The Church of Eleven22 - Saturated 2017 - Thursday: Pastor J.D. Greear

Episode Date: September 14, 2017

Good to see all of you. Thank you so much. You guys are awesome. Thank you. You can be seated. You can be seated. My opening line, I had intended to be that Pastor Jobi is one of my favorite people alive. But after that video, I cannot say that with integrity.

I can't tell you that he is a dear and loved friend. He is one of my favorite people. We had him out of our church earlier this year, and he is one of our church's favorite pastors, including me. They would say bring Jobie back because it was just so fantastic. I introduced him at our church and said he's the country boys, C.S. Lewis. That if Charles Spurgeon, Tim Keller, and Jeff Foxworthy had a kid together, it would be your pastor, Joby Martin. Right? Right? I can honestly tell you I don't know of any other pastor who writes their sermons in a deer stand.

And I heard him say that. And then I listened to his sermons and I'm like, they're just brilliant. And I'm like, he had that thought in a tree stand. I can just see him. him like, this is going to get people saved right here as he thinks up some of his most awesome stuff. But he has been just a dear friend, a great blessing to me. And I'm kind of nervous because I've listened to him enough that the line between his thoughts and what I say sometimes gets really fuzzy. And in our church, I don't have to give him credit. But if I say something up here that sounds like what he says, just assume that he stole it

for me. That would be really helpful for me if you guys would do that. your church is so a church that is so encouraging to us. I can tell you guys that your story is literally told all over the nation. Everywhere I go, people are talking about the church of 1122, and I know that that doesn't make you proud because, as Joby tells you every week, you're a bunch of wretched, black-hearted sinners. But I hope it does make you grateful for the gift that God has given you here at this church.

Not just in Pastor Jobi, but just in the world. way that his spirit is moving. Just being here for a few minutes, I can sense that. And so I hope you realize that you are part of something extraordinary and that you don't take that for granted, not for a single second, because your generation is being smiled upon by the Almighty God who is pouring out his spirit here. And so it is an honor for our church, the Summit Church, to be linked up with your church and for me to be able to call your pastor one of my closest friends. The church that I pastor in the Raleigh area of North Carolina is, well, there's quite a number of college students that go to our church because we're about 50, within, they say 50 miles of our church,

there's 150,000 college students. And so every weekend, a large portion of our church congregation is college students, which I always say means a couple of things about us. Number one, we are dirt poor as a church during the time. When college students first started to come to our church, I remember one week it was like three college students showed up in two different cars. The next week, 300 college students showed up in the same two cars. And during that little period of time, our attendance basically tripled and our weekly giving went up $13.48. And one of my favorite memories as a pastor is in between two of our services, one of the ushers comes back into my little backstage area and he has an offering bucket. And in it is a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from a college student.

with a little note on it that said silver and gold, have I none, but such as I have, give I unto you. So we are dirt poor as a congregation, relatively speaking. But it also means that we end up spending a lot of time thinking about how we are going to reach the next generation, how we have to reach the next generation, which is something I know that you guys think a lot of down here as well. I am not trying to be a doomsday prophet at all to you. that is just really not in my nature, but I think the days of casual Christianity are over. The world that we live in is changing very, very rapidly. It is becoming more and more unpopular to believe even the most basic things that Christians believe,

things that Christians have agreed on for centuries. We're in a day where if you believe what the Bible says, you're going to be thought of as backwards, uneducated, an ignorant, close-minded, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. And what that means is that being a Christian in the next generation is going to take more than just belief. It's also going to take courage. In fact, you could almost make a biblical case that that's what faith is. Faith is belief plus courage.

It's belief that what God says is true and then the courage to act on it. In Hebrews chapter 11, which is not where we're going to be tonight. If you've got a Bible, by the way, if you'll take it out and turn it on and scroll down to Daniel chapter 3. That's where we're going to be tonight, Daniel chapter 3. the way, how many of you have an actual paper Bible? Just kind of hold that up for a minute. That's awesome. I haven't taught our church. When I grew up, the pastor at the church I grew up in used to say that the sweetest sound he ever got to hear was the sound of the ruffling of the pages as people open their Bible to God's Word. I never get to hear that as a pastor. I get to see

the warm glow of God's word on people's faces. So I'll take it. Whatever it is, you open it up, turn it on Daniel chapter 3. But in Hebrews 11, which is often called the great faith chapter in the Bible. The author lists out all these great men and women of faith, but what is interesting is that it describes every single one of them, not in terms of what they believed, but in terms of what they did. So it says things like Noah built, Abraham left, Jacob blessed, Joshua fought. Interestingly, in Hebrew language, there is no noun for faith. In Hebrew faith only exists as a verb, and that is because faith scholars say, biblically speaking, does not exist apart from action. I've heard it described before like sitting down in a chair.

You know, when you're, when you, you might stand beside your chair and believe that it will hold you up, but your belief does not become faith until you transfer the weight of your body off of your legs onto the chair, that faith doesn't become faith until you're acting on it. And so what biblical faith is is believing that something is true and then shifting the weight of your convictions, the weight of your life onto that thing. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take one of the stories that the author of He is, Hebrews 11 uses as an example of faith, and I'm going to try to use it to demonstrate for you what courage looks like and where courage comes from. You got your Bible again, Daniel chapter 3. Basically,

the setup is this. It's a very familiar story of Shadrat Meshach and Abednego and King Nebuchadnezzar or Rackshack and Benny if you're into Veggie Tales. I think that's the new name for our generation. But basically what you got is you got King Nebuchadnezzar who's created a worldwide empire, and he has transplanted people from every nation that he has conquered, which was basically the whole world, to come and live in Babylon. And after they've been there for several years, he decides that it's time to rally them so that they are reminded of whose boss and whose kingdom they belong in.

And so he gets them all out on a gigantic field. Scholars say this is probably close to a million people. And he has erected a 90-foot gold statue, most likely of himself. And he gives the instructions. He says it's really simple. This is just sort of a rallying call for us to remind ourselves what we have at common. We're going to make Babylon great again. And so I want you to, when you hear the music, I want you to get on your face and I want you to worship.

And so the story in Daniel 3 is that the music starts playing and you see a million people on their faces with their rear end sticking up in the air. And somewhere probably back in the middle section, a few hundred yards back. you see three guys who, they say, are probably in their teenage years and they're standing there with their arms crossed and they're just shaking their head saying, we're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. So Nebuchadnezzar sends word for who are these three guys and what are they doing and how dare they defy the king's orders. And so he brings them up front and sets them on the stage and begins to question them. And that brings us to the story. Verse 13.

Then Nebuchadnezzar, by the way, can we stop for just a minute and consider what it is like to grow up with the name Nebuchadnezzar? right i mean what kind of mother looks at a baby and says we're going to call that nebuchadnezzar but anyway i have a theory that most of his emotional problems came from that but whatever and furious rage commanded that shadrach meshadnego be brought to him so they brought these men before the king verse 14 nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them is it true old shadratt me shat and abednego that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that i've set up i'm going to give you four observations about courage, about courage and what it means to believe with courage. Number one, your religion is not the problem. Your religion is not the problem, your insistence on the lordship of

Jesus. That's what the problem is. What angered Nebuchadnezzar was not that these guys worship God. What angered him was that they would not also bow to Nebuchadnezzar's authority. Nebuchadnezzar was fine with them worshiping God as long as they also bowed to him when he asked. The problem that our culture has is not with you or me worshiping Jesus. Our culture's problem is with us not also bowing where they tell us that we should bow. Now, where is that for us today? It's going to be different than it was in Nebuchadnezzar's Day. For us, I would say two main areas, not the only areas, but two main ones.

One is the area of morality. I remember watching the Spie Awards. I think it was last year, the year before, when they gave out their Courage Awards. for the year, and they recognized Bruce Jenner, the one who had changed his gender from Bruce Jenner to now, I guess, Caitlin Jenner. And he's standing up there, and he gives this speech about how he finally had the courage to be who he was. And he said, you know, I had to embrace the fact that I could live as a woman if that's what I chose to do. And I remember when the camera shifted is the entire place stands to their feet and just gives him a standing ovation on what struck me as I'm watching

this is there's probably, you know, a room this size, 2,500 people in the room, there's not a single person that is sitting down and not standing up to affirm what he is saying. And I remember thinking what really would take courage is for somebody that would stay seated during that part. But you and I know what would happen if that took place. It's just one of the things that our culture said. I mean, there's a lot of people in that room that identifies Christian. But they're like, you've also got to stand when we tell you to stand and you've got to bow at the place we're going to tell you to bow. another way is going to be in this question of how many different ways there are to get to God.

I've found that they're not going to criticize you or me for saying that Jesus is our Savior. They're actually going to think that that's nice. They're going to criticize us. They're going to condemn us for saying that he is the only way of salvation. They're going to be happy for you to say that it works for you. They're going to be glad that you say it works for you. But it's going to be like Oprah or nation's pastor often says. Nobody anymore so arrogant as to think that their God is the only God and that their way is the

only way. What they want is for you to have an edited Bible like Thomas Jefferson's. You probably heard about that where he, you know, he takes a Bible and it's actually on display in the Smithsonian where he just cut out the parts of it he didn't like. Now, in his case, it was the miracle stories he thought were really offensive and outdated. So he just literally cut them out of his Bible. Well, they're not telling us to cut that part out of the Bible, but functionally speaking, that's what they're telling us to do. It's just different sections they want us to cut out. It's about what he teaches about morality or about his claims to be the only way of salvation. It used to be that liberal people denied the miracles of Jesus.

Now what they deny is the morality of Jesus. But that is not what God gave to us. Our Bible is not a salad bar where you take the parts you want and where you leave the parts you want. Jesus did not come with a list of suggestions he wanted to be voted on or to propose a new way for you to live that he gives to you for your humble consideration. He didn't come looking for Facebook fans or to build a consumer base. He's not a bill to bear Jesus where you assemble the deity that you like the best.

He claimed to be Lord. And that means the only authority that on issues of life and death and morality and salvation, he's the only authority under heaven and either is that or he is not. When I talk to somebody who says, I believe that Jesus is Lord and yet they're going to say that, but I don't agree with them here. I always want to say back, I don't think you understand the concept of Lordship. I was watching a talk show, and there was two people on there debating something, and they both said, oh, one said, well, I'm a Christian. Then they said, I'm a Christian too. And they started debating this issue. And one of them kept saying, well, my Jesus would never say that. And yet the Bible says that, but my Jesus would ever say that. And I'm starting yelling at the TV, you don't get your

own personal Jesus. There's one Jesus. And he comes as Lord, not to give suggestions, but because he's Lord. What I'm trying to get you to see from this power. is that the situation that you and I are facing today is not really anything new. They faced it back there with King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. The problem was not that they were religious that they followed God. The problem is they wouldn't bow where he told them to bow. It really has always been this way. It was this way in the days of the early church.

You know, historians tell us that Rome, ancient Rome, really only had two rules when it came to religion. Rule number one is you can believe whatever you want. Literally, there's an endless amount of deities that you can believe in, and if it's not represented here, then you can just invent one. Rule number two was, whatever you do, you're not allowed to say that your deity is the only deity or your God is the only God, because that'll lead you to thinking that you were superior to other people, Rome said, and then you'll begin to create conflict. So you can worship any deity you want to, but they're all underneath the authority of Caesar. And they had a big thing called the Pantheon, where they put representative idols of all these different gods from all over the Roman Empire. Well, after Christianity had been going on for a little while, they invited Christianity at the end of the first century. They invited Christians to submit a statue of Jesus for the Pantheon.

And the Pantheon still existed Rome, had a big old symbol on the top of it that said, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Now, what do you think the earliest Christians did when they were told you can put Jesus in the Pantheon? You think they were like, are you kidding me? You know, little old us, we got this religion that's not going to be recognized in the Pantheon, one of our guys in the Congress? Are you kidding me? I mean, their response was absolutely not. If you put him in the pantheon, we're going to take him out. Not until you get rid of that little symbol on top that says Caesar is the king of kings and lord of lords, because Jesus doesn't come

as one way among many. He comes as the only way or he doesn't come at all. So what you've got is you've got a situation that existed in ancient Babylon. It's a situation that existed in Jerusalem. It's a situation that exists today. And what you see is that these guys stood in their generation and Nebuchadnezzar and his entire empire, the entire world, got to see the reality of the God of Israel. Scholars, by the way, say that ultimately you can trace the faith of the wise men who came to see the baby Jesus back to this encounter. The question for you and me is, are you and I going to stand in our generation? Because this is our moment. Let me tell you something. And again, I'm not trying to be a doomsday prophet, but they are coming for you.

and they are coming for you and it is increasing with almost every single month you can watch it increasing this is our moment are you going to stand i remember taking a flight several years ago it's actually before i got married and i was it was one of those red-eye flights that uh you know leaves somewhere late at night and they're just trying to move a plane to another place and i walk into the the gate area and there's only two other people in line to get on this flight one of them was a guy who looked like he was about 198 years old, one foot in the grave, one foot on a banana pill. I knew it any, this guy's two seconds shy of a coma. And on the other side, again, this is before I was married, was this just drop-dead gorgeous Hispanic-looking girl. And I was like, you know, where does

God want me to sit? That's like ice cream spinach. And so I felt led of God to go sit next to this girl. And we started this conversation. Turns out she was on her way back up to Harvard University. Well, I was a recent graduate of Campbell University, and so I immediately felt like we had a connection. And I sat down and sat beside her and we sat beside each other in the plane. I started to share with her my life story, and I was telling her about how I came to faith in Christ. And at that point, God had already called me in the ministry, and I was headed that direction. And I remember she looks at me with these just kind of, you know, big old, by the way, her name, she was from Ecuador. And her name was Bertha.

Okay, not Bertha, but Bertha. And she said, you know, here I am at Harvard. She goes, I hear you talking with such conviction and such purpose. She said, I'm around at Harvard the most intelligent driven guys in the United States. And I don't think I've heard any of them talk with that kind of conviction and that kind of determination. She said, and I find that so attractive. And I thought, this is fantastic. She's going to get saved.

We're going to get married. This is going to be a fantastic story that I get to tell someday at conferences. And so anyway, we sit next to each other on the plane, and I am explaining to her about how she can come to faith in Christ. And she just sort of shakes her head. And she's like, no, she says, you know, it just doesn't do it for me. She goes, I'm really glad that it works for you, but it's just not that way for me. And she says, I just prefer to think about it different ways. And I said, I don't think you understand.

Jesus didn't come saying that he was one way among many. He came and said he was the only way. John 146, I am the way, the truth, and the life. The man comes to the Father by me. And she said, no, it just doesn't work for me. I said, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work for you. He's the one that makes the rules about heaven because he's Lord and he died on the cross and he rose from the dead.

And so he gets to set the rules. And she said, you can't possibly be telling me that unless I trust Jesus the way that you're describing that I'm not going to make it to heaven. And I said, I'm not. telling you that, but Jesus is telling you that. And she said, that has got to be the most arrogant, close-minded thing I've ever heard in my life. She goes, how would you even live with yourself thinking that? By the way, I knew the wedding was off at this point. And I kind of sat back and I was like, hey, I'm not really sure what to say. She just shut this conversation down fast. And I remember

something. I can't remember who said it. But I remember something. And I leaned over and I said, you know, I'm really glad that, because the pilot had just come on and said we were making our final descend into, you know, Raleigh or whatever. And he said, and I said, I'm really glad the pilot of this airplane doesn't look at the runway the same way that you do, heaven. We're salvation. She said, what do you mean? I said, we'll say that he comes on the intercom or whatever. And he says, you know, I'm sick and tired of that arrogant little airport always telling me where and how I've got to land this plane. I'm an open-minded, free-thinking pilot. And I prefer to land in the Walmart parking lot, or I prefer to land nose-tip first on the top of the time.

of a building in downtown Raleigh. I'm really glad that he just follows the instructions of the airport who say, if you want to put this thing down safely, you're going to put it down in this little narrow strip we call the runway. She said, that's not fair. I said, yes, it is. And that's Campbell 1, Harvard Zero, by the way, if you're taking score. Here's a question.

What if our capacity to stand, what if that determined the salvation of an entire generation? Because see, that's where it gets really serious. What if our understanding of what Jesus said about truth is not just that it's our way? What if Jesus really does make the rules? What if he really is who he said he is? And what if he determines the way of salvation? And you and I just can't stomach standing and being unpopular with it. These guys testified to an entire generation.

And ultimately it led to not only Nebuchadnezzar's salvation in Daniel chapter 4, It's also going to lead to the wise man and it's going to lead, have reverberations that echoed throughout history. Are you and I going to stand in our day because it is not popular? It has never been popular, but it is the way that God makes his salvation known in the world. And it is literally a matter of life and death. They're not having problems with you because you believe in Jesus. They're having problems with you because you were saying that Jesus is who he says he is,

and he did exactly what he said he did. And that is to provide the only way of salvation that there is no other. the name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And do not think of yourself as an accommodating kind person because you were saying, I don't really know. There's probably multiple ways to get to God. That is the greatest act of cruelty you could ever commit to somebody else if Jesus is who he says he is. Their problem was not their religion. Their problem was their insistence on the lordship of Jesus. Here's number two. Let me give you this. Number two, you'll never make it without Jesus loving friends. Verse 16 on Nebuch and Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

We don't have a reason to answer you. They stood together. Now this is going to be a really quick point, but it's here in the text, and I just feel like I haven't talked about it enough in my ministry. I almost cut it out this afternoon, but I just thought no. Because I feel like this is so important and we never talk about it. When it comes to standing courageously for Jesus, one of the most important decisions you are ever going to make is who you surround yourself with. Proverbs 1320 says, He who walks with not wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.

It doesn't say he who listens to wise men. It's the one who walks with wise men. One of the ways we say that at our church is your friends are the future you. You want to know what you're going to look like in the future. You show me your friends in the present. In fact, I've even heard it said that you're free, if you want to know what you're going to look like in the future, you will be the average of your five closest friends.

A lot of times we talk about these big kind of things about, I want to get serious for God, and I want to change the world, a phrase we use in our church, it's never the big dreams you dream. It's always the small decisions that you make. And a small decision you make is who you choose to put around you because you're going to become like them. And that's why one of the big things here at the church 1122 is it ought to be is you need to be in a community of people that are forming you so that you begin to look like Jesus. So these guys are not out there standing by themselves. They're standing with friends. They chose to experience their lives together.

Your choice of friends more than anything you hear or experience here is going to determine whether or not you survive spiritually. Proverbs 1226, the righteous man is cautious with his friendships. It just means you choose who you are going to be in community with. Now, I'm certainly not telling you that you need to have only Christian friends. I would go against everything that this church teaches. I'm just telling you that when it comes to, to making a difference, it's going to be because you put yourself not just at an event you

attend on the weekend, but in a community that you belong in. I heard this from somebody else. Every good thing I've ever said is stolen from somebody else. But there are basically three kind of circles of friendship you need to think about. One is a circle that we call a circle of intimacy. Intimacy is going to be your closest friends, going to be the people that, and there's not more room for more than two or three people in there. Those ought to be followers of Jesus because you will become like them. Around that is going to be a circle. that we call a circle of influence. This is probably your colleagues that you work with and people that you just sort of run through life with that you do life with. Not all of them will be

Christians, but a lot of them need to be Christians because, again, that's your community that is influencing you and your family. You've got to intentionally choose to make a lot of them fellow believers. But you're going to have people that are not, you know, believers in it. Then you've got a last circle, which is your circle of concern. These are people that you are genuinely friends with, that you're reaching out to, that you're invested in their life, that you love them like, others, but you recognize that they're not going the same direction you're going on some of the most important questions that you consider. And so for you to get really serious about making a difference in the world, you've got to move some of your friends out of the circle of intimacy into the circle of

influence or concern. Now, it's not an official action that you like send them a notice later tonight that says, hey, I've moved you to this circle. Those are just things that you think about. And it just means that if you are going to stand, it's not these big dreams that you dream. a lot of times it's very small practical decisions. And I've seen more people get serious about God and then just not make it because they don't change that there in that immediate circle that they are surrounded with. It means that who you date and who you spend life with are going the same direction you are. Like I said, that's a quick point, but I wanted to point it out.

Number three, number three, you've got to be convinced that death with Jesus is better than life without him. You've got to be convinced that death with Jesus is better than life. without him. Verse 17, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, old king. In other words, he's bigger than you punk, and you're not going to do anything to us that he's not going to be consenting to. And we are very convinced that you can do whatever you want to us, but our God's one that's in charge. Verse 18, probably the most remarkable verse in the entire story. But if not, be it still known to you, king that we will still not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

In other words, yeah, he's a lot bigger than you and he can overrule anything you want to do to us because he's the one that's sitting on the real throne of the empire, not you. But even if he chooses not to deliver us, we would rather die with him than live without him. And possessing him is more important than possessing life itself because that God is bigger and better than anything you can offer us or anything you can threaten to take away from us. When persecution comes, whether that comes in the form of physical danger or whether it comes in the form of mockery and a ruined reputation, and you begin to suffer for believing that Jesus is Lord, you suffer embarrassment, mockery in the classroom, losing your job.

The question that is going to be the most important question is, is his presence and his approval enough. Because people that transform the world are people who say, as long as he is pleased with me and he is present with me, then I can do or indoor anything else that is thrown at me. I used to be a middle school boys soccer coach. It's when I first, one of the jobs I did when I was first getting started in ministry. And my first team that I ever coached was probably the favorite team I've ever coached. They, they were just, I don't know, middle school boys, right you know seventh grade boys that are just kind of you know experiencing manhood um you know some of you went through it a lot of road in seventh grade i think pastor joby just hit it a few years ago but you know what it is it's

it's like you just they're just these little you know kind of and so uh we uh they had this ritual that before they would start again they would um take off their shirts they would spit on the ground they would get kind of a mud paste their face and their chest with it and they would put their shirts back on i don't know where they learned this i might have taught it to them i'm not going to admit that but um and they would go back on the field and they would just kind of, we were undefeated the entire season. The entire, the undefeated. And I thought, man, you know, the, whatever, the, the, the Dean Smith of soccer coaching has finally arrived on the scene. You probably don't know who that is. UMC basketball coach. But I thought, you know, the greatest coach, I found my life's calling. So we made it all the way to the Harnack County

semifinals. We were going to play under lights. It was a big deal. It was a first playoff game. And man, my guy, I've never seen a group of seven great boys more out of their minds than these guys. were they walked on the field they strutted on the field they just kind of walked out there um you know the ritual they take off their shirts the parents are looking on in horror as they took off their shirts and they're spit on the ground they're wiping their faces and they look like they're like a scene out of brave heart and they just sort of like they strutted onto that field and we got killed i mean just honestly the final score didn't reflect it we lost three to one so it's not like bad but it was just one of those games where they're the other team just got i mean just shot after shot after shot on goal and it was

It was embarrassing. The real problem with it is they had this one player on their team. Listen, very carefully. They have one player in their team, and she was awesome. And my little seventh grade chauvinist did not have a category for this yet. I don't know who this girl was. I'm convinced she went on to play college and pro, because she was the greatest player we had ever faced.

She was like Michael Jordan with a soccer ball. I mean, anything that girl wanted to do, she did. And she just was, she was running circles around these guys. 10 minutes left to go in the second half, and we're losing 2 to 1. And I'm like, if we are going to have any chance, we got to shut this girl down. So I pulled out our best fullback. His name is David. He pulled him out, and I said, David, I am sick and tired of that girl getting all these shots on goal.

And he said, me too, coach. I hate that girl. I said, well, we don't need to go there, David. But I'm just sick and tired of him. He said, oh, me too, coach. I said, okay, David, you got one assignment for the rest of the game. From this point on forward in the game, you got one assignment. and your assignment is that girl, I need you to shut her down.

And that means that any time she steps foot in the penalty box with the ball, I want that girl on her rear end. You understand me? Oh, yes, sir, coach. I understand exactly what you mean. I said, Dave, that's your only assignment for the rest of the game. I don't care if the guy next to you burst into flames. That is not your responsibility.

Your responsibility is that girl. He said, yes, sir, coach, I'd be happy to do it. He turns around, gets ready to go back in the game. I stopped him and said, David, do it legally. Do it legally. He said, oh, of course, coach, of course. you know, as you play soccer, that's called a slide tackle, right? So a couple minutes go by in the game.

I honestly had forgotten what I told this kid. When I'm watching her go down the right side of the field, she goes through our left halfback like he's not even there, goes down, he starts entering the penalty box, goes through the right fullback. I don't know what happens, but he's in the fetal position crying for his mom. Then she brings the ball into the center, and so it's her, the sweeper, and a goalie.

And she does some kind of pump fake. And just the two people, they just jumped like they were, it's just her and a wide open goal. And I'm thinking, Godgummit, she's done it again. And she's just going to kick the ball in and the game's over. When out of the left side of my peripheral vision, I see this orange blur. Our uniforms are orange. And it's David. And he's like, he's locked onto her.

It's like a tractor beam, like just zeroed in on her. She's pulling back her leg to take her final shot, just, you know, beautiful for him. Legs cockback. He hits her from behind, like full, like spread eagle attack. Just, I mean, there's like blood hair cleats everywhere. Not blood. It was nasty. It was one of those moments where the entire place just kind of like froze for a second

and was like, I can't believe that just happened. And then the whole place just sort of erupted in, I don't know, different emotions. Anger, confusion. everybody on the field was angry. Like the referee was angry. He couldn't figure out if you should just give David a red card or if you could have a 12-year-old kid arrested. Their team is angry because they think we try to take out their star player.

Our team is angry because they think that we, you know, our team's angry because they knew we just handed them a penalty kick in the penalty box, which she was sure to score on. The parents are angry because they think psycho coach just sent this kid in to take this little girl out. I'm angry. The only person who's not bothered by this whole thing is David. And he stands up real slow and he wipes himself off, reaches down like a perfect gentleman to help this girl up and just make sure that she's okay.

And I'm watching this whole thing from like 50 yards away. And then he turns, you know, 180 degrees and looks at me 50 yards away and goes like that. And I'm thinking too law, you know, I'm thinking lawsuit. This is what I'm thinking right now. So I'm like, David, what's wrong with you? Now pull him out of the game. I'm like, David, you know. So he comes running up to me and just, you know, kind of running like nothing's going on.

And he gets about 10 yards from me. I'm like, David, what's wrong with you, son? Where's your brain? Point to your brain. And he, you're a little perfect, little 12-year-old innocent face. He points his brain. I said, Dave, what are you thinking? And he gets this little indignant look in his face.

And he said, coach, you told me to take her out illegally, illegally. The last words that he thought I said to him before he walked on that field were David, take her out and make it nasty. like just make it nasty and he said i just doing what you told me to do i'm like it's not what i told you to do late we they scored the penalty kick we lost the game by the way david's now a member of our church and a great turn of irony um one of our volunteer leaders but he uh i was laying in bed later that night thinking about our loss and i just remember thinking here's a 12 year old kid that in his warped little mind um he was a good enough player that he knew exactly what was going to happen when he did that He knew that he was going to get a penalty kick.

He knew that he was going to get a red card. He knew that he's probably going to get jumped after the game and his parents were going to ground him. He knew all that. But in his 12-year-old mind, he didn't care about any of that. All he cared about was one thing. And it was the one that he turned around and looked at after he had done the deed. And that was his coach, because in his mind, coach is God. And if coach is happy with me, then it doesn't matter who is unhappy with me because

my life is found in his pleasure. Now that's a pretty warped way to live as a 12-year-old boy, I'm going to tell you, but I remember thinking that night that that is exactly what you see with Shadrat Meishat and a Bed and to go. It's what you see with people in the Bible that transform the world is that they really don't care about anything else except for the gaze of Jesus Christ, because they've learned that they have more in him than they do anywhere without him. And if they had to choose anything, they would choose his.

pleasure and his glory more than they would anything else. The only thing that will sustain you in the hour of persecution in the moment that you have to show courage, the only thing that will sustain you is not your personality, not your Bible knowledge. It's just believing that he is well pleased with you and that what he is doing in you and through you is not just worth it for them, but it is the reward that you walk into for eternity. What you see with these guys is that they were convinced that he was enough, that he was enough. And if they had him, then Nebuchadnezzar and the whole world could stand against him. Let me tell you why they believed he was enough and why you can too. Verse 19, look at this. Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury and the expression of his

face was changed against Shadremedeco. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. He went up and they threw him in. Nebuchadnezzar was expecting to see them burst into flames as they were, as they got thrown in the fiery furnace, verse 24. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and he rose up in haste and he declared to his counselors. Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? And they answered and said to the king, that is true old king. He answered and said, but I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire and they're not hurt.

In other words, the only things that was destroyed in the fire were the change of their captivity. And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. Now, reading this, you and I understand that it wasn't just like a son of the gods. It was the son of God. And so when they pulled them out of the flame, verse 27 says that the hair on their head was not sins, that their clothes were not burned, that the only thing that had been burned away was the chains that bound them.

And see, that whole scene prefigures Jesus, who was going to go to the cross, who would walk through the fire of God's judgment for us so that we could pass through in safety without so much as the slightest singe of condemnation left in our hair or even the faintest smell of judgment left in our clothes, and only of the chains of our bondage of sin burned away. And what these three guys seem to understand already several years before Jesus comes is that if that is how much God loves them, if that's how committed God was to them,

then they'd rather be with Him in the flame than outside with Debuchadnezzar any day of the week. So the question is, can you say that? Can you say he is enough for me, that Jesus plus nothing equals everything, that I'd rather have Jesus than anything, that anything with Jesus is sufficient, anything without Jesus is nothing, that if I had to choose anything, I would choose Jesus.

Maybe the clearest illustration that I've seen of this was when I served as a missionary over in Southeast Asia. At the beginning of my ministry, it was in a Muslim unreached people group, and when I got there, I knew very little of the language. It was very third world. It was very different than what I'd grown up. with, but I was there to tell people about Jesus.

My extent of my language training is I could say, hello, my name is J.D., where's your bathroom? My house is on fire. That was the extent of what I knew in their language, and the rest of it, I just kind of learn when I got there. And after I've been there about six months, a friend of mine calls me, and he says, hey, I need your help. I need you to help me deal with. And I said, well, what is it?

He said, man, I can't tell you in the phone. You and I both know that people are listening, and it's true. Our phones were bugged. And he said, so I just need you to come down to where I'm at. So it was about a three-hour bus ride to where he was. So midnight I left, got on a bus, went down to where he was and went to the place where he told me to go. And when I go in, I meet this guy whose name was Fajjar, who was 32 years old. He was a Muslim.

And my friend begins to translate for me because I wasn't very good with the language yet. He said, this is Fajjar, and he wants to ask you a question. I said, okay. Fajar said, well, he said about a month ago. He said, I had this, he goes, I don't know what you call it, but in our language, we call it a mimpi, which means a vision. He said, I was sleeping, but it was different than like a dream. It was something different. He said, in my dream, he said, I opened my eyes, and I was fully conscious, and I was standing in this field.

He said, as far as I could see in front of me, behind me, to the right, to the left, he said, there was nothing but emptiness. And we just walked for, I said, I walked by myself for what felt like days. he said after walking for days and he stopped and he said you know it's kind of interesting because that's how my life feels i feel like i'm lost and i feel like i'm not going anywhere i feel like i'm walking aimlessly he said after walking for days he said i heard a voice speak behind me and i turned around and he looks at me and he says there was nobody there before but when i turned around there was this gigantic man he was probably twice my size and he said he's he was wearing this radiant white robe, Sparta Matahadi.

It showed like the sun, and I couldn't even look in his face. And he reached inside of his robe, and he pulled out a copy of the, he used the word enjil, which is their word for gospel. Pulled out a copy of the gospel, and he reached it out to me and said, Fajjar, this is the only thing that will get you out of this field. He said, I looked at it, and I pulled back because I knew that the Njil was, that was Christian, and I was a Muslim, and I could not touch that. He said, in the moment that I started to back away, he said, I woke up.

He goes, at the moment that I woke up, he said, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. He said, the second night, I went back to sleep. He said, I had the same mimpi, the same vision. He said, and again, I walked through this field for what felt like days, and I just walked and walked and then he called my name again, and I turned around and there he was again. And this time he was holding out to me a copy of the gospel, and he said, Fajar, this is the only thing that will get you out of this field. He said, this time I wanted to take it.

He said, I looked at my hands, and they were just, he said, they were trembling, and I wanted to take it, but I just didn't have the strength because I knew, I knew that that belonged to Christians and I couldn't touch it. He said, at the moment I'd made that decision, he said, I woke up, and he said, I knew I'd made another terrible mistake. He said, third night, I didn't even want to go to sleep. He said, because I knew what would happen. He said, sure enough, the moment I went to sleep, he said, I woke up in this field. He said, this time there was no walking, there was no wandering. It was just him, just me and him in this field. And he was holding out the gospel to me. And he said, Fajjar, this is the last time I will tell

you this is the only thing that will get you out of this field. He said, this time I watched my hands. It was almost involuntary. He said, my hands were shaking, and I reached up, and I took it, and I took a hold of the angel, the gospel, and he said, I pulled it into my chest, and I clutched it for a minute, and I held it. He said, and then I opened my eyes, and it was just me. It was just me there in my bed, holding an invisible book in my hand, and he said, I knew that something had happened. He looks at me and says, through his best English, he switched out of his line, and said, my friend tells me you are expert at gospel. Can you tell me what my dream means?

Now, I was raised in a really, really conservative Baptist church. And dreams and interpretations were not part of our repertoire, okay? But I knew exactly what to say in this moment. I was like, bro, you were so in luck. Dream interpretation is my spiritual gift. Sit out. And for the next two hours until like five in the morning. I sat there and I walked him through, just started with Genesis and got all the way through. And I remember getting to the part while I was explaining what Jesus did on the cross.

And he said, no, no, no. He says, no, you Christians believe that Jesus was God? I said, yes. He said, so you mean this is God on the cross who is dying for my sin? And I said, yes. And I remember these big old tears just wiled up in his eyes and he began to run down his face.

And he just looked up and he held his hands out in the Muslim prayer posture. And he said, Allah Wah, Akbar, which means God is the great. greatest. And he said, and so I kept going and just walking through that. And I get to the end of my, you know, two-hour gospel presentation. And I said, I mean, you know, I'd only done this back in the United States. I was like, do you want to ask Jesus to come into your heart? And he's like, oh, yes, very, very much. I said, do you believe that he's God? Do you believe that he died for you? He says, yes, I have to. He says, because he appeared to me and told me that I should seek the gospel.

And I said, okay. I said, you know, every head bowed, every eye closed. I guess, you know, so he bows his head, and I start to lead him into the sinner's prayer. And, you know, Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner. And I get him like two lines into the sinner's prayer. And I'm like, hold on a minute, stop. I was like, look back up here at me for a minute. I said, now you, this is a big deal. I see, you understand that when you do this, you're not going to be a Muslim anymore.

And that you understand that you are following Jesus. And you understand that we're going to baptize you. And you know that when you get baptized, everything changes, right? Like, everything changes like you're going to, you know, you might lose your job if people find out. You might get kicked out of your family. I was like, you and I both know people in your community that died when that happened. You know that.

I never forget. He looks back up and he goes, of course I know that. He said, why do you think it took me a month to work up the courage to come and talk to you? He said, but in that month, he goes, I came, I knew that you were going to say. say that Jesus was God. I knew that you were going to say that he died for me because I knew that's what Christians believed. I just couldn't believe that that is really what the Bible says and I needed to hear it from you. He said, and during that month, that month that I was thinking about this and trying to work up the courage to do it, he said, I made this decision that if that

really was God who created the world and that really was God who died on a cross for my sins, then I would go anywhere with him no matter what I had to leave behind. And I said, well, you me in the sinner's prayer because I feel like I need to get saved right now. When you come to a place where you follow Jesus is because you understand like these guys that there is a God who has gone through hell itself so that he could purchase you and redeem you. And you develop this conviction that I would rather be anywhere with him, that I would anywhere without him, and I would go into the flames because the real flames that would threaten me,

the flames of God's judgment, have already been poured into his body. and because they've been poured into his body, they don't have to be poured into mine. And I know, I know that being anywhere with him is better than anywhere without him. And I'm willing to go if I can just have him, which leads me to number four. Only through your courage are others going to come to know the truth. Look at how the story ends. Verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who sent his angel and delivered his servants,

who trusted at him. They set aside the king's command, and they yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any God except for their own God. Because of their courage, Nebuchadnezzar became a worshipper of the only true God. Again, how are the Nebuchadnezzers of our day going to know? It's not going to come because of Job. He's preaching. It's not going to come because of your testimony or because of some sticker you put on your car or because you listen to Christian radio or because you don't cuss when you talk. They're going to come because you say, this is what he says. He makes the rules for life and depth. And I will.

will have his approval, even if it means I can lose the whole world's everything else that's offered. You see, when you go through a trial, whether it's persecution or just a time of suffering, you can be sure that God is doing two things in your life. One, he is trying to purify your faith. He is trying to get you to the place where you understand that as long as you have him, you have life itself. And sometimes he's got to break you down in order to teach you that. The second thing you can know in any trial is that God is through you trying to show others

through how you suffer his value. Other people are not going to be amazed when everything is going in your life and you're happy. They're not going to be amazed by that. Yes, God is sometimes glorified when sick people get well. He's also glorified when sick people die well. And the way that he chooses to bring himself glory is allowing his believers to go through sometimes these fiery furnaces so that they can demonstrate in that fiery furnace that I've got a God who is bigger than this fiery furnace and better.

and I would just rather be with him than I would anywhere or any place else. That's what he's doing. I remember watching, I was with my daughter, and we were flipping through the channels, and I came across some Texas TV preacher. That's all I'll say. And he was saying, he had a big old smile on his face, and he was trying to get people to give to his ministry. And he said, some of you are in terrible credit card debt.

He said, you don't have hardly any room left on your credit card. And God doesn't like that. and if you'll just max out the rest of that credit card given to this ministry, I promise you that God will cut your credit card debt in half in the space of a year's time. He said, he said, your neighbors will be amazed when in a year you're driving a brand new BMW. They'll be amazed when everything is going right in your life and you've got a new set of clothes and you'll be able to tell them, my God is for me and he wants to be on my side. I was so mad.

I know Christians shouldn't cuss, but I was like, I've stolen things with the TV and my daughter was like, what's wrong with you? I'm like, I'm going to go down there to Texas and punch that guy in the throat. Because why would your neighbors be amazed when you've got a smile on your face and you're driving a BMW? Anybody smiles when they're in a brand new BMW. What's going to amaze your neighbors is not when you smile when everything is fine. What's going to amaze them is when in the midst of a fiery furnace, you have joy on your face because Jesus is better. Because he's better.

And you can say, I am okay. I'm okay with everything. in my life burning off around me because I've got Jesus and Jesus is enough. That is God's chosen way of demonstrating his glory as what happened in Daniel 3. You're going to see it repeated all the way through the New Testament as he puts believers in situations where they can say he is enough. Some of you are in a situation like that right now. And I want you to understand what he is doing in that situation.

He's giving you a chance to show off his glory and his worth. And he wants you to say you are enough. Can you say that to him right now? Why don't you buy your heads if you would? And then we got various campus here at Church of 11-20. Everybody everywhere, just bow your heads. Let me just ask you to think about this because, as I told you when I started, our world is in a mess. Our world's in a mess, and we got to have a generation who's going to stand courageously and lead out and lead forward.

And this is your time here in Jacksonville. The early church did it for us because they stood. you and I heard the gospel because Shadret Mishat and Abednego stood with courage and let everything go. Nebuchadnezzar heard the gospel. Babylon heard the gospel. Does God have you in a place where you're in a time of suffering? And maybe tonight, maybe for the first time, you kind of realize I know what he's doing now. I don't know exactly how he's going to use it, but I need to be able to say to my family, to my coworkers, I don't need the raise. I don't need the health. I don't need anything. All these things are happening. Maybe they're even unfair, but I've got Jesus and that's enough. I mean, if you say, just lift up your hands at one of our campuses here. Just lift up your hands and say, that's me. That's where I am. And I just need God to give me strength to endure well and put your hands down. How mean, if you have somebody in your life that God is telling you to be bold with them. And he's saying to you, I need you to not

be cowardly. I need you to tell them what I say, even if it's going to bother them. You're thinking of somebody right now that you need to pray for, that you need to maybe talk to tonight, or maybe sometime on the next week, just put your hand up and say, there's somebody in my life, I can think of somebody right now that God is telling me you to be courageous with. And put your hands down. Let me ask one more question here. How many of you, and maybe somebody in here that you you kind of understand that what Jesus is saying to you is that

if you get everything in the world but you lose him then you have nothing and you would say I'm not even sure if I know Jesus yet I'm not sure that I belong to him I'm not sure that I have trusted him as Lord and Savior but I would like to do that tonight

if that's you I can't see everywhere at all campuses but would you just lift up your hands this is more about you and God than it is you and me but just lift up your hand and say, I know that I need Jesus and I want to make sure that I have that kind of relationship with Him. Would you just lift up your hand and hold it up real high? And I see even several of you all across. If that's you, let me tell you what you could do right now. It's not a magic prayer.

It's not words you repeat, but it's a cry from your heart. And if right now you would say, Jesus, I need you. I realize that I'm a sinner. and I need forgiveness. I receive your offer to save me through the blood of your cross. I surrender to you as Lord. I receive your forgiveness. I surrender to you as Lord.

Those are the two key things. I receive and I surrender. If that's you, just pray that right now. Awakenings are always about prayer and always about hearing the Holy Spirit say things that maybe are not new, but that you are heeding and obeying, which is why we end this time tonight at all of the campuses with just a time where we pray. If you raise your hand on any of those things in just a minute when I stand you up, I just want you to step out and I want you to come down and I want you to seal these things that you're deciding that you're saying. I want you to ask God to give you the strength to do them, the strength to endure, the strength to be bold, the strength to stand when you face persecution and mockery.

But if you were one of the ones that raised your hand and said that you want to trust Christ or want to know that you have trusted Christ, want to make that sure, then there's going to be. pastors and leaders of 1122, they'll be kind of standing down front here somewhere. And I just want you to find one of them and say, that was me. I prayed that tonight and I want to, I want to make sure that I'm following Jesus. You could also tell the person that you just invited you tonight, say, hey, come down and pray with me because it's time for me to get serious about following him. And I know that I want to be saved. Why don't you stand up at all of our campuses?

why don't you stand to your feet. If you raise your hand on one of those, let's just turn this into a big tabernacle of prayer. I want you to step out and you just come and let's commit these things to God. Let's pray for people. Let's pray for individuals. Let's pray for strength to endure.

So as our worship team begins to come, you just step out right and you just come down and let's commit this to God and let's spend these moments. Pray.