I’m On the Move

Amen. Well, again, my name is Amir Burton, and I will be your preacher today. All right, thank you, guys. Real quick, from the front end, appreciate the applause. Thank you kindly.

But for the front end, I just want to say a big thank you to you, the Broward Church, for allowing me to be here today and to share the word of God with you at this time. Also, Tony Fernandez and the leadership group and the staff and all and everybody that thought of me and my wife and allowed us to come. Can we give the leadership and the staff a round of applause?

They’re really doing a beautiful thing here, an awesome thing. And that wouldn’t be complete without an awesome membership. So can we give a round of applause to ourselves being members here at the Broward Church? Very nice. Thanks again for the welcome, Tony.

I feel at home. I feel like I’m with family. And speaking of family, here goes a picture of mine here. All right? And so there goes my beautiful, my spiritual, elegant, and intelligent Wonder Woman of my dream.

Her name is Jewel, right there to my left. And she’s sitting right there. She’s here today as well. And that right there is a little boy, our first born, only born, all right? Three year old.

He’s three years old. He’s going on four years old in August 4. August 4. In about two weeks or so, he will be four years old. That’s his golden birthday.

And he knows it’s his golden birthday. He knows we’re going to turn up with the cake pops, the lollipops. We’re going to have some Capri Sun on the rocks, okay? We’re going to be having a great time. And that’s him right there.

He’s here today as well. You’ll probably see him running around afterwards. And so this, again, is a picture of my family. We’ve already been introduced, but the reason why I’m showing you a picture of my family from the front here is because statistics say that if I show you a picture of my family, you are going to listen to me better, all right? So now that I got your attention, now that I got your attention, are you all ready for the Word of God?

Well, come on, we can do better than that. I said, are you all ready for the Word? There it is. I knew we were in church today. And real quick, I understand that we’re in a series right now, right?

We’re all in a series, this Ministry of Jesus series. Is that right or is that wrong? Yeah, that’s right. That’s exactly right. I know that’s right, because I got a little nosy, okay?

I got a little nosy when I was asked to speak today, and I got all up in your business, okay? I peeked through the blinds and I peeked around the corner, all right? And I know that you guys are in that series. And that series has been awesome. Hasn’t it been a great series?

It’s been all that and then some. Campbell’s Chicken noodle good, KFC finger looking good. It’s been an awesome and incredible series. It’s been so right. It’s been so nice.

I said, I got to stay away from that series, all right? I got to stay away from it. I’m just going to let the staff keep that. I don’t want to come up here today and mess the series up and then have Tony going to clean it up, maybe even go to another I’m not doing that. So I said, I’m saying Old Testament far away from that series, all right?

And so we’re going to be in Second Kings, chapter seven. If you got your bible, go ahead and turn on over there. Second Kings, chapter seven, verse number three. And I will say that even though we’re going to be studying out some Old Testament today, I will be talking about Jesus up in here. Okay?

Of course, if that’s okay with you guys for me to go ahead and do. All right, talking about Jesus, you heard them do. They gave me to go ahead, so let me go ahead and go ahead. All right? Second King, chapter seven, verse number three.

Verse number three. The Bible here says, now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate, and they said to each other, why stay here until we die? And that’s a big thing. That’s a huge thing. That’s some underlying worthy highlight worthy content right there.

Why stay here until we die? So this passage is for everybody in the room that’s ready to go to the next level, all right? See, if you came here today and you’re satisfied with where you are in your walk with God, if you’re content with where you are, if you’re saying, hey, look, I’ve been doing this for a while and I’m okay, I’m going to give you this disclaimer from the jump. I may put you to sleep for the next 30 minutes because we’re not talking about staying where we are. We’re not talking about being satisfied.

We’re not talking about being okay. We’re talking about, hey, why are we going to stay here? All right? So this passage and this message is for everyone in the room that’s saying, hey, I got this desire to go deeper on the inside of me. I got this desire to go further on the inside of me.

I’m on my way to becoming somebody in Christ that I want to become. I’m not there yet, but I’m on my way. And I’m not leaving 2022 without growth and maturity. And if you’re with me on that, say it out loud. Say I’m on the move.

Say it again. Say I’m on the move. That’s right. We can’t stay here. We can’t stay stuck.

We can’t stay stagnant. So the title of our time in the word of God today is, I’m on the move. Say it again. Say I’m on the move. I’m on the move.

The MOV to the E. What’s that spelled? Church. That spells move. And that’s what we’re talking about today, this morning.

And I know I said that I was going to stay away from that series that you all been in, but the Spirit is bringing me into it for a minute, because you can’t read through a gospel without seeing this from Jesus. You can’t get very far, Matthew, MarK, Luke, or John without seeing the words on his way as he went. Jesus went this way, Jesus went that way. Why? Because moving forward was always routine on the agenda of Jesus.

Jesus was never content and satisfied to stay in place or to settle down. So much so that if anybody in the Gospels wanted to have a meeting with Jesus, they best be ready to get on the move. All right, get your chanclas, your Valencia, whatever it is that you wear to meet Jesus. Because Jesus was in motion. Jesus was moving.

And it wasn’t always just this physical sense. How many of us know that Jesus, he was about moving understanding forward, conviction forward, character forward, love forward, and all things related to the things of God. Why? Because we’re called to go from faith to faith and from glory to glory. And like Paul says in the New Testament, we’re not going to pause in place and pause and stay where we are.

No, we press on towards what’s ahead. And this is why we’re studying this out this morning, and we see this going on here in the text that we’re reading today and this morning. I want to study out this conversation that these men are having with each other as it reveals to us a lot of what needs to take place in our lives if we’re going to continue to move forward. Amen? Amen.

All right, so 2 king 7:3 again. Now, there were four men. Let me give you this context real quick. Context, right? Where are we in the Bible?

All right, real quick. Have you guys ever heard of the Bible Project before? The resource online with those cool illustrations and videos and things like that. It’s awesome and helps you understand the context of the book that you’re going to read. Right?

Here’s a picture if you’re familiar with it, right? It looks like this, right? It’s the Bible Project. Now, the other day, I was hanging out with Tony, hanging out at his house, and he was listening to some music.

He asked me this question that I have never been asked before in my life. He said, Ameer, are you creative? You’re creative? I was like, yeah, I’m creative. You play instruments?

Like, do you do that? I don’t do all that, Tony. I think I could think creatively. And then it stopped there. He didn’t ask me anything else after that, and that stuck with me.

And I got to my place that I’m staying at later that night. I was like, man, I got to show Tony that I’m creative. I don’t think he bought it. I don’t think he bought in. And so I started to watch the Bible Project again, and I got a little inspired, okay?

I said, I’m going to do a little Bible project of my own. All right? Now, it was late at night, and again, I was thinking about it, all right? And so I will say disclaimer again, all right? This is the beta version, okay?

It’s the beta version of my Bible project. I don’t have the funding that the Bible project, Broward church. If you all want to sponsor me, I will Picasso the thing up, watercolors and everything. But until then, this is what you get.

I don’t know if it helps the case, Tony. This is my Bible project here, all right? And so where are we in the context of the Bible? All right? And so we got Adam and Eve. Check that happened.

We got the flood check that happened, right? Y’all know this third one here. You all know who that is. That’s Abraham, right? And his son right there.

That happened. Egypt happened, right? We got David and Goliath. That happened, right? The kingdoms divided.

Kingdoms divided. I tried. I tried my best, tried my best. I Did. It’s all Tony’s doing okay?

Talk to Tony after he led me to this, all right? The kingdoms divided, as we know, the kingdoms divided. Israel and Judah, right? And then we get to where we’re at, and the Bible tells us that this famine hit the land, the whole land. One of the most devastating famines to ever hit.

That meant that there was no more bone in wings, no more sushi or temporos, no more build your own unlimited topping pizza. All right, that’s pizza. Yes, that’s the pizza. All right. And then no more ice cream, right?

No more butter pecan flavor ice cream with the sprinkles. That’s my favorite, by the way. All right? There’s a famine. No more sprinkles.

Say it ain’t so. You know it’s bad if there’s no sprinkles or toppings for the ice cream. And it was bad. This famine was bad. The hungry got hangry.

Then the hangry, they got crazy, cannibalism crazy. They were having meetings. Hey, let’s eat members of our, crazy stuff going on, right? At the same time, these four men that had leprosy, a lot of us, we know leprosy is just this very heinous disease that affects the skin, right?

Your limbs will go missing. Your body is just torn apart, highly contagious. And so you’re asked to leave the community you were in. And these men, they were kicked out, all right? And the four men here, they got word of what was going on, where they were at.

They got word of it. They said, okay, it’s this famine in there not only that, but they way beyond beef in there. They’re talking about eating people. Let’s go, let’s move. And these men started to move forward.

And again, the bible says here, now there were four men with leprosy. And real quick, let’s note that. It says, there were four men with leprosy. So this is not the story of the four lepers. This is not the story of the four leprous men. The bible takes some time.

I believe it intentionally writes it. These are for men with leprosy. And to clear that up, in case you’re not catching what I’m putting down here, the bible identifies them as men before they were the disease, before they were their issue or their condition. And I believe that there’s some encouragement that we can take from that, and that is, don’t project the issue onto your identity. In other words, do not become a lot of us in this room, majority if not all, we’re fighting something, we’re going through something, we’re battling something.

But the encouragement here is do not fight or do not become what you’re fighting or what you’re trying to stay away from. Frederick nietzsche, y’all remember nietzsche? Heard that name before, that brilliant mind from back in the day. He said it like this. He said, be careful that when you’re fighting the monster, you do not become that monster.

Identity wise, they were men. Issue wise, they had leprosy. If they owned their issue as their identity, they could never be free. They can never be blessed, they can never be healed, because as long as you become one with your issue or your condition, you can never be set free. And so sure, I’m fighting leprosy, but I will not become the leper.

Sure, I’m fighting bitterness in my life, but I will not become bitter. Sure, I’m fighting to have faith in this season of my life, but I will not become faithless, nor I refuse to give any license or permission to anything other than who god says that I am. On that Broward church, let this be the season where we get active in telling ourselves who we are and who we aren’t. I can’t be alone if I’m a friend of the most high. I can’t be a failure if I’m more than a conqueror. No, let’s believe in and let’s commit to the discipline and practice of drawing a line in between who we are and what we’re going through.

And let’s not attach to our person when we don’t want to be attached to our person. Amen. It’s four men with leprosy. Sure, they have something it’s with them for the season, but it’s not them. Sure, I’m going through a trial.

Sure I’m with this, I’m with that. It’s a season that is not who I am. Let’s keep it going. We’re still in verse three. So now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate.

They said to each other, why stay here until we die? And that’s another big thing, right? The Bible is telling us that they said this to each other. That means they didn’t only say the same thing, but they were thinking the same thing. And so that means that should lead us really to evaluate our circles, to make sure our crew, make sure our squads, home boys, home girls, whatever you want to call them, not only speak the same as you, but think the same.

Why’s that’s the principle we know from life? Because you can sabotage your destiny hanging with the wrong crew. It ain’t even you, right? It’s like Jonah.

Y’all remember Jonah? Jonah from the Bible, right? We remember Jonah. I heard one year, it’s just me and you. It’s just me and you today.

I’m just going to talk to you, me and you with me today. Jonah. We remember Jonah, right? Jonah is running from God. Jonah is running from God.

He ends up on this random man’s boat, and there’s a tsunami on this man’s boat. I heard this once, and I’ll share it with you. So the boat represents your life. The people on your boat represents who you allow into your life. And so what if you’re letting people in your life that are causing storms?

So I don’t know about you, but I know I can do bad all by myself. I don’t need any help messing up my life. I’m good at messing up my life. I don’t need no one else in my job, in my heart, in my home, or in my emotions to do that for me. And so what did they do in the story?

They looked at Jonah. They said, Jonah, you know what? You got to go. Look at your neighbor and tell them you don’t do that. You need your neighbor. You need your neighbor, right?

And this is a concept we know some of us were sinking in the name of loyalty, and we associate that all the time with a circle and a group of people. But what if we’re too loyal to the me, myself and I?

The Bible here says it’s these four men, there’s this togetherness. There’s this one anotherness going on here in the text. And the mind was to move forward, which is a good move. And really, with that, when you’re connected to good company, your back is never against the wall. How many of us in here have ever been in a fight before?

Show of hands. Okay. All right.

She got hands over here. Some of you on the Broward Church got hands, right? Some of us, we’ve been in a fight. Some of us, we admitted it. Some of us I ain’t going to put my hand up, but if you’ve ever been in a fight or have seen and watched the fight, you know that the worst position in place you can ever end up in is with your back against the wall.

Boxed up in between the wall and your opponent. When that happens, you got to know where to maneuver. You got nowhere to bob and weave, and eventually you can lose the fight. Spiritually speaking, we back ourselves into a wall. We try to DIY this Jesus is Lord thing.

DIY. You all know DIY means? Do it yourself. We live in this world where there’s all kinds of things that we can do ourselves. It’s all over and it’s spread across. Back home in La we got this whole DIY store that you can go to. We’re surrounded by all this doityourself and DIY. But let’s not forget that you will never find and see a DIY promotion for your spiritual walk in the NIV, in the KJV, in the ESV, any V inversion of the Bible that you can ever read. And what I’m saying with that is, if Jesus kept the DIY out of discipleship, can we keep it out of the church? Can we continue to reach out to one another?

Can we continue to go to others for help and seek to have this one another community, right? And continue to do that? I know the pandemic has changed that in a lot of ways, but the Bible hasn’t. And let’s make the decision to fight with a brother and sister by our sides instead of with a wall behind our backs. Speaking of a brother and a sister amen.

Speaking of a brother and sister, my wife right here at the age of six years old, she was with her two brothers who were five and 8 years old at this time in a parking lot of a 711 are in the van. All right? Their mom just ran in, my mother in law, she ran in to get them off some slurpees. You know, they were on their best behavior for all three of them to get them slurpees, and she ran in real quick to grab the slurpees. And while she was inside the 711, this random guy ran up to the van, somehow opened the door, hopped in the van and sped off in the van with Jewel and her two brothers still in the van.

And so this is a hijacking and a kidnapping going on at the same time. And any other child may have been terrified and scared of that’s a scary situation. Who is this? I don’t know. Who this?

But not Jewel and her two brothers. Well, the five year old was crying the whole time this was going on. But her eight year old brother, you all remember like the club used to lock your steering wheel to the he grabbed that heavy metal club. You all remember that? He grabbed that club and started to beat this man back of the head to back, right in the arm with the club. Mind it’s an eight year old. This beat hit him and Jewel, at six years old, took the seatbelt off, got behind the seat that the burglar was driving and then proceeded to choke out the burglar at six years old. And so you all got to pray for me. I married the woman who at six years old strangled out a burglar. I’d better not forget a birthday.

I better not forget an anniversary or a special occasion a day in my life. So this was going on. Eventually, the man figured out how to throw them out the van and then he sped off. The eight year old was paying attention to where they were going the entire time and was able to take his sister Jewel and his brother five year old to walk them all the way back to the 711 where all this started at.

The stories are confirmed. One year, Jewel, she was doing some guidance counseling and she shared that story. It was an ice breaker. She shared it in an incoming freshmen to the college that Jewel was doing the counseling at. Rose his hand and says, my parents told me that story.

I know that story. It was all on the news helicopters and all that, right? Why am I bringing this up? What Jewel could have struggled with on her own, she was able to accomplish with her brothers.

Here’s a word of wisdom for you before we move on. Don’t let the selfsufficient you sabotage the next you. One of the biggest setbacks to the better men and women of God that we have the potential to become occurs when we allow our feelings to interfere with connecting with the people that God has put around us, whether that’s in person or whether that’s tuning in online. And I get it. I understand relationships can get messy.

We know that. We’ll offend each other, we’ll hurt each other, we’ll wound each other. We could say things that intent and all that, that happens, and that’s going to continue to happen. But you know what the Bible is going to continue to say? Wounds from a friend can be trusted. Wounds from a brother and sister can be trusted.

And I’m not saying that to give anybody a free pass, to treat anybody any type of way, but I’m saying that because this cancel culture where we allow one poor moment with somebody lead to cancel the whole relationship, and now I tear down your whole character because of one poor moment, and I’m turning the good people of God into no good people. That’s what we need to move from. We, like the men in the Scripture, need a group of four, a dynamic of four or more as we continue to move forward. Amen. All right, verse four now. Let’s move on. The Bible says if we say we’ll go back to our home city, the famine is there and we will die. At first they say if we stay here, we’re going to die. Figuring out the move, what’s that going to be? They said if we go back to where we came from to our past, the former, they said that they will also die as well. And on that, I want to tell you all a little secret.

Can you hear me? Do I need to move this edge of your seats? Come on. Some of you all doing it. I noticed people driving around outside ain’t in church.

They can’t get the secret. It’s a secret. You’re ready for the secret? Some of you all think, yes.

The secret is this. The past is not an option. The past is not an option. There’s nothing in your past. Why am I bringing this up? Because that’s the first temptation.

As soon as we start trusting in God and we take a step out in faith, it’s like, okay, God, I’m trusting you. I’m being faithful. I’m loyal. I’m committed. God, come on, God, where are you?

God, it’s cold. God, it’s cold out here. If God doesn’t come through on our time frame, the first temptation is man, I’m going back to the, we’re all prone to this. As believers when we don’t get what we want, the way we want it, how we want it, the first temptation is to go back to the past.

Write it down. Turning back to the former is the first temptation of moving forward. Why is that? Because I know how the former goes. I know how the former works.

I’ve been in the former before. But moving forward, that’s unfamiliar. That makes me uncomfortable. And when I don’t get that right away, reassurance that I made the right decision, my first temptation is I’m going back to the way I used to say it. I’m going back to the way I used to do it.

I’m going back to the way I used to treat her, the way I used to treat him, insert it, whatever it is for you. This isn’t an old thing or this isn’t a new thing. This is an old thing, I should say. We see this with the children of Israel. Y’all remember the children of Israel?

Exodus, chapter three. God says, Come out of there, y’all. I’m giving you this land flowing with milk and honey. People said, what? Let’s go, y’all.

Come on. Father says they started. They danced a little bit, right? There was part that’s all I’m going to do. Jewel the other day said, just keep the dance moves in La.

Just do that. All right? Ugly Pharaoh ain’t got no alibi, right? They’re having a good time as they’re leaving, right? And they’re going out in faith.

And it’s a party, and they’re celebrating. 20 years past, 30 years past, 40 years past. They said, Where is the promise? I trusted God. I was loyal.

I was committed. I was faithful. I’m walking by faith, not by sight. But here I am 40 years later. Where is the promise?

That’s an old question.

They said, we wish to God we were back in Egypt. Being a slave. A lot of us we know the context is better than the patience of anticipating a blessing from God. That’s what they said. We would rather go back to that bondage and that poor treatment that never worked out in the first place.

And don’t we say the same thing? How many times in the new year do we go back to being who we were in the previous year? The men in the text, they said, it’s a famine back there. Famine means emptiness. It’s barren, no fruitfulness.

There’s nothing back there for us. Can we call our past the same thing?

How many times do we, like the children of Israel, go back to the things that keep us away from what’s ahead? I found it wise to ask myself this question I’ll ask you this morning. Question is, is there a former me alive in me, keeping me from what’s ahead of me? Is there something in my life that I bury before others, that I give life to when I’m alone? Do I bury my anger before others, but give it life when it’s just me and my spouse?

Do I bury a double life hypocrisy before others in the church, but give it life when I’m with my friends?

I wonder if you have the courage to ask yourself this question is there a former me that I’m giving life to, that I said way back when I first came into Christ that I was going to get rid of? Let’s keep going. Later on in verse four, they say, if we stay here, we will also die. And so let’s go over to the camp of the Aramaians and surrender. If they spare us, we live.

If they kill us, we die. And so they’re walking feebly, right, the lepers, but they’re faithful. So let’s keep moving. It’s this camp, it’s the Aramaens, it’s this strong army. You know what?

We have faith that there’s still a way out of this, and even if not, amen. But we’re still in no way, shape or form on this journey, became, that’s a key word. Became anything other than faithful to moving forward. And that leads me to ask you another question.

That question is, have you become the believer you never wanted to become? A number of us in this room, we’ve been doing this Jesus’s Lord thing for a while now, coming to church for a while, reading the Bible for a while, praying for a while.

But have we become who all that investment and all that time and all that effort and all that energy should have led us to become? Or have we become something other than who we long ago aspired to be? Valentine’s Day 2021. The pregnancy test said that we were positive, which I was excited. But my wife, she came home from the doctor, disturbed.

Doctor said that she had just tested positive or not test for high blood pressure. And high blood pressure is a threat to the baby’s life. And so they put her on this high blood pressure medication immediately. Right away.

Later on. Sometime later. We found out that the test was a false positive. That pregnancy test. Which that was okay.

But we also found out that that medication had a recall on it.

And it led to severe heart trouble. To which we found out Jewel woke up. Couldn’t breathe. Had symptoms of a heart attack.

That led to several tests, several appointments, specialist appointments. She’s wearing a heart monitor.

And I remember we’re still trying to figure out in some ways what’s going on there. But I remember when everything first began, it started happening. The last thing I thought about was God making away.

I immediately started to think, bad news, worst case scenario. I didn’t think that God was going to work all this out for the good. And I learned through that time that I could believe in my ability to protect myself more than I believe in God’s ability to make a way, because I don’t want to be messed up and I don’t want to think the positive, and the positive doesn’t happen, and I’m messed up. So let me protect myself by preparing for the worst. But I learned to prepare for the worst is to expect the worst.

And to expect the worst is to invite the worst. And when you invite the worst, the worst is going to show up. And that’s not the believer who I wanted to be, but that’s who I became in that moment. And I’m grateful for hindsight, I’m grateful for this question, and I’m also grateful to understand that a believer unaware of the deeper condition is a believer kept from the mature condition. There’s no way to move forward if we don’t know what’s going on on the deepest part of us.

All right, this is John 626. Y’all remember John 626? Let me remind you of John 626. Two fish and five loaves. Y’all remember now, all right?

Jesus just gave the good meal plus leftovers. Everybody ate. The people said, do it again, Jesus, right this time I believe with some Red Lobster, right? Some Cheddar Bay biscuits. Do you ever had some Cheddar Bay biscuits before?

All right, I would have said that the first time, little boy, move aside, multiply this Red Lobster, Jesus. They said, Jesus, do the miracle again. Do it again, Jesus. Jesus said, he replied, he said, I’m more than the feeder of the hungry, I’m more than the Satisfier of the appetite. But if you never get in touch with the deeper things, things deeper than the craving of something to eat, like what’s triggering that toxic emotional response in you that you can’t seem to shake?

What’s triggering these cycles in your life that you can’t get over if you don’t get in touch with the deeper conditions and let me work on that, you will never endure to an eternal life, let alone a mature life. And so on that Broward church. Can this be the season where we refuse to live beneath the surface? Can we refuse to be satisfied with not going to that place? Can we move on from that?

And can we rise to the occasion of doing the work, the hard work, of becoming aware of who we truly are? And how about asking somebody in our lives to help us? There’s a lot of times, I mean, how many times have we been under the impression that we’ve been doing the right thing just to find out in the end we’ve been deceived? I got this friend back in San Diego. KP.

KP has a grandma. Everybody say, what’s up, KP. Hey, KP. I don’t know if you’re watching it. He’s in San Diego.

KP’s grandma got a phone call one day. The phone call said we got KP. K. We holding KP hostage.

If you ever want to see KP again, you need to give us $3,000 by the end of the day. Hung up the phone. Grandma went to work. Grandma got her bag. Grandma went straight to the bank.

She got all 3000 of them dollars. Called up her son, write KP’s dad and say, hey, don’t worry about KP. I got the three K in hand. It’s going to save the day. Grandma a real one, right?

KP’s dad called KP, KP, what’s going on? You answering the phone like Grandma’s saying that you’re being held hostage. Hostage? I’m not being held hostage. I’m at home right now with my newborn baby girl, all right?

If anybody’s holding me hostage is her, and I don’t want to go nowhere else. All right? Why am I bringing this up? Grandma was under the impression that she was doing the right thing just to find out in the end she was deceived.

Let’s not allow that to happen to us. Let’s move away from that deceived place and let’s figure out who we really are, all right? In a group, in a dynamic that can contribute to that. Amen. Amen.

We’re going to close out here versus five to nine. We’re going to transition to communion as well. Bible says here I abbreviate it. Bible says that dust. They got up, went to the camp of the Aramaeans.

When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, for the Lord had caused the Aramaians to hear the noise of chariots and horses in a great army. So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents in their horses and donkeys. The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. It was Waffle House. I love Waffle House.

By the way. We don’t got that back home, but y’all got that nearby. We going in the morning, tomorrow, Monday morning. If you all want to join us, join us. But I know Waffle House got that reputation anyway.

They took the silver gold and clothes and went off and hit them. Verse nine they said to each other, what we are doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace. They said this is good news.

This is remarkable. Why? Again there’s a famine going on back home. We just saved thousands of lives. We gotta go spread the news.

And remember, these men were the men that were kicked out because they had this disease kicked out friends, family, and here they are thinking about the people that left them for dead. And I want to add here real quick that they demonstrate this heart of my love for you goes beyond your treatment of me.

See, not everybody’s walking into blessings because not everybody has that heart. It’s the Jesus heart. Alright? I’m going to do to others as I would have them do unto me, not demand them to do unto me. Have them do unto me.

And they’re demonstrating his heart. But again, imagine if it was the other way around, right where they are keeping things to themselves. Imagine if we don’t get that last verse and they played the victim. You know what? They’re right.

We’re good for nothing. We’re as good as dead. They would have never moved forward and they would have never stumbled across this remarkable victory. The point is, the most remarkable acts of God occur as we resolve to move forward. Resolve as we’re determined to move forward in the head.

A stone against a giant doesn’t add to a win. Gideon versus Midean, if you know that story, doesn’t add to a win. Four lepers saving thousands of lives, that doesn’t add up. Alone and by themselves, the odds are stacked against.

But with the resolve and the determination to move forward, the remarkable occurs. We see the same thing with Jesus. The Bible tells us in Luke 22, verse 42, Jesus, he’s praying. We know this, Father, if you are willing to take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours, be done. Jesus is saying I got some resolve to move ahead.

It’s challenging, it’s hard, it’s difficult, but something remarkable is on the other side. And that’s all of us here today at the Broward Church in person and online. Some remarkable stories in the room we just heard this morning one of those. And there’s more to come in others lives, but also in our own life. And so let’s have the heart of Jesus and let’s meditate on this heart that he’s demonstrating in this prayer and the story of these four men.

And maybe for you I got to move on from projecting things onto who I am. Or maybe it’s you I got to move away from considering going back. Maybe it’s none of those things for you, maybe it’s something else. But allow this story, allow Jesus here in the garden to encourage your thoughts and guide your thoughts during this time to resemble the heart of these four men here and ultimately Jesus, who had this resolve to save our lives. Let’s pray and take communion together.

God and Father in Heaven were so grateful for this opportunity to be in this room and be in this place and to know Your sacrifice, know you gave up Your Son for us, to heal us, as the Bible says. But we know that that would not happen to take place without the resolve of Jesus to move forward in spite of the difficulty ahead of Him. And so we meditate on that today. And God, may you also allow the Scripture in his time, in Your Word, to lead us to the areas in our lives that we need to move forward in and to demonstrate the same resolve, the same heart that Christ had moments before crucifixion. We love you, we thank you, and we’re grateful for you.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.