KINGDOM LIFESTYLE : Walk Just As HE Walked

Good morning. All right, we're almost there. I'll take it. I think there's about six that time.

We get one, each time we get one more. So I'm good with it. Everybody doing good? Yes!

Me too. I stay in here 35 years old and feel great. My man Cliff turned 44. Happy birthday.

Where's he at? Hot now, isn't he? Oh, yeah, he is. Head down.

All right, so we're going to be back into our kingdom lifestyle. So if you haven't been here, is there anybody new here? No. Anybody that's not been here for a minute, some people's pointing people out.

That's going to happen here. You came to the wrong church if you didn't want to point it out. Well, welcome. We've been in a series called Kingdom Lifestyle.

It's all about the walk. Our walk as believers in the walk. We'll go ahead and can you go? Is somebody up there?

There we go. What I'm going to talk about today is walk just as he walked. So he, we're talking about Jesus. But again, it's focused on walk.

The word walk. Go to the next slide, please. So to walk, as my man would say it, a pair of potatoes, that's Phil's translation, it is to make one's way progress, to make do use of opportunities Hebrew for to live, to regulate one's life, to conduct one's oneself, to pass one's life. The scripture that I'm going to use today to talk to you guys for the next three hours, I can't be long winded.

Somebody told me that. You know what's so funny? My dad couldn't make it today, but I'm going to talk about it for a second. He knows everybody talks to everybody forever.

It's like the worst thing in the world to go somewhere with him because it's like, but then I've come to find out my wife's like, you do the same thing as your dad. I guess when you're quiet for so long and you get excited and you're ready to talk to whoever. But the scripture we're going to be in today is first John, chapter two, and then we're going to be in verse six. If you've got a Bible, raise your hand.

All right. You've got your phone, raise your hand. See, there it is. That either will do.

But I really want to focus on the walk of Jesus today, but we're going to look at it a little differently. Because I want to be super real with you guys. I'm on a mission today. I don't know if you guys are ready for a mission today.

My man's laughing because I've been talking to him all week. I'm excited, but I'm on a mission today. He sent me out and I'm going to accomplish it because I believe this is for everybody and we need this because I needed it. He did it for me, so I'm going to share it with you all.

But we often talk about the walk, our walk, what it looks like the walk. And then we think Jesus. And I think initially, right off the bat, I do not know why I'm thinking of this, but I'm going to say it. Is it the great American dog show?

Is that right? I don't know. So listen, I remember watching this at one point in time. And they take these dogs out, probably because my wife loves dogs.

So they take these dogs out. And do you ever see them get them ready to show? I mean, they're chin up, butt down, leg. And they got them held tight.

I feel that's the image a lot of us get when we think about the walk of Jesus or how we're supposed to walk. And it has to be this. So you've got to be postured, right? You know what I mean?

You see, you pants up off the ground. You've got all these things that we do and we look at. I feel like, for me anyway, anybody else? Does that?

No? OK. All right, come on, talk to me. But yeah, I feel like it's like that.

But what I want to share today is just a realness of what it really looks like. What Jesus looked like when he walked. I mean, he didn't have, I don't even think he had shoes on. You think you all, you know what I mean?

But let's give him some kind. He had the Retro-Wands on, the Jesus walkers, the Retro-Wands. Yeah, so no, that he was a carpenter, right? And I just think if we start to really grasp the image of who he was and what he came to do, we would better understand and it would be easier for us to be able to walk like that.

And it's not, it's really not far off at all. So let's go in. First John 2-6, this is the new King James Version. I'm only using this for Phil.

I'm not a big fan of it. I'm just kidding. Don't get upset. It says, he who says he abides in him, ought to himself also.

All right, thank you, Joel. He's like, there you go. He's the only one. All right, Joel, hey, Joel, help me out.

Let's get everybody else on board. Also too, just as he. All right, there we go. Hey, we're going somewhere.

So think about the things that Jesus did in the Bible. How did he approach most of those things? Gentleness. I can't hear.

Gentleness, I heard that. Come on, what's some other things? Let's be interactive today. What do you know about your Jesus?

Yeah. That's for another conversation. We're not going to go there. So, joy, so peace.

So there you go, compassionate. That's one of my favorite words. He was compassionate. What is it?

Yeah, there you go, healing. Listen, all these things are great. So what I'm wondering is, if we know all these things, then why are we struggling so badly? And why are we over here walking around like we got that leash or ratchet around somebody's neck and make them posture upright and then walk like that?

If he didn't walk like that. So my man, he had sin. I said this not long ago, but he had sin in his pocket because he knew he was paying for it. So the focus wasn't on sin.

And we're going to get to that in a minute. I don't want to go too far in that. Everyone got quiet, but he really wasn't that focused on sin because he came to pay for it. Agreed?

All right. I'm going to go. I just want to make sure you guys are still awake. That was a resurrection Sunday.

That was great. That was good. But yeah, well, he's alive, but we're going to learn to walk like him today. Everybody say amen.

All right. First John 2, we're going to start reading one through six. I write this dear children to guide you out of sin. I write this dear children to guide you out of sin.

If anyone does sin, we have a pre-friend in the presence of the Father, Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. Please everybody say amen. And Phil always likes me to address it. This is the message translation.

If you are holier than me and you have these and those and I'm joking. I love to talk about that, but we're going to get to that a little bit too. Someone keep going. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, read this with me.

He solved the sin problem for good. There you go, Julie. So he solved it just for a little while, right? He solved it for good.

Not only yours, everyone point to you, but for the whole world. Now point to everybody else. You're the person you don't like and don't want to point to them too. I'm just kidding.

He said, here's how we can be sure that we know God the right way. Keep his commandments. If someone claims I know him well, but doesn't keep his commandments, he obviously is a liar. His life doesn't match his words.

Oh, my goodness. All right, good. Next slide. But the one who keeps God's word is the person in whom we see God's mature love.

This is the only way to be sure we are in God. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived, which that's verse six, what we're going off of. That's just in the message translation. So what I want to talk to you about here for a few minutes after reading that.

So if he came to solve sin, the sin problem for good and not only mine, but everyone else's. Why are we working so hard not to sin? Like stay with me for a minute. If he paid for sin and everybody's, why are we working so hard to not sin?

What our focus is on everyone's sin. Because what happens, we were just talking about this, when we are so focused on sin, what he came to pay for, guess what you're working for? Y'all think you're stronger than him or have more power in him and you're trying to undo what he did on the cross. I don't.

Are you guys getting this? Like when we are trying to work to not sin, I really want you to get this guys. This is my main point today that when we when we stop working to not sin and we start living after him is when life really starts to take place in a huge way. So if someone claims I know him well, but doesn't keep his commandments, he obviously is a liar.

His life doesn't match his words. Now I want to take just a second here and I want y'all to read this because some of y'all are putting your wife's name in it. I know I read it the first time I was like, if Evie claims I know him well, I'm going to stop. I'm just kidding.

No, but I'm for real. Who knows that this is talking, your reading is it's talking to you. So this alone is telling you where your focus should be at. I know him well, but doesn't keep his commandments.

He obviously is a liar. His life doesn't match his words. If you are following God and you're worried about everything else around you and not worried about what you're doing with your life and trying to honor God, allowing the Word, which is true to reveal itself to better you, not look at somebody else, then we're doing this the wrong way. Okay, go the next slide with me.

Jesus focused on giving life. John 1010, the message translation says, a thief, everybody knows this, right? You can read it with me. A thief is only here to steal, kill, and destroy.

I come so they may, so they can have, no, listen guys, come on. Do you want to be real today or do we want to leave with a fake, fake truth? We can have a real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed. Thank you God.

I'm just going to go ahead and pray. I didn't pray yet. I did it. Father, thank you for today.

Thank you that we have an opportunity to have an authentic, real relationship with you that brings life that you're a life-giver father and we're just so grateful for that. Help our hearts just to unlock today our eyes to see the truth and just what you've called us to do and everything that you've done for us. We love you. We said amen.

Amen. All right. So the next slide is going to be a little tricky. I mean, I'm forever talking about this.

There it is. It's like a 15-second delay. Say this with me. It's not about not sinning.

It's about not living. Does that make sense? Some people are like, Bernie's like, he's going to ask that question of, so think about it. If sins paid for, we already went over this.

So our focus cannot be that. I can't stand it. If I'm standing up to this, I'm not doing that. What are you doing when you're doing all that to yourself?

Come on, y'all. If you are focused on something he didn't pay for or he already paid for, then where is your focus? It ain't on him. If it's not on him, tell me where it's at.

All the wrong things. So this is the nugget, the message in itself that if my eyes are on something that he already took care of and not on the thing that he's calling me to do to walk in because he took care of it, then what I'm doing with my life is I'm isolating myself from him and I'm walking further away and I'm not stepping in a thing that he's called me to do. So therefore, I am sin focused and I'm not focused on life itself, which he has died to give us. Amen?

All right. So I want to read to you, first John 1-8 in the message translation. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. If we claim that we are free of sin, we are only fooling ourselves.

A claim like that is errant nonsense. I didn't think anyone was going to say anything on that one. All right, I'll keep on the phones ringing. Someone's calling.

You know what? We try to turn that thing. It doesn't matter where we move back to the thing or how we try to turn it on. It rings somewhere.

You take it out there? It sounds like... First John 2, we're going back and first John 2, 24. Stay with what you heard from the beginning, the original message.

Let it sink into your life. If what you heard from the beginning lives deeply in you, you will live deeply in both son and father. This is exactly what Christ promised, eternal life, real life. So guys, there's an example that it's not about not sending, it's about not living.

So again, if we're living in what we heard, if the things that we've heard, that we've studied, that we've learned, which let's just get to the basics here. We all can say, well, if you're not safe, we'll have that opportunity too. But we believe that Christ died for us, right? That he rose again.

That was the big old party last week of his resurrection. But when we grasp that, just that alone, we understand that, then that gives us to the ability to live. To just understand that there's life for us. She said it before she was dropping her bars or maybe in the middle.

But she said it because, yeah, listen, because of him, he took my place. All right, then that means we got to start living, right? So this first John 1 8, if we claim that we are free of sin, we are only fully in ourselves, a claim that is errant nonsense, then we obviously know that sin is there, like there's sin in the world. Everybody understands that.

But when we stay with what we heard, that he gave for sin, that we understand what he did for us, and we keep that, then that will allow us to be able to draw closer, have communion with God and live deeply in both son and father. Man, this is huge. Maybe it's not coming out right. Because I'm excited up here.

I'm going to tell you guys, maybe I got a little help myself, but I had a, the reason I said I was on a mission, I was so excited, I had something happen to me this past week, and I want to go into two minutes details because I don't know if anyone's listening, I don't want to upset anybody, but I had a real, just an eye open in our experience. And it, when it brought me back, it brought me back. It tugged on me tightly, and it really changed. It opened my eyes and changed, I don't want to say it changed my course of how I'm walking, but maybe it brought me back to, to write standing and walking the way that he's called me to walk.

And I'm thankful for this experience, but I, I was in a conversation and something was said and I lost complete thought. When I say complete thought, my mind started running. Like when my wife asked for something and she's yelling and it's like, didn't hear, I put on my noise canceling headphones and I'm just sitting there like, didn't hear. Like I ran from it.

I say within, within seconds, like the thing that caught my heart was gone, but the thing that caught my heart and brought me back, it, it so touched me deeply. It almost makes me want to tear up now because how I got so far off of the need that was, that was needed to be met when I allowed the choice of somebody else, the decisions that they were making, taking me off of that. And it grabbed my heart because in just a little conversation, it made me realize that, wow, how my focus has gone so far left field. And now I'm looking like knowing my God, knowing these things because a lot of this and what we're talking about is, is knowing, supposedly knowing him as believers, but not walking like he is.

And it just grabbed a hold on me so tightly because there was a need that was being met that how, how even that got to us was wild. I'm not going to go through all of it, but, but for me to miss it, almost miss it because I wasn't focused on, on really what matters most, which is him. And I'll miss allowed the choice of somebody else to the opportunity for me to be used removed from it. And it's probably not going to be as impactful to you as it was me.

That's one of those moments that like Fred explained it great. And he's like, it's crazy how he was able to show me all of that within seconds. And it really, it really has me still mind boggled, but why I'm bringing this to you guys today is because I hope that as we leave here that we really see the way that Jesus walked and we want to start walking like that because he wants to use all of us right here right now. And if we're focused on anything other than who he is and what he's done for us and what he's called us to do, we're going to miss the little opportunities to give somebody else the opportunity who's reaching out for, for just a loving conversation to allow them to know that, hey, listen, it doesn't matter what you did or what you're doing, but it matters who you, who you run to.

So I have bad timing. This is probably not good to go into this next slide, but we're going to go with it anyway. Jump in. Boom.

So if Duncan Donk and Donuts is watching, I'll take a royalty. You can name a donut this. Sin-filled. The sin-filled.

I feel like I don't know why I thought I was going to donuts. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I started a whole war.

I didn't even think about it. It's just Duncan. Sin-filled focus. So what I'm about to read, y'all, is to hopefully help us see that how we can go from one extreme to the next and we can be so focused on sin that we're missing God in the whole situation.

And to do that, we're going to go to Matthew 23, chapter 23. And I'm going to be starting in verse 13. And I guess I'm going to be in the message translation. When everybody's there, say, hey, all right, we're ready to roll.

So starting in verse 13, it says, I've had it with you. You are hopeless. You religion scholars, you Pharisees, frauds. Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom.

You refuse to enter and won't let anyone else in either. You're hopeless. You're religion scholars and Pharisees, frauds. You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him, you make him into a replica of yourselves.

Double damned. Sorry. I want to stop right here for a second though, because it made me think of some things that we do as believers. It's funny.

It's funny how we're so, you're talking to someone who's lost. You want to just be easy with them and you love on them. You do all this stuff. And then you're like, yeah, you get to that point where you invite them to church.

They come to church. You're excited, right? Somehow that initial honeymoon love, passion, to just want to love on them quickly turns into, hey, what translation you reading? Hey, maybe you should probably, you missed last Wednesday.

What's going on with you? Yeah, some of us happen. Come on now, you don't have to be real, but for real, when we invite somebody or we're excited to tell God about something and then they get here, then for some reason we turn, we turn into now the police, the dog groomer, that is now we try to get them to where they need to be at or what they're not doing. And we are so lose focus.

And I don't want to go off track with that point. That point really stuck out to me because again, when we lose focus on him, it starts to go on everything else. And the last thing we want to do is push people away. Because if you can tell me one time that Jesus did that, then we can have it.

And if you have a time, or you think there's a time, see Phil after church, he's the bald, he's the bald man. Verse 16, you are hopeless. But arrogant stupidity, you say if someone makes a promise with a fingers crossed, that's nothing. But if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that's serious.

I love this. This is so awesome. Like seriously guys, I want us to start looking at some of the things that we do as believers. That is so far left field and so wild just because we, again, we brought up out of the fire in the mud and now we think that, I don't know how it says, or craft don't say.

And so now we just turn to this thing where we're making all these crazy rules and wanting people to follow them and then wonder why people are like, I don't want nothing to do with this. And then guess what we do even more, after that. They're crazy. Right?

We look at them some type of way, like what is wrong? Like, oh my God, there's no acing in hell. I hope you know that. But you know what I mean?

Like that's the stuff that we do. But the reality of it is, is why, again, how guys, I want to help our focus today, I want us to get a fixed focus on what he did and stop letting ourselves travel to these places to expecting everybody else because what this is talking to is me. This is talking to me to how to live my life after him that makes it appealing, that draws somebody in to want to say, hey, what's different about you? Not bring them in here and be like, all right, next.

All right, get out of here. Next. Come on now, next. And it's like we're beating people with the word of God.

Oh my goodness. I'm sorry, but I'm having church by myself today. We fingers crossed, but if you swear on the Bible, then it's super real. It's crazy.

So next slide. So 17, what ignorance? Me and forever talking about this one. I made this one red.

These are red letters. Everybody better read those. Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands? Oh my goodness gracious.

And you know what's funny about that? Because what we were talking about, you know, we got to start taking, grabbing a hold of who we really are, who our God is. Stop worrying about these nonsense things that listen, this is the word of God. I'm clarifying that, but I'm the word of God.

This is a book. I'm the living example. I'm his crafty work. You need to start telling yourself who you are and understanding who you really are in all of this and that all these side things and these practices that we're doing aren't going to draw us to communion with God.

The Bible is his word. I'm his word too. He knew me while I was in my mother's womb, right? Am I going to start believing these things that the Bible tells me and understand this and stop doing all this crazy side stuff and making these wild rules that really know nobody can, nobody literally can do.

Jesus is the only one that was perfect. He's the only one that was without sin. He completed, he followed Moses' law perfectly, perfectly. And he's the only one that can do that.

But we got to start believing some of this stuff that this is just a book. I'm the real life example of what he can do and who he really is. And that lives inside of me. Man, I want to get you all excited as I am.

And what about this piece of trivia? If you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing. But if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious. All right, let me put this in for Cephalonians, chapter 1.

Well God told me. I'm just kidding, we're not going there. But think about that. Think about what it said right there.

So if you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing. But if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious. What ridiculous hair splitting, what difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands? Because again, please help me start looking at this in a different way.

Help me start seeing the things that we're doing that's nonsense, that's not pointing us to the Father, that's not example in who the Father is and wasting all this time and start doing this. Listen, when I shake hands, my word to Fred is my word to Fred. Right? What it's saying is that should mean something.

That should mean something. My word to him and me shaking his hand. It is no difference. Why are we making a difference in these things that don't matter?

And why aren't we doing the things and sticking with the things that we say we're going to do or what we're doing? Why are we not believing them? What I've just read that a promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside the house of worship?

A promise is a promise. God is present watching and holding you to account regardless. Guys, this is, you know what this means? That whether you're not here at this altar or you're in the privacy of your own home and your bedroom by yourself, that your actions and what you choose to do, the heart and where it's postured when you're doing other things, that it doesn't matter where you're at.

God will meet you at home just as much as He'll meet you here on Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday when the band sounds great and the goosebumps are rolling and the Holy Spirit, the flags are rolling and people are going crazy and all this stuff that a promise is a promise. I don't think, do you guys hear this? Come on, help me out. A promise is a promise.

What difference does it make? If you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship, guys, we're the church. If we're going to walk this thing out, we've got to walk it out everywhere, everywhere. We want to honor our, like we got to want to honor God with our lives in everything that we do.

Listen, when I got to clean the Great White Throne, the porcelain, the porcelain throne, I tell you what, that thing is the seat and I'm trying to get that thing. I can get it all the time. What's taking you so long? Listen, now I'm not going to get into the details.

It's a little too much. But even doing that, I'm like, I'm going to do that thing right. Right? And that's the one thing you'd be like, no, but get out.

All right, Don, let's go to go. Yeah, don't look it out. Let's go. Let's go.

But the way that we're doing things and why we're doing them are so important. Next slide. You're hopeless. You religion scholars and Pharisees, frauds.

You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's law, things like fairness, compassion, commitment, the absolute basics, the absolute basics, you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Because listen, these things are required. They'll basics.

What are the basics? Give me a couple basics. What's some basics? Be kind.

Love one another. I mean, fairness, it's talking about all over here. Commitment, consistency. That's understanding what he did for us and saying we believe in it and then walking in it.

Not making excuses when things are challenging or when things get tough. All right. I got soft, Ant. The basics are required.

Do you have any idea how silly you look writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish? Knit picking over commas and semicolons? Guys, we're dealing with life in people's lives. Does that mean anything to anybody?

Like for real though. I know I joke a lot, but I'm being serious right now. For real, for real, for real. We are dealing with people's lives.

How we conduct ourselves and what we do matters a lot. And if we're going to walk as Jesus walk, then we got to focus on the needs of people and be available, be open for him to use us and stop allowing the choices to stop us from stepping in and allowing God to use us in the places that we're needed most. And guys listen, I know you're going to go back. You're going to try to find scripture all over the place that tells you where you're to flip tables, have righteous anger.

You're supposed to flee. You're supposed to do all these things. Yes, it's in Timothy. I know where this stuff's at.

I've read my Bible too. But what I'm trying to get across today is that yes, all this stuff is accurate. But when it says Jesus came to do what? Say it again.

Fill it. He is a life giver. He came and gave life. He did this.

Like no, did this thing. He didn't just talk about it. He didn't make excuses why he couldn't do certain things or why he wouldn't do certain things or he did none of that. He came and did this thing.

And if we are abiding in him continuously growing and having communion with him, growing in relationship with him. And the more we do that, it's not that sins not since here, sins real, sins now. But the more we focus on him in life, because he gives life and we're called to be life givers as well, the more we focus on that, the sin around us starts to fade. I'm not saying that it leaves completely.

Don't get me wrong. And I know I said this before. Look up the other day or this is a couple of weeks back now. And I just had it like it was real to me that my morning started crazy.

My wife doesn't get coffee. It's a crazy house. So it started off crazy. And I was like, you know what?

It's real. He's real. He's around. But by golly, if you're going to be here, you're going to hold my coffee.

Like you're doing something. Like follow me. I'm coming in control today. You're coming with me.

It's so true. But then go to the next platform, please. Focusing on sin will lead to religious practice that isolates you from God. Next slide is 1 John 2, 15 through 17.

I wanted to get down. I broke it up there in the middle. I'm going to wrap up in John towards the end of it. Starting in 15.

Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically, everything that goes on in the world, one in your own way.

Sorry, I thought your name was in there babe. I'm not going to lie. It goes on the world, one in your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important. Ooh, what's some people in here?

That was me. Wanting to appear important has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him. Come on, man.

I'll give it to you again. Practically, everything that goes on in the world, wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him. The world and all it's wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out.

But whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. With that being said, the next slide, focusing on life will lead to a relationship with the Father. Guys, listen, today is super important. And my mission today is for you guys to get so focused on Him and what He did.

I mean so focused on Him and what He did. And when you focus on your own life, I promise you, you will start to see. He will open your eyes, your heart, your ears. You'll start seeing different.

In all these things that people are doing around you, I'm not saying that they're not annoying. I'm not saying that they're not distracting. I'm not saying any of these things. But what I am saying is that the more I put focus on the one, Him, who is peace, who is all of these things, is the more that my life is going to go in that direction.

And I'm able to walk after Him. I'm able to do these things after Him. Because religion can't save you. I need to tell you again, religion cannot save you.

Religious practices won't draw you closer. It's your heart and understanding what He did, which leads you to a relationship. And that is the thing that is going to set you then free. Because guess what?

That is truth. And the truth will... Everybody knows that one. I was listening to, well, I forget his name, my wife listens to him, but he was talking about being free.

He said, most people think they're free. But to truly be free is in the situation you have the opportunity to freely choose to do what's right. And it makes so much sense. Because when you choose to do something, that's where a genuine authentic...

It completes it. You know what I mean? When it's an obligation, when you feel like you have to do it, and you're working for it and all these things, and it's not free... You don't understand that it's freely giving to you, and then you choose to do it.

That's freedom. It's knowing what to do and what not to do, but choosing what to do is right. And that's true freedom. I like that.

So I'm going to go ahead and start to begin to wrap up with the end of John, 1 John 2, reading 27 through 29. But they are no match for what is embedded deeply within you. Christ, anointing, no less. You don't need any of their so-called teaching.

This is talking towards false teachers. Christ, anointing, teaches you the truth on everything you need to know about yourself and him. It must not have been good enough. So Christ, anointing, teaches you the truth on everything you need to know about...

Point to me. Not you, point to me. You point to yourself. Yourself and him, uncontaminated by a single lie.

Live deeply in what you were taught. 28. And now children. Stay with Christ.

Live deeply in Christ. Then we'll be ready for him when he appears. Ready to receive him with open arms. With no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives.

29. Once. Everyone read this with me. You're convinced that he is right and righteous.

You'll recognize that all who practice righteousness are God's true children. So wrapping up with that, what that's saying there is that it's on you. It comes down to you and what you're choosing to do. It says once you're convinced.

It says, listen, nothing on this planet, I've learned this, nothing on this planet is going to get you. I don't care what you put yourself around. How many things you listen to, how many things. I'm not saying this stuff doesn't help.

Please don't disregard what I'm saying. But you have to be the one to say you believe. And then once you're convinced of that, when you are convinced that you believe in him and who he is, it says that he is right and righteous, you'll recognize. You will be the one to recognize that all who practice righteousness are God's true children.

That speaks so much to me because it says that when I really start to believe in him and I start to focus on him, that he begins to allow me to see life through his limbs. And that when I'm able to do that, then the needs that are around me and I'll be able to meet them. That I'm so engulfed, if you will, in who he is and what he's doing. The things when it says to abide in him and walk as he walks, I see what he's doing.

I don't see anything else. I see that he has love for this person. So he heals him. I see that he does whatever is necessary to get to the point to do what he has to do and what he was called to do and what he came to do.

Nothing took him off track. And when we can get to the place that we're truly convinced of who he is and we recognize these things, this is what is so cool that we'll start seeing all of these needs. And we'll be able to meet him. We'll be so excited that we get an opportunity to meet him because of what he's done for us and guys, your focus, please hear me, your focus will be so on point.

I used to, Tanya, you just always laugh. She'd be like, what's up? How you doing? I was like laser focused and she'd always make a joke.

But the reality of it is, is when we become so focused on him, we start to see life and don't focus on sin no longer. And that's going to start to change things for us in a big way, in a big way. And I'm thankful that God showed me that in that moment of how far I've walked off or I just got to a place and was missing these little things. But what's so cool is that he doesn't let us miss the mark, right?

We might have missed that one, but he brings it right back around and gives us another opportunity to grab a hold and grab tight and really begin to just surrender our lives to him because those God moments are the ones that really touch us. The last slide I have here says, focus on your walk. Jesus was focused on his. He knew what he came to do.

He accomplished what he came to do. He left every example that we would ever need. He actually, and what I love, what's so cool is that he says that if everything would be recorded what he did. And I was thinking about that because you know how we limit ourselves so much to, I can't even think about some of the crazy things that he probably did.

We limit it to these basic things, but there was probably the situations that we would, I don't know, I can't even think of one. It probably wouldn't come out right anyway, so I don't want to try it. But I'm just saying in general that he was here to do one thing and he did it. And now he's giving us the ability to do it.

So when we focus on a true relationship with him and we don't change after religion or anything else is when we will really start to live this real life that it was talking about. And you guys are needed. This is needed. And I hope that you guys received this.

I wasn't trying to come at anybody sideways. I was just trying to allow us to know that if we're not focused on him, then we're focused on the wrong things. And there's a lot of big issues out there that need focus on and that need us as a team to collectively come together and approach. And if we're not on the same page and we're out here scattered trying to fight these little mini fires and there's big ones going on, then we really got to fix our focus and put it back on him.

So he can come up with it. I just want to take a few minutes. I know this gets to the weird part about church everyone's like, oh no. God sent me on a mission today to allow you to know that he loves you, that he is doing everything he can to show you how real he is.

And just again, how far he will go just to get a little tug on your heart to say, hey, come on. I need you to see this because what I have for you is super important. I need you to understand this so I can draw you back to not focus on these things, but someone's life is crying out right in front of you and you're focused on their choices and not what you need to be focused on. The direction I was going to go before God hit me with this and laid us on my heart was I felt like it was kind of, you know, you have resurrection and the great commission and I'm like, yeah, I was excited.

But something as I was reading, it was neat. Jesus and Peter are talking and John's hanging out in the back and Peter's like, what's going to happen to him? And John's like, or Jesus says, what's it to you if I keep him alive till I return? And that stuck out so much to me because what he was saying is he wasn't coming down on Peter, but what he was saying was that you need to focus on your own fate.

So guys today, focus on your fate.