GYC 2025: Follow Me

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Sebastien Braxton

Speechless

Our Father and our God, we are grateful that we've arrived at this moment.

It is not our desire to hear the words of men, but it is our desire to hear the word of God.

We pray that the sweet, sweet spirit of Jesus, as we've just sung about, that he would fill us now, that the Holy Spirit would come, that he would light a fire in our hearts and give us that flame of living fire, which has shone so bright in saints of old.

Lord, we pray that you would use this man who was nothing before you.

And God, may you speak through me and speak to me, that Christ may be lifted up and that all people may be drawn unto him.

This is our prayer, and we trust that you will help this to be our experience as we offer this prayer from our hearts in Jesus' name.

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I lived in Chicago, a gang infested neighborhood.

My parents had divorced by this time for a few years.

And so we were living on welfare government assistance, and back then, they would mail you things in a box.

And then you had actual food stamps, like the physical paper.

So you knew when you went to the store what you were paying with.

Now, you know, they got your own card so you can't really tell.

So anyway, my mom was a home health nurse assistant And she came home, we got a whole bunch of food, went shopping, and we filled the cabinets, we filled the fridge, put all the food away, and my mom's like, you know what, I'm gonna celebrate, we're gonna go out to eat.

And back then, you know, when you're poor, you always eat at restaurants that have unlimited food.

So you go to the buffet, amen, because other places you pay and that's it.

So we were excited as kids because there's no limit when you're used to always having to have a limit in splitting things.

When we came back home to our shock and chagrin, a screen in our apartment window was broken, and the gangs had broken in and basically taken all the food in the entire fridge and cabinets.

They actually left a half empty bottle of orange juice.

And I'll never forget my mom's frame collapsing in the kitchen.

And of course my sister, she didn't know what to say.

And I'm watching my mom crying and weeping on the floor, thinking, what are we going to do?

And I already told you guys, I'm a little delulu, right, I'm a little delusional.

So I go to my mom and I say, you know what, Mom?

I said, 1 day I'm gonna have enough money, We'll never have to need government assistance.

She couldn't even afford to go back home.

So my mom's looking at me as I'm saying this, because this is my response to the situation, and my mom starts laughing.

She's like, okay, Sebastian, I was probably 8 or 9 years old.

She literally just starts laughing, with tears in her eyes, she starts laughing.

And this kind of brings her out of it, but what she didn't know was, I was serious.

And so moving forward in my life, that's a testimony for another time, but when I was 30 years old, after my 30th birthday, I remember I was living in Boston at the time, and as I was searching for a new apartment, I got a phone call.

And the phone call was from a university in Jamaica.

And they said, hey, we would like you to come to speak for this 40th anniversary event.

And I remember as I was taking the call, and they said, yeah, is anybody else coming with you?

And right there on the sidewalk in Boston, I started crying.

I said, Ma, I'm gonna take you to Jamaica.

And at first, my mom had forgotten about this story.

And as I was saying the words to her, like it was real, my mom checked, because I went quiet on the phone.

I couldn't believe that I actually achieved it.

I remember seeing my wife for the first time.

So it was in Minneapolis, and Alistair, who's the head of AudioVerse, he had woken up paralyzed in his hotel room.

And after that was announced, I stayed after the evening meeting and I was still praying and I thought I was the only 1 in the auditorium.

I was very shaken by the fact that that had happened.

And it seemed like we were under attack because of it.

So as I was walking out, I thought no 1 else was there, and then I see these 3 women, right?

It was like you could hear the music in the background as my wife was walking, you could see it in the movie, right, The slow walk, they kind of slow down the frame.

And I look at my wife and as my daughter would say, she was aura forming, right?

But in our message today, Naomi was made speechless for a different reason.

Naomi was not made speechless because of some victory over some negative self-talk.

She was not speechless because of a moment of achievement of a lifelong goal since she was a little girl.

She was not speechless because of some beautiful, Bible-believing black sister, a BBBBS, okay?

She was speechless because of Ruth's unrelenting, unyielding, and undying commitment to her when she could offer her nothing in exchange.

I want you to go with me to the book of Ruth in your Bible.

Ruth chapter 1, when you're there you can say amen.

Okay, if you're not there just say have mercy.

And notice what the Bible says in verse 18.

It says when she saw that she, Ruth, was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her.

She had nothing else to say when she realized that she wasn't going to leave her.

And the question is, why was this so impactful?

And this is what I want to unpack for our sermon tonight.

Why was this impacting Naomi to this point where she was speechless?

So when you go back to the story, you may or may not know that Naomi was married to a man named Elimelech.

Elimelech, and he had 2 sons, Melon and Kileon.

Now, this was during a famine, which is why they decided to go into Moab in the first place.

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Speechless

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