Hidden in Plain Sight

Do you guys come hungry for a word from God? Amen. Well, let's open our Bible, because that's how we get one, to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13 today. Matthew 13, and we're gonna go to verse 44 through 46. So not a ton of scripture today, but if you could join me, please, just stand to your feet for the reading of the Word of God. Matthew 13, 44 through 46. This brand new sermon collection is called The Kingdom is Like. Will y'all say that with me? The Kingdom is Like. So what we're gonna be studying are the moments in the Gospels where Jesus, illustrating what the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God or the kingdom is like, all those are synonymous by the way, by sharing a parable and setting it up by saying the kingdom is like. And this is very, very important, because as disciples of Jesus, we need to understand this new kingdom that we are a part of by submitting our lives to his lordship. Are you with me? So all of these moments in the scripture where Jesus gives a parable and says the kingdom is like, there's actually quite a bit, I'm not gonna be able to hit all of them in the sermon collection, but I'm gonna hit all the themes, all right? So the first one today is just there to outline the value of the kingdom. Are you with me? I'm sorry, I'm coughing. It's probably that, will y'all unplug that thing, that scent thing? It could be what it is. We like to pipe in fragrant smells, because this building is very old, so we need them. But I've been standing next to it, so I think that's what it is. Matthew 13, verse 44 through 46. You ready? Yes.

Y'all ready? Yes. All right, cool. Let's read it together. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure in a field, which a man found and covered up. And then he goes and sells all that he has, and he buys that field. Notice, the kingdom of heaven is like what? Treasure. It is very valuable, but we see there it is hidden. It is valuable, but hidden. Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like treasure. All right. Verse 45. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of, who on finding one pearl of, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. The same thing goes for both, very valuable, but hidden. And that's the subject, hidden in plain sight, hidden in plain sight. That's the title of the message today. Let's pray. Lord, we say thank you so much for your word. It's everlasting and unchanging. God, we are grateful that you speak to us so faithfully through the scriptures. And we ask that today would be no different. I pray that you take hold of us today and you transform us more into your image. We come before you in humility, and we are asking you to pour into us. In Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said, amen. You can be seated. All right, I'm going to start with a few statements to intentionally create some tension.

Some of you guys just got nervous. But I'm doing it on purpose because I did not give that disclaimer in the last service. And as soon as I started, two people got up and walked out, and I was like, oh God. They could have just had an engagement, but I was thinking, they think I'm a heretic. I better set this up better the second service. Okay, so on any given Sunday, any given Sunday, you could pull up at any church in America and you could hear what we as modern Christians would call the gospel. You can hear the gospel. Now if I ask you to define the gospel, and I said, what is the gospel? I'm wondering what you might say. In my experience, most people would say something like this, well, we have a big sin problem, and the only solution is Jesus. So if you want to be saved. Receive eternal security and go to heaven after you die Then you better accept Jesus today, this is the doctrine of Soteriology in that theological field of study and it comes from the Greek word Soter meaning Savior or Soterian meaning salvation or deliverance In Greek and this message is true. Amen All right, I don't want you to think I'm glossing over it. I don't want you to think I'm minimizing it This message is true. Amen Very important that we get that because Jesus tells us that if we are to have any hope of heaven when we die Then we must accept him as Lord and Savior. That's John chapter 14 Jesus says I am the way I am the truth and I am the life There is no way for you to get to God except through me That's what Jesus declared and we receive him at his word. And so I think most people would say yeah This is the gospel. We're all sinners and we are amen We're all sinners and we are so we need a Savior and we do amen Because we cannot save ourselves and we cannot one more time. Amen Amen so somebody might say so you better get saved man

You better repent and accept Jesus into your heart and then you need to be baptized and have all of your sins Washed away because if you don't do that when you die, you're not going to be permitted into heaven Is this message true? Absolutely without a shadow of a doubt it is to be clear to be sure. It's true How do we know because Jesus said so in the Bible clearly proclaims that that is the case. However What if I were to tell you today that although that is the primary message of the church in America in 2026 it was not the primary message of Jesus in the Gospels Nobody left praise God even though Primarily you could pull up to any church in America on a Sunday morning and hear the gospel of salvation Everybody say salvation Well, you can hear it and it's good and we need to hear it. We must hear it. It is true. It is biblical We must receive salvation in Jesus name But if you look at the Gospels and all of the times that Jesus was preaching and teaching Sitting down to share with people. He did not teach the gospel of salvation but he taught the gospel of the kingdom everybody say kingdom Says very important okay that we understand this because if you really want to dive deep and I Did so you don't have to but if you want to do your homework to make sure what I'm telling you is true Please do it this week because I looked up all of the times that Jesus referred to salvation in it in his own name or Referred to himself as Savior now as I scoured through the Gospels. Here's what I learned. There is only one Explicit moment where Jesus reveals himself as Soda or Savior and that is the scripture that I read last week On Easter, which is the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost So rather than even articulate his own identity as Savior most often. He said I'm the Son of Man. I'm the Son of God He didn't say he was a Savior as often as we might think although he is What he said most often was that he is a king of a kingdom and there are over a hundred times in the Gospels, let me say it again for effect a hundred times

In the Gospels that Jesus clearly talks about the kingdom the kingdom So I realized that it's very good for all of us to hear the gospel of salvation It is very good because that is the door that gets us in the house but we also need to pass by the door and we need to move into the lifestyle that Jesus calls us to which is a kingdom lifestyle of being a kingdom citizen and Living in a greater way in an atmosphere in realm of abundance Are you with me? So me and my wife right now. We're house shopping. We have been house shopping Well, she's been house shopping for years. I've been house shopping for a couple of months Anybody else your wife does that like I mean Zillow is like she's on Zillow I'm like, why are you looking at 18 million dollar houses? Just browsing, you know, we just browsing I see what's out there It's exactly right she's like hey God can do anything amen, but good Lord She's like look at this mansion in Alaska and I'm like we're not moving to Alaska But we actually, so we have a realtor, and there's a lot of realtors in the room, I'm gonna assume, but our realtor actually was on base today. Our brother Ruben. And we're very picky, I'm just gonna admit that. We have different preferences as to what kind of house we wanna live in, what kind of house she wants to live in, what kind of house I wanna live in. But one thing that has been consistent every single time Ruben has taken us to a house is that he does not stop the tour by articulating the benefits of the door. You see what I'm saying? Imagine, we go up, and we're with Ruben,

and we go to this house, which we think is wonderful, and it's beautiful, and it's awesome, and it's magnificent, and we get there, and he's like, let me give you a tour of the door. Look at this door, this door is phenomenal. It's beautiful, it's strong, it's secure, it has a, you know, a doorknob. What would you say? Bro, cool. I gotta spit a little bit more than I meant to there, I'm sorry, but you did just get baptized, so second baptism, my bad. I'm so sorry, bro. Cool, man, like I appreciate you showing me the door, but I would like to go into the house. But here's what we do every single Sunday. Look at the door. I'm gonna come to this side. So here's what we do like every single Sunday. Like, rather than teach people how to do it, we teach them how to do it. We teach them how to do it. We teach them how to do it every single Sunday. Like, rather than teach people how to dwell in the kingdom, how to live as a citizen of the kingdom, we're like, hey, look at the door. This is a cool door. And listen, I'm grateful for the door. We need the door to access the house. I'm grateful for the message of salvation.

I'm grateful for the gospel. I'm grateful for the gospel of salvation. I'm grateful for the 2,500 people that showed up on each. I'm grateful for like almost 100 people getting saved last week or whatever the number was. We were close. I'm grateful for all of that. But we have to understand that the gospel of salvation, it is the door to get into the house. It's not the whole house. No one wants to stop at the door and be like, that was great. I knocked on it. I accepted it. That's the door. Praise God for the door. I'd be like, Reuben, can I go in the house, please? Are you with me? Because a lot of times what we do is we don't talk about, you know, we don't even talk about the basic things, to be honest, and I'm not trying to be mean. I just want to highlight, you know, what the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews six, verse one and two, check this out. So Hebrews six, verse one and two says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Not laying, again, a foundation of repentance from dead works, right? We don't have to keep telling you to,

I mean, we always got to repent, but like, we don't have to keep saying the same thing. We want to teach you how to live in the kingdom. From dead works and faith toward God and the instructions about washings, that's baptism, and laying on of hands, that's praying as well as like empowering the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment. The writer of Hebrews says, which a lot of people think is Paul, I would agree with that, but it's debated, but nonetheless, it's saying like, these are the basics. I just want to say, unfortunately, we don't even get the basics. Oh, I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just trying, can I just be, just keep it a book? Can I just be honest today? Unfortunately, we don't even get the basics. What we get is self-help. Dang, I'm gonna get in trouble this Sunday after Easter. What we get is personal development in Jesus' name. You know, what we get is like, Super Soul Sunday, a TED Talk, man, I'm gonna get in some trouble. You know, like, here's how to use Jesus as your life coach. Here's a few principles that you can find in the Proverbs that if you apply to your career, you will find that there is seven easy steps to greater success in Jesus' name, and if you just do it, you will be happier and healthier. And then Christians go through storms.

They go through hard times. They go through moments that Jesus promised everybody and said, don't think it to be a strange thing when you go through some fiery trial. You're gonna go through the same stuff I went through, but when Christians go through it, they don't have anything to stand on because they've not even been taught the basics. This is why I'm so passionate about preaching the Bible. Church because number one I know that you're not going to be transformed by my opinion This is why I don't give you a TED talk and give you a ton of illustrations I do my best to preach the word But ultimately if I don't give you the Bible you will have no bedrock to stand on when you're going through a storm You going through the fight of your life I can guarantee what is not going to help you very much and that's you shouting my opinion into the darkness That's not going to help you What's going to help you is the same thing that helped our Savior Christ Jesus when he found himself in the wilderness and Satan came against him with three different fiery trials. He said it is Y'all know it Here's how you overcome so so he's saying we don't just stay right here We're not going to go stay. This is important. We got to talk about it. We got to preach it We got to proclaim it we got to go out in public. We got to welcome people to it We're not saying it's unnecessary. So like please nobody clip that part and label me a heretic. I'm not saying that I'm saying it is absolutely Essential the Word of God says it's necessary. We must preach it. We have to preach it every single Sunday There will be an opportunity for you to respond and receive the free gift of salvation in Jesus name In fact, we're gonna do it in the next 15 minutes but Once you see the door Jesus is saying I want to open the door and I want you to live in a new reality I don't just want you to make Jesus a part of your life and

Then live your life Jesus adjacent So that is cultural Consumeristic Christianity We know that right it's Cultural Christianity and it will not anchor you in the storms of your life I'm sorry to say it's not you cannot hold on to cliches in the middle of a crisis I It may sound good in a Facebook post but it is not gonna satisfy your soul when you're going through a fight So Jesus saying look this is the door you have to accept me you have to receive me But then I want to bring you into a lifestyle and this is why Jesus spent a hundred times saying let me tell you what the kingdom is like because whenever you go from outside to inside and Some of y'all need to come inside because some of y'all outside Y'all didn't catch it we outside So y'all need to come inside all right you need to come inside All right See me y'all cutting up too much you come inside For a little bit take a season We see you you've been outside long enough soul on empty just polluted just filthy just mind messed up Cyclical behavior can't break free of the site. You need to come inside the house You Can't learn how to live from outside the house just looking through the windows like yep, I'm living my life Jesus adjacent There's the house. I see it on Sunday. I never go in I never live in it. I'm not a real son I'm just living out here hoping he'll toss some food out the window that I can refer to as a blessing Say no come in come in you you don't have to live Jesus adjacent that is cultural consumeristic Christianity, it's I got the bumper sticker. I got the Facebook status You know I got some church merch, and I'm grateful for all of those things, but it's not enough To say I'm a citizen of the kingdom of heaven Now we know that the kingdom is glorious. This is what Jesus spends a hundred thousand dollars on

Jesus spends a hundred times in the Gospels somebody you don't have to live that way You can come into this kingdom. You don't have to live like that you can come into this kingdom It's so much better inside. It's so much better inside. It's so much better in here I was hanging out with this guy from Uganda this past week. He's a pastor He grew up Muslim, and God just wrecked his life And he was telling me the testimony and he had such a powerful testimony, and he said when I was in the most Prestigious school of Islam in the nation of Egypt in Cairo Studying how to be a better Muslim I had a dream where Jesus came to me And he was standing at a door and he said you can stay outside And you'll get rained on or you can come in here where there are many rooms And This started the journey of him coming into the kingdom You don't have to stay outside you can come in But you don't just come and look at the door once a year Easter Looked at the door. I'm a Christian, why's my life not getting any better? You gotta come into the house, bro! Are you with me? So, if Jesus is preaching this all the time, if Jesus is teaching this all the time, if Jesus is articulating what the kingdom is like, and he's standing up and he's saying, the kingdom is like treasure. Who doesn't want treasure? Dude, come on! I want some treasure! Who doesn't want a pearl of great price? Amen! So, if he's articulating these things,

why in the world are people not seeing these things? If they're so valuable, catch this, why is it hidden? Are you with me? Are you still with me? Did I lose you on that? If it's so valuable, why is it so hidden? See, the disciples asked Jesus this very same question in this very same chapter. If you look at Matthew chapter 13, you just go back a little bit and you'll see this, is that in Matthew chapter 13 it says, then the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? You're telling us what the kingdom is like. Why are you giving us illustrations? Why don't you just break it down, man? Why don't you just give it to us straight? Why don't you just tell us what it is you're really trying to say? And Jesus responds and he says, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. Why is that? Because they have come into it. They're disciples. They're following Jesus. As a disciple, it has been given to you to discern the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. What are those secrets?

Well, you're gonna have to come back next Sunday and the Sunday after that and the Sunday after that and the Sunday after that. You're gonna have to come to the whole sermon collection. What are those secrets? That's what we're gonna talk about. That's what the kingdom is like. And so Jesus says to you guys that have repented of your sins, that have changed your mind and you've said, I am turning, I am actively turning from my ways and I am turning towards your ways and I'm gonna live the way that you've called me to live and I'm gonna view all of life through a filter, which is the word of God. This is called having a biblical worldview, by the way. But I'm gonna view all of life through a filter of faith that is built on the words of Christ Jesus so I see my life through this filter. I see my marriage through this filter. I see my parenting through this filter. I see my career through this filter. I see my, uh-oh, politics. Oh, God, wow. I just knew that part wasn't gonna go over very well. So, but like I'm looking, I'm just to the best I can. We're never gonna get it right. You know, Paul talks about seeing through a glass dimly. Like we know in part, we prophesy in part. We're never gonna get it perfect.

But we're doing our best to say, I'm looking through a kingdom lens because I'm not just a citizen of this nation. I am a citizen. This is why Jesus said, you're ambassadors. Is this too much? Are you sure? I'm really trying to like be chill. But I'm so excited to talk to you guys about this because this is the post-Easter resurrection reality of the life that we've been given access to. But unfortunately, because so many Christians, even in 2026, just hang out at the door. Every Sunday, it's like, dude, look at the door. Reuben, I wanna go in the house, please. Just look at the door again. Right? That's not gonna happen. And yet so many, we just, this is what we do because Jesus is a part of our lives. Can I tell you today, Jesus is not a part of your life. You are a part of his. Jesus don't get like a little slice. So here you go, 1 7th of my life, Jesus, you're gonna get. Actually, it's gonna be more like 1 14th because I'll give you the morning of Sunday. Afternoon, I'm back, baby. We back outside. Okay, I'll try this side of the room.

You know, like a 1 14th, you know, it's like Sunday morning, Jesus got my Sunday morning. He's a part of my life. No, Jesus is not a part of your life. You are a part of his life. So many times throughout the New Testament talk about being in Christ. You're in Christ, you're a new creation. The new creation that you are lives according to a certain reality. Starting with this, this is so important because this is why the religious leaders of Jesus' day could listen to all of his teachings but never see the kingdom. And we have a lot of Christians today who listen to the teachings of Jesus. They never actually see the kingdom. They don't see the reality of the kingdom of heaven. They don't live life like a kingdom citizen. They just go to the door. That's a door, look at the door. And I'm not saying they're not gonna have that's not what I'm saying. It's not even what this is about Yes, we're gonna see him and we're gonna rejoice with them on streets of gold But I believe because Jesus taught me to pray your kingdom come your will be done on the earth as it is in heaven Then I don't have to wait until I die To witness the realities of the kingdom, but I have been given access now Because of what Jesus has done for us through the cross of Calvary and he says here come into it Come into it. And this is what I want to say post Easter. Jesus wants to welcome you into the house Church He wants you to get the fullness of the inheritance that he paid for on the cross for you to experience Do you know how many Christians that I meet they're living so far below the standard of their inheritance that I'm like confused as to

Why they're even Christians. I'm like what is happening, you know if I had like a great grandpa or a great uncle that I just never met and didn't know that I have My dad was adopted. So I guess this would be possible and I got a phone call one afternoon and they said hey You have a great uncle that you didn't know you have and he died I'd be like well, man, that's sad, you know, and they said but he left you an inheritance. Wow, that's awesome How much is it It's a hundred million dollars I mean just this is illustration. I could buy the 18 million dollar mansion in Alaska It's It's a hundred million dollars All right, bro, drop me a pen I'm on my way I'll sign the papers. Can I can I e-sign? You need my direct deposit information it's on deck I Imagine pulling up Right and you got you got you got the law you're there because whenever somebody dies they leave behind a document called the last Because it's it's it's a setting of their intent right? It's like this is my will y'all get with this a last will and Somebody somebody got it, but but that nobody else an old and a new See a lot of times we think of that as biblical language, it's actually legal Because what a will and a testament does is it outlines the intention of the one leaving the inheritance That you have legal Right to access Everything in there is mine Because he died Somebody needs to get this today. I'm on Somebody needs to get this today because somebody out there is living so far below the standard of The inheritance that Jesus died and paid for on the cross for you to experience and you've been spending every single Sunday with your Soul on empty go into the door when Jesus is saying you don't have to stay outside

So imagine I pull up at the bank and I'm like Great to meet you, you know lawyer. There's a legal situation right Nick. It's a legal situation He says you're not you're not gonna believe this is this man. He left he died and he left you a hundred million dollars Hallelujah, we're gonna build this building over here in East Nashville sofa. I Mean I don't advocate for you playing the lottery, but if you win tithe, so I'm saying Listen If you're a drug dealer in here you sell crack Todd, all right, we're praying for your salve and I'm just I'm just kidding All right. I just I shouldn't have said that I shouldn't have said that I should I shouldn't have said that I'm sorry, but My bad my bad Y'all don't know my testimony so So I go to the bank right and and he's like you got the hundred million dollars and what if I said man that's amazing You mean to tell me that I got a treasure That's awesome you mean to tell you mean to tell me that I got a pearl a great price all I got to do is just I Need to change the way that I think so that I can live according to this new reality And then I tell him I say, you know, what? Can you just cut me a check for a thousand? Cause, cause that would cover the bills I got coming up this month. This is how most Christians live. They have a tremendous inheritance that is available to them to come into the house and they're like, nah, I'm actually all right. If I can just get a little bit to keep it going from now until next Saturday evening. Y'all ever watch a antiques roadshow? Too many Gen Z in here. Everybody's like, I don't know what that is, bro. You old. Listen, Antique Roadshow. All right. Is the best low dopamine entertainment. All right. Like my wife and I, sometimes at night, we like to watch low dopamine shows.

Like I don't want to get hype. So we watch Antique Roadshow or This Old House. I don't have a witness, but I'm telling them shows are fire. Have you ever watched Antique Roadshow and, and like somebody has a treasure, right? That they're like, yo, I found this in my house and it was my granddad. See, I'm looking at the people who are older than 40 and you're like, yeah, I'll watch that show. It's like, I found this treasure and, and they're like, wow, that's a, can you tell me about it? And I don't really know nothing about it. And the, the, the appraiser is like, let me tell you about this Pearl of Great Price and then proceeds to blow the mind of the individual who has brought the antique to the roadshow. Are you with me? You know what I'm talking about? And then they, he's like, I have never seen one in this condition before. If I were to evaluate it, I would assume that at auction today, it would go for $150,000. And then there's like Judith over here, who's had this since like 1956 and she's like, oh God, it's unbelievable. I've had it in my attic the whole time. Hidden in plain sight. The kingdom is here. It's as close as your hand. It's right. It's like, it's a veil. So why don't we see it? Why don't we see it? Well, number one, to see it, we must repent. Now a lot of people think repentance is like a magic trick. Repentance is not.

I have sinned abracadabra. Are you with me? It's not, when you say I repent of my, it's not like a, it's not like an incantation that like I say these words and then all of a sudden everything is good. When I was a kid, this is what I thought. I thought that if I sinned and I died before I said I repent, I would go to hell. This is what I thought as a kid, right? So every night before I went to bed, I'd be like, God, I repent of my sins, what I did wrong and what I didn't. Because if I die in the middle of the night, I don't want to go to hell. So I repent. Amen. Okay. Go to heaven. I'm the only person, obviously. Okay. It's not like, it's like a magic spell, like you say to cover your butt. Repentance actually is a turning of saying I'm going this direction. I repent doesn't mean I say this, so everything's fine. It means I'm making a deliberate choice to take action, to turn from this way to this way. And now I'm walking in a different direction. I'm going to change the way that I live. The reason why we hear the teachings of Jesus, but we don't see the kingdom of Jesus is because we've repented enough to get saved. We've not repented enough to see the kingdom. We've repented enough to have eternal security. Amen. I'm a Christian, but we've not repented enough to actually see what Jesus paid for. Like the inheritance, the living in the kingdom of God as a kingdom citizen.

We've not repented enough because we've not said enough times when convicted. Holy Spirit, thank you for opening my eyes to the behavior that I'm engaging that's keeping me at a distance from the inheritance that you have for me that I've also cried out for. So the Lord convicts. That's not a biblical issue, Holy Spirit. How often have you argued with the Holy Spirit? That's not a heaven or hell issue, Holy Spirit. And he's saying it's a relational issue. The only time that we're obedient is not on issues of salvation, but issues of intimacy. How close can I get to Jesus? How near to him can I get? I don't want to tolerate any distance. Therefore, I've got to repent whenever conviction, when the presence of conviction, it's time to let go of that thing. It's time to turn on that thing. So let me give you three notes. Three points to take with you. Cause I want to, I kind of yelled at you a lot and that was not necessarily intentional, but I just, I want to give the devil a migraine this morning. So I'm like, yo, we're just going to preach this thing and tell people that any obstacle that is in the way of my full inheritance in Christ Jesus, we're going to obliterate that thing this morning. And we're going to step into what Jesus has paid for us to experience. So let me just give you three points real quick. Number one is this entering in the kingdom, into the kingdom, it costs everything. Did you see what happened when he found the treasure? He said, man, I'm going to get, I'm going to sell everything. I got to sell. Cause I got to get that field. I'm going to get rid of anything. I got to get rid of, cause I got to get that field. I got any relationship. I got to walk away from, I will walk away from it. Cause I got to get that field. When I first got saved, y'all changed my cell phone number three times. I had old girlfriends leaving love songs on my voicemail. My wife thinks that's hilarious. We got to get behind me, Satan.

What relationship does light have with darkness, right? It's like, man, I, I, whatever it's, it might cost me everything. I may have to walk away from stuff. I may have away from stuff. I may have to leave an old job. I may have to leave an old friend circle, whatever I will walk away. It's going to cost everything. I repent, I turn from it. Whatever it takes. But here's the second point. The kingdom of God is worth everything. It might cost you everything, but it's worth everything. It's worth everything. A lot of you guys do know my testimony. There's a part of it I allude to sometimes, and that's how passionate I was about playing the sport of basketball. I grew up in Kentucky. Every single home has a hoop in the backyard. Every single little boy wants to play for the Kentucky Wildcats. And I was no different. My first word was not mama, dada. It was ball. And that ain't, that's not a lie. Like I have my very first shot at a little tykes hoop filmed. My parents filmed it. All I ever wanted to do was play basketball. And I was pretty good. I ended up playing for an elite team for the EYBL and traveling all over America and playing in basketball tournaments in front of college coaches and national championship winners. And I was like, this is what I'm going to do my whole life. I'm going to be a basketball player. But unfortunately, in my teenage years, I got strung out on drugs. I was in and out of jail, shot at a bunch of times, buried some of my best friends and ended up in a situation where I was so strung out. I couldn't even play basketball anymore and got kicked off my team my senior year, where I was expected to sign a D1 scholarship because I got arrested at school. So when I got saved, y'all, you know what I said? I'm going to go back and I'm going to be a basketball player. This is my dream. This is what I've always wanted to do. This is my greatest passion. So I'm going to go back and I'm going to be a basketball player. And for the first time in six years, I was drug free, alcohol free, drama free, going to church in relationship with my parents. I was in good shape, eating right, training every single day. Man, I was back playing above the rim. I could dunk off an alley-oop. Ten foot, what's up? And I'm five foot ten and white. And the D2 defending national champs said, we know about you. You can walk on for our team. And I was so hyped to do this. I was so excited. I said, this is my childhood dream. I've overcome every obstacle the enemy put in my path. I have eligibility. I'm going to go play.

And the week before I was going to the practices that summer, my dad and I, we sat down together, which we did every single night. And we watched a TD Jake's DVD. That's what we did every single night. And then I would ask questions and he would disciple me and he would pour into me. And just a few weeks prior, I told him, dad, I think I'm called to preach the gospel. I think I'm called to preach the gospel. He said, I've always known that about you, son. It was such a powerful moment. And we're sitting there one night and my dad looks over at me and he says, if you're called to preach the gospel, son, let me make a suggestion to you. Maybe don't go play for that school basketball. Maybe we send you to school in Texas where you can get a ministry degree and just start preaching the gospel. You ever had somebody say something to you? You're like, man, I don't want to hear that. Don't say that. That's ruining my life. Maybe you don't want to hear that Jesus will ruin your life, but he'll give you a better. life. It's just, if you won't pick up the cross, any man who seeks to protect his life is going to lose it. But if you'll lose it for my sake, then you'll find it. And so I'm, I listened to my dad say that and I'm like, that is not what I, that's not my plan. This is my dream and my identity. And I get so much value out of being told I'm a great basketball player. Cause I'm from a town of 400 people in West Kentucky. I'm going to go play basketball. And so I run upstairs and I sit in my bed and I literally weep for about an hour and a half in the pillow, just soaking the pillow. I'm like, God, no, I, this is what I wanted to do with my whole life. I wanted to play basketball. And he said to me, I will bless you if you want to go play basketball, but son, how many more souls could come into the kingdom if you would hang it up and preach the gospel. And I remember this moment because I went to my closet. I took my basketball. I wrote Isaac on it. I said, all right, throw that ball on the altar. And that's what it takes. If, if that's just an illustration from my own life, if you want to come into the kingdom, it's going to require repentance. And some of the things that you will have to let go of are things that you find value in kingdom costs everything, but listen, it's worth everything because even in my own life, in a matter of months, I was, I got the opportunity to spend time with people that could pour into me and help me. And I grew in my faith and it set me on a trajectory to be able to do what I'm doing today. Last point, if you're writing it down, you can make this note. And that is that entering into the kingdom requires Jesus to be everything. And this is why most

people don't see it. They just hear about it because they don't live Jesus centric. They live Jesus adjacent. Jesus is not the center of their life. Jesus is somewhere over here. He's just kind of a part of their life. He's like a caricature, like a, a religious trinket. It's like, it's awesome. Like Jesus is there. Look at him. I'm very nostalgic about Jesus getting nostalgic about Jesus is just the religious way of ignoring Jesus. Jesus has got to be everything. Can we stand to our feet? I just want to give you an opportunity to respond today. If you would, please just close your eyes, bow your head for a minute and have our prayer team come up as well. If you're in here today if you're in here today, and maybe it's your first time being here, or you just need to rededicate your life to Jesus and go through the door. If that's you, will you lift your hand real quick? I just want to pray with you. I'm not trying to embarrass you. I see you brothers. Anybody else? You're like today's the day, man. I need to walk through that door. I want to live in the kingdom. Is there anybody else? If you want to rededicate your life, I want to ask you to raise your hand too. Amen. Can we pray together? I see you brother. Let's, let's pray with those who've lifted their hand. Everybody say Jesus. I repent of my sins and I turn from my ways and I turn towards you and your kingdom. Holy spirit. Fill me, lead me and guide me all the days of my life. I belong to Jesus. And everyone said.