 I am choosing to go. I am choosing to follow Jesus. I am choosing to obey the Great Commission. I am choosing to love the way that He first loved us. I will not settle for anything less. I am choosing to be a disciple of Jesus. Happy weekend Radiant Church. So good to see you and those of you who are joining us online. We love you and Portage Campus. We are so excited to be with you today. Can we just put our hands together for all that God is doing in our family, far and wide? We're just hearing all kinds of incredible testimonies of God's faithfulness and goodness from so many of you. And the reason why I highlight that is because a lot of times when you're going through seasons like we have the last several months, it can be easy to highlight all the negatives and the detractions. But in the midst of even the most difficult times, how many know that God is always faithful, He's always working? When darkness is moving, light is shining brighter. And we're grateful that we have a God who's so big and strong and powerful and all wise and for us. And so I love what God's doing in Radiant. As many of you know over the last couple of weekends, we went to online only because we had several of our staff members that were diagnosed with COVID. Now, we wanted to make sure that everybody knows it was not something that took place in our congregation or in our weekend services. It was actually something that just took place in our staff, you know, whenever you get too many sweet water doughnuts in the center of the office workroom, people are going to gather around. And but everybody's doing well. They were, they were quarantined for a period of time and everybody's come out of that. So thank all of you and those of you online and at Portage as well, that reached out with well wishes and prayers. Everybody's doing good. And we are glad to be back in person. And even those of you who are joining us online, it's always good to be together. So I want to invite you today, wherever you're at to take your Bible out and turn with me to Luke chapter six, Luke chapter six. And we are continuing in this series called disciple. A disciple is what Jesus has called each of us to be. And to disciple is what he's called each of us to do with our lives. The single most important decision that we can make in the however many years and days and hours and minutes that God gives us on this planet is to make the decision to say yes to the invitation of Jesus to follow him. The most important investment that we can make with our time, talent, treasure, attention and focus is to invest in one another and in others to help them become a mature disciple of Jesus. A disciple is one who finds, follows and is becoming fully formed to be like Jesus. At the end of our lives on this planet, I just want to remind you the one thing and the only thing that will remain for eternity is what we did with that decision to say yes or no to Jesus and how many other people we help to become disciples of Jesus. I want you to think about that the return on investment for all the things that we do with our lives that we get so caught up in that we're so focused upon at the end of our lives, 90.99999% of those things are going to have zero eternal significance. But the one thing that matters the most is what we do with Jesus and how many other people we help discover find life in Jesus. And so today I want to ask a significant question. I have two titles for this message and so you can pick whichever title that you like. This is like, you know those movies where you got two endings. My sermon has the same ending but you get to pick your title. Here's number one. Whose disciple are you? And title number two is dig down deep. Whichever one that you choose, look with me here at Luke chapter six beginning in verse number 46. And Jesus asked this question, why do you call me Lord? Why do you call me Lord, Lord? And you do not do what I tell you. How many parents have ever thought those words to yourself about your kids? It's like, why don't you do what I ask you to do? Jesus is talking to the multitudes. He's talking to the crowds. He's talking to his disciples. Why do you call me Lord, Lord? And you do not do what I tell you. Look at verse 47. Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and it could not shake it because it had been so well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who has built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great. So Jesus is teaching this parable or painting this picture of a man who builds his house on a rock and a solid foundation and then another man who builds his house on Matthew's version and Mark's version talk about building your house on the sand. Jesus is talking to people that claim to be his followers and he's asking them a question, why do you call me Lord or master? And yet you don't do what I'm telling you to do. You don't obey me and Jesus is talking in the context here. This whole parable is on the issue of discipleship. When I read this story, it reminds me of when I was a kid. You know, here we are, we live in Michigan and West Michigan. We have access to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world really. I mean, when I travel around the United States and I talk to people and tell them I'm from Michigan, you know, like just recently I was preaching in South Carolina and I told somebody, oh, I'm from Michigan, Kalamazoo, they're like, Michigan, why would anybody live in Michigan? I'm like, you've never been to Michigan because Michigan is one of the most beautiful states on the entire planet. It is gorgeous. I mean, and especially the beaches. And so I grew up for several years, seven, eight years old on the east side of the state. In the east side, if you've ever been to Lake Erie and Lake Huron over there, they're beautiful, but they don't have the beaches, the sandy dunes like we have on the west side. So when we moved to Grand Rapids and we started going as a little kid, we would go to the beach, we'd go to Holland, we'd go to Grand Haven. I was enamored with the dunes. Nate Roosh, who's one of my good friends, we met in fourth grade. We would go there with our families. We'd rotate back and forth. And you know, you'd pack your cars up and you'd go to the beach. And when you went to the beach, you went for the day. How many know what I'm talking about? It's like, I'm not driving out there for 15 minutes. We're going out there for the day. And in my house that met, you packed a picnic basket, you brought your toys. We didn't, listen, we didn't have umbrellas. You know, I'm talking about today, Jane and I, we go to the beach. We set up an umbrella to sit in the shade. And I was a kid, you got fried. That was just the way it was. And you went there for the whole day. If you needed shade, you found shade. Nate Roosh and I, we would bury, you know, one of our favorite things to do is we dig these deep holes and bury each other up to our neck and then leave each other there and threaten to leave them there until high tide. But, you know, then you'd find your way to get out of there. And we would also make sand castles. I mean, massive sand castles. I loved it. Even as a parent watching my kids make sand castles, they'd spend hours digging, you know, digging the big holes out and using buckets and shaping it. And it was a lot of fun. And then what happens is over time, you begin to see the tide rises just like this story where the river rises and it comes. And what does it do the sand castles? Well, it just wipes them out. So you're fighting a losing battle, but you still do it anyways because you're a kid. It's fun. This summer, we watched our grandson, Owen, play in the sand over South Haven, right down by the edge of the water and play and dump his water into the sandcastle. And his dad, Zach, you know, would help him make a sandcastle. But eventually the water would come up and it would just kind of erase it. And there's really, there's really nothing to cry about, even though when you're a kid, you're a little sad about it, but you know, it's going to happen. It's a whole lot different than watching the houses that are up on the edge of dunes. And because of the erosion of the dunes, you're beginning to see houses, millions of dollars properties and investments begin to collapse and begin to see these houses. Beautiful architecture. I mean, glorious houses. I can't tell you how many times I've walked up and down the beaches of South Haven or Holland or, you know, Saga Tech or whatever. And you used to look at these houses and you go, whoa, I would love to have one of those houses. How many would love to have one of those beachfront houses and, you know, up in Luddington overlooking the bay. I mean, millions and millions of dollars. A friend of mine was just up in Harbor Springs and they said, we looked at a lot, a postage stamp lot on the point overlooking the water and just the postage stamp lot was $2.2 million. It's like, oh, I'd love to have that. You'd love to have it until that house, which is yours, begins to collapse because the sand that it was built on begins to erode like many of the houses along Lake Michigan are experiencing because when you built it, you never foresaw a day where the edge of your property would begin to regress and regress and come all the way back to where your foundation is and ultimately lose your house. It's on that day that nobody says, oh, I'd love to have that house. No matter how beautiful it is, no matter how much glass, no matter how much modern furniture is in it, no matter how many millions of dollars in that moment, no way in the world you'd switch out for whatever house you have for one of those houses. Why? Because you're seeing it collapse. Well, do you know Jesus said that the way that we build our lives, what we build on is actually either sand or it's rock. It's either the rock of His teaching of His words or we're building on some other substance. Can I just shock you today and tell you that in this story, the rock that Jesus is talking about that the wise man built on, Jesus is not that rock. That's not Jesus he's referring to. You know, it's like, what? Wait a second. Well, obviously Jesus is a rock. Well, the Bible talks about Jesus as a rock, but in this story, Jesus is not the rock. We say, well, what is the rock? The rock is Jesus' teaching. It's the Bible. It's the Word of God. Is the rock. And you say, well, what's the difference? Well, the difference is this, that we live in a time and an age where even Christians, you can look at the world, those who don't have any affiliation with Jesus Christ and make no claim to believe in Him as the Son of God and the Savior of the world. And you can make a statement and say, well, that's obviously the sand, the shifting sand. The world is building their house on the sand. But the problem is, just like when Jesus teaches this to His disciples, many who named the name of Jesus and would say, well, obviously Jesus is my rock. I love God. I love Jesus, but yet are building their houses on somebody else's teaching. You see, it's possible for you to say, I love God, but yet not build on His teaching. And you say, well, how is that true? Because it's true right here. Jesus says to His very disciples, why do you call me Lord, Lord? And yet you don't do the things that I tell you to do. And they're just like, what? And Jesus is like, here's what it's like. It's like when you listen to my words, when you hear what I'm saying and actually build your life on what somebody else says or somebody else's teaching or somebody else's worldview, as opposed to the way that I've laid it out for you with your assumptions and your convictions and your beliefs and your values, and you build on something else, it's as if you built the most beautiful house that in the moment might look gorgeous. And it is the joy and the object of desire for the whole world until, until storms come. Because storms are the great revealer. Storms reveal what foundation our lives are built on. It can look great. Your life might look fantastic. It might look wonderful. It might look great. You can find somebody in the world and go, woo, I love their life. I mean, they're flying around on jets and they've got more money than they know what to do with. And they're, you know, on gracing the covers of magazines or this person is one of the wealthiest or most beautiful people or look at that until, until, and here's what we all see. They show up on the news because a storm hit their life. And then all of a sudden we're just like, well, how did that happen? Let me tell you how it happened. They built their life on sand, on the sandy surface of something other than the word of God. Now here's what, here's what is so scary to me. And I'm going to bring this down to really practice about the time and the era that we are living in. And I'm speaking to saints. If you're not a Christian and you're listening or you're watching, listen, tonight I'm going to challenge you. Or today I'm going to challenge you to actually make a decision to become a disciple of Jesus and then begin the building process of renovating and building your life on something other than what you have. But if you are someone who says, well, I love God, I love Jesus, I've made him my savior, then what I'm going to challenge you with today is to not just say that with your words, but to actually say it with your life. Because what has happened is even in the church, there is a massive neglect of God's word. And I want to clarify something today. I want to clarify, when I say God's word, I'm not just saying the Bible. The Bible is the foundation. It is God's written word. But God's written word is meant to lead us to a living relationship with Jesus who is the living word, written word, living word, so that we live our daily lives receiving His continual proceeding word. In other words, the Holy Spirit illuminating the Scripture from the heart of Jesus, leading us to His written word so that we build our lives on this truth and this foundation. And yet we have a famine for the Word of God in our era. Think about these stats. This is just Americans and this is from the Barna Research Institute. In 2020, 35% of Americans never read the Bible. That's a 10% increase over the last nine years of people who say, no, I never read the Bible. During the pandemic that we've all been a part of, you would think that the storm of a pandemic that has shaken everything that can be shaken would actually lead people to read the Bible more. And you know, initially that happened in the first six weeks after the pandemic, March, April, and May, there was a uptick in the sales of Bibles, electronic downloads of Bible apps and people reading the Bible. But even among Bible believing Christians, here's what's happened over the course of the last six months as we've been in a pandemic and many people have been at home by themselves isolated. There has actually been a 30% reduction in Christians who are even engaged in church or reading their Bibles. 30%. 30% of a certain age demographic that prior to the pandemic went to church are no longer even engaging in online church. 30% just gone. 30%. There's been a 30% decrease in people that say, yes, I believe Jesus is the Son of God. I believe he's my savior who've now completely disengaged from reading the Bible at all. This is what's going on. While the whole world is in an uproar about a virus, which I take very seriously, but let me tell you, I take more seriously a spiritual virus that has infected the body of Christ that has stolen our hunger and devotion for the things of God and the kingdom of God. And we've been, it's been replaced by a spirit of fear and intimidation and a malaise that has glazed over our heart. And what we are witnessing is depression, anxiety, isolation, people caving in, walking away from their faith, becoming nominal Christians, and the storms of life, listen, are not going to stop coming. It's not like, oh, you went through the pandemic, so the rest of your life, you have no more issues. Listen, it's like the tides that come up and knock our sandcastles down. It's one wave, and there's another wave. Jesus said in this life, you're going to have trouble. Can I just tell you, it doesn't matter if you're a Christian or not a Christian, the one commonality that we have in our human experiences in this life, you're going to have trouble. The question is, when that trouble comes, is your life going to be like the house built on the edge of a dune that eventually collapses? Or is your life going to ultimately be built on a foundation that is stronger than any storm that comes at us? 60% of Americans read their Bible less than five times in a year. 9% of Americans read their Bible daily. 60% of Americans believe the Bible. Think about this. 60% of Americans say the Bible has transformed their lives, but only 5% of Americans read their Bible daily. Guys, Jesus is asking us the very same question. Why do you say you're my disciple? When you don't hear my words and you don't dig down deep? God's asking us, why do you call me Lord? Why are you calling me your disciple? Because if we really genuinely, and maybe that's you, maybe you're just like, man, during this pandemic, I've become even more devoted in my relationship with God. I've gone deeper into the word than I've ever gone before. Then praise God. What's happening is your foundation is getting so strong. You might say, well, you know what? I've been engaging in a whole nother level. I've been watching morning prayer. I've been, I've stayed in times. I've stayed in school to spirit. I've connected with people in places I never thought. Praise God because we've made the decision just like the decision was made by the man who built his house on the foundation. And what did he do? He decided, I'm going to dig deep. I'm going to dig deep. I'm not going to go for the shallow surface, build my life. Oh, you know, casual. It's easy to just kind of be like, well, I love God, love Jesus. I think the Bible's wonderful, but I'm giving my attention on my focus to all these other things. And when the storms come, what's unfortunate is not only do we experience the wave and the current, the storm, the river that rises and comes against us and begins to threaten our lives, but then so many people then look to God and go, God, why are you letting this happen? He's like, I sent you in the mail, the blueprint of how to build your life. And you built somebody else's blueprint. So what do we do? What are we called to do? We've got to answer this significant question today. It's whose voice are we going to listen to? Whose voice are we going to listen to? That's the crux of what Jesus was talking about. Look at it. He says, everyone, verse 47, everyone who comes to me, here's my words, and then does them. I will show you what he's like. What is he like? He's like a man building his house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. What does it come down to? It comes to we come to Jesus, but then we need to hear or listen intently to Jesus. And we all know this. We listen to people that we value depending on the circumstance that we find ourselves in. Have you ever talked to somebody on the phone like you called somebody and you're calling them and you're having a very casual conversation with them because you're doing something else and you miss stuff? Has anybody ever done that? Our kids do that all the time. It's like, oh, your kids are laughing. It's like, who are you talking to? Oh, talking to so-and-so. We're just laughing or I'm watching this movie or whatever. And I'm just like, no, pay attention to me. Listen to me right now. Have you ever done that? It doesn't have to be your kids. It could be anybody, but have you ever found yourself distracted? You're doing something else, but then you're having this conversation or you're trying to fill out paperwork or whatever. That's not listening. That's not hearing. You can have sound waves go into your ears and not hear them. How many times have you gone? Huh? Because somebody says, did you hear what I said? Huh? What'd you say? Oh, repeat that. It's like, that's different than when you find yourself in an accident and all of a sudden your attention is dialed in and you call somebody. It's like, I need your help right now. It's 3 a.m. and my tire's blown. I don't know how to change a tire. How do I change this tire? All of a sudden now because I'm in crisis, I'm listening really close. They're just like, okay, here's what you do. Are you listening? Yes. Go to the back of your car. Yes. Okay. What do I do? Pop the trunk. Yes. Now what? Crawl inside of it. Okay. I crawl inside the trunk. Now what? Pull down the hatch. Okay. I'm pulling down the hatch. I'm in the trunk. Now what? Call a tow truck. All right. Great. Why am I in the trunk so that you don't hurt anybody or yourself until the tow truck gets there? Because that's what happens to me. I couldn't change a tire if I needed to change a tire. But you call, it's amazing when you find yourself in a position where somebody on the other line of a phone call has something that you want, what does it do? It ratchets up your attention level. Now here's what we do with God a lot of times. God, I'm busy doing this and I'm busy doing that and I got this and I got this person I'm thinking about and it's like, all right, I'm casually hearing the word. Yeah. Oh, what was that Lord? What was that Lord? And we're not really hearing him. We're not really listening. We're just kind of, well, I go to church. I hear the sermon or, you know, I got a Bible. I read a little verse. So I got a little, you know, notification pops up on my screen, but it's different than when you are digging deep. Here's what Jesus said in John in John chapter 10. They'll put it up on the screen here in a second, but it says, you don't believe me. And he's speaking to people who were challenging him. He says, you don't believe me because you are not my sheep. If you were my sheep, you would hear my voice because my sheep know my voice and they follow me. I know them and they follow me. This is what Jesus is saying. He said, if I'm really your shepherd, in other words, your leader, your master, then you will hear my voice. In other words, you're not just going to passively hear it. You will dial in. Here's what they tell us about sheep. Sheep can identify. You could bring four or five different shepherds to all kinds of sheep that are multiple different farmers or herdsmen's sheep, and they bring them all together to eat and, you know, out in the pasture in the drink water, you can bring four shepherds of four different flocks, and they're all mixed together, and the shepherd will speak and his sheep will separate and come to him. So you might look at it and go, well, these sheep aren't going to come to me. I walk out there, Lee Cummings walks out there and says, hey, sheep, come to me. They won't budge. But their shepherd walks out and says, hey, sheep, come on, we're going. All of a sudden, they separate from the other sheep and they come to their shepherd. You see, true sheep in true relationship with a shepherd are divided out, separated out as legitimate because they respond to the voice of their shepherd. Jesus said, you're not my sheep. Why? What's the qualification of being your sheep that you hear my voice and you follow me and I know you? So the question is, whose voice do we listen to? Whose voice are we listening to? Whose voice that when that voice speaks up, we're responding to that voice because that has everything to do with whether we're building our house on the rock, like Jesus said, that can withstand the storms. Whose disciple are we? Or are we building on something other than Jesus' teaching? We've got to dig down deep. Look at Jesus describes what it means to dig down deep. Number one, verse number 40, 70 says, everyone who comes to me, what is that? It's pursuit. We come to Jesus. We're not just Jesus is just all right. No, we're coming. We're pursuing him. It's Jeremiah 29. When you seek me with all of your heart, you will find me. Jesus is not hiding from you. Jesus is drawing you to him. Jesus wants you to come to him, but he's not going to drag you screaming and kicking. I've heard so many people say, if God really was real, he should just show up in my bedroom and just prove to me as real. Then I'd believe. Well, number one, if God showed up in your room, you would disintegrate into molecules because God is not a man like you are. He is God, capital G-O-D. And he created everything and all things are sustained by him. He's doing you a favor by not doing that. But who are you, old man, to tell God the terms of how you will believe him? Who are you to say to the Creator as the created thing? I'm not going to believe in you, but here's what God does. God doesn't hide from us. He hides for us. What do you mean by that? It means he wants you to come and find him. You know, when we pursue Jesus, it's when we're hungry and thirsty for him. When we've tried everything else and we've realized all of it fails, we've built our house on the sand of money and we figured out that doesn't work. We've built our house on the sand of the world, which is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life and everything that's in this world, the way the world lives. And we have discovered that it's like building a multimillion dollar mansion on the edge of a sand dune. And now I'm looking for you, Jesus. I'm not looking for a religious icon. I'm not looking for some spirituality that I can add to my life. I'm desperately coming to you and I'm saying, Jesus, I'm pursuing you. Everyone who digs deep, what do they do? They come to them. They come to Jesus and then he says, they hear my words. And that word here means listening intently. It's like, you tell me, I want to hear what you have to say. I want your wisdom. I want your truth. I'm exchanging everything that I've ever believed that was a lie, that was deception. And I'm trusting your words, Jesus. Your words are spirit and life. When Peter, when Jesus turned to Peter, after many people did not follow him anymore, because here's what happened. Jesus wasn't trying to build a crowd. Jesus was trying to develop disciples. And so when he had too many people that were following him, Jesus called the herd. He taught harder messages. See what we do in churches oftentimes teach weaker messages to get more people. Jesus got too many people, so he ratcheted it up. And it says in the Gospel of John that many did not, many even got offended at Jesus and did not follow him anymore. That is not church growth 101. Jesus never took a church growth seminar. I could really help you out, Jesus. If you would let me, I could teach you how to build a church. And Jesus said, thank you. Why don't you come to my seminar and let me teach you how to build a church? Because I'll build a church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And the way that Jesus did it is when everybody that says that many did not follow him anymore because they were offended, he turns to Peter and he says, are you going to leave me also? And what does Peter say? Peter says this, where are we going to go? You have the words of life. You see, if that's our response to Jesus, Jesus, where else are we going to go? The words you speak are spirit and they are life. Your words transform me. 60% of Americans say that the Bible has transformed their life in some way, but yet we're still believing all the crazies on the media. We're listening to Hollywood. We're being driven by our own appetites, demonic voices, spiritual leaders and avatars, none of them who've risen from the dead, none of them who've built anything that has lasted and endured, but yet we're giving them preeminence and we're putting Jesus on hold. Hey, Jesus, can I put you on hold for a second? I got to take this call. Listen, there are some calls that when they come through, you stop everything and you take that call and there's no putting them on hold. And Jesus calls, everyone who comes to me, pursuit and hears my words. What is Jesus saying? Hear my words. He's talking about intention, intentness, studying them, digging down deep into God's word. This is not just some, this is not like fortune cookie stuff to make you feel good. This is, this is God, the God, the creator of the universe who knows every molecule in your entire being, who wrote the book of every day of your life before the foundations of the world were ever laid, who stretched out the expanse of the stars in the heaven at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, who said, let there be light and there was, who treated the mountains like a blanket and rolled them up in order to make a pool called the Pacific Ocean. And that's just one planet. And there are trillions of stars that are in the palm of His hand. And that God, that all wise, uncreated, eternal being has spoken to us. And men who were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit transmitted that and have given it to us. We have, this is not man's opinion. This is God's word. No prophecy is subject to a personal interpretation. And we got to treat this thing like it is. We need to hear when God speaks. We need to hear what Jesus has to say and build our lives on that. I've had people say, well, why in the world would I build my life on a 2000 year old book? Why in the world would you build your house on, according to scientists, 13 billion year old dirt? Leave the planet. It's so old. It's got to be really archaic. It's 2000 years of tried and tested firm foundation. It's the third thing Jesus said, and they come to me, they hear my words and He does them. What's that? Obedience, practice. James chapter one, verse 22 says, do not be a hearer of the word only, but also be a doer of the word, lest you deceive yourselves. Lest you deceive yourself. How does self deception happen? It happens like this. Jesus said, hear what you have to say, but I disagree. Or I question the wisdom of that, or I'm not fully convinced of that. And so I'm going to keep doing what I've done. So I hear it, but I'm going to do something else. I hear what you have to say about my money and my finances, but you know what? I'm going to do something else because I'm not really sure that's going to work. How does faith come? Romans says, faith comes by and hearing by the, even at home say the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Why do we have a faith problem in the church of America today? It's because we have a word of God problem. You can't have faith without having a hearing heart that has the word of God. And so since we've established that we have a famine for the word of God, and I'm not just talking about the Bible church, you can read the Bible through the wrong intentionality. I'm talking about hunger and thirst that Jesus, you are the living word and I'm coming to you. And I'm not just reading the Bible, but I'm listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit because you are my shepherd. And you're going to lead me and guide me. My conscience, my faith is growing. And I not only want to hear it, but I want to obey you. How do we obey? We practice. We put it into practice. And when you make a mistake, you fall down, you get back up again. And Jesus is there to brush you off. It's grace, right? We all need grace because we sin. We mess up. What is sin? It's missing the mark. What's the mark? God's word. So we do it, we try, but then we don't get up and say, well, it must not work. Then we get up and try it again and say, God, forgive me. He says, got you. But I'll tell you what God will not forgive. And somebody's going to get mad at me for this. It's okay. I got lots of people mad at me. So I might as well just add you to the list, but here's what God will not forgive. God will not forgive us willfully saying, I see what your word says, but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do my own thing. God says, I'm not, I'm not forgiving that until you repent habitual sin, which is disobedience to God. You don't just automatically get that forgiven. Don't think, don't fool yourself into imagining, you're just going to show up to heaven one day and he's just going to say, don't worry, it was all covered even though you chose to live disobediently. First, John says, if we deceive ourselves and say, I have no sin, but we have a faithful advocate before the Father who's faithful and just to forgive us when we confess our sins. Let me ask you this. Are you digging deep or are you living on the surface? I want to read this last scripture to you. This verse that I'm about to read to you has been ministering to me over the last two months. A couple of months ago, I pulled out an old Bible that I had from years ago. I normally preach from the English standard version ESV, but I pulled out an old Bible, new American standard. My pastor growing up preached other new American standards. So like, oh, I'm going to just read through this, do my Bible reading through the new American standard. And I came across this verse in Isaiah chapter 50 that translated it in a way that has just, this has been to me what the Holy Spirit has been breathing on for me personally. I'm not talking about Lee the pastor. I'm talking about Lee the disciple. And I'll just read it to you. It's Isaiah 50 verse four through five in the new American standard. It says, the Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples that I might know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to hear as a disciple. The Lord has opened my ear. And here's the key. And I was not disobedient, nor did I turn back. This has just been life to me because what I've been hearing the Holy Spirit is saying to me is Lee, the key in this hour is obedience. The key in this hour is obedience. Jesus said the one who hears my word and does them will be like the one who builds this house on the rock because he's dug down deep. You see digging down deep takes work. It goes through layers of our own opinions, digging through layers of our own deception, digging through layers of what has been ingrained into us by other voices. It's making the decision that I'm rejecting that voice and I'm not listening to that voice because Jesus is my shepherd and I'm replacing the lies with the truth and I'm making a determination. I'm going to obey you. I'm not going to resist you. Psalm 32. It says be not like a horse or a mule without understanding which must be curved with a bit in bridle or it will not stay near. I don't want my life in relationship to God to be like a mule that's just stubborn and won't come unless God puts a bit in a bridle on me to control me or else I won't come. I don't want that. Listen, I want my life as a disciple of Jesus to be like I'm coming after you Jesus. What did Jesus say? He comes to me and he hears me and he does what I say. That's a disciple and I want the ear of a disciple to hear morning by morning what the Holy Spirit is saying to me and then know how, listen, know how to sustain the weary ones with a word. Here's what I know. Listen to me. Whoever's voice you are listening to are the same words that are coming out of your mouth. You want to know whose voice you're listening to? Listen to your speech. Listen to your words. I want God's word, Jesus' voice speaking so clearly to me having found my heart to be receptive so that out of my life comes the overflow of words of encouragement that helps sustain people that are weary. How many know? We don't need lighter fluid on the flames of our nation right now. What we need are peacemakers. We need people speaking words of truth, words of life, words of destiny, words of encouragement. That's what God speaks to us and that's what I want to come out of my mouth. Wherever you're at, I just want to invite you to stand. If you're present at Portage, stand up to your feet. If you're at home, we're just going to ask you to join us in a place of prayer. Just bow your head wherever you're at, Lord Jesus. Here we are and we're saying the reason why we call you Lord, Lord is because you're the Savior and you have the words of life and we're your disciples. Lord, there are some of us that may be listening right now and my prayer is that they would hear you even through my words and today that they would make a decision to become a disciple of Jesus, to build their life on your word, to reject all other foundations as sinking sand, to build upon the rock of your word, Jesus. I'm praying Holy Spirit, you would draw us to come after you. We would make the decision to build our lives on the foundation of your word. Wherever you're at, in this room online, it doesn't matter if you're listening to me and you know you have not made the decision to become a disciple of Jesus. But you're saying, I know I need to get my life right with God and today, today is that day. I want you right now, I want to pray with you but I want you to make the decision to respond to that. If you're listening to me and you know you need to get right with God, I just want you to raise your hand and just say, pray for me today, I want to become a disciple, I want to get right with God. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All the way in the back young lady, God bless you. And online, you can just indicate that online, just say, pray for me. Somebody's online who's going to pray with you. I just want everybody, if your hand's raised or you're online or you're at portage, whatever the case might be right now, just want you to pray this prayer out loud. We're just inviting Jesus in. Say, Heavenly Father, I come in Jesus' name and I ask you, cleanse me, forgive me, save me today. Jesus, I reject the sand of this world. I'm not going to build on it anymore. Today, I'm building my life on the rock of your word. Come into my heart, be my Lord, be my Savior, be my master. Do the work of changing me from the inside out as I follow you and obey you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Come on. Can we just put our hands together tonight and praise him?