No Turning Back

That prayer was way too short, Katie.

Hold on.

We are professionals here at his hands.

How y'all doing?

Everyone still good?

So uh since it is holidays now, I mean we've we crossed that line.

It's it's Thanksgiving week.

That means Christmas is coming pretty soon, and I do want to remind everybody that we're gonna have a mega incredible celebration of Christmas on Christmas Eve, like we do every year.

2 p.m., 4 p.m., and 6 p.m.

Uh this year we're requiring everyone to go to all three, so you need to block that whole no one showcase.

Um who was here last year for Christmas Eve, by the way?

It was a blast.

Wasn't that a blast?

Honestly, it it really is one of the it's one of the most incredible experiences of my year every single year.

It's like the perfect endpoint just to cap the year off and get me excited about what God's gonna do.

So we'll talk more in the coming weeks about what Christmas is gonna be about this year.

I mean, it's mainly Jesus, but you know, there's always a unique spin every year that God gives us on it.

So we're gonna we'll talk about that in the coming weeks.

But I just want you to know in advance, yes, it's happening.

Go ahead and put it on your calendars and just plan which service you want to be at.

Feel free to invite people because it's gonna be a party.

It really is.

Um last week we started a new series on the story of Gideon from the Old Testament.

And we're calling this series Gideon.

That's what we're calling it.

We're just going where the story takes us.

In fact, if we wanted to make this a title with a subtitle, the title would be Gideon, colon, and then the subtitle would be The Story of Gideon.

So Gideon, the story of Gideon.

That's what this is.

And it's amusing, but the reality is it really demonstrates an incredible way for us to explore the Bible together.

I tend to bounce back and forth between like a topical series where we're just covering a theme and we're looking at scripture that goes with that, that helps drive that home.

But then we'll jump just to a story, just to a section of scripture, a section of the Bible, and we'll open that up and say, God, where do you want to lead us?

Where do you want to take us in this story?

And if we all do that in our own lives, if we just do that personally, we open up the Bible and say, God, show me something.

And we just read it and we're open to God revealing to us whatever He wants to reveal, He will do that.

You'll be surprised by the things you'll learn with an open heart and an open mind, just going, Hey, I'm gonna read this story, God, God brings something to mind.

It reminds me of a verse in the Bible, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

It says, every part of Scripture is God breathed and useful one way or another, showing us the truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way.

Through the Word, we are put together and shaped, shaped up for the tasks that God has for us.

That's what we're doing with the story of Gideon.

We're just going through it saying, God, show us something we need, show us something useful.

I love the story of Gideon.

It's one of my favorite stories.

If you were here last week, you know where we're at.

If you weren't here last week, I can catch you up quick because you're in week two, so it's really easy to get you caught up.

This is 3,000 years ago.

The nation of Israel at this time is the nation God has decided to choose to be his own people, to bring the world to himself through Jesus.

Jesus just hasn't shown up yet.

And so he's basically adopted Israel like he's adopted all of us as his kids, and he's working through them, but but things are not going well for Israel.

They're at a low point.

This other nation has has come in and they're basically picking on Israel.

They're bullying Israel, they're taking from Israel.

They're making life miserable for the Israelites, and it's this nation called Midian.

And so every year the Midianites come and they pick the land clean and they take, they take all the valuables, they take all the food.

So Israel's in a really desperate situation.

But God has a plan.

God always has a plan.

And his plan is named Gideon.

He's chosen this man to be someone that leads Israel out of their oppression.

The only problem is it's kind of an odd pick.

Anyone here play fantasy football?

You can be proud, by the way, if you do.

There's a lot of guys kind of like ducking their heads and like, yeah, I do that.

No, no, it's okay.

It's okay.

You can be proud.

Play fantasy football.

Who does it?

Come on, raise your hands.

Alright.

Good for you.

So if you play fantasy football, you know, you get together with some guys or girls, because hey, I'm not like I'm not being a sexist.

There's a lot of women that are good at fantasy football.

I, by the way, know very little about football, so I don't play.

But but I have.

And it's interesting if you ever go into one of those seasons and you get together with some friends and you make your picks, you know, you pick your players, and there's always like a guy, some person that doesn't know football very well.

And so maybe he's picking based on name recognition, and he picks people that were good like three years ago.

Like three years ago, that would have been a great pick.

But what that's don't know, that's a bad pick.

But you don't say anything because you want to win.

So sometimes you make odd picks.

Gideon is an odd pick for God to make in terms of leading the nation of Israel out of oppression.

Gideon is not known for his bravery, he's not a warrior, he's not a military leader.

Gideon, to be honest, at this point in life, is a coward.

When the angel of the Lord shows up to tell Gideon, hey, you're the one that God has picked, Gideon is hiding in a hole in the ground, afraid of the very people that God is saying he's going to lead an army against.

And Gideon is like, God, you've got the wrong guy.

We see him say that in verse 15.

We'll pick the story up there.

Gideon says, Lord, how can I rescue Israel?

My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh.

By the way, Manasseh, not one of the strongest tribes to begin with.

He says, And I'm the least in my entire family.

The Lord said to him, I will be with you, and you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.

So Gideon makes this strong case to God for why God is wrong and has the wrong person.

This is a theme in the Bible, by the way.

This happens all the time.

God shows up and he's like, You, you're my guy, you're the one, you're the one I pick.

And people are like, Nope, you're wrong.

Let me list out the reasons that you have made a terrible decision.

God shows up to Moses and He says, Moses, you're gonna lead my people out of slavery from Egypt.

And Moses is like, Nope, I'm not a good speaker.

I stutter when I talk.

How are they gonna listen to me?

And God does not say, Oh, wow, I I thought you had a communication degree.

I'm so sorry.

I will move on to a more qualified candidate.

God says, No, I don't think you understood.

You're gonna do this.

Jonah.

God calls Jonah to be a prophet, to go to this place called Nineveh and tell the people that they need to change because God has something more for them.

And Jonah's like, no, God, you're I don't like to travel.

I'm kind of a homebody.

I just like to hang here.

I don't like going places.

And God does not go, oh, I'm so sorry.

I I thought you had a lot of frequent flyer miles saved up and this was gonna be super convenient.

You're right, I'll find someone else.

Jeremiah is a person that God goes to and says, You're my prophet.

And Jeremiah says, I'm just a kid, I'm not old enough.

And God does not say, Oh, I, you know, you're right, I got the birth date wrong on your certificate.

I thought you were five years, I'll come back in five years.

Never happens.

And here's what that's an amazing reminder to all of us about it's it's that we often underestimate ourselves and we see ourselves as something far less than God sees us.

There are people in the world whose idea of themselves may need to come down a few notches.

That does happen.

But far more common are people who think that they are here and God sees them as something much greater.

And the Bible is full of stories of people underestimating their own abilities and God telling them who they really are.

You need to understand this morning that you are more than you think.

And God desperately desires to raise you up so that your idea of yourself matches his, because I'm telling you, his is higher than yours.

So God doesn't take Gideon's advice.

God doesn't hear Gideon out and be like, you know, you're right.

I don't know what I was thinking.

He says, No, Gideon, I will be with you.

In other words, he's saying to Gideon, it's not your ability that I'm relying on, Gideon.

It's not your skill, it's not your leadership potential, it's not your knowledge, it's not your wisdom.

I'm gonna be with you, I'm gonna give you what I have.

And it's the same for all of us.

God promises to be with us.

He says to each of us, I'll give you my wisdom, I'll give you my knowledge, I'll give you my power, I'll give you my strength.

Just ask for it.

I'll work through you.

That's the promise that's made.

But Gideon still needs some convincing.

He's still not sure.

His faith is a little shaky.

So we'll go to verse 17.

Gideon replied, If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it's really the Lord speaking to me.

Don't go away till I come back bringing my offering to you.

So at this point, he's talking to the angel of the Lord, and maybe the angel of the Lord looks like a normal dude.

He's like, I this might be a prank.

I don't know what's going on.

Let me just double check, make sure you're actually from God.

And so he answered, I will stay here until you return.

And Gideon hurried home.

He cooked a young goat, and with a basket of flour he baked some bread without yeast.

Then carrying the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out and presented them to the angel who was under the great tree.

The angel of God said to him, Place the meat and the unleavened bread on this rock and pour the broth over it.

And Gideon did as he was told.

Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and bread with the tip of the staff in his hand, and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed all he had brought, and the angel of the Lord disappeared.

When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he cried out, O sovereign Lord, I'm doomed! I've seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

And now God starts speaking to him directly.

It's all right, the Lord replied.

Do not be afraid, you will not die.

And Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and named it Yahweh Shalom, which means the Lord is peace.

And the altar remains in Ophrah in the land of the clan of Abbeyzer to this day.

So Gideon gets a sign.

It's kind of like a little mini miracle, you know.

If God was going to put on a show, it wouldn't be the finale.

Like he'd part a sea or something like that, but you know, a little fire from a rock, like get the get the party started.

And Gideon says, okay, okay, this is God, I get it.

He freaks out a little bit, but now at least his faith has been moved forward.

But see, here's what Gideon doesn't realize.

God's about to ask his faith to take a massive leap forward.

God's about to ask Gideon to cross a line that he can't come back from.

He's about to ask Gideon to do something that makes it so clear where he stands with God.

He's gonna have to do something that's risky.

There's a phrase in our in our culture that's existed for thousands of years called crossing the Rubicon.

You might be familiar with this, maybe not.

The Rubicon was a river, and in the the ancient Roman Empire, it was a river that marked a boundary of Rome, and Julius Caesar led an army against Rome.

There was a civil war.

And he crossed the Rubicon, and crossing the Rubicon with an army was a declaration of war.

In other words, when when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, there was no going back.

He couldn't say, Hey, you know what?

Changed my mind.

Just kidding.

We're just passing through.

To do that was literally a declaration of war, and when he did that, there was no going back.

So crossing the Rubicon means reaching a point of no return.

God is going to ask Gideon in just a moment to make a decision that is essentially crossing the Rubicon.

It's getting Gideon to a point of no return.

He can't go back from this.

And that's risky.

That goes against so much of human nature, right?

Because as human beings, we like to hedge.

We're self-protective.

We always want to have an out.

In case things go south, we want to be able to get out of a situation.

You don't want to paint yourself in a corner, right?

So you need to have an out.

When I was younger, um, I started dating Megan.

And I was much younger actually when I started dating Megan.

We were high school sweethearts.

This is a picture of Megan and I when we first started dating.

Um I did not ask her permission to show this picture because I knew she would say no.

Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Okay?

Guys, take that down before she comes in the room.

So we were kids.

I show you that picture.

Not so that you go, wow, he's gained a lot of weight, but so that you would, so that you would realize we were children.

Because I look at that picture and I'm like, those are kids.

Those are kids.

We were kids.

High school sweethearts.

And there was a lot of buildup to our relationship.

See, before we ever went on a date, before we were boyfriend, girlfriend, I asked Megan a prom, but I did the whole just as friends thing.

That was the line I took.

And I had some guys that, you know, raised their hand and said, You play fantasy football.

Any guys willing to raise their hand and say, hey, when I first started dating either my wife or my girlfriend now, I kind of played the whole just for friends card just to save myself the fear of rejection.

A couple of cowards with me, that's good.

I get you guys, I'm with you.

That's how I was.

I was terrified of rejection.

And so I called her and I said, Hey, I'd like to go to prom with you, but you know, just as friends.

Which was a total lie.

Total lie.

I didn't want to just be friends with Megan.

I was I was like blown away by her.

I wanted to, I wanted to be her boyfriend, you know, I wanted that.

But I said, just as friends.

I gave myself that out.

And so we started to talk, and and then there was some flirtation going on.

I felt like she was flirting with me, but guys have this amazing ability to misread signals.

We're so good at that.

Because I've been married for over 10 years and I misread signals every single day.

And that's why you'll have guys that have been married for over 25 years, and you'll still hear them say things like, What did I say?

What did I do?

I don't get it.

What did I do?

It's because we're bad at the signals.

We don't read things the right way.

And so all this flirtation was going on, but it but it was not overt, and so I'm thinking the whole time, like I think she's kind of into me, more than just as friends, but I don't know, I'm not sure.

What do I do?

And and if I if I let her know how I feel, I mean that's risky because prom hasn't even happened yet.

What if she responds and says, Oh, whoa, no, no.

Um, now it's awkward, and we're not even gonna go to prom together, and then I'm that guy without a prom date, and I don't want to be that guy because we only had 22 people in my graduating class.

So you're gonna be like the guy without a date.

High school problems.

Okay, so I call her up one night on our our family's state-of-the-art cordless phone.

Some of the young people in here do not understand what I'm talking about.

So my family had a phone, and we all shared this phone, right?

And then I called the phone that her family shared.

And her mom answered, and I asked to speak to Megan, and Megan was on the phone, and we start talking, and I just I crossed the line.

I said, Megan, I like you.

I would like to take you to Macaroni Grill, which at the time was on Barrett Parkway, it has since gone out of business.

I should have taken her to Olive Gardens so we could go back and relive the first date, but I picked the wrong Italian restaurant.

What do you do?

Okay, I would like to take you to Macaroni Grill into a movie because I like you, and not just as friends.

And I'm sitting there waiting for a response.

And she said yes, and we went on our first date, and the rest is history.

I'm so glad that happened.

But see, that moment was risky for me at the time.

My my 18-year-old, terrified of rejection self, because that was crossing a line.

Once I cross that line, there's no going back.

If she says, No, I don't feel that way about you, there's no like I was I was just totally messing with you.

So, what I like about our relationship, we can just joke around and I don't I don't want to kiss you.

Who would want to kiss you?

I wanna I would like to kiss her right now, actually, but I can't.

That'd be that'd be super awkward for all of you.

Mainly for her, because she's not big on PDA, but ever, anyway.

Um I crossed that line.

I probably just crossed the line.

That's okay.

See, there comes a point in life where where you can't hedge anymore.

There come there come points for every single one of us that that the time for leaving ourselves an out, it's it's past.

And you you have to make a decision that's bold.

Because the reality is that big changes in life only happen when we make bold decisions.

And God's about to ask Gideon to make a very, very bold decision, one there's there's no going back from.

We'll pick up the story in verse 25.

That night the Lord said to Gideon, Take the second bull from your father's herd, the one that is seven years old, pull down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole standing beside it.

Asherah was a goddess that was worshipped in the land at that time.

Then build an altar to the Lord your God here on this hilltop sanctuary, laying the stones carefully, sacrifice the bull as a burnt offering on the altar, using using as fuel the wood of the ashera pole you cut down.

So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had commanded, but he did it at night, because he was afraid of the other members of his father's household and the people of the town.

Okay, this is big what God's asking Gideon to do.

This is big on so many levels.

See, his family has abandoned God, like all of Israel.

That's kind of what got them in this situation in the first place.

And they're worshiping a false god called Baal, that's no longer worshipped anymore.

They're worshiping a false goddess named Asherah, who's no longer worshipped.

Asherah poles were like totem poles.

They were these decorated poles that would be next to altars of Baal.

It was all over the place.

If you read the Old Testament, you'll see these pop up all the time.

And he doesn't say to Gideon, hey, you know your father's altar to Baal and his Asherah pole?

And Gideon's like, yeah, I know those.

It's right in the middle of our camp.

I know exactly where it is.

Well, I want you to build an altar to me right beside it, you know, to give people options.

That's not what he says.

He's like, I want you to tear down your father's altars and then build an altar on top of the rubble of the torn down altars to me.

Like, there's no going back from that.

I want you to tear it down.

It's a great reminder to us that sometimes, in order for God to do something in our lives, things have to get torn down first.

And so I get frustrated sometimes when I feel like God's cutting stuff away in my life, but it's so he can build something better.

The Bible calls that pruning.

That God does that in our lives, and that's kind of what's happening here, but but there's even more going on.

There's even more going on than the tearing down of these altars and the building of an altar of God.

God says to Gideon, I want you to take the second bull from your father's herd, the seven-year-old bull, and I want you to sacrifice it on the altar.

Now he's asking Gideon not only to mess with his father's religion, but to mess with his stuff.

Right?

And this is this is huge on so many levels.

Number one, cattle were expensive.

Cattle were currency in this day.

People would buy things with cattle.

In fact, if you wanted to propose to a woman, you didn't go to the woman, get on your knee, hand her a diamond ring, and say, Will you marry me?

You bypass the woman altogether.

Go to the father, bring a bunch of goats and a bunch of cattle, and you would buy the woman's marriage rights from the father with goats.

Super romantic.

Right?

And women, isn't it nice that things have changed?

Because just like imagine romantic comedies if that was still the tradition.

You'd have Matthew McConaughey or Ryan Gosling or some other abnormally attractive human being that just standing there in a room being like, I bought you with these goats.

It doesn't work.

It just doesn't work.

So it's good that that changed.

Cattle were worth their weight in gold.

Number two, not only were cattle expensive, but this is a time of starvation in the land.

Go back to verse 6.

Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites, so food is not exactly abundant.

And Gideon's already used a bunch of food when he brought the angel of the Lord, the the goat and the broth and the bread, and the angel of the Lord didn't even have the decency to make it into like a stew and give it to him to eat.

The angel of the Lord just burned it up, gone.

And now he's saying, Oh, the goat wasn't enough.

Bring a bull.

A gigantic bull and sacrifice an entire bull.

That's that's crazy.

That's that's so much to ask in a time when food is so scarce.

But it's even more than that.

Do you notice how specific God was?

I want you to take the second bull from your father's herd, the seven-year-old bull.

If we go to verse 1 in chapter 6, it says, The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight.

So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years.

The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds.

Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the East would attack Israel, camping in the land, and destroying crops as far away as Gaza.

They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys.

And so you might ask, well, hold on.

If the Midianites and the Amalekites have been coming into the land and taking all of the cattle, all the sheep, all the goats, all the donkeys for seven years, how is there a seven-year-old bull in Israel?

Because it says they took them all.

Well, it's pretty easy.

When the people would flee and run away from the Amalekites, they would obviously take as much of their livestock as they could.

They depended on their livestock to survive.

It's no different than if your house was on fire.

You would grab your necessities on your way out, as much as you could grab the things that you need.

You would be grabbing, you know, food and water.

Your high school would grab their Xbox and you would just run out the door.

That's how you would go.

So I'm an adult.

I can make those choices.

So every year the Midianites come, and every year they attack, and every year the Israelites flee to the mountains and the caves, and they're taking everything they can with them.

But you you can only take a few things with you.

You might be able to hide a few cattle, you might be able to hide a few goats.

You can't take a herd with you.

You can't hide a thousand cattle from the Amalekites and the Midianites.

So that means that this bull, this bull is a bull that Gideon's father has kept safe from the Midianites every single year they have attacked.

Every single year.

Seven years the Midianites have come in and raided the land, taking everything, picking the land clean.

And for seven years, Gideon's father has successfully kept this one bull alive.

And that's the bull that God has Gideon to sacrifice.

See, we've got to understand this isn't just some bull.

This this bull is the most prized possession of Gideon's family.

This bull is that that thing in their family that they look at and they say, Hey, we don't have much.

The Midianites haven't left us with much, but we've got this bull.

This gives us at least a little bit of hope that we're hanging on by a thread, we're making it, we've got this one bull, and God says, take that bull.

Just imagine the morning after.

And Gideon's dad wakes up and he smells the very, very distinct smell of cooked meat.

Somebody's been grilling.

Right?

And he wakes up and he notices a little smoke coming from his altars and he goes over there and he's like, oh, someone make a sacrifice at my altar.

And he walks over, and it's not his altar anymore.

It's this new altar that he didn't build.

He's the leader of his family.

He didn't authorize this, and he's probably wondering what happened to his altars.

And then he notices his ashera pole.

They're like totem poles carved out.

And they're all burnt because they're the wood that God asked Gideon to use to burn the bull.

And then he sees the remains of the bull on the altar, and he probably doesn't have many bulls because they don't have much.

Israel's reduced to starvation, so he starts looking around his herd and he's trying to find what bull is missing, and it wouldn't have taken him long to go, wait, wait a minute, wait.

Where's my bull?

Where's the seven-year-old bull?

Where is where's the bull that I have successfully hidden from the Midianites for seven years?

Is that is this the who did this?

Who did this?

You ever have moments, those of you with kids, where something breaks and you ask who did it?

And the explanations come forward that don't make any sense at all.

My son had friends over on Friday, and we have a drop ceiling in our basement, and mysteriously, there's three ceiling tiles that are no longer intact.

They're gone.

They're just holes in our ceiling.

And I asked my son what happened, and he's like, Weirdest thing.

Right?

And he blamed it on one of his friends.

And I'm like, well, then you need to get better friends because you're the one that's gonna deal with this.

Can you imagine Gideon's dad going, Who did this?

Who tore down my altars?

Who sacrificed my prized possession?

The seven-year-old boy, I want to know who did this, and Gideon just goes, it was me.

Talk about crossing a line you can't come back from.

I mean, there's no there's no going back from this moment.

Gideon's dad wants an explanation, and the only explanation Gideon can give him is that God told me to do this.

And that's the only explanation that would work, by the way.

And you better be able to say it with conviction.

No, no, God told me to do this.

God said so.

God made it so clear, Dad, I would never have done this, but God spoke to me, sent an angel, cooked a goat, there was fire, it was crazy, and then he said, kill your dad's bull.

And I was like, I don't think I should do it.

He said, Do it.

And I did it.

I mean, that that is that is bold.

And just so you know, Gideon's family and the people in the town, they're not happy.

They want to kill Gideon.

They don't, God's with him.

We'll get to that part of the story next week, but but this decision, this is bold.

Bold decisions are a requirement of right living.

And by right living, I don't mean some some pious religious life.

I mean a life that works.

Because there are situations in life where where hedging is okay.

There are situations in life where sure, leave yourself an out.

When you choose your phone provider, go to someone that doesn't make you sign a contract.

That's good.

Have an out.

Otherwise, you'll be like me and you'll owe your firstborn son to Sprint, like I do.

Because if you work for Sprint, by the way, I'm not knocking you, I just I can never choose another phone service because when I do, you say, Oh, you you blinked your eye two years ago and it upgraded your contract for five years, and I don't know how to get out of it.

And I'm stuck.

And I love Sprint, I just want to see what else is out there.

But they won't let me.

Right?

When you choose your phone provider, go for the no annual contract.

There are things in life where it's really nice to not have to commit too much.

We we're attracted to that, by the way, right?

How many, how many commercials, how many sales pitches do we see that say no annual contracts, no commitment necessary, right?

You don't you don't have to commit to this.

And we like that.

We're like, yes, that's what I need more in life.

I need more, I need less commitment.

I need more non-committal commitments.

That's what I need.

See, that approach doesn't work in a lot of aspects of life.

It really doesn't work in the big ones.

Like that approach doesn't work in marriage.

You can't sort of be all in in your marriage and expect it to work.

If you go into marriage, leaving yourself an out, it's just not a bad sign.

Marriage works when two people say, I'm all in, I've made a decision, and from this point on, I'm gonna do everything I can to keep the decision that I've already made.

So our relationship with God's the same way.

To have a real relationship with God, a relationship that works, we have to cross lines in our heart.

We have to be people who can say with conviction the the lyrics that we just sang in that song, Jesus, my captain, my soul's trusted Lord, all my allegiance is rightfully yours.

We have to cross a line that there's no going back from.

We have to say, Jesus, I belong to you.

My life is no longer my own.

I've given it to you.

That means that that everything I value is dependent on what you value.

That means that my decisions are dependent on the decision I've already made to follow you.

So often we get stressed out trying to figure out the right decision in all these different areas of life.

What's the right decision in my marriage?

What's the right decision as a parent?

What's the right decision for my career, for my money, for all these things?

And sometimes the answer that we need is not a decision that we need to make, it's learning how to follow through on the decisions that we've already made.

And see, life gets a lot more simple when we can live decided.

When we can be people who have decided hearts.

I think that's mean.

But beyond that, I love the guy.

He said this most people fail at whatever they attempt because of an undecided heart.

Should I, should I not?

Go forward, go back.

Success requires the emotional balance of a committed heart.

When confronted with a challenge, the committed heart will search for a solution.

The undecided heart searches for an escape.

When we live with decided hearts, hearts that can say with conviction, I've made my decision, I've crossed a line, and there's no going back from here.

That actually takes care of so many other decisions in our lives.

And this is literally one of the most practical things you can do.

You want to talk about practicality.

This is one decision that ends up making thousands of decisions for you.

Because what stresses us out in life is not always the situations we're in, it's the decisions we have to make in those situations.

That's why when you're younger, if you have good parents, you don't feel as much stress because you're still in the same situation your family's in, but they're the ones that have to make the decision.

And as a kid, you can be like, man, glad I don't have your job.

If someone else makes your decisions for you, that takes the stress away.

But when you are faced with a difficult decision, that is stressful.

There's anxiety there, right?

But if you make a decision when it comes to your relationship with God that is so resolute, it is so strong, you cross that line, that one decision dictates so many other decisions.

And so I don't live my life wondering what kind of father I should be.

That decision has been made.

I've decided to follow Jesus.

I've decided to be all in with God.

And so all I have to do is go, what kind of father does God want me to be?

And he spells it out in scripture so many times.

There are times when my kids do things and I don't want to discipline them.

I do not want to discipline them, I don't want to mess with it.

But the Bible tells me that a loving father disciplines his children.

Because a loving father is committed to their growth.

And so I discipline my kids sometimes because that's a decision that God's already made for me, and I can blame God for it, and they can take it up with him.

It's wonderful.

There are times when my kids do things that frustrate me so much.

Breaking ceiling tiles and stuff like that.

And I might be upset, but but I also know that God wants me to be a gentle father.

He makes that so clear.

That a good father does not exasperate his children.

And so I have to be gentle.

The Bible says God is slow to anger, quick to forgive.

That's the kind of father I have to be.

See, I don't have to sit stressed out all the time about what kind of dad I should be because I've already decided what kind of dad I should be.

I decided to follow Jesus, and that decision dictates the others.

I don't have to decide what kind of husband I should be.

My decision to go on with Jesus, that determines the decisions I make in my marriage.

I heard an author say once that the definition of a disciple is someone who arranges everything in their life so that they can follow through on the decision they've made to follow Jesus.

It's about the decision that's already been made.

That determines the decisions that I make now.

It's like that financially.

Megan and I didn't used to be this way, but we love to give.

We love to be generous.

And month to month we don't sit and go, oh, should we give?

Should we not give?

Should we be generous this month?

This feels like a generous month.

This feels like a stingy month.

What do you think?

See, rain or shine, good times, bad, easy times, rough times when it's thick, when it's thin, it doesn't matter.

We've already decided that.

And sometimes that's really hard to live out, but I'll tell you this: it's it's not this anxiety-ridden affair of us going back and forth, and oh, what do I do?

What do I do?

What do I do?

No, the decision has been made.

Do I have a decided heart?

That's the question that I would leave you with today.

Have you crossed a line in your faith with God that you can't come back from?

I know some of us here are still figuring out the whole Jesus thing, and by the way, that's okay.

We love you.

God's so patient.

So there's no pressure right now to force you to make some decision, but I'll tell you this, and this is so key.

If you make the decision to go all in with Jesus, you will find that he is already all in with you.

And when it comes to loving you, he does not hedge, he does not leave himself and out.

There's no escape clause in the relationship.

In fact, the Bible says that when we are unfaithful, he will remain faithful to us.

So please understand that Jesus is not kind of sort of all in with you.

Jesus is all in with you, he gave his life for you.

He loves you so much.

When he says, cross the line, be all in with me, he's already all in with you.

And if you're here today and and you're stressed out and life's hard and you don't know what to do, I just want to ask you, have you gone all in with him?

Have you crossed that line?

Have you gotten to the point where you're not flirting with God anymore?

You are committed.

You've asked God to macaron and grill, if you know what I'm saying.

For some of us, that might mean today's the day that we give our lives to him.

That we, as we worship on this last song, that we just pray and on our hearts we say, God, I'm yours.

I'm yours.

I crossed the line.

I take that step, I'm all in.

For some of us, that might mean getting baptized.

You can sign up in the lobby just to say to the world, I'm all in, because you know, it's like a relationship.

You're not really all in until you can say proudly, I'm all in with Jesus.

Many of us here, we've already made the decision.

But sometimes we forget that that's a decision that should dictate all others.

Not because if we don't do it that way, God won't be pleased with us, because if we don't do it that way, it won't work.

Is there a decision that you have to make right now that's really hard and you don't know what to do, you're stressed out?

Have you asked yourself the question?

Have you asked yourself, has my decision to follow Jesus already determined what I should do in this situation?

Because it might be that you think you have all these options, but in reality you've already chosen what to do.

Because only one of your choices is consistent with your decision to follow Jesus.

Is there any area of your life that you can look at and say, hey, the decisions I'm making in this part of life, they don't line up with my core decision to follow Jesus?

I would encourage you just to examine that and to ask God to give you the courage and the strength.

To change that so that that decision, that decision to follow him, that is core, that is key, that is what determines everything else.

Cross the line.

Because when you cross that line, you find love.

When you cross that line, you find faith.

Fear goes away when you cross that line.

And God always comes through.

He's always with us.

We're gonna wrap up by singing one more song, and today we have an opportunity to let this song be a cry of our hearts, a cry that just reinforces the decision that we may have made or the decision that we might need to make, but it's a chance for us to say, I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm yours.

I'm crossing the line, God, I'm not going back.

There's no going back from this.

I will let my relationship with you be central to my life.

I will let that dictate everything else, Lord, and I'll trust you because I believe that you know what you're doing when I don't.

I don't want you to literally kill any bulls today, okay?

But you might need to kill a bull today.

There might be something in your life that you've held on to, something that you're you're hoping will give you hope.

And maybe it's letting go of that and saying, no, no, no, this is this is just a bull.

What is this is nothing.

I need God.

I need his love, I need his support, I need his wisdom.

Cross the line.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much for your love, for your passion for us, Lord.

You are you're so incredible.

You're so amazing.

It isn't it's truly mesmerizing to thank God that you've crossed that line when it comes to us, that you don't leave yourself and out, that you don't hedge, that you don't have some kind of conditional love where if we perform poorly, you say, hey, contract negated.

That's not how this works, Lord.

You've given everything of yourself to us.

There's not one of us in this room that was not born already being loved by you.

You died for us on the cross, Lord, before we were even a thought.

You love us so much.

Give us the courage to be people who are all in with you.

Give us courage to be people who, even as we worship right now, we can we can cry out and we can sing out with passion that we belong to you, that we've crossed that line, that for us there's no turning back.

We're all in.

We love you, Lord, and we ask all this in your name.

Amen.