Go Back to Your Seat — Greg Locke

Jesus’ Call to Count the Cost of Discipleship

Luke chapter number 14 and verse number 25. I prayed this afternoon and said, Lord, what is it you want me to preach? And I'm not exactly sure why the Lord has directed me here. Matter of fact, just last night I was in a camp meeting over with Pastor Barrett and his fine folks at Zion Hill, and I preached on this very theme.

And normally I'm very cognizant of the fact that maybe a couple of people were there, but I just can't get it off my heart, so I hope it'll help you tonight. Luke 14, verse 25, the Bible says,. And there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. But which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

Lest, happily, after he had laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to malketh, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

Or else, while he is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Tonight from Luke 14, I want to preach on this subject.

The Imagined Invitation of Jesus

Go back to your seat. Thank you very much. You may be seated. Let's bow our heads in hearts and pray and ask the Lord to bless our time together tonight. As we do with the subject, go back to your seat.

Now, Father, I simply, humbly pray tonight that you would empty me of myself. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. I pray I would not say one thing that would dishonor Christ. And I pray I'll say everything with boldness that you've laid upon my heart.

Help these, my friends, as they listen. Help me now as I preach the unsearchable riches of the Word of God. And we'll thank you for what you'll say and do, for it's in Jesus' name that we ask it and pray.

Amen. Let's just suppose tonight at Franklin O. Bagley's church that when Pastor Norris was in the pulpit just a moment ago introducing me, that during his introductory comments, let's just suppose I was not even here and I was not going to be the speaker tonight.

And let's say that Pastor Norris looked everybody square dab in the eyeballs and said, ladies and gentlemen, what a privilege we have tonight. Tonight in the flesh we have none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who will walk through the double doors of this church, grace up to this pulpit with a suit and tie on, clip a lavalier mic to his tie, get behind this pulpit and preach the say of the Lord.

Now, I'm telling you one thing. If Jesus Christ were to walk in these back doors and were to physically, thank God He's here tonight in spirit and in truth, but if He were to physically get in this pulpit tonight, I can promise you one thing about our Savior, there wouldn't be anybody swinging from the chandeliers, nobody would be doing cartwheels, I don't believe we'd be shouting from the aisles, but I think we'd all be on our face before the thrice holy God of the Bible.

And if Jesus got in this pulpit and began to preach, I don't know a lot about maybe the Lord Jesus Christ, more than I'd like to know a whole lot more, but I do know one thing about His preaching. If He were preaching tonight, there wouldn't be one person looking at your watch.

There wouldn't be one person rubbernecking and turning around and looking at the clock there in the balcony. There wouldn't be one person doing their manicure or fixing their false teeth or combing their hair.

There wouldn't be one person digging their nose or passing notes. I'm telling you, if Jesus got in this pulpit, you would sit at the edge of your pew with bated breath and you would be magnetized to the ministry of Jesus Christ.

And let's just suppose that He were preaching in this pulpit tonight and He said, tonight, ladies and gentlemen of the Franklin Rowe Baptist Church, I'm going to preach on the subject of discipleship.

I'm going to preach on the subject of what it really means to sell out, to spit in the eye of the devil, to stomp on the world, to turn your back on friends and family, as it were, and sell out to be a true blue dyed-in-the-wool New Testament Bible disciple.

And let's just suppose that Jesus preached on being a disciple of Himself tonight. Now, by the way, if there's any area of our churches that we are lacking in in fundamentalism, it is discipleship because it takes more than wearing a WWJD bracelet on your arm in the grocery store to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

You are not a follower of Christ with your lips. You are a true follower of Christ with your life. That is why Jesus told the self-righteous hypocrite, the scribes and Pharisees, that ye draw near unto me with your mouth, but your hearts are far from me.

So let's just suppose Jesus preached on discipleship. And let's just suppose, as we continue the analogy, that He said, now we're to the invitation. I want you to stand with your heads bowed and eyes closed reverently before the Lord.

And the pianist and the instruments begin to play. And let's suppose that Jesus gives this very simplistic, very basic and very generic invitation tonight. Jesus is speaking and here's what He says. Ladies and gentlemen of the Franklin Roe Baptist Church, if you really want to follow me, if you really want to be a New Testament disciple, if you really want to tell out and do what's right and be a true blue Christian, then I want you to step out of your seat.

I want you to come bathe these altars in prayer and in tears. And I want you to fall on your face and beg and ask and plead the God of the Bible to fill you with His Holy Spirit, to give you the power and the Holy Ghost wisdom to be a true blue disciple.

I do not believe. I do not believe that if Jesus gave an invitation like that, I don't believe there'd be two people left in their seat in the building tonight. Anybody that has any brain matter between their two God-given earlobes tonight, I believe they would sincerely be on their face.

I know I'd be on my face. I hope you'd be on your face. I'd want my wife to be on her face. I know our preacher would be on his face. I know these deacons would be on their face. And the Sunday school teachers and the Christian school teachers.

I believe everybody in the building probably would leave their seat, would fall on their face and say, I really want to be a disciple. But here's the problem. I can see how you live and hear what you say, but there's only one person tonight that really knows the intentions of your heart.

God Searches the Heart

The Bible says in 2 Samuel 22, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, beholding the evil and the good. Psalm 11 3, God is upon His holy throne. His eyelids try the children of men.

Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9, the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things who can know it. I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins of men to see whether they be good or whether they be evil.

Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verses 13 and 14. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

And I may be able to see you tonight and say, you know what, that person is so sincere. Their intentions are clear. Their motivations are pure. And that person, that man, that woman, that teenager, that little boy, that little girl, man, they really want to sell out and they want to be a disciple.

But I do not know your heart as does the Lord Jesus Christ. And what an embarrassing predicament you'd find yourself in tonight. If Jesus were preaching this sermon on discipleship, if Jesus were giving this invitation and the altars and the aisles were flooded with people falling on their face before God, saying, I really want to be a disciple.

There's no doubt in my mind. Hear me well. There is no doubt in my mind that there would be people in this church who would be on their face and God would come to you and you would lift your face and look Him eyeball to eyeball.

And in front of everybody in this building upstairs and down tonight, Jesus Christ would honestly have to look at you and say, you know what, I know what the real intentions of your heart are. I know what your real motivations are.

You're just here because everybody else is here. You really don't want to be a disciple. So why don't you just go back to your seat? And if I think the truth were told on many of us tonight, we are not that interested in being real, dyed-in-the-wool, New Testament disciples.

I want you to look in your Bible, if you would, please, because Jesus did something quite interesting. He spun around on His heels, looked a multitude in the face and basically told them, just go back to your seat.

Let me show you what I mean. Look in your Bibles, please, Luke 14, verse 25. And there went great multitudes with Him, and He turned and said unto them, If any man come to Me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.

Loving Christ Above Every Other Person

So somebody says, well, wait a minute, Brother Locke. H-A-T-E, hate. I didn't think God was a God of hate. Well, you know the character of God and you know the character of Scripture well enough to know that God's not talking about bitterness.

He is not talking about pride and prejudice. He is not talking about divorce. He is not talking about church wit. He's not talking about sawing people's heads off and shooting people with guns. That's not the type of hatred that He's talking about.

Please understand that the word hate in your New Testament Bible, Luke chapter 14, is a comparative word. It is comparative terminology. For example, I'll give an analogy. I'll start a sentence, you finish the sentence.

Guess what we see every Sunday afternoon of the world? Sunday afternoon drivers. And if there's one thing I cannot stand in this life, it's Sunday afternoon drivers. Because I'm telling you, not only do I like to preach fast, I'll be honest with you, I like to drive fast.

I like to do everything fast. I'm always in high gear, 90 miles to nothing. From the time I get out of bed to the time I go back, I'm telling you, my brain is just a running. And my wife tells me I twitch while I'm sleeping.

And so I'm still fast even when I sleep. And when I get behind a Sunday morning driver or a Sunday afternoon driver, I'm telling you, it crinkles me up to no end. But here's what happens. It's 70 miles an hour on the interstate.

And we get behind some little fellow who's going 27 miles an hour on the interstate. And I mean, he's just a putting. And I mean, he's sweating because he thinks he's wide open Jeff Gordon. And so we get behind him and we rip over into the other lane and we're hollering and screaming and yelling out the window.

And we throw that thing in low gear and we fly past him going about 87 miles an hour. We pull over into his lane and we zoom right on by him. And he looks at his little old wife and he says, Honey, that fellow passed me like I was sitting still.

Now let me ask you a question. Was the little fellow sitting still? No, he's going 27 miles an hour. But his speed compared to my speed made it seem as if he were sitting still. And Jesus said your love for him ought to be so great.

You ought to be so sold out to the cause of Christ tonight that your love and your zeal for Jesus Christ would be so huge that your love for anybody else would seem as if it were hateful. Little Susie was playing in a sandbox one day in the back of her house.

Her mother went out there and she had three little dolls. And I mean little Susie was weeping a bucket of tears. Big huge tears streaming down her face. And her mother came out there and she just gently grabbed her and said, Susie, what's wrong?

She said, Mommy, it's my dolls. She said, well, Susie, what's wrong with your dolls? She said, well, there's nothing wrong with them. She said, but I feed them all the time. And I change their clothes all the time.

And I comb their hair all the time. And she said, Mama, I love them. And I love them. And I love them. But they never love me back. And if you want to be a real disciple tonight, you better write down number one, that first and foremost, you're going to have to love Jesus Christ more than any other person.

More than your spouse, more than your children, more than your preacher, more than yourself. And Jesus said, you need a good old fashioned revival of falling in love with Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

I got news for you, friend. It's not real popular, but I'm not running for office tonight. I'm trying to preach the Bible. I think if everybody at Flanagan Old Baptist Church would fall in love with Jesus Christ, it'd fix a lot of problems at home.

It'd fix a lot of problems in school. It'd fix a lot of problems in the community. And bless God, it'd fix a lot of problems in a local church. Did you know the Bible says, only by pride come a contention.

And if we just get out of love with ourselves and fall in love with the blessed Savior Jesus Christ, I'm telling you, it would fix a lot of the problems that we have. You know, it's one thing to say, well, I love Jesus more than my wife.

You know, I've got the most submissive wife on the face of God's earth, honestly. Been married six years. And I could not be and would not be where I am in evangelism if it were not for my dear wife Melissa.

She is the most submissive lady you've ever met. It's the honest truth. Last time we got in a fight, she came to me on her knees. She said, if you don't get out from under that bed, I'll beat the living devil out of you, you little brat.

But I'll be honest with you. You know, sometimes it might be easier to say, well, I love Jesus more than my wife. I love Jesus more than my preacher. I love Jesus more than my mama. I love Jesus more than my father.

But wait just a minute. The verse doesn't stop there. Notice what your Bible says, please, again in verse number 26. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, the word means furthermore, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

You say, but Brother Locke, you just don't understand. I know, I know the Bible says that we're supposed to raise our kids in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. And I know I shouldn't let little Junior, little Judy watch certain things on television.

And I know I shouldn't let my daughters dress all worldly and sleazy and things like that. And I know what the Bible says about that. But you know, Brother Locke, I don't want to deprive my kids. I don't want them to stand out and look like a bunch of goons.

Well, go back to your seat there. Just go back to your seat. If we're not going to sell out and get right with God and live a Bible life, then we might as well just go back to our seat, close our doors, and make this thing a movie theater because it's plenty big enough.

Now, I'm telling you, you're going to have to fall in love with Jesus more than you love your kids. You're going to have to fall in love with Jesus more than you love your boss. You're going to have to fall in love with Jesus, hold on to yourself, more than you love you.

Can I be real honest with you about something? I know some of your hair is going to fall right out of me and you're going to think I'm wicked, but you know I love myself, don't I? You know that? I love myself.

And if you tell me you don't love yourself, you're the biggest liar this side of the lake of fire, friend, because I'm telling you everybody in this room loves themselves. I got news for you. The Apostle Paul had struggles with his flesh.

And if Paul had struggles with his, I promise you Greg Locke's going to have struggles with his. That's why he said in Galatians 2 .20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

And the life I'll have now liveth in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He said in 1 Corinthians 15 .31, I die, not monthly, not yearly, not bi-weekly, he said I die daily.

The Apostle Paul got up and every time his little feet hit the floor, he looked in the mirror and said, Paul, drop dead, you're not in control today, God is. And that's why Paul could say in Ephesians 5 .18, and be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled, dominated, dictated, overrun, controlled by, be filled with the Spirit.

Let me ask you a question. How can you be filled with the Spirit if you're filled with yourself? And the obvious answer is, you cannot be. And my greatest enemy tonight is not the liberals. My greatest enemy tonight is not the New Evangelicals and the Robert Schulers and the rest of the Benny Hens and all the other crooks and charlatans on TV.

My greatest enemy is me. Your greatest enemy is sitting with you tonight in the pew. And before you poke your spouse, I'm talking about you. Somebody said, the only reason the Pope thinks he's perfect is because he's not married.

Bless God, if he was married, his wife would tell him different. Amen. Because nobody's perfect this side of the glory land. And we'll never be perfect until we drop this robe of flesh and rise and kick up glory dust in the sky.

We'll never be perfect, but I'm telling you, we need to have some people who fall in love with Jesus Christ, who get out of bed every morning and they read the Bible and they pray and they give and they go and they work and they love Jesus Christ.

And I'm telling you, if you'd fall in love with Jesus, it'd fix a whole lot of the problems you've got in your life. I believe if we just fall in love with Jesus, I believe Dr. Bottlestopper's office wouldn't be so overrun like it is nowadays.

I believe if we just fall in love with Jesus, you could pull your teenagers off of Ritalin. I believe if we just fall in love with Jesus, that we wouldn't have to worry about a bunch of pills and a bunch of Dr. Ragamuffins and going to a bunch of sociologists and psychologists.

I'm telling you, if you'd just fall in love with Jesus, it'd fix a whole lot of the problems that you've got down at the homestead. And here's what Jesus said. If you want to be a disciple, you're going to have to fall in love with me more than you love any other person.

Bearing the Cross and Following Christ

But you know what? The text doesn't stop there. Let's keep reading in our Bibles and notice what happens now in verse 27. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me... Now, I'm not real smart, but I don't like to think myself real stupid either.

If the Bible says we're supposed to come after Him, then obviously there's a place whereby we're supposed to go. Obviously, He's leading us somewhere. Matthew 10, 38, Let a man deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.

So notice what He says, verse 27. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot, Jesus says, cannot be my disciple. You've been around preaching long enough to know outlines. I like to do everything with P's or Z's or D's or Q's or R's, and so you follow me.

Number one, you need to fall in love with Jesus Christ more than you love any other person. Number two, if you want to be a real, true, blue, dyed-in-the-wool, New Testament disciple, then you're going to have to fall in love with Jesus more than you love any other place.

Did you know if you get revival in your heart, you'll be willing to do whatever it is that God wants you to do? Did you know you'll be willing to go wherever it is that God wants you to go? You'll be willing to wear whatever it is that God wants you to wear.

You'll have this little phrase that I've had for six years now in evangelism. Where He leads me, I will follow. What He feeds me, I will swallow. I'll tell you something, friend. We've saved all of our messages on full-time surrender to the kiddos.

And I'm just as bad as everybody else. You know what we do. Brother Adams, we get up in school. And we get the little chapel platform down there. And we strap the lapel mic on and all the kids get there.

And they're all tired. They're popping their bubble gum. They're worried about getting demerit. They're not worried about some guy preaching. And so we get in there and we go to Romans chapter 12 and verse number 1.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world.

But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And we shoot the old gospel gun. And we tell young men and young ladies, give Him your life.

Give Him your life. Surrender to the will of God. Surrender to the will of God. And we ought to preach like that to teenagers. Because teenagers ought to surrender their life to the will of God. But wait a minute.

We've saved all of our messages on surrender to the kiddos. When I know a bunch of moms and dads that do need a good old-fashioned message on surrender, somebody says, well, how come kids ain't living for God?

It's because moms and daddies ain't living for God. That's why. Do you know if you study the life of John the Baptist, you'll find out he had the personality of a rock. John had no personality whatsoever.

But he didn't care. You think I wear wild clothes. Buddy, I ain't ever wear, I ain't ever wore black leather pants and a double-breasted camel hair coat and a big old beard and great big old hair sticking out with locust legs coming out of my mouth.

Now that sounds pretty good if you're a missionary to the motorcycle gang, but bless God, not the Baptist church. And old John had the personality of a rock. But I'm telling you, Jesus said there was never a man who was greater than John the Baptist.

When old John mounted the pulpit, I'm telling you, he preached and sweat and jumped all over the place like a Bartleman Bailey circus class and the people enjoyed it, except for the scribes and Pharisees because he pointed them out and said, you bunch of snakes, you bunch of vipers, you bunch of wicked low-down, good-for-nothing, yellow-bellied compromisers, he said you need to get saved and get right with God.

And they didn't like that. By the way, they still don't like that. And you can always pick them out. Sam Jones says, you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that chases is the one you hit. And I always know who I hit in the Baptist church because they're the first ones in the tape table, amen.

Well, I just got a bone to pick with you. Well, pick on, dear friend. But guess what I found out about the life of John. Old Zacharias couldn't speak for a while when he found out that his wife Elizabeth was going to have a baby.

And God said, his name won't be Zacharias, his name's going to be John. And when Zacharias began to speak and he told those people his name's going to be John, guess what the people said? What manner of child ought he to be?

The preacher, I read that the other day in my devotions. I thought to myself, what a question. Ought he to be? I tell you what kind of kid he'll be. They'll be the kids you make them. If they love God, it's because you love God.

If they love church, it's because you love church. If they love the man of God, it's because you love the man of God. I'm going to tell you something. It's not real popular in the day and age in which we live, but you want a sure way to have your kids to take the man of God and hate church, just rip your preacher off every Sunday afternoon when you're down at the restaurant.

Just tear him all to pieces. I'll tell you one thing. I just don't think he's doing a very good job and bless God, I could do a better job than Brother Norris where apparently God didn't think so big shot because he put you out there and put him up here.

And I didn't. And I think we ought to get behind the man of God. I think we ought to take care of the man of God. I think when his tires start getting slick on his car, he ought to buy him some new tires or bless God, put a Mercedes Benz in his parking lot.

Amen. But I think we ought to love the man of God. And I think we ought to support the man of God. And I'll tell you why teenagers, mouth off at the preacher, it's because mom and dad behind the preacher's back mouth off at the preacher.

Now I'm telling you ladies and gentlemen, we don't need to just preach on surrender young people, surrender young people. We need to preach on surrender all of God's people. I know a bunch of people right now who'd be on the mission field from Ambassador Badger's College if mom and daddy could just cut the cords and let them go.

If they'd just cut the cords and let them go, you'd say, Brother Locke, you just don't understand. I've had this kid and I love this kid with all my heart and I just can't let them go to the mission field.

Well, go back to your seat. Just go back to your seat. Because if you love your kids more than you love the will of God, you cannot be my disciple. Are you going to love Jesus more than you love your place?

Devotion to the Local Church

While we're on this little particular thing of a place, let me say this. There is one, count them, one place. There is one place tonight in this century and it has been since New Testament days that Jesus Christ has organized, has sanctified and has put His blessing on.

Did you know there is only one major organization today whereby God puts His stamp of approval and that is the local New Testament church of Jesus Christ. And did you know if you fall in love with Jesus, you'll fall in love with a local church.

I'm sick of the way people treat local churches in the day and age in which we live. And I please tell you this ain't a lodge hall. This ain't a moose lodge. This ain't a 3D movie theater or an IMAX. This ain't a bowling alley.

This ain't a worship center. This ain't a family life center. You ain't coming here so everybody can see your clothes and see your new haircut. You've come to the house of God so we can worship God in spirit and truth and the preacher can get in the pulpit and bow his back like a Benny Rooster and preach the devil out of all of us.

That's why we come to church, friend. I'm sick and tired of these churches. They say, well, just come as you are and you'll leave as you were too. You'll leave as you were. I thank God for a church that's got some standards.

I thank God for a church that's got some dress standards. I say, that's not real popular in the day and age in which we live. They say, oh, just let everybody wear what they want to wear. Just let them use what Bible they want to use.

Man, get you a bunch of diesel sniffing cigarettes sucking mop head quartets up there and have them beat around on some bass guitars and on some drums and it'll bring the people in. Yeah, and what you get them with is what you'll keep them with too.

Now I'm telling you we need some old-fashioned standards. Hey, I'm telling you you ought to give God your best. I don't think you ought to come to church in your Bermuda shorts and your little pink flamingo shirts.

I think you ought to dress up. I think you ought to look nice when you come to church. You say, well, you done quit preaching and gone to the middle. And bless God, we need somebody in the middle every now and then because I'm sick of the gills of not having revival in local churches.

And I'll tell you why we don't have revival in local churches. It's because we treat this place just like we treat our little boss's house. We treat this place just like we treat like some old little house.

We treat it like it's a garage. We treat it like it's no big deal. No, this is the local New Testament church of Jesus and we ought to treat it like a local New Testament church. People come to church, they wake up, you know, church starts at 11 so they get up about 1053.

You know how it is. Eh, eh, eh, eh. I'm glad when we go to heaven there'll be no eh, eh, eh. So they reach up and they hit that little button S-N-O-O-Z-E, snooze, because that's what you want to do.

And finally you wake up at 1058 and you say, honey, we're going to be late. We got to get to church. So you jump up, you don't even brush your teeth. You don't even comb your hair. You don't even put no deodorant on.

You got the same socks on you've had for 43 weeks. Your wife comes walking out of the house. She's all disheveled and all wrinkled. She's got rollers in her hair. She's got one naked kid over here. She's got a half-naked kid over here.

And she's got a diaper on top of her head where the baby's caught all over. And she's got milk spilled all over. Nobody's had breakfast. Nobody's had devotions. And then everybody's running around the house just a couple of more minutes to church time.

And they throw one on the hood. They throw one in the trunk. And old papa's out there. We're going to be late for choir rehearsal, baby. Get in the car. And he comes down there and throws that thing in high gear.

He rips her high heel off the bottom of her shoe. And they slide in the church 90 miles to nothing. They come whipping and flipping in the back door. They sit down in the back row and say, I'm here to worship God.

And I don't believe a word of that garbage. I think if you're here to worship God, you ought to comb your hair. I think if you're here to worship God, you ought to do what's right. You ought to dress what's right.

Some people come to church. If it's turkey season, somebody's going to go to the bathroom and they're going to go stick their head on things, stick it up just like you. I think it's a pretty low-down and sorry Christian who would dress right to get a paycheck, but they won't dress right to worship God.

I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we ought to fall in love with the place of the local church. Did you know if some of us gave our bosses the same excuse for not going to work, that we give God and the preacher for not coming to church, you'd be on welfare tonight.

He'd have fired your tail 10 years ago and you know it, hands down, he'd have fired you and kicked you off the job. I'm telling you, I've learned something the hard way about badness. We do what we want to do.

You say, well, Brother Locke, Wednesday night prayer meeting, it can't be that big of a deal. There's a program that comes on Wednesdays that I just got to watch. Well, go back to your seat, big shot.

Just go back to your seat. Well, Brother Locke, you don't understand. My kids play t-ball. Hello. Ain't nothing wrong with t-ball. Nothing wrong with a nice little soccer league. I'm telling you, if you let your kids get devoured by sports and you let them have their mind filled with sports, sports, sports, and they don't care anything about preaching and they don't care anything about the house of God, then just go back to your seat because you cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Now, I'm telling you, we need some people who will just sell out to the cause of Jesus Christ and fall in love with God's place rather than their place. Well, Brother Locke, I just bought this new basketball.

Well, glory to God, I hope you did. Take me fishing sometime. They say, well, but I got to pay for it and in order to pay for it, I got to miss Sunday morning church so I can work a few extra hours. Well, Mr. Boat Lover, go back to your seat there because if you love your boat more than you love the things of God, you cannot be my disciple.