Delayed Destiny

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

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, hey, good morning.

And you gotta you gotta know you're part of something special here.

And unfortunately, sometimes the fish in the water, we don't see it because we live there.

I know I'm guilty of that in so many ways, but you're part of a really special church here.

And I just want to take a moment to say thank you to your pastors, Pastor Jason and Liz, Dr.

Reverend, right?

That's what you want me to call you?

Just kidding.

I just honor him.

I know the heavy lifting.

But you know, his voice, uh, obviously, visionary, kingdom-minded, um, here at Access, but the leadership that he brings is not limited to here.

He's a helping CMN, church multiplication network, train pastors around the nation.

And I'm grateful for that.

Since 2008, we have planted 4,600 churches around our the United States.

And we just believe this Jesus isn't our last hope, he's our only hope.

So we boldly, boldly proclaim Christ as Lord.

So I just want to say though, thank you, bro.

I honor you and I love you, grateful for our friendship.

And um, I love pastors' kids.

Um, and I know um like 99.9% of people aren't pastors, but I just love pastors' kids in addition to other kids.

You can't say that to someone like, hey, I love kids.

Like, we should keep you away from I don't mean we, I like I just I love seeing God's hand on people.

And what's interesting is if you can capture a generation and point them in the right direction when they're young with the cause of Christ, and that they have a divine design, watch out.

Come on, how many believe that for your kids?

How many believe that?

Five, five, five people can make an influence in your life bigger than you ever imagined.

So I know that Jason, you've done that for others, and I'm honored to do that for just a moment with your kids.

So my wife and I, Joanne, we're we're about to celebrate 30 years of marriage, and uh, she was 11.

Just kidding.

Um, she wasn't.

Um, and uh she's my best friend.

She might be watching, I don't know.

She was in another gathering online and shot me a text.

So love you, sweets, if you're watching.

Um, I want to talk today about delays.

And uh let me ask this how many of you like delays?

You're like, yes.

I pull into the highway, woo, traffic, yes, no.

None of us, right?

How many grocery store you pick the line based on the shortest potential, right?

From to get to checkout to your car.

But when you get to the line, it all of a sudden everything goes in slow motion.

You are the I created the slow line disease person, right?

Anyone ever had that?

We don't like delays.

In fact, what I've discovered is some of our delays are silly, they're not a big deal at all.

Some of them are significant, and there's everything in between.

The pendulum swings.

So this mattered so much to me that I wrote on it.

And um, what I love is the Bible's full of stories of people, men and women, young and old, faith-filled, courageous, obedient and disobedient, who face delays.

And in the midst of all of that, what we get is the front row seat of the providence of God.

What's interesting is we can think sometimes in scripture that their stories are not like our story.

But I'm telling you, the providence of God, the goodness of God, the care of God is not just for someone else, it's for you today.

Now, I also I put this in my notes.

I think this is important for us to think about.

If you've ever been in a season where what you hoped for, prayed for, or worked for wasn't happening, and maybe even doing what you'd done before to get the same results, but it's not happening now, you're in what I would call a delayed destiny.

And sometimes in that delay, we start to ask questions, we start to wonder.

And I think in my life, sometimes when I wander, I start to wander.

Now, here's three things we can wander into that are not true.

Like we think, first of all, um, if I'm experiencing a delay, either God is out there somewhere far off, uninterested, like He's He's a He's a distant spectator.

First of all, that's not true.

Let me tell you the second thing that's not true that we we think is true.

That maybe I forfeited God's favor.

You think about your life, I think about my life, and I go, like, God, you know everything, like everything, right?

And we're like, I must have forfeited.

If God's good and I'm in process, he must be like, yes, yes, get to me, no.

You think you forfeited God's favor?

Let me say this.

First of all, you were never that good.

Because you couldn't earn God's favor, but you're also never that bad.

It's the grace of God that meets us at our brokenness.

So either God's out there distant, far off, uninterested.

I forfeit his favor.

Or number three, if anything's gonna happen, I better make it happen.

I gotta grab life by the bootstraps and just, you know, all of those end up bringing disappointment because they're never designed to fulfill us because they're not true.

So, what is true?

And today I'm fired up to bring us back, to just simply remind us that even in our delay, God is still doing something, He's developing us.

If you're surprised that you're not where you thought you'd be in your life, your love, or relationship with Jesus, you're not alone.

So, what do we do?

Well, we take some steps along the way to position ourselves.

And I wrote this down, and I believe this is for some of you.

Today's an invitation to believe that the delay and the disappointment you're navigating, though admittedly painful, has the potential to produce something epic in you.

A new you.

And that's often how God works.

Inside out, heart first.

So between 1981 and 2011, um, the space agency NASA had 135 missions where they sent a space shuttle from Earth into outer space.

It's what's crazy is we hear about it, we're like, that's nice.

They put a person on a machine that broke through our atmosphere.

It's epic, but it becomes so familiar, we don't think it's that fantastic.

But I want you to see every every all 135 of these missions, the shuttle was brought from its holding hanger, which by the way it took five hours because it's on this crawler transporter.

And the name crawler transporter is appropriately named because it takes the shuttle from its hangar to the launch pad at a blazing speed of one mile per hour.

A space shuttle has to get to 18,000 miles an hour in eight and a half minutes to break through the Earth's atmosphere to get into outer space.

And for something that has the capacity to go 23.6 times the speed of sound, gets to its launch pad at one mile an hour is a reminder for all of us.

That often, in order to go fast, we first have to go slow.

But here's another reminder.

Can you throw up the picture of the shuttle in outer space?

In order for the shuttle to see the stars, it has to slowly make its way down the street.

And you and I's lives are almost exactly the same.

We want the experience, we want the woo, we want the pizzazz, but sometimes it's in the slow, in the steady that God does his best work.

Often, in order to go fast, you first have to go slow.

And I get this, it seems uh like the opposite would be true, but a delay does not indicate disinterest on God's part.

You ever felt like, man, to God, if you're good, how come?

I know I have, you got the diagnosis, or worse, you didn't get it, someone you loved did.

God, if you're good, how come?

You think about your relationships and are they all that you want them to be?

Maybe you're a university student and uh you're like ring by spring, and you're like, Lord, I'm not even dating anyone, and we're about to have Thanksgiving break, and then you better hurry up here.

Like, you're like, I'm single and ready to mingle.

God, where are you at?

By the way, you date the face, you marry the heart.

Whole nother talk, but worth thinking about.

A delay does not indicate disinterest on God's part.

Doesn't God's working even though you can't see it.

So I love the Bible, it tells these stories of normal people, real and raw, young and old, faith-filled, courageous.

And one of them is a guy named Joseph.

In fact, the scripture says, um tells his story, and it makes him a type of Christ.

What that means is he's a foreshadowing of the Messiah, Jesus, who would rescue us.

We get a glimpse of what's to come in Christ.

So a little bit about Joseph.

He is the he's one of 12 brothers.

He is mom and dad's favorite.

This is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Jacob's his dad, Jacob and Rachel.

So like he's part of this like epic Bible family, and he's one of 12 brothers.

He's the favorite, so they make him a fancy coat.

His brothers hate him.

In fact, one day he sees his brothers in the field, more so they see him coming in the field, and they're like, they conspire amongst one another to kill him.

And you thought your Thanksgiving was rough.

No, your family's fine.

Instead of killing him, when they get to that moment of uh of connecting, they decided to beat him, throw him into a pit, an empty cistern, and then they had lunch.

Like, you're like, the Bible's boring.

No, the Bible's epic.

This is all from the scriptures.

And then when it seems like he's about to be rescued out of the cistern, a rope's thrown down, and I can just imagine as he's being pulled out of the this pit, he's like, Oh, I'm gonna tell my dad when I get home.

And but he doesn't go home.

He's not sent back, he's sold into slavery.

An Ishmaelite caravan was going uh passing by and they sold him.

They sold their brother into slavery.

And that's where we pick it up in Genesis 39, verse 1.

Genesis 39:1

It says this, now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt.

Um, Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, so he was in charge of the soldiers, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there.

Pause.

We read the Bible too fast.

Because some of you are like, oh, that's huh, how about that?

But let me keep let me give you three thoughts just from that verse.

He's not where he wants to be.

He's not with who he wants to be with.

And he's for sure not doing what he wants to do.

And we think, I can't relate to Bible characters.

How can you not?

He's not where he wants to be.

Ever been in that season?

He's not with who he wants to be with.

I don't mean you bump someone right now, yeah.

It's you, buddy.

But he's not doing what he wants to do.

It seems like his life is in a holding pattern.

He had a dream that set this whole thing in motion, and now, like, where are you at, God?

But let's jump to the next verse.

And that's the first time you read the Lord was with Joseph.

If I'm Joseph, I'm like, um, what about when my brothers were trying to kill me?

We don't read about it at the house when he gets the coat.

We don't read about it when the brothers attack him, we don't read about it when he's sold, we read about it now when he's in a foreign land where he doesn't want to be.

And the Lord was with Joseph, so he prospered.

And he lived in the house of his Egyptian master.

Listen, here's a question you and I have to wrestle with.

Can you operate in God's favor and not man's favor?

And the answer is yes.

Sometimes what we go for is the approval of our peers, but God's like, why don't you just let me provide for you?

Let me be the one that you look to.

So Joseph sold, his God's hand is upon him, so he starts to see some favor.

And we read that in verse 3 when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did.

Potiphar's like, hmm, I'm gonna put you in charge of my entire household.

In fact, everything he owned, everything he owned, was entrusted to Joseph's care.

And then we see that seems like everything's starting to go right.

Remember, it was going good at home, he's the favorite, then he's beaten, sold.

Now it's rough, but he's getting elevated.

It seems like there's a little ray of hope.

You ever had those moments?

Things were all bad, and all of a sudden now there's a little bit of hope.

And then we get to the next verse.

Now, Joseph, like Pastor Jason, was well built and handsome.

Is yours that oh, I have a different translation.

Okay.

And while while after a while, his master's wife took notice of him.

And here's what she says Hey, Joe, Joseph, come to bed with me.

Now, in this moment, he has to wrestle with his character, right?

He has to go to the reservoir of his character and decide who am I gonna be?

Maybe he thinks this is my only opportunity for affection, for for love.

Maybe it's my access to getting out of the slavery conditions I'm in.

Joseph, come to bed with me.

But he refused.

And he says this, but with me in charge, my master does not, by the way, your husband does not concern himself with anything in this house, in this house, excuse me.

Everything he owns, he is entrusted to my care.

And I think sometimes we need to remind ourselves, we need to hear out loud the reminder of the promises of God, the people we are.

And we just we just speak that truth over ourselves when the enemy tries to sneak in.

And by the way, not on the slide, but I think incredible, the devil's best weapon is deception.

If he can get you to see yourself different than God sees you, he hijacks your life.

And here's how he says no one is greater in this house than I am.

My master has withheld nothing from me except you.

Because you're his wife.

How then?

And I love how he responds.

He's not like, I don't want to offend you, I don't want to offend your husband, I don't want to offend my family.

He says, How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin before God?

And he refused to go to bed with her, listen, or even be with her.

He sets up some parameters in his life.

He puts some guardrails up.

Well, she's not used to rejection.

She's not taking this, no pun intended, lying down.

And so she decides, yeah, um, she decides she's gonna get him alone in the palace.

So one day he's at work doing his job, you know, probably sweeping and stuff.

And she comes in and she tells all the other attendants to leave.

And she tries to seduce him.

And in this moment, once more, he has to draw again on his character.

I I call it in the book the seduction of secret sin test.

And by the way, just because we failed some before doesn't mean that we can't pass a bunch moving forward.

Because that's that's what God does, he transforms us.

Now, here's the story continues where now she's like, she's holding his coat because he spun out of his coat.

Like if I'm him, I don't wear coats anymore.

Got a problem with my brothers, problem with Mrs.

Ponafer.

I'm going tracksuits, that's it.

That's I'm a tracksuit guy from this point forward, right?

So she's holding his coat, the scripture says, Oh, alas, this slave, this man that you brought, this foreigner, is trying to have his way with me, and he's throwing him prison.

You're like, I thought, I thought he was at the bottom of the bottom, and then it looked like there was a little bit of hope.

Like maybe that destiny part's actually coming to fruition, and here he is now, back in prison.

Here's what I want you to hear.

This is true for all of us.

Your delay has the potential to position you.

And even though we wouldn't ever choose it, what we don't realize before we keep reading is that for the first time, Joseph is in a position now where he has proximity to people who had proximity to Pharaoh.

He came into the land as the lowest of the low of the how would he ever even be in the presence of the king, Pharaoh?

He wouldn't.

But now that he's in prison, the scripture says he attends to the cupbearer, the guy who feeds the king and makes sure he's not being poisoned.

So he has literally literally access, and the baker who provides for the king.

They ticked him off, they're in prison now, and Joseph's serving them.

And while in prison, they both have dreams.

So Joseph has a dream, it's delayed.

These guys have a dream, they cannot interpret it.

And he says, I can't interpret it, but the God I serve can help me.

And that's exactly what happened.

He interprets their dreams.

One of them was good news, one of them was bad.

For the baker, he would be restored to his position and then killed.

To the cupbearer, he'd be restored and retained.

Now he has one simple two-word request request when he invites these guys on their get out of jail free moment, he just says, Remember me.

Just remember me.

In fact, what that's what we see.

But when all goes well with you, remember me.

But the scripture tells us they got out and then they forgot him.

If I'm Joseph, every day, once my buddies that I connected with got out, every time a guard walks down the corridor and I hear their footsteps, I'm thinking, this is my get out of jail moment.

I wonder if the first few days he's like, I don't know if there's bars or a door or rusty gate.

I don't know.

But I think the first few days he's like hanging there because he's thinking they're gonna come get me.

And then nothing happens.

God must be out there somewhere far off distant.

He must have forfeited God's favor.

And there's actually nothing he can do about it.

But what we what we see as the story progresses is that God didn't forget about Joseph.

God's orchestrating, He's setting some things in motion, even when it doesn't seem like it.

Here's what I wrote in my notes.

With God, nothing is ever wasted.

Even our waiting.

How many of us love waiting?

Ah, none of us.

But when it comes to God, God doesn't waste anything.

Because he can take everything and he can turn it for his good.

I love that the Bible's real and raw and that the story of Joseph is not so simple that we go, I can't relate to it.

Because each of us at some point have dealt with a delay.

One of my friends said one time, you've probably heard this, but when you think you're being buried, you're really being planted.

And it's God positioning you to do something new or different in and through your life.

I believe this.

What happens, what happens to you in the midst of your delay directly connects to what happens through you afterwards.

And because all of us navigate delays of some sort, there's a dependence that God wants us to establish between us and him.

I I get this so sometimes dependence feels like weakness.

Like if I was strong enough, I could do this myself, and you know what?

I just I feel like I keep coming back to God and I keep, but listen, dependence is not weakness, it's wisdom.

God wants us to look to him, God wants us to rely on him.

He said, I should be strong.

The scripture says, in our weakness, he is strong.

Let me ask this question.

What are the predictable people and places and things that can hinder your development?

That can hinder your progression in your relationship with Jesus and just towards health.

Are there places you go, you're like, man, when I go there, I end up like, how did I get here?

Are there people that, man, whenever I'm around them, whenever I, and I'm not saying that they're the problem, I'm just saying you're not who you want to be when you're with them.

You gotta be able to, and this is the beauty of discernment.

I can I can assess my life and the voices in it and go, when they're saying stuff, when they speak, it I wilt, I don't bloom.

And yet when I'm around them, something comes alive.

I gotta figure out what are the predictable, and that's no one else can do that for you.

What are the predictable?

Just when it seemed like Joseph's destiny had been deleted.

One of my favorite verses in all the scripture.

Genesis 41, 1.

And here's what it says when two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream.

Two years?

How many, like two minutes at the microwave waiting for my popcorn feels like forever?

We don't like delays.

But God was doing something behind the scenes, developing, working.

Many of life's most valuable lessons are mine from our most difficult moments.

It's not when we're winning that we see our character.

It's not when everything's good.

It's when things are teetering, when we're in a tough season where we go, man, you're God, you held me.

You you you came through, you delivered.

I had the courage and the strength to love you and speak truth.

The premise of the whole book that I wrote is this simple phrase slow motion is still motion.

And you think about most of the things that matter most in your life are connected to a relationship, and few of those help happened quickly.

But it's the longevity of that relationship where you see the faithfulness of God and the gift of one another.

So we have Joanne and I we have two sons.

And so I'm Norwegian.

My wife is Samoan.

She's from Hawaii, but she's Samoan.

And so something when our boys were growing up was pillaged and burned every day at our house, okay?

So here's the thing you should always pillage before you burn.

That's a side note if you're note-taking.

So our two sons, Justice and Josiah.

Josiah is the biggest, he's 6'4.

I'm 6'2, I'm the little guy at our house.

And Justice is almost 6'3.

Josiah, as an elementary school student, he's in his room.

Our room is across the hall from theirs and from his.

And he says, Mom.

He's laying in bed.

He's like, Mom, come in here.

He discovered after like three mom attempts, she's not there.

She's all of our favorite.

I get it.

I would call for her, too.

He's like, so I go in and I sit on the foot of his bed and I'm like, man, what's up, bud?

And he said, My legs are killing me.

Now I knew it, he didn't.

And then sometimes the pilot knows what the passengers don't, right?

I knew that he was having growth pain.

So I asked this question.

I said, he's like four something at that point.

Um I said, I don't mean age, but like high.

I said, Do you want to be five feet?

Yeah.

Want to be six feet?

Right?

Yeah.

You want to be seven feet?

No.

Okay, well, let's just stop at six.

I said, what you're experiencing right now is growth pains, and if you didn't have them, you wouldn't experience the growth that you want.

Now, what as a parent, I have the the the perspective in the insight he doesn't have as an elementary school student.

You know what's interesting?

God has a perspective we don't have.

And he can see that when we're saying, like, Dad, can you rescue?

Can you change?

But here's here's here's what I believe.

Something happens when our perspective shifts from irritation at the delay to an anticipation of the development on the other side.

Now I'm like, it's worth it.

I can get through this, I can keep going.

I don't need to pull the plug.

I don't have to quit.

It's all almost always too soon to quit.

If you've ever traveled, how many love traveling?

Mainly, how many love vacation?

Okay.

Vacations, my wife and I say, we love going to the beach.

We share that with your pastors.

And so when when you get on a plane and you're going from point A to point B, your goal is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible so you can enjoy your vacation.

The last thing you want when you're approaching your destination, this is your captain speaking.

We have been told to go into a holding pattern over.

You're like, come on.

There's a collective, but I want to tell you something about holding patterns.

And if you're ill in right now, I've got good news for you.

Number one is this the pilot knows what the passengers don't.

There's a perspective the pilot has that you don't have yet.

Here's the second thing: you have enough fuel in the tank to stay aloft.

You're like, I had that promise and it hasn't happened yet, or I was thinking I would be here with my life or my health and my relation, and you're in a holding pattern.

You have enough fuel to stay aloft.

How about this?

If you force it, you're gonna get injured, and so will people around you.

So, God, I feel like I want to make the decision, and God's like, will you just be still and know that I'm God?

Here's the last thing preparations need to be made on the ground for not only you to arrive safely, but everyone else.

There's something about a holding pattern that requires us to trust.

And we don't want to, but it's worth it.

There's a woman I want to introduce you to, her name is Florence Chadwick.

July 4th, um, 1952.

She was attempting this incredible feat to swim from the um coast of California, the 26 miles to Catalina Island.

Now she was a world record swimmer, so she had attempted incredible feet.

She swam the English Channel both directions, she swam the Straits of Gibraltar, she she she had incredible feat.

On this particular day as she started out, it was foggy, not unusual for there to be fog there.

And she swam and she swam.

Remember, I mentioned 26 miles.

She swam 25 and a half miles, but she had no idea how for how far she'd swam because of the technology back then.

All she knew was she couldn't see the shore because it was obscured by the fog.

In fact, here's a quote from her.

She says this she says, All I can see was the fog.

I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.

And when I heard her story, I thought, man, who can't relate to that?

Sometimes the fog looks like a delay.

It looks like a disappointment.

It looks like a maybe, maybe God forgot about me here in this prison.

I want to hear this.

If you lack depth and determination, you'll quit something that's difficult at the first explainable opportunity.

You've got to develop depth and determination.

You know how you develop that?

Perseverance.

You know how you get perseverance?

Adversity.

There's growth that happens on the other side of our pain.

There is potential, there's promise in that pain.

And God is working even when we can't see it.

I want you to hear some pilot to the passenger truths.

Philippians 1:6 says this that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

Philippians 1:6

That when God starts, he'll finish.

How about quoting Jesus?

Because he's a good one to quote.

He's talking to his disciples.

He says, I've told you these things so that you might have peace.

Listen, if you have a deficit of peace today, you can exchange your anxiety for God's peace.

Here's what he says: In this world you'll have trouble.

But I want you to know something.

I want you to take heart.

Because I've overcome the world.

And I want to give you one more.

There's so many.

There's like 75 of them I put at the end of the book.

Let me give you one more from Galatians chapter 6, verse 9.

Galatians 6:9

The apostle Paul writes to the church in Galatia and he says this, do not become weary in doing good.

He doesn't stop.

It doesn't say, hey, just don't get weary.

Because we all get weary.

But don't become weary in doing good.

For in the proper time, there's something that's going to be produced.

At the proper time, there's going to be an outcome, there's going to be a deliverance.

You're going to see the favor in the hand of at the proper time, you'll reap a harvest if you do not give up.

There's a delay, but it doesn't have to delete you.

Why?

God's working.

He's doing something.

Say it's foggy.

Yeah, I know.

That's why we look to the compass, the Holy Spirit to guide us, to direct us.

This morning I was up pretty early, and I wrote some things down that I feel like were for someone here.

Could be for a hundred of you or could be for one of you.

But let me let me let me resolve just uh Joseph's story.

And again, it starts in chapter 37, ends in chapter 50, 93 years to actually unfold.

We read pages in like two, three minutes, but it took decades.

But after he had reconciled with his brothers, made peace with his situation, reconnected with his father, and rescued the nation, here's what he says You intended to harm me.

But God intended it for good to accomplish what is being done now, the saving of many lives.

See, Joseph understood in the moment then what he couldn't have understood before.

That God was working and positioning, and he's doing the same thing with us.

I wrote this in my notes today.

I was praying for you.

Your current chapter is not your final chapter, it's just the most recent.

Maybe you're like, you don't even know my story.

Yeah, but there's more chapters God wants to write.

And the problem is that one chapter could just be all-consuming.

So your current chapter is not your final chapter, it's just the most recent.

And you may not have called it a delayed destiny until today, but I'm declaring over you, you have a destiny, even if it's delayed.

And here's what we want to invite God to do.

We want to invite God to put a period, turn the page, and begin to write the next chapter.

If anyone is in Christ, they're a new creation.

The old is gone and the new has come.

Jesus takes us deeper and deeper and deeper into our destiny.

But it also involves some delays.

I want to ask this as I close.

Maybe you're here and you say, I don't even know Jesus.

Like I know about him, but I don't know him.

I'm just telling you what the Bible says.

If we confess our sins, acknowledging our need for God, right?

Confess our sins.

And sin is what separates us from God.

God's perfect, we're broken.

But Jesus built a way back for us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all the unrighteousness, all the junk, all the addiction, all the what's our part?

It's to acknowledge our need for a savior and invite him to rescue us.

He'll do that.

Bible says his kindness leads us to repentance.

He invites us to say, God, help.

And what's interesting is sometimes we need outside help to experience an inward transformation.

You can't rescue yourself, you can't be good enough.

But you don't have to because of the work of Christ on the cross.

Some of us, um, maybe the next best question to ask is not, um, God, why am I going through this?

Or when will you take me out?

But but here's the question right here: what do you want to develop in me through it?

What are you wanting to develop?

That best next step, if if Christ is not the Lord of your life, is to surrender your life to Christ.

But for those of us that would say, Man, I've been, I've been, I'm all in with Jesus.

Here's a prayer for us.

God, simply, what do you want to do?

And what do you want to develop in me through this?

Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

This first prayer, I just want to invite you, if you'd say, Jeffrey, I don't know Jesus, but today I want to surrender my life to Christ.

I talk to people across the country all the time, and I'll often hear people say this, I want to accept Christ, but I don't know how.

I want you to know there's no magic words or phrases, it's just leaning into the promises of the scripture so you can pray something like this Jesus, I confess my need for you.

My sin, the brokenness, the messiness separates me from you.

And today I recognize and acknowledge I can't rescue myself, but I invite you to.

I do pray a blessing over this great church.

And God, may you continue to use this as a place for people to take their next steps towards following you.

And in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

God bless you.

Amen.

Can we thank Dr.

Jeffrey, everybody?