 Great to be here. My name's John, I am the campus pastor here at Richland and have the privilege of being one of the teaching pastors as well. And I was like, why am I so nervous? And then I was like, well, I haven't spoken a long time on this stage, so all the way since August. And since that time, we've incorporated like new crazy high tech technology. So if you've been here, you know, Pastor Lee has this amazing like board that he touches and like things get underlined and he draws like sick pictures and I don't know how to do any of that. So I brought an etch-a-sketch. And here's what's gonna happen. If I say something or I want you guys to see something, I'm just gonna be like, hold on one sec and then the camera will come in and okay, fine, never mind, it won't be quite the same. But hopefully you brought your Bibles, hopefully you brought your hearts and ears to be open to the word of God. And we're gonna share, I'm gonna share a message that's called the question of Jesus. And here's really where that came from. Originally, I didn't know if this message was gonna be part of the last days boot camp series, which it was. And then that kind of got altered. So some of it is gonna highlight that dynamic. Like what does that mean for us? But in preparation for that, the second part of the message, I wanna talk just about the question of Jesus. We need to establish who Jesus is to us as followers of Jesus in 2021 to really be able to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. If you brought your Bibles, turn if you went to Luke, the gospel of Luke chapter two, and as you're turning there, let's just pray and ask the Holy Spirit to anoint his word. Father, we thank you for this opportunity. And I thank you for the church, the body of Christ. And God, we thank you that your word, when it goes forth, you said would not return void. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord endures forever. So I ask Holy Spirit, speak to our hearts, speak whatever we need to hear and let us receive it by faith. In Jesus' name and everyone said, amen. Luke chapter two, I'm gonna begin in verse eight, and I'm gonna read through verse 14. It says this, and in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night and an angel of the Lord appeared to them. And the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord? I want you to underline that in your Bible. If I had my, I just sketch, I would put like, who is Christ the Lord in highlight? And it says, and this will be a sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling claws and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. You guys recognize this? I'm assuming as obviously one of the most common or well-known Christmas scriptures or passages. And so you might be saying, John, take it easy. It's barely November, right? How many of you are, hey, I don't care if the Halloween paint's not even dry. I'm into Christmas. Raise your hand. Okay, some of you are like, hey, let's give Thanksgiving a chance here. Okay, that's more of you. Okay, well, I used to be the second crowd. I used to be like, hey, hey, take it easy. And now I'm like, no, I'm into it. Any month that ends with her, I'm ready for Christmas basically. So I got Christmas music going and we're reading the Christmas passage because we're about to enter into the season. Obviously we're as followers of Jesus, we recognize that Jesus became a man, that Jesus became flesh. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The incarnation is what we celebrate as Christians this time of year and as we enter into Christmas. And that is an important, obviously theology, it's important piece of Christian history, very important. But at the same time, it can be a way that only people recognize Jesus as. And that's the only kind of frame of reference that they have is kind of the Christmas Jesus. And again, it's an incredible, it's really a mind blowing story. If you just peel back all of kind of the marketing and all of the hustle and bustle of Christmas and think about God, eternal God, the God who always is and always has been and always will be, decides to come to earth, to the earth he created. Like the Bible tells us in Colossians one that Jesus was there. All things that we see that are, that are created were by him and through him. Principality, seen and unseen, principalities, dominions, all because of Jesus. So he was there in the beginning. And yet he says to the Father, I am going to be a sacrificial lamb. God himself is going to come to earth. And if you, if I'm going to create a scenario where God comes to earth, God, it's gonna be a big deal. You know what I mean? I picture like coming to America, King Jeffrey Jaffer. And I don't know if you've seen that movie, maybe I'm not even recommending it. But what happens is, he's the king of Zamunda, right? And there's this whole fleet of Mercedes-Benz and he, you know, he doesn't even get out. All these other people get out and then they open the door and they're throwing like rose petals down. And then you see his like $10,000 Italian shoes and up stands this king. He's got gold all over. He's got this sick lion head thing that I went for Christmas. I'm gonna tell Kendra, like, and he's like, my son, Archie. You know, he's got that James Earl John. And it's like this huge deal. And that's exactly how Jesus didn't come to earth. God did not come to Los Angeles or New York. He didn't go to Rome or Corinth. He went to Bethlehem. And he didn't tell the paparazzi and he didn't tell the news channels, the shepherds were the first ones to hear about it. And he didn't come adorned in gold. He didn't come wearing, you know, royal regal robes. He literally came as a baby, a baby. Raise your hand if you know what a baby is. Okay, that's most of us. Portage, come on. No, I'm kidding. It's incredible. Imagine that. Again, we have three children. And what you realize about babies when they're born is that they're just, obviously it's incredible and it's miraculous, but there's also just this insane vulnerability, dependency on their parents. And I want you to just think about that's how God came to the earth, is as a child, as a baby. And he grew into his identity. The Bible says, doesn't give us much about his childhood or his teenage years, but Luke 2.52 says in God, Jesus grew in stature and in wisdom and in favor with God and with man. So I want you to understand that this, that really was who he was as a baby. And then he grew into his identity. So it wasn't God, Jesus trapped in a baby's body. It wasn't like a full grown Jesus going, oh my word, this is so embarrassing. You know, here I am, the son of God and I'm in a manger. It was really God and he grew into his identity and ultimately he paid the price for our sins on a cross. The Bible says that we were redeemed not with corruptible things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of a lamb without blemish and without spot. And it's this incredible part of God's plan and it's how we are introduced to Jesus on the earth. But as I said, Jesus is eternal. And so Jesus was there when creation happened. And then Jesus was born and he had disciples and his birth and death and resurrection has impacted billions of lives in the last 2000 years. But scripture is also clear that Jesus is coming again and that he's not coming as a baby and he's not coming to Bethlehem. He's coming as a conquering king and the eastern sky is going to split wide open and there'll be a white horse and the Bible in Revelation 19 says, him who sits on it is called faithful and true. And his eyes are like fire and on his head are many crowns and he judges the world with his righteousness and his robe is dipped in blood and written on his thighs a name that no one knows and king of kings and Lord of lords is on his chest and a two-edged sword comes out of his mouth with which he judges the nations. And on that day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. That's who Jesus is. So I don't want to take away from the miraculous birth. I don't want to take away from the miracles we see in the gospels, but we also have to remember that Jesus is returning again. Right now, he's at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf, but he's coming again. So we have to answer this question. Who is Jesus? Like, what does that mean for us? Like, there's all these facets. So how do we adopt and grasp and understand who Jesus really is? And so I want to explain hopefully something that sometimes I think we overlook. And I'm gonna give you a couple of statistics here. They're not gonna come up on the screen, but you can write them down if you want. But Jesus is referred to in your Bible in several ways. So he's called the Son of God, the Son of Man, and the Lamb of God in Scripture, all less than 10 times each. So he is referred to as that, but not very often. Jesus is referred to as Savior in Scripture 20 times. Jesus is referred to as Teacher in Scripture 60 times. And Jesus is referred to as Lord in Scripture 740 times. So there is a massive chasm between what Jesus is normally or often referred to versus what he's, or often thought of versus what he's actually referred to in Scripture. 740 times, he is called Lord. And I want to establish this morning what that means for us, what that word means and what that idea has to mean for us as Christians. Let me give you the definition of Lord in the Greek, it's what your Bible is, New Testament is written in. It's the word Creos. And it means this, master, possessor, owner, controller. That's what it means when Jesus refers to himself as Lord, that he is our authority, our master, our controller. Like we belong to him and he is Lord of our lives. And the reason that that's important to remember is because if Jesus is the controller of our lives, guess who isn't in control? Us. And as 21st century Western American Christians, we don't like not being in control. Let's just be honest. I personally don't have that problem. As long as everyone does what I say the way I want it, no control issues whatsoever. No, all of us do. And it manifests in different ways. I was in traffic on Gold Road and it's amazing how quickly you become un-Christian when somebody cuts you off in traffic. Hopefully that's probably just me. You guys are all better Christians, but I'm driving down the road and I'm literally saying to myself, they're not gonna go. There's no way they're gonna go because they're not that kind of a person. I can tell already. They don't hate me. They do hate me and they pull right out. And it's like there's like, no, I need to be in control. Like this is my space and my area. And that's how we sometimes see our Christianity. Like you don't go to somebody's house and grab the remote control, right? Caleb Culver actually does do that, but most people know like, hey, that's someone else's responsibility. And listen, this is why I say that because I fear that many times in Christian circles, we have reduced Christianity or following Jesus to believing in God, maybe praying a prayer, and then basically we live our lives the way we want to. And we do what we're wanting to do. And we're led by our own feelings, our own desires. And we don't come under the Lordship of Jesus. Yes, we need Jesus to be our savior. Yes, he was an amazing teacher. Yes, the Bible in John 15 says he's even our friend. But more than any other reference, he is referred to as Lord of our lives as controller and master and owner. And if we're not careful, we can fool ourselves into believing that we have a real relationship with God. And instead, all we really have done have acknowledged the existence of God, but it hasn't impacted or changed our lives. And if Jesus Christ is Lord of your life, it will radically change how you live. It will radically change how you see yourself and see the world around you. I wrote this phrase, and it's my own phrase, and it's kind of harsh, but it's gonna come up on the screen because I feel this. It says this, being a Christian following Jesus is not just about believing in God. You know, people will say, I believe in God, I believe in God. The demons, James says, believe in God. And they tremble. That doesn't make you a Christian. Or even just praying a prayer to avoid hell. Listen, I believe that we have to have a born again moment, I believe in praying a prayer of salvation. But too often in our culture, yeah, I prayed a prayer back when I was eight years old in my room, but you wouldn't see any evidence of it in your life. You don't, we still live the way we want to. So that's not Christianity. What is it? Christianity is a completely new way of living where Jesus is at the center and Jesus is Lord of our lives. Jesus is at the center and Jesus is Lord, owner, master and controller of our lives. So instead of compartmentalizing, which we often do and saying, okay, Jesus, you're Lord on Sundays and I have work on Monday and this on Wednesday and sports here and friends here. No, what if Jesus is the center and every other thing comes through and is processed through? Jesus is the center and Jesus is Lord. What do my relationships look like? What do I look like when I'm at work? What about when I'm at school? Everything is affected because Jesus is not just another thing we do, he's the center of our lives and he's the Lord of our lives. Following Jesus, point number two, restructures your entire life. You can say you're a Christian and then your life doesn't really change, but if you are following Jesus and if he is Lord of your life, it literally restructures your entire life and the way that you live. I wanna give you a couple of verses, Colossians chapter three. Paul writes this, we did a big series, preeminence and Colossians. He said, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God the Father, set your mind on things above, not on the things of the earth for you died and your life is hidden with God in Christ. And when Christ, who is your life? Underline that, where's my Etch-a-sketch? Who is your life appears? Then you also will appear with him in glory. It doesn't say when Christ, who is kind of important, when Christ, who you pray to prayer to once, when Christ, who you acknowledge on Sundays. No, when Christ, who is your life now appears, then you'll appear with him in glory. It's a radical life shift, a radical life change. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter five. Paul talks about ambassadors. He talks about how we are carriers of the glory of God, but he answers this question. And if I asked it to this church this morning, if I said, why did Jesus die? We'd get a lot of answers, but they'd probably be like for our sins, so we could be forgiven, so we could be redeemed, so we can go to heaven. Like, those are all good answers. But look what Paul says to the church, and he meaning Jesus died for all. Why? So that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Jesus died on the cross, not so that we could go on living our regularly scheduled programmed lives. He died on the cross for our sins, so that we who now live might no longer live for ourselves. We are not the focus. We're not the owner. We're not the controller. Jesus is following Jesus and making him Lord is a radical life change. And so now I wanna just talk about, what does that mean? How do we prepare ourselves in light of our lives being aligned with Jesus for these last days? For living in the last days, if we're part of a generation that as Pastor Lee has taught could very well see the return of Christ. What is our primary focus? What do we need to make sure we're doing and we're following? I wanna just give you three practical pragmatic things that I have been praying the Holy Spirit would highlight and help you in your own personal journey as a Christian. So three things to prepare the first is this, make knowing God a priority. Make knowing God a priority in your life. Look what Jesus said in John 17. This is his high priestly prayer. It's beautiful. Says when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and he said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, let the son make glorify you. Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. Now look at verse three and this is eternal life. Do you wanna know what is eternal life? What is it? Is it just we go to heaven forever? Is it just whatever happens after we die? No, this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. There is no real life until we know God and knowing God is an intentional relational decision that we make every day of our lives. That's what I want you to hear. Make knowing God a priority in your life because too often, especially in our world, we know a lot about God. We know facts, we know Bible stories. We know what Pastor Lee maybe has taught us and that's great. We are blessed with an incredibly gifted, smart, incredible communicator and it can be easy sometimes to think, well, I go to church and I even take notes and I listen so that's how I know God and I'm going to tell you there is absolutely no replacing, time spent with God in his word and in prayer when it comes to actually knowing him, knowing him, not just knowing about him, not just having some understanding about building intentionally a relationship because here's the thing, when you know someone, you can trust someone. What do we tell our children? Stranger, danger, right? If you don't know that person, then there's a level of trust you can't have and that's what we tell our kids and we should tell our kids, like you need to know. So you know, if it's this person, you can trust him and when we don't know God, that's why we don't trust him with areas of our lives. That's why we don't allow him to have Lordship over things like our finances, our family, our decisions is because we still own control because we don't trust him and the reason we don't trust him is because we don't know him. I'm a huge tennis fan. Don't at me, it's the greatest sport of all time. It's God's favorite sport because it begins with love and if you serve well, you usually win. So how about that? There's no argument. I'm sorry, if you like bass, there's just nothing you can say, that's it. So I love tennis. Every year I go to a tennis tournament with my friend Mike in Cincinnati and you see all the big name players and if you follow tennis, you know the last like 10 years we've had Roger in men's tennis but we've had Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic. So guys who are all time greats, all playing at the same time. And so one time, they practice like an hour before they take the court for their match and you don't need a ticket. You can just go down to the practice court. And so I made my way down and I was one of the first in there. So I'm literally like at the very, you know, brink of the divider that leads to the court and I'm watching Roger Federer warm up with his training partner and there's no ball kids or anything. So he hits a ball and it shanks a little bit and it comes right over to where I am. So literally like, you know, he's 10 feet away from me as he comes over to get the ball himself. And I say to him, Roger, good luck tonight. And Roger looked at me, we made eye contact. And he said, thanks. And then we hung out forever. No, we didn't. And now we're best friends. No, we're not actually. But I remember I called Mike. I was like, dude, I just talked to Roger Federer. And if I'm not at the hotel tonight, it's because we're hanging out and we're friends now and I may be preoccupied. I don't know. This could go somewhere. That's what I'm telling you, right? I didn't say all that. Oh, I did actually kind of say that, but I didn't really mean it because all I did was say one word to him. But I know a lot about Roger Federer. I've watched him. I've been in some proximity to him, but I don't know who he is. And I'm going to guess that if I see him again, hey, hey, remember 2012? I said, good luck. And you said, thank you. It's cool you haven't called. Like take your time, you know, whatever, whatever. I'm not going to do that. Why? Because I don't know him. And too often we treat God that way. Hey, I know something about him. Listen to me. Matthew 6-6 is the lifestyle that every Christian needs to lead to know God. What did Jesus say? He was just saying how not to pray. Don't babble, don't pray like the heathens do. Don't try to be noticed like the Pharisees do. He said, but when you pray, go to your room that's in secret and close the door and pray to your father. And he who sees in secret, what you're doing will reward you openly. The reward of the secret place of going and spending time with God in word and in prayer is that you begin to know him. And when you know him, you can trust him. And when you know his word, your life can literally change. I have some statistics. This is people who engage the Bible four or more times a week. This is it. This is what happens. So I'm going to engage the Bible four more times. It's 228% more likely to share their faith than people who don't read the Bible. It's 407% more likely to memorize scripture. People ask me, how do you know so many scriptures? I literally just read the Bible and then I remember. And when you read something enough time, like how many of you know your phone number or your address, raise your hand. Yeah, so we can memorize things, but how do you know they're in front of us? Like we know it. 59% less likely to view pornography. Many times when we fall into some of these sins, it's because we don't have a connection with the Lord. We're preoccupied, 30% less likely to struggle with depression and loneliness. And these are Barna stats. And again, all I'm saying is that reading the word of God matters because it's alive and it's powerful and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. That's what the Bible says. So you can go to the library and you can read any book you want, but there's only one book that reads you and discerns your heart. And that is the living word of God. And so as we navigate these last days, you have to know God, make it a priority. Number two, make sure Jesus is your source. Your source, your source of identity, your source of truth, your source of purpose and meaning and satisfaction in your life has to come from Jesus in these last days. Or it is coming from a well that's going to run dry. Jesus is, the Bible says, a fountain of life. He is a stream, a spring of living water. And when you drink from him, you'll never thirst. You'll never run dry. But if your source is anything other than Jesus, if you're looking to anything other than Jesus to validate you for your identity, for your self worth, you are running a race that you'll never win and that you'll never finish and that you'll never find true satisfaction in. And so many people, guys, in our day and age and in this generation are looking to social media, looking to money, looking to any other thing to find their source. And what happens is it will run dry. And when it does, lives crumble and people are devastated. Why? Because they're drinking from a well that runs dry. And Jesus says, if you make me your source, if you drink from my streams of water, from my river of life, you'll be satisfied and you'll be full. Look at what Psalm 36 says. This is one of my favorites. It says, how precious is your steadfast love? Oh God, the children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house and you give them drink from the river of your delight. For with you is the fountain of life and your light do we see light. In John chapter four, Jesus meets the woman, the Samaritan woman at the well. She's had five husbands. Her life is spiraling out of control and he talks to her about water. And what does she say? Oh, I want that water. Show me where it is. And so I don't have to keep coming to this well. And Jesus says, no, the water I'm talking about is different. This well is gonna run dry, but the water that I give you leads to eternal life and it leads to fulfillment. And I wanna just encourage you. Listen, in our culture, money is the number one substitute for God. That's our source. And so we live our lives too often thinking, well, as long as I have financial security, as long as I have enough, and do you know why Jesus said, you can't serve God and mammon, God and money? It's because it becomes your God. And you think, I don't really need God. Like I don't really need to pray. I don't really have a lot of need. I have financial resources. But then what happens when those are gone? What happens when our economy is shaken? What happens when like in the 1930s when there was a stock market crash in Black Friday, what happened? People took their own lives because they lost their money. Why? Because it was their source. It was their source. Why are so many people on just this political, like hiatus? Like this is, why? Because they've made politics, their source. If the right person's in office, then everything's gonna be okay and everything's gonna be, but if this person, if this party is in office, oh God, we're doomed, we're all doomed. Like that's not faith. And that's not a source you wanna drink from, trust me. You want Jesus to be your source. Vote, pray, pray for all of our leaders. But don't make politics your source. Don't make how you look your source. There's a whole generation of young people that are being just absolutely devastated by Instagram and by other social media that says, this is how you need to look. This is what is popular. This is what's gonna make you happy. Well, guess what? There's gonna come a day where you don't look the same. And there aren't enough plastic surgeons to make that face look the way it did on that one filter, Snapchat filter or whatever it is. Like, you know, that can't be our source. And so I'm half joking, but I'm literally vexed in my soul that I see and I don't know anything about it, which is probably one reason to not talk about it, but I'm going to anyways. Why we have 37,000 marijuana distributors in Kalamazoo? Like I don't understand it. Is the market never flooded? Like we can just always have more? I don't know a lot about it, but here's what I know. There's no way you can tell me that isn't happening because people are looking to that for their source. They're looking to alcohol. They're looking to, I need to feel better about myself. And this is the answer. And I'm telling you, that will run dry. It will not satisfy. It won't. And listen, not everything is bad. Obviously relationships aren't bad and politics, well, don't have to be bad, you know, but they can't be your source. Jesus has to be your source. And you wake up and say, I am who God says that I am. And he says I'm forgiven and he says I'm called. And he says he has plans and purposes for my life. And my life is not contingent on what other people think about me. My life is not hanging in the balance of other people's opinions. I am a child of God and I'm not a slave to fear. I'm not a slave to my past. I don't have to live as an orphan. I am adopted by God. And just begin to confess the truth over yourself. Jesus, you are my source. And my third thing as we prepare is this, is to make obedience your measuring stick. How do I know if I'm a Christian? How do I know if I'm following Jesus? Do I just say I'm a Christian? Do I just change my status on social media to Christian? Do I just pray or prayer? No, you wanna know how you know you're a Christian? What level of obedience am I walking in to what Jesus has said and to what God has declared in His word? What level of obedience? It's, listen to me, it's not how high we raise our hands on Sunday. It's how obedient we're walking to the truth on Monday that really determines what we believe and what we know about who we are as followers of Jesus. Look what John writes in 1 John. He says this, and by this we know that we have come to know him. What? We keep his commandments. Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar. Look, I didn't call you a liar, John did, but anyway. And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in him. Listen, I'm not talking about performance in the sense that, you know, because listen, the Pharisees, they kept the law better than anyone. So it's not just about keeping commandments because their hearts were far from God. But here's what I'm going to say. When you know God and when you love God and when he's the Lord of your life, the overflow of that is a desire to want to walk in obedience. Is a desire to want to please him with your life. And John goes on to say that when we do know him and we do love him, his commandments are not burdensome. Like God is not this like big, you know, mean guy in the sky who lives in the valley of no and wants to crush your dreams and your joy and your happiness. No, if we fall in love with Jesus, his commandments, what he wants us to do and what he lays out in his word, they're not burdensome, they're not hard, they're life giving and they're freeing. Jesus said this in John 14, if you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. We switch that around and say, well, I need Jesus to know I love him, so I'm going to keep his commandments. And that's our focus. I can't do this, can't do that. Got to do this, got to do that. No, put your focus on Jesus, who he is and what he's done. Read through the Gospels, read through the passion, the price that he paid on the cross. Let your heart fall in love with Jesus. And then the overflow of that is a lifestyle of obedience. It's a lifestyle that says, look, no one's perfect. I'm not, again, please hear me. I'm not saying that we have to follow the law to the letter, but I'm saying is when we make Jesus Lord, the overflow is that we wanna please him with our lives. We wanna know him more. We wanna make sure we're saying yes to what he says yes to you and we're saying no to what he says no to you. And that happens through relationship. That God is not some cosmic being two million miles away in the atmosphere. He's near, he's with us. When you draw near to God, he draws near to you. And we look at our lives and we say, is it reflecting who God says that he is and what God has communicated in his word? And if it's not, then we have to submit to that. Listen, if you don't know what the word says, then you're gonna be moved by the streams of culture. And culture is constantly changing. And we have too many Christians in America especially that say, okay, I love God and sure I believe in God and I believe in Jesus and I'll go to church and I like it and I like the music and Pastor Lee's great. And then we go back and we say, but I'm not gonna change my life. I'm not gonna stop sleeping with my girlfriend. I'm not gonna forgive that guy. I hate him. I'm not gonna become a giver. I'm not gonna witness. I don't, that's the pastor's job. Like no, when God is the center of your life, you say, God, I come under your control. I come under your authority and I need you to help me bear fruit. I need you to help me walk in obedience. God's not dangling a carrot saying, you gotta get here. You know, I'll fill you with my spirit. I'll grace you with the strength that you need, but you have to have a desire to live for me. That's what it looks like to have obedience be your measuring stick. I was thinking about, my wife and I are about to leave on vacation. And I was thinking about this dynamic of, look, it's not salvation is a free gift. I want you to hear me. It's not like we earn it with our performance. It's not like we earn it by doing the right things. And then God is happy with us, but it does cost us something. Because when we say yes to Jesus, we say no to some other things. We say no to some of the desires of our flesh, some of the things that the world is saying. And it reminded me of when I gave Kendra, when I proposed to Kendra, I gave her a, I think it was like a 1 52nd of a carrot wedding ring. And it was, it was amazing. And I gave it to her and I was so nervous. I was like, I'm going to wait till Christmas. And this is going to be, and I didn't, and I was nervous. And if I could go back in time, I would change a lot of things. But one thing would be how I proposed to Kendra, because there would be like a trip to the Louvre museum, or at least a hot air balloon, or maybe like a fighter jet flying by, and it wouldn't be Applebee's. But either way, I pulled this ring out. I'm literally shaking. And I asked her a question. I said, will you marry me? I said, will you be mine? Like I want to spend my life with you. And here's the thing is I bought that ring. It didn't cost Kendra anything. But when she said yes to it, when she received it, it did cost her something. She now belongs to me. Like she says no to other people. She says no to other things. Her allegiance and her heart is coming after me. And when she put her ring, my ring on my finger, she paid for that, but it cost me something. And that's what covenant looks like. Like she belongs to me. I belong to her and we belong to Christ. That's what a life of covenant looks like. And maybe you're like, wow, that sounds chauvinistic, John. She doesn't belong to you. And I'm like, well, she does because if you try to touch her, I'll kill you. But either way, I'm just kidding. But that's what it looks like. It's not, it wasn't like, hey, now you gotta do this, this and this because we're married. No, it's an overflow of I belong to you now and I wanna love you and there's bumps in the road and it's not always easy, but we walk in the truth of the promises we made to each other. And that's what it looks like in many ways to follow Jesus. We're the bride of Christ. We belong to him and our lives need to be surrendered to him in these last days to fully walk in his plans and in his purposes. Will you stand up with me this morning? I just want you to bow your head. I wanna pray for us, for you, for the church. I just want you to ask the Holy Spirit, what do you want to speak to me right now? Just no moving around if you can. I just really ask the Lord like how, how are we gonna end this service? And here's what I felt I needed to be obedient to. It's first, there may be those in here or even online that need to ask Jesus to be their savior. He wants to be that. Doesn't matter where you've been or what you've done, doesn't matter your past, doesn't matter how guilty you might feel. Jesus will come, one prayer, one acknowledgement, draw near to him and he draws near to you. He's there in a moment and he wants to forgive you and he wants to make you a new creation in Christ Jesus. That's what he does because he's always faithful. And there is gonna be a day, as I said, where Jesus returns or when we stand before him and we will give an account for our lives. And what none of us wanna do in that moment is say, there was an offer for Jesus to take my sin and my shame and my brokenness but I didn't say yes to that. I kept it for myself and now we're accountable for our sins and our shortcomings instead of Jesus. And I wanna give you an opportunity to put your cares, your burdens and your lives into the hands of Jesus. And if you're here and you just say, hey, pray with me. All I'm gonna ask you to do is raise your hand. I'm not gonna embarrass you or call you forward but this is between you and this is between you and the Lord. And if you say, John, just include me in the prayer. We're gonna pray. I need Jesus to save my soul and set me free. I just want you to raise your hand right now and just acknowledge that. It's between you and the Lord. Thank you, thank you. Awesome. Keep your hand up. This is between you and God. Thank you. Anyone else? Awesome. I wanna ask one more question. There's those in here who, you have a relationship with Jesus but there's areas of your life that you've not made him Lord of your life that you still have control. Maybe it's your children. Maybe it's your finances. Maybe it's the worry of work. The fear of your future. And God's not mad. He's not demanding anything but I'm just gonna tell you when you cast your burdens on the Lord, he cares for you. He carries those. And when you make him Lord, here's the beauty of the kingdom of God. The more you surrender, the more you give away, the more freedom you actually experience. It's not like the world where if I surrender to you, now you're in control and I'm in a bad spot. Now, the more you give to Jesus, the more freedom you actually experience. And so there's areas of your life where you need to ask God to forgive you for taking control and you need to surrender the Lordship of those areas to Jesus. I just want you to raise your hand right now. Just raise your hand and say, that's me. Awesome, there's hands all over. You can put your hands down. We're just gonna pray together. Father, we thank you for these opportunities where we're just reminded that God you're for us and you're with us. And you're our savior and redeemer and friend and teacher and Lord and lamb of God. You're all those things, but you're also Lord of our lives. And so we surrender and submit to that reality today. And we say, God, you alone are worthy. You alone have the authority of my life. You alone can speak direction to me, God. We don't wanna go our way. We don't wanna do what we want, Father. We wanna hear the voice of God behind us like Jeremiah did saying, this is the way. Walk in it, God. Thank you that you lead us. You don't yank us around, God. You don't push us. You lead us beside still waters. And into green pastures, God. Your ways are always higher. Your ways are always better. I pray for every hand that was lifted and surrender to you, God. That when we leave here, our Monday through Saturday lives, God, the trajectory of our heart would be to know you, to make you our source and to walk in obedience to who you are and what you said in Jesus' name. Amen.