Step Right Up

Transcript

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

While most kids are learning about, most boys are learning about car engines, I was busy with my Nintendo Entertainment System. So, hey now. So I did not learn how to change out an alternator on my car until I was in my early 20s. My car battery kept dying. I went through several batteries. I just kind of kept trying, kept trying. But I figured there was something wrong, so I called my father-in-law. Dan Brown, who's a member of our church, and who was my savior that day. And he said, hey, I think the culprit, I just couldn't out of a limb here, Drew. I think the culprit is your alternator, right? So, yeah. See, all of you knew it. I didn't know it. I'm like, battery, weird. So, Dan went with me to, so he helped me kind of figure out it was my alternator. He helped me identify where my alternator was in my car, and he helped me shop for an alternator.

And then, I believe he paid for it, and then he taught me how to change it out myself. So, you know, got a lot of quotes on the myself there. He definitely helped a ton. But after he did that, after Dan Brown took me, like, traced the hand, right? I mean, he's like showing me what to do. When that happened, then something amazing kind of was birthed out of that. Something unexpected. I discovered that I was now more confident about fixing my car. I was much more confident than I was before, whereas before, you know, I would just kind of pop a hood, and there'd be just metal and wires and bolts. I didn't really know where any of it went. But now, I'm sitting there, I'm driving in my car, not now, but right after that, I hear this clicking sound, and I'm like, man, I wonder if that's my exhaust manifold. You know, I'm just, right? I'm not saying I was right. I'm just saying I was confident, okay?

My confidence increased, okay? When we understand the process of kind of how something works, when we see that in play, we become much less scared, and we become much more confident about that whole thing, right? And so, I would be remiss if I did not mention our resident car guy, and if you think you're the resident car guy, and I don't say your name, Dan Hay will fight you. Dan Hay is our resident car guy. Dan Hay has restored several cars his whole life, okay? He did it started as a kid, right? And just working on it, he's restored maybe like two or three different cars now? A lot, a lot, just so much restoring of cars. Basically, if it was built before 1985, there's nothing that Dan Hay does not know about that car. It doesn't matter what car it is. If it was built before then, he knows a lot about it. Carburetor, engine, electrical, exhaust, rotary girders, he knows it all, okay?

He knows it all. I can't even list what he knows, all right? He probably hates it. I'm using him as an example, but that's okay. I didn't even ask him beforehand. This is what it's like being my friend, all right? Dan Hay has supreme confidence, and rightly so, okay? Dan Hay understands cars inside and out. He knows how they work. He knows what they're supposed to do. So, an example to the negative, if somebody would come up to Dan Hay and say, hey, you don't know what you're talking about, you're supposed to pour antifreeze in that gas tank. Dan Hay is not worried in that moment, okay? He's not gasping. He's not, oh, man, I did, you know, he's got me. No, in fact, Dan Hay is probably stifling laughter, okay, for somebody to so confidently assert something so terribly wrong about cars. Dan Hay is going to have to exercise some meekness in that moment. He's going to have to be humble and just say, hey, I think you might not have it right, okay?

Not, hey, you're insane for confidently asserting that you should put antifreeze in the gas tank, okay? Dan Hay is not feeling threatened at all, and it's because of his experience and his confidence, okay? He has supreme confidence. You know, I know we have a few teachers in the house, a few doctors in the house. If somebody who does not have the training that you have comes in and confidently asserts that you're doing something totally wrong and that everything you learned in college and all of your experience that you have is totally misleading and they've totally discovered a new way, I don't know how you'd react, but I imagine, though, that you would not feel threatened in the least because you know about it instinctively. Your confidence, unshaken, right? Nobody's freaking out. Knowledge, then, what we need to see, knowledge aids confidence. It is the bedrock for it.

If you don't know what you're talking about, then you shouldn't be confident in it, okay? But if you do know what you're talking about, if you really know what you're talking about, if you really understand the inside and out, you really get the whole process, then your confidence on that level is unshaken. Some of you have been doing your job, the job you're doing right now, you've been doing it for decades, right? There's nothing you don't know about your job. There might be some new technology, but it's not throwing you. You're adapting, you're doing just fine, right? That kind of confidence only comes with time and knowledge, okay? Today we are going to be covering what many consider to be their favorite part of the Bible. Many Bible scholars are like, I love this part of the Bible. It's Romans, Chapter 8, Verses 1-11, okay? And somewhere, a theologian that we cannot see just shed a tear because we're talking about Romans 11 on a Sunday morning, okay?

I'm telling you, people go crazy over these verses. They love them. They're good verses. I might be misquoting here, but I believe it was Martin Luther who called Romans 8 like the crown jewel of the New Testament. Something like that, okay? I mean, it's widely accepted that this is a really, really great part of the Bible. What I want to do today, what I want to show you in Romans 8, 1-11, is that there is a process here that we can know better. There is a process here that we can know so well that we begin to have confidence in it. In fact, if you're a believer, the reason that we have Romans 8, 1-11 is so that you can have confidence in this process, in this thing here, what we're talking about. And this is the process of Jesus setting people free, okay? That when you know this process, it's not just theology, it's not just information. It's actually something that when you see this play out, when you understand, when you grasp the process, you engage it, you use it to pray, you use it to repent, you use it to believe, you use it to fight spiritual battles.

When you do that, it will brick in you a spiritual confidence into your soul. You will be able to hold fast through many, many things, many other things that would normally kind of blow you down when you have that confidence in you. And something seeks to shake that confidence. You will know what you know. And you will not be shaken. Most people need to grow their confidence in Jesus's work so that when we face doubt, right? When we face doubt, we're not stuck in a loop. I'm not saying that, you know, doubt is always, you know, you don't need to be ashamed of doubt. But you also don't need to be paralyzed by it. When you commit sin, like that same sin, you've been trying to stop committing for decades, you commit that sin, it doesn't run you aground. You have confidence. When you are scared to take a risk for the Lord, you're scared to share your faith, you're scared to speak out, you're able, if you have that confidence, you're able to break down what's going on, you're able to understand it in a different capacity rather than just kind of going down in fear.

And when you do this, when you do this, you will have a medal, a spiritual gravitas, a confidence, a supreme confidence, a Dan Hey with cars confidence, a spiritual confidence that can last through anything. So let's get into these verses and what we're going to do, we're going to learn how the hows and the whys of our freedom brick in this spiritual confidence. So let's learn. Let's learn Romans chapter eight, verses one and two, it says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Why for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. We need to understand this on this basic point. This is kind of the launching off point that Jesus has undone your slavery to sin. We need to understand this because it gets confused a little bit. It's actually a big point of confusion with people outside of Christianity or people that are just becoming Christians is that they think when they read these verses, they think that Christians don't sin anymore.

Or they think that Christians don't think they sin anymore. OK, both of those are super confusing. The reality is that we do not need to fear death anymore because before you are set free in Jesus Christ, sin and death are the bitter end of life. They are inevitable. They will take you down. Death is the thing that people avoid at all costs. OK, that's what death is outside. Outside of Jesus, death is staring you down and you fear it. OK, Jesus says people free in that sin and death do no they no longer hold leverage over you. That's a difference between never sinning anymore. Right. And what we're talking about now holding leverage. Death doesn't hold you at knife point anymore. Sin slavery doesn't have its forearm to your neck. It's not choking you out. How did Jesus do this? How did Jesus undo our slavery? We should know. Next verse, verse three, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh. Look, that's a lot of flesh and sin right there. So it's hard to kind of nail down what's going on. Jesus set us free when he defeated our old master. Now we've been talking about this for weeks now. So this is a little bit of a recap. If you haven't been here, great. You're still you're getting the primary right here. We defeated Jesus, defeated our old master. He defeated our accuser by dying our death. When he died our death, we're no longer in sight to sin. OK, so it's not just that you're set free from prison. OK, it's not just that it's that the prison that you were in is gone. It's leveled. It's no longer there. It doesn't stand. There's no guards there. There's no nothing there. It's just gone. There's only an illusion of it, only a memory of it. But it's gone. Do you see that? Do you understand the gravity of it?

We sing, for example, my chains are gone. I've been set free. Can we just sing that? Right? Look, it's not like your chains are six feet away from you waiting to come back on. They're gone. They have ceased to exist. And that's really, really good information when the illusion is that you have chains on you. It's a really good thing to remember when you think you're in slavery. Jesus has undone our slavery by completely defeating our old master. Romans 8, 4, why? Why did Jesus do this? This is important. Don't miss it. It'll help you with your confidence. He did this in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. OK? Why did Jesus set you free? Why did he take your chains off? Why did he eradicate your prison? Why did he do that? In order for the righteous requirement of the law to be fulfilled in us, we need some clarity right here. OK?

Jesus set you free for obedience. We often think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we want. We've talked about this recently. But when we are set free, we're not just released into the wild. OK? It's not like, I mean, that would be like setting an infant free to roam on I-35 at 5 p.m. OK? Right? Oh, there's freedom. That baby can go wherever he wants. But that baby's gone. OK? It's not freedom. It's not real freedom. That's not what Jesus gives us.

What we often fail to grasp is that the righteous requirement of the law, right there, the righteous requirement of the law, it did not just go away. It stayed there. The righteous requirement of the law is there because God is holy. God didn't quit being holy when he forgave you. When he set you free. It didn't quit being who he was. The righteous requirement is still there. And you might say, if you're a little savvy, you might say, well, Jesus fulfills the righteous requirement. And you'd be right. Jesus does do that. You know how he does that? In your obedience. Jesus fulfills the righteous requirement of the law by the way you live. Now, it doesn't work the opposite to where the way you live can discount whatever Jesus has done. But it does work this way, that Jesus fulfills the righteous requirement of the law, but he doesn't just do it in the ether.

He doesn't just do it out there where you aren't. He doesn't just do it, like, you know, he doesn't do it in a different state and then we'll kind of mail you the results. This isn't 23andMe. Jesus is in you fulfilling right now in real time the righteous requirement of the law. What's the righteous requirement of the law? Perfection. Obedience. That's the whole point. So the whole point of the law for people to be obedient. Why do we give our kids rules so that they can do what we ask? Well, no. I mean, we want them to grow and be strong and healthy and be productive members of society. Dang it. I mean, we don't just give them rules because we want something to fight about every other day. Well, might seem that way, but it's not. I promise. We give them because we love them, because we care for them, because we want to give them structure. We want to help them. The rules that God gave us. I mean, go back and read in the Old Testament.

The rules that God gave us are for our good. But because we can't meet them, they condemn us. We talked about this last week. We have all of our sermons available on our website. I feel like this is really appropriate to say at this point. You can go back and listen to a lot of these sermons. I'm doing a lot of referencing here. In Ezekiel, this is back in the Old Testament, but it's prophesying what's happening now. Ezekiel 36, it says, this is the Lord talking about what He's going to do for His people. I want you to just see if this sounds familiar. This is what the Lord's saying. He's going to do with His people. It says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. From all of your uncleanness and from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of flesh.

Excuse me. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I'll remove the heart heart. I will put in a soft heart. Right? And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. What does God want for you? He doesn't want you just to be free. He doesn't want you just to have a new heart. He wants you to live the life that He has died to give you. It means you obey. And doesn't mean you just like check it off and like get to build your own righteousness tower. No, no, no, no. Let's not lose the point before we've grasped it. We obey as a result of being made new. We've been given a new heart in the Bible. The process is always cleansing, equipping obedience. Cleansing, equipping obedience. And Jesus does it all. Jesus does the cleansing, He does the equipping, and He does the obedience.

He does it in us. Just the same way He cleans you, He obeys through you. The same way He equips you, He cleans you. It all works by Jesus through the Holy Spirit doing something in you that is new. Bringing about something new. And this is always the direction. Cleansing, equipping obedience. What verses 5-11 do, so we've just gone through 1-4. What verses 5-11 do is they give us the instruction on how this obedience works. How it works. This is how to walk in your freedom. Verse 5, it says, For those who live according to the flesh, set their mind on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, set their mind on the things of the Spirit. Now don't read this wrong. Again, you need to have clarity here. We need to have sharp focus and understanding on what these verses are saying. Because if we misread them, we're not going to understand. We're not going to have confidence. It's going to be shaky.

We need to understand this now in a good way, okay? Sometimes we read these verses and we say, okay, which one am I? If I have my mind on things of, okay, well I guess I'm living according to the flesh. No. What this verse is saying is that whenever Jesus died, to make you new, give you a new heart, make you obedient, then you are now living according to the Spirit. It's not asking you. This isn't multiple choice. It's making a difference to say you were this way, first part, those who live according to the flesh, you are now this way. If you are in Christ, if you've said yes to following Jesus, you are now living according to the Spirit. However you feel about it doesn't make any difference. You are now doing that. Just like you are now an obedient child. First Peter 1 calls you an obedient child. You don't always feel like an obedient child. Your actions don't always reflect the fact that you're an obedient child,

but it doesn't change your identity. You are an obedient child. If you said yes to following Jesus, that's it. There's not another like echelon, right? You don't graduate to missionary status when you don't sin anymore. That's not how this works. We're all saints. The word saints means holy ones. You're already holy. Jesus has made you holy. I know you don't feel it. I don't feel it. Not a lot. But it doesn't change what Jesus has done. We really got to grasp it. We really got to see it. When it says to set your mind on things of the Spirit, we also need to understand that if we're going to live a holy life, that obedience begins in the mind. Obedience begins in how you even consider yourself, right? There is something that psychology calls a self-fulfilling prophecy. Self-fulfilling prophecy goes something like this. You never think you're going to make it, so you never make it.

That's the very dumbed-down version of a self-fulfilling prophecy. What they're trying to grasp at is that obedience begins in the mind. What they're trying to reflect is the fact that the way the Lord has made human beings to work is that if you believe that you are some second-class, idiot Christian that's never going to amount to anything, then it is likely that you will continue to be in your mind and perform as a second-class, idiot Christian that's never going to be good for anything. You're never going to aspire. You're not going to realize what the Lord has done in you to build in you. You're not going to grow. You're not going to mature. You're not going to do any of those things. Because in your mind, you're already overachieving. In your mind, you're like, man, I've read my Bible once this year and I'm at church today. Okay. I'm glad when you read your Bible and I'm glad that when you come to a church service, but Jesus did not die on a cross for you to sit in a pew or a chair.

He wants more for you than that, quite candidly. If you're aiming too low, you're aiming too low. Obedience begins in the mind. What are you meditating on? 2 Corinthians 10, 5 tells us that we need to take every thought captive. Colossians 3, 1 and 2 says to seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, yet set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. Meditate on what is happening in the spiritual realm. You need to do this. You need to meditate on what is happening in the spiritual realm, even when things that are happening in the physical realm seem out of control. And look, I feel like I'm saying this a lot, but you really need to get this, right? You need to see this. When you go through something tumultuous, when you go through a loss, when you go through a major change, when you experience trouble in your marriage or with your family, when you go through depression, when you go through major battles of anxiety, when you go through all of those things.

If all you're meditating on is the physical, then you will miss what is truly going on. There's a whole spiritual component to what is going on in you, around you, with the people, and then you're going to miss it if you are not meditating on what is happening there. If all you do is meditate on the physical realm, all you will fear, all you will feel is fear. Let me say that again because I butchered it. When you only meditate on the physical realm, when you only meditate on what's around you, what you can control, what you can see, what you can sense. If that's the only thing you meditate on, the only thing that's going to equal ever is fear. Ever. Ever. You're not going to look around you and go, I have control of everything in my life. I feel great right now. It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. Ever. Spoiler alert. And if it does ever feel that way, it's because you're dumb.

Literally, you are ignorant of an impending threat of things you can't control. I don't mean to call you dumb. Sorry, that was probably a little rude of me. My wife's going to tell me something about that later. You don't need to say dumb, Drew. Okay. Sorry. Truly. Here, you know what? Let's let Romans speak. Here's how Romans eight says it. Verses six and seven. It uses a stronger word than dumb. But to set the mind on the flesh is death. It's way worse than being dumb. It's dead. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Look, take a moment right now. Take a moment. You can close your eyes. Some of you already got them closed. That's good. Take your pulse right now. Take your spiritual pulse right now.

Do you feel life and peace? It's a question. The answer is no. If you're saying no, I don't feel life and peace. Let me tell you. The answer is not. Okay, well, then try harder. That's not the answer. Rather, the answer is to pray for the power to meditate on the spiritual realm. Focus on higher truth on what is actually going on in a given situation. Okay, you can open your eyes now. Meditate on the spiritual realm. This is what Romans eight, nine says. It says you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. It doesn't matter how you feel. Here is the process that you need to know. That you need to have in your bones. That you need to remember when you're in a crisis. That it's always going to be true. Here is the process that if you are following Jesus, you are in the spirit.

You have access to the spirit. You can meditate on the spiritual realm. You can access to those truths. Here's more encouragement. Verse 10, it says, but if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. Listen, listen, the body is dead because of sin. Listen, I know you're alive. At least I hope so. I know you're alive, but you and I, because we are alive, we are also in the process of dying. I don't want to freak you out, but your body is going toward death. If you want to start doing things to make the body better, that's great, but your workout plan can be killer, but it's got a shelf life. You can't work out enough to live forever. You just can't. I know some of you are trying. I see you. You're trying. You're trim. You're good. But it's not. The body is always going to end in death, right? If you're putting your hope, you're meditating on the things that are just around you,

you're putting your hope in how you look, you're putting your hope in how you feel and how great your family is and what your house looks like. If that's where all your hope is, then that will end in death. In fact, you're just going to live your life afraid that you're going to lose it. But the spirit is life because of righteousness. The next verse is kind of double down on this, and they introduce another really good idea that we're going to just meditate on here for just a minute. Verse 11. It says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. Now, that should get your attention just first off. The mailbox flag should go up, so I'm receiving something here. Okay. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead, which is very powerful, dwells in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

Okay. Meditating on the spiritual realm. Right? So you're meditating on the spiritual realm, but at the same time, you are also utilizing, taking advantage of, resurrection power that is yours in Christ Jesus. And look, before you, before you mishear me, I'm not talking about living your best life now. I'm not talking about speaking something into existence, right? We're not like tripping into prosperity here. What we're doing is we're reading Romans 8, 11 and taking it seriously. Okay. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, okay, this is resurrection power. It's yours in Jesus Christ. What is it there to do? It's there for you. Go with me here. You use resurrection power to build a spiritual future. Use the resurrection power that you have now that's yours in Christ Jesus to build a spiritual future. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 6 when he says, we're going to put our treasure in heaven. Okay.

You don't put your treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy, where these can break in and steal it. You don't do that. It's not where you put your treasure. You put your treasure in heaven. You build a spiritual foundation for the future. You build a, you build up your spiritual future. What do I mean? Well, first I just want to say we need to take seriously Jesus's prayer to the Father when he says, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Okay. If your attitude is always, well, this earth is going to hell in a hand basket and I'm just not, I'm not even worried about it. It's just going to be great whenever I'm dead. Okay. That's cool. But you're not exactly following Jesus's prayer here. Okay. Jesus is saying that he wants the kingdom to break in on earth, not just in heaven. That we're, that we're a part of something that is coming in, in pieces, ever, ever so broken, right?

Through us. We are so broken. It's coming in through us. Too often we are content with the parameters that the world puts in front of us. Make these grades, follow this path. Don't rock the boat. Marry this person. Do, do what's expected of you. Do all the socially right things. It would be, it would be the same as acting like a prisoner whenever you're set free. It would be just as crazy as wearing an ankle monitor just for kicks. Just because you're used to it. What are those shackles doing on you? Well, I don't know. I mean, I kind of like to look up. I like the way the chains rattle when I try to like reach for my alarm clock, but then my other hand has to move because I'm shackled to it. Right? You start treating all of your friends like parole officers. You just call them just to check in and say, hey, I just want you to know I, you know, I did a few bad things.

Acting like a prisoner. In Jesus Christ, you are not a prisoner. Just trying to not get caught. If that's you, if that's your spiritual mentality, look, I feel really bad. I do. My heart goes out to you. I suffered that way. It is terrible. And the only thing I can tell you, short of just slapping you across the face, which I don't want to do, but if it got your attention, then I might do it. What I want to do is, and all I really can do is tell you, it's not true. It's not true. It would be like somebody who has identity confusion. Like if I actually thought I was Cindy Hightower, right? If I actually believed that, like in my core, what could you do to convince me otherwise? Well, you could do a lot of things. But if I just kind of refused, I mean, eventually, like you're going to either slap me, you're going to show me my ID, you're going to make me look in a mirror, you're going to do something to go, look, look, it's you.

Don't forget who you are. Don't forget who you are. You are a follower of Jesus that is able to obey. You're not the dumb kid who just kicks the dirt and hopes to get by, hopes to not get noticed by the principle. You are a follower of Jesus that you are able, you are powerful, you can meditate on the spiritual realm, you can understand what is going on spiritually. You're not just dictated to by your circumstances. You're able to tap into resurrection power and build a spiritual future. I want to leave you just spiritual future. Let's just talk about that for just a second. Jesus called you into a different life. Jesus called you into a life of radical service, of generous encouragement, of spiritual communion. Jesus has called you into a life of gospel proclamation. He hasn't called you to a life where you don't have what you need and man, maybe if you can just make it and you can just get caught up on your streaming services and you can kind of keep your head down and your notes clean, maybe nobody will notice.

That's a terrible way to live spiritually. When you sing a worship song, when you sing a worship song and you are feeling it on the inside, man, I mean you are just vibing with that song. You're singing it loud, you might look a little dumb but you don't care. It could be in a church service, it could be in your car, I don't care, it could be in your bedroom. Anywhere, right? When you're doing that, just remember, that is reality. You freaking out about how you're going to pay rent, that's not. You worshiping your heart out, you serving another person and deriving unspeakable joy from benefiting another person, that's reality. In Jesus Christ, that's what you're created to do, that's the life you're called to live. When you take a risk for the Lord and you know it's going to cost you but you do and you feel the Lord's pleasure, you feel it coursing through your veins, yes, that is reality.

That is who you are. That's a moment in time where you come awake. That's the truth. Not you huddled in fear and a ball, not knowing where the next month's rent is going to come from or not knowing what you're going to do about your job or not knowing what you're going to do about your kids or how you're going to solve your marriage. Look, all these things, we're all dealing with all these things. We all got them. We all got one crisis or another, sometimes multiple. God bless us all. But you need to know, you need to know that your fear is not your identity and that in some small way, what you can pray for, what you can hope for is for the Lord God in heaven. And maybe some of you could be an instrument for this, for the Lord God in heaven to come to you, to look you in the eyes, to grab you on the shoulders and absolutely shake you until your neck is almost broken and say, wake up.

Remember who you are. Look in a mirror. Get your identity out because we only got one life here, man. The Lord has put you here, part of this church, cooperating, working together. And some of you are like, it's my first Sunday. That's fine. You just still put you here this morning. OK, look, I'm not trying to get you to join. Although if you want to, you know, if you want to give an offering, it's fine. I want you to imagine, I'm just I'm kidding. I want you to imagine how your life would look different if you weren't paralyzed by fear, if you weren't distracted by pleasures, if you weren't constantly wondering what's next. But instead, you were thankful for what is. Instead, you had a you had a godly ambition to build a spiritual future, be it ever so humble. Look, I'm not saying we all need to like start nonprofits that, you know, change the world tomorrow.

That's not what I'm talking about at all. The kingdom of God starts as a small seed and then grows to something big, but we're not in charge of the growth. We're in charge of just OK, we got a seed. Let's see what happens. We're not responsible for how big it gets. My encouragement to you. Look, plant, plant yourself, serve somebody, be generous, pray, read your Bible, commune with the Lord and then take a risk. Do what the Lord's calling you to do, even if you look dumb doing it, do it because I make you promise you'll never you'll never be sorry in heaven that you took that risk on earth ever, ever to guarantee.

Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for the ability to dream, the ability to meditate on spiritual things. God, we need so much help doing this. We need so much help knowing what to do next. We need so much help figuring out if we're doing it right, doing it wrong. Lord, help us to remember who we are and help us to remember who you are, that you are full of grace, that you desire us to grow and be strong, that you want us to take hold of what you have given us. You want us to run with resurrection power and in turn into we pray.