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Welcome to the Crazy Love Podcast. Sometimes the greatest obstacle to obedience isn't fear, it's overthinking. In this classic teaching, Francis reminds us that God isn't waiting for perfect plans or perfect people. He's looking for men and women who trust him enough to take the next step. Last week a friend told me about this guy. And you're not gonna believe this story, okay, but so let me just tell you, right? Cause I didn't believe when he told me. I had to look it up on the Internet and so research it, everything else. Cause this was so far fetched, but it's true, okay? I was at my friend's birthday party, he's turning 35. And he tells me about this other guy. He goes, you ever hear this guy named Dean? Carnazes on his 30th birthday, this guy Dean gets totally drunk. Okay, that's not hard to believe. Absolutely wasted. Just, you know, he's pounding the beers, then he starts taking shots of tequila. And then he's just like on the verge of vomiting. This bar is right by his house, few blocks away. So he stumbles back to his house, he sits down on the porch, just trying to keep himself from vomiting, just totally sick. Thinks about his life and he's like, man, look at me. I'm 30 years old. I'm working this eight to five corporate job. Is this all I wanted out of life? I'm totally wasted on and on and on, just sitting there thinking what is my life all about? And just felt like I gotta do something, I gotta make a change. Mind you, it's about 1am right now. He takes all of his clothes off except for his underwear. Keeps his underwear on and puts on his tennis shoes and, and just decides, I'm just gonna run, okay? I'm gonna do something. I'm just gonna. He hadn't run in 15 years. He just had this crazy idea, I'm 30 years old, I just feel like running. It's one in the morning, doesn't matter, I just feel like running. He starts running and running and running. He finally gets to the point where he's ready to collapse. So he calls his wife to pick him up. He had run 30 miles. 30 miles. It was the next morning, the guy had run 30 miles. His wife comes, picks him up. He collapses in the car. And then when he wakes up, he thinks, I think I have a gift. I think, I think I have this amazing ability to run. So he begins running. In fact, most recently, he ran 50 marathons in 50 days. He just accomplished 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 different states, okay? This guy lives in San Francisco and he started there, ran a marathon, jumped to another state, ran a marathon every day for 50 days. At the end of the 50 days, he ended up in New York and ran a marathon in New York. And then he thinks to himself, I still feel pretty good. So he runs home from New York, okay? And this guy, I mean, you can read about him in these runner magazines. He entered this. They have this 199mile relay race where you take 12 people and you run the 199 miles. He figured, I don't need a team. So he runs it by himself. And he's run that race six times now. His record for the most mile, he has a world record for running consecutive miles. He ran without stopping 350 miles. It took him, he went three days without sleep to keep running 350 miles. This guy, what he does is he has a cell phone with him and he'll call and order a pizza, seriously, no lie. And he'll ask him, don't cut it, don't cut it. Just, just. And Hawaiian's his favorite. And then just meet me at this corner. He'll get the pizza paper and just keep running and eat a whole large pizza because he's got to keep eating. And it'll have donuts, whatever. I mean, you can eat anything if you're gonna run 350 miles. It's just the craziest thought. But I love that story because I don't know if the guy's a Christian. I don't know a whole lot about him. I know he can run. And I was just reading up on this guy. Just nuts. But I love the fact that this guy just was tired of his life and said, I'm just gonna try something. I'm just gonna run. I'm just gonna throw my shoes on and I'm just gonna start running. Maybe I'll try running. And he just went and did something. And the thing I love about the story is that is so different from what we do in church. It is so different, completely different from what Christians do. See, so often. We'll feel a conviction, we'll feel a burden, we'll hear a message and we'll leave here so convicted. But rather than just throwing our shoes on and trying something, we'll sit and we'll talk about it. We'll sit and we'll think about it and we'll discuss. Yeah, that was a good message. Yeah, I think that was good. Or no, I don't think that was real good. I'm gonna email him. I mean, that's what we do. We sit and we evaluate and we think and we think and we think until eventually the conviction goes away, right? And we forget about it. We turn on the TV and suddenly your mind is in a whole different world and you forget the sermon. You sit in a movie theater for two hours and you're consumed by some crazy plot and suddenly you forget about it. I mean, life just happens, right? You go home, you're gonna go home today and something crazy is gonna happen and you're just gonna forget the message and you move on. Man, how often do we as believers just do something, anything, just because there's this restlessness of I've just heard something, I'm convicted by it, I need to just go out and do something. I mean, for example, Joshua Walker last weekend gave a great message. I was listening to it on the podcast and I'm wow, what a great message. Then in the back of my head I thought, but what's anyone gonna actually do? I mean, he talked about individualism and how anti biblical that is and how we're supposed to be like this family and how God always wanted a people, you know, where we actually care and we display that to the world. But what did we do about that? He talked about materialism and that whole consumer mentality and that consumer pornography that we have in the house. And yet what did we do about it? Did anyone just go, you know what, okay, I'm so convicted, I'm just going to do something? Or did we just talk about it and think about it and sit there and try to figure out God's will? And I don't know what his will is. I think I'll just do nothing. See, sometimes we get paralyzed by this whole idea of the will of God. Like, what is his perfect will? Rather than like Mike just go, well, I just gotta do something. Let me try, let me just go down this road. Maybe I'll go down this road, maybe I'll go down that road. And let me just see, let me try something. Let me just throw my shoes on and see. Because the reality is, as you pursue God, there may come a time when you realize, wow, I've got a gift. I've got this untapped potential. See, the whole goal is that at some point we go, wow, I had no idea. I see Johnny Carl's there who's visiting from Colorado. Remember little Johnny? And Johnny? I just remember a few years ago, he goes, man, let's just do something. Let's just film something. Let's just make a little DVD or something that we give to everyone in the world, you know, let's give them to everyone in Simi Valley. Let's just get the gospel. Everyone in Simi Valley. And we just sat and we brought some people into his house and we just sat there brainstorming. What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? Because he's just like, I'm just restless. And we came up with all these ideas. I go, no, why don't we give a message about the cross? Why don't we just, you know, I just want to explain the cross in a setting that's not in church. And this whole idea of going to the beach and, you know, and just filming something. And then we created this Stop and Think DVD that we were able to pass out to everyone in Simi Valley. And now about a million people have seen it, you know, have heard the message of the cross. And now most recently, this website asked, the American Family association asked if they could put it on their website. That gets 115,000 hits a day. A day, you know, and just this whole thought people in. Was it Scotland that asked, hey, can we put just stop and Think billboards up in Scotland and just have people watch it? You know? And as it's been translated into Farsi and everything else, we're going, wow, look at this thing. Why all. Because, you know, one guy just sat and goes, let's just try something. I don't know if it's gonna work. I don't know if it's gonna take off and change the world or. It may just be for a few people, but we gotta do something. We have to try something. I want you at a point in your life where you just go, you know what, let me just give it a shot. Or do you want to just go home today and go, eh, that was good. That was good. Nah, it wasn't. I didn't like this one point. I'm going to email him. I mean, that's just what we do. I mean, what are we doing with the messages? I preached two weeks ago. You remember my message two weeks ago? Some people said that was the best message I've ever given. And what have we done since then? I mean, seriously, what have you done? I mean, you look and you go, okay, yeah, that is kind of convicting. I do. I'm so into this milk and I just want to be fed and fed and fed and fed and fed. But what did you do? Did you go home and say, you know what? It is about time that I walk in my own two feet. It is about time that I go and I take a step of faith and do something, try something. You guys, God has been teaching me so much about this because I believe the worst thing we can do after a message is just sit and try to figure out God's will. And try to figure it out long enough until we lose our conviction. Cause, I mean, think about it. Think about the parable of the talents. You remember the parable of the talents where the master gives his servants. You know, he gives one a certain amount of money, another a certain amount of money, another certain amount. First guy doubles his money, second guy doubles his money. The third guy decides to bury his gift in the sand because he doesn't want to lose it. And what happens when the master comes back? He looks at that third guy and, you wicked, lazy servant, you didn't do anything. I've given you this. And you just kind of went on with life as though it didn't exist. You just buried it and then gave it back to me at the end. He calls him wicked and lazy. See, I really believe it would have been better for that guy if he tried to invest what he was given and he lost it all. He goes, man, I gave it my best shot and I lost it all. See, that would have been better than burying it in the sand. At least he tried. Guys, God has so been convicting me about this. And it's not just convicting, but freeing me up to this. If you have your Bibles, turn to Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10, and we'll get back to Colossians next week. I just. I had to, man, this is stuff that God's been teaching me this last week, and I just had to share it this week. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 32. He says this. Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution. Other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. Let's look at that. The writer of Hebrews says, hey, remember those early days? Do you remember the earlier days? Right after you received light, Right after you were enlightened, Right after you. For the first time in your life, you understood. You go, wow. So there's this God up there, and I've offended him. And your eyes were open to that. Remember that? You just realized, wow, I've done a lot of things that he hates, and I have to face him one day. Then at some point, you were enlightened. You saw that God sent his son to die for all of those crimes that he already paid the punishment for. And you thought, what? So I can be completely free? I can stand before this God forgiven? I can one day just enter heaven because of what Jesus did. And he goes, remember when you got it and you understood it. And remember some of the crazy things you did. Cause remember how you would speak up and suddenly some of your friends, you realize, wow, they don't know this Jesus. If they die, they're gonna have to face his punishment. And I need to let my friends know that they can be forgiven. And maybe you're a little fanatic about it. And you went out and you started telling people, and it says you were even publicly insulted and persecuted. And people have called you a Jesus freak. Or like, what happened to him? What happened to her, man? I remember, for me, I remember when I was in high school and I came to the light, I understood, wow, I can be forgiven. I started thinking about my buddies, some of my best friends who didn't know Jesus. And it was like, okay, I gotta let him know this. And people are like, man, look at that guy. He just totally flipped. And I remember calling all my friends in my junior year, calling, you know, looking through the yearbook, calling all the seniors they were graduating that I knew, thinking, man, hey, dude, I don't know if I'll ever see you again. You gotta understand something, man. You gotta understand. I want you in heaven with me. He goes, remember those early days when you first got it and you started telling people. Cause you were concerned, and then you started receiving some insults, some persecution. Can you think back to that? Or maybe some of you are going, man, I never really lived that way. Maybe I never really got it. He was telling these people, he goes, remember when people even confiscated your property? Because the persecution back then was so bad, people would just take stuff from them as believers. They were just ostracized and kicked out of their homes and everything else. And he goes, remember how when that happened, you joyfully accepted it and said, fine, take my house. I don't care. I've got Jesus. You're just crazy. I was talking to a guy a couple weeks ago in our church who said, man, he's running a big successful business now. And he said, man, I Got saved in the Jesus movement, you know, back in 60s, 70s. He goes, I had nothing, nothing, nothing. We just walked around telling people about Jesus. We didn't care that we didn't have anything. Because then I got involved in this business and started building this business for myself and done real well for myself. And now I'm looking at my life and going, you know what? I want to go back. I want to get back to that. Back to those days where I had nothing and I didn't care about having nothing because I was just so in love with Jesus. Was there ever a point in your life where you lived that way and you thought that way and you didn't care about stuff and your security was in Jesus alone and you were happy. People even insulted you for how much you talked about this Jesus. He goes on in verse 35, and he says, so do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you've done the will of God, you'll receive what he's promised. For in just a very little while, you. He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. He says, don't throw away that confidence. That confidence, that faith where you said, man, it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna go for it. I'm just gonna go for it, man. And I know God will take care of me because the Bible promises if I seek his kingdom first, all the other stuff, all the security will be given to me. He promises me I'll have something to eat. He promises me I'll be taken care of as long as I seek his kingdom first. He goes, man, that confidence you once had about it's all about Jesus. He goes, don't lose that. Don't throw that away. You're gonna be rewarded for it. Hold on until the end. Hold on until Christ returns. And then he says these verses, and I'm going to put them up on the screen. In verse 38 of Hebrews 10, he says, but my righteous one, my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. See, he's addressing the person that shrinks back. He goes, the righteous one. My righteous one. My righteous people. He says, they're gonna live by faith. Faith. Are you living by faith right now, where you're doing things that make absolutely no sense outside of God, outside of heaven? You're doing things because you are so sure there's a heaven and this earth here is not your home, and you're banking on man, I've put all my eggs in one basket. There better be a heaven. He goes, that's the way my righteous one lives. He goes, but the ones who shrink back. The word shrink back means to cower. You're no longer confident. Like, you know what? God's gonna take care of me. I am just gonna go and I'm gonna serve him and seek. He goes, but then sometimes we shrink back. He goes, if you shrink back, he goes, one, I will not be pleased with you. God says that if you're not living by faith, if you're not sure and confident about God's promises and you're shrinking back and cowering, God says he's not pleased with you. He goes, but we. We're not like that, right? He says, but we're not of those who shrink back and are destroyed. That's another downside of shrinking back. You get destroyed. Bummer. But we're of those who believe and are saved. Okay? What are you right now? Think about it. Are you one that has kind of shrunk back and cowered? Or are you a person that's still as confident today as you were the day you were saved when you first saw the light? See? Cause it's very easy to shrink back. And other churchgoing people will influence you and try to get you to shrink back. They'll come to a guy like Mike and say, hey, Mike, you know, are you sure you want to do this? I mean, think about it. You've got a good job. You're saving up for retirement. I mean, your second kid is on the way. I mean, that just seems kind of foolish to get in a little plane out in the jungle. And how do you know you're gonna be safe out there? How do you know when this is all done? I mean, how long can you do this for? And how do you know if you're gonna have enough money saved up at that point? You know, when you're 80, you may not survive. I mean, you better start thinking about that. You better start thinking about your kids and their education, everything else. Don't go doing this faith thing. Oh, God will take care of them, okay? God helps those who help themselves. We all know that verse, you know. Come on, you know, Are you Sure you want to do this? I mean, how do you know that your plane's not gonna go down? How do you know you're not gonna end up in some little tribe of headhunters and you're dropping the guy off and you're gonna get killed? I mean, how do you know your buddy Corey, your little stoner friend Corey? You know, maybe he's working on your plane? You know, maybe he's the mechanic. And how do you know he may have a relapse and forget to put something in there? And it's like, ah, Cory, you know how, man? Why don't you just play it safe? Come on, you know, you can set your life up to where even if there's no God, you're safe because you've made a life for yourself. And pretty soon we start hearing this logic from churchgoing people who tell us, come on, man. And you guys, we shrink back. And yet the thing I'm learning so much about is God just loves, loves, loves, loves faith. Ah. Do you know how much God loves faith? He goes, my righteous one will live by faith. He wants us to have the faith. Like a little child that just goes, I'm not worried. Dad's got it taken care of. Remember when you used to think that way? God can do anything. God will protect. And then suddenly these people start getting in your head. These messages get in your head of how wise you can be and how you can provide a life for yourself and set yourself up just in case God doesn't come through. Jesus says, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith, Faith on the earth. Hebrews 11. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Impossible, right? See, I was studying that Hebrews 11 because. And that's what got me to Hebrews 10 to looking at, you know, and that's what we just looked at. But, you guys, this is what I really want to get across. Last weekend, I'm on my flight to Columbus, and I'm just looking at Hebrews 11. I was talking to Jim about it, worship leader, just about faith. And I realized Rahab. I said to Rahab, she's always bugged me. She's that prostitute in the Old Testament who. When the spies came from Israel to check out the land, she hid them in her house. And then she lied to these people that came and said, hey, where are those spies? She goes, I don't know. Come on, they're in your house. They're not in my house. Why would I take them in? They probably went that way. And so the Guards leave. And she did a great thing of protecting God's servants, but she lied. And so it always bugged me that God never confronted her on her lying. And then I'm reading Hebrews 11, I go. And then he puts her in Hebrews 11, the lying prostitute. And it bugged me because it's like, well, I don't mind that she did something by faith, but I wish he would confront the lying because she absolutely told a lie. And, you know, and I've been to seminary. In seminary, you learn how to figure out what's wrong with everyone else and every. And you pick everything apart and you go, man, there was a fault here. There was a fault. Why does he not nail it? And it bugged me, bugged me, bugged me, bugged me. Until last weekend. Suddenly, I began to like Rahab because I realized, wow, what a picture that is. God values faith so much. And here's a woman who. She was new to her faith. She didn't know. She's just trying to do something for the kingdom, right? She just thought, I gotta protect these. These are God's servants here. And so they're not here. They went over there. And she just, in her heart was trying to do something for God. And I, you know, the critical me wants to find. Yeah, but she messed up there. That's not what God did. God doesn't even mention that. Did she lie? Yes, she lied. Should her yes have been? Yeah, her yes should have been. Yes, she should have been absolutely truthful. God would have fixed it somehow. But she just did the best with what she could do. Man. I look at the story of Samson. Samson, Samson. You talk about loser. He made it. He made it into Hebrews 11. I mean, is there anyone stupider in the Bible? I mean, don't you read the story of Samson? You go, okay, I know some dumb people, but you take the cake. I mean, how many times you gonna be fooled by this woman? You know? It's like, well, go ahead, braid my hair. You remember? Just that whole story. And then at the end, just because he goes, okay, I believe I can knock down these columns. You're gonna make it into Hebrews 11. But again, it reminded me, that's how much God values faith. He loves that faith. And it was like this epiphany of, you know what? We're all gonna screw up. We're all gonna make mistakes. Who am I to think that I'm gonna figure out this perfect plan. I'm gonna wait till I'm a godly enough, mature enough man, to where I can live by faith without messing up. And then I'm gonna carry out somehow God's will without making any mistakes, without sinning in the process. No, none of us are gonna pull that off. All God wants to see is faith. He just wants to see that you trust him and you believe in him. And so you're just gonna go do something out of faith. You're not gonna sit there and go, well, I wonder if I should do this. I wonder if I should. You're just gonna go in faith. You're gonna try something. And that whole verse, okay, without faith, it's impossible to please God. I started wondering, is the opposite of that verse true? Think with me. Could it be true that with faith it's impossible to displease God? I'm not saying it's scripture. I'm just saying, man, it sure seems that way, that if I have faith in God and I am just doing something best, to my knowledge, I am just trying to serve God and do something for him by faith, I can't fail. I can't screw up. Sure, I'm gonna sin in the process, but God just wants to see that faith and just to believe and to go after something by faith. I'm gonna maybe go to Africa. No, God didn't want me to go there. Remember the apostle Paul, how sometimes he would just think, okay, I'm gonna go there. And God diverts him somewhere else. I love this verse in Chronicles about David. I'm gonna put it on the screen. Look at this. This is Solomon saying, my father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. But the Lord said to my father David, because it was in your heart to build a temple for my name, you did well to have this in your heart. Nevertheless, you're not the one to build the temple. But your son, who is your own flesh and blood, he's the one who will build the temple for my name. I love that verse. He says, david, you thought. Remember, David thought, okay, I'm gonna build a temple in the name of the Lord. I'm gonna build this thing. And God. What does God say? He goes, well, you know what? You had it in your heart. And he says, you did well to have it in your heart. He goes, david, you know what? I'm glad you're thinking that way. You did so well. I'm just so happy that you would think, I'm gonna build a temple for the name of the Lord. He goes, no, that's not my plan. You're not gonna do it. Your son Solomon will do it. Nevertheless, you did well to have it in your heart. I love that David was heading the wrong direction, and God goes, yeah, that wasn't my plan. But you did well to have it in your heart. It was just comforting to me. I just go, you know what? God's just happy that I'm trying stuff in his name. And it just helped me because, you know, so often I get freaked out and I get paralyzed by this idea of perfection. Like, somehow, if I haven't nailed and figured out God's perfect plan, that he's going to be disappointed in me. And I realized, you know what? He's glad that I have it in my heart to just try something in his name. Remember last year when I tried to start a church in the inner city, and I started a church planting class with some of the EBC students? And it's like, hey, let's go in the inner city every week. You know, let's just go three hours a week. We'll just play ball with you and we'll start a church three hours a week. You know, we'll witness, we'll do everything. And so I took a group of college students and we just went in the inner city every week and just hung out with these people, shared the gospel with them. And we thought we were gonna create a church through them and plant a church there in the inner city. It never took off. But I don't think God's gone. Francis, you idiot, what'd you do that for? He just goes, it's good that you had it in your heart. You're not gonna be able to plant a church, but that's cute, and I love that you try. Remember when we tried to do that north campus at the Boys and Girls Club? It's like, man, we're running out of space here. It's getting too crowded. I'll just go back and forth. And all these people put all this time and energy, and it didn't work. You think God's mad at us for trying that? Remember when we tried to do home churches and we had those videotapes and we tried to, okay, meet in your homes with other families and this'll work. This'll get more people out of the sanctuary so we can fit more people, and we'll have A groups and B groups, and you guys go home on A groups and don't come to church. Just have people in your house and you'll study the word of God together. And you'll watch the videotape from Saturday night. And we thought this thing was gonna work. We thought we were starting a movement. And pretty soon you guys started getting in homes and you didn't like each other's kids, and you're like, eh, I'm just going back to the church. And it all fell apart. But it's just so freeing now because I go, you know what? God's not mad at me for that. We're trying to build an outdoor amphitheater. We're thinking, you know what? We could save $20 million by sitting outside. And we could give those millions of dollars to people who are poor, people, who are the least of these, that are literally Jesus. He says, and so right now, I'm in the middle of meeting with county supervisors. This is a big week. Meet with two, you know, big county supervisor people, try to convince them of this plan. I don't know if it's gonna work. Trying to give away half of our money and everything else, and we may end up having to cut all our staff to reach that. And maybe it was a big. I don't know. I just figure if Jesus is starving, we gotta do something. And I just know that at the end, God's not gonna go, francis, what were you thinking? He's just gonna go, man, I just love the way you just try to do something. You live by faith. You see, I have in my back pocket is a wallet that I don't carry a wallet. This is the first time I've used it. My daughter gave it to me about a year ago, my second daughter, and saved up a bunch of money and bought this little wallet for me, thinking, dad doesn't have a wallet. There's a reason I don't have a wallet. I don't like wallets. I don't like having some in my back pocket. I just stick a credit card and a few dollars in my front pocket and I'm good to go. And she gives me this wallet saved up. I think it was Father's Day or something last year. And so when I saw the wallet, I said, what a waste of money, you idiot. You really think I did that? No. I went, no way. O wallet. Come here, baby. That's awesome. You saved up and you bought Daddy a wallet, which I'll never use, you know, hey, guys, what kind of father do you think we have in heaven? It's just so freeing to think, you know what? He just wants to see me try something, do something, because of my love for him. And as I do, that and I have it in my heart. God, I'm just trying to please youe. Somehow I'm not smart enough to know the perfect plan. I'm not godly enough to not sin in the process. I may be like Rahab and just try and not think and sin along the way. I may be Samson and be fooled. I may be David and start heading down the wrong path. I may be Paul heading in the wrong direction and God goes, I don't care. It's just great that you're living by faith. Thank you for listening to the Crazy Love Podcast. Join us next week for a new episode, but until then, for more resources from Crazy Love Ministries or to support the work of Crazy Love, please visit our website@crazylove.org. Sam.