Are you sleeping in the garden? - Saturated with Pastor Robbie Gallaty

- Amen. Good evening. Try it again for those excited to be here. Everybody excited to be here tonight? Amen. (audience cheering) Man, what a privilege to be here with you. Welcome to your online at our campuses, 11.22 at college as well. And our student section, shout out to the student section. So good to hear of you as well. Joby, thank you, Pastor Joby, for having me here. I don't take this lightly. I've gotten to know your pastor pretty close over the last year, over a year. And I have literally booked him for every event we have at Long Hollow. So he did our men's conference with John at the declutter who you guys will hear from in two days who you're in for a treat. If you haven't heard JP or maybe you have, he's such a man of God. And then I've got your pastor coming back for our multiply conference. And then we're gonna run it again in Nashville for our men's conference. What I love about your pastor is, and you guys know this, those of you who are here, but we live in a world today where the Bible is an afterthought, a footnote,

or a launching pad in the sermon. Never to come back to. But you have a pastor who unapologetically preaches the word of God, and that's a rarity today, amen? So thank you, pastor, for that. And he's got an amazing pastor's wife and our wives, as he knows, are the unsung heroes of this church. And so thank you, Gretchen, for what you do for the Church of 1122. Only God knows what you and Candy have done for us. Today, I wanna preach a message that literally has changed my life, and I'm gonna start with a question. If you take a note, I encourage you to do so. If not, act like it, it makes you look holy. (congregation laughing) I'm just fine. But seriously, the title is this, are you sleeping in the garden? Are you sleeping in the garden? Do you remember the most important day of your life? Anybody remember that? Most important day of your life? Some would say, man, the day accepted Christ, amen? I would say, behind that, you would have made if you're married, hopefully, your wife or husband. Next to you would say, the day I got married. Anybody with me? Anybody nervous like I was the day you got married? I don't know why, but pastor, I was so nervous.

I knew the, Candy's like, what were you nervous about? You wanna marry me? No, I was just nervous in the moment. Like, I knew how big this moment was. And all of the things leading up to it, right? The planning and the parties and the showers and the get-togethers and the dress picking and the flower arrangements and the invitations which thank God we have wives who did all of that for us. Can I get any amen? But I want you to imagine that big day, just like recreate, and those who aren't married, one day, just put yourself there, you're there. Like the moment you're there, the groom walks forward with the pastor and as the wife or the bride-to-be is about to enter into the room, everybody is quiet, all heads turn to the bride and you look over from the stage and you realize your mom is sleeping. I mean, I just imagine it's like, her head is on the shoulder of your sister and you look at your sister and she's sleeping with her head on the shoulder of your brother and your brother is sleeping with his head on the shoulder of your aunt and uncle, okay? This is like the biggest moment of your life and you are what? Audience participation, by the way, right? You're what?

Horrified, right? You're like, what in the world? Don't you guys know? Like this is the biggest moment of my life. Don't you understand how important this moment is? I want you to imagine the horror you would feel in that moment and I want you to multiply it 10x. If you've ever felt that way, that is how Jesus felt. At the hardest moment arguably in his earthly life and he brings three of his closest friends to pray and they can't even pray for 60 minutes with him before the cross. See, the question Jesus is asking them, I believe it's the same question. He's gonna ask you personally. I wanna make this personal for you tonight. The same question, online, look at me. One of our campuses, I want you to get this. Jesus is gonna ask you this question. Can you not pray with me one hour? If you have a Bible, I hope you do. Turn with me to Matthew 26. Matthew 26, we'll start in verse 31 at Long Hollow, the church I pastor right outside of the Nashville area. simply because we know it's the word that changes our life. We want to get into the word until the word gets into us. Amen? So are you there? Say word. Say it like you mean it.

(audience) Amen. You doing okay? Everybody okay? All right, here we go, the word of the Lord. Then Jesus said to them the disciples, tonight all of you will fall away because of me for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. And Peter the self-appointed spoke, so how many people resonate with Peter? Anybody in here? You have a foot-shaped mouth too, amen? Like me, I'm like Peter, right? Peter the self-appointed spoke when speaks up and he says, even if all these jokers fall away, boss, I'm never gonna fall away. And Jesus said to him, truly, I tell you Peter, tonight before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Even if I have to die with you, Peter said, I will never deny you. And all the disciples said the same thing, the word of the Lord. Let me pray as we begin. Lord, we're asking to hear a word from you. Not a word from a man, not a word from a worship team or a pastor or a preacher, but a word from you. That we have fasted as a church, we have sought you.

That the preparation, the planning, everything that has gone into this moment, God, I know this church, I know about this church, and God, I know this church has touched the hem of the garment before and once a church touches the hem of the garment, they are never the same. They're not the same because we come today anticipating you to move and to revive, not just our church to revive us. You gotta kinda feel like this place is filled with spirits of gasoline on the floor and we're just waiting Holy Spirit for you to come and drop the match, set us on fire for you. Speak to us now, you be the teacher, God, we'll be the student, we pull up a seat at your table. Speak to us now, anything that is not helpful or beneficial or God-honoring, I forget that I say, but anything that is scriptural, biblical, edifying, incursing God, they would remember and apply to their lives. I pray they hear from you. We ask it in your name and everyone said, amen. I'm gonna give you two insights from this text, two simple insights I think will help us all in our spiritual journey is based on the life of Peter and the first one is this, it's better to listen than to speak, can I get it in amen? It's better to listen than to speak. Peter is so busy, like a lot of us trying to tell Jesus all the great things he's gonna do for God.

And Jesus like, hey, Pete, calm down, look, you're gonna deny, I'm never gonna deny you. What do you thought, no, Peter, trust me, you're gonna deny me. Even if all these guys turn away, I'm never gonna deny you. And Jesus says, actually, you're gonna deny me three times before the rooster crows. Now, I want you to be honest for just a moment and I want you to think about your own prayer life because I had to do this in my own life and I wanna help you a little bit. If you're honest about your prayer life, it's probably like mine ones. It's selfish, self-centered monologue in a sense rather than a two-way dialogue with God, right? It's normally us trying to tell God how to do his job better. I mean, that was my prayer life, right? It was shallow, it was self-centered, it was short, and it was me trying to tell God, if you just bless this laundry list of things I have, then life will go better for me, right? Anybody pray like that? Like I bring all these agenda items to the Lord and my prayer life is telling God how to do his job better. I listened very little to the Lord. Anybody amen to that? You know what's sad? That's most Christians prayer life. And sadly, no one taught you how to pray.

I realized that was Peter's problem and that's our problem. When was the last time you sat and listened to the Lord? Let me say it another way. When was the last time you tried to bend your ear to hear the accent of the Holy Spirit? See, when you learn to listen, I find in my own life, I become less critical. of other people, and I learned that I should be more broken over my sin than boasting in myself. You and I know this, we live in a world today of technological keyboard cowboys. Anybody know what I'm talking about? We have a lot of keyboard cowboys around today. Now, Pastor Joby, you and I pretty similar in age. We grew up in a day that if you said something to me, remember back in how many people around, around 50 years old, young men, actually young men, around 58, yeah, young boy, young bucks. I turned 50 on Sunday, yeah. I don't feel 50, I feel like I'm 25, but I'm getting on my way for my, but anyway, but we lived in a world back in the day, and those who are older. If you said something behind my back, what would I say? Come say, will we say, right? Come say to my face, right? We don't live in that world anymore, right? We live in a world today where people talk constantly behind our back, and here's the rule of thumb. Don't miss this.

If you would not say what you would type online, face to face, then don't say it at all. Don't say it at all. Let me remind you, your opinion is not, and I say this with love, so hear me, but your opinion is not as important as you think it is. And everybody doesn't need to hear. Bump the person next to you and say, he's talking about me, right? I'm like, but I mean, that's the reality, right? We live in a day and age where Facebook and Twitter are breeding grounds for backroom criticism. And people just criticize all day long, something to remember is this. Everything, don't feel the way to this. Everything you post, every word you say online, every text you send, every tweet you post is saved in a database forever. Feel the way to this, forever. And some people are like, well, I can delete it on my phone. It doesn't matter. There is a database that saves everything. I want you to understand this. God also has a spiritual database in heaven. Every word, every action, every comment, everything you text, everything you look at, everything you type is stored in a spiritual database for eternity. Now, if you're born again in this room, you should amen to this in a moment.

If you're born again in this room, you know that that database is covered by the blood of Jesus. Amen? He washes all of it clean. So here's the rule of thumb as a Christian man or woman. Three things, write this down. Pause before you post. I mean, it's simple, but we gotta go back to the basics, right? And I'm preaching to my self here. Pause before you post. Think before you text. Pray before you type. If you just do that, it'll help you a long way. How many people in here like myself have said something or texted something, and then an hour later or a day later, you think, what was I thinking? Now, I know that's never happening to you, but I've heard of it. It's all of us, right? But if you think before you text and pray before you post, I think it would go a long way. Here's what the Lord showed me coming close. If I wanted to keep getting my agenda into heaven, then I was gonna have to keep incessantly talking to God. But if I wanted to understand what God's agenda from heaven was and get it onto earth in me and through me, I was gonna have to do a whole lot more listening. And I was not good at listening. I'll tell you in a moment of my journey for 10 months in silence and solitude on the porch of my house,

bending my ear to the accent of the Holy Spirit. I had to read just to full disclosure, I had to reintroduce myself to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. I went to a Southern Baptist theological center. You know, there's two types of extremes for the Holy Spirit. There are those on one side that are the frozen chosen, most of the guys of the tribe I came from, right? Like we don't want to touch the Holy Spirit or talk about. And then the other side, you have the Charis Maniacs and basically extreme, right? And I'm here to tell you, we need more of a centered approach. Amen? Here's what I've learned about the Holy Spirit. And by the way, some of you in here are like, wow, you're talking about the Holy Spirit. Make me nervous, right? That used to be me. And I had to reintroduce myself to the Holy Spirit, why? 'Cause I was convicted, I knew more about Jesus who was here for 33 years than the Holy Spirit who's filled believers for the past 2000. We'll tell you a couple of things I've learned about the third. And by the way, don't ever say it. He's a he, he's a person. Watch this, the Holy Spirit is not weird. This is what I've learned, he's not weird. Why do I say that? 'Cause he will never lead you to do something contrary to every word he wrote in this book.

He wrote every word in this book, inspired men to write down the words of God. He's not gonna ask you to do something contrary. leader than you and I will ever be. And I know when he's leading, it always goes better than when I'm in charge. Can they get named that, right, always. Here's the last one, and this is the one that got me and it's pertinent to our time together. Jesus said that the role of the Holy Spirit, when he comes, remember this, John 14, John 16, Jesus says he will come as the counselor. Do you remember this? Counselor. He's the best counselor we have in the world, bar none. Here's the question I want to ask you and I want you to answer this personally before the Lord. When was the last time you consulted with him and him alone? Or baby, let me say this way. When was the last time you even tried? See, Peter had a problem. He was trying to tell God how to do his job better. And as I sat with the Lord, I started to realize there's a trap all Christians can fall into, write this down. I want you to avoid it. Don't ever fall into the trap of doing ministry for Jesus without having intimacy with Jesus. It's very easy to fall in love with the ministry of Jesus and out of love with the Jesus of our ministry, talking to pastors here, leaders, church leaders,

Sunday school teachers, deacons, elders, listen to me. It's very easy to do ministry for Jesus without intimacy with Jesus. Peter, listen, it's a whole lot better to listen than to speak. Number two, it's a whole lot better to pray than to sleep. And that's what Peter did, right? It's a whole lot better to pray than to sleep. Look at verse 36. After this prediction, Jesus takes them to the garden. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane. He told the disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray, taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee." You know who they are? Say it out loud. John and James, three closest friends. He began to be sorrowful and troubled and he said to them, "I am deeply grieved." To the point, if you guys only knew what was about to happen. I mean, hear Jesus saying this. Can you just remain here with me? And stay, it's all I'm asking. Just stay awake, it's all I'm asking. Stay awake with me. Going on a little farther, Jesus fell face down and he prayed, "My father is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will." Don't miss us, just a sidebar here. Somebody needs to hear this.

It's encouraging to us to know that even the second person of the Trinity, Jesus didn't get all his prayers answered. You ever thought about that? Even the sovereign son prayed, "Father, I know this is the plan, but if there's any other way." And the dad says, "No son, that's it." And Jesus says, "Okay." Some people don't get all your prayer, even Jesus didn't get all his prayers answered. Then Jesus came to the disciples and found them sleeping. He asked Peter, underline that. He asked Peter, "So couldn't you stay away with me one hour?" That's the question for all of us. Stay away and pray. It's pray so that you won't enter into temptation, Peter. John, James, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is what? It's weak, it's better to pray than to sleep. Jesus brings the disciples to the garden of Gethsemane. Now I want you to see the garden is going to be in the centerpiece of two other accounts or encounters of Jesus. I'll get to the second, the third one in the moment. But here's what the garden symbolizes. You have to understand this. The garden is a place of prayer. The garden is a place where you go to meet with God. Now here's the problem with the garden from any Christians. Nobody wants to go to the garden. Why? Because nobody recognizes you for going to the garden. No one's posting Instagram pics of you

in the garden of prayer. Nobody's giving you accolades. They're not giving you trophies for going to the garden. But here's the thing, church, listen to me. The garden is where God is. God's in the garden. And Jesus says, hey, would you guys just pray with me in the garden? And the text says, if we keep reading, Jesus comes back and then he leaves and then he comes back. How many times does he come back to check on these men? Three times. And then all of a sudden they hear this movement of soldiers in the distance and Peter wakes up from his afternoon, Siesta, you know, and he wipes his eyes from his hour-long power. So what does Peter do? He pulls out this little makaira sword, which is the same sword, the zealot shoes. It was kind of a hidden assassin sword. He pulls out the sword, and what does he do with the sword? Do you remember? He cuts the ear off of the soldier. I don't have time to preach on this, but just the sidebar is pretty interesting to think about this. Why would Peter cut off the ear? Some would say, well, he's that bad of a, bad of an aim. (chuckles) Right, he's a sleep walk. No, actually it was way worse than that.

Some people say he aimed for the neck and hit the ear. It's actually way worse than that. Malchas, who is the servant of the chief priest, that's who the text says the ear he cut off, Malchas actually worked in the temple. And according to the Mishnah, a commentary in the Old Testament, back then, if you cut off or cause someone to be disfigured in their ear or their nose or their hand, watch this, they were excluded from serving in the temple. Peter was a sniper with that sword. Peter did something worse to him than anything in the world. He excluded him from the presence of God. And Jesus, what are you doing, man? That's not what I'm thinking. What are you doing? And what does Jesus do? He heals the man. And the cool thing is Jesus heals it. This is always what Jesus does. He heals him completely to remove any evidence. If Malchas goes back and says, "This guy cut off my ear." The chief priest would say, "Where?" Here's the point, don't miss this. Jesus just saved Peter's life. Why? Because if Peter cuts off the ear, there are four crosses on Calvary that day. And we know what Peter does after that.

Peter cuts the ear off. Jesus heals the ear back. And then he follows Jesus from the garden to the temple mountain. The text picks up in Luke chapter 22. There are 60, so who are you placed here? I just want to show you quickly what Luke says because Luke, the doctor, captures one line that causes us to stop cold in our tracks. Luke 22, 60, if you're there, you can say a word. Same account, different perspective. They're in the courtyard of the high priest and there's a fire going. And a girl comes up and she says, "Hey, wait, you look like you're from the Galilee area." Here's line of me. Look like you're a redneck. No, I'm not a redneck, man. I'm from the city, I'm not a city boy. And then another person, like, you talk like Jesus. You sound like you're from there and Peter denies. And then the last thing I'll watch this, verse 60, Peter said, "Man, I don't even know what you're talking about." And immediately while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed, "I want you to get this." Feel the way to this, verse 61. "Then the Lord Jesus turned and looked at Peter." And at that moment, Peter remembered the word of the Lord and how he had said to him, "Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times."

Verse 62, "Probably the saddest verse in all Peter's life." And he went out and wept what? Bitterly. While Jesus is being beaten to the point of death in the earshot of Peter, Peter is denying that he ever knew him in the first place. I mean, how does something like this even happen? And Peter's so caught up in his denial, incursing and yelling. And then all of a sudden, he stops when he hears in the distance, this rooster crowing. And it's at that moment something happens. Jesus could have talked to him, we assume he would have been in the distance of talking, he would have heard him. And Jesus, notice what he doesn't do. Jesus doesn't belittle him in the moment, he could have. Peter, what's wrong with you, man? I told you, you're gonna do this, you didn't listen, you're not gonna have, what? Didn't do that. You always talking and not, he doesn't do that. Luke says he doesn't have to, why? Because all it takes is for time to stand still. And Peter looks over and locks eyes with Jesus's blood shot eyes. And right there he realizes he's messed up and done one thing wrong. Friends, I wanna submit to you, Peter knew in the moment one thing. The reason he failed in the courtyard

is because he was sleeping in the garden. I know what you're thinking, how do you know that? That may be a stretch to me, how do you know that? I'm gonna prove it to you, go back to Matthew 26. And I wanna point out one thing that brings this home for all of us, and that is, who does Jesus, verse 40? Who does Jesus call out when he goes back? Who does Jesus call out? Look at verse 40. He says, who? Say with me. Peter, say it again. Could you not just say, wait, one hour. It's Peter. Have you ever wondered why you fail in the courtyard of life? Could it be because you are sleeping in the garden? How many times have you failed in life because you failed to pray? Let me ask you this way. If Jesus were to look at you today, which he is, would he say the same thing to you about your prayer life? Could you not pray with me? One hour? One hour. You know, we live in a country today, the greatest country in the world, the United States of America, amen? United States, greatest country in the world. But sadly, we're becoming more like the UK

in the sense of we're actually more divided in America than United. We're divided in this country over race. We're divided in this country over political affiliation. We're divided in this country over the presidential candidate we follow. We're divided even in the churches today. That's outside, but let's take inside the churches today. We're divided over the kind of music we sing, the kind of clothes a pastor wear, the kind of sermons he should preach. We're divided over whether you should meet online or in person or bro. We're divided over whether we should do live preaching or video preaching or stream preaching at all. And all the while while we are infighting, the enemy is winning. He's winning. Church of 11, 22, listen to me. What a divided nation is begging for is a united church of Jesus Christ. That's what he's begging for. That's what God is begging for. (congregation applauding) And friends, the enemy wins when you and I are not standing on the battlefield shoulder to shoulder fighting a common enemy like we should. Instead, we're in the barracks looking face to face against our brothers and sisters killing each other with friendly fire.

And all the while Satan is laughing at us. Let me remind you today as I'm about to close. The battle for this country is not one or loss. The battle for the Bible is not one or loss. The battle for our children is not one or loss in the courtrooms or in Congress or even in the classroom today. The battle is one or loss in the prayer closet of a Christian. I want you to get that. The prayer closets of a Christian for the lack thereof. I'm convinced Pastor Joby, I'm convinced of this and I know it my own life. Every failure in life and ministry is a prayer failure. Prayer failure. I learned this, I mentioned it earlier. Like you, I went into COVID, totally unprepared as a pastor, just full disclosure. I was, remember COVID, y'all remember COVID 2020 going? Yeah, yeah. I went into COVID unprepared and whether you were a pastor of a church on a platform like this, if you had any platform at all, like a Twitter account or an Instagram or Facebook page, what we were doing is every decision we made bifurcated our congregation and our family and made half of people mad. Half the people in our life got mad, right? Vaccine, no vaccine, half were mad.

Mask or no mask, right? Meeting person or meet online, everybody got mad. And I was burning out, I didn't know it. And I had a good friend in the church, he came to me and he said something to me that started a process that changed my entire life and ministry. He said, "Pasarabi, you're running out of frenetic pace that is unsustainable. You need to learn how to slow down and sit with the Lord in silence." Now, if you don't do me very well, you could probably tell I'm not a silenced kind of guy. Amen. Anybody with it? Who else would say, I'm not a, sorry, some of you are going to tune out, I want you to tune in, don't check out. Because I like you would read those books on spiritual discipline and get to that silence and solitude chapter and I would just skip over that chapter and think, what is an ancient practice of silence and solitude? Have anything to do with my 21st century life, right? That's not for me. But then I mentioned to you, I was desperate. And when you're desperate, you'll try anything. And so I started to go, it's hard to find practices of silence and solitude. So I started to go back into the dark ages.

I looked at men and monasteries and different people who gave their life to this. Now, I knew how to do this. I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. Right, anybody from Louisiana? out the bones. And I spit out a lot of bones, but I developed a practice that I began to sit with the Lord in silence. And I started to go out to my porch and my wife, Candie's here with me. I would put the kids to bed. I'd watch a show with my wife. My kids were little or my two boys were younger. And so I'd go out after our time together. And I started to sit with the Lord. I started with five minutes. And then it went to 10 minutes. And then it went to 15, 20, an hour, and then two hours every night with the Lord. It became this insatiable desire. It was like a muscle of working out. You just build time up. And it became this insatiable desire to be in the presence of God. I longed to be every night with the Holy Spirit. I didn't know much about it. I mean, like you, I didn't know what silence was. It's unlike any other spiritual discipline in the Christian life. So if you're about to practice this or try this, which I hope you do, let me just temper your expectations. Watch this. Most spiritual disciplines like reading the Bible has built in in a sense this law of reciprocity. And what I mean is this, if you read the Bible, you read the Bible expecting to get a word. If you pray, you pray to get an answer. That's how we work. You do this. God does that. You go on a mission trip not to get something back, but you always do. You give not to receive, but God always blesses. You know that silence and solitude. Let me just remind you, most of the time, there's no tangible response. Not that I wasn't looking or trying. I remember one night I was sitting with the Lord. It was about three, four months in. And I was on my porch and I had a time with about an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes. And I got up and I saw nothing. I heard nothing. Not that I wasn't looking for it. I mean, I looked. I was like, is that star consolation in the form of the Hebrew word? Is that yaw? Is that yaw? I mean, I was like, I was looking for it. I would look for it. You know, did I hear Jesus said, you know, none of that, none of that, just to show you. I mean, none of that. And I remember walking inside. And at this time, I'd sat with the Lord every night for about 90 days. And I just looked up to the

sky and I said, God, really, what was that? I'm like, I got nothing. It was only for an hour and a half. And I got nothing. What was that? And the Holy Spirit, as He always does, She's very lovingly just taught me on the shoulder and said, no, you didn't get nothing. You got everything because I finally got you and you got me. Friends, listen to me. That's when I realized my entire Christian life up to that point was about me trying to get something from God. And here's what I learned. God just wanted to be with me. And I don't know all of you in here. I'm probably not most, but I do know this because I know me. I would say this with love to you. I bet today God misses your company. If you're at one of our campuses here in a dorm room somewhere, God misses your company. And I would suggest that many of you would say, I miss God's as well. When was the last time you went out in the presence of God? No agenda, no expectations, no laundry list. God, I just want nothing less and no one else but you. I just want you. And so I'm sitting for six months. I've gotten comfortable with the Lord. I'm practicing silence, sitting with the Lord in the presence of God. And it was right in the middle of the summer, right toward the end and the George Floyd passing away. And I mentioned that from the pulpit and made people upset. And then I had an African-American preacher during gray mutual friend of ours. He preached for me. And you know, because back then it was crazy. You couldn't support brown and black folk and the police at the same time. It was bonkers to me. But that was the word we're living. And I'll be honest, I was done with the whole thing. And I said to the Lord one night, if this is what church is, I'm done. I'm tired of making people happy. I'm tired of pleasing people, tired of losing people for foolish things. And I'm done. And God, if you don't fix my church and the problems of my church and why are I to fix the problems with my staff and my staff with siloed and fix the problems with my deacons. And if you have an Airsty time, fix the country as well. You ever had a pity party with the Lord like that? And when I was done, the Lord very graciously said, "Are you done?" I'm done, you know. And God spoke this line into my heart, "Change everything." And I hear it audibly, but I knew it was the Lord. The Lord said, "Robbie, the problem is not with your church. The problem to revival coming to Long Hollow is not with your staff. The problem to revival coming to your life is not with your. The problem to revival coming to long hollow is you. You're the problem.

If you've ever been that gut level, honest with the Lord's, that's pretty painful. And honestly, I mean, I pushed back. If you know my testimony, for those who don't know, God radically saved me 24 years ago this November from a $200 a day, heroin and cocaine addiction, God radically saved my life. Yeah, I mean, set free. Man, I was going to tell you that story, but I don't have time, but you find online if you're interested, but the God radically, so I wasn't a drug addict anymore. And I would push back like, what, I'm not on drugs. I'm not an alcoholic. My guy's a great son to look at porn. And I push back on the overt outward sins. But you have to be careful with the Holy Spirit. He has an amazing way, by the way, to put his finger on the exact pulse of the problem if you ask him. You got to be careful. And I asked him, I said, "Well, what's the problem?" And the Holy Spirit said, "The problem is you're way too prideful." You, Robbie, are the master of fishing and the pond of approval of other people. You know how to ask somebody on Sunday. What did you, what did you really enjoy about my sermon, brother? Robbie, you know how to take credit for me better than anyone else. You post online and you make like, you act like

it's about me and the church. But it's really about you. And I realized at that moment, the platform of Robbie was so blurred, I didn't know the difference between the cause of Christ. And it was so blurred, the Lord said, "You're a master of stealing joy from me and credit for me." Here's the one that got me. The Lord said, "Man, you are way too jealous." And that one, just full disclosure, that one called me off guard because you would think, "What are you jealous of?" You have a great church, you have a great family, you have an amazing wife, you have a great ministry. What do you jealous of? This is what I was jealous of. If the pastor down the street baptized more than we did at Long Hollow, I was jealous. I wouldn't say it publicly, but I would think it internally. If a person wrote a book and they got more traction than my book, I got jealous of my heart. If a person posted a picture and they got more likes and tweets and shares, I was jealous. And the Lord spoke this into my life. Robby, if you can't pray for the church down the street to be blessed in spite of Long Hollow, I am never blessing your church, big boy, because this is my kingdom, not yours. Let me remind you. It changed my life.

Ten months in the day was December 15th, 2020. I remember it like it was yesterday. I could describe the whole night. I was sitting with the Lord like I had done for ten months before, and it's clear as day I hear in my ears. Spontaneous baptism. Now I was raised in church. I was raised Roman Catholic. And I came to faith later in life. And so I didn't have a dad. It was a pastor. I didn't have a lot of friends. I've never seen spontaneous baptism. Now, since then I've realized, by the way, pastor, you know this, every people push back and say, "I don't know if that's biblical." Well, you can't read Acts because every baptism in Acts was spontaneous. So take that. Bloggers who were criticizing me from Kentucky. But anyway, I'm not bitter, I'm just... But seriously. But anyway, no. But anyway, but I didn't know what to do. And so I sat on it for a couple of days. I went to my staff and I said, "There's a crazy idea, but we're going to offer spontaneous baptism." My staff was like, "All right, pastor, we're following you. We know you're sitting with the Lord." And on December 20th, 2020, actually at Long Hollow,

this Sunday, pastor, we're celebrating five years since it happened, not long ago, six years ago. You know, five years ago it happened at Long Hollow. And so we're kind of celebrating what God has done. But I offer spontaneous baptism. And the Lord put a number in my heart. He's only done this three times. And the number He put on my heart for that Sunday was 100. Now, I know you guys are used to just God doing crazy things in the church. I mean, 2000 baptism. Okay. But you've got to understand. Let me just frame this for you, okay? The average Southern Baptist Church or 50% of Southern Baptist Church is last year baptized nobody, half of them. And 75% of them, I think, baptized less than five people, five or less. So what you're experiencing here is nothing less than miraculous, okay? But let me just frame this for you. We emailed the church the week of December 20th and said, "If you're sick, stay home. If you come, wear a mask, made everybody mad." I mean, literally, it was like a lyser. We just kept pouring water on the offering. [ Laughter ] It was the week before Christmas, and it was the last Sunday we would meet in person for the next month because the nurses and doctors who were part of our congregation were coming to my

office in tears saying, And they were throwing out words like this. We won't say this, I'll say it now, we didn't back then. But every case of COVID is traced back to Long Hollow. We think you may be a super spreader. That was a curse word back then, you remember that word? So we went online for four weeks. What I'm saying is we created the smallest attended services, two of them, in the history of Long Hollow. I've been there five years at that point, ever, ever. Not to mention it was COVID. And the Lord put in my heart the number 100. Now 100 in general for any church is a big deal. 100 in COVID, it'd be like tonight, me saying brother, if God's leading you and you feel the spirit of God, we're gonna ask you to come be baptized right now. I know you're not prepared to do it but we are. It's a big ask. Some of you need to be praying about this because you were sprinkled like me as a child, listen to me, and you have your baptism on the wrong side of your salvation. (audience member speaking off mic) I was sprinkled as a child to me one year to follow through with baptism. Adam Platt's brother, David Platt baptized me, disciple me too but he baptized me. And one of the things I realized was this, every single person Jesus baptized in his ministry was an adult and they all did it after

they put their faith in Christ. And brother, sister, if you were sprinkled as a child, if you're online, look at me, you had no choice as a baby. I didn't either. But some of you walked and I'll maybe in this church or maybe in another church and you got wet in a tank but you have strayed from the Lord in college or in high school or maybe after that. And you have since come to faith in Christ and tonight right now, look at me. The spirit of God is moving in your heart and you know God wants you to follow through with baptism. Here's what I tell people. Don't expect God to do great things in the future if he can't trust you to step in obedience today. (audience applauding) Today. Here's the great commission. Go therefore make disciples baptizing. First step of obedience. People say, I want God to do great things. Follow through with baptism today. So I'm not preaching on baptism but maybe the spirit of God's moving. Maybe we'll do baptism. I don't know, maybe who knows, I'm gonna do it tonight or more. But anyway, here's the point. So I offered baptism. A hundred people, that's a big deal.

We couldn't get people to stand face to face with a mask on for two feet. And I'm gonna ask people to get in a bacterial field tank together one after another. Come on Lord, really? Like really God? And so I did it. I was obedient. I got up that Sunday and I said, hey, just like I tell you, if you're here today, I know you're not prepared, we are. But we know God's gonna do something in life. And I walked off the stage and I stepped down and I'm standing by the tank. And back then we had one tank at the height of the revival. We had three. And I'm standing there and nobody moves. Nobody. And I'm like, did I miss the Lord? And I'm like, yeah, as a pastor, I'm looking like, like, what is this dude? What is he doing? And we have like three songs planned and they're winding down, the worship teams winding down. Then all of a sudden one lady stands up in the back. I see her, I was like, oh, thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. And then another and then another. And after that first service,

we saw 25 people follow through with believers back to, I was blown away. Think of the ass, that's a big ass. And I'm in the back room between services back then we'd wait because of COVID and I was in the back room. And all of a sudden about halfway through the time, one of my staff members says, hey, Pastor Robbie, we don't want any of the bother you, but there's a girl who just drove in from Jolton, Tennessee. It's about an hour away, 45 minutes away. And she wanted to know, could you baptize her between the services? To which I jokingly said, can we even do that? You know, they're like, you're the pastor, we do whatever you want. I was like, okay, so I walked out, listen to me church, I walked out. And when this girl was in the tank, I would ask this girl two questions that I would ask the next 1,000 people over the next 15 weeks and the next 1,600 over the next eight months in COVID. Watch this, from 17 states, from 17 states they flew or drove in to be baptized. I asked the same two questions and I asked this girl, I said, where are you from? And she said, Jolton. And I jokingly said, well, there's a lot of churches between here and Jolton. But she wouldn't be the only one.

People would get in the tank and say, Maine. Sacramento, California, Las Vegas. Now I'm telling you, it was bonkers, all right? And then I followed up with, where are you from? Here's the second question, so I want you to get, why did you come? And here's what they said. They said, in a roundabout way, every one of the 1,600, I baptized them all. It was the thread that was woven through the whole thing. They said, we had to come because the Holy Spirit compelled us. (audience applauding) How do you come? (audience applauding) (audience applauding) No sermon series can do that, pastor, you know that. No yard sign is gonna bring people. No door hanger is gonna get something. It was a God-sent revival. Here's the point. When the man or woman of God fill with the spirit of God, preaches faithfully the word of God to the people of God and gives glories to God, they can leave God with the results and be fine with it. Friends, that's what I wanna leave you with today. This is the line, write this down. Every great, this is what I learned from the whole revival. Every great movement of God begins by not moving. Say it again. If you get nothing else from me, leave that this.

And I want you to meditate on this. And I wanna apply it to your own life. Every great movement of God begins by not moving. What do you mean, Robbie? I wasn't a student of revival before that time. I have since become a student of revival. But you take it to the bank, don't trust me. Go to your own research. Every great move of God can be traced. Most of them can be traced back to college campuses or with students, take that one to the bank. But here's what I know beyond that. Every great movement of God begins with a man or a woman or a small group who basically gets on their knees or their face before God and here's what they say. They say, God, I'm not gonna move until you move. That's what they say. (congregation applauding) And here's why I've come to Nashville, from Nashville to teach you this. Dad, look at me. Your family needs you to be awake in the garden. Mom, your husband and your kids needs you to be awake in the garden. Students, listen to me. Your parents, your family needs you to be awake in the garden. Business owner, your employees need you to be awake. This country, this world needs us as Christians to be awake in the garden.

So here's what I'm gonna ask you to do because I know if you're like me, you're convicted, a good conviction that God's saying, hey, man, you've been sleeping in the garden. I'm gonna ask you to come right now. If you feel led by the Lord, if you're a pastor or a minister or your father or a mother or a student or a college student, a retiree, if you're saying, man, that's me, you're speaking to me. I'm not gonna ask you to buy your head or close your eyes. God sees anyway, I'm gonna ask you just to come. And we're gonna just spend time for a moment before I pray in the presence of God in silence. And some of you for the first time are gonna bend your ear to hear the voice of God. I know what you're thinking. That's the dumbest thing in the world, Robbie. I know that's the enemy's voice 'cause that's how he speaks to you. Friends, if you've never heard the voice of God, I'm here to tell you, don't miss this. There's so much more of God to have and write this down. You have as much of God as you want. And most Christians have settled for the synthetic surface level substitute version of the glory of God, and I'm here to tell you, there is so much more, so much more for the person who's willing to press in to God. So I'm gonna ask you today to take a posture prayer. You're like, man, I'm in the stadium seats.

And I'm gonna ask you, some of you need to get down. And some of you can't remember the last time you bowled the knee to God. I'm a leader of a life group. Of course I'm talking to you. I'm a leader of a small group, I'm talking to you. I'm a deacon of this church, I'm talking to you. I run a ministry, I'm talking to you. I'm a mom who's been in church all her life. I'm talking to you. When Evan Roberts was used to lead the Welsh revival where over one million people came to faith in Jesus Christ over the course of one year, Pastor Joe will be gonna love this. The only thing he finished his sermons with is four words. He'd preach and he wasn't the best preacher by his own admission. He would finish with these four words. Look at me, this is, and I'm gonna finish with this and I'm gonna let it sit and silence. He would say, I'm all I'm asking you to do is obey the Holy Spirit. What's that? May the Holy Spirit be asking to get on your face. Some of you are like, man, I haven't nothing years before. I'm asking you to do that now. For some of you, he's asking you to follow through baptism. If he speaks that to you, you can find a pastor, a leader can find me after and say, Pastor Robbie, I'm ready to be baptized.

Right now, better be baptized. Maybe you need to confess sin to a brother or sister in here. Maybe you need to repent to your spouse. We're gonna sit for a moment. I'm not gonna say anything and I want us to sit for just a few moments. I don't want you to say something like this. If you're still in the crowd, maybe you just wanna get on the knees, your knees, where you are in your seat. You could do that. Maybe you wanna turn around in your chair. Maybe you wanna stand and worship, whatever. match the inner position of your heart, whatever it is. Don't care what anybody is doing around you on the side of you, we're just gonna come to the Lord. And here's what you're gonna say. God speak to me, I'm listening. The quietness of your own heart. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) Would you repent to the Lord for sleeping in the garden? Just confess that to the Lord. (gentle music) God, I haven't been the man that you call me to be. I've been sleeping.

(gentle music) Lord, I haven't been the mom, the wife you call me to be. I've been sleeping. (gentle music) I've been the student you've called me to be. I've been sleeping in the garden. (gentle music) The grandmother, grandfather of his sleep, the staff member, God, who's been doing ministry for Jesus without intimacy with Jesus, God. That's not only harmful, that's dangerous. We confess that to you. (gentle music) God, we're asking you to speak to us now. We're going to just stay in this posture of prayer. God, we want more of you. Would you give us more of your power? More of your presence? More of the person of your son, Jesus Christ? (gentle music) And if you need a week before the Lord, a week before the Lord, (gentle music) You need to cry tears and joy, cry tears and joy. (gentle music) You need to confess to the Lord, do it now. (gentle music)