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yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
That's not what he's saying.
He's saying, hey, a living sacrifice.
Live out your Christianity, right?
So you're not just alive on Sunday, are you?
Or Sunday and Thursday, but every single day you're alive.
So why don't you take your sacrifice on a daily basis.
See, this picture of a daily continual burnt offering
is a picture for us that, hey, we
should live for him daily also.
Amen?
So number one, sacrifice something daily to the Lord.
Now, number two is cry unto the Lord daily.
Cry unto the Lord daily.
Turn to Psalm chapter 86, verse 3.
Psalm chapter 86, verse number 3.
The Bible says in Psalm 86, verse number 3,
it says, be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto thee
daily.
Now, what is crying unto the Lord daily?
Well, it's not necessarily weeping,
although that could be part of it,
because David said that his tears were making his bed wet.
David was like a bed wetter, but he did it with his tears.
But notice that David says here, I cry unto thee daily.
What does cry mean?
Well, it means to shout or scream, typically
to express fear, pain, or grief.
I mean, David is actually crying out unto the Lord in a way,
and it sounds to me like it's audible sometimes.
Like, if you just search the scriptures,
you can see that it's an audible thing that he does.
So turn to Psalm chapter 55.
So what is this crying unto the Lord daily?
Well, it's prayer.
So David isn't just screaming at God,
like, you better do this, because I'm
serving you, or something.
He's crying to the Lord because he has great need.
And the problem with Christians, I think
this is probably a huge problem in most Christians' life,
is that they have zero prayer life.
And you know what that ought not to be?
You know, imagine this.
You have the richest father in the whole world.
You have the father that can give everlasting life.
You have the father that you can take all your heartaches
and pains, all your persecution, everything too,
but then you never ask him for anything.
You just live your life however you want,
and then when you cry to God, you're
crying about something that you want that's stupid,
that you don't even really need.
Things that are just really a dumb thing to ask for.
Sometimes your kids ask for dumb things, right?
Don't they?
I mean, they'll ask you for something that's like, no, you
can't do that.
Hey, can I climb up to the top?
You know, they're three years old.
This is what my granddaughter, Emmy,
does, she tries to climb.
She's like constantly trying to kill herself
at parks and stuff like that.
We'll take her to someplace and she just
runs everywhere she goes.
Like the way she is here, she's at the park or anyplace else.
She's running, running constantly.
And she tries to climb on stuff that she shouldn't climb on.
And we're like, no, no, we pull her down.
You know, I'm up like, you know, just I'm tall
and I'm having a hard time reaching her.
I have to pull her down off of stuff
and she gets upset about it.
But you know, sometimes we want things
that we shouldn't really want.
We want things that we're not ready for
and we will ask for things that we shouldn't ask for.
But you know, we should still ask for things from God.
You know, just because he gives us all these benefits
and he is the richest person in the whole universe
or whatever, everything that belongs to God anyway, right?
So why are we not accessing something that is so,
it's a great gift prayer.
And it's only something we're gonna be able to do
while we're here on this earth.
Because one day we'll know him face to face.
One day we won't have to, you know,
pray to somebody that we've never seen before.
We'll be able to see him face to face.
We'll be able to enjoy the benefits of heaven.
But right now, we can pray for the things we need.
If we're going through trouble, ask.
You know, and I think sometimes
we just nonchalantly ask for things.
But you know, the reason why David was a man
after God's own heart,
there's multiple reasons why he was.
But I think a lot of it was that,
number one, he worshiped the Lord with all of his heart.
And he also prayed on a daily basis.
David was a three time a day prayer warrior.
Look at verse 16 in Psalm 55.
It says, as for me, I will call upon God
and the Lord shall save me.
Evening and morning and at noon will I pray
and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice.
So what is David saying?
He's saying every evening, every morning,
and at noon, that's three times a day, isn't it?
He'll pray.
And so I would say at the very least,
that is your, you know, something that should be
our borderline of what we do.
But what do we do?
We get busy.
We get up and the first thing you do is look at your phone.
Or the first thing you do is something else,
or you're watching YouTube videos or whatever it is.
You know, it's a struggle to maintain a schedule
on a daily basis, but you know what?
The best thing that you can do for your life
is you know, is make God the first priority in your life.
Instead of waiting till the end of the evening
and try to get all your Bible reading done,
why don't you just start on it in the morning?
And I'm gonna get to that in a minute,
but why don't you start the morning with prayer?
And ask God to bless your day.
Ask God, you know, for whatever it is that you need
because isn't that, I mean, if he's your dad,
if he's your father, then you can ask him for things.
Is there any children in this room that are afraid
to ask their dad for stuff?
You should be if it's something dumb
that he's not gonna give you, but if it's something good,
if it's something that's right for you,
then your dad is gonna do it.
Hey dad, you know, give me an egg.
You don't give him a scorpion, right?
Jesus gave us that picture.
He's like, you know, if you ask for an egg,
he's not gonna give you something bad,
he's gonna give you something to eat, right?
So God wants to do the same thing for us,
but unfortunately, a lot of us don't even pray,
even on a daily basis.
You know, and I'm not saying I'm the greatest prayer warrior
that ever lived, and you're like,
well, you're the pastor, you're supposed to be.
Well, you know, I'm a human being just like everybody else,
and I fail in life sometimes.
I fail in the Christian life even sometimes,
but we just tapped into this truth
that we should be praying three times a day.
You know, it doesn't get, prayer gets, you know,
when there's sermons about prayer,
most people won't even watch them.
They'll watch sermons about, you know,
why the Sodomites are going to hell,
or, you know, other different topics,
why the Jews are, you know, not God's chosen people.
They'll watch sermons about the post-trib pre-wrath rapture,
but when it comes to prayer and things
about walking in the Spirit and living the Christian life,
people won't watch those sermons.
And you really should tap in to this benefit of God
to being able to pray, because, you know that song that says,
sweet hour of prayer, you know that song that we sing,
and then at the end of it, it says, farewell, farewell,
sweet hour of prayer, when we're going up in the rapture,
that's the last time we're going to have to pray for anything.
So, you know, which is great, but it's also
great to be able to pray to God on a daily basis.
We have this benefit that God allows
us to go to the throne room, through Jesus Christ the Son,
who is our high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,
and we can go through Jesus' name right to God the Father
and ask him for whatever we want, whatever we need.
And again, he's going to say no on some things.
He might say, wait for a little while.
Or he might say, yes.
But you know what?
You're always going to get an answer from God
from your prayers.
As long as you don't find his word as an abomination,
as long as you just turn off your ear.
If you're turning off your ears to the truth of God's word,
he's going to turn off his ears to your prayers, too.
So just think about that.
The Bible talks about in Proverbs
how he's reached out, he's stretched out his hand to us,
like, here, here's my hand.
Let me help you.
They're always on the tag team wrestling.
They're always just like, ah!
They're trying to get that tag, and then the guy's
coming in here.
But God always has his hand stretched out,
and he's always ready to tag in and come in and take
care of your enemies or whatever.
I know some of you people aren't into pro wrestling.
Not either, but I used to watch it
when I was like 10 years old or something,
until I realized it was fake.
But God always stretches his hand out to people,
and then he talks about in Proverbs
how they wouldn't have his counsel.
They won't seek his knowledge, his counsel.
And so when our calamity or when their calamity comes,
he's going to laugh.
We don't want it to be where we're just the only time we ever
pray is when we're in danger of something
because we screwed up our own life.
We don't want that to be the only time that we talk to God.
Now, that is a good time to talk to God.
I'm not saying it's not, because we all
mess up our life in some way, shape, or form.
We all fail probably on a daily basis.
That's why it's good to pray on a daily basis,
because we all fail on a daily basis.
So turn to Daniel chapter 6, verse number 10.
Daniel chapter 6, verse number 10.
So David prayed evening, morning, and noon.
And it says, and he cries aloud.
And it says, he shall hear my voice.
So just tap into this part of it, too,
that sometimes you need to have a little bit of a,
sometimes we have so much in abundance,
we just don't need anything.
So then we don't pray for things.
Or we don't pray for things with all of our heart.
We don't pray for things as if, God, I really need this.
I really need you.
My health is bad.
And instead of just crying out to God, saying, fix me, God,
help me, God, then we're just like, oh, could you just, Lord,
if you find it in your merciful, bountiful, mercifulness
to fix my back.
Maybe if we cried out with a little more emphasis,
maybe if we just actually cried out
like we really did need something,
or maybe you cried out as if you believe that God
will grant your request because he said
that he would never leave you nor forsake you.
I'm not saying he's gonna heal
every single physical ailment you have every time.
He didn't do it for Paul.
So there's times when he just says,
no, maybe you just need to have this thorn in the flesh.
But, you know, maybe you need to be broke
because if you had millions of dollars,
you would just do something stupid with it.
Sometimes God knows what we need
more than we know what we need.
We think we know what we need,
but God always knows exactly what we need.
So Daniel 6 10 says, now when Daniel knew
that the writing was signed, he went to his house
and his windows being opened in his chamber
toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees
three times a day and prayed and gave thanks
before his God as he did a four time.
So Daniel wasn't just like, say the government just says,
no more prayer publicly or privately
is allowed in America anymore.
There'd be a lot of people that don't really pray
on a daily basis that would be on their knees
trying to say, well, I'm just gonna do,
I'm gonna civilly disobey the government
because they're telling me I can't get on my knees and pray.
But they wouldn't do it when it was easy.
They wouldn't do it when they actually had a need.
They do it just because they wanna make a show
of their prayer, because they wanna try to get
the government mad at them or whatever
because of their prayer.
But that's not how Daniel was.
It says that he gave thanks before his God
as he did a four time.
He just did the same thing he was already doing.
They couldn't bust Daniel because he was such
a righteous man and such a godly man.
So the only thing they could do is outlaw any prayer.
And they knew that Daniel prayed three times a day.
And so he just said, you know what, I'm gonna do
the same thing I always have done.
And God delivered him from the lion's den
because of that, right?
But it's because that was just something he already did.
So it's something we should do daily.
David said, for I cry unto thee daily.
Turn to Mark chapter one, verse 35.
Mark chapter one, verse 35.
Now we have a great example of someone that prayed
on a daily basis, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who was God manifest in the flesh, by the way?
But who was he praying to?
He was praying to the Father.
Look what it says in verse 35.
And in the morning, rising up a great while before day,
he went out and departed into a solitary place
and there prayed.
So Jesus Christ himself went in the morning,
rising up well before, a great while before day.
And he went out.
So he was away from everybody else.
He departed into a solitary place.
Sometimes we need to go to our solitary place.
It's called the prayer closet.
And that's not you putting like some kind of rug
over your head or whatever.
I mean, I guess it could be, but you know,
if you do that out in public, people are gonna think
you're weird, right?
But we should find a place where we can be solitary
with God and because it's kind of, I don't know,
public prayer, you know, it can be a little, you know,
showy.
So, you know, we should have a time where we're praying
with our, you know, in our own place, in a private place,
where there's just, it's just you and God, no distractions.
And Jesus did that.
He woke up way earlier than everybody else.
Why?
Because he knew that nobody else would be up.
He knew nobody else would be up.
They're not gonna, somebody's not gonna just happen
to walk past them while he's praying or whatever.
And so he did that before the day was on.
And it says, he departed into a solitary place
and there prayed.
So, you know, and Jesus talked about going
into your prayer closet.
He talked about, you know, not praying so that people
will see your prayers or whatever.
And public prayer isn't always a bad thing.
I'm not saying that it is.
But some people, you know, use it as a,
some people are just really good at prayers
at some churches we've gone to in the past.
The pastor had always asked the really silver-tongued
orators in the church to pray at the end.
It's like, dude, we just did like seven stanzas
of have thine own way and now you're gonna pray
like a 10-minute prayer too, buddy?
It's like, just dismiss us and let us go, right?
But who's been to a church like that?
It's like, have thine own way, one more stanza.
Someone out there needs to hear this.
It's like, someone else needs to have lunch.
But anyway, so, you know, maybe if we had more
of a prayer life though, we would actually,
or maybe if we'd get out of our normal conundrums
of the day and actually set a schedule.
Maybe it just will take you to set
like an alarm on your phone.
You know, Muslims have that call to prayer
where, you know, someone gets up and goes,
ah, ah, ah, or whatever, right?
And they ring some bell or something, I don't know.
I think the church rings a bell.
What do the Muslims do?
They just blow a horn or something or?
It's just, yeah, it's a call to prayer song.
So they're required to do that as part of their faith.
We're not required to do it
and so a lot of people just don't do it.
But would it help your life if you had a prayer time?
Three times a day?
You know, that's a challenge.
I'd like to challenge this whole church
to get a daily prayer life.
Not because, you know, you wanna score some bonus points
with me or some bonus points from your neighbor,
but how about some bonus points with God?
How about just God's gonna bless your life
the more things that you ask him for,
the more things that you talk to him about,
the more people you pray for?
You know, we should be praying for other people too,
not just yourself.
How about all the prayer requests we get?
You know, we get a lot of prayer requests,
we get a lot of prayer requests answered.
But what if we prayed three times a day?
How much more effective would our life be for Christ?
It'd be a lot more effective, wouldn't it?
And we have people to look to for examples.
Turn to Luke chapter six, verse 12.
Luke chapter six, verse 12.
It's another example of Jesus praying.
Do you think that Jesus prayed daily?
It doesn't say necessarily that he prayed
three times a day, but do you think he did?
Absolutely.
He's not gonna get out prayed by Daniel.
He's not gonna get out prayed by Moses.
He's not gonna get out prayed by anybody.
He's not gonna be out prayed by David.
And so if David is like, you know,
he's the picture of Christ, don't you think Christ,
he's like fulfilling a picture that Christ already is,
right, so Christ probably did pray three times a day.
As a matter of fact, there's some times
he prayed all night, look what it says in verse 12.
And it came to pass in those days
that he went out into a mountain to pray
and continued all night in prayer to God.
All night.
You know, most of you will fall asleep in five minutes
if you're praying to God.
You know, especially if it's at night, right?
You start to pray and you're like,
Dear Heavenly Father and Jesus, you're like, out.
But praying isn't really always an easy thing.
Sometimes you're like, what do I pray about?
Well, the more you exercise that activity,
the more you're gonna get,
the better you're gonna get at praying, right?
It's just like if you get up and preach the first time,
you're gonna get better the further,
the more that you preach, right?
Or whatever task you do in life, you know,
whether it's, you know, something that you do at work.
You know, when you go through, you know,
new higher orientation, you're not the best person
at that job.
Now, there are some people that are just, you know,
really good at picking up stuff, and I understand that,
but most people have to have on-the-job training.
They have to receive some sort of training
to get good at their job.
That's why there's training programs.
That's why there's apprenticeships.
That's why, you know, there's schools that you have to go to
to do certain jobs, right?
So wouldn't it make sense that anything that you do
in your spiritual life takes, you know, practice,
takes doing it?
Because if you just pray one time a year,
that's, you know, do you think you're gonna be
a great prayer warrior?
No, you're not going to be.
The more you exercise your faith,
the better you're gonna be at exercising your faith.
It's just like exercising in general.
If you're running on a treadmill once a year
versus running on it five days a week,
who's gonna be better at running?
It's gonna be the person that runs
or five days a week or whatever.
So we should be having a daily prayer life.
It's really important to get ahold of this
that we need to, you know, if there's one thing
out of this whole list that I want to challenge you on,
I want to challenge everybody
on getting a daily prayer life together.
Because you know what?
God wants to hear from you.
Who, you know, what dad in here
doesn't want to hear from their children?
Every dad in here would want to hear from their children.
If brother Gary never heard a phone call
from Miss Sarah ever again for the rest of his life,
he'd be pretty upset about that.
If she only called him once a year on Christmas
and never went to see him, never went to talk to him,
never called him on the phone,
never asked about how he was doing,
never asked him for anything,
because I'm sure she asks him for stuff sometimes,
or at least she did in the past.
But you see what I'm saying?
Like we have to go to, we don't have to,
but your life is gonna be better
when you develop a prayer life to the Lord.
And I would just say,
if you're not in the habit of praying to God,
why don't you start a habit?
Because this is really a sermon
about having habits on a daily basis,
is really the main point I want to drive home.
So let's get a prayer life going.
Number three, confess your sins daily.
And this kind of piggybacks off the prayer life thing.
It also kind of piggybacks off the sacrifice thing,
if you think about it.
But turn to 1 John 1.9, 1 John 1.9.
And I asked this question earlier,
do you sin daily?
Do you sin daily?
So when we pray, Jesus was asked by his disciples,
will you teach us to pray like John taught his disciples?
And then Jesus taught them.
But what are one of the things that he said?
Ask for the daily things that you have,
and then forgive us our sins.
Look at 1 John 1.9, it says,
if we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And if you only confess your sins to God
once every fortnight, or once every year,
or the one time people go to church on an Easter Sunday,
some people are just those types of Christians
where they're Christmas and Easter and that's it.
But see, a lot of churches are like the Catholic church,
they go and confess their sins to a priest,
they're not even confessing their sins to the right person.
You know, we should confess our sins to God,
and this verse doesn't say to do it on a daily basis,
but if you sin daily, wouldn't it make sense
that you would ask God to forgive your sins every day?
Now, again, people will take this and they'll say,
well, this is what you have to do to be saved,
because every time you sin, you have to repent of your sins
or you're gonna die and go to hell.
And there's a lot of people that believe that.
There's a lot of people that, you know,
I always give the scenario of you're road raging
with some other person, and they cut you off.
This is a realistic thing for me.
But, I'm just kidding.
But, I'm kidding.
I mean, kind of.
Miss Sheila, she's like, yeah, I know how you are.
But, I'm not mad when I drive, necessarily,
unless someone just won't get out of the left lane.
Then, I'm mad.
But, anyway, the picture that I give people is that,
say someone cuts you off, and you almost,
you know, maybe you almost die
because they cut you off so bad,
and then, in a fit of rage, you scream some obscenities
at the person, you're just in the car by yourself,
and then, you flip them off,
or you show them the middle finger, whatever,
and then, you crash into the back of a truck,
and die, and it explodes,
and you don't have time to repent of your sins.
Are you gonna go to heaven, or are you gonna go to hell?
And, the people that believe
that you have to confess your sins
generally will say, well, you go to hell.
It's like, really?
So, you lived your life for God, you're, you know,
because they believe they're safe.
You lived your life for God all these years,
and then, you have one moment of stupidity,
or one sinful thing that you do,
and then, God just kills you and makes you go to hell?
I mean, that's a weird God to believe in.
That's a weird God to believe in,
especially when he says it's a gift.
And, you know, why do we wanna confess our sins to God, then?
Because you're already saved from all your sins.
You're not gonna go to hell.
If you're saved, you're gonna go to heaven.
So, why would you wanna confess your sins before God
on a daily basis?
Well, so that your relationship is good with him.
Now, don't get me wrong, where the whole relation,
you know, it's about a relationship, not a religion.
Well, it's kind of both.
It's both.
You know, we are in a religion.
Religion is Christianity.
It's the only true religion, by the way.
And, you know, but if you are always just at odds
with your, say you're at odds with your real dad
all the time, and like, you just can't, you know,
you're always just constantly doing things wrong,
but then, when you have a chance to apologize for that,
you just don't do it.
That's what it's like when you're just sinful
every single day, and then you never go to God and say,
you know what, God, I really messed up.
Will you please forgive me?
And you're probably gonna go to God with that same prayer
a lot of times, aren't you?
Because there's some sins that we just repeat.
And like, we want to repent from them.
We want to, you know, stop doing them or whatever,
but some sins are harder to overcome than others.
But if we go to God and we're just like, I'm sorry,
what's it say?
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
You're like, well, so you're just saying, you know,
you believe in a 1 John 1.9, you know,
oh, I could just go and confess my sins every time.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
That's what it says, yeah, that's exactly what it says.
But if you sin daily, wouldn't it make sense
that you confess your sins daily to God?
So in your new prayer life,
that's gonna be three times a day,
you know, in those prayers, I'm sure there's a lot of sins
that you're probably gonna commit within those timeframes.
Well, hopefully not, but if you do,
you have a chance right there to say, hey, God, I'm sorry.
Sorry I was thinking about stupid things, foolish things.
You know, and that's probably a big part
of our sinful life is just thinking about foolish things.
Foolish things or just whatever it is,
whatever, everybody has sin in their life.
So we all come to church, we put on our Sunday best,
we talk the Christian lingo and all that stuff,
but every single one of us is sinful.
Every single one of us in this room has probably done
some sort of sin and it's only 11.30.
So those of you looking for the time,
it's like he's only on three.
But we should confess, so in our prayer life,
we should confess our sins on a daily basis.
Obviously, and ask for the things we need
and all that stuff, but confessing our sins
would be good for us to do on a daily basis.
Number four, die daily.
Die daily, you're like, what are you talking about, Pastor?
I can't die daily.
Well, Paul said he did.
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 31.
1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 31.
Now, I wanna attach this with putting on the spirit.
Because if you're dying to yourself,
that means you're seeking for the inner man.
You're seeking for the new man
to have some sort of control in your daily life.
And if you're living in a fleshly, worldly lifestyle,
it's gonna be hard to put that new man on.
But you know, every single day,
we have an opportunity to start our day
with a fresh, clean slate with God.
It says in 1 Corinthians 15, 31,
I protest by your rejoicing,
which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I die daily.
So obviously, Paul could be talking
about a couple different things here.
He could be talking about how he's in jeopardy
of being dead every day.
Or maybe someone thinks they're gonna kill him every day.
People are after him trying to kill him every day.
But also, we're supposed to die daily to self.
We're supposed to die daily to self.
And we're supposed to put ourself and our needs
and our wants on the back burner and say,
you know what, I wanna live the way Christ asked me to live.
I wanna live a life that's pleasing to God.
Maybe you screwed up yesterday.
Maybe you had a really bad, sinful day,
and that's between you and God,
and you've made things right.
Well, how about just starting fresh the next day
and say, you know what, I know I failed yesterday,
but tomorrow, I'm gonna just pick myself up
and keep moving and serving God the way I'm supposed to.
Because, I mean, think about this.
So David, obviously he pictures Christ,
but he also pictures a sinful man.
Because you know what, he was a sinful man.
And he did a lot of things that people,
you know, we'd be like, he's reprobate.
If someone, you know, commits adultery
with one of his friends, wife,
and then gets her pregnant,
and then has the husband murdered out on the battlefield
because you withdraw the troops to try to cover it up,
that, we would say, a lot of people in the new IFB
would say that David's reprobate.
I can't believe he did that.
And it is really bad.
It's like one of the worst things that you could possibly do.
But you know what, David wasn't a reprobate.
He was a sinful person.
And he got caught up doing stupid things
and he ended up paying for it very dearly.
So we should die daily to ourself.
We should try to kill that old man every day when we wake up.
We should try to start our day with a fresh, clean slate
and do our best to serve God
and to live out the Christian life.
This is something that Paul taught.
Look at Romans chapter seven, verse nine.
And you know what, we do have the old man.
We have the old flesh that is just constantly battling
with the new man and trying to beat that new man down.
But you know, when we give into it,
that's when we get into our troubles.
But Paul explains this in Romans chapter seven.
Look at Romans chapter seven, verse nine.
It says, for I was alive without the law at once,
but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
Isn't that true that every time you commit some kind of sin,
every sin brings forth death?
So he said, sin revived and I died.
And it's like, well, I was alive once, now I'm dead.
But every time you commit a sin,
you really do deserve to die for that sin.
You deserve to go to hell for that sin, don't you?
But it says, in the commandment which was ordained to life,
I found to be unto death, for sin taking occasion
by the commandment deceived me and by it slew me.
So the commandment, people think,
well, I just keep the commandments.
I'm just gonna follow, you know, the Bible says
to be saved, all you have to do is keep the commandments.
Keep the 10 commandments.
How many times have you heard that out so many?
Lots of times, right?
Or I'm just gonna follow Jesus and we should follow Jesus.
But they'll say that's what they have to do to be saved.
Well, guess what?
You're gonna die every single day.
You deserve to die every single day
because none of these people that are actually saying
they keep the commandments and that's why they're saved
are actually keeping them.
Most of the time they're smoking
or they have an ash tray out at their front door.
They're not going to church or not serving God.
They're not soul winning, but they're just trusting
in the fact that they're good enough to go
because they're keeping the commandments.
You're not keeping the commandments.
As far as I know, I mean, obviously there's not a command
not to smoke cigarettes, but you know,
they're destroying their temple by doing that, right?
But it says, wherefore the law is holy
and the commandment holy and just and good.
Was then that which is good made death unto me?
God forbid, but sin that it might appear sin
working death in me by that which is good,
that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
So the purpose of the law is to show us that we're sinful.
And it's to condemn us.
If you're able to keep all the commandments,
then you would live, but nobody's able to do that.
So when you break one of those commandments,
then you realize, hey, I deserve to die.
I deserve death.
I was preaching the gospel with,
I think it was with Brother Ramon,
or not preaching the gospel, I was just asking this lady.
She said, I'm a Jack Mormon.
Do you remember that?
So she said she was a Jack Mormon.
And so I was like, okay, well maybe she can be saved,
but then she'd never sinned.
She's never done anything bad enough
to deserve to go to hell.
She's not sinful.
So how do you work with someone
that doesn't believe that they sinned?
You can't.
We had to just walk away.
So she'd already been burned and spurned by the Mormons,
but she still held onto the beliefs of them,
and that's why we weren't able to penetrate into,
you know, if she believes that she's just not sinful,
then there's nothing I can do to help you.
So, but these people that say
that they haven't done any sin,
they're lying, that she believes a false prophet.
That's sinful.
I mean, it's stupid and sinful,
because the Mormon religion is stupid.
You know, there was these plates,
but nobody's ever seen them except for Joseph Smith,
and then, you know, they got destroyed,
or, you know, whatever, they were hidden.
You used to be able to see them, now you can't.
Now I think the Mormons believe that they actually,
or they say that they have them,
but nobody can see them or something.
It's like if you, it'd be like saying
that there's this book that teaches
you could be saved by faith alone,
but the book was destroyed,
and, you know, I have no evidence of that,
but you just have to believe that.
Well, you know, this is the foundation of our faith, folks.
The word of God.
So, I can't be on some, you know, charlatan
that's, you know, doing magic tricks or whatever,
and then your whole basis of your religion
is his plagiarism of the Bible,
and then even naming some of the names of the people
and the places, he just like steals that from the Bible.
It's just weird, the Nephites, what, Nehemiah?
I mean, I don't know.
Anyway, I'm not preaching about the Mormons today,
but I am preaching about things that we should do daily,
so let me move on and get out of that rabbit hole
real quick and claw my way out of here.
Look what it says in verse 14.
For we know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal sold under sin.
So Paul right there says he's carnal.
Well, I guess he's not going to heaven either
by the standards of most of the people
that are in these false religions.
It says for that which I do, I allow not.
For that which I would, that do I not.
But what I hate, that do I.
Isn't that probably how most of us feel
when we commit a sin?
It probably is.
And so that's why, you know, I think the Apostle Paul says
I die daily.
Every day if I wake up, I realize
there's going to be something I do that's going to kill me.
This commandment's going to slay me.
This commandment's going to show me where I'm wrong.
And see, when we get out of doing that
or we get out of thinking that we're doing stuff wrong,
that's usually when people start getting hyper-spiritual
and acting like they're better than everybody else.
I've never cussed a day in my life since I sinned,
or I mean since I was saved.
I've never, you know, I've never thought a bad thought.
God just instantly just took all that away from me,
you liar.
God didn't take, maybe he took some things away from you,
but you know what, he didn't take every sinful desire
out of your heart.
Because Paul wouldn't say, you know,
Paul is probably one of the most spiritual Christians
that ever walked the face of the earth,
and he's saying, I'm carnal.
And he's saying, you know, the things that I want to do,
I don't do, and the things that I do, I hate.
I hate those things, but here I am doing it again.
So that's why the Bible teaches that we have to die daily,
we have to put on the new man,
we have to put on the hidden man of the heart.
Look at verse 16, it says,
if then I do that which I would not,
I consent unto the law that it is good.
Now when it is no more that I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me.
You're like, well Paul's just trying to escape this.
No, it's, we all have a sinful nature in our flesh still.
That's what he's saying,
he's saying this sin still dwells within me,
for I know that in me, that is in my flesh,
so he specifically spells it out for us,
dwelleth no good thing.
Or to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good, I find not.
The flesh never wants to do the things that are good.
The flesh always wants to go back to the world,
the flesh always wants to do the things that it wants
because our flesh is filled with lust
for all manner of things.
Desire for things that we shouldn't desire.
You know, it wants to do things,
and maybe your desires are worse,
are different than my desires.
Some people's desire, or the things that their flesh
are more prevalent to be able to be seen than other things.
But you know, I feel like there was a time
when I was a Christian and I smoked cigarettes.
Yeah, I know.
God didn't take that magically away from me
the minute I got saved, okay?
But there was a guy that I was working with,
and I think he was just trying to like,
in a way, call me unsaved or something,
because he probably knew I smoked or something.
But it's not like I smoked right out in front of the church
after I got done or whatever.
I was trying to be discreet about it, obviously,
because a lot of people are like,
well, I'm not gonna be fake.
I'll just go out and smoke whenever I want.
Well, I mean, that's probably not a good thing to do.
There's probably other people
that have struggles with cigarettes,
so the last thing you wanna do
is walk out the church doors and light one up, right?
But quitting cigarettes is hard.
They say it's harder than quitting heroin.
But the point is is that he would say stuff like,
well, someone smokes cigarettes and they're not even saved.
It's like, what?
How about if someone doesn't say hi
to a visitor that's there
or try to get that person the gospel,
how about that person's not saved?
And I'm not saying that they aren't,
but there's a lot of things that people hold inside
and the way people act and these hyper-spiritual bozos,
like the church I'm talking about,
Brother Tim went there and nobody said hi to him.
They're like, we're not saying hi to this Mexican.
But they treated a lot of people like that.
It's hard to know.
But if that was what it really was,
or maybe they're just not very nice people.
Those people probably don't smoke cigarettes,
but you know what?
They're not nice to people and nice to strangers
when they come into their church.
That's wrong.
I would rather be a two day a pack smoker
and shake a visitor's hand than be some jerk
that just only cares about choir practice
and never goes out soul winning or whatever,
like some of these people.
Anyway, sorry, another rabbit trail.
But verse 19.
For the good that I would do, I do not.
But the evil which I would, not that I do.
Now if I do that, I would not.
It is no more that I do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law that when I would do good,
evil is present with me, for I delight in the law of God
after the inward man.
See, that should be our desires to delight
in the law of the Lord after the inward man,
the spirit that is revived,
the spirit that is saved, the new man.
If we have that mentality,
you know, then we're gonna be better off
because we realize we're sinful, we need help.
God's the one that's gonna do that for us.
When we confess our sins,
when we want to live after the new man,
then we're gonna have a lot better of an attitude
about those things.
Instead of having to look down the end of my nose
at everybody else.
Look, you got problems too.
And sometimes people like to pick on people's
certain problems, but you know what?
We're all sinful, we all have a fleshly desire
to do things that we shouldn't do.
That's what Paul's saying, but he says I delight
in the law of God after the inward man,
but I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin
which is in my members.
Do you think Paul's explaining how he still sins?
And how he hates it, but his flesh does it
and sometimes he just can't help himself?
Oh wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I thank God through Christ Jesus our Lord
so that with the mind I myself serve the law of God,
but with the flesh the law of sin.
And there's gonna be a day
when we won't have to worry about that anymore,
but you know what?
We need to focus on trying to walk after the new man
and let your flesh die, die daily.
Let your flesh die daily, but you know what?
Walk in the spirit, that's the new man, right?
The new spiritual man that's inside you.
Look at Luke chapter nine verse 23.
Luke chapter nine verse 23.
Luke chapter nine verse 23 says,
and he said to them all, if any man will come after me,
let him, what's it say?
Deny himself and take up his cross.
What's it say?
Daily and follow me.
So yeah, we're supposed to follow Christ daily.
We're supposed to follow after the inward man
and it says daily and it says take up your cross.
What do you think he's talking about?
Well, Jesus took up his cross, right?
He carried his cross, what was that?
His death sentence.
And so we all have a death sentence upon our flesh
and so what's he saying?
Hey, you need to come after him.
If any man will come after me.
If you wanna actually follow Jesus, let him deny himself.
And so what does that mean?
Well, you gotta deny all the,
you gotta try your best, all right,
to deny the things of the flesh,
the things that your flesh wants
and take up your cross on a daily basis,
which means what?
You're dying daily, right?
And follow me.
Are we always gonna be successful on crucifying the flesh?
No, we're not.
But if you have that as a daily mentality,
it's like today, you know what?
Today, yesterday I failed, but today,
I'm gonna take up my cross
and I'm gonna do my best to follow after Jesus.
And if you already have that mentality and that attitude
every day when you wake up, you're like, oh man,
I mean, here's what I did yesterday.
Lord, I'm sorry, forgive me.
And then just pick yourself up and get up again.
Turn to Lamentations 3, verse 22.
Lamentations 3, verse 22.
Excuse me, Lamentations 3, 22.
Excuse me.
It says, it is of the Lord's mercies
that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not.
See, it's not because we're so good
because we're Christians.
It's because God's mercy that allows us to not be consumed
because his compassions fail not.
See, our compassions will fail, won't they?
You stop having compassion on people after a certain time
that's like, hey, you know,
you keep doing the same thing over and over again.
It's like, yeah, I'm kinda done helping you.
And that's something that a lot of people do
and sometimes you do have to stop helping someone.
God stops helping us, but he's not gonna make us
burn up in flames because of that,
because he understands our frame and that we're but dust.
Look at verse 23, it says, they are new every morning.
What, what's new every morning?
His mercies.
Great is thy faithfulness.
This is Jeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem
and all these people being killed
and Lamentations is a pretty depressing book
in most places, but you know what?
This, these two verses here are something to hang onto.
Because you know what, God's mercies are new every day.
Great is his faithfulness.
And so if he's faithful, we should do our best
to try to be as faithful as we possibly can by what?
Dying daily, dying to self.
Putting on the new man.
You're like, well, how do you do that?
Well, you just ask.
God, you know, forgive me.
And you know what, help me to walk in the spirit today.
Help me to put on the new man today.
Fill me with your spirit.
Maybe you sing a song.
Maybe you sing a song in the morning to him.
Whatever it is, because you know,
David wrote a lot of songs, didn't he?
And he probably sang those songs to the Lord.
In fact, I know he sang those songs to the Lord.
And those songs are scripture.
A lot of those songs that he wrote are scripture.
So number five of things we should do daily
is preach Jesus daily.
Now this is something that's a lot more hard to do,
I think, for most people.
And not everybody goes soul winning every day.
But the disciples and the apostles,
when the church first, you know,
when the apostles just stormed the gates
of every city and every town,
they began in Jerusalem.
And what were they doing?
Look at Acts five.
They were beating the streets, knocking the doors,
preaching the gospel, preaching Christ Jesus
on a daily basis.
And obviously this is something that, you know,
we might not ever attain to.
But it is something interesting that I, you know,
in my study on this daily topic,
this is one of the things,
one of the scriptures that came up.
Look at Acts five, 40.
It says, and to him they agreed.
And when they had called the apostles and beaten them,
they commanded that they should not speak
in the name of Jesus and let them go.
And they departed from the presence of the council,
rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame
for his name, and what does it say?
And daily in the temple and in every house,
they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
So back then the temple was still, you know,
basically like the main place where people congregated
to go to church that lived in Jerusalem.
And it says in every house they ceased not to teach
and preach Jesus Christ.
So they did, so what does cease not?
They didn't stop.
This didn't stop them.
And so today it's a lot easier for us
to go preach the gospel than it was for them.
I mean they're, you know, Jerusalem is being ruled
by the, the religious part of Jerusalem is being ruled
by the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
And they put, already put Jesus to death.
They beat the apostles.
They commanded them to stop doing it.
They commanded them to stop preaching his name.
And they did it while it was hard every day.
And it's not even hard for us and we don't do it every day.
So, you know, and let me just, you know,
obviously I think that it's a good thing
to preach the gospel every day if you could.
But, you know, maybe you could do that
in your daily life.
Maybe one of the customers that you, you know,
maybe whoever you run into at the store or whatever it is,
you know, you don't just have to go soul winning
during the soul winning times.
You can be, you know, out on your own.
There's a lot of people that just preach the gospel
to get people saved outside of our soul winning times,
outside of our church hours.
So again, make it a daily mentality.
If your mentality is just, I'm only gonna preach to people
during our soul winning times.
And that's, you know, and it's easy
to get into that mentality.
But what if we just had a daily attitude that,
hey, if I have an opportunity,
if I can actually preach the gospel to somebody
in my daily life, I'm gonna do that too.
And again, notice that they did it when it was hard.
And we can't even do it when it's easy.
Well, you know, maybe we should change our mentality
with that, maybe we should change the way we are
about going soul winning.
Obviously, I'm not saying you have to go soul winning
every day, that's not what I'm saying.
I would like to see where we're actually a soul winning,
we have a soul winning time every day,
but right now we're just not doing that,
but we do go soul winning a lot at this church.
But what if we had the attitude
that we're gonna just be soul winners every day,
we're gonna preach, we're not gonna cease to preach Jesus
every single day, and then when people are beating us,
and when people are commanding us to stop,
and when the police are coming and harassing us
at every single apartment complex, which does happen,
then we're not gonna be, you know,
we're gonna have this attitude like,
hey, you know what, this is my daily time,
that, you know, here's the time that God set aside for me.
Because God will give you the desires of your heart.
If your desire is to see people saved, then guess what?
God's gonna make that heart, that heart desire,
that good desire, he's gonna make room for you
to be able to do that, and if we have this attitude
that, you know, no matter where I am,
maybe even if you're just handing someone an invitation,
obviously that's not preaching the gospel,
but it's something, you know, if someone comes over
to do some work on your house, or just whatever it is,
we have interactions with other people
besides church people in our daily life, don't we?
So maybe if we just had the mentality
of a daily preaching Jesus,
that we would actually start to do that more often.
Number six, exhort one another daily.
Exhort one another daily.
Like, well, we don't even go to church daily, I know.
I know, but we should still exhort people.
Well, what does that mean?
It means to strongly encourage
or urge somebody to do something.
Because of the sinful world that we live in,
because of the lives that we sometimes get trapped into,
some of the sinful lust that we get into,
it can make us to where we just feel like
we have a give up mentality.
I'm just gonna give up, this is just pointless.
I'm done doing this.
Turn to Hebrews chapter three verse 13.
Because, you know what, we didn't get saved
to have a better life.
Did we?
I got saved because I didn't wanna go to hell.
I didn't say, God, make my life better and I'll serve you.
Which you could do, but that wasn't my motivation.
But, you know, he did make my life better
because I got saved.
But does God promise a better life in here
when you get saved?
I mean, I'm pretty sure the apostles,
when they were getting beaten,
didn't go, oh, what a wonderful life.
But they were happy about the fact
that they got to endure punishment for the name of Jesus.
So they were happy in their persecution,
but most people, if you're just going through hell every day
there's gonna be some discouragement,
there's gonna be some hardness of your heart.
And so, but sometimes people focus that in the wrong places.
They focus their hardness of their heart at God,
they focus the hardness of their heart at their pastor,
they focus the hardness of their heart
at the other church members, or whatever it is,
maybe even your own family members,
but you know, the Bible says we're supposed
to exhort one another daily.
Look at Hebrews chapter three verse 13, it says,
but exhort one another daily.
While it is called today, lest any of you be hardened
through the deceitfulness of sin.
Why do we encourage each other daily?
Because we do kind of communicate on a daily basis
through the WhatsApp, you know, thing.
Not everybody chimes in on everything,
and sometimes people, you know, get out of it
because they're tired of hearing all the dinging bells.
Well, you know, you can silence that, by the way.
But anyway, you know, I'm in a lot of different
WhatsApp groups because, you know, we got four churches
or whatever, and you know, I'm part of every single
church WhatsApp group of all of our church plants,
and then those ones have secondaries.
We have like, what, a few different,
we have the homeschool one, we have the prayer one,
and we have the soul-wanting one.
The soul-wanting ones kind of turn into like everything,
right, everything that we do.
It was mainly to be started for a soul-wanting thing,
but, you know, we can encourage people through technology,
through phones, you know, people used to,
there's these things, kids, they're called telephones.
Not cell phones, but telephones.
And in the 80s, they'd have like 100 foot, 150 foot cords,
because, you know, there's these things called cords,
and they would be plugged into the wall,
and you'd actually have to pick up the phone
and dial the number, but some of them had,
you know, they had the old rotary ones,
where you go, and then if you messed up,
you had to start all over again, you had to hang up.
It's really annoying.
But yeah, we, you know, people used to communicate
with telephones on, you know, that was the main line
of communication, then email started, you know,
I don't know if cell phones started at the same time
as email or whatever, but, you know,
things have progressed.
My point is, is that we have no excuse
not to encourage one another.
If someone's going through something hard, you know,
and I don't necessarily chime in on every prayer request,
because that would be like a full-time job in itself,
because you all have a lot of problems.
But, and, you know, but hey, that's good.
Bring your problems to everybody else,
because the more people praying about something for you,
the better off you are.
But the Bible says to exhort one another daily,
and that means we need to strongly encourage someone
or urge someone to do something.
And that could be, you know, just some, you know,
we don't have to be rude about it either.
We could say, well, hey, well, maybe if you stop eating
so much food, you wouldn't be so fat.
Well, I mean, obviously, there's ways of being tactful
about things, you don't have to say it like that.
You know, maybe if you spanked your kids,
they would, you know, obey or whatever.
Just whatever it is, but like,
we could still encourage people without having to,
you know, be rude about it or whatever.
And being straight up isn't necessarily being rude.
So I don't want you to think that that, you know,
just straightly telling someone that.
I think that that's okay to do,
but just have tact while you do it, you know?
So, but we shouldn't be encouraging people.
Encouraging people to what?
To avoid the hardness of our hearts
through the deceitfulness of sin.
Because when we fall into sinful traps,
we don't always see it.
We just get absorbed by it,
and then other people can see it, but you don't see it.
And so when someone's like really having a hard time,
and you're just like, well, hey,
maybe you should just show up for church
every once in a while,
and you wouldn't be having so many problems.
Maybe you should start, you know,
obviously, nobody knows what everybody's tithing,
but maybe you should start tithing,
and you wouldn't have so many problems with your finances,
or maybe, you know, whatever.
But the deceitfulness and hardness of our heart
comes through sin.
And so that's why we should encourage one another
the best way we can.
You know, hey, I'm sorry that you're going through that.
Hey, God's gonna get you through this.
Hey, I'm praying for you.
Those are encouraging things to say to people.
You know, you don't have to tell a rebel,
you know, maybe if you quit smoking,
you wouldn't have bad lungs, right?
I mean, do you think that people that smoke
don't realize that it kills them?
You know, there's people that like,
whenever they see someone smoke,
they're just, and I don't know
why I'm bringing up smoking so much.
I don't smoke, okay?
But, you know, people, there's those people
that are really annoying.
When I smoked, I dealt with them all the time.
Like, you should just quit smoking.
Like, really?
I never thought about that.
It's like, yeah, I know I need to quit smoking.
It's bad, I know it's bad for my health.
I know it's gonna kill me.
But you know what, the deceitfulness of sin
had hardened my heart, and you know what,
it also was addictive.
Yes.
So there's some sins that are just addictive,
and it takes time, it takes prayer,
it takes work to get over those things,
and instead of just saying, hey, you know what,
you should really just quit smoking.
They already know that.
I'm praying for you to quit smoking.
Maybe, so you know someone's struggling with someone.
The Bible says we should confess our faults one to another.
I'm not saying confess your sins necessarily,
but maybe you are having a problem,
and you don't wanna confide in everybody.
You just wanna confide in one person
and ask them to pray for you.
Well, you know, don't use that person
coming to you about that
as a battering ram against them either,
but you can still encourage people
and exhort them to do the right thing
in a kind Christian manner.
So number seven, search the scriptures daily.
Search the scriptures daily.
Turn to Acts chapter 17, verse 11.
Acts chapter 17, verse number 11.
This is also a very important point of the sermon
that needs to be over soon.
So Acts 17, 11.
It says, these were more noble than those in Thessalonica
in that, we're talking about the Bereans,
in that they received the word with all readiness of mind,
so they're ready to hear the word of God,
and searched the scriptures daily
whether these things were so.
See, some people want to search out the scriptures.
They want to prove all things.
Doesn't the Bible say prove all things?
You shouldn't just believe every single doctrine
that someone teaches you
just because they taught it to you.
Not all people have their doctrine all lined up correctly.
People say, well, be like a Berean.
Search the scriptures daily.
I agree with that, but to search the scriptures
proves what?
That they read the scriptures on a daily basis, doesn't it?
So that is something that we should do on a daily basis
is read the word of God.
Turn to Joshua chapter one, verse eight.
In Matthew 6, 11, I'll read Matthew 6, 11.
It says, give us this day our daily bread.
Obviously, this is Jesus teaching the prayer,
teaching people how to pray,
and obviously, we should pray for our daily food,
but in a spiritual sense, we also need to pray
that we get the daily bread of God's word
because the bread does represent
the word of God, doesn't it?
And in Moses' day, when they had the manna
that would fall down, they would get that manna.
How often would they get it?
Daily, wouldn't they?
And so every day that manna was there
except for on the Sabbath day, there was a double portion
so that they would have some left over for the next day.
But it's so important, and you know,
you're never gonna get back what you lose
that day that you skip your Bible reading.
You're never gonna get it back.
What happened to the manna when they would try
to gather, you know, for different,
you know, it would get worms and it would corrupt,
wouldn't it, it would start stinking.
So God purposely gave that to them
as a picture of a daily Bible reading,
the fact that Jesus Christ is the bread
that came down from heaven.
And so we should take some time to search
the scriptures daily and find out
whether the things that we're believing are right,
and also just to soak in the word of God in our life.
Because you know, if you read the Bible,
and I've said this many times, if you read the Bible
for 15 minutes a day, you're gonna read the Bible
once in a year, 15 minutes.
And I always say this too, because you're supposed
to read it daily, seven and a half minutes in the morning,
seven and a half minutes in the evening.
And I'm sure if I had a raise of hands,
which I'm not gonna do, I'm sure if I had a raise of hands,
there are people in this room that have not read
the Bible cover to cover one time.
Maybe that's you, maybe you've been saved for a long time
and you've never read the Bible cover to cover one time.
Well, why don't you start working on that today?
And make it a daily habit in your life.
You're like, well, you sure do want us to start
a lot of daily habits.
Yeah, but they're important daily habits, aren't they?
They're very important.
Look at Joshua 1,8, it says, this book of the law,
talking about the Bible, shall not depart out of thy mouth.
So what does that mean?
You shouldn't stop talking about it.
You shouldn't stop memorizing it.
You know, it shouldn't depart out of your mouth.
There shouldn't be a day that goes by
when the Bible is not some topic of your mouth.
But thou shalt meditate therein day and night.
See that, day and night, that thou mayest observe
to do according to all that is written therein,
for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous,
and then thou shalt have good success.
If what?
Every day you're meditating in the Word of God,
day and night, then you're gonna be successful,
then you're gonna be prosperous,
then you're gonna have good success.
That's what the Bible says.
So we should take up the Bible on a daily basis
and read it.
Now, if you're trying to be a pastor,
or if you are a pastor, you should read the Bible
for more than 15 minutes a day, okay?
But if you're not, and you're just, you know,
you're not planning on going into the ministry,
or you're not, you know, but you can read
as much as you want.
You can read through the Bible multiple times in a year.
You can read it, you know, I would say
that more than four times is probably not,
I mean, it's hard.
But you should read it daily.
You know, a lot of people, well, I do read it every day.
I just do this.
Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord,
that take counsel, but not of me and cover with covering,
but not of my spirit, that they may add up their sin, right?
So, I mean, that was a good one to read, right?
God just gave me that, right?
Well, that's how a lot of people's Bible reading are.
Well, I gotta at least just read one thing.
And hey, you know what, reading one thing
is better than not reading anything, I'll say that.
But here's what I'll also say, that's just not really,
you know, if you did that every day,
you're not gonna get the Bible read
in your lifetime probably, right?
You just read one verse a day
that you just happen to fall upon, right?
So look, we gotta do things on purpose, scheduled.
You know, and if you're failing in your Bible reading time,
why don't you, here's another alarm to set up.
Use a different ringtone, or whatever.
Daily Bible reading, morning and evening.
Break up your Bible reading.
If you can't, I just can't read that well.
Well, you know what, the Bible's gonna make you smarter.
The Bible's gonna help you to read better.
But the Bible says you're supposed to be doing it daily.
You're supposed to daily search the scriptures.
In Psalm chapter one, verse two, it says,
"'But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
"'and in his law doth he meditate day and night.'"
This is David, of course.
This is the first Psalm telling us
to delight in the law of the Lord, which is the Bible.
"'And in his law doth he meditate day and night.'"
And you know what's gonna happen
when you meditate in God's law day and night?
It says, "'And he shall be like a tree
"'planted by the rivers of water
"'that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.
"'His leaves also shall not wither,
"'and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.'"
The Bible's giving us the promise
that if we have a daily Bible reading in our lives,
and if we read it in the morning,
and we read it in the night,
we're gonna be like a strong tree
that's rooted and grounded,
and everything's gonna bring forth in its right season,
and our leaves will not wither,
and whatsoever we do shall prosper.
That's a promise from God.
Psalm chapter one, verse two, verse three.
So if we do this and make this a part of our life,
then God is going to bless our life.
He's gonna bless our life through a good prayer life.
He's gonna bless our life through all these things,
and I gotta end the sermon now, so,
but anyway, adding to the church daily
is something that I was gonna add on.
This is point number eight,
but that we should basically,
it says the Lord added to the church daily.
If we follow the steps, then our church is gonna grow.
You know, our church is gonna be strong.
Our church is gonna be powerful.
And again, I wanna emphasize on the prayer part
because that's one thing that we all need to get ahold of.
You know what the Bible says?
Bless be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits,
even the God of our salvation, Selah.
So God is gonna bless us daily.
He already does bless us with all types of different things.
You know, we eat, sleep, enjoy our health to the most part,
and enjoy our families.
We have jobs, we have ways that God blesses us
every single day, and shouldn't we take some time back
and some effort back and serve him daily on a daily basis,
pray to him, read the scriptures, you know,
go out soul winning, you know, attend church,
encourage other people, all these different things.
God, you know, if we have a daily thing that we do,
hey, God's always gonna bless us daily.
So even if you miss a day where you're just like,
oh man, you know, I messed up,
then God's still going to give you those daily benefits.
But you know what's gonna benefit you the best?
Is if when he's dealing with you daily and well,
that you're dealing with him well on a daily basis.
And so let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you Lord so much
for the scriptures, and Lord,
I just pray that we'd have some daily habits
that we would just get into, Lord, help us.
Lord, we're sinful people,
and you know, we need to be reminded of a lot of things.
Lord, help us to even set reminders for ourselves.
Lord, help us to think about the things
that you do for us daily, Lord,
and that our reasonable service would be
to make sacrifice in our life for you as well.
And Lord, for the betterment of our lives
and for the betterment of our families and our children
and for the betterment of our church
and for the betterment of our community
that we go out to a lost and dying world
and preach the gospel in our daily lives.
We thank you, Lord, so much.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, let's finish with our last song,
page 129 in your blue hymnals.
Page 129 in your blue hymnals, He is Mine.
He is Mine, page 129.
He is Mine, let's sing it out on the first.
Long before the fall of man,
God designed a master plan.
He exchanged the center for the sinless one.
Jesus left his throne on high,
came to earth to bleed and die.
He said, Father, now my will will thine be done.
He is Mine.
I am blessed beyond all measure.
He is Mine.
I have pardoned full and free
through the blood He shed for me.
Saved forever I shall be.
He is Mine.
All right, let's pick it up on the second verse.
Y'all are a bunch of Presbyterians this morning.
Let's sing it out like Baptists.
On the second, all right?
Through God's mercy and His grace,
He's prepared for us a place.
Words cannot describe the matchless beauty there.
Good job.
We will praise the perfect Lamb,
King of kings, a great I am.
He has made the joys of heaven ours to share.
He is Mine.
I am blessed beyond all measure.
He is Mine.
I have pardoned full and free
through the blood He shed for me.
Saved forever I shall be.
He is Mine.
All right, great singing,
and thank you for attending this morning.
I'd like to see you back here at 3.30 this afternoon.
Brother Gary, can you end us with a word of prayer?