In the Company of Jesus

Well, good morning and welcome to Church at the Grove.

Happy Fourth of July weekend.

For those of you that I have not met, my name is Nathan, and I'm one of the pastors here, and we are thrilled to be with you guys this Sunday, whether you're in our Walnut Grove location, social circle location, or if you're watching online, we are thrilled to be together this morning, especially because we're starting a brand new series this morning called Jesus, the unsafe savior.

And I'm so pumped and excited about this series.

And I'm believing that God's going to do incredible things as we walk through the life of Jesus and to see who he truly was.

You know, it's interesting that as time progresses, that our our views oftentimes change and they they differ from where they used to be.

As we mature, things begin to change our perspective.

Like I think that me and my wife, when we before we had kids, we were single and uh dating and then eventually getting married before we had kids.

And for us, we always would go to these restaurants and we would see kids just acting crazy.

And we would kind of look at one another and we'd give that look and we would say, Man, when we have kids, our kids are never going to act like that.

And then we had kids and everything changed.

Or we would see families that were sitting there at the dinner table at a restaurant, and they would have their kids on an iPad or on a phone.

And for us, we were like, our kids are never gonna do that.

They're gonna sit there, they're gonna be perfect angels, there's never going to be any issues with them.

And then we had kids and everything changed.

And so as we grow up, as we mature, as we get older, a lot of times our view and our perspectives change.

Like for you, maybe your perspective has changed when it comes to a new food of some kind.

Where there was a food that you didn't like, but then somebody cooked it a different way.

Or they put a different seasoning on it, and then all of a sudden, that food was good and you enjoy it.

Or maybe it was a TV show and you didn't get into the TV show, you watched a few episodes, but then everybody started talking about it.

And as they talked about it, your interest grew, and you watched a few more episodes, and eventually you were hooked, and it changed your perspective of what you thought about that TV.

Maybe it's an individual where you had an idea, a feeling about a certain individual.

Maybe they rubbed you the wrong way, but then they go out of their way to help you, and your whole idea and your whole perspective of that person suddenly shifted.

Maybe you were single and you said, I'm never gonna get married.

Your parents had a hard marriage, they got divorced, and you never wanted to go through what your mom or what your dad went through, and so you said, I'm never going to get married.

And then you met Mr.

Wright or Mrs.

Wright, and everything changed.

I know people that said, We're never gonna have kids.

We're never going to have kids until they had a niece or a nephew or their friend had a child, and suddenly everything changed as a result.

As we grow, as we mature, as we get older, our perspective oftentimes will change.

And that's what we're hoping will happen in this course of this series.

Because we want to have a correct view of who Jesus is.

Because I think what has happened in our world and our culture today is we have an incorrect view of who Jesus is.

I think the first image that pops into a lot of people's head is kind of this hippie Jesus.

And he's walking around and he's got the long hair and he's got a robe on, and he's just kind of walking around, just hugging everybody, because it's all about love and peace, and he's just this guy that's just walking around, spreading love and joy everywhere he goes, and just kind of giving the peace fingers, and that's just who he is.

And that's the perspective that a lot of times we might have.

And here's what I think that we have done.

I think that I'm afraid that the church has whittled Jesus down to some sort of mascot that is safe, predictable, and ultimately irrelevant.

And so when we talk about this series that we're looking at this week and in the future weeks, that Jesus is the unsafe Savior, what we want to accomplish is to see the biblical model and the biblical view of who Jesus is.

And there's no better, there's no more important question for us to answer than how do we view God?

How do we view Jesus?

Because that ultimately determines everything that we do.

It determines how we live and what we uh how we live our lives and what we do with our lives, depending on how we answer the question of how do I view God?

C.S.

Lewis wrote an incredible uh series of children's books that were called the Chronicles of Narnia.

And in the Chronicles of Narnia, they have a character named Aslan, and Aslan is the lion, and he's the kind of the Jesus character in the book.

And the book starts with these children that are coming into Narnia and they meet the lion.

And the little girl sees the lion for the very first time and she's afraid because it's a lion.

And the conversation goes that she sees the lion and she asks one of the other characters, is the lion safe?

And the response back to the little girl is safe.

Who said anything about safe?

Course he's not safe, but he is good and he is the king.

That's what I want us to see over the course of this series is that Jesus is not safe, but he is good, and he is the king.

And so this morning, our big idea, the thing we want everybody to walk away with this morning is this idea that there is power in the presence of Jesus.

That there is power in the presence of Jesus.

And the passage of scripture that we're looking at this morning is found in Mark chapter six.

So if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and turn there.

If you want to look at our Church at the Grove app, you can follow along there.

You can look at the sermon notes there on the app as well.

But in Mark chapter six, this story comes immediately following the feeding of the five thousand.

And so the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus feeds five thousand people with just a few fish and loaves of bread, and it's an incredible miracle.

And immediately following that is where our story and our passage sets up in Mark chapter six, starting in verse 45.

And it says this immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Beth Seda while he dismissed the crowd.

So Jesus or Mark here is using one of his favorite words called immediately, immediately.

Everything happens immediately in Mark's book.

And he says, immediately, right after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus makes his disciples get in the boat.

Remember that, because that's going to be important in a second.

So it says, After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.

Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land.

He saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against them.

So Jesus is praying, and all of a sudden his disciples are out in the middle of this lake, and a storm develops.

They're rowing for eight hours, sometime between 3 and 6 a.m.

after they've strained and strained and strained, is when this story is picking up.

The word strain there literally means to be beaten, to be battered, to have serious trouble.

They weren't moving forward, but they were also fearful for their lives.

Now let me ask you, have you ever felt like the wind was against you?

Do you ever feel like there's just a constant kind of push where you can never make forward progress in your life?

I know I have.

I can think of one time when uh we were we were little, and I think I was probably in upper elementary school or middle school, and our family was gonna go on vacation.

And so we decided that we were going to the beach.

It was a family reunion, and we were going to pile everything in the car, and we were gonna take a road trip down to the beach.

And so I can remember packing everything into our gray, huge Astro van.

I don't know if anybody had an Astro van growing up, but we had an Astro van, and so we packed everything up.

We're gonna wake up early the next morning and we're going to go on this trip.

And so we get in the van, we've got all the stuff, we're excited.

My dad goes to crank the van, and all of a sudden the van will not start.

Now, my dad's a mechanic, he jumps out, he kind of looks it over, can't figure it out immediately, and so the decision is made that we're now going to be taking the Buick Park Avenue.

And uh this is an old car, you know, one of those grandma cars that was just super huge.

And so we piled everything in the trunk.

We had to put stuff in the back seat because we couldn't fit it everywhere, and we pile all in the Buick Park Avenue and we head out towards the beach.

We get a few hours down the road.

My mom is sitting in the front seat and she leans the seat back.

This is back when electric seats were the novel kind of concept, and not many people had them, but the Buick Park Avenue had the electric seats, and so she had reclined the seat all the way back, so she was almost laying flat as we drove down the road.

And then she comes to a point where she wants to sit back up, and so she tries to sit the seat up, and the seat won't go up.

The electrical mechanism inside the seat has broken, and so now the seat is stuck in the reclining position.

Me and my sister are having to squeeze in between the middle seat and the far seat on the other side.

My mom's having to force to be laying down the entire rest of the trip, and so it wasn't the ideal situation.

Then we drive a little bit farther and we get a flat tire.

So my dad's on the side of the road and he's pulling out all the stuff on the trunk, having to set it on the side of the ground, find the flat tire, put the flat tire on the car, only to find out that the flat tire or the tire is flat, the spare tire is flat.

So then we have to get a car over to the shop and they have to patch the tire and put a new one on, and then we go on our way, we go to the family reunion.

And I don't know if you ever have family drama in your family, but we have family drama, and so the family drama was so intense that we actually had to leave the beach early because people weren't getting along.

That was the trip where it just seemed like everything was against us.

Now that's a silly example, but a lot of times we feel like that in life.

We feel like the wind is pushing against us, like we can't make any forward progress in life.

But here's what I want you to know: that just because the wind is against you doesn't mean that God isn't for you.

Just because the wind is against you doesn't mean that God isn't for you.

Now remember, who put the disciples in the boat?

It was Jesus that put the disciples in the boat.

This is Jesus' decision.

Jesus isn't taken by surprise that a storm and the winds were going to come.

He knew exactly what was going to happen, and he chose to put his disciples in the boat.

So that raises a question, right?

Why would Jesus put the disciples in a boat knowing that there was going to be a storm, knowing that the winds were going to come?

Well, this is where it gets interesting.

This is when we begin to understand the character and the nature of God.

That God is willing to take you where you haven't intended to go to produce in you what you couldn't achieve on your own.

That God is willing to take you where you didn't intend to go to produce in you what you couldn't achieve on your own.

That's what God's about.

God is not given to us.

Jesus was not given to us to make our lives comfortable.

Jesus wasn't given to us to just to make our lives safe and easy, and we didn't have to have any suffering or pain or chaos or any struggles in life.

That's not why Jesus came.

Jesus came to make us more like him, to save us, and then make us more like him.

And Jesus cares more about your character.

He cares more about the person that you are than he does about your safety.

Now that's controversial.

We don't like that thought, especially in the American culture that we live in.

We want everything to be safe.

We want to have easy, good lives, and we think that if we will follow Jesus, then our lives will be just that.

But anybody that's followed Jesus for any length of time will tell you that life is still difficult.

Life is still hard, and suffering still is a natural part of life.

But Jesus, just as he sees the disciples fighting against the wind, rowing their boat as best they can, not making any forward progress, Jesus still sees them.

And he allows them to suffer, but at the same time as he allows the suffering, he's also sovereign over the suffering.

Jesus isn't sitting on the mountaintop, kind of pulling out his personal stationery, and he's gonna write an I'm thinking of you card to his disciples.

He's not kind of this weak God, but instead he sees the disciples and he's got a plan and a purpose in the midst of the suffering.

James chapter one tells us that we should consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds, because we know that the testing of our faith develops perseverance.

And so Jesus is doing something bigger here.

He's not there for their safety, he's not there for just their comfort, but Jesus is doing something else.

He's working out a grander plan.

He's trying to refine his disciples and make them into the men that he wants them to become.

And if you're struggling, if you're suffering, if you're going through pain and hardship and you feel like the wind is against you, Jesus is still for you in the midst of the storm.

And he wants to work something in you to refine you and make you into the man or the woman that he has called you to become.

That's who our God is.

So, what does Jesus do?

This is where it gets interesting for us.

So uh Jesus, um, it says uh in verse 48, shortly before dawn, he went out to them walking on the lake.

He was about to pass them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost, and they cried out.

So Jesus sees them from shore, and he decides that he's going to go to his disciples.

So what does he do?

He does what only Jesus can do.

He starts walking on the water.

Now let's not gloss over this, right?

This is a huge deal.

He's walking on the water.

Like we've read this a time or two, we've heard this story, and so maybe we're not taken back by that, maybe we're not amazed by that, but Jesus is walking on the water.

This isn't some magic trick.

He is actually walking on the water and he's going towards the disciples.

How incredible is that! He's walking on the water.

Why don't we actually say that together as a church family, whether you're at Social Circle, Walnut Grove, or watching online, let's say that together that Jesus was walking on the water.

Let's really say it that time.

Like, let's say Jesus is walking on the water.

This is who Jesus is.

This this picture, this story shows us really two things about who Jesus is that should just blow our minds.

It should change our perspective, it should treat us, have us treat him differently.

It should give us a total authority in our lives when we understand these two things about Jesus from this story.

The first thing is this is that Jesus is Lord, God Almighty, and you he can do whatever he pleases.

That Jesus is Lord God Almighty, and he does whatever he pleases.

That nothing is outside of his power and might.

There's nothing that he can't do outside of his confines of time and space, that he's not limited by time or space, that he's not limited by anyone or anything.

There's no president, there's no congressman that's ever going to take him by surprise, and he's not limited by anyone's political agenda.

He is sovereign over all.

So who makes the grass grow?

Jesus makes the grass grow.

This is the God that we're talking about.

He provides food for the cattle and for the young raven when they call.

So the same God that spoke the stars into existence and knows each of them by name is the same God that makes the grass grow and that makes sure that the raven is taken care of.

He is Lord God Almighty, and he can do whatever he pleases.

It says further in Psalm 33, verse 6, it says, By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.

Psalms 33:6

Psalm 145, 3 says, Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise.

His greatness no one can fathom.

He's incredible to the point where we can't even begin to comprehend how incredible and how great he truly is.

This is Jesus who's walking on the water.

He is Lord, God Almighty, and he can do whatever he pleases.

But I love Psalm 8.

It says, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

You have set your glory in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants, you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them?

Human beings that you care for them.

So here's the incredible truth about who Jesus is.

That Jesus is so great that he spoke the stars into existence, that he holds the world together, that he's making us, he's sustaining us, that he's causing our hearts to beat right now and air to come in and out of our lungs, that that's the God that we serve.

And as big as he is, he's still a God that cares for each individual.

That he is mindful of us.

And so when Jesus goes walking on the water to his disciples, he's mindful of who's in that boat.

He knows them each by name.

He knows every hair that's on their head.

And I don't know what you might be going through in this season, but I do know that God is walking towards you, not away from you.

That the God of heaven and earth, the creator and sustainer of all things, is walking towards you, not away from you, because he is mindful of humans.

He is mindful of man.

And he takes care of the ravens of the field and the grass that is growing.

But the second thing we see is that in the midst of the storm, he's redeeming man.

That redeeming man in the midst of the storm.

Now, here's what's incredible.

If you really begin to think about it, just as we read in the Psalms that it said that he spoke out the starry host with his voice.

So he's sitting on the shore, the storm comes in, and he could have easily, he could have easily just spoke a word, and the storm would have ceased.

The waves would have stopped.

And his disciples, if he wanted them to, could have been at the other side of the lake safe and sound.

But he doesn't do that because he is caring more about what he wants to accomplish in the disciples rather than their safety.

And their comfort.

We simply want the storm to disappear.

God wants to transform our hearts in the midst of the storm.

This is how incredible our God is, that He has a plan even in the midst of the storm.

God always has a plan in the midst of suffering.

So he goes towards the disciples.

And it says in verse 49, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost and they cried out because they all saw him and were terrified.

A lot of times God can look like fear from a distance, and it can be terrifying.

And the disciples are scared out of their mind.

They're thinking that their life is coming to an end.

They're thinking touched by an angel is going to be a real thing right here, and that they're going to see the last moments of their life here in the boat when they see this ghost.

But then he comes closer.

Now, this is what's so interesting.

That if I was Jesus, I would probably be fed up with the disciples already.

This is early in the ministry, but I'd be fed up with the disciples.

Guys, I just fed 5,000 people.

I've already healed people, and you're still not catching on that I am Lord God Almighty.

You're still not catching on that I'm sovereign over all, that there's nothing outside of my power.

He could have come to the disciples, he could have chewed them out.

He could have said, guys, listen, I'm done with you.

Good luck getting to the other side.

I'm going to go to the next city, and I'm going to find a new group of disciples that will maybe, just maybe, get it.

But that's not who Jesus is.

Jesus comes near to the disciples.

And as they are scared, in verse 50 it tells us, because they saw him, they were terrified, but immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, Take courage.

It is I, don't be afraid.

Jesus is with them in the midst of the storm.

He doesn't chew them out.

He doesn't condemn them for their lack of faith, but instead he comes near them and says, Take courage, it is I.

And this is what's so incredible.

This is something that we've got to learn in our suffering and in our chaos and in the pain that we experience in life, that God isn't absent from our lives, but in the middle of our suffering, he is with us.

So if you're struggling in your marriage, man, and you feel all alone, listen, God is with you.

If you're struggling with your children and they're out of control and you don't know what to do with them, listen, God is with you in the midst of the storm.

If you face a job loss, God is with you.

If you feel like there's a financial difficulty and hurdles that you just can't overcome, God is with you in the midst of the storm.

And if we'll understand that he is Lord God Almighty, that there is nothing outside of his power, there is nothing outside of his ability, that he's redeeming all of us in the middle of the suffering, then it changes our perspective.

He's not some hippie guy that's walking around just saying, peace and love, good luck to you.

He's a God that is pursuing you, that is in power, that is in control over all, and he is with you.

How incredible is that that God is with you.

You are not alone, no matter how alone you might feel in this moment.

God is with you.

But the story continues.

In verse 51, it says, Then Jesus climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down.

I love that.

There's power in the presence of Jesus.

In that moment, as soon as he steps into the boat, the wind cease, the waves die down, and they are safe.

Now let me just say that sometimes Jesus steps into our chaos and our pain and our suffering, and the consequences disappear.

But a lot of times they don't.

But it doesn't change that there is always power in his presence.

And maybe the more miraculous thing is that in the middle of our storms, that we can have peace in the midst of chaos because Jesus is with us.

Sometimes we don't feel like it, but Jesus is with us in the midst of our suffering, and there is always power in the presence of Jesus, regardless of our circumstances.

The story ends like this.

It says in verse 51 and 2, it says, They were completely amazed.

I love that.

That's kind of a no-brainer, right?

That they are completely amazed in this moment because Jesus comes walking in the water and the waves and the wind cease.

For they did not understand about the loaves, their hearts were hardened.

They had utter amazement.

They were amazed.

Matthew 8, 27 says that they were amazed because even the wind and the waves obey his voice.

That's the God that we're talking about.

But even in the midst of this incredible miracle that takes place, the disciples' hearts were hardened.

They were amazed, but that amazement didn't translate into a life of faith, not yet, at least.

And I think a lot of times that's true in our lives as well.

Where we come to a place and maybe we've sat in a service, maybe we've sang some songs, and there's some type of an amazement that comes to our souls.

Maybe you get the little chill bumps on your arms, and you get the little tinglys, and you're just kind of like there's just this little little emotional high.

Maybe you heard a good sermon one time, and there was something within you that was stirred, and there was amazement, but that amazement didn't necessarily translate to faith in action.

Because there's a big difference between faith and amazement.

Amazement is about the brain, and faith is ultimately a change of heart.

Amazement is about the brain, but faith is about a change of heart.

I don't want us to be a church that's just amazed.

It's a temporary emotion, and then it kind of falls away, and we don't actually live out through that amazement.

I was thinking this week about this and how to illustrate it, and I thought about Christmas.

Uh, like I said, we've got two boys, uh, Sam and Ben.

Sam's uh five, Ben's about to turn three in August, and uh we love Christmas time.

If you have little kids in the house, you know how fun Christmas can be.

And so uh we wrap up all the presents, we get them the what we think would be the perfect gifts that they're going to enjoy and love.

We wrap them up, we put them underneath the tree, and we just can't wait until Christmas morning when we can open up the gifts and we can see the excitement that's on their face.

And so I can remember one Christmas where we bought them the perfect gifts that we thought that they would love, and they come out on Christmas morning and they begin to tear into the wrapping paper and they unwrap it, and they are amazed at the gift that we gave them.

It's exactly what they wanted.

They can't wait to play for it, play with it.

So they give us the box that it comes in, and we've got to, you know, get the toy out of the box, which if you have kids, you know how difficult it is to get these things out of these boxes.

It's like booby trap, they've got the wire wrapped all around it, it's impossible almost to get these things out.

But we get the toy out for them and they play with it, and they are having so much fun.

There's a lot of joy and amazement.

But then an hour goes by and we walk back into the room, and the kids aren't playing with the toy that we just bought them.

Instead, they're playing with the box that it came in.

They love the toy, they were amazed by the toy, but then in an instant, they were back to playing with the box that it came in.

And I think that that's a good illustration for a lot of times how we view Jesus.

That we're amazed.

We're blown away, maybe in a service, maybe by something we've read in Scripture, maybe by a story that we heard, maybe a miracle that we've even seen in our lives.

And we're amazed, but it doesn't translate into faith.

We don't actually live it out.

It hasn't changed our heart.

We're amazed, but we don't necessarily have faith.

Our hearts are hardened.

And so this morning I want to ask you, have you been changed by Jesus?

I'm not talking about amazed.

I'm not talking about walking down an aisle maybe one Sunday in church.

I'm not talking about praying a prayer, I'm not talking about even getting dunked in some water in a baptismal pool.

I'm not talking about amazement.

I'm talking about change.

Have you been changed by who Jesus is?

Have you seen that he is Lord God Almighty and that he is capable of doing whatever he pleases and that that changes your life because of that?

Are you amazed by who he is and what he does in the midst of suffering to the point where that has been lived out in faith in your life?

Or have you just settled for amazement?

A little shot of joy here and a shot of joy here, but there's no real change in your life.

I think the sad reality is that in the American church that we live in today, there's a lot of people that have amazement.

But there's not a whole lot of people that have lives of faith where their hearts and their lives have been changed by Jesus.

Because when your life is changed by Jesus, man, everything is different.

And so we want to give you an opportunity to do that right now.

There's nothing special about a certain prayer, but I just want to ask you a question.

If you can't answer the question of has Jesus changed your life, I would invite you this morning to pray a prayer and ask Jesus to do just that.

To come into your life, to make you into a new creation and to change you from the inside out.

One of the things we say here at Church at the Grove is that coming to follow Jesus is as simple as the ABCs, which means at first we admit that we're sinful.

We admit that we have fallen short of God's standard.

And we've all done that.

That's not a hard thing to do when we understand that we fall short of who God is.

Second thing we do is we believe.

We believe that Jesus is who he says he is, and that he died on a cross, and then three days later he defeated death in the grave, and he came back to life through the resurrection.

And then he says that anyone that will turn and put their faith and trust in him can have new life, eternal life, abundant life.

And then finally, we confess him as our Lord and Savior.

And I want to invite you to do that this morning.

Not in an attitude of just amazement that is quickly short-lived, but instead in an attitude of saying, Hey, I want to live completely and fully for Jesus.

So I would invite you to do that.

For those of us that have followed Jesus, but maybe at times in our lives we've settled for the emotional point of amazement, but we haven't necessarily lived out God's commands in faith.

Man, I would invite you to go on this journey with us to explore who Jesus is.

And so that's why this today, this morning, we are starting a reading plan through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

We're gonna read all four Gospels in seven weeks as a church.

And we're gonna look at the story and the life of Jesus, and we're gonna get to know him.

And here's the incredible thing that there's power in the presence of Jesus.

And the best way to be in the presence of Jesus is to be in his word.

And I'm believing that in these days when we are in his word, pursuing him, that he's going to change us and renew us and make us to be people that live lives of faith, that aren't just kind of content with settling for moments of amazement, but instead that we live lives of faith that are changed, that it changes everything that we do in life.

And so I'm excited about starting that today and over the next seven weeks.

I believe that if the church will wake up to the reality of who Jesus is, and we won't have some false or incorrect picture of who he is, then it will change everything.

Our worship will be great.

We won't just stand and sing with our arms crossed or with our hands in our pocket because we understand who Jesus is and that he is worthy of all of our worship and all of our praise.

We won't just kind of reluctantly give an offering because we believe that he is worthy of everything that we have and that every good gift has come from him.

And so we're gonna give him our all.

We believe that he is worthy of all things.

And as a result, if the church will rise and we'll see Jesus as he truly is, if we'll see that there is power in his presence, incredible things will happen.

Will you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for who you are.

Lord, I thank you so much that you are a God that is in control, that you are Lord God Almighty, Lord, that you are sovereign over all, that there is power in your presence.

Lord, we thank you so much, Lord, that you are in the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our struggle.

Lord, you are not taken by surprise, but you are working those things for the good of those that love you and are called according to your purposes.

Lord, we thank you for redeeming us in the midst of the suffering.

We thank you that you are a God that controls the winds and the waves.

We thank you that you are a God that spoke the world into existence.

Lord, help our view of you be expanded and let us respond with total abandon of our lives, where we give you everything that we have because you're worthy of all of our worship.

Lord, I pray for the individual, the mom, the dad that's right now thinking that, man, maybe there have been times in their life where they've been amazed, but they've never truly been changed by Jesus.

And right now you're stirring within their soul something within them that's saying, hey, today you need to take that step.

Lord, I pray that they would have the boldness and the courage to do just that.

That they would make you their Lord and Savior.

Lord, that they would believe in you.

They would admit, they would believe, and then ultimately they would confess of who you are in their lives and that you would change them from the inside out.

And Lord, I pray for others that know you personally, but somewhere along the way, we haven't lived in faith.

And maybe we've had moments of amazement, but we've never truly lived in faith.

Lord, I pray that you would let our amazement of you grow deeper, and as a result, our faith would become greater and greater and greater.

Lord, as we dig into your word over the next seven weeks, Lord, I pray, Lord, that you would expand our view of you, Lord, and that you would change us and make us into the men and the women that you have called us to become.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you again for this morning, for your word and truth.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.