The Assurance of Jesus: Finding Strength in Our Ever-Changing World

This is the time of year when we highlight our international mission strategy and our giving to that.

Baptist Circles is called the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, based on a missionary lady from long, long ago who gave her life in China for the gospel, and wethis is one area we are super connected to our overall convention, and that's through supporting missions, and so I would encourage you today that if you've been around, you know all about this, and if you're new here, you might not.

We have what's called a unified mission fund, and the majority of the allotment of the percentages of that fund goes straight to the international mission work across the world.

It goes straight to the upkeep and salaries and resourcing of all of our foreign missionaries, and this is the time of year when we really highlight that.

What you probably received was a prayer guide as you came in to help us for each day this week, pray for some of our missionaries.

Pastor Burt does a tremendous job of keeping us connected, communication wise to that, and so presently, just to let you know about finances, you graciously have given right at $78,000 to the unified mission fund.

This is over and above.

A portion of our budget goes straight to that too, and a portion of our capital campaign Kingdom Come Money will go straight to missions, also because we tithe as a church, but this is the time in which we focus on them and with all this going on in our world, ukraine being an example I think now more than ever, we need to support that, don't you agree?

I'd love to start with prayer here and let's ask God to truly, truly manifest His will, his presence with us this morning.

Lord, words are always inadequate to try to express our gratitude to you, our gratefulness for the fact that you sent your Son to redeem this world, and we're part of it and, lord, as very flawed and perfect followers.

This time, I believe, is so important because we get to reflect on your truth and your Word, and Jesus Himself said the truth will make you free, and if You're free, you're free indeed, and so we're grateful for that.

I pray for everybody in this room and everybody viewing you know the common connecting point of us all, and so would you just move?

And for those who need to be restored today, will you begin that?

For those who need to be chastised, would you convict us?

For those that need comfort, be the merciful Savior and we just thank you.

Thank you for your presence and for some reason you have valued us enough to include us in your great work in this modern day, and so help us to leave here a little more transformed than we came in, and we'll give you the glory.

And now please come, holy Spirit, amen.

Good morning, good to see you.

So we're there.

Thank you for viewing.

Some of you are like regulars every week and some of you, as Bert said earlier, are probably usually here, but you're traveling still or getting ready to travel, and you're watching.

We're grateful for that.

Also want to give a special shout out to Sherri and Tripp, who are now in North Carolina.

Sherri is a part of our church family here, and Greg I saw one in the choir actually back today.

So it's good to see you.

We are praying for you and we know that your trip, you're fighting a brave fight there.

So we do not forget about you guys and grateful for all of you.

First time guests, we're so glad to have you today.

I've met a few of you and we're always honored to have you and hope that you'll just feel at home today.

You're surrounded by some of my favorite people in the world.

I always give this little advertisement though.

But don't over expect, because we're all pretty broken people, aren't we?

Compared to the true gospel, what we know of the truth of Jesus and His coming here at Christmas time, coming up, man, we got a long way to go, but that's why we're here.

We want to be better Christ followers.

We are not just comfortable sitting around and talking about the old days.

So how about turn to Luke, chapter 24, today?

Luke 24 · chapter mention

Thanks for bringing your Bible that's always important Out there.

Grab yours or your device and turn that on Hope.

All of you are equipped in the balcony with your Bible.

Right, you got them.

Amen, amen.

We always like to see what God has to say here.

So a little question before that how confident are you?

Are you normally a pretty self-confident person?

If so, where did that come from?

Experts say that there's an internal part of that, but also there's external.

We can learn to be more confident.

It is a fleeting thing.

Some people say it was based on success.

Well, that's kind of shaky, because if your you know success doesn't come and it's beyond your control, then how do you stay self-confident?

I saw Condoleezza Rice a few years ago speak, who was former top advisor to President Bush, and she was very candid and honest and then they did a little interview with her and in the interview they said something about well, how was it serving?

And she said well, you know, I walked into some pretty heavy duty meetings, especially around security at 9-11 and all that, and I would walk in and quickly, every eye would be on me because I would be the only female and the only black person in the room and as I would sit down I could feel some of those looks saying what is she doing in here?

And so I would brace myself and steal myself by telling myself I'm so well prepared that in a few moments they'll know why I'm in this room, and I love that.

That's kind of a humble, quiet confidence.

One way we know we're more confident, usually in most settings, is he who prepares the best succeeds the most.

It's not mysterious.

You just you know you work to get your way there In the spiritual realm.

There are some consequential causes that are so large, that are so pervasive, they're so compelling that you're drawn toward them.

You start to have a sense of maybe this is part of why I was created.

I'm born for this.

I'm born for this role.

I'm born for this time that I live in, but I have nothing to bring to the party.

It is completely above and beyond me.

I have no special abilities or knowledge I can bring to bear in this, and that can be a scary helpless feeling.

That's, in part, what the Christian life is, though.

If you're in the middle of God's will, you're going to spend a good bit of time uncomfortable, because it's only when we are most dependent on the Holy Spirit that we are the strongest in the Lord.

How you know that?

1 Corinthians 12 for one, where Paul says that when I am weak, I am strong.

When we are dependent, we're in much better shape.

So we're about to look at I'll call it a case study go back in history to a historian recording what happened in the first century a conversation between Jesus and a bunch of His followers, and he's starting to project to them that cause, that great mission that was so much bigger than any one of them, or all of them, corporately, could accomplish that it would have to have been like one of those.

Where do I even start with this?

But he casts the vision, and what eventually happens is a movement, the most pervasive, dramatic, in my opinion, movement over the course of time that this world has ever seen.

We're still taking in the effects and being changed by it.

One reason we're still sitting in this room and y'all check this out there wasn't an ordained minister anywhere in sight.

It was completely lay-driven.

It was completely run and organized by the laity.

It was so amazing and so dramatic.

It has a one-word name for it now that we still use, and it was called Pentecost and that's what is introduced here.

That's coming in Luke, chapter 24.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

So I want to use this to talk about one reason you can be more confident than you have a right to be and I can too is our main point of today.

That we'll just support with some sub-points, and it's simply this If you want to talk about mission, your master is your mission In this world.

It starts with a person and his name is Jesus.

The focus on Jesus actually informs every other walk of life.

We do better socially, educationally, physically, I believe, emotionally.

Everything else should get better and more informed and richer if we spend time every single day pursuing the master, the person who is Jesus Christ, y'all.

That's why we call ourselves Christ followers as opposed to Christian.

Christian is so wrongly used in today's culture and so stereotyped that I'm not sure it means anything.

But a Christ follower means we're going somewhere, we're not just sitting around.

We're trying to develop, we're trying to be holy as he is holy, and we also have a mission.

But the only way we're ever going to connect to that mission and have any degree of success in it whatsoever it is so much beyond us is to focus on the master, and that's what John 1.23 is all about.

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet he's going way back.

I'm the voice of one calling in the desert make straight the way for the Lord.

That's our job too, by the way, now, in the modern day, is we're supposed to be somewhatwe're not prophets maybe some of you are, I'm not but we're supposed to be that voice also, whether we're in the minority or not, we're that voice saying make the path straight for the Lord.

So let's get into this.

I'm going to read through, we're going to read through this.

This is Jesus addressing the group, as I said, and we'll stop and make some comments, but there's really four aspects, angles.

I want to look at this case, study through to hopefully help us be a little bit more self-confident in what we are being called to do, which means, basically, if you are a Christ follower, if you are a believer, you are a messenger of the gospel.

That makes all of us clench up a little bit, doesn't it?

That makes all of us tight, oh no, especially like what some of us have just been through.

We've been on family get you know, a bunch of family coming over.

Well, I know, probably I wish I could talk to him, I wish I could talk to her not sure where their faith level, and that there's something about the closest of relatives that are the most intimidating.

And, by the way, if you're watching out there or you're in the room with us today and you wouldn't call yourself a believer, I'm so grateful you're here, but you need to know this.

You may not know this.

You intimidate us to death when it comes to this.

Like, hey, I wish you would consider being a Christ follower, like I am.

There is something about that that we just fear typically.

And the other thing is, I would love to get some coaching from some of you who are not walking with the Lord by choice, to say like why is that not your choice?

Why do you?

I've had some people say well, the experience I had when I was younger in church has kept me away, and I don't intend to go back there, and with some of the experiences I've heard of people in churches, especially when they were younger, you probably would not go either, quite frankly.

But what makes my heart hurt sometimes is I always think, wow, that doesn't represent Christ, though.

To associate our God with something a human did or humans did, that's not really what Christ was about.

Anyway, it's been misrepresented.

If I could put folks like that in a safe place to have an experience with the amazing Jesus that we have with you guys in fellowship, oh man, I'd give my right arm to have that happen, because once I think a person tastes what the body of Christ is designed to be and the fellowship and the personal love of Jesus they're not.

They won't ever miss a Sunday coming to church.

It's just such a dramatic thing.

So anyway, I'm sorry I'm getting off track.

Y'all are supposed to keep me on track here, so I'll do better, and maybe you can do better too.

So, first thing, let's look at.

Let's look at the message.

I mean the mission, I'm sorry.

What is our mission?

Basically, to proclaim Him, jesus, to all nations.

Let's look at 44 through 47 in Luke, chapter 24.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

He, jesus, said to them this is what I told you while I was still with you.

Now, what is he talking about?

He's with them now.

He's doing a summary here of the 40 days after the resurrection.

So it's at the end of the 40 day period.

He's about to be beamed up to heaven and you know, he's just given that last shot to them.

Everything must be fulfilled.

That is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms.

All they had, of course, in those days, what we call today the Hebrew Bible or our Old Testament, and it was three sections to it.

There was the law, which was basically law of most, first five books, then the Psalm and then the prophets.

That's what they had.

And he's saying all three of those sections point toward this Messiah.

Who guess what is me?

He would say 45,.

Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures.

Don't overlook this and keep moving.

This is a key thing.

He opened their minds.

This is not recorded very often in the Greek New Testament.

It is where Lydia comes to a Bible study that Paul is doing Remember that she was a seller and maker of purple cloth and it says that her heart was opened.

It's the same phrase.

Her heart or her mind was opened and she became what we would call today a Christ follower.

All of a sudden they can start to hear, with understanding, what Jesus is saying to them.

So he told them 46,.

This is what is written the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.

If you write in your Bible out in the margin, you can just write a one-word summary of that verse as Redeemer, he came to redeem us and that's what he did by that Verse 7,.

And repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in the name, in His name.

To who?

All nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Jesus is getting ready to ascend.

He promises in Matthew on Hisbefore he does that, that he will come back Between 24 and 14, that's recorded the gospel will be preached to all mankind and then the Son of man will return.

That was so graphic that Paul in the first century in his letters, truly believed that Jesus was going to return in his lifetime.

So the obvious question is when's he coming back?

You don't know for sure, but Matthew 24, I just quote it says when everybody's heard.

So what's that mean?

We're not real sure and you shouldn't paint yourself into a corner over that.

It doesn't mean nations cause geography changes all the time.

It means, we think, probably what we call people groups.

At present, mission organizations like ours estimates there's a little over 7,000 unreached people groups still left.

Some of them are several million people, some of them are just several thousand.

But does it mean that those 7,000 groups need to at least hear the gospel?

And how are we sure that they haven't truly?

Maybe somehow heard it one way or another?

We don't know.

All of that.

That's not ours to know Ours is to be faithful, but what that tells me is there should be a sense of urgency, don't you agree?

There should be a sense of urgency toward those that have never heard or have heard and so far rejected it.

Now, this all people was really controversial in that day.

It's one reason they put Jesus on the cross.

But the Old Testament is so clear All through it, especially in Isaiah and in place, like Zechariah and Joel and others.

It says all mankind will be eligible to receive the Messiah when he comes, that's the Jews and the non-Jews.

To this day, though, they believed you had to be a good Jew to truly be included in God's plans.

So Isaiah is a good read.

I always give you a little bit of side scripture.

If you want to read it more this week, what I would suggest is Isaiah 50 through 63.

Chapters 50 through 63 is great.

They're scattered through there these Messianic prophecies, but also the fact that he came from to all people.

Let me read you one In Isaiah 52, 10,.

The Lord I love the language here the Lord will bear His holy arm in the sight of all nations.

All nations and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our Lord.

We know in Philippians, one day he will return right and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord.

But at some point, somehow, by God's usage, everybody will at least be exposed to it before he does return.

But those are good reads.

We also know this.

That struggle was going on at that moment and it would continue to go on.

Read the book of Acts.

There's good Jews.

There's good Christ following Jews struggling with.

Did he really come to redeem like Gentiles of all people?

Surely not the Samaritans.

Get out of here.

What was that back and forth?

We know Peter struggled with it.

We know several of them did.

We know that.

We got a case study in Acts 11, in Acts 11, a place called Antioch Antioch, some people come to know Jesus and they're Greek citizens, they are not Jews, and the home office of Jerusalem said we got a problem with that, we're not sure that's legit, we're not sure that we can license them, and so they send the.

You know it's what we do.

We send a committee up, right, got a group of people together, go up and check it out.

They were wise enough to ask Barnabas to go, who was a bridge builder, not a bridge destroyer.

And Barnabas walks in with an open mind and I believe the Holy Spirit opened his mind.

He interviews them all, he talks to them, he sends word back.

There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that they are anything but as saved as you are that's my language there and they celebrated it.

And then the people in Jerusalem got on board.

That was a huge milestone, but those battles were fought.

We know today God is no respecter of any ethnic group.

Right, we're all in the same footing under God's kingdom and in heaven.

It's going to be glorious.

There won't be any racial or really any ethnic distinctions.

We'll all be just kids of His running around right.

We'll all be part of the same family.

So what's going on in the low country?

Here we're talking international missions.

Well, I'm grateful for this place for a lot of reasons.

People are very active missionally, but some of you have taken the lead here in reaching out to a large segment of international teachers that are in Berkeley and Dorchester County that have been brought in on two-year contracts just to shore up the teaching need here, from elementary right up through high school.

And I don't see any today, but in the second hour I know we'll have two or three families who are part of those of that international community that are a part of us now, and that's just so good.

But what a great mission field.

The international segment is coming here.

We can do international missions without leaving right, not to speak of all the refugees.

There's over 300 million refugees, I think, is the right number across this world right now, whether they be Ukrainian, russian, whatever, and so they're being displaced all around.

We've got a big segment coming in here from different places.

What a golden opportunity we have to try to reach out and enforce them and be Christ's love to them and to continue to love them.

One of the highlights of my year, and I'll get back on topic here.

One of the highlights of the year to me was back in the summer took a couple, a young couple of international teachers, to lunch and Sherry and I were just hearing their stories and it was pretty obvious that the young man was already a believer.

I said how did that happen?

So I've been a Christian a long time.

He said my parents Christians, my grandparents are Christians in our country.

And I said that's not all that common in that country, right?

Are you a third-generated?

And he said oh, no doubt.

Southern Baptist missionaries came to my village and my grandfather came to know Jesus and ever since then that's been our family.

And then, two days later I was able to stand and celebrate the life of one of our members here, julia Yost Moore, who was a missionary to that same country, and I'm like only God would put the timing of that together and that reminder that everybody on the face of the earth is equally important to Him and there really are no exceptions to that.

He is the master overall and our mission is always under the guidance in the name of the master.

So we got the mission.

How about the message.

What are we going to talk about?

Well, according to verse 47, we just read it's going to be forgiveness and repentance.

And that might not be like number one on your list to talk to people about, but that's clearly part of the gospel, is it not?

That's the only way you got there.

That's the only way I got there.

I had to do some deep repenting and God had to do some massive forgiving of me, and nobody enters by any other way than that.

That's just the way it works.

Repentance is to turn, to change your mind, to have a different belief system and to believe that your hope and your salvation comes in Jesus alone, and to do that the forgiveness is His, to forgive us.

And that meant in the classical Greek y'all.

It meant to release, to let it go, to take something, and I got rights about that.

But I'm going to excuse that.

I'm going to give up my rights to hold that over the person and I'm going to let it go.

And that's a great model for us today when we're having to forgive other people.

I got some rights.

It doesn't mean that what he did was really, really wrong, doesn't mean I like it.

Doesn't mean it didn't hurt and, yes, it's going to cost me something.

It's going to cost me to truly forgive somebody every time I forgive them.

But isn't that the model of the gospel?

God said hey, how about your firstborn son and your only son?

That's pretty heavy price, isn't it?

And that's our message.

It's actually the most positive message.

How do you interpret the Scripture well enough to engage with people and just have that golden talk with them?

Is that theat the gym yesterday?

And the young man in our church, a 19-year-old guy in our church, came up to me there and said hey, I try to read the Bible, but it's just like it's hard.

It's hard for me to understand any of that.

Where would you suggest?

Well, one key that we all have you interpret the Scripture by the person of Jesus Christ.

If you're in the Old Testament, how does this connect to Jesus?

By the way, there's 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that talk about the great Messiah who's coming.

That's Jesus 300.

If you're in the New Testament, how do I understand this better?

Well, how well do I know Jesus?

That will shine a light on most of the Scripture that we're trying to do.

There's two keys to knowing what Scripture's all about, among several, maybe One key is to make sure we keep saying Jesus was fully human but fully holy.

That means divine, the only person ever fully human and fully perfect and holy.

Now let's contrast that with me and you Fully human, but fully, not holy.

Right, there's the need for the gospel.

That gap, that gap in description, right there is what will send us all straight to hell if we do not confess our need in Jesus and surrender our lives to Him.

So when we're talking about Jesus to other people, my only encouragement here I'm not going to take you through all the mechanics of it right here we can do workshops for that but I would say simply this don't feel like you've got to dress Him up and put a spotlight on Him and make Him.

Don't just don't gloss over the sacrificial part and say, oh, he'll make your life so much better.

He'll help you solve your problems.

You'll love yourself much more.

He's all about love.

All of those are true, but that's a partial gospel.

The real gospel is he wants you to give up your life.

It will require sacrifice.

You'll be doing this the rest of your life.

It's called perseverance.

There is an element of suffering to follow in Christ.

If you're really devoted, you're going to put your head in your hands and just cry.

Some days there are terrible disappointments, but the reward is glory forever.

We will sit with kings one day no more tears, no more sorrow, no more suffering and no more pain.

And the most amazing thing in the world I don't know what it's going to be like, but we will be fully in the presence and in the hundred percent love of Jesus.

Twenty-four seven, the rest of time, no sin.

If you've ever had somebody sarcastically say you just think you're perfect, don't you?

That day you can say well, yeah, actually I am Nothing wrong with me.

Well, let's talk about the player for a second.

The players are you and me and all believers.

It's just that simple.

None of us has a ticket out.

Let's read verse 48.

Jesus says you, all of you, are the witnesses of these things.

What's a witness?

Somebody just tells what they saw.

So here's quick advice for that All you got to do don't over complicate this thing about evangelism.

Tell them about the trip that you're on.

I've already spent a lot of time this morning saying how would you go away from Thanksgiving?

How was your trip?

People have asked me how'd you go?

How would you do good, went the hell back.

How was your trip?

And you just tell them some details of your trip.

You tell them the highlights.

What's so great about your trip?

Got to see my grandchildren.

It's people oriented.

What kind of trip are you on?

Well, I'm a Christ follower, so let me tell you about Jesus.

It's not about me, it's about Jesus, y'all.

I wish I could make it more hard.

I wish I could make it harder and more complicated, but that's about it.

You tell about the trip and you tell about the importance and how, the better you walk the trip, the better person you are.

Here's, check this out y'all.

This is the way it works.

A disciple is a missionary.

You cannot separate the two.

You, if you're a disciple, a growing believer in Jesus, you are a missionary.

The only question is whether I'm going to be a good, active one or an inactive, bad one.

God has custom fit you for the people around you and for the occasions that come up.

You believe that.

Some of you don't believe that, but it is absolutely true.

You are uniquely crafted in every way to be an agent and ambassador for Jesus for the people around you.

There's some that will be coming into your life you haven't met yet.

That is the reason they're going to be coming into your life.

This is a God for everyone and you are the agent to describe the greatest invitation in the history of the world.

It's like the ad that ran for a dude ranch out west.

The advertisement said don't worry about if you're not a cowboy, we don't need you to be a cowboy.

We have a horse Everybody can ride.

For fat people, we have a horse for you to ride.

For skinny people.

For short people, we have a great horse for you.

For tall people, we've got tall horses.

For people that have never ridden a horse, we have horses that have never been ridden.

So nothing happens without first prayer.

Prayer changes everything.

My only advice for this since you're a player, we just found out today.

We're all players in this.

We're allI'm going to be held accountable when I go to heaven for how much I played, and you will too.

But we've got to start with prayer.

A sharper prayer would be God, bother me about the people that bother you.

Trouble me for the things and the people that trouble you.

Show me right now, tomorrow, wherever I am, show me who grieves you, that I come across.

Give me the open spirit by your Holy Spirit, to know who you are preparing to not only just hear the good news they've heard that but to receive it and embrace it.

Nobody comes to Christ unless the Holy Spirit strengthens them, and that's the focus of our prayer.

And that's my last group of category here.

Who's the power source?

The Holy Spirit.

Think of verse 49,.

I'm going to send you what my father has promised.

Talked about promises two weeks ago where, like some of you, are good thinkers and you think where has the Holy Spirit been promised?

John 14 through 16 is the gold standard for reading about the Holy Spirit.

Check it out this week, you'll not be sorry.

You spent time reading John 14 through 16.

But stay in the city until you have been clothed or immersed y'all, or wrapped up Baptism, which, sorry, we had a little technical difficulty.

This having a bunch of people at 10.30 being baptized that just is an immersion which is symbolic of being immersed in the life of Christ.

And he's equating that with the Holy Spirit to be filled, to be immersed, to be clothed with the power, the mighty changing powers.

What that word meant, dunamis mighty, changing power from on high.

You know the only thing that probably really bothered them about His whole little speech.

Here is when he said go, stay in the city.

He had just been killed.

They were all known to be identified with Him.

Get it Like oh, and that means stay.

Let me stay until I decide to move you.

You're asking us to go right back where they already got you and they might want to get us, but sit around until you tell us to move.

That's what you want.

Can we not work from home for a while?

Can we not kind of do remote?

Can we do some zoom calls across the country?

But no, that was Jesus' plan.

But that's when it happened.

That's when the mighty movement of the Holy Spirit happened.

And when that day finally hit, none of them would ever be the same and none of them would ever fear Jerusalem again, because none of them would ever fear a man again.

Their fear had become a reverential fear of a holy God who they knew and lived with some of them for three years, and his name was Jesus and they had him inside of them.

And you know what's the best news in all the world If you're a Christ follower, you have him in you.

The same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead you have.

So he's not interested in my excuses of why I'm not equipped to talk about the good news of Jesus Christ, correct?

And he's not especially wanting to hear your excuses either.

I don't think so.

Let me close out with connecting old and New Testament and this, personally, was a game changer at one time in my life, a long time ago and Isaiah 52, 7.

Isaiah says how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim salvation?

How beautiful are the feet of those who travel, who follow to present the good news about salvation?

Seven hundred years later, paul writes in Romans 10, 14, and how shall they hear the word, except they be preached to?

And how shall they preach except they be sent?

How beautiful are the feet of those who share the good news?

Y'all, we don't have to produce the results.

All we got to do is get up off the couch and go to people.

That gives you beautiful feet and that's what you have been created to do.

He is alive.

He will live forever.

If Jesus is alive, he's going to reign, because he's already the King, right.

He has all authority on heaven and earth and under the earth.

If all those are true, he deserves to be your Lord.

How does somebody who created everything and who sits above us and spoke the world into existence.

How in the world would he allow me or you to have a personal relationship?

Not only would he allow it, he's been waiting on it to happen, he desires that for you.

So the quicker we surrender and the quicker we move into the position for the mission and the message as a player and the most important assignment in the history of the world.

Sooner we do that, the better off we'll be and the more fulfilled your life will be and the more productive it will be, the more fruit you will bear, because he'll be bearing it through you.

And let me tell you this, your internal confidence will never be higher.

Why?

Because it's not in you, it's in Jesus Christ and he'll never let you down.

So where's your confidence in your standing today?

Let's be honest you, internally, just for a second, do you have that relationship with Him?

Do you know Him?

Is it a think so?

I think so, I like to think so.

It's not quite good enough.

The Bible says very clearly we can know, we can know and be assured that we have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

You'll never be good enough, you'll never be deserving enough.

You'll never be smart enough I wasn't but you can surrender.

You can lay down your arms and stop fighting Him and start walking with Him.

That's what you were truly designed to do.

That's what might have brought you into this room this morning.

That might be why you're watching out there.

I know this life can be brutal to your dreams, can it not?

You can be on top of the world soaring with the eagles one day, and the next day you can crash and burn, and we've had those experiences.

I'm not a prophet, but I got this feeling by what looking around me in this world is going to continue to be that way.

In a world that, literally, is being shaken to its foundations right now, we need to be part of what's solid, and Hebrews 12 says there is one thing that will remain when everything gets shaken apart that cannot be shaken, and that is Jesus Christ and knowing Him.

So we're in good shape if we just set our mindset and our lifestyle around that, and I would invite you to that wonderful, wonderful promise.

I would invite you to come and pray in a second.

The lady's going to come on up.

We're going to get to sing one more time If you need to ask for prayer for someone you're troubled about or something that you're troubled about.

This is a great time to do it, if we can celebrate a decision, a next step decision where you are like, hey, I need Jesus, I need to come back to Him, been away.

We're hearing more and more these days from folks saying, man, it's been five years, it's been six years, it's been a long time since I've been inside of a church, but I just feel lost these days.

If that's you, we can help you with the next step toward that, toward getting out of that.

So why don't you stand and let me pray for you?

Jesus, we're just grateful.

We're grateful to be part of your family and we humbly, god, just want to continue to follow you.

But I guess we could describe as a humble sense of boldness, because the hour may be getting short, it's only going to be light for so long, and there's people we love very much that we know are not ready for that day to end.

And so, god, would you just allow us the ability to obey what your spirit is telling us to do right now.

In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.