Pastor Alex Gomez

Jesus tells a story about a shepherd doing something no reasonable shepherd would do.

A man has a hundred sheep and one wanders off, and he leaves the ninety-nine in open country to go find the one. As a business decision it makes no sense. You've got ninety-nine percent of the flock. Cut the loss.

And Jesus says he goes until he finds it. No time limit. No point where the shepherd decides it's been long enough.

Then look at what happens when he finds it. He carries it. He doesn't drive it home, doesn't make it walk back to prove it's serious. He picks it up, puts it on his shoulders, and the word is joyfully. Not relieved. Not annoyed at the trouble it caused.

So if you've been gone a while and you've assumed coming back would mean disappointment, or a conversation about where you've been, or earning your way back in, that isn't the story. He's already looking, He isn't tired, and when He finds you, you don't walk home.

"Taste and see that the LORD is good."

Of all the senses David could have used, he picks the one you can't do from a distance. You can see something across a room. You can hear about it secondhand. Tasting requires you to actually take it in. Nobody has ever tasted something by reading about it.

So David isn't arguing with you. He's handing you a plate.

And look at what he says just before it. I prayed and the Lord answered. In my desperation I prayed and He listened. That's testimony, not theory. But notice he isn't describing an easy life either. Desperation. Fears. Troubles. He tasted the goodness of God from inside the hard thing, not after it was over.

That's the part worth hearing. God's goodness isn't a verdict you deliver once the situation finally improves. David found it while he was still in it, and that's the only place most of us will ever find it.

What's one thing you can thank Him for today, right in the middle of it?

A lot of us are waiting on God to use us, and while we wait, we treat the life we actually have like a waiting room.

Tonight we're talking about what you might be standing in the middle of and calling ordinary.

Bold As Lions. New night, Wednesdays at 8.

David is offered a threshing floor for free. The land, the animals, even the wood for the fire. Any of us would have taken it. It's generous, it's for God, and it saves a fortune. You could even call it provision.

David says no. "I will not present burnt offerings to the LORD my God that have cost me nothing."

He understood something we routinely miss. An offering that costs you nothing isn't an offering. It's a gesture that looks like one. Not because God needs your money or your time, He already owns all of it. But worship that costs nothing also proves nothing.

And notice when this happens. He's at the lowest point of his life, after his own failure, trying to stop a plague. This isn't a man in a good season being extravagant. He's at his worst, and even there he refuses the discount.

We're all pretty generous with our leftovers. What's one thing you could give God that actually costs you something?

Look at what's on your table today. Your habits, your relationships, your finances, the state of your soul. Almost all of it was planted a while ago.

Paul says don't be misled, you will always harvest what you plant. And every farmer knows three things about that. You reap what you sow. You reap later than you sow. And you reap more than you sow.

That delay is exactly what fools us. We plant something, nothing comes up the next morning, and we decide it didn't count. The shortcuts, the words, the compromises nobody saw. None of it disappeared. It was growing.

But here's the good news hiding in the warning. The same law works forward. The prayer with nothing to show for it yet, the kindness nobody noticed, the habit you're rebuilding one boring day at a time. It's in the ground. At just the right time, Paul says, you'll reap a harvest if you don't give up.

What's one seed you can plant on purpose this week?

A lot of people are banking their eternity on a prayer they said once. At a camp, at an altar, at the end of a service while the music played. And nothing about their life since suggests they believe what they said.

Look at the words themselves. Jesus is Lord. Lord means the one in charge, the one who gives the orders, the one whose say-so is final. You can't call someone Lord while you keep running your own life.

Then notice what Paul does in the next verse. Verse 9 says mouth, then heart. Verse 10 flips it: heart first, then mouth. The words were never the starting point. They're what comes out when something real has already happened inside you.

Believing He is Lord isn't agreeing with a statement. It's surrender. Your money, your relationships, your plans, the thing you've never let anyone touch.

The question isn't whether you said the prayer. It's who has been making the decisions since.

Paul asks for something that would have sounded like a contradiction to everyone who first heard it. A sacrifice that stays alive.

Everyone in that world knew how a sacrifice worked. You brought the animal, it died, and it was over. One moment, one act, finished. Paul says living sacrifice, and the problem with a living one is obvious. It can get off the altar.

That's the whole difficulty of following Jesus in one image. You give Him something on Sunday and you're climbing back down by Wednesday afternoon.

And look at how he says the change actually happens. By changing the way you think. Not by trying harder. The warning right before it is about copying the world, which is something that happens to you passively. Nobody decides to be conformed. You just absorb whatever you're soaking in.

So the question isn't whether you're being shaped. You are. It's…. by what?