Wanderlust: Leaving the Comfort Zone

Well, good morna Venture Church. How are we doing today? Fantastic?

But listen, I just want to take a moment. You guys are special.

This is my first Sunday service ever. That that's right, thank you,

thank you. I'll glody to God. I just got a question.

We got some gold fear and people in the house today. Oh see you

listen. I love that. Well, you guys came to the right spot.

If we haven't met yet, my name is Johnny Why. I have

the honor and privilege of being the youth pastor here and we're in the middle

of a series right now called wonder Lust. And the first time like they's

like, hey, wonder Lust, I kind of just assumed that I had

to own it, like it was like wonder like, oh, the wonder

of God. Amazing, And they're like, no, that's an a in

it. I was like, what does it mean? What are you talking

about? Pastri Seon did a great job just presenting a general definition owner.

Remind us, let's put that wonder lust definition up here. Strong longing for

or impulse toward wonder wander. This word wander stuck out to me a lot

um and I was like, we can long for, But like, what

are we longing for? What does it actually mean? So can we put

up that definition of wander a movement away from the proper normal or unusual course

or place. And this is something that's so important, especially where we're going

today, because today I want to talk to you guys, and the title

of my message is how to leave the comfort zone. This is something that

I think is viable for every single one of us. But before I get

to ahead of myself, I want to say, first off, what's up

to our online family. I want to say what's up to my parents who

are watching from Texas? And I want to Yeah, that's right, shout

out Texas. Let's go. Yeah, we've got some moner ate Texans in

the house. You guys are all Texans today, Okay, But I want

to honor our lead pastors as well, Pastor Brennan, the pastor Diabeals for

giving me this opportunity. How many you guys are grateful for our lead pastors?

Come on listen wherever you guys are watching from I think Vegas and oh

in Spokane. Thank you guys, appreciate y'all, and we love you guys.

We'll see you guys, soon cool. All right, are you guys

ready for the word, Well, I'm ready to give it to you.

This message God tell me it's E E for everybody. So Proverbs three,

verses five through six says this trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not rely on your own understanding and all your ways. Know Him

and He will make your pass straight. I just want to open up with

a question. What happens when the path that God makes straight in your life

takes you straight to discomfort? What is that avenue? I'm blessed to be

here today because it almost didn't happen. I want to take you guys to

my graduating year, the good old year of twenty twenty, the peak of

COVID. Take you guys to my college dorm. I'm sitting on the couch

eating Hamburger helper because I don't know how to cook just yet. Bishop td

Jakes is on my TV screen. That was like our surprise guest, and

I was gonna do like a like an impression, but I just feel like

that offend everybody, So I'm just gonna save myself that conversation. But he's

like, congrats graduates, I almost did it. And anyways, congrats graduates,

Like you guys did it and I had that just click. Oh I'm

done. I just finished school. Okay, give you guys a little bit

of context. I received my call, I got saved and baptized in the

Holy Spirit when I was fourteen years old. I always knew I wanted to

be a pastor. I always knew I wanted to be a minister. And

for the longest time, this is like six or seven years coming, like

I finally, like was at the finish line. I had studied, I'd

take I was in seminary and I'm like, I'm itching and ready to go,

and I'm interviewing for a couple of jobs. I have a couple of

offers on the table and it's everything I've ever wanted, and it just doesn't

feel right. And I'm praying, Oh my God, Like what's happening.

Is it because it's in Mississippi? Is it because it's somewhere else? It's

like, what am I supposed to do? And I begin to brest to

do all the questions do I need to go back to my hometown. I

didn't want to go back to my hometown. I was living in Dallas and

I had to go back to Dusty loving Texas, and I was like,

I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. It's a really small town.

But God's like, if I'd asked you to go back home, would you

do it? Like what am I supposed to say no to you? Like?

Yeah, God putting on my heart? If I asked you to go

to go back to school again, would you do it? I mean I

really did not want to go back to school, like at all. And

I really feel this piece. And it's kind of crazy because I'm know where

Brendan Greenwalt's out, but he posted a TikTok and I was in charge of

research and development with a company down there and venture popped up, and like,

legitimately, if if Brendan doesn't post that TikTok, I don't end up

here. It's crazy. I have this radical like God confirmation on the phone.

Was one of the pastors here, and it just feels like this,

this is the next step, this is where I'm supposed to be. This

is it. And so I'm going to all my ministry friends, all my

mentors, and I'm excited to share the news. Yo, I know what

I'm doing next, Like, oh, where are we going. Where'd you

get drafted? Where? Where are you signing the contract? Where are you

pastoring at the spring? Johnny White's sticking his talents too, And I was

like, I'm going to Seattle and I was expecting that, Oh, let's

go. All I got was why They're like, don't you know you can

have an easy year. There's a church on every single corner. We can

get you a job about the biggest churches in the area. Don't you know

that they're not Christian out there, They don't love God out there. There's

barely any churches out there. You want to do a church plant, you

want to pastor out there, That's not gonna be easy. And I just

hmm. I was like, thank your Holy Spirit exactly. They don't know

Jesus. I'm not called to feed people who already know Him. And it

just submitted to me this idea and this concept and how I want to open

up. And if you're taking notes, I encourage you to take notes.

Our calling and our purpose does not reside in our comfort, but it resides

in our obedience. Watch how you your mindset and your actions and everything about

your life begins to switch and convert when you don't no longer chase the comfort,

but you chase the comforter. You chase the source of everything. Where

I'm not going to be dictated by what my surroundings looks like. I'm not

gonna be dictated by what feels quote unquote good. Is God in it?

Is He moving for us? Can I tell you that our peace, our

soulless, anything that we could find comfort in, if it's not in God,

it's temporary. The Youth Ministry, right now we have this little thing

on Sundays ten am, Youth Essentials, Wednesday seven pm plug or we're going

through the Bible, and right now we're going through the Book of Ecclesiastes,

and there's this big overwatching thought. Here's where I've been teaching your kids.

For those who've been curious, nothing in your life matters. It's really encouraging

pep talk. But what Solomon is actually trying to communicate in this thought is

anything that you could take comfort in, money, job, platform, influence,

anything like that will always disappoint you, will always be insufficient and will

never carre you to the finish line. The only thing that is significant,

the only thing that will hold purpose and drive you and help you finish the

race. Well is our reverence in God? Amen? And I love that

that's the life we live. And I love that that's how it's set up

because there's no one I would rather have in my corner in my court than

God. I'm believing that as we go through this conversation, God's been going

to begin to highlight different areas in your life that we're comfortable that we might

be settling, that there might be more on the table for And what I

ask is, as God begins to bring that out, there's gonna be attention

for you to shove it back down. But can I ask you, would

you trust God to do some surgery today? Would you trust God to put

you in a better position to launch you into the next level of your faith?

Can we do that together? Church? Oh? Hey man, I

love the ten Am. Y'all are dope. This is great, this is

exciting. All right, let's get into it. Proverb twenty one two says

all a person's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs hearts.

Human nature would have us justify our our place and life, our actions,

our mentality where we're like, we know I'm working on it, I'm getting

better, It's okay. And sometimes we can tell ourselves a lie of I'm

good where I'm at, And I don't want you guys to pull from this

message that, oh, Johnny White say, We're not supposed to be comfortable.

Anytime I feel good in live should I'm probably in sin or something like

That's That's not what I'm saying. Okay, Like, don't don't let that

be the key takeaway right now. In the comfort zone, we don't need

to be anxious, but we do need to be vigilant. We need to

be paying attention to where our comfort Zoe resides in. We don't need to

be paranoid, but we do need to be mindful of where our comfort Zoe

resides in. Because what happens when your comfort zone that you find yourself in

is birth out of unhealthiness. You're comfortable because you keep feeding your ego.

You're comfortable because you keep feeling, you keep feeding your selfishness. You're comfortable

because you like to disassociate everybody around you, and we leave it to that,

it just feels rights. I'm just comfortable. This way we build comfort

around our family is like, yes, my family is financially taken care of,

but they don't ever see you. And our misguided approach of chasing our

comfort begins to affect different areas of our life. And I feel like today

God is calling us to look up, open our eyes and seek for more.

Second Corinthians five twenty through twenty one says this, Therefore, we are

ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead

on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not

know sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the

righteousness of God. And it's called an ambassador representative of heaven. At Paul

is talking about really, to seek like our faith is to be like him,

to be Christ like, to chase that attitude and the aspect of Christ's

personality and his character is that seeking of righteousness. Now, seeking of righteousness

isn't something that's a threshold like, oh, I'm righteous done, I've crossed

it, I'm good, I've done enough to the mindset is broken if we

see it that way. The call to righteousness is to look at our life

and to look for more, recently in our in the youth, ministry.

We were talking about the spectrum of faith and can you think about how disappointing

it actually be if we just check off the boxes and that's it. Like

you make it to fifteen years old and you have the radical encounter and you

get baptized in the Holy Spirit, you give your life to Jesus and you

get baptized, and you're like, Okay, that was it. We'll see

you in your thirty five like that, and that's that's the cap. Wouldn't

that just like bum you out? Because it means it would mean our God

has a bottom. What I'm grateful for is that in every season of life,

and no matter how old we get, there's more. Our God has

no bottom. The God who lives outside of time and space has so much

more that he wants to give us, grow on us, molding us and

shaping us. And we were never called to settle in our faith. That's

where we get dangerous. That's where we were like, I've done enough in

my faith. I'm a good Christian man, I'm a good Christian woman.

And we built that off our accolades of the past. I used to lead

a small group six years ago and I don't talk to them no more.

They go to a different church. We find the excuses for our comfort,

We find our excuses for where we reside, and I can't help a feeling

his thing. I'm not talking at you, guys. I'm talking with you,

guys, like this is something. When I was writing this, it

was ministering to my own soul. Every message that I've preached has come out

of a lesson that I've had to learn, most of the time the hard

way. But I'm glad that we can have this space to where I'm not

talking at you, but we get to minister to each other together, and

we're gonna keep pressing you. Sometimes we can accept the quality of our life

right now, and we tell ourselves a lie and justify good enough. Our

marriage is good enough, our family dynamic, it's good enough. It's not

inherently great, it's not bad, but I'll take it as it is,

and we are. We've told ourselves a lie that our stat of life is

cemented. This is as good it is ever gonna get. So I shouldn't

try, I shouldn't stretch out. I shouldn't step upon a limb. I

don't want to break up the peace. So we remain and we abide in

our comfort zone. We abide in this comfortable level, and what we don't

really realize is that our comfort zone has quickly become a comfort cell. We

are entrapped and entrenched in a reality that we've crafted, and because we're so

paralyzed of what might be, we don't know the end result. It keeps

us from standing out, daring, moving for higher and better and greater things.

If I could say it like this, what's a good life compared to

a great life? What's a great life compared to God? A God life?

I knew I was growing in my faith because when I was immature,

when I was newer to the Christian thing, I was like, God,

I need you to make it like obvious, like like dumb obvious, like

red light, green light, Like I need to know where are you at

in this? And it used to be a lot, a lot of bad

and it would be like one good voice and I'm like, oh, that

has to be God right there. I'm with him. And I knew I

was making advancements in my faith when life started getting good. I had good

community, I had healthy options, I had all the doors inherently were good

and God was saying, I promoted you. Now what's God? Can you

tell where I'm at? Listen, the most dangerous place that we can be

in church is when we confuse good and God together. Life is good and

God's screaming at you. But is it me? Are you looking for me?

Can you tell? I'm not even here? And this is where we

need to be vigilant, mindful seeking, praying God? Are you in this?

Are you with me? Are you for me? In the doors that

He's open? And sometimes we're our own worst enemy, and the enemy likes

to take any opportunity we can to contort and hold us back and make us

backslide. And I want to tell you guys, how the enemy can use

your comfort zone against you. Let's put up that verse, John ten ten

Bro, this is so cool having ledu are just like pop pop it up

and everybody can see it. That's great. A thief comes only to steal,

killing. What we'll get back to that in a little bit. The

thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. How does the enemy use his

comfort zone against you? I'm gonna break it down, just as they lied

up right there in your comfort zone. Here's what the enemy will do he'll

steal our dreams. He'll kill us in our compromise, and he'll destroy our

potential allow me to elaborate. He'll steal our dreams. There I'm looking around

the room and I love it. When I got hirt of as a youth

pastor, I didn't speak for the first three months because I took the time

to get to know the people who are I'll be speaking to. And it's

so crazy being here for three years, looking around and seeing all the different

pockets of families that I've known that I've I've talked with it, and I've

seen I feel like a lot of us we've had dreams in our life.

Maybe it was with our career, maybe with our family. Maybe it was

a new venture, a new idea, something that would really elevate not only

your family, but your the society, your area, your region. The

presence was felt, and we got on our own heads. Life got busy.

We made up these excuses and anytime, maybe we're unpacking the old box,

maybe we're looking at an old no entry, and our faith gets stirred

up again, and then we tell ourselves alive, it's too late. That

has to stay buried. The enemy likes to put in our ears. Yeah,

you missed your window. It's over. Let the dream die. Some

of you guys have ambition for what your families could look like, the leaders

in the household, the elevation of the caliber of where your family resides.

We begin to tell ourselves, Nah, this would just stay good enough because

it keeps the peace. And we're not allowed to wander. We're not allowed

to elevate, we're not allowed to push in the comfort. So our comfort

zone can kill our compromise, kill us in our compromise. Can I tell

you what good is cozy when you find it in your loss of conviction?

What good is comfortable whenever it is found? And the things that you're willing

to give away, the things that were once non negotiable, the ones,

the things that you stood tintos down on that would never waver. Well,

now, if it keeps the peace, I don't want to shake things up.

I don't want to cause any trouble. Watch what happens when we keep

our conviction and you look up and you're like, I shouldn't even be in

these environments. I shouldn't even be engaged in these kind of conversations. But

because we keep the peace because we want to feel safe. We don't want

to make waves. We allow our compromise, our convictions though work that God

has done in us personally, to be on the wayside, to be secondary

to what society says is good, to what society says is normal. And

I always go back to the principle, it may be good, but is

it God? Not? Everything bears fruit, the fruit that we would want.

Conviction is the thing that you have to climb for. Nobody wants to

low hanging fruit. Nobody wants to think that's that's easy and accessible, because

what you might notice is what was easy and accessible is disease with bugs infested.

Stepping out of our comfort zone allows us to reach for what's more,

for what you didn't even think was possible, what you thought was what was

unimaginable, what you thought was cemented. God was willing to say, if

you would just give me a shot, if you would just step out,

like I would have been calling you for years, calling you for days,

calling you in your prayer time, if you would just step out, you'd

be so surprised how I'm going to use you in our comfort zone? And

he destroys our potential This is one of the crazy things. I can't remember

if Pastor Brennan told me this or another mentor, but potential is one of

the greatest hypothetical things that you can talk about. I've had the honor and

privilege of speaking to a lot of youth students across different states, in different

places, and one thing, my belief in gen Z, my belief in

jen Alpha is strong. I believe they can change the world. You look

on the front line of every protest, any movement, anything that's shaking up.

Gen Z has something to say. Gen Z is something that they want

to They want to be active. And I always speak life. You can

change the world, you can change your school, you can change the community.

I see the raw talent in you. But the potential would just remain

that hypothetical if you don't do anything with it. As this pastor his name

is Manny Urrango. He does his teaching that like God puts his promises not

in our palm, but in our reach. And it's the concept that God

would will lay these things out in front of you. But you need to

move. You gotta get up and do something. I was talking with somebody.

I think I think it was Cadence, and I was like Cadence,

I could say that you're gonna be the best person in the world. You're

gonna give your class saved. But like, if you don't, like,

if I see you five years from now, you're the exact same person.

Something went wrong. We gotta grow, we gotta move, we gotta step

out. Some of us have been telling the lives I'm good enough, I'm

good right now in my faith, and God said, you should have been

five levels up. You should have been above and beyond where you're at right

now. The intimacy, the intimacy should have improved. You should be able

to hear my whispers in the storm. But we tell ourselves in the comfort

zone, I need to be fighting the same battles. I need to go

back and forth, not advance, kind of pastor Sean alluded to last week.

We begin to drift, we stay in neutral. And here's what can

happen in our faith. If we reside in the comfort zone. We can

pick up an entitled mindset in our faith. That word entitled defined believing oneself

to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. Can I be real without

for a second well, I got the mac. I gonna do it anyways,

So I don't really know how to what you got to say. Let

me tell you what humanity is deserving of. Let me tell you what we're

entitled to. Ever since Genesis three, we are entitled to send death,

condemnation. That's what we inherently deserve. But how many of you guys are

grateful that we have a God who wouldn't let that be the case, who

extended his promise time and time again that you would be covered in the midst

of your mistake, in the midst of your unforgiveness, in the midst of

your dirt, Jesus album would make you clean. And that's why it's important

for us to realize that in our faith, we are promised, not entitled,

and we have to act on the promise because the realization of the promise

is calling for us to step up and step out to what we think is

good, to what we think is normal, to what we think is enough.

I just keep hearing that word enough. Here's what can happen in entitled

mindset. In our faith, we become sardonic or cynical. In our faith,

Pastor tells you get up and meet your neighbor, and you're like,

I already have seven people in my small group. I don't need to meet

anybody else. You show up to church and they're like, I'm in,

I'm out. I show up past the first song, so nobody can really

say hi to me and I as pastorsai about your head, they're like,

okay, bye. Beating the traffic. Pastor says, take it right outside

the parking lot. I want to take a left. Sorry. Sorry,

that just starts to him, starts to him. I don't know. I

don't know what happened. I don't. I don't know where I came from.

That might have that might have been just me. That might have been

just me. I don't, I don't know. God says, give a

word to somebody, and we give the lie I've done enough. He's calling

us to deeper, and we try to justify it in our heart. I'm

doing enough. I'm okay. A realization of the promise is to keep moving

forward, to keep digging deeper. Because I want to ask you the question,

how much are you willing to step out of your comfort zone? For

God has promised you for what God has for you? How far out of

your comfort zone. Are you willing to contend for your family, to contend

for your marriage, to contend for your sons and daughters? Here's the thing,

how far are you want to step out of your comfort zone for your

brothers and sisters that you don't know in this room? Can I talk about

this is chosen family right here, and that I hadn't turn of lights of

because I wanted you guys to see me as I see you. There are

some phenomenal people in this room right now. I'm sure there's a lot more

fun all people that I haven't met yet that I would love to meet,

and I would encourage you step out. Don't do life with just a close

few, but see what a true community can be. We're not tapping on

a little bit. This message was near and dear in my heart. As

I alluded to earlier, I could never write something that I haven't walked through,

and oftentimes it's been through the hard way. I don't have enough time

to do full justice to the story. And so if you have any questions

or you want to get the full in depth thing, we can get lunch

or dinner. If you want to buy me coffee, you know, whatever,

whatever you guys wanna do h But a lot of the youth students,

you guys have heard my testimony, a lot of the young adults, you

guys have heard my testimony. And for the sake of time, you guys

aren't getting from the jump. But I'm gonna get into the end of it.

This is a part of the story that you guys haven't heard yet because

for the longest time, it didn't have a resolution. There wasn't at the

end on it. My junior and senior year, I told you I got

saved when I was fourteen, had these radical encounters with God every year my

junior and senior year, I still struggled with addiction. I was a drug

dealer. I overdosed twice my junior and my senior year, and my life

was a mess. My senior year, I call it D Day because it's

when legitimately my family imploded. Can we be real today? Can I came

here for a church, so I came here to be honest. I Can

I just bear my mess real quick? Yeah? I'm not gonna I have

it all together. So my senior year, I wake up in the hospital

in the middle of the night to my parents in the er with me.

Doctor's telling me I'm facing a bunch of impossible odds, one that I might

not be able to walk or talk again. I might have to get reconstructive

surgery on my face. And my parents, this is their first time knowing

what I'm struggling with. This is their first time that their eyes are open

to the mess that's been my life these past couple of years. Talk about

a route awakening from that day. My parents were also using as well as

a separate incident. But we had the conversation of listen, this almost took

you from us. We're not gonna let it happen again. We'll be your

accountability, We'll be sober together, we will hold you strong. And we

worked hard to reconcile. We worked hard to restore what we had before.

And I'm gonna be honest. Life was good. We me and my parents

had the best relationship that we've had. My mom, we're great. My

father, who's my stepdad? I just I began to see him like a

real father. Everything just kind of clicked in. I go to seminary,

I'm going for a year and a half and I don't get to come home

for a year and a half because I'm working to pay off school and it's

my first time coming home in a year and a half. Like I said

again, I drive five hours back to my hometown. It's a first day

i'm back. I get home early before they get off from work, and

I'm kind of going around seeing my childhood home. Like you guys are like

reminisce a little bit, you know, like I broke that fence, I

broke this window. I broke a lot of things. And as I'm going

through the garage, I find I find drugs. I'm like, oh,

and it's not like been there for a while. It's like it's new.

It's fresh. I could tell. And I mean like it's a gut check

thang. Did they ever actually stop using? Were they ever actually clean?

And this whole just come to this spirit just comes over me. He's like,

I need you to pay attention right now because I'm gonna use you.

And I'm mad. I'm if I could be transparent. Here's what I felt.

The thing that almost took me out a year and a half ago,

they hopped right back in. And how I perceived it was they chose drugs

over me. That's how I felt inherently in my life. We have a

conversation to get back home. I've been praying the whole time. God,

I don't know what to say. I don't know how I'm gonna handle this

conversation. I don't know what to do right now. And they come home

and look at them and I'm like, listen, I found this. I

know what's happening. I just need you guys to know where I'm at in

my face right now, that I'm so serious, so committed, so vigilant

and protective right now, where I'm at because I just got back into this,

like I'm gonna go. I'm gonna leave. I know it sucks because

I'm gonna be here for a week and a half, but I'm leaving the

same day that I just drove. But I need you guys to come to

the decision because you can't have both. You can't have drugs, you can't

have me, or you can't have both, you know what I mean.

And I leave, and over the next year, we're calling from visiting,

we're just trying to reconcile this, and they come to the conclusion, Hey,

you're right, we choose you, and I think everything's good again.

We went from good to great. I was like, man, we are

even healthier. We are on fire. This is amazing. Fast forward to

this year, we have a little youth conference called yuth Khan. It starts

getting a little stressful, like leading up to it, like my first big

event, my first time in the leadership shoe is the Mantel leadership, which

is a little bit heavy. So I started going to counseling and my therapists.

We start talking about ministry and like the weight of that and everything.

But then we start talking about family and this incident comes up and she asked

me. She's like, oh, so, when was the last time you

followed up with them to see if they were still clean? And I was

like, I haven't just why. Over the span of three or four sessions,

every time we got to that part, she would always circle back to

it, I'd freeze up. She had to stopped me one day. She's

like, Johnny, every time we bring this up, your whole body tenses

up. You get really quiet. I can see how much stress and anxiety

just causing you. And here's what I think. I think you're scared to

know the answer because you have such a resolve that that the answer is,

yes, we're not clean. You have to make a decision of leaving a

great family and keeping your word. And I'm freaking out. Call me on

my crowd because that's exactly what I was feeling, and she's like, when

are you gonna have the question? When are you gonna ask the question?

I don't have an answer. I was speaking at a Spanish conference in Dallas

two weeks ago and I had to fly back home for a family emergency,

so I wasn't planning on originally seeing my family, but I like, I

was like, oh yeah, absolutely, Like I'll be there. And it's

the first time I get there and we're sitting in the room and we're reminiscing

and we're talking about if they're remodeling the house, and I just feel the

Holy Spirit come over me. He says General Whisper. If you don't do

it now, you never will. And I'm wrestling my head. God,

what I have right now is good, What this is right now is great.

We fought to get back to this spot of where we're at right now.

I don't want to. I don't want to. I just want to

keep the peace. I just want to stay right here and I hear that

general whisper it could be good, but it won't be me. So I

looked him in eyes. I'm starting to get teary eyed. I don't cry

like that, but I was crying right then. I was like, guys,

and I tell him everything that I had just gone through, what's been

happening in these sessions. And I was like, so I just need to

know for the better or the worst. I just can't leave here without asking

the question. And I looked him in the eyes and I say, are

you guys clean? Are you sober? They look at me and I'm just

along. Pause and they say, listen, we'll pee in the cup right

now. We are we are clean. That was one of the worst days

of our life. But it was a conversation that we needed to have.

And this is the other part of the conversation that we needed to have because

on the other side of it, there was this there was this fear that

they might lose me. And they said, Johnny, you're worth fighting for.

And I looked at him and I was like, you, you both

are worth fighting. If everybody knows when my family's in town, don't buzz

me, don't call me, don't text me because I'm spending all day with

them, especially when I go home, these people on my rock, these

people in my backbone. And it was good enough, but it wasn't God.

And I want to ask you guys a question. Is there an area

of your life right now that's good enough, it's okay, but you know

God's calling you the better. God's calling you the greater in your marriage and

your family, your relationship with your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters,

other things that we've left alone because it was uncomfortable. And I'm believing that

God's calling us into a time to step out to look for more. I

want to avite you guys all across the room to stand up with me.

At first, I'm gonna have you guys all about your heads, to close

your eyes, because maybe you're in this room and you've been hearing me talk

about the comforter, the one who gives that peace, that one that we

reside in. Like I said earlier, are calling Our purpose doesn't reside in

what feels good, It doesn't reside in our comfort, but it resides in

our obedience. Maybe you're in this room and you've been feeling helpless, you've

felt no peace. You've been restless and you didn't have an answer for it.

If you're in this room, no one's looking around right now and you're

saying, I'm ready to commit my life. I'm ready to tap into the

promise that God has been calling for me. I'm ready to give my life

to God. If you're in this room and you want to give your life

to Jesus, would you just raise your hand right now, no countdown,

no nothing. If that's you in this place, would you just raise your

hand. I see you, I see you, I see you, I

see you, and those one more, I see you. You guys can

put your hands down. Can everybody pay for me really quick? Dear Lord,

thank you, Thank you for accepting me in my mess, in my

worry, in my concern. Lord, you cover me. I am grateful

for you, and I acknowledge you as the Lord of my life for now

and forever and then a man, there's one more thing I want to do.

If there's one area in your life that you feel like the Lord is

just pulling you, this needs to change. You need to step out.

If there is an area that you would say, I need to get out

of my comfort zone, would you just stick your hand up right now,

not asking about your heads. If there's an area in your life right now,

like I need to step out. I'm too comfortable in this. Come

on, keep those hands up, keep those hands up, because I love

about this. As we get to get a real practical really really quick,

I want everybody look around, keep your hands up, look around. I

want to show you the power of a chosen family. I want to show

you the power of what the church can be. And I'm going to ask

you to step out of your comfort zone right now. Not to come to

the front now, that's too easy. Anyone who had their hand up,

keep those hands up. I know they tired. Come on, now we're

gonna get to work out in If you're p ninety x for the church,

come on, you're drawn three sixteen. Work out. Here we go.

If you see anybody around you with their hand up, I want you to

turn around. I want you to get out of your seat. I want

you to move around, and I want you to say, how can I

pray for you? Where? What part of your comforts doing do you need

to step out of? And here's that. I know it's vulnerable, good,

I know it's not comfortable purpose of what I'm speaking today. But here's

what I'm envisioning. I'm seeing fathers praying for fathers. I'm seeing mothers praying

for mothers. I'm seeing people praying over cemeteries and turning them in the gardens,

speaking new life and new hope. And tell you, if you won't

step out of your chair now in a church full of people who are believers,

how much harder is it gonna be when you're in your workplace? How

much hard is it gonna be to minister to your family? So right now,

I want invite you guys to step out of your seat, go to

the people who have their hand raised. And here's the thing, No,

don't do that little thing. Where are like, Oh, I'd never raised

my hand. That wasn't me. I see you, You see me?

Okay, I mean the Lord convict you, all right. So right now

we're gonna take a moment. I want you to move out your seat,

move around, lean How can I pray for you? How can I pray

for you? Pastors? Move around? Uh yeah,