Truth Moments: Episode 16

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Welcome back. Yes, sir. Truth Moments. And again. Back in the lab, you know. Great morning. Great morning. I like the morning. Making it happen. 6.22 a.m. Yeah. On a Wednesday morning. Getting it in. You know, like... Before the grind. Like what? I was brushing my teeth at 5.35 thinking... I was already here. This is serious business. Yeah. It is. I wasn't. You know, I was brushing my teeth at 5.30 and thinking... This is a calling. It is, man. Hey, these guys are waking up at probably that time. Maybe.

They're working. Yeah, if they're working in the kitchen. Right. That kitchen. That kitchen's serious. Yeah, they're snoozing these hours away. There's some that's been up since 2. Yeah. They're cooking breakfast. Yeah, that's true. You know, it was all boots on the ground where I was at. Yeah. Doors pop at 4.45. You got to make sure your boots are on the ground. Really? They had to do... You actually literally needed to wear boots. Oh, yeah. And it had to be online. Yeah. You have to do, like, online counts. Yeah, yeah. You're on count. And, you know, boots actually have to be on. I was like, wear real boots? You know? Like, I got nice tennis shoes, dude. You got to wear your boots during counters. Yeah, real boots. Yeah.

I was like, wow, that's interesting. Huh. That's crazy. You know, it's a shame you can't get... We can't get this in the feds. I know. You know? Yeah, it is. It is. It's only state, but... Anyways. But we're in this thing. Hey, man. We're here. We're glad to be here. We're kind of picking back up on the growth group topics. And so hopefully last week you guys was able to dig in, have some good discussion in your cells, in your day rooms. You know, I got some confirmation a little bit, not even from someone inside, but somebody at our church on Sunday. And it was like, I was talking about, they were talking about the growth groups and how it was helping them out. And they were like, man, I had a Bible study in prison that I was leading for eight months. And I was listening to him talk, and he was on fire, and he was talking about it. And he was like, man, but the Bible study was one of the hardest things to do in there because of the tension of pull of leadership in there.

Oh, yeah. Right? And it was like, it just confirmed for me, you know, what we've given out as an open discussion without titles in the group study. You know what I'm saying? And that's the biggest deal is that we would hope that you would take the file that we sent over with the video, okay, because that's new information, that there will be a full discussion form with highlighted, it'll give you a main idea, and it will also give you key verses. And it'll give you, so if you're tapping in and you're like, boom, two moments, it's on, what's going on, pause if you haven't heard the sermon. Go back, listen to the sermon, because that is what we were discussing. We were discussing the growth groups and the questions that go on. Again, this is a reiteration of what this is. Our entire church is doing this group, okay? So we have many small groups across all of Kansas City, and they're gathering together, and they're going over the same three open-ended questions. They're having holy conversations about the sermon, so it is reiterated into our minds and saturated into our hearts, and so that this is not something that would just go in one ear and then would go out the other, and by Wednesday, because here we are Wednesday, and so I caught you at the last end because now you're prepping your next one. Wow.

As soon as this is over, we're going on to the next one. I'm good with that. You can wait any longer. Thoughts are shifting. But anyway, so that's what's going on. Here we are with that, and we really pray that there would be some revelation and there would be some community built with each other and some fellowship built, and so if you have victories that you have experienced through that, please share them when you write. Please share them whenever we come to the prison, and let's talk about it, man. Let's have some holy conversations. You know, the Acts 2, I was looking at it this morning again, and it's like, you can sit in there for a while, huh? Yeah, you really can. And it's as funny as I was yesterday, because, so Pentecost Sunday is not this Sunday, but it's the next Sunday. And so we celebrate Pentecost 50 days after Easter, right, because that's when Jesus came during that Pentecost period, and then the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost Sunday. And so we just kind of went through that. We're still on Pentecost Sunday in Acts 2, and it's like, I was watching this podcast that was emailed out, and I was watching these two scholars discuss Acts 1 and 2, and whenever I was doing it, we were watching it in the car line yesterday, picking up the kids, and as I was hearing them discuss it, I told Catherine, I was like, babe, I did pretty good really just exegetically pulling out, you know, because everything that these two scholars were talking about, and their topic of their podcast was, this is that. And I was like, nice. Oh, really?

That's cool. I was like, well, that's pretty cool. It was Doug Clay. I don't know if you've ever seen Doug Clay. He was at the CMN conference that we went to. Oh, the big dog. He's the big dog. The big dog, big dog. But anyways, yeah, there's a lot of content. You could really stay there for a while. Because we're leading now, so here we are, you know, Peter is preaching through this, and then he's directing them, because we haven't hit on what he's directing them to do yet. No, I think that might come this week, but I'm not 100% because I haven't really. Okay, so you're directing them what to do, and then the Acts 2 model, right? That's a whole nother, that's a whole, okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff. There is. There's getting ready to be some good applications and some stuff. So let's just kick off. You know, we were in Acts 2, what, 22 through 24. I mean, I expected to go through that whole last passage and just read those three verses and was like, I see three points right there. Okay, so you read the verses, and you see that God moves you to say, hey, this is the topic, this is what we're preaching on, this is the word, right? That is also what goes on in our study, man. So often we get in this place where we're like, you know, we make these goals. And I think this is a kind of a dangerous thing to do, is when you have goals to read a certain amount of the word, I think it's great because it's good to fill it in, but it's also, you need to be very mindful that like, allow the Lord to just go ahead and

stop you on one verse. If he needs to stop you, if that verse impacts you, that's what we're called to do is to let that saturate in and take it, journal it, reflect on it. Andy Stanley, I don't know if you know who that is, but he's a leadership guru, megachurch pastor or whatever, Charles Stanley's son. But anyways, Andy Stanley said one time, he said, read till God speaks to you. You know, he's like, that's what you should do daily. He's like, if you read two verses and God spoke to your heart, good job. If you have to read two books in order for God to speak to you, then do that, you know? But yeah, let it impact your life, let it apply, let it, you know, that's where I see it is, read to apply it, you know, read something and then figure out how you can apply that to your life and let it change you. The word of God is a living document. But anyways, let's jump into one of the first questions. I don't even think we made it past the first question last time, but that's okay. The first question is this, what's the difference between being around Jesus and actually being connected to Jesus? And how have you seen that play out in your own life? What's the difference between being around Jesus and actually being connected to him? And how have you seen that play out in your own life? There is now a PDF attachment that will be on your video. I don't know that you'll be able to look at it while you watch the video, but afterwards you'll be able to have. of this content that you guys can use to help guide your discussion, but what's the difference between being around Jesus and actually being connected to him? You know, one of the statistics that I read about this whole series that we're in is that, you know, it's like there was over 500 witnesses, right, that's witnessing Jesus fully resurrected, but out of that 500, there's only 120 that are there at the end of it. And it's like, what happened to the 380? Where'd they go, dude? Where are they? And it's like, that's a question to ask them on yourself. Like, are you part of the 120 or are you part of the 380?

Yeah. Your muscles are so big. It's rolling around, dude. Nicky Gracious did this challenge. He murdered that thing, bro. Very biblical. It was. He said, if one eyewitness can send me to prison, then 500 witnesses should get you forgiven. And I was like, ooh, that was a hard bar right there. That was tough. You know, but just thinking about that, you know, is even if all it was, was the 120 left, man, there was enough there to really get you. Because, you know, one of the things we had talked about in the sermon was you can be around Jesus, but not be connected to him. Like, there's a lot of people that would say they're a Christian because they're in church or maybe because their mom or grandma or dad or whatever grew up Christian and they went to church, right? Like, you're getting booked into diagnostic and they ask you what your religious affiliation is. Christian. 90% of people probably in Department of Corrections have Christian on their faith sheet, you know. But maybe 1% are actually following him, you know, connected to him. And that's what we're always doing in discipleship and in fellowship is the biggest thing is I'm always evaluating others' life that's around me by the fruit of their life, but I want them to be actually connected to Jesus. I don't want them to just be showing up to our Bible studies. I don't want them to just be showing up to church just mopping the floor as a routine. You know, it's like you can see that and we see it a lot here. We see it a lot. You get in this mundane type routine and you've become around church people and you're getting engraved in it and all of a sudden it just becomes like just part of what you're doing. And it's like, you know, you have a better chance of being closer to Jesus around that environment, but that doesn't make it so the fact that that's what you're close to, right? That's what you're not connected to. And so we're always, you know, where are you at in your word? How is your spiritual life? What are we working on with these things? How is God moving in your life? Like if these kinds of conversations aren't because I, you know, I always share my heart. I always share my heart with you and you always kind of know where I'm at spiritually because I'll come to you and say, you know, this is what I got going on or here's where I'm at with this. And those are signs for you as a friend and as a pastor that say, okay, here is growing in the Lord or here he is connected. When you're not having any type of conversations with your brothers about Jesus Christ and how he is impacting your life and what he's working on because he's always telling you out. He's always, he's always grinding up the soil that's in your heart.

And you're not, that's not on your lips. That's not what you're talking about. It's very likely that you're disconnected. Very likely. And you could see that in a brother like that because there is no conversation in it. There's no food. That's why this, this group is so important because why? Because we're having a holy conversation and it would be hard to get inside of this environment. It would be very hard to get in this environment right now, have group conversations openly discussed about Jesus Christ and not be connected to him. Yeah. And something not just completely, just radically changed your life. Cause you know, one of the, I don't, I didn't, I didn't emphasize on this point enough cause I had too much places to go. Yeah. I did. I had too much, but one of the, one of the points was in that opening illustration that I used about the tree, you know, and the branch that was broken. and off of it and how the storm wasn't what broke it, it was what exposed it. And I think about so many times, man, like how we have these people that have outbursts, outlashes, things that just happen dramatically, that there's always something happening in their life and it's always the next worst thing. And to me, it's like, man, when you're sitting here talking to somebody that is just constantly, you're trying to constantly counsel bad behavior out of them, it's like the storm isn't what is breaking you, it's what's exposing you. And so there is something that is deeper inside of you than what you're confronting. And so it's like, how do we get to a place where we allow that to be changed inside of us to where, it's a lifestyle change, it's a heart change. You say that, let me say this, because that's exactly where I'm at with this.

The behavior is exposed, and the behavior most likely 100% of the time is gonna be sinful. It's gonna be sinful, the behavior is sinful, whether the sin is anger, whether the sin is whatever that greed, whatever that is, it's sinful. It has a root of sin, right? And what is on the other side of that sin is a fruit of the Spirit. Okay, I'm gonna give you a personal example in my life, is that I love my children dearly. I love them dearly. There are times in my day when I become more frustrated than I need to be with them. And how I talk, how I communicate to them, and how I parent is the utmost important thing, the most important thing that I do. This is the most important thing that I do. The discipleship that I have with my children is the most important thing that I do. And are there times that I have used a louder voice than I needed to, been more, because the hard part is that I am just, by nature, when I get worked up, more aggressive, right? And so here I am, that bad behavior goes on, and it's like, you know, the Lord instantly convicts me of it, right? But what I've been dealing with that is, okay, so the anger is a sin,

and what do I need to experience more of, what do I need to be in pursuit of? And God's really just led me to a fruit of the Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is a self-control. It is self-control that I need to exercise more. And even though that my desire for my children, the desire I have is that they would act better, that they would be more obedient, that they would listen to their father in that moment, that they would, whatever that desire is, it's a good desire, but that desire, this is the revelation I've had this week, that desire cannot out-trump the desire I have to please God and be in self-control. That has to be the number one desire. So I'm placing this desire that I have over the desire I have for the Lord, and so what I'm exercising now is, and so how do you do that? What do you do to do it? Man, it has to be the center focus of my connection to Jesus right now. I'm fully relying on it. I want this problem solved. I want it worked on. I want to grow in it. I don't want it to be the same. I'm willing to do whatever it takes. I'm willing to declare a fast to do it. I'm willing to get into my Word.

I'm willing to write into my journal. I'm willing to read every scripture there is about self-control. I'm willing to allow God to remind me throughout my day, and then another thing that I'm doing for it, and because we're talking about this, is I'm preparing for the challenge of it, because it's conceived through pain, right? That's in our sermon. It's conceived through pain. There's gonna be a pain through it, and I'm praying that God, hey, give me another opportunity. Let these kids get riled up again. Real decent too, man. So I have to handle myself. Force me. So I gotta handle it, man, and so when I'm praying, like in the morning, I'm getting my heart right for it, man. I'm ready for the challenge. I'm preparing for it. I'm praying that God would give it to me, so when it's presenting itself, I'm acknowledging that it's an answer to prayer from the Lord, and I'm ready to pass it this time. I don't want to continue to fail, and that goes on with any other sin that we're dealing with. We're dealing with the anger.

We're dealing with the lust. You're in a joy, and you're angry, and you're mad at this one person. You pray, God, give me an opportunity, man. You're good. That Muslim, whoever, however that's been upsetting you, whatever's going on, that racial tension that you're dealing with, man, pray that it would present itself, and once it does present itself, you're like, great, I can't wait. Here's the opportunity. I pray for it, Lord. You know, the lust that's going on in your prayer, the one CEO that you can't stop looking at, pray that she continues to walk by. Pray that she continues to come in and have a conversation with you. What is an opportunity, right? It's an opportunity to grow because I want to grow through it and God's not going to take me through it without having some pain and some suffering through it and so that I can pass the test that He's given me, man. Yeah, I think about, you know, I do these marriage counseling sessions or premarital counseling sessions and, like, one of the things that I talk about is how to look in the mirror and what can you change yourself instead of trying to change somebody else. What can you do to change yourself and, you know, I think, you know, one of the things that I heard you say without saying it is, you know, when you stay connected, when you stay close to the Father, like, it's hard to not want to be like the Father, you know, and it's like in these moments, you know, I always try to think, like, man, how can I be the best representative, like, if I get in a situation and I don't represent Christ, I walk away and I'm like, dang, and, like, you have this conviction because it's like

I had an opportunity to display Christ to somebody that did not know Him apparently and I failed, I failed my mission and I'm like, man, I always just want that to be the factor of, like, my husbandry, my friendship, my whatever, like, how can I be the best example of Jesus to my kids, you know, to whoever, because I want my kids, I want my wife, I want my friends, I want my church, I want all of these people to be able to see how to handle themselves and, yeah, are there moments where you, you know, you stretch a little bit on this side, sure, but we're all human, you know, I mean. You know, I have this cross, and it used to have a cross that broke off, but anyways, in the back, it's 1 Corinthians 10, 13, my grandma got me this before I got out, and one of my favorite verses back here on it, but it is a cross here, it's not real present, but anyways, in the morning, I've been in the habit of doing this, in the morning when I put this on, I look in the mirror and I say, as I put it on, I say, represent Him well, represent Him well, like, don't put it on, because here's the thing, now, I've decided to declare Him openly, that's why I love a cross, right, and I was going to the prison, and we see men that love that 49.99, what can you spend, only 100, you're under 100? On the books? Yeah, well, apparently, you go in the chapel and you can spend like X amount of dollars through Amazon and buy a chain, that's how everybody got the chains in the years, dude. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it didn't happen when I was doing it, they were still sewing them together with the yarn or whatever, but now, you can go in there and I think it, maybe it'd be 50 or maybe it's 100, but you know, if it's under 100. I was wondering how dudes was getting all these chains. Yeah, they got iced up chains, yeah, and so, but they love to do that, man, it looks nice, right, and good for you that you're doing it, right, and you would spend, it's $50, you spend that 49.99, you have your people buy that thing on Amazon, it's just. Still got brown stains on their fingers from smoking top rolls that they've paid $10 for. Or pressing somebody out with it on, or pulling up on somebody aggressive with it on, you know what I mean, it's like you chose to represent him openly, great for, good for you, but how

are you representing him in your actions and everything that you're doing? So not only are you around him, but he's around your neck, but are you connected to him? And are you connected? So here it is, man, so are you really connected to him, you're around all these Jesus people, but are you having godly conversations about Christ and these things done? So that is a thing, represent him well, man. Yeah, and it's, you know, where that point come from was Peter's addressing them and saying Jesus of Nazareth, and it's speaking to, you know, they were all waiting on the Messiah. And he's saying Jesus was the branch. And it's the branch, which is the new shoe that comes from the stump of Jesse from the line of David. And, you know, it says that he is attested to you guys by God with mighty works, wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst. And you know, I just think about like, man, how many times has God performed on our behalf, even when we wasn't acknowledging it, even when we wasn't and to me, it's like the least I can do with the rest of my life is completely honor the Lord and walk with Him, you know, and just be who He has called me to be. And, because the fact is, is you can be around Him, but you can still not be connected to Him. And, you know, I discussed this passage in there, and it was, you know, that He cuts off every branch that doesn't produce fruit. And, you know, that He prunes the branches that do bear fruit. And it's like, both of those measures allow cutting. You know, so whether you're being pruned or whether you're being cut off,

you get to choose. The cut off gets done, but the pruning is painful situations along the way. I'm a tree guy. When you cut, when you prune a tree, you are creating multiple wounds over that tree. And when you prune the tree, you can only cut away a third of the growth. If you cut more than a third of the growth, you induce too much stress to cut the, or it'll kill the tree. So when you're pruning it, you're creating wounds all over it in order to bring more growth where it needs to be. So you're cutting off the sucker growth in order to provide growth to the ends of the tree, and it will allow, and I would just say, some of us need to cut some suckers off. You know what I'm saying? Cut some suckers off so that growth can happen where it needs to happen in our life. And it doesn't happen just by watching Pando videos. You know, we were in a men's breakfast not too long ago, and I heard a statement that said, all they did was watch Pando. No church, but just Pando. No church, just Pando. And I would encourage you, don't do that. Don't just be a Pando watcher. Go and get connected to the chapel.

I don't care if the only service that is provided is Southern Baptist and you're Pentecostal or vice versa. Go and get connected to the body, man. Like, go get some brothers, because it is more than just, you need not only connection to Jesus, but you do need connection to his church. I don't think that, I think connection with him draws connection with his body, because you need brothers, man, to help hold you accountable. I highly encourage you to watch Pando. I mean, that's why we do what we're doing right now. I mean, we didn't wake up at. Yeah, no, we did. We talked about this way back on one of our broadcasts before, it's like, you know, get in there, no matter who's in there. Still represent Christ. It's not, the darkness and the evil and the things that's going on, the people that are trying to take over the chapel in your joint right now, should not draw you away and say, let them have it. I was at Algoa, I was at Algoa last Friday, and I preached this message, and one of the things I said in there was that, you know, there was some people that had said that they didn't go to church because of the people that were in the church.

Yeah, yeah. And so I was like. What does that mean? Yeah, and so I'm like, okay, well, let's play that. Right, let's play that. So now you're telling me you're not gonna go work out because there's fat people at the gym. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So their productivity is now the measure of which your success is gonna come from? Yeah, that's good. Because that doesn't make no sense. So that means you're not gonna go to church because there are people there that need church. Yeah. Like, that don't make no sense, you know? Like, let's look beyond. If that's the case, we're measuring our relationship with God by other people's death. Very pharisaical, if that's even a word. Very pharisee-like. Oh, yeah, dude. It's like, they're so sinful. They're so sinful because their sinfulness is gay, and it's open, and it's seen, right? And you're saying that sin, that sinfulness, is too sinfulness for me to associate around. Then let's call it like it is. If that's the case, you're just around him. Yes.

You are not connected to him. Because I just read in Mark three, maybe, two or three this morning, when I was reading and drinking my coffee at five o'clock this morning, that Jesus was sitting in a room lounging with a room full of sinners. Yeah. Why didn't it keep Jesus out of that room? Yeah, exactly. It didn't, you know? And it's like, there is something in my mind in those moments, I'm not advocating to go be around a bunch of people that are not honoring God. That's outside of the church type of situation. But is what I'm saying is when there is a moment to go and be a part of the church, that's a moment that you have to go and shine and display the relationship with God that you have that would make other men or women of God desire that relationship. Like, your presence in the room should make people want to be more like Jesus at the end of the day. And so, whether it's a room full of hypocrites or it's a room full of spirit-filled believers, you know, I mean, the 120 was there and millions of people was recognizing what was happening with that 120 because they were in the room, unified and connected and something was happening. So, if we're not going to church

because there's hypocrites there, I would say that our relationship with Jesus is pretty surface, you know? So, let yourself get connected, get connected to Jesus and let that connection draw you to the church and draw you to others. And there's no way that we would ever be able to get through three of these questions, dude. It would be a four-hour podcast because we're halfway through one. And that's- Where are we at? We're at 34 minutes with about four minutes of fluff on the morning before we even started. That's it. So, you know, we do pray that these would impact and help you in your life. We would love to counsel you as well through this leadership phase. If you have questions with that, let me excuse myself with the leadership title. It's not a title of it. You're presenting the PDF. You're presenting the paper that we give out, right? You're presenting that to your group discussion and you're just having holy conversations. And- Somebody can facilitate it. Someone needs to be able to lead it, right? In a way that would facilitate it,

that would keep the discussion holy, right? Everybody just come in and humbly discuss this stuff. We don't need 10 chiefs and no Indians. You know what I'm saying? Like, just use the discussion guide. It'll be attached to the video. Use the questions like we just did. We asked one question and we discussed it. There's still two other good ones that we could go through and let it change how you walk. So- That's good. Father, we thank you. Lord, we just pray that you would bless the ears that have listened. If they have ears to hear, let them hear. Lord, we just pray that you would just move in conversation within units all across the country. God, we pray that fruitfulness would come from this. Lord, we pray that institutions would begin to see life change in men and women across the nation, God, because they are using these moments of just refining their walk with Jesus and just applying some of the principles that are discussed in their day rooms or in their cells and just walking with him, staying connected to him, not just being around him, but being connected to him. And so, Lord, we just pray favor over them. Lord, we pray blessing. Lord, we pray that even if there is pressure,

even if there is tension in their life, that they would understand that it's not meant to break them, but it's meant to expose some of the areas in their life that they can surrender to you better. And so, Lord, I pray that you would just use it to guide them, use it to teach them, use it to develop them, God. And so, we just thank you for all that you're doing in Jesus' name, amen. Love y'all. Amen.