Joy in the House: A Pursuit of Godliness (Jeremy Martin) | 6/14/2026

Hey, this morning it is my privilege to introduce Jeremy

Martin. Now, this fighter comes from

Stanwood, MI. You know where Stanwood is,

right? Suburb of Big Rapids.

No, you guys look to me like we're in the world.

It's it's just South of Big Rapids.

And Jeremy is the men's group leader at Res Life in Big

Rapids. Did I get that right?

Am I close? No, you'll correct it.

He's going to get up here and re say everything I'm saying

anyway. But I'd like to pray for him

this morning. We're thankful for him and in

the fella last week, Josh. And there are other people that

are coming to us from Big Rapids right now.

We're relying on them pretty heavy.

Would you stand with me as we pray?

Father, we thank you so much for Jeremy and Ashley to be with us

today. We thank you for their

commitment to you, their commitment to the church, and

their willingness to be here. And I just ask that you would

surround them with your presence, that you would fill

them with the power and the anointing of your Holy Spirit,

and that that would just flow through them and that everyone

would sense your presence. So be with us today in Jesus

name we pray and all God's people said, Amen.

You can be seated. You can start your thing man.

He's he's full of it, love it. He asked me first thing he asked

me. He comes in, he says, hey, so

how much do you weigh? Yeah, that's not happening, bud.

I was proud of it. Maybe, but I'm not giving you

that kind of information since I said you just introduced me as a

heavyweight. If that's what you're trying to

do. No, but you know, it's a

blessing to be here. I thank you guys for welcoming

us in. It's, it's been, it's, it's kind

of cool because I'm at Res Life Big Rapids and I've been on

staff there for almost 2 years now as a men's director.

We've got a church that is, is this is what it looked like when

I was a kid. I've been in this church since I

was young and this is bigger than what it was when I first

started going there. And as I grew, the church grew a

little bit. And then in the last, I don't

even know, 10 years or something, it like something

happened, like a movement of God happened in the church exploded.

But there's a core that has been there since the beginning.

And when I look at a church like this, I'm like, man, you guys

have the core and it's just a matter of when the explosion

happens and how are you going to be ready for it?

Because I got a feeling like I know God's on the move and I

know he's on the move in Big Rapids.

And I can assume he's on the move in Gaylord because I think

he's on a move across the world. So, you know, I, when I see

groups like this, I'm like, this is awesome because this is the

core of the church. This is what the church is going

to rely on when it does explode because it's coming.

People are searching things out right now in this world.

They don't know what direction they're going, but there was

this really big Gray area, you know, at a point when I was

younger, I feel like, and I feel like nowadays as I'm getting

older and maybe it's just my age, I don't know.

But it's like the Gray area is getting smaller and either

you're following Christ or you're following the enemy.

And there isn't a lot of middle ground anymore.

It used to be an area where you can kind of blend in with a

crowd and you could do a lot of Christian things, but you can

hang out with some other people and it wasn't like horrible.

Nowadays I feel like there is a, there's a division down the

middle where it's black and white on the lifestyle you're

living and it's becoming more and more obvious every day.

So a little bit about me, my wife Ashley, I've been married

19 amazing years, probably 6 pretty good ones for her if you

were to ask her. So I had a pretty good stretch

in the beginning where I, I asked myself all the time.

I don't know how she made it through it or why she did it,

but praise God that he put her in my life because I don't know

if there's a many other women in this world that would have stuck

around, but she's been my rock. When I knew Christ, when I

didn't know Christ, she was always in my corner cheering for

me and I'm very grateful for her.

We have three awesome kids, 19 year old McKenna, 17 year old

Lexie and our 11 year old Reset Jayden.

He was our start over. We had our first two young.

We got together in high school. We both had dreams of our own.

We were athletes, we were standouts.

We're both going to college. We had opportunities and we got

together in high school. We've been friends since

kindergarten. So we've always known each

other. We were always friends.

We were dating other people. We would still have

conversations as friends and like I'd ask her about girls and

she'd ask me questions about guys and never knowing that it

was just going to end up being us anyway.

So it didn't matter. But we had a kid.

We got we got pregnant our senior year and we had McKenna

in September after we graduated. And that the choices that we

made, the LED into that had us to both to a point where she

wasn't going to go play softball because being pregnant your

senior year is kind of hard to get your scholarship that you

had already had conversations with.

And I couldn't go on to play football, which is what I want

to do because how do I watch her sacrifice what she wanted to do

and then go do what I want to do?

I just couldn't do it. So I went to work and we got

married after. McKenna was here for just over a

year and been riding the wave of life ever since.

So Lexi came into the world. She's Spitfire.

She's it is. It blows my mind how you can

have kids and every one of them be so different.

None of them are the same. They don't live life the same.

They don't think the same. And they can all be amazing in

their own ways. And that's a that's a blessing

that we get to experience right now.

Proud that I could say that all my kids are Christ followers.

You know, they've given their lives to the Lord, chasing it in

their own way. Thank God we all have our own

journeys. And, and I'm, I'm happy and I'm,

I'm grateful for each one of my kids and what God's going to do

with them. So I have been working for

myself for five years. I'll give you a little backdrop

on who I am. I worked construction for a lot

of my life, grew up on the poverty side of things.

We weren't poor, but we weren't, we were definitely not rich.

So I always had this dream of my life of having all this, the

things that you never have when you're a kid and, and you chase

that for all the years. And I got into road

construction, which then led to building construction.

And I got in a company right before, I don't even know, 2015

or something. And I started traveling for work

and I traveled the country doing big builds for a company that

had a lot of room to grow. And I chased that growth and I

chased that fame, I guess you'd call it, or the corporate

ladder. And I sacrificed a lot of our

families time and we began to travel for work.

And the first move, we moved to Texas when Jayden came into the

world, I think he was like 1, maybe not even right around

1:00. We moved to Texas and lived down

there for a year. And that was the first time we

ever left our community. He said Stanwood, nobody in here

knew where that was. He kind of described Big Rapids.

A few of you might have heard of Big Rapids, but we're from a

small town. You know, if you're not Amish

and you're not a farmer, you probably have no idea where it's

at. So it doesn't, you know, it's

not real appealing. So when we moved away, it was it

was literally moved away from everything we ever knew.

We had just got to a point where we had kind of made an imprint

into the church we were serving in the youth.

We were doing the things and we got we got the call to go to

Texas. We left.

We didn't realize what we were signing up for.

I knew what I was kind of signing up for.

It was a chase of the money because that's what everybody in

the world does and went down there and started working seven

days a week. So when you work seven days a

week, you don't go to church on Sundays because you don't have

Sundays off. And your wife is a stay at home

mom with the kids in a community where she knows no one.

And she does homeschooling because you don't trust the

community that you're moving into because you don't know

anybody. And she basically raised the

family by herself for that whole year.

And then I got a call to go to Pennsylvania.

So we moved from Texas to Pennsylvania and she continued

to be a stay at home mom that raised kids by herself.

We put our kids into the school there because it was kind of out

in the middle of nowhere. So it made us more comfortable,

if that makes any sense, because that's what we were from in

Texas. We were in Grand Prairie, which

is right between Dallas and Fort Worth.

It's huge area. So we just, we just couldn't

find peace in that. And on that dream and that

corporate chase to climb the ladder.

Anybody that's ever been in corporate knows that if you want

to climb the ladder, you have to bump elbows with people who are

above you on the ladder. So that led to, I was in

management at that time, that led to a lot of late nights

hanging out with the high ups. And when they flew on the

corporate jet, you take them out and you guys, you drink

together, you party together, you bump elbows, you build

friendships, you climb the ladder.

It's, it's simple, right? It's not about what you know,

it's about who you know. And that lifestyle led me into

something that I had gotten away from, which was heavy drinking,

drug addiction, which then leads to a depression because you

don't really understand your purpose.

So I ended up climbing the ladder.

Things were good. We finally got to a point where

our kids were getting ready to go to school and it was time to

move home because we knew that when our kids got to like 7th,

8th grade, we wanted to be back where we grew up.

And they'd always told me, when you're ready to go home, we'll

send you home. So we come back home and home

was your kids stay at home and we need you in Detroit and we

need you in the UP and you still sleep in a hotel, but you're in

Michigan. So that's kind of cool.

So we got our kids back home and we put them through school and

we're doing that whole journey. So then it got to a point where

I'm only working five days a week.

So you got two days a week. You can actually have some kind

of a life, but the only life that you know at this point is a

party life because that's all you've been doing outside of

work is partying with the corporate leads.

So then that led into a spiral journey of heavy drinking and

drugs and poor choices that come with those.

Everybody knows that you don't do those two without having some

poor choices mixed in that that are above and beyond that.

And it took me down a dark path. And I struggled with depression

a little bit in high school, but not to a degree that it grew on

me. And we'll pray and we'll get

into that. Givenly Father, I just thank you

for today. I thank you for what you're

doing in this place. I thank you for Gaylord.

I thank you for the family of believers that that meet here

and are doing life together. And I thank you for the

leadership that's here, that is selfless, that is just serving

you Lord and serving you faithfully.

I ask that this message glorifies you in every way.

I that anything that is of me falls to the wayside.

I pray that their ears are open to hear the word that you have

for them. I pray that their eyes are open

to see you and everything that that we go through.

And I just pray that you soften their hearts to receive the word

that you have in Jesus mighty name, Amen.

So I started hanging out with a group of people that I had known

before we left, but we got closer when I came back because

I partied harder than when I left.

And this group of people partied hard and they were the nicest

people you've ever met. They would do anything for you.

They would give you the shirt off their back.

They loved well, but they never knew Christ.

So there's things that they would do that would lead you

away from what you know you're supposed to be doing.

My best friend at the time, we, I mean, we live life together.

We snowmobile, we fish, we hunt, we, we literally spent every

weekend of our lives with our families together.

We had seasonal campsites. We all, I mean, it was as close

knit as you could get. And the lifestyles we're living

make it hard to stay married. As I said, my wife, she's, she's

been amazing to stick through the lifestyles we've lived

because a lot of our friends are divorced.

My one best friend, he was going through a divorce at the time

and he was in a place where he didn't know what he's going to

do. So we offered up a room in our

basement to get him off, you know, just to give him somewhere

to be for a time. And the day he was supposed to

move in to our house, he committed suicide.

So when he committed suicide, that brought a dark, a darkness

over all the families. I mean it, it brought in

something that I had dealt with depression, but not to this

degree to where it would drag you into a place of just misery.

And everybody knows if you're not living a Christ life, the

best way to deal with depression is by drinking more and doing

more drugs so that you can mask it.

And that was the life that that I had lived to try to mask that

for a pretty probably a year of my life.

And it was the darkest year I ever lived through.

And I got to a point where I knew that I had to do something

different. Like I said, I was raised in the

church. I knew of God.

I didn't know who God truly was, but I knew that I had to do

something different than what I was doing or as it wasn't going

to work. So we started going back to

church and made it a pattern again in our lives and just

started to try to be present in the building.

So I always get a huge shout out to youth pastors.

Alex is doing things right now and those are that couple.

They're, they're amazing and they're, they're planting seeds

in our youth that will never truly understand until you get

to see what grows from it. So I walk in the church after

being wayward hard for a good period of life.

And as I walk in the church, my youth pastor is the first one

that comes and chases me down. It is so good to see you.

And he could see it on me that I was not in a good place.

He had knew that my friend had committed suicide and he could

tell that I was wearing it. And he he come and he searched

me out and he's like, man, I got this thing I would love to see

you do. And I'm like, OK, well, let's

hear it. I'm I'm all ears.

And he says, well, there's this, there's this event that I went

on. It's a men's event.

It's called the road map.org and it's a men's encounter.

It's so amazing. It'll change your life.

I'm like, OK, I was like, let's hear it.

It's four days. You just separate from the

world. And as soon as he said four

days, I'm like, not happening. There's no way I'm taking four

days off of work. For one.

It's going to compromise everything that I've been doing

for the last, you know, six years at this point to get to

where I'm at. And if I'm taking a vacation,

I'm not taking a vacation to just go sit with a bunch of

random dudes for four days. It's not happening.

And he pitched it harder, though.

I mean, he did a good job. And he gives me the name, and

I'd play the game and I'd put it in my phone and I act like I was

going to do something with it. And I walked out the door.

The next week, I come back and he says, did you sign up for

that event? I said no, he's like, dude, I'll

pay for it, I'll pay for it, you sign up right now, I'll pay for

it. I said OK, what was the name of

that address? I punched it in my phone.

I walk out that door that day. Not happening.

Dude. This went on for literally like

months and finally one day he come up and he's like, hey, what

do I got to do to get you on this van?

And I looked at him. I said, dude, you have pestered

me so much, I will literally just go on the event to get you

to leave me alone and thank God for his faithfulness though.

And it was his consistency as that youth pastor of just like

pressing and he knew God put something on his heart.

He knew what he had to do. And I'm so thankful he never

gave up on me because if he would have never, never made it

to where I'm at right now. So I go on this event and it's

four days where you pretty much turn in like electronics, all

the things and you just disconnect from the world and

they make a table to where you sit in the presence of God for

four days. You, you can take away as much

or as little as you feel. There is no pressure, no

nothing. But they put you in a position

to where you can truly meet God. And I'd always thought I knew

God. I prayed, I did the things, but

I never truly understood the Father that he is until this

encounter. And when I walked out of that

place, it shook me to my core. It it changed my outlook on

life. It changed the way I thought.

And, and that was one of the things that once you've been

free, it puts a desire in your heart to want to see other

people experience that freedom. When I came home that week, my

wife picked me up because I didn't know, but I guess you can

drive yourself there. I thought you had to get dropped

off. So she dropped me off and it was

probably for the best thing because the first day I probably

got my vehicle and left. And she picks me up when we're

riding home and I'm a talker. So we're on our way home and I

haven't said a word. And mind you, I haven't talked

to her in like 5 days. And we get almost home and she's

like, how was it? Like what, what, what happened?

Like what happened? What's going on?

And I kind of snickered and I looked her.

I said, I'm still processing it. Like one of two things.

Either people are going to think that I've completely lost my

mind in four days or they're going to think that I found

Jesus and there's nowhere in between.

And I just like it took me weeks to process everything that I had

learned about who God was and I had found.

But in that finding that new freedom, it it put a desire

inside of my heart to want to serve and serving is important.

People don't understand it. And I see in the head like the

volunteer sign up up there. We're called to serve.

They should not have to be reaching out to be able to

serve. We should be as a church

congregation. We should be serving and we're

not serving this church. We're not serving, you know, an

individual, we're serving God. When you sign up to to do the

youth or the VBS or, you know, for your, whatever you're doing,

you are serving the living God. You're not, you're not serving N

life church. It's way bigger than that.

And a lot of people, I think I have a hard time understanding

that, but I see not we, we pulled in this morning and I see

we're sitting in the in the parking lot and I don't know if

you guys know this. You guys are a little bit late

risers. I'm kind of like you guys at our

own church, so I'm not going to throw stones.

But we're sitting there and we're watching this guy and he

comes out there and he's got this leaf blower and he's

blowing like the parking lot. Like, all right, that's

different. You know, blowing parking lot

off. They didn't see him doing the

sidewalks. And I'm like, that makes more

sense. But you realize what time Kurt

gets here in the morning to blow the parking lots off.

And then I come to find out this guy's got like, he's got so many

jobs in this place. And I'm like, you're the same

guy blowing the parking lot lot off in the mornings.

Like, come on, hey, there's some youth in this room.

Get up and serve. Get up and serve.

You'll find, you'll find so much fulfilment and doing the

simplest things when you're doing them for God, it'll blow

your mind. It doesn't even make sense, but

it's real. So it, it gave that desire to me

to serve and I started serving on these events after I went

through it, I made this commitment with God that I

didn't know I was signing up for.

But in this time, I'm out there and I'm walking around and I'm

like, you know what Lord, this is the last day I'm out there

and I'm, I'm walking, I'm praying.

I'm like, Lord, if you send a family member or a friend

through this event, I'll serve it.

It's an easy one, right? I serve that event for almost 2

years. Every single event after that,

because either a family member of mine or one of my best

friends have gone through the event and literally I watch God

change lives over and over and over and don't get it mixed up.

It's not the event that changes lives, it's the encounter with

the living God that changes your life.

There is no like recipe, but once you've been in the presence

of God, you can't help but have it change your life.

And as I started serving that, there was one time where I'm

serving it and I got to a point in my life where I could, I

could have like I called it my 2.

I could have two social drinks and then shut it off, where all

the rest of my life I could never shut it down.

Once I had two, it was like that was too many because there was

no stopping after that and it just changed who I was as a

person. And I started noticing God

giving me a little hints because I could have the two and then it

would almost pull a filter off of my life of where I would say

things that I wouldn't say if I was sober, but it wasn't so

hurtful or bad that it was like I'm a lot better than I used to

be. It was one of those like in

betweens. And I was I was praying one

night and the Lord spoke to me as audible as he ever had.

And he said, Jeremy need to quit drinking.

And I'm going to tell you I had every excuse in the book.

I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

This is not to be a drunkard. I can have two glasses of wine

and not be a drunkard. And I can be sober minded to

steal and all the things. And he said you need to quit

drinking. I said what in the world?

Oh Lord, why do I have to quit drinking?

But everybody else can still drink.

And you know, it doesn't change. You know who they are and all

these things. I went back and forth and back

and forth. And he finally said to me, he

says if your son's life depended on it, would you quit?

And it froze me. Of course I quit my kids life

depended on it. He never spoke to me again about

it. So then I got this process into

my mind. I'm like, what does that mean?

Does that mean my kids going to be an alcoholic if I keep

drinking? Does that mean that like

something happened to him? Like what does that look like?

And it bothered me for a year straight.

And I was putting together a message for our men's group and

I'm writing this down about this encounter I'd had with the Lord.

And he comes back and he finally gave me the second-half.

And what he told me was, was if you quit drinking for your son,

how much more important are my sons and daughters?

And this is before I was ever a men's director.

And he spoke to me, said, how are you going to stand in front

of people and tell them that they can quit doing something

that you've never quit? How can I rightfully get in

front of a guy that's struggling with alcoholism and say, hey, I

know you can. You can quit.

I know you can do it. I've never done it, but you can.

So that was God that's given me. It was the foresight and being

obedient in it. It allows me at this point in my

life to to sit with men that have this struggle and say, Hey,

God took it from me. He can take it from you.

Live in testimony, dude. You can quit anything you want

to quit. I've been sober for, I don't

know, three years or something now and drug free for five, I

think 5 or 6 years now. And praise God, absolutely

praise God. So for that it opened my eyes up

and it was like, what are we called to do?

So I'm a landscaper by trade. I own a landscape company down

in Stanwood. And I walked into the church a

couple years ago and one of the administrative pastors comes up

and says, what are you going to do?

And God calls you the full time ministry.

I don't know, you better talk to God about that.

I didn't know what I was doing when I started a landscape

company. So he just kind of chuckled in,

you know, I never understood what my calling was going to be,

but I started to understand that it was beyond the church

building. You know, we're called into the

streets. We're called into Gaylord for

you guys. You know, we're called into Big

Rapids, where we're at. We're at college to campus.

There are kids walking around lost everywhere, you know, and

when you think of the church, everybody has a tendency of

thinking of, you know, this place right here or for us, it's

Res Life Church. But I was sitting in church one

day and I, I'm looking at one of the screens.

I know Josh had all kinds of cool stuff you guys look at.

That's not my gig. If you wanted me to build you

like a block wall or something, I could have done that and put

it across the stage. But as far as the PowerPoint

presentations, that's not my thing.

But I'm looking at 1 and it says it said church on it.

And it the part that stuck out to me on it is in the center of

the church are the letters. You are because you are the

church. You are the living examples of

the church. When you walk out of this

building, you may be the only church anybody ever experiences.

It may be an encounter that you have with somebody.

It may be a conversation that you have with somebody, but it

might be it. You might be the one shot that

we have to bring somebody to Christ.

So I was like, OK, well, that's that's a pretty big deal.

That's a lot of weight to carry. So what is it supposed to look

like? You know, what are we supposed

to look like? How are we supposed to be living

to be that example of the church when we come across people and

you know, I believe that we've been called the just love and

lead. So if you get your Bibles out,

how many got actual Bibles? Come on, pick them up.

Let's see them. Oh yeah, all you phone and iPad

guys. I see you guys out there.

So our pastors on us about having a paper Bible.

I don't know if Josh told you, but he if he if you don't have

one, he'll give you 1. He is about the Bible and at

first when he started talking about him, I'm like, what's the

matter? I've got, I've got a Bible on

like 7 devices, right? I mean, I can pull Bible up on

my watch if I wanted to, I think.

But at the end of the day, if we lose power, you live, you lose

your sword. Are you willing to take that

opportunity of not having the living word of God in front of

you because it's on your phone? And his big thing is, is what

are you going to leave your kids when you pass away?

You think anybody's going to pick your old iPhone up and go

through it and read what you had to say on a Bible app.

It's not happening. But if there's a day that they

take your Bible and they start opening it up and seeing what

you put in there for notes and what you have highlighted and

the things that you've already gone through, you can save them

years of trials by reading what you've already been through and

seeing what you found to be the truth.

So that's why I believe it's important to have your, your

Bible in front of you. So we're going to go to second

2 Peter 1:3–8

Peter 1, verses 3 through 8. And it says by his divine power,

God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

We've received all of his, all of this by coming to know Him,

the one who called us to Himself, by means of His

marvelous, glorious, and excellence.

And because of his glory and excellence, He has given us

great and precious promises. These are the promises that

enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world's

corruption caused by human desire.

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's

promises. Supplement your faith with a

generous provision of moral excellence and moral excellence

with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and

self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance

with godliness, and godliness with brother, brotherly

affection and brotherly affection with love for

everyone. The more you grow like this, the

more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of

your Lord Jesus Christ. So when I read that, I feel like

godliness is what jumped off the page to me.

And when I first thought about it, I'm like, what does

godliness look like? Godliness is the truth of who

God is in US. Godliness is a transformation of

the heart that leads to a transformed life.

So godliness should be something that is seen on you.

It should be something that you wear your walk with the Lord

should you should wear that everywhere you go.

What godliness is not godliness is not checking the box and

saying I went to church on Sunday.

Godliness isn't learning foreign languages of Christianese to

where when you're hanging out with the right people, you know

the right things to say, you know how to act, and then when

you leave there, everything changes.

Godliness is not a performance. Godliness is something that is

true to who you are inside and out, no matter what the

situation is and what that looks like in your life.

You know the quality that I listed.

Those are great lukewarm Christian qualities.

If you find yourself act in two different ways, I would I would

say you need to measure yourself up.

People want to be saved from the penalty of sin, but have no

desire to be saved from the power of sin in their daily

life. I believe that's where the

struggle comes in. You want to be saved in the long

run, but I don't want to be saved today.

I don't want to have to change anything because it makes me

uncomfortable. I want to keep living like I'm

living, but I do want God to save me from eternal damnation.

You know, that's where the problem comes in.

That's where the the bad name on the church comes from.

I know growing up, I remember watching people go to church on

Sundays and then be pulling out of the parking lot.

You see that mire flipping somebody off and road raging on

the way out the door. And you're like hypocrites, you

know? And that's how I grew up.

And that was one of the things that pushed me away from church

so much is like, yeah, I had pastor on stage and then he's in

Meijer parking lot and he's ready to fight somebody in the

parking lot. And it's like I thought, what do

I go to that for? That's, that's just two faces it

gets, you know, and I think that's where the church had that

bad reputation. And, and the reality of it is

they're not hypocrites. They're humans.

And humans all have a flesh that we're all fighting.

There's no, I'm telling you right now, this message is for

me as much today as anybody in this room, because we all have a

battle. We're fighting, you know, we

serve the same God. We all have a Goliath in our

life. There's no getting away from it.

It's just the reality of it. We all are battling some kind of

giant. It's just, what does it look

like? You know, one person's giant.

It's definitely not the same as another person's giant, but we

all have the same enemy. So with that, you really got to

dig out the root. What is it?

The change inside of your body is more than an outward

expression. There's something inside of you

that you have to dig out. There's a root that causes you

to do the things that you do, and when you're chasing down

God, God can tend to point you to the root.

What you do with that root is up to you.

If you want to cut the top off of it like you're out in your

garden and just hope it don't come back.

Anybody that gardens knows that's coming back, it might

come back bigger than it was before.

You got to do the work in your heart to dig that out and pluck

that root from the ground and that's where the transformation

begins to change. Your character begins to change.

Godliness produces Christ like qualities such as love,

humility, integrity, patience, mercy, and self-control.

It's typically real clear on how somebody treats somebody else.

You can tell where they're at in their walk.

It sounds extremely similar to the fruit of the spirit.

The fruit of the spirit, Lovejoy, peace, patience,

kindness, meekness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.

The difference being fruit of the Spirit is what grows inside

you, and godliness is the life that reflects that growth.

How do you carry that fruit out? How do you express that fruit?

Do people see it? You know, it's not just a show,

you know. Are you the same person at home

as you are here? Are you the same person at work

as you are here? Do people notice that you don't

blend in with the rest of the world?

Is it something that is temporary or is it a permanent

lifestyle choice? You know, that's that is truly

the easy representation of telling where you are.

So godliness is one of those things that it shines its

brightest under pressure. You know, so when you leave here

and and you have that guy going on the highway that you don't

even know why he's so mad. But obviously, you know, 7 over

in fast lane wasn't enough and he drives by you and he flips

you off. What's your immediate reaction?

You know, I can tell you my past life that I lived wasn't good

there. There was, it was a clear line

in the sand that said that dude right there, he's not godly.

Ain't nothing. Now, I'm not sure if there's

anything good in that guy, you know, but what about when you're

on the family vacation and you blow a tire?

Everybody's already, you got somewhere to be.

You're trying to get somewhere. The pressure's already on stress

levels a little high. I got the kids in the back

street seat screaming. You blow a tire and you're on

the side of the highway. How do you react there?

Because when you're under that pressure, it tends to bring out

the true qualities of what you have going on in your heart.

So we were in the UP last week on a family fishing trip.

We do it every year. It's a time where we get all our

kids and my parents and my wife Ashley's parents and we all go

together. Glory to the Lord.

It is amazing. It probably sounds stressful to

some of you, but we have been blessed with in laws and parents

that they've mesh really well. And it was a great opportunity

to go up there. And we're up there and we're

headed back from a fishing day and we got the boat on and

everything's going well. And all of a sudden I hear to

quote thump. And I'm like, oh, mercy.

I look in my mirror and it's after the evening fish.

I look in my mirror and I can see sparks tumbling down the

road. I'm like, that's not good.

I don't know what I just hit and I don't know how I didn't see

it. And then the light kicks on on

the dashboard and I'm like, for real.

And the air pressure starts dropping like a rock, like, OK,

pull it over. So I pulled over and my

father-in-law, he's just like, oh, because he was with us that

day. He said, oh, that's about as bad

as it gets, you know, what do you do?

So I'm going to prepare like I prepare for the worst and then

pray for the best. But if the worst happens, I'm

ready for it. So I've got like bottle Jack in

the back of the truck. I got impact wrenches, tools

like you're not going to catch me, not ready for it.

So I get out and you know, I'm changing this tire on the side

of the road and I mean 10 minutes with different spare

down, new tire on the truck, whatever.

And we get done and we get back in the truck and he looks at me

and he goes, man, I don't know if that could have gone any

better. I don't know if I got to change

the tire in my garage that fast. And I just kind of laughed and,

you know, in the back of my head I'm thinking, and I just put

that tire on like not even a month ago.

And it's a three quarter ton truck.

So nobody, you know, truck tires aren't cheap.

And we had a conversation on the ride home and he's just like,

don't even get like, you don't even get upset about it.

Nothing you're going to do about it.

It's already done. I mean, how mad are you going to

let that get you? You're going to ruin a whole

week over a blown tire. Does it stink?

Absolutely, it stinks. But he just came to Christ here

in the last couple years and he grew up in a household that

didn't exist. So he knew what his reaction to

that would have been. But then he had an opportunity

to see my reaction and he knew me since I was a kid and he knew

how hot headed I was and how my temper would flare and how I

would have reacted before. But he got to see the difference

that God's made in my life to where it's OK.

You know, I'm not going to worry about the money God provides.

I'm not going to get stressed out about the situation.

It's going to be OK. It's not, it's not that big a

deal. It isn't, it isn't life

threatening. Big deal.

So for me, that blown tire, you could view it as an

inconvenience or you could view it as an opportunity to show

what God's done in your life. And if that's the one thing that

my father-in-law got to see what God has changed in my life and

it cost me 3 or 400 bucks, praise the Lord, that's a great

investment. It's a great opportunity to show

my father-in-law what change can happen in anybody's life that's

willing to submit and just follow the Lord.

So, you know, you got to be willing to view things

differently as a Christian. I was talking to Bob this

morning and you know, Bob's got a lot of knowledge, a lot of

wisdom. And he's telling me and he says,

he says, you know, if you just live according to the word of

God, things go good. It's easy.

It's it's like a recipe for success.

And I kind of chuckle because I'm like, I'm the advocate.

I kind of like to poke. And I said, what about Job?

So what job do wrong? You know, and he's just like,

that's one I never really understood.

You know, Bob and he's just like he's got all the reasons behind

it. And I said, you know, it's

really not so much about the recipe to having things go your

way all the time because they're not going to when God, you know,

it's more about how do you view your problem?

How what are you going to do with it?

How do you view it? You know, Job could have viewed

it as I've lost everything. I got no reason to live.

God must hate me, but he never steered that way.

Everything can go wrong and that's just opportunity for

growth. So all my friends always tease

me because like James is my book.

I love James. And when they heard that I was

coming up here, they're like, So what book you preaching out at?

What are you going to preach out of James this week?

And I said, well, whatever. So you know, James 1/2 through

4. This is for the guys at home.

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your

way, considered an opportunity for great joy, because you know

that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may become mature

and complete, not lacking anything.

So if you can change your mindset and twist it to when

trials come your way, praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, because without those trials, you don't get to

be complete, you don't get to be mature, and you're going to be

lacking something. So when trials come your way,

you have to just be willing to accept it and say, you know

what, Lord, what's the lesson in this?

What can I learn from this trial?

What can I do differently? What is this here to mold me?

What are you going to use this for?

Because anything that's that the enemy is going to use for evil,

God's going to flip it to good. We got to be able to walk in

that. We got to be able to walk in

that in everyday life, everything that we're doing, you

know, every conversation. And that's that's the hardest

thing I think to get through is to understand that bad things

happen to good people, but God's still going to use something in

that to better that person. We're never done growing and our

purpose is never done. I got to meet Jerry.

I don't know. I'm sure you guys probably know

Jerry this morning. And he says, Yep, survived

another heart attack, open heart surgery.

And he's telling me all about it.

And he's like, I'm just blessed. And I said, yeah, you are just

blessed, but you're not done. And he says, oh, I don't know

what else are, you know, he's 8088 years old.

He says, well, I don't know what else I'm supposed to do.

I said, I don't know what you're supposed to do either.

But God's not done with you. That's why you're still here.

You know, at the end of the day, when you're done, you'll be the

first one to find out, you know, praise, praise the Lord for for

guys like Jerry, though, you know, he's, he's sitting in

here, you tell the first thing he's so proud.

And he's telling me about four generations sitting in the

church. Man, I tell you what, that's

something to be proud of. That's, that's doing something

that's, that's treasure stored in heaven.

You know, if there's nothing else, Jerry knows he's got his

family where they're supposed to be, but he's I just don't know

what else I got to do. I said, Jerry, you've been at

this church long enough. You're not done.

You're not you're going to continue to walk with this

congregation and lead by example.

Praise God for guys like Jerry. You know, I pray that that

there's a day in my life where I can say the same thing and and

just be that living example. But walking in godliness is a

fine line because people people get it twisted because if.

You're doing things in the wrong order.

It tends to put off the wrong vibes.

And then people don't want to hear nothing at all from you.

You know, there you start to get the holier than thou.

And I think a lot of that comes from the way we deliver what

we're delivering. And the way we deliver a message

is extremely important. So this is something that that I

find to be extremely valuable in my own life and it's something

that I've continued to grow in. Godliness is neither harsh truth

without compassion or gentleness nor kindness without conviction

expresses truth with gentleness and conviction with humility.

So, you know, pure facts delivered without empathy can

crush somebody. That's not going to help them if

you're just bringing the facts because you need to hear it.

And I'm here to tell you that's not going to bring anybody God,

it's probably gonna get him to separate from you because it's

going to hurt them. And then they're just going to

push away from the things that hurt.

So then they're not going to receive anything from you.

But then on the other side, it's, it's a tricky balance

because being nice just to avoid conflict means that you're

abandoning what's right and true.

And that leads to to shallow and powerless faith because you're

not even going to bring it up to them.

You're just going to let them say the things that are going to

lead them down the wrong road. And you're just going to let

them figure it out on their own. And that's not fair either.

So, so there's this in between that, you know, the, the power

of gentleness. It implies that soft delivery

doesn't mean weak truth. Instead, gentleness makes the

truth easier for a heart to receive it.

So delivering in a place in a manner that people know that you

actually care enough to have a conversation with them is really

the key. It's about having a firm spine

and a soft heart, and it echoes in the Bible from Ephesians 415,

and it's speaking the truth in love.

You know, something that we always say is nobody cares how

much you know if they don't know how much you care, you don't

have access to everybody's life. But if somebody gives you access

to their life, you have to, you have to carry that extremely

gentle and you have to, you have to handle their heart in a way

that God would be proud. So that's something that as a

parent, I know I continue to learn because for some reason,

kids don't understand how much you care to a degree because

they don't understand how much you love them.

You know, I think as a parent, it's really tough because you

want to see the best for your kids and you know, the roads

that they're walking down and, and you see it coming from a

mile away, but they don't understand how much you love

them because as a kid, you just can't.

You can't even exceptionalize how much a parent actually cares

about you. I know I never did.

I never understood how much my parents cared about me until we

had our first kid. I didn't know what love was.

I thought I did. I told girls I loved them.

You know, it worked, but as far as I actually know what love

was, you know, I didn't, I didn't know what love was.

I didn't, I didn't know how to love.

Well, you know, but when you're when you're speaking out of

love, it's the truth that provides the direction and the

love provides the motivation. Our friend group, we always, we

always tell each other because we have access to each other's

lives and, and we do life together with our group that we

do now. And we always when you hear

somebody come up and they tell you, brother, I love you enough

to tell you, you know, they're about to put something on you

and you're like, oh, what did I do?

How, what did I do wrong? What do I got to change?

Because that's that's a great way to open.

I love you enough to tell you that you need to stop doing

this. Or I heard you did that or you

know, and, and we just call each other out.

But but you know that they care about you.

They don't want to see you get sucked back into the world.

It's the easiest thing to fall back into.

We always, we always laugh because you know, 1% off isn't

bad, right? 1% off ain't bad.

If you can live your life in a godly fashion and only be 1%

off, it doesn't seem bad. But if you're traveling across

an ocean and you're 1° off, when you get across the ocean, you're

not going to be anywhere where you, where you thought you were

headed. You're not even going to be in

the same country, you know? So if you're 1° off and you're

walking with God two years down the road, 3 years down the road,

you're going to look over and be like, well, I was walking beside

God. I don't even know where God's at

anymore. I can't see him, can't hear him,

can't feel him. What happened?

You know, it's really easy to get pulled back into the world.

So true godliness is the life sincerely oriented towards God,

expressed through having Christ like characters and everyday

integrity. True godliness is growing rather

than perfect, authentic rather than staged, and produced by the

spirit rather than self manufactured.

When walking in the spirit, mature when walking in spiritual

maturity. You should do it naturally.

Don't hear what I'm not saying. Naturally doesn't mean

effortlessly because it takes effort, but there's two types of

natural and if you're a brother or sister in Christ, 1 is a new

nature because the world and the flesh that you were born into

and then becoming a Christ follower is all new nature, all

new. Everything inside of you should

change every thought, every, every action.

It should continue to be new. But there's a point where it

becomes second nature when you're walking it out so long

that you begin to do the things naturally, just like a

professional athlete. You know, professional athletes

don't get there because they just were in the presence long

enough and they just showed up. Now it comes from strength.

Strength training, conditioning reps over and over and over and

over. And that's our life.

We're getting reps over and over again.

Are you going to do the Rep the right way?

Are you going to do the Rep the wrong way?

But you don't get to become a professional athlete because

you're doing things the wrong way.

It's consistency and living life consistently and doing the

things you know you're supposed to consistently and now a lot,

not allowing the enemy to veer your practice.

You have to continue to make it to where when bad things happen,

your natural reaction is something that got to be proud

of. Your natural reaction to a bad

situation, to when money's tight, to when your vehicle

breaks down, it's got to be a natural reaction to.

I can't wait to see what God's going to do with this.

And that's where we got to continue to grow to.

And I don't think that you grow to that without being put

through the trials. So, you know, I met a guy in the

UP. How am I doing on time?

I got a little carried away. The last one, just a quick one,

rabbit trail met a guy in the UP and we were at the boat launch

and we come in and he's standing there and he's got his veterans

hat on. And anytime I see anybody

wearing a military of any kind, I go up and I just have to thank

him for their service and what they've done and just tell them

thanks for for us to be able to live the lives we live because

of their sacrifice, because it's a sacrifice.

And his was Vietnam. And I have a handful of friends,

parents that were there and they all have the same mindset.

And when I told him thanks, he looked at me and said, I don't

understand why I made it out. That was his one comedy that he

made back to me. And I said, you know, the best

part is you don't have to understand.

But at the end of the day, God's not done with you.

So whether you served, whether you didn't serve, if you're in

this room today, God's not done with you.

You got to continue to walk in the Spirit and to continue to

grow because the God's not done. And he looked at me and he

didn't even know how to react to it.

And he's just like never, just kind of like it was like all new

revelation too. And I'm like, you know, like,

OK. And I asked him, I said, you got

kids. He goes, Yep, I said, you got

grandkids. He said, Yep, that's why you're

not done. I said, God left you here

because there's something that you're supposed to teach those

kids and he ain't taking you until until you do what you're

supposed to do. It's your choice.

And and he kind of received that and he wasn't sure.

And the weirdest thing, two days later, he shows up in the exact

same fishing hole on that. And I'm like, OK, I was nice to

you once, now you're in my fishing hole.

So no, he was actually getting ready for a tournament and we

had to have, we ended up having a great conversation and I got

to be that church to him that day.

And I pointed out a bunch of fish that I left on the beds for

him so that he could win his fishing tournament the next day,

hopefully. But it it turned into a

conversation where I ended up helping him load his boat back

up. You know, he was 80 something.

And I see him out there and he's trying to load a boat by

himself. I'm like, can you use a hand?

Of course he needs a hand. So I ended up helping him get

the boat out. And he sat there and we had a

conversation afterwards. And he's just like, I don't know

if I've ever met anybody quite like you.

And I thought to myself, praise the Lord, you know, this is this

is that encounter that maybe that's what God was waiting for.

Maybe he was waiting for you to have a God encounter and to just

be loved. Well, you know, but well, what

are we? Are we in too big of a hurry to

be that person for somebody because this world has happened.

It's so fast. It's so easy to get in such a

rush to not be that example of Christ when we have

opportunities to. And I'm not saying that I

stopped for every person with a blown tire on the side of the

road. But if I feel a tug in the

Spirit, you do, you know, and I believe that that walking in

that spirit is something that we have to really be able to dial

in on. You know, it's a it's a daily

habit. It's walking in step.

It's being intentional on growing the fruit that's inside

of you so that you can feel it when you're called.

And I think that's the one thing if you could take away from here

today, it would be to continue to grow in the Spirit of God and

understand when you're hearing from him, because once you

understand when you're hearing from God, there's nothing that

can stop you. So I'm going to close out

dearly. Father, I thank you for today.

I thank you for an opportunity to come to Gaylord and just

bring your word. Lord, I pray that you continue

to do what you do here in Gaylord and use this church to

continue to spread your greatness across Gaylord and to

continue to be the church outside of the church, the Big

Sea church. Lord, I pray that you get you

begin to pour your spirit into everyone in this room and and

give everybody just the boldness it takes to be the Big Sea

Church everywhere they go. Lord, as I pray today, I just

feel, I feel a stirring and I felt it in first service too.

And I just feel like I got to ask if there's anybody in this

room that struggles with any kind of depression.

I just ask that you look up here anybody that struggles with

depression. Yeah.

Have you guys committed your life to the Lord?

Yeah. OK, So I just come together

right now and I come against the power of the enemy.

I come against the whispers of the devil that that try to tell

you that he has you in a place because of the truth of it is is

in Romans. It tells us that that we have

the life giving spirit inside of us and it has freed us from the

power of sin that leads to death and sin has no hold on us.

We come against any kind of demonic realm that is trying to

whisper into the ears of of God's children.

We come against you right now in Jesus mighty name.

We silence you in Jesus name. You have no authority in their

lives and I just pray that you begin to open their eyes to see

who they are in you. Lord, we pray that you open

their ears to to hear your voice clearly, to overpower the voice

of the enemy. I pray that you soften their

hearts to continue to to mend and mold into who you've called

them to be. And I just pray that that you

just continue to fill their bodies with your spirit Lord,

from the bottom of their feet to the top of their head.

Let your spirit flow through them.

And I just pray that that any voice of the enemy just begins

to just be binded in Jesus mighty name.

And I just pray that you begin to lead them down a path and put

them in front of the people that they need to be surrounded by to

bring them out of a darkness that the enemy is trying to

isolate them to. I just thank you Lord, for the

spirit that is in this room that is the strongest, it is the the

mightiest, the greatest, the holiest.

We just thank you for that spirit that you trust us with

Lord. And we just thank you for for

just being there. Lord, we just pray that you

continue to to lead and guide every one of them.

I just, I just asked right now if there's anybody in the room

that has not given their life to the Lord, just raise your hand.

Anybody in the room, all sons and daughters, praise God.

We just thank you. Lord, we thank you for this

opportunity. We thank you for what you're

doing. We just ask that you continue to

lead and guide us and all that we do.

We, we just give it to you. Lord, lead us.

Let us be servants and let us be faithful and let our spirit

continue to grow In Jesus may name, Amen.