True Grit | Week 1 | Full Service

Is do you understand that you've been called? See, when you hear calling, you saw the video with with with Jared and stuff, and now he is back in in in what I would say, like, full time ministry.

Because I hate when we say ministry. Like, it's like there's there's the people that do ministry, and then there's all you guys that I yell at to pay for it. You know, that's not how it works. We're all called. Every single one of us, we're called to this mission together.

And and so what we're gonna see in Nehemiah is he's more like he's not a pastor. He's not a priest. He's just a guy that has a job that we'll see here. And and and and what's going on in Nehemiah is this story happens in the time of Israel. Like, the whole story of Israel is God called them,

called a man named Abraham. He says, I'm gonna call you out. I'm gonna make a great nation. And basically, I'm gonna declare my glory and show the world who I am through you guys.

And it's the same thing he calls us to be as Christians today. But and what he did was he called out a person, made them a people, he gave them a land, and then they had a city.

And they're supposed to stay faithful to God, and he loves them. And he says, I'll take care of you if you just trust me. Don't get but they will always lose their grit. They will always get distracted by their idols. And you're like, how dumb are they? Guess what? They got distracted by the same thing that every one of us in here gets distracted by. It's usually money, sex, addictions,

power. It's all the same things. And so even good things that you put in the place of the God thing.

And so their whole story is have some grit, fall, and then give up. It get too hard, quit, step in, step out, all that. Well, in this point in in biblical history, what's happened is at one point, God allowed them to get taken into captivity by the Babylonian empire. And they were there for seventy years.

And here's the crazy thing. God scattered them. He said, I'll bring you back. I'm gonna bring you back. But it was discipline. He wasn't punishing because there they grew strong. They grew good, and he blessed them to prepare them. But here's what happened. They got comfortable

because the book of Ezra, which is before Nehemiah, is when this new king comes and says, you guys can go back. You can go back to your city and you go back to Jerusalem. I'm allowing you to leave. And only 50,000 of the Jews went back. The rest stayed. And Nehemiah's one of them.

And then he finds out about what's going on with what God's doing with his people, Jerusalem, and something changes. And he begins his journey of true grit and and finds his calling and leans into it. So there's three things. I'm gonna read through this chapter,

and we're gonna see three things that really help us have the clarity of calling, what it is. What do we need to do to have that clarity of calling in order to begin this journey of true grit in our spiritual walk? And I just wanna read the first four verses.

He says, these are the memories of Nehemiah, son of Hakaliah. In the late autumn in the month of Kislev, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes' reign, I was at the Fortress Of Susa. Hananaim, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah.

I asked them about the Jews who had returned from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me, things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. Why disgrace?

Well, because these walls, you see, he says, he goes, the wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire. He says, when I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. Stop there.

So he hears his brother. He you could show he's already had an interest in what's God doing with our people. He's not there being a part of it,

but he's interested on the outside. And then he hears, it's going terrible. They're not safe. They're not this. And the whole thing is they're even in disgrace because the walls. Why are the walls not being built a disgrace? Because when they got back there the few years ago when they got back there, they rebuilt the temple. It was going well. They got their church building going,

but they didn't get the walls. And why it says it's a disgrace is because they needed to rebuild the walls too. Because in this day and age, walls were critical to any city, not just for protection but for prestige. If you didn't have walls, you were a joke of a city.

And they were supposed to go bring honor to God by trusting him. And he was provided the place. I'm sending you back. You can now build the temple. You can show the world who we are. You know? And and and and you needed this. And it implies

not that the walls just got torn down. It's implying that they're not even trying anymore. So, basically, it'd be like a modern equivalent of we've been given a mission. We need to point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. Jesus said that. Go make disciples. That's what our job is if we're Christians.

And a church is supposed to be the body of Christ that does that together by having all of our individual callings on how God wired each one of us in gifts and resources and what he had to to to go live intentionally with that as the body of Christ in order to reach people.

It would be like they built their church building and then said, forget everything else.

It'd be like if we just built this building, and everyone said, we got this building. Who cares? Why do we need to build anymore? Why do we need to go out there? Why do we need more seats? Why do we need to do this? Why do we need to go there? Why are we going to England? Why am I gonna get on twenty three hours of flying to be in Zambia tomorrow?

Why are we doing these things? It'd be more like, oh, we have our church building. We can play church. We're done. That's what's going on. And it hits them. And I think if we're ever gonna get a clarity of a call, because we're all called, the first

step of that is to define reality. I have to define reality. Where am I? What's going on around me? And where am I in relation to what God's called me and asked me to do as his follower? You gotta be real. Reality is always your friend. And and the the truth of the reality is what he just got hit with is, I believe in God.

I go to the they probably had their synagogues. I go to these synagogues and worship God here. I'm really interested in what God's doing, but I'm not actually partaking in the calling. I'm on the sidelines. You're never going to get where God wants to take you, and neither am I, if you just sit and soak. Coming to church

is not the calling.

Being the church is. We gotta define reality on that, folks. And and and and ask where are you? In other words, what happens and what happens here with Nehemiah, the way you get there, is before anything's gonna change on the outside, something has to change inwardly. Something has to break.

And that's why we when we define reality, it means define reality from God's perspective. When you define reality, you need to look from God's point of view. We need to to to be on God's side on this. We need to see. Otherwise, we're gonna miss the whole point. Grit refuses to ignore God's perspective. What does that mean?

It means how am I looking at my reality of where I'm at in light of God's word and who he is. And not just who he is and what he tells us to do, but who he is and who he says that I am. That's one of the biggest misses. If I'm coming to church from my perspective,

I kinda see, well, God's holy. I'm not. Yeah. He loved me. I better and so anytime you hear this thing to have a spiritual grit to be on mission, you hear, I better do that or God's angry with me. God loves you. He proved it. He died for you when we're the ones that ran from him.

So we have to understand that if I don't see God correctly in this from his point of view, I'm not gonna see myself

in the right light. I need to see myself first and foremost from God's point of view. And then let that speak to me. Okay. Well, based on who God says I am and where I'm at, I'm not in alignment. I got a problem. I'm not looking at it from God's perspective.

And God's perspective sometimes can confuse us. Here's an example of what I mean by this, by God's perspective. In the book of Joshua, in Joshua five, I think, Joshua five or six, I can't remember now, but it's this little story that happens right in between. Joshua was a guy that had grit. Him and his friend, Caleb.

Because when God the the what's happening in Joshua is God's people were enslaved in Egypt for hundreds of years. The Moses came along and Charlton Heston's voice said, let my people go. And so they did. Old people will laugh at that, and that was a good Charlton Heston. And and and and and

so they get out of there. They they go. God takes them to the promised land, the whole mission. I'm gonna give you this place. Now the difference is we still have a mission. We still have the calling. We don't need the place. We don't need the temple. Why?

We have the holy spirit. We are the temple. So what we need to be about is honoring God, not by going to build a wall or build a temple, honoring them in our lives and living out the mission.

So anyways, they're supposed to go to the promised land. They get there. They send spies in just to get the lay of the land and know where they're supposed to go first. The spies come back. There's 12 of them. 10 of them freak out and say, no way. There's too many. They're big. They're powerful. Their cities are walled. They're strong.

We can't do it.

Two of them had grit, Joshua and Caleb. They said, are you kidding me? Didn't you see what our god did? He totally crushed Pharaoh and messed up Egypt so he would free us. We went through the middle of a sea and all of that. And you don't think that we can't do what God told us to do? Yeah. They look more powerful. We don't have the resource. We don't have the numbers. We don't have the size. But guess what we do have? We're going where God told us to go. So they said, we should go in there and take the land. They gave that inspirational rocket locker room speech. And then you know what the crowd did?

Kill them. They've wanted to go back to Egypt. They started here's where they weren't looking at reality from their from God's perspective. They're looking at from their perspective. Like, that looks too scary. Let's go back to being slaves because at least they gave us onions. That was leeks. Leeks are an onion. They

literally were saying that. What onion are you you'd rather have than what God's called you to? So then they so so God says, alright. This whole generation isn't going in. You're gonna stay out here and learn and grow, and then your kids are gonna get to go to the land.

Only two guys from that generation went into that land, Joshua and Caleb. And Joshua is now the leader.

So now he's been faithful. He's had grit. He stood by. He almost got killed for it by his own people. Now he's the leader, and they head into the promised land. Forty years later, kinda funny, God comes to him, and the first of Joshua says, alright.

Get ready because in three days, you're crossing that flooded river, and you're gonna take the land. I I always think that's weird. That's the way my brain works. It's like, we sat around for forty years and you give me three days notice to move millions of people. That's kinda weird. Anyways, back to the story.

So they head in. He's faithfully leading this army in. They're heading towards Jericho, the first target that they're supposed to go to. And

all of a sudden, they meet a figure on the road. Says it's the angel of Lord, which means pre incarnate Jesus. It's God. And he knows it. He goes and takes his shoes off. They he knows that it's God. Comes in a theophany, appears on the road.

And I don't know how impressive he looked, but for some reason, he stops this whole army. He's like, stay here, guys. I'll go talk to him. I'll find out whose side he's on. And he walks up to him, and he realizes it's God. So he goes, our whose side are you on? Now if you're Joshua,

think about it. If you are going exactly where God you stood for forty years. You've had grit. You've done this the whole time. What do you expect God's answer to be? Your side. That's not what he says.

This angel of the Lord Jesus basically looks at him and says, neither. I'm the commander of the angel armies.

Now remove your feet. You're standing on holy ground. Move your feet. Your shoes. That would be terrible if you removed his feet. That's a weird answer, isn't it, from our perspective? And you think, why is God not telling him he's on his side? The reason that sat there is because it's obviously an encouragement to Joshua,

an encouragement to remember something because it's gonna be hard. He knows it's be hard for him to lead these people. It's gonna be hard to have grit through what he faces ahead to follow God, to trust him. And what he's really telling him is,

Joshua, you will never make it if you don't remember this truth. And it's the same truth we all need to know from God's point of view. God doesn't take your side. God is a side.

God doesn't decide a side. God is a side. That's what it means to define reality from God's perspective, is to understand that our goal in following God is not a game to do a little bit of good, a little bit of this, so then God will get on our side for where we wanna go. He doesn't play that game. He says,

I'm a side and you gotta decide if you wanna be with me. End of story. No negotiation. But God's side is the place where he has absolute love and grace and care. His perspective is better than mine. God Here's God's perspective. God loves me better than I can love myself. Do you know that?

Because if not, you're gonna play this game that church what you're gonna hear me say when I talk about, hey, God's called us to do stuff, what you're gonna hear me say is, like, get your acting,

get in gear, get your act together, and do what God says, or he's angry at you and he doesn't like you and this is just a game. No.

He's inviting us to be on his side. And that's why he died for us. That's defining reality. Whose side are you on? Whose side are you on? Otherwise, if I don't define reality from God's perspective, I'm gonna misunderstand is what I'm saying. And when I'm defining reality from my perspective,

you misunderstand a lot of stuff. And and when I'm trying to preach, if if I do it, I'm in trouble. But if you do it when I'm preaching, it causes a problem. Because, like, here, we have a mission. Like, look at this room, man. This is the the the the this is the time of the year when our attendance is low.

I need people to not come to the service anymore. I need you to go to Saturdays, which by the way, if you have kids, we do stuff on Saturdays for kids and fun stuff for families. We don't do on Sundays. Same service.

Matter of fact, sometimes I'm a little shorter on Saturdays. I haven't thought about my sermon as much. Because

we need to cease. We need to reach people. And then you hear me say that. Then you hear me say, but you know the ultimate plan is

we need to knock these walls out. We got a couple million saved. We're still trying to raise the rest because we don't wanna borrow any money. And and and we need to add the 700 more seats. Then we have more room.

But we also know that that's only gonna last us so long because God's been blessing us. We planted six churches in the last two years. From the day we started this church in 2022, we have averaged year over year 20% growth. Every year. Since we've started yeah. Isn't that awesome? Since

we launched these six churches the last two years now, we've averaged 68% growth when we include their growth because we're giving things away and we're sending them out. That's even better. In January, we launched a daughter church. We sent our teaching pastor back back beginning

of last year, and he went out and planted echoes. We commissioned 1,500 people, and they weren't just people that showed up. They're people that are serving. We lost a 100 leaders from our children's ministry, and about $250,000 a month went out to over 200,000 and giving went with them right when we had a 150,000

new building payment due. That was tough. And yet, 1,500 people left. We are 500 people larger than that year over year. We added we grew by 2,000 people this last year. That's amazing. Six over 6,000 people. Yes. Over 6,000 people said yes to Jesus this year in our church. Couple thousand have been baptized already.

Well, when you have babies, it's hard. When you send a bunch of faithful people that give, go, new people aren't there yet. So we need to give.

And when you hear me saying that, like, you hear me say that. We need to knock these walls out. We need to do this. We need from it's it depends on the perspective you look at. Some of you, what you thought I just said is, grow up, people, and start giving because I want a bigger building with more seats.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm trying to look at this from God's point of view. He gave us a mission. He's blessing us. We're growing. We need more room in this room because guess what? We average about 60 new families a week showing up. And guess where about 40 of them come? This service.

You wanna reach someone for Jesus and you're shy?

Don't come on Sunday. You ever heard anyone say, you can reach someone for Jesus by not coming to church on Sunday?

And the finances, you hear me say that, but that's not what I'm saying. Here's what I'm saying, because I think this is God's perspective.

The reason we need more seats, the reason we wanna expand the building, the reason we keep wanna even send money and send good people to start more churches, the reason I'm gonna get on a plane to Zambia tomorrow morning and fly all that time, the reason we're doing these things to get more seats

is because every one of these seats will have people sitting in them. And every person has a story. And God cares about that story. And God wants them to be a part of His story. Just like you have a story. You have a story. You have a story. And you have a story. And you have a story. You have a story.

You have a story. You have a story. You have a You have a story. I'm not sure about that whole section over there. But no, you guys all have a story too. Think about it that way. I am not in any way, shape or form and never have, as God is my witness, tried to get something from you.

There might be people out there that do. I get it. We live in a broken world. But I think I've shown you guys over twenty five years the way I live my life. I am not manipulating you. I'm not demanding. I'm not trying to take something from you. I am trying to do my job of equip the saints for the mission

and be able to experience your calling and what God wants to do through your story. Because that's why Jesus died. He didn't just die so we get a ticket to heaven. He wants us a part of the story. And so, reaching people, we've been doing it. But now we need to grow them up and we need to get more room. And that's what we do.

That's reality. And part of that is what I said is that's the next point. Look at what he says next. Here's his prayer.

He says, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, Listen to my prayer. Look down and see me praying night and day for your people, Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you.

Yes. Here's the part. First, it sounds like is he just trying to get something for God, get God on his side. But now look what he says. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned. We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations you gave us through your servant Moses.

We haven't listened to your word. We haven't trusted your word. We believe in you. We go to church. But when it comes to our everyday choices of how we live and what we do with our time, our talents, our treasure, and testimony, not doing it. And the first thing he did, he saw the problem over there,

but it revealed the reality of the problem in here. So he confesses. And he says, please remember what you told your servant Moses. Then he goes back and remembers who God is, the promises of God.

If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I've chosen for my name to be honored.

The people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants. So the first thing he does is define reality, and then he responds to it. And what's happening here in this prayer is he's dreaming the preferred future.

That's what we need to do next. If if if if we're gonna walk and figure out a clarity of our calling, you gotta define reality. Where am I? Where is God? What's going on? Who am I? Who is he? Define reality. Then you start dreaming the future. He's like, he's dreaming about what could happen

if if they got those walls built. What could happen if that place we trusted God and went back and actually did what he asked us to do? What could it be like? And now he's starting to ponder. It says he's prayed for days. This is his final prayer before he's about to do something. He's been praying about it and fasting and mourning and confessing because what he's saying is, I see where God wants us to go. I see how this group went out and now they're failing. Instead of judging, he's saying, I think part of the problem is I should have been with them. A lot of us should have been with them.

That's the problem I see in a lot of churches. Preachers like, oh, I didn't like this church because they did this or they didn't or they didn't have this ministry. Most churches are eighty twenty. 20% of the people that are Christians that say it's their church actually do anything. 80% don't. It's like this everywhere.

20% do 80% of the service. 20% give 80% of the money. 20% eat 80% of the food. Just go to a potluck.

And he's saying, what would it be like

if I did something? Not out of pride, Out of purpose. What would it be like for me to just believe God and understand how much He loves me and understand that He gave me what He gave me for a reason. And I don't go to church to get God on my side. I get aligned, and I choose to be on His because He lets me. He lets me. Where

are you at on that? Can you dream have you started to think about, hey, this would be a good way. Here's how God wired me. Here's how He's gifted me. Here's how He's called me. This is the resources, the finances, the stuff He's given me. This is what He's asked me to do.

What would it look like if I just did? Dream the future,

even though it'll be hard. Otherwise, we get stuck. And and I get it. I I I said this a few weeks ago, it's so ap apropos here. I remember watching a comedian on on a late night show a couple years ago, and he was talking about how he's coming back from Europe. And and he's

in the first class section because, know, they paid for it. He's like, hey. I'm sitting here getting my first class ticket because I tell jokes. And a soldier got on that had been in Afghanistan. And he's getting home, and he's going to the back of the bus.

And he looks at him, and he sees he's ragged, tired, younger than him. And he's like, wow. That guy's fought for our country. He's defended for now he's going to sit in the back of the bus. And here I am sitting in this first class seat because I say funny stuff.

And so he goes, you know what? He thought to himself. He's telling this this audience. He goes, I thought I I should give him my seat. Let him sit here. I'll go sit back there. Everyone clapped. Yeah. The talk show host was like, I think it was Jimmy Fallon. He goes, hey, how did he respond when you did that?

He goes, I don't know. I didn't actually do it. I just thought about it.

And then he was like, boo. And he goes, no. Wait. He goes, it's weird. He goes, don't we actually do that? I've done that. You've done that. He goes, I thought about it, and then I made me feel good that I thought about it. The fact that I thought I could give up my seat, that would be a nice thing to do. I must be a good person. And I even thought nobody else gave up their seat, and I bet none of them even thought about it. So he says, hey. And then everyone's like, oh, that's kinda true. We because we do that a lot, don't we? We we think that just

agreeing with something or paying attention to something or saying, yes. I like that idea Or that would be a good thing somehow made us do something good.

It's it's kinda like that that that knock on, you know, thoughts and prayers. You know, kinda like, we we think we we we wanna say something so we act like we're activated, but we're not. You know, attention without action is still in action.

The bible describes what that does for you, through you, and in you, and around you. The the the the Hebrew is is is translated in English as a diddly squat.

Now here here's the part. If you're new here, it's I do this every now. You know I love you. Right? I need you to tilt your chin up because I need to punch it right here. And then we're gonna hug. Okay? This is in love.

Does that describe your involvement in the body of Christ as a Christian?

You come in here and this is it.

You heard a sermon, you agreed with it. You're like, yeah, that's a good thought. That's a great thing.

And that's as far as it goes.

You got to get out of the seat to really experience the call.

Jesus wants us to be followers, not fans.

Don't be a fan of your church.

Don't go to a church you like. Be the church you're called to be. That's what God died to give us. But we get stuck because of the inaction. And that leads to why we have to do this third point. Let me read verse 11 now, the end of his prayer.

He says, oh Lord, please hear my prayer. Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me. In those days this is like he just throws this in the last statement of this chapter. In those days,

I was the king's cup bearer. See, he's been praying for days, and now he confesses. Now he does all this. And now all of a sudden, he's dreaming. And now he's actually finishing his prayer with, I have a path that I know I need to go on.

And I'm asking for the courage and faithfulness on him. He's not asking for God to be on his side. He says, I'm going on your side, God, now. I'm walking down a different path. And I'm praying that you will make open the door. Where I where you've guide me, I'm asking that you provide for me.

I'm gonna do it no matter what, but I'm doing it. And what does this mean? He said, listen to me. He has to talk to the king,

and he's the cup bearer. In other words, we have to define reality from God's perspective. Dream the desired future of if I of what it would look like to embrace the calling as a Christian. And then third, you develop that pathway. Develop means you're doing it. You're actually taking the step. And this pathway,

here's the hard part for us, is to move from comfortable to the costly path. If you follow the Lord's call, true you're gonna need grit, spiritual grit. And the first thing that you're gonna get is you gotta understand

the clarity of your call is because God loves you and he has a calling on your life, and you should trust him. But here's the hard part. It will be the costlier path

because we tend to wanna stay on the comfortable path, and that's what usually stops us. That's what he's confessing and admitting. When he says, give me before the king. He has to go to the king. It's because he was the cup bearer. People think, well, he was just some lowly servant. He just needs to go resign his position. King probably won't even know who he is. No. The reason he has to talk to the king is is is because he's the cup bearer. And you understand what a cup bearer was to the king in this day was like the combination of being the head of the Secret Service and the highest the the chief of staff, most trusted adviser.

It was one of the most probably the most influential position other than being king. He had a cush job. It's probably why he didn't go back. He was very good leader. He was very wise. He had, you know, he was very trustworthy.

He was close to the king. I mean, the king would trust him more than his wives. Half the time, cupbearer means you kept him from getting poisoned. That's why the cup they tooth they taste it turned into a position of you're not just some lackey that drinks, you're the one that makes sure he's kept safe. Sometimes from the wives so they don't poison you.

And he says, I'm gonna walk away from that to go into this unknown because that's the mission. As my dad used to say to soldiers, got mad when they signed up for the GI Bill and then war broke out. He would say, son, that's the job. That's the job.

The rest is just bonus. And so he's not just going to have an exit interview. He's putting his life on the line because that could turn into an exit, this plane of existence interview for two reasons. One, he's gonna go talk to the king and he wasn't asked by the king to talk.

You're not really supposed to do that. So if the king gets mad that he just decides to bring an idea to him, death.

Or what if the king says, sure, hell, let's talk. And he goes, you wanna quit? You're my most important adviser. And you wanna do what? You wanna run off and do that? Death.

But when you have a clarity of calling,

you will have conviction. It's the first step. When you really, really, really understand what God is calling you to do, and it's not just sit in church once a week, you'll get bold in your asking, especially of God, because you know you're doing what He wants you to do, and He'll make it the way. When we're not clear,

when we like being comfortable, it's why we'll hear a sermon, get excited

or convicted, and go, alright, I'll serve or I'll give. And we do it for a little while, then we stop. Then we're in, then we're out. Then we're in, then we're Then you get mad. I'm sick and tired of this. I keep failing. It doesn't matter. That guy keeps talking about money. I'm out of here.

That's because you haven't really, really got the clarity of what God's really called for you and how he will empower you to do it. But once you do, matter of fact, man, wait till next week. Next week, oh, it's he doesn't just ask, can I go? He gets so bold. He gets so audacious,

the unmitigated gall he has. And matter of fact, you you know what? It's not against the rules. You can read ahead when we're done here and you can find out for yourself. The judges will allow it.

You gotta develop the pathway. And here's where I think we get stuck. There's two things that keep us from the pathway. Sin, that was part of his problem. He confessed to sin. Meaning there's something in your life

that's become an idol, that's a distraction, that you're stuck, that you're like, hey, I can't do that because I'm spending my time on this. I can't give because my money's going to this. I can't Or you just don't want to because you're trying to You know the Lord loves you, but when you're living in the flesh, you don't listen to the spirit.

If that's what it is, confess the sin and you can get past it. Some of you might need some counseling, you might need recovery. There might be a hurt habit or hang up that just keeps tripping you up. Deal with it.

But I think a lot of us in here like me get stuck on this second reason. And that is we don't realize that what God asked us to do in our calling, true grit is not just starting something hard. We think that it's like, keep my life the way it is and then try to add this on. You can't do that. That is impossible.

But true grit is not just starting something hard, it's being willing to leave something good because God is calling you to something better.

It's being willing to get uncomfortable, to actually go where God really wants to bless you. And that's where we get stuck. And that's really the heart of what an idol is. When you take anything, even a good thing, and put it in the place of the God thing, that's a bad thing.

So some of us, the reason we can't go is because there is something good that we think means, well, this is why I can't. I can't serve because I have to provide for my family. Can't

because the job's like this. It's like, and I have to take care of this. I can't, you know, share my you know, whatever it is. I just I can't trust God in this. I can't I I can't honor my wife and because our marriage is messed up. I can't love her like Christ loved the church. Whatever it is. Not even just doing this like in your own home, in your own life. There's all these things that we sometimes struggle. I go, I can't because of another thing that you're saying, God, I can't believe you asked me to do that because it means I'm gonna abandon this. I'm not it's he doesn't say to abandon good things. He says put them in the right order.

It's the good took the place of the God thing. God's here. I'm on his side. Then the good. He even says if you it says in Matthew six right after saying you can't serve God and money because that's the number one thing that usually prevents us is he says it goes right after. He says, hey,

seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. You want those good things to work out? Do the God things first.

And he promises he'll help you with the rest. The fear we have is we understand innately that all the things I say are good, they're not needs. A lot of them are greeds. And he might ask you to give up the greed. Give up the comfort to go after the real the real powerful thing that he's called us to, that he built us for.

And when you know how you think good and move it to God, you move an o out. Take one of the two o's out. You're like, that's stupid. It is. But that's about as smart as I get. No. What I'm saying is it's usually the o. The o. The extra o of good is what stops us. We're like, oh. Oh, he just talked about

I should probably start tithing. Oh. Oh, here we go again. Oh, no. Oh, h e double hockey sticks. No. Oh, I knew it was coming. Or, oh, I can't do that. Oh, God, why are you asking me to do this when you gave me this? Oh, oh, oh, this. Oh, oh, oh, oh, usually means no. And then we miss out.

That's what Nehemiah was a normal he had to walk away. He took his life on the line. Arthur Ashe said it this way.

Great tennis player, by the way. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. In other words, here's the simple call. Here's what Nehemiah did. The first step towards having spiritual grit. What I mean by this in the end, I'm hoping that this series, look at Nehemiah, teaches us to not be so in and out, in and out, in and out.

We just go all in. And yeah, there'll be times it's hard. There'll be times we trip up and like him, you have to confess. But it's not this drastic, I'm kinda in, kinda out all the time. Because you never get the benefit

of the true love of Christ and this Holy Spirit empowering you to bring the joy, the peace, the patience. But he did call us to hard. And Nehemiah realized that he defined reality. In other words, he saw what God saw. He dreamed the preferred future. He felt what God felt. Do you? And

then he developed the pathway. He did what God called him to do. Plain and simple.

And I know this is true because if I didn't have many critical moments in my life where I had to define reality and go through this process and align myself, we wouldn't be having this conversation. One of the most critical ones was I lost my grit when I went to college.

I felt called to be in ministry, so I had to go to a bible school. My dad had no money, so the only thing I got was $400 a month while I in school because he was 100% service connected, disabled. And that can go to anything. Supposed to. That'll come back.

And so I I got a baseball scholarship. I got an academic scholarship. And I had to work. I got a job in the I did a bunch of dumb jobs. Then I finally got a job in the library because they only one had good hours, which was seven to ten at night, every night,

to make some extra that's the only way I could stay in the school. It was hard. Matter of fact, all the baseball in the job made me lose the academic scholarship. But, hey, Cs get degrees. And so

as I was kinda going through this process, it was getting very difficult. And the problem I had was this school was so expensive, but I also got some grants and student aid. And every semester, I get called in the registrar's office,

and they'd say, you were over awarded aid like 40 whatever. Dollars 4,000 or whatever that $400 a month was. And I go, why? And they go, because he didn't count this.

And I go, that doesn't count towards my student aid. That's the way reason it's a benefit to my father who fought for his country and is a 100% service connected disabled. If it counted towards other aid, then what's the big deal of getting that? And it says right there, does not count towards student aid.

And they would fight with me every semester. Finally, it was my junior year. It's midterms days. They call me in and they say the same thing, only it's a new registrar.

And normally, can fight them down, show up to them, and I guess maybe you're right. We'll call. They've this guy's no. You're wrong. You have to give us a check by tomorrow or you're out of school. Oh, man.

If there was ever a time I thought Satan actually has taken on human form and decided to be a registrar in a Christian school. It was that moment. My brain, I've had there's so many ways I was I wanted to throw punch him, but not the nice spiritual kind. The pulled a hockey jersey up over and kind.

And I said, you're wrong. He goes, sorry. He goes, you have till tomorrow or you're out. I go, I'll make it easy for you. We don't even have to wait till tomorrow. I grabbed a withdrawal slip, signed it, said, I'm out right now. I missed my midterms that day, packed up my boxes of my room, said goodbye to all my friends.

And when I was about to go get in the car, then my phone rings, pick it up. It's that guy. And he's like, hey, buddy. I go, this is not gonna go well.

Despite our issue, man, I I felt bad. I went to bat for you. I took it all the way up the chain of command, I argued and argued and argued till they finally allowed this to happen. And I said, you're a liar because I know what the law is. You could have just called and said, I'm sorry, I was wrong.

And I didn't have the grace to stay. I was too tired. I could have stayed. I said thanks but no thanks. I hung up and I went home. I was in such a dark place I went to ASU.

Actually, liked it there. It was fun. I had a lot of friends. If I was in a dark place, would've went to U of A. But so there was still some hope in me.

But after that semester I was there, I was just gonna do something else. I wasn't gonna be ministry. I was gonna do something else. And I'm sitting there one night. I had a lot of fun. It was good to be home. My dad living at home and my

mom. And I had grilled steak for me and my dad. We were watching the end of a baseball game, and then I think it was actually true grit was gonna be on, and we were gonna watch it. And so we're sitting there eating the steak, and as we're sitting there ready to watch it, my dad just starts looking at me. He's kinda staking. He'd go to take a bite and go

and he did it again. I'm like, hi? And then finally just throws his knife and fork down, turns and looks at me right in the face. He's like, why are you here?

And I go, I'm watching a baseball game, about to watch True Grit, gonna I I I'm I and and and we're eating a steak, which I made, so I think I have the right to be here. And he goes, don't play stupid with me. You know what I'm talking about. Why are you back home? Why'd you leave?

And I go, why? I wanted to come home. He goes, no, something's not right. Something's not and he defined reality for me in that moment. Kind of what I'm trying to do here, I'm trying to give you the same gift my father gave me. He said, Son, bushes do hard things. I've always seen what it seems like you just quit.

And I go, I did. Because it just it was I tried to do what God wanted me to do, it was just so hard. And he goes, so you I think you're running. I think you're running. I think you've been called,

and I think it's called to where you're specifically called. I don't think it's here, and I think you might and wherever you're called, I think you need to go back. I think you need to do something,

and it might mean you leave here, which will make me sad and your mom even more sad. He goes, I love having you here again. But I couldn't live with myself if I know you staying with me because I loved it made you miss the call of God on your life. And I said, well, know, it's funny you say that because my

old youth pastor and great friend is was out in California. I interned with him when I was in school out there. Called me and said he has a little part time sixth and seventh grade youth pastor position. Doesn't pay much, but I could live with him in his extra room.

And there's a Christian school nearby that's half as expensive as the one I was going to.

I didn't even finish saying that. And he goes, well, alright. I'll help you pack in the morning. And I literally drove out to California the next day. It was sad. I love my you hear all the stories I've been at. I love living with it. I I love being back home. That was a good thing. But I was running away from the God thing.

And I don't regret that. Because if I didn't do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I would have missed out on all the incredibly hard, brutal, tough moments of being a church planter. And it was beautifully hard. It was beautifully difficult because it's what God called me to do.

And to see him show up when I thought I couldn't do it anymore, to see him be there when he thought, to see what he's been able to do, to be a front row seat of what God's doing,

I want every one of us to have that.

I want every one of us to have your story and your story and your story and your story and your story and story and your story because

it's the best place to be.

You don't have to trust me, trust the word of God. Father God, I thank you. I just pray simply,

help us all to step out into clarity of our calling and experience the true grit that comes from the power of your spirit. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks so much for joining us for church online today. Be sure to stay connected with us throughout the week on rockwind.io

and our social media. Have a great week.