Love Defined | Week 3

so I have I have this 16 old baby girl. Her name is Joanna Mae Jones. And doesn't that just sound like a superhero name? It's the best. And so she, she's our only child right now. And, the way that she got into the world was kind of, like, crazy, tumultuous. So my wife, when she was pregnant with her, at 26,

her water broke, and that was not good. And so we went to the hospital, and thankfully, they were able to stop the labor process. But what that meant is my wife needed to go up to Saint Joseph's down in in Downtown Phoenix, and she had to be on bed rest for ten weeks.

Yeah. And so she was on consistent monitoring, and she couldn't move that much. She could take some walks around the hospital, but she was down there. And so I, like, half lived there, half lived at my house. And when I stayed there, I was on, like, this little, like

it's not a gurney, but it, like, felt like it was just this little side bed sort of thing. And so I was going back and forth and back and forth for ten weeks. And and the reason she had to be in the hospital is because when when your water breaks, your womb is now open.

And what can happen is infection can come into the womb and your body is going to know that it's in trouble and it's going to have the baby immediately.

And so my wife was on this constant monitoring. So I fall asleep one day and I wake up and my my wife is calling me and I answer the phone and it's not my wife's voice and it was her nurse. And she said, hey, Ellie's going into labor. Her wound got an infection.

You need to get here right now. And I said, okay. And so I get in my car and I drive an hour all the way from Santane to the

Saint Joseph's Hospital. And I parked the car. I go in. I run up to labor and delivery. My wife is on this little bed with, like, nine doctors around her. I give her a kiss. They roll her into the Operating Room. And so I put on my scrubs and I put on my, you know, the little thing and and I go in to the Operating Room. And if you've ever experienced it, I know a lot of you it's a surreal experience.

It's like there's so much technology around and so many people in the room. Your wife's just there. And and and so we we found out too that my wife is apparently resistant to anesthesia. It's like, yeah, of all the things to be resistant to. Couldn't be like poison or something. It had to be anesthesia.

And so they had to give her a double dose of anesthesia. So she ended up being fine but she was I mean, she was high as a kite at this point. Like, she was not there.

And so I'm here and I'm about to see my baby and then they, you know, they they perform the c section and it looks like a high school biology textbook right in front of me on my like like,

it's a crazy experience and I'm emotional and I'm crying and my wife in the midst of it all, they're sewing up her abdomen and everything and and she leans over. She says, Hunter, I don't think I could do this again. Now what a good and loving husband should have said in that moment

was, babe, you're so strong and I love you and you you you're I'm so proud of you. You're doing it. What I said in that moment, If you can't tell by now, I'm somebody who copes with humor. And I was like, is the most chaotic moment of my life. This is a perfect time to crack a joke. Right?

And so what I said to my wife with nine medical staff in the room and it's silent and they're stitch stitching up her abdomen. I I said, babe, it's okay. You've got ten whole months till you have to do this again. That's what my wife said. Nobody else thought that was funny.

The woman stitching up my wife's abdomen literally stopped and looked over because she was so shocked at how crazy sociopath this man was. And I realized nobody understands that I you know, I'm a I I cope with humor. Nobody understands I'm a pastor. Nobody understands I'm an idiot. Nobody understands right now.

And I was like, man, I better get a good look at my daughter because this might be the last time I ever see her. They're not gonna let me go home with this baby girl. They thought I was a controlling sociopath. When it comes to what we're talking about today in in regards to obedience

to God and the life that we're called to, people can look at the the life God calls us to in obedience and say, that is crazy. They can get this misunderstanding that God is this controlling God who just wants to take you out of all the fun and enjoyment and the freedom of your life.

You see, what we're gonna talk about today is obedience is that's not a picture of the life that God's calling us to. What John is writing to this church, what we're gonna see today, the big idea

the main thing we're gonna see is this, if you know Jesus personally, you will obey him daily. Notice I didn't say you'll obey him perfectly. Notice I didn't say you must obey Jesus to know him personally. What John is gonna tell us today, the relationship between love and obedience is this, if you know Jesus personally,

you will obey Him daily. There's a lot of baggage that comes with this concept of obedience. And maybe some of us, we're walking in the room and we have that view of obedience of like, man, I'm so thankful Jesus saved me, but why does God wanna control me so much? It seems a little too much.

Maybe some of us are on the other side of this and we're like, you know what? I wanna be saved and so I need to do every I'm just gonna comply to God because he I I'm just gonna give up and do what he said even though I don't want to. I'm just gonna do it. And we're living out that life.

And what John is gonna write to you and I today as he's writing to the early church is he's saying, both have missed it. You don't understand obedience. John is writing to this church that is that is effectively imploded. So it's a broken church. What had happened in this church in in eighty AD

is this false teaching has come into the church. I know Bill kinda covered this. I just wanna remind you. This false teaching called Gnosticism. And some things these false teachers would say is, listen. There's no such thing as sin. No such thing as sin. Basically, everything material is evil and bad and everything,

spiritual is good. And so what that means is Jesus, he wasn't actually man and God, fully man and fully God because material's evil, spiritual's good. And so what happened is at Jesus' baptism, Jesus was just this guy and the Christ descended on Jesus. And then at the cross, the Christ left this man Jesus.

And so they're they're they're bringing in these false teaching. They're saying there's no such thing as sin. Basically, you won't be saved if you don't have the right knowledge. You just need to have the right knowledge, the right understanding, the right theology, and then that's all you need to do to be saved.

Jesus doesn't need to forgive you for your sins. And it got so prevalent in this early church that all these people were so confident that they're saved and these people who believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sin and saved them from their sin are so wrong that they completely split. And John

is writing to the people in the seats who are left wondering, am I still saved? Did Jesus really die on the cross for me? Or is or or is what they're is what they're saying true? That's why when he opens the letter in John chap first John chapter one, he's saying things like, I'm writing about the one whom I heard

with my ears and I saw with my eyes and I felt with my hands and I ate with. What is he doing? He's directly teaching against the false teachers. He's saying, oh man, Jesus was fully man and fully God. He was absolutely one and the same. And he goes on to continue. He says, there's absolutely sin

and we have to be saved from our sin to be saved.

So in chapter one he says, listen, if you don't confess that you're sinful, that you have sin, you can't be forgiven of sin. But if you confess that you're a sinner, that you have sinned, he is faithful and he will forgive you and forgive you and forgive you and cleanse you from all wickedness.

Then we get to John chapter two where we're at today. And here's what he says in verse one. He says, my dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. Pause.

Why is he saying this? Because he just wrote to this church about listen. Anytime you mess up and you confess your sin, Jesus, God, he's gonna forgive you and forgive you and forgive you. But then he says, woah, woah, woah. Don't take that too far. I am writing this to you so that you will not sin.

Because what he's saying is the Christian life is not compatible with a sinful life. He's saying God has given you his grace, but that grace is not permission to keep going back into sin. The first thing I want us to pull out of first John chapter two today is this, God's grace is power, not permission.

God's grace is power. It's not permission. What I mean by that is God, he will over and over and over forgive us of our sins, but some of us use that as a permission slip to keep going back to sin over and over and over again. And he's saying that is not what God's grace is for. If God's grace leads you to sin

rather than leading you to obedience, you don't understand God's grace. So when my daughter was about 10 old, my wife taught her this fun trick. So if she's sitting in her high chair and she's playing with these toys and she drops it, she can say, uh-oh. And that means, hey, I dropped my toy. Come help me.

And so my wife is out shopping one day and I'm making lunch and she's in her high chair and she has this little ball toy she's playing with and she's playing with it and I just hear, uh-oh. So I stopped making lunch. I go over. I pick up the ball. I put it on the tray. I give her a kiss, and I go back to making lunch.

About a a minute or two later, I hear, uh-oh. So I go back over. I pick up the ball. I put it on the tray. I give her a kiss, and I go back to making lunch. Seconds later, I hear, uh-oh. And at this point, I've realized I've entered a game of fetch, and I'm the dog. And

I I'm doing something important. I'm not gonna play fetch. This is not a game I'm gonna play. So I go back and I pick up the ball and I say, Jojo, do not throw the ball. I'm not gonna get it again. Okay? No more uh-oh.

You play with it. And I put the ball on the tray, she looks me in the eyes, grabs the ball, says, uh-oh, and throws it. You think I'm a fool, don't you? Some of us, we've been given God's grace and his grace has lifted us out of our poverty, out of our brokenness, out of our shame,

and we think, well, God's just gonna forgive me again so I'm just gonna go back because he's gonna lift me back That's not what God's grace is for. It's not a game. It's not a license to keep going, uh-oh. God will forgive me. God's grace is the power that broke death off of you.

It's not a license to go it's not a license to lie. It's not a license to cheat. It's not a license to steal. Pornography. It's not a license to get drunk. It's not a license to get high. It's not a license.

Paul even talks about this in Romans chapter six. He's like, should we just keep sinning so God's grace would you would just keep pouring out more grace on us? He says, by no means absolutely not. He said, you've been saved out of death by God's grace. How could you go back to to living a life of death?

God's grace is not a license to keep on sinning. It's not permission to keep going back. But man, when you accepted Jesus, if you've accepted Jesus as your Lord, you experienced God's grace for the time, and that was the power that transferred you from death to life.

That power broke shame off of you, broke sin off of you, broke that addiction off of you. It transferred your identity.

So in the midst of your sin, remember that God's grace is the power to break chains. It's the power to escape the stronghold of sin. It's like when you are caught in the addiction, when you have those cravings, and when you're about to fall in, remember God's grace for you because it power is to free you.

It is only leaning into God's grace and realizing in the midst of your brokenness, in the midst of your in the midst of your evil desire that Jesus is pouring out his grace on me. So I'm gonna hold on to that and wrestle out of the chokehold of my sin and get back to living a life that pleases him.

God's grace is power, not permission. I think a lot of us hear this and we think, okay, does that mean God's grace is eventually gonna run out?

Does that mean there's gonna be a point where I'm just I've done it too many times and I've gone back to that addiction too many times and I've that the grace is gonna run out? And the answer we see in scripture is absolutely, unequivocally, no. His grace will never run out. Never.

He will just keep picking you up over and over and over and over and over and over again. But if God's grace is leading you to sin rather than to obedience, you don't understand His grace.

So my challenge, my encouragement to you, my friends, is this, what sin have you gotten comfortable with?

What sin have you justified in your own life? You've fallen into it so many times, you're just like, well, this is just who I am. Well, all my friends are doing it. If I don't do it, I'm gonna seem like a prick. I'm gonna people aren't gonna let I I just need to do it.

And where do you need to lean into that grace?

So what happens when we sin? When we sin, how does Jesus see us? How does Jesus look at us? Here's what John says. He says, but if anyone does sin,

we have an advocate who pleads our case before the father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins, and not only our sins,

but the sins of all the world. What John is saying is that in the midst, in the middle of our sin, Jesus is the one who stands beside us and he is our advocate. Man, that word is so powerful.

And we miss some of it because of we live in a different culture and we speak a different language. But what he's saying, that word for advocate is actually the word parakletas.

I said that last night and I had like five people come up to me and be like, it made me think of broccoli. It's like, what? Okay. Alright. I guess brock yeah. Parakletos. That's the Greek word, Parakletos. And what a Parakletos is is it's it's a legal term. So back in, bible times around like the Roman empire,

they didn't have lawyers. It wasn't like you go and you hire a lawyer to represent you. You just stand in front of the court and you yourself, you just have to plead your case.

Just explain, hey. I am innocent or hey. I am guilty. But if you didn't have good standing in society, if you weren't someone who had a lot of wealth or money or didn't have a lot of good a reputation, what you would do is you would go to your personal friend and ask them, would you be my parakletos?

Would you come into the courtroom with me? And what a parakletos would do is they would take their name, their reputation, their moral standing in society, and they would place it upon you. And they would speak on your behalf as an extension of you. And John is saying Jesus is your parakletos before God the father.

Because we have an accuser, and I don't need to tell you that. You've heard the voice of the accuser. Revelation chapter 12 says, Satan, he is the accuser who accuses men and women day and night over and over and you've heard his voice.

It's like when you're going about your day or you're laying in bed and you just have this memory from ten years ago when you were in college when, man, I can't believe I did that. You just have these thoughts of, oh, hope I hope people never find out. Man, I need to make sure nobody ever finds out that I did that.

And you're reminded and you're overwhelmed with shame because of the sin that happened in your life when it when you got too rough with your kids, when you went too far, when you didn't remember what happened and you're scared of what did. The accuser is day and night calling out our sin

before God the Father, saying he sinned, he lied, he cheated.

Judge him. And what Jesus, our advocate, does, if you have Jesus as your Lord and savior, he stands beside you and he places his name and his reputation and his goodness upon you.

And before God the father, he says, father, your honor, that's absolutely true. But I just wanna tell you, you've already punished that crime on the cross. That crime that he's being accused of, that's already been punished.

And because Jesus is our advocate, he places his name upon you and his reputation upon you, you are seen as innocent and perfect in the eyes of God. Because Jesus has placed his perfection and his goodness upon you. The second thing I want you to get out of this is Jesus has you covered.

Jesus has you covered. He is your advocate before the father. He has already paid the price. In the middle of your sin, during the act of your sin, while you're lying, while you're cheating, while you're drunk, while you're high, Jesus is already standing before the father saying, I've already paid for that, sir.

So the question is, okay, then why do I have to do anything about it? If we're talking about obedience, what does that have to do with my actions? Like, I'm so thankful for what Jesus did, but what what does that matter to me? It's because a parakletos, advocate, is deeply personal.

Jesus isn't some lawyer you hire out. He's not some fire insurance you gotta make sure you have.

To have an advocate is to you you have to know Jesus personally. And when I talk about personally, we need to to know him relationally.

And the way that you and I know him relationally is with our private practices and prayer and reading scripture and talking with him and understanding what he likes and he dislikes and who he is.

And our public practices of coming to church and worshiping him and learning about him and knowing who he is, that's how we know him personally. And Jesus is a personal advocate. We have to know him personally. Because Christianity is it's far more a relationship than it is a religion. To know Jesus personally,

that's what it means for him to be our advocate.

And so when we know Jesus personally, what does that do in our life? What's the natural next step? Here's what John says in verse three. He says, and we can we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments.

If someone claims I know God, you know, God first is on my Instagram, Christian is the t shirts I wear, if someone claims I know God but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God's word truly show how completely

they love him. That is how we know we're living in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. John is saying the natural progression, if you know Jesus personally and you love him deeply, is obedience. Daily consistent obedience.

So when John is talking about the word obedience, there's there's two words that could be translated obedience. One is this this word that means to be held under, kind of like a if you're in an army and your

your commanding officer tells you to do something, you don't have a choice and you have to do it. Yes, sir. That's not what John is saying. He could have used that word, but he didn't. He didn't use that word. The word he used is a word that means to keep, to guard, and to treasure.

He's saying, if you know him, the evidence of you knowing Jesus personally is you keep, you guard, and you treasure his commandments. What does that mean? So I grew up in Joplin, Missouri. And

my freshman year of high school, I started getting really involved in church. I had this really cool high school pastor, his name was Bryce Hanson, and he really walked with me and explained faith and discipled me. I

remember freshman year, I decided I'm gonna go all in for Jesus and I'm gonna get baptized and I'm gonna my life is gonna change. And and so I sat down with Bryce in his office and and he walked me through what baptism means and and what it mean the step that I'm about to take. And he ended up being the person that baptized me. And I remember sitting in that office and

behind him on the wall was this huge wooden wall decoration and it was a picture of this lion and it said, be strong and courageous. And it had a a bible verse at the bottom. And I asked him about it and he said, this is something that reminds me that this is what Jesus has called me to do with my faith.

This is what Jesus has called me to do, to be strong and courageous, to be bold for the gospel.

And so Bryce, he walked with me for all four years. He poured into me. He discipled me. He loved on me. He talked with me. He poured into me. And it affected me so much so that I just said, man, I'm gonna go into ministry. I'm gonna go to bible college.

And at the same time, right around the same time I graduated out of the high school ministry, he was retiring out of ministry. And he called me into his office one day. He's like, hey, Jonesy. He turns around and he pulls the big wall decoration off. He said, I want you to have this.

He said, this has meant so much to me and I know you're going into ministry and I want this to be a reminder for your life to be strong and courageous in anything God is calling you to do.

Oh my gosh. That thing was my prized possession, man. Like I went to college and I don't know if you've ever seen a guy's college dorm but it's basically it looks like an insane asylum. Like it's there's nothing on the walls. There's just like dirty socks and and and root beer cans left everywhere.

But the only decoration hanging on my dorm, my dorm wall was that big red lion wooden decoration that said be strong and courageous.

And I remember every single day I looked at it and I remember who gave it to me, and it changed the way I live my life. It changed the way I walked into ministry. It changed the way as I'm doing my schooling to be strong and courageous when in what Christ has called me to do. And I so deeply treasured that thing

because of who gave it to me. That's what John is calling us to do with the commandments of Jesus. Not to be held under his commandments, to just simply comply, but to deeply keep guard and to treasure every single word he gave to us because he's our advocate, our personal savior who stands before the father on our behalf.

And He calls us into a life that looks like His.

The third thing I want you to get out of the text today is this, obedience means you treasure His commandments. Obedience means you treasure His commands. And that can only happen when you know Jesus personally. Here's my personal experience.

The more that I lean into knowing Jesus personally into my time my bible time where I'm just reading scripture and learning about God and learning what he wants from my life, into prayer,

speaking with God, listening to God, asking God to move in my life and the people around me, the more I lean into that, the more deeply I fall in love with Jesus. Here's what I found. To know Jesus personally is to love him deeply.

And the more time I sacrifice and put into loving Jesus, into knowing Jesus personally, I love him so much more deeply. And when I love him so much more deeply, obedience just happens. Because I treasure him so much that that I can't help but want to live a life that glorifies him.

Scripture says, taste and see that the Lord is good. And I'm telling you, when you take time to taste and see how good God is, you will be overwhelmed with the goodness that he offers. He is so good.

And that goodness gets inside of you and it changes you from the inside out and you go from knowing him personally to loving him deeply. You can't help but wanna be just a radical representative of Jesus in your life. I've spent years of my life

doing these little five, ten minute devotionals every morning, doing my year through a bible plan, checking off the little check mark on my bible app and feeling like, oh, I connected with God today. And my my closeness with Jesus did not change. And my my love for Jesus did not deepen.

And my desire to obey Him and live my life for Him did not increase.

It is it's in those moments when I just say, God, I'm just gonna give you more. I'm gonna give more time to you. I'm gonna give more energy to you. I'm gonna spend

twenty, thirty, forty, an hour with you because you're I wanna know you personally. It's in those moments that I start to be filled with God's presence and filled with his holy spirit and being transformed, and I just can't wait to live the life that God has called me to live.

My encouragement to you is maybe the reason you have you struggle with obeying God is because you haven't taken time to know him personally. What if you went home this week and whatever time you're spending with God, you decided to double it?

For those of you that are spending no time with God, that's gonna be incredibly easy.

If you're not, maybe you should start. But but what if instead of these small devotionals where we're just checking off, connected with God, that we just took time like we're sitting with someone we deeply love and we just sit and we waste time in his presence?

Because wasting time with Jesus is is the best use of your time you could ever use. What if you double? If you do five minutes, do ten. If you do 10, do 20. If you do 20, do 30. If you do 30, do an hour. If you do an hour, do two. Because it's the best way you could possibly waste your time.

And you realize, man, your life is becoming everything you always hoped it would be.

When we get into this idea of obedience, I think it can naturally lead us to this question of, okay, I need to be obedient. How obedient do I have to be? And I think that's a really natural question, but it's completely the wrong question. Like if I go home to my wife today and I say, babe, I love you.

How much do I have to love you? I've been married for five years and I can tell you right now that is not gonna go well. Okay? Like if you sat down with your dad tomorrow, if you had the opportunity, wherever your dad is, whoever he is, if if if you had the opportunity to sit down with him

and he said, hey, I just want you to know you're one of the most important people in my life. How much do I need to love you? There's something in your soul that would break because what that communicates is, okay. Well, you you don't love me that much because what love does is it naturally simply gives.

It gives because it wants to be it wants you. It wants to be connected to you. That's what love is. That's what love does. And so the better question that we can bring to Jesus is, Jesus, could you help me love you more?

I imagine of all the prayers that Jesus is here, that's one of his favorites. Would you help me love you more? What if you started to pray that every day and he started to answer that? I'm telling you, you would you'd love him more deeply and you you'd obey him in a way you never thought imaginable

because you realize he's everything you've ever wanted.

Where's one area? What's one thing that you need to start doing in your life just because Jesus asked you to do it? Not because this will be good for me, not because I could see the benefit,

not because this is a healthy but what's one area in your life that you need to just do something simply because Jesus told you to do it? Maybe forgiveness makes no sense in your life, but Jesus asked you to do it.

Maybe cutting off this relationship makes no sense in your life. Jesus asked you to do it.

Maybe stopping this addiction and confessing your sin and asking people to hold you accountable and downloading software on your phone makes no sense in your life. It would only make your life worse. Jesus asked you to do it.

What's one area in your life that you need to go home and just do something simply because Jesus asked you to do it? Would you do that this week? Just one thing. And see what's on the other side of obedience.

It's so cool, the the seat I get to sit in here at Rock Point, that I get to just be a pastor and hear how God is radically changing people's lives.

Like I get to see people on the other side of saying yes to Jesus and stepping into obedience, and I get to see just how fulfilled and happy and excited they are. I talking a couple months ago to this woman who comes to our church and she was talking about she's lived her whole life following Jesus and yet recently she decided she was finally going to start giving for the first time. Because for so long it didn't make sense. She she was barely being able to make ends meet. And she wasn't

she didn't think she would be able to afford it. She said, finally something broke in my heart and I decided I'm just gonna start giving. So she stepped into obedience, she started giving, and here's what she said, I couldn't believe it.

She said, God did way more when I gave him 10% and the rest of the 90% was in his hands than when the 100% was in my hands all along. God took my 90% way further than I could ever take my 100%. And I got to see her so unbelievably

filled with joy and excitement because God showed up in her life because she stepped into obedience. I was talking a couple weeks to a woman who came up to me and she said, Jonesy, I need to talk to you. I said, what's going on? And she said, I don't know what's happening.

A couple weeks ago there was this woman who was in front of me at the grocery store and she swiped her card and it declined and she she she couldn't pay for her groceries and I just felt like I needed to pay for them so I paid for them. I said, okay.

So then a couple days ago, there was a guy who was at a we were at the gas station he couldn't pay for his gas. And I just felt like I need to pay for his tank of gas. So I went over and I swiped my card to pay for his tank of gas. I was like, okay.

She's like, man, I that's awesome and I'm so excited and I can't believe God's using me, but what's happening?

And I said, you are stepping into the life that Jesus has always intended for you. A life of giving, a life of joy, a life of obedience where you are being used by God and it is the greatest place on planet earth to live.

I'll tell you what happened to me a couple weeks ago. My wife was out of town, on a trip with her friends, and I was watching my daughter. And I was doing my, you know, bible time and and and and spending time with God. And so I live in a new build community, and I have a dirt backyard. And

our place is just riddled with those turf salesman. You know what I'm talking about? It's like they're just on my door every day. They're always because they can see the dirt backyard. And so they they come up and I just fell for it one too many times. I'm like, I don't wanna have another awkward conversation. I don't wanna tell them I can't afford it again. Like, I don't wanna do it. And so

I'm alone with my daughter doing my bible time, and I hear a knock at the door, and I'm like, oh, no. Not again. I go up to the peephole, and it's like he had that look you could just tell he wanted to sell turf to you. You know. You know.

And I was like, absolutely not. And so I just walked back and I was like, man, I'm feeling good about myself. I'm gonna go spend time with Jesus. And I just got overwhelmed with this sense and this conviction of, Hunter, if you'd been listening to me,

I wanted to use you in a really powerful way to point that guy to Jesus. And I said, oh, I'm sorry, Lord. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I missed it. I missed it. And here's what I said, God, you give me another chance, I'll do it. If you give me another chance to share would you give me another I wanna do it.

And I went back, and about an hour later, I just put my daughter down for a nap. I was about to go eat lunch and experience just some quiet and peace for a little bit. And then as soon as I close the door to her room, I hear their doorbell go off. I'm like, okay, God. Okay.

I told you I'd do this. And I go up and I look and it seems like the same guy's out there. I'm like, okay.

Okay. So I open the door, I walk out, and the guy turns around. And it was a student that I had known for years who went to after school hangout here at Rock Point, who was a part of the Latter day Saints church down the street. And I'll call him Steven because I didn't ask him if I could tell the story. I said, Steven?

He said, Jonesy? I said, what are you doing here? And he explained that he's about to go on his mission and he's just wanting to make some money before he goes on his mission. And and and I was like he was like, it's crazy.

I knocked on all these doors and nobody answered. And I I was ready to go home, and I just got this overwhelming sense that I need to come and knock on these doors again. I said, oh, really?

Isn't that weird?

And we talk and he gives me his pitch and I say, hey, Steven, I feel like God is just he wants me to pray for you. Can I just pray for you?

He said, yeah. So I put my hand on his back and I just prayed, God, would you open his eyes to see you in a way he's never seen you before? Would you reveal yourself in ways he's never experienced? Would you lead him in to the fullness of truth?

And I finished praying and I went back inside. And as I closed the door, I'm shaking because I just got used by God.

And I'm not like a professional Christian. I missed it. And I said, God would you send him back? And he sent him back and God used me. And I was so unbelievably thankful that God used me on the other side of obedience. You have no idea what you're missing out on the other side of obedience. You have no idea.

Because when you understand that God's grace is a power to rescue you out of sin, to walk away from sin, that Jesus is your advocate who stands before you and he walks with you and you treasure him so deeply and you love him so longingly that you can't help but want to treasure what he's given to you.

Then on the other side of that is the life that God has always promised for you. And I'm not saying obedience is always easy. Sometimes it's incredibly hard. But the beautiful part of stepping through that door of obedience is on the other side is all in God's hands.

It might be hard, but at least I'm in his hands. It might be a sacrifice, but at least I'm in his hands. At least he's gonna show up for me now.

Where in your life do you need to step into obedience? Where in your life do you need to to step away from that sin and say yes to God? Because I'm telling you, on the other side of that obedience is the life that you're so deeply longing for with Jesus. Father God, I thank you for this room.

I thank you for your church. I thank you that you bring us you you you draw us towards yourself so that we can love you more deeply. You stand beside us and you cover us with your righteousness in your name. You pour out your grace endlessly so that we can keep walking uprightly with you.

Would you do something in our heart and soul? Would you speak to us clearly? Would would you help us love you more, Lord?

Because we wanna be changed and we wanna live the life you've called us into. In Jesus' name, we pray everyone said, amen. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. You can stay connected with us through rockwind.io or our social media.