Ducks, The Dragon, and The Lamb | Pastor Nicole Sweetman

Welcome to a captivating sermon titled "The Ducks, The Dragon, and The Lamb," where we delve into the transformative journey of discovering our true identity in Christ. 

In this insightful message, we unpack the teachings from Ephesians and Galatians, emphasizing the incredible gift of salvation that reshapes our identity as believers. Understand the importance of guarding this newfound identity against the world's pressures and how easily we can slip back into old habits and thinking patterns. 

Through biblical narratives, explore the struggles faced by the Israelites and the Galatians and gain wisdom on how to navigate similar challenges in today's world. This message will encourage you to reflect on who truly holds your confidence and challenges the modern idols of self-reliance and achievement. 

Join us as we discuss the roles of being sons and daughters, servants, and priests in God's kingdom. Learn how to live a life of obedience, servanthood, and priesthood, fully embracing the mission God has for you, empowered by the Holy Spirit and the community of believers.

Tune in and be inspired to live a life that follows the Lamb, walking in faith and impacting the world with His love and grace. 

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Transcript

 We are going to jump into the Word of God this morning.

I'm really excited to share with you all today.

Jake is in Boise, Idaho.

 I think that's in Idaho.

Yeah, isn't that fun?

Yeah, Boise.

Anyone from Boise, by chance?

Any Boise people out there?

No.

He has a friend from his seminary cohort who has him preach in his church.

So I said, well, hot dog.

I'll jump up there and say something to the people.

I want to talk to us here today about the ducks, the dragon, and the lamb.

 the ducks, the dragon, and the lamb.

Sound good?

Open your Bibles, turn to Ephesians 2, 1 for me.

We're going to read to verse 5.

It says, As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

 That's the devil.

Don't you love the Bible?

 God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.

Even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace we have been saved.

 Now what I love about this snippet of scripture is it so evidently shows us who we were BC cells before Christ me, right?

And who we are now as a follower of Christ.

Before Jesus, we were enslaved.

 to our sin to the kingdom of the air the the prince of the air that is satan and we were bound to follow and feed our fleshly desires and our thoughts of our flesh but now through the free gift of christ laying down his life for you and i we have been given a new identity we have been made a new creation

 And this identity that he gives us, it's really important we realize that it is a gift.

It is a free gift that we have been given to be not our own creators, but his handiwork.

To be a son, a daughter, to be an heir with Christ.

 And even though that this identity has been freely given to you and I, so often we find ourselves slipping back into an old way of thinking.

We find ourselves being tempted to step into the identity crisis that the rest of the world is struggling with.

 Trying to produce a self-made man, a self-made me, a self-made woman.

But that comes at a really steep cost.

And it's part of the reason, a huge reason why we have so much anxiety and depression and burnout and confusion and all that fun stuff.

But this identity we've been given is a gift.

But when we forsake it,

 When we desert it, we forsake Jesus as the true Lord and Savior of our lives.

But this is not a new sin to humanity.

It is one that we see the people of the Bible so casually and quietly fall into.

If we look at the book of Galatians, we see Paul addressing the church here.

And he's addressing them and calling them out for turning back to the law and turning back to circumcision.

God bless them.

 I mean, geez.

Exactly.

Because they've departed from the gospel of grace to now one based on human achievement rather than divine gift.

And I love Paul.

He wastes no time.

He gives them a quick, hey, how are you?

And he jumps straight in at them on Galatians 1, 6 to 7.

 He's like, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.

Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

 that is what we do when we begin to tiptoe into this identity crisis space trying to figure out on earth who am i and to find ourselves by this world in this open rebuke paul is using the wording turn so quickly which echoes god calling out the israelites to moses in exodus 32 you know when they're down at the bottom of the mountain making a calf and a golden out of the gold that they threw into the fire you guys with me

 he tells moses he's like buddy you got to get back down there he's like they have been quick to turn away from what i commanded them and they themselves have an idol cast in the shape of a calf now we can read that part of scripture and be like man how

 How short-sighted, how bad of a memory do these people have that they are so foolish to go from God who just delivered them out of Egypt to just being like, gosh, Moses, I don't know.

I mean, we just threw some gold in and poof, out came this calf.

 but we get a clue of how they got there.

In Exodus 32, one, it says, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up, make us gods who shall go before us.

As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him.

Did you catch it?

The man who brought us up out of Egypt?

 What happened to the God, their salvation, who brought them out of Egypt?

What happened to the God who split the Red Sea and closed it over the enemies?

What happened to their God who turned bitter water into sweet, who brought manna from heaven so they wouldn't hunger and thirst?

What happened to that God?

When we lose sight of God, we lose sight of who we are.

And we have no option but to begin to rest our confidence on man.

And before we know it, poof,

 There's a golden calf.

The idol of self begins to pop on our hearts and before we know it, we're serving its desires.

So who is your confidence?

Is it a relationship?

Is it your boss?

Truly, who do you derive your confidence from here today?

 Maybe you identify more with the Galatians.

It's not confidence in man per se, but it's in works.

In Galatians 3.3, he called them out.

Are you so foolish?

I love Paul.

After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

 Cathedral, did you start 2025 by means of the Spirit?

And now that it's October, we only have so many months to get our checklist, our wish, our dreams, our needs fulfilled.

Are we beginning to now strive and try to be perfect by the flesh?

 see the god of self is a tyrant it is a tyrant that is going to try to get you to serve it and forsake the true gospel and you cannot overcome the tyrant of self by yourself you need the power of the holy spirit and you need a community of believers around you self is a poor leader to follow

 The idol of self led the Israelites to wander for 40 years, a journey that should have taken 11 days.

The idol of self led the Galatians to fall back into an old way of thinking, backtracking, making their work as the mission of church less effective.

 At Holy Spirit Conference just this past June, we gathered as a community of believers with the eyes of our faith enlarged to begin to perceive what does God have for cathedral and shifting the spiritual landscape of this city and beyond.

Because church, we are called to go into the beyond.

As a disciple of Cross, there is a mission of go on the inside of you.

 He has put a field before you to go into that goes beyond yourself.

We just look at the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve were not put there just to pet the animals and to water the plants.

They were given the mission to be fruitful, to multiply and expand the boundaries of the garden.

Did you hear me?

We were not ransomed from death to life to just sit here.

 in our christian bubble and to have no expanding impact in this city and beyond so where has god sent you to go maybe it's your office maybe it's online maybe it's the pta maybe it's your neighborhood maybe it is another city another state

 But you can't go effectively if you don't know who you're following, therefore knowing who you truly are.

And so as we stand on the cusp of house offering season and we dare to prepare and stir our eyes of wonder and faith once again for the beyond, I don't want us to take 40 years to accomplish what should only take 11 days.

I don't want us to become less effective at what God has us to do, Cathedral, because we begin to

 fall back on a false doctrine and as i prayed into this sunday i heard god say nicole let me remind you who you are so cathedral let me remind you who you are god i pray holy spirit come

 Would you enlarge our faith?

Would you remove every filter, every hindrance that we hold here today that we may hear, that we may listen, that we may see and be called to action?

In your name we pray, amen.

Okay, so who enjoyed that last song we sang, Following the Lamb?

Woo, did we love that?

A cathedral originale, we love.

Cathedral house music, we love.

Now here.

 Yeah, house music.

Okay, I will not stop.

I have no musical talents.

I will not do that.

Okay, the difference, listen to me, the difference between singing those lyrics, I'll follow the lamb wherever he goes, and it being a cute moment in church.

 And a powerful, transformative, scare the devil kind of moment in church is based upon the revelation of the God that you serve.

What idol are you serving?

What God do you serve?

Galatians 5.16 says, I could turn off the microphone and walk off the stage right now.

 But we're human and we're complex, and sometimes we need help unpacking what that means.

Gratify.

Do not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Paul goes on to talk about how the desires of the Spirit are actually in opposition to the desires of our flesh.

And very often when we hear that phrase that he loves to use again and again and again, desires of your flesh, it's like dun-dun-dun.

 And we think of all the really scary words, right?

Like lust and greed and vengeance.

But, you know, desire of the flesh can also be chocolate.

Chocolate, though, is a poor master.

My wonderful husband moved to L.A.

with no adult supervision at the age of 18.

And he lived off of garden salsa chips and Cadbury bars.

Laughter

 I'm pretty sure he has a story of literally putting himself into a chocolate coma because he ate so much chocolate.

It's a poor master.

Our desire could be comfort, a lazy sleep and on a Sunday, human praise, the desire for perfect order and balance, avoidance of confrontation.

 But I love that Paul says we are to walk by the Spirit.

Walking is a daily activity.

So walking by the Spirit requires daily ongoing activity because do we not struggle with these type of desires born of the flesh each and every day?

 Recently, just this past week, Jake and I had an opportunity to join our pastors at our C3 Europe conference.

We are part of a family of churches.

We have over 600 churches around the globe that we are a part of called C3.

And we were in this amazing conference with 15 different countries represented, 16 languages being spoken.

It was amazing, Cathedral, to see what's happening in Europe.

 And every parent knows that if you have your children looked after and you've taken a 10-hour flight to get somewhere, you tack on an extra few days to just enjoy, right?

So we zip down to the south of France.

I found myself, come on, my husband knows how to do it well.

I'm sitting on this beautiful terrace, blue sky, garden around me, vineyard in the background, and I'm eating this food that looks like art.

And on the menu was foie gras.

 And Jake's like asking our waiter, what is foie gras?

Like, what is that?

And so our sweet waiter in his French accent and his best English is like, foie gras, you stuff the duck and you stuff the duck and you stuff the duck and then you kill the duck.

So basically you just overfeed a duck with the intention of killing it so that you get this really yummy little pate.

 The enemy would love nothing more than to find ways to overfeed you on the desires of your flesh.

He will stuff you when you fall into that bad habit.

He wants to overfeed you when you have that weak character moment to put you in bondage, to put a stronghold on your life.

Don't be the devil's foie gras.

Don't be the dragon stuffed duck.

Follow

 The lamb.

Were you wondering how I was going to get there?

Romans 8.13 says it like this.

If you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of your body, and you will live.

Don't be a stuffed duck.

Don't be the dragon's duck.

If you have been listening to Revelation, you'll understand that.

 We cannot be passive in our obligation to manifest the Spirit in our lives on a daily basis that we can deny our flesh.

So I'm going to quickly talk us through three identities that we walk out daily by the Spirit.

And if we can daily walk by the Spirit these three identities, we will find ourselves serving the desires of our God and denying the desires of our flesh.

Amen?

Amen.

 first one is we walk as a son and daughter romans 8 14 simply tells us those who are led by the spirit are children of god ah love that for led by the spirit you are a children of god imagine if we did that with our kids like lindsay imagine if it's like you're only my children if you allow me to lead you like that's funny

 They would not be my children.

No, I'm just kidding.

They're so good.

They were so good today.

So good.

Led by the Spirit, we're children of God.

Just having a parental moment with you all right now.

Is that okay?

So what does that tell us?

It tells us that obedience is the fruit of our revelation of active understanding that we are children.

 And Jesus shows us very clearly in his scripture, he shows us what it looks like to be obedient to the Father, does he not?

He constantly is like, I only do what the Father tells me to do.

I'm only saying what he's telling me to say.

Even to the point of death on the cross.

But somehow obedience has become a dirty word.

Obedience has become oppressive.

Obedience cramps my style.

It steals my individuality, my ability to think for oneself.

 So let me redefine obedience for us today.

Obedience is not phoning a friend, phoning my pastor, and saying, let me just run something by you.

Okay, thanks.

No thanks.

 Okay, obedience is not, though, manipulation.

It is not a manipulation of a carrot, a reward, so that I bend my will to another's.

Obedience is not being strong-armed with a fear tactic to comply to what is being asked of me.

I don't know about you, in some parenting circles, us millennial parents, we've fallen into this trap of gentle parenting.

 No is like a four-letter word to our children, apparently.

We can't say no to our children.

We have to redirect their attention.

Well, that hasn't gone well for us, and so now the parenting trend has swung to the other side.

We have this new trend that's emerged called FAFO.

The PG version of that is mess around and find out.

 Which honestly, in certain settings, I'm okay with.

Really, neither one of those extremes of parenting, you guys are like, some of you are clueless.

It's okay, come up to me afterwards, I'll explain it to you.

 Neither one of those parenting styles are healthy for our kids, okay?

And maybe you didn't grow up with a healthy parent to model after.

But again, let me remind you, you're in a house where you can have healthy spiritual moms and dads around you to model it for you.

You have the word of God where we see the perfect picture of what a father-son relationship looks like.

Obedience is willful submission.

 It's doing as Jesus modeled for us, willful submission.

And I take courage that he has given me the Holy Spirit to be obedient, not just to make good life choices by, but to be actively influenced every day by his influence on my life so I can deny my flesh and willfully follow the Father.

 In Matthew 26, 41, we find this really pivotal time for Jesus where he is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he is about to get arrested and go to the cross and he has pulled a few of his disciples aside and he's like, pray for me.

It says that he showed his grief to them.

I mean, he is like distraught what he's about to endure.

And he's like, pray for me.

And when he comes back to check in on how they're doing,

 Those fellows fell asleep on him.

And he tells them, he's like, hey, wake up.

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And you know what?

That actually is comforting.

 because like the flesh is weak like i have weak moments okay i have lost it on my children i have moments where i am in that spiral of anxiety and i want to reach for the control panel of my life i understand what that feels like but jesus has given us a way out he's given us his holy spirit he says watch and pray but you know what else he's given us

 A person to call us out of our disobedience and into an alignment with his will.

What did the disciples need in the moment?

They needed the incarnate.

They needed Jesus in the flesh and blood to kick them, wake them up and say, hello, what are you doing?

You've gotten off track.

And so too with us.

We need people in our lives that can say, you're becoming a stuffed duck.

Wake up.

Follow the will of God.

You need to have an earthly shepherd that you're submitted to.

Amen?

 let's talk about what it looks like to walk as a servant to walk as a servant John 12 25 to 26 says anyone who loves their life will lose it while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life whoever serves me must follow me and where I am my servant will also be my father will honor the one who serves me wherever I am my servant will also be

 See, I tend to find that being a child God is like really fun.

Like I'm a princess.

I'm his little girl.

He's pulled me into his lap.

He loves me.

 And then all of a sudden we get to these next two identities and it's like servant and priest.

Get ready.

Buckle up.

This is where it gets real.

Servant, follower.

These are two identities that you cannot separate.

Wherever I am, there my servant will be.

 To serve the lamb is to follow the lamb.

To follow the lamb is to serve the lamb.

And so we have to, again, redefine what a servant is.

I know it's 2025, but often when we look at a servant, we think of the waiter in our restaurant.

And he clocks in and he clocks out, but that is not servanthood.

And we have to ask ourselves, have we lowered the bar of what it looks like to be a servant of the Lord to the point that it no longer requires the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish it?

 Am I just checking a box on a Sunday?

Am I just doing a good gesture?

Or is servant truly someone that I am?

I served twice this month in kids.

Good job, Nicole.

I gave to the tithe.

Good job, Nicole.

I already signed up for a house offering.

What a servant I am.

Looking at servanthood equivalent to just checking the boxes is being a Christian and not embracing the bride.

 You're not going fully into it.

Servanthood is a posture of humility.

It's reflecting the sacrificial love first given to us, to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We might not be overstuffing ourselves with the desires of our flesh, but are we quenching the spirit?

Because we've set the bar too high on how low we're willing to go to serve one another.

 How low did Jesus go when he got down, I know, limbo, when he got down and washed the disciples' feet, showing them this is what servanthood is.

This is how we love one another.

Galatians 5.13 says, You are my brothers and sisters.

You are called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh.

Do not use your freedom to become a stuffed duck.

Rather, serve one another humbly in love.

 This right here.

Why?

To serve one another humbly in love.

Which means to be a servant, you need a one another.

It's hard to walk out being a servant without also holding a revelation that you are also a sibling in God's family.

There are no only children in God's family.

We talked about this, girls, at Daughters.

Did we not?

Pause, break.

You should come to Daughters on Wednesday.

It's this Wednesday night.

 Seven o'clock on the dot.

Yes.

Come here.

Be part of it.

I want to have you in the house.

 Okay, you can't follow the lamb who is the head of the church and not find yourself in service to the bride.

That's how it works.

And some of us, we like to get stuck in our perpetual honeymoon with Jesus.

Oh, cloud nine with Jesus.

I know what that feels like, cloud nine.

Just me and Jesus, oh my gosh.

Me and Jesus, oh my gosh.

 And we're living in cloud nine, and we haven't put our toesy-woseys in the sand, in the soil of the house of God, and we're just floating up here.

But every good honeymoon needs to have an ending.

Speaking of servanthood and love, wonderful Daray came and picked Jake and I up from the airport, LAX, after he'd worked all day.

I mean, that is true love.

Shout out to Daray.

 So we're chit-chatting, you know, we're like, oh, what's going on?

We're talking about travel.

He's like, yeah, Lauren and I, we did a 10-day honeymoon in Bali.

That's luxurious, friends, 10 days.

But he goes, yeah, you know, like after, by day 10, we're like, all right, we did Bali, ready to get home and start our lives.

 If I lived in perpetual honeymoon, I get disillusioned.

Like, I think I have a buffet of filet mignon at my disposal whenever I want it.

I think that I walk into my room and I'm going to have a chocolate on my pillow and fresh linens.

But guess what?

I have to cook and clean.

Welcome to the real life, folks.

 When we live in this perpetual honeymoon, just me and Jesus denying the body of Christ, we get disillusioned.

And we will begin to mix God said with my own feelings.

And before you know it, you're feeding the duck your own desires instead of living in accordance to his true will for your life.

 Come on.

You need to find your toes in the soil.

You need to plant your life.

Being a sibling produces one of the greatest blessings you could ever experience in your entire life.

You sow the seeds, you will reap the harvest.

Amen?

Be a sibling.

Submit love.

Amen?

And if you are grumbling about servanthood right now, and it's twinging you, you need to check the water well level of your heart.

 Is it depleted?

Do you need to go to God and say, God, fill me up with a fire for your house once again.

Amen?

Last one, I'll ask the band to come with me.

We're going to walk as a priest.

Who wants me to say Egyptian so bad?

Anyone?

No?

Walk like an Egyptian.

No?

Okay.

 Walk like a priest.

1 Peter 2.9.

Ooh, we love this one.

This is a juicy one.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous kingdom.

 Light.

Now, what is the role of being a priest?

A priest is one who worships God and reveals God to others.

Now, right now, your flesh is saying, well, that sounds sexy.

Sign me up.

I get to worship Jesus.

I get to tell people about Jesus.

 Shoot, that sounds great.

I want to do that.

Okay, well, let's continue.

What did priests in the Old Testament do?

They did some messy work.

They had to slaughter those poor little animals on the altar.

That was messy work.

They sacrificed.

What do we do as a New Testament priest?

We're called to sacrifice.

Romans 12.1 tells us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.

That is holy and pleasing to God.

This is our true worship.

 Worship as a priest is not just for the prayer room on Wednesday mornings.

It's not just for our worship set on a Sunday.

It's not a garment you put on, a hat that you wear.

To be a priest, hear me, is to be a vessel.

To be a priest is to be a vessel.

We pour out to him.

We pour out to one another.

We pour out to him.

And yeah, I'm a wonky jar, and I'm a fragile jar of clay.

Amen.

 But Jesus looked at me and said, you know what, Nicole, I want to pour my spirit inside of you.

And that's what he says when he looks at us when we receive Christ.

Some miraculous way we get to be carriers of abundant life, of the powerful overflow of the Holy Spirit.

 Before you're anything, let's be priests together.

First and foremost, call to be the access point of abundant life in whatever field you find yourself in.

In Acts 3, we find this story of Peter and John.

The Holy Spirit has come.

 they're walking into the temple and there's a a beggar who's lame and he's asking them for money and peter looks at him and says silver and gold i do not have but what i do have i give to you in the name of jesus of nazareth get up and walk and that lame man is healed some of us are so caught up in our flesh what do i have she has that i don't have that

 What do I have?

God, why haven't you given me that yet?

He's given you everything.

He's given you himself.

He's put his Holy Spirit on the inside of you.

What are you doing with it?

 As a priest, we are not given opportunities to minister.

We are given a responsibility.

If I look at the good works he sets before me as an opportunity, I can go, eh, maybe tomorrow.

But a responsibility puts a conviction inside of my spirit that says, I have to pray.

I have to go.

I have to surrender once again to his way.

You don't have to be a theologian.

 don't have to be a therapist if you are those things god bless you we love you you just have to be willing a few months ago i found myself at a play date after a sunday i think i preached pastor james on a sunday i went to the glendale mall i couldn't tell you the last time i went inside the glendale mall it's still standing folks no not the glendale mall the burbank mall that makes more sense

 Not hating on Burbank, but it's kind of scary inside there.

Anyways, I'm at a play date for Mabel's little friend.

Her friend's parents were missionaries moving back to Brazil.

And there was a mom there, and she's like talking, chit-chatting, my husband's been sick.

I'm like, oh, well, what's going on with him?

And you just expect like, oh, he's just...

 you know got a cold no he was in the hospital he was struggling with an autoimmune disorder where he couldn't move his limbs and i'm like okay here we go i mean i just poured out all sunday morning but that's fine this is a moment this is a responsibility and i knew i had this other woman the missionary on the other side and go okay i said can i pray for you

 That's all you have to say.

People generally don't say no to that.

I didn't have the perfect prayer, but I prayed with faith.

I began to pray that this man would walk and run and swim with his children again.

I didn't know all the conditions, but I saw the tears stream down her face.

I know she was impacted and that her faith was stirred.

And at the end of July, I received this message from her.

She says, Hi, Nicole, I wanted to just give you an update.

My husband...

 came home this Sunday and is showing tremendous improvement.

He walked over a mile today.

 Now, I don't know if it was that prayer, but what I know is that something happened.

Something began to stir.

And I said, I'm going to keep praying for full healing.

I have in my notes app, it could be my spin instructor.

She likes to tell us about her life in spin class.

And she'll throw out nuggets like, oh, my niece is struggling or whatever.

And I'll be like, hey, what's your niece's name?

Let me pray for her.

 Let me keep praying for her.

Just look for the responsibility for you to step into to be a priest.

Some of us have drawn the boundary lines of what we're willing and unwilling to do.

And I believe we're going to remove those boundary lines.

There's going to be a flexibility, a willingness that's going to regain in our spirits here today.

Why don't we stand in this moment as we prepare to close?

 have been praying in Cathedral for us to rise up a generation upon generation of Samuels in this house Samuel in the Bible he found himself where dedicated to the house of the Lord in the temple he would find himself laying where in the temple at the Ark of

 where the presence of the Lord is and I'm believing as a church as we choose to take a hold of our sonship as a daughter of God as we choose to be a servant laying ourselves on the altar again and again we will rise up with ears of a priest to hear the word of God when it comes with every eye closed and hands lifted let's begin to ask God Holy Spirit where have I become hindered in my yes

 Where have my ears become closed?

Where have I been resistant, stubborn to respond with a willful surrender?

When the Lord called out to Samuel, he said, here I am, Lord.

Speak, your servant hears.

When you hear, do you listen?

 Listen is the obedience.

We sing the line, I don't listen because I have to.

I listen because I love you.

Thank you, Jesus.

I don't listen because I have to.

I listen because I love you.

 I don't listen cause I have to I listen cause I love you I don't listen cause I have to I listen cause I love you

 in this moment i would love it if we would just take a moment to respond if you know there is an area that you want to rededicate back to god

 where you've been serving and following the desires and thoughts of your flesh, where you've become stubborn, rigid in your yes, why don't you just, as an act of surrender, just go to your knees in your seat.

I know this can be a bit awkward.

 But this is position of surrender.

Jesus would sit in the garden of Gethsemane and he would pray in his grief and in his tears.

And he would ask for the cup of wrath to pass by him.

But he said, if it can't pass by me, your will be done, Lord, not my own.

 So God, I pray right now that you would see every son and daughter, every servant, every priest in this house, Lord, as we've been reminded who we truly are, that we belong to you, that you are our Lord and Savior.

You are the one we aim to serve and please.

 So Holy Spirit, would you pour out right now fresh oil for us to minister, fresh oil for us to humbly serve, fresh oil for us to obey and follow your way.

Come, Holy Spirit.