Churches in Walls

“He says it is to your advantage that he goes away. The disciples could not even imagine how this would be true. They've been walking with him for for three years at this point. But here's the deal. If if Jesus doesn't leave, Pentecost never happens. There's no mighty rushing wind. We have no charismatic movement in the church. There's no, you know, whatever. You know, there's nothing for us because Jesus didn't go away. We don't have the power of heaven living inside of us. If Pentecost never comes, right, the church is never empowered. The church is gonna grow. But if Pentecost doesn't happen, where do we get the power to overcome sin? What's inside of us? Sometimes God's greatest gift comes wrapped up in our biggest disappointments, the biggest letdowns. But keep in mind, the Holy Spirit's already at work before you get there.”

“So guys, the route may change, but Jesus never does. Never does. And I'm gonna close with this. I get a statement that keeps coming to me a lot these days. We never know what we believe until that belief is challenged. I think a lot of guys think they love their wives, But then I don't really think they love their wives until they have an opportunity to love their wife. A lot of people might think they're great employees until they're presented with an opportunity that challenges them being a great employee. And then they have to be their great employee. You think you follow Jesus and you're a Christ follower? Wait till you find out that that's being attacked, and then see how you respond.”

“Maybe God forgot me. Maybe I took the wrong turn like I was trucking along going good with God and then, I don't know, I started to drift or I thought I was supposed to go right, but I went left. And now God's mad at me because I didn't go right, you know, or I went left and I was supposed to go right. The whole the whole thing becomes this kind of thing in our head that we've done something wrong. Even when my GPS rerouted me, I thought I've done something wrong. I've been to the wrong address. You see, we see, we we get in this this thinking. But what if the route changed because God never lost his way, but the route changed for us.”

“Point number three, your pain is producing something. Your pain is producing something. Jesus never promised us that the pain's gonna end. He uses words like a little while. He doesn't promise that it's gonna end. And we know the rest of the story. We have the book of acts. Right? We know what happens to the church. We know what happens to the disciples. They don't know. Jesus says this. He says, your sorrow is gonna turn into joy. Your sorrow is gonna turn into joy. Whatever you're going through now is gonna turn into joy. But when you're in it, you're like, yeah. There's no way this is gonna ever turn into joy.”

“Imagine that you're you're you're with the disciples. Right? You don't know about the resurrection. You don't know anything about Pentecost coming. You don't know that the gospel is gonna spread across the world. All you know that Jesus says that he is leaving you. And if we stop that story there, it feels like defeat, doesn't it? But that's also the beauty of following Jesus. You never really know what chapter you're in. Right? You never really know what chapter you're in. Only the author does. He knows.”

“``Don't worry about the next 10 miles, guys. Don't worry about the next 10 miles. I started thinking about 50 miles at mile 13. Started telling myself, I'm not a runner. I don't look like a runner. People see me and they're like, that's a bear coming through the woods. Very brightly colored bear with a vest. Because when you start focusing on the next 10 miles, you forget to just go the next step. Just take the next faithful step. We have a thing in the in the the becoming man, revolution crew. It's like it's like the next step is that I just make the next right step. I just keep moving. The runners who finish races aren't the ones who knew every turn. They're the ones who kept following the course markers after the route changed.”

“Jesus says, I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. And then notice what he does. He says, he doesn't he doesn't prevent the suffering. Right? If you read a little further along in the Bible, like, guys suffer. You know, Stephen's given a great testimony, sharing, like, what he's experienced with God, and then they stoned him to death. Right? He doesn't prevent the suffering. He's preparing them for the suffering. That preparation, folks, is our protection. You know it's coming, you're prepared for it, so that's your protection. When you expect something to happen, it takes the sting out of it when it happens.”

“So what I what we need to do, and I need to do it too, do it all the time, every day. And understand, there's there's no escape. Get away from it because you're preaching or you're worshiping whatever. You know, there's none of that. There's no escape. We're humans following Jesus. don't confuse the difficult route with the wrong direction because you might need to be there. There's a book out called the obstacles the way. Stole it from the bible in my opinion. The route may have changed, but you need to trust the guide. Everybody say trust the guide.”

“And this woman is this woman is coming and she's wondering who's gonna love her and she's willing to be in the ministry. Number two, she's a searching woman who reached for his coattail. Are y'all still with me this morning? You still with me? Say amen real loud. You can you can touch Jesus because he's a hands on God. And she came and she was searching and she had the holy audacity to think that she might have an audience with Jesus. Did you come to have an audience with the Lord Jesus Christ here this morning or you just come to check-in to church? You see this woman had a lot of excuses standing in her way. There was a big crowd. And you know how we come to church with excuses and we're mad and we're grumbly, we're grumbly hateful instead of humbly grateful, and we're complainers, we're whiners, we're not winners, and you need to abstain to complain. You you need you need to put your gospel garments on, tighten your belt, and be the man or woman of God that he's calling you to be.”

“my wife had miscarried. Dan David, my six foot tall son, and I don't know how that happened, but he's a rainbow baby. And miss Monica was having some prop so she miscarried, and Dan David, we found out and, you know, was expecting and miss Monica had had a little bit too much sun and was ordered for bed rest for about a week and the doctor was not pleased with us. But so she's, you know, laying on the bed. One day she heard a knock. I was I was either in seminary at Mid America or I was working for doctor Rogers at Loveworth's Finding Ministry. I don't know what was going on. But then I think I was but anyway, I think I was taking seminary classes. But anyway, she had her knock on the door. She thought it was a next door neighbor, the lady, the next door neighbor worried about her. And in walked mister GT and he says, hello. And she says, I'm back here. And he stood at the door like a gentleman took his hat off. And, you know, and he just looked at her checking on her. I didn't ask him to. And it was the first time I was told that he had ever prayed out loud for somebody. And he prayed over my son who's now killing it. He's a great kid guy as well. You never do know who's gonna make a big impact in your life.”