Sermon Transcript Tone Analysis

725.

So we got like, 35 minutes

I guess, as long as we knew that we would be here and even before only prayed about it, and we feel like this is where God was leading us.

So, I'm really pumped and can't wait for Gulf Coast and to be here every week and hang out with you guys.

But I figured recently, actually before that a few things coming up, this semester, carpooling stuff so much.

We have enough people

But if you guys will be here on Sunday mornings, I will commit to like, putting time and effort into it and not just having it be like a filler hour where the rest of the church's meetings.

So maybe we should do something.

So if you guys will be here, at least the weekends when you're in town, I'll commit to doing everything I can to make it good.

So we'll talk about prayer in the gospels where Jesus says, whatever you ask, you'll get it.

I don't know about you but sometimes I've asked and I haven't gotten it.

So I one of those versus mean and so we're going to talk about prayer that God answers and are there certain types of cancer?

Is that trying to turn God into a Genie in a Bottle, one of those versus mean and then what is something called Spring training that will tell us more about after Gulf Coast?

But I think could be, could be really, really good.

So, but I watched or listened to this YouTube video of John Piper talking about,

I think it was like 20 things I would do if I were 20 again.

And he only said things that he had already done, it kind of sounded groggy and to kind of tell you a little bit about my life story, which I can go more in depth later.

But to tell you here, or in a 15 things, I would do if I were freshmen again, if I were freshmen again, or if I were seeing you again and this was my last semester out, absolutely do it again.

And then some more things that that I wish that I would do differently.

So I'll pray and then we'll get into it for tonight.

And I thank you for this group and everything that they mean, to me already got a thank you for the relationships that have already begun to build.

And I just pray that throughout the course of this semester that you would help.

I'm everybody here to know that I'm here for them that the wilkersons are here for them.

We got that it would just be a level of trust and it would know that I'm here for them and whatever way I can be God, we pray your blessings over Gulf Coast and over the rest of this semester and over tonight.

Got it with some a half from my life in the things that I think I've done well in the things that I've done really poorly, pray that you would speak to me, and then, ething else would would fall on deaf ears.

Okay, so here we go.

Here's my Freshman 15. 15 things I would do if I were a freshman in again, or senior.

The first thing I would do is, I would believe the gospel.

I don't know.

I really don't know you that.

Well, I'm going to talk to some of you and I know where some of your phone.

So I don't know how many of you grew up in church or how many of you didn't?

I don't know how many of you have given your life to Christ and how many of you may be thinking about it up in church and I kind of always believe the good news about Jesus.

But I believe it for other people and not for me.

Was anybody in first service this past week?

Okay, I'll tell the story again when I went to my grandfather's house and my grandparents lived out in the country.

You would go down this gravel hill and turn right and go into their driveway.

I don't never how old I was, but I was old enough that I was just old enough to ride a bike downhill.

So he rides the bike down the hill and it looks awesome.

I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this.

So take my bike to the top of the hill and I start to ride down and all of a sudden, something, you know, geological change.

The hill is twice as steep.

As opposed to win, my brother, Mason did it and I'm moving like two or three times as fast as he is.

Answer my feet start to slip off the pedals.

And if that's ever happened to you, you know, it's like when your feet foot off the pedal and those things are fine and you can't put your feet back on and I had my hands on the handlebars but all of a sudden the brakes that were like just right there.

Thankfully there was some brakes that weren't on the pills but the brakes for like right there but all of a sudden it was like for me to Easton and there was no way I was going to reach it.

And I was like, I still had some sense of control because my hands were on the handlebars, but in reality, whatever.

Send WhatsApp control.

I had was just an illusion.

The petals were spinning was going faster and faster.

I lost all control.

The Bible says that with a sin, in our lives, every sinful and destructive had it that we have and every sense of rebellion against God were slaves to that.

It doesn't matter what kind of what kind of sense of control.

We have, you know, we like to think that all these destructive habits, we have in our life relationships ships with ourselves, if we just wanted to end those things we could and we could just reach out and grab the handlebars and pump the brakes.

For slaves to our sin.

And life is spinning out of control.

Without something else about that.

My granddad passed away a couple years ago around this time, from covid-19 told the story during communion but he was at the bottom of the hill and he knew what would happen.

If I kept going, if you go down the hill and you don't turn, right?

And go into that driveway, you keep going down the gravel until you get to the front yard.

But before you get to the front yard, there's this giant tree in the way he saw something, that was headed straight for this tree, and I couldn't reach the brakes.

And my legs are like this.

And he was propped up on his bike, had one foot on the pedal and one foot on the ground, and he did what anybody would do when he reached out and he caught that buy for the kids stayed with his bare hands.

And I must have been something in the Bible that cut him up because I can still picture in my mind.

It wasn't just bruises, but his forearms were just covered in blood.

The Bible says that the the wages of sin is death.

And the results of all of our sin in our slavery, to send this destruction.

But that it just the right time.

While we were still sinners.

More hands from the handlebars and we thought we had control but we didn't but we are still slaves to sin and Arsenal spinning out of control at just the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

If I could go back and be a college freshman, again, I would believe the gospel.

Sometimes I reflect on that story and I don't really remember everything that happened.

Remember parts of it because my parents every told that story.

But the one thing that I always remember in my mind, if I ever have to wonder if I was hurt at all and colliding with him, in that bike, I can remember that.

I don't because I remember the blood on his arms.

Whatever.

I wonder whether or not I've been forgiven.

Regardless of what the accuser says, I know the truth, because I can look at the cross and see the blood of Jesus.

if you're a college student today, whether this is you're a freshman or you're a super senior or you're taking a second Victory lap or whatever.

The best thing you could do, if you haven't, is to give your life to Jesus.

I trust in him for your salvation, and if you have done that, then maybe you're like me.

And you have this sense that like God wants everybody else, but he doesn't love me.

Because I've screwed up one more time than Andrew.

And I can understand why God would forgive him, but but you don't understand me.

Number for sitting in a mentor's car, one time talking about this and it's like, I believed it in my head but I couldn't couldn't make its way down here.

He said, Dylan God brought the hammer down on himself.

So that he doesn't bring it down on you.

That was a turning point in my life, where for so long, I wanted other people to believe the gospel because I wanted them to be changed by Jesus.

Send you was the best thing in the world.

But I didn't believe it for me.

Like in that moment, God helped it get from here to here.

2nd Corinthians says that God, made him who had no sin to be sin for us.

So that in him, Jesus might become the righteousness of God.

If there is nothing else that you get out of it, if there's anything I could do as a college student, again, it would be to believe the gospel.

Howard College student again.

I would believe the gospel not just for other people, but for me, too.

And if I were a campus Minister, that's where my first night to talk to campus ministry, I'll spend 10 or 15 minutes talking about the gospel.

Even if I had 14 other things, I wanted to say.

Tristan a test.

I went to the worst high school ever.

It was terrible.