Are You Letting Excuses Keep You From Responding to God?

Here are some actual excuses that children have given because they did not do their homework. I picked out what I thought was the most creative ones that I could find. I didn't do my history of homework because I don't believe in dwelling in the past. I know some kids. I have a grandchild that would say this. I didn't want the other kids in the class to feel bad. Our furnace broke and we had to burn my homework to keep ourselves from freezing. Now this kid's scary. I'm not at liberty to say. It was destroyed—this is pretty creative here—it was destroyed in a freak accident involving a hippo, a toaster, and a bag of frozen peas. You don't want to know the details. My mom used it as a dryer sheet. Now this one wasn't necessarily an excuse because I remember doing this. We had homework. I mean, I just—a little guy—I just—oh, I forgot about homework. We had homework. And then this is a person who's going to become a politician. I spent the night at a rally supporting higher pay for our hardworking teachers. And excuse is what we give when we don't have a valid reason. We don't have a valid reason for what we did or didn't do or the choice that we made. So we make up an excuse. And we can try to convince ourselves—and we do this as children, we do this as adults—that somehow our excuse is legitimate. It's valid. It's just as valid as if I would have done my homework or if there would have been a real emergency. And we can convince ourselves of that and get very good at playing this game of convincing ourselves of excuses.

Mr. Congress' sermonette was perfect to lead into what I'm going to talk about.

I had thought about this—I thought about Jesus Christ coming back or what we do every day in our lives and our interaction with God. And we know what we should be doing, and maybe we should think about sort of a pre-interview today where God's asking you, are you preparing for the interview? And what excuses are you giving Him? Not valid reasons, because we're all failing at time to time in life, right? So we have to go to God. We have to ask forgiveness. We know we can't do this without His help, but there are times when we know to do or not to do, and we don't do or we do, and then we have an excuse for it.

There's an interesting place where Jesus talks about excuses. Let's go to Luke 14.

Luke 14. 1 Jesus is actually at a dinner at a rich man's house, and He had performed a miracle, and people were impressed by it. And now He's sitting down with all these people, probably most of them sort of the movers and shakers of Jewish society there. And verse 15, it says, Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, now what He had done is He'd healed a man and given a parable. So He'd listened to the parable, and now He's going to make His own comment. And He says, Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. So now He makes a profound statement. Now here we are eating, and we will really be blessed when we are together at the table in the kingdom of God. Probably thinking Jesus would have thought that was a pretty impressive statement. And typical of Jesus, He comes back with a story. He tells a story, and He does a parable. Then He said to Him, A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servants at supper time to say that those who were invited come for all things now already. So there were people invited to this supper, and when it was all ready, He sent out His servants to say, It's time to eat. And this is something very special.

This man who has the money and the wherewithal and the room in his house to have all these people come. So obviously the person doing it is not just your average person, and He's inviting these people to come. Verse 18, But they all with one accord began to make excuses.

You know, yeah, okay, it's a nice meal, and it's a nice thing, but I get my own life here, and I get some important things to do in my life. The first said to Him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. Now, this seems like a legitimate excuse. I have an important business thing. You know, I bought some property, and I have to go look at that property, make sure that, you know, it meets the dimensions, make sure that it's all legal. You know, you can say, think of this, I just bought a house, and I have to go look at it now because they're doing a, you know, survey of it. They're coming in, they're looking at it, they're going to make sure that the plumbing's right and everything, and I'm supposed to be there, so I can't come to your nice banquet that you're having. And the other said, I have just bought five yolk of oxen. I'm going to test them. I ask you to have me excused. You know, when you buy oxen, and you're going to yolk them together, before you can plow a field, you have to make sure that they will plow together. So this is an important reason in that society. You know, it'd be like, oh, I'm sorry, my boss asked me to do some extra work tonight, and I just can't come to your banquet.

And still another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. No, no, no, I have some real important family obligations here, and I'm going to, you know, I need to take care of those. So I can't come. I appreciate it, though. Now, the point here isn't that those can't be legitimate reasons, depending on what you're doing. The point here, that this was a special invitation to something very special, and the mundane issues of life were considered more important.

Verse 21, so that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. Go get the people who don't deserve to come to a great banquet, the outcast, the people that think, oh, these people, no one's going to invite them over. They smell bad. You know, these people are poor. They're living on the street. He said, Go get them and bring them in, and I will feed them. And the servant said, Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there's room. He says, You invited a lot of people, and all of them had an excuse not to come.

He said, And I went out and found all the poor people. I mean, I found all the lame people, and I brought them here. Look at them here. There's all room full, but we still have room in the banquet room. Then the master said to the servant, Go out to the highways and the hedges. In other words, go out into the country. Leave the town. Go out and find people, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of the men who were invited shall taste my supper." Now, remember the context. A very rich, very self-righteous man who's now trying to impress Jesus, who had just performed a miracle with, you know, oh, blessed are those who come together in the kingdom of God. Because Jesus always talked about the kingdom of God. And he answers with a story about, yeah, there's going to be people invited there, but they will have excuses not to come. They'll literally be invited, but they'll have excuses not to come. Now, we look at those excuses that those kids gave, and some of them are funny, but we also realize those are excuses that are holding them back from success, unless you're going to be a criminal or something or a professional liar, but they're holding them back from success and happiness and proper relationships. These excuses aren't legitimate. And of course, no decent teacher and no good parent is going to accept those kinds of excuses from their children. So, what excuses do we give God without even thinking about it? I'm going to go through some excuses that sometimes we can tell God, either by actions or thoughts or emotions. Sometimes people will literally tell Him this. First excuse. Well, I can't really get prepared to come to your banquet because you don't understand. You don't really understand my background.

I mean, every human being carries baggage from our past, from last week, right? Well, I mean, it doesn't have to go back far. We're all carrying baggage from bad choices, bad mistakes, treating someone wrong, committing a sin. We're all carrying baggage.

So, we will sometimes come to the conclusion, God can't work with me to be into the banquet because of my baggage, because of my past.

And it seems like a legitimate excuse, but I want you to think about that parable that Jesus gave. There were no excuses because it was, of course, God is the certain man in that parable. God had invited them. And we have to understand when we use excuses like this, this is what we're telling God. We're telling God, you're not big enough for my past. You're not big enough for my sins. You're not big enough for my broken home. You're not big enough for me. You must have made some mistake when you call me. And that's just a weakness of human beings. We look at our past and we're controlled by it so much at the time. And part of it is, we find our identity. You've heard me say that before. We find our identity in our past, right? We're in this history of our lives, but there's parts of our past that we use as identity that we have to give up. That's not our identity and shouldn't be our identity because you've been invited to the banquet. God invited you to the banquet. And he doesn't accept this excuse. Look at the story of a man who sort of had this same viewpoint. Judges, chapter six. I haven't gone to Judges in quite a while. It's strange. Mr. John Paul Jones said that, you know, I should go to Judges. So here I go.

Judges, chapter six. I know this is one of those dumb jokes that remember, kids, Joshua judges Ruth. We don't know why, but that's where you will find Judges, is where Joshua judges. They're in the same order, that order. Okay. Judges six, verse 11. Israel is oppressed by the Midianites.

The Midianites have conquered them. They have driven them up into the mountains. They control the low lands where they can grow food. It's very difficult for the Israelites to survive. Many of them have become slaves. The only free Israelites are living up in the mountains hiding. And the Midianites wouldn't go after them because, well, you couldn't get horses and chariots up in the mountains. So let them live there. And so in verse 11, the angel of the Lord comes to Gideon. Now it says, Gideon, the last part of the verse, threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites.

So it's late at night. Gideon sneaks out. He gets some wheat, and it needs to be processed. So he's processing it in the wine cellar, so no one will know that he is processing food. So this is what he's doing. He's hiding. He's sneaking. He's, you know, I'm sure he's looking out the window to make sure the Midianites are sneaking up on him.

And here he is. And the angel of the Lord, who we know is in this context is the one who became Jesus Christ, appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. Now, you know, I'm hiding from the enemy. I'm sneaking around in the middle of the night and stealing some grain.

And the supernatural being appears before you and says, you mighty man of valor, you men of courage, you know, and I can't imagine, you know, it's like, is he being sarcastic? I'm sneaking around the middle of the night. And Gideon said to him, Oh, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his miracles, which our fathers told us about saying, did they not, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?

But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the Lord turned to him and said, go in this might of yours, this power you have, this courage you have, sneaking around the middle of the night and stealing grain, go with this power, this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?

I'm going to do this. And here's Gideon's answer. So he said to him, Oh, my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh and the least of my father's house. He said, wait a minute. Manasseh isn't Judah. Okay. That's usually the big warrior clan. And of all the clans or tribe, all the clans in Manasseh, my clan is the weakest. And of all the families in the clan, my father is the weakest.

And of all the sons of the fathers in Manasseh, I'm the weakest. I'm a nobody. My background has not prepared me for what you're asking me to do, therefore I cannot do it. Now, that actually sounds like a pretty good reason, not an excuse, right? To God is an excuse. He says, and the Lord said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. He still didn't believe it.

He had to ask for signs. Okay, prove this to me. So he asked for some magic tricks, some simple things God thought, that's no big problem. He did things for him to show him, no, I mean this. You are the one I am. You are the one I'm going to work through. It's funny, he did go out and tear down a statue of Dagon, the god of the Midianites, and because of that, and it also is known as Baal, because of that, they changed his name. All his friends, instead of calling him Gideon, the guy that seeks around at night stealing grain, he became, his name meant, Baal shall plead.

I was, Baal's going to go beg God to keep Gideon away from him. I'm not sure that was, that might have been sarcasm too. I don't know. But all of a sudden, he's a famous guy, and he puts out, God is with me, we need an army, we're going to drive the Midianites out.

Now, when you look at in chapter 8, what you find is that there were 135,000 men in the Midianite army, and Gideon called all of Israel, all 12 tribes, come to me, we're going to go fight the Midianites because God is with me, and 32,000 men showed up.

Well, that's, that's pretty good. But when you're outnumbered four to one in hand-to-hand combat, you're going to lose. He doesn't have a big enough army. And what am I supposed to do now, God? I don't have enough resources. You know, my background hasn't prepared me. I don't even know how to fight a battle. I'm not a good general. What am I supposed to do? You only gave me 32,000 men, and God said, you know, you're right. And it's way too many. So we tested them, and he cut the army down to 10,000 men.

Now he's only outnumbered 13 and a half to one. You're lucky, you know, if they get in a battle, the Midianites might lose 100 men here. I mean, they're just getting wiped out.

It's like, this is no contest. And it's like, God, what am I supposed to do? I can't lead this. I can't do this. I don't have the background for this, and I don't have the resources. And God says, you're right. And he cuts it down to 300 men. He's now outnumbered 450 to one, if my math is correct. That's just like getting rolled over by a steamroller. Okay, I mean, that battle would have lasted maybe three minutes. That's it. It had just been over. But my background, my resources, I can't do this. And God said to him, but I told you I would do it. Just do what I tell you to do. And if you read the rest of the story, of course, what happened was that God defeated the Midianites, and the Israelites just stood around and watched until they'd slaughtered each other where they just went in and killed off the ones that were left. And a few thousand of them managed to get away, but not very many.

And Gideon did not have the background or the resources to do what God asked him to do. He just did it because God told him to. And the result was God did it. How many times are we holding ourselves back because God says, no, I'll do it. Oh, no, you can't do it through me. We're limiting God. We're making an excuse to say to God, because I was such a bad person in the past, you can't work through me. You can't really change me. That's an excuse. The problem is, if you live by that excuse, you won't get changed because you won't let God do it. So we hold on to that. Gideon tried to until God kept saying, you're right. And Willy's army down the 300 men and said, yep, that's right. That's a good amount there. And you know what? He told him why. He said, because now you'll know you didn't do it.

I would have done it with 32,000, but now I think 300 is actually a better example.

Just as God wasn't interested in Gideon's background and his resources, God isn't interested in your background and resources. And you can say, well, I suffered a lot in my lifetime. And many of you have. I mean, we've all suffered, and many of you have suffered greatly in your lifetime. And many of you are suffering right now. And you say, I cannot because of my present suffering. I can't. It's part of who I am. Interesting verse here, two verses in 2 Corinthians 1. It's a very broad sermon because I could give a sermon on each one of these. 2 Corinthians 1 verse 3. I can't because I've suffered.

Here Paul is writing to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 1 verse 3. 2 Corinthians 3. Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort. We're all seeking God's comfort all the time in the anxiety and the stress, the worry of our lives, the worry of watching us collapse of our society, all the things we're going through. Right? He's the God of comfort. And then verse 4. Who comforts us in all of our tribulations. He's talking about the church. Who comforts us that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. You ever think maybe God called you and is working with you and one of the assets you have is you've suffered? Oh, no, no, I can't be used by God.

And he says, no, we suffer and then we learn from God's comfort to comfort others. Just like sometimes the best advice given to someone who is making wrong decisions in life is someone says, hey, I've been down that road before, son, and that won't work. Been there, done that, won't work.

And sometimes we should say that to someone else in the church. We should be able to comfort them and help them even in their... and especially if they're headed down a bad direction. Because we can say, look, everybody thinks they're so unique, but it's like in the parenting class. We have another parenting class coming up on Monday night. We have to start really limited, the number of people. We got too many in the class. We started to get all kinds of people on the internet. I don't even know who they are. People just started joining us from all over the place. So we are limiting the people just because it's gotten too big. But in the parenting class, I say it every time. There are no perfect parents. And you're going to make bad decisions sometimes. And sometimes you're going to fail.

And it's like everything in life you do. We can't use the excuse, what's my family background? It's my background. That's why I'm failing. God says, no, I called you to teach you how to overcome that so that your children don't have the same problems. But we'll give them enough of our own. We don't need to carry over our past to give it to them also. And they'll develop their own problems. Not everything is a parent's fault. That's another thing, too. Parents can't take all the blame for this. They're little people with free moral agency, too. And that's a burden parents shouldn't carry. But we do have a profound effect. We do have a profound effect.

We have to give up that past identity. And maybe God called you. Some people say, God, I know. I just lived a depraved lifestyle. I was a drug addict, and I was this, and I was that. And I say, maybe that's why God called you. Maybe you could help somebody not become that way. Maybe you can help somebody overcome that. So stop saying, I can't, and say, God can. That's the difference. Second point, I just don't have the time. Now, let's think about that. So you're in the interview with God, and you're going to say something like, God, I would have spent more time in a real close relationship with you, but I really wanted that new house. I know you gave me children to raise and teach about your way, but that promotion, that my career is too important. And then you wanted me to create a solid marriage. But, you know, man, alive, there's games to be played, and video channels to watch, and there's YouTube, and there's, you know, how can I… that was more important. Because that's what you're saying. That's what we all say. Now, everybody only has a certain amount of time, and you can't work 100% of the time, and everybody has to have time off. That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about the priorities of your life, and what do you say to God when He says, I wanted a little more out of you in this way or this way or this way. What excuse are we going to give? What excuse can you come up with?

You know, you think of the parable of the sower, where Jesus talks about sowing seed, and some of them don't grow for different reasons. And one of them is that they start to come up, this wheat starts to come up, and weeds choke them out. He says, it's the cares of the world. We get too caught up in our own society. Sometimes we think United States society is God's way. Little bits and pieces of it aren't. Much of it is not God's way. It's just the society we were born in.

And so what we do is we buy into these false concepts, and they choke out what's really important in our lives.

So we have to realize that I just don't have the time. I didn't have the time to do it. We all only have so much time, and then it's done.

And it'd be nice to say, you know, God, I need 10 more years so I can get myself straightened out, and I'll change all my priorities if you give me 10 more years.

But He's giving it to us now.

The one... I gave a sermon, remember, on temptation about a year ago. This is, I can't, I just can't overcome my sins.

I just can't overcome my sins. Well, we can't overcome our sins, but God can help us overcome our sins. And there's some things we have to remember. Joseph and Potiphar's wife, right? He literally ran away. And when she tried to grab him, she ripped his clothes off, and he ran, I don't know what he had under there, you know, but he ran through the palace with his clothes ripped off.

We have to flee it. We have to recognize it. You know it. You know the triggers that are always there. If it's a drink, if it's watching certain, you know, watching nudity on the screen, if it's whatever, that you slide into whatever the issue is. If it's never finding the peace of God, so you walk around just filled with anger all the time, or you're playing in your mind all the time how you're going to get revenge on somebody who mistreated you, and just waiting for the opportunity to do so, and then you wonder why you actually do it. Well, it's because in your mind you did it 50,000 times, that's why, and so then we do it. And what's the excuse we can give God? Well, if you would have just punished that person, I wouldn't have had to punish them. I mean, is that the argument we're going to give God?

See, at the end of the sermon, I actually want you to go home and do something. I actually want you to go home and think about the things that you should or shouldn't be doing, and I want to think about your excuses, and I want you to write them down. Because the next time you're praying, I want you to give them to God.

I've sort of recently done this. I didn't write them down, but I started, I was thinking about, I got some really whopper of excuses.

And I made some changes recently because I started to realize I had bought into my own excuses on some things.

Because we do it all the time. But we know that excuse isn't valid. We know that. But we sort of convince ourselves it is, just like, you know, the dog ate my homework. That's not real creative. We were freezing to death and had to throw it in the fire. That one was creative, right? So you and I get real creative with our, you know, yes, Lord, yes, Lord. I know I ended up going out on Saturday night and spent all night in a bar and drank too much. But I was telling people about you.

That's not far from what someone told me once. You know, they were spending all Friday night in bars with a relative, not getting drunk, but making sure the relative got home drunk because they had family values. So they weren't able to come to church and they spent half the Sabbath, 10, 12 hours of the Sabbath at a bar, different bars, bar hopping with a relative, only so they could get the relative home because they had true family values. And I was told when I said, do you think that's right? I don't think you have real family values. The excuse was, I didn't have real family values because spending half the Sabbath in a bar with drunk people is not exactly where you want, how you supposed to, and you know, then skipping church and it's not exactly keeping the Sabbath. Well, so we've done it. We've heard other people do it, what we can do with the excuses.

Now, here's another excuse. You would give me slack if you just understood who I have to deal with and then you can fill in whatever you want. My boss, my wife, my parents, my pastor, the people in my congregation, my neighbors, my career, my financial situation, just fill it in, my health problems. If you just fill that in with all those things and say, if you had to deal with what I have to deal with, you would understand why I can't always do what you want, God.

And this is where we can shift blame to others. God, if you would have given me a better husband, I would have never committed adultery.

It's God's fault, then. I've heard people say things like that. It's God's fault.

And that's the excuse we have for what we do. You know, God, I would have kept the Sabbath better, but you don't know the company I work for and I would have lost my job.

You know, God, I would have given tithes and offerings to you, but I was just waiting until I could afford it and I never could. God, I would have loved the brother to my congregation, but you don't know how just hypocritical and bad and evil and those people are in my congregation. Why did you put me there? It's God's fault. You know, God puts us where God wants to put us. I believe you're all here because God put you here. I'm here because God put me here. I believe that. So what are we going to say? Am I supposed to go to God and say, God, you know, I'm not going to pass through these people anymore because I don't like them. What do you think the answer to that's going to be? By the way, I do like you, but I'm trying to use some absurd thing, right?

I don't like those people in my congregation, so, you know, I just stay home and watch it on the webcast and it's just too difficult to go with them anyways because I don't like them. But I'm really part of that congregation, but we're not.

When we choose not to be here, for our reasons, are those excuses good enough to go tell God? Because you've got to go tell him those excuses. Not me, not each other. I would have been more honest if you would have just given me a better job.

I had to cheat to make enough money to pay my bills.

Where do we draw that line?

What excuse do we give God? Because we've got to be honest about the excuse, and that's what I want you to be. And like I said, I've sort of gone through that myself the last couple of weeks. Am I giving excuses for certain things? And in doing so, I was like, whoa, okay, you've got to be honest about that. And it's not comfortable. But remember, the excuse, who you're giving the excuse to. You're telling God that. Matthew 25. We know this parable by heart, but I want to go through Matthew 25 and skim through it here because of the importance of this point.

Matthew 25.

It's the end of the Sermon on the Mount. He gives these parables that teach about the coming kingdom of God.

That's not what they say. They say, Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you a drink? They didn't even know they'd done it.

When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, Surely I say to you, it is much as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.

The others say, well, we didn't ever see you that way. We would have come taking care of you when you were sick. We didn't know you were sick.

And the answer is no, you didn't do it to the least of these, my brethren. The chosen people of God in His church, wherever it is, because it's scattered all over the place, these are His brethren.

And when we don't treat each other that way, what excuse are we going to give Him? Well, of course I didn't go visit that person when they were sick. They were sick because they deserved to be sick. Right? I mean, sometimes we do make ourselves sick. I mean, if you eat Twinkies every day and drink Coca-Cola every day and don't eat decent food and don't exercise, you're going to get sick. Of course, we all get sick, but I mean, you're just going to really get sick. And what are we going to say? No, we're not going to come visit you because your sickness was your fault. He didn't say that. If you're a brethren, you go visit them. You take care of them. You talk to them. Sometimes you say, you know, you're making yourself sick. That's okay, too. Sometimes you have to say, your own lifestyle is making you sick.

But the point is, they didn't know it. They didn't just visit the elderly because there was a church program to visit the elderly. They didn't just send a card because there was a church program. No, it's nice to have church programs. I think what Mr. Ellithropstorn has a great idea. In fact, that's something that in the last year, that idea has come up a couple of times, and I just hadn't had time to put it together. And he ran and put it together. Without, you know, all of a sudden, he says, hey, can we do this? And I'm thinking, wow, there's other people who have come up with this idea. And I just, thank you.

But the point is, is that it's good that we can do it in an organized way because it motivates us. But you know the thing with all programs? All programs have a life expectancy. And they wear out. A year, two years, whatever, they wear out. And there are certain people that keep doing it anyways. That's the way it is. You learn that as a pastor. We learn that at camp. You know, you can start archery, and everybody thinks archery is the favorite thing at camp that year. Three years later, it's like archery. We hate archery. The only ones that like archery, the 13-year-olds coming in, or 12-year-olds, who have never shot a bow before. Everybody's like, we're tired of archery. So you drop archery for a little bit. You bring it back later, and it's like, oh, this is exciting. Every program has a life expectancy. I did spokesmen's club here for three years. After three years, it was like, everybody's getting bored. It's time to stop it.

You know? And it was fine. It achieved a lot. There was a lot of good things that came out of it. But it reached its life. Maybe we'll do it again someday. But it reached sort of its life expectancy. But there's people who do it afterwards, no matter what. It's become part of who they are. They do it, and they don't even know they're doing it. It's just who they are. In the end, we do it because it's who we are. And there is no excuse that God gives us. There is no excuse that we can have for getting drunk. There's no excuse. That doesn't mean God's not going to forgive you if you go repent. The point I'm making is, you're not repenting when you say, you know, God, you'd get drunk too if he was married to my wife. No, it doesn't work that way.

There's a lot of men looking at their wives.

God just didn't accept those excuses.

You ever been mad at somebody? It's, ah, I'm just not going to talk to them. And then you realize, God doesn't give you that right. That's an excuse, even if they were doing something wrong. It's not an excuse. I mean, aren't you glad God doesn't do that? And His aren't excuses. His reason for not dealing with us are absolutely legitimate. There's no illegitimate reason why God, you know, I'm not going to deal with you today. Any reason He gives us legitimate, right? But He doesn't do that unless we're absolutely in rebellion. He doesn't do that. Now we're in rebellion. We could be in bad situation, God. We say, okay, I'm letting you drift out there for a while till your life gets so messed up, you come back. But you know, He's always still there waiting. So the idea that if you had to deal with my life, you could justify my wrongdoings doesn't work. Then one last point. I know I'm supposed to serve. I know I'm supposed to be a light to the world. I know my neighbors. I should treat them right. I know I should be part of the congregation more. But God just didn't give me anything. I have no talents or abilities. I have nothing.

I would have served more. God had done more if He had given me more talents. I would have participated in your family more if I wasn't such an introvert, and you made me that way. By the way, being an introvert, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're an introvert, don't feel bad. If you don't…you know, in…we have a Bible study, sometimes we…like we had those two Bible studies about marriage. We had lots of interaction. And there were some people who didn't say a word. That's okay. Okay? We're not talking about that. We're talking about you don't have relationships because you're an introvert.

Because God requires us to have relationships with each other. I realize you gave opportunities to others, but you didn't give them to me, so I didn't do anything. Anybody think of a parable by Jesus that covers this? Anybody. A parable of what? A parable of talents. Right? You know that one. Some people got a lot more than others. I see some people think, wow, I think I would…I could have been a hit on radio if I would have had Coma Walker's voice.

And God did not give that to me.

I would have been a millionaire right now. But it's like they did beyond today. They have it dubbed in Spanish in South America, and they had this guy that is me. And here I am talking, this other voice has come out in Spanish, and I'm like, oh man, if I just had that guy's voice.

But I don't. You know, we all have our limitations. We all have our limitations. Every one of us. And God takes what we are, and He does something with it, and then He makes something more than what we could ever do, and everything we do.

And in the parable of the talents, some people had more than others.

And that's the way it is with all of us. Every one of us in this room has something that somebody else doesn't have. And God gave that that way, and then the one who had the one talent said what? You're requiring too much of me. Look what they got. And He buried His talent.

Not realizing that whatever God gives us, when we let Him work in us, and we do that, we find happiness. That's the product that is produced by simply giving whatever God gives us and doing something with it. It's not great things. It's what you do every day that makes an impact on the life of your spouse, your children, makes your grandchildren, the neighbor across the street, someone in the church. We all have an impact that is important to God. And that matters to Him. See, it's not what it matters to us sometimes. It's what matters to Him that we have to think about. When we think about what matters to Him, a lot of other things become absolutely immaterial. They're not important because we're doing what matters to Him. And there's peace in that, and there's a sense of accomplishment in that, and there's happiness in that, and that's what you want in life anyways. Oh, if God would just let me hit the lottery, I would be happy. I'd give half of it to the church, God. God's like, no, you wouldn't. It'd ruin your life. Just do what I want you to do, and you're going to be happy. You win the lottery, you'll be so unhappy. Have you ever read article after article about people hit the lottery and it destroys their lives all the time? Oh, God, if you just do that for me, then I'd have some talents. I'd have money to spread around. That's not talent. That's paper. The idea that I would do more, I would let you work in me more, but you didn't give me enough talents and abilities means that God isn't working in you. It's your talents and abilities. It's letting God work in us with whatever we are, because it's like saying, God, you made me too worthless for you to work in. Think about the excuse. You made me too small. You made me too insignificant. You didn't give me enough, so I can't do anything. Because as I gave you exactly what I wanted to give you, so you could do something for me. And when you work for God, when He's in your life, and He's your Father, Jesus Christ is your brother, everything's worth doing. Life is worth living when that's happening.

That's… and when you're obeying God, all the other stuff doesn't matter. And we get sometimes caught up in this, you know, this idea that our worth comes from our value of how much money we have, how much things we own, how much… No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. You know, I hope… We want everybody to live comfortably. And that's one of the reasons we have a community to help each other live comfortably. But some people are going to have a lot more than others all the time. And you know what? In the New Testament it says that, and in the Old Testament it says that. We're never going to be equal in what we own.

And we're never going to be equal in talents and abilities. And that's okay. It's being who God created you to be. That's what matters. Because the future in the resurrection… You know, here's how the interview goes. You appear before Jesus Christ on your knees, absolutely frightened. And here's the interview. Well done, kid.

That's it. There's no… There's no chances to give excuses. That's already been worked out of us. Well done, child. That's it. That's the interview. It's not like you have to bring all your resumes at that time, because you've been prepared for that time. You see, you're already supposed to be there. That's what we forget. You're already supposed to be there. It's not like, oh no, what if God rejects me? You've already been hired, so to speak. You're already part of the family. And we… Sometimes… Oh no, God just can't do this. That He's a weak God. The God you worship is a very weak God.

The God of the Bible can do it. The God of the Bible can do it. We all struggle with our inadequacies and our time restraints and our balancing of priorities and our bodies who… Our bodies sometimes just don't work well, right? They don't do what we want them to do. They don't do what we want them to do. We get tired. We get sick. We have problems. But what excuses are we making up in our lives now? What excuses are we making up so we don't achieve what God is achieving? We don't follow and let that happen. He has the power to do it. We have to let it happen. What I want you to do is… I mean, think about it. Do you look at your life and give your dregs to God, what's left over in your life? That's what you give to Him.

So do that this week. Think this week about things you should have done or shouldn't done, and think about the reasons. And you might have a legitimate reason. You know, sometimes there is a legitimate reason for something. And okay, I have a legitimate reason. But when you look at it and analyze something you should have done today or didn't do today, write down the excuse you're making to God. Just think it out and write it out. Be honest. Why am I… Okay, why didn't I do this today? Well, I was sick. Okay, that's legitimate. I just sort of got doing this, that, and the other and didn't do it. So then write that down. God, I'm sorry I didn't study the Bible today, but it was so exciting to spend 45 minutes watching cat videos on YouTube. Now, it's okay. I'm not saying it's wrong to watch cat videos on YouTube. I don't particularly watch them, but my grandkids do. Okay? I have other things I watch on YouTube, which they think is very strange. But what I'm saying, you understand the point, that was more important than what you should have been doing. Then write it down and go to God's sake. Sorry, I didn't study the Bible today because those kittens were so cute.

See how that clicks in your head when you do that.

What excuses are we giving? See, God has invited you to the supper. You're already supposed to be there. He hasn't invited you to the supper in case you make it. You're already supposed to be there. You have to say, no, I'm not coming.

You're already supposed to be there. He's going to get you there. You're invited. He's prepared it. The problem is, what excuses are we giving now to say, no, I'm not coming. I get more important things to do. That's what Jesus' parable was about. Just remember, God doesn't fail, and He won't fail you. It doesn't matter your background. It doesn't matter all these things we talked about. It doesn't matter your abilities. It doesn't matter. He won't fail you. It's only because we make excuses and we refuse to go. Otherwise, you're going to get there because He'll do it.