Off The Ladder, Into The Garden - Pastor Michael Holcomb

Hey, this is Andrew Demazio, the lead pastor of Rose Church here in Portland, Oregon.

Welcome to our podcast.

Our mission here at Rose is building a big people, becoming like Jesus in community while growing in our faith.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I pray today's message challenges you and encourages you on your walk with Jesus.

Thank you so much for listening.

Enjoy today's podcast.

We're gonna jump into it today.

Um, and I I'm just gonna forewarn you, I got a message that probably offend you.

Uh maybe make you angry, maybe whatever, uh, overwhelm you.

But the the whole thing is that God wants to encourage you today.

So please don't get up and say, Oh my word, I'm I don't want to, you know, and leave.

Um just stay right where you are.

I think God is going to um really bless you.

But uh I'm I've got a message here today called Off the Ladder and Into the Garden.

Off the ladder into the garden.

Matthew chapter 5, uh verses 43 through 48.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And let me just open up with prayer today.

Lord, here we are, you've gave me this message, and Lord, I just know that you've got some folks here that need to hear this.

And we just pray that all around, God, that you are going to switch our attention from the way we do things to the way you do things.

And Lord, I thank you that you have freedom today for us.

I thank you got joy, you've got life in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right.

Matthew 5, 43, Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father, or heirs of your father who is in heaven.

For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

Do not even the tax collectors do the same.

And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?

Do not even the Gentiles, or we would say unbelievers, do the same?

Verse 48, here's the kicker.

You therefore must be perfect.

Let me read that again just in case I made a mistake.

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.

That's a scary word.

That's a scary word, perfect.

Let me just uh pile on that same thing.

Um because I count over two dozen times in the Bible, in the New Testament, where we are commanded to be perfect, blameless, complete.

Um here's James chapter 1, verse 4.

James 1:4

Let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

2 Peter 3, 14, Jesus, this is speaking of Jesus' second coming, says, Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

And lastly, Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 4.

Ephesians 1:3–4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

Watch this, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

Perfection, perfection, perfection.

The Bible actually says that Noah was a perfect man.

It says that Job was a perfect man.

It says that King Asa was a perfect man, King Hezekiah was a perfect man.

When God spoke to Abraham, he commanded Abraham to be perfect.

John the Baptist, we read this in the New Testament, John the Baptist's parents were, quote, both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.

Perfection.

You know, the fact of the matter is that we all are pushed toward perfection.

Human beings, that's what we per we go after.

In fact, we constantly see these advertisements for the perfect job, the perfect vacation, the perfect skin, the perfect photo, the perfect home, the perfect shoe, the perfect cup of coffee.

How about some of these slogans that we're familiar with?

Be the best version of yourself.

If you don't play to win, don't play at all.

Go big or go home.

Never settle.

No excuses.

Legendary head coast of the head coach of the uh Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, is famous for having said, you can finish this quote for me.

A man can be as great as he wants to be.

And then recently there was an Adidas campaign that said, impossible is nothing.

And if you really think about it, all throughout our society, we are pushed to perfection.

Business pushes you to perfection.

Even our entertainment has this aura of what perfection looks like.

Social media right now is pushing our young people specifically to have a perfect persona.

Perfect this, perfect that.

We're pushed in every single way.

So why is it that when Jesus says be perfect, we switch mantras?

Well, nobody's perfect.

We switch from just do it to, well, it's only by God's grace.

I'm a failure.

No.

We switch.

But the fact of the matter is, is that it's because the fact of the matter is, is because we know when we look at spiritual things, spiritual perfection, we get intimidated.

Maybe that's you today.

You're coming in, it's like, oh my word, how how can I how am I even going to begin?

I talked to a lot of uh new converts.

I had a Pastor Michael, how do I even begin?

Where do I even start?

And it's like this overwhelming thing.

You know, we read the Bible and it's like, who in the world is Mafibashef?

You know, what what is all this about?

What's this, what's the what are the Psalms like?

Why is there the Old Testament and the New Testament?

We have all these different things, and so it's easy to come in even to a service like this, and people are like putting their hands up and they're crying and everything else.

It's like, man, I'm used to doing this at church.

You know.

And it's overwhelming.

And so here we are, we're being told to be perfect.

What's going on?

Well, the fact of the matter is, it's overwhelming, it's intimidating because we have the wrong model of perfection.

The wrong model of perfection.

Do you realize that religions around the world have stages or what I call ladders of perfection.

Ladders of perfection.

Taoism has three stages of purification.

Hindu um Buddhism has four stages of enlightenment.

Hinduism has four stages of life.

If you belong to the Scottish Rite and the Masonic Lodge, there's 53 degrees.

We see life as a ladder.

We see life as something that, yeah, we gotta get up there, we gotta climb.

And the fact of the matter is, is that that is unattainable.

Because here's some of our ideas of perfection.

You ready for this?

To be perfect, we feel like we gotta have an ideal past.

I've had a lot of people come up to me, well, I don't think I can do it.

I don't know.

I'm not a church kid.

I just started coming to church.

Um how about this?

Uh our idea of perfection is coming to a place where we have no more quirks, no more weaknesses, no more blind spots.

Coming to a place where we're incapable of falling into error, sin, or deception.

We think uh that perfection is a time of never having any more setbacks, no more strife, no more problems.

How about this?

Possessing unbreakable, unbeatable will, power, whatever I want, I can do.

Always having a great day, always feeling good about yourself, always being right.

That's the ladder.

The ladder is you climbing up to a point where all of a sudden you come to a place where I've arrived.

I'm feeling good about myself.

And the problem, there's three problems with the ladder model.

Number one, as you're climbing, there's always somebody above you.

Always.

And so you're either overwhelmed, or you're jealous, or you just decide I'm gonna take that person out because they're in my way.

See?

And so we're all we're always and so there's there's that element.

But here's the other element.

The second thing, we look down and there's people below us.

They're not as good as me.

Look at you, scumbag.

I used to be a peon like you, but I'm up here.

Ha! Isn't that right?

But the third thing about the ladder is that when you fall, it's devastating.

And I believe there's some people in here today, you've walked in and you feel like you have fell off of a ladder.

Here's the deal about falling off the ladder.

When you when you're at the bottom, maybe that you fell for the first time and it's like, okay, I'm gonna get back up, and you go, go, go.

And again, you're climbing, climbing, climbing.

You finally get to a place, you know, where you feel comfortable.

You fall again.

You fall again.

And I'm not even necessarily talking about sin as much as just in your own mind the goals that you have set and everything else.

You have failed.

And now all of a sudden you're you're at the bottom again.

And at some particular point, some people put up with this more than others, but at some particular point, you look up at that ladder from the ground and say, No more.

Never again.

I can't do it.

I've tried.

How many of you have grown up in a church and you've there's the ladder model in that church?

And it's like, no, I can't do that.

I I've I've tried, I've fallen down.

See, that's a devastating.

And here's the deal is that it's the enemy that wants you to feel like number one, you've fallen, you can't get back up.

And it's also him that is putting these ideas, these false ideas about what perfection is in your mind.

Very good.

Being a person that's untouchable, I have reached it.

You know, these I some of these pastors, you know, they they're they come in at the stage board and go out the stage door.

You never see them again.

They're celebrities.

I thank God we've got a pastor that stands out there Sunday after Sunday, shaking hands, loving people.

Come on.

I think we can thank God for that.

But we come to this point where it's like, oh yeah, I've I've reached it.

And can I just say this about the ministry?

If you are in the ministry or God's dealing with you about the ministry, one of the things you've got to get straight in your mind right now, it's all about servants.

Servanthood.

It's not about being a king, it's not about being a ruler.

I have arrived.

No, you haven't.

We're gonna talk about that in a few minutes.

But the fact of the matter is, is the is the is the latter is the dangerous point.

It's the enemy's point.

Because the fact is you never really arrive.

You never arrive.

You know what the end of Buddhism is?

Nothing.

Nothingness.

Am I right?

Have everyone studied or been a Buddhist?

Nothing.

I'm gonna come to a place of nothingness.

Wow, what a great goal! Remember talking to a young man one time, and we were telling me you tell me all the teaching of the Buddha, and I said, Man, that's fantastic.

I said, but there's only one thing, reason I can't trust in Buddha.

He's dead.

My God's alive.

Amen.

Well, anyway, praise God.

So let's talk about the garden just a few minutes, because I believe that God has sent you into this place, some of you in this place today, to deliver you from the latter model and put you in the garden.

What's a garden?

Well, I don't know.

My wife and I started uh years ago gardening.

We love gardening, and uh we had it, we uh had some successful uh vegetable gardens over the years.

One year we planted corn.

And uh have you ever seen just you know, it's corn's only that big, so you put it in there in the rows and everything else.

Come out the next day, nothing.

Whereas come out two days, three days, nothing, and I'm looking.

Finally, five or six days later, you come out and there's something that big sticking out of the soil.

Whoa! Come here, look at look at we got corn.

Look at this, we got corn.

And I would say, that's perfect.

You didn't hear what I said.

Yeah.

You know, in Pennsylvania we have a saying, knee high by the 4th of July.

That's that's the that's where the corn should be.

And sure enough, that in July you come out.

Whoa, look at this, it's growing, it's green, wow, perfect.

Now I still haven't I still haven't had any corn.

Still don't have any any none of the ears are there, but it's perfect because it's growing.

Oh, now you got it.

Now you got it.

Because that's what God's doing.

He's looking at your lives.

All right, you don't have corn, you don't have the silk, you don't have the ears, but you're growing, and he's saying, perfect.

Ah, now we can begin to understand.

See, in the Bible, the Bible talks about us in agrarian form, agrarian uh ideas.

We're we're vineyards, we are uh soil, we're seeds, we're wheat, we're figs.

Um Isaiah 61 says that we are trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord.

You know what's great about this?

What I love about that is that we're all, it's not the latter, we're all in a garden together.

So God is doing something in your life, but he's doing something in my life.

I don't care if you've been saved for a hundred years and there's somebody sitting next to them for being saved for 10 minutes, God's gonna be dealing in their lives.

Because the fact of the matter is, is that what with the crops, if you've ever worked with trees or plants or anything else like that, you know that you don't just put a seed in the ground, you don't just put that corn in the ground, it grows.

Okay, you got your you got your uh corn.

By the way, does anybody know what corn butter is?

No, I don't know what corn butter is.

Well, of course, you're not from Pennsylvania.

You take a stick of butter, I I dare you to try this next year.

Take a steak of butter, and then you just roll the corn on top.

You get all the butter, yeah.

The only the only thing that would be better than that if you had a rolling pan of butter.

And then you could do that like a roller pan.

Um, but anyway, so you have your corn.

But the the deal, the deal is is that God, amen, is working in your life, and he's working in your life in such a way that he knows what you're going to be.

See, that's the thing you don't understand.

God calls you you right now.

Right now, he calls you righteous, he calls you holy, he calls you his son or his daughter, he calls you a saint.

Yeah, he's talking to you because he sees where he's bringing you, where he's taking you.

He sees the journey and the end of the journey, and he says, perfect, look at that.

That's wonderful.

You see, this is where we've got to change our minds.

Some of us, again, maybe you're raised in church, and it's like, man, you got the holy, holy, holy people all the way up there.

You got scumbags like me down here.

We're just trying, I'm you know, I'm only on the fifth rung, type of a thing.

No, no, friend, God is saying, no, it's all right here.

God is working with every single one of us, He's working with my heart.

And here's the other thing about the garden.

Are you ready?

You don't just plant corn, okay?

And then it grows, and then you're like, okay, great, I'm done.

No, next year you gotta plan it again.

Next year you've got to plan it again.

You know, there's there's times I and I told you a story a little while ago.

I have to ask the Lord for, I gotta ask the Lord for you know, forgiveness and help.

I need help in this, I need help in that.

I'm constantly, because look, you are not, okay, let's let's put it this way.

If if you God deals with you about forgiveness, okay?

You grow a crop, the crop comes up, scriptures and it's scriptures, the Holy Spirit's dealing with you.

All of a sudden it's like you come to that point, okay.

Yep, I'm gonna forgive.

And you do, you forgive.

Well, that doesn't now make you captain forgiveness.

I can always do it now.

I'm past, yeah, but just shoot it at me, baby, because I no, you you are going to again, again, somebody's gonna offend you, the same feelings are gonna come up, and it's like, oh, you know, well, God, I thought I had this mastered.

No, no, it's it's another season, my friend.

It's another season, and it doesn't mean that you are a failure, it means that you are a planting of the Lord, you're in the garden.

Sometimes we need a good old-fashioned shot of joy.

And I've learned that sometimes I, you know, that like the, you know, you get down and you start thinking about yourself.

By the way, I love what Bishop T.

F.

Tenney used to say.

Uh, you know, if you want to get depressed, just put yourself in a room and uh for 15 minutes and think about yourself.

Yeah.

And that's the way we do.

We just start pity partying.

It's one of the greatest parties.

You party is to be a uh and sometimes I need a real rebuke from the Holy Spirit.

Stop thinking about yourself, stop pity partying, let's get out and let's get some joy going.

You know, if if all you're focusing on is your problems, yeah, you're going to you're going to be uh afraid, you're going to be uh lack of joy, you're gonna have all this other stuff.

But if you focus on what the gardener's doing, that's another big difference with the garden.

And the latter, it's all about me.

How I feel about myself, my goals, my interpretation.

Ever notice that we change the rules?

Yeah.

I was talking um driving down the road the other day.

Man, this guy passed me, and my whole car shook, you know?

Have you ever noticed that that, like, all of a sudden, you know, uh you get in a car accident, and and all of a sudden, you know, you're at fault or the other person's fault because they were speeding, you were speeding just a few minutes ago, but they were speeding, they hit you, and now all of a sudden you're gonna pull out the law book.

You're gonna be the police officer.

Hey, you weren't supposed to do that.

In other words, we excuse ourselves and blame other people of the same exact thing.

And the Lord is the Lord is constantly saying, no, no, no, no.

You you you you've gotta grow, you've gotta grow in me.

You've gotta, you've gotta, we've gotta all realize we've got to put on the whole armor of God, we've got to put on the thing, the mind of God, and we've got to realize God wants us to do some things for each other.

In fact, I gotta I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me read this great scripture.

Let me read this great scripture.

This is in uh Colossians chapter 3, verse 14.

Colossians 3:14

It says, above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

The bond of perfection.

In other words, God is, what is he doing in your life?

What is the perfection he's talking about?

He's trying to get you a person of love.

He's trying to make you a person of love.

Do you realize that if you love, if you love God and you love other people, you're not gonna sin?

That's what 1 John says.

Think about it.

If I'm loving God, then prayer doesn't become a problem.

If I'm loving God and I'm caught up with Him, reading my Bible becomes a joy and a delight.

If I'm loving God, then coming to church on Sunday is something I'm excited about.

Man, my people can't come on, I'm gonna go.

Yeah, I'm excited about it because I love the things of God.

How can you make the Pastor Michael?

How can you make the sacrifices you make?

Because I love the Lord.

He's made himself real for me.

He's he he's he's forgiven me in my sins, he's put me on a new path.

I've got a hold of the Holy Spirit in my life.

Man, I can't help it.

I'm loving him.

I'm loving him.

But you know what?

I love other people too.

And that's what God is doing.

He's growing love in your life.

He's growing love in your life.

He's teaching you how to forgive.

He's teaching you how to be patient.

He's teaching so that you can give and be an instrument.

You know, I'm telling you what, when you start loving people, it gets so much easier.

Life gets so much easier.

You know, I have this book, I've been kind of going through it about uh this the author is talking about how um we need to restore uh hospitality.

Opening up our our our our doors and our lives to strangers, just being a person that hey, in fact, let me ask you a question.

What do you do when you are in the Walmart line or when you're in the Safeway line, the Fred Meyer line?

You just stand there, uh let's get out.

How about turning around and talking to the person behind you?

When somebody's walking down the street and you bet, don't don't just, you know, hey, how are you doing?

What's going on?

You don't know the opportunities that God wants to use you with, amen, because love is just oozing out of you.

And when you love people like Jesus loves people, guess what happens?

Another element kicks in.

It's called the the Holy Ghost miracle grow.

A few people know what miracle grow is.

Amen.

It's fertilizer.

When you put it on plants and shrubs and flowers, you put it in there, all these nutrients come.

When I start loving other people, that's when the Holy Ghost begins to kick in.

Boom! Oh, wow! And all of a sudden we find ourselves right in the middle, amen, of the street praying for somebody.

Amen.

We find ourselves, amen.

I remember when I was little, I was walking home one day, it was probably five years old, and there was a woman that was that was uh weeping on on the stoop, and she's weeping, weeping.

And I went home and I said, Mommy, I said, There's a lady, our neighbor behind us, and she's crying.

My mom went over there.

Now, this there was no church, there was no singing, there was no scripture.

Mom just went over there here to find out this lady had just lost her little girl and her little baby, and now she's, of course, crying, and my mom was able to minister to her.

See, that's what we're supposed to do.

Just give out, give out, give out, and give out.

That's what God's doing in your life.

How hard is that?

Do you realize if you love somebody, you don't even need the law.

If you're considerate.

Let's talk that let's talk about the the the guy who was speeding.

Think about it.

If that guy was thinking, hey, somebody could pull out in front of me, I could I could take a life.

I could lose control of my see, all of these laws that we have, it's because of people.

It's because of people.

Man, I'm thank God we've got red lights.

Some people don't even realize pay attention to those.

But man, you know what it is?

Here it is.

I I stop at the red light, you go ahead, it's green for you.

Okay, everything is in order, everything's fine.

Now I've got a green light.

You've got to stop light.

Okay, here we go.

And that's the way it is in the kingdom of God.

God wants to bring you to a place where you don't have to have somebody over your life telling you what to do all the time.

Because the Spirit of God is saying, hey, it's a spirit of love.

It's a spirit of love.

Hey, hey, why don't you go ahead and say that to that person?

Hey, why don't you go ahead?

In fact, I'm gonna read something right here.

Man, I just I'm if nobody else is uh getting excited, I am.

Um let me read you about what perfect people are.

Ready?

A perfect person repents.

Yep, when you make a mistake, you know what?

I was wrong.

That's perfect.

A perfect person accepts correction.

A perfect person admits to blind spots, seeks counsel, asks for help.

A perfect person is teachable, transparent, open, honest.

A perfect person wants accountability, works as a team, cooperates with others, sees the value in others.

This is what the Spirit of God is doing inside of you.

Because the latter, again, it's all about me, me thinking about me.

But when you come into the kingdom of God, God opens your eyes, you come out of darkness into light, and all of a sudden you realize there's oh, there's other people in this room.

Whoa, wow.

You have what problem?

You have this?

Oh, oh man, oh wow.

See, Jeremiah and Ezekiel both talked talking about the filling of the Spirit said that that God would remove the stony heart out of our flesh and give us a heart of flesh.

What's a heart of flesh?

A heart of flesh is a sensitivity, a sensitive heart.

Whereas I was hard in heart.

I didn't think about anybody else.

Now all of a sudden the Spirit of God comes.

And now I was like, brother, I'm feeling something about you.

And I am feeling something about you.

Can you stand up?

Put your hands up.

Brother, there is an anointing that is coming upon you today, and I see the word of the Lord inside of your mouth.

God is gonna fill your mouth with not just the gift of prophecy, but I'm gonna say it and I submit this to this house.

But I see the word preacher on you.

And there's coming a day when God is gonna release you and your wife, and you're gonna start a church.

Yeah, I'm saying it.

And God is gonna release you in this house, and he's gonna release you elsewhere, because, brother, you have a message to say.

In Jesus' name.

Now, by the way, if Pastor Andrew calls me up and says, uh, why did you do that?

Don't ever do that again.

I'll say, okay, yeah.

Uh, we when we used to, I mean that.

Uh when we used to go around the world and we would preach and prophesy, one of the things we would always say is, Whatever your pastor says, that goes over us.

Because your pastor is the one who loves the flock.

Amen.

But anyway, uh, praise God.

Uh, but speaking of stony hearts, think about what Jesus said when he said about the word being sown, okay?

Um there's there's three types, or four types of soils he talked about.

The one was the good, the one was with stone, the one was with uh uh thistles and and thorns, and the other one was trodden down and was packed hard.

The three useless soils is a soil that did never was never plowed up.

Never plowed up.

If you've ever been done any kind of gardening or or of any kind, you know that what you've got to do in the spring is you've got to take that big old uh well in Pennsylvania we have the Amish people, have the Amish people, and they have like six or eight mules or horses, and they'll take that big old plow, and you'll see them plowing, and they're they're they're dividing the soil, they're bringing up the soil, they're splitting the soil, and it's been sitting there all winter long.

Now they're just bringing it up so that the nutrients get it into it.

See, here's the deal is that what God is trying to do is get us out of our stubbornness.

And if you feel today like, oh my word, I feel like God is really, you know, really dealing hard with me.

Good news, it's because you're being made a garden.

Good news.

If you're feeling stretched, it's because God says, hey, I think we can do more with this property, I think we can do more with this land, I think we can do more with that sister, more with that brother.

Amen.

I'm gonna promote him and I'm gonna plow him up.

See, we as Christians, we think of things different.

Trials and tests and problems, we welcome.

What?

Yeah, because as Peter said, when I'm tried, I am brought forth as gold, as pure gold.

Do you realize in Malachi Jesus is the refiner of fire and the fuller soaper or the bleacher?

In other words, the refiner's fire is a guy who would start get a hot, hot, hot, a flame, and then he would put um uh uh the ore, silver or gold, ore, and melt it down.

All the impurities came to the top, and then he would skim off the top, and then you had pure gold, pure silver.

And some of you are feeling that right now.

You're feeling that fire, you're feeling that plow plowing up, and it's like, God, what are you doing?

God said, Hey, I got good, I got good plans.

It's okay.

It's okay.

All right, real quickly, I want to show you a um, and don't start this until I tell you, please.

Um something happened out in the front uh back in July, and what it is, you're gonna see little Billy Blass, and she has her mom came and said, she refuses to walk alone.

And so we're having this conversation.

Well, Pastor Justin came up and he goes, we're talking like this, and goes, Well, guess what?

I'm gonna, she's gonna walk right now and watch what happens.

Go baby, go baby! Come on, she knows how.

Come on, let go, let go.

Come on, come on.

Let go, ready?

Here we go.

Come on, come on.

Yeah, and I got that.

So I own the copyright.

Um but you know, this is what God is doing with us.

See, some of you today, you're over there, it's like, Lord, I I don't know if I can step out in faith.

I don't know, and the Lord's over here saying, Come on, come on, you can do it.

I come on, come on.

You can I know you can do it.

I put my spirit in you, I put my word in you, I know you can do it, come on.

Uh, I I I I don't know if I can I if I can uh overcome this temptation.

It's all right, come on, keep coming.

Greater is he that is in you than he's in the world.

Okay, God, all right, he I don't know if I can take another step.

Amen.

You're calling me into this and telling me to start a connect group.

I don't know.

Okay, go! And then all of a sudden it's like oh, oh, oh, oh no, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, honey, hold on, I'm running, I'm running, I'm running, I'm running it.

Shall renew their trend, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall walk and up here, they shall running up and rear, they shall walk and upset.

That's what God's doing in your life.

He's saying, Come on, you can do it, come on, you can do it.

Turn to your neighbor and say, Come on, you can do it.

And do you know why?

Because the gardener is working on all of us, he's working on all of us.

I just want to say this before we switch gears here, just a moment.

I really believe that there are those of you that today God is asking you to take another step.

And I'm not just talking about next steps, although that might be part of it.

But there are things that God is speaking inside of you and saying, Hey, I want you to do X, Y, and Z.

Lord, I I don't know.

If you'll take that step of faith, you'll find out that His power accompanies you, you'll find out His Spirit guides you.

I love what the prophet said.

Amen.

There will be a voice behind you and say, This is the way, walk in it.

He's gonna do just like the song that we sing.

If he says, go to the left, I'm going to the left.

If he says go to the right, go to the right.

All right, all right.

And here's the deal, and I'm gonna leave this with you.

It's all about surrender.

I'm off the ladder.

I'm not doing all the heavy work.

God's doing all the heavy work.

All I've got to do is what He tells me to do today.

You didn't hear me.

Today.

I don't have to worry about tomorrow.

I don't have to worry about next month, I don't have to worry about where I'm gonna be in five years.

Today, God just says, take a step.

Come on, Mike, you're good, you're good.

That's what God's doing with you.

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