The Grasshopper Complex

This time of year, we usually spend some time in the Old Testament, or always spend some time in the Old Testament, and with the Passover and the Israelites going through the wilderness and the opening of the Red Sea and all the things we talk about at this time of year because they remind us of the important lessons that God is teaching us, and those lessons are important for us today.

One of the things we talk about occasionally is when the Israelites stood there before the Promised Land. It took them about a year to leave Egypt and get all the way to the Promised Land, and there they were a year later, and Moses sent in the 12 spies. Now, we know the story, but let's rehearse a little bit today. Let's go to Numbers 13. Numbers 13. Numbers 13 and verse 27. Ten of the spies came back, and this is what they told Moses and the people, and they told him and said, We went into the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. They brought back all this amazing food and fruit. My wife and I were watching the other day some scenes from Jerusalem around Jerusalem, and she said, How is that the land flowing with milk and honey? And I said, You have to understand, that part of the world was quite different at that time than it is now. It's been devastated through misuse of the land, through armies marching back through the land, deforestation that's taken place, and just all the things that have happened.

It was an amazing place God sent those people. And they came back, and they told them, Yes, it's everything God said it would be. But, verse 28, Nevertheless, the people who dwell on the land are strong, the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Amok there. The Amalekites dwell on the land of the South. The Amalekites were a very fierce nomadic tribe. And the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell on the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the scene along the banks of the Jordan. Then Calem quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and take possession. We are well able to overcome it.

They have two different reports. You end up with ten men giving one report, and two men giving a different report. They all saw the same thing. They all went through the same experience. They came back with two different viewpoints of what they saw. Verse 31, But the man who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land, which they had spied out, saying, The land to which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people who we saw are in it are like men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the descendants of Anok came from the giants. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, so that we were in their sight. We were like grasshoppers. Now, you just didn't say, notice, we were like grasshoppers in their sight. They said, we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. We looked at ourselves and said, we're so tiny, we're so small. We can't do this. There's not just one city, there are dozens and scores of cities. And there's, you know, amalgamations of cities, the Canaanites are going to fight for each other. So when we're fighting them, they're going to get hit by the Amalekites. And these are huge cities. We haven't seen anything like this since we left Egypt. We can't go there. We're grasshoppers. We're just little insects, and we can't do this.

Now, let's skip to chapter 14, verse 6.

Here we have Joshua and Caleb. It says, who were among those who spied out the land, and they tore their clothes. They were so distraught. And, of course, at this time period, one of the symbols that you were grieving, that you were overwhelmed with just grief and emotions, that you literally ripped your clothes. They grabbed and ripped their clothes in front of everyone.

And they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, the land we passed through, to spy out, is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land, and will give it to us, the land which flows with milk and honey. Oh, do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection is departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. What's amazing here is that all 12 of these men had been in Egypt a year before. A year before, all 12 of these men had been slaves. A year before, all 12 of these men had taken the Passover. All 12 of them. All 12 of them had seen the Nile turn red. All 12 of them had seen the frogs, and the lice, and the hail of fire. All 12 of them had listened to the screams of the Egyptians, as the firstborn died, and theirs did not. Some of them were probably firstborn. They had survived through a miracle. All 12 had gone through the Red Sea. All 12. All 12 had crossed the desert while God brought water out of rock. All 12 could still look at the tabernacle, and guess what they saw? A pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. It was still there. It had gone away. All 12. All 12 had had the same experience. God had worked with all 12 of them, and yet there reached a point where they had two totally different responses to an event. Two totally different responses to the same event, yet they had all gone through the same training. The difference between these two groups is important to understand how you and I respond to God as Christians. How can 12 men have the same experiences and respond in two totally different ways? We know God has opened all of our minds here to the truth. At some point, God reached out and touched your life and changed dramatically who you are, how you live life, how you approach God, your religious beliefs, how you see the Bible.

You know, and we just celebrate, we just practice, went through the time commemorating, the time that He sent His Son to this earth to die for every one of us as a substitute.

He was resurrected. Of course, we know that He was resurrected because we celebrate the wave sheep offering during this time period, presented to God for every one of us. Jesus Christ now sits at the right hand of God acting as your intercessor, as your high priest.

God led you to repentance, and God gave you His Holy Spirit, and God gave you a vision of the Promised Land. And here we are standing on the edge of the Promised Land. And we have a vision of it. It is a land greater than anything we can imagine.

And yet, there will be different responses as we approach the events that are going to happen as we get closer and closer to the return of Jesus Christ. So, are you a sufferer of the Grasshopper Complex?

Or will your response be trust and commitment?

There are two responses here. The Grasshopper Complex and the response of trust and commitment, which is our experience. And we all have the same experience, but which is our response? Well, today we're going to look at how God can break the spiritual, emotional, and mental shackles, the slavery that gives us the Grasshopper Complex.

It's interesting, if you read through this account of numbers, the men actually argued, it's better to go back to Egypt and be slaves. It's better to do that than face what's ahead. It's better to go back.

We talked about, on the first Holy Day, how we cannot go back. But when you have a Grasshopper Complex, when you see yourself as an insect, you're just going to get squashed anyways. It's better to go back.

How do people facing the same events have different responses? Remember, about three months ago, I said I was going to give a sermon on using the Bible to change the way you think. Well, I never did. Part of the reason why is I ended up with it kept getting bigger and bigger. It was like, well, now it's two sermons, and then it's three sermons. How do I explain this? Well, this is actually an introduction to that idea. I'll be giving some more sermons over the next year on using the Bible to change the way we think.

So, you have to understand something. I can't give you a psychological model that will make you a Christian. You become a Christian because God's Spirit does something in you.

I can't say, well, here's the 12-step program, and you do the 12-step program equals being a Christian. It'd be nice if it was that way. It doesn't. It works because we respond to God's Spirit. What we can create are models of how we respond to God's Spirit. You understand the difference? Because without God's Spirit, the models don't mean anything. But we can devise models on how do we respond to God's Spirit. Let me show you this first slide to show you what I mean. Here's a model.

A simple model took me about five minutes to make it. This isn't genius.

This is how human beings are. That was a little more complex than this. But if we look at this, we have an event. Most of us are event-driven. Most human beings are. We go through life being driven by what's happening to us all the time. Whatever happens to it at this moment, that's how we respond. So we have an event that happens. We take that event and we filter it through a very subjective set of standards that I have down here as personal filters. I'll explain all this in a minute because I want to really get into how change takes place and how we can have the same experience and have different responses. Today we're only looking at two responses. The Grasshopper Complex and Trust and Commitment. Which response is it? Which one do we have? We have these filters that we filter things through. We then have a mental process by which we think through things. We then have an emotional process.

It's hard to tell which one of these comes first. Most of the time, actually, the emotional process comes first. We have to reverse these. I'll show you why we have to do that. We have an emotional process. This leads to an action which leads to a response to the event. So you're all with me. You're all with me. Event. We have a personal filter, subjective filter, how we look at these things. There was one man, there were ten men who looked at, if they were the average Israelite at the time from just the research that they've been able to do through archaeology, the average Israelite at the time was probably somewhere about 5'6 to 5'10. 5'8 being the average, which would make me average. Never been average in my life. 5'8. Okay, they're facing the MBA in hand-to-hand combat. They're a little overmatched, and there are some people who looked at that and said, it's better to go be a slave than face this. There's others that said, we will eat them alive, right? They are bread because God's with us. They had the same training. They all went through the Red Scene. But they're filtering this totally different. They have a different mental process, emotional process, different action. Let's go to the next slide. I'm going to explain this a little bit. Take a couple slides here. We have the events. Events happen to us as a consequence of personal decisions, but that's not really what happens to us a lot. A lot of what happens to us is outside our own control. That's what makes life so frustrating, right? You can be taking care of your health, really doing well, taking care of yourself, having been sick for a year, and you go someplace, and you're standing in line at HEB, and this person turns around and coughs all over you. And the next day, you're laying in bed with a fever, and you're coughing, and you're getting... You had no control over that. You didn't do anything. The problem with events, some of them are consequences of what we've done. Much of the effects of your life are the consequences of what somebody else has done. And so we have a problem here. So much of this is outside of our own control. What we believe is that if we can control all events, we control everything. You can't. You can't control all the events. But that's what we try to do. So then we have our personal filters. Now, there's a lot of things we can put here. I picked these specifically for a reason. But we have our genetic traits. Now, your personal filters have genetic traits. If your 6'5", 250 pounds of pure muscle because of genetics, I guarantee you when you were 16, you probably faced conflict a little different than I did at 5'8". Okay? I learned to be a peacemaker. Well, after I got beat up so many times, it's like, okay, I'm going to be a peacemaker. This isn't worth it. But you see what I mean? We have genetic traits. Those genetic traits determine how we filter through certain things. We have our past experiences. If you were abused as a child, it is amazing how much we do in life is because of patterns we form as children and teenagers. We just live through those patterns over and over and over again, thinking that they're good or thinking that they're normal. This is the way everybody is. We also have preconceived perceptions that we have about things.

And so we face everything with a preconceived perception. I'll show you. I'll give you a couple examples in a minute to show you what I mean. We have our belief systems and we have our self-awareness. Now, what I mean by self-awareness isn't that you're self-absorbed. Most people are self-absorbed. Most people are actually not very self-aware.

And we're going to show that this is actually part of your Christianity.

When you're self-absorbed, what are you thinking about all the time? How you feel? How you think?

What's going on? You're responding to things. Self-aware people are aware of everything that's going on around them. Self-aware people are aware of what interaction they're having with other people, the response from other people. You ever see someone – of course, I've done this – you ever see someone just hurt somebody and not even know they did it? Because you're self-absorbed. Self-aware people know that they're hurting that person and they respond accordingly. So, when we talk about self-awareness, I'm talking about the ability to know how you're interacting with God and with other people. The next slide. We have the mental process. We build patterns to this. We have the emotional process. Here's what's the problem in life. We keep trying to change the emotional process.

And you can't. Until you change your personal filters and your mental process.

You can't. Have you ever seen someone tell a child, just don't feel that way. Stop it. Stop crying. So, they cry more? I said stop crying or I'm going to spank you. Oh, good. That'll stop the crying.

We don't know what to do. How do you stop this emotional process? You deal with the personal filters and you deal with the mental process. Then you're able to deal with the emotional process. And then we have the actions. Our actions are, unfortunately, our actions are so much of the time habits driven by our emotional process. Here's what happens. We get so used to our personal filters. We think that that's the way you should be. Now, remember, we're going to talk about in a minute the problem with that. We think that's the way we should be. We skip right over the mental process. We go from event to emotions to action.

Right? Event. Someone cuts you off in traffic. Emotion, you just want to punch the guy in the nose. Action, you cut him off. Well, you just skipped a whole bunch of processes.

But that's what we do. Through habit, we get to our actions or habits. Now, the next slide. Let's talk about how change happens. And I'll give you an example here.

Give you an example from what's happened, probably, in some of your lives.

Sometimes we have control over events. Many times we don't. Okay. We have to accept that. There's a point in life where you reach a maturity where you understand. I don't always have the ability to change events. I only have the ability to respond. Personal filters. You have no say-so over your genetic makeup. You got it. Right?

You say, wow, I just had this anger issue. It seems like every member of my family has an anger issue. And I have it, too. There may be a genetic disposition to that. Some people have the genetic disposition to do certain things. If you were not genetically designed to sing well, there's a limit to where you can go with that. Right?

You just... there's a limit. We can change. Also, you can't change your past experiences. You can't change the sin you committed to the past. You can be forgiven for it. You can't change the fact that somebody, you know, your father abandoned you in the past. You can't change the fact that maybe you were beat up by your uncle or sexually abused for, you know, all your entire teen years. You can't change that.

What you can have, here's what you have control over. You have control over how you deal with the past, your perceptions, your belief systems, and your self-awareness. You do have control over those. Next slide. Okay, why are you going through this? I'm going to show you. We're going to reach a point here. We're going to go in the Scripture. Your mental process. Here's actually where you and I have a great deal of control, and it's the area that we actually exercise the least amount of control. It's what we think about. Now, some of you already in your mind have gone to Philippians. Good. If you just went to Philippians, you're learning the process, right? These things think about whatever pure, whatever good, whatever lonely, right? If you just went there, you're learning the process. This is what we do. We have control. Emotional process. You change that by changing other things. You change that by changing other things. And then actions. We do have a choice of actions.

The problem is to actually do what God wants us to do, but we understand our own corrupt human nature. We have to realize that any time we have to do the exact opposite of what we feel, this gets tough. Remember what we usually do, event, emotional process, action. That's not how we have to do this as Christians. So, are you with me with the process? Of what you're like saying, any questions? I won't ask for any minutes. Let me give an example. Here's a simple example.

There were years ago that many of you went to church on Sunday.

Sunday wasn't a 24 hour worship time. You could work on Sunday. You could go to ball games on Sunday. You could do whatever you wanted to on Sunday. You went to church for a while. You liked church? Church was fun. You believed that the Sabbath was a Jewish observance and that an event comes along. Someone challenges you about the Sabbath. They give you a Bible study about the Sabbath. So, here you have a Bible study about the Sabbath. You think you're a good Christian and an event has happened in your life. Wait a minute. Okay, I understand the Sabbath was part of the Ten Commandments, but now what do you begin to do? You have your personal filters, correct? Still with me now. The event goes to your personal filters. What do your personal filters tell you? And some of you remember what your personal filters told you.

I like going to church on Sunday. I could go to church on Sunday all my life. I mean, I can personally remember going to church on Sunday. What I really liked was because I was a little kid, was we had a great big Noah's Ark with all the little animals and stuff.

I used to go to the little children's section during part of services, and I got to play with the children's Ark. Noah's Ark! I love that! I have great memories of going to the little Methodist church. Some of you have memories of years and years and years where you went to church on Sunday, you liked it. Your perception is the Sabbath is a Jewish observance, and that in fact it's harsh, it's mean, it's bad to keep the Sabbath. Your belief system tells you that Jesus did away with the old law. Remember you have perceptions, you have your belief system. It's all part of your this is all your filters. Your belief system and your minister told you, or your priest, the law has been done away with. To keep the Sabbath is actually to somehow put down Jesus.

That was all programmed into you. That's the filters by which you did things.

You weren't very self-ordered, the Sabbath. Yeah, they had thought about it before. Why? You habitually kept Sunday. Okay. So now you start to go through a mental process.

And this is where we talk to ourselves. And here's where the Scripture becomes important, because this is the cognitive part of what we do. And if we don't interject the Scripture at this point, you will always end up at a wrong place. So here's two ways that people process this thing, cognitively now deal with this. One, well, I've always liked going to church on Sunday. I mean, you actually talk to yourself. You and I talk to ourselves all the time. We always talk to ourselves. It's what we tell ourselves that determines eventually our actions.

Now, we either introduce Scripture into this, or we don't respond to God's Spirit. We'll talk ourselves out of where God wants us to go. So let's just think about how I know lots of people that the Sabbath is the event was, here's the Sabbath. And here's how they responded. I've always liked going to church on Sunday. My family and friends would think I'm crazy if I give up the community church I've been in all my life. We would lose our friends. God really doesn't care what day we worship on as long as we worship Him. All those old Jewish laws were nailed to the cross. Keeping the Sabbath would be a denial of Jesus. Besides, I'd lose my job. Now, I've heard people tell me those very words a hundred times. That's what they tell themselves. Then there's another set of people who tell themselves something else. They look at the Scripture. Remember, the same events are happening. They're getting the same set of Scriptures.

Same event, just like the 12 spies. And they say, well, the Bible is the Word of God. It clearly teaches that I should be keeping the Sabbath a Sabbath. The Sabbath was ordained by God at creation. It's one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus and the apostles observed the Sabbath. God wants me to observe the Sabbath no matter what other people do.

How did they come to that conclusion? Well, let's see. The Bible says this. The Ten Commandments says this. Genesis says this before the Ten Commandments. Jesus and the apostles. You see where they're... what's happening? Their mental process is being fed by Scripture. And as that mental process is fed by Scripture, they're arriving at a different conclusion. But boy, is this stressful. And when many of you... See, the second generation Christians in the room never had to give up Sunday. Some of you, it was painful. It was incredibly painful. Why?

Because you had to go through a mental process that changed your personal filters, that had been developed in you since you were a child. It is stressful to do this. Now, if you're a second and third generation Christian, you say, oh, good. I'm glad I don't have any personal filters that have to be changed. Oh, boy.

The fact that you said that means you have a personal filter that needs to be changed. You're already in trouble. You're already in trouble. Of course, then they first have to go through the emotional process.

And they have to go through that stress of changing the emotional process. In the end, there's two actions. One person gives up and denies the Sabbath. The other person keeps the Sabbath. You see? We just went around that circle we talked about. Event, filters, mental process, emotional process, action. They changed their emotional process by changing their filters, which were changed by a mental process. And the reason I say this, if you waited until you didn't like Sunday keeping anymore, you would still be doing it. I mean, if you gave up, if you waited to give up Christmas till you hated Christmas, you'd still be keeping Christmas. You gave up Christmas not because you didn't like the caroling and the lights and the gifts and the family and the turkey and the ham. You didn't give it up because you didn't like those things. You gave it up because you felt like you had to do it. Because why? You saw it different. Your filter had changed. And because you saw it different, you had to change. You made a decision to change. God's Spirit leads us through this process. But you have to understand the decision is yours. The decision is mine. God won't make the decision for you. He will only lead you through the process. That's why you need to understand the process. This is what conversion is. You're converted from one thing to another. You become something else. You're converted.

Now, these filters. Let's talk about these filters for a minute. Next slide.

Genetic makeup.

Here's what we tell ourselves. God can't use me because I'm too much like my mother. Dad was an alcoholic, so I'm never going to overcome my alcohol abuse. I can't help I have a violent temper. I was born this way. I was born a homosexual, and God expects me to be what I am. You ever hear people say that? That's self-talk. I am this way. I am genetically this way. This is the way I am. And that's just the way it is. You deal with this through Scripture. This is why you and I have to be in the Scripture. We have to be in the Bible. Look what 1 Corinthians 1 says. 1 Corinthians 1. Have I lost everybody? If you're with me, shake your head yes. Okay, everybody's with me. Well, a few. 1 Corinthians 1, 25.

I thought, how can I do this in an hour? I have three hours worth of stuff.

That's why I haven't given the sermon. I thought, well, I'll just do what I can this time. We'll do more later. 1 Corinthians 1, 25. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see our calling, brother, that not many wise, according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. God is called the foolish of the world to put the shame of the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put the shame of the things which are mighty. You were chosen by God because you're really not that special. So, what do I have to give? I don't have anything to give. God, other people have all these talents. Okay, that's why I chose you. To make you something, to change you into something, to convert you. This is where these filters have to be changed. We have to take the filter out. We have to put a new filter in. We have to be removed from, I'm worthless and meaningless, to God is doing something with me that I can't do that can't be done without God. Thank you, God!

Verse 30 says, well, verse 29 says, the reason he does this is that no flesh should glory in his presence. But if him you are in Christ Jesus, who become for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that added to this written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. You can walk around and say, when I change, when I grow, what's happening to me is a glory to God. And every chance I get, I'm going to tell somebody else what you're seeing. When someone says something good about you, it's like, doesn't God do good work? Isn't this amazing? I don't do this. You know, we struggle with things sometimes because we're holding on to our filters, our filters that are actually corrupt human nature. We never overcome our fears, our anxieties, our hatreds, because we forget he did not give us a spirit of fear. Right? He didn't. Remember 2 Timothy 1.7. Let's read it. 2 Timothy 1.7. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. And I tell you there's sometimes you're going to be on your knees sometime in your life and you're going to be saying, God, this is what you said you gave me. And I don't... that's not what I'm experiencing right now. I'm not experiencing any power. In fact, I'm... I think I'm crazy. Right? Yes! Good! Changing filters.

Give me what I do not have because you say you will. Sometimes we don't want to give up the filter. You know, God starts to change this like, oh, nope, nope, don't want that. We're like grabbing this old dirty filter and trying to stuff it back in our minds. Then it'll be like this filter, oil filter on your car, that your engine is going to blow up because the thing's so dirty and filthy and the mechanic's taking it off and you're grabbing out his hand and screwing it back on. I like that old dirty oil filter. See, that's what we do in our own minds. We keep filtering things through dirty filters. The Scripture tells us what God's doing. We have our past experiences. Our self-talk is, if you knew my background, you'd know that God really can't love me. I'm so ugly. Everybody must treat me the way I want to be treated or I will quit this job or this church or this club or this family or whatever. I've always been controlled by anxiety. I always will be controlled by anxiety. My family was so smart, but I'm so stupid. Remember, the other thing I remember, or there's very little I remember from the psychology classes I took at Penn State University, but there's one thing I do remember. I still have the book. They had us read a book. There was a case study. The little boy's nickname was Dibs.

Dibs, everybody thought, was a boy who had an extremely low IQ. And he acted, he acted almost analytically at times. I forget what his age was, but it was like 6, 7, 8, 9 years old. He was a point where he should develop and he hadn't. And so, the psychologist started working with him. What he found out was Dibs was actually a very bright boy.

His mom and dad were both scientists. And all his life, he'd never been around children. He'd only been around all these people with doctrines. The result was, he had decided he was stupid.

He didn't know what anybody was saying. That doesn't ever mean anything to him. He never had a childhood. He found out he was actually very bright and had an above average IQ.

See how the filters? His filter was something wrong with me. Everybody's talking about quantum physics. You know, all I wanted to do was throw the baseball a little bit.

I didn't want to study this trajectory and the speed. I just want to throw a ball, you know. There's nothing wrong with him because he fits and throws the ball by himself.

See what we do with filters? See how strong those filters can be?

That self-talk. We go to Ephesians 2. I won't go there. I have some scriptures on the screen there.

Write down those scriptures. Ephesians 2, Romans 6-8. These are the scriptures that begin to deal with our past experiences. Psalm 32 is very important to deal with your past experiences, especially your past sins. We have the preconceived perceptions. Here's the self-talk we get with preconceived perceptions.

God is always angry with me. You know, we've been married too long to change. Everybody is against me and my family. Here's the one that I always think is funny. The minister's coming to visit. I must have done something wrong. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me. What did I do wrong?

Nothing. I just... I mean, we've known each other for five years. I've never been over your house. I just thought, can I come over and, you know, maybe talk, maybe give us some iced tea or something. I have, you know, had... or invite somebody over our house. Oh, why? What have I done wrong?

I don't know. You've just never been to my house before.

So, we have these preconceived ideas. We destroy a lot of things for our lives with preconceived ideas.

Paul had a lot of preconceived ideas about God. Now, you and I have a lot of preconceived ideas about God that aren't right. A lot of them. That's why it was so interesting in Philippians 3, 1 through 13, where Paul says, I looked at all my preconceived ideas about God and said, you know what? This is about to rubbish. Now, he's talking about his experience as an Orthodox Jew. Serious study of the Scripture. Serious attempt to actually obey God. He said, my preconceived ideas were so wrong that when I really realized that Jesus was the Messiah, I thought, oh, it was all wrong. I had to reevaluate everything. Preconceived ideas.

Belief system.

If everyone would just observe the Sabbath the way I do, there wouldn't be so many problems in the church. This is the only kind of music God approves. I'm glad it's my favorite kind of music. I can't believe the minister allows that person to come to church. I would never commit that sin.

I can't forgive that person. I know God doesn't expect me to forgive him, not for that level of sin. Everybody would just do it my way and work out. We have these preconceived ideas of how everything and everybody's supposed to be. That leads us to all kinds of conclusions. You know, I've known people that were the strictest tithe payers I've ever met. They paid their tithes. We're commanding the payer tithes. That's good. But they paid their tithes, but they really didn't want to pay their tithes. The motivation, their filter was, I have to do this. But they didn't do it because they wanted to do it. So they get the wrong filter in. The result was they found out somebody else in the church wasn't paying their tithes.

And so it's like, run to the pastor. You got to kick this person out. Wait a minute. We're working with that person. They have some personal issues they're dealing with.

They're repenting. It's out of your business. Yes, it is. I pay my tithes. If that person doesn't pay their tithes, they need to suffer.

All someone has to do comes along with a good argument why you don't have to pay tithes, and that person will give up paying tithes.

Because their filter is, I'm being forced to do something I don't want to do. And everybody else better suffer if they don't do it, because I'm suffering by doing it.

We don't look at people as people who need to repent. We look at people who need to be punished. We look at people who need to be punished.

Belief systems. I have here a number of scriptures. Because you start with Genesis 1-3.

We all have a corrupt human nature, because Satan has affected us. Colossians 3, verses 1-10, Paul says, okay, this is what we must do to respond to God. Exodus 20 says, hey, here's 10 commandments given directly by God. Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Sermon on the Mount. You know, when you're struggling with your filters, nothing will hit you harder than the Sermon on the Mount. Nothing will hit you harder than Sermon on the Mount.

Self-awareness. Okay, you're absorbed with yourself. You want to really start being aware of what's going on around you? Study 1 Corinthians 13. I mean, I have to be kind. Now, this is one of the things that will help people the most, that suffer with certain issues in life. You're absorbed with what's happening to you, so go do something for somebody else.

Think about it. Now, this is a mental process. The mental process is, I'm walking up to the gas station door. There's somebody behind me. I will hold the door open for that person. It's an act of kindness. That mental process changes things. This is the only time you and I have much control. The rest of the process we went through, we don't have a lot of control. You change filters and you change your mental process. That changes actions.

But the events, they don't change too much. Emotional responses, they're developed by other things. So, this self-awareness. Here's what we do when we with our self-talk, when we have a wrong self-awareness. Those people are laughing. I bet you they're laughing at me. I bet you're laughing at me. I wish this person would hurry up with their story because I have a better one.

This person really isn't listening to my health problems. Of course, I've only been talking for 45 minutes.

Scripture changes that. That's why you have to go to Scripture. How do you change that feeling? I feel sick. I don't feel good. When I don't feel good, I tell you what I do. I tell everybody to listen. But if I did that enough, pretty soon I wouldn't have anybody around me. Right? I'd be alone. No one would talk to me. Why wouldn't they? I mean, okay, give us four minutes of how bad you feel. Then let's go over something else. Or how do you feel? You get a response from the other person.

Self-awareness isn't being self-absorbed. It's the opposite.

Let me give you an example. I want to give you an example of a person that capsulates all this. We're just introducing the subject. Really, what this moves us away from, as the Scripture begins, it teaches.

Maybe you've had this experience. If you're really down and you pick up the Bible and all of a sudden you read something, maybe one of the Psalms, and you say, Wow, and it changes you. What's happening? Why is that changing you? That's God's spirit. What is God's spirit doing? You're submitting. You're changing filters. And as you do, your mental process changed.

It's amazing. There's even Psalms where David writes where he's sick. And he writes about what it's like to be sick. There's Psalms where he writes about when he couldn't sleep at night. So he's just walking through the palace. You can find in the Scripture all the things that are dealing with what you're dealing with. And that Scripture changes because that's God talking to us. Let me show you an example of a person. 1 Samuel 15. God called Saul to be king. Saul was not chosen by God to fail. 2 Samuel 15. God called Saul because he was the best man available. And he is about to face an event. And he's going to have to choose how he goes through that event. And we'll see here that we'll see what his personal filters are. And it can vary, obviously. We'll see what his mental process is. We'll see what his emotional process is. And we'll see what his action is. We'll watch this whole process and what Saul does here. Okay? 1 Samuel 15. There is no Saul. If you're looking for it, you won't fight him.

Samuel also said to Saul, verse 1, The LORD sent me to anoint you king over his people over Israel. Now therefore hear the voice of the words of the LORD. Samuel reminded him, God made you king. God chose you. God put you in charge. God's going to give you everything you need to be king.

If you submit to what God is asking you to do.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel. How he ambushed him on the way when he came up out from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have. Do not spare them. Kill both men and women. Infant and nurse and child. Ox and sheep and camel and donkey.

Saul gathered the people together and numbered them. Antile and Erim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. Saul came to the city of Amalek and laid in wait in the valley. When he ambushes them, he attacks them. Verse 8 says, And he took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people at the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless that they utterly destroyed.

They were unwilling to do it.

Saul had been anointed by God. Saul had been selected by God. He knew that Samuel was God's prophet. He had been ordained by him in front of all the people. He was the king. He had an army of over 200,000 soldiers. That's huge, even by today's attendance.

He's king!

If you've been watching the Bible on the History Channel, you know, Saul had like 30 men.

That's it.

You think, man, they could at least have some computer graphics and made the same guys. You know, they do that over and over again. Looks a little weird because they all look the same, but at least 30 guys just isn't that impressive.

Verse 10. Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has outperformed my commandments. And it grieves Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.

Samuel, to me, is a fascinating person in the Bible. He tried to save Saul. He loves Saul. He tried desperately to save him.

So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, he was told Samuel was saying, Saul went into Carmel, and indeed he set up a monument for himself. And he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal. He set up a monument for himself.

This begins to tell us a little bit of the filters that were now forming inside Saul's mind, and we'll get to the mental process, the emotional process he was going through.

Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord.

Saul runs to Samuel, and he's so excited. This is so exciting! We won! It was so easy! I performed! I did what God commanded.

I am about to be blessed.

Samuel will now bless me. The people will just look up to me as the king. I've already put up a monument. I've got over 200,000 soldiers here. They're saying Saul is the greatest military leader of all time. He's an instrument of God. All this was happening to him.

But Samuel said, What then is this bleeding of sheep in my ears, and the lowering of the oxen which I hear? Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, where the people spared the best of the sheep of the oxen, the sacrifice of the Lord your God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed.

He's commanded to do something, but then he does part of it. Now, you start to see the filters here.

The filters become very obvious.

As king, I can interpret God's instructions. I can interpret God's instructions. I am the king.

As king, I can determine how God will be worshiped.

I am the leader of the land. I get to interpret this. I get to do this.

Remember, at this point, Saul truly believes, I have obeyed God.

He believes it?

I have obeyed God.

He is feeling elated.

His emotional process is absolutely excited. I have obeyed God.

Look at verse 16. Then Samuel said to Saul, Be quiet. Now, we'll tell you what the Lord said to me last night. He said to him, Speak on! There isn't like, Well, you know, No, don't tell me this. Is God upset?

Samuel just said, Be quiet and shut up. Then Saul said, No, go in. Say what you got to say. I let everybody hear this, you know. Because I know God's going to probably told you, Take Saul and tell everybody, This is my man.

So Samuel said to Saul, verse 17. So Samuel said, When you were little in your own eyes, Saul, you used to have a different filter.

You used to look at things differently. You thought about things differently. You saw yourself as small before God, and you saw the greatness of God.

You know, this isn't the grasshopper complex in terms of, Oh, I see myself so tiny. When we have that trust and commitment response, we still see ourselves small. But we see God as awfully big.

That's the difference.

It's how we view God.

The ten spies just saw themselves as insects. Caleb and Joshua said, We can't lose.

We have God with us. We just have to do what He says.

Here, Samuel tells Saul, this event happened, and your filters changed, and your mental processes changed.

When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? Did not the Lord anoint you, king of Israel? Now the Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil in the sight of the Lord?

Now we start to see the filters. I am king. I can do what I want here. I get to interpret these things. I get to determine how this is going to be done, because I'm king.

Now we're going to get into His mental process. See what His filters are. What is His mental process when Samuel says, Your filters are wrong.

This is not what God wanted you to do.

Verse 20. And Saul said to Samuel, But I have.

I have obeyed God.

What's your problem?

You know, you're getting old and seen out here, Samuel. I don't understand. I did what God said to do. And I have gone on the mission, which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag, king of the Amalekites, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. I brought back the king and killed everybody, just like you said.

You see, now there's something illogical here. I killed everybody, except Agag. I told you to kill everybody. I did, except Agag. But I told you to kill everybody. What's wrong with you, Samuel? I did, except Agag.

But the people, now He blames somebody else. I am king. I get to do this, so it's somebody else's fault.

It's somebody else that's messing my life up here. Samuel's obviously upset.

I've done a really good job here. I've done very well.

Somebody's messed up, and somebody's going to pay. It's the people who took the plunge, or the sheep, or the oxen, the best of the things, which should have been utterly destroyed, which should have been utterly destroyed. Okay, okay, I'll give you that much. See, at first, you didn't give that much.

To sacrifice to the Lord your God and Gugel. But, you know, we did it for the right reason. We did it because we want to sacrifice it all to God.

I don't want that stuff. I never wanted that stuff. Those people were so evil, I wanted you to destroy them and destroy everything. Oh, yeah, but we did. We did. We did. Now we're going to destroy the rest of it by sacrificing it to you. Now we jump to his emotional process.

So mentally now, okay, mentally...

I... okay, okay. I see what you're saying. See, he won't deal with these filters. He won't change his filters. He's still seeing that he's right and forgot he did what was right. Okay, I see what you're saying here. See what you're saying, Samuel. So you and me need to correct the people now.

That's what we need to do. I understand. I get it. We need to correct the people now.

Verse 24, Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I has transgressed the commandment of the Lord in your words, because I feared the people who obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me that I may worship the Lord.

This is the response to verses 22 and 23, where Samuel just tells it flat out.

Well, look what he says in verse 22. Samuel says, Has the Lord had great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices? Has it obeying the voice of the Lord? The old to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fad of rams. For rebellion is the same as the sin of switchcraft, and stubbornness is the iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king. Now he just says, Here's your problem, Saul. Your problem is, you think sacrifice, this ritual, is more important than obedience. You have an attitude of rebellion, and you are stubborn. Okay? Now he just told him, Here's your problem.

You think ritual is more important than obedience?

You have an attitude of rebellion, and you're just a stubborn guy. Remember when you were little in your own eyes? Remember when you had different filters? But this is how you see things now. His mental process is, But I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.

I'm not okay.

So you forgive me.

He really didn't repent.

He didn't fall on his knees and say, God, I have not obeyed you. God, I have rebelled against you. And God, I'm being stubborn against you. You notice what he emotionally did?

He said, Samuel, forgive me. Please forgive me.

You forgive me.

What's the action he now takes for Samuel 15.26? But Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. Here's his action now. It's desperate. And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and he tore it. And he reached out and just grabs his robe, and he's walking away, and he rips part of his clothes off.

So Samuel said, the hand of the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you, and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

He's going to give it to somebody better than you.

And also, the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man, that he should relent.

And Saul says, I have sinned.

I have sinned. Teach me how to repent before God.

That's not what he said.

I have sinned, yet honor me.

You know, I just built the most incredible monuments to myself and all of Israel.

I have 200,000 men here, and you're telling me I'm not going to be king anymore.

Come on, just show me some honor so everybody can see that I'm a good guy. I really did obey God, Samuel. You think I didn't, but I did.

I really did. Now Saul starts to become a tragic figure, as he slowly deteriorates into insanity.

He begins to deteriorate into insanity. He won't change his filters. I obey God. God has a problem.

God has a problem.

I did what he told me to do. Honor me. Please! He's begging him. Before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God. Please!

Let me go. Let's go worship God together. But I find it interesting. He never says, the Lord my God. He always says, the Lord your God.

He didn't deny that God was Lord. He would not accept that He was rebellious and stubborn.

God has a problem here, Samuel.

But please, for the sake of making me look like I'm still king, His motivations, His need for power, His need for control, His need to be seen as important.

Those filters would not be removed. His mental process was, I did not do wrong. His emotional process now begins to be, I must protect myself at all costs. I must maintain my kingdom. He tried to kill David.

He became mentally ill, became tormented by a demon.

God slowly took His power away until He ends up committing suicide on the battlefield. Because at this event, He would not see it a different way.

He could only see it His way.

Verse 31, I think, is so interesting. So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord.

One last time, you know, he tried to worship God. He tried to go back. But he wasn't worshiping God.

He was using God to make sure everybody saw that he was still king.

You know, we talked about the heart a lot over this last year. That was sort of the theme of what we went through this last year.

This is the case where a man's heart was right, turned wrong, and he could not go back. He refused to go back. And he becomes a very tragic figure. Let's conclude with the last slide here.

Our fifth slide. Here's how to start breaking these shackles.

Ask God to help you recognize your wrong filters. You have to go ask this. Am I processing things always through a need to control? Am I processing things through an anxious heart? Am I processing things through a rebellion? Am I processing things always through stubbornness? We've all met somebody in our life. You know, they're so stubborn to their own detriment. We all say, why are they this way? Because that's their filter. What are their filters? Everything has to be, you know, I can't bend. If I bend, I've compromised. You know, Coke is better than Pepsi. And if you like Pepsi, you're really something wrong with you. Because, you know, I could never compromise and drink a Pepsi. Because everybody knows Coke is better than Pepsi, except for a few people that have, like, some kind of retarded taste buds. Right?

I mean, I'm being facetious, but we've met people that are at that extent of everything. They're just so much better than you. And I'm being facetious, but we've met people that are at that extent of everything. They're just so stubborn. That's one of their filters. You know, as we are converted, everything has changed. The filters by which we see through things have to become God's filters. They're not easy. When we start getting into filters, we get really, you know, longs your enemy. Whoa! I'd rather have the one that's in there that says, beats your enemy into submission. But, you know, don't take that one out!

I get a lot of my enemies. A different filter comes in. Ask God to help you recognize your own filters. You have to go ask, what is it in me? What is it as part of my mental process, my emotional process? A lot of times it's our emotional processes. What is keeping me from you? What is keeping me from being a better Christian? What's keeping me from having you fulfill what you want me to do every day? What's keeping me from being close to other people in the Church?

What's keeping me from obeying? What's keeping me from the Sabbath? What's keeping me from having a better marriage? What's keeping me from tithing? What's keeping me from having peace? Why do I have turmoil all the time? What is keeping me from where you want me to be? Go ask him. It's never easy. Remember, this is always painful at this process. You can't make... but the rewards are fantastic, but it's not easy. You have to go ask, and it's hard. God will tell you, well, maybe you're immature in this way.

Maybe you're selfish in this way. And the problem is, we don't have just one bad filter in there. We've got a bunch of them. Secondly, analyze yourself. Talk. What are you telling yourself all the time? Oh, God can't love me. Well, then, you're bigger than God. Besides, if you tell yourself that long enough, you'll turn against God.

Just like when Saul began to say, I'm king, I get to interpret this. Samuel gives me his interpretation, I get my interpretation. When he decided he could start doing that, where did he go? He self-talked himself into it. He self-talked himself into it. What do you tell yourself all the time? Now, there's people who do the opposite. God loves me so much, he doesn't care if I sin. God loves me so much, he doesn't care if I'm sleeping with my girlfriend.

God loves me so much, he doesn't care if I'm still in the blind. That's a sure way of destruction. So get a notebook. Do a series of in-depth Bible studies. Write down the Scriptures that apply to your filters. I'm always in conflict with other people. Go through the Bible and study everything about conflict. Take a notebook and write out every Scripture that has to do with how you're supposed to deal with conflict. Use those Scriptures as yourself talk. Use the Scripture as yourself talk. Behavior will be changed. God will talk with you through Scripture. Is there something else in this? Yeah. Become self-aware of your interactions with others instead of just concentrating exclusively on your own emotions.

So in conversations, instead of just thinking about how you're feeling or what you're thinking, try to take yourself out of yourself and try to figure out what that other person is thinking and feeling. You know when true communication takes place? When both people are doing that so well that they're just automatically what they're thinking and feeling is transparent. It's just transparent. They're both saying what they actually think and feel. And when you discover God's command or solution to a problem, take the action immediately. Don't wait until you feel like it because you're trying to remember in that process.

Go back to that loop we went through. In that process, if you say, the emotional process is where I'm going to change, you've already lost the battle. It's one of the areas you have the least amount of influence over unless you change other things. Only God's Spirit can make the changes in your life that you desperately need, that I desperately need. Your response is to submit to God's guidance and correction. That's why I can't give you a 12-step program.

I can only show you how the process works. And you and I submit in that process. We obey in that process. You know what's hard? Sometimes the process means being passive and just letting God do something when it's not what you want done. For a person like me, that's the hardest time when he says, be passive. I don't want to be passive! I want to do something! And sometimes, no, no, you've got to let me do this.

Sometimes it's being passive. All change is stressful. God wants to make your life better. That's what the Days of the Unleavened Bread are all about. Remove the sin and put in the Unleavened Bread of Truth and Sincerity. Put in Christ! The result of this is eternal life! Eternal life in the Kingdom of God. We need to learn to be driven less by physical events and more by spiritual principle. You are standing on the threshold of the promise land. I covered a lot today. We need to understand the process by how conversion takes place, how we must interact with God's Spirit, and the Scripture has to feed it.

What scares me is that every generation in the United States gets dumbing down where they can't read the Scripture. You can't read the Scripture. How does the process take place? If God feeds us through the Scripture and you can't read it, how does it take place? You are standing on the threshold of the promise land.

Like the spies, God gives you a vision of the promise land and you've come back. Are you one of the spies who suffers from the grasshopper complex? It's too big. It's too great. There's fortifications. There's a malachite. Those guys are ugly. They all have beards. They're tough. They're on camels. And there's Canaanites. Some of them have chariots. The fortresses are so high we can't batter them down. Our wives and children were starved to death by the time we tried to get through this.

The best thing we need to do is go back into slavery. The Egyptians are the one that's back. They'll send boats across the Red Sea. God doesn't even have to open the sea. They'll take us right back. Do you suffer from the grasshopper complex? God has called us to be like Caleb and like Joshua. That we see the events of our lives in the light of God's plan. That God causes all the events in our lives. In fact, most of them He doesn't. That's what's so difficult. That's what God's things have to do with His life. God didn't have anything to do with.

It's what it is to live in Satan's world. That we're able to take these events and see them in the light of what God is doing and of His plan. And that we can respond to these events and the power of His Spirit. That we can respond to these events because of God's personal involvement in your life.