The Gospel Changes Everything

What's up hand no community. My name is Courtney. Thank you so much for joining us today I want to start off with a quick question. Do you think God cares about your current circumstances, man? I'm here to tell you that he absolutely does but more so he cares about your heart and that's what this message is about today You're gonna hear from one of our great pastors here Jonathan Cluta about how the gospel changes your heart Changes the outside of your life and it changes the kingdom in which you belong to because you belong to Jesus So, thank you so much for joining us today and check out this message Hey 2005, I am sitting at my desk at AT&T corporate America. They just did a mass layoff I was afraid to lose my job and then I actually Transitioned to another organization. I'm sitting at a new desk and what my life looks like on this particular day Is I wake up that morning and I go and I study the word with a group of friends And so we're sitting around a table at a cafe. We're diving into God's Word Studying the scriptures then I go to work and I'm a global account manager for AT&T So I've got kind of five or six accounts that I manage when they call me. I care for them Sales were on cruise control. Things are going great at work and so at lunchtime I go to meet with an individual who a young man who is Considering divorcing his wife and I'm talking through the scriptures as to why that's not a good idea and that would go against God's Word and Then I come back to work and I'm on got questions org and I'm just studying apologetics basically Evidence for faith and I'm just kind of fascinated by that in this season of life I'm looking at the age of the earth and tectonic plates and dinosaurs and how this fits in the scriptures I'm just I'm just studying this stuff on my own and I and this is where the story gets a little weird and I hear the Lord say You're gonna come work for me now Which was really odd because I had just gone through this kind of turbulent transition in the corporate world and I like I when I say I heard that it was just this Deep impression it doesn't happen all the time But in this moment, it was undeniable. It was like soul-startling. I was like, wait, what was that? and so at one in the afternoon, I Closed my laptop. I put it in my briefcase. I go to the elevator. I go downstairs. I

Go to my car. I get in my car and I'm headed home and I call my friend Bo now Bo was also in the corporate world, but he had been Planning to transition to full-time vocational ministry. So that's why I call him. I said, hey, I need you to meet me at my house He said well, I'm at work. I said, I know I know but is there like can you take paid time off You know, can you talk to your ball? Like I really need you to meet me at my house and he could tell it was serious And so he gets off the phone we head to my house We get there about 130 in the afternoon. He sits down in my living room and I say hey I think I've been called to vocational ministry. Like I think that just happened and He goes man, that's not crazy You know You've been you've been growing really fascinated with the scriptures and and whatnot and I said so I was like that's all I need I go to my computer. I remember it's sitting on the bar. I go to my computer go to legal zoom.com I'm like looking into okay What does it take to start a 501c3 never for one second? Did I ever think of working for the church like never crossed my mind? I thought hey, I'll start a nonprofit organization I'll use contacts that I have in the c-suite in corporate America to raise money and to fund ministries like that was my plan and Bo's like whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, if this was God you should pray about it. I was like, oh prayers a good idea He's like you should ask him, you know, if he if if he's opened if he's calling you to this He's gonna show you what door and so I just go I'm like, okay. Okay pray so for five days, I pray God put me where you want me help me find contentment there Put me where you want me help me find contentment there put me where you want me help me find contentment there and I'm just Praying this over and over God put me where you want me help me find contentment there five days later I'm walking through the foyer of AT&T my phone rings Answer the phone and it's it's a pastor from the church that we attend and he goes. Hey, I have a job I want you to consider and I say, oh man, I think he means volunteer

I'm like tell me where to be and when I got you. He's no no, no No, like a like a job to interview for And I said, where? And he said, at the church. And I said, this is JP. Like, did you mean to call me? He goes, oh no, I know. I go, oh, you talked to Bo. He goes, Bo who? And I said, do you know that five days ago, like I've verbalized and I've been praying for five days, a calling in the ministry, because I had no idea. I was praying over this job description and the Lord just brought you to mind. I go home. I tell Monica we're gonna have dinner at his house. I'm a mess. I mean, honestly, I just remember being like, wait, what in the world is happening? Like, what is happening right now? And I remember being so sure and so scared at the same time. And for us, it meant significant changes that we were gonna have to sell our house. Like, I mean, I'm telling my, I mean, five days prior to this, this wasn't on our radar at all. And I'm coming to Monica, I was like, hey, I think I'm gonna go work for the church,

something neither of us had ever thought about for 30 seconds ever, not one time. And I go and I step away from that meeting and it's like, things are never gonna be the same. Everything just changed. And there were moments in those, in every person's life here that have a before and an after. There are those moments, you're either in them, they're in the rear view mirror, or there's one right in front of you, or all three that are like, things are never going to be the same, for the good or the bad. Like, it can be like, you win the lottery, that's a life-changing event. Things are never going to be the same. Things like getting married, I'm saying yes to this person, which means I'm saying no to everyone else, and I'm committed to selflessly, sacrificially serving you for the rest of my life. Or you adopt, you bring someone into your home. That is life-changing. Or you have a child. These are before and after moments. You move, you take a new position, you've been studying, and all of your life has been going this way, and then there's this left term, and it's this way. It could be a diagnosis.

Like, you have cancer. You have a year, or two years, or six months to live. Life-changing things, before, after. Nothing in any of our lives is as big of a life-changing moment than being confronted with the saving grace from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, what keeps us from believing that is a significant number of people we know that are confronted with the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they change nothing. How they talk doesn't change, how they spend doesn't change, where they live doesn't change, how they dress don't change. And so we see that over and over. This is what we are completely inoculated to, and it just would not be in Bible times. That would not. Like, there would be Christians who were very different from everyone else, and everyone would look at them, and like, oh yeah, they are not one of us. But today, we kind of blend in. And so we're starting a new series this morning, a study on the book of Colossians, if you wanna turn there. It's in the New Testament, so that's kind of the last third of your Bible.

You have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, that's the Gospels, Acts, Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. That's where we're going to be for the next several weeks. And I just, I wanna set this up and say that Paul wrote this letter. So it's a letter. So many, like, when you hear the word epistle, it just means letter. He's writing this letter to a church in Colossae. That word means enormous, which is ironic because it's a very small town. Think McGregor. Paul is writing to the church. Church in McGregor, and he's writing from prison in Rome, most likely on house arrest. He's gonna address this from Paul and Timothy. I do not think Timothy is in prison with him. I think Timothy is an active visitor and potential scribe helping him write this letter. Paul did not plant this church. A man named Epaphras planted this church. I don't believe Paul has ever visited this church. So he's writing them from prison to strengthen this group of Christ followers who believed upon Jesus. He's gonna tell us right at the gate, you are brothers and sisters in the faith, but there's these things that are creeping in

like syncretism, where they're taking Christian views and they're adding Jewish views and other religions and superstition to it, or aestheticism, where they believe that self-denial and really difficult disciplines are going to be the path to God. And so he's writing, the reason he's writing the church in Colossae would be very similar to why he would write Harris Creek today. Amen, you gotta go back to the gospel. It's the saving grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. You have to return to that. Every day, multiple times a day, you have to return to that. That's the thing that changes everything. And that's the message today, as we're gonna be in verses one through 14, the gospel changes everything. The gospel changes everything. We're gonna talk about how it changes everything on the outside that people see, everything on the inside, and then it changes the kingdom that we belong to. He wrote this about 60 AD, and we'll just dive in. The gospel would change our lives more than a cancer diagnosis, more than winning the lottery, changes everything. He says this, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, who's writing it, to God's people in Colossae,

that's who he's writing it to, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. These are believers. Grace and peace to you from God, our Father. It's the introduction, his greeting. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. Now, listen, I'm gonna stop right there, because I read that and I'm skeptical. I'm like, what does that look like? People tell me all the time, like, hey, man, I've been praying for you. And I always, I'm like, the way that my brain works, I'm like, what does that mean? You've been praying for me. Like, does that mean, like, I'm on a prayer card on your desk, like, in your car? Is that like, you drive by Harris Creek, and you're like, oh, and bless JP? Or is that like, I mean, is that like, dear Heavenly Father, God in heaven, creator of the heavens and the earth, you know Jonathan Bercuda and his wife, Monica Bercuda, and their three kids, and which, I'm just like, what is it? And then Paul says to this church that he's never met, that we have been praying for you, always, I mean, that says a lot about Paul right there. Because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people,

we said, we're coming out of this series, Love for God, we say a true mark of authentic love for God is that you love God's people. And Paul is saying, you have an authentic love for God, because you love his people. The faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about what you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you in the same way the gospel is bearing fruit, growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace. I will say this about Paul in his epistles, he's very circular in his writing. So he will introduce a topic, he will leave the topic and come back to the topic. So for example, fruit here, you're gonna see him kind of leave that idea and then come back to it and leave it again and come back to it again. But right here, the language that he uses, if you read this, he's talking about what he's been praying for the people in Colossae. And it's almost like there's something been planted inside of them, and that thing is growing and it is visible on the outside, it's producing fruit. The seed that was planted in front of them was. planted on fertile soil and it's growing, it's rooted in hope and it's bursting forth and it's not just changing them, it's changing the world that they live in.

It's contagious, it's spreading. And so this is my first point, the gospel changes the outside. The gospel changes the outside. When you take hold of the gospel, it begins to change what people see on your life. What he says here, faith, love, hope, the fruit of the spirit, we recently studied Galatians, the fruit that the spirit produces in our lives is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That when you are confronted with the gospel and when God himself, the Holy Spirit, comes and lives inside of you, with you, as you surrender to that spirit, what that spirit produces in your life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. So what if that is not coming from your life? Right? We go, well, it's just a season or maybe it's a personality or you're an enneagram, whatever, you know, it's like, well, you're just an introvert. Like, no one's having that conversation in the first century. They're going, go back to the gospel. Go back, you gotta return. That's what Paul is saying here. You gotta return back to the basis, go back to the gospel.

When we built our home, we planted two trees in the front yard, two live oak trees in the front yard, okay? As the months progressed, one of them had these bright green leaves that would turn colors and it just, it was healthy and you could see that it was growing and it was strong. The other one, all the leaves turned brown, all the leaves fell and they never returned. And then the branches begin to just chip off. They begin to break and then the tree, it just kind of looked like it was barely there. Like it was, like there was nothing kind of holding it in the ground. Like you could just push it over and it looked brittle. And the reason being, I'm like, I don't know anything about trees. Call over, I'm like, hey, I need some help. I've got my tree struggling. Comes over, he's like, your tree's not struggling. Your tree has ceased to live. It is unalive and you got some bugs, like some bugs got in the root system and they killed it. And you can kind of see, takes me to, and he's like, I can chip away this bark and this is where the bugs have been living. And so they basically have inhabited this dead, fragile, brittle, decaying tree. One full of life, producing green leaves.

It's beautiful. One going the other direction, right? It's not alive. So you got to go back to, if you're like in a season where I'm like, I don't know that I'm alive. You got to go back to the source of life, the gospel. Like, am I in this season believing upon the gospel? The father sent the son to rescue you and give you his Holy Spirit. What are people seeing on you? It's not age. You're not just getting grumpy because you're old. Okay, it's not just college. You're not just, it's not because, you're not always on your phone because you're just distracted. You're losing sight of the gospel. You got to go back to the gospel. I just was at Unite UCF, University of Central Florida Orlando, and when I was flying back, I'm with my friend Zach, we're sitting in the exit row where in front of us is the jump seat of the flight attendant, and the flight attendant, I had already taken note, like, he is not in a good mood. Like, permanent scowl on his face, really just like, really, okay, you know, hey, exit row. Just, hey, just say yes. I just need to get verbal. Okay. Dude, what happened to you, you know?

And then when he sits down, I mean, we're basically knee to knee, and he's locked in place. I'm like, you're gonna hear the gospel, you know? So I'm like, hey, you know, so I'm just trying to warm, I'm like, hey, are you from, Orlando, to which he goes, oh, H, no. Oh, okay, you live in Dallas? And he goes, go, where are you from? He goes. I'm like, and so like, I'm gonna fork in the road right here, right? I'm like, really? Like, you don't know where you're from? But like, I could go that route, but that might tarnish the name of Jesus. So I'm like, okay. And this is what you're afraid of. Like, this is why we don't share the gospel. Honestly, this never happens. I will tell you, this never happens. It's very, very rare does this happen. But I mean, he is stonewalling. So my, you know, I hand off to my buddy, Zach, who's a resident here at Harris Creek. And he starts, you know, asking him, you know, so what do you like to do? He goes, what are you, some kind of missionary or something? That's what he says. I'm like, come on, man, like, what's the deal? And so you could just, he, this guy is depressed.

He is the second tree. He is dying in the ground. You see it on his life. And as Zach's talking to him, I'm sitting there, I'm praying, and I'm thinking, this guy, because he says this much. He's like, I just want to retire. I'm like, dude, I think you're like 35, man. I don't, like, retire? I don't, you got a few more decades of this. And you're in hospitality. And I really, like, I'm a coach at my core. Like, I really want to be like, all right, let's talk about hospitality. Like, let me tell you how to do your job better, buddy. But honestly, I don't want to, I don't want to focus on his behavior. I want him to take hold of that which changes lives, right? And you contrast that. We get off that plane, I mean, 15 minutes later, 15 minutes. We get off the plane. I'm like, hey, Zach, I got to go to the restroom. I run to the restroom. He's sitting there waiting. He just gets in a conversation with the parking attendant there. I come back, she, and I saw her beforehand. She's just kind of standing there bored. And I come back and she's like, that's amazing. This guy right here, this is the best news.

And she helps us find our car. And I try to tip her and she's just, no, no, no, no. You guys are not giving me anything. You've already given me enough. You gave me the best news I've ever heard in my life. And you just saw this change from the outside because something had taken root on the inside. And we, we've got to go back to that moment for ourselves. Do you remember when? Do you remember when? You learned it from Epaphras. That's the pastor there. Our dear fellow servant who is faithful, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who also told us of your love in the spirit. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you. Again, haven't stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom, underline, and understanding, underline, that the spirit gives. So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit. There it is again. Bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, underline knowledge. The change that others see, a life worthy of the Lord, comes from the knowledge of God.

Verse 11, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you may have great, and then these words, endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father. Endurance is our word from last week, that's hupomone, and patience, that's macrothymia. Hupomone is being under pressure, okay, like you're able to live under great pressure, and macrothymia has to deal with dealing with difficult people. So when you're under pressure and dealing with difficult people, you have the strength to move forward that comes from the knowledge of God. This is what he's saying. This thing that happened on the outside, it's happened, the change on the outside, it's bursting forth from a change that occurred on the inside. Your emotional quotient, what you believe, your strength, your ability to endure. The gospel, the good news, that's what it means, it's the story of Jesus defeating death on your behalf so you will not die. The worst thing, the punctuation of what can happen to you on earth is death. That's where your heart, your vital organ, it stops, your breath, it stops. It ceases, you are no more.

And it's the end of an individual, unless they have placed faith in Jesus Christ, then it's the beginning of the greatest life you've not lived yet, right? And so it's like, what do we have to be afraid of if the one on our behalf whom we follow, who we're here today to worship has defeated death on our behalf? And so the change from the outside comes from the change on the inside, our belief. I'm not trying to change the flight attendant's behavior. I wanna change what he believes because if his belief changes, his behavior will follow. Your behavior always follows your belief. If you have a behavior problem, go to your belief. What's your belief? What are you trusting? What lies are you believing? What's on the inside? Number two, the gospel changes the inside. It changes what you know, that's knowledge and wisdom. Verse nine, knowledge of God. Verse 10, strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, it says. Like I remember, ironically, in Waco, Texas, didn't live here, was visiting a friend here who introduced me to another friend. I don't even know how this happened. This is like right when I'm taking interest in God. I grew up in the church.

That's why I'm so passionate about this message. I grew up in the church and never took hold of the gospel. The Holy Spirit was not active in my life. Pursuing me in this moment, in this season, and I'm on this stranger's couch, and we're talking about the kingdom of God, and something happens, and I'm sitting there, and I remember it, and I would just, we just, I'd never see this guy. In fact, I just saw him in Colorado Springs for the first time in years, and years, and years, and I was reliving this moment. I was like, man, I don't know if, I may have became a Christian on your couch, you know? And I'm sitting there, and the scales fell from my eyes, and I start looking around, and I have this moment. I'm like, none of this is real. Like all of this, like I'm in the matrix. Like all of this, rust and moth is gonna destroy all of this. Like this stuff is true, and we're gonna die, and we're gonna live somewhere forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever. Then I'm just like applying logic here. What else am I gonna give my life to but telling everyone about how they can live forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and it's just, I'm just hitted. I'm being hit with this confrontation

of the difference from what I say I believe, and how I live, and I'm like, if this is true, then I got to live like that's true, or I need to be intellectually honest and say I do not believe that's true, but I don't know that I have any other options. I mean, I think the worst option would be like, yeah, that's true, but I'm not gonna live like it's true. I'm gonna go once a week and pretend like that's true, and then I'm gonna do whatever I want. Like it can't be that. Whatever is happening, it can't be that. Like we have to be intellectually honest and say I believe that's true, and my life, my behavior will follow my belief that that's true, or I look at that, and I'm like, you know what? I have more doubt than confidence. I have more doubt than faith that that's true, so I'll live how I want to, and I'll do what I want to, and I'll hedge my bet once a week, or for 15 minutes every morning, just in case. That's not faith, that's superstition. You gotta go back to what's on the inside, and the knowledge of Christ gave me a new motivation to live. This is why dependence is so important. Listen, I am the type of person that I do not like physical discomfort,

and in fact, I want to escape it. Like everything in me wants to escape it when something's really hard. Here's an example. I am a total baby when I'm sick. You can ask Monica. It's like, I'm dying. She's like, you got a 99.2. I don't know. I'm like, kill me now. I'll be like, okay, do I take an aspirin, a Tylenol, an ibuprofen? What can I do to feel better? My control will go through the roof. When I'm in the hospital for 16 days, I can't do anything. I can't take an Advil. I mean, I am completely in the care of someone else, so I have to decide right now, because they're drilling holes in my neck. I got scars right here. They're putting holes in my neck. I got this thing. Parents are covering kids' eyes as they walk by me. They're like, don't look at him, son. And I'm like, you know, I'm serious, this happened. It's so humbling, you know, and I can't walk. They're like, okay, we need you to walk. I'm like, okay, this leg's not working, you know, and I've got a walker, you know,

and I'm like, what is, how did this happen? What is wrong with me? And I have to decide, do I trust those that I am in the care of or not? I mean, you know, it's like they went to med school and they've got knowledge and understanding that I don't have, but I wanna, you know, armchair quarterback this thing. I'm like, hey, are we sure? You know, plasmaphoresis, that's where we're gonna go, huh? You know, are we sure about that? Because I went to TSTC and have an art degree and think that, do I believe they're for me? They have a vested interest in helping me get better. And so God, in those moments, are teaching me to trust Him, to go slow and remember what is true. He says this in Romans 8, what then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? This is the Father saying to you, if I am willing to give my Son up for you, parents, just consider how much you would have to love somebody to say, yeah, for you, I will allow my own child to be tortured and murdered on the side of the road for you. That's a different kind of love. That's like the most bizarre reality

that we have embraced at the center of the gospel that our God gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. The gospel gives us access to the Father and it means He's on our side. He's for us, He cares about us. Verse 12, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light, for He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He has rescued us, like He went taking on you. Liam Neeson, like He found you and He's rescued you and He's brought you into a new kingdom, which is His kingdom. He's adopted us, we are now His children. He's rescued us from the dominion of darkness. It says, this is Marvel Comics, DC comic kind of stuff. He found you in the dominion of darkness and pulled you to His side, the kingdom of light. You were scared at night, terrified. You had a shirt hanging on the closet that looked like a person and He comes in and He flips on the light and He says, you're my child, you belong to me. Number three, the gospel changes your kingdom. The gospel changes your kingdom. Without the gospel, the world is your kingdom.

Earth, here. Without the gospel, stock markets are ultimate. Without the gospel, you live by the headlines. Without the gospel, your emotional quotient is tied directly to what your social media tells you. If it's bad news, you're in a bad place. If it's good news, you're in a good place. Social media became your God without the gospel. Changes your kingdom and because it changes our kingdom, we're no longer living for the world. Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father's not in them. I think God wants us to hear that. He keeps keeping that in front of us. I think about some friends that they were adopting a brother and a sister, these young siblings from Rwanda. And we were in their lives at the time and lots of prayer requests because this was a journey from them traveling there to going into the orphanage to completely having their heart broken by seeing a bunch of babies laying on the dirt, lifeless. Not knowing what was going to happen to them. not even knowing how to cry. A different level of neglect where they as infants, as babies, have learned that their crying out is ineffective. No one's coming. And they walk in and they're like, their eyes are open, are they alive?

And they see this brother and their sister and they're like, we want to adopt them. And then it's months and months and months, months turn to a year of working with the government and corrupt agencies that are saying, well, just give us a little bit more money, we'll just give us a little bit more money. Well, maybe there's, okay, tomorrow's the day. Nope, not tomorrow. Tomorrow's the day. Nope, not tomorrow. Next week. Nope, not next week. And just this roller coaster of emotion where they come to this place where they're able to go over there and pick them up and bring them back to their home, to a room that they've prepared for. Murals on the wall, two twin-size beds in there. This is your place, right? Now, at this point, I mean, they're growing, they can walk, their clothes smell so bad that they, you know, they rest. Do we keep them? They're like, no. We can't even throw them away inside. We have to put them directly outside in the garage. They smell that bad. Put new clothes on them.

Show them the pantry. They've never seen anything like that. And then they talked about the strange behavior that took place after this, that this brother and sister went looking for their clothes in the garage, that they climbed out of their bed to sleep on the floor, and that they were going in the pantry and taking food and hiding it for fear that they were gonna run out, that people weren't gonna care for them, that it was up to them if they would be cared for or not. Some of us live like this in the faith. He's called you out of the dominion of darkness, but you're like, that's what's familiar to me. Let me go back to what's familiar to me. Like, I understand business. I understand the bar. I understand the university over here. Let me go back to what's familiar. I understand relationships. I understand corruption. I know how to navigate that. I've got a strategic mind. Like, let me go back to that which I know, and he's like, no, he's rescued you from that. Why would you go back to the grave clothes? He's taken off of you. It's almost like you think he's not going to care for you. The Colossians believed in Jesus.

They just didn't think he was enough. The purpose of this letter, Paul writes this letter to say, Jesus is enough. You belong to him, and he is enough. I belong to him, and he is enough. Let's just say that together, okay? I belong to him, and he is enough. Let's say it on three. One, two, three. I belong to him, and he is enough. My prayer is over the next few weeks, that would take root in our hearts, that we belong to him, and he is enough. We've been rescued, transferred, redeemed, and forgiven. So don't return back to the darkness. Christianity is not turning a new leaf. It's being planted in a new kingdom. In summary, the gospel changes the outside, changes what people see, changes what they see on you. It changes the inside. The outside changes, because the inside changed first, your belief, your knowledge, the strength that you draw from, and it changes the kingdom we belong to. A few years ago, several years ago, really, Monica and I went to Israel, and we have this tour guide named Ron. Now, to date, 45 years of existence, Ron is the most extraordinary human I've ever met. I was enthralled.

I had been warned that I was going to be a Christian, and I had been warned that I was going to be a Christian. I was enthralled. I had been warned, but there was a kindness about him. He was so in tune. I've never met anyone like him that you could have a bus of 27 people, and if someone in the third row on the back had a tummy ache, he was aware, and he would be like, hold on real quick, guys, and he'd go back and say, hey, how you doing? You need anything? And he would just care for them. He was so in tune with all of the people that he was caring for. for, and he was a genius. He would be like, what plant is that? And he was like, well, that's this plant, the Latin name is, and you know, this bird, the Latin name for that bird is this, and it's that lizard right here, and he would catch it. And then he's like, this is actually a venomous lizard. If it bites me right now, I will die. But the way that, and I'm just like, you are incredible. And he would just build, he would use his words to build. He never said a negative word, never once. Just everything was just to encourage those around him. And it was like, dare I say, we are being led through Israel by Jesus, the most Christ-like human I've ever met.

I mean, Jonathan Rumi, get out of the way. Like, this guy, I'm like, this guy should play Jesus. And so I'm talking to him, and I'm like, so how did you become a Christian? He says, oh, I'm not a Christian. I mean, he's taken us to the tomb, to the place where Jesus was crucified. He knew more scripture. He knew the Bible better than anybody on that bus. So I'm like, I'm not, I'm not a Christian. I'm just fascinated by Christ. He was a great man. He was a great man. Yeah, and I'm Jewish. What? And I'm confronted by this reality that the most Christian person I've ever met is not a Christian. And I'm surrounded every day by Christians who don't act Christian. We are our own worst PR. Christian that are like, there's this kingdom that I belong to, and a God there that I'm gonna be forever, and this world doesn't matter, but I will worry so much in this world about what everybody thinks of me. I'm afraid I'm not gonna be provided for. I've got to live for myself, because if I don't, who else is going to watch out for me? And I'm, it's right, I'm like, wait, what?

That's my hope for us, is that as the gospel takes root, that maybe right now, in this season, however old you are, however long you've been in church, that people around you would say behind your back, that is the most Christian person I've ever met. That is the most Christlike individual I've ever met in my life, and you're not going to be able to change that. You're not going to be able to change that. And you're not going to be able to change that at will. It's gonna be surrender. You're like, God, do I believe in you? Would you help my unbelief? Let me pray. God, I just echo that to you. If that's okay, just, would you help our unbelief? Would you help us to trust in you more? Help us to follow you more? Start with me, God. There's parts of my life I know that I'm trying to control. There are areas of my life where I know I care way too much what others think. How will I be able to lead them to territory I can't enter into myself? And so, God, you gotta do it. You gotta lead us there together. We wanna be there. We wanna live with that confidence. We want to build our life on you alone, Jesus.

Help the gospel take root. It's in Christ's name, amen.