You know, I often say church is good to be in the House of the
Lord, but man, I, I don't know today, I just, it's just special
today to be able to gather in the House of the Lord.
My mind is full, my heart is full, my emotions are high.
I have so many things to say in 36 minutes and 15 seconds to say
it. I want to What do you?
What do you do? What do Christians do?
Are you confused today? Your mind a little.
What am I? What am I feeling?
Are you? Are you?
Are you between emotions? Are you wondering what's
happening? Are you asking the Lord?
Why? Why Charlie Kirk?
How does this impact me? I don't even know the guy what I
feel this way. Why does this impact me but
other events don't impact me so much?
Why are churches in America fuller today than they were last
week? Why did Charlie Kirk social
media go from 1.6 million followers to almost 12 million
followers in 48 hours? Christianity is under attack.
That's why Satan continues to play the game.
And pastors all across America today are standing in pulpits.
What do we, what do we say? I was in this very space
yesterday with a group full of women.
Get that blessing and honor to the lead.
And that's ministry that I love so deeply.
I was asked to share something kind of on the spot and I didn't
know where to go. So I go, Lord, where do you
where do you go in a time like this?
And they just convicted me the Sermon on the Mount.
It never fails us. Jesus message.
He's teaching to people. I want to read it to you today.
I'm in Matthew chapter 5. This is now when Jesus saw the
crowd. So he went up on the
mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he
began to teach them and I stopped right there.
It's like, oh, look, when Jesus saw the crowd, it's like he
wasn't expecting either. I mean, he knows, but he
doesn't, right? He's like, oh, there's some,
there's some movement. People are responding to
something and Jesus goes and it says he's a, he's a teacher.
You know, there's a difference in preaching and teaching.
Why are you here today? I like, why do you come to
church? Why do I come to church?
Why do we build this thing? Why do we fight this insane
parking lot to come sit here? I hope it's because you're
hungry for the truth of the gospel and you want to hear a
word from the Lord and you want to be different.
And Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn.
That doesn't make sense, does it?
This is for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Kingdom.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
They will be filled. Are you hungry for the righteous
word of God? Are you hungry for the truth?
Are you parched and thirsty and saying, Lord teach me, show me.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure and heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of
God. Blessed are those who are
persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the
Kingdom of heaven. Are you willing to stand up
against The Dark World? Blessed are you when people
insult you, persecuted you falsely, and say all kinds of
evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because
great is your reward in heaven. For the same way they persecuted
the prophets who were before you.
Jesus is teaching. Do you have opposition?
Are people coming against you because of your faith?
Do they unfriend you on social medias because you share the
gospel message and just the presence of your scripture share
on social media convicts somebody so hard.
They're like, I can't be friends with this person, Or do you not
even do that? That's the easy piece.
I mean, look, this, this just these page it goes on talks
about murder, eye for an eye, prayer like salt and light.
The answers are all here, Church.
Look what it says about murder. You, you have heard that it was
said to the people long ago you shall not murder.
And anyone who murders is subject to judgment.
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or
sister will be subject to judgment.
Are you angry today? I believe in the scriptures.
We can read elsewhere that it's OK to be angry, but it's what
you do in your anger that will create sin.
Again. Anyone who says to a brother or
sister Raqqa, Raqqa is a term for senselessness.
Anyone who speaks to a brother without thought, with
senselessness in response, knee jerk reaction and says is
answerable to the courts. And anyone who says you fool
will be in danger of the fire of hell.
I we could go on and on and on in the book of Matthew.
There's so much guidance and wisdom there.
The church can ioffer you this, this is our time to shine.
This is your time to stand out in your workplace, in your
community, in your home and stand for Christ and say As for
me and my house, As for me and my workplace, As for me and my
vehicle, As for me and my wherever your environment is, my
HOA organization, whatever it is, we will serve the Lord.
Are you doing this? I want to challenge your thought
right here. You know, heaven is a place for
the murderer and the victim to embrace.
If the murderer, whoever it is, we all have one in mind today.
If the murderer accepts, believes and confesses in the
name of Jesus Christ, the Bible says that his sin will be
received, relieved, just like yours will be relieved.
But here's the great thing in heaven, you won't know it
anymore. Brothers and sisters will
embrace We can't see heaven from here, but in heaven you won't
see earth either. Honestly, it's one of the
problems I have with the doctrine of oh, my deceased is
looking down on me. I hate to bust your bubble.
They're not looking down on you. You know why?
Because you're still sinful. And if you are in heaven, you
cannot see sin. May they rest in peace.
One day that trumpet will sound. Christ will return on a stallion
coming for us, the Church. The dead in Christ will rise
first, ascend with him into heaven, and then those who are
living will ascend to meet him in the sky.
The Bible says can imagine when Jesus Christ died on the cross.
The Bible says that the curtain between the in the temple
between the holy place and the most holy place, it was rent, it
was ripped, it was, it was, it was gone, eviscerated, allowing
us to see into the most holy place, Jesus Christ, the Holy
Spirit. And then it says the dead in
Christ rose, those who were dead came alive.
And then it says they they were noticed in town.
Dead people walking were recognized.
Read the read your Bible. It'll blow your mind.
It's not what you think. Like it's crazy like like just
start reading it and see what happens.
Oh, but they'll be a reunion one day.
Church, a gathering of the Saints, sins forgiven.
No crying, no weeping, no gnashing of teeth, no sorrow.
There won't be a bad day. You have a new body.
Hallelujah. But we pray and we live our
lives differently. Church, I have a message for
you. It's in our last hours sermon
series and I was writing this sermon been building it, but I
was I was focusing on it and I was in the office when I got the
news. My phone flashed like yours.
Social media is just a blaze. It's instantaneous.
We all we all see in an instant what happens.
You don't even have to have social media anymore.
Just have a phone in the flashing of news, I heard one
theologians say that when Christ returns, the medium in which the
news will be spread will be the technologies of our phones.
Could you imagine for a moment hearing in a instant, what do we
do? What do you do?
God has a word for us today. He showed up last week in a big
way. And it's just, it's just
interesting that this sermon and this series is right where we
are ministering to us in our time.
But I'm in my office in the news breaks.
And I think it was just Lancing me in the building.
And I I come down here, he's sitting here on these stairs and
he's got his phone. I'm like, he already heard it.
And I'm like, Charlie Kirk was just murdered.
What? What?
I was dumbfounded. I sit in my office for three
hours looking at a sermon, not knowing what to write.
I was in my office till almost 1:00 in the morning before I
went home because I had to get the sermon done because that
other things happening. This is a fresh word for you.
We all will have a last hour. We all will will have a last
hour of life. We'll have a last hour of
something that we're dealing with.
And so I want to dive into this sermon and try and, and, and
pick up the, the, the mood a little bit and allow Lord to
speak to me at, at which in turn will speak to you.
Let me ask you this. How many of you I've been on a
road trip greater than 8 hours before?
Yeah. The rest of y'all man, you need
to, you need to get out, you need to get out of town.
You need to, you need to, you need to roll.
You know, it's the last hour. Come on, you know, it's the last
hour. That's the toughest you can go
on a 14 hour road trip. Thirteen of those are amazing.
But that last hour you're like, why did we do this?
Like you're second guessing all of your decisions.
You're like, I don't understand. Stacy and I were bringing our
family back home to Houston. I was assigned to Coast Guard
headquarters in Washington, DC. And we said, let's road trip
with the kids. It'll be fun, right?
And instead, because I'm a planner, I'm like, let's just
plan everything out. Where my planners at, right?
You got to know where you going to stop, what time you going to
stop? How you going to do?
I plan everything. And not only do I plan a
contingency plan too. So if something happens, I'm
ready for the extra thing, OK? It's just in my nature.
It's in my DNA. So.
But we said, let's just be spontaneous.
Let's just be spontaneous, OK? I said, I want to drive until I
get tired. And then Stacy's the internet's
kind of fresh at the time, right?
It's available, but it's sketchy, OK.
And, and we said, let's just, you can use this thing called
the Internet and we'll find a place on the way.
And about our, our 14. I, I, I hit, I we're in
Tennessee or somewhere around here and I go, I can't drive
anymore and she finds a hotel an hour away and I said I can do
it. And we started, we started
driving this last hour and we got to this.
I don't even know is motel the right word?
Sketchy motel. It was a go tell like just go
right by it and tell somebody not to go there right.
It was bad news. Matter of fact, we checked into
this place and we told the kids that the floor was lava, right
like don't touch the floor. It's lava jumped from bed to bed
with shoes on right. It was it was we we slept we
didn't sleep. We rolled for a few hours and
were like let's get up and get out of here and then we made our
way to Houston and we were off it.
We were just exhausted by the time we arrived.
Look, we suffered through, we suffered through the last hour
and there's going to be suffering.
I've titled the sermon today, Jesus's final hours and that odd
that today's the day we're going to look at this.
But yet this was planned almost a year ago in November.
You know, the Last Supper and betrayal.
Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, the institute of
communion here that we have access to today, symbolizing His
upcoming sacrifice. My body broken for you, My
bloodshed for you, but yet He was still alive.
There was no sacrifice body yet. There was no bloodshed yet.
He's foretelling what's coming. He's giving them communion as an
opportunity to remember Him. Let me tell you, your friends
are going to talk about you. If you're a Christ follower, you
should have some friends talking bad about you.
You have you should have some friends that don't get you.
You should have some naysayers coming up against you.
It's just the nature of the beast.
Let's look what it what it says in the scripture here in Matthew
2614 to 16. It says the one of the 12, the
one called Judas, this Iscariot, you might know this.
He went to the chief priest and he asked, what are you willing
to give me if I deliver him over to you, Jesus?
Because we know at the Last Supper he betrayed.
He knew betrayal was coming. He knew Judas was going to
betray him. So they continued, and they
counted out for him 30 pieces of silver.
From then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus
over. Betrayal.
People will betray you in your last hour.
Come on. Some of you are like, I thought
you were my friend. I thought we were like, I
thought we were like this. And you often realize that she
bite, but it's the closest sheep that bite the hardest.
What do we do in these moments? Look, Jesus had challenges,
therefore, so will you. We will have challenges.
We will have betrayal, but we won't have it like Jesus had it.
I'm hoping today you walk away from this place.
Prepare to handle conflict that comes your way because of the
faith that you stand for. So he was arrested and tried.
Remember, he was actually innocent.
We all know people in the jailhouse like to claim
innocence, right? I didn't do it.
Come on, marriages, it's not my fault you did it.
Jesus betrayal led to his arrest and he knew it was coming.
Jesus was tried not just by one, but by Jewish leaders, by Pilot,
by Herod. He was tried, he faced mockery,
he was beaten, he was abused, all for unjust accusations so
that you can find freedom. His last hours were torturous
for you. Church.
Our problems pale in comparison to the consequences of sin.
What? What we deserve as sinners,
Jesus took for us the power in the name of Jesus as we sing.
But do you believe it? See, he bore our our sin
penalty. He he took it for us, knowing we
would betray him, knowing today in 2025, we would claim to be
Christians, but we wouldn't live like it.
We wouldn't express it much. We won't display the fruit of
the Spirit. We don't live in love.
We're we're enamored by the world and we're influenced by
culture and we often draw away from the truth of the gospel and
we don't understand it. Are we willing to learn?
Are we willing to see what God has?
I have a feeling we are here at Refuge Church.
I've just come to accept that. You know what we could add to
our parking? Give us six months.
It's going to be not enough. We could add chairs in here.
Give us six months it and not going to be enough.
Can we just remain hungry like that?
Just wear deodorant, sit next to each other, right?
Just love each other and just say, come on, have a have a
seat. You can sit right here.
Why? Because we're hungry thousands.
I came to listen to Jesus. I want you to look at this
scripture with me probably familiar with it.
I I've read it multiple times this week and I'm like, Lord,
this is a lot of scripture to read.
This is a long passage. How can I take some out right?
Maybe I can paraphrase some parts and pieces and I literally
even yesterday and last night I shortened another passage, the
one I just read and I'm like, because I'm stuck on time.
We got some things to say, he said, Steve, read them my words
as they're going to know this story.
He said, read them my words. Now I want you to know I was
looking for a way, shame on me to get out and read in the
scripture because it's long, but I think the Lord has a word for
us today. And the governor's soldiers took
Jesus to the praetorium, and he gathered the whole company of
soldiers around him. They stripped him, put a scarlet
robe on him, and twisted together a crown of thorns and
set it on his head. They put a staff in his right
hand. Then they knelt in front of him
and mocked him. Oh, hail King Jesus, they said.
They spit on him. They took the staff and they
struck him on the head again and again.
After they mocked him, they took off the robe, put his clothes on
him. And they led him away to crucify
him as they were going about, and met a man from Cyrene named
Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.
They came to a place called Golgotha, which means the place
of the skull. They offered Jesus wine to drink
mixed with gall, but after tasting it he refused to drink
it. When they had crucified him,
they divided up the clothes by casting lots and sitting down.
They kept watch on Him. There above his head, they
placed the written charge against him.
This is Jesus, king of the Jews. 2 rebels were crucified Him, one
on his right, one on his left. Those who passed by hurled
insults and at him, shaking, shaking their heads and saying,
you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three
days, save yourselves. Come down from the cross.
If you're the Son of God, they're testing him.
You're the Son of God. You can come down.
Don't you have the power and authority?
You see the mockery here? And the same way the chief
priests, the teachers of the law and the elders, the religious
people mocked him. He saved others, they said, but
he can't save himself. He's the king of Israel.
Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in
him. Jesus knew it was better for him
to die, and it was to prove at that moment that he was God.
Why? Because our sins rested on his
shoulders. He trusts in God.
Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, I'm the
Son of God. In the same way, the rebels who
were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
From noon until 3:00 in the afternoon, darkness came over
all the land, and about 3:00 in the afternoon Jesus cried out in
a loud voice. Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani,
which means my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Jesus feels what you feel. He was fully man and fully God.
And some of those standing there heard this.
They said he's calling Elijah. Immediately one of them ran out
and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar,
put it on his staff and offered it to Jesus to drink.
The rest said now leave him alone, let's see if Elijah comes
to save him. When Jesus has cried out again
in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
At that very moment Carton of the temple was torn and two from
top to bottom the earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs
broke open. The bodies of many holy people
who had died were raised to life.
They came out of the tombs after Jesus resurrection and went into
the holy city and appeared to many people.
This is the word of the Lord. Where do we go from here?
Why do we complain about the sufferings that we have?
Church, we can do better. So I want you to, I want you to
see some things from the Savior. When you first serve with
humility, you can't think of anything more humbling than
washing feet? Like these were dirty feet.
Not like our feet. We wear shoes and socks, right?
Like these were sandals and nasty feet.
Dirt roads, no plumbing, do the math.
The road animals, dirty, nasty feet.
He even watched Judas's feet, knowing he would betray him.
Those who are coming against you, will you serve them?
Will you honor them? Will you bless them?
Like Mark 10th, 43 through 45. And it says instead whoever
wants to become great among you must be your servant, and
whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man look did not come to be served, but to
serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Humility. Do you walk with humility?
Do people see a softened spirit? People see a listening ear.
So it made Charlie Kirk so good at what he did.
He listened. He put the microphone down.
He allowed people to speak, and they spoke different.
It's OK. Look, if you're in this place
and you don't subscribe, maybe you're far off from this.
I want to say, welcome home. Can we have a conversation and
we engage in our differences? Can we talk about it?
But it takes a humble spirit. So what is humility?
What is it to be humble? I mean, the definition in the
dictionary says a modest or low view of 1's own importance.
Humbleness. It's not about me, it's about
Him. It's not about me getting my
way, it's about the Lord working in and through me.
See everything has an expiration date, even your body, but your
soul locked in tight with Jesus Christ, accepting and believing
and confessing that He is Lord and Savior and that is how you
get access to heaven, to the Father is through the Savior.
Those of us, those of us will live forever.
Time to wake up. God designed us to serve.
Can you start in your houses? Can you start in your home or
you live with your family? Can you start in your House of
worship? Can you serve other people?
Can you pick things up? Can you put, you know, just can
you can, can you do some tasks? Can you do something for
somebody else and expect nothing in return?
We pull in a neighbor's trash can.
Can we just start by being nice to people?
Can you over tip the server this afternoon who treats you badly?
You're like, oh they didn't bring my Doctor Pepper refill.
They're getting 12% instead of 20.
What if you changed your mind and said they didn't bring my
Doctor Pepper refill? I want to bless them with the
40% tip and write God bless you on the receipt and see what
happens inside of you when you bless people that do you wrong.
Philippians 2, five through 7 says in your relationships with
one another have the same mindset as Christ, who, being in
the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God
something to be used to his own advantage.
Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a
servant being made in human likeness and being found in
appearance as of man. He humbled himself by becoming
obedient to death, even death on a cross.
For you and for me. Charlie Kurt carried the message
unlike any other I've ever seen. Do it.
The smartest mind I've ever seen.
A spokesperson for Gen. Gen.
Z. Oh, but I, I think as he was
martyred for his faith, he'll receive a crown.
Will you? Maybe you'll, maybe you'll not
physically die carrying the message, but you need to die to
something. You need to die to your pride,
your selfishness, to your arrogance.
Christians we're nothing. We're nothing absent of Christ.
We have 0 value. I'll prove it to you 100 years
after you die. People aren't going to know who
you are unless you're like in some family that has this giant
family tree right. You'll be a, you'll be a name on
a piece of paper at best, like we are.
We are just feel free. I'm nothing absent of Christ.
A Christ. Will you use me to influence
others to find you #2 will you stay committed to God's will?
Like even in Gethsemane at the cross, Jesus prayed.
He said, not my will, but yours be done.
It's in our prayer that he taught us on earth as in heaven,
may your will be done. What is God calling you to
that's scary. What is God calling you to
that's going to make a difference someplace.
The psalmist writes in 37 five commit your way to the Lord,
trust him and he will act makes me think about this week our 13
year old daughter. We're out in the backyard.
We saw some loose dogs and these dogs were running around and
next thing we know there's somebody in the front yard and
Lizzie goes out and she tries to help get these dogs into this
vehicle. They find out that it's a rest.
A lady does rescues for animals. They don't have any markings or
anything like this. And Lizzie comes back in to get
her shoes and, and she goes back out and they get these dogs all
wrapped up and everything's taken care of.
And she comes back in and I don't know, I'll come out of the
office probably 30 minutes after.
I was like, hey, how'd everything work out with those
dogs? And she goes, well, I don't know
if she'll come to church or not. And I'm like, that's kind of a
weird answer. I was just like, yeah, she got
them. Everything worked fine.
They're not in the backyard yard anymore.
But see, what had happened and I didn't know had happened was
when she came in to get the shoes, she went and talked with
her mother and she says would it be OK if I invited her to
church? They said of course, and now I'm
intrigued. I said, well, how'd that go?
And she says I was a little bit nervous, but I sure felt good
doing what the Lord called me to do.
Do you have a story like this? Do you have a story that makes
you nervous but will make a difference?
And will you stay steadfast to the call that God has for you?
The Bible says trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understanding and all your ways.
Submit to Him and He'll make your path straight.
He'll make a way. He'll make a way for you and for
me and for our church. So surrender is the way to
commitment. It's not about me or to humble
myself. What do you want me to do?
I'll do that. I'll be courageous.
Sat here this morning in Washington.
Introvert give a public word in our prayer circle this morning,
taking a step of faith, following the Lord.
And I couldn't be more proud of her and her family.
What's God calling you to be uncomfortable about?
Because look, you got to know #3 you got to remain focused amid
the suffering. When you're uncomfortable, you
got to, you got to maintain course and speed.
You got to maintain your focus. One of Satan's effective tools
is distraction. He'll pull you off course.
Man, I had this great idea. I think the Lord was talking to
me, but not anymore. Maybe it was that bad chili or
something, right? And you're looking for something
to give it to. Well, hey, which makes me think,
man, get ready. We got, we got chili cook off
coming up right. We're going to have good chili,
not bad chili. Not one of us are exempt from
suffer and not one of us are exempt from losing focus in our
suffering. See, Jesus did not let betrayal
or pain or abandonment draw him away from going to that cross.
He knew the assignment. He knew the cost.
He knew betrayal was coming. And Christian, look, it's not
easy. It's not easy to live a life of
Christ. Read the book and start seeing.
You'll go through some junk. What insurance company is it
that says we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or
two? Rise of farmers, maybe, I don't
know, Maybe they can give us a plug, help us build our parking
lot for that, right? I don't know.
I don't know, right? But come on.
It's like Christians, come on, I know a thing or two.
We've seen a thing or two. You're going to go through some
stuff, parents. That's why you can encourage
your children and their moments of heartbreak because you've had
your heart broken before and you've been through it and so
you know what it feels like and you can help them even while
suffering. Stay focused on your purpose and
trust the Lord that He's growing you and He's walking with you as
you go through something hard. Paul.
Paul is speaking to us in Philippians.
He's searching, speaking to the church in Philippi and he says
this. He says forgetting what is
behind and straining towards what is ahead.
Don't let your past define what God is calling you to do in the
future. I press on towards the goal to
win the prize for which God has called me Heaven Word in Christ
Jesus, if you can put it in His name, he'll see it through.
I don't know how we're going to fund all this stuff that's
happening. I don't know how we're going to
do it. I'll tell you right now, the
math don't math, OK? The math, don't math.
I've never been good at it, but I'm good enough to look at the
numbers and go. That doesn't equal that.
But I know that the Lord has called us to it.
So He will see us through it. He'll allow us to be
uncomfortable. He'll allow us to suffer
through. Good luck getting out of here,
right? Just take your time, be patient.
We're just giving you an opportunity to be Christ like on
your way to lunch. However, you know that as you
keep going, the pain will subside.
I think of the workout group some, some of y'all are in
workout groups. And I remember Stacey coming
home from her workout group first one on Monday and she's
like, that's tough, right? Day three, never fun.
Those of you that work out, you know what we're talking about.
The muscles fatigue and they're painful and it hurts.
But after resistance comes perseverance comes strengthening
and then the same weight that you used to lift it doesn't hurt
you anymore. You built up resiliency.
In fact, there's some people that have worked out enough that
they long for the pain. They long for an indicator that
they are being strengthened. Can you be that Christ follower
that you're so routinely being uncomfortable and being
stretched that the stretching is what is familiar and you feel
different now because of the stretching?
That's what God wants us to do. Promise you're more capable than
you think you are. You're able to handle more than
you think you can. Your last hour is coming.
Jesus gives us an example of what we ought to do and how we
ought to live. Can you live like him?
Can you be more like Christ? Our world is waiting to hear
good news here in Montgomery County, in Conroe, in our
context and our location. Oh, the harvest is split.
Can you live like Christ? Can you love people that aren't
like you? Can you serve inside and
outside? The walls of your environments
must be a bright light. Let's bring joy, the peace to a
dark and hurting world. You never know when it will be
your last stop. Lord, we come to you today.
We ask that you be with us and give us guidance and direction
on how we ought to live our hour today because we know the last
is coming. The Bible tells us that no
person knows the hour in which we'll breathe our last breath.
And so I ask that we Live Today as if it's our last.
Will you embolden us and encourage us?
Will you allow us to leverage the darkness, the anniversary of
September 11th, the death of Charlie Kirk and so many other
things that we didn't even hear in the news, The evil and the
hatred that is around us. Give us the fortitude, the
mental fortitude to persevere, build our character and bring us
hope. We worship you, we love you, we
trust you. In Jesus mighty name we pray.
Amen.