 Hey, good morning, Radiant Church, how's everybody doing? Good. You guys doing good? Can we just welcome those who are online and our Portage Campus? Come on, everybody, put your hands together. We welcome you guys. Glad to be with you. And very excited to be back this morning and to share the word with you guys. We got an exciting fall that's coming. How many are ready for donuts, cider, football, and snow? Come on. Okay. All right. Turn with me and your Bibles to Galatians chapter five this morning. And I want to share a message with you this weekend. Next weekend, I'm actually starting a series that will take us through September and October, and it's called The Battle. And we're going to be talking about spiritual warfare. We're going to be talking about just some practical as well as maybe some things that you've never heard before from the Bible that deal with the spiritual realm, angels, demons, prayer, the weapons of our warfare, all those kinds of things. And so I think it's timely for the day and age that we live in. But I want to set it up this morning by sharing a standalone message entitled, Giving God What He Wants. Giving God What He Wants. And so I want to draw your attention to Galatians chapter five beginning in verse number seven. And this is what Paul writes to the Christians at Galatia. He said, you were running well who hindered you from obeying the truth. This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view and that the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty whoever he is. But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. And I wish that those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. For you were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. But through love, serve one another, for the whole law is summed up in this one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Verse 16, but I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit. And the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. And now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies. And these things like this I've warned you about as I've warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep step with the spirit. So I want to talk to you this morning about giving God what he wants. You know, one of the greatest dangers that you and I face living in a consumer-driven culture. And by the way, I love American culture. I love the fact that if you want a chicken sandwich, there's Chick-fil-A in a couple different locations. Come on somebody, a little bit of heaven. And if you want coffee, there's a Starbucks or, you know, better than Starbucks somewhere in the city. There's options that we have. That's what it means to be in a consumer-driven culture because a consumer or a capitalistic type of market is supply, or supply is determined by the demand. And the demand has everything to do with us. It's us dealing with and asking the question over and over and over again, how do I get what I want? What do I want? You know, we have slogans like have it your way and different things like that that kind of reflect that whole nature. We've actually grown up in an environment where from the time that we're little, we're taught that the drive and the direction of our life is determined by what we want. What do you want to be when you grow up? How many of you have ever been asked that question when you were a little kid? What do you want to be? Where do you want to live? All of these questions that have to do with us. And there's nothing wrong with that to a certain extent. But when you step from a consumer-driven culture in a country like we live in, and you find yourself as a believer living in the kingdom of God, there is a contrast between the two because the kingdom of God is not based around the question, what do I want? The question that we should be asking as citizens of the kingdom of God first is what does he want? You see, we're called to obedience and obedience can only occur when we know what God wants. And so it's very easy for us to live our lives going, what do I want? What do I want to do today? What do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to work for? What kind of relationship am I looking for? What kind of profile do I want to have? What kind of home do I want to live in? What kind of car do I want to drive? What kind of person do I want to date? We ask all of these questions from a me-centered perspective. What would happen if we flipped that around and we asked ourselves first, God, what do you want? What do you want? You know, it's interesting, birthdays and in our house, one of my love languages is gifts. I love to give gifts and I love to receive gifts, but my kids and Jane unfortunately is like, we don't know what to get you because you kind of got everything. I mean, everything that you kind of want, you get. And so at Father's Day and birthdays, I'll hear that often. It's like, we don't know what to get you. And, you know, what do you get? What do you get the guy who just, if he wants something, he basically, you know, finds a way? I mean, that's reality. How many, you know, Amazon is a dangerous thing. And, you know, so it's an interesting question to ask. What do you give the God, not the guy, but what do you give God who has everything? And if he doesn't have it, he just creates it. What does God really want from us? I'm gonna give you the answer this morning because if we get this answer right, everything else falls into place. The greatest gift that you can give God is this, a fully yielded life. That's what God's looking for. You say, well, God can have anything that he wants. Yeah, God can, he's powerful. He's all powerful. He's all knowing he's, he's omnipresent. He can do anything that he wants. But the way that God designed creation and the way that he created you and me and his relationship with humanity is that he's given us a free will, a choice in the matter. And we determine whether we're actually going to believe in him or whether we're going to give him what he wants. You see, God doesn't just take our lives and force us to yield. Force us to believe in him. Force us to trust him. He reveals himself to us and says, this is who I am. He draws us by his Holy Spirit. But then we have the final say of giving to him a fully yielded life or saying no and holding it back. And we have the ability, I want you to think about this for a moment. This is powerful. We have the ability to give to God something that he doesn't already have but he desperately wants. Which is our yes. We get to say, yes, I believe you. Yes, I surrender to you. Yes, I'll give you my life. Yes, I'll trust your goodness and your character. Yes, I'll trust your steps and your nudges and your impressions of your Holy Spirit. As you're calling me out into something, I'm willing to trust you over my own desires, over my own dreams, over my own passions that are so loud in my head and in my heart trying to dictate my own direction and chart my own course. I say no to that and I say yes to God. I say yes to Jesus. When we do that, not only, listen, not only does God get what he wants, but I really believe that when God gets what he wants most, we get what we want most. You see, we've been told in the world that if you want to live your life your way, you're going to have to say no to some other things. You're going to say no to God. You can't have God and do what you want to do. So there's a lot of us, we've lived parts of our life like prodigals and run away from him and thought that, you know, what I want and what God wants aren't the same thing. And then, you know what happens is the world says, hey, live your life for this. Come on over here. Come on. Live your life. Come on after this. Give me your time. Give me your attention. And then we get that thing and we realize that doesn't satisfy. And then we hear the siren sounds of the world over there saying, oh, no, live for this. This, this is the thing that will satisfy you. And so we go after that and only to arrive at it and realize like Solomon did in Ecclesiastes, vanity, vanity, emptiness, emptiness. This doesn't satisfy. And we think freedom is actually the ability to have what we want. But I want to propose to you this morning that true freedom is actually found in giving God what he wants because God is the one who created you. And when he created you, he knew exactly what would satisfy you. He knew the way that he's wired you. He knew the destiny and the purpose that he's had in mind for you from before the foundations of the world. And he knew that the greatest enemy to you walking in the purpose that he has for you that would fully satisfy you is actually you getting what you want without God. I believe when God gets what he wants most, we get what we want most. Nobody knows what's going to satisfy us more than God does. When I was a little boy, four or five years old, I used to spend days with my grandfather. And it was like one of my favorite memories. My grandpa used to own a big Chevy red steak truck. And we'd go and chop wood together. He would he called it Boondog. And we just kind of drive around town, do errands. And I'd sit in the front seat with grandpa and some of the best times of my life. He's my hero. And so one particular story that he likes to tell. I don't remember it, but he likes to tell it is. I was about four or five years old and driving around with grandpa. And he stops at this store in Clarkston, Michigan called Richardson's Dairy. And Richardson's Dairy had like a convenience candy store in the front of it. And I love this store. My mom used to stop there, but my mom was a, you know, very young single. We didn't have a lot of money. Mom. And so when she would stop there, she would always allow me to buy penny candy. There was a huge candy display. Excuse me. And she would say, well, you can pick something from the penny category. So I'd go over there and, you know, pick out a jawbreaker or, you know, the tiny little Tootsie rolls over there for a penny. So this day grandpa brings me in and he wants to do something really special for me. He says, Lee, go pick something out. Go pick something out. You can have anything you want. And so I go over to the penny candy. That's what I'm used to. And he goes, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want that. Pick something else up. So I roll down the aisle to the nickel candy. I increased my vision by 500% from a penny to a nickel. Simple math. And I'm looking at, you know, Tootsie Pops and all kinds of different things like that. And he's like, no, no, no, no, that's not what you want. Pick something else up. So I move down the aisle to the core candy. This is unseen territory in my life. This is packs of gum. Remember the bubble-licious, they had the juice in it. And I mean, they had the little wax bottles with juice on the inside of them and the little bags. You guys remember those little dots on the paper? I'm like, woo, now we're talking. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want that. Pick something else up. And his favorite part of the story is I was so confused and I looked up at him and I said, grandpa, what do I want? And so what I ended up with, he took me down to the end of the aisle and I got one of those slow pokes that was big enough to row a kayak. You guys remember those things about this big? And my mom hated me. I drooled like a bowl mastiff. I carried that thing around for like a week. My teeth were all janked up, but my grandpa was happy because he knew what I wanted. He knew what was going to make me happy. I was content at the penny side of the aisle. How many of us live our Christian life thinking that the penny candy is going to satisfy us? Or the nickel candy is going to satisfy us? Why? Because that's all we've ever known. There are a lot of us that all we've ever known is betrayal, being let down, being disappointed by people in our life that have made big promises to us. And can I tell you, we bring that into our relationship with God. And so when God says, I has not seen, here has not heard, nor has it even entered the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him. And God says, I've got good things planned for you. I know the desires of your heart. Trust me, believe me, follow me, you to me, and I'll take you to places that you've never imagined that you could go. We stand over here in the penny side of life and we say, I'm not sure I really believe you. This is safe. I'm not really, I really can't believe that I can stand in front of the nickel or the quarter or down at the end of the hour. I've never been down this road before. And so what we learn in response to disappointment in relationships is we learn how to take care of ourselves. We take matters into our own hands and we make inner vowels by saying that if anything good is going to happen in my life, it's going to be because I make it happen. That I've got to learn how to manipulate the system. I've got to be who other people want me to be. I've got to act a certain way. I can't say certain things. I can't trust. If it's gonna happen and it's gonna be good, it's going to be me. That's what God wants to break down in our lives. That's what God wants to break off of us. Those are the lies and the chains that the enemy of your soul uses you not to bring greater levels of freedom but to actually captivate and incarcerate you behind lies. He knows if I can keep you from fully yielding to God and surrendering to your own impulses and your own temptations and your own desires. You can believe in God all day long. You can actually even pray a prayer and invite Jesus to be the savior of your life. But if he ever becomes Lord of your life, if he ever becomes Master of your life that you fully trust in, you fully yield your life into, you might actually end up in the place you were destined to be from the very beginning. Ha, and he doesn't want that. It's what you want that you don't even necessarily know you want. It's what you were created for. C.S. Lewis says this, if Jesus isn't Lord of all, he's not Lord at all. What does Lord of all means? It means our life is yielded. Our life is completely yielded to God. The greatest gift that you can give to God is a fully yielded life. I surrender. I give it to you, I trust you, and we allow God to prove himself faithful over and over and over. What's the greatest gift that you can give God? A fully yielded life. What's the greatest gift that you can give the world? A fully yielded, a fully surrendered life to Christ. It's the greatest gift that you can give to God. It's the greatest gift that you can give to the world. Well, why is that? Because, listen, when you're fully surrendered to Christ, you are walking in the image and in the purpose you were created to your entire life and you're actually empowered by the Holy Spirit, by God's grace to actually love others the way that they're supposed to be loved, the way that they need to be loved because they don't have anything that controls you. There's no transaction that's taking place because your security isn't found in what others think of you. Your security is found because you're fully surrendered to him. What did Jesus say the greatest commandment is? Number one, he said, when he was asked, what's the greatest commandment? His response was to love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. What does that mean? Fully surrendered. That's the way God wants us to love him. He doesn't want us to love him with our leftovers. He doesn't want us to love him 10%. He doesn't want us to love him equal to anything else. He wants us to love him fully surrendered to him. But what's the second greatest commandment? And to love your as yourself. You see, the way that you rightly love the world and this is important because we're in this world as people that are wrestling with the same things everybody else is wrestling with. But we're in this world as sons and daughters of God for a purpose. If the only purpose that God had for your life was to get you to heaven, you wouldn't be here today. Because if all that mattered was you getting to heaven, then when we baptized you after you believed in Jesus, we would just hold you underwater until the bubble stopped coming up. And then we would celebrate another soul has gone under glory. Why risk it by leaving you on this planet? Why risk it? This isn't like an airport terminal where you're like waiting to launch. Well, I got saved 50 years ago still waiting for Jesus to take me. Haven't messed anything up too badly. No, the fact that you're still here. Romans 6 says that we're raised up in the newness of life. Why? Because God's got a purpose for you. You're called to be a light in the midst of darkness. You're called to be leaven that influences the lump. You're called to be salt. You're called to be light. What does that mean? It means loving your neighbor rightly. But you can't love the world rightly until you love God rightly. You can't influence the world until you've settled the issue of who you will yield your life to. Because what happens a lot of time in our culture and in our world is we say that we, in the name of being loving, actually reduce our witness and suppress truth and refuse to live out the implications of our faith in who Jesus is. And we water down God's word because we feel like this is unloving. The most loving thing that I can do is to just say to everybody, you're okay, I'm okay, whatever you want to do, I just love you. But that's not what God did. How many of you, when you got saved, were perfect? Raise your hand. I didn't think so. How many of you had some issues? Raise your hand. How many of you still have some issues at both campuses? Raise your hand. Keep it up. Don't put it down. Because I want to see whose hand is not up right now because now you have issues. When Jesus came, he said, I came into the world to save the world, not to condemn the world. But you can't save somebody who thinks that they're perfect or all right in the place that they're at. When Jesus saved me, I was 12 years old, but I had issues. And I'm grateful that every day from that day he saved me over and over and over again because I still have issues. Now, what would have happened if God sent Jesus who came and when he saw our issues, he was afraid of us rejecting him so he wasn't honest with us? What if Jesus said, no, no, no, it's okay to the woman who had adultery? No, it's okay, I love you. What he said was, where are your accusers? Well, they're gone. And he says, neither do I condemn you. Therefore, go your way, read the rest of it. Sin no more. But in our world, in our culture today, if you dare say the second part of that verse, you're a bigot, you're hateful, you're not acknowledging or affirming everybody, listen, I want to affirm your identity the way God created you, not affirm some identity that's shaped by your fleshly passions. Jesus didn't do that. Let me tell you why we do it. Let me tell you right now why Christians are so intimidated in the middle of our culture right now. It's not because we're perfect and we're just putting our nose down at people. We should be the most gracious people because we've been saved by grace, but we should be the most true filled people in any circumstances. A guy's cheating on his taxes and I'm his accountant. I'm not just gonna say, oh, I can't say anything because then I'm a bigot against his taxes. No, you call him out on it because that's wrong. But let me show you a better way. The same is the case across our culture. The reason why we don't love people enough to tell them the truth is because we find our security in what people think of us. And I don't want to threaten that. I don't want to risk the fact somebody might not like me or somebody might call me a name or somebody might not like to stand that I take in my life. Someone might not the way that I live my life. They might not care for that. They might take that as a threat against them and my whole identity and security is wrapped up in what the public opinion of me is. How many likes I get on social media? How many people follow me? If you're scrolling through all of your social media platforms and counting your followers and you're tracking when people drop you or block you or mute you, you've got an issue. Let me tell you, that's the way that religious leaders in Jesus' day functioned as well. So at the end of the day, when we function like that, when we live our lives like that, we're not really loving our neighbor as our self because we're loving our neighbor for ourselves. In other words, I'm going to be nice to you because you have something I need. I need your approval. I fully yielded to God and I say, the only opinion that matters of my life is what He says about me. That changes everything. In John chapter 12 and verse 42, it says, yet at the same time, many, even among the leaders, the religious leaders, believed in Him. That's Jesus. But because of the Pharisees, they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved human praise more than the praise of God. They believed in Jesus! They're like, yeah, that guy, when he talks, that's true. That guy's real. He is the Messiah. But if I say that publicly, these people who have influence over here who have the ability to give me what I want, invite me into the conversation, give me a place at the table, if I say what I really believe, they're gonna kick me out of the synagogue and so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna believe undercover and not say anything. Why? Because they love the praise of man more than the praise of God. What happens if you flip the script? If I love the praise of God more than I love the praise of men, even then, when people applaud you, affirm you, it's nice, but you don't need it. Jesus, it says, did not yield Himself to the crowds because He knew what was in the heart of people. Jesus acknowledged one person as the most significant and who's God's Father. The greatest gift that you can give to the world is that you've made the decision to fully yield your life to Christ. And you better do it now because listen, if you're waiting until times get difficult, it's too late. You've got to make that decision now. It's like, it's great when people like me, but though none go with me, still I will follow. Though none go with me, still I will follow. I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back. It only takes one word from the Father over your life to affirm you. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And then, but here's the beautiful thing. When we live our life yielded to God, we're able to love people rightly. We're able to be gracious to them. What's the fruit of the spirit? It's Galatians that says love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness. All of these qualities, self-discipline, all of these qualities are of the Holy Spirit that begin to manifest in our life. I'm not talking about if you love God, then you're going to hate the world. No, if you love God, you're going to love what God loves. And what does God love? God so loved the that he gave. So you're going to be generous and you're going to give. What did God give? He gave his own life. Are you willing to lay down your life? Are you willing to lay down your preferences? Are you willing to lay down your reputation for the sake of somebody else to know the love of God that doesn't incarcerate you, but actually liberates you? That's what God's looking for. Can you trust me enough that I will use you to set other people free? You can't be used by God to set anybody else free when you're a captive of fear yourself. I haven't preached in seven weeks. I'm feeling this. Number three, the greatest battle that you will face in this process is between the desire of the Holy Spirit for your life and the passions of your unholy flesh. You know, you have two natures within you. If you're a follower of Christ, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling on the inside of you to lead and to guide you and order your steps to convict you of sin, righteousness, and of judgment to empower you supernaturally. But you also have the residue of your old, what the NIV calls sinful nature. The ESV and other translations say your flesh. It's not just your physical flesh, but it's your human nature that's affected by sin. And there's a wrestling match that's taking place in each and every one of us. This is the greatest battle that you will face because God has certain desires for your life that the Holy Spirit is trying to activate for you and get you to believe and get you to respond. Because remember, your yes determines who you yield to. But you've got this old passions, human nature, sinful desires on the inside of you that are saying, no, come over here and do this. And the deciding vote is you. You want to know, well, do I have a sinful desire? Yeah, it's that voice that activates at about 8pm in the middle of your diet that calls you to go over to the fridge, open the freezer, and take out the Ben and Jerry's and eat the entire pint against all of your better judgment. How many have ever done something like that? And you know how it goes. It's like, oh, I'm just going to take a bite. And then you get into it and it's like, well, you've gone this far. You might as well go all the way. And so New York Chunk, Chocolate Chunk is gone, baby. Cherry Garcia is gone. You just clean that thing out. And Halo Top is not going to satisfy. It's got to be the real thing. And you just eat it. And then how do you feel afterwards? Guilty. Somebody said great. Yeah. It's like, what is that? Why did I do that? I'm on this diet. I swore off gluten. I'm following this Instagram influencer and she's talking about whole foods and organic and gluten free. I want to be like that. And then all of a sudden I put this thing on my shopping cart. I don't even know how it happened. And pull it out of the freezer. I'm like a zombie walking over to the fridge and eating the whole thing. I have no control. You know what that is? See, nature. The greatest battle that you will face is this battle. Look at verse 16 and 17. But I say to you, walk by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other. This is so important. Listen to these next words. To keep you from doing the things you want to do. Why is that important? It's because there's a wrestling match between two forces. Fleshly, carnal, sinful nature desires that we all experience. And then the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Do you know, sometimes there's a temptation to say, well which one am I? You know what the world says? The world says, oh, if you want something you should just do it. Because it's natural and that's just who you are. But notice it says that the wrestling matches between the flesh and the Spirit. And the flesh is trying to keep you from doing what you, the real you, the authentic you, really wants to do. What is that? What does that tell us? It tells us that the world is wrong and it's a lie that whatever your lowest base temptation is, is actually your identity. That's not your identity. You want to know what your identity is? You are a new creation in Christ Jesus. All things have passed away and behold, all things have become new. You now are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are a vessel of clay with the glory of heaven Christ in you. You are seated with Christ in heavenly places. You are more than a conqueror. You are inseparable from the love of Christ. Your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You have a destiny that was established for you before the foundations of the world were ever laid. The same Holy Spirit that called the entire universe into being dwells on the inside of you. You are the devil's worst nightmare when your life is fully yielded to God. And you have a will. You have a will and who you yielded to. Determines the kind of fruit that you are going to produce. The Holy Spirit is going, do this, do this, do this, do this. And the flesh is going no, no, no, no. And here is where the battle is. The flesh says I want what I want because I think if I get what I want I am going to be happy. Give me, give me, give me. But the Holy Spirit says no, give God what he wants because if you give God what he wants he will, those who fear the Lord says he will fulfill their desires. Psalm 145 verse 19 says those who fear the Lord, God delights in fulfilling the desires of those who fear him. God says, no, I know exactly what you want. I know what you were created for. I know what is going to bring contentment and satisfaction to you. At the end of the day it is not even what you do that satisfies you. It is who you know. It is the partnership with the Holy Spirit. Well, I have got all these temptations and I have got all these desires and if God didn't want me to act on them then why do I have them? It is because they are sinful and they will lead you to destruction. The Bible says this it says it right there in Galatians. It says crucify the flesh and its desires. The world says normalize your flesh. God says crucify your flesh. That means take those desires, drag them to the foot of the cross, show them Jesus, remind those temptations that Jesus paid the price in full, that those sins were nailed to the cross, that they have been xed out on the record against you and that you no longer live on the cross, and then bring it over to the tomb where the stone is rolled away and say when he rose, I rose a brand new creation in Christ. I am not that, I am this. See it says the works of the flesh and it lists off all these things. We can find ourselves in these things if we work hard enough. My pastor used to say this. He says you you've got to crucify your flesh. Well how do you know when it's crucified? How do you know when you're done doing that? And here's what he said, if something still hurts it's not dead yet. Dead things don't hurt. So if you're still struggling with something that is trying to overcome you and dominate you keep dragging that thing back to the cross. Paul says I glory in the cross. I boast in the cross. I crucify my flesh daily. I tell it no you don't get what you want. That's not always easy. How do we do that? Let me read you one more scripture this morning. James chapter 4 says do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity or hostility with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture says in vain the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. The key to overcoming in life is actually yielding to God when we yield to God the Bible calls it humbling ourselves. When we humble ourselves that's when God releases grace into our life. You see in the church we emphasize grace so much from the perspective that grace is God's eternal eraser for all the mistakes that we make. It's like a whiteboard. It's like Lord look what I did. I messed up my whiteboard. I sinned. I did this. I'm so sorry. And we think of grace as God coming over with the eraser and just go okay it's alright I'll do it. Grace does that. But the word grace actually means more than that. Grace means empowerment. That God pours fuel, spiritual fuel into your life that gives you the ability to walk out his will and to crucify your will. He gives more grace to the humble. The trouble we get into is when we resist God and we resist the Holy Spirit and we know what I want. Then it says God opposes the proud. So last week Jane and I were on vacation in Colorado and we were with friends and we rented a car. We got off the airplane and we go to the car rental place. We got this SUV. We're about to go do some hiking. We got in the car everything was okay. We punched into the dashboard navigation system, our address. How many know that navigation has saved more marriages in the last decade than just about anything else? So we punched into everything's good but then there was a problem we had to take it back we're a couple miles down the road turn around they had to reset something because of a light that was on the dashboard and when they did that it kind of messed up the navigation system. So everything was fine on the way to the hotel. I mean we had this voice of this woman on the navigation system telling us what to do. She's like take I-70 West 85 miles and so we're doing that and then turn left turn right and 1500 feet you're at your destiny all's good right. So we get to the hotel but the next day when we get back in the car you couldn't reset the navigation. So I mean we tried everything we're just like turn it off turn it back on loading maps loading maps loading maps. So we tried to sync up the bluetooth of our phone loading maps loading maps. So everywhere that we left so we left the original destination and we go on these hikes but the entire time we called her Nancy. Nancy is trying to reroute us back to the hotel you couldn't reset it so everywhere we're going it's like make a U-turn in 45 feet turn right and make a U-turn rerouting rerouting rerouting and she's like barking at us the whole time and we could and you couldn't turn the volume down we tried that the volume wouldn't go down we're trying to shut her off we tried to turn the navigation nothing she's on there bing rerouting loading maps rerouting loading maps turn going crazy so finally our buddy he like googles how to shut Nancy up no he googled and by the way don't ever Google how to get rid of Nancy probably bad but he looked for hacks on how to turn the navigation system off so what we had to do is literally get a wrench when we got back to the hotel and undo the battery cables and disconnect the power so that the whole computer system would reset do you know the Holy Spirit is like Nancy the Holy Spirit is constantly speaking to us trying to get us back to our original destination we keep leaving it we start off following Jesus but then sometimes we get off try come on anybody in this room ever gotten off track and following the Lord aren't you glad that the Holy Spirit is always there to say make a u-turn rerouting I've had people say have I blown it I've not I've not lived a yielded life to the Lord and maybe I've missed my destiny can I tell you something the Holy Spirit is the expert at rerouting and he's the only way you can silence the voice of the Holy Spirit is by disconnecting hardening your heart and Hebrews tells us says today if you hear his voice do not harden your heart as in the day of rebellion in other words don't try and turn the voice off it's annoying in the rental car but it's essential in the Christian life we need the voice of the Holy Spirit the voice of the Holy Spirit will always redirect us back to God always redirect us back to his word always redirect us back to the path of our destiny why because it says he jealously yearns for us I want you to hear this today saint the Holy Spirit does not tolerate you God doesn't tolerate you he loves you and his plans and his intentions his purposes for your life are not just some religious thing where it's like well I'm going to teach them a lesson and they're going to suffer God knows exactly where he wants to take you he's got a plan for your life it may not always be easy but it's always going to be good because he's good but we got to stop trying to turn that voice off so that we get what we want because let me tell you something the greatest end to your life someday in the distant future the worst outcome of your life that could possibly happen is for you to get what you want and to realize how inferior it was to what he wanted I don't know how heaven's going to be I don't know if they're going to have LED walls but I think on that day God's going to show us our life say here was your life that you lived and then maybe the saddest moment is going to be when he says and this is the life that I wanted for you this is what you could have had we're going to be like man that's so much better why didn't that happen God you're in control of everything because you didn't yield you went and surrendered you didn't believe me you bought the lie hook, line, and sinker the world was selling you a bunch of half truths and lies and chicken soup for the soul and you bought it instead of me so enter into my kingdom but you'll never get that opportunity back again today is the day for us to give God what he wants which is all of us yielded surrendered to him would you stand with me today would you bow your heads with me Richland online Portage as well pray that you would give us grace grace that yields grace that surrenders grace that says your way is better than my way Lord we just confess we have so many issues so many temptations so many struggles the voice of our flesh sometimes is so loud so strong is the pole but I pray that today that there would be an increase of your voice in our lives that grace would be poured out as we humble ourselves grace that empowers us to live righteously to live for you and God I pray that every single one of us would find our fulfillment and our identity in you regardless of what's going on in the world around us regardless of what the opinions the voices of those that we somehow see as significant whatever they say God I pray that our faces would be set like flint towards you to hear every word that you say and to believe it Lord would you meet us with this grace today in Jesus name would you keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed for just a moment all across the room because I really believe that especially in our community and our culture church for a lot of us is kind of a normal reality I think that sometimes what can happen is we a lot of us spend time in church growing up but we've never really had a moment where we totally surrendered and had a personal encounter with the living God we actually believe in God love the Bible maybe even love the experience of church but that doesn't the Bible says that when we repent of our sin when we say how I've been living is wrong and we recognize that we're broken on the inside and can't fix ourselves and then we call on God and say and God because of that I ask you to save me because of Jesus the Bible says that we're actually rescued and saved that's what it means to be born again that's how you become a Christian sometimes I think that the enemy is content to just make us religious so that we never really enter into a relationship with God today I want to give you an opportunity to do that I'm not doing it because I'm somehow better than you I'm not doing it because there's something wrong with you I'm doing it because there's something right with what Jesus did Jesus went to the cross died a terrible death to pay for your sin and today if you're willing to surrender your life and exchange your sin for his righteousness today you will be saved today you can have a new heart today you can have a clean conscience today your name can be written in a lamb's book of life but you make that decision God's already made his decision about you to love you to save you to forgive you to give you a clean slate and to fill you with his power but now the decision is yours and my challenge is this this morning if you're here and you have never ever that you can remember made a definitive decision to step over the line and say today I repent I recognize I'm a sinner and I deserve judgment I deserve hell but today I'm asking God to have mercy on me save me forgive me because from this day forward I'm going to yield to you and I'm going to follow you I want to be a follower of Jesus I want to be a Christian today if that's you I want to lead you in a prayer but I want you to make that decision with no one looking around this is just between you and God if you say today I know I need to get right with God today I want to repent on my sin I want to become a Christian I want to be a follower of Jesus include me in that prayer right now where you're at I want you to just raise your hand raise it up right where you're at today you need to get right with God thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you yes yes who else over here to my right I see that hand yes all the way to my right if you've not raised it sir I see your hand young man thank you put your hand down today I want all of us in this family to join these who just raised their hands so courageously and pray this prayer of confession the Bible says of we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if we believe on him that he died on the cross that he rose from the dead and if we confess with our mouth that he is Lord repent of our sin we will be saved so that's what we're going to do right now this is not a formula this is an invitation for him to come and rescue you and it works every single time so everyone let's say this prayer together say heavenly father I come in Jesus name and I confess I have sinned and fallen short and today I repent I'm so sorry God I don't want to live like that anymore come into my heart Jesus and be my Lord and my Savior I believe you went to the cross I believe you paid for my sin I believe you rose from the dead and I believe you're coming back God change me forgive me give me a clean heart and now use me to be a yielded vessel to you in Jesus name amen if you just prayed that prayer welcome welcome to the family of God