Holy Confidence – A Million Little Yeses

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today I'm excited to get into a little two-part miniseries.

This is something that's been on my heart for a long time.

This little series is designed and encourages you to step into the life that God has for you.

This series is called Holy Confidence.

Hoko for short, everybody.

And um, it's gonna be a really good little two-part series.

A few weeks ago, we wrapped up a series on our dreams called Dream Again.

And I realized something that you can have a great dream without confidence, and all you have is a daydream.

So, what I want to do for these next couple of weeks is I want to ask this question where does my confidence come from?

Like, where does your confidence come from?

And often we will look at other people and we will think that they were born with something different than what we have or what we were born with.

And I just want to tell you there's an entirely different way to dream with God, and it is not to dream in your own strength.

In fact, let me give you an invitation to come back next Sunday.

Next Sunday, I'm preaching a message on a topic that I think is one of the greatest endemics of our generation: insecurity.

And all of us were so insecure, social media has only exacerbated this problem.

And so what we do is we become these people so insecure and we're doing like we're selling our lives short, begging people to love us but hiding who we actually are.

So, what do it look like if we walked in a different kind of security?

That's next week.

Today I want to talk to you about where your confidence comes from.

To get us started today, some 12 years ago or so, my family took a trip to Disney, and we love Disney, and by we I mean my wife, but we love Disney.

We do.

And so we go to Disney and we're doing our thing, and up until that point, my my two little guys, all they wanted to do was to ride one ride, but they were never quite tall enough.

It's one of the scarier rides at Disney.

Have you ridden this one?

Tower of Terror.

Anybody rid this one before?

And this one's this one's fun.

If you don't know what it is, it's supposed to be this haunted, like old hotel.

And what happens is you get in line, you get on this this elevator, and you go up, the doors open, you're really high, and then the bottom falls out and you fall.

Well, my boys wanted to ride it, and my wife didn't want to ride it.

She wrote it one time, and people in Orlando are still complaining about the volume at which she screamed because it was so bad.

So, some 12 years ago or so, my my oldest son Joey, he had been growing his little gross bur, and we go, and every time we would go, we'd go to the measuring stick, and he wasn't quite there.

I was like, stand on your tippy toes, come on, spike your hair up, whatever you gotta do.

And he finally gets to the point where he's there and he he it touches the top of his head.

He's like, Let's go, this is it.

I'm like, let's go, Joe, come on, it's you and me.

So Joey and I get in line for Tower of Terror.

And if you know anything about Disney, they are the masters of hiding the line.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

You get in line, you're like, oh, this is not too bad.

And you turn a corner and you're like, oh, this is really bad.

This is why it's the tower of terror.

Terror is the line, you know.

We wait in line and we wait in line, and over time, as we're going through this, like I keep saying things to Joey, like, Joey, are you scared?

He's like, No, I got this, Dad, I'm good, I'm good.

And I say it one time to him, and there's this group of high school girls, a group of about four of them in front of us, and I could tell that three of them were excited about this, but one in the back was obviously having an internal panic attack.

Her skin was going flush, there was no color in her face.

She was nervous.

She was doing the things that girls do where she was like fanning herself as if it would make any difference at all.

And I said to Joey, I was like, buddy, are you are you scared?

He's no dad, I got this.

And the girl who was scared turns around and looked at him and saw how small he was compared to her.

And she goes, Little guy, are you scared?

He's like, I'm not scared at all.

Not at all.

And I promise you, on my life, this girl bust into ugly crying.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Ugly crying's when bubbles start coming up out of places that they're not supposed to come out of.

And he wasn't scared.

It was like there was this internal difference in him that he carried from such a young age.

Just another fun Disney story.

It always made me think about this.

When my youngest daughter, Ella, my only daughter and youngest, true, both of those are true.

When she was little, by the way, I've been sick all weekend and I am super hopped up on like cold medicine, so this could get really weird really fast, okay?

We could.

Um, so my daughter, when she was little, the one she wanted to ride so desperately was called Space Mountain.

And if you've been there, that's the roller coaster in the dark.

And so she finally meets the height requirements we go, and the whole way through, I'm like, Ella, are you scared?

No, daddy, I'm not scared.

Ella, are you scared?

No, daddy, I'm not scared.

I'm like, well, maybe I'm a little scared.

She goes, I'm fine, just go, come on, let's go.

And if you've ever ridden this the Space Mountain ride, you don't sit next to people in a row, you sit one in front of each other, and there's three to a cart.

And so we finally make our way to the front.

She's so excited, first time riding it, and she sits right in front of me.

And one last time, just to mess with her, kind of grabbed her shoulders and I said, Ella, I'm scared.

Are you scared?

And she turned around and her eyes were welled up with tears, and she said, Maybe a little.

Both of my kids did these moments, and and you could say it like this: they stepped into a moment with courage.

Now you understand this, and I understand this, that the stories I gave were little examples of like moments of courage, but those little moments of courage are what opens the door to greater moments where courage is going to be required of you.

Doesn't it seem like courage is always a luxury for the biggest person in the group?

Doesn't it seem like there's some people who are just born with an extra dose of courage in them?

Come on, you ever met someone from Polk County whose motto is, hey y'all, watch this?

Like there is just some people, they seem to live or be born with a different dose of courage.

And here's what I want to say to somebody who came today.

If you are going to accomplish the plan and purpose of God in your life, there's gonna be some moments when God opens a door for you and you're going to have to step through it with unbelievable courage to take hold of the divine destiny that God has for you.

Let me add one other thought.

I was reading this week, one of my favorite authors, a man named A.W.

Tozer, he said this.

He said, A scared world needs a fearless church, a church characterized by courage.

Come on, we live in weird times, everybody.

Can we agree about this?

It's weird.

Um, last night I'm in bed, I'm about to go to bed, and I get a message from our church staff, and it says, Um, there has been a shooting at Florida Southern College, like here in Lakeland.

And immediately my mind went to this is a moment where courage is gonna be required of us.

And all we heard was that little bit of information.

Thankfully, there wasn't a shooting, there was a credible source, but everybody freaked out and was scared for a moment.

And I'm glad nothing happened, but we live in a world where something like that happens, don't we?

Like we live in a world that's gonna require courage of us, and I just want to say to you, if you are going to step into your divine destiny, it's gonna take a supernatural dose of holy confidence.

Let me let me tell you what this is and what this isn't.

Holy confidence is not self-confidence.

You ever meet someone who's just cocky?

And you would say they're so full of themselves.

That is not what I'm talking about.

That is actually far from the plan of God.

I'm talking about you and I becoming the kind of people so enveloped by the Spirit of God that we step into moments that our natural self wouldn't be able to, but we're not operating in our confidence and in our courage, but in God's confidence and his courage.

Sometimes when you read the Bible, it's important to really pay attention.

Here's why.

Often we read the Bible at a cursory level, we read it quickly and we read it at a high level, and it's easy to assign and attribute to people characteristics that aren't exactly true.

We read the Old Testament, we read stories about guys like Moses and Joshua and Noah and David and Daniel, these extraordinary people who had these divine moments of ridiculous, audacious kinds of courage, and we read it and then we compare it to our Tuesdays, our normal days, our failures, our moments of weakness, and we compare our lives to them, and we think, man, there must have been something different about them.

But here's what I've learned about the Bible it is genuine and authentic.

And when you read the Bible and you really pay attention, the Bible will tell you what people actually dealt with.

In Joshua chapter 1, we meet a guy named Joshua, and Joshua is going to go on to live this extraordinary epic saga of a life.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

If you grew up going to Sunday school, you maybe heard the story of Joshua where he tore down the walls of Jericho.

He's this extraordinary leader who God is going to use to lead the people of Israel into the promised land, the land that God had promised to a man named Moses.

But Moses was this extraordinary leader.

He was the kind of leader that it would have been impossible to lead after.

Joshua grows up in Moses' shadow.

And in Joshua chapter 1, God shows up to Joshua and he says, Hey, Joshua, Moses, my servant, your leader, is dead.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

Now I'm choosing you to take the people of Israel from the place they are now into the place I promised to them.

And Joshua's like, well, hold up, hold up, wait, what?

What?

It's hard to follow a good leader.

Okay, fine, yeah.

But if Moses couldn't do it, what makes you think I'm the person to do it?

This sounds like anything other than courage.

And I want you to pay attention to this phrase.

We're gonna see it three times in these verses.

Joshua chapter one, we'll start with verse five.

Says this.

God said to Joshua, No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life.

As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

There's a recipe for courage.

He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And then he drops this atomic bomb on them.

Four words designed to encourage your soul.

He says, So be strong and courageous.

If you're a person who like falls asleep in church today, here's the message: be strong and courageous.

Like there's gonna be some moments in your life where strength and courage feel like the antithesis of how you feel.

But in those moments when God has called you to something, be strong and courageous.

And here's why.

God says, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give to them.

And it's like if it wasn't clear enough the first time, he he brings it back and he adds an adverb.

He says, So be strong and very courageous.

Be careful to obey all the laws my servant Moses gave you.

Do not turn from it to the right or the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

Here's what I want you to do: keep this book of the law always on your lips.

Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.

Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Quick side note this is what God wants for you to live a prosperous and successful kind of life.

And then if it wasn't clear the first two times, he says, Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous?

Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

So we're gonna meet a guy named Joshua, and the first picture of him that we have is not confidence, it's not courage.

What is the first picture we meet of him?

He needs to be reminded over and over and over again, and the phrase God uses is be strong and courageous.

Literally, this phrase in Hebrew means take heart and work swiftly.

Like step into moments that I prepare for you.

He says, Be strong and courageous.

Now, why would God have to say this to Joshua?

If he was already courageous, why would God have to remind him of something he was already?

He wasn't.

It's because Joshua's life was the opposite.

His life would have been characterized by fear.

And you and I know fear all too well, don't we?

Fear is a liar.

Fear limits and sets the boundaries of your freedom.

You understand this?

If you're afraid of heights, you'll never climb high.

If you're afraid of commitment, you'll never experience intimacy.

Fear creates and establishes the boundaries of your freedom.

And one of the messages of Scripture is God created you to walk in freedom.

But Joshua's life is characterized by fear.

Let me ask you a question.

If you look back at your life, are there any moments where fear stopped you from stepping into a moment?

Because all of us have.

All of us have those moments.

The moment we were afraid to step up, the moment we were afraid to step in.

Fear creates the boundaries of our freedom.

And I just want to say this to somebody today.

There's a tension that all of us live in when it comes to stepping into your divine destiny.

It's fear-oriented, but we live in the tension between two fears: the fear of failure and the fear of insignificance.

And I think if you could figure this out, like if you had both fears on a continuum and on one side was the fear of failure, and the other side was the fear of insignificance, you need to identify where on that continuum am I.

Let me show it to you like this.

The fear of failure asks a question.

What will happen if I try?

Like, what's the worst case scenario?

Some years ago, uh my family and I were at a baby's birthday party.

The baby was turning one year old, so he was just kind of up and toddling around.

And someone as a gift bought him one of those toys that's like a little sit-on scooter with a steering wheel, and on the back it had a little handlebar that you could you can grab it and you could learn to walk by pushing it around.

Real cute gift, real common gift.

Well, the grandfather of this little one-year-old took it upon himself to like leave everybody alone and put this thing together.

So he gets it 95% put together, and he hadn't put the handlebar in.

And the little one-year-old was so excited that he walked up to it, sat on it, and started driving around on it.

I want to point something out to you.

The seat of this thing was roughly four inches off the ground.

It was so low.

And this grandpa starts freaking out, it's not done, it's not done, the handlebar's not on.

And I said, Sir, what is the worst case scenario here?

It is four inches off the ground.

One of the things that's a limiting factor for us is when we live under the fear of failure, we limit ourselves by thinking, what's gonna happen if I fail?

Mark Twain, brilliant author, said it like this.

He said, I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Like, most often fear lives in our minds and we imagine the worst case scenarios, but have you ever noticed that very often the worst case scenarios don't even happen?

Like, like what happens if you try to start a business and it doesn't quite work exactly like you want it to?

It may be a little tight financially for a season, you may need to cut back financially a little bit, you may experience a little bit of embarrassment, but I don't want to not try.

The fear of failure stops so many dreams before they ever take a first step.

But there's another fear that I believe you can lean into.

It's the fear of insignificance.

Fear of insignificance asks, what will happen if I don't try?

What will happen if I don't try?

What song will go unwritten?

What piece of art will go undone?

What book will never find publishing?

What will not happen?

What life will not be changed?

Who will I not get to employ and change their life?

What will happen if I don't try?

This is important.

So we meet Joshua, and Joshua is going to go on to live this epic saga of a life.

But when we first meet him, there's this moment where God shows up to him and he says, I want you to notice something.

Be strong and courageous.

Did you notice?

He says, Do not be afraid.

This is important because fear is a limiting factor in our lives.

He says, Do not be afraid.

What's fascinating is some biblical scholars argue that you can find a variation of that phrase, do not be afraid or fear not, 365 times in the Bible.

Why is it significant?

Because there's one for every single day.

Because every single day that you wake up and chase after the destiny God has for you, fear is the constant companion of every dreamer.

There's one promise for every single day.

He says, Do not be afraid and do not be discouraged.

Discouraged is the fun word.

The courage is what we're talking about.

This means the opposite of, or it literally means to run away from.

He says, Don't run away from what I've put inside of you, step into it because I've called you to something great.

Okay, let me say this with a certain amount of authority as a pastor in your life who loves you.

Are you ready?

God has called you to something great, so do not be afraid and do not be discouraged, but have the courage to trust God and step into your divine destiny.

It's a big deal.

Now look, let me let me admit something about me.

Um I'm not like I'm not a big literature person.

Um I I like did whatever it took to get through those kind of classes in high school and college.

I am not I'm not a big lit guy, I'm not a big fan of that stuff.

The only Shakespeare quote that I know is this.

This is from the 12th night.

He says, Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

We meet Joshua and he's not a son of nobility.

We meet him and he hasn't really done anything yet.

He's living in the shadow of one of the greatest leaders of all time, but God chooses to thrust greatness upon him.

Now, this is an important delineation for us because you need to understand that there is a difference for us between greatness and fame.

I want to talk to all the young people in the room for just a moment.

We live in a generation that is fame hungry.

We want to be discovered, not developed.

We want our social media, our Instagram, we want, we want our Facebook, we want our TikTok, we want our Tinder.

Come on, somebody, we want it to blow up.

That's what we want.

And we want to be famous.

But let me teach you the difference between greatness and fame.

Fame is self-seeking and it's self-serving.

Fame is all about you.

Come on, you've ever been online and seen someone and you're like, how is this person famous?

It makes no sense at times.

Fame is self-seeking and self-serving, fame is all about you.

But the way of Jesus is the right way, and the way of Jesus isn't to be famous, it is to be great.

Okay, how does God delineate the difference?

Fame is about yourself, greatness is always about others, it's an others-centered life.

That this is the reason I think that our Here for Good Week is such a big deal.

It's a reason, it's because there's moments where you need to take this, make this decision to say, I'm taking the spotlight off of me, I'm rolling up my sleeves, and I'm going to serve somebody.

That this is the reason that for some of you, I think it's important for you to know that you've been a part of our church for a long time and you've been involved in an access group, and it's been wonderful and it's been good for you, but now it's time to take the spotlight off of you and say, How can I shine this on other people and live a great life by opening my life up to lead other people to experience what I've experienced?

Greatness and fame are different.

Let me give you a litness test, okay?

If you want to know whether your life is seeking greatness or fame, here's a good way to tell.

If you were to examine your prayer life, answer this.

If God answered all of your prayers, would it change the world or just change you?

It's tough.

Because a lot of our prayers are pretty me-centered, aren't they?

God help me, God bless me, God make me great, God do things in me, God provide for me, God give me a wife, God give me kids, God give me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

And God loves you and He wants to hear what's on your heart, but it's not all me-centric.

If God answered every single one of your prayers, would it change the world or just your world?

Like we need to be people who think outside of ourselves.

So there's this moment.

Jesus has come, lived, died, risen again from the dead, and after a period of just a short amount of time, he gathers his followers and he says, Guys, I'm leaving, but I'm not leaving you alone.

I'm leaving you, but I'm not leaving you to your own devices.

God is going to send the Holy Spirit to come live inside of you.

And look, I want you to notice what he says, the difference the Holy Spirit makes is.

Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

Jesus says, But you will receive power.

The Greek word for this is the word dunymus, which is the word that we would transliterate to dynamite, this explosive power inside of you when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

Now here's the result.

He says, And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

So here's what Jesus is saying.

When the Holy Spirit, come back if you would.

Jesus says, When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, what's going to happen is there's going to be a new power or a boldness inside of you.

There is going to be a courage, a holy sense of confidence that wells up inside of you to do what I've asked you to do, which is to be a witness.

By the way, what is a witness?

Someone who shares what they've experienced.

Now, all of us know this that God has called us not to keep our faith personal, but to share it with other people.

It's never been a private faith.

It's always been intended to be a shared faith.

But I want to say this to you.

But I also want to say to somebody that when you're enveloped and filled by the power of the Holy Spirit, you probably can't stop from doing it.

Why?

The evidence of a filled life is that you're having power to be a witness to do the things that God's called you to do.

That is this internal sense of courage and confidence.

By Acts chapter 4, just three chapters later, there's this moment.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

It's what we might call the first apostolic prayer in the Bible, where they say, Now, Lord, consider their threats, these people around them who wanted to hurt them for what they were doing.

And what we want you to do is enable your servants to speak your word with great oldness.

Like God, give us the courage that we need.

Here's what you need to understand about holy confidence.

It is the opposite of self-confidence and self-seeking.

Holy confidence says, God, I can't do this in my own strength, but I don't need my own strength because my confidence isn't in me, it comes from you.

So, ready?

Where does courage come from?

Now, the funny thing is, if I were to ask this question of you, like, where does courage come from?

My guess is we'd get a lot of answers.

Courage comes from trying and failing.

Sure.

Courage comes, and we have a bunch of different answers.

Let me give you the pathway to courage, and it's probably very different than you've ever thought.

Courage comes from integrity.

What is integrity?

Integrity is what you do when no one else sees and no one else knows.

Integrity is what you do when you probably won't get caught, but you can get Away with it.

Integrity is what you do when you're filling out your taxes, and you know that if you check this box instead of this box, you're cutting a corner, you're gonna get a few hundred dollars back, but you know it's the wrong decision.

Integrity is what you do at work when there's that person that's kind of like your friend, and it gets a little flirty, and you know you're married, and you know you've got kids at home that love you and depend on you, but you think no one will really know it's harmless, fun.

Integrity is what you do when no one else sees.

Integrity is making the right decisions no matter what anyone else sees or knows.

Why does this matter?

Because it's hard to be a person of courage and to live a disintegrate, disintegrated kind of life.

The root of the word integrity is integer, which means whole.

It's hard to live a broken life and to be a person of courage.

But where does integrity come from?

Integrity comes from humility.

Now we live in this weird world that thinks humility means thinking lower of yourself.

That's not what it means.

So there are people who will put themselves down, I'm just stupid, I'm just dumb, I'm just ugly, and they think it's humility.

It's actually self-effacing humor, but it isn't humility.

Humility isn't thinking lower of yourself.

Humility is having a supernatural, holy confidence in God, but it's realizing that it's not thinking lower of myself, but it's about thinking about others instead of myself.

It's a it's an outward focus, not an internal focus.

It's humility.

So essentially, courage is rooted in humility.

Let me say this to you.

If we're gonna be the kind of church full of people that step into tomorrow chasing after their dreams, if we're gonna be the kind of church full of people who step into tomorrow with this holy sense that if God's called me to it, he's gonna give me the strength to do it, then we're gonna have to deal with some stuff.

We have to deal with fear and we have to deal with humility.

Now, here's the question I want to ask you.

If you're gonna be a humble person, what is the worst thing that could happen to you?

Think about that.

Like, and even think about your fear for a moment.

If fear feels like it has the final word, what's the worst that can happen to you?

If you're a humble person, what's the worst that can happen to you?

There's this moment in the book of Philippians where Paul is in Rome.

Now, Paul is this epic hero, he writes half of the New Testament, and he always dreamed about getting to Rome and preaching in Rome.

And he gets to Rome, but when he gets to Rome, he's not preaching, he's in prison.

Instead of a platform, he's in chains and handcuffs.

He's chained to a Roman guard.

And from this place that he had hoped to stand on a platform and preach, he writes a letter that 2,000 years later we read.

It's called Philippians, it's also called the Book of Joy.

And he he writes this, knowing that at any given moment a guard could come and knock on his door, lead him out, execute him by taking his head, and literally walking back without him.

Okay.

When I think about that, and I think about the angry emails that I get, or people who are mad at me, or the neighbor who's frustrated about something, like, doesn't it put in comparison like my problems and other people's problems?

And here's what Paul says with that as the backdrop.

Philippians 1 verse 20.

Philippians 1:20

He says, I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but I will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ may be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

And then he drops this phrase, and I hope this bounces around in your head all week.

He says, For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Here's essentially what he's saying.

There is no bad outcome to my situation.

Like no matter how this story ends, no matter how this story goes, there's no bad situation that's gonna come from this.

Either way is good.

If I live, I'm gonna keep preaching, I'm gonna keep writing letters, I'm gonna keep changing the world.

But if I die, to die is game, to die.

If they take my head, I literally step out of this life and I step into eternity with Jesus to live as Christ, but to die, there is nothing that can be taken from me.

Big deal.

So here's what I want you to understand.

When you can start thinking this way, when you can start dreaming a little differently, because what's the worst thing that could possibly happen to you?

It's probably nothing like Paul was facing.

When you can think this way, it changes the way you frame your fear.

Here's what I want you to understand: you will have fear.

Fear is the constant companion of every dreamer.

And what we think is that if I if I have fear, that must mean I don't have courage.

Let me teach it to you like this.

Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the absence of self.

Courage isn't not having fear, courage is the absence of self.

It's when I stop thinking about me and I start realizing my life exists for others and to serve my great God.

It changes everything for us.

If I were um given a shot of truth serum, and you were to say to me, Jason, look, what are you most proud of in your life?

I would tell you, I'm proud of my family, I love my wife and my kids.

And then I think I think my next thing would be um I'm proud of our church.

Proud of you.

I love what we get to do, I love what we're building here together.

This week I flew to Oklahoma.

I think that's how I got sick.

Um I uh flew to Oklahoma and I was with this group of maybe 30 or 40 pastors.

I knew a handful of them, which was fun to catch up with old friends.

There was a few guys I didn't know, and there was one guy there that I kind of knew.

Come on, you know, like there's friends and there's acquaintances.

He was an acquaintance, so I didn't know him, but I kind of knew him.

He came up to me and he started a church just a few years after we started our church.

And so he came up to me, he goes, Hey, how did you do it?

I said, What does that mean?

He goes, How did how did you build access?

Like it's big.

How did you do that?

Because we're just a few years younger than you, but our church is tiny in comparison.

And I said, I I don't know.

But here's what I do know, and this is one more thing that I'd be proud of.

In every stage and step of our life, of our marriage, of our ministry together, we've given God a million little yeses.

Here's what that means.

Anytime we feel like God asks us to do something, we just say yes.

There's been lots of times when it didn't make sense.

Starting access as a college Bible study in our living room with 15 friends didn't make sense, but we felt God told us to do it, so we said yes.

There have been moments where we've stepped out in faith, there's been moments where we've emptied our whole bank account just to trust God and we just said yes.

We tell you what happens when you live a life no longer characterized and limited by fear, when you live a life no longer self-focused and self-centered, and when you just have the courage to say a million little yeses, what happens is those little yeses lead to bigger yeses.

Those little moments when God tells you to do something, you just say sure, yes, and you step in and you say yes, and then you trust them again and you say yes, and you trust them again and you say yes.

Listen, here's what happens when you trust God with a million little yeses, sometimes those little yeses turn into big yeses.

When you trust God with a million little yeses, for some of you a little yes is saying, Yes, God, I will join this church and I'll just go all in and I'll stop playing games with you.

Yes.

What happens when you do that?

Courage, holy confidence grows just a little bit.

For some of you, it's like that you've you've been a consumer of our church for a long season.

It's been about you and what you get out of it, and I'm happy you're here.

But you say, I'm tired of being just a consumer, I want to be a contributor.

God, yes.

And as you say yes, you're just your courage capacity grows just a little bit more.

Some of you played games when it comes to God and money, and it's like, God, you can have all of my life except for this financial part of my life.

And courage is saying, God, yes, like your way is the best way.

So I trust you, I'm gonna start tithing.

Yes, you're gonna feel courage begin to well up in you.

And I just want to say to someone, there is a dream that God has placed somewhere in your heart, and it might feel a million light years away.

But the way you get there is by defeating fear, choosing greatness over fame, and giving God a million little yeses along the way.

What would it look like if all of us just made this decision?

To say, God, whatever it costs me, whatever it takes, my confidence isn't rooted in myself or my abilities or my strength.

My confidence comes in one place and in one place alone, which is in you.

So, God, because my confidence is in you, every single time you ask me to do something, you get my yes.

A million little yeses.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes all across this place, no matter where you're joining us today?

I want to pray for you.

And I'm gonna pray that God will give you a supernatural dose of confidence, courage, courage to chase after the life and the dreams He's given you.

So, God, in this place in our churches today, would you do what only you can do, and would you give us a supernatural ability to trust you?

God, for some of us, we've stepped out of moments that you called us to step into.

God, give us the courage to step into the divine destiny you have for us.

And God, may our lives be changed, may our cities be changed, may the world be changed, because we're a church full of people who don't find our confidence in ourselves, our skill set, our abilities, our competence, but we find our confidence in you.

God, for my brother or sister who feels like they can't do this in their own strength, would you remind them today that there's really good news?

And it's that they don't have to do this in their own strength, they get to do it with yours.

Forgive us if we become cocky, cocky or self-confident.

God may instead we find our confidence rooted in you and in you alone.

We thank you for it.

Every head still bowed and every eye closed.

If you're here at one of our locations today or joining us at church online, maybe it's hard for you to imagine a life with God when you don't know God.

Maybe it feels like you've just kind of done your own thing, or maybe you feel like you've wandered away from a relationship with God.

But today, if you're joining us and you say, Jason, I want to start or restart following Jesus, I want him to be the Lord of my life.

Would you have three seconds of insane courage right now and just raise your hand?

If this is you, I want to pray with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Wow, thank you.

So many here, sure everywhere.

If this is you, I'm gonna invite you to pray this with me.

And I want to start something new.

I want our whole church to pray with me.

I'll pray slowly.

I want you to pray out loud.

And if it was you who raised your hand, we're doing this to join you in the prayer so you don't feel alone.

But this moment is for you and God.

If you would say, Jason, today, this is me.

I want to pray this prayer.

I'm gonna invite our whole church to pray.

Would you say, Jesus?

Come on, everybody, say, Jesus, today I give you my life.

Would you save me, change me, make me new from the inside out?

Jesus, I need a savior.

And I believe that when you came into this world, when you died on the cross for me, you took my place and became my savior.

So, Jesus, today I receive your gift of salvation, I receive your forgiveness, and from this day forward, I'll live for you.

Jesus, I give you my life.

I choose to follow you.

In your name we pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Come on, church family, everywhere.

Let's celebrate lives being changed.