How Courageous Faith Is Changing Our Nation | There Is More | Pastor Josh Howerton

Hey guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching every week really some podcasts that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Point YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free now. Enjoy this Bible teaching. All right, well good morning Lake Point family. That's right man. Hey man, hey man. Hey, I've got your Bible's head over to Acts chapter 20 and man today is you have come for a very special day because at all of our campuses, if you did not know this already, we're about to have a party in the services today seated all around you and all of our campuses and all of our services. We will be baptizing well over 500 people who are going public with their faith. Come on man. Amen. Amen. Amen. And they're seated all around. In fact, let's give them a good celebration. Come on man, right now. Amen. And man, there's a bunch of people who you were here last week and God moved on your heart last week and you're here to get wet this week and I just need you to know there's a whole bunch of you who you've never been baptized publicly after your professional faith in Jesus. I want you to know I'm coming after you. Listen bro, I'm coming. Here we go and so here's what needs to happen in the next few minutes. I need you all to listen fast because theoretically I'm going to preach short of unusual this week. Theoretically, okay. So let's go. Okay, thank you. Why are we cheering me preaching shorter? Is that all right? I can take a hint. Okay, let me get into it like this. From now to the end, it is very providential that we're doing what we're doing right now. Shift in the series, leadership of the spirit last week. It's very, very providential as you're going to see. Where we are right now from now to the end of the book of Acts, we're preaching verse by verse chapter through chapter through Acts. I was going to title this part of the series, There is More, colon, end game, end game. Any Avengers fans in the room? Okay, not me. That's my daughter. I'm not in. I don't like superhero movies. But here's why I was going to do that, because in Avengers, here's what happens. I'm about to spoil the movie for you. In Avengers, end game, there's one dude, Tony Stark, that he ends up deciding he's willing to trade his life if the loss of his life can result in the advancement of good and the death of the enemy. Okay, now if you're like, oh, bro, you spoiled the movie. You had six years, that's on you, not on me. Okay, okay. Now, what you're going to see from now to the end of the book of Acts, you got this dude that starts his soul. He ends as Paul. What you're going to see from the passage that we are preaching today, this specific passage to the end of the book of Acts, the apostle Paul gets in his heart and his vision that he is going, I am willing. It's like he's the proton torpedo down the vent shaft of the Death Star. He's like, I am willing to trade my life if it means the loss of my life, means the conversion of the entire Roman Empire up into the kingdom of God, under the Lordship of Jesus. And here's what's amazing. He does it. He does it. Now, it all starts from here in the book of Acts. The Holy Spirit gives him a vision and lets him know you're going to trade your life for this whole thing. You're going to see right here. Now, I got to remind you of this. If you, if you, if you, I'm going around from the beginning of the series, I need to remind you of this. Okay. Let me, let me lead into who the apostle Paul is. And then I'm going to make a very clear ask upon every person in every service. Here's going to be my ask. What is the task the Lord Jesus has given you? And don't you let anything stand in the way of you completing that task that he's given you? What is that task? Nothing stands in the way of that. Okay. So you get that in your spirit. Now, years ago, there was a dude named, his name was Dennis came and spoke at Lake Point. He had a couple of young boys and he told the story. He was traveling out of town and he was trying to teach one of his, his youngest boy to quit sneaking in to mom's bedroom and sleeping with her wall. He was out of town. So he sternly warned his kids, do not, do not, do not under any circumstance, sneak in your mom's bedroom while I'm gone. Okay. So then he's gone and then his family is meeting him at the airport. This is back in the day when, you know, you could actually go up to the gates and greet your family. As he's getting out of the plane, his wife and his two kids are rushing towards him. His son locks eyes with him in the airport and from a long distance yells across the airport, dad, nobody slept with mom while you were gone. Okay. Amazing story. Amazing. Now, that's a story that starts as one thing and it ends as another thing. Okay. That's when we meet the apostle Saul, the who become the apostle Paul starts to saw in the book of Acts starts as one thing becomes a different thing. Go ahead and toss that picture up on the screen. If you guys were here, we're around in 2015. I want to remind you of this who we're dealing with right here. If you're around in 2015, this picture, it captured the hearts of the entire world because what you had right here in 2015 is you had these religious terrorists, these ISIS members, these are the dudes in the black that they captured 21 Coptic Christians in Egypt. Those are the dudes in the orange jumpsuits and they threatened these guys with knives at their necks to convert to Islam or they told them that they would behead them on camera and then circulate that video around the entire world as a threat to the rest of the world. Now, what you got to know is these dudes in the orange jumpsuits, these guys, they were not pastors, they were not preachers, they were not bishops, they were not missionaries. They were Christian construction workers, spirit filled men, Bible men, men of courage, men of faith and a dudes in the black and then you're going to see one guy right here who's in camp. I'm going to talk about him in a second. The dudes in the black threatened these Christian construction workers, convert or die. I strongly, strongly, strongly do not recommend you watch the video. Our souls were not designed to see things like this. They refused to do it and to a man 21 out of 21, die on camera, being beheaded, yelling, YAH, Rob, Yeshua, which in their language meant, Oh Lord Jesus, they die with the name of Jesus on their lips, Christian construction workers. Now, who this dude is in camo is he was the leader of that terrorist cell Isis. The guy in the camo is the one. Now, here's my point. When you meet the apostle Paul in the book of Acts, he starts his soul. When you meet him at act seven, I talked about that last week, where you meet him is he is the leader of a religious terrorist group that is finding Christians all throughout the empire of Rome, hunting them down and killing men, women and children under threat of death, convert or die. So get this in your spirits. Saul starts as this guy. He ends as this guy in the end of the book of acts, what you're going to find out from acts 20 to the end of the book of acts. And then church history tells us what happens to the apostle Paul is he will lay down his life testifying to the Lordship of Jesus. You know what he did? He completed the task the Lord Jesus has given him. He completed that task. Okay, now you may see this and go, he starts as this guy ends at this guy. And I just want to say this to you. Listen to me. God can save anybody. God can save anybody. It doesn't matter what you done, what you did, what you where you been, God can save anybody. You can start as a guy in camo, you can end the end of the guy in orange. Okay, now let's get right into it. You're going to see I got a preach a little faster today. This is act chapter 20 says this, this is the Google Maps part of the sermon verse 13. We went on ahead to the ship and sailed for everybody say that word out loud. I'm just joking. Don't do that. You can take the boy out of middle school. You can't take the middle school out of the boy. I looked it up. It's assos say this where we were going to take Paul aboard. He had made this arrangement because he was going there on foot. When he met a metasat assos, we took him aboard and went on to middle lane. The next day we set sail from there and arrived at Chios. If you're by the way, when you're reading the Bible and public, you just got to say it fast, loud and confident. Everybody think you know what you're talking about. Okay, the next day after that we crossed over to Samos and on the following day arrived at Miletus. Miletus is where we're going to be today. Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia where he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem if possible by the day of Pentecost. Verse 17, this is really important. From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. Now, that's the kind of verse like you just gloss over. You actually don't know something significant just happened in front of your eyes. Let me show you what's going on right here for our geography friends. All right. So last week, I'm five eight. I got to jump to do this. Last week we were in Troas way up there, Troas. That's where the whole dude fell asleep while Paul was preaching and raising him from the dead. Then we just did it. He goes here from Asos to Middoline, goes from Middoline to Chios, Chios to Samos. And what I want you to see is he goes from Samos to Miletus. Here's the point. You're going to notice his passion says he intentionally didn't go to Ephesus. The line's there because he was there earlier. He didn't go to Ephesus because Ephesus was Paul's favorite church. He was there for three years. And by the time he's done, because it started in revival, probably the greatest revival in the book of Acts that's not in Acts two or Acts four happened in Ephesus. Greatest revival, revival happens there. And then Satan responds with a riot. Paul gets driven out of Ephesus. The reason Paul on this part of his journey doesn't go back to Ephesus is he's like, bro, if I go back there, A, I might get killed and I got a purpose on my life. B, I'm going to get stuck in all the relationships because this was his favorite church. Now in this passage, he asks the elders, the leaders, by the way, when it says elders in the Bible, we got those at Lake Point, we got a board of elders here at Lake Point. The word elders literally just means old guys. That's all it means. And that's who our elders are. God bless them. They're a bunch of old, amazing dudes. That's who they are, old guys. What he does is he calls the elders of the church from Ephesus to come to Miletus. Now here's why I'm pointing that out. That's 40 miles. Listen, I got friends. I got good friends. I got amazing Jesus-y friends. I don't got a lot of friends that I can say, would you walk 40 miles to come to me? But listen to me, the apostle Paul does. What the apostle Paul has is he's got friends. Listen, he's got a band of brothers who love him and love the purposes of God so much that they're willing to walk 40 miles to strengthen Paul's hand in his moment of need when the Holy Spirit reveals to him he's about to trade his life for the purposes of God. Let me ask you this question. Do you have Christian man or Christian woman? Do you have a band of Christian brothers or a band of Christian sisters who are the type of people who will be 40 mile friends? They'll walk 40 miles to strengthen your hand for the purposes of God in your generation when your time of need comes. Do you have those people? Listen, the book of Proverbs says this. It says, is iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. What it's saying is saying this. Like a lot of times you'll talk about man, I found a great man of God. I found a great woman of God. Can I tell you this? It says, is iron sharpens iron? Great men and women of God are not found. They are forged. They are forged in the fires of relationships with other men and women of God who like love them and love Jesus so much that they'll walk 40 miles and strengthen their hand. Let me give you one example of this and then I want to move on. This, by the way, what I'm talking about right now, if you gave your life to Christ, like last week was probably the most salvation we've ever had in any service that wasn't an Easter. If you gave your, amen, amen, amen, amen. If you gave your life to Christ last week, let me just give you a little secret. When God wants to change your life, one of the first things he'll do is change your friends and unless you change your friends, you can't change your life. Okay, so check this out, man. I'm a, I'm a, I'm like a total World War II history buff. That's like my thing. I sleep terrible. Like tear, I wake up at about 3 a.m. every single day. I'm up for like an hour and the way that I fall back asleep is I read World War II history until I fall back asleep, puts me back asleep. Okay, it works. Let me just say it works. Every year, in addition to reading, I watch the greatest mini series ever made in the history of cinema. Can anybody tell me what it is? It is the band of brothers. That's it. That was a masculine response. Thank you. I like my church. Okay, that's it. Okay, if you've ever seen that, if you've ever seen band of brothers, it is a mini series that follows Easy Company from the 101st Airborne in World War II. Arguably the most decorated, arguably the most decorated and most accomplished company in all of World War II. By the way, over at our, over at our East Dallas campus, we got a guy I met a few weeks ago that just retired from the military. I think is a captain from the 101st Airborne. Let's give that dude a hand. Come on, man. Thank you for your service. Hero, man. We got some heroes. That's a hero. Okay, what they did, I want to, if you don't know this, I want to tell you what they did. There's a part in band of brothers where I cry like a little girl every time. I always make sure I'm alone, but I'm going to do it every time. Okay. At the end of it, so if you've ever seen it, it's like what band of brothers does is it goes back and forth. And at the end of every episode, it shifts over to actual interviews with the dudes that survived and they're in their 80s and their 90s. So you'll see the story and then it'll cut over to Bill Garnier or Richard Winters or whoever it is, and you'll see like that dude actually in his 80s in an interview. So what it does, it follows them through it. And listen, this one company, they parachuted into Utah Beach at Normandy, like one of the most bloody spots in all of Normandy. They're there and they like take strategic, you know, accomplishments right there on the beach. That same company was at the Battle of the Bulge later in the European conquest over there in World War II. That same company captured Hitler's Eagle's Nest, same one. They're like the forest gump of World War II. Everything that was awesome, they were there. They liberated concentration camps. They had a, it was like almost a 40% mortality rate in one company. Like almost 40% of those dudes laid down their lives for a cause that was greater than their life. Okay. So then you watch this whole deal and it's like, you see the story and then you see the dude that survived in his 80s. At the end of it, the whole mini series, it revolves around one guy. His name is Richard Winters, Richard Winters. And virtually every episode, he was the leader. He was the guy that everybody was like, I want to follow that guy. I'll lay down my life following that guy's leadership. At the end of the mini series, Richard Winters survives. He's the leader. And at the end of it, they cut over to him. And the part that makes me cry every time is they, his grandson asks him, Grandpa, were you a hero in World War II? And everybody watching knows the answer is yes. But Richard Winters pauses, gets a little tear in his eye and he says, no son, but I served in a company of heroes. I served in a company of heroes. Now listen, do you want to lay your life down for a heroic cause in the kingdom of God for the purposes of Christ? You're going to need a band of brothers, a company of heroes to gather around you and spur you on to the glory of God and the grace of Jesus Christ. Amen. That's what you're going to need, man. It's the only way. This is what the apostle Paul had. I got dudes like that in my life. Listen, here's my little example. In Mark chapter two, you got to do this paralytic. He's like, he can't walk and Jesus teach it in Peter's mom's house. I think Peter's mother-in-law and these guys pick this guy up on a mat. They carry him on the mat, dig a little hole through the roof. It's super rude, super rude, very rude. Dig a little hole through the roof, lower their body down through the roof to Jesus like, well, you heal this guy. And the Bible says that Jesus looks at the friend's faith and heals the guy. So listen, here's who he had. That guy had four people who were willing to to toad the corners of his mat and carry him to Jesus when he couldn't get there himself. Here's what you need. You need at least four Christian men, men. You need at least four Christian women, women who love you and love Jesus more than they love you so that when you can't walk to Jesus and you're a little off kilter, you got a little wobbly wheel, they will pick you up. You need some corner toaders in your life who will carry you back to Christ. Who are the four? And when you find the four, you lean yourself into those relationships with everything you got. This is what's going on right here. All right. Now, right after this, watch what happens. Okay, verse 18. When they arrived, he said to them, you know how I live. So here's what's happening right here. Paul's going to give his eulogy before his funeral. The Holy Spirit, as you're going to see, has just told him, from now on, you're headed to your death. He doesn't know how, but he's like, you're headed to your death. So he's going to tell his corner toaders, he's going to give his own eulogy. Verse 18. When they arrived, he said to them, you know how I live the whole time I was with you from the first day I came to the province of Asia. Listen to how he describes it. I serve the Lord with great humility and tears. I just want to applaud and say this. Listen, Paul was a lion, but he also knew when to be a lamb. Jesus is a lion and Jesus is also a land. Jesus was gentle Jesus, meek and mild, but sometimes we can think of Jesus like the original Bernie Sanders voter, where he's like, I don't know, man, he's kind of a hippie and just walking around giving people food and you know, whatever it is. But just check this out. Jesus is also a lion. You see Jesus in Revelation. The risen Lord Jesus has fire in his eyes, loving his heart, a sword coming out of his mouth, tattoo on his thigh, comes back on a war horse. And the Bible says that he's going to come back and tread the wine press of his fury against the enemies of God. Jesus knew when to be a lion and he knew when to be a lamb. He knew how to be tough for the people that he loved, but tender with the people that he loved. The apostle Paul had that. I would say this to every Christian man and woman. If you're always a lion, you're not a good man. If you're always a lamb, you're not a good man or a woman. You got to know when to be tough for people and tender with people. Jesus had, Jesus and Paul have this in them. So he says, I served among you with great humility and tears. And in the midst of, watch this, severe testing, check that out, by the plots of my Jewish opponents. Okay. Notice it says opponents. Jesus said to love your enemies. He did not say you wouldn't have any. By the plots of Jewish opponents, you know that I have not hesitated. Verse 20 is like my whole life's goal. I want to finish my race in verse 20 to be able to be, for me to be able to say verse 20 with integrity, you know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but I have taught you publicly and from house to house. By the way, that is what, if you're, if you're wondering like, man, I wonder where Lake Point got this idea that we would all gather in public for a big gathering for the public declaration of the word of God. And then we would scatter in homes throughout the week in rooted groups and in life groups and little classrooms for the private house to house teaching the word of God. Wonder where we got that idea? We got that idea from this book. We've been doing this for 2000 years. We're just doing the same thing. Verse 21, I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 22, and now compelled by the spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city, the Holy Spirit warns me that watch this prison and hardships are facing me. So let me, let me tally this up. Tears testing, plots, opponents, prison, hardships. Now what's interesting is that's exactly what happens in Paul's life. I'm going to do an old school lost. If you ever watched lost, I'm going to do a flash forward. It's a flash forward. So what happens from now to the end of the book of Acts is the apostle Paul essentially does this. He gets arrested, but then he goes, I got a great idea. Instead of me trying to get proven innocent and getting taken out of the Roman judicial system, I'm actually not even going to try that. I'm going to keep trying to appeal to a higher court and a higher court and a higher court and a higher court. He actually has chances to get out of the judicial system and he refuses them. And he's like, I'm going to keep appealing to higher courts. And then he goes, because my goal is to stand in front of Caesar himself and declare the Lordship and the grace of Jesus. And he's like, and I know if I do it, he's going to kill me. But if he kills me and we win the Roman empire with a gospel, worth it. Worth it. Now here's what's really interesting. He carries out his plan. He wins. Now check this out. So you just said the Holy Spirit's testifying to him that prison and hardships away. That's what happens. Check this picture out. Someday I want to take all you here. If you ever get a chance to go on a journey of Paul trip with us, I'm going to take you here. This is in Rome. This is a place called Mamerteen Prison. It's one of the most powerful places I've ever been in my life. Probably one of the two most powerful places I've ever been in my life for me. Mamerteen prison. It's really interesting about this is you can walk down in downtown Rome around the Roman Forum. You won't even know you walk past this sucker. There's like barely a sign there. But what you're seeing is the exact prison cell that the Holy Spirit was testifying to Paul in Acts 20 that he was going to be in someday. That is the exact prison cell that the apostle Paul was in for the final days of his life before he was taken through the Roman Forum and he was beheaded. Now here's what's really interesting. I want to point a few things out to you. What you're looking at right here is a thing called a tulianum. It's a sunken Roman prison cell. You see the ceiling right here. This thing's underground. It used to be a cistern. They made it into a prison cell. On the podcast I talk a lot more about this. What this is, this is where they would keep prisoners who are awaiting public execution. I want you to see two things. This is where they would go to the bathroom. It's kind of, this is the only thing that had some very terrible environment. This is where they would sit. And then if you look really closely, you're going to see some holes in the wall right here. This is where they would put, they would slide the chains through those holes and then they would chain the hands of the person that was sitting right here, somebody waiting a public execution. They would have enough room with the chains to move their hands, but the chains would be gone right here. Now, church history tells us this is the spot that the apostle Paul was in for the final days of his life before he's beheading. While he sits in here, he writes three books. They're called the pastoral epistles. The last thing Paul does with his life is he encourages two young pastors, first and second Timothy and Titus. Those are the books he writes right here. In this prison cell, and I don't want you to look at me, I want you to look at the prison cell while I read this. In this prison cell, he writes things like this to a young, scared pastor, 2 Timothy 2, 8, 9. He says, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. The offspring of David has preached in my gospel for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. And as he says, bound with chains, he's literally talking about the chains that were going right through these holes. And then he finishes by saying, but the word of God is not bound. He writes things like this, 2 Timothy 4, 6 through 8. This is like his last words, last written words. The time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness with which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing. And he wasn't just writing about him. He was writing about you. Now, what church history tells us that eventually there came a day where the biggest dude Paul had ever seen walked down into this prison cell, grabbed Paul and he knew that would be the last day of his life. They took him out of the saying, if you ever go with me, you can go out of Mamertine prison, you step out of the front of it, you look to your right and you can see the Roman forum. Church history tells us they took, they probably took Paul right down the middle of the thoroughfare of the Roman forum, took him right out of the city through this little arch, beheaded him right outside of the city. And the minute they beheaded him, that was when he began to defeat Nero and the Roman Empire. There is a quote that somebody sent me earlier this week. It's a quote somebody sent me earlier this week. I haven't been able to stop thinking about for two weeks now. The tyrants death is the end of his reign. The martyr's death is the beginning of his. That's what it says right there, man. Okay. Now, that's happens. That's what happened. Come back to me on the camera. That's what happens. Okay. That's what happens. So think about this. Paul's death, Tertullian said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Paul dies. As soon as he dies, the gospel starts spreading like wildfire. Within 200 years, the entire Roman Empire, one, has a Christian leader and becomes a largely Christian nation. His death conquered Nero. Think about this. If you go with me someday to the Roman forum, we'll have a little guide. And what you'll notice is everybody's there for the guide. And if you listen close, when people are asking the guides questions, they're not asking them, Hey, where was Nero buried? They're not asking them, where was Tiberius buried? Or where is Julius Caesar's body? People from all over the world come to that spot and they ask, where was the apostle Paul imprisoned? And then all over the world, in languages, all over the world, people named their kids after Christian martyrs. They name their kids things like Peter and Paul, and they name their dogs Caesar and Nero. Listen, bro, Paul won. He won, man. He won. Okay. Now, check this out. I just want to point this out to you. I say all this to say this. In this passage, I listen, I refuse to lie to you as a pastor. I will not lie to you. Paul says, here's what's going to happen to anybody that serves God. He says tears, testing, plots, opponents, prison, hardships. This is what we should expect. So listen, here's the lie some you've been told. The lie you've been told is that becoming a Christian is the way to punch your ticket to a low maintenance, hassle free life where everybody likes you. That's a lie. Okay. Here's the truth. The birthmark of a believer is a bullseye. That's the truth. Because the second you cross the line of faith and some of you will cross it today. And what you're going to figure out, actually, I'll get to that in a second. You're going to cross it today. The birthmark of a believer is a bullseye. Listen, because when you become a Christian and God adopts you as his father, or God adopts you as his son, you don't just gain God as a father. You gain Satan as an enemy. And the second you cross that line bullseye on your back, he's going after you. This thing's war. It's not like a war. It's not spiritual, but out actual. We are actually in a war right now. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and spiritual forces of evil in high places. This is actually a war. This is why, as I will continue to remind you, by the way, when I repeat things in sermons, I don't do repetition from laziness. I do it for emphasis. This is why throughout the book of Acts, literally the whole book of Acts is this, revival, riot, revival, riot, revival, riot, because there's a Holy Spirit that loves you and he wants good things for your life. But then there are unholy spirits, the Bible calls demons. And for every action of the Holy Spirit, there will be a reaction, an opposite reaction of unholy spirits, the Bible calls demons. If you do not, check this out. And this is like just been heavy on me for 10, 11 days now. If you don't believe that they're in the reality of the satanic, the demonic and that we're actually in a war, I just want, here's all I want you to do. As I read this right now, I just want you to think about the events of the last 10 days, two weeks and ask yourself, does any of this sound familiar? So let me describe the Apostle Paul's life to you. Okay. Number one, he went and reasoned with hostile, unbelieving people in the public square. And it got a little sporty every time he did it. Number two, when he started being successful and people started believing his message, what his opponents did is they started lying about him. They would take little snippets from his sermons, selectively edit them, spin them, take them out of context. In the book of Romans, what we find out is his critics were saying things like, oh, Paul says, let us do evil, the good may result. They were like twisting his words, selectively editing these things. They were saying things about, oh, Paul, he's defiling the temple. Or that, oh, Paul, he says Moses doesn't matter anymore. This is what they would lie about him, twist his words. There were mobs in all the public forums where he went. Sometimes those mobs got violent. He was beaten multiple times. He was shipwrecked. He was lashed, all these things, left for dead. And then when he started gaining the hearts of a generation and his movement to Christ started swelling, they assassinated him in public. Any of that sound familiar? Listen, why are the same things still happening? Because the same spirits are still working. Listen, man, new days, same demons, new days, same demons. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and spiritual forces of evil in high places. But listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. I want to say two things. One of the best things that happened in the last two weeks is millions of Christians all over the world. They paused and they asked themselves the question, would I be willing to die for this? And because the Holy Spirit's inside of you, you real quick got to the answer, yes. And the second you did that, it broke the spirit of fear off millions of Christians. Good, good, good, good. The other thing I got to remind you is, hey guys, listen to me, listen to me, man. Remember, we don't fought, listen. Okay. Yes, we live in a culture where in general, because of our culture, at least how it is right now, in general, when you follow the principles of God, it's going to lead to blessing in your life, and your life will in general go better. Listen, just because the culture we live in, yes, yes, yes, and amen. But listen to me, we don't follow Jesus because he makes life better. We follow Jesus because he is better than life. That's why we follow Jesus. Okay. The apostle Paul says that. In fact, he says that in the very next verse, this is my life verse, so I want you to see it on the screen. I want to finish with this. He says that exact thing in this next verse, my life verse. He says, however, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me. And let me pause and just say this. Hey, senior saints, senior saints, listen, you're still on the battlefield. While you're still breathing, you still got a purpose. And can I just say something to you on behalf of my generation and down? What we need from you is we need you to finish well and complete well. There is an entire generation. Listen, you still matter. If you're still breathing, you still got a purpose. Anybody can start a race. Anybody can start a task. It takes faithfulness, courage, and endurance to finish a race and complete a task. We're watching you and we're cheering you on and we need you. Okay, so that's what we got. We got that right here. Finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me. The task of testifying to the news of God's grace. Now, I want to finish by asking you this question. Paul says this, he completed the task the Lord Jesus had given him. Here's my question to you. What is the task the Lord Jesus is giving you right now? What is that task? Let me, let me, in fact, here's a question I found helpful for me as a Christian man. What is the thing that you are scared to do, but you are uncomfortable having not yet done for the glory of God? You figure out the answer to that question. That's the task the Lord Jesus is giving you. You cook, you go and you complete that task. Okay, nothing will stop you more than fear. Now I'm breaking my rule and I got two military examples this week. And so let me finish with a military illustration number two. So a few years ago on the recommendation of another pastor friend, I read a book called The Courage, the Backbone of Leadership by a guy named Gus Lee. Okay, Gus Lee. He documents in this book his time at West Point and he tells the story of when General Norman Schwartzkopf came and lectured at his class at West Point. And I'm going to read you, I'm going to read you at length. Okay, it's like a page long, but just trust me it's worth it. I'm going to read you what he said about that moment when Major Schwartzkopf, back then Major Schwartzkopf came to his class. He said, I was as dumb as a pulled stump, but I knew that he was a great man, the most highly decorated veteran of the controversial war in Vietnam, and one of the largest, smartest, and most intimidating men I'd ever met. I would have listened attentively if he'd have said he was going to teach us to open a can of pop. That's great. Now he describes this moment where Major Schwartzkopf looks out of the class and just stares at him with an intense gaze, and he poses the class a case study question to dilemma. And here's a question he asked him. He said, imagine, looks out of them, he says, imagine that you and your troops for which you're responsible are on an international border. The enemy can cross it and strike at you with impunity, but you can't cross the border. That order comes from the commander in chief himself, the president. Every night, the enemy crosses the border to kill and wound your men who are Vietnamese airborne volunteers in your care. Every night you chase the enemy, but they escape at the border, where you stop as you are ordered. Here's the question. When the enemy hits you again tonight, do you pursue them over the line, or do you follow orders and halt at the border? And then he says, he pauses and he says, questions. And a few guys begin to raise their hand in the class. First guy raises his hand and he says, if we cross it, will we start a new war? He says, no. He says, number two, if we cross it, can we destroy the enemy? He says, yes. He says, if we cross it and are discovered, will we get in big trouble? And Major Schwartzkopf says, absolutely, your president will be very displeased with you personally. No more questions. Gentlemen, stop or go, write your answer on the page in front of you. Then I'm going to go back to what Gus Lee says. I thought the answer was pretty obvious. If I've learned one thing here, it's that you follow orders, especially from the president. Right from wrong, disobeying the president would be very wrong. So I wrote, stop. Now, after a few minutes, Major Schwartzkopf asked the class, how many said, stop. And Gus Lee says, I raised my hand, so did most of the class. Then he said, how many said, go. A sparse few hands raised the major smiled at the few hands. And then he said this, there are two kinds of people in the world, leaders and careerists. Leaders have character. They act for what is right. They would die for their men. Careerists are self centered, self absorbed. They act out of selfishness. They sacrifice their men for a promotion. They lie to pump up results. They save their skins instead of others. Careerists can't really lead because their men do not trust them and will not willingly follow. The correct answer for a leader is clear. You cross the border, you destroy the enemy to protect your men. You then take personal consequences to your career, knowing that you violated an order, but you acted for what is right. You feel pride in getting court marshaled and being reduced to private. Everyone's a leader or isn't. It's not rank. It's character. Now listen, here's my question to you. Are you right now in your life on a self preservation mission fueled by fear? Or are you on a God glorifying mission fueled by faith? Do you have something in your life, a task the Lord Jesus has given you that you would say, I consider my life worth nothing to me? If only I may finish the race and complete that task that he has given me. Now listen, right now, today, there is some task the Lord Jesus has given you. You need to know what that is today and you need to do it. Now for some of you, it's like, man, you need to forgive somebody. You haven't been willing to do it for years. For some of you, it's like you need to reconcile a broken relationship. For some of you, like right now, while I'm speaking to Holy Spirit's laying like a name, if I be a family member on your heart that's like, I need them to know that I'm on team Jesus and I love them and I want to have one team Jesus. I need to tell them about the love of the Father. But for a lot of you, what's happening right now is you've never been baptized ever in your entire life to go public with your faith. And today's your day. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do something really different. I've never done this before. I didn't do it last night. I'm just gonna do it right now. Okay. Some of you right now, you've never given your life to Christ ever. And you need to do that today. It's not simple, but listen, not simple, but it's easy. It's very easy. All you got to do is you need to admit that you're a sinner. You're not a mistake, you're in need of a life coach, you're a sinner in need of a savior. That's it. A, ABC. B, you need to believe that somehow in some way the cross counted for you. I got a buddy that says like that's super helpful. So you don't need to be able to explain penal, substitutionary atonement and all the theological categories. You just need to go, Jesus didn't just die for me, he died instead of me. You need to believe that. And then C, you need to call on the name of the Lord. The Bible says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's a prayer. The Bible says Jesus is gonna answer 100% of the time. Now, usually what I do is I'm gonna have everybody close their eyes and bow their heads. I'm not doing that today. This is a courage thing. This is a there ain't no such thing. We don't know no wimp Christians here. Okay. If you're realizing that for the first time maybe today or today you need to cross the line of faith and come to the Father and you're realizing it's like, dude, I need to do this today. Everybody listen, I'm gonna have you raise your hand here in a second and with our eyes open and everybody's gonna be looking at you, man. Everybody, everybody's gonna be looking at you. But the question is, are you on a self preservation mission fueled by fear or are you on a God glorifying mission fueled by faith? If you won't stand in front of a bunch Christians that are gonna celebrate it and blow the roof off, I promise you won't stand when it's time for you to carry your cross and follow in. Okay. So here's what we're gonna do, man. Okay. At all of our campuses, at all of our campuses, when I count to three, if that's you, I just want you to raise your hand in there. We're gonna celebrate it, man. Okay. One, God loves you. Two, you came here for a reason today. Three, right now, where are you at? Right now, come on, man. Hey, man, right now, come on, man. Get them up. Get them up. Raising high, man. Hey, man, I see you brother. Keep it up. Keep it up. Yes, sir. Amen. Amen, bro. I talked to you a few weeks ago. Amen. Where's it at, man? All over. Raise them up, man. Don't ever let somebody make you ashamed in church or following Jesus ever, ever, ever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. That's amazing. That's amazing.