Staying Where You're Planted | My Job Depends on Ag

This sermon continues the "My Job Depends on Ag" series, using agricultural metaphors to explore the importance of stability and rootedness in the Christian life. Just as trees need to be planted by streams of water to bear fruit (Psalm 1), believers need to stay put—in a place, a community, and a calling—to flourish. However, our culture of hypermobility and fear of commitment (FOMO) often tempts us to run, leading to shallow roots and a lack of fruit.

Scripture References
Psalm 1:1-6: The righteous are like trees planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in season.

Luke 8:26-39: Jesus heals the Gerasene demoniac. The man begs to leave with Jesus, but Jesus commands him to "return to your home" and testify there.

Genesis 2:15: God puts Adam in the garden to "work it and keep it," exercising skilled mastery.

John 15:1-8: Jesus calls us to "remain" in the vine to bear fruit.

Proverbs 27:19: "As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart."

Key Points
The Power of Staying Put Like trees, we cannot thrive if we are constantly transplanted. Staying put brings:

Security: A safe place to grow.

Identity: We are shaped by the places we inhabit.

Skilled Mastery: Staying long enough to become a "whisperer" in your field or community.

The Freedom to Stay The story of the Gerasene demoniac challenges our desire to escape. Though he had every reason to leave his past behind (shame, isolation), Jesus sent him back home. True freedom isn't always going where we want; sometimes, it's the freedom to live a new identity in the same old place.

Embrace Obligation and the Ordinary To stay rooted, we must reject the "duty-free" life.

Obligation: Belonging requires responsibility. We are members of a body, called to bear with one another, not just consume.

Ordinary: Extraordinary lives are built on ordinary habits. Greatness comes from doing consistently what others do occasionally. We must embrace the mundane routines of faithfulness—in marriage, parenting, and discipleship.

Conclusion
"Everyone wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes." True discipleship (discipline) happens in the mundane. If we run from obligation and the ordinary, we will never grow deep roots. We are invited to take a vow of stability—to commit to a place, a people, and a purpose—trusting that God will produce fruit in due season.

Calls to Action
Commit to Stability: Identify where you are tempted to run (a relationship, a job, a church) and ask God for the grace to stay and grow.

Embrace the Ordinary: Stop looking for the "extraordinary" next thing. Commit to the ordinary disciplines of prayer, scripture reading, and faithful presence this week.

Invest in Your Marriage: Sign up for the marriage workshop on January 31st to intentionally invest in your relationship.

Transcript

My name is Travis. One of the pastors here. If I hadn't haven't had a chance to, meet you. And this week I turned 46 years old. Yeah. And, one of God's. One of God's many graces in my life, has been to give me a birthday in 1980. I missed 1979 by just a few weeks, and I just, I the older I get, the more I feel like the Lord was like, you know what?

This guy is not going to be good with numbers. He's going to like words and not numbers. So we better give him 1980, because if we give him 1979, he won't be able to do the math. He what I'm trying to say is I think he delayed production, because he felt bad, for for me. I spent my entire life thinking that Ronald Reagan was president the year I was born.

And then only this week did I realize that Ronald Reagan didn't take office until January 1981. And it was Jimmy Carter who was president in 1980. I've heard so much more about Ronald Reagan than Jimmy Carter. And I spent some time reading about Jimmy Carter this week. What a remarkable life. What an incredible guy. And, you know that just I know there were look, I know there were issues with having a humanitarian in office, and there was a reason that Reagan won by a landslide, I get it.

But policy and politics aside, you don't have to agree with this guy, but you have to respect to this guy. You have to respect this guy. I couldn't believe what I was reading. He's from Plains, Georgia. That's a town of 800 people. For some context, Radiant Church is 800 people.

Of the 800 people, 50% of the population live beneath the poverty line. And he had a family business farming peanuts. He literally made peanuts. He had a promising career in the Navy, but he came home when his dad got sick in 1953. The very next year, as he took over the family farm, there was a terrible drought, and that farm made $187 the entire year.

He came out of nowhere like to win the Democratic nomination. And then eventually the presidency, probably because we were all a little sick of Nixon. And we wanted I mean, I wasn't there right? But I'm guessing everyone was like, let's not do the Nixon thing again. Let's find something wholesome. This guy from Georgia works for us. So what I loved what I couldn't get enough of, what I couldn't believe as I read, is that when he got out of office, he returned to his two bedroom home in Plains, Georgia.

He could have lived anywhere. He could have done anything. He returned to where he was born. He met his wife when he was three years old because his mother, who was a nurse, took her mother to the hospital to have Rosalynn. And then when she returned from the hospital, he remembers as a three year old meeting her. They were married their entire lives.

The thing that I again, I just couldn't I couldn't believe it. I couldn't hardly believe in that. As a sitting president, he continued to teach Sunday school, and even when he came out of office in a church of 800 people, he taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church. They told him once he was out of office, that he needed to set up an office so that people could meet with him, and he couldn't put that in Plains, Georgia.

So he decided to put it in Atlanta about an hour and a half away in his office in Atlanta, he put in a pull out bed in the couch because when he would go, rather than being pampered at a hotel, he would just pull out the couch and sleep on it. I couldn't believe what I was reading. He died in 2024 at the age of 100.

He's a testimony to longevity, and he's a testimony to integrity, a life spent in service to others. And I have a theory that all of this has been kept from me by you because he's a Democrat.

And you couldn't stand it.

We're starting a series at the beginning of the year, and we've been in it for the last few weeks, called my job depends on a-GPS. It's based on the sticker that we see around town, but it's really about how spirituality, and more importantly, Christianity is more like a-GPS than technology. It's more like farming than a factory. And the good news is, is we know a little bit about farming.

Your baseline knowledge, even if you're not a farmer, is greater than those around you. How many of you have gotten a visit from somebody from out of town who's like, what's that big green bush? You know, you're like, that's an orange tree. And they're like, I've never seen one before. What is that smell? That is a dairy. I've never smelled that before.

You're like, what is going on? They're so removed from something that we know very well. Jesus consistently used metaphors and illustration from agriculture to help people understand what life with God is like. He also use these metaphors in these illustrations because he wanted people to grasp it. He wanted to put it on the bottom shelf for people like us.

He wanted us to be able to understand it. So he talked about seeds. He talked about seasons, talked about harvest, talked about toil, talked about soil. Right. And the good news is, is that Jesus wants to speak to us today in 2026, and he's going to use a language that we understand. Now, how many of you have had a moment in life where you're like, oh, God doesn't speak English?

He just accommodates us because he wants to reveal himself. He wants to speak a language we can understand. And so good news, he's trying to reach us with these same metaphors, these same illustrations to help us grow right. We get it. We get farming. We grow 73% of the world's produce or 78% of maybe, maybe just the US.

I'm not sure. I'm not good with numbers, but we farm. It's who we are. We do dirt right? Last week, Glenn talked about the patience of a farmer and what it looks like to wait with hope. The week before that, we talked about what's unseen your hidden life, the roots, not the fruit. We tend to focus on fruit.

Jesus tends to remind us of the roots, to abide, to remain. And this week I want to talk about place. I want to talk about where you're planted. I want to talk about the power of staying put and what happens when you're constantly transplanted.

And when people are rooted for a long time, maybe even a lifetime, good fruit comes. And there is, of course, incredible blessings to our mobility. But there's a cost to our hyper mobility, and I don't think we're aware of it. So if you're constantly being uprooted and replanted, you will struggle. You will not flourish. You will not thrive.

And it's God's desire to plant you and root you in a place. I want to start our morning by reading the first Psalm to you. Maybe it's one that you grew up hearing. Maybe it's one that you even have memorized. It's how the Book of Psalms starts. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers.

But whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not weather. Whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked. They're like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. The righteous are like trees that are planted by streams of water, and they yield fruit and seasons. That means they weather the seasons, and when they do, their leaf does not wither because they're resource, they're well supplied. But the wicked, they're like chaff.

They're blown around by the wind and they don't last. And we are a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. We are like a tree planted, rooted by streams of water, thriving in bearing fruit. We've already talked about past presidents, but I want to talk also about past saints. The pull to leave or hashtag wanderlust is not a new thing.

The desire to run is very old. The hope that things are going to change when we get out of Dodge is a really old one. Saint Benedict, who lived in the fifth century, was in it. He was influential. He's actually called the father of Western monasticism. So he started a monastery that started many other monasteries, and he famously came up with a rule of life for the monks who had come to his monastery, those seeking transformation, a spiritual encounter.

And the monk would make these promises in the presence of all. This was his vow of life, stability, conversion of life, and obedience. It's interesting to me that Benedict didn't start with conversion and didn't start with obedience. He started with stability because he knew these monks would be majorly tempted to leave, that they're going to find out really quick that this isn't as good as they thought it was going to be, and they were going to start thinking, I probably got to go to another monastery.

And so he would make his monks vow stability. I'm not going to run when stuff comes up in my life, and I have to bear with the others around me. I'm not going anywhere, he would make them vow to stay put because the tendency is to run. And when we run, we don't grow. When we run, we don't mature.

When we run, we start over. And instead of seeing it through and seeing that long obedience in the same direction, we cut out because we can't stand the pain and the pressure on the altar. So we go escape that pain and fruit is the result of remaining and sweet fruit is the result of being stressed, purposely, intentionally stressed.

So here's a few things that stability brings. I want to sell you on it. Not like Visalia is a big revolving door. I was so pumped I had to fill out like a bunch of pastoral references. And they, of course ask how long you've known the person. And I felt so thrilled as I filled things out and said, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years.

The person that I knew that the least was for. I really feel thankful for the longevity that we have. I don't think that we quickly and easily cut out or run, but I want to encourage us towards stability because I think it's something God uses. And our temptation is, like I said, to cut out stability brings one. Security a place to call home is foundational in the great quest of becoming places to person.

What womb is to child's. When you have a safe place and love is expressed and basic needs are met, it's fertile soil for your body and soul to spring up.

An American Psychological Association conducted a decade long study to see if they can. They could discern how moving affects people, and looking specifically at childhood moves. Moving is associated with lower levels of overall well-being, higher stress levels, and fewer positive social relationships. Frequent moves have a particularly particularly detrimental effect for adolescents, who have been shown to have lower test scores and graduation rates, fewer friends, higher drug and alcohol use.

We know that children who move more frequently are more likely to perform poorly in school and have more behavioral problems. Now, I know that there's exceptions to this. I know this mostly because of, the more we always get these military families that I just love. And then right about the time you love them, they leave us. So I've stopped giving my heart to them.

But they con man. And it's like you, you've you've moved a lot in your lifetime and, you know, another moves coming, but it's interesting. They land here and they really engage and they seem well adjusted. And maybe that they're not on drugs, I don't know. They seem to be doing like really well. So I get it that there's exceptions to this.

And of course I'm not trying to be legalistic about any of this, but I think we all know and probably those that are on the base and Lemoore know some people do better with the moving than others. Stability brings identity. The place that we grow up ends up making us who we are. We are the product of the places that we grow up.

It's primary in our development. Most recently, I watched a biopic on Bruce Springsteen and who who is he without that place? Who is he? Right. The creativity of Pele was produced by kicking around balled up rags and mangoes in the slums of Brazil. It's who he is. It's what made him. And when they gave him a real soccer ball, he was like, oh, this is much easier.

They gave him cleats and he was kind of like, this is better than playing barefoot with rags.

Number three, besides identity, it brings a skilled mastery. God creates humanity, Adam and Eve. And then he places them in a garden. And then he gifts them with a particular place. And he says, be here. Be fruitful, be more, be multiplying. Exercise dominion rule over this place. God put man in the garden and then he says, work it and keep it.

And by chapter two, we can see that God's wanting to partner with Adam in that saying, hey, look, I'm going to make the animals you, Adam, are going to name them. So he's actually engaged in this good work. And many wrongly believe that work is the result of the fall. And I actually think that work is going to be a part of the new heavens and the new earth, that we're going to have meaningful employment.

When Jesus returns. I know you were hoping otherwise, but I actually don't think it's good. I don't think it's good. And some of you have been like, I don't want to go to heaven. I don't want to play a harp on a cloud for eternity. Sounds awful. The good news we're not playing a harp on a cloud for eternity.

That's not what it is. One Old Testament scholar says that the Hebrew phrase take dominion means exercise. Skilled mastery. Become a whisperer.

I've got a Corvair, a 1965 Corvair. It has two carburetors, which is the only thing worse than having one carburetor. And when I got a Corvair, everyone was like, you got to connect with Don Brown. You got to get to Don Brown. He's the Corvair guy. Don Brown has taught auto mechanics at El Monte High School for a bunch of years, and he teaches students about the engine by using a Corvair engine.

So he's used to working with people like me. I get to him because I can't get these carburetors to sync up, and I've got all the right tools, and he puts the tools aside and he's like, you got to listen. And I'm like, listen. He's like, yeah, you listen. I was like, well, I was reading the gauges. I can't put the gauge away.

You got to listen to it. What's it telling you? You know, and you're like, what are you talking about? Then go listen to those carburetors. You can hear it when they're in sync. No, I can't don. The Corvair whisperer. You got to talk to him. Tell it what you need. You know, when you stay in something long enough, you become a whisperer.

You gotta listen to it right? When we move around, move jobs. And I know we're not always in control of those moves. But when we continue to move, one of the costs is that we don't exercise skilled mastery. And I believe it's something God has called us to and wants us rooted in a profession so that we can bless the people around us by knowing what we're talking about.

It's a beautiful thing. I know that there are some roadblocks to stability, that it's not easy to take a vow of stability, that I know that you know, that security, identity, skilled mastery, these are good things. But you also know there's some things in the way of us. There's a reason we want to run, right? It's not easy.

And I want to read to you from Luke's gospel and talk about some of the roadblocks that stand between us and stability. Luke 826.

They, Jesus, and the disciples sailed to the region.

Of the garrisons, which is across the lake from Galilee. And when Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but he had lived in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, what do you want with me?

Jesus, son of the Most High God, I beg you, don't torture me. For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man many times and had seized him. And though he was chained hand in foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains, and had been driven by the demon into solitary places or the wilderness.

And Jesus asked him, what is your name? He said, Legion, because many demons had gone into him, and they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the abyss. A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. And when the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus's feet, dressed in his right mind, and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon possessed man had been cured.

Then all the people of the region of the garrisons asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got in the boat and left. And the man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, return to your home. Tell how much God has done for you.

So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. Like, there's a lot to consider in this passage. I believe this is very perplexing. There's a lot of things going on here, but I want you to zero in on this idea that this man didn't need a new place to live out his new identity.

I think the most troubling part of this text, to me at least, is not the demons or that the demons were cast into the pigs, or that the demons were interacting with Jesus, trying to negotiate where they would be cast out.

This stuff's not disturbing to me. These pigs running off a cliff. Jesus has healed the man. Jesus has delivered a man. And we've read about this before. But the most disturbing part of this text is this man coming and running to the edge of the boat and saying, take me with you and Jesus, saying, no, go home.

I think this is really difficult because this is Jesus. 25 times in the Gospels he says, come, follow me. And he says that to people who didn't want to follow him, they weren't asking, can I follow you? They were like fishing. And he's like, hey, you come follow me. And they did. And then the one guy who asks, can I get in on this?

He's like, nah, probably not. You should go home rude. If anybody had a reason to want out, it's this guy. Yeah. If anybody had a reason to start over. Hey, man, I just need a new place. It's this guy. When the whole town has seen you naked, you want out? You remember the southwest commercials where something would embarrassing would happen, and then they would say, want to get away?

And they would offer cheap flights. Has the whole town seen you naked? Want to get away? Have you been chained in the tombs? Do you have no friends? Do you have no home? Do you have no job? Have you not been in your right mind for a long time? Want to get away? And this guy comes to the edge of the boat and he's like, get me out of here.

And Jesus says, go home. Tell him all that I've done for you. He has no home. He has no friends, he has no job, but he has a testimony. And Jesus is like, yeah, I'll work. Go ahead. Go tell him. It says that when they came back and they saw the guy clothes sitting at Jesus feet, they got a parade.

And when I read that, I thought about my life as a parent and thought to myself, like when it would get quiet and you were like, something is really wrong. Something's up. Right? They come back, he's in his right mind. He's sitting at the feet of Jesus again. Some of you parents talk to me like this. You're like, they sat through it like this is is miracle.

They were sick. You wouldn't believe it, Travis. They were sitting still with all their clothes on. What a Christmas Eve service we had. Everybody kept their sweater on. Everybody sat still. It was a miracle they come back. They're like, this is a miracle. This man who's been restless was sitting at peace at his feet. And you better believe it.

The first thought that this man had when he was in his right mind was, I gotta leave. He gets his mind back. And he's like, wow, how long have I been naked in there? Like a long time. And he's like, I gotta get out of here. No, no, no, you gotta go back. Tell him what Jesus has done for you.

This.

This passage to me confronts a tendency in us that we need something new to live out our new identity. If we had a new job, then we could live out this new calling. God's placed on our lives. And this man found the freedom to stay put. Have you ever experienced that freedom? I know what we think of when we think of freedom as I can go and do whatever I want.

But this man found the freedom to stay, to not go. Is it possible to live this new identity with the same old family?

Dang it!

Is it possible to live the new life with the same old job? Yeah, probably. Is it possible to live a new identity with the same old circumstances? I think it is. Is it possible to live a new identity with the whole town, gossiping about you? Jesus. Think so?

If we're going to be planted in one place, I'm going to have to change your mind. And we're going to have to repent, like be transformed by the renewing of our mind about these two things. And I'm going to try to sell you on obligation. And what's ordinary. So just prepare yourself because I know immediately you're like, oh my gosh.

Obligation is not the end and ordinary is not mediocre. And unless you get into obligation, unless you get into ordinary, you will not stay put. And if you do not stay put, you will not bear fruit. You will keep starting over. Listen to me. You do not want a life free of obligation and duty. That is not a good life.

That is a sad existence. Because that means that nothing and no one is greater than you. You do not want at the end of your life to be able to say, I was obligated to no one and nothing, and there was not a sense of duty in my life that is not the good life, and that is what you're being sold on a consistent basis.

That's what you're being talked into. And that's what we feel at times. Man, I just wish I didn't feel so obligated. I wish that I didn't feel responsible. And maybe the answer is a less less feeling responsible. But a life without responsibility is meaningless. And you don't want that life. I've, I've traveled a little bit, and I have never bought anything in a duty free shop.

And I say that with pride. I'm always perplexed. Like, who does this work for? Because it's not working for me, 10% off is not a sale. Sign that I move towards. That feels to me like something that any store could offer to anyone. Maybe if you live in Denmark and your taxes are 70%, I don't know. Maybe that works for you, but I always walk through those and go, well, this is obviously working, otherwise they wouldn't have duty free shops and every one of our airports.

And I'd like you to think about that when you walk through an airport next time. How many who's into the duty free thing like you're like when you see it? You're like, yeah, I got to get in on that. Really?

Thanks for being honest. That was risky. I guess the idea is that you go get some Maui GM sunglasses and some Crown Royal, and you don't pay sales tax, and that's like a good, a good deal. But it's never like worked for me. And I think it's such a picture of the cost of hypermobility that we think as we globe trot that the good life is tax free, that the good life is duty free, and we want duty free relationships with family and friends because it's cheaper and it requires less of us.

And we don't want obligation. Obligation means that you belong to something bigger than yourself, that something else needs come before your own, that there's something greater than you, your family, your community, your country, your company, your church. The collective WI is more important than me and my needs. And I know that you have a huge fear of being obligated.

You have a huge fear of missing out. So you're not committing because you're scared to miss out. But can I ask you, what are you missing out on by being governed by a fear of missing out?

Growth. Maturity coming through to the other side. When you live governed by a fear of commitment and obligation, you will miss out on growing and bearing fruit. Being obligated is not the worst thing in the world. And it's not the end. It means that there's something bigger than you that you're orbiting around, and it's what Jesus taught. We live with these two conflicting desires.

We live with a desire for autonomy. I do what I want, when I want, I go where I want, I eat what I want. No one tells me what to do. That desire is alive and well in me and then the other desire that you and I have is a deep desire to belong. And these are at war with one another, because to belong to something means that you're membered.

It means that what you do affects me, and what I do affects you. And so we're living with this idea, like, I was so proud of the members who stood up last week. And I listened to it on the way home from San Francisco. And I was crying and like, hooting and hollering in my car. As people said, I found where I belong, especially with a Nigerian accent.

I was like, yes, yeah, I found where I belong. But understand that belonging, that desire in you to belong, it comes with obligation. We're obligated to the things that we belong to, and we're not there just to receive. The Bible says that we should bear with one another, and that's what's coming next. They're like, we've been here for eight weeks.

This place is amazing. And it's like, just wait.

You're going to have to bear with us. And what I find so often is we want to be with one another. We just don't want to bear with one another. And when we have to bear with one another, we're going to bail on one another because we want a duty free life. We don't want obligation. We'll do it when it feels good and we won't when it don't.

Right? Listen, if you're here and you're in your teens or your 20s, don't give your life to a fear of missing out because you'll miss out on a ton. Don't give your life to a fear of commitment. You won't grow.

Find a place and root yourself and find a spouse and have kids and take responsibility for them. And exercise skilled mastery by working hard and toiling. It's the good life. Find a person. Find a place. Find a profession. Work through all the crap that comes up with family. Become members of a church that was another thing that was just so beautiful.

There's so many young adults not waiting to get married to see themselves as members, but saying, no, I'm obligated to this body, not just here to take. Lastly, worship team, would you guys come? Don't run from the ordinary because ordinary is not normal and it's not mediocre.

We always use and I was thinking about it as I listened to Lori, but we always use it's going to be amazing. It's going to be incredible. It's going to change your life. It's going to transform you. This is how we sell stuff. It's going to be incredible. It's going to be extraordinary. These words are normal and losing their effects on us.

And we don't sell things like, hey, come to radiant, we're going to sing some average, ordinary songs and you'll hear an ordinary talk, and then we'll hang out with ordinary people and drink some ordinary coffee afterwards. Do you want to come? You know, come to the marriage conference. You're going to get in the ordinary fight that you normally get in with your wife, and then you're going to kind of kind of make up in the ordinary way.

By the end of the day. That's just not how we sell stuff. My student is just an ordinary student at Weaver. Blunt elementary is not a bumper sticker on anyone's car. That's not the way this works. We want our lives to have impact. We want our lives to be great. We want our lives to bear fruit. We want big results.

We want payoff. But here's the thing that I'm discovering late in life no one has extraordinary anything without a bunch of ordinary, without a bunch of routine. That's the difference great people do consistently what you and I do occasionally. That's the difference. And want to know what the difference is between ordinary and extra ordinary. It's being okay with the ordinary, the routine in music, the person who's great was into ordinary scales and normally practiced, and they did consistently what you and I do occasionally.

What about basketball? Everyone we know Mamba mentality that you're going to finish a game. I've heard so many stories of that guy being in the gym two hours before everybody else taking free throws, and he was more okay with ordinary than you are. You can't do anything or be anything extra ordinary without routine Bible reading. You look at a person and you're like, wow, look at their Bible knowledge.

You know what that is? They didn't give up in Leviticus. They were just like, well, I don't get this at all, but I'm just going to keep in. And they did for 40 years. And and students and parents listen. Parents quantity time is better than quality time. Quality time is no match for quantity time. You can't take a kid to Disneyland and make up for not being in their life for three years.

Quantity time is important. The ordinary is essential. And if we're going to stay put and refuse to run, we're going to have to get into our ordinary jobs and our ordinary marriages and the ordinary people around us. And guess what? When we run and we think something's the next church is extraordinary. You find out in six months. Yeah, this is the same deal.

I'm the same person and so are they. And so now the work begins.

To be a disciple of Jesus at the root of that word, disciple. And many of us would call ourselves one, is the word discipline thing. It no one says that during an altar call because nobody would respond. Who here wants to become a disciplined one? You know, she's a disciplined one, a disciple. I leave you with this. This is a sign posted in a radical Christian community house, like a sort of new monasticism like Benedict started.

And the sign inside this radical Christian discipleship house says, everybody wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes.

When you run from obligation and ordinary, you don't belong. You don't root, you don't grow, and you don't thrive and you don't flourish. Would you stand with me?