Well, I am crazy excited about sharing this morning. I've got so much that it's going to take two weeks to even scratch the tip of the iceberg. So let me open up in a word of prayer, and then we'll dive in and you can open up to James chapter 4, which is the bulk of where we're going to be. But pray with me. Father, thank you. Thank you for this week. Thank you for thanksgiving and the foundation of this country and just those who sought you and wanted that freedom to seek you personally. And Father, I thank you also for this past week and what new level that you are teaching me. And I pray that in some way I can get out of the way and you can share with all of us through your truth just a glimpse of what you're teaching me in this area of how to really experience clarity and connection to the fullness of the abundant life. So, Father, this morning we just offer this to you. Speak through your word to our hearts and help us to be truly changed in your presence. And it is only through the blessing and the gift of Jesus that we can pray. Amen. Well, in James chapter 4, I want to just share a couple verses there, but let me, I need a little bit of interaction here, okay? And here's the way you're going to interact. This means yes. This means not so much. Okay? This means absolutely, this means not on your life. All right? Thumbs up good, thumbs down, not so much. Here's what I want you to do. I want everybody to vote. We're not, this is not technical, but this week got an experience. What would it be like for you if you had a week with no cell phone whatsoever? Up or down? Down, up, okay. Same type question. If you had the inability to text up or down, no, for an entire week, no texting whatsoever. Okay. We'll go a little bit one more technological. How about a week where you have zero email whatsoever? Zero, you cannot communicate at all with email. Wow. Interesting. Now, the fate of all fates, a fate worse than death. How about a week where you had zero television for an entire week? Zero, none, not even access. Wow. That's great. I'll throw one more at you. What about a week where you were, there were no restaurants, no ability to go even through a drive-thru, zero restaurant. There's a lot of thumbs down on that one. That's oh, I can give up TV, but not food. This past week, we had a unique opportunity. Um, I gotta give you a quick background, especially those of you who may have not known. I've shared about Donald and Christy, my friends. Donald and I helped start a little contemporary service at a at a church several years ago. And uh the first time we met, we were the ones who set up chairs for this service. And Donald, extremely successful, owned his own landscaping business. Wife was an executive with a major computer company. And uh through this two, three-year period where we became friends, they literally got to the point where they were kind of on the fringe of going to church. Just, you know what, we we like these parts, but not these. We kind of go, we're not really plugged in. And we started setting up chairs and we started just doing life together. And Christy had asked Donald several times, wow, what do you think about maybe doing a mission trip? A mission trip, just a mission trip. And Donald's his response was always, never. I have zero desire to do a mission trip. Zero. Well, as life would have it, I actually have never been on one, and I went on a couple. I went down to Haiti for a week, uh, went to Ecuador for a week and kind of some advocacy work, saw some stuff. I've shared about those, and I came back and shared kind of what God was teaching me through those. And Donald and Christy were at that, and Christy thought, I'll try it one more time. You really love Ken, and you and Ken do a lot of stuff together. What do you think about a mission trip now? And he said, I have zero desire to go on a mission trip. But he said, I think God may be stirring our hearts. I think we need to begin to pray about selling everything and just going indefinitely. And she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Just wanted to go a week and maybe help some orphans or something. I'm just saying. Well, fast forward several months later, and I can share the details, and I have shared several of them with you. They ended up doing just that. Um, they sold everything. Everything. And they now are in Costa Rica. Dominical, Costa Rica, to be specific. And this past week, and months and months and months ago, we decided, me and another, my wife, and another couple decided that we would go as families just to visit them, see where they were, see what God was doing and how this all happened was stunning. So we made that decision, and this week was the week we flew down there. And I got to give you a little bit of uh just I want you to put yourself into the situation. Costa Rica, beautiful, beautiful country. The rainforest almost throughout the entire country. Beautiful country physically. From an economic standpoint, it's Central America. And if you can imagine Central America, probably what a lot of what you've seen in the movies, if you've seen a Central American setting, is true. I want you to think about this. We flew into San Jose. Think about a city. No, I will say this. There are some resorts on the coast, beautiful resorts, maximize the beach and some of the rainforest. We did not go to that area. Those are great places from what I've heard. Think about the worst part of Atlanta. The worst part of Atlanta, where you drive through and you don't really want to stop. And there's bars on all the windows, and there's razor wire around some empty lots that you're thinking, wire there, razor wire around that lot. That is the entire country of Costa Rica. And I had to laugh because I thought, okay, from the airport to the hotel, maybe they'll probably have a shuttle, but let me get some map quest just in case. So I map quested, and here was map quest. Leave the airport, get on the road, drive 6.8 kilometers and take a right on the road. And I thought, okay, they've obviously not mapped out this country or whatever. We get there, and guess what? There's no road names anywhere. And the road is a very loose term. Streets, there is pavement in San Jose, there's pavement, but in many places there's no lines. And people take full advantage of that. Just, you're everywhere. I cut off a bus, and I think the guy is still searching to kill me right now because I'm following this guy and I'm like, oh, it was a thrill ride to beat all thrill rides. And we we finally get to the hotel. I'm like, huh. And then our friends are going to pick us up the next morning and drive us out of the city to Dominicau. Dominicau is a one road, not paved, mud road, and potholes every three feet road. You have to have a four by four to drive on the road in Dominicau. And that's the city, the town. We stayed just outside in the suburb of Dominicau, in Dominicalita, which is up the steepest mud hill I've ever seen. It's over a mile uphill, and the incline would be illegal in the United States. I mean, that's how steep this was. You had to have a four by four, but to get to the road, you had to drive through, not over, through a river. Through a river. Just to get there. And we did this every day, and I'm like, huh. And then it's in the middle of the rainforest. And that's where we were for the past week. I did not touch a cell phone all week. I did not have access. There's no Wi-Fi in the rainforest in certain places. Didn't see a TV. Didn't return an email because I didn't have a computer. And there are no restaurants. There were a few, but the few that there are in this area, I love this. There's no set time. They may be open, they may not be open. We passed this one pizza place, I'm like, pizza, can we go there one night? They're like, oh, not this time of year. And I was like, what? Like, yeah, the tomatoes aren't really ripe, so they don't have any tomato sauce, so they can't make pizza. And I'm like, really? Just a total mind warp of changing the way we live. No cell phone, no texting, no TV. And even with the sun coming up and down, when you're in the rainforest, there's a lot of critters in the rainforest. And they're drawn to light. So when the sun goes down, you turn out the lights, you go to bed. And in the morning, when the sun comes up, they're not on a clock. They don't have, well, they have roosters, but their version of a rooster is called a howler monkey. That's a really good interpretation of what they do in the morning. And there's hundreds of them. And they get up just before dawn, and that's where we live for a week, and it was amazing. And the word that came up several times from Donald and Christy and the people that we met there was, We live in paradise. And I was like, Really? And by the end of the week, I began to agree. Because I met some of the people, and I've just became part of that lifestyle to where you get up, and it's very little about the gadgets and the distractions of life, and a lot about doing life with each other. And I began to see how they lived and why they lived and the decisions that they made. And I dare say that they had a better grasp of what community means and the first church, what that looked like than anything I've seen here. Not to put down what we live and what we do, but I began to see, wow. One other quick aside, I love this. Donald and Chrissy said, Yeah, the first month we lived here, we were broke into three times and they stole everything. And we talked to the police once we got a hold of them. They said, Was it more than $500? And we're like, well, you know, probably not this time. And they're like, well, unless it's $500, we don't even file a report, we don't do anything. They're like, wow, that's good to know. And I heard this story several times of people that have moved down there, and they're like, oh, yeah, we got broken in. They stole everything. Yeah, it's okay. It's paradise. I'm like, wow. Okay. So get that mindset. And in the middle of this, one of the places in Dominicao, this one mud road place, all the potholes, is a little place called the refuge. It's some of the time, it's a restaurant. They serve really great hamburgers there. And we ate there a couple times. And Mike runs the refuge, and he's a pastor of a church. It is not a building, it's just in this little open-air place where they serve hamburgers and smoothies across the street from the Pacific Ocean. And they invited us. They invited us to be a part of their Bible study on Tuesday morning. And as I sat there with this hodgepodge of a couple retired guys, a couple former convicts that had just radically turned their life over to Christ and were called down there. One I asked, I said, you know, how'd you get here? He's like, you know what? I was working landscape in California and I had this vision while I was doing weeds one day. I literally was just a bright light. And I said, move to Baruch, Costa Rica. And he's like, what? And I looked it up online. There is a Baruch, Costa Rica. 65 people live in Baru, Costa Rica. So I sold everything and I came down here. And I'm like, really? That's wow. And I was blown away at story after story like that of people just going, you know what? God laid on my heart. So I came here, and this is what God is doing now. And in that little Bible study, they're doing a verse by verse, and little did I know as I'm praying through, God, I'm here. I'm here to encourage my friends. But God, whatever you want to show me, show me. Whatever you want to teach me, teach me. We're here to serve. We're here to supposedly go to some orphanages, which ended up not happening to the degree we wanted. God, we're just here. What do you want to do? And in this Bible study, it was this time and this setting. Each morning I would get up on the side of this mountain, and it was one of the most stunning views on this planet. I would sit on the little veranda when the howler monkeys woke me up, and you could see over the rainforest to the Pacific Ocean, to the islands and the rocks, and I just sat there each day going, God, you are really good at this stuff. And look at this. And I would sit in awe and I would just say, God, I don't know fully while I'm here. I want to come and encourage my friends, but teach me. Teach me. And what I learned this past week is that I have some decisions to make. Because as I talked to these different people from every socioeconomic level of life in the U.S. that were there, I realized that there was a level of clarity and a level of connectedness with God that I did not have. And I thought partly it was the setting, and I believe it is partly the setting. But even more than that, I thought, well, God, where can I go? What can I do? How do I grasp this? And by no mistake, I'm convinced God led the Bible study that morning to this one segment of James chapter 4, verses 7 through 10. Because if I want to have the clarity that these men had, the transformation that I saw in their lives, I had to make some decisions, some fundamental decisions. And this morning I would even say that you and I, if we'll take these decisions and let them permeate our hearts. And if we make these decisions, and it's not a one-time, okay, I'm there, okay, let's go change me. It's an ongoing decision. I want us to take a look at these decisions. In James chapter 4, verses 7 through 10, it says this submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve mourn and wail, change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. The decisions we have to make, if we want clarity. I want you to think for a second what you're going through right now in life. Maybe it's I'm struggling in an area of my life, financial, relational, vocational, whatever, or maybe it's a directional piece. God, I I know there's something more, and I'm not there. Whichever it is, whatever it is. Maybe you're seeking and going, you know what? I've tried life and I've had some success or I've had some experience, but it's still empty. We have to make a decision. The decisions that I see in this passage, the first one is the first two words of verse 7. I have to decide to submit myself. I have to decide to submit myself to God. That's not very popular in our society. I have to submit to God. Wait a minute. Submit? That's not a popular word. But here's what I've discovered, and I've spent three days developing this as I watched these people, and I began to look at what do they have that I don't? And they had a purpose, even though it wasn't spelled out. They had clarity in life and direction that I do not have, a level I didn't have that I want. And I began to write this statement multiple times, and here it is. Don't miss this. God reserves greatness and clarity for those who seek him most intimately. He reserves greatness and clarity to those who seek him most intimately. I watched these people, one and I'll call him Dominique because that was his name. And Dominique, troubled past. I didn't learn all of it. He shared some of it. But he had a clarity of thought and purpose and a grasp on scripture and a motivation that I'm just like, how can a 20-something-year-old have that? And I'm sitting here 40-something and going, wait a minute. I I I probably know collectively more scripture, but this guy, man, he would go, you know, there's a verse, I think it's in Galatians, it's I think it's chapter 6, it's verse 7 or 8, and bang, he was on it. Because he was consumed with God's word. He used the term over and over and over. He says, you know what? The very thing that got me in trouble in my life was that when I do something, I'm all in. He says, I was all in the wrong direction. And then God grabbed my heart. And once I realized God was who he said he was, he says, I'm all in. And he said, I I he doesn't watch TV. One, because there's no TV. He doesn't text a lot because he doesn't have a cell phone. But what he loves to do, loves to do, is read his Bible and talk about it and grapple with it. Hey, what do you think about this verse? What do you think that means? And you know what it's talking about? And he's a big buff of revelation, which blew me. We spent one day talking for over an hour. He goes, you know, this, I think this is the beast of this because this multiplied over here, and this, and he's going back and forth between new and old, and I'm like, How long have you been doing this? Like, you know, a year. Really? And I said, Do you just study? He goes, No, sometimes I just hang out with God. I just go on the beach and I walk and I talk to him, and we just we just spend time and I just hang out with God. And I'm like, I want that. I want that. That's submitting myself to God. Because God says, I want to be your guide, your director, your forgiver, your provider. Will you let me? I saw in Dominique that he lets him. And then I begin to say, okay, well, what, okay, submit myself. I need to go all in. Because with God, there's not another way, but all in. If I want the clarity and I want to truly experience the greatness he made for me individually, I've got to become intimate. How do I do that? In verse 8, come near to God and He will come near to you. Well, what does that mean? How do I do that? I love the visual of the next verse, and we talked about this some. Look what it says next. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you're double-minded. Well, okay. How many of you at any point in your life have had a mom? Okay, that's most of you. Alright. When did you hear your mom say, hey, go wash your hands? When do mom say that most? Before what? Before you eat. Before we eat. What he's saying here is, hey, prepare yourself to ingest. You want to draw near to God? Prepare yourself. Prepare yourself to ingest my truth. And then, how many of you have ever heard your mom after you ate? Now you can't go swimming for 30 minutes. You remember this? Because you'll sink to the bottom and you cannot swim. It's impossible to swim if you go for 30 minutes afterwards. Because my mother was convinced that your blood was all in your stomach and you could not move physically unless you digested your food. And that is exactly what he's talking about here. He's saying, hey, prepare yourselves to ingest the truth and then digest it. Dwell on it. Take it in. Don't rush through it. Digest, ingest, and take the time. And what happens there is an amazing transformation. We move away from seeing our circumstances and trying to find God in the midst of those circumstances. To putting on what I love Ravi Zacharias calls God glasses. When I take the time to ingest his truth, sit in his presence, digest that truth, hang out with God, and let that truth. With my world, then I begin to see my circumstances through God's eyes. And it changes everything. So where am I today? Let me ask the question for you because it's the one I'm asking myself. Where are you today? Am I just rushing through life trying to, okay, pick up a verse here? I got my five-minute quiet time. Okay, God, that's great. And I hope that it all works out. Here's my problems. Deal with that, change them all, take them away. That'll be great. Now I gotta go. Or am I truly taking the time to wash my hands, ingest the truth, digest the truth, hang out and let God merge that truth with my reality so I can see my life through his eyes. Because God reserves greatness and clarity for those who seek him most intimately. Draw near to him, and he will draw near to us. And it really is about our approach. I'm not going to go into it in depth, but look at verse 9 with me for a minute. Grieve and mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. That's an upbeat verse, isn't it? And see, here's the motive behind it. Change the way we think. Underline that word, change. He's not saying you shouldn't laugh, you shouldn't have joy. He's saying you need to have laughter. You need to have joy, but it's not going to come from the way we decide to do life. It will not come that way. It will come from us going, God, I'm changing to your way. I'm not looking for the quick fix. I'm not looking for the momentary party. Because those always have a hangover and regrets. He says, change that thought process. Because my way, the party's even bigger. And it's always good, it always gets better, and there is no hangover to my party. He says, the way you're doing it is weeping and you're laughing when you should be mourning. Because your way will always lead you to something worse and more empty. But my way, my way is the last decision we have to make, and that is humble yourself before the Lord, and he will lift you up. I submit to him, I draw near to him, and then I say, God, not my way, your way. I'm going to humble myself. I wish I had a full grasp of this. I do not. Because we landed last night and I had a glitch in getting my car out of parking and I just lost it. And I had to stop after it was all over, and I said, God, I didn't even make it home an hour. And I've totally blown it. Because I didn't humble myself. When those circumstances slapped me in the face, I started swinging back. And God is like, humble yourself. Can I even in the details that you don't understand? I'm here all the time. And I'm working it for your good. And I'm in the process all the time. I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you, and I'm in the midst of it. Trust me. And this is one of my favorite verses. This is another verse I hit while I was reading. In the margins of James, I want you to write this down. 2 Chronicles 2012. 2 Chronicles 2012. I'm not going to give you the full background, but here's the simple background. Jehoshaphat, good king facing an army that was going to destroy them. He was overwhelmed. I want you to get that word in your mind. Overwhelmed. And yet here's what he says, and it really ties the submission and the clear and the humble together. He says, For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. And then here's the line we do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. This morning, is there any area of life where you feel like, I don't know what to do? I don't know what to do. God help. My encouragement and what I'm learning right now is that not only to ask for that help, but begin to draw near to God. God, I'm all in. And God, I don't know what your word has to say about this area, but I'm going to get into it. Because if I spend some time and let you direct me through your word, I know you're going to bring me across something. Then I'm going to digest it. And then Lord, as I face this, I know that you can guide and direct me in it. I want to find that. Here's what I would encourage you to do one of the pieces I did during my time on the veranda. List out every worry, dream, anxiety, hope that you have. And say, God, I want your way in this. Because I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on you. I went down to encourage some friends in Dominical, in the suburb called Dominicalita. And we drove back and forth through the rivers. When we left, they were encouraged. There were tears. They said, This has been the best week since we've been down here. And I said, Well, at least now you can get some rest because two families invading your world, it was a wonderful chaos. But at the same time, I thought, you know what, we're going to go serve some orphanages. We barely got to help with one orphanage while we were there. And what I thought was just the off time where we were just going to get to have some fun, as I look back and as I process it, very well may have been God's purpose in it. See, because there were some young men in this village whose dads work a lot, and we got to spend some time with them. We went at a Bible study with this group of young boys, I would say about 12 through about 18. Two of them, Geordie and Caleb, spoke very little English. I think they understood a whole lot more than they realized. They said, Hey, send your boys down and we'll teach them to surf. And they taught my boys how to surf in the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica. It was unbelievable. I tried to surf too. They kind of taught me. I got to where I could get up on my knees, but I got on top of my knees. I never got up. I think the waves rode me a whole lot more than I rode the waves. But we had a blast. And they would come with us and we would eat with them and we would hang out with them and we would laugh with them. And I saw them interacting with my boys and our friends' daughters and just talking and laughing and being. And our friends, Donald and Christie, said, I've never seen them come to life like that. It's becoming real. God is becoming real to these young boys. And that may have been the purpose. I don't know the full purpose. But I do know I need to make these decisions. And dare I be so bold to say that we need to make these decisions. If I want clarity and if I want greatness, the fullness of life that God has for me. There's way too much to share in one session, but I will say this until we come to the point where we submit ourselves all in to God, we don't have a hope of finding life to the abundance. And then there's a simple step of clarity when I draw near to God, preparing to take his word and digesting that word. And then to humble myself in it. I don't know where you are, what decisions you need to make, but I know that's God. And I know he wants us to be there. If you don't know him personally, that's the first step. That submission to go, God, here's my life. Please forgive me. Show me who you made me to be. Don't miss that. And for those of us who know him, to say, you know what? I want that clarity. I want that full life purpose that you alone can give. And this week, God, show me how to humble myself when I get slapped in the face. Let me close in a word of prayer, and then I want to share one quick thing about next week. God, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to get this out for my sake. Indelibly write it on my heart this week. Lord, I pray that I would move away from being distracted and into drawing near to you. Because I want destiny, not distraction. So, Father, draw my heart to you. And I pray that for us as well. And it really is only through Christ we can pray. Amen. I met Jesus in Costa Rica. Not a guy named Jesus. I did meet a couple of those too. But I actually saw Jesus physically. There's a verse in the Bible, and I'll share it next week, that tells us how to see Jesus physically. And I saw him last week on Tuesday, to be specific. And I had lunch with Jesus physically. And I'm going to share that next week. It was not what I expected. And I'll never forget it, but I'm still processing everything that happened in that time during that lunch. And it was bizarre. And that whole day went from bizarre to amazing based on those two experiences of what happened at lunch and then what happened later that day. I went from feeling completely gross to the cleanest I've ever felt in my life. And it was all in this one period of time. And it was because of this verse that God kind of showed me. Here's how you see me. Here's how you can experience me physically seeing me. And then what I can do through your heart emotionally and spiritually. And next week will be this mission. I've titled this Mission Possible because I think it is possible that we come to the place where we experience God's fullness, but we have to make decisions. And I discovered it on a mission trip. So I can't wait to see you guys next week. God bless you guys. Thanks for letting me share this morning.