Big Dreams, Big God: Week 1

Good morning. My name is James, and we are so

glad that you are here worshiping with us at Church

of the Crossing. Let me give you a little update

from Easter. At Easter, we had about twenty people make

a commitment to follow Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. So that's

about one hundred and seventy people who's made a commitment

since the beginning of the school year. And we're just

seeing lives change and God is doing a great, great

work and just thank you for your faithfulness and how

you are inviting people. Hey, thanks for coming out on

a really, really dreary day today, but I know that

the Lord wants to bless you and speak to you today.

We're starting a new series on Joseph. We're gonna do

Joseph in May, and I'm really excited about doing Job

during the summer, and a lot of us pastors have

never preached through the Book of Job and we're excited.

I don't know if you've read the Book of Job.

It is messed up and so it will have a

lot of interesting things to talk about. So let's pray

prepare our hearts to receive God's word today. God, we

thank you so much. For your grace and your mercy.

Help us now to hear from you, align our life

with you, to bring you glory in Jesus name. Amen.

You know, there's a special group of people that have,

from time to time change the course of history. Maybe

it was for a nation, maybe it was for a company,

or maybe it was for a family. But there are

people out there that from time to time they've looked

at something they said, you know what, there's something more.

And these people, these world changers, these game changers, they

have a nickname. They're called the dreamers. And dreamers are

the type of people who see a different future for

themselves and they see a different future for others. Now,

I want you, guys, lean in for a second. I

want to tell you a little secret about dreamers. Okay,

they have one big thing in common. It's not intelligence,

it's not perseverance, it's not a background of wealth or education.

Do you know what The number one thing the dreamers

have in common failure. Dreamers fail a lot. That's part

of being a dreamer. Okay. And so that's one of

the very first things I want to say to you

is that that almost every world changer, every dreamer, here's

the thing they have in common, and that is failure.

And that leads us to our first thought today. Failure

is just a part of life. Okay, get that from

a very beginning today. Number two, because I want to

move through this quickly. It's okay to fail, okay, especially

around here. You know, some of you are going to

go start a small group, and that small group's gonna go.

It's okay, didn't have the right mix of people, start

another one. You know. We've launched some things. We launched

a nine am service during the pandemic as an extra

alternative service in the midst of the lowest attendance in

the history of our church during the pandemic. I don't

know why that did not go well. That's gone on

vacation and it was so bad that the staff couldn't

wait for me to go on vacation so they could

cancel it behind my back. That's how bad of a

failure that was.

You know.

And I've started things and they've not gone well. And

then I've started things and they've gone well. But here's

what I've learned from every one of those failures is

that in the every single failure, there's growth, there's pain,

but also there's wisdom and you, and if you have

an open heart and humble heart, you're gonna learn more

about God and his ways through these than he would

with success. I don't know. Has hebody ever heard of

a guy named I don't know, Henry Ford. They've heard

of him. Okay, try driving down our street right now

for anywhere in Indianapolis for more than ten minutes, and

I promise you will see a Ford sign. Okay. They're

famous for my favorite car ever, the Mustang GT convertible,

greatest car ever. They're also famous for that truck right now.

It's the number one selling truck almost every single year.

What is it called the Ford f See? We know,

we know these things, and we look at Ford and

he's considered one of the greatest heroes or the greatest

achievers of all time. But here's what people don't know

about Ford. Ford was an incredible failure. First of all,

think about this, his first automobile company that he started.

He was thirty six years old. All right, First, how

many of us at thirty six years old? That's like

not when we plan on starting our life over Like

a lot of us, we kind I don't know why

we have this attitude in America that if we don't

have our whole life set up by the end of

our twenties, then we're just gonna live our whole life

in this I should have, could have, would have, And

for some reason, if our whole life isn't set up

by our twenties or early thirties, we're like, man, I

blew it. And that is insane, by the way, because

when I look at the greats out there, the people

who inspire me, they're just starting their journeys. A little

bit older. But thirty six years old, he started his

first company. Two years later as bankrupt, somehow somebody decided

to invest in him again. He started another company. Guess what,

Within a couple more years it was closed as well.

So here he is, he's a big time failure. And

it was finally with this third company, Ford Motor Company.

And here's what he did. At the Ford Motor Company.

He convinced every American that they have a vehicle at

their house. Every American home needs have a vehicle. So

he created this thing called the Model T. He also

created the assembly line, which changed manufacturing forever. And because

of the assembly line, prices could be cheap, cheap enough

for every American home to have a Ford Model. T

wasn't his first go around, his second go around. It

was in his forties that he finally hit success with

a dream that he had been carrying for decades. Now,

why did I share that story? And here's why everybody

pay attention real quick, I want you to know today,

no matter what your past story is, the story of

our life is not over until it is over. Okay.

So some of you might feel like you've had dreams

on fulfilled in your life, or failure has marked your life,

or it's too late to start dreaming again. No, no,

your story is not over until it's over. Can I

help you understand when your story is over? Real quick? Today,

here's when your story is over. Ready, A guy looking

like me, a pastor, will be standing over your coughing.

That's when your story's over. Okay. So guess what those

of you in this room today who's not in a coffin,

your story's not over. So who does this message apply

to today? Every one of you who's breathing right now.

If you're not in a coffin, your story is not over.

And I want everyone to know that because I feel

like people stop dreaming, they stop living out these God

giving dreams because I'm a little too older. I've tried

this or I've tried that, and we think back on

our life, Oh, if I'd have done this or done that.

But today I want you to start dreaming again. But

I want to give you a warning at the beginning

of this message. As we look at the life of Joseph,

there's some realities that we have to embrace as we

set our eyes on this journey that God has called

each of us toward. So let's be looking at some

realities of a dreamer today. Okay, so very first of all,

the number one reality of a dreamer is not everyone's

going to rally to you or believe in you. You

need to understand that from the very beginning. And Genesis

thirty seven five, what does it say. Genesis thirty seven

five says, now, Joseph had a dream, and when he

told his brothers, they hated him even more. Now, let's

remember something God gave Joseph the dream. God was going

to fulfill the dream. Joseph was going to live and

walk towards us. But from conception to fruition is one

of the most epic stories of.

Pain, patience, and transformation that the world has ever seen,

and Joseph's journey reminds us all today that just because

you have a dream, don't be shocked when everyone doesn't

come around you say awesome, that's awesome.

No, he experienced resistance from the very beginning. Matter of fact,

when God calls you to make a big change in

your life or to pursue something a God given dream,

it's not only going to change your life, but it's

going to change their lives around you. And guess what,

people don't appreciate someone else changing their life. They don't.

But as you pursue God, you're going to become an interruptor.

I've been doubly blessed with great cheerleaders in my life,

my mom and dad, my grandparents. When I got called

in the ministry, they were just uber supportive, I mean

overwhelmingly supportive. Very thankful for that. And I couldn't have

a car on the campus my freshman year. I don't

know if they still do that at colleges, but my

brother would drop me off on Sunday night after a

weekend of ministry. He knew I didn't have any money

at all, and he would always reach into his pocket,

and whether it was a twenty or a fifty, he

gave it to me almost every single week because he

knew that was the only money I was going to

have and if I was going to eat anything other

than school cereal, that's and you know, here's my brother

was only three years older than me, but he supported me.

I've had people support me. I remember whenever, you know,

I let my home church. Did he buy grow up

in a home church where you grew up from like

infancy all the way to like college and all that.

All right, so it's a little different. Everybody gets to

know you a little bit, you know. And so I

still remember whenever they pulled me up before I went

off the Bible College, they pulled me up from the

whole church, and they had the elders of the church

come around and pray for me. And then my senior

pastor said this, and he breathed a dream into my soul.

He says, someday every one of you will call him

doctor James Roberts. He spoke. He wasn't about like, hey,

just going to the ministry. He spoke a dream into

my life. And then they all prayed over me, and

it was powerful. And I'll never forget this because of

you know, the juxtaposition between these two moments. But they

pray for me, they blessed me, and then this old

guy from the south walks up to me afterwards and

he goes, oh, came here, you fat thing, and he

gave me a big hug. So on one hand, this

man's going to become a doctor. On this hand, come

here and give me a hug, you fat thing. So

only in a home church, right, only in a home

church where you grow up as a little kid, can

people talk to you like that? If you if you

walk up to me church after they say come here,

you fat thing. No anyways, But but I was supported.

But at the same time I had two really close friends.

Let me tell you about them. They had the same

calling and same dream I had. They were more intelligent, thaniah,

better speakers, more creative, and we all started off. We

all went to Bible college. But their parents got very,

very fearful that a Bible college education would be worth nothing.

I mean, unless you're only going to do Bible it

is worth not, okay. But anyways, so they made them

get a backup degree. They fought, and they fought, and

they fought, and they cried, and the family got into it.

Then the parents, both sets of parents, said we will

not help you with your school unless you do this degree. Well,

when you're talking seventy eighty thousand dollars of dad, they

took those degrees. Fast forward twenty some years later, they're

still not fulfilling the call and the dream that God

had given them when they were seventeen and eighteen years old. See,

not everyone's going to support you in your dreams that

God gives you. And when we look at Joseph here,

you could kind of understand He's been giving us dream,

but these people are not supporting him. He said to

them this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, and then

he tells them his vision, his dream that God gave him.

And now check this out because it's kind of interesting.

He says, Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field.

How many of you are farmers? Raise your hand? Yeah, right, okay,

So let me explain sheeps. Shef is just simply where

you're harvesting the grain or whatever, and you put it

into a big round circle and you tie it up

and that's how you load it and transport. So there's

just big piles of crops, okay. And so they were

all binding their sheaves in the field, and behold, my

sheaf arose and stood upright, and behold, your sheaves gathered

around it and bowed down to my sheaf. Now again,

this was a dream that God gave him. This is

a dream that God has gonna fulfill. But unfortunately, whenever

Joe this shared the dream that God had placed on

his life, he could not have shared it in a

more arrogant way because he was like, uh, check this out.

Some day you're gonna bow to me. That's God's stream

for my life. Like that, that's pretty tough to hear it.

And if you actually pay attention to a couple of

words here, he uses the word here first of all,

the word here in Hebrew leans heavily towards. I want

you to hear this, but you really don't hear this

until you obey this. And so basically what he's telling

his brothers is listen up so you can obey this.

And then he says, behold and behold leans heavily in

the Hebrew towards a prediction that is gonna absolutely come true.

And it says this prediction is gonna come true, they

need to adjust your life. So he's saying, all right, guys,

I'm gonna roll over you, okay, And if you can

give me a blank screen, I just want to show

this real quick, or I can just use this. Basically,

what he's saying is, all right, guys, I had this

dream and we all bring our sheaves, our crops together,

and here's my sheaf, and all of a sudden, my

sheaf up above your sheep, and your sheep is going

to bow down to my sheef, and I'm going to

rule over you. And so in our vernacular today will

be like, listen up, there's a new sheriff in town.

Things are gonna change. You've been running around doing what

you want, but no, no longer. Why Because God has

given me a dream and he showed me that I

am going to rule over you. Now look at the

brother's response. Okay, I love this all right. His brother

said to him, are you inde gonna rain over us?

Or are you indeed to rule over us? And check

this statement out? So they hated him even more. Have

you ever hated someone and then hated them even more.

I mean that's like, that's like hate squared. Okay, like

they doubly hate him. Okay, for his dreams and for

his words. And see Joseph, you know, when he's he

said this, Joseph became his worst enemy. And that's the

second thing you need to understand about being a dreamer.

His pride or over confidence will be your greatest enemy.

And when God gives you a dream, please humble yourself.

Humble yourself. Okay, Now I want to cut him some slackery.

He's seventeen years old. He just had an encounter of God,

and apparently his brothers have been meaning to him his

whole life. And so when God said you're going to

be over your brothers, that was probably an exciting moment

for him. But again, when he revealed this to his

close inner circle, he bragged about his good fortune at

the expense of his brother's lack of good fortune. And

so Joseph's immaturity and his pride got the best of him. Now, listen,

this has been happening all throughout history. He's not the

only major player in history where their pride and their

youth got the best of them. Henry or excuse me

Edward the First of England before he became the King

of English. Everything was going good for him, and there

was a group of rebels that attacked London, and so

Edward the First he grabs the army and it's his

job as a young commander. He is going to defend London.

He's going to become a hero and it's gonna set

it up perfectly for him to be the one who

is going to be the ruler over the people for decades.

And so the battle happens and Edward the First troops

his men start annihilating the rebels and it got to

the point where he looked down he thought, this is

a good day for me. I'm going to get a

lot of glory for this. And then he saw a

little group of rebels took off to the countryside because

they realized that things are not going well. And so

Edward the First he said to a few of his buddies,

he said, listen, let's go track him down. Let's go

track him down, Let's go hack him down. And that way,

I mean, we're just not gonna let end by gobey.

So they actually go kind of start sporting in the

middle of this battle. And they're going through the countryside,

chasing one man down after another, hacking him down. And

then they come back and they're galloping back to London

and they're excited and he's waiting for this big ovation.

And guess what happened while he was gone. The tides turned,

they had lost the battle, and he came back in

for a triumphant return and he ended at day in shackles. See,

pride and over confidence is the greatest enemy to you

fulfilling God given dreams in your life. Okay, and his arrogance,

his arrogance cost him a lot. What did it cost him?

He was sold into slavery by bitter brothers. He spent

many years in prison, and it cost him a lot.

Because at the end of the day, can I just

say this to you, this isn't in my noe. We'

probably shop in the next few weeks. Pay attention, church.

God cares way more about your character than he does

your achievements. And if you are his son or his daughter,

that is going to be his main concern and He's

gonna do whatever it takes to help you become like

His son Jesus. Because you've entered into this special relationship

with him. He cares more about your character than he

does your achievements. Now, if Joseph would have just understood

point number three today, everything would have been different from

the very beginning here. It is God given dreams or

given you so that your life can be a blessing others. See,

God was going to exalt Joseph, do a great work

through Joseph's life, Not so Joseph could be awesome, Not

so Joseph can be exalted, Not so Joseph can have fans,

Not so he can have people who looked up to

him and worship him. No, no, no, why. It was

all about what God was gonna do. Have you ever

heard this phrase? It's not about Okay, let's try to

go Oh my God, church, Let's try this again. It

was a book about twenty years ago. It's really popular.

Let's try it again. It's not about whoh hallelujah, We're

gonna have revival today. It's gonna be a good day.

When God calls you and God speaks a dream into

your life, don't be fooled. It's not about you. It's

about what He wants to do through you to bring

glory and honor in his kingdom. Now, the good thing

is you get to be a part of it, and

your life's gonna be incredibly blessed as a result of it.

But again, it's not about you. Now, let me go

back through this first misinterpretation of Joseph. Okay, now, I

want you to remember this. Joseph had a dream and

he said that the sheafs of my brothers, their grain

is gonna bow down to my grain. And so Joseph

interpreted this as simply someday I will rule over you.

He misinterpreted the dream because what God was saying, we

find us out later. I'll show you here in a

few moments. But that God was foreshadowing a day where

there was going to be a great famine and God

was going to exalt Joseph up to the position where

he was going to be the one who was gonna

collect all the grain. And when this huge famine happened

that could have wiped out and killed millions of people. Instead,

not only will the Egyptians and the surrounding countries be saved,

but his brothers will come to him for grain. So

it wasn't this thing where they're bowing down and saying,

we worship you, Joseph. No, it was a vision that

someday Joseph was going to be exalted. There was going

to be a famine in the world, and as brothers

were to go to him and say, can we have

food so that our family can survive this famine? And

Joseph was going to be in an exalted position to

give them food so that the fam we'll survive. See,

the vision was not about Joseph becoming a ruler. The

vision that God gave him was about Joseph saving his

family some day. Now, let's go. So God gives Joseph

a second dream. Check this out, Okay, all right, It says,

then he dreamed another dream, and he told it to

his brothers, and he says, behold, I've dreamed another dream.

Behold the sun, the moon, and eleven stars. Who are

these eleven stars? His brothers, there's twelve of them. Then

there's the eleven brothers that he has. Says, they were

bowing down to me. But when he told this to

his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him

and said to him, what is this dream that you

have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers

indeed comed to bow ourselves down to the ground before you.

And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father

kept the same in his mind. Now, first glance, okay,

and I pay ten. At first glance, it seems like

it's a that God has encouraged Joseph again with another

dream and saying, hey, don't forget, I still have this

dream for you. You've had some hiccups, you've had some

things have gone against you, but I'm still with you.

But here's the thing. Joseph saw this dream as his

whole family again was a confirmation that they were going

to bow down to him. But what he didn't understand

was when God brought the stars into the dream, God

was speaking into a promise that he had given his

grandfather Abraham. Let's check out this. What does it say here?

Earlier in Genesis, it says, I will make your descendants

descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and

we will give you all these lands, and through your offspring,

all nations on earth will be blessed. And so at

the very beginning of Genesis, God says, hey, Abraham, through

your seed, you're gonna have this sentence as numerous as

the stars in the sky and through all of your sentence,

the whole world will be blessed. And so he was

pointing to today where a messiah was gonna come. He

was pointing to a day of Jesus Christ, where Jesus

Christ was gonna come and save the world, and so

the whole world will be blessed. But Joseph saw this

dream as another way that he was gonna be exalted

and his family's gonna bow down to him. No, no, no,

what God is doing in this moment is he's reminding him, Hey,

not only am I gonna save your family, which was

by the sheeps bowing down, But then when he went

to the stars and the interpretation, he's saying, not only

am I gonna save your family, but my promise for

the Messiah to come through your family is gonna be

fulfilled through you by saving your family. Again, it wasn't

about Joseph. It was about God saving his family. And

it was also about God keeping his word and his promise,

and Joseph was gonna be the one that he was

gonna exalt to save all these people when they came

to him, so that God's future promises could be fulfilled. Now,

so why did we get this interpretation of this? Let

me show you. At the end of Genesis, Joseph has

a conversation with his brothers and he says this as

for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it

for good. And here's why God did all these things.

Here's what all these dreams was about. It was all

about this to bring it about that many people should

be kept alive as they are today. In his older age,

after slavery, after prison, after suffering, he finally understood what

the dreams were about. His dreams were about God doing

a major work that was going to keep God's promise

in his family alive. In his older age, he realized,

it's not about me. So, by the way, as we

close out today, I want to remind you that God,

I believe if you are not in a casket today,

God still has a dream for you. But the dream's

not about you. So let's close out with me. Just

give you a quick dream starter kit. Okay, So here's

some practical steps before you head out today. Number one,

begin with prayer, make an appointment with God, and have

a notebook and have a pen. I like to get

away of God. And you know, what When I'm asking

God what he wants to do for the future of

this church, I just get away. I make an appointment

and I just listen and God shows me things. Number

two let others know. Now, it's not letting others know

like Joseph did, like guess what I'm gonna do? No, no, No,

it's together other people wisdom around you, so they can

be like, well, you know what that sounds insane? We

you know, it's about gathering people of wisdom around you

who can speak into this situation, who can speak into

your life. Look for godly, godly people to listen into

these dreams for your life with them. Number three, expect

tough days. If you're going to say, God, what do

you want me to do? Expect tough days. It's not

gonna be easy. I was rearranging my books again the

last couple of weeks, and oh, this just always happens

upon me. My church planting portfolio from two thousand and seven.

This is what I used to go and raise money

from people for the church plant. And I looked through

it again and I'm like, man, it's a good plan

and it brings back a lot of painful memories. God

gave me a dream. You know what, there's rough days ahead.

Stead of living in Phoenix, I lived in Pittsburgh. My

family moved probably four or five times in a two

to three year period. Our house didn't sell in Middletown.

We went through some incredible financial challenges and it was

a painful, painful season. It was also the greatest eason

of character development in my life. Some of you, the

best thing that will ever happen in your life is

for your life to get blown up. Pasta. But pasta,

that's not what the preacher on TV says. Pasta, that's

not what TikTok says. It's not what the magnet. I'm

a refrigerator. Okay, listen, your God, your father is incredibly

in love with you. He's with you, but sometimes we

need to trust when he decides to make us all

over again. Okay, all right, because here's one thing for sure,

and if you it's simply this, if you can give

me a blank screen on this, Dave, we tend to

think life goes like this. I graduate high schoo I

go to college. Somewhere in college, I find that mate, Okay,

that mate and I really like each other a lot,

and so we graduate and then we buy a house,

but before we buy a house, we get a job, hopefully,

and then we really still if we still like each other,

we add some of these life wreckords and dream breakers

while the emptiers. I'm sorry, none of this is in

my notes. I'm sorry, I'm trying to overcompensate for my

art skills. And then we just move on in life

and it goes good. And then someday I get a boat,

someday I get a vacation home. And then you know,

I have a lot of money in the bank, and

so I just retire. And when I retire, I just

sit around and drink dakerries at the pool, and then

I die and all my family comes around and tells

everybody how awesome I was. That's how we think life is. Okay,

this is life. Some good stuff over here, Yeah, okay.

Then over time, through all this mess, we do become

that person that God has called us to be. We

do fulfill these dreams, we do see these things. But

it's over here in the mess of life that God

shapes us and prepares us, and then He does stuff

through us. And so Church, I would encourage you to

number one. You know, remember life is not a straight line.

But also for those of you who are over in

this land today and basically, if you're here today, do

you have a job, kids, a mortgage, and you're not

out of the clear. This is your life right now

and could be tough. Stop talking down to yourself. That's

my next point. Simply don't just get rid of that

negative talk. Remember what the Lord has spoken to you.

And lastly, just start with baby steps. Read a book,

take a class, talk to a person, volunteer, just take

a baby step. If God is calling you, God is

speaking to your life about what he wants you to do,

just take a step. Okay, Now, I come from a

family of dreamers. My grandma was an entrepreneur back in

the day, was a very successful business lady back before

that was a thing. My mom owned a business, My

brother has owned businesses, my uncle's owned businesses. So I

come from a family of dreamers entrepreneurs. But let me

tell you about the one that I'm most inspired by.

When I was in junior high my mom went back

to college, but actually went to college because she wanted

to be a school teacher. So here she is in

her I think mid thirties, she goes back to college.

It was very hard. I was in junior high and

my brother was in high school. We were not angels.

And my mom went back. She got her bachelor's degree,

she got her master's degree. And for the last twenty

some years, my mom's been a teacher. She's in her

late sixties. I hope she's not watching us. She won't

to appreciate that. But she's doing what God called her

to do, and she's been changing lives and helping people.

See it's not over until it's over. And let me

tell you something about some people in our church. We

got a one gentleman in our church that's closer to

his late seventies. A few years ago, when he retired,

he decided to go get some training to become a counselor.

And I see him up at the church almost every

single day, and literally I know of at least ten

people that he has absolutely changed their life through his

counseling that he's doing in his late seventies. There's another

man in our church who's gotten so involved with missions

that even though he's had a big career, he just

recently started going back to Asbury because now because of

all the work he's doing on the mission field. He

wants to be equipped so that he can do some

theological training. This guy is like seventy years old. And

then my favorite one right now is Old Ron. He

comes on Thursday nights and I call him Oldron because

he's old. He's eighty years old. Ron is doing missions

like crazy. He's helping out the Spanish ministry and he's

working on his doctorate right now at eighty years old.

I know eighty years old. See, I don't care if

you're eighteen or eighty. It's not over until it's over.

Will you allow God to speak to you again? Will

you allow God to breathe his dreams into your life again?

And just so for the rest of my story, you

heard at the beginning that my pastor said, someday you'll

call him doctor James Roberts. This fall, I'm set up

pretty well to go back and finish and do my

doctorate work because that dream was birthed to me when

I was seventeen years old. And now do I need

to do that right now at forty five and with

all this I have to it was birthed in me.

And also number two, I can't let Andrew be the

only one on staff with a doctorate. By the way,

this Wednesday, Andrew defended his dissertation. And Andrew Miller in

the back here became a doctor Wednesday. He prefers to

be called Andy boy though. So it's not about education.

It's not about but some people do education as a

part of equipping themselves. It's really just about this. Will

you go back to God and say, what do you

want to do with my life? And will you be open?

Let's all grab out our communion, and communion is something

that Jesus said for us to take together. And it's

all about consecration. It's all about this reminder that we

belong to Jesus, that we belong to the Kingdom of God.

And how do we belong to the Kingdom of God.

It is because of the things that Jesus talked about

whenever we had the first Past, the Passover, the Last Supper,

where Jesus took the bread and he broke it. He says,

this is my body broken for you. And then he

took the wine and he says, this represents the blood

of my covenant, the blood shed for you, for the

forgiveness of many. And so when we take communion, we

go back into this moment of remembering why we're in

the kingdom, how we got into the kingdom, and also

we belonged to the kingdom. So we consecrate ourselves. So

let's take a moment right now, and I want us

to do two things. One is, maybe take some time

to ask for forgiveness of our sins. Let's do that now.

And secondly, I want you to consecrate yourself to the

Lord again and say, Lord, whatever you want my life,

it's not about me. I give you my life. And now,

as a body, let us take the bread that represents

his body that was broken for us. And as a family,

let's take this juice that represents the wine, which represents

the blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our

sense of permitting m HM.