Go Get Jesus

I want to talk about something that is very dear to me, something that I love very much, but I did not realize how much I loved it until it was gone from my life.

I'm sure we all have things that we're very, very blessed by, but until they're gone, we don't realize that we took it for granted.

And there's something in my life like that.

I cherish it so much, but it's just it's so rare.

And it's uninterrupted sleep.

For most of my life, sleeping was like time traveling to breakfast.

It was awesome.

It was like I close my eyes, I wake up, time to eat.

It's great.

And that's not what sleep is anymore.

It's not.

I'm not complaining, I'm not whining.

I've said this before.

I've probably had maybe 10, maybe 10 days in the last two years where I went to bed and woke up when I wanted to.

And I'm not even just talking about like the amazing thing of waking up when my body wakes up.

That's long gone.

That will, that will probably, that probably won't happen for 25 more years where I just go, I'm gonna wake up when I wake up.

I'm even just talking about waking up when my alarm goes off because I live in a house with five other people and they all wake me up.

The best sleep I've gotten in the last two years was when I went to Guatemala.

And uh it was amazing.

They warned us, they're like, hey, you know, you might not get good sleep because Guatemala City's loud, and there's a lot of people in a small area, and when you're staying there, it's just it's a city and it's loud, and it was awesome.

It was the most peaceful experience of my life.

Like I'm I'm there and there's a road right outside my window, and I didn't care.

Like I'm car horns, that's nothing.

Because I've got children.

You know?

And it's all, it's actually, it's everybody in my house, my wife included.

I'm throwing her under the bus here, too.

Everyone in my house wakes me up almost every night.

Megan wakes me up to tell me that I'm snoring.

And I hate the fact that I snore.

I really, I really do.

I hate the fact, I get the fact that that's probably interrupting her sleep to some degree.

But it's not like I decided to do it.

Telling me I'm snoring, it's not like I'm going, oh, okay, I'll stop.

You know, I got I don't do it on purpose.

I'm asleep.

And waking me up to tell me that I'm snoring, it's just waking me up to give me information that's true, but I have no control over.

It would be like if I woke her up and said, it is 60 degrees outside with a 20% chance of rain.

She would go, thank you.

Uh you know, it feels like that.

It feels like that, but yet she she has this need.

And I get it, it's just it's hard.

It feels like I'm being punished, you know, like you're snoring.

Oh, okay.

And then there's my kids, and they all wake me up and they all do it differently.

It's so weird to me because when I was a child, I remember having times where I didn't feel well or I was scared, and I would need to go to my parents' room.

And I always, like, always went to my mom's side of the bed.

And my goal, I remember it so clearly, actually, I remember like, don't wake up, Dad.

In my child's mind, he would kill me if I woke him up.

He was like a sleeping bear.

And so I would sneak around his side of the bed, I'd go to my mom, and I would just go, trying really hard to wake her up without waking up, Dad.

Never once, not one time in my entire life as a child did I go, I'm scared, I'm gonna go get my dad.

How many of you, by the way, as children, went to your dad when you were in the night?

How many of you went to your mom?

Yeah.

All of our kids go to me.

Every single one of them.

None of our children go to Megan.

I don't know why.

She's nicer than I am.

Like, she's prettier, she's nicer, she's their caretaker, but at night, for some reason, they're like, it's gotta be dad.

And I think they've just taught each other that because Eli, he's one and a half, and he's not big enough to actually get out of his bed and come in our room yet.

He just screams my name.

Just screams my name.

It's weird.

Every other moment of the day, he wants her.

Every like I go to him, he's like, Mom.

And he like lean away from me, but at night he goes, Dad! And I'm like, What?

He's just the other kids have taught him.

You know?

He just yells my name.

Judah, my three-year-old, this probably happens at least three times a week.

Um, Judah will come in the room.

This is like one, two o'clock in the morning, you know, right when you've hit that good sleep.

Uh, he comes in and he says my name while crying at the same time.

He goes, like that.

And I wake up and I'm like, what is it?

And he doesn't say anything, he just lifts his arms up and says, he wants me to pick him up and take him back to his room.

Um and see, you guys are awesome.

First service, those people, they uh I'm just joking.

They're awesome.

We're family.

But first service, they all went, aww, and I was like, that's not, no, it's not cute.

It's cute the first time, but time 268, it is not, it is not cute because here's what's happening in his little three-year-old brain.

He got out of his bed, he went all the way downstairs, walked in my room, cried, yelled my name.

Why?

Because he wants me to take him back.

It doesn't make any sense.

But we do this all the time, and I lose sleep.

Doesn't go to Megan, not once, comes to me.

Then there's my son Liam, my oldest, who knows better.

But yet, this is like in every other week thing.

Liam will come in my room and he'll shake the shaker.

He shakes me.

Dad.

I'm like, what?

What?

I can't sleep.

And I'm like, I don't care.

Just go to bed.

This is what sleep is.

You lay there and you you fall asleep.

It may take some time.

Just stay in bed.

You getting out of bed and coming to me, this does not help you sleep.

I can give you drugs, but I'm not supposed to, you know?

Just sleep.

Like, what do you want me to do?

I can't sleep.

And then Lily, now Lily, uh, she's my girl.

I got one girl.

And uh, and I don't love them fairly.

I don't.

I love them all intensely, but she's my one girl, and so the boys can just forget it.

Lily can come to me.

Lily could be 40 years old, and she could come in my room, drive to my house, and be like, dad.

And I'm like, what do you need, my princess?

You know, that's just how that goes.

It's my girl.

It's still frustrating from like a sleep deprivation point, but Lily has a very specific thing.

This isn't that often anymore, but see, altogether between Megan and the other, it's like every night.

Um, they have like a they have it worked out that way.

It's it's amazing.

Um, Lily says this very specific phrase that if you're not part of my family, it makes no sense.

She says, Dad, I need you to fluff my night night.

Now, what that means, her night night is her blanket.

That's what she calls her blanket.

Fluffing is where you take the blanket and like evenly distribute it over her body.

That's what she calls fluff it.

And she says, I need you to fluff my night night because she's woken up and her blanket is not evenly distributed across her body.

Um, it's a tattoo.

And I need to come to her room and I need to fluff her night night.

And I do that.

I just do that.

They don't go to Megan, they go to me.

Last night I was I was having a good time.

It was midnight, and uh I just I had the message was like on my mind, and I needed to do some changes.

And so I was like, you know, I'm gonna turn the tables.

And I filmed it, but I'm not gonna show it to you because that's it's I'll I'll put it on Facebook probably, but I'm not gonna show it to you because I don't want to make my kids a spectacle right now.

But I was like, you know what?

I'm gonna I'm gonna do to them what they do to me, because it's midnight and I'm feeling great.

And they don't have school this week, so I don't really care how much sleep they get.

Um and so at midnight I walked into Liam's room and I went up to Liam and I shook him.

And he opened his eyes and I said, I can't sleep.

And he was, he went, he went, stop, stop, just stop.

And I kept telling him, like, I can't, I just can't.

And he's like, stop, dad, stop.

And he just turns over.

I got no sympathy, I got no empathy, I got nothing, right?

And then I went into Lily's room.

I didn't do the youngest kids.

I was like, no, don't wake the babies.

But like, I went to Lily's room and I I went up to her and I was like, Lily, she just opened her eyes real big.

I said, I need you to fluff my night night.

And she just looked confused for a second.

And then she just put her thumb in her mouth, turned over, and would not respond to me, gave me like nothing.

Just silent treatment.

I kept saying her name, just nothing.

And I think she could hear me, but she was just not, you know.

Every night I get woken up, and I I love uninterrupted sleep.

I think you actually learn a lot about who a person is when you wake them up in the middle of the night.

Like you might think someone is sweet and kind and lovely and charming.

Go wake them up at 2 a.m.

when they don't expect it, and you'll find the real person.

Your real character comes out when you're disturbed in your sleep.

And today we're gonna look at a story where that happens to Jesus.

We learn a lot about Jesus in this story.

It's Mark chapter 4, verses 35 through 41.

Mark 4:35–41

If you have the mobile app, by the way, we have all the verses there, you can pull that up.

That's what I'm gonna use.

As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, let's cross to the other side of the lake.

And this lake is what's called the Sea of Galilee.

Think like the Great Lakes.

It's a very large lake.

It's not technically an ocean, it's this, but it's a massive body of water.

And so they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind, although other boats followed.

But soon a fierce storm came up.

High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion.

The disciples woke him up shouting, Teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, Silence, be still.

Suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm.

And then he asked them, Why are you afraid?

Do you still have no faith?

The disciples were absolutely terrified.

Who is this man?

They asked each other.

Even the wind and waves obey him.

We sing a song every once in a while called It Is Well, and it has this lyric that says, Let go my soul and trust in him.

The wind and waves still know his name.

That comes from this story.

We learn a lot about Jesus here.

Number one, deep sleeper.

Very deep sleeper.

Jesus is asleep in what appears to be like a hurricane.

You know?

It's raining, it's storming, the boat is rocking back and forth.

Water is coming into the boat.

For all we know, Jesus is soaking wet and he's asleep.

So either Jesus has a sleep disorder, or maybe he has so much peace that he's able to sleep like that.

Like a baby.

So Jesus, deep sleeper.

Number two, Jesus is powerful.

He's powerful.

Now look, I I know some of us, it's easy.

I get it.

I've been there, you read a story like this, and there's skepticism, like, come on.

I mean, come on.

He he tells the storm to stop and it stops.

I get that, but I have seen Jesus do things that do not make sense.

I have experienced what it's like for Jesus to do things that just do not make sense.

And if you ask, well, how do you know it was Jesus?

Because that's the person that I prayed to.

I have seen people in our church pray in the name of Jesus, and I have seen results happen that that were completely outside the scope and power of a person.

He's real, he's powerful.

He's powerful.

And I I love the fact that he seems frustrated here.

You gotta make sure you humanize Jesus because he's a human.

Sometimes we read the teachings of Jesus, we read the stories, and we want to picture Jesus just being like completely even killed the whole time.

No way.

The guy had a personality, still does.

He's a person.

And and Jesus is asleep, and just like you would be when you're startled, awake, like it's not like they wake Jesus up and he goes, like, what is it, my children?

How may I be of assistance?

You know?

He's like, what, what, what?

And they're like, We're gonna die, and you're asleep, you don't even care.

And then he goes and he tells the storm to stop, and there you have it.

And for years, I read this story, I've read this story, I don't even know how many times.

And I always read this like Jesus is mad at the disciples for waking him up.

You gotta you see that?

It seems like he's he's frustrated that they bothered him with this problem.

And I relate to this now as a father so much because those of you, by the way, who are parents, you have young children, or you have had children in your home, how many times have you been woken up because they're scared of a storm?

Right?

How many have had that experience where weather has caused your children to go to you and be like, it's storming?

Yeah, a lot of us.

And and how many times when your children woke you up because it was storming, did you say, I got this?

And you walked outside onto the front porch and you looked up at the sky and you just said, quit it! And you looked at your kids and were like, There you go.

No?

None.

No, no, what do you do?

You you say to your children, it's just it's just a storm.

We're fine, we're safe, we're good, go back to bed.

You have nothing to worry about.

But that's not what Jesus says.

He doesn't tell the disciples, he doesn't say to the disciples, guys, we're fine.

We're not gonna sink.

We're we're totally safe.

You're overreacting, just chill out, let me go back to sleep.

He doesn't say that.

This storm is a legit storm, they're in trouble.

And Jesus does not get frustrated at his disciples for waking him up.

He does not rebuke the disciples for waking him up.

Go back to verse 39.

Let's see what he rebukes.

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, silence, be still.

And suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm.

Jesus does not rebuke the disciples for coming to get him in their time of need.

He rebukes the storm.

Now, after this, we see Jesus express some frustration and say, Well, hey, why are you guys still afraid?

You still have no faith.

Jesus isn't frustrated that they went to him.

If anything, he's frustrated that they came to him the way that they did.

Because they didn't go to Jesus and say, Jesus, we're in trouble and we know that you can help us.

So please.

They go, Jesus, you're a jerk.

I mean, look, verse 30, that's what they say, basically.

The disciples woke him up shouting, Teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?

And that's one of those questions that has the answer implied.

Like when someone looks at you and says, Don't you care about my feelings?

What they're saying is, You don't care about my feelings.

They're saying, You don't care about us.

And they they so misread Jesus here.

They have him so wrong.

1 Peter 5, 7 says, Cast your cares on God, for God cares about you.

Like God, God cares about us so deeply.

If you're here this morning and you're wondering if anyone cares, as far as human beings go, I don't know.

Really, I don't.

I hope I hope there's people around you who care.

We care, but I'll tell you this: God cares more than you can imagine.

Jesus Christ is the most compassionate, feeling, empathetic person that has ever walked the earth.

Time and time again in Scripture, he's moved with compassion.

Moved to tears.

So yes, Jesus cares.

But he doesn't get mad at his disciples for coming to him, and the reason we know that is because Jesus is always telling people to come to him.

Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, Jesus says, Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you, because I'm humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.

Jesus says, Come to me.

The disciples were absolutely right when they said, Let's go get Jesus.

We're in trouble, we don't know what to do, let's go get Jesus.

That was the right decision to make, and it was effective.

Scripture is filled with stories.

The Gospels, the four books we have in the New Testament that tell us the story of Jesus from different perspectives, the Gospels, they are they are filled with stories of people who go get Jesus when they need him.

And there's a variety of people.

We see in in Mark chapter 5 a woman who has this condition, medical condition, that causes her to bleed and she can't get it to stop.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

And in her culture, that means she's going to be ostracized, gonna be called unclean.

She's spent all the money she has on doctors, but there have been no results.

In fact, it's gotten worse.

And so in verse 27, it says she heard about Jesus.

So she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe, for she thought to herself, if I can just touch his robe, I'll be healed.

And immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him.

And so he turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my robe?

His disciples said to him, Look at this crowd pressing around you.

How can you ask?

He touched me.

They're like, Jesus, everybody.

Everybody touched your robe.

We're like, they've got to understand, there's a huge crowd.

Thousands of people follow Jesus everywhere he goes.

At this point in his ministry, thousands.

You see it in the story with the lake, right?

Like they're trying to cross to the other side to get a little peace, and people are like, well, let's get in our boats and follow him.

That's the following that Jesus has.

They're pressing through this crowd, everybody's touched him.

But then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done.

And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace.

Your suffering is over.

That is a beautiful statement.

Your suffering is over.

And I believe that there are many of us in the room longing to hear those words from Jesus.

Your suffering is over.

This woman has tremendous faith.

She's got so much faith.

She's like, I don't even have to interact with Jesus.

I just gotta touch his robe, touch his shirt, and I'll be healed.

And she experiences tremendous results.

She was right to go get Jesus.

We can look at this Roman officer in Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

It says, When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed, and in terrible pain.

And Jesus said, I'll come and heal him.

But the officer said, Lord, I'm not worthy to have you come into my home.

Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed.

I know this because I'm under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers.

I only need to say go and they go, or come and they come.

And if I say to my slaves, do this, they do it.

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed.

Turning to those who were following him, he said, I tell you the truth, I haven't seen faith like this in all of Israel.

And I tell you this that many Gentiles will come from all over the world, from east and west, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven.

But many Israelites, those for whom the kingdom was prepared, will be thrown into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And then Jesus said to the Roman officer, Go back home because you believed it has happened, and the young servant was healed that same hour.

This man has tremendous faith.

And he experiences tremendous results.

He was right to go get Jesus.

Let's look at another story.

Very interesting story.

Kind of hard for us to reconcile in terms of the way that we've been taught to see the world, but very interesting nonetheless.

One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, Teacher, I brought my son to you so you could heal him.

This is Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

He's possessed by an evil spirit that won't let him talk.

Now, when we start talking about evil spirits, it's easy for us to be like, oh, okay, just tune out, check out weird stuff.

We did a series a few months back called Standing Ground, and it was all about this concept in the Bible called spiritual warfare.

And so we went into detail about what this stuff's all about, and I encourage you to listen to that if you're interested.

But he says that I brought my son so you can heal him.

He's possessed by an evil spirit that won't let him talk, and whenever the spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground.

And then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.

So I asked your disciples to cast the evil spirit out, but they couldn't do it.

Jesus said to them, You faithless people, how long must I be with you?

How long must I put up with you?

Bring the boy to me.

This is him looking, it's like this is like a coach looking at his team, being like, We've practiced this.

Why haven't you figured this out yet?

All right, I'll do it.

And so he asked that the boy be brought to him.

And so they do that, and when the evil spirit saw Jesus, it threw the child into a violent convulsion and he fell to the ground, writhing and foaming at the mouth.

How long has this been happening?

Jesus asked the boy's father.

He replied, Since he was a little boy.

The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him.

Have mercy on us and help us if you can.

Guys, just picture this father.

He loves his son so much.

And he's probably had to rescue his son.

Pull his son out of flames, pull his son out of water, just to keep his son alive.

And this is a terrifying existence.

He says, Have mercy on us and help us if you can.

What do you mean if I can?

Jesus asked.

Anything is possible if a person believes.

And the father instantly cried out, I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief.

And I love the authenticity there.

Because this is like this man saying, I do believe.

Sort of.

Anyone ever kind of believe in Jesus before?

You're like, I have great faith.

And I also don't at all at the exact same time.

And I need something to change.

I need something to happen.

That's normal.

If you feel that way, that's normal.

This man shares that.

And Jesus doesn't rebuke him.

Doesn't say, Well, because your faith isn't complete, I'm not going to help you.

He says, Help me overcome my unbelief.

And when Jesus saw that the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil spirit.

Listen, you spirit, that makes this boy unable to hear and speak, he said, I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again.

Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into another violent convulsion and left him.

The boy appeared to be dead, and a murmur ran through the crowd as people said, He's dead.

But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet, and he stood up.

It's a beautiful picture.

His father was right when he said, I should go get Jesus.

But notice that he's not like the Roman officer, and he's not like the woman with the bleeding problem.

He does not have tremendous faith.

He's not like the woman who's like, I just got to touch a shirt.

He's not like the officer who says, Jesus, you don't even have to come.

Just say the word.

That's how much faith I have in you.

This man's like, I sort of believe, I sort of don't.

Yet he has the same exact result that the other two have.

To be honest, he's a lot like the disciples because when they wake Jesus up in the boat, they don't exactly seem confident that Jesus is going to help.

They're not filled with faith.

That's why Jesus says, why don't you have faith?

But here's the common link between all four.

All four experienced miraculous deliverance from their problems.

Two of the four had great faith.

Two of the four had mediocre faith at best.

But all four went to Jesus.

All four, no matter the state they were in, said, let's go get Jesus.

Might I suggest that we need to do the same.

That it matters more to him that we simply come to him than it does the state in which we come.

That we need Jesus.

And we need to go get Jesus.

Because in this room right now, there's problems, there's crises, there's struggles, there's anxiety.

It's amazing.

Our culture is so interesting right now because our culture screams out we don't need God, but we need free health care so we can afford all the medications and pills that we need to cope with being alive.

Because we are the most soul-crushingly anxious and depressed group of people that has ever lived.

We don't need God, but we need all this other stuff just to cope with existence.

And look, I'm not saying that if you have a prescription for a condition that you shouldn't take it, God has been good enough to bless us with medical help, but I'm saying that we're not whole.

So we might say, as a culture, we don't need you, God, but we clearly need something because we're not whole.

And when people went to Jesus, they left whole.

No matter what you have, no matter what problem you're facing, what situation you're in, you take it to Jesus and you lay it at his feet and you leave it there.

And I know this group of people, and I'm looking around the room, and I see people who have had stories where God has just healed you instantly of maybe a disease, a condition, of a crisis in your life.

It was just gone.

And I'm looking around and I see people who have prayed for that, and you're still in the midst of it.

Persevere.

Don't stop.

Jesus said, keep on seeking, keep on asking.

Don't stop.

But go to him.

Go get Jesus.

That's what I'm saying.

It's as simple as it is for us, it's as simple as it was for the disciples.

Just go get him.

He's right there.

Do we realize, do we really believe that he's with us?

That he's nearby.

Because he's always nearby.

He's always available to us.

In fact, it's interesting in the scriptures, if you ever read this phrase that God spoke from heaven, we picture that as like the heavens way up high, and God spoke and must have been some booming loud voice for them to be able to hear it all the way from heaven.

But the Hebrew language is a really interesting language.

It's ancient, doesn't have a lot of words compared to our language.

And so phrases, they don't mean the same thing to us as they did to people, you know, 3,000 years ago.

And when you read in scripture that God spoke from the heavens, it could also literally be translated out of thin air.

That it's not God booming from outer space.

It's a voice that's right here.

Elijah once heard God speak to him in a gentle whisper.

Like when someone comes up next to you and whispers in your ear.

That's how close God is to us.

I mean, we have the Holy Spirit.

If you believe in Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit.

God's Spirit is living inside of you right now.

At work within you.

And the more room you make for His Spirit to move, the more His Spirit will move.

The more space you allow the Spirit to occupy in your heart, the more space the Spirit will take up.

Might I suggest that we go get Jesus.

Whatever is going on in your life, go get him.

If you're depressed, go get Jesus.

If you're anxious, worried, fearful, go get Jesus.

Go to him and tell him what's going on.

If your marriage is on the rocks, go get Jesus.

If there's a relationship in your life and it's it's it's broken, the Lord knows I have those relationships.

Go get Jesus.

They say, Jesus, I don't know what to do.

I've tried, I've failed, I need you.

And if your faith is great, then go with great faith.

And if your faith is small, then go with whatever faith you have, but go get Jesus.

And every moment of every day, we have the ability to go to him, and he is powerful because he is alive and he does not fail us.

You just heard a voice that said, Hallelujah.

That's Nate Snow, who was in a horrific car accident almost 10 years ago.

Nate, I know what you've been through, and I know that you go to Jesus.

There's not one of us that doesn't have the ability to do that.

And what here's what I'm saying, church, like it's a Sunday morning.

We have the ability to go get Jesus every moment of every day because we have his spirit within us.

He literally lives inside of you.

You are the kingdom of God.

You're you house the Holy Spirit, okay?

We don't think that way a lot, though.

We think in terms of like space.

Like we need to go to church.

This is not a holy place.

It used to be a Kmart.

No one ever walked in here when it was a Kmart and said, I just feel the presence of God in this place.

You know?

If that was the case, it wouldn't have closed.

Now, what makes this place holy is you.

It's the Spirit of God here through you.

Every moment of every day, you have the chance to go to Jesus and commune with him.

But there's something really powerful about a Sunday morning when we come together.

And I think the tragedy is that very often we run the risk of coming to church but stopping short of coming to Jesus.

I've done that.

There have been plenty of Sundays where I'm like, I can I say that I came to church?

Yes, I did.

I even gave the message.

But did I did I come to him this morning?

It's like we we get here and we sing the songs and we think and we're like, yeah, maybe serve on a team, and you're like, keep that up, by the way, we need you.

But then there's this other step that we can take where it says, no, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna strip off everything in my life that's weighing me down, and I'm gonna take another step, and I'm gonna go to the feet of Jesus, and I'm gonna bow to him, and I'm gonna worship him, and I'm gonna hand him my problem, and I'm gonna ask him for help.

It would be a tragedy this morning if you got up and came to church and stopped short of coming to Jesus.

So here's here's what I'd like us to do.

Matt, you can come out.

We're gonna finish with a little bit of worship.

Um and this is an opportunity for us to say some some true things together.

We need Jesus.

We need him.

And if you're here and church is new, I'm telling you, you need you need Jesus.

And I'm not saying that offensively.

I need Jesus.

And I need Jesus every bit as much today as I did when I was 10 years old and I gave my life to him.

I need Jesus so much.

I need him.

You need him.

We all we need him, and guess what?

He's here.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16 says, So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.

Hebrews 4:16

There we will receive his mercy, we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Come boldly to him.

Go get Jesus.

And give Jesus the chance to tell your storm to shut up.

Give Jesus the chance to look at you.

Amen.

Give Jesus the chance to look at you and like that woman say, Your suffering is over.

Give Jesus the chance to interact with you the way he did with that Roman officer.

By the way, that Roman officer got to hear Jesus say, This man amazes me.

You can actually come to Jesus in such a way where he says, Wow, what an honor.

Go get Jesus, come to him, and experience what that boy and that father experienced.

That boy experienced Jesus literally picking him up and standing him to his feet.

Some of us this morning are so broken that spiritually we are we're collapsed on the floor.

And we need Jesus to pick us up, stand us on our feet, look us in the eye, and say, You're good now.

And this morning is an opportunity for us to do that.

And so we're gonna worship.

But I want this to be an opportunity for us, more importantly than what I want.

I want it doesn't matter.

I believe the Lord wants this to be an opportunity for for many of us this morning to literally come to Him.

We have this need sometimes to do physical things to express what's happening in our spirits.

That's why baptism is a physical expression of something that's already happened.

It's not magic water.

You know, we fill it from the same source that we we use our drinking water.

It's all the same.

But it's a physical representation of what's happening spiritually.

Sometimes we need to do something physically to seal what God is doing in our hearts.

And so this morning, as we worship, I want to invite you to come forward, to come and worship right here.

To come so that in your mind, when you stand up or whatever you do, if you wheel yourself over here, whatever you do, you're you're coming forward.

You are saying in your mind, I'm I'm coming to him.

And I'm coming to him vulnerable and raw and ready to receive.

We're gonna pray, we're gonna worship, you're free to sing, you're free to sit where you're at, but you're also free to come.

And Jesus says, Come to me.

By the way, if someone you love comes forward, feel free to come with them and put your hand on their shoulder and pray with them, and pray over them.

The first gathering, I heard the sound as I was praying and we're worshiping, like sound like someone had thrown something at me.

And I turn around and there's a cigarette lighter.

And either someone was trying to hit me in the head with a cigarette lighter.

Uh, I don't think I deserve that.

But uh, or what I really discerned is that that was someone that said, I'm done smoking.

And they they threw their lighter up on the altar and just said, I'm free.

He gives us freedom, people.

Freedom from addiction, freedom from fear, from anxiety, from worry, freedom from everything.

We just gotta come.

So I encourage you to come.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you for this amazing day and this incredible opportunity to come to you.

You are God.

You are God.

There is nothing you can't do.

There is no pain you cannot fix, there is no hurt you cannot heal, there is nothing broken that you cannot restore, and we are coming to you right now as a church, saying that we will not be people who stop short.

We will not be people who fail to take that step toward you when we need you most.

We will come to you.

And we believe, Lord, we will see you move, we will see you work, we will see miracles happen in us, around us, through us.

By your power and your power alone.

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

Amen.