Look at Jesus

I want to jump into the message just with a quick disclaimer.

I love all my children.

I want to say that.

I have four of them.

I love them all.

And I'm close to each of them in different ways.

I've spent more time with my oldest, so I just I know him better.

And then I've got these two little boys.

My youngest Eli.

He is uh he's right about to turn two, and that terrible he's like actually ahead of schedule.

It started to click the last couple weeks.

Um my third Judah, he and I are really close.

In fact, he was really sick yesterday, and uh, and Megan's really sick right now.

And so I was up all night with Judah.

I think I maybe got an hour and a half of sleep because Judah uh has a really bad cough, and when he coughs and wakes himself up, he just screams my name.

Uh the kids all this is a thing in my family.

All the kids scream for me.

I don't know why.

I'm not that nurturing, but uh they want me.

And so last night for me was about every 30 minutes, Judah coughing and then going, Daddy, daddy! And I'm like, I'm right here, I'm right here.

He's like, okay.

We just hung out in the living room and and didn't sleep.

It was great.

Um I love all my kids.

I will say this though, and I've said this before, I have a very special place in my heart for my daughter.

I got one girl.

You know, I've got one girl, I've got I've got three boys, and it's not that I love them any more or less, it's just I love them differently.

You know?

Like I've said this before, and I mean it.

When my daughter was born, I I for the first time ever understood murder.

I was like, oh yeah, I could do that.

You know, I could totally do that.

Before my daughter, like I could never envision myself physically harming another person to that extent.

And I held her, I was like, I will kill anyone who I mean, I will, Lord help me, right?

There's just something, you know, I in fact that's what I say to a lot of parents when they're having kids and ask them what's the difference, boys and girls.

I'm like, you would die for your boy, but you'd probably kill for your daughter.

Like it's how you feel.

And it's so hard for me because, you know, like she's in school now and she's starting to, she's just so beautiful and awesome and precious.

She's more precious than any of anyone else.

And uh, and then she'll start mentioning to me like boys.

She'll be like, There, oh, there's this boy in my class.

And I'm like, What there's what boy in your class?

Why are you talking about a boy in your class?

I want to meet this boy in your class, and uh, I want to terrify this boy in your class because no one suspects the pastor, right?

And that's what I've thought.

Like, no one's no one suspects that.

I love her.

And it's really cool because because right now Lily's at this age, five years old, where we're starting to see, we're starting to see some things like some talent that she has come forth.

One of the coolest things as a parent is when you get to watch your children mature and sort of become who they are, and and you see them start to develop a little niche, a little thing that they do.

And Lily is starting to do art, and it's really cool because Megan's family, if you know my wife and her family, they're all insane artists.

It's actually kind of frustrating because they're all they're all really, really good and like professional good.

And so, for example, um Megan's sister Britney has has put some art here at our art shows from time to time.

And like, this is a painting that Britney did for a His Hands Art Show uh not that long ago.

And she's like all artists, like that was a few years ago.

She hates it now.

She's like, uh, I had to, I didn't tell her I was gonna show this because she would have said no.

Because she's like, I don't like it anymore.

You know, artists are like that.

Whatever they used to do in the past is not good enough.

Megan's brother, uh, he does art, but on like this architectural level, and and he builds things for Disney.

In fact, if you've ever raised your hand, if you've ever ridden the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves ride at Disney in the last couple years, small little detail, he built the pickaxes that the dwarves are carrying on that ride.

So you've seen his handiwork.

They're all just really great artists, and I have zero artistic ability.

Like none.

And so if you've been to our event Canvas, the art event that we do to raise money from time to time, if you've never been to one, it's awesome.

I will not sit at their table.

I won't do it.

It's awful.

I sit at their table for Canvas, everyone starts to paint, and and like five minutes in, I look at what I have and I look at their stuff, and I'm like, I'm out.

You guys, I is there a finger painting table?

Is there something for children?

Because that's my level.

They're all really good.

And Lily is starting in her spare time to draw and to paint, and she's she's she's good.

So maybe she got that gene.

It's funny, the other day I was I was bragging on her, and she had drawn this picture of a bird, and it was really, really good, better than I could do.

And she's five, and I was I was showing it to someone, I was like, look at what Lily drew, and Lily was dismissing it right away.

She's like, it doesn't really count because I cheated.

And I was like, How do you cheat drawing a bird?

She said, Well, I looked at a picture of a bird when I drew it.

And in her mind, that's cheating, you know?

And I'm sitting there, first of all, like some of the greatest works of art in history, priceless works of art, the Mona Lisa, someone was sitting in front of that canvas when Da Vinci painted that.

You know, like that's not cheating.

You didn't trace it, okay?

You you you can have a reference point.

It is okay if you're drawing a picture to look at something, like you probably don't have birds memorized yet.

That's all right.

So you're free, you're not cheating if you look at a picture and you use that as a reference point.

That's actually a good thing.

That's something that any good artist would tell you to do.

The scripture that I want us to look at this morning as we begin our conversation tells us that Jesus should be a reference point for us in the same light.

Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 says, Therefore, since we're surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up, and let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.

In other words, Jesus is a reference point.

Jesus is someone that we are not simply allowed, but encouraged to look at, to reference, as we build our lives, as we live our lives, we're supposed to keep our eyes on him.

That's the way we move forward in life, is Jesus followers.

I know not all of us in the room would call ourselves Jesus followers, but for those of you who do, we've been in a series for the last few weeks called 2020 Vision.

And I know it's cheesy and it's on the nose because it's 2020, but it's like it's 2020.

I mean, this we gotta take advantage of the obvious sometimes, right?

And what we've been looking at is this concept that as believers, those of us who call ourselves believers, it should be a no-brainer, it should be something that we can admit right off the bat, and it's simply this I don't know what I'm doing.

Raise your hand if you believe that statement.

You don't know what you're doing.

Great.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm your pastor.

I have no idea.

I really don't.

I mean, literally, if you were at my house yesterday, you may not come here today.

But like, because I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm trying my hardest, and it's a struggle.

It's a struggle.

We all have blind spots.

None of us has 20-20 vision when it comes to how to navigate life.

That's why I love the way that 1 Corinthians 13, 12 puts it.

We don't yet see things clearly.

We're squinting in a fog, we're peering through a mist.

That's what it's like to live life.

And to be a follower of Jesus means that at some point you've come to the end of yourself and you've admitted, yeah, I can't do this on my own.

I don't have the right vision, I don't have the ability to see straight, I don't know where I'm going, I don't know how to how to get to where I need to go.

And that's why we so often find ourselves in situations where we say, I never thought I'd be here.

I never visualized this happening, being in this experience.

If we had 20-20 vision, that wouldn't be something we would say.

We would always say, Yeah, I saw this coming a mile away.

But our vision as people, our discernment, our wisdom, our ability to navigate life, it's just limited.

But here's the beauty: God's He's never limited.

He sees everything exactly as it is, exactly as it will be, exactly as it could be.

That includes you.

And when we choose to live our lives connected to him, we don't have to live purely with our vision guiding us.

We don't.

We can live with his vision, with his perspective, with his wisdom, with his discernment.

He gives those things to us.

We just have to grow in our ability to discern them.

We want to live with his vision.

And the simple truth is a big part of uh of vision is knowing where to look.

I mean, God could could give you perfect vision for life, but you could still use that vision to look at the wrong thing, right?

You can still use that vision to fixate on the wrong thing, and you'd be off track.

If you have vision, if God gives you vision, you still have to choose where to look.

And Hebrews says, hey, look at Jesus.

Look at him.

Keep your eyes fixated on him.

There's a really interesting scripture in Hebrews chapter one.

It says the sun radiates God's glory, God's own glory, and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

Uh the word character in English is actually the same in the Greek language, it's character.

And it's a word that they would use in those times if someone had like a wax seal that they would place on a letter.

They'd have maybe a ring or something like that, and that's the way you would know that the letter was authentic and hadn't been opened, is you would put a piece of wax, uh hot wax, on the letter to close it, and then you'd press your seal into it, and then that that wax would form around it, and it would be the perfect impression of your ring, of your symbol.

It says that Jesus is that of God.

He is the perfect impression.

If we want to know what God the Father is like, we look at Jesus.

He's the clearest picture we have.

It says that Jesus, the sun, radiates the glory of God.

And that's a really, really cool idea in the language that it's written in it, it gives us the picture of the sun.

You know, the sun is really powerful.

Even though it's millions of miles away, if you look directly at it, you will go blind.

So you might say to yourself, I just I just want to see the sun with my own eyes.

I want to see the sun in all its glory.

Pick up a pair of binoculars, stare at it for a while, and you will see it in all of its glory, and it's the last thing you'll ever see.

Because even though it's millions of miles away, that's how powerful it is.

But but light radiates from the sun.

And the light that radiates from the sun, we can see it.

And it actually illuminates everything for us.

And so it's saying that Jesus is like that with God the Father, that he radiates the glory of God, meaning that we can look at Jesus and we see.

We see what God is really like.

We want God to give us vision, but we've got to make sure that we use whatever vision he gives us to look at what we need to look at, and what we need to look at more than anything else is Jesus.

We spent the last few weeks talking about this idea of revelation.

If you haven't been here, it's the idea that there's just there's certain truths about life that we will never observe on our own.

We need God to reveal it to us.

No matter how hard we try, no matter how smart we are, how many books we read, how many podcasts we listen to, there are just certain aspects of life that we will never figure out on our own.

We need revelation, and God gives us revelation in a variety of forms.

We've talked about the importance of scripture, and we've we've been reading scripture together as a church a lot.

But check this out John chapter 5, verse 39, Jesus said, You search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life.

John 5:39

But the scriptures point to me.

Last week we talked about the Holy Spirit, God's actual Spirit promised to us, in us, working through us, guiding us, giving us revelation, giving us vision.

But John 14, 15 through 17, Jesus says, If you love me, obey my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you.

He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth.

So how do we get the Holy Spirit?

Through Jesus.

He says, I will ask the Father.

And because I ask the Father, he will give you the Spirit.

See, Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God.

The scriptures point to Jesus.

The Holy Spirit attests to the power of Jesus.

And if we want to live life with the right reference point, if you're tired of flying blind and just trying your best and hoping things work out, if you want something better than that, something more certain, something more sure, then God would say to you, Hey, look at my son.

Look at Jesus.

Keep your eyes focused and fixated on him.

That's the way you go forward in life.

He's the target.

I don't know if you've ever had a target for life.

Hopefully you have.

Hopefully you've had someone that set like an amazing example, maybe a parent, and they were such an amazing parent that you you were like, I want to be like this person.

This person's my hero.

I know that that is not the story that all of us have, so I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands because that would be painful for some of us, right?

Many of us we didn't have a target to shoot for.

Our target was just to not be our parents.

Right?

Some of you, you you got out of school, you got out of home, and you're like, I'm whatever I do, I'm just not gonna be them.

How well did that work out for you?

You're like how many of us have said that I'm not gonna be like them, and then one day we do something and we're like, oh my goodness, I am my father.

Like, I'm that person.

That's because not having a target is is not nearly as good as actually having one.

Just trying to live life avoiding being something you don't want to be, it's very different than living life focused with a clear picture of who you actually could be.

Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit in us, he's that reference point for us.

That when we fix our eyes on him, when he's in our focus, that's when we see clearly.

That's that's when we see God.

But the question we have to ask ourselves, and and Jesus followers, this is a really convicting question, is do I actually care enough to see him?

Do I actually desire to see God?

There's this really interesting story in Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

It's Moses.

If you know the story of Moses, he he lived a pretty crazy life.

Did some awesome things, saw some awesome things.

In Exodus 33, verse 14, he's having a conversation with God the Father, and in this conversation, he's expressing a little bit of uncertainty, insecurity about whether or not God's actually going to be with him and fulfill his promises to him.

Exodus 33:14

It says, The Lord replied, I will personally go with you, Moses.

I'll give you rest, everything will be fine for you.

And then Moses said, If you don't personally go with us, then don't make us leave this place.

How will anyone know that you look favorably on me, on me, and on your people, if you don't go with us?

For your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all the other people on the earth.

And the Lord replied to Moses, I will indeed do what you've asked, for I look favorably on you, and I know you by name.

And Moses responded, Then show me your glorious presence.

And the Lord replied, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name Yahweh before you.

For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose, but you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.

The Lord continued, Look, stand near me on this rock.

And as my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock, I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by, and then I'll remove my hand and let you see me from behind, but my face will not be seen.

It's a really interesting encounter between Moses and God.

Because, guys, Moses had seen some things.

Like if any of us could say, I saw what Moses saw, we would, we would, we wouldn't have faith, we would have true knowledge that God is real.

Like you could not have convinced Moses that God is not real, because Moses saw God do some stuff.

His story really begins in earnest, in terms of his relationship with God at this moment known as the burning bush.

He's a shepherd.

His life hasn't gone the way it was supposed to go, and he's in a pretty interesting place in life, and he's out one day and he sees this bush and it's on fire, but it's not being consumed by the fire, and he's like, that's interesting.

And it draws him to it, and he looks at it, and then all of a sudden, a voice speaks to him from the bush and he realizes it's God, and he takes off his shoes and he has this crazy encounter with God where God gives him this empowerment to go and rescue his people who are slaves in Egypt.

And so he goes and he sees God do some insane stuff in Egypt, some stuff that like they've made movies of it.

You have to use CG to do it right, because it's like crazy stuff.

He saw God do these insane things to convince Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go, and that happens, and he's with the people, but then the Egyptians chase them and they get to this sea called the Red Sea and they can't pass it, they can't swim through it.

The Egyptians are coming behind, they don't know what to do, and so God tells Moses, take your staff, slam it into the ground.

He does that, and the sea parts.

Like it splits apart and they walk through it.

And then when they're in the wilderness wandering around, looking for the land that God has promised them, God does amazing things.

At night, they're led forward by this pillar of fire in the sky.

During the day, it's a pillar of smoke.

Every morning they wake up and there's just food on the ground.

It just showed up, it's manna from heaven, is what it's called.

And they eat that, so they're sustained.

Like he saw God do amazing things.

God called him up to the top of this mountain one time.

And his presence was on the mountain, and his presence was like smoke and lightning, and it's just craziness.

And Moses got to go up and walk into that cloud.

And so here's what's so incredible about that.

You would think that if you were Moses, you would be able to say, I've seen it all.

I've seen everything that I could ever hope to see.

You should be lucky if you could see half of what I've seen.

But that wasn't the attitude or the heart of Moses because Moses was not satisfied with having seen what God can do.

He wanted to see God Himself.

He says, God, I want to see you.

I want to see you in all your glory.

There are other people in Scripture that had a similar passion.

David, Psalm chapter 27, he writes this one thing I ask from the Lord, and this only do I seek.

Psalms 27 · chapter mention

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling, he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock, and then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me, and his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy, I will sing and make music to the Lord.

Hear my voice when I call, Lord, be merciful to me and answer me.

My heart says of you, seek his face.

Your face, Lord, I will seek.

David wanted to see God.

Moses wanted to see God in all his glory, and God says, Moses, I love your heart, but you can't.

You can't.

It would, it would, it would be your undoing, it would kill you.

It's almost like something radioactive, something so powerful that you can't be near it.

It just it's too much.

And so Moses just gets to see a glimpse.

And David never gets to look God in the face.

You know, there were other people in the Old Testament.

Job is an incredible character in the Old Testament, and he experienced great tragedy and he lost a lot of loved ones.

And one day he said, if only I could know whether or not there was life after death, if only I could know if that's true.

He said, then I would I would have peace.

And he said, actually, I would eagerly await the release of death.

If I could just know that death does not have the final say, but he didn't know that because he was living on the other side of Jesus, just like David, just like Moses, but not us.

Not us.

We live on this side of Jesus.

And and realize Hebrews 1 3 says that what the sun radiates the glory of God.

In other words, Jesus is exactly what Moses was asking for.

Moses said, I want to see you.

I want to see you in all of your glory, and Jesus is the glory of God on display for us.

We just have to choose to look at him, to picture him in our minds, to think about him, to dwell on him.

Because he's everything that those people before wanted.

It's he's everything that they longed for.

They deeply, deeply desire just to see him.

But they couldn't, and we can.

Because Jesus came to this earth and he put skin on so he could be around us and with us, and he's given us his spirit.

And we have the ability now, as people, to be in the presence of God in a way that Moses, David, Job they could ever have dreamed of.

We can do that.

But the question is for us do we do we care enough to, do we long to see God?

We began the series with the story of a man named Bartimaeus who was blind and he went up to Jesus and he had the courage and the wisdom to say, I want to see.

And I'm saying that it's a great thing to say to God, I want to see.

It's a better thing to say to God, I want to see you.

I want to see you.

And the simple truth is, in my life, guys, just understand, this week has kind of wrecked me a little bit.

There's certain messages that are not fun to give because as you write them, you just have to stop and pray all the time, Lord, I'm sorry.

And not out of this deep shame and guilt, because I know that God's forgiven me and He loves me, but out of this recognition that I'm not I don't I don't care enough to see half the time.

You know, Lord, you're right in front of me.

You came for me.

I have your spirit inside of me, but but half the time I I'm so busy looking at other things and far lesser things.

I'm not looking at you, I'm I'm looking at everything else.

I mean, seriously, when it comes to life and your hope and your your plans, the things that you put your faith in, what do you look to?

You do you look to a paycheck?

Do you do you look do you look to politics?

Please tell me you don't look to politics.

I love being a dad because politics is is more and more like children in the backseat of a car just arguing with each other and you're driving being like, would you shut up?

Would you shut up, please?

Right?

It's just bad.

But yet we we look to it.

We we look to so many things.

We we fixate on so many things.

We fixate on ourselves.

Like we we are we're the selfie generation.

You know, the word selfie didn't exist when any of us were born, unless there's some really young people in the room, like really young.

But like selfie, that's that's a word that's been invented because we were given these incredible pieces of technology.

These things are amazing, they can do so much.

There's more technology in your phone than there was in the first space shuttle that went to the moon.

And what did we decide to do with this amazing?

Technology, we said, you know what I can do?

Put a filter on that, it'll look pretty good, right?

Selfies.

I mean, there's like it's crazy how many pictures of our faces our children will have to thumb through one day, right?

Because we often look to ourselves.

Like we're so busy looking at ourselves, looking at all the things around us that we don't look at Jesus.

And that's an interesting thing because when it comes to your eyes, they're designed to fixate on something very specific.

Like your eyes are amazing.

The way God's designed them, you see with unbelievable clarity, like high, high definition.

But in a very, very small area.

That's why you look at something, you look at someone, they're clear, but but right next to them, that other person, they're just a blur.

They're in the periphery.

As I prepared this message this week and as I prayed, I'm last night up crazy hours with my son and thinking about the message, and I'm just like, Jesus, you are you are in my periphery far more often than you should be.

That I'm not looking at you, I'm looking at so many other things, and you're off to the side, and I know you're there, and that's great.

But if I would just turn and I would shift and I would I would look at you, if I would have a heart like like Moses and say, I just want to see you in all of your glory.

I want to think about you, I want to open up your word, I want to read you.

I want to read you, and I want to understand you for who you actually are.

Like, church, there are so many people in this world who will sell you a version of Jesus that is not the real Jesus, and you know it's a version of Jesus, not the real Jesus, when you understand him.

If anyone ever gives you a version of Jesus that is incredibly simplistic and incredibly one-note, that is not the real Jesus because Jesus is maddening at times.

He is so complex, and he should be because he's God.

Sometimes you read Jesus and you're like, oh, I get you, and then you read he says something else, he does something else like I don't get you at all.

It's like being married.

Like, I just don't understand.

You know?

I thought I had you pegged, and then you went and did that.

And now I don't understand it, but that's a good thing because it makes you wrestle with God.

You're supposed to wrestle with him.

But if we would have a heart as a church, as people who call ourselves Jesus followers and say, I want to see you, and I want to get my eyes on you, Jesus.

I want to think about you all the time.

I want to ponder who you are, how magnificent you must be.

I want to read your word, and when I don't understand it, I want to say, Holy Spirit, open my eyes because I believe whatever he's saying is so good, I want to see it.

We have to choose, people, we have to choose to want to desire to see God.

Because when we do, let me ask you the question.

If you desire to see God, would he be faithful to show himself to you?

You know, before Jesus, he couldn't.

You know, to Moses, he's like, hey man, you can see me as I walk away.

But you can't see me too much.

Things have changed.

Things have changed.

He is the radiance of God's glory.

Worshiping you guys can make your way out.

We've got uh four more people getting baptized, I believe, right now.

We have four in the first service.

That's awesome.

Guys, God is doing some unbelievable.

We are seeing people just make decisions to follow Jesus.

And if you've been here, you know that we don't like push that.

We just say, hey, here's who he is, and make up your mind.

And that's, I guess, in a lot of ways, what this message is about.

Like, here's who he is.

Do we do we care enough to see him?

Have you thought this week about who Jesus actually is?

He is the radiance of God's glory.

He is the Son of God.

He's the He's the King of Kings.

He's the King of Kings.

And one day, every knee will bow, and every single tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

That word Lord, it's a powerful word because it means authority.

That one day every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is exactly who he says he is.

That he is the way, the truth, and the life, that he is the beginning and the end, that he is the one who authors and perfects our faith.

That Jesus, he's God.

And I think if there's one thing that we as Americans in church have to fight the most, it's just apathy.

It's just apathy, right?

Because we have we have it really good.

We we do.

We have it so, so good.

That's why, like, oh guys, and just so you know, this is not all of you.

You guys are all amazing, okay?

But like, sometimes we'll get complaints about the coffee.

And I'm like, seriously, I just I just it's hard for me to picture someone walking up to Jesus and be like, you know, Jesus, that was a pretty good message, but uh, my mocha was just a little off.

And uh, like, come on.

We we just here's the thing if you've complained about the coffee, you're you're fine, but like, also stop.

Um because he's Jesus.

You understand?

Like he's he's Jesus, and and what I'm saying is that if we walk into this place and our takeaway ever is coffee, or or honestly, anything other than Jesus, then either we are doing something terribly wrong, or individually we're missing it.

Because he's Jesus, he's amazing, he's beautiful, and and look, we have it so well as Americans that it's easy for us to be like, yeah, Jesus, yep, cool, check that box.

But but understand, church, if he walked through these doors right now, what would you do?

And I'm telling you this, you wouldn't stand up and clap for him.

You would fall on your face and you would worship him because he is the God of this universe, he's the one who made you, he is the one who wove you together, he's the one who thought you up, he is the king of kings, he's the lord of lords, and is his followers.

What we should do is be in his presence and be awed by him and fall to our feet and worship him because he is the God who made us and he's the God who loves us, and he's the only God who came for us.

So come on! He's Jesus! He's Jesus, we love you, Lord! We love you, Lord.

There's just no time to be apathetic.

You know, there's just there's no time for it.

I just don't want to do it anymore.

I don't want to show up and be like, yeah, it's a good Sunday.

Like, I'm not apathetic about my kids.

I'm not apathetic about my wife to the point that it drives her crazy.

And you know, I would love it if the Lord would be like, Justin, you've been coming on a little strong, man.

Just back off.

Just give me some space.

I hear that a lot at home.

Uh I got four kids.

Uh but but here's the thing: the Lord's never gonna do that.

You will never desire him more than he desires you.

It's just time for us to focus on him, to fix our eyes on him, to recognize him as he is, to think about him, to wonder and marvel at how good he is.

And even when we don't understand him.

And look, I know some of us are here, and you're like, man, I don't even know if he's real, and that guy's yelling.

Uh I'm sorry.

He's real, he's real, he's alive.

We've actually got a few people right now that are about to make a pretty big profession because they've experienced everything we're talking about, they've experienced life with him, and they don't want to look back, and they don't want to have life without him anymore.

They're going all in, they're giving everything to him, and they're they're being obedient to do something called being baptized, which is something that Jesus actually asks us to do when we follow him.

And so the message this morning is simple.

Just look at Jesus.

Hey, look, it's Jesus every day.

He's with you because you have the Holy Spirit if you follow him.

And if you don't, just give your life to him.

He's awesome, he's real.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you so much for for everything you're doing in this place.

And Lord, I I uh I'll be the first to confess you have been in my periphery far, far too much.

I get so focused on so many lesser things, and in my mind they're important, and sometimes, Lord, in my mind they're urgent, but rather than stop and look at you and trust you to help me with those things, I just I don't have time and I just I focus on them so much, whether it's a a youth basketball game or a sick kid at home or something that needs done in my my finances, something that needs done here at the church, Lord.

I just I don't spend enough time simply looking at you and thinking about you and marveling at you, and I want that to change.

So, Lord, I ask that you would change me.

I ask that the Holy Spirit, every person in this room, that you would you would refill us, that you would renew our passion for you.

Not some forced emotion, Lord, but but a genuine recognition of who you are and an inability to contain our love for you.

Lord, we ask that you be with these people getting baptized.

As their church, Lord, we commit to coming alongside them, to helping them through thick and thin, to being there for them when things are going well to celebrate them, when when things are going poorly to hurt with them and surround them with support.

Thank you for the honor of living life alongside each other, Lord.

We love you, and it's in your name we pray.

Amen.