David Hughes - Why It's Not Working For You.

What is up, what is up, what is up, CBG? So good to see you. If you're a guest, my name is David. I'm one of the pastors here at Church by the Glades, and I'm wearing my Student Leadership University sweatshirt because our interns begin tomorrow. We have about two dozen interns, sharp young people who'll be training our worship team, our student ministry team, our kids' men team, and of course, production and video. By the way, if you have interest in tech, what a better place to learn those skills than our church. We have great tech toys. Anyways, summer's gonna be amazing. Don't miss a single weekend. Take your vacation, but then run back to God's house. Amen? Amen. Let's get to it. So I crafted a talk today. If you have your Bible, it's built around a great verse in John chapter 10. I love this verse. So if you have a copy of the scripture, find John chapter 10. Say it with me, John chapter. If you don't have your Bible, I'll put it on the big screen in just a moment. If you have a Bible, open it up or turn it on. If you have a pen, get ready to take some notes.

John chapter 10, and I pray this talk will be helpful and relevant to everyone in the room. I pray it will bless everyone watching online. But as I crafted this message, God laid on my heart a very special someone. If you're here right now and you are a saved but frustrated person, you're a Christian person. You've been saved, trusted, you've been baptized, right? But you're frustrated, and here's the reason you're frustrated. You read truth in the Bible or hear a message where the preacher talks about God's willingness to bless you. God's a good God and a generous God, and he would love to get up in your stuff in beautiful, wonderful, practical, and powerful ways. My God wants to bless you in real, tangible ways, and you never seem to experience that blessing. You hear other Christians talk about it. They share their testimonies, how God blessed them, how God touched their life with the supernatural, but you never seem to have that experience yourself, in any kind of lasting way. Maybe a taste here and there, but never get to devour the entree of God's blessing in your life. If that is you, here's the topic today. Why is it not working for you? Because many places in the Bible, God says he's willing to do this.

He wants to bless your life. He wants to favor your life. He wants to get very involved in your life on Monday morning. So that's the question. If you're here today and you don't know that, how can you know, personally and powerfully, God's blessing in your life? What do you do if it's not working for you? So I'm gonna do two things. That's one thing, tackle this topic based on John chapter 10. And then secondly, I missed a weekend. It's my first weekend to miss in all of 2026. It was not scheduled, but my mom, who lived in Indiana, got suddenly sick a couple weeks ago, and she passed on. She passed on a week and a half ago. Y'all, thank you for that. Great lady. We were very, very close. But I had her into her 90s, and she passed peacefully without pain. The hospice folks were amazing. And so we gotta go. So I took the Sunday off, and Charlie was scheduled to speak, and he took the weekend off. And Pastor Nick stepped in last minute, did a great job. And at First Baptist, we threw Lucas, our worship pastor, Lucas, in for the first time to preach.

And he preached a brilliant 20-minute sermon at First Baptist. And gave us, yeah, give it up for our team. They're so talented and flexible and helpful. And they gave my family the freedom to go to Indiana. My mom lived there, and my daughter flew from Nashville. And we had an amazing last visit with her. By God's grace, she was so lucid and aware, and it was an incredible goodbye. So, so much to be grateful for. But in honor of my mom's passing, she was in this church for many years, sat right back there with my dad in that corner section, Upper Bowl. I wanna dedicate this talk to her, and I'm gonna talk about my mom, but it won't be sad. It won't be sad. I listen, my mom would hate that, by the way. My mom didn't like tears. She said, it won't be sad. It's not gonna be a funeral or eulogy. I wanna celebrate my mom. And I'll tell you something about my mom, like this. My mom, she loved her family, and she loved my dad, and she loved the kids and grandkids. She loved her Bible. She loved her church. She loved her God. She loved Dateline.

That woman loved her some Dateline. Do I have any Dateline fans in the house? Make some Dateline, all right. You know, I've thought about it, guys. The women in my family all love Dateline. My mom loved Dateline. My wife loves Dateline. My mother-in-law loves Dateline. I hope they're doing that for entertainment value, not for research, because if the guys, man, we're in trouble, right? They'll get away with it. They watch Dateline. And so, in honor of my mom, I wanna show you the Dateline verse in the Bible. There's a Dateline verse. It's John 10, 10. Now, as we dissect this great promise in the Bible, the speaker is Jesus. Let me go to the second part first, or part B, part B. It's on the screen right now. Jesus makes this epic promise. He says, I have come that they may have, may have life, and how, Have it more abundantly. He's saying, I want you to have life. My purpose statement for you is to infuse your existence with supernatural life and life to the full, life that's abundant, life that is powerful,

life that is personal. I don't want you to just limp through life. I want you to know God's blessing in life. So Jesus makes that beautiful promise, but that's not the dateline part of this verse. I'll put the verse back on the screen, side screens. Here's the first part, read with me. He says, the thief, the thief. Who's that? The devil. Jesus is talking about the devil. You're like, what, Jesus believed in the devil? Absolutely. For Jesus, the devil is not a myth or personification of evil. He's a spirit being, so he describes the devil here as the thief. And what's the thief do on the screen right now? The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. The thief did it. The devil did it. See, I've watched Dateline with my wife and sometimes it's an hour long, and it's good, I enjoy it, but when they don't catch the bad guy. Some episodes, they don't catch the bad guy. Maybe they go into trial and the person's not found guilty yet or maybe they have a suspect. Makes me nuts. We know who's guilty in John 10.

What this verse is saying is anytime anything good in your life, anything wonderful in your life is destroyed, it's the thief. Anytime something precious in your life is taken from you, is stolen, it is the thief. The devil did it. The devil literally is out to get you. I know it sounds paranoid, but it's true. There is a supernatural being and he studies to take you down. It is the thief. If you lose anything good in your life, the one who's guilty is the thief. Now, sometimes you're the accomplice. Sometimes I'm a co-conspirator because the enemy tempts me and I give in. I do something stupid, sinful, right, selfish. So guess what? I'm guilty too, but there's always, always the enemy looking for opportunity, looking for weakness to exploit, trying to tempt you and entice you. And based on this verse, put the verse back up, y'all, the devil is never trying to do you a favor. Not one time. Not one time. His agenda is always to steal, kill, and destroy. Every single time, that's his motivation. He's never looking at it and going, oh, look at poor Bob. Look at poor Bob at the office.

He works so hard and the boss never gives him the promotion. Bob's wife never fully appreciates him. His kids kind of ignore him. And Bob's such a good guy, such a faithful husband, such a good dad, such a hard worker, good provider. And there's Susan. Susan's lonely, just got dumped. She's pretty, she's vulnerable. Doesn't Bob deserve a little pleasure? Oh, poor Bob, a little secret satisfaction on the side. No one will ever know. No one gets it. No! He's out to destroy every single time, out to kill every. Jesus called him a murderer and a thief. He's trying to do what? Destroy Bob. Trying to destroy his career, destroy his reputation, destroy his marriage, destroy his, he's never trying to do you a favor. When he tempts you to do something illicit, he's a murderer. The dateline verse, John 10, 10 is the dateline verse. But I wanna focus on what Jesus promised about what he wants to do. Jesus said, I don't wanna kill or destroy anything. Jesus said, I have come that you may have life, that you may have life, and not just existence. The Greek word for life or existence is bio.

We get the word biology from it. No, the word here is zoe, is a God-centric life. It's a life that is abundant, a life that is fulfilled, a life that is full of God's purpose, his peace, his power. That's what God wants for you, but you're frustrated because you barely taste that. So what I wanna do today, again, because verses like this show up throughout the Bible. I love what it says. Another verse, I won't drill down too much, but I love Ephesians 3, 20. The Bible makes this incredible promise. It says, now to him, Jesus is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Wow! Jesus said, you dream your biggest dream, I'll beat it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go to that place where your imagination runs wild, you go to that bench in the park, you stare at the sunrise at the ocean, or sit on a rock in the backyard, you dream your best dream, I got better. I got better. Are you experiencing that or are you frustrated? God wants this. So what I wanna do to help you understand what your Christian life can and should be, if you'll allow me a point of pastoral privilege, I wanna talk to you about something my mom did really well. She was a godly woman.

She loved her family, encouraged her kids. They brought us to the house of God when we were young. Every time we wanted to go to church, every time we didn't wanna go to church, we went to church. Man, I'm very grateful for the legacy of my parents. But my mom made the world's best pecan pie. I mean it. Incredible. She was a wonderful country cook, but her pie, and I'm just here to tell you, it was the Ephesians 3 20 of dessert. It was, I don't even really have a sweet tooth. I'm not a big dessert guy. I couldn't resist it. Everybody has that dietary kryptonite. Mine's like a good bacon cheeseburger. Where are my people who love a good dessert? Who loves a good dessert? Oh yeah, alright y'all, I'm just telling you, this pie, this pie, secret ingredient, crack cocaine, this pie, oh my gosh, so good. I don't even like desserts. Just a few desserts, like Big Bear here in town, the chocolate lava cake, that's a good dessert, and a J. Alexander's, their carrot cake is a pretty good dessert, but my mom's pie, oh my gosh, she'd make it for Thanksgiving. I found myself eating three pieces. I don't eat desserts. It was so incredibly good. When my mom was in hospice care, we got the word, just to kind of ease the tension. Charlie said, do you think grandma felt good enough to make us one last pie? So inappropriate. After she passed, my brother-in-law, Michael, texted me and said, man, I miss your mom so much, but imagine how great her pecans are gonna be someday with Heavenly Pecans. Oh my gosh, I thought, that's a great thought, isn't it? Her pies brought out the worst in me. I'm a little embarrassed to share this, but we got down to that last piece of pie. I would take it out of the pie pan in the fridge, put it on a little plate, and I'd hide it behind the milk. I'd construct a little barrier just so I got the last piece. It was so good. It was so good. So here's the idea. My mom learned to make the pie from her mom. My grandmother was a wonderful country cook, and she was intuitive. By the way, my grandmother would never measure any bakers. Where are my bakers? Where are my bakers? Where are my cooks? Okay. She never

measured anything. My grandmother would take a little pinch of this, a little pinch of that, and a little handful of this, and then she never wrote anything down. So my mom had to watch her. My mom watched her mom. My grandmother could make anything. Great pancakes, and great biscuits and gravy. Oh my gosh. Pies of all kinds. My mom watched her. So my mom had an example, but because she never wrote anything down, she just watched the example. And so when mom began to try to make her mother's pie, trial and error, frustration, lots of failure, it had been easier to have an example and a recipe. When mom figured it out, she literally wrote down the recipe for the pie, and she gave the recipe to Lisa. So my mom, my mom's pie, Lisa could make that pie. In the Christian life, it's good we have both. It's good we have both. I mean, we have both an example and a recipe. You think about the earliest fathers of our faith did not have that. Abraham didn't have the recipe. There was no Bible. The Bible is God's cookbook for the abundant life. It's the recipe for that life you crave, right? But Abraham lived before any of the Bible was written. And then his son Isaac had to watch his daddy Abraham. Then Jacob had to watch Isaac. And then Joseph had to watch Jacob. It wasn't the best example at all times. It wasn't until late in the life of Moses that any of the Bible is there, but we are so blessed we have both the example and the recipe. Who's the example of the abundant life? Jesus. So we have both what? Jesus and the recipe, or Jesus and His Word. What a blessed generation we are that you have a copy of sacred scripture. If you don't have the Bible on your smartphone, I say it all the time, you're not smart enough to own a smartphone, right? Download YouVersion. We have the Word of God. We have the recipe. You want the abundant life. This is the recipe book right here. So I want to share some things. I learned brief things from my mom. Take some notes if you would. My mom was a note-taker. She gave me her final Bible and it was just full of notes and from different sermons. She would date it and she'd write down. She'd take like next to John 10 10, she would have written down today the dateline verse. Take some notes in your Bible. But I'm going to share quickly three or four things I learned from my mom really fast, really briefly, if you'll allow me. Number one, we talked every day. We talked on the phone. Almost, almost,

seldom, seldom we'd miss a day. We talked every single day. When I was in college, my best friend, my roommate who discipled me, he was so close to his dad. About two years out of college, my buddy Mark, his dad passed away. He told me, man, I miss talking to my dad. He said, David, call your parents every single day. I took that to heart. This is for somebody in the room right now. So I called my dad every day until he passed away 12 years ago and I called my mom until 10 days ago. Every single day. Call your folks. Call your folks. Young people, call your grandparents once a week. You know, they'd love to hear from you. Now, there's a mom or grandma going, yeah, that'd be incredible. My kids never, okay, full disclosure. My mom always kept it brief. It was a very short call. My mom would stop the call. Some of y'all, you keep your kid on the phone for 30 minutes, drilling down for details. I get you're curious, you love them. But my mom, if some of y'all heard the call, it was, we had slight variations of the same. I used to take a phone call every day. Hey, mom, I love you, I love you too, son. What's going on? We're all good here. How are the kids? And she would cut me off. My friends would laugh at my mom cutting me off on the phone call. But I love she made it brief, but it was daily. It was a wonderful tradition. In fact, I'll be honest, the thing I miss the most, like reflex, I gotta pick up my phone and call my mom, and I can't call my mom anymore. So what I do instead, I'm talking to God a little more. I'm talking to God more throughout the day. There's a great verse in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 17. It says, pray without ceasing.

Doesn't mean you hit your knees at 6 a.m. and pray all day long. It means throughout your day, you practice the presence of God. The same way I had a little short conversation with mom, short conversations with God, I call it bullet prayers, all day long, throughout the day, keeping God involved in my day, asking God to involve me in His plan. I'm trying to practice the presence of God. About 15 years ago, I had a chance to sit down with a famous, Luke's pastor's iconic. His name is Adrian Rogers. Brilliant man, pastor in Memphis, Tennessee. Towards the end of his life, he sat down with about 20 of us young guys, young back then anyways, and let us ask him questions. And one guy asked, you know, Dr. Rogers, you're so accomplished and so gifted. How long do you pray every day? And we thought it'd be, I wake up at 5 a.m., and I pray for three hours, and read the Bible and the original Hebrew. And he said, you'd be surprised, probably not as long as you think. And he said this, I'm not often long in prayer, but I'm not often long without prayer. Involve God throughout your day. I wrote this down, my mom kept an attitude

of faith and gratitude. That phone call, if we expanded it, I'll be on the 90th second, she would always say, we're so blessed. Here's the link. God has been unreal at how good He's been to our family. And the crazy thing was, the older she got, the more positive she became. That's not true for many people, right? She got more and more, and she wasn't that weird, everything's rosy kind of person, but I noticed when her life got smaller and smaller over the years, her attitude of gratitude got bigger and bigger. I was thinking about, you know, once she lived in a home with my dad and all three kids, and my dad was a skilled blue-collar worker, so we lived in a middle-class neighborhood, middle-class home, like my brother and I shared a room, all three siblings, we shared one bathroom, right? But we were very comfortable. But when mom and dad, they sold that house, they downsized to a smaller house, then to a townhouse, and then later on, dad passed away, and mom went to a small condo in a big city, and then finally, a small condo in a small town, and lived on her own, 95 next month, till about a year ago, moved in with my sister, now she's in a room. She was driving until a month ago,

little scary, but cool, right? Right? But though her life was getting smaller, her gratitude continued to grow. She would just talk about the fact how good God had been, how positive, didn't talk about her aches or her pains, or missing my dad. Life is truly what you focus on. There was a prolonged Harvard study on women. 159,000 women in the research group studied for 25 years. They found the most optimistic in that group lived on average five years longer. You live longer, you live better. Optimism and faith are not the same thing, but they are first cousins. My mom stayed so positive. I think it's why she lived so long. Number three, I wrote this down. Just keep walking. My mom kept moving. She had a little exercise bike there in her room, and she'd exercise for about 10 minutes in the morning, and 10 minutes in the evening. She had arthritis in her knees, but she'd make it happen, and she always kept walking. I've told you all before, faith, I know faith can be confusing. Like, faith is an emotion. I keep waiting for the warm, fuzzy faith feelings

to hit me, they never do. No, faith is movement. Faith that works is dead. Faith is doing the stuff, whether you feel like it or not. So mom was 94, but she kept walking. She kept walking. Now, she didn't walk as pretty as she did before. She'd need some help from somebody occasionally. When it got cold in Indiana, she'd have my brother-in-law take great care of her. Tim, thank you for what you did, if you're watching right now. He'd pick her up, take her to the local grocery store, their Publix. She'd get a shopping cart instead of her, and walk all around the store, buying nothing, just crazy woman, just empty cart, walking around instead of herself. I was thinking, what was the main thing the disciples did with Jesus? Maybe they walked. I know they rode the donkey one time, but they walked there. In fact, I broke this down, did some research. What's the main thing they did? Well, they listened to 34 different parables, and they witnessed 37 different miracles. They ate, of course, they ate. I did the research on how much did people eat back in the first century in Israel.

Your average working class Jew would eat not three times, but two times a day. They ate twice a day, a late breakfast and an early dinner. And then on the Sabbath, on Saturday, they'd eat three times. I did the math on that. So in three years, I think it's 2,456 times. Don't check me on that. That's so a lot, a lot of meals together. But I found two different research groups who studied how much did Jesus walk during the three years of his ministry? It's shocking. I asked staff people to guess like what? 500 miles, 800 miles, 3,125 miles they walked. Make sure something they did. We are called Christians to walk with Jesus. I love Colossians chapter two, verse six and seven on the screen right now. I found this verse early in my faith. It says, as you therefore receive Christ Jesus as Lord, after you're saved, you receive Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. What do you do after that? Simple. It says, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you've been taught, abounding in it with gratitude. Thanksgiving. This thing with Jesus is so daily. We walk with him every single day. We walk with him. You know, the disciples, they walked with Jesus. Not always pretty. They stumbled at every turn.

They made their mistakes. But as long as they walked with Jesus, they were good. We walk with Jesus. Then fourth and finally, I wrote this down. She would tell you to follow the recipe. Follow the recipe. So this, this is my mom's recipe card right here. Her handwriting. Some of y'all know that Charlie shared before that Charlie, my son, is dyslexic. And, and the person that did a study on him, you know, said it's hereditary. So that means it's me. And my dad could write and spell mom is like her son. She can't. But this is her recipe card right here. For the bakers, I'll actually post this on my Instagram this week. And you can make my mom's pie if you want to. But I would kind of walk you through this recipe because man, that pecan pie was so amazing and so good. So I'm going to close this talk by showing you how to make mom's pie. Mom's pie. Get me here, girl. Here we go. I'm gonna need that for sure. All right. So the crust, the crust. She would make the crust from scratch. So the crust was two and a half cups of flour. And then it was two sticks of butter, but full disclosure, making the crust is a pain in the butt. And so she found out later on the, the crust from Publix is pretty good. So bakers just take that one that saves that right there.

And then the rest of the recipe, let's see. Let's see. One cup of light brown sugar. Boom. Let's see. Three quarters tablespoon of cornstarch. I think this is cornstarch right here. So boom, boom, boom. Let's see. A half teaspoon of salt. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Here, pray for me now. Three jumbo eggs. Tough one. I'll show off. I used to do this. One hand. Ready? Boom. Let's see. What is, what's next? What's next? What's next? Oh, white, white corn syrup. A quarter. I'm just going to ballpark this one right here. It's like an honor.

My grandmother, she just guessed. All right, here we go. We go. And then of course, what's the most important part of pecan pie? Pecans. Pecans. All right. So, and then I think it is two cups, half cup, half cup, half cup. All right. There we go. There we go. And then, and then you just whisk the whole thing until, and I won't do all that, but y'all get the idea. This is the filling. The filling is amazing. It's the best pie in the world. Now, some of y'all, some of y'all try to cook. You can't cook. No one's a cook in my family. Lisa's not a cook. I'm not a cook. We order a lot of Uber Eats. All right. So, so if you have a hard time making the pie, what's your problem? Maybe you ignore the recipe. You ignore the recipe. I'm not really talking about pie. Y'all got that? It's a pie parable. This is the recipe.

This, if you're a newbie, every time we come together where I'm the teacher, someone else, we teach you from God's word. And this word is transformative. It's powerful. The promises are amazing when you plug them into your life. But some of us, you listen so well. No one sleeps in church. Thank you so much. You're awake and with it and you're attentive. But some of you forget our conversation at lunch and don't think about it again until next week. Talk about church after church. Ask, you know, what's the action step? Honey, you got to wait. Kids, what did you take from your kids' ministry? What did you learn? What, what are we? can do differently. And then during the week, man, be in your Bible. Don't ignore the recipe. God has given us his word. Abraham and Joseph didn't have a Bible. Josiah we studied didn't have a Bible. You have the word of God taking advantage of the recipe. Then I thought, you know, there are some people who add ingredients that are not part of the recipe. I mean this, there's a crazy weird human tendency after you discover the beauty of a relationship with God through Jesus. Over the course of the year, sometimes you add the ingredient of legalism. Why does religious people love rules? We start to multiply rules. Now there are some rules in the Bible, right? Why? Because the Bible is about a relationship and every intimate relationship has what? Rules. Everybody you have a close relation with, you have some rules. They're unwritten, they're unspoken perhaps, but you have rules. You have rules for your friendships. Friends are what? They're loyal and they're protective and right? You trust your friends. Parents, you have rules for your kids. Amen? Amen? Married people, you have rules for your spouse. Like two of us. Thank you. Two of us. I do. At least I have rules. Rule number one, we don't date other people. You should have that rule, right? But sometimes human beings get a hold of God's rules or commandments and rules

and they add layers of legalism. Jesus battled the Pharisees. They took the Torah. The Torah has God-given commandments, relationship rules, but they added thousands of man-made rules. Some of you guys, you came to church, you know, early in your life or went to a Christian school and the rules, man, they were so off-putting. But those probably weren't God's rules, they were man's rules. So don't add ingredients. And sometimes it seems like if a little bit is good, a lot is better, right? If you, one of these ingredients, if you really like, I don't know, you like salt. Like, okay, well, it calls for a little bit of, just a little bit of salt, but I really like salt. Oh, how about if a little bit of salt is good, a lot, a lot would be, oh, that's gonna be so much better, right? No! Ever wonder why there's so many salty Christians out there? So we really work hard at CBG to strip away man-made legalism and teach you a relationship with God. And relationships have natural, loving rules. So we crave holiness, but we're not legalists. But the main problem I always have is we omit a necessary ingredient. I get it. There's some part of the Christian life, a biblical part, that you push back on, that you're, ah, you know, God, if only you didn't say that. God, if only you asked for eight and a half of the Ten Commandments, I'm good. But God, you want me to surrender my sex life to you? Or God, you call me to forgive people who've hurt me so badly? And God doesn't call you to re-establish a relationship with a dangerous or toxic person, but he requires forgiveness. And you enjoy your bitterness. Tithing. I get it. Like, some of these ingredients by themselves aren't that bad. But, but, but others, others, you know, if you eat, you know, flour, a cup of flour by itself, that's disgusting, right? You, ah, you take a whole mouthful of butter, how nasty is that? But when they come together, every single ingredient in its place, beautiful, amazing. And then what happens to the ingredients? Well, you know, you whip them and, and you beat them and you blend them. And then the pie goes into an oven to do a fire for a long time. But what comes out is amazing. See, if somebody here, you want the abundance, you want the blessing, you want the result, but you don't want to follow the recipe. You want Jesus as your Savior, but not your Lord. You pray, hey God, fix my life. Just don't ask me to change anything I don't want to change. See, you may leave out an ingredient because it tastes too bitter or too bland on itself, or maybe too expensive. Like the pecans were donated. Thank you. They're expensive right now. Pastor Steve has a family, they grow pecans. So those are donated because they cost a lot of money. You might think, hey, tithing, 10%? Are you kidding me, God? 10%? Is that gross or is that, it's a lot. That's just too much. All the

ingredients. Don't add something that's not part of the Bible. I mean, why do y'all put raisins in your potato salad? I don't even understand. Why do you put raisins in anything, right? Why do you put raisins in your cookies? Why? Why raisins in your carrot cake? Why? Let me do the sermon. I'm just venting right now. Why? Why even chocolate-covered raisins? I think a chocolate, you could do way better than raisin. Pick an almond or something, caramel, right? But don't leave anything out. I know we all make mistakes. Don't make me feel that. But when you, when you leave out something God's called for you lose your abundance and God wants your life to be full powerful when all these things come together yeah Lisa Lisa is not a cook to be ignoring the recipe my wife has beautiful beautiful cookbooks in the kitchen a little shelves they're pristine they're perfect I said honey what do you ever use those she does it for decorative purposes only but she's taking my mom's recipe and my wife who can't cook makes beautiful homemade pecan pies they make me very selfish when church is done tonight I will eat this prop with some friends God wants your life to look like this full powerful and stimulating exciting enticing amazing he came to give you life life abundant and by the way the best parts not just life abundant because I lost my mom again I had her for 94 years I'm super grateful but I can't call her anymore but as we gathered up around her and it was it was amazing my kids were so awesome they asked her the greatest questions they said grandma how did you get saved how'd you become a Christian and she told a story as an 11 year old girl at her little country church there were prayer partners at the end of a service and she came to a prayer partner and said I I want to be saved I want to make sure I'm going to heaven I want to be sure I'm a Christian and my mom gave her life to Christ and how that blessed the future generations how that changed the trajectory of our family my mom and dad were not in ministry I'm not a preacher's kid a lot of pastors of large churches their second third generation my buddy rich in Miami man Wilkerson's there's like thousands of preachers in that family for generations my dad was a Christian plumber but I'm in ministry my sister's in ministry of the four grandsons three of the four pastors

that's God's goodness in our life and so uh on Sunday two weeks ago I said I said goodbye to the first person I ever met but I actually didn't say goodbye I said mom everybody else left left me alone with her said mom I will see you again and she smiled and said I will see you again and my mom is more alive right now than she's ever been my mom because Jesus never breaks a promise is with her Lord and with my dad in heaven and Michael's right the pecan pie she makes there with heavenly pecans are gonna be absolutely amazing because she chose life if you don't know that you have life beyond this life make that choice today it says about this Jesus in John chapter 3 for God so loved the world first verse my parents taught me they gave his unbegotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting you can nail that down today so some friends who've been so kind to Dave I'm so sorry you lost your mom I didn't correct them I just thought to myself oh I didn't lose my mom I know exactly where my mom is right now she is with the King and she's more alive than ever I want that for you father God thank you so much for the promise of heaven for promise of life eternal and life abundant help us be satisfied with nothing less than everything you have in Jesus name amen