we plan to do?
We planned on doing all these big soul-winning campaigns
to the Indians, we planned mission strips,
preaching events, preaching conferences,
preaching here, preaching there.
Here's the thing, I don't do that stuff
for myself, I do that stuff for the Lord.
So if the Lord allows it to be canceled,
then I'm just gonna be like, okay,
I guess that's not what God wants me to do
because he canceled it.
All my flights are canceled, these countries are closed down
this isn't happening anymore.
Hey, let thy will be done.
Thy will be done.
I'm not gonna sit there and just, you know,
oh man, you know, I've just gotta do this or do that.
I don't gotta do anything.
You know what I mean?
If God closes a door, I'm willing to not go through
that door and just say, okay God, let's do something else.
Let's find something.
Now look, every single day, I'm gonna wake up
in the morning, I'm gonna read my Bible,
and I'm gonna strive to serve God that day, right?
And I wanna work to try to further the kingdom of God
and get people saved and reach people and change lives
and do whatever we can for the Lord.
But you know what?
The what of God's will is more important
than the where of God's will.
You know, if God closes a door over here
and then I end up doing this over here,
well, it is what it is.
You know, God knew that.
Here's another thing that we can't change.
What are the, we've gotta accept the things we can't change.
We can't change the past.
We can't change the death of a loved one.
We can't change our height.
We can't often change our situation.
Maybe our financial situation is at a point where we can't,
maybe you can change it, but maybe you can't.
Sometimes you're in so deep, you just can't even fix it.
Well then, you know, just make that minimum payment
and just keep going.
What else can you do, right?
But here, we can't change the world we live in.
Here's what else you can't do.
You can't change the word of God, accept it.
This is what it says, all right?
You can't change reprobates.
Otherwise they wouldn't be reprobates
if you could change them.
But here's another important one
because I'm running out of time.
You cannot change the old man.
Now, where did I have you turn?
Yeah, Romans chapter eight.
Look at Romans chapter eight, verse seven.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God,
for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be.
Here's one of the things you cannot change.
You cannot change the old man.
And what do I mean by the old man?
Well, flip over if you would to Ephesians chapter four.
Ephesians chapter four, the Bible said the carnal mind,
while you're turning to Ephesians four,
I'll read this again.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God,
for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be.
So can the carnal mind be made to obey God's law?
Can we reform the carnal mind somehow
and get it to where it obeys God's commandments,
does the right things?
No, the carnal mind's enmity against God.
It cannot be brought into subjection of the laws of God.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God,
the Bible says.
But he says, you know, you're not in the flesh,
but you're in the spirit and so forth.
Look at Ephesians four, 22,
that you put off concerning the former conversation,
the old man, he said, put off the old man,
which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts
and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
And that you put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness.
So what is the Bible saying here?
Is it saying, hey, the old man was corrupt?
No, it's saying the old man is corrupt.
It's not that the old man was corrupt,
the old man is corrupt.
Go to Colossians chapter three.
We've got to put off the old man and put on the new man,
because the old man cannot be changed,
he cannot be reformed.
You cannot fix him.
You cannot make him obey God.
And you cannot permanently get rid of the old man
until you die.
Until you die, the old man's with you.
The flesh lusted against the spirit,
the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary the one to the other
so that you cannot do the things that you would.
That's why Paul said, man,
and the things I hate, I end up doing,
things I don't want to do.
And then the good that I should do,
I don't end up doing it.
Romans chapter seven is such a powerful passage
where Paul describes the struggle
of the old man and the new man.
He said, man, according to the inward man,
I delight in the law of God.
But then there's this other law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind.
So he's got the flesh, the old man.
And let me just make this real clear.
You know what the old man is?
The person you were before you got saved.
Who's the old man?
The person you were before you got saved.
Hey, when you got saved, that person is still there.
And you will carry that person with you
for the rest of your life, period.
And when the Bible says in verse five there
of Colossians three, mortify, mortify means put to death,
mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth,
fornication and uncleanness, inordinate affection,
evil concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry,
for which things sake the wrath of God
cometh on the children of disobedience
in the which he also walked sometime when you lived in them.
But now you also put off all these, anger, wrath,
malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Lie not one to another seeing that you've put off
the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man
which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of him that created him.
You cannot fix the old man.
You cannot change the old man.
You cannot discard the old man without dying.
All you can do is mortify him.
Put him off and put on the new man.
Now how many times do you have to do that?
The Bible teaches that you have to do that every day.
The Apostle Paul said I die daily.
Jesus Christ said if any man will come after me,
let him deny self and take up the cross daily and follow me.
He didn't say hey, he just denies self one time,
take up the cross one time and you're good to go.
He said it's daily.
Daily die to self, daily deny self,
daily take up the cross.
You will have a struggle in your life
until the day that you die between the old man
and the new man, between the flesh and the spirit.
And let me say this and people always get mad at me
when I say this because some people don't accept this
and people are often offended by this
but this is a fact and I will say it
and I'll say it again and again because it's true
is that this deliverance doctrine is garbage
and it's a false doctrine, period.
I don't care, you could like it or lump it, it's garbage.
The delivered, oh I got delivered of this sin,
I got delivered of that.
Look, yeah, God can give you the strength
and the power to overcome sin and yeah, of course,
you can fix things in your life and God gives you the power
and the grace and the strength to fix things in your life
but when I say I'm against the deliverance doctrine
and I'm not saying somebody who uses that word
is necessarily wrong if they're using it right
but when I'm talking about this deliverance doctrine
is this doctrine where they say, you know what,
God took that away from me,
I was never even tempted with it again.
That's what I'm talking about, that's bogus.
That's, where they so-called delivered from it
to where they're never gonna do it again,
it's never a temptation, doesn't even enter their mind.
Folks, that's baloney, that's a bunch of
haka la gondola, Pentecostal junk, okay?
It isn't true and you know what?
We've had people come to our church,
no pastor, I've been delivered of this and delivered
and they're always the people who wash up a month later,
two months later, six months later,
they're back on drugs or whatever it is, okay?
And let me tell you something and I know that there are
problems with Alcoholics Anonymous,
I'm not promoting Alcoholics Anonymous or anything like that
even though my sermon's about accepting things
you can't change, I'm not promoting it
but let me say this though, they're right about one thing.
Once an alcoholic, it's always an alcoholic
and I don't care whether you like that or not,
that is true and the people who stay sober
and the people who stay clean are the people who realize
once an alcoholic is always an alcoholic
and what do they mean by that?
Here's what they're saying, they're saying
once you've been an alcoholic,
you should never touch alcohol again
because you've already shown that you can't drink socially.
You've already proven that you can't drink responsibly
if there are even worse such a thing
because I'm totally against drinking anyway
but the point is people, there are people out there
who do drink in moderation.
Now I'm against it, I'm for teetotaling
and being completely sober.
That's what I believe the Bible teaches
but let me tell you something, there are people out there
who drink in moderation, agreed?
Does that exist in this world?
But let me tell you something, people who've been
an alcoholic are not the ones who drink in moderation
because once an alcoholic is always an alcoholic.
They've already shown that that's who they are.
Now you say well Pastor Anderson,
I haven't touched alcohol in eight years,
does that mean I'm an alcoholic?
Let me tell you something, your old man is an alcoholic
and so if you walk in the flesh, if you walk in the old man,
if you don't put on the new man, you know what,
it's probably just a matter of time
until you go back to that.
Statistically, until you go back to the drugs
or back to the booze, back to the porno,
back to the gambling, whatever it is
because of the fact that you've already shown,
you've already demonstrated that tendency.
That's why the smart person follows the scriptural advice.
Instead of talking about oh, I've been delivered,
you know what, they follow the scriptural advice that says
let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary,
the devil as a roaring lion walketh about
seeking whom he may devour and the reason
I make such a big deal about this
is because it's that overconfident spirit
that causes people to go back into a life of sin
when they oh, I've been delivered of that, woo!
And then all of a sudden, they are no problem
and just drink a soda because I'm delivered.
But the smart former alcoholic
is never gonna set foot in a bar.
In fact, no one should set foot in a bar anyway.
But I'm saying, especially an alcoholic
should stay super far away from that stuff.
Oh, I can drink one beer, I've been delivered of drunkenness.
Yeah, right.
Stay away from it, don't touch it,
don't even look at it, the Bible says.
And so my point is, the truth behind that statement,
once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, is this.
Once the old man, always the old man.
Okay, the old man is the you from before you got saved.
You're stuck with that guy or that gal
for the rest of your life.
Whoever you were before you were saved,
the sins that you did before you were saved.
Sometimes I like to think of it this way,
your life is like a hallway with a bunch of doors, right?
And one of those doors is labeled drinking.
One of those doors is labeled gambling.
One of those doors is labeled drugs.
One of those doors is labeled pornography.
One of those doors is labeled fornication.
One of those doors is labeled adultery.
One of those doors is labeled shoplifting.
One of those doors is labeled murder.
One of those doors is labeled abortion.
You list just any number of sins we could list, right?
Whole bunch of sins.
And here's the thing.
That door, think of a door that's kind of stuck.
You know when you open a door and it's a little bit stuck
and you have to kind of shove it a little bit
to get it open?
That's kind of how it is the first time you do those things.
The hardest time you're ever gonna shoplift
is gonna be the first time.
The hardest it's gonna be to get you to get drunk
is the first time somebody tries to get you to take drugs
or get drunk or whatever.
But here's the way this life works.
Every door that you've opened in that hallway,
it always stays a little cracked all the time.
So next time it's just real easy
to just push that door open.
And this is why it's so important to keep yourself clean
when you're a young person, when you're a teenager.
You know, I've studied the lives,
because I've done some sermons on this
and I did a lot of research.
I have no personal experience with this.
I have no personal experience with drugs or alcohol.
So I cannot speak firsthand whatsoever.
Never been drunk, I've never tasted beer,
I've never taken any drugs.
So I have zero experience about this.
But you know, I wanna be able to preach about it
and talk about it.
So you know, I've studied the Bible on it.
There's a lot in the Bible about it.
But then I've also, in preparation for sermons,
I've studied the lives of alcoholics and drug addicts.
So I read some books that were written by people
that were former drunks and former drug addicts.
And you know what I found as a common denominator
when I've studied the lives of drunks and drug addicts
is that they all started as a child, all of them.
I've never read the story of a raging alcoholic
or a raging drug addict who started when they were an adult.
Never.
Every single story I read, it's like,
oh, I had my first drink when I was eight years old.
You're like, eight years old, what?
Or, oh, when I was 12.
When I was 12, we broke into the liquor cabinet
and we drank and then we watered it down
to make it look like nothing was missing or whatever.
Or when I was 13, I found a beer in the back of the fridge
that my parents had forgotten about and I drank it.
Or hey, we stole alcohol from the store.
We stole alcohol at my friend's house.
And here's the thing, I can remember,
even as a kid, I had alcohol offered to me when I was 10.
I was 10 years old over at my friend's house
and he had gotten into his parents' tequila, okay,
and was offering me to drink tequila, okay.
Then I didn't want it.
I said, no, he poured some into a drink
without me knowing it, you know,
because it tasted weird.
And I'm like, what are you doing?
Folks, this is how people become an alcoholic
is when they start as a teenager.
And let me tell you something,
if you can make it all the way until you're 18 or 21
or 25 without touching alcohol or drugs,
you're probably never gonna abuse alcohol or drugs
for the rest of your life.
Just, I'm just talking about statistically.
I mean, think about this.
If you talk to people who've smoked cigarettes,
you know what they always say?
They say the craving never fully goes away.
You know, the first three days are the worst.
But I talked to a pastor who hadn't smoked in 20 years.
He said, hey, a cigarette sounds pretty good right now.
So I guess he hadn't been delivered.
He hadn't had a cigarette in 20 years,
but he said it sounds good right now.
But here's the thing, if you've never done it,
you're not gonna crave that at all.
I mean, when was the last time,
when was the last time you were just like,
man, I wish I had some heroin right now.
I'm just really craving cocaine right now.
Oh man, if I could just get some pills.
If you've never done drugs,
that thought would never enter your mind.
Now you crave a cheeseburger, right?
You might crave a soda,
because those are all things that you've done.
Things that you've never done,
things that you've never touched,
things that you've never indulged in like that.
But what about the drug addict?
Do you think he craves drugs from time to time?
You think he craves alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana?
You name it.
Don't open that door, okay?
And understand that the old man
is something that you can't change.
Your past is something that you can't change.
Whatever sins you've done in the past,
those doors remain open,
and that's something that you cannot change.
But here's what you can do,
you can put on the new man.
You can put on the new man.
So trying to reform yourself without the Lord
is also a fool's errand.
It's not gonna work,
because you can't change the old man.
The old man is incorrigible.
He cannot be fixed.
So the only way to make an improvement in yourself
as a Christian is to be filled with the Spirit,
to walk in the Spirit.
Here's how you're gonna get right with God.
You're gonna do that by reading your Bible,
praying, singing hymns, going to church.
That's gonna give you the tools
to overcome sin in your life.
That's how you're gonna get over the sin.
And look, I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me.
I'm not saying that you can't get over sin.
You're gonna be an alcoholic for the rest of your life.
I'm saying you can be clean of alcohol
for 20, 30, 40 years.
You can spend the rest of your life not doing these sins.
But here's how you're gonna do that.
It's gonna be by the power of Christ.
It's gonna be by putting on the new man.
It's gonna be by walking in the Spirit.
It's not some one-time deliverance that's gonna happen.
You know, it's a daily thing.
And it's also, and obviously, here's the thing,
the longer you go without doing those things,
the easier it's gonna get, right?
The hardest day without cigarettes is gonna be day one.
The hardest day without cigarettes
is gonna be the first few days.
Obviously, a month later, it's a little easier,
a year later.
Well, guess what, it's like that with other sin too.
The longer you go without gambling,
the longer you go without the fornication
or adultery or drugs or whatever,
the further you get away from it,
it gets easier, but you never wanna get to the point
where you think, I have changed the carnal mind.
I have brought the carnal mind
into the subjection of the laws of God.
I have reformed the old man.
I am totally delivered.
You're not.
That, I don't know what to call it.
You know, that, that guy, I'm talking about the old man.
That turkey is always gonna be with you.
I don't know.
Yeah, exactly.
That's something that you can't change.
Your age.
You have to accept it.
There's nothing you can do to change it.
Great point.
I'm saying that old man, he can frustrate us, right?
And you're just like, die, die!
Die, old Steven Anderson, die!
And then he dies, and you're like, great.
But then you wake up in the morning,
there he is again!
He's like these characters in a video game
where you kill him, but then a little while comes back,
they just come back.
They just keep respawning, regenerating, right?
They just keep coming.
You know, you wait long enough and another Goomba comes.
You gotta go back to my generation of games, okay?
You know, you can stomp on that Goomba
and say, I killed him!
And then it's just like another one.
Another turtle, another little Goomba.
That's all I remember.
They just keep respawning.
This is how it is.
Yeah, you can kill the old man until tomorrow,
and that's why you gotta read your Bible every day.
You gotta pray every day.
You gotta walk with God every day.
And you've gotta deny self every day.
You've gotta say, no, I'm not gonna drink that alcohol.
No, I'm not gonna smoke that cigarette.
No, I'm not gonna take drugs.
No, I'm not gonna look at that.
No, I'm not gonna say that.
No, I'm not gonna be like that.
It's something that you have to do every day.
Because there are certain things you can't change.
And you have to accept that.
And you have to accept the old man
is something I can't change.
The old Steven Anderson, I can't change his appetites.
I can't change his proclivities.
I can't change his sinful tendencies.
I can't fix him.
All I can do is just pull him out of bed.
I gotta wake up before him every morning.
I'm gonna get up before him,
and I'm gonna grab him and yank him out of the bed
and say, yeah, and kill him.
Throw him aside and be like, all right, let's do this day.
But sometimes he'll even respawn throughout the day.
You know, it's like I'm going through my day.
I'm serving God.
I'm living for God.
Things are going good.
I sit down to lunch, and all of a sudden,
who's sitting across the table from me?
And it's like, you!
You know, grab him, right?
And look, it's a struggle.
And he doesn't always go quietly.
I mean, and sometimes he beats the crap out of me,
and I lose.
But what do I do?
You know what?
I just gotta go get him, find him,
get him when he's not looking, when he's not ready,
and kill him again.
Everyone, but here's the thing.
Do you think that I win the battle
over the old man every time?
Or do you think sometimes he ends up kicking my butt?
What do you think?
What's the Bible say?
Did the Apostle Paul just say,
I defeat the old man every single time?
Or did he say, man, I end up doing stuff I don't wanna do?
Oh, wretched man that I am!
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Right?
Hey, you've gotta fight that battle every day.
And the smart thing to do is get up early
and get ahead of it and kill him first.
You gotta strike first, friend.
First thing, you pull out the, before he has a chance,
cause he, you know, if he gets up before you,
he'll turn on the TV, he'll turn on the radio
and start bringing in a bunch of junk,
and it's like, you gotta get up before him
and turn, you know, get in the Bible.
And beat him to the punch.
Amen?
Look, what's the sermon called?
Accepting the things you can't change.
You can't change yourself when we talk about the old man.
You can only change the new man.
You can only, the new man grows and gets stronger.
You can get so strong as the new man
that the old man, you're just like, oh, you're pathetic.
You know, and just, right?
Cause here's the thing, the stronger you get
and the weaker he gets, if he's not being fed,
and you're just dying, you know,
you're sitting down at the table,
you're eating all these steaks,
you wake up in the morning and you read a bunch of Bible,
it's like you just put like six raw eggs in a glass,
you're down in that, and you're just like, come at me, bro.
Right, you sit down at lunch and you're eating the steak
and the lobster, you're getting so much protein, right?
You're going to the spiritual gym and you're soul winning
and you're going to church and reading the Bible,
you're singing hymns, right?
You're just like, come at me.
And there's anemic, skinny, little pathetic old man.
Why?
But here's the thing, some of you,
you're feeding him all the best meals.
He loves all the junk that you watch on TV.
He loves all of the indulgent.
He loves, I mean, here's the thing,
he thrives on booze, right?
I mean, you give him alcohol, I mean, he thrives on that.
And he's going to get strong.
Hey, I want to be stronger than him
so that I can win that fight more often
and so that it could be easier fight.
But I can't change him.
All I can do is starve him out and beat the fire out of him.
That's all I can do.
Just kill him, mortify him, put him to death.
You say, Pastor Anderson, do you have a split personality?
Here's every single Christian in the world
has a split personality.
If you're saved, you have a split personality.
If you don't have two natures,
if you don't have, you know, you're not even saved.
You say, I only have one.
Well, yeah, it's the old man.
That's all you've got.
The new man doesn't exist.
I've got both.
It's a battle.
It's a fight, you know, it's, you know.
So look, you can't change the fact
that our life is a struggle with sin.
You can't change the old man.
You can't change the sinful world that we live in.
You can't change coronavirus.
You can't change your loved ones that have died.
You can't change your past
and the stupid things that you've done in the past.
Can't change your height.
You can't change your age.
You can't change your situation in many cases.
You can't always change your bank account.
You know what?
Accept those things.
Accept them and do what Jeremiah said.
Make the best of it.
Make the best.
Hey, this is the hand that I've been dealt.
This is the life that I've been given.
I'm gonna thank God for all the good parts about it.
And I'm gonna accept all the bad parts about it.
And I'm gonna just do the best I can
to have love, joy, peace, and serve God.
That's what we can do.
I'm not gonna sit around talking about how hard it is
and how it can't be done.
I'm just gonna do it, do the best I can.
Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for all the things
that you've blessed us with, Lord.
And thank you for the fact that the one thing
that we can't change as believers
is that we're on our way to heaven
and that that can't change.
That's a blessing, Lord, to know that we're eternally saved.
And Lord, I just pray that you would just help everyone
who's here to be content with such things as they have,
to be happy with what they have
and not to covet things that they don't have
and wish for this and that that's not available, Lord.
Help us just accept the things about our life
that we can't change and help us all
to make the best of our situation, Lord.
Help us to live the best Christian life we can
with the situation as it is
and with the old man that we're stuck with
and the hand that we've been dealt, Lord.
Help us to just accept those things
and serve you and love you.
And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
We have a pair of song books to song number 62,
Saved by Grace.
Song number 62.
["Someday I'll Be There For You"]
Song number 62.
["Someday I'll Be There For You"]
Song number 62.
["Someday I'll Be There For You"]
Song number 62.
["Someday I'll Be There For You"]
Song number 62.
["Someday I'll Be There For You"]
Song number 62.
["Someday I'll Be There For You"]