[SPEAKER_00]: A man, turn with me in your Bibles to first Corinthians chapter three, first Corinthians chapter three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it always this dark in here when the preaching happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: Cole, could you hit that light on the side there?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want the lights to come up so we can look at paper Bibles.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a paper Bible and I sympathize with those of you who have paper Bibles in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, first Corinthians chapter three, first Corinthians chapter number three, starting in verse four.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, for when one says, I follow Paul and another, I follow a Paulus, are you not being merely human?
[SPEAKER_00]: What then is a Paulus?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is Paul?
[SPEAKER_00]: Servants through whom you believed.
[SPEAKER_00]: as the Lord assigned to each.
[SPEAKER_00]: I planted a polyswatter than God gave the growth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but God who gives the growth, he who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor for we are God's fellow workers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are God's field, God's building.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you'll jump down to verse twenty one there,
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, so let no one boast in men for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollis or Seafis or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I want to preach a message to you that I'm, I think, is going to be appropriate for our first Sunday together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just calling this message and you will learn over time that I just call messages what they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Call a spade a spade.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't try to church it up too much on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to preach a message today called every pastor leads differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every pastor leads it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at somebody and say everybody leads differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody leads differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you probably noticed if you pay attention that there's an array of pulpits up here this morning because I like to have options.
[SPEAKER_00]: I might want to get down here and change things up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never know.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's not the reason they're here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have two pulpits beside me today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got Dr. Kim drones pulpit right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's appropriate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got Pastor Derek drones pulpit right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's got more time on his hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could get his doctrine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We won't know the two of them apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm actually standing, I think it's been said a few times, I don't know if you know this, but the founding pastor Will Smith, his Bible, is in the foundation under this pulpit area right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I actually kind of am in this orbit of the legacy of the church this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe Will Smith started this and birthed this movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Dr. Kim drawn was the one who really took the church to the next level.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took it to the next level.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Pastor Derek drawn was the one who brought it up to the current time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pastor Derek made sure that the church didn't say in the past, but it was still positioned to reach people in this current
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a legacy of pastors here that I stand up in today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm grateful for these men.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, myself are grateful for these men because we have come to the greater mobile area with a head start on reaching people for the kingdom because of the faithful and fruitful service of the men who have served before us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good place to give the Lord a praise.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our text this morning, you will notice that there is a tendency for people to gravitate towards a particular personality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that can be troublesome because all things are yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Will Smith has done is yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Dr. Kim drone has done, it is yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Pastor Derek drone has done, it is yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I will do from this moment for it is yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is yours in the name of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of it belongs to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of us serving different seasons of this church for different purposes for different reasons at different times.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this morning what I want to do is I just want to talk to you a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: about the differences of how pastors lead because here's what I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some things that some of you loved about every one of these pastors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope so.
[SPEAKER_00]: If not, you have great endurance to still be here, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's something that you love about all of these pastors.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got bad news.
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably am going to do those things differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every one of you probably have something about each one of these men that if you could just change it,
[SPEAKER_00]: you would.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got more bad news for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's probably the stuff I'm going to do just like these people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be just like over the years I've realized that people have a tendency to really frame up what they believe a pastor is and they just can't see beyond it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Ashley and I got married,
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a true story.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we decided to get married, we got engaged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ash's grandmother had a real problem with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not grams.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just want to be clear, which grandmother it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: But her grandmother had a real problem with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Ash couldn't figure out what her issue was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, she got her talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes she's got to get people talking, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: She got her talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was upset because she didn't understand how Ashley
[SPEAKER_00]: was going to marry someone and then go live inside of a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, y'all all think I live here too.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't live at the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not something pastors do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Ashley's grandmother had got it in her mind that pastors live at the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she was really against her Mary and one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what happens is we'll build a mental mold of what we think a pastor is and sometimes it's hard to break out of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, a lot of this has its origins in the Reformation.
[SPEAKER_00]: people like Luther and Calvin and Zwing Lee and they began to look at the abuses in the Catholic Church and they started to write and frame a lot of their theology around this idea that
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just kind of neutralize regardless of the authority level or the unique giftings.
[SPEAKER_00]: They said, everybody's a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that got into the culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the Protestant culture, we have a tendency to look at everybody as a pastor, regardless of their function in the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the problem with that is, is that once you look at everybody as a pastor and you define what a pastor is, well, guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You've set yourself up to be disappointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: because no one can live up to the structure or the standard of the mold that you've made in your mind of what a pastor is supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm preaching better than you're letting on this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today I want to look at three relationships in the scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people who did ministry in proximity to one another, most of these are successor and predecessor relationships, but people who led the same groups at the same times, yet were very different leaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to talk to you about these for a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am going to teach a little bit more today, but if you're ready, shout yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, Moses and Joshua, who I want to look at first, Moses and Joshua,
[SPEAKER_00]: are going to demonstrate for us different execution muscles amongst leaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at Exodus chapter fourteen verse twenty one it says, then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord drove back the sea by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry ground and the waters were divided.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Moses puts his hand out over the sea, the waters separate.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go forward to Joshua chapter three verse six, it says this and Joshua said to the priest, take up the ark of the covenant and pass on before the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they took the ark of the covenant and went before the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You jump down to verse fifteen and it says in as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan
[SPEAKER_00]: and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water for sixteen says the waters coming down from above stood and rose in a heap very far away.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we have are two different instances where the waters are parted for the people of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are parted for Israel coming out of Egypt, then they are parted for Israel coming out of the wilderness.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you look closely, you will notice Moses holds his hand out over the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: Joshua tells the priest, go take the ark and step in the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we see is a dynamic between these two of the talent-driven leader and the team-driven leader, or the doer versus the delegator.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we see here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both serve us in some way.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are moments that every leader has to know which way they have to lean, but what I have found is when leaders are excited or under pressure, which means like, ninety-five percent of the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's either excited or under pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: What they are naturally is going to come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this week, let me just give you an example.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was not supposed to lead worship this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was planning on coming to the church for eight weeks and not seeing a single song.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I could shake y'all's hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have a voice at two p.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: on Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm preaching right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was the plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wednesday?
[SPEAKER_00]: The plan changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Worshiply to bail at the last minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other pastors would have started bacon phone calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't call no body.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came in here and I tore this room up till I understood how it worked and I came in here and I led worship this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been up here till the AM every morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think I left here last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know when Lee left because we talked for a little while but I think it was ten thirty when he left and then I got out of here even later than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I just spent the time to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I'm driven a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a little bit of a, I'll just take care.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll make it happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll bear it up and I'll go do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not everybody is like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're going to see that come out in me at moments.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to preach on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to tell you how people lead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, number two, Elijah versus Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really want you to listen to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, if you wonder what the good part of the message is, we're about to get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah versus Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have similar ministries.
[SPEAKER_00]: and similar names.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I was the Lord, I'd have given them better, more different names.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God, I'm not the Lord, but this is one area I think God could have done it a little better.
[SPEAKER_00]: They get confusing, amen?
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all got elucin' up.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think I want you to laugh or amen, just go for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be freeing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll be done at the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're serotonin' or rise all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But everybody is designed differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every person, every individual is designed differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing you'll learn about us in leadership is that actually and I both believe that an understanding of your personality make up will help you both succeed personally and interpersonally with other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are several different personality profiles that you can use or personality tests.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can use we use one called the color personalities.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very similar to the disk test if you've ever heard of the disk test.
[SPEAKER_00]: But these two individuals, if you look at the text long enough, you're going to see these two profits have incredibly different personality types.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elygia,
[SPEAKER_00]: is what you would call a more sanguine personality, or on the color personality test.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying this because I know some people we've walked through the color personality, you're probably watching right now shout out to y'all this morning on the video.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we would call it a blue personality.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're big, bubbly, emotional.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the life of the party, but they all have high highs and they can have low lows.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see that with Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Elijah is a little more of a melancholy personality.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a little more even keel.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's what we would call a green personality on the color.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all would get the color soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to know what color you are by the time we're done with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's green.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a little more data and facts and even kill and he makes decisions based on competency and he's about processes and systems and so that's he likes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're very different personalities.
[SPEAKER_00]: That green blue paradox that difference between those two is pretty huge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you say, well, Pastor, how do you figure that that is the case?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you were just to think about when Elisha calls or Elijah calls fire down from heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he's out there with the profits of bail.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's taunting these guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's rolling on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says some stuff that if you read the King James Bible is a little crude.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's out there acting up, acting up full.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the end of it, he calls down fire from heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Big, big moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fifteen minutes later, he is bald up in the fetal position, scared to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: of a woman who he probably could just do the same thing too, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So big personality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got Elijah, remember when naming the leper came to see Elijah and he wanted to be healed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah so even kill, he only would come out the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here you go, see the guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guys there to get healed.
[SPEAKER_00]: This guy was a pretty big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even was a pretty big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here you go, see him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just says, go, tell him to jump in the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because Elijah's a little more like, I mean, he's just got to do what you got to do, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can come out there and y'all are going to find out which one I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because somebody y'all are going to want to do counseling sessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to just look at you and go, if you just do what you do, it would solve itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, find out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's how Elijah leads.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I want to just say this because, and I'm saying this a little in my preemptive defense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a little bit more like an Elijah, which isn't great necessarily in the Pentecostal world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to say prophetically, because I wasn't planning on saying it, so that must be what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a spirit on Pentecostals in Mobile.
[SPEAKER_00]: that I plan to confront.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want you to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some, there's some immaturities and some stuff down in this region.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if it's the amount of witchcraft that has mixed in with penny cost down here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm about to just light a torch and go for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just now I'm pastoring all of a sudden.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have told people before I don't have a real strong pastoral nature, but I will prophesy to it if I see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all are going to what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just mess around and you'll find out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm having fun now.
[SPEAKER_00]: See y'all ought to loosen up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he likes you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or Elijah, I'm sorry, Pinycostals have a tendency to like Elijah's more than they like Elijah's.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm more of an Elijah, but Pinycostals tend to like people who are incredibly demonstrative, people who are somewhat entertaining, people who run around and listen, and at times, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what we do is we really like to have a little thrill ride in church sometimes, rather than actually receive the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we like Elijah's.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know because some of y'all have bought and read ten books from people who have predicted things that were going to happen every single one of the books has turned out to be false.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stuff never happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know you're going to buy book number eleven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that we just give into that stuff sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am a little bit more of an Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason is is that when you look at Elijah's and Elijah's,
[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah is, he's big, he's demonstrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: But guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah does twice the amount of miracles as Elijah in the Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah does eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah does sixteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you were to divide those miracles into two categories, I would call
[SPEAKER_00]: One category, entertaining, demonstrative, demonstrative miracles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Calling fire down from heaven, things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Demonstrative stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even Elisha, calling the bear out to kill the kids who made fun of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: All teenagers watch out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told you, I'm a little more of an Elisha.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so those are demonstrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you have another category, it would be more useful miracles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things that actually impact people's lives, like their kids coming back from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: or having enough oil to survive on, amen enough currency to survive on, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So useful miracles.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to divide the two of those categories, Elisha produces eighty-one percent useful miracles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eighty-one percent of his miracles are useful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elisha's, thirty-seven percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of Elisha's ministry is spectacle over substance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, God used him in a great way, but even if you look at their legacy, Elijah, he's taken up in a whirlwind into heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: That felt real pity, gospel when I did that right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not to put that on TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: That'll be on the intro to the television show, Holly Lue.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's taken up in a whirlwind.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a spectacle.
[SPEAKER_00]: But guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's out of here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's done.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never hear from Elijah again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elijah dies and is buried like any other man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one day, one day there's some people who are buried in their buddy in a cemetery and a gang starts coming up along and they get scared and rather than finishing buried in their friend, they throw him into an open grave which happens to be the grave of a decomposing Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: He touches those old bones and he comes back to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is something about legacy that interests me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to blow in, blow up, and blow out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to have a good show for you on Sundays.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to preach something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to give you something that actually works.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a person who is irritated with pinnacles falling off in the parking lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want it to get into your life at Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, number three, David versus Solomon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got to move here.
[SPEAKER_00]: David versus Solomon.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one that's very important for us because there are different eras that define the decisions that leaders make.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are different eras that define these decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both David and Solomon ruled over the United Kingdom of Judah and Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they did it at very different times, even though they ruled back to back.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cultural climate was very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it drove a lot of their decisions during David's reign.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's instability in the government.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's division amongst God's people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's war about every other week.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's constantly fighting versus Solomon who leads at a time when there's unity.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's prosperity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Israel is the envy of the whole world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's flowing into Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's money is flowing into Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a completely different time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the big idea I need you to get is that an external condition does determine a leader's response.
[SPEAKER_00]: It determines a leader's response.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it is easy to get upset with a decision that gets made when you don't bear the weight of responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is easy to look at things and kind of get ruffled because your little thing got touched.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a big picture going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you get outside of the big picture of this building in a few weeks, I will tell you statistically how many people in the greater mobile area are going to go to hell if we don't do something about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's actual numbers.
[SPEAKER_00]: The numbers matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually said it earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: The numbers matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we don't intervene, people go to hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not own my watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Period.
[SPEAKER_00]: End of story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's inevitable that someone's going to say, well, culture and circumstances shouldn't determine how you leader, how you preach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the truth is the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is always the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's stuff that's true today, it's always been true.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are cultural situations that determine what truth we must pull out of the treasure chest and share at a given time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for instance, let me just say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're living in a culture and I'm sensitive to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am like anybody with a brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am navigating this issue in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a huge LGBT issue in the church right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how to respond to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know what to do about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how to help people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how there's an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just going to say the transgender thing is it has hit the culture incredibly hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: On one hand, it's sin and it's always been sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always going to be sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's just divorce ourselves from that for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just leave that over here for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just bad for people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's running people's lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: The highest suicide rate is amongst these people right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, in any, if, you know, tomorrow, if they went, hey, you know what, ninety percent of NFL players want to kill themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd be investigating that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're acting like it's normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of investigating and saying, what's really going on here?
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what I want you to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is there's an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Truth is there's a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if I did a six week study or a six week sermon series on transgender stuff, today it might serve a really great purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might, in fact, it might be the most viewed thing we ever do on the internet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be big deal today.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I was to preach this sermon series in nineteen eighty seven,
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of feels like a waste of six weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the whole world is going, is Ricky wearing a dress?
[SPEAKER_00]: When that's the response and the whole world knows this probably ain't good.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to spend six weeks hammering it into people.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how culture determines the decisions that leaders make.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you with me this morning?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so most leaders have decisions that they'd like to make under perfect conditions.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'll just tell you right now, there are things that if all the stars aligned and we got hit with, you know, a million dollars today and everybody just came to me after service and said, you know what, we'll just go with whatever you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll do what, however you, if we like that, if we had buy in and money and it was just all kosher overnight, there's some stuff I'd do tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: No doubt, but that's not the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, we don't have a million dollars sitting in the bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, however, I will tell you, I have seen churches get a million dollar gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is possible in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, Lord, we receive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I knew everybody was going to be kosher with everything that we wanted to do, yeah, there's some stuff I do that, but that's not the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where everybody's at.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to fill y'all out, trying to figure out where y'all are.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, there's decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: That I wouldn't make today, that urgency means I have to make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told y'all, I wanted to come in here, not preach right, or not a sing for eight weeks, had to do it this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why urgency?
[SPEAKER_00]: The culture, the time, the things that are happening, the external conditions, they're determining some of the decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how
[SPEAKER_00]: leaders have to respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how I want to close this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to tell you that over time you're going to realize this that there are some things about me that are going to be very different from any pastor that you've ever met.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will in some ways be like no pastor you've ever encountered.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other ways, I will be so like every pastor you have ever met in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what I want us to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want us to move forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want us to believe God for the greatest thing that he's ever done in this area and in this church.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I believe that God is about to move in this church in a way that we experience the greatest season and the most fruitful season of ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have ever seen in this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good place to say amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to act.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to move.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to do what we have to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to take action.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any blacksmith would tell you, you've got a strike while the iron is hot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was Leonard Ravenhill who said that the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in two thousand eight, a business coach named Robert Ringer wrote these words which have impacted me greatly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably for the first time anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just said this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said success loves speed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It loves speed.
[SPEAKER_00]: In five weeks, I am going to start a series on the Great Commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to talk for several weeks about how dire it is that we make certain moves to reach this area for Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm resisting the urge to start talking about that right now, but in five weeks, we're going to have a serious conversation over about four weeks about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, I want to ask you to do three things.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how I'm going to ask you to help this pastor who is different from other pastors and the same as other pastors and the one that is stepped into this season.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I'm going to ask from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason that I'm doing this on a Sunday morning is frankly just because we
[SPEAKER_00]: are not big enough for you to just come to church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need you to be the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't have you casually attend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll pray for you if you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm probably going to walk past you until we get about another hundred people in here to walk toward somebody who's ready to get busy in the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: because that's where we are as a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is where we're living right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody can sit on the sidelines.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we're talking about some of the stuff we're talking about today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so here's number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one is we need your talent.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need your talent.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing I've learned this week, particularly, is that I cannot do it all on my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I operated this week at about a hundred and five percent of my capacity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go home and at two o'clock, if any of y'all call me, you will be the worst person in this whole church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take a nap and talk to any offered day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have to come together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to get together because how many of the Bible says if one can put a thousand to flight?
[SPEAKER_00]: Two can put ten thousand to flight.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a supernatural multiplication.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to invite you to do something this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually talked about it earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to invite you to join the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know some of y'all may not get the phone thing, taking it out and scanning the QR code, get used to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna be scanning QR codes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you the order, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was explaining this to Cole this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father, the son, the Holy Ghost, the QR code.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the order, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So scanning the QR code, and this is what I need you to tell me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you gonna, where are you gonna step in?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you gonna step in and make a difference?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you going to step in and get involved?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to get on the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why Wednesday nights are going to be team nights moving forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be talking to you about leadership in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be sharing some culture items with you in the church every Wednesday night.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to last for about a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're going to come in here after I teach you and we're going to pray for twenty twenty five minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to intercede for this city and this church and the people who have needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to pray and we're going to call heaven down into this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, second place is your treasure, your treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just took the most uncomfortable offering that I'm going to have to take the first one, so now that's out of my system.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need you to step up in this ministry and trust God with the first ten percent of your income.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to share just a couple of things with you real quick and I'm going to move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have preached over my time, but now I'm feeling good and I don't really care.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have stepped into some incredible assets here at the church to really do gospel ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're sitting on some really fantastic stuff here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got about twenty acres of land.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got this building that is paid for.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean you did it, you might as well, you might as well clap.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have this incredible asset.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have this incredible asset.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time though, when we've done a little bit of digging into the finances here, we've learned two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is that very few people sitting in this room are active givers.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're an active giver, you're part of a very exclusive club at this church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the second thing that we've learned is that most of our active givers are not tithers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need you to step up and trust God with the first ten percent of your income.
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise you, it will do more for you than it will for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in this season, we've got to be the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we've got people willing to say I'll give ten thousand dollars,
[SPEAKER_00]: Write the tithe check and trust the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Learn something from that guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen?
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees something.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I will just acknowledge this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that sometimes when there's transition, people stop giving because there is an uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_00]: People don't know what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Need you to listen to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: That some of y'all this will be your, the part you wanted from the whole message.
[SPEAKER_00]: On Wednesday night, one of our team nights, September, tenth,
[SPEAKER_00]: Wednesday, September, some of my board is about to learn about this, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So congratulations, you're getting information.
[SPEAKER_00]: On September tenth, Wednesday night, I am going to host an in-formal and unofficial business meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: In-formal, unofficial.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you a little what's going on financially historically.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to share a little bit about what's going on presently and I'm going to share with you a little bit about what's going to be happening in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so we're going to bring you into the know on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you've had questions, comments, concerns, get them to the office.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll probably talk about it that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are going to have that unofficial meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But right now, we need you to step up and trust the Lord with your first ten percent more than we need it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a tyler in the house, and you know that's true, say amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, the last thing is your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Need your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times people will say they need your time and they'll say I need you to give more time to the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: A really don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sunday morning is going to be the big moment of ministry here at the church for the for the season moving forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you're here right now you are perfect to serve in ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that way every time we have twenty guests walk in the church there will be a hundred and twenty people here to help them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will be the most well taken care of person in Sarah Land Alabama on that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I'm actually asking you forward with your time is your graciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some things that you will want me to change quickly that I won't be able to change quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some things that you will want me to change very slowly that you are about to watch me
[SPEAKER_00]: Roadrunner this bad boy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm about to Tasmanian devil it in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll move faster.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm gonna ask you for is just to be gracious in this season of the ministry and of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just remember this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why I want you to take away from this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's a strange sermon, but this is a good us getting to know each other moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has put you in a special place in my heart in just a little bit of time that I have stepped into this role.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not do anything to intentionally hurt you or hurt the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you will trust the Lord and trust your pastor and some of you may say, well, you're not the pastor, I want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm the one you got.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you'll trust the Lord, trust your pastor, I promise we're about to see God do a great work in this region.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you believe it, give the Lord a hand-clap of praise this morning.