June 30, 2021 • 15 mins
It's finally here!! After a year of procrastinating... the first episode of the "Reality Check" podcast is up!! In this episode I will sharing on the importance of finishing what we start and sharing an inspirational story about a girl named Kayla Montgomery. You definitely don't want to miss out! Be sure to subscribe to the channel and share so others may have a chance to hear too. Love you all -Steven
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey everyone.
This is Stephen Farmer andwelcome to the weekly reality
check podcast.
Today's episode is titled aye.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Can't feel my legs.
It's actually a message that Ispoke at our church south end
community church a few monthsago.
And I absolutely love thisstory.
And this literally I had wrotethis and kind of planned this
out for the podcast.
It was going to be my firstepisode and I was talking with
my dad about it.
And he said, you need to speakthis at church.
You needed to share thismessage.
(00:30):
And I thought, oh man, well theneverybody's going to hear it.
And you know, I don't know a lotof people, so maybe they're
going to hear it again on thepodcast, but, you know, I
figured I'm still gonna go withit because this applies so much
so to the podcast.
And I'm going to get to that ina few minutes.
If you listen to the trailer,you know how reality check
started, why I did it and how itwas feeling at the time before I
(00:51):
started it.
But what you don't know is thatit took me forever to actually
do the podcast.
When I got that feeling to dothe podcast.
And I felt I got to put it on myheart.
That was a year ago.
And it's now June 29th, 2021that was in 2020, probably in
March or may that I felt likeGod put it on my heart to do a
(01:13):
podcast.
So a year later here I am justnow starting it.
And the reason I'm saying allthis is because I'm great at
starting something, but I'mterrible about finishing.
I'm always good at coming upwith ideas.
If you talk to my parents and mymom, for sure.
Um, I'm a big video guy.
I love to make videos.
I love to do movies and stuff.
(01:34):
And, and before I was called toministry, um, I had a joy and a
passion for film I still do, butI was actually going to go to
the university of new Orleans topursue a film degree.
Um, I knew by my junior year, Iwould get to intern on major
motion picture sets and be ableto work with actors and
different directors and stuff.
(01:54):
I thought that's going to be socool.
Um, and, and I love to act andthe whole deal, but of course,
God called me to do face it.
And then I had to drop the filmthing.
Um, but I absolutely love makingvideos.
And so with that said, I'malways thinking of different
videos to make.
I can watch a movie and I'll bewatching the movie and halfway
(02:15):
through it.
I'm thinking of my own movie.
When I listened to songs, I comeup with different videos in my
head for that song.
Um, you're just letting melisten to a song a few times and
I'm not bragging.
It's just who I am.
I like doing that.
I've met other people that arejust like this.
You know, you listen to a songand I can visualize what the
song is saying and put it into avideo and I want to make him.
(02:36):
And so I'll go tell my parentsand tell my mom, this is what I
want to do.
And I share the video idea, theconcept and whatever, but then I
never make it.
You know what I mean?
It's just an idea.
And so that's the deal.
Just a thought without anyaction.
It's just an idea.
It's just a, it's just, it'snothing.
Right.
And I'm great at that.
And so I remember when I wantedto do the podcast, I had told my
(02:57):
mom and on the road day, when Iwas telling her about doing
reality check, she said, Steven,I love all this, but you're not
going to do it.
And she was right here.
We are a year later and I stillhaven't done the podcast, but
now I'm doing it now.
So it's just really to prove herwrong.
I'm just kidding.
No.
So with that said, I can't feelmy legs, the whole title of this
(03:18):
message, why I started it, why Iwanted to do this, this, um,
message to start off the podcastis because there's this girl
named Kayla Montgomery, who backin 2009, she was at her high
school.
She was a freshman.
She was playing soccer.
She got hit, landed on hertailbone and it hurt.
Of course, she got up finished.
The game, went home, kind offelt bad.
(03:40):
Went to sleep, woke up the nextday and had no feeling from the
waist down.
She went to the doctor.
The doctor diagnosed her withMs.
And for those of you that don'tknow what Ms is.
I know the majority of you do,but Ms is multiple sclerosis.
It affects your nervous system,your spinal cord.
And it literally has a potentialto leave you paralyzed.
(04:00):
I mean, you could literally loseyour legs or your limbs or
whatever, to where you can'thave any feeling in them
anymore.
And so the doctor told Kayla,basically that, you know, you
can't play any more contactsports.
You're going to have to drop allthat.
Um, and there's a likelihoodthat you might lose your legs,
sweetie.
And Kayla had a choice to make.
She could either allow that toaffect her in a negative way, or
(04:22):
she could use it to fuel, youknow, her to do something great.
And she chose to let it fuel herto do something better with her
life.
You see Kayla said, okay, well,I can't play contact sports, but
I can still run.
Can I?
And the doctor said, yeah, youcan do track and cross country,
but there's a chance that youmight lose your legs.
And Kayla said, well, I'm gonnarun until I can't run anymore.
(04:43):
And she hired herself, a coach,the coach told her that she's an
average runner at Bessie.
He could work with her, but it'sgoing to take some work.
And so she did six days a week,ran 65 miles every week.
Um, and this girl worked her wayup to varsity on the track team
and the cross country team, um,and started to make a name for
herself at her high school.
And what makes Kayla Montgomerystory so impactful?
(05:06):
Isn't the fact that she justchose to run, even when she was
told she might not be able to.
That's cool.
That's great.
That right there isinspirational, but really it's,
it's really about how shefinishes her races.
It's not really how she startedher race.
That's cool, but it's how shefinishes each.
And every one of a racist yousee, because Kayla has Ms.
It affects her nervous systemand the whole deal she had
(05:29):
gotten on medication to whereher legs would work better.
But every race about a mile inwhen you have an and you get
overheated, your symptoms rise,and her symptoms would rise when
she was about a mile in and thefeeling in her legs would go
away again, just like they didthe first time.
And it was so bad that at onepoint during the race, she loses
(05:50):
all feeling in her legs.
And all she can do is just keeprunning.
She can't even stop herselfbecause she can't feel her legs.
So in order to stop herself atthe end of a race, she has to
have her coach stand at thefinish line, waiting for her to
cross the finish line andcollapse in his arms to finish
the race.
I don't know about you, butthat's how I want to be when it
(06:12):
comes to serving Jesus, you seethe Bible talks about it and
Hebrews 12, 12 1 is, they said,we are surrounded by such a
great cloud of witnesses, right?
So let us run that race.
It talks about.
And, and, and we're told asChristians that we are running a
race that God has for us and letus run with perseverance and,
and throw off the sin that soeasily entangles us.
(06:34):
Right.
And, and run the race that'smarked out for us.
We hear that.
And that's great now, but let meask you, number one, one, are
you even in the race, some ofyou that are listening, what
race are you running?
Are you running a race that'smarked out for God?
Or are you running a race that'smarked out for yourself?
Are you about success?
Are you about money?
(06:54):
Are you about your business?
Are you about your family?
Are you about yourself or areyou about Jesus?
I mean, I'm just trying to becool.
I'm trying to have a realitycheck right now.
I mean, really?
What is the race that you'rerunning?
And if you're running for Jesus,
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Are you really running or are you just going
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Through the motions you see, because so many times
in life, we can find ourselvesgoing through the motions when
it comes to serving Jesus.
I know I can, I can get topoints in my life where God's
not really answering the prayersthat I'm really wanting him to
answer, and I'm going to him.
And I'm being with him.
I read my Bible, I worship andI'm praying to God, but he's not
(07:31):
really answering what I think heshould be answering.
Right.
And so I can then getdisappointed and I could go
through the motions.
And now I'm just showing up tochurch on Sunday.
Now I'm just listening to theworship music and yeah, I'll
raise my hands here and there.
And I worship, but the wordsdon't mean nothing to me.
And, and, and I'm just, I'm justthere, right?
(07:52):
And I'm just kinda going throughthe motions.
Maybe you just go to work andyou go to your nine to five, you
go home, maybe a coach, a teamor two.
And you know, you have a fewkids and, and life becomes busy.
And if you blink all of asudden, next thing you know, you
haven't been to church in a fewweeks and oh, a few months, a
year, two years, you haven'tbeen to church.
And what, what is like, what,what are we doing?
(08:14):
You know?
And next thing you know, yourealize me and my relationship
with God, isn't where it used tobe today.
I want to give you a realitycheck that it's time to get back
on the track.
And it's time to run the racewith intensity.
It's not about how you start.
It's about how you finish.
I don't know about you, but Iwant to finish my race running
after God.
I want to run with intensity somuch so that I'm like Kayla
(08:37):
Montgomery.
I want to cross the finish lineand collapse in Jesus's arms.
And I want the same for you.
And what's crazy.
And what's cool is that it'spossible.
We can do that.
Now.
You might say Steven will, oh,how do you, how do you, what do
you mean?
What, how, how do you do that?
Well, it's getting in, it'sgetting into church.
It's getting involved.
(08:58):
It's serving.
It's not just showing up andbeing a casual church goer, it's
saying, Hey, let me get on theGreek team.
Hey, let me serve in thenursery.
Let me serve in, in thechildren's ministry.
You know, let me serve on themedia team.
You know, maybe I have a, youhave a musical talent.
You might can get on the worshipteam or, or whatever you, maybe
(09:18):
you want to do.
The social media team.
I'm telling you, churches wouldlove to have somebody to do the
social media page.
It is a pain to do that.
I hate doing it.
Okay.
But some people have an, uh, anact just for that.
And
Speaker 3 (09:31):
That could be where you fit in.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So my challenge to you today is to get plugged in
and do something for God, dosomething and use your gifts to
glorify God.
You see, back when I was sixyears old, I had, uh, wanted to
do karate.
And I had started out strong.
I thought, this is what I wantto do.
And I went and I was doing it,but all they did was do these
(09:55):
little maneuvers, like blockingmy face and you know, teaching
me like little kick in maneuversand stuff.
But in my head at six years old,I had seen some Bruce Lee
movies.
I saw a Walker, Texas rangerfrom my grandfather.
And so all I saw was like the,that, you know, chopping the
wooden half stuff.
And I was like, bring out thewood, bro.
Like, I want to chop that inhalf.
(10:16):
And if we ain't doing it, then Iain't learning karate.
I want to fight people.
I want to learn how to fight.
I don't want to defend myself.
I want to fight people.
Not because I'm a fighter, butbecause if somebody is like, yo,
give me your lunch money.
I'd be like, oh yeah, watch thiscrane kick to the face, karate
kid stuff.
You know what I'm saying?
But none of that happened.
And I remember at six years old,I, I did a few weeks and I told
(10:38):
mom and dad, I said, I, I quitthis.
I ain't gonna impress no girls.
I watch this Betsy watch medefend myself with my little
maneuvers that I learned.
No, bro.
I bring out the woodshop inhalf.
So Betsy's like, wow.
You know, Steven, you're cool,but that didn't happen.
So I quit.
And I remember today now Iregret that I quit that because
(11:00):
I quit something.
And honestly, honestly, I didn'trealize that they were, she man
training me and getting me readyto be able to do the bigger and
cooler things for karate, right?
Teaching me how to fight.
They were teaching me how todefend myself and teaching me
how to hold my leg up.
And I just didn't understand theprocess.
And I think so many of us in ourrace towards Jesus, he's got us
(11:24):
going through a process andsometimes we don't understand
the process and we want theprocess to hurry up and we want
to get to the goods, but we'renot willing to go through the
trenches and go through theprocess of learning and how to
defend ourselves and how to, youknow, get in the word and be
ready to defend ourselves whenthe enemy comes.
And so when he does come, we getdiscouraged because we didn't
(11:45):
put the work in, you know whatI'm saying?
And we quit too easy and wedon't.
We miss out on the blessing thatGod has for us.
And today I want to challengeyou to run the race that God has
marked out for you withintensity.
It's not about how you startlike, like listen, it starting
is one thing.
That's awesome.
That's great.
(12:05):
Don't don't, don't, you know,miss me when I'm saying that,
I'm not saying that it's notimportant to start.
That's very important, but it'smore so important finishing.
I don't want to serve Jesus onlywhen I'm young.
I want to serve Jesus.
When I'm 60, I want to serveJesus.
When I'm 85, when I'm 90, whenI'm on my death bed, I want to
be serving Jesus, not just in myteens, not just in my, you know,
(12:28):
in my, uh, young, early twentiesand maybe my thirties, but me
and I, when I'm 50 well that'sfor the young kids to do no,
man.
I want to serve Jesus witheverything.
I want to run with intensity.
And I want the same for you justbecause you're 55 years old or
60 years old or 70 years old, 80years old.
Does it mean that you can't beused to win somebody to the
(12:48):
Lord?
It doesn't mean that God can'tuse you and your experience and
what you've been through thatGod can't use that to maybe I
don't know, inspire someone elsethat's maybe younger or maybe at
the same age to do somethingwith their life.
That glorifies God, you neverknow.
Who's watching for you.
Older people.
There's so many young peoplethat look up to you just don't
(13:09):
even realize it.
There's people in my church thatI look up to right now that I
love dearly and that I can'twait to get.
I'm not saying I'm rushing, butI can't wait to be their age and
serving Jesus like they are.
And I hope that I will be.
And I pray.
And I know that I will be in thename of Jesus, but you see when
I was six, I had quit karate,but at six years old, I started
(13:30):
one other thing at six.
I said, that's the year that Igave my life to Christ.
And as something that I startedat six and I plan to finish when
I'm dead, I plan to finish myrelationship with Christ all the
way across the finish line atheaven.
Um, I'm looking forward to Godsaying, well done my good and
faithful servant.
But the Bible says that many,many keyword, many and
(13:54):
quotations, okay, we'll sayLord, Lord, but they want into
the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I don't want to be one of the many.
I want to be one of the few
Speaker 2 (14:02):
That walks through the pearly gates and gets to see
Jesus and gets to experienceheaven because I want to run my
race with intensity.
And the thing is, is I want thesame for you.
I might've quit karate at sixyears old, but I also started
something that was way moreimportant.
And that was my relationshipwith Christ at six years old.
(14:24):
And I'm 26.
Now I've been going 20 yearsstrong serving Jesus and I plan
to go for a lifetime servingthem.
And I plan the same for you.
So I challenge you to run therace that God has marked out for
you with intensity, the same waythat Kayla Montgomery runs each
and every one of her races.
(14:45):
I challenge you to chase afterGod with so much intensity that
you collapse across the finishand his arms never think that
you don't have what it takes totell somebody about Jesus.
Your story is just as importantas mine and anybody.
Else's.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
(15:05):
I hope that you've gottensomething out of this and I'll
see you again next week forepisode two of the reality
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Check podcast.
I'll see you there.
Hey everyone.
This is Stephen Farmer andwelcome to the weekly reality
check podcast.
Today's episode is titled aye.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Can't feel my legs.
It's actually a message that Ispoke at our church south end
community church a few monthsago.
And I absolutely love thisstory.
And this literally I had wrotethis and kind of planned this
out for the podcast.
It was going to be my firstepisode and I was talking with
my dad about it.
And he said, you need to speakthis at church.
You needed to share thismessage.
(00:30):
And I thought, oh man, well theneverybody's going to hear it.
And you know, I don't know a lotof people, so maybe they're
going to hear it again on thepodcast, but, you know, I
figured I'm still gonna go withit because this applies so much
so to the podcast.
And I'm going to get to that ina few minutes.
If you listen to the trailer,you know how reality check
started, why I did it and how itwas feeling at the time before I
(00:51):
started it.
But what you don't know is thatit took me forever to actually
do the podcast.
When I got that feeling to dothe podcast.
And I felt I got to put it on myheart.
That was a year ago.
And it's now June 29th, 2021that was in 2020, probably in
March or may that I felt likeGod put it on my heart to do a
(01:13):
podcast.
So a year later here I am justnow starting it.
And the reason I'm saying allthis is because I'm great at
starting something, but I'mterrible about finishing.
I'm always good at coming upwith ideas.
If you talk to my parents and mymom, for sure.
Um, I'm a big video guy.
I love to make videos.
I love to do movies and stuff.
(01:34):
And, and before I was called toministry, um, I had a joy and a
passion for film I still do, butI was actually going to go to
the university of new Orleans topursue a film degree.
Um, I knew by my junior year, Iwould get to intern on major
motion picture sets and be ableto work with actors and
different directors and stuff.
(01:54):
I thought that's going to be socool.
Um, and, and I love to act andthe whole deal, but of course,
God called me to do face it.
And then I had to drop the filmthing.
Um, but I absolutely love makingvideos.
And so with that said, I'malways thinking of different
videos to make.
I can watch a movie and I'll bewatching the movie and halfway
(02:15):
through it.
I'm thinking of my own movie.
When I listened to songs, I comeup with different videos in my
head for that song.
Um, you're just letting melisten to a song a few times and
I'm not bragging.
It's just who I am.
I like doing that.
I've met other people that arejust like this.
You know, you listen to a songand I can visualize what the
song is saying and put it into avideo and I want to make him.
(02:36):
And so I'll go tell my parentsand tell my mom, this is what I
want to do.
And I share the video idea, theconcept and whatever, but then I
never make it.
You know what I mean?
It's just an idea.
And so that's the deal.
Just a thought without anyaction.
It's just an idea.
It's just a, it's just, it'snothing.
Right.
And I'm great at that.
And so I remember when I wantedto do the podcast, I had told my
(02:57):
mom and on the road day, when Iwas telling her about doing
reality check, she said, Steven,I love all this, but you're not
going to do it.
And she was right here.
We are a year later and I stillhaven't done the podcast, but
now I'm doing it now.
So it's just really to prove herwrong.
I'm just kidding.
No.
So with that said, I can't feelmy legs, the whole title of this
(03:18):
message, why I started it, why Iwanted to do this, this, um,
message to start off the podcastis because there's this girl
named Kayla Montgomery, who backin 2009, she was at her high
school.
She was a freshman.
She was playing soccer.
She got hit, landed on hertailbone and it hurt.
Of course, she got up finished.
The game, went home, kind offelt bad.
(03:40):
Went to sleep, woke up the nextday and had no feeling from the
waist down.
She went to the doctor.
The doctor diagnosed her withMs.
And for those of you that don'tknow what Ms is.
I know the majority of you do,but Ms is multiple sclerosis.
It affects your nervous system,your spinal cord.
And it literally has a potentialto leave you paralyzed.
(04:00):
I mean, you could literally loseyour legs or your limbs or
whatever, to where you can'thave any feeling in them
anymore.
And so the doctor told Kayla,basically that, you know, you
can't play any more contactsports.
You're going to have to drop allthat.
Um, and there's a likelihoodthat you might lose your legs,
sweetie.
And Kayla had a choice to make.
She could either allow that toaffect her in a negative way, or
(04:22):
she could use it to fuel, youknow, her to do something great.
And she chose to let it fuel herto do something better with her
life.
You see Kayla said, okay, well,I can't play contact sports, but
I can still run.
Can I?
And the doctor said, yeah, youcan do track and cross country,
but there's a chance that youmight lose your legs.
And Kayla said, well, I'm gonnarun until I can't run anymore.
(04:43):
And she hired herself, a coach,the coach told her that she's an
average runner at Bessie.
He could work with her, but it'sgoing to take some work.
And so she did six days a week,ran 65 miles every week.
Um, and this girl worked her wayup to varsity on the track team
and the cross country team, um,and started to make a name for
herself at her high school.
And what makes Kayla Montgomerystory so impactful?
(05:06):
Isn't the fact that she justchose to run, even when she was
told she might not be able to.
That's cool.
That's great.
That right there isinspirational, but really it's,
it's really about how shefinishes her races.
It's not really how she startedher race.
That's cool, but it's how shefinishes each.
And every one of a racist yousee, because Kayla has Ms.
It affects her nervous systemand the whole deal she had
(05:29):
gotten on medication to whereher legs would work better.
But every race about a mile inwhen you have an and you get
overheated, your symptoms rise,and her symptoms would rise when
she was about a mile in and thefeeling in her legs would go
away again, just like they didthe first time.
And it was so bad that at onepoint during the race, she loses
(05:50):
all feeling in her legs.
And all she can do is just keeprunning.
She can't even stop herselfbecause she can't feel her legs.
So in order to stop herself atthe end of a race, she has to
have her coach stand at thefinish line, waiting for her to
cross the finish line andcollapse in his arms to finish
the race.
I don't know about you, butthat's how I want to be when it
(06:12):
comes to serving Jesus, you seethe Bible talks about it and
Hebrews 12, 12 1 is, they said,we are surrounded by such a
great cloud of witnesses, right?
So let us run that race.
It talks about.
And, and, and we're told asChristians that we are running a
race that God has for us and letus run with perseverance and,
and throw off the sin that soeasily entangles us.
(06:34):
Right.
And, and run the race that'smarked out for us.
We hear that.
And that's great now, but let meask you, number one, one, are
you even in the race, some ofyou that are listening, what
race are you running?
Are you running a race that'smarked out for God?
Or are you running a race that'smarked out for yourself?
Are you about success?
Are you about money?
(06:54):
Are you about your business?
Are you about your family?
Are you about yourself or areyou about Jesus?
I mean, I'm just trying to becool.
I'm trying to have a realitycheck right now.
I mean, really?
What is the race that you'rerunning?
And if you're running for Jesus,
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Are you really running or are you just going
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Through the motions you see, because so many times
in life, we can find ourselvesgoing through the motions when
it comes to serving Jesus.
I know I can, I can get topoints in my life where God's
not really answering the prayersthat I'm really wanting him to
answer, and I'm going to him.
And I'm being with him.
I read my Bible, I worship andI'm praying to God, but he's not
(07:31):
really answering what I think heshould be answering.
Right.
And so I can then getdisappointed and I could go
through the motions.
And now I'm just showing up tochurch on Sunday.
Now I'm just listening to theworship music and yeah, I'll
raise my hands here and there.
And I worship, but the wordsdon't mean nothing to me.
And, and, and I'm just, I'm justthere, right?
(07:52):
And I'm just kinda going throughthe motions.
Maybe you just go to work andyou go to your nine to five, you
go home, maybe a coach, a teamor two.
And you know, you have a fewkids and, and life becomes busy.
And if you blink all of asudden, next thing you know, you
haven't been to church in a fewweeks and oh, a few months, a
year, two years, you haven'tbeen to church.
And what, what is like, what,what are we doing?
(08:14):
You know?
And next thing you know, yourealize me and my relationship
with God, isn't where it used tobe today.
I want to give you a realitycheck that it's time to get back
on the track.
And it's time to run the racewith intensity.
It's not about how you start.
It's about how you finish.
I don't know about you, but Iwant to finish my race running
after God.
I want to run with intensity somuch so that I'm like Kayla
(08:37):
Montgomery.
I want to cross the finish lineand collapse in Jesus's arms.
And I want the same for you.
And what's crazy.
And what's cool is that it'spossible.
We can do that.
Now.
You might say Steven will, oh,how do you, how do you, what do
you mean?
What, how, how do you do that?
Well, it's getting in, it'sgetting into church.
It's getting involved.
(08:58):
It's serving.
It's not just showing up andbeing a casual church goer, it's
saying, Hey, let me get on theGreek team.
Hey, let me serve in thenursery.
Let me serve in, in thechildren's ministry.
You know, let me serve on themedia team.
You know, maybe I have a, youhave a musical talent.
You might can get on the worshipteam or, or whatever you, maybe
(09:18):
you want to do.
The social media team.
I'm telling you, churches wouldlove to have somebody to do the
social media page.
It is a pain to do that.
I hate doing it.
Okay.
But some people have an, uh, anact just for that.
And
Speaker 3 (09:31):
That could be where you fit in.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So my challenge to you today is to get plugged in
and do something for God, dosomething and use your gifts to
glorify God.
You see, back when I was sixyears old, I had, uh, wanted to
do karate.
And I had started out strong.
I thought, this is what I wantto do.
And I went and I was doing it,but all they did was do these
(09:55):
little maneuvers, like blockingmy face and you know, teaching
me like little kick in maneuversand stuff.
But in my head at six years old,I had seen some Bruce Lee
movies.
I saw a Walker, Texas rangerfrom my grandfather.
And so all I saw was like the,that, you know, chopping the
wooden half stuff.
And I was like, bring out thewood, bro.
Like, I want to chop that inhalf.
(10:16):
And if we ain't doing it, then Iain't learning karate.
I want to fight people.
I want to learn how to fight.
I don't want to defend myself.
I want to fight people.
Not because I'm a fighter, butbecause if somebody is like, yo,
give me your lunch money.
I'd be like, oh yeah, watch thiscrane kick to the face, karate
kid stuff.
You know what I'm saying?
But none of that happened.
And I remember at six years old,I, I did a few weeks and I told
(10:38):
mom and dad, I said, I, I quitthis.
I ain't gonna impress no girls.
I watch this Betsy watch medefend myself with my little
maneuvers that I learned.
No, bro.
I bring out the woodshop inhalf.
So Betsy's like, wow.
You know, Steven, you're cool,but that didn't happen.
So I quit.
And I remember today now Iregret that I quit that because
(11:00):
I quit something.
And honestly, honestly, I didn'trealize that they were, she man
training me and getting me readyto be able to do the bigger and
cooler things for karate, right?
Teaching me how to fight.
They were teaching me how todefend myself and teaching me
how to hold my leg up.
And I just didn't understand theprocess.
And I think so many of us in ourrace towards Jesus, he's got us
(11:24):
going through a process andsometimes we don't understand
the process and we want theprocess to hurry up and we want
to get to the goods, but we'renot willing to go through the
trenches and go through theprocess of learning and how to
defend ourselves and how to, youknow, get in the word and be
ready to defend ourselves whenthe enemy comes.
And so when he does come, we getdiscouraged because we didn't
(11:45):
put the work in, you know whatI'm saying?
And we quit too easy and wedon't.
We miss out on the blessing thatGod has for us.
And today I want to challengeyou to run the race that God has
marked out for you withintensity.
It's not about how you startlike, like listen, it starting
is one thing.
That's awesome.
That's great.
(12:05):
Don't don't, don't, you know,miss me when I'm saying that,
I'm not saying that it's notimportant to start.
That's very important, but it'smore so important finishing.
I don't want to serve Jesus onlywhen I'm young.
I want to serve Jesus.
When I'm 60, I want to serveJesus.
When I'm 85, when I'm 90, whenI'm on my death bed, I want to
be serving Jesus, not just in myteens, not just in my, you know,
(12:28):
in my, uh, young, early twentiesand maybe my thirties, but me
and I, when I'm 50 well that'sfor the young kids to do no,
man.
I want to serve Jesus witheverything.
I want to run with intensity.
And I want the same for you justbecause you're 55 years old or
60 years old or 70 years old, 80years old.
Does it mean that you can't beused to win somebody to the
(12:48):
Lord?
It doesn't mean that God can'tuse you and your experience and
what you've been through thatGod can't use that to maybe I
don't know, inspire someone elsethat's maybe younger or maybe at
the same age to do somethingwith their life.
That glorifies God, you neverknow.
Who's watching for you.
Older people.
There's so many young peoplethat look up to you just don't
(13:09):
even realize it.
There's people in my church thatI look up to right now that I
love dearly and that I can'twait to get.
I'm not saying I'm rushing, butI can't wait to be their age and
serving Jesus like they are.
And I hope that I will be.
And I pray.
And I know that I will be in thename of Jesus, but you see when
I was six, I had quit karate,but at six years old, I started
(13:30):
one other thing at six.
I said, that's the year that Igave my life to Christ.
And as something that I startedat six and I plan to finish when
I'm dead, I plan to finish myrelationship with Christ all the
way across the finish line atheaven.
Um, I'm looking forward to Godsaying, well done my good and
faithful servant.
But the Bible says that many,many keyword, many and
(13:54):
quotations, okay, we'll sayLord, Lord, but they want into
the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I don't want to be one of the many.
I want to be one of the few
Speaker 2 (14:02):
That walks through the pearly gates and gets to see
Jesus and gets to experienceheaven because I want to run my
race with intensity.
And the thing is, is I want thesame for you.
I might've quit karate at sixyears old, but I also started
something that was way moreimportant.
And that was my relationshipwith Christ at six years old.
(14:24):
And I'm 26.
Now I've been going 20 yearsstrong serving Jesus and I plan
to go for a lifetime servingthem.
And I plan the same for you.
So I challenge you to run therace that God has marked out for
you with intensity, the same waythat Kayla Montgomery runs each
and every one of her races.
(14:45):
I challenge you to chase afterGod with so much intensity that
you collapse across the finishand his arms never think that
you don't have what it takes totell somebody about Jesus.
Your story is just as importantas mine and anybody.
Else's.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
(15:05):
I hope that you've gottensomething out of this and I'll
see you again next week forepisode two of the reality
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Check podcast.
I'll see you there.
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