How's that working for you? Reactions | Nathan Lawson

Your next step.

Speaking of things exploding, one of our family's favorite games is Exploding

Kittens. It's a nice segue there, wasn't it?

So I don't know if you have seen this game before, but here it is right here.

And I think just saying the name of the game says something about the kind of

people that would enjoy it, you know, the kind of adults that think,

you know, exploding animals is a perfect topic for a game for your family.

If you've not heard of it, it's relatively simple. There's going to be a deck

of cards in the middle, and you're going to go around, and everyone's going

to start taking a card off the top, and you can make pairs and do these various

tricks, delaying the inevitable.

But the thing that brings the game to an end is that at some point,

you are going to withdraw a card that is an exploding kitten,

and if you do, kaboom, game over for you.

Like, that's it. This is just Russian roulette with cards. That's what this game is.

And the thing about it is, is when you play this game with a family,

it starts off so jovial, because there's only a couple in here,

and so you can be relatively confident you're taking cards early on,

but as that deck starts to get a little bit thinner,

right, and you know, somewhere in here, disaster lurks, and the pauses get a

little longer, and the delays, because it's not a question of if that kitten is going to explode.

It is only a question of when.

And the problem of you are sitting here thinking, that is going to relate to

the Bible because are we doing Revelation? Like, how does this apply?

Well, some of you, when you think back, there are certain patterns of conflict

that, you know, when you ask the question, who saw that coming?

The correct answer is virtually everyone.

Like when you got your conflicts over this holiday, I'm going to go out on a

limb and guess that that was not your first rodeo. Like this moment that that

person brought up politics, who always brings up politics, and everyone else goes, and here we go.

And like the teens, the conflict with parents over how much cell phone they're watching.

And my teens seem to, with incredible amnesia and genuineness,

look up at me saying, but father, what is this you speak of not being able to

look at our phone 26 out of the 24 hours of the day? I don't know what you're talking about.

Here we go again. Like, this is not the first time this conflict has come about.

That all of us have certain patterns that we get into, ways that we show up in the world.

And the issue is, is we're talking about how's that working for you,

the series that we're in.

If you want 2026 not just to be another year, if you want it to be a new year,

then what we want to look at are what are some ways that you approach conflict?

What are some things that you are bringing to the situation that might be adding

to the conflicts that you're experiencing? maybe even creating some of the conflicts

that you're experiencing.

You see, we're going to talk this morning about a little bit of family systems

theory, and the way family system theory describes anxiety is it's going to call it reactivity.

And reactivity, because it gets out of some of that connotations of anxiety

and all the medical ideas that come with it, because reactivity is really anxiety

wearing everyday clothes.

It's what it looks like when you're out in the world and you see something,

you experience something, and suddenly there is an alarm going off in the back

of your head that says, danger, danger, Will Robinson.

And you are now realizing this something and your brain is saying,

this needs to be fixed. This needs to be addressed.

Somebody needs to say something. Defend yourself. The time is now.

There is that alarm going off.

And so the way that you react, now, you know, people who do this,

maybe not always you, but you can see it easily in others.

And if you are not sure what I'm talking about, go to virtually any social media

platform, go to a post and put down in the comment section, are you going to

let them get away with that?

And just see what happens. Like just watch the reactions take off as people

step back and say, you know what this world needs?

One more comment from Nathan Lawson. That's what's going to put it right.

Here we go. And it's just going to go back and forth, that desire to have the final word.

You see, reactivity is rooted in our biology. It's the part of our body that

reacts when we are in danger, that it's a responding to real need,

that all of us are wired in such a way that no matter what you're doing,

if a danger presents itself, it is going to get your attention.

If a bear were to come out from around the corner into this room right now,

right, your blood pressure goes up, your eyes dilate, you are going to focus

better than any medication that could ever be offered.

Whatever speed you're capable of, you need no protein shake.

You are now in turbo mode for the next 15 seconds. You are going to have all

of the strength your body is possible having.

Let's be honest. It wouldn't need to be a bear. It could be a mouse.

Like that's a big enough threat for most of us. You know what?

We see the mouse. We are now on safari in Africa. This is dangerous.

This is the end of the world. And the issue is, is that we have that same response.

When sometimes we have needs that feel real, they're going to feel just as real,

just as much of a threat, just as much of an alarm going off,

except for you're not in danger.

The problem is that they feel like a real need, a real threat,

but they're a false need.

They just feel real to you in the moment. It's a little bit like a smoke alarm,

which I hope your house is equipped with, with batteries so it's not beeping

and annoying everybody at all hours of the day, right?

But you have that smoke alarm that's designed to cut through whatever else you're doing.

So I don't care if you're watching a movie with surround sound or sleeping or working on a hobby.

That alarm is designed to cut through all of it and say, this needs your attention

right now. You need to call 911. one.

You need to exit the building. This is not something you can put off and it's

designed to cut through everything else.

But that smoke alarm cannot make a distinction between a non-real threat.

And so when one of my children puts a, you know, a bag of popcorn,

the size of a gumdrop inside the microwave and hits the popcorn button,

which is designed for a full family size.

And suddenly my microwave is a Traeger grill and there's alarms going off,

even though there is no actual danger.

And what we want to be careful of is we're going to go into it is we're going

to be talking about this reactivity, the way that we walk into a conflict with

needs that we weren't aware that we had, and they're exacerbating the conflicts and the relationships.

Because these kinds of reactions are not just online.

They're in board meetings. They're in the car line when you're talking with

your kids being dropped off. They're in marriages.

This is probably not the first time you and your spouse have argued about finances.

I'm just going out on a limb.

This is probably not the first time you've gone through these conflicts.

And so the question is, if you want 2026 to be different than 2025,

then what is it that I'm bringing to the table that may be bringing some intensities

that aren't making the situation better?

But moments ago, we were praying things just like this Psalm 46.

God is our refuge and our strength, our ever-present help in trouble.

What a beautiful prayer that it says, therefore, we will not fear. We're not going to what?

Oh, guys, this is 2026. We got to come out with a little more. We're not going to what?

We're not going to fear, right? Well, not even if the earth gave way,

even if the mountains fell in the heart of the sea, even then, right?

Even if the waters were to roar and foam and the mountains quake and are surging,

we will not fear because God's in control of the world.

God's going to handle justice unless I get cut off in traffic.

I mean, I know God's going to like bring justice universally,

but in the moment, I'm just worried he's busy right now and I don't want to let it slide.

You know what I mean? Like, I just don't like, if he doesn't,

he's not going to die, but I'm going to have to take care of this one.

Or, you know, I could just, somebody's going to say something and like,

well, somebody in the world needs to remind them that they are in fact wrong.

And, you know, God's a little busy at the moment. So I just might need to kind

of, you know, help him out a little bit.

That when we talk about that, you know, I've got joy in chaos.

I've got peace. Would you keep that down?

Good heavens, you are so loud. How is anybody supposed to work in this house

with that music making? I mean, I've got peace.

That makes no sense.

It's hard, right? We pray these things. We believe it. I'm not lying.

I do believe it in general.

But in the moment, isn't it sometimes true that there's a little bit of a gap in our expectations?

That the experience of God, if we really had it, we would trust that He would

sort it out and that He's going to make the world right and that our future is in His hands.

But that's not always how it feels.

You see, some of us are carrying to the table some needs,

and it's affecting so many of your relationships that I'm convinced that one

of the number one barriers to discipleship in 2026 is not woke this or online voice that.

It's the number one barrier are those who lack self-awareness.

And they are walking around just causing all kinds of heartaches.

And they're not even able to recognize that when they showed up in the room,

they brought some of that with them.

Now, we're going to be talking today. And every smart thing I'm saying and a

lot of the points and ideas and illustrations, they all come from this book right here.

So I can't go in great detail, but if anything I'm saying today is resonating

with you, anything smart, it's coming from someone else.

And let me just put a footnote here. That is pretty much universally true.

Like I'm just taking this from commentaries and other preachers and like,

I am not inventing every idea you see up here.

And this is a fantastic book when I came across it, where he has dealt with.

These gaps that affect our false needs

that we carry around with us he also had to

as part of his degree his mdiv degree had to

work for years in a trauma hospital like i did and

when you are in a trauma hospital like larry jones is working there now and

and people in crisis come in you may not be aware of this but it does not always

sound like touched by an angel some families and you're aware they have conflict

that comes out in a crisis there are arguments and and bickering that go back and forth.

And a crisis has a way of bringing some of those things to the surface.

I mean, I've been praying with families who are praying for an adult son who

was in a car accident and they're working on him.

And the mother-in-law's in there saying, oh, we need to pray,

pastor. That's good. We need to pray.

And while you're at it, you need to talk to his wife because she will not go to church.

And the way she's raising those kids is just causing all kinds of all right, here we go.

And you're aware, though, when you deal with these people in crisis,

that the crisis didn't create the tension, right?

The crisis just brought it to the surface, right? The crisis didn't make it.

It was something that each of them had in them, and they brought it with them.

And in most of the conflicts that you're facing, it's not the board meeting,

and it's not just this event that caused it, or it is just that it revealed what you had going on,

that there were landmines around you, that it was only a matter of time before

that topic got brought up and that insecurity got revealed and suddenly,

boom, exploding kitten.

The game's over. And what I want to be careful for as we talked this morning

through some of the ideas in this book is we need to have enough space to pause

and say, what needs am I bringing with me that are not rooted in reality?

They're not a real threat. They just feel like a real threat.

So we're going to walk through a few of these false needs if you want to turn.

And if you want to follow along with these, these are also all written out on

the study guide for this week.

So if you're like kind of person who feels like, I can't believe I'm not getting

all the notes down, you can just download the study guide and boom,

all the answers are filled in. So don't panic.

The first one is going to be that false need to have control.

That need that you feel like if I don't manage this, if I don't make a plan

for every contingency, do you know what could possibly go wrong?

Now, some of you in here are almost smiling because you're like,

well, I mean, it's a problem, but if I didn't do it, who would?

Right? There's some of you in here who is like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's an issue. It's an issue. It's an issue.

But, but, but, but, but, but people like me in the world are what keep it from

falling apart. I'm just saying that we're needed.

And the problem we're going to see here is that each of these are rooted in

a real gifting that has been contorted into something where we are trying to

take on a sized responsibility that no human being could possibly bear.

Steve Cussin in this book describe a friend of his who is a party planner, an event planner.

And she's getting ready for this event by she looks out of the tables and she

realizes there are way too few plugs in here for a meeting in 2025.

Like people are going to bring a million devices. So she goes and buys extension cords and power strips.

And then she's like, but people would trip on those. So she's getting duct tape

and she's lining them out to each of the tables. so every table has a power strip.

And honestly, people like that are what make the event go well.

That's a proper using of that gift and that attention to detail.

But that same person possibly could be tempted to sit at that event and worry.

But what if everyone's not engaged?

I mean, what if everyone's not having a good time? What if something else goes?

What if somebody is getting upset?

And what if they can't hear from that side of the room? And what if people aren't enjoying it?

And what if I just need to make sure that everybody is having a good time during

this event and they're looking around?

And the problem is, is the idea of controlling everyone in a room is not exactly

a human-sized responsibility.

That sounds like more of a God-sized responsibility.

And I don't mean to step on any mama's toes in here, but if you said that what

you wanted for Christmas is I just want everyone to be happy,

it sounded like a good request.

Humble, even, responsible, deferential. All I want is to control the emotional

outcome for every adult and child in this household.

That's it. That's all I want. I just want to make sure that I can control everybody

and how they're feeling all the time.

But other than that, that's all I want for Christmas. Really?

The problem is, is you don't have control over that.

You are just a human being. You are asked to handle human-sized responsibilities,

not God-sized responsibility. and how everyone's feeling and reacting today

is a little bit above your pay grade.

I've been told my daughter on more than one occasion that God exists in three

person, four is a crowd. Like you don't get to have that job.

And when we say that God is our ever present help, there is a humility that

has to come because the promise of control, it's fear with a clipboard and it never puts it down.

It's like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that you can see in the distance.

But the more you run toward the end of the rainbow, it's beautiful and you can

see it, but it's always just a little bit further.

You never get there. There's always one more thing to make sure it doesn't go wrong.

And that false need is never going to be answered.

Some of you have lost sleep at night because you've been trying to live out

a resume that is significantly above what God made you in capacity to do.

The next false need we're going to look at this morning is this idea of perfectionism.

I'm not saying that we could make the test perfect. And I'm not saying,

but I think we could probably get pretty close.

Perfectionism is that promises rest. If you just get everything right and don't

let anybody down, it'll go perfectly.

The promise of perfectionism never ends in rest.

And here's the thing. You never, ever arrive at it. I've never had a person

who had this temptation look at a project and say, all right,

at least that one was perfect.

That never happens. It's always like, oh, if I could have just had one more

day on that, I could have really made it into something special.

It's that need that never ends.

And the exhausting part of it is the reason you're having conflict is not they

won't listen and not those kids aren't doing it.

It's because you came into that with a need, a God-sized shaped hole that you

were never going to be able to live up to?

I sent out an email this last week and I described a reality that I relate with.

And that is the idea that an awkward conversation is like five to 10 minutes

of really being uncomfortable.

But don't worry. With proper planning, you can play that on repeat enough to

make it a feature length film.

Like we can just play that conversation again and again and again and get a

two hours of good suffering out of that. Why not, right?

I mean, what better way to spend your moments before falling asleep than replaying

all your decisions, even though it makes no positive impact at all.

We look around at our lives and worry about the classes we should have taken,

what we could have got for our kids.

I saw so many moms that are missing out on the joy of their actual life because

they are trying to live out a resume, an expectation for their family that they

were never asked to pick up.

That the promise of perfectionism is a God-sized responsibility.

He is perfect. You're not. And the only one that is surprised that you can't

handle a God-sized responsibility, there's only one person who's surprised between

you and God. And I'm going to let you wonder who that is for a moment.

There is a weight that you can carry around and it is hurting your relationships.

You're walking around with a siren going off before you fall asleep at night

because the world's not right, and you feel like you're under threat.

But that false need was never going to be answered. You don't need a solution.

You need to recognize that the entire game was never going to end.

The next false need that many of us grew up with is knowing the answer.

I grew up in a household where both of my parents are professors,

and they are very smart people, and they are not into sports,

watching or playing, just not into it.

And so if I was able to throw a football a mile, they would say, huh, that's cute.

Like, I mean, this wouldn't matter to them at all. Like, they would be like,

I don't know, go talk to somebody about that, or I think scholarship or something.

They just weren't into it.

They weren't into that. They were into clever things, smart people stuff, whatever that is.

They read books and talk about things. And if you wanted respect in my household

growing up, you had to say something clever. You had to be intelligent.

You had to kind of research books and things so that you could sound like you

were really smart and always coming up with new and insightful ways to present

things on a stage in front of people so you could... Wait a minute.

You don't think that there's a possibility that the reason I preach...

No, that's probably not related. I wouldn't worry about that.

That desire to know the answer, to be right.

Because heaven forbid, I'd have to say just a terribly uncomfortable word to say.

I don't know. It just doesn't even taste good in your mouth when you say it. I don't know.

It just sounds so embarrassing. I don't like to do it.

Steve Kuss shares the story about his tendency to also do this and that when

a telemarketer calls. Many of them are now AI.

And he'll spend time proving to the robot that it's AI and that he knows it.

And so he'll ask it things like, what's your favorite color?

And something off script. And the AI will, and it glitters. And he's like,

ha, I knew you were a robot. And he hangs up. He's like, I got him.

And his wife's just shaking her head. Well.

That's three minutes to spend. That's one way to spend three minutes.

Because I would rather argue with a robot than risk looking dumb.

Like, that would be the worst, right? Can you imagine?

When you want to know what your false need is, I just want you to imagine the worst scenario.

What's your apocalypse moment that is keeping you up? And you'll see within

it sometimes a need that cannot be met.

Recently, there was an event in Minneapolis or in Minnesota.

Many of you saw a real tragedy. Someone lost their life about it.

And the worst thing wasn't just a human being lost their life.

It's within an hour, both political sides declared what happened.

Like, they just know that's a terrorist. That's a martyr. That's a murder.

Like, they're just throwing it out there. Like, oh, yeah, I know what happened.

Like how that this is an hour like

what how in the world did you suddenly just know because the idea that a leader

would say i i don't know what happened yet to just say i we're gonna look into

it let somebody investigate do some inner nobody was interviewed when they made those conclusions,

even more even worse people like me saw that online we watched a few video clips,

And I'm telling you what happened now.

Let me tell you what that means. I'll tell you what happens.

I don't know. And you don't either.

You weren't there. Has anybody here interviewed the people involved in this?

Anybody do that? Anybody trained in forensics? Anybody in here?

And yet, we're all posting on this like we're experts, like we know.

We don't. And we can try to say that, well, I tell you what I do know.

What I do know is that I don't.

It's a hard thing to admit that we don't.

And it's far away. And we got our information from one side or the other. But we don't know.

I know people who've cut off their relationship with biological children.

35-year relationship. Because one or the other of them said,

I have to because they won't admit that I'm right.

Can you imagine that? people so bent on being right that they would they would

burn that kind of bridge surely that wouldn't be us.

It's a hard thing because it felt real.

Like I saw people posting things and my blood pressure went up and I was like, oh no, it wasn't.

And I'm going off and I'm acting like it's, I'm threatened, like something horrible

has happened. But I don't, I don't really know.

I can't tell you. I don't really know what happened.

It's a hard thing to admit that we don't always know.

There is one person who is the source of all truth and it's not me.

And there's a lot of topics that I'm not nearly as qualified on as I would like to be.

And despite a culture that is constantly asking you to correct everyone else,

no one asked you to do that.

You could just not post it and just admit that at the end of the day, we don't know.

And I hope somebody finds out and I hope justice is done. But until they call

me or until God asked me to turn in my resume for his position,

I'm going to have to go back to that psalm and say, God is the one who oversees the world.

I know it doesn't feel very satisfying because it's hard to look in the face

and admit that you're just a human.

We're this big in the whole scheme of the world that we have to just kind of

trust that God is going to look after it after all.

That despite all our technology, we are in no better positions of superiority

than those ancient Israelites who didn't have smartphones and computers.

We are all still only taking up this much space.

And what we're asked is to honor the truth in the spaces that we're given. It's a hard thing.

Because not only are we sometimes tempted, perhaps me at the front of the list,

to know answers, to pretend to know things that I don't, but being there for

people, being to be needed by somebody else, it feels good.

I can tell you that many people who are pastors, who are elders,

who volunteer in churches, it's because we need to be needed.

I want you to want me. I need you to... No, we're not going to sing that.

I had to cut the tension after some of that political stuff.

I felt a little heavy in here.

But to be needed is a wonderful thing. To help somebody out and know that you

made a difference, it feels good.

Like, really good.

Like, I mean, cocaine good.

It's really good. And the hard thing is, is that sometimes they don't need me

as much as I wish that they needed me.

That person who finds out that somebody has a flat tire and they're just telling

you they're going to be late and you're already picking out tire sizes and ready

to meet them on the highway because you just want to be needed.

That parent who's struggling with empty nest and so they're following their

kid around on a college campus with a day planner saying, I know there's a need

somewhere and I'm going to be needed.

I can tell you that right now because the reason that I know I'm doing good

in life is there are people who would fall apart if I wasn't doing it.

And let me just tell you, if you know if you're struggling with this one,

if when you're asking somebody if they need any help and they say, no, I think I've got it,

if you feel rejected, if you are like you're completely fine and happy in life,

oh, man, if that disappoints you, you may have been going into that conversation

with more need than they had.

As a minister, it is dangerous to show up with this.

This is one of the things they teach you to be aware of in a trauma hospital,

not to bring my need to be needed into situations that are already broken and volatile.

It is great to help other people. I love being available and not just ignoring

interruptions that come in my day.

I'm not saying don't help and I'm not allowing people who are just being selfish

and sitting at home saying, well, at least I'm not being over needed.

But there is a temptation for some of us who are being used in powerful ways

to set ourselves up in some pretty unhealthy patterns with other people that

I need you to admit that you would be nothing if I didn't pitch in is not a

human-sized responsibility.

God didn't ask me to save people. He asked me to introduce them to Jesus.

That God asked me to be part of what he's doing, but God's the one that fixes and heals and guides.

And there are many times when my help is not going to make the situation any better.

The last one we want to look at is this, and we're going to have all five up here right now.

And I will just challenge you as you're kind of sitting here today,

which of these do you most resonate with? And I definitely resonate with at least five of these.

So you can just kind of look at it and say, but which one though has been a bigger deal to you?

Maybe ask yourself this question. Where do you keep running into yourself?

And what is it costing you and the people around you?

That need for approval, it just never stops.

And the problem we have with this one is that parts of our culture love it.

Like we're trained to do it.

Sports does this one on purpose. When you score, people cheer.

When you fumble, people do not cheer. When somebody drops the ball,

they don't have a bunch of people standing on the sidelines going,

you're like trained that when you get approval you are winning and when you

don't have approval you are losing.

Miroslav Volf in his recent book called The Cost of Ambition describes that

we are all trained so heavily in this direction we should not be surprised that

this is one of the number one sources of anxiety for teens.

It's because we were trained to do it since we were younger and there's nothing

wrong with sports and there's nothing wrong with competing and using it to drive

yourself but it can create a need that I only know if I'm winning if I'm getting

the applause from others.

And as all of you know, it doesn't take an expert in psychology to know that

that is a fool's game because there's always going to be somebody smarter,

a person who is a better dad, a person who's a better mom, a person who's a

better business leader out there somewhere.

It is something that is going to cost you so many nights of sleep when God never

asked you to be anyone but you.

It's a dangerous need to carry around. See, that's the problem with these needs. They're just so sneaky.

For a long time, we would carry them around like virtues. Control just looks

like someone who's really responsible. You can rely on them because they take care of details.

Perfection looks like a commitment to excellence.

Knowing the answer looks like curiosity and competence.

Being needed looks like service and approval looks like really trying to be

relational and connected with other people and available for them.

But all of them are when we begin to sit in God's chair that he never asked you to sit in.

That when it came to who's controlling the world, that's a God-sized responsibility

and not a human-sized one.

When it comes to being perfect, God has gone to the ends of the earth to remind

you that you are not perfect.

And to the extent that God would send his own son that was not a burden God asked you to carry.

Humans practice growth, not perfection.

That there are God-sized responsibilities out there. God is the one who is there

for everyone in their prayer and in their needs and in their redemption.

I cannot bear the needs of others. As one who has worked in Africa,

coming face to face with levels of poverty that are really quite extreme,

you have to accept with humility that there's a limit to how much you can help

and really change somebody else's life.

And that change ultimately must respect their own personhood,

their identity, and their ability to be a part of that solution between them and God alone.

It is God who should be the only approval that matters.

I don't know about you, but that is a hard lesson to believe.

I mean, I believe these things.

Took a test. I think we would all say who's in control of the world and we would say God.

But if you check my blood pressure when I'm watching the news,

I'm starting to ebb in on a little bit.

Somebody better say something because there's a lot of wrong people out there.

I'll tell you that right now, that I know that I'm not meant to be perfect,

but it doesn't stop the last 10 minutes of my day being spent going back over

all the things I could have done and should have done.

I know I don't have all the answers, but I'm going to be the last one to ask

for help because of how worried I am to look stupid.

And so I guess our hope is to go back to this psalm with a little more humility,

that God, He really is our refuge and strength.

All those needs are never going to find their rest anywhere else.

And what it's going to take is when we recognize that that is where we need

to put our refuge and security and identity, that it is God who is going to

guide this nation and this world back to rights.

And I do think we should participate and I do think we should be informed and

I do think we should be active in the world.

But when you're carrying around a level of need that is causing you to be angry

and split relationships and going around in a rage because you imagine that

you are under attack when you are not, it might be because you are taking a

job that wasn't meant for you.

And we have to pray that this is the way we want to live, that I will not live in fear and anxiety.

Even if mountains gave way, let alone if there were people out there who disagreed with me.

And even if they would, all these things would rage in the world,

I want to pray and be part of God's solution, but I'm only going to do it when

I am first willing to make this a prayer that we pray together as a church, be still and know,

that I am God.

And if they needed to remember it then, don't think the world is somehow that

different in the midst of wars and disease and a time when so few children made

it to adulthood and they had to take a step back and say, this is ultimately

God's responsibility and not mine.

And the only way I'm gonna get there is to make it my prayer today to say,

I will be still and remember that he is God.

Perhaps we can pray this a couple of times together. Can we do that?

Let's say this out loud together. Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am God.

Let's turn it around now. We're gonna say, be still and know that he is God.

Be still and know that He is God.

Be still and know that He is God.

In just a few moments, we're going to be coming to the table.

It is not our table. It is Christ's table.

It is a reminder every week that you do not come as your own Savior.

And you do not come with your own plan. Instead, we come to because God made a plan first.

And you were meant to take this bread that is broken for you.

So that the last voice before you fall asleep never should have been about your own brokenness.

But because that brokenness was covered up by the gift of Jesus on the cross,

God wanted you to sleep and rest in the knowledge that He

is going to take care of you and this world and you

can come to this table and have a tangible reminder in your mouth to be still

and know that he is God and he wanted a relationship with you and you're going

to take that cup and remember that God wanted you here today that God meant

for you to be in this space and he wanted to meet with you and pray with you

and he desired ongoing relationship to walk with you,

You don't need to be a member of our church. This is not our table. It is Christ's table.

And if you have a relationship with him, come to the tables on the front and

the side as the spirit leads you as Daniel's playing.

But if you're here in 2026 and you've not yet made that first decision,

I love the image of baptism as the beginning.

It's just this great image that what God wants you to do to start your journey is let go.

That's what I want you to do. I want you to not do anything.

I want you to let somebody else do it. In fact, you are just supposed to give up control.

And let somebody else really take the reins, and they're going to put you under

the water because you're going to say that that is my king, that is my savior.

It is not my life. I don't know what I'm doing.

I wouldn't even know the right words to pray if I wanted to.

I just know that he's going to do a better job at this life than I am because

he's the one who made me, and he knows where my future is.

And that is why that image of this is how the life of faith begins is baptism.

Now, if you're here today and you haven't made that step, we'd love to talk

with you about that or maybe reaffirming your life or deciding you want to serve right here.

We're going to have some elders up front and myself and Mark and some elders

up here on the front and we would love to pray with you.

Let's all bow our heads as we come around this table.

God, if I were being honest, I would say that the lack of peace in my household,

over these last many months have not been because of my children and their maturity.

It have not just been because of the finances and the economy.

God, at the heart of it, it was a need that I am never going to be able to fill.

God, it was believing a lie that I tried to control more than I could.

And I tried to put myself in a box that was never going to work.

And I held myself to a standard that is breaking your heart.

And so, God, I'm coming around today to remember, to taste forgiveness,

to taste acceptance, and, God, your will for my life.

God I know I need to pray this prayer today and again tomorrow and again the next to be still.