Building into God's Masterpiece

The deeper you go with your faith, the more you are going to know that Christ is all the truth that you're ever going to need. I tell this to my students all the time. Paul talks about this. He talks about knowing Christ. And there is great confidence and benefits of knowing Christ. Sometimes I think we look at our gains. We look at our knowledge. We look at our titles. We look at our jobs as more valuable than Christ. What's up, church? Man, I've been wondering when this day would actually happen, you know? Um, been super nervous for this day, but man, I'm so excited to be with you guys in front of my own home church. Man, I've given this message so many times in other churches, but man, it's so much more nerve-wracking when you come in front of your peers, in front of your home church. Right. Right. Um, hey guys. Uh, super excited to be with you. As Andrew said, I lead the students and the sports ministry here and I just absolutely love my job. I love what Jesus gets to do with me and I just love serving alongside with him and all of you guys as well. But today we are going to be in Titus 1:es 1-9 and we are going to just dive into this word. So get out your Bibles. Um, but like I tell my students, you see a little bit of a different side with me when I get on the stage. Um, you're going to see a little bit more of a serious side with me and and I'm not so goofy sometimes. Um, but it's going to be a good thing. But before we dive into today's message, I always start with prayer. So, you mind do you mind if we pray before we dive into God's word? Is that cool? All right. Cool. Let's pray real quick before we open up uh God's word. Hey Jesus, thank you just so much for who you are. Thank you for being the savior of our lives. Thank you for dying on a cross for us. Thank you for for for just saving us from our sin and that we can know no sin because you exist, because you died on the cross for us. And Father God, thank you so much just for this opportunity just to be an instrument in your hands and just to be able to talk about your word and talk about how how we can become better better children of you. And God, just speak to us. Open up our hearts and just penetrate us where we need to be penetrated today to be challenged to walk alongside you every single day in Jesus name. Everybody said, "Amen." Amen. All right. Hey guys. Um, so like I said, we are talking about all about blueprints today. But first, I need to set the stage for you. I bet you've never thought you would hear a sermon from an excommunicated Mormon missionary in your life in a church today. Bet you never thought that. Wait, wait, wait. It gets a little bit better. I bet you'd never thought you would hear a sermon from an excommunicated Mormon missionary that also was an atheist at one point in his life. I know. God's crazy, right? He chooses crazy people that do crazy things all the time, man. It's insane. In fact, this was me graduated high school. And uh this was me as I graduated high school. I was getting ready to get shipped off on my Mormon mission. And uh at this point in my life, I had a lot of dreams and aspirations. I had a lot of dreams and aspirations. I just got a full ride scholarship to my dream school, Florida Gators. Yeah, I know everybody don't like that, but I don't care. That was my dream school, the University of Florida. I just got a full ride to go run there. I was ranked number one in the marathon. I was ranked number one in the half marathon. I was ranked five, number five in all of the United States for the 10K. Um, I had a partial SC I had a partial uh sponsorship by Nike at this point and and and I just qualified for the Junior Olympics in 2008, man. I that was my running career. I absolutely loved it. It was so much fun. And um right before I'm about to go to my dream school, my dad, we're getting groceries at the grocery store. my dad, he pulls me aside and you know, I just remember him grabbing stuff and this is what he says to me. He goes, "Hey, Kyle, you know what? I think it's great you made it to the University of Florida, but I'm not going to pay for any of your college. I'm going to pay for you to go on a Mormon mission, though." And man, when he told me that, I was heartbroken. I was like, "Are you serious? Like, I worked so hard to get to where I'm at, and you're not even going to pay for it? You're not even going to help me out a little bit?" He's like, "No, not at all, but I'll send you on a Mormon mission." And I was like, "Okay, where are you going to send me?" You I'm going to send you to Chile, Rancagua, Santiago. That's where I'm going to send you. I was like, "Where is that?" So, I started looking up where it was. And it's South America. It's that big long country up there. And I was like, "Oh, heck yeah. I'm going far away from y'all. I'll go there. Let's go." So, you know that I was like, "Yeah, sign me up, Dad. Let's go." So, if you don't know anything about Mormon uh uh uh 19year-olds being sent out on their mission, if you don't know anything about that, when you are 19 years of age, you are sent on a Mormon mission for 2 and 1/2 years. And you're only allowed two phone calls a year, Mother's Day and Christmas. I know some of you helicopter moms would be like, "Are you kidding me? Like, I don't even know where my kid is." And we're only allowed to write letters and emails and and that was our way of communication. But only twice a year we were allowed to call our mom on Mother's Day and we were allowed to call at Christmas time and our whole family would get together. It was insane, man. Mormon mom, you think you have it bad. Mormon moms have it really bad sending off their kid. But hey, they choose to do that. But hey guys, we're talking about blueprints today. This was the blueprint of my life. My life looked a lot different than where I'm standing today. We're talking about blueprints. Maybe maybe like maybe you guys had a blueprint for your life after high school or college. What did that look like? Right? Maybe some of you like completed that blueprint. Maybe you guys like got done with high school. You got done with college and you're like, "Man, this blueprint's working out perfect. I'm living my dream right now." But are you satisfied? Are you fulfilled in your life? Are you happy? Or are you chasing an emptiness, an emptiness goal in your life? Or maybe you're like me, man. and you had a blueprint for your life, but man, life got in the way. Life came at you and you got trials, you got hardship, and man, it was just hard to get back where you needed to get back to, right? I think we all have blueprints. We all have dreams and aspirations for our life. But guys, I I want to address this. God's blueprint transforms ordinary people into his masterpiece. That's what we're going to talk about today. How do we become Jesus's masterpiece? How do we become God's masterpiece? How are we used in his kingdom? And I'm hoping that through this text, I can kind of tell my story. I can challenge you guys as well to look at your story, look at your life, and how do you fit into God's masterpiece? How can you lead well in your homes, your jobs, wherever you're at in your life? How can you lead well and start doing the kingdom work where you're at? But first, we got to address this question. First, we got to address this question. How do we build into God's masterpiece? That's the big question. How do we build into God's masterpiece? Well, let's dive right in. Let's start with the Bible. Good thing we have this thing called the Bible so that we know how to do this. Verse one starting it says Paul a servant of God an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness in the hope of eternal life that God who cannot lie promised before time began in his own time he has revealed his word in the preaching with which I which with with sorry which I was entrusted by the command of God our savior to Titus my true son in my common fa in our common faith grace and peace before God the father and Jesus Christ our son let's stop right there guys our first point that we see right here is that God's people pursue godliness. Now I need to address something real quick. We know that this letter was written to the leaders of the church, God's elect. When you see that word, Paul was writing to Titus at the time and he was saying, "This is how you recruit God's leaders. This is how they this you should know God's leaders." We're talking about God's elect. And I need to be frank with you. Not everybody gets this call. Not everybody is called to ministry. Not everybody gets this call to be a leader in his church. We need to make that clear. But I want to look at this from a different perspective. I want to change this a little bit from God's elect to God's people. We're all God's people. If we believe in Jesus, we are God's people. And I believe in the book of Titus, we all can learn from this book. That's why God gave it to us. We can all learn from this book. And what Paul presents to Titus, we can apply this stuff into our life. Guys, if you believe in Jesus Christ, we are called to lead non-believers to come to Jesus. We are called to lead them and to surrender to the authority of God. If you believe in Jesus Christ, we need to lead well. We need to lead our worlds well. And so this is what Titus is presented with. And I believe I believe depending on how well you do these things. I don't know God's mind and I don't know why he chooses the people that he chooses sometimes to lead his church. I mean, look at me. Crazy. Um, but God, I believe sometimes he watches our lives and he sees how well you apply these things and he says, "You know what? you're ready to lead. You're ready to lead in my church. And so guys, when we start into this into this verse, I want to ask you this question. But as God's people, are you pursuing godliness in your life? That's what we first see right here is that in verse one, straight off the bat, are you pursuing godliness in your life? We have an amazing leader, Pastor Andrew. He led us through how to be rooted in godliness, how to pursue godliness. And we're going to go through the second half of second Corinthians, and it's going to be a transformational type of work in our lives. But guys, do you pursue godliness in your life? Your faith, the more you dive into your faith, the more truth and knowledge will come out about Jesus. The more you stay linked and go deeper with Christ, the more knowledge you gain that Jesus Christ is all the knowledge you ever need. The more deeper you go with your faith, the more you are going to know that Christ is all the truth that you're ever going to need. I tell this to my students all the time. Jesus is all the truth you ever need. Man, I love the book of Philippians and chapter 3. Paul talks about this. He talks about knowing Christ and there is great confidence and benefits of knowing Christ and before you know he like Paul he explains all of his achievements that he did. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He had a letter from the Sanhedrin written to him saying it was okay to go kill off the Christians that are the new church. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He had a lot of accomplishments and he lists all these accomplishments. But you know what he says towards the middle of this chapter? He says that I consider Christ the greatest value than I ever found. Guys, sometimes I think we look at our gains, we look at our knowledge, we look at our titles, we look at our jobs as more valuable than Christ. Sometimes we strive so much for for the things we want in our life more than we want to strive for Jesus Christ, which is the greatest value you could ever have in your life. I am in the trenches right now with a generation that is being brought up today. I'm in the trenches right now that they think their value is based on likes that they get on a platform. That their value is based on the followers they have on a online platform. They think that that getting a certain degree, a certain title of their job, that is how they're going to have value in this world. They are being lied to every single day. They're being manipulated by the flesh. Guys, you know, the average teenager gets a plethora of information every 8 seconds of every single day, every time they pick up their phone. And they're constantly being lied to, and they don't even know that they're being lied to. And we have to constantly show them that you know what the world will deceive you. I love what Paul says in Philippians chapter 3. It is my goal just like it is his goal. And I want to read it to you in Philippians chapter 3 10-11. It says my goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection among the dead. That's intense language. So, going back to my story, guys. So, yeah, I'm getting ready. I get shipped out into my mission. I am there in Chile, Rancagua, and I'm in Santiago at this time, and I'm there for about 6 months. And me, I I don't even care about this mission. I don't even want to be here. I'm just here to have a good time. At this point of my mission, I've already been robbed four times. in the middle of the street, people passing me by and these guys are just robbing us because we were told not to get in fights. And I was like, "Boy, I could pound you right now." Like, anyways, so I'm bought my mission and I'm with my companion and he's from California as well. I'm from California and we're both having a good time, but he's trying to teach me about Mormonism and I'm just like, "Dude, I don't believe in God. I don't believe in Mormonism. I don't believe in all this stuff." and he's still trying to teach me. And so at this time, we were in the middle of the day. We're walking through the plaza and then we see this 16-year-old kid on a bench and my companion's like, "Hey, we need to go talk to that kid." And this kid just looked depressed. I was like, "Okay, let's go talk to him, man. I hope he's not going to rob me, right? That's what's going through my mind." And so we go we go talk to this kid. He's sitting on this bench and turns out this kid's an atheist. This kid is living off 75 pesos a day. He's taking care of his two brothers. His mom is addicted to cocaine at home. His dad left when he was very little and he's living off 75 pesos a day. And in 2008, I had no idea we were in depression because I was in a third world country and everybody was poor, so you know, it didn't really matter. And so 75 pesos a day was about 14 cents a day. That's what the kid was living off of to take care of him and his brother. I lived off $125 in a week. Some of you look at me like I spent $125 at Starbucks just this week, right? But that was our allowance. And so we started talking to him and he started explaining his life and then my companion said, "Hey, we're going to pray for him." I was like, "Okay, sounds good." And I'm going to challenge him to pray. I was like, "Okay, cool. So, let's let's let's pray for him and then, you know, you you do your thing and then, you know, have him pray." And then all of a sudden, he starts saying this prayer and then instantly I start understanding everything that he's saying. I've only been on the mission for 6 months, so you know, I'm not that fluent yet with the language. But instantly, I start understanding everything that he's saying. I get all these chills on my body. I'm like, what is this? As soon as that prayer stops, I don't understand anything that he's saying. We never see him again. We say our buys. I never see him again. But man, something sparked inside of me and I was like, you know what? I'm going to go prove you wrong, God. I'm going to prove you don't exist. So the next two months of my life, I was studying the Book of Mormon. I was studying the Bible side by side. I got done with the Book of Mormon and I was like, "How can anybody believe this? This is so wrong. There's so many inconsistencies. Like everything I was pulling up online, I was like, "This is not true." So I tossed it to a side. Sorry if anybody's Mormon here, by the way. But then I started diving into the Bible. I started diving into the Gospel of Luke. Man, I love the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke is so rich with detail. It's written by a doctor, so why wouldn't it be, right? And for me being an atheist, man, I like details. I like things to actually work out logically. I like to actually look at scripture and man, it works. And I start diving into this gospel of Luke and and Luke starts presenting to me the the crucifixion. If you don't know anything about Mormon theology, Mormon theology, they do not believe in the cross. They do not believe in the crucifixion. And so I was understand I was trying to understand why do I need to believe in this crucifixion? Why do I need to believe in Jesus? Why do I need to believe in this Jesus? This Jesus of the Bible to be saved. So about 2:00 a.m. in the middle of a mud hut on a bamboo chair, I start reading about Jesus dying on the cross. ever start reading about Jesus in agony going through the things that he would he would go through on the cross and then him dying in his grave and then raising three days later. And at that moment, I decided, you know what? I'm just going to I'm going to say my first prayer to God. And I did. I said my first prayer to Jesus. And I said, Jesus, you are the Lord of my life, and I believe the words that are written right here. and I believe that you can change my life and you can help me and you can forgive me of all my sins I've ever done. And from that moment on, my mission changed. Everything changed. I got in a lot of fights with my companions about like theology and things like that. They did not like me on the Mormon mission, but it's okay. But guys, my goal was to know him just like Paul we just read about. My goal was to know Jesus Christ. Is your goal to know Jesus Christ? Is your goal to pursue after Jesus? Pursue after his godliness. See, the thing is about these first four verses you need to understand is that God's people pursue to know their faith in Jesus Christ. Do you know your faith in Jesus Christ? Look at verses five and six. It says this. The reason I left you in cretet was to set right what is left undone. and a and as I direct you to appoint elders in every town, an elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife with faithful children who are not accused of wildness or rebellion. Stop right there, guys. The the second point we see right here is God's people prioritize a godly home. God's people prioritize a godly home. This is what we see in these next verses. Now I want to focus on this word blameless. Do you know what this word translates from the Greek language? It translates this way. Who go after the flesh. Who go after the flesh. Second Peter chap um second Peter chapter 2 verse 10. He would describe it this way. Who indulge in lust. So it got me wondering as I was studying for this. It got me wondering, man, let's look at the families just in America today. Let's look at the families just in America. And I found a lot of research about the families here in America. Did you know that the first time married couple, researchers have found that that that relationship will most likely end 40% to 50% in divorce if you're first time married. Just here in America, if you're remarried, you have a higher percentage of that ending in divorce. If we look at a span, so I started looking at a span of the last 20 years. What is the last 20 years of what marriage has been going on in our society just here in America? In 2004, out of every 1,000 people, 7.75 people were getting married. Today, six people are getting married out of those thousand people. And you might be looking at me. I'm like, I that's not that much. It's all good, you know, so we don't have to worry about it until you start diving in deeper what the root cause of that number of going down. Guys, it is more likely that a teenager of 17 to 18 years of age will have their first sexual experience at those ages first. And guys, guys, guys, why does this matter? Because our culture is teaching us to be more indulging, to be more interested in our lust desires. How how can I have more lust in my life? How can I take care of my desires that my needs that I need? We have a more hookup culture than a actual marriage culture here in America. We have a huge problem. Guys, I've been working with students and kids for the last 10 years. And I can tell you right now that I deal with more church kids that were born and raised in the church that are facing divorces in their homes than outside the church. Happening in our ministry right now because we don't talk about these issues. We don't talk about having a godly home and our kids are having the consequences of our actions, us the parents, cuz we don't prioritize what a godly home looks like. Guys, I'm passionate for this for a reason. Another part of my story you don't know is that when I was 12 years old, I was told I was adopted and it wasn't by my mom. Another part of my story, everybody remember MySpace? MySpace was way cooler than Facebook. Okay, you had like pictures, you had music. It was the best place to have a good time with all your friends and stuff. And let's be honest, I got this MySpace to just like meet girls and and nothing else. But I I got this MySpace and then all of a sudden this girl reached out to me, had no idea who she was, and she started to explain to me that, "Hey, we're related. We're related." I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" And then she started explaining that we have the same dad. See, my biological father got two girls pregnant at once. He didn't choose me and my mom. He chose the other lady and my and my sister. And this word, this this email, this email, whatever you want to call it, it just shattered my world. I had to bring my mom into the conversation and I was like, "Is this true? Is this a really true thing that's going on?" And she was like, she just explained it all out. Never told me what happened, but my my halfsister lived right in the town next door to me. And I had no idea I had this other life. So, as I got this news, I decided, you know what? God doesn't exist. God doesn't exist. How can I even believe in this thing called Mormonism that I've been born and raised in? How can I even believe in the things that you're telling me under my own roof? Fast forward to the end of my mission. I I have to get home. I have to tell my dad, "Hey, man, I don't want to do this thing in Mormonism. I I got to tell dad somehow." And so, in the middle of the night, God loves speaking to me at the middle of the night, by the way. Um, so in the middle of the night, I wake him up. I go, "Dad, I got to talk to you." And so I wake him up. We go out to the couch and I go, "Dad, I I don't want to be Mormon anymore. Dad, I I I want to follow Jesus. Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus that I fell in love with on my mission. This is who I want to follow." And this is how my dad responded. He said, "Well, Kyle, if that's how you feel, you can pack your things right now and never come back in my house." And that was the last time I ever sat on my dad's couch. That was the last time I was in that house. From that point on, I was homeless. But guys, why do I bring this up? Because because we live in a culture. I am a product of a biological fa father abandoning me, getting two girls pregnant at once, and and now we kids have to suffer with the consequences of their sin because he didn't prioritize a godly home. my dad, my my my stepdad, he was a passive dad. He was more committed to a religion than actually like taking care of his son. Guys, if you don't want your, and this is what Paul is getting at here, if you don't want your kids to be wild and rebellious, then you need to start paying attention what God's standard looks like. What God's standard says about a biblical home, about a home that is rooted in Christ's word. In our four walls, we hold this truth. We hold this book truth. And this needs to be the guideline of your life. God's people make Jesus's word the center of their home. That's what we need to learn from these two verses. Verse 7, check it out. It says this. As an overseer of God's household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not hottempered, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money. Stop right there. Do you know what this verse is screaming right now in our face? Repentance. This verse right here is screaming repentance. God's people proclaim. Sorry. God's people perfect the details of their home. Repent. That is what Paul is talking about. We need to have a humble heart. We need to have a humble heart. We need to have a changed heart. We need to say, you know what? When I am wrong, I'm going to go to you, Jesus. I'm going to repent to you. I'm going to lay everything at your cross. When I read this verse, man, I see I see um I'm never done with Jesus. I'm never done going to his cross and praying to him and saying, "Hey, take this sin out of my life." You are never a finished product in Christianity. When we look at this verse, guys, it brings me back to this verse that I went through with my students. And if you ever see them with a t-shirt on, with chains on it, we went through a series all based on this verse that's in Matthew, Matthew 6:21. And it says this, this is Jesus talking. And it says this, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And when you look at this verse, man, if you struggle, if you struggle with indulging in lust, there your treasure is, man. If you struggle with being arrogant and thinking you are always right, there your treasure is, man. If you struggle with being hot-tempered all the time and being full with anger, there your treasure is. So, hey, fast forward. So, I I'm homeless at this point. My gramps, he finds out where I'm living at this time, where I'm staying. So, he goes down, he picks me up at Long Beach, and uh he goes, "Kyle, get in the truck." I'm like, "I'm not going to be Mormon, Gramps." He's like, "I don't care. Just get in the truck." My grandpa's from Nebraska, so he had that good Nebraska, you know, accent and just like, you know, hard hard guy, man. I just love that guy. He passed away in 2020 and and same with my grandmother. But, um, so he picks me up, I start living with him, and then I start meeting I start running again at the junior college of where I'm at. My coach is trying to get me back on track to the University of Florida. But then I meet my beautiful wife, Cheryl. Yeah. And uh she starts introducing me to Christianity. She starts taking me to church and she says, "If you want to date me, you have to do these things." And I'm like, "All right, sounds good there. Let's try it. Let's try it." You know, and so she starts taking me to church and me, I have all the skeptic signs. I have all the guards up. I'm like, "What hoops do you want me to throw through, you know, go through to even be part of your church?" Right? And and so fast forward in our life, we got married in 2013. We started having kids. I had a kid 14. She had she gave birth to our first one 14, 15, and we had twin boys 16. We had four kids in two and a half years. So pray for my wife. She's doing an amazing job. But uh so we started having kids and then all of a sudden as I'm going through all this, as I'm praying to God, God says, "You're going to leave California." I'm like, "No, I'm not. I love this place. This place has the beach, the desert, the snowboarding, everything right here. I'm right here. Rocket power for days. Okay, if you even know that show. But I loved California. I loved my life. And Jesus was like, "Nope, you're going to leave California." And sure enough, the company I worked for at the time, they were downsizing. And so they were going to transfer us to Florida, to Texas, or here in Arizona. You know where I wanted to go? Florida. Absolutely. And Cheryl, we got there, she was like, "No, absolutely not. There's crocodiles. There's big bugs and there's massive amount of humidity. We are not living here. I was like, "Man, that sucks." Okay, whatever. And uh so then we go check out Texas. We decided that's not the place. And the first place we pulled off of is Greenway and Surprise Farms. And that's where we are. Crazy, man. But as I'm doing my Christianity walk, as I am like kind of walking with Jesus, I still remember leaving the house of my dad's house angry, full of anger, full of anger towards my mom, full of anger towards my family and and at the church at the time, the pastor at the time, he was going through this series called Smooth Criminals. And he was addressing all the sin in our life. And this night, he particularly addressed anger. And I remember he picked up the communion cup and we just we just all, you know, took communion today. But he picked up this communion cup and he said, "You are not allowed to take this communion cup until you have forgiven and released the anger in your heart." And I was like, that just got real real quick. So I think I held on to this cup for like the whole entire day. I remember at the end of the night, I'm putting my twins to bed. I put them in their cribs. They're fast asleep. And I'm holding on to this cup and man, I just do not want to say this prayer. And I start saying this prayer. I go, "Jesus, I have no idea how to forgive. I have no idea how to forgive my family. I have no idea how to forgive my biological father. I have no idea how to do this, but you do. And Jesus, you need to teach me how to do this right now." And so what I did, I finally said the words. I said, "Jesus, I give everything to you. I forgive my family. I forgive the things that have happened in my past and I just want to give this to you and all the anger that comes with it. And finally, after saying that prayer and that prayer finishes, I feel this weight just come off my chest. I feel free and I can finally take this communion with absolutely freedom. I didn't have that in my life anymore. Guys, if you never apply uh scripture in your life, how are you going to lead anybody else through their storms? If you never apply this book in your life, if you never apply what is written here in this book, how are you going to help anybody else in their storms? See, our goal is not to be perfect. Our goal is to aim to the perfect one that is Jesus that can free your heart. The one that is perfect allows our heart to be to be free. Look at verses 8-9 and it says this. But hospit but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled, holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it. Guys, if you want to know and this third point it leads me to say is this is God's people proclaim the hope of eternal life. Guys, if you want to know what a perfect life looks like, if you want to know what a utopia life looks like, that's what it looks like. This is what it looks like. A perfect home, a perfect family, it looks like Jesus Christ. See, what we learn from this verse in verse eight is that we learn the the life of Jesus. Jesus walked the perfect life. He knew how he knew how to teach us how to think. When we worry about things, when we're having anxious, anxiety thoughts about things, he said, "Cast your mind into heaven. Look into heaven. Think about my things. Think about the life that I live because I will give you encouragement." When when you have emotions and you want to My kids constantly hit each other, you know, and I'm trying to teach them like do not hit each other, right? But and and I see this in my students right now. They are constantly being fed that violence is okay. But Jesus is saying having a self-controlled body that is the way of me to not respond in violence. Do not respond with anger. Don't respond with the words that are coming out of your mouth. Have a controlled mouth. That is what Jesus says. So we see the perfect life of Jesus. Guys, we proclaim an invisible God is now visible because of Jesus Christ. Fast forward to 2020. Everybody remembers 2020, right? Yeah. Can't stand that year, right? Or maybe some of you want to go back to that cuz you're like, "That was a good time. I didn't have to go to work or nothing, right?" Hey, I worked in transportation before I went into ministry. Uh that was my life. My dad was a truck driver. My uncles were truck drivers. My trucking was in our blood. and all all of my family members, they lived, they worked out of the ports of LA and Long Beach. So that's where I went. That's what I knew for work. Hard labor on the docks led into the office. Then finally became a broker for for five different ports here in America. And I was in charge of all the containers ships that left out of Shanghai, Dubai, Italy, all these places, and got to see really cool things and deal with really cool truck drivers. But that was my job before ministry. And 2020 hit. I had a goal to read the Bible from cover to cover and I accomplished that goal. But in the middle of summer, I remember just sitting with my Bible watching my kids play in the backyard and and in their swimming pool having a good time. And I'm sitting there reading my Bible through a glass window while they're having a good time cuz I want to stay in the AC. I don't want to sit outside while they're having a good time in the pool. But I remember reading my Bible. Then all of a sudden, the Lord speaks to me again through Luke. again through Luke. And as I'm reading about how Jesus approaches Peter and and how he he's telling him, hey, you need to you need to leave everything behind. You need to come do my work. This is the verse that I read. Chapter 5 10-11. And it says this, "Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid." Jesus told Simon, "From now on, you will be catching people." Then they brought the boats to land, left everything, and followed him. Church, when I read that, I read that it's like, Kyle, don't be afraid. I'm calling you to ministry. And I was like, "No, you're not. I'm good with my life. I'm satisfied. I'm finally have the dream job that I need. I'm going to make six figures. No, you're not." And I wrestled with Jesus for like 3 months. And I almost broke my hip hip like Jacob. But after that, I submitted to Jesus. A month after that, I finally got a job as as a pastor. I got that call. And this scripture I've been holding on to ever since I went into ministry. Like Jesus constantly telling me, "Don't be afraid, Kyle. Everything in your life, you've already left it behind and you followed me. Why is this any different? And Jesus is constantly saying, "Leave everything behind, Kyle, and follow me." And so, I've done that. But church, when I read this scripture, I think about you guys. I think about my students, man. Isn't that all of our stories? Aren't we constantly scared? Aren't we constantly fearful of what Jesus is going to do in our life? and and we're scared to leave everything in our life behind and commit to this thing of proclaiming the eternal life of Jesus Christ to stand out in our workplaces, to stand out in our families. Guys, we're in this series with students right now and I'm trying to teach them and I'm hoping that my submissive spirit will rub off on them. I accomplished what I did last year in teaching them about proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ. But this year, my goal is to teach them how to surrender to Jesus Christ, how to give everything up in their life and to submit to Jesus. If you're a non-believer in this room and you're struggling with this thing called Jesus right now, man, I hope you pick up your Bible today and I hope you read it. I hope you surrender to him and I hope you give your life to Christ. It will be the best decision that you have ever done in your life. But church, most of you guys are believers in here. And when you read this text, when you read this scripture, man, are you afraid to be a part of what Jesus is going to do in your life? This story and my my sermon started out with a blueprint all about me, but now this is what my blueprint looks like. This is what my blueprint looks like. Maybe the picture will come. There it comes. This is what my blueprint looks like. Right. God can do so much more with our lives than we could possibly imagine. God impact God can impact so many more lives than than we can possibly imagine if we just submit to his will. If we submit to him and we leave everything in our world behind. If we leave our blueprints behind and become his masterpiece, we can watch lives being changed for Jesus. So, are you ready to do that, church? Are you ready to go start being Jesus's masterpiece in your life today?