Why Christians Never Fight Alone | Fight The Good Fight | Pastor Josh Howerton

Hey guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Point YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now, enjoy this Bible teaching. All right, man. Hey, Lake Point family, if you guys got your Bibles, head over to 2 Timothy chapter four. Throw in your curve ball, chapter four. Okay, it's gonna be great. Hey, before you guys, or while you're headed over there, let me just give you a heads up. Quick family meeting, Lake Point Church. This, you've been hearing about it for the last three weeks. This Thursday at 7 p.m., it's like an all hands on deck family meeting. If you call yourself a part of Lake Point Church or you are interested in the future of Lake Point Church, I'm gonna talk about what's going on on Thursday.

I'm gonna shoot you real straight. And when you're looking around our rooms and just seeing what's going on right now, man, glory to God, we just feel like a kite caught in a hurricane of grace. And we have not been in a moment like I think that we're in right now in our church. It's kind of like it's been 31 years since we've kind of been in a moment like this. And so I need to roll out to the people of our church where we're headed as a church in the next few years. And some pretty awesome, pretty significant things that we're gonna be rolling out. So if you can, this Thursday, 7 p.m., I'm gonna be there rolling that stuff out and I'll see you there. It's gonna be awesome. Okay, so mark the calendars. I'm excited. All right, let's get into, this is week three of a series that we've just been calling Fight the Good Fight. Fight the Good Fight. And I just wanna remind you while we're doing this series, because this is why we do everything, is everything that we're doing this year, it hangs on this one theme of I am a disciple. Not I'm a fan, not I'm a watcher, not I'm in a big crowd. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. And what disciples do is disciple, it means follower.

And you're gonna hear me say this every single week, is that it is impossible to be following somebody and standing still at the same time. And so what we're doing is we are asking in this series, all the book of 2 Timothy is, here's all it is, is it is the greatest disciple of Jesus Christ who ever lived. The Apostle Paul, his age starts with a five or a six. We're gonna read his final recorded words today before his death. It's him looking at this young fatherless kid named Timothy that he takes up under his arm, makes his spiritual son and disciples him. And so as we're just going, man, I just wanna be a follower of Jesus Christ and a disciple. We're just going, okay, Paul, what's it look like when Paul disciples his guy, Timothy? Now, of everything we're saying, I've been telling you this every week. I've been telling you this every week. All I'm asking is for this series, for you to ask this one question. God, what is the one step, the one step that you're asking me to take that would help me follow Jesus Christ more closely? I'm gonna shoot you real straight. There's a reason this is the only part of the series where I'm going out of order from the book, because what we're gonna talk about today

is the one step that you will either take or you will not take. And this one step, whether you take this one step in your life as a disciple will determine the trajectory of your life as a disciple or a non-disciple more than any other step in your entire life, okay? Now, let me set it up. Chuck Swindoll, anybody know who Chuck Swindoll is? I hope so. Y'all know Chuck Swindoll, all right. Chuck Swindoll, legend. Chuck Swindoll, 91 years old, might be one of the greatest still living preachers. He read this little story at the beginning of a message that I watched. He said this, if your age starts with a five rub, you're gonna like this. He said, I know I shouldn't have done this. I'm 83 is when it happened. I am 83 years old. He was reading this story somebody else said. I was in the McDonald's drive-through this morning. The young lady behind me leaned on her horn and started mouthing some ugly things because I was taking too long to place my order. So when I got to the window, first window, I paid for her order along with my own. The cashier must've told her what I had done because as we moved up, she leaned out her window,

waved to me and began mouthing, thank you, thank you, probably feeling embarrassed that I had repaid her rudeness with kindness. When I got to the second window, I showed the server both receipts and took her food too. Now she has to go back to the end of the queue and start all over again. Don't blow your horn at old people. We've been around for a long time. All right, there it is. All right, there it is. Now, somebody liked that. I heard that. Now, what we're getting. What we're ready to do is read the final recorded words of an old disciple who had been around for a long time. And the Apostle Paul, in what we're getting ready to read, is it'll make your eyes sweat just thinking about it. He's in a prison cell, and this young disciple that he made his son, Timothy. You imagine Timothy reading what we're about to read, and the Apostle Paul is gonna tell Timothy, he's gonna tell him, hey, I know I'm about to die. You're gonna read it here in a second. The time for my departure is near. He's an old man, he's been following Jesus for a minute, and he did it better than anybody else did it. And what he's gonna tell Timothy is gonna say, hey, Tim, before I go to be with the Lord,

he's gonna say this, if you, Timothy, if you wanna finish like I'm finishing, by the way, if your age starts with five, six, seven, or up, you're gonna read about a guy in this passage named Demas. I don't have time to talk about this. I talk about it in the podcast. You're gonna read about a guy named Demas. Paul mentions him in 2 Timothy 4. You're gonna read it. Paul says about Demas. He says, Demas, in love with this present world has deserted me. If you do your Bible homework and you go read, I think it's Colossians and the book of Philemon, two books written before the book of 2 Timothy, Paul refers to Demas as, quote, one of his fellow workers and one of his companions in the faith. And so all we know about Demas, watch this, is he started well, but he did not finish well. In love with this present world, he abandoned Paul, he abandoned the cause of Christ, and that's the final sentence to Demas' story. This is a whole different sermon, but I'm just talking to our senior saints right now. Hey, senior saints, you've started well. We need you to finish well. We need you, listen, we're watching you to watch some people put some decades on the clock, finish the race with everything you got,

and with your final words, be able to turn around and tell your children and your grandchildren, watch this, and your spiritual children and your spiritual grandchildren for you to be able to say with integrity on your deathbed, I have finished the race, I have fought the fight, I have kept the faith, and there is thenceforth laid up for me a crown of righteousness from the Lord, the righteous judge. We need you, we need you, okay? So when I read it, that wasn't in my notes, it was just in my heart, like, literally right now. We need you, so we need some Pauls, not some Demases. So what Paul does here is he says this, okay? Now check this out, it's gotta be short, I gotta get real practical. Paul says this in verse six, he says, for I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure is near. Watch, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. By the way, we got any Marines in the room? Where are the Marines at? All right, all right, thank you. All right, hey, you tell me, somebody tell me, what is the motto of the Marines? That's it, that's it. Semper what, semper, thank you. That's short for semper fidelis, it means always faithful. In the Latin translation of what Paul says here

when he says, I have kept the faith, essentially what he's saying is semper fidelis. When the bullets started flying, I did not run away from my good general and my good God. I stayed faithful to the end. This is what he's saying right here. So he's saying, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing. And then he says this, point number one, he says, do your best to come to me quickly. Do your best to come to me quickly. Now circle that in your Bibles. Now let me just start right here, and I just need to establish something. I don't care who you are, I don't care if at any of our campuses you gave me a good hoorah or semper fide, whatever. Can I just say something? The apostle Paul was tougher than you. I don't care who you are, the apostle Paul was tougher than you. Shipwrecked three times, beaten five times, stoned, that's rocks, not we did that already. Bitten by a viper, assassination plots by Jewish ninjas, walked 20 miles a day, 12,000 miles on foot. The dude is singing hymns and torture devices in the book of Acts.

And yet, when he is in a pit and he's alone, the apostle Paul reaches out to a disciple friend named Timothy and says, I need you. Do your best to come to me soon. Point number one, a disciple assembles a band of brothers or sisters. A disciple assembles a band of brothers or sisters. Now, this one decision will be the most important decision you make to determine your discipleship. Now, let me explain why. The Bible says that the devil is in the, quote, the domain of darkness. So the darkness is where the devil's domain is. But then 1 John 1 says that if we walk in the light as he is in the light, he is Jesus. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us and separates us from all sin. So check this out, the Bible says, the devil's domain is darkness, but Jesus is out where the light is. Now check this out, here's why your decision whether or not to assemble a band of brothers or a band of sisters will determine the outcome of your discipleship more than anything else. Check this out, what most people do and what many of you are doing right now is whenever sin or things that entangle you when addictions and strongholds get you, is what you do.

is you fight the devil in the dark, you bottle it in. I'm not gonna tell nobody, I'm gonna fight it alone, I'm gonna bow up, I got this. By the way, I've heard it said before, the three most dangerous words in the English language are I got this. Heads up, you don't got this. The devil is bigger than you, sin is stronger than you, but watch this, but greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You don't got this on your own. And so what most people do is they get up all up in these, my marriage is struggling, the addiction is going on, the sin is besetting me, all these things. And check it out, they stay alone, they stay isolated till no one, and they fight the devil in the dark. Now listen, let me go a layer deeper. Listen to me, don't fight the devil in the dark because the darkness is his domain. Let me say it like this, if you try to fight the devil in the dark, you are always gonna lose because the darkness is his domain. But what we wanna do, check this out, is the Bible says the darkness is the devil's domain, but it says that the light, we need to walk in the light, out in the light where Jesus is. If we bring it out there, that's what we need to do. So check this out, when you take,

listen, don't fight the devil in the dark, the darkness is his domain. When you stay alone in the thing that is attacking you, bro, that's like an away game, night game, LSU, all the refs got Tigers jerseys on, Lane Kiffin got your playbook, and a dadgum assistant coach running the scoreboard. You're gonna lose, you're gonna lose. Don't fight the devil in the dark, the darkness is his domain. So what we wanna do as disciples is we wanna walk in the light as he is in the light. When you're struggling with something, what you wanna do is you wanna take that sin, take that shame, take that addiction, take that stronghold, drag it out into the light where Jesus is with a band of brothers, drag it out there, and let Jesus Christ reign victorious over that thing. This is what Jesus has called us to do, and it is why our decision whether or not to assemble a band of brothers will be the most important decision you make in your life. Now, this mess is gonna be real practical, so let me get real practical and real straightforward. We believe this insane, crazy thing at Lake Point, I know this sounds nuts, insane, crazy thing, we believe this crazy thing at Lake Point that men and women are different.

I know that's nuts, it's crazy, we believe this, okay? I know your JUCO college professor in your HR department said that's crazy, but we're going with the Bible on that one, okay? So now check this out, let me talk to you in a straightforward way. Men and women are different, so watch this, men and women do relationships differently. When Jana's friends come over, what they do is they all sit on a couch, they look each other in the eye, their body language is like crossing their legs, like looking at each other, they sit there, look at each other in the eye and talk about their feelings, okay? Now, if a dude grabbed me and was like, hey Josh, you wanna come over tonight, sit on the couch, cross your legs, look at me and talk about our feelings? I'd say number one, no, number two, the fact that you asked me makes me real suspicious of you, that's what I'd say. No, I do not, go. So let me talk real practically about how men and women need to assemble a band of brothers because each of you, men and women, you're gonna struggle with this in different ways. So let me ask, I'm gonna ask two questions, maybe you need to write these questions down. First, let me talk to the ladies.

Ladies, let me point this out. Paul is, watch this, he's asking Timothy. He's asking Timothy to come to him. Ladies, let me ask you this question. Are you pursuing relationships with other godly women? Are you pursuing them? Now ladies, let me just be real gentle and just say something. You know, a lot of you ladies, not all, a lot of you ladies, you need to hear this. Some of you, you are terrible at developing friendships, you're terrible at it. And what I mean is you'll walk into a church like this and you're literally surrounded by 30,000 other godly people, godly women, and you're looking, you're like telling your husband, oh, I'm trying to find some good godly friends, trying to make some friends. And then you'll get home, and here's what you'll do. You'll come to a place like this, you'll stand in a dark corner the whole time, and then you'll get home and your husband will be like, hey, did you make any friends? You'll be like, oh, no, nobody talked to me. Or, oh, I'm waiting for someone else to ask. I don't wanna bother her, I bet she's really busy, okay? That's what you do. While you stood in the corner and made it look like you didn't want anybody to come ask you, that's what you do, okay?

Now, men develop friendships very different, I'm speaking in a straightforward way. Men develop friendships very differently. Men, it's around activities. So it's like, hey dude, you wanna be friends? It's like, hey man, you into baseball? Nope, you into golf? Nope, you fish? Yes, bang, now we're friends, we're friends now, guys, that's how it works. So ladies, let me just say this. What you're gonna have to do to assemble a band of sisters, you're going to have to pursue it. You're gonna have to make the phone call. You're gonna have to send the text. You're gonna need to take a step to begin to assemble this band of sisters that you need. Now, men, let me point this out to you. The men that the Apostle Paul surrounds himself with, watch this, they are men of God doing the things of God. Let me ask you this question, men. Are your relationships, are they rooted in Christ or are they rooted in your hobbies? Listen, men, what we do is we just naturally, it's like we got buddies. You got tons of buddies, okay? We got golfing buddies, you got fishing buddies, you got hunting buddies, you got football watching buddies, you got tons of buddies. But watch this, watch.

When you just have buddies, and the relationships are just rooted in an activity, I'm gonna tell you right now what's gonna happen to you because I've done this many times. The depth of the relationship is gonna be determined by the depth of the activity, which is about like this. But watch, also, the duration of the brotherhood is gonna be determined by the duration of the activity. When the activity's over, the relationship's over. Listen, men, what you need, you don't need buddies. Here's what we need. Apostle Paul, we don't need buddies. We need a band of brothers who have their eyes fixed on Jesus Christ who will stand by your side when you're alone or go in the wrong direction, and they will encourage you to fight the good fight of faith and keep your eyes fixed on him. So what we wanna do is we wanna find those dudes and let them get up into our life and do that. Now, here's question number two, great. How do I do that? Watch what the Apostle Paul does. Number two, a disciple structures their relationships like Jesus Christ. Super practical. A disciple structures their relationships like Jesus Christ. Now, there's a little diagram I'm getting ready to give you. I try to give this diagram at least once a year. It's been two years since I got it.

Check this out. When I do repetition, I don't do repetition out of laziness. I do it out of emphasis. So when I'm doing this, the reason I get this in is it's literate. I was preaching two sermons to leave you with before I died. I would preach a gospel sermon, and then I would preach a sermon that had this diagram in it. It's that critical for your discipleship. Now, zoom out. I want you to see something about the relationships of the Apostle Paul. Now, check this out. There is a defined structure. And if you're taking notes, I want you to draw this diagram. I'm gonna give you some homework. There is a defined structure to the nature of the Apostle Paul's relationships. Now watch, you'll miss it. Now, what we're getting ready to do, we're getting ready to read like the phone book section of it where Paul goes, tell that guy I said hi, and that guy I said hi, and tell them to wear my little coat and all that stuff. Let me just remind you of something. It takes the whole Bible to make a whole disciple. Every jot and tittle of the law, Jesus said, would not pass away before his words came. So check this out. What that means, we need all scripture,

including passages like this. There's way more here than you think. Now, check this out. There's a defined structure to the Apostle Paul's relationships. Now, I want you to see this. So there's three guys that Paul treats differently than other guys. Watch, okay? First one is up here. He says, do your best. Who's you? He's writing to Timothy. So Timothy, the you is Timothy. There's one. Now, number two, go to the next one. He says, Luke is with me. That's Dr. Luke wrote Acts and the Gospel of Luke. So Luke is with me. And then number three, watch this. Get Mark and bring him with you. Now, what's really cool, I don't got time to go into this. In Acts, I love this so much. Think about this, Paul's dying words. In the book of Acts, actually, I'm not gonna do it. Yeah, okay, I gotta do it. I already teased, okay. In the book of Acts, Paul goes on his first missionary journey

and him and his dude named Mark, they have a falling out, a relational falling out. Because Mark flakes, Mark's a younger guy, little timid, body was willing, spirit was weak. Kind of thing, spirit was willing, body was weak. Mark flaked and he left Paul on the missionary journey. I love this so much. Paul did not let his relationship with Mark be defined by Mark's failure. He let the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ come back in, redeem what the enemy had wrecked. And one of the last things the apostle Paul tells Mark before he dies is, get that guy and bring him back. He is very useful to me. Can I just tell you something? Some of you have had relationships and betrayals fall on your life. Can I tell you something? God can redeem what the enemy has wrecked. He does this with Mark right here. In fact, Mark is one of these three dudes. There's only three guys in this passage. When Paul's in prison, he's like, man, I need these three guys. Now watch this. If you're drawing the diagram, draw this. His inner circle is, I'm gonna call it his circle of intimacy. Intimacy means into me see. When Paul is in a weak moment, he's like,

I need those three guys come strengthen me. But watch, there's a whole next group. You're gonna see 13 names that he treats differently than the three. Check this out. Go back to it. So the next, go to the, here it is. I'm just gonna read them real quick. Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus to Dalmatia, he's picking up 12 dogs. Or 101 dogs, 101 dogs. Tychicus, okay, just keep going. Just do them real fast. Carpus, he's going over here. Priscilla, we got Aquila. Our buddy Onesiphorus makes another appearance. Erastus, we got over here. Trophemus, well, I wanna get out of the way. Oh, there it is. Ubulus, and then we got this over here. I just wanna say, man, Putins is here. I'm waiting for somebody to go, baby name Putins. We need another. Sounds like a rural Kentucky name that I grew up with. with Linus, Claudia, all these things. Okay, now check this out. So now there's 13. They're not in the circle of intimacy, but watch this, Paul has still, he has influence on their lives

and they have influence on Paul's life. Check this out, there's this second group of relationships. It's a circle of influence. Paul knows these people, shoulder to shoulder, they're up in each other's lives, but it's not as tight as a circle of intimacy. Now watch this, third circle. Paul just mentions at the very end, he says, and all the brothers and sisters. These are the people of the church, the people Paul ministers to. Now go back to this. So what you get when you see the apostle Paul's relationships, here's how a disciple of Jesus Christ structures their relationships, okay? He's got like three people in here. He's got 13, 12, 13 people in here. This is the entire church, could be hundreds of people. Now, this is my point. This is how, where did Paul get this? He got this from Jesus. Some of you need to hear, you need a freedom that I'm about to give you from the ministry of Jesus. Jesus loved everybody, watch. Jesus loved everybody. He fed 5,000, he trained 120, he discipled 12, he mentored three, check this out, check this out. Jesus was friendly towards all, but he was only friends with a few. Listen, some of you really need to hear this.

I point this out to you because some of you need to see from the life of Jesus, this is permission to create relational boundaries with people. Jesus did not share all of his intimacy and vulnerability with everyone. He only invited three people into the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus allowed himself to fall apart and weep and see his vulnerability. Some of you need to hear this right now. You think that you're being nice by treating everybody the same? That is not being nice, that's being naive. We do not treat everybody the same, we treat people according to their character. And there are people, and this is happening to some of you right now, there are people who if you show them your weakness, they will betray you, they will use it against you, and they will treat you differently from that point on. Okay, so this is what is happening in Paul's life. He's structuring his relationships like this, okay? Now let me just give a little flavor to this because I need you as disciples to move towards this. Okay, the circle, go back to the diagram. The circle of intimacy, so here's who this is. This is like your squad, this is your crew, these are your ride or die. It's like these are the three people in your life that when you walk into a room, it's like the camera goes into slow motion,

there's entry music, okay? This is, you know, if you got a generation up on it, this is like Starsky and Hutch, this is Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Kevin Hart, this is Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, okay? So this is, it's like tight, tight, this is who you got right here, these are your tight. And then this is your circle of influence. So these are people that you influence and they influence you, but they're not in this tight circle where they're like seeing everything about your life. And then out here, check this out. So in this, no, keep on the diagram. So in the second, yep, in the second circle, these are people that influence you, you influence, but it's not as intimate. These are people on the outside that you minister to, but they do not influence you. Now here's where I'm driving at. This inner circle right here, this right here, that's your band of brothers. Let me give you an analogy. My buddy, Joby Martin, this is a little language he uses, I like it so much. In Luke chapter five, there's a paralytic man who can't walk. He's got four friends who put him on a mat, they carry him miles, they break open the roof of a house and they lower their buddy to Jesus.

And the Bible says, watch this, it says Jesus seeing their faith, not his faith, their faith, looks at the guy, Jesus seeing the faith of the friends and go, your faith has made you well. Now watch, here's what you need. You need four people in your life and here's your homework. You need four people in your life whose names you can write down that they're mat carriers in your life. When you're wounded or when you're moving the wrong direction, you need four dudes or ladies, you need four ladies and they need to be of the same gender as you. You need four people who they can pick you up, put you on a mat and carry you to Jesus when you're going the other way. Here's what they need to look like in your life. Those relationships need to look like they got, it's called refrigerator rights. Refrigerator rights. These are the people who are so tight with you, it's like they just walk up in your house and they know where the K-cups are and the good candy is, they know all that stuff. This is Kramer just walking in, okay. If you don't know who Kramer is, he was an evangelist in the 90s. Okay, so this, all this stuff, that's also a Joby Martin joke, that's a hilarious joke. You need these people, but watch,

your mat carriers need to be, people watch, they don't just have the rights to your fridge, they have the rights to your soul. You have deputized three to four people in your life where you just say. Hey man, if you see me off, if you see me moving in the wrong direction, I've put a badge on your chest and given you permission to call a foul and bring me back. These are map carriers. Here's your homework. If you can't think of four names, men or women, four names that you can write on a sheet of paper who relationships like that in your life with them, that's your homework this week is you need to this week get four names on a sheet of paper and be like, that's what it looks like. You better, whenever you figure out who those people are, check this out, let me go a layer deeper. You better make sure that the people who carry you, carry your mat, are carrying you in the right direction. Here's why I say this. Let me give you a Bible verse. This is the book of Proverbs. Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Let me say this another way. The decision in your life about the type of disciple that you will become is most determined by your decision

about who you put in that inner circle of influence in your life, okay? Now, what I need to do right here, my job is to disciple you. So let me just say something that's got like, it's got a bit of an edge to it. It's very straightforward. And when I say it, it's gonna hit some spots in some of your lives, but just go with me. Let me just say something in a very straightforward way. God wants your closest relationships to be with other, and I want you to say this word out loud, with other what? Other committed Christians. God wants the closest relationships in your life to be with other committed Christians. The younger you are, the faster I need you to get this. Check this out. I said committed Christians. So not like, well, you know, I love Jesus, but not the church. No, no, committed Christians. Not like, well, you know, like she drinks and cuss a lot and she sleeps around, but she wears a cross necklace. No, no, no, committed Christians. Not like, oh, well, they're a Christian, but they root for the Philadelphia Eagles. No, no, committed, good, solid. That's how you gotta get that in there, okay? Gotta get that in there. Committed Christians.

Let me just say this is not a dating sermon. Let me just get up in this. I'm gonna do this verse here in a second. This very, very, very, very much applies to who you're dating. Very much, so listen, not, let me do one more. Committed Christians, not evangel dating. We're not evangel dating. Not like, oh man, he's not on team Jesus yet, but he's got a lot of potential. No, no, no. Can I just tell you something? You are not going to influence him for righteousness. He is going to influence you for darkness. I know that because the Bible says this. It says, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good character. Notice the Bible does not say that a righteous character redeems bad character. It says what more frequently happens is that do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good character. You say, oh, but he's so hot. So is hell. You gotta make the decision. You gotta figure this out. So here we go. So other committed Christians. Watch this. Here's what the Bible says.

It just says this. This is a very straightforward command. Do not be, watch it. What's that say? Do not be, say it. You say it. Do not be yoked together with unbelievers for what do righteousness and wickedness have in common or what fellowship can light have with darkness? A lot of people don't know that here, it's like a lot of you guys never been in church before. So you hear yoked. You're like, yoke, is that what you mean? No, no, no, that's not what we're talking about. This is like an agrarian farming analogy. So I'm actually, I don't like doing visual illustrations ever, so it's not my thing, but sometimes it's really helpful. So Jordan, will you come up here? Everybody welcome Jordan Lloyd up the stage real quick. Come on, come on, man. Team Jordan. Let me do this real quick. You stand over there. So here's what this is. Here's Ollie yoke, right there, stand right there. He didn't know, you're gonna do a great job. So here's Ollie yoke is. A yoke was a wooden beam structure that would put on two oxen to put the oxen together

so that they could plow a field together because when two are plowing, watch this, are plowing at the same time in a field in the same direction, there's an exponential, it's an exponential thing that goes. So it's not just the strength of two, it's like the strength of five. So what this is saying is when it says, do not be yoked together with somebody who's not following Christ in the same way as you, it's saying, man, don't put a relational connection point on your life with somebody who's not moving in the same direction, and watch this, at the same speed as you. Now watch, here's what happens. So me and Jordan, we're gonna get yoked, okay? With not, we don't even got a lift. We're gonna move that way, go that way. Now watch, notice, it is impossible for us to move in different directions. So what this passage said, Jordan, I'm gonna ask you to move, walk that way in just a second. Don't do it, don't do it, okay? What this passage said is it said, what fellowship can light have with darkness? And one translation says, can Christ have with Belial? So what this means, listen, where some of you are, here's where you're at. Some of you where you're at is you've been saved by Christ,

you'd be given a new life, you'd be given a new identity, you'd be given a new future, but watch this, all these new things, but you still have your old relationships. Here's what your life looks like. Jordan, try to walk that way, go that way. And now I'm gonna walk this way. It's not gonna work. Something has to give. So you've gotta be relation, it's saying relationally, with other disciples of Jesus Christ who are committed to his cause, moving in the same direction. Now watch this. If we start trying to move together, let's go, it has to be coordinated. Now watch, the problem is if he gets distracted, get distracted and walk somewhere. Get distracted, okay. If he, uh-uh, uh-uh, that's it. If he gets distracted, that's gonna make me get distracted. I gotta move in that direction. If I get distracted and start wandering off, sorry, Jordan, I'm gonna pull him the wrong direction. But we're gonna go ahead and turn around. We've got a little dance we got going on, okay. Watch this. You stay behind me right here, just a little bit for the camera. I want them to see it.

Now here's what'll happen. Here's what's happening to a lot of you right now. Here's what's happening. You gotta be careful who you get relationally yoked to because watch, here's what's gonna happen. Some of you, here's what happens. You've got somebody in your life who when you started the relationship, they were like moving towards Jesus, team Jesus, disciples. But watch, as long as you were moving, you're good. As long as you were moving at the same time in the same direction, it was good. But then what happened to you is somewhere along the way, they stopped, they stopped pursuing Christ and you kept trying to pursue Christ. And now watch, here's what happens. They stopped, but you kept trying to pursue him. And now here's what's going on in your life. This is like a visual representation of what's happening to you right now. Now what's happening is watch, you're praying, you're attending church, you're reading your Bible, you're studying 2 Timothy, you're doing all the things and there's this weird thing happening where you're noticing, man, I'm moving around a lot, but I'm not moving forward. And the reason is you're yoked to somebody who you're trying to move towards Jesus

and they're not anymore. And now you're caught in a cycle and you're moving around a lot, but you're not moving forward, okay? And listen, can I just say something to you? Listen, for some of you, there's like, nothing's even wrong with you. You're not even doing anything wrong. You're doing all the right things, but as you're doing them, you're moving around, but not forward, why? Because you're unequally yoked to somebody who stopped pursuing him. And can I say something to you? Here's where a lot of you are. The biggest decision and the hardest decision that you will ever make after being converted to Christ is converting the relationships in your life. And watch this, some of you, you've got to make a hard decision to unyoke from someone so that you can be free to follow Jesus Christ with your whole heart. Does that make sense? Okay, this is what this is saying right here. Do not be unequally yoked to these things. Okay, now watch this. The reason that becomes so important is, check this out, last thing, point number three, because a band of brothers is what, watch, delivers you from the lion's mouth.

A band of brothers is what delivers you from the lion's mouth. Watch how Paul finishes. These are the last recorded words of the apostle Paul. He says, at my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. I love this. May it not be held against them. Can I just say that? Paul didn't let what people had done to him keep him from what God had for him. He didn't let bitterness or past hurt keep him from moving towards the people of God and the purposes of God. Check this out, verse 17. But the Lord stood at my side and he gave me strength so that through me, the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth and the Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever, amen. Amen, amen. I love it. Now watch this. When Paul says, delivered me from the lion's mouth, first Peter 5, eight, it says that the devil prowls about like a, watch this, a roaring lion. And if you've ever watched those, there's a little national geographic,

like you'll see like lion month or whatever it is. And you'll see like they're hunting the little gazelles and this weird evil thing pops up during lion month. You're like rooting for the lion and it's real weird. But if you watch those things, I got a picture. Go ahead and toss that picture up here. If you watch those things, you'll see like this moment. And the Bible says the devil is prowling about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. And if you watch those things, what's really interesting, if you watch those, which gazelle does the lion get? It's not the weak one. That's not the one. It's if the lion can get in there and just separate one of the gazelles from the rest of the pack, if they can get one separated, so it's not the weak one, it's the isolated one that gets devoured. And what the apostle Paul's saying here is, man, one of the things in the scriptures that's gonna keep you from being devoured by our enemy is it's a decision that you will make at some point in your life. It will not passively happen to you. You will have to make a decision. The decision a man of God or a woman of God makes to assemble a band of brothers or a band of sisters, okay? You're gonna have to make that decision. Now, I just wanna, let me just finish.

I just wanna tell you what this has done in my life. I'm gonna be just personal and a little vulnerable. My life, honestly, man, incredibly blessed. I have a very, very boring testimony. Born into a Christian family, Christian parents, raised us in church, did the whole thing and called to ministry and went to a Christian college and I'm just gonna be real awkward and just kind of like, you know, went to a, I didn't have like a prodigal season, got married when I was a virgin to a Christian girl and started a Christian family, got three Christian kids. And honestly, man, I've never had a season in my life where like I went kind of prodigal and got sideways. And I think what some people think, who their story is different than mine, is you might think, well, man, that's just because you're better, you're better than me. And I just wanna tell you right now, it's not because I'm better than you. Let me show you why that happened in my life, okay? So this, this is a family picture from the 80s, is what that is. I'm over here with a cowlick, that's me. Born into a Christian family, dad's a pastor and mom's a woman of God and so we grow up and I'm surrounded by Christians, okay? That's early childhood. Then I'm raised in church. This is my, I think my sixth grade life group.

That's what this is. I don't wanna keep this picture up, it's too awkward. That's my sixth grade life group. So these are like my bros growing up in elementary school, middle school. I'm the brooding one. That's me being super weird and creepy in the middle. Don't want I'm doing that, okay? Now, go to the next one. So that's middle school. Now, I actually, because this is church, go to the next one. There we go, okay, that's it. So these are my guys when I go to college. I go to college and literally the first thing I did, I still texted these guys. The first thing I did freshman year of college is I made a decision as a freshman to go find and pursue and assemble a band of brothers. It was like guys I like. We like to fish, we like to hike. We were over here in Appalachian Mountains. It's like my guys, they love me, they love Jesus. They love streams and rivers and mountains. Those are my guys. And once a week, 9 p.m. in the commons, we'd get in there, we'd read a Bible, we'd confess sin, we'd pursue Jesus, okay? So that's college, okay? Now, go to the next one.

Oh, these are out of order. This was high school. This, we'll switch them next service. This was high school. Somebody asked me before the service, was this on the set of Dawson's Creek? No, it was not. This was just the 90s. That's all that was, the 90s. So these are my guys in high school. You've heard me talk before about my youth pastor, Jeff Carlisle, discipling me for two years. These are some of the guys that were in discipleship with me. So that's high school. I already did college. Now go to the next one. Then I get to the end of college and I meet this little girl. And by the way, people always point this out. Jana looks virtually exactly the same and I am completely unrecognizable. I just want to point this out. Women age like wine, men age like milk, okay? We get just white and chunky. That's what we get, okay, that's it. So this is, so then who am I getting yoked to? I'm getting yoked to somebody who loves Jesus and is pursuing him with her whole heart. And then man, like now in my life, these are my guys.

Like these are some of the guys on staff. They love Jesus with their whole heart. This is us doing a little spiritual retreat. We do every year. We're praying together. We're in the word together. This is, these are my guys. These are my band of brothers. Now take that down and come back to me. Here's my point. I have not been able to walk with Jesus like this because I'm better than you. Lord knows, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. I've been able to experience that, listen, because the people that I've been surrounded with may have been better than the people that you have surrounded yourself with have been. And watch, you can change that today, today. Okay, so, we're starting this 10-week discipleship experience we call Rooted at Lake Point here in a couple weeks. That is what that is designed to do, to get you into a band of brothers or a band of sisters. I want you to see what that does in somebody's life when they take that step. Check this out with me right here. She woke me up and it was about two hours earlier than I normally wake up. And she said, Jake, wake up, Audrey's not in bed. Check the cameras, check the cameras. And she's shaking. We saw our daughter at four o'clock in the morning, riding her bike in the cold, away from our house with a backpack.

Fast forward two hours later, there's police cars around our house. We had to do a ping on her phone to find her. She was being bullied at school. She didn't want to tell us. And I was on the phone with my aunt who lives in Rockwall, Texas. And she said, it sounds like it's time for a change of scenery. That absolutely was telling us to take a leap of faith. We knew this is where we needed to be. We felt like God was calling us to DFW at least. I was just terrified that we would come here and not find a church home. My way of getting church was watching 1122 on YouTube. And then I started looking up, you know, more from our pastor back in Jacksonville. I was watching Pastor Joby on YouTube and he was at Lake Point. I'm seeing him. I'm like, I was like, who's this guy that's introducing him on the stage? I do a quick search. I see Rockwall, Texas. Went that Sunday. And then I remember seeing the video about Rooted. Everything that it was like it was talking about was exactly what we were missing. I remember waking up one morning and had an email on my phone. And he had signed us up in the middle of the night for Rooted. It was the best part of my week was going to the Rooted group. I felt like I was going to go hang out with my best friends. My belief in Jesus as our Savior really became real. It was almost like having a superpower and having Jesus walk with you. It's something that a lot of people don't realize is available to them. Reading the Bible with my kids, praying with my kids, Rooted kind of really helped me to see that. Being able to share our lives and our journey with other people who genuinely care and have

the same goals and wants and needs in life has been probably the best thing we've found since we've moved to Texas. I'm Jake. I'm Coral. And this is how Jesus changed our lives. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Okay. Now listen, it's your turn. That's all I'm saying. It's your turn. I've been telling you to ask what's the one step. I'm telling you right now, this right here is the one step. So here's what I'm asking. This is weird. It's a weird service. You're brand new to this. The service is literally over. There's no song after this. We're not doing anything after this. Service literally over. Here's what I'm asking. At all of our campuses, we've got your kids back in kids ministry for like 10 more minutes. That's good. So you can sit where you're at. Talk to your spouse. Don't leave it. Don't leave it.

Sit where you're at. Talk to your spouse. Here's what I need you to do. If you've never been through Rooted, our 10-week discipleship experience, I'm asking you as your pastor to take the leap of faith and get in. It's a 10-week discipleship experience. It starts in two weeks. And listen, I'm not asking you to do something until Jesus returns. It's just 10 weeks. If they're weird, you got an easy out in 10 weeks. It's easy. Okay. What I'm asking is for you to do that in 10 weeks. And what it is, you're going to be with a band of brothers, a band of sisters, learning the rhythms of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Here's how you can do it. You got 10 minutes hanging out in your seat and make that decision. You can text the word Rooted to the number 20411. We'll get a link. You can sign up. It takes like 30 seconds. Number two, on your way in at all of our campuses, you got this little card. There's a little QR code right there. You can keep that when you find it in the little floorboard of your car, under your seat, whatever it is. You can scan that QR code. You can sign up right there. And I am asking you, if you've never been through Rooted before, to take the step to join a band of brothers or a band of sisters and to do it before you leave your seat today. Okay.

Service over. Make the text. We got you covered. Go.