Mission Sent

When God Speaks, Will You Listen And Act

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What if the most radical act of faith is simply pausing long enough to hear—and then obey? We walk through Matthew 1 and sit with Joseph, a just man who refuses public shame, considers carefully, and responds to God’s word without hedging. His example cuts across our scroll-and-react culture, inviting us to trade instant outrage for patient wisdom and a life shaped by presence, prayer, and action.

We unpack the names Emmanuel and Jesus to show how God’s nearness and God’s rescue meet in one person. That theology isn’t abstract; it fuels choices. Scripture is not background noise but God’s living voice, and reading it aloud reframes our decisions. From there we bring obedience down to earth: the Great Commission happens around dinner tables, with honest questions and unhurried time. Parents take the lead in shaping their children’s faith, and neighbors become more than garage doors—real people to know, serve, and love.

We also tackle modern idols that quietly steal our devotion—work, youth sports, screens, even good things that become ultimate. Jesus’ call to seek the kingdom first is not a neat priority ladder; it’s a new center that orders everything else. Change the inputs and the outputs must change. If you’ve been waiting for a burning bush, here’s the good news: God has already spoken. The next step is yours.

Listen now, share it with a friend who needs encouragement to slow down and act in faith, and leave a review to help others find the show. What command will you act on this week?


Big Idea: Obedience Without Hesitation

Josh

Alright, well, good morning. I hope everyone is doing well. I hope we are ready to jump back into the book of Matthew today. And I want to start by doing something we haven't done in a long time. And that is this as we are jumping into the deep, as we are jumping and getting away from just playing in the shallows. I want to start with the big idea of the message here. So go ahead and put that up. Alright, here is the big idea we are looking to cover today, and that is this. See what we're gonna look at today and what we're gonna see today is Joseph was told by God to do something, and he did it without question. He didn't sit there and go, Oh God, can you give me a clear thing? Oh, you know, I I don't know if I heard that right. Like he was told to do something, he jumped in and he did it. And honestly, it wasn't even a particularly easy thing to do. So, hope you're ready. I will pray and we will jump in. Father God, I just ask and I pray that as we go through your word today, that it be your word, Father, that it isn't my word, that God, it is your word that you are speaking to your people. Father, I ask and I pray, even if it's my voice people are hearing, it is your words that are cutting to our heart, that we are changed by the power of your spirit, and I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so let's jump into Matthew one, starting in verse 18, it says, Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit, and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from his sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. Alright, so as we jump into this, remember I told you that God told Joseph to do something, and that wasn't an easy thing to do. Here's what I mean. In verse 19, Joseph finds out Mary is pregnant, and he knows the baby and his. See, think about what is actually happening here. His betrothed, his virgin, his soon-to-be wife is pregnant. And you know you haven't been with her, so understand what Joseph is dealing with here is like every guy's worst nightmare, right? However, look at what the reaction Joseph has in comparison to the reaction that any guy in this room would have. He doesn't jump on social media and blast her. He doesn't call her out, he's not in his f her face yelling at her. He's not sitting here going, That's it, we're done. Because he's a righteous man, Joseph looks to divorce her quietly. Not the gate. How many of us in here? How many of us would have that kind of reaction? How many of us in this room, when someone wrongs you, you look for their best interest and how to resolve the situation? See, most of us would have looked at this like the way the law would handle it. In Deuteronomy 22, verses 23 and 24, we see this. If there is a betrothed virgin and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out of the to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones. The young woman because she did not cry for help, though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge this evil from your midst. See, Joseph would have been totally justified to have Mary and whoever laid with her brought out in front of everyone and killed. But yet, even though this would have been just justified, Joseph didn't want to bring shame upon Mary. Now, if we're honest with ourselves, how many of us in this room we would have chose option A and tried to protect her even though she had wronged us? And how many of us in this room would have chosen B, going, hey, here's what the law says to do, so we're gonna do that. I mean, and if we're honest with ourselves, because that's where we have to start. We have to be honest with ourselves. Because we can't grow if we're not being honest. I mean, I'll I'll go ahead and tell you. Like, I've seen people, especially on social media, who have taken pictures of license plates of cars who have drawn, you know, like cut them off in traffic and then blasted it. I mean, put all that information out there. I mean, if we really stop and we think about it, I've seen dissertations written. Because how dare that person, as your child is coming up to bat or your child's going to take a shot, stand up in front of you. I mean, how many of us in this room have so much love for those around us that instead of beating them down, instead of doing what we would be justified in doing, we look out for the best interest of them, even when they wrong us. I mean, isn't this what we saw in Romans 12, right? Paul says, never repay evil for evil, but repay evil for good. But how many of us actually live like this? How many of us actually are being Jesus? How many of us, because of the precedent we see here, and God showing this is how we should live, how many of us are actually doing this though? See, and as we continue to look, we see other things here with Joseph. In verses 20 to 24, we see Joseph is sitting here considering these things. Man, if we could just grab a hold of this. He's thinking through the choices that are before him, he's not just reacting based off of what he feels. How many of us is that's how people would describe us? How many of us sit here and take the time to actually think through what we are feeling and get past what we feel to what is real and actually look at the situation from from not an emotionally charged part. Because, see, when we look around at society, we kind of see the opposite of that, don't we? Like when we look at at everything around us, what we see is just reaction. We we don't even read the whole store anymore, we just want the headline. We don't even watch the whole video anymore. We just want the the highlight reel. See, think about it. Let a nugget of news hit your phone or your feed. All we do is develop an entire thought long before we ever get past that headline. You're not actually gonna check the whole message, but what you're gonna get is you're gonna get this small little nugget, right? You got that message preview. How many of us, though, when we see that little message preview, we've already decided where we stand on that issue? I woke up this morning and I saw US is gonna take Greenland. I already have a whole thought pattern based on all of that. Based off of one little US is gonna take Greenland headline. But see, that's the society we live in now, right? We are a s a headline-driven society. Let someone put up a post this long on social media. You are gonna get three sentences into that, and you're gonna be like, whatever, I already got their dissert like their uh not dissertation, their thesis statement. I'm good. I know everything I need to know about the rest of what they're saying based off the first three sentences. Why? Because we live in a TikTok society. Because all we do is sit there on our phone and you get a minute. You get one minute, because that's all my little attention is gonna be able to give you to figure out what's going on with a very, very, very complex issue. All we care about is that first minute. Think about it, like you want to gain any kind of traction on social media, the first thing they're gonna tell you is this your first sentence, the first five seconds of a video have to be intriguing, or they're not gonna stay to watch it. And even then, you are blessed if you can get more than three minutes out of a person. Any teaching conference that you go to, they will tell you right now that every four minutes in your classroom, you have to switch topics because you're you're not gonna keep a kid's attention longer than four minutes. Think about it. I stand up here and I do this week in and week out, and I can tell you right now, as soon as you zone out, because I get to see all of your faces.

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Your four minutes are up. Mr.

Headline Culture And Shallow Inputs

Waiting On God And Wise Counsel

Josh

Allen's done already. See, then, but this is what happens. Because we have wired our brains to stop trying to digest the whole thing. Just give me the bullet points. Debbie sits down to tell me a story, and I'm I'm just as guilty as anyone else, because I will go uh and just summarize all of this for me. I don't have time to listen to all of that. The problem is though, is where are the details? Like if I'm just trying to get like the two sentences out of it, and this is what happens, and then I'm back to reacting. So before I figure out everything that's going on, so I actually know how to react, it's no, I watch this 15-second video, I know everything about it now. From one person's perspective. And Lord knows what AI can do now. And I go, but yet now I'm a I'm an expert in that. Like, think about it. We assign a kid a research paper to do. What's what's the first thing they're doing? Chat GPT, Google Gemini, here's my paper. And I'm gonna tell you right now, your child does not even change the format from the copy paste. I'm just gonna be honest. And when they can format a paper better than like, you know, someone with a master's degree, you know you didn't write this. But see, this is the society we live in now. We have AI to tell us what we need to know. And I go, where's the problem with this? None of us are garbage out. My mom used to say it all the time, and I hated it growing up because I was like, mom, you don't understand. I can listen to whatever music I want, it has no effect on me whatsoever. And it wasn't until I was older and I was like, man, I cannot put a sentence together without using the F word and wondering why. And I go, because that's what happens. We are regenerat or regurgitating what we bring in. Like, think about it like this, and I know this is a disgusting illustration, but it will make sense, I promise. What would you think if you had pizza for dinner, but then when you threw up, beef was coming out? But then I need to tie it and clean it up. But think about this like a steak comes up. And you're like, hold on, I ain't pizza. How is a steak coming up? But this is what we think, right? We think regardless of what comes in here, Jesus is gonna come out of here. How? If Jesus isn't coming in, he definitely isn't gonna come out. And I sit here and go, like with Joseph here, he's taking time to sit and consider. Some of us we need to get better at this. Some of us we need to understand, hey, you know what? Before I react, I'm gonna stop. And mentally I'm gonna count to three or five. Some of us may need to go all the way to ten. And then I'm going to. But I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna consider this because it's as he's stopping and considering, it's as he's stopping and seeking God, it's as he's sitting here meditating, that's when God speaks to him. See, think about it. Like when your kids come in and they're just going a mile a minute, and they don't even give you a chance to stop and go, well, hold on, let me ask you this. Can you can you respond to them? No, because their mouth is just too busy going. See, a lot of us were sitting here going, you know, God hasn't responded to me, God hasn't answered this prayer for me, God hasn't done this for me, and I'm sitting here going, but have you ever shut your mouth long enough to give God a chance to go, here, I got you on this. See, and that's what Joseph does. He waits on the Lord, and when he waits, God speaks. So Joseph is considering these things, and then we see that he has this dream. And in this dream, the angel of the Lord says, Do not put Mary and the baby away, for the baby she has is from the Holy Spirit. And this is the problem with reaction. Because if Joseph would have just reacted, Mary would have been stoned to death, and the baby that was from the Holy Spirit would have been killed. See, that's what a reaction would have caused. Because most of the time, a reaction, all it's going to do is make things worse. Because had Joseph just been controlled by his emotions, he would have been very justified and very easily allowed by the law to do the very opposite of what God was attending to happen. So instead of bringing life and bringing life abundantly, instead of the Savior being born, what would have happened out of emotion would have killed. He could have leapt right out of the frying pan and into the fire. So as you think through your own life, though, how many times have you been burned the same way? How many times have you taken a situation that might have been bad and made it ten times worse? Because we just shot off. Because we didn't want to wait on God. We didn't want to pray. Because God's not answering my prayer. We didn't want to, and this is a big one, seek wise counsel. So JT, a lot of times, will tell me about conversations he has with his friends who are all on the same level of JT. And everybody in here knows where this is going, right? Because the blind can't lead the blind places. And if you take two 17 or two 18-year-olds and you put them together and you go, hey, come up with a good idea, it ain't gonna happen. Why? Because they haven't experienced that to begin with. It's not a intelligence thing, it's a wisdom thing. One of the things my mom will say a lot is this I've already been where you are. I've already gone through what you go through. So why wouldn't that be the first person I would want to go and ask? Because I've never done it before. I don't know how to do all of this. And yeah, I'm gonna try my best. But what happens when? See, seeking wise counsel doesn't make us weaker. In fact, if more of us did this, we would very easily be able to move forward in our life. But we're so prideful that heaven forbid I go to someone else and go, hey, I need help with this. Think about that. How stupid is that? And I know in our rational minds right now, we will all go, yeah, that is pretty stupid. But how many times do we do this? Like all the time. Because I can't tell you I need help because then that puts you in a position of power over me. And heaven forbid, someone be over me. Seeking wise counsel is a good thing. Some of us we just need to wait on God. And I know that's hard. I get it. I know what it's like to pray year after year after year and sit here and go, God, where are you in this? Debbie, if she was here, could explain that very clearly, even when it came to me. Because she would sit here and pray for me and pray for me. And there were times where like she would wake me up at night because her hands were like ice cold. And she's like putting her hands on me. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like, and she's like, I'm praying for you. And I'm like, Well, can you rub your hands together before you do that or something? Like, you didn't need to wake me up. But it was years and years and years until I like woke up one day and I was like, hey, you know what? Yes, I will go back to church with you. And I sit here and go, sometimes it's gonna take a while. Because it's not our time. And what is time to eternal God? One day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. Not us. We are a very, very impatient people. And the more technology advances, you know what we become? The more impatient. Like some of you in here are old enough to remember at the end of every commercial it said, please allow six to eight weeks for delivery. Let Amazon take more than same-day delivery now. And you're like, this is ridiculous. I'm canceling the order. I'll just go to Walmart myself, I guess. That's who we are as a people now. It and in fact, back in 1997, all right, and some of us are old enough for this, right? Some of you are like, 90s, man, that was last century. It was. I still had thick, luscious hair. But back in 1997, does anybody know how long it took for a web page to load?

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35 minutes.

Joseph Acts Without Question

Scripture As God’s Direct Voice

The Great Commission In Daily Life

Love God, Love Neighbor, Know Your Neighbors

Parents As Primary Disciple Makers

Modern Idols And Misplaced Worship

Seek First The Kingdom

Change The Input, Change The Output

Josh

Up to 35 seconds. In a recent study, they said that if it takes longer than three seconds for your web page to load, 90% of people will not go to your website. Think about this. Some of us remember what it was like to wait an hour and a half to download one picture. You could use a phone like that, right? You could not. And yet, today's society, if it ain't instant, I don't want it. See, we we forgot what it's like to wait. So think about all those times you reacted instead of considering how did it work? I'm gonna answer this by quoting this famous theologian named Captain America. Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die. This right here is how disagreements with your spouse turn into three-day fights. Because what started off as an easy, simple question, Debbie, what do you want for dinner tonight? Turned into, for the past five years, you have steadily not told me how pretty I am. Okay. And that is just an example. That's not an actual fight we've had. But that is what happens. Because we just react. This is how parents honestly have a small problem with their kid. Next thing you know, it's been years since they've taught to their children. And I'll tell you right now, sometimes bad things happen in the be in the in-between and you don't get the chance to make it right anymore. And then what do you do? Now you get to live a lifetime of regret. Because now you can't make it right. And you get to spend the rest of your life sitting here going, but it used to be. See, sometimes I think we would be better as a species. If we remember that God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we could speak. Do you know how much better off we would be? If every once in a while we could just shut the middle orifice up and open up these two. But we don't. So what I have to say is more important. Because, see, when Joseph considered these things, when Joseph waited for these things, what he found out was beyond amazing. That Mary is pregnant with God and the flesh. If you were paying attention in the beginning, it says this was to fulfill what the prophet, now that prophet that Matthew was talking about there is Isaiah. In Isaiah 7, Matthew was quoting that, it's to fulfill what the prophet said. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. God with us. And I have seriously had people go, but if Isaiah said his name was Emmanuel, and then God said his name was Jesus, isn't that different? You got him. Like you have figured out how God has inconsistencies. But we have to remember back in their culture, names meant something. They didn't just like throw a name together. So Jesus means God saves. Emmanuel means God is with us. So when God says, and you shall call him Emmanuel, he's not talking about, hey, name him Emmanuel. He is sitting here going, This is going to be me wrapping myself in flesh and being with you. Because the son that Mary is going to have, and his name being Jesus, will save his people from their sins. What God is announcing right now is his eternal plan of redemption of creation. And that's what Joseph gets to experience because he stopped, shut his mouth, and listened. And lastly, let's look at his response. So in verses 24 through 25, we see this. People are going to ask me questions. They're going to sit here and go, what do you mean? Like she conceived with the Holy Spirit? Like, is this like a succubus kind of moment? Like, God, I need to explain this theologically to everyone, so I'm going to need you to give me some clarification. He didn't go, okay, hold on, God, but like, what's the point behind all of this? Joseph didn't question any of it. He just dove deep and he did exactly as the Lord commanded. Now, some of us in this room are probably sitting here going, if God gave me a dream in which God Himself came to me and went, hey, here's what you're going to do, I would do it. Some of us in this room, at least one person that I know for sure, sits here and goes, if God, like when I open my door tomorrow, if the bush right next to my door is on fire, but not being consumed, and God speaks from that fire and he goes, This is what you're gonna do, yeah, I'm gonna do it. But most of us in this room are probably sitting here going, but here's the deal. God's never done that. He never gave me a dream and told me specifically, here's what you're gonna do. I've never walked out into my yard and God went, Mandy, take off your shoes. You're on holy ground. He never sent me a prophet where he went, Eric, tomorrow, here's where you're gonna go and here's what you're gonna do. And I'll be honest, some of you that may have happened. The vast majority of us probably never did. But let me ask you, today, this very day, can you go home, find that dusty Bible you got somewhere in your house, or open up an app that is a free download. And when you read the Bible, can you read it out loud? No one because if you do that, listen to me very carefully. God will speak directly to you. Why? Because you are taking the very word from God's lips and you're hearing it. See, we get so hung up on we need these supernatural things. God has already given us an entire book in which he goes, Hey, here's what I want you to do. In other words, God has already commanded you to go do. What has he commanded you to go do? Well, at the very end of Matthew, we see in Matthew 28, go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do all that I have commanded you to. That's called the Great Commission. So, let me ask you, are we doing that? See, God's already gone, go make disciples. You know how you make a disciple? You make time. You have dinner, you talk. See, so many of us we think that like evangelism is this. You gotta know all of the verses. And you gotta know all this deep theology. And you gotta be able to like answer every single objection that someone could ever bring up to you. But that's not what we see biblically. Here's what we see. Hey, you wanna have dinner tonight? And then at dinner, here's what we're gonna talk about. You ready? It gets super deep. How was your day? How are you doing? What's new in your life? That is evangelism. Because you know what's going to eventually happen in that conversation? God will show up. Do you know how many conversations I've had with someone where it started out as just a simple surface level conversation? And by the time you're 15, 20 minutes into it, it is a very deep, like life-altering conversation. It happens all the time. And it's not because I figured out one verse that's gonna go with the conversation we're talking about. But see, here's the thing: Jesus tells us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And like you've heard me say over and over and over again, if it's not coming out of here, that means it's not in here. So God calls us to make disciples. Are we doing that? God commands us to love him with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. Are we doing that? Like, is every waking thought how I can bring glory and honor to God? Or is that just like on the back burner, if I have time, I'll get around to it? God commands us to love others the way that we love us. And for some of us, that's a whole lot. Because all we can talk about is us. See, are we doing that though? Are we literally loving our neighbors? Do any of us even know our neighbors anymore? Because, see, at one point in time, we used to be what was called a front porch society. In fact, it like pee okay, I don't know if you watch PBS or not. Some of you probably haven't watched PBS since you were little, and Sesame Street was like all the crates. But PBS has these videos, they're called the Untold Stories of Florida. And it's about when they first started like settling Florida. And and I will tell you right now, if you think Florida is like wild now, like if you go watch these, like some of these cities and stuff like that are just crazy. Like the amount of cattle farming that Florida used to do, like, it's crazy. Like if you really go and like like look up like Florida crackers, like just some of the how they used to have to live is just insane to me. But here was one thing they used to do because I don't know if you know this or not, but we live in a state that is very, very, very much just like a swamp, and they didn't always have air conditioning. So what used to happen is every house was built with these nice huge like wraparound front porches that were screened in. And at night, instead of sleeping in the house, the whole family would come outside and you would sleep on your porch overnight. Well, when you spend that much time on your porch because you don't have air conditioning inside and temperatures would get you know over a hundred degrees. What do you think happens? Like when you walk by your neighbor's house and their whole family is sitting on the porch. What happens when you live in this remote, like just mosquito-infested swamp and you run out of sugar? Well, you go over to your neighbor's house. And and you don't just go, hey, can I have some sugar and then leave? Like, think about it. The the term southern hospitality, what comes to mind? Like they would come over to ask for sugar. Man, you're staying for pie and you're staying for tea, and hey, like, we're gonna throw on a pig. You wanna just stay? Like, and that's what communities used to look like. And now, here's what we do: we don't we don't go on our front porch. We go out back where we have that eight-foot privacy fence. And how dare our neighbors' voices even come up over that? And that's where we live our lives. I mean, most of us we probably have neighbors that like, seriously, it's they they get home, the garage door opens, you see them long enough to park their car in their garage and watch the door close behind them. But let me ask you, have you ever gone over and just, hey, how you doing? I live next door to you. And I just want to know your name because I live next door to you. See, that's what we're called and commanded to do. How many of us preach the gospel? And I know right out the gate, everyone's first thought, that's your job. And you are a hundred percent correct. That is what I am doing. But I'm standing here preaching the gospel, going, it's also your job, because in the book of Peter, that's what he tells us that we are a royal priesthood, right? He ain't just talking about me. He is sitting here talking about every single one of us. If you call yourself a Christ follower, are we meditating on God's word day and night? Because again, uh-oh, we go into the Bible and what does it tell us in Deuteronomy 6? That you should write this on your doorpost and you should read this when you wake, and you should read this when you go to bed, and you should tell your kids about this. Because understand, who is the primary disciple maker of your children? And I get it, most of your children come here to Mission Academy. I am not the primary disciple maker of your child, though. You are. Now that doesn't mean that I do not come along and help out in that process. I absolutely do. But I'm telling you right now, and if your kid's in elementary, it definitely ain't me. Because I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't have patience for your kid then. They ask way too many questions and they never sit still. But understand that's your job as a parent. You first and foremost need to be the influence in your child's life. Definitely not because if that's the influence, if their little video games are the influence, I'm telling you right now, you're you're ruining your child. Lastly, are you worshiping idols? Because God specifically commands you to have no other gods but Him. Now, we talked about this when we were opening in prayer. Understand, idols aren't just these little carved totem poles that you get in your house. Idols could be youth sports, idols could be video games, idols can be your spouse, idols can be your kids, idols can be your work. An idol is anything that takes your worship. And some of us, we give our worship freely to everything else except God. See, for the most part, our biggest problem in life isn't that God isn't speaking. It's we're not listening. See, God speaks in his word, God speaks through his church. I was just talking to someone before service started. God's even used a donkey to get his message across. God will use literally anything and everything he desires to speak. The problem is, is we're not listening. It's we're just splashing around in the shallows. We're just dipping our toe in it. We just want to be close enough to God where we feel like, hey, we can check that box. But we don't want to be so involved that our whole life gets consumed by it. Because, you know, I got other things going on in my life. In Matthew 6, and we're not gonna get there this year, I'll tell you that. In Matthew 6, 33, Jesus says this: seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. And most of us in this room, here's how we hear what we just said. All right, Jesus is first, and then my family, and then my job, and then my friend, and like we just we we create this priority list. What in fact what Jesus actually means is seek me with everything you are, and everything else can be added to that. You want to be a better husband? Seek Jesus first. You want to be a better wife? Seek Jesus first. You want to be better at your seek Jesus first. You want to be better at just being a friend? Seek Jesus first. You want to be a better fisherman? Seek Jesus first. You want to be a better hunter? Seek Jesus first. Like, think about this. That is what Jesus is talking about. He's not sitting here creating this priority list. And some of us, our problem is that we're not seeking Jesus first. Jesus is the add-on to our life. Sunday morning is the add-on to my life. All of a sudden, this is I'm gonna go to church. A disciple would have no idea what you were talking about if you use the words, I'm gonna go to church. It would be like you saying this, I'm gonna go to family. And if you were to like tell me, like, hey, all right, I gotta go, I gotta go to family, I would be like, what in the world is that? Like, do you mean your house? Because that makes sense. See, and that's where we run into problems because we're just playing in the shadows. We're not feeding the hungry, we're not clothing the naked, we're not proclaiming the gospel, we aren't seeking God. We aren't being transformed by the renewing of our minds, and we aren't repenting from our old former selves, and we get nothing different because we do nothing different. Here's the thing, and I know everybody in here, your favorite subject in school growing up was always math, right? I get it. Right now we're starting graphing. And in pre-algebra, when you start graphing, what you do first and foremost is you teach them how to come up with points. And in order to come up with a point, you have to have an input so that you can have an output. Well, here's the thing: if the input never changes, the output can't. Most of our lives never change because the input never changed. You didn't do anything different. Let me ask you, if you've been struggling with something for a long time and you haven't done anything different, the same question I asked my kids, why did you think that this morning when you woke up magically things were just going to be different? See, if that input doesn't change, the output can't. But if that input changes at all, the output has to. And this is why our problem isn't, is God speaking? Here's our problem. You ready? Go ahead and end with that slide, JT. If God commanded you to do something, would you do it? See, when we first started, when I asked that, 90% of you in this room, even if you didn't vocally say yes, you nodded your head. What I'm telling you is we have an entire book of things that God commanded us to do. My question is, are you doing them? Because, see, if we want different, we have to do different. God is telling you, you don't even have to guess this. Because here's what I hear from everybody, and I'm going to close with this. If I just knew God's will for my life. You ready? I'm going to give you God's will for your life. It's the biggest secret that everybody looks for. Love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, and love others the way that you love you. That is God's will for your life. Yeah, but am I supposed to work for the city? Oh, God doesn't care. His will is for you to love him with all you are and love others the way that you love you. But am I supposed to be married to this person? Let me ask you. Are you married to that person? Then that was God's will. Well, am I supposed to live in this house? Are you living in that house? Well, Acts 17 tells you that God establishes man's boundaries, so that was God's will for you. We get so wrapped up in the minutia of all of that. Here's God's will seek and save what is lost. Love me with all your heart, not me, but love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, and love others the way that you love you. So again, if God told you to do something, would you do it? He has told you to do something, are you doing it? So if you need to talk, you need to pray, you need to repent, you want specifics, you're sitting here going, hey, I don't know what to do as we sing this last song. I'm always right over there, right where it says pray. So, Father, I ask and I pray that as we close this morning, that God, if there is anyone in here that is sitting here going, hey, you know what? I just need a kick in the tukas to start doing the things that God has commanded me to do, that Father, I ask and I pray that by the power of your Spirit, you go ahead and kick them in the tukas. That God, you just with the Holy Spirit just go, you know what? We're done playing games, we're done playing in the shadows, it's time to dive deep, and it's time to do the things that I have commanded you to do. And Father, I ask and I pray that as we in faith do those things, that God, you just bring into your kingdom the harvest which you've already promised is plentiful. Father, I just ask and I pray that you be God, and as we are our tools in your hands, that Father, you just reap your harvest. And I pray, God, that we make a dent in our community, we make a dent in our family, that God, we start pushing back against the powers of darkness through the power of your spirit. Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.