Distractions Got You Drifting // Do Not Disturb (Part 2) // Pastor Ty Lanphere

Welcome to Transformation Church Podcast, where we represent God to

the lost and found for transformation in Christ. We're so

glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe

God will transform your life. Do today's message, Let's go.

I hope that you got a Bible today. Get into

the word in just a second. But I got to

remind you of the series we're in. We're in week

two of a collection titled Do Not Disturb, and we

got to give honor one more time to the first

installment from Pastor Breed Davis last week. What an incredible message,

Thank you, Thank you. I've sent that to about one

hundred and fifty people already, so it was a great word.

And I just want to continue what she started last

week as we're in week two of this collection. And

I like the collection that we're in because in this

series do Not Disturb, we're asking a really good question.

We're building from a good thought, and the thought is

how do we find and focus in a world full

of distraction. I don't know if you've noticed that about

the world that we live in. It is full of distraction.

And so if I want to be focused something interesting,

I have to find focus. Maybe you're like me, maybe

you've had times where you have to fight for focus.

If I want to get focused, I gotta carve it

in my schedule. I gotta be intentional. I gotta make

sure nobody can mess with my time of being intentional

to get focused. So it's interesting to me. You gotta

find focus, But distraction, it has a funny way of

finding you. I don't know if you've noticed that. It

doesn't take much to get distracted. Distraction is at your

fingertips all day long, twenty four to seven. And as

we build off this word distraction, I want to make

sure that you have a good concept of exactly what

it is that we're talking about, because I know sometimes

when we study words or topics in church a lot

of time we like to get a definition for that.

And so it sent you. They'll be like, hey, if

you're going to give us a word, and you'll put

a definition on the screen, we want a definition. We

will get the term. And I think that the definition

of a word's powerful. But the people in the Bible,

when they would give a word, they want to give

you imagery, and so we want a definition. So it

kind of works like this if I ask him to you, Hey,

what's God like to you? You might say, man, God

he is, He's faithful. Hey, God's holy, he's sovereign, he's powerful,

and I like that. But there's not really imagery that

goes with that. So if you ask somebody in the Bible, hey,

what's God like to you? They would say God, He's man.

God's like a strong tower that I can run into

and be kept safe. God is like a solid rock,

a firm foundation, and he holds me and he stables me. Oh,

you want to know about his word. His word, it's

like a lighting to my feet and a lamp into

my path. That's what's the reason why they gave you

an expression is because they didn't just want to give

you a definition for understanding. They wanted to give you

an expression based off an experience. And so as I

hear about the solid rock, the firm foundation, I can

feel that and I can understand that. So when it

comes to this word distraction, I'm gonna give you the

biblical imagery. The imagery is your life being pulled apart

in multiple directions. What that means is that part of

me shows up to be a parent part of me

shows up to be an employee. Part of me shows

up to my friend groups to be a great friend,

and part of me is involved in my relationships outside

my family. It's not I'm showing up in pieces. And

this was never the dream that Jesus has for your life.

The dream of Jesus for your life is not that

you would live a fragmented life. The dream Jesus has

for your life is that you would live a whole,

an integrist life. And so it's not that I just

got a pick. Well, I can only be a parent,

I gotta be focused, so I can only be a student.

I can only be a good spouse. You don't have

to pick one. It's just that you show up fully

to whichever you're at at that time. It's the whole saying,

I am where my feet are, and so as I

show up to be a good employee, I'm not thinking

about the friend I gotta be. As I show up

to be a great spouse and a parent, I'm not

thinking about the employee I gotta be. I'm fully where

I'm at. And so if we want to find focus,

we gotta fight for it. But if we want to

get distracted, and distraction a. It has a way of

finding you. It's not that difficult. I don't know if

you have an experience like I do. But whenever I

grew up, my parents they used to ground me if

I did something you know, your boy shouldn't have done.

And so anytimes I would rebel against what they said,

or if I do something crazy, they would ground me,

and usually they would send me to my room. I

would go to my room, I would sit on my bed,

and the instruction was, hey, think about what you did,

think about what you can do better next time, and

then we're going to talk about it. Come on, somebody.

That's character development, that's good parenting. So oftentimes I would

walk back to my room. I would sit on my

bed and I start thinking, all right, what I do,

how could be better? And that's how it went ninety

nine percent of the time. But baby, there was one

time I went back to my room. I'm upset. I

sit on my bed. I start thinking about what I done,

how I could be better, you know, character development, And

all I did, literally the only thing I did. I

turned my head to the left, and as I turned

my head to the left, I saw a white and

orange battery powered radio and I looked at it had

a little belt clip. You know what I'm saying. It

was like the ogue I had. The little belt clip

had a long cord that went to some metal bracketed headphones.

Of course, as I'm sitting there in my room with

nothing else, I grabbed the radio. I put the headphones on,

I cut it on, and I start tuning through the

channels and through the stations to try and find something

that I could kill some time with. And so the

first thing I heard, you know, I grew up in

the South, so I heard some country music. I was like,

all right, I heard this before. Kept scrolling and I

tuned into some pop music. I was like, okay, I

like that, but heard this one before. Heard some rock music,

heard some talk shows. But then I came across the

station with the sound your boy, I never heard before.

I came across the station with the sound that was

earth shattering, groundbreaking, life transforming. It was the sound when

I tuned in, it said I liked the bar tender.

Oh yay, Hey, my little nine, ten eleven year old

white self. I stup off the bed. I was like,

what is happened? Like I just hey, you saw that

you peep that, you peap that. Yeah. Hey, when I

tell you I grew up playing basketball, I had a

week crossover from that day forward. I grew up. I

had the little little hiccup like, Bro, I'm telling you

it changed my life, changed my life the rest of

the time being grounds like this is the best day ever.

So my mom she comes in, She's like, all right,

let's talk about what have you learned? I said, Bro,

I learned you can rye mansion with Wisconson and people

buy it. Oh, people buy it just doing something. I mean,

I don't know. Transformation happened long ago in my life.

Ninety two point five hip hop and R and B.

I love you, love you. You know what's crazy though,

in a moment we're all I had to do what's

focused on my growth and my development. All I do

is I turn my head, make a decision. Now I'm distracted. Distraction.

It's got a funny way of finding you, and the

decision leads me to being distracted. I want to see

from that today about the danger of distraction. I think

for a lot of us, especially in our culture, everybody's

kind of distracted. It's something that all throughout the day

there's little distractions, little things that we can numb the pain,

little things that can take us off of our focus.

And so I think since it's so normal, we missed

the big danger of distraction. And today I want to

take you to some scriptures and hopefully I can help

point this out to you, the danger of distraction. And

we're gonna look at some of the writings of Paul.

If you want to go ahead and turn to Filehman.

If you got a Bible, you can turn there, if not,

in a second, they're gonna be on the screen, and

then we're gonna read some of his writings in his

letters to churches. If I can give you a little

context on Paul very simply was a church persecutor, Christian

killer who became church planter, church overseer, and as he

became an overseer of the church, all this happened off

of one experience with Jesus that transformed his life. And

he would write letters to these churches to encourage them,

to guide them, to instruct them, and some to challenge them.

So if you read, you can read his letter in

Philippians to the Church in Philippi, and you get the tone.

You know, his tone to them. He's like, man, I

love y'all. I'm so proud of y'all. I just gonna

let y'all know how I'm doing. Then he writes the

Church in corinth and first Saint Corinthians, and he's like, Hey,

when I pull up, I'm whipping ah, y'all, y'all ain't

good at this Christian thing. Okay, I gotta come back

so you can kind of get the tone. We're gonna

look at the tone today as he writes about one

of his ministry companions, Paul, he understood that assignment is

only as important as your alignment. And so Paul, he

actually had people that he would do life in ministry with.

And I want to read about one of those people today,

named Demus. He's mentioned three times in scripture, three different

books of the Bible, in three different verses, and the

first is in Phi Lehman, it's very interesting. This is

what says. They're going to put it on the screen

for us. But Paul said, Epiphrius, my fellow prisoner in

Christ Jesus sends you his greetings. So does Mark, Aristarchus,

Demus and Luke my coworkers. This is the first mention

we get of Demus, and the tone of it is, man, Demus,

my fellow worker, my co labor, my coworker in the ministry,

doing life with him. This is the earliest writing we

have of Demus. And I love that Paul is making

sure other people recognize Demas's faithfulness, Demus's job in the ministry,

him doing life with Paul. So we get this writing

about eighty fifty eight to sixty two, and then the

next writing that we're going to see of Demus actually

comes from Colossians, and it's roughly a year or two later,

and Paul in Colossians he does something. He hypes up

four or five different people and their engagement in the ministry,

and he's like, man, this guy named Aristarkus, another guy

named Oessames, there's a few others that he mentions. He's like, man,

support these guys. They are faithful to the ministry. Pray

for these men, accept them and their leadership in your house.

He really pours a lot of emphasis into the weight

of the character of some of these men. But then

we get to Colossians chapter four and he says this.

He says, Luke, the beloved doctor, come on you know Luke,

the beloved doctor. We all love Luke. He sends his greeting,

and so does Demus. It's about two years later. The

first one we got man, faithful co worker, faithful labor

in the ministry. And now about a year or two later,

a lot of people get their influence projected, get the

weight that comes with their name and their role told

to other people. And then it's kind of like, oh yeah,

and Demus he's here. You know, Demus, he's here too.

And the third mention we have of him, it comes

from about three to four years later, and it's in

tewod Timothy, chapter four, verses nine through ten, and this

is what it says. Paul says Timothy, please come as

soon as you can. Demus has deserted me because he

loves the things of this life and has gone back

to Thessalonaika. Can you see the progression, faithful worker, fellow

co labor, a friend and companion in the ministry. You

know he's here. Demus is with us. Timothy, Please come

as soon as you can. Demus has deserted me because

he loves the things of this life more than the next.

I want to submit that there is a danger of distraction. See,

nobody's life is really ruined by a moment of distraction.

It's never that I had one moment of being distracted

and man, now my whole life is just ruined. It's

daily small decisions that get you distracted. And I would

submit that the danger of distraction is that distractions got

you drifting. Distractions got you drifting. You can go ahead

if you got notes today and write that down of

the title of this message. Distractions got you drifting. Listen

to all of us. Christ follower or not, you've probably drifted.

If you follow Jesus, you know that there's times when

you probably have more passion, more fervor more zeo for

the things of the ministry and the Gospel than maybe

you do now or maybe you have in another time.

But even if you're not a Jesus follower, we all

started this year with New Year's resolutions. And I mean,

you had the membership to play and a fitness but

now you might as well get into Canes. Baby. It's

like you just it's kind of drifted ALUs in bulk season.

But come on, we drift. Drifting happens to the best

of us. And I want to give you a term

for drifting today, so we know what we're working from.

If you want to write this down. Drift is a slow,

seemingly undetectable movement from one place to another, from one

place to another. That's the danger of it, is that

it takes you from one place to another. It's not

just that I drift from being generous. It's that I

drift to being selfish. It's not only that once I

had close proximity to purity and now I'm not as

close anymore. It's that I'm growing in proximity to compromise.

Come on, it's not the fact that you know, once, man,

I was super faithful and now I'm kind of drifting

to a lot of doubt, some laziness, some complacency. The

danger of it is is it at one point you

can be focused, it'll have you drifting to being distracted.

And here's the danger of drifting. Drifting will take you

to a place where you do things you'll think you'll

never have done, and you'll be somebody you thought you

never would be. I guarantee you deemus when he was

written about in fi Leman, I bet he never suspected himself.

Going back to his old life. He drifted. So it

got me asking the question, you're drifting so dangerous? How

do you drift? Where does the drift start? How does

the drift get a hold of me? I want to

tell you today how the drift starts. You start to

drift by just not doing anything. I don't know if

you've ever taken your kids to the beach before and

you're like, hey, stay right here in front of the tent,

you gotta sit down. You look, they are a mile

to the right. They didn't swim down there. They were

just doing nothing, and they drifted. If you want to

drift spiritually, I promise you the easiest way to do

it just don't do anything. The truth of the matter

is the fact that not doing something is doing something.

Anytime I'm not intentional with my relationship with Jesus, I

become intentional with the things that are not of him.

And anytime that I take Jesus out the primary focus

of my life, that's the exact moment that I start

to drift. I really hope that nobody has gotten in

a point where you think, all right, experience of transformation,

this is right where God want me to be now.

I'm just gonna lift from right here. That's the exact

moment that you'll start to drift. I gotta be intentional

to keep Jesus as the primary focus of my life,

because anytime that you miss out on the main thing,

every other piece of your life is impacted by it.

I don't know if you've ever forgotten the main thing before,

but I know times in my life I have truly

forgotten the main thing. I think about when we were

in Memphis, me and my life. That's where we came

from before we moved to Tulsa. And when we were

in Memphis, we used to take care of a lot

of our friends' kids. So if they would go out

of town, we take care of them. I'll be honest

with you, don't have kids yet, so I really like

taking care of other people's kids. The reason being is

because I can't see them at crazy, and you've boys

got all the answers. I'll be like, well, bre if

I was they daddy, I'll promise I would die. Now

when I have kids, I won't know anything, so help

me out. But as of right now, you know, I

got all the answers, and so we would take care

some of our friends' kids. And one time, some of

our friends they went out of town for a week

and they had us come and take care of their

three kids. And as we got through the day before

they left, the wife she had done an incredible job

in actually listing out the details of how we need

to take care of them, and it was put on

a list on the fridge, and so as we looked

at the list, she walked us through the first day

and she was like, hey, listen, this is what time

they wake up, this is what they need to eat

for breakfast, this is what time they need to go

to school, this is what time they need to go

to practice. Here's we need to take them to church

on Wednesday. She had listed it out amazingly. And at

the bottom of the list, I noticed that there was

a main point to taking care of their kids. Didn't

say the main thing, but it was the only thing

that was highlighted, the only thing that was in bold,

the only thing that was underlined, and it said do

not give the kids chocolate milk before bed, I thought,

easy enough, all right, easy enough. So every single day

we wake up, we get them to school on time,

we had their food packed, we give them to practice.

We're taken to church on time and honestly daily, and

I like we were killing and we were looking each

other like, hey, bro, when we got kids one day,

easy money, easy money, and so we're taking care of it.

We're getting really excited. And the last night, the youngest daughter,

she went to stay one of her friend's house. They

wouldn't feeling well and so she went to sleep early.

And meeting the two boys, we had what the youngest

called guys' night. We had guys night, So we ordered pizza,

We get all the video games. And when I say, like,

vibes were up, like it was just energy was out there.

It was electric. And so we're playing video games. It's

like ten o'clock. They were supposed to go to bed

at eight fifteen, and at ten o'clock, like the energy

is just up. Man. And so I looked at him

and I was like, hey, bro, y'all know what was

set this night off? They said what I said, chocolate milk. Baby.

They looked at me and they were like, oh my gosh.

The oldest they had two very different personalities. The oldest

was like, mom, actually doesn't let us have chocolate milk

at night. I said, oh man, your momy here, So

we're gonna drink this chocolate milk. The youngest. The parents

had actually left a document on the counter and it

said that we could make medical decisions for the boys

while they were out of town. And so the youngest

he goes and grabs it and he's like, yo, this

is a medical decision, bro, Like they can do this.

I'm like, my guy. So we get out of chocolate milk,

drink the whole gallon, and oh yeah, I mean, if

you're gonna do it, let's do it. And when I

say it was the worst idea, I might as well

have given them drugs, bro, Like they ruined the house.

I was preaching next day. We were late to church.

I was the preacher. We were late to church. It

was just terrible, terrible experience. The reality is is that

in a moment, I lost sight of the main thing.

In a moment, I lost sight of the one thing

that I was supposed to keep in focus the entire week.

The truth is that if you ever lose sight of

the main thing, every other area of your life is

affected by it. And anytime I misplace Jesus as the

sinner focus and remove him and place something in his place.

The rest of my life is impacted by it. I

was looking at Demus and I was like, man, how

do you how do you drift?

Like?

Where was your distraction? How could you drift from being

in ministry with Paul bro How could you drift from that?

And honestly, we could look at the context of it

and we could get some really good clues and make

some really educated guesses on why Demus drifted. But that's

not the best question to ask today. The better question

to ask today is not why would demons drift? The

best question is why would you? What is the thing

that would cause you to drift? Only you truly know?

And sometimes we talk about, Man, I got sin in

my life. I got this addiction to a substance, I

got this bad relationship, I got some laziness, man, And

we talk about the sin, and absolutely, hey, sin will

have you drifting. But if we could ask a better question,

it might not be the sin. What's the thing tangling

you up? What's this thing tripping you up? Because it

might not be sin, but it might not be the

best thing. It might be that I prioritize my job

over my family at times. It might be your pursuit

of a comfortable life could be the thing keeping you

drifting from what Jesus called you to do and who

he's called you to be. Even if my pursuit of

peace takes the place of the person of Jesus, I

have missed my focus and I can start to drift.

And I like that. We do get a little context

about DMUs that it says that Demus he drifted because

he had desires of his old life that drew him

back to his old life. And I thought about that,

and I thought about this scripture. You don't have to

turn there, but it's in Ephesians chapter four. In Ephesians

chapter four, Paul gives a strong teaching. Paul says, stop

putting on the old life, put on the new life.

Stop going back to the thing that's dead, and put

on the new thing that's alive. In Rome at this time,

when Paul writes this, they had this practice. If you

committed a crime that was drastic enough, if you committed

a crime that was horrifying enough, you would get a

sentence where they would take a dead body. They would

tie it to your arms, tie it to your legs,

face to face, or they would place it on your back,

and over time is this dead body decayed and it rotted.

It would actually decay and rot into your skin, and

it was a few weeks time before where it killed

you could I submit, this is the picture we get

of the old self and the old life versus the

new self and the new life. That I don't have

power to revive that dead thing that God freed me from,

so I might as well link up and live in

the power of the new thing that God gave me.

It's going back to the old life. I find it funny.

We talk to students a lot, and you know, it's

through mystery, you kind of you get to see all

the little relationships happen. Okay, we act like we don't,

but we see y'all. So we you see some people

and there's like three weeks and you can tell they're

a new relationship because the girls will walking up in

the back pastor tie. When you meet somebody, it's like,

all right, man, what's up bro? And then weeks later

he didn't come around as much. And then there's a

new guy that shows up and I always ask him

be like what happened? She's like, oh, I'm done with him.

I'm done with him. A few weeks later go by,

new guy didn't make it. The crazy thing is Buddy

from the first time's back and I'll be like, hey, yo,

I thought we talked about this. What are we doing?

And they'll be like, oh, here's what they say. We

just talking. We just talking, and here's what they really mean.

Let me decode it for you. I'm just keeping him

on retainer because I didn't know if this other thing

was going to work out. So now I can go

back to what did satisfy me and give me what

I was wanting in the first place. Since the new

thing didn't work out like I thought it would, I

thought i'd go back to Buddy. Let me just submit

to you. We do this in our life all the time.

I'm pursuing Jesus until I feel like Jesus puts me

in a place and gives me a life I feel

like I deserve better than. And so then I find

myself drifting back to that old life, that old thing.

And that's when you find yourself saying how did I,

how did I get here? Why do I what do

I feel like this? Because in the spirit you took

what is dead and you try to revive it by

living in an old life that God freed you from.

And when we do that, man, it causes us to drift.

This might be one of the main distractions that we

find people in. And what I see when I read

the Bible is that people they didn't always realize that

they were in a battle of the new life versus

the old life. Actually, what the battle is is the

spirit versus the flesh. I don't think people often knew

and realize that they were in this fight. I don't

know if you know this, but every single day you

wake up, you're in a battle, and it's the battle

of the spirit versus the flesh. My life with God,

in my old life I lived when I wasn't with God.

My desires of Jesus and my desires I have in

my own flesh. And often, oh man, many of us

we show up to this battle and we have the

wrong battle plan. How many of us you've done this?

You've had a moment in an encounter with Jesus. I

mean he moved in worship and you had this moment.

He moved through the message and you had this moment.

And when you have that moment, you say, all right, God, Yes,

thank you for your grace and your mercy. Lord. When

I get out of the service, I'm gonna stop doing blank. God,

when I get out of the service, I swear I'm

done texting them. I promise I'm done smoking that. I

promise I'm gonna stop looking at that. And can I

submit something to you to There is a way better plan.

Jesus is far less concerned with what you stop. He's

far more concerned with the things you start. Because listen,

the battle of the spirit versus the flesh is not

about me getting the wrong things out. The battle of

the Spirit versus the flesh is me getting the right

things in. Because if I can get Bible reading in

my life, I don't have time to stroll on pornography

in my life. If I can get good community in

my life, I don't have time for community that draws

me back to my old life. If I can get

the right things in, I'm not gonna have to focus

on getting the wrong things out. They just don't have

the space anymore. So when I approach this battle, I

want to be focused on Man. I'm trying to put

Jesus as the focus, not Sin as the focus. Oftentimes

we get the wrong focus because we think, God, I've

got all these things, and I'll promise you, Lord, if

you'll give me time, I'll stop doing them. It's not

about what you stop, that's more important about what you start.

I looked at Demis's situation, you know, he went back

to the desires of his old life. And as I

looked at his situation, I thought of a scripture, and

this would be what I would prescribe to Demus if

you live today Scalations, chapter five, verse sixteen, and Paul

he says, so I say, let the spirit guide your life.

Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves.

It's the spirit. Let the spirit guide your life. For

a long time in Scripture, they didn't let the spirit

guide their life. They didn't have the spirit yet. And

so what they did is they made up a bunch

of rules and regulations and legalism to try to get

to a place of holiness. And what happened was they

set all these rules up, and they made our faith

about a performance based faith that you got to do

the right things to bec I'm the right person. It's

about how you look and how people perceive you before,

it is who you are. And whenever you get in

that mode and you start trying to just do the

right things, do the right things, and you don't have

Holy Spirit, grace and power in your life, you will

find yourself in a performance based faith. The beautiful thing

about our faith, though, is it's not performance based. It

is Holy Spirit, grace, power filled faith. And so as

I submit to the Spirit, he doesn't focus on what

I do. He focused on who I am becoming, because

to the Spirit it's way more of a priority of

who I will be, because who I become will determine

what I do, not what I do change who I am.

One is behavior modification, the other is inward transformation. And

so I'm looking for the Spirit to God in my

life because I want to be a new creation, not

act like a new creation. Come on, I'm trying to

become something different, become something better than I am. So

I need Holy Spirit in my life helping me change.

And I feel like Demus. He was doing ministry, and

oftentimes he was more about the performance than the grace.

Because he couldn't control a sinful nature. He went back

to his old life. Today is we're talking about drifting.

Maybe there's some of you in here and right now.

If we were humble, open and transparent, you would say

I'm drifting. I've drifted. It's happened before, it's happening now,

or at the least you can see that there's potential

for it to happen in the future. And so I

just want to work from two points today as we close,

and as we close, I want to give you this

first one. Distraction ends with the decision. If you find

yourself distracted, the way to end distraction it's with the decision.

It's by making a different decision. The same way that

I get out of distraction is the same way that

I got into distraction a decision. And what I've heard

a lot growing up, and it has rained true in

my life is that first you make your decision, but

then your decision it makes you. And if we don't

come to realize that it is by the decisions of

our life that our life is being built, we will

go through this life and not be all that God

promised us to be, and we'll be searching for his

hand but never partnering with him and what it takes

to get to where He wants us to be so

first we make our decision, but then our decision it

makes us. You're building your life by your decision. I

was told this story before me and my wife moved

up here, and it was about this town. It was

in the hill country, and next to this town there

was a large body of water, a huge reservoir of water,

and on the other side of this water there was

a dam that was holding back the reservoir of water.

And there was at one point a storm that was

coming to the hill country and it was a massive storm,

a greater storm than they had ever seen or experience

at this time. And as the storm was coming in,

the people of the town realized that the storm was

going to bust the dam, all the water was going

to flow into the town, and anybody staying in that

town at that time would lose their life. And so

they started running door to door and they were saying, hey, hey,

you got to you gotta evacuate, like this storm's coming

over and all this water's gonna flood. You gotta get

out of here. People started packing up their belongings in

a frenzy. They were leaving with the little that they

had and evacuating, and is all the chaos is happening.

There's this one man and he's standing in the middle

of the road. Everybody's walking mind. They're like, hey, hey, bro,

you gotta go. You gotta go. Into every person that

would try to get him to leave, he would say, nah,

I'm fine. I'm gonna stay right here. More and more

people start coming by, and they're like, bro, you gotta leave,

you gotta leave. Hey, you gotta get out of here.

You're gonna lose your life. Like the storm's right there,

You're about to lose your life. And he would say, no,

I'm gonna stay right here. And it got to a

point where there were two people left in the town

and it was the man and it was his son.

And his son comes to him with tears in his eyes,

and he's saying, Dad, what are you doing. Dad, You

gotta leave. You're gonna die. And he says, no, I'm

not gonna leave. He says, Dad, Dad, damn is about

to break and everything is gonna get washed away. You

will lose your life. And he looked at his son.

He says, it's not gonna break. His son said, Dad,

you got it's gonna break. He said, it's not gonna break.

And he's crying and pleading, begging with his dad, and

he says, Dad, how could you know? How could you

stand here in confidence and know that that's not gonna

break and you won't be killed? And his dad looked

at his son, and he looked at the damn and

he looked at the storm that was quickly approaching, and

he looked back and he said, because I built it.

He said, because I built it. His son said what

he said. I woke up every day for years and

I made a decision to make the foundation strong. I

made a decision to be in the details of the

structure so that it would not break. I made a

decision to build something that no matter the storm that

came against it and the weather that happened to it, no

matter the circumstances or the situation that found itself in,

I built it with the intentionality and the decision they

would live beyond the trial, that it would live beyond

the test. I want to tell you, friend, you're building

your life by your decisions, and the trials that come

to your life will impact you and affect you based

on how you've decided to live your life. And now

if I've decided to rely on self. I'm not going

to be able to stand past very much. But if

I decide each and every day to stay intentional about

leaning into the person of Jesus, I can stand the

trials that come against me. In this life. You are

being made by your decisions. Jesus is building you, and

he wants to build you and make you strong. But

Jesus offers us the opportunity not just to do it

for you, but to partner with you. And there's got

to come a point where you stop just saying God

will do it. If he wants to do it, you

got to make a decision. I'm a partner with him.

The team can come up and start to play. But

distraction ends with the decision. And if you're drifting, drifting

ends with devotion. It ends with remembering and staying committed

to the why. And as I looked at Demus's story,

man I started I started to get kind of sad

thinking about a story because the Holy Spirit took me

to some scriptures talk about drifting, and I saw where

the word drifting has talked about three times in the

New Testament, and they all have the same thing in common.

It's in the Book of Colossians's, in the Book of

revelationists in the Book of Hebrews, and they all rank

a similar sound as a Scripture of Hebrews, Chapter two,

verse one, and it says, therefore, we must pay much

closer attention to the things we've heard, lest we drift

away from it to the church. In Ephesis and Revelation,

Jesus told John to pin the words, not what he

told another church, to come back to your first love.

But he told him to pin the words you need

to come back to the thing that you heard in

the beginning. And I thought this as it could be,

so it doesn't say it directly in scripture. But I

started to look at Demus's story, and I thought, Demus,

did you get so captivated by the miracles of Paul's

ministry that you missed out on the message? Did you

get so caught up in the hand of God that

you forgot about the heart of God? Demons? Did you

did you lose sight of the message because you were

focused on what God would do and not what he

had already done. Listen to me, I like miracles man.

Whenever God steps into our life and does what only

he can do and bring about an outcome that only

he could be over. I love that, man. That's an

energizer to your faith, that makes faith fun. I really

like miracles, but I did not build and dedicate my

life to a miracle. I build and dedicate my life

to the message that there's redemption for your story and

restoration for your soul. I like miracles, but what I

committed my life to was the message that there is

blood that covers a multitude of sins and a savior

who paid a price that I should have paid and

in my place. Come on, man. I like miracles, but

I love the message that Jesus is seated at the

right hand of the Father right now, looking at me

and looking at you with pride in his heart and

love in his eyes, because He's done for us what

we couldn't do for ourselves. I like miracles. I've dedicated

my life to the message. And it says in Luke

that one day Jesus is going to come back and

he's going to be looking for faithfulness. And when Jesus

comes back, if it's in my lifetime, I want him

to find me clinging to the pages of this book,

preaching the message of restoration and reconciliation that he entrusted

me with. I want to live my life based on

the message, even if God doesn't do another thing for me.

Faith is a moment to be remembered. Faith is a

lifestyle to live that I'm not just waiting on the

next thing life from the best thing. The best thing

is that He paid the price that was placed on

my soul and he did for me what I couldn't

do for myself. If you're here today, maybe you've been

waiting on miracles. Maybe you've drifted, maybe you're in distraction,

maybe you've lost focus. I want to tell you, friend,

you can always come back to the message, because the

message tells me about a man who loves you and

cares for you and offers you a life better thing

than you've ever known to exist. So the head bowed

and eyes closed today, If you're in this room right

now and you've never given your life to Jesus, you've

never received and accepted the message. I want to tell

you that Jesus, God in heaven, looked at you and

stepped out of heaven and became flesh. He lived a

perfect life for thirty three years. He was crucified not

because of his sin, but because of my sin and

because of your sin. And he was placed in a

grave where he was dead for three days. But he

didn't stay in the grave. He got up from the grave,

came back to life, revealed himself to hundreds of people,

ascended into heaven where now he is seated reigning as king,

looking at you in this moment, proud of who you

are and who you can become. He offers you a

better way, He offers you a new life. And today,

if you want to give your life to Jesus, you

want to receive the message, I'm account to three, and

when I get to three, I'm just gonna ask that

you would lift your hand in the air. One. This

is the greatest decision that you could ever make. To

all heaven's about to throw a party. Three. Come on,

if you want to put your faith in the message

and the man of Jesus, would you just lift your

right hand let somebody know. I'll see you, brother, I

see you on the back. Come on, can we make

some noise for the people making the greatest decision of

their life today, Let's go. Here's what we like to

do is house. We like to pray a prayer for

all those watching online and here in the house who

made that decision for the first time. So, if you're

making that decision, would you just mean these words as

we all pray them to Jesus. Let's pray this say Jesus.

I love you, Jesus, I need you. Thank you for

seeing me, thank you for saving me, thank you for

loving me. Today, I commit my life to you. Change me,

renew me, transform me. I'm yours. Amen. Come on when

we just clap our hands and make some noise for

all the people stepping from death to life today. So

proud of you.