Life Without iPhones

Oh, what is up, CBG? So good to see you, whether you're in one of our rooms, one of our campuses, watching online, watching on television right now. We're wrapping up a series called The 80s and the 90s, subtitled When MTV Actually Played Music, Played Music. Put your hands together if you're old enough to remember when MTV actually played music. And that's a lot of us, but that is not all of us. If you're new to our church, our church is very diverse. We're multi-generational, and I love that. And I've become very, very aware of how many of our great people at our church, and even our great leaders were not alive during the 80s and the 90s. And it's been fun kind of bringing you guys up to speed. Now, if you're new to our church, too, we're a rowdy church. There's some churches, the vibe is like, shh. Very kind of serious and pristine. Ours is kind of more rowdy and responsive. So I like sermons to be where you guys engage. I'll ask questions, I ask almost no rhetorical questions. You guys answer out loud, I love that. You make noise, I think feedback, dialogues are more fun than monologues, so we like that. Amen, right, right? Think, come on, man, make some noise, make some noise. You guys respond, and so if I lob out a question,

just go ahead and shout out your answer, and you're probably going to be right. Most of the questions are layups. And if you're wrong, we'll just make fun of you. It's okay, we'll just make fun of you. So like last week, I talked about the idea of growth. The whole series is about growth, about something called sanctification. How God wants you to make progress in every meaningful area of your life, especially spiritually. I use an example from the 90s in business. I used the Apple Corporation, if you were here last week, how the Apple Corporation was floundering in the late 90s. But in 1997, July, the board of directors made a pivotal decision that resulted in explosive growth. Because most times in life, when you grow, you grind. You know, it's step by step, you kind of battle for it. But there are moments and seasons where growth can be explosive, exponential. Typically, it's after you've made a decision, or you've embarked on a new direction, or there's new leadership in your life. And so as I kind of explain the illustration about this change that Apple made in July of 1997, someone shouted out on Sunday morning, probably one of our smart Gen Z's, maybe a millennial, they shouted out, the iPhone! Don't you wish we had iPhones back in the 90s? Wouldn't it be great?

We did not have iPhones in the 90s. The iPhone was an innovation in 2007, not 1997. But oh my gosh, it would have made our life, we could even imagine iPhones and smartphones back in the 80s. In fact, don't we had, if you wanted a mobile phone back in the 80s, here was a mobile phone back in the 80s. We all had this thing that had been around since Alexander Graham Bell called the landline. And the mobility of your landline was based on how long your cord was. And so you got the longest, remember this, remember this? Longest cord possible that you might can stretch to the next room, like hey, I'm calling you from the kitchen, but the phone's in the family room, right? That was, remember this crazy cord, they get all tangled up, and you'd have to hold it, like wait for it to untangle. This is what we dealt with. And week one, just to have fun, I dealt with some technology from the 80s and 90s, and I busted out week one, if you missed week one, the Zack Morris Saved by the Bell brick phone, the brick phone, and y'all chuckled and laughed like you're doing right now, but if you were alive back in the 80s, first time you saw one of these, you didn't laugh, did you? Oh, you were so impressed that you saw someone with one of these, you're like, you got a portable phone, you got a mobile phone,

you got a cellular, oh my gosh, are you a millionaire? Do you work for the CIA or President Reagan, right? I mean, what, oh, it was the coolest thing. In fact, the first time I saw someone I actually knew with one of these, it was Todd Shambo. Todd Shambo rolled into the gym, we both worked out, he pulled out his brick phone, I'm like, oh! I remember, oh yeah, Todd's family's rich, he has that cool phone. Because most of us, we didn't have this. If you wanted to be accessible when you were not connected to a landline, what'd you have? You had your beeper. Now listen, if you had your beeper and the brick phone, you were cool. Do you get beeped, you could call right away, but we didn't have that, did you? We couldn't afford that. So what you had to do, young guns, was this. When your beeper would go off, like I worked for a short time working on a doctor degree to keep the groceries coming, I worked as an actor, worked as an actor, actually Lisa was my agent, and I didn't do major movies or anything, I did TV commercials, a bunch of TV commercials, but when your agent would beep you, I don't care if you're on I-95 in traffic, you had to pull off to the map of the neighborhood with Sketch. and had to go looking for something

because they only had so many slots for that audition, you had to call them back right away. And so you get beat, and then you pull in this neighborhood and go looking for what? Looking for what? A payphone! Give it up for the payphone! Remember the payphone! Fumbling for change to put in the payphone. They're always nasty, like bubblegum on it, like, uh, this is a dirty payphone. The 80s and 90s were great. I'd say the best year of my life. 1998, best year of my life. Why was that the best year of my life? Two things, that was the year that the leadership team at Church by the Glades, then AKA Coral Baptist Church, asked me and Lisa to come on and me to be the lead pastor. So you guys hired me, if you will, back in 1998. I was 13 years old, I was 13 years old, I was a prodigy. No, just kidding. I was younger than they wanted, but they took a chance on a young guy, then a young guy, and hopefully it's worked out okay. And so it's been my honor for over 20 years to be your pastor, and that was the second best thing that happened to me that year. The very best thing was, that's the year I asked Lisa Evans to be my wife, and we got engaged and married that same year.

And so there's some pictures from us from 1998. Man, was she a beautiful bride or what? I mean, I'm biased, but being biased does not make you wrong, it just makes you biased. Beautiful bride, and the picture's all fuzzy. Fuzzy, because we didn't have iPhones, I had a better picture, I had a fuzzy one right there. This is where we got engaged, right after we got engaged, and we got engaged at Disney, because we're geeks, and so, and it was New Year's Eve, so that's 1997, transition to 1998. And by the way, ladies, we had never talked about marriage. Had we, honey? We dated for like a year and a half, and we just never broached the subject, but I kind of felt it was the right time, and she had no idea it was coming, by the way. Now guys, you know, you don't ask that question unless you're pretty sure she's going to say yes, right? So I thought she'd say yes, but it was New Year's Eve, and we loved the Brown Derby restaurant at Hollywood Studios, they have great food, and we were at our favorite little table, and I kind of got the staff in on the whole thing, so hopefully she was going to say yes. And so when it transitioned, you know, at midnight, and everybody sang the song and counted down and stuff, I popped the question in, I think I said, can't look at her. I think I said, I want you to spend this New Year's Eve

and every New Year's with for the rest of your life, and I pulled out the ring. And she said yes, she said yes, and then the piano guy, they had a live piano guy, he played our favorite song, It Had To Be You. It was so fun, and then, and then, Gen Z's, I pulled out this thing called a calling card, because they had a bank of pay phones right in the lobby of the restaurant, like they do to this day, and so I gave her a calling card, she'd go call her mama and her friends, and how much easier would that have been if we'd had an iPhone back then, right? She could have called her friends, and we could have taken a way better picture, and had video, and had engagement selfies, and all those things, so man, this is way better than what we had back in the day. And for all you people who wax nostalgic for back in the day, oh, things were back in the day, things were so much better back in the day, stop that. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. So what does God want to do in your life today? He wants to grow you, he wants to grow you, mature you, right? Listen, some of my sweetest memories of being part of this church, loving and leading this church, are back in the day. Our property was not here, we had no sawgrass campus,

no Lake Worth campus, no work and home set, we were not on TV, and 54 nations, none of that, no internet, of course, we had this one little campus, on University Drive, two and a half acres, this little tiny church building, no parking at all, great, great memories. And I look back, and those memories are sweet and nostalgic, but when I look back at worship back then, we've gotten better. In fact, Pastor Fred, I said, can you find any video or pictures of worship back, like early, vintage, 1998, 1999, and he found, let me show you 30 seconds of worship at your church back in the 90s. It looked like, looked like, so that was our traditional service, right? It had a choir, an orchestra, but that's, that's our contemporary service. We thought we were so edgy, had fake ficus trees and lattice work on the stage, and by the way, that's Emily Albright, Pastor Tom's wife. Emily has not aged in 20 years. She's a beautiful vampire, right? And that wasn't terrible, that's kinda cute, but man, what we can do now, oh my gosh, the worship now, the creativity now, the talent on these stages at our campuses right now, this campus. That dance piece, the video, did you notice during the video,

and you didn't see us online, sorry, got to show up sometime, but here in the room, as they changed dances, they changed costuming, and you couldn't even tell it was seamless. I mean, what they can do now is so good, we've gotten better, we've grown. We've grown. The church in attendance in 1997 ran 470 people on a Sunday. That'd be this section, one service. God has blessed us, God has favored us, God has shed his grace and power upon us, God's been so good to us. Why has God done that? I don't know, God gets to do what he wants to, he's God, but I do think there's certain things that we have done that God has blessed. I think in life, God is not arbitrary or capricious about how he bestows blessing, you must render your life blessable, and there's certain things we've been very passionate about. In fact, we have these things called our values at Church by the Glades, and when you go to Best Next Steps, when you go, right? So Lake Worth, we offer it to you guys about once a month, but here at Sawgrass, after every service, in fact, Cassidy, that little five foot nothing girl, she's the one that hosts that, you walk right through those doors, it takes about 20 minutes,

it's basically an orientation to what? Your best next step. How you grow, how you plug in, how you connect. I mean, the different ways our church can bring ministry and serve you and your family. So take the time to do that, but on the walls, we have our values, and some of the values are issues of strategy, some are methodology, but some are theological. So what's the main thing? I mentioned last week, what's our chief values among all the values? It's two things. It's Jesus and His word. Say it with me, Jesus and His word. We value and esteem many things, but the two things I think God's blessed, we have kept this church based on Jesus, and we teach the word of God. Old Testament, New Testament, Hebrew scripture, Christian, we teach from cover to cover, we teach, we believe, and try to practice the Bible. I know it's an old book, you may have never read it, you tried and it was confusing, I'm telling you, this book will change your life if you give it a chance. And then, because we're not the typical church, I mean, most churches on Sunday don't have CD covers behind them and all this stuff going on. I would say, if you've ever been confused by our church,

wonder why do they do that, why the creativity, why the various things, why the themes? Okay, if we ever confuse you, this is our filter, our lens. Let me highlight another value, our default setting. Our default setting, our default setting is something called the Great Commission. The Great Commission. David, what's the Great Commission? Something Jesus said. Last two verses in Matthew's Gospel. Now, where should you turn your Bible for our study? Go to the Gospel of Luke. Go to the Gospel of Luke, it's the third book in the New Testament, find Luke. So, if you're like me and you got a paper Bible, I love me a good old school paper Bible. Right now, find Luke, watch it online on television. Take a moment, find your Bible, find the book of Luke. Hey, and by the way, if you didn't bring your Bible, but you got your smartphone and you do, if you don't have YouVersion already downloaded on your smartphone, I don't mean to be offensive, but if you don't have the Bible on your smartphone, you're not smart enough to own a smartphone. I mean, it's right there, it's free. Go to your app store, YouVersion is out of Life Church in Oklahoma, Pastor Craig Groeschel, one of the greatest churches in the history of North America, and they made this available for free. You get not one translation, but multiple translations

of the Bible, different languages. Yeah, it's phenomenal. Some of the translations are narrated. People will read you the Word of God while you do other things. It's the biggest innovation in accessibility of the scripture since Gutenberg and the printing press. So if it's not downloaded, go to your app store right now. Right now, put YouVersion, or some Bible app, put it on your Bible and have it right there all the time, right there in the supercomputer called your iPhone or your Android, the Word of God, Word of God. Find Luke chapter 14, Luke chapter 14, but the Great Commission's actually in Matthew's Gospel. It's the last two verses, it's on the screen right now, and I want you to read the first word when I say three. When I say three, you can put the first word in capitals in the chat, ready? Here we go, but loudly, 1130, loudly. Here we go, ready, one, two, three. Go! Excellent. I got a one-point sermon today. Go. Go. Take the good news of how Jesus has changed your life, Christian person, and just go spread it, go share it. Don't be weird, don't be pushy, don't be obnoxious, don't be strange, don't have bad manners,

don't be intrusive, but passionately, consistently, go. Don't be weird. We've all met weird Christians, right? All met that weird Christian? Who's ever met a weird Christian? Raise your hand if you've ever met, ever met a weird, raise your hand if you've met one, raise your hand, raise your hand, raise your hand, keep it up, met a weird, okay. Because your hand's not raised. All right, all right. Go therefore make disciples of all nations. Go reproduce yourself spiritually, baptizing them. You know, I've been baptized, by the way. It's not a church by the greats policy. We didn't meet back in 98 and say, hey, let's put like a spiritual Jacuzzi in the room and let's have people dunk themselves. And let's have people get fully wet in front of other people. We didn't do that. It's a Jesus thing. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe everything I've commanded you. And lo or behold, I'll be with you always to the end of the age. So Jesus, I love this. He's already all places at all times. He's promising here he'll manifest his presence and power in your life in a special way.

If Christian, if you will go and share the good news. So whenever you're evaluating what we do as far as our ministries or creativity, we're always kind of going back to this thing and like, does this help us do this? Does this music, does this worship, does this building a campus, is going online, does it help us reach people? Because the King said, go. Last words. Put your last words with someone you love. You don't talk about something trivial. You're going to leave someone and not see them for a long time on your deathbed. You don't talk about the weather or the dolphin's draft picks. You share something heart deep. And if this was a one-off, the only time Jesus ever said, go, you might make an argument I'm being too passionate about this. He said this throughout his ministry. This is a theme. Let me show you the same idea. Luke chapter 14, we'll do it a little verse by verse. We're going to move kind of fast. Luke chapter 14, we'll start in verse 1. So get your Bible ready, either on your iPhone, your Android, or your paper. I got both today. I got both. Here we go. Ready?

Here we go. Chapter 14, verse 1. One Sabbath, that's important. So it's on that sacred day when Jesus went to eat. Get ready. When he ate at the house of a prominent Pharisee, really quickly, the Pharisees, these religious leaders, the religious elite, the judgmental crowd, very concerned about prominence. Very concerned about reputation, respect. You could say platform, influence. People haven't changed, have they? I could put you in a time machine, drop you in the store. You'd be, oh my gosh, look at the architecture. So primitive. Look at the technology. So basic. Look at the clothing, the language, the culture, the food. But the human heart is the human heart. There's so many people right now in this room watching online. You're all about influence and platform and fame. That's what the Pharisees wanted. So a prominent Pharisee, get ready. It's on the screen right now. And it says, a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. Jesus was being carefully. They're watching Jesus carefully.

And that sounds kind of creepy. It's actually a brilliant idea. If you're with us right now and you are not a Christian person yet, thank you so much for being here. If you're logged on right now and you're not a Christian person, thank you. Wow, we're honored to have you. I've said before, you don't have to believe everything I believe to be hanging out with us at church by the gates. But if you're here, you've not stepped across the line of faith. I commend you. What you're doing, I think, is brilliant, brilliant. You're exposing yourself to biblical truth. You've not decided yet. Maybe you haven't bought in yet. But that's genius. See, I love what it says here. Watch Jesus carefully. You should check out Jesus. You should personally investigate Jesus. Why? Forget his impact on the human family for 2,000 years, spiritually or religiously. No other individual who's ever lived has had the sociological or historical impact that Jesus of Nazareth had. I'm telling you, no king, no Caesar, no pharaoh, no president, no prime minister, no general, no scientist, no philosopher, no author,

nobody has rocked the world in a bigger way than an itinerant Jewish rabbi from Israel who lived 2,000 years ago. His impact is sizing. And you cannot truly consider yourself an educated or informed person if you've not done personal research on Jesus. So I invite you, check him out carefully. Because I found this. People have a really negative view of Jesus or a negative view of the Bible typically have not done personal research. In fact, in my years of sharing and going and trying to do this thing myself, if I talk to someone like, hey, David, I know you're a pastor, I know you're big on the Bible, I'm sure the Bible's a good book and everything, but I don't do the Bible. And they have this really negative opinion. I say, well, why? They'll say, well, the Bible has these inconsistencies and contradictions. And every time someone says that to me, here's what I say, oh, really? These inconsistencies bother you? Which two bother you the worst? Not one time has someone had an answer. But I've always gotten, well, I really haven't read the Bible much myself. But I've heard there's these inconsistencies.

I really haven't done any personal research, but I hear. from Mother Smart, really? Do your homework. So if you're here and you're not a Christian person, check out the Bible. You know it's the all-time leading best-selling book by far. Nothing touches it. Now a little word of guidance. Don't start in Genesis chapter one. It's the way you typically read a book. I wouldn't read the book because there's little books in the big book. Because if you start in Genesis, you'll enjoy Genesis, you'll probably enjoy Exodus, but Leviticus, it's challenging. It's good, it's God's word, it's kind of hard, you try to read it, it's a little tougher. The hero of the story is Jesus. It hinges on Jesus. There are four narrative biographies of Jesus' life. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We're in Luke, read Luke. Just read Luke. Man, Luke is awesome. Luke is the Jesus story. It starts with the Christmas story into a chapter. Read it with an open mind or read it with a bad attitude, I don't care. Read it.

Read it. I can see some parts of the Bible are confusing. I get confused by some parts of the Bible. But it's the parts I understand so clearly that mess me up. Right, it's just doing the stuff I understand. I could spend the rest of my time on Earth just working on loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving my neighbor as myself. That's pretty understandable, right? As a husband, husbands love your wives as much as you love your own body. Yeah, okay, I could work on things like that forever. Read it. Read it trying to prove it's not true. I dare you. And my guess is you'll join the ranks of people like T.S. Eliot, Lou Wallace, Josh McDowell, Frank Harbor, the great C.S. Lewis, Oxford professor, wrote the line, The Witch in the Wardrobe, Chronicles of Narnia, that's all him. These were all people who set out to read the Bible and disprove that Jesus was not the Son of God and Savior. They all read it as agnostic or atheist, trying to show the Bible was bogus, and they all walked away, not only unable to make the case the Bible was fake and Jesus was a fraud, they all walked away becoming committed Jesus followers. Watch him carefully. All right, there's so much good stuff in this chapter,

I wish I had time. Jesus talks about prominence, and he talks about trying to elbow for position, and he talks about, oh, there's this sick guy, and it's actually more of a sting in his setup. Well, Jesus showed mercy on the Sabbath for a sick guy, and he has to, and he says, you people are hypocrites because you take care of your animals, but have no mercy for a person. Like, you love pets, pets more than people, nothing wrong with loving your pets. I know you give your dog a birthday present, that's fine, that's what Jesus is saying, but love people more than animals? Love people more than animals? Okay, but then he goes to a party parable, because he loved parables, he loved creativity. So pick up verse 16, gonna move really, really fast. Verse 16, Jesus, one, two, three, Jesus replied, a certain man was preparing a great, a great what? Who likes good food? Put your hands together if you love good food, good food, yeah, make some noise if you're a party person, party person, make some noise if you're not a party person, you like to be in your pajamas at eight o'clock every night. Okay, Jesus was a party person. He didn't go to the parties to party or get hammered, he went there to deal with people, and so he tells a story, it's a fictional story,

but Jesus is at many a party doing ministry, and there's this host, this man invited many guests. At the time of the banquet, he said his service is to all those who've been invited, come for everything is now ready, verse 18. But they all alike began to make excuses, so excuses are as old as the Bible. First said, I've just bought a field, just go out and see it, please excuse me. Another said, I've just bought five yoke of oxen on my way to try them out, please excuse me. Verse 20, still another said, I just got married, my wife won't let me come. The excuse is ripe, work, wealth, and the wife. Verse 21, the servants came back, reported this to the master, who the owner of the house became angry, and ordered his servant, go. Did you hear that before? Great commission, great commission. Matthew 28, 19, go and make, go. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Go out quickly into the streets and the alleys of the town, bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. Serve, the servant said, we've done what you ordered, but there's still room. Then the master told his servant, go. Out into the roads and the country lanes and make them come in. So that my house will be full.

Three things we learn from this parable, quickly, quickly, in the time that remains. Get out your phones, take some notes. Great thing you do, your phone, you take notes right there, notes in church. Take some notes. And based on this parable, this story, you've never laid eyes on anyone who isn't important to God. Ever meet someone so marginalized or so messy or so problematic, you're like, oh my gosh, they're just a waste of time. You see them coming your way, you go the other way. Right? You engage them while you're doing something else. You don't like them, you don't love them. I'm not judging. The good thing is God does. Remember the nature of the party? It's a party of a prominent Pharisee, so he's trying to increase his religious street cred. So what you would do is you would have a party, invite other what? Important people. Just the important people, by the way. So down at this party, there's a velvet rope and there's a bouncer and he has a guest list. And right, very few people are invited. Why? He wants to increase his status.

That's not the nature of the God party. In his house, all are welcome. All are welcome. Now if you notice the invite list, there's some people with property and oxen, but also the blind and the lame and the poor and the, don't you love that's the heart of God? So who's the church for? The haves and the have-nots. The beautiful and the broken. The messy and the moral. Everybody. People with means, people with no means. I love, I love, I love, I love the diversity of church by the glades. I love the beautiful racial diversity. I love the ethnic diversity. I love the generational diversity. I love the spiritual diversity. Some of us have been in church since we were kids. Other people, man, you've been in church like two weeks. It's awesome. You're still trying to find the book of Luke. Awesome. I love, I love the economic diversity. They're like, well, David, how do you know we're economically diverse? I don't, I've never surveyed that. Don't ask you how much money you make or ask for your tax form.

I don't ask for that. How do I know if there's economic diversity? I judge your cars. You do that, right? You judge your cars. Right, and I love it. Church by the glades. You'll see like, some of y'all got some nice rides. Some of y'all drive Mercedes. I've seen Ferraris, right? I'll see a BMW, but I'll see a BMW parked right next to like a Toyota from 1997 that's a rust bucket. And I love seeing those two cars side by side. I mean, one's beautiful. The other one, we're going to have to go out and like lay hands on and pray over it so it stars after church. So everyone, everyone, the messy and the moral. So if you've messed up so bad and so much, like I'm not welcome. They only knew how dysfunctional. They only knew how toxic, how addicted. Welcome, we're glad you're here. We're glad you're here. Number two, I wrote down this. If I understand this parable, it's a guaranteed W. It's a guaranteed, I like to win. It's a guaranteed W. It's a guaranteed W. So you assume y'all have done this

because the idea is go, go and invite, go and invite, go and share Jesus. Go in and share your faith. If that's too much, just invite him to church. If you're not sure what to say or the Bible verses and how to lead someone to Christ, guess what? You bring him here and together we'll get the job done. All right, so, but for someone who's like, well, David, I've done that. I've invited people to church and they never come. I've really done that a few times. I take the invite cards and I give it to people and they just never show up or they promise to come and I wait in the lobby and they don't come, I fail at this every time. If I understand this parable, failure is not in whether they show or get saved or get baptized. That's awesome. Success, Christian, is in your obedience. Amen. Just to ask, to invite, to be available to God, to be consistent with this. You're gonna get rejected. I mean, not really rejecting you, you're rejecting God. But they're not gonna show. I ask all the time. I get rejected all the time, all the time. Some things in life, man, the challenge makes it kind of fun. Y'all know my hobby, fishing.

Fishing, my favorite fish to fish for, the tarpon. Why do I love to catch tarpon? They're hard to catch. Someone clapping for a tarpon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right there, my brother, yeah. Yeah, tarpon, it's a sport fish. You don't eat a tarpon, you just catch a tarpon and release the tarpon and to make something hard, even harder, I don't fish for tarpon with bait. That's actually doable. I fish for tarpon. I think I have the actual prop here somewhere. Oh, I do. I use a fly and the flies, you catch a 100-pound tarpon is so tiny, we have to bring up a camera to show you. So this is a fly my friend Captain Richard uses. Look at how little that is. I mean, that's a little like worm fly right there. The hook is the size of my thumbnail. And you can catch a tarpon on that, sometimes, rarely. Mo, you fish with me. I get shut out all the time. I'll fish for eight hours in the heat, see dozens of fish, cast and cast and cast. And this time of year, they migrate in April, May, and June. and they're not really in the keys to feed, they're there to spawn, and you'll drag this right by their nose. And they do nothing, they swim right on by. Lisa, how many days do I come back from fishing

and caught nothing? Most. Most. Most. Most. Most. Yeah, probably over the course of my career, most. Most. So why do it? Why spend that time, that trouble, way too much money on guides? Why make it harder? Because when it comes together, because when that silver king actually opens up his mouth, his big bucket mouth, and swallows that fly, and it comes tight, and that athletic fish explodes from the water like a ballistic missile, and I'm fighting that fish with all I have, and we land that fish, and again, we don't kill that fish, like, well, you don't even eat the fish? Hey, you golfers, do you eat your golf ball after 18 holes? No. No. No. We grab that fish, we pull out the fly, give him a kiss, mwah,

let it swim away. It's just stupid man fun, is all it is. It's just a hobby. But I love it so much. I'm so addicted to it, it's so fun. And the fact that it's hard, and I get rejected by those fish, just makes it kind of more enticing when it all comes together. Comparing that to seeing someone you prayerfully invited actually show up and find a seat, and they come back a few weeks, and after a while, the Holy Spirit grabs them by the heart, and they come to the front to a prayer partner, and they pray to receive Christ, and they get baptized in the sanctified Jacuzzi, and they're crying, and you're crying, and you're like, God, you used me, I'm just like the little fly, I'm like the little bitty fly, I'm like the little fly, I'm fishing for men, and it is so addictive. I've never done crack, in case you're wondering, not judging if you have, but being there when God radically saves someone with His love is so addictive. And Christian, I want you to know that joy

of the heavenly party. So go, so go. And the last thing I'll say is, I got two minutes left, go daily. Go daily, and for you people, you guys do a great job of this, especially at Easter and Christmas, you invite people, you have those invite cards on you, you do a great job, and that's brilliant, because those two seasons are very, very receptive times, people who will come to church, but I make this a daily practice. So this idea of going and sharing faith, like, well, pastor, isn't that your job? Yeah, and I do my job. Ask people to know me, man, I invite people all the time, man, I invite people all the time, I just, I feel like I need to do this, it's what I'm called, multiply it's my king, to do, and I'm addicted, I love when someone finally connects with Jesus. And if I get turned down by dozens of people before that happens, that's just part of the game. Daily, go daily. The language here is so strong, I want you to miss, this is not something that the Lord's being casual about,

the language here, verse 21, the owner of the house became angry and ordered. Notice, you know, Jesus is the owner, he's the host, he's not like, ah, excuse me, if you wouldn't mind, if you wouldn't mind, if you're comfortable, if it's not too inconvenient, no, he's like, order! Hey, this is important, he says. It's life or death. It's heaven or hell. Go, order, go. And then Acts 22, verse 47 says, and the Lord added to their number, daily. Why did the church grow dailies? Because the church was inviting people to Christ, or inviting people to church daily. Daily. That's how you live the Christian life, daily. Last week, as I talked about sexual purity, I talked about marriage, if you're not married, you're a single, you choose to be pure. People are like, oh my gosh, I'm not gonna be celibate until the time I'm married? I'm like, well, how about just today?

Let's start with today. Let's be pure today, we live the Christian life today, it's a daily walk. In fact, can we just be this candid, do you ever wish, stay with me, ever wish, as a Christian, that every once in a while you could take a day off? Ever wish you could just have one day off a year? One day off? One day, because my boss, he is such a jerk, just give me one day, God, one day to tell my boss what I think of him, one day, right? If you commute I-95, if you commute I-95, right? Give me just one day, one day to put duct tape on the Church by the Glades sticker and just flip off everybody who cuts me off, just give me one day, one day, one day, one. But I wanna be faithful every day. Why? Because it says in verse 23, the master said, go out into the roads and the country lanes and make them, make them, I wish we could make them, that'd be great too. Can you just wish we could make people? You wish we could like,

chloroform people and throw them in the trunk of your car and just bring them to church, yeah, yeah. Better translations, compel them to come in. So I think the W is if we're compelling, if we're faithful. If we ask in a way we're trying to be not weird but persuasive loving Compel compel you don't make them wait parents. You do make your kids I haven't said this all week in law, but parents you make your kids. I Always there's some parent like well, you know little Susie. I want her to make her own decisions about spiritual things. She's eight like what? In the fall you can let her choose whether or not she values education You choose as a parent. Let me tell you this one thing It's a non-negotiable our kids is kids camp and camp United for your middle schoolers and teenagers I'm telling you parents they got to come you've got to make it is a life-changing experience So kids be the parent It's not their decision not a vote and family's not a democracy You lead you lead other people they choose and And we compel now, I'll tell you a trick if I let you go so I keep the invite cards on myself all the time I don't feel like I'm fully dressed without an invite card in my back pocket But the iPhone the iPhone or your Android man a smartphone. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul had one of these things? Oh My gosh, it can be a weapon of spiritual mass destruction And so I invite people to church and they don't know our church. Well, I don't know our church reputation Hey, would you come check out my church? They think what grandma's church? Grandma's church in Georgia or Jamaica, right? They think grandma's church and what I'll do is I'll go to Instagram I'll go to Instagram. So I'm gonna go to my Instagram account right now. I'll put my handle on the screen I'm not trying to find followers, but I can be a tool and a resource to help you invite people and I'll go to Instagram And I'll show them our church. Let me go to my Instagram right here. So like we just posted yesterday Do you remember the Easter we did stairway to heaven with the dress and everything in the band I mean it was killer. So I'll show them that or if I go down my feed. There's there's a logo for the series

There's me preaching. Don't bother with that one Here's one for deep and it's just the room. It's just our room I mean some of the things we've done in our room over the years at our campuses I mean, oh my gosh, they're not thinking this when you say church and so I'll show them this no good That's not Vegas That's not Broadway that that's your church Use your phone But every single Christian whether you're shy or not outgoing or not no matter how messy you are Go Go Go new believer better believe for decades go go. We're all called to go. We're all called to go In fact, let me show you how important this is We close everybody do me a favor everyone at our camp says take out your phone. Take out your smartphone good Take it out right now Everyone please take it out real quick. I'll do something just take like two minutes at most So man these supercomputers if you didn't, you know, if you were around the 80s and 90s I wish we had these things because you take in your news you take in, you know, you stream TV you stream sports You got social media. You got the maps you got GPS got YouTube. I can call an uber I mean there's many things you can do on your phone. You actually make a phone call on your phone Photos videos, but the older I get one of the things about my phone. I appreciate the most I'm in a dark restaurant The flashlight Turn your flashlight on turn your flashlight on turn your flashlight Apple on or if you have this part of your phone Let me see everybody. Oh good job. Everybody put him down put him down I just see everybody put it on get got it on catch phone on. Let me see it It's only works everybody does this. All right, real quick now Take it and kind of hide it against your leg everyone hide it hide it so the room go really dark hide it That's good. Okay. Let me show you how vital this is that we do with Jesus clearly saying to do here How did you find our church? If you found church by the glades by driving by one of our buildings our campuses or saw our sign That's how you found our church. I want to see your light

Show me your phone Wow Our campuses are beautiful, right? Thank you guys for sacrificing pain. You just saw it. You were smart enough You figured it out. Wow, you're brilliant Put your phones down if you came because back in the day we did lots of TV commercials did billboards direct mail That's how you found the church. Let me see the light of your phone Few folks that's good. Awesome. Awesome Doing this a little while then probably okay Put your phones down if you found us because you found a church-generated not that someone shared it with you We found on your own a church-generated Social media posts on Facebook or Instagram. That's how you found our church on our website Would you show me your phone show me the light good we're not wasting that money good good Now if you found our phone Because whether digitally or face-to-face a person invited you to come check out church by the glades Wow, it's been working for years, hasn't it? 2,000 years. Keep your phones up, keep your phones up, keep your phones up. Reminds me what Jesus said, said, you, church, are the lights of the world. A shining city set upon a hill. No one lights the light and puts it under a bushel. No, you put it on a lampstand for the whole world to see. So let men see your good deeds and acknowledge your light and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Church, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey everything I've commanded you. And lo, I'll be with you always to the end of the age. Father God, thank you for this word of purpose and commission that Jesus, you share time and time again. Help us take a breath, well up our resolve, pray for empowerment, and on a daily basis invite people to the king, invite people to the house so that your house, not the church, but heaven may be full. That's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.