[SPEAKER_00]: Praise the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you want me in first Kings chapter 20, first Kings chapter 20, starting in verse 35, first Kings chapter 20, verse 35, it says, and a certain man of the sons of the prophet said to his fellow, at the command of the Lord, strike me please, but the man refused to strike him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're starting kind of hot and heavy here.
[SPEAKER_00]: This prophet rolls up on a guy on a street and says, hey, would you punch me in the face?
[SPEAKER_00]: And like anybody with any sense whatsoever, the man goes, no, I'm not gonna do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a word from the Lord, and so the prophet says in verse 27, and the people, I'm sorry, in verse 36, then he said to him, because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as you have gone from me, a lion shall strike you down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as he departed from him, a lion met him and struck him down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he found another man and said, strike me, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: and without any hesitation whatsoever because there's some stuff that you see that marks you, the man struck him, struck him and wounded him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means he hit him hard because he said, I'm not going to get bit up by a lion today.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hit him hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the prophet departed and waited for the king by the way, disguising himself with a bandage over his eyes and as the king passed, he cried to the king and said, your servant went out into the midst of the battle and behold, a soldier turned and brought to me, a man and said, guard this man, if by any means, he is missing, your life shall be for his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, you'll pay a talent of silver.
[SPEAKER_00]: give you some perspective, a talent that's silver in today's currency would be about $30,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, one of two things you'll happen, you either go to die if you don't do this or I'm going to find you $30,000 if you don't do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 40, and as your servant was busy here in there, he was gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: the king of Israel said to him, so shall your judgment be you yourself have decided it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he hurried to take the bandage away from his eyes and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said to him, thus says the Lord, because you have let go out of your hand, the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life and your people for his people and the king of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: went to his house, vexed and selling, and came to Samaria.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I want to talk to you about this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to focus in on verse 40, verse 40.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: As your servant was busy here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get busy here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get busy with a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in a series called, we are relentlessly driven by the mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: We started in the first week with the Great Commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what we've been called to do to make disciples of all nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And last week we talked about a strategy for reaching the loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hit you with some numbers and we talked about what the best way is to reach people who are dying and going to hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of you want to see people say, say, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this week what I want to do is I want to talk to you on the similar theme, but I'm going to share with you the title in a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have had
[SPEAKER_00]: the privilege to coach and consult pastors around the country for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the phone calls that I take or pastors who are having issues that they need to figure out in their church and their personal life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you just learn to see things and you kind of start to see patterns over time and I have learned that generally the difference between a growing church and a dying church
[SPEAKER_00]: well-intentioned distractions that they allow to pull away from the mission of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is easy to allow to happen because, well, frankly, there's a lot of good ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of good ideas out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of good things that I see the assistant principal not in real heavy right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can't do everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's a Bible principle that you can't do everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you want to do more, you have to focus on certain things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that Bible principles found in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 7.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ESV says that the lesser is or the inferior is blessed by the superior.
[SPEAKER_00]: But can I get Hebrews chapter there, we go, yeah, that the inferior is blessed by the superior.
[SPEAKER_00]: The NASV says that it is without dispute that the lesser is blessed by the greater.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, if you get the high priority stuff handled, everything else will be taken care of.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything else will receive blessing from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And oftentimes, the decision on whether or not to create or host certain ministries in churches does not come down to whether or not something is a good idea or a bad idea, whether or not something is even right or wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it comes down to whether or not there's enough bandwidth to do that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I have a friend in Kansas, uh, he's one of my best friends in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He pastors a church there that's growing like crazy in the middle of nowhere, which makes it even more impressive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um, so he's growing this church and he just recently got rid of his church choir.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Debbie would know, I like having a church choir.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to, I'm a choir guy, so that got my attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because I mean, I'm not gonna lie to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If 75 of you wanted to hop up here and start a choir today, I won't do it with seven of you, but I'll do it with 75 of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Sarah Land Church Mass Choir, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I called my attention that he got rid of the choir because that's something I'm into.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, why'd you do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I don't have enough people working in children's ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have enough people working in children's ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: And organizationally, operationally, kids' ministry is more important to a Sunday morning than a church choir is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Church choir is a great idea, but it's the lesser.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the lesser is blessed by the greater, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was actually revisiting a book that I have on my shelf called essentialism, a man named Greg McAllen wrote this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what he said about the word priority.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said the word priority came into the English language in the 1400s.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was singular.
[SPEAKER_00]: It meant that the very first or prior thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It stayed singular for the next 500 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities.
[SPEAKER_00]: illogically we reasoned that by changing the world we could bend reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow we would now be able to have multiple first things.
[SPEAKER_00]: People in companies routinely do just that one leader told me of his experience in a company that talked about priority one, priority two, priority three, priority four, and priority five.
[SPEAKER_00]: This gave the impression of many things being the priority, but actually meant nothing was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have learned that churches that do everything tend to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Churches that spread themselves incredibly thin cannot accomplish anything and the reason I'm preaching this today is that I would hate for Jesus Christ to physically walk through that back door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clap his hands together, get our attention and say, excuse me, church, why haven't you won the city for the gospel's sake and the only answer we have is Lord, your servant was busy here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the only answer we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been distracted by things that are not the mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: The prophet Habakkuk encourages leaders to write the vision and make it plain so the people can run.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my wife gave me the best opportunity to illustrate the need to press this this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mission, our vision, our guiding statement for this time and moving forward indefinitely is that we are building a Jesus centered spirit field church for all people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are building a Jesus sinner, spirit-filled church for all people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to expand on that just a little bit this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're building a Jesus-centered spirit-filled church for all people that is large enough to lead hundreds to believe the gospel every week.
[SPEAKER_00]: substantial enough to equip believers to build incredible lives, somebody say, amen right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for minimally enough to reshape the spiritual and social culture of our city, we're going to be a church that's on mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're doing that by focusing on four things in our church.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are four ministries that are going to get all of my attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: for the foreseeable future.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the four areas, it's preaching, it's worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as the preacher, I do always have to compliment the worship leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did a fantastic job this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look good doing it, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't have done it better myself, in fact.
[SPEAKER_00]: So worship, kids, kids ministry,
[SPEAKER_00]: and hospitality, hospitality, these are the four areas where we are putting all of our attention because they equal one thing, a powerful Sunday morning experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this morning's message, what I'm gonna talk about, I'm gonna tell you how we're gonna keep ourselves from being busy here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: How we stay on task, we stay focused, we stay on the mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: This morning today's message is called,
[SPEAKER_00]: We say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stay in our lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's today's message.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to get started if you're ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give the Lord a praise here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stay in the right lane in part because we are Americans.
[SPEAKER_00]: bless God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we stay in the the right lane and there is no doubt about it that there are right and wrong lanes.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are right and wrong lanes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember when I was a teenager, my grandfather, who I called DA, Mimo and Da,
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't know where it came from, but it stuck, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I called him, Doc.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Doc was taking me to a music store.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what we were going for, but we were going to a music store.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had to go somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he pulls over into the turning line to go wherever he's going.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there wasn't no turning line.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a two-lane road.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the incoming trial or the oncoming traffic lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was, in fact, oncoming traffic at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I am scared to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of you know that there is a right lane in our own lane?
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, now there's a right lane morally, there's a right lane ethically, there's a right lane, theological.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are right lanes that we have to be in.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just want to let you know, there's also a functionally right lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna talk to y'all like a group of pastors for the next three minutes, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, everybody feeling good?
[SPEAKER_00]: Say, well promotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here we go, so I want to talk to you like pastors for a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a functionally right lane that accomplishes the mission of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a functionally right lane that grows the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to let you know, I want to say this in front of everybody that there is, I will admit more than one way to grow a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is more than one way to grow a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's not like a thousand.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't, there may be, and I'm telling, and this is an educated, I've been doing this for a while, I've been around maybe five, there may be five ways, and you kind of got to just decide as a leader of a church to pick one and go with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way we're going to grow the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a functionally right lane, because we don't get where we're going by default, we get there by design.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's good you could put that anywhere in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't get where we're going by default.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get there by design.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Matthew chapter seven, Jesus said this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, beware of false prophets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly or ravenous wolves, you'll recognize them by their fruits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from fistles.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is, as grapes don't come from thorn bushes, but oranges don't come from bananas and strawberries don't come from apples.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't plant apple seeds and expect oranges.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we start with the end goal in mind, if we start with the destination in mind, guess what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means the strategy has already been determined.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can figure out where you want to go, you do know how to get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's stuff that will get you there and stuff that won't get you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to be big and buff and I'd like y'all to be intimidated if I hadn't buttoned my shirt right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to have me a 19-pack, hey man, chisel, but guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't just warn it and then eat the retos and drink mountain, dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that didn't get you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, that is how you get this, say you man, that's... If you were going for this, I can tell you how to get there, hey man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I want to go to Birmingham, if I want to go to Birmingham, I can't get on I-10.
[SPEAKER_00]: The decision to go to Birmingham tells me I-10's the wrong way, and I-65 is the right way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you figure out where you want to go, how to get there is determined, and in the same way, if we want to reach the city and bring them to Jesus Christ, then we have to do the things that move our church in that direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, we stay in our lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stay in the right lane, we stay in our lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second Corinthians chapter 10, starting in verse 13 says, but we will not boast beyond limits, but we'll boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: to reach even to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: For we are not overextending ourselves as though we did not reach you.
[SPEAKER_00]: For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do not boast beyond limit in the laborers of others, but our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged, so that we may preach the gospel to lands beyond you without boasting of work already done in another area.
[SPEAKER_00]: of influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot we can take from this passage, but what I want you to see here is that every church, every pastor, every person has a realm of influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every church, every pastor, every person has a realm of influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're talking about the church today, and this will be a little self-serving when I say this, but I'm going to show it to you in the
[SPEAKER_00]: It's decided top day on in Proverbs, chapter 29, verse 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, where there is no prophetic vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people cast off restraint.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where there is no prophetic vision, the people, another version says that they run all over the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll run everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there's no prophetic vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, when you don't have prophetic vision, that's a good way to get where you're doing a busy here, and be in busy there.
[SPEAKER_00]: A church is realm of influence is determined by the pastor getting a word from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let me just put this in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not determined by a pastor doing what he wants to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not determined by a pastor doing what he's already done.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's determined by a pastor getting a word from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to come from heaven, amen?
[SPEAKER_00]: And most churches fail to reach their potential because the pastor is trying to be everything to everyone while allowing anything to happen any time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we do everything because why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could now we're busy here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not on mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember a church that tries to do everything ends up doing nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we go back to second Corinthians where we started a moment ago in verse 17, it says, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: For it is not the one who commends himself who has approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the Lord who has determined the prophetic vision, the realm of influence, the lane that we stay in.
[SPEAKER_00]: and our lane becomes obvious through what second Corinthians chapter 10 says the commendation of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it may have sounded spiritual and high handed up till this point, but let me help you understand how you find out what the commendation of the Lord is.
[SPEAKER_00]: What works?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it working?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the commendation of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus told us how we were going to know whether prophets had the real stuff or the fake stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to know them by their fruit.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it produce?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you want to figure out if the commendation of the Lord is on it, is it working?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you determine the lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get a word from God, and if it works, you've got the commendation of the Lord on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah!
[SPEAKER_00]: That shows you what your lane is.
[SPEAKER_00]: That shows you what the prophetic vision is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a friend out in San Antonio, Texas, and in the last five years, they actually had their fifth year anniversary last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took the church over, they were a little less than 200.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last Sunday, they had 1,300 somewhat people on campus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you give the Lord a praise for what he's doing in Texas?
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say we ought to give the Lord a praise just as a little seed to so, to say Lord do it here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, he's grown the church fantastically over the last several years.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and I have very similar ministry styles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we were just thrown into a random scenario, we would probably give all of the same advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what he's done is he was telling me one day, he said, I want to do X, Y, and Z, which is something you would do and do really well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, but it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so foreign to me, and maybe I'm talking a little pastory to y'all for a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'm a little insider baseball, but I'm using me for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me one day, he said, every time I invest time, energy, or money into groups, my church grows.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, every time I put money into something else, the church stops growing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, so what I've done is I've experimented a little bit and I'll take money out of something I think is really important and put it in groups and see if the church grows.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, never time I do it, the church grows.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how did he find out what the commendation of the Lord was?
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw what was working.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw what was making it happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw what had the blessing of the Lord on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw what the fruit was, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so every time he does groups, the church grows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I need to let you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a lot friendlier and happier than I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I'm gonna blow this church up with groups, say, man, but he's done it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he found the commendation of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do wanna just take a moment, and before I keep preaching, I wanna do a little housekeeping with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to talk to you a little bit about the rest of the schedule for 2025.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about this in our unofficial business meeting a few weeks ago, but I just want to let you know some things that are happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are some changes we're making for the rest of 2025 to keep us from being busy here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're trying not to be busy here that we're trying to stay on mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody say, all mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody say great commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody say you look good, preacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just making sure y'all are still here.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man won't y'all to say true things in this service.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hot late, Lou.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: On Sunday, October 12th, we are making a change to our Sunday Devos.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are bringing those to an end for the foreseeable future.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even though I do not foresee myself blowing this church up with groups, groups are coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are gonna do groups, we are gonna have smaller moments that we meet and grow in grace as the apostle Paul said.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're making this shift for this reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can focus on having an incredible Sunday morning experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanna say this, this is something that we talked about from the onset with me coming is the Lord has need of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord has need of you, but what the Lord does not need is He does not need you often a classroom when He sends the harvest into the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: He needs you ready to do the work of the ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the Lord needs from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, if you were to look at Matthew chapter 9, Jesus did not say that the harvest was a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus in Matthew chapter 9 said, look at all of this harvest.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the harvest is plentiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: The harvest is abundant, it's bountiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of harvest, but the laborers are few.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what we're going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to labor the harvest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to work the harvest.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to work our field.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our field is right here in our field as Sunday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say amen to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to work our field.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you haven't joined the team, we need you to join the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wednesday, October 29th.
[SPEAKER_00]: is going to be our last Wednesday night of 2025.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't shout a no, we weren't going to go Thanksgiving through the holidays anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to have Wednesday night service for six people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to start groups the right way, not by default.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We started our first small group, everybody stopped coming on within, during holidays.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to stop on the very beginning of November.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the last week of October will be our last Wednesday night.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason that we are doing this is that I believe that God is going to move powerfully in this church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm believing for a powerful move of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is anybody with me on that?
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... what we need though as we need a moment to recalibrate and look at the schedule i am a little like this and this is just y'all getting to know me uh... if if it was working it be huge
[SPEAKER_00]: So it must not be working, because it ain't huge.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right now what we need to do is we just need to hit pause and we need to figure out where the best space in the week is for us to have a powerful penny costal expression on an on-going basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: The power of the Lord's gonna move on Sunday mornings, but any penny costal pastor will tell you is that you almost need to have another service so you can really cut loose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause I got to run some walls or run some holes through the walls in this church, amen?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a run around the room at some point y'all will see me will have snakes and everything Harley, Lua.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're just going to re-evaluate.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to give us two months to kind of think through the schedule.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good time where we're going to have to alleviate the schedule anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: On October, I'm sorry, on December 28th, we are also going to take a Sabbath Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take a Sabbath Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to let you know one of my values as a church leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: is that I alleviate pressure on ministry leaders and ministry volunteers around the holidays.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my experience, most churches try to make it harder.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to make it easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know some of y'all transitioned from making craft macaroni and cheese to grandma's recipe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all already got enough stress on yet the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to do is we're just going to take that week and let the church breathe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also want to let you know it's the less people that show up, the harder it is to pull off a Sunday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we already know that that's going to be a low attended Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to take that and we're going to breathe everybody say, breathe in, breathe out, turn to your neighbor's site, you need a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then on January 4th, we're going to come back for an anointing service.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to kick the year off by an anointing everybody in the church with oil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be a powerful, powerful, 2026.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are just some things that we're doing to the schedule that you need to know about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I figured I might as well tell you while I'm preaching, while I've got your attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to make these changes so that when we go into 2026, we can see God move in a powerful way, and we can stay on mission and not be busy here and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we stay in the right lane, we stay in our lane, number three, I stay in my lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody say I stay in my lane, I stay in my lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second Chronicles, Chronicles is the retelling of the history of Judah.
[SPEAKER_00]: to the Judah and Israel that are in exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: They essentially retail the history of Judah as a north star on how Israelites should live in worship the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in second chronicles, around chapter 20, 21, 22, it tells us about a king in a priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: The king's name is Joe Ash and the priest's name is Jehojeda.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this nation of Judah, which has become incredibly wicked, they are far from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this King, Joe Ash and Jehoida, between their partnership, they lead the entire nation of Judah back to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: They restore the nation to serve the one true God.
[SPEAKER_00]: No small feat, if you ask me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it all came from the King, Joe Ash, and the priest Jehoida working in harmony.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a teaching that's been around
[SPEAKER_00]: probably a little more than 40 years now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I think Pastor Sawyer might have taught this up in Kentucky recently in death.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a teaching about kings and priests.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have time to go into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This could be a five week series, but I'm just going to give you the high points.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kings and priests are essentially
[SPEAKER_00]: a paradigm in the old covenant system of worship in the old covenant government that show how the kingdom of God operates.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it operates between kings and priests.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an oversimplification, but kings are born again believers who are in the marketplace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And priests are born again believers who are in the ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kings and priests.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, an oversimplification, but often what happens is King or priest will bring vision to the house of the Lord, and kings will bring provision to the house of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how the mission of the churches fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how it happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when the king and the priest come together in partnership, it is almost always followed by a dynamic move of the power of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll see a whole city shaken when kings and priests come together.
[SPEAKER_00]: When this dynamic is working, it is powerful because everybody is in their lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of you know what everybody is in their lane?
[SPEAKER_00]: Traffic moves smoothly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nuttin''ll throw traffic off like one idiot out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, man, who's all over the place?
[SPEAKER_00]: Textin'.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, man, y'all don't text and drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to come back to church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holly Luja.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a powerful dynamic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what happens when someone gets out of their lane?
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens when someone gets out?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you'll turn with me in your bibles this morning to second chronicles chapter 26, I wanna show you a story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Starting in verse 16, this is talking about a king named Yusaya.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yusaya was a great king in Judah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it says, but when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction.
[SPEAKER_00]: For he was unfaithful to the Lord, his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as a riot, the priest went in after him with eight, I'm sorry, with 80 priests of the Lord who were men of valor, and they withstood King Yusaya and said to him, it is not for you, Yusaya, to burn incense to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the priest, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go out of the sanctuary for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just want to make a note here real quick before I read the next verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're wondering why it is unlawful for a king to go and burn incense in the place of a priest, it is because the kingship and the priesthood are distinctly separate in Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are only two people in the Bible who have been both a king and a priest and it been okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them is a man named Melkezadek.
[SPEAKER_00]: He find him in the story of Abraham.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the king of Salem and a priest of the most high god.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a king priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Melkezadek, the Bible says, has no beginning and no end.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that precludes all of us, because you have a beginning and an end.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second king priest is Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is both king and he is priest in the order of Melchizedek.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, you ain't Jesus Christ, that preclude you as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So none of us in this room, nobody on earth, nobody in history outside of these two men are permitted to be both a king and a priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, verse 19, then, use I of the king was angry, and he had a sensor in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priest, lepercy broke out on his forehead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the presence of the priest in the house of the Lord by the altar of incense.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's two things that we know from the kings and priests dynamic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to share these with you quickly, and then we'll close.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is that priests should not be kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Priest should not be kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have some business acumen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where it came from, because everybody in my family has gone bankrupt, but praise be to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: that he's done some stuff in me, but I have some business acumen, but I want you to know it's an incredibly frustrating dynamic for me, because I make other people tons of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: People call me on the phone, I'll turn to business around.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's I don't understand it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a girl call me one time who had a business, and she was making $2,000 a month, and we had one phone conversation by the end of the month, she was at $20,000 a month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me, on the other hand, I'm over here kicking against the goats.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not making anyone in the reason is I'm just running to the ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's taking me a little while to really get comfortable with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just running to the ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wake up, I eat, breathe, sleep, the local church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about the kingdom, I get before the Lord, I can't, I just can't do anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm running to the ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: priest have no business being kings and let me just say this some of you have said this this isn't a where it is a correction but it's a nice correction amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But people have said this to me for years it's a well-meaning statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: But people will say well now I know the churches of business now when people say that what they're normally trying to say is pastor we know you got things you got to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: To which I appreciate that sentiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just want to be clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church is not a business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Church is not a business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the church does some business.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some stuff we have to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to pay people.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got bills.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to pay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have maintenance.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to do stuff has to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: The preacher has to come up to the stage on time without his wife coming to the four year to let him know it's 10 30 already.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that that happened today or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's business that has to be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the church is not a business.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church is the representation of Jesus Christ in the community.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say a man right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a priest should never be a king, but in the same way, a king should not be a priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: A king should not be a priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what happens sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is we'll have people who will get involved in ministry and God will use them in a fruitful way and then all of a sudden this thing happens
[SPEAKER_00]: The pastor's nodding down here, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we'll have people who get into a fruitful area and then all of a sudden, they'll think, I know better than the pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know how church works better than the pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know how ministry works.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I know the will of God better than the pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: This pastor don't preach the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He don't preach the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: He don't do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there will raise up an arrogance.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be an arrogance that raises up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of a sudden,
[SPEAKER_00]: This priest who was passionate and involved and was showing some fruit, this king, I'm sorry, that was passionate, involving some fruit, all of a sudden they'll grow proud.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is no good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on occasion, you'll have a king who arrives up in the church and try to take the place of a priest, just like you Zaya did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like you Zaya did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been in ministry long enough to guarantee you this, that Azariah the High Priest actually had very little interest and very little passion in burning incense before the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something that had to be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's something that he had to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something the priest had to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody else could do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't about passion.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't about preference.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't about authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't about throwing his weight around.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was about lanes.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was about the right people being in the right lanes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to tell you this today.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will give you exceptional grace in your lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will give me exceptional grace in my lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: But listen to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no favor for me outside of my lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no favor for me when I step out of the thing that God has anointed me to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no favor for you when you step out of the thing that God has anointed you to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we stay in our lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stay in the right lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stay in our lane and we stay in my lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stay in these lanes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stay in our lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to tell you a story real quick before I close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say this is good preaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just so we're clear, this is the kind of stuff that what I just preached right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just preaching the word, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want you out of here, I'm just preaching this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This does all the work, but that's the kind of stuff that leads you sitting awake at night going Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta stand up here and I gotta say something in front of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to exert authority over you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not have to exert that which I already have in this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let me be clear about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not trying to tell you, I'm taking control.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not, that's not what this is.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm trying to do is make sure that we all get in a groove.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if we're in a groove, we will reach this city for the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we're not in a groove, if we don't do this God's way, if we don't do this the kingdom way,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just gonna, it's gonna be friction after friction and argument after argument and I just need y'all to know I've only got about three stupid meetings in me before I lose my mind So we don't want friction We want to be able to operate in a godly way in this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, okay Let me tell you this story in the late 70s the early 80s apple computers was crushing it
[SPEAKER_00]: The Apple II was a smash hit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Macintosh changed the way people thought about computers.
[SPEAKER_00]: But by 1997, Apple was a mess.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were losing money, losing market share, and honestly, they were losing their identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were making printers, cameras, PDAs, educational tools, dozens of products, but none of them were great.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when Steve Jobs, the founder, who had been ousted by the board, came back to the company.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked at the bloated product line and he asked one simple question, what are we doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: And nobody had a clear answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So jobs walked up to a whiteboard drew a four square grid and said from now on, we make four products, a consumer laptop, a pro laptop, a consumer desktop, a pro desktop.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In one move, he cut 70% of Apple's products.
[SPEAKER_00]: Entire departments were shut down good ideas were thrown out, not because they were bad, but because they weren't the main thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That one decision didn't just save Apple, it positioned Apple for its greatest run of innovation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That focus made the iPod possible, and the iPod led to the iPhone, and the iPhone led to the iPad, and that chain of innovation transformed Apple into one of the most influential companies in the world, but it started with focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: It started when they focused because that's what made them,
[SPEAKER_00]: powerful.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got back in their lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that there are some of you, the more involved you've been over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there are some of you that feel a little bit of that discomfort as a new pastor has come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know some of you feel a little bit of that cutting away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to know, I don't know how I'd respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to respond if I was in your seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I told y'all this when I first came to the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've actually never been through a senior pastor transition.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the first one I've ever been through.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my favorite one, but it's... It's the only one I've ever been through.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how I'd respond if I was in your seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no way to empathize with you in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do know that if I had another individual come in as...
[SPEAKER_00]: Strong as myself, I probably would be a little taken back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that some of you feel a little bit of the cutting away of things, but I just want you to know that we're not cutting away just to cut away.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not changing schedules, just to change schedules.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not simplifying just to simplify.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a little bit of addition by subtraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you gotta do less so you can do more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you gotta go slow so you can go fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you gotta simplify so you can actually achieve the things that God is calling you to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just think, if we look towards the future and imagine all the things that we'll be able to do in the future, if we stay focused and don't get distracted running here and running there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've watched it kill churches, distraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the next thing you know, some auxiliary ministry that meets on Tuesday nights at 630 PM is controlling every decision in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you cannot grow and move forward that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot, but if we pull back a little bit and we get focused and we get powerful, what all could we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What ministries could flow out of our church?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the lesser, this is not an abstract principle.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a promise from the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lesser is blessed by the greater.
[SPEAKER_00]: and when we get focused on the mission and we see this city's state and brought to Jesus Christ, how many people can we reach in the niches and the cracks and the spaces and the hedges and the highways and we can reach them all in Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ever see that, give the Lord a praise this morning.