Bobby Bosler: Take your Bible and turn with me to the book of James. We're going to be looking at a couple of verses of Scripture here this afternoon. And as you're turning, one of the things I'm burdened about here for this session is to challenge you and to help turn the corner somewhat from what God has been doing in our hearts.

I know God moved in many hearts all throughout the day yesterday, last night. I know God was working in many hearts here this morning. And I don't know about you, but I found in life that there are principles that apply universally.

And sometimes we find ourselves on the wrong side of those principles, and it doesn't work. It doesn't happen. Things just don't go the way you think they do.

How many of you ever, be honest, how many of you ever went up to a door and you push on the door? You push on the door. You think, man, this door must be stuck.

You push even harder, and then you look down, and you see that little four-letter word. What is it? Pull.

Yeah, you've been there before. Okay, that's really embarrassing. I think most of us have experienced that before.

There's kind of a principle there that if you want to open that door, you've got to pull on it. There are other principles, and I'm going to prove this to you here, that I think every single one of you here in this room are very well aware of. So I want you to finish this statement for me.

What goes up? Okay, you're familiar with that. Good.

You know, did you know that that is a Bible principle? In fact, I was reading a story about a preacher who was sitting next to a gentleman in an airplane. The preacher looked over to this guy.

This guy, he was sweating. He was rubbing his hands together as the plane was going for takeoff. As the plane got in the air, the guy looked as white as a sheet.

And this preacher looked over at the gentleman and said, hey, are you okay? And the guy said, oh, I don't know. You just know what they say.

What goes up must come down. And he was just so scared that the plane was going to come crashing down. Well, the preacher took the opportunity to talk to him about the gospel, and the man ended up getting saved there in the airplane.

And as the minister continued talking to him, he seemed to kind of settle down. He kind of seemed to be a little bit more at ease. And the preacher asked the man, he said, well, do you see things differently now?

And the gentleman said, absolutely. If we go down, I go up. And you know, we all know the principle, what goes up must come down, and that's a Bible principle.

But did you know that the opposite is also a Bible principle? What goes down must come up. Now, I was, a couple years ago, I had one of my teams with me.

We were in the Atlanta area outside of Atlanta and Georgia there, and it was kind of a unique opportunity. It's not usual that my wife has a speaking engagement, but my wife was speaking to the ladies there at Pastor Ingram's Church in Covington, Georgia, and it was my job to take the team and my kids out to get a bite to eat there that evening. So we drove to the nearest place.

We drove to a Burger King. Now, I normally avoid Burger King like the plague. I personally, the charbroiled stuff, I'm not into that.

I'd much prefer a McDonald's burger over a Burger King burger. I think a lot of people actually agree with that because I rarely ever see anybody in the parking lot of a Burger King. But we went to this Burger King, and we went in, and I ordered a bunch of chicken fries for my kids.

And I don't even remember what I ate. It wasn't very memorable, whatever it was. And we sat down.

And, okay, you've got to understand this. For those of you that have younger brothers and sisters, you know that they go through stages in their eating habits. Any of you have a little brother or sister who just takes forever to eat?

Any of you have one of those? Okay, well, my son was about there. He was, I think he was about three, four years old, and we had those chicken fries in front of him, and we've been trying, we tried all kinds of techniques to get my son to eat.

Normally, it resorted to a timer, and well, we won't mention what happened after that. But we, I remember here this day, I was determined. I was like, you know what?

My wife, she has such trouble getting David to eat. I'm going to show her. I'm going to get him to eat.

No problem. You see, he just needs a little bit of positive motivation here. So I am going to set the timer.

But here's what we're going to do. We're all going to crowd around him. And we're going to cheer him on.

So we had these chicken fries here. And, you know, I set the timer for, I don't remember, seven, eight minutes, something like that. and he's kind of chomping away.

And then we guys, me and my two team captains, we gathered around him, okay? And we're going, chew, chew, chew. Then we started going, chew, chew, chew like a train.

Chew, chew, chew like a train. And man, my son loved train. He started, chomp, chomp, chomp, woo!

Chomp, chomp, chomp, woo down. And I was looking at that and I was thinking, you just got to know how to work it, right? I'm thinking, man, Abby, what are you doing?

Come on. Learn from the master. Well, my son's packing it down and I'm checking the timer, okay?

And not only was he well within getting done in time, it looked like he was going to be able to finish with a minute to spare.

I looked at my son at about a minute 30 counting down and I said David if you finish with a minute left I'll buy you dessert oh my son's eyes got bright and he started taking fistfuls of chicken fries stuffing them in his face as we're saying chew chew chew like a train woo and all of that well my son packed it all down I think like the one minute one second mark and I was thinking come on parenting 101 one right here.

I got it. I got it. I walked up and I said, David, that was awesome.

I'm going to buy you some dessert. So I went to the counter and I purchased some kind of peanut butter pie thing or whatever. And when I came back, there's this little booth that they were all sitting in.

And when I came back, all I saw was my one team captain, his eyes were like this big. I looked at my other team captain, and apparently what had happened was this. My one team captain, I got to know something about this team captain.

In fact, Johnny Gilmore traveled with his team captain. You got to know something about this team captain. This guy prides himself on how sharp he looks, okay?

This guy wears the nicest duds, the flashy ties, cufflinks, press shirt, all that stuff. He's a super sharp guy. Well, he looked at my son.

He picked him up under his arm, sat him on the table right in front of him, front of him and said, you did a good job. And my son went, bleh, all down the front of this team captain, all over my son. There was a pool in the corner of the booth there of, we won't say what.

I came back and I see this whole thing had happened and I think, oh no, what in the world? And I picked up my son. I thought I got to take him into the bathroom.

I got to get him cleaned off. I took him into the bathroom and he had vomit from head to toe all over him. And I'm like, okay, I'll just have to start taking off clothes, you know, that's got it on him.

So I take off his shirt. And how do you get in your undershirt? Take off his undershirt.

It's all over your pants. Pull them down. It's on his socks.

He's got it on his socks. And my son is standing there in the bathroom, forgive me, but with not a whole lot on. And I'm thinking, oh no, I can't just wash this stuff off.

and now I've got it kind of in a ball. I just got to get this kid home. So I picked him up, put him under my shoulder, ran out of the bathroom, out the door, out of the parking lot to my truck, chucked him in the back.

I don't know what anybody thought. Seeing me run my son, dressed like he was out the door of Burger King. I don't know.

Well, we got him in the car seat. My daughter was in the other car seat and I started the truck and I'm thinking, oh man, this is not good. And I hear this little voice coming from the back seat saying, can I have my dessert now?

and you know i learned an important principle there that day what goes down must come up but you know i actually in all seriousness learned another principle what goes up must come down because you know what i lifted myself up in pride and god took me down i thought i had it all together.

And you know, I think all of us here, as we just take a look at things, really the principle that I want to look at is a universal principle. It always works. And this principle that I want to show you from God's word, if you get on the wrong side of it, you're going to find things falling apart every single day of your life.

You're going to find failure after failure. You're going to find yourself running uphill and running out of gas. all over the place.

I want you to look with me, James chapter 4. We're going to start looking in verse 5. James chapter 4 and verse 5, the scripture says this, Do ye think that the scriptures saith in vain, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy.

Now, while scholars disagree, I think basically what that's saying is the Holy Spirit wants you. he wants you so much he wants to bring you close he wants to move you forward he wants you and he wants all of you god's word is clear god wants you and he wants me in verse 6 here the uh the author gives us this principle. He says, but he giveth more grace.

Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. You see, you need to understand this universal principle. According to this verse, if you push yourself up in pride, and we'll talk more about what that actually means in just a minute.

But if you push yourself up in pride, God pushes you down. But if you lower yourself in humility, God will lift you up. Listen, young people, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, you must humble yourself by saying yes to God.

Let's open with prayer. Lord Jesus, I ask that you'd bless during this time. I'm just as weak as I was last night.

And God, I just ask that you'd fill me with the Holy Ghost. Lord, I pray the burden on my heart, the need of this moment in this youth summit, I pray that you would speak through me. I can't do it.

I humble myself in your sight, and I ask, dear Jesus, that you would fill me full to overflowing. I pray that you'd lift me up so that these young people can experience the hand of God lifting them up as well. Lord, won't you bless in this time now in Jesus' name, amen.

I just have a simple division here for this message. Very simple. It's these two principles, and the first one I want to touch on is this.

What goes up must come down. And I think you've caught my analogy here. What I'm talking about by what goes up is I'm talking about pride.

Pride is a five-letter word with the letter I in the middle of it, and really that's what pride is all about. Pride is all about me. And I know, young people, that when you or I lift ourselves up in pride, there is a universal principle laid down in God's Word that says, God is going to take you down.

You see, pride places I in the center of my choices and in the center of my dependence. A dictionary defines pride this way, undue confidence in and attention to one's own skills, accomplishments, state, possessions, or position. Listen, pride is when we think we've got it all covered.

Pride is undue confidence in ourselves and an overestimation of ourselves. You see, pride begins with an attitude. It starts with overestimating our own selves, but pride is not just an attitude.

Pride is also an activity. I want you to just consider a couple things. Pride is being concerned about getting the credit I feel I deserve.

Pride is often feeling that my needs are more important than another person's needs. Pride is finding it hard to admit when I am wrong. Pride is having a stronger desire to do my will than God's will.

Pride is leaning too much on my own understanding and experience rather than seeking God's guidance through prayer and His Word. Pride is relying on my own strengths and abilities instead of depending on the power of the Holy Spirit. You see, pride thinks my perspective, my view on things is the right perspective and the right view on things.

My pride is placing my preference on my plan instead of God's plan. Pride is depending on my power instead of God's power. See, pride always says no to God's perspective.

Pride always says no to God's plan. And pride always says no to God's power in favor of their own perspective, plan, and power. The Bible has a lot to say about pride.

In Proverbs 16, verse 18, the Bible says pride, you know this one, goeth before what? Pride always leads to destruction. Pride always leads to destruction.

And when you or I say, hey God, I've got this. Hey God, I think my plan is better than your plan. Hey God, you know what?

I know this is the way you say things are, but I think I've got a better angle on it, God. I don't think you know what you're talking about. Pride, that attitude, always leads to activities that result in destruction.

The book of Proverbs 11, 2 says, When pride cometh, then cometh shame. Pride always leads to shame. In fact, I read a story about a heavyweight boxer, Jane Tillis.

He was a cowboy from Oklahoma. He came into Chicago in the early 1980s, got off a bus with two suitcases in his hand, walked up to the Sears Tower, set those suitcases down, and looked up at the tower, and he said to himself, I'm going to conquer the city of Chicago. And when he looked down, his suitcases were gone.

Pride always leads to shame. It always leads to destruction and to shame. Proverbs 13.10 says, Only by pride cometh contention.

Mark it down. Pride always leads to hurt relationships. You might wonder why you and your siblings don't get along.

I'll tell you why. It's because of pride. You may wonder why you just can't seem to get along with mom and dad because somewhere along the way there's pride.

It always leads to contention. Mark 7, 22 and 23 gives a list. Jesus is speaking.

He says thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile the man. Pride always leads to defilement.

Proverbs 8 verse 13 says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy and the evil way. In the froward mouth do I hate in the context of speaking of lady wisdom.

And really, pride leads to one becoming a fool. It leads to one becoming a fool. In fact, throughout the Bible, we find illustrations of people who, whether they thought their own perspective was better than God's, or they thought their own plan was better than God's, or whether they chose to depend on their own power instead of on God's power, we have illustrations throughout the Bible of this Bible principle.

What goes up must come down. In fact, in the book of Exodus, we find the story of King Pharaoh. You know Pharaoh.

Pharaoh was the man. Moses walked up to him and said, Thus saith the Lord, let my people go. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey him?

You see, Pharaoh placed himself in a position above God. Pharaoh thought he had it all figured out. He thought his plan was better than God's, and you know the result.

We call them the ten plagues. And it was one of the one times in history when God Almighty set himself in resistance. One of the many times in history, I should say, when God set himself in direct resistance to an empire and God took that empire down.

You know the story of Naaman. Naaman came to get his leprosy healed and when the prophet sent his servant out and told him, go wash yourself in the Jordan River, he said, ugh, ugh, no way, I don't want to go down into that river. And it says he got wroth.

He got angry because he thought it was below him. God's plan and God's provision was below what he thought he should have for himself, and he almost missed out on deliverance because of pride. We could talk about how Hezekiah brought the men in to show them all the vessels of the temple, and it specifically says in 2 Chronicles 32.25, it says his heart was lifted up.

And notice what follows. It says, therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem, You know the story of Haman in the book of Esther. Haman was a man who wanted people to bow down and worship him.

He was a man who wanted the Jews exterminated. He was a man who did not bow the knee to God's plan. And you know that he set up those gallows to have Mordecai hung.

And he set the stage for what he thought would be the extermination of the Jewish race. But by time the story had finished, The universal principle that what goes up must come down took place as he found himself hung on his own gallows. We could talk about the story of the nation of Moab.

In fact, in Isaiah 16, it says, we've heard of the pride of Moab. He's very proud. In Jeremiah 48, 29, it says, we've heard of the pride of Moab.

He is exceeding proud. And if you know anything about history, that group of people was taken down by God. We could talk about Sodom and Gomorrah.

Ezekiel 16 verse 49 says, Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. It says in the next verse, And they were haughty and committed abomination before me, therefore I took them away, as I saw good. And that's a real kind way of saying he absolutely destroyed them.

Listen, friends, what goes up must come down. When you lift yourself up, God's going to take you down. Ezekiel 28.2 tells us about the Prince of Tyre.

It said his heart was lifted up and God made it very clear he would tear him down. We could talk about Belshazzar, the king or rather co-regent of the Babylonian Empire. And we could talk about how he had in pride, he had taken the vessels of the temple and had a good old party drinking it up using the vessels of the temple.

And the handwriting literally appeared on the wall and made it very clear that before that night was done, the empire would be overthrown, and because of that man's pride, an entire empire fell. We could talk about Edom. We could talk about Nineveh.

The Bible tells us these kingdoms were proud, and God took them down. We could talk about Goliath. Here, this Philistine had said, he disdained David, for he was but a youth.

And here, this man, this Philistine, this mighty warrior, lifted himself up against the God of Israel, and God made sure that literally He was taken down. We could here today, we could talk about the nation of Israel themselves. In Isaiah 9, verse 9, it says, All the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of their heart.

And it goes on to say what they said. But we understand that God made sure that that kingdom, which was close and near and dear to his heart, was taken down because of pride. we could talk about King Nebuchadnezzar.

Here is a man who had experienced God in some ways in his life. He had seen God working in the man Daniel. He had seen the Lord do incredible things.

He had seen prophecies from God. And in Daniel chapter 3, he created an image, that golden image that was to bring glory to himself. In Daniel chapter 4, he walked around and he said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built?

I have built. I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty. And, of course, you know the story there in Daniel chapter 4.

God caused that man to lose his mind and God took him down. We could talk about the apostle Peter. Peter told Jesus, I will not deny you, though everyone else stumbles and is offended, I will not be offended.

He said, Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Peter thought he had the power to do it.

He thought he was the solution. And God took him down because of pride. And young people, what I want you to understand is when you or I lift our perspective, our plans, our power above God's, God recognizes it will always lead to shame.

It will always lead to destruction. It will always lead to contention. It will always lead to becoming a fool.

God in his mercy, because he wants you. because he wants you close, because he wants to do something in you, and because he wants to do something through you, cannot allow you to stay on that side of the universal principle, what goes up must come down. See, I'm sure we've all found times in our lives where it seems like, man, it's just not clicking what's going on.

It's just not clicking what's going on. It seems like everywhere I turn, it's against me. It seems like everywhere I turn, I'm not finding what I'm expecting to find.

We talked a little bit about this last night, and one of the issues can be hidden sin. And can I tell you this? If God's still working in your heart about that, it's not too late to get right with God.

But it could be there may be some of us here in this room, maybe the best you know you are right with God. Maybe you got right with God last night. Maybe you had the conversations that you needed to have with the right people, and you are clean.

But let me tell you, you might have agreed with God's perspective about your sin. And you might have agreed with God's plan. Maybe you're here and you know God wants you to serve Him.

You know God wants you to open your mouth and not be bound by fear and have that hook in your nose. And you know God wants you to open your mouth and speak for Him. But let me tell you what, if you or I depend on our own power, it's pride.

And God's going to take you down. You know, I gave just kind of that silly example of my son and Burger King earlier, but really, that was pride. I felt like I got this.

I got this under control. I can do this. And for you to say, I can do this by myself.

To call God a liar because Jesus said without me, you can do what? You can't live the Christian life. You've heard this before.

The Christian life isn't just hard. It's impossible. Do you realize the expectations that God sets before you?

You know, some of you, you just spent an hour with God. And maybe, man, you look at that and you think, wow, this is amazing. This was such a great experience.

Maybe I'll do it next year. Because, man, it's impossible to spend an hour with God every day. I don't think I can do it.

You know what? You're right. You can't.

But, you know, for you, just to, maybe you might be tempted just to kind of buckle down and hunker down and say, I'm going to get this done. I'm going to do this myself. I'm going to spend an hour with God every day.

that's pride if you depend on yourself to do the reveal will of God the revealed will of God you're going to find yourselves coming up one thing the first principle that I really want you to understand here this afternoon is what goes up must come down God resisteth the proud. But on the flip side, the second point I want you to see is what goes down must come up. What goes down must come up.

Look at the second part of verse 6. The last part of the verse, he says, but he giveth grace. Grace unto the humble.

That word grace is a word that's kind of a really ambiguous, religious word to many people. but I want you to know what God's grace is. There are multitudes of shades of this concept.

One of them is God's favorable attitude towards us, and that is absolutely true. God loves you. He wants to bless you in your life.

He wants your life to have an impact on your siblings and your family and your youth group and your community. God wants your life to have an impact. God is favorable towards you.

But it's more than just God's favorable perspective. It is God's activity on our behalf. It is the Creator interacting on behalf of the creature.

God's grace is not just His generosity. It is also the gifts that He gives. You see, God's grace is God stepping down from heaven and intervening on our behalf.

Grace is, as we find in verse 10, it is God lifting us up. It's like this. Every time I stand up to preach, prior to me getting up, I have a little meeting with God.

And I say, God, I know I've preached this message before, sometimes even hundreds of times. God, I can't do this. I'm agreeing with God's perspective because God said I can't.

And if I walk into the pulpit thinking, man, I've got a humdinger of an illustration that's going to knock their socks off here today. Man, I love this message. This message is really going to get them today.

If I walk into it saying, oh, yeah, I've got this, God. We're good. God's going to resist me.

But if I walk into it and I say, God, I'm bankrupt. God, I can't do this. I may know how to talk and how to speak, but God, I can't impact people's hearts.

I can't impact people. I can't stir people to see how much they need God. I can't show people how weak they are.

I can't lead people to the water of life. God wants the rivers of living water to flow through every one of us. And yet, God, I can't convince them to drink.

I need you to do that, God. I lead the war in the Cola Clash. Many of you have experienced our meetings here.

And you know every day, before, every time, my guys are standing up singing a message in song and I'm over by the sound system. I'm standing over here and I'm having a conversation with God and I'm saying, God, I know you want to work. God, I know you want to save people here today.

And though I've seen thousands of young people saved in my ministry, I'm no more able to do it now than I was the first day I started. God, I need you to come down right now. God, you said you have an anointing and an unction to cause me to speak your words enabled by your power and God in heaven, I don't just ask for it.

I don't just hope for it. Right now, I'm taking it. Let's go.

I stand and I open my mouth I use my muscles, right?

to step over to the podium and to open my mouth the muscles in my tongue to form and frame the words and I speak and I'll tell you physically I give it everything I have I do try to preach like I mean it but just because I might get a little out sometimes just because I might be passionate about what I'm saying doesn't mean I'm depending on myself.

I need God to do the work because I can't do it. See, humility is when we humble ourselves in the sight of God. It's when we come before God and it's when we agree with His perspective.

I am weak. It's when we agree with His plan. Here's what you want me to do right now.

And it's when we depend on his power to accomplish his plan. Listen, some of you here, God worked in your heart this morning about the fear of man. And for some of you, I know some of you have talked to some of you.

You're beginning to wonder, okay, how is God going to lead me to speak out for Jesus? And maybe as you go home, you might find yourself in a position where maybe you're standing in a checkout line and somebody strikes up a conversation with you and you're thinking, I think God wants me to talk to them about Jesus. I don't know how to do this.

I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. Okay, stop.

Hold on a second. Breathe. You can't do it.

And that's exactly where God wants you. But here's the thing. God can.

And it's not like, oh, well, I'll just kind of let God zap him and I'll go on doing my own things. No, God wants to use you to talk to them. So here's what you do.

You agree with God's plan. God's plan is for you to open your mouth and speak. But you don't just kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just kind of, let's do this, I got this.

I know the verses. Know the Romans road. No, no, no.

What you do is, all right, God, I need you. I'm depending upon you. And as we've heard so many times here at the Kola Clash Plus, it's kind of like this.

and you step out of the boat, right? Like Peter. You'll never know the joy of seeing God lift you up unless you agree with his perspective.

You're weak, you can't do this, but yet he wants you to do this. Okay, I can't do this, but he wants me to do it. How's that supposed to work?

I'll tell you how it's supposed to work. It has to be supernatural. It has to be supernatural.

Listen, the reason why we have this youth summit here this week is because I believe, we believe from the bottom of our hearts that God is raising up a generation of young people who are going to turn the world upside down. God wants you to turn your school upside down for Jesus Christ. God wants you to turn your neighborhood upside down for Jesus Christ.

He wants you to turn a nation upside down for Jesus Christ. He wants your life to have impact, and you might be here, and you might be thinking, I'm shy. I don't have talent.

I can't speak well. Well, you know what? Moses tried that, and God said, Who made your mouth?

And it's like every excuse we throw out, God says, okay, but I'm here. Oh, so you haven't been to Bible college yet? That's okay.

You have me.

oh so maybe maybe you can't speak as well as other people oh that's okay you have me oh so your personality is kind of introverted you can't stand talking to people that's okay you have me don't you see that when we factor god into the equation you can do anything he calls you to do say i have a conversation you have with mom and dad when i get home i have a phone call i've got and make, I can't do that.

You're right. Good job. You're halfway there.

But I know God wants me to have this conversation. I got some stuff I need to unload. We need to have a conversation.

And yet, oh boy, I just, I can't do it. You're right. You can't do it.

But if you'll take that step of dependence, it's really a step of humility. God, help. you'll find God's grace there.

Some of you here are still stuck on the first one of God's perspective. You're sitting here in the room and you're trying your very best to tune out everything that God's trying to say. And can I tell you this?

Until you agree with God about your sin, you're not going to go a whole lot further. Some of you this afternoon to need to not just agree with God regarding the call and all God wants to do with you. You just need to get right with God.

God is going to take you down. Mark my words, some of you here in this room, you continue down the course that you have currently set for yourself of you trend the direction that you're currently trending. One day, mark my words, you're going to be in jail.

You're going to kill yourself with an overdose. You're going to destroy your life and the lives of many others in your wake. You've got to humble yourself.

I really don't have time for this because we are out of time here at this time, but how do you humble yourself? I would encourage you sometime to examine the commands in verses 7, 8, and 9. I'll just run through them quickly.

He says, submit yourselves therefore to God. You realize that humility says yes to God's will. And when you say yes to God's will, you're going to have to say no to the devil's will.

He says, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. You're going to have to, not only that, but you're going to have to get close to God. Some of you drew close to God today through prayer.

You've got to make it a point to spend time with him because you know what? The ultimate declaration of independence from God is prayerlessness. It's basically going through day after day saying, God, I don't need you.

You wake up in the morning, you just run around your things, run out the door. What you're saying is, God, I don't need you today. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

Say yes to drawing near. He says, cleanse your hands, ye sinners. You need to say yes to cleansing.

Some of you still need to do that. Some of you have already done that. He says, purify your hearts, ye double-minded.

You need to say yes to dig deeper. some of you really need to sort through the motives of your heart and why you do what you do. That could be a whole message in and of itself.

And lastly, and this is where I want to park right before we close, you need to say yes to desperation. Verse 9 says, Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.

You say, Preacher, that's not exactly a positive note to end on.

this summer our team had a cancellation it's the second week of the summer kind of unfortunate just the way things turned out but we ended up without a week of the cola clash and although on the positive side we got to go to the Michigan Revival Conference in Michigan and while we were there a preacher was preaching and as he started into the message, all I can say is God arrested my attention.

This man was an evangelist and as he was speaking, he was talking about how as an evangelist, you know, we can tend to be impatient sometimes and he was giving a story about how he was in his garage at his home working on his truck and his son came in and how he asked his son for a tool and his son brought him the wrong tool and he just blew up at him.

And I pictured myself because I understood exactly where he was coming from. I understood exactly what he was talking about because I'd been there. I've gotten frustrated with my family.

I've gotten frustrated with my kids. It kills me. And as he kept talking, God kept just absolutely raking me over the coals.

Now, I want you to know this is the kind of thing that I had talked to the Lord about, made decisions about. This moment was different. God canceled my week because he had something he wanted to talk to me about.

And I remember God brought it to such a head in my heart. Before he ever got to the invitation, there were tears streaming down my face as I was looking at my frustration that I've had in the past and what was in my heart, and I was just realizing this was true. This was the way God saw it.

God, it's like God opened up the window of heaven and gave me a glimpse of his perspective on my frustration. and I just wept in the pew. It's been a long time since I've wept like that.

He gave an invitation. I didn't go forward. I hightailed it back out of the auditorium and I went to the back.

I found some room somewhere in the church building and I just got on my face. I got a metal chair and not very comfortable, but I didn't care. I just got down on my knees And I probably just wept solid for at least 10 to 15 minutes.

And I remember as I was leaning over that chair saying, God, it's not okay. God, it's not okay. God, I need you.

You. I can't do this. God, I need you to deliver me.

that humbled myself. I had a conversation with myself, with my wife and my kids. And I want you to know, I've not been perfect since.

God is changing me. And you know, some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe your issue isn't frustration and anger.

Maybe your issue is pornography. You've tried again and again. and maybe your issue is a fear of man.

You just don't speak up when God wants you to, and you look at it, and you think, it's not, you need to agree with God, it's not okay, and you need to come through to recognizing, I can't do it, but God, you can. I'm depending upon you right now to deliver me from this. Young people, some of you are going to need to make a declaration of dependence yourself.

You need to step out of the boat and depend on Jesus to give you the victory. Can I have every head bowed and every eye closed?