God Among Us (Imagine Vision Series #3) by Michael Williams

Alright, are we ready to get into God's word?

Amen.

I actually want to start with a short little story.

Has anybody heard of Blaise Pascal?

Yeah, we got a few hands coming up.

Is that a math teacher in the back, maybe?

Yeah.

He's the triangle guy, helped invent the mechanical calculator.

Blaise Pascal was in France in the 17th century and was brilliant, probably one of the smartest people of his generation.

He did the Pythagorean theorem triangle stuff.

Pascal's triangles might be ringing a bell for a few of you that paid attention in school.

Brilliant guy.

And when he was not that old, 39, he passed away.

And imagine this for a second.

It's 1662 in Paris.

And he passes away, and his servant goes to feel in his jacket.

And as he goes to feel in his jacket, he finds this piece of paper.

And on this piece, I actually have a piece of paper that has what's written on his piece of paper.

This is not the real piece of paper.

I don't speak French.

This is what he finds written.

The year of grace, 1654.

So this is eight years before he dies.

November 23rd, the feast of Saint Clement, Pope and Martyr, and others in Martyrology.

From about half past ten at night until half past midnight.

Fire.

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, not of philosophers and of the learned.

Certitude, certitude, feeling joy, peace, the God of Jesus Christ, my God and your God.

Your God will be my God.

Forgetfulness of the world and of everything except God.

He is only found by the ways taught in the gospel.

Grandeur.

Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have made you known.

Joy, joy, joy.

Tears of joy won't stop.

I have departed from him.

They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.

My God, will you leave me?

Let me not be separated from him forever.

This is eternal life that they know you, the one true God, and the one you sent, Jesus Christ.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

I left him, I fled him, I renounced him, I crucified him.

Oh God, don't let me be separated from him.

He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the gospel.

Total renunciation, total and sweet, complete submission to Jesus Christ.

Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on the earth.

May I not forget your words.

Amen.

Isn't that interesting?

This is not, you know, like a mystic.

This is like the leading mathematician in the world at the time.

And he has this radical encounter with God and it changes his life.

He keeps those words in his jacket pocket every day for the rest of his life.

One question I like to ask people sometimes is if God could answer any one prayer that you would pray, what would you ask for?

Think about it for a second.

You don't have to tell your neighbor, but if you had one free answered prayer, the answer you knew was going to be yes, what would you ask God for?

Some of us might think of blessings of various sorts, might think of our family, protection, safety.

Think of lots and lots of good things.

Some of us who are more altruistic or beauty pageants might say world peace, right?

We just think like if that was my one prayer, world peace, right?

I wonder sometimes, every now and then, somebody answers that question like, if I could have one thing, it would be God.

If I could have one thing, it would be to experience God.

Have you ever wanted to experience God like that?

I'm just curious.

Have you ever heard a story like Blaise Pasquale or many, many others, and thought, like, I would love to encounter God like that.

I would love to experience God like that.

When we talk about experiencing God, we have many, many, many different histories and reactions in the room.

Some of us, we we grew up in churches that were kind of like a little dead.

Like you left a motion at the door, experiencing God.

Some of you, I can kind of see it actually, like a wall, like a guard has gone up.

Like, uh-oh.

Others, we grew up in like churches that were a little bit wilder and a little bit freer, and experiencing God was everything.

And and last week when we talked about the scriptures, your guard was up a little bit, like this can easily turn into a rule book.

What really matters is if we experience God.

There's like an analogy or a little picture that I've always found super helpful.

Some churches are like medicine cabinets where all the medicine bottles are perfectly labeled.

But you open the bottles and there's no pills.

And there's others that are like medicine cabinets, and none of the bottles are labeled, but by God, there's pills in the medicine cabinet, and you just take one, you hope it's the right one.

It's either going to make you better, it's gonna kill you, but but at least they have medicine, right?

And and most of us when we're when we're desperate, when life falls apart, we look for somebody that we think might have a pill.

Somebody that might know God.

Or somebody who knows somebody who knows God, somebody who's actually in touch.

We long for for that connection.

We long for encounter.

We've, as a church, been meeting since January, and we started by by going through Romans, and we started there because we believe that the church is built, its foundation is Jesus Christ and the gospel.

And this fall we've been in this vision series where we're asking, like, who are we as a community?

Who are we as a church?

And so if you're newer here, you're here at the perfect time because we're we're talking about who we think God's calling us to be.

And in the first week, we looked at a church that was centered on Jesus and how easy it is to become about other things.

Last week we looked at a church shaped by the scriptures.

How scriptures actually testify to Jesus.

This week, though, we're gonna talk about being a church where the Spirit of God is among us.

And this is actually really, really foundational because to be centered on Jesus and to be shaped by the scriptures requires the Holy Spirit.

It's the Holy Spirit that shows us Jesus.

It's the Holy Spirit that opens the scriptures.

And so what we're kind of imagining today is what would it look like for us to become a church that that's like alive in the spirit, that's that's got God there.

Hopefully, we're not a medicine cabinet where all the pills are in the wrong bottles and and nothing's labeled, but also hopefully we're not a church where where there's no real medicine, but everything's perfectly labeled.

What would it look like to be a place of encounter?

To be a place where people met God.

That that was the recurring testimony of this community over the generations that I met God there.

Wherever I was in life, I found God there.

I connected, his presence was felt, it was real.

See, we can know lots of things in our head.

We can have lots of philosophies, but what does it mean when the Spirit takes the truth in our head and like a lightning rod it goes through our hearts?

What would it be like to be a community where reason is set on fire?

Not discarded, but but consumed and consummated?

What would it be like for this to be a church where there was life?

So let's pray, and then we're gonna get into the scriptures.

Lord, we welcome your presence.

We know you're here.

Holy Spirit, we honor you.

We don't want to talk about you like you're not present.

But we know ultimately, Lord, that you must, by your mercy and your grace, come and make us alive and open us to you.

We ask that you would do that in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're actually gonna look at three pictures in the scriptures of God among us.

Three pictures.

Uh, we're gonna go through them one, two, three, uh, pretty simply.

If you are following along in the handouts, I'm gonna try to be faithful.

Um, and I can fill in the blanks for you at the end if you miss some, because I know that's really important to a few of you.

Um, so follow along if you would like.

But um we're gonna be in Exodus 33 to begin.

And Exodus 33 is an amazing story of God, his presence.

Um, I'm gonna give you just the backstory real quick before we read certain verses, but in Exodus, there's the people of God who have been set free from slavery in Egypt, and now they're in the wilderness, and they're they're God's people, and they've they've come out of Egypt, but they haven't landed in their home yet, and they have this covenant with God that happens at Mount Sinai, and then right away they mess up.

It's kind of a shocking story if you like just read it in order.

Um, like God appears to them and gives them the law, and and while God is with Moses, he takes too long in their estimation, and they build this golden calf with Aaron, and they worship it, and of course, God is upset that like they cheated on him on like basically their first week of marriage, and so God is upset, and he's talking to Moses now, and he actually offers in Exodus 33, he offers Moses a deal.

And the deal is this like, these people can go forward, but I'm not gonna go with them.

They can have the land, they can have you, Moses, they can have the blessing, but they don't get to have me.

If we're really honest, if we set aside our like, I know the church answers hats, many, many of us would take that deal.

If God offered you a good life, a healthy family, meaningful work, a home, safety, and the only caveat was you don't really get my presence.

Many of us would think like, you know what?

I'll take that deal, we'll figure it out in heaven.

I'll take that deal.

Many churches would take that deal.

If you haven't figured it out yet, you can actually do church without the Holy Spirit.

You can have big buildings, you can have budgets, you can have crowds, you can make that deal.

We're gonna do well, we're gonna do good, we're gonna market, we're gonna attract people, we're gonna meet their needs, but but the presence of God is sort of feels like, yeah.

And so he offers Moses this deal.

Martin Lloyd Jones, a famous preacher in England, once said that that it's perfectly possible for a church to be full of respectable and nice people and to be in a terrible spiritual state.

That we can actually look good, but but not have presence, not have something vital.

Moses, of course, doesn't take the deal.

I want you to read with me why in verse 15.

This is what Moses says, and he said, If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.

For how shall it be known that I found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us?

In this way we shall be distinct.

I and your people from every people on the face of the earth.

Did you catch Moses' reason?

Why must we have God's presence to be distinct?

If you're following along in your notes at the first point, the presence of God distinguishes and defines us.

The presence of God makes us distinct.

See, lots of institutions can offer community, they can offer good music, they can offer things for your kids.

Lots of institutions can give you TED Talks.

The question is, is God offered?

Is God offered?

What makes us distinct is that we have uniquely the presence of God.

What makes us unique is that we are defined by him, by his favor on us.

That we as a community, we we have the presence of God in a special way.

The church is a reference point for God.

And if we don't have that, we don't have anything, at least according to Moses.

And so Moses he says no to this deal.

And then in the answer, God says, Okay, okay, I'll give you my presence.

Now look, look what happens when he gives him his presence.

This is in verse 17.

He said, The Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing you've asked, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.

Moses said, Show me your glory, I pray.

And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim you before, I'll proclaim before you the name the Lord.

I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

I love that.

I love this idea.

Moses is in a conversation with God, and God seemingly changes his mind.

Now, this is this is fascinating to me.

We could get into lots of deep theological conversations, but that's not where we're going to go today.

But Moses is in this conversation, and and Moses realizes something.

He realizes the presence of God is what's special about us.

See, people are separated from that.

If you think, just in life, birthdays, Christmas, we we exchange gifts, and gifts are often how we show we love each other.

But but when everything is stripped away at, say, a funeral, what we miss is the person.

What we miss is their presence.

The scriptures tell a story.

The scripture's story is that God made us for himself, that we were in relationship with him, and then a funeral of sorts takes place.

When we break trust with God, when we sinned against him, a funeral takes place.

And the entire story of the Bible is a story of presence.

People are removed from the presence of God.

There's a gap.

And all throughout the Bible we see God inching and inching and inching towards people.

It's the story of presence, of him coming back to us.

What is Jesus' message when he returns?

When he comes the first time?

His message over and over is the kingdom of God.

That's God's presence, his activity.

It's at hand.

His entire message is that God is now close enough to be grabbed.

That the distance between you and God no longer exists.

Maybe you're here this morning and you've been sleeping with the wrong person.

Maybe you haven't dusted off your Bible in months.

Maybe you're here and you're addicted.

And night after night you go on websites you don't want to go on.

Maybe you're here and you're full of bitterness.

Whether that's you or not, the distance between you and God is close.

God's not far from you anymore.

He's at hand.

You're a prayer away from his presence.

He's near to you.

And when that encounter happens, Moses encounters two things.

When he encounters the glory of God, it says he encounters his goodness and his holiness.

See, any encounter with God is an encounter with goodness.

Whether you shake, cry, do nothing, that's not what's important.

Have you encountered his goodness?

God at his core is radically good.

When he thinks about you, he only thinks what is your good.

He loves you so much.

He wants you so much.

If you met him, what would blow you away is how pure his goodness was towards you.

You've never met anybody with that kind of goodness.

You've never met anybody with that kind of heart.

The best humans, the most loving, the kindest, they're just a small glimpse of his goodness and his holiness.

This isn't an ooh-ah experience.

Moses is encountering the one who could undo him with a snap of a finger.

God is holy.

The testimony of Scripture is that behind what we can see, feel, touch, taste, behind our five senses, there is a reality that is more real than anything you know.

And this reality is other than you.

This superintelligence, it's not a principle, it's not a force, it is a person.

That behind every experience, holding together every element, behind all of history, the explanation for why we are spinning through space on a rock right now is that there is a reality that is true and real.

Moses encounters this reality at the burning bush.

There's a fire and a voice personal calling his name.

He encounters them here.

He encounters them at Sinai, where the mountain shakes, and it says they beheld God.

The testimony throughout Scripture is this truth.

Isaiah comes into the temple, and the train of the Lord's robe fills the temple.

There's smoke and there's glory.

He beholds the Lord.

The most eloquent preacher in Israel is left stuttering, woe is me.

Jeremiah beholds the Lord.

Ezekiel sitting by a river has a vision, lightning and storms and glory, and he sees the Lord.

He sees this vision, and it's like molten metal in the middle, and there's one in the image of a man.

He sees the reality.

When we get to the New Testament, Paul sees one brighter than the noonday sun on his road to Damascus.

John, the disciple who rested on Jesus, sees Jesus, the glorious one, with eyes like fire, bronze, arms, and he falls down as if dead.

Daniel sees the ancient of days.

And lightning, rivers of fire flowing out of him.

The testimony of Scripture from beginning to end is that there is a reality beyond this one.

There is a presence behind all other presences.

That there is something foundational that when you approach it, when you get close, language cannot do it justice.

But it is awe-inspiring.

It radically changes how we see life.

Have you ever gotten close to God?

Have you ever trembled and feared?

Have you ever fallen down as though you were dead?

Have you ever had clarity?

Life is lived in a haze.

Have you ever had a moment of clarity where you see clearly and you realize you are in the presence of the Holy One?

That you could be undone, that you are so tiny in comparison.

Moses, he encounters God's presence.

There's a problem though with this encounter.

Moses himself actually talks about it.

If you flip over to Numbers chapter 11, this is what Moses says in Numbers 11, verse 29.

Numbers 11 · chapter mention Numbers 11:29

Moses said to Joshua, Are you jealous for my sake?

Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.

What is the problem?

The problem is Moses is having this encounter with God outside the camp.

And the people of God are not having it.

Throughout church history, this is a repeated pattern.

The pastor, the man of God, the prophet, the person who experiences God, and then there's a separation, and there's everybody else.

And Moses, he doesn't want this.

He doesn't want to be the only one experiencing God.

And this is Moses' longing.

Oh, I wish everybody could taste this.

I wish everybody could experience this.

He has this encounter with God, and our first image is that God is real, that we can encounter him, but it's not just for Moses.

This longing is actually picked up in Joel.

In Joel, this is what he says in Joel 2, 28 and 29.

He picks this up.

He says, Afterwards, I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female slaves in those days I will pour out my spirit.

See, Joel is picking up on this longing that Moses had, that each of us could encounter God.

This is the exact verses quoted in Acts 2 at Pentecost.

In Acts 2, he quotes Joel, he says in verse 16 through 18.

In the last days it'll be God declares, that I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams, even upon slaves, both men and women.

In those days I'll pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy.

This is what's being fulfilled at Pentecost.

I want you to gather together.

Let's put together these thoughts in this first image.

Moses won't exchange blessing for the presence of God.

He would rather have God's face than just the hand of blessing.

He has an encounter with God, and it's good.

It's an encounter we see throughout the entire Old Testament and New.

That God is real, that we can encounter and meet him.

But the longing is that each person, not some man of God, but each person, will have that experience.

That leads us now to our second image.

What happens when each person has that?

We're going to flip over to 1 Corinthians.

Our second picture is the early church, and this is God among them.

We're going to start in verse 24.

This is a snapshot of everybody.

But if all prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider who enters, is reproved by all and called to account by all.

After the secrets of the unbeliever's heart are disclosed, that person will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, God is really among you.

This is a picture of the early church.

Now imagine this with me, because we are meeting this morning in a temple and it's a Jewish synagogue, but this is in Corinth.

It's probably meeting in a wealthy person's villa.

There's probably 30 or 40 people.

It's probably a very diverse room.

Slaves, free people, dock workers, wealthy people, men, women, and they're in this room, and the testimony is that God is among them.

This is Moses' dream lived out.

Did you see that phrase?

God is among them?

That the Spirit of God is now resting on his people?

See, we can have great kids' ministry, and I hope we do, but the question is, is God among us?

We can have great outreach, we can partner with missionaries, but is God among us?

We can have decent preaching and great music.

Is God among us?

We can give lots of money, we can find a building in New Albany.

Is God among us?

We can grow as the area grows and as cornfields turn into more and more houses, it seems.

We can move from 200 to 2,000, and it really doesn't matter.

Is God among us?

And who determines?

It's not the hype pastor, it's not the charismatic pastor, it's not the worship team, it's not the social media manager, it is the unbeliever who says, God is among you.

The litmus test is the unbeliever walks in and says, You have God.

You have something.

The outsider comes in and says, God is there.

That is the testimony of a church where God is among them.

Everybody is playing, everybody's participating.

It's not come and just receive, it's come and give.

And the outcome of that is God is among them.

God is among them.

How does the Spirit reveal God among us?

It says two things.

One, their hearts are exposed.

We know God is among us.

When it feels like the Spirit is reading our mail.

When it feels like I'm being exposed, that's a sign that God is among us.

A second sign we see earlier in chapter 12 of the same section, he says in verse 3, I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, Let Jesus be cursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

We know the Spirit's among us when Jesus is exalted as Lord.

When Jesus is lifted up, that's a sign the Spirit is among us.

There's a man named David Hall, he's a pastor, he's since passed away in England, and he tells a story about being in a conference in Denmark, and as he was preaching in this conference in Denmark, a Middle Eastern man in the crowd kept shouting out, The presence of the holy is among us.

The presence of the holy is among us.

At first he was kind of annoyed because preachers don't love it when you shout in the middle of their talk.

And so this happened those several nights in a row.

And he he finally approached this man and he found out this was a Muslim who just happened to be attending these talks, and he he said, like, I just feel like God is here.

And he shares the story of helping point this person, like, yes, yes, God is here, and he points them to Jesus.

And what's crazy about the story is this this man was actually Saddam Hussein's personal driver.

And he has this encounter, and he tells the story though.

He says, like, most of our job is just helping people recognize God is among us and then letting them be pointed to Jesus.

See, we have these moments in life, these moments in church where our hearts get exposed, where we sense God's presence.

And we need to be directed to Jesus.

We need to be pointed to Him.

If you're following in the notes, the second point is the presence of God illuminates and exalts Jesus.

The Spirit of God shows us Jesus.

Jesus told us this would happen.

If you're in John, real quick, John 15, 26.

He says, the Spirit, the advocate, who will come from the Father, the Spirit of truth comes to you from the Father.

He'll testify on my behalf.

He's his witness.

He points to Jesus.

This is one of the greatest truths of Scripture that we can have open to us, that the Holy Spirit must reveal Jesus.

We can argue, we can persuade, we can have our proofs, we can have our own testimonies, and they're all good, but only the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus.

The Spirit opens our minds.

The greatest revelation we can have as a church is that we need the Holy Spirit that Jesus might be revealed.

The Holy Spirit is not just strange phenomena and signs, although that is often included, but he is more than that.

He's the one who reveals Jesus.

He's the one who birthed the church.

He's the one who brings us into new birth.

He's the one who opens our minds to the scriptures.

The Holy Spirit is not an add-on.

He's not the cherry on top.

He's not the thing that we have it when we're comfortable, but when we're trying to reach an audience, we take him away because we think he's not appealing to the rational mind.

No, he's none of those things.

Lord forgive us.

He is essential.

Without him, we have nothing and we are nothing.

Apart from his power, there is no revelation of Jesus.

He opens our minds, he opens our hearts, he exalts Jesus.

He is the most precious one.

Is God among us?

We must bow our hearts as a church.

We must say, on your altar, Lord, we lay our lives.

We are yielded to you.

We will not become the church that God wants us to be if we do not yield to Him.

He is the mighty hurricane from heaven.

He is the gentle breeze.

He is the still small voice.

There is no life apart from him.

He must be among us.

How will we know how we are doing as a church?

Is it money?

Is it the budget?

Is it the people, attendance?

Is it whether our kids like it?

All those things matter.

Is he among us?

And is that the testimony of outsiders who come in?

And he points to Jesus.

He lifts Jesus up.

Some of us we have forgotten about the Holy Spirit.

He's just the end of the creed.

Others were afraid of the Holy Spirit that he'll make us weird.

It's true.

But I I'll just be honest.

In most of my experience, the people that seem like they're weird with the Holy Spirit were weird before the Holy Spirit.

That's just my personal experience.

And if you want to ask, like, what will the Holy Spirit make me like?

Look at the life of Jesus.

Look at the life of Paul.

He won't make you weirder than he made Jesus.

I promise.

Now, some of us, what we're really afraid of is losing control.

The reason we like the scriptures more than the Spirit is they're easier to manipulate.

They point to a person where he is the person.

And many of us we try to drag the Holy Spirit along to get him to bless what we want to do.

But he's not a dog that we can walk.

He's the Lord.

We must yield.

Others we aren't forgetting and we're not afraid.

We've just been in environments where the Holy Spirit's been forced, where you've been sort of pushed down, or it's emotional, and it's easily manipulated.

I want to just point out in this image, the second image in Corinthians, Paul's writing to a church that is saturated in the Holy Spirit and has seen lots of misuse and abuse of the Holy Spirit.

But even though that is happening, Paul doesn't command them to stop.

Look just real briefly with me at the end of 2 Corinthians 14.

At the end of 2 Corinthians 14, he actually explicitly tells them, 1 Corinthians 14, my bad.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 14, he explicitly tells them not, do not forbid speaking in tongues.

Isn't that interesting?

This is a church with excess, a church with some charismatic crazy.

Paul's answer for misuse is not to not use it.

He instead instructs us, he instructs us to test everything.

Look in Thessalonians, real quick.

In Thessalonians he says this, verse 19, chapter 5.

Do not quench the spirit, do not despise the words of prophecy.

But test everything, hold fast to what is good, abstain from every form of evil.

The scriptures form the boundaries, they form the structure for the spirit and for life.

His instruction to a church that's that's misusing the spirit is not to stop with the Holy Spirit stuff.

It's to test everything.

Test it against what?

Against Scripture and against Jesus.

Saint Iranius, who's an early church father, I shared last week, he has this beautiful picture.

He talks about the scriptures as a mosaic, all these little jewels.

And he says, Together the mosaic makes the face of Jesus.

And that what we often do when we misuse the Bible is we we rearrange the jewels to make, he calls them pictures of cats and dogs.

And we claim, because each of the jewels is a piece of the Bible, that, you know, I'm just using God's word, but but we don't have that freedom.

And the gifts are actually very similar.

The gifts are the life of the body of Jesus.

All of the gifts are the life, the movement of the body.

But we're not free to choreograph them however we want.

They're ordered in such a way that they look like Jesus.

And so the test is: does this look like Jesus?

See, the gifts that are gifts of the speaking, of the mouth, they they sound like the words of Jesus.

The gifts that are hand gifts or actions, they look like the actions of Jesus.

The mind gifts, the gifts that involve the mind in revelation, they they look like the mind of Jesus.

All of the gifts look like the body of Jesus, and we know what the body of Jesus looked like.

We have the Gospels.

And so the scripture becomes the test, it becomes the filter.

Is this like Jesus?

But we do not quench the fire.

We make sure that it looks like Jesus.

Just real briefly, the third image, because we do have to end on time.

The third image is in Ezekiel in chapter 47.

Ezekiel has this vision, there's a temple and rivers of water flowing out of it.

And wherever the river goes, there's life.

He actually says that in some places it's like ankle deep, in other places it's knee deep, and other places it's waist high, in other places it's over his head.

And Jesus actually used this image.

Jesus stood at the front of the temple, just like Ezekiel's vision, and he said, I am the living water.

And from me flows rivers of life.

The third image is this picture.

The source is Jesus, the water is his spirit.

There's banks on each side because of large trees.

Which, if you remember last week, Psalm 1 and Joshua 1, the gateways into the Old Testament, the banks of the river are the Word of God.

And everywhere it goes, things come back to life.

Marriages come back to life.

Addicted people, they come back to life.

And there's this picture, though, that's kind of tantalizing of some people that are just in the water and ankle deep.

Other people they're in the water up to their knees.

And other people, the water is up to their chest or even over their heads.

I just want to end this morning by asking you a question.

Are you in the water?

And if you're in the water, if God is at work in your life, you're aware of his presence, the spirit is on you.

Are you ankle deep?

Are you knee deep?

Have you ever gone in over your head?