Be The One: Knowing God (Ezra 7:8-10)

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, let's put our hands together.

Let's celebrate the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Well, good morning, everybody.

I haven't seen you guys all year.

It's so good to see you.

Before you have a seat.

High five, three people and say it's so good to see you.

Go ahead and tell them.

So good to see you this morning.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Some of us wait all year long to use that one dad joke right there.

Haven't seen you all year long.

It is so good to see you.

And it is it is good to be in 2026.

It is awesome that we uh we made it.

We made it back to church.

And I know for some of us, 2026 is a great thing because it's not 2025.

You know, we made it through Christmas, we made it through New Year's.

Some of you are still wondering what day of the week it is.

Other others, you went ahead and you've been back to work.

And so you kind of have that attitude of welcome.

Well, we've been waiting for you, you know.

But no matter how you have found yourself here today, it is so good to see you.

And so if you have your Bibles, want to open up with me to Isaiah chapter six.

We are going to be in a brand new series called Be the One.

And we're going to talk about what that is here in just a second.

But while you're getting your Bibles out, your message notes out, your Bible journals out, I want to say a big welcome to all of our first-time guests.

Also, everybody's watching online.

I know there are several people who are actually still traveling from the holiday season.

And several folks have told us that they are sick and they wanted to bless us by not blessing us with their germs, to which we say thank you.

We received that blessing, but we're so glad to have you with us.

But if this is your first time joining us, we'd love for you to take just a moment to fill out the connect card before the end of your worship, our worship experience, and you can drop it off at the Welcome Center because we have a free gift for you.

And we want to invite you to the biggest party of the month called RLC Connect and make sure that you uh take part of that with us.

And also, real quick to remind everybody that we have got free Bible journals out at the Welcome Center.

And I know that some folks will take notes throughout the year and that they want to keep one per year.

And so if that's your your deal, you are welcome to buy one on your own, but you're also welcome to take one from us.

We we love resourcing folks so that they can dive into God's word.

So make sure you grab one of those if you need one.

Also, we have free Bibles.

We get all the things just to make sure that we can dig into God's word together, okay?

Well, one of the things that we love to do at the beginning of every year is we love to kind of just set the tone for the year and remind ourselves of what it is that we're doing here.

So if you're taking notes, I want to remind you of something, and that is this that we have a mission statement of RLC, and that is that we exist.

The mission of RLC is to make disciples.

Look at somebody and say, make disciples.

That's all we do around here, all right?

We don't we don't do much else other than we do everything we do, we rally it around making disciples, and we primarily do that through three ways, and that is knowing God, growing in freedom, and then sharing Christ with everyone.

So we exist to make disciples.

And so, to sound like a cult, say it one more time, make disciples.

It sounds so creepy when we all say it together, but it's true.

We we all exist to make disciples.

And the reason why we do this at the first part of the year is because we forget.

There's been a lot of stuff that's been going on over the past several weeks, and it's just one of those things where there's things kind of get in the way.

We get we get busy with things and stuff, and we had to spend time with that crazy uncle, and we always feel a little different whenever he goes because he should go, and all the different things, and we find ourselves just needing to kind of set the tone.

It reminds me of how quickly this can happen.

Over the past holidays, uh, I was talking to one of my girls, and both of them should wear glasses.

Okay, I have no idea how you need glasses and don't wear them.

I don't know what that is, but that's my girl's jam.

They love that.

And I was talking to this one daughter, and I was looking at her and I was trying to talk to her, but I was so distracted because she had so much on her glasses, I couldn't see her eyeballs, you know?

And so at some point I just couldn't focus.

And I said, babe, can you please clean off your glasses?

And she was like, Oh, yeah, you know, and she she just went and cleaned them, and all of a sudden she could see the world.

I mean, and I it was like, she said, Yeah, I guess I needed to clean them.

And I was like, Yes, you needed to clean them.

I couldn't see.

How could you see, you know?

And I asked her, I said, Did you not notice how bad they were?

And she was like, No, because you know, they didn't get like that in like five seconds.

They got like that over probably the last month since she cleaned her glasses.

And then it slowly got like that.

And I don't know about you, but when it comes to my relationship with God, the commitment I make to others, and also what we just our focus as a church, if we're not careful, things can get in the way.

Slowly, things collect on our lives, and if we're not careful, we can lose focus.

And so the idea that we do every year is we take the first three weeks and we just clean off our glasses a little bit and just remind ourselves that man, God's got a big idea for us as a church.

God's got a big idea for you as an individual, that God wants to do something amazing in your life.

And so we want to get rid of all the distractions and get rid of all of the smudges so we can see clearly.

And that's one of the things that I do as we're getting ready for the first of the year is I really go through a season of just prayer and just thinking about God, we are always going to be making disciples as a church.

But is there a particular way you want us to make disciples this year?

And as I've been thinking about it, I've had something on my heart for the past few months that I want to kind of be our rally cry this year.

And that is this that this year we want to say to God, we will be the one.

That this year, our focus on how we're going to make disciples is that we are going to say individually and collectively as a church that we will be the one.

Try I don't see how it feels.

Look at somebody and say, be the one.

Look at them again and say, No, you be the one.

I don't know what that means.

Okay, good.

We're gonna find out.

What does it mean to be the one?

And and what's really just kind of had my heart over the past few months, really, and so I want to give it to you, is this comes from a scripture in the book of Isaiah.

The Bible said in Isaiah 6 that there was all this transition that was going on, and then something amazing happened in the life of the prophet Isaiah.

The Bible says that in the year that King Uzziah died, it was then that I saw the Lord.

He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Attending him were mighty seraphim, having six wings, and with two they cover their faces, with two they cover their feet, and with two they flew.

And they were calling out to each other Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heaven's armies, and the whole earth is filled with his glory.

Their voices shook the temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with the smoke.

That would be the smoke of his glory.

And then I said, It's all over, for I am doomed, for I am a sinful man.

I have filthy lips, and I live among people with filthy lips.

Yet I have seen the king, the Lord of heaven's armies.

And then one of the seraphim flew over to me with a burning coal that he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs, and he touched my lips with it and said, See, this coal has touched your lips, and now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.

And then I heard the Lord asking, Whom should I send as a messenger to this people?

Who will go for us?

And so I said, Here I am, send me.

And then he said, Yes, go.

That has just been wrecking me for the past few months because Isaiah had this encounter with God, and on the other side of his encounter with God, it wasn't just to sit and just kind of sizzle, just kind of lay in the lazy river for a while, but rather it was, I volunteer as tribute.

You know, it was I will go, I will go, and I will make a difference.

I will tell people of the encounter with you that I have had.

I will do whatever you want to do.

And my big idea, my hope for us this year is that each one of us in our own way will raise our hand, that we'll have an encounter with God.

And on the other side of that encounter with God, we will say, Yes, we will be the one.

We'll be the one to go into our workplace, we'll be the one to go into our family situation.

We'll be the one to go first in praying over others.

We'll be the one to serve, we'll be the one to give.

We'll be the one to say, This is the year that I conquer those issues in my life.

This is the year I'm going to be the one.

I don't know about you, but this past year in 2025, there were so many things that happened that we can end the year by saying, at least this year was interesting.

You know, it for some of us it was great.

We know some folks had babies, some folks got engaged, some folks had that happen, but other people, it was weird, okay?

All these things happened.

And if and if we're not careful, what for many of us it did is it got us to kind of lean back a little bit and just start reacting to things that were going on.

It's like we couldn't even keep up anymore.

It's just always something that was happening and we didn't know what to do with.

Well, what my prayer for us this year is that we'll kind of get off our back foot and we'll lean back in and we'll stop reacting to the world and we'll start responding to what God is doing.

We'll start responding to how he is speaking and how he is moving, and to see that there's never been a greater time to be alive because Jesus is still on the throne and he's given us this opportunity to do this.

And so we're gonna look at how we can do this through knowing God, through growing in freedom, and through sharing Christ, and how that we can be the one to do that.

And that's how it really starts with Isaiah.

So if you're taking notes, this is what we're going to do is that once we have an encounter with God, we're gonna have an attitude of be the one.

And that means leading the way and knowing God.

How are we going to be the one as a church?

Is that we are going to have an attitude that I'm gonna go first, that I'm going to lean in.

I'm not looking for somebody else to make a difference.

I'm just looking for an opportunity to make a difference, and I'm gonna do it by knowing God and then making him known in other areas.

I think this is so amazing because this is exactly what happened.

I see so much mirroring our life as to what was going on in Isaiah's life because the Bible said that it was in the year that King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord.

Now, it doesn't mean that much for us now, but back in the day when you were, you know, you were controlled by a monarchy, the the king he really set the tone for everything.

And Uzziah had been king for a long time.

And when he died, they knew who the next king was going to be.

It would have been the crown prince that would have been the next king, but you don't know what he's really gonna do when he gets power.

Is he gonna be as good as good as King Uzziah?

Because he was, for the most part, a good king.

He did a lot of great things.

He had a falling off at the end of his life, and now a new king has come on.

And it's a time of transition, it's a time of confusion, it's a time where the earth seems like it's not quite stable, we don't really know what to do.

And it was in the middle of that uncertainty that Isaiah had an encounter with God.

And he saw that it was the true king that was sitting on the true throne.

And that when he had this encounter with God, it changed his life so much that when God said, Who's gonna tell everybody about me?

Who's gonna tell everybody that while transition and different things are happening, you're not entirely sure who the earthly king is gonna be, that nothing has changed the heavenly kingdom, that I'm still on the throne, that I haven't gone anywhere, I'm still in control.

Who will do that?

And it was because of this encounter that Isaiah had with the Lord that he said, I'll go.

Send me.

And I'm just gonna go ahead and warn you.

My prayer for you this year is I want you to have such an encounter with God that you can't keep it to yourself, that you have such an experience with the goodness of God that you can't help but say, God, I've got to do something with what you have now done in my life, and it will cause us to want to lean in and to say, I'll be the one, because I can't stay silent about what God has done in my life.

Somebody say amen.

Some of you are going, I don't know if I want that kind of encounter.

Don't worry.

It's gonna happen anyway, okay?

And it's gonna be great and it's gonna be awesome.

But how, here's the question then is why is this important?

And here's the reason why is because this will be the best year of your life if it's your best year spiritually.

I've noticed that so much because that doesn't mean that there wasn't other things that needed to happen in that kingdom, but because he prioritized God first, it was a great thing that happened in his life, and his life was never the same.

And I want to tell you, there's other things that we need to do, but this will be the best year of your life if it's your best year spiritually.

And so while we're there's other areas that need focus, we're gonna focus on that.

And I was thinking through this idea, well, what does it mean to be the one and to go first and knowing God?

And I got to thinking about this transition of time that was going on with Isaiah, and there was another person in the Bible had a very similar thing happen.

And it was this guy by the name of Ezra.

Ezra prioritized knowing God, and it made all the difference in his life.

I mean, the background is the nation of Israel had been destroyed, and for 70 years they were in captivity.

And finally it was time for God's people to go back to their land.

And so God sent Nehemiah and a guy named Zerubbabel, believe that or not, that's the name, and sent them back to the nation of Israel to start rebuilding the infrastructure, rebuilding the walls and rebuilding, you know, the agricultural area and all that kind of stuff.

But Ezra was more concerned with the spiritual nature of things that was going on.

He realized that it will be the best year ever, if it's our best year spiritually, that we can build the walls of a kingdom.

But if we don't build a foundation on God, none of this will matter.

And so he realized the number one way for us to get where we need to be is we've got to know God.

And so what he did was is he came in and he said, I'm going to be the one that's going to go first and knowing God.

And this is what the Bible says.

It says, Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in August of that year, for the gracious hand of his God was on him.

And here's the reason why.

This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to then teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel.

He was saying, I know that the number one thing, if we are going to set this right, if we're going to make sure that our nation has the foundation of God, I'm going to be the one.

But the only way I can be the one is I've got to know God and I've got to make him known.

Can I tell you that one of the number one ways for you to have the best year of your life is to know God and to make him known.

And Ezra said that he was going to do that.

And as he did that, God's hand was on his life.

And so what I want to do is I want to look at what does it mean to be the one and knowing God by following Ezra?

Because here's the question This year, how can we know God more in a way that empowers us to be the one?

Look at somebody and say, Do you want to know him more?

Yeah.

Do you want to know him more?

So and then look at him and go, Yes, as loud as you can.

Of course I do.

But here's the question: how?

He's the king of the universe.

How in the world do I get to know God more?

Well, Ezra said the Bible said that God's hand, like God literally was on him.

That means God was close to him and all these different things.

His hand was close to him.

How did he get close to God?

Was because he determined I want to know God more.

And so I want us to share three things with one another.

And I'm going to ask you a question, and I've got some blanks in your notes, and I want you to take a second if you can write as fast as I can talk and write down some of the answers on how you are going to know God more because this would be our best year ever.

If it's our best year spiritually, if we lean in to know God more.

And here's the first one that we realize that because God's gracious hand is on us, but we're not done yet, we want to know him more.

We can know God more by knowing his word.

That we can know God more by knowing his word.

Someone say, Be the one.

I'm gonna be the one this year that knows God more because I know his word more.

That's what Ezra said.

That the key to his the secret sauce that helped him to be able to be the one to lead the entire nation closer to God, that they all were able to have an encounter with God, not that dissimilar to what happened in the life of Isaiah, was he said the gracious hand of God was on him because Ezra was determined to study the law of the Lord.

And that word study means a continual and consistent exposure to his word.

And I had to look that up because can I just be really honest with you?

That is not what I always thought the word study was.

I thought study was wait till the night before the test, then cram it in as much as I could, pass the test, and forget everything I ever learned, right?

Don't act like no, I study for weeks.

You liar.

All right, we many of us have done this, and that's what I thought studying was.

And isn't that what we do with Jesus so many times?

We have a problem, and then we go and we try to act like we're cramming for a test.

And then once that test is over with, we go, well, praise the Lord.

And then we move on.

But what would it look like to have an encounter with God so that we just made God's word just a normal part of our life?

Because that word study means to literally look at it and walk away and go back and look at it again and walk away and just have a consistent, constant exposure.

Because here's the thing we can't have an encounter with God if we don't know him.

Because it's one thing to know about God, and it's quite another to actually truly know him.

Let me give you an example.

I'm gonna give you an example.

Two different things.

I don't know if you know who this is.

I did some research.

According to at least three different Google searches, this guy is the number three most famous person in the entire world.

When I count to three, if you know his name, I want you to say it.

One, two, three.

Exactly, right?

He's got multiple names.

I heard Dwayne, I heard The Rock, I heard Johnson, I heard, I think I heard one wrestler.

Okay, so yeah, yeah, he's a he's a wrestler.

Here's the thing some of us know a few things about him.

Let me tell you what I know about him.

I know that he was a wrestler.

I know that he was in a few movies.

But here's the thing I might know about him, but I don't know him.

I don't have Dwayne The Rock Johnson's phone number.

If I call him, he's gonna call security.

We're not friends.

I don't know anything about him.

I don't I don't actually know him, I just know a few things about him.

But on the other hand, my wife, I truly know her.

I know her because I've spent 25 years.

This is our 25th year of being married, by the way.

Praise the Lord.

Yes, isn't that great?

I have been exposed to her for 25 years.

I can look at her and tell just how much trouble I'm in.

I can look at her and know if she's in a good mood or in a bad mood or if I need to leave.

I I know, I know, I know when I see her if my girls have been getting on her nerves.

I I know, you know why?

Because I have been with her in good times and in bad times and everything in between, and on the back end of that, I truly know her.

And can I tell you that's what God wants for me and for you?

He doesn't just want to know about him, he wants you to truly know him.

And we do that by studying God's word continually and consistently.

And here's the reason why.

Because when everything is going well, it's so good to know the Lord, it's so good to know what's going on.

But what about when the bad times come?

What about when the bad things happen?

There's a story in the Old Testament about a guy named Jeremiah, and for 50 years he prophesied to the nation of Israel that if we did not get our lives straightened out, if we didn't start to know him and turn away from sin, that God was going to judge the nation and destroy it.

For 50 years, and for 50 years, he dug into God, but nobody believed him.

And then everything happened exactly the way God's word said it would.

All of a sudden, all the bad things happened.

The nation was destroyed, the people were slaughtered, it was so bad.

And on the other end of that, he's having to process all of this because he lived through it, and he is processing.

And God, why was it so bad?

Why did all these things have to happen?

Why, why was it that your people didn't listen to you?

And why was it all this?

And so he processes it and he writes it all down in what we now call the book of Lamentations.

As he's walking through what it was to truly see God finally say, enough is enough.

But even in the middle of just literally watching the nation that he loved tore apart, I love how he says this.

He says, Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this, that the faithful love of the Lord never ends.

His mercies never cease.

Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh each morning.

I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance, and therefore I will hope in him.

You know, one of the reasons why it is so important that we be the one and go first and knowing God, it's not for the good days, it's for the dark days.

We get to know God in the light so we still trust him in the dark.

We get to know him when things are great, so that when things aren't so great, we know that he's still faithful and he's still good.

And here's my hope for you.

I hope that this year you have the best year of your life.

The coffee is always hot, the lights are always green.

Your boss tells you to go home every single day, and you never have a bad hair day.

I hope that for you.

But if you live in the real world, you're gonna have good days and you're gonna have dark days.

And it's when you get to know God in the light that then you can trust him in the dark, and it's in the dark where you find out how faithful he truly is.

And so we want to know God by knowing his word because the more we get to know him, the more we learn to trust him.

So here's my question for you, and that is this year.

How will you take a step in knowing God's word?

How will you take a step?

And I don't know what that might be for you.

And can I tell you that if you're one of these people who read through the Bible every year and you've been doing that and you're and it works for you, then do that.

Don't don't stop doing that.

But if you're one of those who says you're going to read through the Bible every year and you started on January 1st, and it's January 4th, and you're three days behind, may I suggest you can join us.

You can text RLC Bible to 94,000 or scan that QR code.

Because as a church, we are reading through God's word one chapter at a time.

And here's the reason why is because for me, for years, I would read through the Bible over the course of a year, couldn't tell you anything it said.

Because I was so busy trying to just conquer the four to five chapters every day that I wasn't actually paying attention.

And I was going through the Bible, but God's word wasn't going through me.

And so what I started to do is I started to slow down and read one chapter a day and sit with it for a minute and slowly say, God, what is the principle in your word today?

How is it that you want to change my life today?

And I started to notice that I was getting to know God by getting to know him through his word.

And so if you don't already have a plan to read through God's word, can I encourage you to read through God's word with us?

Because the more we know him, the more we're gonna have an encounter with him.

And the more we have an encounter with him, the more it's gonna cause us to say, I will be the one.

I will step into everything that you want me to step into.

And that's how we're gonna make disciples this year.

Look at somebody and say, I'm going to be the one.

I'm gonna be the one for whatever God needs me to do this year.

And I'm gonna do it number one by knowing God through knowing his word.

Here's a second one, and that is I'm gonna know God more by obeying his word.

And who likes that word?

I mean, obey.

Only time I like obey is when I'm telling my girls to do something, right?

That's it.

But that's one of the things that was a secret sauce to Ezra saying, This is how that I'm gonna be the one that God is going to use to make a difference in this nation is I'm gonna study God's word, but then I'm gonna obey what it says.

He said this the gracious hand of God was on him because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord.

And the word obey simply means I looked it up, it means to obey.

It means to do something with what we discover.

That's what Isaiah and Ezra both noticed, and that is that when God moves in our lives, it's not for no reason, is to then empower us to do something that we couldn't do on our own.

And that's the problem is for many of us, and I don't want to put anybody on kind of on blast today, but but what I've noticed is that many people are educated beyond their level of obedience.

Like they know what to do, but we're not actually doing it.

And here's the question is why in the world would God give us a fresh encounter with Him when we haven't done anything with the one He's already given us?

And so, what my prayer for you is, is that God will just make us uneasy.

God, I've got to obey what you've called me to do this year.

I've got to be the one.

I don't want to just wait on what you have done in my life, but I'm going to take a step.

I'm gonna obey what you have called me to do because you have raised me, you have raised us up for a reason.

There's a reason why we were born in this time, and you are the way you are right now, that God has a plan for you.

And so the question isn't if, it's are we gonna obey and be the one that God's called us to be?

That's the amazing thing.

And I and I love that, and I I can see this.

There's a story in the Old Testament about a lady by the name of Esther.

And if you've ever read the story of Esther, you really ought to read it.

It is a beautiful story, and she shows us how removing distractions to obey God can be so amazing.

Because here's the problem for many of us.

I don't want to say this about you, but for me, many times I'm like, okay, God, I'll obey what you want me to do.

What do you want me to do?

There's 66 books in this overall Bible.

There's a lot in here.

What exactly is it you want me to do?

I will obey, but I don't know exactly what you want me to obey.

That's what happened in the life of Esther.

There was this amazing circumstance.

You really got to read the story to find out that she her name was actually Hadesha, and she was in the Persian kingdom, and through this crazy set of circumstances, they changed her name to uh Esther, and she became the queen over all of Persia.

But the problem was that there was an advisor to the king by the name of Haman who hated God's people.

And so he decided that he was going to kill all of God's people.

And he asked the king if it was okay, and the king was like, sure, no problem.

And so they began to start working toward killing God's people.

Well, the problem was that's not right.

And Esther was part of that, and she's wondering what's going on, and her uncle comes to her and says, If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place.

But you and your relatives will die.

Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for such a time as this?

So, in other words, there's a reason why you are where you are.

God's done this for a reason, so now it's time to step in and to be the one that God's gonna use to make a difference.

But here's the thing how?

Because they had a rule, they had a law.

If you went to the king's presence without permission, you are gonna die.

Like they would take you out of the of the courtroom right then and execute you, unless the king said it's okay, come on in.

So you literally put your life in your hands if you just showed up without permission.

And so, Esther, she has not been called by the king in several months at this point.

But look at what she says.

She said, You go and gather all the Jews of Susa and you fast for me.

Don't eat or drink for three days, night or day.

My maids and I will do the same.

And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king.

And the next verse says, And if I die, I die.

So, in other words, she's saying, I'm not exactly sure what to do.

So let's all get together and let's focus on the Lord.

Let's remove distractions so that we can hear God more clearly.

And as we can hear God more clearly, then we can obey God more fully.

Can I tell you that God is gonna speak to so many of us this year that it's time to take a step of obedience and obey God?

But many times it's not that we don't want to obey, it's that we don't know what to do.

And so that there are times that we need to just decide that I'm gonna take time away from my normal schedule.

I'm gonna lean in further to God so that I can obey Him in every way.

So here's my question: This year, how will you take a step in obeying God's word?

How will you take a step?

For some of you, you know exactly what God's calling you to do.

He's already told you that it's time for you to be the one to lead your family spiritually, or it's time for you to be that witness in your job.

It's time for you to use the gifts he's given you to make a difference.

Maybe that is so.

But if you're like, I'm ready, Pastor, I'm ready to make a difference.

I want to be the one, I want to make disciples, but I just don't know what God is asking me to do.

Well, we do something here every year starting next Sunday called 21 Days of Prayer.

And one of the reasons why we do this is it's an opportunity for us to kind of shake the dust of 2025 off and kind of say, God, this year I want to be more sensitive to you.

Because what a season of prayer and fasting does, it doesn't make God's voice louder, it makes our ears more able to hear.

So we can hear what it is that He is speaking to us.

And I want to encourage you, get you've got uh seven days until next Sunday to get your heart ready to say, God, for 21 days, I am gonna focus and I'm gonna lean into you and I'm gonna pray.

Maybe God's gonna speak to some of us to fast.

God, I'm gonna fast.

I'm gonna do something because I want to know what it is that you want me to do in 2026.

I want to encourage you over the next three weeks to come to our prayer service on Tuesday night and just lean in to hear the voice of God.

Because I want to tell you that if you want to be the one with us this year, you want to make disciples, the first thing we've got to do is we've got to go first in knowing God.

And just like Ezra during a time of transition, during a time of the unknown, his God's hand was on his life because he determined that he was gonna know God.

And he was gonna know God by studying his word, he was gonna know God by obeying his word, and then one more, and that is that he was gonna know God more by then sharing his word with others.

What a wonderful opportunity to share what we have found with others.

One more time.

Look at somebody and say, I'm gonna be the one.

I'm gonna be the one that when we get to the end of this year, you're not gonna know our family anymore because I'm gonna be the one to go first.

I'm not gonna wait for somebody else.

I'm not gonna react to what's going on in the world.

I'm gonna respond.

I'm gonna lean in to all the opportunities that God has given.

And the only way I can do that is first, I've got to know God by knowing his word more.

I'm gonna make sure that God is on my calendar.

I'm gonna make sure that I'm looking into God's word every day.

One of the highest forms of worship is to think deeply about God.

And I'm gonna go deeper into knowing God's word more.

And then when I find his word and I find out what he's telling me to do, I'm gonna take a step of faith and I'm gonna obey God's word.

And then once I have done that, then I'm gonna share what I've found with others.

This is what it says.

It says the gracious hand of God was on him because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and then to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel.

And I love that word teach because the Hebrew word for that teach is literally the mental picture of rolling your sleeves up and digging in.

It's it's the idea of putting-on, practical walking with someone else.

What Ezra was saying is I want to know God, I want to obey him, and then I want to invite as many people as I can to walk with me.

He wasn't wanting to be a you know a sage on stage, but but a guide on the side to say, let's do it together.

It's the difference between watching a whole bunch of YouTube shorts and actually getting into the kitchen and starting to cook something.

And I don't know about you, but I it is amazing how easy they make it look on YouTube.

It's like they have every everything they need, they have all the appliances they need, and they have all this stuff, and then within literally 90 seconds, they make a beautiful meal.

In 90 seconds, I'm not even quite sure what we're doing.

But then what we actually have to do is we have to actually get in there, mess with it, mess up a little bit, clean up, start over again, and then it's in the process that we begin to grow and mature.

That's how it is with our walk with God.

One of the greatest things that we can achieve is not just what God does in us, but what God does in us and others as we walk together, as we get it wrong a few times, as we get it right a few times, as we pick up somebody when they fall, and then they pick us up when they fall, and we share God's word together.

That's exactly what Ezra was saying is I want to know God.

I want to obey what he says, and then I want to grab somebody by each hand and I want to say, let's now know him together.

And we're actually gonna get to see that this week as we read God's word.

And so if you're reading God's word with us, we're gonna read the book of Habakkuk this week.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the book Habakkuk.

That guy had to have a nickname when he was a kid.

Nobody walked around calling him Habakkuk, you know?

That is not the thing.

But the whole book of Habakkuk is actually God having a conversation with Habakkuk, and he is they're talking back and forth, and the prophet is saying, God, why is this happening?

Why are these bad things happening?

And look what Habakkuk is told by God.

He says, Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.

This vision is for a future time.

It describes the end and it will be fulfilled.

If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place and it will not be delayed.

The great thing that God was telling him is he's like, Yes, absolutely, I'm going to give you the answer, but it's not just for you, it's for you and everybody else.

In other words, he's saying, You're gonna have to be the one.

I'm not giving you an encounter with me just for you to know, I'm giving you an encounter with me so you can share it with everybody else to help them realize that I've got a plan.

I've already in, I'm already at the end, I'm already doing something, and I know it's gonna seem slow, but I need you to wait for me.

I need you to trust me because it will surely take place.

How many people in our culture need to hear that today?

Whatever you're worried about, God's already on the other side of it.

God's already worked out exactly what he's going to do.

And we got to wait patiently because it's gonna be slow.

God is so great at being almost late.

He's always on time, but he's always almost late.

But you know what?

The word of God was is don't worry.

It's gonna look like it's slow, but wait because it's gonna happen.

And the greatest thing is, is God wasn't just telling him that, he was telling him to tell somebody that.

So here's my question for you.

This year, how will you take a step in making a difference with somebody else?

How will you?

How will you help us as we together decide we're gonna make a difference together?

We're gonna make disciples.

If you don't already have a way, this coming Sunday, next Sunday on the 11th, we have what we call RLC Connect.

And it's an opportunity for us to share with you the mission of our church and how you can get connected with us in making a difference.

And if you haven't already done so, you should sign up for it at the Welcome Center right after church.

We would love to make a difference together because one of us is never as good as all of us.

And that when we all decide that this year, we're not gonna lean back, but we're gonna lean in.

We're not gonna react, but we're gonna respond to what God is doing, that we're gonna pray that God will give us an encounter with Him, and that that encounter will so change our lives that we'll be the one to raise our hands and say, God, I will be the one and I will move forward for you.

And then we're gonna know God by knowing his word, by obeying his word, and then making a difference.

That's when we can see God do amazing things.

And this will be your best year ever, if it's your best year spiritually.

To which I know for some of us are going, yeah, but Pastor, you don't understand.

I got 99 problems I gotta deal with.

I got all I got so much going on.

You have no idea what's all going on in my life.

Well, here's here's an amazing truth that I've seen happen so many times that I don't even wonder about it anymore.

And that is this that we overestimate what we can do in the short term and wildly underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithfulness.

Supposed to be the word do right there.

We overestimate what we can do in the short term and wildly underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithfulness.

We live in a culture that is in such a hurry.

We live in a culture that if if you're not moving forward right away and making a big difference, and I don't know where this comes from, I'm not entirely sure.

Maybe part of it is just like we watch movies now where you know you don't just win the day, but you have to save the universe from from evil Thanos and you know all this kind of stuff, and it kind of makes it feel a little hollow when you just go back to work the next day.

I'm not I'm not saving the universe, I'm I'm doing the thing, you know, that's what I'm doing.

And so sometimes we can feel so far behind.

You say, what difference am I making?

Well, first of all, God hasn't called you or I to save the universe, He's called us to make a difference in our world.

And I know for many of us, we look at our world and it seems like a mess, and there's so many things going on, we don't know what to do.

Well, what if instead of trying to change everything, we just trusted God and we started changing something in our life, and realizing sometimes the greatest act of faith is faithfulness, and it all starts with knowing God because here's God's promise for us, and that is that we know how much God loves us, and knowing that we have put our trust in His love.

What a powerful promise that is for us.

John is writing this to the early church that is experiencing all kinds of trouble and difficulty and and persecution in ways that we've we've never experienced here, and he's saying that we can endure all of that because we may not know everything else, but we know that God loves us, and in knowing that, we're able to put our trust in him when we don't always know what he's doing, and that's my hope for all of us this year is that we would know more than ever before that God loves you.

God doesn't just love you when you get everything right, God doesn't just love you when you fulfill all your commitments.

God doesn't just love you when yo you pray the right prayers and sing the right songs and you read, yo, God is not interested that you finished your Bible reading plan last year.

He's excited for that.

It's more about do you know him more than you did last year?

Are you more in love with Jesus today than you were yesterday?

God is not interested in you fulfilling your to-dos, he's interested in relationship.

And here's the amazing thing: the reason why we can be the one and we can volunteer and say, I'm gonna go, is because God was first the one for us.

The Bible said that God demonstrated his great love for us in that while we were still sinners, he died for us.

He went first, and now it is my honor to be the one for him.

And the reason why is because I know how much God loves us, and therefore I can put my trust in him.

And here's my question for you in just a moment, the band is gonna lead us in a song of worship.

I don't know how you found yourself in here today.

I I was I was joking with some folks before church, and I said, There's never, I don't know if there's ever a Sunday where people's minds are on so many different Different things.

I I talked to someone that this this past uh holiday season, they found out that they were expecting.

Praise the Lord.

I found somebody else that they they got engaged, and I had to make sure that that was a good thing.

It was, praise the Lord.

I talked to somebody who was expecting to get one thing for Christmas and they got something else.

Praise the Lord.

I I talked to so many different people.

I talked to folks who only they only got off Christmas Day, and so they're back to normal life, and they're like, What's wrong with the rescue people?

Other folks, they have not worked a bit since Christmas Eve Eve, and they don't even know what day it is.

But no matter what's going on, you know one thing that brings us all together?

God loves us.

God's for us.

God knows exactly where you are right now.

And I know for some of us you're absolutely disappointed because you thought you were going to leave everything back in 2025, only to wake up on January 1st and realize that they came with you.

What if this year we quit running from those wolves and we turned around and we calmed them in the name of the Lord?

And we said, Jesus, I'm tired of running away.

Instead, I'm gonna step into all the things that you've called me to do.

What if this was the year we find true freedom?

What if this was the year that we experience God in such a way that we don't just sit and go, well, praise the Lord, but instead we say, God, put me in the game.

I'm ready to make a difference.

I want to tell the world I'm not the same as I used to be, that in the time of confusion and transition, I had such an encounter with God that I don't even know what it was beforehand.

God, I'll be the one.

That's my prayer for us this year is that we will know God by knowing his word.

We'll know God by just taking a step of faith for some of us and obeying his word, and that we will share what we have found with somebody else.

Somebody is waiting for you to be their next miracle this year.

God has put you in their life for a reason.

All he needs from you is to not have all the answers, not to have it all figured out.

All he needs from you is say, God, I'll be the one.

I'll go first.

But all that begins with just saying, God, I'm gonna be the one.

Maybe that needs to be your prayer.

Is as we spend our time just in worship, just to take a moment and say, God, I got so many other things that's going on in my life, but I want to have my best year ever, so I want it to be my best year spiritually.

This year, God, I want to be the one.

I want to be a difference maker.

I want to be the one you have called to do what only you've called me to do.

And if we will do that as a church, I can't wait to see what the Lord is gonna do.

Let's pray together right now.

God, thank you so much for today.

Thank you, God, that you are with us and that you are for us in every way.

God, I'm so thankful that in this place there are so many different things that are going on in our lives, but your love is the same for all of us.

Lord, that we can say, like Jeremiah, that when I think of this, I have hope.

That the love of the Lord endures forever.

His mercies never cease.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

You are our portion.

We can put our hope in you.

God, I know that everybody in this room has a private battle that nobody else knows about, and there are different ones who are going through different things.

But I know, God, that you have the ability to do above and beyond everything we could ask, think, or imagine.

And so in this place, as we worship you, I pray you'll give us the courage to be able to say, This year, God, I will be the one.

I will step into those environments, I will step in when everyone else is walking out, I will sit when everyone else is standing.

I will, I will be the one to be somebody else's miracle the way you have for me.

And in that, God, we will have encounters with you.

We will know you like never before.

It is an honor to be called by you for this season.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Would you stand with me all over the house this morning?

The band is going to lead us through a final song of worship.

I don't know exactly how you need to respond to this message.

I've been feeling in my heart for about three months now, this is exactly what God wants us to do this year is to lean into what He is doing, to be the one in our lives.

But I don't know what that means for you.

Maybe that means that you just need to take time and say, God, will you please just help me to focus?

I feel like my life doesn't have focus, but I want to focus on you.

Maybe that needs to be your prayer.

Maybe you're already on the same page and you're just saying, God, open the door.

I'm ready to be the one.

I don't know exactly how you need to respond to this.

Maybe this is just your time.

It's the first time you've slowed down all year.

It's an opportunity just to dedicate this year to God.

God, I have no idea what this year has in store.

I just know I'm going to take every step with you.

Whatever next step you need to take, let's just take a few moments and worship the Lord together.