The Frenemy Test

Well, we're in week three of a series of teachings we're calling the master's degree.

And uh what this series is really about is uh us sort of going through and codifying the way that Jesus made leaders, he developed leaders.

And uh we know that uh Jesus' mission ultimately he came to earth to reconcile man to God, woman to God, uh, but along the way, he invested his life into people that would become leaders and would set a trend and would give us a pattern to follow.

And so we've been digging into the Bible to kind of see those lessons and to internalize those and hopefully apply those.

Uh I've taken them into seven different lessons.

And if you think about within the New Testament, the first four books are the gospels, the good news, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

It's the account of Jesus' life.

And then next you have the book of Acts, which is the historical narrative of what happened after Jesus left.

So it was the work of those leaders.

We'll call it the ROI, the return on investment of leadership development from Jesus' ministry.

And so uh we started in the book of Mark, chapter one, two weeks ago.

I'll just give you a quick refresher.

Uh Mark chapter one, we looked at the process of change, the change test.

In Mark one, Jesus says to these fishermen, put down your nets and follow me.

And of course, it was the first change of many iterations of change.

They were going to ultimately be changing and leading change, change agents, in areas so big and so painful beyond anything they could have ever fathomed in Mark I.

But it all started with the first change.

But it's a process, and so we looked at okay, what does change look like?

Well, you're going along normal, and then something is added or subtracted, which leads to disorientation.

Whenever you're in the process of change, just prepare for disorientation.

And of course, disorientation doesn't feel like growth, doesn't feel like development.

So we want an off-ramp.

Get me out of here.

I'm sore, I'm tired, I don't want to be a part of this, I don't want to change, I want to go back here.

And so we either sometimes off-ramp by quitting or we off-ramp by uh suppressing or or trying to ignore, pretend like it's not there.

Okay, but you gotta go into the chaos.

You have to go into the disorientation.

How do I get out of disorientation?

Pray, process, persevere.

Pray, process, persevere.

I gotta pray, Lord, enlighten me, Lord, help me to see things I didn't see.

I gotta process it with people, talk, work it out, keep going.

Rinse, repeat.

Eventually, you'll come out of this with some orientation, with some with some answers and some questions and some peace and some maturity, and then you develop into a new normal.

And we do this over and over again.

We see this in Mark 1, the change test.

Uh, leaders gotta be have to be willing to change.

And it's not one time you get a badge, cool, now I don't have to do that anymore.

This is a constant process.

And when I see how it turns into development, I actually start to value it.

The second is Mark II, which was their disorientation, the disciples, because Jesus goes from calling fishermen who were good, decent citizens, to now calling a tax collector who was not a good, decent citizen.

This was not the person you would have thought Jesus would have brought onto the team, would have invited and included in his group.

Um we we mentioned last week what these people were, right?

These tax collectors were people, okay, think of it like this: we're not free people.

We are under, we are subject to the Roman government.

And the Roman government has come in and enlisted the help of one of our brethren to tax us, to line both their pocket and our brethren's pocket at our expense.

The least we can do in a situation like that is ostracize these folk, all right?

That's the least we can do.

So we are all united in the fact that we don't like them, and that's who Jesus invites.

And he ends up at their house, and he brings up bringing these fishermen with him to their house, and now they're surrounded by other people like this.

And and so that whole process of disorientation, uh, why would why would uh Jesus do that?

Here we are, we're in now Mark 3.

So we've gone Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 3.

We'll keep going.

It says in verse 13.

Afterward, Jesus went up on a mountain and called out the ones he wanted to go with him, and they came to him.

All right, let me pause there real quick.

So anytime you read in Mark 1 through 3 up until now, you see it talks about Jesus' disciples.

Don't think of the 12 apostles, think of just a whole bunch of people who were following Jesus.

So there's this mass of people who Jesus has invited to follow him, but he's been listening to them, and they've been listening to him, and now he's ready to actually select some leaders.

Verse 14, it says, Then he appointed the 12 of them and called them his apostles.

When you think disciple, think learner, think student, think follower.

When you think apostle, think emissary, think leader, think someone who's sent out.

Apostle would have had the connotation of, I'm gonna send you out, and on my behalf, you can make decisions, you can speak as if you were me.

And so Jesus selects twelve of them and calls them his apostles.

These are leaders.

And look what look what it says they were to do.

It said they were to accompany him.

In other words, they were to be in Jesus' orbit, in his inner circle.

He would send them out to preach without him, and he would give them authority to cast out demons.

Who are these people?

Verse 16.

These are the twelve he chose.

Simon, whom he named Peter, James and John, sons of Zebedee, also known as the sons of thunder.

Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, makes the list.

Who's Matthew?

Levi, tax collector, made the list.

Thomas, James, son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the zealot.

Judas Iscariot, who would later betray him.

I don't want to bury the headline today in Mark 3.

Here's the headline.

Jesus chooses a tax collector and a zealot to be on his team of apostles.

That's the headline.

Jesus chooses a tax collector and a zealot to be on the same team, on his team of selected, developed, groomed, trusted, empowered leaders.

Let's play with this dynamic for a minute.

Let's think about this now.

You know who the tax collectors are.

You know what you think about them.

Let's think about tax collectors and what they might think about you.

We mentioned last week, in order, the tax collectors were so rejected socially that they were not welcome in the temple.

And even their family members would have been pushed out socially.

You have to have a certain type of personality to be able to survive with that kind of social rejection.

You have to have a certain ethos, you have to come from a certain ilk to be able to face that magnitude of social rejection and be able to function.

Okay?

So so we we all just think you're corrupt, but if you're a tax collector, just to be able to survive with all of that sort of attitude and that energy coming at you, you have to you have to be, you know.

I don't care what you think.

I don't care what you think.

Give me whatever finger you want.

What do you want me to do?

Beat up Rome?

Is that what you want me to do?

I I didn't ask for this system.

I was born into this system.

While you guys are out here coming up with a revolution, what are you gonna do?

A revolution?

You're gonna draw a line in the sand?

Is that what you're gonna do?

You wanna know which line on the sand I'm gonna be on?

I'm gonna be on the side with the money and the guns.

That's what I'm gonna be.

Well, I didn't ask for the system, but you know what I am gonna do?

I'm gonna get mine.

I'm gonna take care of mine.

And if that causes me to be a social outcast, sorry, Miss Jackson, I am for real.

I don't need your validation.

Oh, well, I can't come to your temple, that's alright.

I didn't like church anyway.

I don't get to come to your party, that's cool.

I don't like your bar mitzvah anyway.

You can miss me with your bar mitzvahs, your bat mitzvah, your bro mitzvahs, your barbecues, your king ceneras.

I didn't want to come anyway.

I don't need your validation, I validate myself.

I validate myself.

If you need me, I'll be over here at the booth collecting.

What are you gonna do?

Cancel me?

I cancel your cancellation.

And by the way, while you're canceling me, just remember I got your taxes in my tunic.

And this tunic is Gucci.

That's tax collector energy.

Jesus invites this guy in.

Who's a zealot?

Simon the zealot.

What's that?

A zealot was zealous about everything opposite of that.

Zealous about two things.

First of all, zealous about the fact that we want to be free from Rome.

So the fact that the tax collector is in cahoots with Rome makes you my sworn enemy.

So I am zealous about we gotta get out of, we gotta get out from under Rome.

And so so this is this is revolution energy.

This is this is no taxation without representation energy.

This is no justice, no peace energy.

This is give me liberty or give me death energy.

Okay?

This is Stokely Carmichael type energy.

Okay?

This is revolution.

I I would rather die than be under Rome.

These people ultimately, the zealots would organize themselves a couple decades later as a political party, trying to stir up the same type of thing that we looked at at Christmas time: the Hasmoneans, okay, the um the Maccabees, Judas the Hammer, who beat back the Seleucids to take back their freedom.

This is that.

So what you have is two people on opposite ends of the philosophical, political, social spectrum, and Jesus invites those both.

This is the headline, don't bury the headline.

Jesus invites a tax collector and a zealot to be on the same team.

This might have been his biggest miracle.

Turning water into wine was a piece of cake compared to this.

Walking on water, no big deal compared to this.

He's bringing them in within 10 other Jewish men to create a micro community.

What is Jesus up to here?

What is he doing?

Alright.

I want you to think about the mission of God.

Think about the mission of God.

If we were to fly up to 30,000 feet and look down at the Bible, you would see all the way from Genesis through Revelation, you would see God's mission.

Uh you we can look back into Genesis 22.

Genesis 22, God speaks to Abraham.

He makes a covenant, he makes a promise with Abraham.

Hey, I'm going to bless the whole world through your seed.

I'm going to bless the whole world through your people.

I'm going to do something that's going to be timeless and global, and it's going to hit everybody.

And it is what we would call a macro mission, a macro mission for everyone, everyone, everywhere.

All right.

I looked it up this morning.

7.88888 billion people in the world.

God's mission is for all of them.

He's willing that none would perish.

So all the way back from Genesis 22, we're talking macro, ends of the earth.

Also, what we have, oh, by the way, Jesus touches on this in Mark 16, 15, right?

He says, Here it is.

Go in, here's the macro mission.

Go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

At the same time, simultaneous to that, you have the micro, which is right here, right now.

Right here, right now.

God's doing two things at the same time.

God's will, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is for everyone to reach the whole.

There is not one person alive that God does not care about and want to reach.

So, in a sense, right, as believers, we followers of Jesus, and of course, Jesus is eventually, we haven't gotten to the book of Acts yet, eventually he's going to unleash them to the ends of the earth.

Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth.

Every continent, go.

But what he does here, simultaneously, this is to create a micro community to do something right here, right now, that is a microcosm of what needs to happen in the whole world.

You know how it is.

We we live in this day now where you've never been more aware of how screwed up the world is.

Anybody remember the day where the most you knew about what your neighbor thought was every so often they put a political sign in their yard?

That was it.

You're like, okay, I guess they're voting for them.

That was it.

A sign.

That was all you had to deal with.

Now people post 75 times a day about everything.

Now I know what everybody thinks about everything all the time.

So you've never had more reason to not like someone, to not be aligned with someone.

In fact, there are people in your life, if you'd known them 20 years ago and you saw them at the job, you'd probably be fine with them.

But now you've seen something in them that you see, and it's affected the way that you think about them, the way that you see about them, and I don't I don't even want to be around them.

I don't like them anymore.

It's it's it's completely eroded the friendship and the relationship.

And and so, and of course, not only just that, and the people who are in our communities, and now everybody's posting on stuff, but also we are just aware of just how dark, how devastated, how dysfunctional the world is.

And so the idea of some sort of like Mark 16, 15 and go into all the world and the body of Christ, and we're gonna change the world and all this, it's feels overwhelming, like trying to boil the ocean.

We're gonna go everywhere, everyone, everywhere, come on.

What do you do with that overwhelm feeling?

Because although the disciples didn't live in the information age and they had no idea what was going on in Japan and Asia and India, and they didn't know what was happening to the ends of the earth, Jesus was going to be sending them, and although they were ignorant of that, although they were ignorant of that, they were going to be sent to that.

They were gonna be sent to places completely and totally foreign to them, people, cultures completely and totally foreign to them.

And what Jesus does is takes people that they think they're polarized with, but actually they have a ton in common.

But he's like, I'm gonna bring you together, and what I want to do is a micro work here within this micro community of 12 people that I want to do something here, leaders, leaders.

I'm gonna want you to lead something, but you need to experience it first.

You can't lead something you didn't experience first, and so he brings them in to do this, and he does what's crazy, he brings a tax collector and a zealot in this group.

Now notice what he does in in Mark 3.

Look at the process.

In Mark 3, it says it says that he the first thing that they were to do was to accompany him.

So within this group, there was going to be transformation.

They weren't gonna end up the same people, okay?

Matthew, who's called in.

Matthew, who's who's invited to follow Jesus in Mark 2, ultimately he's gonna write the book of Matthew.

Matthew's not ready to write Matthew and Mark 2.

He's not author Matthew yet.

He's not even apostle Matthew yet.

He's just Matthew the tax collector.

There's a work that needs to be done.

But that transformational work is gonna happen in the process of this microcommunity that is in the orbit of Jesus.

So the first thing Jesus does is say, just come accompany me.

To get people who are different, who think different, who actually probably have more in common than they think they do, frankly.

The zealot and the tax collector probably have a lot in common with just opposite perspectives, but we're gonna get in Jesus' orbit.

And as we get in Jesus' orbit, we're going to we're going to begin strumming to him.

We're going to start to tune to him.

And as we do that, we're going to see how he looks at us and how he listens to us and how he talks to us.

And I'm going to watch how he talks to him and I'm going to talk to him like that.

And I'm going to listen to how he talks to me, and I'm going to learn just being in Jesus' orbit before I'm going to be sent out.

You know, you have to think about this because you know, these are again, this is oil and water, Jesus brought together here.

This is oil and water.

So you just you just don't do this all willy-nilly.

You don't just start throwing this together, okay, because you know, I know oil and water don't mix.

Maybe something better, like you know, the chemistry, whatever goes, okay, that's that's what he did here.

And so Jesus is bringing together combustible materials.

And yet, what what is he doing?

I think I'm frustrated by the text in that I wish there was more info on Simon the Zealot.

Trust me, I dug.

I was digging in there.

I'm trying to get more on Simon the Zealot.

There's not a ton, but but here's what I think I know about Simon the Zealot from the text is Jesus saw something in Simon probably teachability, flexibility, openness, a willingness to change, and a willingness to be used by God because he was gonna want to send them out to other zealots.

If you've been to this church, and the ones I'm looking at have, some maybe listen haven't, but there's a really cool thing going on at this church.

Like this church is uh in many ways an anomaly because we are extremely diverse.

And that's just the eye test.

Like if you just walk around, you look around, like you can see different generations represented, different cultures represented.

But if you could go past the eye test, okay, and this isn't normal for church.

People usually go where everyone thinks alike, very monolithic environments, we think alike, we vote alike, we look alike, because that's a lot easier to get along at church.

So when you come to something that's diverse and different, okay, that's what you can see, but there's way more even diversity than what you can see in terms of how people think and what they've been through.

I mean, we have people here who have been violated, and we have people here who have been violent.

We have people who have abused and people who have been abused, we have people here uh who have been behind bars, we have people that have come from broken families, people that never met their parents, and we we have people that grew up in really good functional homes.

I mean, we it's it's it's just a lot, okay.

But in the differences that we have, one of the things is I've listened in our church and I've noticed people that stick at our church, that stick and forget the church, stick in this community.

What would cause you to stick in this particular community is that I think probably the one thing that we have in common of people that don't leave are people that actually value perspectives other than their own.

That's right.

That's right.

So, like, for example, like you might come to church.

If you come to church or you come to this setting, or even any community, a micro community, and you've already decided I've done all the thinking I need to do.

I already know what I think, I know what I believe about everything, I know that I'm right.

Well, then you'll come in and you'll look for somebody like me who will simply be the mouthpiece to say everything that you already think.

And so people that are looking for that, I usually disappoint them horribly.

And they don't stick around because they're looking for one thing so that they can just keep saying yes, yes, yep, amen, amen.

But actually, what we found is people that stick around here are people that don't mind disagreeing.

That they'll be like, they'll hear that, and instead of immediately getting angry about it, they'll turn it over in their mind.

They'll wrestle with it.

In fact, not only are they willing to tolerate it, they value it.

Probably outside of this room, you're listening to things that challenge your thoughts and challenge your thinking.

Why?

Because I know what I think.

But I also know there are other values.

I'm a human being.

So other people see things differently.

I have something to learn.

And also you have to start from the humble position, at least partially, that like if I walked a mile in your shoes, I probably end up about the same spot you are.

Like I probably, I mean, like you at least have to somewhat go, I've walked a mile in my shoes, I've not been a mile in your shoes.

And to actually want to, to value, to actually see that as best as I possibly can to have my thoughts challenged.

When you do that, what happens?

Well, you listen, you think, you ask a question, you listen deeper, you think deeper, eventually you start getting to some conclusions.

It doesn't mean you're wishy-washy, it doesn't mean you throw out all your beliefs, it doesn't mean that, okay, what are you doing?

You're you're actually morphing, you're growing, you're developing.

It's the process of change.

It's the process of development.

I know everything I need to know about Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot.

Jesus saw among these people that had been very much labeled and were very much polarized, two people that would come go through that process in a micro community.

And he wanted to use them to the ends of the earth.

And he wanted to use them not to keep it and bury it in the micro community, but to use it to bring healing to their people and their day and people like them that think like them to come in and walk through that.

And let me tell you, the place that that sort of learning happens is in community.

This is why people ask me from time to time, they'll be like, dude, why are you a pastor?

Why do you do this?

Because a lot of people they they associate what I do with what I'm doing right now.

Preaching or teaching or talking, right?

And you know, we live in a day where you know you can talk and teach and make content for a living, but to me, this whole thing is about the community.

Why?

Because the community is where the gospel manifests.

Okay, I gotta tell you, the community, painful, the community, difficult.

Organizing community.

Do you understand?

We're doing these groups, okay?

We got you you come in and you see a banner and you see people out there doing, you know, developing leaders, recruiting, training, getting all this, like actually building out the infrastructure to make sure people are supported, that nobody's walking alone, that we're working through things and the conflicts.

Do you understand how much headache is in community?

Why do that?

Why not just give speeches?

Because then it's just rhetoric.

I'll give you a great speech on unity.

I got one in the bag.

I'll give you a great speech on forgiveness, got one in the bag.

I give you a great one on trust, we can talk about that.

We can give you guys some good stuff on racism, we can talk about that.

How does that manifest?

It only happens in community, dude.

That's it.

That's where it actually happens.

So, what is it?

Jesus wasn't just a speech giver.

This wasn't just about stump speeches.

Jesus calls a micro community.

Why?

Because the gospel isn't just about bullet points, it's about people and community.

So he brings them together.

Watch what I'm gonna do with this zealot and this tax collector and these fishermen.

It's gonna come alive here.

It's gonna take on a personality here, it's gonna actually become a thing here.

Not just something we talk about.

What's the point?

Why?

Because it starts right here, right now, and then we can move it out to everyone everywhere.

Um man, I'm running out of time.

Come on.

You guys are listening too good, you got me going.

Okay, I gotta go.

This is my I'm gonna jump ahead.

This is my favorite part of the message.

Because you go, at some point, Mark 2, you're a fisherman, you put down your nets, and Jesus calls us tax collector, and you're like, why?

This makes no sense.

This makes absolutely no sense.

But Jesus calls them into his orbit, and like I said, he sends them out as an emissary, and eventually he's gonna, Acts one, he's gonna send them out, send them out, like go.

And then he's like, he's gone.

See ya.

But he gives them a test run in Matthew 10.

Matthew 10, he sends them away from himself.

But he says, You're gonna come back, but I want you to go out for a little bit.

Now look at this.

Matthew 10, he says, Look, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves.

I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves.

So be shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.

But beware, for you'll be handed over in the courts and you'll be flogged with whips in the synagogues.

To which the fishermen are like, Wait, what?

I just want to fish.

Like, what?

To be whipped in the synagogue?

I'm a fisherman, dude.

I have not been getting whipped much.

Verse 18, you'll stay in trial before governors and kings because you're my followers, but this will be your opportunity to tell rulers and unbelievers about me.

When you're arrested, don't be worried about how to respond.

God will give you the right words at the right time.

Verse 20, for it's not you who will be speaking, the spirit of the father will be speaking through you.

Now watch this, verse 21.

A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own children.

Children will rebel against their parents, cause them to be killed.

Verse 22, and all nations will hate you because you're my followers.

All nations will hate you because you're my followers.

If you're a fisherman or whatever Bartholomew did for a living, and you're sitting there, you're like, What?

I thought we were gonna be national heroes.

Be hated, all nations will hate you.

I don't know how to be hated.

You don't know how to do that?

You ever been hated?

He says, brother will betray brother, father, children.

Not just biological, but he's like, your people are gonna hate you.

You ever been hated?

It's overwhelming the first time.

So if you're one of the other 11 disciples, all of a sudden you just got really glad that Jesus called Matthew.

Because we only got one guy in the whole group that knows how to be hated.

We only got one guy that's been expelled from the temple.

We only have one guy who doesn't care about the bar mitzvah.

We only have one guy who said, I don't need your validation anyway.

The rest of us are falling apart because I've never been hated before.

And Matthew's like, get on my back.

Matthew's like, Connor McGregor or George Jefferson, whichever generation you're in.

Matthew's like, I've been here before.

Get my draft.

I've been hated before.

And this is the beauty of diverse community is this.

There are some things in your life experience that were fashioned in dark places.

There are some things you've been through.

Tax collector stuff.

And when you get in Jesus' orbit, he will reshape your heart but will use your experience.

And all of a sudden, you you didn't know why he called this tax collector in Mark 2 until Matthew 10 happens, and you go, I'm sure glad he did.

Because Jesus sent us out as emissaries, he's not even here now.

So all of a sudden you're sticking real close to Matthew.

Sticking close to Matthew's been there, done that.

Matthew knows how to live this life, and this is the beauty of community.

This is what Jesus is still doing.

He's still doing.

He's bringing people together who have been different places, grew up in different sides of the tracks, have walked through different things.

You got the stuff you can see at the eye test.

You got stuff you have absolutely no idea about what somebody's been through.

And for some of you, have been through some things that has changed you.

And understand this: when you get a tax collector and a zealot and a bunch of fishermen to get in Jesus' orbit, he does something in common.

He reshapes their heart.

He takes the tax collector who at one point had the willingness to take all the smoke and all the dirty looks and all the sideways comments and everything to exploit people.

And he reshapes that man's heart to love people, to be willing for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of their good to be hated for their good.

Before he was willing to be hated for their bad, now he's willing to be hated for their good, but he's the one guy on the team that knows how to be hated.

And all of a sudden, we're real glad Matthew's on the team.

I read a book a number of years ago.

I've I've referenced this before.

It's uh Malcolm Gladwell wrote David and Goliath.

In the book, he talks about the advantages of disadvantages.

And he talks about dyslexia.

He says when a kid is dyslexic, they struggle in school early on, they're having a hard time reading, they can't read, so they get put in remedial classes, they get separated from the general population, they sit alone at lunch often, and because of that, they they they become isolated and often they become disruptive.

So you'll see there's a a large percentage, you know, of the prison population or people uh who commit crimes who are dyslexic.

Why?

Because at a young age, they they felt like they were such an outsider that they rebelled.

But he said, what you'll also see is that they are outliers in areas of success.

Everybody from uh Richard Branson to he talks about uh a CEO from Goldman Sachs to one of the great trial lawyers in American history were dyslexic.

And the reason, he said, is actually not in spite of being dyslexic, but because they were dyslexic, they were willing to actually be able to not need the social affirmation of everyone.

They knew how to sit alone at the table, and so they would disrupt either in a bad way or a good way to take their life experience when everybody else is like, well, we can't do that because everybody'll think this.

They're like, so what?

I've been there, dude.

I sat alone when I was six.

What I'm telling you is there are some things in your life that God, not just in spite of this, but because of this, God can use you and to use you as part of a team and use you as part of his mission.

And we look to the ends of the earth of the things that God wants to do, but God wants to do something right here, right now.

I'll say this last thing.

You have to think for the disciples, they thought that the polar opposites that they were on in their world was probably, you know, was the ultimate polar opposite.

Like there, because your world tends to be the world.

And yet they hadn't even they had they had not even approached Acts 1 yet, where Jesus is gonna say, No, I want to send you, I want to send you to foreign places, I want to send you to people and environments that you can't even fathom.

But if you can't figure out a zealot and a tax collector to get in the orbit of Jesus and to find a way to come together and to grow and evolve and develop and heal and unify, then I can't use you to the ends of the earth.

This whole series, and I believe this whole story is about leadership.

And it's about what do you want your life to be, man?

Do you want to be the follower that a lot just okay, cool, I'll do this category, I'll do this thing, or do you want to be used by God, called out, selected out.

I'm gonna bring you in here.

I want to train, I got something I want to do in you, through you, around you.

Okay?

The tax collector needs the zealot, the zealot needs the tax collector.

We all need the fisherman, the fishermen need us.

We got to get in here and do this and allow God to do what he wants to do there in you so that he can use you outward.

I I would encourage you to honestly search your heart and soul and go, what do I do I want to be a follower in this world or do I want to be called out by God, selected by God to say, I'm gonna bring my whole self, but I'm gonna come in.

And guess what?

It's not cute, it's painful, it's painful, it's polar, it's hard.

You gotta go in and you gotta work that process, but to but to just to throw your hand up and say, Lord, here I am.

I'd like to be a part of this, Lord.

I don't know where exactly where this is leading, but I'm gonna trust you and I want to be used by you right here, right now, and then to go to people and places beyond what I would have ever put on my own radar.

But Lord, I want to take the path that you're calling.

I believe that's the church that Jesus wants us to be.

I think that's not just what he did there, I think that's what he's doing now.