Everyday Faith | Week 5 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

amen and amen. I don't know if it's like this at your guys' house, but, like, every night around five or 06:00

is probably, like, one of my least favorite moments of every day. And it's at the moment when my wife and I look at each other and we ask, what are we having for dinner tonight? And you're like, oh my gosh. We've gotta pick this every night. You know? Like, nobody tells you when you become an adult that you've gotta figure out what the heck you're gonna eat for dinner every night for the rest of forever, you know. And God forbid it's date night and you're trying to pick a place to go and you're like, well, where do you wanna go? I don't know. Where do you wanna go? And I'm like, I don't know. You pick. I picked last time. It's like, well, I don't know. This doesn't sound good. You're like, well, what about this? No. I don't I don't want that. Like, well, pick something. Right? Like,

is picking what we're gonna have for dinner so so difficult? It's interesting. I was reading a study that said that you and I, every single day, make about 35,000

decisions. Now a lot of those, they would call them like micro decisions. That's like, k, subconsciously almost you're you're coming to a a light that has just turned yellow and you're trying to decide, do I do I slam on the brakes or do I accelerate? For me, I just accelerate. Right? Like, I'm going for it in the name of Jesus. But, like, we're

we're constantly having to make decisions. But the question this morning, the question that James is going to wrestle through, he's going to challenge us to wrestle through this morning is why and how do we make the decisions that we make? Of those 35,000 decisions that you're making every single day,

how are you making them? Why are you making them? Because John Maxwell, a leadership coach and a pastor says this. He says that life life is a matter of choices and every choice you make, it makes you.

That you and I, you could argue, are nothing more than the summation of all the decisions that we make. That is the essence of who we are. And so the question this morning is, how do you make decisions? Practically, how do you go through the process of deciding

what you're gonna spend your money on? Whether or not you're gonna take a promotion?

Because all of us have a decision making process whether we've articulated it or not. We all do. For some of us, we're like a pro and cons person. Right? We list all the pros and all the cons. And if the pros outweigh the cons, we're like, okay. Clearly, God is in this. Right? For others of us, we're external processors. We go to our group of people, and you all know that friend that's trying to make a big decision because that's all they talk about for, seven days until they make a decision. Right? For the rest of us, we're just like a a feeling person. Like, if I get the, the, you know, intuition, then I just I go with my gut feeling. For for others of you, you still have one of these guys. Anybody remember

the magic eight ball? You're like, he asked me on a date. Should I say yes or should I say no? And then the magic eight ball is like undecided. Try again later. And you're like, okay, that's not helpful. Should I allow him to say that we're boyfriend and girlfriend? Then it says, absolutely.

Clearly clearly, God is in this. And some of you are like, I need to send him an email tomorrow because he just did witchcraft in the house of God. It's just a magic eight ball. Calm down. Okay?

My my point is that all of us have a process in which we make decisions. What James is going to say is that God cares about how we make decisions.

And oftentimes, we just get so busy going through life that we stop to even sit back and go, well, God, what is your heart in this? I know the decision makes sense on paper. The promotion makes sense mathematically

when you're looking at, you know, the things that you can understand, but God god, what's your heart in this? And what James this morning is going to encourage us to remember is that god is in the details and god cares

about how and why we make the decisions that we make. Here's how James four begins this morning. He starts in verse 13 by saying, now now listen.

K? Now again, it's just two words, but in the Greek, this is this is emphatic language. James is trying to get the attention of the reader who's now at chapter four and is starting to kind of zone out and like just go through the motions of reading it. He he captures their attention. Again, he says, pay attention to this part. Don't miss what I'm about to say. He says, you who say today or tomorrow will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money. Says, why? You you don't even know what will happen tomorrow and then he asked the question, what what is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then just vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, if it is the lord's will, we will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes, all such boasting is evil. James says, you know what it is to plan your life and never take the consideration of god into account,

to never stop and bring the god of the universe into your decision making process? He says it's not just unwise. He actually causes an arrogant scheme that is evil. The same word in the New Testament used three times to talk about the person of Satan.

James says, for you and I to have the audacity to think we can plan the the where, the when, and the how of our life without expecting God to have a voice into that thing.

Except expecting that we can just plan our lives, go where we want, date how we want, spend our money how we want, use our resources how we want, take our free time, and do whatever we want with it, and never stop to ask the God of the universe, well, what would you have me do? He says it's not just unwise, it's it's actually

it's actually evil. I wanna talk to you this morning about the arrogance of assumption. The arrogance of what you and I will be tempted to do in our humanity of just making assumptions about how we can go and be whoever we wanna be, and then we assume that God on the back end will bless that thing because

because I asked him to bless it. And I think sometimes if God would answer us directly, God would say, bro, you should have talked to me six weeks ago. We should have had this conversation six months ago before you ever went on the first date.

And now you're getting ready to stand at the altar and you're starting to see his character and now you're starting to wonder, wait, how did I get here? You got here because you never stopped to ask the question in the beginning. God, is this somebody I should even entertain spending time with?

Because often we just think that we know better than god and James is saying is that is an arrogant scheme that will lead us into some really dangerous places. Here's the working definition that I want to talk to you about this morning around the the arrogance of assumption, the danger of assumption. It's the belief that you and I, we can plan, decide, and direct our lives without needing God's input or leadership.

So many of us though we've said that we've submitted our lives to Jesus, we've bent the knee to the lordship of Christ, we we live as if God doesn't exist.

And then what we do is when we kinda get into trouble or the decisions that we make go poorly, then we run to God and we go, God, what do I do? God, I need you to fix this thing. God, I need you to bless this thing. And God and his grace and his mercy, his compassion, and his love, yes, he does that Romans eight twenty eight thing where he works out all things for the good of those who love him, but there is some there are some painful

decisions that you and I can potentially avoid by seeking God not on the back end of a decision but on the front end. What James is saying is that you and I need to learn how to figure out how to seek and find God's will before

we make a decision. You know what's amazing to me? If you study the life of Jesus, there there was almost one thing that he seemed obsessed with more than anything, and it was learning how to operate not in his will and not in his power, but in the father's will. Look what Jesus says in John chapter four verse 34.

Then Jesus explained, my nourishment, the thing that feeds my soul, the thing that makes me who I am, It comes from doing the will of God who sent me and from finishing,

not my work but his work. John chapter five verse 30, Jesus says, I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just because I carry out the will of the one who sent me again, not my own will.

Jesus goes so far to say that I can't do anything apart from God's will, from the father's will. And yet you and I think that we can do some things on our own apart from God's will. Jesus in John chapter six verse 38 says, for I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will.

Jesus was obsessed with making sure that what he was doing was the father's will for his life. And so often, you and I never even stop to ask the question, God, what do you have for me? And here's the beauty this morning. The scripture say that God is not a mystery,

that if we seek him, we'll find him. If we knock, he'll open. God wants to speak to you. He wants you to bring him into the planning process. See, it's it's not a sin to make plans, but it is a sin to leave God out of them.

I'm not saying don't be a person that ever plans and just kinda wing it for the rest of your life. No. No. Not not at all. We we've gotta make plans, but we've got to also invite God into that planning process

and begin to realize, man, God cares about the business that you're getting ready to start. God cares about the family you're praying about. God cares about the the school you're thinking about sending your kids to. God wants to be a part of every single decision that you are making. That is the invitation of somebody who begins to really follow

and walk not by by sight, but by faith.

Now again, God's not gonna come in and audibly speak to us all the time, but I promise you, God will speak to us and show us his plan and his will if we are intentional to seek him out. There's three things that I see when I read this story. Three reasons that James goes so far as to call assumption

evil. I think there's three dangers. Why is assumption so dangerous?

The first one is because our perspective is limited. James says in verse 14 here, he says, why why you don't even know what's gonna happen tomorrow. He says, the reason it's so dangerous for you to just make assumptions about where your life is gonna go because tomorrow,

you could get a phone call where everything changes. And your life was heading in this direction, and all of a sudden, one thing changed. And now it's like the entire trajectory of my life is heading in a direction that I never thought it was gonna do. And yet, God was not surprised by the u-turn your life just took.

It took you by surprise, but not him. And what James is reminding us is that, yes, we we are smart. We're pretty intelligent beings, but we don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow and so these great plans that we make for our life, sometimes,

there are things that happen that throw those plans completely into a tailspin but the beauty is that we serve a god who sits out outside of time and space that if we would consult him, he would give us his insight into things and we could have avoided some really, really painful decisions.

And I don't know about you, but man, when I look at my life, some of the worst decisions that I've made, some of the harshest, like, circumstances

I've had to walk through were on the other side of me truthfully just getting out in front of God and making a decision that I thought was really intelligent, that was really, you know, smart and wise, and then realizing on the other side of this, man, there was so much of this around the corner that I didn't see.

There are things about the person you're thinking about dating that you just don't know yet. Because when you go on your first couple dates, man, the person is putting on the best version of who they are. But eventually, their guard will come down, and eventually, you will learn who they really are.

What God wants us to do is begin to learn those things before we've tied our life to them forever in marriage. God wants us to consult him before we make the decision to move our family out of state for a job that truthfully, we're not looking at all of the the realities of this situation.

And sometimes when you do a pros and cons list of a decision that you're making, there will be times when you look at the pros versus the cons, and it seems like it makes sense on paper. But if you seek God's heart, all of sudden you'll go, wait. I feel like God's telling me to say no to this thing

that logically seems crazy. But some of you, you you know that. You've you've listened to God and you've said no to something that logically seem like you should say yes to it. And then six months or a year later, you saw, oh, that whole company imploded because the CEO was doing something crazy that nobody knew about.

That's what God is trying to protect us from. There there's a story in the book of Joshua that I was thinking about. When the nation of Israel, they they left. Remember, they were wandering the desert for forty years and then eventually they go into the promised land, and God had told them, don't don't commingle with any of the people that are in this land. I want you to be a people who are set apart. Right? Because I've gotta put you through a season where I've I've brought you physically out of captivity, but now I've gotta start to work the captivity out of your heart, and I need you to just be set apart for a little while. He says, don't make treaties with any of them. Don't don't cohabitate with any of them. I need you to just kick all of them out of the promised land and just you live there. Well, there's a story. There's a group of people that start to hear that the nation of Israel is just wanting everybody to leave their homelands. So this group, they actually start to appeal

to the leader of the nation of Israel. His name was Joshua. They start to appeal to his sense of morality.

And so they actually show up and the bible says that they they tear their clothes and they they make them dirty and they show up to look like they're they're impoverished and poor and they're down and out. They go so far as to bringing bread with them that is moldy so that Joshua will have sympathy on them. And it's amazing story because Joshua,

he decides to disobey God. He decides to say yes to these people out of sympathy

out of what you and I could argue. Well, that's a that's a good reason because he's trying to take care of these people, but these people are lying to him. And Joshua signs a treaty with his people that will literally it will impact the nation of Israel for generations to come. And there's one verse in the book of Joshua that shows what they should have done that I'm praying that you and I can learn to do this morning. Joshua chapter nine verse 14 says that the Israelites,

they examined the food, but they didn't consult the Lord. They looked at the situation just in the natural. And in the natural, their heart was broken. Their heart was was was moving towards this person, and they said, well, man, maybe god didn't really mean, like, don't sign treaties with every single person.

And what did they do? They told themselves rational lies as they rationalized why they were gonna go around the plains of God, and they signed a treaty that ultimately was their demise.

Had they consulted the Lord, God would have reminded them of who they were and what he was asking them to do. You and I need to remember that we must consult the Lord because we have a limited perspective. We can't see everything. But the book of Job reminds us this is who the God is that we serve. For he, God, he looks throughout the whole earth and he sees everything

under the heavens. We serve a god who sits outside of the scope of time and history, and he will, if you seek his heart in the big decisions that are facing you,

in the big decisions that you as a family are getting ready to make. God will give you insight. He will give you wisdom. He will give you direction, but it requires you to seek him and walk not by sight but by faith. The first reason that assumption is so dangerous is because our perspective is limited. Secondly, the second thing we've gotta know this morning, and this is where this gets a little bit more sinister,

our flesh is deceitful is what James says. You and I are really good at lying to ourselves. The number one person that we lie to is ourselves. We tell ourselves very rational lies as to why,

well, my motivation really is is pure, and we we convince ourselves of all types of crazy things. James reminds us in verse 13. He says, today or tomorrow, we go we go to this or that city. We spend a year there. We carry on business, and here's the motivation, and make money.

James is speaking to a culture that has become obsessed with more. This insatiable drive inside of them for more, more more of passion, more pleasure, more possessions, more money, more status, more fame, more influence, more followers, more more of everything. James is speaking to a culture

that has become convinced that if you just get a little bit more than, then that longing in your heart will finally be satisfied.

And I know right now you're sitting here going, man, if I could just get that that extra house and I could take my family on vacation for a couple weeks during the summer, I'm telling you, man, we would have so much more joy. And you know what's amazing? Just go watch people who win the lottery.

Within two or three years, their lives are essentially ruined. Almost ninety percent of lottery winners within four or five years after winning the lottery will be broke and miserable. Yet every single one of us sitting here right now is going, yeah, but I'd it differently. That guy's an idiot.

God, you just you you watch, man. You give me a $100,000,000 and I'll show you what I'll do with it. Right? I will live for your kingdom. I will expand the church. I will get and I'm telling you, I've sat with people who are like, I can't give to God because I don't make enough money. And I've sat with just as many people who go, I can't give to God because I make so much money. I would never trust a knucklehead like you with it. And I'm like, it's so ironic that what we do on both ends of the spectrum is we justify

why we can't give to God. And at the end of the day, if we're honest, it's because if I give to God, I have less and I want more. More what? More of all of it. And we convince ourselves that if I just get another promotion, if I get a little bit more money, if I get another then I will finally feel satisfied.

And I'm telling you the reason that this world is so terrible at satisfying the longings of our heart is because the scriptures say that God actually placed eternity inside of our soul. There's a longing that this world can't satisfy. And the things in this world, they will temporarily quench it, but they will never fully

satisfy that longing in your heart. And as long as you are convinced that you just have to get a little bit more, if you just get a little bit more, then you will be fine. You will begin to become the master of your own life.

You will be your own god, and James is saying it's evil and it is incredibly dangerous to be in that place. Sometimes we have to stop and just admit and and realize, man, our flesh, it's incredibly deceitful. We are really good at lying to ourselves.

And I don't know where the like, where the line is where you cross it. Because again, we have to work. We have to, you know, we have to have possessions. Right? God is not saying that money and possessions are bad. It's when your possessions begin to have you that they're really bad. And when your identity and your value and your worth is tied into it, that's where it becomes a really really bad thing. Again, I wrote it down this way that when when your pursuit of more begins to outrun your dependence on god, you're no longer building his kingdom and you're now just building your own.

When your pursuit of more stuff, it becomes the thing that outpaces your dependence on him. I think that's where you cross the line. And now this is just about your kingdom, not his.

And your kingdom, it won't last. It will not it will not go with you in the life to come. Jeremiah chapter 17 verse nine reminds us that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and it is desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

See, this is the danger of the culture that we live in. The culture that we live in says that your heart is what you should run after. Trust your feelings. If you feel like it, that's what you should do. And and Jeremiah says, no. No. Your heart is incredibly deceitful. It will take you down paths

thinking that it's the right path that eventually when you wake up, when you look up one day, four or five years down the road, you will wake up and see the tornado has ruined everything around you. And it wasn't the devil that led you there. It was your own longings and feelings.

But the scripture says you need to die to yourself, that as you learn to lay down your life, the scripture said you'll begin to find your life. You'll begin to truly actually live. And I need some of you this morning to understand, it's it's not it's not only god that can open doors of opportunity into your life.

You know, the enemy is really good at opening up doors that look very appealing. They look like a good opportunity,

but it's a trap and it's a snare. And if we just think that every opportunity is a god opportunity, I'm telling you, we will make tons of painful, painful mistakes. I wrote it down this way. If you're taking notes, I would encourage you to write this down. Not every open door is from god, not every opportunity is a calling, and not every plan is his plan.

Our burden, what you and I have to learn to do as the children of God is to learn in a world of noise and chaos, how do we distill the small still whisper that is the voice of God? How do you make decisions?

One of the things that my wife and I do, where I'm doing a whole series on this next year, on how do we hear the voice of God? Because we've made it very like woo woo. Right? And it's not. God speaks all the time. If we're not hearing his voice, it's because we're not listening.

God is always speaking. He wants you to be able to to hear his voice. One of the things that we've learned, we've learned one of the ways that God speaks to us about really important decisions, big decisions

that terrify us of the implications of what's on the other side of them if we get them wrong, is we both we spend a week. We both separate. We don't talk about it for a week. We both fast from something. We seek God independently.

We seek his heart. We seek an answer. What we're really after is a sense of peace in a decision. And the beautiful part, for those of you who are married, the reason that God has given you a spouse is because part of the decision making process is at the end of the week, we come back together

and every single time, we've both come to the same decision of God's given me peace to say yes or to say no. And we go, okay, there's alignment here.

This is God speaking. Right? This is why the community of god is so important because when you you bounce an idea off, the other people in your life who have the same spirit of god living in them and you start to go, okay. There's consensus here. People are saying, yeah. I I think this is what god has for you too. I feel like this is where god is saying yes to you. Right? And then you sit down, you're reading the word of god. The primary way that god will speak to you is through reading the word. That's why you're in it every single day and there'll be seasons of your life where you're seeking a huge decision.

You'll read a passage that you've read a 100 times and all of a sudden, it jumps off the page to you and you go, wait, the people in my life are saying the same thing. I feel at peace about this. I feel like the scriptures are telling me this, and all of sudden you go, wait, I think God is saying yes. And you start to have clarity not on the back end, but on the front end. We can and should

be able to hear from God. But here's the third thing. Here's the third reason why assumption is so so dangerous,

because our time on this earth is incredibly short. You realize that James is writing to a group of people that if they got forty years of living, it was like a long time. The notion that the average life expectancy would be 75 to 80 years old, which is it which it is today, was a crazy thought to a first century Jew.

James is writing to a group of people who at 20 years old, you were on the tail end of your life. You were on the second half of your life. He's reminding them our life is short.

Why are you making all these assumptions about what you're gonna do and where you're go and how you're gonna plan? None of us know that we have tomorrow. None of us are guaranteed to get to 80 years old. Our life here is short. James literally says in verse 14, what is your life?

Have you ever stopped to just ask, like, what is the point of all of this? What's the purpose of this life?

Why are we here? Where are we going? What happens to us when we die? What what is your life? You wanna know what James says? What is your life? He says, you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. My last bag of tricks that I have here, James says,

this is your life. The life that you spend so much time planning, the life that you put so much emphasis in, you spend fifty to sixty years planning for ten to fifteen years of retirement. This is your life. Oh, it's amazing. Where'd it go? It's powerful. It's gone now.

He says, that's your life. If we wanna have an honest conversation this morning about what life is, James says it's beautiful for a second and then it's gone. You know they say it takes three generations for your own family to forget you ever existed?

Was having a conversation last night with a guy at a party that we were at who's in the business of merger and acquisitions with legacy businesses. He deals with families trying to sell and acquire or sell their businesses.

He says that the model that they operate in is it takes one generation to build business. It takes a second generation to expand a business. It takes a third generation to ruin what the first two generations built.

He says, it's just the truth. He said, look at all the businesses across the world. There are almost none. Less than 5% of legacy generational businesses will ever get to the fourth generation

because typically, the work ethic that it took in the first and second generation to build it has been lost by the third and fourth generation, and they just begin to implode because of access to excess. Some of you are spending your whole life to build a to leave a business of legacy that in four generations,

it is not going to be a blessing. It's gonna be a burden that will lead to their demise. James is saying, don't forget your life. It's that. So the question is is what are you doing with the mist? You and I have no ability to change the duration of the mist that we've been given,

but we can change what the impact of our mist on this earth is.

We can't change how long our mist is visible to other people, but we can change what our mist does to the people in our circle of influence. Warren Wiersby, one of my favorite bible commentators, he says it this way. He said, since since life is so brief so brief, we we can't afford merely to spend our lives, and we certainly can't afford to waste our lives. We must invest our lives in those things that are eternal.

He says, life is too valuable to invest it in anything else than things that are eternal. So the logical question has to be asked, what are the things that are eternal? You know, the bible says there are four things. Four things that will be with us in the life to come that are in this life as well. It is God,

it is his word, it is his people, and it is his kingdom.

Anything else besides those four things, they won't go with you. People are always shocked when I tell them, there is no Wells Fargo in heaven. Right? Bank of America doesn't exist in heaven. It doesn't matter how many zeros and commas you get in your bank account by the end of your life on this earth. When you get to heaven, it all starts over. There are only four things that are eternal. It's God, his word, his people, and his kingdom. So the question is, are you building your kingdom or are you building God's?

Because all of us, not just me who is a professional Christian and work in the church world, all of us all of us have been given the same mandate in charge from heaven to expand the kingdom of God, to push back the darkness, to reach the lost people. That's what we're supposed to do with our midst and while we're here. And I think for some of us in the culture that we live in, some of us at the end of our lives I don't know if you've ever gotten to be there with somebody at the very end. One of the greatest privileges and honors of my job is I get to be with people at the very very end, the last few moments of their life, last couple days, last couple hours.

If you've ever sat with a loved one right before they pass, you you'll see it. All of a sudden, when they get to the end, the veil between this life and the life to come, I'm telling you, becomes really thin. And all of a sudden, they all report almost the same thing. They start having visions

of dead loved ones who are speaking to them, and they're there, and they're in the room, and they almost like look past you as they're looking and having a conversation with the person that is dead. They're talking about Jesus as if he's in the room. They're like, I see god the father, and I see Jesus that's in this room. And I promise you, when so many of us get to that moment, we are going to have this terrifying realization

going, wait, I I didn't waste my life. I spent my life succeeding at something that didn't actually matter.

I spent so much time and energy and effort at building something that that just didn't matter at all. I I love this quote from d l Moody. He says that our greatest fear, it should not be a failure but of succeeding at something that doesn't really matter. Our greatest fear is getting to the end of this

and realizing it was all for nothing. I wasted the small time that I had on this earth. Don't believe the lie that you'll figure it out one day. You'll live for God one day. It's the greatest lie of our humanity. You're not promised tomorrow.

None of us are promised tomorrow. All we have is today and the question is is what what are you doing with the mist that you have left? It's here today and it's gone tomorrow. Don't believe. You'll figure it out one day. It's the greatest lie that we tell ourselves.

So, the question this morning is what what do we do? What do we do if you go, you know what? Okay. I I I'm tired of just building a kingdom that's not gonna last. I'm tired of spinning my wheels, doing things that don't really actually matter, and I want to spend my time investing in things that have eternal significance.

What do we actually do? James reminds us in verse 15, a powerful prayer, a powerful mantra that we must to adapt. He says, instead,

you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that. Here's the posture we have to learn to live from. If it's God's will, I will.

If God is in this, I will do it. It means that we first seek God's will in the beginning of making a decision. God, before I say yes to a promotion, before I say yes to a date, before I say yes to getting engaged, before I say yes to a major move of my life, I seek your will. I don't move until I hear your voice. And then if you say yes, I will. And if you say no, I won't. My life is not my own. God, I'm all in.

Whatever you want me to do in the in the the the last moments that I have of this mist on this earth, God, I'm all in. I believe with everything in me. I'm telling you, don't know a single pastor across the country that didn't report this Easter, the largest attendance they've ever had in every part of the country.

I believe with everything in me, we are getting ready to watch another massive move of the spirit of God. And I think that that that that declaration that Jesus made to the the Samaritan woman at the well where he told her, he said he's looking over the field. He says, the harvest is plentiful.

It's the workers who are few. You and I are living in a cultural moment where the harvest is about to be plentiful.

It's the workers that are few. What I'm asking you to do is to believe God enough to push your chips to the middle of the table to say, God, wherever you would have me go, I'm in. My life is no longer my own. When I surrendered my life to you, when I said yes to Jesus, when I bent the knee to the lordship of Christ, I also signed up to be a part of the mission.

And God, wherever you want me to go, I'm in. Whatever you want me to do, I will do. Wherever you ask me to go, I will go.

The reason on my arm right here, I have Galatians chapter two verse 20 tattooed, which is one of those things that freaks people out because most people when I speak at events are like, oh, look at the guy that was like in prison for a while and got all those tattoos. Like, it's cool that he's in church now and a pastor, and I freak people out and tell them majority of all the tattoos I have, I got after being a Christian. They're like, wait. You're not allowed to do that. I'm like, we have a conversation after church. Right? One of the tattoos I got is Galatians chapter two verse 20 because there has been multiple moments in my life where I have wrestled with God.

God, I don't want to do this, but I know this is what you're asking me to do.

I want to do this, but I feel like you're asking me to go here. And then I remember what Paul says in Galatians chapter two verse 20 that I wanna share with you this morning. Paul reminds himself, I wrote it on my arm to remind myself. I challenge you this morning to remember my old self has been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul says, my life is not my own. I don't get to decide what I'm gonna do with my time, my talents, my treasures. God, it's all yours.

Wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I'm in. There's nothing part there's no part of my life that I'm removed from you. There's nothing that I'm keeping off of the table. It's a continual process of saying yes to Jesus.

And the greatest lie that the enemy has perpetrated in the world is that by saying yes to God, by going all in for Jesus, that somehow it means saying no to all the fun things in life.

The greatest lie of the enemy is that if you say yes to God and you stop just kinda phoning it in and playing church and you get serious with your faith and you kinda go all in, that you're gonna have less.

That's the greatest lie that the enemy has convinced the world to believe. I'm not up here as like some used car salesman trying to convince you of a life for you. I'm up here as a satisfied customer trying, pleading with you, begging with you to go on the other side of radical obedience when it makes no sense is a life beyond your wildest dreams where you will have moments where you get to see the fruit of your faithfulness.

You will get to see the results of your obedience, and it is so much more satisfying than anything that this world can offer. And so here's what I wanna ask this morning.

I believe that God, this this moment, this weekend is going to be for some of you kind of a a fork in the road type moment where you go, God, this is when I decided to say yes and go all in. So I'm gonna ask you if you would just stand to your feet with me. I I wanna just give you, some of you, a moment here this morning.

Again, this isn't like a prayer of salvation. This is a prayer of saying, God, I'm all in. I'm pushing everything that I have into the middle of the table to say, god, you can have all of me. And I'm gonna invite you to pray a prayer that has the gist of what Paul says there in Galatians two twenty.

But I just need to tell you something. Do not repeat this prayer with me if you're just doing it because you feel some social pressure to do it in church. Only do this if you're for real about asking God to come into every single part of your life, your marriage, your finances, your career, your business, your family,

all of it. And if you're here going, God, send me. If there's nobody else, send me. If you're ready to pray a dangerous prayer like that, I'm gonna invite you. We're gonna put this on the screen. I want you to repeat this with me. This is just a declaration that we're all gonna say in agreement. But again, be forewarned.

God might take you seriously, and he might begin to move in places of your life if you pray this. It's a bold prayer, and it's a dangerous one that I invite you to pray with me. Here it is. Start with me. My life is not my own. My time is not my own. My future is not my own. My resources are not my own.

I have been bought with a price, crucified with Christ, and raised to live on mission for Jesus. Not my will, but yours be done. In me and through me, for your glory and your kingdom, amen and amen. Father, that is the cry of our heart this morning. God, whatever you want, wherever you wanna go, father, you can have it all.

All that's left of the midst of our life, God, we submit it to you. We consecrate our lives this morning before you. We ask, God, that you speak, you speak loudly, you speak boldly, you speak clearly to your people, and, God, give us the courage with the power of the holy spirit to say yes, to have the conversations,

to take the jobs, to to have the experiences, the god that you are asking us to have. Father, we want everything that you have for us. In the mighty name of Jesus, all God's people said, amen and amen. Thank you for letting me yell at you for a couple minutes.