Call to Follow

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

If you wanna turn to Matthew chapter 11, that's where we're gonna be today. We're not gonna start there just yet, but we're gonna get there eventually. Matthew 11, and much of the scripture is gonna be up here on the screens behind me, and if you don't have a Bible with you or don't have one on your phone, there is a Bible, there are Bibles located underneath some seats near you, okay? There's an Irish scholar named J. Alec Motyer, and this Irish scholar was trying to help people understand what the Bible is, and so he set up an illustration kind of with one question, and here's his question. His question is, what if, instead of Columbus discovering America, Native Americans first traveled to Europe to tell people about their land and their culture? It's an interesting thought, right? Like, what if Columbus hadn't gone there, what if the Native Americans had actually come to Europe?

And his point in asking that question is, he's saying this is how the Bible presents itself. This is how the narrative of scripture goes. It is not an account of people discovering God. It's actually an account of God sending himself, manifesting himself, revealing himself to people, telling them about himself, about what he's like. In fact, in Hebrews 1-1, very first verse, it says, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, and what Hebrews is trying to help us understand is that God is revealing himself to us through prophets, through lots of different, sometimes it's a burning bush, right? God's revealing himself to us, and it's like a curtain opening slowly, right? So like in Genesis, the curtain just starts to part a little bit, you see a little bit kind of what's behind the curtain, and then as the Old Testament kind of progresses,

that curtain continues to open, why are you, and why do you get a better view? And so God reveals himself kind of one step, one decision at a time. In fact, in the Old Testament, it's often one person at a time, right? That God reveals himself to Moses, right? God reveals himself to King David. In the New Testament, though, you have something different happen. You have the curtain really kind of getting thrown open. You have a much more full revealing of who God is in the person and work of Jesus Christ, right? That he is kind of this, he is God with us, like it says in Matthew 1. In fact, if you go back to the verse in Hebrews, Hebrews 1, 1, and 2, so long ago, many times in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

So there is an idea where whenever Jesus is kind of coming on the scene, that there is a kind of a much broader revelation of what is going on. And what Motyer and many other scholars call this, it goes by a lot of different names, I'm just gonna call it compounding revelation, right? It's revelation, so it's God revealing himself to us one step at a time, but each step builds on the previous step, right? It's not like whenever God first reveals himself, then he changes it a little bit, now he's revealing himself differently over here. Now he changes it a little bit, no, it builds on itself, right? It's the curtain opening slowly. The picture doesn't change, but the curtain just is slow to do that. Now, the same way that God reveals himself to us, this is instructive, because when we read about Jesus in the New Testament, it's the same way. Jesus also reveals himself slowly to the disciples.

He reveals himself slowly as he teaches, right? He reveals his identity and his mission, but he does it one step at a time. The same way we see God do that in the Old Testament, Jesus is also doing that in the New Testament. Why? It's so we can handle it. It's so we can handle it. Imagine giving a teenager the nuclear launch codes, right? Imagine asking a second grader to bench press 800 pounds, okay? You could set that up, but you're just setting them up to fail. It's too much. They can't handle it. They'd be crushed under that, right? And a lot of times when we pray, we're like, God, just tell me how it's gonna end. Just tell me how it's gonna go. And God's like, no, that would crush you. That would hurt you. You would never be the same. That's not in the plan. And this is how God deals with us, right? In his kindness and his grace toward us, he hides and reveals things at the right time, right?

Okay, like I said, we're gonna be in Matthew 11. We're gonna see this kind of at work whenever Jesus is talking. Right now, he's in Matthew 11, verse 25 is where we're gonna start. But Jesus is teaching people. He's warning people. This is not like a super, like it's not a fun chapter to read, right? So he's pronouncing like woes on cities that didn't repent whenever he did miracles in them, right? So it is not a fun time. He's encouraging repentance, okay? And he's about to switch it up. Jesus is about to completely change his tone. But first, he kind of breaks that up with a prayer to Father God, okay? And this is what we read in 25 and 26, Matthew 11, verses 25 and 26. At that time, Jesus declared, "'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, "'that you have hidden these things "'from the wise and understanding "'and revealed them to little children.'" Yes, Father, "'for such was your gracious will.'"

Okay, so Jesus here is talking about Father God hiding things and revealing things as people are ready. And what Jesus is saying, he's calling them the little children, right? So what he's saying is that God has chosen people to reveal things to, and he has hidden it from other people who aren't ready for that or don't want that, right? That means something very specific, very specific for following Jesus. Look at the next verse, okay? Jesus comes out of the prayer in verse 25 and 26, and now he's kind of talking about himself. He's not addressing the crowd just yet. It says, "'All things have been handed over to me "'by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, "'and no one knows the Father except the Son, "'and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.'" Listen, that's a lot of like Father and Son, back and forth, I get that. But concentrate on that last part.

It says, "'No one knows the Father except the Son,'" and here we go, "'and anyone to whom the Son "'chooses to reveal him.'" Jesus must choose to reveal Father God to people. And so whenever we're talking about salvation, when we're talking about spiritual growth, when we're talking about becoming more like Jesus, it is less that we discover salvation on our own, and it is much more that Jesus comes to us, that the Father has sent the Son to us to reveal salvation to us, right? And so whenever we're talking about like what's going on, this is Jesus coming to people and revealing himself, revealing salvation to them, and how does he reveal himself? He reveals himself one step at a time.

One decision at a time. One wave at a time. We're gonna be going through a four-week series called Call Me Out, and this is our first week of that series, and we're gonna be looking at the time Jesus calls us out, right? The time where he calls out to us and he reveals himself to us, he reveals salvation to us, and he reveals it in such a way that it's compounding, right, that it builds on itself. And so this week, in the next couple weeks, we're gonna start in Matthew 11, then we're gonna go to 14, and then we're gonna go to 16, and then we're gonna go to Matthew 28. And in each of those, they're all gonna kind of build, okay?

And whenever we do that, you're gonna kind of see the calls aren't all the same, and they're not supposed to be, they kind of build on each other, but they are very different, right? So today, the first calling, we're gonna kind of establish that, and that's gonna be kind of foundational for the rest of where we're gonna go, all right? And it's a very familiar verse, Matthew 11, 28 through 30. So this is just after what Jesus has just said, and here we go, here's what he says. He says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And so Jesus here is opening the door wide for anybody who is listening, okay? And so he's just kind of gone through this whole thing of like, I'm choosing to reveal myself to people.

But then right after that, he's going heavy into this, and he's like, look, if you can hear me, if you're within earshot, then come to me. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, right? Jesus is opening the door, but through this calling, right, Jesus is calling out to people, through that, Jesus is making certain connections. He's making certain assumptions as he's doing that, right? He's talking to people, and he's saying that their situation is like this. His first connection is that the burden that people are carrying, that are here in this, the burden that they are carrying is too heavy, right? It says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. In other words, the burden that you have on you right now is too heavy, you aren't getting rest, and it's going to break you.

The burden you have right now, you weren't meant to carry that, you're trying, you need to quit it, because it's going to break you. You aren't going to get rest, you're just going to get more tired, and more tired, and more tired, and then you're gonna give up. And Jesus is saying, don't do that. Don't do that. And this speaks to, this is Jesus speaking to both religious people and irreligious people, okay? So religious people, what's the burden that they're carrying, it's morality, right? The burden that religious people are carrying is that I have to be good enough, okay? The burden that religious people carry is, I've gotta look good, I've gotta keep up appearances, I've gotta, or they're just living a straight up double life, right? The burden that they're carrying is either guilt that they're not measuring up to whatever needs to be happening, or guilt that they're living

this double life, and that they're fooling everybody, right? And so that's a common one, man. I mean, that's religious people all over. But it also works for irreligious people, so follow me on this. What does our culture tell people to do, right? It doesn't, our culture doesn't tell people necessarily to be good enough. Our culture tells people to find themselves. Find yourself.

Maintain your own identity. Be yourself. And what does that mean? Essentially, that is find meaning in the decisions that you're making for yourself and your preferences and the different profiles you have and the way that you project and the way that you dress and the people that you associate with. Find your identity there. Be yourself. And although that sounds fun, right? I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go away for a year. I'm gonna go hike and do nothing and I'm gonna find myself, okay? That's kind of a trope. That's something that we often think about. But here's the problem. You're not going to find yourself in yourself. You're not gonna find your identity inside. You're also not gonna find your identity out here. Right? The only person who can tell you who you really are is the person who made you.

It's the only person, right? You can, man, look, if you see a piece of art and you're looking at it and you're just like, man, this art makes me think of like, you know, warmth and beauty and trees and all that. Okay, that's great. And they can make you feel those things and you're like, oh yeah, I see, oh, so good. Maybe that's only me that does that. But if I'm looking at a painting and I'm saying, you know, the artist probably meant to do, you know, X, Y, and Z, well, then there's a way to figure that out, right? I can talk to the artist or I can listen to what the artist says about their own work, okay? And the artist might say something completely different, like, no, I was going for like an industrial feel and cold and hard. I'm like, okay, well, who wins? Who wins that argument about what the painting is about? The artist, every time. I can say, I feel something and he can be like,

yeah, I validate your feelings, that's cool. But he meant it in a particular way and I'm taking it in a different way. Does that make sense to you? And so whenever you say, whenever somebody who is irreligious or somebody who's just kind of like living life on there and just trying to figure out who they are, when they say like, I'm gonna do this thing because it feels right to me, this is what I think I should be doing. Listen, that's quicksand. There's actually no support for you at all in that process. You're just saying, well, I'm just doing this because I feel like it's right. Well, what about tomorrow? Are you still gonna feel like it's right? Don't you change? Why are you basing your identity on you? And look, it's not just logically impossible. It's not just, it's actually spiritually, it erodes your soul. When you try to find yourself in approval or in your preferences or in whatever meaning

you can kind of make, you know deep inside it's a sham. It's just something you made up. And you're just trying to convince yourself and other people that you are who you think you are. And this is the modern problem. And so it's not a morality issue. Morality issue is like, I gotta be good enough, I gotta be religious enough, I gotta maintain appearances. This is something different. But both of them are burdens that will break you. Both of them are things that will take you down. And here's what it looks like. And you can kind of tell from what Jesus is saying. In verse 29 it says, take my yoke upon you, learn from me. He says, for I am gentle and lowly and hard and you will find rest for your soul. So Jesus is saying, I am gentle. The implication is what you are dealing with, the burden that you're dealing with is not gentle. It's kind of a task master. In fact, Jesus chooses the word yoke here.

And typically, historically, a yoke, even in scripture, a yoke is a form of oppression. Okay? And so what Jesus is saying is, is what you have on you is oppressive. And the way that will play out is that you will be broken in terms of restlessness and anxiety. That's what your brokenness is going to look like. Your brokenness is actually not gonna be that, you know, like you're just running down the street like a madman, you know, just like, oh, you know, I don't wanna follow Jesus anymore. Like, it's not that. It's a situation where you can't go to sleep. It's a situation where you overthink everything. And you think everything has to mean something else. It's a situation where you have questions that are going on in your head and you wanna quiet them down. And the first thing you do is you reach for your phone because you need some kind of comfort because you don't wanna think about

what the thing that you're thinking about. That brokenness, that restlessness, that anxiety. Jesus is making the connection for the people. He's calling for people to follow him but at the same time, he's calling them to acknowledge the futility of what they are currently trying to do. Does that make sense? It's not like Jesus is saying, hey, what you're doing's okay but what I have is so much better. He's saying, no, no, no, what you are doing right there, what you are going through is going to erode you down to nothing. It's going to kill you from the inside out. And this is Jesus' call. His call is for us to trade our burden for his.

Jesus calls to trade our burden from his. This is one of the most fundamental calls that Jesus makes. This is, if you don't know where you are with Jesus, if you don't know, maybe it's been a long time, maybe you're visiting church for the first time in a long time, I don't know where you're at but I do know that whenever you listen to Jesus say, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I do think a part of your soul is like, yes. That's what I need. I need rest. I need relief from this anxiety. I need relief from this brokenness. I need relief from this burden. From feeling like I have to maintain everything. From feeling like I'm the only one who cares about whatever. It might not be all of you but it's definitely part of you. So Jesus calls us to trade our burden for his. I'm gonna kinda break that down. Jesus is calling us, right? How is Jesus calling us?

Because Jesus is, he's calling us even now. He called you this week. I don't know if you answered but he did call. Jesus is calling you and he wants to be found. Jesus is not playing hide and seek, okay? Jesus isn't like tapping you on the shoulder and then running to the other side. That's not what's going on. Spiritually Jesus is seeking you out, is calling out to you and what does that look like? Part of it looks like those nagging questions that I talked about just a second ago, right? You got things, you got big questions, you don't know the answers and you kinda freak out. Maybe you tried to answer the question, you went down a wormhole on YouTube and now you still are more confused, you don't even know what's going on. You've heard 15 different perspective and none of them sound right and you're not sure. You got those nagging questions. Jesus is calling you in the midst of those questions.

Those questions are going to drive you to seek something greater than yourself. That's Jesus calling you. Jesus also calls you through some very deep frustrations. If you have some things that are going on in your life and you feel like they won't ever stop, that thing, it's like cyclical, right? And you thought you were over it but you're not over it. You thought you were done but you're not done. You didn't know that part of your life had a hold on you still but it definitely does. You had a terrible weekend this weekend.

That nagging thing, that deep frustration that you felt like you can't get over, that thing is in your life, let me just tell you, that thing's in your life by the appointment of your creator. Father God in heaven puts deep frustrations into your life so that you will reach out to him. And I don't mean things that are moderately annoying. I don't mean your credit card got stolen or something. I mean like deep frustration. Things you wish were true of your life but are not. Levels that you wish you were at in your career that you are not. Jesus also calls you through kind of the opposite. He calls you through big dreams. Some of you, maybe you just started following Jesus, maybe you're, I don't know, maybe you've been following Jesus for a little bit. But you got some big dreams, some big aspirations. And you kind of figured out pretty early on you're not enough for that, right?

Like you don't know if you have what it takes. You don't know if you can make the sacrifice. You don't know if you can maintain the discipline that it needs to happen. The Lord God in heaven puts huge dreams in your life. Things that you could not imagine accomplishing on your own, puts those in your life so that you will reach out to him. Jesus calls you in the midst of those things and they don't look like calling, they don't feel like calling. And nobody's like, oh Jesus calling you, huh? No, it just looks like frustration. My family and I had a frustrating experience coming back from, pardon our laughter here, it's just funny now. It was not funny then. Do you remember how it snowed really bad, Thursday night? So my family, we were stuck in Houston Thursday at three o'clock in the afternoon, okay? Then we're thinking, man, what are we gonna do? So we bite the bullet, we rent two cars

and we drive from Houston to Dallas and the whole time the temperature is like 38, 37, 36, and we're going 70, 75, right? On the interstate, okay? So we're trying to beat the temperature home, okay? And the Lord was very gracious and kind but that did a number on many of us in our family. It was a deeply frustrating moment for many reasons and we're okay, like we're all still friends and everything. So that's good. We didn't rip each other's head off or anything but there definitely was, I mean, they took a toll, right? And sometimes, man, sometimes that level of frustration, whenever American Airlines is leaving you hanging and you're like, I gotta get home, sometimes whenever that is happening, it's almost impossible to see that as Jesus calling you to prayer. It's almost impossible. As you're grieving a loss, it's almost impossible to be like, well, you know what, this is for my good.

I'm like, okay. Like that's hard to see in the moment but it's not any less true. It's just hard to see but it is true. The Lord Jesus works in those frustrating moments. He works in those big dreams to call out to us. So Jesus is calling us even now and Jesus wants to be found. What is he calling us to do? He's calling us to drop our burden. This is a fundamental thing to the call of Jesus. To follow Jesus, you have to drop your burden. If you are too busy holding on to other things, and these can either be good things or bad things, then you cannot take hold of something else. Let me say that again. If you are too busy holding on to old things, you can't grab on to a new thing. So if you're holding on to even a good thing, even like an old dream or like a, maybe like a relationship or something like that, and it's a good relationship but you're letting it define you.

You're letting it tell you who you are and you don't know if you can let go. So sometimes it's even good things that you turn into God things. But sometimes it's bad things. It's sins, it's fears, it's anxieties. You've gotta be able to let that go. Some of you are just dealing with a past that you're deeply ashamed of. Like deep, like if anybody ever knew anything about it, you would be, you'd go crawl under a rock. You might never come out. You're dealing with some deep shame. And what, here's the good news, man. Here's the good news. Whenever Jesus calls us and he says, "'Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden,'" it's not like we need to come to him and go, "'Okay, okay Jesus, I let go of all my shame. "'I'm good now, I can come to you.'" That's not how it works. Remember, it's one step at a time. It's one thing at a time. And so you might have some like some deep buried shame.

And you know what, Jesus is definitely going after that deep buried shame, but it might just start with one little part and just say, look, give me that. Confess that to me. Let's walk through healing in that area first. And then let's keep going. You gotta drop your burden. Oftentimes, whenever we, you know, you have people that are in prison for so long, they start liking it, right? And so sometimes it is hard to let go. It's hard to let go because you don't even know who you are if you let go of that.

Scary. But it is fundamental to following Jesus that you drop that burden. And so we trade our burden for his, so we drop our burden and we pick up his burden, okay? So what does it mean to pick up his burden? Let me define it a little differently. It is continually putting following Jesus on the calendar. Let me say that again. If you're gonna pick up his burden, then you are, in a continual fashion, you are going to put following Jesus on the calendar. In other words, it's gonna come out in action. It's gonna be, it's gonna come out in history, in real time, right? It's gonna come out in decisions. It's gonna make your calendar. It's gonna make your to-do list, okay? It's gonna be a real decision that you make. And you need to do that in a continual fashion. So let me just say a few things about that. Number one, I wanna say it is a burden, though. It is a burden.

Jesus doesn't, he doesn't mince words, right? So he says, like, you let go of your yoke and you put on my yoke. You let go of your burden and you put on my burden. My burden, Jesus says, is easy and light. But why is it still a burden? Well, it's still a burden because it's still work. It's still engaging something. It still takes effort, right? It's still, that effort doesn't save you, but the effort comes along, right? The effort is part of it, right? And so it's still work, but the reason his burden is light is because you are striving toward something that will never fade. Let me tell you, this morning, some of you need to hear that. You need to hear this, so key in on this. You are striving for something right now. I don't care how tired you are. I don't care how disillusioned you are. I don't care how frustrated you are. You are efforting toward something

that will never fade, ever, ever. It is written down in the Lance book of life. It is a treasure in heaven. It is a crown on your head. It will never go away. It will always be valuable from now until eternity. Man, that beats the pants off of any IRA you got. That beats the pants off of any legacy anybody ever had, any title, any position. If you're frustrated that somebody got promoted over you at work or something, just remember, the things that you're working for, look, careers, careers, right? They're great, but it's not heaven. Compare your career to eternity and stifle the laughter a little bit, right? It's not even the same. It's not. And so that burden, that work, is striving toward something that will never fade. And also, that striving, that burden, comes with a promise that the person that you're working for will never leave you or forsake you. It comes with a promise,

and that promise is comforting. And this is why the burden is easy and light. It's because even though a yoke is a symbol of miserable oppression, Jesus' yoke is a source of joy and comfort because Jesus is God incarnate. He's the source. Jesus is in the midst of that burden, and he's saying, look, when you take on this burden, we're working together. You're becoming more like me. Your joy will well up in you. My joy will become your joy. My mind will become your mind, right? We become more like Christ as we effort forward. Yes, it is still a burden, but it is so worth it.

And it doesn't compare even a little to trying to carry your own burden yourself. This is why it's easy and light. And lastly, I wanna say it's continual. Why is it continual? In other words, why is it not just putting Jesus on the calendar one exact time? Why is it a continual thing? Well, it's not because you keep earning it, so let me just be clear. But it is to say that part of the reason that you need to do it continually is because you are continually fighting off the belief that you can handle it now, right?

It's almost like you're bench pressing, and you're doing all this weight, but your spotter is way stacked. Your spotter can just lift what you're lifting with one finger, okay? And so you're pushing so hard, that spotter's kinda helping you a little bit, and you're thinking, oh, okay, I can do this, right? But the spotter giving you so much help, right? And then you're like, okay, spotter, I think I got it now, and just, ugh! You just can't do it anymore, okay? This is how life works when you think like, oh, okay, thank you, Jesus. That was very helpful. You spotted me for a while. I think I can have it on my own, and it just crushes you again. And you're like, no, wait, no. I guess, Jesus, you're not my spotter. I guess you're lifting weights for me.

Man, that really is it, right? It's Jesus lifting weights for you. Like, it's cute that you think you can bench press a lot, but like, Jesus is like, no, wait, no. Let me show you, let me show you how it's done. And so let me just make it very practical, right? What is the work, what is the work to be done? The work to be done, it's kinda two-fold, right? The first thing is that you really need to hear and accept this invitation continually. You need to find ways to remember this invitation. Because if you've been walking with Jesus for any amount of time, you will know that it's just, it's ups and downs, man. It's ups and downs. And sometimes on those downs, you need to hear, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. You need to remember that the burden's not yours, that Jesus is lifting the weights. You need to remember that. And so tonight, tonight, I wanna challenge you tonight

or this afternoon, right? Or whenever you're not watching playoff football. Take 20 minutes, two-zero, 20 minutes. I want you to sit down with the Bible. I want you to pick a psalm, okay? Just pick a psalm, I don't care which one, okay? There's 150 of them. Have at it, it's gonna be great. Pick a psalm. Before you start reading that psalm, oh, and be aware, Psalm 119 has like 150 verses. So if you want it to last 20 minutes, you might need every psalm but 119. Okay, so pick a psalm. Before you start reading it, just pray for some God. Just pray and mean it. Just say, Jesus, I need to hear you. I need to know that you're here with me. I need to be reminded of things that are true. I need to commune with you. And then you start reading, okay? And you don't need to read all the way till the end. You don't. You don't need to read all the way till the end. You can just read, you can just stop

when the Spirit catches your attention with something. It could be the first sentence. It could be the third sentence. It doesn't matter. You can do it all the way through. Maybe you read it again. I don't even know, right? But the Spirit wants to, here's what I do know. Spirit wants to speak to you. Jesus wants to commune with you in that moment. So you read that psalm, and when you do, when the Spirit catches your attention, stop. Reread that part.

Rewrite that part. And then respond to that part. Let me say that again. When you start reading, and something, the Spirit catches your attention with something, stop. You're gonna reread it. You're gonna rewrite it. Just put it in your own words, is what I mean. And then you're gonna respond to it. You're gonna pray again. You're gonna ask for help. You're gonna confess sin. You're gonna do what the Spirit's proffing you to do through those verses, right? Here's the confidence I have in God's word. Man, if somebody's like, hey, I don't know how to follow Jesus, I'd be like, hey, listen, do what I just said, right? Do those things, and we'll talk tomorrow. And I am confident, confident that the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven wants to speak to that person through his word. So confident that I will tell that person to do those things. And then when we talk the next day,

I can say with full confidence, hey, what did the Spirit say to you? What was there? What did you discern? What did you write down? So we need to hear and accept this invitation personally and in a continual fashion. The other thing that we need to do to respond to this, and I just wanna kinda end on this note, is that we need to demonstrate this invitation as a church. Look, today's Vision Sunday, okay? And it's kind of a kickoff, right? We're gonna be talking about this a lot, but let me just help you understand.

One of the ways that our church works toward this vision that Jesus has given us is to make this call extremely clear. So clear, okay? We want it to be so clear that it's an invitation to live this discipling life with Jesus. We want it to be so clear that we're not gonna clutter up a lot with whatever else is going on. We're gonna talk about just doing a few things and all those things are gonna be pointed toward living this life with Jesus, living in the kingdom with Jesus now, right? Following Jesus with everything, putting, following Jesus on the calendar, making that happen in real time with real action. And so if I could, man, I would just say, I want you to imagine just this big circle, right? This big old circle, huge, right? And inside this circle is like the life that Jesus is calling you to live, okay? And I want you to understand like all the stuff

that we talked about before, when we were talking about Vision Sunday, like worship services, home groups, and ministry teams, all those are great. Those make up like less than half of that circle, okay? They make up like a third of that circle. I'm just picking numbers now. But what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is that this life that Jesus has called you to is so much more adventurous. It's so much wilder. It's so many, there's so many kind of ways that Jesus is calling you out to do things in your own life that if you just bottle that up in just in what our church does together, man, you're missing a ton. And this is why we do this. This is why worship services, home groups, ministry teams, this is why they point to something bigger because there is something bigger. It's this big wildlife that Jesus has called you to live with him. And like as a church, we need to just put that

front and center, just make it as big as possible. Jesus is called, come to me, all who are wearing it, all who are wearing and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Jesus's rest, Jesus's call is so much better, so much bigger than even we can imagine. So as a church, we need to make that clear. Look, right now, I want you to consider, if you've said yes to this call, I want you to consider if you have heard Jesus' call to come to him. And if you have not, then what I would love for you to do is I want you to respond. You don't need to respond like right this second, we're gonna have a time of response where we sing, we're gonna call David up. We're gonna have a time of response where we sing, I'm gonna be back there where those two lamps are over there, and the couch and the chairs. I'm just gonna be hanging out there after the service. I'm gonna be hanging out there

during the time that we're singing. And so if you wanna respond, man, if you just need some prayer, if you need to take a step, if you're not really sure where to go from here, man, I'm gonna be sitting over there, I'm chilling. You can come and talk to me. If you want some prayer, if you just wanna talk it out, that's cool. And if the service ends and we're still back there and we're still talking, that's fine, okay? So let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we love you. We know that you have more than just our best interest. You have a life full of following you. You have good deeds lined up for us to do. You have joy that is waiting for us to embrace. You have sacrifice that you want us to just put both of our arms around and just understand what it is to love another person and to be loved by you. Lord, help us to do those things. Give us the courage and the strength to do those things. Lord, pursue us. Help us come to you. In the name that we pray, amen.