Leaving Behind What You Know | Crossroads Church

My name is Miko, I'm the president director at Crossroads Church. We're back for another week taking a look at real, deep, and raw topics, topics that can change your life and how you've you got. This week, I sing your pastor, Brian Tone, is inviting us all into raw freedom. One of the most compelling stories in history is the Exodus story. An entire nation, millions of people went from being enslaved and oppressed to freedom. Like overnight, many of them found themselves wanting to go back into slavery in Egypt. Egypt was safer, Egypt was familiar. When we decided to leave an old habit, an old mindset, an old lifestyle, we have many compelling reasons to reverse that decision and go back. Spiritual slavery is doing something for us. Spiritual freedom isn't always easy, but it is what we're created for. Let's jump in. And let's thank the table guy, Nate. Nate, the great, Nate always gets it done. All right, hey, I'm excited to talk today. I got some news, and I think especially have some really great news that may help you when you're out walking with God. Let's pray before I go any further. God, I thank you for the privilege it is just to talk about transcending things, things that may not be talked about in normal situations or normal places, like at work or wherever, but we get to talk about them here. And for every reason, you've honored me enough that I could talk about these things today. So thank you for that. And I pray that you would work on all of our hearts because I know there's things that need worked on in all of our hearts, including mine. Would you do it only you can do today? And I pray these things according to the character and identity of Jesus. Amen. Well, this might get me kicked out of the preacher's union,

but I'll just say it anyway. There's parts of the Bible I don't like. In fact, there's parts of the Bible where every time I read it, I go, "Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and not read that anymore." Yeah, I think I'm done with that. Specifically, these might surprise you. The books of Jeremiah and the books of Isaiah. There's some good stuff in there. There's some good stuff in there. You got a little Jeremiah 2911. I have good plans for you. Plans to prosper you. That's good. It'll take me some Jeremiah 2911 anytime. You've got some great prophecies in Isaiah about the coming Messiah. That's also take the whole time. But there's also just this stuff. It's like rinse and repeat. Like, you're sinful. God's going to get you. You're sinful. God's going to get you. You're sinful. God's going to get you. It's just on and on and on. And when I'm done with it, I think, I don't know. I know it's the word of God. I believe every word of it. But I'm not sure it's worth me reading anymore. And then a year goes by and it comes back up

with my Bible reading plan the next year. And I go, wait a minute. Did that I say I wasn't going to read Jeremiah again? But then I remember, oh, but I do hard things. So let's do it again. So I jump back into it. What do you know? What do you know? As the Bible says of itself in Hebrews, the word of God is alive and active sharper than any double-edged sword. You could read something again and again. And then one day you read it and bam. You see something you never saw before. This happened for me several months ago, as I was reading Jeremiah 42 verse 1, or excuse me, verse 5 and following. Let me give you a little background here. Jeremiah is sort of this chief spiritual authority in Israel. He gets the words directly from God and he gives it to the people. And the people of God are kind of like the people of God today, us, if you've received Christ, and that we assume that God wants what I want, right? God wants, right? And if I'm feeling it, it's because God's feeling it. It's just, it's exactly why elections are so divisive, because everyone assumes it's very clear, right? The worst thing why I want to win. I'm going to vote for you're not, you must be against God. We assume like the things that I want, that's obviously what God wants. And this isn't the way it works.

But this is the backdrop for the people of Israel that come to Jeremiah as they are under oppression from Babylon. And they want a word. They want to hear what they want to hear. And they assume they're going to hear what they want to hear. And it says this, then they said to Jeremiah, "May the Lord be as true and faith, may the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us, if we do not act according to all the word, which the Lord your God sends you to us. Whether it's good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God." These people sound so spiritual. They're just, "Hey Jeremiah, whatever it is, whatever we're gonna obey the Lord." So just tell us what it is, man. You tell us what it is, and we're on it, 'cause we're all about obedience all the time. That's what we do around here. Man, no, they don't mean that at all. They assume that God wants what they want, and what they want is they want to go back to Egypt. That's what they want. Behind me we have a beautiful rendering of Egypt. Many of us think of Egypt as the sand dunes. It wasn't, there was sand, but then down in the valley there was limestone foundations, and there was water, and there was lushness. And Egypt has been a very rich country for a long, long time

because they have a good amount of natural resources. And the nation of Israel has always wanted to go back to Egypt. They just get out of slavery. They get out of slavery. They have an amazing miraculous parting of a sea. They get through the sea. You think they'd be happy if they're free under Moses' leadership, and then they're not. Then they immediately start thinking, oh man, I wish I was back in Egypt. In Egypt we had leeks. Sounds really gross, that's a vegetable basically. We had leeks back there, and we had, used to leak back there, it was greatly with back there. And I just wish I could go back there. And they were always looking to back to Egypt. So they assume that's what it is. That's what God wants. He says, have God just tell us what we want is going to happen. And Jeremiah comes to them in chapter 42, seven and 19. And he says, nope, you're going to stay right where you are. We're going to have God wants Babylon to be your protector, believe it or not. No, you're not going back to Egypt. Now this is a problem that Egypt has, and I'm going to lead the witness here. It's all of our problem too. I'm not really concerned about giving you a history lesson on the nation of Israel and its relationship with Egypt.

As I am saying, there's a spiritual dynamic here that's still at work in your life in my life. The dynamic of, I feel it, therefore God wants it. I want it, therefore God wants it. And there are things that we want, that we cling to, that God doesn't want us to cling to. And this process of Israel wanting to be in Egypt, the beautiful Egypt where resources are, the place of the known, that's what Egypt is. It was known for them, even though they had just come out of slavery and they were going towards the promised land, they didn't know the promised land, they didn't know where it was, they didn't understand it, but they understood Egypt. And they wanted that. All of us have things in our life that we understand and we want and God wants us to leave them. You're like, dad, why did I come to church today? It's not, it's not what I wanted to hear. I know, I understand it, but this is a regular theme for the nation of Israel and for all the people of God, which is us. Jeremiah 30, Isaiah 31, 1. 700ish years after they've left Egypt, they still want to go back and the prophets still have to speak against it. Isaiah says, woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, but do not look to the holy one of Israel. You go to Egypt for your help. You go to Egypt for your security.

God is your helper. God is your security. Egypt are those things that we have that aren't necessarily sinful. It could be. If you're on crack, yeah, it's your Egypt, leave it. But there's, I mean, there's stuff that's fine and innocent. There's nothing inherently evil about Egypt as a landmass. It's just there was keeping them from depending on God and going towards God. So your Egypt and my Egypt is anything we lean on instead of leaning on God. Anything we feel we have to have or else we can't have the life that we want. And God has regularly spoken against us. Hosea 11, 1. Another passing the Old Testament. When Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my son. God calls us out of things that aren't the best for us. He calls us out of things that may be good, but he may have something better for us. Now, Egypt was actually positive for the nation of Israel. Give me three examples of why they were drawn to it. One was Moses, Moses who is the savior of Israel in the Old Testament who brought the nation of Israel out of slavery. Moses was saved by Egypt. His mom put him in a basket. She was afraid that he was gonna get killed.

Put him in a basket. Put it out in the river, drift it down in the river. Out of faith, by faith, hoping someone saves his little baby. And what do you know, goes down to Pharaoh's household and people in Pharaoh's household rest his little baby out of the water. And they nurture him and Moses is able to be Because he had all the perks of richness and all that that could buy him. So Egypt blessed him and actually all of Israel, which enabled him to lead them to freedom. Then we have Joseph. Joseph is, I'd love to give you all the deep story in this, I can't give all the deep story, but Joseph had brothers who are jealous of him, and so they beat him up and they throw him into a pit and he gets sold into slavery to Egypt. And in Egypt, he works his way all the way up, up the chain of command, and so he's the number, basically becomes the number two guy at a pharaoh, and he has an economic plan that not only saves Egypt, but also is a financial springboard for all of Israel because pharaoh wants to bless him and his family. Israel gets a big boost because of Egypt. Then we have Jesus who is born on Christmas day. Boy, folks, it's coming up, it's coming up here. We're like two months out from Christmas songs. Some of you are like, I can't wait, others are going, oh my gosh, not again. But it's coming up, it's coming up,

and then we'll tell the story again, story of how Herod was threatened by this boy king and wanted to kill him, and where do his parents flee for safety? Egypt, they go to Egypt. Now the interesting thing about Jesus is he's the only Jew in the Bible who's ever recorded, has never wanted to go back to Egypt. He's one who left and doesn't want to go back again. Now let's look at these parallels, because I want you to see these parallels because whenever you see something, line up in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it's consistent through theme, it's going to be a consistent theme in your life and my life. Everything in the Old Testament is meant to point to the coming Messiah, it's meant to point to Jesus, everything, and everything in the Old Testament is fulfilled by Jesus. You can't understand Jesus without the Old Testament, and you can't understand the Old Testament without the fulfillment of Jesus, just the two really strange books. So with Israel, Old Testament Israel, they go down into Egypt, they go down into Egypt, they are then called out of Egypt, right? Moses says, hey, it's time to have freedom. They pass through the waters, they go through the sea, the miraculous parting of the sea, and then it crashes behind them and drowns Pharaoh's armies.

They enter the wilderness for 40 years. This is a time of testing because the nays of Israel still is not faithful, and so God says, you guys are going to wander around for 40 years until all of the old people die. 'Cause all of the old people are unfaithful, we're going to wait for the youngsters. We like God saying, yeah, we're going to have everyone across roads die until the student ministry people come in charge. We need the young folks. And then, and then they fail repeatedly, even after they're in the wilderness for 40 years. This is the story of Israel. Now here's the story of Jesus. Jesus went into Egypt. God calls him out when Mary and Joseph leave Egypt. He passes through the waters of baptism, instead of through the waters of the sea. He enters the wilderness for 40 days, instead of 40 years, it's immediately after he goes to the waters that he has put into the wilderness to be tested for 40 years. And then finally, he's repeatedly faithful. So he's the same, but yet completely different. What does this mean? This means you and I are going to have Egypt's in our life. We're going to have a place where we are going to soon but God would never want me to leave there.

God would never want me to turn my back on that. Oh yes he would. Yes he would. And whether you turn your back on or not is the definition of whether or not you are faithful. Whether you are not, whether or not you are trending to become like Jesus or whether you are regressing to be like rebellious Old Testament Israel. Now I'm going to give you a little bit of my story today. And then we're going to get off my story and help get into your story. But this verse rocked me so, so much. I started digging into this. Is that I wanted, as soon as I was put on suspension, however many go those months ago, as soon as I was, immediately what I wanted is I wanted to get back immediately. I wanted to get back to my old job. I wanted to get back to my old position immediately. I just knew that that's what God wanted. Or at least I thought I knew that's what God wanted. And then some things started to happen to me. I always knew at some point I'm going to retire in the future as I go on public like age 70 is a goal I've had to go off into the future of watching the prices right all day. Are you watching the prices right all day? I'm just looking at some other, no, no, okay. And something really interesting, I always thought like when that day comes, I don't know how I'll deal with it.

I'm kind of a high energy guy. I like having being part of a purpose and having text messages and emails that remind me that I'm needed and important. Well, what am I gonna do when all that's gone? Well, what do you know? I had that when I was suspended, eight months ago, seven months ago, whatever it was. And you know what I found out about, I don't know, three weeks in, two, three, four weeks in, whatever it was? I had this daunting thing, I was like, oh my gosh, for all types of purposes, I've been retired, at least temporarily, I'm retired, and I don't miss it at all. I mean, none of it, I miss it at all. I miss you all, I miss you all. I miss being used by God, I'm feeling how I was used by God. I miss not having a purpose and a vision I was going against, but like the basic mechanics and my responsibilities of my job and the feeling, I wanted to feel needed and all that stuff, I didn't miss that at all. And it was shocking to me, shocking. And then I was in a meeting with our board many months ago, and they said, well okay, well, what do you want to happen? And I said, well, I'm really tired, I want some extended time off. And then when I, and I said, no what, no one happens.

I said, well, I want to preach, love preaching, I want to preach, I really want to blow out camps and build camps out and expand those. I really love doing my podcast and writing and speaking, that sort of stuff, other places. I want to mentor the next generation of young leaders acrossroads, I want to build into them. And I also want to build into other key people here, acrossroads, really want to do that. And little did I know, little did I know, is I just created for myself a job description. I created a job description. So that's kind of the news today. The news today is this, I'm going to take a different job at Crossroads. I am going to become the founding senior pastor, founding because I kind of found the church 30 years ago. Senior, 'cause I am the old fart around here. I mean, I am still that. Pastor, I still want to build on people, but my old job as a top head honcho acrossroads that's making calls and pushing the church forward is going to go to Kyle Ranson. He's going to go from being our lead pastor. (audience applauding) You applaud for Kyle, he's going to go from being lead pastor to senior pastor. He's going to have my old title. He has all of my old authority and responsibility. He's going to take my seat on the board,

and I'm going to have that job description I just mentioned. I'm going to preach. I'm not going to tell you this, this sounds really corporate. I'm going to tell you this just to know there's not another shoe coming, no another shoe dropping, no thank you. Said another word there, I didn't mean to say it. There's not another thing that's coming down. It's because you might think, wait a minute, you're going to do this different thing, but is this like a step down? You're just doing this because you're exiting? No, no, not at all. And I can prove it because some of you have a employment contract at your place of work. Things are expected of you, what happens if you leave? Yeah, the ad employment contract. And it wouldn't have been really helpful for me if I had one of those. Most of my peers are, a good number of my peers actually has them, but I've never had one. Well, I have an employment contract now. It's a five year contract with five annually renewable terms, annual renewable terms after that. So I just say that to go, you're not getting rid of me. I know some of you are bummed out about that, but you're not getting rid of me. I'm going to be around. And I came to realize that my job as senior pastor

as I've known it was my Egypt. It was the thing I knew. It was the thing I understood. It's a thing I was good at. It's a thing that was good itself. But the thing about our Egypt's is we have to get out of our Egypt if we want to get to the promised land. And I want the promised land of an awakening. I want the promised land of things I don't even understand yet, when the nation of Israel was told with the promised land they couldn't even understand it. I know God's movement in this direction. I don't quite frankly know exactly what's there. Even in my new job description there's a percentage of time the board has given me, like just have some flex time to figure out and discern the will of God. What another... I don't understand it. I feel very uncomfortable about it. You always feel uncomfortable when you leave Egypt. But yet I feel this is what God would have me do. And there's other signs that I've seen this is what he wants. I'll give you one. Kyle, a number -- two years ago, before we were praying through and brainstorming the push for 10x, how could we? 10x are impact in the kingdom. We were, you know, it was really hot and we went to do the camp thing, we do this thing, and it came up like we need to continue to expand crossroads.

And I thought, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then Kyle was the first person who came with the line and said, how about 10 cities in 10 years? We're in four cities right now. How about 10 cities in 10 years? And I heard that and I had a number of reactions immediately. One was, yeah, yeah, we need to do that. The second thing, the second reaction was, I have always been the guy that's been thinking about the big things and taking the big -- so I've always been that guy. I've always been the guy that's been driving how to grow the reach of God through crossroads. I've always -- that's been my deal. And I didn't -- I didn't think of this one. I didn't think of this one at all. Hmm, that said something. And then I also said, like, that means something to the future here, that I didn't instinctively come up with that. And I instinctively didn't want to be the driver of that. That says something to me about the future. Those things came, and that was two years ago. I hadn't really thought about it too much before. But then I came to all the ways that guy was moving and speaking to me while I was away. I finally went to the board and said, I don't want the same job description I had before. I don't want that same job. And one of the reasons is I feel so good because Kyle is going to do a great job. And he's been doing a really, really, really good job.

Really, really good job. Now, I would say he's been doing a really, really great job. That would be true. But yet at the same time, I want to make sure you understand whatever job he's done, it would have been way, way, way, way better as good as it was, hitting not been dealt such a horrible hand. I mean, think about this. He's leading in a media nightmare. He has to lead through. There's all the uncertainty of what's happening, and how's this coming through. He has all the job responsibility of senior pastor without it officially bequeathed to him and without an understanding of the long-term future, that he's the man for a season. But you lead differently when you're the man for a season than actually the guy who God wants long-term. And then he's dealing, as he said many times, he views me as a spiritual father. He's been under my tutelage for 20-plus years. He's dealing with the trauma of his spiritual father going through trauma. That's a horrible, horrible way to be introduced to that such a-- and, man, he's honored God and he's honored us by doing a great job. He really has. Now, here's what I want to say, too, is saying like, oh, yeah, I like Kyle. I like Kyle. Yeah, I like Kyle.

I'm not sure about this. Yeah, yeah, we're all going to grow in the future, and he's going to grow more. But here's what I want to do. If you're like, oh, man, I just need to see BT more. I'm going to be around. I'm preaching in the employment contract. In the employment contract, I preach eight to 12 times a year. Kyle has asked me and said to me a couple weeks ago, say, man, if I want you to do more than 12 weeks, why don't you just go, what are you doing? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, let me know. Absolutely. I'll do it. But I would say, if you have any attachments to me as some father figure from afar, if I am that, or any respect you have from you from afar, hear my heart. I want my spiritual son to succeed in this. And anything that you have, anything, any good vibes you have or grace you want to throw in my way, just throw it in his way. Just give him the same amount of grace that you've given me. All right? I asked that. All right, we'll have more about this transition in the weeks and months ahead. But let me move beyond this for a moment. And let's go to you.

You might have never thought. You might have never thought. There's no way-- there's no way that guy's ever going to give up the reins of power. There's no way that guy's ever going to leave that seat. There's no way-- well, I am. I am. I am. What are the things that you're thinking right now? There's no way I could never not have that. What are those things? That's your Egypt. That's your thing that's keeping you from a promised land. That's your thing that's keeping you from obedience. It could just be something that's holding you back. It could be any substance. Any substance? It could be a chocolate cake. There's nothing wrong chocolate cake. It could be tobacco. It could be a streaming platform that you have that you just go to instead of going to God. It could be apathy, it could be eating habits. It could be your boyfriend or your girlfriend. I'll tell you, if you're in your 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s and you've been with somebody for three or four years, one or two things happening. One, you're afraid of commitment, which says something about you. You're afraid of commitment.

Or two, they're in Egypt and you need to leave them. You need to leave your Egypt. Ain't working, ain't going anywhere. So I'm going like, man, I picked the wrong day to bring my boyfriend to church. The wrong, wrong day to bring him to church. Actually, you might have picked the right day. You might have picked the right day. But it's like, I can't imagine living without this person. And yet, you're not in the covenant marriage? That's in Egypt. That's in Egypt. It's not what God has for you. Parenting behaviors can be your Egypt. The way you parent. And most of us have a way we parent and generally the same thing, you know? If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Whatever tool you have to parent with you, we have to expand beyond those. Your job, your pack of friends. When's the last time you leveled up your friends? Are your friends pushing you to grow? Are your friends, people who are life-giving to you? You can't wait to be around them. And they make you light and they reveal things about yourself you had known about yourself. And they support you ways you couldn't support yourself. If not, hey, there's other people that are out there.

Caroline Draper, who is our community pastor at Florence and doing a great job. Caroline, my nickname for her is Sweet Caroline. I'll let me say that again, her name is Sweet Caroline. Ah, nah, nah. You guys are really slow. Let's try this, 'cause this should be a really fun moment right now. Her name is Sweet Caroline. There you go, very good. I gave this talk, a portion of this talk to our staff last week. And she was convicted, she said that her Egypt is control. She said, "My whole life, I've been to control." And she said, "There's good things about control." Like, you get good grades with control. You get promotions with control. You get things that are, there's nothing wrong with being in control of yourself and being disciplined. But in her words, she said, "But I realize now "that I don't have dreams." Because control and dreams don't go hand-in-hand, 'cause you can't control your way to dreams. It's an Egypt. I have to leave behind and be okay. There's some things I can't control. What's your Egypt? What's the thing that God wants you to leave? He said, "He has something better for you." That's your moment of faith.

That's called walking by faith. Like, I don't want to, I'm gonna stop. Oh, but I'm gonna, that's called walking by faith. You don't understand exactly what's out there, but you know what's back there? It's not what God has for me. He's being very clear to me. One of the people who were so thankful to be a part of in our church is Anjali. Anjali is a woman who at the time was a girl who we were partnering with the organization, financing them to rescue her out of the rape for profit industry in India. And we have, we've been building into her and she had a dream to do a school. A school that maybe kids can have hope from school and education instead of from the sex trade. And we were told like, "Man, don't encourage that. "Don't encourage that. "Man, it's gonna be hard." And we did encourage it and it's going great. It's going great and there's, and there's another story. (congregation applauding) Yeah, you can, you can fly at any time today, that's cool. There's another, there's another story, another angle that someone to get into at the end of this video. But I want to show you this video first. Anjali is, she has this school.

We funded it and she is thankful. And so she sent us a video. There are people made their own video and sent us this video. And I think you'll like it. (congregation chattering) - In the beginning of time, we were starting this school. I was a little bit afraid to come back. I had moved away from village. I mean, moved away. Someone took me and I was trafficked when I was 11 years and it was many years. I was not in the village. trafficker who sold me in the roads like I have to face him. I always dreamed and I wanted to come back to village but I I mean dreaming is one thing but when you have to really leave for it that's a different thing and that's a big deal to do and my dream was always to free the girls and give them freedom to leave their life or choose their lives so I wanted to come back to my village and tell my sisters that there are other options for life. Before my rescue was only a what my villagers or whoever around me always told that you have to sell your body to earn money that's the only option for life. No one never told like you can study or you can build your future in different way. I never heard those kind of things anything before that. When I was rescued in India in shelter home that time I didn't know much things I was trying to understand the world what I had gone through and things were when I complicated for me I got to know that I came who had rescued me was you know supported and passed it by crossroads. I'm really grateful to crossroads I mean you know they were part of my life since made rescue and everything now what like if you come here and see whatever like all this has been possible because crossroads just join their hands. For me it's really miracle and I I whenever I think of them I just I just

can't believe like why do you trust me so much you know how can you love me so much because I'm they continuously yearly they blasted us and like every year not only one time but in the construction of this school buildings and then when we built our hostel they helped us so has the member of the school is in aquatry-state of Nepal and we have now and it indicates in the school and we have 23 stops altogether and we are giving facilities of school from playground two years old to 14 years old and grade four. As we tell me one long-term or short-term self-dung of alcoholism or tell me more than you. Leave her. Leave her. Leave her damage and to kill me. She's the roast. She's the roast, she's the roast, she's the roast, she's the roast, she's the roast. She's the roast, she's the roast, excellent, excellent, you know in five years a lot of things happened. Like you know in the beginning it was just a prayer and then in 2020 like I prayed for a long time and then we bought the land for this school. So now like we have 180 in a school that's a huge number actually we had to add extra classes on the rooftops and because we needed bigger classrooms also in hostel we have 40 girls. In five years I have seen lots of changes in many girls live. They're achieving good grades in school and they're improving a lot and also they're like changing their concepts. I believe at least a few of their lives are different. I can see it. I really want them to be someone, doctor, nurse or like teacher or able to earn their like leave their life with dignity. When I see them enjoying them like dancing, enjoying. That just makes me happy that you know you don't need to suffer those traumas at this age of time and that that's just amazing you know they are enjoying their childhood being on It's because, not because I'm sad, but because I'm really grateful, I'm really grateful and I'm really happy. [Music] So good. And first Corinthians, there's a phrase that the Apostle Paul has that he gives people that we give staff every time we meet together to staff. We end every meeting with what kind of days today and the whole staff says, "It's a great day to die."

Which really sounds macabre, ooh, it's a great day to die. That comes from the Apostle Paul as he's telling the church in Corinth, he says, "I die every day." Every day I make the decision, it's not about me. Every day I make the decision, I don't have to be in my Egypt. Every day, I don't go about preservation of my life, preservation of my ego. I suppress myself every day so I can exalt Jesus every day. I put myself in vulnerable places so that God can have power. I die every day. And that wasn't Paul's idea either. That was Jesus's idea. In the book of Luke, here's how he puts it in Luke chapter 9 verse 23. And he said to all, if anyone would come, anyone, said to all. Do you mean he said to those people? No, he said to all. Wait, he said to people in the first century? No, no, no, people in the 21st century said to all. Okay, all. If anyone would come after one, if anyone, like you, me, anyone would come after me, let him deny himself or herself, and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever lose his life for my sake will save it. We don't understand this too much today because the cross is just a cultural symbol for us, right? It's something we wear, it's something we put on churches or walls or artwork or tattoo on ourselves or put on motorcycles or whatever it is. And all that's fine, but we lose the original meaning is this was a painful, laborious, drawn-out means of execution. We get the word excruciating from the word crucifixion because it's the worst way anybody could die. It wasn't like Jesus wasn't saying pick up your lethal injection because that's immediate. Unless you're the woman this last week, did you read about that? They put two lethal injections in her and she's still alive? At that point, you say, just live, just live. We release your prison. Crazy, but the point of a lethal injection is it's supposed to be immediate and painless. That wasn't the cross. It would be like Jesus saying carry around your electric chair, getting ready to moments. Notice, God, you want me to expire. I'm ready right now. Carry around your guillotine, yet even the guillotine and the electric chair are pretty quick. The cross was not. It was a way that you were humiliated on the way in and out of urban centers that Rome had controlled. It was a way where it was a blood sport. It was like going to watch MMA. If you were just only into the gore and you saw somebody beating and bloody just slowly dying and blood dripping all over the place. It was a sick and twisted thing and Jesus telling you and I to embrace that kind of life or that kind of death, if, if, if anyone will come after me. If I want to come after him, I have to do that.

When we call ourselves a follower of Christ, that means I follow him and he said where he's going is carrying his cross. I want to do whatever he has to do at a moment's notice to bring someone into relation with God and defer to the work of God in his life and other people. So he said, if anyone falls after me, get ready. This is what you have to do. I don't want to blow smoke up the last seven, eight months for me. It's been unbelievably painful on multiple levels. Very, very painful. And mainly it's been painful because of this spiritual principle. I thought I had died to self. I thought I had done that. And I did as far as I knew, but there was other layers. Like, you don't, you don't become a tithe or unless you died yourself, which is why very few people ever tithe. We just, we just play, we play the Christian thing. We want to check the Christian box, Christian box at a hospital, but we're not really following. And of course, never going beyond that either unless you, unless you die to self. Repenting when I public, when I repented publicly, it wasn't hard at all for me because I had already died to. It's easy for me to say, "I'm sorry we forgive me," because I made peace with me being a sinner a long time ago. And so you died yourself. It's be very easy to say, "I'm sorry." If you can't remember the last time you went to somebody and said, "I'm sorry, please forgive me." If you can't remember that, it's a sign you haven't died to self, 'cause you're not that good. So there's signs that I had died to self before signs, but there was other things. There were layers that came up the last seven, eight months, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I haven't died to self." There's different levels of pain. I died to myself before, but I never considered dying to myself and dying to my reputation, and I would lose my reputation. A friend reminded me, "The last talk I gave before I went away, "the last talk, I made a point of making sure everyone knew

"that I'd never had a public scandal "and I plan on never having one." And the next week, wham. Awesome, awesome. When you're dying to self means like, "Okay, I'd die to self, that means I have to be okay "with everybody not thinking highly of me." That's what dying to self means. I don't preserve my reputation at all costs. When I died to self before, I didn't consider, that would mean that I would voluntarily give up job tasks that I liked, that I would do. It didn't mean that I would have other people cut me off. I have some books I'm working on, concepts. Some have one of them as manuscripts. Another one, well, two of them have quasi-manuscripts, but when I went through my ordeal, my publisher dropped me. I have no publisher. They had no legal right to. My attorney went to him and said, "Look, "the contract didn't violate anything in the contract." And they basically said, "I don't care to sue us, "which I'm not going to do." So I don't know if I'm ever gonna have another person who's ever gonna, another company's gonna publish any book of mine, and if not, and this comes with being like, "Jesus, okay, "I died to self, I died of book contracts." But nonetheless, it's painful. For 30 years, I've had an understandable career path.

My understanding on career path is, I'm not getting any more promotions. This is what I have, and now it's just deepening the people God puts under my care and expanding the number of people who come under my care. Deepening and expanding crossroads, deepening and expanding, and that's it. That's my career path. Now, what's my career path, where am I going? What am I doing? I've got a percentage of my job that's just flex time for me to just be able to dream and see what new ideas God will bring me that might be apostolic in nature, taking new territory, that's what an apostle does. He or she goes into new territory and builds structure and reaches new people through a means that hasn't been thought of before. That's really what it is. And I don't understand what that looks like right now. And by the way, that's the only thing to die to self. I used to love going away on a summer break, being hunting and out of nowhere. Some amazing idea coming to me. Like Todd Phillips, not Todd Phillips, I know Todd Phillips too. Todd Pierce, wait, a cowboy. You have a horse whisperer, met him on a hunting trip. You come to cross here and having

because I had authority and resources or camps or whatever. I could have a dream that God gives me and I could pivot an entire organization and make those things happen. And I don't have that anymore. I won't have that anymore. I'm getting something better. I don't even understand what it is, but I know what I'm getting is following the heart of God for my life. I know what I'm getting is another layer of dying to self. I know what I'm getting is opening myself up for the promise of a promised land that I don't fully understand because I do understand everything I have in my previous life. And I'd taken that, or God'd take me in that about as far as I could go. See, it's in death that we find life, which is why Jesus says, Jesus says, unless the kernel of wheat falls to ground, it cannot produce life. Friends, friends, the thing, the thing that's keeping us. And when I say us, I mean, there's people crossroads. I mean, anybody who's a fall of Christ. Keeping us from having more potent lives is we're not willing to pick up our cross. We're not willing to lay anything down for the promise of what it might look for like in the future. And the reason crossroads has been as healthy as it has been, and as potent has been,

is we got a lot of us who are up for doing that, a lot of us. So well done, good and faithful servants, but don't ever be deluded. Egypt will always try to creep into your life and you need to leave it. Leave it for your spiritual sanity in relationship with God. That's what I have for you tonight, to pray. God, thank you for. Thank you for blessing us with patience and for blessing us with the Savior who modeled away that we can only aspire to as we try to become more like Him. I thank you so much as well for Kyle and what he's been to me and what he's been to us in our church and we just ask for good things to come his way and our entire movement that you've called us into. We pray these things by the name of Jesus, amen. Hey, just real quick, I know you've got places you want to go to, all that stuff, but just for a second. If you met Jesus at Crossroads, would you stand up right now? You've changed my life and you've changed our church's life. If you got baptized at Crossroads, if your kid got baptized, if they met Jesus, would you stand up? If a friend met Jesus at Crossroads, if your faith has been deepened here, would you stand up? This is the testimony, Jesus says good fruit comes from a good tree, we're so thankful for you, we're so proud of you, and we cannot wait for what's next for you. Put your hand out right now and subscribe to Blessings on B.T. God, thank you for this man who you've sent us who has blessed us so greatly. We're praying that this next run, this promised land that you've put in his imagination would be so much better than he could ever dream. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us today, my encouragement is simple, don't just hear God's word today.

Take one step because of him, maybe that's open in your Bible, maybe it's been in a few quiet minutes in prayer, maybe it's forgiven someone, or asking for forgiveness, or simply saying yes to whatever God is put in front of you today. Whatever that next step is, take it. This message incurs you, we love to hear from you, send us a video ground or write to us at [email protected] on your tablets. Our team reads every letter, we'd love to walk alongside you. Until next time, keep pursuing Jesus, keep opening this word, keep saying yes to him one day at a time, we'll see you soon. (upbeat music)