R1625 When All Is Said and Done, PT.2

God has an encouraging word for you and me today through the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton on this edition of The Encouraging Word. Today we continue what Dr. Wilton began yesterday about this message.

When all is said and done, as we head to Proverbs chapter 3 and Judges chapter 18, we're gaining understanding on putting the critical things ahead, especially when it comes to obedience to what God calls us to do. As we study the word, know that we're available for you, connecting online at www.tewonline.org. Many folks are using that to sign up for fresh books, for the daily encouraging word email from Dr. Wilton and more. That's online at www.tewonline.org. But our prayer line is available as well at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. And now today's message with Dr. Don Wilton.

How do you put this into terminology? What is the most important thing? So I came up with eight. This is my list. Okay, can we all agree to that? This is my list. So you're going to, for everyone I say, you're going to say, oh, you missed it on that one. You got to add this. Here's my list.

And not in order priority. Number one, good health. Just take care of yourself.

Get to the Nautilus Fitness Center as fast as you can. Work out. Eat right. Take care of your body. Your body's the, you know, God's given us a spirit and a horse, and we spend our lives killing the horse. It's a fact of life. Just take care of yourself.

Do what you need. Good health. Good one there.

Good health. I'm not, and tell your kids that. We don't tell our kids that. We don't teach our kids that.

So when they get to the age of 35, 40, they've just, it hasn't been important because they thought it was never, why would a young person think that's important for crying in a bucket? Number two, wise investments. Use money wisely. So into that little essential would come things like be careful about getting into debt. Watch what comes in and what goes out. Watch out for credit cards.

Watch out for the trap here in America. Every store you go to, they'll say email. And like a bunch of idiots, you give it to them. So your email is just nothing but the store. You got to know everything.

They go, why do you need to know everything in every store? And then here's the best one. Now listen, you get our credit card, you get 10% off. And you all fall for it like a bunch of suckers. And it's not the 10% you get off. You've just got another credit card.

Did they tell you about the 300% you pay on the other side? You know how many people spend more money paying off credit card debt than anything else? So under that word wise investment, teach, teach children, essential. Number three, here's an essential for life. Unmod relationships.

Work hard on relationships. Unmod, unscarred. Listen, scars happen. Skid marks take place. Fractures. People get out of lining up the casualties of other people in your life.

Unmod relationships. Work, you got to, this is jolly hard work folks. Because most of everybody, everybody else is a dipstick. Raise your hand.

Right? Everybody else is wrong. I mean, how could anybody else be as magnificent as me? I'm just saying that publicly.

Nobody can do it better than us, me, I. And we've all got opinions. So relationships.

I mean, they're people who come to church that sit on the other side because the other person sitting on the other side. Unmod relationships. Unmod. Okay, number four, number four, wise counsel.

Seek wise counsel. People God has put with us, moms and dads and teachers and leaders and coaches that are wise people, man. That's been my experience, even as pastor of a church.

I'm the senior pastor of the church. I'm telling you, I could never have done a quarter of this without the wise counsel of so many of you. Just wise counsel, man.

And you'd have to figure that out. You know. You know who's coming to you with a whole lot of dribble with an agenda. You know who the ministers of discouragement are. They're always ministers of discouragement.

It's their sole God given responsibility to always come break down, tear down, point fingers, criticize. That's not wise counsel. That's what I'm talking about. Look at, look next to you.

They probably sitting next to you right now. Wise counsel. Teach your kids. Number five, controlled tongue. This tongue. Watch your mouth, man. Control your tongue. Stop yapping like that and gossiping, tearing down. If you don't have something good to say, don't say it. Control your tongue. Teach your children to control their tongue. That little instrument can sink a ship.

It can cause the ship to veer off and run onto the rocks. Number six. Here's a big one. This is what I'd say. This is me.

It's not your list. Have a forgiving spirit. You are going to go through life with wrongs being done. You've got to have a forgiving spirit.

That's the hardest thing. Jesus said, forgive me just as I forgive others. A forgiving spirit. Only God can do that. If you don't forgive people, let me tell you guys, if you don't learn by God's grace to forgive that person who's hurt you, yes, you will carry that chunk of metal in your heart the whole time.

You want to get set free from somebody, from something? That's the hardest thing to do. Number seven, humble attitude. It's so hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way and all of us are. Humble attitude. And number eight, just love Jesus.

So there's my eight. So when all is said and done, you know we can talk about our moms and dads and so many people when all is said and done. That's what I'm speaking to you about today. I mean, we've got a lot to do, folks.

We've got to earn money and help our families and play ball and get educated and all of these things. But when all is said and done, this is what God's word says in Proverbs chapter three, and I'm going to read it to you. One of the most often quoted verses of scripture, Proverbs three, verses five and six.

Here it is. When all is said and done, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Isn't that fantastic? I'm not going to, you don't even have to turn there, but in Judges chapter 18, we find the day knights are wanting to go and settle in a land. They've got this mission.

They want to go and settle in a land. And in Judges chapter 18, verse five and six, then they said to him, please inquire of God to learn whether our journey will be successful. Watch the answer. The priests answer them. Go in peace. Your journey has the Lord's approval. When all is said and done, friends, your journey, our journey has God's approval when all is said and done, when we do it God's way. Please forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the rest of today's message.

When all is said and done in just a moment. But Dr. Wilton wants me to remind you, we're here for you. 24 hours a day, we have the opportunity to talk and pray and connect with great resources at the other end of 866-899-WORD. It's our prayer that you've jotted the number down or stored it in your cell as a contact. We're here at 866-899-9673, first and foremost to pray with you and for you, but also to connect with great resources. So much has been done this month about loneliness, and we have a book that was written by a good friend of Dr. Wilton's, Jack Eason, called The Loneliness Solution. And we move out of this unique season, these last 12, 13, 14 months of uniqueness in very many ways, separation and loneliness. God has answers that will help us strengthen our personal relationship with Jesus and conquer that sense of loneliness.

Again, the book is on our website at tewonline.org, that's tewonline.org, or you can call about your copy right now at 866-899-WORD, that's 866-899-9673. Now back to today's teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. When we just do it God's way, so let's look at this. What does God invite us to do? Three things. Number one, to trust Him. Trust in the Lord.

This is God's way. Now we've given all the other, and then some, invest wisely and forgive people, all that, but when all is said and done, God tells us to do two things. Three things. Number one is to trust Him.

What does that mean? It means, first of all, to have firm belief in Him. Just believe God. That means trust Him.

Say, you are God. I've got firm belief in you. Number two, have confident hope from Him.

When you firmly, completely believe in Him, you have confidence in your hope that you get from Him. And trust in the third instance means that you totally lean on Him. And that word there, lean, I think there's a song, lean on me. Lean on me.

I love that word. It carries with it that wonderful idea that as I go through life, I have my Jesus to kind of lean my weary body on. To hold on to, to go to, and I just trust Him because He's just solid, man. It's God.

This, I'm not leaning on the stock market here. I'm not leaning on my body, even though I take good care of it and I try, my body is still my body. It's dying. It's flesh. I'm going to do everything I can to forgive the person that hurt me, but oh, that's so jolly hard to do. But when I lean, when I trust Him, I'm like putting everything on to the one that will never give way.

It's beautiful. The first thing He says is to trust Him. That's the first invitation.

That's why we're invited to join the journey. Second, to acknowledge Him. Now acknowledging Him is different from trusting Him. Why does Jesus, why does this passage say, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him.

What does that mean? Well, amongst many other things, it means accepting His position. To acknowledge God means you accept Him. It means you've got to remove the B-U-T, but accepting, well, on this occasion, me, us.

No, no, no. When you acknowledge Him, you accept the sovereign God that you trust. You know, someone said, put it like, God said it, that settles it. That's acknowledging Him. It's not like God, you know, this is what God says, hey, wake up America.

This is not the time at which He lived back then. He's changed His mind by now. And doesn't He get it?

We are more advanced today. And so God keeps on morphing His position on morality. You know, He's changing His mind about marriage being between one man and one woman. He changed His mind about that.

He's not current. Oh, He's changed His mind about abortion. He's changed His mind.

It's okay under, you know, it just, if you just don't want a baby, well, then just get rid of it. That's fine. He changed His mind about life. To acknowledge God means to accept His position and then to recognize His ability. He's God. If you acknowledge Him, you not only accept His position as God, He's supreme. He's sovereign in every way. He's the almighty God.

There is none like Him. It's in Him, Him that we live and move and have our being. And in so doing, we recognize His ability to do everything that He says He will do without exception. Do I hear an amen? Everything.

There's nothing that falls outside. It's not like God, yes, He will stand by His word accepting. No, no, no, no, no. God is absolute. And we accept, we recognize His ability. And third, to acknowledge Him means we appreciate His involvement.

That's acknowledging Him. His involvement, yes, in everything in our life, because He loves me. He loves you.

Do you know that God wants us to acknowledge His involvement in everything? He's interested in our dating. He's interested in our divorce. He's interested in our pain. He's interested in our addictions. He's interested in all the things that we go through in life.

He is. When we acknowledge Him, we accept His position and we recognize His ability and we appreciate His involvement. Not a single thing that falls outside of the parameter of our God and our King.

So number one, what's God's invitation here? When all is said and done. You know, I'm trying to take care of my investments and forgive others and jog every now and again and not eat so many donuts. And I'm trying to, all of these things, I'm trying, I've got my, this is, I'm going to be a good citizen and I'm going to smile more and I'm going to do the best and I'm going to get an education.

I'm going to study hard and I'm going to, all of these things. Well, when all is said and done, what does God say? Doesn't say sweep that aside. He doesn't say sweep that aside.

Doesn't make this irrelevant. But when all is said and done, He gives us three invitations. Number one, to trust Him. Number two, to acknowledge Him. And number three, to depend on Him. All your ways acknowledge Him.

And He, He will make your path straight. You can depend on Him. Just depend on Him. Absolutely depend on Him. Now what does it mean to depend on Him? It means to accept Him totally.

All the way. Tough for us humans to do. Just accept Him totally. Rely on Him totally. He'll make your path straight. God will do this. Number three, submit to Him totally. You cannot follow the Lord Jesus and not submit to Him at the same time.

Those two things don't work. You know, we talk about it in marriage, for example. I love her, she loves me. You make a commitment together.

There's no variation on that. There's no alternative. When you depend on Him, you accept Him totally. You rely on Him totally and you submit to Him totally. You give yourself to Him.

Lord, here I am. So, there really are three invitations that He gives to us. I want us to just think, this is to take away with us. This is what God is saying to us. Number one, He invites us to accept God's purpose.

Accept God's purpose for your life. And it begins with the fact that God loves you so much that He gave Jesus to die for you. That's the beginning of that because He made you. He made you.

He knows you. His purpose is that you would belong to Him. That He would be your Savior and your Lord. That you would live a forgiven life, a full and meaningful life.

That's God's purpose. If you accept, listen, if you accept God's purpose, you're saying, just as I am. Just as I am.

There it is. Just as I am with all the warts and the whiskers. Just as I am with all the struggles. Just as I am with all the addictions. Just as I am with all the personality variations. Just as I am with all the mistakes.

Just as I am with all the successes and the blessings and the joys. Just as I am without one plea. There is no plea.

No, I'm not coming to God when I accept His purpose and saying to Him, you know, I believe that you love me and that Jesus died for me, but I need you to know this first. You don't need to do that. This is without one plea. You don't have to lay it all down there. You're not interviewing for a job. You're accepting a personal relationship.

You have to come with your biography. You don't have to try and impress God with your pedigree. He knows. He accepts His purpose. Number two, He invites you to engage in His plan. God's got a plan for His children. Last week I spoke about the rock.

It's got a plan. We've got the church, solid rock. Be part of the church. Today I'm going to invite you to put your roots down.

This is not just a ho-hum, why don't we just do this because it sounds good. God said do this. I spoke about Mr. Graham in my book Saturdays with Billy. Those are my chapters.

One of my chapters is entitled Billy's Church. I talk about this church. Why do you think Billy Graham to millions of people, millions upon millions upon millions of people all around the world, who said, you heard him say at the end, be sure to go to church on Sunday. He said that in Asia. He said that in China. He said that in Israel. He said that in the Arab world. He said it in Europe. He said it in America. He said it in South America, Canada. He said it on islands.

He said it in the white. Be sure to go to church. It's part of God's plan. It's part of God's plan. If something goes on among God's, just feel this today. Ask yourself if you weren't part of this today. Oh yeah, life goes on, catch up next week.

Well, I'm not. But is there something God wanted to say to you today? He talks to us and he uses his church. Accept God's purpose, engage God's plan. But one more, I've got to give this to you because this is one of my favorites. Relish one another's friendships.

Relish. He invites you to relish the friendships among fellow believers. It's relational. If there's anything that has hurt me, bothered me during the virus, it's right there. That interactive fellowship, right? People say, well, man, let's just go and find another program.

Programs are way down on the list. It's the people. I'd rather be able to walk around and high five and chew the fat with you and have fellowship and be blessed by you and listen to you and love with you than have all the incredible programs that the world could muster. Most people in our world today spend their lives on an American Idol approach, a big concert, man, halftime shows, they go to this big auditorium and boy, just for that three hours, they take it into another zone.

And as soon as you walk out, they go back to exactly the same longing in their heart. The friendships, relationships that God gives to us as believers go on and on and on. This is where you cultivate 2 a.m. friends. That's why life groups. That's why meeting together. That's why being there with teachers.

That's why talking. That's why fellowshiping over meals together, being in church, calling one another, ministering. This is the stuff.

Indeed, this is the stuff. And as Dr. Wilton has been preaching, perhaps the Lord has stirred your heart to more than just the message or the messenger, but the opportunity to know that we represent God. He loves you. He has a plan for your life, and he's using this broadcast to let you know it's time for a change. Next, our pastor shares the most important part of our broadcast today. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much, and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today, I repent of my sin. I confess my sin to you, and I invite you to come into my heart and into my life, I pray. In Jesus' name, I pray. If you've prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.

This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey. If you've given your life to Jesus Christ, why don't you call us right now at 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673. We have wonderful resources to put in your hands, or you can meet us online at www.tewonline.org, also the place you'll find great resources like this. Jesus said, You are the light of the world. God gives us so many opportunities to share the gospel. I believe today that America is weeping. Our friends, family, and neighbors are weeping.

So what is God saying to us? We are the light of the world. Jesus brings hope. There is warfare, spiritual warfare, going on like we've never experienced.

We'd had better wake up, America. We need to encourage one another in times like these. Speaking of encouragement, I have a life-changing ministry resource to send you from a good friend of mine this month for your gift of support to the Encouraging Word, The Loneliness Solution, Finding Meaningful Connection in a Disconnected World, book by Jack Eason. The Loneliness Solution is a great resource to encourage people on how to discover genuine friendships with others. I want you to get a copy for yourself and copies to keep on hand as you go about your day to give to others. You will never know how much a word spoken or a gift given at the right time can change someone's life. Call us today at 866-899-WORD to request The Loneliness Solution book for a gift of $15. Thank you for your prayers and continued support of The Encouraging Word as we share the gospel to deliver lost souls from the clutches of darkness around the world. Our time's gone for today, but we're still connecting online at www.tewonline.org.