0:00:00 - 0:00:33 Life is a most precious gift and it's comprised of many moments. It's kind of hard to describe but capturing the value of each of these moments, it has uh an exponentially cascading effect on outcomes. It turns out that consistency, it's tremendously important to obtaining a fullness of the potential 0:00:33 - 0:01:02 in yourself, in your life. We're here to achieve an abundant life. It, it's probably better said to receive an abundant life. But that receipt doesn't come in a moment. It comes through a process, a process of continuous reception. So here's a question for you. How can we better capture the potential 0:01:01 - 0:01:25 of every moment if you take it on faith that or well, I'll just say take, take my word for it. So suppose for a moment that, that what I'm saying is true about the importance of cascading consistent cascading, consistent reception from the Lord or choosing what's best in every single moment again and 0:01:25 - 0:01:53 again and again, moment by moment, day by day consistently. Let's suppose that that's extremely important to the outcome. It is. How do we, how do we do that? How do we capture each moment? Well, the answer is not easy but it's exceedingly simple. Let me ask you this. Why do you think that the first 0:01:52 - 0:02:20 commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart might mind and strength. It's not for Him. It's not for him that he gave that commandment because he never does anything except it's for our greatest benefit. This is a chief distinction between the almighty God and the gods of the heathens, heathen 0:02:19 - 0:02:55 gods. They seek for appeasement, they want you to curry their favor. Our God is good. He seeks the benefit of his Children consummately without exception, without pause, totally and all the time. And so whatever he asks of you or anyone else is completely optimized for your greatest benefit, your greatest 0:02:54 - 0:03:25 possible benefit. So what does it mean to love God with all of our heart, might mind and strength or maybe better explored at this moment? What would anything else look like? So moment by moment, the decisions you make matter, they matter more than you could possibly understand in that moment, sometimes 0:03:24 - 0:03:55 it becomes much clearer later. But God knows all these things from the beginning in the path he guides you on. It's one of precision, precision optimization towards the best that you could possibly have and be and do so. It turns out that turning away from this path is less obvious than it should be 0:03:54 - 0:04:22 . Why should it be so obvious? Well, because the Lord has said so much about it. So without further ado. Let's get into this. I wanna start from Matthew 24 and I'm going to begin reading in verse 42 watch. Therefore, sorry, I'm thinking maybe I should go with a different one first. We'll start with this 0:04:22 - 0:04:41 one watch. Therefore, for, you know, not what hour your Lord Doth come but know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Now, you've probably heard this before. I'm gonna break up 0:04:41 - 0:04:59 this passage if we're gonna continue until verse 51. But I want to tell you before we do that. When you hear scriptures, it's good to not just gloss over and go to what you think you've understood in the past by that passage or that verse in this presentation, I'm gonna read to you a whole bunch of scriptures 0:04:58 - 0:05:18 . You've probably heard before. You've probably heard them more than once. And I think it's exceedingly likely that I'm going to show you that they mean something much more than what you thought. They mean something that jams its, its hand right into your heart and grabs it and rips it out. And that's 0:05:18 - 0:05:40 how, you know, when the spirit is teaching you, it's not warm and fuzzies, it's gut wrenching suggestions for improvement. You realize that you have been sinning against God in far greater ways than you thought. And you have the motivation to change because you love him. And he's been so gracious to 0:05:40 - 0:06:04 show you how you can improve criticism and improvement. They are not the same if you drew a Venn diagram. Uh all improvement is criticism. All invitations for improvement are criticism but not all criticism is an invitation for improvement. It has to be correct, it has to actually be oriented to greater 0:06:04 - 0:06:26 good for you. The wonderful thing is that every single thing that God ever tells you is oriented towards your benefit, towards your improvement, all of it. And so whenever God criticizes you, it's always a call to improvement and he knows what he's doing. And so it's the greatest gift that you can have 0:06:26 - 0:06:51 . It's uh the most beneficial showing of his love, sorry for the interruption verse 44. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as you think, not the son of man cometh. What does that mean? Because you probably think it means the second coming, but it doesn't, you could apply it to that. But it's 0:06:51 - 0:07:13 only a subset of the instances across which it's true. If you knew a robber was going to come and rob your house, you'd be there waiting at the time that they were to come or maybe you'd leave to be safe, right? But the point is you would change your behavior around that time in preparation for that 0:07:12 - 0:07:44 time. And Jesus says, watch and be ready because you don't know when the Lord is coming. What does it mean for him to come? In this case? It does not just mean that he visits you in the literal way that you would interpret that it means that he visits you by giving you an opportunity to improve. Now 0:07:43 - 0:08:10 , hopefully, your brain just exploded a little bit. Or else I'm not doing a very good job. You don't know from moment to moment which moment consists of some tremendous important decision that you have to make. You don't know. All you can know is whether that choice is one that could improve you or not 0:08:09 - 0:08:31 . You don't really know by how much, although you should try to think about it, you don't know what its downstream effects will be because choices are chains, they're not events, they're chains. It's like a train with those. I don't know what they're called. The junctions. A decision is not just a step 0:08:30 - 0:08:56 . It's a path always. Ok. You don't know from moment to moment where that path is going to lead. You can only see is it higher than the one I'm on? That's the other thing we do incorrectly is we think of decisions as flat. Like here, a bunch of options, one might be a little better than the other. They're 0:08:56 - 0:09:21 not flat, they go up or down all of them and by different degrees, we can't always tell the degree from an absolute measure, but we can always tell as differently as the dark is from the night. We can tell which one's higher in the set of options. Ok. Now, you don't hear these things discussed in churches 0:09:20 - 0:09:43 and that's why people are as jacked up as they are because this is really simple stuff. It's not easy, but it wasn't meant to be complicated. We obfuscate it through intentional ignorance. You have done this in your life, but more importantly, people who have come before you have done this. And so it's 0:09:43 - 0:10:05 time to cut through all this Gordian knot garbage and just make it plain. In every moment. You have a sea of decisions before you. You cannot know the end from the beginning, but God does and He will give you everything. You need to know the relative value of the options before you. If you incessantly 0:10:04 - 0:10:31 choose what is best according to the resources you have right now in every moment, you will take the path direct to him for you. It's specific to you, but it converges between people over time who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household to give them meat 0:10:31 - 0:11:00 in due season. There's a whole lot in that single verse. Shall we get into it? No, no, we'll just leave it at who is a faithful and wise servant. So do you want the Lord's approbation? He's about to tell us how to get it. Verse 46 blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing 0:11:00 - 0:11:29 . And now again, there's a duality here. It's absolutely correct to think of this as you have in terms of his literal coming to you. It's more important to think of this in its figurative but also still accurately literal sense of when he provides to you an invitation to improve. Why if your motivation 0:11:28 - 0:11:53 is improvement? If your motivation is, what would Jesus do in my place? I want to be the Lord's servant. I want to do what he would do in my place at all times and in all places, then when he comes to you, when this moment arrives, that you weren't expecting and that's not decorated in any way as being 0:11:53 - 0:12:29 super duper important, you will do the right thing and you'll do it every single time. What's the alternative verse 48? Sorry before I go on, I'm told to pause here and draw attention to verse 47. Verily I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods, all the goodies that you think you 0:12:29 - 0:12:50 want from God, all of them that you do not yet have. I'm telling you why you don't have them. Now, other people, we are going to lie to you, whether they're doing it intentionally or through ignorance, it doesn't really matter for this point. They're going to lie to you and tell you, oh, you know why 0:12:50 - 0:13:14 this hasn't happened or you don't feel like this or whatever. Here's why you want the goodies. Let me give you the recipe. It's a shortcut. It's great. All you have to do. XYZ, XYZ is not going to work and you know this because you've tried it. Right. I'll tell you why Xyz never works because what they 0:13:14 - 0:13:39 tell you is never going to be what the Lord is telling you here. What I'm citing. That's a funny pun seer, see things that other people don't see, but they cite what other people could easily read. And that's, they're actually they one and the same. If you just, if you just do what the Lord told you 0:13:39 - 0:14:14 that you already know about, you'd see things too anyway. Maybe that's just funny to me, a sightseer. Uh OK, you, you gotta take the laughs where you can get them because you sometimes you have to laugh so you don't cry. Um If you, if you are constantly watching for the Lord's will, which doesn't mean 0:14:13 - 0:14:30 begging him for this mysterious God, what would you do in this situation or in that situation? It's, it's, you should ask whenever you don't know. But more importantly, you should pay attention to what he's already shown you because odds are the answers are there. But you know, if you really want it 0:14:30 - 0:14:49 , pick a book of scripture, I don't really care which um you'll get the same results, give or take, pick a book of scripture. Next time you have a question about what the Lord would do in your place, in a specific situation. It doesn't matter how arbitrary the situation might be so long as you care and 0:14:49 - 0:15:08 that's caring is a key. It's part of sincerity, which is a gateway to the holy ghost. It's a gateway to God. If you care about something, you really wanna know the next time you wanna know what the Lord would do in your place, pick a book of scripture and read through it and maybe read through it in 0:15:08 - 0:15:50 a if it takes you three months, it does not matter. Dedicate yourself to that question. Pray every time you open the scriptures, you pray and you say God, thank you for this treasure. More than anything else you could tell me. I want to know what you would do in this situation, be ready because it, it 0:15:50 - 0:16:18 won't be infrequent that he will just tell you as long as you've already set your heart to do whatever he says. Many times. He will just tell you many times. Searching is for no other reason then to give you the opportunity to really decide that you want it. So much of what we suffer is only necessary 0:16:17 - 0:16:44 because we are so stubborn. It's so slow to reconcile our desire to the value that He has shown us but digress. So pray that prayer or something like it and read through your book of scripture. And if he hasn't told you by the end, you let me know and we'll see what we can do about that. I don't expect 0:16:44 - 0:17:09 to get any emails about that. Anyway, you will build up a library, a model of how he would act in different situations. He'll continue to tweak it and you'll move along beautifully towards a greater fullness of understanding of how he is. And if you're oriented this way, then when the super important 0:17:08 - 0:17:47 things come along, you will act in them as he would, whether you see that as immediately valuable to that specific thing or not. And in transcending your desire for the specific and in submitting to God in all things, you will be on the path to everything that God could give. So what happens if you don't 0:17:47 - 0:18:14 do that? Verse 48? But, but, and if that evil servant, oh now he's calling you names shall say in his heart. My Lord delay his coming pause. Remember what's his coming? It's not just to say the second coming isn't going to be today. Therefore, I'm gonna go party with my friends instead of doing the thing 0:18:13 - 0:18:40 that the Lord has told me unless he's told you to go party with your friends. So it also means and more importantly, the bigger picture of which that's only a specific application is to say, I don't think the Lord has anything to tell me right now. You've heard this one. I don't think the Lord cares 0:18:39 - 0:19:16 what I do in this situation. Yes, he does. He always does because whenever there is a choice, one thing is better than the other. Always. So don't say in your heart, my Lord delay his coming because he's not delaying it. He's always there. He's always there. Now, isn't that an interesting application 0:19:15 - 0:19:42 ? If you think his coming is just the second coming, then maybe you'll act as if he's delaying his coming. If you think there's something you have to do to get into his presence, I'm using air quotes like crazy because people say these things and it, it's very frustrating because you know what they mean 0:19:42 - 0:20:06 by it and what, how they're impeded by God by thinking those things. But if you think there's something you have to do to get into his presence, then you clearly don't realize you're already there. It's not him who's going to change. It's you. The problem isn't that you're not in his presence, so to 0:20:06 - 0:20:33 speak. It's that you don't perceive his presence that you already have, you don't act accordingly. So if you're looking forward to his coming, someday, you're already out of the path of where you would need to be. For that to be a good thing. You have to recognize his hand over you right now. You have 0:20:32 - 0:20:58 to perceive it. You have to receive it. You have to value it, you have to live it. So what happens to these evil servants that think God doesn't care what I do right now. In this situation, he doesn't care. It's not important. Well, I'm sorry, there's one more verse that characterizes these people before 0:20:58 - 0:21:15 you get to the consequence. So this servant's evil servants gonna begin to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink with a drunken. Let's start with the second one because you're probably more willing to admit that you do that to eat and drink with a drunken. What does this mean? It's to act like 0:21:15 - 0:21:38 everyone else in the world. If to you being a Christian only makes you different on Sundays or in churchy things, then there's a problem. You should be different at all times in all places because the natural man is an enemy to God. But if you're his child, you are not. If you're the friend of God, then 0:21:37 - 0:21:59 your motive should be different at all times and in all places than the people you're around, even if you're doing the same things, you're doing them for different reasons. Here's an example of something that is not evil. Going to work, right? Going to work. A normal person goes to work so that they 0:21:58 - 0:22:18 have money so that they can do things to give them immediate pleasure. That's the normal thing you say. Well, that's too harsh. Like normal people go to work, they have kids, they have a family, they have to support their motive is to feel good. Right now, period. Now, they might lapse from that motive 0:22:17 - 0:22:42 and kind of slip into something better every once in a while. But their underlying motive is they want to feel good right now. That's why they do everything they do. What is the motive of a disciple of Christ at work? It is to do the will of the Lord. If, if, if there's no direct answer to what the Lord 0:22:41 - 0:23:04 would do right now, that that's connected to their job and what they do and how they do it moment by moment, then they broke in the connection and in going to work, they're serving another God and that doesn't work because it's an all or nothing affair. You're either the servant of the Lord or not. So 0:23:03 - 0:23:31 is that important? Does it matter to God? How efficient you are? Let's say at work, let's say that what you're doing, it is the Lord's will, how you're doing it does it matter? Yes, it does. So efficiency, for example, who would have thought that that's a property of holiness? It is, it is. I don't want 0:23:31 - 0:23:49 to get too deep into this. Ok? But you get the difference to eat and drink with a drunken doesn't mean literally, oh, alcohol is bad. Therefore, if you drink, you're in this group and if you don't, you're good. Are you different from the world? How you better be different in motive? You get that one 0:23:48 - 0:24:10 for free almost, but very frequently, not all the time, not in all things, but very frequently. You're going to be doing different things as well. You'll always be doing it for different reasons. Ok. What does it mean? I will transition to the one you'll say? Well, that's not me. What does it mean to 0:24:10 - 0:24:32 smite your fellow servants when a mighty angel appeared to John in the Book of Revelation and shows and tells him many things, John fell down to worship this angel. He said, don't worship me. I'm one of your fellow servants, the prophets, which creates a huge problem for folks who thinks angels are some 0:24:32 - 0:24:55 creature that is separate from man. But whatever now, things could be said about that passage that I don't really wanna get into right now. Um It's unfortunate that there's so much confusion about it, but who are your fellow servants? If you're a servant of God, who are your fellow servants? Well, it's 0:24:55 - 0:25:18 , it's other servants of God. It's other people who have decided to be the servant of the Lord by yielding to his purpose in all things over their own more correctly to make his purpose their own. That's a much better way of thinking about it. How could you smite his fellows, your fellow servants uh 0:25:18 - 0:25:41 other servants of God. Does it mean you're literally punching them? Perhaps? Perhaps? I think Paul and Barnabas got into it. Paul and Peter almost did. Um I don't know if it came to blows. But that's probably closer to, easier to see as a fulfillment of this. But what about, what about when you allow 0:25:41 - 0:26:08 Satan to use you as one of his imps to say really stupid things or criticize in um obviously errant ways, what someone else is doing in the service of the Lord or maybe just to withhold your support. Are you doing everything you could to advance the cause of the Lord? Let's do a quick analogy. Um The 0:26:08 - 0:26:28 Lord compared building the kingdom to a king going to battle. Do you remember that one? He said, don't do it unless you're all in because otherwise you'll get defeated when the enemy shows up with more troops than you're expected. Um There's no partiality and take backs, right? You have to be all in 0:26:27 - 0:26:46 or not. So, uh because you'll bear the consequences of partiality. If you go in it that way and you're overrun, you'll be in big trouble. It's not like you can say, oh, let me get a mull again. I take back my troops and I'm just gonna go live in my city again. They're gonna destroy you, right? It's like 0:26:46 - 0:27:03 shooting a grizzly bear. If you're gonna do that, you better be all in and keep shooting until you're out of, out of bullets. Even if it stops moving just unload because that the second you shoot a grizzly bear, they say that Grizzly's purpose in life is to kill you and it will not stop until it dies 0:27:03 - 0:27:34 or you do. So you gotta be all in um what was the application here? I'm sorry, I got into the vivid imagery of getting charged by Grizzly Bear kings in battle. So if you were in battle operating under a king who is Christ and you are, it doesn't matter a general, a colonel, a captain, a lieutenant, a 0:27:34 - 0:28:01 sergeant, a private. It doesn't matter whatever your role is. If all of a sudden in addition to or in lieu of doing what you were told to do by your commanding people, you step out of that and start attacking the units operating beside you. That would be a problem. Ok? It would also be, uh you're gonna 0:28:01 - 0:28:22 do massive damage by the way, much more damage than an overt enemy could do. And that's why traders can be shot, right? It's a really big deal. There's no time for trial. You, you betray on the battlefield, you get shot in the head. Ok. So, or wherever. Um, but you're, you're done. So what about if instead 0:28:22 - 0:28:51 of actively attacking lateral troops? What if you just don't help them? So let's suppose that you're attacking some objective and your, your lateral unit is tasked with protecting your flank to make sure you don't get rushed from behind. Let's say they don't do that and you get rushed from behind. Well 0:28:51 - 0:29:21 , they have smitten their fellow servants. You see how that works. So an example of this is David when he killed Uriah, that was considered murder. But how did he do it? He sent him into a dangerous place without sufficient support, right? Ok. So it's a really big deal. So, are you supporting God's fellow 0:29:21 - 0:29:48 , your fellow servants? God's other servants. How well the best way you can? And this is important, right? Your sovereignty is never violated as a child of God in his kingdom. It's, it's, it's not just maintained, it's viciously protected. So it's, it's pretty critical for the purpose of life. And so 0:29:48 - 0:30:11 it's up to you to figure out how you can best support the cause, but it is a decision that God cares about. And so take it seriously and make it intentionally and revise it when you need to. All right now we get to the consequences. Verse 49 he shall begin to smite his fellow servants to eat and drink 0:30:11 - 0:30:30 with the drunken. Verse 50 the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he look at not for him. And in an hour that he is not aware of, if you believe that God doesn't care about the decisions you make, I promise you he's going to, you're going to face decisions that He does care about that. You 0:30:30 - 0:30:53 think he doesn't care about, he's going to come in a day that you're not looking for him and you're going to make the wrong choice verse 51 and shall cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The path of the Lord is a path and we have 0:30:52 - 0:31:23 to stay in it. All it takes to get out of it is to stop practicing the way to stop asking. What would the Lord do in my place? What do I need to do right now to be the greatest benefit? What do I need to do across the day? The weeks, the months, the years in Deuteronomy 8, 19 Moses said, if thou do at 0:31:23 - 0:31:52 all, forget the Lord thy God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them pause. I hope you understand that to mean much more than you did 20 minutes ago whenever we started this 30 minutes ago. If you do those things, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish to perish 0:31:51 - 0:32:17 in the ancient tongue. It doesn't mean to instantly die. It means to go into a state of decay with sudden impulses which might kill you. That's, but it's a state of death instead of a day, state of life of decay, instead of growth. It's, this is the way of the Lord versus anything else. Anything else 0:32:17 - 0:32:45 is to perish, OK. Each and every day, each and every choice it matters. Second, Nephi nine, I'm sorry, I didn't write the verse woe unto him that has the law given. Yeah, that has all the commandments of God like unto us and that transgress them and that waste the days of His probation for awful is the 0:32:45 - 0:33:15 state. Now, you might be thinking the law or the commandments is this list of rules? No, it's the character of God. All the rules are just to help you learn what they're based on. They're explicit finite reductions of the infinite God to know Him. You have to transcend beyond knowing some of His rules 0:33:14 - 0:33:44 . You can't know God if all you know is rules, even if you obey all of them, you don't know Him. All right. Why is it or how is it that the little things matter? Luke 1610, he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Remember 0:33:43 - 0:34:14 the parable of the talents, there were huge outcomes based on that specific. You could call it a test. But I think it's better to just say situation. It was a sequential process and it always is, I wanna see what else I'd like to read here. This has gone longer than I wanted it to. OK? I want to give 0:34:14 - 0:34:39 you another example of a little thing or several little things that you might not understand our preference to some other God over the Almighty God. Luke nine verse in starting in verse 57. Well, I'll preface this by saying, uh whenever you have anything better to do than whatever the best thing is that 0:34:39 - 0:35:03 you could do. You are preferring some other God. You've chosen some other thing, some other person, some other motive, some other thing above the Almighty God. It's that simple and so it's so important to remain in the stream of doing what's best all the time. It's one and the same of doing what the 0:35:03 - 0:35:27 will of God is because his motive is the benefit of all yours needs to be too. So if you're doing what's less than what's best, then you're not in that. Luke 957 it came to pass that as they went in the way. A certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever. Thou goest every person 0:35:27 - 0:35:51 who makes a covenant with God through baptism is promising to do just that. I've met many people who've had they as they suppose this attitude, Lord, I'm ready to follow you anywhere. And Jesus said unto him, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his 0:35:51 - 0:36:16 head. Uh There's a lot that I could say about that verse. I'd like to not say it for right now, but I'll just oversimplify some of that by saying people are attracted, a huge segment of Christianity is attracted to Christianity because they think it will save them from all their troubles. It doesn't 0:36:15 - 0:36:40 do that. The gospel is not about minimization of suffering. It actually increases your suffering here. And now, at least it's about the maximization of meaning. And so those like this person who we don't know anything about who seek God for uh a as a way to more effectively fulfill what James calls the 0:36:40 - 0:37:01 lusts of their vain imaginations or the things they desire without really knowing much about anything our natural desires, I guess is a simple way of saying that something other than what God desires. If you seek God for something other than what God desires, then I've got news for you. And Jesus does 0:37:00 - 0:37:25 too. Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his head or like Abraham. What you're signing on for is a life of being a stranger in a strange place until and unless the kingdom of God comes, you're going to be an outcast, not a citizen because you can't 0:37:25 - 0:37:45 be friends with the world and with God at the same time, verse 59. And he said unto another, follow me. But he said, Lord suffer me first to go and bury my father. Now, this guy wasn't asking for five minutes to go get a cup of coffee real quick. His dad was dead and he wanted to go to the funeral and 0:37:45 - 0:38:03 the guy had come to Jesus and said, I want to follow you. And Jesus said, ok, let's go. And he said what I, but I just, first I have to go to the funeral for my dad. Jesus doesn't say, oh, I understand. No worries. Go for it. He says, let the dead bury their dead. But go thou and preach the kingdom of 0:38:03 - 0:38:33 God. You can't be partial in your entrance into the way of life. It's all or nothing. I said, sometimes your motives will lead you to the same outward actions as those with very different motives. And sometimes they'll lead you away from actions that seem to be good things to those without your motives 0:38:33 - 0:38:56 . Like going to a funeral 61 and another also said, Lord, I will follow thee but first, but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home, at my house. In other words, this person was leaving their family, which is pretty crazy. That's an uncomfortable topic to talk about with most, most Christians 0:38:55 - 0:39:23 62. And Jesus said unto him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. So these are really big things. So we don't really know the full story of the first person in, in these uh multiple examples, but your father dying or saying goodbye to your family before 0:39:23 - 0:39:41 you leave them. Those are not minor things. These are not things where you think where you'd say, well, the Lord doesn't care what I do instead, you'd say it's very clear that the Lord would be Lord would be ok with me doing this, right. That's a whole another ball of wax. The situations that you just 0:39:41 - 0:00:00 assume are what God would be ok with. And it turns out he's not in your specific situation, right? But you're never gonna know unless you stop to ask unless you've spent your lifetime building up this model of what the Lord would do in your place. If you read the scripture, it should give you pause, 0:00:00 - 0:40:23 right? This is like, um I'm constantly reminded of the situation. The Old Testament where the Israelites were, were coming into the promised land were uh commanded to destroy these inhabitants. And one of the tribes that were already there, they had the bright idea of pretending that they were people 0:40:22 - 0:40:44 from far away and they put on raggedy clothes and took some moldy bread and sent in uh a group of ambassadors to the Israelites to say we're from this far off country. Can you please promise a safe passage and we'll be your servants? And Joshua just assumes that they were telling the truth and everything 0:40:43 - 0:41:02 seems like it's pretty obvious and cut and dry. It seems like a little thing. Surely God doesn't care about this. And so instead of asking him, he just goes ahead and says, yeah, we'll make the accord and the Lord says, you've been duped and this is a big deal. You shouldn't have done that. And so it's 0:41:02 - 0:41:25 always good to check in even when you think, you know exactly what you ought to do. So these are situations that people would assume that what they're doing is just fine with the Lord. Why wouldn't it be? But it's not fine with the Lord in these cases, with these specific people at least. So when you 0:41:24 - 0:41:54 prefer what you think is good to what the Lord tells you is better. The problem is that, that presupposes you have any idea what you're talking about, which obviously you don't when there's a conflict, he's right. You're wrong. End of story, right? So think about this passage of scripture, which you're 0:41:53 - 0:42:13 probably familiar with, but it, I think goes into the category of this might mean a lot more than you thought it did in Matthew six, which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature. What does that mean? Well, literally, it means you can't make yourself taller by thinking about it or 0:42:13 - 0:42:37 wishing, right? You can't wish your way to greater height to the much to the chagrin and disappointment of short men who uh are, well, there's some sort of a word for this but you know, to be ageist is to be against old people, there's something about men's height. Most women today want men who are 6 0:42:36 - 0:43:03 ft taller, 6 ft or taller, even though it's a small segment of the population. But anyway, bad news, you can't grow taller just by wishing it were so. But was Jesus really just talking about? Height is stature limited to height. At the end of the day, our desire for outcomes is almost completely irrelevant 0:43:03 - 0:43:34 to obtaining those outcomes. Because everything in this universe occurs according to laws of cause and effect that the Lord himself appointed ordained before the the world was created. He set the rules. OK? So it's not by your desire alone that anything changes, that anything happens. Reality is not 0:43:34 - 0:44:08 a mental construct. Instead, if you want to obtain an outcome, you have to figure out what the laws are, that predicate that outcome or upon which that outcome is predicated, you have to learn the causes for the effects that you seek. If you believe that God knows all things and that His whole desire 0:44:07 - 0:44:43 is your benefit, then you will 100% without exception with complete consistency and full purpose of heart, seek His will above your own because you realize deeply without Varian that whatever it is that He wants is better than whatever it is that you want, period. So he says, seek ye first, the kingdom 0:44:42 - 0:45:11 of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Now, you might read that and say, all right, if I put God first in line, I'll get all the good stuff that I wanted more than Him and it doesn't work that way. What happens? We read this in another place. What happens is when you 0:45:11 - 0:45:42 put him first, it actually cuts the cord to all other things. You can only add those things back in, not according to your desire for them, but according to his desire for them. And if you've really done this, if you've really done this, those desires don't even remain. If they come back. It is fully 0:45:41 - 0:46:03 in the context of the Lords desire. You can't hold on to these things and put them in a box and say now I'm going to go, you know, I'm gonna serve you in this way or on this day or for these years. And then I'm doing it because in the end, if I do, if I do that, I'll get all these things that I wanted 0:46:03 - 0:46:26 and I'll just open up the box and I'll have the things that I wanted. Now, this is the last thing. There's just two more, very brief, two verses more that I want to read. The, the, the last one from this passage in verse 34. And then one more take therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow 0:46:26 - 0:46:51 shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. This is a cryptic verse. It doesn't need to be cryptic. Here's the message God has already arranged for every single catalyst for the greatest good to be found in your daily life. The seemingly mundane, seemingly 0:46:50 - 0:47:21 small, seemingly unimportant choices that litter your life every day. They are the very latter to heaven. Precisely built for you. Precisely designed to fit all of your little uniqueness, unique qualities, your little quirks your needs, your, your gifts. It's perfectly fitted to you. If you say God doesn't 0:47:20 - 0:47:49 care what I do about this, that or whatever or this huge chunk of my life doesn't matter to Him. You are absolutely cutting yourself off from the greater portion of what he could make you or give you in life. This life is a precious gift. Every single circumstance that comes across your way is a precious 0:47:48 - 0:48:18 gift. It's perfectly designed from an all knowing God to bless you to the maximal extent that you could obtain. Right? This second, we are living for eternity in the scope of days, hours and minutes. And if you can't connect those two things, you're not in the way, there's so much you're leaving on the 0:48:18 - 0:48:46 table, the greater portion is left behind. You're treading on salt. Why? Because you can only live day by day. And so if you're not maximizing what you can get out of each day, you're certainly not maximizing what you can get out of eternity. Not that it's about getting, it's about becoming. And this 0:48:46 - 0:49:10 is like if you worked a piecemeal job or your pay is based on what you do, what you produce and you wasted 99% of every day doing things that don't contribute whatsoever to what you produce. You're just wasting your time. You have to seize the value of the potential of every moment. As I leave you with 0:00:00 - 0:00:33 Life is a most precious gift and it's comprised of many moments. It's kind of hard to describe but capturing the value of each of these moments, it has uh an exponentially cascading effect on outcomes. It turns out that consistency, it's tremendously important to obtaining a fullness of the potential 0:00:33 - 0:01:02 in yourself, in your life. We're here to achieve an abundant life. It, it's probably better said to receive an abundant life. But that receipt doesn't come in a moment. It comes through a process, a process of continuous reception. So here's a question for you. How can we better capture the potential 0:01:01 - 0:01:25 of every moment if you take it on faith that or well, I'll just say take, take my word for it. So suppose for a moment that, that what I'm saying is true about the importance of cascading consistent cascading, consistent reception from the Lord or choosing what's best in every single moment again and 0:01:25 - 0:01:53 again and again, moment by moment, day by day consistently. Let's suppose that that's extremely important to the outcome. It is. How do we, how do we do that? How do we capture each moment? Well, the answer is not easy but it's exceedingly simple. Let me ask you this. Why do you think that the first 0:01:52 - 0:02:20 commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart might mind and strength. It's not for Him. It's not for him that he gave that commandment because he never does anything except it's for our greatest benefit. This is a chief distinction between the almighty God and the gods of the heathens, heathen 0:02:19 - 0:02:55 gods. They seek for appeasement, they want you to curry their favor. Our God is good. He seeks the benefit of his Children consummately without exception, without pause, totally and all the time. And so whatever he asks of you or anyone else is completely optimized for your greatest benefit, your greatest 0:02:54 - 0:03:25 possible benefit. So what does it mean to love God with all of our heart, might mind and strength or maybe better explored at this moment? What would anything else look like? So moment by moment, the decisions you make matter, they matter more than you could possibly understand in that moment, sometimes 0:03:24 - 0:03:55 it becomes much clearer later. But God knows all these things from the beginning in the path he guides you on. It's one of precision, precision optimization towards the best that you could possibly have and be and do so. It turns out that turning away from this path is less obvious than it should be 0:03:54 - 0:04:22 . Why should it be so obvious? Well, because the Lord has said so much about it. So without further ado. Let's get into this. I wanna start from Matthew 24 and I'm going to begin reading in verse 42 watch. Therefore, sorry, I'm thinking maybe I should go with a different one first. We'll start with this 0:04:22 - 0:04:41 one watch. Therefore, for, you know, not what hour your Lord Doth come but know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Now, you've probably heard this before. I'm gonna break up 0:04:41 - 0:04:59 this passage if we're gonna continue until verse 51. But I want to tell you before we do that. When you hear scriptures, it's good to not just gloss over and go to what you think you've understood in the past by that passage or that verse in this presentation, I'm gonna read to you a whole bunch of scriptures 0:04:58 - 0:05:18 . You've probably heard before. You've probably heard them more than once. And I think it's exceedingly likely that I'm going to show you that they mean something much more than what you thought. They mean something that jams its, its hand right into your heart and grabs it and rips it out. And that's 0:05:18 - 0:05:40 how, you know, when the spirit is teaching you, it's not warm and fuzzies, it's gut wrenching suggestions for improvement. You realize that you have been sinning against God in far greater ways than you thought. And you have the motivation to change because you love him. And he's been so gracious to 0:05:40 - 0:06:04 show you how you can improve criticism and improvement. They are not the same if you drew a Venn diagram. Uh all improvement is criticism. All invitations for improvement are criticism but not all criticism is an invitation for improvement. It has to be correct, it has to actually be oriented to greater 0:06:04 - 0:06:26 good for you. The wonderful thing is that every single thing that God ever tells you is oriented towards your benefit, towards your improvement, all of it. And so whenever God criticizes you, it's always a call to improvement and he knows what he's doing. And so it's the greatest gift that you can have 0:06:26 - 0:06:51 . It's uh the most beneficial showing of his love, sorry for the interruption verse 44. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as you think, not the son of man cometh. What does that mean? Because you probably think it means the second coming, but it doesn't, you could apply it to that. But it's 0:06:51 - 0:07:13 only a subset of the instances across which it's true. If you knew a robber was going to come and rob your house, you'd be there waiting at the time that they were to come or maybe you'd leave to be safe, right? But the point is you would change your behavior around that time in preparation for that 0:07:12 - 0:07:44 time. And Jesus says, watch and be ready because you don't know when the Lord is coming. What does it mean for him to come? In this case? It does not just mean that he visits you in the literal way that you would interpret that it means that he visits you by giving you an opportunity to improve. Now 0:07:43 - 0:08:10 , hopefully, your brain just exploded a little bit. Or else I'm not doing a very good job. You don't know from moment to moment which moment consists of some tremendous important decision that you have to make. You don't know. All you can know is whether that choice is one that could improve you or not 0:08:09 - 0:08:31 . You don't really know by how much, although you should try to think about it, you don't know what its downstream effects will be because choices are chains, they're not events, they're chains. It's like a train with those. I don't know what they're called. The junctions. A decision is not just a step 0:08:30 - 0:08:56 . It's a path always. Ok. You don't know from moment to moment where that path is going to lead. You can only see is it higher than the one I'm on? That's the other thing we do incorrectly is we think of decisions as flat. Like here, a bunch of options, one might be a little better than the other. They're 0:08:56 - 0:09:21 not flat, they go up or down all of them and by different degrees, we can't always tell the degree from an absolute measure, but we can always tell as differently as the dark is from the night. We can tell which one's higher in the set of options. Ok. Now, you don't hear these things discussed in churches 0:09:20 - 0:09:43 and that's why people are as jacked up as they are because this is really simple stuff. It's not easy, but it wasn't meant to be complicated. We obfuscate it through intentional ignorance. You have done this in your life, but more importantly, people who have come before you have done this. And so it's 0:09:43 - 0:10:05 time to cut through all this Gordian knot garbage and just make it plain. In every moment. You have a sea of decisions before you. You cannot know the end from the beginning, but God does and He will give you everything. You need to know the relative value of the options before you. If you incessantly 0:10:04 - 0:10:31 choose what is best according to the resources you have right now in every moment, you will take the path direct to him for you. It's specific to you, but it converges between people over time who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household to give them meat 0:10:31 - 0:11:00 in due season. There's a whole lot in that single verse. Shall we get into it? No, no, we'll just leave it at who is a faithful and wise servant. So do you want the Lord's approbation? He's about to tell us how to get it. Verse 46 blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing 0:11:00 - 0:11:29 . And now again, there's a duality here. It's absolutely correct to think of this as you have in terms of his literal coming to you. It's more important to think of this in its figurative but also still accurately literal sense of when he provides to you an invitation to improve. Why if your motivation 0:11:28 - 0:11:53 is improvement? If your motivation is, what would Jesus do in my place? I want to be the Lord's servant. I want to do what he would do in my place at all times and in all places, then when he comes to you, when this moment arrives, that you weren't expecting and that's not decorated in any way as being 0:11:53 - 0:12:29 super duper important, you will do the right thing and you'll do it every single time. What's the alternative verse 48? Sorry before I go on, I'm told to pause here and draw attention to verse 47. Verily I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods, all the goodies that you think you 0:12:29 - 0:12:50 want from God, all of them that you do not yet have. I'm telling you why you don't have them. Now, other people, we are going to lie to you, whether they're doing it intentionally or through ignorance, it doesn't really matter for this point. They're going to lie to you and tell you, oh, you know why 0:12:50 - 0:13:14 this hasn't happened or you don't feel like this or whatever. Here's why you want the goodies. Let me give you the recipe. It's a shortcut. It's great. All you have to do. XYZ, XYZ is not going to work and you know this because you've tried it. Right. I'll tell you why Xyz never works because what they 0:13:14 - 0:13:39 tell you is never going to be what the Lord is telling you here. What I'm citing. That's a funny pun seer, see things that other people don't see, but they cite what other people could easily read. And that's, they're actually they one and the same. If you just, if you just do what the Lord told you 0:13:39 - 0:14:14 that you already know about, you'd see things too anyway. Maybe that's just funny to me, a sightseer. Uh OK, you, you gotta take the laughs where you can get them because you sometimes you have to laugh so you don't cry. Um If you, if you are constantly watching for the Lord's will, which doesn't mean 0:14:13 - 0:14:30 begging him for this mysterious God, what would you do in this situation or in that situation? It's, it's, you should ask whenever you don't know. But more importantly, you should pay attention to what he's already shown you because odds are the answers are there. But you know, if you really want it 0:14:30 - 0:14:49 , pick a book of scripture, I don't really care which um you'll get the same results, give or take, pick a book of scripture. Next time you have a question about what the Lord would do in your place, in a specific situation. It doesn't matter how arbitrary the situation might be so long as you care and 0:14:49 - 0:15:08 that's caring is a key. It's part of sincerity, which is a gateway to the holy ghost. It's a gateway to God. If you care about something, you really wanna know the next time you wanna know what the Lord would do in your place, pick a book of scripture and read through it and maybe read through it in 0:15:08 - 0:15:50 a if it takes you three months, it does not matter. Dedicate yourself to that question. Pray every time you open the scriptures, you pray and you say God, thank you for this treasure. More than anything else you could tell me. I want to know what you would do in this situation, be ready because it, it 0:15:50 - 0:16:18 won't be infrequent that he will just tell you as long as you've already set your heart to do whatever he says. Many times. He will just tell you many times. Searching is for no other reason then to give you the opportunity to really decide that you want it. So much of what we suffer is only necessary 0:16:17 - 0:16:44 because we are so stubborn. It's so slow to reconcile our desire to the value that He has shown us but digress. So pray that prayer or something like it and read through your book of scripture. And if he hasn't told you by the end, you let me know and we'll see what we can do about that. I don't expect 0:16:44 - 0:17:09 to get any emails about that. Anyway, you will build up a library, a model of how he would act in different situations. He'll continue to tweak it and you'll move along beautifully towards a greater fullness of understanding of how he is. And if you're oriented this way, then when the super important 0:17:08 - 0:17:47 things come along, you will act in them as he would, whether you see that as immediately valuable to that specific thing or not. And in transcending your desire for the specific and in submitting to God in all things, you will be on the path to everything that God could give. So what happens if you don't 0:17:47 - 0:18:14 do that? Verse 48? But, but, and if that evil servant, oh now he's calling you names shall say in his heart. My Lord delay his coming pause. Remember what's his coming? It's not just to say the second coming isn't going to be today. Therefore, I'm gonna go party with my friends instead of doing the thing 0:18:13 - 0:18:40 that the Lord has told me unless he's told you to go party with your friends. So it also means and more importantly, the bigger picture of which that's only a specific application is to say, I don't think the Lord has anything to tell me right now. You've heard this one. I don't think the Lord cares 0:18:39 - 0:19:16 what I do in this situation. Yes, he does. He always does because whenever there is a choice, one thing is better than the other. Always. So don't say in your heart, my Lord delay his coming because he's not delaying it. He's always there. He's always there. Now, isn't that an interesting application 0:19:15 - 0:19:42 ? If you think his coming is just the second coming, then maybe you'll act as if he's delaying his coming. If you think there's something you have to do to get into his presence, I'm using air quotes like crazy because people say these things and it, it's very frustrating because you know what they mean 0:19:42 - 0:20:06 by it and what, how they're impeded by God by thinking those things. But if you think there's something you have to do to get into his presence, then you clearly don't realize you're already there. It's not him who's going to change. It's you. The problem isn't that you're not in his presence, so to 0:20:06 - 0:20:33 speak. It's that you don't perceive his presence that you already have, you don't act accordingly. So if you're looking forward to his coming, someday, you're already out of the path of where you would need to be. For that to be a good thing. You have to recognize his hand over you right now. You have 0:20:32 - 0:20:58 to perceive it. You have to receive it. You have to value it, you have to live it. So what happens to these evil servants that think God doesn't care what I do right now. In this situation, he doesn't care. It's not important. Well, I'm sorry, there's one more verse that characterizes these people before 0:20:58 - 0:21:15 you get to the consequence. So this servant's evil servants gonna begin to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink with a drunken. Let's start with the second one because you're probably more willing to admit that you do that to eat and drink with a drunken. What does this mean? It's to act like 0:21:15 - 0:21:38 everyone else in the world. If to you being a Christian only makes you different on Sundays or in churchy things, then there's a problem. You should be different at all times in all places because the natural man is an enemy to God. But if you're his child, you are not. If you're the friend of God, then 0:21:37 - 0:21:59 your motive should be different at all times and in all places than the people you're around, even if you're doing the same things, you're doing them for different reasons. Here's an example of something that is not evil. Going to work, right? Going to work. A normal person goes to work so that they 0:21:58 - 0:22:18 have money so that they can do things to give them immediate pleasure. That's the normal thing you say. Well, that's too harsh. Like normal people go to work, they have kids, they have a family, they have to support their motive is to feel good. Right now, period. Now, they might lapse from that motive 0:22:17 - 0:22:42 and kind of slip into something better every once in a while. But their underlying motive is they want to feel good right now. That's why they do everything they do. What is the motive of a disciple of Christ at work? It is to do the will of the Lord. If, if, if there's no direct answer to what the Lord 0:22:41 - 0:23:04 would do right now, that that's connected to their job and what they do and how they do it moment by moment, then they broke in the connection and in going to work, they're serving another God and that doesn't work because it's an all or nothing affair. You're either the servant of the Lord or not. So 0:23:03 - 0:23:31 is that important? Does it matter to God? How efficient you are? Let's say at work, let's say that what you're doing, it is the Lord's will, how you're doing it does it matter? Yes, it does. So efficiency, for example, who would have thought that that's a property of holiness? It is, it is. I don't want 0:23:31 - 0:23:49 to get too deep into this. Ok? But you get the difference to eat and drink with a drunken doesn't mean literally, oh, alcohol is bad. Therefore, if you drink, you're in this group and if you don't, you're good. Are you different from the world? How you better be different in motive? You get that one 0:23:48 - 0:24:10 for free almost, but very frequently, not all the time, not in all things, but very frequently. You're going to be doing different things as well. You'll always be doing it for different reasons. Ok. What does it mean? I will transition to the one you'll say? Well, that's not me. What does it mean to 0:24:10 - 0:24:32 smite your fellow servants when a mighty angel appeared to John in the Book of Revelation and shows and tells him many things, John fell down to worship this angel. He said, don't worship me. I'm one of your fellow servants, the prophets, which creates a huge problem for folks who thinks angels are some 0:24:32 - 0:24:55 creature that is separate from man. But whatever now, things could be said about that passage that I don't really wanna get into right now. Um It's unfortunate that there's so much confusion about it, but who are your fellow servants? If you're a servant of God, who are your fellow servants? Well, it's 0:24:55 - 0:25:18 , it's other servants of God. It's other people who have decided to be the servant of the Lord by yielding to his purpose in all things over their own more correctly to make his purpose their own. That's a much better way of thinking about it. How could you smite his fellows, your fellow servants uh 0:25:18 - 0:25:41 other servants of God. Does it mean you're literally punching them? Perhaps? Perhaps? I think Paul and Barnabas got into it. Paul and Peter almost did. Um I don't know if it came to blows. But that's probably closer to, easier to see as a fulfillment of this. But what about, what about when you allow 0:25:41 - 0:26:08 Satan to use you as one of his imps to say really stupid things or criticize in um obviously errant ways, what someone else is doing in the service of the Lord or maybe just to withhold your support. Are you doing everything you could to advance the cause of the Lord? Let's do a quick analogy. Um The 0:26:08 - 0:26:28 Lord compared building the kingdom to a king going to battle. Do you remember that one? He said, don't do it unless you're all in because otherwise you'll get defeated when the enemy shows up with more troops than you're expected. Um There's no partiality and take backs, right? You have to be all in 0:26:27 - 0:26:46 or not. So, uh because you'll bear the consequences of partiality. If you go in it that way and you're overrun, you'll be in big trouble. It's not like you can say, oh, let me get a mull again. I take back my troops and I'm just gonna go live in my city again. They're gonna destroy you, right? It's like 0:26:46 - 0:27:03 shooting a grizzly bear. If you're gonna do that, you better be all in and keep shooting until you're out of, out of bullets. Even if it stops moving just unload because that the second you shoot a grizzly bear, they say that Grizzly's purpose in life is to kill you and it will not stop until it dies 0:27:03 - 0:27:34 or you do. So you gotta be all in um what was the application here? I'm sorry, I got into the vivid imagery of getting charged by Grizzly Bear kings in battle. So if you were in battle operating under a king who is Christ and you are, it doesn't matter a general, a colonel, a captain, a lieutenant, a 0:27:34 - 0:28:01 sergeant, a private. It doesn't matter whatever your role is. If all of a sudden in addition to or in lieu of doing what you were told to do by your commanding people, you step out of that and start attacking the units operating beside you. That would be a problem. Ok? It would also be, uh you're gonna 0:28:01 - 0:28:22 do massive damage by the way, much more damage than an overt enemy could do. And that's why traders can be shot, right? It's a really big deal. There's no time for trial. You, you betray on the battlefield, you get shot in the head. Ok. So, or wherever. Um, but you're, you're done. So what about if instead 0:28:22 - 0:28:51 of actively attacking lateral troops? What if you just don't help them? So let's suppose that you're attacking some objective and your, your lateral unit is tasked with protecting your flank to make sure you don't get rushed from behind. Let's say they don't do that and you get rushed from behind. Well 0:28:51 - 0:29:21 , they have smitten their fellow servants. You see how that works. So an example of this is David when he killed Uriah, that was considered murder. But how did he do it? He sent him into a dangerous place without sufficient support, right? Ok. So it's a really big deal. So, are you supporting God's fellow 0:29:21 - 0:29:48 , your fellow servants? God's other servants. How well the best way you can? And this is important, right? Your sovereignty is never violated as a child of God in his kingdom. It's, it's, it's not just maintained, it's viciously protected. So it's, it's pretty critical for the purpose of life. And so 0:29:48 - 0:30:11 it's up to you to figure out how you can best support the cause, but it is a decision that God cares about. And so take it seriously and make it intentionally and revise it when you need to. All right now we get to the consequences. Verse 49 he shall begin to smite his fellow servants to eat and drink 0:30:11 - 0:30:30 with the drunken. Verse 50 the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he look at not for him. And in an hour that he is not aware of, if you believe that God doesn't care about the decisions you make, I promise you he's going to, you're going to face decisions that He does care about that. You 0:30:30 - 0:30:53 think he doesn't care about, he's going to come in a day that you're not looking for him and you're going to make the wrong choice verse 51 and shall cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The path of the Lord is a path and we have 0:30:52 - 0:31:23 to stay in it. All it takes to get out of it is to stop practicing the way to stop asking. What would the Lord do in my place? What do I need to do right now to be the greatest benefit? What do I need to do across the day? The weeks, the months, the years in Deuteronomy 8, 19 Moses said, if thou do at 0:31:23 - 0:31:52 all, forget the Lord thy God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them pause. I hope you understand that to mean much more than you did 20 minutes ago whenever we started this 30 minutes ago. If you do those things, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish to perish 0:31:51 - 0:32:17 in the ancient tongue. It doesn't mean to instantly die. It means to go into a state of decay with sudden impulses which might kill you. That's, but it's a state of death instead of a day, state of life of decay, instead of growth. It's, this is the way of the Lord versus anything else. Anything else 0:32:17 - 0:32:45 is to perish, OK. Each and every day, each and every choice it matters. Second, Nephi nine, I'm sorry, I didn't write the verse woe unto him that has the law given. Yeah, that has all the commandments of God like unto us and that transgress them and that waste the days of His probation for awful is the 0:32:45 - 0:33:15 state. Now, you might be thinking the law or the commandments is this list of rules? No, it's the character of God. All the rules are just to help you learn what they're based on. They're explicit finite reductions of the infinite God to know Him. You have to transcend beyond knowing some of His rules 0:33:14 - 0:33:44 . You can't know God if all you know is rules, even if you obey all of them, you don't know Him. All right. Why is it or how is it that the little things matter? Luke 1610, he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Remember 0:33:43 - 0:34:14 the parable of the talents, there were huge outcomes based on that specific. You could call it a test. But I think it's better to just say situation. It was a sequential process and it always is, I wanna see what else I'd like to read here. This has gone longer than I wanted it to. OK? I want to give 0:34:14 - 0:34:39 you another example of a little thing or several little things that you might not understand our preference to some other God over the Almighty God. Luke nine verse in starting in verse 57. Well, I'll preface this by saying, uh whenever you have anything better to do than whatever the best thing is that 0:34:39 - 0:35:03 you could do. You are preferring some other God. You've chosen some other thing, some other person, some other motive, some other thing above the Almighty God. It's that simple and so it's so important to remain in the stream of doing what's best all the time. It's one and the same of doing what the 0:35:03 - 0:35:27 will of God is because his motive is the benefit of all yours needs to be too. So if you're doing what's less than what's best, then you're not in that. Luke 957 it came to pass that as they went in the way. A certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever. Thou goest every person 0:35:27 - 0:35:51 who makes a covenant with God through baptism is promising to do just that. I've met many people who've had they as they suppose this attitude, Lord, I'm ready to follow you anywhere. And Jesus said unto him, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his 0:35:51 - 0:36:16 head. Uh There's a lot that I could say about that verse. I'd like to not say it for right now, but I'll just oversimplify some of that by saying people are attracted, a huge segment of Christianity is attracted to Christianity because they think it will save them from all their troubles. It doesn't 0:36:15 - 0:36:40 do that. The gospel is not about minimization of suffering. It actually increases your suffering here. And now, at least it's about the maximization of meaning. And so those like this person who we don't know anything about who seek God for uh a as a way to more effectively fulfill what James calls the 0:36:40 - 0:37:01 lusts of their vain imaginations or the things they desire without really knowing much about anything our natural desires, I guess is a simple way of saying that something other than what God desires. If you seek God for something other than what God desires, then I've got news for you. And Jesus does 0:37:00 - 0:37:25 too. Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his head or like Abraham. What you're signing on for is a life of being a stranger in a strange place until and unless the kingdom of God comes, you're going to be an outcast, not a citizen because you can't 0:37:25 - 0:37:45 be friends with the world and with God at the same time, verse 59. And he said unto another, follow me. But he said, Lord suffer me first to go and bury my father. Now, this guy wasn't asking for five minutes to go get a cup of coffee real quick. His dad was dead and he wanted to go to the funeral and 0:37:45 - 0:38:03 the guy had come to Jesus and said, I want to follow you. And Jesus said, ok, let's go. And he said what I, but I just, first I have to go to the funeral for my dad. Jesus doesn't say, oh, I understand. No worries. Go for it. He says, let the dead bury their dead. But go thou and preach the kingdom of 0:38:03 - 0:38:33 God. You can't be partial in your entrance into the way of life. It's all or nothing. I said, sometimes your motives will lead you to the same outward actions as those with very different motives. And sometimes they'll lead you away from actions that seem to be good things to those without your motives 0:38:33 - 0:38:56 . Like going to a funeral 61 and another also said, Lord, I will follow thee but first, but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home, at my house. In other words, this person was leaving their family, which is pretty crazy. That's an uncomfortable topic to talk about with most, most Christians 0:38:55 - 0:39:23 62. And Jesus said unto him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. So these are really big things. So we don't really know the full story of the first person in, in these uh multiple examples, but your father dying or saying goodbye to your family before 0:39:23 - 0:39:41 you leave them. Those are not minor things. These are not things where you think where you'd say, well, the Lord doesn't care what I do instead, you'd say it's very clear that the Lord would be Lord would be ok with me doing this, right. That's a whole another ball of wax. The situations that you just 0:39:41 - 0:00:00 assume are what God would be ok with. And it turns out he's not in your specific situation, right? But you're never gonna know unless you stop to ask unless you've spent your lifetime building up this model of what the Lord would do in your place. If you read the scripture, it should give you pause, 0:00:00 - 0:40:23 right? This is like, um I'm constantly reminded of the situation. The Old Testament where the Israelites were, were coming into the promised land were uh commanded to destroy these inhabitants. And one of the tribes that were already there, they had the bright idea of pretending that they were people 0:40:22 - 0:40:44 from far away and they put on raggedy clothes and took some moldy bread and sent in uh a group of ambassadors to the Israelites to say we're from this far off country. Can you please promise a safe passage and we'll be your servants? And Joshua just assumes that they were telling the truth and everything 0:40:43 - 0:41:02 seems like it's pretty obvious and cut and dry. It seems like a little thing. Surely God doesn't care about this. And so instead of asking him, he just goes ahead and says, yeah, we'll make the accord and the Lord says, you've been duped and this is a big deal. You shouldn't have done that. And so it's 0:41:02 - 0:41:25 always good to check in even when you think, you know exactly what you ought to do. So these are situations that people would assume that what they're doing is just fine with the Lord. Why wouldn't it be? But it's not fine with the Lord in these cases, with these specific people at least. So when you 0:41:24 - 0:41:54 prefer what you think is good to what the Lord tells you is better. The problem is that, that presupposes you have any idea what you're talking about, which obviously you don't when there's a conflict, he's right. You're wrong. End of story, right? So think about this passage of scripture, which you're 0:41:53 - 0:42:13 probably familiar with, but it, I think goes into the category of this might mean a lot more than you thought it did in Matthew six, which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature. What does that mean? Well, literally, it means you can't make yourself taller by thinking about it or 0:42:13 - 0:42:37 wishing, right? You can't wish your way to greater height to the much to the chagrin and disappointment of short men who uh are, well, there's some sort of a word for this but you know, to be ageist is to be against old people, there's something about men's height. Most women today want men who are 6 0:42:36 - 0:43:03 ft taller, 6 ft or taller, even though it's a small segment of the population. But anyway, bad news, you can't grow taller just by wishing it were so. But was Jesus really just talking about? Height is stature limited to height. At the end of the day, our desire for outcomes is almost completely irrelevant 0:43:03 - 0:43:34 to obtaining those outcomes. Because everything in this universe occurs according to laws of cause and effect that the Lord himself appointed ordained before the the world was created. He set the rules. OK? So it's not by your desire alone that anything changes, that anything happens. Reality is not 0:43:34 - 0:44:08 a mental construct. Instead, if you want to obtain an outcome, you have to figure out what the laws are, that predicate that outcome or upon which that outcome is predicated, you have to learn the causes for the effects that you seek. If you believe that God knows all things and that His whole desire 0:44:07 - 0:44:43 is your benefit, then you will 100% without exception with complete consistency and full purpose of heart, seek His will above your own because you realize deeply without Varian that whatever it is that He wants is better than whatever it is that you want, period. So he says, seek ye first, the kingdom 0:44:42 - 0:45:11 of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Now, you might read that and say, all right, if I put God first in line, I'll get all the good stuff that I wanted more than Him and it doesn't work that way. What happens? We read this in another place. What happens is when you 0:45:11 - 0:45:42 put him first, it actually cuts the cord to all other things. You can only add those things back in, not according to your desire for them, but according to his desire for them. And if you've really done this, if you've really done this, those desires don't even remain. If they come back. It is fully 0:45:41 - 0:46:03 in the context of the Lords desire. You can't hold on to these things and put them in a box and say now I'm going to go, you know, I'm gonna serve you in this way or on this day or for these years. And then I'm doing it because in the end, if I do, if I do that, I'll get all these things that I wanted 0:46:03 - 0:46:26 and I'll just open up the box and I'll have the things that I wanted. Now, this is the last thing. There's just two more, very brief, two verses more that I want to read. The, the, the last one from this passage in verse 34. And then one more take therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow 0:46:26 - 0:46:51 shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. This is a cryptic verse. It doesn't need to be cryptic. Here's the message God has already arranged for every single catalyst for the greatest good to be found in your daily life. The seemingly mundane, seemingly 0:46:50 - 0:47:21 small, seemingly unimportant choices that litter your life every day. They are the very latter to heaven. Precisely built for you. Precisely designed to fit all of your little uniqueness, unique qualities, your little quirks your needs, your, your gifts. It's perfectly fitted to you. If you say God doesn't 0:47:20 - 0:47:49 care what I do about this, that or whatever or this huge chunk of my life doesn't matter to Him. You are absolutely cutting yourself off from the greater portion of what he could make you or give you in life. This life is a precious gift. Every single circumstance that comes across your way is a precious 0:47:48 - 0:48:18 gift. It's perfectly designed from an all knowing God to bless you to the maximal extent that you could obtain. Right? This second, we are living for eternity in the scope of days, hours and minutes. And if you can't connect those two things, you're not in the way, there's so much you're leaving on the 0:48:18 - 0:48:46 table, the greater portion is left behind. You're treading on salt. Why? Because you can only live day by day. And so if you're not maximizing what you can get out of each day, you're certainly not maximizing what you can get out of eternity. Not that it's about getting, it's about becoming. And this 0:48:46 - 0:49:10 is like if you worked a piecemeal job or your pay is based on what you do, what you produce and you wasted 99% of every day doing things that don't contribute whatsoever to what you produce. You're just wasting your time. You have to seize the value of the potential of every moment. As I leave you with 0:49:10 - 0:49:31 this thought, this injunction choose ye this day to serve the God who made you. That is the best thing that you can do and you can do it in so many small ways that you're currently completely missing out on.