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

This message, so this one was planned, Clay had asked me about back at the end of November.

And then I preached, if you were here a couple of weeks ago, and that one was unplanned.

So that message that I had, I preached that weekend.

And things have been so busy and so crazy that I hadn't even thought about the message, like this message.

So it was about, I don't know, a week and a half ago, something like that.

He rolls me out of bed at about 11.45.

And he'll never give me a message at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday.

You know what I mean?

It's always 11.45.

So you're laughing, but I asked.

I'm like, why can't, why does it always gotta be, I'm old, okay?

I'm in bed by 9.30, you know?

I mean, we're not asleep by then, because Tasha takes about an hour to take her makeup off.

But, no, y'all are laughing, I'm being real.

Last night, you know, I come to the bedroom, she's already in the bed, and I'm like, oh, you didn't put your makeup on today.

That's what's going on here.

But no, so, and I heard him, and he said, that's the only time you shut up long enough to hear.

And, man, it hit me, though, it made me think.

And sometimes we feel like we're not hearing from God, but sometimes the only thing that you need to do to hear better from him is just hush.

Just be quiet.

Sit in submission of God, and let him talk to you.

So that night, you know, I get up, I sit in my recliner, and it's dark in the room, in the living room there, and he just starts downloading me.

I start reading, and, you know, and I start putting things in my notes.

And it's crazy, because I'm not good at doing themed things.

Like, I'm not good at like, you know, we put, you give me a series, and I gotta stay inside of some confines.

Like, I don't work that way.

You know, it's, the spirit tells me what he tells me, and I'm gonna tell you, and that's all I got.

Like, I have no talent.

There is nothing special about the way that I do this.

It is just, God said this, I say this.

As simple as that.

But Christmas is in four days.

And some of us are excited.

Some of us, this might be a harder time of year for.

You know, for my house, it is wonderful.

It'll be really wonderful, too, when the season has passed and the Christmas music has turned off.

It plays 24 hours a day.

Like, the Alexa is hot to the touch.

She has not stopped.

But, you know, yesterday, my kids were home for winter break, and I'm thinking about it, and I'm, like, listening to them.

They're making Rice Krispie treats and stuff in the kitchen, and I'm, like, dude, how unbelievably good God has been to me that my house is filled with the sound of laughter of my children, my wife laughing, and jingle bells, and Christmas music.

So I sat in awe.

But all across the world, churches are more full than they will be again until Easter.

More people are gonna come to church in this next week than they will again until Easter, and they're hearing stories about this Virgin Mary and her husband, Joseph, and this baby king that was born in the dirt.

And it's amazing.

Some people are gonna come to church, and for the first time this year, they're gonna worship him with their lips, but not with their hearts.

But some people will come, and they'll hear this story about this baby king, and their lives will be forever changed.

But not just their lives.

Their husband's life will forever be changed.

Their wife's life will forever be changed.

Their children's, their neighbor's, their family's curses will break, chains will fall, because this is the time of year that the church gets to be the church.

And we're the church all year long, but this gives you an incredible opportunity.

So I say that to say that over this next week, you would be amiss if you didn't actively try to invite, and I'm not trying to push numbers, but I am trying to see more people come to Christ than any other time of the year.

I hope that it is so packed in here that we have to open up outside room, we have to have people on the patio, and that the following Sunday is so packed in here that you got two to a seat, everybody's slapped together like butt cheeks.

That's my hope.

Not because that was just so cool, but because they came to hear about it, the king of the universe, born in the dirt, and the life change that is available to them forever.

These songs celebrate, and I'm listening to all these classic Christmas songs, and it makes my heart glad because almost every single one of them is celebrating my king.

Matthew 5.13, this is Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount.

And he says something that is strange and is hard to understand for some people.

He says, you are the salt of the earth.

But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

And I've preached this to students because students are like, what does it mean we're salt, man?

Why are we salt?

For those of you that don't know me, I'm the associate pastor here, and I'm also the student pastor here.

I've got the privilege of preaching to your kids on Wednesdays.

But salt, salt is something that's so significant in the Hebrew world at this time, and it's so significant to our life now, it's cheap, so we don't even think about it.

You know, I mean, unless you ain't got any in your food, and then suddenly, you know, that matters a lot.

But salt changes its environment by being what it is.

Salt doesn't have to do anything.

Salt doesn't put on a show.

Salt doesn't have to fizz or anything like that for it to be activated.

Salt changes its environment completely simply by existing.

Salt can sanitize, salt can heal your body, salt can fertilize soil or make it barren.

We're called to change our environments, not by always doing more stuff.

That's what I want you to hear for a second.

Changing your environment and impacting the world for the kingdom of God is not always about doing more stuff.

It's not about having a longer list of ministries that you serve in, although all of us should be, hear me, all of us should be serving in a ministry because Christianity is not a spectator sport.

It is a church that is designed for everyone to come together, link arms and use our gifts as a whole.

That's why the Bible describes it as a body.

Elbows no good without a forearm.

Forearms no good without a shoulder.

We have to be together in that.

However, sometimes the devil will confuse you in the busyness of life and you start to get off course and you ain't thinking about the things you ought to be thinking about.

You are not submitted because so many people are depending on you and you're so used to leading.

Maybe you're a single mom and everything in this house depends on you.

If the babies eat, it's because you did it.

If they have clothes in their drawer, or clothes in their drawer, it's because you did it.

All of these things.

Maybe you're a father, maybe you're a family and everything depends on mom and dad all the time.

And so in that, the concept of submission or dependence is something that is reserved for your children.

But what we should be doing is live in lives of submission, of aligning ourself and sitting down under authority.

I know that this is really, really difficult and we're gonna talk more about it, but sitting down under the authority, but by living out of faith in this baby king that was born in the dirt, who has sent on the greatest rescue mission that the world has ever seen.

We celebrate this baby this time of year and sometimes we lose sight of the mission that he was on.

So I wanna paint a picture for you.

I'm gonna ask you to do something strange if you're comfortable.

I want you to close your eyes for a second and give your imagination back to God, just for a minute.

I want you to filter out all the ads, all the ugly self-talk, the bitterness, the anger, the lust, the brokenness, and imagine.

Imagine a young woman, probably 14 to 16 years old, and a young man, probably 16 to 18, on a long journey to a little place called Bethlehem.

There's no snow on the ground, because based on the shepherds being in the field, it's likely spring or early fall.

In her belly, she knows is the son of the most high God, the savior of the world.

She will be his mother.

Can you imagine how calculated her every move was, every bite that she took?

Joseph not even married yet to this pregnant woman, and he will be responsible for raising God.

Then Mary says the baby's coming, and Joseph begins a search for any place, just something clean and comfortable for the God of the universe to be born in.

Instead, they end up in likely the lower level of someone's home, where in Bethlehem would have been where they kept their sheep, because in Bethlehem, they raised sheep.

Dirty, nasty, not even a bed for the mother of this king to lay on, and no bed for this tiny king but a trough, a manger.

This is the beginning of an upside down kingdom, a king born in a sheep pen and no midwife, but a husband that culturally wasn't allowed anywhere near this moment of birth.

Then, this baby is born.

Joseph cuts this cord, and both stare into the eyes of the God of the universe.

In this moment, this baby king, who is 100% man and 100% God is utterly dependent on his mother and father.

Utterly dependent.

Imagine the God of the universe being utterly dependent upon two young kids with nothing.

And then Luke 2.19, this is after the shepherds who have seen the glory of God, who have seen these angels come in and they tell Mary about these things.

And in Luke 2.19, it says, after the shepherds had come and worshiped Jesus and told the angels all that had been told to them, it says, Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.

Open your eyes.

See, in this time, Mary has just heard this incredible prophecy, which this isn't the first time that she's heard about these angels.

She saw the angel, Gabriel, who came and spoke to her and gave her this prophecy and she understands.

And she's treasuring up all of these things in her heart.

And there's another time before this when the angel spoke to her and she said, let all you have said about me be true.

And I wonder if that was just, me and Tasha were talking about this last night and she kind of pointed it out to me.

I wonder if that was just that she's gonna conceive and she's gonna bear the baby Jesus.

Or if it's everything that God ever said about her, that she was precious, that she was special, but she wasn't special because she was some beautiful girl.

She wasn't special because she had something that other people didn't have because that's the upside down kingdom.

She was probably plain and so was Joseph, nothing special because Jesus himself, the God of the universe in this upside down kingdom comes into the world, not as some beautiful man in some beautiful palace, but plain and in the dirt.

With significant things though, he was born in a place where they raised sacrificial sheep.

He was born in a place where they would have kept their sheep.

He was wrapped in strips of linen cloth that would have been used for the sacrificial sheep when they were born because he was the lamb of God.

And I wonder if in this moment, Mary looks into the eyes of God in her arm.

Skin to skin, God is on her.

And her and Joseph realize that while he is utterly dependent on them, they are utterly dependent on him.

Utterly dependent.

And this is my first point, to be the salt of the earth, to walk with Christ and be transformed, we have to humble ourselves.

If Jesus can come humbly like this, surely I can humble myself and become utterly dependent.

In 2 Corinthians 12, nine, Paul, after asking God three times to remove the thorn from his side, and Jesus says, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

We spend so much time trying to hide our weaknesses.

We spend so much, give so much effort trying to hide the things that are broken inside of us or the issues that we have, and we don't dare submit, and we don't dare confess to somebody else because that would impact our image.

Because inside we're still kids in some way and hoping to somehow be enough.

I do a lot of counselings, a lot of counselings, and it's wonderful.

You really get to see people, and there's usually two peoples, two peoples, two types of people that will reach out to a pastor for counseling.

Some come in and they're guarded.

They sit down in my office and they start to tell me things, and I know that they're giving me half-truths, and they're like, well, I know I probably shouldn't be doing this, but, you know, and they try to skim over some things like they're not that important, like it's really not that big, because they don't want the pastor who, I ain't nobody, believe me, and if you have it all figured out, maybe we should swap these roles and you counsel me, because I don't have it all together.

Okay, I am just trying to hold on, but I understand how utterly dependent I am on God for every single breath, every word that I speak, I have nothing.

All I do up here is try to stand here and not screw it up.

Like, that is my life, just try not to screw it up, but I've given him all that I have, but then there's the other people that come and they tell you everything, everything, every hurt, everything.

And I want you to understand how much flipping courage it takes because most of them, they don't know me.

They see me, but they don't know me.

Most of the time they see me flying by at about 40 miles an hour in the lobby here because I'm headed here and headed there and bouncing around all over the place.

I want you to know that if you ever felt like I didn't have time to talk to you because I move quickly, it is not that.

I have time to talk to you and I would love nothing more than to stop and speak with you.

And if you want to have a conversation, I will work you into the schedule some way, somehow, and we will sit down and have a conversation because that's what he called me to do and nothing else will happen until I do what my father tells me to do.

Utter dependence, I'm nothing special.

And it's funny because the impact that it makes and you know, and salt changes its environment and all that, you know, and it messed with me.

Like when I would go home to visit my family, like my family, they're not all believers.

They all know about Jesus, but they're not all believers.

And if I can just be super real for a second, they started talking a little bit different around when I was around.

Like they started acting weird when I was there.

You know what I mean?

Like I went and got my hair cut just a couple of weeks ago and this guy's cutting up, cussing up a storm while he's cutting my hair.

He's like, so what do you do for a living?

I'm like, I'm a pastor.

And he's like, oh, bloop.

I'm like, dude, it didn't bother you who I was five minutes ago.

It ain't nothing special now.

I ain't worried about this title.

Titles are good for books and movies.

I am just a child of God trying to live out my calling, my purpose that the God of the universe has given me.

And I want you to want to tell you that right now, if you were going through hardship and you were undergoing attack after attack after attack, the devil only attacks you when you are operating inside of your calling.

If you're not operating inside of your, if your life is going real good right now, you better get to work.

Something is amiss.

Christianity don't make this thing easy, but there are some people that come and they're fully submitted.

They're broken, they're crying, they spill it all.

These are the ones that I see their lives change.

I have some guys that I started counseling about six months ago and I have a couple of them that are like, bro, I don't think I really need to come in and keep doing this now.

Things are going really good.

And I'm like, it's cool.

When things don't go good again, I'll still be here.

But what has happened is they've learned this simple truth because I'm not some theologian.

There are many people in this church that probably know the Bible better than me.

I read it every day.

I've read it front to back over and over and over again.

I've got some seminary, all of that good stuff, but that doesn't make me some full blown expert on everything.

And if you ask me a question I don't know the answer to, I'm gonna tell you, I don't know, but I'll check it out and see, and I'm not just gonna use the AI.

I'm gonna use the AI.

I'm just not just gonna use the AI to find out where that verse is so I can go through it.

But these people really submit because that's my advice to everybody.

Brother, you've got to understand that you are dependent upon God.

It's hard.

It's hard to try to live your life in any other way.

And if you're trying to live your life in any other way, you are making it harder for yourself than it needs to be.

But as long as you're still holding on to the idea that you have some type of control or you aren't that in need, you will stay weak.

As long as you are still more concerned about some image than healing, you won't truly see his glory.

His glory is seen in your brokenness, in your pain, in your tears.

His glory is seen in hospital rooms when the news isn't very good.

His glory is seen in broken marriages.

His glory is seen, his power is made perfect in my weakness.

So Paul says, I will boast in my weakness because it is only in this weakness that I am strong because all the strength that I have comes from Christ.

And some of us have been Christians for a long time and we've learned how to speak Christianese and do the talk really good.

And so we say we are so submitted to God.

I am super submitted to God.

I have truly sat down under his authority, but not everything, not everything.

Like I haven't submitted, you know, like the life of my children to my kids I'm still trying to control that in every way that I can even though they're 28 years old.

I haven't fully submitted my marriage because I'm still thinking that I know what the problem is and it's my husband and he doesn't do this and he doesn't do this or it's my wife and she doesn't do this and she doesn't do this.

Or maybe it's that your marriage has not yet sat down under the authority of the living God because he created it, he knows what's best for it and he made something beautiful out of it.

I have submitted to God, but not yet like my sexuality.

Like I haven't asked God into my bedroom.

Yeah, that's weird.

That's a weird thing for a pastor to say.

Do it and find out what it means.

Do it and he'll show you what he meant in Song of Solomon.

He'll show you how beautiful what he created was, but as long as we're walking out of step with the spirit, you can expect hardship that is unnecessary.

We submit where it is convenient.

Only where it's convenient.

We've got to stop lying to ourselves and hiding behind some facade, saying we're dependent on the Lord for most of his.

It's true, but in some tiny area of our lives, we're dependent when it is convenient.

We're submitted when we're getting what we want.

It is so easy to listen to God when he's just snapping things together.

Or then we say, well, I'm not really hearing from God right now.

You heard God just fine.

You just didn't like the answer.

He said no, and you're like, but I don't know.

And tell me, this is something you're gonna relate.

Some of you are probably liars.

You started reading through the script trying to find a way how to justify what I'm saying.

Hold on, this is, no.

I remember, see, there was this place back in Micah that this was kind of okay for me to do if I close my eye and I hold my head like this.

It's somewhat in some realm.

Well, actually, if you read the Hebrew, no, no.

God said, stop it, and you didn't stop it.

And you're wondering why your life is hard right now.

You're wondering why the blessings have been blocked because you're not listening to the actual living God who told you to do it because you won't submit.

You won't sit down and understand you're little, he's big, he's right, you're wrong.

That's the truth.

We can't even submit to the authority of the house that we're planted in.

We can't even submit to a pastor's, the authority that God has given them.

I'm not saying pastors are special people, but what I am saying is that God has put pastors in place.

Not all pastors are good pastors.

Not all pastors are following God.

The devil owns thousands of churches all across America.

There are thousands of churches all across America.

The Holy Spirit ain't never been in.

God ain't never stepped foot inside that church.

There's a lot of them.

There's churches that are built on lies, but then there are some.

Then there are some that are real and authentic and people stand on a stage and they pour their guts out for you and they're vulnerable and they let you see the real them and you ain't gonna dig up any dirt on them because they'll tell you about the dirt first.

They're up front with you and they're saying that I am submitted to God.

I'm looking for the places where I'm not.

But if you would truly submit, but everybody's an expert.

We sit in a church seat or we sit in a pew and we do it as a critic.

And we love that church because the music is really good but that pastor said something the other day that I didn't really like.

You know, it kind of hurt my feelings.

And if that's what he thinks, then maybe he's got the Bible wrong and I'm gonna go to this church over here that tickles my ears.

And you wonder why you're spiritually five years old?

Because you won't step into something that's uncomfortable?

Listen, I didn't write the Bible, okay?

I didn't write it.

There's things in there I don't like too, okay?

He wrote the Bible and I tell you the truth of it and I'm not gonna twist it.

So help me God, I won't twist it.

He makes me do all kinds of things I don't wanna do.

Yesterday, I went to a prison.

Just so you know who I am.

I got out of prison the last time, December 24th of 2013.

My three-year-old daughter who's 15, she's sitting right there, said, did you have fun in jail, daddy?

And I said, I will never be back.

If my mama goes to prison, I'll put money on her books, but I won't visit her.

I'll never be back.

And so Elvis, a couple weeks ago, was like, hey, the prison ministry, they're having their graduation.

We'd really like you to come speak because I have been there.

Like, not just once, many time, my Timmy.

Because I haven't always been this.

And I said, man, I really don't want to.

And I've tried to think of every reason.

I'm like, you know, I got, it's family time.

The kids are out of school.

Every reason.

God hit me with Micah 6-8.

Whom shall we send?

Whom will go down for us?

And I said, here am I, Lord, send me.

And he said, you think that I pulled you out of all that?

That I pulled you out of the mire and I set you on a stone just so that you could sit on the stone and say, look at me, the stone is really comfortable.

You probably get out of that mud.

I sent you, set you down so you get your footing for a second so you could walk back in and start to carry people out, start to help people out.

But he'll have you do things that are uncomfortable.

But you know what I saw yesterday?

I saw 12 men incarcerated.

A lot of them know the Bible better than you.

A lot of them are more on fire for God than any of the folks that we see on screens all across America.

They truly have believed and they've understood that they can't do it their way anymore.

They're gonna have to sit down in submission.

Dependence and submission are both what the Bible says that we ought to be.

Sometimes we're arrogant.

Treat churches like a restaurant.

We go until we get something that we don't like.

We're obedient when we're getting what we want, but as soon as he says or tells us something that we don't like or that's really hard, suddenly we don't hear God.

Looking through the Bible, looking for verses to justify our rebellion.

Utter dependence means, so I want you to understand, I always want to give you something you can take home and you can put into action.

Utter dependence means I don't do anything until I talk to dad.

When I wake up in the morning, I don't have coffee before I speak to the father.

My feet don't touch the ground, and before I start thanking him for the things that I've woken up to, thank you, Lord, that I made the wake-up list today.

Thank you, Lord, that there is air in my lungs.

Thank you that my knees don't hurt too bad to roll my big old butt off of this bed and get up and walk to the Keurig to get some coffee.

God, thank you for Starbucks pods that have enough caffeine in them to jolt this old heart into some kind of movement.

Thank you, God, but also asking him for hardships.

God, will you give me an opportunity today to glorify you?

God, will you put somebody in my path today that needs to hear the good news about you?

God, will you show me what you need more of from me?

God, will you show me anything in my heart that you don't like?

Will you remove anything in me that you don't like?

Because this isn't Jared's plan.

Jared forgot his plans about eight years ago.

Jared laid all of that stuff down.

I have given him my wife, I've given him my children, I gave him my money, I gave him my house.

And some of us are worried about our finances and we won't even give the 10% that God called us to because we're afraid that he is not God somewhere.

I'm not saying this so that you give us more money.

I don't get a raise, I couldn't care less.

That money will be put right back into ministry.

That's why we're a broke church.

Because as the money comes in, it goes right back to glorifying God.

We ain't special.

Ain't nobody in here driving Cadillacs.

I mean, y'all might be, but like, we're not.

Your staff isn't.

I got a new truck a couple months ago.

It's a 2017.

That's my new truck.

I like it though.

Submission in every single area of your life will produce something incredible.

It'll produce wise faith.

That's my second point.

Write that down.

Wise faith.

James says in James 1, five through eight, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him.

But let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.

He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways.

If we are going to live lives of utter dependence, we have to stop confusing wisdom with faith.

Wisdom and faith are not the same thing.

You can get a pile of wisdom just by not dying long enough.

You'll learn some stuff.

Then you'll figure some stuff out.

You'll figure out your taxes.

You'll figure out how to change the oil in a Toyota.

You'll figure out a whole lot of things just by living long enough, but wisdom and faith are not the same thing.

Now, the Bible talks a lot about wisdom and that if you lack it, you should get it.

Though it costs you everything you have, get wisdom.

You can learn it from books that won't give you faith.

There are plenty of theologians, biblical scholars, and they are wise with the word, but they don't know the author.

Do you know what that means?

They gonna end up in the same hell as people that ain't never opened it.

That's the reality.

So you can have a whole lot of wisdom without faith or you can have faith.

And God gave me this picture in my recliner at 12, 15 at night.

He said, cause I'm kind of a gearhead.

So he said, faith is a motor.

Wisdom is the steering wheel.

See, faith is what moves you forward.

Wisdom helps you to steer that faith, helps you to put that faith where it belongs.

It helps you to turn.

Now you can have the faith without wisdom and you'll stand still and look left and right.

And somehow at 75 years old, you're in the same place mentally, spiritually, and emotionally that you were at 30.

Somehow we have not arrived at any destinations other than older and wrinklier.

Because I had wisdom, but I didn't have faith.

The devil wants to confuse you and keep your mind busy and your heart dull.

Because there's a church culture now where it's like, you got to have everything right.

Well, actually, if you read that correctly and you translate it back to the Greek and back to the Hebrew, then that's not actually what it says.

What it actually says is this part, and look at how much I know.

That's cool.

There's nothing wrong with knowing your Bible and knowing it well.

There's nothing wrong with studying your blue letter Bible and figuring out the Hebrew to the Greek.

All of those things can be helpful in steering your faith that is already established.

That the king of the universe came as a baby in the dirt.

He lived a perfect life, was hung on a cross for my transgression.

And three days later, he walked out with my eternity in his hand.

That's a reality.

Now, if I have that part of it, then the rest of it feeds my soul.

Then I start to understand because I start reading the Bible and this is what I think all of us should do.

We should be a well-read people.

I should never tell you anything about the Bible that you didn't already know.

I read that 14 years ago.

There's some folks in here that are nodding their head because they're like, yeah, I wanna preach.

He told me this in the spirit.

In 1998, you know how powerful that is?

You know how powerful faith that has grown and like that since 1998 is?

In 2025, child, that is the kind of faith that moves mountains.

You remember that one time in the Bible where Jesus said, if you had the wisdom of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain?

Me neither.

He said, if you had the faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, be cast into the sea and it would be uprooted and cast into the sea.

My faith is much more important than how flipping smart I am.

It's good to be smart, but it is a lot better that when I hit my knees, I believe that every single prayer I pray is going on an empty grave and it's a God that sits on a throne.

He hears every word of it.

He's been working things out for me for the last 38 years and the next 38 years, I don't expect any changes.

All my problems that I have, I expect him to deal with them because it's childlike faith.

I'm not even trying to do it myself at all anymore.

I understand how stupid I am.

If I make decisions, they are bad ones.

And the reality is we really never make the right decision.

Hear me for a second.

What we do is we make decisions and God makes them right.

Because he says that all things work for the good of those who are called according to my purpose and who love me.

He says the weapon might be formative, will not prosper.

He said that what they meant for evil, I will turn for your good.

He said that what stupid thing that you did, I will make it work out because I love you.

That's what the submission really is.

It's not submitting to understanding more and thinking more and critically thinking and all of this.

It's understanding how obscenely loved you are, how much he has always been there.

And then the wisdom that comes from the faith because the faith will produce the wisdom can make you look back over the last 50, 60 years and start to see where he showed up.

Man, in this place, when I was 19 years old and I was in a car wreck, you showed up.

Man, in this place, when my wife was in the hospital giving birth to our baby and I didn't know if she was gonna make it because she was hemorrhaging and the doctor came out and says, she's gonna be okay.

God, you showed up.

That was not circumstance.

Jesus, when I lost my job and we had no money and somehow there was more money coming out of our account than was coming in, but somehow the bills got paid.

God, you showed up.

And so in that, now the next storm, don't worry me so much because it's the same God that's gonna walk me through this.

Like David said, the same God that delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver this Philistine into my hands.

I'm gonna walk a little harder because I know who I'm submitted to, but that means that you've gotta submit in every way.

See God, if you submit to him, he's gonna plant you in a local church.

Listen to me, if you are submitted to God, he is going to plant you in a local church.

There is no Christian that is designed to do it on their own.

The church is the body of Christ.

Not Jim, not Sarah.

We together collectively are the body of Christ.

And what you're gonna have to do is sit down under that authority.

I had a real problem with authority.

That's why I've been arrested 18 times.

A real big problem.

I had a bigger problem with authority from men.

I can get under a woman's authority a whole lot better than I could a man because I didn't have a daddy that was worth anything.

I didn't have a daddy that loved me.

I had a daddy that created problems and created bruises.

He created pain in my life, so I had a real problem with it.

Clay Neesmith was the first man that I ever said, you know what, I can sit down under that.

I can sit down under that, because I have tried to find the places that he was preaching something wrong in the Bible for the last year, and I can't find it, so I'm gonna give up now, and every now and then, I'll pick it back up and look through it, and I'm like, nope, he's still right.

That's exactly what that means, and I've grown from it.

And you know what's happened, is I've sat down under that authority, I've sat down under the authority of the body, I've sat down under the authority of Mama Kim, and my life has changed insurmountably.

Because I shut up and stopped trying to drive, and realized that God had put people in my life.

And there's a new ministry that's coming here in March, that we'll start talking about, we'll start announcing a little bit more of the turn of the year, and I've been like, God, I don't even have time, I don't even know what to do, why did you call me to that?

I got, the plate is already full, and so he started sending men to my office, just, hey man, I'd like to meet with you on Tuesday, and they start showing up, and I'm like, come on.

Ugh, it's almost creepy how good you are.

Wisdom puts our faith where it belongs.

Faith and wisdom both come from Christ, we are dependent on him, and God will give you pictures.

We gotta stop looking at the church like it's some company that we should, that we could run better.

Hear me for a second, because I hear all the time, you know, I think the church should do this.

I think that we ought to have this kind of a ministry.

Why aren't we doing this?

Like, I just can just do everything.

I'm a dude.

Maybe God told you to do it.

Maybe you were the one that was called.

He sent you to a body of believers, other people that would rally around you and help you lift that big old bear and put him up on the pole there.

And maybe that's what it is.

Maybe you are the one.

Maybe I know that you're busy.

I know you got kids and none of us do, and we all only work on Sunday.

But maybe God wants to glorify himself through you.

Maybe God wants, and God, hear me how beautiful this is for a second.

God don't need you.

He doesn't need you for anything.

He lets you be a part.

He lets you be a part of what he's doing so that you can see how beautiful he is.

You can see who he says you are.

The last thing that I wrote down about utter dependence that we have on Jesus is the mission he was sent to complete.

Why is it such good news that this baby king was born in Bethlehem that night?

Because he was the savior of the world through radical forgiveness.

You realize that you are completely dependent upon him, that your faith will give you wisdom and wisdom will not give you faith.

But in that, you need to radically forgive just like he did.

Amen.

So often we misunderstand forgiveness and are manipulated by the enemy.

Forgiveness becomes, I just don't think about it anymore.

I just, I've buried it so deep that I haven't thought about that in 14 years.

But every now and then when I'm laying in bed late at night, it comes back into my mind and I get angry, I get upset, I get triggered by certain words, certain smells, certain places that I walk into because I have not yet truly forgiven this.

And maybe you get triggered because the pain, the scar is still there.

But if somebody hits you in a scar, that doesn't hurt nearly as bad as if somebody punches you in an open wound.

A wound that is festered for 20 years because you haven't yet forgiven it.

And I think this is the sneakiest way that the devil is gonna drag people to hell with him.

He's gonna let them believe that they have forgiven everybody when they haven't.

I want you to hear what I say for a second because the Bible is very clear.

Jesus says multiple times, if you don't forgive, you will not be forgiven.

Period.

There's no caveat at the end, there's no unless.

There's no well unless.

And they don't have to need it.

They don't have to ask you for it.

Because we say that we love God, but Jesus talks about the least of these.

So I want you to think about this for a second.

You say that you really love God.

You love him as much as you love the person in your life that you like the least.

That's how much you love God.

You submit to God as much as you submit to the person in your life that has been put in a place of authority over you that you like the least.

Jesus said, what you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.

But see this baby.

Everybody loves babies and babies are pretty and this is cute.

What we fail to see at Christmastime is why it's so wonderful that this news had come to these shepherds in Bethlehem.

While they went and they spoke to this young woman who had just given birth inside of a sheep pen.

And they said that I bring you great tidings of joy and goodwill towards men because that baby was going to die.

Not for anything that he did.

That's the same baby that 33 and a half years later would be ripped of his flesh from head to toe.

And we have movies that depict this, that are scarring and mentally mess with us, but none of them paint the reality of what it really was, of what he really took on for me.

And then we have some, because if you did, you wouldn't have the audacity to hold on to any bitterness.

If you understood what he took on for you, this is the most painful death in the history of the world.

And I'm not just talking about the physical.

The physical is that that same baby was ripped of all of his flesh, hung on a splintered tree.

He couldn't carry the cross because his organs were failing, because he had lost so much blood.

They put a crown of thorns on his head, and these thorns are three inches long.

They pierced his skull.

That's what he went through, but that's not all.

He drank the cup of wrath for me.

Every sin that had ever been committed, every ugly thought, every ugly thing that I ever did was put on him so that God could forgive me.

And that's what I have received.

And some of us hate ourselves and we're so bitter, and we don't know why we're so bitter.

It's because you have unforgiveness in your heart, because you haven't accepted the forgiveness that he gave you for free.

You haven't accepted it for yourself yet.

And I'm not gonna be able to forgive with this ugly heart.

I can only forgive with Jesus's heart.

Jesus will give his heart to me.

He says, I will remove your heart of stone and I'll give it to you a heart of flesh.

And I know that I have a heart of flesh because I ball like a baby and after 30 years of my life, I never did.

I cry when new babies are born to families who thought they couldn't have them.

And I can't hold on.

I can't hold on to some transgression.

I get mad the same way you get mad.

I get frustrated.

I drive around in Myrtle Beach.

Everybody's mad.

I think that everybody has two dark sunglasses on or something.

But I also understand who I was.

I also understand that the God of the universe for some reasons that I will never understand decided that He loved me enough that He would give it all for me, that He would be hung on this tree, that He would cry out Psalm 22 and He would say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And what He's quoting is Psalm 22, which describes exactly what's happening to Him in this moment that was written 800 years before.

Now that's 600 years before crucifixion was even invented.

Tell me it's not the word of God.

It explained it perfectly.

And He says, the next words He says is, it is finished.

The mission is complete, and then He breathed His last, and they checked to make sure He was dead, and He still got that scar on His side.

But in that time, while they carried the body to the grave, there was a three-day span when the God of the universe went to hell and crushed the serpent's head once and for all to forgive me, and forgive you and everybody else.

And then on that third day, the Holy Spirit came and breathed life back into His body, and He walked out with victory, the victory of the universe.

And see, now He's not a baby anymore.

Now He's not plain anymore.

He ascended on the Mount of Olives and stands next to God, the right hand of God, interceding for me day and night.

And the Bible says His skin is burnished bronze.

His eyes are like hot coals.

He has white flowing hair, tattoos on His thigh, and He's ready to come back for His children.

But if His children would submit, if they would sit down under it, and He gave His life for me so I give my life to Him, everything I've got, my money, my finances, my wife, my children, all of it I give to Him.

I sit down under it.

He will make straight your path.

God is truly, truly for you, church.

He's always been for you.

He's always been on your side.

And I know that you were taught that you had to keep up some law, all of this.

He'll change that.

Just sit down under it.

Sit down under the grace that He's given you and watch your life begin to change.

Let me pray.

Father, thank You so much for this day.

God, thank You that we get the opportunity week after week to come in here to worship You, to glorify You, God.

God, I ask if there's one here today that doesn't know You as their Savior, that today would be the day that they sit down under Your authority, Lord, that they become utterly dependent on You, that they choose faith and let the faith give them wisdom, and that they would forgive radically, that they would hold no charge against anyone because no charge was held against them.

And if that's you, you can just say this prayer right where you are, or you can come down.

In just a second, they're gonna play a song, and I want you to respond.

If there's still unforgiveness in your heart, be bold enough to come down and get prayed over and pray with somebody.

Confess with your lips, Jesus Christ is Lord, or just come and pray and worship Him with us.

And say, Lord, I don't wanna do this my way anymore.

God, please forgive me of my sins and my trespasses against You.

Lord, I will forgive those who trespass against me.

Holy Spirit, come into my heart.

I welcome You in, and I ask that You would show me the things that You want to change, that You would glorify Yourself in me, that You glorify Yourself through me.

God, I give my life to You.

Every minute, every hour of it belongs to You now.

Lord, help me to walk and step with You.

Help me to bring glory to Your precious name.

Father, we love You, we thank You, and we praise You for all the good gifts that You give us.

And all God's children said, amen.