Amen.
So good to be with you guys, the little fan crowd.
I love that.
Good friends down here.
Man, I have had the privilege of meeting a lot of you
and going to know you.
I've been here for almost 10 years, Pastor Sam,
and it has actually been 10 years.
No, who's counting though?
No, it's such an honor to be on staff
here to serve under Pastor Josh and Pastor Janae
and just the leadership and the vision of this church.
Yes, we can clap for our lead pastors who
hasn't spoken for a couple of weeks.
And so I know we're excited to hear from him again,
but I'm honored to be able to take opportunities
to share and speak when I get the opportunity.
And we're actually in the middle of a series of messages
that we've titled The Final Discourse.
And Pastor Josh kicked us off with a message encouraging
us to lean into the heart of Jesus,
to be close to the person of Jesus,
that he is desiring to be more than just knowledge
in our head, but a presence in our everyday life.
And Pastor Dylan took it a step further,
and Pastor Logan at our Garrison campus
and taught on the idea of abiding in Christ.
Don't just be close to him, but stay connected.
The vine is to stay connected to the branches.
And God's growing something new, and no good fruit
can come apart from him.
And today, I want to talk about and go
along the lines of that idea of the vine and the branches
and the vineyard and talk about protecting the vineyard
that Jesus is trying to grow in our life.
And I'm excited to be able to share.
Again, we're in this portion of John 13 through John 17.
And Jesus is sharing his final words with us.
And I've been in those moments of final words
with different people.
And their words carry a lot of weight.
And you lean into what they're going to say.
And you wonder, what's the last thing they're going to leave?
And this is Jesus for us.
Jesus is giving his final prayers, his final warnings,
his final encouragements.
And we're going to pull from this idea today.
But first, I want to bring you back
to the beginning of my wife and I's relationship, which
actually started way in sixth grade.
But there was another early moment
that I have, because we were high school sweethearts.
But anyways, a moment I remember
was, I think, junior high, high school, somewhere in there,
our awkward stage.
And we were both athletic.
She was in track and basketball, volleyball.
And I was in football.
I was the running back.
And we were at this school retreat.
And it was the nighttime activities.
The bonfire's happening.
The s'mores are happening.
The night games are happening.
And we're playing tag in the dark.
So we called it Ditch.
We're playing tag in the dark.
And you got to know who I'm chasing.
I'm going to chase her.
But the thing is, we're both competitive.
So she's running as hard as she could.
I'm running as hard as I could.
And I'm about to catch her.
But all of a sudden, I get stopped dead in my tracks.
And I'm laid out on my back.
And I realize I ran directly into a birdhouse.
It was hiding in the dark, didn't see it coming.
And I'm down on my back.
And she quickly comes to my side and gives me sympathy.
And I'm like, man, this played out real well.
You got to know I'm eating this up right now.
Like, oh, she's giving me sympathy.
And here I am.
I'm laid out.
And 18 years, we've almost been married, 18 years now.
I'm still chasing her, still running after her,
still running into birdhouses, still
sticking my foot in my mouth.
But man, Jesus, he gives a final warning in John 16.
And he says, disciples, you're going
to be chasing hard after me.
You're going to be running hard after me.
You're going to be passionate for me.
But he says this.
He says, I have said all these things to you.
I've taught you all these things to you
to keep you from falling away, to keep you from falling away.
Jesus says, you're going to run hard for me.
But there's going to be temptation to fall away
from me.
But church, you have to know that oftentimes,
falling away from Jesus isn't like hitting
a birdhouse in the dead of night and stopping you
dead in your tracks.
But often, it's rather this slow drift.
It's the slow fade, where all of a sudden, you wake up one day
and you say, how did I get where I am?
I remember the days.
I remember the moments where Jesus felt so close to me.
How did I get here?
You see, drifting doesn't happen overnight.
Most people don't wake up and decide, you know what?
Today's the day I'm going to wreck my life.
Today's the day I'm going to destroy.
my marriage. Today's the day I'm going to become an addict. Today's the day I'm going to be bitter
towards this person. Today's the day I'm going to walk away from God. No, it usually happens
slowly. It's after one compromise, one offense, it's one neglected spiritual discipline, one
missed gathering, one secret that we keep hidden. It's this slow fade. It's these small things,
which brings me to the title and the scripture of my message today. I'm going to pull a scripture
that I want to unpack from a unique book in the Bible. Be careful if you go read it though,
because it's like a romance. It's in the romance category, okay? It's the Song of Solomon and it's
about the passionate love between a man and a woman. But really, why is it in the Bible?
Because it's a depiction of God's passionate love for us. Not a far, lofty, high, distant love
towards us, but a close, passionate love like Pastor Josh preached in week one of this message.
So it's this book on passionate love towards us, his creation, and our passionate love
as his creation towards our creator. But he says this in chapter two, verse 15, he says,
catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in
blossom. You're like, man, you picked a unique scripture to preach today. What in the world?
We're going to talk about foxes today, okay? The little foxes that spoil the vineyard. If you have
your notes and you're going to take notes today, which I heard if you take notes, you get a little
bit bigger mansion in heaven. It's found nowhere in the Bible, but I just heard it somewhere and
I thought it was pretty good. So the message is titled, the little foxes that spoil the vineyard.
And I want to share with you about the little foxes that seek to steal and destroy the work
that God is doing in your life. The vineyard that is in blossom. Like I said, Jesus warned us in
John 16, he says, I have told you all these things to keep you from falling away. And Jesus had warned
them throughout this section of chapters 13 through 17. If you go read it, he's pretty
real and honest with the disciples. He says, you're going to experience tribulation. You're going to
experience persecution. You're going to experience deep sorrow and grief. You're going to experience
the world hating you. In fact, he even looks to Peter, the most tenacious one. And he says, Peter,
you're actually going to deny me not once, not twice, but you're going to deny me three times.
And then he says to the rest of the disciples who are feeling pretty good about themselves, like,
yeah, Peter, what's up? He says, you guys are going to scatter like cockroaches. You're going to run.
And so Jesus, he's just being real with the disciples. And here's the thing is Peter didn't
plan to deny Jesus. The disciples didn't plan. They didn't wake up and say, today's the day I'm
going to scatter. In fact, Peter was adamant. Jesus, I would never deny you. And I would say
you and I would be the same way. Jesus, I would never deny you. I would never destroy my marriage.
I would never have a financial collapse. I would never do these things. But spiritual drift almost
always starts small. And so today we're going to talk about how do we protect what God is growing?
How do we catch the little foxes that are spoiling the vineyard in our life? And it starts with this.
It's realizing that foxes are small, not big. Isn't that really profound? You're like, pastor,
that is so obvious. I do not mean to insult your intelligence, but the writer himself had to call
it out. Check out this verse again. Song of Solomon 2.15. He says, catch the foxes for us.
And he asked to identify the little foxes. It's the little foxes that spoil the vineyards.
You see, the foxes are dangerous, not because they're powerful. They're dangerous because
they're overlooked. The foxes are dangerous, not because they're powerful, but because they are
overlooked. The vineyard is not usually destroyed by a big, strong lion or an untamed ox. But it's
the little foxes, the little things that seem insignificant until enough damage has been done
that it is now actually significant. You see, it matters to understand what type of picture
the Bible is painting for us, because it's not painting this image.
that you and I maybe think of when you think of a fox,
the cute fox and the hound from Disney, our childhood memory.
But it's no, it's the small, sneaky, destructive animal
that's moving through important spaces.
It's funny, when I was writing that down,
I was like, that's kind of a good description
of a little brother.
I can say that, though, because I was a little brother.
I was small.
I was sneaky.
I was destructive.
But you see, in ancient world, foxes
weren't viewed as harmless woodland creatures.
They were small pests that could slip into a vineyard.
They would eat fruit that was developing.
They would dig and burrow around roots and damage the roots.
They would damage tender shoots.
They would spoil the crop before it ever matured.
These are the foxes, he says, catch
the foxes that are going to wreck what's growing.
In fact, fast forward, the church has been planted.
Paul is going around, and he's teaching the churches.
He's writing letters to them.
And he writes this in Galatians to the believers.
He says, in chapter 1, verse 6, I
am astonished that you are so quickly deserting
him who called you in grace of Christ
and are turning to a different gospel.
Paul's like, I'm surprised.
I'm shocked that it was actually this quick,
that you fell away like Jesus had said
might happen, that you'd fallen away
from the gospel you'd received.
But later in Galatians, Paul says how it happens.
Galatians 5.9, he says, it's just a little leaven
that leavens the whole lump.
And really what he's talking about,
it's the little small things that eventually
become big things.
It's the little compromise.
It's the little false teachings.
It's the little bitterness.
It's the little bit of pride.
It's the little fox.
And it happens over time.
You see, this happens in our lives.
It happens in maybe ways that feel insignificant.
Maybe it's like you get this newfound passion and growth
in your life of, I'm going to eat healthy,
or I'm going to start waking up early,
or I'm going to start working out.
I'm approaching my 40, and I'm watching my son
just crush it with his workout routine and discipline.
And I'm like, eventually, it's going to stick for me.
And I actually, I'll be honest, there was an ad,
and I bought an app from the ad.
I was like, I'm going to try it.
I'm going to try this workout app.
And guys, I had a four-day streak on this bad boy.
Come on.
And then my abs decided it needed a 40-day fast
from this app.
And I don't know what happened.
And it's like many things in our life.
We wake up a couple months later, and you look back,
and you say, what happened?
There was something that was growing,
a conviction in my heart, a passion for Jesus,
a breakthrough, our marriage.
We were starting to develop some new rhythms in our marriage,
in our family.
And then what happened?
It wasn't because of a lion that attacked the vineyard,
but it was the few little foxes that went unchecked.
And so how do we catch the foxes?
The first thing is we must identify the foxes.
You got to identify the foxes.
John 17, 17, it says this.
Jesus is praying a prayer.
This is a prayer that you, as you read it,
can receive for yourself.
But he says this, sanctify them by your truth,
for your word is truth.
Before you can catch a fox, you have to identify it.
And one of the primary ways that God gives us and helps
us to identify the foxes in our lives is through his truth.
Because the enemy always starts with deception in our life.
The foxes always starts with deceit in our life.
It's with the subtle lies.
It's how he approached Adam and Eve in the garden.
It's how he approached Jesus in the wilderness.
It's how he approaches us.
It's with subtle lies that aren't obvious,
little thoughts that say, God's not really working,
or it's not that big of a deal, or this relationship
isn't that bad, or you deserve this,
or you're never going to change, or God's forgotten about you,
or nobody will ever know.
The lies are endless.
You know the lies in your life, the subtle lies.
But the danger of the little foxes
is that they don't always look dangerous.
In fact, sometimes they've been around
for so long that we've just stopped noticing them
and we start believing them.
It's this attitude that we've taken on in ourself.
It's a resentment that we've been OK with towards someone.
It's a pattern of thinking that doesn't
align with the word of God.
It's a relationship that we've become complacent with.
And it's sabotaging your life.
It's a habit that you're unwilling to put down.
It's something that has become normal to us,
but yet it doesn't align with God's truth.
You see, God's truth has to be a light that exposes
the foxes in the darkness.
Remember when we lost our golden retriever a few years ago?
Sky, we spent many days and weeks looking for her.
And there were some nights, it was the middle of the night,
almost, and I had a huge mag light
and I would go out to this forested area
where we thought maybe she would be.
And I remember standing in front of this forest thinking,
surely there's nothing out there.
I don't hear anything.
I don't see anything.
And I take this mag light and I shine it through the forest
and it pierces through the darkness.
And all of a sudden, I see some beady eyes there,
some beady eyes there, some beady eyes there.
And I get a little freaked out because I'm by myself
and I get in my car and drive away.
But that's the thing about the light
is it exposes what's in the darkness.
And until we allow and take time
and are willing to sit down with God's truth
and shine it in the cavities of our life
and say, God, expose the foxes,
identify the foxes in my life,
the lies and the beliefs that don't align with you,
the foxes are gonna roam free.
See, truth helps us ask these questions.
I want you to ask yourself these questions right now.
Is there an attitude in my life
that doesn't align with the heart of God?
Is there a relationship in my life
that doesn't align with God's design for my life?
Is there a habit in my life
that doesn't align with God's best?
Is there a belief in my mind
that doesn't align with God's word?
If so, there might be a little fox in your vineyard.
And the thing about foxes is they don't all come
through the same hole in the fence.
It could be an offense that you've justified holding onto
or a relationship at work
that's become a little too comfortable
or escaping to a substance
every time the world gets a little too overwhelming
or endless streaming of self-help reels
that make you trust more in yourself
and your own determination and self-will
than trusting in God.
You're like, okay, pastor,
you're being a little too specific now.
I'm feeling a little too vulnerable.
But the point is this,
that identifying your foxes is the key.
Not everyone else's foxes.
But what are the foxes in your life?
Because you can't catch what you refuse to identify.
But it's not just enough to identify the foxes
you have to catch them early.
John 14, 26, it says,
"'But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,
"'whom the Father will send in my name,
"'He will teach you all things
"'and bring to remembrance all that I have said to you.'"
You see, once you've identified a fox,
don't wait to deal with it.
But here's the thing, God didn't just give us his truth
to help identify the foxes in our life.
Jesus says, it's actually best if I go
so that I can send the Holy Spirit
to help you live out the truth.
Because once you identify the foxes,
the Holy Spirit will help you catch the foxes in your life.
The Holy Spirit is here to be a help in our life,
to be a counselor, a convictor, a comforter.
Recently, my wife and I,
we shifted into a new season of our life.
My oldest son is driving now.
He has his license.
And so we shifted vehicles to having a big family car
to now let's go to a little bit smaller,
you know, crossover vehicle.
And I was excited because this vehicle has the lane assist.
Because us guys, we need help staying in the lane.
And at first I was like, oh, this thing's cool.
Like it just, you know, it kind of veers you this way,
veers you that way and keeps you inside the lanes.
But there's another feature to this.
There's another function to this feature.
It also beeps at you once you start to veer
and get close to either sides of the lane.
And I was driving it the other day
because my wife primarily drives this vehicle.
And I'm like, it's beeping all the time.
I'm like, is this thing broken?
broken, like this thing beeps so much.
I was like, does it beep this much for you, Eden?
And she's like, no, I actually forgot
that it has that feature.
I was like, come on now.
Really?
I see what you're saying.
But you see, the Holy Spirit, he wants to prompt you.
He wants to beep at you.
But before you get into the ditch,
even before you get on the rumble strips,
even once you start to get close to the side of the lane,
listen for the prompting and the pushing of the Holy Spirit.
Because he wants to catch them when they're small.
He wants to catch them when they're early.
But the thing is, are we willing to respond quickly?
When we're tempted to despair and throw ourselves
the biggest pity party we ever could,
are we willing to allow the Holy Spirit to comfort us?
Because the Bible says that he is the comforter.
Don't ignore the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
Remember his promises before it gets to be too overwhelming.
When you're tempted to sin, remember,
the Holy Spirit wants to be the convictor in your life.
James 1 15, he says, desire turns to temptation.
Temptation turns into sin, and sin turns into death.
He wants to catch it when it's in its desire phase of like,
hey, this is becoming an idol in your life.
Don't ignore the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
When we're tempted to trust our own ambitions, our own will,
our own desires, the Bible says another name for Holy Spirit
is he is our counselor.
When we think what we know, what is best for our life,
the Holy Spirit is quick to say, hey,
let's think twice about that.
The Holy Spirit wants to counsel you.
But in all these moments, we have to on a daily basis,
sometimes it's multiple times throughout the day,
we have to listen for the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
But not just listen, we have to be quick to respond.
We have to catch the foxes early.
We have to deal with the offense.
You have to have the conversation.
You have to confess the sin quickly.
You have, man, you're like, man, I'm addicted to this app.
You have to delete the app quickly.
You have to forgive the person.
You have to catch the fox.
The longer the fox stays in the vineyard,
the more damage it causes.
And Jesus says, again, John 16, 7, he says,
nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
He said, I'm being true with you guys.
It's to your advantage that I leave.
Why?
So Holy Spirit can come.
Church, you cannot catch the foxes without Holy Spirit
being a part of your everyday life.
What are we doing to invite him into our life?
Because early obedience is cheaper than late repentance.
Repentance is always an option,
but it's so much easier to obey earlier.
You know, as I walk through discipleship journeys
with people, I challenge them with two things.
I said, I say, let God's word
be the guiding truth in your life.
Especially if you grew up not serving God,
letting the world form you,
letting society and culture create your world belief
and your worldviews, you have to be committed
to letting God's word be your guiding truth.
So there might be a lot of new things you realize
that you got to change,
but as long as you're committed to saying,
you know what, I agree.
I'll do it.
I'll trust you.
And secondly, when Holy Spirit speaks, obey quickly.
Because you're not gonna change everything at once.
Everything's not gonna just change overnight,
but as you read his word,
and as Holy Spirit reveals things to you,
you just got to obey what he's trying to grow in the moment.
There might be a hundred little foxes in your vineyards
and God's gonna help you catch it one by one.
There's some time where I'm walking
through discipleship with people and it's like,
oh man, there's a lot of foxes right now in this vineyard.
I don't know if they should be saying that.
I don't know if they should be watching that.
I don't know if they should be listening to that.
I don't think they should have that relationship.
And like, I want to change everything at once,
but Holy Spirit is patient enough, loving enough to say,
let's slowly grow through this relationship.
The next thing is this, is don't guard the vineyard alone.
John 13, 34.
It says, a new commandment I give to you,
that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you are also loved.
to love one another.
There's too many entrances into the vineyard
for you to be able to see all the blind spots.
You need people in your life to help see the blind spots.
You need people in your life
to help repair some holes in the fences
while you deal with a hole in the fence over here.
You need people in your life.
That's why Jesus, one of the major themes
in this last section of his teachings and his prayer
was about relationship and telling the disciples,
fight for unity, fight to love one another,
fight to be vulnerable with each other.
In fact, five different times in this section,
he prayed for community, togetherness,
and life-giving relationships.
Because the enemy knows this, that disconnected things die.
A branch connected,
or a branch that is disconnected from the vine dies.
A hand that's disconnected from the body, it dies.
A coal that's removed from the fire, it cools down and dies.
People rarely drift while they are deeply connected.
The drift starts when isolation begins.
The writer of Hebrews,
man, this is all over in the New Testament,
he says, do not neglect meeting together
as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another all the more
as you see the day drawing near.
There's an interesting fact that I had learned
about the Redwood Forest.
I've never been there before,
but obviously have heard about them.
Now these trees are some of the tallest trees in the world.
They grow to over 300 feet tall,
have stood for hundreds, even thousands of years.
But here's what they found about these trees,
is that although they grow tall,
their roots are actually very shallow.
Their roots only go down about six to 12 feet deep.
So you ask the question, it's like,
well, how in the world does a 300 foot tall tree
with six foot deep roots survive a massive storm
and stand not just hundreds, but thousands of years?
And stay that tall that long?
They found that their root system is intertwined
with the roots of the trees that are around them.
They literally lock together underground,
creating a network of support and strength
so that when the winds come,
they don't stand because of the strength of one tree,
it stands because of the strength of the forest.
It's easy to think, to look at someone,
to look at a pastor and be like, wow, they're so strong,
they probably don't need anyone in their life
to help them not fall away from God.
That's not true.
No one is the exception to the rule.
I need people in my life.
You need people in your life.
No matter how strong or disciplined you looked,
you cannot stand alone.
God never intended for you to stand alone.
So when the storms of life comes,
when the temptations come, when disappointment comes,
when grief comes, as Jesus said they would,
we don't make it because we're strong enough by ourselves.
We make it because our lives are intertwined
with the faith of other believers
who are gonna pray for us, encourage us, challenge us,
support us when we're feeling weak.
And so church, you cannot guard the vineyard alone.
And so you gotta know this as we close our time out together,
you have to protect what's growing.
You have to protect what's growing.
I wanna go back to this verse in Song of Solomon.
He says, catch the foxes for us.
The little foxes that spoil the vineyards, check it out.
He says, for our vineyards are in blossom.
The vineyard wasn't dead.
The vineyard, it wasn't barren,
but the vineyard was in blossom.
Something was growing, but it also wasn't in harvest yet.
There wasn't fruit on the vines yet.
It was in blossom.
The fruit wasn't fully visible, but it was coming.
The vineyard was on the edge of harvest.
That means the danger is not just foxes
stealing the ripe fruit in your life,
but the danger is that they damage
what is developing before it can mature.
The danger is that the little foxes,
the little compromises in your life
damage what is developing before.
can fully mature.
And that's exactly where the disciples
were at in this very moment that Jesus was speaking to them.
They were on the verge of harvest in their life.
They'd been walking with Jesus.
They were on the verge of the fruit coming out.
And the day of Pentecost was right around the corner.
The pouring out of the Holy Spirit was just weeks away.
The establishment of the church was just about to happen.
A powerful ministry was about to start
where they were gonna see lives transformed.
They were gonna see churches established.
They were gonna see history being altered,
but it wasn't yet here.
They were just in blossom.
And I wanna tell you this today,
that your life is in full blossom, and I believe that.
I believe your life is in blossom.
The fact that you are here today,
that you're listening to God's word,
that you stood and you sang during worship,
to me, that tells me that there's something
growing inside of you.
There's something that brought you here today.
There's something growing in you
that keeps drawing you back to God.
And these aren't signs that nothing is happening.
These are signs that something is growing,
that God is doing a work in your life.
And so if something is in blossom,
and if something is growing,
then there's something worth protecting, amen?
If there's something growing in your life,
then it means there's something worth protecting.
It means it's worth it to be diligent
to look for the little foxes in your life.
It's worth it to slow down the busyness of life
so that you can grow up into the fruit
that God has for you.
And this is why Jesus spends his final moments
warning his disciples about the things
that would cause them to fall away.
So in just a moment, I wanna pray
and allow time for Holy Spirit to maybe reveal
the little foxes in our life.
But first, I wanna speak to one more group of people.
Maybe you're here today and you say,
you know what, I feel like my vineyard's dead.
I feel like there is no good thing growing.
And you're like, pastor, you don't understand
everything that I've lost.
And you feel hopeless, you feel like the vineyard has died.
Maybe you've walked through a recent loss.
You've walked through some type of failure.
You're stuck in addiction.
You're stuck in, or you're hopeless from a divorce.
There's a deep disappointment, you lost a job.
There's a life-changing doctor report you just got,
a financial crisis, a heartache in your parenting.
You guys, I know the list could feel endless.
The list of things that make us feel like
there is no good thing growing in my life.
But can I encourage you today that the story of Scripture
the theme of the gospel has not been taking healthy things
and making them healthier.
But the literal picture of the gospel is death to life.
It's grave to resurrection.
That is the story of the gospel.
God saying, I can take dead things,
not even almost dead things,
but I can literally take dead things
and bring them back to life.
Do you believe that today church?
This is the hope of the gospel.
In fact, God says, that's my specialty.
I specialize in bringing dead things back to life.
If I can raise Jesus from the grave, he says,
then I can resurrect hope.
I can resurrect purpose.
I can resurrect faith.
I can resurrect from loneliness to feeling seen.
I wanna close to share this hope.
It's a friend of mine that I recently come to know
and grow in friendship and grow in discipling him
and a discipling relationship.
Got to know him a couple of months ago.
And when I met him and our paths crossed, wow.
He was in this place where his vineyard
felt like it was dead.
Lost his marriage.
His family, his job, lost everything.
And first week, I was like, hey, let's grab some coffee.
Let's get together.
So we go to a coffee shop and get to hear his story and about 15 minutes in and he's
starting to break down and I'm like, this is not a great place to talk.
And so I'm thinking like, we should go, we should go on a drive.
And in my head, I'm like, I should take him to Double Ditch.
Now Double Ditch, it's this beautiful scenic space north of Bismarck.
I think it looks like New Zealand.
It's like beautiful out there.
And in my head, I'm like, I should take him to Double Ditch.
I know that feels weird.
I know other people go there for other reasons, but I feel like I'm supposed to take him to
Double Ditch to pray over him and speak God's truth and hope over him.
So I stop him and I said, hey, Jordan, it's okay if we just go for a drive, have a little
more privacy.
We can just pray for you and just read God's word over you.
And so he's like, sure.
So I take him to Double Ditch and we have this powerful moment together where Holy Spirit,
the presence of God came and I parked in this service road there and pulled off to the side
and as he was sharing his life, I stopped and I read Psalm 18 over him and where the
psalmist David, he says, you plucked me out of the miry muck and clay and you set me on
solid ground.
You delivered me because you delighted in me.
You delivered me not because you performed enough because you were good enough, but no,
you delivered me because you delighted in me.
And so I prayed this over him and spoke life into him and he said he felt God just rush
through his body and we had this powerful encounter and I was like, all right, I got
to go.
Let's go back.
And so drop him off.
The next day I call him back to check in and how are you doing, man?
And he says, I felt so changed and impacted and he says, but I got to tell you something.
I was debating whether I should tell you this or not, but December 29th after I lost
everything living in my truck, I was so hopeless that I, that day, I, that night I drove out
to double ditch and I parked my car in the very spot where you and I parked and I tried
to take my life.
I said, Jordan, are you kidding me?
Like the very, like that service road where we parked the side there, he's like, yes,
that's the spot where I tried to take my life.
I said, Jordan, if it is not clear that the heavenly father is trying to get through to
you that he can make dead things come back to life, that I don't know what's going to
make it clear to you.
God's doing a work in his heart and I say this story because church, there is no one
that is too far gone.
There's no vineyard that has been too destroyed that God can not restore and redeem and bring
back to life.
And so would you stand to your feet with me today?
Jesus, we thank you for your, your word and your hope and your truth.
God that you are with us always God in our best of moments, in our worst of moments,
but Holy Spirit, we invite you right now.
God is, we get excited about the things that are growing in our life, our faith in you,
our relationships, God, the good things in our life, God, we, God, we don't want to live
in fear, but God, we don't want to live in ignorance.
God, we want to protect what you are growing in our life.
And so God help us right now, even in this moment to identify the little foxes, the small
compromises in our life, God, that might spoil the vineyard.
And for those who are here today, who say, you know what?
It feels like my vineyard has died, that there is no good thing.
And you say today, I need a relationship with Jesus today.
I want you to respond to the call of the father who says, I want to deliver you because I
delight in you.
And if that's you today, Jesus wants to start relationship with you and it starts with you
just inviting Holy Spirit into your life and saying, Jesus, forgive me of my sins.
Heal me of my past, restore what the enemy has stolen.
Today I surrender my whole life to you and say, I will follow you, Jesus.
And so we pray all this in the mighty name of Jesus.
Would you say amen?
Amen.
Church, let's worship together today.
Amen.
you