[0:00] Good evening. Good evening. Oh, man, good to see everybody here tonight. I love coming up here. Maya, heel, please. Maya, Maya, it's time. Come on. It's time. Yeah, come on. Here we go. All right, good girl.
[0:10] Come on. All right, what's the number one rule? Are you coming? Come on, let's go. It's time. Maya, heel, please. What's the number one rule when you take your dog in public?
[0:22] What is it? Yeah, always keep him on a leash, right? And Maya, Maya, over here, please. Thank you, Maya. This is Maya. Can you give her a round of applause? See it, please.
[0:32] You know, Maya is, she wants to go where I want to go. She wants to be, to do what I want her to do. She wants to be what I want her to be most of the time. And to the point where she even carries her own leash for her.
[0:45] You know, and it's really a good application right there. That's all, it ought to be the way we are with Christ. He doesn't, listen, I wasn't yanking her in here, right? I wasn't hanging on.
[0:55] How many of y'all have a dog? When you see, you open up the door, it takes off. You're trying to hold it in before you open up, right? Most of us have had that dog, right? Or have those dogs. And, but we ought to be like Maya is with me right beside the Lord.
[1:09] He doesn't have us on a leash. He doesn't want to yank us around. He doesn't want us getting ahead of him and pulling him all over the place. And so it's a really good application for that. Maya, sit, please.
[1:21] So I am so thankful to be here tonight. I am grateful. Brother Trent, thank you so much for having me. Long time friend of Pastor Trent. And there's so many other names here and people that I've seen.
[1:31] It's sometimes like a homecoming being able to see some of you men and some of you women. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I am not a professional dog trainer. I never claimed to be. I am a professional try to give the dogs a treat so they'll do what I want them to do kind of guy, right?
[1:49] I do pastor a Victory Baptist Church in Loganville, Georgia. My wife and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary yesterday. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, congratulations to her, right?
[2:01] And we have six children. Some of you know my kids. My oldest one's 23. My youngest one's 13. We have three boys and three girls. Two of them got married this year, one in March and one in April or one in May.
[2:12] We're right back to back. And it's kind of, when you have them all together like that, they leave all together pretty quick too. And so I don't like that part about it. But I am a duck hunter.
[2:23] I love to duck hunt. I love to deer hunt. I like to any kind of hunt, quail hunt, whatever. And I've been training my dogs for a few years. And a couple years ago, the Lord put on my heart to use my dogs for more than just hunting with.
[2:35] And I began to pray about what that could be. And here I am, a ministry called Send Me Dog Ministries. And so the Lord gave me a verse, Isaiah 6, 8.
[2:48] And he's talking to the prophet. And he asked them, you know, who shall I send? And who will go for us? And what was the answer the prophet said? And he said, here am I.
[2:59] Send me. And whenever I tell my dogs to go do something, I'm having to go pick up a bird or a duck or a bumper or whatever. I'm sending them. And so that's why I have the name of Send Me Dog Ministries.
[3:09] And really, it's opened up some opportunities. I do a lot of school chapels and wild game fellowships, beast feasts, those types of things, men's meetings, SCA huddles.
[3:20] Just a lot of different things I've had the opportunity to do. And God's really opened up some opportunities there. So to be able to come up here amongst friends is going to be fun. Now, this is the very first time that I've ever had the pups up here in this confined of a setting.
[3:36] And I've done football fields and gyms and things like that. And so we'll see how it goes. They've only been with me. I've only been working with them for, I guess this may be the fourth or fifth time they've actually came with me to a meeting.
[3:48] And so y'all are going to forgive me if they really don't do good, aren't you? All right? It's kind of like kids, right? I mean, sometimes, you know, when they go out in public, they do pretty good, you know? Other times you're like, you know, take them to the cart and just knock them out real quick, you know?
[4:04] And tell them they're sleeping in the van, you know? You've never done that before, Brother Shan. I know you have. But that's where we're at. And so that's why we're here today. These are missionary dogs. This is a missionary church.
[4:15] And we're to go out and to find the things that are lost. And most importantly, talking about souls. And so it is a privilege to do this. I still pastor full-time.
[4:25] I told you we got married. And 28 years ago, we went on a honeymoon. The week later, I started the church there at Victory. And so I've been there for 28 years. This yester or today, I've been at Victory.
[4:37] And so I'm still pastoring that, still running and gunning and full-time doing that. But this is something that I love to do. I love to work with the dogs. But I love the opportunity to help. I mean, kids, senior adults, I mean, everybody loves dogs.
[4:49] They won't come hear me preach, but they'll come watch a dog, you know? And so that kind of works for me. So I wanted to share just a few things tonight using the dogs and some illustrations of how in their relationship with me as their master and how it ought to be with us and Christ as our master.
[5:06] And some of the roles there that we have and some of the relationships that we have and how important that is. And so this, I'll introduce you to the pups right now. This is Moxie.
[5:18] And she's got it. Let me tell you about it. She is full of Moxie. And she is the pups. This is Maya. She's the mama dog. And these are both her daughters.
[5:30] I bred her. These are British labs. Maya's a little over four years old. And the girls are just a little over a year old. And this is Moxie. This is Maya. Her proper name is Duck Hill Maya of Monroe.
[5:44] It's kind of a fancy name. But we just call her Maya. And this one over here. I don't know. If somebody wants her, I'll give her to them tonight. I mean, she's my lover.
[5:56] And her name is Memphis. And it's so city. She just rolls with it. You know what I mean? Just whatever. You can tell by a dog's tail. Oftentimes what they're thinking and what they're doing.
[6:07] You'll watch my older one tonight. She's very timid. She will be. She was trained to be in the duck bind. To be in a swamp. To be on a rice field or something like that. And she would much, much rather be there tonight than on the church platform.
[6:20] The other two don't know any better. All right? They're like, whatever. Just take me with you when you take mama. But this is Memphis and Maya and Moxie. And I'll use them a little bit in doing this.
[6:30] But before we get started, let's have a word of prayer. And ask the Lord to bless us. Right now. Right now. Down. Okay.
[6:41] She said, we've already prayed. Let's pray. Well, God, we come to you tonight. And Lord, we ask if you would just to help us. Lord, I know we're using dogs as illustration.
[6:51] But Lord, I pray that you'll speak through your word tonight. And Lord, through the illustrations tonight. Lord, may we see how we ought to be with you. And Lord, if there's someone here who doesn't know you as their savior.
[7:03] Lord, may they understand the gospel tonight as it's presented as well. I pray that you bless our evening. Bless this church. And Lord, the pastor, the leadership. Continue, God, to grow them and grow this community.
[7:15] In Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right. So, I'm going to share with you three words tonight. And I'm trying to adapt a little bit, you know, depending on the congregation that I have a little bit.
[7:26] But I want to teach you three things about us and our relationship with God. And the first thing that we must understand is we must learn this idea of obedience, right? We must learn to obey God.
[7:37] I'll have the kids help me on this aspect of it. And we'll just use you to God. Can you all help me preach tonight? Is that all right with the kids? Okay. All right. So, you guys, the first thing we need to learn is we must learn to obey God.
[7:50] All right. What's the first thing? We must learn to what? Obey God. Obey God. That's exactly what we must do. Now, I want to use, you want me to use the yellow dog first?
[8:02] Sure. Sure. Okay. All right. Let's see if we can use her. Memphis. Heel, please. Memphis. Heel. Memphis. Memphis. Heel. Oh, goodness gracious.
[8:13] All right. Memphis. Heel. Come on. Go ahead. Heel. Go ahead. All right. So, one of the things that I have to learn to teach the dogs is to obey me, to pay attention to what I'm doing, to listen to me.
[8:28] And when I tell them to sit, they are to sit. I don't use the word stay because sit means sit. And, you know, if I'm telling them to sit and I'm telling them to stay, there's a whole lot of commands going on.
[8:39] And they have to learn how to sit and stay there until I release them. This is not something that's easy to teach. Obviously, it takes a little bit of time.
[8:50] And I have to establish this authority in their life. I remember one time I was working with Maya and she, we were out in the yard and we were working on obedience drills and she was doing something right and I told her to sit.
[9:03] And I said, you just sit right there. And I went inside. I was going to make her sit there for a few minutes. I forgot about her. I got on the phone, answered some emails, answered some texts. And all of a sudden I realized, oh my word, I left my dog outside.
[9:14] I walked to the front door and looked at her and she was sitting in the same spot like 25 minutes later and hadn't moved. But you know, I couldn't leave these little girls like that for that long. They would eventually get up and wander off.
[9:26] But we have to learn at some point to listen. I'm their master and they're to listen to me. And they are to sit there until I release them. All right?
[9:36] Now, we ought to be the same thing as well with God. When God places us somewhere, we need to learn to sit right there until he moves us. Amen? What the scriptures say in Psalm 46, 10, be still and know that I am God.
[9:49] Right? And it's a great illustration of how that obedience must come in our lives. So when God says, look, I need you right here and don't move. I know you don't understand it. I know you don't know why you're here.
[10:01] But you need to sit right here until I release you. But you know, you're like some of these pups sometimes. And I'm the same way. God will place me right here for a while and I'll start creeping a little bit. I'll start creeping.
[10:12] Every now and then with these little girls, I'll sit them and I'll walk over and I'll be doing something. And I turn around and they're still sitting, but they're right behind me. They're like scooted over, you know, but they're still sitting, pushing the envelope.
[10:24] And we do that with God. We need to learn to stay put when he tells us to. All right? Now, there are times where I have to teach them and use distractions to try to teach them to stay there.
[10:38] All right? So they won't break. Let me see if I can't get her to do that. Memphis. Come on. Come on. Heel. Memphis. Memphis. Heel. Thank you.
[10:48] So what we do is I use bumpers. These are bumpers. By the way, I'll be throwing some of these and doing some different things. If it lands in your lap, get rid of it, okay?
[10:59] Because they will come get it, all right? And kids, if they run by, you don't reach out to grab the dogs, okay? Because they'll be coming, most of them, except for the one in the middle, becoming pretty fast to go after it.
[11:09] So I have to learn how to teach them how to not break. All right? Breaking is when they get up and leave. So, good girl.
[11:24] She's like, are you going to hit with that? And I'm not going to be able to get it? Whoa. Give her a round of applause. Good job. You see, there was a time in their life where that wasn't possible.
[11:41] As soon as I threw it to them, they would be breaking and going after it. But I use distractions to teach them how to be obedient. Because, listen, if I'm in a duck blind, if I'm hunting and guns are going off and birds are flying and guys are standing around shooting shotguns, if they're breaking up, they're jumping up, they're taking off, they're going to get shot.
[11:58] But every year, dogs are killed in a duck blind because they don't have the obedience and the steadiness to stay there. And so we have to do that.
[12:08] And listen, guys. Memphis. Sit, please. These bumpers are like our enemies. The world, the flesh, and the devil. The world's constantly throwing things at us, trying to distract us, trying to get us to break.
[12:22] You don't have enough likes. You don't have enough friends. You don't have enough hits. You need to do this. You need to dress like this. You need to do whatever it takes to get you more likes and more hits, more views.
[12:33] The flesh. Man, flesh is always wanting us to be angry, cynical, bitter. The flesh is wanting us to be jealous. The flesh is wanting us to assume all sorts of things. The flesh is wanting us to blame everybody on everything.
[12:45] And, of course, the devil's always trying to deceive us. Goes always back to the Garden of Eden, right? They're always throwing things at us, trying to get us to break. Let me see if she'll help me again. She was watching me just now.
[12:57] And she knows if I'm watching her and she breaks, she's going to get in trouble. But what happens if my back's to her? Did she go get it? How about that time?
[13:09] This one might hit her. Let's see how this one goes. No? Give her a round of applause. Let me ask you a question, boys and girls.
[13:21] What do you do when your mom and dad's back is turned? Do you do the right thing? Are you obeying? One little girl's going, yeah. Just like my dog, sweetheart.
[13:33] Just like my dog. Thank you, Memphis. All right. And so that's what we've got to do. We've got to make sure that we're listening to him, that we're being obedient to him. The Bible says, by the way, adults, it's not just kids.
[13:47] Sometimes we get this idea that God's not really paying attention to us right now. Proverbs 15. 3 says, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
[13:58] Right? So he's always watching us. Even when we don't sometimes think that he necessarily is. As a matter of fact, he wants us right by his side. He wants us to yield to his authority and to his leadership in his life.
[14:10] He wants to guide us. He wants to lead us. And he wants us close to us. And I want to see if these pups will do the same thing here. Let me use another illustration right here. We'll see how this works. When I walk my dogs, it's called healing.
[14:24] All right? And I want them to be at my heel. All the black girls, they're on my left. And all the yellow girls are on my right. All right? And that's how I keep them up and how they walk. And so when I'm walking, I don't want them to get too far ahead of me.
[14:36] I don't want them to get behind me. I saw you, Brother Trent. I don't want them to get behind me. If I go left, I want them to go left. If I go right, I want them to go right. If I stop, I want them to stop. All right? That's called healing.
[14:46] So let me see if the girls will help me on that. Moxie. Heel. Good. Heel. Good.
[14:57] Memphis. Memphis. Heel. Memphis. Come on. Good. Good. All right, girl.
[15:08] Let's see how this works. Ready? Heel. Memphis. Memphis. Heel. Memphis. Heel. Memphis. Okay, let's start all over. Moxie.
[15:20] Heel. Memphis. Heel. I'm going to do a comedy act, I think, too, with these dogs. I'm not sure. Okay, girls. Heel. Heel.
[15:31] Good. Good. Moxie. Moxie. Moxie. Heel. Heel. Good. Heel. Good.
[15:43] Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Notice that when I stop there to stop and sit, heal.
[15:55] And it's something, again, that we're learning. And oftentimes you don't really heal two dogs at one time, but something that we're learning. Heel. See how they're not getting out ahead of me?
[16:07] They're not lagging behind. When I stop, most of the time, they stop and sit. Girls, heel. Good.
[16:17] Good. Can you give them a round of applause? Memphis. Place. Place. Memphis. Place. Memphis. Place. Good girl.
[16:28] You know, that's the way Christ wants us to be. He wants us to be close to Him. I want the girls close enough where they can feel my leg. Sometimes we're walking in the dark. We're walking at night. We're walking in the water. We're walking in the swamp.
[16:39] And they just need to sense where I'm at. And this presents a biblical principle to us as well. As Christians, the Holy Spirit of God lives within us. Amen? He guides us. He directs us.
[16:50] He determines how fast to go. He determines when we slow down. When to change directions. The Bible teaches in Proverbs 4. Ponder the path of thy feet. Let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand.
[17:01] Right? Nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil. So it's a great illustration of how we're to heal with our Master. Go wherever He takes us. Right by His side.
[17:11] Left, right, stop, sit, and wait on Him. And it's our job to stay close enough to the Lord so we can feel His presence as well. So we don't get ahead of Him or fall out with Him. And we do just work on the whistles. I have a couple of whistles.
[17:23] Sometimes I need the girls to be able to stop. Maybe I can't yell at them. Perhaps we're in a big field with a lot of brush.
[17:33] Or maybe they're running through the water. And they won't hear me yelling at them. But they'll hear a whistle. And that's their command to stop. And I use that to direct them as well. You see, not only are they supposed to watch me.
[17:45] They're supposed to listen to me. They're supposed to listen to what I tell them to do. Almost every time we go hunting, it's before dark. And we're setting up decoys or we're doing whatever. And they need to be able to listen to me and pay attention to what I'm going on.
[17:56] Because, number one, we must learn to what? Obey God. Right? So, obedience is a key in our relationship with the Lord.
[18:06] Now, sometimes in our earthly minds, we can't sense the Lord's presence. And it's hard to do that. Sometimes, we want to get ahead of Him. We want to rush and do our own thing. Let me see if I can work with Moxie.
[18:21] What are you doing over there? Are you taking a bath? Okay. Sit. Sit, please. Moxie. Sit. Good.
[18:38] You kick that out just a little bit right there so we won't knock that coffee over there. That's perfect. Moxie. Get back. Good. Good girl.
[18:51] Good. Place. Good girl. Thank you for a round of applause. All right. I better give Memphis one, sis. She'll do it. I don't know.
[19:01] You want to do this or not? Huh? You're cool? Okay. You do want to. All right. Let's try it. Oh, there we go. All right. Memphis. Get back.
[19:14] Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good girl. Place. Please. Give her a round of applause. All right.
[19:27] Sliding around a little bit right there. You see, I say their names because I don't want them to get confused. I just threw it out there and said back, you know, which is the command to go get it or fetch it up or whatever.
[19:40] If it's close, all three of them will go, right? And so I have to give them a name and then give them a command so they will follow their command. I use, Maya has a little football jersey that we had made for her.
[19:54] And for our local high school football team, she is our tea retriever. So when we kick off, she runs, gets the tea and brings it back and the cheerleaders love it and the other teams love it.
[20:04] And I'm teaching the girls how to do that. But sometimes she'll be all the way on the other end of the football field. And I'll be on this end and we're kicking off there. She'll be on her place and I'll whistle and get her here. And so right now what I'm teaching them is to learn hand signals as far as coming to me because they need to know who they are.
[20:22] Now, I don't know. We did not practice this. But if you're willing to give it a shot, I will give it a shot here. We'll see if I can use their signals. I don't know. Memphis, heel.
[20:36] Memphis, heel, please. Memphis, heel. Memphis, heel. Come on, let's go. Good heavens. Memphis, heel.
[20:49] Memphis, heel. Come on, Moxie. Come on, Moxie. Moxie, heel. Sit. Good. Sit.
[21:01] Sit. Sit. Thank you. All right. All right. Maya, come here. Sit, please.
[21:15] Maya. Sit. Sit. All right. Hmm, this is, I'm not sure how this is going to work. But I'm amongst friends, right?
[21:26] All right, very good. So notice their come whistle is three tweets. You heard me do that when they picked up a bumper and they came to me, right? So I can't do that or all three of them will come.
[21:39] So I'm trying to get them to understand their hand signals and, of course, their names. So I will blow my whistle. I will give them a sign and then give them the come tweet.
[21:50] And we'll see if we can do that. Maya. Yep. Sit, Moxie. Maya. Sit, Moxie.
[22:01] Sit. Oh, there is Maya. Maya. Maya. Maya. Good, Maya.
[22:12] I'm sorry. You know. I don't feel bad to do the same thing with my kids, you know. I call. Call one. All right. So that was Maya's signal.
[22:23] The little yellow one, hers is a top wave because alphabetically it's M-E. And then I have a bottom wave for Moxie because M-O-X.
[22:34] All right. So. Oh, good girl, heel. Good girl. Sit. And you.
[22:46] You may not come anyway. You know you're the only one so you got to come, right? Right. Right. Good girl. All right. Good job.
[22:56] Give her a round of applause. All right. Thank you. Place. Place. Good girl. Place. No, that's your mama's. Place. Place.
[23:08] Let's go. Place. Yeah. Always a wise guy. All right. So. That's why I use their names because I want them to know I'm talking to them, right?
[23:19] And their reward for listening to me is to go and get something. And they love to retrieve that they live to retrieve, especially the one here in the middle. And that's what we train for. So here's what I want you to do is, by the way, anybody can do this stuff.
[23:33] Anybody can train dogs. Let me show you how easy it is. Carson, where are you? Carson, come here. He helped me earlier today. Good job. You all right tonight? All right.
[23:43] Do you know what this means? That's my stop whistle. Okay. Do you know what this one is? Come to me.
[23:53] That's exactly right. If I were to send you that way, what does that mean? You go that way. If I go that way, you go. If I hold my hand up, you do what? Back. Right?
[24:04] Great. Let's see if that works right. Stand right here. Heel. Good. I didn't tell you.
[24:17] You're acting like her. Stand there. Good. Need a bumper, don't you?
[24:35] Get out. Good. Get out. Get out. Good. Give them a round of applause. Come on.
[24:50] Good. All right. There you go. Open it up. There you go. You don't want a treat? It's just beef jerky. It's just beef jerky. Come on. You don't trust me?
[25:10] Beef? Do you all eat beef jerky at your house? Yes. Give it to me. Go ahead. It's beef jerky. Go ahead. All right. You have a seat. Good job. All right.
[25:20] Give them a round of applause. It's not beef jerky. All right. So anybody, anybody can do that.
[25:31] All right. It works with husbands as well. You know, I've had a lot of, I've had many people ask me if I could teach their husband to do those things, but that doesn't always work. So, you know, let me, let me show you this as well.
[25:42] I'm talking about obedience still. All right. I need you to, I need to do something. Y'all, who, what's the dog's name in the middle? Five. Okay. Okay. What I need you to do, would you kick out in the middle, sir?
[25:55] What I need y'all to do is I, when I tell you three, I want you to tell her to go get it. All right. Call her name. Fetch. Go get it. Back. Go pick it up. You, whatever you want to tell her to do.
[26:06] All right. You call her. Tell her to do it. You ready? One, two, three. Go. Y'all aren't very good dog trainers. Louder.
[26:17] Ready? Go. One, two, three. Okay. All right. Maya. Maya, heel. Maya, heel.
[26:28] Sit. I'm going to give you one more chance. Sit, please. I'm going to give you one more chance. Y'all go ahead. Do it again. Go. Okay. All right. Maya.
[26:39] Maya. Get back. Good. Fetch it up. Let's go. Fetch it up. Fetch it up. Good. Good. Now, let me ask you a question.
[26:50] Why didn't she go get it when y'all were calling her name? Because you weren't her master. You know, there's a verse in the scripture that talks about that.
[27:02] Bible says, my sheep. Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, right? And I know them. And they follow me, he says. You see, you're not her master. My dad, I appreciate my dad coming out.
[27:14] This is actually the first time that he's came on my presentations. I'm honored to have him. And my wife, I appreciate her coming. And my dad was telling me when I brought him in, he was wanting Maya to carry the leash for him.
[27:24] You know, like she does for me. He came and he's like, she will not do that for me. What in the world? And I said, because you're not her master, right? It's a great principle that we must follow the words of Jesus Christ.
[27:37] He's our master and we are to obey him. And not all the other voices in the world are telling us to do the things that the world is trying to tell us to do. All right, so the first thing is the idea of obedience.
[27:49] We must learn to obey God. Here's the second thing, all right? Second thing is talking all about trust. We must learn to trust God. Young people, can you say that? We must learn to trust God.
[28:01] What was the first one? We must learn to what? Obey him. Second one is we must learn to trust him. Now, you saw me throw a bumper to the dogs.
[28:13] And for sake of time, I'm going to kind of hurry this up. When they see it, when they see it, they can go get it. That's easy stuff, all right? But there are often times where they don't see it.
[28:25] And they don't know where the bumper landed or they don't know where the duck flew or someone shot and they're looking at this duck and someone shot one over here and it comes over here. And so we have to work on what we call blind retrieves, all right? And for sake of time, I won't do that tonight.
[28:37] I didn't set one out and don't have a whole lot of room. But I will send her. The girls are learning this. I will send her and I will send her, stop her and I'll direct her and send her to go get what I can see.
[28:50] Because a lot of times she's at the water's level and she can't see it. But I have a higher vantage point. I can see what's going on. I can see sometimes the danger. I can see what's over the horizon a whole lot more than she did.
[29:05] And it's not easy. It's easy to go get them to get something they see. It takes a long time for them to go and get something they haven't seen and to trust me that it's out there.
[29:15] And for a long time, I had to work with her to be able to teach her, listen, you trust me. I promise you there's something out there for you. Just follow my lead.
[29:26] And so I send them on a blind retreat. He says, sometimes God has things for us and we can't, we don't know why he's sending us where he's sending us. We're like, God, I don't know why you got me going down this road. This is a dead end.
[29:37] God, I don't know why you have me here at this time in my life. I don't know why I'm going through this. He's like, trust me on this one. You be obedient and trust me. I promise you it'll be worth it if you will continue to follow my lead.
[29:51] You see, we must have faith in God. That's why it's called trust. The scriptures tell us, trust in the Lord with all thy heart, right? Lean not until you don't understand him. Them girls are like, I don't know why you got me out here.
[30:02] There's nothing out here. The scripture goes on to say, in all thy ways acknowledge him and what? He shall direct thy paths, right?
[30:13] You saw me directing Carson, right? And I'll do the same thing with the dogs. I'll stop and I'll whistle them and I'll direct their path. I'll send them back. I'll come to, I'll move them to the right. Right. That's exactly the way it ought to be when it comes to our relationship with God.
[30:26] And even when we can't see where he's sending us, we need to learn to trust him. And just like Maya doesn't see me when she goes to get those bumpers, she trusts me to do that. In John 3, 16, the Bible says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever what?
[30:40] Believeth in him, trust in him, should not perish but have everlasting life. So, we've talked about obedience. We've talked about trust. There's a third thing that we must learn to do when it comes to our relationship with God.
[30:54] We must learn to love him. Say it with me, guys. We must learn to love him, right? Let me ask you a question. How many of y'all think these dogs love me? Do you?
[31:06] Why do you think they love me? Because I'm their master, yeah. I have the beef jerky. That's right. I got the meats, right? I feed them.
[31:18] I give them a bed to sleep in, right? Why else do you think they love me? Here's the real answer. They love me because I first loved them.
[31:30] You see, I remember when I was looking for a dog. I was wanting a duck dog. And I had found her. I got her out of just east of Memphis, Tennessee.
[31:41] And I saw the breeder. She's a British lab. Full-blooded British labs. All of them are. And I saw her mom and I saw her dad. And I said, I want a pup out of that. I want a little black female puppy out of that litter right there.
[31:55] And I remember going out there. I took my youngest son. And we went out there. And we picked her up. We fell in love with her way before she ever fell in love with us. Just a little puppy.
[32:05] We picked her up. And you see, I had great things in store for her. I was going to train her to be my duck dog. This was before the ministry ever started. I had great things in store for her. I wanted to train her.
[32:16] These girls over here that are asleep right now for whatever reason. They had a long day already. They were born on my back porch. We had her bred with another male out of North Carolina.
[32:28] And, well, we were wanting a yellow. We had the black. And so we were wanting a little yellow. And I remember the first one started coming out. We're all excited. All my kids were all around. We're watching.
[32:39] And she had no privacy whatsoever. But all of a sudden we see this little dog coming out. And we're like, oh, it's black. It's black. You know. And out comes Moxie. And we had some other pups. And I remember we were waiting on that yellow.
[32:53] We're waiting a few hours later. And all of a sudden, she's having no jump. No, everybody's running in there. And all of a sudden we saw this little yellow hair coming out. We were jumping up, high-fiving.
[33:03] We were so excited. You see, we loved these dogs before they ever knew who we were. I had great plans for them. I had them specifically for this ministry.
[33:14] Because I knew Maya was going to get old. I know she's going to, she's going to, I'm going to retire her at some point. And these other ones are going to carry on the ministry. We'll have more pups in another year or so. And I'll be training more to carry the ministry on.
[33:25] See, I had great plans for them. You know, Christ loved us before we ever loved him. Amen. The Bible tells us that in Scripture. We love him because he first loved us.
[33:39] He loved us before we ever learned to love him. Just like I love these dogs before they ever learned how to love me. And by the way, he's got great plans for us. Amen. The Scripture tells us that we are for his workmanship created in Christ.
[33:50] He's done the good works. He had great plans. Just like I have plans for these girls. He has plans for you, sir, and for you, ma'am, and you, young person. But not only did I love these pups before they knew me.
[34:03] Not only did I have great plans for them. I sacrificed for them. I've never spent the kind of money that I spent on her when I first got her for a dog. I thought that was crazy.
[34:13] That was crazy people stuff, all right? But my goodness, what pleasure she's brought in the field and what ministry she's brought in the ministry aspect of it. It costs a lot of money.
[34:26] I've got, send me as a 501c3 nonprofit and it's just funded by people and friends. And so it's something, but I have insurance for them, insurance for my board directors, vet bills.
[34:43] The whole works, right? They're eating me out of house and home right now. That's why I was trying to sell a t-shirt or two to buy some dog food. Because I sacrifice for them. But nothing like he did for me. Nothing like he sacrificed for us.
[34:55] By laying his life down on the cross for our sins. The Bible says, but God committed his love towards us. And while we're yet sinners, he died for us. Amen? What a sacrifice. He purchased us with his own blood, the Bible tells us.
[35:08] So I want to close with one illustration here. And kind of illustrate what Christ has for us in a small way. The kind of love that he has for us. We also work with the dogs.
[35:23] And these are little dog treats. You want to taste that and see how it tastes? Oh, my goodness.
[35:35] Country girl right there, all right? She just licked that thing just to please you please, all right? There's one in every crowd, though. I promise you that, all right?
[35:46] Or two sometimes. And so these are little dog treats. These are little bones. And the girls love these. They would chew on these. It won't take them long to work on this. Maya. Maya, here.
[35:58] Maya, here. Come on. Go ahead. Maya, here. Go ahead. So these are treats. And these are kind of like, I could say these are temptations.
[36:10] There's nothing wrong with these. But there are temptations in her life. But not always are things in our life bad things.
[36:21] You know, hunting is not a bad thing, right? Do it in moderation. There's a lot of things that we have that's not a bad thing for us to do. It's not always the most expedient thing or the most prudent thing to do.
[36:34] And while Maya has these treats right here. Now, the girls, they wouldn't. How long do you think that she would stay here without eating these treats? A pretty good long time, all right? Because she's going to be obedient. These over here, if they're not sleeping, they're going to be eating these things, all right?
[36:48] And I don't know why they're so sleepy tonight, but they are. But Maya would much rather go and get something. And particularly a duck, you know, a quail or a dove.
[36:59] That would be, that's right up her alley. These bumpers, things like that, yeah, she's like, whatever. Give me the real stuff, all right? And she would much rather go retrieve something than get a treat. When the pups are young, you have those little clickers out there.
[37:11] And I use those when the pups are young to help them learn how to be obedient, how to trust me, and things like that. And their reward is a treat. They love treats. They love the little beef jerkies that Carson doesn't like.
[37:22] But they're learning now that they would rather retrieve than to get a treat. And that's the point that Maya, that's why she doesn't really care about these right here. She knows that if she obeys me, she trusts me, even because of my love for her, I have something better for her than these little treats.
[37:40] And we'll see if this is going to work. Maya, I've got something better for you for the treats. Maya, get back.
[37:51] Maya, get back. Maya, get back. Let's go. Get back. Let's just up. Maya, Maya. Bet you that. Let's go. Get back. Good.
[38:02] Get back. Get back. Good. Good. Let's go. Catch it up. Catch it up.
[38:12] Good. Maya. Get back. Maya. Get back. Get back.
[38:26] Let's go. Fetch it up. I'm sorry. Maya, heel. Heel. Maya. Get back.
[38:37] Let's go. Fetch it up. Fetch it up. Good. Fetch it up. Let's go. Fetch it up. Fetch it up. Go on. Come on. Maya.
[38:51] Fetch it up. Hey, leave it. See, the duck, normally she loves to go get.
[39:05] But I've got something better than the duck for her. Sometimes God gives us something and we can go for it, but he's always got something better for us if we'll listen to him. When you came in, you saw the cross, right?
[39:18] When we keep our eyes on the cross, we've got something better for us. God always has something better for us. We keep our eyes on the cross. Maya. Get out. Let's go.
[39:33] Fetch it up. Good girl. Good girl. Give her a round of applause. See? See it, please. When we keep our eyes on the cross, we've got something we can chew on for all eternity.
[39:45] Amen? Amen. It's not the little things that God has for us. They're okay. It's not even sometimes he's sending us on a nice adventure. But when we keep our eyes on the cross, that's where it makes the difference.
[39:59] You know, guys, adults, moms, and dads, and kids and teenagers, you know, God has something better for us than an old duck when we keep our eyes on the cross.
[40:11] You see, when she hoped, Pastor hoped in me, her trust in me, although she didn't do it really well there. Sometimes she does. Sometimes she doesn't. When we don't go for the cookies of temptation in our life, when we don't even go for the fun, fake ducks, we go for the cross, we go for Jesus, we've got something that will last forever.
[40:32] Maybe you've never been saved. I'm going to ask you if you would bow your heads and close your eyes tonight. You guys have been a great audience. Maybe you've never been saved. Maybe you don't even know what that means. But you'd like to know more.
[40:43] Most important decision a person can make is knowing where they will spend eternity after they die. We're all going to die at some point. That's kind of a given. And I can help you tonight, or one of the workers here can do that.
[40:57] See, no one is perfect. We're all sinners. There's not a single person in here tonight that's perfect, just like these dogs. None of them did. Perfect tonight. We're all sinners.
[41:08] There's a penalty for that sin as well, and that penalty is eternity apart from Jesus Christ. And someone had to pay the price for our sin. And Jesus did that by dying on the cross. I was in Israel just a couple of weeks ago, and I went to a couple of the places where they said that this is where Jesus was stripped and beaten and hung on a tree for us.
[41:31] It was surreal to see. And it was a choice that's personal. See, every one of us has to make that choice. There's no grandchildren in the kingdom of God. We're only children.
[41:43] No one can go to heaven because mom and dad is or because a grandparent is. That's an individual choice that we've got to make. Now I realize tonight we had some fun. We talked a little bit about it. We worked with the dolls.
[41:53] We talked about that obedience. We talked about the trust that we must have with our Savior. We talked about the love that's necessary in that relationship. Let's forget the dogs for a moment.
[42:04] Let's talk about you. Let's talk about your relationship. Where are you at right now? Are you being obedient? Young person, are you yanking on the leash?
[42:15] Is God trying to get you to go one way and you're fighting him right now? Maybe you're having a hard time trusting in him. You just can't see why he has you where you're at right now.
[42:28] Maybe you wonder, how come you haven't advanced farther than you are? Why am I still sitting here? Why am I still spinning my wheels? Why haven't I had more success in my life? Whatever the case may be.
[42:40] Learn to trust him. He has a different vantage point. He can see down the road places that we can't see. And just learn to love him. Maybe tonight you need to fall back in love with the Savior.
[42:54] I know so many times I catch myself. I'm trying to do my own thing and I get caught up on my own agenda. Sometimes I just need to get a part. God, I just need to get with you tonight. I just need to love on you.
[43:05] I need you to love on me. Maybe that's where you're at tonight. Maybe an illustration of the dog can help you see how important the relationship with our Master ought to be.