10-8-25

So I will be preaching to myself as much as anyone listening today, but this has been weighing on my heart recently. It’s a message that we all need to hear regularly. One that realigns our intentions with that of God’s, and encourages you along the journey. First let me ask you, do you ever get annoyed at mundane tasks that need to be done. Whether it’s laundry or the dishes or taking the dog outside. I don’t have kids so I haven’t experienced this one, but changing dirty diapers or getting up at 3 am when the baby is screaming their head off. You know that feeling you get, when you’d rather just stay in that warm bed and scroll on tiktok or facebook. Ughhhhhm, really. This sucks. You have two options in those situations. A, you just get up and do it. Get it over with. Or B, you don’t do it, and you let that pile of dirty dishes just sit in the sink for days. You move the dishes to the side to wash your hands and ignore the obvious sign of your laziness staring right in front of you. Until one day, you’ve had enough of the dirty dishes so you just wash them and you end up doing what you should’ve done a couple of days ago anyways. So really, the job ended up getting done no matter what, and it got even more annoying because now you had to clean up dishes DAYS old. If you couldn’t tell, I am the king of procrastination and have gone through that countless times. Now have you ever felt that way with God? Have you ever been in a situation where it is just so evidently clear what God is calling you to do. As if God’s driving you down the road, and you keep asking “where are we going”? What are we doing? But yet there’s no response, you just patiently wait and stare out the window. But then, you see where you’re pulling into. And you go oh no no no, there is no way I’m doing all that. That’s scary. What will people think of me? What if I fail? Or even worse, what if I get hurt? There’s a character in the Bible, and I’ll be referencing him several times during this monologue, his name is King David. Ever heard of him? David was a shepherd boy, who spent all of his time out in the field protecting his sheep. David was so inconsequential in the eyes of his father, that when Samuel was told by God to go and talk to Jesse about one of his sons becoming the next King of Israel, Jesse didn’t even bring him inside. And y’all know the story, Samuel said no to all of the sons that Jesse figured would be king material, and asked “do you have another son?”. Jesse said “Oh yes, why there’s David. He’s out in the field”. “Bring him in” Samuel said, and sure enough, David was the one God CALLED to lead the nation of Israel. Samuel then anointed King David as a prophetic sign. Well, later on down the road David goes out to the battlefield where Israel is fighting the Philistines, to bring food to his brothers. David sees this massive giant named Goliath, openly mocking Israel and Yahweh. So what did David do? Wait, he said “boy that Goliath sure is big, y’all take this food and I’m getting the heck outta here”. No, he said what are y’all doing? You’re just gonna let him mock God like that? So this young shepherd boy, turning down wearing armor, went out to the field to confront the giant. And all that time slinging rocks with his slingshot prepared him for this exact moment where he was CALLED to step up, and he had faith that God would bring him victory. And he did. After putting a rock dead straight between Goliath’s eyeballs, David slayed the giant. I’ll give one more story because I’m a massive MMA fan. One of my biggest heroes in high school as I became an MMA fan was Conor McGregor. To me, he embodied the definition of confidence. Talking a big game, and then backing it up. He inspired me that I too can do hard things. Conor in 2016 was taking the world by storm. He went on an unbelievable win streak, and capped it off by beating the undefeated pound for pound number 1 fighter Jose Aldo in just 13 seconds. This not only made him the 145 pound champion, but it made him a superstar. Conor was then presented with the opportunity to fight for the 155 pound belt and become the first simultaneous 2 weight champ in UFC history. Well, Rafael Dos Anjos, the lightweight champion, broke his foot in training. So on short notice, Nate Diaz stepped in. But Nate wanted the fight at 170 instead of 155, so now Conor is moving up 2 weight classes and 15 pounds heavier than the originally agreed to weight. And Conor wasn’t cutting weight to meet 170 like Nate was, Nate would be fighting Conor at least 15 pounds heavier on fight night. But Conor being the confident guy he is said sure. So, come fight time Conor starts teeing off on Nate during the first round. Come the second round though, Conor starts to fade. The size difference caught up to him, and Nate started to put the pressure on and submitted Conor in round number 2. This shocked the entire MMA world. The biggest upset in MMA history. After this, Conor could’ve said I’ve got a belt at 145 to defend, I got no business fighting at 170. Or he could’ve said anyways, Dos Anjos how about that lightweight championship? Nope. Conor said I will beat Nate Diaz, and I will beat him at his weight of 170. There was literally nothing for Conor to gain in doing that, other than pride and honor. There was no belt he could win by beating Nate, he just could not live with the fact someone had beaten him. And he wanted that win back. In what was at the time the biggest fight in UFC history, Conor rematched Nate at 170. The first round looked exactly the same as last time, Conor was walking through Nate. But late in the second and early third round, Conor started to fade once again. Here we go again, the Irishman’s bitten off more than he can chew. Instead of giving up though, Conor did the exact opposite. He bit down on his mouthpiece, put his arms up, and walked Nate Diaz down. The fight ended up being one for the ages, the greatest UFC fight ever in my opinion. And with Nate’s blood all over him, Conor defeated Nate Diaz in a majority decision. He slayed his giant, and proved everyone wrong. So why do I tell you these stories? I don’t know about you guys, but I can feel a major spiritual battle on our hands right now. Like evil is really ramping it up lately against forces of good. Think about it, almost a month ago Charlie Kirk was slaughtered in cold blood. For being a Christian simply speaking his mind and engaging in debate with those who disagreed with him. The left then danced on his grave. They laughed. They mocked him. And if they did that to him, how would they react to your death? We just saw leaked text messages from the Democratic candidate for Virginia AG saying that he fantasized about the Republican Virginian Speaker of the House being murdered alongside his kids. He said they were breeding little fascists, and something needed to be done. And he’ll put on his suit, and smile in your face, and act like he doesn’t secretly want Christian Conservatives killed. There’s a spiritual fight on our hands, big time. And here’s the kicker. God is not calling you to stay on the sidelines. God is calling you to get engaged. That’s where you get that pit in your stomach like I talked about at the beginning, and go ughhh. Really? Why can’t life just be comfortable? Sorry, that’s not what we were made for. We weren’t made for comfort, we were made and called to bring the gospel to the darkest places. You think the apostles wanted to die such gruesome deaths? You think Peter really wanted to get crucified upside down? And if you’re saying to yourself who am I to do anything special? Let me tell you something, God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called. Let me say it again, God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called. I bring David back into the picture, David was a shepherd boy. His own father didn’t even see him worthy enough of being king. David committed adultery and had the husband of Bathsheba killed so he could be with her. But yet, God called David a man after God’s own heart. Peter, the one who Jesus proclaimed was the rock of which he would build his church, denied Jesus to his face 3 times. Moses was a murderer, Paul persecuted Christians, I can go on and on. Nobody is worthy, we are all sinful. But we as Christians are all called. We’re called in different ways, but it’s on us to answer the bell. This is antithetical to the modern Christian belief that we just need to be tolerant, we need to let everyone just exercise their own truth. Oh golly gee, I don’t want to get involved in politics because that’s divisive. I love it when Pastors say, we’re not gonna tell you how to vote. Well our enemies are surely engaged. They’re voting. The ones who fantasize about Christian Conservatives dying are literally on the ballot. And are still supported by other Democrats after the fact. The ones who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death are surely voting. The ones who want to mutilate your kids, who want to put porn in their school libraries, who mock Christianity and want to turn America into Sodom and Gomorrah, they’re engaged. So we need to get engaged also. Because one ideology is going to win. God doesn’t call us to sit on the side, hold hands, and wait for a rapture. Oh it’s gonna get worse before it gets any better so what’s the point. So you’re telling me the plan is to just sit back and let these degenerate losers win? Seriously? That’s nonsense. We need to fight back. And when I say that, the left says look a violent Christian nationalist! Nope, we won’t fight like they do. We won’t shoot them like they shoot us. We won’t fantasize about their deaths like they do ours. I bring David back into the picture one last time. When David was rising in popularity amongst the Israelites before he was King himself and Saul was still reigning as King of Israel, King Saul got a little jealous. He ordered David to be killed, and led the charge to find David and murder him. While on the run, David found Saul in a cave relieving himself while he was actively looking for David. Any logical person would say, this was David’s opportunity to take Saul out! Nobody was looking, and nobody would blame David for killing Saul right there on the spot and then assume the throne as King of Israel. But David didn’t do that. David spared Saul, and cut a piece of his robe to let him know that he had the opportunity to kill him, but chose not to. David honored that King Saul was anointed by the Lord as king, and would not kill him. I think this can speak to us today. There are those who want us dead simply because we speak the truth and we have the Holy Spirit in us, just like how Saul wanted David killed. Our response is not violence. It’s to double down on speaking the truth, professing the Gospel, and spreading love to those who hate us. But that requires you to get engaged. You know your talents that God gave you deep down, and it’s time to start putting it to use for good. Maybe you feel called to run for office yourself. Maybe you just need to call out your city council and make your cause heard in front of everyone. Everyone can do something, but do not be intimidated or scared because the left is getting violent. Because remember, God is on our side. So it’s time for us to bite down on our mouthpiece, put your hands up, and get engaged. And remember, in the end, we win.