Why Following Jesus Will Make You WEIRD | Fight The Good Fight | Pastor Josh Howerton

Every week, 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, Lake Point family, it's gonna be a fun day. Ignore that, I'll come back to that later. Hey, if you've got your bibles, head over to Second Timothy chapter three, that's gonna be today, Second Timothy three. I wanna just make one last push and remind you next week, if you've never been to one, it's gonna be a party like you never seen, man. Next week is a baptism weekend at Lake Point Church, and we right now are scheduled, we're already, a schedule baptized, over 500 people who have bent their knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Just next week, it's gonna be awesome. So let me just lean in one more time.

If you are one of the thousands of people who you have indicated a first time decision of Father Christ in the last month at Lake Point, I just wanna encourage, encourage, encourage you that when you bent your knee to the Lordship of Jesus, you didn't just receive grace from a Savior, you bent your knee to the Lordship of a Lord. And what it means to be a follower of Jesus is that the Bible calls us disciples. All the word disciple means, it just means follower. And you cannot be following somebody and standing still at the same time. So the question we should all be asking is what steps, what step do I need to take to follow Jesus Christ more closely in my life? And if you're brand new to Team Jesus, the first step, he commands. And I'm not sugar-coated, I'm gonna shoot you straight. It's not a suggestion, it's not an inclination, it's not vibes and hopes. He commands his followers to be baptized in obedience to his Lordship. So let me just set the book. Cook is in the bottom shelf. There ain't nothing special about the water, it's Rockwall County water, another special, another special about it, okay? Baptism is not necessary for salvation, but it is necessary for obedience. And so if you've never done that,

man, I'm asking you to text the word life to the number 20411, text live to 2041, you get signed up, and then next week, I'm just gonna warn you, we're gonna have big old party and Lake Point family, these people who are like nervous about that, they're sitting all around you that they've never seen this thing before. So can you please help me show those people how proud we are of them going public for Team Jesus. Come on, man, amen, amen, amen. It's gonna be awesome, it's gonna be awesome, all right. Let's get into it, you've got your bibles. Head to Second Timothy chapter three, we are in week seven of a series, we're just gonna fight a good fight, and here's all it is. You got a senior saint whose age probably starts with a six, he's in prison, by the way, I just wanna say this, he's in prison, we got some people watching right now or you're listening, and you're in a correctional facility, and you think, man, God can never redeem me, God can never use me, God will never anoint me, God will never empower me, because of what I've done and where I'm at. I just wanna remind you, literally this book we're reading is written from a man who's seen the back of some bars, and if God can use him, he can redeem you, he can use you too. So that's what this book is, man. You got this guy, this writing to young Timothy, and he's the spiritual father to this young disciple.

Now, what he's gonna do in this passage we're in today, these are some of his dying words, these are his deathbed words, to his young disciple named Timothy. What he's gonna do is he's gonna urge him with some very important things. I'm gonna give you a heads up, this is a sermon, a pastor's like called these sermons, we call them space maker sermons. It's a type of sermon people listen to and if they're new, they listen to and they're like, I'm never gonna church again. It makes them space is what it does. It's why we call it that, space maker sermon. Now, let me set this up real quick why I'm saying that. How many of you at all of our campuses, how many of you are under the age of 35? Where are you at, where are you at, okay? Man, that's actually okay, I didn't expect that. God bless your vision, your flexibility, your ability to eat carbs and sleep, all the things. That's great, but you're not gonna remember anything I'm about to say, okay, so let me set this up. Back in the late 1900s, when we listened to CDs and wrote dinosaurs to school, that's when I was going to school. There was a cassette tape, all right, I see ya, all right. If you raise your hand, Google cassette tape when you get home, okay? Maybe you can get one, get a little pencil in there

and you know what I'm talking about, all right. There was a cassette tape that marked my generation of Christians and I'm gonna show it here in a second. You're gonna out yourself as a 90s Christian nerd. How, if you remember this cassette tape, I want you to make some noise. How many of you remember this cassette tape? So the title of that album was, you tell me, it was, Jesus freak, okay, you were a little timid. You were like, I don't want to shout it, okay? Jesus freak, and you had to be alive, came out '95. You had to be alive in a Christian in '95 to kind of get the weird cultural phenomenon. That thing was insane, number 16 on the billboard, it peaked at 16 on the billboard charts, stayed on the billboard charts for 79 weeks, thing went double platinum. I mean, it was a phenomenon, okay? It had, looking back, I hadn't heard the song in forever, I went back and read the lyrics this week. It had some really weird lyrics, it had lyrics like, there was a man with a tat on his big fat belly. It wiggled around, somebody said it, it wiggled around, okay, that's it, I'm gonna let this guy do it, next service, there is no next service. (audience laughing) It wiggled around like Marmalade Jelly. I had to match, wait, wait, wait, do you know it, hang on, I got it, I wrote it down. There was a man with a tat on his big fat belly,

it wiggled around like Marmalade Jelly. It took me a while to catch what he said, because I had to match the rhythm of his belly with my head. That was an actual lyric in that song, okay? But then there were other lyrics that were probably a little more helpful. There was a, the refrain of the song went like this, and I'm like, I don't know, I'm like 13 years old when it comes out. It was, what will people think when they hear that I'm a, Jesus free, there it is. What will people do when they find that it's true? I don't really care if they label me a, Jesus free, there ain't no disguise on the truth. Now, that's very 90s, but looking back, there was actually something like very blessed about me becoming a Christian in the era where that was like the song, because it instilled in me from my first steps as a disciple, that if I was faithful to Jesus, the world would sometimes look at me like a freak. And that would not be a sign that I had done something wrong, it might be a sign that I had done something right. What the apostle Paul does in these final words to his young disciple named Timothy is he reminds him, you're gonna catch it in the teeth sometimes as a disciple. And that's not a sign you did something wrong, it will be a sign you did something right. Look at this verse with me, we're gonna go line by line. Second Timothy, three one.

Paul says, understand this Timothy, that in the, and circle these words, if you got to journal your Bible, these in the last days. Now, let me explain this real quick, let's do a little theology really quick. These trips up a lot of Christians, there's three phrases that the New Testament uses that most Christians think refer to one thing, but they actually refer to three different things. So check this out, here's what they are. You're gonna see these three phrases in the New Testament. It'll talk about the last days, latter times the end of the age. A lot of people think all those refer to the same thing. Oh, that's when Jesus comes back. And wrong, do not pass, go do not collect $200. They refer to three different things. So first of all, we got one right here. The last days, it refers to the church age. It refers to the entire age from the time that Jesus was ascended into heaven in the book of Acts, all the way until his return. We know that because here's your homework. Go read Acts chapter two. The apostle Peter says in AD 30, preaching at Pentecost, he talks about in these last days, God says, "I will pour out my spirit on all people." So that's the entire church age. You, Lake Point Church, and every disciple since Jesus, we have been living in the last days,

the last era, the Bible refers to, before the second coming of Christ and the renewal of all things, okay? That's that whole era. Then sometimes, the book of first Timothy does this, it'll talk about the latter times. That's talking about the end of the church age. So Jesus will talk about, hey, nobody knows the day or the hour, but you are gonna be able to know the season when my return becomes soon because you'll see these signs start to be fulfilled. Jesus, he used this language. He says, "Those are the beginning of the birth pangs." So the latter days refers to the end of the church age, this little season before Christ's return. And in the Bible, we'll talk about the end of the age, and that refers to like when Christ returns. So if you're like me, I'm just gonna help you out with this. The last days are like the whole game, the latter times the fourth quarter of the end of the age, that's two-minute drill. That's what it's talking about. Now, some of you who are new, I just wanna talk to you if you're new to the faith, you're kicking the towers on this thing, you don't even know why you're here, or something just keeps drawing you. I know what that is, and you're looking at me and you're like, bro, it's 2026,

and you actually think that Jesus Christ is gonna crack the skies, and he's actually gonna return someday. Yes, I do, and I think you're the one that's crazy if you don't. And here's why I say this. Listen, here's why I say this. I love you, but here's why I say this. The reason I say it is he done already called his shot twice, Okay. Here's what I mean, 700 years before the incarnation of Jesus Christ. That book right there, 700 years in advance predicted, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, for he shall save his people from their sins." It talked about a virgin giving birth to a son in a city named Bethlehem, and 700 years early, Jesus called his shot, and then he came, the incarnation of God, the God-man of Jesus Christ, and he split history in half into AD and BC. He called his shot and he came through. And then when Jesus was on this earth, before he went to the cross, he looked out at his disciples. Remember what he told him? He called his shot again. He said, "Here's what's going to happen. The son of man, that's me. He must suffer. He will be crucified. He will be buried, and then on the third day he will raise again." And then that is exactly what happened. Jesus suffered. He was crucified.

He was buried, and on the third day he cracked open that tomb, and now he lives to give life to anybody who would call on his name. So here's what I'm saying, all I'm saying is this, if he called his shot once, he called his shot twice, and he came through once and twice, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, shame on me, fool me three times, you two dumb to talk to. That's all I'm saying. So listen, if he's already called his shot, I'm going to say this, yes, I believe, if he promised to come the first time and the second time and he did, then there is going to come a day, whether you believe it or not, when you will look to the east, you're going to hear a last trumpet sound. He will crack the skies, and Jesus Christ will descend, fire in his eyes, love in his heart, sword out of his mouth on a war horse, big tattoo on his thigh, says, "King of Kings," and he will come to judge the living of the dead, and he's going to come to take his children home forever. That's going to happen. It is going to happen, okay? This is what the Apostle Paul is saying here. He's saying, "Tim of the understand what's going to happen in these last days." Now, watch where he says, "In the last days, there will come times of," what's that word, "times of difficulty," and let me explain this, here's why he says this. He's level-setting expectations. Let me level-set your expectations. If you were a disciple in the first century in Israel, here's what you might think. You saw Jesus raised, you see him ascend, you see the Holy Spirit fall, divided tongues of fire on the apostles, you see crazy miracles happening. The Apostle Paul is literally, people are touching his handkerchief and getting healed. So, you're seeing all this stuff, and then you're seeing these outpourings of the Spirit. Entire cities turned upside down, Ephesus, Corinth, the gospel spreading over here is going over there. It would have been tempting for you to think, "Oh, man, we got this thing.

This is going to be a lockdown, okay? It's going to be all rainbows and sunshine and skittles and unicorns. It's going to be up and to the right, no problems." And then Jesus is going to return, everything's going to be awesome. And the Apostle Paul, listen, this is why I call this a space-maker sermon. The Apostle Paul tells Timothy, "Adjust your expectations wrong, because in this entire era, the church age, you will experience times of difficulty." Let me say a few things right here. There is a difference between experiencing difficulty and being difficult. Does that make sense? Those are two different things. What some Christians do is they're just really difficult people, and they're like, "I'm being persecuted and experiencing times of difficulty." No, no. You're being persecuted for being a turd. That's what's there. So, let me just read this, guy. This is the last part of last week's passage. Listen real close. 2 Timothy 2, 24, "And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone." Here's what some Christians do. They give respect to no one, but demand respect from anyone, and then they cry about it when they experience difficulty because of that. Patiently enduring evil, correcting your opponents with gentleness. Why? Because God might perhaps grant them repentance. If you're a jerk for Jesus, you're just kind of pushing people away. No, no. We're trying to win people, not just arguments, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

Now, so what some Christians, again, they're more difficult than experiencing times of difficulty. One of my favorite preacher stories is like a little fifth grader was in a classroom one time, and the teacher assigned a book report. And the fifth grader was a Christian, and so he decided he was going to do his book report on the book of Jonah. And so the teacher was a atheist, agnostic guy, and he was like, "Oh, man, you don't actually think the book of Jonah is real, do you?" And the student kind of bowed up, and he was like, "Well, of course the book of Jonah is real. It's in a Bible." And he's like, "No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it's not. Yes, it is." And finally, the teacher's like, "No, it's not. If the book is your own is real tell me how he survived And the student thought for a second, and he finally said, "Well, you know, I don't know. If I get to heaven, I'll ask him." And then the teacher sort of sneered back and said, "What if Jonah's not in heaven?" To which the student responded, "Well, then you can ask him." (audience laughs) Some people, some people are like, "You're not experiencing difficulty. You're just being difficult." And the Bible says, "You can't do that, but listen. But let me also say this, it doesn't, listen,

some of you need to hear this. Jesus said to love your enemies, he did not say you wouldn't have any. It doesn't matter how well you are not quarrelsome kind to everyone, a correcting opponent's with gentleness. This passage is warning you as a disciple, that you will experience difficulty in this world as a disciple, why? Because when you became a Christian, you didn't just gain God as your father, you gained hell as your enemy, the birthmark of a believer is a bullseye. Now, this again, this is like the space maker part of the sermon, let me give you some examples of this. If you don't believe me, I'm gonna give you some like modern day examples. Two weeks ago, there's a Christian family in Massachusetts whose daughter was removed by the state from the Christian family, because they would not as Christians, they could not as Christians affirm their child's new chosen gender. And because a Christian family stood on their convictions and says, we will not call our daughter a son, the state removed the child from that family. In Canada, right now, there's a church you planted, like Point Church, this is one of our hundred church finds, you planted this church in Montreal. Our pastor in Montreal is now under threat of criminal prosecution if he firmly and clearly

preaches some aspects of the word of God, because something called the Combating Hate Act has been passed in his area that labels some aspects of the word of God as hate speech. Now, listen, dude, there's 40% of you that are not gonna like my next sentence, but I just have to be honest with you, I must point this out. There is only one political party in America whose ideology consistently ends up criminalizing some aspects of faithful Christianity, there's one. Now, you just need to know what you're signing up for, all the stuff I'm about to say, it's not political correct, but it is biblically correct, so let me shoot you straight. If you stand on your convictions about what this book says about sexuality, you will be called homophobic. If you oppose the Islamization of cities, you will be called racist and bigoted. If you stand firm on your conviction to be a disciple in the voting booth, some people are gonna call you an oppressive Christian nationalist. If you believe what this book says about marriage and gender, if you're a man, you're gonna be called part of the oppressive patriarchy, and if you're a girl, you're gonna be called to pick me. If you stand for every baby to have a shot at life and you stand firm in your conviction that there is no such thing as an accidental baby, lots accidental parents,

but if you believe there is no such thing as an accidental baby, because God is the one who knit every baby together in the womb, and even before a word is formed on its lips, he knows it full well. If you stand on that conviction, you need to know you're gonna catch it in the teeth every now and then. I speak from experience, you will lose friends. You may have family members turn against you, and this should not surprise you, because Jesus said when he was on earth that he was not only the prince of peace, but that he would be the point of conflict in any relationship you have with somebody who does not know him. He said things like, "I came to set a man against his father, "a daughter against her mother, "a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." Sometimes that happens naturally. A man's enemies will be the members of his own household. I stood right back there last week, and I prayed for a couple that was in this service last week who's coming out of a cult, their family has been in for generations, because they're sitting under the teaching of the Word of God at Lake Point, and they're following Jesus, and they're losing relationships with family members,

verses like this are in the Bible to remind you that it's not a sign that you are doing something wrong. In the life of a disciple, it is sometimes a sign that you have done something right, and, and, and listen, and it will all be worth it. It will all be worth it, why? Because we do not just follow Jesus because he makes life better. We follow Jesus 'cause he is better than life. It will be worth it, okay? Now, what Paul does here, watch, is he answers the next verse, check out verse two. He answers the question, okay, why? Why are there gonna be times of difficulty? He answers the question, here's what he says. Here's why, for people will be, now as I read this list, big long list, if you got your eyes open, He says, "Four, people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents." I just wanna point this out, someone point this out. When you read all the lists in the Bible of like the worst, most nasty sins, disobedient to parents is always in the list of the worst ones. It's always like this, like sexual degradation

of the most disgusting kind, murder, disobedient to parents. Like for real, it's a big deal, man. He's saying when a culture gets extremely spiritually degraded, that culture begins to disciple generations away from honor your father and mother and toward blame your father and mother. This is what he says. "They're gonna be disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasible, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good." In other words, there's gonna be cultures that call good things evil and call evil things good and they practice affirmation and tolerance for things that they should be practicing repentance of. Treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the, listen to this, I wanna say that, I wanna point this out. It says, "Having the appearance of godliness but denying its power." Here's what he says. "Whenever a culture gets really spiritually degraded, there'll be lots of people who are Christians." Here's why I take this to me. Lots of people who are Christians who have an appearance of godliness, but deny its power. In other words, they say things like, man, all the powerful things God did in the New Testament, he didn't really do those things anymore.

Those gifts have ceased. That doesn't really happen, okay? I'll just say this. Jesus Christ does the same yesterday, today, and forever. If he did it then, he can do it now. That's what he says. Watch, he says, "Avoid such people." Now, let me say this. If you're paying attention, you may be going, wait, wait. Well, how am I supposed to avoid such people when the great commission says to go into all the world and make disciples of all people? Which one is it? Avoid them or make disciples of them? Okay, let me answer this question. We got thousands of people, your brand new disciples, you're figuring this out. Here's what this means. It means that if somebody's life fits into this list of a godless world, those are not the people that need to be, that's not your tight squad. Those are not your rider dies. That's not your inner circle. Those people are not for you. Some of you, you're in this spot right now. Your soul has been converted, but your squad has not. And I want to remind you, you can't live a righteous life with unrighteous friends, you can't do it. Now, listen, let me cut something off of the past. Anytime I teach this, I always get,

it's like a bunch of college students eating adults, so I was like, "Oh, but what about?" And here's the what about. Do I say this? But Josh, Jesus hung out at a lot of parties. Hey, this is really important. I got two things for you, write these down. These are really important, two things for you. The first one's really hard to remember. Make sure you write the first one down. First thing, number one, you're not Jesus. Okay, so write that down. That's a really important thing to remember. You're not Jesus, okay, number two. But then number two, notice this. My past friend named Joby Martin points us out. Every time Jesus hung out at a party, it was for their salvation, not his entertainment. So the question you need to be asking, are they influencing me or am I influencing them? And it's usually the first one. And if that's you, you need to remove those things from your life because we got a promise from the scriptures. It says, "Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good character. Reality is undefeated." So the Apostle Paul is telling Timothy, "Avoid these people from making them like your squad." Now keep going, watch what he says. "For among them," this is like the least PC verse

in the whole New Testament, just stick with me. "For among them are those who creep into households and they capture weak women," I'm gonna explain that. "Burdened with sins and led astray by various passions." Now, there are some things that they're not politically correct, but they are biblically correct, and my job is to tell you the truth. So check this out, let me do this real quick. If you're new to Lake Point, we believe this really, really weird thing. I know it's really weird. We believe this insane thing that men and women are different. I know that's nuts, which is totally crazy. And here's what that means. What that means is that God created men and women. Watch this, equal in value, but different in function. So men and women equal in value different in function. So what that means is that men and women, I'm not talking about specifics, I'm talking about generality, zoomed out, net scale. Men and women netted out, they tend to have different strengths and different weaknesses, different strengths and different weaknesses. And you're gonna notice this, they're created different. In Genesis 3, when the curse of the fall falls on men and women, there are different curses of the fall on men and women. So men and women created differently, differently cursed, which is why throughout the Bible there are gendered commands, gendered encouragement. Because the Bible is acknowledging

the extremely unpolitically correct reality that men and women in general are equally sinful, but those sin tendencies often manifest themselves at scale in different ways among men and women. Is this making sense so far? So what that means, like for instance, netted out, if you zoom out, men in general have things they struggle with more than women. So like dudes can be a little more violent, they can be a little more brutal, they can tend to be led by lusts in a way that women in general aren't. And what the Apostle Paul is doing right here is he's warning women that there's not all women, there's a certain type of woman that has a weakness. He says to be led astray by various passions. What he's saying is there's a type of woman who's led by her emotions, led by her feelings, led by a little group think more than she's led by the word of God. I just wanna speak this over. Listen, Matt, if you're new here, you're sitting around some godly women. So let me just say this to you, I'm speaking over the women of Lake Point. The women of Lake Point are not weak women, they are word women. These are word women, you're sitting around word women. So what a word woman does is a word woman

submits herself the authority of the word of God and a word woman is going, man, it doesn't matter how I feel, it doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what the other women around me are thinking. The only thing that matters is what does God think. That's the only thing that matters. So he says this, he's saying, watch out for that. Here's why verse seven, because that type of person is, quote, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Now, if you zoom out at that whole list, you may notice something. I could've just like skipped reading the whole list and just gone, "2026 America." Would've been real easy, right? I mean, the list starts lovers of self. We are literally the generation and culture that invented the selfie. That's like our thing. By the way, I got a passer by that does this. If you're a grown man and you're not good at taking selfies, I'm going to teach you how to do it real quick. You just take out your phone, you're bad at this. Let me help you. And you hold it up about forehead height. And then you lower it a little because that's too high. Lower it a little bit more, little bit more, than put it in your pocket because a grown man doesn't take a selfie.

Okay, there it is, that's it. That's great. That's great. That's a joke. That's a joke. That's a joke. I love that joke. Okay, now watch what he does here, okay? The apostle probably splits this passage in half, watch the next verse, watch what he does. Say the bolded all cats word out loud. It says you, however. So he splits it in half, you, however. So there was this, something else is coming in the middle. You, however, he's going, you got a choice to make. You have followed, watched my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, watch and my sufferings. He's like follow all of them. Watch me patiently endure all of them and follow them that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Listera, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all, the Lord rescued me. Now this is like one of my favorite illustrations, just stick with me. If you're a brand new disciple, let me tell you what is going to happen in your life that you're not aware is going to happen in your life. Watch my hands. Really fast, you're going to figure out that there is the word and there is the world. And the word and the world are in constant conflict with one another. And there will come a day in your life

when you must choose which one stands in authority over the other one. Does the word stand in authority over the world and judge what it says? Or do you decide that the world stands in authority over the word and judge what it says? Can I say something to you? Choose this day whom you will serve. You're going to have to make that choice. Now if you're a brand new disciple, I want to like visually show you. Let me visually show you what it's going to look like. 'Cause some of you like you're brand new to the same, brand new to team Jesus. And here's what's going to happen. So what I got right here is this is that whole, you can't even read it, I just want it. This is the whole list of the worldly stuff that I just read. This is the whole list of the word stuff that Paul's like, no, no, you follow my word away. This is the word stuff. And then right in the middle of the passage, he puts this little you, however. And what he's doing is he's going, you, however, are going to have to make a choice. World or word, and you can't do above. Now here's what's going to happen. When you first start, actually let me do it like this. When you first take your first steps to like, you're on team Jesus, I'm gonna follow this,

do the team Jesus thing. Your first little baby steps, you can actually take and be on both. So it's like first time in your life, you're like, I'm gonna go to church. Well, you can go to church and your friends still all approve of everything you do. It's fine, you can keep it from above. Then you're gonna keep going a little farther and it's like, okay, let me take my next steps up here. I'm gonna start reading my Bible. You can read your Bible and still have the approval of the world. But then the farther you go over here, let me show you visually what's gonna happen. As you keep trying to take steps up this thing, you're gonna do some things and it's gonna get farther apart and it's gonna be harder to keep a foot in both worlds. Here's what it's gonna look like. Some of you right now, you're trying to decide, am I gonna go public on the Jesus thing next week for baptism and you know, if I'd take a public step, I'm gonna get some side eyes from some buddies and they're gonna be going like, hey man, I know what you've been doing. I know what your life's been like. What are you trying to do, man? Or you may make a decision like, okay dude, I'm gonna like actually be a little more public. I'm gonna like even maybe post something

about how God's working in my life or say something at work about like, oh man, just a little thing. What'd you do this weekend? Do I worship with my family? It was awesome. And you do it public and all of a sudden, people start looking at you a little different and you're noticing, oh, the gap's a little bigger. Now let me warn you, who's gonna happen? There will come a moment in your life and some of you are there right now that will be a choose this day whom you will serve and you will realize I cannot take one more step up this ladder or this ladder without taking my foot off the other one. So for instance, some of you it's like, you may be dating somebody and you're like, am I making you nervous? (congregation laughing) Me too. (congregation laughing) You're gonna be dating somebody and here's what they're gonna say. They're gonna say something like, hey, if you wanna stay in this relationship, I'm gonna need this relationship to start getting physical. And you're gonna have to make a decision because if you wanna keep climbing this ladder

in that relationship, you're gonna have to take your foot off that one or if you wanna keep following Jesus, you're gonna have to take your foot off this one. Let me do another one. You might be in like a big group chat and everybody's hanging out, you know, wherever. And everybody's celebrating a decision in somebody's life. Yeah, go girl. (congregation laughing) Everybody's celebrating some decision in somebody's life and you're like, ah, but that decision, I actually know is not best for her soul because of my convictions and they'll come these little moments, this happened to me in high school a lot, they'll come these little moments, everybody's kinda looking at you like, hey, what do you think about it? And you'll realize if I wanna stay in the group, I'm gonna have to take my foot off this thing. Now, what I'm saying to you is there's going to come moments, listen to me, choose this day whom you will serve. If the Lord is God, serve Him, and if the world is God, serve it, you cannot serve two masters, how long will you go limping between two opinions? The Apostle Paul is saying you, however, now, I'm gonna just warn you right now because here's what some of you're gonna do,

you're doing it right now. What some of you're gonna do is at some point in your life, you're gonna decide I would rather climb this ladder than that one and you'll take your foot off over there and you'll spend the rest of your life climbing this. And let me warn you because I wanna be the guy where it's like, even if you don't do what I say, there comes a moment where you're like, man, my pastor told me the truth. If you do that, there will come a day at the end of your life or when you stand in judgment, when you will look back and regret every step you took up this that left you off of that because you will realize that succeeding at the wrong things is the worst type of failure. Now, let me jump over here. I'm just teasing, I'm not gonna do this. Some of you, check this out, what you're realizing is if you want to keep following Jesus faithfully, you're starting to realize you're going to have to live an entirely alternate lifestyle to people in the world. Can I just say something to you? Good. Good. Honestly, man, I don't get it. Why would you want to do what the world calls normal? Are you looking at what the world is getting? Normal in the world right now is broke, depressed, popped up on anxiety pills, divorced, in debt.

Like, why would you don't do normal? Do the Jesus thing, don't do normal. And listen, I just wanna point this out. This dawned on me in the last couple of years. When I was in high school, when people would talk about like an alternative lifestyle, when I was in high school, an alternative lifestyle, like late nineties, was like, hey, here's an alternative lifestyle. You have lots of sex, and it's like anger at the system, perpetual outrage, alternative lifestyle. Guys, everybody's doing that now. That's not an alternative. Everybody's doing that now. Listen, if you want to live an alternative lifestyle in 2026, here's an alternative lifestyle. Read your Bible, go to church, love one woman your whole life of your man and one man your whole life of your woman, have kids that enjoy them, be kind and gracious instead of outrage addicted. That's now the alternative. We're the punk rock now. That's like our thing, okay? So listen, I just want to say it, man. Obedience is the only rebellion left. It's, so Paul's going, do this stuff. He's saying you, however, now let me finish a sermon like this. Start doing that thing you do. I'm going to start, that's how I'm going to start cueing you guys, just start doing the thing you do. Now, watch how he finishes this. He's going to tell you how to, how to do this. Watch, I love this so much. One of the best verses in the whole Bible right here, verse 14, it starts, "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, I love this, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings." Let me encourage some moms and some grandmas real quick, real quick. You go back to 2 Timothy 1 and what did we learn about how Timothy first heard about Jesus from a praying mom and a praying grandma? Bless God for praying moms and praying grandmas. They're putting Timothy's in this world. What Paul's doing is, here's literally, here's what he's doing. He's going, "Honor your mama, honor your mama," which are able, you've been equated with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Here's the money verse, verse 16, "All scripture, all scripture is watched. Breathe out by God. Theos nustas is the Greek. Breathe out by God. God breathed and is profitable

for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness that the man of God might be complete, equipped for every good word." Do y'all have that diagram? I didn't use it in any other service. Do you have that diagram? Do you have that thing? Do you have the whole thing? Okay, I didn't do this in the other service. Here's how I'm going to finish the sermon. Watch what it says right here. It says, "Teaching, reproof, correction, training, righteousness." And your kids get braces? Yeah, I had to, there was a car I didn't get it by either because my kids needed braces, okay? And they put braces on those jacked up teeth, not saying that about my kids, or whatever. The jacked up teeth, they watch those braces, what they do is they stick on those teeth, they're all out of alignment, and they're going to push on some things, they're going to pull on some things, and not overnight, but over time, they pull everything back into alignment. Watch Paul's words, "Teaching, reproof, correction, training, and righteousness." He's painting a picture that the word becomes the braces for your soul to bring you into alignment and disciple. Watch, teaching, it just teaches you what the way of God is. Here's the straight path, but watch, news flash, you're not going to stay on the same path all the time. You're going to mess up, welcome to Team Jesus, we need some grace. So you're going to stray off the path, go to the next one, reproof is what turns you around. You need the word of God to tell you, you're wrong, God's right, repent and turn around, get back on the path. Reproove turns you around, but the third word, he says correction, so then we need something to tell us how to get back. Correction is that next thing, and then he finishes saying, "And training in righteousness," that's this. So it's literally showing you what the word of God does is, over time, it attaches itself to your soul, it's going to pull on some things, going to push on some things. Not overnight, over time, it's going to bring you back into alignment, and why does it do that? Here's why it says that, because it says, "All scripture," listen, all scripture, watch every word of this book, every word. Old Testament promise is made, new Testament promise is kept, every word, all 66 books, I'm all in, I think the maps are accurate, I think the leather's genuine, I'm all in, all scripture, all of it. And then he uses this word, he says, is whew, God breathed. You know there's only three things in the Bible, the Bible says, God breathed on. Genesis 2, God breathes his breath into dust, and he creates mankind, the breath of life. Fast forward to the gospels, I'm going to blow your mind, fast forward to the gospels. After Jesus' resurrection, he just walks up in this room, all the disciples are in there,

says he walks right up to him, breathes on him. God's been dead for three days, am I going to breathe on man, have you been dead for three days? Breathe, breathe, and he says to receive the Holy Spirit. There's a whole nother sermon, I've got time to do it. You know what he's doing there? In Genesis 2, God creates humanity by his breath. Fast forward in the new covenant, Jesus Christ, the God man, is creating a new humanity by the breath of the Spirit being born in us. And then the third thing that the Bible says that God breathes on, is like a breath of fresh air for your soul. Now, if you don't believe me, I wanna show you something, this is like my favorite. I love this thing, I love showing this thing. So here's what this is, this right here is a diagram of every connection from one part of the Bible to the other parts of the Bible. So this is like Genesis all the way over here to Revelation, this is the Bible. Connections from one part of the Bible to the other part of the Bible. Now, what you're looking at, there are 6,779 connections. Now, if one guy wrote a book like that, everyone would be stunned. They'd say masterpiece, goat, greatest author, greatest work of all time if one guy did it from one brain. But that book was not written down by one man. It was written down by 40 different men over the span of 1,500 years across three different continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa in three different languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. And it tells one unified story,

God coming to save mankind, one unified story, zero contradictions. Now, listen, there is only one way to explain that, one way to explain that. It was written down by men, but it was breathed out by the living God. And listen, if you're gonna be a disciple of Jesus, the only way to do it in this world is to fall in love with the Word of God. Okay, so the last thing I'm gonna say, you don't got us and you got this thing in your head. You don't gotta become like some super nerd person, or it's like, you get all the charts and all the big 1,500 page books, and you start studying the difference between super-lapsarietism and infra-lapsarietism and covenant theology and new covenant theology and new covenant dispensationality. You don't gotta do all that stuff. Oh, I gotta quit my fantasy team to listen. Now listen, you might like it more than you think. I got a little nerd in me. You might like it more than you think. You don't gotta be that guy. Here's all you gotta be. Listen, here's all you gotta be. Become a man or a woman who reads a Bible every day, prays every day, and they act like it. That's it, man, that's all you gotta be. That's all you gotta be.

And so, man, let me do this. I just want to pray for you. I want to pray for you that you would fall in love with the living and active word of God. So I pray for you real quick by your hands, close your eyes. And Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the living and active God-breathed word. Father, I pray over these people. I want to pray psalm one over them. Father, I pray over these people that they would walk not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinner, nor sit in the seat of mockers, but their delight would be in the law of the Lord, and on it, they would meditate day and night. And that they would grow up and become as trees planted by streams of water. They yield their fruit in their season. Their leaf does not wither, and in all they do, they would prosper. I love them, and I love you, and we love your word, and we commit ourselves to you in the name of your crucified and risen son, and I'll ask people to save.