Cohort Week 2++

today we're going to talk.

I'm not really going to go into the material that you studied this last week, because I want you to, at the front end, kind of experience what I sometimes do.

I don't always do it exactly the same.

I don't always necessarily go back in the materials we just covered and let the materials speak for themselves.

And then I add some additional things that are more challenging to you, maybe personally, spiritually, at, this moment.

Something that I just feel like the Lord has put in my heart to share with you.

And so today, I want to talk a little bit about unfinished business.

Unfinished business.

You know, we all have our spaces where we kind of hide out when we try to get away from everybody else.

I don't know if it's your sewing room, whether it's your man cave.

I don't know where you go, to hide away from people when you are trying to kind of get a sense of, hey, what's going on?

I need a break.

I need to get away from everybody.

like, even this last week, you know, I had a day where I just kind of woke up.

I was doing my work, my, my research and stuff, and I.

And I just kind of felt like, a little depressed, you know, it's like.

Because I started to think about the future and, you know, and I started thinking about, you know, what am I going to do going forward beyond here?

You know, and so sometimes we project into the future.

Some people project into the past, some people project into the future.

it just depends on, I guess, the time of day.

And so sometimes you're messed up about where you're in, you know, so the enemy comes and tells you, you know.

Yeah, you know, you, you didn't really accomplish much, and there's, not much for you to do.

And so you have to fight that stuff.

How many of you know that's true?

You got to fight that stuff.

And, so what I found is, I said, you know what?

I kind of want to talk about this, and I want to kind of talk about how, how to get out of it.

sometimes we get stuck in our man cave, in our space.

And sometimes it's not a geographical place that you can put a, you know, a tracker on and say, that's the room or that's the space or that's where we go.

sometimes it's between your ears.

And so there's a man cave between your ears.

Even if you're a woman, you know, a place where you go and I don't know about you guys, but sometimes my wife asks me, what are you thinking about?

I'm like, nothing.

And so she laughs.

She says, you're in your nothing box again.

You know, I just cannot think about stuff right now.

It's too much.

I don't want to think about it.

I'm overwhelmed.

And so sometimes what we do is we begin to furnish our man caves or our boxes, and we make them nice and cozy and comfortable, and that's where we hang out.

And, so I want to talk about, being frozen in that space, that comfort zone, and how do we get our way out of there?

Because you can get stuck in there for years.

You, can find a new addiction there.

I mean, the devil will find you in your comfort zone.

And, for all of us, we all try to establish comfortable spaces.

And sometimes you have to watch your comfortable spaces because, yeah, you quote, unquote, deserve them, but sometimes they can become a trap, and you can get stuck in there, like at a roach motel.

Right?

And so, let's, explore that a little bit.

so I want to address how we can break free from being frozen in space and time and kind of becoming stuck, and how we can break out and break through into some new things.

Now, you already in this class, so you already took some steps in this next year to be disciplined and to learn new things.

But I want to let you know that if you are still alive and at this meeting today, it is because you have some unfinished business in your life, and you know it.

And, you sense that God has not taken you out yet.

you're still here.

I, mean, some of your friends, we go to high school reunion.

Some of them are not there anymore.

Their life was cut short or shorter.

And so, I think that there's something to be said that we have some unfinished business in our lives that God wants to help us successfully transform into a story for his glory.

And so, I want to get started with scripture.

And now that I have my preamble out of the way, Psalm 44.

And I think this concept that is encapsulated in the scripture is what helps us to go forward.

it's in Psalm 44, verse 1, and verse 3, it says this.

O God, we have heard with our ears.

Our, fathers told us the work that you did in their days, in the days of old.

Let me just stop there.

Saying is that sometimes we grow up in church and we hear things that God has done for the missionaries.

So what he's done for brother Andrew, what he's done for the Bible smugglers or for different people in different places.

And so we hear these stories of God's miracles and, we grew up in them and we love them, but that we only heard it, we've never seen it.

And so, while that is great, there's more.

There's some unfinished business in your life where you need to begin to say to the Lord.

Lord, I want to not just hear about this stuff.

I want to see this stuff happen in my life.

Now, all of us can probably relate to a story, something that happened in your past.

And you would say, man, that was miraculous.

That was God.

I mean, meeting this person at this time, or when I made this move, you know, this was really God.

But, let's continue with the scripture.

He says, we've heard with our ears.

Our fathers told us the work that you did in their days, in the days of old.

For by their own sword.

Now listen to this, this is important.

Who with their own sword.

And they did not possess the land.

So the grounds that they've gained, the conquest they've made was not because of their own strength.

This is so key because what happens to us in our comfort zone, we begin to look at our inability and we reference that and say to God.

God, I've run out.

I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not young enough, or I'm too old, I'm, too this, I'm too that.

And you begin to buy into certain lies that the enemy wants to tell you.

And so for by their own sword, they did not possess the land.

So whatever God promised you individually me, we will not possess it with our own strength.

It's impossible.

You're not good enough, you're not smart enough, and you don't know the future.

So how can you obtain the promised land that God has for you?

It says here, and their own arm did not save them.

In other words, when you get in a difficult situation, it's not going to be insurance policy.

It's going to get you out.

Because you know how that sometimes goes wrong.

It's not going to be, it's not going to be your effort that's going to save you when you get stuck, when you get trapped by the enemy.

We've all been trapped by the enemy.

At some point we recognize, man, that was really dumb.

How did I get in that situation?

It's not going to be your own arm that's going to get you out of that, but your right hand and your arm and the light of your presence, for you favored them.

It's the favor of the Lord in our lives that has positioned us to be participants in his grace and his goodness and his mercy.

But when we are in our comfort zone, when we are in our cave, when we begin to talk to, ourselves about our future, our children, or what, what we have accomplished or how we failed or how we succeeded, all of those conversations, we tend to look at our strength, our part in the story.

And we have to get to the place where we begin to look more towards God's role in these things.

That, my friends, where God wants to take you, you cannot go alone.

And if you are going to become the person that God has still kept your life to become, going to take God.

And if you always depend, and I'm going to speak next week on this in the church, if you always depend on your strength, your wisdom, your training, technology, whatever money, then you're not going to accomplish what God wants you to accomplish.

Okay?

It's the favor of the Lord.

It's the favor.

I love this.

The light of your presence, God's presence in your life is marked and beautiful.

And the demonic spirits in hell can see that you belong to Jesus.

And you have to understand that when you go to, countries like Brazil or Africa, where there's a lot of supernatural stuff going on, where people have sold their souls to the devil and there's witchcraft and there's all kinds of stuff.

When you show up in that room with that anointing of the Holy Spirit inside of you, the demonic spirits that are at work in them cringe before the power of God in you.

Now, you're just the lamp that the light shines out of, right?

But literally, those spirits are fearful of Christians taking their authority over them.

I was once preaching at a church in, Vista, California, and this man came in and he started to foam with the mouth, roll on the ground, yell, make noise.

And, you know, the ushers wanted to rush in and grab me.

I said, stop, stop, stop.

I spoke to the spirit and the man.

I said, now, you'll be quiet and you will listen to me preach the message, and you will hear all about what Jesus has done, to defeat you.

And then you will leave the man.

Calm down.

I started to preach, and, I talked.

I began to lace into my conversation a lot about the blood of Jesus, the victory of Jesus, the cross of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the coming of Jesus, the author, Jesus.

And every time I did it.

This man was just quaking on the ground.

He just laid there quietly, didn't make any more commotion.

And by the end of the service he was free.

He left today.

He's a pastor of a church in, somewhere in San Diego County.

I remember forgot the town's name in Bonnesville, California.

He has a house, church.

And, I had to sell my house.

I didn't know this.

What happened to him?

I don't know who he was.

It's just a guy that showed up and acted weird and prayed.

But it's the light of God's countenance on us that sets the captives free.

It is the arm of God.

It's not, I'm not a bag of chips and all that.

I'm nothing.

If without the Holy Spirit, I will be totally defeated by that same spirit that cast that man, who's a grown man, by the way, who doesn't want to make a scene.

He's a grown person.

He doesn't want to make a scene in front of a whole building filled with people.

Come on.

No grown person would want to go and roll and foam at the mouth and scream in the front of the building.

but he got set free.

And so I met him later and he said his name was Brad and says, so he was helping me sell my house out of hand, not using an agent.

And he was an agent.

I want to just bless you.

Let me help you, show you how you can sell your own home.

And he says, pastor, do you know how I first met you?

I said, no, Brad, where do we meet?

You know?

Because it came through another person.

And he says, well, I was in church one day and I came and I ran to the front and I started to act weird.

The spirit, there was a spirit on me and I manifested this stuff.

And then you just said, be quiet and listen to the sermon.

And then I left and placed free.

I said, well, how did that happen for you?

How did you become bound by the spirit?

He says, when I was a little kid, my grandma lived in our home.

And, she was into a lot of stuff.

And so the room in which she lived in our home, what used to be my little room that she moved in and grandma died in that room.

And then right after she died, I was put back in my room.

And he says, the first, and it was like a five year old.

He says, the night, the first night I slept in there, the lights were turned off.

My mom and dad said good night to me.

I was all alone in there.

And I looked over at the closet and there were these green eyes looking at me and I could see them.

And so the only way as a five year old and only do is like he started to talk to this little creature and start a conversation with the spirit.

And then it became like his little pet, not knowing that he's opening himself up to this demonic spirit in his life.

And this was the spirit that was with his grandmother.

But now the grandmother's gone, so he needed a new place to go and park.

And he wanted to park on this little boy.

Fast forward many, many, many years.

Now he is using that spirit to hurt kids at school, accidents happening to people because they bullied him.

So now he's saying, spirit, go and attack them and give them pain, let them break an arm and stuff would happen.

And so he and the spirit had a relationship.

And so he shows up on this meeting.

I don't know why he showed up at church.

He says, pastor, I just, I was set free.

That thing left me.

Jesus, came, he filled with his spirit.

I'm a changed man and I just want to say thank you.

And I'm like, I had no idea.

But it was not my power, my strength, anything.

Listen, I'm a security cat.

I will not get involved with fights and confrontations and any of that stuff.

But Christ in me, Christ in you.

And I'm saying this to you because I'm talking to you about your comfort zone.

You have to understand that you have authority, authority over what happens in your home.

If you have nightmares and night terrors where you feel like something is on top of you choking you, you have authority over that.

You call on the name of Jesus, you see, get out of here.

You ask God's blood to cover you and your family and your home, you can be set free.

But it's not your right arm.

You are not it.

It's Him.

In him we live and move and have our being.

And so when these types of things happen, I just want you to be ready to know this, that the God inside of you is much more powerful than you will ever imagine.

And the way he wants to use you is more creative than you can ever imagine.

And that you have authority in your home in the way you pray, in the way you present yourself.

You are a child of God.

You're an ambassador to, for the kingdom of God.

And wherever you set your foot, God has given unto you.

And so it's in the light of that that I just want to talk to you.

Today and just say, you know, a lot of believers, live their lives.

I'll give you eight.

Hunker down, Pastor Ian.

I can't read your handwriting.

That's why I need a special gift.

Hunkered, hunker down, heads down.

you know, don't bother me.

I'm in survival mode here.

I'm into maintenance more than growth in my life.

I'm more about protecting what I already have than pursuing new things and risking some things.

I'm living in quiet fear and anxiety every single day.

I hope nobody asks me.

I hope nobody exposes me.

I hope nobody looks my way, because I'm living in fear.

And I want to let you know that God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.

And that God is going to begin to stretch you a little bit.

And when he stretches you, he's not expecting you to snap back to where you were before.

He wants to stretch you, Brother Ron.

He wants to stretch you, my friends.

He wants to stretch each one of, us.

And so you look at the biblical example of Abraham.

He's an older dude.

God has made him promises, and so now he's kind of like, you know, I've tried my best.

You know, we did the Hagar thing that blew, up, you know.

You know, we tried to help God.

God didn't need my help.

I messed it up.

And so he's unsure.

He's waiting.

He's like, what happened to this prophecy?

You know, this promise that God gave me?

You know, I'm going to be a father of many nations.

And then God shows up.

God shows up and talk to him in Genesis, chapter 15, and he says, step outside of your tent.

Step out of your cave.

Step out of your comfort zone.

Step out of your spot where you hang out and think those thoughts.

that space where you go to think these thoughts.

And he takes him outside.

And if you were with me yesterday at the men's camp, you know, it's up in the mountains, and you look up there, and the skies are just like, just brilliant.

And, all of his stars and God see that?

Chin up, boy.

Chin up.

Look up.

I want to do that for you.

When I make a promise, I don't take it back.

I mean what I say, and I say what I mean.

And so for each one of us, in that case, this is our vertical example.

It's Abraham, but he's hunkered down.

It's like, what's going to happen?

You look at Gideon Judges, Chapter six.

he's doing a job that should be done on a threshing floor, on a mountaintop where you.

Or like on a hill where the wind is blowing.

And so when you beat the grain, the wind separates the chaff.

He's doing this in a subterranean space, and he's feeling safe from the Midianites.

And he's kind of insecure, and he's thinking God has abandoned them.

God doesn't care.

And here he is out, hiding out, just trying to keep his head down.

Just want to stay underneath the radar, so to speak.

You look at Elijah.

He's being chased by a woman's ladder that was sent to him.

Hey, I'm going to get you.

I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to behead you like you beheaded my prophets on that mountain.

I'm going to get you.

And that's in First Kings, chapter 19.

And God begins to work with him.

At some point, he's on the mountaintop, and God says, get out of the cave.

Step out.

Step out of your cave.

Step out of that spot where you're hiding right now.

I want to talk to you.

And, so for each one of us, you know, sometimes.

Hey, sometimes we're just frozen in space.

We're just frozen in a place.

And I want to talk a little bit about being frozen.

let me just make sure I have the right number here.

Frozen.

I have a system here, believe it or not.

Actually, frozen is up to here.

And, for these two.

And then frozen.

Somebody say frozen?

Frozen.

See, a lot of God's chosen are frozen.

We are frozen.

We are stuck in space.

We are stuck.

We are frozen.

and that's no way to live.

the second H stands for hurt.

Hurt.

Hurt in our feelings, hurt in how we feel.

And we are kind of limping.

We are walking with a limp.

And we've internalized our pain.

Maybe you didn't get that promotion at work.

Maybe things didn't work out the way exactly you wanted them to work out.

And so you have to understand that this stuff is important for you to pay attention to.

Because you have to ask yourself, why is it that I'm kind of stuck right now?

for me, this week, when I was thinking through my stuff, I'm like, everything is in place.

Everything is there.

Why are you having a stupid conversation in your head?

Stop it.

Somebody say, stop it.

Stop it, stop it.

you know, Bob Newhart does this whole thing about Stop it.

And he's a psychologist, and somebody Comes to advice and says, well, okay, I can only give you five minutes.

You may not like the way I'm going to say it, but, Put $5 down.

So they put down $5.

He says, well, you know, if I do this, you know, I get really.

And he goes, stop it.

It's like, what do you mean?

What about my feelings?

Like, stop it.

And she said, well, you don't understand.

You know, I'm hurt.

And stop it.

She said, well, you're very insensitive.

It's like, we're already entering the second five minutes, so you need to put another $5.

And so whatever she said, he just said, stop that.

And, of course, it's not that simple, right?

It is a process.

It's where we need to get.

But some of us are hurt.

We have unanswered prayers, some things that we've been praying for.

Maybe it's our kids, maybe it's our job, maybe it's our mate, for life.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know.

Every one of us here.

Have some unanswered prayers.

Can you say yes to that?

Have some unanswered prayers.

And so we are hurt.

And when you're hurt, you begin to.

You begin to believe some of those lies that we dealt with last year.

You know, I'm all alone.

God, you know, God doesn't care.

God forgot God.

And the problem is of God, or I'm not enough.

I'm all alone, you know?

so when you're hurt, you're frozen.

And so there will be a call to you, God being God, there will be a call.

You're not just frozen.

You're also cold.

You are cold.

And the first thing you need to do is you need to hear that call.

You need to open up your ear hearing or hear the call.

we are so distracted that we don't hear the voice of the Lord anymore.

And that's the enemy's whole agenda is to so distract us.

Get us involved in politics, get us involved in this, get us involved in that.

Get us involved in entertainment, in sport, in gambling, in whatever addiction that you can conjure.

just get you away from hearing the voice of God.

And little Samuel, in the middle of the night, hears God calling him.

And he goes to Eli, says, master, here I am.

And finally, Eli realizes, hey, I think this boy has been called by God.

And he says, next time, say, speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

And we all have to get to that place where we say, speak.

Lord, your servant, is listening.

See, God speaks to us in our caves.

If we will just pay attention.

If we will just stop long enough to say, speak, Lord, I'm willing to hear what you have to say.

Because we sometimes know that he may say some stuff, whisper some stuff, deal with some stuff we don't want to deal with.

In fact, we are in our cave because we are overwhelmed by the thing that we have to deal with.

But when you have a conversation with the living God, suddenly you realize that he's calling you into partnership.

You're not alone.

You never were alone.

He's always been there.

Well, how come he didn't help me earlier?

Well, maybe you weren't really listening earlier.

And so, he says to Abraham, chinna, gaze at the stars a little bit, man.

He, goes to Gideon and he says, go in the strength you already have.

In other words, you don't need anything else.

Yeah, but I don't have this, and I don't have that.

And God should give me this.

No, no, no.

Start where you are.

Start right where you are, and take the first baby step out of that spot and the next baby step, and then suddenly, you'll begin to lengthen your stride.

And then you'll begin to run.

But you can't run until you walk.

And when you're a baby, you can't walk until you crawl and get up, and begin the perilous journey across the floor towards your mom or your dad.

And nobody here is mad at a little kid that's trying to walk.

Nobody's mad if somebody's been in a car accident and they're going for rehab and they have to relearn how to walk or relearn how to.

To think or to speak or.

We don't blame anybody who's been through trauma like that when they have to relearn stuff.

But we are so hard on ourselves.

To think that.

I have to learn something new all over again.

I should be smarter than this.

I am not.

Enough.

Stop.

You are not saved by your right arm.

You're not saved by your sword.

You're not saved by your brilliance.

You are saved by the favor of God.

And the way to obtain his favor is to stop, look and listen.

Stop, look to him and listen for his voice.

And if he's quiet today, that's okay.

You still have a whole book full of 66 books, you know, to go read.

And you'll find wisdom there.

But we must pay attention.

There is a calling for us.

There's a Calling for us.

And it speaks to us in nature.

It speaks to us in, our relationships.

It speaks to us from little kids.

It speaks to us through even our animals and our pets.

God is speaking, if you will just listen.

And then when he speaks, it says in the Bible, you send your words and you heal my disease.

He begins to heal you.

He begins to wash you.

He begins to transform you by the renewing of your mind.

There's a healing.

Somebody say healing?

Excuse me?

There's a hearing, and there's a healing.

Before he takes you into the next thing, he begins to encourage you.

For Elijah, he gives him food.

He gives him drink.

He gives him angel cake.

Not really, but, the angels gave him some cake or bread to eat, gave him some, supernatural water.

He says, eat, drink, sleep, because the journey ahead of you is long.

He traveled for 40 days on that super boost from that food.

Can you imagine food that can make you walk for 40 days in the Mojave Desert and not collapse on the way to where you're going?

Can you imagine walking between Barstow and Las Vegas?

The 40 days?

That's how it looks if you go to Israel.

That's what that desert looks like.

It's very similar to the high desert in that space there for 40 days.

That's a little long, haul, don't you think?

You're gonna need some special food for that.

But God was waiting for him.

You know, God provides his provision.

He provides his presence, and he gives and he allows rest and healing and restoration is the key.

There are times when you have to just stop and take a nap.

Some of the men yesterday, they were, up late to last Friday night, laughing and doing this stuff.

But they took a nap and they rested in the presence of the Lord.

There's a place for that, brother sister.

There's a place for a nap where you shouldn't feel guilty and dirty for.

You didn't work.

I don't know.

Some of you have some work ethic that, you know, if you take a break, you feel like you've sinned, that you poked your finger in God's eye.

No, man.

You're supposed to have a day of rest every week.

How many of us truly have a day of rest where we don't work?

Then the next thing is being called out, is being helped.

Up, and out, up and out.

He restores you.

He helps you up and out.

So these cave experiences, these divine encounters we have with God.

For Moses, it was a burning bush.

He's out there in the middle of nowhere.

God calls him closer.

All of these things, these are moments that require decisive movement.

When God says, I want you to go on the missions trip, then you need to go to the church website and go find the information or call the office and get into movement.

You're like a fish.

Without movement, you die in faith.

You need to have some forward motion.

When God gives you instruction, sign up for the class.

You sign up for the class.

If God says, go join that ministry or help this man, or go talk to this person across the room, even if they reject you, you go talk to that person across the room.

You have to understand that this is where the stretch happens, is decisive movement.

I've been rebuffed by people throughout my life.

When I felt the Lord says, do something, encourage them, say something.

Well, I don't need prayer.

Don't talk to me.

I'm okay, okay, it doesn't matter.

But somebody obeyed God and that's all I have to do.

Their response is not my responsibility.

My response to him is my responsibility.

And so we begin to stretch.

When we begin to move out of our comfort zone, out of our cave, out of our situation.

And we say, I'm going to stretch into the next, the big next that God has for me.

What is the big next God has for you?

Well, you know, I spoke last night, they were like, guys who's 70, even older?

And I said, you're not done, Abraham, you're not done, Sarah, this morning, you're not done until God says you're done.

Because God delights in using people that nobody would use and nobody would give a chance.

He delights in using that.

Why?

Because if it was all somebody is all totally polished and burnished.

Moses in his first 40 years was not a great candidate for God to use because he was there in Pharaoh's court.

He was eloquent.

He knew what he was supposed to say, when to say, how to say.

And God says, you know what?

You need to go and be broken for a little bit.

And when you're broken enough, and when you're empty enough, the moment you say to me, I cannot do it, now I know you're qualified.

Now I know you are a good candidate.

So why is that always necessary?

Because we are prideful, aren't we?

Nobody's going to know how I really hurt.

Nobody's going to, you know, I'm going to make it, you know, this country, our independence.

We're going to celebrate 250 years of independence.

But the truth of the matter is In Christianity, it's not independence that matters, it's total dependence that matters.

So I'm not going to preach next week's message.

But listen, our story is definitely not over.

And God wants you to see that there are people waiting on the other side of you responding to him and saying, God, I'm willing to get out of my cave.

I'm willing to get out of my tent.

I'm willing to get out of my wine press where I've been hiding out for years now, and say, you know what?

I'm willing to engage.

I'm willing to go.

And so when that happens, you begin to enter what I call, the chosen.

The chosen aspect of this journey.

Remember how I said some people, are frozen, chosen.

Well, they're chosen by God, but they're not doing okay.

But when you understand the call that you are called by God to represent him, to speak for him and on his behalf, and to touch broken people on his behalf, he says, if you do to the least of these, you've done it unto me.

If you want to worship me, go and bless some people.

There's people beyond you.

We have to go and hunt our divine destiny.

You like that word hunt?

Hunt for your divine destiny.

Maybe, you know, God tells Ron, hey, I want you and your wife to go to Rome and go check it out.

And then next year he says, ron, I want you to go and take a group of people and show them where Paul died in prison.

I want you to take them on that tour.

I want you to engage with them.

He's like, what?

No.

And I'm not prophesying of you, brother.

I'm just saying.

But let's just imagine that, you know, that things, that one thing leads to the next.

Can you just imagine that one thing leads to the next?

I mean, I know I'm going to sit in this classroom talking to you in 2026, but one thing led to the next.

I went into movement back in when I was 18 years of age.

Okay.

I guess there's a calling in my life.

Okay, I better go and study and sell myself.

Approved.

to show God that I'm willing to do this thing.

And as you begin to move, we wake up, we resurrect our desire, and we kill our dread.

You have to kill your dread by moving forward.

You see, because on Thursday, when I was feeling down, I needed to get up and I need to start, moving and begin to work.

Towards what?

Towards this weekend, towards, hey, let's get some stuff together.

Let's work on some classes ahead of time.

Let's get into action.

Stop moping around, dude, and get going.

Move, move, move.

You got to move it, move it, move it.

Madagascar, Disney.

And so when you begin to hunt your divine destiny, you begin to hone, honing new pathways.

So now it's not so hard.

So tonight, last night, I was supposed to speak for the men's group, and there were a hundred minutes in front of me.

And next week I have to speak here.

I'm not nervous about it.

I've already cut that path.

I've already walked that.

You know, like in a field when there's a cart and you begin to cut a new way, like the Oregon Trail, at some point, there are so many arch wagons that have gone through there or horse wagons that have gone through this.

Now a trail where there was just grass before in your life, you need to begin to cut and hone some new pathways in prayer, in fasting, and in praying for people and reaching out to people.

And once a year, go and do your thing.

Go overseas, go help the poor, go help people or help in church.

Once a week, you have to hone your pathways because that's the only way you're going to get to your best and what God has prepared for you.

And so here you are, you are preparing yourself.

But I want to let you know this is not just for you to go put some books on your shelf, because God put you here with me because I'm a little cray cray.

I'm a little far away from home folks.

And so this is not my home.

I'm a little different.

But that's to tell you in physical form that God can move you to the other side of the world just like that.

I came here in 88, it's now 38 years later, made my wife here.

That's a whole new thing.

That's a new rodeo, you know, that's a whole new life.

I got my children here.

I got a brand new life here.

I now live.

I didn't start here, I ended up here.

And who knows where else I'm going to go next.

I don't know, maybe I moved to France.

I don't know.

I don't speak French, but I don't speak American either.

So you have whole new pathways.

You cut you.

You work, you polish, you get it better.

You cut new ways in your life.

And suddenly what used to be just a field now has a path going through it in your life, in certain areas that you had nothing.

Now there's Going to be something.

Because why?

Because you got into motion.

It's, you know, so you get out of our ruts, and we are forging new pathways, both spiritually and neurologically.

What do I mean by that?

Your brain begins to operate differently because you've been around great people, a great God, a great holy spirit, great, challenges.

Suddenly things that used to intimidate doesn't intimidate you anymore.

You, can work with the homeless now.

You can work with people that you were really scared of.

You suddenly have a confidence and a boldness in that.

You can talk to groups of people or you can talk one on one.

When you couldn't do that, by the way.

Sometimes speaking to a group of people is much easier than speaking one on one.

but God gives you now a whole range of giftings and abilities and skill sets because you're willing to move forward.

And you say, well, that's not me.

Well, that's a lie.

You can be whatever God calls you to be.

Okay?

And so when we begin to hone new pathways, we embrace opportunities and we joyfully accept new assignments.

We don't act like Jonah.

We don't get all grumpy and say, I'm not going to do it.

I'm going to book a trip on a cruise line.

I'm not going on this trip to Nineveh.

And God says, well, I can find a way to get you back, boy.

I can build a fish for you in a moment.

If God can build the fish, he can get the worm to eat up your tree.

I mean, God is pretty resourceful.

And none of us got here in this room today without his help.

And so when we understand that, we get to be partners with him and that, in the end, what are we going to do?

We're going to say, lord, it was all you, but in essence, you still partnered with him, and he invited you.

So that's very important.

Right?

and then the last thing I want you to understand is that you will receive honor when it matters most.

You'll get honored when it matters most.

If you can read that handwriting, then you know it's heaven.

You already made it.

And so.

And so when we get to heaven one day, what we do here is not just for people to go, how empty is that?

Because you may just see one person going, like, roll their eyes as they clap hands for you, and then it's all ruined, isn't it?

Because you saw the one person who was not being genuine in there, clapping.

So the one that we want to please is him, right?

And so in Matthew 25, there's Jesus, and he's saying to you, you know, you've done these things for me and, Lord, how do we even do this to you or for you?

He says, well, you've done it to the least of these.

You've done it for me.

You've done it to me.

And he says, now enter into this place of rest.

And, you know, and it says in the Bible, to him who overcome, I will give a crown.

And we'll take that crown one day, and we'll cast before the throne of God and say, lord, you alone are worthy.

You alone are worthy.

Not just singing on Sunday morning with Pastor John, but we will be able to be there in that place.

And if you can keep that image in your mind that we are doing this for him, and we want to be able to stand before him one day and tell him that we recognize it was not our own right arm that obtained the victory.

It was not our way of doing stuff that was the right way.

It was ultimately him, and the light of his presence.

Because he what?

He favored us.

He favored us.

He moved in with us.

He invited us along on this adventure called Christianity.

So the question I want to leave of you today is, how about you?

This is not just about me talking to you about my, life or somebody else's life or Gideon or Abraham, say, well, those are big dudes.

No, pretty much, if you go study church history, there were some pretty ordinary people that did pretty amazing stuff.

Pretty amazing stuff.

And I am so excited because you're going to find women and men throughout church history that stood up and said, you know what?

I don't know why, but I need to say this.

I need to do this.

And they did it.

They did amazing things.

So I want to ask you, are you stuck in frozen?

Are you hunkered down?

Are you hurt?

That's okay.

God's got a cure for that.

Because if you hear his voice, you'll find the healing you need, and you'll be helped up and out.

And then as God's chosen, you'll begin to hunt for divine destiny.

You'll begin to hone new pathways.

And then when you stand before him one day, he will honor you and say, thank you, my good and faithful servant.

Of a few things, I gave you charge.

Now enter into much more.

What I prepared for you in Laurie.

And by the way, for eternity, not just for six years or seven years.

Nah, it's eternity.

That's pretty cool.

Deal.

Don't you think, and so, I just want to encourage you with this, is that, you didn't come this far to flounder now.

You came this far because God has favored you, and God wants to use you even more.

And you have to.

When you have those days like I did this week, where I'm like, well, this is all.

What am I doing here?

This is ridiculous.

What I even think I'm doing so well, you shouldn't feel like Pastor Ian.

And, this is not me hunting for compliments.

Trust me.

What I'm telling you is this is our experience.

This is our shared experience.

Maybe you say, well, I never feel like that.

I miss the sunshine.

Well, God bless you, Mr.

Sunshine, but there's a devil in hell will find a way to put a little cloud in front of your sunshine.

And on those days, it's very, very important for us not to be hunkered down, to recognize our hurt.

Yes.

But then to hear his voice in the midst of all of that noise and to say, you know what?

I'm not going to be frozen.

I am called and I'm chosen, and I'm going to get into motion, and I'm going to represent my Lord to the best of my ability, and I'm going to be the best lampshade he's ever found.

Let his glory shine through me.

Let me be an encourager.

Let me be friendly.

Let me be generous.

Let me be everything that Jesus was first for.

God so loved the world.

Now you need to hate the world.

The world needs to be used to be punished.

No, God loved the world.

Yeah.

Those people, he loved them, and he was kind and compassionate towards them.

The outcasts, the Samaritans, the woman caught in adultery, the woman who has her situation in the Samaritan village at the well.

And he just loved them, and he embraced them and he cared for them.

Children, old people.

That's the Lord we serve, and that's the Lord we represent.

And I pray to God that all of us will understand that God has called us to be compassionate and kind in this time where everybody else has become hardened, and what's in it for me, where everybody's gone there.

We need to be different.

We need to be countercultural.

And, we need to say no.

We belong to another kingdom that is above the stuff that's down here.

And we go from that place and we enter that space with something different.

Compassion, love, kindness, the word of God, and we show as much as we tell.

Amen.

Well, let's just pray Father, we thank you for this moment.

I pray that, as we go into the next section and just ask questions and answer the questions that, we will not forget what you're trying to say to us this morning.

We want to say with little Samuel, Speak, Lord.

Your servant listens.

Lord, we pray that this week that even though we may be frozen in some area of our lives, maybe we just don't engage in some areas.

Maybe some things are kind of stuck in the mud.

I just pray, God, that today you will put your finger on those things that need to be resurrected, that you'll speak life over it, and it will step up, God, and take the motions and the steps we need to take to become the people you've called us to be.

In Jesus name, we pray.

Amen.

Well, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for your love and kindness.

We say this is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it, Lord.

Gratitude is our attitude today.

And we pray that you will speak to us from your word, that you will challenge us, that you will change us, that you will transform us, Lord, every day from glory to glory more into the image of your son, Jesus.

Holy Spirit, we welcome you in this room, Lord.

We invite you to poke at those issues in our own hearts as these words come forth that may need some addressing in our lives.

And we pray, Lord, that you will shape us more and more as vessels of glory and not of dishonor.

We pray this in Jesus name.

And all of God's people said, well, good morning, saints, and good morning, sinners, and, happy to see you all.

It's, good to see you all back in the saddle again.

I'm back in the saddle again.

All right.

We're going to talk today about being dependent and as a result, being favored.

you cannot be favored by God unless you are dependent on God.

because this is symbiotic back and forth between you and God.

God calls us into partnership.

And I want to start off with Psalm 44, verse 11, which I.

Excuse me.

Verse 1, which I read before, but I'm going to read it again.

Psalm 44, verse one.

Sisters.

O God, we have heard with our ears.

Our fathers told us the work that you did in their days, in the days of old.

For by their own sword they did not possess the land, and their own arm did not save them, but your right hand and your arm and the light of your presence, for you favored them.

How many of you would like to have the favor of the Lord on you?

And so when you walk into a room, that demonic forces will just know that you are different.

You know that the atmosphere will begin to shift and change because you are there.

you want to be a person who is favored of God.

I don't know if you've met those individuals that just has a little something different about them.

There's a ding.

I call it the ding.

This is the ding about this person.

to them, Jesus is real.

To them, the kingdom of God is present and alive, and they inspire us.

And so I want each one of us to ultimately, good morning for you to be people who light up the room and shift environments for the better.

Somebody say amen.

Be sure to get a name tag.

Let me give you an example.

So we need to be known, to be different, that, there's something very, very special and different about us.

And so I want to start out with Jesus, and let's see if we can get.

Because it says there that these people didn't do it of their own strength, didn't do it of their own right arm, didn't do it of their presence.

Now, they said, we've heard about this.

Our fathers and grandfathers told us about this.

And it says in the Psalms that we are supposed to be telling our children about the miracles God does for us.

And so none of us are exempted from that.

All of us need to talk about Pat, just did this morning.

But how the Lord saw her through a hospital ordeal.

Richard told me this morning about his mother in law coding on Friday.

But she's doing better.

God got her through testifying to the goodness of God.

God did it.

God gets the glory.

Not me, not you, not us.

Him.

We all are, pointing.

We are signposts.

Jesus says this in John, chapter five, verse 30.

Look, I'm reading from paper today, so if I take a little time, it may.

It may be for a good reason.

John 5, verse 30.

I can of myself.

Jesus speaking in red ink in my Bible.

I can of myself do nothing.

Now, that is a pretty powerful statement.

I can of myself do nothing.

But wait a second.

You are Jesus.

You're powerful.

You're both man and God.

How.

How can you say I can of myself do nothing?

Jesus is making a very powerful distinction here.

If you want to follow Jesus, you need to live like Jesus lived.

If you want to see the results that Jesus saw, you need to live like Jesus lived.

And Jesus and his mentality is, I can do nothing of myself.

As I hear, I judge.

So he has to hear from his Father.

And my judgment is righteous because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.

So there's this thing.

There's this, dedication to the will of God as opposed to his will.

There's this dependency and submission under, something that's more powerful than your own preference.

We all have preferences.

We all want comfort.

We all want safety.

We all want security.

But Jesus says, I do what I'm told to do.

I do what I do in dependency on, him who sent me.

And so he says, I did nothing of myself.

I did nothing of my own initiative.

I didn't just come up with some great ideas and say, well, that'd be a great idea to go out of Town today and go to the next village.

None of that.

He had this thing where he did things when God told him to do it.

John, in the book of John or even in the other gospels, we hear about, about Lazarus dying or being sick.

He didn't die yet.

He was sick.

They come.

Lazarus is sick while Jesus is the healer.

Right?

That's what he said.

That's his gift.

He's supposed to do this.

And he says, no, I'm going to wait four more days.

Why would he do that?

Because he had instructions from above.

And so he needed for things to get worse before they get better.

Now, how many of you want to do that?

For our own children, for our own friends?

No, we want it to get worse for you before we come and show up and pray for you.

We want you to be on the slab in the morgue before we show up.

Right?

But no, we want to wait for you to be in the mausoleum before we come and pray for you.

And now, you know, be in a grave, in a cave, and they have to roll stones.

Why?

Because Jesus says, I cannot raise the dead by myself.

I cannot do these signs myself.

And this is a very key lesson for any of us who wants to follow Jesus.

If you think it's your qualification, your knowledge, your know how, your wisdom, you are in the wrong team.

It's not your ability.

It's not by might nor by power, but my spirit says the Lord.

Zechariah 4, 6, if you want to look that up.

he was totally dependent on his father.

And so likewise.

Likewise, we are totally dependent in the same way.

Because in John 15, verse 5.

I'm going to go to John 15, verse 5.

look at me.

I'm using my paper Bible.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit.

For without me, you can do nothing.

How much is nothing?

Well, if you break the word up, it says no thing.

You can do no thing apart from him.

you're going to do stuff, but it's going to be worthless.

Because ultimately, this is the thing.

Jesus says, why do you call me Lord, Lord?

And don't do what I said so you can sing.

He is Lord.

He is Lord.

He is risen from the dead, and he is Lord.

Every knee shall bow.

every tongue.

Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And then go home and do whatever you want to do.

Think about it.

How many days have you done what you wanted to do?

I'm sad to say, probably more days than I did.

What he wanted me to do.

Well, why do you say that?

Because you need to see some transparency in your leadership.

You need to see that.

I'm saying I struggle with this thing as much as you do, because I have got some good ideas as to what you should be doing right now.

My wife, my kids.

You know how I should address them?

I have some great ideas.

How many of you have great ideas?

But there's a difference between a good idea and a God idea.

And Jesus says, if you don't stay in me, you can do nothing.

Well, I can do some stuff, yeah, but it's worthless.

It will burn like wood, hay and stubble.

First Corinthians, chapter three.

All of your works will be taken together, and they were thrown into the fire of judgment.

And.

And it'll be revealed for what it is.

Wood, hay and stubble.

It'll be burnt up and you'll be saved by the skin of your teeth.

But if your works were done in accordance to the will of the Father, it'll come forth as gold or silver or precious stones.

Wow.

Somebody said wow.

Say it upside down, Mom.

We must be convinced of this.

This is the beginning of any disciples walk with God.

That you cannot do a thing.

Now this, this is what we use as our excuse.

Why you know I can't do a thing.

go find somebody else.

I'm not qualified.

No, God calls you and he qualifies you.

you say you don't know my message.

You don't know my secrets.

Well, he does.

And he is able to take those things and transform them for his glory.

All right?

So.

So we must come.

Be convinced of us.

Romans 7:18.

In my flesh, in me, nothing good dwells.

So in.

In nothing good dwells.

In the flesh, in the natural.

Everything about my personality, my thinking, my predisposition is contrary to the will of the Spirit.

When I submit to the Spirit within me, suddenly I can do something.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

And when I do that something, it's going to have eternal value because it is tied to the will of God.

In my own flesh, nothing good dwells.

This is Paul writing.

He's saying, you know, I want to do this and I don't do it, you know, and I don't want to do that, but I do it, you know, and he's saying, what am I going to do?

What?

There's no condemnation.

Romans 8:1 for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And when you do things by the Spirit, you do them right.

But you have learn this dependency.

And for US as Americans, and I'm a naturalized American, we love to be independent from the, from the British.

But what we forget is, is that you may be independent from the British or another government, but you are super dependent on God because we say, in God we trust.

Well, the thing is, it's not enough to just trust in him, you need to obey him.

And so as much as you want to be independent, the true strength comes from being totally dependent on him.

And this is totally opposite of, everything you've been taught in culture.

I'm going to be an influencer.

I'm going to be a big deal.

I'm going to be the big cheese.

I'm going to be the boss.

I'm going to be in charge.

I'm going to be on top and you're going to be below.

I want to be the head and you're going to be the tail.

That's the American way.

And so if you don't like that, then I'm going to bully you and I'm going to intimidate you because I am the boss.

Jesus says, no, no, no, no.

That's how the world does it.

Now give me your stinky feet.

I'm going to come underneath here, I'm going to wash your feet.

This is a different kingdom.

This is a different way of doing.

This is so you need to make a decision whether you want to be part of this culture or, or whether you want to be part of the kingdom of God.

And so this comes kind of cross as a strong message because I'm in it myself every single day.

I have to constantly take off bad things and put on good things.

Go read Colossians, you know, put off this, put off that, put off these things and put on, put on, put.

You have to dress yourself every single day.

So, I am totally and completely dependent on him for everything.

When you are still full of yourself, there's no room for him.

You have to empty yourself of yourself, of your agenda, of your dream.

You have to die to your dreams.

When you come to the bottom of the cross, I need to dream.

You know, it's important to dream well.

What you need to do is you need to present your dreams to God and say, I submit this to your approval.

Now let them flesh out in any way you want to be.

Remember, Paul was trained under the best scholars in his day.

He was a pharisee.

He was doing all of this stuff.

And God says, I want to empty up all of that stuff.

For 13 years.

He's in the backside of the Arabian desert.

He's been trained on how to be a Christian after he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus.

And so now this peel is falling off of his skin, and he's seeing that the Old Testament is the shadowing, the foreshadowing of what was to come.

And he has to retrain everything, because in the Jewish faith, it's about following the rules.

It's about doing the right thing.

It's about your effort.

It's eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

It's.

It's this law.

It's this trying to fulfill the law.

And Jesus says, hey, I got a better idea for you if you need to close the door.

You can close the door if you want to.

If it's not a problem.

They just pass you by here every so often.

so you have to understand that this is a whole new way of thinking.

So I want to talk about the first kingdom principle.

The first kingdom principle is in Matthew, chapter five.

you all know this part of the Bible as the Beatitudes, you know.

And so in verse, five, chapter five, verse one, he says, and seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain.

When he was seated, his disciples came to him, and then he opened his mouth, taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

the poor in spirits are like beggars.

Okay?

What is being denoted here is blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is not will be, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So you have to understand that when you.

When you totally become a beggar, I want you to imagine somebody is totally, There are places in Africa and India where you see people who are totally deformed.

They didn't have any medical help early on, so they are twisted in Their bones are twisted.

They are really, really disabled.

And so they sit there, by the side of the road, and they beg.

And they are waiting for somebody to give a little bit of their wealth to them so that they can continue to live this life.

And so until you're in that person's body with those limitations, it's really hard for all of us to kind of imagine that.

But we can use our, you know, our brain and begin to imagine what is it like to wake up in the morning and your legs and arms don't cooperate, and somebody has to come and pick you up, put you in a little cart, maybe push you with a little handcart to a corner of a street and put you down there.

Just imagine it's In India, and there's like, ox carts and motorbikes and cars and buses, and there's just this tumult around you.

And you are there with a little bucket and you're saying, alms, please.

Arms for the poor.

And somebody in their benevolence come by and open up a window and drop a coin.

This is the picture Jesus is using.

Blessed are the beggars in spirit, for this is the kingdom of God.

They don't have to earn it.

It's theirs.

Because in that thing where they understand their total dependency on mercy drops to drop on their head to see them through this next day in that they have access to the full power of the kingdom of God.

Peter needs to pay taxes.

Can't pay taxes at the, at the, at the temple.

And Jesus says, hey, take a line, take a hook.

Let's go fishing.

Like what?

We're supposed to go to the bank.

We're supposed to go sell something.

No, let's go.

Let's go to the lake.

What?

Go to lake.

How are we going to pay for this stuff?

They said put it in there, puts it in, pulls out a fish.

The fish has a gold coin in his mouth.

Can you imagine getting a, you know, like a golden eagle.

It's worth $5,000 and whatever.

And you're able to, you know, it's one ounce of gold, and you can pay for your taxes for this next year, or if you're a little behind or whatever your story is.

Can you imagine that?

Like, well, I want to go fish in that pond.

But.

But Jesus allowed that story to be there to show the total dependency of that happening in the life of Peter, even when the disciples, denied him.

And now they go fishing in Galilee.

And so they out the whole night.

They couldn't catch a thing.

Jesus is on the shore, you know, getting some breakfast ready, and he says, hey, boys, put the nets out on the other side.

They put the nets out on the other side.

And they could barely bring it in.

And then Peter recognized, that's him.

Because that's how it started for him.

Remember in the beginning, can I preach from you both?

And then he's, go put your nets back.

Well, we already cleaned the nets.

Go put the nets in on the other side.

Boom.

And they had to get several boats to fill it in, right?

And Peter says, I'm an unholy man.

Please stay away from me.

Here we see the dependency.

And you say, well, why are you beating on this drum?

I'm telling you, this is the thing this is the first kingdom.

Principle is blessed are the poor in spirit, the beggars that have a total absence of self assurance.

So let me just give you a real review of the scriptures we've covered so far.

John 15:5.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Romans 7:18.

In my flesh, nothing good dwells.

Now here's Second Corinthians 12:12, verse 12, verse 9.

Let's go there in my Bible, 12.

Got a lot of sticky notes inside my Bible.

Verse 26.

Say that again.

There will be second Corinthians 12:9, almost at the end of Corinthians, verse 9.

Okay, concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

He's talking about the affliction.

He had the thorn on his flesh, remember?

And he said to me, the Lord said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

I want you to understand that your weakness, your inability, is what qualifies you to be used by God.

he says, therefore most gladly, I would rather boast in my infirmities, in other words, my insufficiencies, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

See, when you come to the place where you don't have what it takes, and you submit that to God, suddenly the resources of heaven now descends upon you or rises up within you.

And now your very weakness as an opportunity for God to show himself strong.

So I don't like that.

You know, I want to be qualified.

I want to be able to qualify for this job called being a Christian, an effective Christian.

And you know what?

His strength is made perfect in weakness.

So let's talk about God's selection process of people just for a little bit.

Okay, so what are some of the criteria for choosing us to do stuff?

You guys are here because you feel like there's more.

And you're right, there's a lot more.

In fact, you have not even imagined how God can still use you.

My mama is 91 and she's still being used of God.

And, so let's go to First Corinthians 1:26.

And, I'm going to break this down and I hope that you are having a good time.

it says here for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.

I'm going to read that again for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.

But God has chosen the Foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise.

And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised.

God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are.

God is at work to bring to nothing what is in you that you feel qualifies you.

And he will bring those things down to a level where you begin to say uncle or father.

You know, father, God, I need help.

This is too much for me.

It says there's a reason for it, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

When we go out there and we sing our songs and we worship God, there's nothing for us to glory about.

There is when I preach out there.

There's nothing for me to feel good about afterwards.

Because I, honestly believe that between the dumb thing that comes out of my lip and your ear, something happens to the words and God does something supernatural.

Because I know what was on my notes.

I know what was on my research, and I know what finally ended up being spoken, because I went and watched some of it last.

Last night.

I watched on Friday night, I was watching my sermon.

I'm like, who is that dude?

I don't know who that guy is.

Okay, listen.

But of you, you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

That as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.

I know this stuff, Pastor India.

Okay, but then you got to do it.

It's not good enough for you.

Just know stuff.

You got to go do it.

And you have to watch your flesh every single day.

I would say every hour, because you can get one phone call and you are back in the flesh again.

I, You know, if you have an accident or whatever, what comes out of your mouth, and it's like, man, why?

Why was that the first word that came out of my mouth?

You know, I know none of you ever cast.

You're all perfect.

You never think about it.

Hey, Mark.

Come on in.

You never think about saying bad words?

Well, I grew up in a military home.

I spent some time in the military, so I learned some words along the way.

So sometimes when something bad happens, I may say something bad.

And then I'm like, Holy Spirit, I'm so sorry that you had to hear that.

I'm so sorry.

But even in my mind, if I say something in my mind, I, now learn to say, I'm sorry, Holy Spirit.

Because he hears all my thoughts.

So when you think nobody hears you, he hears you.

When you think nobody's hearing your thoughts, he's hearing thoughts.

So see the level of dependency that now is kicking in that even my thoughts now, not for you to feel bad.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

You guys got that right.

But here's the thing.

When you see weakness in yourself, bring the weakness to him.

Instead of hiding your weakness, instead of covering up your weakness, instead of, you know, flexing and posturing in the midst of your weakness, why don't you just bring your weakness to him?

And so here's God's selection process.

His criteria for choice.

Weak things to shame the strong.

Foolish things to shame the wise base and despise things so that Christ can get the glory.

Somebody say praise the Lord.

That means you have some hope.

Hallelujah.

And so why is he choosing all of this?

Because it prevents human boasting.

And how many of you know we have a lot of that, a lot of that.

In fact sometimes we feel like this is a self promotion culture.

How great I am.

I guess as long as I did it my way and how great I am, how great I am, how great I am.

That's our culture.

And, and we, we, we shout us from the rooftops how great we are because that makes us more promotable.

Promotable.

That makes us more we get attention and God doesn't share his glory.

If you're into the glory of God, then you will be okay with that.

And you have to crucify the flesh to the point where you saying, I'm willing to become nothing so that he can become everything.

You see, this weakness that he chooses ensures reliance on grace.

Not how good you are, but how good he is.

How good he is, not how good you are.

And if you can make that adjustment.

And here's the thing that we sometimes struggle if we want our leadership, our pastors and people, I'm not saying they have any excuses for doing stupid stuff, but when they do stupid stuff, please understand that God put His goodness, his mercy, his grace on flesh.

He poured his spirit out on perfect people.

No, go read Joel chapter two.

Go read Acts, chapter two.

He poured his spirit out on flesh.

Flesh.

And then that flesh was somehow sanctified, transformed, being motivated and activated to begin to witness to the goodness of God.

Because the flesh understood.

It's not good enough.

Honey, you're not good enough.

Sir.

You're not good enough.

Sister.

You're not Good enough, Ian, you're not good enough.

When I drive up here on Sunday mornings, I'm not good enough.

But I present what I have and say God somehow flow through me and say what needs to be said.

I've already said things in this first 30 minutes that I did not have on my notes.

Okay, not because.

And I'll probably go watch and go like, that was, that was much better than I was.

Let me take notes, you know, so what are some biblical examples of weakness, being used by God?

Let's go to Hebrews chapter 11, which is kind of like the, hall of faith.

And you all know this, but just kind of explore the latter part of that.

Because the beginning it talks about faith.

You know, without faith, it's impossible to please God.

faith is the, you know, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And so we understand that he begins to talk about Abraham.

He begins to talk about Noah and all of his wonderful people.

Now he gets to verse 32 and he's running out, you know, of time.

And he says, what more shall I say?

Verse 32 for the time which fail me.

In other words, there's not enough time here.

It's like a Sunday morning.

At a certain point I need to stop.

Time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms.

Listen to this.

They literally subdued kingdoms with God's help.

Okay?

Worked righteousness, in other words, turned unrighteousness in the, in the culture, their culture to righteousness obtain promises.

God promised some things.

Like, Abraham, you're 70 something years of 80 years of age.

You're have a boy, your wife has been buried her whole life.

He obtained that promise by faithful faith in God.

It says here, stop the mouths of lions.

Come on, somebody.

Right.

Quench the violence of fire.

Those are the three Hebrew sons literally in the Middle of a fire and not being burned.

Okay, now listen to this.

Escape the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong.

that little thing there is so key to all of that.

None of these people were fantastic when they started out with God.

Okay, out of weakness, became strong, were made strong, became valiant.

They weren't brave to start with.

Okay, they became valiant, in battle, turned to flight the army of the aliens.

Okay, now, and he continues to say, women received, the dead to life again.

Others were tortures, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection.

That goes on.

But I want you to go to their weakness, were turned to strength.

And then I want you to think about yourself.

And now we're going to reel some things in.

Let's go to Moses.

He's a fugitive now.

When he started out, he was an orator.

He was trained by Egyptian courts.

He spoke the languages of the region.

He was 40 years old and he was on top and rising.

And he was the man.

He was man enough to beat somebody to death.

Okay?

And he says, I'm gonna be the salvation.

I'm gonna be the savior.

I'm gonna be the superhero that get my people out of slavery.

And boom.

God sends him to the backside of the desert to take care of some smelly sheep.

For how long?

One year?

Two years?

10 years?

No.

20?

No.

30?

40 years to drain this cocky guy of, everything there was in him.

And now he's walking there with his smelly sheep and he sees the burning bush.

And God says, step up your boy and take your shoes off.

Because this is way beyond your.

This is another grade.

You're not ready for this.

You're not good enough for this.

Take your shoes off.

So he steps up and God says to him, and I'll go tell my people to go.

I said, no.

I can't talk.

Can't do this.

now you're ready.

Now you're ready.

Now you're ready.

I will even send somebody along to your brother Aaron to help you to talk for you.

I'm going to give you supernatural signs and wonders.

Sit your hand into your bosom.

Pull it out.

It's leprous.

Put it back in.

It's healed.

What you perceive as a heart, that is not right and leprous I can make clean.

But you just see as a staff, as a shepherd, I can turn that into a weapon.

The snake that consumes the snakes of all of these other witch doctors that's around Pharaoh.

I can take your weakness, Moses, and turn it to strength.

And now who gets the glory?

Moses?

Mo.

The superhero?

No.

God let my people go.

And he says, who?

He's sending me.

What's your name?

He says, I am That I am.

you need a deliverer.

I am a deliverer.

You, need some signs and wonders.

I am a worker of signs and wonders.

you need some wisdom.

I am wisdom.

God is everything you and I need.

That's the kingdom of God.

He is the resource that is abundant, overflowing more than you will ever need.

But if you don't come to the end of yourself.

You will continue to think that you are doing God a favor that, look at my big sacrifice.

look at me.

I didn't watch the final episode of Fill in the Blank TV show that I really followed the whole year because I went to church and went to worship night.

And God is saying people were sawn asunder, people were killed, were burned at the stake.

And you are thinking that I'm impressed of you not watching your TV show.

God is not impressed, folks.

What God is impressed with is when we sacrifice our preference, when we submit, when we say, not my will, like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

Not my will, but your will be done.

And to be peaceful about, nobody here should feel bad.

Nobody should feel like you cannot.

It's too late for you.

No.

How many people are 80 years old in here?

Any 80 year olds?

Okay, good.

any women that want to have children at, where you are right now still have children that, you know, whatever the age is?

Sarah, Abram, these people were called to do stuff that were just plain nuts, okay?

But God was showing his glory.

God was saying to the world, hey, there's a God out there who cares about you, who's willing to do amazing things.

And Jesus says, I can't do a thing without him if I don't have him sign off on it.

It's not happening.

It is that Jesus came in the form of a servant, did not consider, equality with God, something to be grasped, but he came and he was obedient as a servant.

And he came obedient to the point of death.

In other words, he emptied himself out as a drink offering for us all.

And this is the king we're serving.

So he, by his example, he leads, and this is the one we are following.

And Jesus says in John 14:12, the things I've done, you will do.

And greater things than you will do, because I am going to my Father, who is in heaven, y' all are gonna do what I've done.

And one of the reasons why it's greater works is because we are spread by the millions, by the, hundreds of millions, all over the earth with the Holy Spirit inside of us.

Jesus was contained and constrained by one location at a time.

He couldn't be in America, he couldn't be in Britain, he couldn't be in Rome.

He could only be wherever he is in the flesh.

And he's saying, guys, you're going to be all over the earth.

You're going to be my witnesses and you're going to do greater things than I ever did because you're going to have access.

Somebody talks on the radio and thousands pastor preaches here on nine o', clock, whatever the time is.

He's going to be a local TV station and thousands of people are going to watch him.

Jesus didn't have that.

So what the Lord is saying to us, My work continues out of your weakness, being made strong.

But you have to be dependent on me.

Gideon, least in his family, most likely to be chosen.

least in his clan, hiding out, weak, pathetic.

Gideon, the Lord greets you a mighty man of valor.

It's like, what?

This is the wrong address.

Amazon man from heaven.

I am not your mighty warrior.

And I want to let you all know you are a mighty warrior.

If you will submit, you will be a mighty reformer in your family or different people or at work.

You may bring sunshine on somebody's shoulder and they will say, I need God, only you.

And you don't know if that person that you pray with at work has like 600 relatives behind them in their people behind them, that there's going to be babies and babies and babies and babies that are all Christians and that'll be your harvest.

So Samson the dude has a problem.

Okay, Besides that.

They tried to figure out why he was strong.

If he had like these old, big old arms and big old chest.

And if he looked like, like he was a bodybuilder.

He looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his best of days, okay?

That's why he's so strong.

Look at the muscles.

Look at, look at the legs.

Look at, look at his skill of the sword.

They couldn't figure it out.

She's laying on his chest.

What's his secret?

What is his secret?

Maybe he was skinny in his arms like I am, I don't know.

But he confused people because they didn't expect that kind of.

What was his strength?

God's anointing.

God's anointing was on him.

And so Samson is mentioned here, by the way.

In the end, he killed more in that last event of God's enemies than he did in his whole life.

So God can redeem you even at the latter end of your life.

A, David not chosen.

When the prophet came to the house, the dad called all of the sons and left the little guy out there.

He was not invited.

Now, don't you think that he could have sent somebody to send David in?

He didn't.

Why?

Why was David on the outside of the circle of trust?

He was not.

And the Lord says to the prophet, listen, you don't look at people like I look at people.

I choose the outcast.

I choose the forgotten one.

I choose the excluded one.

I tell you about my dad.

You, know, smoking like a stack and doing all the stuff that he's done.

But then God gets a hold of him, and God uses him for years before he's delivered of his smoking.

But he's got more people safe as a smoking man and on fire for Jesus than many people were ever with perfectly pure, you know, lungs.

Okay, so why did God do that for my dad?

Because my dad knew his weakness.

Okay?

My dad knew that he was not qualified.

He was a military guy.

He was retired.

He was on medical.

They released him medically because they said he's losing his mental faculties.

Then the next year, he went to Bible school and aced every single class.

After he couldn't pass the other mental acuity tests that they did on him in the military, they gave him a full, retirement and paid him medical, you know, blessings.

And so he got blessed by the military, and then he went to Bible school and his mind was fine.

You don't know what God is going to do for you.

You don't know, man.

But David was not qualified to become the king.

He didn't look like a king.

He was not considered to be a candidate to be anointed to be king.

Jephthah.

Do you know who Jephthah is?

He's right there in that thing.

Okay, Jephthah.

Samson and Jephthah.

He was one of the judges.

He was the son of a prostitute and he was despised in his community.

And you can read about Jeff that, judges 11, verse one, if you want to go check out Jeff.

That is very interesting.

And then he, you know, he had some.

He wasn't even feeling strong enough to go fight the battle.

He needed a lady to come along with him.

He says, I need Deborah if you don't come with me to the battle.

It's like, can you imagine?

you're on the school grounds and there's a bully and you need to go fight the bully.

And he says, no, my big sister's not with me.

I'm not going to fight for the bully.

It's like, come on, dude, why do you.

Penny, there's nothing wrong with the sister.

She may have been a martial artist, I don't know.

But here's the thing.

You don't usually expect men in that culture, male dominated, to say, hey, I need a Lady.

To travel with me to the war.

And so a most unlikely fellow.

Son of a prostitute, despised by his.

By his tribe.

His elders did not consider him.

Nobody wanted him but God.

Somebody say, but God?

So, I want to say the same thing for you.

What are the practical implications?

So if you want to be used by God, what is the deal?

So, I would say you have to understand that prayer is access to all of this.

Jesus went aside in the mornings and he prayed.

He went on the mountaintop and he prayed during night.

Jesus talked to his father.

He made sure the connection was constantly tuned in.

Remember the old days when we had car radios and you had to tune the radio?

Okay, Mama, find us a station.

I mean, we driving through the Mojave Desert, like, no, we don't want to listen to that stuff.

It's a mariachi band, so we don't want to listen to that.

We want some rock and roll.

We want some love songs.

man, it's just static out here.

You have to stay in contact.

So the disciples noticed this about Jesus, and they said, hey, how do we pray?

Teach us how to pray.

We don't know how to pray.

you seem to have an angle on this thing, but you don't have an angle on this thing.

So he teach them the Lord's Prayer.

But in, in Luke, chapter 11.

Oops, there goes all my pieces.

another piece.

Luke chapter 11.

There's a little bit of a different angle on it.

I want to tell you about it.

He, He.

He tells them the Lord's Prayer.

He teaches them the Lord's Prayer, right?

But then something else happens that's really, really interesting.

Luke 1107.

Seven, eleven.

It's the same thing, man.

Come on.

Get some.

Some ice cream.

Okay.

So he.

He tells him in verse 1, verse 2, verse 3, verse 4, he tells him about the prayer.

And then he says, okay, right after the prayer, he says this.

And he said to them, which, of you shall have a friend.

And, go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves, please.

For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him.

And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me.

The door is now shut.

My children are with me in bed.

I cannot rise and give it to you.

I say to you, though, he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be open to you.

For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks, finds.

And to him who knocks, it will be open.

can you imagine this person?

Maybe they knew a relative was coming in from out of town.

But now they come early, they come at midnight.

Knock, knock, knock.

They're here.

They are hungry.

Maybe they have children that are hungry.

And like, my goodness, you know, we.

We're all out of bread.

We didn't know that you're coming today.

But I need to go ask my neighbor.

I need to go ask my friend, who I always know has ample supplies.

Everything I need is next door.

But I need to go and ask and go and knock on the door persistently.

And this is the picture of the Father.

The Father is in this house and that he has the bread, he has the thing that you need.

But when you don't have it, you need to come to him and ask for it and persist in it.

No, no, I don't need to persist.

I just need to want to ask one time.

But if he doesn't want to give it, well, bless God, then I'm out of you.

That's not how it works.

I'm sorry.

Maybe you have a lot of faith and he answers your prayers, always at the very first drop of a hat.

But as you grow up in the Lord and as you go down the road of the Lord, there are some prayers where you have to persist on them.

Now, when I was a young Christian, I saw things happen fast because God was still developing my faith.

But as an older Christian, as a more mature Christian, God doesn't just give me stuff because I ask him.

Now that my faith is established, I need to be able to persist in that prayer.

Like the woman who comes to the unrighteous judge and say, you know, I need my justice.

I need my justice.

And finally, the unrighteous judge says, man, I just want to get this woman out of my hair.

But we don't have an unrighteous judge.

And God, he wants is a friend.

Somebody say a friend.

He's our Father, he wants to bless us, but he also needs to see.

Because if you look at the Greek of that verse, okay, which says, if you knock, it'll be open to you.

If you ask, you will find.

And to him, okay, here we go.

For everyone who asks receives.

But the Greek for ask is not just ask, it's keeping on asking.

It's a present perfect tense, okay?

And it's not conveyed in the English text.

For him who asks and keeps on asking.

He who knocks and keeps on knocking, and he who seeks and keep on seeking, he will find the woman of the coin that is missing.

the.

The shepherd of the sheep that's missing.

I mean, he goes and seeks until he finds.

You supposed to ask until you get.

You're supposed to knock until it's opened.

You're supposed to seek until you find.

And the lazy faith of a lot of people will not permit them because they're so distracted and they are so dependent on their own effort.

They are not willing to trust the Lord with all of their hearts and don't lean me on their own understanding.

And so he says, in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path.

So if I need to walk another six weeks in this direction to get the answer, then I need to walk six weeks in this direction.

Elijah is underneath the broom tree.

I want to die.

I want to die.

He gets food, but he has to travel 40 more days before he gets the answer, before God tells him who the three people are that Elijah is supposed to go and anoint.

He said, well, why was that necessary?

Well, that's just.

Guess what?

It's not your world.

If you want to go create your own world, go and start with nothing, because God is not giving you anything.

If you want to be God, you got to be God on your own terms.

So, you know, you can't start a new universe.

This is his universe.

It's his rules.

He's in charge.

Well, I have a hard time of that.

Well, so do we all.

But we will have to keep on asking and knocking.

So, number one prayer is access.

Number one.

Number two, you need to have empty vessels.

to the degree that you're still full of yourself.

That's the degree that you need to be diminished.

You need to be diminished.

You need to be emptied.

So there's a story in Second Kings, verse four, and I don't want to read the whole story because I just have a few more minutes to go.

but it's the story of the prophet Elisha.

and there's a widow woman, and she's in trouble, and they're about to take her two sons and make them slaves.

And he says, what do you have in your home?

And she says, I only have a cruise of oil.

And he says, go find all the empty vessels.

He didn't say, the full vessels.

The empty vessels that you can find.

And then bring them in here.

See, when we are Empty vessels, we can be filled with the oil, but if we are still full of stuff, that happens is you can't pour the oil in there when it's still full of stuff.

So she found as many vessels, she went to her neighbor, she went everywhere and brought the empty vessels to the Prophet.

And then she poured it in.

And when there were no more empty vessels, what happened?

The oil stopped.

For many of us, the oil of the anointing stops pouring out in our lives because we don't bring any more empty vessels to the Lord.

Your empty vessels may be the issues that you're fighting.

And you want God.

You say, God, I give up on this thing, but I give it to you.

Submit your request to the Lord.

submit to him.

Cast your cares upon him for what he cares for you.

But we don't cast it.

Sometimes what we do is we go to the front and we cast it.

And then after we say it and we wiped out tears, we take our little backpack and we.

We load up all the rocks again that we came with all this stuff and zip it together and put it on our back and walk over like this.

Go the way back home because we haven't learned to empty ourselves.

And when he fills us up to not fill us up again with the same stuff, the empty vessel emptiness allows new fullness.

It's stripping away of the natural talents in our lives that sometimes needs to happen.

Just because you sing prudently doesn't mean you need to be in the worship team.

Maybe you need to serve of the kids.

See, sometimes God works in the opposite direction of your strength.

I was an introvert.

I wanted to read books, and I want to be left alone.

God says, no, you're going to preach.

No, no, no, no.

Until I was empty of myself and he could fill me in with new things.

And he changed me.

See?

But you have to present your lack to God.

Bring your empty vessel.

Bring your empty cup.

Let him flood up.

Let him flow over.

Remember what I talked about last week at the table?

My cup overflows.

My head is anointed with oil.

Because you come to the place where you've just gone through the valley of the shadow of death.

And now you sit down and you put your feet underneath the table and you sit and you receive from him what only he can give.

Not your education, not your family, not your pedigree, not your years of experience, not your wisdom.

I don't know about you, but I have some things in my life that confounds me.

I have no way of figuring them out.

And they, are totally in God's hands.

Because every time I take it out of his hands, it gets worse.

It just does.

Because I need to stay empty before him.

It's not.

You cannot be full of yourself and still expect God.

You need to empty yourself of all of your virtue and how qualified you are and how sweet and how pure you are.

Because guess what?

You're not a pure stream.

You're a mix.

And mixed stuff.

Didn't make it into the tabernacle, didn't make it into the temple, because God was trying to show us, hey, it needs to be me.

And so the last thing I want to say, two more things.

I just want to say this.

When John, the beloved, was leaning on the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper, it seems, it seems a little weird.

No, he.

He saw Jesus like, almost like an older brother that he was so dependent on the other disciples, recognized there was something different about his relationship.

Because that's why Peter says in John 20:21, he said, well, what about him?

You know, what about this favorite of yours?

Not that he really was a favorite, but there was just a very special thing about John where he didn't care what people said.

Maybe he was younger.

I don't know.

Maybe he was like a teenager that just needed that nurture, from a holy man that could just love him where he was.

And he understood that.

I don't know what that thing was, but he leaned on the chest of Jesus and he says, lord, in other words, he was comfortable being that proximate, that close to the Lord.

And so, when we abandon our independence, relying on the Father's strength instead of our own, amazing things happen.

King Uzziah was a very interesting king.

In Chronicles, Second Chronicles, verse 26.

I'm going to go there, if you can find it in my Bible.

Second Chronicles, chapter six.

26.

There we go.

look at me doing.

My fingers are doing the walking through the yellow pages.

No, the Holy Pages.

Remember the old yellow pages?

Y' all like your fingers through the walking through the yellow pages.

And verse five talks about King Uzziah.

Now, all the people, I'm just going to read from verse 1.

All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was 16 years old, and made him king, instead of his father, Amaziah.

He built Elath and restored it to Judah after the king rested with his fathers.

And Uzziah was 16 years old, and his mother's name was Jechuliah.

Of Jerusalem.

Now listen to verse Four.

And he did what was right in the sight of God, according to all his father Amaziah had done.

Now listen, verse 5.

He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God.

And as long as he sought the Lord.

Listen, the Lord God made him prosper.

As long as he sought the Lord, the Lord made him prosper.

Did he prosper because of what he did?

Who he was especially?

No.

As long as he obeyed God.

Excuse me.

As he sought the Lord.

Actually not.

It doesn't even say as long as he sought the Lord.

In other words, he's seeking him for counsel.

God made him prosper.

Now let's jump down to verse 15, verse 15 through 21, because now remember this 16 year old starting out right now, verse 15.

And he made devices in Jerusalem, invented by skillful men to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and large stones.

So his fame spread far and wide.

For he was a marvelously helped till.

For he was marvelously helped till he became strong.

But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction.

For he transgressed against the Lord, his God, by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.

Now listen.

He presumed that because God favored him, blessed him, took care of him, brought him up, everybody is talking about him.

He assumed, presumed, assumed that he can just go walk into.

Remember how I talk about how communion is holy and the sacred things are never common.

He went into sacred spaces that belong to God and violated protocol.

And so it says to Amaziah Azariah.

The priest went in after him, and with him were 80 priests of the Lord, valiant men.

And they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, it is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense.

Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed.

You shall have no honor from the Lord God.

Then Uzziah became furious.

And he had censer on his hand to burn incense.

And while he was angry with the priest, leprosy broke out of his fore before the priests in the house of the Lord, beside the incense of altar.

And as Zariah, the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there on his forehead he was leprous.

So they thrust him out of that place.

Indeed, he also hurried to get out, because the Lord had struck him, the Lord had struck him.

So King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his Death.

He dwelt in an isolated house because he was a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord.

Then Jotham, his son, was over the king's house, judging the people of the land.

Somebody just say, wow, friends, the Lord is called the Lord because that means he's in charge.

He's not called my buddy, my pal.

yes, he is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, but he's God.

And so we need to have a holy.

That's why Paul says some of you have fallen asleep.

Some of you have died before your time.

That's why Ananias and Sapphira died in the temple.

Excuse me, in the meeting.

Because they lied about their giving.

Why would God kill people after Jesus died?

For everybody's son sins.

I guess we were in the dispensation of grace.

Why is God punishing people like that?

Because there are some things that, that are set aside for God.

The glory is a set aside for God.

The praises are set aside for God.

There are things the dependency needs to be on God and not you, not on your leader.

And if you put your leader on a pedestal, God will bring him down.

Don't do that.

There are people they are serving, they're doing their best.

Pray for them.

As if your prayer is going to make a difference.

Because your pastors need your prayer, I need your prayer.

We need each other's prayer because we are all trying to please him, trying to be dependent on him.

And so with that, I close this session and then we're going to have some discussion.

Okay, let's just pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the many examples in your Word of, people becoming strong from weakness.

Becoming strong.

We also thank you, Lord, for examples in scripture where people didn't get away with stuff, God, because you showed us that you are true to your word, that you are not a man, that you should lie.

And if you warn us against things, then you will be faithful, Lord, to discipline us.

Thank you for not killing Uzziah.

But thank you for humbling Uzziah.

And Lord, I pray that you will continue to remind us of our weakness.

Because this is what qualifies us, God.

Not our strength, not our ability, not our knowledge, not our rolodex or people we know and how many followers we have on Facebook.

It is ultimately our relationship with you.

If Jesus couldn't do anything without you, Father, if there was that relationship there in the Godhead, how much more us, your people, Lord, we need you.

We desperately need you.

Help us to please you and help us to know that when we are weak, you are strong.

And help us to bring our weaknesses to you because we need you every hour.

Just as that song says.

Lord, we pray this in Jesus name and everybody said Amen.