(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

Today, I know you guys are excited, right?

Yeah.

So I realized, you know, sitting here, Jesus uses parables, okay?

So, and what he did with the parable was he took this, you know, huge idea of who God is and what God does, and he brings it down to our level, to something that his listeners would understand, right?

And so I don't want you to be offended because you think, wow, Richard thinks I only understand Plato.

That's not the case.

This is more so me studying God's word and thinking, God, I don't know if I really understand this.

Help me understand this.

And he says, Richard, get the Plato out, because that's what you understand.

So here we are, we got Plato today.

We'll talk about that a little bit later.

But what we are going to talk about is kind of stepping off from where Pastor Clay was last week as he finished up the book of Ezekiel.

There was this portion that I loved where he talked about this vision that Ezekiel had with an angel of the Lord and this river that was flowing.

And as it began, it was, you know, ankle deep.

And as he continued on to follow this little river, it got deeper and deeper.

And what Pastor Clay was talking about was this idea that God calls us into deeper, right?

We're not called to just stay at ankle depth when it comes to our faith, when it comes to our walk with God.

And so that was a portion of it last week was, hey, it's time to go deeper.

And you guys, I am all about deeper.

I haven't gotten there yet.

I don't even know what that looks like yet, but I am in it for the ride.

And I am always willing to drag people into my misery, I mean, my walk with God.

And you guys happen to be those people today.

And so what I wanna talk about is this idea of what does it look like to go deeper with God?

And again, for some of us, today might be where you just step into that ankle deep water and that's where you're at.

For others, it's time.

And we know that, right?

Like I've been at the shoreline, up to my knees, and God's calling you to take a step of faith.

And God's calling you to hand more of your life over to Him.

And my hope is as we begin today, you're honest about that.

Because again, that's where we're at.

This isn't a place of perfection.

If we were all perfect, we wouldn't be here, right?

We'd be in heaven already.

And we're not there yet.

So what I'm assuming is that none of us here are perfect.

And that's myself included.

And so what I want us to do as we begin today is I want you to think about in your life, what are those things right now that are worrying you, that are filling you with fear, that are filling you with frustration?

And I don't care if that has to do with the goings on of the world, the goings on of things in your family, the goings on at work, whatever it might be, all of us have those things that we are worried about, that are keeping us from really being able to see God work in our lives.

And so take five seconds, because I'm telling you, my wife has a list that she wakes up with every morning.

And I mean, the worrying starts almost immediately.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, you haven't even finished breakfast yet.

So, and I know most of us are probably like that.

So I'm gonna give you five seconds, and then I'm gonna pray, okay?

So take five seconds.

What are those things?

And God, we come before you today, and we acknowledge that there are times where we allow the worries of life, the pursuits of life to get in the way of hearing you, of living for you, of following you, of truly being your people in your church.

And God, I pray that for our time here that we have left in this building, that we would lay those worries down, and that our hearts and our minds and our ears would be open to your word, to your truth, to who you are calling us to be, to not live lives of worry and fear, but to live lives of peace, of joy, of power, of faith.

Lives that you have called us to, Lord, as your people.

And it's in your name we pray, amen.

All right, well, we are going to be jumping into the book of 1 Samuel, number one, because I love the Old Testament, number two, because I know we don't read it all the time, and we try and stay away from it.

But this 1 Samuel chapter four, and what we're gonna be looking at is this battle that the Israelites are having with the Philistines, their mortal enemies.

And I wanted to kind of set up this battle before we dive into the word.

So if you wanna flip in your Bible to 1 Samuel chapter four, verse one, I've got a map up here that's going to kind of lay out what's going on.

So we're in the year about 1000 BC, right?

And in this battle, right there at that red dot, the Israelites are camped out at a little town called Ebenezer, right?

And if you've ever wondered, Ebenezer's a weird name, we know it from a Christmas carol.

Ebenezer means, my God remembers.

That's what Ebenezer means.

So the Israelites are at Ebenezer, the Philistines are directly to your left in a city called Aphek, right?

And so that's where this is, 1000 BC, right now in the history of Israel, the 350 year time of the judges is coming to an end.

And so in your Bible, if you look and you find after Joshua is the book of Judges.

And Judges, that was a period where for 350 years, God would raise up one person to be the defender and to be the leader of his people.

That time is coming to a close.

And now we are now about to step in to the time of kings in Israel's history.

And the prophet Samuel, he was the one who was chosen to kind of make this transition.

And so pretty much immediately after this story, we are going to read, Israel is going to anoint Saul as King of Israel.

And we know that after Saul comes King David, and that begins the golden age of the kingdom of Israel with David and Solomon.

And, but yet at this time, what we find is that the people are kind of divided and leaderless.

The high priesthood, the people that were in charge of showing the people and leading the people in how to worship God and how to follow God, how to live for God, it is corrupt, it is breaking down.

And so we know at this time, things aren't necessarily going great for the people of Israel.

And so in 1 Samuel 4, here's what we read.

And Samuel words came to all Israel.

Now the Israelites went out to fight against the Philistines.

The Israelites camped at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Aphek.

The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel.

And as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines.

That's not supposed to happen.

Who killed about 4,000 of them on the battlefield.

When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, why did the Lord bring defeat on us today before the Philistines?

Let us bring the Ark of the Lord's covenant from Shiloh so that he may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.

So the men went to Shiloh and they brought back the Ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim.

Now, you know, this is important because they just didn't say, hey, go get the Ark.

They went to go get the Ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim.

This is a serious thing.

And Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the Ark of the covenant of God.

When the Ark of the Lord's covenant came into camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook.

Hearing the uproar, the Philistines asked, what's all this shouting in the Hebrew camp?

When they learned that the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp, the Philistines were terrified.

A God has come into the camp, they said.

Oh no, nothing like this has happened before.

We're doomed.

Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods?

They are the gods who struck down the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.

Be strong, Philistines, be men, or you will be subject to the Hebrews as they have been to you.

Be men and fight.

So the Philistines fought and the Israelites were defeated.

And every man fled to his tent.

The slaughter was very great.

Israel lost 30,000 foot soldiers.

The Ark of God was captured.

And Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

And so again, what's going on here?

I mean, these are the Israelites, these are God's people, and they had the Ark of the Covenant.

Some of you, okay, kid of the 80s.

This is the Nazi melting Ark of the Covenant.

This is what Indiana Jones fought for.

I've seen what the Ark can do.

How did these people lose this battle?

Right, I mean, this is the thing that would melt armies.

This is the thing that if you touched it and you weren't supposed to, you were going to die.

And they lost.

And so the question has to be why?

And then the next question has to be, what can we learn from this?

Because I know that as a Christian, I've been called to step into battle with God.

And I want to be sure that God's with me and that I'm stepping into victory.

And so as we try and answer the question of why Israel lost so bad, we have to remember that at this time in their history, the people of God, the Israelites, were starting to rely more on their own power, on the power of kings and armies, than they were on the power of God.

And what we know throughout scripture is that when that happens, bad things follow.

When that goes on, when people forget about God and they start saying, hey, I got this, we're good, bad things start to happen.

And as we read this passage, the first thing that comes to our eyes, the first thing that we have to realize, this one glaring fact, is that at the beginning of this battle, God wasn't there.

The Israelites were encamped at Ebenezer, my God remembers, and yet the Israelites forgot.

God wasn't there.

They had forgotten the Ark of the Covenant.

And what we know is that in the Old Testament, the Ark represents the very presence of God.

Right?

In the Old Testament, the presence of God was enthroned upon the top of the Ark as it sat in the temple, as it sat in the tabernacle.

The Ark is called God's footstool.

So God goes from heaven and where he touches earth was the Ark, the top of the Ark was his mercy seat.

And so the Ark is the very presence of God.

And what we read as this fight begins, God's people thought, we don't need that, we're enough.

We've got this taken care of.

And it wasn't until they lost that first battle that the elders, the leaders, the people who are supposed to know better, said, hey, let's bring God into this.

In fact, the first thing they said was why did God let this happen?

You see guys, and now we start understanding why we need to learn from this, because how many times have I fought a battle, maybe not against Philistines, but walked in thinking that I'm in the right and I fall flat on my face and my first question isn't, wow, I probably did something wrong.

My first question is, God, don't you love me?

God, why weren't you there?

And so isn't it great that 3000 years after this story, we're still doing the same thing.

We're still doing the same thing.

In this story, in my life, what I often do is I tell God, go ahead and get in the back seat.

Let me drive you around for a while in my life, God.

You just sit there and when I need you, you can come out, but until then, you just go along for the ride.

God, all I wanna see is when I look in the rear view mirror, I wanna see a thumbs up.

That's what I want from God.

That's all I, I just need to know you're in the car and we're doing good.

And it's ridiculous, right?

Because right now, and I do it in my life, the Israelites were treating God like their own cute little puppy.

They have this God and all they want for him to do is that when they call for him, he's supposed to come happily and jump around, around their camp and make everybody joyful and growl at the bad guys and make everything okay.

And then once they're done, once everything's taken care of, God, you go ahead, go get back in your crate, go on.

Or if you're from California like me, you go back in your Louis Vuitton purse, right?

Come on, we're going shopping.

And again, we laugh and we think it's ridiculous, but the reality is this is how many people treat God today.

We live in a world that believes that God is only there to agree with my beliefs.

God is only there to affirm that what I'm doing is right.

God is only there to fight my battles and to agree with my choices.

Right, what we want and what we tend to do is we try to fit God into a mold, right?

Here's where the Play-Doh comes in.

And sometimes what happens is my Christianese gets this wrong where I would say, God, I need to get more of you into my life.

And what I mean by that is, God, I've got to figure out how I can fit more of you into my family, right?

And more of you into my job, more of you into my relationships, more of you into my daily life.

And then what happens is I get a God who agrees with what I agree with, right?

And I start believing in this little tiny God that I think can fight my battles and I think believes the same thing I do.

And what I have to understand is, I know it doesn't really, none of you would be confused and wanna eat this, right?

But I mean, it looks good, right?

Something that, hey, do you have God in your life?

Yep, look at that.

Awesome, spectacular.

But what I know is that this does not satisfy, right?

This has no nutritional value to give me any type of life that I need in this world, right?

This has nothing to keep me going.

This has nothing that satisfies me.

And so church, what we have to understand is that if the God we believe in is not challenging us to go deeper, if the God we believe in is not challenging the way that I think about and see things in this world, if the God I believe in is not helping me to become more like Christ and less like myself, then we need some help.

We need some help.

And it's not bad to acknowledge that.

That's why we gather together.

It's not to pat each other on the back and say, wow, we're doing a great job.

And we are, okay?

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not here to beat you guys and tell you like, man, you're really messing it up.

But I think too often as Christians, especially if we've been in this a while, we think at some point we've just arrived.

I know the words to the songs.

I know when to say amen.

I know when to clap.

I know when to go get my breakfast burrito, right?

We know all of this.

And the reality is, right?

If I, when I go to war with the Philistines, right?

Because they're wrong and I'm right.

And they're the bad guys and I'm the good guy.

I know God agrees with me because I made him.

And so of course God is going to be with me whenever I go into my battles.

Because he agrees with me.

He likes the same things I like.

He hates the things I hate.

He votes the way I do, right?

This is who God is.

And so of course God's gonna be with me.

But what we know from the story is that didn't work well for the Israelites.

God's not gonna do that.

God's not saying that, hey, I'm gonna fit into your mold.

Why?

Because God's the mold.

God's the mold.

Right?

And we know, like I'm not going to do battle with any Philistines today.

I don't know if there are any Philistines left, but I'm not going to battle them.

But in our day and age, what we hear are crazy things like, of course God's a Republican.

Of course God's a Democrat.

A popular one that I've read in many news articles and heard from many pastors.

God is trans.

Right?

God loves me because I found a front row parking spot at the ball.

God is real because my team won the Superbowl.

Because I prayed for that.

Okay?

And I told the first service, I don't mean to burst any bubbles, but I don't think God really cares about sports.

Okay?

God cares about the athletes playing sports, but he doesn't really care who wins.

Right?

And so why are we believing in such a small God of my own creation that looks just like me?

That's not what God is.

That's not what he wants.

The reality is this is the fall all over again, you guys.

It's not me saying that I wanna be God, but it's me creating a God who looks just like me and believes the exact same things I do.

This is the sin of man.

Instead of wanting to be God myself, I created an exact copy of me to take his place.

And how terribly frightening.

Right?

The world only needs one Richard, you guys.

I know that.

My wife tells me that all the time.

But when we hand our lives over to God, what we understand from scripture is that we are the ones transformed, not him.

Right?

As I mentioned before, he is the mold, he's the reality, he's the life.

Right?

And it's bigger than anything I understand.

It's bigger than anything I know.

Throughout scripture, we hear things like this.

Jesus says in John 10, 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Abundant life.

Second Corinthians five, Paul says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old is gone, the new is here.

See, what we have to understand is that Christ did not come simply to make my life better.

He came to give me a new life, a new life, a different life.

He doesn't want just part of me.

He doesn't want half.

He doesn't want three quarters.

He doesn't want seven eighths.

He wants it all to transform the old into the new.

In the New Testament, there are two words that they use for the word life.

The first one is bios, and bios is biological life.

It is us breathing.

It's us, our hearts pumping blood through our bodies.

That is bios, but it also includes this body's interaction with the physical world.

So bios life includes my worries and my fears.

It includes everything that stresses me out, that worries me.

It's my pursuit of wealth and fame and popularity.

That is bios.

The other word that is used is zoe.

And zoe is a spiritual life that can only come from God.

And what zoe does is slowly but surely, as we allow God to be the mold, zoe transforms and reshapes the way I see, and I interact with this world.

See what zoe does is it stops me from looking at somebody and going, wow, they don't believe the same thing I do, so they're evil into, God's doing something in that person's life.

You know what the reason they're probably so upset and so angry is because they've been hurt.

And I've been given the ability to bear that hurt with them.

And so you know what, instead of hating them, I'm gonna step into that mess with them.

And I'm gonna stand with them.

That's what zoe does.

Life is no longer about what I want or hating people who get in the way of what I want, but it's all about what God is doing in restoring this world and humanity to himself.

The reality is, is that God wants to invite me into zoe, into a life that I can't imagine, into a life that is bigger than anything that this world can offer.

When Jesus says things like, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, this is in Matthew 11, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.

And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

He's talking about that spiritual life, that zoe.

See what bios is, is what we experience so often.

It's struggle, it's battle, it's fighting, it's fear, it's anger.

What zoe is, is rest and freedom.

And that is what God calls us into.

Now, there are two things that I wanna say regarding this life that God is calling us to.

Number one, zoe does not mean we neglect bios, right?

We don't need to go find a cave out in the desert and live the rest of our lives contemplating eternity, okay?

That's not what God is calling us to.

In fact, this past week, as I was getting my message ready, Doug, who runs sound for us and is also our facilities guru here at the church, he came up and said, hey, pastor, how's the message coming?

And so I told him, I told him what I was gonna be talking about, and I told him about zoe and bios, and he stopped and he looked at me and goes, well, okay, I've gotta go change trash bags and take out the trash.

Okay, right?

And that's the great response to this, is the fact that I have the spiritual life doesn't mean I stop doing what I've been called to do.

I don't stop working, I don't stop loving my family, I don't stop interacting with the world.

I am in the world, but not of the world.

And so this is what God wants to do, because the reality is how many times have we walked out of church and thought, wow, that was a great message, but now it's time to go back to the real world.

We've been there.

But what God wants is for you to live in, live spiritually the zoe life in your bios, on the golf course, at lunch, in your staff meetings, at dinner with your family, every aspect.

Zoe doesn't ignore the real world.

In fact, this new spiritual life is supposed to impact that world through you.

And that's what it does.

The spiritual life, it keeps the things of this world from being things that we chase after, things that we have to conquer into gifts and provisions from God.

Let me put it this way.

If I say something like, you know, God has given me this job so that I can honor Him every day as I work.

God has blessed me with a family so that I truly understand what unconditional love is.

And so I can point my kids to what it looks like to live for God.

God has blessed me to live in a nation where I have the ability to vote my beliefs.

Now, if that gets taken away, that's not God abandoning us, right?

I still live for God in a country where I am cast aside, where I am thrown in prison, where Christianity is illegal.

I still live in that spiritual life.

But while I have those opportunities, I exercise them and I live them out.

And the second thing is learning to live this new spiritual life is difficult.

In Luke 9, listen to what Jesus says.

He says, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me.

Okay?

I don't wanna do that, right?

Being nailed to a cross doesn't sound like fun.

And yet what I hear is Jesus saying that, hey, if you're gonna follow me, here's what it's going to look like.

And so how can we justify this?

Where in one breath, Jesus says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And in the next breath, he's saying, hey, if you wanna follow me, you gotta face death.

Well, the reality is it's the fact that my flesh battles and is constantly wanting to take back control.

Right?

Every time, that's why no matter how many songs of worship I sing with tears streaming down my eyes, that's why no matter how many times I pray or people pray for me and I feel God's peace in my life, that the next day I wake up and there is worry.

It's the bios pulling me back.

That's why it is so difficult.

That is why, as Jesus says, every day, moment by moment, I have to make the choice to say, you know what?

I'm not gonna give into the old.

I'm going to embrace the new.

And that's what we have been called to do.

And so we have to ask ourselves, are we trying to force God into fitting into our lives?

Right?

Am I trying to be the mold or am I surrendering my life to God so that he can do something new in and through us?

And I think, I was thinking about this and here's how we can tell.

Are you trying to find scripture passages to justify the choices that you're making?

We've all been there.

We've all been there.

And here, I'm gonna help us out.

This isn't an exhaustive list, but you're never gonna find a scripture passage that talks about the fact that it's okay to get drunk all the time.

It's not in there.

There's no scripture that justifies adultery.

There is only one biblical view of marriage.

Okay?

And just so I can piss everyone off equally, God doesn't talk about owning guns.

And I say that for this.

There time and time again, throughout our world, we find groups trying to find ways to claim that God is on their side.

Right?

And this is a huge danger.

God is for me and so he is against you.

Right?

This is difficult to do and it's not what God wants.

We try and pull God into these battles that are trying to support us staying stuck in bios.

Wow.

God, I'm worried about this.

So you need to come in here and worry about this with me.

And God says, it's so much bigger.

He said, hey, I've given you a clue.

I win in the end.

I win in the end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Woo.

Yeah.

And you know, in the end, it doesn't say who the president is.

Right?

It doesn't.

It just says God wins.

God wins.

God wins.

And so all of this worry that I have, it's not that God doesn't care.

It's not that God just, you know, isn't worried about the world.

He is.

But he's trying to do something that is so much bigger than government, so much bigger than corporations, so much bigger than individual churches.

He is trying to restore humanity in the world back to himself.

And he says, I need you to come help me do that.

God is trying to pull us into a new life, into a kingdom life.

And in Matthew 6, this is what he says.

He says, so do not worry, saying, what shall we eat?

Or what shall we drink?

Or what shall we wear?

All right, this is all bio stuff.

For the pagans run after these things.

And your heavenly father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

See, here's the Zoe.

Seek first.

Chase after the kingdom life.

And all of these things will be given to you as well.

God understands our needs, physical needs.

And he says, if you trust me, not only will you get those, but you're gonna get the kingdom as well.

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

So here's how we end.

Why?

Why should we, why should you worry about trading in the worries, the pain, the frustrations of bios life to embrace and accept the freedom and peace found in Zoe, in the spiritual life offered by God through Christ.

And I can't answer for you, but here's how I answered that.

First reason why I need to, is because I'm a failure.

I can stand up here all day and tell you about all the times and all the battles I fought and lost in my own power.

All of the battles I've had with my flesh, with my anger, with depression, with pride, and how each time after each failure, I blamed God, just like the Israelites did.

And wondered where he was.

And yet each time, as I questioned, if God was even real, every time when I hit rock bottom, God showed up.

God showed up through his word, through his people, through his miraculous appearance, whatever it was, God showed up.

And so what I realized is I've tried, I've tried to do it my way, and I'm just not good at it.

And the second thing that I realized is I'm tired.

I'm tired and I'm scared and I'm worried.

I'm worried about this world.

I'm worried about my kids having to grow up in this world.

And I know I'm not strong enough.

I can't do it.

I can't be everywhere all at once.

But I have a God who can.

Right?

For those of you that don't know, for 20 years, I was a part of a church out in California, it's called the Friends Church.

And the Friends Church, it was a denomination that came from the Quakers.

Yes, the oatmeal people.

We didn't have to wear the hats or anything like that.

Wasn't that.

But Quakers, the Friends Church, are pacifists.

Now, when I first started working in this church, I didn't know if I necessarily held that view.

And so as I started reading and thinking, I realized, my gosh, I think I believe in that.

And I know, you guys are saying like, oh great, this Californian's gonna come and try and turn us all into pacifists.

That's not it.

I wanna tell you, I am an untested pacifist.

Nobody has ever broken into my house and threatened my family.

So this is an untested pacifism.

Because if that did happen, I am sure that belief in pacifism would be set aside.

And I don't own a gun, but at that point I wouldn't need one.

I will do more damage with my hands than probably a gun ever could.

So pacifists, and I'm in seminary, and the professor was teaching on the Old Testament and how God is this warrior God who fights for his people and leads his people into battle, you know, and all of these things we see in the Old Testament.

And there was a friend of mine, and she also worked at a Friends Church.

And so we asked her, we said, "'Tara, you're part of the Friends Church.

How does a pacifist feel about all of these writings about God being a warrior and going to battle?'

And being the good friend she was, she threw me under the bus.

She said, "'Well, professor, I actually don't hold to that view of the Friends Church, but Richard does.'"

And so now I'm sitting there and the professor's staring at me and everyone in the class is staring at me.

And I sat there for a bit, and with less confidence than I say it now, I said, "'Well, I guess the reality is God is a warrior, so I don't have to be.'"

And my professor, who, if you were wrong, he told you you were wrong.

If you were right, he didn't say a word, and he just nodded his head.

And so my professor looked at me, and then we went on to the next thing.

And so I share that with you, for us to understand, church, we're not strong enough.

We're not strong enough on our own to fight all of these battles in the world, in our own strength.

And we're not supposed to be, right?

God is a warrior, so we don't have to be.

We need to stop trying to fit Him into the mold of what we think He's like, and realize He is the mold.

Realize we are called to pour ourselves into Him, not the other way around.

And that's the only way that the little strength that you and I have, the wisdom that we have, the faith that we have, becomes large enough to feed multitudes, to be the city on the hill, and to kick down the gates of hell, right?

Because that's what the church is called to be, amen?

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

And so make no mistake, we're called into this new life.

And it is not a life of worry and fear, it is a life of victory, it is a life of peace, it is a life of joy.

And today as a church, we need to, as I said at the beginning, we need to go deeper.

And so today as we close, as we pray, I want you to think, and again, if today is the day you step in at your ankles, or if today is the day where you go all in trusting God, I don't want you to leave here today without knowing, without knowing God has invited you.

You're not here by accident, God has invited you because you have a part to play, a gift that this world needs to recognize the greatness of God.

Let's pray.

God, we love you and we thank you, Father.

Father, there are so many times where I have allowed my beliefs and my worries and my fears to keep me from truly trusting in your power.

And so God, I wanna pray for us as the church because I know I'm not the only one, God, that we would stop trying to cram you into our little lives and our little beliefs and try and make you exactly who we are and believe the things we do.

And Lord, I pray that we would open our hearts and our minds to realize that you are calling us into your life.

You are calling us to see things through your eyes.

You are calling our hearts to break for the things that break your heart.

And so Lord, I don't know where everyone is in this room today, but I do know, Father God, that there are many people who have been burdened down by worries and fears and today is the day to let them go.

And so Father, for those people today, if it is their first time trusting you or if it is their first time in a long time, may their hearts prayer be this, Lord God, thank you for inviting me into your life, a spiritual life, Lord God, that is full of peace, that is full of victory.

Lord, today I accept that gift and want to live in it for the rest of my life.

Thank you for sending your son to die on the cross for our sins and the sins of this world.

And Lord, for the rest of us as your church, may we stand strong knowing God that we don't have to fight the battles and Lord, that when we do fight the battles, we better make sure that you are there by our side, that it is a battle that you have called us to fight.

Lord, help us to not get caught up in the measly little worries of this world, but to truly see that you are moving throughout history in a great redemption of humanity.

Lord, that's going to end in eternity.

We wanna be there with you, God.

We wanna be on your side.

We love you and it's in your name we pray and all God's people said, amen.

Amen.