- I want to welcome everybody here today, all of our campuses, all those out there in TV land, all those online checking this out, man, just welcome, as we are in week two of our worship series Greater Than. Last week, Pastor Allen kicked us off with this, gosh, this heartfelt direction about God. He challenged us with that question, why does God command this to worship Him? And then he built this case of who God is and why He is so worthy of being that, why He's so worthy of praise. So we know this who piece of that, and today I wanted to sit there and challenge us just a little bit further of looking at the why. See, sometimes we have this point in our lives where we sit there and we come to God and we have this excitement and this movement, and all these things that are going on in our lives are so good, and then, once we go in that season for a while, things happen, life happens. We go through different journeys and different struggles. But today, I wanted to sit there and just challenge you, you might say, of where you're at. Why do you worship God? I mean, I know you got all the biblical reasons and all these different things else, but why do you, genuinely in your heart, why do you worship God? Do you think it's important when you look at? I think most of us are gonna sit there and, as a believer, we'll probably shake our head, yeah. I think it's important. I think it's important to worship God. I'll go a step further. Do you think it's a priority in your life when you look at your life, when you worship God? Do you feel it's a priority when you look at that? That's where we probably get a little sticky. That's probably when we're sitting there going, man, I think I do. I think I prioritize that when I'm sitting there, and in my life I prioritize, 'cause I know how important it is and I want to worship God. I think I do. But do I really? We get a little stumped on that one. Here's the fact I want to lay out with you that might be just a little bit hard to digest today. The fact is, most proclaimed believers, they don't, they don't do it. And that might be a little bit hard to sit there and digest. Why would I say that? Why would I sit there and throw out a statement like that? 'Cause if we step back and we look at what the Word says, the Bible, if we sit there and look at the scripture, the Apostle Paul shares this great statement over in Romans 12 that really defines what true worship is. Verses one and two, "Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship," this living sacrifice of us. "Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This, you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good and pleasing and perfect will," something we desire. So, man, it's us giveth our whole life as a living sacrifice to God is what true worship is. And, man, it should be transforming us. We should be changing and growing to that. We should sit there and get to a point where God is speaking into our lives and we start understanding His will for our lives, to move us forward in that. The point is, when I sit and ask so many folks about, do you worship God, they go, yeah, we just did. We hit those three songs, didn't we? Boy, it was good. And that's as far as it goes. We get hung up on this one little small form of worship and we think that's it. They think that's just bringing it all to God, and I'm saying it's so much more than that, so much more than you just standing up and listening to someone sing you some Christian songs. Worship is so much more than that, guys. Worship is the giving of myself completely. I'm talking about physically and mentally, giving all that to God, letting Him to be stirring in my life, all these different moments of challenging me and growing me and moving me forward. Our life has to become this act of submission, this act of worship to God. That's what we want. This giving of our life to God is not centered on a 9:30 to 11 o'clock on Sunday morning at church. It's not about that. It's way beyond that. It's whenever and wherever I'm at. That's what God desires. That's what He wants us to be when we worship Him. So everything, with everything happening in our world today, and there's a ton of junk going on, isn't it? Shoo, the newspapers, the TV, all the online stuff that you look at is just crazy. Why would I think this is important? Everything that we can sit there and challenge ourselves to do, why would I think this, this topic, this subject, is so important for us as believers today? Well, this is why, and I want to make some assumptions here, and I want you to see if you agree with me on these assumptions. As a believer, you and I desire to please God. Can I make that one? I think our challenge in our lives, we have this desire to please God. You and I desire to be transformed. I think we want this renewing, we want to be different, we want to be better. We want to sit there and grow closer to Him. You and I desire to know God's will, His good and pleasing and perfect will. I want to know my life is going in the same direction God wants it to go in. Man, we pray about it all the time, don't we? And every time we're trying to make a decision, a big one about our families and our life and everything else, man, I want to know what God's will is for my life. We make these assumptions 'cause we want to go in those directions, and if we're striving for those things, if we're really applying those things to our lives, if we're striving for those whenever and wherever we go, we are truly living a life of worship. We want to be aligned with God. We want to go in those directions. But here's the curve ball, here's the curve ball that we deal with today, what happens if I've lost those desires? What happens when life gets so messy, man, some of those desires just start leaving me? What happens when our life goes from striving, we're wanting to sit there and have this life on purpose, to just surviving? I've seen it a whole lot the last two and a half years. We went from a life of striving to just trying to survive. Man, we've lived in this life where we are just mentally exhausted. I'm just tired. Man, with the change and the differences and the trying to adapt to all that, my life, my wife, my kids, my everything, it's just, oh, it's everywhere. And I'm just tired. And we have these challenges, so how do I sit there and I truly give God all I want and desire and move forward into that? You know, I want to read my Bible. I want that to be my focus, but, honestly, I'm just tired. I'm just tired. I just have this point where I'm in, I'd almost rather just zone out just a little bit. I can turn the TV on. I can check out what's going on Facebook, and Lord knows you shouldn't, but you can go on TikTok. That's scary, isn't it? We'll sit there and look for these things that's not really that good, are definitely not good for us, but we'll use our times into that, just because we're tired. We're fatigued in that. I should go to church this week, but, honestly, gosh, maybe I've already had enough people this week. I'm all peopled up. I'm good. And I really just want to take this Sunday, 'cause it sounds healthy. I just want to take this Sunday for myself. I just want to have, I'm gonna pull away for myself, and maybe that one time is good. Here's the catch, though, all of a sudden, it's next Sunday. Well, then it's three Sundays, and now we're going in a different direction we don't need to be going in. We're hitting that struggle. We're having those hurts, those pains, and we're making those excuses that it's hard to do those things. I should raise my hands and worship God today when we sing out to Him and lift Him up, 'cause I know how blessed I am. I know what all He's done in my lives, but some days, do you just say, man, I'm just not feeling it? I'm just not feeling it today. Matter of fact, I'm just glad I'm here, period, today, that I made it through the doors. That was my accomplishment for the day. And whenever we start doing these things and we start realizing we're doing these things and start rationalizing, we have these feelings creep in. We have these feelings of embarrassment. We have these feelings of guilt. We have these feelings of, gosh, what's wrong with me? Why am I going down this road? But it's true, we have them. We have all those things happen in this. At times, it's kind of funny, at times, I feel like my life is like at those intersections. Have you ever been on one of those roundabouts? They're nice and confusing, 'cause we don't have a whole lot of them around here. It's like you come on this thing, and when you come on it, you have a choice to get on the inside lane or the outside lane. If you're gonna get off at the next exit, you get on the outside lane. If you're not, you get on the inside lane. Well, if you want to go in this direction, all of a sudden, you know you need to get on the inside lane to go so far, but you need to get back over to the second lane so you can get off on the next one. Well, as you're trying to get off on the second one, there's someone coming on on this one, so you're trying to switch places with that person so you can get off the second one, and all of a sudden, now you're going around the circle 'cause you missed it. And it's like, I know, this is what I feel like, I know which way I want to go when it comes to the worshiping God and praising Him and following Him. It's just like I'm hung up, and with everything else that's going on, I can't go where I need to go. And I'm on a roundabout and I've been on a roundabout for two and a half years, and I need to get off this thing, 'cause I know the direction I need to go with my life, but what the heck? I can't get there. And it's like, I get in this point where I almost, at times, I feel like I'm paralyzed. It's like, why am I hung up in this pattern of going round and round? Why can't I get, why can't I get to the place where I know I need to be with God? Why can't I get my life to that point? And I struggle with that. Let's go back up to the opening question. Why do I worship God? Why do I think it's so important to know that? When I look at my own life, when I have struggles in my life, if I'm in one of those seasons where I don't feel that close to God, and I have them, I promise you I have them. I have those seasons too, where I struggle. And if I'm struggling to that point, man, I really don't feel like worshiping Him at those moments. That's just real, I don't, I have hard time. I'm just trying to get my own self healthy. And this is what I found out. When I get to those points when I'm not connected with Him, I make a lot of bad choices, and then I'll get to the point where I start rationalizing those bad choices. And if that's not enough, I will surround myself with people that will agree with my bad choices. And then, all of a sudden, life will come and get you. It'll hit you right in the face. It'll come and get you. And when it hits me in the face, then I look up, and that might be two weeks, that might be two months, that might be two years, and I look up, I don't even have any idea where I'm at. I'm lost. I've lost my way and I'm out in the middle of nowhere, having no idea where I'm at, and that's a tough feeling. Then, then I have those feelings of embarrassment. Then I have those feelings of guilt. Then I have these feelings or questions of why? What am I doing? Where am I at, God? what's wrong with me? And it's right here. It's right here, dealing with me, right there in those moments. That's when I struggle, 'cause I've learned, when I lose my why to worship God, I lose my way. When I lose my why, I lose my way, every time. That's why it's so important for you to know your why you worship God, 'cause if you don't, guys, I promise you, you will line off in the wrong direction. You'll be in a mess. Here's the toughie, you ever lost your way? I lost mine for 15 years. I left the church for 15 years. That's a long time to lose your way. I've lost it. Thankfully, I did stick my head up. I still had to go through all those questions in my own personal life to draw me back to Him, to give me that chance and that opportunity to grow again. Where are you at? Are you there today? Have you lost your way today? That why, that desire to praise God, have you lost it? I promise you, you're not alone if you have. I promise you're not alone. So many of us deal with it. Some of you might be dealing with it right now, and if you are there, I challenge you to take a honest, hard look at your life to see. If you've gone astray, ask yourself that question, why do you worship God? 'Cause my guess is you're gonna have a hard time answering it. It's hard to worship God when we're often left field somewhere. It's hard to be able to pull that connection with Him, to give our life, a truly living sacrifice to Him, and not be going in the same direction as He wants you to. How do we find that? How do we get it back? That's what we all want to know. All right, I've lost it. How do I get there? I want to give you three simple things I want to remind you of today to help you get it back. It's three simple things. It's those things that, honestly, that fired you up as a believer, if you're a believer. It's those things that got you there that's gonna get you back. The first thing I want you to do is ask yourself, why do I worship God? Why is that a priority to me? The number one reason is He created me. He created me, my Heavenly Father did. If we look at Genesis 27 and 28, "So God created mankind in His own image. In the image of God, He created the male and female." He created them. I want you, do you understand how special and unique you truly are? Some of us so belittle ourselves all the time. You are one in 8 billion, that blows my mind, humans. I'm not talking about all living creatures. That's trillions, but in just humans, you are one in 8 billion. You are unique. There is no one else on this planet like you. I don't care if they even look similar to you, they are not like you. Your quirkiness, your oddness, the strangeness that you have, the personality you've formed, your habits, your likes, your often things, you are just, you're one in 8 billion. You're special, and it always fascinates me when I look at the fingerprint, how they can identify a person from a fingerprint. I was like, I don't understand how in the world can there be 8 billion people in this planet, and God so uniquely designs this that you can look at something less than a square inch and identify who you are, separate from everybody else. Only God can do that. Understand how special and unique He makes you. That's why I have this, when I look at my creation, Him creating me, is how much I love Him and I want to praise and worship Him, 'cause, gosh, out of everything else, God, You could design, You made me so specific and so special. It's amazing to me, though. It's overwhelming to me. I like this piece, when He talks about creating us, to go even just a little bit further over in Ecclesiastes 3:11, "He made everything beautiful in its time. He also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." God created this by putting this desire for eternity in our hearts, the human heart. We have this want, this desire. Have you ever wondered why you're not satisfied at your earthly achievements here on this side? Why enough is never enough? I'm not talking about greed, but we have this built in desire, don't we? That enough is enough. We know there's something more, there's something better. It's because He created us that way. He created us to have something better than that. He wanted so much more for us that this earth can't handle it. He gave us this eternal craving in our lives, this eternal desire that He has, so much greater than just ourselves. It's Him. It's this desire for Him that I have that. God placed that in our hearts. God placed this into our hearts so we would desire Him beyond anything else. We know we have that. But before we knew God, and before we had that relationship with Christ, we did it all in the wrong way. We tried to fulfill those desires by desiring or worshiping something totally wrong. Pastor Allen hit them last week, he talked about those things. He talked about idols. It's the money, people, career, hobbies, passions, possessions, anything that replaces God in our heart, and we try to fill it up with all those wrong ways. We're worshiping the wrong things. That desire that enough is enough is Him, not stuff. Stuff is never going to fill the internal void in our lives. God, only God can do that. That's it, that's the only way we can feel that. So here it is, here's the truth I want you to understand, worshiping God is the only thing that will truly bring peace into our lives. That's it. He's the only, He will satisfy all those urges and desires that we have. It's love, it's that peace that we have. Revelations 4:11, "You are worthy, oh Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things. And by Your will, they were created and have their being." You and I were made to worship God. That's where you and I was done. We were made to worship God, meaning the number one function of our church, our body, 'cause we are the body, the body is to worship Him, to glorify, to honor, to worship Him with everything we got through Jesus Christ. That is where we find peace. Man, why do I sit there and worship God? Because He created me. He created me so unique. He gave me that desire in my heart to praise Him and to worship Him. That is why. The second thing I want you to get is He loved me. Man, why do I worship God? 'Cause He loved me. Ephesians 1:3 and 4, "All praise be to God, the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ." Even before He made the world, God loved us. Even before He made the world and chose us in Christ to be holy, without fault in His eyes. It's hard to grasp that. It's hard to think, to sit there, before even God sat there and spoke and breathed into our universe that it happened. He already chose to love us. Man, that's hard to grasp at times. It's hard to sit there and fathom that, to be able to see that and understand that, to know those things. Man, we are so blessed. We are so loved, when we really understand that. Before the world created, you were already on His mind. When I think about having a blessed life, most of us probably woke up with a roof over our head this morning, didn't we? Most of us had running water. Most of us went and got in a vehicle and came to church today, or God blessed us enough with electricity and we're watching on TV. We're blessed. Most likely, we're probably going to eat today, aren't we? We're blessed. And we're so blessed, at times, we sit there and get to this point in directions that we focused on all the things we don't have instead of the things we do have. We get it all messed up. We get it all backwards. And we can sit there and drive ourself to a point of this pity party, and, gosh, why hasn't God given me all these things? And I get pulled down and I get separated from Him, when we should be thanking and blessing Him for all the things that He's given us, how much He loves us. I get a stack of prayer requests every single week, and, man, when I sit there and see all those things, it helps me keep my heart humble. It helps me sit there and realize how blessed I truly am in my life, to sit there and see those things, when I read those and see what our congregation is going through. Last Sunday, I got to talk to a mom, and we're standing outside the church and we're having this conversation. She's just asking for prayer for her son, and he's a middle schooler. He's getting ready to go to Northern Virginia and have surgery this coming week, and she's like, I just want prayer for him. This is gonna be his 20-something. I can't remember if it's his 26th or 27th, 'cause when she said it out loud, it just stunned me. I was like, he's in middle school, he's having his 26th or 27th surgery? I'm like, what? How do you handle that? How do you do that? I don't, I can't even comprehend that. And her words, and again, it moved me so much, when she said her words. She said, "It could always be worse." And I'm sitting there working on this message at the same time, thinking, she gets it. She truly gets it. She sit there and understands, even in all her chaos and her storms and everything else and what she's gone through, and her child having 20-something surgery, she still understands, I'm blessed. I'm loved. God's gonna go with me. You go with me, you pray with me on those things. And I'm like, man, I want to be more like you. I want to be more like that. I want to have that heart, just like that, in all my journeys that I have to go. God is so amazing with His love that He takes it even to a step further. He's loving us in all of our circumstances, but He always wants to give us more, and that's when it comes down to His Son, that He loves us so much that He sent His Son to cover all of our mistakes, our faults, as scripture says, that we have in our lives, to cover our sin and that, and that He died on a cross for that. He was willing to give His Son to die on the cross so we can have salvation, we can have this hope, we can have this peace. And whenever we do that, when we accept Christ in our lives, He does not see our mistakes anymore. He just sees the glory of His Son in that place. Boy, that's real love. That's amazing love of my life. Why do I worship God? 'Cause He created me, He loved me, and because I accepted Christ as my savior, He saved me. He saved me. That's why I worship Him. 1 Peter 1:3 says this, "Praise be to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." When we look at Jesus' death and resurrection, we get to see this beautiful picture of what it looks like when mercy and hope come together. It's called our grace. We get to experience that grace. We, not everything else, we are that perfect picture of grace, 'cause, man, I know the junk I've done. I know the craziness and I know the mistakes I've made and everything else, and if He's still not gonna punish me or banish me or kick me out when I accept His Son, to sit there and know that I still get the opportunity to go to heaven, to celebrate Him for the rest of my life, to praise Him and glorify Him for the rest of my life, I am grace. I am the picture of grace, of that, 'cause I know all the junk I've messed up in my life. Man, I'm a great billboard on that one, 'cause if He can sit there and do that for me, He can do that for anyone. Through worship, we celebrate God's presence and power. We praise Him for His goodness, His love, His mercy, His great, His wisdom, everything we can think of, all of His character, we praise Him for all those things. We grow closer to him and He speaks into our hearts. He challenges us. He sit there and he makes a home. That Holy Spirit makes a home inside of us where He sit there and we can see His will, this transformation happens in our lives and we start aligning our will with His will and our life moves forward in the right direction. We get those things. And what's truly amazing, not only does worship change you and I, it changes the ones around us. Man, that's a big impact. That alone should drive us to sit there and worship God with even more passion and feeling in our hearts, 'cause it affects those around us. It challenges that. Man, I want my kids to see me follow God and praise Him. I want my friends to see that. I want my relatives to see that, so when they struggle or have issues and have life, they can sit there and look and go, hey, oh, man, if God can do that, well, I got a chance. If God can sit there and take a old cat that fell out of church for 15 years, well, man, what can He do with me? That's what I want to do. That's what I want to have this life. He could change others. Look at Psalms 40:3. "He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what He has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord." Our worship, truly living out our faith every day, wherever, whenever, when we truly live that out, it demonstrates what God has done in us, and it can also demonstrate what it can do for others. That is the challenge and the passion we want. Man, I want my walk, my life, my true worship not only to affect my life but affect the life of those other. I want them to see a good witness, a good example of living that out. Why do I worship God? Because He created me, He loved me, and praise God, He saved me. He saved me. When we get our worship right, it has the impact to change not only our lives, but those around us, but there's one thing I sit there and I want to challenge us today, where we sit there and make some mistakes in that. This is what worship can't be. This is what we cannot shrink it to or belittle worshiping to be. At the beginning of message, we looked at the Romans 12:1 and 2, and we see that when we serve and we praise God and we worship Him, we find this personal fulfillment. We find joy in our lives. It completes it. Pastor Allen, he had that quote last week that I really liked toward the end of his message, 'cause it really went right along where my heart was feeling as I was preparing for this one. And it says this, I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses, but get this, but it completes the enjoyment. Man, that's praise. It completes the enjoyment. It's not the enjoyment, but it completes it. It should bring that joy in our hearts when we completely do that. But if we get that backwards, when we get it backwards, we end up desiring joy so much from worship that worship becomes more about my personal fulfillment. It becomes about my joy. That's the dangerous thing we can't go of, that's the dangerous thing we can't take worship and belittle it down to. It's just having this idea, I come into church on Sunday morning and, man, I'm hoping worship is on. I hope it's on, 'cause, man, I want it to really make me feel good today and I want this fulfillment for me to happen today. And I'm sitting there going, man, wonder who's leading today? Who's gonna lead the worship today? Man, I wonder what songs they're going to sing? I hope they sing a song that really moves me and makes me feel good, and I get this movement and this feeling in my life. I've said those things myself. I've had certain weeks and I'm going, gosh, you know, who's leading? Wonder what songs they're going, boy, I hope they sing this one song, 'cause, phew, I really like that one. It's gonna make me feel good if they sing that song. Worship is not for us. Worship is for God. We are to worship Him. It's not designed for us, guys. You might be new here today or you might be watching on TV, and, man, when you see this worship team and they lead us in their praise and their worship, you can sit there and easily see, gosh, man, they're polished. That group is polished. This is a polished production. These are some great entertainers sitting there worshiping and praising. Guys, when they practice, they're not practicing to entertain you. They're practicing to bring the best that they have to glorify God. They are there to sing and give it their best that they have, and they have this internal fire, 'cause at the same time, they want to make sure they bring their best and hit every note and every chord, but they never let that jeopardize them being able to give their heart to their Heavenly Father. The only way they can lead me to worship is if they worship theirselves. They sit there and prayed and they formed this experience. I think, at times, we get confused. They had this environment they create, 'cause their environment is to help you visually and physically, that they enter a space where we can worship God, to challenge us so we can feel that peace, but it should be the feeling of the Holy Spirit, not because of a song or who's leading that song, but it should be this stirring event that leads us for that challenge, for that movement into our hearts. Man, that's what I want you to experience. Worship is not for us, it's for God. We are to praise Him. We are to worship Him. Do not put your personal desires for joy ahead of God's glory. And every time we focus on me, we do. Don't turn our Creator into some commodity. He is not. Man, we make our worship about, if we make our worship about fulfilling people, boy, we make people into idols and we make God, well, we make God into a credit card then, of what we want when we want it. That is not the worship of God, it's the worship of self. I'm not about the worship of self. Man, let's worship our Heavenly Father. The purpose of true worship is to serve and praise God, whenever and wherever. That is our desire, those things. And if we do that faithfully and do what God shows us in His will and direction, man, we will find joy. You'll find that joy you want if you sit there and truly praise Him with everything you got this morning. No matter who's leading, no matter what song it is, I promise you can find God. He is right there. He is in this place. Seek Him. His Word tells if you seek Him, you'll find Him, and that should bring joy to our lives. That should be movement to our lives. We were created for worship. You have to know your why, why you worship God if you want to keep from losing your way. I don't want to lose my way anymore, because when I lose my why, I do lose my way. Man, know your why. Hold on to that with everything you got. Would you pray with me this morning? Heavenly Father, gosh, I'm just glad that You sit there and You can speak and challenge us through Your word today. As You sit there and we look at this, this act, this form of praising You, God, in everything that we do in all of our lives and all of our hearts and our passions, to sit there and just praise and challenge, God. Man, I want to hold onto those things. When I slip and I slide away from You, Father, I want You to be able to pull me back. I want to be able to sit there and focus on why do I worship You, God? 'Cause You created me. You created me special, You created me unique. You challenged me and changed me to sit there and go in that direction, Father. You love me. Man, You love me, sit there, so special. Before the world were created, Father, You knew me. And, man, in every details and all my struggles and all my issues, You still pull me near. And Father, You saved me. Your love was so great that even through all my mistakes, You could see something better than I can even see myself at times. Father, thank You for the salvation. Thank You for sending Your Son to die on the cross for me, that I can have hope and I can have this desire to be able to move forward with my life. Allow me to truly worship You, Father. And when I do this one form on a Sunday morning, whenever we sing a few songs to You, God, make sure that I'm praising You, that I'm not coming in to get my fulfillment, that I'm coming to give You glory in this one form in this one moment. But challenge me in my heart, Father, to become a truly, a true life of living sacrifice for You, of wherever and wherever I'm at, God, You allow me to do everything that brings You praise and glory, Lord. If someone doesn't know You today, Lord, maybe they sat there and they understood that He created you. Maybe you understood that He does love you, but, boy, maybe you haven't taken that step to allow Him to save you. He loved you so much that His Son died on the cross for you, that He wants that connection with you. He wants that eternity for you. And even if you, like me, you left the church for 15 years, man, He's still right there. He's waiting for you to come home. Today, the greatest act of praise and worship you can give your Heavenly Father is you, your life, your salvation, your moment. Man, I pray for you today. If you desire that, walk with me. Let me lead you to that place where you sit there and can confess to the Lord, I've made mistakes. That's it, I've made mistakes. We all have. It's humbling yourself to be able to say that out loud, I've made mistakes. I believe Your Son died on the cross for me, too, me, too, even though I don't feel like I'm worthy of that at times. It's not, we'll never be worthy. It's by His grace that He does it. But by His grace, we can be free. He can sit there and not see our mistakes through Christ. He sit there and sees our perfectness, our non-blemishes. He sees all these. Speak into that, allow Him to do that. Accept His free gift of salvation. Accept His grace today. And from here on, from today on, from this moment on right now, we get to try the best we can. And I said try, I didn't say you was gonna be perfection. You are gonna sit there and fall so many times, but you don't have to get up by yourself anymore. He will get up with you. He will help you up. And when you can't walk, He will carry you through every storm, every valley, every issue. You don't have to do it alone anymore. I don't care what anybody tells you, you do not have to do it alone anymore. He has been craving it since the creation to walk with you. Allow Him to walk with you today. Father, speak into those lives, challenge them, Lord. Challenge them to take that step of faith. This morning, this morning, if you prayed that prayer to have Him in your life, I'm going to ask you to take this challenge of faith. Nobody's gonna look around, nobody's gonna raise a head right now, but if you made that decision this morning, do you have the strength and the courage to show God the ultimate act of praise, the ultimate practice, the greatest one you can give Him by raising your hand? If you made that prayer today, I want to challenge you to raise your hand. Let Him see one time, the first time, that you give Him glory, that you raise your hands to the heaven and I have nothing to give but me, Father. It's not my worth, it's not what I've done, it's not any of those things. All I can give you is me, for the rest of my life. Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for every life that's given to You, Father, for every challenge of that. We raise our hands today to You, Lord. This is how we praise, this is how we honor, this is how we love You. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.