Wandering in the Wilderness | Pastor Chris Kouba

Good morning, 10 o'clock.

How are we doing?

Hey, grab your Bibles, open them up with me to Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

I've got a few things that I want to say and address before we get into the text.

First of all, I just want to speak to last Sunday.

If you were in the room, I think you know what I mean.

It was like that in every service as we had.

I have never in my life experienced anything, anything like what God did last Sunday morning.

I'm still struggling with words to articulate it.

I'm still struggling with.

We need God.

And at the end of the day, He met us and He heard us.

And the way that God poured out His grace and His mercy upon our church in the month of January is unlike anything I've ever experienced in my own ministry.

And just what I've heard, and just I just I just say that to you.

I want you to know this.

Regardless of whether you're a different church, you have a different pastor.

I've met with the Lord, and I don't ever want to go back.

I don't ever want to go back.

I want to be there with him in every way.

Hey, I want to just mention to you tonight is a special night in the life of our church.

We have these moments that we kind of set aside and design for the purpose of trying to like disconnect us from the things of the world and the normal patterns and trying to call people towards seeking his face.

And tonight is a special night because we're doing a men's night.

So I want to make sure, men, you're aware of this, that you're signed up for this.

It's going to begin at five o'clock.

We're asking you to come and to bring your own meat.

We're going to grill out and do men's stuff.

We're going to stare at fires and just look at it and stuff and all the stuff that we do.

And if ladies like, what do y'all do?

It doesn't matter.

This is what we do.

All right.

We're going to do it tonight.

It's going to be awesome.

6 o'clock.

We're going to gather together in this room.

And Josh Smith, who's a good friend of mine, is going to be leading us on a journey through the book of Titus, looking at some, he wrote an incredible book called The Titus 10 that helps give 10 key principles for men.

So I want to encourage you, men one, to be here.

You can see the QR code that's in the corner.

Please register beforehand so we can make sure that you're there.

Invite other people to come.

I found that guys will come to men's night that might not come to church.

Do to leverage it.

Please invite folks to come and be a part of it.

It's going to launch for us coming up starting this coming Thursday morning for 10 weeks, a 10-week Bible study at 6.30 a.m.

in this room.

And what we're going to do is we're going to gather together as men, and then I'm going to preach and teach a little bit to you, and then we're going to break up into table groups and we're going to have some discussion.

And I know some of you are commuters or you've got places you need to be, and we commit that you will be out of here no later than 7.15.

So that's my commitment to you.

That's my promise to you.

So if you can figure out a way to make that into your commute, we would love to ask you to join us for the next 10 weeks.

Because I'm just going to tell you something.

There's something special when you get a bunch of dudes together away from the world seeking after God.

He does something.

He changes houses, he changes churches, he changes communities.

And so we're just going to see what happens.

And so I want to encourage you to be a part of that.

Let me mention this as well.

We've got an incredible event coming up February 21st through 23rd for our students.

All students, make sure that you are signed up for this.

Parents, make sure that you leverage influence with your kids' friends to be able to get them to this.

It's a special weekend designed for sixth through 12th graders to get them away from the normal patterns of their life and to be able to get them seeking God intentionally for an entire weekend.

In fact, tonight we're doing a special deal where if you register before tonight, you get$25 off the registration.

So just that's a little bit of an incentive.

Would love to get as many students signed up as possible because we know whenever we have these weekends, these retreats, these conferences, these men's night, these camps, God does something.

Have any of you ever experienced God in one of those types of settings before?

You've been in a retreat, you've been at a conference, you've been like you can actually raise your hand.

Has any of you ever been to any?

Like some of none of you.

Okay.

Have you met God at those different places?

I mean, there's a specifically uniquely divine thing that happens in those moments.

And I know I've grown up and I've been in part of those experiences, and I've kind of always come off of them and I've asked this question well, why can't I experience God like that and the normal stuff?

We're starting a brand new sermon series today called Divine Encounters, and that's the whole point of this series.

The entire month of February, we're gonna look at a bunch of different situations in God's word where God had divine encounters with people and normal stuff.

It doesn't mean that the special stuff's not important, it's really special.

God's gonna meet us tonight at midnight's night.

God's gonna meet us at counter weekend, God's gonna meet us at camp this summer in sports camp and all the things that we do.

But what we want to see is how can God meet us in our normal everyday lives?

We're gonna look the next couple of weeks, one, about how God meets us in our trials.

We're gonna see how God meets us in our doubt and disappointments.

We're gonna see how God meets us in the everyday stuff.

This morning, the main thing that I want you to walk away with is this.

God meets me in the wilderness.

God meets me in the wilderness.

Any of you know what the wilderness is?

Any of you may find yourself in the wilderness?

Wilderness is a weird place.

Because the wilderness is not something that everybody wakes up and it's like, you know what I want to do?

I want to go to the wilderness today.

Nobody says that.

Instead, what happens is that you begin to wake up and you've got a plan and a vision for your life.

You've got an idea of this is what I want things to look like, and this is what I want things to be.

And so you're heading down that direction for your life, or heading down this direction for your family, and then somewhere along the way, there's some detours over here, and then a detour over here, and then a detour over here, and it got so many detours.

Now you find yourself in a place where you don't know where you are, you don't know where you're going, and you just know this.

You don't like being there.

Maybe I just described some of your stories.

You don't know how you ended up in the wilderness, you just know this.

This is not what I was thinking whenever I drew this thing up.

Whenever I got married five years ago, this is not where I thought I would end up and be, right here.

When I think about my family, when I think about my team, when I think about my career, this is not what I had in mind.

What's interesting about the wilderness is that it is a place of disorienting.

Like you're just kind of there and you're like, I don't know how to even get out of it.

I don't know how long I'm gonna be in it.

I don't know what I just know this, I don't want to be here.

When you get in the wilderness, there's a lot of different ways that you can get in there.

In fact, the Bible tells us that Jesus, after he was baptized, was led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan for 40 days.

That's not fun to hear that some of you may be in the wilderness because God put you in the wilderness.

Maybe God has some things he wants to do in and through you, and he can only happen in the wilderness.

So maybe that's your story.

Maybe some of you find yourself in the wilderness because of no fault of your own.

Maybe you had a company, and maybe you were following after this company, and you were excited to see what God was gonna do in your life as a result of this company, and then somebody at the top or somebody on the board made a decision, they didn't consult you, they didn't talk about it, and that decision has led you now into the wilderness, and you didn't want to be there.

It's not fair, and you feel cheated, but that's your reality.

Maybe some of you find yourself in the wilderness.

I find this a lot of times where you have a season of success and things are going really well and things are really good, and then all of a sudden it's not quite going as well.

It's not like it's going bad, it's not like it's failing, but it's just not what it was before, and you're like, Well, why can't I go back there?

I feel like I'm in the wilderness.

Some people, maybe your situation is that because of choices that you made, because of decisions that you did, it's caused your life to be in a place to where it can't be what you thought it was gonna be.

Instead, you're in the wilderness because of your own sin.

That's what we find in Exodus chapter 3 in the story of Moses.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

I want to pick up in verse 1, and I want to read for you the beginning of this journey of Moses' life.

Now, Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the what?

Wilderness.

And he came to Horab, the mountain of God, and the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out in the midst of a bush.

He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight.

Why the bush is not burned?

And the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see.

God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses.

And he said, Here I am.

And he said, Do not come near, take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face and he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their sufferings, and I come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittattites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, children of Israel, out of Egypt.

If we've watched Ten Commandments from Charlton Heston, or we've seen Prince of Egypt, or we've grown up in church, we know some pretty epic stuff happens from this point forward, okay?

I don't necessarily want to focus on that part.

What I want to do is I want us to find out some lessons that we can learn from Moses in the wilderness.

I got three of them for you.

First one is this wait on God's timing.

Wait on God's timing.

You gotta know what led Moses to the wilderness in the first place by knowing the background, the first couple of chapters in the book of Exodus, because it tells the fact that all the Hebrew people were growing in such number that the Egyptians, who were enslaving them at the time, said to kill all of them.

And so Moses's parents, instead of killing him, actually puts him in a basket and he floats down the river, and what do you know?

He ends up being picked up by someone in Pharaoh's court.

Instead of killing them like she was supposed to, she actually decided to raise him.

And so Moses has this weird juxtaposition about his life.

His heritage is from Israel, but his life has been lived in Egypt.

He actually grew up and found favor in the court of Egypt, so much so that he was seen as a leader amongst the people.

But he had this tension because he's looking at the slavery that is happening to his people, and he's like, Man, what am I gonna do about this?

Go back with me to Exodus chapter 2 and pick up the reading in verse 11.

Exodus 2 · chapter mention

It says, One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens.

And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.

He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together.

And he said to the man in the wrong, Why do you strike your companion?

He answered, Who made you a prince and a judge over us?

Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?

Then Moses was afraid and thought, Surely this thing is known.

When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.

But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

What this shows us is that Moses felt the tension of the oppression of his people, and he knew he had to do something about it.

There was a holy stirring and calling that existed in Moses.

Moses' problem wasn't his passion, Moses' problem was his timing.

I don't know about you, but I totally resonate with Moses.

I see injustice, I want to fix it.

I see a problem, I want to fix it.

I see something that needs to be improved.

I don't want to wait around and talk about it and debate it.

I want to go fix it right now.

Like in my mentality, is the faster I can get to it, the sooner it's gonna be better.

The problem is this, and if you're like me, you know this to be the case too.

Sometimes speed isn't actually best.

Sometimes going fast actually makes it worse instead of making it better.

Why is this the case?

Second Peter chapter 3, verse 8 and 9, it says this, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

2 Peter 3:8

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

God had a plan to deliver the people, he just didn't want to do it right then.

Moses saw a problem and he dealt with it right then.

You know what it got him?

It got him 40 years in the wilderness.

For some of you, your problem is not Moses where you go too fast.

For some of you, your problem is the opposite.

You go too slow.

You see, here's the thing God's already told you what you need to do, and what you're doing is you're coming up with excuse after excuse after excuse as to why you can't do it.

You're sitting here talking about all the various things about why you need more money, or you need more time, or you need more wisdom, or you need more of this, and you need more relationships, and you need me whatever.

And what you need is courage to be bold, to actually do it.

And let me remind you delayed obedience is called disobedience.

And so, what you need to do is embrace the reality that God's timing is best, God's way is best, and so therefore, whether you are going too fast or whether you were going too slow, what you need to do is do this.

God, what do you want me to do?

And when do you want me to do it?

Let's think about this from the perspective of the Israelites.

The Israelite people were in bondage and they were in slavery to the Egyptians.

It says that they'd been crying out to the Lord, asking, God, will you please save us?

Will you please help us?

There's no way you led us into this land in order to experience this.

This can't be what you were wanting for us.

And it says that they began to grow frustrated and angry and bitter to the point where they began to wonder, God, are you even there?

And God, are you even listening?

And look at what it says in Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Go back and read it again, verse 7 and 8.

Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who were in Egypt.

I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their sufferings, and I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

Folks, there's some of you that find yourself in a place what feels like slavery and what feels like bondage.

You're on a team at work, or you're on a team at school, and it doesn't feel like it's getting any relief from the pressures and the temptations and the tensions that you feel, and you're wanting desperately for God to intervene.

Maybe you're looking at your family dynamic and you're looking at your situation, and you're wanting God to intervene in your kids' life, or you're wanting God to intervene in your spouse's life, and you you're trying everything that you can to lead them towards the things of God, and it feels like it's making things worse before it's making things better.

There's maybe some of you who find yourself at a place where you are literally saying this, God, are you even there?

And if you are there, do you even care about me?

And here's what this passage teaches us God sees, God knows, and God hears.

Man, that's hard to hear.

Especially if we're somebody that likes to see it fast.

Some of you may be walking through infertility right now.

You've been begging, you've been praying, and you've been asking God for a child, and he has not granted you that request, and the answer to you may not be no.

The answer may just be not.

Some of you, as you begin to think through the work tension that you're walking through, or the opportunities that don't seem to be kind of happening, or the fact that things don't seem to be clicking as much as you had hoped so.

Maybe you're in a season right now where the Lord's not trying to tell you no, but the Lord is trying to say, Hey, not yet.

We're gonna wait a little bit.

I know as I think back for me, what I look back and I'd say, God, I want you to do this, and I want you to do this, and I want you to do this, and I want you to do it by this time.

And if he would have actually answered what I asked, it would have crushed me, I would have never been ready for it.

Instead, what God is trying to say is that, hey, you can ask all you want to, but at the end of the day, I get to control the timing of this deal.

And I need you to trust me.

Let's be honest, waiting is hard.

But when you wait on God's timing in the wilderness, you begin to see that God is doing things that you can't see in you and in the circumstances, and it's worth it.

Second thing I would tell you a lesson to learn from the wilderness, number two, get up after you fall.

Get up after you fall.

After Moses acted too quickly, he goes into the wilderness into hiding for 40 years.

You know how long 40 years is?

You know, today, if you actually live to 40, you know what they call you?

Over the hill.

Like you're on your you're closer to dying than you are being born.

That's a long time.

40 years.

And what's crazy is that Moses is now 80 when this takes place.

The first 40 years of his life were actually spent in Egypt, and he started learning all of these hieroglyphics and all of these military strategies and all of these leadership skills from the school of Egypt.

And now he's in Midian for 40 more years, and he's not learning any of that kind of stuff.

Instead, what he's learning is about shepherds and farmers and deserts and family and kids and all that kind of a thing.

You almost assume that Moses had basically just decided, God's done with me.

Like there's nothing, there's nothing he could do anymore.

He had given up long the idea that God would want to speak to him and that he would have an opportunity to speak to God.

He just assumed his failure was final.

And when he was least expecting it, God showed up and he spoke to Moses.

What does this show us?

The culture may cancel you, but God doesn't cancel you.

Your friends and your family and your coworkers, they may cancel you, but God doesn't look at you and say, nope, canceled.

You may be experiencing anxiety and tension that goes along with all that comes whenever you're waiting in a season of the wilderness.

But I want you to know this it may feel like God has left you, but he has not left you.

He is there, he's waiting to come and speak to you at just the right moment, in just the right time, and in just the right place.

I want you just to think about his track record.

Jonah, what happened?

He calls Jonah to go and preach to the Ninevehites.

What does Jonah do?

Jonah runs the opposite direction, and so what does he do?

He gets them thrown overboard, he gets swallowed by a fish to bring them all back.

He didn't cancel Jonah, he used Jonah.

Think about it.

Saul.

Saul was one who was persecuting and torturing Christians.

He was on his way to gather up more Christians to torture and to persecute.

And the Bible says that God met him along the way and all of a sudden turned his name from Saul to Paul, and the one who was a terrorist of Christian became an evangelist for Christianity.

How about Peter?

Peter was the one who epically denied Jesus three times.

I mean, like his timing was horrible.

Like the one time whenever Jesus needed him, and he was nowhere to be found.

And then this these people come up to him, he's like, I don't even clue who Jesus is.

And what is what does Jesus do?

Does he cancel him?

No, he goes and finds him, he restores him, and he builds his church on the foundation of Peter.

Folks, how about Rahab?

She was in the sex business.

And God didn't cancel her because of her past and because of her mistakes.

He instead chose her to be the very one who would hide the spies when they came into Jericho, and she would be told about even today.

She is the one in the lineage and the ancestry of Jesus.

She gets mentioned she wasn't canceled, she was instead held up for her faith.

I think about Craig and Angie Hamilton in our church who lead the re-engagement whose marriage was falling apart.

And they were doing everything both separately to try to crush that marriage and make it fall apart.

But you know what?

Instead of canceling them, God instead called them to use the very thing that was the biggest source of pain in their lives to be the very source of ministry that they get to now use and lead so many other folks that are leading in re-engaged ministry who have the exact same story.

God doesn't cancel us.

God instead uses us.

I think if Jeff and Charity fight, Jeff and Charity were in prison.

They were paying the penalty for their crimes.

God grabbed a hold of their hearts and grabbed a hold of their lives and not only saved them, he didn't cancel them, he then called them to be able to lead one of the most amazing ministries in our community called Oaks of Righteousness, that is a transition home for ladies who are coming out of prison to learn life skills and to learn things that can help them to be productive in society, but also learn about Jesus and God uses Jeff and Charity Fight.

People who were once in prison to be the very means to share the love of Christ with these beautiful, beautiful ladies.

God wants to write the rest of your story.

What I'm telling you is this if you find yourself in the wilderness because of decisions that you have made, what I want you to do is I want you to get ready.

Because ultimately God's gonna come home.

And when he does, here is the third thing I want you to say.

Step into step into calling.

Notice a few things about this encounter.

We know that God meets with us on special nights like tonight at Men's Night.

We know God meets with us on special weekends like Encounter Weekend.

We know that God meets with us on retreats and conferences and all of that.

But what I want you to see about this specific encounter in Exodus chapter 3 is there was nothing extraordinary about this day.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Nothing extraordinary about the circumstances.

There was no grand announcement that, like, hey, God's gonna all of a sudden just show up.

You guys need to be ready.

Everybody, everybody, look up.

Everybody, there was no prophecy coming that this was gonna take place.

There was nothing that suggested that this particular day was any different than every other day in the last 40 years in the life of Moses.

Yet what we see here is that there's this bush that is burning that doesn't burn up.

We don't know anything special about the bush for all accounts.

We can just basically think this bush that decided to burn was random.

So where Moses is like, I guess I should go check that out.

This is a little bit different.

What does it show us?

Any day, anytime and anything when God shows up, it can turn into a life-changing encounter.

Which means even though you're in the wilderness, you need to live with an urgency and an awareness that today can be the day when your life gets turned around.

What this also means is that if you've got a family member, if you've got a spouse, if you've got a friend, if you've got someone that you're reaching out to, you need to live with this holy awareness that I don't know how, I don't know when, and I don't know what, but I do know this.

God can make them and everything changes.

Like from that moment forward, nothing is the same.

And look at Moses' response initially.

Here I am.

Here I am.

We know later on that Moses started to kind of waffle from that, but he kept returning back ultimately to that same posture of here I am.

And every time he did, God did some amazing things in his life.

What does this show us?

This shows us your appropriate response is this.

Okay.

What do you want me to do?

I'm in.

I'll follow where you want me to go.

I'll go where you want me to go.

I'll do what it is that you want me to do.

I think it's so interesting the Bible tells us that in that moment what happens is that all of a sudden God says, Hey Moses, take off your shoes.

I don't know if you know this, buddy, but you're standing on holy ground.

For 40 years, we don't know how many times, but you can imagine literally thousands of times, Moses had walked along that very same path over and over again.

Yet all of a sudden, when God intervenes and meets with you in your life, you know what happens?

All of a sudden, the very same ground that used to be normal becomes extraordinary.

You better get your shoes off.

Because guess what?

Now it's holy.

Folks, for some of you, whenever God makes an encounter with you, what it's going to mean is that God's calling you out of where you are to something that's significantly greater than what you currently are thinking of.

For some of you, what God may want you to do is He wants you to go and He wants you to go plant a church, and He wants you to let United City be the sponsor to train you, to fund you, to help you as you go and plant that church, and we'll get all behind you.

For some of you, what he may be calling you to do is to give your life to ministry, to join the United City residency, to come be on our team and to learn and let us pour into you and equip you so that you can be a part of the gospel ministry.

For some of you, what he may want to do is call you to missions and to go somewhere far away, to maybe even a language that you don't even yet speak and be able to be used by God in those places to be able to make great impact.

And praise God, and we hope all of those things take place.

But can I tell you what I honestly think is that for the majority of you, God doesn't want you to do anything different than you've ever done, except for the fact that the ground that you used to walk on, or the drive that you used to drive, or the office that you used to go to or the desk that you used to sit on, suddenly you gotta take your shoes off?

Because you met with God and everything changed?

Is it possible that God wants you to go back to your office tomorrow and even though your office is no different, you're different?

Is it possible that God desires for you to walk in the doors of your school and you turn in your class papers for third period and you do what you need to do to study for that test in fifth period, and you do all the things that are necessary to be a good student?

But is it possible that God desires for you to walk into your school?

And even though your school may not have not changed names, and even though your teachers are all the same, and even though your class schedule is all the same, you're not the same.

Where God begins to allow the very same normal path that you've always walked to suddenly become.

Stay with me, guys.

Stay with me.

Don't miss this.

God lead you to do.

Moses had no idea what his life was going to look like the next 40 years.

He'd have no idea that he's gonna do these plagues and these miracles and this Red Sea and all the stuff that goes along with that.

I mean, I tell you what, if he had, he might not have said yes.

But he says, Here I am.

God led the rest of the reason.

She bow your heads and we should close your eyes all across this room.

I'm gonna ask a familiar question in a unique way.

I'm gonna ask that you don't check out because you've heard this question before.

I'm gonna ask that you let this question weigh on your heart.

Because I believe God's not trying to call super Christians, I believe God's kind of trying to call you on a fringe.

Catch a vision.

Can you imagine what kind of impact we could see in this community?

The people in this room and this service attend.

Some of you, that step that you need to take is you need to join the United States.

I will tell you this.

I cannot explain what God has been doing in our midst.

I assure you of this.

This is home.

This is where I need to plant my flag.

Just date the church, but be all in.

You come and lead the way today.

Maybe some of you need to come and to be baptized.

Did you see Courtney's face?

Did you see the expression on her face?

The joy that comes with walking in obedience and being able to declare to so many people this is the most important thing to me.

She's got a mile long of accomplishments.

But I'm telling you what, the thing that she is most excited about is what Jesus has done in her life.

Some of you need to take that step of obedience.

I'm gonna ask that you come forward and come and talk to us.

We want to talk to you about that.

We want to schedule it.

We want to counsel you through that.

I will tell you this: if you want to get baptized next service, we can make it happen.

We just did it this last service.

Somebody at our 8:30 service came forward and said, you know what, I want to get baptized today.

We made it happen.

Let us do that with you.

Others of you, you need to take your first step.

Your first step is to enter into a relationship with Jesus.

What I want you to know is this is that the reason that Courtney had the smile on her face after she got baptized is because Jesus has changed her life.

She came to the realization at some point in her life, whenever she saw that her sin kept her away from God.

And she saw that God made a way for her.

She gave her life to Jesus and she's never been the same.

Is that your story?

Is that your testimony that you need to take that first step today?

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna lead you through a prayer if that's you, and I'm just gonna ask that you pray it right where you are, just quietly.

No one looking around, but just pray this prayer.

God, I want you.

I believe you died on a cross for me.

I believe you rose from the dead, and right now I receive your gift of eternal life.

Thank you for saving me, for giving me, for changing me.

In the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Would you look up here?

I want you to see we've got some folks at the bottom of these steps.

We've got some folks all along the front.

This is our prayer team.

These are folks who want to meet with you.

You just made a decision to give your life to Jesus, you just prayed that prayer with me.

Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do.

I promise it won't be weird because we're gonna be all excited about it.

Just come.

Just come tell us.

We want to get some information from you, we want to celebrate with you.

If you want to join United City, I want you to lead the way.

Others may need to come and be baptized.

You come as well.

Others may just need prayer.

You're in the wilderness, you're in the middle of it.

But I want you to know this: you're not alone.

We want to pray with you.

We want to pray for you.

We want to come alongside of you.

And so, right now I'm gonna ask you to stand.

And as you stand, our team is up front, and they're there at the bottom of the steps.

You come as you are God is leading you to make a decision.

Come on.

Come on, who's gonna be the first?

Let's pray together.

Father, we come before you and we thank you.

We don't know how long we might be in the wilderness.

But we do know this, you're not wasting it.

Using it.

Speak to us.

Pray God, if we've got loved ones, if we've got family members, if we've got needs.

Folks Lord, who are in the middle of it.

I pray God you'd meet them where they are.

Pray God your presence would be so near to them.

Pray God that your hand of mercy and grace would be upon their lives.

Bring healing, bring reconciliation, that you would do what you've already been doing in our midst.

Thank you so much for the promise we have of knowing.

You will meet us in the glory.

Name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.