[SERMON] The Light: Living on the Main Quest with Jesus | Side Quest Life

Pastor Cyle uses the video game metaphor of a "quest line" to challenge believers to stop wandering through life's side quests — hobbies, distractions, and self-directed living — and intentionally return to following Jesus as the one true path. Drawing from Psalm 119:105, John 8:12, and John 14:6, he calls the church to renewed obedience through Scripture, prayer, and accountability. The message culminates in a call to step out in faith — like Indiana Jones stepping over the chasm — trusting that God's way, even when unseen, leads to life, joy, and hope.

Transcript

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But today we continue on with our side quest life series. Now, I just gonna tell you the side quest life is is really something we're experiencing right now because it's spring. And let me just ask you this show of hands, who has mowed so far? Who has mowed this year? Okay? It's a lot of you. Let's be more honest. Who has not mowed this year? Okay, we know who you procrastinators are. Your spouse knows too. Um, so but uh here's the thing you should know. From someone who has a beekeeper living in his house, uh May is called no mow may. So you do it for the bees. We don't mow in May for the bees because the bees are dying, and you want to save the bees, you don't have to mow. So, those of you who haven't mowed yet, just start mowing in June. That's good. So uh save the bees. All right. But mowing is a side quest. It's a side quest, an activity you get to get involved in in the spring, right? Some of you put your boats in, your docks in. Somebody told me today they're gonna go do the side quest putting their dock in. That sounds terrible. Um so but we have all these different things. The side quests, we've been talking about the difference between a side quest and a main quest. Side quests, by the nature of them, aren't bad, right? But they're not the main quest. And so we've been talking about side quest life, and and I like to nerd out. This is you're gonna learn a lot about the nerdness of Kyle and how I like board games and video games and all kinds of stuff. You don't need to know video games, but let's be honest, you all play games. Who has ever once in their life played a video game? Raise your hand. Including Words with Friends, Wordle, Scrabble, anything like that. They're all games, right? Anybody? Okay. Who has never played a game in your life? All right. Okay, good. Sorry, enjoy the message. Uh so but uh, I mean, games, games are something we find a way to enjoy. I mean, crosswords are a game, right? They're there are games and puzzles, they're all kind of the same category. So you done crosswords? Well, then you're you're in the club. So uh there we go. You're in the club today. So this is kind of like I call nerd time. I'm gonna share with you a little bit about games. You don't need to understand, just like last week, we talked about a map. You all know what maps are, hopefully, if you've ever been to school. Uh so this will make sense. So just bear with us. So in some games that I play, there's a map. Well, a lot of games, there's a map. But in other games, you can press a button, and suddenly, right before your character, there is a glowing path, a glowing trail to the main objective. I have an example from one game. This is a big example here. You can see you press a button, the line pops up, and it takes you right to the objective. This will this line will go across the entire world in this game to take you, and you just got to follow it exactly. And if you follow it, it goes exactly where you need to go. And it's wonderful. And so, if you don't follow the line, you don't go where you need to go. And many of these worlds are called open open worlds, sandbox worlds where you can go anywhere you want. You don't have to follow this line. And if you don't follow this line, there can be problems, right? There can be problems. There can be monsters, there can be bad guys, there can be all kinds of situations. You can run into a mountain if you don't follow the line. So the line helps you get where you need to go. And you don't have to guess the mission when there's a line. You just have to follow the light. It's that simple. And then wouldn't it be nice if life worked that way, right? Does anybody agree that'd be nice if life worked that way? Well, here's the wonderful thing. It does. Life actually has a line, it has a path, it has a light that goes before you. Here's how I know Psalm 119, 105. Remember the yellow is yours. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. There is a line. It's that simple. You can actually push the button in life and the light shows up. Not really, don't try that. Um, but we have a light. We have a word, it points us to the direction that you should go. You don't have to guess where to go in life, which direction. There is a way forward, and the Bible tells you how to how to go along the way. See, God doesn't show you the whole map, He gives you the line that leads you to the next step and the next step and the next step. Some of these video games, they just don't have a line. Some of them have glowing, lit up footsteps, and you just follow the footprints all across the map. So instead of the line, they get creative and they have footprints, they have all these different things, and you can follow the footprints. And you go, just follow the next one, the next one, the next one, the next one. And it takes you eventually to the main objective or to the main quest. You go along the main quest. God's direction for us is a lot like that. We just keep moving forward and moving forward and moving forward, following where God wants us to go to the next step. And that's the great part. The light is always available for you in life. That's the beauty of God's word. There is a path, there's a way, there's a light. You just have to follow it. In the game, the path is always there. You just have to activate it. Most of these games, you press a button, the line pulls up, you can follow the line. You can choose when to follow it or not. In life, God's guidance isn't missing. Like that line's there. It's just ignored. It's like, well, I don't know, shut that line off, right? I don't want God's line anymore. I want to do my own thing. I know God wants me to go this way, but I want to go this way, right? I know if I go that way, I'll get to where the line says to go. But sometimes in the game, the line will take you across the lake. And you'll be like, well, I don't want to swim across the lake. It takes a lot longer to swim in video games. I don't know if you play video games. Swimming, slow. Riding on horses, riding in cars, faster. So sometimes you'll see the line go across the lake, and like, I don't want to do that. I'm just gonna drive around the lake. I'll get there faster. I don't have to swim for and be bored for all this time. The problem is, if you decide not to go where the line goes, you might go and run into a giant monster, and that monster might be too big for you and it might destroy you, and that's the end of it. And so the problem is sometimes going your own way, it's problematic for you. For example, when I went up to the inland township this week, I went through Cadillac in the northern Michigan. Anybody know what the problem is in that area right now? Massive flooding. So I would drive across a bridge, and the water was at the bridge. And I'm like, this is not safe. For sure it's not safe. And then I was following GPS, and GPS is like, this is blocked. You shouldn't go this way. And I'm like, well, I know a better way. I've been up here lots of times until I found out I was wrong. So I didn't know a better way. And then so I went my own way. GPS said, go this way, go this way, go this way. And I'm like, nah, I'll just go this way, because I'll go this way, that's the way you go. Problem is, it's flooded, can't go that way. So then guess what I gotta do? I gotta backtrack and go back the way I was supposed to go. We do that a lot in life. Like, for example, think about Apple Maps, Google Maps. You pull out your phones, right? Here's what happened. I went to Cleveland yesterday. You can take three different options when the Google comes up, right? And it says, you can go the way, that's the fast way. Or you can pick one of those other options. You just press it, and then it changes your route. The route gets longer. Some of you are like, I don't like to drive on highways, so now I just added seven hours to my trip, right? So, right? I don't want to go the toll way. I just added 35 minutes, but I saved 75 cents. So, right? Actually, now it's 1275. But so ultimately, we can always adjust the journey in life. We're used to saying this is the best way to go, the main way, but I don't want to do that. I want to do my own thing. And as Americans, we like to do our own thing all the time. That's what we do, and which means we're ignoring the main quest. We're doing our own thing. John 8, 12, Jesus is talking, and he says, again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. See, Jesus is talking to people who knew Psalm 119. They know that the Bible, the word, is the light that lights the path. And then already in John 1, Jesus says, By the way, I am the word. I am the word. And if the word is the light, John 8, he says, by the way, I'm also the light of the world. Because the word is the light of the world, and I am the word, I am the light. So he's telling people that path that you're supposed to follow, that's lit up for you, that leads the way, that lights where your feet go, that's me. That's me. And if you follow me, you will have life. And if you don't, you're just gonna have darkness. Darkness is loneliness, frustration, despair, all right, um, stress, anxiety, fear, um, all those different things. Brokenness, broken relationships, all of that's darkness. And so going your own way, not following the path, leads to all those destruction and darkness and broken things. And then what here's the crazy thing about Americans we decide we want to go our own path, and then we're mad at God because our path isn't working out. Oh, God, why didn't you make my path work out? Well, because God says the past this way, right? You're doing your own thing. And you're not lost because God's silent about the direction your life should go. You're lost because you stop looking at the line. Some of you are like, I don't want that. I don't want that line on my map the whole time. Shut it off, Lord. I don't want that. I want to do my own thing. I want to have my own experiences. I want to choose my own way. The problem is that way's broken. That way's broken. It's gonna lead you down the wrong way. And so you don't need a new direction. Really, what we need is we need a renewed attention. That's what we need. If you want a better life, if you want to find the way, you actually have to renew your attention to God's plan. God makes it clear. God gives you clarity for the next step. It's his word, it's a prayer life, it's going to church, it's getting life groups and Bible studies to spend time with godly people who keep pointing you along the way. He doesn't give you control of the whole journey. He says this is the next step, and this is the next step. And here's the thing: God's way is a good way. It's just not necessarily your way. The life that you have you might want for yourself, maybe it might be the life that God has for you. How many of you as kids wanted to be astronauts, scientists, doctors, now YouTube influencers, right? That's the big thing. Um are actually doing that thing that you dreamed about doing when you were a kid. Probably not many of you. Right? We all have these dreams of what life is gonna be like. How many want to be a rock star, right? How many want to be a dog trainer? Okay, one. I didn't think that would get any, so that's awesome. I have a problem with some of my dog. I need some help. All right, so no. I'm recruiting. Um but we all we all have these visions of the future and how we think they're gonna work out, but God has a plan for your life. And here's when you're following God's plan, here's what happens: door after door opens, and door after door closes. The ones you're not supposed to go through close. And the doors that you're supposed to go through, they open. And every time you go on the journey, it just works out and opens up and opens up. The problem is, some of you, you see the open door and you're like, I don't know. That door is got a lot of like artwork on it, it's got a certain carving, it looks really nice, it's locked. But I think I just want to pick that lock and get through there because that looks like that'd be fun on the other side. Some of you are just like, I'm just gonna run through that door and knock it down because I want that thing on the other side of that door. And although God's plan's open for you, you don't want God's plan. You want your own plan. See, faith is following the light that you have, not demanding the light that you don't have to be the plan. Some of you stand in front of the open door and be like, God, I don't want to go through there. I'm mad at you. I want that. Unless you give me that, you don't really care about me, God, because I want those doors, I don't want this door. Some of you, that's how you live your life. And you believe in Jesus. Christians do this all the time. We believe in Jesus, we believe he's real, we just don't like his plan. Because we want riches and fame and fortune, and we want all kinds of cool stuff, and we want to be rock stars and astronauts or whatever, and we're not actually following God's plan for our life. See, in the game, you can turn the path on and off, and you can still go the wrong way. In life, we really do it all the time. I can play these video games and I can open up that yellow line, I can decide I don't want to do that. I want to go do my side quest stuff. And in those games, in that game I showed you the image of, there's a yellow line that there's also a blue line. I couldn't find a picture of it. Nobody seems to take pictures of the lines in these games. And I didn't have time to get one to actually play the game this week and get it for you. But there's a yellow line that shows up and a blue line simultaneously. And so when your character's going forward, there's a yellow line and blue line, and then you'll be driving along, and all of a sudden the yellow line goes this way, blue line goes this way. The blue line is the side quest that you have activated. The yellow line is the main quest. And so you can follow the main quest and you can go where you're supposed to go, or you can go to the distraction of the blue line, the side quest. And the blue lines can be fun, they can be beneficial, you can get more powerful, you can get money, you can get experience, you can have great adventures in the blue line quest, but they're taking you away from the main quest. And you can get lost in the side quest for hours and days. I showed you last week there was a game that had over 6,000 side quests and only 100 main quest points of interest. You can get lost for days. Some of you, you've been lost on side quest after side quest after side quest after side quest. You believe Jesus is real. You've given your life to him, you just don't want to follow his way. You're like, well, I'm gonna be okay. I'll get back to the main quest when I'm ready for it. Like when I get close to death, then I'll give Jesus time, because you know I'll be good then, right? But until then, I'm gonna do my side quest thing, and I'll just keep Jesus' main quest activated for when I'm ready. Some of you, that's the way you're living your life, and you're miserable, you're frustrated, you're broken, you're depressed, you're all those things. You're stressed, you're anxious, you're lonely, and you're wondering why, because you're not following the main quest, you're stuck from side quest to side quest to side quest. It's not bringing you satisfaction. Because eventually the side quests get boring. The reality is if you move forward with Jesus, there's a plan. See, the path is clear, but the distractions of life, those blue line distractions, they're often louder. And our life, it's politics, it's sports, it's hobbies, it's interests, it's clubs, it's communities, it's education, it's all these things. Every one of them is a side quest. And side quests are not necessarily bad. They aren't. Like you can enjoy side quests. I I was on a side quest this weekend. I went this weekend, Friday night, I went to Cleveland. My sons and I, we went to Cleveland to play in a championship competition. We got there, three-hour drive, walked through the door, the guy's like, oh, it's canceled. I'm like, well, we're from Michigan. And uh he's like, oh man, I'm so mad at the company. I told him it was canceled. And so he's on, he gave us like some packs for free. They were worth like 20 cents. Um was not worth the gas we drove to get. He's like, Well, I'm sorry, guys. So he so he found some other place where we went to some other store and we played just for fun with some guys and uh learned a lesson. They were really good. And um so we went there, and then we were gonna play another competition on Saturday, which we did play, and then we found out they're also really good. So uh yeah, so it was a fun learning lesson for us this weekend. Um but we had a blast and we went and did a side quest. And the side quest isn't necessarily a bad thing, right? But when the side quest becomes the main quest and all the side quests just add up from side quests and side quests and side quests and side quests and side quests and side quests, it's a problem. And you've got to recognize sometimes you can, you can, those side quests can be enjoyable, but they take your focus away from the main quests, that they're distractions. And so you don't accidentally stay on the main quest. It's not like, oh, I fell into the main quest. Uh you intentionally follow it. And the problem is some of you believe that you're following the main quest and you've lied to yourself. We all follow on the main quest, but everybody else around you knows you're a side quest person. You're just doing your own thing. You don't really want to follow Jesus, you don't really want to give him the time he needs, you don't really want to do that. You just want to tell yourself good Christians do that, and I'm a good Christian, even though you're not living a good Christian life. I like to throw out the statistic that Americans believe that 75% of us believe that we're above average. We all think we're awesome. That's the reality. We all think we're doing the thing, the side the main quest. But the truth is, if you look how many people serve at the average church, it's less than 20% of people serve at the average church. Less than 20% of people give in the average church. That's not a bunch of main quest people. That's a bunch of side quest people. That's 80% side quest life. 20% main quest life. That's not the church we want to be. I'd love to be a church where 80% of us were on the main quest. But the reality of most modern American churches, even churches that are growing, are that's the statistics are true. We have to intentionally choose the main quest. You have to intentionally choose the main quest. Anything that's not intentional is haphazard at best. I love this quote. And the truth is, if you're not intentionally following Jesus' path in your in your life, you're haphazardly following it, and you're going back and forth from side quest to main quest to side quest to main quest, and it's not fulfilling. Proverbs 4 gives us some more biblical truth. It says this in let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not move to the right or to the left. From your foot away, turn your foot away from evil. Some of you, you're behind a wheel of a car, and there's a path before you, and you're just like, no, I don't want to do that. I'm gonna go this way. I got a direction over here I want to go, right? And then some of you are like, well, I don't like that anymore. So let's go this way, and I'm gonna go over here. And you you hit the main path for a second before you take off and veer the other direction. I love how it says swerves to the right and to left. Because you're crossing the main path from time to time. Oh, on Sundays I cross that path again until I go back to my side quest life and do all the things but for the Lord during the week, and then I come running back on Sunday, cross that line, and go this direction. Some of you, that is your walk with Jesus. Into Christianity and out of Christianity as you cross over the path. And it's gotta be exhausting. You're wasting gas for one, right? You gotta keep going straight, straight with the Lord. And this is how you this is what it looks like. You know how to pray, but instead of praying, you scroll on your phone. You know how to forgive the people in your life who need forgiveness, but you delay in giving the forgiveness because you're mad, you're bitter, you're frustrated. And you know how to step out in faith, but you hesitate to step out in faith. You hesitate to trust God because what what if that means I have to give up this relationship? Or what if it means I have to give up this thing I like to do? What if it means I have to sacrifice my time, my talent, and my treasure for the things of the Lord? I don't want to do that. That means I really gotta trust God. That's all gonna work out. And then we go and ask God for directions. Say, God, please tell me what to do, and then we go ahead and follow the distractions. Like, oh, oh, here's the yellow line. God says, here's the way you should go. And you're like, eh, no. I like the blue line. I don't want that, God. But I want, I want, God, I want you to turn the blue line into the yellow line for me because that's what I want. And if you don't do that, I'm gonna be really mad at you, God, because I want that. And the problem is a lot of you are following the blue lines and you're mad at God because the blue line's not giving you the joy, satisfaction, or whatever outcome you want. But God's saying, I have all that for you this way. But that's not the way you want to go. And see, following the light, following the way, it requires trust. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 7 7, for we walk by faith, not by sight. The way that you go, that straight way down the line, you gotta trust God that that's the right way. You gotta give him your heart and you gotta give him your life. You gotta give him your finances, you gotta give him your time, you gotta give him your talent, you gotta use it for him. You got to. We walk by faith, not by sight. When I've been thinking about this, the thing that I remember the most, that there's this moment in my life that I always think about when I think about faith. And it's from Indiana Jones on The Last Crusade. So some of you are way too young to have watched this. Sorry about that. But in this movie, Indiana Jones, he is an adventurer. Most of us probably know who Indiana Jones is. He goes through, you know, he goes through looking for artifacts and history, and he's actually looking for the water of life, right? And so he's walking for the water of life. And in this moment, he's actually going to this to find kind of, well, that's the water of life you can drink out of the um the holy grail. And so, and it can cure you, it can bring you like eternal life. And so he's looking for it, and in right before this, his dad gets shot on the journey, and his dad's dying. And he's got to get to the final end of the end of the path to get the water to save his dad's life. But he comes to this moment where this he's got this book telling him which way to go, and then he comes along to a great chasm. And there's seemingly no way forward. Although he knows the book says the line, just go forward. Trust. This is the moment we pick up the story. And you must hurry. Come quickly. Sorry, I should have said spoiler alert, but the movie's 35 years old, so I figured we're okay. See, if you can see the whole path, it doesn't require faith. And that's that's the thing. The faith was he couldn't see the path. It just required the faith to step out and trust the way forward. Some of you, you don't want to trust God because you want all the answers. God promised me God it's gonna work out exactly the way I want, and then I'll trust you. But God's not gonna do it the way you want. Or you'll be like, God promised me it'll work out, it'll work out perfectly for me if I just trust you. But God's not gonna promise you that. He's gonna tell you the next step forward, the next forward. He just wants you to trust him in faith that his plan for you is good. It brings joy, brings love, and brings light. Some of you, God's laid out a path for you, but you have to trust him. You're staying at that edge of the chasm, and you gotta just step forward. I'm not gonna do it because I know there's nothing there. But some of you, that's you. Right? Uh no. Some of you, that's you. And the problem is you're not moving forward in your relationship with the Lord. You're miserable, you're broken, you're frustrated, you're anxious, you're depressed, you're afraid, you're lonely, you're all those things. It's good. And you're like, well, I love Jesus. Why is the Swiss waste? Because you're not listening to Jesus. You're doing your own broken thing. And your relationship with Jesus is swerving to and fro. And yeah, you check in with Jesus every time you cross the path, but you're really not following Jesus. See, imagine turning on the light in a game and then just choose to ignore it. That's that would be crazy. Like, why would I play a game with a light the whole time that I don't follow? That's just that would be a distraction. That'd be annoying. You can turn it back off, but some of you, you're going through life knowing there's a path and just ignoring it the whole time. You know that's God's got a better way, and you're just ignoring it. That's how a lot of us are living. That's how a lot of Christians are living. I know some people say, well, yeah, those non-Christian people, they're living bad. No, a lot of Christian people are just living the same way. They're swerving to and fro. And just saying, because I believe Jesus is real, I'm all good. Some of you are holding off for later. You gotta live for him now. You're avoiding his way. That's the truth. And the sooner that we understand that and make a decision to change, the better the outcome is gonna be for you. Doesn't mean you're gonna have riches or a boat or right, perfect health. It just means you're gonna have life everlasting through Jesus Christ. Because his path, his light brings life. And that life is life everlasting, it brings joy. So, what does this mean for you? Why are we taking time to talk about this? I think the answer is simple. If you know you're one of those people and you're swerving, you gotta turn the light back on and in your life. Here's how you do it open the word. Open your Bible. For me, it's my phone. Take up my Bible and read instead of scrolling. Find time to make the word an important part of your day. Re-engage in prayer. Some of you, the only time you pray is at a meal when you remember to pray at a meal. Let's be honest. I don't need to ask you who you are. You know who you are right now. Uh-oh. He knows. Your spouse didn't call me. It's just normal Christian life right now in 2026. You don't have a prayer life. You're not in your word. And stop guessing about what God has for you and start listening to what he actually has for you, which way he wants you to go. So here's how you take the next step. Here's some practical things. Apologize. Some of you need to go to apologize to people in your life. You just need to start there. I have wronged people. I should tell them that. I should apologize because I love the Lord. Some of you need to forgive. People that have wronged you that you're holding it out on because I'm going to stick it to them. I'm going to avoid them, never talk to them. I'm going to delete them from Facebook. No longer friends. So I always love finding out that I'm not friends with people. It's like, oh, that happens sometime. Okay, cool. They must not like me. They were like, got me, right? Forgive. Move on. I have this thing, I just don't delete people on Facebook. I don't care how mean you were to me. I'm not going to delete you. One, because I have a fun life, so I want you to see it. So no. So. Yeah. Forgive. Let the bitterness go. It's part of our culture of honor. Release bitterness. We don't need a hold of that. It tears you apart. It pulls you off the path. And then maybe ask yourself, maybe you got to start some things. What do you need to start your life doing different so you can follow the path? And then ask yourself, what do I need to stop in my life that's keeping me from the path? What distractions, what side quests are pulling me away from the main quest? And side quests aren't bad by nature. We just make them bad because we make them the main quest. And they're not supposed to be the main quest. See, clarity of direction in our life often follows obedience. It's not the other way around. When you follow God, when you obey his path, you obey his word, that's when you get clarity of the next step. God doesn't speak to you from billboard to billboard. I don't drive to an arbor like, oh, God, I saw these three billboards, and God is telling me a message. That's not a thing. There's no Bible verse that says, make sure you read billboards and pray, that that's your message. It's also, people tell me this all the time, open up a Bible and lay it open. I just pick a verse, and that's what God's speaking to me. Probably not. So there's no Bible verse that says that either. Because you land on some of them. You should not do those things, right? So truthfully, God speaks to you through his word, through a healthy prayer life, and through his people that are following him and seeking him and there to help you through your life. That's how God speaks to you. It's not the other way around. John 14, 6, Jesus says, He says this, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. The line is Jesus. Jesus is the path. He is the way. Early Christians did not call themselves Christians. They called themselves followers of the way, people of the way, or the way. The word Christian, I think, is one time in the Bible. That's it. It came later. They called themselves people of the way because their thing was to follow his path, his way that he lit up. We have lost that somewhere along the way. We've become Christians who don't follow his way. And we need to become followers of the way. That's what it is. Jesus is the path. He's the way. And what we have to do is we gotta stop wandering our own way and start following his way. That's the goal. And you don't need a better map, you just need better obedience to his way. And that's the problem. Some of you don't like to obey. So you've got to obey his word. Apply it in your life. Have a relationship with him. And if you know you're stuck, it's okay. We all get stuck. We all get stuck in side quests. If you're not stuck in a side quest now, you will eventually. It may be some other hobby, sports, whatever thing. You'll get stuck. And you because we swerve. I mean, we've been swerving since the Old Testament. Before they even had cars, they were swerving on donkeys. I don't know. I was gonna say goats, but they definitely weren't riding goats. That was the first thing that came to my mind. Swerve on goats. We swerve. They've been swerving for a long time. We've been swerving for thousands of years. So you're not like free from swerving. We do it. So when you swerve, get back to the path. Hopefully, there's people in your life that hold you accountable to that. Say, hey, Kyle, you're swerving. Get back on the path. One of the first things we did, we got in the car after we went to Sheets just to get some sadness out of the way. We had some sheets. If you don't know what Sheets is, it's a gas station with really good food and drinks. So when that's how we we kind of consoled our loss. But we got back in the car and I said, Is anybody mad that we lost? And nobody is mad. Because that's like if we get mad, we care too much. It's becoming too much of a main thing. And so that's like every time I go and play, that's the first question. Anybody mad? No? Okay, we're good. So some of you, you have to have ways to evaluate when those side quests are becoming too much of a main quest. And you gotta get back on the road. And some of it can be the people in your life who say the hard things to you. My wife also told me I went to my favorite game board game store that I have right now in the world. It's amazing. It has, it's huge. It takes, it took me an hour to look through half the store. It's like Disneyland for me for board games. And we went there, and my wife was like, do not spend money buying board games. And I said, I promise I will not buy board games. So instead I bought expansions. So for board games. Technically. And I used store credits. That was even better. So I didn't even I use store credits. So it was let's not talk about how I got the store credit. So um but like that's accountability. Are people in your life asking you the hard questions? Are they holding you accountable to staying back towards the path? Are they helping you swerve you? Or are they saying, hey, let me take the wheel? You know, Jesus take the wheel. Are they taking the wheel and saying, Let me drive you back the path and then you can keep going? Are you doing that in your life? Or are you so lost on your own path, trying to make God make your thing the right thing? That's not what God does for us. God's not a genie that gives us our answers. God says, this is the way. Just follow with me and watch what happens. If you're lost today and you know what, here's the thing. We've all been there. I've been there. If you know I'm speaking to you and you're like, somebody called Kyle and told me I'm struggling. Well, no. That's just what we do as Christians, modern-day Christians. I think in most churches, 80% of the people are doing their own thing. I mean, I'm I've been a pastor uh my whole adult life. And I've been in church to church to church. All the churches have the same statistics. 20% are people who are really overly committed, and you've got 80% who fill seats. That's just the way it is. Are you in the 80% doing your own thing, your own path, or are you in the 20% that are sold out? Our goal here is that more and more people move from the 80 to the 20. And that 20 grows and grows and grows. I would love to say one day that we've got 50%. We're 50-50. I'd love to say we're 80-20 the other way. I just know the reality of that. That's a tough one. That's a lot of people got to swerve back and then stay the course. But that's our goal is to head there. If you know right now you're distracted in life and you're off the path, just tell God. That's it. Say, God, I confess it. I'm off. I'm off the road. I'm doing my own thing. It's not working out. I need to come back. It's that simple. Just because you have a relationship with Jesus doesn't mean you're on the main quest path. That actually doesn't mean that at all. It just means you know what it is, you're, and if you're not on it, you're doing your own thing selfishly. The way that we can help you as a church, last week, if you put side quest down, we prayed for you. Prayed for you all week. I prayed for you. Um, our staff prayed for you. If you know that I'm I'm I need to get back on the path, just write path. Put your name on the front, we'll pray for you. Pray for you by name, pray for you all week long. Hopefully, you feel the prayers. We do, we do take time to pray for you every week. Whatever your prayer requests, whatever you write down, we pray over it. We care, we try to follow up with you as best we can. We we want to be a church that prays together because we believe part of the path is praying. Praying for each other, praying to God, praying for our own stuff. Having a healthy prayer life is important. If that's you, write path down. And then confess it. Say, God, I need help. And if you don't know how to get help, ask somebody to help you. Ask somebody to keep you accountable when you're veering off the way. To have the hard conversation to get you back where you should go. Because we want to be a church where we're there. And if you're not on the path, if you're if you're here and you're like, I don't really know Jesus, I believe he's real, but I don't really do anything. Follow him. I don't I don't know this. We'll help you figure it out. But you just gotta say, God, I'm new to this. I need help, and we'll help you. That's what a church is for. That's what a communion is for. That's why we do this together. So let's pray together. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just pray that we can be a church, that we follow the path. Lord, we know you gave us Jesus. Lord, we know he is the way, he is the word, he is the light, he is, and he brings life. But we also have to have faith and trust in his way. Lord, we be we pray that we can be a church that follows the way. That we understand that where we fall short, and Lord, some people in here, we just need to say, I'm I'm off the path, Lord. I'm doing my own thing. I'm trying to make my thing, your thing, and it's not working. I just need to follow your thing, Lord, your way. So I pray for those people right now in their heart, Lord, they can just confess that they're off the path, and that your Holy Spirit this week can encourage them how to get back on the path, what to stop doing, what to start doing, who to forgive, who to apologize to, Lord, where to find time to read the Bible, have a prayer life, get more involved in church. Get them back on the path. Lord, if there's anybody here who just recognizes that they need to get really committed for the first time to following you. Well, you just give them the courage to say something, I need help. Can you help me figure this thing out? Can you help me figure out the way? And then give them the courage to follow that way. And we can just pray we can be a church where we are transformed by the way that Jesus showed us to go. And that that life not only brings light, but it brings joy, it brings hope, and it brings love. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.