Amen. Well, uh, if you're just joining us, we spent the last month in a series called Move. And the idea behind this is really, really simple. We want to be people who learn how to move with God. We want to be people who go where God is going, and we want to be people who are part of the movement that God is creating in this world. I don't know about you, but I've always desired to be part of something greater than myself. I literally think that is my number one desire in life. And the reason I gravitate to the sports teams that I like and root for them is because it makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger than just me. The reason I love some of the things I'm passionate about is because, again, it's something bigger than me. And the most amazing thing all of us have, the opportunity to be part of, is something that is so much bigger than us, something that's so much bigger than anything else in this world, and that's the movement of Jesus. That's the movement of God in this world. We were actually created to be part of that movement. And the great thing is when we decide to become part of that, when we move with God, when our lives are really dictated by what God is leading us to do, our lives become the adventures that they're meant to be. No one has a greater adventure in life than the person who just says yes to God and who goes wherever God leads. So we've been spending the last month looking at how God moves so we can be people who recognize the way He moves and we can move in step. Today I want to talk not about how God moves, and another way that He moves that we can start to pay attention to. Today I'd like to talk about when we move. Because there's going to be times in life where we see God is moving, we feel God is moving us, we feel that we're led to do something, but but how do we know when to move? How do we know when the time to move is right? I don't know if you've ever been in a situation before, I've been in these many times, where you know the right thing to do, you know what you need to do, but when the moment comes and you have to take action the moment the opportunity arrives where you can do what you know you're supposed to do, you just sort of freeze. Or you find a reason to delay and procrastinate and push it off to another time. I do that, I do that often. I think everybody does. I've had certain times in life where it was really obvious and I paid a price for it. Like when I was 16 years old, my parents bought me a car, which was awesome. They bought me a car, I love that car, and uh and I wasn't very good at driving that car, though. No 16-year-old is. Some of you might be 16 and you think you're good drivers, and okay. But uh, you know, video games don't teach you how to drive, it's just the truth. But but I thought I was a good driver, like most 16-year-olds do, and I got my license and I started driving and I was having a really good time. My favorite thing was driving to school. There's something so cool about driving into the school parking lot, getting out of the car, and walking into school, having driven there when you've ridden a bus for the last eight or nine years. It's just it's an awesome feeling. And we only lived a hundred yards away from the school that I went to. I mean, it actually took me longer to get my stuff in the car, drive to school, and then get it all out and go to class if I just would have walked in the first place. It took me longer. I couldn't even listen to a full song on the radio. It was like 30 seconds. But something about getting out of that car and being like, yeah, I drove here, it just made me feel made me feel like an adult. I loved it. But because I wasn't very good at driving, I made a few mistakes uh early on. Like I remember I had my license maybe two weeks, and I was turning into a parking spot at my school, and I uh I kind of misjudged the turn, and so I scraped the front bumper of my car against another car. And and even though I was concerned for that person's car for like a split second, the only thing that ran through my mind is like my dad's gonna flip out when he sees this, like he's gonna freak out. And so I left a little note on that person's car, um, you know, saying it was someone else that had done it. I saw it happen with my own eyes, looked for this person, and then and then I went to the automotive store as soon as school was was done, and I went and got like a patch kit or a repair kit for scratches because my dad was out of town, he was coming back the next day. And so I spent that entire afternoon trying to buff this scratch out of my car. The entire afternoon, there was this little paint kit that you tried to mix the paint to match your car, and mine was this weird shade of blue, it was really hard. But when it was all said and done, I thought it did a pretty good job. I thought that I had covered up what had happened, and I had that euphoric feeling that a lot of teenagers feel when you feel like you're gonna get away with this. Like you think you might actually have a shot to get away with something, right? You could tell there was a scratch there if you were looking closely, but not if you were just looking at the car in a normal way. So I thought I was good. But then the next day I was driving my car and I was turning, and I kind of misjudged that turn too as a theme. Except this time, me misjudging the turn did not mean that I scraped the front of my bumper against something. It meant that I I misjudged the time I had to turn into an intersection, and I pulled out in front of a car. It was coming toward me. And I remember this moment so clearly because I didn't I didn't misjudge it that badly. Like the car was was too close, I should have waited for that car to go by, but I still had some time to act. Like I pulled out and hesitated, said, Oh, that car is coming. What do I do? And I remember thinking, I could put the car in reverse and I could go back a few feet and that would save me, or I could just gas it, I could just gum through the intersection, and I think I could have made it, but I did neither of those things. I just I just sat there. I just sat there and and got hit by this car in the exact same spot that I had buffed the scratch out of the day before, the exact same spot. And so the bad news is that thousands of dollars of damage was done to my car and the accident was my fault, my insurance went up and all that stuff. But the good news is that until hearing this story today, my father has had no idea about that scratch his whole life. He had no clue. Totally, totally got out of that one. So that was good. I remember being I remember being so frustrated in the moments after that accident because I knew what to do. I remember thinking to myself, why didn't you just move the car? Why didn't you just go forward or backward? Any direction would have done. Why did you just sit there? And that's how life is sometimes. It really is. There's so many situations I found myself in before. I think many of us have, all of us probably, where I have known what to do. I have known the right decision to make. But when the opportunity comes to make it, I freeze or I delay. It's so easy to live life like that. And I think oftentimes our greatest challenge in our day-to-day lives is not necessarily figuring out the right thing to do. It's not trying to learn the right move to make, it's actually having the courage to make that move when the time comes. And anytime we we delay, we procrastinate, or just avoid making those calls, those decisions, it's costly. Indecision is always a costly decision. One of my favorite quotes about this is from a man named William Barclay. He's someone I read a lot. He wrote this years and years ago. He said, The tragedy of life is so often the tragedy of the unseized moment. We're moved to some fine action, we're moved to abandoning some weakness of habit or habit. We're moved to say something to someone, some word of sympathy or warning or encouragement, but the moment passes and the thing is never done. The evil thing is never conquered, the word is never spoken. In the best of us, there is a certain lethargy and inertia. There's a certain habit of procrastination, there's a certain fear and indecision, and often the moment of fine impulse is never turned into action and into fact. The tragedy of the unseized moment. If we're gonna be people who are really moved by God, if we're gonna live lives where we can say, hey, God, you move and I'll move with you, we need to be people who are willing and ready to move at a moment's notice. We need to be people who are willing to move right now because so often in life, the right time to make the right decision is right now. It's right now. And please don't hear me wrong. I'm not, I'm not advocating for a lack of patience in your life. Patience is very important. Patience is wisdom, patience is a virtue. It's one of the fruit of the spirit listed in scripture, right? Patience is a good thing. I am not a patient person. Anyone who knows me well knows that. I tend to make really quick decisions, impulse decisions, and then I convince myself later on that it was the right thing to do, and I end up scrambling and trying to make it all work. I'm sure there's a few people at least like that in the room. I hope so. I hope I'm not alone. I've had a friend of mine that's my mentor, and he gave me some advice two months ago, and it's like mind-blowing advice. It's really helped me out. He said, Justin, your biggest problem is that you treat opportunities like they're emergencies. And there's a difference between an emergency and an opportunity. If you could just relax, and when you recognize an opportunity in life, be patient, let it come. You'd live at a pace that's much more manageable, and that's been great advice for me. It's helped me out a lot. So I'm not advocating that we just make decisions really quickly without thinking it through, but I think there's a big difference between patience and procrastination, right? And I think most of us at the end of the day know the difference in our own lives. We know the difference between recognizing that now is not the right time to make a decision because it's not the wisest time. We recognize the difference between that and then not making that decision right now, not acting right now because we just don't want to. That's the difference, right? When we procrastinate, we we have all these reasons, we have all these fears, and we we put something off, even though we know it's what we need to do, but when we're being patient, we just recognize that there's a right time and we're excited about that time coming. See, procrastination, it always costs us dearly when it comes to making those calls we need to make in life. Jesus had a conversation with a man about this very thing. It's actually one of the most odd conversations we have recorded of Jesus. It's one that gets misinterpreted often, and it actually makes Jesus look like a real jerk if you don't really understand what's going on. It's in Matthew chapter 8, starting in verse 19, it says, Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus replied, Foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. If you ever start reading the Bible and you read the Gospels, the four books that really have all of Jesus' teachings in them, it's a very common occurrence for someone to say something pretty normal to Jesus and then have him respond in a really strange way. I mean, you just stop sometimes and think about this guy. He's like, I'll go wherever you go. And Jesus is like, Foxes have dens, and birds have nests. And you're like, that is true. That is. I've seen the nature channel, I know how it works. But but no, obviously we can see where Jesus is going here. He's he's actually giving this guy some great advice. He's saying, look, count the cost. Before you follow me, please know what you're getting into. Because it says this man was a teacher of the law, so he's either a rabbi or a Pharisee. And in those days, that meant you lived a pretty comfortable life. And Jesus is saying, following me is not the way to have a comfortable life. That's not what it's about. And so it's not luxury, it's not gonna be fun, there's gonna be challenges. I just want to make sure that you're not swept up in a moment of emotion and you actually realize what you're getting into. And then we have the second guy. The second guy that's another disciple. It says, This disciple says to him, Lord, talking about following Jesus. We can kind of put in here without, even though it's not spoken, Lord, I want to follow you too. But Lord, first let me go and bury my father. And Jesus told him, Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. Now, the first guy was probably perplexed, going, Jesus, why are you talking about birds and and foxes? The second guy, though, he's got to be like, Jesus, whoa. Dude, how insensitive are you? I mean, we read that and we think, Jesus, I mean, come on, the man's the man's father has just died and he's asking if he can go to the funeral, and you won't even let him do that? I mean, what what gives? What gives? And the reality is that's not what's actually happening. That's not what's happening. There's a cultural disconnect that we have with the people that lived 2,000 years ago in the Middle East, believe it or not. And sometimes when we read scripture, these things pop up and we don't really understand what's going on, but but if we really did understand what's going on, we would realize this guy's not saying, hey, can I have a few days to go deal with something? I promise I'll be back. This guy's actually putting off the decision to follow Jesus for years and years and years. In the early 1900s, there was uh a missionary named Theophilus Waldmeyer. What a cool name, right? If someone is pregnant right now, please just consider the name Theophilus Waldmeyer. You know, even if that's not your last name, you can change that legally. People do that all the time. It's just a good name. People don't name their kids things like that anymore. You call them Theo if you want. Theophilus Waldemeyer, right? He's this missionary, and in the early 1900s, he spent a lot of time in Syria in the Middle East. And there's this really cool story where he came upon this young man from Turkey, and he became friends with this man, and this man was really bright. He was a young kid, really bright, and he encouraged this young man to go to Europe and to study and to broaden his horizons and continue his education. And this man responded in the exact same way to Mr. Waldenmeyer that this man in Scripture responds to Jesus. He said, First, I must bury my father. And the missionary said, Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize your dad had just died. I would never ask you to leave your family at a time like this. I'm so sorry, but maybe at another time. And the man stopped him and said, No, no, no, no, you my dad hasn't died. He hasn't passed away. It's what I'm saying is that I have to fulfill all the duties required of me to my family before I can go off and do whatever it is you're you're asking me to do. See, in that culture, the same exact culture that Jesus was part of, it was a culture that hadn't changed in all that time. The father in a family had all the authority and power. And there's some dads in the room going, man, I wish I lived back then. You know? But that's how it worked back then. I mean, in the time of Jesus, you could be a 21-year-old man and you couldn't say to your dad, hey dad, it's been great, but I'm gonna go do my own thing, I'm gonna go pursue art or whatever I want to do. No, no, no. You stayed with your father and you worked with your father and you did whatever your father told you to do until the day he passed away. You could be 45 and have seven children, and your father was every bit as much in control of your life as he was when you were 15 or 12. It didn't change. And so what he is, what he's actually saying here to Jesus is, hey, I can't, I can't follow you until my father passes away. It could be 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now. I can't go with you until I do what's expected of me in my home. He's procrastinating, he's putting off following Jesus for years and years and years. And Jesus knows what's going on. Jesus knows that he doesn't have years and years. Jesus knows that he's gonna go to the cross. And he's looking at this man and he loves this man, and he doesn't want this man to miss the opportunity to follow him. And so he says, look, if you wait, you'll miss it. It's now or never. If you want to follow me and be one of my disciples, you don't have years, you don't have decades. And so the time is is now. You've got to decide now. And that might mean a really awkward conversation with your dad. And that might mean you having some conflict in your family because you choose a different path. But if you do want to follow me, it's gotta be now. Don't don't procrastinate this decision. Because procrastination is costly. When we know the right thing to do, but we we find an excuse not to do it, it always, it always hurts us and it hurts other people as well. But when we when we decide to be people of action, when we decide to be people who will move now, the moment that God stirs us, the moment that we recognize that something needs to be done, if we'll become people who move right then and there, we'll things change really quickly. I mean, it's the people who are willing to do that, the people who are willing to move at a moment's notice, they're the ones that really get things done, right? Like one of my favorite characters in the Bible is this woman named Abigail. Read about her in 1 Samuel, and Abigail is an amazing woman married to a less than amazing man, and that's actually a common story. Some of us might be living that out right now, and that's okay, men, you can just nod your head and be like, I married up. I did it. It's all right. I won. That's how it works. The thing is, though, her husband, Abigail's husband, Nabal was his name. He wasn't just this diamond in the rough kind of guy that had some issues. He was he was like a real jerk. He was brash, he was egotistical, he was hot-tempered, and he was a fool. That's not a good combination. You don't want to be married to that guy. And so one day, Nabal gets on the wrong side of this young man named David. And David, you know the story, he killed Goliath, and he's this amazing warrior, and he's supposed to be the king, but there's this other king named Saul, and Saul wants to kill David because he's jealous of David. And so David, even though he's this godly man, he's done these amazing things for his people, David is living as an outlaw, he's living on the run, which means that he sleeps in caves. He lives outdoors, he's tired, he's exhausted, injustice has been done to him. In other words, David's kind of at the end of his rope, and he's not a guy you want to mess with right now. It's just not a good time to mess with David. And Nabal kind of picks a fight with David. What happens is that David comes to him and asks for help because David had kind of helped him in the past. And Nabal, instead of helping David, publicly mocks David, makes fun of him. And we pick up there in 1 Samuel 25, starting in verse 12, it says, So David's young men returned and told him what Nabal had said. And look at David's response: Get your swords. Like I said, David's like, not today. Now I've slept in a cave for the last six months, not having it, I'm at the end of my rope, get your swords. And then four hundred men started off with David, and two hundred remained behind to guard their equipment. Meanwhile, one of Nabal's servants went to Abigail and told her, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. These men have been very good to us. We've never suffered any harm from them. Nothing was stolen from us the whole time they were with us. In fact, day and night, they were like a wall of protection to us and to our sheep. You need to know this and figure out what to do, for there's going to be trouble for our master and his whole family. He's so ill-tempered that no one can even talk to him. Abigail wasted no time. She would quickly gather two hundred loaves of bread, two wineskins full of wine, five sheep that have been slaughtered, nearly a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, which seems like a large amount of raisins to me. I don't know how big these are. And two hundred fig cakes. She packed them on donkeys and said to her servants, Go on ahead, I'll follow you shortly. But she didn't tell her husband Nabal what she was doing. Verse 20, as she was riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, she saw David and his men coming toward her. David had just been saying, A lot of good it did us to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness, and nothing he owned was lost or stolen. But he's repaid me evil for good. May God strike me and kill me, if even one man of his household is still alive tomorrow morning. When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed low before him. If you read the rest, she says some really nice things to David. She she's very wise, she diffuses the situation. She tells David that he's he's awesome, she says all the right things, you know, and David goes, okay. And he responds to her in verse 32. Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you to meet me today. Thank God for your good sense, bless you for keeping me from murder and from carrying out vengeance with my own hands. For I swear by the Lord, the God of Israel, who's kept me from hurting you, that if you had not hurried out to meet me, not one of Nabal's men would still be alive tomorrow morning. So here we have this woman, and she saves lives. She diffuses this horrible situation, this situation that's about to kind of burst and explode, it seems. She saves these people's lives. And why? How does she do it? It's because she acts. It's because she moves the moment she knows what she's supposed to do. She doesn't delay, she doesn't wait. In fact, you look at verse 18. Abigail wasted no time. She quickly gathered all the things that she gathered. Verse 23, when Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed low before him. Verse 34, David says some things and he says, If you had not hurried out to meet me, not one of Dabal's men would still be alive tomorrow morning. See, Abigail, she saves the day. She becomes this hero. Not just because she acted, not just because she did the right thing, but she did the right thing the moment it needed to be done. Most of the time, more often than not, the right time to do the right thing is right now. And I can look at my life and I can think of all these times that I have known what I should do and I've found a reason to wait. I've talked myself out of it. I'm really good at talking myself into and out of things. Anyone else like that? Like you're you're a great salesman to yourself. Like, no, I do need a bigger TV. That's important, you know, because they 4K, I don't even know what that is, but sounds awesome. I should have one of those. Um, I can talk myself into anything, and I can talk myself out of a lot of things too. If you have known me for long, you know this about me. I talk about it a decent bit because it's important for me, it's a part of my life. I had an addiction for years, and uh, and that addiction caused a lot of problems in my marriage, it caused a lot of problems in my life. For years I kept it secret. For years it was it was totally hidden from anyone that really knew me, and it was a secret because I just lied about it to everyone. So that's why. I was terrified of what would happen if if I came clean. I was terrified of what people would think, I was terrified of what my wife would think, especially. I was worried about what would happen to our marriage. I was just I was freaked out about all those things. And so I I just I kept that addiction to myself and I was trying to get through it, I was trying to work on it, I was doing everything in my own strength, everything I could think of to overcome that addiction. But about three years before I actually walked into recovery and and freedom for the first time, about three years before that, I knew what I should do. I knew, I was clear in my mind. I need to get counseling, I need to tell my wife. I knew that. I need to get counseling, I need to tell my wife. I recognized that if I didn't get some help, I wasn't gonna come close to overcoming this addiction. I had done all that I could think to do, none of it had worked. And I knew that if if I kept this from my wife, it was gonna damage our marriage further and further and further, it was gonna erode the trust. In three years, I sat on that. Three years, I let the awkwardness of that conversation and the humiliation of having to come forward and admit failure, kind of admit defeat in a way. I let those emotions keep me from acting for three years. And those three years are probably the three years of my life I regret the most. Because when I finally did come forward, and I finally admitted what was going on, it was hard, it was difficult, it was awkward. I experienced forgiveness from my wife. Rather than shame and guilt, I experienced forgiveness. I couldn't forgive myself. But the moment she forgave me, I experienced forgiveness and it changed everything for me. It was incredible. It was like a burden gone. I walked into counseling. And within six months of being in counseling, I was free from that addiction. And I waited three years to walk through those doors. Three years. Thank you. I hope you're not. Y'all waited a clap till I said I waited three years, and I just want you to make sure we understand the point of this story. Is it okay? No clap for that part. But but seriously, it's exciting, and I'm I'm thank you for clapping because it is a big thing for my life. I'm really glad that I did that. But guys, I I wasted three years. I've been married for 11 years. That's a pretty good chunk of time out of my marriage. I wasted three years doing nothing when I knew the right thing to do. I knew what I should do. I had no doubt what the right decision was. I just froze. I just, I pushed it off, I procrastinated, I delayed, and I regretted it. And I honestly I still regret it. Like I'm over it, I've forgiven myself, God's forgiven me, my wife's forgiving me, but I can't get those three years back. And I would love to be able to go back and just deal with it then. But I waited. And every single time in my life, every single time, I have known the right thing to do, and out of a fear of awkwardness or or whatever it might be, I've I've delayed it, I've pushed it off, I've regretted every single one of those decisions. Some have been major, right? Some have been major, like that addiction. Some have have been kind of minor, some have been just awkward conversations that I don't want to have. Anyone here enjoy awkward conversations? Anyone? Well then don't become a pastor. Because like that's the one part of this job no one ever told me about. Like, hey, this person wants to talk to you and it's gonna be really awkward. And that just it's part of it. And I now I actually, believe it or not, I kind of enjoy awkward conversations. It's it's a weird thing. I enjoy it for this one reason. I'm kind of letting you guys see behind the curtain in my life. Uh a man once told me that you learn a lot about someone when you tell them no. That's become a filter that I live my life by. And so I like awkward conversations because I have an opportunity to find out what people are really like. And so if I say no to someone in an awkward situation, I learn a lot about that person instantly. Like if they react in a normal way, I go, okay, a normal human being that behaves appropriately. And if they flip off, you know, the handle or whatever, fly off the handle and act crazy, I'm like, oh, a crazy person. This is good to know. This is good to know moving forward that you're just nuts. This is good, okay. Um but but I've had some awkward conversations that I've had to have in my life, especially kind of being part of this of this church. You know, because a church, it's people. And if you're new to church and you're like, oh, I love this place, and I mean, please understand that we're all messed up people, including me. And one day someone's gonna say something that you don't like, and one day someone's gonna do something that offends you and upsets you, and it's going to happen because sitting around you are real live human beings. And and human beings, all of us, we're we have issues. We have stuff that we get hung up on, and we and we make things difficult. That's we're good at that. And as a church, this is what I love about us at His Hands, we kind of embrace that. We sort of embrace the mess of life and just recognize that it's there and we're just gonna handle it and deal with it. It's messy, so we'll bring towels. That's just how we approach life. But because of because of the fact that we're messy and we're people, I've had to have some really strange, awkward conversations. Really difficult conversations that I could never have been prepared for. And once there was this one person, and it was a person that just, this is like the most dangerous person in the world, in my opinion. It was a person that believed that they heard perfectly from God all the time, 100% of the time. So everything they did what the Holy Spirit was telling them to do at all times. It's a very hard person to have a conversation with, right? And I had to have this talk with this person because they were doing some stuff that was, that was messing with people here, and it was really hard and difficult, and I had to set some boundaries, and I knew this would not go well. And I had waited like six months to have this conversation with this person. I had decided at least five or six times that I was gonna have this conversation, I was gonna do this, and I knew though it would go really poorly, I'm like, it's gonna go bad, and they're gonna leave the church, and I want that to happen because I like these people, uh sort of, and I uh I don't want this to happen, right? And so I'm not gonna I I'll wait. I'll wait, I'll pray about it, I'll see what happens. And I knew that I should have the conversation, but I delayed and I delayed and I delayed, and then finally I had the conversation and it went terribly, and they did leave the church, but you know what? It's okay. Because that would have happened anyway. It would have happened anyway, and the issue is I delayed and I waited and I waited and I waited to have a conversation with someone who was being really predatorial to other people and kind of using their spirituality to bully other people around, and I let that happen for months because I was afraid to have a conversation. I'm just being honest with you. Every time I have allowed uncertainty and fear and insecurity cause me to put off doing what I knew should be done, I have regretted it terribly. Does that make sense? Okay, good. So here's what I want to ask all of us to do today. This is kind of a hard conversation in a lot of ways. It's not, you know, if you've been coming here for long, I like to tell jokes, I like things to be kind of light, that's sort of how I am. But this is so important. It's so important because, see, in in church culture, in the world, there's this lie that's that's used often when it comes to telling people about Jesus. And the lie is this that, hey, if you follow Jesus, everything just goes really smoothly, and you know, Jesus is gonna make your life run better and smoother and all that. And if you're on the fence about the whole Jesus thing, please don't take this as a reason to leave at this moment in time. Um, because this is gonna sound like really bad salesmanship, okay? But but following Jesus does not make your life easier. It's no different than it was when these men came to Jesus 2,000 years ago and said, Hey, I want to follow you. And he said, Okay, but you're gonna have to do some hard things to do it. Jesus is not the quickest path to a comfortable life. But see, Jesus is always calling out the people who will trade in comfort for a right life. And at the end of the day, what do I want to be? Do I want to be someone who goes to bed at night and goes, man, things are just going so well for me? Things are simple and easy. I got plenty of money in the bank, I've got, I've got, oh man, I've got all the friends in the world I need. Or do I want to be some, I mean, I want those things. That's that's normal. But at the end of the day, I want to go to bed at night. I want to know that my life is right. I want to know that my life is a life that my son, because I have two now, I have to get used to that. I have two. My sons are proud of. I want to live a life that is so in line with God that when a man that is not godly comes around my daughter one day, she's just like, please move aside. I mean, I pray, I pray for my daughter every night. I pray with her. Um, it's actually really hard. She doesn't like me to pray for because I like to get in really close and I pray, and she looks at me and goes, get out of my face. She pushes me away. She's two. She's two. She's get out of my face. But I'll pray for her, and I always pray this with my daughter. I say, God, please bring a better man than me to take her off my hands. And that sounds cold. Like, I love her. She's a lot, but but that's what I'm praying for. I want to, I want a man better than me. Well, I'm gonna have to be a good man so she can recognize when a better man comes along. See, I don't want to live a life that's comfortable and easy. I don't, I don't want that. I don't want our church to be the story of comfort and ease. I don't want the history of his hands one day to be like, look at how everything just lined up for us. No, I want I want life to be an adventure. I want our story to be one that says, hey, this happened to us and it should have brought us down, but we got through it. And then this happened and it should have made us collapse, but we were able to overcome it by the power of God in our lives. That's the kind of life that I want to live. I think that's the kind of life that we should live. And and that that's what happens when we decide to be people who are willing to do the right thing right now. Regardless of how awkward or difficult it is. And so I ask you today, this is the difficult thing. Is there any decision in your life that you know you need to make? You've been wrestling with it for years and years, months, even whatever it is, you you know what you're supposed to do, but you've just been putting it off because it's gonna be hard. Is there a conversation that you need to have? You know, it could be with someone that you haven't talked to in so long because things ended so poorly the last time you talked. And maybe, maybe you need to go to that person and maybe you need to be the one that asks for forgiveness, and that's not fun. Or maybe you need to go to them and just say, hey, just in case you never come to me, I want you to know that I have forgiven you and I love you. Is there a conversation that you need to have that's gonna be difficult, but you know it's right, and you've been putting it off? Have have that conversation today. And if it goes poorly, just blame me. Like, I'll take it. Okay? Blame God, He'll deal with it, he's fine. He gets blamed for all kinds of stuff. So, is there is there a confession in your life that you need to make today? I know that sounds, doesn't this sound horrible confession? Don't worry, we're not like building booths in the back or anything like that for you to come into. I don't want to know. But I I waited to confess. That's really what I did with my wife. I confessed my addiction and my issue. I waited for three years. It was a lot longer than three years, but three years from the point I knew I should do that. I was convinced of that. I waited for three years to confess, thinking that confession would be a burden, and all confession did was lift the burden off me. That's all it did. In fact, the Bible says in the book of James that we should confess our sins to one another. Because when we confess our sins to one another, God is faithful and just to forgive. And a lot of times we like to bypass that part. We're like, can I just confess directly to you? And yes, we can. We absolutely can. But when we have the courage to confess to someone else a struggle that we have, God sees that and he just honors that in a really, a really powerful way. And when I confess to someone I love, I'm confessing to God at the exact same time. He knows that. So is there someone in your life that you love and and you just need to you just need to confess up to something and say, hey, look, I need to I need to ask for your forgiveness because I I have been doing this and this hasn't been going well, and it's my fault, and I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. That's hard, right? None of us are walking out of here today being like, woo, confession, yeah. Glad I went to church today. But again, if you want to live that that right life, that life that you know, you know is in line with God, the right time to do the right thing is right now. It's today. And so I just encourage you to make that move. To move now, to be like Abigail, to be that person that wastes no time, that quickly responds to the challenge ahead of you, to just do what you know you're supposed to do. Because what's the worst that's gonna happen? You're gonna be wrong, right? That's the worst that can happen. And you're gonna think you're doing the right thing, but you're actually doing the wrong thing, and that that goes poorly. But if you're like me, I can live with that. Because see, one day I'm gonna stand in front of God and I'm gonna talk to him about my life. Actually, looking forward to that day. Um and and I I'm okay standing in front of God one day and being like, and him saying, Hey, what was going on? What was that about? Like, I don't know if there's an instant replay or what, I don't know how it works. But if we're like watching the game film and he rewinds it, he's like, so right there, pause. What was come on? And I'll go, like, oh yes, I do remember that moment. Um I'm okay saying to God and to anyone, you know, I'm really sorry, I thought that was the right thing to do. I'm I'm really apologized for that going the way it went. I I really thought and believed in my heart that I was doing the right thing. Because most of my mistakes have not been like that. I I can't really say that about most of my big mess-ups and regrets in life. I thought I was doing the right thing. And it went, I apparently I was wrong. But see, what I don't want to do, because I've done this so many times, what I don't want to do with God or with anyone else, is say, yeah, I knew that was the right thing to do. I just didn't do it because I was worried or fearful or anxious. I I don't want to do that. I don't want to live a life where I say to anyone, hey, I knew what I should do. I just, I just uh I froze. That El Camino was coming, and I just stayed there, and it hit me. Because indecision is always a costly decision. And so we're gonna wrap up, we're gonna pray, do one more worship song like we do. But I want to I want to challenge you this morning. I know this is a challenge, I just want to challenge you and encourage you, literally give you the courage, because that's what the Holy Spirit does. He gives us courage. I want to challenge you to be a person that decides that you will move now, to not waste time. If there is a decision that you need to make, that you know you need to make, just make it today. That decision might be accepting Jesus for the first time in your life. You know, make that decision right now. Say, Jesus, I'm yours, go sign up to be baptized, and just take care of it. Just make the move now. And trust, trust the Holy Spirit to back you up when you do. One more verse. Jesus was talking to his disciples and he was preparing them for some tough things ahead. And he says, When you're brought to trial in the synagogue and before the rulers and authorities, don't worry about how to defend yourself or what to say. You know you have an interesting job when that's part of your job training. Like any of you that have jobs and is part of your training, someone says, Oh, when you get arrested, here's what you need to do. Um, that's what Jesus is saying. He says, Don't worry about what you're gonna say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what needs to be said. If you just respond and obey to God, the Holy Spirit's gonna back you up. He's gonna come in, he's gonna do his thing. And I know that might sound weird to some of us, and this is kind of a preview of next week. Next week's all about the Holy Spirit. That's how we're gonna close out this move series, because you can't really move with God without a connection to the Holy Spirit. And I know some of us are going, yes, and some of us are going, like, all right, weird stuff. It's time to not be here next week. Where can I be next week, other than here? The Holy Spirit is not supposed to be weird. And I'm really sorry if people have given you the impression that that's the way it is. Because if you read the Gospels, if you read Jesus, you can't come away with any other conclusion than the idea that Jesus believed that the Holy Spirit was supposed to be the most normal and fundamental personal thing for all of us to experience in our lives. And so next week we're gonna talk about how we are moved by the Holy Spirit in our lives. It's gonna be really good, I hope. Um but as far as today goes, let's just be people that move now. That don't waste time. That when we know what's right, we just we do it. We just do it, and we trust God, and we trust the Holy Spirit to back us up because he always does. Okay? You guys are hey, you guys are good people. I want you to know that. You're a good church. This is like this is a good family of people. And and I I guess all I'll say is I close, this has more been more of a conversation than a message today, I think, but um, even though I've been the only one talking. The uh I'm really proud of this church. I'm really proud of everyone here. Every time I talk to you guys, I think God wants to do something really special here. And I I think as I look at this message and all the ones that we've done over the last few weeks, I just believe that we are going to be known as a group of people that are simply moved by God. And if we'll be that group of people, if you're willing to be that, there will be all kinds of crazy challenges ahead. There will be difficult seasons, but there will be victory after victory after victory after victory, because when you move with God, you are moving with the winning team. Always. So don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to move and to act. He's with you. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for your love for us. Thank you so much for the fact that you did not hesitate to move when you needed to move. You did not delay or procrastinate when it came to rescuing us, to saving us, to dying for us. God, you had so many reasons to put that decision off. But when the time came, you did not experience the tragedy of the unseized moment. Jesus, you just seized it, you grabbed a hold of it, and you owned it. And Lord Jesus, we are all completely and totally grateful because of it. We love you, we praise you. It's our honor to worship you a little bit longer. Uh just bless us the rest of our days, the rest of our week, God, and we we love you. Amen.