Sanctification | S7 E7

Guys, thanks for joining us at the Point Taken Podcast. Today's episode is really awesome. We have Brother David, who started our motorcycle ministry here at Witten.

Yeah. Crown of Thorns Disciples. They've already been doing stuff. They've had a couple events. Really proud of David and the other guys. They've got it organized and everything. It's just another example of a ministry that doesn't have to be run by a pastor.

Just the people can do it, which is what it's supposed to be. The Bible says the job of a pastor is to equip the saints for ministry.

Yeah.

We think the best way to talk about sanctification and edify about sanctification is showing the example. Somebody who has been walking that line and chasing God in a whole bunch of different avenues.

We're really excited to share.

You'll hear today David talk about his past, his conversion, and then not stopping the story there, but saying how God's working in his life right now.

All right.

Without further ado, let's get into the episode.

Boom. Bye, pal.

When you introduce yourself to these guys, you're at their house, right? There's an expectation of how they want to be treated. When you introduce yourself, you say, I'm David Abbott, president of Crown of Thorns Ministry.

You look them dead in their eyes the whole time you're talking. As they're talking, you look them dead in their eyes. It's a respect thing. What it reminds me of is being in prison. Everything is about respect, everything.

You carry yourself a certain way. You don't ask too many questions. You just do what you're there to do, and then you can mingle for a minute and laugh and joke around. Once they get a little more comfortable with you, you're good.

Once they get a little more comfortable, then you're able to relax a little bit and everything's.

Fine.

Everything's good. Some of them, they don't like outsiders at all.

They didn't like y 'all being there.

Well, they didn't approach us. A lot of these emcees, they started after World War II. A lot of these soldiers came home and they were...

To nothing.

Well, not to wartime, because they were used to killing people. They were in this different mindset. They came home and they started these ruthless clubs, and they would just battle with each.

Other.

A couple of them ended up still being here for a while, the Outlaws, the Hells Angels, all of those. There's the Banditos. There's a couple of them. The idea with the motorcycle ministry is to bless some bikes, like if we can meet up with these guys.

They're very respectful of what we do, because I think that they're very grateful that we're out here, because we want to share the road with them. We show them their respect and we give them their props, because they've been doing this a long time.

We don't necessarily need their approval, but we want to show them the respect, because they've been here, they've been doing their thing, and we want them to know that we are not in your way. You do your thing, whatever, but we might pray with you, or we might bless your bike.

If you need to talk about something, you want to get something off your chest, we'll absolutely.

Talk to you.

Even about whether it's Jesus or whether it's about recovery, but having lived that life raised by bikers, knowing the mindset of those people, and then having gone through the process of learning and being saved and now being a Christian and living a Christian life, I feel like those people are hopeless, like an addict in the midst of their addiction.

They don't know any other way, and it's hard for them to see past that situation. I think that it's huge, the relatability there. When I can tell people, listen, I've been to prison, because there was a guy that approached me, and he said, what do we have in common?

Why are you here? I said, well, let me tell you. I told him, listen, man, I was addicted to meth for 20 years. I used to cook meth. Got arrested, got a 12-year sentence. Went to prison, did seven years of that 12-year sentence, because I didn't screw up anything while I was in there.

I had some good time, built up. So I did seven years, wound up doing 83 months and 21 days, is what I did. I got out. I got saved while I was in there. I got tired of waking up feeling like just a terrible person, every day wondering if my son was okay.

I knew immediately I did not ever want to come back here and be away from my family or be away from the ones that depended on me. I let him know that I remember being hopeless. I remember living in my truck.

I would sleep in front of my brother's house, because they wouldn't allow me to come in, because I was in the middle of my addiction. I was just caught up in it, and I didn't want to follow their rules.

So I would pull up to my brother's house and sleep in my truck, because my son was inside. So I was battling between wanting to be a good dad, but in my addiction. I was in prison, and one day I was done.

I was just completely done, and I surrendered my life. I remember the day. I remember when it happened. It was 2017. It was probably like November, middle of November, 2017. I was in my dorm, and I'm looking around, and I'm like, gosh, this is not it.

This is a terrible place to be. I do not want to be. I love women. I do not love men. I don't want to stare at them all day, every day. I broke down, and I started praying. I got on my knees, and I crossed my fingers.

I was doing what I thought I should do, and I didn't know as near as much as I know now about how things work with being a Christian. I got down, and I just begged God, please help me not to be this person anymore.

Help me to be a good dad. I don't even need anything extra. I just want to be a solid person for the people that love me. A couple of guys saw me praying, and they asked me to pray for them. I said, well, y 'all come on, man.

We can all get on our knees and pray. We can pray for each other. We did that, and we started doing it every night before bed and every morning when we woke up. What we had in common was that all the race, creed, all that went out the door.

We all needed God. That was what brought us together.

Things that you had probably been ingrained in and held on to your whole life gone like that.

Like that, which is a miracle in itself. Because when you have been taught something your whole life that's all you know, and you can't fathom anything else. It's hard to even comprehend it. But I had given my life up.

I was done trying to control anything. We started praying every morning and every night. Then it got to where there were more people wanting us to pray for them. It was awesome. It was so cool the way God works and the way everything happens.

It gives me chills. More people wanted prayer. A lot of them you could tell, man, you're not praying for me. I don't want my brothers to see me over there praying and hanging out with the white boy. I was like, I'll pray for you, man.

That's cool. Whatever. I didn't take it any certain way. I was like, that's another brother to pray for. It built up to about five or six guys at my bunk. We would pray at my bunk every morning and every night.

I said, listen, man, I love y 'all, but I don't need all these people on my bunk. It gets a little crowded. There's 40 men in a dorm. There's 20 sets of bunk beds along these walls. They're about two feet apart.

We commandeered a table in the day room. This is going to be our table at this time. I made an announcement to the dorm. We're going to have prayer calls at six o 'clock. This is going to be our table.

Give us about an hour.

We'll get out of y 'all's way.

We're going to do our thing. That's how it went. Once we did that, then more people started.

Everyone in the dorm knew you.

Oh, yeah.

There's a difference between A and B.

I wasn't just another guy. I was pretty well known. I'd been there for a long time, too. We get this table. It turned into more than just a prayer. It turned into almost an accountability group. This was my first experience with any type of accountability group outside of law enforcement.

That's what we're going to call the accountability group. My accountability group gave me a speeding ticket last week.

I'm with my state-issued accountability group.

I have a court-ordered accountability meeting.

That's awesome. More and more people started coming up and sitting down when I would call a prayer call. We started talking to each other and getting to know each other better. They were like, My wife, she ain't got no food.

I'm in here. I can't do nothing. We're struggling. We would actually do our best to get our people on the outside to maybe take some food over to his family. Or something like that. Nothing illegal.

All positive.

All just to help. Whatever, however we can. The day I was released, it was April 11, 2020. There were 18 guys at the table the night before. That's how big the group had gotten. It was every race. Mexicans, Hispanics, Black, White, whatever.

Asian. It was pretty cool. I got out and I went to a halfway house. A buddy of mine, Is it okay to say his name on here?

Just do first name.

His name is David. He's a builder here in Memphis, Collierville, whatever area. He would come and see me every visitation. He would always tell me, Trust God, clean house, and help others. That's a big thing.

Say that again. Trust God, clean house, and help others.

That's a big thing in AA. He was in the program. I was in the program prior to going to prison. He would always come and visit me. This was a guy that I worked for. He wasn't a friend of mine, but when I was in that down time of being locked up, he would come and see me every visitation.

He would put money on my books. He would always be very encouraging. It was so awesome. I felt the love after having been saved and turning my life over to God and everything. I started to comprehend that love that he was showing me.

I was so grateful because a lot of people, the recidivism rate in Tennessee is 88%. 88 .8 out of 10 people go back to prison. That's crazy. I didn't want to be a part of that. I wanted to be a part of the 1 .2.

Based on numbers only, I got a 90 chance. I'm going to be back in here.

Yes, absolutely.

Even after seven years.

Doesn't matter. I didn't want that. He's very encouraging. He helps me out. I get out. I don't want to go straight. I could have went to my brother's house, but I was so scared of getting out and doing the same thing that got me in there.

I was so scared of that. I went to a halfway house. David set it up, paid for it, bought me clothes, sheets, deodorant, razors, all the stuff we take for granted. I didn't have anything when I got out.

I had nothing. A t-shirt and some jogging pants. They're called Jackie Chans. They're just these slip-on house shoes.

He just said Jackie Chans.

That's what they're called. They're really cheap. You can get them for $10 on Commissary. He did all this stuff for me. For a while, it was incomprehensible. I could not understand.

Why someone would do that for you? What's the catch?

Right.

He gave me a job as a superintendent. He's a builder. He gave me a job. He's like, here, go build this house. I'm like, holy crap.

Really?

Paid me good money. Paid me good money. I remember feeling and understanding how much of an edge I had and being super grateful for that and thinking about the people who don't have that edge, who don't have people to help them when they get out.

That struck up a bunch of ideas as far as what can I do to try to help these people who don't have that. That's where the motorcycle ministry, that's a huge part of that.

War Room.

When we started War Room, that was a huge part of the ideas.

Remind everyone what that is because maybe not everyone's heard of our War Room yet.

War Room is an addiction recovery program that we have here at Witten that covers all aspects of addiction. Food, porn, drugs, alcohol, whatever. Anything that you have that is causing issues in your life.

We started here at Witten probably nine or ten months ago. I want to say maybe it was March. It was March of this year. Anyway, in the idea of starting that, I was thinking about these people that are hopeless.

They get out. They have nothing. I understand that recidivism rate a little more when you think about those people because a lot of them, they don't have nowhere to stay. If it's the middle of winter, going to jail and being warm in a cell with three hots in the cot is a lot better than being outside freezing to death.

David, if you think about it, the stat you're saying is 88 go back to jail. That means a much higher percent than that go back doing the things they were because not everyone gets caught. That means an incredibly high percentage.

Right.

So far, luckily, I've been out for five years now, almost five years in April, so four and a half years. I have no intention of doing anything that would ever jeopardize my freedom again. I have to be honest.

Whitten has been such an influence on helping me to lead the life that I can lead to be a great leader and to hold me accountable. These people here, the first time I came here, I'm going to be honest real quick.

It was in October, probably two years ago, October, last October. I come in. Pastor Jeff says, shut up, woman. Go make me a sandwich.

Yeah.

I was like, I didn't know how to. I didn't. I just didn't. I was like, wow. I don't know how to take this. I really don't understand it. April was like, I don't know if this is our church. I don't know if this is the church.

We ought to be at.

We didn't come back for a couple of weeks. Angela's like, he's just kidding. You got to understand. You got to know him, whatever. Give him another chance. We came back, and we've been back ever since.

These men here are absolutely the most solid people that I have ever met in my life. It reminds me, and I know this sounds crazy, but it reminds me of prison and the type of people that you would, in prison, surround yourself with is people that are solid, people that you know you can trust.

Loyal.

Loyal. Right.

Absolutely. And on the good side of things. You know what I mean?

Right.

You can depend on these men, and that's huge for me. That's very huge because that's kind of what I came from, and that's what I needed to be able to relate.

And that's kind of hard to find nowadays is people that you can depend on.

It's non-existent, you know, outside of here, honestly.

It's huge.

It's just a big deal. So, you know, I get out, and life's different because I don't have any friends. I'm not using. I'm not, you know, the people I thought were my friends when I was using were just associates.

They were just people that you're used with, you know. And so I'm by myself. I'm single for almost a year, and then I meet my wife. I meet April in February of 2021, and we are not married. We come here in October.

She's pregnant. I think she's pregnant. Maybe this was the following October that we come here.

She was already born.

Okay, so April was already born.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, and you remember you and Pastor Jeff came to the house, and you're kind of like, so what's up with y 'all? You know, you were trying to feel us out, you know, and I was still kind of like, I don't know what's up, you know, but we were living in open sin.

Remember, we weren't married, and we were living together, and we had a child, and y 'all told us that, and I was like, oh, no.

Crap.

We're living in open sin. This is terrible, you know, and I'm going to be honest. There was a time in my life I could have cared less about that. You know what I mean? But I changed my life so much, and when I tell people I live for the Lord, what I mean is is that in every action I take and every thought, not every thought, but most 90 of my thoughts, I think about the Lord, and so if I'm living in open sin, that is terrible to me.

You know, I know sin, sin, sin, sin is all the same, but that was huge. Y 'all saying that. You know, y 'all telling us that, and I was ready, and she was coming up with, you know, excuses. She wanted her boys to be a part of it, and then I was, you know, we were talking, and a lot of my sanctification process is learning how to become a leader legally.

Thank you for that qualification in case any of you are legally becoming a leader.

You know what I mean?

So in my household, you know, and being a good role model and a good leader, and I never had the opportunity to do that. I was in my addiction my son's whole life. I have a 19-year-old son, and his whole childhood, I was in my addiction, and I was, you know, it was terrible.

Anyway, so you tell us we're living in addiction, and I'm feeling terrible. I'm feeling super convicted about the whole thing, and so I remember y 'all stayed honest about it pretty hard, and I stayed honest with her about it, and she was like, let's do it.

Let's just do it, and we'll see what happens, and what she meant by that was her boys not, like we didn't have permission from the courts for her boys to be there, but the Lord made it possible for them boys to be there, and they were there.

They were?

Her ex's mom brought her boys to our wedding, and it was so good. It was so awesome. You know, the church threw our wedding here for free. You know, it wouldn't take money if we tried to offer it. It was amazing.

We had Mike as our DJ.

Yeah.

That was hilarious.

God, Mike.

Yeah.

But I think that's so awesome with what you were just saying right there is like the church chased you down. Hunted you down like, hey, you're a part of this. We notice that this is the way you're living.

We're checking up on you like, hey, letting you know that this is a problem. So they let you know that it's a problem, but then they also provide the solution.

Absolutely.

Cost free. Like, hey.

Absolutely.

Like this is what you need to do, and you don't have to save up money and do all that stuff. Like as the church, as your family, we do it for you.

Right.

Which is so important and a message to all the churches. Stop being so freaking concerned with money that the people inside your church can't use their space for their own sanctification.

Right.

Right.

It was huge.

It was so awesome. That was a huge turn in our life right there. So prior to that, I have over eight years off of methamphetamines. September 25th was eight years off of methamphetamines. But there was a time prior to us meeting Pastor Jeff and Pastor Josiah where we drank a little bit.

And it wasn't, not to excess or anything, but it was mainly my wife was when we met, she was in her addiction. She was in her methamphetamine addiction. And I'd known her since we were 10 years old. And so I genuinely went to her as a friend just to check on her.

I'd send her a message on Instagram or something. And like a month later she messaged me back, can you bring me a cigarette? And I'm like, what? A cigarette? I knew immediately where she was at because I'd been through that before.

And so I went and took her a pack of cigarettes and I talked to her and she didn't have nowhere to go and she was in a hotel. And so that was when she moved into my house as a friend. And then it wasn't a week later we started catching feelings for each other and it turned into something else.

And it's been great ever since.

Yes, sir.

Our relationship is based on very, very strong principles. We understand that each other is learning to be Christian leaders and Christian wife, Christian husband. And I would say it's not as hard as a lot of people make it out to be.

Once you get out of that victim mentality, which is huge, I would say that's life or death right there. You stay stuck in that victim mentality and you will forever be a miserable person. Once you start taking responsibility for everything that happens in your life, that's when your life is going to change and you can become and be whoever you want to be, good, bad, whatever.

But I think that that was the turning point in my life. When I say I got saved, that's when I became a man is what I think. I put away those childish things, and I think those childish things are being a victim, playing a victim.

Becoming a man is when you take responsibility for everything that's happened in your life and quit blaming everybody else.

But when you say that, you're saying, all right, fine, yeah, I was raised that way. Yeah, everyone I knew was that way. But at some point, it's I'm making this decision, it's not somebody else.

It's in your heart. That's right. Absolutely.

That's a huge stumbling block with sanctification, too. Now that you're saying that, it just registered in my mind. A lot of the problem with following God is that we play the victim with His statutes.

Absolutely.

We want to be sanctified and become better, but that means that I have to do this and this, and that means I can't do this and this. And then it's that victim mentality of I can't, I can't, I can't.

Absolutely.

And we forget my burden is easy, my yoke is light.

I heard a pastor recently say this. I knew what you meant. I heard a pastor recently say this, and he goes, Listen, most rebellion can be boiled down to either pain or pleasure. Either you refuse to obey God because of some pain in the past that hurts you and that has caused resentment towards, or pleasure in that you love your sin more than you love God.

Absolutely. And pain and pleasure. And you know what? That's a good way to think about it. And one of the greatest lies Satan ever tells, in a sense, what he told Eve, You will be unhappy if you obey God.

You're missing out. And it's a lie, but the idea is that you will be unhappy if you obey God. It's a suck it up and dredge through life miserable, obey God, or have pleasure in sin. And it's a lie, but it's a good lie that people believe, because that's really what he was getting at.

Eve, listen, did God really say that? You'll just be like him, and he just doesn't want you to have X, Y, and Z. And he just wants you to miss out. And he's a prude who's trying to make you miss out on all the fun in life.

Pain or pleasure. And I've really thought about it that way. I think that's a good way to think about it.

And it's so important to figure out how to recognize that in your life. Just like when that lie is happening, because it happens to everybody. That lie of, this will make me happy, or I will not be happy if I have to give this up to do this.

It's just like, if you ever think, well, once this happens, things will be a lot easier. There's the lie right there. The only thing that can fill that without it being a lie is, once I've submitted to God, things will be a lot easier.

Yeah, right.

Because you need to trust in him and not hold everything in your hands and take your hands off the steering wheel for a second, because you're not as smart as you think you are. But I think I want to talk about, I think we'd be remiss to not define sanctification here.

So, Pastor, could you give us a little clarification about sanctification?

Absolutely. I want to talk about that. And then I want to ask you one other thing about the MC, about the Motorcycle Club. But I think a good definition of sanctification is, in the way that David and Hunter and I are using it here, is the process of being made more holy.

So, Haggios, holy, set apart. It means to be set apart from everyone else. For special use. Exactly right. For special use. Set apart for something unique. Christians are called to come out from among the world and be separate.

So, sanctification is the process of being made more different, but not different in the sense of different. It's different in how we used to be, and thus different from how everyone else is.

Right.

The old analogy, it's swimming upstream. It's fighting against the current. Sanctification is that process. It starts at your conversion and it ends at your death. Sanctification is the process of being made more holy.

And the reason why that's so important, we believe the Bible teaches in a powerful Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead. Thus, there's no such thing as a Christian who has no change in and of their life from conversion to death who's a genuine Christian.

Now, the Scripture teaches not everybody catches on as fast. What did Jesus say in the parable?

We still struggle, you know.

Yeah, yeah. What did Jesus say in the parable? And they will produce fruit, some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100. There's not an equality of outcome, if you will, in that sanctification process. The point is, everyone is going to be moving up, even if there's hills and valleys, everybody.

So, to David's point, David said earlier, all the teachings and longings and desires and habits and maybe we could say prejudices and thought rationale, when God enters, doesn't mean all the habits do.

See, you are freed from the power of sin, not the presence of sin. And all those bad habits that we developed, Paul might call those the flesh, the things that we're fighting against. And those are what we have to fight against.

And David used the word struggle. We've gone over on this podcast before. The definition of that word is to fight against, to make violent effort to break free from. So, yes, sanctification is the process of being made more like Jesus and less like David or Josiah or Hunter.

And I thought, when you were telling your story about being in prison and you praying to God and saying, please change me, I noticed that the very next thing you said was, you started praying with other people, daily, nightly.

Every day.

And so I'm thinking, what hope does that have to offer? How amazing is that? Because you immediately started your sanctification process.

Absolutely.

And the thing is, God is never going to leave somebody high and dry. When God calls somebody, he also brings the means by which they will have their sanctification.

I think that is the sanctification process. I think that's such a huge part of it, is helping other people. It's getting outside of self.

Serving.

And serving other people.

That's the way by which he sanctifies you.

Absolutely.

How many times does he say, love your brothers?

Man, all the time.

Love your brothers. That's what it is, because that's extending the love of God that's inside of you to them. And that only perfects it. It's the entire reason that we exist, is to glorify God and sharing how great God is, is what perfects it.

I think it was Pastor John Piper on one of his podcasts, and he said, well, hey, have you ever had this really awesome accomplishment, but there's nobody around to see it? Or a really awesome thing happened in your life and you have nobody to tell it to?

Yeah.

It's pretty cool, but it's a little hollow. But when you get to share that awesome thing that happened, or this big accomplishment with somebody that you love, or who loves you, and you get to share that, it perfects the enjoyment of it.

Full circle.

And it's the same way with our enjoyment of God. Is that, man, how great is God? Look what he's done in my life. When I share that, it is perfecting and completing that enjoyment of God, and it brings him the most glory.

When David said, the crux of your sanctification is sharing that love with others, Pastor Christian this morning said, and I'm not talking about the love as I see it, or that I grew up with, or that I think that I can give.

The love that God has gave me is the love that I'm sharing with other people. Not Josiah's love or David's love, but the love that God has given me.

For sure.

So I had a scripture I wanted to read. But before I do, I want to turn there. Tell me why the name. Crown of Thorns, MC. Did you come up with that name or was it someone else?

No.

So we were trying to come up with a name, and we wanted something that was representative of Jesus Christ. And being a Christian, I know ministry. And actually, Brandon Terry came up with that. He sent it over.

Are we really going to give him credit for it? I don't really want to. All right.

I mean, he came up with the patch, too. Well, he came up with the idea of the patch, and we changed it up.

He got married last month, and he came up with the name, which is a bigger accomplishment, I don't know.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, he came up with the Crown of Thorns, and then I looked. You go through, there's like a book or a website where there's the name of every ministry or motorcycle club ever registered with any state or whatever.

And so we went through, and there was already a Crown of Thorns in, like, North Carolina or something. So I'm like, we don't really want to use somebody else's. And if we do, we might not let them know.

So I messaged the guy. Listen, we were thinking about starting a ministry in Memphis called the Crown of Thorns. I never hear back from him. He never messages me back. It probably wouldn't have been a problem or an issue.

But just because we wanted to be a little different, we changed it to Crown of Thorns Disciples. And so that, to me, is Jesus' disciples. And so we go out, and we witness to people, and we minister to people where we can and when we can, and we bless bikes, and we just spread the good word, give people a little bit of hope and ideas.

And we actually may have some outlaws come to church in the next couple of weeks because there was a couple of them that said that they may want to come.

Wow, that would be amazing.

That would be awesome.

One of the things that I love, Pastor Jeff, if I were going to give, I think he's going to be on here at some point this season, but if I were to say, I asked Dana Sneed, who's been on the podcast before, I asked her, what is Pastor Jeff's greatest quality?