Reviving Our First Love: Insights from a Weekend of Worship and Wisdom

In this episode, Pastor Brent McQuay, Tiffany Hines, and Pastor Carlton McCarthy discuss highlights and takeaways from First Love Conference 2024.

If you're looking to get even more out of this podcast episode, check out the full sermon on the same topic on our YouTube channel https://go.clc.tv/ps44.

Episode Transcript

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Hey, welcome to a very special episode of between

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sermons where we are continuing the conversation from the

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weekend. But this weekend was, it was a wild

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weekend because it was our first love conference here

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at our church. And what that means is basically

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we've got Friday night service, Saturday morning service, Saturday

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night service, Sunday morning service, Sunday night service. And
so we just got a lot of stuff to
talk about. And so to help me do that
today, instead of one guest, we have two. So
we've got the one and only pastor Carlton McCarthy
and the ever beautiful and lovely Tiffany Hines, actually
the only professional at the table. She's been doing
podcasting for a lot longer than we have. So
we're just going to defer to tiff and see
how to work.
This is going to be fun. It's going to
be fun. I think our humor and just what
it's all about in the word, it's going to
be a good time.
And there is just so everybody knows, there is
a danger in recording this podcast right now because
it is currently Monday morning after that three day

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marathon of services. So there was a lot of
coffee being drunk this morning. So we'll kind of
see if we stop making sense.
Your eyes are a little red.

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Are they?

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No.
What I would love to be able to do
today is just kind of talk through highlights of
the weekend, the messages that kind of spoke to
you, what kind of impact it had on you,
and what you're going to do as a result
of it. But before we get into that, what
is first love conference for you guys?
So, for me, when you were just saying all
the different days, it kind of reminded me about
the first church that I grew up in. And
it was like Sunday school and then service, and
then night service, and then Tuesday Bible study and
then Thursday. It was like four days a week.
But this is way more modern and way more
intentional of us gathering together to really focus in
on a revived, kind of fired heart again for
the Lord.
Yeah, I think to your point, it reminded me
of revival back in the day in church. When
you're in church Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then
all day Sunday, it brought back that kind of
nostalgia for me. But first love is just getting
a fresh take on the word of God because
we get awesome speakers that come in and they
do such an amazing job. And it's not that
I'm getting used to our teaching team here.
You're getting bored of me.
Exactly.
Well, you're on that teaching team, too.
Yeah. No, but just to get a fresh perspective

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on the word of God, for us, at the
start of the year, it kind of, like, just
sets the tone for the rest of the year.
And I think it's great. Yeah, no, I love
that first love becomes the reset for the year.
We do it in January, which is probably a
horrible idea in the sense of we're in Chicago,
and so January is.
Can we talk about the weather?
This week we had 40 degrees and.
A little bit of rain compared to last year.
Was it last year? The year before that, literally
Sunday morning was a blizzard.
We couldn't even get in right this weekend. I
was just like, thank you, Lord. The weather was
great.
But I do love that it's starting off the
year, we've got all the distractions of Christmas and
all of that stuff, and, I don't know, everybody's
making New Year's resolutions and deciding they're going to
do things differently. And so we start off January
with, hey, it's almost like we're saying, hey, we're
going to tithe our year to God. We're going
to give them the first fruits of this year,
and then we just go to church, and our
worship set is almost doubled from a normal Sunday
morning in length and content. And then you just
let these preachers go, like, Friday night. He asked
me beforehand, John Bevere asked me. He's like, so
how much time? I'm like, look, whatever amount of
time you want to take is fine. We're not
regimented on a service like this. Our people are
used to 35, 45 minutes. And he said, okay,
perfect, I'll hit that. And then he went for
an hour and 15, I think. And nobody's mad
at him?
No, not at all.
Not at all. So it was pretty awesome. I
love that. First love is just. We're saying, God,
you're the most important thing. You're our first love.
And so, obviously, if you listen to my message,
we take the series from revelation, chapter two, verse
two through four. We're talking to Ephesus that they
did a bunch of great things, but they left
their first love. They were just going through the
motions. And I think a lot of times, even
as christians, even as pastors, we can kind of
end up just going through the motions and forgetting
the heart behind, why we're doing what we're doing.
And so I think it's just. Yeah, I love
first love. It's the favorite thing that we do
as a church.
Yep. Absolutely.
I like at the movies, but first love is.
At the movies is pretty awesome.
I like movies, but I like Jesus more. All
right. So let's dive in. So Friday night we
kicked off with John Bever. Obviously, he was a
huge draw for the community around here. Has written
some incredible books. His message on Friday night was
basically what, like three chapters out of the book?
Awe of God. Highly recommend. Amazing content. I was
telling my wife that I got to hear John
a lot. We were based out of the same
church for a while. I was an intern. That
was just his home church. So we used him
a lot for men's meetings and conferences and different
things. So I heard him a lot, but honestly,
I think Friday night was the best I'd ever
heard. John.
Yeah, absolutely.
It was like peak on the drive home. My
wife and I were just talking. I was like,
it felt like this is the message he was
born to preach. It was like everything that he
taught was just a culmination of little pieces of
this and this and this from his entire life.
How did you feel Friday night?
I've been thinking about what you said over the
past few weeks about John because he's been so
passionate. You can tell that in his book. And
it's almost like God is like, this is your
call. Bring the church to a place of awe
of God and don't leave there. Get them to
understand and just stay there. And so I totally
agree. And I went into it knowing that I
didn't grow up listening to John recently. I really
listened to him the first time on Tim Ross's
podcast. But the way it was, like wrecking my
heart, I'm like, whoa, I need to get this
book. And that's how I started getting introduced to
him. So I knew going in excited, like, I'm
looking forward to being continued to be wrecked. And
I want our church also to experience this sobering
experience with the Lord and his Holiness.
Yeah, it's funny that we both listened to that
podcast and then we both got the book and
we both read the book. Didn't even know. And
then we talked about it and.
You office together, your desk just a few feet
away.
Yeah. And then we said, wouldn't it be cool
if John Pavir was here? And then we reached
out and he was available. And this is unheard
of. Possible.
Oh, my gosh.
I don't even think you guys know how wild
that was because he told me, his assistant told
me, he's like, yeah, we really don't go to
new places. Yeah, he's like, we just go to
the same places. But for some reason we just
saw your invitation.
We're like, the book was so good. That we
just took a shot in the dark and was
like, let's reach out and see. And then bam,
there it was.
That was pretty cool. So his message, what was
the highlight for you, Carlton, we'll kick off with
you. What was that moment that you're like, this
is what I needed?
Yeah. I think when he really talked through your
behavior, befitting your position and your position in holiness
and in the manifestation of Jesus's presence in my
life. And it's know, we think about our behavior

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as know, striving for holiness, being righteous. But putting
that together to my position in, like, it's. It's
like an awe moment, like his book says. And
it's like, do I really have a reverence, a
fear of know we love Jesus, but is the
fear there where it changes my behavior, it changes
how I work, how I act, how I parent,
how I'm a know the whole nine? And it's
like, if Jesus is with me and I want
to dwell in his presence, is my behavior befitting
my position to him? And I just think that
was awesome.
So I love the analogy. He tied it into
his marriage. He tied a lot of things back
to marriage. But it was like the position of,
she's my bride, I'm her husband. That position, it's
separate from the behavior. Now I need to behave
in a matter fitting. I don't have to keep
waving the marriage certificate in front of me saying,
hey, we're married, we're married. No, now I need
to behave in a way that's honoring the position
that I'm holding. And I thought that was brilliant
to me.
Absolutely. Yeah. I would say for me it was
two things, but I'll keep it brief to one
was when he was saying, and I'm paraphrasing, that
Jesus or God will not reside into a place
or in a body that is just. He didn't
use the word holy, but that's what he was
saying. He's so holy that he's not going to
just put himself in a place. That one, he's
not feared and he's not seen as holy. And
so it was that constant thing of reflecting back,
okay, where are the areas in my life that
I just have not feared and reverenced God? And
he made the two known more reference and fear
even more, I think, more in his book. But
where are the areas that I'm loving Jesus? Like
he mentioned about the guy in prison or the
pastor that was in prison, but I'm not fearing
him. And that behavioral thing that story right there.
So I've heard him tell the story. So can
I say it on the podcast? It's Jim Baker.
That's who it is. So, anyways, the story, I
had heard it before, but for some reason, Friday
night, man, it just hit me so hard, this
idea of Jim, when did you stop loving. Know

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you're having an affair. You're stealing money from people.
You're in prison for this. When did you stop
loving Jesus? And he's like, never. I didn't. All
through that, I love. And, like, I would have
probably had the same reaction John had. Like, whatever,
dude. Idiot. But no, it was genuine. He's like,

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no, I love Jesus. Through all of it, I
lost my fear of him. And it's like, oh,
man.
Yeah.
Because I think we separate loving Jesus from our
lifestyle.
Yeah.
And it's like, we love Jesus. We love the
socks off of Jesus. But how does that affect
how live? Like, I think we have the understanding
of who Jesus is and what he's done for
us. And so it's easy for us to put
Jesus on the throne that he's on and understand
that we love Jesus because he loves us. But
the connection to our behavior on earth, you know
this. But it's like an epiphany happens to you.
Like, okay, well, what music am I listening to?
What shows am I watching? How are my conversations?
How are my relationships? It's like something just hits
you. Like, wait a minute. It's one thing to
love Jesus, but then to have that reverence for
him, to fear him in my life, yeah.
We'Ve lost the awe of God.
And I think that part of him saying that,
I feel like that's that alignment with calling, like
his assignment that God has him on, because he
said what Jim said, jim Baker, that there are
thousands of Americans that love Jesus. And it was
kind of like, if you were in the room,
you're thinking about how many people say all the
time, no, I love God. I love God. I
love God. But the issue is that you don't
fear him, and you can't fear someone that's not
lord. And so it was just this kind of
like, yes, we need this as a body in
America, period.
That message for me was like, this is what's
missing, I think, in popular Christianity. And he laid
it out that there's two ditches that we've ended
up in on the side of holiness. There was
this. What was in the 70s, like, the real
holiness movement, and it just kind of created this
legalistic legalism with it we fell into this ditch
of all the rules and the craziness with it.
And so then a generation came in. It's like,
man, I feel like Jesus is my homeboy. He's
not whipping me all the time. So it's the
Jesus of my homeboy movement. And so we climbed
out of the ditch of this overemphasis on holiness,
and we fell into this other ditch of lawlessness.
And it's like, no, we have the love of
God, and the fear of God becomes the guardrails
that really map out the path that we're supposed
to be on. And if we veer too much
into lawlessness, clearly we're not following the command. If
you love me, obey my commandments. And we're just
saying, well, I don't have to obey anything because
I love him and he already forgave me, and
so I can do what I want, and it'll
be fine. So we veer off the wrong way
that way, or we veer off into the holiness
thing, which I think is where even just the
theme of first love comes back into play, because
it's like the church in Ephesus. They were doing
good works. They were calling out false teachers, which,
I mean, that's like a New Testament theme over
and over again. And so they're doing all of
this stuff, but they don't actually love the person
that they're doing it for.
Right.
And so it's just, man, we can get in
this trap where we fall on either side. I
would say that in 2024, the trap we're falling
into is the lawlessness side, though. That's the ditch
that we're ending up in. And so I love
that John comes in with this message about holiness
and the love of God being the guardrails, because
I think it does help us get back on
track.
Right? Yeah, I think we love homeboy Jesus.
Yeah, Jesus.
Jesus. Our homeboy.
Our friend.
Our friend. And it gets too close in a
weird way that we lose reverence for him. We
lose the understanding of his majesty and his power
and what it means for him to allow us
to be in his presence.
John said something. He said, you don't love God
until you fear him. How did that hit you?
Because when he said that, I was to. I
need to work on that one.
Yeah. I mean, it changes your definition of what
love is, because to fear God changes your behavior,
which connects with love, because love is an action,
it's a verb. And it's like. So we say

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that we love God as a way of describing
an emotion or feeling, but you don't love God
unless you fear him, says that your love needs
to be in action to, you know, part of
the New Testament is that Jesus came to demonstrate
ultimate love and sacrifice by dying for our sins.
And we have to reflect that same action of
love back to Jesus with a behavior of hit.
Now go and do likewise.
Right, Jesus.
Like, I picked up my cross, I laid down
my life. Absolutely follow me.
So when I think about, and I'm just looking
back, like, if you're a first time believer, and
so if someone confesses and believes in their heart
that Jesus is Lord, they're saved. Now, are they
automatically in love with Jesus? I would say no,
because they don't know him just yet. And so
once you get to know him, then you understand
that he's like, lord. And then you see his
holiness then like that. So I understood of him
saying, if you don't fear him, then you don't
know him, which means you don't know how holy
he is. And so something that he said in
his book, and this is these constant revelations to
get you through, like, stop making God. So basic
was when he said in his book, like, if
you notice, the angels aren't saying lovely, lovely, lovely,
loving, loving, loving father, father, Father. They're saying, holy,
holy, holy. And so it's just that thing of
stop making him so basic. But learning to love
God is knowing him. And when you know him,
you see how holy he is, and then you
fear him and you get to experience loving him
as he loved you.
And it can be a hard path to walk.
Understanding that God is approachable, but he's still God.
He's still the creator of heaven and earth, life
and death, like all of it, is the power
in his hands. And so there needs to be
a reverence for this is God almighty. I love
that John walked through the people that had encounters
with the living God and fell down as if
know had to hide their faces. Was like, I
can only show you a piece of just throughout
scripture, old into the New Testament. It's like, whoa.
When you come face to face with God, this
is an awe inspiring moment. And yet we turn
it into, I can be holding on to my
sin and hanging out with Jesus at the same
time.
I was going to say that it's so difficult
because he invites this closeness of relationship with him
that you want to have with God, but then
what you can't do is forget his holiness and
who he is. And sometimes in relationship with Jesus,
we invite him into our life instead of inviting
our life into him, changing our life to be
in his presence. And at least I get stuck
with having Jesus roll with me instead of me
rolling with Jesus.
That's it right there. That's huge.
So I think another part. And so why his
book had been already wrecking me with fear and
with him and being awe. Because I kept thinking
through all these times of, like, so I've been
a devout. This is my decision. Christian since I
was 13. It's like, this is not my mom's
religion. This is my decision. And with that closeness
and getting to know him, all those things, that
familiarity came. And so the amount of times that
I have used that I know God enough to
do what I want to do, and I'll come
back. Or blatantly, if I'm hurt by God, I
mean, in college, there was time, I was so
hurt. Like, I know God doesn't like this, so
I'm going to do this anyway. Like, God could
have literally, I could have just dropped dead. And
I was leading worship in college at the same
time. And not because I was just out here
just living really wily, but still, that's still wild.
I just know that I wouldn't go up for
prayer. I didn't want to do anything because I
was hurt. I was confused. It was my first
time kind of being confronted with what I had
grew up knowing about God and actually, what, biblically,
those kind of things. So I was just like,
well, do I believe in Jesus? And so thinking
about all those times post college, even, that I'm
just going to, on purpose, knowingly, in my mind,
do what I want to do. It's like, man,
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that I've treated
our relationship like a friend and not like God.
And he does invite us to both, right? So
we read that we can come boldly before the
throne of grace. There is a familiarity. That's okay.
There is a level of, yes, we have this
intimate, personal relationship.
He ripped the bill. I can skip one in,
right?
We do get to enter into his presence. We're
going to sing that at ClC. No, don't. So
there is this openness to it, but there still
has to be this reverence, and that's man. It's
like two sides of the same coin. It's those
guardrails on both sides of the path. And that's
why it says that the path is narrow. This
isn't an easy thing to do.
But navigating the complexities of this relationship with God
makes us have more of a relationship with him.
Yeah, it gets us closer to him. When you
first get married, you don't know everything about each
other, so navigating the complexities of the relationship brings
a deeper closeness to each other. And that's what
makes it great. As complex as it is, you
want the complexity because you get more of Jesus,
he reveals more of himself to you so that
we can understand he's not just sitting back wanting
us to get revelation from him without him coming
towards us and giving us that revelation. And that's
the beautiful part of it, is that the journey
and the closeness and deepness and relationship we have
in Jesus just makes us better.
Man, I love it. We could talk about John's
message probably this entire podcast, but we got three
other services to go through. So real quick. Saturday
morning was me preaching.
We could skip that.
How good was I? Tell me. All the things
just make me feel good about myself. But can
I just say, man, for the record, preaching between
John Bevere and Jones, like, I felt like, sorry,
I apologize in advance, but I think that God
gave me a message that the church needed to
hear. And so I feel good about that. But
we really basically just broke down this idea of
what happened to this church in Ephesus. And if
we compare what John writes in revelation to what
Paul writes in Ephesians, and for the record, we
don't know for a matter of fact that it's
the same church, but we do know it's referencing
a same region of people, same group of people,
the same city. So if Paul is addressing the
churches in Tinley park and John's referencing the churches
in Tinley park, we're like, oh yeah, it's about
like there's other churches around here, but it affects
us as a people, as a so. And it
was just amazing to me. I literally just had
that thought while we're in corporate prayer. And it
was like I've never thought to connect these two
writings before. So let me see what it does.
And six chapters in Ephesians, six clear moments where
Paul is basically talking to them about how they
should love God, how they should love each other
as a result, how much God loves them. And
it's just like all of it is about love
in some way. And then John's like, yeah, you
lost that. So what stood out to you in
that?
You know, we talked about this a little bit
when you were planning the sermon, and it hit
me again when you were going through it. It's
like I got so excited to get to the
point to repent about falling away from my love
of Jesus Christ, that usually that's the end for
me. And it's like, I've repented. I have remorse.
It was our altar call moment, right?
So it's a moment of remorse. I'm like, wow,
God, I'm sorry that I have fallen away from
you, that I've lost touch with the love that
I should have for you. And then after the
altar call moment, it's like, wait a minute, there's
more. I can't just stop here, because if I
stopped here, I will be coming back to this
place again and again and again. So what do
I need to do to make sure that my
life is straight and my love for Jesus is
there, that I don't have to come back to
this place of remorse.
Right.
And so that's when you talk through anchoring myself
with Jesus, and you drop the anchor on the
stage, and it's like, yeah, that's the moment for
me that I know that Jesus has to be
the foundation of even the love I have for
him. So I don't come back to this place
of remorse that I've lost love for him.
Yeah. And we do that all the time, where
we'll address a symptom without actually doing anything about
the cause of it. And I think when I
was putting together the message that was the issue
was like, we're dealing with this. It's really the
symptom. Drift is not the problem. Drift is the
symptom of not being anchored, not being rooted. So
drift happens. You can't stop it unless you get
an anchor. And then it really does come down
to just being connected to the anchor, because scripture
lays out Jesus is our anchor. Technically, it's our
hope in Jesus that is the anchor of our
souls. It's literally what scripture says. But an anchor
doesn't do any good if it's not tied to
something.
Right.
And so we have to tie our lives to
this hope that we have in.
Yeah.
Did he leave you anything to say?
I feel like no, but I did want to
say, you're welcome. But I did want to say
kudos. Like brand, you said it was hard going
in between John and Nona, but I love that
our church really gave you flowers Saturday morning.
Man, that was. Made me so uncomfortable. It was
very emotional. It was.
And so for people who may be listening and
not know, Brent and soul are the lead pastors.
Like, officially, it'll be a year.
Yeah, it's one year. So last night marks the
one year, though, right? Conference.
And so it just was this full circle of
what God has been doing for so many years
and now what he's done. And to see our
church just love on you like that. To me,
I hope that that just left an impression. It
absolutely loved it and accepted. And people just kept
talking about the message and how God was, like,
really showing them themselves and how to be anchored.
And so I wanted you to know I could
see he's like, laughing nervously.
All right. No, but that's absolutely my personality. But
I will say for anybody listening, that was a
part of that moment. Like, thank you. It really
did speak volumes. It really did. Yes, I was
embarrassed. Yes, I was like, please stop. Literally, please
stop. I do not want this right now. But
genuinely, it meant the world. And I'll even admit
that I think I was driving home later that
day or the next day, because I don't even
remember if I actually got to go home on
Saturday. I don't think I did. I think I
stayed at the church the whole day. But whenever
I was in my car next, I was driving,
and for some reason, that moment, it replayed in
my head and I had a big old smile
on my face driving in my car, I was
just like, they love me. They really love me.
It was such a special moment. But, yeah, I
really do feel like my message for people is
read your Bible, and it's such a simple message,
but I think we get so, and we were
talking about this earlier, that there's kind of a
little bit of like conference groupies that happen where
it's like they just kind of travel from one
conference to the next, just chasing after the big
speaker and the big preacher. And it's like, man,
and I don't even think I said it in
the message. It's in my notes. But you always
forget half the things that you're supposed to say.
But you don't need a pastor or a conference
as much as you need a connection to the
Bible. Because what happens is if the only place
you're getting scripture is at service on Sunday, then
you are absolutely 100% going to drift between Sundays.
The anchor only works if you're tied to it.
And if the Bible is dusty, you're not tied
to the anchor. Right.
And when you read the word, it comes alive
to you. It comes alive into whatever you're going
through in your life at the moment. The Holy
Spirit reveals things to you. You can read the
same verse again and again and again, and you'll
get new revelation, and it's like, it's encouraging, it's
exciting, it's contagious. Like, you want to just keep
reading and keep diving into it because it's the
word of God and he's speaking to your life
through his word. And it's like every time I
open up the Bible and I get a revelation,
I'm like, is there a sermon on this? This
is so good.
I've done that so many times. I'll read something
and I'll immediately go to YouTube and just do
a sermon with that verse. I'm like, I need
to hear somebody's explanation of this. That's good.
So question for you guys. So because wanting people
to really go to their Bible, say, for people
that kind of are conference groupies or only listen
or listen and read the Bible on Sundays, what
is something that someone can apply? Because a lot
of times I don't comprehend the Bible. So when
it's broken down to me from a pastor or
from who, a podcast, whatever it is, then I
can understand it. So from that Sunday until that
next Sunday, how can someone who's having a hard
time understanding it on their own be able to
start to take it in?
Yeah, well, I think one thing that they can
do, and I do this a lot, too, is
that when I listen to a sermon that's covering
a topic or a story or a character in
the Bible, then I'll read that entire chapter or
that book or whatever area of the Bible that
they're talking about. I'll read it, and then I'll
watch the sermon again to see how they apply
the concepts of what I'm reading in their message.
And so I can start to see how they
pull the revelation from the word by listening to
their message. And if you do that time and
time again, you'll get practice seeing revelation in the
word because someone has basically done it for you.
And so if you connect the sermon to the
book, to the Bible where they're getting their information
from, then you can start to connect the two.
And now when you read it on your own,
something happens inside of you. It's not necessarily like
a template or anything, but you'll start to catch
that same revelation, and it just takes practice.
Yeah. And it's funny because I actually try and
help people do that in my sermon. So a
lot of times, if you notice, I'll teach and
yeah, I'll do that, but I'll reference a story
or a verse or something and I'll say, hey,
read this this week, go through this this week.
So even on Saturday morning's message, I talked about
Ephesians four and how it's this blueprint for how
we're supposed to live our lives. I didn't give
them anything except verse one that basically says, here's
the blueprint. But literally, it was like verses one
through three and then four through seven or five
through seven. And there was like, I think it
was a total of 20 something verses that directly
say, don't do this, do this, live this way,
don't live this way. And so giving that to
people as homework in that moment, it is the,
okay, this is what you should be doing. It's
also, I think maybe it was a sermon I
preached a couple of weeks ago that I told
people like, hey, you need to be taking notes
when there's a preacher preaching so that you can
go back to it. I love Dan Leanne on
Sunday morning, said the same thing, and I love
his stats. 300%, 82% made up.
You do where you have the teaching tv and
you go through a verse and you point out
the subject, you point out the topic or tone
that we should be paying attention to. And so
now when I go back and read my bible,
I can start seeing some of these things, transitional
words, some things that Jesus is emphasizing in his
message. And so that really helps me be able
to say, hey, I'm familiar with how this flows.
So it brings revelation to.
Yeah, and then when you're reading something in your
Bible and it doesn't make sense or you don't
understand it, highlight it, write a little note on
the know, find another translation, go to YouTube, be
like, I do not understand John chapter one, verse
four. So just type into YouTube, John, chapter one,
verse four, meaning, or something like that, and you'll
find tons of content and things. But, yeah, the
only thing I would add is, if you're not
understanding what you're reading, you're probably reading a bad
translation for you. Not that it's a bad translation,
it's just a bad translation for you. And so
if you keep reading the new King James version
and you're like, I just don't understand the, you
know, it's probably not the right translation. Get that,
Erv. Come on. I'm an ESV junkie. I love
the ESV. It's poetic, it's beautiful, it's accurate. I
love it. But there are times when I'll read
something in ESV, which is the English standard Version,
which is a little bit more, I don't know,
complicated to read. And as a pastor doing this
for 20 something years, I'm like, I have no
idea what that meant. And so I'll flip over
to my Erv, my easy to read version and
flip that over. I'm like, that's what that, okay,
I get that now. And so grab a translation
that you can follow along with and yeah, you
should be good. Cool. All right, Nona Jones, since
he stole all the good stuff. Last one, Nona.
What was that one like?
I got something to.
Second place. Second place who?
Nona. So I would say Nona was a big
highlight for me since we're just talking casually. So
also someone else that I recently started to kind
of follow on Instagram. And so when I went
to her website and I'm seeing all these different
things and lanes that this woman has done and
is doing it all and a mom and a
wife and it's just remarkable, who is this woman?
And to see her display God's word. I love
fashion and I love a good makeup beat, if
you know what that means. But just not a
clue.
We're guys, right?
But just your makeup's looking good. You're coming out
the house looking.
I love that her fit was fire, as my
eleven year old said yesterday.
He said that I know she really came as
herself. And to see that one, it was very
encouraging to see someone as a Christian, as a
woman who was called to many different areas, but
she did not like loose like the Bible in
it. And so sometimes that kind of happens where
you want to be relevant and it's not even
always on purpose, but it can get kind of
lost. And I think what our conference want, we
wanted people to walk away knowing God and not
so much like being empowered.
Yeah.
And so I appreciated that about her and her
even reading second chronicles. What was that?
Chapter five somewhere in there.
I forget though, it was like one.
Through 18, King Ace's story.
Yeah. And so being able, it just made me
so hungry to continue to read and see how
King Asa, how his character was and how even
I can't even think of the people, but they
were so passionate about the Lord and pleasing God
and giving their very best. And again, it's like
how do I know God better and how to
come to him holy? And so personally, I appreciate
it on so many different levels. I just want
to encourage men and encourage also women, young, older,
but just like if God is calling you to
different spaces, whether it's like full time ministry within
a church or full time ministry within the marketplace,
because it's all ministry, but it's just like be
that it's out there as many different examples, I'm
going to leave that there with.
No, I love what you brought out because I
think that there is a danger in influencers to
lose conviction in the inspiration. And so they're so
influential that they just want to keep inspiring because
nobody wants to hear, you suck. Nobody wants to
hear, you need to work harder, you're not doing
a good job. Everybody wants to hear, God's got
this, and there's going to be increase. It's going
to be great. And so often we can take
things out of context, and people that are trying
to be inspiring lose a message of conviction. But
she didn't. It was like, look, I know the
influence that she carries, and I know that there's
probably pressure on her to say the things that
put a smile on people's face, make people feel
good about themselves and make them want to hear
more. But instead of doing that kind of message,
she brought a message of conviction. And I love
that. I also love. I was talking with one
of our members, Kara, if you're listening to this,
Kara, how you doing, Kara? And so we were
talking afterwards, and she was just talking about how
in the church world, how important it is for
us to remember that there's only one holy spirit
that's speaking to all of us. And there was
just such a beautiful moment that it was like
the same holy spirit that was telling John what
he needed to bring on Friday night, was talking
to Nona, telling her what she needed to bring
on Saturday night, and how beautifully those two messages
fit together. And we give so little information to
the speakers of what the conference is. We give,
like the reference verse, revelation two four. That's about
it. First love, it's a revival style. We're coming
to just come back to our first love. And
both of them took that. They could have taken
it in so many different directions, but both of
them ended up in this place of, it was
a message on holiness Friday night and Saturday night.
But you've got the perspective of a white grandfather
and a black entrepreneur, and the perspective of that
was just so good.
Yeah, I love the fact that Holiness was the
running theme of the weekend, and then it was
behavioral holiness and behavior holiness. So behavioral holiness from
John Bevere in my personal life, and then behavioral
holiness from a leadership standpoint with like, as one
of the leaders of this church, it made me
reflect what's my commitment to the people of this
church? What's my commitment to ministry outside of me
just working for the church. And it was so
reflective for me to sit and think like, okay,
well, man, what am I giving to God's kingdom
and what he has called me to do and
how that relates to my pursuit of holiness and
his presence. And it just hit me. I get
like a double whammy of the action or the
behavior in my personal life and in ministry as
it relates to my position in God's holiness.
Yeah, there was a moment that. The moment she
said it, I was like, it just pierced through
me. I pulled out my phone, I wrote it
down immediately. But it was just this idea that
sometimes you have to offend the person you love
so that you don't offend the God you serve.
Right.
And I was like, yeah, we're going.
To just put Mama's ritual to the side, whatever
she's doing to keep it holy. And also, one
thing, when you were talking about influencers, I think
sometimes when we're trying to be relatable, we look
up and everything in the Bible is not about
you.
Yeah.
And so it's about knowing God. And so reading
everything in the context that it's about you when
it's really like, no, this is a story about
God and not getting lost in empowerment and building
up because that's important, too. But just like, don't
lose. Don't make everything about you when you're reading
scripture, man.
That is probably my biggest pet peeve as a
preacher is when christians will take something like the
story of David and Goliath and then apply it
in their life in the sense of they become
David. And it's like the whole point of the
story is that David is pointing us to Jesus.
Jesus is going to slay the giants in your
life. You're not slaying the giants. Stop it. You're
not David. You don't need to go get five
smooth stones. You need to go to Jesus. He's
the one killing the giants. Just calm it. Calm
it down. Just settle down.
We become everybody in the Bible.
Yeah, but no, we try and talk about the
whole isegesis versus exegesis and all of that stuff.
And we're actually going to be doing a class
in life university next round, I think, on biblical
interpretation. And so we've got some rules and some
ways to help the average person. How do I
appropriately interpret scripture so that when I'm reading something,
I'm not taking it out of context, I'm not
trying to put myself into the story in an
inappropriate way, and I think that there's appropriateness in.
How do I identify myself in this story, but
when we lose the point of the story in
trying to make it about us, it just becomes
dangerous.
Yeah, we're the superhero in every story.
Yeah. And it really should be more of, okay,
what was the lesson that those people had to
learn in that moment that I need to learn?
And so instead of trying to find myself in
the scriptures, I need to find the lesson in
the scriptures that I can apply to my life.
And I think that's just a healthier balance. But,
yeah, it's wild, but yeah, I love also she
was talking about the price of God's presence.
Yes.
You knew? Like, yeah, this is about to be.
Like, I just became less worthy.
But, man, just to remember that there is a
price to pay for God's presence and it tied
into what John was talking about. What did John
say about being able to hear the secret?
Yes.
Like, to like her talking about the price that
you pay. The price that you pay is so
that you have a relationship where he'll tell you
the Secret.
Right.
He'll reveal things to you that he wouldn't reveal
it to somebody else because you have paid the
price, you've made the sacrifice, the intimacy that comes.
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. But how do we
do, just what's the practical takeaway from Nona's, like,
the price you pay for the presence of God,
what do you do?
Oh, man, I got to think about it.
You got us there.
How do we put into practice the sacrifice?
If there's a price to pay, what's the price
and how do you pay it?
Yeah, when I think of price, in order to
be able to, I guess, give it clear of
what is the sacrifice of his presence to have
or obtain his presence. And so that thing means
that I have to continue to lay down my
life because his presence, something she said, and I'm
trying not to quote it wrong about it being
priceless because his presence is priceless. You know what
I mean? There is no set value to it.
So in order to approach God, you have to
pay, you got to sacrifice something.
Yeah. The presence of God is not cheap because
the power of the presence of God is priceless.
Priceless, yes.
And the only way that we could do that
is paying it with our lives. I mean, we
really have to lay down our lives. You mentioned
Lord a few times early in this podcast, and
the lordship factor is that he's in full control,
has full authority over my life, which means that
I have to remove myself, so I have to
lay down my life, and that's the sacrifice that
I need to make. And I have to make
that daily, every moment of my life. I have
to understand that my life is no longer mine,
doesn't belong to me anymore. Like, Jesus paid a
price for me. And so that's the sacrifice that
I have to make. And once I come to
that revelation and then act on it, the intimacy
with God becomes clear to me, and it's there.
And then I can enter into his presence and
have those moments where God. Where he can start
revealing to me the things that he has for.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that there has to be an acknowledgement
of sin. I think that the price that we
pay and the price maybe that people aren't wanting
to pay is they want to be able to
have Jesus and their sin at the same time.
Right.
And I really do think that this message of
holiness is about this idea of, like, you can't
be holding on to sin and Jesus at the
same time, you're going to have to let one
of them go, and it should be the sin.
But I think so many of us are afraid
to make that kind of sacrifice, or we think
that just because we love him, it'll overshadow the
sin. But Paul tells us, do you keep on
sinning because of his grace? No, that'd be stupid.
Literally, that's. Paul in modern day language, may bound.
No, absolutely not.
Exactly. And so I think that there has to
be acknowledgment of there's a sin issue in the
world. And, man, I was having a conversation with
somebody recently where it was like they were admitting
that there's a sin in their life that they're
comfortable with. They're okay with it. It's become part
of their identity. And it was like, at some
point, yeah, you can love going to church. You
can love singing to the praise and worship songs.
You can even love reading your Bible. But if
you still love sin, then, man, there's something missing
here.
Right?
So I think there has to be that. And
then to echo what you were saying, I think
then it's our desires. And sin and desire aren't
always the same thing. I know that a lot
of times we tie those things together and our
desires do lead us into sin. But there are
some desires that I have in my life that
are not sinful, but they're also not what I
should be focused on. And so I have to
take a point in my life where I lay
down even my desires, even the good desires, even
the holy desires, I have to lay those things
down to really.
Make Jesus Lord, dying to yourself.
Absolutely.
All those words of sacrifice, dying to yourself. Like,
all that. I feel like for someone who is
not a believer or loves Jesus but doesn't quite,
it can feel very oppressive. And so it's hard,
like, getting over that hurdle of like, it's just
so much in order to walk with God. And
so with that price, I guess being able to
get to a place that when Nona is talking
about the price of presence, she's not saying that
everything's going to change, your behavior is going to
change today, but there is say, like a price
in that it's not oppressive. God is not giving
us oppression, but he's definitely applying pressure to it.
But it's also within a setting of his presence,
being with you, you have people around you. But
I just think a lot of people who don't
follow Christ feel like christians live this slave religion
kind of thing. And so even the word like
slave to Christ is just too many things to
do in order to feel, say, loved by God.
And so it's like this. How do we help
our generation and those younger than us and even
older than us to understand that it's not a
love issue about on the side of Christ loving
you, it's you learning what it is to love
Christ. And that that's not something easy. Like, as
easy as this conversation is flowing, it's actually not
easy to do this right at times it feels
very stretching.
And that doesn't matter if you've been saved for
a day or for 20 years, it's still hard.
It's hard.
But I think you come to the revelation of
the freedom that you have in his presence and
the life that he has for you in his
presence. When you lay down your own life is
far greater than the life I could give myself
if I completely control my life. And so laying
down my life, I'm receiving something that's far greater
than anything that I can do in my life.
And it's not that I'm looking for a reward
or anything for laying down my life, but I
know that the promises that Jesus has for me
in his presence and having that intimate relationship with
him gives me so much more in him than
I can do for myself. And that kind of
helps you go through the process of dying to
yourself and laying down your life again. It's not
easy. It's very difficult, because we are human. We
live in our flesh, we live our everyday lives.
We have desires of the things that we can
see, smell, touch, taste. But we have to get
to the place where we're just temporarily here on
earth in these bodies and that the life that
Jesus wants for us and has for us is
far greater than we can do for ourselves.
Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. And I think
people are afraid of that word slave. But honestly,
I think the best way I can describe it
is this slave process is second. 1st we love,
then we become slave. And so it's a reaction
to how great of a love that we have
in the same exact way that if you were
to say I'm a slave to my wife, I
wouldn't have a problem with that. Right. In the
sense of I would do anything for her. Great
that my love for her is so great that
if she needs me to clean the kitchen, I'll
clean the kitchen.
If she needs almost pleasure to be a slave.
And it's like, man, I love this woman so
much that I would do anything that she needed
and required, and also I would avoid and I
would run from anything that would hurt her or
damage our relationship or any of that. And so
if that's your mentality of being a slave, then,
yeah, you hear.
That pastor song, take advantage.
You got it, babe. I got you. But, yeah.
So I think that we need to really understand
what it means to be a slave, that this
is not a negative. And yes, the american history
and culture, I get it, man. There's a lot
of stuff in the past that sours everyone's thought
of what it means to be a slave. But
biblically speaking, we are slaves to Christ because we
love him so much that we wouldn't want to
do anything out of line, and we would do
anything that he asked us to do.
All right? And that's why I love, and I
love what this podcast is doing. And since we're
talking about nona, that kind of, when you have
people that know how to be, I guess, relatable
to their audience, then you have one. Someone also
can see, okay, this person, per se, looks like
me. They relate to me. And so then my
heart is kind of open to listen and to
hear what they have to say. And so I
think that's why it's important, even since I think
last week or during the fast, we were talking
about ambassadors. So I'm like, she is being an
ambassador where she goes, but how her approach is
in these places that she goes. Well, also, now
you've opened up a door for someone to see
what sacrifice looks like. And so when you think,
when you hear slave to Jesus or it's so
oppressive. Or, like, christians are born. Whatever. The thing
is, you get to see someone in action living
this free life through Christ, that they became, like,
this slave to Jesus, but it's a joy because
they're free from it.
I love it.
Kingdom upside down, right side up kind of situation.
That's awesome. All right, we got one last sermon
to look at. Dan. Leanne. Can I just say,
I love that man. Yeah. There's something about Dan
that he walks into the building, he walks in
my office, and it's just like. It's a long
lost brother. Our swollen asian, australian, the gospel ninja
himself. He is such a unique individual. But I
was telling somebody, when he comes and speaks, it
doesn't feel like a guest speaker. It really just
feels like one of our pastors because of the
love that he has for our church. The fact
that he brought his wife over, and he just
kept telling her, like, see, this is what I've
been telling you about. I got to love this
place. And she's like, it's phenomenal. I love it.
But it was just. There's something genuine. But the
message that he brings every time he's here is
just like, I needed that.
Right?
Thank you. But he packages in such a way
that when you ask my kids who their favorite
speaker of the weekend was, it's Dan Leanne. Because
there's something about the humor and the engagement and
the illustrations and everything that he does, it just
draws people in. And so they're like, yeah, John
was cool. Nona was cool. They're like, you're my
dad, so you don't count. But Dan's my favorite.
Dan's awesome.
Dan just comes down on the steps and just
talks to us.
Yeah, with his messed up feet.
Yeah, his messed up feet. Pulls a scripture that
we've read a million times and just walks us
through it in our life. And it was just
a blessing. It was so amazing. It's like, man,
running this race, like, unpacking that for 35 minutes,
and it.
Just hit me, the fact that I know that
it's 28,000. I was about 835 days. He came
with one purpose. He came to tell us that
you have a set number of days of your
life. Don't waste them. And the moment. What was
that? Two minutes into his message? And he's like,
here's how many days. Don't waste them. And I
was like, okay, right, you're done. That's all I
needed. I just needed you to just remind me
that our days are numbered and we need to
do something about them. And I had just quoted
the scripture the day before of make the most
of every opportunity. And the whole time he's talking
about these days, I'm like, I need to make
the most of these days.
Yeah. Once you start seeing. Oh, go ahead.
No, go ahead.
But once you start using the word days, it
really helps you to see, what are you doing
with your 24 hours today? What are you doing
with your days? And he repeatedly said that, which
I think was just very prophetic, that people needed
to hear over and over again that say, if
I have, I don't know, 20,000 more days, like,
what am I doing? And what have I been
doing with my days in this simple, practical way
that I can actually measure? So from Sunday, today
is Monday. So, yes, yesterday. So from Sunday to
now, I can actually measure, if I'm looking at
it that way, that this is what I did
with Monday and so on and so on, to
hold myself accountable for that and allow the Lord
to hold me accountable, too.
Yeah. I look at my life like, how many
summers do I have left? I got 40 summers
left. Okay, so what am I doing right in
the summertime? Yeah, but that's a selfish thought. Like,
man, I got to make the most of these
summers for myself. But when Dan breaks it down
into days for the kingdom, it wrecks you. It's
like, wait a minute. I've been counting summers for
myself. Like, how many summers I have left? It's
like, no, how many days I have left to
dedicate myself to God and the will that he
has for me and for his kingdom. And at
that point, it's like, okay, God, I'm sorry that
I've lived my life for myself all this time.
Like, up to this point, the 12,000 or 14,000
days that I've lived so far, it's like, God,
I'm sorry. I promise I'll give you the next
14.
I'll do better. I'll do better. Yes.
You just get a moment there. It's like, man,
I've been like, man, what did I do yesterday?
I did everything for me, right? What did I
do the day before yesterday? I did everything for
me, right?
How many days does that add up to?
Right? You keep going back. It's like, okay, well,
I did serve day last year. Okay, so that
was one day for God. But then you really
start thinking about. And it's like, I should be
living my life. Kingdom living. I should be living
my life for the kingdom. I'm an ambassador of
God. I'm supposed to be representing Jesus. Am I
doing that every day?
Yeah.
Yeah. I remember years ago, I heard Reggie Joyner
do a message where he talked about the time
we have with our kids, and he used marbles
in this glass jar. And I think each marble,
I forget now, it was either represented one week
or one month that you had with your kids.
And he had all these different jars on there,
and it was like, okay, this is how much
time you have with your kid if they're one
year old. This is how much time you have
with your kid if they're ten years old. And
I'm looking at that and I'm thinking about my
kids, and I'm thinking about the time that I
have with them. And it wrecked me in that
moment of how limited the time that we really
have is. But to then put it into the
concept of days, just how many days do I
have for what God put me on this earth
to accomplish? And the challenge that Dan had for
us was no wasted days and no stolen days.
And, man, that convicted me so much because it's
know, we're always thinking, hey, what are you going
to do for your day off? And it's just
like, man, to live my life in a way
where even on my day off, it's not a
day off from the kingdom, it's not a day
off from my relationship with God. And so I
may be on vacation, but I'm still going to
read my bible because it's still a day that
God can speak to me. And so just no
wasted days and no stolen days. And I think,
honestly, if I had to assess my life, I
think I'm probably more guilty of wasted days than
stolen days. I don't know how often the enemy
is able to just rob me of a day.
It probably still happens. There's probably days where I
wake up bitter and upset about something, then I
lose the day. And it was not that I
wasted it, but it's that the enemy planted a
seed and he robbed me of that day. But
I think more often than not, I'll get to
the end of the day and I'm like, man,
what did I do today?
Yeah.
For the kingdom, for God, as an ambassador.
I'd be so eternity focused. Like, I want to
get to eternity so bad.
You mentioned this often because you had.
A dream where you discovered that Jesus was jewish.
Exactly.
I want to get to heaven so bad. I
forget that I have a job to do on
earth. And it's not just about me getting to
eternity. It's about me doing the work of the
kingdom here on earth. So everybody that I can
come in contact with can experience the love of
Jesus and they can have an opportunity to go
to eternity. I had to realize I don't want
to be eternity by myself. I want all my
loved ones, all my friends, strangers, my neighbors, anybody
that I come in contact with. So I really
got to live my life with a heart that
God has work for me to do on earth.
And I can't bypass that as much as I
want to.
Those wasted days, absolutely. Way more wasted days. And
then for someone to hear that, hopefully it was
convicting, but then not condemning. So say if someone
was in their 60s or seventy s. I remember
we did like a leadership retreat or something somewhere,
and I was sitting next to someone and I
never really had a real conversation. So just being
extroverted, also, like pinching myself to talk to people
I don't.
Really know relate to that.
What is that?
Like, extroverted people, but just kind of to get
to know them more and just their background. So
they were sharing their background of what they previously
did, and now they were retired. But I could
tell how they were talking was that they were
remorseful for how their past was because they did
not steward say this time, almost like maybe everything
wasn't handled as well as it should have been.
So this, like, I wish I had the opportunity
to do way more than what I did. And
I was kind of like, looking out for myself
and there wasn't enough relationship there to say, hey,
I need you to let this past go of
how I didn't reach out to people. I was
not a Christian. All these different things that you're
holding yourself to, but now seeing this, now I'm
devoted to Christ, but also not looking at the
past that I've missed my whole life. And now
what's left? And so I guess what's something that
would be encouraging to someone that may be in
their latter years that could be feeling like I've
wasted?
So you and I had a conversation like this
about someone that we know, and the conversation kind
of went to the things that this person did
in their life in following Christ, had major impact
on the children behind this person. And it's like
the generations that come after this person is in
church now because of this person. They have a
relationship with Jesus because of this person. And so
this person's older, but the impact that they've had
in their life and in their children's lives and
their grandchildren's lives is because they've been following Jesus
this entire time. Everything may not be exactly how
we want it to be in our lives, but
the fact that we're following Christ, somebody's watching our
life, somebody's following us, somebody's understanding that we have
a relationship with Jesus, and it creates a curiosity
in them. They start going to church, and then
their lives are impacted, and we don't know what
the fruit of that could be in the future.
Yeah. So I've had to deal with that regret
piece a bunch in my life. So I've told
the story before of a kid in high school
with me that committed suicide. And we sat at
a table like this. There was four of us
and sat with them every single day. We talked
about girls and sports and weather and all kinds
of stuff, but we never talked about the gospel.
We never talked about the hope that we have
in Jesus, never talked about any of that stuff.
Spring break happens. He commits suicide over spring break,
comes back, and it wrecked me. And part of
what wrecked me is I went through my entire
four years of high school with nobody knowing that
I was a preacher's kid, let alone a. And,
like, as an adult. Looking back on that time,
it's like, man, I had more opportunity in high
school to communicate and to connect with the lost
than I've ever had in my entire life, than
I will ever have in my entire life, because
it's like, I went to a really big school,
and it was every day I'm with these kids
that need Jesus. And so for a long time,
I was beating myself up over it. There's a
lot of regret, there's a lot of remorse. Until
I finally kind of came to this realization. I
don't know if the Holy Spirit spoke to me
or where I got it from, but it was
just came to this place where I realized that
the most important day is today. Because I can't
change yesterday. I've already lost it. It's already gone.
Good, bad, medium, whatever, it's done. I can't roll
back the clock. And sometimes we get so focused
on the future and tomorrow, and we get anxiety
over things or we get plans going, but we
don't live in the moment. And I think that
that's why one of my favorite verses, ephesians 515
16, make the most of every opportunity. Today is
what matters. And so today is the day that
I'm going to do whatever it is that God
has me to do. And I'm going to get
to the end of the day, and then I'm
going to say, okay, one more okay. And wake
up the next day and we're going to do
it again. But the most important day is always
today.
I thank God we're redeemed, because in high school
and in my young adult life, people knew that
I was a Christian. They also knew I was
a heathen. They knew I was a Christian. I
thank God that we've been redeemed and I have
a second chance. I can live my life today.
Forward for Jesus.
But Dan said so much great stuff. Just the
breakdown of running your race. Don't worry about running
somebody else's race. Don't worry about what race they're
running. I think so often we look at other
people's race and they're like, that race is way
easier than mine, or that race is way more
exciting than mine, or their race has an audience
of 10 million people. My race is like my
dad's in the stands going, you can do it,
son. We get so jealous of other people's races,
but it's just run the race that God gave
you to run. Don't give up. I love just
the keep the faith, all of it. It was
a fantastic message. But the thing I got to
take from it is today matters. Do something with
it.
That comparison thing, it's almost. That's how you can
waste your days. A lot of days are wasted
because we're comparing someone else's days to our days.
And so it's not just church culture, but just
our society is like, we want people. We want
to be measured to people who say are great,
that have this great influence. And so then I
think people would say, what happened to it being
okay to just be blue collar? Everyone doesn't need
to be a leader. Everyone doesn't need to be
an entrepreneur, like those different things. But you take
care of your family. Your family is good. And
I think that also plays into church and how
we are as christians, that we're always maybe comparing
ourselves to these big people when clearly the Bible
is only 66 books and you're hearing these phenomenal
stories of people, great. But there are clearly millions
and millions of people that are not kings. But
if you spend that time comparing, you're definitely going
to waste your time because you don't think that
you add.
Up and you have to trust that the one
who created the race knows what he's doing. And
just, even if I don't see the glory in
this race, the heavenly Father that I love, that
I trust with my life, said, this is the
race I'm supposed to run. So I'm going to
run it. And one of the coolest stories I
remember that helps with that. We had a missions
partner, Kale Dixon. Remember Kale Dixon from. Where was
he in Africa? It wasn't Kenya? Uganda? No. Maybe.
I don't know. Anyways, Kale Dixon somewhere in Africa.
Okay, we should totally know that because he was
a partner for, like, years and years and years.
My dad's going to be so mad. But I
forgot where Kale Dixon is from. Texas, after that.
But what I love is his story is. So
Kale Dixon was, like, doing conferences all over Africa,
planted hundreds of churches, like, just doing incredible work
in the ministry. But how Kale Dixon got saved
was a missionary team, came to his school when
he was a little boy, presented the gospel to
this entire school. Kale Dixon was the only kid
in the school that responded. And the thought that
I've always had is that team probably went home
feeling like failures. All we did was get one
little boy to love Jesus. But that one little
boy, they got to love Jesus has literally led
thousands into the kingdom. And it's like, man, don't
just run your race. Trust the one that put
the boundaries. Trust the one that set it up,
because you had an incredible impact that you won't
know about until heaven, right? And so you may
feel like, man, all I did was tell my
coworker about Jesus. Well, man, maybe that one moment
all of a sudden changed their life. It changed
their kids lives. Their kids go on to do
things that changes others lives. And you have no
idea the impact that you make. So don't worry
about it. Just run your race. Do what God
tells you to do when he tells you to
do it.
Got to trust that you're planting a seed and
you're not always watering. You know what I mean?
We always want to water. We always want to
see the hole.
We want to see the fruit come off place.
Sometimes we're just digging the hole, right. It's hard
work. We don't see the fruit. Right. We don't
get to taste it, but it's still an important
part. Absolutely. All right, that was first guess. We,
you know, we closed out on Sunday night with
worship. Prophetic.
Yeah. I'm like, hold on, I'm a worship leader.
We're going to talk about Dwayne.
Yeah, I was just about to say, if you
don't know Dwayne Crocker Jr. You need to get
to know him, because that boy.
Yeah, it was fresh, man.
Clearly he has a gift for singing. His vocal
ability is fantastic, but that's not even the thing
that I care about, because everybody can sing. Not
everybody. I can't sing. Anybody can sing. What Dwayne
can do is lead people into the presence of
God. There was such an authenticity to was his
love for God was the thing that was pouring
off of the stage. And, yeah, his vocals were
on point, but it was that. It was like,
okay, this guy is worshiping and he's bringing us
into the moment.
Yeah.
And he read scripture for me, a worship leader
that knows how to read the. Just, Dwayne, thank
you.
Just stop everything. Stop music, everything. And just read
the Bible.
Let me just read the Bible.
But he slowly and deeply, he led us into
worship. He worshiped with us. And then there was
a moment where he just had the congregation worship,
and there was nothing coming from a lead on
stage. And I thought it was beautiful. Like, he
led us into worship, he worshipped with us and
then allowed the congregation to worship. And I was
like, man, this is amazing. And there was no
lyrics on the screen. It was nothing. The congregation
was just pouring out their heart and worship. And
that was amazing. Yeah, because it wasn't a performance
at that point. It was corporate worship.
Now, we didn't come for a concert, right? It
was worship. It was fantastic. And then, of course,
Dennis Kramer comes out and slaps people around, literally
and figuratively. Man, I've been around a lot of
prophets. I think Denny's still my favorite prophet. There's
just an accuracy to him, humility to him, a
gentleness to him, even in the craziness of the
prophetic ministry.
And teaches what prophetic is and what's happening in
the moment and what certain terms mean.
I appreciate that. And as the pastor sitting on
the front row, I don't know everybody's story, but
I knew a lot of the people's stories. And
I can just say, like, yeah, absolutely. You know,
he'd start talking to somebody and I'm like, dude,
when he started prophesying over Tracy, it was. Tracy
started prophesying over. And all night long, he didn't
use any kind of medical language whatsoever. Then he
starts prophesying over Tracy, and everything coming out of
his mouth was like, medical language. He has no
idea that she's a nurse that works in the
surgical department. That's like, he was speaking the language
he could understand, right? He has no idea.
And for a lot of people, it was encouraging
to let people know that God sees your trauma,
that he saw maybe how you were raised or
the circumstances that you're going through now. And then
there's encouragement that comes from that, that God has
something for them, that there's something that they've gone
through, they're coming out of, and then that God
has a plan for them moving forward. Because you
could get a prophetic word that's like, I'm going
to get a paycheck in the mail next week,
but it's like, but this thing that I went
through, this trauma that I had, this hardship that
I had gone through, for someone to come and
tell me that God sees that and it was
for a purpose and you're going to come out
of it stronger and you've built character and endurance
and then there's hope. That was so encouraging for
me.
I think for me, prophecy is supposed to be
a reminder. It's supposed to be a reminder of
the sovereignty of God and the love of God.
And to me that's the purpose of prophecy, that
it is to remind people that have just gone
through something horrific or horrible or trying or challenging
or whatever. It's a reminder that even though you've
been going through that God's still sovereign, God still
loves you, he sees what you've gone through. Or,
and this is where, honestly, I'm sitting on the
front row going, please don't prophesy over me, please
don't prophesy over me. Please don't prophesy every time
I'm around a prophet. Because from my experience, it's
a reminder of God's sovereignty and his love before
you go into a very difficult or trying season
so that you have something to hold on to.
So often that would happen in Old Testament, God
would give a prophetic word.
I want to be a prophet in.
The Old Testament, the prophecy to Israel, that's basically
like you're about to go into 40 years of
bondage and slavery and there's a famine in the
land and life is going to be awful, but
then it'll end with, but the Lord will be
with you and it's like, well, thanks, budy, that's
so encouraging. But prophecy should be a reminder of
the sovereignty and the love of God.
My take, that's awesome.
So if you got a prophetic word Sunday night,
be encouraged also. Hold on.
Wild ride.
All right, any final thoughts before we close out?
This probably the officially the longest podcast. Well, here's
the thing. Whenever Carlton is on the podcast, it's
the longest podcast ever. But any kind of closing
thoughts from the entire weekend, anything that happened, I.
Just think that this is so great for our
know, we need this every year, a fresh word
from God and seeing how the Holy Spirit orchestrates
these sermons and the prophetic word and the worship
so that we can get closer to, like, it's
so refreshing to know that God is fully engaged
in our church and fully engaged in our lives
in this big way for God just to lay
out a plan for us in this way. The
strategy of how the Holy Spirit put this whole
weekend together was so good for us. And I
can't wait till we do it again next year.
Yeah. And the crazy thing behind the scenes, nobody
knows, but we had so many cancellations of who
our speakers were supposed to be. We were like,
man, is first love just going to be the
worst first love ever turn out to be one
of those, everybody's a no. And we can't get
anybody to come through and all of this challenges.
And then it was like, no, this is exactly
what God wants.
We got heavy hitters that we would not have
gotten or tried for. Yeah. The Holy Spirit knew
exactly what we needed.
Yeah. And for me, it's not even just that
there are people that are nationally known and world
renowned and all that, but they had a message
that God needed our people to hear, and that's
what is so encouraging to me.
Yeah. I would say with this weekend, don't let
it go for just this weekend. And so with
the conference, I love the expectation that happens in
the room. People come early. It's hard to find
parking, all those different things, whether as a pastor,
as a worship leader, it's so easy when people's
hearts are expectant. And so my hope always is
in prayer is that let this go back. Let
this. If you need to write a memorial stone
or journal, let this be the founding place that
you go back to all year, because if you
don't, then you will forget. And so let it
be that marker, but don't let it in here.
And so my prayer, even specifically for our church,
keep coming early, keep coming, say, with this part
of expectation. And so our next big thing that
we'll have and be celebrating is Easter. What did
you learn in first love? You learned God's holiness.
Carry that on as we're going into Easter season,
and then whatever the case may be within your
life. God does not bring transformation for weekends. It's
because he's wanting you to do something past this.
So if you got filled with the gift of
the Holy Spirit and received tongues, or if the
Lord spoke something to you, all these, it's always
to do something with it. And so it's like,
if you don't do anything with it, then you're
going to be excited for that refill. 2025. 2025.
Guest speaker, Tiffany Hines.
Come on now.
That was good.
But guest speaker implies that she leaves CLC. No
guest speaker. No guest speaker.
You got to package that and sell it. That
was amazing.
It is awesome. It is the point of everything.
It's not about the weekend. What God has done
in your life that will continue moving forward. So
what we learned over first love is holiness is
important.
Absolutely. We need to be holy behavior.
Drift happens. We need an anchor. So we don't
drift.
Absolutely.
We learned from Nona. What do we learn? We
learned that there is a price to pay for
the presence of God. Dan Leanne told us to
count our days and make the most of that.
Don't let it run a good race.
And then we closed out with some prophetic words
from God. And so take those lessons. Run with
them. Awesome.
Cool.
It was good.
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for hanging out with
me today.
Do it again.
We are going to do it again. Next week
is going to be interesting because we are starting
a series on relationships. But I figured that we
had, what, four or five sermons over this weekend.
So we can go about three or four weeks
without getting a sermon. And so actually, for the
next three weeks, we're not preaching a sermon. Instead
we're going to have a conversation.
Conversation.
And so we're going to have different people on
the stage talking about relationship from different perspectives. What
makes a good marriage much good? We're going to
talk about what do you do in a bad
marriage when there's conflict, when there's conflict, when there's
issues in the marriage. And then we're going to
be talking about, what do you do when you're
not married but you'd like to be great? And
so those are the three conversations we're going to
have over the next three weeks. I think it's
going to be good. So hopefully you will check
us out for those either on a Sunday for
the service or during the week for the podcast.
But we would love to see you either place.
Love you all. Thanks for hanging out. See you
next time.