(UN)EMBARRASSED OF JESUS

Sermon Transcript

Hey, would. Would somebody in the house if God saved you, and you do not deserve to be in this place, but you're thankful for God's grace. Would you lift up the biggest shout of praise and hand clap that you could give for the God of all creation? Amen. Amen.

Hey, if you're joining us online today, we're so glad to have you to the Westminster. Westminster campus. Hey, what do you guys think? Westminster Campus. Let's give it up for Westminster Campus.

Really good. And. And I can't go any further without just blessing your pastor. You know, sometimes you get up close to awesomeness, and between this church and Pastor Jeff, it may feel normal to you. It is not normal.

This place is not normal. Turn to your neighbor, say you're not normal.

Isn't it true? Isn't it amazing? Aren't you blessed to have Pastor Jeff as your pastor?

You know, when I think of Pastor Jeff, I think of young David, who walked up to an army of what should be, who should have been courageous men. As a giant was cursing the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David looked around. He was looking for that army of courage he saw. Army of cowards. Let me tell you, in a land of cowards, your pastor is a mighty man of God.

And I'm so thankful that he stiffens his knees, straightens his spine, and preaches the word of God without apology. What a blessing. And I'm so blessed to count him as a friend. We've been all over together. We've been in the White House together.

We've been in Israel together. We've been in a lot of places. We've been in trouble together. That's my favorite part. I'm really thankful for him.

I always feel safe when I'm around him. That's a big dude right there. So Pastor Jeff might be watching this service. Of course. It's Valentine's Day weekend.

You know, you got it going on. But let them know one more time that you love them today, please.

Are we good? Okay. Hey, check this out. I want to. I want to take just a little time, introduce myself.

This isn't my first time at Brave Church. I was here at Warrior Summit last year. It was amazing. It was amazing. There were no, you know, well, no offense, anybody's wearing skinny jeans, but there was a high, high percentage of plaid and beards, and that was incredible.

A lot of masculine men in the house. Hey, what do you call someone with no facial hair? It's called a woman. Okay. I'm just putting that out there.

And if you don't have a beard and you're a dude, you'd be like, hey, I'm married. Grass don't grow on playgrounds. My wife won't leave me alone. Right. So.

So really thankful for you. Thankful for this faithful gospel, faithful witness in. In Colorado. And I'm praying that God will just continue to do exceedingly, abundantly, more than you could ask or think here. Let me just go ahead and say this.

We want our families. We want our city. We want our state. We want this nation for Jesus Christ. Can I get a witness here in the house today?

Now, I sprung something on the tech guys here, but I just want to introduce you. Maybe they'll be there. My first church is the Johnson family. My pastor, Pathway Church is an incredible church, but I'm so blessed to be married to Kelly. I have three kids, Courtney, McKenna and Blake.

I may have a picture of them. There they are. We just spent two days on the soccer pitch just outside of Gulf Shores during the Southern Shootout. We've been on a hockey pitch, I mean, a soccer pitch, for about 18 years now. And being their dad and being Kelly's husband is just a great gift from the Lord.

And I already just don't feel like I deserve any of that. God loved me so much that he gave me this family. He loved me so much that he gave me Jesus. And he loved us so much that he went beyond all that and he gave us this family called the church. I have a very high view of the church.

I think we all should. We should fight for it, we should protect it, because what God has done here is really special. And I don't want you to lose sight of that. But I just want to share them with you. I want to say a couple other things here, and I'm going to do this as I'm opening this message.

Actually, I'm talking about being unembarrassed of Jesus. Won't you say that with me really quickly? Unembarrassed of Jesus. And I have a book. I want everybody to get it.

I want everybody to get it. This goes to a special fund. It's called the Travis Johnson Empty Pocket. No, I'm kidding. That's actually not accurate.

But this is not my book. This is our book. This is the story of a bold church and a bold Christian and bold Christians. And we're giving away all of the proceeds from this book, 100%, to reach people for Jesus Christ in some of the most challenging places on earth. So.

And I have no problem. I like a profit motive. I Think it's good when you work and then you get paid and then you feed and. And you clothe and you get a house and all of that stuff. But I want you to do this.

Get your phone out and just put your camera on. Let's see all those cameras up and get that QR code. When you get the camera, a little thing will show up and it'll say, you can visit the site. And then you just click that and I'm gonna. You know, I'll permit you guys navigating your phone while I'm preaching, if you're helping us reach people for Jesus Christ.

Okay? Now, last Monday, I got a call from the publisher, and he said, hey, have you seen what's happening with your book? I was like, no. They said, well, you're two spots behind Pastor Jensen Franklin and about three spots ahead of Craig Groeschel. So I didn't expect that.

I was very excited. And I just want to say thank you for anyone that's been a part of this. I think this book is what Christians need, especially in America today. And I'm saying this both as someone who is doing my best to live this out and also someone who has been on the embarrassed of Jesus side of this equation. And so it's a really transparent book and it's scriptural.

And I think it's gonna really bless you. And then, of course, after you've read it and it's sitting on your shelf, it's gonna help you. Now, I wanna introduce you to Pastor Charlie. Say his name with me. Pastor Charlie.

Now, if you said Charlie is not exactly right. He's from Cambodia. His name is Cholly. C, double H, A, double L, Y, Chali. This is him.

That's him there on the left. And this is his family. I lead another organization in addition to our church, which our church is basically Pathway Church is basically on the Redneck Riviera. So it starts at, like, Orange beach and then goes on over to Memphis. And then we have an organization.

It's called People for Care and Learning. It started out as one orphanage. Now we have churches, schools all across Cambodia, Southeast Asia. You know, I have a cattle ranch in Asia. Those cattle, they help fund the ministry there.

Actually, we even have water buffalo, which I heard that everyone wants a water buffalo. I did hear that one time.

When we work with orphan children, then our commitment to them is feed, clothe, nurture them, share Jesus with them, get them through high school, and then whatever college they get into, then we pay for their college. And one of the reasons this is so important in Cambodia is because there was a great genocide that happened. It killed about two and a half million people. It was really terrible. Pol Pot in the Killing fields.

You may have seen the Killing Fields movie, or Angelina Jolie did a movie called they Killed My Father first and there were a lot of child soldiers. Anyway, when I first started going to Cambodia, every the population was very young and there were lots of landmine victims. And the way they decide who they were gonna kill is if you're a doctor, they killed you. If you're a teacher, they killed you. If you were an attorney, they killed you.

If you worked for the government, they killed you. If you wore glasses and looked like you could read, they killed you. The goal was to turn all of Cambodia into a rice field. So there was a brain drain in Cambodia. A lot of institutional knowledge that was gone.

And so we decided that we were gonna raise up the next generation of leaders for Cambodia. The minister of cults and religion in Cambodia told me that now this is over 20 years. This is about 20 years ago. He said when after the Killing Fields, that he only knew of 240 Christians in the whole country. Check this out.

Today, 2 1/2% of Cambodia follows Jesus Christ. Isn't that incredible?

In the early 2000s, there was a nationally unknown evangelist that went and did a mass crusade and the government came in with AK47s and shut it down. Two weeks ago, two Saturdays ago, Franklin Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic association had a mass Crusade at the Siem Reap International Airport where 15,000 people attended. 475 pastors and 2,000 people gave their lives to Jesus Christ on that day.

So I have never seen anything like this. This last year we were there, we did ribbon cuttings on four churches and four schools. And on the first day, the churches were packed and the schools are packed. We're seeing village chiefs come to Christ. I baptized the daughter of a prominent village chief on the shores of a great lake there, and she professed her faith in Jesus Christ.

And so it's been an awesome thing. So I just want you to know that that's what this is about. Now back to Pastor Charlie. Charlie now has his master's degree. I have a picture of him with us walking through national assembly with His Excellency.

That's him there on the right, that's me on the left. And. And Charlie is just taking over the place. Everybody's trying to hire him. But you know what?

He's not going to work for the government. He's not going to work for another ngo. He's actually opening a church in Puk, Cambodia, where he was orphaned as a kid.

This is one year ago at the groundbreaking of the church. We're almost finished with it. We're a little bit short of the money. Here's what the space looks like now. That's Pastor Charlie at the gate.

We've got walls up, the school is going up. It's getting very close to completion. So I want you to know, if you get a book, then long after you've read it, it's on the shelf. Then people will be knowing Christ because of that. So I'd love to meet you after.

We'll be outside. We'll have the books. I'll sign them, I'll take pictures. You'll post them on social media. We'll sell more books, share Jesus.

We'll have a good time, maybe cause a little trouble. I'm okay with that. Are you okay with that? Okay. Awesome.

Lord, bless our time together today.

We've all come to this place to worship, and we have all come to this place to draw closer to you. Lord, I believe that I have done everything that I can, and we are doing everything that we can. Would you now do all the things that we can't? In Jesus name, Amen. I want you to go with me to Luke, chapter 22, and I'm going to be in verse 54.

And while you're turning there, I just want to give a little background on some of the things that I've gone through to get to where I am now. When I first went into ministry, I told the Lord a couple things. One thing is, I'll do anything you want in ministry as long as I don't have to speak in front of people. And so that happened. And then, really, when I decided I was pastoring, really, all I want to do is I want to preach the gospel.

I want to lead people to Jesus. I want to pray for people in altars, I want to dedicate babies, I want to marry people, and I want to stand with people as they're going through difficult moments. The only problem is I found out that you can't do that, not alone, because things happen and the culture changes and challenges, you'll. Every one of us will face challenges that you didn't expect. And that happened for me.

I'm gonna tell you about a couple of them. And so you can kind of see how I got radicalized as a Christian. And truly, this is what's happened. For those of you that were At Warrior Summit last year. You heard some of my story.

I'm four generations Miami on my dad's side of the family. On my mom's side of the family. Where? North Carolina. I was born in North Carolina.

My dad's family is also from Alabama. But I grew up in Miami and I pastored in Miami for 13 years. It's a culture that's not friendly to the church. Now everybody's either they would say Catholic or Christian versus Catholic or Protestant. Catholic or Christian is kind of how it's phrased in Miami.

By the way, it's also famously Latino. Are there any Latinos in the house today? Just curious. Yeah, usually you guys are a little more boisterous than that, but Italians and Latinos like use the hands and everything. But I was raised around my sister in law's from Guatemala.

Raised around Cubans. The little bit of me espanol es muimalo is a little bit of Spanish that I have. Most people are like, that sounds Cuban and which is great. Let me say, by the way, the reason that Miami doesn't have a crystal meth problem is because of Cuban coffee. That's why.

So I grew up in Miami and then we were starting our church. We met in a movie theater for seven years. We didn't have a Baptistry, so we would go out to the beach, we would rent the pavilion, we would have a barbecue and then we would baptize people there on the beach. I baptized about 800 people over the course of my ministry there in Miami. And around 2006ish, we had a baptism that got shut down by the park and by officers and lifeguards.

We had hours worth of footage where we were being cursed out for what we were doing. It was uncomfortable. I started getting phone calls from religious liberty law firms and then also from like news, national news about it. I said, well, let me try and navigate this with my city. So I met with our, with one of the county leaders and I asked what, what caused this?

He said, well, if you want to do baptisms, you have to do it before 5am and I said, well, why? Why? He said, well, it's offensive to some people. I said, have you seen Miami Beach?

There's, there's more cotton in an aspirin bottle than in the bathing suits on that beach. And I said, have you checked with the people that are praying over their meals? Like are those, is that offensive? I mean, there are people that are chicken fighting and splashing around. I don't see what the difference is.

He said, look, Bottom line has to be before 5am I said, okay. And keep in mind, I'm trying for this not to go public. I'm not trying to create drama, because what did I want to do? I to want. I just want to preach, dedicate babies, and just be a good pastor and love on people.

I told them, I said, well, we meet in a movie theater. My church does. And at this time, you know, we had about 400, 500 people in the church. I said, my. My soundboard is on a TV tray, and I don't have an advertising budget, but I could sure use the publicity.

So this is the next time we're doing a baptism. And if. If it's a problem, we'll cooperate with whatever you do. I'll just. If you want to arrest us, I'll just tell everybody to get in the cop car.

And so I went ahead and did the baptism and nothing happened. They backed down. They didn't say it wasn't drama. We just continued to baptize. That was when Travis started getting radicalized.

Here's what I found out. If you don't get involved in things like that, things like that will get involved in you. And so. So for me, it was like politics. Politics is important because policy is important.

Policy is important because people are important. And so I just began to get a little bit more involved. Let me fast forward a little bit. Okay. Now, by this time, I've got a little chip on my shoulder.

I'm fighting for my people. You know, I go and drag my drummer out of a drug house. And, you know, I just. I go up to the drug house and I'm like, hey, this guy's like, hey, what do you want? I said, well, my drummer from my church, I'm a pastor and is in your house.

And the guy was trading his car to a prostitute for. For drugs. And I just decided there was. I wasn't going to stop from anything. I was just going to give it everything I had.

It was like, no, pastor, I'll get you right in. I walk in, I bring this brother out. I was really. I just got to the place where I was tired of being polite and trying to please people. And I just wanted to preach the word of God.

And I want to see my family change. That was the goal. Is that a good goal?

So in 2023, I found myself praying the invocation at my city hall. And in that prayer, I prayed for our leaders like Paul admonished Timothy to pray for. And then I said, and, lord, would you especially put a Hedge of protection around our children who are being targeted by ideologies in their parks, schools, libraries, and online. And apparently that was a bad thing for me to pray, because then I got all of the extremist groups starting to write and show up in my social media and send cease and desist letters to my city. And we were getting threats and my wife got doxed and pictures of our kids got put online and our address and all of the things.

And the newspaper was coming out saying that, and people were saying that I should apologize. And so I thought about it. I was like, man, this is a little stressful. I didn't even know anything was going on, actually. What was going on?

There were some things going on in the city. It all kind of came together. But at the end of the day, here's what I said, I put on social media that I'd be making a statement on Sunday. So in June, I show up, we have seven services. And how many of you know, June is like vacation month?

People go out of town, it was packed to the rafters. All campuses, all services. And so I said, they're asking for an apology. And so here's my statement. I am not sorry.

I do not apologize. We don't bow, we stand.

And the truth is, there is a little voice in the back of my mind saying, well, maybe I could have prayed differently. I could have been a little bit less offensive. I'll learn, you know, et cetera. But you know what? I just came to the place in my life where I decided that I was going to boldly proclaim the name of Jesus.

I was going to preach the gospel in season and out of season, when things are favorable and when things are unfavorable. And I truly believe that if we will preach the gospel in our families, in our church, in our lives, all of us, not just the pastors, then God will do a mighty thing if we will be available in his hands. Let me tell you, we're not the. We're not the most qualified people, but we are the people that the Lord has chosen for our communities.

Brave church. The cavalry is not coming. You are the cavalry for your community. God has chosen you. So stand up, buck up, and let's go.

Let's give him Jesus with everything we've got. Amen. Can I get an amen in the house?

So I want you to know I've got some scars. I've survived some things. But here's what I'm praying. I'm praying that God will do exceedingly, abundantly, more than I could ask or think. And I don't want to just skate on by.

Okay, that's. That's where I'm at. I want you to go with me to Luke 22 and verse 54. Here's what the Bible says. So they arrested him and led him to the high priest's home.

And listen to this, maybe the saddest phrase in all of the Bible. And Peter followed at a distance.

Peter, who had seen Jesus raise the dead, turn the water into wine, saw him heal his mom. He was there at Mount Transfiguration when Elijah and Moses appeared. And here he is following Jesus at a distance. I think this is the place that the church is at today. Christians are at today that we want a respectable faith.

I want to read a little excerpt. And this is how I imagine that moment as Peter followed Jesus into a trial at Caiaphas House.

What now? He had never been this torn before. Should he stay to watch? Should he try to make eye contact with Jesus, signaling that he had not abandoned him? Should he march to the center of the courtyard, stare the leaders of the Sanhedrin in the eye and declare that he had something to say?

Should he bear witness that Jesus was in fact the Son of God? Should he testify that he had heard the voice of God from heaven declaring it so that he had seen Elijah and Moses talking with his beloved teacher? They would kill him too. Maybe he should slip into the back alleys of Jerusalem and find those among the anti Roman zealotry to mount an armed rescue. No, that could not be right.

Because just hours before Jesus scolded him for using his sword to resist the authorities. Besides, they stood no chance against the temple guards or the Roman detachment. Doubly so while its ranks are reinforced to handle the Passover crowds. Should he run, would they be coming for him, his brother and the other disciples? If he left now, he could get out of the city before a manhunt began in earnest.

That was the answer. He would flee. He could be out of Judea by tomorrow and in a few days be back on this boat. Listen to this part. This applies to us.

Perhaps if he kept his head down, paid his taxes and was a good citizen, his religious phase would pass from memory. One thing was for certain. He could not risk staying in this place. After all, what good was a dead husband to his wife? Coming here was a huge mistake.

Peter was embarrassed of Jesus. As we share this morning, I want to give you three phases of becoming an embarrassed Christian and three phases of becoming an unembarrassed Christian. I Guarantee you you're in one of these six phases. I want to tell you today I believe that we either have bold faith or we have no faith.

Let me change that a little bit. Unless we have bold faith, we will find ourselves drifting and, and we will hear the voice of Jesus more quietly. My goal today is for you to have bold faith in your family, in your faith, in your life, in your workplace, wherever it is that you go. And I think that God will honor those prayers and honor those decisions. And I know for a fact there's people all over this place that love Jesus.

But for whatever reason, we have settled into a comfortable, respectable faith. And God has something so much more for you. Here's the first step, or first phase of an embarrassed Christian. You are, number one, respectably distant. Say that with me.

Respectably distance one more time with a good, brave church oomph on it. Okay? Respectably distant. Now, the first time I saw something like this, my oldest daughter was in the fourth grade. I told you, we're in Miami.

Miami is famously Latino. She's fourth grade. We're walking into dropping her off. At the time, we didn't know how good those days were when the kids wanted to be around us and all of that and we towed them around everywhere. But I noticed Courtney was like 40ft up ahead of us.

And so I'm trying to catch up with her and she kept getting faster. And I looked over at Kelly and I said, babe, I think she's trying to get away from us. And sure enough, she was trying to be her own person. You know, everybody goes through that. You're wanting to do that.

But I thought about it, I was like, you know, there's only like four blonde headed ponytails in this whole school. Miami, 16% non Hispanic, Caucasian, 22% black, and everybody else is Latino. A ton of Cubans in there. And I know that anybody would look and see Courtney there, seeing that blonde ponytail bobbing in that sea of people would look back and say, hey, the Irish dude behind her, that's her dad. Everybody would know this is where the church is, that we've done.

Diet church, Church, like church Light, you know, this, this passive Christianity. And in doing so, we've distanced ourselves from the Lord because we don't want people to think that we're too much, that we're radicals. Let me tell you, we don't have a respectable faith. Let me remind you who our founder is. He was born in a manger.

He grew up in a small town on a side road off a Side road. There were maybe 25 families in this community. When he stood up to declare his ministry, he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and he declared that he came to set at liberty those who are captive, to bind up the brokenhearted and to declare the acceptable day of the Lord. And he rolled the scroll down, he handed it back and he said, today this is fulfilled. He was saying, I'm the Messiah.

And the people were amazed. They said, this is incredible. But then they said, but nothing good comes from that town. Jesus came from the wrong place. You would think that the most famous man ever to live on this planet would have come from Manhattan or LA or Denver, right?

Or Tokyo. But Jesus came from nowhere. He was a carpenter's son. Eventually, he'd be the son of a single parent, as somewhere along the way, between age 12 and when he was in his ministry, he lost his father. And Jesus cared for his little brothers and sisters.

Not only is his upbringing and his credentials or his pedigree, it's not that impressive. But you know what else is?

That Jesus was humiliated in front of everyone. He was beaten and put on trial and crucified. Why? Because he did miracles. It was a threat to that establishment.

Well, let me just stop and just say, while I'm on that, let me tell you that Jesus did grow in wisdom. In his stature, Jesus was born in a manger. Jesus did turn the water into wine and raise the dead and open the blinded eyes. And he was put on trial and he was crucified and he was buried. But three days later, up from the grave, Christ arose.

And, you know, he ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he's making intercession for you and me. But make no mistake, we do not have a respectable messiah, a respectable leader. He was an outcast, yet we want a respectable faith. Here's what I would encourage you to do. Embrace Jesus.

In December, I was in the garden tomb and I was preaching to hundreds of pastors. And as I was preaching, I heard coming out over the garden, the Muslim call to prayer. And I remembered that just a few minutes, I had just been in Jesus grave. It's amazing. And I probably wasn't supposed to do that, and I didn't have it in my notes, but I definitely said as loud as I could, you can go to Muhammad's tomb and he's still in that tomb.

You can go to Buddha's tomb, and he's still in that tomb. But I just went in that garden tomb and Jesus is not there because Jesus is alive.

Why don't we dispense with trying to be respectable and instead completely identify with Jesus Christ as lord and king? And here's what I found out is when we're ashamed of Christ or we do anything halfway, or we're caught between two worlds, it's very difficult. Scripture says this, that he would rather we be hot or cold, but if we're lukewarm, he'll spew us out of his mouth. Listen, when I was in college, we would go cliff jumping out on the Hwassee river in Tennessee. And I found out if you wanted to be safe when you do that, you have to really jump.

Because if you barely jump, you hit the cliff all the way down. And some of you are living your life like that. You're torn between two worlds. Walking the center line, being hit by cars, going both ways. Listen to me, brave church.

Listen to me, brothers and sisters. Now is a time for bold faith. Now is a time for spirit empowered faith. Faith founded on Jesus that says, father, I will walk with you wherever you ask me to go. I will follow my feet, put my feet in the footsteps of Jesus, tucked in right closely with Jesus.

And I believe that if we'll do that, God will do powerful things in not only our life, but in the lives of our families. How many of you believe that today?

Hey, I gotta. I gotta share one more about following Jesus distantly or being respectably distant.

My son, the Joker, eats a lot of food. Do we have that picture? I have a picture of me. Not me and my son, but my son. He's a soccer player, goalkeeper.

He's a bad mama jama. I just spent two. Two days, actually. They beat a school three to zero. And that school, we didn't get played the other school, but the other school was fourth in the nation and they tied.

This team is legit. Blake's a bad dude, but he eats everything. I mean, like a swarm of locusts coming into the kitchen.

I thought about keeping the profits from the book just to pay for his food and clothes, you know?

So now Blake's strong. He's big, he's mechanical. He can do things. He does mma.

And he calls me, I'm on my way home from work. And he says, dad, I need your help. I got a flat tire. I said, blake, let's fix. Just change the tire.

A couple things you need to teach a young man as a father, how to change a tire and how to defend himself, right? And he said, well, dad, the problem is the spare is busted too. I was like, okay, I'll be over. He was on i65. There was no shoulder.

I'm like, I'm gonna go give him a hand. So I get over to give him a hand, and I pull up, and a guy from a tire shop, I kid you not, pulls up next to us, and he said, hey, you need a hand? I can take your tire on down to the shop. Boom. This is awesome.

It was, like, got really easy, really fast. I thought I was gonna miss dinner. All that worked out. And so he takes the tire and. And he pulls out on the i65.

He jumped out. There's a little opening. And then I didn't get out quite quick enough, and there was traffic, so it was a little bit of a delay. I get on the road, and I see the truck on. Down on the horizon, you know, on the horizon.

The truck is now smaller. No problem. I'm following it. Blake and I are talking. Oh, look, there's a new Dave and Busters they're building.

That's pretty cool. Blake probably talks about a girl, talks about school. A little bit distracted. I see the truck turning at an exit. I follow the truck off, get on the.

I lost sight of him for a little bit. Get on the road. Surface road. I'm following, following, following. I follow the truck all the way out of town.

It was a wrong truck.

How is it in Denver? Do you guys have trucks? We have trucks. Sweet home Alabama. We have trucks.

The Mercedes Benz of Alabama is a Chevy Trail Boss 2500HD diesel. Right? Trucks everywhere. And I just followed one of the trucks. It looked like the truck, but it was a little different than the truck.

This is how a lot of us are. Is that we're following Jesus. We're not trying to get. We're not trying to lose out on him. We're not trying to get left behind.

But here's what I noticed. The farther away I got, the harder it was to see him. And the easier it was to see Dave and Buster's, the easier it was to hear the conversation with Blake. And this is what so many of us are involved in right now is that the voice of Jesus is quieter and the voice of the culture is louder. Does anybody feel me?

How many of you think we need one more TikTok prophet, right? Good Lord. It's like they don't have a. Most of them don't have a church. They got followers.

Just because they can get followers on social media doesn't mean they're following Jesus. Let me. Can I just give a word of caution and correction? To the church. Can I do that?

Is it okay? Go. Help me out. Okay. All right.

I'm gonna do it anyway, but it'd be nice to have some backup, right? Pastor, I got your back. Listen to me. If you trust someone online more than you trust your pastor, there's a problem. Listen, God places pastors and leaders in your life to know you in groups and cadre leaders and all of these things to help you to be in the word of God.

Don't get distracted by these other voices. How do we deal with. How do we deal with that? We get close to Jesus. If we're close to Jesus, then his voice is louder and those voices are more quiet.

And let me tell you, church, God has raised this church up to do a mighty, mighty work. Don't get distracted, not for a second. Listen to the voice of Jesus. Not the other agendas, not the other things. But focus on Jesus.

And if you do, God will help you through some of the most challenging times with ideologies and different cultural issues. Respectably distant. That's the first. The first phase is being respectably distanced. The second is being variably committed.

Now, here's what I think that we're actually looking for in our faith. What most people want. They want all of the blessing, they want all of the benefit, but they want none of the sacrifice. How are you doing today? Now, I don't know how.

I don't know how you guys do the Christianese in Denver, but we have some good ones in the south, which, by the way, I would say I want you to get to heaven, but if you can't get to heaven, at least get the Mobile, Alabama or Denver, Colorado, two beautiful places. It's a very far distant second, though, let me tell you that.

How are you doing today? I'm blessed and highly favored. Have you ever heard somebody say that? Nothing wrong with that. I'm blessed.

I'm blessed. I'm too blessed to be stressed. I still get stressed sometimes. But you know what I found that we want is we want all of the benefits. We want none of the dedication, none of the sacrifice.

We want the Holy Spirit, but we don't want holiness. We want salvation, but we don't want repentance from sin. You know, some churches say, well, we don't get into those tough issues until after baptism. Listen, the Ordo Salutis is to repent and then be baptized. What are you being baptized from if you haven't repented of anything?

Listen, come out from among them and be separate. Trust in the Lord, and lay your life on that altar. You're a living sacrifice. Brave church. Give God everything that you have.

Go to church every time the doors are open. Read the Bible every single day and give God everything you have. Come on, somebody in the house. Amen.

Variably committed. Variably committed. I'm going to be committed when it's a blessing to me. But I might hang back on these certain things. I don't really like what's in this chapter.

Listen, if you can pick and choose from the Bible what you believe in, it's not the Bible you believe in or God that you believe in. Rather, you believe in yourself. You can't trust. You can't believe 95% of the Bible and then disregard the 5% you don't like. Listen, if you're going to be faithful to the Lord, you have to give him everything that you have.

But praise God though, that God is not a man, that he would lie. He has no problem with faithfulness and fidelity and goodness and salvation. All of the things. We got a problem, though. He's the constant.

We're the variable. I didn't come to make you feel bad, but I just came to say, hey, we got some issues and we want to draw close to Jesus. Amen. Variably committed. And then finally it leads to the third phase, outright denial.

This is the deconstruction of Peter.

You don't start there.

You shouldn't be afraid of questions.

Actually, I'm just going to move on into that first phase of being an unembarrassed Christian because it has everything to do with the lowest point, the lowest phase of an embarrassed Christian and that is that you are convinced of the truth. This is happening in our culture right now. Right now there is a revival in Gen Z. Hey, are there any Gen Z here in the house? Go ahead, raise your hand.

You guys, go ahead. It's awesome. You guys are front. You got your Bible. I see.

I see that Bible highlighter. Look at this journal. This is amazing. Gen Z. What God is doing in Gen Z right now is absolutely incredible.

Bible sales are through the roof and church attendance among Gen Z is higher than any other generation. True. And you know, let me say this. England in Europe is a dumpster fire, a rolling dumpster fire. It's a problem.

Basically, it's fallen. Philip Anthony Mitchell. You guys know Philip Anthony Mitchell? Anybody know who he is? He pastors a little.

A little chapel in Atlanta. And in a place where there's a lot of compromise in the pulpit, there is some bold preaching from the pulpit. And Philip Anthony Mitchell just came back from a Crusade in London. 7,000 people there. Bible sales in London, 143% up over last year.

And this is happening. This is happening among Gen Z. And so why is that happening? Let me just give my opinion. Let me get my.

The Gen Z. We got Gen Z. Look, here's, here's what I think. I think that the culture has lied. Well, not just Gen Z, the millennials are doing this too.

But Gen Z millennials. The culture's lied to us. They've deconstructed the nuclear family. They've tried to deconstruct the church. They're deconstructing every good institution.

And let me tell you, there are problems in all of those institutions as well. There's hypocrisy in all of these places, but hypocrisy anywhere is no excuse to stop following the Lord Jesus Christ. And well, I'm not going to go to Brave church because there's hypocrites there. Baby, come on in. There's room for one more.

Come on. Right, right. Come on in.

Let me give you a line from the south. Bless his heart.

God is doing a work here. And the reason, I believe, is because the questions have not been answered from the deconstructors. They took away the family. They took away our identity. They've asked you to question your identity.

You can remake your identity. You were made in the image of God, but you can remake yourself in whatever image you want. They've done all of these things. But listen, what we found out is there's fulfillment in Jesus Christ. There's fulfillment when we walk according to the Word and they're finding it.

In fact, listen to this young men. Let me see everybody. All my single people. Just go in and raise your hand real quick. Go ahead and raise your hand.

Raise it up. Good night. This is your opportunity. This may work out for you. Right.

Gen Z men want to get married. Gen Z men want to get married. And let me tell you, there's some Gen Z women. Women. Some of the best marriage material is volunteering in kids ministry right now in churches all across America.

Right?

They've had big questions and they're seeking answers to those questions now. Here's what I found out with Gen Z. When I preach the word of God as if what happens in this book should happen in this church and happen in our lives. When I do that, it's. It triggers Gen Z because they aren't used to having direct conversation like that.

But then a lot of Them are saved because they aren't used to having conversation like that. They've been lied to and lied to and lied to. And there is a revival taking place. And that's exactly what happened for me. I'm gonna tell you my story here.

17 years old, I'm out in a rock pit swimming with my buddies after school in Miami. And we would swim down, look at all the stolen cars and hang out, have conversations. And one of my friends said, he said, you know, Jesus isn't God, and I'm a pastor's kid. And I said, well, how do you say that? My Bible says, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.

I'm like, what is this? So I go and I look at his Bible. It's called the New World Translation. He was Jehovah's Witness. And so he raised some questions in my mind.

But what happened from that is I unspooled a little bit and I went from going, is, was that translation right or is my translation right? To going, did Jesus even exist? And so I started looking. You don't have to look very hard. You have to be a history denier.

There's more evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. There was for Julius Caesar. The Bible is the greatest book of antiquity, the Iliad, the Odyssey. Very few manuscripts, very they differ. The fragments, incredible stuff here.

Josephus, a Jewish historian, referenced a man named Jesus from Nazareth who did miracles. Now, he didn't say he was God, but that's historical witness of the existence of our Christ. So I'm going, okay, Jesus is real. There is a real man named Jesus. So then I went over and I did what every 17 year old does.

And I bought a Greek, Hebrew, interlinear Bible. And it's got the English words and then in John it has the Greek. And so just like you can watch a Spanish TV program on Telemundo or Univision and you can watch the translation, you can learn. And so I went and I looked, and that was a mistranslation. John 1:1 says, in the beginning was the Word, The Word was with God, and the Word was, was God.

And verse 14 says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is Jesus, the God man. He was God and he was born in a manger, hypostatic union, fully God, fully man. And I'm going, holy cow, this is something else. I looked Charles Taze Russell, he's the one that wrote the New World Translation.

And I started looking at research. Charles Taze Russell was proven in a court of law that he couldn't even speak Greek or Hebrew. So he just made words up. And I'm going, okay, so this is real. And there was a real Jesus.

But is Jesus who he said he was? And you know what I found is that Peter denied Jesus while Jesus was alive, yet he died for him while he was dead. Why would you do that? If you talk about my grandfather who has passed, he's a World War II vet. I mean, a giant in my eyes.

I love him. If you talked about him, I wouldn't fight you, but I would not like you, but I definitely wouldn't die for him. Peter died for Jesus, not because he was a dead man, but because Jesus was alive.

And so I said, this book is true. Jesus existed, and he is who he says he is. And if Jesus is who he says he is, then I'm going to do what he's called me to do. And all my questions were answered upon that. And the.

And I just became a radical right at that moment. I just challenge each one of you. Come to the place where you're convinced of the truth. And really, if you just get that part of the message, everything else will line up, and you live your life for Jesus and work and worship and do all of those things. And then you go through some really tough moment in life where you then breathe your last breath, and then you'll be in the presence of God, Convinced of the truth.

So when you're convinced with the truth, then the next thing that happens is that you become united in mission. And let me go to Acts two, and I'm just about to bring up some music because that helps me land the airplane at that point. Okay, Acts 2. And verse. Verse 1.

Acts 2, verse 1. Okay, you guys know this. On the day of Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together. In fact, go ahead and bring the music. Just bring it.

They were all meeting together in one place. Say that one place. Come on, one more time. One place. Come on, one more time.

One place. And suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm. And it filled the house where they were sitting. The Holy Spirit moves. The church is birthed.

The people are emboldened, filled with the power of God. And God does something amazing. And it's in this place that God commands a blessing. They were in unity. They were.

They were united with the mission of Jesus Christ. Psalm 133:1 says, Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity. The last Part of this chapter says, for there I have commanded a blessing. If you come into unity with your spouse, you're going to be blessed. If you come into unity with the mission of your work, you will be blessed.

You don't even have to be a Christian. I know this because the Tower of Babel, they were unified in their language. And when God wanted to stop the construction of this tower, he had to come down and confound the language. But they were united with God. They were united with one another.

And at that point, because they had a made up mind, God said, I will bless them. And then we see this great fulfillment of prophecy and God does this awesome work. And Peter, who had failed so miserably, who denied Jesus three times and in process he even cursed to establish street credibility that he was not identified with Jesus when he did. That changed absolutely everything.

I want you to look at verse chapter 2, verse 14.

I want you to know what has happened.

Peter denied Jesus. He had so much shame.

Jesus went to him and he re embraced him. I love this about the Bible because it tells you everything. All this stuff you have done horrible things. But let me tell you, God is not finished with you and he is not finished with me. He re embraces Peter in the very one who denied Jesus so terribly in verse 14.

Listen to what the Bible says. Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, he preaches.

It's amazing what happens here. Here's what I found. When I stood in my city. I thought I was standing alone. But I looked around and I was not standing alone.

And when you stand in your family, when you stand for the Lord, you will not stand alone. The Lord will always stand with you. You may be the first Christian in your whole family, a first generation of believers, but your decision to stand could change everything for your wife or for your husband, for your children. Gen Z is evangelizing parents. Your decision to follow Jesus could change everything for your family.

For me, my great grandmother, who was 5 foot nothing, went down to a tent revival in Branford, Florida and gave her life to Christ. And my great grandfather, 6 foot 5, was so mad about it, he went down the next night to make a fool of the pastor. And he got saved too. And our whole family has been absolutely different since those four generations ago.

Here's the problem. The problem with standing is when you stand, you feel all alone. But when you stand, God stands up too. He says he rejoices to see the. To see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand.

It's not just that he celebrates when the temple is built. He celebrates when we start the work. And when one member of one family, in one neighborhood, in one community comes to know Jesus Christ, God stands up and he says, that's my boy. That's my girl. And I want you to know it may not seem like a lot, but little as much when God is in it.

Give him everything you have with all that you have, and God will do a great work in you.

Convinced of the truth, united in mission, like when your mind is made up. And I just want to tell you right now, I don't know how it all ends for me. My life has felt crazy.

I told the Lord when I started ministry, I'll do anything you want as long as I don't have to speak in front of people.

Let me tell you, I was in the White House with your pastor, and in July, I had an invitation from President Felix Antoine Cizaketti from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And he asked me to come and spend some time with him and preach in front of their White House. And I stood before 30,000 people and proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ as their nation is being attacked by terrorist groups, beheading people as they worship. And I stood and I declared that God wants peace in Congo because Jesus is the prince of peace. And I'm just declaring peace and I'm going, what is going on here?

How did I even get to this place?

I just want you to know that friend group that you think is lost is not lost as long as they have breath in their lungs. God is up to something for your family, for your workplace, and God wants to use you. I just want to know. I just want to know. Just like Peter, when he stood, the other eleven disciples stood.

The other eleven apostles stood when he stood and preached, three thousand were saved, convinced of the truth, united in mission, and three standing in power. And I just want to know, is there anybody at Westminster Campus? Is there anyone online watching right now? Is there anyone here in Inglewood? Is there anybody that says, pastor, I am convinced that Jesus Christ was born in a manger and he raised the dead and he laid down his life and he took it back up so that I can have salvation.

And I'm not going to let him lay down my life without me laying down my life. In fact, today I choose to stand boldly unashamed. Is there anyone in the house like that? Today I'm going to ask you to do something like if you say, I feel like God is prompting Me, I. I'm. I'm going to make a stand.

I'm. I love Jesus, but I think God is in the process of radicalizing me too. If that's the stand that you want to take, would you stand right where you are and I just want to pray for you. Amen. This is awesome.

There's a lot of people. There's a lot of people. It's a lot of.

It's a lot of people.

The devil is getting ticked off right now. He's upset right now. I want to pray for you right now. If everybody just go ahead and stand with us and we're just going to go to the Lord in prayer, would you just lift up holy hands to the Lord just for a second? It's kind of like this.

I know the answer. That's what I said in school. Or it's Jesus. I need you.

Dear Lord, we need you every bit as much as we need air to breathe.

We thank you for what you've done and we stand in you for what you've done. Lord, won't you use us in our unique place? There's nobody else like me. You've chosen me to reach a certain people. Would you use me?

Help me to be strong in you?

Convinced and empowered by your Holy Spirit. Every head bowed, every eye closed, say, pastor, you're here. It's not just that I need to stand, but I know I'm not right with the Lord. And I want to be right. I want God to save me.

If that's you just right where you are. I want you to know that God is working in your life if you'll let Him.

It's. It's a mighty thing that the Lord has done for us.

And Lord, we give you thanks.

Jesus, I pray that you would touch your people today with Act 2, outpouring and empowerment of your spirit. Convinced of youf resurrection gave us our families, do a mighty work in our life that we would never be the same again. Father, we come and we ask for all of it. We don't want just the blessings, but we want to be identified with you. Help us to be an exceptional representative of your grace in this earth.

God will thank you for that right now. Lord, I have some friends in here today that they're bound up in addictions and they've got some real challenges they're facing. They're loving you and they're fighting some really terrible strongholds. Father, Freedom in Jesus name. I pray that you bring healing.

Father, for marriages that need stitching back together. Father, I pray that you bring reconciliation. And I pray that you would do a mighty work, Father. I pray that this relationship with you would manifest in the most important places right there in our own family. John Wesley said that he thought the family should be like little churches.

I pray that there would be little church services in little homes all over this church, in this city, Father. Little fires all across Denver, all across Westminster, all across Englewood. You doing your work. And, Father, we'll give you all the thanks for it.

In Jesus name. And the church says amen. Amen.