0:01 Heavenly Father, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. All right. What's uh One of the things that's interesting to me 0:19 is when I have a burden uh like so the Lord puts a one of these new covenant truths on my heart, how often that I go back to the very beginning. That it's it's almost like the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 0:36 It's almost like that. It's almost like he doesn't change. There's a security in that. And so this morning I'd like to go to the beginning. So, if we can go back to Genesis, you guys know what Genesis is the first book of the Bible. 0:54 Should you guys know that? It's the first book of the Bible. So, it doesn't take us very long if we just say, "Okay, I want to know God. I want to know his truth. Let's Let's get into this." God doesn't waste any time if we're 1:06 searching. He'll say, "Okay, I'll I'll If you're interested, I'll show you right away uh things that are in my heart." And so I want to look at six verses. They're familiar. I want to ask you to try to read it fresh. Read it fresh like you like you're 1:24 reading it for the first time. I'll do my best uh to add a freshness to it. So, this takes place in a place called the Garden of Eden. So, I'm in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15. It says, "Then the Lord God 1:42 took man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man saying, 'From any tree in the garden. You may eat 2:00 freely. Freely. But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day you eat from it, you will surely die. Then the Lord God said, 2:18 "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable to him." Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man 2:38 to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle and to all the birds of the sky 2:57 and to every beast of the field, but for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him. Now, one of the ones Now, one of the things that I want you to see is that Adam was put into a garden and immediately had work to do. 3:14 Right? He had to cultivate it and he had to keep it. And then God saw that he was alone and he he brought him animals. And you see this just amazing task that Adam's given. And I don't believe it was the way it is today where we work by the 3:30 sweat of our brow. I don't believe that. I believe it was a different kind of work. I believe it was full of of wonder and awe. I believe it's full of discovery. That Adam, you know, Adam in the garden, you know, sometimes 3:46 I watch as people get older, I'm seeing the same tendency in myself. As I get older, the idea of a garden becomes more and more appealing to me. Of of you know, instead of doing the work I have to do on a computer, I want 3:57 to go outside and I want to you know, plow. And I want to put seed down and I want to put water and I want to even want to pick some weeds and I want to see what comes out of it. I want to see if I can grow a tomato. You know, there's something that is even 4:13 as I age, wants that wonder. I want to go back to this one. And you know, I see that Adam had that and that God made man for that. And I heard one of the our young sisters say that at one point 4:30 one point I didn't know my purpose. I thought I had no purpose in life. Brothers and sisters, I'm telling you you have a purpose in your in life and it is this. It is discovery. It is the goodness of God. He's wanted that for every one of you from the 4:45 beginning. He wants to reveal things to you. He wants to show you things. And it's a very important concept that you understand because it'll help you understand you yourself before your creator. That he wants to show you all kinds of 5:02 things. He wants to bring you a kangaroo and say, "What do you think of this fellow?" And you go, "That's pretty amazing. It's got like a little pouch in the front. It's got these long feet. It does this hopping. That's incredible." 5:18 Right? Let's you name it. You know, he says you can eat. There's so many things that you can do. In that garden, there was so many trees to eat from freely. God made that for you. He wants you to go discover everything. Go eat of every 5:36 tree. Taste everything I made for you. Everything. With one exception. Just one exception. Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or you will die. Right? But that that discovery is built into 5:55 us, and you need to understand it. Like it's him that gives you that curiosity. It's him that gives you that that wonder. I've been in in in in my job, and I think everybody probably in this room has experienced this. Maybe 6:07 some kids that are still in school haven't yet experienced this, but I think the adults would agree with me. That you had a job, and you got so into it. Like the discovery was so real, you were you know you hit you hit a milestone, 6:20 and you were like, I can't wait to see what happens next. I've done that. And suddenly work doesn't feel like work. Right? It's like God gives us a little taste of heaven in those moments. Where you're discovering something. I remember 6:33 I don't know why I remember. I don't even know why I remember things that I remember, but I trust that God gives me certain things. My senior year of high school, I had to write a paper. We had to write a long-term paper. I decided to 6:43 write my paper on Lee Iacocca. Nobody knows who Lee Iacocca is, but in my generation, he was a popular figure. He was the CEO of Mike knows. I saw Mike smile. He was a he was the CEO of Dodge Chrysler, car manufacturer. 6:57 But before he went to to that company and got them out of debt, got them out of trouble, paid off the government loan way ahead of schedule. He did, you know, some pretty good work. He used to work at Ford Motor Company. 7:09 And he was the vice president, and he made this car called the Ford Mustang. Anybody ever heard of Ford Mustang? Like they're they're still on the road today. You can see them. You can see them cutting uh Collyer off, right? 7:21 Probably a Ford Mustang that's cutting him off, right? But God's given him grace. So they're still out there. But here's what I remember from that from that, you know, a term paper. I think it had to be 10 pages. He said, I woke up every day and could 7:36 not wait to get to work. Because we were discovering this new car concept. We were developing a car that we thought, people are going to love this and they they have. It's like I said, it's still on the roads today. But that stood out for me and that's 7:51 always stood out for me. Lord, is it possible? Is it possible that work can become discovery and that I enjoy going to work and I'm excited about what's going to happen? And I see something in the way he made us and created us and he wants that for 8:06 us. And he wants to teach us so many things, practical things and spiritual things. And it and it it doesn't even like it doesn't even matter like, you know, which is which. We don't even need to discern what what is what is what. 8:21 You know, when I talk to my brothers and sisters, just tell me what God is doing. Right? Tell me what you're discovering. It can be a practical thing. You could tell me about AI and how you're using it to build something. Tell me about it. 8:33 You know, if that's what the Lord is showing you. You know, a sister on Friday night came to me and you know, it was it was excitement. She's like, I get it. I get a truth. I understand it. And the excitement at the discovery of 8:49 understanding something that she had heard many times and finally it clicked. There's something about our design, brothers and sisters. And even now the sin inside of us that we discover when we get revelation that wow, I am 9:06 far more selfish than I ever imagined. That it's God that's allowing that discovery. That's why you never should feel condemned or discouraged about the things he's revealing inside you that nobody can see. Because he's showing you this. 9:24 And as he's showing you this, he's saying, I love you. I've known it was there all the time. You know that verse that where I tell you that I knew you before you were you were formed in the womb, remember that verse? I've known this all along. 9:40 You are just now discovering it. And then you go, "Wow." Oh, wow. You loved me even though you knew this was there. So, why you never ever get discouraged when the Lord reveals the truth inside of you? Because God designed you for discovery. 9:59 And I hope, dear brothers and sisters, I hope you're discovering things. And it encourages your brothers and sisters around you. When you say, "You know what? I'm learning." Do you know what I'm discovering? I didn't know this. 10:13 But now I know it. Isn't that awesome? And you may you may encounter some brothers and sisters that are actually more immature than they should be, and they'll say, "Oh, I already knew that." That's a very immature brother and 10:26 sister that they say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I already knew that." Right? And that can make us, you know, that can discourage us. Don't listen to that. If God showed it to you, you get excited about it. You'll get some wise brothers 10:38 and sisters who go, "That's wonderful." You will get some. So, share it. Don't be afraid. Don't worry about the consequences. If God is giving you some discovery, share it with your brothers and sisters around you. Remember that boundary. 10:52 I want to come to this a little bit. Because what that's what happens next. After all this discovery God gives, a test comes. And just one thing. And I find this these truths are so real to me, brothers and sisters. There's a 11:07 tendency to radar lock. It's an aircraft term, you know, to lock onto the one thing that he said was outside of that boundary. And every If I think back at the times that I sinned, and the times that I was tempted, man, I 11:25 am exactly like Eve. The way it's described in scripture is the way I fell. I'm not condemned. I praise God for Jesus Christ and that cross that we sang about this morning. Right? It pulled me out of that. I praise God for that. But I'm But I I 11:44 understand now better when I look at that, I know it. That's my problem, Lord. I'm focused on the wrong thing. My eyes are not fixed on yours, they're focused on that fruit. The knowledge of good and evil. There's something in me that says I need both. 12:02 And we're going to talk about that a little this morning. I want to give you some examples of my life. I'm going to tell you about my failure. I'm going to tell you about some failures in my life and the way I was tempted and the way I fell. 12:13 You know, cuz I You know, I kind of like Peter. Like Jesus told Peter, he says, "Look, after you've been restored, go strengthen your brothers." And that's my intention this morning, but I fell fallen many times by doing 12:25 because I'm exactly my flesh is exactly like Eve's. I get locked onto the temptation and it just it captivates me. But that's not the discovery that God wants for us. All right, two verses to in the new covenant. First one's in Romans 16:19. So, you can 12:43 go ahead and turn there. Once you see it in your Bible. Comes at the end. I'm going to give you two verses in the new covenant that give you the principle that that I'm that we started in Genesis, but I want you to see. 12:55 Right? So, it you know, you know that Romans is filled with wonderful truths of the new covenant, of the gospel. Right? Not everything is in Romans, but this letter has a lot of wonderful things. So, Paul with the burden for the church 13:09 in Rome pens this letter, gives them all these wonderful promises, all this truth. You guys know many of them. But at the towards the end of the letter you see a burden of Paul's heart. He says, "For your obedience has become 13:23 known to all. Therefore, I'm glad on your behalf. But, right? So, he starts with appreciation of them. Hey, you guys are obedient to the gospel. That's wonderful. You know, and uh I'm so glad for you. I rejoice at 13:42 what God is doing in your life. But, I'm going to leave you with one important thing. Right? I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil. I want you to be simple concerning evil. That's what I want to focus on this 13:59 morning. All right? So, if you forget everything else about this message, these are four words I want you to take with you. My mom taught me at a very young age these four words. She explained to me cuz as a kid, remember I grew up in a veterans colony? 14:12 I told you guys about that. And I told you there was a bunch of war veterans and that there weren't many kids around. And then there would Halloween would come and it would be trick or treat, you know, where where kids go around with 14:23 like a bag and they would go door-to-door asking for candy. And remember, if there's not very many kids around and I'm one of those kids, it's a bounty of candy waiting for me because all those guys are they love tradition. 14:37 And they know the kids are coming except when there's very few kids and you show up with that bag and they're like, "Oh, you know, we haven't had very many kids." Like, yeah, it's a veterans colony. But, I have my bag. And all the bounty of can- The reason I 14:51 know is cuz we went back and forth on this. And so, when we didn't go, this was the principle. You know, my mom explained like, "We're to be simple concerning evil. We don't participate in things like that." But, then another year, you know, 15:06 we would dress as a Bible character and we would still go get all that bounty of candy. That's how I know both ways. You know? But, the principle is 100% right and the when I carry this in my life, it goes well with me. 15:18 These four words are very important. They were helped me and I want them to help you. All right, so repeat after me. Ready? Be. Simple. Concerning. Evil. Okay, we need we need more. You need this. Be simple. Concerning evil. 15:36 Okay, we'll put it all together. Be simple concerning evil. Okay, you guys did great. You guys did very good. Okay, but sometimes in scripture it's like the Holy Spirit says, "I need you to see it in more than one place." 15:51 So there's another epistle, another letter that Paul writes to a church, a church in Corinth. And again, towards the back, the you know, the last few chapters, he says something very simple. Or he says something very similar. 16:06 Want you to look at that. This is in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verse 20. He says, "Brethren, do not be children in your thinking, yet in evil be infants. But in your thinking be mature." He kind 16:26 of he's he's going back and forth. Right? He's saying, "You guys need to grow up into maturity in Christ. Your thinking does need to grow up." But remember, if we go back to Eden, there's going to be there's going to be 16:39 kind of that both sides. You know, you're going to think that maturity, you know, in is is a little bit of good and a little bit of evil. And then more good, more evil, lots of good, lots of evil, and you'll grow up to maturity. And what he is saying is 16:54 that's not how it works for a Christian. Yes, in things that are good, you know, you need to be mature. You need to be growing in the things that are are pure and the things that are right. You do need to be growing in that. 17:08 But when it comes to things that are evil, you're to be like a little baby. You're to be like an infant. We got some infants in the back. You know, imagine going to the infant like Juliana or Levi and you go, "Hey, let me tell you all the gossip, all the 17:24 bad things that are going on in the church." All right, there's this and there's this and there's this and there's this. Oh, uh I watched a bad movie and it had some horrible scenes in it. Let me tell you all about this bad movie. Uh there was 17:37 this one scene where blah blah blah blah blah and there was another scene. What are those babies going to do? Cry for mom? All right? Nothing. They're babies, they're infants. They don't even know, they don't even care. 17:51 You're wasting the baby's time. Right? And that's what it's saying. That's how we should be uh when it comes to evil. Like, I'm like a baby. Why are you wasting your time telling me this stuff? I'm a baby. That's our attitude. 18:06 You know, being simple. You know, I I like the term simple. I use actually use the King James version of of the verse. In the NASB, it's innocent. I like simple because it comes with kind of a negative connotation. Right? It's kind of a put-down if 18:20 somebody's simple. Even the Bible, like in Proverbs, it says it's it's the simple that gets in the snares. Wise don't get in snares, simple do. You know, when I watched a I watched a film on David and Goliath and one of my 18:32 favorite thing I think I actually laughed out loud cuz Goliath's there arrayed in his battle gear, 9-ft tall. Here comes this little boy and you know, I I it's like a Goliath takes a break from all the mocking and cursing and he just 18:45 asks three three-word question. He goes, "Is he simple?" I like I just thought it was funny because he's like saying, like, "Can that little boy not understand what's going on here?" In other words, the same way that the 18:57 baby couldn't understand all these things we were talking about, Goliath says, "Hey, let's take a break from the mocking. Anybody else seeing this?" And in a way, that's how we should be to evil. People can say that about us. They can 19:12 put down for being simple. They can mock us for our simplicity. Cuz they go, "Josh doesn't even know about all this stuff that's going on. He doesn't know Josh doesn't know the the vernacular the the the lingo that all the kids are using in schools to put 19:27 people down. Josh doesn't even know what that means. We have to explain it to Josh." Cuz he's simple. He's like a baby. Comes with a bit of mockery. And I think that's important. Innocence Innocence Innocence doesn't quite get it. Simple 19:42 gets it for me. So when my mom taught me to be simple concerning evil, that simplicity that simple word means that I may face some backlash for it. The kids in school may think that I'm not as cool because I'm simple. Do you understand? 20:01 We'll talk more about that. When I want you to repeat something else after me. Are you guys ready? Be a baby in evil. Okay, let's break it into two parts. Be a baby in evil. Okay, one more time all together. Be a 20:19 baby in evil. Okay, I think I think that'll help. I'm I'm hoping it I'm hoping it you know, comes back to your memory at the at the right time. Cuz I don't care if you're uh if you're young, if you're in elementary school right 20:35 now, or if you're an adult like me and you go to the workplace, that those these words, whether it's be a baby or be simple, these words are a tremendous protection for you. And I believe the Holy Spirit will bring it to 20:50 your mind at just the right time because he does that for me. And I need it. I need to be reminded, "Josh, you're not to be wise and intelligent in anything that's remotely evil." You become a baby there. So I want to go through a few scenarios. 21:09 I'm going to tell you some stages of my life and kind of explain the temptation that I went through. And then, you know, maybe you'll relate to it. Maybe you won't. Maybe you haven't faced it yet. But, you know, I'm really thinking about 21:19 the kids. You know, one of the one of the things that I'll give it before I go into my scenarios, I'll give you a hypothetical. This is purely hypothetical. This is not related to any true events. But, imagine you're a young person uh in in 21:37 this church, hypothetical. You know, maybe you're somewhere between 10 and 15 years old. And your parents didn't grow up in this country. They grew up in a country called Trendia. Right? And in Trendia, 21:54 it's not like it is here in the in Texas. In Trendia, my parents, you know, they went to they were they're simple. You know, the way they grew up is much simpler than the way I grew up. You know, they didn't have all this 22:10 pressure to know the ways of American culture the way that I do. My parents are simple. Because they came from Trendia. Right? Totally hypothetical. Right? You Nobody ever Nobody's relating to what I'm talking about. Right? 22:26 But, I know if you're that 10 to 15-year-old that if you're in school, you're facing tremendous pressure to have a wisdom concerning evil. That your friends expect you to be like them, and they will treat you very harshly if they're not. And they'll do 22:43 it in subtle and cunning ways because there's an insecurity that comes uh from that. And having knowledge that puffs up, and it's all happening in your schools. And your And you you may think your parents don't know. Your parents know 22:58 more than you realize, even though they're from Trendia. Right? I It's I made that up. There is no Trendia. Don't go look in a Don't Google it. It doesn't exist. But do you understand my point? I grew up in the schools here. 23:12 I know the temptation. I know the pressure. I know that feeling of feeling small because I don't know the latest thing. And it happens our whole life. Here's scenario one. When I was in second grade, right? One of my classmates got in big 23:31 trouble. She did something bad. I know because I heard the chatter. This classmate, I still remember her name, you're not getting it. She did something really bad and I could hear my friends the in crowd, the popular kids were talking about this and 23:48 I want to know. I want to know what bad thing she did. But I want to be cool. You know, I can't just come up and ask directly, "Hey, so I'm I've been left out. I don't know anything that's going on. Can somebody enlighten me on what this bad the bad 24:04 thing this person did?" You know, I couldn't do it. I had to be You know, so I'm working I'm trying to figure it out, right? Maybe through context I can figure out what she did. It My curiosity, my sense of discovery was piqued. 24:19 Right? You want to know what she did? That was a test. That was a test. Right? I I can't tell you. To this day, I don't know. And I don't know. If I ever ran into her, can you imagine me running into her like at a at a reunion or something and 24:33 going, "Hey, second grade. You know, can Can you tell me what it was? It's been 43 years. It's been killing me." But I never knew it. Let me tell you why I never knew. I had a very wise second grade teacher. And she said something like this. 24:49 "Hey, so-and-so did something bad. She got a whooping for it or words to that effect. Don't ever talk about it again. Told the whole class that. And that was the last time I heard about it. But it's been But I've been holding 25:05 on to it for 43 years, right? Cuz remember at the time going, "Wait Wait a minute. You're shutting it down, teacher, and I haven't even heard what it is." It was killing me, right? What did she do? That's the mind of a second grader. 25:19 And it doesn't go away after seven second grader, seven years old. It doesn't go away. That curiosity will burn inside of us. What was the bad thing that you're not telling us? Seven years old. Right? There's a There's a discovery 25:36 that is wrong. But we need to overcome that discovery. And focus on the discovery that's right. All right, 16 years old. I'm sure you've never experienced this, but I'll tell you what kind of kid I was, right? Now remember, my mom taught 25:51 me early on be be What was it? Be simple You guys already forgot what my mom taught me? Four words. Be simple concerning evil, right? But once I got to be a teenager, right? Mom, you don't get it. You know, you don't 26:10 understand the pressure. There's this movie and all the popular kids are going. Now I know that the rules are you have to be 17 to go watch this movie, which again, that's the world standards. The world standards They're They're useless 26:26 to you. Your standards are whatever your parents say the standards are. And their sense of discernment is is more keen than yours. So trust them. I didn't trust I you know, I I kind of felt like I needed to to get my way. So I was persistent. 26:42 You know, "Hey Mom, can I go watch the movie?" I don't remember exactly how it happened cuz it's so long ago, but here's what I Here's what probably happened. "Mom, can I go watch it?" "No, you don't know to need to go watch that 26:51 bad movie. Come on, Mom. This it can't be that bad. All the other kids are going. She said, "Well, you got to be 17 to go anyway." Yeah, but I'm 16 and I know the person that works at the movie theater and she'll let me in. 27:06 I mean, I was persistent. I was persistent. Have you Have you kids ever been persistent? Your parents say no and you kind of try a different angle, you try to talk them into it. I regret to this day talking my mom into this. 27:21 I won. I I I was I kept on. I didn't let up. And the person that taught me to be simple concerning evil finally said, "Okay, you can go." And I'll tell you in that moment, after we had watched that 2 hours of absolute garbage and filth, I remember standing, 27:38 you know, outside the movie theater right at our cars in the in the parking lot and, you know, feeling like, cuz I was the youngest there, I'm mature. I got to see the movie that you adults got to see. Right? What a waste. I look at that now and I 27:52 go, "What did I gain?" You know, by God's grace, I don't remember the what all was in that movie, but it was horrible. I can tell you that. He was merciful for me. So, kids, here's the here's what I'm telling you. If your 28:05 parents say no, say yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. God gave me you. You said no, that's enough. Ask one time and then let it go. Don't do what I did. Don't try to get your way, try to weasel in, how can I make this happen? You'll regret it. I regret it. Don't do 28:24 it. God has given you parents, they have wisdom. In fact, you can have a higher standard. If your parents say okay and you say, "You know what? I don't feel good about that movie anyway. I think I I think there's better 28:34 things I could do with my time." Then you do that. You be simple concerning evil. Age 22, I was not yet born again, but there was some uh labor pains. Do you know when a woman gives birth, right? It's not instant. There's a 28:51 period of pregnancy. And there's some pain that must that a a mother goes through before there's a birth. And at least in my testimony, that's what happened. You know, I didn't uh there was a period of where, you know, there was some pain, there was 29:06 some growing, but I had not yet been born again. This is that season. And so, I was living in Oklahoma and I had some relatives in another big city that out of state. And I went to go visit at Christmas time and we're at dinner at a restaurant 29:21 together. And you know, they're talking about different things and and they they they mentioned something that had to do with like murder or something like that. And for some reason, I had to ask a question. Like my curiosity got 29:37 the best of me. Right? So, I was like I said something like, "What are you guys talking about?" That's it. That's all I needed. Like I said, "What are you guys like I can now see it in slow motion. What are you guys I said I wish I would have just 29:53 kept my mouth shut. Because as soon as we got done with dinner at the restaurant, we we went for a walk in this big city. And we and the the one of my relatives' boyfriends rushes into a bookstore, buys a book, comes out, hands it to me, 30:12 and says, "Merry Christmas." This book is one of the most vile things I've ever seen. It was it was horrible. And I you know, I'm like, "Thank you." But thinking like, "I don't want this in my house." It was a coffee table style 30:29 book, right? It's the type of book you put on your coffee table. You know, books you put on your coffee table are designed for people your guests to come and see. You know, these are things I'm interested in. I was like I could not wait to get rid 30:40 of this book. The problem I my my conflict was it was a gift. This guy gave me a gift. What do I do with this gift? I was so conflicted over it. I couldn't wait to get rid I think the next time I moved I I threw it away or got rid of it. It's 30:53 vile. All because of like this much curiosity. This much curiosity can get us down a a path of evil, a very awkward evil path. And that's what happened to me. All right, age 36. When I left the active duty military as a mechanic on fighter jets for for many 31:13 years, I entered a new job of discovery. Remember, I'm talking about discovery and there's there's boundaries. And you know, I had a I worked with some good attorneys. I became a paralegal, which is basically like a helper or 31:26 assistant to attorneys. Like And so in the Air Force they have, you know, these lawyers that that do a lot of um a lot of legal work. There's a lot of legal work with with military and war. There really is. And so I worked in a section called 31:39 military justice. And it What's interesting to me is that the the attorney that taught me the most about the law, about justice, was Indian. She wasn't from Trinidad, she was from India. You guys thought those were the same 31:56 thing, huh? They're not. All right? But she was Hindu. And she taught me how to, you know, to work in military justice, how to discern justice. It was very interesting. I learned so much from her. She would hand me a stack of 32:11 witness statements. These are statements that people have written down to testify of a crime. And she would give those to me. And she would say, "Okay, here's what I need to do. Want you to read through them and tell me what happened. 32:24 And then I want you to recommend a punishment." And so I would I would start reading I I I thought I was a math guy. I don't like to read. But suddenly I find myself reading. And then I would read through it once and then I would read it again. 32:35 And then I would start looking again like, "Hang on, did I read that right? Hang on, there's a conflict. Hey, this isn't adding up. I'll tell you what it did for me. When I read the Gospels, I read them differently. God gave me a 32:47 gift that day because now I go, "Okay, Matthew, tell me your story. Okay, interesting. You saw this first hand. You saw these things happen. And John, you saw all this happen, too. Okay, Luke, you went and interviewed people and then you put this story 33:00 together. Mark, tell me what Peter told you." I suddenly saw these they came to life because somebody taught me about justice. So again, a whole new world of discovery. And I wanted to know I was behind because I'd cross-trained into this job. 33:16 Right? I'm behind and I want to catch up. And so every opportunity I had to learn something, you know, to to learn how to do this job well, I wanted it. Like, tell me how this works. Tell me how to How can I draft this document? Or 33:27 how can I interview a a witness? What How can I learn? And one day one of the other attorneys, he was getting ready to go. I said, "Hey, where are you going?" And he said, "To talk to the FBI." Now, we don't have the FBI in the 33:39 Air Force. We have something equivalent. Right? But that intrigued me. "Oh, you're going to talk to the FBI? Can I come?" Right? If If you got a chance to go hang out with the FBI and kind of hear behind the scenes what goes on, you'd be 33:52 interested. I mean, some of it good, some of it bad. You'll have to wait to find out what you're going to get. And I had to that day. And so I said, "Hey, can I come with you?" He said, "Come on." And so we go over to the FBI building 34:05 and we had to, you know, go through different security channels and we go sit down. I meet the FBI agent. You know, I'm with the attorney. So it's the FBI agent, the attorney, and me. And we sat down at a at a at a screen. 34:17 And for the next, I don't know, 30 minutes, basically watched pornography cuz it was a court case, right? And it was pornographic. And I'm like, "This isn't the discovery I want." And I was immediately convicted. By by time I was born again. By this time I 34:33 was walking closely with the Lord. And I'm like, "Lord, what did I get myself into?" And so I just I don't I just averted my eyes that whole time. Like I I I got enough for the court case if I if I need to do some work on it, but I don't need 34:45 anything else. I need to be simple concerning evil right now. And I tell you, as I stand here now, I don't remember. The Lord gave me tremendous grace to not remember what was on that screen. You know, but even our discovery can get 35:00 us into those positions. From the world's standard, I would have done nothing wrong. But Lord, I don't want that filth. I don't want to even want to an ounce of it. So I had to sit in front of the the this evidence, you know, for a long time and you know, 35:14 it was very uncomfortable. So you'll get in situations like that. And what I'll tell you is ask the Lord for his grace. You know, when I left when I left the the paralegal world, I never uh I I did not want to go into this. I 35:29 have tremendous sympathy for police officers and attorneys and judges that have to work in this industry. It's very difficult because you see all this evil. I believe you can as a Christian. I believe the Lord will give you grace for 35:43 what you need, but you need to take his principles seriously even if he put you in these positions. And he will honor you for it. I've forgotten a lot of stuff that I had to deal with during those times. A lot of crimes, a lot of court cases, 35:56 a lot of evil done. And the Lord has washed my memory. I I praise God for that. That's one of the good things about a short memory. So God was good to me during that that stage of my life. All right, let's do age 50. We got two. I got part one and a part 36:11 two. Yeah, I don't know if you guys know what this is. It's called a smartphone. And you guys heard of this? No? Okay. Well, anyway, it It something like this. And it's amazing. It's got so many features. 36:31 And so, because I live in in 2026, sometimes I want to know what's on the news. And it's good. I need to know what's going on around me. That's right. You know, even brother Zach on Wednesday night, question came up about that. It's 36:44 good to know what's going on in the world around us. To a degree. And what I find sometimes is like, you know, like uh the articles, like I'll be reading through the news, getting briefed on a couple things. But then I'll find myself digging. The discovery 36:58 kind of kicks in, and something will lead to something else. And so And what I praise God for, you know, what our prayer to be filled with the Holy Spirit comes in many different ways. And one of the ways that one of the 37:11 things that will be prompting sometimes when I'm starting to go down these rabbit holes, I'll feel a prompting and say, "Hey, do you really need to know this?" Cuz it will start with a a good article. And then I'll want to dig a little 37:23 deeper. Like, well, what happened there? And I'll feel that prompting. He'll say, "Do you really need to know? Is this really It It even sometimes just he'll go, "Is Is this a Is this what you should be doing with your time?" 37:35 I praise God for that. That reminder, "Hey, be simple right now. This is not simple. You're trying to dig down into complex because your curiosity is stirred. Your sense of discovery is going in the wrong direction. Put the 37:48 phone down and go check on somebody. Go read your Bible. Go talk to your wife. Whatever." You get it? Now, that's just me, right? Nobody else has a smartphone. Yeah. Nobody else has a smartphone. So, never mind. How about part two? How about 38:02 this? Here's another thing that's encouraged me. Remember when I was a kid in school, curiosity abounded. Right? I wanted to always be in the know. Knowledge was the key. This was before internet, before smartphones. If 38:16 you knew things, it brought some cred. Is that a Is that a right word? Right? If you were knowledgeable, especially in the latest events, latest movies, latest music, latest trends, latest binocular, you were cool. And so I had thrived on knowledge. 38:36 Today, one of the things that gives me encourage encouragement is I'll hear some of the conversations going around the office. Same thing, except now we're adults. Latest movies, latest music, latest YouTube videos, late all this other 38:50 worldly stuff going on. And I'm like this puppy dog. Right? What are you guys talking about? You know that delights my heart before the Lord. It's like, "Lord, remember when I used to be so knee-deep in good and evil." And now I hear people talking about 39:07 stuff that apparently everybody knows and I have no idea. I have no clue what they're talking about. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for giving me that innocence and simplicity that you tried to teach me my whole life. Thank you that it's becoming real. I 39:24 delight in that. Especially you young brothers and sisters, take that moment. When you hear your friends talking about stuff that something is telling you it's garbage, it's filth, have a little delight that the Lord is 39:39 prompting you, "Hey, I see it and I appreciate that you're ignoring it. I appreciate your simplicity right now." There's a joy that will come from it. I promise. A delight to see a smile in your father's heart because you're a 39:56 simpleton. I don't know, it's evil. Yeah, maybe you guys think I'm a dork. Maybe you guys think I'm you know, whatever you think. But my daddy told me to be simple and this is this is not it if I listen to you guys. All right. 40:15 Let's recap this. I'll close it here. One of the things I don't want to do I had you know sometimes like even when I focused on hell hell hell and war war war last time. I don't ever want to close on that and I don't want to close 40:27 on evil. I want you to see that there was a contrast in that verse. And then I found that focusing on the good is the way to go. Right? Don't don't don't always be thinking about what evil you're trying to avoid. That's what I mean. 40:42 Think about what is good. Right? Be wise in what is good. Let your mind always be filled with good things. And there's a good test. I'll show you one of my favorite verses in this in line with this is Philippians 4:8. Cuz it tells you I mean there's a 41:00 treasure chest in this one verse there's a treasure chest of things for you to go and meditate on. And it's a great way to figure out in your thought life if it's on the right track. Which thoughts should you take captive? 41:14 Well, any thought that is not consistent with this. It tells you hey, judge your thought life by only focusing on the truth. Whatever is true. You know, whatever is honorable, whatever's right, whatever's pure. It's giving you a whole lot of things to 41:29 meditate on and think about to judge your thought life on and to renew your mind on. Cuz I had a lot of garbage. I just shared that with you. I filled my life my head with a lot of evil over many years. I want the Holy Spirit to renew that. I 41:44 want my thought life to be replaced with this. And I want you to notice something very at the end. That this thought life is where the Lord is telling it you to dwell. A dwelling is a place where people live. Right? On a property the dwelling is 42:01 where you live and there's something about this is where we dwell. We don't spend our our dwelling think about evil and how to avoid it. We dwell here. This is where we live. We live thinking about these things, focusing on these things. 42:18 So, even a message that's mostly about avoiding evil, I want to conclude it by saying, "That's not how we dwell. We dwell on focusing on what is good. We're wise in what is good." And that's what we do. And the Holy Spirit wants to fill our thoughts, fill 42:34 our minds, teach us all of these things. All right, let's wrap up. Okay, we talked We started in Genesis, and we saw that in Genesis there were there were hundreds of thousands of trees, tons of things to freely discover, 42:49 but there was one thing, the knowledge of good and evil, that God said, "Avoid that." But there's something in us, in our flesh, that wants both. I need all the evil, and I need all the good to be able to be complete. But then we come to the new covenant, 43:05 and it says four words, "Be Okay, see if you still have it on Wednesday. I might text you and say, "Hey, you still got it?" On Wednesday, right? In the new covenant, it makes it clear what God was trying to tell us way back in Eden. Listen, I don't want you 43:23 guys to live with any evil. I want you to be simple when it comes to evil. I want you focused on what is good. Right? So, this prompting, whenever you're going down that path, you know, I pray the Holy Spirit will bring these four words to mind. And then 43:38 we looked at another five words, right? "Be Now, very simple, right? When it comes to evil stuff, I'm like an infant. And think of an infant. A tremendous blessing there. And then finally, we said that, "Hey, yeah, it's true. We 43:55 accept all these warnings on on evil, but our primary purpose is to dwell in the things that are good. And the best thing that you can dwell in is Christ himself. There's nobody but God that's good. Amen. All right, God bless you brothers and 44:10 sisters. Thank you brother Josh for 44:38 sharing your life history with us. Uh As he was sharing, I was thinking of my own journey and thought life um that the Lord has changed over the years and is continuing to change. 44:57 Uh One of the things as I reflect on the verses that's being shared this morning the two things. One for the young for the young who are learning and that discovery 45:17 is very active. You're learning new things. You're trying to figure out the world. Um By the way, that is a a gift of God. Our brain was created to have a wonder of new things and is very uncomfortable if you don't know things. That's So, we don't have to 45:34 condemn ourselves for having that discovery spirit. Um At the same time, what differentiates us from the animals or the AI is that God gave humans only one thing that's different. It's 45:53 the free will. That our mind does not just wander and discover, wants to satisfy my curiosity. Um we have to direct our minds, all right? As I've learned for many years when you're trying to 46:13 model or even an AI, you know, you have to constrain it so it doesn't go searching for different things that you don't want it to search for. It's basically what we call in the industry garbage in, and garbage out, GIGO. So, if you put garbage in, garbage 46:26 will come out. What comes in will garbage will only the good things If you put in good things, treasure will come out. So, the obvious um contrast is treasure in, treasure out. And Matthew 6:22 says the eye of the lamp of the body 46:43 I is the lamp of the body. So, then if your eye is clear, the whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad your whole body will be full of darkness. So, if the light that is in your dark is it in your is darkness, how great is the 46:56 darkness? But who controls the eye? Oh, my eye is going to over there. Dude if I'm really being honest can I say that oh, it's going to the screen, it's going to the you know, men struggle uh once you become a teenager and above, it 47:12 can struggle to what is called lust, attraction to different genders. Yes, your eyes naturally can be attracted to see something fancy or something pretty or then if you do a second time, that's on you. That's on me, myself. Well, I can 47:31 choose to And God has to teach me and still to continue teach me um Son, do you want to overcome lust? Do you want to fight with lust? Stay there. Start there. It's very simple. I gave you eyes to start 47:48 training them to look where you I want you to look at. It's a very, very simple thing. But if I'm faithful in that small area, I know that God Lord strengthens that place of obeying him and being 48:06 innocent, back to innocent. Yes, over time when I had didn't know better I could not control my eyes and it was struggle, but as the Lord is showing me, it has shown me over the years he's becoming he's wiping out all these 48:24 memories, all these things that are bad. I became more innocent. Um, the Lord cons constantly reminds us, um, even in the Genesis as we shared this morning, the tree of knowledge of evil, good and evil versus tree of life. 48:42 Are we going to go from eat from the tree of knowledge and evil to satisfy my curiosity or ask the Lord directly, Lord, what do you want me to do? What should I do? Logically to me makes this sense to do this, but what do you want me to do? As we shared 48:58 last week Sunday. Um, another thing a thought life that Josh shared about Um, and I was reminded of this first, too. Uh, he alluded to it, 2 Corinthians 10:5 We're destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge 49:18 of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Can I put that? It's a will. It's a God gave us a free will to do that and he will who commands us to do that will also give us grace, the power 49:35 to do that, to help to do that. He won't command us to that, it's not impossible without his He'll give us the resources to do that. So, I believe this is a warning and also encouragement. And as we know, it's not I know the pain 49:53 um I heard it some somewhere, which is true. We heard about gossip this morning. You know, it's hard to once you have that heard that it's almost impossible you want to say it to someone. That desire is uh temptation is bigger. 50:10 Do not talk about it than to talk about the pain of not doing is greater than doing something. Um the discomfort of inaction um often creates a heavier burden even psychologically than the temporary effort we are required to do do 50:25 something. Not doing something is harder. Um But he also gives a way out as we concluded at the end in Philippians 4:8. It's not enough just to get rid of the bad things, right? 50:41 As Jesus when he drew out those legion of the seven demons I mean the demon one demon he when it was empty and clean, seven more came, right? And filled. We have to fill it with what is pure, what is right, what 50:58 is honorable, what is lovely. We have to dwell continue. So there is action for us to do. There is a command to fill our empty minds that were now cleaned from all this filth that we have filled it up with over the years. Now we have 51:16 to fill it with good things. So there are two parts, not doing the things that we did in past, but also filling with the good things. In Ephesians 5:8, he continues to encourage us. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the 51:30 Lord, walk as children of light. And be continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is a command for us this morning. Um let's go to the Lord as we continue continue our fellowship. Thank you, Lord, for giving us Lord in this age of 51:49 overflowing of information, entertainment, and news, fake news, real news, we don't know. Sometimes we can't even um our mind continues to race to learn in this competition and 52:06 everything at school, at work, with Help us, Lord, to find the rest in you like a baby, a weaning child, just resting in you, Lord. We continue to subscribe to the tree of life, um to you directly, Lord. Um 52:24 the mind you gave us, Lord, even the curiosity you gave us, we want to use it for your good, Lord. Help us to do that. We know that you will provide us the help to do that, Lord. Pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining us. I just want to 52:41 make quick reminder that at 2:30
