TAG! God's It! - May 31, 2026

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

Got one question for you starting out. Do you want to play tag this morning? Yes.

Come on. I didn't see any adults enthusiastic about that. I can read some of

your thoughts. I ain't running nowhere.

Guess what? You don't have to. It's the beauty of this game.

I love this. We're going to play a game here as we start out.

The game is tag, but it's stationary tag.

Now, you're not going to tag each other with letterhead and envelopes.

Not that kind of stationary.

But the kind of stationary that some of you like. Just sitting down.

There might be a little movement. I got an amen on the front row. There we go.

But I'm going to need help from any children that would like to participate.

So if you would like to participate, just come right here.

All right? Awesome. Yes.

We have such shy children in this church. Man.

Oh, yeah. You've grown a little, haven't you? Okay, kids, are you ready to help me?

Okay, some of you may need to team up, but you play a vital,

so very important role in this game of tag.

Now, you won't necessarily be running in the church. I know you're disappointed.

The one chance you thought you'd get away with it, right?

But what you will do is you'll help me with these batons.

There are four batons. If you've ever seen a relay race, these are like those

things that get passed from one runner to the next, from the start to the finish.

And so you can put your hands down because you're going to have to help me with

these. What you are going to do, would you step up here, Calvin?

You two come up here. All right. I need a young lady.

You're not a young lady. Come up, James. Come on. I need another guy.

Okay. You fivers come up here. All right. I just want you to stand in a row and look that way.

Okay. All of you look that way. Beautiful. Look that way. Okay.

So just act like the preachers out there and you're watching the great sermon that he's preaching.

And here's what you're going to do, because now we're transitioning to game time.

What you're going to do is I would like you to stand facing that way.

Okay. Yeah. And you, Calvin, face this way.

Okay. Now, all of these four right here are sitting in the pew where you guys

are at. So they're seated, pretending, of course.

Calvin's at one end of the pew. And what's your name again?

Scarlet is at the other end of the pew. And this is very important because starting

from the back of the church, now don't you guys move on me, okay?

You're going to receive one of these batons. And the goal of this game is you're

going to move the baton all the way down the row,

to the kid that's on the end, and then the kid that's on the end will pass that

baton to the kid that's standing in the next row.

Now, if we have not enough kids at a row, some of you will have to move to the next one. You get it?

And so this is stationary text. So here's how it looks.

Calvin, you have the baton. So when I say go, starting at the back of the sanctuary,

each section, we have about four sections.

When I say go, you're going to pass this baton congregation as quick as you can.

Pretend like this is a venomous snake you don't want to hold.

Get rid of that thing. Don't throw it. Please don't throw it.

It's foam, but it could still hurt somebody.

So you're going to pass it as quick as you can. Now, don't nobody leave yet.

This is an easy game, okay?

When I say go, you're going to pass it all the way down. When the kid on the

end gets it, they're going to pass it to the pew that's in front of them.

Actually, it'd be this way. And so the first section to get the baton from the

back to the front and up here handed to me will be deemed the winners. All right, clear as mud.

Okay. Excellent. So let's do a practice run up here.

So Cavill, when I say go, you're going to pass the baton. All you guys are going

to get this baton and give it down here to Scarlett as quick as you can. Okay.

So ready? Oh, you better turn around because you don't want to miss the baton.

There you go. Okay. Ready, set, go.

All right. See, that was easy, right?

So now what I need for all of you that are up here is I will need you who have

a baton to go to the very end of the row in each section. So what's this red section?

Why don't I have red section go all the way back by the doors, okay?

And you've got blue section. You go all the way back by Noah over there.

All right. You see him in the red shirt? Yeah.

All right. I want you to go way over there to, You see her? See Moni over there?

That's where I want you. And I'll have you.

Go back here to Joan. You see Joan in the very back there?

Now, the rest of you, thank you guys for letting us set this up, okay?

The rest of you, I need you to go to the end of a pew. It doesn't matter where.

Just make sure you're at somewhere.

You're at the end. Why don't you go to the end down there by your grandpa?

Now, it's okay. There's all over the church. Now, if you see someone,

if you see a row that's empty, you might have to go to one of those rows.

And you can move around, kids, as that baton gets going. just don't trample over each other, okay?

Trust me, congregation, there is a point to this madness. All right.

So, are we all set? Children, young people, are you all set?

Teenagers, you can help out too. I know you're not kids, kids,

but there ain't nobody in that row. You're ready.

Oh, that's a good point. If there's nobody in that row or if you're in the middle

of the row and there's no one, you got to make sure you get that baton.

You don't want to let your section down.

All right. Okay. Is everyone set?

Huh? You might need to stretch. I don't know. I don't want anyone hurting anyone's self here.

All right. On your mark.

Get set. Go. All right. Here we go. It's moving. It's grooving.

I see batons getting chucked. Let's not do that.

Looks like we've cleared some of the back rows We're moving forward Alright,

Looks like a train wreck happening in slow motion I love it This is good.

Okay, kids, if you've already passed off your baton, go to another section that doesn't have somebody.

Oh, this one's coming alive over here. It's going to be close.

What are you doing?

Okay, keep going. Yellow team's got it. Keep going. We're not done.

Bring it to me. Bring it to me. It's going to be close for second.

Second. All right, keep going, middle rows.

Oh, gosh. Are you?

Are you? It's going to be close between red and blue. Red edges out, blue, photo finish.

Wow. Good job, you guys. Okay, you guys can sit down, kids.

You've deserved a break after that. And some of you got to run in church, so that's good.

Tag. This is a crazy game, right? You got a crazy pastor, some would say.

When we think about this game of tag, this crazy game of tag,

We couldn't have done it without our children, without our young people helping out.

We couldn't have done it without you guys participating.

And what's the goal of TAG anyway?

The goal of TAG is not to be it. When you receive the baton, you are it.

And you want to get rid of that thing as quick as possible. Well,

it's the same thing here, even though we were stationary.

And even though it was kind of like a relay race. And if there's one thing you

know about a relay race, The same runner doesn't hold the baton the whole race.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be a relay race. You want to pass the thing off to the next person.

You've done your job. That's the next person that has to do the next leg of the race and so on.

And I always loved relay races because even if I was the slowest person on the team.

We still would have got a faster time than if I was just trying to run the whole

thing by myself. And the same is true for us today.

When we think about life and where we're at, in this congregation,

we have received the baton from previous generations.

I, as pastor, have received this baton from Pastor Chuck, who received that

baton over 30 years ago from other pastors who received that baton and so on.

And you, as believers in Jesus, have received the faith that you have,

because someone at some time shared the gospel of Jesus Christ,

the peace of God with you.

And when we think about the implications of this silly little game, but it has relevancy.

Now, you've got to know the game was not fair, right?

It was definitely not fair. There's more people in different sections.

There's quicker people in different sections. And so it wasn't based on that.

But you've got to understand, too, that whether you're a kid that's been promoted to the next grade,

whether you're a student that's going into high school, that just graduated

high school, that's going into college, whether you're an adult that just graduated

from college and is trying to get a good job somewhere,

or whether you're a parent wondering, man, where has the time gone?

How can I have a graduate?

When we think about all this, we know that life isn't fair, and that when we

come up against something, sometimes things can be life-shattering,

but they don't have to be. Life changes.

Different things happen at once. And sometimes we've got to understand what

God does, and that is that God leads us one step at a time, one season at a

time, and one decision at a time.

And as we think about this time after time kind of idea, we've got to get back

to the scripture that I want to read this morning from the book of Proverbs.

It's one that will be familiar to each and every one of you.

And I'll invite you to stand if you're willing to.

It's a short, short verse here, two verses.

And so let's say this together, shall we? Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your path straight.

You may have learned that a little differently back in the day.

Father, be with us today as we concentrate on these two verses.

And Father, help us to be aware that, God, you love us. You've got a great plan

and purpose for our lives.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

All right. You can be seated.

Today, I just want you to remember three words, really one word that is an acronym

for three other words, and that word is TAG. Everyone say TAG.

Awesome. The T stands for trust. The A stands for acknowledge. Acknowledge.

And the G stands for God. Let God direct your lives.

It's good news no matter if you're starting a new grade next August,

if you're starting college,

if you're starting a new job, if you're just starting a new challenge in life,

it's good to remember this word

tag because it has incredible implications for each and every one of us.

You see, some of us are planners. And while we like to plan for things,

sometimes we can get lost in the plan and the plan becomes the thing rather

than what we're trying to plan for.

And what I want to encourage you today, whether you're a planner,

you're just happy-go-lucky, whatever happens in the next moment you're ready

for or you want to be ready for, you don't have to be pressured to know the

whole thing, to know everything that's going to happen.

You don't have to be pressured to know all the details.

The future is not yours to carry.

Wait, Mike, that's kind of counterintuitive to what we hear.

We're supposed to make plans. We're supposed to do this.

We're supposed to be ready for any contingency. And I'll say,

yeah, it's kind of a paradox.

You need to be ready for anything, but you don't know everything that's going to happen.

You don't know the future. Only God does. And so the call today for each and

every one of us is to trust and obey God in the next step that happens and the

next step that you take. Just trust God in that moment.

Trust God that he's going to take care of you. What I want to ask of all of

you today, from our youngest to our oldest, is this.

I want you to hit the pause button.

And I want you to trust and acknowledge God before you take the next step.

In those major decisions, absolutely.

But even in the smaller ones, make that part of your life, and that will become

reflexive in the bigger choices that you have to make. Pause.

Trust God and acknowledge Him, and then let Him lead you to the next step.

So there's just three points I want to make this morning. First is T, and that is trust.

Trust God more than your own understanding. That's what our scripture told us.

The first step in God's guidance is trust.

You've got to trust him. The verse doesn't say, understand everything.

No, it says, you don't have to understand everything. You've just got to trust him.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, the scripture says, not with all your understanding.

There's a lot of things God does that I'm like, what?

That does not make sense. But God's got a plan in it. God's working out something

even when it doesn't make sense.

To trust God means that we lean on God even when we don't have all the answers,

even when at times it seems counterintuitive to do what God wants us to do.

I mean, you look at the scriptures and sometimes we're just puzzled.

If someone smacks you on one cheek you're supposed to turn the other cheek to

him what no we're not i'm supposed to knock you out how dare you strike me how

dare you hit me jesus tells us something that's counterintuitive,

counterintuitive to our own nature of what we think.

We've got to trust God. For those of you that graduated just recently, college or high school,

middle school even, means trusting God in your next step, whether that's your

work life, your college life, getting you through high school if you just went

from middle school to high school.

It means when your life plans feel uncertain, when you don't know what is really

going to happen, that you've really got to trust God.

If I could say it like this, and kids, maybe you can help me.

Kids, pretend that you are at the end of a very long rope that's over 300 feet

tall, and there's 300 more feet below you in a canyon.

What are you going to do if there's a rope right there? You're going to make

sure there's a knot tied, and you're going to hang on right above that knot.

So here's what I want to help you to do to remember this verse.

And the first is, raise your arms over your head and pretend like you're holding

that rope and say, trust in the Lord.

Say that, trust in the Lord. Yeah, you're going to trust in the Lord.

And you trust in the Lord with all your heart, whether you're a small child,

whether you're older and looking forward to getting to heaven.

It doesn't matter where you're at in that spectrum of life. You've still got to trust the Lord.

You've got to hang on and trust him. You don't have to have all the answers,

but you do need to hang on because God will rescue you. God will come along.

He'll pull that rope up one tug at a time, and pretty soon you're going to know

his plan, know what he's unfolding.

For some of us as adults, it means that when we're facing major family decisions, choices,

health concerns, when the financial pressures are heavy upon us,

that we're going to pause and we're going to trust in the Lord.

We're going to hang on and trust that God's going to come through for us.

We're not going to sell out and sell short and do something that would violate

our trust in Him. So what does that mean for you?

Well, one, it means you don't have to figure everything out.

You've just got to trust God.

You've just got to trust that He'll come through for you. You don't have to

know all the ins and outs.

For some of us, and I include myself in that us, that drives us crazy because

we got to know the details. We have to know.

I don't want to make a choice without knowing. But yet God says,

no, trust me with all of your heart.

Trust me with everything. I'm going to take care of it.

You see, it comes down to the bedrock of our faith. And this is another reason

why this is vital to each and every one of you.

God is trustworthy when life does not feel certain or when life is uncertain.

We could trust God. Has God ever let you down?

In the things that matter, has God ever let you down? That's right. No is the answer.

The things, congregation, we can learn from children.

No, God has never let us down. He's trustworthy.

When we pray about those vital life matters, God will make a way.

He will show us a way. So what do you do with that truth?

How do you trust God even more? You pray this, Lord, I trust you with what I cannot see.

If it helps you do this, Lord, I trust you with what I cannot see.

You're trusting God that he is going to make a way where there seems to be no

way, that God is going to provide the resources you don't have,

that God is going to equip you for the thing he's called you to,

you're going to trust God that that's going to happen, but you're going to pause.

You're going to take a time out.

Hebrews 11, verse 1 says, Now faith

Hebrews 11:1

is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

You've got to exercise faith in trusting God in these matters.

There's a little Hebrews connection for you this morning.

So we have T is trust. A is acknowledge.

Acknowledge God in every part of life.

To acknowledge God means to recognize Him in everything you do, everywhere.

Not just when you come to church, but when you leave church and you get a snooty waiter or waitress.

You still got to trust God there and acknowledge Him there.

Maybe God is trying to show you something through that.

Maybe God is trying to get your attention. And the things that happen at work

tomorrow morning, and the things that happen as you go away on a trip,

And everything that you do, we are to acknowledge God in every single part of our life.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart was first.

But secondly, we've got to remember, as the scripture says, lean not unto your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge him. You've got to acknowledge God and his working.

When we think about it, we've got to invite God into our schools.

Someone once said, as long as there are tests in school, there will always be

prayer in school, whether it's out loud or not.

That's true, but we've got to do more than just invite God to school when we're

in need of passing a test.

It means we invite God to be with us throughout the whole time of our life.

And when we go to work, we've got to make sure God's with us,

that we know God's with us. We've got to acknowledge his presence.

When we're with our families, when we're with our friends, whatever we're doing,

we've got to acknowledge that God is there with us and that God is there as

part of us as believers in Jesus.

And so what are we doing? What are we inviting God into?

It's so vital for us to trust God, but also to acknowledge Him in every part of our life.

It's especially important for young people who are being taught to build who

they are, discovering their identity and direction in life, knowing that God has a plan for them.

But adults, it's good for us too to remember that God has a plan for us.

Even when we mess up the plan, God still has a plan for us.

Even when it doesn't work out like we thought it was going to work out.

We have got to acknowledge God that, God, you've got a plan. And so,

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls everywhere, we do this.

We acknowledge God. We point to heaven. So first of all, we trust in the Lord with all our heart.

We don't lean on our own understanding, but in all our ways, we acknowledge Him.

Everyone point to the sky. We acknowledge God.

You know, you see runners doing this when they win a race. Yeah, yeah, I won.

Well, it's not about us. we're pointing to God to say, God, I acknowledge you.

God, you are in this. God, I'm following you.

And we acknowledge God in all that we do.

When we think about what this matters to each and every one of us,

if I see you in the grocery store going like this, I'm going to know that you

heard this sermon today and you're acknowledging God as you look at those grocery

prices. and you're saying, God, you've got to provide for me.

These Twinkies cost three times as much as they used to.

Okay, not Twinkies, hamburger meat. What does this mean for us?

It means that God cares about your everyday decisions, not just churchy moments.

God cares about you, the little things that you're going through.

God cares about those things, those things you can't share with anybody else

because you're ashamed or you'd be embarrassed if they found out.

God cares about those things, and God wants you to acknowledge His presence

in your life and His ability to address whatever it is that you're going through.

Whether it's one of these small children who might be nervous about the next

thing they're going to learn in school, about the next school they're going

to go to, the next grade they're going to be in,

those that are leaving home to go elsewhere to study, the anxiety that comes

up about fitting into a new crowd,

a new job that started in, you know, how's this going to work out?

Is this going to provide for my needs? All these things come into play.

All these things come in, but you've got to understand that God cares about

those everyday decisions, and He wants to be invited in.

And so what we need to do is not just pause and pray, Lord, I trust you,

but we should make this part of our prayer too.

Lord, I acknowledge you in this.

Show me what honors you. Show me what honors you, God. What's the best course of action?

Hey, you've got a lot of advisors today. They're going to share a lot of different

things that they want you to do. Some of them will serve you well.

Others will serve the other people well.

But what's going to serve God well is what we need to determine,

what we need to understand in that.

Parents and grandparents, this is something that is learned at home.

When they see you, mom and dad, stopping before you're making a major decision.

Now, I don't mean whether you're going to go to McDonald's or Wendy's.

That's not the kind of choice I'm talking about.

Now, if you're fighting about it, your kids need to see you make up before you

go and order food, or you will probably get heartburn.

So just be aware of that.

God does care where you eat. I'm sure he does. But in those major decisions,

those decisions where you don't know what's going to happen,

invite your kids to pray with you and those things that are appropriate for them to know about.

Invite your kids to be part of that. You see, faith is taught,

yeah, but it's also modeled. It's caught.

Parents, grandparents, you're the ones modeling faith for these young ones,

whether you realize that they realize it or not.

How much is God a part of your everyday life? How much do you acknowledge God?

And that leads us to G. T, trust, A, acknowledge, and G is God.

God promises to direct our path.

Isn't that awesome? We've got a promise there that we can bank on.

We can trust God. We can acknowledge Him.

And when we do those two things, we can begin to look for how God is leading us.

God does not promise you an easy path, but He does promise guidance.

He promises to guide you. The promise of this passage is not that life is going

to be easy and we could go around the room and testify and say, amen, brother.

Amen, sister. I hear what you're saying, how hard life is.

It's not easy, but yet God, if we were to continue those testimonies,

we would be assured that God has led us through those hard times in life,

that God will continue to lead us through that.

God will direct our paths. It means that God knows where we are going,

what we need and how to lead us safely.

I kind of think about this illustration of God being on a high-rise building

in a big town, and He sees us walking from one point to another.

He can see all the hazards that are in our way based on the direction we're going.

And if we were to hear him speak to us, he would say, no, turn on 32nd Street.

Don't go down 15th Avenue.

No, I'm not going to listen to you, God. This is a much easier way.

And we can't see what God sees. God sees a big sinkhole, a big pothole,

right, where we're going to be walking.

And he's trying to help us avoid that trap, trying to help us avoid destruction.

And so he wants us to go a different route. But if we're not going to trust

him, if we're not going to acknowledge him, then we're not going to let him

guide us, lead us, direct our path.

So there's sometimes things don't make sense to us as people.

Kids, do your parents ever make choices that you're like, that's stupid.

You don't have to say yes because your parents are watching. Okay?

Don't say yes. Don't move a muscle. And don't lie either. Don't say no.

Sometimes we don't always make good choices as people, whether we're kids or

adults, grandmas or grandpas.

But when we acknowledge that we need God's help, when we acknowledge that,

hey, we need some direction here, that's okay.

Kids, it's okay to get direction from your parents. That's what they're there

for, to help direct you and guide you.

And parents, it's okay to get direction. Well, where do we get direction from?

Well, Psalm 119, 105 gives us a great place to get direction.

It says, your word, thy word, is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Psalm 119 lays it out for us. The word of God lights our feet as we walk through life.

It guides our path, pointing out the way that we need to go.

And when we can take to heart what the scripture says, it says that he gives

us light enough for the next step,

even though he doesn't reveal the whole map or the whole path for us.

For some of you, this is a needed reminder that the Lord isn't just for the

big moments, but he's for the little step moments, one step at a time.

He guides students to choose friends in schools.

He guides graduates on making the career decisions based on how God has created

them and how they will glorify God in their careers.

God guides parents in raising children, and God guides older believers in finishing the race well.

God's guidance is personal, it's faithful, and it's wise.

You ever walked into a dark room and you don't have a flashlight with you?

Especially parents or grandparents. It's a kid's room and they have Legos.

It's like a minefield. Because even though you think you have them all picked up.

There's one hiding out ready to explode as you step on it and shoot the pain

from your soft part of your foot, your little arch there, all the way up through your body.

It's always good to have some kind of light in a dark room.

And though we have a light, we can only see so much in front of us.

Unless you have one of those megawatt gigantic flashlights, that's a little different story.

But the Word says here that the Word is like that flashlight,

like that light guiding our feet as we take one step at a time in a dark place.

It'll shine those ouch Legos for us so we can avoid that trap.

It will shine the piece of furniture that's in the way. I had a pastor that

was a mentor of mine when I went to Bible college. He told the story once.

He was pastoring a new church in the Midwest, and it was Easter time.

And he kind of was there for long enough to know where the pews were and how

to get from the front to the back.

Well, it was one Sunday before Easter, happened right after the Good Friday service.

Brother Greg went from the back of the church to the front without flipping on the lights.

Unbeknownst to him, someone had placed a large display in the center aisle of

a cross, and it was a tradition that he didn't know about.

And so as he was walking down, coming to the pulpit, because remember,

he had kind of things memorized where they were at.

He hit that cross, the whole display, it came tumbling down,

and he with it, and the cross on top of him.

He did not see what was in his way because he did not use the light.

And Christians, I got to tell you, if we don't use the light,

if we don't use the word to highlight our way, sometimes we're going to stumble.

If we're not trusting God, acknowledging God, and letting his light shine our

way, boy, we're in for it.

We can't curse God when that happens because it was our own fault.

Not using the flashlight, not using the light to light the way.

And so here's your third motion, everybody.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.

He will, God will direct your paths. Say, this is the way to go. Isn't that awesome?

If we trust, if we acknowledge him, and if we trust God to direct our path,

he's going to come through for us.

That is often how God leads. He doesn't give us the full picture right at once.

If I knew someday that I would be standing here in Homedale Wilder,

Idaho, in front of all of you, and he showed me that when he called me to preach,

I would not be here today.

I would not be here, not because of you guys, Les, but because of my own insecurities,

because of my own belief about myself.

I would have never answered this call.

So what does God do? He takes us one step at a time as we're trusting him.

And as we go, he equips us, he builds us up, he brings us along in all of that. That's God's promise.

The great thing about this is, and this is really, really important to you.

What does this matter for your life every single day?

Well, it matters because you're not left to walk blindly through the changes of life.

In the contrast to others who would say, God created us and then just kind of

pushed us off, go figure it out on your own. Uh-uh.

That's not what God has done. in your everyday life.

You're not here to blindly kind of feel your way to try to figure it out.

God has left you a light. God has left you a guide.

You've got to trust him, acknowledge him, let him direct your path,

and he's going to direct your path through his word,

through the godly advice of other believers that doesn't contradict this word,

through the wise counsel of pastors, the preaching of the word,

through Sunday school teachers.

God is going to guide you through prayer, being filled with the Spirit of God

and following His Spirit.

God is going to guide you, but it starts right here. It starts with the light to your path.

What I'd ask is that you would move forward in obedience with the light that God gives you today.

Hey, don't worry about tomorrow.

Don't worry about the end game of all of it. Just concentrate on today and what

God wants you to do today.

I think Jesus told us, don't worry about what's going to happen tomorrow.

Tomorrow has enough troubles amongst its own.

Don't deal with tomorrow's troubles today. Deal with what God is putting you

through or allowing you to go through today or offering you the opportunity

today, because you might not get that tomorrow.

So as we wrap this up, today is a celebration day, a celebration of growth,

of growing up in Christ, of growing up through the educational systems that

we have, graduations, promotions.

It's a time to celebrate that.

But it's also a reminder that as life goes on, it's a journey of trust.

We've got to trust the Lord.

We don't have to know the whole road. We don't have to know the whole journey.

We just got to take it one leg at a time, one step at a time,

because we need God to help guide us through those steps.

Now, the thing I want to caution you on is don't pause too long,

especially when the light is hitting your path and it's very much lit up. There are neon signs.

Go this way. This is God's way. Go this way. And you're clear because it doesn't

violate the scripture that that's the way you're supposed to go.

Because sometimes what we'll do is we'll delay because we don't want to go that way.

We'll say, no, God, I need to pray about it some more.

Well, I've shown you the way, the light's on it. Go for it. Just do it. Come this way.

When God is making it clear, sometimes we pause because we're afraid.

Afraid of what the end will be when all God wants us to do is take one step,

and take another step and continue on.

And before you know it, you're at a place where, wow, how did I get here in

life? How did I end up here?

Well, you ended up here because you took one step at a time following God's

road, following the path that God wants you to go down.

That's all you got to do, guys. One step at a time.

One step in trusting God. God, I trust you. I don't know how this is going to work out.

Acknowledging him. God, I

believe this is from you. And letting God guide you. Say, this is the way.

When we can tag like that, that's a good game of tag. That's a good real life adventure with God.

So here's the goal. The goal is not to know the whole journey,

but the goal is to trust God with the next step. Are you trusting him with the

next step of what he's leading you through?

So this week, what I want you to practice is this. I've already said it maybe

three or four times in a little different way.

Don't rush into your next step without first pausing to trust and acknowledge God.

Would you do that this week? Just give it a try.

When a decision presents itself, just say time out, pause, seek out God.

Seek out God in your prayers. Seek out God in the Word.

Trust God that what He says is going to come to pass. And then acknowledge Him.

Say, thank you, Lord. This is the way I need to go.

This is the path I need to go on.

Would you pray with me this morning? Heavenly Father.

We trust you with our next step. I pray, God, today that you would guide our children.

Lord, order their steps. Father, help them to take one step at a time,

just like they did when they learned their ABCs and 1-2-3s, and some are still learning those.

God, just take it one step at a time.

Father, would you guide our graduates? Heavenly Father, I pray that you would

bless them in a major way, that, God, you would open up the path of their next

step and which way they would go.

Lord, guide our families this morning, we ask.

Help to show us the way as parents to raise our kids, kids of all ages,

from young babies all the way up through adult children, God,

as we have influence on them.

And Lord, be with grandparents as they guide their families.

And Father, give the freedom for other parents, for their kids as parents to

raise those grandchildren.

Lord, guide our church, we pray, into the fullness of what you have for us.

And Father, we ask this today in the mighty and the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website.

Www.mvcnaz.org. It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that

recognizes the authority of the Bible.