Ross King: Cultivating Thought Through Love, Lyric, and Insight

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Lord, may it be so that you would lead us through this time.

I have some plans of what I want to do, but I would really love it if you led me, Lord, because I am just kind of scrambling about, uh, clutching and grabbing at whatever I can find.

And Lord, you are the solid place.

You are the rock that I stand on, and you are the light that calls me and that shows me the way.

It's true for all of us, Lord.

So show us the way through this time in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can have a seat.

I uh I'll tell you some of some of my story as we go, um, but um I'll just put this blanket over over the whole thing that you have found yourselves, whether it's your first week or your hundredth week here, you have found your yourselves in a in an in an in a wonderfully awkward and honest group of people here.

And uh I have said in the past that the most the least honest place on the block is the church building, and not so here.

Um so if you don't like awkward conversations, you know, what during a prayer or or a bathroom break, feel free you'll you might want to go because it's gonna get it's gonna get weird.

Not just with me, but with Neil and with the people around you.

He's been training you and the Lord's been training you to just to just go at it.

And that is so beautiful, and it's part of why anytime, you know, Neil Neil called me a few months ago and said, Hey d can you recommend someone to come and do what you've done in the past.

And I said, I can recommend me.

I want to come and do this.

I'm the I'm the best at it.

No one will be any good.

I mean, I lied and said, you know, I'm thank you.

I lied, I'm I'm no one, the other people are all terrible.

They're they're all have drug problems and and they're they're they're criminals and and it's just a it's chaos.

So he he let me come.

Uh but I but I um but I say that to say to you, I'm gonna just be honest with you, not as a gimmick, not to be odd, but because uh I'm not good at a bunch of other things.

What I'm what what I'm really any good at is just telling you the truth uh as I see it, and hopefully it's the truth, uh, period.

But I just want to speak to you honestly about life and and some of what God has taken me through, some of what I've been through.

Um isn't necessarily all that interesting, but it has caused me to look at the Lord new, and it's caused me to see some parts about suffering and and life that I had never seen.

And and so I want to share those things w with you in the hope the Lord might continue to heal us all.

So um I'll start by telling you what I do, uh, and then I'll play a song about uh about what I do kind of.

But it's basically I live in Nashville and I moved out there to do to write for other people uh because I just I'm 46 years old, I have four children and a and a wonderful wife.

I don't really like being gone from them.

Uh most of the people who do this are in their 20s or 30s and they're skinny and they dress really great and they they look look like they've had work done, whether they have or not, they just it they they look awesome and they love being on stage.

I don't really love it all that much.

I just want to make things and and I love it if I can make something and someone else can go do something with it.

So that's I moved out there to to do that and it's going fine.

But one thing that's happened is you know the sort of profity pokey part of me gets gets edited out in that because if you listen to any in any Christian radio, it's it's it's a fairly sanitized uh view of the kingdom and and of the world.

And I'm not thrilled about that, but I'm trying to bring change slowly uh uh to to that world.

So uh but one of the things that your Christian radio station may say to you is they may say um they may promise you uh on the little com the the the commercial thing, it'll say, uh always positive, always encouraging, always safe for the family, for the whole, for the whole family.

And I think that happened, that last bit happened because they realized, oh, uh if I put on the pop radio station, the country radio station, I gotta tell my kids why that person's talking about sex or or or or or drinking or divorce or something that they're not sh not quite ready to tell their kid about, right?

And then and then Christian station, we got you covered.

It'll be it'll be encouraging and easy, and your kid can just you know they can enjoy it.

But here's the problem if we start getting into Jesus, you're gonna have to deal with that that stuff anyway.

Because all that stuff's gonna come up.

Um, you know, the uh on some of the songs, if you go to iTunes or wherever and buy, there'll be an E that that's on them, and the E the E means explicit, means there's explicit things.

I think Christian music should have an E that just means explain.

You know?

Like this is gonna need some explaining.

This won't just be like a swallow it-down passive experience.

You you're gonna have to work on this.

So, with that heart, I just started thinking about safety and how and how if we promise people that their music is always safe, well, does that mean that that the god of the music is always safe?

And and if so, if I go through something dangerous and hard, is he is he able?

Can he take care of it?

Uh and I was reading the Chronicles of Narnia because I love it and because I have children, and I like to I like to read them books that that I like too.

There's a part in the Chronicles of Narnia in the Lion Witch and the wardrobe where Susan goes to Lart Narnia for the first time, sees this little girl and goes to Nart Narnia, and there's a beaver there whose name is Mr.

Beaver, because as good as a writer as C.S.

Lewis was, his his idea his naming wasn't his best thing.

Um and and so Mr.

Beaver is is uh this beaver who's telling her about Narnia and how it goes there, and he's telling her about Aslan, which is this character that represents Jesus.

And Susan's assuming he's a person because she's only dealt with people at this point, except this one, uh this this this beaver.

So at some point she realizes he's a lion, and she says something like, Well, is he safe?

And Mr.

Beaver says something like, Of course not.

Who said anything about safe?

He's a lion, but he's good, and he's the king.

So imagine that.

He's he's good, and he's the king.

So as dangerous as as he might be, don't worry.

And that's the Lord I think that we have.

Is he's as dangerous as they get, but he's good.

And he's in charge.

So that ought to be comfort, right?

So I wanted to write about that, and I and I wanted to remind myself that whatever I face, that I have a God who is dangerous enough to deal with it.

This is called He is Not Safe.

And I poke a little bit at my job in the song, too.

Because I have a microphone and you don't.

He ain't tryna write a number one song.

He don't care if the radio plays him, he won't ever stop saying mysterious things.

He don't worry about coming on strong.

He's not trying to offend you, but he'll do what he has to, whatever trouble it brings.

But if the devil himself comes against you, there ain't nobody else can defend you.

He is not safe, he's not supposed to be.

When you face, you want to enemy, only a fierce direct love is gonna save your life.

But make no mistake, he is not safe.

And if he ever gets a mega church crowd, he can take a sack of lunch and feed him.

Or what if he starts preaching?

You never know what he'll say.

Cause every word coming out of his mouth is like a sword with two sharp edges.

Yes, mercy is a dangerous message, but it's the only way.

Cause if the devil himself comes against you, there ain't nobody else can defend it.

He is not about to get you.

He's not keeping school, but he refuses to let you be captive anymore.

And he knows the price of freedom is the shedding of his blood.

Yeah, he's deadly serious about his love, and he is not too he's not supposed to be used to come in.

Six years ago, uh, my father was fishing in the Gulf of Mexico and he drowned.

And my brother was with him.

My brother calls me.

Some of you heard the story, calls me at 10 30 at night.

You know, the phone rings at 10 30 at night on a Sunday night, you know, something's not quite the way it should be.

Pick it up.

My brother says, uh, dad has drowned, and you need to go tell mom.

I live in the same town as my mom, so I get in the car, I go tell my mom knock on her knock on her door at eleven o'clock at night, which definitely means something's wrong.

And so began the end of the life we thought we would have, right?

And I uh had a way I thought life was going to go.

And in addition to grieving the loss of my father, I started grieving that that my life wasn't gonna go like I thought.

And some of you have had things happen in your life where you say, My life was going this way, I had it all figured out.

You weren't necessarily controlling it or being uh uh uh uh unreasonable, you just had a way it made sense it was gonna go, and then it's not going like that because of something, and you're grieving that, and that is we don't know how to help you.

I'm sorry, we we we're we're good at giving you casseroles when someone dies and coming to the hospital when you're sick.

We don't know what to do with you when your life goes differently than we expected, so we're trying.

Okay, but keep that in mind when other people are having that, and you can try to help them too.

But part of what I did was I just got depressed, which was not a great response, but I just got depressed, and I and I clinically, you know, I had medication and I had counseling and all that, and stuff I'm not proud of, but I'm just gonna say it out loud because some of you have never heard that in church.

So there you go.

I got depressed, I got medication, I got counseling, and it helped me.

All right.

I also read the Bible, I also prayed, I also talked to people who were spiritual, and that helped too.

It all helped, it all mattered.

And I've talked about that sort of vaguely in some of my songwriting since it happened, because here's the deal.

I mean, my life was miserable for those four or so years, but I wrote some really good songs out of it.

I don't know why.

It just kind of like that was the way I it was just what that was that's what happened.

All suddenly I was better at this.

Um and I wouldn't trade it.

I'd I'd rather have my dad back, and I'd rather have not been been a not a very good father or or husband for four years, but we are where we are, and you didn't pay for this, so you get some free songs out of my depression.

So um uh bonus.

So um I want to but I but I I've been vaguely talking about my depression and anxiety stuff through the different songs in that season, and I suddenly realized I haven't really talked about this like on the nose.

I just tell about it, talk about it in stories and in and in cryptic things.

So I want to write something that like really talked about it.

And I realized that so much of it was about fear that when I was I was depressed, I was just afraid all the time.

I was afraid of being being being judged, I was afraid that no one liked me, I was afraid that that that the shameful parts of me everyone knew them, I was afraid that everyone was sick of me.

Uh whatever.

I was afraid I would ruin my marriage, I was afraid my kids would get tired of their dad not being good at stuff.

And I got it really into the 23rd Psalm as I was coming out of this season of life, or recently I kind of had the 23rd Psalm, and I just got so excited because I saw these weird things I'd never seen.

And it starts with Jesus with the psalm saying, He makes me lie down, which I had never understood why that's there, but I can't there's no translation that doesn't have that.

In every translation, he's kind of forcing it, right?

Because you you and me, we need to be we need to be made to lie down sometimes.

And then and then that's the that's the tone of the whole thing after that, right?

Is that then he leads me beside some some still waters, and all this is meant to make me calm down and and and realize who's in charge.

And then after all that's that peaceful stuff, he we goes with me through the valley of the shadow of death and he has a stick that he's that I'm by the way, I'm a sheep in this story, and that stick is you is is multi-use and it has been used on me.

And I'm not making I'm not saying anything about God that's cruel, I'm saying that stick has been used to prod me and move me, and it's not always made me comfortable.

But he has a stick as I go through the valley and that and it says his rod and his staff comfort me.

Right?

And then he makes dinner in front of everyone that hates me, everyone that wants to kill me and ruin me and wishes I wouldn't succeed.

He makes dinner in front of them for me and just starts to pour in drinks, and my cup just overflowing.

And then it says that kind of of care and and and power will follow me all the days of my life.

So I just wanted to sing about it, right?

I mean, wouldn't wouldn't you want to sing about that?

So this is called the things I'm afraid of.

And I've never played it until today for anybody, so um if you never hear it again, it's because it because I've because it flopped.

I am shaking in my heart's pounding.

You always take me, make me lie down in peaceful fields where I can clear my head.

Cause I get so overcome with anxiety, like there's an enemy living inside of me, like a mocker yelling out, telling lies to me.

And I don't feel brave, but I don't have to be cuz.

I walk through the valley of shadows, and it scared me half to death.

But you're with me everywhere I go.

So I don't give a bit.

My fears would surely kill me.

If I didn't know the truth, things that I'm afraid of are afraid of you.

When my emotions turn against me, not fate nor reason could convince me that you have patience left to fight for me.

My depression is affecting every ounce of me.

I can get the medication and the counseling till I can be the finger calling out to me.

And I don't feel great, but I don't have to be good.

I know the lockdown.

There's no place where the demons won't find me, but just wait till they see who's standing behind me.

I walk to the chest, it scares me half to death.

It's sure with me everywhere I go.

So I don't give a beat my fears that surely kill me.

I didn't know the truth.

Which um I think is a pretty pretty big deal, you know.

I mean, four children too, I adopted them.

So I need some strokes, clearly.

Um so anyway, no, but I I love my wife, she's fantastic, and last night I was I would I played a little bit of this song for for Neil, and I was I was like, yeah, I probably won't play that tomorrow.

It's not like a Jesus E song, it's just a love song.

He said, You need to play that for for a variety of reasons, and he said that earlier, but so I want to play this for you.

I just I want to uh remind you that a marriage well lived and a marriage just endured and a marriage worked through matters.

And some of you have had difficulties in that, and I'm not here to judge you for that.

It's so hard to be married, and so rewarding if you can make it work, and so I just hope hopefully this will like prod some of you on in your journey, either either through it or to it.

So this is called her.

She would drink champagne just to celebrate that it's Tuesday night and the kids are all in bed.

She can laugh out loud till the tears roll down.

At a joke I made that no one else can get.

She reads me like a treasure map.

When we both know the truth is that the greatest treasure that I have is her.

Cause I'm not brave, I'm full of faith, but I swear she gives me courage, and I'm not confident, but somehow when she smiles, I got no worries.

Call it true love.

I'm tangled up in everything about her, and I'm not near as scared of dying as I'd be living without her.

She is most alive.

But when she's outside, and when the sun shines on her face, she's twenty-one.

She's adventurous, enough for both of us.

She's the reason for every cool thing that I've done.

She just texted me on my thing, and I just wanna be like, I'm This is for you.

She's effortlessly what I need.

She's firing electricity right up there with the air.

I'm breathing now.

And I'm not brave and full of faith, but I swear she gives me courage.

I'm not confident, but somehow when she smiles, I got no worries.

Call it true love.

I'm tangled up in everything about her, and I'm not near as scared of dying as I'd be living without her.

Sorry I'm rambling, but I can't keep this secret any longer.

See if I'm standing it's only cause I'm leaning.

I'm not brave or full of faith, but I swear she gives me courage.

I'm not confident, but somehow when she smiles, I got no worries.

Call it true love.

I'm saying good up in everything about her.

And I'm not near as scared of dying as I'd be living without her.

Yeah, I'm not near as scared of dying as I'd be living without her.

Thank you.

Uh I I think that one of the dangers of of um of getting deep into your struggle and your and your grief and your hurt and your depression, whatever it is, is that you can do it alone.

And even you know, so here's what happens.

Something bad bad happens, something difficult happens in your life, and everyone comes in and helps you and loves on you and ministers to you, and again you feel very loved.

And then and then their lives go on.

And yours maybe don't as soon.

And it's not their fault, they just need to go on with theirs with with their stuff.

Maybe something hard is going on for them, you know.

But yours don't, and then you start thinking, well, when am I gonna, you know, is I gonna is this gonna get gonna get better or or whatever, you know?

And you feel like everyone's tired of me and nobody gets it, and I'm all alone.

And I and I I felt some of that, and I would watch I had a friend who who died of l of leukemia a couple years ago, and I watched his wife just feel alone.

She, um, Neil, you'll think this is this is beautifully sad.

We we did Lent back at my old church.

I don't know if you guys do Lynn, but it's like a sort of an old church thing where you during the Easter season you fast from things.

And I and I remember when her husband was in in the middle of cancer treatment about to about to die.

I said, Britt Brittany, what are you gonna do for Lent?

And she said, I'm fasting from drinking alone.

How rich, how much is there there?

That's a lot, right?

Okay, so anyway, uh that's the kind of like thing that happens, you know.

And so anyway, I just I was I was uh interested in how how I would, you know, I'd had my own session of grief and depression.

I was coming out of it a little bit, and I had this friend now going going through the same thing.

And I was like, I gotta figure this out.

So I just started seeing these passages about Jesus suffering and thinking, oh, maybe that's kind of like the emotion that I was feeling.

You know, he goes and he he's he's uh uh his friend L Lazarus dies.

You know, this is a crazy story, okay.

So so it says he heard that Lazarus was very sick and was going to die soon, so he waited, right?

I always thought that was like a translation problem, like the make me lie down.

So he waited, like, you know, because I think maybe Jesus just loves like a good dramatic moment, you know, not not not minimizing, I'm saying he knew I can do something awesome here, right?

And it's gonna be hard.

So he so he waits.

Then he comes, uh uh and Martha, you know, comes out and is like, he's dead.

I know what you can do.

Why didn't you why didn't you show up sooner and bring him back?

You know, and Jesus is like, Well, don't you know about the the re re resurrection?

And she says, Oh yeah, of course.

And she's thinking like doctrinally, like the resurrection, oh, we're all gonna come back.

And he's like, No, no, no.

Hold my beer.

You know, sorry, he didn't say that, I'm just kidding.

Neil told me to say it again.

I said last time as an accident, and he said, say it again.

So now I'm not sure.

But anyway, no, he's like, Hold on.

You think resurrection, just wait, watch this.

And he goes, but then he cries.

Then he cries, right?

After all that he cries about it.

Because death is sad, even if he's gonna bring him back, death is sad.

It's just you can't you can't shake it.

We can tell you.

People are like, I'm gonna die, I have a celebration service for my life.

I guess, but I'm gonna be sad that you died.

So I want I wanna be sad some too, you know, just part of it.

So Jesus cries at Lazarus to death, even though he brings him back.

He he he goes um into the temple and he's furious and he makes a whip and knocks stuff around.

He's having like a moment of real anger.

The kind of moment that we would tell you, hey, hey, calm down, calm down.

And he's knocking stuff around, making whips and stuff.

And then he goes to the garden later on, and his his disciples who are dead beats just like we are, fall asleep a bunch, and he's praying, and he's praying so stressed out that he's bleed he starts bleeding out of his pores.

Right.

So I think he gets it when I feel extreme.

Not just he's there with me, but he's been there, right?

And he's done that.

So I just want to talk about that and say, oh, oh, hey, hold on.

I don't just have I don't just have a God who comes to me in my grief.

I have a God who has who understands and is like, hey, yeah.

This one time I I was so stressed out, I bled through my pores.

This one time I was so angry, I like knocked around the temple.

I'm not saying he sinned, he wasn't sinning, but it means maybe we need to redefine how we deal with some of these feelings, right?

Because everyone, we all think we're sinning and we feel so sad.

And sometimes maybe we are, I don't know, but in this, but at least we know Jesus had some of those feelings too.

This is called good company.

And I hope you feel like the Lord is near all the time, even in your weak moments.

Sadness was a sin.

Jesus never would have cried.

That's exactly what he did when his good friend Lazarus died, and he knew that he could raise him up.

Still the Lord was sad enough to grieve.

If heartache was a crime, consider Jesus in the garden when he knew it was his time, and there was no better option, and he had to take that cup, and it stressed him out so much, it made him bleed.

If you've ever been so overwhelmed that you can barely breathe, my friend, you're in good company.

How about Jesus in the temple?

It doesn't sound like he was calm when he was knocking over tables, and we know his heart was perfect, so there must have been some purpose for it all.

If you've ever gotten mad at all the broken as you see, my friend, you're in good company in the darkness, you are not alone, there is a presence We'll not let you go.

Every tear that you have cried, every trial you have known, he's known it too.

In the darkness, you are not alone, there is a presence will not let you go.

Every tear that you have cried, every trial you have known, he's known it to So if defending your own honor and fighting for your rights are really so important.

How come Jesus gave his life to pay for our salvation?

He let a bunch of fools portray him as a criminal.

If you've ever been, you hated, misunderstood, ridiculed and hated.

If you've ever gone through hell and faced the devil no one else could even see My friend, you're in good company, you're in good company in the darkness, you are not alone, there is a presence that will not let you go.

Every tear that you have cried, every trial you have known, he's known it to you.

And you probably will have a little bit of a faith crisis if you're like me.

And you'll occasionally say, Does he really care about this?

And look, I'm gonna be honest with you, there are times when I pray for things and I don't get them, and I don't know how to pray for healing just yet.

I've had Neil and I were sharing stories last night of kind of random things that we felt like were were miracles because they'd had no explanation, but they weren't that important.

Like just weird things that happen in your life, and you're like, that that shouldn't have happened, but it didn't really no one like came back from the dead or anything.

It was just like I found something, you know?

Right?

But these things happen, and you're like, I know God's real because of this, but then I, you know, so I'm just gonna be honest.

I I occasionally in hard times I say, Why does this happen?

And I don't have answers, and I think some preachers are good at answering that.

I'm not so good at that.

But here's the thing I need to believe, and I must.

I believe because I must, because if if all of if all of this is all that there is, that's craziness.

That's silly.

And there's this guy who who said he was God, and they hated him for it.

The government and the the religious people all hated him, just like we would.

We would all be like, who do you think you are?

Telling everybody you're God, you're just like us.

You're just from the you're just from Sugarland.

You know, they were like, What do you this guy from Nazareth, what does he think he is?

And they killed him.

And here's the thing, he faced that.

This is fantastic, he faced that.

Uh and it stressed him out, we know that.

But by his own power, he got up after that, and when he came back out, this was he had a lot of a lot of m messages to us, and the obvious ones you've heard a million times at church, but here's one that maybe is less obvious, and that message is this I beat that thing you're afraid of.

I beat it.

I'm I'm I'm better than that.

That's what that song putting a minute ago.

That's what's all afraid of me now.

And is the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in you.

If you're a Jesus follower, if you're a believer.

And so I just that that's that's all I got.

That's what I have, you know.

And so I just keep moving forward.

Occasionally my prayers get answered, occasionally they don't get answered, and I I I'm just doing my very best.

But but this next song, I just I was in a season of I had a long season of unbelief and of struggle, and suddenly I looked back over all the the grief and the depression and the difficulty and the shame, and I realized, oh wait, I believe in God more than I did.

I believe in him more now than I than I did then.

And the way I say it is I I think before a lot of that stuff, I had a wide, like a wide swath of things that I believed a little.

There's all these things I believed, I kind of believed them.

Now I have a few things, but I believe them.

I believe them a lot.

I believe them hard.

I believe them all the way.

Right?

And I'm okay with that.

So you might ask me a question about some specific part of theology, and I'll be like, I don't have a clue about any of that.

I don't even know that I care.

But Jesus wins, and he's for me for some reason.

So anyway, I just wanted to like encourage you.

I don't know why I believe more than than I did.

It's not because I'm spiritual, it just happened.

But I wanna but I wanna play you a song about it.

It's called More Now.

I remember when I was young, so carefree and unafraid.

Every doubt could be overcome with childlike fail.

But the day of my trial would come like an earthquake to my belief, and the doubts I could not outrun brought me to my knee.

And I almost gave up, but you kept me from going down.

Now I can't take this truth after all.

Well, I believe in you more now.

So I don't need to understand.

If you pushed me, you'll let me fall.

Or the days when your tender hand was a wrecking wall.

The illusion of my control is judged in been replaced with the Hunter Deepin's.

No matter the prayers that we praise.

I believe when it feels like the whole world is breaking, let's come out your hopes to remain.

Still you are healing, and raised a step from the grave.

Even death cannot steal us away.

Cause I thought I was done, and I almost gave up.

But you kept me from going down.

Now I can't take this too.

After all I've been to stun.

Oh, I believe in you more now.

Oh, I believe in you more now.

Okay, real real quick, I'm gonna do one more and then I'll be done.

Thank you guys for listening.

I'll just say real quick, I have CDs out there.

Uh you can look up on Google what those are.

Um, but they're audio devices you can play music on if you have a player.

Um also put a drink on them and keep your coffee table from getting stained.

Uh, but I don't want them anymore because I no one buys them because they're not useful.

So you can take them as many as you want, pay whatever you want or nothing.

Um please.

Just I mean, uh yeah, I like to have enough for them for the next service, but but but but take some.

Okay.

And if you don't if you don't have a way to play them and you want something to listen to, uh you can go on all the other places and listen to it.

iTunes and Spotify and all and all that.

Um so uh real real quick quickly, there's a thing I call the Saturday principle, and it's this idea that on Friday they killed Jesus, and everyone thought, wait, this was going somewhere.

What happened?

I thought he was the king and they killed him.

This was a sort of an anticlimactic moment, and they didn't know Sunday was coming.

We we know Sunday was coming, but they didn't know.

So there's this Saturday we're just like, oh well, you know, that day after something awful happens and you wonder when it's over.

When and when you wonder what's gonna happen, you why why why'd that happen?

And I think a lot of our life is lived in lived in that tension between something hard happening, like I said a minute ago, a while ago, your life taking a turn you didn't expect, and you're hoping for some kind of a resurrection, but you can't know.

You don't have a hindsight like we have about Jesus.

And I just wanted to sing over that.

No, no, hold on.

Jesus is always doing something, and he's and he's and he's coming back, and it always looks like it's gonna it always looks like it's gonna be bad.

And then he does something great.

So I hope you press on.

This is called This Ain't Over.

And ironically, when I'm done with this song, uh, this is over.

There was a plan to do us harm.

By all accounts, it was successful.

It worked just like a charm, and now we're bruised and barely breathing.

Struggling to just believe, and maybe even wondering if it's over.

But here's the thing, there's something more.

Something nobody was expecting they'd never seen before.

So keep your eyes on the horizon.

It's coming like a storm.

Now you've been warned.

Yeah, you've been warned.

This ain't over.

We are not even close to being done.

We won't be able to without fight, we will not run.

And if we listen close, we can almost hear the same thing.

You shouldn't come to church all the time and feel bad.

Uh I I believe that so much so that uh once a man said to me in this church, he was visiting, and he said, You should yell at us more.

Uh and I was struck by that.

And I was like, wow, tell me about that.

And he said, I don't feel like I've come to church unless I leave and feel bad.

And I said, That's not the God of the Bible.

Yes, there's conviction, but there's not always shame.

There's not this, hey, you don't measure up, so you should feel bad.

Uh I said, This probably won't be the church for you.

Uh and I think the I think the first thing the gospel does, the good news of Christianity does, is it it makes you think it engages your mind, it also engages your emotions, but uh, I think it it People like Ross, and there's few people like Ross, I hope you understand that.

Uh, that engage your mind in a way where you're laughing one minute, like when he said, 'Hey, hold my beer.' Y'all are y'all tried not to laugh, but you couldn't help yourself because you've done you've done dumb stuff that started with, here, hold my beer.

Uh and I think people that are good at this are incarnational in their knowledge, you know, as they hang flesh out in a way that you go, I recognize that.

Uh, yeah, it was my cousin, but it wasn't me, but I recognize that.

Uh, and so I just want to ask you to just to spend about 30 seconds uh before I pray, asking yourself, what did I recognize this morning?

What was it when I heard it?

My soul, my spirit just went, oh yeah, yeah, I believe in that God.

Some of you are just down on religion, uh uh, me too, uh, but I'm big on relationship.

And so is Jesus.

And so uh maybe even you who came today, kind of like, eh, my old lady's been riding my back, so I came, and the guy didn't even preach.

And uh, yeah, you you got preached to today, you just didn't realize it.

That that sword that he uses is so sharp, you don't even know if you're cut, you're like, why am I warm and wet?

Oh, I'm bleeding.

So just ask yourself, hey, what I recognize today.

Let's pray together.

It's just a subtle reminder to us that you're not done with us, that your spirit is at work on us, you prompt us, you woo, you woo us, you kind of like, pst, hey, hey, uh, don't let the bad experiences with religious people uh get you jammed up.

Uh this this is what you're created for.

And so, Lord, uh, whether it's us as husbands realizing I want to be tangled up in everything about my wife, uh, or us kind of saying it's not over.

I mean, this it's Saturday, but it's not over, and I don't want to act like it's over, and I gotta take matters into my own hands and be my own God.

That's a horrible feeling.

Uh, in the moment it feels good, but when we lay down at night, we got nobody to trust and depend on but ourselves, and that requires self-medicating behavior.

And so instead of focusing on our favorite self-medicating behavior, we want to go deeper and just think and go, you know, maybe maybe I'm not living the life I was created for the way it was created to be lived.

Uh, thank you that that there's artists that make us think.

And so we're grateful today.

And so we want to think deeper about things in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're a guest today, let me say thanks for being part of our service.

Uh again, my name is Neil.

I'm the lead pastor, which means I'm the guy that preaches most of the time.

Uh, but again, I like to, it's my responsibility and privilege to put people before you that can help you think about God in ways that I can't.

And Ross King is one of those.

Uh, I think he he mentioned somebody's CDs.

Uh, he will be at his table in the lobby.

Uh and let me just say this: uh uh, if you're a guest today, hopefully you've had an opportunity to fill out.

Uh if you pull a little guest card out of the, there's a couple of seatbacks on your row, pull one of those cards and fill it out.

And if you've already filled that out or you would fill it out before you leave, drop it on these wooden boxes by the doors on your way out.

That's all we ask of you.

If today for the rest of us you call this church your home, today's the day you worship through uh giving, through obedience or generosity, that's where you do that as well.

But but if you've got like me, you keep something tucked up, folded up in your bill folds or special occasions.

When it's not been a great month, it's a$10 bill.

When it's been a great month, sometimes it's a Hundy, and I just kind of go, Whoo! Uh a friend of mine said, Why do you do that?

Because it washes self-pity off of me when I meet somebody that's got it harder than I do.

Like I met a waiter Friday night in San Marcos who worked a double.

He started working at 10 in the morning.

I was there at this place at 11:45 at night, and I said, Man, are you sad or tired?

And he said, I am exhausted.

I've worked a double.

I'm just trying to pay my bills.

And all of a sudden I felt my hand going in my pocket.

And he was like, Dude, are you serious?

And I was like, dude, I am serious.

Uh and I said, I grew up poor on food stamps, and I just was so angry that no one was helping me.

I just want to help you.

And then he wanted to hug me, and I was like, Nah, you don't know the rules.

Now you're crossing my line, dude.

Just take it and go.

Uh, and so why do I tell you that?

Because I think it's the church's privilege and responsibility to support people like Ross.

I mean, I ain't got a CD, I'm not into that.

If you got something folded up in your billfold, you go, you know what, I could do without this, just that's a great person you can just put in that basket out there and just say, hey, I don't want a C D, I just want to yes you.

Because it's hard to part your soul and stand before people and then kind of go, eh, what's for lunch?

So that's all I got.

Uh I want to make you aware of a few announcements, so if you would, just give your attention to this.

Here's a look at what is happening at Grand Park Way Baptist Church.

Next Sunday is a family worship Sunday.

This means that there is child care for birth through kindergarten while all children, youth, and adult Bible studies are canceled so that we can worship together as families on September 2nd.

New Sunday morning Bible studies have just kicked off, and midweek studies are right around the corner.

We believe that these are some of the most important environments you can put yourself in.

So invest in one of these studies today.

As always, you can go to our website, grandparkway.org, to find out more information.

Stand to your feet if you would.

One of the things we like to do here is we'd like to close our service with a blessing.

So if you'd hold your hands out, I want to speak a blessing over you.

Because it's not over.

This means that your God is actively involved and concerned with every aspect of your life.

Because of that, depart now and stay involved in your own life to the glory of God and the clarity of your soul.

In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.