(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

We're gonna make this short, sweet, and to the point.

I'm gonna get you home.

But I wanted to give you a simple message and I had a long time to prepare for this one.

So it was good.

Clay called me yesterday at two.

No, I'm grateful for the opportunity.

But put God first.

Touch your neighbor, say, put God first.

That's the whole message.

All right, we're good.

All right.

The reason why I asked if I had any blood-bought members of the family of God is I wanna start, if you have your Bibles with you, open to Colossians chapter three, verses one through four.

And this is Paul talking to the church in Colossi.

And I'm never sure if you say it Colossi or Colossi.

I've heard it said a bunch of different ways.

I think you just say it, it's okay.

Chapter three, verses one through four.

Since then you have been raised with Christ.

Set your hearts on things above.

Everybody say set.

Set.

Where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

And I'm glad he's seated there.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

For you died and your life is now hidden.

Everyone say hidden.

Hidden.

With Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.

Put God first.

I don't mean to be funny or be redundant.

I just, I'm gonna study at like a fourth grade level, so I need to be redundant.

You know, like when you learn multiplication tables, you don't go through them once and then you got it.

You know, I got, God's gotta tell me a lot of times.

It's thick up here, okay?

Set your mind on them.

Because our minds get pulled in so many different directions and there's always something that's gunning for my attention and there's always 3,000 things that might stress me out at any given moment of any given day, but the Bible says that I ought to set my mind.

That doesn't mean just let it kind of float and hope it ends up where it ends up.

Set my mind on things above.

I wanted to ask you, I know we teach, and is it okay if I preach today?

As I got a little fire inside like Jeremiah and it's got to come out, I want to preach today.

Put him first.

Don't sprinkle God in like he's some seasoning that's gonna make your meal taste better.

Baby, God is the bounty.

He's all of it.

And if we would start to put him in the center of everything and then start to revolve everything else around him, you would see things happen that you didn't think were possible and that weren't possible before it, period.

Put God first.

But I'm gonna be real for a minute.

And I want to tell you that I'm preaching to me as much as I'm preaching to anybody in this room.

And that's kind of a thing about pastors.

A lot of times when we talk to you, we're really talking to us.

And sometimes we just learn it when we say it.

We're like, oh, that's what that means.

That's cool.

I wasn't living by that, but I am now.

But how many of us want God to show up in our circumstances?

We want him to show up in our hour of trouble.

We want him to show up in this place and in this place, but we don't want him to show up everywhere.

Not everywhere.

So often we want the benefit of a relationship without the commitment of it.

It's like that in marriage.

It's like that in friendships.

It's like that in business sometimes.

We want the benefit without the commitment.

How often are we just covering our bases?

Can I get real for a second?

Tell me if this sounds familiar to you.

Sometimes it does to me.

Went to church this week, check.

Prayed before every meal, check.

Put $10 in the offering plate, check.

I'm not making this about tithes, but we will in a minute.

Said Merry Christmas this year and not happy holidays, check.

And I heard this verse in a song that it stuck in my brain.

He said, nobody cares if you keep Christ in the Christmas if they can't see there's Christ in the Christian.

Yeah, that hit me right in the gut.

Made me think about a couple of things.

We retweeted that Bible verse.

We reposted that Bible verse meme, but so often we have a closer personal relationship with the person who cuts our hair than we do with the living God.

So often we have a closer personal relationship with the lady in our book club than we do with the living God.

And God doesn't want anything from you but everything you have.

He just wants a personal relationship with you.

He's not looking for a religion.

He's not looking for a 40 day streak in your Bible app.

He's looking for you every day, just you and all of you.

I wrote notes this week.

Heal at me, heal at me.

Some of us are frustrated in our lives.

Some of us been doing it for a long time.

We've been mad for a long time.

Some of us are frustrated in our marriage.

Some of us are frustrated in our kids.

Sometimes we're frustrated with our jobs.

Sometimes we're frustrated with every single thing.

And it seems like we wake up and just try not to be mad.

We put 14 Splendas in our coffee because we hope it'll make us a little sweeter.

What if I told you it didn't have to be that way?

What if I told you there's a way out?

I wonder what it would look like if you genuinely invited God smack in the middle of every part of your life.

It's funny, a buddy of mine in our youth group, but for those of y'all who don't know me, my name is Jared Wallace.

I have the privilege and the honor of teaching your youth on Wednesday nights, trying to show them a little bit of Jesus and send them out into the world.

And I'm gonna tell you, they inspire me, they grow me.

And if you ever wanna see God move, come here on a Wednesday night because when we turn loose, something the devil don't want any of it.

I'm blessed and favored to be able to.

But if you put him in the middle of everything, he sent me this TikTok and it was this youth pastor who had bought these tiny Jesus figurines.

And her dad was the pastor, the head pastor, whatever.

And so she said, hey, I'm gonna do something.

So he gets to church the next morning and there's these tiny Jesus figurines all over the seats, all over the walls, put in weird places, everywhere.

And the message was that we just need a little Jesus in everything.

You can take him home with you, you got a little Jesus in your pocket, but I don't know about you, but I don't need a little Jesus.

I need a lot of Jesus all the time.

I need a lot of Jesus Monday through Sunday.

I can't do anything without him, but it takes a lot.

And I'll probably use more grace than you too.

If he ever runs out of grace, it'll be because of me.

But if you invited him into everything, if you put God in the center of everything and you change your priorities, everybody say priorities.

This beautiful woman up here is my wife.

We've been married now for working on 18 years.

They're clapping for you.

But it's kind of amazing.

She's way hotter than me and I keep waking up and she's still there.

I keep going to bed and she's still there.

And I come to think of it, all the hard stuff in our life, and a lot of it, a lot of storms, you've been there for every bit of it.

Starting to think she's bad luck.

I'm playing.

I look up to her.

She's more faithful than I am.

She's stronger than I am.

She's better than I am.

And she gives me something to reach for.

She gives me something to aspire to every day.

And it's amazing how we've seen our lives transform since we've started doing this whole Jesus thing.

It don't even look halfway the same at all, but she's in ministry and she has an amazing women's ministry and I'm blessed to just be able to support her.

I'm blessed to just be able to support it.

Hold the fire while, hold the torch while she does her thing and we're both involved in ministry.

And one thing that we talk about a lot and over and over again, because again, I need redundance so that I get things, is our priorities.

Keeping our priorities right.

It's tough sometimes in ministry because ministry can become a mistress.

See, when you get done preaching, if you do good, then people are like, great job, high five, high five.

But then when you get home, she's like, get your shoes off the middle of the floor.

You missed the basket with your socks again.

Some of y'all know what I'm talking about.

But here's how it worked out and God beat this into my head.

Number one, I have to have a personal relationship with him.

That is my number one priority before I do anything else in my life.

I need to make sure that I have connected with the living God every day.

Number two, is that beautiful woman right there.

Nothing before, he called me to that ministry first.

And he said, you'll love her the way that I love her.

Number three, are three little hoodlums that live in my house and eat up all the groceries.

They are number three.

Number four is how I pay that grocery bill to feed those little hoodlums, because they eat a lot.

Number five is ministry and preaching all these different things, these different aspects.

And if any one of those things gets off tilt, then things aren't gonna go the way that God had intended them to go.

And I know it seems funny to put things in such a list like that, but if you don't get your priorities right, things in your life will start to go haywire.

But the thing is, is the devil wants to put blinders on you.

He doesn't want you to know what's gone haywire.

So if you continue to recenter yourself and recenter yourself and keep the main thing, the main thing, that's one of my favorite sayings.

Keep the main thing, the main thing.

There's my boss over there, he knows.

Keep the main thing, the main thing.

Not God, it's John Mashburn, but God's here too.

Keep the main thing, the main thing.

Don't worry about the horse going blind, load the cart.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Matthew 6, verses 31 through 33.

Jesus said it like this.

So do not worry, saying, what shall we eat?

Or what shall we drink?

Or what shall we wear?

For pagans run after all these things.

And your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will what?

Be given to you as well.

It's all about putting God first.

Because it's a lot about trajectory.

You don't have any pilots in here, like anybody ever flown a plane or maybe you just did it on a video game or something.

If I can direct the nose of the plane, then I'm gonna end up where I wanna end up.

But if I get the nose of the plane just three degrees off, I end up in another state.

I put that in perspective.

If I leave from New York and LaGuardia, and I'm headed to California, and I'm just three degrees off, I end up in Washington State, which is weird.

Maybe I would do it this way.

I'm a hunter.

Do I have any hunters in here?

Anybody?

Oh, there's a few hands.

Do I have anybody that just loves your 2nd amendment rights and likes guns?

Okay.

Some of them are like, oh my gosh, what kind of church should we come to?

He's just talking about guns.

Listen, we're in the South.

We love Jesus, Bojangles, pit bulls, and pew-pews.

In that order.

But if I get it centered, if I get my life centered, it gives me a promise.

See, God never tells us to do anything without giving us a promise with it.

If you'll do this, what did he say?

If I will seek first his kingdom, not slide him in, not squeeze him in, not fit him in where I might find a little bit of space, not break out a little bit of time over here, because that's the time I got, but I will find that place, and I'll put him right in the middle of it.

What does he say he'll give me?

Everything.

Everything that I need.

Not just a house, not just clothes to wear, not just food to eat, not all of that, but he will fulfill a desire that's so deep inside of me that nothing else can fill it.

That nothing else will touch it.

He'll give me a purpose, a reason to wanna wake up, a reason to know why I'm still sucking air on this planet, because sometimes life gets tough and it gets hard to see why, and he is why, because he's still got a plan.

I'm still on mission.

I still got some stuff that I gotta do.

And this is one of the most famous verses in the Bible.

And if y'all wanna open your Bibles to it, it's Psalm 37, verses four and five.

And I've heard it my whole life, and I've heard it misquoted a lot of my life.

And in here, the psalmist says, take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord.

Now, I wanna point out here, because I am ADD, but look, in here, the word Lord is capitalized, all of it.

Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I think that when they do that, that means this is important.

Kind of like when God says the same thing over and over and over again, it's important.

Like when God says, don't be afraid, don't fear 365 times in the Bible, that must be important.

Redundance, I'm good with that.

Commit your way to the Lord, and what?

Trust in him, and he will do this.

Now, I've always heard it, he'll give you the desires of your heart.

He'll give you the desires of your heart.

I don't know about you, but I've lived long enough to know, I am glad that he has not given me the desires of my heart.

Because that thing, it's getting better.

But, you know, I'm driving to Wilmington, and I got cut off, I'm glad he didn't give me the desires of my heart.

But what it's saying is that if I'll commit, if I'll submit, if I'll submit my ways to his ways, if I'll make him the center of my heart, he will change the things in my heart, and I'll start to want something different.

I'll start to see the world a little bit different, and everything will start to change and shift, and it's amazing the way that it takes place.

Because for me, and I'm just gonna keep it real, I used to hate the Old Testament.

Like, I used to just, I loved the words written in red, and that was my thing.

If I can get the words written in red, I'm good to go.

The Old Testament is weird.

Okay, you got Jeremiah over here crying and stuff, and Ezekiel's laying naked, and I don't, and numbers, I don't even know what's going on in numbers.

Why am I reading this?

I can't remember all this.

Is there gonna be a test after this, God?

Until he changed my heart.

Then I read through it a little different.

There are 66 love letters to you. 66 different ways he wants to tell you how he loves you.

And in the Old Testament, it's all about Israel, which is his bride, that's his wife, but she keeps cheating on him.

She keeps running off with these other gods, and every time it breaks his heart, but every time she comes back, he takes her back.

And out of all of her mistakes, he puts fine robes around her that are inlaid.

He puts leather sandals on her feet.

He puts a ring on her finger.

He restores her every single time, which sounds a lot like this part of the, in the New Testament, Jesus talked about, and it was the son who had gone and squandered his father's wealth, but then when he came back, and I'm gonna just put this interjectionally because Tasha brought this to my attention this week, and it really made me think.

It says his father ran to him.

Now, in this time in Hebrew culture, the son coming back from that, it meant, you're dead, bud.

They were gonna stone him.

So his dad didn't let him walk all that road alone.

His dad ran to him and walked him to the house.

The desires of my heart, and I knew it was changing because I'm just, just to still be real, when I was a kid, I had a lot of bad stuff happen, and because of that, I was really angry.

I was angry at me, and I was angry at everybody.

I was angry about everything, and I knew my heart was really starting to shift and I just started loving people, like loving even people I didn't like, and there was a lot of them that I didn't like, but I loved them.

I don't know why I loved them, and I found out that God's funny, and if I don't like him, he'll just slap him right in the middle of my life.

Till I do.

Right slap in the middle.

You're not gonna escape him.

I started loving them.

Started loving these kids.

My heart started breaking for them, seeing how much they were up against, and my heart started breaking for a broken world that's dark and doesn't know what's available to them, what's holding its hand out to hold their hand, and to pull them up into some level of glory that they've never known and show them things they couldn't have possibly imagined on their own, and I'm glad that Jesus hasn't come back yet.

I know that sounds crazy, because all we're supposed to say is, I wish Jesus would just come on back now, and I do, I want him.

I want him to come.

I wanna go home.

Not yet.

There's a whole lot of people out there that don't know about him, and I gotta tell them about him.

I've gotta go, and they've gotta find out about this love that's available to them.

I explain it to your kids on Wednesdays like this.

It's like walking down the road, and there's a building that's on fire, and the people that are in it don't know, because they're all asleep.

They don't know it's on fire.

I can't just keep walking by it.

I can't just walk on by, I've gotta go in and wake them up, and I wish that we as the church would start waking people up, and I'm not saying to get weird about it, go stand on a corner.

I'm saying go love people.

Show them.

Put God first.

Let them see that you do.

And all this sounds really good, but I need an application.

How do I do it?

Okay, I hear you.

Put God first.

You've said it like 418 times now.

So how do I do it?

And I wrote a couple things down.

If you're the type of person that takes notes and write this down, first, surrender to him.

Surrender.

And I don't mean go and lay something down at the cross and a few minutes later start to go pick it back up again.

I mean surrender it to him and leave it with him.

I wasn't good enough to do it in the first place.

I wasn't strong enough to fix it in the first place.

Only he will, but I'm gonna have to put it there and leave it there and go on.

Surrender.

What that means that if you don't know him, and somebody drug you here today, is you say, I don't wanna do this my way anymore.

I want you to drive.

I want you to be the Lord of my life.

And that's the first step.

Number two, make him the master of everything.

I'll say it again if you're on the back, make him the master of everything.

Make him the master of your finances.

We don't oftentimes wanna see God show up there, not in the finances.

We all want blessings.

And if we're being honest, we want our blessings right here in our wallet.

Make him the master of your finances.

And I'm gonna tell you, I told you I was gonna talk about this again.

Tithing is a huge part of that.

I know it was for me.

I'm not saying this to get you to do it.

I'm saying this because I've lived it.

I've had times when I had nothing.

I've had times when I had $2 to put in that offer.

And I wasn't sure if we could really afford to put the $2 in there, but it was the 10% and we put it in there anyway.

I've had times when I had a bunch to put in there and that felt nice.

But what happened is that once I made him master of my finances, I said, you know what?

I don't know how it's all gonna work out.

I just know that you're gonna work it.

So I'm gonna give back to you my first fruit and whatever the rest, you'll make it work.

I can't tell you how many times there's been more going out of my account than what was coming in and I don't know how it happened.

It doesn't make any sense.

Not in my little West Virginia, Mountain View, Trailer Park brain, it doesn't.

Number two, put him in the middle of your marriage.

Now I want you to hear me.

I want you to put him slap in the middle of your marriage and everything you do for her, do it like you're doing it for him.

And everything you do for him, do it like you're doing it for him.

And there's this part in the Bible that talks about a cord of three strands that I thought about doing this cool illustration up here.

I was gonna have two pieces of yarn that were twined together and I was gonna have some big strong guy, like love God, come up here.

He's so buff.

It's almost like he's mad at his jackets.

Y'all are laughing.

This is gonna work out five days a week for the last seven years with the hopes that at some point I will look like a 40-some year old African man that probably doesn't work out.

This is true.

And then take those two cords and wrap them around an invisible line.

I'm country, I was gonna use fishing line.

But that's it.

If we start to wrap ourselves around him, the little things that are getting in the way of most marriages in life, the little things that are getting in the way of fruitful relationships with our kids, with our mothers, with our fathers, with everybody in our lives, if we put him in the middle of them somehow, they become unbreakable.

I know because I've lived it for 18 years and I've done everything I could to mess it up, but somehow God keeps showing up and keeps making things amazing.

Put him in the middle of your relationship with your kids.

Please.

The Bible says, set children off in the way they should go.

And when they are old, they will not turn from it.

And we try to facilitate this in students as much as we can.

I'm gonna use this moment to plug students.

Follow us on Instagram and on Facebook and you'll know what's going on in our students ministry.

But what you'll also see in there are the verses that we're preaching on and the key takeaway of every message.

And I don't put that in there for your kids.

Because they're probably not gonna be like, oh, I liked it and shared it.

I put that in there for you so that hopefully you will look at it and you'll have a conversation with your teen.

So what did you guys learn about in Joshua tonight?

So y'all reading from John again, what'd y'all talk about?

Because if you will start to put God in the middle of that relationship, oh, he'll heal some things.

Well, he will show you a version of your child that you couldn't have possibly seen and he'll show your child a version of you they couldn't have possibly known was there.

Put him in the middle of your job.

Sometimes we don't want him to show up there either.

Because we live a life there and we live a life over here.

Put him in the middle of it and start doing your job like he's your boss.

Start doing your job like he's the one you're doing it for.

Because a couple things that should really note a Christian, the people of valor, people of valorous is excellence.

Excellence.

Excellence at everything that you do because everything you do, you do for him.

Put him in the middle of your sexuality.

Yeah, that's different.

That isn't quite the same.

He will heal things.

He'll help things grow.

Put him in the middle of everything you have and everything you do.

And do it all with him and for him.

Number three, get in your word daily.

Y'all ain't talking as good as I'm talking.

Get in the word daily.

And I mean this with my heart because if you really wanna know who he is, there are 66 books that tell you all about him.

And I promise if you'll take a little bit of time and just find out about him and spend time with him and learn who he is and the ways that he loves you, everything changes.

He is flipping awesome.

He'll show you about it.

And I wanna tell you this, because sometimes we do this.

Stop trying to read it as a book.

Stop trying to read it cerebrally.

I thought I'd throw that word in so that y'all know I had an education.

I joke a lot, but guys, it is a spirit-ridden and spiritual book and that part of it speaks to a part of you that is not cerebral.

It is not up here, it is in here.

And it's something that knows who its master is.

It's the part of you that is built to worship because that is the creation that you are.

You were made to worship it.

If you don't worship him, you'll worship anything else, but let it align you with who you ought to be worshiping.

And if you get that in line, watch the rest of the pieces of your life start to fall in place.

And I'm not saying that everything's gonna be good and everything's gonna be easy.

I promise you, in fact, it will not.

Because as soon as you put up that flag that says I'm an enemy to the enemy, oh, it makes you an enemy.

But greater is he who is in me than greater than he who is in the world.

No weapon formed against me shall prosper.

You can shoot your shot, devil.

You can keep on coming, and he'll start coming in some crafty ways, but the reality of it is is that I know who I'm walking with, but baby, I know who's holding my hand.

You're gonna have to get up a little bit earlier, Satan.

Jesus doesn't want your religion.

He doesn't want a checklist.

He doesn't want your perfect set of rules.

And I love this part in the New Testament.

I know we bounced around a little bit.

When Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, this is a prime example of him wanting a relationship.

The Pharisees had religion.

They had it figured out.

They knew the law.

They knew it well.

They knew all 613 of them could quote them at the drop of a hat.

They had it down.

And Jesus said, I wish you had known what I meant when it said, I don't desire your rams and bulls to sacrifice this.

What I do, I'm paraphrasing.

What I do desire is mercy.

Mercy, mercy looks a lot like Jesus on the cross.

Mercy looks a lot like a man and his name is Jesus.

Not a thought process, not an ideal, not a set of rules and regulations, but someone with their arms stretched open wide for me.

Fourth, talk to him about everything.

How's your prayer life?

Tell him about everything in your life.

And sometimes that needs to be mechanical.

I'm not gonna hold you much longer.

Sometimes that needs to be mechanical.

Sometimes it needs to be a literal first thing in the morning.

Before my feet touch the floor in the morning, I talk to him.

Before I do anything else, I talk to him.

And then after that, the first thing that I need to do after is get in the word and connect with him.

I need this.

I need him before I do anything else because I know that if I get myself in the right range and the right trajectory, everything else will start to work for my good.

Beasy promises that.

Pray, don't just pray when you need him, don't just pray when it hurts.

Don't just pray when it's hard, pray when it's good.

Pray for the people you don't wanna pray for.

Pray for the people you love, pray for the people that you're really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really trying to love.

Pray.

Pray.

Lastly, tell people about him.

Show people who he is.

Don't just tell them about who he is, show them.

Show them with the way that you talk to people.

Show them with the way that you conduct yourself everywhere you go.

I hope that one day I get so good at the sanctification thing and I'm so far that everywhere I stop, I leave the scent of him.

I hope that everybody I touch feels him.

I hope that everybody I come in contact with no longer sees me, but sees the him that I am hidden in.

Because it's not about me living anymore, it's all about him.

Touch your neighbor, say it's not about me, it's about him.

And it's a long, hard road.

I promise you that.

It's gonna be hard.

And you get your teeth kicked in sometimes.

It's gonna hurt sometimes.

Sometimes you're gonna have doubts.

That's okay.

No matter how much you doubt him, he doesn't doubt him.

He knows who he is.

And he doesn't mind showing you over and over and over again how amazing he is.

He doesn't mind over and over and over coming down off of his throne to get his hands dirty in the mud with you.

He doesn't mind.

My grandpa used to say that if you feel like there's something missing in your life, it's Jesus.

And some of you are here today.

Some of you that might have been drugged here, I don't know.

And you feel, and I did for a lot of years, there was a hole inside of me that I could not fill.

I couldn't make enough money to fill it.

I couldn't drink enough to fill it.

I couldn't have enough people that thought I was awesome to fill it.

I couldn't have enough pride and arrogance to fill the hole.

I could not fill it because it was unfillable with earthly things.

I know what that hole looks like in you.

And it's shaped like a cross.

And I will promise from the bottom of me, if you'll come to it and you'll let him be the author of your life from now on, he will show you heights unreachable.

He'll show you a you that you never dreamed existed because it's who you really are.

Not what your experiences have taught about you, not what some psychiatrist diagnosed you with, not any of these things, but the real you, the you that he made for a purpose before he laid the foundations of the world.

And you know, the other part is, what do you have to lose?

Haven't you tried it all?

Haven't you carried it around long enough?

Hadn't it been so heavy for so long and you feel like you've been swamped for so long?

And Jesus says, come and give me your yoke and take mine.

It's lighter.

It is not just lighter so that we can feel relief.

It's lighter so that we can start to run, so that we can move forward.

And sometimes we want God to be a light to our path, but we don't need him to be a light to our path.

We just need a leaning post because we don't want to move anymore.

We got a mission.

We're here for a purpose.

And that purpose is love.

Here's what you have to gain.

All you have to lose is your shame and your guilt, your pain, your anxiety, your anger, your bitterness, your rage.

But what you'll gain is love, joy.

Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I don't know about you, but I'll ride for those things.

I'll do for that.

And if that's you here right now, and you're like, you know what?

He's talking right to me.

And there's something missing in my life.

Please let us pray with you.

Please come and talk to any of us in the prayer tent, anybody standing around, come and talk with me.

Let me pray over you and let us help you get on the road.

And then we want to come alongside you.

Put him first and watch how everything else gets in line.

Let me pray for you.

Father, thank you so much for today.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to your people, Lord.

I just ask that as we go home, that you would keep us safe.

As we all go home to watch your favorite sport and ask that you would carry this into the week and have us all live for you and start to change the environment around us.

God, we love you.

We praise you.

We give you the glory.

And all God's children said.

Amen.