Follow Me

If I hadn't had the privilege of introducing myself to you guys. My name is Pastor Derek Hawkins, and I get the amazing privilege of serving this church as one of the pastors here. And I just love the church. Don't you love the refuge and everything that's happening here? Amen.

Well, I just want to go ahead and put it out there, man. I strongly dislike following instructions. I just want to just start with that. Let's just start right there. I'm the type of guy that if I get something that requires instructions, I just throw it to the side and I just do the eyeball test of just saying, hey, I can eyeball it.

And I'm sure, okay, I'm not the only one in the room, so don't make me look like I'm the only one in the room. We all do the same thing. Eyeball test. I think this goes with this and this, and it's all messed up. It falls apart in three months.

But I try. Hey, I'm just letting you know, I strongly dislike things that take me a long time to figure out how to complete. So I'm really good at hiring somebody else to do it. I love just hiring somebody else. Hey, can you come do it?

Because I cannot. Don't want to. I had a message that I felt like the Lord was stirring my heart to speak into it. And I was on my way to a prayer service over the weekend, and I just heard the Holy Spirit whisper to me, I want you to teach my people about following me. And following is not easy in our culture.

If I've learned anything personally through all of my years of following the Lord, is this one thing. He never leads you in. What? He is unwilling to walk in first.

Never. So my word of encouragement to you is there's a few things the Lord just tell you. You're not alone. You're not forsaken. You're not forgotten.

But in a society that's so consumed with following trends and cultural norms, Jesus still desires followers who are fully submitted to his leading. It is this call that the Lord that draws us from the conference of the shore to the depths of the sea. It's an adventure filled with mystery. Following Jesus has been a mystery for me. It's also been full of hardship.

If I can be honest, falling on the Lord has been full of some hardships that I could have never expected in my own life or my own walk. It's also been falling full of pain and exhilaration. And my favorite part, intimacy with the Father has come from me. Just following the Lord Jesus faithfully. I read the scripture in Psalms 23, and to be honest, I've always read Psalms 23 from being the person who's just going through it.

So I'm gonna read it with you, and I'm gonna read it through the lenses of how I typically read the Scripture. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Nothing that I wanna do.

And he leads me beside the still waters. I don't want to go. He restores my soul. I want that. He leads me in the path of righteousness for his namesake.

I think I'm okay with that. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I don't want death. I will feel no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff. I do not want that. But it's comfort.

I know it. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. I definitely love that because I get to gloat in front of my enemies. Finally, after all the process that I've been through. Maybe I'm just talking to me, but this is where I'm at.

You prepare a table. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

For years, I have read this verse without looking to the shepherd.

For years I've looked at this verse, all about what I was going through, all about what I had to do, all about my inability to want to lay down or forsake my comfort or go through storms or struggle. But I never saw that the shepherd had already gone before me. It was never a place that I was walking with. With the Lord that he hadn't already gone before me. Wow.

Now read it again through the lenses of the Father walking with us. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me. To be led.

Means that you're walking behind someone that's leading you. You're not walking alone. But so many times we can use. We can be so emotional in our walks with God that we only see what we want to see. And this is where the spirit, the enemy, will come and say, well, you're by yourself.

Nobody understands. No, you have a shepherd that's leading you. I wanna lift up a few things that I believe that the Lord is calling me to. This is a personal thing. If you get something from it, I hope you do.

But this is just where I'VE been in my walk with the Lord. The Lord has been leading me into places that I really don't wanna go. Like trials, like hardship, like having to endure as a good soldier. I don't wanna do that. I mean, I have to, but I don't.

It's not something that naturally easily. Maybe it's for you and you're a better Christian than me today. I'm so sorry. It's not easy for me to lie down. It's not easy for me to be led in places that I don't wanna go or to do things that I really don't wanna do.

I have to do because of my walk with Jesus. Here's what he says in Matthew 16:24. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me. Here's what he says the following. It says, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Following the Lord, picking up the cross is the call to a life. That's a life of self denial. It's a life of self denial. It's not about us. It's a life of private death to our flesh.

It's also a call to live a life in obscurity. I'm telling you while we're in process. Nobody sees the process that you're going through. Nobody sees the tears that you're crying. Nobody sees the pain that you have to endure.

You're showing up, but you're in pain. It's the season of obscurity. And when we sign up to carry our cross, we're signing up for seasons of obscurity. It's like God, I need to embrace the challenge. I also have to learn in my seasons of self denial.

Picking up my cross that there are gonna be seasons in my walk that I'm gonna be misunderstood. Right? And here's the job for us. We want to defend what people? Our reputation in the eyes of people.

That's the flesh side of us. We don't want to die to parts of ourselves. That saying, God, hey, listen, I'm doing something. I know it's a lot, but I'm going to redeem you. Right?

We want to fight our own battles. Maybe this is just me. You've never been there a time or two yourself when you've been misunderstood. But here's the thing. If we follow God, if we follow his leading, he takes us to a place where revelation, in the presence of God, he gives us revelation.

Gives us revelation. He also makes us self aware of the things on the inside of us that we need to work On. And then he deals with our abandonment, our insecurity, our loneliness. He deals with that as we follow him. Here's what following God means.

That we have to choose obedience, submission over comfort and preference.

When we sign up to follow God, we don't get directions. I don't know. We don't get details in our logical minds. First thoughts are, if you're like me, hey, where are we going? Right?

We ask the question. Then second part, if you're riding with kids like we ride, how long? When are we gonna get there? And in our minds, we treat our walk with Christ like car rides with our young kids. You know, we wanna know.

Hey, how long is it gonna take? Hey, you do know I'm back here, right? You do know I'm in the backseat. And we don't trust the one who's engineered our destiny.

We were very much so put our trust in our own ability to take us there in a place that we don't even know how to go. We don't even know how to get there. We don't even know what to do once we get to destiny. And then what is where?

What is the actual destination for the believer, right? What are we preparing ourselves for? So we have to go through these seasons of learning and unlearning discipline, dying to ourselves to not do anything but to be in intimacy and relationship with the Father, to commune with God, to have him speak to us if we speak to him and he talk back to being a relationship with Jesus is what God is asking us to do as we follow him. Marvar Hughes says this. It was a powerful statement.

I heard him say. He says this, my spiritual hunger draws me to God, but my surrendered brokenness draws God to me.

So the first thing we have to do is pick up our cross. Jesus told his disciples, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. This picture that Jesus used was. The disciples knew what Jesus was referring to. Because the crucifixion was a common practice of Roman execution.

Condemned criminals had to carry their cross through the streets to the site of where the execution would take place. And Jesus was asking the disciples for what? Our culture doesn't know how to give one word commitment.

They don't know how to commit commitment. That would eventually lead to 10 out of the 12 disciples being martyred. There was no possibility for the disciples to turn back. There was. Even Peter's denial wasn't going to be an option because he made a commitment to faith.

Follow Jesus. And even some of you, right now, in your walks with God, you made a commitment. And even everything in your flesh wants to turn away from every commitment that you made to God. But there's something innately on the inside of you that will not let you turn back. There's something that keeps drawing you and pulling you and pushing you and leading you and taking you and speaking to you when you don't want to be spoken to.

It calls you to a radical life of obedience and trust and faith in God that you don't even want to do. But there's something on the inside of you that keeps pulling you to closeness and proximity with Jesus. It is your commitment. And your commitment is greater than your trials. Your commitment is greater than your disappointment.

It's greater than your boss. It's greater than your family member. It's greater than every single situation that you've been in is greater than the divorce or what you're walking through. Your commitment to Jesus is the thing that's literally holding you to him. See, discipleship is a real commitment to follow Christ no matter what the cost, no matter what it costs.

John 12:26 says, if anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my servant be also. And if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. The second thing that I really want to talk about, and I'm not going to be long winded tonight, so get ready. We're going to pray.

Abandoning our nets. We love comfort. I don't know about you, I like comfort. And comfort for the disciples were their nets. So in Matthew 4:18, he's telling them something they had been accustomed to doing for years.

They were professional fishermen. They made their living by catching fish. So he's challenging them to do something that they had never done before. Listen, imagine, hey, I've been toiling all night trying to catch fish. And Jesus, you come on the boat and just tell me to do one thing different than I've been doing all night.

And I'm like, okay, God, now I've been fishing all night. Like, I know how to fish. I know you can't tell me, Jesus, how to fish. I know how to fish. And in fact, I've been fishing all night in the same place.

But you're asking me to throw it on a different side. Hold on. I need to get this revelation. I'm not really clear you're playing games with me. I mean, what is going to be different?

The difference is us following an instruction that the Lord gives us that makes the difference.

And sometimes God's instruction is greater than our skill. It's greater than our ability. It's greater than everything that we know. And knowledge is greater than everything that we've even seen God do before. And some of us are comparing how God moved in previous seasons to our current season because we don't see it.

And God is just asking you to do. Make one simple tweak. Follow what I'm asking you to do. Cast your net to the opposite side. Like, well, that's easy.

It wasn't easy logically in their brains to do something that they had been taught and accustomed to doing something. Watch this. That they had seen work day after day. Cast it to the other side. The comfort of the disciples was with their nets.

It represented their means of living. And some of us. The Lord is challenging you. Hey, I need you to throw your net to the other side. I need you to not fast the way that you've been fasting for 20 years.

I need you to change up the way that you get up early in the morning. Maybe I want you to read your Bible late at night this time. Maybe the revelation that I want to get is not going to be early in the morning. This might seem strange to somebody that God is saying, no, I don't want you to fast like you've traditionally done for 20 plus years. I know that worked for every season of your life.

But this season I want to do something different. Are you willing to trust what's worked before that's not working now?

Jesus is inviting you to abandon your comfort. Luke, chapter 5, verses 4 through 6. He says when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered, master, toilet all night, but at your word. Here's the shift.

This is when the change comes. This is where transformation comes at the word of the Lord.

It's not by our own abilities, it's not by our own skills. It's not about what we mastered. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking not because they did something that they hadn't done every day, but they were actually doing and obeying the voice of God. Following God means that we have to trust his voice to lead us even in areas that we think we've mastered.

Man, I've been praying a very, very long time. And there have been seasons of my life where I felt like I don't need to be taught how to pray. You know, I know how to pray. But God wasn't after prayer. He was after intimacy and that I needed to be taught.

He wasn't after my request. He was trying to give me revelation, and it required me spending time with God. Maybe this is not helping you. Maybe you're not there. Maybe the season that you're in, you've been catching everything.

But I don't know about you. We've been in seasons where the way that we've been doing it worked. It's not working anymore. And either we can become frustrated at what we see, or we can trust his voice when he leads us to do something different outside of the norm of what we've ever experienced. Man, God wants our nets to break, but we have to trust his voice and what he's leading us to do.

Disciples had to be willing to change the method.

It's not working anymore. It's not. And the hardest thing for us to realize or even accept is our way is no longer right. I like being right. I'm telling you.

When Shonda comes and tells me and she's right about something, it's so hard for me to swallow it. I'm like, ooh, Jesus. She was right. And so then what I do is, hey, baby, I love you. That's the sign, the universal sign.

I was wrong, but I didn't want to say it. It's a lot about our walks with God. We've been wrong, and we don't want to say it. We've approached him wrong, and we don't want to say it. We've approached people wrong, and we don't want to say it.

We don't want to admit it. God was like. You want to see breakthrough in your family? Change the method in which you've been going about it. You want to see healing and deliverance in your body.

Change your eating habits.

You've been changing. Change what you watch on tv. Change what you consume. Change your method to get breakthrough. It says, well, we've fasted this way.

We've done it this way for all of this time. Change your methods. Luke, chapter 9, verses 57 through 62 says this. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests.

But the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head to another. He said, follow me. But he said, lord, let me first go and bury my Father. And Jesus said to him, leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God yet another.

I will follow you, Lord. But Let me first the day. Give me a day of farewell to those at my home. And here's what we're doing. We're making excuses for not abandoning what God told us to.

To wholly follow Jesus. And your excuse might not feel like an excuse. Well, I'm tired. My kid has a game. You know, God's not telling me to get up early in the morning to pray.

He's not actually. You know, he understands there are some things that you have to abandon to get what you're asking for. A.W. tozer makes this statement. He says, if I am to wholly follow the Lord Jesus Christ, I must forsake everything that is contrary to him, Everything that is contrary to the Lord.

For me to wholly obey him, for me to wholly follow the Lord Jesus Christ, for him to see the plan. For me to see the plan of God unfold in my life. Anything that is contrary to him has to go. Whether it's a relationship, whether it's friendships, whether it's things that I know that I need to get rid of that are toxic to my relationship with Jesus. I must abandon them.

To wholly follow after the Lord Jesus. What are you not willing to give up to get more of God?

What is the thing that God is saying that's a struggle? That you don't call a struggle. That's like, are you willing to give it up? For me, it was Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Thank you, Lord.

Woo Jesus. The revelation of when the hot now sun came on, my spirit would just woo Jesus. I couldn't ride by. And so I was like, lord, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna ride by today.

And the sign wasn't on. I was good. But when the sign was on, I failed the test every single time. But I am delivered in Jesus name, at least for this month. Amen.

Well, you're like, well, Pastor Derek, it's donuts. It's just donuts. It's not just donuts if it's an instruction.

Listen, I love pork. I love everything on the pork. Pork chop, pork ribs, bacon, sausage. I love everything. And when the Lord told me stop eating pork, I was like, oh, no, no, no, not today.

No. There's no way I'm gonna stop eating pork. And the Lord told me this. It was a revelation for me. I went on a whole year fast, stopped eating fried foods.

I used to do all kind of crazy stuff. Whatever the Lord told me to do, I would do it. But this whole pork thing was like, mm, mm. We put pork in everything in the African American household, collard greens, pinto beans. Pork's going in everything.

Pork fat in everything. Neck bones, everything. I'm like, how am I gonna eat glory? Pork is everywhere. And the Lord said, there's something important that does not align with your family's blood.

And he says, it's a matter of life or death for you not to eat pork. And I never went back. Well, he said, well, Pastor Derek, that's. It's not. Eating pork is not a sin, but it was an instruction that the Lord gave me to preserve my life.

This is how carefully and closely we have to walk with Jesus saying, what is God? Here's the I feel the Holy Spirit. What is the Lord telling you to give up that you've been ignoring? What has he been telling you, Man, I need to cut back on this. You know, I'm gonna drink one more soda.

And there's two more, three more, four more, five more, six pack, done. What is it God is saying that it is that serious to the Lord. That is contrary to us following God. Cause us, as Christians who've been saved a long time, we don't struggle with some of the big sins. Right.

We feel like disobedience, just partially obeying God is still not disobedience. And so what I'm challenging you guys on is, as you're going deeper in your walk with God, there's some things that God has been speaking to you that. That doesn't look like traditional sins that God is telling you to give up. Right? It's not the big church sins that we throw out.

Right. But it's still sin nevertheless, if God gives you a word that you don't obey. And the Holy Spirit tonight is pressing on some of us tonight. Communication, relationships. I'm in a wedding this weekend, and they wanted us to fly in on a Thursday.

And not all of the wedding party is saved or delivered. Both of them.

So they said, hey, man, we want you to come in. Pastor Derek on Thursday night, hang out with us. And I'm like, holy Spirit said, oh, no, you won't.

So I sent all my money in, and I'm like, hey, hey. I just want to let you know, I'm not going to come in Thursday night. Coming in Friday, it's like, oh, man, you gonna miss all the fun. I said, no, I'm not. I have a standard.

You're not gonna get a picture of me on the party bus. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have too much integrity that some people. This is how serious it is to the Lord, that the things that we think that are not serious.

I can see myself being around somebody in public. And I might not be the person that's partaking, but I'm associated with the person that it is. I cannot ill afford to let my good be evil spoken of because of the influence that I carry. So what might be acceptable for you is not acceptable to me because I'm following Jesus.

That's how serious it is.

That's how serious it is. And you can call it, hey, man, you're just holier than thou. Call it what you want.

I'm just gonna call it obedience. And whatever you think about me, if you take me out of the wedding party, it's okay. Cause my standard is to please the Lord.

See, here's the thing about compromise. It just doesn't show up. It's little compromises in our daily lives that lead to big compromises. And the Lord is after every single little door that you've left open, a little leaven leavens the entire loaf. You're saying, well, it's not that serious.

It is. It's seriousness Over a period of time when sin is full grown, it leads to death. How do you know where you are in sin? How do you know how to measure it? How do you know if this time will be the last time that leads you going back to a place that you cannot come back from?

I don't know who this is for tonight, but I feel prophetically from the Lord. There are some people in here that are toying back and forth with decisions that the Lord has called you to purity and holiness. And this is a warning for you. You cannot afford to play with what God is calling you out of.

I feel it. I feel it strongly from the Lord. When I started following Jesus. None of this is on my notes. I'm just gonna flow.

I grew up from a Baptist church. I love Baptist. If you're Baptist here, amen. Hallelujah. But I grew up in a Baptist church, Troy.

That the deacon smoked in the parking lot. Amen. Tell somebody, talk to us. Amen. We had fried chicken in the basement.

You could smell it when the pastor was preaching. It'll make you go down and steal a piece right there. I remember it. So it wasn't a call to, like sanctification and holiness in the Baptist church. You song, you drunk after.

You know, that's what I saw. So I would see early on in my household, people would go to church and then they would party, like in the weekend. It was just acceptable and normal. So when I went to college. I had this encounter with the Lord on my college campus.

And the Lord, no preacher told me about purity. I didn't hear it in the sermons. The Holy Spirit convicted me. He convicted me and told me, hey, the way that I was living was contrary to what he was calling me to. And I started going back and telling my friends on the college campus, hey, man, I know I just partied with you last night, but I had a dream and the Lord told me, I can't party with you tonight.

And they would look at me like, are you okay? We were just partying. I said, I know what happened last night, but the Lord came to me tonight and I cannot ever party with you again. And the problem was they actually saw the fruit in my life of what God was calling me to when I didn't have godly examples in the environment to show me. The Holy Spirit himself was my teacher.

And so some of your excuses. Well, I never saw it. No. We have a new teacher, Jesus. The Holy Spirit can teach you how to live a life that pleases God.

Well, nobody sees me, but God does.

God sees it. This is what God is saying. Third thing. And I'm done. We have to develop the characteristics of Christ.

It's amazing why I'm teaching. The guy from the wedding party is calling me now. Unless you know it's the Spirit of God. Thank you, Jesus.

Matthew 11:28 30 says, Come to me, all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This scripture was prefaced in an actual yoke that they would place on oxen. And Jesus was using this same analogy that we might be yoked and submitted to Christ to follow after God's will for our lives.

In Matthew 16:24, in a different version of the Scripture, it says, then Jesus says to his disciples, if any one of you wants to be my followers, you must turn away from. Watch this. Your selfish ways. Take up your cross and follow me. See, true followers of Christ are not selfish.

They are servants. True followers of Christ are not unteachable. They're teachable.

True servants of Christ operate in humility, and they allow God to have full control in their lives. According to 1 Corinthians 11. And 1 Paul says this. He says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. We as disciples and followers of Jesus Christ, we have to imitate Christ.

And I've been thinking about this a lot in my own personal walk and what the Lord has been leading me to do. And the Lord has been saying to me, just in my own personal life, of abandonment and I'm not perfect. Listen, I'm really pressing every day to get closer to Jesus, but I do know there's a bunch of people watching me. There's a bunch of people watching you.

Your family is watching you. Your kids are watching you. They're observing conversations that you're having inside of your home. They're sponges, they're listening. It's amazing.

I have my grandson, I have a two year old grandson. And we were playing the other day and I hit my leg and he hit his leg.

I said, oh man. He said, oh man.

Everything I'd done, he was like, he just kept doing it. And the Lord said, he's imitating you. He's watching every single thing that you do.

So we noticed, with all due respect, he would go to another side of the family's house and he would come home and he would say words that he was not accustomed to hearing in the house. And I say, xander, where'd you get that word from? So and so said it. I said, hey, Xander, you know we don't use those words in our house. And so he would just keep saying, I'd say, hey, you can't say that.

He would then slip up again and he's like, oh, I'm sorry. He recognized his wrong. But because he heard it, he had to recondition himself to unhear what he had learned, to unlearn what he had heard. And so now I keep him in a culture, in an environment where we're constantly teaching him, same way with our relationship with Jesus, that we are in environments, that we're learning the word of God and we are regurgitating in atmosphere is what we hear. So if it's negative, you're going to regurgitate that.

And the byproduct of your atmosphere is going to be a negative environment. Come on, this is the truth. And so you can't expect your children to be a product of a healthy atmosphere that you don't demonstrate.

And that's why Jesus and Paul can teach. Follow me as I follow Christ. Follow my example. Here's the question. Are you an example for people to follow?

Not just publicly, I'm talking about privately. Because I had to ask myself the question, is there anything that my grandson is repeating that he's heard me say, check myself in that area of my life and some of us are not seeing the fruit in people's lives is because they saw our witness and our witness did not align to our profession.

I want to challenge you guys. You're saying, I tell people often, I was talking to rds, sometimes we can hear conversation and we say, well, you know, I could say a whole bunch, but I won't say anything. You just said a whole bunch. Does that make sense? You just.

Regardless if you understood or not, you said a mouthful. Well, I could speak on it, but I just, you know, I don't. They've already interpreted your feelings towards a person. You're like, well, Pastor Derek, I didn't really say no, you did. They know you.

They know how you feel. And now you just shape their reality by the unsaid. I want to challenge us tonight. This is a strong word. The Lord is asking us to follow him.

Follow him into the deep of discipleship. Follow him into knowing Jesus in a way that we've never known God before. Because until we follow him, we can never become like him.

We'll become like culture. And this is why we're so enamored by following.

We gotta become followers. Jesus into the deep self denial, denying of yourself, denial of your emotions, denial of your fear. Casting all of your cares upon Jesus, taking upon his yoke, learning. The disciples had to be willing to learn of Jesus.

They had to be willing to walk in the spirit of humility, not self servant. God is calling us to that same reality. I want to pray over you tonight. I don't know where you are. I don't know where I was.

God is calling me. This word is not first to you, it's first to me. There's still some areas of your life that you need to follow me in. And we want to become disciples. I know I do.

At least I want to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. I want to be one that's worthy to be followed.

I want to be one that you can look at me and say, no, he actually lives what he says. How many of us have grew up in cultures that we follow people that did not live what they said, right? So I don't want to be a stumbling block for anybody. Not my family, not my wife. I don't want to be a person that opens the opportunity for compromise.

Because it is the unseen that's always seen. There's nothing under the eyes of the Lord that's not seen. And I want to ask you this question tonight. Some of you are here like man, I've Been in spaces where I preached and didn't spend time in the presence of God. But I was constantly giving people words and was not fulfilled in my own spirit that I was leading people off of the residue of previous seasons that I spent with the Lord.

We don't want to talk about that. It's not anything that I'm proud of, but I've done it. So God doesn't want us to lead in the season off of old residue, previous encounters that we had. Well, man, 20 years ago, I prayed all night long. I'm like, wow, that's 20 years ago.

You still. That was great. I'm sure it got you to where you are. But what about today?

What is the Lord saying about your today? Well, I started out the beginning of the year reading scripture every day. That was six months ago. What about today? Maybe that's not your challenge.

Maybe you're struggling with self denial. Maybe you heard the quotes that I quoted about holy falling after Jesus. And in a culture that is so hard to follow out the trends, sometimes we can search to find Jesus in everything. I want to challenge you. What has the Lord been speaking to you?

Maybe it's to give up something that you really don't want to give up. Maybe it's a challenge to do some things that you typically wouldn't do or go some places that you typically wouldn't go. Maybe it's to have a conversation with the Lord. I'll share this as I'll pray for you as I'll close. I was on a family retreat with my family.

It's something that we do every year. We've been doing this since 2018. And I take my family away for an intentional five days that we just get before the Lord. I pray and ask God to give us a word for our family. Every morning we get up, we have devotionals, we have a time of eating and fellowship together and we just rest.

Well, one of the days on the trip, the Lord began to speak to me about an unresolved issue that I had with my grandfather came to me in a dream and says, hey. He actually told me this. I never publicly said this. He actually told me that my grandmother had a short amount of time to live and I hadn't been to my grandmother's house probably about a year. And I told her, I said, hey, as long as he's alive, I'll never step foot back in your house, so I don't have to worry about it.

I wasn't proud of it. I talked to her. I was sending anything That I could. The Lord came to me in the dream and told me. He says, hey, your grandmother doesn't have much time left.

I need you to call your grandfather and have a conversation. I promise you. I picked up the phone the next day. I'm trembling, I'm weeping, I'm weeping. I'm just following the voice of the Lord.

I'm trembling the whole time. I'm calling him, say, hey. I didn't actually speak to my grandmother. I asked to speak to him. I said, hey, is it okay if I come by your house?

He picked up the phone like nothing ever occurred. Like, man, this is weird. You know, I go to the house, I'm extremely uncomfortable. I'm extremely uncomfortable. I'm sitting there.

And we actually had the conversation. We sat down talking. I said, hey, man, I just want to know if it's okay for me to start coming back to the house, seeing my grandma. He said this. He said this to me.

I never told you you couldn't come. I said, whoa, all right, all right. Literally the next week, my grandmother's health started declining. Literally the next week. And my uncle called me and I was still going back and forth, but what wasn't there, like I used to be?

He said, hey, Derek, man, I need a favor. I need some help. Mom's self is declining. Do you mind helping us? From that day forward, she had to have 24 hour care.

A week after the Lord came to me in a dream, asked me to reconcile with my grandfather, my grandmother's health started declining. His health started to decline. And the things that he used to do for my grandmother, he could no longer do. And so we had to. And his humility towards me changed as his health declined.

True story. My grandmother goes on. I stay with her all the way to the end, all the way through hospice. I'm making the final decisions. He's allowing me to make the final decisions.

He asked me to preach a eulogy. He lets me make the final decisions for her burial. I'm doing all of these things. This, that, and the third funeral's over, Grandmother's done. And I'm saying to my mind, this is just truthful.

I don't have to deal with that anymore. And the Lord says, oh, yes, you do.

So I started doing it. I'm following the Lord. I'm following the voice of the Lord. His health starts to decline. He's in a nursing home now.

I have to go and check on him every week now. He's given me access to take care of all of his business. The one that was rejected. And in a dream, the Lord came to me. I don't know who this is for, but I feel like the Lord is speaking to you about reconciliation, following the voice of the Lord in places and seasons of your life where you feel like, no, I don't have to forgive them.

They don't even deserve forgiveness. To be honest, I was justified to feel the way that I felt. What he did was wrong. But the Lord said, I called you to a higher standard, and I just want to challenge you. I feel the Holy Spirit in this moment that the Lord is challenging you.

My grandfather's always been a big guy. I could pick him up with one arm now.

And I'm not serving because I have to. I'm serving because I get to. And God has changed my heart in this process. And it's all because I've been wholly following after Jesus holy, trying to become like him. So a few weeks ago.

I'm in here. This is the last part of the testimony. I'm in here. I shared this in a staff meeting with the team because I never heard my grandfather say it. A young lady that sits on the side of the church sees me.

I've seen her a few times. I'm in the end of the altar call. I go and walk away. She said, hey, I'm at the nursing home where your grandfather is. He told me to tell you something.

He says, can you tell my grandson I'm proud of him?

Something that I never heard him say.

You don't know what your yes to full surrender and obedience to Jesus will mean to somebody else. Some of us are harboring things in our heart, and sometimes reconciliation will not come the way that you think it will. Sometimes it's not about you. I'm forgiving people, and they die the next week. It's not about you.

Sometimes it's about them. Sometimes it's about God. Will you follow me in the things that are not comfortable? Will you trust me in the places and spaces of your life that don't make sense? And I want to challenge you guys tonight.

I want to pray for you. If that's the call and response on your life tonight that God is asking you to follow him and to abandon your discomfort. Like the disciples, they were used to casting their nets one way. They were used to doing things that they had been. They had mastered their ability.

But God said, I know, but I want to give you another skill set. I want to teach you to become fishermen of men. It's going to take a different method. So Father, in the name of Jesus, I'm asking for those individuals right now in this place that you've been calling them to wholly follow after you. God, that they would say yes in the secret place to the things that you've been speaking to them, that they're even scared to verbalize because they would have to commit to it.

God, I pray in the name of Jesus that you would just overshadow them with your presence tonight. God, I pray in the name of Jesus that your glory would come in a way tonight, that you would speak to your people, that you would challenge us with the spirit of conviction and even repentance in areas of our lives, God, that we have not represented you properly. God. Even grudges or things that we've held in our hearts. Unforgiveness.

God, we're about to go into a series this week. God. Even things that we've held in our hearts, Jesus, that we've allowed to become a stumbling block from us seeing you and seeing your people properly. God, even for the one that's holding grudges towards people. That and even things that we say we're justified in what we feel.

No, God, but God, we have to pick up our own cross, Jesus. We have to live a life of self denial. In the name of Jesus, you're calling us to a life of radical obedience and faith off of the shores of our comfort into the sea. God. God, will you please, Jesus, hear our cry?

Forgive us, Lord, if we've done things that are contrary to your will. Forgive us, Lord, if we have animosity or hatred in our heart. Forgive us, Lord. God, if we're not servants, God, to the people who even we feel that have hurted us or wounded us, Lord, and we would be justified by the way that we think. God.

No, we have to turn the other cheek. And God, there are some Caesars that are harder than others. God, I pray that you would give us the grace, Lord, that you would give us the grace to exemplify Christ, even when we are attacked. God, I feel that for someone whose character has been attacked even this week, specifically more over the past two weeks, there's been an attack on your character in a way that you thought that this part of the season should be over, that that storm was subsiding, but it feels like it's raging even more. Here's the thing.

I hear the Lord saying, find comfort in me. Find comfort in me that I have you covered for those who feel like the Lord is calling them to a deeper purpose outside of your comfort zone to a life of obedience that you've never experienced before in the Lord. For those God who feel God, the call to get up early in the morning for prayer or go on a Bible reading plan or to cut something out of their diet, whatever you're calling them to, to follow you, Jesus, help them to follow you. Holy without distraction. God, without distraction.

And God, I pray tonight that we would encounter your presence. Come, Holy Spirit, in this room. Jesus. Hallelujah. Come Holy Spirit, in this room until you make us more like you.

Till we become imitators of Christ. Till we become learned in the areas that we need to grow up in. Till we become spiritually mature in areas of our immaturity. God, please bridle our tongues, Jesus, the things that we could say, don't allow it. Don't even allow it to be a thought in our minds.

God. We demolish every single argument that exalts itself against the knowledge and the power of who Jesus is, Lord. We cast down every single vain imagination, Lord. And we know that the enemy is wreaking havoc on the minds of your people, Lord. And we just pray the shalom of God over every single soul in this room that you would teach us how to be followers after the presence of Jesus Christ.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Guys, thank you so much for coming out tonight. And I just want to challenge you if it's a word that God is speaking or maybe something that the Lord is challenging you with that might seem out of your comfort to disobey God. And I promise he will exceed your expectations. Love you guys. Have a great night.