The Great Shepherd: The Lord

well loved ones I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it is an honor to stand here before you and proclaim His word before we delve into Psalm 23. And I want to thank Nikki and her team for the great job they did. Really expressing the scripture reading over us in song this morning. Let allow me just take them home share a few personal words. First, I want to thank the search team of Christ Church, Memphis, chaired by Lauren Robinson, and a whole series of interviews online in person, one interview process that began here in Memphis at 815 in the morning, and ended at 930 at night. I not only the beauty of the thoroughness in the process, but Missy and I were struck by how the Holy Spirit kept showing up in each and every step, not only for us personally, but witnessed among your leadership team. And I am mindful that is a testimony to all that God has done and continues to do in the life of Christ Church, Memphis, and I want to say a word of honor for the search team and the privilege that Missy and I've had of journeying with you since February, as we've come to this point, in discernment before the Lord. Secondly, I want to thank all of you, as Missy and I moved in weeks ago, and are getting acclimated to the city of Memphis. Many of you have sent cards notes, you've brought Mills, by you've expressed acts of hospitality in so many ways. And we are deeply thankful. Thank you. Our hearts, as John Wesley said, have been strangely warmed by Your grace and acts of kindness. Thank you. And then thirdly, Missy is not able to be here today. She is in Memphis, let the record show that. But she and I navigated COVID A few weeks back. And then as she came out of COVID, unfortunately, last Thursday, had about with vertigo. And for those of you that may know a little bit about that journey when you go through an episode and there is a recovery period and she's in that zone. And she and I grieve as recent as this morning together that she's not able to be with me today. But she will be with us very soon. She is here in town just a few minutes away. And I look forward to her meeting each of you and you meeting her as my dad has reminded me repeatedly through the years, son, you outran the kick coverage when you married Missy so that let that ring true, at least in my ongoing understanding. As we journey journey forward. Would you allow me to pray for us as we step into the teaching this morning, let's pray together.

Father, I'm keenly aware we're on holy ground, not so much as it relates to geography but as it relates to why we have gathered, whose name we have gathered in and already as praises and affirmations have been lists lifted before your throne. We have since the nudges of the Holy Spirit, we pray now that you would increase and I pray personally that I would decrease but we pray that this grace of your increase would rest upon the generations and the ethnicities gathered in the sanctuary for your glory. And we pray this in the strong and eternal name of Jesus, amen.

Now I recognize I'm probably not the only one in this room that is a CS Lewis fan. I obviously didn't know CS Lewis personally. But in reading his writings, he's been what I would call an indirect mentor in my life, someone that I didn't know personally, but his writings have impacted my life and my spiritual formation deeply. And so there are many classical works of Louis that we could pull from this morning. But the one that I want to lift up for a moment is a book Lewis wrote called The Great divorce. And I'm going to share the primary story in that book. And I want to acknowledge on the front end, just so you know, I'm self aware that I will take a few liberties with the story and the way I retell it that way. If you lean over and say Marge, that's not exactly how that went down. I just want you to know, I know. So here we go. So Louis opens his story by telling the story of a young man who lives in a forest that is surreal in its beauty. And the young man has is no friends, no companions, as he lives in this forest with the exception of a red Lizard that lives on his shoulder, and he and red lizard, converse quite a bit. Red lizard is always saying to the young man, let's go try this. Let's go explore that. Let's go look at this. Let's go try that. And the young man is always following these promptings that come from the voice of red lizard. Only as the young man journeys in this beautiful forest, he'll notice this beautiful rose growing on the FOP florist for floor. And you'll reach down and pick it and bring it to his nostrils anticipating that he's going to breathe in the beautiful aroma, and it's going to satisfy a longing within his own heart only when he picks the rose and brings it to his nostrils, it vanishes. He sees a stream flowing in the bottom of a beautiful valley. And it flows with crystal clear clearness. And he longs to go down and and get to the edge of the stream and cusp, his hands in the water, bring it to his lips and satisfy his thirst only when he gets to the bottom of the valley and he puts his hands in the water and starts to bring the water to his lips. The water vanishes right before his eyes. He sees a beautiful meadow that's outlined by these gorgeous wildflowers that again in the background with these beautiful majestic fir trees. And he sees this beautiful meadow when he longs to go run and just dance if you will in this beautiful place. Only when he touches the edge of the meadow. It vanishes right before his eyes. And so in his ongoing longing, he says to read lizard red lizard, is there anything that's real? Is there anything that will fulfill the depth of the longing in my own heart for some type of peace and fulfillment? And red lizard begins his ongoing dialogue with a young man that goes something like this, why young men, everything that you see is real. In fact, red lizard then changes the course of the current conversation and goes and points out something else for the young man to pursue or chase or explore constantly bringing the young man on a continued course of just distraction and focus on Try this. Try that Try this. Try that. Well one day. As the young man and red lizard are wandering through the forests, he sees an old man off in the distance. Now the young man is not used to seeing people in the forest. And as the young the old man draws a little closer red lizard gets nervous. Red lizard begins to get frantic and kind of dance back and forth nervously on the young man's shoulders. And the old man as he approaches gets close enough for the young man to speak to him. And he says to him, sir, could please come near and red lizard begins to holler red lizard begins to express verbally his nervousness and begins to say to the young men you don't know this man. Let's don't talk with this man. Let's don't let this man get near us. And he's moving back and forth on the young man's shoulders real nervous, like and so the old man gets closer. And the young man asks the old men this deep question, sir, everything I touch doesn't fulfill. Can you help me? I everything. I have this longing in my heart. There has to be something more and red lizard begins to scream Oh no, don't listen to this man. You don't know this man. We need to get away from this man in the old man says Son, I have the answer to your question. And red lizard begins to screen. No, don't listen to him. We don't know this man. And he's nervous again, moving back and forth on the young man's shoulder. So much so that the young man's feeling the pressure as red lizard is very visibly nervous. And the old man gets a little closer and red lizard gets a little more nervous. And the young man says Sir, I need your help. How can you help me? And the old man begins reaching out toward the lizard and the lizard. Red lizard is screaming No, no, don't let him get near me.

And we'll finish the story in just a moment. So Psalm 23 opens with a grand proclamation. The Lord. It's not some type of distortion that we see. Opening in Psalm 23. No, it's this profound assertion To the Lord. Now, I have a holy hunch that most of you in this room understands the understand the basics of what a phrase like the Lord implies. It implies that if I am under if you are, I are under some type of Lordship, than that involves our surrender our giving up of certain rights, because there is a Lord there is the Lord. And this is how Psalms 23 opens, as we all know to words, the Lord now, if you will, just in light of the simplicity of that truth, contrasts that with the rise of individuality in Western culture, where identity is associated strongly with my individuality, my rights, my emotions, my perspectives, my opinions, because for the Christian loved ones, for the Christian, my primary identity for a Christian, your primary identity is not rooted in who I am. Your primary identity is rooted in who's I am. As a Christian, my primary identity is not only rooted in being in Christ, but also in being in relationship with his body, his church, Christ is the head first Corinthians 12. We are his body. Now listen to these words of NT right, the theologian he writes this, we have been so soaked in the individualism of modern Western culture, that we feel threatened by the idea of our primary identity being that a family we belong to, especially when the family in question is so large, stretching across space and time, the church isn't simply a collection of isolated individuals, all following their own pathways of spiritual growth without much reference to one another. It may sometimes look like that and even feel like that. And it's gloriously true that each of us is called to respond to God's call at a personal level, you can hide in the shadows at the back of the church for a while, but sooner or later, you have to decide whether this is for you. Or not. And the question we would ask, in light of two words of Psalm 23, is this Is he worthy, or not of our surrender, as Lord. And so what I want to do for a few minutes, is just explore with you just us journey together. And let's see together the beauty of His Lordship together. I want to begin by inviting us to take note of His Lordship, on display through creation, his lordship on display through creation. And so I am a note that the first place that we witnessed God referred to as the Lord in Scripture is actually in Genesis, chapter two, verse four, and it reads like this. These are the generations of the heavens in the earth, where they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. I had the honor of spending 16 years serving as a pastor in Huntsville, Alabama. Many of you are aware that this is one of NASA's primary centers in the country, for astrophysicist and engineers who've managed different parts of the space program. Well, I lived in Huntsville, when they corrected the lens on the Hubble telescope. I'm really excited about the new James Webb telescope. But that's really not helpful for our sermon this morning. Let's kind of reel that in, pardon me. But the Hubble telescope when it was repaired, and engineers and in all these NASA persons were seeing these images they had not been publicly released yet. And they're sharing pastor you're, you're going to be blown away, the public is going to be blown away when suddenly, they're able to see what we're seeing stars and galaxies and nebulas in a way that we have never witnessed and and seen them before. Well, I remember when those images first began coming back and they pieced 11 photographs together so that we had a view even of the Milky Way that we had never seen before. The Milky Way is our neighborhood. It's our galaxy. And so I want to invite you just to wrap your head around the following If you could travel at the speed of light. If you wanted to travel from one end of our neighborhood to the other, the one and the Milky Way to another, it would take you 100,000 years. Now, our nearest galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy. Some people put it onset Andhra Mita. So for those of you who are linguists, I just want to say you may be right, but I'm going to call it a dromeda. So, the Andromeda Galaxy, our closest neighbor, if, if if we were able to travel at the speed of light, and we said, You know what, I'm a little tired of my hood, if you will, and I want to go visit a new neighborhood. And I want to go to the drama galaxy, and you are on the edge of the Milky Way and you journey there, it would take you traveling at the speed of light, 197,000 miles per second, it would take you over two and a half million years to get there. Now that's just two galaxies in our universe. So that begs the question, how many galaxies are in our universe? Well, astronomers don't know for sure. But they here's here's their best case estimates. They most modern estimates, put the number of galaxies in the universe at 2 trillion. Each galaxy excuse me, yes, each galaxy containing roughly 1 billion stars each. How many stars are in the entire universe? This is what astronomers what their best estimate is. Here's the answer. 200 billion trillion.

I'm reminded of what the psalmist said. The heavens, declare the glory of God. process that church, he is greater than we have imagined. He is more majestic than we have fattened. He is more powerful than we can comprehend. He is more infinite than our ability to comprehend what infinite means. great is our God. The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims His handiwork. His Lordship is on display through creation. Secondly, His Lordship is on display through testimony now. So that we understand the way we are utilizing the word testimony this morning. Let me just give a simple definition I am using this word in this way, a formal or written or spoken statement, or somebody bearing witness to the truth of something. And so what I want to invite you to contemplate is the truth that's revealed to us about Jesus he hears the Word made flesh, He Colossians one tells us that through him all things were made. Colossians one tells us that Jesus is the one who is holding all things together. The implication is all molecular structure. All subatomic particles on Earth are being held together by the power of God. That's really deep, rich to think about the implications. But I want to also ask you think about the reality of the testimony of Jesus actions when he was on planet Earth. i One of my favorite perhaps this is true for you to sermons of Jesus is the Sermon on the Mount. It's an astounding sermon. You ever read the divine conspiracy by Dallas Willard, if you've never read that book, I encourage you to do so. What we're where Jesus talks about, listen, this is the this is the way that you experience happiness and joy in life. He talks about how we relate to people how we're to function together and do life together and practice forgiveness with one another out of the fallenness of the human condition. He talks to us about how to pray and many other subjects have a profound, insightful wisdom, life giving passage of scripture. But if you ever notice what Jesus did after the sermon on the mount, in the emerging verses, Jesus heals a leper, he heals a paralyzed man, he heals Peter's mother in law, he comes a storm he delivers two men from the influence of demons. He heals another person of paralysis, he raises a little girl from the dead. He restores the eyesight of two blind men, and he heals a man who is unable to speak. The question is, what is Jesus demonstrating? He is demonstrating that He is Lord over creation. He is Lord over disease, he is Lord over death. He has the authority to forgive sins, He is Lord. And we recognize his lordship through the testimony of not only who he is, but we recognize His Lordship that the testimony of his actions, but we also recognize the Lordship of Jesus In the living God through the testimony of the revelation of Scripture itself. Now, I want you to note this. There are about 7000 verses that refer to lordship in the Bible. Not all of those are in direct relation to God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, when the majority of them are now I all we all recognize we can't go through 1000 scriptures this morning, Somebody say amen. Okay, so that's true, we understand, we understand that. So what I did was just, I picked one of what I would call the pinnacle scriptures that illustrate the Lordship of Jesus out of Philippians Paul's writings. So here's the Word of God, is that okay? In church, here we go. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So we recognize that his lordship comes with the testimony of Scripture, we see it, but also, what about the testimony of believers? What about when lordship becomes subjective? Or it's not he's Lord, because it's an objective truth, but he's Lord, because it's gotten into somebody's experience. Missy and I spend a lot of time in different parts of the world. And that's been our normal for 25 years, primarily among the persecuted church and unreached people groups. I won't get into all the whys right now. But we spent a significant amount of time with persecuted Christians around the world.

And we were in a small Asian country not too many years ago, in which I was smuggled into a room with about 60 believers that had gathered secretly. And in that gathering, the question was asked, How many of you have spent time in prison for following Jesus? And half the hands in that room were raised? And then the question was asked, How many of you have a loved one that has been martyred for following Jesus? And five or six hands, mostly women? raise their hands because their husbands had been martyred as they provided leadership, and underground movement in that country. And then we asked the question, how can we pray for you? When we get back to the United States, and we're with the North American church, how can we pray for you? And here's the answer, I pray not that our suffering or persecution cease, pray that we grow bolder in the proclamation of the love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that we honor hear this we honor our Lord with our lives. In the Graco, Greco Roman world of the first century, the worship of Caesar was the order of the day, and many of those who were accused of being Christian, because it was enough evidence to convict them for being Christians, or required to do three things. They were required to say that the Emperor Caesar is Lord and to offer sacrifice to the Emperor and to other pagan gods, and to then curse Christ and to prove that their sacrifice was sincere. Failure to comply would result in forfeiture of life in many instances, but the Roman state with it's not only pagan, multiple gods and goddesses, many could not understand what is the big deal. Why are these Christians so obstinate? around this point of just simply saying, Caesar is lord, check the box and move on. Once you see the Christians of the day, based on Romans 10, nine, of confessing belief in Jesus, and confessing Him with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in their heart, that he's risen from the dead, that that predicated their salvation, that these were men and women who stood the test, even to death and loved ones. I want to remind you that the core premise of our Christian faith is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It stands at the very heart and core of Christianity, and his lordship is on display through the testimony of who Jesus is what Jesus did. His testimony is on display through the lives of believers who are suffering and through history as well. Thirdly, His Lordship is on display as our True Source Now, like you, I love the Scriptures. And when I open the Scripture, different books of the Bible, I love different books of the Bible's Bible for different reasons. But let me very briefly share with you I'm told this service goes till three o'clock and so I'm, I take comfort in that I am teasing. But I love the Psalms. And here's the primary reason. About 40% of the psalms are written when David or the author is euphemistically on the mountaintop, a time of great victory and joy. About 10% of the psalms are written where a person's not on the mountain or the valley, that's not bad, but that just is. But about 40% of the psalms are written in pain. It's one of the things I love about the Bible. The Bible never sugarcoats the reality of things you and I go through, you'll find loss, lament. people crying out to God to make sense of things when they don't make sense sometimes in the natural. It's one of the reasons I love the Psalms, the realness of it all. No sugarcoating.

But when Psalm 23, was written, many scholars believe that David wrote the psalm when he was suffering. Now, I want you to know, there's not 100% agreement on that. But many scholars believe that David wrote the psalm when his own son had mounted a rebellion and was out to get to get David kill David, his own father. So what I want to invite you to do for a moment is just, if you couldn't just recalibrate your gears for a moment and put yourself in David's place, your own son has betrayed you. Your own Son has raised up an army and is pursuing you to put you to death. You're in hiding, you're on the run. You are navigating physical hardship, emotional conflict, weariness, spiritually, emotionally, yes, physically. You longed to be back home, you miss some sense of normalcy with your family, your home and your homeland. Now, just take a moment and fill the weight of that church. And know that David wrote this psalm, knowing he had a source to turn to now is it okay, if we're gonna go left brain for just a moment? You with me? So we're gonna, we're gonna get real a little bit deductive. Alright, so, so I'm just some of us. Some of us have a little add. Amen. Okay. All right. And so what I'm the reason I mentioned this, because I love you, and what it is, for those folks who have that tendency. I'm just saying, hey, just just hang with me for just a second. Here it is. When David begins the Psalm, the Lord, he does something very unusual. He doesn't call the Lord Elohim, which is the common name for God. He uses the tetragrammaton. And when he does what he does this, he calls on the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah. And that has significance. And here's what I want you to see is that David is saying so much, was so few words right here. Because for every Hebrew background believer, every Jewish background believer they recognize that David isn't calling on Elohim. David is saying, Jehovah is my shepherd and loved ones, that's a different deal in the most God honoring way. And so I want to remind you of just a few things, what would have gone through the mind of a Hebrew believer, and that is that Jehovah is the God who declares I am I don't have a beginning. I don't have an end. I am your rock, and I am available to you I am but also what would have run through the mind of a Hebrew believer and what can run through the mind as a potential blessing in the life of a Christian is this reality? He's not only Jehovah, the God who is he is Jehovah. Jireh He is the God who is available who is your source to meet needs. That's who David is calling on Jehovah Jireh I am that I am the Lord will provide it emanates out of the story of Abraham getting ready to sacrifice Isaac and God provides the ram in the thicket in the Hebrew, the term Jehovah Jireh not only means the God that God will provide, but it also means the God who sees he sees the deed and he will see it to the end. He will bring things to completion for His glory. David is turning to the source as David is in Paying but he's not only Jehovah Jireh church family loved ones he is Jehovah Rafa, this too would have run through the mind of a Hebrew believer and he is the Lord who heals. David is dealing with some deep emotional conflict here. His heart is broken for his child. Some of you have been there and some of you are there right now. And as David own son is deceived his own son has mounted a rebellion in Israel against his own dad Absalon is not simply seeking to kill the king and take the throne he's seeking to kill his own father and the name Jehovah Rafa is an it's a name that speaks to our need today. But once we're aware, in the last decade, there has been a double digit increase in mental health issues in our land. I say this with compassion, please know that we're aware that something is unraveling in the human spirit that we cry out Jehovah heal our land. Jehovah Jireh Jehovah Rafa, Jehovah Nissi, which is out of Exodus 17, The Lord is my banner, it's the story emanates out of the story of the Amalekites coming to attack the people of God and they're more powerful in the natural than the people of God. But what God instructs Moses to do is lift his hands in prayer and intercession. And as long as Moses is praying, the people of God are victorious. You may even remember, Aaron and her come alongside Moses and hold his hair hands up, and long as there is prayer and intercession Rising before God's throne, then people God's people are victorious. But when prayer and intercession fails and ceases to rise, before God's throne, the people of God are defeated. But see the picture of what David is leaning into with the Lord Jehovah is my shepherd. So much is being said, With so few words.

Now, I want you to notice something. I want you to notice what David Dutton doesn't do.

David is in pain. But he doesn't deal with his problem by binge watching Netflix. He doesn't deal with his problem by eating a gallon of ice cream in one set sitting. David doesn't deal with this problem by looking at his spouse and say, Honey, take me to the liquor store. I've got to get a bottle. David turns to the source. And he turns to the source in surrender. And you may ask, Pastor, where do you get the surrender part? Well, we know David's in surrender because he calls out to God as the Lord. It's a term of surrender, Jehovah, Jehovah. David waives the white flag before the Lord Missy and I have ministered to human trafficking victims for many years. And I'll never forget, last year a young lady in our church in Birmingham who had been trafficked. And her crying out at the altar for several weeks after she was in the ministry that we serve within the Birmingham area and the residents of that ministry attended the church I pastored in Birmingham. She was from Memphis by the way. And I remember at our altar repeated for several Sundays, her crying out God. I just want my mind back. God I just want my mom back. And while she was getting clinical help, she was also crying out to God. And God honored that prayer church, Jehovah Rafa. Now she's working and stable and flourishing and active in a church family. Everything's not perfect. But oh my she's moving in a preferred future glory to God. I had a professor in seminary many of you knew him. His name was Dr. Bob Mulholland, one of my favorite professors. And one of the things that Bob Mulholland love to do as a hobby was fly A small aircraft. And he had a friend over near the Chesapeake Bay, who owned a small acrobatic airplane. And he invited kabob to come and visit with him in the Chesapeake Bay Area. And they were going to take up the plane, take the plane up on a Saturday and fly around the Chesapeake Bay and also do different acrobatic things. It's what you do in an acrobatic plane. So so they go up and the pilot does some stalls, you know, throttle up back on the yoke, and the plane, kill the engine and then kind of glide for a while. And the pilot had done that a couple of times. And then he looked at Bob in the copilot seat. He said, Bob, would you like to try try one to a stall Bob said I would love to. And so Bob, he throttled the plane up he pulled the yoke back and the plane up ng ng strain on the motor, killed the motor, but right as they killed the engine, a crosswind blew across the plane and it flipped and it went into a spiral. Now when the plane goes into a spiral, all Bob can see below him is the Chesapeake Bay doing this. And he has the controls the yoke, he is holding on tight, trying to figure out how to get the plane back under control as it spirals below him. And he's holding on his face is red. His beads of sweat began to come quickly out his pores. And the whole time that the Chesapeake Bay is spinning below him. There's this voice of the owner of the plane the experienced acrobatic pilot, who was saying to Bob, Bob, let go I've got it. Bob. Let go. I've got it. Bob. Bob, let go. I got it. Bob can't hear a word. Because Bob is so in control. And so panic and has his hands clenched on the yoke. He can't hear a word that the experienced pilot is expressing to him, Bob, I've got it Bob. Bob, I got it. Finally. Those words get through to Bob. Bob. Let's go. The experienced pilot takes the yoke shoves it right where it needs to go. fires the engine blew.

I trust that someone. You hear the voice of the shepherd in that story? Let go. I've got it. Let go. Don't try to be your own source. I'm your source. Let go. I've got it. And so read lizard screams No, no, don't let him touch me. Don't let him near me. And the old man gets closer and closer. And the young man opens His arms in surrender. And as he does, the old man reaches down, he touches the lizard and the lizard vanishes. And the old man vanishes only now the young man when he walks in the forest and he sees a beautiful rose in the bottom of the forest. He picks it brings it to his nostrils breathes it in and it satisfies the deepest longings of his heart and his soul. He sees water flowing in the bottom of the beautiful ravine. And he goes down and dips his hands in this crystal clear water brings it to his lips, takes it in and it satisfies his soul in a way that he's never known before. And he sees the beautiful meadow line with these gorgeous evergreens. And he steps out on the metro when he dances and runs with joy and Glee and fulfillment for the first time in his life. CS Lewis once said something like this. When God when the Lord is my primary love, all the secondary loves get thrown in. But when my secondary loves become my primary love, I enjoy neither church, I want to lovingly remind you, we have what I would call a 360 degree God.

He's a God. He is Jehovah that you can bring the big problems, the big issues, bring them to him with a surrendered heart. But he's also the 360 degree God that we can bring relationships to him that are broken or strained, that we need to do the next God honoring thing that we need his power and his courage to make things right. He also has the wisdom for that complexity or that problem that you're dealing with in your company or your business or in the workplace. He's He's a God. Who does not withhold good things from his children, but he's also as a 360 degree God, He cares about the little things. And sometimes we don't bring the little things to him. Because we're like Dr. Mulholland, I've got this yoke in my hand, I'm good, I can handle this one. But let's all remember that little things. Without the wisdom of God can become big things. He is Jehovah. And he is available to you. He is your source. And the name of the Father who loves you, in the name of Jesus, who demonstrated the love that He has for you in the name of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let's pray for just a moment. Now, how about you? And just relax? I'm not going to call you out or do anything manipulative this. Just just how about you? Has someone or something else taken the lead the pinnacle of your heart? May I lovingly invite you to sort of surrender it surrender yourself, surrender your life to the Lord. He's good. We see that. In the Scripture, we see it in the testimony of others. He's good, he's not a tyrant. As we're praying for a moment, want to remind you of something. When you draw nearer to your designer, you actually step into your design. When you pull back from your designer, you actually step away from your design. And your designer is the Lord. offer him your surrender this morning, waved the white flag. And so Lord, as we wave white flags all over this sanctuary, the confession of our mouth is that Jesus is Lord. And right there in alignment with Romans 10 nine we move in faith together, whether we're brand new in Christ, or we've known Christ for decades. We believe in faith, he's risen from the dead, he's Lord, He's alive. All history will culminate in You, Lord Jesus. So as we offer you our surrender this morning, we pray, fill us with wisdom. Fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit. Fill us with understanding from your word that we might grow. As followers of Jesus for the beauty and glory of your name this we pray, in Jesus name, Amen.