Sent On Purpose I Pastor Joshua Gay

[SPEAKER_00]: High Praise Podcasts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody, this is Pastor Josh.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll leave Pastor here at High Praise and I want to thank you for downloading today's podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that this message is going to encourage and bless you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to open up your heart and receive with the Lord as for you today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Grab your Bible, go to John, the Gospel of John, chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to share a message with you today that is called Synth on Purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take a one week break from our authority of the Believer series just because I wanted to talk about this with school going back.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I do want to say, I'm going to talk a lot to students.

[SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of that type of phraseology, but I want you to think about this before we get going.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anytime I'm talking about students going to school, if you're an adult, I want you to also switch that, if I don't say it, just switch it, and also put you going to work in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or anywhere you go because the principles that we're going to talk about are the same for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you go to work tomorrow or your kid goes to school tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_00]: The principles are the same regardless.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not changing about what we're talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: So John chapter 78, you know, I'll do that with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: John 17, verse 15, it says this.

John 17:15

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, thought of that for me says, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that you should keep them from the evil one.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sanktify them by your truth, your word is truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to really notice this word, sent, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus doesn't say they're just happened to be there, but he says I sent them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a difference between just going somewhere

[SPEAKER_00]: One is passive, but one is active.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to hear me, whenever it is you're doing tomorrow, whether it is you're going to school, whether you're going to work, whether you're staying at home, that the Lord is sending you there, you're not just there on accident.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus doesn't pray here for His disciples to escape the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: He prays for them to remain faithful while living in it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our prayer is not to escape everything that's going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our prayer and the commission of the Lord is to remain faithful in the midst of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christians have got to get out of this escapeist mentality.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are not called to escape.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are called to faithfulness.

[SPEAKER_00]: We aren't called to just get out.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are called to remain true in the midst of craziness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is those in Jesus' praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 15, He gives us protection.

[SPEAKER_00]: He asks the Father to guard His followers from the evil one.

[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 17, He gives us consecration that His people be set apart by the truth of God, which is the word.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then in verse 18, he gives us commission, and he sins his disciple into the world, as people carry his mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: The prayer of the Lord is not Father, hide them, it's Father, keep them, shape them and send them.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not Lord, keep them from everything and make them their own little commune off on the side that nobody else has allowed in.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it is, rather, keep them, shape them, and send them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our life always carries all of these these questions, especially first day school for somebody kids, and many, many years ago, and it gets more, many every year, I remember going back to school, and it always has this mixture of excitement, worry, anxiety, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm talking about, all right, somebody all like, no, I never had a problem in my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's just great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all are either liars or you've had too many concussions.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I don't even remember.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've never had something new and there's that mixture of anxiety and fear and all of those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: You guys can soon just ask questions like, am I going to fit in?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to have friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I make the team.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'll be good enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: This year going to be better than last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's cetera, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_00]: Teachers are going, what's this class going to be like?

[SPEAKER_00]: How many people I'm going to have to write up this year?

[SPEAKER_00]: These kids gonna make wise choices or not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably not.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, y'all with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, I reached the kid who doesn't wanna be reached.

[SPEAKER_00]: How am I gonna break through to that kid who's isolated and then parents are asking questions like are my kids gonna be safe?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, are they gonna make wise choices?

[SPEAKER_00]: Will they find the right friends?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are they gonna be influenced by the wrong people?

[SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully Christian parents are also asking this question.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does God wanna do through my kids this year while they're there?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to hear me, those are all real questions, and not minimizing any of those questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are all very real, but what Jesus is giving us is a bigger question, which is what does God want to do through us, where he sins us?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does God want to do through us, where he sins us?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe, let me say this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I quote this all the time, scripture says this,

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we either believe Scripture or we don't, and I do, which means this, I believe that wherever I go, the Lord is ordering me on assignment.

[SPEAKER_00]: that whenever I go somewhere, I'm not just there passively, but there's an assignment that God has put on my life for the places He sends me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I fully know what that is?

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not, but I do believe this, that He will open the eyes of my understanding to see when that assignment is manifested, and then that I will be faithful in the midst of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hear me, I want you to hear me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kids, you are going to school for more than just algebra and geometry.

[SPEAKER_00]: language and because you've got to do this because it's just the path that you've got got to go through to reach adulthood.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that God is sending you on assignment this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I believe God is some of y'all are already, but y'all are mad about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all just want you kids to go, I believe, and I'm going to give you some stories later, but I believe God is sending your kids on assignment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hear me, hear me older people growing up in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: My people, I believe this whenever you go to work on Monday, you're going for more than just to make a paycheck.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is not just a means to an end, but I believe God is sending you on assignment because there is something he has purpose for you, this greater and deeper than just paying your bills.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is assignment that God has placed on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has ordered your steps and everything that you are doing is to minister to somebody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything you're doing is assignment to minister to somebody.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looks different for everybody, but it is still ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hear me kids tomorrow, you are not just merely walking onto a campus.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are walking into an assignment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your goal isn't just to survive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your goal is the assignment that God is putting on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hear me, the gospel changes our posture.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it makes us more than just passive bystanders, but it gives us a task, it gives us an assignment, it gives us something to fulfill, and if we are sent, then we have to ask this question every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, what do you want to do through me today?

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody in this room, that should be a question you ask yourself, every day, not every five years when you're trying to recalibrate your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: This should be a daily question, Lord, what do you want to do through me today?

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, how do you want to, Lord, how can I be your instrument in the earth today?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I sounds weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: That shouldn't be weird to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are called out of darkness into his marvelous light for his purpose, not our own.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, what do you want to do through me today?

[SPEAKER_00]: And if Jesus is sending us into the world, which He is, then the first thing we have to change is the way that we see the place He's put us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wherever he's placed, he was not just something you're enduring, but it is a place he has since you to have impact to have changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Some students you already have a list of everything you don't like about your school and your teachers and your friends and teachers, you all have a list of things you don't like about the kids and your principal and if you're going to work, you have a list of things you don't like about your job, your co-workers, you get it, Pastor Garrett just a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your boss, boss ain't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all right, all right, we all have a list.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can have a list of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But with the Lord, I believe, is wanting you to do a shift the way that you look at those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rather than give him your list of complaints, which, by the way, you'll find your life is a lot better if you just stop complaining.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's just a principle of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you just stop complaining about everything, your life will be a lot happier.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's always something you can, listen, none of us have perfect lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the person that you're looking at, that thinks they have a perfect life, that you think have a perfect life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You look at the Instagram highlights of their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not real.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's fake.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the lie, right, in the lie is what it is, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: How many, come on, y'all know exactly what I'm, I've talked about this before, but y'all know what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every parent's done this, your Easter pictures, your Christmas pictures, that you take 371 of, to get everybody looking at the camera, and somebody's fighting, and you're threatening the kids within an inch of their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, y'all know what I'm talking about, and then you post it, hashtag Blest, love my family.

[SPEAKER_00]: You like!

[SPEAKER_00]: You were not loving them when you were taking that picture.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all have problems, we all have issues, we're all going through things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even the people who put on a good front are going through things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even people that you view is strong are going through things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody has a perfect life, but why don't you stop complaining about everything?

[SPEAKER_00]: And what if you found something to be grateful for and thankful for?

[SPEAKER_00]: And what if instead of every day you woke up talking about all the bad things, you welcome me said, Lord, I'm thankful that I have another day to serve you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I'm thankful that you put breath into my body, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I'm thankful that I have food to eat and I've got a roof over my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a hundred degrees outside, but I've got air conditioning in my house, sprays gut.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all should all feel the glory on that one this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Walk outside and it feels like the seventh circle of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: Heaven's going to have air conditioning.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm convinced of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You aren't stuck, you're sent.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has positioned you.

[SPEAKER_00]: What if that classroom is part of your assignment?

[SPEAKER_00]: What if that lunch table is part of your assignment?

[SPEAKER_00]: What if that team is part of your assignment?

[SPEAKER_00]: And the assignment isn't for you to make the NFL?

[SPEAKER_00]: But what if the assignment is for you to reach a team mate?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: What if that club is part of your assignment?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hear me, what if your workplace is part of that assignment?

[SPEAKER_00]: What if the break room is part of that assignment?

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to view things differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: We think we're there for one reason, but heaven says we're there for something greater.

[SPEAKER_00]: You think you're there for algebra, but heaven says you're there for someone who desperately needs hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: You think you're there to get a paycheck, but you're there because somebody's broken and they need someone to speak into their life and encourage them in the midst of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to remind ourselves that life is more than just another day completing another task and going to bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are sit on assignment by the king to reach people and to see lives changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Assignment, hear me this, hear me really well.

[SPEAKER_00]: Assignment will change the way that you view inconvenience.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because a place that you wouldn't have chosen

[SPEAKER_00]: A place that you wouldn't have chosen still becomes a place that God uses you.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's been times and seasons in my life where I've been like, God, why?

[SPEAKER_00]: And of all the things you could have done.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all these assignments you could have given me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of upset at you right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know no one else has ever been upset at God before.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I've been upset at God a time or two in my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's here?

[SPEAKER_00]: All this stuff's like, yeah, I've been kind of a little bit perturbed.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, most of you are honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you either have it not been saved for very long or not saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: or our liars.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've probably all been upset at the Lord at some point and like, God, why'd you do this?

[SPEAKER_00]: What?

[SPEAKER_00]: And of all the things you could have called me to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: You called me to do this?

[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've told you all the story before.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, ministry was not on my list.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Until late in my teenage years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was finally like, I give up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had my plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: God had a different plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, I could take you through the course of my life and tell you where I had my plan, but God had a different plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever I began to walk in the plan, God had, I was frustrated.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then I found out his plan was so much better.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then my plan, and whenever you shift your perspective, everything else changes, you aren't doing anything accidentally, you are sit on purpose by the King, change the way that you look at things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Change the way you look at things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think when we look through scriptures, we look at somebody like Esther, I know that she understood positioning or at least mortic I did.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, we all sometimes need a mortic I in our lives to say, come look at this differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why you need other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't figure it all out on your own.

[SPEAKER_00]: You probably shouldn't know the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Esther's people, the Jews, they're under threat by Hayman.

[SPEAKER_00]: Esther's been put in a place of position where she can have a voice and have impact.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Mordecai tells her, maybe just maybe God puts you in this position for such a time as this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The God didn't put you here to inconvenience you were God didn't put you here for leisure or God didn't put you here for splendor.

[SPEAKER_00]: God put you here because he knew he was going to need a voice in this season.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here he what if God put you around some people because God knew they were going to need a voice in a certain season.

[SPEAKER_00]: What if God surrounded you with certain people, many of the people that irritate you a little bit?

[SPEAKER_00]: because God knew that they needed you, because God knew that they would need somebody to encourage Him and live them up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because God knew that they would need somebody who knew how to lean on Him whenever they didn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: They God knew there'd be somebody who said, it's gonna be okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: And He can use your voice.

[SPEAKER_00]: They God knew there could be somebody that you could speak into and pull them into purpose and pull them into destiny.

[SPEAKER_00]: Assignment changes your perspective.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not stuck here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sit here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not stuck here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sit here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hear me, it's really easy in the world today to be intimidated by everything that's going on, by our culture, by darkness, by all of these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But darkness is never stronger than light.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said darkness is never stronger than light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Darkness is simply what remains with light, it's not shining.

[SPEAKER_00]: Darkness is a lie, but the truth is the light.

[SPEAKER_00]: to shine our light before man.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many good old church kids we got there?

[SPEAKER_00]: You grew up in church Sunday school.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, that's a good, that's a good bit of y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many y'all at least over the age of 40, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: My wife doesn't have to raise her hand yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not over 40, all right.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're about that age, you might have grown up in Sunday school, or kids church, and there was this song that we sang.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean like this, this little line of mine, we're teenagers saved in the room this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: This little not Pastor Garrett, this little line of mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna let it shine, this little line of mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: You all know it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Some future worship team members in the house, same in praise God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me all why not the person by me?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, y'all remember that?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we would sing this.

[SPEAKER_00]: There you go, hide under a bushel.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, I know the real OGs in the room, because the hand motion got you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did under a bushel.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna let it shine.

[SPEAKER_00]: But let me tell you the way that we oftentimes

[SPEAKER_00]: really sing that today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes me, how many, there's truths in that song.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's spiritual truths that are absolutely true, that are based in Scripture, that we need to remember, that you're called to shine your light.

[SPEAKER_00]: The God has made you a light in the middle of darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is oftentimes the way we kind of actually interpret that song.

[SPEAKER_00]: I might have a light.

[SPEAKER_00]: And occasionally in the right conditions, I'll let it shine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I might have a light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's perfect and there's no persecution and political power exactly as I want and I've got a good day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to let it shine I might have a light and I'm not feeling it today So I'm not going to let my light shine I didn't under a bushel absolutely I'm not going to let it shine

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's real life for a lot of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people, that's the way that we live.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you aren't called to hide your light.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are called to be the light.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, one of the reasons darkness exists so strongly in our world today is because we haven't been the light of the world that we have been called to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: We try to blame the devil, which is ridiculous.

[SPEAKER_00]: How deep do I wanna go in this today?

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll just see.

[SPEAKER_00]: We blame the enemy all the time like he's the one in control and like he has the power and he has the authority But what we've been teaching the past few Sundays should make you realize he does not have authority you have been given authority

[SPEAKER_00]: have been given authority over every power.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if darkness is prevailing, you know the first place we need to look, not at the Lord, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and go, what are we doing to be the light that dispels the darkness?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because darkness exists whenever light is not shining.

[SPEAKER_00]: What if instead of raising good kids, we raised holy kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, what if, instead of our main concern being their sports and their grades, it was discipling them to become who God called them to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that, I don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pastor Gary, say keep going, so we're gonna keep going.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't take much to keep me over this ledge.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want good kids, we don't want good kids, we don't want godly kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want good kids, we don't want holy kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the holy kid, whenever you come home on Wednesday night and you say, we're not going to church tonight, because I'm tired.

[SPEAKER_00]: The holy kid is going to go, hey, youth group is tonight and I need to be there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to go to church.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't want that, you know why we don't want that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Cause it challenges our own, lukewarmness.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's Sunday morning, but we're just gonna get all in at this morning, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want godly kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want the kid who makes the hall of fame, but we don't want the kid who walks around praying in the spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, I wanna clarify something real quick.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can have both.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to pick one or the other.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be both.

[SPEAKER_00]: But oftentimes, if we have to pick in our culture, even in church culture, we will pick the good kid over the godly kid, every time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to hurt our kids feeling so we don't challenge issues in their lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to break them, so we don't tell them the Lord needs to be the number one priority and everything else after that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what we are doing is breaking our children in the wrong way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say everything you do is formation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody is static.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are always advancing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're always being made into something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever you make the choice to do something else, rather than pursue the Lord, whenever the opportunity is there, you're not just forming yourself, you're forming your kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's just keep building.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting all in your business, but we're just going to keep building.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all good?

[SPEAKER_00]: I love y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can't be intimidated by the darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Darkness is always stronger than the light.

[SPEAKER_00]: And hear me darkness should know when light walks in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: If this room was dark right now and I turned on a flashlight, everybody would know.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's darkness know when you walk in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does darkness know when you walk in the room?

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't just for students, this is for adults.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does darkness know when you walk in your home?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does darkness know when you walk in your workplace?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is there something that sits different on anybody else who comes through that place?

[SPEAKER_00]: If the answer is no, we need to let our light shine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Being sent tells you where you are, but it doesn't answer the who of who you are going to be when you get there.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people get sent, but they still become like Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you were called to be in Babylon, but not of Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were called to be in the culture, but not of the culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're called to be in the world, but not of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel was a young man dropped into an environment that did not share his values, did not share the God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He worshiped, did not honor his convictions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Babylon changed his address, but Babylon, let me say this, Babylon changed his address, it changed his education, it changed his name,

[SPEAKER_00]: But Babylon did not change his identity.

[SPEAKER_00]: It did not change his identity.

[SPEAKER_00]: The strategy of Babylon has not changed.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's simple.

[SPEAKER_00]: Surround him long enough, pressure them hard enough, put enough influences around them to change who they are.

[SPEAKER_00]: The pressure is not unique to Daniel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all face this all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a world that I don't care how much you want to say is Christian culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, half of what we call Christian culture isn't really all that Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a whole other conversation, but we live being pressed by these voices of what we're to become.

[SPEAKER_00]: The issue is not whether you'll hear competing voices, you will.

[SPEAKER_00]: The issue is which voice has the final authority in your life?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you'll settle before pressure ever arrive that the Lord's voice will be the final voice in his life, which means no matter what they told him to do, he was made faithful to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, you need to settle some things today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whether you're going to school tomorrow, whether you want to work tomorrow, whatever it is, you need to settle some things today that you know who you are, that you know who you are, that you know what you believe in, why you believe it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't know those things, come to HPSN, we'll help you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the church said, Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: No where your identity comes from.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, which voice has the final award and the final authority in your life?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hear me, kids, I want you to hear me really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your popularity doesn't name you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your GPA doesn't name you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your status on a sports team doesn't name you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your boyfriend or girlfriend that you're gonna forget about in six months does not name you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your friend that you're never gonna not talk to again, that as soon as you graduate is gonna float on out of your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I talked to our interns about this, it's really interesting how things never change because every student's like, yeah, we're like, be at that, so we're gonna be friends forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're wrong?

[SPEAKER_00]: I told him I said, there's one person in my life that I was friends, really, in my age group, that I was friends with as a teenager, that I'm still friends with today.

[SPEAKER_00]: One, we didn't go to school together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were in church together.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're much more likely to carry those bonds,

[SPEAKER_00]: because they're carried around something bigger than you wear the same letterman jacket.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hear me students, and this goes for you two parents.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can carry convictions and love people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can honor someone who disagrees with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can listen without surrendering truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be gracious without becoming spineless.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be bold without being rude.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to be angry to be holy, anger is not a fruit of the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus was full of grace and truth, and we don't have permission to get rid of either one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to be full of grace and truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need young people and adults with soft hearts and strong backbones.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need people with soft hearts and strong backbones that our heart is bent towards people, but we refuse to move from what we know the truth is.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we refuse to move from what we know the truth is.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you need everybody to approve of you, you will eventually become whatever body's trying to make you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when the father's voice is enough, you can walk through a crowd without losing yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I do want to, I'm going to, because we're going to pray for people just a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know I've talked a lot about, and it sounds, if you're,

[SPEAKER_00]: if you don't know me, it could sound like in some of these cases, I'm dismissing school and things like that, which I'm not doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cause hear me, excellence is also part of your witness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Excelling is also part of your witness.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could not compromise and excel.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, you could not compromise and excel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel didn't just survive in Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: He thrived in Babylon, but he did not compromise, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Shadrat, Micheak, and Abendigo, Hannah and I, Micheal and Ezraia,

[SPEAKER_00]: I ought to call them by their real names, tell their slave names.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't just survive in Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: They thrived in Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel Six says that Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and safe traps because an excellent spirit was in him and the king gave thought to the setting him over the entire realm.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't worship their God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't bow to their idols.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't eat the way they ate, but God still put excellence on him.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be different from everybody else, and still have a four point out.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be different from everybody else and seek God and still, and be precise.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to be the kid who sits alone in the corner.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Be spiritual, sorry, excuse for laziness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I didn't study for the test because I prayed for four hours.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, pray for two and study for two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, you've got, you know what I'm saying?

[SPEAKER_00]: Spear to Alice, and you're probably lying if you said you prayed for four hours anyway.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you were watching Netflix and called it prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Spear to Alice is not an excuse for laziness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't tell everybody that you're called to change the world of our fusing to handle the assignment already sitting in front of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let your life preach.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to close with this and I've got a lot more I could say, but I'm going to close.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let your life preach.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let your attitude testify.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let your work ethic testify.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let your integrity testify.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let the way you treat the unpopular student testify.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let the way you treat the weird kid testify.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let the way you respond when you

[SPEAKER_00]: that the way you handle correction testify, that the way you talk to your teacher, and hear me for those of you who aren't as cool that the way you talk to your boss and your coworkers, testify.

[SPEAKER_00]: But everything you do, testify, come on, Kristen, if you can.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna close with this story, this goes, this is many years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like 1999.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in school, I'm in middle school, Mayor Brown.

[SPEAKER_00]: right up the road around the around people at the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, a few y'all, praise God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was at Merit Brown and in my English class, we had to give an oral presentation.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we had to basically give a speech.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm of, you know, whatever I am 13, 14 years old.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm the church preacher, pastor kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our topic that we were given was growing up in today's work.

[SPEAKER_00]: which is the most broad thing you can tell him.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's too difficult to talk about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And most everybody in my class gets up and they talk about growing up in today's world and remember the year.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking about the wonder and marvels of this newfangled thing that's come into homes called the internet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's how much cell phones.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about all these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I make the choice that I'm going to get up and I'm going to talk about Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: in my public middle school, right down the road.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I talked about growing up in today's world and how the answer to all of our issues and all of our problems is Jesus, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I play football, I'm not the unpopular kid who sits by himself at lunch, and I get up, and I have friends who did not live right who acted differently when they were around me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because they knew the standard I have,

[SPEAKER_00]: and I get up and I talk about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know it was a competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I won.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was a school competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I won that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a district competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: I won that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I went all the way up to stake.

[SPEAKER_00]: But at one point, I think it was our school, it was our school competition.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a girl with a couple of grades behind me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I got up and I talked about this and she came up to me after angry.

[SPEAKER_00]: because she was a self-professed atheist and believe in God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what I was saying was ridiculous, God's not there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've cried out to him in moments he didn't show up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have, I was a kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have a lot of eloquent theological thought to give her.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you know what I told her?

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I don't know why all of that happened in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what I do now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus loves you and He's there for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: She did not like that response.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I gave it to her anyways.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't see that girl for years.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was a year behind me with empty classes together.

[SPEAKER_00]: A couple years later, I went with our youth pastor at the time to rather furred high school to meet some of our other students who attended there for lunch.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I hear my name yelled from a cross, the lunch room.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I look, and I recognize it's that girl from a few years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she's coming towards me, and I'm like, oh, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great.

[SPEAKER_00]: About to have a verbal fight in the Brotherford-Lunch room again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not again, but about to have a verbal fight with this girl, or she's about to verbally assault me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she goes, it's good to see you, and I'm like, what has happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: She goes, I really thought about what you said to me that day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And last year, I went back to church for the first time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what, I went to the altar and I got my life right with the Lord and I've been going to church ever since.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's my point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna just tell you a story about my upbringing to beat myself on the chest.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was nothing special.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was just a Christian who was sent on assignment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was a Christian who wasn't a victim of everything around me, but I was sent on purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know what the purpose was at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know what possessed me to talk about those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could have talked about anything, but I had this thing inside of me.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what you've got to talk about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I firmly believe it was for that girl.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me say this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't ask God to send you to this place and that place

[SPEAKER_00]: when you're not willing to be faithful with the one that he sends to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He who is faithful over the little.

[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly believe this, and this is a whole other message.

[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly believe this, if I want to be faithful to speak, then I wouldn't be speaking today.

[SPEAKER_00]: because we have to pass the test.

[SPEAKER_00]: All you will, you pass the test of when he sins you being faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to hear me students, I want you to hear me teachers, I don't know teachers, there's limited what you can do with kids and I understand that, but you do have coworkers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, somebody.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are people at your workplace, even if you're not in the school system, that God has sent you on purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: You never know what you're gonna encounter.

[SPEAKER_00]: It God is sending you on purpose this year, to be a light and to see life change.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stand up here for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for downloading this podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: We trust that this message has blessed and encouraged and identified you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you subscribe so you never miss a message here from Highbraze.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back soon with another incredible message.

[SPEAKER_00]: God bless you and have a great week.