Ryan Leak | 07-12-2026

Well, what's up, Central family? I hope your summer is going great so far, and I hope you're finding ways to stay cool. You know, I was remembering my first summer in the desert, and I was driving in July, and I heard this huge explosion, and all of a sudden, there was like warm liquid all over me. And I remember ducking. I thought, oh my gosh, somebody's like shooting at my car or something. I felt all this liquid. I'm like, am I dead? You know, am I dying? And I pulled over, and then I realized it was an unopened can of Coke Zero that had overheated and exploded in the back of the car. So I'm just saying like, be careful out there, y'all. This heat is no joke. Well, I wanna welcome everybody across our locations. Thank you for joining us today. I wanna welcome those joining us online and in our different prison locations in partnership with God Behind Bars and on the Pando app. Thanks for being with us. This weekend, one of my favorite speakers is joining us. Pastor Ryan Leake is in the house, y'all. Pastor Ryan is a phenomenal communicator. He's an in-demand speaker to business leaders and companies and sports franchises across the country. But I love that he always makes time to give back to the local church.

And I'm always so honored every time that we can host him here at Central. Now, Ryan and his wife, Amanda, have two kids. They live in the Dallas area. He's written some amazing books like Leveling Up, A Chasing Failure, and How to Work with Complicated People. Hello, we all need that. But man, he's so talented. You're gonna be so thankful that you got to hear him this weekend. So Central family, let's give a warm, big welcome to our friend, Ryan Leake. Woo! Central Church! Oh, it is always so good to be in the building with you. As Pastor Judd said, I get to do quite a bit of motivational speaking for all kinds of organizations all around the world. And the number one place they love having events is right here in Las Vegas. I'm here about once a month. And so anytime that it's in conjunction with the weekend, I always just reach out to Pastor Judd and say, man, I would be honored to preach God's word here. And I just absolutely love this church. I absolutely love Pastor Judd. I have so much honor and respect for him. But not just that, I admire him. I admire the man that he is,

the environment that he has led and created where people can come just as they are. I don't know what your spiritual pedigree is. I don't know what your spiritual background is, but I hope you know that God set it up for you and I to be in the room together today. He set it up. He gave me the fight. And I don't know what all he ordered in your life to be in this room right now, but I truly believe that it is divine. And I don't think that you are going to leave the same way you came, because I believe God wants to do something in your life today. Here's what I wanna do. I want us to look in scripture at somebody who had the kind of faith that I truly believe can add tremendous value to your life. Whether you have been following Jesus for 40 years and you're one of the OGs, or maybe your friend tricks you into coming, and they say, hey, we're gonna grab something to eat. And then they pulled over into this parking lot, like who are all these people? However you got here, I just believe that when we look at this guy's life and we look at this guy's faith, I think it changes a person no matter where you're starting from.

His name is Caleb. And to understand him, I want to set the scene. I want us to go back just a little bit because God has made a promise to his people that there is going to be a land waiting for them, a good land flowing with milk and honey, their inheritance. And after a long journey to get there, it finally came time for Joshua, their leader, to actually divide the land amongst their leaders. And so an old man named Caleb, he's 85 years old, he steps forward and he says something that I want to build our time around today. You've got to see this in Joshua 14, verse 12. It says, now therefore, this is the 85 year old saying this. He says, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day. For you heard in that day how the Anakim were there. Anakim were giants. This is a land of giants. People were afraid of this land, but Caleb's not afraid. Now Caleb said, give me this mountain and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me. I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. Give me this mountain. Today, I wanna draw our attention on the subject of give me this mountain. I want you to look at your neighbor at every location and say, give me this mountain.

Let them know, give me this mountain. Give me the hard one. Give me the one with giants in it. Give me this mountain. This is a man who is looking for a fight. I'm just curious at every location, I wanna raise your hand, if you have ever been in a physical fight, just touch some sky. If you've ever been in a physical fight, look, gangsters everywhere. I love it, okay? Got some thugs in this church. I like it. Yeah, been in some physical altercations. You know what I mean? You've been in a real fight and I love it because some of us like used to be fighters and like an old life, right? And then some of us like, we still got a little bit of that in us right now. Like we love Jesus, but we'll still cut you if need be. Just depends on what kind of day we've been having. And then if I'm honest, most of the 40 years that I've been on the planet, my lifestyle hasn't really lent itself to be in environments where fights break out. So I've never been in a fight, okay? And that was, I really didn't know how much of a thug was really in me.

I didn't know like that I had like a lot of fight in me until my children started playing youth sports. And then I learned that there was some unsaved things. I thought I was a Christian until my kids started playing at the YMCA. And so I've got two children. This is Roman. He's playing. And you saying, oh, that's what I should be doing. But that's not what I do. And then we've got my oldest son, Jackson. He's a football player, seven and 11. And my son Jackson's playing a football game. And I get to preach in front of a lot of people. So if I go in public, people might recognize me, you know? And so as I got up and started yelling at another nine-year-old on the field, it was a little disturbing for some people that recognize me, but I had an out-of-body experiences. So I'm yelling at this child, you know, and yelling at the parents. And I mean, it was just crazy because the real competition in youth sports is not on the ice. It's not on the court. It's not on the field. We know it's in the stands, right? It's going down in the stands and I'm losing my mind. And I sit down and I was like, Ryan, you cannot do this. And I looked down and I was wearing a shirt

that said choose joy. And I had chose violence. You know what I'm saying? And so there are some things that have been said in those bleachers that I just, I have to just go, Lord, Lord, forgive me. Now, here's I want you to understand, like I am not a tough guy, okay? Like there are some people, they're heroes, you know? Like there's a bomb in the building. Well, let's go figure it out. I'm running, okay? I'm gone. Follow me, you'll live, okay? When we look at Caleb, Caleb is not your typical biblical tough guy. David is your typical tough guy. He's fighting lions. He's fighting bears. He's taking on giants. That hasn't even happened in the scripture yet. Caleb is going, give me this mountain, not because I'm awesome. Give me this mountain because God's awesome. And I just think that today we could borrow from some of his bravery. I believe when we look at the life of Caleb, I believe our God Caleb made three choices. Three choices I think each and every one of us can make in order to face our mountains.

And I believe that today, whether you're a Christian or not, I believe if you make these choices and you begin to trust in God, you'd be surprised what mountains you can face. Dare, I might dare to say you could leave this place today. Go and give me this mountain. The first thing that I think that we get to choose is that we get to choose our perspective. We get to choose our perspective numbers. Chapter 13 says this. It says, and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel from each tribe of their fathers. You shall send a man, everyone, a leader among them. God's people are standing at the edge of the land he promised and before they go in, Moses sends 12 scouts, one leader from each tribe. Caleb is one of them. For 40 days, these men walk the same path. see the same cities cut down the same cluster of grapes so heavy it takes men to carry it on a pole. 12 men, one assignment, identical information. Then they had to come back to report and watch what happens. It says this in Numbers 13 verse 27. It says, we went out to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit. Nevertheless, people who dwell in the land are strong.

The cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. There's a whole sermon in this word where they said, nevertheless. Everything was true right up until that word. Yes, God, the land is everything you said. Nevertheless, there's giants. The Anakim were so large and so feared that these grown men said, standing next to them made them feel like grasshoppers. And 10 of the 12 let the giants have the final word. The land was good, but in their eyes, the giants were bigger than their God. Same land, God promised, seen through the lens of fear. And fear won, but two of them saw the exact same thing and came to the opposite conclusion. Same giants, same walls, same report on the table. But then Caleb stands up and cuts through the panic. Numbers 13 verse 30 says this. Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and take possession. For we are well able to overcome, well able. And don't miss what Caleb had to do first. Before he could speak faith, he had to quiet the crowd because sometimes the loudest voice in the room are the fearful ones. Fear is loud. Doubt is loud. The 10 had the whole crowd stirred up and panic always has a megaphone.

And some of us, if we're honest, we can't hear God over how loud everybody else is being. Especially if you got 10 voices telling you why it won't work, why you can't, why you're too old and too late and too far gone. Your coworkers are loud. Your group chat is loud, especially that family group chat. That one's loud. The one relative who has never once encouraged you is loud. Sometimes before you can move in faith, you have to quiet the people. Not because they're evil, but because you cannot follow God and follow a fearful crowd at the same time. Some of us need to hush some voices so we can hear ourselves long enough to say, give me this mountain. 10 looked and saw impossibility. Two looked and saw opportunity. What do you see today? Same data, completely different conclusion. And I think it's one of the most important lessons in the scripture. The difference between those men wasn't what they saw. It was how they saw what they saw. They didn't have an information problem. They had an interpretation problem. It wasn't geography. It was theology. 10 said there are giants.

Caleb said, yes, but there is God. Same sentence, different ending. And the ending is everything. You do not always get to choose your circumstances, but you always get to choose your perspective. Sometimes you don't get to choose a diagnosis. You don't get to choose a layoff. You don't get to choose who walked out or what got said or what happened to you when you were young, but you always get to choose how you interpret what you're looking at. Two people can sit in the same hospital room, hear the exact same news. One sees the end of the road. The other sees an opportunity for God to show who he really is. Two people can lose the same job on the same day. One loses all hope. The other discovers a purpose they'd never have found if they had stayed comfortable. The mountain didn't change. The eyes looking at it did. It's interesting. I was talking with a friend yesterday. Unfortunately, their house was vandalized. All of their most valuable goods were stolen. This was a year ago. I saw my friends here. I said hey, how have you been doing ever since since you know the theft and gangsters raided their house

I said just tell me how how have you been over? How have you been able to overcome it? Here's what the wife said because I was most worried about the you know The wife's like would she be in fear when the husband travels and this is what she said. She says, you know to be honest Everything they stole was stuff that I thought I had to buy to impress other people And so I think they gave me a gift By taking it away Because now I've actually found who I really am That's somebody that's choosing a perspective now I want you to watch what God says about Caleb as he comes back with this report going we could do this Oh, I got it. I got a I got a perspective Everybody else doesn't have and here's here's what God says about him says because all these men who have seen my glory have put Me to the test now these ten times and have not heeded my voice. They certainly shall not see the land He says sorry guys You're not gonna see the lamb because you don't believe however, I will make an exception my servant Caleb Because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully. I will bring into the land Where he went? God's people got that close to a promise and they talked themselves right out of it So God makes him wait But that last part in the middle of a whole nation losing everything God pauses to single out one man my servant Caleb everybody else No, no, no, but Caleb now He's different My boy Caleb is built Different I want you to look at your person on your right you have to say hey, I'm built different. Okay, I'm built Different. Okay, like some of you have felt different your whole life You feel different at work. You feel different at school. You feel different at the gym You have walked in the rooms your whole life quietly wondering why you don't fit the way everybody else fit Let me tell you what that is you're built different

You make different decisions you talk different you walk different you love your spouse different you love your kids different you lead different some of you have been searching for sameness when different is what you've been called to I Need to be different than my past my future requires different thinking my destiny might require different Relationships sometimes it's okay to be different because here's what nobody tells you different is lonely before it's ever celebrated Caleb was one of two Two of 12 And he spent 40 years surrounded by people who chose fear Waiting on a promise only he and Joshua still believe When he said give me this mountain he was When he went and saw this mountain he was 45 Can you imagine waiting that long? being built different meant being outnumbered and being misunderstood and I just want to encourage somebody this weekend if you're going to be who God made you to be You are going to have to make peace with the fact that sometimes the whole room will vote for fear And you'll be the only one with a hand raised for faith That's not a sign that you're wrong. It's a sign that you're Caleb You're built different So stop apologizing for the way God wired you stop dimming it down So fearful people can feel comfortable the same different that makes you feel like an outsider is the exact different God is about to use because when the promise finally came it didn't go to the crowd It went to the one Who was built different some of you are closer to your promise than you think But it's on the other side of you finally believing you were never supposed to blend in So can I challenge us this weekend? Don't fall for the doom and gloom trap you will never have a shortage of Grumpy gripey people. They're in your office the group chat. They in the neighborhood They in the bleachers with your youth sports and here's what chronic complainers never realized Complaining cost them the exact energy they could be using to contribute. So don't complain about the obvious the economy

We know difficult customers. We know the weather we know AI. Oh my gosh System has changed we know OK? Everybody already sees the giant. Be the one who brings something else to the meeting, to the feed, to the party. Life is hard. Decide to enjoy it anyways. You can't always choose your circumstances, but you can choose your perspective every single day. And anybody can point at giants. But it takes a different spirit to still believe there is a promise on the other side of it. The second choice that I believe that we all get to make, that I believe Caleb made, that I think can help us face mountains, is number two. We get to choose our posture. We get to choose our posture. Joshua 14, verse 10, says this. As of now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive. As he said, these 45 years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness, and now here I am this day, 85 years old. 45 years. Circle that number, OK? 45 years. When Caleb stood up and said, let's go, we're well able, you think God would have rewarded him on the spot, but that's not what happened.

Because that's not what the people chose. People chose fear. And so the whole nation got sentenced to wander. And Caleb, the man who actually believed God, had to wander right along with them. He did the right thing and still had to wait, walking in circles for 45 years. Everybody wants to talk about the giants. Nobody wants to talk about the wait. We love the highlight where Caleb says, give me this mountain. We skip 45 years of ordinary Tuesdays where nothing changed. But maybe that's exactly where somebody is living right now. You're not fighting a giant today. You're just waiting. You know what God promised, but you're still waiting on the healing, still waiting on the marriage to turn around, still waiting on that child to come home. And can I be honest? Sometimes waiting is harder than the fighting. Because in a fight, at least you got something to do. In the waiting, you're just waiting. I'm often encouraged by a portion of scripture written by a guy named Habakkuk. If you didn't grow up in church, don't worry. That's a name you will not hear at work on Monday. But Habakkuk was a prophet, which just means a man who spoke for God. And he lived in a moment when everything around him

was falling apart. And instead of pretending everything was fine, he wrote one of the most honest statements of faith in the entire Bible. Here's what it says in Habakkuk chapter 3. It says, though the fig tree may not blossom nor fruit beyond the vines, though the labor of the olive may fail and the fields yield no food, though the flock may be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. I want you to notice two small words. The first one is though. The second one is yet. If you forget everything else I say this weekend, hold on to those two words because they're the whole thing, though. Watch what Habakkuk does because he does not pretend. He does not say everything is fine. He doesn't post a highlight reel and fake it for the camera. No. He writes a though list, and it's brutal. Fig tree doesn't blossom. Olive crop fails. Field produces no food. The flock is gone. Stalls are empty. In his world, this is his entire economy. He's losing his job.

Things are falling apart. This is breakfast. This is lunch. This is dinner. This is his future. He's not being poetic. He's being accurate. He's naming everything that has fallen apart out loud, one at a time. And I want you to hear this this weekend. You're allowed to have a though list. God is not afraid of your though list. Your honesty is not the opposite of your faith. Your honesty is the soil. Your faith grows in faith, does not deny reality. Faith invites a faithful God to our reality to have the last word. Think about Caleb. He had a though list. And he could have wrote it for 45 years. Though I told the truth and got punished with everybody who lied. Though I'm wandering in a desert because of somebody else's fear. Though I've buried my whole generation out here, one funeral at a time. Though I'm 40, though I'm 60, though I'm 80, and I'm still not standing on what God promised me. Caleb had 45 years of reasons to be bitter. And some of us walked in today with our own doulas.

Though the marriage isn't what we hoped it would be. Though the diagnosis came back and it wasn't the news we had prayed for. Though I'm the one holding this family together and nobody sees how tired I am. Though the money has run out. Though I've been believing God for that turnaround, for the child to return and it still hasn't happened. And if that's you, hear me, you're allowed to name that out loud. It is not going to make God flinch. He is not sitting on a throne dismayed by your doulas. But watch what Habakkuk does after the dough. He writes a word that changes everything. Yet, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. And that word is the hinge because that is a decision. He doesn't wait for his economy to turn around to start rejoicing. He doesn't wait for the fields to fill back up before he begins to worship. He rejoices in the middle of the dough because joy is not the absence of trouble. Joy is found in the presence of God in the middle of trouble. And you can have a doulas and a yet heart at the exact same time. Sometimes you have to make a decision about what your posture is going to be while you are waiting. And I love that Habakkuk,

what he tells us is that it's something that is going to encourage us while we're facing a mountain. Habakkuk three, verse 19. It says this, it says, the Lord God is my strength. He will make my feet like deer's feet. And he will make me walk on my high hills. Have you ever heard about that before? High hills? Yeah, I like that, right? Deer feet. If you've ever watched deer on the side of a mountain, you would know what that means. Deers don't slip. Deers, they don't fall. It climbs places that look impossible with this quiet confidence right along the edge, like it's nothing. And Habakkuk is telling us something that we need for our doulas. God doesn't always remove the mountain. Sometimes God gives you what you need to climb the mountain. Some of you have been praying. Some of you have been praying for God to move a mountain. And he might. And I pray that he does. But while you're waiting, don't miss what he's already doing. He's giving you feet you didn't know you had,

a steadiness you didn't know you were capable of, a way to stand in places that should have knocked you flat a long time ago. Can I tell you what deer feet look like? The fact that you're still here. You're still standing. The fact that you got dressed and came to church this weekend when it would have been easier to stay at home. The fact that you're still loving people while you're running on empty. The fact that you're still smiling. The fact that you haven't quit. That's not weakness. That's deer feet. That's God holding you up on a hill that should have taken you out. Removed mountains don't always change people. Climbed mountains do. So while I pray that he removes it, I pray that he'd give you the strength to climb it. The third choice I believe that we have this weekend if we're going to face our mountains is that we get to choose our persistence. We get to choose our persistence. Joshua 14, verse 12 says this, now therefore give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there and that the cities were great and fortified.

It may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. Back to where we started. The 45 years are over. Joshua is handing out territory and here comes Caleb, 85 years old, to collect on a promise God made him almost half a century ago. And understand, he could have asked for anything. I could tell you what I would be asking for at 85. Hey man, I'm trying to wrap this thing up, man. Give me the beach. Give me the beach. Okay? Give me the beach. Airbnb. I want a face in the beach. Okay? I want my feet to touch. I don't want no deer feet. I want beach feet. Okay? Like I just... 85? Give me the easy one. Give me the good soil. Give me the shade. I'm trying to retire. Not Caleb. Caleb at 85, when he's supposed to be picking out a rocking chair, he says, uh, where's the hardest one? Give me that one. Give me the most dangerous piece of ground in the whole region, the hill country, still crawling with giants. Give me the fight nobody else wants. And here's what I love about that. Because it exposes something in us. Some of us discount what God can do with our lives because of our age, our season of life, our gender, our rap sheet, our mistakes, our divorce, our past. Oh God, I'm too old. Come on. God, I'm too young. I'm not qualified. I didn't go to school for that. You don't know what has been done to me. I already had my shot. I blew it. Isn't it interesting? We're experts at telling God why we are disqualified. But Caleb, at the exact age our culture tells you to sit down and be done, stands up and asks for the hardest thing in the entire land. He didn't let his age write him off. He didn't let 45 years in the wilderness convince him his best days were behind him. So let me say this to somebody who has been counting themselves out. Your age is not too far gone for God. Your past is not too dirty for God. Your season is not too late. Your rap sheet is not too long. And the same God who used an 85-year-old to take a mountain full of giants can use whatever you've written off for the reason it can't be you. So stop handing God our disqualifications. He's not looking for the qualified anyways. Study the scripture. You won't find a lot of qualified people there. You'll find one.

His name is Jesus. Everybody else, they're terrible. Okay? That's what we got. And before I close, can I just encourage somebody who got a mountain they didn't ask for? You're not, Caleb. You didn't ask for it. You didn't volunteer for it. It got handed to you. The doctor called you and you were not there. You didn't volunteer for it. You didn't ask for it. It got handed to you. The doctor called you and you were not ready for it. Your child, going through what they're going through, you were not ready for that. You were not ready to start taking care of your parents, the loss you're still learning how to breathe under. And I just want to encourage you before we leave this weekend, if you've been asking, why me or why this one? Can I just offer you another way to see it? Maybe God gave you this mountain because he can see something in you that you cannot see in yourself. Maybe. Maybe he looked at everyone who could have carried this and out of everybody who could be carrying, he said, I trust her. I trust him. Not because you're the strongest, but because he knew what he put inside of you. You might be calling it a burden. God might be calling it an assignment. And if it's an assignment, I hope you carry out your assignment because here's the secret underneath Caleb's whole request. Look back at this verse. He doesn't say, give me this mountain because I'm strong enough to take it. He says, it may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall be able to drive them out. His confidence was never in his own arms. It was in the God standing next to him. God didn't say, hey, Caleb, I want you to do this on your own. No, no, no. Caleb trusted in God. Caleb isn't able to say, give me this mountain because he's strong. He's able to say, give me this mountain because his God is. And that's a prayer any one of us can pray. Not, God, I've got this. No. It's God, you've got me, so give me this mountain. Most people pray for smaller mountains. Caleb prayed to a bigger God. I have a friend who recently wrote a worship song that has this lyric in it and I love it. She wrote this lyric. She says, everything I'm afraid of is afraid of you. Everything I'm afraid of is afraid of you.

Oh, I just want somebody leaving church this weekend a little bit more confident, not in their own abilities, but in God's abilities, knowing that he is bigger than any mountain you can face. And I'm gonna show you one more mountain before we're done because there was one person who got handed a mountain he didn't want to climb. His name is Jesus and his mountain was called Calvary. And the night before he climbed it, he went to a garden and came close to asking God to take it away. He prayed, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. But then he said some important words that changed humanity. Yet not my will, but yours be done. And he got up and he climbed that mountain and he carried his own cross up that hill because on the other side of that mountain was your salvation. He didn't climb Calvary for himself. He climbed it for you. He climbed it for me. And that changes how I read the entire Caleb story because it tells me every single mountain God asked us to climb is preparing a miracle for somebody else. And the mountains that we face today, perhaps our children can stand on it because we decided to climb it with faith in our hearts and belief in our spirits going, God, give me this mountain.

Maybe you walked in here today, standing in front of a mountain, a diagnosis, a new role that's overwhelming, a child navigating special needs. Maybe it's an addiction. You're exhausted from fighting a marriage, hanging by a thread, a bank account that keeps you up at night, a grief that you just can't seem to climb out of. Whatever it is, you know what your mountain is. You've been staring at it all day. And the world's advice is to shrink it, avoid it, run from it. But I want to give you Caleb's advice instead. Don't waste your energy asking why me? Why this? Why now? Ask a better question. Ask what if God chose me for this because he knows what he's building in me? Maybe your prayer this week isn't supposed to be. God, remove it. Maybe your prayer becomes four words an 85-year-old man teaches us to pray this weekend. Give me this mountain. With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want to give each and every person the opportunity to make Jesus the Lord and Savior of their life. You might be facing a mountain today.

You've been trying to deal with it all on your own. Today, I want to let you know that God sent his one and only son to climb a mountain for you and for me. And he did. And he died on a cross and he rose from the grave so that you and I could have life and life to the fullest. You're not here on accident. If you're here today and you say, man, Ryan, I know something's not right. I want to surrender my life to Jesus. And perhaps you want to rededicate your life to Christ. If that's you, would you just lift up your hand and say, Ryan, that's me. Ryan, that's me. I see your hand. I see your hand. I see hands all over every location. I'm sure there's hands. Anybody else? We'll wait for you. Anybody else? I see you over there. That's awesome. Anybody else? Anybody else? I see you. Thank you for that hand. That's awesome. Hey, can we all say this prayer as one big church family?

Say, Jesus, thank you for dying on a cross for my sins. I ask now that you would be the Lord and savior of my life. I surrender my past, my present, and my future to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Everybody say it. Amen.