Speaker 1: Hey, good morning everybody, good morning.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and stand up and greet some people around you that are coming in and help them find their seats as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, good morning.
Speaker 1: How's everybody doing?
Speaker 1: My name is Randy.
Speaker 1: If I haven't had a chance to meet you, I hope to meet you out in the welcome area, if I haven't, afterwards.
Speaker 1: That's always the highlight of my day.
Speaker 1: Some of you looking like where's James?
Speaker 1: James supposed to be here today.
Speaker 1: Where's James?
Speaker 1: Why is he?
Speaker 1: He's gone.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 1: I've been begging James for the last two months to let me come out here and trade with him, and today, finally, is the day that I get to be at Pinewood.
Speaker 1: So if you need, if you need to James fix, you can still catch him at five o'clock this afternoon Because he will be doing my job over there at our third service over there.
Speaker 1: We are one church, two locations right now, five meeting times, five services, and so I'm really, really excited about this afternoon because I'll get to sit in the back of the room and listen to him teach, and then, right afterwards, we get to go out and have these bonfires Out under the trees there together as a way, just kind of mix and mingle, and get to know one another.
Speaker 1: It's called jingle jam.
Speaker 1: You hear more about that later, but anyway, I'm just glad and I'm proud of our three folks that were interviewed, who are all teachers over at CSU, and I know that's a special place for a lot of you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, see, I'm the rookie here.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm, so what, the children can be dismissed right now.
Speaker 1: So yeah, give them my hand.
Speaker 1: Alright, sorry, the our three CSU professors.
Speaker 1: I'm just grateful to all of them for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One is they're a great reminder of the first Week of Advent, today that we've already kicked off the hope advent, and that's what I'll be talking about Today hope, how hope informs all of us as believers.
Speaker 1: But the other reason that I am excited about them is you just heard it, you just heard it with With dr Thomas, and that is basically the philosophy of I am a missionary Dressed up like a college professor.
Speaker 1: If they learn a little bit of math, then great.
Speaker 1: But I'm really here to minister, and dr Maxwell said the same thing and you know that applies to to me and you.
Speaker 1: Some of you are educators teaching second graders and you're a missionary who happens to be Public school teacher, other postal employees.
Speaker 1: You're a missionary who happens to be, whatever your skill or gift, mix or Vocation is today.
Speaker 1: So thanks, by the way, for bringing your Bible, if you did, or your device or whatnot.
Speaker 1: How about crank that open and Turn to Hebrews.
Speaker 1: We'll start there, at Hebrews, chapter six, and will he actually look at a couple of verses in the Old Testament to do?
Speaker 1: Because they both talked about hope, and so, as Christ followers, you have probably grappled with what I have in the past, and that is is faith the same as hope?
Speaker 1: We're supposed to be people of faith.
Speaker 1: We're gonna address that based on what the scripture says about that.
Speaker 1: Are the two the same are?
Speaker 1: Do you need one before the other?
Speaker 1: Is One dominant over the other?
Speaker 1: The other?
Speaker 1: Linkage has to be.
Speaker 1: Does that get in the way of my ambition?
Speaker 1: Is it okay to be an ambitious person as long as that doesn't collide or conflict with my Christian leading and God?
Speaker 1: If what you said is true about we're all missionaries right now, the interesting thing about ambition is the younger the person is that you ask, the more ambitious they normally are.
Speaker 1: Have you ever asked a seven-year-old what he's gonna do with his life?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play an NBA and then, when I'm not in the NBA, I'm on quarterback Dallas Cowboys.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, when I get old enough, I'm gonna marry Miss America, and that's about it, you know, and it's just so matter of fact.
Speaker 1: I love, I love that I read about a lady who was teaching third graders I think it was and she gave them one of those ambition.
Speaker 1: She defined ambition and then she said write your ambitions for your life.
Speaker 1: Right down, these are second and third graders, and one of them in particular.
Speaker 1: I remember he was such a thinker, he had it ruled that he had it lined out in three phases.
Speaker 1: He's gonna do a that, he said.
Speaker 1: The first thing on my ambition list is I'm gonna get a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: It's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two is I'm gonna kiss her, and then the leap was number three I'm gonna rule the world.
Speaker 1: So women really do empower us, don't they?
Speaker 1: To go from two to three, and and we laugh at that, but sometimes the older we get, sadly, the more the dreams, the ambitions die.
Speaker 1: They either get crushed, or we get discouraged, or we get this concept of now that I belong to Jesus.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just gonna sit on the couch and I'm gonna let him tell me what to do, when to do it, and I'm not really, you know, I have no ambition of my own.
Speaker 1: All three of those are false narratives and that's what we'll look at today.
Speaker 1: What I saw that got my attention this week in the in a late poll, a recent poll.
Speaker 1: It was about hope and it said this.
Speaker 1: This is not going to surprise you.
Speaker 1: The majority of this country has transferred as now substitutes worry for hope.
Speaker 1: They're not hopeful anymore.
Speaker 1: I they're worried.
Speaker 1: 84% of this country said I'm either worried or extremely worried about the direction of this country.
Speaker 1: And then what they were in summation was forget hope.
Speaker 1: And isn't that a sad reality?
Speaker 1: We are supposed to be the light into that darkness.
Speaker 1: So that's why today, I think the discussion and anytime we talk about the future regarding hope is really so.
Speaker 1: Let me separate one thing right quick.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to be people of faith.
Speaker 1: Our lives with Christ are based on faith.
Speaker 1: That separate from hope in this.
Speaker 1: Faith is more past centered.
Speaker 1: It's more in the past, brought forward to the present.
Speaker 1: That has informed you and grounded you and hopefully made you more secure, but it informs our hope cause.
Speaker 1: Hope is futuristic.
Speaker 1: Hope is not based on circumstances.
Speaker 1: Hope is one of these.
Speaker 1: It stinks today and this is not at all a place I wanna be in my life, but I have hope that in the future may not be tomorrow, but one day I will be in a much better place.
Speaker 1: That's the Christian philosophy in the nutshell.
Speaker 1: Can I give you some good news?
Speaker 1: This is my main point.
Speaker 1: We'll back it up with a couple of other sub points.
Speaker 1: My main point from the scripture is simply this faith is always rewarded.
Speaker 1: God will always reward your faith.
Speaker 1: Hebrews 11 that I won't read is called the hall of fame of faith by some people, but the stark thing about that y'all to me is in verses 13 through 16, the author says most of these people died never having seen the fulfillment of the promise that they were given, but nevertheless it was credited to them as righteousness and honored by God.
Speaker 1: Is what he's saying.
Speaker 1: So some of the things God is planting in you, or has already planted in you you're not crazy, you're not being unrealistic.
Speaker 1: It is from God, but you may never live to see its fulfillment, and so credit to y'all for being part of this new venture and everything that is gonna make the dreams of other people come to fruition all too so we're gonna wander around in two different places in the scripture mainly we're gonna be Hebrews, which is written around 64 AD, first century.
Speaker 1: Then we're gonna go all the way to 1000 BC in the psalm, the writer of the Psalms, who is prophetically agreeing with the writer of Hebrews, who's after Jesus.
Speaker 1: And then we're gonna go down to 700 BC, which is another prophet who's basically saying the same thing 300 years later.
Speaker 1: Only in the Bible are you gonna get that kind of consistency right.
Speaker 1: So let's pray before we get started.
Speaker 1: Lord, just thank you for this moment, thank you for everyone in this room, thank you for those who are leading our children down the hall and serving sacrificially.
Speaker 1: I just pray to you, open our heart, open our minds to what you are saying and what you are describing and not what we project onto it.
Speaker 1: So, lord, just clear our minds, clear the deck of anything that could distract us in our own brains and allow us for a few minutes just to focus on you and what you're saying.
Speaker 1: And so we give this time to you and now please come.
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, amen, all right, so let's look at some factors in this reward, if faith is always rewarded, the first thing we wanna talk about is from Hebrews 6, 19 and 20.
Speaker 1: And that is, we are asked to trust a person and not a process.
Speaker 1: So let's read if y'all look at Hebrews 6, 19.
Speaker 1: We have this hope as an anchor, or a strength for the soul, firm and secure.
Speaker 1: It enters the inter sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.
Speaker 1: He has become a high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Speaker 1: So he's symbolically talking about.
Speaker 1: Y'all know the old system.
Speaker 1: If you were a Jew in that day, you knew the system.
Speaker 1: There was the temple, big, elaborate place.
Speaker 1: Everybody loved to go to temple.
Speaker 1: There's outer court, inner court, holy of holies.
Speaker 1: If you're in the inner court, you can see the curtains, but you didn't know what it looked like in there.
Speaker 1: It's just one room with our covenant in there, cause nobody was allowed to go in there, only the high priest once a year, and he went in and the whole country held its breath.
Speaker 1: While this priest is in there sprinkling blood sacrifice on that altar, why he is asking God to forgive the whole nation's sins for an entire year.
Speaker 1: And so you're sitting there like I hope he's living right.
Speaker 1: I hope he's doing his job, cause if he fails, if he goes down, I'm in big trouble For a whole year.
Speaker 1: I'm in big trouble.
Speaker 1: I'm not in a good relationship with God if that's the case, and thankfully we don't live by that system anymore, because Jesus came and it says it's like, symbolically, it's like Jesus went and ripped the curtain open, left it open, walked around back and said hey, why don't y'all come in here with me?
Speaker 1: Because I have already been the sacrifice.
Speaker 1: I have done the sacrifice one time.
Speaker 1: You won't have to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, you don't need somebody like me to sit down and confess yourself to, or expect me to go out back and slaughter of sheep or something and sprinkle some blood around for your forgiveness of sin.
Speaker 1: Aren't you glad that that's not how we work?
Speaker 1: I am, and so we get to move beyond that.
Speaker 1: So it all starts with a person and not a process.
Speaker 1: Now, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure where to walk here.
Speaker 1: So, sam, if I step on the greenery, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: We all need a process.
Speaker 1: This place operates on a process that was developed, developed.
Speaker 1: It's called load in and load out.
Speaker 1: Y'all some of y'all are very familiar with that.
Speaker 1: A lot of you know there were people here at 6.30 this morning unloading Jack's one of them.
Speaker 1: He goes almost every week down downtown to our parking lot, brings one of those trailers up.
Speaker 1: They all float them and you should be here.
Speaker 1: You should show up just to watch, because it's like science, they've got it down to this.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: So I come in here we all pray at 6.30.
Speaker 1: And so I'm like man, I'm not just gonna stand around, I'm gonna help.
Speaker 1: So I jump in there and I start helping unload, and it took me 20 minutes to realize that every time I put something down, somebody would walk behind me and pick it up and put it where it was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: The efficiency rating.
Speaker 1: Will Walker is he.
Speaker 1: He's not in the room right now, but that's who it was.
Speaker 1: Y'all are probably, I would guess, like 94% efficient week to week.
Speaker 1: It's incredible loading up and tearing down afterwards and putting it up in the mornings Highly, highly efficient.
Speaker 1: Because of my great help this morning, the efficiency was probably 79%.
Speaker 1: Now, I was the guy in proverbs.
Speaker 1: I was zealous.
Speaker 1: I just didn't have any sense.
Speaker 1: I had zeal without knowledge.
Speaker 1: The point, though, is this If your spirituality is based on a process showing up to church, bringing your Bible, maybe even going to a group, maybe even writing a check or having a draft come out of your account, but that's it.
Speaker 1: You're relying on a false model that will break on you.
Speaker 1: When a process no longer serves its purpose, it's time to have a quick burial and go to another thing.
Speaker 1: Because some of you know this as things change, processes will let you down.
Speaker 1: Some of you are good thinkers and you're saying well, you said, trust a person, not a process.
Speaker 1: People will let you down, and you would be absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Every person on the face of this earth, if you are with them long enough, will let you down in some bigger little way.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about a different person.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the person who is Jesus Christ, because when he makes a promise, you can take it to the bank.
Speaker 1: He's never failed on one.
Speaker 1: He's never backed up on one.
Speaker 1: His word is absolutely solid, and that's what I'm asking you to trust over a process.
Speaker 1: Churches are notorious for getting so dependent on policies and processes that they can't get out of their own way, and when there comes an opportunity to reach people, they actually vote against it.
Speaker 1: They vote against the will of God to honor their policies.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm thankful that Somerville, about two years ago, didn't do that because you know what.
Speaker 1: We would not be sitting here if they had done that, because this wasn't a process that was in place, and I think we need to continue this.
Speaker 1: Can I give you another little piece of encouragement today?
Speaker 1: There's a day coming.
Speaker 1: My job sometimes is to remind us of the big picture.
Speaker 1: The big picture of this is all the set up, the tear down to going through the inconveniences of being in a gym and not a nice building that was designed to be a worship place and everything.
Speaker 1: It's really about the next generation.
Speaker 1: There will be people one day starting a third location and a fourth location.
Speaker 1: Guess what they're going to say every single week how did they do this at Pinewood?
Speaker 1: I wonder what they did at Pinewood?
Speaker 1: Well, I know what they did.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll do it and you know what it will work.
Speaker 1: And it's going to save them a lot of stomach lining.
Speaker 1: It's going to save them a lot of stress, because the process will serve them well, because you guys are pioneers.
Speaker 1: You have started something that hasn't been done, at least in the history of our church, and God's obviously honoring it, and you're a part of something very, very special here, and I say that not in a prideful, arrogant way, but I say it with all humility because we know we know who's really behind it.
Speaker 1: A new church, though, can get mired up in its policies and traditions as quickly as a hundred year old church.
Speaker 1: So that's the warning to all of us, whether it's Pinewood or downtown, let's not get too comfortable with what we're doing right now, because the person that I know, and the person a lot of you know that's part of his job is to not let us get too comfortable.
Speaker 1: You, following me, somebody, forget some testimonies about that right, just when you think it's safe to do all that.
Speaker 1: So what's your mindset about the future?
Speaker 1: Are you hopeful?
Speaker 1: Are you part of 84%?
Speaker 1: That's just worried.
Speaker 1: And you're worried because, basically, if you are basing your hope on the political system, y'all to be a hundred percent worried.
Speaker 1: If it's based on the economy, and the economy alone, oh man, you're going to be up and down, you know, like a yo-yo.
Speaker 1: If it's based on, you know, your favorite reality show, and that's going to determine your behavior and how you parent people and everything.
Speaker 1: Good night, anyway.
Speaker 1: I can give you all the wrong models, right, because we're following them as a country so many times now.
Speaker 1: So, number one, what we're going to do, we're going to trust a person over a process.
Speaker 1: Ephesians 2,8 says this by grace we are saved, not of works, lest anybody boast or brag.
Speaker 1: So there's a second thing.
Speaker 1: If we're going to trust a person, y'all we got to know that person personally.
Speaker 1: It can't be an association.
Speaker 1: You know, my wife, sherry, and I claim to be.
Speaker 1: I love college football, we claim to be Auburn fans, but if you break it down, you could question, you could challenge whether we're really fans or not.
Speaker 1: Well then, what you mean?
Speaker 1: Well, we are an Auburn fan because for the last six years our oldest son has worked in their athletic department, and if they do good, that puts shoes on grandbabies, right.
Speaker 1: So I'm an Auburn fan.
Speaker 1: But you know, to my knowledge, I got some gear and I got the hats and all like this.
Speaker 1: I've never spent one dime on Auburn University, though it's always been given to me.
Speaker 1: I've gone to games.
Speaker 1: I go to like an average of one game every single year football game over there, never bought a ticket.
Speaker 1: Yet I'm just.
Speaker 1: I just have the privilege of having a son who's, you know, got that path.
Speaker 1: So I guess, if you take a step back, are you really a fan Are you are?
Speaker 1: Do you just identify with the school?
Speaker 1: Well, it's probably the latter, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 1: I didn't lose any sleep over that game the other night.
Speaker 1: That was a travesty of justice when Alabama, you know, did what they did at the end like that, but it didn't wreck my world very much at all.
Speaker 1: So too many of us profess to be Christians or profess to be Christ followers.
Speaker 1: I say it, but are we really, or are we just kind of going through the motions?
Speaker 1: Let me show you another verse, and you might want to turn to this one Isaiah 28, 6700 BC.
Speaker 1: Isaiah says this Isaiah 28.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, 16, 28, 16.
Speaker 1: The Lord said look, I have laid a stone in Zion, a tested zone, a stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.
Speaker 1: The one who trusts will be unshakable.
Speaker 1: That last phrase the one who trusts shall be unshakable.
Speaker 1: That's where we want to be right.
Speaker 1: We want to be solid.
Speaker 1: That means we need to know Jesus personally, not just facts about Jesus, not just identify as a Christian because we live in this country and because we choose to go occasionally to church.
Speaker 1: That word, trust, is another key word to our faith and the word in Hebrew literally meant to lean on.
Speaker 1: He's saying if we choose to lean on God who in the New Testament is Jesus Christ we will not be shaken, we will not be knocked off balance.
Speaker 1: This is just your basic little primitive cane.
Speaker 1: If you've ever had a little knee procedure and I know a couple of you in the room that you have lately you know how good these are when your knee is something that's unstable and you got to walk across parking lot and you don't want to face plant In case your knee gives out.
Speaker 1: You lean on this right.
Speaker 1: It's not a crutch.
Speaker 1: You're not completely disabled.
Speaker 1: You're walking.
Speaker 1: You just need a little stability to get from A to B and, if you need to, you just keep leaning heavily on this.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because this is solid.
Speaker 1: The knee may not be.
Speaker 1: This is strong.
Speaker 1: Your leg muscles may not be right now.
Speaker 1: This is what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: The Christian life ought to be about.
Speaker 1: If I'm really a follower of Christ, I'm going to love him and trust him.
Speaker 1: I'm going to lean on him.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to say, oh, I trust Jesus, but then everything I hear from him, I'm debating or I'm backing up on and I'm saying I can't do that, lord, but let me do this instead and you ever done that.
Speaker 1: It's called a counter mission.
Speaker 1: I can't do that, that's a little bit hard.
Speaker 1: But I'll do this which is close to that, and you'll like this as much as you'll like that and God's like no, that's called disobedience and that's called sin, flat out sin.
Speaker 1: And then Jesus comes along and says anything not of faith is flat out sin.
Speaker 1: We can even do the right thing with the wrong heart and it'd be a sinful thing.
Speaker 1: That's why we need these things.
Speaker 1: He's not going to do all the work.
Speaker 1: He's not going to carry us everywhere, although at times he has.
Speaker 1: He is going to put stability into our life through the person of Jesus, to say I know you're going to struggle, I know you'll fall flat on your face.
Speaker 1: If it's all up to you, I'm going to produce fruit through you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to empower you by the spirit.
Speaker 1: That's why you trust, you lean on me for your stability and that's why the life of following Christ is supposed is is so, so important.
Speaker 1: And Isaiah says it, the Psalm has said it, and also Hebrews six says it too.
Speaker 1: Psalm 344 says I sought the Lord and he answered me.
Speaker 1: He delivered me from all my fears.
Speaker 1: So we talked about.
Speaker 1: I'm going to follow a person and not a process.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to follow the person, I got to know him personally.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: You don't need to raise your hand.
Speaker 1: How many of you like you know, tonight, if I led, I could lay awake almost all night.
Speaker 1: I'm like worrying and afraid.
Speaker 1: We've all been there, we all might could go there tonight.
Speaker 1: I've got stuff that if I ruminate, if I dwell on it and I let that overcome my faith in Jesus and my hope for the future, I'm like everybody else in this room.
Speaker 1: I could see two o'clock come and three o'clock come this morning on the clock.
Speaker 1: That's not our job.
Speaker 1: Our job is to face our fears, to name them and to walk through them, because perfect love casts out fear.
Speaker 1: Have you heard that before?
Speaker 1: It's in the Bible.
Speaker 1: Love casts out fear and Jesus, that was his biggest commandment.
Speaker 1: He gave all through the scriptures Do not fear, do not fear, do not fear, do not fear.
Speaker 1: Remember that.
Speaker 1: How many times does he have to go up to somebody and say, yes, that's your job.
Speaker 1: That's not in your job description is to be afraid.
Speaker 1: Your job is to follow me and over time it really does y'all?
Speaker 1: Our church is led by some men and women who have exhibited some remarkable courage in a lot of different ways, and a lot of them, if they were here talking, they would say I'm not normally a courageous person, but what's the difference?
Speaker 1: They heard from the Lord and the Holy Spirit was filling them to the point that they heard him stronger than the fears.
Speaker 1: So instead of caving into the fears, they just kept walking.
Speaker 1: They got their cane out and they relied or leaned on Jesus, but they kept moving forward and pretty soon you leave fear behind and it's a great way to live.
Speaker 1: So the third thing we'll talk about here briefly is trust.
Speaker 1: We need to trust God as much as we trust his word.
Speaker 1: Trust his word as much as we trust God is what I was trying to say.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're a thinker, you're like whoa, wait a minute, is that true?
Speaker 1: We supposed to trust God supremely.
Speaker 1: Now, the Bible is very important.
Speaker 1: His words are important.
Speaker 1: Well, we can debate that A long time today, but I'm going to keep coming back to John 1.1.
Speaker 1: Is that on screen?
Speaker 1: John 1.1, right?
Speaker 1: Some of you know that.
Speaker 1: And in the beginning was what the word?
Speaker 1: And the word was with God.
Speaker 1: But then the word was God right.
Speaker 1: Okay, that settles the issue.
Speaker 1: When you're relying on this, you're trusting Jesus, you're trusting his plan for your life and you're trusting God.
Speaker 1: You're trusting his plan for your life and you're trusting his wisdom and discernment to pour in you to get the job done.
Speaker 1: It is a faith specific thing.
Speaker 1: So let me give you a little bit of a hint that helps sometimes to understand some parts of the Bible.
Speaker 1: The word plus the spirit equals revelation.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard that word.
Speaker 1: Plus spirit equals revelation.
Speaker 1: Capital W, the word of God, spirits Capital S, which is the Holy Spirit, the revelation.
Speaker 1: There's two kinds of revelation.
Speaker 1: There's general revelation.
Speaker 1: That's all through the Bible.
Speaker 1: You read it.
Speaker 1: Some of it's like easy to pick up on, some of it's not quite.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a ridiculous example.
Speaker 1: Simple Thou shalt not kill.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much a hundred percent rule, isn't it?
Speaker 1: That applies to all of us.
Speaker 1: You can't go out and murder somebody tonight and say you know, nobody told me that that was against the law.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you can claim it, but you're going to go to prison for life.
Speaker 1: You know, for that that's no excuse.
Speaker 1: We all got it.
Speaker 1: But then there's specific stuff that has to do with you and your life, you and your situation before God.
Speaker 1: Some of you gonna smile when I say this, because this is something you've had happen.
Speaker 1: I've had it happen.
Speaker 1: You go to church, you're reading your Bible at home or something.
Speaker 1: Let's just say you come in here your worst been one Sunday.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, it's like you just zone out, you're not hearing what's being sung or you're not hearing what's being said and you're not even aware that there's anybody else in the room, because the Holy Spirit has descended and Wrapped himself around you and he's got a message that you're ready to hear.
Speaker 1: It is just for you.
Speaker 1: It's always the truth.
Speaker 1: It's never an era.
Speaker 1: It's always when you look at the future, it's hope filled and it changes your life.
Speaker 1: Now doesn't happen every week, but when he decides to do it, you will walk out of here that day absolutely changed and Absolutely convinced of what needs to happen next.
Speaker 1: Agree and here's the other cool part there's not an army of people that are gonna be able to talk you out of it.
Speaker 1: There won't be.
Speaker 1: You can line up for PhDs out there to debate you down on the logic of it.
Speaker 1: It won't matter.
Speaker 1: You're gonna do what you heard God tell you to do, and you've never been so sure in all your life, and you're not gonna be all that torn up About whether you got enough money or experience or talent or any of those things.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna do it because you have this relationship with someone who's real, who created you and who knows you and who designed you to Invite into his journey to do whatever you've called him to do.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing thing.
Speaker 1: But my challenge y'all is we got to be?
Speaker 1: We got to be a real follower.
Speaker 1: You can't be a pretend follower.
Speaker 1: I got nauseated about it about five years ago because the big headlines and our Superficial world was the world is gonna be a better place from now on.
Speaker 1: You know why?
Speaker 1: Cuz Justin Bieber got a Tattoo of a cross on his leg Made me feel a lot better, didn't it you?
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not I'm not knocking Justin Bieber.
Speaker 1: I hope he's a Christ follower but a symbol of a cross, wearing a cross necklace is Is, I think, a good thing to do.
Speaker 1: But if you're if this is just you like your rabbits foot, if this is just you're like super, let me try to cover my bases and get God's favor, because I'm identifying With Christianity.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that.
Speaker 1: You'll be part of the 84% who stay worried and you've given up hope.
Speaker 1: So we've got to challenge ourselves.
Speaker 1: Do this.
Speaker 1: So can I give you one more dose of reality?
Speaker 1: Just cause you're a woman of faith or a man of faith Doesn't mean you'll always be secure.
Speaker 1: Faith does not equal security.
Speaker 1: You can read it all through the scriptures.
Speaker 1: A lot of the people who were the best followers Were in the worst situations.
Speaker 1: That's just the reality of it y'all.
Speaker 1: Daniel decides I'm not gonna change who I am because I'm in a foreign country and they're all pagans and there's tremendous pressure on me to conform to that or to be executed.
Speaker 1: He continues to practice his faith and when he's set up and the king is aware of it, the king says well, I only got one thing left to do.
Speaker 1: And Daniel basically paraphrased Daniel.
Speaker 1: He says do what you got to do.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna stop following God for you or anybody else.
Speaker 1: If you need to throw me in the lion's den, throw me in the lion's den.
Speaker 1: And he does, and he's just one of many examples, and you will be the same way.
Speaker 1: Can I give you a dose of reality, because I have to give myself this talk sometimes.
Speaker 1: There's a good chance that you, if you're a Christ follower, will have knee buckling Disappointment in your life because something or someone has let you down.
Speaker 1: If you are a Christ follower, you're gonna spend a significant amount of time Lonely, especially if you happen to be to reside on a college campus these days.
Speaker 1: That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: You'll have to decide to do things that are counter what everybody else is doing and Not do things that everybody is doing.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna be a Christ follower, you will never be in the majority.
Speaker 1: You will be in the minority, but the way God works at his math says the minority is stronger than the majority, and he will always Influence the world more through that solid minority than he ever did through the masses.
Speaker 1: We've got that documented in history.
Speaker 1: Go ask the Roman Empire and go ask this new Movement called Christianity and see who won there.
Speaker 1: And that's why we sign on.
Speaker 1: Though, to do this.
Speaker 1: It's not because of the security, it's because of the Of the meaning of what it is to follow Christ.
Speaker 1: So my last question you gonna live your life out of regrets Are out of rewards?
Speaker 1: I Don't want to be old and aging and dying and look back and have a ton of regrets but very little sense of reward.
Speaker 1: I'd rather it be the opposite, because if you're a Christ follower, you know how this book ends right.
Speaker 1: We get the good stuff later.
Speaker 1: I, we do now what we do, not for present reward, but for future reward, because one day he's coming back just as more suddenly than he came the first time.
Speaker 1: This time he won't be suffering and serving, He'll be the king.
Speaker 1: And when the king comes back, he's looking for his kingdom and you will be part of the kingdom and you're going to have front row seat and then you get the reward.
Speaker 1: I personally think it's worth it, and I know a lot of you do too.
Speaker 1: Right, if you're still trying to process that and put it all together.
Speaker 1: That's why we have one more time we get to worship and we call it somewhat of an altar call too, and that is please feel free to come down and pray, I'll be here, or anybody down here you want to pray with, or anybody at your seat, or just if you need to make a next step decision, we call it I'm here, I need to be here For me.
Speaker 1: The next step is baptism.
Speaker 1: I am a Christ follower.
Speaker 1: I've never been baptized.
Speaker 1: We'd love to honor that.
Speaker 1: We'd love to make you a member here If, like, oh, I'm a part of family, I just don't have a family to go to right now, officially or whatever.
Speaker 1: That the most special thing is.
Speaker 1: If you say, man, I'm not completely sold, but I want to know a little bit more about what a real Christ follower does.
Speaker 1: We can certainly, we can certainly huddle up once you make that known to.
Speaker 1: So why don't you all stand and let me pray for you and we get the awesome opportunity to worship one more time here?
Speaker 1: Lord, we, there's so much we don't understand, but what we do understand can be challenging enough.
Speaker 1: So, lord, faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word or the message of God, which is the gospel, the good news that we celebrate this time of year, that the Christ child came in not to be just a regular child but to be the savior of the world, and we will spend the rest of our lives somehow trying to repay you out of our relationship for that.
Speaker 1: That's hope and that's 100%.
Speaker 1: We ask it in Jesus name, amen.