Discipline | The Soldier - 2 Timothy 2:1-7

Let's pray, pray with me. Father God, we come before you. You're the giver of all good gifts. And the greatest gift of all is that you gave us your son, Jesus. He's done for us what we could never do for ourselves. And so we are here first and foremost today to worship and praise and honor you for who you are and what you've done in this great love with which you have loved us. We're here first as recipients of that love and now we wanna pour that back out to you. It's in Jesus' great name that I pray, amen. Amen, y'all can grab a seat. Hey, y'all glad to be here today? Woo! Feels just like fall out there, doesn't it? Fall kickoff, fall kickoff. 118 degrees outside, fall kickoff. Hey, if you've got your Bibles, and I hope you do, if you're just reconnecting around here, we bring our Bibles with us. If you don't have a Bible, that's our gift to you. We got a bunch of them around here. Just grab one of those Bibles. We're gonna be in 2 Timothy 2, verses one through seven. Now listen, it's gonna take you 20 minutes to find it, so just use the table of contents. Just ain't no shame in that game. Just do your thing, find it.

2 Timothy 2, verse one through seven. New keyword today. If you got your journals, we have these. These are getting a little worn out around here, which is pretty cool. If you got your journals, your keyword is discipline. Now, I know what you were thinking. Man, I'm hoping that we're gonna show up at church today. There's gonna be cotton candy, pony rides, bouncy houses. I don't know what they got out there. Dunk tanks, and I hope they're gonna be talking about discipline. I knew that you were hoping for that, so you're welcome. I planned that today, planned that for you. Now, let me just kind of cut right to the chase today, ask you a really simple question. Why are you here? I know it ain't easy, so like, why are you here? And maybe you're like, well, I don't know, man. She wouldn't date me unless I started coming to church this fall. Fair enough. Maybe you're like, I heard there was cotton candy out there. I'm a big fan of cotton candy in 90,000 degree weather. Like, I don't know what it was, but here's my suspicion. There's something underneath of that. I actually think I know why you're actually here. We'll get to that here in a little bit. Now, let me let you in on a little insider baseball as it pertains to preachers.

And again, I know you were just hoping you'd come in here today and get a little insight into the psychology of preachers, but on days like today where there's fun and games outside and everybody's joyful and lighthearted and there's lots of smiles and the place is packed and things like that, there is a temptation as a preacher to try to pander. And what I mean by that is like, for me, there's like a temptation to go, let me tell you a few funny jokes. Let me give you a nice, soft sermon in hopes that you'll come back next week. The problem with that for me is me, all right? Because those of you who know me pretty well, like, you're going, well, that's not your wheelhouse, bro. I don't think soft-served sermons are your deal. I'm not gonna try to do that today. I actually am gonna try to do a couple things. Number one, I am going to honor your time. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people don't honor my time and the time of others. And so I'm not gonna bait and switch you by pretending to be one kind of preacher this week and then you come back in a couple weeks and you're like, where'd the nice guy go? So I just won't be nice today, so there you go. And so the second thing is I'm gonna try to solve our seating capacity problem by preaching a sermon that will hopefully

drive some folks away so that you won't come back next week. So there you go, that's what we're gonna do today. Now watch, all right, we're gonna just go right at it. Let's go to 2 Timothy chapter two, verses one through seven. I've been memorizing this, so here's a fun challenge. Just memorize these seven verses over the next three weeks as we study it together. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering, and what Paul's gonna do is he's gonna give us three pictures. Here comes the first one. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. Picture number two, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. And here's the third picture. It's the hardworking farmer who ought to receive the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. And here's what you're gonna notice as we unpack these three pictures that Paul gives us, a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer, is they're all pictures of our key word, and that word is discipline.

And we're just gonna look at the soldier today, and here's what's fascinating. When you study all of Paul's writing, not only to Timothy, who was a pastor in a place called Ephesus, but you also study the background of Paul's experience in Ephesus, and you read his writing to the Ephesians, you're gonna notice a theme, and here's the theme, war. I mean, the famous armor of God passage, that's in Ephesians, all that kind of thing. And one of the reasons that's the theme of his writing to people in Ephesus is because that was Paul's experience when he went to Ephesus. I'm gonna show you some of this. It's just so you can understand the kind of place that this was. You don't have to go there with me today, but just listen to this and maybe study this on your own this week. In Acts chapter 19, when Paul was in Ephesus, this is what was going down. And God was doing, this is wild, extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Now time out, all right, because this is gonna get a little weird

if we don't figure this out. There's a big difference in the Bible between descriptive text and prescriptive text. Descriptive tells you what happened. Prescriptive tells you what to do, okay? So this is good news, this is for free. Do not go watch television in the middle of the night, see some televangelist selling his snot rag to you and pay money for that, hoping that you will receive a blessing because what you will get is the flu and your bank account go down. That's for free, don't do that. This is a descriptive, not a prescriptive text. Keep going. I love this job title. How about this for a job title? Itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits. So you got demon-possessed people and here's what they're saying to them. I injure you or I compel you by, notice this, the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. They don't know Jesus. They just know Paul talks about him a lot. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest, scratch this name off your baby list if you're expecting, named Sceva, all right? Sounds like a skin disease.

You don't want that one, all right? Who were doing this. So seven sons of this dude named Sceva are doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, this is terrifying, Jesus I know, the evil spirit's demons actually have good theology. They know Jesus. Paul I recognize, oh yeah, we know about Paul. He keeps bringing the name of Jesus everywhere. This is terrifying. But who are you? This is like a scene in a Stephen King novel. Demon possessed dude turns and looks at you like you talking to me? Yeah I know Jesus, yeah I know Paul, but who are you bro or bros, all seven of you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, all seven of them, mastered all of them, overpowered them so that they fled out of the house, don't miss it, naked and wounded. I love pointing this out. If you ever get in a fight and the fight ends and you're naked, you lost, all right? We don't have to go to a judge's decision, all right, there's no scorecards. This is just objectively true. If you had pants at the beginning of the fight, no pants at the end of the fight, you lost, all right? Keep going.

And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus. You think? Like I mean listen, if that went down in Nicholasville, they'd be talking about it in Danville. You know, in fact that's happened in Nicholasville, I'm positive, right? If that happened in Georgetown, we'd be talking about it in Richmond. If that happened in Lexington, we'd be talking about it in Nicholasville. It became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. Here's the point, fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. And also many of those who were now believers came and what'd they do? Confessing their sins, divulging their practices, their works, and a number of those who had practiced magic arts, that's the kind of place Ephesus was, and brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted the value of them and found that it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. And when the word of the Lord increases and prevails mightily in a culture full of pagan idolatry, it actually affects the economy. Did you know that?

And that's exactly what's gonna happen next. About that time, there arose no little disturbance concerning the way for a man named Demetrius, he was a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, that's the false goddess that they worshiped in Ephesus, they had a huge temple to her, brought no little business to the craftsmen, they're making money off of idolatry, so this is a problem. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades, it's like a union going on, and said, men, you know that from this business we have our wealth, this is where we make our money, it's how we put food on the table. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia, this Paul, bro, this dude has persuaded and turned away a great many people they're like burning books in the city square, saying, look at what Paul had the audacity to say, this is crazy, that gods, little g gods, made with human hands are not gods. And there's danger that not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all of Asia and the world worship. Now this seems insane to some of us, doesn't it? That the simple message Paul proclaims in this town, this pagan town, hey y'all, just an observation. God's made with hands are actually not God's.

If you can make it, perhaps you shouldn't worship it. If you can fabricate it, maybe you shouldn't sacrifice to it. So for us, there's this temptation towards what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery or arrogance, as we would say in America. He was British, he would say snobbery, right? To think like, look at those dumb pagans. We would never worship created things instead of the creator. We would never bow down at the altar of anything other than Jesus himself. We're gonna talk more about this in the weeks to come, but we just gotta get this dynamic on the table. If Jesus is not first and primary, meaning every decision you make in life comes downstream from the reality that he is king of all, whoever and whatever fills that spot that Jesus himself is the only one that can inhabit it, whoever fills that vacuum or void if he's not first, best, and primary in your life is your God, is your idol, is what you're bowing down to, sacrificing to, and worshiping. And so here's the consequences of that. Charles Spurgeon said it this way, any form of love which divides the heart from Jesus is idolatry. And y'all, I love my old Kentucky home, but I know it well. We got idolatry up in here, lots of it.

Well, I mean, let's just talk about the idol of image management, for example. That is a sport in central Kentucky. How many of us are spending so much time curating content to go on social media so that you can project an image of perfection? You got the perfect body, you got the perfect husband, you got the perfect life, you got the perfect house, you got the perfect kitchen, you got the perfect kids that go to the perfect school. The only problem is reality. Underneath the surface of that projected image is chaos and dysfunction, and you know who knows it best? Your children. It's a sport around here. But it looks great on Instagram, doesn't it? How about this one? How about the idol of empty religion? When I travel and I talk about the Bible Belt when I'm not in the Bible Belt, the way I always say it is this, hey, back where I come from, we got just enough of a false version of Jesus to be inoculated to the real thing. Did you know that you can't borrow your granny's faith? Like you're not gonna stand before Jesus on the Day of Judgment, your creator, you're not gonna go, well, my granny took me to vacation Bible school, and I went to church when it was convenient, not as much in the summer,

but more in the fall and the winter. Your church attendance will not be on the table on the Day of Judgment, do you understand? Do you understand that just because your kids go to a Christian school, that does not mean you are a Christian. And it certainly doesn't mean your children are a Christian. Like on the Day of Judgment, Jesus is not gonna go, can I see that diploma again? Oh, it said Christian on it, you're in, welcome. That's not what he's looking for. How about the idol of power? Y'all, I know this place well enough to know there are some of us around here, the way we push people around, the way we leverage our name, the way we muscle ourselves onto boards and institutions to make ourselves look bigger, stronger, more powerful, the way we step on people and push people aside could not be more antithetical to who Jesus is, who, by the way, did not come to be served, but to serve, and he did not leverage the fact that he was God against anybody, but he actually served, washed dirty feet, and then told his followers, his disciples, to do the same thing. So make no mistake, y'all, let's have no pretense. We are immersed in pagan idolatry in central Kentucky, and those idols cannot deliver what we desperately need just as much as that was true in Ephesus. Now, watch the way this kind of unfolds.

When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out about their false god. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians, so the city was filled, this is what happens when you worship false gods, with confusion. We worship a god of order. And they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus Macedonians who were Paul's companions and travel, but, I love this, when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, Paul was a beast. Big ol' riot going on, Paul's like, I'm going in. The disciples wouldn't let him, they're like, no, man, we need you, don't do that, and even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater, and now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion. Most of them didn't even know why they'd come together. You ever been on YouTube and watched protests, and a reporter walks around and just casually goes, what are you protesting? And someone's like, I don't know. We're just out here yelling about stuff. That's what's going on right now. here, but what drove it? Anger. In fact, it says they were enraged. This is just true. When you threaten people's false gods, people get enraged,

which is why some of you are so mad at me right now. Because I've been calling to attention just three of the false gods we worship around here. We could have gone on all day. But here's the point. Paul is at the end of his run as he writes this to his young understudy, Timothy. He knows he's not gonna live much longer. He's had this framework, to live is Christ, to die is gain, and he's trying to put steel in the spine of Timothy as he wages war with his feet fixed on the ground on the front lines of Ephesus. And so it's no wonder that he says this word. You then, my child. Timothy didn't have a dad. He was raised by his mom, his grandmother. Paul was basically his adoptive father in the faith. He said, you then, my child. This is a term of endearment. Be strengthened, how? By the grace that is in who? Christ Jesus. I know why you're here. You wanna get stronger. If you didn't wanna get stronger, you wouldn't be here. If you weren't facing something right now or facing something in the future that you think you need more strength to get through, you wouldn't be here today. You want to be strengthened.

And here's the good news. What can you be strengthened by? What's the word? Grace. That is in who? Christ Jesus. You can be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Do you understand how counter to our culture the message, the gospel of grace is? Maybe some of you are exhausted because all you've done is listen to the propaganda of our culture that tells you over and over and over again, from platforms to public schools, that you have what you need within yourself to accomplish anything you set your mind to, and maybe you've lived long enough to realize that is a lie from the pit of hell. You do not have what you need within yourself to do what you most need for yourself. Here's the good news. You're a desperate sinner in need of a savior, and it's good news because we have one, and he has a name. Give me his name. Jesus. He has what we desperately need. He is what we desperately need. He's before all things, and through him, all good gifts come to us,

including this amazing one called grace. I want you to feel and hear just the gospel-saturated power of more of Paul's writing right into this war zone called Ephesus when he writes to the church in Ephesus and says, and you were, what does he say? Does he say you were bad? No, he says you were what? Dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work, and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all, we're all in the same boat. We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. My two favorite words in the Bible, what are they? But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us, what's the word? Alive together with Christ. By what? Grace, you've been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable, listen to me, immeasurable riches of his grace. You cannot measure the depth, the height,

and the width of the amazing grace of our God and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus for by grace you've been saved through faith, that ain't your own doing. It is the work of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. If you stick around here long enough, you'll hear me say this a million times. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. He came to do resurrection work. And if you don't know Jesus, if you're not following Jesus, you need to hear this today. The same God that resurrected the dead body of his son Jesus is made available to you to resurrect your dead life. Some of you came in here today and you're like, that's the best description of my life I could give. It is dead. There's nothing you can do for yourself. You need a resurrection. Some of you know this about me. I am like a magnet for travel complications, we'll call those. And I believe it is God's sense of humor in the way the Holy Spirit is trying to develop patience in me and I'm growing slowly. And that, man, that has been true this summer.

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were flying back from Denver, we're flying back to Louisville, and then we're gonna have to drive home after. I've been doing a wedding the night before, and we get to the airport, and everything seemed to be going swimmingly until all of a sudden they said, hey, the flight crew's not here yet, we're gonna have to wait a little while. And so a little while turned into like an hour, and so our flight was supposed to land at 11 in Louisville, which is three hours past my bedtime, and eventually it was gonna be midnight at that point, which is four hours past my bedtime, so we knew we were in for a long night. Finally, we get on the plane, and I was delighted because the plane had movies, and I was at the point in the day where it was like my brain doesn't work, I'm just gonna watch a movie, this is the best, I'm gonna zone out, this is awesome, turned on The Godfather to watch The Godfather for the 5,000th time, I have it memorized, but it's just, it's comfort for my soul, and so I'm watching The Godfather, we pull away from the gate, and then we sit there for like 20 minutes, like something ain't right,

and I was about to say something to Ali, I was like something ain't right, and then the pilot came on the intercom and said the dreaded words, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience, however, they basically said, we got a mechanical problem, and they're gonna try to fix it, we'll see what happens, well the mechanical problem turned out to be that when we backed away from the gate, we could not turn left, and my response to that was like, I got a solution, turn right three times, let's go, you know, and the FAA does not agree with my assessment of the situation, they didn't ask for my opinion, and so we had to sit there for what ended up to be about an hour and a half while they fixed the plane, they finally fixed the plane, and then the pilot comes on and goes, good news, we're gonna get out of here in 15 minutes, I wish they wouldn't tell you stuff like that, right, because then you'd just get more mad, 15 minutes, we just are waiting on the paperwork, the dreaded paperwork, 15 minutes goes by, and you see all this activity going on up there,

no paperwork, 15 more minutes, 15 more minutes, we're hours into sitting on this plane, finally a representative from the airline comes on, he doesn't know how to work the intercom, the flight attendant has to show him, he's got his glasses on the end of his nose, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience, and everybody's ready to murder this guy, right out of the gate, you know, however, we're gonna need all of you to get off the plane, go back into the gate, leave your stuff here, we're gonna rebook you, and then you're gonna re-board, we've learned later this is unprecedented, it had never happened before in the history of this airline, and so everybody starts yelling and screaming, I, however, was very patient, primarily because there was a couple from Southland on the plane, and my wife was laughing, she's like, you gotta act right, ha ha ha ha ha, but honestly, I'd just given up hope, and so when we got to the gate, chaos going on everywhere, I was more fascinated with like the crisis management and the leadership scenario here, and I look over,

and the pilot is reading some airline representatives the riot act, and I'm like, that's interesting, I'm gonna go listen in, so I go eavesdrop, I kind of listen in, watch him, like you tell him, tell him bro, you know, he gets done telling them all the things that he did wrong, I go, excuse me sir, can I talk to you for a second, and he goes, yeah, absolutely, we walk together, you know, and him walking, I'm like, hey, I'm assuming that they actually get this situation sorted out, which I don't have a great confidence they will, he goes, I don't blame you, I said, are you even gonna be able to fly us to Louisville tonight, or are you going to time out, because I've had this happen before, are you gonna time out, and you're gonna be like, sorry guys, can't take you, even though plane works, and all that kind of thing, and he goes, I'm gonna edit his response, but he looked me in the eye, and he goes, I'm getting you to blankety blank blank

Louisville tonight, and I went, oh captain, my captain, let's go, fist bump, you're my guy, like, I follow you into a war zone bro, let's go, I go back to Allie, I'm like, captain's taking us home tonight baby, we're getting home, you know, she's like, it's not happening, I'm like, he told me we are, and it was 4 a.m. when he got us there, but he kept his promise, now don't stretch the metaphor too far, but here's the reality y'all, I was totally helpless, I mean, if I could have, I would have flown the plane, I can't fly the plane to Louisville, I needed someone else to get me where I ultimately wanted to be, if you don't know Jesus, look right at me, you gotta know him, he knows you, we've been praying for you, anyone and everyone under the sound of my voice today, I pray that you will receive the saving grace and the resurrecting power of Jesus,

y'all, we had 37 people baptized at Southland last Sunday, 900, 929 this year alone, it's gone up this morning, they just haven't told me how many yet, and listen to me, you right here today could be one more, and we'll keep those baptisteries open till next Sunday, so that one more can come to saving faith in Jesus, now, when that happens, here's the news that Paul has to share with everyone who steps onto team Jesus, look at this, back in your 2 Timothy passage, share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, like how about that for a sales pitch, welcome to team Jesus, prepare to suffer, well, ain't that reality? How many of you are like me, you grew up going to Sunday school? It's cool, and you remember this song. I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery. I may never fly over the enemy, cause I'm in the Lord's army. Give it to me. Yes, sir. Yeah, and some of you are like, I knew we came to a cult today. Why did you bring me to this place? They're talking about marching in the Lord's army.

Listen to me. This ain't physical. We're not going on any crusades, except against the forces of darkness. Look at what Paul said in his writing to the Ephesians. Our battle, our wars against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. In other words, your deep suspicion that there is such a thing as evil, and there is such a thing as good, and you are trapped right in the middle of a war between those things, is true. So welcome to team Jesus. You're in the Lord's army. You'll hear us say this all the time around here, but the birthmark of every believer is a bullseye. The second you get out of that baptistry, you got a big old bullseye painted on you by the enemy. And so Paul says, welcome to the team. Prepare to suffer. The word share means literally this. Suffer bad together, which is better than alone, ain't it? Like there's a reason I love the old mini-series and book Band of Brothers. Anybody else? Band of Brothers, you into Band of Brothers? Two of you, that's awesome.

That's really cool. I don't like, but I don't like movies about isolation. It's why I hated the movie Castaway. I don't have two hours to give to watching Tom Hanks yell at a volleyball, you know? Or more recently, Hail Mary. I don't need to watch Ken from the Barbie movie. Talk to a space crab for two hours. I'm not into it. What I'm into is people suffering together. Let me watch that. And when you stepped onto team Jesus, you were welcomed into a band of brothers and sisters. You were welcomed into a family. See, I know what we're walking through right now. I've been to the hospital rooms. I've been at the funerals. I know the addiction. I know the divorce. I know the pain. Been walking with it, through it with you. And here's the distinction between those who suffer well and those who don't suffer well. It is our key word today. It's discipline. And maybe you've been wondering, are we gonna define the word? Yeah, here it is. Consistent training that produces a desired result. Which begs some really tough questions, doesn't it?

See, we all like to believe, this is mythology, by the way. Neil and I talk about this on the podcast all the time. We all like to think that when the crisis hits, the rocky music's coming on, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa, and we will rise to the occasion in that moment, and that is not what happens. You sink to the level of your training. That's what happens. You do in the crisis what you prepared to do before the crisis. Or that you did not prepare to do. So look at your life and ask a hard question. Are you getting the desired results? Do you like what you see in your relationships? Do you like what you're hearing coming out of your mouth? Do you like the fruit that's coming out of your life? And you knew this in kindergarten, but if you don't like the outputs, you gotta change the what? The inputs. You gotta change what's going in if you wanna see something different come out. This is gonna be hard for some of us to hear, but it's true. Your training, as it stands right now, is perfectly designed to get the results that you're currently seeing.

Whatever you're doing right now is perfect to get what you're getting. You wanna keep getting that? Keep doing this. You wanna get something different? Something's gotta change. So some of you were here back in the spring when we did a challenge. I'm gonna talk about another challenge we're gonna do here in a minute, but there's a great enemy of discipline that Paul wants to bring to the forefront. He says, no soldier gets entangled in what he calls civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. In other words, civilian pursuits is simply distractions. Distractions are the enemy of discipline. The moment you were welcomed into Team Jesus, you were ordained into ministry, which means your concerns, your values, your pursuits are entirely different than the rest of the world's. Jesus saw this dynamic all the time with his disciples. All of a sudden, their selfish ambition would rise up, and he would have to look at them and go, and smack them upside the head and go, not so with you. That's not the way we roll. That's not what we do. Do you see me doing that? So don't do that anymore.

But we get distracted with civilian pursuits. Literally, it translates the business affairs of this life. The business as usual behavior of the culture that you are surrounded in is not the way we operate as followers of Jesus. We have to be more focused and disciplined than that, because we're in a war. One of my favorite movies of all time, you maybe heard me talk. about before is called We Were Soldiers, very underrated war movie. Mel Gibson plays Colonel Hal Moore, true story, leading his troopers into battle in Vietnam. And there's this very poignant scene where they're about to be deployed and he and all the officers are getting up in the middle of the night and they're kissing their wives goodbye and tucking their kids in as they sleep and touching their head and praying over them. And then there's this just moment where Hal Moore, he steps outside of his housing and he walks to the end of his sidewalk and he turns left to go meet the rest of his troopers and officers, he puts his helmet on and he never looks back, why? Because from that moment on, he had to be focused on the mission at hand. And so when you're on Team Jesus, you're joining him not on your shadow mission,

but on his mission, which he made clear was to seek and save the lost, to welcome one more lost son or daughter home, but we get distracted. So here's my question. Can you imagine what our community, Southern Christian Church, would look like if we were disciplined and we didn't get distracted? Because you've probably heard this before. Like if Christians would just do what the Bible says as it pertains to financial generosity, there would not be hungry people in the world. Do you understand? If we would just serve, provide for, and protect the orphan and the widow the way the brother of Jesus, James, tells us to to express our purest form of worship, orphans and widows would be taken care of, provided for, protected, and there would be no trafficking. If we just actually believed Jesus when he gave us the great commission to go into all the world and make disciples, the gospel would reach every tribe, tongue, and nation tomorrow, but we're seated on the sofa, just being distracted. So I'm not in charge of all the world's Christians, but I'm called to shepherd this place. I'm just telling you, we need discipline, we need resilience, because we are in the war.

We're in the battle. So back in the spring, we did the Reset Challenge, and I keep hearing stories of people whose lives were transformed because of the Reset Challenge, tuning in to one voice, tuning out all the other voices that are so distracting. This fall, Connor and our team developed a 30-day challenge, all right? And here's the way you can participate in it. Just text the word discipline to 40411. It'll be on the website too, but this is the easiest way to do it. Text the word discipline, write it down in your journal, or take notes. If you need to take out your phone, go ahead. I won't get mad at you today for this moment, all right? And what you're gonna find on there is just three simple but not easy disciplines. 10 minutes for each every day. 10 minutes to read the Bible. 10 minutes to pray. 10 minutes to physically walk. We thought about calling it 30 for 30, but we're afraid ESPN would sue us because they're so desperate for money, all right? So we're just going, that's a shot, that's a shot. We're just calling it the 30-day challenge. Jump on there, and I promise you that by the end of this 30 days, you will be different if you can string together

30 days' worth of simple discipline. Now, how about that for a seeker-sensitive sermon? How am I doing? Join Team Jesus, prepare to suffer, selah, you know? Again, I don't write the mail, I just deliver it, but look at the way Paul wraps this up. His aim, soldiers of Jesus, is to please how many people? Hmm, the one who enlisted him. If you're a follower of Jesus today, just let me ask you a simple question. Who enlisted you, what is his name? This is not a trick question, Jesus. He's the only one who can sustain you. He's the only one who can provide what you most need. He's the only one who can hold up under the weight of your worship. He is the only one who can satisfy your soul. And so welcome to Southland, we're all about Jesus. We sing his name, we proclaim his name, we turn our eyes to him, we worship him, and then we go look for more lost and broken people that desperately need him. And so if you wanna be a part of that, welcome. We hope you come back next week. Let's all stand and defiantly worship him right now. Let's pray. Father God, we come before you in awe and wonder of who Jesus is and what he's done for us. Father, this love with which you first loved us, we were desperate, we were broken, we were lost,

and you sent your son, you dispatched him to come to seek us and to save us. And so many of us, Father, we've been recipients of the immeasurable riches of your grace, and so we wanna worship you because of that and we wanna be conduits of that grace to extend it and share it to more and more lost and broken people so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.