Make room for God.

Pastor Linn: 00:45 Hey Cornerstone how are you doing? You guys are tired.

Pastor Linn: 00:51 Now I know it's, I know it's early service. I know you got up in the dark but it's not that bad. I promise you the cool part is you're going to get out of here and you're going to have the rest of the day to go do something. So it's a good time to be in church man. Hey, see someone agreed. All right, so real quick I just want to shout out to San Tan and to our Scottsdale campus out there. I don't know if you guys know this or not, next Sunday Scottsdale is opening their new site. The building they bought in the Scottsdale...Yeah. Really cool. If you live anywhere in the Tempe-Scottsdale area it would be a totally cool Sunday for you to say, hey I'm just going to do church up there this weekend and support them and root for them and cheer them on in a great moment.

Pastor Linn: 01:37 And the part that's really cool guys, and I think you know this, is, is that how we've been able to do that is that that congregation is actually paying their own way. So we just took what had been a lease payment, turned that into a mortgage payment and they're covering that. That's, that's them doing this so super, super, super cool if you live anywhere near there. Man, that'll be a great place to be next Sunday morning when the grand open that. Hey, this last weekend we did a thing called a men's conference, legacy men's conference. How many men in the room you were at the legacy men's conference? OK. If you are at the conference do me a favor, I want you to stand up right where you're at. Ok, stand up, stay there, OK. So No whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, before you ... let me tell you what these men just did because it's totally cool. These men paid as much as 80 dollars apiece, gave up their Friday night and their Saturday for the sole purpose of just saying hey, I want to grow closer to God. I'm going to tell you that's an honorable thing. That's a huge thing for them to do. And they deserve some recognition from you and me that they would do that. Now you guys grab a seat. Here's my prayer as your pastor. My prayer is that every man who calls Cornerstone home next year would just say, "Look sign me up man. Just let me be part of this and I'm just telling you if you didn't go this year and this isn't your pastor blowing smoke this is just me saying it as it is. Every speaker this year just knocked it out of the park. I mean some ... you know sometimes it's not. I mean if you weren't there you missed it because it just kept building, upon building, upon building. And then we just left there going, man I would serve God no matter what the cost. It was just an amazing, amazing weekend. And if you're a man in the room and you missed it you need to sign up for next year. And my other encouragement is if you're a dad in the room, if you have a son who's 10 years of age or older. You bring your son. There's nothing more powerful than a young man seeing men follow Jesus with abandon. I'm just, I'm just so telling you it was good. You need to be part of it next time.

Pastor Linn: 03:44 All right, all right here we go. We're, we're talking about experiencing God and really what we're kind of asking together is simply this: hey, what would it, what would it mean for me to be in a closer relationship with him? What would it be like to live every single day feeling and knowing his presence in my life? What would it be like to hear him speak to me and direct my life? And what would it look like if I actually then followed that? How different would my life be? How deeply would I experience God if I was doing that? And so we've been having that conversation. A couple of weeks ago we talked about the idea that, you know, Moses was waiting for God to speak and the whole burning bush conversation. Then last week the interesting thing was when God finally spoke, when God said something to Moses it was bigger, it was bigger than anything that Moses had ever considered in his life. And because it was bigger than even the plans that Moses had for himself it instantly caused a crisis of belief when caught. You just got the wrong guy. I couldn't do that. What you're asking me to follow is just absolutely terrifying and he literally has an argument with God for a chapter and a half in scripture. And the best thing that ever happens in the life of Moses is losing that argument. When he finally says OK God, you win. You win I'll do it.

Pastor Linn: 05:11 Today we're going to talk about this idea of adjusting because you realize that moment of surrender for Moses, that moment, moment when Moses says, "OK this is hard and it's scary but I'm going to do it," requires adjustment in his life. His life will not be the same on the other side of that conversation. He's going to have to shift some ways that he thinks, he's going to have to shift some ways that he behaves, he's going to have to adjust his schedule in order to accommodate what God is getting ready to do in his life.

Pastor Linn: 05:42 And the conversation we're having today is to simply say this guys: when you begin to experience God, when God begins to reveal to you what he's planning to do and in that moment when you say, "God that's bigger than I thought and I can't even imagine." But the next thing that you'll have to do in your life is begin to adjust your life to this new thing that God is doing. Think about this for a moment. When God says to Moses, "Hey Moses, I'm sending you back to Egypt." You realize what God says and that's the last thing, it's literally the last thing that Moses wanted to hear. It's the last thing that he wanted to do. It's the last adjustment he would have ever considered for his life. He would have never relocated or settled back in Egypt. And yet that's the very thing that God asked him to do. And what you and I are going to discover today is that following Jesus always requires adjustment. Matter of fact grab your bibles. Go with me to Luke Chapter 9 because Jesus has exactly this conversation. He has a series of men who come up to him and say, "Hey Jesus, I want to follow you, I want to serve you." And immediately as he responds he begins to explain the adjustment that's necessary in their lives if they're actually going to follow him. And the interesting thing is is that as these men hear what they need to do to truly follow Christ they one by one begin to walk away and say, "I'm, I'm just not ready for that type of adjustment and I'm not ready for that big of a shift in my life." And they choose not to follow. They choose not to experience what God had on the other side.

Pastor Linn: 07:32 Here we go, it's Luke Chapter 9. If you're not familiar, if you to go to the back of your Bible and work to the left you're going to find this book of Luke. Luke Chapter 9 starting in verse 57. Here's what it says: As they were walking along the road (it's talking about Jesus and His disciples) a man said to him (to Jesus), "I will follow you wherever you go dude, I'm in, I am in. I'll do whatever I have to do. Just let me be part of the club."

Pastor Linn: 08:03 And Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests. But the son of man has no place to lay his head.'" He said to another man, "Hey, follow me. Sign up. Come on let's, let's do this thing. This is your invitation."

Pastor Linn: 08:20 But he replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

Pastor Linn: 08:25 And Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

Pastor Linn: 08:31 Still another said, "I will follow you Lord but first let me go and say goodbye to my family."

Pastor Linn: 08:40 And Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom."

Pastor Linn: 08:48 I don't know about you but I read this passage and I go, "Whoa, whoa, it just feels like Jesus is being a little bit harsh. I mean I'm not sure, I mean he's putting the bar at a place that just seems maybe even unnecessary in the moment."

Pastor Linn: 09:06 So let's go back and unpack what I think Jesus is really saying in the conversation. Back to verse 57. As they were walking along the road a man said to him, "I'll follow you wherever you go. Man, oh Jesus i'm in, i'm there."

Pastor Linn: 09:22 And Jesus replied, "You realize, you realize foxes have dens and birds have nests. But the son of man has no place to lay his head." You get in that moment you say and he'll look if you're going to sign up for it, you realize this is hard. You realize all of this is basically we're on a camping trip with no tents and you can almost imagine the wheels turning in this young man's head as you go on. Whoa whoa whoa. That's not what I was imagining here. I was thinking, hey you're an incredibly popular teacher. I figured the offerings had to be really, really substantial. My thought was, you know, whoever is with you is probably eating the best and staying in the best and I kind of thought that's what this was. And now Jesus has given a reality check and says, "No, no, no, no. Hey, following me is hard. Are you sure you really want to make that adjustment to your life?"

Pastor Linn: 10:18 And he decides no. The next man, Jesus says to him he says, "Hey, you come and follow me."

Pastor Linn: 10:26 But he replied, "Lord first let me go bury my father."

Pastor Linn: 10:30 And Jesus says to him, "Hey, let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

Pastor Linn: 10:33 And you and I look around and go, wow. I mean the guy's in mourning and he's not going to let him go bury his own father who just died probably not what's happening. Probably more likely what's happening in the passage is that it was considered the obligation of the son to take care of his parents until they died. You've got to remember there's no social security. And so the idea is you take care of your parents until they die and then after they die you receive your inheritance. But if you go on the road, if you take off then your parents are going to start spending the inheritance on taking care of their lives and so chances are there's nothing to inherit if you take off. And so what the young man is really saying to Jesus is, "Look, look, I'll follow you but just let me first make sure everything's ... I'm financially stable. Let me make sure that I'm going to be OK in the long run. So, you know, for the next year or two I'll go home. My parents are pretty aged when they pass away, when I secured my future then I'll come and I'll follow you."

Pastor Linn: 11:41 And Jesus in that moment says, "No, no you know, you're not understanding. See, when you follow me you're going to adjust and one of the things you're going to adjust is things. That you're going to say, 'Hey, any time, any time my following Jesus comes in conflict with me acquiring stuff my Jesus is going to win.'"

Pastor Linn: 12:10 I had a gentleman come to me a while back and he said, "Lynn, I'm really, really struggling and I've just gotten offered this new job, I know I've got a job but I've been praying for this new job and it means a promotion. It means a substantial change in pay."
Pastor Linn: 12:27 And I said, "Well why are you hesitating?"

Pastor Linn: 12:29 He says, "Well the reality is it requires me to work on Sundays. And I know that my family has got to start coming to church without me and I'm going to be away on a lot of trips and weekend so I won't be in church for a season. You know, maybe that would change after a couple of years, but I mean I'm in a huge dilemma."

Pastor Linn: 12:49 To which I said to him, "Why is that a hard choice?"

Pastor Linn: 12:55 "What do you mean? It's a promotion, it's tons of money, it's, it's financial stability for my family. It means my kids are going to get to do things that I never got to do."

Pastor Linn: 13:11 And I said, "You realize when, when there's a contest between acquiring stuff;" and guys look, look, look, it says real clearly: There's nothing wrong with having stuff and there's nothing wrong with prospering financially. There's nothing ... but when that comes in conflict with following your Lord, Jesus would say there shouldn't be a contest. The adjustment you make in your life is Jesus always wins before my stuff wins. Which is why if you're paying two thousand dollars a semester for your kid to be in soccer league or if the new car payment you've got is so that your car can have a little Infinity shield on it. Or that your purse can say Coach and you can't tythe, you haven't made an adjustment. You're on the wrong side of the conversation. Because stuff should never win the argument with Jesus.

Pastor Linn: 14:11 Back to the passage. He said, let's go to verse 59, he said to another man, "Follow me."

Pastor Linn: 14:18 But he replied, "Let me first go and bury my father."

Pastor Linn: 14:21 And Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury the dead. You go and proclaim the Gospel."

Pastor Linn: 14:26 But still another said, verse 61, "I will follow you Lord. But first let me go back and say goodbye to my family."

Pastor Linn: 14:33 And Jesus replied, "No one who puts their hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." This one's potentially a little harder because you think, well hey, wait a minute, you know? Why wouldn't Jesus let them go back and just say to his family and his friends, "Hey, I'm going and, you know, this is going to be the next part of my life?" Why wouldn't Jesus allow that and... Not sure, maybe,maybe Jesus knows that he wants the approval of his family. That if he goes back and begins to talk to his family and begins to talk to his friends they're gonna go, "Hey this is stupid. This is, this is the craziest thing you've ever done. I mean you've been irresponsible before but just to take off and follow Jesus? That's crazy!" And maybe he knows that he so wants their approval that he'll never be back if he goes back to say goodbye. Maybe Jesus is trying to teach a young man that hey, when following me comes in conflict with maybe even what your family thinks or even what your friends think. The adjustment is I have to win that argument. You have to be ready to adjust your life to follow me no matter what other people think, and even if it costs you relationships.

Pastor Linn: 15:48 I had a couple ahile back and they'd been dating for a while. As they were dating things just kept progressing and progressing and after a while they began to become physically involved.

Pastor Linn: 16:01 And the young man came and said to me says, "You know, I got to a point where I realized I was I was either going to have to marry this girl or I was going to break up with her because we just, we just couldn't keep our hands off of each other. And I knew I wasn't ready to marry her. And so I just decided, I decided that following my Jesus and obeying him was even more important in this relationship that I was in and so we broke up but we stayed friends." He said, "You know, the problem was that even as we stayed friends, because we'd already broken down those fences, because we'd already gone there and gone too far physically we ended up finding ourselves still getting involved sexually together as a friends with benefits kind of thing and we finally just came to the conclusion, hey, we're not even sure we can be friends." We're going to probably have to put enough distance in this relationship that my relationship with you is not in conflict with my relationship with God. You, you've seen the relationships where people are fine serving Jesus, they're ok doing it until they get around a friend. And there's something about that. Whenever they're with them all of a sudden the gossip starts, all of a sudden with them they're, they're making compromises in their life they would have never made any other time. And that relationship becomes a challenge, that relationship becomes something that draws them away.

Pastor Linn: 17:28 And Jesus I think is saying in this moment, "Hey, if that's true, if there's any chance that that relationship or their comments or whatever they're going to say or whatever they're going to involve you in would keep you from following me. You got to be ready to walk away from that."

Pastor Linn: 17:47 Maybe, maybe like Jesus says, "Hey no, no, no, you can't go back there, you don't have time to say goodbye. You can't do that." Maybe it is more of a time issue. Maybe, maybe Jesus is just saying, "Hey look, the offer to come is now. I need, I need you to make the decision right now. I need you to decide this and this isn't about hey when it becomes convenient and after you kind of get your house in order. The call is now because if you're going to follow me you're going to constantly be adjusting what you spend your time on. And the first step forward is for you to simply say the most important thing you can do today is follow me. And so I'm going to ask you to make me the first priority in your time."

Pastor Linn: 18:25 I've got a friend and he's amazing hunter. Matter of fact if you walk into his house the first thing you see when you walk into his house is all of these trophy animals that he's got displayed all through his living room. I mean literally the first thing you walk in and it's like a museum with all these animals and guys you don't have to agree with it, there's nothing wrong with hunting. But he loved hunting. Matter of fact it was the thing, it was the centerpiece of his life. If you'd walk in he'd walk you through, he say, "Here's the bear I killed in Alaska. Here's the moose I got." He said, "You know as I'm getting closer and closer to God. I'm thinking differently about my trophy's because what I'm beginning to realize is I spent a heck of a lot of time doing this and I sacrificed what I should have been doing for God." He says, "As a matter of fact every time I look at that bear over there. I got that bear on my 10th anniversary. So I was up hunting instead of being with my wife. He says I look at some of those deer heads and I think to myself, how many hours did I spent alone off hunting with my buddies and I wasn't with my kids that weekend. And he said I'm just telling you. These now, the things that I had the most pride in suddenly become a reminder of where I invested my time. Not that there's anything wrong. It's just, it's just you and I have got to decide any time where I'm spending my time comes in conflict with where God has asked me to spend my time. Which is why, are you ready for this?" If you're telling me that you have no time to serve, if you're telling me that you have no time to be in a growth group. You haven't made the adjustment with time. Because the answer at the end of the day is every one of us has the same 24 hours. It's just where you decide to spend them. Getting your own trophies or following Christ. And suddenly the conversation God has with these young men begins to make real sense.

Pastor Linn: 20:44 And here's what you got to get if you and I, if you and I hear the call, if we never adjust, if you and I never say, "Ok got I get it." And that's going to be hard. And I'm going to have to go do the thing I didn't think I was going to do. If you and I stay where we are and never adjust, you and I will never experience God in a new way. The only hope you have is to experience God at the level you're currently experiencing him but you will never experience more of God until you make the adjustment required. Matter of fact that in itself may be impossible because any time you're following God it's like skating uphill in roller skates. And the reality is what feels like you're holding your own spiritually may be you slipping backwards spiritually. And to experience God you and I have to get to the other side of the adjustment. Let me ask a question. What if Moses never goes to Egypt, what if he doesn't make the adjustment? Does Moses ever experience God? Back in Midian taking care of the sheep.

Pastor Linn: 22:03 Second thing. When Moses adjusts, when, when he finally makes that decision in his life you realize in that moment something dies. And for Moses it's his plans. He's been thinking, hey, I'm going to be a shepherd. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to raise a flock to a certain size. I'm going to hand that off as an inheritance to my kids some day probably divide it up amongst my son. He's got a plan. But when God says, "Hey Moses, you're gonna get up and you're going to go to Egypt." You ever notice in the past that whatever happened to the sheep? Whatever happened to the herd that he was taking care of the day when when God called? It never tells us because they are no longer critical to the story. And you can just imagine Moses before he gets ready to leave he walks over to his father in law and he goes, "Hey Dad, I guess three years now I've got a feeling that whatever God's going to do with me in Egypt or whatever comes next I'm probably not going to have time for sheep anymore." And what he had planned and what he thought his life was going to be dies in the moment that he makes the adjustment.

Pastor Linn: 23:11 This last Friday or Saturday we are doing men's conference we had a guy in the room by the name of Bob Goff. How many have you heard of Bob Goff. OK a couple of us have. So let me fill you in just a little bit. So Bob Goff is a lawyer. He starts off he graduates from a pretty prestigious school. He starts a law firm and the law firm is wildly successful and the guy is making the type of money that you and I have only dreamed of in our lives and in the process of this because Bob Goff is a god follower he begins to get convicted that says, "Hey you know what I'm spending all this time, I'm making all this money, I go to church, I talk about how much I love people but you know what the truth is? I don't know that I've ever actually done anything with the people that I say I love." And so he began to go say, "What does it look like for me to take my legalease and my understanding and maybe to go and fight for people overseas who are being abused and laws are being violated. And what would it be like for me to represent that for free and to stand in the way of injustice for them?" And so he begins to do this and he goes around telling people, he says "Look, here's the deal. If you really say you love somebody you've got to be willing to do something."

Pastor Linn: 24:21 His big theme is hey, love does and as he's going around and doing his talks a publisher comes to Bob and says, "Hey, would you write a book?"

Pastor Linn: 24:33 And Bob says, "I really never wanted to write a book."

Pastor Linn: 24:33 And they said, "Well no, if you write it, if you write a book we will publish it."

Pastor Linn: 24:40 To which he says, "OK here's the deal, if I write a book you've got to front the money. And what you've got to front is you've got to pay for a school in Uganda and you give me the money to do that. I'll write the book."

Pastor Linn: 24:40 And they said, "Well how big is school?"

Pastor Linn: 24:51 And he said, "Well there's 500 students and I need you to build a school."

Pastor Linn: 24:51 "That's a big school."

Pastor Linn: 24:56 And Bob's said, "Well that's a big book." And so they agree and so Bob writes this book called "Love Does", if you really say you love then you've got to do something. Love Does. And the book explodes, the book explodes. I mean it just goes viral and it becomes a New York Times bestseller. And now Bob finds himself actually going back and forth between here and Africa.Before it's said and done they build more than 30 schools on the deal. He finds himself having less time for his law practice because he's more involved in what God's got him doing right now. And he said, "I knew. I knew things had changed in my life when one day I walked into my law practice and the receptionist looked at me and said, 'Who are you here to see?'" He said I went home, I did some real soul searching. I came back, I walked to my business partner, I handed him my key to the office and I said it's all yours now. You don't owe me a thing. I'm not asking to pay it's yours. God's got me doing something bigger. And you realize that what Bob Goff thought his life was going to be, where he thought it was going to go, what he thought was going to be his tending sheep, died. Because he adjusted his life to go do something that God had called him to that was bigger and greater. And you just need to know that. When you and I respond to God's call it's very, very likely that what we thought we were going to do and where we thought we were headed is going to die.

Pastor Linn: 26:35 Matter of fact grab your bibles again real quick. It's Romans Romans Chapter 12. If you're not familiar go back to your Bible work to the left. Romans Chapter 12, its verse 1, some of you, some of you know this passage by heart. Here's what it says: Therefore I urge you. And actually where it says I urge you you could put in the word beg. Paul says look, I'm begging you, if you're really planning to follow Christ this is, this is what you have to do. I beg you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship and you get in that moment he says, "Look, look, look, if you're truly going to follow Christ you realize something's going to die." Paul says, "I'm asking you and begging you to bring your lives as a sacrifice." And every single person reading what Paul just wrote had no doubt in their mind what he was saying because they had been part of the sacrificial system and in the sacrificial system you took your best lamb, you took, you took your best dove and you brought it for sacrifice and they killed it. You laid it on the altar knowing you would never receive it back. And he says, "Here's what I'm asking you to do with your life. I'm asking you to bring your life a living sacrifice to God knowing that you will never receive it back. Because you gave it to him." So here's the deal. If I asked some of us in the room, "Hey, how many would be willing to die for Jesus?" Some of us would raise our hands. We'd go, "I would die for Jesus."

Pastor Linn: 28:45 But you realize what Paul's asking you to do is harder than that. He's asking you to live for Jesus. He's saying you realize that when you do this it's going to involve a thousand deaths because you're going to die to yourself every single day so that you can live for him. And then he says, "Let that sacrifice be holy and pleasing, holy and acceptable to God." There's this kind of weird moment going on in Christianity right now where we keep talking about hey, you know what? Let's just be authentic. Let's just, let's just admit that we're all broken and we're all screwed up and we're all messed up and, and that somehow being authentic and being real is a destination in the Christian life. And guys whoa, whoa, whoa, you're not hearing me resist being honest and admitting that I come to this thing flawed but you realize that admitting that I'm broken is only a step in following Jesus. It's never a destination. Admitting that I'm broken simply gets me to the other side of the cross. I'm broken and I need a savior. I need a fixer. But the reality is guys if you and I stay broken. If the power of Jesus doesn't heal us and restore us and fix the brokeness in us then we remain forever a hypocrite. Come follow Jesus like me. But he's done nothing to change me. I'm just like you. Screwed up and messed up and you will never enjoy Jesus if you stay broke. And it's what Paul's saying when he says, "Hey, when you come to bring this sacrifice you come broken." But as you come back what you're offering to God is the new life you're living in him. You're offering this life that's been surrendered and healed and restored.

Pastor Linn: 30:50 Maybe this helps. It's confusing. So somebody gave me a motorcycle about 10 years ago. And when they gave me the motorcycle they were honest with me and they said, "Hey Linn, the motorcycle is screwed up. It's completely broken so matter of fact here's a picture of the motorcycle. Boy. Boy. You know people people know a man's coming down the street when I'm on that. Right now here's the deal, they gave me this motorcycle ten years ago. Here's the interesting thing. It's still broken. It has been sitting on the side of my house for ten years. I have never enjoyed the motorcycle. You ready? Because it's never been fixed. And guys I'm just telling you that if you don't allow God to begin to do what only God can do to restore and fix your life so that what you're bringing to him beyond your brokenness is your changed life in Christ. You will never enjoy God the way that you were intended. He says, "Bring your living sacrifice bring that which is please and acceptable." And then the last thing he says, "Because bringing your life is the only reasonable thing for a Christian to do." It's what every one of us ought to be willing to do.

Pastor Linn: 32:08 So the other day I bought my dad lunch, isn't that cool? I bought my dad lunch and here's what you need to hear. It wasn't any lunch, I didn't take them to jack in the box or Burger King. I took him to Olive Garden. So I was, you know, and the, the the bill came and I said, "No, no, dad, no, no, no. I owe you this, and I paid for lunch. Now before you think too much of that here's what you need to know. My dad paid for all four years of my Bible College. And truth be told if I picked up lunch for him 100 more times I wouldn't be close to repaying him for what he did for me. You get what Paul is saying? It's only reasonable that you bring your life and that you live your entire life for Jesus because of what he did for you on the cross. And here's the truth. If you had a thousand lives to live for Jesus it wouldn't even come close to repaying what he did for you. It's why it's only reasonable that you would live for him.

Pastor Linn: 33:24 So here we go. Here's the question. What is the thing? What is your Egypt. What's the thing that if God pointed to you you would immediately..., your throat would go dry, your eyes would go big and you'd go, "Oh wait, wait wait, that's the last thing I want. I had a list god of things I was willing to work with you on. And I'm just telling you that was the last thing on the list. It's the thing I hoped you and I would probably never say to each other and never deal with. Going back to Egypt has was never part of the plan. So what's the thing that if God said to you, "Here's the adjustment I need you to make. Here's the shift in your life. And on the other side of it you're going to experience me."

Pastor Linn: 34:13 And what if today instead of running away from that, instead of trying to avoid it you and I actually prayed and said, "God show me my Egypt, show me, show me the biggest thing that I could change in adjusting my life. That on the other side of it I would experience you like I've never experienced you before. That you and I would walk together and my life would be radically different if I made that adjustment." We'd experience God in a way that we've never experienced God up until now. If we prayed that prayer.

Pastor Linn: 34:58 Let's bow our heads. Hey dear Lord Jesus, we simply come to the moment and you were honest. You said if you follow me things are different. It's going to get hard before it gets easier. You may sacrifice some things financially to follow me. You may have your family discouraged with you and frustrated and not understanding what's going on. You may have some friendships that you have to walk away from. You may have to reorder your entire schedule, your time may completely change to follow me. And God it's ironic that the very thing that causes us the greatest amount of fear, the thing that we say like Moses please don't, don't talk about Egypt, is the thing that brings a brand new experience with you. God, I'm praying for the courage in this room, for all of us to bring our Egypt. To a place of sacrifice, to a place in which we say, "Hey God look, I'm just going to live every part of my life in obedience to you in surrender to you. If I had a thousand lives to live for you wouldn't even come close to saying thank you for the cross. So we're choosing today to make the adjustment. This we pray in Jesus name. Amen.



Recorded in Chandler, Arizona.