The Four Great Invitations: Come to Me | Part 1

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, good morning.

How are y'all doing?

It is great to see you.

I have a little uh, you can't see it, but it was given to me by a friend.

She's a uh, I guess everyone seems a bit younger to me at this stage of my life.

But uh she heard a message that I gave uh significant many years ago, and she goes, I have a present for you.

And she she came by with her two little kids, uh one not so little anymore, and uh she gave this to me, and it commemorates an invitation that I received 50 years ago.

And then it uh it has a little inscription, and then when I look down, it's a compass.

And what I want to tell you is I received an invitation uh in June of 1972 uh that changed the direction of my life, it changed the trajectory of my life, it changed all the outcomes of my life.

Uh I received a specific invitation, uh literally that changed my career, it changed who I married, it changed where I went to school, it changed how I raised my family, it changed what I did with my money, it changed how I measured success one single invitation.

And that's what I want to talk about.

We're gonna talk about the four great invitations that Jesus gives.

And the subtitle of this is a little bit different.

It's um lessons from 50 years, my first 50 years of walking with Jesus.

Um, she heard a message that I gave.

Uh, she's a Chinese pastor, where I trusted Christ in June of 1972.

And this says, Your 50th anniversary, may your faith always guide you.

And I received an invitation first from a football coach who said, You know, something, there's this camp I think you might enjoy.

If you want to go, I'll pay your way there.

And I'll tell you about that camp.

And it was at that camp, I received an invitation from someone that I'd never met.

I'd heard a lot about, but I'd never met.

And so if you want to go ahead and pull out your notes, I put some passages there and then some room for you to jot some of your own thoughts.

But I'd like you to consider with me that what would it be like to think of life as a series of invitations that we say yes to and we say no to.

And those invitations really shape who you are today, who you'll be tomorrow.

Some of them are small, incidental invitations, some are really big.

Invitations, like someone says, Do you want to go on a date?

And for some of you, you're sitting next to that person now.

For some of you, do you want to go on a date?

And it was one of the most horrendous experiences of your life.

But think of invitations.

You want to join a team?

Do you want to learn to play an instrument?

You want to attend this school or that school?

Do you want to smoke a joint?

Do you want to steal something silly just for fun?

Hey, would you be willing to lie to a friend to help me out on?

Would you forgive your parents?

An invitation to forgive your ex?

Would you like to take a trip?

I'm gonna go on a venture, would you join me?

Would you be willing to change jobs?

An invitation to change your major, an invitation to go to this school instead of that school, an invitation to quit something that's really messing your life up, an invitation to quit something that's really good for you, but it's just really hard, so why don't you just forget it?

All I want you to get is there's a series of invitations.

You're bombarded by them every single day.

And some of them are small and insignificant and don't mean much of anything.

And some of the invitations that you receive, based on whether you say yes or based on whether you say no, literally shape your destiny.

You are and you will become how you respond to invitations from people, and even more so, invitations from God.

In this series, I want to talk about the four great invitations of Jesus.

He invites us to come, he invites us to follow, he invites us to abide, and he invites us to make or literally to go.

And uh I never dreamed, because I didn't grow up as a follower of Christ, that I could do anything for 50 years.

I mean, let alone follow Jesus.

And when I look back in the rearview mirror and I see the winding turns and I see the people that God placed in my life in critical moments and critical decisions, he said, Dad, what I'd like you to do is, you know, we get a lot of good Bible teaching.

I want you to teach the Bible, but I want you to mentor our church.

I want you to teach it through the lens of your journey and your life and be honest.

Share the good, the bad, and whatever you're comfortable, share the ugly.

Because we're all on this journey together, and the world is changing so quickly.

It's so challenging to be a faithful follower of Jesus.

And so that's what I'd like to do.

And here's what I want to tell you about this journey.

Each invitation, we're gonna learn about a love from a faithful creator in the midst of our worst failures and times when we've struggled the worst, that there's an invitation that he'll be with you, that he'll love you.

You're gonna meet a Savior who's caring and compassionate and kind, who's not surprised by your mistakes or your sin, who you don't have to go and hide when you blow it.

And you're gonna find a God who is so loving and so holy that he is compelled to not allow you to stay the way that you are.

And that some of the things that even in the midst that this couldn't be good, this couldn't be kind, how could God let this happen?

You'll look back in a decade or two or three if you live that long and the Lord doesn't return, and you'll see, as I will share, some of the worst things that you thought were happening in your life were some of the kindest acts of God you ever received.

Because you didn't know what you needed protected from.

You didn't know what you needed to become the kind of person that you will become.

You didn't know at all what God's ways and plans and the mystery were.

And I'll just tell you this there were a handful of men and women in my life over the last 50 years that they blazed a trail.

And it was just so good to stop and talk and ask them when it felt like God couldn't be in this.

This is so hard.

Everything from going through the time in my marriage where I didn't know if I'd make it, time with one of my kids where I thought he was gonna die, time with another one where he said, I don't believe in God and I don't want your goddad, and time where I sat and wondered whether my wife would be with me much longer when she had cancer.

Life is hard.

But Jesus has given us an invitation, and the invitation I've put in your notes, it's from Matthew chapter 11, verses 11 through 28.

Matthew 11:11–28

Jesus says, Come, come to me, all of you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

And then he gives a reason for I am gentle and humble in heart, and here's the promise.

And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

When he said this to the first audience in context here, if you go back and read Matthew chapter 11, just before this, Jesus has done miracle after miracle after miracle.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

I mean stupendous miracles in uh two or three different cities.

Capernaum, the Stadia.

And despite all the miracles, the people reject him and the people don't believe.

Jesus says, if the miracles that I have done in these cities would have been done in Sodom and Gomorrah or Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented.

And then after all that rejection, he turned to a group of people who are observing how people responded and began to ask about their own lives.

And here was the invitation come to me.

Come to me, all of you that are weary.

It's it was a picture of they were weary under the oppression of Pharisees and religious rules.

They were weary from a Roman government that pushed them down.

They were weary and heavy burdened for taxes that most of the people were desperately, desperately poor.

And then they were like us.

People that you just, I mean, is life ever gonna make sense?

You know, most of us live the the if then, if I can get into school, or if I ever get married, or if we can ever have a child, or if my health ever shapes up, or if we could ever own a home, or we play this game where happiness or contentment or satisfaction or meaning or purpose or life, it's always over in the next horizon.

And one of the things about being a follower of Jesus for 50 years and living another 18 is I will tell you, after pastoring for almost 40, I've just had thousands of conversations.

And I hate to, you know, be the big spoiler alert, is that once you find that person, then you'll ask God for something else.

If you ever get to buy the house, or if you have the house, then you want to fix it up.

And if you have one house and you start making a lot of money, you'll want another one in a little bit different location.

And if you ever, and I'm just telling you, there's no end, there's no end, there's no end, and then there comes a day when you get honest.

And you realize you're weary, and you realize you don't measure up.

And you realize that the goals and the dreams, and then then we play the game when we become parents.

Well, if if my child is smart, or if my child gets into the right school, or whether they make the traveling team, or if they're can and we play all these games and people get weary and weary and weary, and we're looking at a world where people are so discouraged and so anxious and so depressed and so confused, and it's into the chaos then and into the chaos now, where Jesus says to each one of us, You come to me.

I'm for people whose lives recognize their need, who you recognize that this world, no matter what you get, or how much you get or who other people think you are, it never measures up.

You keep grinding and grinding and grinding.

He goes, I want to give you peace, meaning, satisfaction, purpose.

I want to give you life itself.

And here's the prerequisite: you need to come to me, and we'll talk about what that means and what it looks like.

And then notice it's not just a moment, it's not just an event, although it is a moment and an event.

It says, Come to me, all of you that are weary and heavy laden.

Just in other words, there's a lot on your back, there's a lot of pressure, and I'll give you rest.

And notice he says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

In the day, they would talk about the yoke of the law or the yoke of the Roman government.

In other words, a yoke in that day was a picture of uh two animals together, right?

You know, you had the two oxen pulling together, and to come under a yoke would be a metaphor for submission.

It's a metaphor, I'm going to do life with this person.

Jesus says, Come to me and let's join together, and I want you to do life with me, and then I want you to learn from me.

I want you to learn what life looks like, how it actually works, how relationships work.

In fact, everything is super counterintuitive with him.

There's a set of values in the world that are going this way that if you have success and money and power and fame, then you'll be a someone, then you'll be secure, then you'll be significant.

And Jesus says, No, actually, if you want significance and security and meaning and peace, there's a whole different set of values.

And I'm going to teach you, and I'll be with you, and we're going to do life together.

And then he gives him this great line.

He says, For I am gentle and humble of heart.

See, one of the things that we all have is a warped view of God.

It can get better and better and better, but the more warped it is, the harder it is to come to Jesus.

When I was uh growing up, I went to a church, and uh that it wasn't a bad church in and of itself.

This particular church was not a very good church, it didn't teach the Bible.

Uh, the people who were there didn't take it very seriously.

They said one thing and lived another way.

By the time I was about 14, 15 years old, I opted out, I don't need this.

And when I began to meet people who said they were Christians, basically most of my experiences were people that were very hypocritical.

And then now and then, even back then, with only three channels, can you imagine?

Uh, I would watch a little TV, and people who talked about God on TV, I came either that I couldn't believe either the people, most of them, not all, I suppose, but from my perspective, it seemed like all they wanted was your money.

And I just thought, I don't know about this Christianity, but I don't buy it.

I just don't buy it at all.

And so I became a profound skeptic.

And my view of God was from my church experience that his arms were crossed, his toe was tapping.

If it was fun, he was against it.

And I just felt like there was always guilt hanging over my head, and no matter what I did, it was never good enough.

And so I just finally realized, forget it.

And so I rejected Christianity.

I believed in some vague way someone made the universe, but you know what?

Who that is and what they're like, I really didn't know.

The Jesus of the Bible stories that I learned as a kid.

Oh, I mean, I don't know if there really is a real Jesus or not, but that's where I came from.

But I never ever imagined that when Jesus says he's gentle, in other words, he's safe, he leans in.

He's not trying to jack around with your life, he doesn't want to create a box that he knows you'll hate and then get you to do something that would be the worst thing for you.

He is a God who cares and is compassionate and who made you and created you and has a plan for you.

And he invites you to come.

And so, as I was thinking through um how to share that with you, I just like in your notes, you might jot down first there's an invitation, it's to come.

The audience is for people that have ears to hear.

You never come unless you see your need.

Third, you'll notice there's a promise of rest.

And this isn't just physical rest, this is rest in your soul.

It's getting up and having a sense of I am who I am, I'm where I need to be.

My life has focus and meaning and peace and direction, and I love who God made me to be, and I'm on a track that gives me absolute significance and satisfaction each and every day, waking up being just who God made me to be.

That's the offer.

And then he gives us a process where you take his yoke and you learn from him.

And so uh let me share a little bit about my journey and I'll let you sort of think through.

Your family of origin, I don't know about you.

Anybody here get to choose your parents?

Yeah, I didn't either.

Um, but an all-knowing, all-powerful, sovereign God either directed, allowed you to have the parents that you had, and if allowed, he'll take even the most difficult situations and use them for your good.

And my parents were um the great generation.

My dad, at about 16 or 17, went into World War II.

Uh, he was a great athlete.

He actually got a football scholarship at a prep school to go to a private high school.

At about uh 16 and a half or 17, he signed on to be in the Marines.

And being a big strapping guy, they made him a 50-caliber machine gunner.

So at 17, if you can imagine going to Afghanistan, well, to him it was Guam Iwo Jima.

If you know your World War II history, it was the bloodiest battles of anywhere.

My dad only talked about it twice, but he talked about how they would dig a ditch and he had a big tripod 50-caliber machine gun, and it was near the end of the war.

And he said they would rather die than go home in shame.

And he says it was like cutting grass, and he said hundreds and thousands of people would run up the hill, and he said, I would mow them down like grass, and they would climb upon one another to get close enough to throw a grenade.

And we had dug an arc in a ditch, so in the morning I would fire the gun like this, and as they got closer, then we would dig a ditch and make him to think that we had another gun.

And then he said, you know, we went through one vivid picture was there was a place where there was water and it was a stream and it was just red.

Just blood.

And he said, as I was in that, I mean, think of being now he's about 19 years old.

You talk about PTSD.

And his buddy wiped the back of his hand and it was all blood.

He said, Reb, that's what my dad was called.

Rebel, you're hit, and they carried him out.

And so I had a dad that I grew up with who um the good news was he lived, or I wouldn't be here.

Bad news was he saw things and did things that no human being should ever have to experience.

Despite protecting our country and all the rest, it still doesn't change what happens.

And then all the guys he went in with didn't come back.

So he had the guilt of being a survivor and he had the trauma.

My dad died at about 86 years old, and even despite becoming a follower of Christ in his mid-50s, he had nightmares until the very last years of his life.

Well, my dad, I didn't do counseling back then, and um weed was not really popular at the time.

And so my dad found with two or three beers he felt better.

With five or six beers, he felt a little bit better.

With about eight or ten beers, he was a pretty nice guy to be around.

And so from about 2:30 or 3 o'clock, as a school teacher, he would go to the bar and he would drink until uh supper time.

And he came and was a very functioning alcoholic.

By the time I got to be about 14 or 15, uh, he he missed a lot of suppers.

And he was becoming less functioning.

By the time I was 17, my dad was given an ultimatum by my mom, and she held up a bottle of beer and said, You can have this, or you can have me and the kids, but you can't have both.

Saturday mornings were very typical at 9 a.m., a guy named John would come over and they'd have two cases of beer, and um they would sit at the table and tell stories from 9 a.m.

to 9:30 or 10.

And I remember he would get up to go to the bathroom, and I would go and I would pour out the beer thinking I was rescuing.

If you know anything about the research on alcoholic families, um, it's literally produces very dysfunctional families.

My mom was emotionally intelligent, a guidance counselor, a teacher, an amazing person.

And she became an enabler.

And so our whole life was my dad had a very violent temper.

When he blew up, you better run for cover.

Uh, never abusive in terms of hitting us and things, but scary.

Um and so uh my mom always wanted to keep the peace.

So, in a classic alcoholic family, the oldest child usually rebels, which my sister did.

Uh, the middle child usually becomes invisible, which my other sister did.

She had an eating disorder and got down to about 80 some pounds.

And the youngest child often becomes a rescuer.

That's where I came in.

Now, on the outside, you would have thought, I mean, both parents were very educated, both 30 plus hours past their masters.

My mom did all of her coursework, was working on her dissertation.

Um, out in the community, we just looked like the really, really good family.

And my dad taught me a number of things that were really, really positive and really helpful.

Um In terms of my life, uh, he he taught me that if you want to be happy, here's the mantra be successful.

Successful people are happy.

And he wanted to help me be successful.

So as a small child, I can still remember I was two or two and a half.

He was in the summers, he would manage the swimming pool, a teacher during the other year, and he liked to show me off.

And so he got me to go to the high board, you know, the three-meter board, and the whole pool would stop.

And I can still remember climbing up it, climbing up it, and then I would get like this, and then he would say something, and then I would fall.

I couldn't swim.

I'd fall in and dog paddle, and everyone would cheer.

When I was three, every day before I would leave the room, there was a little easel, and there were letters on the easel, and I was learning to read when I was three.

I can still remember as a kid, he would walk in and sometimes take me to the bar and say, Okay, Chip, show him.

Uh spell Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

I'm three years old.

I-N-T-E-R.

I'm not sure I even knew, but you need to understand, he literally said things by the time I was six, seven, eight years old.

You know, this country needs a great president.

You could be that person.

Now, on the one hand, he built a lot of confidence.

On the other, he created a performance addict.

And I remember um becoming a workaholic by the time I was 12.

I had eight or nine lawns, two paper outs, and lent my parents$3,000 at 6% interest.

Um, I was the kid who uh would I and I didn't use a bag during Halloween, I used a a uh what do you a pillowcase because it was stronger.

And I lived in housing developments, and this is a day when stuff was safe.

I would sprint from house to house and I would be drenching with sweat, and I would fill a whole pillowcase with candy, I would tie it in a knot and put it up in the top of my closet for about a month, and then I would take it to school and sell five cent candies for 10 cents.

And my my one sister who was so gullible and so sweet, I could get a quarter for her if she really wanted the chocolate.

And so I just life was all about success, success, success.

And so by the time I became a senior in high school, uh somewhere along the line, I caught this vision.

Um, I saw a 5'9 guard lead the nation in scoring called John Rinka.

And I'll never forget thinking, if he can do it, I can do it.

And I became a Jim Rat workaholic toward basketball, and I played seven, eight hours a day.

And what I wanted to do, I did all these drills and the stuff that Steph is doing now, a guy named Meravich sort of did earlier.

And by the time I graduated from high school, I had a basketball scholarship, a pretty girl, and I graduated uh in the very top of my class.

The end, great life, right?

Um I'll never forget the uh evening it was uh graduate from high school.

I'm uh very, very futuristic.

It's just how my brain works.

We're all made different.

So I had already projected what are the next set of goals.

And so I was uh we threw our hats in the hair, and there was a big party afterwards.

And I can't, you know, some of your memory is sort of like, how did we get here?

But I remember being in an apartment off of Ohio State's campus.

I grew up in the Columbus area, and uh the apartment was empty, and there was about 25 or 30 of us sitting in a big circle passing a joint around.

And um, I was sitting next to a girl, I still remember her name, Jackie, and I actually remember her last name, but not knowing how things get recorded, I think I'll leave that one off.

And um, and and so as it's coming around, you know, I was, you know, as one famous president said, I didn't inhale.

I actually didn't, I passed it on.

I was so small and so skinny, I thought, man, I can't do anything that's gonna, you know, hurt my body.

Because man, all I all I thought all I cared about was basketball, but I was so desperately insecure, all we really cared about was impressing people and trying to find significance and longing for someone to love me just for me.

Because what I had learned was the only reason anyone ever cared about me is what I could do or what I'd accomplished.

And I was a prisoner.

And so uh that you know, passing it around, and Jackie turned to me because we were in study hall together.

And uh, if you're in high school and you learn rather, she was really pretty, which was uh another challenge.

But the the benefit of becoming friends with Jackie was her boyfriend was about two years older, about 6'3, about 220, and very mean.

And so she was really safe.

He would kill you if you messed with his girl.

And so we became friends.

And as we were sitting there on the floor in the big circle, she looked at me and she goes, You must be really happy.

I said, Why is that?

And she named my cute little girlfriend, and then she said, You know, you ended up real near the top of the class, and you know, your dream, you basketball stuff, you got a scholarship, and and the joint passed on around.

And now, and this is where those of you, I don't know your backgrounds, I I'd never heard of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, I'd never, I mean, I remember once in junior high, seventh grade, we had a big Bible.

I opened it once in my life, and it said, hitherto un thine, therefore, unto the blithe, the blood, you know.

And I said, you know, I don't know anything about the Bible, but no one can understand it.

So I shut it.

So I'd never opened the Bible, I'd never read it.

And um, but something happened where I thought, oh, I never even thought about whether I was happy.

See, I already had projected um, I'm gonna be a lawyer, I'm gonna have three kids, I'm gonna marry a beautiful woman, I will have a luxury car back in the day, I'm gonna have a station wagon, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have$200 suits, and by 32, I'll be a leader in my community.

And now here's how arrogant I was.

The thought that I couldn't accomplish that never entered my mind.

Because what my dad told me, you set a goal, you develop a strategy, and want everyone else asleep in you work harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder.

And if you do that, you'll be successful.

And if you're successful, then you'll be happy.

And and I'll never forget, I thought I was driving home, it was about 2 a.m.

And I'm driving home, and that you must really be happy.

And I already had projected to the next set of goals.

And then my mom had a really special relationship with my mom.

She was an amazing, she may have been an enabler, but to this day, the most emotionally intelligent person and an amazing woman.

And I was really close to her.

And if you're futuristic, so I I just projected and I projected and I thought, you know, my mom's quite a bit older than me.

She's gonna die before I die.

And then I thought, so why am I here?

And and you know, granted, it was a large high school, but you know, I was aware enough to go like, okay, I'm a I'm a decent sized fish in a pretty small pond.

Well, what if I'm 32 and I'm a leader in a community and I'm this great trial lawyer and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, then I'm just gonna be, right?

I started projecting, and I just thought a bigger goal, I'll feel even more empty than I feel now.

And I remember I probably as my first adult prayer, I kind of got real quiet, got in the house, and I remember literally remember sitting on my bed, and there's a window right next to my bed, and I looked out, it was a really starry night, and I thought, you know, someone must have made this.

And I said, God, I I don't know if you exist or not.

But here's the deal.

Um, if you exist, what do you want from me?

I mean, if I don't know if there's a God or not, but if you exist, what do you want from me?

And then here's here's my proposition.

If you can reveal yourself to me in a way that I can really understand, I'll do whatever you want me to do.

And if you're not big enough to do that, I'm just giving notice.

I'm gonna live like hell and die young.

Because I've always been pretty logical and I thought, what why this sort of gray area to be mildly moral?

And man, if everyone else is sleeping around, I should enjoy this.

And if drugs are fun or getting drunk or getting high, if there is no meaning, if there are no purpose, if there isn't a life, if there is a God, then he made you, right?

Then you ought to do whatever he wants you to do because he cares for you.

Second, if there's not, forget it, but there's nothing in between.

And so that was my kind of first adult prayer.

And I prayed it.

And um, the guy that taught me so much, he was a basketball coach.

I was lined up to do a paint house with him before I went away to school.

And there was a delay for a week.

And the same day I got my summer job was gonna delay for a week.

The football coach, for reasons I don't know, as you can see, I did not play football, um, said, Hey Chip, maybe he asked a number of other people, talk about the providence of God.

Uh, I'll pay your way to this camp.

The best basketball players in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio are gonna be there.

I said, I'm in.

And so I go to this camp.

And um, as I go to this camp, it was like, okay, great.

And then I'll never forget, I got literally, it was a good news Bible, a little bit smaller and had a little cross, and on the bottom it said FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Well, I didn't know what the Fellowship of Christian Athletes was.

I don't know, it was Tom Landry, who was the you know, coach of the Cowboys, was going to be one of the speakers.

I mean, how bad it could be.

Bullet Bob Hayes, Roger Stauback, you all don't know who I'm talking about.

But uh Google it, Cowboys, they were great.

And then I walked in, it was on a college campus, and there was about 600 athletes.

And all I the when I used Jesus, it was it was with other words connected to it, but not in prayer.

And I heard people saying Jesus out loud, and they had Bibles, and they give you a t-shirt with a cross on it.

I thought, oh my lands, it's 1972, I've been dropped in the land of Jesus freaks.

Uh I'm this is uh, these are the hypocrites, these are the weird people, not going here.

So every morning for 20 minutes before you ate breakfast, then you did a lot of really fun sports.

Is they they had they called it quiet time or something.

And so uh they gave you this good news Bible.

And so I I did like this, and I sat like this, and I looked at 599 guys and said, if you suckers want to believe this crap, you can, but I'm not.

And so I wouldn't open my Bible.

Day one, day two, day three.

And then each day, uh, some guy, I can't, so his first name was Max.

Some guy named Max got up, opened the Bible, read a paragraph, and talked for 20 or 30 minutes.

It actually made sense.

Um where I grew up going to church, some guy would talk for about 10 or 11 minutes, and we lit a lot of candles, and we sat kneel stand, sat kneel stand, and I had everything memorized, and I could be thinking about the MBA going also with you, and you know, I had it down.

And and I'm not, by the way, I I don't mean that critically.

I just it it was just it was just words because there's no reality.

And and so um day four, the peer pressure got to me.

In fact, I dug out a good news Bible so I would have the exact and so you know, I'm I don't suggest this is how God always leads people, but what what I did is I I did this.

Everyone's looking around, I'm thinking this is like day four, and I looked down, said, so then my brothers, because of God's great mercy to us, I appeal to you, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him.

This is what he really wants from you.

And and again, I've never heard of the Holy Spirit before, but it was like I literally I could see myself in my room, in my mind.

God, if you exist, what do you really want from me?

And this verse said, You not your money, no, not going to church, a bunch of stuff.

No, you.

I want you.

And then the very next verse said, Um, do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.

Then you'll be able to know God's will, what is good and pleasing to Him, what's actually perfect for you.

And and again, I I this was a weird, I mean, I thought this was like so so.

I mean, I read that verse, and then it's like someone VHS tapes, some of you are old enough to remember what those were, but it's like someone would punch that, and literally I saw pictures in my mind, and I saw me with a girl dating and talking sweet and telling her what I wanted her to hear for ulterior motives.

And then I had this picture come to me that you know, in in a classroom with the teachers and parents and all this stuff, and I gave them the all-American boy stuff, and then I had this picture, this video came up of me in the locker room, and I was always the shortest and the skinniest, always recruited the biggest, baddest dude on our team to be my enforcer.

And I had the mouth and he had the brawn.

And I saw myself go, you mother bug.

I mean, I had the worst mouth, and I would the most arrogant kid you'd ever met, and talking trash to everyone, and you want to mess with me, mess with me.

Sucker, you know.

And and and it was like this, it was like, it was like in the if the dictionary, if it came up and said chameleon, it was like, there was my picture.

And I would pretend to be different people with every different group, because I was so desperately insecure and so afraid and had no rest in my soul, and so longing, I didn't know what to do other than play everybody off one another, so that somehow, somehow, because you're only as valuable as what people think of you.

And then the next verse it says, And because of God's gracious gift to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.

Instead, be modest in your thinking and judge yourself according to the amount of faith that God has given you.

And all I can tell you was I was scared, and I couldn't figure out what was going on.

And later that afternoon, I uh was coming off the field, and we they would put you in these, they call them huddles, and you'd have about 10 or 12 guys, and you play all the you know, flag football, basketball, all kind of stuff, and then they'd throw a bag of ice in the middle, and you'd they'd talk about God and things.

And I if you can picture this, you know, I couldn't have been 135, 140 pounds, and skinny little kid, and and the uh fullback for Illinois was here, and the wide receivers for the Atlanta Falcons was here, and they're walking off the field, and this those those wide receivers look very small on TV, they're very big in real life.

I still remember like his quads were like this big.

I was going, dude, man, that's amazing.

And and I could hear about every third word, and I heard a very intimate conversation.

And the the fullback was struggling with something, I couldn't make it all out.

And this guy was talking about what was more important than his NFL career and his wife and his faith and and Jesus, but he wasn't cussing.

And and I don't, I saw the gospel.

Again, I didn't know any verses about by their love, you'll know that the father sent me.

All I knew was something happened inside as I was walking behind these guys.

I thought, I've never seen a grown man love another grown man ever in my life in this powerful, non-sexual way.

And something just welled up and said, I want what they want.

I want what they have.

But I didn't know how to get it.

I had no understanding.

All of a sudden, I get all this new information and these Jesus freaks, these whack jobs, and I'm a skeptic and I don't believe any of this stuff, and all my bad background, all I know is well, God really wants is me, and I'm the biggest hypocrite.

And that night, uh, that fullback got up and he sang the Lord's Prayer.

And I can't, I can't again, I don't, I didn't have any background with God.

He sings the Lord's Prayer, and my I start to water.

And why am I crying?

I don't understand.

And then and then a guy got up with some chalk and he he started drawing something.

And he was drawing the story I would learn later.

It's called the gospel or the good news.

It wasn't a transaction, it was a declaration.

It's that God did something good, and he who has ears to hear, whoever would like to come to me, this is how you can actually come to me and have rest for your soul and purpose and all the things that I look for.

And and he he drew this picture.

In fact, I'm gonna put it up.

This is uh this is my my little version of this picture.

Uh, you want to put up that slide with the this is uh my recreation.

Oh, it's up.

Oh, I was looking down here.

It's up.

So uh he gave this verse in John 5.24 that says, Truly, truly, or verily, verily I say unto you, he that hears my word and believes on him that sent me, and this is what kill, just it's killer, not will, has eternal life.

Jesus, what's it mean?

How do you come?

He that hears my word, what you're hearing right now, and believes, puts your trust in, not intellectually agrees with, believes on me, has eternal life, and will not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life.

And so that that picture is over here, that was that was me.

How you like my stick figure?

And he explained that all of us blow it, all of us have sinned.

And he explained that the wages of the consequences of our sin before a holy God is we fall short.

I mean, Mother Teresa may have been a you know 97 out of 100, and Billy Graham a 96.5, but they still fell short.

And with a holy God, there's just there is no hope because he's absolutely pure and holy.

But what we couldn't do for ourselves, he did Jesus as the bridge.

John 1 12 says, As many as receive him, to them he gives the right.

The word is the power or authority to become children of God, even to those who believe on his name.

And afterward, I saw that, and for the first time in my life, I recognized coming to Jesus is not being religious, it's not intellectually even agreeing that Jesus was a person, or even that it was God, or even that it was the savior of the world.

Those are important, but it's actually a transfer of trust that you believe that what he did on the cross paid or covered for your sin.

And then his invitation, I'll still remember this.

Literally, that man, he said, Jesus is saying this to each one of you athletes in this room.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If any man, if any woman, if any student hears my voice and opens the door, I'll come into him and live with him, and he with me.

And I all I can tell you was I I I was so aware that I was at a crossroads in my life.

And I thought I could if I allow you to come into my life, if I if I get this right, you want you to forgive me, but you want to give me a new life, and you want us to do this life in the future together.

And it wasn't like I thought I had to stop this, this, this, or that, but I realized I can't play God.

I can't, I can't mess with him.

There were some things that I knew I was doing that if I was gonna get on this path, those things were gonna have to go.

And I didn't know if I wanted to let him go.

And then I kind of replayed in my mind.

I am so tired.

I am so weary of trying to project that I'm something, but I'm not.

I'm so weary and laid down with grinding it out, trying to be this and that, and get these people to like me.

And God, I'm not sure exactly what it means for you to come into my life.

In fact, my prayer was like a letter.

Dear Jesus, this is chip.

I didn't know how to pray.

Whatever it means for you to forgive me right now and for me to trust you to come into my life, I want to do that right now.

And Jesus says, Come to me, and the promise is I'll give you rest.

And very imperfectly I said, I want to do life with you, but I don't know how to do it.

But I prayed and I asked Christ to forgive me and to come into my life in June of 1972.

And then I, you know, I wish they would have done maybe a little bit more.

So I had this little Good News Bible, and I uh when I got home, I put it underneath my pillow.

I didn't want my parents to think, you know, I went to a camp and now I'm a Jesus freak.

And and when people weren't looking, like in the morning, I started reading through the New Testament.

And I remember thinking, how could does someone have a recorder underneath my bed?

How could anyone know this about you?

And then at night I would read it before I go to bed, and then I would hide it under my pillow.

And then I still remember about two weeks later because I had such a such a I mean a mouth that was unbelievable, uh foul.

I just quit cussing.

And then I remember it was a month later, and a big law had come in from instead of 21 to 18, you could drink.

And so my buddy said, Hey, man, you gotta come with us.

So I go with them and we go to this bar, and it's in fact, it's not just a bar, I mean it's super sleazy place.

And this lady of ill repute comes and sits with us, and my friend is telling us the great time we can have, not only drinking, but this I won't go on.

And I remember sitting in this booth in this really dark place and feeling dirty.

I mean, a year earlier it would have been, man, if I can come here, I'd love to get here, it's just illegal.

And I remember turning to my friend, and this was so weird, it was like, Man, I I'm just I'm just not into this.

What?

Man, champ, we've been waiting for this.

Come on, man.

I said, I just it just didn't for me.

And I remember I got up and I left.

God changed my desires, started changing my mouth.

The next big invitation is he invited me to follow him.

And boy, I'll tell you, I I I hope most of you do a better job at that than I did, especially early on.

But maybe some of my mistakes next week will help you in your journey.

But there's four great invitations in life.

How you respond to them.

Your next five, your next 10, your next 50.

My wife Teresa, who couldn't be with us, she's sick this morning.

Uh, my subtitle that I put for this was The Four Great Invitations, um, lessons from my first fifty years with Jesus.

And she said, Well, do you think you're gonna get 50 more?

I said, No.

I think I'm gonna get forever.

These are my first 50 years.

I'll have 500 years, I'll have 5,000 years, I'll have five million years, I will have five billion years, I will have a Google years in the presence of a faithful, kind, loving, holy savior, because in 1972 Jesus said, Come, I will give it's a gift, and I came.

And God brought some of you in this room so that you'll look back if the Lord doesn't return in five or ten or twenty years and say it was July 3rd, and I came to Jesus.

For some of you, you actually have already come to him, but the yoke has gotten kind of loose, and we'll talk next week about how you can get to come back over and over and over.

And instead of a God whose arms are crossed or down on you, he misses you.

Lord, as we all pause right now, bow our head and quiet our heart.

You know every person in this room, you know every person in the world.

Every heart, every motive is wide open to you.

Lord, I I I was so warped at thinking you were down on me, or that I couldn't ever measure up, that I didn't come.

But Lord Jesus, thank you that in this room on this day, whoever in this room and whoever would ever watch or listen to these words at this moment and say, Lord Jesus, I come.

I confessed I'm weary.

I've certainly messed up mistakes, I've done things that are wrong, I fall short.

And I'm asking you right now, will you forgive me?

I take you at your word that if I receive you, you will give me the power to become your son, your daughter.

So just in a quiet moment or two, if you have never received Jesus, if you've never come to him, put on his yoke, started the journey to learn his way.

It's a way of life.

Can I encourage you to do that right now?

Believe me, from my prayer, it doesn't have to be fancy.

It's got to be sincere.

Cry out in your own words to God.

Ask him to forgive you.

Tell him you're coming right now.

You want life.

You believe he died for you.

He rose from the grave.

And he wants you for himself forever and ever.

Lord, I had no idea 50 years ago that I'd ever get to have a family like I have, or to see you change my life like you have, or to get to invite other people to experience the life that you've given me.

I pray that you would bind all the lies and all the fears.

Would you help us to trust you this morning?

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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