Luke | Wild Horses

Welcome.

Is the Woodbury church of Christ sermon podcast.

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And if you'd like to know more about our church, you can find out all the information at Woodbury church dot O R G, or we'll see you some Sunday, Sundays at 10:00 AM looking forward to it.

Our mission at Woodbury Church of Christ is to help everyone take their next step closer to Jesus.

When you boil it all down.

That's what it's all about.

We have had some sort of encounter or an experience with Jesus, and maybe it's just a taste.

Maybe it's just a glimpse, but we know that what we've experienced is good.

It's the way that life should be, it's the way that life could be, and we wanna help other people be introduced to that.

So we've tried to center everything we do to distill everything we do down to this one purpose, to help someone take their next step closer to Jesus.

So whether you're a greeter, welcoming a guest for the first time, or whether you.

You're a member here and you've got a friend or a neighbor who is going through something difficult and you can offer a prayer, you can offer support.

All those things are ways to just help people inch closer to Jesus, and that's what it's always been about, and we've been really focusing on that this month.

Last week we emphasized the idea, the principle, the concept that we serve a God.

Yahweh, our God, longs to bring lost people home.

He loves to welcome.

Remember we talked about the prodigal son and just what a moving story that is, no matter how many times you've heard it.

Uh, that particular part in the Prodigal Son story where he's come to his senses and he's returning home.

And the father, while he was a long way off, remember we showed you that video last week of the uncle hugging his nephew, but when he was still a long way off his father, or in this case, uncle, saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

Just so moving to know that.

It, it's moving to know that we have a God.

That's, that, that is like that, that a God that looks at us like that, he longs to welcome us back because sometimes we make mistakes when we feel like there's just no way.

There's no way God would welcome me back.

There's no way the church would welcome me back.

There's no way.

The people that I, I've messed up around would welcome me back and it's just not true.

It's just not true.

If there is one little teeny tiny hangup, one little problem to this whole notion of God embracing the lost person, and welcoming them home, lost people.

Don't always long to be welcomed home.

And the story of the prodigal son, it says that he came to his census and he's like, man, this is messed up.

I should go home and at least be a servant to my dad.

But we live in a society where there are a lot of, lot of lost people who are confidently lost.

They're confidently living their lives apart from God without realizing it.

How? How do you interact with someone who doesn't want to be embraced by God? Who doesn't want to return home? Not everyone is looking for that hug.

Have you ever hugged someone who didn't wanna be hugged by you? It is such an awkward experience they stiffen up, they move away.

If I, I, can I tell you just a little quick story? I know I've told you this before.

My, my father, John Doherty, international man of mystery is not a hugger.

He's not a big hugger.

So I always love it when people at church are like John and just to see what my dad's gonna do.

But I have seen him on more than one occasion give the Heisman move.

Because he is not interested.

Just like the whole, you know, I got the football, gotta keep the, gotta keep people away.

So I would really, it would do my heart good and it would be fun to watch if after church, everybody could just line up my dad would probably go to another church.

Honestly.

He would probably be, well that's it for me at Woodbury.

It's been a good run.

Everybody, but they got too huggy.

This is the final week of of Luke, so if you haven't been with us, it's totally fine, but.

Since the beginning of the year, we've been moving through the gospels.

Uh, we started Matthew Mark.

Now we're in Luke, and we're just about to finish it up.

And next week we're gonna jump into John.

And John is mind blowing.

It's such a cool story.

It's a different take on the story of Jesus.

There's some similarities, but there's so many differences.

It's just really, really cool.

But before we get there, there's some goodness.

Right at the end of Luke, after all the big things have happened, there's some, some information that we need that's crucial to us that that's about this idea of what does it mean to try to welcome home people that aren't ready to come home yet, I am a big fan of thrift stores.

I love them.

It's a genetic trait I inherited from my mother who took me to thrift stores and garage sales my entire childhood.

I don't know that I have ever owned anything new.

It is all thrift and I think that's wonderful.

Cool stuff.

Cheaper prices.

Uh, a while back, one of my favorite pairs of pants ripped.

And not in a good spot.

Right? Not in a cool way that the kids are wearing, right? And it was, it was time to retire them.

Some of you are handy and you might've figured I'd sew them up, but not me.

And I liked them though.

They were comfortable.

Jeans, uh, I liked the way they looked.

They were gray.

They were a little different.

Change it up a little bit, Levi.

Good brand.

And it was a, it was a bummer.

So instead of throwing these jeans away like I should have done, I donated them to the thrift store.

Now, some of you're thinking, well, why would you do that? What would somebody else be able to wear them? And I, I don't know what sorts of fashion choices other people have in mind.

Why not? Plus, if I donate stuff to the thrift store, I get 20% off.

So there was that.

So I shouldn't have done it, but I did it.

A few weeks later, I go back to this thrift store, my favorite one, and I'm just wandering around.

I always I have this little route that I go through and it always takes me to the religious section of books.

You find some amazing stuff.

I've found some, some wildly rare theological books at this thrift store.

It's pretty cool.

But I'm, I'm looking through these books.

I'm thinking, you know what? I really miss those jeans.

I wonder if the thrift store would have another similar pair of jeans.

Uh, and so I go to the jeans section and I'm rifling through and sure enough, in my size there was a gray pair of Levi's and I bought 'em 1399.

Inflation.

This is not so cheap anymore, this thrift store doesn't have a fitting room, but whatever.

I know the brand.

I know they're my size.

I mean, they look exactly like the ones I donated a while back.

I.

Foreshadowing.

I get 'em home and I try them on.

'cause my wife always gets upset.

Did you try them on? Well, I can't try them on at the store, so I try to try 'em on before she gets home and tell 'em that they're fine or get 'em returned before she knows that I bought 'em.

So I try 'em on and I feel a cool breeze and I, and I like kind of turn and I'm like, what in the world that is So how, what a coincidence.

That the jeans that I just paid 1399 for have a hole in the exact same inappropriate spot.

What a coincidence.

And then it slowly begins to dawn on me that I had purchased back the pair of jeans that I had donated.

They were the exact same jeans.

And I had to pay 14 bucks for 'em.

It is incredibly easy.

To slip back into broken, but comfortable patterns of thinking and living.

If you are used to getting what you want, because you're willing to lose your temper to control the situation around you.

If you're willing to yell at the poor clerk or the gate agent at the airport, if you're used to that, but you come to some sort of epiphany and you say, I don't wanna be that way anymore.

I don't wanna do that.

I don't wanna treat people that way.

I'm gonna try to control my temper and control my anger.

I, I'm gonna try to do better, but then things start to go sideways and it's so easy to just slip back into those old patterns, those old habits, those old ways of being when things get difficult, it's easy to start doing things that you're familiar with, even if they're not good.

I, if you have found yourself able to get yourself out of trouble, by maybe.

Just little white lies, just fudging the truth.

Like, oh yeah, I'm on my way.

When you're not really on your way.

Or, oh yeah, I lost that when you didn't really lose that.

Or, oh yeah, I emailed you, did you never get it.

All those little things that just get us out of a little bit of social trouble and you finally decide, you know what? I don't wanna be deceitful.

I don't like that.

I don't like living that way.

But then you get in a jam and the stakes feel so low, what does it matter? And then it's easy just to slip those comfortable but bad habits back on.

See the, the deal with temptation is not, we're not always tempted because something is bad and we're evil.

Sometimes we're tempted because something is easy and we're lazy.

Sometimes we we do the wrong thing just 'cause it's the easiest thing to do.

And life can be hard.

Life is hard.

Life is difficult, and sometimes it's just easier to take that shortcut and slip those gene back on.

So as we close out Luke, we're gonna see what Jesus recommends about what it is to, to, to move past those familiar, comfortable, but broken habits.

So let's set the scene.

I.

The scene is, this is after the cross.

All the events on the cross, the scene is even after the resurrection, and it's before, at least according to Luke's gospel.

It's before anyone has actually seen Jesus.

Nobody's laid eyes on him, but there's rumors.

The ladies have gone to the tomb.

They saw some angels.

The angels said, he's not here.

He's risen.

Why do you look for the living among the dead? And then they go back and they tell the 12, Hey, uh, Jesus isn't there anymore.

We think he's back.

We haven't seen him yet, but we think something's going on.

So there's rumors swirling, but nobody knows exactly what's happening yet.

And then the gospel of Luke's super cool story.

Not gonna read it, but Luke chapter 24, Jesus, instead of showing up on the scene in a big way, actually meets two disciples on a road outside Jerusalem, traveling to this little town far away.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

And Jesus joins him.

Walks with him for seven miles, they don't know who he is, and he's just talking about, Hey, all this stuff that happened to Jesus was supposed to happen to the Messiah.

You guys totally missed it.

And it's not until they get to the end of the trip that they realize this was Jesus.

He reveals himself to them.

And so they go running back to the apostles and they say, guys, guess what? You won't believe it.

Jesus just went on a long walk with us, and the apostles are probably like, why is he showing up to everyone else but us? Where, what is going on, and right in the middle of that, right in the middle of that story, in Luke chapter 24, verse 36, while they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace be with you.

Luke 24:36

Shalom.

Verse 37.

They were startled and frightened.

Big combo thinking they saw a ghost.

Now, I'm very curious.

We have no idea, but I'm very curious if Jesus got a scream outta some of the apostles.

Right? We have a staff member here at Woodbury Church of Christ, and I won't tell you his name or their name, but this staff member loves to scare people.

When things are just quiet and calm at the building.

And he, they love to do this, uh, just just to, you know, get a rise outta people.

And it kinda makes me wonder, was Jesus doing that? I mean, he didn't have to show up that way.

He could have knocked, he could have announced.

He just was like, bam, here I am.

Peace be with you.

And I'm sure the apostles screamed a little bit.

Luke chapter 24, verse 38.

Luke 24:38

He said to them, why? Why are you troubled? Well, because you just appeared outta the middle of nowhere.

Why do doubts rise in your mind? So, such a fascinating word.

The concept that the they, they're still doubting 'cause they can't wrap their minds around what's happening.

It's not for lack of evidence.

This is important church.

It's not for lack of evidence.

It's that they cannot comprehend what is taking place here.

Sometimes our doubts aren't for lack of evidence.

It's because we're struggling to figure out what God might be doing in a given situation.

Why are you troubled and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet.

It is.

I myself, touch me and see a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see.

I have, and by the way, can I point out that Jesus doesn't say, by the way, ghosts aren't real.

He just says, I'm not a ghost.

Isn't that kind of interesting? Kinda interesting? Technically the word is spirit, but still kind of interesting.

Verse 41.

While they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement what they don't believe that Jesus' back because of joy and amazement, meaning this can't be true because it's too good to be true.

Ooh, this news, this reality, this thing that we're being exposed to is too, there's no way this cannot, we're missing something, something We're not.

We don't have all the information because this seems too good to be true.

There's no category for seeing your dead friend after the funeral hanging out with you.

There's no category for that.

There's nowhere to put something like that happening.

Some news is hard to believe because it seems too good to be true.

When Karine, my wife first told me she liked me, I did not believe because of joy and amazement, that can't be right.

Are you sure? And she was like, yes, I'm sure.

Are you dumb? Yes.

Yes, I am dumb.

I I need you to spell it out for me.

Jesus' solution to this disbelief is fascinating.

I think in a million years we would not guess what he does to help them overcome their struggle with wrapping their minds around what's happening here.

And he asked them, do you have anything here to eat? Yes, this is what he's gonna do to prove that this isn't some like mass uh, hallucination.

Do you have anything here to eat? I'm imagining like they're like, you know, patting their pockets.

Like I don't, Thad used to, I don't have any.

I've got some broiled fish.

Jesus is that will do.

And Jesus takes and eats broiled fish in their presence.

Imagine this, the most significant.

Otherworldly supernatural thing to ever happen to them, and it's just all of them gaping at Jesus in silence while he munches on some fish.

That's the story I.

I don't know how many of you remember, uh, Lord of the Rings, the, the trilogy, but in the second movie, there's this point at which Gandalf, he's, you know, it's a pretty important character to the story.

Gandalf, the gray returns and the entrance he makes is this spectacular entrance.

There's, there's a, there's an orchestra playing, there's a swell of music, there's a bright light, and everybody's just amazed at what they're seeing.

They can barely take it in because what is happening is so amazing and wonderful.

And Gandalf, the gray, they thought was dead.

They thought he died in a battle with a dragon, but nope.

Surprise.

And the sequel, he comes back and it's this big moment, this big spectacle.

But Jesus just eating fish.

As everybody sits there, looks at him, looks at each other thinking, what in the world is going on? What in the world is going on? I love everything about that.

Everything about this.

Now, by the way, this isn't definitive proof of, of anything, um, but if Luke were attempting to manufacture a story that he would hope that people would read and believe, I don't think he would include a detail like that.

It is not believable.

It does it.

It doesn't make sense.

Why would you include that? It should be more spectacle.

It should be supernatural.

Shouldn't be fish, not epic.

Verse 44, Luke 24 44.

He said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you.

I've been telling you guys this.

We've talked about that several weeks ago.

Everything must be fulfilled.

That is written about me and the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms.

So in other words, the, the entire Hebrew Bible, it kept alluding to me.

It kept telling you what was gonna happen and this had to happen.

What a claim that the, the, the storyline of the Old Testament all comes together in me, the Torah.

You got a piece of it, but it wasn't the full picture.

And, and David, you got a piece of it in the.

Psalms but it wasn't the full picture in the prophets, Elijah and Isaiah and the others.

You got a piece of it, but what? It wasn't the full picture.

You wouldn't see the full picture until I came along.

What a claim Jesus is making that I am the full picture of everything that's being presented throughout the scriptures.

There's nothing greater.

There's nothing bigger.

There's nothing more.

It's Jesus as he sits there and eats a piece of fish.

Verse 45, it says, then you open their minds so that they can understand the scriptures.

And I would love to know what that entailed.

I really get the impression that the apostles were visual learners.

He, he could tell them, but he is like, okay, I guess I'm just gonna have to show you.

Open their minds and tried to tell them.

But you know, you just have to see it to, to get it.

So just imagine this, you see your dead friend, somebody that's meaningful to you, somebody that's changed your life, somebody that you would go to for, for advice about everything.

Somebody that you had, you had followed.

You wanted to know what they thought about everything.

You see them, he's eating some fish.

He claims the entire Bible is about him.

He magically opens your mind and then he gives one sentence.

And this is one sentence that's gonna sum everything up, and this is important that we pay attention.

So the stage has been set for what Jesus is about to say.

This one sentence, this is it.

Verse off 46.

He told them this is what is written.

The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.

And repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things, repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

I.

It's a pretty typical Bible phrase.

We read that, and I don't think the fullness of what Jesus is claiming hits us right away.

Like, okay.

Yeah.

Repentance.

It's very bibley.

Yeah, sure.

Forgiveness of sins.

Sure.

Yeah.

That's what it's all about.

I don't think we understand the bigness of what's being claimed.

The word repentance is a pretty bibley word.

Have you ever heard repentance outside of a church context, no.

No, you've never been called in for a job review and your boss say, Hey, these, uh, these reports, you're not, you, you need to repent, buddy.

Change your ways.

You never heard that.

It's just, it's only a Bible concept, at least, at least for us.

Uh, but it's actually not a Bible word at all.

It doesn't come from the world of theology or religion.

I think if we were to try to define it, we might say something like, well, yeah, repentance is realizing we messed up.

Eh, kind of, sort of maybe a little, or somebody might else might define it like, well, repentance is really feeling bad about messing up.

Well, kind of not quite at a St.

Patrick's Day parade just a couple weeks ago, we'd found ourselves a spot and people were on both sides of the street getting ready.

The parade wasn't gonna start for another 15 minutes or so, uh, but while pre parade, I guess kinda like an opening act, uh, there were some people that had made signs and they were walking up and down the street.

Uh, silently, just like silently holding these signs.

There's a, there was a few of 'em and there were different spots on the parade route, and it, it was a sign that looked something like.

This sign here.

Maybe you've seen something like that.

Repent and believe in Jesus.

And I, I, I'm always fascinated in moments like that because as a guy who works at a church, as a guy who loves Jesus, as a guy who wants to see people repent and believe in Jesus, am always curious about the efficacy of that way of approaching it.

Um, I, it doesn't seem very.

Effective.

In fact, the people carrying the signs did not look like they wanted to be there, and the people in the crowd did not look like they wanted those people to be there either.

It just didn't seem very effective, but then it dawned on me.

So say somebody in the crowd is thinking, you know what? I think I will repent and I will believe because that guy was holding a sign.

What exactly are they supposed to do? What is that sign asking them to do? What does it mean to repent and believe in Jesus? What is repentance? What is repentance? If you've grown up around church, you probably have some notion, but, but maybe, maybe try to suspend your, Sunday school Answer and, and dig in a little bit.

It's one thing to get lost, you know, when you're driving somewhere.

It doesn't happen as much anymore with GPS, but I've been in situations where my phone died or you know, and you just have to navigate without any assistance.

It's one thing to get lost.

It is another thing to have your spouse when you think you're going the right way, say, I don't think you're going the right way.

Immediate, at least for some of us defensiveness.

That flare up of annoyance.

You, you, you contain it, but you're like, what do they think? I'm incompetent, that I've never driven before that I don't know where I'm going.

You know, all those things that maybe you say in your mind and you double down and say something like, oh, honey, I really appreciate that you're trying to help, but, uh, I promise you, I, I know where I'm going.

I've been here before.

And you go a little further and they say, uh, sweetie, uh, my, my phone is saying that you're, you're going the wrong way.

How, how exactly honey do you think I manage to find my way around? When you're not in the passenger seat, do you think that I'm just flying blind all the time, that I don't know where I'm going? And then you go a little further honey, can we just stop and ask someone for directions? And you say, I would rather be lost for the rest of my life.

I'd rather never get to where we're going.

I'd rather never see our family again than stop and ask for directions.

The authors of the Bible, when they tried to reach for a word to describe this concept of repentance, they had two, two languages to pull from.

Of course, a lot of 'em knew Hebrew, and so a lot of what they did was pull from the, the Hebrew language.

And in Hebrew the concept of repentance is an incredibly concrete idea.

As much of the Hebrew language is.

And it references behavior, meaning that if you, uh, are.

Running out to the car and you get in the car and you realize, oh, I forgot my keys.

You might, if you spoke Hebrew, say, uh, honey, I need to repent and go grab my keys.

You didn't do anything bad or wrong.

You just need to go back inside and get your keys.

And it's just a word to describe that behavior of returning, of going back to get your keys.

In Greek, which is another language they had access to and that Luke wrote in repentance was a little different.

It was a change of mind.

again, didn't have to be religious and certainly didn't have to mean that you were evil or terrible or awful.

In the course of conversation you might be talking with your spouse and say, uh, hey, let's, uh, let's go eat Italian tonight.

And uh, they'd say, but I thought you wanted Chinese.

And you might say, oh, I repented and I want Italian now.

It's not evil, it's just you changed what you thought, you changed your mind.

It's no big deal.

It happens all the time.

So in Hebrew, it's this concrete idea of changing your behavior.

In Greek, it's this abstract idea of changing your mind.

And when the authors of scripture reach for a word, they reach for a word that combine both concepts, that you can't repent just by changing your behavior.

And you can't repent just by changing your mind.

It requires both of these things coming together.

So for example, I.

You're not repenting according to a biblical definition.

If you're in the car and your spouse is telling you, I think we're lost.

That if you say, fine, you think you know where we're going, fine.

Just tell me where to go and I'll go there.

You might have changed your behavior, but you haven't changed your mind.

It doesn't fit the biblical definition of repentance.

Or you might you might say, I think I'm lost.

I've changed my mind, but I don't want them to have the satisfaction of knowing that I've changed my mind, so I'm not going to admit it, and you don't change your behavior.

So repentance requires the biblical definition of repentance, requires a change of mind and a change of behavior.

Maybe repentance is easiest to understand by its opposite, because I think we've all felt this back in Luke chapter 13, verse 34, Jesus has this statement.

Luke 13:34

It's a statement of lament.

He says Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.

This has been the, the city of God for thousands of years and I've tried to send people to come and tell you to repent and you keep killing them.

Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.

How often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you are not willing you didn't want the hug, you didn't want to admit that you had done the wrong thing and you had been going the wrong way.

There's only two choices in any of this.

It's repentance or it's resistance.

That's the only two choices that we have.

Repentance or resistance.

And a lot of us are wired one way or the other.

And let me give you a little hint.

Most of us are toward resistance.

It's kinda wild to me.

You may have come across this, but how many, uh, works of literary art have to do with guilt? Eating away at the human psyche and soul? Um, will, uh, uh, Edgar Allen pose a telltale heart? Right? He eventually descends into madness 'cause he knows he's committed a crime and believes he's gonna be found out.

Um, how about Macbeth? Lady Macbeth is involved in this conspiracy to commit murder, and eventually it drives her mad, um, Spider-Man.

He allowed those criminals to get away.

'cause he said, that's not my problem.

And those criminals went and killed his Uncle Ben.

And he's consumed with guilt about it.

I really, really enjoyed reading the book, crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky.

And it's the same thing.

He thinks, Hey, this person doesn't deserve to live.

I, I can take them out.

And he does at the beginning of the book.

And then the rest of the book is just about guilt.

Eating away at him, eating away at his soul.

And Dostoevsky writes toward the end of the book, he says that once the main character who committed this murder confesses, he says, that's when I fully realized I was finally alive.

It was when I admitted my guilt.

It was when I decided that my way wasn't working anymore.

It's the whole premise of the book, Psalm 32 verses one through five.

Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the one whose sin, the Lord does not count against them.

And then whose spirit is no deceit when I kept silent.

This is every, uh, book about guilt you've ever read.

When I kept silent my bones.

Wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night.

Your hand was heavy on me.

My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledge my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.

And I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

And David writes a whole song about it.

Resistance and repentance do share.

One commonality.

They aren't.

They aren't a one time act, they're a posture.

There are posture toward God.

'cause the sad truth of it, it's not just gonna be one thing we repent of.

It's just gonna be a whole life full of things.

And until we learn to stop resisting, I don't know that we'll ever start living.

I wanna wrap up with this.

Uh, I've, I've never broken a wild horse.

I know, I'm sure that's shocking to some of you, but I did see, uh, an hour long video about, uh, a cowboy breaking a horse who had never been ridden before.

And he did it in front of a crowd of people, which I can imagine raises the pressure.

I got a picture of it.

This is Pre Broken Horse.

This is the Cowboys.

This is the crowd.

There's a horse, uh.

Uh, the horse's name, and I'm not making this up, is Patrick.

So I'm a, I'm a little invested in, in what's about to happen.

Uh, the horse is wild, doesn't know who to trust, and the cowboy says we don't know the story.

The horse, maybe he's been mistreated, uh, maybe he's had some bad experiences, and, and the trainer says, our goal is not to take the wildness away, but to harness it.

And he says, when you start to approach Patrick, he's very confused.

He doesn't know what's going on yet.

He doesn't know why this is happening.

He doesn't know that the trainer actually has something good in store for him.

So he's resistant.

He's hesitant.

And the trainer literally says this.

He says, I want Patrick to feel my heart for him.

He says, animals have this intuition that that, that, it's hard for us to explain or understand, but they can sense it.

They can sense when someone has their best interests in mind.

And he goes, I want him, I want Patrick to sense I care about him.

Animals can tell.

So then the cowboy gets close enough and he slips the rope over Patrick's neck.

Patrick doesn't like that.

Patrick isn't sure what's going on.

He pulls away.

He doesn't understand that the Cowboy's actually trying to help him.

And he says, the cowboy says, I'm going to ask Patrick to do something against his own nature.

And so when Patrick resists, it's not because Patrick is being mean, it's 'cause he doesn't want me to get on his back and ride him.

He doesn't understand that this will ultimately be good for him.

So the Cowboy makes an attempt and Patrick bucks the cowboy off.

And the cowboy falls to the ground and says, okay, yeah, we'll start over in front of a crowd.

I can't imagine the stakes.

He go, the, the cowboy.

I care about you.

I'm, I want you to trust me.

And in fact, at one point in this video, he actually got down on his knees.

Next slide, if you would, uh, in front of the horse to be vulnerable in front of the horse to help the horse understand he wasn't here to dominate him.

He wanted the horse to trust him.

Fascinating that the cowboy would kneel and serve the horse.

I.

And then he stands back up and he slips back on the horse's back and the horse lets him and for about a minute, and then bucks him off again.

And he starts over again.

As many times as it takes.

As many times as it takes.

And he said this to Patrick, the horse.

He goes, Patrick, I know it's scary, but it will be good.

And I'm watching this and I'm like, I don't think he's talking to Patrick, the horse.

Every single time the cowboy said something, I thought, well, I think that's pretty much what God's trying to tell me.

Um, I think he might be talking to Patrick, the guy who works at a church and often resists God.

And then finally he gets the saddle and he rides Patrick.

This is about the end of the, the, the hour long and, and there's no editing.

There's no like.

Cutting or anything like that.

There's no secrecy.

He even talks about, some people think that we're, we're drugging the horse 'cause we're in a live, uh, audience.

He's like, there's just none of that.

This is just what it takes to get the horse to trust you.

All that took place in less than an hour.

Patrick, the horse learned to stop resisting in under an hour.

Patrick, the human.

Is still working on it.

Still working on it.

Meaning I am dumber than a horse because I know God has been working on me and transforming me and shaping me, and I know I resist and I push him away.

We're we're smarter than horses, right? I can tell you two things as we wrap up more than anything else.

God loves to welcome, lost people home and God is waiting on you.

All of us have a choice.

We can keep resisting Resistance doesn't necessarily look like you think it does.

It doesn't mean that you're out, you know, blowing your money and sin and vice.

It just means sometimes that you're sitting at church resisting what he's calling you to do.

Resisting what he's calling you to give up.

Resisting what he's calling you to confess.

Everybody has a next step.

We believe that, and our goal is to help everybody take their next step closer to Jesus.

So if it's as simple as scanning a code, great, but if you need one-on-one, come talk to us.

Come talk to somebody.

Come talk to somebody that you trust.

And take that next step closer because it is God's goodness that is pursuing you for that transformation.