- Well, good morning.
Good chilly morning.
It's good to be in the house
and for joining us on live stream.
I'm so glad you're joining us today
and I'm glad that we have the means to connect
through live stream when we're out of town
and I know some people are traveling,
so we're glad for that.
As you guys come and give,
I just wanna make a couple of announcements this morning.
First of all, Wednesday is Christmas Day.
It is here, yeah.
And man, I'm so excited to celebrate the Lord
with you on Wednesday.
Would you please make a plan to come and be with us
on Wednesday at 11 a.m., 11 to 12?
I promise we will get you out of here at 12 or before
'cause I know that you have family plans,
but I'll tell you there's nothing better
than coming and worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ
on Christmas Day.
So come and be a part of that very special gathering.
We are excited.
We are excited about what the Lord is going to do.
Following Christmas Day, we've got a group
who's going to Mexico on a mission trip
and so if you're a part of that group
in any shape, form, or fashion,
would you guys come up here?
We wanna pray a blessing over you guys
as you travel and go.
If you guys just wanna come right up here.
And this is the, is this 30?
30th trip, 30th year, 30th year, multiple trips
to Brother Ray and so just so grateful for you guys
going to Mexico and putting your hands to work to help them.
Would you guys stand and stretch your hand over this group?
Father, I thank you for your goodness and mercy
in our lives and I thank you, Lord,
for the capable, enabled hands that will go into the field
this coming week, Lord, and will do your work.
I ask, Lord, that you would give
each of these traveling mercies.
I pray, Lord, that you would speak clearly
to their hearts, God, and my experience, God,
has been that when I go on a mission trip,
though my aim is to be your hands and feet,
that boy, you do a huge, you place a huge deposit in me
and so I'm asking, Lord, that you would place
a deposit in each one of these as they pour out,
that you would pour in and, Lord,
that they truly will be changed, Lord,
as they go and they come.
Father, we thank you, Lord, for what you're gonna do
in advance, may there be some eternal repercussions,
wonderful eternal repercussions by what these guys
are going to say and do in the next week.
We love you today, in Jesus' name,
and everybody said amen.
Would you guys commit to pray for them
over the next week as they go and we'll get a good report,
I believe when they come back, it will be great.
Well, we are, we're in the third week
of a three-part series entitled God with Us,
and we have spent the entire year talking
about the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit really
has been at work, He truly has been,
and you're going to get a taste of that today,
and guys, when we lean in and we tune in
and we listen to the Holy Spirit,
you just can't explain extraordinary things
in the way that they happen.
This morning, Pastor Justin is gonna close out our series.
Would you welcome Pastor Justin?
(congregation applauding)
- Morning.
You didn't know this was gonna be your Christmas gift,
was me all month, did it?
Well, Merry Christmas, here it is.
Before we get started, I got something I wanna share
with you guys.
Pastor Kevin mentioned that on January the 12th, 2025,
we're going to be having our vision casting service.
Now, I have the distinct honor and privilege
of shepherding the men's ministry here at Springhouse,
and we just closed out our Pursuit AIM meetings
with a chili cook-off and crowned a winner
of the golden spoon, and it has been brought
to my attention, there may or may not have been entries
submitted that were crafted by the wives of the men
who has submitted their offerings.
And I don't think that you should not get the credit
you deserve for bringing the chili,
and so what we've decided to do is we're going to level
the playing field and we're gonna accept all entries
and crown a new church-wide chili champ in 2025.
And so you guys can, you can battle it out in the kitchen
or you can do it however you wanna do it,
but it's a QR code and it's also up on our registrations
in the church app.
If you would like to enter your chili
into the chili cook-off, there would be a prize,
I don't know what it is yet, but, and a trophy,
and I don't even know what that looks like yet,
but I will crown a chili champ in 2025,
and it may or may not be the wife of somebody
who submitted something for our Pursuit Men's Ministry.
So if you're interested in being a part
of the chili contest, you need to register
so we know how many we're gonna have
and we can supplement and get all the other things.
But also, that's gonna be a part
of our vision casting service,
and so you're gonna wanna be here to hear
where the Holy Spirit has plans
for taking each individual ministry
as we collectively move in synergy
as part of the body of Christ, right?
Big C Church, little C Church,
we're all moving together in the kingdom, amen?
So that's before I get started.
Now, this morning's gonna be a little bit different, okay?
We have two passages that we're gonna read.
I'm not going to teach from these passages,
but these passages encompass everything
that I'm gonna share in this testimony this morning.
So if you're able, please stand with me
and we're gonna go ahead and read these two passages
of scripture and then I'm gonna share with you, okay?
Here we go, this is out of Isaiah chapter 40,
this is verses 28 through 31,
then we're gonna jump over to Revelation 21.
Here we go.
Have you not known, have you not heard,
the Lord is the everlasting God,
the creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary, His understanding
is unsearchable, He gives power to the faint,
and to Him who has no might, He increases strength.
Even youth shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall fall exhausted,
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk
and not faint, and Revelation chapter 21.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and the sea was no more, and I saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,
and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
He will dwell with them, and they will be His people,
and God Himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning,
nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things
have passed away, Father, I thank you for your word,
and I thank you for the life that it brings.
God, I thank you for the opportunity to share your goodness
and your glory from this platform today.
I ask that your anointing would rest on me
as I share with your people that our hearts would be open
to an encounter with you this morning,
that we would see you clearly,
that we would hear you clearly, open hearts, ears,
minds, eyes, to see you in all of your goodness
and splendor.
Father, we love you and we thank you.
It's in the powerful name of Christ, I pray, amen and amen.
You guys can be seated.
This entire series has taken shape and revolved
around this idea of waiting.
Let's see, Advent season, we're waiting the return,
the coming of our Messiah, and the first week that I shared
I explained about all of the prophecies concerning Jesus,
and the prophecies of his birth, his life, his death,
and how because Jesus fulfilled every one of those prophecies
the word can be trusted.
God can be trusted.
That has to be foundational.
That has to be at the very bottom of your theology
is that I can trust God.
Because there are going to be things in your walk
that you do not understand, or you do not want to do.
You may buck and kick and scream,
but when you can trust him,
then you will have the grace to walk through it,
even if he's pushing you through it,
or dragging you through it, or carrying you through it.
But at the very least, you have to be able to trust God.
You have to.
And the prophecies fulfilled in the birth of Christ,
his life and his death and resurrection,
ascension and his seated at the right hand of God,
ensure that we can trust him in his word.
And then last week, I shared about the difference
between waiting with our hands in our pockets,
and active waiting, hope becoming expectation.
Hope that transforms into an expectation
that God is who he says he is,
but I believe, I probably shouldn't sing that,
but I look directly at my wife and she's like, stick!
Do it.
We're just saying, I believe you are who you say you are,
y'all do what you say you do, right?
That's an expectation that's predicated on trust.
You hear me, okay?
Today is taking that, the prophecies,
the truth of who God is, in this active waiting season,
and how we fix our eyes on the prize,
just like the joy that was set before him,
and we wait on his return to take us home,
and that he will fulfill his promise, amen?
Last week, I mentioned about being in trouble,
and in need of a pardon, do you remember that?
Okay, I got up here and I mentioned that I was in trouble,
and I need a pardon, and I mentioned this being a Hail Mary,
and I didn't give you guys any context about anything.
I didn't give you any background information,
I just hoped you were currently up to date,
or you might have heard it through the grapevine,
or you might have went back and Facebook stalked me,
but what is this, and you won't find nothing but sports,
and cooking, and live videos, and woodworking,
you're not gonna find it there.
So I need to give you guys a little bit of context
so that you can understand the magnitude
of what God has done, is doing, and will do in my life,
because it impacts the kingdom, it impacts the kingdom.
So, 10 days after I turned 18,
welcome to adulthood buddy, I got in trouble.
I actually was in trouble before that,
but I got arrested 10 days after I turned 18,
and I received felony charges, and unless you're a felon,
you don't know how big of a deal that is,
especially when you're an 18 year old kid.
Now I'm not saying that I was not guilty,
that's the problem, I was guilty.
I am guilty.
I'm here to tell you today, I was not innocent,
my mom used to try to encourage me, she'd be like,
"Baby, Paul was in prison too."
I was like, "Mom, Paul wasn't selling weed."
(audience laughing)
I understand what you're trying to do mom, I get it,
but that's not the same, Paul was preaching the gospel,
and he got beat up and drug out of town, right?
I'm trying to hear the gospel, now that I'm in here,
everybody go to jail and get saved.
You know you could have done that at home,
anybody that goes to jail, they're like,
"I got my GED and I'm lifting weights now."
There's a Planet Fitness 10 minutes from here, okay?
You ain't gotta go to jail to do that, I'm glad you did,
but you can do that here.
There are certain things that happen when you are a felon,
and if you've ever filled out an application
that when you get so far down on that job application
or any kind of, an application for anything,
there's always that one little box that says,
have you been convicted of a felony, right?
And most of you check, no I've not, and then you move on.
But for those of us that check yes,
they put a whole section below that and says,
well tell us all about it.
And I'm like, I don't know that Papa John's needs to know
about, you don't need to know about my,
I ain't gotta explain myself to you,
I just won't work here, right?
You have to do that, there are certain things
that they take away, they take away your right to vote.
Okay, when you're a felon, they take away your right
to vote, they take away your right to own a firearm,
they take away your right to travel, they restrict travel,
you can't get a passport, and depending on where you live,
like I live in Smyrna, there's a city ordinance that says,
you can't coach little league.
You say, oh my, I'm guilty.
And the problem is, you don't often understand
how far and how long the consequences will last.
My sin took me further than I wanted to go,
kept me longer than I wanted to stay,
and cost me more than I was willing to pay.
But that's what happens.
So the crazy thing about not being able to coach
little league in Smyrna is I'm a foster parent.
I can raise your kids, but I cannot coach them.
Do you hear what I'm saying?
Like, you could go to jail, and I can't
be singing kids to me.
I won't.
I'm full, there's no vacancy, there's no room for Jesus.
There is no room in the end, don't call my phone,
but justice and foster care, absolutely not, we're full.
[audience laughing]
Serious, we do it all the time, breaks my heart.
My wife gets texts all the time, hey, can you take
two, three, five, six, seven, eight more?
No, we're gonna put 'em.
I can't coach 'em in little league.
Sin will cost you.
And you don't know, you never know in the moment
what that cost is gonna be.
We always think, oh, it won't be that bad.
The Word says the wages of sin is death,
but because you don't physically die immediately,
you think it's not that bad.
I didn't die, did I die?
Not physically, but the Word is true.
So that was 10 days after I turned 18, so I'm 41.
My whole life, this has been my experience,
I have died a civil death.
You don't get to participate, you just get to hang out.
You don't get to participate, you don't get to make
no decisions, you don't have a say in anything, bud.
You just participate, you don't get to be involved
in the world system.
Well, that's fine, I'll just adopt the kingdom system then,
and live over here parallel with you guys.
So several years ago, about three years ago,
I think it might have been around Christmas,
it was some kind of break because April and Aubrey
don't just have days off like that to just go do something.
April and Aubrey Davis wanted to get with me and Jess,
and we were gonna go to the shooting range in Murfreesboro.
It's a great idea, right?
And we go up there, and we go in the range,
and I don't have anything, I'm just coming in with my hands
in my pocket, and we get there, and of course,
you're filling out the paperwork, and there's that box.
Have you been convicted of a felony?
And so I just clicked yes, I'm not buying a gun,
I'm not even shooting the guns, they're shooting the guns.
And the lady comes out, the sheriff was like,
"You can't even be in the building, sir."
And I'm like, "My bad, what do I, hang on, I'll leave."
She said, "You gotta go right now, get out.
"You can't even be in this building,
"you'll get us in trouble for being in here, you."
I was like, "Okay, so I'll go out in the parking lot,
"and I'll tell them y'all go ahead
"and just stay in there and do your thing."
They was like, "No, we're not gonna leave you
"out here in the parking lot."
So instead, we went and got breakfast,
and I had secretly been trying to reach out
to different attorneys about,
well, I know I can't get it expunged, you know,
not everything is able to be just expunged off your record.
People's like, "Why don't you go get expunged?"
Well, it's not that simple.
Some things you can't just go and pay $100
and it's over with.
Sometimes you can't just do something
and then just expect somebody to be okay with it.
Can't lie to someone and expect the relationship
to stay the same.
You can't explode in anger and expect the relationship
to stay the same.
You can't go steal from Kohl's and expect it
just to be like, "We'll give it back."
This ain't 1953 anymore.
The shopkeeper, go give the candy bar back, right?
At least that's what I see in movies,
I wasn't around back then, you know?
[audience laughing]
So I had been trying to see if I can call people
and maybe I can get an attorney that will help me
get my rights back.
I just need my rights, my rights.
My rights, I want them back.
I want my rights back and I'd call and I'd say,
"We don't do that, call Knoxville."
And I'd call Knoxville.
"We don't do that, call Nashville."
"We don't do that, call Murfreesboro."
"We don't do that, call Memphis."
I'm done calling people.
And I just say, "You know what, that's fine.
It's not gonna happen.
I'm not calling people.
I'm done with this.
They're not gonna give me my rights back."
And April said, "Why don't you call Lukowitz?
He's an attorney and he does this."
I don't even know Lukowitz like that.
And you don't even know Lukowitz, it's fine.
It's not important.
But I called the guy for some advice
and he does legal stuff.
I mentioned this in the first gathering, right?
He does legal stuff, but he's not like
a criminal legal stuff, okay?
So like criminals should never call other criminals
for legal advice.
Bottom line, I understand you might've got your law degree.
You've been in prison for 20 years,
but that's a little bit different.
But the problem is we do that all the time.
In the kingdom, we only wanna go to people
who have walked through what I've walked through.
Let me tell you right, Barbie does not have to walk
through drugs and alcohol addiction
to be able to minister to me.
I've gotta stop only trying to reach out to people
who can sympathize with me instead of people
that can empathize because they hear from the Holy Spirit.
Bunch of criminals going to other criminals for advice.
It's what we do.
But this guy's not a criminal, okay?
So I go to him and he says,
I just wanna put that out there
'cause he might be listening.
He's not a criminal.
At least I don't think he is, okay?
And he says, "Look, this is ludicrous."
He said, "Why don't you just ask for a pardon?"
I'm like, is that even a thing?
He goes, "Who do you ask for a pardon?"
I don't know anybody that's got a pardon.
Do you know anybody that's been pardoned?
Do you?
Other than the one guy on Shawshank Redemption.
That's the only guy I know.
That, you know what I'm talking about.
Does anybody, do you personally know somebody?
I don't even know, is that a thing?
I don't even know like that could be done.
He said, "Yeah, just ask for a pardon."
And the more research I've done,
that's what I realized, that's the only option I have
to ever get this taken away.
That's why I said it's a Hail Mary.
I have one play.
Everybody run as far as you can.
I'm gonna throw the ball as far as I can
and I'm gonna pray somebody comes down with it
in the end zone.
I can't get it restored.
I can't get it expunged.
It only can be pardoned.
Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So that was in 2022, early 2022.
So in April, I got a application for a pardon
and it is about this thick.
I know you can't see that.
That's about five millimeters.
Okay.
And included is like things like you have to have
like five character references, right?
And these need to be people who are like business owners
or pastors or people like with influence.
You wanna have, you don't want your next door neighbor
to write a character reference for you.
He's never asked me to borrow anything
and always brought my tools back and his wife got,
you know, you don't want that.
Okay, I mean, it's not bad, but.
So you have to have five character witnesses.
You have to have copies of all your certificates
or degrees or things that you have accomplished
along the, however long it's been.
You have criteria of how long it has to be
since you've been in trouble.
You have to have dispositions of anything you've done.
Like have you, did you do your probation?
Did you pay off all your fines?
Or like, have you, do you have any traffic tickets?
Or you like driving, like it's a,
there's a lot of criteria for it.
And I submitted my application.
I brought it down to the border parole in downtown myself,
this big old packet I'd worked on for months.
And the lady that took my packet couldn't care less.
I was so excited.
I was like, here it is, my application report.
She's like, all right, good.
I'll throw it over here with the rest of them.
I was like, dang, lady.
She really wasn't like that.
But that's the feeling was like, it's insignificant.
So about nine weeks later,
I get a letter that says, hey, we received your application.
We'll look at it eventually.
Great.
Now what do you do in the process?
What do you do in the waiting?
Well, I just stood and put my hands in my pocket.
'Cause I didn't know what to do.
I don't know what to do.
I got a phone call in November of 2022.
And it was this guy who's like, hey,
they told me to call you and I'm supposed to interview you
over the phone.
And I'm going to record a statement for you
about your whole life story for the last 21 years.
Okay, great.
He said, I'll call you tomorrow.
He calls me tomorrow.
I'm in the shop.
It's November.
So all the doors are closed.
And it's a monsoon.
And if you've ever been in a monsoon in a metal building,
you can't hear anything anyways.
And so I'm trying to tell this guy my story.
And this is what we did for 45 minutes.
So I started going to church.
Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa.
So I started going to church.
Okay, next.
And then God made me, and then God made me.
I finally got so fed up.
I was like, and then I changed my life
and I never looked back, right?
I was done with it.
45 minutes of this.
And then God, I said, okay.
So I said, what now?
He said, well, it's not up to me.
I just am typing this up so that I can send this
to the higher ups and they will read it
and determine if they even want you to come in
to be interviewed.
It felt like American Idol.
Like you're just, like you show up, you dance,
and they're like, I'd like to see you come back.
You come back.
And then I go and I do the interview and they're like,
we'll let you know if we want you to come in
for an interview.
That is November of 2022.
In June of 2023, are you tracking the months?
In June of 2023, I get a letter certified male.
It says, hey buddy, you have an in-person interview
with the entire board of parole next month in July.
This is it.
This is the time.
They said you can bring as many people as you wanna bring.
You can bring whatever witnesses you wanna bring.
So we went in July to the board of parole
and I brought 37 people with me.
You know how I know?
'Cause they all wrote their names down on the fan.
I was signed in.
37 people showed up on my behalf.
And what's crazy is we're all waiting in this room
for this hearing and they had a paper and they was like,
hey, sign this side if you think that Justin Beshears
would need to get a pardon.
And so everybody's writing their name down,
signing their name, and then Johnny G, Pastor Jonathan,
as you called him, I call him Johnny G,
been friends longer than we've been pastors.
Johnny G notices, he says, oh no, we signed the side
that says we don't want him to get a pardon.
(laughing)
And I was like, sir, no, sir, no, no.
And he was like, look, he was like, it's fine.
I was like, it's not fine.
No, we did not come this far to have it ruined
on a technicality.
You got 37 people showed up as non-witnesses for you.
(laughing)
No, absolutely not, we're not giving you a pardon.
You had almost 40 people show up.
You said, no, this guy's nuts.
You know what I'm saying?
So, at the hearing, there is seven seats.
There's seven board members.
And the chair, the chairman is sitting in the middle,
and there's all this board of parole,
and then there's two court reporters,
and then a stenographer, and there's this little bitty
rickety table in the front of them.
And then there's the audience where you guys are at.
And it's at my wife and me and Pastor Kevin,
and for over two hours, they asked me about the last
20 years of my life in 17 different ways.
The same question four different ways.
And they're asking me stuff like, well, tell us about
this traffic stop in 2005.
And I'm like, I don't know.
What does the report say I did?
Then I probably did that.
I don't remember, it's 2005.
You know how I slept?
I got kids now.
You know?
I don't know what day it is now.
I just know I'm here.
And so, we go through the whole hearing,
and I had just asked Pastor Kevin to testify.
I said, I just want you to share.
I don't want people to come up like a school board.
I don't want everybody to come up and do that.
I just, Kevin, would you share?
And Kevin shared at the end, and he was nervous,
'cause he didn't want to ruin it for me.
You know what I mean?
He's like, we've got to the live shows.
We don't want to get him booted off now.
It's a big deal.
I've been grilled.
I mean, I'm having to testify, and I'm having to tell you,
you guys, you know what?
Yes, I did that.
I mean, they're reading my mail in front of this room
of people that only know me from church, are you hearing me?
And now my life is exposed in front of them.
They're saying, well, he did this, and he did that,
and he's guilty, and you know what it sounds like?
There's a scene that I've read in the Bible
where you appear before the throne,
and there's an accuser that says,
and he did this, and he did that,
and he did this, and he did that.
And they're just listening to it, of all the stuff.
And Pastor Kevin gets up there, and he says,
look, guys, here's something you need to know.
Justin didn't just go start fostering kids,
or become a small business owner,
or I didn't ask him to be on staff
so that we could pad his resume,
so that we could come in here and look good
in front of you and ask for a pardon.
He's doing these things because God
has radically changed his life.
So whether you give him a pardon or not,
he's not gonna stop doing it,
because he never started doing it for that.
Are you living your life to prove something to someone,
or are you working from the cross?
And he said, guys, I'm asking you to give him a pardon,
but if you don't, he's not gonna stop,
he'll go back to work, he'll dry his eyes,
and he'll go back to work, and he'll keep doing it,
'cause that's not why he's doing it.
And for that reason, I think you should give him a pardon.
Then all seven board members, this was the hard part,
all seven of them, every one of them
had something they wanted to say.
And it was like, every judge was like,
well, man, I don't know, man, I'm looking at you,
you're fine, but you're doing a lot of, you know,
but I vote yes.
And you're just like, oh, okay,
and then you'd get to the next one,
and they go, man, I don't know, I did, man, yes!
And you're like, oh my God, so then you go to the third,
and then just up and down, up and down,
every one of them, unanimous across the board,
all seven said unanimous yes.
And five of the seven said, hey,
there's something you didn't even ask us for,
we wanna get that pardon too,
that way it don't come down the line.
And so it was a unanimous yes,
and we're all high-fiving and cheering,
we're like, what does this mean?
They was like, nothing, it means nothing.
Absolutely nothing, it's not up to us, okay?
We just think you should be pardoned, right?
And so they said, we're gonna send our non-binding,
they made sure to say that word, non-binding,
recommendation to the governor, okay?
And it's up to him ultimately.
That's in July, in December of 2023.
I'm out here, I'm holding the doors,
and Mary Sue Bennett walks in and says,
did you get your pardon?
I said, I don't know, I don't know,
do you know something I don't know?
And she said, oh, I saw that they had a ceremony downtown,
and they had a big old dinner,
and they had all these people that the governor pardoned,
and I was like, really?
She said, yeah, I would have thought
she would have been there, I'm like, me too.
(congregation laughing)
And I was friendly with her, but I went,
and I came in here and I looked online,
and sure enough, they had a ceremony,
and I went invited.
And I sat in the back corner of this room over here,
by those doors, and I just cried my eyes out.
I felt left out, I was like,
God, I did everything I coulda do.
I did everything I was supposed to have done.
I did everything, you said yes!
They said yes, how did I not get it?
You know what I heard?
Nothing.
Can you keep waiting and hoping
when you don't hear anything?
For 400 years, it was silent!
They waited for the Messiah,
and then when he showed up, they recognized him, why?
'Cause they weren't waiting with their hands in their pockets.
They had an expectation and a hope
that I don't know when it's gonna happen,
but I'm gonna tell my kids about it,
and maybe they'll see it.
And then they told their kids about it,
and said, I didn't see it, but maybe they'll see it.
So I just kept waiting.
That's in December of last year.
Then in October, by chance, my buddy Troy Ross,
who connected me with Representative Mike Sparks,
contacted us and said, hey, I've got a meeting
with the governor, do you wanna go?
I'm like, absolutely I wanna go.
This is my chance.
Maybe he doesn't have a pen,
and that's why he's not signed this.
So I put a pen in my jacket pocket, right?
Troy will tell you, I had a nice pen.
It was a pen Derek gave me.
And Troy brought him across,
and we went down to the Capitol,
and every door that we tried to go in was locked,
so we walked all the way around the whole Capitol
to get in the front door,
and we met with the governor in his office
at the same table that generations of governors
have sat at, and we just had a little back door,
closed door meeting, and he shared some things with us.
And at the end of it, we got to pray over the governor.
And so we laid hands on the governor of Tennessee
and prayed over him, that God would give him wisdom
that he would strengthen his marriage,
that communication and intimacy would be opened up,
that he would shore him up,
as he's got hard decisions to make as he's leading,
as people are coming left, right,
that God would strengthen him
in his role and responsibility.
And then we walked out, kept waiting.
My eyes fixed on him.
And then last Sunday, I get up here
and I share with you guys that I have had to come
to the point where I release it,
that if it does not ever happen,
I've got to be okay with it.
But I can't just be like, oh, well,
I have to be expected and okay if it doesn't.
And that's the interesting dichotomy of the Christian walk
is that you have to be, God,
if you don't get in the fire with us,
then you're still good.
But I believe that you will get in the fire with us.
(soft music)
I don't know if you guys know this,
but I was not scheduled to speak last Sunday.
I wasn't supposed to be up here
doing the whole Advent series.
Let me rephrase.
I was not scheduled to do it,
but I'm supposed to be doing it.
The clip that was on Facebook,
you might've seen a clip on social media.
There's a clip of me sharing that moment
where I released it to God.
That clip was not even the clip that was supposed
to be played.
And yet the media team said,
I feel like we're supposed to play this clip.
And it got 5,000 views and 31 shares
and 10 people sent it to governor.
I'm like, whoa, easy, no, don't, do not,
do not make waves.
It's still December, do not do that, right?
And they're like, absolutely not.
We're knocking on the door.
And then Thursday night, Mario Galleone's at a banquet
and sees the governor from across the room like this.
Swear, real sore, ask him.
Walk straight up to the governor and says,
hey, pleasure to meet you.
I know you don't know me.
You can ask them people about me that you're with.
They know me.
You need to pardon Justin Beshears.
And then walks off.
What you don't realize is the whole time I've been waiting,
there's been Mary Sue Bennett writing letters
to the governor on my behalf, right?
That you got Mario's going up and saying,
will you forgive the man?
There are people that are writing the king on your behalf.
There are people that are knocking on heaven's door for you
and you don't even know it.
And you don't even know it.
I'm not in this alone.
There are people going to the king on behalf of you.
Mary Sue and Mario.
If Troy didn't have a radical transformation in my shop,
I might not have never met Mike Sparks
who set up all these meetings
and has been championing and campaigning for me.
Like you don't know the things
that are happening in the process.
It's Sunday.
Today's Sunday.
Okay, I want you to understand this.
Thursday night, Pastor Kevin texted me and says,
"Hey bud, I feel strongly in my spirit."
And I'm like, stop there.
Don't not, do not start a text
with I feel strong in my spirit.
I don't have much room to dodge whatever comes next.
Like when you start out with,
I feel like the Lord told Jack, no he did not.
And I cannot, when I argue,
where's the room to get out of this?
He said, "I feel strongly in my spirit for some reason
you're supposed to share on Sunday
and close out this series."
Absolutely not.
I decline and reject that offer, young sir.
It's Thursday night.
We're rehearsing for Carol's by Candlelight.
And then Friday, I've got to go to work.
And then Friday night is Carol's by Candlelight.
And Saturday is playoff football.
The Vols play Saturday night.
They didn't even show up by the way.
That's real life.
I'm looking at my watch going,
man, I know you want me to prepare a teaching
and do all the PowerPoint and do all this, right?
I don't know if I have enough time to lean in.
It's not that I don't have the time to get the nuts and bolts
they can do the nuts and bolts.
Do I have enough time to lean in
and hear what God wants his people to hear?
'Cause this ain't just Justin get up here
and tell stories and make people laugh.
It's what is God trying to say to you
and he's trying to speak to your heart this morning.
And I'm responsible for that.
I ain't got time.
Absolutely not Pastor Kevin.
I told him, I said, I will if you want me to.
He said, it ain't about if I want you to,
I want you to hear from the Lord.
I said, well, then the answer is no.
I did.
You can look at our text thread.
Don't look at our text thread though.
You have to subpoena that, right?
Be like me and Doug, I ain't gonna tell on ourselves, man.
But.
Said I reject that offer.
Friday, I'm at work.
I build a cabinet tree.
I'm in Mount Juliet working.
I gotta get a job done before Christmas.
I'm working in these people's house and I get a phone call.
And I say, hello, this is Justin.
He said, hey Justin, this is Governor Bill Lee.
Hey, hey, hey.
(audience laughing)
Hey, hey, hey, how you doing?
Hey, hey, hey, how you doing Governor Lee?
Right?
Oh, you gotta hold on to something, hang on.
And I immediately go outside.
I just, and it's cold.
It felt like it was 20 degrees outside.
He said, hey man, how you doing today?
I said, I'm doing great.
He said, well, I hope I make your day a little bit better.
He said, I have reviewed your file.
And I have decided to grant you a full foreign.
(audience cheering)
Now come on!
Come on!
(audience cheering)
Won't he do it?
Come on!
And I just started crying.
I just cried.
And in his grace, he just listened to me cry.
He just listened to me cry on the other end of the phone.
I said, I don't even know what to say.
He said, you don't have to say anything.
You don't have to say anything.
And I said, to what now?
He said, well, there's some things we're gonna post it
on the Secretary of State's website
and then you'll receive a letter from the Board of Parole,
but none of that matters
'cause as of right now, you're a free man.
(audience cheering)
I said, thank you.
He said, Merry Christmas.
And in the ultimate mic drop, he hung up the phone.
(audience laughing)
I shared last week that hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
All of the things that has happened along the way, guys,
you gotta see, man, I sat up here on the last Sunday
and was like, God, I wanna give up, but I can't.
And you know the thing that God doesn't know?
He's like, son, you're so close.
If you only knew how close you were,
some of you are ready to give up on people
and God's like, man, they're so close.
Keep writing letters.
Keep going in front of them.
They are so close.
You cannot give up now.
Some of you are right there on the edge
of giving your life to God.
And he's like, you are so close.
You are right there.
You imagine the anguish of Jesus in the garden
when he was like, God, I don't wanna do this.
God said, you're so close, son.
You are so close, son.
Endure, you're almost there.
There will be a day that he comes for us
and he wipes every tear, but even now our tears matter
'cause he says, you're right there.
You're so close.
The process, the waiting, the hope, the expectation,
the doubt that came in.
I mentioned that me and Troy got to meet the governor
in October.
I didn't tell you this.
When we sat there, he said, you wanna know
what the best part of my job is?
When I get to pardon people.
He said, this is the absolute best part of my job.
He said, I call these men and I listen to them cry
on the other line.
Hello.
Talk about some foreshadowing.
He said, and then it hit me.
Every one of these men are guilty.
Every one of them are guilty.
And there's nothing they can ever do
to get it off their record.
They can't work themselves out of it.
It never goes away.
They can't beg their way out of it.
They can't give their way out of it.
You can't live a good life and be good enough
to get out of it.
It's always there.
And there's only one man that can do anything about it.
And all you have to do is ask.
And then he said, and I realize in that moment,
that's what Jesus does for us.
Every one of you are guilty.
Every one of us are guilty.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
But the gift of God, the gift, the gift
that we're talking about this season,
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.
We're all guilty and you can't be good enough.
You can't give your way out of this.
You can't think you're okay enough
to get it off your record.
That sin blemish will follow you your whole life.
And there's only one man that can do anything about it.
And that's Jesus.
And all you have to do is ask.
The word says that if you believe in your heart
and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord,
you shall be saved.
The last few days it felt like this for me.
I'm serious, man.
You can't see it, or maybe you can,
but you see the guy rounding third?
That's what I feel like.
And everybody is so happy for that guy.
The whole team.
There's a guy that's already collecting
these walk-off home run photos
because he said this is what it feels like
when you enter into the kingdom.
When you give your life to Christ,
we're all celebrating with you.
When we enter into heaven, this is the celebration.
Everybody, the fans, the team, even the umpires,
like man, I can't even believe it.
It happened.
Do you need to be pardoned today?
I have the rare opportunity to be one of the few individuals
that has been pardoned on the earth side and the cosmic side.
(congregation applauding)
I don't even know how to process that
because I have a real example of what it looks like.
I know what it feels like.
And I want you to know what it feels like to be pardoned,
to be set free.
You gotta know what it feels like to be set free.
If you need to be pardoned today, today's the day
to be set free.
And there are some of you that are writing letters
for people and you're ready to give up on 'em.
You're going to the governor, you're going to the king,
and you're ready to give up on some people.
You're right there, they're right there.
You don't know how close they are.
You cannot give up.
So if I could get some brothers and sisters
to come down here to pray this morning,
I need the elders and pastors and teachers and leaders,
and none of us are exempt from this.
You either need to be pardoned
or you know somebody that needs to be pardoned.
We're all active participants this morning.
So as we worship, two things.
If you need to be set free, today is the day to be set free.
If you need a cosmic level of forgiveness,
there's only one that can do it and that is the king.
And he is ready to meet you here in this altar space.
So if you need to be set free, today's the day.
And if you know somebody that needs to be set free,
and you ain't been writing letters,
then today's the day to come down here and pray
and commit to write them letters for those people.
To go and petition the king on behalf of these people.
Today is the day to be set free and celebrate liberty.
I was a captive and now I'm running free.
Let's be set free today.
Amen.