Are You Rewired?

The title of my sermon is, Are You Rewired? Are you rewired? I know Darren has probably done some construction work, and many of you have, but I don't know if you've ever rewired a house. It is a task. It is so much harder, so much labor-intensive, than it is to rough in a new house with electrical. Because when you rewire a house, you have to find out what the people that came before you that wired it did right and sometimes, many times, what they did wrong.

With us, we all were wired a certain way before God called us and started working with us. And He had to say, Christ, we're going to have to rewire that one.

And some rehab jobs, right, Darren, are harder than others. That you just say, hmm, this one. Boy, I wish I hadn't taken that on. But Christ and God are able to rewire anyone. They just have the insight of who it's easier to rewire at this time. And that perhaps others would be easier to have to rewire in a better atmosphere, a better environment, a more sound world where they're not bogged down by the wiring of this world. I have rewired commercial buildings and residential. I was an electrician, licensed electrician, so I would look at tasks and say, nope, not going to do this one. Even by looking at just a simple plug you could pull out. I was at a house not long ago and helping this elderly man. And his house was built in the 50s, which means it did not have to meet 1971 to 74 NSC codes. They didn't have a lot of codes to go by. He had metal boxes, rusted outlets that had seen their better days 30 years ago. A ground wire that was so thin I could I could had to worry if I twisted it twice. It was going to break.

And so I went to two or three plugs and they didn't even have ground wires on them. They just use a neutral ground. And I had to put a plug rather than take it all apart, put a new plug in and I just grounded the new plug to the metal that was there. The metal box. I'm not trying to teach you electrical because I haven't even done it since I moved here, other than with other people. I didn't keep my license up, I should have, but I didn't. I don't want to be a know-it-all anymore than I thought I did when you have to take the license test. And sometimes you find that people wire houses no rhyme or reason. It's just many things are wrong. The conduit is clogged. You can't feed wire down it. You can't even pull the old wires up.

But the biggest danger of being an electrician are in your houses. The biggest danger of being an electrician is no question, it's just one thing. How good is it grounded? How good is that ground wire? How good is that ground rod that's driven in the ground out by your box? It used to require at least eight foot ground wire, a ground rod that was then tied to the ground in your box. And it had to be five-eighths in diameter. In Tennessee, unlike Florida, you couldn't drive it a foot in the ground without hitting a rock. There are so many rocks. A lot of times it had to go down and then sideways and then down again, and you just drove and drove with a sledgehammer. And then sometimes you'd have to attach another rod to that rod. But it's so important because if not, you're going to have problems without a house properly grounded in the ground. And it will either send a shock to you or it can burn your house down.

I've seen a little bit. I never had a house burn down that I wired or any that I did. But I was shocked many times. Most of the electricians, that's why I've always seen a man that did trim on a house all of his life. He's usually missing one of these because you did it so much. The sooner or later something's going to kick or you're going to make a mistake.

So if you were a trim man and you worked for 10,000 days, every cut, the 50 cuts you're making a day, put that all out there. And you're blessed if you didn't miss a finger. You didn't make a mistake. Something didn't happen out of your control. A knot happened to hit at the wrong place. I always had one very bad electrical experience. I had shocked many times but never put in a hospital except one time. Thankfully, my wife claimed me. I couldn't claim her because I didn't know who she was. Took out my memory for a little while. But I wasn't at that time, I wasn't a licensed electrician.

I still knew how to do many things. My father was an electrician. He had taught me growing up.

But I did find out at that one time about grounding because I got to find out what it's like to be a ground.

As getting into an electric box, I stuck my screwdriver in there. After the homeowner told me it was turned off. And I said, I feel vibrations. No, that's the box right beside you. I didn't turn that one off. So I was going to be very, very careful. It's only going to take me just a few minutes. And the screw that I need to put in through the back of the box slipped. And naturally, my screwdriver went to try to catch it. And when it did, it caught the hot bar and I couldn't get out of it. Just glued my hand to it. It was quite an experience. I wouldn't want any of you to do it. I did wake up with the oxygen in the ambulance, but there were repercussions because you better be specially equipped to be a ground and humans don't need to be ground. And that's why it's very important who does your electrical work and that you don't take on something you don't know about.

For the last seven days, you have hopefully been rewired to a certain extent. Right? You're... hopefully these seven days, you've helped God to rewire you by looking at the sins, the issues, challenges in your life, and you've asked Him to help you. And He said, yes, but it starts with this little thin, stale-tasting bread. And that was a reminder that the last seven days, the last six days, seven days including this one, was about trying to be rewired with God as the power and being electrified by Him to make these changes, as David talked about earlier. Your brain, your habits, were they rewired during these times? Did you realize that it was about rewiring you? That it wasn't just, here's seven days, stay away from puffy bread and you'll be fine. But that it was more than that. It was God's tool to help rewire you so that you'll remember this thing that Mary and I would eat first thing every morning to remind us that these are the days of unleavened bread because Mary makes some incredible goods, baking baked goods, unleavened. I even look forward to them. Some of them I wish you wouldn't stop. But it takes a lot of time. So those kind of make me enjoy these days, but the matzo, the flat, tasteless really bread, unless your cardboard has a taste, I'm not sure. But we all think about that, hopefully, and we see, okay, God, I want to make changes.

I had a basketball coach one time. He was a college player. He held the record at the local college for free throws for a whole season. Shot like 88-89 percent for an entire season. That was back in the 60s. And he was not a coach. He was our principal, but our coach was out for a day or so. And he came in and, of course, coached. And he took me aside. He said, you're getting fouled so much, but you're only hitting 50 percent of your free throws. He said, I can change that. And I said, Coach, I don't know. I was in the eighth grade. And so he took me aside, had somebody else work down with the other guys, and he sat there and he taught me how to shoot free throws and spent so much time. And then he said, now you have to do this for the next seven days. Shoot 100 free throws the same way I told you to wear your muscle memory, and it's also confidence. And he said, I don't want you to stop shooting free throws until you can hit 100 in a row. I thought, you're crazy. But it was a few years before I could hit 100 in a row. But during that time, the next game, which was two days later, went to the line 15 times and hit 13 of them. And I, he was happy, and I was like, wow, he knew what he was talking about. But it was repetition that caused that, and was also confidence that this works. I hope you've had some confidence this week that this and remembering about sin and putting it out has made you stronger, because sometimes it gets to where we think, I don't know if I can overcome it. You know, I've always had this problem. Sometimes we take it to God and say, God, you know I have this issue. You know I have this problem. Why aren't you helping me more?

I think David did the same thing. You can see it in his writings. He laid it out to God. Came around to knowing that God would help him, but David had to do a lot of stuff himself. And we have to say, okay, I'm going to address it. David was talking, like our David was talking about, not King David. So your brain, your habits changed. Hopefully you're grounded as never before. And grounded by Christ, not the world.

So think about it. Are you rewired? Did anything change inside of here? Did anything change during these seven days of repetition? Repetition, because they say repetition is a mother of all skills. Most of us can say that. For those, I've gone through the book of Alcohol Anonymous Anonymous, and they talk about the 21 days of repetition and clearing these paths. Well, God says we don't need 21 days. We need seven to work on these sins.

I'll give you a reminder, and I want you to please work on this, and we'll work on this, and we'll work on it together. So I hope you've felt that. I have these seven days. I think, in a way, I have as much this year as I've ever done. Time has flown by. It's kind of like when you're busy, the week just goes by. And I've had times where I've celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and I thought it went awfully slow as I drove by Wendy's, as I drove by the Cinnabon Places.

I said, ah, but I didn't really confront any of that this year. But I was focusing on the spiritual aspect of it, and hopefully you are, too. Now, let's ask the question this week. Who fed you? And who wired you? Because if Unleavened Bread fed you, God fed you, because He's the one that asked you to do it. I'm sure I won't see anybody a month from now going into the store. Oh, could I have the Unleavened Bread, please? I doubt that's going to happen.

But during this time, it really sets us up as it follows up Passover, and we kind of get in the attitude, and we kind of look forward to this. Well, I want to talk about electricity today and being spiritually rewired, because it does help, but it doesn't stop here.

You have to constantly be connected. Jesus Christ in His Holy Spirit is your power. Yes. They use that loosely, because Christ wanted to give us some of that power that He had when He walked on earth, and He wanted us to test it, and see if He could give us a little more as we were working on problems.

But working with Christ and the Holy Spirit that He sent us, it's only as effective if you are grounded in God, grounded in God's Word, grounded in a belief of Him. And you can't get so far away, because even any of you who have had to run Romex on a commercial building are fed from an electric pole way far away. The longer it's run, the bigger that copper needs to be.

To give you an example, Mary and I were at a funeral. I was conducting it in the Bahamas about two weeks ago, and it was out at the grade side, where we were doing grade side services, and they had one building about 900 feet away. And for some reason, they thought they could take a little 14-3 cord and plug it in, and plug 10 of those together and bring electricity, and there was going to be enough electricity to use.

Oh yeah, it'll work. I got there. I was just the preacher. I wasn't. But I said, you know, the guy was like, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, and I said, that's not going to work. That's too far. That's too far away. There was no juice left. There's not enough electricity, not enough power by the time it got there, so we had to use a generator. Never seen that before at a cemetery.

We use a generator for the music and for the mic, but it reminded me, if we get too far from God, our power is going to be so small that we're going to probably think we can do it on our own, and when something good happens, we're going to say, that was me. That was me. I know because I've done it before.

And sometimes God has to shock us back into coming to the source. Coming to the source. You realize our brains are wired, literally, and your brains are wired. They've proven that. The movement of ions from sodium and potassium, covering the cell membrane, leads to the production of electricity, created by the nerve cells, and that there is, they have found, there is enough electricity in your brain right now to power a 20 watt light bulb.

God designed it. And amazing when somebody is dying, or perhaps had a heart attack, or had a heart attack, or even died from drowning, they can sometimes do what? Shock the heart back into working.

I found it interesting that just in the last 50 years, they have found that your brain, according to scientific study, the brain continues to send impulses up to seven minutes after you are dead. They found it when they used the guillotine in the late 50s in France. It was still being used, and they had read about different kings being, had their heads cut off in different people, and just thought that the person's lips were moving, their eyes were fluttering. They actually had a few words, but they didn't know that, you know, people were standing there watching this event when it happened. But then, as they executed these people and could take their brains and actually test them, the brain waves, the electricity in your head after it is cut off from your body, blood is no longer pumping to the head. It can go up to seven minutes. Most of the time, they say it's two to three minutes, and the people have actually said a word or two, blinked their eyes, which then just freaked people out even more. Why would God do that? I don't know. I look forward to asking why that is done. But our neural pathways lead us to routines and habits, these tracks that are made in our brain for good habits and bad habits. Sometimes the bad habits and neural pathways make such a deep rut that we want to go back to them time and time again. But they can actually be corrected, rewired. Those tracks can be fueled, re-tracked. There's a book I read probably 15, 20 years ago. She was the latest and greatest in the mind study, called The Emerging Mind by Dr. Sharon Raynor. She spent her entire life studying. She could actually train you through this book how to control these neural pathways. Neurolinguistic programming, as some have called it. John Stott, famous writer, has written many books. He was a theologian. I think he's dead now. I think he died in the 60s. I can't remember. But he had this famous saying, and I like it. I can usually memorize it, but I'll say it here just for the sake of time. I have to look at my clock. But he said, so a thought reap an action. So an action reap a habit. So a habit, you reap a character. So a character, you reap a destiny. So true, as God also knows that. Because we are the product of our thinking. The Bible says, as a man, thinketh so. Is he? We have to think about that. Christ rewired us when he called us. He had to start. Because if he didn't, you'd have never followed his lead. But for some reason, some thought, as God called you, you answered. And hopefully, as I gave him a sermon for Lauderdale, you answered, here I am, Hennani. Why? Why would you answer that call? Except there's something in here he knew. And there's something in here he knew. And he says, it's your time. I'm going to call you. Because, brethren, there's no second calling. There's one calling. And he doesn't give up on that calling until you do. And for some people, it's 10, 20, 30 years, as I've seen. But for most of us, we will sit here and work on this. And so we realize that Christ had to rewire our thinking to say, okay, I don't have to think like everyone else. And I don't care if everyone else thinks I'm rewired strangely. Because many people do. What's wrong with those people? They don't look Jewish. They don't act Jewish. But they're just strange. I think the reference is peculiar people. But God, Christ knew that when He called. He said they can handle it. Might not be the easiest thing, but they can handle it. I'm going to call them and see if they answer the call. What does the Scripture say? Many are called, but few are chosen. Is it because we didn't answer the right way? He called and people said, yeah, I got something to do.

A little busy. Seems like there's some scriptures about that, isn't it? Want to come and join me? I got a new heifer. I'm not talking about my wife.

I got something I need plow. Oh, my father! I've got to bury him. He's not even dead yet. But you see how he's working with this.

The Holy Spirit, very essence of God. That Spirit always created what? It rewires us when we are led by it. And too many times, it's our conscience telling us and we override it. We kind of override, put an override switch and say, I'll do that next time. I'll handle it next time. But our character is rewired when we allow Agape to control us. It's that big. Go with me now. And let's go to Romans. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. I like how it's put across. Notice David used it too. Revelation 5, verse 1, Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, not by our own works, but by His, we have peace with God because of what Jesus, with Christ our Lord, has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege, I would say grace, where we now stand and confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory. Unthinkable, isn't it? Oh, we could never have God's glory. You said it. He said, yeah, you're going to have it. You're going to be glorified. He says it in Romans 8.

Verse 3, We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials. Boy, that's nice because all of you do. If you don't, come and tell me. I want to see a perfect human being. For we know that they help us develop endurance, and endurance develops strength of character. That's what we were hopefully building more character. We're getting more juice to our character this week. And character strengthens our confident hope of salvation, and this hope will not lead to disappointment, for we know how dearly God loves us because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love. That's why it leads from here. It goes from here to here. See, He can put it in your head, but it needs to be in your heart. So many of those that left Egypt, some of it had it in their head, but they never put it in their heart. That's why the New Covenant had to be present here in Jeremiah 31-33. I will put my law in where? In your minds and in your hearts. And it hardly gets here if it's never in here.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. That's none of us. But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ last week, He will certainly save us from God's condemnation. So we shouldn't be worried about, oh, am I good enough? That's not the question. The question is, is God your ground? Is God your ground? If He is, you've got nothing to worry about. You don't have a thing to worry about if He is your ground. Go with me to Proverbs 27. Proverbs 27. This is good. And in verse 19, it says, As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person. Huh? What's in your heart? How the abundance of the heart, the what speaks? I didn't know we were mute. Are we all mute today? Out of the abundance of the heart, the what speaks? The yes, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The mouth speaks. How many times? We said something we wish we hadn't said to someone, and why was that? Because we were holding something in our heart. We didn't need to. I've been waiting to tell Mary that all week. Just waiting for the time. No. So love should be coming out, and we've got to learn to control it.

It's about the heart with God, not just the mind. He's already wired that. He's already proven to you. He should have. When He called you, and you have this incredible understanding, you understand what happens after death. You understand what His plan is. You understand the future. You understand the past. You understand the creation. You understand so much stuff, because He's wired your brain. But the big step is, is it connected to your heart? That's what He wants. He can give you. You can have all knowledge. Didn't Paul say that? I can know all prophecy! But unless I have what? Love. A guppy. A nothing. Paul knew there's the connection. That heart has to be grounded in God. Is yours. To where it comes back to love. It's what John said. God is love. That's that ground that you must have. Did the flatbread ground your yourselves this week? That flatbread? No. That's just a taste. That's feeding up here. No. The heart has to be what that reminded you of. Your love for God. Your love for your neighbor. Isn't that what the commandments are all about? Christ said, is that too?

That's what's so important. Let's go to Matthew 12. Matthew 12. Matthew 12 and verse 34. Matthew 12 and verse 34. Guys, I am feeling old. I'm going to have to get me a light up here. I'll have to wear glasses or something because I can... I'm seeing that. Matthew 12 and verse 34. He said, you brood of vipers. He's not talking to the church. How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. Another abundance of the heart. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart. And an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this. You must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. What about thoughts? What about forethought? What about not idle word, but you knew what you were about to say and you said it anyway. I'm not the only one that's done that. The word you say will either acquit you or condemn you. What's in your heart?

Are we in control?

Gossip? We want to talk about it. Oh, did you hear about this? Oh, did you hear about this?

What's in your head? Because too many times, things start to appear. Did Satan rent some space in your head? He wants to. He'll rent a lot of space up there. You know what's going to come out of your mouth and come out of your heart if he's living up there? Evil. Yeah. Some people just say, room for rent. Room for rent. Satan. Or if not, he'll just be a squatter. Squatters are big now. He doesn't mind squatting in your head if you allow him. But you don't like squatters or find out the best way to do it? KICK HIM OUT!

We have to learn to do that. Because we are in control. Go with me to a couple more scriptures. Galatians 6. Galatians 6. Galatians 6 and verse 7. Don't be misled. You cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you... What did David say earlier? Plant. What does it say? You reap what you sow. In the New King James, that may be what you're... You know, you're going to get it. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest eternal life. Everlasting life from the Spirit. So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessings if we don't give up. And now all of us have known people who give up. I've known people who gave up but still go to church. They've given up. They don't read the Bible. They don't pray. But because they thought they signed this insurance policy way back that if you follow in this church, if you're in the right church, you're going to have eternal life. You're going to get a place of safety. You're going to get all this. Am I the only one ever met? I'm the only one that ever met people like that. Huh? Yeah. This is what it's saying here for us. Reap what you sow. Go with me to Proverbs.

Proverbs. I apologize because I am over time. And I never like going over time. But I'll say Bill took too long on announcements. That's good. I can blame someone else. Out of the abundance of my heart, my mouth speaks down on Bill, who just went on and on and on. You see? That's how simple it could be. I could justify it. Okay. I got to get over to Proverbs. Got to get over to Proverbs. Proverbs 3. Where are you, Proverbs 3? Find my Bible. Proverbs 3 and verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Isn't that a scripture most of us know from the New King James? Right? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not. That's what I was always taught on your own understanding. This just puts it a different way. It says, do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in almost everything you do. That's not what it says. All. All. That's not a four-letter word. It's a three-letter word. All. Can we do it? He's wired us to be able to do that. And he will show you which path to take.

Don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. Kick him out of your house and out of your head. Get Satan the squatter out. Because he wants. He wants in there. He wants in there really, really bad. The days of Unleavened Bread are about positive change. I was asking my wife because on the way up here, because I couldn't remember, there's this there's a song. She was there, and you were there, and everything last year at the feast, and it was and they got out there dancing the electric slide. Remember how that and that that I was thinking about that. And that song got in my head. Does everybody know that song? The electric. Okay, I got one. Come on, guys. Oh, there's one guy. Two guys. I'm not ashamed to say. Bill, I'm man enough to say. Vic, I'm man enough to say. I know that song. But no. And so what happens? One of the lines in, it's electric. And then everybody does this stuff. Oh, you were there, too. I forgot about you, too. Yes. And everybody is just like, okay, when that song comes on, everybody's got. Is it electric? Well, that's what God wants us to do about his word, about his stuff. Even the beautiful songs we hear. We should be moved. Moved by that.

I have wire. I haven't used this one yet. My house, this is 12-2 instead of 14-2. Well, two with ground.

But whenever you see a wire, black should be hot. Okay? You should know. That's a hot wire. That's a neutral wire. It shouldn't be hot. It could be, you know, I'm not getting into things. I'm not getting into three-way switches or anything like that. But then this is important. You can see this. This is the ground wire. And it's tied to the massive ground.

And without this, you're going to get the shock of your life, or you can end up dead. What about God? He is your ground. We must always be grounded in His Word. He's never neutral. We have that positive flow that comes from the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ.

I don't expect you to go out, wire an outlet, wire a house. But what I do ask you to do today is to take what we've done during the last seven days. And carry it on so that we are grounded in this Word, in His truth. Talking to God grounds us to Him.

I know I haven't talked to you in two years, but I need something. That's not going to work. Is He going to go, who are you? Ground. Love the flow. Use it. Use the Holy Spirit. And you know what it's going to do? Will forever change your life for eternity. This seven days has just been a reminder. God must be our ground. Are you grounded? Are you rewired, brethren? I hope you've had some rewiring. You may require a little more. There's a lot of outlets in the house. You've got to go through every one of them. There's a lot of issues in our lives. You need to go through every one of them. God wants you perfect. And how will we know if we're truly grounded to God? How will we know? How will everybody else know? How will everybody else know? The proof is here. The proof is here.

And it's going to come out here. Now, the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

See you next time. And I hope you all have enjoyed being rewired for the last seven days.