Grow or Go Back to What I know?

Like I said, we're gonna jump into a brand new conversation this morning, a new series called Never Going Back.

Never Going Back.

Before we do that, though, I do have a few quick things I want to make sure everyone knows about.

If you haven't gone to hishandschurch.com slash coronavirus, make sure you do that.

We've got resources there.

If you have any needs, you can check all those out.

We also have our weekly schedule posted there.

And so we're actually doing a lot of work right now, working around the clock, to bring you a lot of content in this season so that you can grow.

So we have everything from online classes to our weekly stuff like Marriage Mondays and Worship Wednesdays and Family Fridays and Service Saturdays and, of course, streaming Sundays.

All of that's there.

So make sure that you go there, that you become familiar with everything we've got.

Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel, to our Facebook page, follow us on Instagram if that's something that you do.

I know that it's kind of weird for us to talk about all this social media stuff.

That's not really our norm as a church.

But right now, in the midst of not being able to be together physically, the more connected we are in those ways, the better off we are in terms of staying up to date with everything going on.

Also, if you haven't downloaded the His Hands Mobile app, make sure that you do that.

It's a great resource.

You can listen to messages, you can actually look at all the scriptures that go with those messages.

In fact, you can create an account on the app and you can actually take notes with each message and it'll remember those.

You can look those up in weeks and even years to come to help you kind of remember whatever God was showing you.

That's a really cool feature.

You can also give via the mobile app.

And to all of you who have continued to give, I just want to say a big thank you.

You're continuing to be generous.

I know that that requires a ton of faith right now, and I want you to know that God is using that, that we're still able to be super generous to our community.

We're helping people in need in ways we've never even been able to before because you're being generous.

We're doing really big things with our ministry partners like Never Alone, who we said last week we were able to give an additional$5,000 to because of your generosity.

That provided, by the way,$20,000 meals.

20,000 meals.

In fact, these are pictures of the actual food that they were able to purchase with the money that we were able to give them.

So thank you to all of you who are continuing to give.

You guys are awesome.

We're doing things like that and a whole lot more.

It's between you and God, obviously.

There's a lot of crazy stuff going on right now, but I just, as always, want to say, I trust God to speak to you.

I trust you to respond.

As long as we do that, we're all going to be in good shape.

Okay, all that said, let's jump into this new conversation.

Never going back.

I want to start with a question, and I think it's something all of us can relate to.

Have you ever remembered something being better than it actually was?

Nostalgia is kind of a funny thing, right?

Nostalgia can can make us remember things in a different light than reality.

Like we tend to put this shine on the past that doesn't really match the way things were.

We look at the past through rose-tinted glasses, that's a phrase I've heard several different times.

It's easy to do that.

Nostalgia is really powerful.

So have you ever remembered something being better than it actually was?

When Megan and I first got married 15 years ago, we didn't have cable TV, we couldn't afford it, but we did have a Blockbuster membership.

And I'm sure a lot of us remember Blockbuster, maybe not all of us, because it's been gone for a little while.

But if you remember Blockbuster, you know that Blockbuster was like a staple of American life for a long time.

Like you remember the Blockbuster membership card?

You probably had one in your wallet or in your purse, those really cheaply laminated cards.

Like that was that was a big part of life.

Like Blockbuster was a part of culture.

And quick aside, my first job ever was at Blockbuster Video.

And I got hired when I was 16, and I got fired about three months later.

And I'm really glad that I did.

If you're thinking to yourself, man, you must be pretty bad to get fired from a Blockbuster, you're right.

But that that getting fired, it taught me a valuable life lesson.

I learned how to work harder, and I got rehired at a different Blockbuster, so not quite the same thing.

But I got rehired at Blockbuster, and it all worked out in the end.

So Blockbuster, I just want you to know, I am actually really, really grateful.

Thank you.

Thank you, Blockbuster, for uh for teaching me that lesson.

Okay, back to back to what we're talking about.

Okay, so Blockbuster.

Megan and I went to Blockbuster, and uh and we would walk down the aisles and we would see movies, and sometimes we see something that was like a blast from the past, and this happened to me one day, and I was just taken back.

I see this box, and I asked Megan, have you ever seen this movie?

And she's like, No.

And I can tell she has no desire to, but I'm like, babe, this this movie is amazing.

And the fact that you haven't seen this movie, like, we are absolutely renting this.

It is it is an incredible movie.

Like, you have to see this movie.

And it was the movie Lost Boys with Kiefer Sutherland from 1987.

Quick aside, last one I promise.

I love Kiever Sutherland.

Kiefer Sutherland, if you happen to watch this, and and if you do, that would just be amazing.

But if you watch this, I think you're awesome.

First of all, Jack Bauer is one of the greatest characters in the history of television, and I want to thank you, Kiefer Sutherland, for that character.

Also, one of my favorite games to play is this game called The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

You can link any actor or actress to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less.

And Kiefer Sutherland, you've done a great job in helping me be good at that game because you starred with Kevin Bacon in both a few good men and flatliners.

And so when I'm playing the Kevin Bacon game, I go through you a lot.

So thank you, Kiefer Sutherland.

You're great.

Back to Lost Boys.

Okay, so Lost Boys.

I saw this movie when I was like eight years old.

See, the thing is Megan and I had very different childhoods when it came to the movies that we watched.

Megan was the oldest child in her family.

And so her parents had a lot of control over what she watched.

I was number three.

I have an older brother that's about ten years older than me.

My older sister's five years older than me.

And so I grew up watching a lot of the movies that they watched.

My parents probably didn't even realize it.

I would hang out with them and they would watch a movie, and I'd just watch with them.

So I have a lot of nostalgia for movies I probably shouldn't have watched that young, but they're just the movies I watched with my older brother and sister.

And one of those movies was Lost Boys.

I watched this when I was probably seven or eight, and I thought it was like the coolest movie in the world.

I thought it was just, it was awesome.

And so when I saw that box at Blockbuster when Megan and I first got married, I was like, babe, this movie, it's amazing.

I remember it just being incredible.

Let's watch this movie.

And at the time, we were watching 24 a lot with Kiefer Sutherland.

And so I think that the fact that he was in it made her go, oh, okay, I'll give it a shot.

We rent it, we go home, I'm talking it up the whole way home, and we put it in, we start watching it.

And it becomes pretty clear pretty fast that uh I had I had way oversold this movie.

Like it wasn't anywhere near as good as I remembered it.

I'm not saying it was bad.

If you're someone going, hey, hey, I love Lost Boys, it's my favorite movie ever.

You're probably the only one if it is your favorite movie ever.

But even if you're like, no, no, no, I really like this movie, I'm not saying it's bad.

I'm just saying it's probably not as good as you remembered.

Like maybe the reason you love it so much is because of nostalgia, like it was with me.

Because as we watch this movie, it becomes clear, number one, that it was absolutely aimed at like 13-year-old boys in 1987, not at women in their mid-20s in like 2005, right?

And so I'm watching it with Megan and I can just tell she doesn't like it.

I don't know if you've ever had that experience where you recommend something to someone and they not only don't like it, but you have to be there when they don't like it.

Like maybe you tell someone to order something at a restaurant and they and they do, and then you have to sit there and watch them eat it, and you can tell they don't like it, but you're the one that recommended it, and you just you feel horrible.

So that's what I had to deal with for an hour and 20 minutes.

Megan is watching this movie, she hates it, I can tell.

Halfway through, I'm looking at her and I'm like, I'm sorry, I just I thought it was really good when I was seven, I thought it was awesome.

When the movie was done, I looked at her and I said, Babe, I I'm sorry.

That that was not nearly as good as I remembered it being.

I'll tell you what, you you get the next rental for sure.

And Megan looked at me and said, actually, I think I get the next five after that.

And uh, and she did.

So thank you, thank you, Lost Boys.

You lost me five consecutive rentals at Blockbuster.

Blockbuster.

I miss you.

Okay, here's why we're talking about this.

Because the truth is we all have this tendency to look back at the past with nostalgia, and it causes us to remember things being better than they actually were.

That's just one of the many reasons why we should always be looking forward and not backward, except in very specific situations.

We want to live life looking forward, not looking behind us.

Here's why that's so relevant right now.

Because all of us right now are dealing with nostalgia, but not nostalgia for five years ago, not nostalgia for ten years ago, nostalgia for like, I don't know, two months ago.

Things have changed so fast, they have changed so rapidly that a lot of us right now are dealing with true nostalgia for the way things were, but we're talking just a few months back, and so desperately we want things to go back to normal.

We want things to go back to the way that they were.

I've had that thought cross my mind 50 times in the last few weeks.

I just want things to go back to the way they were.

But then if I pause and I really think about the way things were a few months ago, I recognize some things.

And I start to realize that maybe I don't want things to go back to the way things were exactly.

Maybe I don't want things to go back to normal, maybe I want a new normal.

Like I don't want to go back to how busy I was two months ago.

By my own choice, I was so busy that Megan and I would have days where we couldn't really connect because I'm going this way, she's going that way, I'm taking this kid here, she's taking that kid there.

I don't really want to go back to that.

I don't want to go back to being worried and anxious about things that obviously don't matter at all in the midst of everything going on right now.

I I don't want to go back to being all caught up in things that really don't matter.

I don't want to go back to normal.

I want a new normal, and I believe more importantly that God wants a new normal.

I believe that we have a God that isn't looking backward very often.

We have a God that is constantly calling us forward.

We have a God who loves to do new things.

You see that happen often in Scripture.

For example, Isaiah chapter 43.

Isaiah 43 · chapter mention

God is speaking to the people of Israel, and he's talking to them about some of the amazing things that he's done in the past, things like parting the Red Sea, miraculous things.

But then in verse 18, he says, forget all that.

He's like, all the amazing stuff I've done in the past, forget about it.

Forget about it.

He says, because it's nothing compared to what I'm going to do.

I'm about to do a brand new thing.

See, I've already begun.

Do you not see it?

I'll make a pathway through the wilderness for my people to come home.

I'll create rivers for them in the desert.

He's saying, guys, I want to do something new.

We see this other times in Scripture, in Revelation 21, verse 5.

Revelation 21:5

God says, I'm making all things new.

Isaiah chapter 65, he says that I'll make a new heaven and a new earth, and they'll be so amazing that you won't even think about the old ones.

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

We have a God that's always doing something new.

We have a God that compels us forward, not backward.

So I don't think God wants us to go back to the way things were.

I believe God wants us to go forward and experience a life that we've never had before.

What if God wants to give you a life you've never had before?

What if God wants to take you places in life you've never experienced?

What if your best days are ahead of you and not behind?

If that's the case, then I never want to go back.

I want to go forward.

If you read scripture, you find countless stories of God trying to compel his people forward into a new reality, a new way of living.

But you constantly find the people digging their heels in the sand, and sometimes, like literally digging their heels in the sand, saying, No, we just want to go back.

Something about human nature, we're so comfortable with the way things were, we find ourselves going back there very, very easily.

In fact, I want to look at a story that really illustrates that for us.

It's a story that we find in John chapter 21.

John 21 · chapter mention

It's a story primarily of Jesus and a few of his disciples, Peter in particular, and this is a really interesting story in terms of where it takes place.

This takes place right after Jesus has risen from the dead.

And we find the disciples in this moment being amazed by the fact that Jesus is alive, but at the same time they don't quite know what to do with it.

They're not really sure what this means for their lives.

And so let's actually start in verse 3.

Simon Peter says, I'm going fishing.

And that's actually a really important statement.

Doesn't seem like it, it seems like a throwaway, but that's really big.

He says, I'm going fishing.

We'll come too, they all said.

So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night.

At dawn, the disciples saw Jesus standing on the beach, but they couldn't see who he was.

He called out, Friends, have you caught any fish?

No, they replied.

And then he said, Throw out your net on the right hand side of the boat, and you'll get plenty of fish.

So they did, and they couldn't draw in the net because there were so many fish in it.

Now the moment this happens, they realize who they're talking to.

They realize it's Jesus because what Jesus is doing here is very intentional.

He is He is recreating a moment that they had with Jesus about three years ago.

We can turn and see this in Luke chapter 5, verses 1 through 11.

Luke 5:1–11

It says, One day, as Jesus was preaching on the side of the Sea of Galilee on the shore, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the Word of God.

He noticed two empty boats at the water's edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.

Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water.

So he sat in the boat and he taught the crowd from there.

This is something Jesus would do because water acts as a natural amplifier.

And so Jesus would speak, and the sound would bounce off the surface of the water so more people could hear.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Now go out where it's deeper and let down your nets.

You will catch many fish.

Master Simon replied, We worked hard all last night, and we didn't catch a thing, but if you say so, we'll try again.

And this time their nets were so full they began to tear.

A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.

When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, O Lord, please leave me.

I'm far too much of a sinner to be around you.

For he was awestruck by the size of their catch, as were the others with him.

His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed.

Jesus replied to Simon, Don't be afraid.

From now on you'll be fishing for people.

And as soon as they landed, they left everything and they followed Jesus.

Now clearly, Jesus is recreating this exact moment in John chapter 21.

John 21 · chapter mention

And he's doing this for a very specific purpose, and it really has to do with Peter.

See, Peter was a really special person in Jesus' life.

Jesus recognized something in Peter, something really special.

In fact, the word Peter, that that name, that was a name that Jesus gave to him.

His actual name was Simon, but Jesus called him Peter, and Peter meant rock.

Peter was the first of the disciples to openly declare, you're the Messiah.

I recognize it, you're the Son of God.

And when Peter said that, Jesus said, You know what, Simon?

You have received this from God.

No other person has told you this, so from now on, I'm going to call you Peter, which means rock.

He said, Upon this rock, I'll build my church.

And the rock he was talking about wasn't necessarily Peter as a person, it was the declaration that Peter made, but still Peter was like a leader among the disciples.

He was part of Jesus' inner circle.

There were miracles and moments that Peter got to see, that Peter got to be a part of, that the other disciples didn't.

Peter and Jesus were very, very close.

And Jesus made it clear to Peter that Jesus had big plans for Peter's life.

But Peter also had a tendency to fail.

He does it several different times, but there was this one time in particular, and it just so happens to be really fresh on his mind in John 21.

See, when Jesus was arrested and put on trial, Peter sort of hung around.

He kept a safe distance, but he he wanted to see what would happen to Jesus.

And while he was watching this sham of a trial go on, someone recognized him.

Someone said, Hey, aren't you one of Jesus' disciples?

And Peter said, No, no, no, no, I don't know what you're talking about.

But then someone else said, No, no, no, you are.

I recognize you.

You are absolutely one of the disciples.

And Peter says, No, I promise you I'm not.

And then a third time he's he's accused of being a disciple, and this time he's so afraid of being arrested, he's so afraid of being thrown in jail, of being killed like Jesus is about to be killed, that he actually curses Jesus and says, I've never even met the man.

And the moment that he does that, he's reminded of something Jesus had told him just a few days before.

Jesus had actually told him, Peter, you're gonna deny that you even know me.

And Peter said, Lord, there's no way.

In fact, Peter throws the other disciples under the bus.

He says, They might do it, but I'll never do it.

I would die before I would do that.

Peter can't even imagine himself failing Jesus so spectacularly.

But Jesus said, You're gonna do it.

And when Jesus, when Jesus told that to Peter, he didn't believe it, but when Peter actually did it, when Peter denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times, and he realized that he fell to his knees, he wept bitterly, he was absolutely crushed.

And so what we have to understand about Peter is yes, Jesus rose from the dead, and yes, that was amazing, but that still didn't change the fact that the last time Jesus and Peter had a meaningful interaction, Peter was denying Jesus.

Peter had failed.

And so in the midst of failure, what's Peter doing?

He's going back to what he knows.

He's going back to his old life.

He's going back to fishing.

And that makes sense, right?

In Peter's mind, the whole fishing for men thing, that's probably long gone.

That ship has sailed.

He is he's clearly failed.

He's never gonna be that person.

So what does he have to do?

He's got to go back to what he's familiar with.

He's got to go back to fishing for uh, I guess, fish.

See, when we fail, when we hit a brick wall, when we have some situation where things don't go the way that we thought they would go, where maybe we we realize that we're not quite where we thought we were, it's so tempting in those moments to go backwards.

It's so tempting when we when we hit that wall to say, okay, clearly I'm not ready for this, clearly I'm not good enough, clearly I've missed something, so I'll just I'll just settle.

I'll just I'll just go back to what I'm used to.

I'll just say, I guess this is my life, I guess this is what it is.

That's what that's what Peter's thinking.

So he's going back to being the person that he used to be.

But Jesus has different plans for Peter.

And so, John 21, Jesus recreates this moment, the same moment that he used to call Peter to be a disciple of his for the very first time.

He's taking Peter back to that moment.

And if we keep reading, in verse 10, we see this amazing conversation that Jesus and Peter have.

I lost my place.

You know what?

I'll just tell you.

All right, it's all good.

I'll just tell you about it.

So here's what happens Jesus actually cooks breakfast for the disciples.

This is John 21, verse 10.

John 21:10

He cooks some breakfast.

And after breakfast, he says to Peter, Hey Peter, do you love me more than these?

And Peter says, Yes, Lord, you know I love you.

He says, Okay, then feed my sheep.

And then again, Jesus says, Peter, do you love me?

And Peter says, Yes, Lord, I love you.

He says, Okay, then then take care of my sheep, take care of my lambs.

And then the third time he says, Peter, do you love me?

And Peter's almost offended at this point, like, clearly, Jesus, you know I love you.

He says, Okay, then take care of my sheep.

See, this is an incredible moment for Peter because what what Jesus is doing here, he's telling Peter, hey, my calling on your life, it's still on.

You go back to that question that Jesus asked.

It's really interesting.

He says, Do you love me more than these?

These, these what?

Is he asking Peter, Do you love me more than these other disciples?

That's that's possible.

I don't think that's the case, though, because there's actually many times that the disciples end up arguing amongst themselves about which one of them is the greatest.

And every time Jesus hears them doing that, he hears them kind of ranking one another.

He puts a stop to it.

So I don't think Jesus is asking Peter in this moment to rank himself amidst the other disciples.

I think he's referring to something else.

So if it's not the other disciples, what's the what's the these that that Jesus is referring to?

I think it's fish.

I mean, think about it.

Jesus has just cooked this meal.

They've just eaten the fish that was caught.

And he's looking at Peter and he's saying, Hey Peter, do you love me more than these?

Do you love me more than fish?

And what you have to understand is is what fish would represent for Peter.

For Peter, fish would represent everything that Peter's ever known.

Fish would represent his past, fish would represent his career, fish would represent his safety net.

He's saying, Hey Peter, do you love me more than these?

Do you love me more than everything you've ever known before?

Peter has to think about it.

And he says, Yes, I do.

And then Jesus says, Okay, if that's the case, then I still need you to do what I called you to do three years ago.

The first time that your nets were so full, the first time that you left everything to follow me.

I'm still calling you, Peter, to be a fisher of men.

I need you to take care of my people.

He has to do this two more times for Peter to really get a hold of it, for Peter to really realize, no, no, Peter, you're still the Peter that I called.

You're still that that rock.

My calling on your life, it's still here for you if you want it.

Now, now here's the thing.

In order for Peter to do this, in order for Peter to move forward and to keep following Jesus and keep being the fisher of men that Jesus has called him to be, he's obviously gonna have to grow.

He's obviously gonna have to stretch, and that's gonna be uncomfortable.

That's the hard thing about life is that if we go back to what we know, it's usually safe, it's usually comfortable, it's easy.

We're familiar with that.

To move forward and to follow the things that God calls us to do, that that requires being stretched.

And so we have to ask ourselves, hey, do I want to grow or do I just want to go back to what I know?

Peter's having to face that.

Because for Peter to say yes to Jesus, for Peter to move forward into the life that Jesus is calling him into, it's gonna be hard.

It's not gonna be easy.

There's gonna be a lot of difficulty, he's gonna be stretched, he's gonna have to grow, but it's it's such a better life than the life that he had before.

Do I want to grow or do I just want to go back to what I know?

That's a choice for all of us to make right now.

Because again, all of us are in a in a difficult situation right now.

All of us have an opportunity, if we want to, just to slip back into old patterns of behavior, slip back into the old the old way of doing things, the old way of thinking about things.

In fact, right now, we might actually be longing for the old.

But I'm telling you, God, our God, he's a God that has a future for us.

He tells us in scripture that he has a future and a hope for his people.

He doesn't want us to live looking backwards, he wants us to go forward.

He wants us to move forward with him into the life that he's created for us.

He has called you into a new life.

He's called you to be a new person.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says, anyone who gives their life to Jesus is a new creation.

The old life is gone, a new life has begun.

Jesus has called you to be a new you.

He doesn't want you to go back to normal, he wants you to have a new normal.

He wants every single day, every single season of your life to be you, shedding the old and stepping more and more into the new.

God has something great for you.

But for you to experience that, for you to step into that, you're probably gonna have to be stretched.

Probably gonna have to grow.

But here's the beauty of it: you're not gonna have to do it alone because he's with you.

See, if you're if you're not a Jesus follower and you're watching this, that's the beauty of following Jesus is you don't follow him alone.

You don't live life for God.

This isn't this isn't Jesus telling Peter, hey, you're gonna have to step up and work harder.

What's Jesus doing?

He's feeding him breakfast.

He's sitting down with him, he's a friend of his and he's saying, Look, Peter, I still have this calling on your life.

Will you do it?

And then he promises to Peter that he's gonna be with them.

Very shortly after this, Peter and the rest of the disciples receive the Holy Spirit in a way that they never could have imagined.

They have the very presence of God with them.

They're equipped, they're empowered to do everything that God has called them to do.

See, when you follow Jesus, you don't live alone.

So if you're watching this right now and you're realizing that you want a new normal, that you don't want to go back to the way things were, but you want to step into something you've never experienced before, what I'm trying to tell you is that Jesus can take you there.

And he's gonna do it with you, he's gonna partner with you, he wants to have a relationship with you.

And it all begins when you just surrender to him.

When you just say in your heart, I believe in you, I want to follow you.

I'm ready to follow you.

I'm ready to move forward.

I don't want to go back, I'm ready to go forward.

If you're ready for that, even if you don't know what all of that means, we're ready as a church to help you with that.

In fact, do us a favor.

If that's where you're at right now, text the word ready to the number that you see on the screen.

Just text ready to that number, and and someone here that's part of his hands is gonna reach out to you.

And we're just gonna try to help you figure out what it really means to start taking steps toward toward following Jesus.

He loves you, he cares about you.

It's not some crazy ritual that you have to go through, it's really just a moment.

It's a recognition of who he is and and the love that he has for you.

We just want to help you kind of get your feet underneath you.

So text ready to that and we'll help you out with that.

But to all of you who are watching, whether you've you've followed Jesus for days or for years, just trust and believe that he has life ahead of you.

He has good things planned for you.

He wants you to move forward.

He doesn't want you to go backward.

And right now, if you're in the midst of a hard time, if you're in the midst of struggles, if you're in the midst maybe of even failure, I mean, I'll be honest with you, in the last few weeks, I've had a lot of failures.

I've had some really great moments with my family.

I've also had some moments that I wish I could erase.

But but in the midst of failure, I don't want to settle into the old ways.

I don't want to go back to what I'm used to.

I want to I want to step forward.

I want to go places with God that I've I've never gone before.

And if that's your desire, just believe it.

Believe that he's gonna take you there and surrender to it.

Surrender to that calling that he's placed on your life to be a new creation, to be a new person, and trust that he's gonna give you everything you need to do it.

He's gonna give you his spirit, he's gonna empower you and equip you to do it.

Trust him with that and commit in your heart, say, Lord, I'm not going backwards, I'm going forwards.

I trust that you want to take me somewhere I've never been before.

Over the next few weeks, we're gonna continue talking about what it means to never go back.

I'm so glad that you guys have tuned in.

I'm so glad that you guys are watching today.

What we're gonna do right now is I'm gonna pray.

We're gonna worship a little bit more, we're gonna wrap up with Lord's Supper, so stay tuned.

And again, if you have kids, make sure you stay tuned to the very end because the kid service is gonna be amazing.

Let's let's pray together.

Lord, thank you so much.

Thank you, Lord, for being our shepherd.

Now, you asked Peter to take care of your sheep, but but at the end of the day, you're our shepherd.

You're the one that takes care of all of us.

Thank you, Jesus, that you're patient with us.

Thank you, Jesus, that you love us enough that you don't let our past, you don't let our failures define us.

You always call us forward.

You always call us into a new life that you have for us, Lord, and we want that.

We don't even know what it looks like, Lord.

Sometimes it even scares us to think about what this new life would be because frankly, God, we get really comfortable with what we know.

But I believe, Lord, that you want to call us into places we've never been before.

You don't want us to go backward, you want us to go forward.

And so, Lord, create in us a desire, like really, God, create in your people a desire to go forward, not backward.

We don't want things to go back to the way they used to be.

We want things to be unlike they've ever been before.

So help us, help us experience that, Lord.

Help us trust that.

We love you, and as we worship you with this last song, Lord, we just want you to know that you're you're amazing.

It's an honor for us to be called your people.

We love you so much.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.