Good, good. Take your Bibles and turn with me to Jude and we will begin reading in verse number 1. Jude, verse number 1, Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to them that are sanctified by God. the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in, unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Drop down to verse 17. But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And some have compassion, making a difference. And others say with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. And let the church say, amen. Heavenly Father, I pray you bless the reading of your word. Oh Lord, we and ourselves, we find no good thing. There's nothing we can do to produce anything eternal or anything good. Now, Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit. May your word come through us like a channel. And God, may you speak to every heart that's here this morning. Lord, I cannot motivate, encourage, inspire. I cannot. I find in myself nothing. And Lord, I hide myself behind you and ask you, Lord, to use me. Lord, these people need something from heaven. I pray they'd open up their hearts and minds to hear from you this morning. And Lord, I pray for those, even though this be not a message of comfort, this be a message of challenge. I pray that those that have a heavy heart in the house of God this morning. And God, I pray that you'd comfort their hearts. And Lord, you'd give them what they stand in need of in this hour. Give them grace and help them in their time of need. In Christ's name, we pray all these things and for your glory. Amen. I want you to notice with me verse 3. Look at that for a moment. I'm going to talk around a little bit. And then get to preaching towards the end. At least that's how I have it intended in my mind. These words here that you see written in verse 3, let's talk about that verse. Beloved is mentioned in verse 3. You see that there? Beloved, verse 17, you see that there. Then the third word in verse 20, beloved. Jude is referring to these Christians here. as beloved. Do you not know that the scripture is pinned by men through the power of the Holy Ghost? And so it's really God writing to you. It's really God writing to them in that time and God writing to you now. And God is writing to you and He says something of you. He thinks something of you. You're beloved. You're His beloved. You're dear to Him. You're precious to Him. I want to tell you, the only thing I can really tell you, or the only reason I can really tell you you're so precious to God is this. He gave His only darling son for you. You don't need no other proof but Calvary. That's how much Jesus loves you. If you're looking for proofs, get a good glance at Calvary. That's how much God loves you. Amen? You're beloved. And He says, Beloved, I gave all diligence to write unto you of just the common salvation. You might say of the ABCs of the gospel. That's what I wanted or intended to write to you, but it was different. I had to write unto you about what? Earnestly contending for the faith. Sometimes a pastor might say, I come to you and I want to just give you the elementary stuff or I want to give you a different message, but I need to really write something different to you. God's led me a different way. And that's kind of what Jude's saying here. I want to just write about the common salvation which is very glorious and it's wonderful. And I'm glad by the way it is a common salvation. Meaning every common person, every woman, every man, every boy and girl can get saved by God's salvation. Whosoever call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." It's common. It's for every nation, every tribe, every language. Jesus saves. It's a common salvation. He said, I want to just give that to you, but I got to write to you about something else. I got to exhort you, verse 2, verse 3, about something else. That you should, that's a word of responsibility. You should be doing something. It's understood that they might not be doing it like they ought to be. He said you should earnestly contend for the faith. Now there's two words we want to talk about. The first one we want to talk about and God's word is the word contend. That word contend means to stretch. It means to strive. It means to struggle, to dispute, to fight, to even compete, to get after it, pull yourself a little further, to go after, to struggle about it, to work at it, to fight about it, even to compete. It's almost like the word wrestling would be. He said, I want you to contend for the faith. Always in the scripture, they're sister verses. They're kin to one another, they're close to one another. You look at one and you think of another. If you know the Bible real good, you don't even need a cross-reference, and if you've read through the Bible a lot, you can hear a guy preach, or you can hear a verse read, and it's like your mind says, oh, that one, and over there, and then over there, and then over there. Who knows what I'm talking about, amen? And the more you grow in the Word, and that's what you ought to be doing, the more you grow in the Word, the more you learn this book, The more your mind will go off, oh, what about that one? Sometimes I'll have to tell myself, well, I'm listening to preaching not to do that. Because then I won't get what I need from the Lord. Just listen to what God has for me. But my dad's that way. You talk to him about one verse and he'll say, hey, you know about that verse over yonder and then that verse over here? Hey, that's the joy of Bible study. Every Christian ought to be that way. You ought to read the Bible so much that your mind works that way. Say, but I'm a young Christian. You just do it a little bit more every day, every year, and you grow. And so when I think of the word contend, I think of other words. And when I heard that the word contend meant strive, I thought of another verse. Am I making sense to you? You think of things. And so I thought of Philippians 1 and 27. Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ. Paul says that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind. Here it is, striving for the faith of the gospel. Striving for the faith. Whoa, wait a second. I think that's Ken over there to Jude 3 where he said, I want you to earnestly contend for the faith. He says here, I want you to be of one mind church at Philippi that you strive together for the faith of the gospel. Sounds pretty churchy, doesn't he? Yeah. Let me tell you something, God's working through the church. He's working through me and you. He's working that we might strive together for it. So that's that word contend. Here's another verse, 2 Timothy 2, 3 through 5. Now therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that woreth entangled himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who had chosen him to be a good soldier. Now if any man strive for masteries, yet he is not crowned except he strive lawfully. So I'm getting something here. Who's ever been an athlete before? And maybe you still are one. Raise your hand. Few of you? Who's ever played a sport before? Raise your hand. Okay, good. That word strive is an athletic word. It's a compete word. It's to go after something. If you really want to win, he said, first of all, when you compete or when you strive, you've got to do it by the rules. I mean, I don't care if you're a third string quarterback. You cannot come out on the field. Did anybody watch the Georgia Bulldogs play? The dude went out on the field. He didn't strive lawfully and he wasn't even playing. And they got a penalty, didn't they? You've got to obey the rules. And he says, if any man strives, if anybody competes, they've got to do it lawfully. The idea I want you to see in athletics, you're not any athlete if you're not working at it. You're not any athlete if you're not trying and working at it. And you're really not much of a soldier and a runner for Jesus if you ain't working at it. Earnestly contend means you work at this thing. You strive at this thing. Like an athlete, I mean, I don't care who you are. I'm not going to watch someone that ain't trying. Can you tell sometimes when you're watching a team and you're like, these guys ain't even trying. They want to go to the Bahamas. Or they know they're going to lose already. They ain't even trying. Some Christians, they look like they've already lost. They ain't even trying. Let me tell you something. We're winners. We're on the winning side. We ought to strive for the Lord Jesus Christ. Contend. Here's another verse that doesn't use the word strive, but it's a Ken word. It's Ephesians 4.3. Endeavoring. That means working as hard as you can. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. That means you're working as hard as you can to keep the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of unity in the church. You're working as hard as you can at it. Now sometimes when I, this is not necessarily my flavor of regular preaching, I don't preach like this, but I'm building a foundation on what we want to happen at Bemis Row Baptist Church this year, so stay with me. Then there's another one, 1 Timothy 1.18, Paul tells Timothy, war a good warfare, means fight a good fight, war a good warfare. And then you think of this one, where Paul said to Timothy, fight the good fight of faith. Imagine a guy walks into a ring, Brother Michael, and he gets ready to fight, and he just stands there, and lets the guy just beat him, and he never fights. If you're going to be in the fight, you've got to fight. And when we got saved, we got in the fight for the Lord and we had to fight the good fight of faith. And let me say, it's a good fight, amen. It's a good one. And we fight it. Paul said, I have fought a good fight. I finished my course. I kept the faith. It's contending is what we're looking at. And that's what the word we looked at. Now, you know, so that's okay. I got the idea, right? It's contend. It's strive. It's work at it. It's entering into the competition. It's in. What's before? In Jude 3, what's before contend? What's before contend? What's before contend? There you go, there you go. Earnestly. It's not just that you do it, but you do it earnestly. It's not just another thing, but you do it with fervor and earnest and passion. That's That's stacking it. Many of the penmen of the Bibles that were led of God to stack words, to make emphasis, and here it does it again, were to earnestly contend for the faith. Not only contend, but earnestly contend. What's that word earnestly mean? I look it up in my websters. It means to long for, to desire after. It also got the word to lust, meaning passion inside. To pursue something passionately. So I thought of this automatically, 1 Peter 2, 2. As newborn babies desire the sincere milk of the word, you ought to be passionate to fight. You ought to be passionate to compete. You ought to be passionate to run for the Lord this year. Okay? Earnestly. Man, have you ever seen a baby get bent out of shape over some milk before? Man, when He don't got it, He'll let you know He wants it. Amen? By the way, that's how we're supposed to be about the Word of God. That's a birthmark of a believer. When you don't have it, you ought to want it. How long has it been since you had some meals with Jesus? Newborn babes in Christ desire the sincere milk of the word you'll be crying after it Every how many hours a mama tell me how when you're when they're newborn How many hours does it take before they want some mama's milk tell me? two three hours Sure, so it's that same earnest of a babe after the milk of the Word of God and a babe after mama's milk. It's that same earnest passion we ought to have to contend for the Lord, to get in the ring and fight. Yeah. The Bible says in James 4, 5, the Spirit dwelleth in us, the Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy. Who knows that the old man has some problems with envy. It'll rise up, somebody will get something and you'll say, they must have been dealing drugs to get that. You're envious of them. It'd kill you to tell somebody else, I'm thankful you got that. It'd kill you to tell somebody, boy, you really sang beautifully this morning. Because you're envious that they did what you think you could do. That's our wickedness inside. We have to crucify and mortify those things on the cross with Jesus all the time. That's what burns inside of that old man. That's why people can't be thankful and grateful, because that old man's in there, and it's got to be crucified. Pretty much what I'm saying, everybody's fooling themselves. And you've got to die to self, pretty much. You do. Humble people live on the cross with Jesus. And see, we have that in us, but that's a flame. That's a desire. That same old man, how it comes up in us, you know what? With that same passion, put that thing towards the work of God and fighting for the good fight of faith. Are you tracking me? Are you staying with me? Say amen. Paul said, I had four or five different times. He said, man, I want to go to Philippi. I want to go to Rome. I want to go to Colossae. But remember, he was in prison, right? He couldn't get there. Here's one time he said in Romans 111, for I long to see you that I may impart some spiritual gift. I long to see you. It's the same Ken word for earnestly contend. It's that word earnestly. Longing. Boy, I got a longing to do something for Jesus this year. I got some desire, I want to do something for Him. I don't want to just be status quo. I want to earnestly contend for it. I want to earnestly contend for the gospel. I want to earnestly contend in my church. I want to earnestly contend for my family. I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to. I want to double down for Jesus. Who knows what I'm talking about now, say amen. I just don't want to contend, but I want to earnestly contend. I want to double down. I just don't want to barely make it. I want to double down for Jesus. I want to stamp it down real good on the first day of the year for Jesus that I want to double down in the word of God. I want to double down in my church attendance. I want to double down with the gospel. I want to double down for my children to live for God. Can I get a witness? Double down for Jesus. The world will double down on everything, won't they? Why not Christians double down for God? Amen. Hey, the time has come that Christian soldiers arise, that daddies arise like men of God, that mamas support the man that they're married to and say, as a family, as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord, we're gonna double down for Jesus. I don't want it cooler, I want it hotter, amen. Yeah, I don't want it softer, I want it harder. I want it more until he comes to meet us in the clouds, amen. Double down for Jesus. Everybody say it with me on three. Double down, one, two, three. Double down. Oh, put that in your heart. Is he worthy? It's right. I know double down's not in there. And you might have been thinking something else when I said double down. You saw that crazy thing on the bulletin. But I wanted to put something on there for the year that you wouldn't forget. And double down. What's that mean? It means not just contend, but it means earnestly contend. You double down. I'm telling you what, you've got to earnestly contend, because the devil will make certain if you're just contending, he'll get you out. You've got to earnestly contend. You say, but it's just not that easy. It's just not your willpower. It's not. But if you make up your mind, he's worthy of that, and you give yourself on the altar, he'll make it, and he'll put it in your heart. If you know that's what you ought to be doing and you surrender to be a soldier for Jesus, if you surrender to be a competer for Jesus, so who are we competing with? We're competing with the rotten devil himself. Yeah. I tell you, friend, earnestly contend for the faith. Double down. I just tell you what some others have said when I look down, what it means to double down. Maybe it'll speak to you. It means to passionately recommit one's effort to a cause or course of action. It means to continue to do the same. Oh, some of you have been doing it a long time. Some of y'all have been just doing it a year, two or three. But you've been doing some good things. Double down means to continue to do the same but even in more of a determined fashion. Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Do the same thing but even with a more determined fashion. That's our theme for 2025, double down. So what are you thinking about? What's in your mind, what are you thinking? You might have never even, well, if you hadn't thought about something, that's what I'm for. Think about what you can double down about to fully commit yourself to Jesus and his service. This signifies a deep dedication and unwavering loyalty to the faith, even in the face of opposition and obstacles. It's a call to strengthen your commitment to Christ and to his lovely church that most of you are members of. Double, double down. It's better to lose your life for Jesus than to waste it away for the world. It's better to lose your life for Jesus than to waste it away for the world. Hey, it's better to lose your life for Jesus than waste it away for the world. Hey, it's better to lose your life for Jesus, look up in here, than to waste it away for the world. Been to many a people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and they laid in a hospital bed, and they thought to themselves, I done wasted my life, I knew what to do, but I didn't do it. You wanna live that way? You don't. It's better to lose your life for Jesus, then waste it away for their wicked world. Why don't you just say, I think I'll risk it all and give it all to Jesus. He's the only one that died for me. Isn't it so stupid that we live our lives for people that don't even love us? And we want somebody's applause that doesn't even care about us, but we won't live for the one that got up on a tree for us. Come on now, folks. You drive halfway across the country to see some person that probably doesn't even love you. like they act like they love you, but you won't give your all to the lovely Lamb of God who shed His blood for your redemption. It's just ridiculous. I said, it's stupid. And you'd have to agree with me, wouldn't you? Amen. Some of y'all cringing. Sometimes you gotta use words to wake people up. The only one worth living for is your Jesus, amen. Double down for Jesus. We can talk about other things people double down for. We double down for our jobs. How to put it in. We'll double down for recreation. We'll spend money, our comforts. We'll double down for our bodies. I need to lose 20 or 30. Hereafter a while, it's gonna look like I'm nine months pregnant. My back wouldn't hurt as bad as it's hurting right now if I had a little less right here, amen. But listen, we'll double down for our bodies, but bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things. I'm telling you, friend, people commit to go to a gym Drive there, get there, spend the money to get in the door, and I'm not against that, but they wouldn't dare spend that much time and money to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not for being a slob. I don't think, I don't think it's God's will for you to be the slob. I think you ought to be your best for the glory of God. But if I had to choose between the gym and the King James Bible, I think I'd be God's will to choose the King James Bible, amen? Come on, if I had to choose between something tonight, I'm coming tonight, I'm not choosing that other. I'm not going. Boy, it's quiet, you can hear a mouse crawl on the floor. I'm gonna choose the godly thing, amen? Double down by the grace of God. You have to be that way. Joshua had to be that way. Other people had to be that way. Doubling down. We do it for everything else. We did it. We did it for two weeks. I've just been about sorry as anybody. But I did it for my family. We went to a Hawks game, had a good memory. And I'm not saying you can't have fun. Your pastor tells you you can have fun. I'm having more fun on accident than most people do on purpose. I love my life. It's not boring to be a Christian. It's the best thing in the whole wide world. Can't you tell? Listen, we went up there to Kentucky, saw the ark, saw the creation museum. It was a good family memory. I'm not telling you to strip everything out of your life and you can't enjoy God and you can't enjoy your family. It's not that way. But you got to make up your mind. Things are not coming between me and the Lord and His church that He bought His blood with. Or you'll one day say, man, My babies are grown up and they don't have the same convictions that I had. You've got to double down. It's hard. You'll lose friends. You'll have people talk nasty about you. They'll say, you holy roller. You think you've always got to be a church. You know what? Maybe I want to be there. Maybe I want to go. Maybe I want the pastor to have a week-long revival meeting. I want to be there every night. I'm feeling really comfortable right now. I'm enjoying myself. Maybe we just love it. Maybe I just was delighted when I woke up this morning, even though I felt like there was a football submerged in the back of my back. Maybe I was delighted to be with you. Did anybody else get that feeling this morning and say, I want to go to church? Amen. See there? I don't know what this means to you, but this spoke to me. Missionary C.T. Studd to China, India and Africa said, let us not glide through this world and then slip quietly into heaven. without having blown the trumpet loud and long for our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Let us see to it that the devil will hold a thanksgiving service in hell when he gets the news of our departure from this field of battle. Isn't that good, friend? I tell you what, you know what that man did? He said, I'm doubling down. I'm going to earnestly contend for the faith. I hope if something happened to me, I hope the devil get mad about it. or glad about it rather. Sure, we need people like that. Double down, the golf world standing putting green and practice his five-foot putt. Make sure he's got that thing lined up hundreds and hundreds of times over. Make sure that stroke's just right. Spend hours. A basketball player will sit there and make sure he's got that foul shot down when it comes down to crunch time. With five seconds on the clock, he's not going to miss that game-winning foul shot. He'll spend hours getting that thing right. They'll double down. What does it mean to double down? It means to devote more time in Bible reading and Bible study. It means committing yourself to more specific times of prayer. It means involving yourself completely in the work of God. It means participating yourself fully in the services of the church. It means sharing your faith more consistently. It really means surrendering your life completely over to the perfect will of God. Doubling down means living by faith. whatever the consequences and whatever the risks. God doesn't have an age where he says you're too young. God doesn't have an age when he says you're too old. There's no condition, there's no obstacles, no excuses. If you make yourself willing, God will make yourself able. Double down. I ran across a couple things, and I'm really just trying to talk to you a little bit. I thought of some things that I've heard from people that have doubled down that's kind of interesting to me. I heard something recently, Brother Paul, somebody said they didn't want to read through the Bible in a year, but they were going to try in 2024 to write, write through the Bible. They didn't make it, but they got about to the Psalms. They got notebooks of writing every word of God down. That's powerful, isn't it? I'd say that's doubling down. That's a lot. You talk about retaining it, you gotta write it down. It's not really that big of a deal, Strom, because we give hours and hours to look at a screen. Double down. Somebody up in Alabama, if I called their name, some people in here would know who this person was. A person in Alabama last year committed to witness to 1,000 people. Not to give the gospel to 1,000 people, but to witness to 1,000 people. Well, that's three people a day. Double down. We can have goals and aspirations for everything and everybody else, but what about for the Lord? I'm not asking you to commit something that you, but you, we ought to try. He's worthy of it. Jeff Pangle, couple years back, you know him, he'll be here in a couple months. Pastor's over in Tifton. Lord spoke to his heart and he said, I want to give the gospel to the furthest location from Waterloo Baptist Church in Chula, Georgia. And sure enough, their church took the gospel and a missionary went for them. He wasn't able to go, I don't think, but a missionary went in his stead to the furthest place from north of Tifton, Georgia. I don't know what that place was, but he said what it was. There's desire. And then you double down on that desire and said, that's what I'm gonna do. Double it down. And beside all this, giving all diligence. That's earnestly contending. Give all diligence, add to your faith, virtue and virtue, knowledge, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness and charity. That'll be our text tonight, giving all diligence. Talking about people doubling down. There's some people in the Bible who double down. I'm just trying to let the Holy Spirit work in your mind as we talk about these things. Do you think Abraham doubled down? When he offered Isaac, he doubled down. You know what that's called? That's called risk. He gave his son, willing to. You think Elijah doubled down when he confronted Ahab and Jezebel? Do you think Peter? Yeah, Peter doubled down. He risked it all. He said, if you're Jesus, I'll walk on the water. Let me hear it. And he walked on the water. You think Nehemiah? When he built the walls against opposition, built the walls back, that was called earnestly contending for the faith. Double down. How about that guy over there? He's closer to the end of the Old Testament. You're thinking about lions now. Who you got? Daniel. Prayed three times a day. They told him not to, but he did it anyways. He doubled down. Yeah. It's better to lose your life for Jesus than to waste it away. It's better to lose your life for Jesus than to waste it away. Say it with me. It's better to lose your life for Jesus than to waste it away. Say it one more time, be good for your soul. It's better to lose your life for Jesus than to waste it away. Where no vision is, the people perish. We gotta have a vision for the Lord. What you might do, I can't preach to you and say, this is God's will for you, but there's gotta be something you gotta double down on. The Bible says in Mark, whatsoever things you desire, stop there, whatsoever things you desire when you pray. So you pray about things you desire. Whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. I'm not going to get into getting the promises, getting the prayers answered. I'm not going to get into believing when you pray. I'm just going to get into this. Whatsoever things ye desire when you pray, whatsoever things you desire. When I said you could pray, and God said you could pray, and if you desire those things when you pray, and if you pray, believe, and you're gonna get them, whenever you hear that, you should think, when that word desire comes up, your mind should automatically say, boom, there's something I desire, there's something I want for God. Should happen. I want that person saved. I want this to happen in my church. I want this for my family. I want revival. That's your desire. But the problem is whatsoever things you desire when you pray, where are desires at? Should pop up if you're healthy. When that comes up, vision comes up and desire comes up. Something should pop up. This is what I want for the Lord. I'm going to go to our landing place and it's going to be Mark. Chapter number eight, double down. Somewhere along the way we've been told a lie, we've been told a fib that the Christian life is just another thing and it's not a crucified life, it's just come as you are, whatever, come whenever you want to. When I saw you at Christmas, I'll see you at Easter. But it's more than that. Will you look here real quick? Maybe you just don't know. Maybe you're ignorant. And so I'll assume that you are. And then the rest of you, we just forget this. Who knows that guy named Peter that walked on the water? You realize that that guy named Peter, common as you and I are, he was crucified. He was martyred upside down. Double down right not another thing your faith that you enjoy this that we do We take it for granted, but it's a trail of blood. It's martyrdom. They gave their life For the Lord, but people people took their life. They were killed You should be familiar with a person named polycarp He bled so much and was burnt that the blood that fell down from his body put out the flames below him." We're talking about people that were tortured. We're talking about people who were tarred. I'm telling you folks, what's entered into even my mind and into my family and into our generation about what true biblical Christianity is, is probably not close to what any of those people ever went through for the cause of Christ. We're coming in air conditioner, we're comfortable. Some of y'all think it might be too hot. Some of y'all think it's too cold. I'm sweating to death right now. We're worried about the temperature. We're worried about whether it's comfortable enough and all these things. We gotta have new bathrooms. We're gonna get new bathrooms, but those are sometimes our concerns. when what we really should be thinking about is we've got to double down for Jesus and earnestly contend for the faith in this generation to pass it on to little girls like this, little children like this, and little girls like this because they're watching the old logs to see if they're on fire. Are you tracking me, amen? You understand? Earnestly contend, double down for the faith. All that was once delivered unto the saints. That's what we're trying to say, but what does that look like? It looks like in Mark chapter number 8, this is what it looks like in verse 34. Mark 8, 34. And when he called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, there's got to be a desire, come after me. Let him deny himself, there's got to be denial. And take up his cross, there's got to be death. And follow me, there's got to be devotion. That's what it looks like to double down. First of all, you've got a desire to come after Christ. You're not following the church this year. You're not following the pastor this year. You're following Jesus. Look here, and when you follow Jesus, you've got to hear from Jesus, and you've got to follow this book right here, amen? Come after Him and hear the words of God, their spirit and their life. You've got to desire it. Second of all, I have to tell you what the Bible says, let him deny himself. If you're going to double down, you've got to deny yourself and you're going to say, I'm not going to do what I want to. I'm going to do what Christ wants me. And even though I don't feel like it, I'm going to do it. Even though my body's telling me no, even though my mind's telling me just lag out a little bit, loosen up a little bit, even though when you get opposition, you've got to deny yourself. Lester Roloff said this, Brother Curtis, he said, every morning I get in the shower, turn around cold to remind my flesh I've got to die every day. Now, you don't have to do that, but it'd be a good reminder. The crucified life is a dead-to-self life. Paul said, I die daily. If you're going to double down, you've got to get on that cross with Jesus and mortify the members of your flesh. That's the only way you glorify God is by not putting yourself first. There's desire, there's denial, and then in that it kind of hinges on the same, take up his cross. Now you've got a cross, he's got a cross, you've got a cross, and you've got to bear it. Some of you have a cross. You bear that cross for the Lord. You take up his cross. What's that mean though, his cross? I talked about your cross, but what's his cross? His cross is your willing to suffer shame for his name, whatever that might be. You know, there's still people being killed for Jesus Christ right now. You don't have to go, there's no suffering for His name. You take up that cross, whatever that suffering would be, death, ridicule, mockery, being laughed at and called the scum of the earth, whatever it might be, you say, I'm holding high the blood-stained banner of the cross, and I'm not gonna recant His name. And that means you stick with it. And then last of all, and just follow me. That's devotion. Whatever God says, that's what I'm going to do. Even if it's difficult, even if it's hard, this new year I'm going with God and I'm doubling down on my commitment to Him. Follow me. Jesus said that. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. So this new year I haven't really been specific with you this morning, have I? I intentionally did that. I told Jackson to put it on this live stream. I said, just put double down intro. I haven't really preached to you, but it's kind of almost weird. I haven't really got to any final point. I really haven't. I meant to do that, to just let you kind of feel it. So what are you going to do? What are you going to have? What is the Lord telling you? What's it going to be? Is it going to be just another year? No, we have to stretch, strive, struggle. passionately with a great desire, earnestly contend for the faith. And let us passionately recommit and double down our surrender. I don't know what that looks like for you. I'm thinking about some things for our church. I'm thinking about a lot of things for myself. But I've never seen anybody serve God faithfully for any long period of time accidentally. I've never seen anybody for any long period of time serve God faithfully accidentally. You might for a little span, but you've got to double down, earnestly contend. And I don't want you to think it's for your glory, because we can't do it, can we? Can we? No. But we've got to have in our mind He's worthy of it. He deserves it. I want my life to count for Jesus and nothing else. So I'm going to pray, Lord, I'm giving you my all. And I'm doubling down. I'm coming after you. I'm following Christ this new year. And whatever that means, that's what I'll do. That's what I want for every one of you. And that's what I want for my life. Whatever he saith unto me, I ought to be willing to do it. Do you believe that's God's will for you? It's called surrender. Every head bowed and every eye closed, stand quietly. Thank you for listening. I prayed this morning. Stay still. Keep your head down. I prayed this morning. Lord, speak to people's hearts. I'm just going to tell you what the Lord told me. I know exactly where I was on the road coming here. And I was praying. I said, Lord, speak to hearts. And as if the Holy Ghost just said to me, Justin, I'm going to speak to them. You might want to pray that they obey God. You know, it's the same way with my life. God speaks to me. It's a question whether or not I'll obey Him. Will you double down? I'm telling you, He doubled down for you when He went to cross. Would you come to this old-fashioned altar quietly as others are coming and say, here it is, Lord, this year is yours. I just want to follow you, whatever that looks like. I'm going to double down. Would you obey Him and give Him your heart, give Him your life, give Him your surrender? He's got a great plan for you. He's got a better plan for us than you can ever imagine. He's got a better plan for you than you've got for yourself. And double down. Sold-out surrender. It's not whether or not the Lord is speaking, it's whether or not we're obeying. Double down.