A (0:15)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a seat, Joby. They did. You said, they're going to stand up and go crazy. I said, what if they don't? These are my people. Huh? I knew you were my people because I saw your pastor. He looks like one of us for sure. Wow. Joby, thank you so much for trusting me to be here on this magic carpet for this revival. And this time, it is an honor. I really am thankful for the opportunity to be here to talk to you. And I was so excited. I was looking at the papers that they had of the rundown, and it said, pastor Willie Robertson. Oh, I normally make the joke. I say, I know I look like a pastor, but look at your pastor. So, like. And the maddest I am, because I came out here before, and I have two camouflage shirts. I'm speaking this Saturday in Michigan, and I had one that matched identical to this background. And so I wanted y' all just to see, literally, a little face moving. I wore the wrong shirt, but that's okay. Welcome tonight. What a day. What a time. So, yeah, we're going to talk about the gospel. I am going to talk about my father, who just passed away. But a couple of things before we get started. You know what makes me mad? Here's what makes me mad. Growing up, I was one of four boys, and everything we did, it was always the same thing. Said, who is that? Who is that kid? Oh, that's one of Phil's boys. That's one of Phil's boys. Who did that? One of Phil's boys. And I said, dad Gum, one day, I am going to do something where everyone knows my name and I will not be referred to as one of Phil's boys. And I'm going to tell y' all just about the time I really thought that I had pulled this off. Now I'm known as Sadie's dad. The whole generation skipped me every airport. Are you Sadie's dad? I am. And I'm proud of that, too. A few questions that I get a lot that I want to answer. And just put this to bed. Is Uncle Si really like that in real life? I will ask. Please say yes. I will ask you something. Do you think you could fake that for that long? Okay. He is worse. Two weeks ago, he is at my house, and we told him to go over to Sadie's house. Okay. Now, so he had driven to my house. Now, most normal people would. Would back their car up and go to her driveway and then go to, you know, her house. Well, he decided he Was going to just drive through the yard, through the bushes, through the grass. And I had this beautiful little walking path that you walk on, and it's for strollers. And the distance between the two edges of the bridge, actually, I know exactly how wide it is. Now, it is one inch less than Cy's truck. Si drives through the walking path and literally scrapes both sides of his truck the entire way. He does not stop either. He just keeps going. Now, most people would come and say, hey, I'm so sorry I damaged your bridge. I tore my truck up. I'm so sorry for messing it up. Cy came to me and told me, hey, you need to make that bridge wider, Jack. It's not near wide enough to drive a truck through. I said, okay, Si, we'll look into that as you're fixing your truck. So we. The TV show, Duck Dynasty, the original. People ask me all the time, whose idea was this show? And that would be my wife, Corey. This was her idea. So Corey watched a lot of reality television. Okay, none of us really watch reality television. I gotta be honest. I still don't watch reality television. But Corey was watching all these shows. And she says, willie, I think you and your family should do a reality TV show. I said, really? And she was like, yeah, I think it would work. I said, corey, we're just normal people. And Corey said, willie, y' all aren't normal. I said, you don't think we're normal? She goes, no, you're not, Uncle Si. I go, well, he is a little odd. She said, your dad? I said, well, maybe. So it was her idea. Now, one of the questions I get is, how did you ever get your dad, Phil, to be on the reality TV show? Well, I went to dad and I said, dad, I've got this idea. How about us doing a reality TV show? And. And he said, will, that is the worst idea you've ever had in your life. I said, I know it was Cory's idea. I didn't think it would work either. And he said, no, I'm not interested in doing a TV show. And I said, well, dad, look, I think if we had a show, perhaps maybe we could get the gospel out to more people than we do now. And Phil looked at me. He was in his recliner, and. And he goes, huh? You think we could get the gospel out to more people? I said, I don't see why not. And this is how Phil and I did the deal. Phil said, I'm in. And that's how he did it. Literally based on getting the gospel out to more people. Now, Phil, I don't think he ever really understood the show or understood what it was about. So he always wanted more preaching. He was like, well, there needs to be more preaching on this show. I said, dad, there's another show with the Robertson family that does preaching. It's the 700 Club. That's not this show. This is going to be a little different than that. And Phil had a passion for hunting. But what he had a passion since he just passed, we saw it more than ever at his passing, was he has a passion to get the gospel out to as many people as he could. And he lived that every day. Every day. He lived his life talking about the day he was going to leave this earth. And it was unbelievable to see that. Now, he did have a passion for ducks, but there was also other animals. So we grew up really poor, and we ate pretty much everything we could catch or get in the woods. That was real life. And we loved eating squirrels. Okay? Squirrels are one of our favorite. I know yours, too, obviously. But we love eating squirrels. So there was a rule, though. We had. You do not. This is from my mom. She didn't. She let us get away with a lot of. You do not shoot those yard squirrels, okay? Those were totally off limits. I'm sure y' all have the same rule, but you cannot shoot the yard squirrels. And it was so tempting. And Si was the only one who would just. He would be right on the line of what is a yard squirrel and what is outside the yard. And my mom loved eating squirrels, too. I mean, this was her favorite. She loved to eat fried squirrel brains. That was her favorite part of the squirrel. But true story. In fact, we were doing this. We got called to do a show, like a big morning show in New York. And so they asked my mother to cook. And so my mom was like, oh, I know what I'm cooking. I kid you not, because I was there. She sent six squirrel bodies through the TSA screening. Ma', am, what you got there? That would be six clean squirrels. He was like, okay, I don't even know the rule book on this one. So she takes these squirrels to New York, and then she tells them she's going to cook them squirrels. I never forget the host of the show. She said, well, Ms. K, how exactly do you cook a squirrel? This is my favorite answer ever from my mom. She goes, well, is it a young squirrel or an old squirrel? There's two recipes. I love my mom, and she loved her yard squirrels. So dad was out in the woods. This is one of my favorite stories of my dad. Dad's in the woods. So we're not killing the yard squirrels. We are out. And by the way, I was asking the pastor, I said, I. I was like, can I tell a story about shooting animals? Because if you showed up here and you have a problem with that, there has been a terrible situation that has happened with your speaker tonight. Okay? So we will love each other in Jesus, because he does it too. And so he likes to eat stuff too. So my dad is out squirrel hunting, and so he's. Now my dad. Here's the way. Up until this man was 60 years old, this man would squirrel hunt barefooted, shoes off, socks off, in the woods. And he would just take off running. Squirrel hunting. That's how he hunted. With a.22,22, no shotgun. One shot. And so my dad's out there squirrel hunting. He's running through the woods and he's shooting some squirrels. Now he shoots at a squirrel. He misses the squirrel. With the squirrels jumping to another limb, the squirrel falls. And this happens. I've seen it before. The squirrel is not. It just falls to the ground and knocks itself out. So my dad goes over. This is an easy one, right? He just picks the squirrel up. Now the squirrel's still alive. The squirrel shakes too. Now my dad has a live squirrel in his hand. And the squirrel starts barking. And dad hears another squirrel start barking back at it. And this is one of those moments when my dad was like, now I know there is a God in heaven. He has the best squirrel call ever. And he said he would rub its head and it would bark, and then another would bark. So then my dad is going, and with the squirrel in his hand shooting more squirrels, and he's putting them in his bag, and he rubs the hair, and one's barking. And my dad is like, I'm gonna keep this squirrel. Like, we're gonna raise squirrels. We're gonna have a bunch. We'll raise em from little tiny squirrels. We have figured out the best thing ever for squirrel hunting, a real squirrel. But he flew too close to the sun. For everything that is that good, there has to be a downside. And so as he's going and doing this hunting, he relieves the pressure just a little bit. And that squirrel did what God made him to do. Both his teeth went straight into my dad's finger all the way to the bone. Now my dad is shaking the squirrel. Now he doesn't like the squirrel, and he throws the squirrel. And that squirrel gets away. And dad comes back with his finger bandaged, and. And he's telling us this story, and we're like, that is the craziest story ever. And then here's how my mind works. I wonder what the story the squirrel was telling his friends. So I fall 100ft. I completely knocked out. And I look up. I'm in the hands of the bearded evil one. And I wrestle my way out, and I bit him as hard as I could. And here I am today. So that squirrel made it. Phil had the best stories, the best stories I've ever heard. He had all these stories. But the story that meant the most to Phil was the story of Jesus Christ coming down to this earth, dying, being buried, and coming back to life. That was the story that we talked about more than any hunting story, business story, football story, any story. That was the story that was number one in this man's life. And I saw him live that out every day. So in Matthew 28, we have the Great Commission, and you guys have heard this. The 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and. And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I'm with you to the very end of the age. Jesus told us to go. My dad read that, and he believed that. And he said there was three things to do there. And he said, I'm gonna go do those three things. We're gonna make disciples. We're gonna baptize people, and we're gonna teach people. Those were the three things. And it was going. It was movement. So stories that are good have movement and have action, okay? Because a lot of times Americans, what we do a lot is sit. There was an article that came out. I read this story, and there was an article. There was a study done on Americans and how they sit. All right? One in four American adults sits for more than eight hours a day. So says this survey, about 11% sat for more than eight hours a day with a little activity. Only 3% sat for less than four hours a day and were actually active. We sit. We sit a lot. We're sitters. And it's hard to tell great stories when you're just sitting all the time and watching other people. Now, here's why we sit a Lot because the game is fixed. It's kind of like your phone. And you're like, oh, I get on this phone and I can't get off of it. It's because it's a rigged game. They know exactly what you want to see. And so they're giving you more and more and more. Food can be the same way. And they give you more and more. You're like, I like this stuff. It makes me thirsty. Now I gotta drink some more and I gotta do this. The game is fixed like that with sitting as well. So most of your homes, When I go into your home, what do we have? Comfortable couches. And then there's a television right here. And so you sit. In fact, when you come into someone's house, what do they say? Have a seat, sit down. The places we go have seating. We go to the movie theater, there's seating. When I walked into my hotel room here, there was a chair. It was a small box room. There's a chair, there's a couch, and there's a bed. I have three options for reclining. In fact, there's a window and right outside there was a balcony. And I can see the ocean. And there's two chairs out there. So I can just sit and watch that too. So the game is rigged for us to sit. Even at our churches, most of you are sitting right now. So think about this idea of sitting versus moving. So a lot of us, especially at church, we'll watch. One person will listen to the stories of a few. And then we sit and we listen and we go, ah, that's good. I'm glad somebody. Someone is doing that. And I don't think following Jesus Christ is about all of us sitting around and waiting on a few people to do that. I think it's for all of us to be moving. To be moving. Joey mentioned the movement. That's what it was. It was like a movement. I want to. We need to move. And I know you guys talk about moving a lot here. Believe it or not, I played high school basketball. I said, believe it or not, it's true. So it was my senior year. You know, I have a friend back home. His kid plays football. And I said, oh, does he get to play a lot? And he goes, no. He said he's happy just to have the uniform. He's happy to be in the pictures. You get him on the field, he doesn't want that. Well, I wanted to play, okay? So I would practice. I mean, just literally run my guts out. And I wasn't getting to play. And the coach would even be. He would say, if you. Players, if y' all played like Robertson, if you played like him, if you had his tenacity, if you went out and had the hustle Robertson had, I'm telling you, we would win every game. The problem was he had Robertson on his team, but he wouldn't play Robertson. And I'm going, yeah, y' all should be like me, except I'm not getting to play. And finally he. The coach said. He said, next game, Robertson, you're gonna play next game. We were playing this big school, and I was so excited. And I told everybody I know to come to this game, which was three people, all right? My mom, my girlfriend, and my youth director. That's how popular I was in high school. I said, y' all come because the coach said, I'm playing. I'm getting out there. And we get over there. And he never puts me in the game. And I'm so embarrassed. I'm like. I told these people, and they came all the way over here. And so I went to the coach, and after the game, the next day, I said, coach, I'm going to quit the team. I'm going to play the City League because I just want to play, because I want to move. It's not just about having the uniform. I just want to play. And so he did. What's amazing was we were 3 and 5 when I quit. We went on after I left, the biggest winning streak ever, and we made it to the final Four in the state playoffs, and I missed it. I was in the City League playing basketball. But I wanted to move. I didn't just want to sit there. I wanted to move, and I wanted to be out there. Acts, chapter 18. So we. I read the Great Commission, right? That's at the end of Matthew. That's Jesus right before he leaves. Right before he leaves, this is what he says, go. Go make disciples. And, you know, in these crazy times we were talking about this, especially today, it's been so crazy and scary. And when Jesus told them to go, all right, Jesus has just been killed and put on a cross, I probably would have said, y' all may want to lay low, lay low, let everything kind of calm down. That's probably what I would have said. But Jesus didn't. He said, go. And then we get to the Book of Acts, which is probably my favorite book in the New Testament. So Jesus is there in Acts, chapter one. He says, adios, y'. All. Wait for there. I'm sending somebody down here to Help you how we know there'll be no doubt. Whoo. Holy Spirit shows up. Thousands of people gather. Peter gets up and preaches. 3,000 people right there. And this church is going and it is rolling. And we start. If you just go through the Book of Acts over and over and over and over, and you see that great commission coming to life, and you see people making disciples, baptizing people and teaching people, you get to Acts, chapter 18. This is just the reason I picked this out for y' all was because I spoke Sunday night and I was in Acts 18, and I said, look at all this movement. And that's why I read it. I'm just going to read it for you. It said, after this, Paul left ACT Athens. He went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Notice how we turn a negative into a positive. Very important for us people, we got to turn negatives into positives. Today is a bad day. There will be days where you have to turn negatives into positives, and the Gospel can do that. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tent maker, he stayed and worked with them every Sabbath, he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks, don't miss the mission. They are moving, but they're moving because they are on a mission. Very important to not forget what the mission is, and that's to change people's lives with the Gospel. And we see Paul moving and gathering people. And I want you to notice in this how much movement there is. And then also notice different names just start popping out. Different names are gathered up. And I guarantee you, right here in this place, if we went back and we start hearing how this thing got going, and you'll start hearing names. And some of you guys were names. You were not here. You were not in the Lord. And now you are here, and you are in the Lord. And now you are moving. And other people are going to come. Other people are going to be a part of this. There are names that are not here now, that hopefully, Lord willing, they will be here next year because their lives will be changed for the Gospel. Then Paul left the synagogue, went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. I hope. I hope I'm described as a worshiper of God. Crispus, the synagogue leader in his entire household believed in the Lord. And many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized. Mission, mission, Mission. Go all the way back to the Great Commission. And now we are on mission. One night, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision. Do not be afraid. Keep on speaking. Do not be silent, for I am with you and no one is going to attack and harm you. Because I have many people in this city. I love that because I have many people in this city. There are many people here. There are many people in this city. You think God still works with us? You think God still serves as protector and has evolved in where we are? You think he just quit doing stuff like this? Or do you think he does this? Today? I think he does it even today. I think today God still works. And I love this. So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching the word of God. Back to mission. Paul stayed in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria. Accompanied by who? Priscilla and Aquila. That's the people we just met. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Centria because of a vow he had taken. Now, I did not take that vow to cut my hair. Your pastor did. I did not. Okay, because it would really mess up some TV stuff that I'm doing. So I did not take that vow. But Paul now has cut his hair and you see how he's moving. They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue. And guess what he was doing? Reasoning with the Jews. Back on mission. Back on mission. Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And he had spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately. This guy is unbelievable. But he only knew the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue when who? Priscilla and Aquila heard him. They invited him to their home and explained him the way more adequately. Apollos wanted to go to Achaia. The brothers and sisters encouraged it. See all this movement? There's movement. This is not what happened. They came to the Lord and then they tried to go to church as much as they could for an hour and 15 minutes a week. If that is your standard, you have set the bar way too low. Following Jesus Christ is not an hour and 15 minute situation of week. It's all the days of the week, every one of them. If I wanted to change this culture, I would say keep the hour and a half On Sunday morning, do whatever you want to do. I want the other six days. I want the other nights. Now we'll take that. We can change this whole place. You see how we lower that? Because sometimes we sit in chairs and spiritually we become sitters as well. And we sit and we hope and we're like, oh, that's awesome. I'm glad people are doing that. I'm glad people are changing the world. Here, let me give you some money. Maybe that will help. It's so much more. This is an all in situation. And notice how Paul is moving all the way down to 21 after all this had happened. Actually, I jumped over to Acts 19, 1921 after all this happened, Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. After I had been there. He said I must visit Rome. Also. He sent two of his helpers to Macedonia. I want to tell you, go read the book of Acts. Go just read the situation. The only book that we have where it's actually, you know, before Jesus was here and Jesus is doing the instruction and then we have the letters that are coming later. But Acts is where the new church is meeting the world head on. We have that situation in Acts chapter two where thousands come, but most of the rest of it is just smaller groups of people. It's a dozen here, it's two here. It's an Ethiopian that's in a chariot. That's just one. And they just keep sharing the gospel and sharing the gospel. And it's despite persecution. The there was a man today shot in front of a group of people today. And I gotta be honest, I was sitting in my hotel room going, I'm fixing to go stand in front of a group of people and I'm gonna talk about God. And it crossed my mind. I went, wow. I learned something during COVID about the depth of the church. Covid hits like a third of people just said, yeah, we're out of here, and just left. I'm thinking, if you refused to come and meet with a 0000 chance of dying, how would you have fared in the New Testament where there was a 100% chance of you dying because of your faith? And I realized how shallow the faith is where we have it so low. We're like, yeah, we're sitting in these chairs, but they're not that comfortable. It's a little warm in here. Paul is racing around and he's trying to show people, this is what it looks like. We move. I got three things I need you to check I need you to check three things today. Check your pulse. Check your pulse. My wife has a ring, all right? Not the one when we got married. She has that ring, too, but she has a ring she puts on her finger. It tells her everything her body is doing or thinking or anything. She said, you should get one. I said, I'm not interested in that. I don't need another thing telling me what I need to be doing. Because she goes, oh, look, it told me to stand up. I need to move. My heart's not working. See, the ring doesn't like. It's just going off of what your body's doing. Because sometimes we start thinking, oh, we're really moving, and we're not. We're not moving near as much. I did this show called the Masked Singer. All right? I was Mallard, and that's true. Made it semifinal, so don't laugh too hard. So I had this big costume. I was 9 foot, 6 inches tall, okay? So the problem, I couldn't see below my eyes, so I was on the stage, but I couldn't see my hands. So I would struggle to find where my mouth was through the costume. Couldn't see my feet. It's kind of scary when you're up here on a stage. You can't see below you. So we would do the choreographed move. So I would go and we would do dance classes, and I would have the head on. I would be dancing. And so in my mind, I was moving. I was like. I mean, I was getting after it. When I watched it on television, it looked like I was in a swimming pool. I'm barely moving, but my mind. I thought I was making big motions, but they weren't near as big as I thought. I think spiritually, sometimes we need to check our pulse. Make sure that you're moving. Make sure you're pacing off the wrong. Off the right person or people. Because you may look around and go, I'm doing more than that guy. And he may not be doing much at all. Check your pulse. Check yourself. Check yourself. Notice about a policy. He had this great resume. Some of us have great in our minds resumes, and this resume was actually great. A native, he came. He was a learned man. He had a thorough knowledge of scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. He spoke with great fervor, taught Jesus accurately. But he was missing something. And that's what they explained to him. He was missing about this baptism. There was something missing that they explained to him. And sometimes we have to check ourselves is, are we Open to find that thing that is missing. Is there a reason why we can't somehow figure this out? Is there something missing in our life? I think it's very important to be able to look at yourself. It reminds me of the rich young ruler. Remember this guy? Remember his resume? Jesus said, hey, follow the commandments. Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't give false testimony. Honor your father, mother, love your neighbors, yourself. And he goes, done all those. I'm good. And he said, ah, but you're lacking one thing. Why don't you go sell everything you got and then follow me? He didn't. He walked away sad. Someone else got that same offer. Peter, remember Jesus said, hey, leave all this here. Follow me. Peter left it all and followed Jesus Christ, left his livelihood, left where he was, everything to follow Jesus, the rich young ruler. Didn't you know the biggest difference between those two cats? One we know as Peter and one we only know by what kept him away from Jesus. He was rich and he was young, and he was a ruler. Don't be the person that will only be known by what kept you back. And what was that thing you were missing? It kept him back. He didn't get his name in the Bible. He had the offer to follow Jesus Christ and he blew it. Everything he had in life is like 30ft deep right now under dirt. It's gone. And it's what held him back. We have to check ourselves. Sometimes it's just something small, but it may be obvious. When I got to my hotel last night, it was freezing. I walked in, I was like, what is going on? And I go to the control, there's nothing there. There's no numbers. I'm doing this. So I get all the blank. I put all my clothes on. I'm just. I'm the only guy in Jacksonville last night that was freezing to death. I told Jeffrey, I haven't even. I said, jeffrey, something's wrong. My room is so cold. My wife called, said, how's Jacksonville? I said, it's freezing. She goes, oh, is there a cold front? I'm like, no, it's warm outside. It's frozen in this room. She said, well, turn the air up. I said, it doesn't work. There's nothing there. Some of you are thinking, joey's wife's thinking this. Why didn't you just call the desk? And because I'm a man, I don't do that. Think I'm gonna ask somebody. You want to get it cold? Here, get as cold as you want, I will freeze and take it. But I would not ask, is there a problem? There's some other people like me. So I'm standing there today at, like, noon, and I look over. There's the unit for the air conditioning. It's all on that. It's not on the wall, but there's one on the wall. And I went, oh, that's where it's at. One simple phone call. I did figure it out, Jeffrey. I figured out where the air was coming from. Sometimes it's just one little thing. Just one thing. And there's people here who have been held back. In Acts 19, right at the beginning, he said he runs into some disciples. And I didn't even read that part, but it said they didn't understand about the holy Spirit. And he said, do you have the holy Spirit? And they're like, we didn't even know there was a holy. What is the Holy Spirit? We didn't even know what that is. And I thought it was interesting. They got baptized again because they were baptized by John. And I always think to myself, why is it in there? Why didn't he just tell them, no, there's a holy Spirit? It's, oh, cool. High five and leave. Because sometimes, guys, there's something to this in the Bible. It's like, we've got to get it right. You got to go back and figure out why is it. Where did you get to this place? What may be holding you back? Have any of you ever been to marriage counseling? I haven't. Joby has, but I haven't. No, I have. And guess what we do? We go back, and we go back to figure out, why is it that you're doing this or saying this. What is the problem? How did this start? And we go back, and we need to do that spiritually as well, because it can be something that can be so easy. The last thing is you need to check your stories. Check your stories. Check your pulse. Check your life. Check your stories. If the book of Acts was being written about you, what would it look like? How would that read go? Great stories come from action. That story about Phil with those squirrels. See, that's what makes it a fun story. Phil wasn't sitting around. He was barefoot, hunting rodents with a live rodent. It was action. It was movement and action. And it's so hard to tell a story when we're just sitting around all day doing nothing and watching other people. How are your stories? Like, hey, I was sitting there watching TV the other night. I was watching this you know how many people watch golf and watch football? It doesn't mean you can do it. It just means you're watching it. Hey, do you like to hunt? I watch your show all the time. Well, have you ever been in the woods? Nope. You're not a hunter. You just like watching it. And so many of us watch others do great things, and we watch and we watch, and we don't get in the game. Man, I was on my high school team. I was learning all the fundamentals. I was practicing, but I wasn't in the game. I wasn't out there doing what it was. Nobody talks about how you did in practice. It's how you do in the game. And so much. Many of us, we work on the fundamentals. And I'm at church every time, and I'm here. But when you leave this place and you go out there where it actually matters, where there's people who are hurting, who ain't gonna come in here because they don't like this place or they've been hurt by this place, or they think we're all a bunch of holy rollers or hypocrites or whatever it is. You gotta meet them out there. That's the game. That's the game. That's the game. You know, my dad, I was talking about him, he never would have come to a church, ever. It was not. He was running a bar in South Arkansas. He was such a bad guy. Bad dad, bad husband, bad everything. We made a movie called the Blind. Came out, put it out last year. And it was the journey, the spiritual journey of he and my mother. And were it not for a preacher, my dad's sister begged him to drive to this bar to go preach the gospel to Phil. And this preacher got in his car and he drove to that bar. The preacher was in Louisiana. He drove across the state line, walked in this bar. And the preacher told me later, he said, I walked in, your dad's sitting there. He said he had a pistol on his belt and a giant Budweiser. And the preacher walks in. Phil looks at him and says, what you selling, preacher? And Phil's a scary guy. I was still scared of my father. Even up until he passed. I was still a little fearful of him. And this preacher sat down and shared with him the good news of Jesus Christ. Now, what happened when he did it? Was there a bar room, baptism? Did they hit the jukebox and it started playing Just as I Am? No, nothing. But he planted that seed. And it wasn't till way later, Phil's laying in a swamp, being chased by the state police. And he looks at me, goes, that preacher said something about dead people coming to life, darkness going to light, dead, alive. And he drug up and went back down Louisiana. He said, preacher, tell me that story again. And my dad changed his life. My mother changed her life. My mother forgave my dad. The marriage stayed together. A man and a woman came to the Lord. No money, just a long trail of bad mistakes. And who would have thought. Who would have thought that that young couple right there with, at the time, three boys, I was the youngest, would go on. And God said, I got a lot more for you. I got a lot more for you. So you realize if that story doesn't happen, if that preacher doesn't go that bar, preach to Phil, if that couple doesn't stay together, I'm not standing here right now. This whole thing looks different. So I'm wondering, and that was in Junction City, Arkansas. These are not people. How would God ever do this? I'm wondering how many people right here in Jacksonville, from wherever you're at, all the people listening, who is out there? Who's that next person? Who's that next couple? Who is those people on the verge of divorce, of busting the family up, desperately needing light in their life. You never know until you get in the game and you go out there and you move and you share that. It changed my life forever. Check your stories this past week, week and a half. Pastor told you about a week and a half ago, we had a duck commander Sunday. We invited. We said, what would Phil want? What would we do for Phil? Everybody come. Jase got up and preached. I got up. We put a tank out there if anybody wants to get baptized. And we just. Oh, we had worship music going. Phil would have loved it. Last weekend, his granddaughter, my daughter Sadie, puts on her live original conference. Two days of teaching, preaching, making disciples. And at the end, she wanted to do. We're having baptisms. Phil would have been so proud. And I got to be there. It was mostly women, but I'm Sadie's dad, so I get to go and the worship group is playing and they start baptizing people. It went for like two hours. Bethel was doing the music. They run out of songs. That's how long it was. Over 300 people just. That's the last week and a half. And Sunday night, I got up to my little group and I taught this same message that I told y' all today. Same one. This is fresh. This is new material. Do you know how those Stories. You know why they're so good? Pastor and I were talking about the stories of here because it's action. Those stories are exciting because lives are changing. You need to check your stories. Read this quote the other day. The greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God's plan. The greatest risk in life is to waste it outside of God's plan. I asked my group, I said, who said that? Nobody knew. That's the new Pope. He said it last week, and I heard it, and I was like, that's amazing, because there's a lot of us who are moving all the time. We're like, oh, you have no idea how busy I am. I'm moving. I'm taking my kids here, and I do this and then we do that, and it's all outside of God's plan. I kid with my friends back home because of the sports. And I call my buddy, I say, what church you going to tonight? He goes, soccer. What church you got tomorrow? Track, then football. Church. We all bow down that one. Oh, I hope I'm stomping on some toes. Don't waste your life outside of God's plan. We just put my dad in the ground, believe me. Let me tell you what's really important in life and what ain't. It's down to some stuff. And, man, the stories that were told about how your dad changed my life, because he told me about Jesus Christ. Not about duck hunting, not about business, not about reality TV shows. Galatians 6, 9 said, Let us not become weary doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest. If we don't give up, guys, we can't forget about doing good. We can't get weary. I think about it like food. You know what the best. What's the best meal you ever had in your life? Think about it. If you asked me that, it would take me two months to give you an answer. I'd have to go through every meal I ever had. All right, what's the best meal you had this past week? I know what mine is. Sunday, I made roast. I made four roasts, and I fired them on the grill. And then I cooked them. And then we ate, and it was so good. And I ate it again. Think about the best meals you've ever had. How long after you ate? How long before you got hungry again? Some of you bigger people, it's probably less time. That's me, too. I ate that at lunch. And by 6, I'm like, I'm starving. And I just had the Best meal I've had in the past week. Don't live your life living on the last meal you had, the good meal you had. And it was a year ago, it was two years ago. And you just are living on nothing. You gotta eat constantly, right? You constantly get hungry. And that's how that relationship with Jesus should be, where it's always, we don't get weary of doing good. Paul kept going more and he said, I gotta go more. Because he knows life is so short. We only have this much time on this earth and we are gone. If today and this week with the tragedy, there's no better example of that, we ain't here long. My dad told me right before he passed, he goes, will, it goes by like that. We're here and we're gone. And this will be like a meal for us. Some of you will be like, oh, that was awesome. You'll get hungry again tomorrow. Now, fortunately for here, you're gonna have another one tomorrow and we're gonna do it again on the next day and we'll do it again. And that'll be good. But you've got to figure out how you're going to feed where this fuel comes from. And it's when you do what God wants you to do for his purpose and his mission. And there's a little secret. It ain't about you. It's about somebody else. It ain't about you. You don't come here because it's for you. You come here for other people. Great Commission. Jesus said, go. That's the last thing he said. He said, go. I found this book. This is my dad, one of my dad's last books, the Theft of America's Soul. And I'm not really promoting the book, but after my dad passed, my wife brings us down. It was on a bookshelf somewhere and she just laid it by my chair and I opened it up and he had actually written in it. I was like, wow. I didn't even remember him writing me a message in his book. And it says, to Will the third, the third son, whom I love dearly. And Phil didn't often tell me that. A lot. I mean, not that he just wasn't a big lovey dovey guy, you know, he said, keep the faith. Convert them. Convert them. That Great Commission I have orders for from God himself, from Jesus Christ, to go make disciples. Go. I have some of the last words my dad spoke to me. Convert them. That's what his whole life was about. That's the mission. That's the Mission that we're on, the mission will change your life. The gospel, hopefully, has already changed your life. Now we gotta get it to other people. And I was so sad today. I gotta be honest. I was just crushed. Say, oh, why? Why did these things happen? But it's just more, more, more of a reminder that people need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Even the people we don't, they're lost. They're lost and they need Jesus just like all of us were. Father. Whoo. What a heavy day. We're here as a group. That's groups all over the place who are hearing me and hearing the band and hearing what's going on here tonight. And I know this group of people is coming off of fasting and praying, and they've been praying for you to work. And, God, we know you have and you do. Father, I pray that the words that I have spoken have encouraged. And Father, I pray that we do not sit as believers in you, but we move. We're so thankful for Paul and Peter and all the people that we read about, Priscilla and Aquila, Apollos, all those people we read about in the New Testament. We're so thankful that you captured that in a book and it made it 2,000 years later to us so that we can be encouraged. But, Father, I pray that the thousands of people hearing me now will begin their own book of acts, their own life changes. Father, I pray that this week that the momentum starts growing and gathering and moving and moving. And I pray for this weekend because we know you are always showing up in a big way. And Father, I pray that we can just keep pace and move with you. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for living in our lives, for coming down and helping us how to walk this life. Thank you so much, Jesus, the perfect, perfect, perfect example. Jesus, Jesus. Thank you. Thank you for changing my family's life. Thank you for changing the world's perspective in life, Father. Help us to be a bright light when at times this world is so dark and we just get weary, Father. But help us not grow weary of doing good. Help us to wake up tomorrow and get back in the game and go with. With a purpose and a mission of getting the gospel to as many people as we can. Thank you here. Thank you for the staff, thank you for the people that work here. Thank you for the people that are hearing. And Father, I pray. I pray that we keep hearing great stories of what's coming out of this place because there are a lot of great stories. I'm grateful to be here. Thank you, Father, for changing my life and ours. We give you all the glory. Through Jesus we pray. Amen. Thank you, guys.