I've Made Up My Mind

All right, everybody. Y'all ready for today? If you got a Bible, you can open up to Matthew chapter number four, Matthew chapter number four, and we'll get there in just a few minutes, because on this first day of the year, we're obviously starting a brand new series, and this series is called Follow the Leader. Follow the Leader. Anybody ever had to follow a leader? Y'all remember in like, you know, first grade, when your teacher would pick the it was always the line leader. Was always the goody two shoes of the class, probably the person that wasn't much of a leader, but they were just did everything that they were already told to do, so they didn't really have to lead. They just had to follow instructions. Y'all remember that that annoyed the fool out of me. I was never picked as the line leader. Ever picked as the line leader. I only ever push back against the rules? I felt like a lot of times I made my own rules, but it was just super, super hard for me to follow that line leader. I would imagine those of you in this first service, you tend to be a little bit of the same, having a hard time to follow the leader. You ever play a game in school called Simon Peter says, Simon Peter says, we're at church. Everybody okay, you play. Simon says, at school, we're going to play. Simon Peter says, at church. Okay, come on. Now, come on. Y'all ever play that game? And you're like, Okay, Simon Peter says, laugh. And you be like, Ha, you know, you laugh, and some of y'all are already out, you know, and just that. But anyway, you learn to follow the leader. You know. I thought about this as we prep for this year, and as we round the corner of, you know, December, November, December of 2024, and we're looking into January of 2025 February, March and and really what ends up happening is we almost cash out the 2024 year, and we just wait until we can get to the 2025 year. And I would challenge you to think about this, because what happens is about, you know, six, 810, weeks into the new year, we realize that some of the big dreams, big vision or big hopes that we were, you know, put on our vision board or our goal wall or whatever we have for the year, we're actually not going to accomplish. And so we just kind of, you know, we do the best we can through July into August and September, and then we kind of like start to throttle down just a little bit. Actually, we don't even do that good in June and July, because we're taking vacations. So we're not even thinking about goals and, you know, all these different things, only to come to the end of the year and realize, oh, man, we gotta re up this thing. Can I challenge you? Can I challenge you on your intentionality? Can I challenge you to think forward, to think for the future, to think just a little bit bigger, think beyond right here and right now? Can I challenge you see the reason that most of us don't fulfill the things that we put on our vision board or our dream wall or whatever we have is because we don't choose today that we're going to make the decision. Then we think when we get there, we'll choose. But I gotta tell you, you can't choose when you're in the moment. You have to choose before the moment. In the moments before the moment, you have to make the choice. See, I would bet that 90% of the people that did not come to this first service who would normally come to the first service they chose last night, that they're not going to come to the first service. Do y'all see what I'm saying? And that's, you know, that's neither here nor there. That's no shame or shade on anybody. It's just the way that life works. You don't get in the moment and make the right choice. You make the right choice before the moment that you're presented the opportunity. Y'all hear what I'm saying. So here's what I'm going to preach to you today from this brand new series called Follow the leader, a message I'm calling I made up my mind. Look at your neighbor and say I made up my mind. Knuckle bump your other neighbor, just to bring em in a little bit and say, I made up my mind. And here are two things that we're going to have to understand as we move forward in this series, not just today's message, but the messages moving forward as well. There are two things that we're going to. Have to acknowledge, and we're going to have to understand, okay, it may not be part of who we are right now, but my challenge is, my hope is that for the life of our church, for the people who call Mercy City, Church home, those of us who are going to move forward together this year, because I hope that we're going to finish this year stronger than we started this year so that we can start next year stronger than we're starting this year. See the cycle tends to be we start 25 like we start at 24 because we finish so poorly in 24 and then if the cycle continues, we'll finish weak in 25 and so we'll try to start strong again in 26 but I want to challenge us into starting 26 stronger than we're starting 25 but we're going to have to understand these two things. Choices lead. Somebody say choices lead. Choices lead. When choices lead, our feelings will follow. But this will require an intentional decision, daily, daily intentional decision if our choices are going to lead. Because if our choices don't lead, our feelings by default will lead. Why didn't you go to the gym the other day? Well, you didn't feel like it, but if you had chosen the night before, I'm going to the gym, guess what? No matter how you feel, you're getting up and you're going to the gym. Y'all hear what I'm saying. I didn't pray yesterday. Well, why didn't you pray yesterday? Well, my day got away with me, and I away from you, and I just didn't really feel like it, but if you had decided on January 1, you know what? Every day, without fail, I'm getting up 6am and I'm going to be in the presence of God, I'm going to pray. You can't get talked out of it. You gotta decide with a choice, because your feelings will never lead you into a really life giving place. Consistently, you Why does  your marriage go up and down and up and down and up and down? Because you're letting your feelings lead and not your choices. See on June 16, 2001 I stood before God and man, and I made the decision, the vow to decide every day to choose my wife, no matter how I felt, no matter what things looked like, no matter how difficult the season was, I chose, and because I chose then the moment before, The moment in every moment thereafter, when it was tough, when we were having issues, when we were having struggles, I resolved in my life. No, no, no, I've chosen this in spite of how I feel. Feelings are incredible indicators, incredible indicators, but they're dangerous. Leaders. They're incredible indicators, but they're dangerous leaders. When you allow your feelings to lead, your choices, then will follow, and your life will be a flippant mess. I didn't say a flipping mess. I said a flippant mess all over the map, here and there and everywhere a mess. Feelings are a dangerous leader. Feelings are important because they indicate what needs to be worked on. But when we allow them to lead, they become very, very dangerous. We must understand that choices lead and feelings follow. Otherwise, feelings will lead and our choices will follow next. We must acknowledge, listen to me, this is gonna be hard to be hard for some of us. We must acknowledge 100% responsibility, 100% responsibility. We have to understand that we each are 100% responsible for the decisions we make, the choices that you and I make. We are 100% responsible for them. There's no one else to blame. There's no one else responsible. I know that that's a difficult thing to hear and that's a difficult truth to digest and to swallow. That's why it might take us a couple of weeks. But I'm here to tell you that you are 100% responsible. Now there are certain factors that come into play with our decision making process, and there are certainly some external influences that might push us into a decision that we have to make, but at the end of the day, you are still 100% responsible. I can remember we used to. Get onto our kids, and we never let our kids really fight or, you know, beat on each other. And so we would say things like, Well, why did you hit your brother? Well, he made me so mad. No, no, that was his choice that he's 100% responsible for, but you hitting him back is a choice that you made that you are now 100% responsible for Do y'all hear what I'm saying? Well, why are you so far in debt? Well, because this, this, this. No, no, What decisions did you make to get you there? Sure, I know there are some external pressures and there are some outside influences that make you make the decision, but you still make the decision. Why is your marriage struggling? Well, my marriage is struggling because she just, what about you? See, what happens in my marriage is never my wife's fault. What happens in my marriage is always on me. And in that same marriage, what happens in it is always when it comes to her, on her. Y'all hear what I'm saying. Do you hear what I'm saying? So we're going to have to understand as we move forward. And I know that some of y'all might be angry. You might be upset with me. You might say, well, that's not fair, because so and so chose to this, that and the other thing. Yes, but you can choose how you're going to respond. Okay, you can choose, are you going to respond in a life giving way, or are you going to are you going to respond in a non life giving way? Listen, somebody, somebody walks out, somebody leaves. You can't control them, but you can't control you. You lose your job. You can't control that, but you can control the decisions that you make after that. Y'all hear you're 100% responsible. Okay, come on, let's not be people who play the blame game. Let's not do that. We're not victims in this place. We're victors in Jesus Christ. Y'all hear what I'm saying. Come on, everybody. But in order for us to do that, we've got to decide before the opportunity. We gotta decide before the situation. We gotta decide how we're going to respond in every or any given situation. So with that baseline, let's open or turn our attention to Matthew chapter number four, Matthew chapter number four. So a couple of things that I want us to understand as we dive into Matthew chapter number four. I'm taking a look specifically at Jesus calling his first disciples, right? He calls his first disciples there toward the end of Matthew four, but before he calls his disciples, he had begun to kind of step into his public ministry. He had he had been baptized, and people of the region had heard about his baptism and how the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and said, This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Please, please, please, please, please, right? People had heard about that, that he had been baptized by John the Baptist. They had heard about the fact that that same Holy Spirit that descended on him like a dove led him then into the wilderness to be tempted by the enemy. People had heard the stories they were seeing him. They began to see him in the marketplace. They began to see him in the streets, and they began to hear stories as he preached, because he began to preach repentance. He began to preach returning to the heart of God. He began to preach and teach what he had already been living. And people were taking notice. And that's where we find ourselves here in Matthew chapter number four, verse 18 says this one day, as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, also called Peter and Andrew. They were throwing a net into the water for they fished for a living. Then Jesus called to them, Hey, why don't you come? Come follow me, and I'll show you how to fish for people. And they left their nets at once and followed him. Let's take note of that. What does Jesus say? He says, Come, follow me, follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Somebody say, Follow me. Come, follow me. Come, follow me. Follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me. Come, follow me. And they this is the crazy part, and they left their nets at once and followed him. They didn't talk about it. They didn't pray about it. God ever asked you to do something, or somebody asked you to do something for God, let me pray about it for a little while. I'll get back to you in two weeks, and then you never get back to him. Y'all know what I'm talking about because, because the practice of actually following Jesus, you. Is immediate. Like, if you're really going to do anything great for God, you're going to want to move immediately when you hear his word. Because what happens is you begin to talk yourself out of it, because you let your feelings leave, because you start asking questions while you're praying. Like, well, how do I feel about it? How do, how do I? How do I, how do I feel about him, and they left. I love this. I love this above, at once, at once, at once, and they followed him. You know what's interesting about this? At once, they followed him. They obviously, well, y'all probably don't care about that. It's easy to look at the Scripture and begin to assume that leaving everything behind and following Jesus was this huge step of faith for these young men. And it certainly was, I don't want to minimize that. It was a big step of faith that they, you know, they left their livelihood, they left their boat, they left their they left it was, it was a big deal. I actually want to make a highlight of the fact that they walked away from everything, because these guys weren't just flippantly fishing one day and, you know, they didn't have their, you know, poles in the in the water, like this was their job. They weren't just like they were working. They were this was their livelihood. This was the business that they ran. This was how they took care of their families. The Bible tells us that Peter had a wife. He had a family to take care of. So it wasn't just some flippant like, oh yeah, man, let's follow Jesus. That guy called out to us, like, let's go. No, no. They weren't like, just, you know, kids and from the neighborhood were looking to get out of town. Like, Hey, man, uh, yeah, I'm going to school because, man, I hate Lincoln, I hate Seward. I'm, I'm, I'm out of here. No, that's not what that's not what we're looking at here. These were young Jewish men who had careers and responsibilities.So what I'm really trying to tell you is that this decision wasn't a flippant decision that was made. It was one filled with faith. It was one filled with faith. And here's what I find so interesting about this portion of Scripture is, you know, in John chapter one, it says that Andrew was hanging out with John the Baptist and his disciples. And as they were hanging out, they saw Jesus, and they begin to talk about Jesus. And Andrew was like, Yo, that's Jesus. And John's like, yeah, that's Jesus, the Messiah. And he's like, the Messiah, what the one that we've been taught about, the one that we've been praying for, the one we've been believing for, John? Chapter One, Andrew encounters Jesus as he walks down the street, and he begins to hear more of what people are saying. He's he heard about the baptism, he heard about the test in the wilderness. He heard about the stuff. He heard about the messages. He heard the message, and then he saw him interact. He was like, this is the Messiah. The Bible says that he went and found Peter. Andrew went and found Peter, and he tells Peter, yo, this is the Messiah, the one that we've been believing for, the one that we've been praying for. These guys weren't on a flippant fishing trip. They were probably walking from their house to the boat, talking about Jesus, hey, I think he's the Messiah. This is the one. He's the guy they probably were, you know, prepping their nets to fish that morning, and saying, you know, what? If Jesus comes our way, we're in. We're all in. We, you know, like, I'm about this life. I don't care what else happens. I don't care how many fish are on the boat? If Jesus comes, I'm in I'm with him. Whatever he asked me to do. You know I'm saying they're out there fishing. They're talking to each other while they're throwing their nets out, and they're like, man, Jesus, did you hear about what he did yesterday? Did you hear about what he did two weeks ago? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus, the Messiah. What they do. They made up their minds. They made up their minds before the moment that Jesus gave them the opportunity to follow Him, they had already made up their minds in faith. They made up their minds before the opportunity ever presented itself. They were already prepared for the opportunity, because they made the choice. They decided in their hearts already. We look at this and we're like, oh my gosh, the faith to leave in an instant. No, I think it requires more faith to decide or make the choice when you don't have the opportunity, when your marriage isn't going good, it takes more faith to decide, I'm staying right now, when you don't have the opportunity at work, I'm staying. I'm sticking this out. I'm making this work. Y'all hear what I'm saying. Come on. You gotta move on. The Word of God. I'm not saying God's telling you to stay in an abusive situation. I'm not saying God is asking you to do something that is going to be detrimental for your for your physical or mental health. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, what is the word from God? See these young Jewish men, they had a word from the scriptures. They had been taught their whole lives. They were looking for a Messiah, and they experienced this word from God, and they had made up their minds that opportunity comes. So when Jesus said, Hey, y'all come follow me and I'll show you how to fish for men, they're like, bet. Let's go. Of course, they left it one. Because they already made up their mind. I don't know about you today, but I made up my mind. I knew that whatever God asked me to do in 2025 I made up my mind. I'm already saying, Yes, let's go give more. Yes, be more. Yes, whatever God asked me to do, sacrifice more for my marriage. Yes, I'm here for it. I don't care whatever it is in 2025 God, you asked me to do it. I'm all in. I already made up my mind. I already said yes, yes. All hell breaks loose. I still say yes. I made up my mind. I'm not going to be led by my feelings, because if I'm led by my feelings, I'm probably going to end this year just like I ended another year. That means I gotta start next year just like I started another year. I made up my mind. I already made up my mind. God, whatever you ask, I'm saying yes, Jesus, you're the Messiah. You're the one who put the broken pieces of my life back together. You're the one who placed new hope on the inside of me. You're the one who restored my marriage, you're the one who restored my family, you're the one who gave me vision for the future. You're the one who redeemed my soul. You're the one that gave hope to where to the places where I was hopeless. You're the one. And whatever you ask me to do, I already say. The answer is already Yes. I don't care. I'll leave my job, I'll leave my car, I'll leave I don't care about any of that. Yes, yes, yes. But the Scripture doesn't stop there. A little further up the shore, he saw two other brothers, James and John, sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, repairing their nets.And he called to them to come too. They immediately followed him, leaving the boat and their father behind. Did y'all see that? Did y'all see that they immediately same thing. Immediately followed, and they did the same thing. They left the boat, but they left their father too. I got a question, why did Zeb miss it? See, over the years, I've never even I've never even heard anybody talk about Zebedee missing the moment, but why did Zebedee miss the moment? James and John made the moment, but Zebedee missed the moment. And the assumption is we read the Scripture and we're like, oh, well, Jesus called to James and John, not to Zebedee, but that's not what the scripture says. I read this in so many different translations when I saw this because I wanted to make sure that there was no way that somebody could say, no, no, Jesus didn't call Zebedee, but, but look at this a little further up the shore. He saw two brothers, James and John. And they were sitting with their father, Zebedee, repairing their nets, and he called to them. He called to them. He didn't say, hey James and John. Zebedee, not you. You're too old, right? Hey, James and John, not you. Zebedee, you accomplished too much. That's not what he said. He said, Hey, y'all, why don't you come too? And the two sons left the boat and they left the father. They had a decision to make in the moment, but guess what? They already have made up their minds. They heard the stories of Jesus, they heard the stories of the Messiah, they heard the stories of the Savior, and they said, Hey, listen, not even flesh and blood will keep me from pursuing what I know God has spiritually called me to pursue. Listen, I know you're my father, but I'm not going to let our relationship hold me back from what I'm supposed to do. I know you're my son, I know you're my wife, but I'm not going to let you hold me back. That doesn't mean y'all hear what I'm saying. Why? Because the boys had already decided in their hearts that they were going to go no matter what, and Zebedee had done the same no matter what. He was going to stay. We don't we don't know why Zebedee chose to stay. We don't know why he missed the moment. Did he accomplish too much his was he comfortable in his lifestyle and and thought, oh, man, you know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.I'm pretty comfortable with where I'm at right now. I've accomplished so much already. What more is there to do? You know, I just stay back here and I'll make a little money and give it to the boys. That's great. Except Jesus called him too. Y'all hear what I'm saying. Jesus called him. Two. The bottom line is, everybody, just like the boys, he had already made up his mind. You ever been tempted to think, Wow, that's good for the kids, but for me? Well, I'm just and some of us, God calls to this. Some of us, God calls to the marketplace. Some of us, God calls to provide and yes, but that's a call too. This particularly Jesus had called out to him, said, Hey, why don't you follow me? And we don't know. Maybe Zebedee stayed back and said, Hey, Imma make money. Imma fund your ministry. But it doesn't say that. What it says is he had the opportunity to go, and he chose to stay behind with the boat.Here's my challenge, as we're considering following the leader. Of course, this is church. Imma tell you the leader is Jesus. Of course, the leader is Jesus. It is, he's, he is, he's, he's the leader. But so are you. And what voice are you responding to on the inside? Like is what you're doing a cop out to stay in a comfortable place when Jesus has maybe caused you to leave your boat behind. Because Can I tell you something, this following Jesus thing? It's not just a young man's game. We need fathers and mothers. We need grandparents as well, who are all in to follow Jesus and maybe your maybe your call is to stay with the boat, but not at the expense of forfeiting the call. Y'all hear what I'm saying. I can't tell you what your call is. Only you can tell you what your call is. You hear what I'm saying. I'm not saying everybody needs to leave what you're doing and come to a vocational ministry, cuz we can't do that. But, but here's, here's what I am saying, What's your call, what's what's Jesus said to you, and how have you already made up your mind? Have you made up your mind, Jesus, no matter what you say, I'm coming,I'm all in or have you made up your mind and said, You know what? It's good for them, but it's not good for me. There are three things, bands coming, three things that I want to encourage you with as we move forward. This is what we get to understand. Is we get to choose our leader. Are we going to follow Jesus? If we follow Jesus, then we need to align our lives with Jesus. Okay, we need to align it with Jesus. We get to choose our leader. Everybody else doesn't choose for us. We choose ourselves. Come on, you get to make the choice. You get to make the choice. The second thing is this, we get to choose our new life. We get to choose what this year looks like. Doesn't have to be based on last year. It doesn't have to be based on what everybody else says. But we get to choose get to choose, what this year looks like. One of my favorite lines pastor Carrie brings at me from time to time. It's my favorite. It's my favorite and my least favorite all the same time she says, I'm not fighting with you. It's like, I'm not fighting with you. You can fight with you. Can fight with you. Can fight if you want to, but you'll be fighting with yourself. I'm not fighting with you. And I said, Don't make me angry. Girl. And she says, that's your choice, 100% responsibility. But guess what? I get to choose. Don't, don't I get to choose somebody else wants to pick a fight with you, let them fight, but you're going to fight with yourself. You're not fighting with me. I'm not fighting I'm fighting for victory. I'm fighting from victory. You want to be depressed, you want to be angry, you want to be upset, you want to walk away. Fine, but you're doing that alone. I'm not in it with you. I get to choose my new life. I don't have I don't I don't have to choose like I'm choosing Jesus all day, every day. And we get to choose our level of involvement. We can be Zebedee and be uninvolved, or we can be the boys and be involved. We get to choose. Nobody can make you do it. That's why I love my I love and hate it all at the same time. People, sometimes people get upset, and they leave our church and are like, Oh, they just, they just made everybody serve all the time. They made everybody give. All the time. Although they just want money, you just want everybody to serve all the time. No, we just want to present you an opportunity to be involved. You get to choose your level of involvement. You get to choose you can come every Sunday morning, just eat a cookie and leave. We don't care. That's fine. Totally fine. You choose your involvement. Or you can serve every Sunday morning and see what God does in your life. I mean that that's between you and the Lord. That's not on us. And I know I'm preaching to the choir. None of y'all would ever say that, not this Sunday. It's the first Sunday of the year. Probably wait till the end of the month, at least. You  we get to choose our involvement. So here's what I would ask you today, as you get to choose the choices that you make in the moments before the moment, there's an opportunity coming this year. I promise you have you ever wondered how many opportunities maybe you missed in the past? Again, as I've reflected these last couple of weeks, I've just thought, how many moments did I miss God, because I was so locked in on what I was doing that I missed what you were doing. I'm so grateful for where you brought me, but have I missed any moments? And of course, God is so kind. He's so gracious, and he's so good. He showed me some moments that I missed, but he also showed me how to redeem them, and I'm just so grateful for that. Here's what I'm telling you today, no matter how many moments you miss, God's capable of redeeming those and I'm so grateful for that, but I'd rather make the most of the first opportunity. Let's be those people in 2025 so then 2026 man, we're just, we're just, we're just gearing up, just revelating, like, let's go. Care how I see the roads are full on pedal the metal, baby. Yeah. I mean, of course, that's the way I live my life. Y'all may not want to do that, but what are the choices you can make today to ensure that 2026 doesn't have to be a do over. This isn't about starting January strong. It's about finishing the year strong. Come on, close your eyes. We close your eyes. You  father over everyone and every one of our locations. I pray today that as we rest with and as we wrestle with these choices that we're tasked with making, I pray God that we wouldn't wait for the opportunity and simply base it on a feeling, but we would make the choice today before the opportunity ever presents itself, that we're choosing your path, God, today, let us be people who make up our minds what you say is What we'll do. We won't live in fear of failure. We won't live in fear of what others say. We won't live in fear of what people close to us are threatening. But we will live full of faith based on your word. We'll live full of faith based on your word. God. We're believing in faith for those close and those far. We're believing in faith for finances and opportunities. We're believing in faith for a future that's full of revelation that brings us closer to you, God, we're believing full of faith, and based on that faith, we'll choose today, whatever you ask. We say yes, we say yes, we say yes, we say yes, in Jesus, Mighty Name, Amen. Come on mercy city, I wonder if you'll join me.