Choose Right (March 8, 2026)

Comfort sells, but it also numbs. We’re talking about the decision that shows up in a hundred small ways every day: do we do what’s right, or do we do what’s easy? From our cravings for quick fixes to our desire for “easy spirituality,” we dig into how convenience can quietly erode integrity, discipline, and obedience, especially when life gets frustrating and our attitude starts driving the room.

We anchor the conversation in Scripture and real-life examples that make the tension impossible to ignore. Matthew 7 reminds us the narrow gate is real and the road is difficult. Joseph’s stand in Genesis 39 shows what integrity looks like when nobody is watching, and Daniel’s refusal to compromise in Daniel 6 proves that faith that bends under pressure turns into convenience. We also get honest about the sins we avoid naming, the loneliness that can come with following Christ, and the pressure to water down truth just to keep everyone comfortable.

Then we go deeper on repentance and transformation. “I’m sorry” is easy to say, but Luke 3:8 and James 1:22 challenge us to prove repentance by how we live. The prodigal son’s return shows the Father’s compassion, and Jesus in Luke 22:42 shows the ultimate choice to do the Father’s will, even when the easy path would avoid the cross. If you’re hungry for practical Christian living, spiritual discipline, integrity, and Holy Spirit power to resist compromise, this message is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs courage, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Opening Prayer And Welcome

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Allow us to drown those out with our minds fixed solely on you today, Father God. Father, I thank you and I praise you, I give you honor and glory in the mighty name of Jesus. And the church says, Amen. You may be seated. I uh quit pinching that baby. What are they doing to you? He's like, I'm good, don't talk to me. I was uh I was preparing this message and I made a Facebook post and then I got a text message um like who made you mad? And uh it made me laugh because nobody made me mad, but it's it's a realization that I think that we oftentimes miss in life. Um and it's about very simple things that we do, but we don't actually put any stock in what we're doing, and there is no base behind what we're doing. I have a question for you this morning, though. Listen, I gotta tell you guys real quick. I can't step outside of this piece of tape or this piece of tape. Because then I get cut off. Like right now, they only see half of me on the new live stream. So, like they're trying to keep me in a box, this isn't gonna work, I promise you. But I'm gonna try. I'm gonna do my best. But I realized um the the other morning, not I I have a girl that I work with, and she always brings her breakfast to work with her. And I commend that because normally we would just door dash. That's expensive, right? Now, here's the deal: it doesn't cost me anything other than what I order because I let them do the door dash and then they pay the fee. Because they're gonna door dash it. It's just me being cheap, folks, right? It is what it is. But here's the thing she brings her breakfast every morning and she always brings these little breakfast pot pies. Has anybody ever seen one of those? It's it's like a chicken pot pie, but it's eggs and sausage or bacon or whatever. They smell awful. All right, like she puts it in the microwave and it stinks up the whole building for an hour and a half. It just smells horrendous. And I was thinking to myself how easy it is to buy those and put them in the microwave and how much cheaper it is. And then I thought to myself, have you ever had that macaroni and cheese that you just put the water in and you put it in the microwave? This stuff's nasty, right? Can we agree that that stuff is disgusting? I don't know what it tastes like, but it does not taste like any real macaroni and cheese. And I'm a bit of a macaroni and cheese snob. I only like shells and cheese. I don't even want the cheap stuff, I want Velveeta. Right? It's just better. But it takes longer to make, right? So here's what I was thinking. You know, oftentimes we are obsessed with things that are easy, not just quick, but that are easy in our lives. And when we find ourselves doing that, we look for things that are easy at every turn, like easy answers. Right? Do any of us have friends that just tell us what we want to hear? It's not good, right? When you are friends with people who only ever tell you what you want to hear, you are only getting easy answers. How many of us have a get rich quick scheme in our head? I'm gonna be a millionaire by Marcus, is picking up dog poo. He is. He is the poop fairy. And it's he was gonna paint mailboxes. Marcus is always looking. Hey, listen, there's nothing wrong with finding a way to make money, but success does not come easily. Amen. Listen, he told me about a yard that he was in, and he was like, I don't ever want to do it again. It doesn't come easy. It sounds easy, but it is not easy. How about this one? How many of us want easy spirituality? We want to connect with God, but we really don't want God to disrupt our lives, right? I want to be in relationship with Jesus, but I don't want Jesus to make meaningful change in my life. We always want the blessing, but we never want to be obedient, right? We awake today? I'll tell you, I went home last week and I said to my wife, it's weird not having the kids. I get it, okay? So you guys are gonna have to work with me. I need you to wake up a little bit, okay? We always want victory, but we never want to be disciplined. Can I tell you a secret? Children want two things in life. They want structure and discipline, right? Now, what I mean by that, they need structure. They need to know when they get up, when they brush their teeth, they need to have structure in their life. When I say discipline, I don't mean that they get beat. Right? I mean that they understand that there are consequences and what is right and what is wrong, right? Now, some of us were raised, we just got whooped when we were wrong. Right? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that either. Because guess what? I know the difference between right and wrong. Amen. Now, when I say that that children desire that discipline, they want to know what the boundaries are. Have you ever had somebody say, oh, that he just likes to push boundaries? That kid ain't never been whooped. Right? That kid ain't never been whooped. And if you want me to, I'll whoop them for ya. Because, listen, it helps your children desire to know the difference between right and wrong. Can I promise you something? We also, as adults, desire to know the difference between right and wrong. Have you ever gone to a job and done something, found out you weren't supposed to do that and got in trouble for it? That wasn't in the manual, was it? I found out the other day I'm not allowed to do loans for employees. Guess what I've been doing? Loans for employees. Nobody ever told me. They give me this book about this thick, and they said, read all of this and learn it. Do you think I read any of it? The answer? No. Right? I skim it when I need to know something. I search it up in the little control F like I never thought in a million years. We learn those things by doing them wrong and being corrected, right? No, there is a way to correct somebody and do it in love and not just be brutal about it. Amen. But we desire that discipline. And I'll tell you, as adults, we should be looking for that same level of discipline inside of Jesus. Amen? So that when we're doing something wrong and he convicts us and he shows us in our hearts that we are not moving in the right direction, that he can guide us to what is holy and to what is Christlike. I have to tell you that the kingdom was never built doing things that were easy. Right? How many on my team here this morning who volunteered this morning felt like this morning was an easy morning? It's funny that nobody's hands went up. Literally everything that could go wrong in this building this morning did. All of the TVs were not working this morning. We had a light switch go bad that Pastor Roger had to change this morning. None of the printers will print. Nothing in this building worked like it was supposed to. And somebody kept saying to me, is there anything I can do to help? Is there anything I can do to help? And I thought, no, because you can't change my heart attitude. Right? Because after about the second thing went wrong, I started to become angry. And I was like, if one more person talks to me, if one more person asks me for something, I promise you, I am gonna lose my cool. And I said, Lord, this is not the morning. I didn't get enough sleep last night. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Look around. There are people who are still in bed. They woke up, they said, We're already late. They're gonna clap if we come in, so we just aren't going, right? I realized that it was not the circumstance that surrounded my attitude, it was just my attitude that was changing how I viewed what God was doing this morning. Somebody said to me, You know, you know, you're doing things right because the devil is trying to stop you. I'm like, that is profound, but I don't care. What I care is that this stuff works, so I don't have to fight with it. Amen. And then I realized that sometimes we have to take a step back. We have to solve the problem here before we can solve the problem out there, right? We have to remove the plank in our eye before we can remove the speck of sawdust. Amen. And so my heart is bitter, therefore, everybody else around me, it's real easy for their hearts to get bitter, right? He's in a mood today. I feel like I did a good job of hiding it for a little bit, but I lost it real quick. Listen, when things are easy, we become comfortable, right? I'll tell you, those of us who serve in this ministry, we realize that some mornings we're comfortable. I can roll in 10 minutes before service starts and I can turn everything on and it's not a problem. If we would have rolled in 10 minutes early this morning, we would have found out real quick we weren't having church. Or we were having church with no technology, that's for sure. Doing what's right will always build character. Right? Listen, a man is only as good as his word, right? And listen, if I am not as good as my word, I am good for nothing. If I am doing what is right, I am building strong character. Doing what's easy will always avoid the battle. Amen. So when we're battling like we were in this building this morning, Jenny came up to me. She goes, now I know how you feel every Sunday morning. Because she was putting out fires as fast as I was putting them out. This didn't work, that didn't work. Listen, a lot of the stuff that got broke this morning, I'm coming to realize was somewhat my fault. Not all of it. But some of it was my fault. And, you know, you can't change things at the last minute, right? But the problem is, is if we weren't willing to go to battle, if we weren't willing to fix and figure out and solve those problems, we could have just said, you know what, we're just not doing it, right? It's so easy to walk away and just not do it. Right will always win the war. Every day you are in some level of battle. Now, I'm not trying to make this out to be something that it's not, but whenever you wake up in the morning and your feet hit the floor, the enemy will immediately begin to come against you in ways that you have never seen before. Amen? He won't make you doubt yourself, he will make you doubt your finances, he'll make you doubt your calling in life. He will do that in order to keep you bound to what it is that he wants you in and what the world can convince you of being. He's not trying to convince you to be what God has called you to be. I know that's a surprise for some of us because we oftentimes listen to the enemy more than we listen to the still small voice. We allow the enemy to tell us that we are not worthy when God calls us to being very worthy. He calls us to places that we never thought that we could ever be. And yet we doubt it because the enemy convinces us that we can doubt it. If you follow Jesus long enough, there will always be a moment that you have to decide: do I do what's right or do I do what's easy? Amen? That's a hard one. And it will happen day after day after day after day after day until you are absolutely exhausted from doing what is right. Because easy will never challenge you, easy will never take your energy. Marcus, it would be easy to be broke, come home from work, and sit on the couch, wouldn't it? That would be easy. It would be easy to just have nothing, live with nothing, and complain about having nothing. And instead, Marcus says, I won't live like that. It's not that I have to make money, or it's not that I want to make money, it's that I have to make money. I have to be able to go out. I have to be able to go out and do more in order to provide better. Can I tell you that each and every day you should wake up with a desire to do more and to be better? Not better for yourself, but better for the kingdom, better for the people around you, so that when they see you, they see Christ within you. I don't care if they see me. I listen, I was at my son's uh his Eagle Scout ceremony yesterday, and I was sitting two rows back, I was minding my own business, and this kid in his scout uniform, he came up and he said to me, He said, Did I run into you at First National Bank? I mean, the minute he says that, I say, Well, yeah, you probably did. He's like, Were you at the Genaton branch? And I said, Yes. He said, I asked you about so-and-so. He said, Oh yeah. I said, uh, I'm Aaron's dad. And he said, Oh, I challenged Aaron to his Eagle Scout. Now, who would have thought, this was two days earlier, that that connection would have been made. He had no idea who I was. I had no idea who he was. But my desire, my hope is that when he met me, that he saw Jesus in me and that that connection rolls over into my son because I am not creating wealth for myself. I am creating kingdom wealth for the next generation in my family and for the next generation in their family. Listen, I didn't show up to church, I don't show up to the ministry, I don't show up to the kingdom to serve myself. I show up to serve those who are around me. Amen. That is not easy all the time. It is not easy all the time. Matthew 7, 13 and 14. If you didn't know this was coming, you were blind because here it is. It says, you can enter God's kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell. Does anybody want to sing it? No? Okay. The highway to hell is broad and the gate is wide for many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow. Hear this, and the road is difficult, and only a few will ever find it. I want to read that line again. It is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few will ever find it, because Jesus never promised it would be easy. If it were easy, the road would be wide, the gate would be great, and it would make everything in life would be just simple to do. That's not what he tells us. He says that it will be difficult, and only a few will ever find it. Sometimes that means we stand alone, right? I say it all the time, it's lonely at the top. I don't mean lonely at the top just in ministry. I don't mean lonely in the top, just at your job. But when you are walking in Christ, sometimes it's lonely. It might feel like nobody around you understands what you understand or sees what you see. Imagine being in the prophetic, right? And having dreams and visions and having to explain that to the people around you. When Pastor Holly does that, sometimes I think she's lost her marvels. Right? And then what happens is I start preaching and I'm like, holy smokes. Holy smokes. Or she'll say something to me and I've already written it down somewhere else. Right? Can you imagine living in that every day? Listen, we should be. Not only should we be living in it, we should be putting our arms around it. Because when we say what God is doing in our lives, he's doing for the next generation, sometimes it will make you feel lonely. Sometimes it will make you feel like you're on an island. I want to make you a promise, though you're not. Because even if the people around you, even if the flesh around you doesn't understand, I will promise you this Jesus understands. He is there and he's ready to listen. Sometimes doing what's right means being misunderstood. That's a hard one for me, right? Like I try to explain something to somebody and they just don't get it. Can I tell you I had a bad day yesterday? Am I allowed to tell that? Is it okay to say that we had a bad day? Now, here's the thing I didn't really have a bad day. I had like two bad moments and therefore it was a bad day, right? Now, it was surrounded by a bunch of good things. And here's what happened. So I went to uh the Amish Country Flea Market, got a call last week. They wanted me to come out and do Elvis for their opening weekend. We love going out there. It's so exciting, it's so much fun. It's different than a nursing home experience because these are people who are walking around and like really. So we had a great time. We left, felt like we did a great job. We made some tip money, which never happens. Like, we felt good. We left. And as I was leaving, the lady said, Hey, we did a Facebook live, just wanted to let you know. Good job, thanks so much. We'll call you to have you back. Okay, wonderful. I get home and I look for the Facebook Live. Don't ever do that. People were saying really mean things about me on there. And listen, do you know how bad that hurts? Right? It's stupid. Two people, it was only two people. But those two people, I don't like them anymore. They're lucky I couldn't find where they lived. Because I was really genuinely upset. I called my wife. I was like, can you believe this? She's like, nah. I'm like, yeah. I was like, have they never listened to Thumper? If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all, right? Let no listen. They weren't really mean comments, they just weren't kind comments. And I realized if I allow those two people to outweigh the 10 other people who said that it was fun and they had a great time, why am I allowing that to take over my life? Why am I allowing that to be the thing that I remember? Now I want to tell you, I had a good night otherwise. After the show, I took my tip money and I went to McDonald's and I bought a shamrock shake, and it was the best shamrock shake, right? And then I went home, I bought a medium because it's like$10 for two of them for a medium shamrock shake. Now, if you're not a shamrock shake person, you don't know what you're did you say yuck? You can leave now. They're delicious, Dave. Now, I I'll be honest, the first one I got was super green, and it tasted like toothpaste at first. Had to mix it up real good. Anyhow. So listen, it was delicious, and I loved every moment of that shamrock shake. And then I went home and I was doing some stuff. And my daughter, man, she was something else yesterday. She was something else. She didn't want to come home from her friend's house. I picked her up three times. I pick her up, take her back, go to pick her up again, she won't leave. The third time, I'm like, girl, you're getting in the car. You can fight, you can cry, but you're getting in the car. While I was there, I was talking to the family that she was spending time with. And uh I was talking about, I said, you know, one shamrock shake is never enough. Like, this is always have another shamrock shake. And uh I was watching the fight. Anybody watch the fight last night? A couple of us. Okay, so I it said 7 o'clock. It started at 7 o'clock. For those of you who know me, bedtime is eight, that's it, right? There's just a hard cutoff at 8 o'clock. And by 8:30, this fight hadn't started yet, and I was like, what is going on? And so I text the guy, I was like, dude, like what time is this fight supposed to start? This is getting ridiculous. He's like, hey, nothing better than a UFC fight in a shamrock shake. I'm like, I already finished my shake. It's like I got that thing three hours ago, man. Like, this is stupid. Like, and uh, so we were just joking about it. About 10 minutes later, I get a text, and it's a picture of a shamrock shake sitting at my front door. Right? I didn't have a bad day. I let those two moments interrupt what was otherwise a fantastic day, a wonderful experience. But I realize what I want is what's easy. What I want is everybody to be in agreement with me. Listen, I know that there are people in this world who aren't gonna like me. I could name about a dozen right now. But guess what? It is what it is. Now, my wife, in her infinite wisdom, loves to quote Michelle Obama. Now, you might not like Michelle Obama. I get it. It's whatever, I don't care. But my wife has been saying this to me every Wednesday because Wednesday nights are hard for me right now. They just are. And she says to me, When they go low, we go high. Do what's right, not what's easy. Do you know how easy it would be to say to somebody, don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't breathe the air that I breathe, right? And instead, it's, hey, how are you? Happy to see you. Right? That's hard to do, but it is the truth. We should always be seeking what is right and not what's easy. We're gonna go to Genesis 39, 7 through 9, and we're gonna talk a little bit about Joseph. Now, you guys, most of you know the story of Joseph, right? We're just gonna read a blurf out of out of the Joseph story. Do you have it up there? It says, and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. Come and sleep with me, she demanded. She didn't ask, she demanded, right? But Joseph refused. Look, he told her, my master, her husband, trusts me with everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God. Now, he doesn't say, I'm not gonna do it because I don't want to. He says, I'm not gonna do it because my master doesn't want me to. He says, I'm not going to do it because it would be a great sin against God. He chose to do what was right and not what was easy. He could have justified it, right? He was given authority over everything in that kingdom, and instead he said no. How would anybody have ever known? Nobody was going to see. But Joseph understood something far more powerful than you and I can ever even begin to grasp. Integrity is doing what is right when nobody Is watching. Right? That is what integrity is. Do you know how hard that is? Right? I had a guy come into the bank and he comes up to my dad. I'm not a teller, right? You ask me questions about I don't know. Here's what I know. I know how to give you a car loan. Right? And even then, sometimes it's questionable. Right? He comes up and he's got a$50 bill and it just practically shredded at this point. And he shows it to me and he says, Can I exchange this for a new one? I don't care. It's not my money, right? I said, You're gonna have to go to one of the tellers. They'll be able to answer that. Typically, if we have both serial numbers and more than 50% of the bill, we can do it. But I wasn't playing Jigsaw Puzzle, right? I went trying to put this thing back together. So I hear him telling the story, and he said, his wife pulled into the store and she steps out of her car, and there's some change laying on the ground. And she realized that it was the little kid who had gotten out of the car next to her, had dropped it out of the little pouch that they were carrying. So she went and caught the kid, handed the kid his money back, told him, I think you dropped this. The kid was ecstatic. I don't know what he was going to buy, but obviously he needed his money to buy whatever it was he was going to buy. She takes about 15 steps towards the door and she finds this crumpled up bill on the ground. She picks it up, there's nobody around, she keeps it. She found 50 bucks. God blessed her for doing what was right. Now, is it always a financial blessing? No. But I need you to understand something. When God is moving in your life, we naturally do what is right even when nobody is looking. Amen? That is a challenge because it is easy. It would have been easy for her to keep keep that change, right? That kid would have gotten into the store and went to buy his gummy bears and realized he was 45 cents short. Right? And then he would have cried and his mom would have been mad. I told you not to bring that with you. Right? That's how I would have been. The choice was easy for Joseph, right? To lean into the temptation. That's the easy choice. Right? The temptation, especially for men, is really, really hard to deal with. But the right choice was holiness, and Joseph chose holiness. Sometimes the victory is not always fighting the temptation, sometimes it's walking away entirely, right? Because listen. Lustfulness is a sin that we don't like to talk about. Right? Because it makes us uncomfortable. Like we don't like to talk about sex in public, right? It makes people uncomfortable. Listen, it is a real struggle for people around us every day. And if we don't address it as a church, people will continue to fall into that sin. Amen. And every time they fall into that sin and they fall short of the glory of God, we do not guarantee their entry into heaven unless they repent and turn from their ways. The church has to be willing to be bold about things that are not good for the people around us. You know another one we don't like to talk about? Gluttony. Right? It's true. If we talk about it, somebody might think, well, listen, I never mind, I'm not gonna say it. Thank you, Jesus. You knew my thoughts. Just don't hold me accountable for that one. Thank you, Lord. Daniel chose right over comfort. In Daniel 6, 10 it says, But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home, knelt down as it as his as in his usual upstairs room, and he prayed three times a day. We know this story too, right? The king had decided that everybody shall pray to him and to him alone. And Daniel said, I'm not going to do that because I am a servant of the Almighty God, and I will pray to no one but God. Do you know what Daniel received for praying to God? A trip to the lion's den. Can I tell you something? He chose to do what was right, face to punishment far beyond anything we could face. Listen, how many of us think we could fight a lion? I think I'd try. I know I'd lose. But see, that's that stupidity that rests inside of me that doesn't really understand fear, unless it's a frog. Don't put me in anywhere right here. I ain't playing that game, right? They talk about like how many men would it take to beat up a gorilla? I wanted to fight a kangaroo one time. Do you guys hear what I'm saying? It's stupidity, right? Okay. Daniel made a choice by praying to God to face the lion's den. That is that is my equivalent to fighting a kangaroo. Right? He is making a choice to worship God and is placed into the lion's den. Now you know that Daniel comes out unscathed. Daniel does not come out unscathed by his own strength. He comes out unscathed because God shut the mouths of those lions. By doing what was right, he was made uncomfortable. But by doing what was right, he proved that God is who I say he is. God is who he claims to be. What happened? The king said, I will worship your God. Hallelujah. I want to ask you something. Are you a living testimony to our God? When people see you, do they say, if God will do that for them, certainly he will do it for me? Can we understand that? Are we a living testimony? When we set foot into the world, do they see the light of Jesus through us? Listen. He could have gone to that room and he could have prayed to the king. Right? He could have done that. But faith that bends under pressure is not faith at all. Faith that will bend under pressure becomes convenience. We only do what is easy. And if God has called me to something greater, I cannot water it down so that you can be comfortable. I cannot water down the truth of the word. I cannot water down my testimony so that you may be comfortable. Now, all of us have a testimony, right? Some of our testimonies are maybe a little more graphic than others. Amen? And sometimes when I share mine, I have to recognize the situation that I'm in and the group of people that I'm around. And I can tell the story a different way. But I'll tell you, the truth is always the same. That God called me out of that place. I did not make it out on my own free will. I did not make it out because of my own strength or my own understanding. I came out and threw that because of who God is and what he was willing to do in my life. This is the the Facebook post that I made. This is the part that I want to talk about that. It is so easy to say I'm sorry. Amen. It's probably the easiest thing to say. Now, men, let's be honest with each other. We don't like to say I'm sorry, right? Have you ever been Marcus, have you ever been in a fight with your wife? Mike, have you ever been in a fight with your wife? Yeah? Where's Roger? Roger, you ever been in a fight with your wife? All the time. He says it's a perpetual fight. He lives in the fight. He just he he goes home going, what today? Is she here? Oh, good. I was gonna say they're just fighting over how many pounds of butter they're buying. It is so easy for us to say I'm sorry, but it only counts when it is followed with changed action. Right? So listen, I can tell you I'm sorry for calling you stupid, but if I continue to call you stupid, am I really sorry? Right? That's not how that works. Listen, when I get frustrated, I tend to be loud. Because I think if I'm loud enough, then somebody's gonna listen to me. That's not the case most of the time, especially my house. Here's what happens I get loud, right? Dawn and Beth can hear me at their house. But listen, I'm gonna just I I love to tell stories about my house because my house is like a three-ring circus sometimes. So it was late. I don't remember what night it was. All I know is that I was trying to fall asleep. Okay? I was back in the bedroom, I was laying down, had the door shut, I was minding my own business, and I start to drift off to sleep, and I hear this potato chip bag. And I mean, it is just making all kinds of noise. And I go out there and I snatch that potato chip bag off the counter. I'm like, what are you doing? And everybody's looking at me like I've lost my mind. They shove it in the trash. I'm trying to sleep. Yeah. Feel me. I go back to the bedroom, I shut the door, and I lay down, and immediately I hear the room erupt into laughter. Take me seriously, right? It's true too. This is not made up. It is, and it happens all the time. Or my wife likes to make the dog bark. That drives me nuts. Tyler does too. Tyler will come to my house and just keep pushing the doorbell because he knows it makes a dog bark. Noah will do it too. No, he's taught. No, they just come around, the dog starts. Man, I lose my mind. I lose my I hate hearing that dog bark like that. And so I'm yelling at her, will you please knock it off? And she keeps him going. Then she starts to blame Emmett. And then she starts to blame, oh Jesus. Jesus. But when I get mad, I know that it is stupid, right? So I'll go to my wife and I'm like, hey, I'm I'm sorry about getting loud. Like that was dumb and I know I shouldn't have. Does that action change? No. Because I'm gonna tell you right now, if I go home and I try to take a nap today and somebody crinkles a bag of chips, I'm gonna lose my cool. Right? Is that fair? I don't know if this is also, dads. Do you guys choose to sleep in the most public place in the house and then get mad when people are around you and talking? It's a dad thing. I do it all the time. I'll lay down on the couch and I'm like, why are you touching stuff? Quit shutting the door. Anyhow. Saying I'm sorry only matters when we choose changed behavior. Because you see, anybody can apologize, but when we truly repent, we change direction, right? So saying I'm sorry is only a small portion of doing what is actually right. Uh, Luke 3.8, it says, prove by the way that you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. My question in that one is have we proven to the world that we have changed the way that we live, that we have repented and turned to God? The answer for many of us is no. Because when the world sees us, the world sees the flesh, us, and not the spirit us, because we haven't truly laid it all down. You know, saying sorry without any type of change is really just regret, right? You ever been caught doing something and you say I'm sorry only because you're sorry for getting caught? Right? As a kid, I did that stuff all the time. Like, listen, I don't know how my dad did it. This was back before cell phones and security cameras, right? But I would take my bike and I would ride it. I lived on the west side of Ericksville, right? I would ride it from McConnell Street all the way over to IGA. Anybody remember that? Right? Now listen, I'd ride my bike over there, and when I got home, my dad would say, Where were you? And it didn't matter what my answer was because he already knew where I was, because somebody saw me, called him and told him, just to make sure I was allowed to be where I was, right? Community was different back then, right? And I'll tell you this if I would have got caught doing something I wasn't allowed, that person would have whooped me, and then my dad would have whooped me, right? It was just different then. It was just this listen, I you get whooped three times in the same day for the exact same thing. Yeah, exactly. All the moms show up, we're getting whooped in a line. Lord help us. Lord help us. But so I would say sorry to my dad. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have done that. And guess what? Two weeks later, if that long, I'm doing it again. It is not true change if I continue to do it, it's just regret in the fact that I got caught. Some people will apologize uh over the way that they sin, over the things that they do, and they'll do it over and over and over again, but they will not change the behavior. See, when you come to the altar, you don't come to the altar to apologize. The altar is not a place for an apology, it is a place for repentance, which means meaningful change, a turnaround in your life. It doesn't mean I just come up and say, God, I'm real sorry that I said that to that person this morning. It's God, less of me and more of you. I should have never said it. I know I shouldn't have said it. I plead the blood over that situation. Lord, allow me to do better going forward. That doesn't mean you're gonna get it right every time. You're still gonna think it, you're still gonna say it, you're probably still gonna do it. But at the end of the day, we need to show good fruit from that repentance. Um, James 122, it says, but don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says, otherwise, you are only fooling yourself. Right? So if I am doing what I think is right, and I'm doing what I what I think the Bible is telling me to do, I'm only fooling myself if it is not truly what God's word says. So listen, we can cherry-pick scripture all day long, right? To justify our treatment of other people, to justify the way that we act towards unsaved people, but the Bible doesn't condone any of that. I have a hard time looking at the church and understanding why or how we can be so hateful towards groups of people who have never done anything to us. Right? Sometimes because people look different or act different or spend time in different places, we just simply do not like them. Is that a fair statement? I don't like the people you associate with. I don't like the way that they looked at me, therefore, I will not associate with them. Oh, you're associating with them, then I cannot associate with you. It's easy to do. But we don't do what's right, or do what's easy, we do what's right. God is not impressed with emotional apologies, he is searching for a transformed life. Amen. Listen, emotional apologies are ever. Have you ever had somebody apologize to you and they just cry the whole time they're apologizing? And then all of a sudden they stop, just turn it off. Listen, I don't do water works anyway. If we're ever having a conversation and you start crying, conversation's over. Right? Because we don't need emotion in these situations. You know what we need? We need logic. We need to be able to say, I fell short of the glory of God. I have gone to the altar, repented of that sin, I have changed my way, and I will do better in the future. I don't need you to cry. I don't need you to feel like I don't like you. I don't need you to feel like your feelings or my feelings are hurt. Listen, I am probably one of the least emotional creatures you will ever meet. I am logical. I want to talk about logic. I don't want to talk about emotion. Listen, when my kids cry, I'm like, rub some dirt on it, you're fine. Emmett is an emotional being, and he will he will cry when he loses a board game. It's just what he is. You know how hard that is for me? It's just not how I'm wired. And I have to learn to manage that. I have to learn to have conversation with him. But I'll tell you what, he and I's relationship has gotten stronger because we have logical conversation after the emotional meltdown, right? When I can sit and explain to him what's happening and the consequences and the direction in which he can move forward. It makes meaningful change in his life. Now I want to talk about the prodigal son for just a second. We're gonna go to Luke 15, 20. But I only want to stay on this for just a second because we, again, we know the story. So we know that he received his inheritance from his father early. His father was still alive. He took the money, he squandered it. He's living with the pigs at this point. Okay? And he decides that he is going to return home. And it says, so he returned home to his father, and while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming, filled with love and compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. I want to leave that up for just a second because it says, so he returned home to his father. The prodigal son did not send a message first. He did not ask, would I be welcome? He didn't say, Maybe I should ask. Instead, he left where he was and he returned to the Father. What did he do? Living in sin, squandering his father's money, he changed his ways and went back home. When you're at the altar, you change your ways and you come back home. And I promise you, just as this father did, the father will see you coming, he will be filled with love and compassion, he will run to you, embrace you, kiss you, and welcome you right into his arms. There is no question about the goodness of God. There is a question about the goodness of our heart posture, but there is no question about the goodness of God. In Luke 20, in Luke 20, 22, in Luke 22, 42, got it that time, it says, Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done and not mine. You know who that is, saying that, right? That is Jesus in the garden, praying alone and saying, Father, if I don't have to die to save these people, please allow that to be your choice. But I want your will and not my will. Do you understand that Jesus could have said, Father, I don't want to do this, and God would not have forced him to do it. Because he had the Father's ear. He was part of the Jesus could have sent every one of us to hell. And yet he chose to do what was right and not what was easy. Because he says, Yet let your will be done and not mine. Jesus understood what the cost was going to be. He knew that the easy path would avoid the cross. Amen. But he knew that the right path would save humanity. I am thankful every day for the cross on Calvary. I am thankful every day that God so loved the world that he was willing to send his only begotten son, that whosoever should believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Why am I excited about that? Because I know that I have everlasting life, that I will have a home in heaven because of the pain and suffering that Jesus took upon himself and not because of anything that I have done. Can I tell you that if anybody ever tells you that to be a Christian you have to do good things, they are wrong and you should stop associating with them. You cannot get into heaven by works alone. Now, will you naturally desire good works? Yes, you will. But those good works will not get you into heaven. We are not keeping track of how many events you served at. We're not keeping track of how many Sundays you've attended, how many conferences you've gone to. We're not keeping track of that. Jesus only cares about your relationship with him. To hear, well done, my good and faithful. Servant. It will only come to those of us who believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, died on a cross, and rose three days later. That's our only hope. It is the only way that we will see everlasting life. Jesus chose what was right and not what was easy.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Galatians 6, 9.

Leading Change Without Hiding The Cross

Forgive Others And Stay Honest

Holy Spirit Power Against Compromise

Choose Right And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_01 45:02

It says, so let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessings if we don't give up. Do you know how easy it is to just give up? Right? Have you ever had a job that you hated so bad you're like, I'm just not coming back after lunch? Just, you know what? I am not doing. I can imagine being a 16-year-old working at McDonald's on a Sunday afternoon when all of us church folk decide to roll through the drive-thru and complain that the wait is too long. I bet it does. Can you imagine being that guy that's there for the first time and you have some old lady in her big old church hat yelling at you because her chicken nuggets are cold? You're gonna go to lunch, you ain't gonna come back. Right? Thank you, Jesus. I don't blame them. Do you know how easy it is for new Christians to do the exact same thing? To show up at church, not feel like they are loved, heard, or needed, and just walk away and never come back. The worst part is oftentimes never go back to any church. Right? Now, listen, people talk about church hurt all the time. I think church hurt is real. I think it is a real thing. Amen. But I also think that church hurt can come from people who are being held accountable for falling short and not liking that accountability, right? Well, they told me I wasn't allowed to. Well, if I wanted to, guess what? Sometimes that's what that's what happens, right? It is our desire for you to grow stronger in the Lord and to not be sitting around drinking from a bottle. I'm gonna tell you there are people older than me that I know who have been in church for all of their lives who are still drinking from a bottle and who are still complaining about all of the things that happened in a church. I want to just I tell you a fun story. When I took over the church, I knew that there were things that I wanted to do, there were changes that I wanted to make to make the church fit my style, right? Now, there was nothing wrong with the church before it fit what was happening, but I knew what the vision was that God had given me. And one of the first things that I did was I took this beautiful cross right here. It used to hang in our sanctuary, had this fake dove on it. Right? You guys remember the dove? Anybody remember the dove? All right. I took that cross and I moved it from the sanctuary out to the lobby. There was a mutiny. I had people tell, I don't understand why he's moving everything. Listen, I'm just I'm being obedient to what the Spirit is calling me to do, right? This this cross has moved five times at this point. But can I promise you something? The reason that it moves is I want it in a place that is visible, right? I don't want it hidden. This isn't stored in a closet. Do you know why? Because there are churches that you will walk into that you don't see across the entire time you're in the building. Can you imagine the thing that saved us being hidden from sight? No. I want it to be the first thing you see when you walk into this building because it is the foundation of who we are. Amen. I just need you to hear me when I say that we're not always trying to get it right. We are trying to do what is good. Listen, I want to do everything right for all of you all the time. But sometimes I'm gonna fall short of the glory of God. Sometimes I'm gonna miss, but I promise you, when I realize that I missed, I'm gonna come and have a conversation with you. Jesus understood what the cost was when he went to the cross. He understood what it meant to do what is good and not what is easy. Doing what's right is not always easy, and you will have to, you ready? You'll have to forgive others. You can't hold a grudge every time somebody does something that you don't like. You're gonna have to stay honest when others cheat. Don't play Monopoly with my wife. You can't. She okay. Alright. We're gonna get in a fist fight right here, right now. Because I'm gonna tell a story that she's gonna try to deny, and it is not true. Alright? It did happen. Oh, Jesus. Anyhow, we're playing a game of Monopoly. Now we play a type of Monopoly called Mega Monopoly, okay? So every color property, every property color set has one extra property, okay? There's an extra utility, lots of extra stuff that you can do in this game. And it has this thing called a bus ticket, okay? So if you choose, you can play your bus ticket and you can move to certain spaces on the board within the rules, okay? But my wife chose to roll the dice, found out she was gonna land on one of my properties, goes, Oh, I'm gonna use a bus ticket. Not allowed, you already rolled the dice. She did it anyway. I ended up losing the game, and let me tell you what. I wasn't happy. Right? Sometimes we have to stay honest when other people cheat. Right? There are gonna be people in your life that we just don't play Monopoly anymore because I'm like, I know she's gonna cheat. I'm gonna get beat up in the parking lot after this, y'all. I'll tell you what, can somebody call the cops? I'm gonna need an escort home. I'm a little scared right now. Doing what's right will always produce a harvest, and God will reward our faithfulness. Amen. He will always reward our faithfulness in doing what is good. Joshua 24, 15. It says, Choose today whom you will serve. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. Joshua stood before a divided nation and said, Me, my house, my family, the people around me, everybody that's within my orbit, we will serve the Lord. We will resist temptation and we will walk in holiness. We have to learn to stand when culture pushes us to compromise. Amen. We are living in a time of compromise morals, amen. The world is trying to convince us that we should compromise our Christian beliefs, the word of God, to make them comfortable. That's not how this works. That is not how this works. We stand firm on the word of God. We show love and compassion in all things. We correct in love, but at the end of the day, we stand firm on the word of God. Pentecost wasn't just given for emotional moments. I I firmly believe this. I've said it a million times. If you are prophetic or if you tend to live in the Pentecostal movement, you tend to be more emotional. It wasn't just designed for emotion, it's designed for holy living. Amen? That means that when we are in the mindset of being spirit-led and living like Christ, we are only doing what the Bible tells us to do. We are only leaning on the Word of God. We are only leaning on Christ Jesus, not what the world says. Not what the world says. If you look at Acts 1.8, it says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. The Holy Spirit gives us power to resist temptation, walk in holiness, and stand when culture tries to compromise. Today, as a church, we stand firm on the word of God. Amen. We don't bend, we don't sway. Listen, I saw a flagpole in, I think it was in Carrollton. Winds came through, then it bent that flagpole completely sideways. Right? Can you imagine something that has stood tall for years and years was bent by a single wind. The word of God does not bend to the whims of the world. The word of God stands firm for exactly what it is: truth. Sooner or later, everybody is gonna stand at a crossroads. Each and every one of us sooner or later are gonna stand at a crossroads. We're gonna have to decide do we do what's right or do we do what's easy? Easy will always promise you comfort, but righteousness will always promise destiny. Easy will avoid the cross, amen. We should be carrying our own cross, amen. If we do what is easy, we will avoid the cross. But doing what's right will always bring us to resurrection. It will always bring us to resurrection. And when that moment comes, I want to encourage you to choose what is right. Choose what is right because God will always honor those who choose Him and not the world. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you and I praise you for an anointed word in the house today. Father, for the engagement of your people. I pray that, Lord, as this word was delivered, that it is still resting on their hearts, and Father, that they will allow this to just be part of their week. That we don't walk out of here today just saying, okay, we've got a word, but that we're we're living and we're chewing on this word all week long, Father God. That we're saying, Lord, how is it that you can make a difference in my life? How is it, Lord, that you can allow me to see more of you and less of me? How is it, Father, that I can choose what's right and not what's easy? I thank you for the people that you've called to this place. And Father, I pray that you call us back at our next appointed time. And Father, I pray that as this house continues to grow, that you give us great guidance and direction so that we can know every step, every move that you call us to make. I thank you and I praise you. I give you honor and glory in the mighty name of Jesus. And the church says, Amen. Love you guys. We'll see you in.