Are You a Genie or Like One?

The title is, Are You a Genie? Or, Are You Like One?

My answer is yes.

Now, I know many of you ladies and quite a few of you men would like to be, would like for Barbara Eaton to show up here, the kind of genie that you grew up with, and you think about that.

Don't make Bill walk up and down the beach now, looking for a bottle. Or, maybe it's not the right thing to say, Genie from Atlanta, if you remember that movie. What's his name? Robin Williams played him, and not the best-looking guy in the world. But that's not the kind of genie that I'm talking about today. So, what kind of genie am I talking about? Nope.

Do any of you have a genie garage door opener? No, you do? You have a genie garage door opener? That brand. She thinks she does anyway.

Well, I am comparing us today, metaphorically, to a genie garage screw drive opener. So, are you like a genie screw drive opener? Why do I bring this up? Because 40 years ago, I became a certified, authorized genie repairman, or as we call it ourselves then, a genie service tech. I went to school for about a week, and had to learn everything of the ins and outs of these here. All the parts, how to take one apart. You could even do it in your sleep after they got done with you. And that's what I did for quite a few years. Now, I'm sure you've got this going through your mind. What in the world has that got to do with the Bible?

Hopefully, I can convince you that it does, and that we can learn a lesson to not only have it for ourselves, but to understand other people. The genie garage door opener had two main parts to function properly. It had the core, and the screw drive, and the engine. But there were two main parts that usually, if something went wrong, it was one of these two parts, which was fairly simple.

You just replace one of the two parts. If both parts were bad, then you pretty much threw the thing away and put a new one on. It's amazing because other companies, as we were working at the time, put everything in one place in one body and combine the two so that if that board went out, you had to replace the whole thing. But genie had a little different idea. They actually had a receiving board and a logic board, and they were separated.

And the receiving board was put up towards the top with an antenna that would receive a signal, and then it would relay that to the circuit board. There's a circuit board, the other is a receiving board. The good part was that if there was a lightning strike and it went through your house, usually you just got the receiving board, and you could replace that very simply. And it very seldom then transferred into the circuit board. My metaphoric message today is to help us to understand how God calls and works with us in this life.

He works with other people. I've had a lot of you questions over the years where people have said, am I really called? How do I know I'm called? Maybe I just followed somebody else in. Maybe I don't know. I question myself after all these years. Others have asked, am I really converted? I've been around the church. I've been baptized.

I've been around the church for 20 years. I don't feel like I've ever grown. I'm the same Christian as I was 20 years ago. Others have asked, do I need to be re-baptized? Because what I understand now is a whole lot more than I understood when I was baptized or when I even started attending church. So those are kind of the questions that made me think of this. The receiving board in a genie opener receives a message from the outside. If I had my remote, everybody have a remote, so I'm going to pretend I have a remote.

So this is metaphorically my hand is a remote. But you would get a signal sent from outside, and that signal you could not see, similar to the Holy Spirit. You could not see it, but it relayed a message to the receiving board. And then the receiving board would receive that message and send it down to the circuit board, which would then open or close the garage door with the opener. The receiving board is like our minds. I want you to think about that. Like our eyes and ears that see, sees or hears God's calling. When he decides to call us, like times we don't see or understand it, but he sends stuff to our brain.

It may be something you've seen. It may be something you hear. It may just be at a time that you're just thinking about things. And you're wondering, where did that come from? But God, through his Spirit, is working with us. First it works with us, as we see in the Bible, and then it works in us. I want to show you here some of what I'm talking about so you don't look and say, this guy is nuts.

Turn to John 6 and verse 44. John 6 and verse 44. Christ is preaching an incredible sermon here, and he says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. God, through the Holy Spirit, clicks the Holy Spirit and it goes to you. He begins to call and you start questioning things. And then you read the Bible, maybe even for the first time or the hundredth time, and go, wow, now that makes a little sense. Or before it really didn't. But it is God who calls. You just can't say, well, okay, I found religion. I'm good. Me and God are like this. No, it's more than that. God is working.

And he gives us this incredible mind, as David had that picture of that of our mind, which is the most complicated thing, even more than supercomputers, because the way it can function. And God knew that. And God knew to reach every part of this brain, he could use his most powerful gift, the Holy Spirit, to help us puny humans.

And Christ came to show it could be done. He was that walking, talking example. Go over with me, too, John 6 and verse 65. 65, it says, Therefore, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my Father. So it isn't just Jesus calling people. It wasn't Jesus just calling people at that time. It was he was getting the message from God. It shows here that the Father is involved. You're not here because you go, well, Jesus called me and maybe God won't find out. No. But it's here. We're present because the Father and the Son said, I want them, like recruiters.

And I'm going to do what I can to get them to follow us and be part of our family.

What does Romans 10 and verse 17 say? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So now we can begin to understand why in the past we didn't fully understand a lot of things. I even looked today, I read the Bible for 50 years now, and when I look back, I was going, wow, why didn't I understand that 10 years ago? Why didn't I understand that 40 years ago? Why? Because Christ says it's the living Word. It's the living Word.

And He says, my Spirit is life. It's life. It's actually alive. It's something that He uses. It's that power. It's that energy. So similar to the genie operator, unless a signal is sent, it's clicked.

The receiver of our brain won't work to receive it. God created everything from this human, frail body to that incredible brain to the Holy Spirit, which is actually His energy and power, to everything that exists on this earth. That's why He still controls everything. He's all-powerful, all-knowing, and He's got everything under control. But it's our little minds sometimes that question, where's God? Where was God? As we were talking about a young girl 12 years old that we were praying for in the car on the way up here. Now, God knows. We have to leave it in His hands. You know, it will not, our brains will not understand the things of God. It is so deep. He says at 1 Corinthians 2.10-11 that we may even know the deep things of God. How do we know that? What does the Bible say? Through His Spirit, we will understand it. So there are things we do not understand yet, just because the Spirit has not unleashed that to us. We need to know it. We'll know it. And we already know enough. We already know enough to be in His kingdom. That's why He knows that and He works with us.

But we all have our moments of doubt, don't we? We all, as can become disconnected from God at times. And I would do quite a few service calls around the Murfreesboro Nashville area as a genie service tech. It's amazing to me because someone would call, it's just not working. Can't get my door open. I drive all the way out there, walk up there, and it was unplugged.

I tried not to charge them, unless it was a second or third time they did that, but just plug it in and start it over. Well, I know that sounds humorous from here, but also by counseling people over the years, there's a disconnect from God. I said, just connect it back. It's not complicated. He's waiting for you to plug Him back in through prayer, through study, through meditation, through just talk. Just talk. It's not what He's waiting for. And it's amazing with people who maybe come across God's ways. That's truth. And you can be skinned to see that God is working with them. Otherwise, they wouldn't understand. Because you can definitely tell the people who don't get it, because of the questions of the sarcasm they may give you as a weak-minded Bible-thumper, as I have heard said before. You remember the story of the Ethiopian eunuch? He's coming back from keeping a holy day. Jerusalem, and he can't understand. And he's right on the roof. And he's looking at the book of Isaiah, and he can't understand it. And you remember Philip. Not Philip the Decep, the Apostle Philip the Deacon. He came across and sat there and explained it to him. And he said, how can I, unless I have someone to teach me? Brethren, we have teachers. We have a great teacher. This, we have a teacher through the Holy Spirit. But there are many ways in which we can be taught if our minds are open. We say, no, I understand that. And that's what I want to go through in the Bible study today and make it interactive. I want to hear what you have to say. It isn't what I want to say. I want to hear what you have to say. And I give the same Bible study next week, so Dave's not going to put it on so they can't tune in and steal all your answers next week. But that eunuch was waiting, wanting to know more.

And isn't it amazing that God answered that in an incredible way? Not the way He'd done before. You can't find that story anywhere else in the Bible. That eunuch was unique. God reaches each and every one of us, sometimes in a unique way, at a unique time. And we're wondering, how did that happen? And I wonder if God isn't punching his right side and said, see, I told you they wouldn't get it. Because God loves doing miraculous things. You read the Bible enough, you'll see the miracles there perform. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to do it that way, but He did. So we could read and go, well, I guess I'm not an anomaly after all. I guess that's the way it happens. I have a very good friend of mine in Tennessee. He's been a member for 20 years. And he has an incredible story, but it isn't about him. It's about his father.

His father came across the truth in the Church of God 50 years before he ever answered the call. He came across it. He realized there was something to this. And God had been working with him. And he sent his tithes faithfully to this Church for over 40 years and never stepped a day in the Church. Never stepped a foot. There came one day. In fact, he didn't even come close.

The son never knew why. Why he didn't do that. And the only time he came across a minister before right towards the end of his life was when he called a minister when he was in jail and asked the minister to bail him out of jail. And the minister did. Yet, never showed a sign of coming to the Church for 40 years. And his son, he became old enough, he became a professional boxer. He got up to number four in the world. Just wait. And he never went to Church. But like his father, he thought there was something to it. And he started tithing and sent 10% of his earnings every time. And he really didn't know why. Other than he knew, his father knew. And so he decided to go and talk to his father about religion. And said, I found this other church. And I think you should... He said, I think I need to go to that church. I really feel good. I went there and I really feel good. And his father was very cross with him and said, no, this is the true Church of God. And he said, well, why don't you go?

He never got that answer until decades later. And his father came down with cancer. And his father got a hold of a minister. And a minister came and visited him. I knew the minister, one of my mentors from Alabama. And came, met with him. And eventually, three months before he died, he was baptized. And started attending church. And his wife and son, of course, attend to this day. Why did it take so long? Why? Why? I want to hopefully go into that. Because we can all relate to when it finally clicked for us at a time. I remember mine. Perhaps you remember yours. Maybe the light bulb just didn't come on, but you were just kind of like, oh, there's a click. And if I had my remote, I could tell you from servicing Christ Door Openers that when you hit that button inside, there's a click. And you can hear it. And so somebody could stand outside, and I would know whether it was the remote that wasn't working, because the click never happened. It never received it. But I would wait to hear that click. Then I knew there was a connection. Well, that is what God has done or is doing with the people who he calls. We don't always understand. We sometimes think, well, God must be working with them. Maybe. We can't tell. They may be asking the question, what's wrong with those people?

What is it said? It says that many are called, sent the signal. Many are sent the signal, but they never stick or never last.

Yes. Why is that? I want to go to this incredible story, because we all know Matthew 22 and verse 14 says, many are called, but few are what? Chosen. But that's the end. That's the last verse in a story. So if you will join me in Matthew 22. Matthew 22. I like to look at that story, because it's about us, and it's about those who are called, and how we sometimes we don't fully understand how God's working or why he's working with it. Why would he? And why doesn't he work with? What's wrong with?

There's a process. There's a receiver, and there's a circuit board that has to be activated. So reading from Matthew 22 and verse 1 from the New King James Version, it said, And Jesus spoke to them again by parables. She's a story which is comparison. The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage to his son. Sound familiar? Aren't we prepared as a church, as the body of Christ, to marry the king's son? And he sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the... What are we going to talk about in Bible study? The wedding. And they were not willing to come. Wait a minute. The signal was sent.

And they were invited. It came through up here, but they didn't want it. Now, it's not that important. Obviously. Verse 4, again, he sent out other servants saying, Tell those who are invited, see, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding. He's begging them. Begging them. And he's going to give them the best at the wedding. At the wedding. Huh? They didn't come. They didn't come. Why was Christ telling this story? Because he was talking to some of the people who had been called, who had the opportunity even at that time. They didn't. Who's this weird preacher? Wait a minute. Where did he get this training? Verse 5, But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. I mean, they were too busy for God. I got other things that need to be taken care of, and who's going to take care of them? I don't. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Except to God. It's not.

And the rest seized his servants, those who came to invite. Sound familiar? Treated them spitefully and even killed some of them. Remember the Old Testament prophets? Even Isaiah having to run from Manasseh's men at 90 years of age, and climbing a tree, an old fallen tree, trunk to get away, and they sought him in too. Got a saw on each side and saw this prophet. They didn't want to hear. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. He sent out his armies and destroyed those murders and burned up their city. Remember Jerusalem? How many times? How many times did Jerusalem have to go through that?

Then he said to his servants, the wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore, go into the highways as many as you can find and invite to the wedding. Remember last-minute people may be brought in. They may have some issues or some problems. He said, go get them. I'm going to open them. I want to see if their minds are there. So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together, all whom they found, both bad and good. Well, why would he do that? Well, when did he start calling only good people?

Your pastor was not a good person a long time ago. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. So what is he telling us? It's going to happen. He's going to have his number. It's going to be full. And there's going to be some people go, why are they there? And Christ is going to say, why aren't, why are you there? Verse 11, when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. Remember what described the wedding garment in Revelation, as we're talking about? White linen, which was what? Righteous acts of the saints. This guy thought he could slide in with no righteous acts, without being a saint. And look what God said. So he said to him, friend, can you imagine that? Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment, or without any preparation, without anything? You think you're just going to slide into the wedding supper? You think you're really going to do that? You're going to be able to hide out with some friends of yours who are in the church? And yet before God, you're naked?

And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him in an outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And then it says, for many are called, but few are chosen. So who are they called? They represent the many who hear the message. They hear the... they get the signal that's been clicked, that's been sent from God through the Holy Spirit. They hear it. They understand it and have the way of life open to them. They begin to understand these the words written in here. That maybe they never understood before. But what happens most of the time in my experience? They quit. They quit. Other things pull them away. One man told me, he never did, told me in tears at his house.

I just, I just can't stand to read the Bible anymore. I said, because you can't see? No. I just don't understand it. I said, you did it one time. And he said, yes. So he quit reading and that distance and that spirit that was sent to help him, he began to quench it. He quenched it. And he died without any faith.

He didn't know. But he refused. I said, let's go and read the Bible. And he said, I can listen to you, but I don't want to read it. Does that make sense to you? Yes. Educated. College graduate. He just didn't want to. He didn't want to be convicted by the words that are in that Bible. And if you don't want to be convicted, you don't want to be changed, you don't want to be motivated, you want to be moved, don't read the Bible. Because it's there. It's spirit and it's living. And it wants you to change. It wants you to be like Christ. That's why it's given. And its power didn't happen.

Another man couldn't pray. This man died with absolutely no faith. He couldn't pray. I said, you just need to make that connection again. Those two examples had been away from the truth they were. They knew the truth. They once received this Holy Spirit 30 years before, and they left everything. And then they wanted to find their way back. And they found that the spirit had been so quenched. And one said, I just can't pray. I said, let's go down on our knees right here. Both of us. And I'll start. And I started. Couldn't do it. This was a 65-70 year old man. He could not pray. I did that three times. Three trips to his house trying to get him. Nope. What would you do? I had to turn him over to God. I can't. We can only do so much. That's why it's so important. So we talk about the call, but then there's a chosen. The chosen represent the few who actually accept the signal that's sent. Respond to the invitation and follow what this word says. It becomes personal. They begin to enjoy reading it, enjoy talking to God, even when they have to say, God, I goofed again. I messed up again. Did the same thing. Even God knows. He knows. Weakness.

Which brings us to why.

Why? Metaphorically, it's the circuit board. It's about the circuit board, not the receiving board. The second board that I talked about represents our hearts. It's our hearts. The receiving board is about our mind, and that's what God goes to first, our mind, because everything he tells us, everything in this book is logical. It's very logical. What he said, you do this, you'll be blessed. You do this, you'll be cursed. You know, it gives examples of people who just messed up, but it can't just be here. And that's why so many people lose out. They lose the connection. I could replace the receiving board if it was bad, but if the circuit board was bad, it's not going to work. And this is the same way with God. You can have it all up here. You can talk to people who have PhD after PhD in religious studies. It's up here. But see, it has to come to the circuit board. It has to come to the heart so that the two are working together. God wants us to have it here. That's how it's going to stick. Otherwise, it won't stick. Because your heart's not in it, as the old saying goes. Go to Matthew 2, Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6.

Verse 4 and verse 5. Deuteronomy 6. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Who is God talking to here? Because Moses is writing this. Who's he talking to? The children of the children of Israel. The children of the children. Their parents had already died in the wilderness. They wandered around for 40 years. Now, Deuteronomy, this is just the last 30 days of Moses' life. He's writing this, and God wants him to have. So listen up, Joe. It's got to be about the heart. You got to do it because the others may have understood at one time what God was trying to do, but it was never in their heart. That's why they failed 40 years. That's why my friends, the men I tried to work with, they failed after 30 years of just having it appear. And yeah, they would love to tell me how they would go to their jobs or work, and they would talk religion, and they could just put people on the spot because they understood so much. And the people didn't understand, and they were amazed at these guys. Yet it was never here. Never here was never in the heart. It has to be more than had knowledge, brethren. It has to be. God needs heart people. He needs you to be a heart person, where it's more than just, yeah, I like reading the Bible, but I'm not obsessed with it. You see these people who can follow a sports team and just live and die with their sports team. It's just, and there's a passion there. It's just not up here. They can tell every player on the team exactly how big he is, everybody's done, but it's like, it's here when they start playing. I don't care if I have to miss work. I've got to see the game. Right? That is the kind of head and heart that God wants us to have for him. I didn't watch the game, of course, last night. There's a basketball game. New York Knicks playing Spurs. What? You watch? No. See, no, I catch you.

But now they're saying, I was reading a little article that now tickets are astronomical. You can buy a vehicle for what the ticket's going to cost on Monday's game. In New York, they're going to pay seven, eight, ten thousand dollars for a ticket because they haven't been there for 27 years and they're just so excited that they're willing to, some of them are going to their 401Ks. Why this money? Because they want to be there and see this game. Now, we would all laugh about that. I hope you would. You know? But God wants us to be that passionate about him and his way and his family. This is why I have given this metaphoric message today. Because it makes total sense to me because of what I learned from my tech school. And when I read God's Word, that's what's so important. He wants us to have not just head, but heart. Joshua, you'll turn with me to the book of Joshua.

Joshua 22 towards the end of the book of Joshua.

22 in verse 5. Joshua is splitting up the land and he's given everybody as they've come into the Promised Land and he's splitting up the tribes and he's trying to send them off. But then he realizes that they're all going to go and do their own thing. It will no longer be just the tribe of Israel, but every tribe will have their own and they'll have their own priests and they'll have their own cities of refuge. They're going to have all this stuff and he wants them. He wants to leave this because he went through. Only he and Caleb and their families are the only ones that lived through that whole 40 years. And he's wanting the children not to make the mistakes that the parents had made. And then in verse 5, he says, But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So what was Joshua saying? You need to be like a New York Knicks fan.

You need to do everything you can to stay close to God and love him with all your heart, your soul.

It's that important. He knew it and he knew they would fail if they did not do it. He knew that he and Caleb had that. They had the head, they had the heart. And that's what took him there. That is what is going to get you into the kingdom of God. It's not just having that up here, but having it here. Go with me to Matthew 22. Let me get back there. Matthew 22.

As we talked about that wedding feast, and you come down to verse 37.

Christ said it all right here. And he put it all together. He finished my sermon for me. Jesus said to them, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. Heard that before, right? All your soul and with all your mind. All your minds. Your heart and your mind. He wants it all. Christ, your Savior, your Lord, your Master, your future King says this is the only way it's going to happen.

This is what I want you to do. Amos said in verse 40, these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. But he puts the mind in there. The others didn't. All your heart with all your soul with all your being. And he says, your mind. You have to have the mind. Why would he do that?

Because they ask him, the reason the answer is, what is the greatest commandment? Which is the greatest commandment in the law? And he gave this one. No doubt. No doubt at all. Yet there's a warning comes here. A warning that I have seen too. Just as I saw those who only had it in their minds, I've run into people who only had it in their hearts.

They only worship God. They follow God by emotion. I want to be moved. And God wants you to be moved. David was moved. Even by music or by saying certain things or just celebrating and have others. And God wants you to, but you can't have that alone. There is a knowledge of God. There is a way to worship God. And one young lady told me, said, man, I can listen to music about God. And I just get so excited. And I said, what do you read when you read? Do you read the Psalms? No, I don't really need to read. I just need to listen. And I said, but the words of life, as Christ said, the words of life are here. That's what you, and she goes, yes, but I just don't really enjoy reading.

I just want to be touched.

To feel good. Yes. Yes. And I've had people tell me, I didn't want to come, I've had them in the Caribbean say, and you may have heard this too, your service aren't lively enough for me.

They're just not live. And I'll say here, I wish our music had more David in it. I wish it had more zeal. I wish it had this, and I want to have it. I keep pushing the home office for these wonderful songs that are out there free to us, to put it so we could, so you could have it because you need that, but you can't have that just alone.

And then I was invited on the island of St. Lucia, I was invited to a church service, and they kept the Sabbath, but they invited me to come after ours, preach sermon, and I went over to theirs. And maybe two scriptures were quoted, the rest was just all emotion. People coming up, guy putting his hands on them, and then more people would come up as soon as they would leave, and it was just like, oh, do you feel it? Oh, yes, yes, yes. I was there for over an hour, and they were still going on with that.

Oh, I felt it, but it wasn't what they were talking. I felt, wow! And I looked around the room, and it was all a show. It was all a show, and it has to be more than that. Yes, and it makes me, oh, well, I feel good, and we should feel good. That's why I enjoy this man leading songs back here. He doesn't halfway do it, but he gives it. Yeah, he feels that. If David was here, he would be going, wow, Stan's pretty good. Why? Because David, if he was here when he sang, when he wrote these music, he was going to be up. He was going to be, you know, because he felt it. He was a man after God's what? Yes. God wants us to be after what? His own heart. This is what he wants from us. This is what's powerful. This is our destiny. I look forward to that coming kingdom. I look forward to those services. Will they be like this one? Don't think so. Don't think so.

Do I enjoy what we do? Yes. But is there more? I think so. I think there's more. I think there's more. So it just can't be a, what is that? Joy, joy, joy, joy, deep in my heart. What? Deep in my heart. What? Deep in my heart. I found the joy, joy, joy. See, now he's not nervous. He can sing.

Yes. This is what we have to understand. It takes two. Is the old Marvin Gaye song? You remember Marvin Gaye? It takes two. It takes two, baby. It does take two. God understood it. It takes it here, and it takes it here. It takes the mind. It takes the heart. It takes the receiving board. It takes the circuit board, and it creates a beautiful piece of machinery called human to worship. It's not one or the other. It's both. God made one beautiful machine. He created this body. He created the heart, and He created that incredible mind. And what does He tell us to do? Use it. Use it. And use it to worship me.