What Is An Outlier? - Outlier

We are called to be suspect of horror.

We are not called to be in the line.

We're called to be outliers.

That's what we're called to be.

That's what God is calling us to be.

That doesn't mean you have to be Jackie Robins.

It doesn't mean you have to be Michael Jordan.

It means you have to think differently than the group thinks.

And you have to be willing to sacrifice where everybody else in the group is not willing to sacrifice.

You have to have faith where other people live by their doubt, but you live by your faith.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message.

I don't know about you, but worship today was great.

There's nothing like the Spirit of the Lord.

I mean, we all have been at a place where the worship talent, music talent has been great.

We've all been to a place where music talent has been less than great.

This is not that.

That's not what I'm talking about.

But when you sense that the Spirit of God has come to visit you, don't take that for granted.

Don't take that for granted.

Tried to buy a piece of recording equipment online this week, a little recording box for music.

This guy was selling it for way too cheap.

He doesn't even know what he had.

So I reached out to this guy to see if I could buy the piece of equipment.

And he gave me the address to his house.

I went to his house.

I got out of the car.

I looked at the guy and I was like, I know you.

And I said, did you used to work at compassion?

He said, Yeah, you're the rapper.

I said, I am the rapper.

And we sat in his basement and we prayed.

We shed tears.

The Lord was, as soon as I saw this guy, the Lord was like, this moment is for you.

I'm going to give you this moment.

I found this moment of being in God's presence where he said, I just want to, I need to love on you because you're losing a sense that you're loved.

You certainly have a sense that you're supposed to work and you do that, but you are losing a sense that I am real, that I am in your daily life, and that I love you.

And he sent me to a man's house through Craigslist.

And the guy looked at me and he said, That equipment's yours.

That's not even why you're here.

And we sat in his basement and we prayed and we prayed.

And one thing that grieves me a little bit is my wife has a heart for missions.

And she has committed her life to following this guy who also has a heart for missions, but not foreign missions in the way that she does.

And I always said, that's just that's the one thing that doesn't make sense, Lord.

And he's talking about how God was doing great things in his life and how God told him to step away from compassion because he had something great planned for him.

And I was expecting this big and great and awesome thing, and he said, Nothing happened.

All that happened was I got broken.

And I began to pray more and I begin to seek more and I begin to say, God, you said you were going to do something great.

And God said, I am doing something great.

Look how you're praying.

Look how you're in my presence.

Look how hungry you are for me.

Yeah, but Lord, it's I'm struggling to pay the bills.

Well, that's not the point.

That's not the great thing I was trying to do.

I'm trying to do something great in you.

And he said, and I began to grasp that, and I was like, okay, Lord, I got this.

I've grasped this.

Now what?

And he said, now your wife is a missionary.

Learn to serve at home and send her out.

And I was like, what?

And I'm listening, and the Lord is saying, I don't, it's not an either-or with me, Bobby.

I have this whole thing mapped out.

When the time is right for your wife to serve, I'll be there.

You just flow with what I'm telling you to do.

God was just speaking to me and speaking to me and speaking to me.

And I'm telling you, this morning in worship was like that.

When we enter into the presence of God, don't take it lightly.

Because when you go through dry, dry, dry seasons, you'll desperately want it.

It has nothing to do with the sermon.

Listen, I just sat there and I said, God, you're bigger than this whole thing.

Whatever needs to be said in this sermon, say it.

There's no amount of preparation that can compete with what the Lord wants to do, and God wants to do something in our hearts today.

Yeah.

We praise you, Lord.

Father God, we praise you.

If we could just be in your presence, Lord, better is one day in your court than a thousand elsewhere.

So, God, let this be that day.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So now, as you came in, you saw the road at Chapel Hills, and that's a really big deal for those of you who had a vision for the road starting as a church.

For those of us at Chapel Hills who have spent many, multiple, maybe even decades, praying, God, what are you going to do?

We still believe that you're doing something great in this place.

What are you going to do?

And then he brings it together, and you walk in and you see the road at Chapel Hills and you say, Lord, I surrender that to you.

Now, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind.

That's our antiphonal reading today, and that was the verse that drove Pastor Steve as he began to pray about God doing another work and planting another church.

And that's been our mission and mission statement verse at Chapel Hill since I walked in the doors.

We're called to love the Lord.

And our neighbors should benefit from it.

We're called to bear fruit, and no fruit tree ever eats its own fruit.

Others eat fruit, and that's why we bear it.

So we love the Lord and we grow.

We love our neighbor as ourselves.

And one of the things that Pastor Steve and I are deeply passionate about, many of you are on leadership, is deeply passionate, is discipleship.

It happens through wholehearted and becoming a disciple.

And Pastor Steve and I were talking about how we would make that happen if we become one church.

And one of the things that we knew we wanted to do is we want to begin to start a training center to train and raise up disciples.

And so as we're kicking around names for what would this be?

We came up with a lot of bad names.

There's a lot of bad ideas on the way to a good idea.

A lot.

I had most of them.

And then Pastor Steve says, he comes in one morning in a meeting, he says, I got our name.

I said, Okay, what is it?

Outlier University.

All right.

He goes around the room and he's asking these guys, what do you think?

Well, I like it.

I like it, Pastor.

What do you think?

Oh, I like that.

That really.

And he gets to me.

I'm thinking, man, I wish I could Google this.

If I could only Google this, I might have a good response.

But now I have to be honest.

I said, I don't know what that means.

So he he he explained it to me.

And like any good associate pastor did, I said, that's good.

That's good.

And then I googled it.

And this is what I found.

Data.

If you're not sure what an outlier is, here's what they are.

An outlier is an extremely high or extremely low value in the data set.

Now, in addition to just being something really high or something low, you want to make sure that it satisfies the following criteria.

If you want to find an outlier, it must be greater than Q3 plus 1 half in the 2.

Make it stop! Make it stop! So listen! I never felt so dumb in my life! There's three kind of people in the world, those that love math and those that don't.

I do not love math.

So I had to try to do a little bit of a deeper dive and really come under Pastor Steve and say, what does this mean?

Well, explain it to me.

And look at this.

Here's this is a little better.

If you see all of these bottom dots here, they're all kind of following a pattern, and these, all of these follow the flock.

And then you see the one dot way up there.

And I looked at that and I said, Oh, that's me.

Yeah, I know now.

I know what you're trying to say.

Here's what an outlier is: an outlier is a person or thing situated away or detached from the main body or system.

A person or thing differing from all other members of a particular group or set.

Something that lies outside the main body or group that is apart but is different from the herd.

Dictionary.com says it's someone who stands apart from others of his group as by differing behavior, beliefs, or religious practices.

And I found this from a guy named Joseph Matera.

He says, it is a person who operates largely outside the norms of the mainstream to change the world.

And I said, that's good.

That's good, Pastor Steve.

You're smart.

It's good.

When I think about outliers in the Bible, of course I think about Jesus.

Right?

You can't not think about Jesus as a part of the group, but standing way away.

I mean, this Jesus who taught that there is no one good, that there's only one righteous.

You can't be righteous on your own.

To have a leader to say that, never mind the fact that he was God.

And then I think for sure of John the Baptist.

He was an outlier among prophets.

I mean, he was weird.

Right?

Not only was he weird, but he baptized.

And he baptized Jews.

That was weird.

Not Jews that were ceremonially unclean, any Jew that would repent and turn and look to the Messiah.

Because in that culture, baptism was for people that were ceremonially unclean and for Gentiles who wanted to become Jews.

So why are all these Jews getting baptized?

It was super offensive and it was super radical.

And it didn't put him on the good list.

But beyond that, I start thinking about people like Noah.

I mean, Noah, who's building a boat that is too big and too heavy to take to the water.

I mean, think about it for a minute.

If you're his neighbor, you're like, this guy, you're sitting on your back deck, you're drinking a cup of coffee, and you're like, this dude's an idiot.

But he was an outlier.

He knew what the Lord said.

He knew he was never going to carry that to water.

He knew water was coming to carry it.

Because God said so.

And he was an outlier.

I think about Esther, of course.

Esther, a woman among women, also a leader among the Jews, put her life on the line and saved the Jewish race because she was an outlier.

I think about Mary Magdalene, who had seven demons in her.

And the woman at the well, who had that many men in her life.

I think about those women as outliers because they were an outlier among people with a past.

See, people with a past are told that when Jesus comes into your life, that's it.

That's the high point.

That's it.

And they said, no, no, no.

He's come into my life, and now I'm going to live for him.

I'm going to be something great.

And I'm not going to go into my hole and hide and just be thankful for my salvation.

The woman at the well was responsible for her entire village.

She became an incredible evangelist.

Mary Magdalene was the first person to be at the tomb and to see that Jesus was risen.

Both of them had a super sketchy past.

As we began to think about outliers, I want to challenge you guys to ask yourself, what sets me apart?

What sets me apart?

How am I set apart in this culture and in this neighborhood and in this world around me?

What sets me apart?

Think about Mother Teresa.

What sets her apart?

You can't even look at the lady, not even a picture of the lady without getting convicted about what am I doing?

What am I doing with this life?

Think about Martin Luther.

Not Martin Luther King.

Martin Luther, who stood out amongst all the theologians and said, I don't believe this anymore.

I can't stand here and act like I believe in salvation by works.

It is by grace.

And history says he nailed his 95 thesis to the door of the church and said, That's what I believe.

I mean, can you imagine coming to the church and having a new doctrine nailed to the door for all of the church to see?

That's what he did.

And it did not put him on the good list.

I think about Corey Timboom, whose whole family risked their lives.

She wound up in jail to save the Jewish race, to save them from the Nazis, to hide them in her home.

I do think about Martin Luther King Jr., this man who still today is the example of how to be an activist.

Who's still today, I mean he is the picture of how to fight for what you believe and be a stand-up person at the same time.

These people are outliers.

Man, when I think about sports, who do you think about when you think about an outlier in sports?

We all, everybody has his picture in your head right now.

Michael Jordan.

He taught us what greatness really was.

We thought we knew what it was when Magic Johnson was on the court.

We thought that was the pinnacle.

But Michael Jordan took it to a different place.

I mean, today, people say, oh, he's the Michael Jordan of finance.

Oh, he's the Michael Jordan of the business world.

Oh, he's the Michael Jordan of music.

We know what that means.

That means he's set apart as the greatest.

I think about Spud Webb.

Most of you may not know who that is.

But I think about Spud Webb.

This guy was five foot seven, a hundred and thirty two pounds.

And he won the slam dunk contest.

Now, before Spud Webb, we were told basketball is for really, really tall people.

And he kind of broke that mold, and then people started looking for really talented short people.

Steph Curry can thank him.

I think about Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers who broke the color line when they allowed an African American to come into a white league and play the sport.

These people are outliers.

Now, when it comes to life, I met a man in LA who felt like God was calling him into a part of town to serve homeless people, and the problem was he could not relate.

He was very wealthy and he could not relate to them.

So he went on a six-month hiatus and he became homeless.

He refused to allow himself to have any money.

He refused to allow himself to have a change of clothes.

And he slept on the doorstep of the church that he is now the pastor of.

He slept behind a bush.

He took me to his church.

He said, You see that bush?

That's what I hid behind the be safe.

He said, I didn't know what it was like.

So I would go to Denny's after borrowing or, you know, begging for some money.

I'd have enough money to go to breakfast.

He said, There's nothing more humiliating than being the only person in the whole restaurant that's being asked to pay first before you eat.

But I did that.

And I took six months away from my family and I became homeless so that I could have a massive impact.

It's my desire, well, students, that one day you can go and I can introduce you to him.

That'd be really great.

I think about my bus driver.

Those of you who are at Chapel Hills thought, well, of course he thinks about his bus driver.

She certainly led me to a deep relationship with the Lord.

She did not look at her job as what she does for a paycheck, but what she does for the Lord.

And she taped her Bible verses above our bus, above our seats, and would not allow us to sit in that seat if we didn't memorize that verse.

And if you wanted to change seats, you could change seats as much as you want, as long as you knew what the verse was on the seat that you wanted to go to.

And I told her one day, I'm going to turn you into the principal.

And she said, son, I am a bus driver.

She said, if they fire me, I'll be a janitor.

Don't sit down if you don't know what that verse is.

And still to this day, one of the most influential people in my life, far more influential than any pastor I've ever sat under.

And she's an outlier because she's an outlier among bus drivers and among working people.

She had a vision for who she was and she went after it.

I think about people in this church right now.

Think about people that have full-time jobs but are serving like this is their full time job.

If you knew them, it's mind blowing and it's super humbling because they're right beside me, running the race, right with us, and they're they have a full time job.

This is my full time job.

It's incredible.

I think about some of you who have a vision for ministry outside.

Of these walls, and what you are doing outside of these walls that contribute to the big church.

I think about somebody in this church who started a daily bread ministry for employees in their company, and some of the employees have moved on, they no longer work there, and they still come back every day for their daily bread email.

Certainly think about the Marx family and what they've done in ministry and many others.

There's families that were here when I left for sabbatical that are not here now because they're now on the mission field.

I think about those things.

Guys, we are called to be set apart.

We are not called to be in the line.

We're called to be outliers.

That's what we're called to be.

That's what God is calling you to be.

That doesn't mean you have to be Jackie Robinson.

It doesn't mean you have to be Michael Jordan.

It means you have to think differently than the group thinks.

And you have to be willing to sacrifice where everybody else in the group is not willing to sacrifice.

And you have to have faith where other people live by their doubt, but you live by your faith.

I'm going to give you a couple, actually, it's about ten.

Descriptions of an outlier, qualities of an outlier.

Outliers live by faith.

They're resolute, they're courageous, they're risk takers.

That's what they do.

Outliers are creative, they get bored really easy.

And that's why church is boring.

Because you don't have enough outliers.

And outliers think I already know what he's going to say.

He said the same thing two weeks ago.

He's just going to repeat it.

They're going to do three songs.

I'd rather go fishing.

And guess what?

For the most part, I agree.

If this wasn't my job and I didn't get to be a part of a great church, I'd want to go fishing too.

Outliers take the road less traveled.

Now that's not just some funny little twist because we're the road.

Oh, I this is true.

They are not safe.

One of the things that drives me nuts in missions is when you begin to talk about missions and everybody's first question is, is it safe?

Hmm.

No, that's not safe, but Chuck E.

Cheese is pretty safe.

So why don't you go do that?

Because I'm trying to do something.

I'm not trying to create a safe trip.

I'm trying to create a mission trip.

And obviously we do everything we can to be as safe as possible, but at some point it takes risk.

All things take risk.

And the outliers take risk.

Outliers are prepared.

They see what's coming and they're prepared to do it.

Outliers have a devotion to purpose.

One of the worst things that can happen to an outlier is not physical death, but is missing their purpose.

And my wife can tell you, when I feel like this is dumb.

We're just going through the motions around here.

I cash out.

I took a test to go to the mission field, and they came out of that test and they're telling everybody their qualities, and they said, Hey, Bobby, you.

Everything you do has to matter, doesn't it?

I says, it does have to matter, or it's a waste of my time.

And they told Heather, you need to know that.

Because he has to know where this thing is going, or he will just emotionally cash out.

And I thought, wow, read my mail.

Outliers fear God more than they fear men.

I'm more afraid, and I'm not saying me, but I'm saying that an outlier says, I'm more afraid of letting God down than I am of any man.

It's one of the reasons why Martin Luther King Jr.

is so a hero to me.

Just his courage.

Just before he died, he compared itself to Moses.

He said, I know, I know that my people will reach the promised land, but I'm sure that I will not be there to see it.

It's incredible the amount of moxie he had.

Determination.

Here's one.

Outliers pray.

They pray.

Because outliers know they're in over their head.

Everyone has said, you can't do it.

And they say, watch me, but in their heart, they're saying, I know I can't do it, but I'm going to do it.

Lord, help me do it because I can't.

And they have a deep, deep, deep prayer life.

If your prayer life is not deep, your ministry is not deep.

Because you think you have it on your own.

And if you have it on your own, your ministry is very insignificant.

But when you think, Lord, I can't do this without you, whether it's being a dad and saying, God, I'm not even capable of doing this.

Whether, moms, you've determined I'm going to step away from my career, I'm going to homeschool these kids, I'm not capable of doing that.

That's outliers.

That's what outliers do.

And they pray a lot.

And then the last one, outliers abide in God.

They abide in Him.

Because to go out and do crazy stuff just because you believe you can is crazy.

But to go out and do crazy things because I abide in Christ, this is what his word says, this is what his spirit is saying to me.

That is not crazy.

That's what separates you from the world.

That's what Paul meant when he criticized us and said, now you're living like mere men.

What were we supposed to live like?

Bottom line, outliers are set apart.

They're different.

And let me say this: I actually think it's more important to be an outlier than it is to be a leader.

There's a lot of talk about being leaders.

And it is important that we lead if we have the gift of leadership.

But every one of us can be outliers.

Jesus was a better outlier than he was a leader.

And the reason why I say that is because look at the cross.

I mean, Jesus is the only pastor I know that went from 5,000 people one Sunday to 12 the next Sunday.

And he didn't care.

I mean, that would bum us out if we showed up and our four or five hundred people was just like this row.

Just the hassles still hanging in there.

He did not care.

He said, it's the right thing to do, it's what we must do.

I'm not here to create followers.

I'm here to be the Messiah, to live the perfect life, and to die for you, and I will not be stopped.

And he was an outlier.

And outliers are often more significant than leaders.

It doesn't mean you can't be both.

So I want to look real quick at how to be set apart.

Go to Matthew chapter 5 verse 13.

Matthew 5:13

Matthew chapter 5, verse 13.

Matthew 5:13

It says, You are the salt of the earth.

But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?

It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under by the feet of men.

Listen to me.

How are you set apart?

Number one, you have to know that you have a special purpose.

You are the salt.

He didn't say you are salt.

He said, you are the salt.

There is not other salt.

He's talking to the church.

You're it.

You're all we have.

You're the salt.

If you don't do your job, no one else will, no one else can.

You're the salt.

Guys, we are the salt of the earth.

The message of the hope of the world has been put in us.

We carry it.

No one else carries it.

You are it.

Now, what if you and I lived our life with this motto?

If we don't do it, no one else on the earth will.

I have a job to do.

And if I don't do it, there's not another person on the earth that's qualified to do it.

Now that's to be said of the whole church, but it can also be said of you as an individual.

God does not waste his time.

And he did not create you because he was bored.

You have a purpose.

And you are part of the body.

And when you do your part, the church is better.

When you do your part, the community and the light of God in the community and the kingdom growth in the community is stronger.

And when you don't do your part, it is weaker.

We all have a part, and it's all collectively to be the salt of the earth.

Now you're the only one with that purpose to preserve and to flavor the world.

That's what you do.

You preserve and you flavor the world.

And this is your highest purpose.

You are the salt of the earth.

And then he says, but if that salt loses its seasoning, if that salt loses its flavor, it's good for nothing.

It's thrown out and trampled on by the feet of men.

And you say, well, maybe I blew my chance to be in ministry, but I'm going to go be a business person.

Hey, you've lost it.

You've lost focus.

No, that's not it.

You are a business person in ministry.

You are a mom in ministry.

You are a dad in ministry.

You are a firefighter in ministry.

You are a police officer in ministry.

You carry salt into that world.

We have to spread the salt.

The salt has to touch the food.

If it doesn't touch the food, it's gross.

Any of you ever took a mouth load of salt?

No one wants it, does it?

No one wants it.

And no one wants us to just huddle up and be salt.

No, we have to go and we have to do our purpose.

And if we've lost that, we might as well just let it go because we've lost the whole reason why we're here.

He says, You are the salt of the earth.

Now here's the deal: your salt comes in the form of fruit.

Isn't that like God?

Everything is so twisted.

Your salt is actually fruit.

Look at John chapter 15, verse 1 through 8.

John 15:1–8

He says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes it away.

And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

You're already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Abide in me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit.

For without me you can do nothing.

If any one does not abide in me, he is cast out, as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and they throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so that you will be my disciples.

Our salt is fruit.

That's what it is.

And all across America today, people are preaching about fruit.

You need to have fruit.

You need to have fruit.

And they're going to Galatians and they're saying the fruit is this.

It's found in Galatians chapter 19 through 24.

It says this.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentious jealousy, outburst of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, which means I'm tired of talking about it.

Of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in the time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, long-suffering, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such there is no law.

That's why we have to also live by the Spirit.

And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, and we stop right there.

That's what we do.

We say you have to bear fruit, and it looks like this it's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

And we say, Oh, we're doing that.

And all across the country, we're all trying to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and we're losing focus because there's two kinds of fruit.

One is a fruit that's internal, it's in your spirit, it's who you are, it's your identity.

But the other is the fruit of your labor.

And outliers go for the fruit of the labor.

And religious people try to be good and try to accomplish love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and oftentimes they're doing it in their flesh.

And we've made the Christian life so about bearing the first fruit that we've created a bubble to stay away from the world because that might mess up our fruit.

And that's not what it's about.

There's two kinds of fruit.

And almost every believer goes for the one kind of fruit, which they should.

And it's the open door to the second fruit.

But outliers go for the second fruit.

Look at Matthew chapter 25, verse 14 through 30.

Matthew 25:14–30

For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

And to the one he gave five talents, to the other two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability.

And immediately he went on a journey.

Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them.

Look at that risk.

What if he lost them?

What if he'd have messed up?

He took that risk and who made another five talents.

And likewise he who had received two talents gained two more.

But he who had received one went.

And he dug it and he put it in the ground and created a little bubble.

And he hid the Lord's money.

After a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

So he who had received the five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents.

Look, I gained, I gained five more talents besides them.

His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

You were faithful over a few things.

I will make you ruler over many things.

Outliers do that.

They look crazy until they do something great and then they become a leader.

Enter into the joy of the Lord.

My joy comes from my work.

He who has received two talents came to him and said, Lord, you delivered me two talents.

Look, I have gained two more talents besides them.

His Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.

Enter into the joy of the Lord.

Then he who had received one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you had not sown, and gathering where you had not scattered.

Isn't it amazing how much we blame God for what?

For our apathy.

And I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

Look, here it is.

Here's what is yours.

But the Lord answered to him, You wicked and lazy servant.

So you knew that I reaped where I had not sown and gathered where I had not scattered seed.

You sought to deposit my money with the bankers, and at the coming I would have received back my own with interest.

Therefore, take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents.

Listen to me.

We are meant to be outliers.

We are meant to bear fruit.

We are not meant to look apathetic.

We are not meant to look just like the world.

But it is not just through our behavior.

We're supposed to be examples.

Like, how are they doing it?

How are they pulling that off?

Isaac really made an impact in me when he came to one of our mentoring days.

And he said this.

He said, When I went to college, I went to college determined not to be bad.

I went to college determined not to drink, not to chew, and not to hang out with folks that do.

And he said, after enough time in my dorm, I realized this is a waste of my life.

I'm not making an impact on anybody.

And he said, I changed my definition of righteousness.

Righteousness is not about not doing wrong, it's about doing right.

It's about doing right.

It's about living in such a way that Jesus would live.

To have the impact that he had on the world because he refused to live like everyone else.

He refused to be like everyone else.

He refused to ignore the people that everyone else ignores.

I want to read for you a quick verse and then we're going to close.

Romans chapter 12, verse 1 through 2.

Romans 12:1–2

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Now stop there.

Why?

Why?

Why is he saying don't conform?

Why is he saying be transformed?

He's saying that you may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.

He's saying living a righteous life in the sense of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, a renewed mind.

All that is, is a gateway that you may prove what is right.

Lord, I've done that.

I'm not laying again the foundation of repentance.

Now, what do you want me to do in the kingdom of God?

As you came in the door, many of you were given a handout for Outlier University.

That's an awesome name, isn't it?

Outlier University.

I dig it.

Now that I'm educated.

Starting in September, on September 10th, we will start offering classes intended to help you grow as disciples.

Our hope is that a year from now you can say, I reached neighbors that I would have never reached had it not been for Outlier University.

I parent my kids with a purpose that I would have never known to parent them with without Outlier University.

I know how to study the Bible for myself with the right tools because of Outlier University.

It's our desire that you're able to say that and that we're well on our way in a year, but every outlier has to start somewhere.

Right now we're starting here, and we're going to start on September 10th.

But let me challenge you in this.

I spoke with someone earlier, and they they talked about their conviction about trying to do the work of the Lord without being in the Lord's family.

About trying to do the work of the Lord before the Lord has done a work in you.

We do those things because we think it gets us somewhere, it gets us merit with God, and it doesn't.

You've been listening to The Road.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.

Thank you for tuning in today and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road.