Forgotten God

You remember God the Father. You know Jesus. But when was the last time you woke up and said, "Holy Spirit, lead my life today"?

The Holy Spirit is the most overlooked person of the Trinity — and He may be the most essential gift Jesus ever prayed for you to have. In this message, we dig into what Jesus himself said about the Spirit: why He came, what He does, and why the enemy works so hard to make Him seem strange or unnecessary.

The truth is, the same Spirit that brought order to chaos in Genesis is ready to lead you through whatever chaos you're facing right now. You were never meant to do this life on your own power.

If you've been drifting, striving, or just feeling stuck — this one's for you. It's time to stop ignoring the greatest source of everything you need to navigate this life for Jesus.

Visit us at Generations Cowboy Church for more info about our church or find ways you can support what God is doing at GCC!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And if you want to click or flip in just a moment, we're going to get to John 14. I'm going to start in Psalm 143 and we're going to land in John 14 and stay there. But we're in a new series today. We're starting this series called Forgotten God. I don't know about you, but this was graduation weekend. All the seniors in here, can I hear a oh, that was terrible. Come on, man. You guys can do a little bit. Aren't you guys glad all the seniors in here? There we go. Thank you. Like a few of you, man. That's good. All right. You did it. You're finished. You worked hard. You're over the hump and now you're off, right? Freedom. Um, and so, man, it's I was thinking about high school, though. I'm gonna show my age just a little bit here. But I was doing the math and I graduated 28 years ago. I know it's a little bit old. You can the gray might give it away just a little bit. But and and I don't know about you, but if you ever have these moments where sometimes I get these random uh Facebook friend requests or people that want to follow me on Instagram, and I'm like, who is this? And then you start scrolling through and you realize, oh, I went to high school with this person. Anybody else like me? Like, I've been far enough gone now. Like, I forgot about you. Anyone else have those moments? Like, I just forgot. We were even in school together. Like, we were in different circles. You might have been in the cool kids club, I was not. I mean, there were athletes, there were all these different moments. And some of us, like, we even had a best friend if you were like me. Like, I can remember this moment where for me growing up in middle school and high school, my friend was Tommy. My kids grew up hearing stories about Tommy. I haven't seen Tommy for like 20 years, but in high school, like we were thick, and even those moments where it's like me, and it feels weird because I forget about some of these relationships that I had that we just forgot about as we go through life. And I think sometimes, if we're honest in our relationship with Jesus, we love the idea of God the Father and the work that he has done for us. We love the idea of the Son, Jesus Himself. But I think sometimes we confuse the Holy Trinity for being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Scripture when it's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the forgotten God, if if we'll just be honest. And sometimes we we want to forget because weird things have happened in the name of the Holy Spirit. So let me just tell you, he's not weird. We just make him weird. Any of you guys like ever have moments where in an awkward moment you just make it more awkward? Anyone else like that? Uh yeah, right? We do it for the Holy. He's not awkward, we just make an awkward moment more awkward for him, okay? And we tend to forget the importance of the Holy Spirit in our life. We tend to forget how valuable Jesus said he would be to us. And so we're gonna spend the next few weeks having just a real honest biblical look at the value of the Holy Spirit in our life and how much we need him. Psalm 143, 10, David says this. I love this verse. He said, Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. And may your gracious spirit, even in the old testament, the Holy Spirit was there, okay? May your gracious spirit lead me forward on firm footing. That even David in the Old Testament recognized a need to depend on the Holy Spirit to guide his life. The Holy Spirit didn't magically show up in the book of Acts in the New Testament. He's been at work the entire time. In fact, if you look at the word that David used there in Psalm 143, I don't know Hebrew really well. I'm probably gonna slaughter it for all of you out there, but but that word is ruach. And if you know that word, it's the same word in Genesis 1. The spirit was there in creation, is the same spirit David is saying in Psalm 143 that I need you to come lead me in my life on firm footing. That to be the king that David was and do all the great things that David did, he's acknowledging the only way I do something good is by your spirit leading me in my life. And so we're gonna take a look at today the spirit has come to lead us through this life. That he's come to lead you and me through this life. And I think we tend to forget the value of the Holy Spirit and miss the fact that we need him in our life. I don't know about you, but sometimes I find it hard to live for Jesus and get it right. Anybody else? If I drive in Columbia traffic, it gets harder with all of the roads they decide to work on simultaneously, it's even worse right now. I need you, Holy Spirit, as I drive through traffic in Columbia. Yeah. He has come to give us the ability to live for Jesus in a way that we can't on our own. And if you're in a spot and you're in a place where it's like, man, I'm trying to follow Jesus, but I'm finding it kind of a challenge to get some momentum in my life, then this might just be the game changer you need to get the momentum you're looking for. Because Jesus doesn't ask you to be strong enough. He asks you to admit, I'm not, but then you are, and so help me be strong where I can't be. And the Holy Spirit swoops right in to be that one, to give us the strength that we need, to give us the confidence to follow Jesus. And Jesus points out how valuable the Holy Spirit is to us in John 14, starting in verse 16 and 17. This is Jesus. If you're reading in your Bible, it might be in red letters right now. Jesus said, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads you into all truth. The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him, but you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you. Jesus just, I mean, two pieces of scripture is all we're going to touch today. I mean, aren't you proud of me? And I'm still gonna find a way to make it take 30 minutes. You're welcome. You're welcome. Jesus is pointing us back to his spirit, he's explaining that there's something valuable happening here. And for some of us, maybe that struggle to wrap our minds around the Trinity, let me just point out what Jesus said. He said, I will ask the Father. There's the Father. Jesus is the Son to send you the Holy Spirit. Man, here it here's a perfect picture where people are like, Man, I don't know if I believe in it. Man, here is Jesus talking to the Father, asking him to send the Spirit. And so all three are working together in our life to help us figure out how to navigate this life together with him, with his spirit at work in us, at work through us. And one of the things that Jesus said, a critical piece of what the spirit has come to do, is the spirit has come to lead us in all truth. This is really important. Everybody wants to talk about some of the other things where the spirit is weird, but this is why I say he's not weird, we make him weird, because some of the clear things Jesus said the spirit would do was lead you and me in all truth. I don't know about you, but in the day and times that we live in, I need somebody that can teach me all truth. Because there are so many things we see in today's world and navigate that is so difficult. And one of my favorite things, if you're doing the Bible reading plan with us this year, you pray this every day. It's one of the prayers built right into the Bible reading plan we're doing. We ask the Lord to give us wisdom and knowledge and insight to what we're reading today. That's the Holy Spirit's job. I would lead you in all truth. If you want to learn the truth that Jesus has for you, all you got to do is open up your Bible and start reading and invite the Holy Spirit into that space to begin to teach you all of the truth that he has for you. This is Jesus' invitation. This is what he's leveraging to us that the Spirit is here to help you gain the wisdom that you can. And if people tell me all the time, I can't understand the Bible, and so my question would be have you read it and asked the Holy Spirit to help you? Because our problem is we just tend to pick it up and read it like a book. It's not the same as just any book. It's the living, breathing word of God. And there are moments where people tell me, man, the Old Testament is so hard because of these things that I see God doing. Have you asked the Holy Spirit to help you understand? Or better yet, have you asked somebody else who understands to speak into our life and help us grow in that truth? You're surrounded by a community of people. There are some groups that are meeting right now, and we're going to start more up this fall. If you want to grow in truth, find a community of people where you can have conversations and ask questions so you can grow in truth. One of the things we led this past spring, my wife and I, we did a group, and all we literally did was QA. What questions do you have about the Bible or about God or how we navigate this life? And they submitted a whole list of questions, and all we did was sit down and walk through the truth together. Because this is the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. It's not complicated. He's trying to lead us into his truth. And what we can't do is let pride get in the way. Sometimes we got to ask for help. Any of you like me, when I need a car to be worked on, the first place I go is YouTube. Anybody else? After I watch a few YouTube videos, then I decide if it's time to tag a real mechanic or if I'm going to tackle this on my own. Right? I've learned that that 10-minute video on YouTube is going to equate to about 10 hours of my life when I start this project. But when I want to learn about something to see if I can do it or not, I go to the right space where I can gain some knowledge and learn about this to see whether I can or can't do it. And the invitation from the Holy Spirit is the same way for you and I. If we want to grow in truth, if we want to grow in understanding of the Bible, the best place to start is to say, Holy Spirit, lead me in your truth, just like David did. And then get into his word and let him lead and guide us. Pick a version that's easy to read. Don't listen to your grandpa if he said it's the only King James version, and that's what Jesus read. It's not true, okay? Pick an easy version to read. It's all right. But start somewhere and give the Holy Spirit something to work with in our life. I think one of the reasons that we struggle, though, is the Holy Spirit is not uncomfortable because he's strange. I think the Holy Spirit is uncomfortable because he brings truth, and we are not comfortable with truth in our society. I'm gonna say that again. And let that sink in for just a moment. The spirit is uncomfortable because he brings truth into our life. And in the world we live in, we don't know what to do with truth. And the the word of the old movie that some of you probably don't know how to talk about, you can't handle the truth. We can't in today's world. We need somebody to coddle us and tell us what we want to hear to make us feel good. And the Holy Spirit is not uncomfortable. He's just uncomfortable because he brings us truth that we're not comfortable with. And that's why one of the core values of who we are, I say it all the time, we are uncomfortably real. Because you don't need somebody to make you comfortable. You need somebody to be real with you. And the people who really love you in this life are not the ones that are going to affirm you to make you feel good about yourself. They're the people that are going to speak the truth to you, even if you don't like it, because they love you and they see the direction you're heading in, it's a bad direction. And I care for you enough to say the hard thing because I love you. And so it's about to get uncomfortably real because if I was the enemy and my goal was to try to undo everything Jesus was trying to accomplish, then the first place that I would attack in this world is the truth. Because Jesus said the Spirit would lead you in all truth. So you want to know today why we have this idea of moral relativism, that you just get to decide what is right for you, and I get to decide what's right for me, and and your right is right because that's for you, but my right is right for me. And we can all just decide on our own what is right and good for ourselves. Miraca. It's the world we live in. Why? Because the enemy's trying to undo truth because that is what the spirit came to lead us into. And so we we love the idea of moral relativism, we love the idea of human sexuality being something we can define the way we want to, and I get to choose who I am. We love to redefine marriage the way we want it to be instead of the way God designed it to be. And it's an all-out attack against truth because why? The Holy Spirit came to lead us into truth, and that's uncomfortable in today's world, but we need to be made a little uncomfortable because we're being led in a direction that is not where God wants us to go. And so somebody has to share the truth. Not because it's mean. Yes, it's offensive at times, but just because it's offensive doesn't mean you have to be offended. You get to choose whether you're offended or not. That might be a news flash for somebody. But if you're like, I'm so offended, quit choosing to be offended. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Well, you hurt my feelings. Okay, don't let me have control of your feelings. It's a novel concept. Because we need truth.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Because truth, Jesus was full of two things, scripture tells us. John 1, not even in my notes, my gift to you today. He said he was full of grace and truth. He was fully grace, fully truth. And if you want to remove truth, you have to remove Jesus from the equation because it was who he was and who he is. And we can't lean into one or the other. We got to have them both together. And that's who Jesus is and what he's come to do. And so we have to lead into that. Well, when we we get out of this idea of truth, then here's what happens is we begin to justify sin. And you hear in today's culture this term uh showing empathy. And we've attacked masculinity by calling it toxic. I hate that term. You won't see me ever use that term. Because I'm not here, listen, I'm not here to make a man feel bad about himself already, okay? There are some dumb things men do. Like we get it, okay? You don't need to point it out. We already know, all right? Every man in here, that was your shot to say amen, okay? I know you don't want to acknowledge it, but but I'll tell you one thing that I think we have made toxic in today's world is toxic empathy. We've created a toxic empathy that somehow you're supposed to empathize with what I believe, and that means you have to agree with me. And if you don't agree with me and affirm me, then man, you can't be from Jesus. And so we've created this toxic empathy that says you either have to agree with me or we're enemies. That is not the truth of God's word. That is a version of the truth that the world presents to us and tries to sell to us. And the Spirit came to lead us into all truth, God's truth. And we have to be willing, whether we like it or not, to open up our life to his truth. I was talking with somebody the other day, and they say, Man, I just they're they're kind of new to this Jesus thing and really trying to follow him. And they say, Man, there's something in my life, like I feel conviction all the time. And you could tell, like, like they were uncomfortable with that. And I said, Man, isn't that so good? They're like, What are you talking about? I'm like, Do you realize the grace of God that is in conviction? The scariest place to be is to live in sin and not feel convicted for it. The most loving and gracious thing God can do is to convict you and I when we are in sin, because it's not what he wants for us. And so we have to have truth if we want conviction, because we need our sins exposed so we can repent and surrender them to Jesus. This is the value of the truth in our life that the Holy Spirit brings to us. And if you want to know, am I following the Spirit's lead in my life? Here's what I can tell you. Here's a really easy way to assess it. And you're gonna say, Man, you're judging me. I'm not judging you. You're misusing that scripture, but that's another sermon for another time. Here's how you can tell if the spirit is leading my life. Am I going with the flow of the world or am I swimming upstream? Because if the spirit's leading me, Jesus said the world wouldn't recognize him and the world wouldn't listen to him. And that means I should probably be like a salmon swimming upstream. If I'm following the spirit's lead, he's not following the same direction the world is going. As one of my pastors used to say, any dead fish can float downstream. And so if I want to follow the spirit's lead in my life, if I'm listening to his truth that he's trying to share with me, then my life should feel like kind of like I'm walking through peanut butter and I'm going upstream and not downstream because the world is trying to carry me this way, but the spirit's trying to lead me in another direction. So it's a really easy, safe way to say, who am I following in my life? You, Jesus, your spirit, or or what I want, what the world wants. The other thing that Jesus told us about, he said the spirit is recognizable. Jesus reminded us that the spirit is somebody you would recognize. That he tried to remind us, don't forget about him. He is somebody that you can see, that you can recognize, that you don't have to do it in your own power. I hear people tell me all the time as we talk, man, I just keep trying, but I can't get it right. You're right, you can't on your own. And the sooner we can just admit, I can't get it right, but Holy Spirit, you can empower me to do what I can't do, the sooner we actually find the victory in our life that we're looking for. Because newsflash, you can't do it on your own. That's a measure of what I appreciate about some programs like celebrate recovery, is somewhere you just have to acknowledge I'm broken and I need help. Now, sometimes I don't like the fact that they say I always stay broken because I believe in Jesus, we can be made new and we can be healed and we can be set free, but somewhere we have to acknowledge I can't do it, and I need you, Holy Spirit, to help me do what I can't do. I need you to lead me that He is somebody that we can recognize in these moments. It's funny to me because for some of us, we're just like, I don't know if I'm ready for this Jesus or this Holy Spirit thing that you're talking about. So hear me out. This is Jesus telling us how much we need the Holy Spirit. So if you're telling me you're not ready for the Holy Spirit thing, you're not telling me you're not ready. You're telling Jesus, I don't want this thing in my life. I know Jesus said it's for me, but I don't want it. That's what we're really saying in this moment. And if Jesus wanted it for us, it should be something we want. I mean, we talk about when we're sick and we want to pray for healing, like I want healing. When my marriage is broken and I need God to help me figure out how to restore it, I want him to help me to figure out how to restore it. Well, then one of the greatest tools and resources we have to do all those things and get it right is to allow the Holy Spirit to come in our life and work, to equip us to do what we can't do on our own. You want to fix your marriage? Let the Holy Spirit guide your marriage, and I promise you, he can fix any marriage. You want to figure out how to parent in today's world? Let the Holy Spirit guide you, and he will help you figure out how to parent in today's world. You want to figure out how to beat that sin or that addiction that you're struggling with? Recognize where the spirit is trying to work in your life and let him lead and work in your life. This is the invitation from him. Jesus said, You will know him. The spirit is for us to know. And that means when he said you will know him, the spirit is not an it, it is a person. He is a person, and he is somebody, to be honest, in my life that I mean, I pray, Spirit, come help me today. I'm trying to learn from the moment I get up. I mean, I'll confess I go to the coffee pot, I pour a cup of coffee. Praise God for coffee. I'm a better human because of coffee and the Holy Spirit. And then when I sit down with my cup of coffee, and it's one of the first things I try to pray. Holy Spirit, lead me today. Holy Spirit, lead me today. Because I know when Jason leads, I make a mess. When I let him lead, things go so much better. I think for some of us, it's hard. To really get to know the Holy Spirit. And this is the part that gets uncomfortable, but again, I promise. It's not because he doesn't want to reveal himself to us, it's because we're too busy and we don't take time to get to know him. I mean, that's just that simple. One of the greatest spiritual attacks in today's world is not all the sin that we try to pick on. Hear me out. One of the greatest spiritual attacks in today's world is your calendar and how full you fill it up. You're like, no, it's not, it's the sin I struggle with. No, it's because your life is too full that you don't have time for Jesus until the moment where life begins to fall apart because you keep trying to do it his your way or the world's way. And then you circle back around and come to Jesus, and I make time for him until my calendar fills up and I get distracted again and I go back into this vicious cycle of struggles. And the greatest spiritual attack in today's world is for time slots on your calendar, period. Because all Satan needs to do is distract you. That's it. He's not gonna just come right at you with sin, he's gonna distract you first. Because if he can distract you, then he can find his way in. And so for some of us, if we want to learn to hear where the spirit is trying to lead and grow to know him, we just gotta make some space in our calendar for him to actually speak to us. To get in a rhythm where we have a relationship with him on a consistent basis. The third thing Jesus said, He said, The Spirit is in you. I love that Jesus made this promise that God's presence would be with us everywhere he goes, everywhere we go. Think about that. He said that his spirit would be in you. From the moment we are saved, from reading Acts 2, where he poured out his spirit, there is not a moment for those who have surrendered their life to Christ where you will ever face anything else on your own. Why? Because he has put his spirit in you. Paul said in 1 Corinthians that you're the temple of the Holy Spirit. Your body is, that he has placed his spirit in you, that he has poured his spirit out on you to give you and I all the power we need to make it through this life. And it starts by us just recognizing he's already in us, working through us, and he wants to empower us if we would just let him. That is his work that he wants to do in us and through this, that he will never leave you, he will never leave me. And if you don't believe me, while we try to make the Holy Spirit a junior in this conversation, if we go back to John 14, 16 and 17, there's a moment where Jesus said this. If you study the Greek in there, that another is the Greek word um alos. I might be getting it wrong, but I'll give you the definition of it. How about that? Jesus said, when he used that word, I'll give you another. It wasn't like a junior member of the Trinity. That word literally means one that is equal with me. Did you get what Jesus just said? I'm going to give you one who's equal with me. I think for some of us, one of the reasons we struggle to accept the Holy Spirit is because we think he's a little bit lesser than Jesus. And Jesus said, I want you to have my spirit because he is one that is equal with me. You're not getting something lesser when I put my spirit inside of you. You're actually getting somebody that is equal with me deposited in your spirit. So wherever you go in this life, whatever you face in there in this life, there is one equal with Jesus at work inside of you and me, and his name is the spirit.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

That is encouraging.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

If we just wouldn't forget he's there, that he's at work in us, waiting for us to acknowledge that you have all you need to overcome in this life. I'm gonna say that again because the enemy loves to tell us lies. You have all you need to overcome everything you face in this life. Because if you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, he has deposited his spirit, one that is equal with him, into you. And if that is the case, then you are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. You are made an overcomer. You are able because his spirit lives in you, empowering you to live for him. That is the good news of the gospel at work in our life. That the spirit wants to work. See, I think so many times we define ourselves by what's living inside of us. As I have conversations with people, maybe, maybe these are moments where you've just you have defined yourself this way too. But I have people tell me that that man, I'm defined by the anger that I feel, the resentment that I feel, the bitterness and the unforgiveness that I feel. That I'm defined by the anxiety or the stress or the depression, I'm defined by my sin or my addiction or my struggle. And somewhere in here, Jesus is trying to remind us that if you are my son and you are my daughter, the one thing that defines you more than anything is not all of those things. It is my spirit that I have placed inside of you. We keep defining ourselves by the wrong thing because we forget that I have his spirit at work in me. I may struggle with sin, but his spirit is at work in me to help me overcome. I may struggle with anxiety, but his spirit is at work within me to help me conquer anxiety. I may struggle with a sin or an addiction, but he is at work in you if you would work with him to set you free from that thing that's trying to control you. That's what he wants for you and me. Jesus asked the Father to send us his Spirit. I need you to hear me. To neglect the Spirit is to neglect the answer to Christ's own prayer for you. The Holy Spirit is what Christ prayed for you. And if you say, I don't want that, you're rejecting the very thing that Jesus prayed for you and me. You're saying, I don't want it, Jesus. The Spirit is an answer to his prayer for us today.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

That's the invitation.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

And I think in this space and in this place, we ignore where the very gift of what Jesus put in us is at work. That we have been called to follow his spirit. We've been called to be led by his spirit. And so what we do is this is what it looks like. We follow anxiety in this world. When he's put his spirit in us. We believe all the lies the enemy tells us. You may not call it anxiety, you may not call it worry. You just, oh man, I need you to pray. This is the reality of you wanna know how we beat some of these things? We we invite the Holy Spirit to help us face the anxiety that we're up against. This is what we do. This is how we navigate this road. For some of us, fear is the struggle that we battle in this life. Man, I just I want to, but I'm afraid to. Great. Then let's lean into the Holy Spirit and be defined by the faith that He's deposited into our lives. That the enemy speaks lies to us, that we choose to believe those lies and be deceived when he's leading us into truth. We choose to believe that I can't forgive that person, and we believe the lie that the enemy speaks to us when the Holy Spirit lives inside of us and he wants to empower you to be able to forgive somebody, and it's got nothing to do with that person. It's got everything to do with setting you free. If you were here today and you're like, man, I can't figure out how to forgive somebody, you don't have to figure out how to do it. You just have to invite the Holy Spirit to help you do it. That is the reality of his power in our life. My marriage is falling apart. Let the Holy Spirit help you become a better spouse. Quit believing the lie that he speaks to you. Bitterness lives inside of us rather than trusting the joy the Spirit wants to lead us in. For some of us, we live offended and we just give into the flesh instead of learning to forgive and live an unoffended life. The Spirit wants to set you free from that. That there's moments, sin that you struggle and you fight with and you battle. And the Spirit has come to set you free. That's the invitation today to be free. So if you're you're here today and you're one of the ones that are getting baptized, if you want to maybe kind of start making your way back there so that we can get ready for you, you can do that now. But here's what I want to do. You want to know how I learned to trust the spirit in my life? Here's my story of one of the ways I've learned to trust the spirit. In my early 30s, I was going through a lot of health issues. About three years worth that I went through. And I can remember in the first year or so, man, I was just having a moment of prayer with the Lord because, I mean, honestly, I'm just struggling. And I don't understand why. And I'm doing the ministry and doing the work that God called me to. And I'm praying, and I remember one moment in prayer, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. Was it like an audible voice? No, it was like a just I knew in my spirit. He said, I won't take you out of this, but I will take you through this. I won't take you out of this, but I will take you through this. And for me, man, it was one of those moments where he reminded me of or Isaiah 43, it's it's why it's on my arm, because it's very deeply personal to me. Because in the moment the Holy Spirit was leading me into a truth that we think Jesus is supposed to just get me out of my mess when Jesus said, I'll walk with you through it and take you out on the other side of it. That's the truth that he wants for you today. You may feel like life is in a mess and you're in a struggle and you can't seem to get out. And I keep asking God to take me out of this mess I'm in. And maybe God wants to walk with you through that mess and show you what it's like to get to the other side. That there's this space and this place for us to trust where the spirit wants to work. But here's the thing that I'm going to hunker down on today is back to Psalm 143.10. The Spirit will only come to work where you invite him to work. David prayed to the Spirit and he said, Lead me. He invited the process of the Holy Spirit to come work in his life. He didn't just wait for this magical moment where God imposed his will on him. David said, I'm going to position myself in a way that, Lord, let your spirit come lead me in this life and establish my footing in life. That there was an invitation from David to surrender to the work that the Holy Spirit wanted to do and let him do it. Why? Because he said it would establish my footing. You want to learn to face whatever life throws at you, you better have your footing established. Footing is one of the most critical things I understand. I grew up playing Legion baseball. It was a time before we had all these traveling teams. It was the closest thing to traveling sports when you were born in the 1900s. You're welcome. And I love to pitch. And here's one thing I learned, man, footwork is everything. It's not just how much harder can I make my arm move. It's how much more can I leverage my footwork so I can allow my legs and my core to actually add to what I'm doing. And if I get my footwork right, I can actually pitch better when my footwork is right. You see, college quarterbacks getting drafted into the NFL. They have strong arms, but people often say, but their footwork is a mess. They got to fix the footwork. And if they fix the footwork, it actually increases their ability to do better because there's so much that happens in the way our feet are established. I know team roping, and I can tell you every person that team ropes that's lazy and just sits in a saddle kind of slouched over, can't rope good. But every person that gets the footwork right, where they put their feet down in their stirrups and they stand up, they can deliver and rope and do it so much better because there's something when we get the footwork established right. David was a fighting man. If you're going to go into battle with a sword, you're going to learn, man, footwork is everything. And the invitation today, what the Lord would say is like, man, I want to help you establish your life in a way that the world doesn't have to move you, that circumstances don't have to move you. But it starts with getting your footwork right. And that starts when we simply surrender our life to the work the Holy Spirit wants to do, and we say, Holy Spirit, come lead me. Lead me through this, lead me to the other side of this. Give me the grace I need to be established to make it through this. He wants to establish your life so that you can endure whatever comes if you would just surrender it to him. So that seems like a fitting place to do today is to just, every head bowed, every eye closed, maybe you're in this room and you're like, man, I need to surrender my life to Jesus. Maybe you've never made that decision before. You're like, man, I want to get some firm footing in my life, but I keep trying my own way. Listen, the sooner you surrender your way to Jesus' way, the things begin to fall into place. And so if you're here today and you've never surrendered your life to Jesus before, but today you say, Man, today's the day I want to do that. If that's you, would you just slip your hand up and then slip it back down so I could pray with you? I see your hand. Anybody? Would you join with me in prayer all across this place? Can we do this together? Say, dear Jesus, I need you to come into my life, to save me from my sins, and make me brand new. Jesus, I surrender my life to you. I mean to live for you and to love you the rest of my life. In Jesus' name, amen. That's simple. So what do we do now? We get up and we follow Jesus. Yeah, but what about when I mess up? Get up and run to Jesus. Quit running from him, run to him. And that's the invitation today. We're going to go into a song of worship. If you want to stand all across this place, I got some friends that are going to come down that are going to be right down front. And here's the question I want you to think about as we sing this song. Again, you can walk out of this place the same way you walked into it if you want to. Or today could be the day everything changes because I'm willing to surrender something to the Lord and let the Holy Spirit lead me in a way that I can't do it on my own. Where do I need to invite the Spirit to come teach me and lead me in my life? Think about that question for just a moment. Where do I, where do you need to invite the Spirit to come lead me and teach me in my life? And I feel like he's speaking to some people right now, and you're like, oh no, I don't want to go let somebody pray for me. Like it's gonna be okay. All right? If there's an area where it's like, man, I just I'm struggling with this and I really want him to help me, come down front and let somebody pray with you. Please don't leave this way the way you came in. Come down front and make a spot right here at the steps. If you don't want anybody to pray with you, great. You come heal at the steps and you just take a moment with Jesus and say, help me surrender this to you, Holy Spirit, and lead me in this area of my life. Maybe your health is failing, maybe your marriage is failing, maybe your finances are failing, maybe the job and life is just throwing everything at you. Maybe life feels meaningless and without purpose. Maybe I don't know where you're at. Anxiety, depression, worry, stress overwhelm you, then maybe this is your window to surrender these things to the Holy Spirit and say, You come lead me and help me. As Cody leads us in this song, if there's anything you need prayer about today, I would invite you to come down, let somebody pray with you. Or come down and make a spot here just between you and God and take a few moments to invite the Spirit to lead you and teach you. Can we do that together as we sing?