Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] When I was 22 years old, I thought that I had made the ultimate all in decision to follow Jesus.
[00:00:09] I had had a. I had a year before I was going to graduate from college. And there were all those questions as you start to get to that place where your parents and other people around your life are like, what are you going to do when you grow up? You know, you've got to go on and do something.
[00:00:22] Something that I didn't communicate a lot about was that I felt like God was nudging me in my heart to consider ministry. Now I hadn't been following Jesus for very long, only a couple of years, and so it seems like that was a little bit outside the box. But I thought, you know, I've got a year to figure that out. And so this summer I was getting married. And as the summer approached, I wanted to get an internship. So if God wanted me to be an engineer, that I would have something good on my resume to get a great job. So during getting ready for that summer, I was doing a lot of interviews for a job. And there was one job in particular that I wanted. It was a job that was, would allow me to stay in Montana.
[00:01:05] And so I went through the interview process and then I got the call from the guy and the first thing that he said was, we want to offer you a job.
[00:01:14] But then the conversation took a little bit of a turn because he said, we would like to offer you a full time job position with us. And I just said, well, I'm not even done with college yet. And he said, we understand that and what we would like to do is we'd like to pay you for the next year and we would like to pay for your college and then you would come work for us when you graduate.
[00:01:40] And so I'm sitting there and I'm just feeling like someone has just handed me the world. Like when you have no money and someone says we're going to pay you and we're going to pay for school. It just felt like school. Something incredible was handed to me.
[00:01:52] Yet I'm sitting there on the phone knowing that I just think God is nudging me to step into ministry. Now I don't even know who this guy is that is talking to me on the phone. He's the first person that I tell that I think that God is calling me into ministry.
[00:02:09] So I said to him on the phone, I said, I really appreciate your offer, but I actually think that God is asking me to do something different.
[00:02:17] When I graduate, I'm going to have to say no.
[00:02:22] Long pause.
[00:02:24] And then when he did speak, I could tell that he was baffled and a little bit frustrated. Like, like, like what is this guy doing?
[00:02:34] And then I remember hanging up the phone, sitting there in my kitchen of the house that I grew up in and I just felt like all the blood rushed out of my body cause I suddenly saying to myself, what have I just done? Like I, I don't even have a ministry job. Like all I have is this nudge that's happening in my life. I haven't applied or been accepted to do anything in ministry. I will tell you at that moment it just felt like Jesus, I have bet everything on you. I am willing to follow you wherever. And so I felt like, man, I have made the ultimate all indecision. Every other decision for the rest of my life is going to be downhill from here. This was the biggest one possible.
[00:03:18] Not true.
[00:03:20] Here's what I know.
[00:03:22] Following Jesus isn't about some big time decisions that we make at different points in our life. Following Jesus is about thousands.
[00:03:33] I would even go so far as to say tens of thousands of decisions that we make every day, moment by moment, to push our chips into the middle of the table and say, Jesus, I'm going to bet everything on you.
[00:03:48] That's why when Jesus invited us to be an all in follower of Jesus, he said, if anyone would come after me, they've got to take up their cross daily, meaning even moment by moment and follow me. That's what it means to be all in with Jesus.
[00:04:07] It's easy for us, maybe in a moment of bravery to push our chips to the middle of the table.
[00:04:13] But you know, if you've been walking with Jesus for any time at all, it's also very easy to pull some chips back to start to hedge our bet.
[00:04:23] And when we find ourselves in those places where we're hedging our bet, the invitation of Jesus is that we would repent and believe we would turn away from that, that we would trust him, that we would bet everything always on him.
[00:04:38] Jesus knows. Jesus knows the capacity that we have for unbelief to veer off of the path, to veer away from Him.
[00:04:48] That's why the author of Hebrews three times in two chapters says this over and over. He says, so as the Holy Spirit says today, today, meaning right now, today. If you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.
[00:05:18] The author saying, every time you get a nudge, every time you get a prompting, every time you suspect that God is speaking to you, the answer needs to be yes.
[00:05:32] Because the chances are that if we start to say no and we start to hedge our bets, our hearts will be hard toward Him.
[00:05:40] All in. I'm going to say it again. It is not about what you've done. It's about what you do today.
[00:05:47] Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.
[00:05:52] You could say, well, I put my faith in Jesus. I put my trust in him. When I was a young person, I chose to follow him. Beautiful.
[00:06:03] What are you doing today?
[00:06:06] You could say, I went on a mission trip when I was in college. It changed my life forever.
[00:06:12] Beautiful.
[00:06:14] Where is your heart today?
[00:06:17] And I can try to tell you, I can tell you this story about how I pushed all my chips in and saying, jesus, I want to go into ministry when I was 22 years old.
[00:06:26] But that shouldn't matter to you. What should matter to you is, Bob, where is your heart today?
[00:06:33] And I'm saying it to me and I'm saying it to all of us.
[00:06:37] If you hear his voice today, do not harden your heart.
[00:06:45] It's not a decision.
[00:06:47] It's lots of decisions all across the landscape of your life.
[00:06:53] In this series, we've been looking at our mission statement. Because our mission statement is about this idea of being all in.
[00:07:00] I want to focus on a couple of words in our mission statement right there. Together we lead people in becoming all in followers of Jesus.
[00:07:14] Now, you may not know this unless you've paid really, really close attention, but the first time that we talked about our mission statement, this isn't what it said.
[00:07:24] It said, together we lead people to become.
[00:07:30] This is what our mission statement said. It said to become.
[00:07:36] But as we started to wrestle with that over time, we thought, that's not accurate.
[00:07:41] That doesn't describe what it means to follow Jesus. All in. To become makes it sound like there's an arrival date in this life where we're there, where we. We just make that one decision and suddenly we're at this place where we've become all in followers of Jesus.
[00:07:58] But it's not true.
[00:08:00] It's not to become. It is becoming all in.
[00:08:06] It is not a journey to perfection.
[00:08:10] It's not a place we arrive. It is a journey of direction.
[00:08:15] It's about choosing a direction that sees Jesus and follows him moment by moment, day by day. That's what it means to be all in.
[00:08:25] We can make all in decisions. One day we can pull chips back, the next we're going to look at a series of invitations that Jesus makes. At the end of Luke chapter nine, and in this series of invitations that Jesus makes to these men, he offers them an invitation to follow him.
[00:08:47] And these three people, these three men, when we look at them and then you look at the things that they say, it sounds like on the outside that they're just eager to be all in, like Jesus. We are with you.
[00:09:01] Until.
[00:09:03] Until his invitation to them in their heart and mind actually starts to have real impacts, real impacts on their life and, and their circumstances.
[00:09:15] And that's when the backpedaling begins.
[00:09:18] That's where the excuses come to the forefront.
[00:09:22] Here's what I want you to do.
[00:09:25] I want you to just be honest and ask yourself, do you see yourself in these men?
[00:09:32] I know I do. Maybe you don't see it in yourself. Maybe there's somebody that you know that needs to hear this, but do you see us in these responses? I absolutely do.
[00:09:44] Luke, chapter nine, starting in verse 57, it says, as they were walking along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go.
[00:09:56] And Jesus replied, foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head.
[00:10:07] Now you hear this guy, I will follow you wherever you go.
[00:10:13] I mean, that just sounds all in, doesn't it?
[00:10:16] I mean, can't you just picture this guy worshiping, Hands raised, eyes closed. I surrender all.
[00:10:25] All to Thee, my precious Savior.
[00:10:28] I surrender all.
[00:10:32] Chances are, he probably meant it.
[00:10:36] But it's interesting what Jesus says to him.
[00:10:40] This is my translation, but Jesus says, buddy, you know I'm homeless, right?
[00:10:48] That's the Bob Schwann version, the bsv. It's going to catch on eventually. I just know it.
[00:10:55] But Jesus responded, you want to be with me?
[00:11:00] You want to be like me? You want to be covered in the dust of this rabbi? You want to live like me? Do you want to go where I go?
[00:11:08] You better know.
[00:11:09] You better know what it is that you're signing up for.
[00:11:13] Surrender all.
[00:11:15] Surrender all. I'll go wherever. That sounds beautiful and poetic.
[00:11:20] Until the actual ask of Jesus causes us to surrender and to give up things.
[00:11:27] So if we're going to follow a king that was willing to give up everything to come to this earth, make no mistake, he was the king.
[00:11:38] He was the creator of all things.
[00:11:40] He owned all things. He still owns all things, but he was willing to acquire and possess nothing.
[00:11:51] When Jesus is telling him, you want to follow me? You need to be willing to open your hands and let go of everything.
[00:11:59] And when you open your hands, friends, it changes our lives when we genuinely open our Hands to Jesus. It will change our lives.
[00:12:11] There's things that we have to release when we open up our hands.
[00:12:17] You know what you're gonna release?
[00:12:19] You're gonna release your comfort in this life because Jesus will call you to places that aren't comfortable for you.
[00:12:26] You're gonna give up your security.
[00:12:28] It might feel incredibly risky, like, I don't know exactly how this is gonna turn out. Jesus. Jesus is gonna call you to places where you don't actually know the exact outcome.
[00:12:40] Your safety might have to be released. Your own plans, your own dreams, your own ability to be able to call all the shots for your life. That's why the apostle Paul says, you're not your own.
[00:12:54] You've been bought with a price.
[00:12:57] Therefore, we honor God with all of our lives, all of it. We hold our hands up to Him.
[00:13:05] I can't think of a better way to describe what I witnessed in the last handful of weeks as I spent time with people that have opened their hands and said, jesus, I will go wherever you call me to go.
[00:13:21] You know that. I. Some of you know that. I traveled for a few weeks overseas, visiting some families from our church, two different families in two different places and a single gal in another place in Southeast Asia.
[00:13:33] But I had the chance to sit with them. And you sit with this young family, a couple with two young kids, trying to figure out a language, trying to figure out a culture.
[00:13:45] God called them to a place where there are 0.2% Christians, people that know and follow Jesus, where they live. 0.2%.
[00:13:57] Let me just try to help you understand what that means. That would mean in our valley, if we call our valley, the whole valley, if we call it 100,000 people, that means that there would be 200 people that know and follow Jesus. That is just like part of one section right here.
[00:14:17] Talk about alone in a place without other people that are chasing after Jesus. And you're there to try to build the kingdom of God and to build his church. But they opened up their hands. They. They were here two or three years ago, just like we are, and they opened up their hands and they said, yes. And God put their yes on the map. On the other side of the world, wherever another family. I sat with them in their living room, and there we got to spend some time praying and discerning the next steps for them and what God was calling them to do. They sensed that God was calling them to a place remote, a place where there's people, a people group that has no written language, and God is calling them to that place. They'll be five hours drive from the nearest medical care, from where God is calling them.
[00:15:12] But they held up their hands and they said, jesus, we will follow you wherever, wherever you go.
[00:15:22] They put their yes on the table with Jesus and he put it on the map in another part of the world.
[00:15:29] That's what it means. Now, I'm not saying that every person in this place is going to be called to somewhere else in the world, but I am saying that if we take Jesus word seriously, every one of us needs to hold up our life and say, jesus, I will go wherever you want me to go.
[00:15:51] And here's the deal, friends.
[00:15:54] Here's why I think this is so hard for some of us, myself included, to get our mind around sometimes. I believe that too often in our life, we don't treat Jesus like the king of the universe. We treat him like a consultant.
[00:16:12] Now, a consultant, they're important. They have wisdom, they have expertise. And we're willing to pay good money to get their wisdom and their expertise.
[00:16:22] But here's the deal with a consultant, at the end of the day, when they tell us what they think we should do, we have the right to be able to say, nah, I'm going to go my own way.
[00:16:39] Jesus does not do consulting.
[00:16:43] Jesus does.
[00:16:46] Lord Jesus does.
[00:16:49] King, you don't have consulting conversations with Jesus.
[00:16:56] If we come to Jesus with a consulting conversation, he's out.
[00:17:00] He doesn't give us his commands. He doesn't speak to us for our consideration.
[00:17:06] He speaks to us for our obedience.
[00:17:10] And it's not like Jesus, we'll consider it sincerely.
[00:17:15] We'll consider it sincerely. But at the end of the day, Jesus, I'm gonna decide what I think is best for me.
[00:17:21] Jesus says, no, that's not what it means to follow me.
[00:17:26] That's why he says, my sheep, my sheep, they hear my voice.
[00:17:31] They know my voice from all the other voices. And what do they do? They follow me.
[00:17:36] They don't consider my voice. They follow me.
[00:17:39] They don't do consulting.
[00:17:43] My sheep do obedience.
[00:17:46] Today, today, today, if you hear his voice, if you hear a nudge, a prompt, do not harden your heart.
[00:18:02] Say yes.
[00:18:04] Hold your hands up. Say yes to him.
[00:18:09] And now for some of you, you're thinking, I would never, I would never say no to Jesus. I would never be that brazen.
[00:18:18] And that might be true, but for some of us, we don't say no. We say, yes, yes. But not now.
[00:18:29] Let's look at the second man.
[00:18:33] Jesus said to another man, follow me.
[00:18:36] But he replied, lord, first let me go and bury my father.
[00:18:40] Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
[00:18:50] I want us to make some observations that we see here.
[00:18:55] This guy, we don't know his name.
[00:18:59] We just know him as another man.
[00:19:03] But here's what's interesting to me. The invitation that's given to him, it is the exact same words, the exact same invitation that were given to Peter.
[00:19:14] Peter brothers and Peter's brother, Andrew, James and John.
[00:19:20] Those that we know their names. Why do we know their names? Because they dropped everything right then to follow Jesus. This guy, he's just another man.
[00:19:33] He is an asterisk in the Bible, something that could have been friends.
[00:19:43] Sometimes when I look at my own life, when I look at the church, I think we can be full of a lot of another man.
[00:19:50] Just asterisks by our name.
[00:19:53] Not because we said no, but because we said yes, but not now.
[00:20:02] And his response, he starts out great.
[00:20:07] He says, lord, he gets it. Jesus is Lord. He's the king, he's the master. He's God of everything.
[00:20:16] But here's where his boat got sunk.
[00:20:19] First.
[00:20:20] I've got something else that I want to do first.
[00:20:24] He isn't saying no, he's just saying not right now.
[00:20:30] He thinks that somehow I'm just gonna put Jesus off for a while.
[00:20:35] And sometimes when I read this in the past, it's just like, this seems awfully harsh.
[00:20:40] Like, it seems like this guy is just caring for his father. Right? We need to understand, we look at this text sometimes through our cultural eyes. What you need to understand is it's not like there was a funeral for his father that was happening tomorrow. And I'm just gonna go to the funeral, Jesus, and then I'm gonna come follow you. No, he said, I'm gonna wait until my father dies.
[00:21:02] Why?
[00:21:03] Why would that be the deal breaker for him?
[00:21:07] Because when his father dies, what does that mean?
[00:21:10] I get my inheritance.
[00:21:13] Suddenly I'm in control now of the family business. When my life gets comfortable, when things are settled for me, Jesus then.
[00:21:24] Not now, but then.
[00:21:26] And what does Jesus do?
[00:21:29] No, that's not what it means to follow me.
[00:21:33] And we do that, don't we? We just procrastinate. I hate how much I procrastinate.
[00:21:40] I say, never put off until tomorrow what you could actually do the day after.
[00:21:46] That's my theory.
[00:21:49] But when we live like that with Jesus, we justify some kind of a lame, lukewarm faith.
[00:21:59] But we're Sincere.
[00:22:01] We're sincere in our intent, but it's always about tomorrow.
[00:22:06] We let ourselves off the hook because we believe.
[00:22:10] I'll do that someday.
[00:22:14] I'll get into that someday.
[00:22:18] You know, someday when I don't feel quite as ashamed as I do right now, I'll actually bring out into the open that hidden sin to try to allow God to deal with that in my life. Someday.
[00:22:31] Someday when I'm not quite so busy, I'll get engaged in church.
[00:22:37] Someday when my finances are more stable, when I get things together, oh, man, I will be generous then. You're not going to believe how generous I'll be someday when my kids are out of the house, then I'll serve other people. But right now I'm just too busy serving them. When I retire, then I'll have so much time to care for the vulnerable.
[00:23:03] When I feel more equipped, when I learn more, then I'll think about investing in the spiritual lives of other people.
[00:23:11] Someday.
[00:23:14] Someday.
[00:23:16] Someday.
[00:23:19] Someday is the enemy of all in.
[00:23:22] And it doesn't work with Jesus.
[00:23:25] Our churches are full of people that are gonna be obedient someday.
[00:23:31] And how does Jesus respond?
[00:23:33] How does Jesus respond when we come to him with our someday?
[00:23:38] Does he just, like, sit down and just say, oh, well, that's just fine. I'm just gonna sit here and wait for you? As soon as you know when it's the right, you'll know. I don't want you to feel any pressure.
[00:23:49] You just decide, is that what Jesus does?
[00:23:54] No way.
[00:23:55] Jesus moves on.
[00:23:58] We put a little asterisk by our name. Jesus moves on. He's looking for those people whose hearts are completely his who say, today, today, when I hear your voice, Jesus, I will not harden my heart.
[00:24:13] Jesus looks for today kind of people.
[00:24:17] And lastly, Jesus gives us one more example of another person.
[00:24:22] That was almost, almost all. In verse 61, it says still another said, I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.
[00:24:39] Jesus replied, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.
[00:24:47] Again, I will follow you, Lord, but first.
[00:24:55] Now, this isn't about timing.
[00:24:57] This is about priority. He's just saying, there's things in my life that. That are more important to me right now. It is about priority.
[00:25:05] But Jesus says, no way.
[00:25:08] You've gotta have one focus in your life, one priority, one North Star, one voice that you listen to above every other voice in this world.
[00:25:22] Jesus isn't willing to be one of many in our Lives.
[00:25:28] Jesus demands that he be our one and only.
[00:25:32] That's why he says, when you put your hand to the plow, look straight ahead, fix your eyes on me.
[00:25:41] Can you imagine what it'd be like to plow a field?
[00:25:44] I've never plowed a field, so we have to imagine.
[00:25:49] But if you look back, you weren't paying attention, your life, your row would go all over the place. That's what Jesus wants us to understand.
[00:26:00] When you don't have one priority, one single focus, your life is going to be everywhere. Think about it this way, because we do know how to do this. Think about driving.
[00:26:11] What would it be like? Try this. Just try this for fun. Going down the Highway 55 and tell yourself, I'm gonna quit looking out the windshield.
[00:26:22] I'm just gonna look in the rearview mirror for a while.
[00:26:26] How's that gonna go for you?
[00:26:28] At the 9 o', clock, I had the county sheriff right here just shaking his head. So don't actually try it. Our police chief was here as well.
[00:26:36] Don't actually try it. But you know what's gonna happen when you look back, you go everywhere.
[00:26:46] That's where some of us are at.
[00:26:48] It's like we kind of have an affection for Jesus, but we're all over the map because we don't have one priority.
[00:26:56] We're looking all over the place.
[00:26:59] And we see that in the scriptures, looking back breeds destruction in our life.
[00:27:06] Lot's wife, she looked back.
[00:27:11] She wanted Sodom.
[00:27:13] Did not turn out well for her.
[00:27:17] The nation of Israel, God was taking them out of Egypt, taking them to a promised land.
[00:27:24] But they got scared.
[00:27:25] There was doubt in their life and they got to the place where they wanted to go, back to Egypt. They looked back and they ended up dying in the wilderness. Nicodemus, he wasn't willing to go all in. He came to Jesus in the darkness. It's like, I kind of like you, Jesus, but I kind of like people not to know that I like you.
[00:27:46] Didn't work out well for Nicodemus, the rich young ruler, he looked back, he wanted his money and he wanted his power.
[00:27:53] We don't know what happened with him.
[00:27:55] Judas, like you, you, you get it.
[00:27:59] When we look back, there's destruction in our life.
[00:28:03] Now, I want you to understand this. I want to make sure that this is clear.
[00:28:08] When we talk about faith, when we talk about putting our all in trust in Jesus, you need to understand what is the opposite of faith. If I were to ask you, what is the opposite of faith, what would you say?
[00:28:21] A Lot of people, when I ask that question, they will say, doubt.
[00:28:25] The opposite of faith is doubt. That's. That's not true.
[00:28:29] That's not true. Biblically. Biblically, the opposite of faith is disobedience.
[00:28:36] Jesus will meet us in our doubt because when he asks us to do things, when he asks us to go all in with him, it looks risky. We don't know the outcome. It is fearful. Sometimes we have doubts. He will walk with us all day long in the midst of our doubts, but he will not walk with us all day long in our disobedience.
[00:29:01] The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is disobedience.
[00:29:06] And that's why we need to understand what is our priority. What is the thing that is in the forefront of our mind? What is it that we're chasing after in this life above everything else in the Bible, when we don't have the right priority?
[00:29:23] Yeah, I'm just using this word priority, but it's got a more difficult word with a little more sting to it. It's called idolatry, meaning that there's something in this life that we love more than God. And now with this guy, I mean, it seems like he just loves his family.
[00:29:40] That seems like a very great thing. But Jesus wants us to understand that when you put him first, it doesn't mean that you don't love your family.
[00:29:49] When he is first in your life, you will actually be the best husband or wife that you could imagine. You will be the best parent that you could ever imagine. You'll be the best friend that you would ever imagine. You'll be the best employee, you'll be the best boss, you'll be the best member of a church. Because when Jesus is life, when we are surrendered to him, when we are all in with him, everything flows, flows out and he builds. It's not that those things aren't important, it's just that he is most important.
[00:30:22] What Augustine called disordered loves. The things that we can tend to be, that we can make higher than God, are never often bad things. They're good things, great things, but we make them ultimate things. We make them higher than God. And that's when it moves to that place of idolatry.
[00:30:41] I love the Apostle Paul because he gives us this imagery in Philippians chapter three, this wrestling of his own faith as he's trying to be all in with Jesus, this journey of being all in. And as you listen to Paul, you're going to realize he realizes it's not a destination, it is an all out, day by day, moment by moment, trying to grab a hold of Jesus and follow him wherever Jesus is asking him to go. Here's what Paul says, Philippians 3, starting at verse 12. It says, not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal.
[00:31:17] He knows that he's not there. But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
[00:31:27] He realizes Jesus has a hold of him. That's his faith, that's his trust. And he's willing to obey no matter what it means to follow Jesus. Brothers and sisters, he said, I do not consider myself to have taken a hold of it.
[00:31:43] But one thing I do.
[00:31:48] How many things? 10 things.
[00:31:50] No, Paul gets it. But one thing I do.
[00:31:55] Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead of I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
[00:32:09] This is why the Apostle Paul is not an asterisk in history.
[00:32:16] One man fully surrendered to the best that he knew, made a huge impact in the world.
[00:32:25] Friends, this is true. None of us are the Apostle Paul.
[00:32:29] But one man, one woman, all in, fully surrendered to him grabbing a hold. This one thing I do has the potential for impact beyond what we can imagine.
[00:32:44] I don't want us to be an asterisk. I don't want to be an asterisk in history.
[00:32:49] I want to be one that was willing to push all my chips in moment by moment, they by day and follow him.
[00:32:57] Let's get personal for a minute.
[00:33:03] What might be keeping you from being all in?
[00:33:08] Maybe, you know, maybe as I've been talking, I've been asking people to pray. So I believe that this is happening, that the Holy Spirit is like speaking. There's things that, you know, there's things disobedience that you need to let go of.
[00:33:23] There's things that you know that Jesus is calling you to that you need to grab ahold of.
[00:33:28] I'm praying that God will make that clear to you. What is that thing that might be keeping you from all in?
[00:33:37] And here, my friends, is my biggest fear.
[00:33:40] My biggest fear is for some of you is that you would ask that question and the answer that would come back to you is nothing.
[00:33:50] I don't think there's anything that's keeping me from being all in with Jesus.
[00:33:55] And I just want you to understand that I would be much more comfortable if someone came up to me and just said, bob, one thing. Are you serious? Like I've got a hundred things because that Would let me know that you're hearing his voice.
[00:34:11] If we can't think of one thing, I don't know what to. I don't know what that means. Maybe on one sense, maybe there are some of you, God bless you that you are perfect and there's no step of obedience that you need to take.
[00:34:25] But if that wasn't true of Paul, he knew that he hadn't gotten there. I doubt that it's true of us.
[00:34:32] So I'm praying.
[00:34:34] I've been asking others to pray over the last couple days that in this moment, God would surface for you. What's that one thing?
[00:34:43] What's that one thing? Because here's what's. Here's what's beautiful and true.
[00:34:47] Jesus demands obedience in our life, but he will also meet us right where we're at.
[00:34:56] He knows where you're at in your disobedience, where it is that he needs to take a step. He needs to take a step.
[00:35:03] You don't have to try to figure anything out. You don't have to try to make Jesus like you. Try to do something to get close to him.
[00:35:12] You just need to say, jesus, speak.
[00:35:16] I want to hear you. And my answer is yes.
[00:35:20] Now you tell me.
[00:35:22] You tell me, Jesus, what it is that you want me to do.
[00:35:28] And as God speaks to you, my greatest prayer is that you say yes today, not someday.
[00:35:37] Don't let your all in die on the trash heap of someday.
[00:35:43] Say yes today, Jesus. Where do you want me to go?
[00:35:47] Where do you want me to change?
[00:35:51] Here's what you need to know. It's never too late.
[00:35:54] You are only one yes decision away from your heart, becoming more soft.
[00:36:03] And you know what you do after that? You do another one. You ask Jesus, what else?
[00:36:09] What do you want me to do? And you say yes.
[00:36:13] Then we do that in life. We come to a place where our heart is fully devoted to him today, friends, today the Holy Spirit says, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.
[00:36:32] I'm going to pray for us.
[00:36:36] And if you feel comfortable, I just think it can be helpful sometimes to just take a posture of surrender, just a posture of openness. And if you feel comfortable, just hold your hands out like this.
[00:36:48] I pray.
[00:36:53] Jesus, thank you for the invitation to follow you.
[00:37:00] It's not deserved.
[00:37:02] It's not because we're great.
[00:37:04] It's not because we've done something to earn your favor. But Jesus, thank you that you invite us.
[00:37:12] And today, Jesus, we don't want to harden our heart.
[00:37:15] Jesus, if there's anything that you're calling us to do. If there's sin that we need to forsake, if there's obedience that we need to move toward that we've been hesitating on. Jesus, our answer is yes. Just show us.
[00:37:27] Show us what we need to do.
[00:37:30] Jesus, forgive us for hardening our heart to your voice. We want to be those sheep who hear your voice and follow you above everything else in this world.
[00:37:41] We don't want all in to be theoretical or theological.
[00:37:47] We want it to be practical.
[00:37:49] We want it to be the way that we live.
[00:37:52] Holy Spirit, speak.
[00:37:55] And Holy Spirit, as you speak today, as we hear your voice, we choose to not harden our heart.
[00:38:06] Our answer is yes.
[00:38:09] Because, Jesus, you deserve everything.
[00:38:14] You deserve our all.
[00:38:16] And Jesus, it's in your powerful and resurrected name that we pray.
[00:38:21] And all God's people said, amen.
