[SPEAKER_00]: This is Dr. Darahal, and I want to welcome you to the Wake Community Church podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're about to bring a conclusion to our wayfinder series where we have looked at Jesus' strategy for relating the people and preparing them to release them into Kingdom work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can follow these notes in the transcription or in the Bible app.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's study guys' word together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke chapter 1 verse 8 through 3, you can find these notes and the Bible app is way all of these words will be there for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: The word of the Lord says, soon afterward, Jesus began going around from one city and village to another.
[SPEAKER_01]: proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The twelve were with him and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mary, who was called Magdalene from home seven demons, had gone out and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, herit's steward and Susanna.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to conclude our wayfinders series with this thought in mind, the hero-making hero.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may be seated in the presence of the living God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is a hero-making hero.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope that from time to time,
[SPEAKER_01]: you can reflect upon the experience of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would encourage you to take time to do so outside of the rhythm of an annual birthday.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you sit and reflect over the experience of your life, I don't know what words may come to mind to help you try to make sense out of what could feel like nonsense.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what adjectives you will use to try to describe the complexity of what life has been for you that includes the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the ends and the outs.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my favorite word to use in relation to my life's experience is a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that my life is a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe the choice is to, there's a bias in my choosing of the word story because that implies someone authored this story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a man of faith, my belief is that God Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, father of Jesus, who was God the Son and the Son of God, has authored my story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that means I am living the unfolding as it were of some pre-written events.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when those events are good, that's easy to celebrate.
[SPEAKER_01]: When those events are bad, that is difficult to reconcile.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because how I could God, who is so good and holy, allow negative, dark,
[SPEAKER_01]: hurtful traumatic things to happen in our story.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know stories are powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that stories appeal to human nature in a way that really nothing else can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Regardless of your socioeconomic status, regardless of your educational level, regardless of your heritage, background, what side of the tracks you grew up on, stories have a way of reaching the heart and influencing what we think, what we feel and how we act.
[SPEAKER_01]: story is a powerful, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So my favorite story is y'all know my favorite movie of all time is Lion King, the animated version, all right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right behind that is Black Panther, Wakanda Fever, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: They really like to say in the movie you said one is a Lion and one is a Panther.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your favorite story?
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my wife's favorite stories is Cinderella.
[SPEAKER_01]: What story appeals to your sensibilities, your values, your emotions, without you even trying.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's interesting is, all good stories have some things in common.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if the details of the plot or the details of the setting are unique, good stories have somewhat of a pattern.
[SPEAKER_01]: All good stories start with a person who has a problem and then meets a guide.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are not my thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the thoughts of Donald Miller and his book building a story brand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every good story, there's a person who got a problem and they meet somebody who guides them to grow into the hero that can overcome that problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every good story, a person got some problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: They meet somebody who helps them grow into evolve into the hero they must become to overcome that problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think our issue is being the person.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think our issue is having some problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we get into trouble when we ignore the person.
[SPEAKER_01]: who can help us become the hero to overcome those problems, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If your life is a story and you're that central character, the question is which type of character are you, are you a victim, are you a villain, are you the hero?
[SPEAKER_01]: or are you willing to become a hero maker?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which may ramp, the victim is the person in the story who feels helpless to do anything about everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Victimhood itself is helplessness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Victimhood is not when something happens to me that I wish wouldn't happen on my worst enemy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Victimhood is when I give up my agency and power to do anything after something happened above my, and outside of my control.
[SPEAKER_01]: Victimhood is not that I can stop it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Victimhood is since it happened, I let it stop me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes we miss a true trauma with victimization.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not trying to be mean because I don't know what trauma you faced.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really, I really care about the trauma you faced.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm saying is you don't choose trauma but you choose victimhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the villain.
[SPEAKER_01]: The villain in every story.
[SPEAKER_01]: is the character in the story that wants to make all other characters feel small.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what would a victim do?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be willing to, a villain would do anything to make other people feel less than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll use fear, they'll use lies, they'll use manipulation, they will attack, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The villain is not the scariest person in the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: The scariest person in the story is the hero before they realize they can become heroic.
[SPEAKER_01]: The villain is the small person who has behind big anger to make everybody power in in fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the truth, we all human beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: God forbid, we have played the villain in our own stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we maintain that role for too long.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because what you'll find is, why you try to make everybody else feel small.
[SPEAKER_01]: One day, you're going to look in the mirror and realize that the smallest person in your story is looking back at you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the hero, that's this person who must grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we first meet them, they are not who they will be.
[SPEAKER_01]: They must grow from the time we meet them until the time they overcome whatever the obstacle is, if they are to fulfill this promise destiny, let's call it potential.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my belief is every believer who comes to know Jesus Christ is your own personal Savior, immediately moves from victim and villain into Hebrew.
[SPEAKER_01]: You become saved so that you can experience this dynamic evolution.
[SPEAKER_01]: So become the person in your story who outgrows whatever you used to overwhelm you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you've achieved that heroic status, then you can become hero maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can help somebody else grow too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every good story has a hero maker done it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cinderella needed her fairy godmother.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were way finders to point them to their true destiny.
[SPEAKER_01]: We read stories in the Bible about people like Joshua.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joshua had Moses, who was a way finder for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Esther, this beautiful story about a fatherless and motherless prisoner of war, who was also an immigrant in Persia becomes clean of Persia.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was the hero on the story, but she needed big brother, Uncle, Mortica, cousin to show her the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we meet Jesus, we first meet him as hero, let his heart say, he wrote, then once we're saved, he must immediately become hero maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let the church say he wrote maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: What that means is he saves us first, so he can change us after he saves us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our big idea for this past few weeks has been that there's more to church and there's more to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really believe that the more to church is that God didn't just save us to be spectators of our favorite preacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: God didn't save us to be fans of our favorite church.
[SPEAKER_01]: God loves you way too much to make you my flunky.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need you to hear me, just because I got the microphone on me and I'm healed and whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I've got some integrity issues, if the one with the microphone has some insecurity issues, we will manipulate God's people into being less than God wanted you to be so we can feel like more than we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: If God's grace ain't enough for me, then your praise never will be.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's mortadists, there's mortadists in church.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't just come here to watch me perform and you are a fan and instead of taking my money at the door, I get it through the collection plate.
[SPEAKER_01]: That ain't how it is work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all picking up what I'm putting down, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's morta church and there's morta meat.
[SPEAKER_01]: The morta church is, church is supposed to be a place, not just where we get healed and whole, is where we get shaped and molded to become.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, then there's more to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm more than just a few-citter.
[SPEAKER_01]: God can use me to be a hero in somebody's life that help make them the hero of their own story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we undertook this concept a few weeks ago in Luke chapter eight, verse one, two, three.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you read it too fast, you don't think, man, Ram, you ain't really hearing read that much, to be honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't see all this hero stuff in the verses you read.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at Luke chapter eight, verse one, two, three.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's read it again.
[SPEAKER_01]: You read it too fast, you'll miss it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's soon after where Jesus began going around from one city and village to another.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Jesus walking around.
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd be doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, what else is he doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's for a climbing and preaching the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool, he'd be doing that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's where we see his hero-making heart come to life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who was with him while he was on the seat at the 12th?
[SPEAKER_01]: But not just the 12th, look at verse number two.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also some women, okay, so Jesus was not, in fact, Jesus was not a sexist.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so he's got the 12th and so women.
[SPEAKER_01]: These women have been held in Eve's spirits and sicknesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in names, the women, we already know the name of the 12th and named them previously.
[SPEAKER_01]: What women, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_01]: Mary, who's called Magdalene?
[SPEAKER_01]: That don't mean her last name is Magdalene.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means she's from a place called Magdalene.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like John the Baptist is not a person in a Baptist church.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a baptizer.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's his job.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I was in his verse, it would say, Darrell, the ATA Leigh-in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't mean my last name is Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: It mean from Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, Mayor who's called Madeline from whom seven demons had gone out, Joe Anna, who's got a husband, and a husband, got a good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's Harris Stewart, and Susanna.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you read it too fast, you'll think you're reading nothing because there's nothing really appealing about the 12 or even these women who were mentioned.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's why because number one, as our hero, Jesus picks us and relates to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Jesus picks, he picks those who don't think they
[SPEAKER_01]: He picks all those names, you'll just read right past.
[SPEAKER_01]: You win the song that there's much to the story besides what you can see at face value.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when Jesus picks us, his goal is to pick us to develop a healthy relational rhythm with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus wasn't walking around preaching and teaching, and he had Flunky's following him, making him feel lit.
[SPEAKER_01]: You thought I would tell my reefer than you.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not my savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm not talking about the gun, Joe.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm saying is, Jesus didn't need people, follow him to make him feel awesome, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He already knew he was awesome because that is baptism.
[SPEAKER_01]: The dove descended upon him and heaven's open and God stamped him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my beloved son in whom I'm well, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know who God says you are, you can't have enough people following you to make you feel special.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus picks these people and we look at this graph a few weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at who he picked, what he saved them from and who they were before they met them.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the 12 and some of the ladies.
[SPEAKER_01]: We see their names on the left, who they were before they met Jesus and what Jesus saved them from.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's acting as hero in their life to save them from their current reality and circumstance into a relational dynamic that will help them grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stan Coleman, the late Stan Coleman, our first certified wayfinder, one of our first 14 wayfinders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stan said in this way, disciple-making is relational.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what that means.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is a relational person.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you've ever been in a context or environment that named the name of Jesus,
[SPEAKER_01]: but did not have the nature of healthy relationships somebody lied.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it ain't my Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It may have church on the sign, but if it don't have healthy relational dynamic in the culture, that is not the spirit of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus didn't pick these people to flex on these people, to belittle these people.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't pick these people to make them flunkies.
[SPEAKER_01]: He picked them because the world overlooked them and related to them in a healthy rhythm that became his heroic acts in their life day after day after day.
[SPEAKER_01]: He saved them and then kept on saving them through relational rhythm.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I ask you or invite you here to end a service to become a Christian of join the Lord's Church, we're not talking about religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about a healthy relational dynamic.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion is fear based.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rules keep in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do this and don't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The proof this and don't prove that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion is, we over here, because we're doing Don't do this, so we better than those over there who do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion is pride, maxed as philanthropy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's bad hearts trying to be good people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not Christianity.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what follow in Jesus is about.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about dressing up the outward.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why the inward is decaying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But the way He saves us and keeps on saving us is through a relational dynamic, a relational rhythm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we saw that last week where we ended off with the fact of how He relates to us, helps us grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then number two, we'll start here and I'm gonna bring a conclusion to the message from this point forward, and that is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, as our hero maker, Jesus prepares and releases us.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, as our hero, he picks and relates to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: As our hero maker, he prepares and releases us.
[SPEAKER_01]: What you say, here's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is relational, Jesus is also not possessive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is not of possessive to the extent of coercion and force.
[SPEAKER_01]: His hand is firm and sure and the devil can't pluck us out, but it's open because he loves us freely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all picking up what I'm putting down.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way he picked the people wasn't to make them his flunky.
[SPEAKER_01]: He picked them to relate to them, to shape them, to release them.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he found them, they were just regular people.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he released them, they had become spiritual heroes who underwent this dynamic evolution to become the people in the story who could overcome whatever conflict was happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Around him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's his nature, so even if we use his name and don't have his nature, we are we are we are missing it Right, here's what that means Jesus is both and not either or so when we say Jesus is Savior He's both Savior and Lord All right as my Savior he gets me out as my Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets it out of me
[SPEAKER_01]: He saved your Ann Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's Redeemer and ruler, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's hero and hero maker, which is an era, because when I got saved, I just didn't want to go to hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't trying to change.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all didn't tell me this was in the fine print.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted some fire insurance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want trying to grow up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm comfortable with I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he's both both and not either or.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if his either or is really, really neither nor.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't have Jesus as your saviour if you won't let him be your Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't have a measure of hero if you won't let him be your hero maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't ask him, get me out of this, but I'll also ask him, now get this out of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel you, that's scary to give control of your life over to somebody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: I personally, I don't want to be controlled by anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was having people be by show of hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: You do not want to let somebody else control his hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Woo.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to be honest, I don't know if that's pride.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's free wheel and agency.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I don't know if that's just being traumatized from the people like the uncontrolled two before that I should not have.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're good at my race?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, that's how I like a pretty good car.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all, my race is new today, and he's feeling in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're a pre-scientist.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that wasn't you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the people who hit every week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just text me next time, and you try and get my attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was I saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on, let me go with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So... Yeah, like this desire to not be controlled, that's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's scary, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's scary to let somebody else have control of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if it's private.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's free will and human agency.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if it's just paying from the last time I gave up control and it didn't turn out the way I thought it should.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, let's just stick with that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever given control and it backfired on you, the question is, to whom did you give control?
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the deeper question, and why did you give it to them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you've been traumatized because you gave control, and it created wounds, so you say it from that point of four, I ain't gonna never let nobody control me again.
[SPEAKER_01]: That includes Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can just get him to sticky place where
[SPEAKER_01]: We prevent the Lord from doing the work only he can do as a result of our full submission to his will.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I can't submit to Jesus as Savior and Lord, I can't experience this dynamic evolution to become the hero in my story that I make to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you, and I know we're trying to get real smart, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We sleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're saying, well, I tell you, well, I'm gonna just use the Bible for the principles.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's that's principles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm gonna follow these principles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, y'all, I got to hold it spirit in me and I don't even always like following the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not submitted to the Lord, there is no way you can be able to apply these principles on the consistent love basis.
[SPEAKER_01]: where you shape your character.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you think you can read this and do this, you miss what this was for anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey y'all, I ain't talking about this in the first service.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna bust his left real quick and I'm gonna come back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I promise you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me bust his left.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Hebrew Israelite is real quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna just real quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We the true Israelite's dooder on him, it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And dooder on him, it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers were not written to be killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were written to prove they could not be killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that when you realize that there is a rubric by which you compare your morality and you cannot keep it fully, it awakens your awareness that I need a hero to come get me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You all hear what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think you can keep everything and do the wrong of me, do the wrong of me, don't mean things, everything and do the wrong of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do the wrong of me over that line.
[SPEAKER_01]: Woo!
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why Paul said in Galatians chapter 3 that the law was a school master until we became a chore and when we matured we don't need a babysitter anymore right once we mature in Christ we understand the law was as jail to show me that I was a law breaker so I need a hero right that was a little appreciated I'm coming back to this message.
[SPEAKER_01]: So given the Lord control is the key to becoming the hero, I deep down inside believe I can be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Letting go over control in my life, surrendering my ways to Jesus, that way I can become hero in my story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then what happens is we start to follow this thread through Luke.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of everything Jesus did with these people.
[SPEAKER_01]: to prepare them to become more after him than they were before they met him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at Luke chapter 9 verse 1 through 2, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It says that he called the 12 together and gave them what church, power and what authority.
[SPEAKER_01]: In chapter 8, we read that he's just walking around preacher and they went him.
[SPEAKER_01]: One chapter later, he says, look, let me share some of his power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I'm gonna give you power and authority, so you can have victory.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you met me, you was as regular, you had your own separate issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: I saved you, now you've been with me, now I'm about to make you into something you never believed you could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm gonna give you my power to prove that I'm gonna be with you and in you wherever you go and wherever you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once he gave them power, he still continued to relate to them, because they didn't know how to do basic stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they were asked to lower it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they would see the Lord praying, and they'd be like, can you teach us how to pray?
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at Luke chapter 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke chapter 11 says in verse 1, it happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place,
[SPEAKER_01]: that when he had finished one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just as John also taught his disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and Luke eight, they just walk around, follow in Jesus, he'd be doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He preaching in proclaiming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke nine, he gives them power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke 11, they like, we don't even know how to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you show us how to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he gives them the Lord's model prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our Father, which I didn't heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we see in this progression?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the law will empower you before you feel fully equipped to do what he called you to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm looking at me like you ain't picking up what I'm putting down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever felt like the Lord was calling you to do something that you know you didn't have the skills authority, relationships, or resources to bring the past?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you scratching your head thinking, God, maybe you got the wrong address.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you meant to email somebody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you text me or DM me by mistake.
[SPEAKER_01]: Surely you meant somebody else who's further along.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord is like, no, I don't need you to be further along.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause whatever you have, I don't have.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you ain't got my power, it ain't gonna work for you anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'ma give you my power now and keep teaching you as you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is for all of us who make near skews of what you can do because what you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: They was casting our demons before they learned how to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, he goes and power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go cast him out, come back and talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna talk to you, I'm gonna teach you, ask me whatever questions you've got.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause what I'm trying to teach you is call and talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you gonna catch, most of them are gonna teach you, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Couple chapters later, we notice you taught the God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you teach us how to talk the God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, say this, our Father with Jordan Heaven, how do we beat him, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord, it give you power and start letting you point people to him before you feel like you know it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which means anything you know, you're already well positioned to teach somebody else, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I'm gonna ask you a couple questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ain't got a raise your hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to yourself, how many of us know how to pray?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know how to pray?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know how to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, don't think about, you know, are you to wrestle waters?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what you say.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, we ain't talking about the chief in the sense of the way community church.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us can read the Bible and understand some of it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The mistake we make is we think that if I don't have the ability to pray like the chief
[SPEAKER_01]: The real excuse is we're using ignorance to be inactive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's me, the Lord don't need you to be fantastic to be faithful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't let these subjects and verbs up here agreeing on this microphone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make you think I came to the Lord fantastic?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord don't need me to meet eloquent and supercalifragistic espialitotious for him to get glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: He needs me to obey what he told me to do because it's not my skill set in his power anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not anybody who can give God praise for the fact that his power, his super on your natural, makes you super natural.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's his butt on my popcorn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus gives them power before he teaches them how to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which means we're gonna always be learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we might as well start pointing people to Jesus as we learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: We ain't gotta wait to get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, as soon as we get saved, we're being shaped to help others be saved.
[SPEAKER_01]: As soon as we experience Jesus as hero, he's shaping us to become hero maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the way he does it is by giving us confidence before we're actually competent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have a choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: You already made the hero.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you finish me the hero maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how the Lord going to deal with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get serious about the Lord, the Lord is going to call you to do something that you know you're not competent to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you do it, you're going to realize the confidence God putting you when you didn't have confidence in yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, my older son is 17, he's up in the production booth and he's a senior in high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And every day now, we cannot believe we owe enough to have a senior in high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, he'll be graduating soon, and we still, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: We ain't mean 40 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so we're a little, you know, and I'll fill us about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What that means is his days with us are shorter.
[SPEAKER_01]: right, shorter head than they are behind.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got to start getting him ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: So earlier this summer when I was on sabbatical, he had his learners license.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we went on a trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: We flew to Ohio, and we were there for a couple days.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we parked my truck at the airport.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I told them, before we left, I said, when we get home, you're going to drive us home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to get on the highway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever left, left Harzfield Jackson, and you're trying to come back northeast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, y'all already know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Soon as you get on the highway, you gotta get all the way home.
[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta get all the way home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Soon as you get all the way home, you gotta look, they look, they look, they look.
[SPEAKER_01]: Soon as you look, they look.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, go for too far, y'all get on 25.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going back this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you out there on 285.
[SPEAKER_01]: to you get the 78.
[SPEAKER_01]: So before we get on a plane, I'm like, Dylan, you don't have a choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will drive us home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we don't make it home safely, that's on you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how he looked at me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can put it back up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me finish the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody, son, you don't have a choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to drive us home when we get off this plane in a couple days.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: We fly home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We land.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get in the car.
[SPEAKER_01]: I happen to pass in the sheet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I pick up my phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm playing games on my phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, bro, just follow the GPS.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see you when we get home, and I'll win 15 minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you can see, we live to drive another day.
[SPEAKER_01]: about two weeks after that, he went and got his driver's license, which proved the competence needed to operate a vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't wait for him to get his license before I gave him confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was my confidence that made him comfortable to come here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you know that you can't get to a level Beyond what God's confidence in you is, but the Lord of tell you I believe in you before you believe in you And before you ever see any fruit or proof of your magnificence You will start to have the Holy Spirit of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have it on your shoulders telling you to gonna be great And you gonna point other people to me is that anybody who can give God praise
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll put comfort in it, St.
[SPEAKER_01]: You.
[SPEAKER_01]: You all would have thought as long as I was preaching before we started this church that I was, I felt ready when we started it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had been preaching since I was 17.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got my doctor when I was 33.
[SPEAKER_01]: We started this church when I was 36.
[SPEAKER_01]: You think I thought I was ready?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, actually I felt the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually at my graduation and one of my grandmother's to see her, both of them was at my graduation.
[SPEAKER_01]: They all proud my parents smiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: We made it, we can out the hood now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody proud and I'm terrified because at that point, that's as far as I could envision my life going I couldn't dream and pass finishing that degree So here I am 33 and people proud and I'm terrified because I don't know what I'm gonna do next I know what I'm supposed to be ready to do but I still don't feel like I am ready for it You think the Lord waiting for me to feel ready before the Lord call me to do God's will for my life
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Lord said, this is what you're going to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And while you're doing it, I'm going to get you ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you're doing it, don't let your pride make you think you're not ready for.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I tell you, you're ready for in this season.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to have to trust me more than you don't trust you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All I came to tell you is, when you meet the Lord, he'll take you from what you were.
[SPEAKER_01]: to make you something you never dreamed you could become.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at this group of people, I'm done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at this group of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw their names.
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw who they were before they met Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw what Jesus saved them from.
[SPEAKER_01]: But look at the heroes they became after.
[SPEAKER_01]: After, look at what Jesus made them able to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: He termed Peter Andrew, James, and John, who couldn't even really read like that into writers of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: They couldn't even make it in rabbinical school.
[SPEAKER_01]: So become a rabbi, you had to be able to quote do the Rotomy for memory, they failed so they became fishermen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus picked them and said, now I'm gonna use you to write in the New Testament where matches do the Rotomy in Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mary from Magnaulah was that saying, woman who watched his feet with her tears and with her hair, that lady of the night that people look, judgingly at Jesus that he would allow this lady to touch him.
[SPEAKER_01]: She had been used and abused because she had seven demons in her.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the Lord got through with her, Mary Magnaulah was the first person that ever see Jesus resurrected from the grave.
[SPEAKER_01]: What that means is the first preacher in the New Testament was not a man, it was a woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it won't just anyone, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was Mary Magdalene, who said, go meet him in Galilee, where he told you he was going to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joanna, that good sister who had a good husband with a good job, the Lord saved her from being armed candy and made her a leading lady in the way movement.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't try to hear me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot believe the stuff God is doing in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we look at this, we should see ourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Put your name on the left.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who was out in the lower found me?
[SPEAKER_01]: What did Jesus say to me from?
[SPEAKER_01]: And now what does Jesus use to me to do that I can't believe?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you put my name, we're gonna start with Darrell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who was out before the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, me, I was just a super regular black boy from the inner city of Elana, whose life was a statistic in every way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was that kid who was good at everything, but great at nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: except talking to a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when the Lord changed me the Lord then changed my personality as you can tell, I still talking about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got it on this, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I came from a family of talkers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was that kid who talked too much, who was good at everything, but not great.
[SPEAKER_01]: What that means is my grades were good, but they weren't great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was good at sports, but not great enough to actually do something with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was always kind of a little past a middle, but I always saw myself as regular, because I mean, how was I not regular?
[SPEAKER_01]: And every way my story was just statistically, you know, the black inner city urban story.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I wasn't a lawyer met me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the Lord saved me from was mistakenly thinking that because your story is regular, I can't put supernatural anointing on your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord saved me from just because you are a statistic, don't mean I can't use you to do numbers for my glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here I am, I can't believe I'm somebody's husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoo!
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be like, for real?
[SPEAKER_01]: Bless in assurance, Jesus is my... Jesus is my... I'm somebody husband for eight years.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got three kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to really shock you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm somebody pastor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought for sure I was going to be a rapper.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my goal is to pass it as to hold you with the open hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't belong to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to be a vessel and create an ecosystem in this church where you can grow, and Jesus can release you to be great.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need heroes, we need wayfinders, and every walk a life.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the educational system, we need people who walk with the light.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's doctors and lawyers who got a whole bunch of head knowledge and they're hoping they're heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who need a hero to show them the way?
[SPEAKER_01]: We got chills from coming up in the next generation who needs somebody to show them the way they like with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our whole goal is to help you become that person in your story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that you'll look back and say, I can't believe what the Lord has done through me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen, church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get up, Lord.