Discovering the Spirit-Filled Life VI, Carnal Or Conquering

Lord, just to think that the Holy Spirit would blaze upon this whole land, Father God. Lord, we who have come to know the joy of being born into your presence and the joy of fellowshipping with you, Lord, we don't remember, many of us, how dark and how lonely and how hurting so many in the world are, Lord. And we pray today that through what takes place in this next hour or so together, that the Holy Spirit would blaze on our hearts and blaze through us into this land. And that, Lord God, you'd hear us and send revival in this land, in Jesus' name. And now, Lord, we pray for our children, thanking you, Lord, for the preparation that's gone into their time tonight and asking you to bless them and challenge them, Lord. Touch their hearts, Lord, not just their heads. And let every single class, let the reports be that it was good to be together, in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen. Okay, kids, you're dismissed. Just walk, just walk, please. And you can turn to someone you haven't greeted and greet them, all right? Go ahead. Don't just sit down. Greet somebody. Well, I have expectations for tonight's meeting to be a time of serious prayer and serious input together. And yet, I already sense the celebration that's in our hearts. Jim Scull, are you ready? Yes, that's good. Come on down and share with us. How many of these folks from Cutting Edge went on the retreat that are here tonight? They're survivors. Look at their hands going up. There's about a dozen of them here tonight. Great. I asked, I heard so many good things, and I asked just one person, and if another one of you is just burning to share something, and Jim allows any time, you can have it. But I heard good reports, and I thought the whole body would like to know. Just tell us what happened, Jim, and something to you. Well, there was about 30 of us that went, and we went to Jamonville. And when we went there, the whole focus of what we were going to do was to become more aware of what's going on in the world and just how we might fit and how we might be able to make an effect on that world. And on Saturday, we had four teachers, Char Rowe, Mike Gear, and Tom Walker, and somebody else. Who? Rick? Yeah, Rick Brennan. Oh, my. I'll tell you what. The whole course of the day, for Saturday, it was like kind of a lot of learning, you know, and a lot of becoming aware of what's going on out there and the different things that are going on in the world and just kind of trying to figure out inside, well, how do I feel about all this, and am I willing to do anything about it? And then we went on the ropes course on Saturday, and that was neat because it kind of taught us a little bit about pulling together, about communicating, about preparing before you do something. It was really kind of neat up on the mountaintop, and the sun was up there. It was a beautiful day. It was real crisp fall weather and everything. But when we came back on Saturday night, Rick Brennan, he's on the drama team for whoever knows, he shared with us what the Lord had laid on his heart, and that was the mercy of God. And I'll tell you what. It was one of the most powerful times that I've ever been in the presence of the Lord. The Lord used Rick in such a way that, I mean, he probably touched everybody that was there, but there was some major breakthroughs. There were just some major breakthroughs. The Holy Spirit ministered, and I was pretty much blown away. And myself, I probably, I'm not much of a crier, just never was, but this past weekend, I probably shed more tears this weekend. Just even just realizing the awesomeness of God and how much he loves us, even in that and just the things that I'm dealing with in my own life, more tears in this past weekend than probably in the last ten years put together. And that was just evidence of the Holy Spirit coming in and working and showing me how much God loves me. And so anyway, it was a great time, and I would encourage anybody here that would, you know, that might be wondering what's going on at Cutting Edge to check it out on Friday nights because the Lord comes there, and he's with us. And he comes, and he ministers to us, and we learn, and we grow, and we establish relationships. I have so many brothers and sisters now just through Cutting Edge that, I mean, I'm, talk about rich. I'm as rich as they come because of all the good people that are there. So Friday nights, 8 o'clock, we're back there except for the third week. It's Saturday down at the YMCA. You know, if you feel you need to be with God's people and, you know, you fit in our little group or age bracket or whatever, you know, it goes up. We have people that are 35, 36 that come to our group. The cutoff is 18 at the bottom end though. Thanks, Jim. But anyway, so that was it. Okay. Praise the Lord. Amen. Let me put that back up. That unthinkable. You want to encourage folks that you know who aren't plugged in anywhere to visit Cutting Edge. It seems especially now some new things are happening and new relationships are being formed. So every Friday at 8 o'clock. And speaking of special times, Jim, will we be able to have tickets for tonight for Scott Wesley Brown? All right. Where would they be? At the tape table. How many of you are coming to Scott Wesley Brown concert? Okay. If you haven't gotten your tickets, get them tonight. Remember, for you, you get them for free. If you show up without one, I'm afraid we're trying to absorb this cost. We don't pass it on to you all. So it's going to be $5. And so just pick them up and be prepared for that time. And come early because this is one of those things, you know, I wish it were Wednesday night when you had to come early. Not yet, but it will be. But this Sunday night, if you don't come early, you will sit out in the halls. And just a word to the wise on that one. And we do need help, I understand, with cleanup. Now, those of you who have just been blessed in the last week in the Cutting Edge ministry, those of you who have been blessed to the Lord in the last week here at North Way, we need about eight people to help us put things back together. Not a lot. We're not going to strip down. But we need people to serve. I want to see at least eight hands go up here in about a minute of folks who say, I'll stay after the concert. It's going to start at 6 and be over at 8.30. We need people to stay around for about an hour just to put things back together so Eden Christian Academy can go into session Monday morning. We need about eight people. Can I see eight hands to help for an hour afterwards? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. God bless you, all right? Okay. God bless you. Be here and just come up to the platform afterwards. And that will be a major help to Jan, okay? All right. A couple other quick things. You know, baptism is next week. I'm going to talk about this on Sunday, so just let me say a word. I fear that somehow the power of baptism may be lost in the tradition that so many people come to this time with. It would please me to set the whole night aside to baptize that many people. I don't want to do anything else but baptize. But unfortunately, too many people ease into their relationship with Christ and are afraid to take a step of definitive declaration. And really, baptism is just an external declaration of what you believe happened on the inside. If you've responded, and there may be a few of you here tonight on a Wednesday night, to Christ as your personal Lord, your personal Savior, and you've not been baptized as a believer, I want to urge you in strong, loving, pastoral terms, be baptized. Be baptized. Our baptismal services are always special, but that's not what's important. What's important is what happens in you as you obey the Lord and follow Him into the waters of baptism. There will be elders right over here by the doorway on the left, my left, your right. See them right after. Say, I want to be baptized. In five minutes, they'll just confirm your testimony and have you be prepared for next Wednesday. And if you know somebody that's responded in previous Sundays or whatever, and they've not been baptized, have them come to terms with that, or at least talk about it, because it's very important. How many of you noticed a distinct difference in your walk with Christ after you were baptized? Alright, if you didn't, it's okay. But many of us did, and I know, for me, there was just a distinct quality because of that step of obedience. I want to just say hello and a special welcome to our visitors. Any visitors that came tonight, we want to welcome you, and we have a packet for you if you're a visitor. If you'll wave your hand, we want to give you one. Any visitors, let's welcome anyone that came in tonight visiting for the first time or first time in a while, great. God bless you, sir. Back here, anyone else? In here? Alright. Good. It's always good to be open and receiving new people here as we are each and every time we're together. Finally, I've asked, why don't we just go ahead and get the offering taken together? And I'm going to ask, how many of you did not get a newsletter? Put your hand up. You weren't here Sunday. You didn't get a newsletter. Okay, ushers, look at all those hands. That's your first mission. Go ahead, and while you're, hold your hand up. We want to get your newsletter. And please take the time to read about the Christmas Banquet. Now, we're talking about Prayer to a Promise. That's our banquet to celebrate our vision. The Christmas Banquet is for the poor of the city to celebrate the love of God with them. Read about it. Read about it. We'll be talking about it in depth over the next weeks. We need you to know, and many of you have never been to a banquet. Jim, have you ever been to one? You've got something to look forward to. And it's going to be a great event. You need to know about it. Read that carefully, along with the other things that are in there for you. Hold your hand up. The ushers will get you one of these. And then finally, the Expression Magazine, of course, is for your own information, particularly about the candidates. And Ray Spiker will be out in the hall to give you a copy of other information if you so desire. I had it somewhere from Life Pack. It's a little blue handout. There it is. Thank you. This is available to you with more information about the candidates. Ray will be right outside. By the way, folks, every time we talk about getting information now, unless I specify otherwise, there's two tables that are going to be just between those two doors right there. Everyone look at those two doors. The two tables that you cannot see on the other side of that wall will have all registrations there and all handouts out there, so it makes it very simple. You don't have to wander around. But those of you on this side of the room, if you go running out that door, you'll miss it. So you'll have to go down this way. And, for example, if you want to see Ray or you want to get a white ribbon, you'll see these all over the place. It's just really a neat testimony all over the place. Of course, you put one on the antennas that go up and down in your car, and they tend to disappear in a hurry. But that's all right. We'll figure out something on that. Amen. Let's pray. Yes, Scott? Okay. Quickly. There you go. Scott wants to share something before we pray together. I just wanted to, since it was the Wednesday night group that two weeks ago, remember when we prayed for the baby? Jay shared a little bit more about that, but I just need for you to know that I talked today to Joe Wendling, and he just, he's having a hard time expressing the joy that they have in their hearts over what God has done. What we really didn't understand was that on Wednesday before we prayed, the doctor had given them some very bad and alarming news and really wasn't giving them a lot of hope for this baby to progress well. And he had to go out of town for about two days after that. And when the doctor came back, it was Friday or Saturday when the doctor came back from out of town and saw the baby, he described what he saw as a miracle and just confirmed the fact that God literally moved and did respond to the prayers of the saints. And I just wanted you to know that, because you were the ones that were participating in that. It was so encouraging to me. Father, we do thank you. We thank you, Lord, for the privilege again of giving. We thank you, Lord, that every time we give, you give back to us more opportunities just like this one to reach out and touch a life. Yes, God. To make a difference. Indeed, to save a life. Yes, God. And we just ask, Father, now as we give, that you would return back to us, pressed down and shaken together and running over in our households. In Jesus' name, everyone said, Amen. Amen. Thank you, Lord. I have said on every occasion that the monies that we gather on Wednesday night go to help people in need. Tonight's offering, we're going to designate to help the unborn. And all the offerings tonight will go to help carry the message that God loves the unborn children. And these offerings tonight will go to help the efforts of Operation Rescue. I don't know if you saw the reports on Saturday night's CBS Network News, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, it was the lead story in the news broadcast. And it was a positive story about the fact that people are rising up and saying, This has been enough. There's been enough killing. And I'm encouraged in my spirit that the efforts of people in prayer primarily and then taking steps of action secondarily are beginning to awaken the conscience of the nation. I could tell you stories today, this evening, that would break your heart. I just need to let you know that it's time to pray, because, you know, 15 years have gone by. And we could just sort of sit back and hope that it goes away. It will not. But by your prayers, and we're going to be praying tonight in just a little while, and by our faithful giving to help get this message out, we're going to make a difference. So if that changes what you're going to give tonight, do it right now. If you want to give a special offering to help with the battle to save the unborn, that's going to be tonight's offering. And, Lord, we want to pray just in that light tonight that you'd help every single person in this room to come to terms with their responsibility, Lord, whether it's to be a prayer warrior, to be a communicator, to be a shepherd, home host, to give time to counsel, or whatever it is, so that we can stand together and say, when the final account is given, that we made a difference, that we rescued the perishing and saved them from the slaughter. May it be so, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, let's just come right away, please, and let's gather this offering up for tonight. I see Dave and Bonnie Propelka. They'll be starting Discovering the Way this Sunday. Is that correct? Yeah. And if you know someone that's not been through Discovering the Way, if you haven't been through, this Sunday would be a great time to start. Wow, we have to get started. It's 8.30 this coming Sunday. Let's stand together. Let's sing, Reign in Me, Sovereign Lord, Reign in Me, and let's just let that be an invitation to our hearts for the Holy Spirit to speak to us tonight. Praise the Lord. You ready? Reign in Me, Sovereign Lord, Reign in Me, Reign in Me, Sovereign Lord, Reign in Me, Captivate my heart, Let your kingdom come, Steadfast stay your throne, Enter will be done, Captivate my heart, Let your kingdom come, Steadfast stay your throne, Enter will be done, Reign in Me, Sovereign Lord, Reign in Me, Reign in Me, Sovereign Lord, Reign in Me, You have been given, and we worship You, Yes, we worship You. You have been given, and we worship You, Yes, we worship You. We are Your people, We pray for Your glory, We worship You, Yes, we worship You. We are Your people, We pray for Your glory, And we worship You, Yes, we worship You. You have redeemed us, Lord, You have redeemed us, From every nation, And we worship You, Yes, we worship You. You have redeemed us, Lord, You have redeemed us, From every nation, And we worship You, Yes, we worship You. We worship You, Yes, we worship You. We worship You, Yes, we worship You. The Lord is speaking right now into the hearts of many people and the Lord has just urged me to speak to you to not forsake or not diminish the importance of what right now as you've been worshipping you've been flushing out the old in your spirit and putting in the new and what the Lord is speaking to you right now for you to know and take hold of it and just wait a moment in quiet and whatever the Lord is speaking to you just take note of it right now and respond to it go ahead yes Lord let our eyes be on Jesus we pray with all of our heart tonight that we would have eyes for Jesus in the midst of a crooked generation be able to walk a straight and narrow path that's pleasing to you Lord will God deliver us from any sense of futility tonight if there's someone here that feels futile that things just are not changing and you feel it's all just futile you're moving inching toward hopelessness I want to tell you right now the Lord is saying to you hold fast to your confidence that you had in the first and you will be delivered says the Lord well I am not a God of futility but a God of hope and a God of deliverance and I shall deliver you says the Lord I shall deliver you says the Lord Oh Father let us now just take encouragement that our prayers are heard and what we're about makes a difference Lord not just in this life as wonderful as it is Lord but in the life to come in Jesus name I ask these things father I asked him to honor Jesus I just want to ask the Lord to speak just into our hearts refreshing us once again let's sing the new song we learned Sunday all we like sheep have gone astray let's make a confession just open our hearts before the Lord as we sing to honor him and bring bring praise we rejected He took us in Draw us near to you Father Through Jesus your Son Let us worship before you Blessed by your blood Oh Lord Show us your mercy and grace Take us to your holy place Forgive our sin And heal our wound We long to be In your presence once again Show us your mercy and grace Take us to your holy place Forgive our sin And heal our wound We long to be In your presence once again In your presence we long to be In Jesus' name Father In Jesus' name Lord renew the passions of our hearts For you alone Lord In Jesus' name Amen Praise the Lord Would you be seated and take your Bibles please Opening them to 1 Corinthians 3 I trust you could all hear the word That was brought forth a little bit ago By the brother on this side of the room How many of you could hear it over here? Anyone that, you did hear it? Alright One of the reasons why we like people to come forward Is that if it's a word from God It'll last from the seat to the platform And then it can be heard And the reason I'm glad it was spoken Because it was a good word And it does confirm what I believe Is integral to the message of tonight And we're going to spend about 25 minutes in the word And then we're going to pray for the last 15 Time of prayer and intercession for our nation Let's read together now In 1 Corinthians 3 In verse 1 Would anyone like some of Sunday's water? It's Okay, well yes It's a bold thing to do here folks That is not living water Or it might be in fact Okay Brothers I could not address you as spiritual But as worldly mere infants in Christ I gave you milk not solid food For you are not yet ready for it Indeed you are still not ready You are still For the wisdom of this world is foolishness In God's sight As it is written He catches the wise in their craftiness And again the Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile So then no more boasting about men All things are yours Let's read those four words All things are yours Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas Or the world Or life or death Or the present or the future All are yours And you are of Christ And Christ is of God About a month ago as I Visited A conference site In Colorado Springs I was invited to go up And take a tour of this Building that was Beautifully preserved in the shape of a castle Just picture in your mind a castle Medieval kind of castle from Europe And on the outside it looked Beautiful and rather Spacious but when I got Inside of it I had no idea How the Architects had constructed It so that it just rambled on There were 32 bedrooms Separate bedrooms With fireplaces in this castle There was huge meeting rooms In fact in one of the meeting rooms Dr. James Dobson had conducted One of his Focus on the Families A Return Your Heart Toward Home movie series It was just Huge just rambling Castle that a man A great railroad tycoon Had built for his Wife who he was trying to Win the affection of About the turn of the century And it didn't work by the way And uh But I came away from that Having thought I was just going to get an ordinary Little look at this thing and been totally overwhelmed At the magnitude of this Accomplishment of building this castle I want to say to you in the next 15 or 20 minutes I picked up 1 Corinthians chapter 3 Expecting to have a good little Refresher in things I already knew And God showed me great and marvelous truths And if I can just impart A little hunger in you to dig some yourself My ministry will have been complete Because this chapter Touches on Some things and reveals some things That I think are absolutely critical In our church right now And beyond that through Those of you who have ears to hear The impact in other churches and other ministries As well There are All kinds of things I could develop tonight But I want to leave time for prayer Because I think that's what the Lord wants us to do But I want us to see just a few Specific truths that come out of this chapter Most of us are familiar With the word carnal and spiritual How many of your Bibles have in verse 1 of chapter 3 I could not address you as Spiritual but as carnal Do your Bibles have that? Well Don't get hung up on these terms alright The word sarx Or fleshly or carnal Is the word in the Greek That really encompassed Everything that had to do with your old nature If the old you had something to do With precipitating a certain behavior It was because of the sarx principle The principle of your fallen nature And so words like Worldly, fleshly, carnal They're all interchangeable Don't get hung up on them Don't make a big doctrine of which word to use The bottom line is When Jesus Christ redeemed us He gave us a new nature Someone say something good That's close Hallelujah Amen we have a new nature But how many of you have discovered that your old nature Still seems to be around There's still a hint of just a little bit of Some of the evidence of that And As we look at this tonight We're going to see just what the fruit Of that carnal Fleshly nature Can do to destroy The work of God And I hope to just bring out a few points That perhaps you can investigate for your own sake Now very quickly as a review Because we missed last week Because of Sandy's ministry Flip back one page In 1st Corinthians 1 We looked at the introduction The thanksgiving and then we found The initial concern of Paul's writing this letter And by the way he wrote the letter From the town of Ephesus About five years After he had been in Corinth And he talks about divisions And remember we talk in Verses 10 through 17 of chapter 1 About divisions and how God hates it He hates factions And divisions and cliques And then Paul writes and begins And he says in verse 18 of chapter 1 Through verse 16 of chapter 2 He says the reason why you have All these divisions and all this strife Is because you're operating by human wisdom You have allowed Yourself to be drawn in to function As the living body of Christ According to human principles And it just doesn't work Because in the kingdom of God Up is down and down is up And have you ever discovered That everything that you learned In the world seems to be backwards In the kingdom of God You know instead of clutching And grabbing on what does God tell you to do Instead of asserting And demanding Your rights what does God tell you to do To let go To yield Instead of having people serve you what does God tell you to do Be a servant You ever wonder why God had everything so upside down And Paul said the reason why you have this strife Is you're operating by worldly ways And so we're going to look here and see That there is a problem in the church in Corinth And the problem is that the people Are not growing Now I appreciate I'm sure that Any of you would Any affirmation that any of us get we all appreciate don't we Have you ever said I'm tired of being affirmed When's the last time you said that I'm tired of feeling good and having people say it Well imagine Being Paul the apostle Let's just change a couple things here Let's say that seven years ago Paul the apostle started How many of you would have come You wouldn't have come I would have come If he had started this church And we read here if you read carefully In the book of Acts that he labored How long did he labor to establish the church anyone know Take a guess Bible scholars come on How long was he there I hear one year do I hear two years No Close eighteen months He labored eighteen months in Corinth Establishing the church Eighteen months he poured in Then guess who followed him on the scene Apollos Known to be the premier Expositor of the scripture The best teacher in the New Testament Much more imposing and much more articulate Than even Paul Now Paul was a better writer But Apollos was a better speaker And could you imagine now Four or five years of Eighteen months of Paul Four or five years of Apollos What kind of people should Corinth be producing By that point Well spiritual ones Paul said And this is the tone you feel Something's wrong here Something's really wrong I should be addressing you as spiritual But instead I'm having to address you As carnal fleshly In fact instead of giving you solid food I'm having to give you what More milk And he's alarmed about that And the worst thing was the Corinthian church Thought that they were what Spiritual They said hey we really got it together Why did they think that Listen up carefully now charismatics Hello Why did they think that They had the gifts Hey let's have a word Let's have a prophecy Let's have a healing And I began to As you look at this you see what was taking place All of this stuff that was happening Was not producing maturity It was producing a lot of Charismatic Gurgle Froth But there was not really substance there And Paul was very concerned And the church thought they were spiritual Have you ever left your kids alone by themselves When they said Hey we can take care of ourselves We've reached that point Remember the first time we did it It was fear and trepidation Didn't get a babysitter Come on parents Remember that It's a very brave moment The first time you leave your kids by themselves And they think that they can handle it I remember one time we did that And we came back and walked in The first thing we smelled was burnt butter And then popcorn You know everywhere Serious serious concerns here Of course you know the kids were In bed and the lights were out And Walked down and you know the television Is burning hot They thought they could handle it But we've learned otherwise And the problem is here In the church That the Corinthians knew positionally Positionally where they were But practically they weren't living out And I want to ask you a question for you tonight Why don't we grow? What keeps us from growing? Well Some of us would say it's the internal struggles I can't seem to resolve My hurts, my pains My internal problems My spirit doesn't seem to be healed I keep hearkening back To the bondages of the past And others would say No it's the externals, it's the temptations It's the problems, it's the people I work with It's my old boyfriend, it's my wife It's my kids, it's my job And those things we create All these reasons I'm wondering I'm wondering tonight If why we don't really grow Is because we really haven't faced We really haven't faced Honestly How desperate How desperate We need to be for God That we don't grow Just naturally Because there's a war going on And one of the things that I've Learned over the years In watching people It's the ones who take a step They're the ones that God inevitably meets And carries on And I could go on here And spend the next ten minutes Describing reasons why Let me just run them down for you I have a little overhead, if you'll jot these down Here's reasons why I see people don't grow Very quickly, let's put them up Yes, another problem Alright, number one They're absent They're absent Hebrews 10.23-25 says what Forsake not the assembly of the saints As is the custom of some I know that it's never easy To discipline your time to be with your home group Or to be in the word of God Or especially to be together when the saints gather But I have to say, church How many of you would say There was a time when you made yourself Go somewhere and you showed up And you didn't really want to be there And God spoke And your life was changed I can tell you time after time I have it journaled in my own personal diary with the Lord When I was changed because I made myself Go to a meeting I didn't want to go to I heard God And let's put off the flesh That says, no, you're too busy You coddle yourself And let's hear the word of God Don't forsake the assembly of the saints Now, you're not the people I need to talk to About this. You're saying, well, you ought to talk to the people on Sunday I'm here tonight I'm not mad about this I'm sad about it I'm sad for the people who will not grow Because, and I've had people tell me For whatever reason, they're just too busy to go Anything but Sunday morning I don't know how they're ever going to tell Jesus that My God, we are the most mobile The most They have the most free time Of any nation in the world Where Ken and Lisa Starkey are going People work Twelve hours a day They wait in line for their food They do everything imaginable And they still have time when the church gathers in the middle of the night to be there Maybe that's what we need to do Wednesday night services will start at 2am No conflicts People are absent Alright, quickly There's an absence of application They'll hear the word James 1, verses 22-25 says Don't be just a hearer, but be a doer Oh God, help us not just to be hearers We hear more than any generation In the face of the earth We have more tapes I can't even sit down in my car anymore I have to sit on tapes to get in More magazines My wife's always piling things in paper bags Take this to your office, get it out of here That's the way it is, Arlene's saying Get it out of your office, take it home It's going back and forth We have so much stuff, so much input But how much of it gets applied? Dear God, people say I just love coming there to Norfolk But are you being changed by the word? Or are you just hearing it? It's no credit to hear it, Jesus said You've got to do it Next, people don't grow because there's an absence of accountability There's a little bit of squirming going on And I want to say I'm sorry, but I'm not Accountability Do you have somebody that's saying How are you doing? Are you faithful? Are you keeping up? Can I help you? Accountability I need it, you need it Don't ever think that the Lone Ranger's going to make it Please be accountable 2 Corinthians 13, 5 and 6 Talk about examining yourself Letting the searchlight Of God's truth through another person's perspective Shine in your life It makes a giant difference in keeping you on track I thank God for the people who've had the courage to say to me And still do Are you really on the right track here? Have you thought about this? Sometimes they're right and sometimes things are fine I love being accountable Because it keeps me safe And that's what happens to you People also don't grow, number four Because of the absence of aspiration They're not hungry 2 Timothy, Paul writing to his favorite disciple And he says Something to the effect I won't take the time to look it up Study to show thyself approved Work at it Who's going to approve him? Some board of a mission outfit? No Approve before God Applying some effort to it How much effort have you put into