Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] In this series, we've been looking at the invitation of Jesus to be a follower of him and exploring like, what does it mean for us to be an all in follower. That's our mission statement around here, that we would be all in followers. And if you've been around the first handful of weeks, you realize that when Jesus invites us to follow him that the bar is incredibly high.
[00:00:23] He asks us, anyone who would come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me. His invitation is come and die.
[00:00:32] And the invitation is also that we would actually become like him, that we would live the kind of life that he lived.
[00:00:39] That's the life of the sinless Son of God.
[00:00:43] The bar is incredibly high.
[00:00:47] So when we sit here in our life, where we're at right now, and we look at that bar, there's lots of different ways that we can respond to that.
[00:00:56] Some of us actually probably respond with discouragement. It's like, if that's what it means, I've got no hope because I know where my heart is most days. I know the things that are happening in my life, the depth of the sin in my life and the ways that I feel stuck and I feel like my progress is just so slow. I can never get up there. I can't do this discouragement. And that's a dead end road when we stay on that road.
[00:01:27] But for some people, you know who you are, you love a challenge, don't you? Tell me that I can't do something. I will do it. I will do more, I will try harder. I will be better. I will make it happen one way or another. Give me a list. Just give me the list and I'll check everything off.
[00:01:50] I can do this ironically. That sounds really good.
[00:01:56] What we're going to learn today is that's actually a dead end road as well.
[00:02:01] This idea that I can do this.
[00:02:05] We can go to discouragement, we can go to this idea of discipline.
[00:02:10] But Jesus is going to show us the only road.
[00:02:14] The narrow road is a road of dependence.
[00:02:20] There's no I got this.
[00:02:24] What it needs to be is, he's got me.
[00:02:29] We can't do this on our own. In the power of our own flesh and the power of our own effort, we have to do this.
[00:02:39] We have to follow Jesus in the power that he provides.
[00:02:43] What we're going to do today is we're going to look at another invitation of Jesus to follow him and he's going to help us understand how, how do we do this? What is the power source behind what it is that Jesus is asking us to do.
[00:03:01] Matthew chapter 11, starting in verse 28, says this.
[00:03:06] He says, come to me.
[00:03:08] Come to me, all who all.
[00:03:14] All who are weary and burdened.
[00:03:18] And I will give you rest.
[00:03:21] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
[00:03:34] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:03:40] What sticks out from this invitation of Jesus to me? The first thing that grabs my attention is who this invitation is to the weary. Oh, that's the eraser, the weary, the burden.
[00:03:59] Anyone?
[00:04:01] Anyone?
[00:04:02] Yeah, me too. And what's the promise?
[00:04:07] I.
[00:04:09] I will give you rest.
[00:04:13] We need rest for our souls.
[00:04:16] But who's the I in that statement? He wants us to understand the heart of the one that is making this invitation. And he says, I am gentle and I am humble in heart.
[00:04:30] So when I sit there, friends, and I look at this, there's something about this that just draws me in that resonates with my soul, because this is an invitation that Jesus gives us. His bar is very, very high. But when I hear this, I realize that that invitation is very personal.
[00:04:51] It's very personal from a God that is gentle and humble of heart.
[00:04:57] Not harsh, not demanding, not saying, get it together, do more, try harder, be better.
[00:05:05] He's saying, no, nope, just come to me.
[00:05:10] Because we live in a world where there are so many religious leaders that they'll try to get you to do things by that message of do more, try harder, be better.
[00:05:22] But Jesus two times in this statement says, take my yoke upon you. He talks about my yoke twice. He talks about that in this. We need to understand that Jesus has actually got a couple of metaphors that are going on at the same time.
[00:05:39] And the early readers would have understood this. When a rabbi talked about their yoke, what that meant was that rabbi's interpretation of the Old Testament law, all the different laws and the interpretations of those and how they apply to our lives. Every rabbi had a yoke.
[00:05:59] And also Jesus is using that metaphor, that idea of a yoke, that something that would tie two oxen together.
[00:06:07] And when you think about oxen plowing in a field, it doesn't sound like rest for the soul. It sounds like a lot of hard work.
[00:06:16] But Jesus is saying what he wants us to do is take his yoke upon us, that we would actually link our lives with him.
[00:06:27] We would tie our lives to him, listen to him, follow him, respond to him.
[00:06:34] It was interesting. And when they would train oxen in that time. Oftentimes what they would do is they would take an older, more mature oxen and they would team it with a younger oxen.
[00:06:46] Why?
[00:06:47] Because the younger oxen, they didn't often know what it took to get through a full day of work. They would get excited and push on ahead.
[00:06:57] They would want to kind of go and do their own thing, but they would tie it with an older, more mature oxen that knew the pace that it took to get through the day.
[00:07:09] And that's the picture that Jesus is giving us. My yoke, my understanding of how to interpret all of the laws of God.
[00:07:20] You learn those by being close to, to me.
[00:07:24] You do it at my pace, you do it the way that I do it, in that way, friends again, we become like him.
[00:07:33] He takes a step, we take a step.
[00:07:37] You see, it's not this, I got this.
[00:07:41] It's being yoked to him and saying, he's got me, he's got me. In this life, that is our only hope to be a follower of him, an all in follower of him that actually changes and becomes like him as we follow him step by step.
[00:07:59] But you know what that requires of us?
[00:08:01] When we put on that yoke and we yoke ourselves to Jesus, that means he's in charge.
[00:08:09] That means that we surrender our life to Him. That means that we submit our life to Him.
[00:08:18] In our culture, we don't like those words.
[00:08:22] We don't like words like submit and surrender.
[00:08:26] We like words like self.
[00:08:29] I want it to be about me. I want to do my thing.
[00:08:34] I want to pull the yoke in the direction that I want to go. And Jesus says, no, no, no, that's not what it was always about, submission and surrender.
[00:08:45] I want to make a distinction here. When I, when I'm talking about self, I'm not talking about who you are as a person.
[00:08:52] I'm talking about a self will.
[00:08:55] A self will that oftentimes desires to do what I want to do rather than what God would want me to do.
[00:09:03] That's what needs to be submitted. That's what needs to be surrendered yourself, who you are as a person.
[00:09:12] Jesus is committed to that. In fact, I would go so far as to say Jesus loves yourself, who you are as a person, more than you love yourself.
[00:09:26] Because he knows who you are and he knows who he created you to be. And he knows what your life can look like if you yoke with him.
[00:09:39] If you just surrender to me, quit going your own way, tie your life to me.
[00:09:45] He wants that self to Flourish. He doesn't want to diminish that in any way. He is always looking for you to flourish the way that he would define flourishing, flourishing in his kingdom.
[00:10:02] Sometimes I think we imagine that if I surrender to Jesus, I'm just gonna lose all my freedom.
[00:10:08] It's gonna be the most miserable life possible. It's just this drudgery of being yoked with him working in the field. That's not the picture.
[00:10:18] The picture is when we yoke ourself to Jesus, it doesn't take away our freedom, it actually creates freedom. We become more free in this life.
[00:10:31] When you yoke your life to Jesus, you actually become more free from things like money and money being your security in life.
[00:10:41] When you yoke your life with Jesus, you unyoke from things like believing that your beauty and your attractiveness is what defines your self worth in this life.
[00:10:54] When you yoke your life with Jesus, it means that you're no longer yoked to people's approval of you to have confidence in this life. When you yoke your life with Jesus, you're no longer yoked to your children's decisions as the indicator and the decider for your sense of well being in this life.
[00:11:18] When you yoke your life with Jesus, it's no longer being yoked to some kind of a marital status, some kind of a work status or vocational achievement as your identity in this life.
[00:11:32] When you yoke your life with Jesus, it frees you to no longer be yoked to circumstances in this life as the only thing that can bring peace.
[00:11:44] Jesus is saying, no, no, yoke with me, be surrendered to me.
[00:11:51] But here's the deal.
[00:11:53] For us to do that, for us to get to a place of genuine surrender in our life, we've actually got to come face to face with the reality that we are not in control.
[00:12:09] You are not in control of your life. He is in control of your life. You are not in control of the circumstances of your life.
[00:12:19] You can't control those things. If.
[00:12:21] Let me just say this because I love you. If you believe that you actually have control over the circumstance, you can control the outcomes of your life. You are living an illusion.
[00:12:34] You know what this is like. You know what it's like to have the wheels come off in a moment in one decision of another person? The wheels come off in life and our hair's on fire.
[00:12:46] You can't control all the circumstances of life.
[00:12:52] And that's why Jesus says it's not about I got this.
[00:12:59] It's always about, he's got me that's why Jesus said, if you want to save your life, if you've got this. I got this mentality. He says, you're gonna lose your life, but if you lose your life, you're willing to say, he's got me.
[00:13:19] That, he says, is when we actually find life.
[00:13:25] It's not your willpower.
[00:13:27] It's not, I got this.
[00:13:30] It's about his power.
[00:13:32] He's got me.
[00:13:35] That's the only way.
[00:13:38] I want us to try to understand this a little bit more. So I want to try something. I want us to kind of imagine this and experience it in the physical realm. Here's what I want you to do. Hold your hands out in front of me with two fists like this. Everybody's got to do this. If you see somebody not doing them, raise your hand. I'll come stand right in front of them and make them do it.
[00:13:58] Here's what I want you to do where you're at.
[00:14:02] Grip.
[00:14:03] Tighten your grip. I got this.
[00:14:07] I got this.
[00:14:10] Feel what that feels like.
[00:14:12] As the tension builds in your fingers, just white knuckle it into your forearms, even your biceps, your shoulders, even. Our neck starts to get tight. Just feel that. And I just want you to hold that all the way through this sermon.
[00:14:32] It's gonna be a long one.
[00:14:34] It's gonna be a long one.
[00:14:39] Imagine that, though, trying to do this for a whole sermon, for a whole day, a year, a lifetime.
[00:14:54] What is it like to just white knuckle it? I got this.
[00:14:59] Jesus knows you land in a place where you are weary and burdened and you need rest for your soul.
[00:15:08] It's not about I got this. It's about he's got me.
[00:15:13] We can't say that I must have everything that I desire.
[00:15:17] I must avoid everything in my life that I dread.
[00:15:21] But here's the problem, friends.
[00:15:23] This.
[00:15:24] This is our reflex response to life, is to just try to grab a hold.
[00:15:32] Have you ever seen a little baby? Have you ever been around a little baby that's got their hand open?
[00:15:37] If you just put your finger on their hand, what do they do?
[00:15:41] They clutch.
[00:15:43] Instantly, they grab your finger.
[00:15:47] A learned response to life.
[00:15:50] We also need to learn to let go.
[00:15:55] Now I want you to have another position. Just take your hands if you're still clinching. All you guys gave up. See that already?
[00:16:03] Okay, we're back. Now I want you to just open your hands.
[00:16:09] Maybe just put those hands in your lap, palms up.
[00:16:17] Doesn't that just feel different?
[00:16:20] Feels relaxed.
[00:16:23] It's not exhausting.
[00:16:26] Almost as you're Sitting there, it's almost like there's an openness, maybe even a vulnerability or an invitation even for something to be put in your hands in anticipation, welcoming something good.
[00:16:42] It's a willingness.
[00:16:45] This is a willfulness. I got this.
[00:16:49] This is a willingness.
[00:16:52] He's got me.
[00:16:56] And this is what Jesus wants us to understand is if you don't want to be wearied and burdened, if you want rest for your soul, you've got to live your life like this.
[00:17:06] He's got me.
[00:17:10] I want to be really careful because sometimes when you talk about this idea of surrender and submission, people take this to an extreme where it's like, all I need to do in my spiritual life is I'm just going to sit back and let God do everything.
[00:17:26] No, no, no. Surrender is not passivity.
[00:17:31] Surrender means that I give up the right and the ability to take control of every situation. I understand that I can't take control of every situation. And when I say giving up, control is surrender. When I say control, I mean the ability to determine the outcomes and circumstances of your life.
[00:17:53] You can't do it as hard as you squeeze. You can't control all the outcomes of your life because what you have is what they call agency.
[00:18:04] And when I say agency, it means that you have the God given ability to exercise and take action.
[00:18:12] It's not passivity. Surrender is about doing the things that Jesus is asking me to do. We take action.
[00:18:21] Surrender is never passivity.
[00:18:25] Studying for this, I triggered my mind thinking about some of you might be familiar with the Serenity Prayer.
[00:18:34] It was a prayer that was written by a pastor back in the 1930s in an article that was published in a paper.
[00:18:41] We know it oftentimes because it was very much popularized decades later within the 12 step movement. And here's just a part of it, and I love this.
[00:18:50] The Serenity prayer is that God, grant me the serenity, that inner rest, that peace that Jesus is talking about. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
[00:19:04] It's just an acknowledgement before God that I'm not in control.
[00:19:08] There's lots of things in this life that I'm not in control of and the courage to change the things of I can.
[00:19:18] That's the agency part. That's the responsibility part. We have things that God asks us to do and to not do in order to follow Him. We have agency in those. There's things that we can't control and there's things that we can't can. And lastly, it says, and the wisdom to know the difference.
[00:19:37] What is it that I can't control? What is it that God is wanting me to have the courage to step into in my life?
[00:19:47] That's what it means to take on that yoke of Jesus in our life.
[00:19:53] And when we look at the life of Jesus, the way that what he modeled for us is what does it actually look like to live the Spirit filled life.
[00:20:04] Jesus was yoked to the Holy Spirit. He showed us the how to be connected to the life of the Holy Spirit. Moment by moment, day by day, all throughout our life. And friends, this was always God's plan, that the Spirit was gonna be the driving force in our life. I want us to take a quick cross section across all of biblical history. I want us to go all the way back to the Old Testament where the prophets, they were prophesying about this new covenant that was one day gonna be fulfilled in Jesus and it was about God's sake, Spirit in our lives. Ezekiel 36, the prophet says this. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
[00:20:49] Our sins washed away. Does that sound familiar? I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh, meaning we're going to be changed from the inside out.
[00:21:06] And it says, and I will put my spirit in you, in you and move you.
[00:21:16] Who's doing the moving here?
[00:21:19] God's doing the moving. His spirit is doing the moving. What we do is surrender. And I will move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. It was never going to be about, do more, try harder, be better.
[00:21:35] It was always a promise of God's spirit. Jesus, he restates the promise in the Gospels. John 16. He says, but very truly, I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the advocate, that's the Holy Spirit, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you, the advocate.
[00:22:01] My presence in you, with you, for you, standing beside you.
[00:22:11] And then just a handful of weeks after Jesus said those words, we see that promise fulfilled in the beginning of the book of Acts.
[00:22:20] Pentecostal, God's spirit is poured out, enters into the lives of believers and everything changed forever.
[00:22:30] And the apostle Paul, in his teaching to people, trying to help them understand what it is that God is doing and has done with that indwelling Spirit. In Romans chapter eight, you'll remember this, maybe from this fall when we talk through this. But Paul says this in Romans, chapter 8. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, living in you.
[00:23:06] He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because His.
[00:23:12] Because of His Spirit who lives in you.
[00:23:18] God's power. His presence in us.
[00:23:24] In us.
[00:23:26] When we talk about what it means to be in Christ, we often talk about the righteousness of Christ, and rightfully so. When we say in Christ, it means that everything that is true of Jesus now becomes true of us.
[00:23:38] His righteousness is declared over us to be our righteousness. We are right before God. But that's not all.
[00:23:48] Jesus Spirit, the Holy Spirit, now fills our spirit.
[00:23:56] What does that mean? That means that his love now becomes our love.
[00:24:01] His joy now becomes our joy.
[00:24:05] His mind actually becomes our mind.
[00:24:09] His desires, his will, his purpose, become our desires, our will, our purpose. His power to live the kind of life that he did becomes our power. That's how we become like Jesus. The Holy Spirit lives the life of Jesus through us.
[00:24:28] As I was reading an author that was talking about just the magnitude of this truth, he described a scenario that I. I mean, it's fictitious, but you could imagine it to help us understand how people would see how important this is. So he talked about what it would be like for us to think about going to heaven and talking to some of the people that were in the Old Testament and to see what it is, how God did what he did in that time? Wouldn't that be amazing to hear?
[00:25:00] Wouldn't it be great to say, moses, what was that like?
[00:25:03] What was that like to see a burning bush and God speaking to you? What was it like to see a pillar of fire? And that led you moment by moment, day by day, night by night. What would that have been like? That would have been amazing.
[00:25:18] But he said, I think Moses would turn the table and ask us, what is it like that God lives like? Yeah, there was a burning bush and a pillar of fire. What is it like to have God in you, speaking to you, nudging you, giving you direction, moment by moment? What was that like?
[00:25:41] We could imagine maybe what it was like to ask Elijah, Mount Carmel, fire from heaven. Elijah, what was that like? And then you were on the run from Jezebel. You were afraid, and God miraculously meets your needs.
[00:25:55] And Elijah would be like that was really cool.
[00:25:59] But what would it be like to have God in you moment by moment, that comforter, that counselor? Yeah, I was depressed and scared and God met me in a supernatural way. But what would it have been like if that was in me and with me all the time?
[00:26:19] David, David, what was that like to take down a giant?
[00:26:27] He would say, that was cool.
[00:26:29] But you've got to tell me, what was it like to have God's spirit in you, that convicted you of sin, that was able to take down sin in your life?
[00:26:40] I needed that.
[00:26:42] Some days I needed that more than I needed to take down a giant.
[00:26:46] We can't underestimate the magnitude of what it is that God has done in us by supplying us with his spirit that lives within our life.
[00:26:58] But here's what's true.
[00:27:00] If you've tried as a follower of Jesus, even for a few days, a few weeks, you know what it's like.
[00:27:09] You know what it's like you to get to a place where you're gutting it out, where you're saying, I got this, and you're exhausted, you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, tired of the self effort.
[00:27:27] No more, do more. Try harder, I got this. And you find yourself in that place where you're anxious, you're burned out, you're apathetic about your faith. Nothing moves you anymore.
[00:27:40] Jesus would describe us as weary and burdened.
[00:27:47] And there's the invitation.
[00:27:49] When we get to that place, we come to him and that's where we find soul rest.
[00:27:56] Am I the only one that struggles with this, with this, I got this mentality more than he's got me mentality.
[00:28:05] I've been wrestling over the last handful of months about what it's like each week in and around, preparing a sermon. Now when I start on Monday, tomorrow morning I'm gonna be reading and I'm gonna be excited about a lot of things and asking God to speak to me. And I love that part of the process. But then Friday comes and I'm not done.
[00:28:24] And I know Sunday is coming at about 9:25, the lights are gonna go on and I'm gonna be there and I need to say something.
[00:28:32] And it's in that moment, it's like, God, I got this, I gotta do this, I gotta get done.
[00:28:39] Anxious, weary, burdened.
[00:28:44] And I've just learned, I've been learning. What do you do in those moments?
[00:28:50] You go from I got this to God, you got me.
[00:28:56] It changes, it changes that experience when you start to just sense, like God, give me your thoughts. Tell me what it is that you want me to say.
[00:29:05] And the thing is that it doesn't. Even at the end of the day, whatever we land with God, we're still good. You and I are close. I want to do life with Jesus. I don't want to do life for Jesus.
[00:29:19] And that's what this is. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this for Jesus.
[00:29:24] He said, no, Just open your hands, surrender, take my yoke, do life with me.
[00:29:32] Here's what encourages me is that I know I'm not alone. I'm not the only one. Even if you're out there saying, oh my gosh, our pastor, he doesn't know how to trust Jesus to write a sermon.
[00:29:43] I might need another pastor.
[00:29:46] I'm learning, but I know that there were lots of people that we're learning. Paul, in the book of Galatians, he writes to a group of people that they were all in.
[00:29:55] They were so committed to Jesus, but they got to a place where it suddenly became about, I got this rather than he's got me. Here's what Paul said to them.
[00:30:06] He said, I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law?
[00:30:15] I got this.
[00:30:17] Or by believing what you heard, God, by your grace, you've got me. Are you so foolish?
[00:30:25] After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh, meaning your self will, your human effort?
[00:30:36] Paul's like saying, it's so silly.
[00:30:40] It's not, I got this. It's always, he's got me, let's get practical.
[00:30:48] One of the ways that I've learned over time, being involved with a ministry called CREW or Campus Crusade, the president, Bill Bright, he talked about a practice that he called spiritual breathing.
[00:31:00] And spiritual breathing, just like breathing, is about exhaling and inhaling.
[00:31:07] And here's a picture for us to help understand what he meant by that.
[00:31:11] We can be in a place in our life like this.
[00:31:16] This is the self directed life.
[00:31:19] This is the. I got this.
[00:31:23] But what Jesus is inviting us into is a place of a Christ directed life where he's saying, I've got you.
[00:31:36] So how do we move from here to here?
[00:31:40] Dr. Bright talked about spiritual breathing.
[00:31:44] The exhaling, the exhaling is just us realizing and acknowledging that self is on the throne or the control center of my life.
[00:31:54] Christ is outside of the throne.
[00:31:59] What we need to do is put Christ back on the throne. How do we do that? We acknowledge this.
[00:32:05] And when I say this, I got this, this self piece.
[00:32:10] The fancy word for that is sin doing what I want to do rather than what Jesus would want me to do. There's no other name for it than sin. And there's sins that we commit where we transgress, knowing God's law. But there's also things where we omit. There's sins of omission where we don't do what we know it is that God is asking us to do. When we see that that's us living out of our self.
[00:32:37] So what do we do?
[00:32:39] We name it and we acknowledge it before God. That's what the Bible calls confession.
[00:32:46] The response after that, we acknowledge it and then we ask God to direct our life again with we put ourself. We put you back on the throne in the control center of our life. Jesus, you are in charge. I am yoked to you. I am going to do what you have called me to do.
[00:33:07] That's the picture of spiritual breathing. We acknowledge, confess, we talk honestly about our self reliance, our pride, our disobedience. And we inhale, we appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit. And we actively, we actively place our dependence upon him.
[00:33:27] Not I got this, but he's got me.
[00:33:33] And friends, this is a moment by moment decision in our life. This isn't something that we do one time and we're good to go.
[00:33:40] You can be going back and forth between these two over and over and over again.
[00:33:46] How do you know?
[00:33:48] How do you know where you're at?
[00:33:51] I want us to go back because. Here's your assignment. Here's your assignment from Matthew chapter 11. I want to read that text again.
[00:34:00] Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
[00:34:08] Take my yoke upon you and learn from, from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:34:24] Here's what I want you to do with this text. Take some time to read that, reflect on it, and begin to ask yourself some honest questions.
[00:34:37] Is my soul at rest with Jesus?
[00:34:43] Is my life one that can be characterized by hands wide open, of willingness of responsiveness to him?
[00:34:50] Or am I weary and burdened?
[00:34:56] What is the anxiety level in my life?
[00:35:01] Or on the flip side, what is the peace level in my life?
[00:35:07] Is my life characterized by a willingness before God right now?
[00:35:12] Or is my life characterized by a willful willfulness?
[00:35:16] The sense of, I've got this, it won't take that long to figure out, you know, we know, we know what it is that's happening in our soul. And if we find ourselves in that place where we're confused, we're troubled, we're upset, we're afraid, we're frustrated, here's what we know.
[00:35:40] Self is on the throne. We're in an I got this mindset.
[00:35:46] And the invitation of Jesus is, if you're weary and burdened, give it to him.
[00:35:52] Not I got this, but he's got me.
[00:35:56] And then we'll simply ask Jesus, what do you want me to do next?
[00:36:01] Holy Spirit, you live in me, you can speak to me, you can bring things to my mind.
[00:36:08] Help me, help me know what's the next thing that I need to do. And here's what's amazing to me is I can't give you a formula for how God is going to speak to you because he knows you individually.
[00:36:20] He speaks to us individually.
[00:36:23] He knows what you need to hear. He knows how you need to hear it. If there was a formula, I would give it to you, but you will know.
[00:36:33] God, what do you want to say to me? And we just ask those questions over and over. God, what is it that you're saying to me? Holy Spirit, what is it that you're saying to me? And what is it that you want me to do?
[00:36:46] What is it that you want me to do?
[00:36:51] I'm going to close again with the serenity prayer.
[00:36:56] Jesus, I'm going to say it in my own words. Jesus, would you grant me peace?
[00:37:02] Jesus, would you grant me the peace that I need, the comfort that I need to accept the things that I cannot change?
[00:37:13] Just a reminder were not in control.
[00:37:17] And Holy Spirit, would you give me the courage to change the things that I can, that I can exercise my agency.
[00:37:27] I don't have to be passive.
[00:37:29] I may not be in control, but I'm not helpless. God, what is it that you want me to do? And God, would you help me, please help me to know the difference between. Between the two.
[00:37:41] How do I know when it's a life saying I got this and a life where we're saying, he's got me.
[00:37:55] Let's pray.
[00:38:02] Jesus, I'm so grateful for just these couple of verses, your invitation to come to you, Jesus, I'm thankful for the honesty that it's not just for the people that got it all together. It's for the weary and the burdened, the people like me who live frustrated at times when I'm trying to live in my own power. My I got this mentality Jesus, thank you that you've at least acknowledged that that's a very real possibility.
[00:38:37] Thank you for the promise that you bring rest when we take your yoke.
[00:38:44] We put your yoke on our life and we walk next to you, we listen to you, we take the steps that you ask us to take and Jesus, even if the circumstances are challenging, even if the work is hard in this life, we know that you are with us. You've got us Holy spirit, convict our heart every time, every time that we put ourself back on the throne of the life of our life and take you off of the throne. Jesus, you're the king.
[00:39:18] You are worthy. You are absolutely worthy of every moment of our life and we give every moment to you and we just say and acknowledge Jesus, we don't got this but you've got us and Jesus, it's in your powerful and resurrected name that we pray and all God's people said amen.
