Come to Me - Jesus Says Series

Feeling weary and worried? Need forgiveness? Are you looking for peace and power in this life? Jesus says, "Come to Me."

In this episode, our Jesus Says series continues as Pastor Jon tells us where to go for forgiveness, peace, and power. Through consistent prayer, worship, and community, we realize these beautiful gifts and experience hope through God. 

We pray this message encourages your faith, deepens your prayer life, and helps you gain a greater vision for life in Christ. Share this episode with someone who wants to grow deeper in God’s Word.

To learn more about Vision Church or discover how you can partner with our ministry, visit www.ourvisionchurch.com.

Go with God and be blessed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

If you got the scriptures, say amen. Let's read John 15. John 15, Jesus is speaking, he says this, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. Somebody say, bears no fruit. Well, every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me. Somebody say, remain in me. Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. And then Matthew 11 says this. Then Jesus said, Come to me. Somebody say, Come to me. Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Anybody need rest for your soul today? For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. So today, over the next few minutes, as we uh study God's word together, I want to speak to you from this subject. Jesus says, Come to me. Come. Let's pray. Our Father who is in heaven, holy is your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, Jesus, not into temptation. But would you deliver us from the evil one? For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen and amen. Y'all ever notice about this Christian life that there's things that we're called to do? And uh I often, when I got saved, there were things like reading the scripture and showing up at church and praying and uh being nice to people that aren't so nice to me that God was asking us to do. And sometimes I feel like I feel like I feel like that's just hard and difficult. Um can I random question? I should add what was y'all's like first real job? Like, what's y'all's first real job? Like somebody shouted the first real job. You're you you're picking tobacco? That's hilarious. What's your first banker? Fasting. Oh, fast food, okay. That's that's a lot. So my first job was I worked for a company called Sears Robo, uh, who is no longer in business, and um they're you're gonna put at some point I'm gonna do some sermons. Y'all be like, that makes sense. Um, and my my my first job was really, really weird. I sold uh, I somehow was a mattress salesman, I sold sewing machines, so I know some stuff about sewing machines, y'all need to know. Uh I I also sold uh countertop microwaves. But but the thing that was the most fun that I used to sell were vacuums. Yeah, and and I used to ever like I would do the the joke about, hey y'all, this vacuum really sucks. Uh you know, I would do that joke all the time, and people would, they do what you did, they'd be like, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, just give me my vacuum and go. Uh and I would sell vacuums and I would sell like the Dysons and the Eureka's and the dirt, like you'd have to pray against the dirt devil because it's the devil and all this stuff. Um, and and I would start and the the way you got a customer to really like buy a vacuum was not just by showing them how pretty it was and how nice it was, and look at the airflow filter, and look how it says empower speed. Like, why do you need speed on a vacuum? Like you're like we'd acting like it's a race car. Uh but the thing that always got customers to buy was when I would do the demonstration, I'd sprinkle some dirt on the ground, right? I talk about, man, like there's this thing. There's like you remember you when you track in boots, and and I would plug it up, and and when I would plug it up, I would always do the same where I would turn it on. And I would know, I think I know why this isn't working, so it's connected to the screen cable. Yeah, can you like find somebody to fix fix this? Because I think I know why. I think I know why it's not working. And the truth is, just like this might be funny, but can we be real that sometimes this is how we work out of Christianity? We're walking around and we're expected to perform our function. We're expected to clean up our lives, we're expected to clean up a community, we're expected to leave things better than the way we left it, and we're walking around, but we don't have the power in us to do the things that God has called us to. And Jesus here is giving us an invitation. Jesus is coming in in Matthew 11, right after the Sermon on the Mountain. He's saying, Listen, I know that you, I'm calling you to do all these things, but you cannot do them out of your own power. You need to make sure you come to me. Somebody say, Come to me. You need to make sure that you're coming to Jesus. Uh, and I want to encourage us that you need to come to Jesus no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, no matter how. Uh, here's what I know about us as Christians. If we are not careful, you will burn out trying to do by yourself what God called you not to do by yourself. Some of us are walking around and we're thinking, I'm supposed to bring the power of God into every situation when we have not been with God for God to give us the power. Amen. I don't want to encourage us. There's nothing that God has called you to that you don't need the anointing of God. Whenever I step into this pulpit, right when I'm standing here, the first thing I pray is, God, not by might, because my might isn't good enough, not by my power, because my power isn't good enough, not by my mind, because my mind isn't good enough, but by your spirit. I want to encourage you that God wants to do the same thing in and through you. You need to come to Jesus. And uh here's here's the mistake that we make. Sometimes it's not just that we don't plug into God. Uh if we're not careful, sometimes when we're not getting the result that we want, and when things aren't working out, and our power isn't good enough because we're not connected to God, we'll start plugging into all sorts of different things that don't even work. Sometimes we'll plug into things that the world has to offer, habits and situations, things that the world tells us is normal, but the scripture tells us it's not kingdom. Uh, and here's what that's called. That's called sin. When I try to plug my life, my habit, and I try to get power out of things that God never designed for me to get power from. Uh sometimes we we when we're failing to get power, we try to think, well, you know what? I just gotta try harder. We plug the battery, we plug it into ourselves. You know what that's called? That's called religion. That's called let me try harder, let me do more, let me show up early, let me work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work. That song is not a Christian song. I should not have quoted that. I don't know what I was doing there. Like, we're, if you're in here and you're like, I don't even know what song he's talking about, bless the Lord, oh your soul. Like, just you love Jesus way more than I. Some of y'all are like, I'm ready to go back to the club. This is a good church. Like, but but that's what religion does. Religion says, plug, get your anointing from your effort, get your anointing from what you do for God, get your anointing from the things that you're like, you just try harder. And here's the issue with trying harder when I've plugged that masocket into myself. At some point, I'm gonna run out of power. At some point, I'm gonna run out of juice. At some point, I'm gonna run out of energy. At some point, I'm gonna run out of the thing. Here's what we need to do. We need to make sure that we are always going back to the source so that we can have the power to do what God has called us to. Amen. Uh, I'm gonna move all this before uh this is definitely an OSHA violation uh and a half. Uh, you need to make sure as a believer that you are consistently coming to God. What do we need to come to God for? First thing you gotta do is you gotta come to God for forgiveness. I want to talk to two groups of people. There's some people that you're new to church and you're figuring out Jesus, and your mode is, man, I'm you're stuck in the mode of religion. Pastor, when I get it right, that's when I'll get baptized. When I figure it out, that's when I'll move into faith. One of the gentlemen that got baptized at our last baptism, he he he shared with me one of the best things he learned was that baptism is not a last step, it's a first step. Can I tell you, salvation is the step that comes before baptism, and salvation is not go out and figure it out. Salvation is not once you got it together, come back to God. You'll never figure it out, you'll never have it together, you'll never be good enough for the God of the Bible. But Jesus is still saying, Come to me. And if you come to Him, He will not reject you, He will accept you, He will receive you, He will love you, He will save you. But I know that's true for people that aren't following Jesus. But how many of you know sometimes us Christians need forgiveness too? Like sometimes I'm like, Lord, I need to repent of everything I just fought in the last five minutes. Sometimes I need to repent of everything I just said under my breath for the last five minutes. Sometimes I need to repent of the things I've done, the things I've looked at, the things I've said, the things I've believed, the things that have been in my heart, the way I've hurt other people. Can I tell you, sometimes Christians need forgiveness too, but sometimes what the enemy will try to do is put you in a situation where we as Christians are too ashamed to go back to the God that first saved us. The enemy will put up in our minds that man, if you go back to God now, God will judge you. If you go back to God now, God will reject you. If you go back to God now, God won't receive you. Can I tell you, the God of the Bible is the opposite of that? It says in the scripture that his mercies are new every day, that he has grace and grace forevermore, that it's he knew everything you would ever do, and he still loved you, saved you, and chose you. We have to have this mindset that we're gonna go back to God. Here's what I know about us as Christians. Uh, how many of you like, um I talk about this quite a bit, but uh a couple of months ago, uh, if you're new to the church, uh, I my appendix blew up. Uh, and for two days I was like, something ain't right. I don't know what it is. All the medical professionals in the church are like, go to the hospital, and I'm like, no, I'm gonna make it through. It was just bad eggnog. And then I show up at the hospital, and one CK scan later, uh, they told me, hey, dude, your appendix needs to come out, or it's gonna come out one way or the other, is what they pretty much told me. Like, we can do it by surgery, or you can wait a couple days and you'll see it, and then you'll be gone. And so, how many of you know, like that was a crazy dumb thing for me to do, right? But we do that with church and Jesus all the time. Where we are dealing with pain and we're just telling ourselves, I'll just figure it out, I'll just get over it, I'm just gonna work harder, I'm gonna pretend, don't worry about what's going on. But can I tell you, there are pains that are going on in your life that God is not rejecting you from? God is asking you to come in and heal. When you are hungry, you go to the restaurant, when you are sick, you go to the hospital. But when we are walking in need of forgiveness, why is it so hard to go into the presence of God? And what the enemy will try to do is stick us in this trap where he will try to condemn us. Somebody say, condemn. The enemy, the devil, one of his titles is he's called the accuser of the brethren. And what the enemy wants to do is he wants you to get stuck in a condemnation zone. What is condemnation? Condemnation is when you do something bad and the enemy doesn't tell you what you did bad, the enemy tells you that you are the bad thing you did. See, the truth is in the scriptures, we see it. God knows our sin and calls us by our name, but the enemy knows our name and still calls us by our sin. You need to make sure that when you are facing an issue, when you are needing forgiveness, when you need to get better about something, you need to make sure that you are going to the one who calls you by name. See, the God does not condemn us, God convicts us. What's the difference? I I saw a post recently. Here's the difference between condemnation and conviction. It's our relationship with God. Condemnation is a teenager that gets in trouble, they do something terrible, they break the car on their way back, and condemnation says, I really screwed up, I can never tell dad. Condemnation covers stuff up. Condemnation walks in shame. Condemnation says no one can ever know. Condemnation pulls back from relationships. Condemnation says I'm never gonna show up back at that church because maybe they find out what I did. Condemnation says I'm all by myself, but conviction says, let me call dad, because I need help, I need rescue, I need hope, I need purpose, I need life. Conviction says, you still broke the car, but God is still coming to your rescue. And we need to get to a place where we're saying, man, even if I feel like I've done something wrong, I'm gonna call God. And it's not just something we do in our culture. How many of y'all know the church, our church needs to be the church where people can walk in conviction, not condemnation? Sometimes it's easier to talk to the people at the bar than it is to talk to the people at the church. It's easier to get a conversation, you're over a drink, you tell them what you're going on, they nod, they say, hey man, it's gonna be okay, and you move on. Whereas in the church, sometimes, let's be real, we have not been the best about being the most convicting, helpful, graceful, merciful people. Somebody walks in and are with their sin, and instead of going, I'm so glad you came because I remember when I was in my sin and how Jesus rescued me and how he didn't reject me and how he looked at my life and how he pulled me up out of the Mari Clay, how he set my feet upon the rock, how he washed away my sin with his blood. Instead of testifying about how good he's been, we start talking about how good we've been and we start looking down on other people. Say, man, how come you're dressed like that? How come you look like that? How come you sound like that? How come you smell like that? Where are you from? What it can I tell you, none of us are here because of our resumes, we are here because we have been rescued. And you need to remember that not just for the first time you get saved, you need to remember that for the rest of your life. Man, I don't want to ever get over how good Jesus has been to me. I don't want to ever get over how good he's been to my family. I don't want to get over his faithfulness, I don't want to get over his sacrifice, I don't want to get over the blood. I want to save at where Jesus has called me to be. Here's what I know about conviction versus condemnation. Condemnation says run away. Conviction and the grace of God says, come close. Condemnation says stay down. Grace says get up. Condemnation says, keep out, stay away. Grace says, come in, draw near. Condemnation says, clean yourself up. Grace says, I've already paid it all to clean you up. That is the grace of God that we cannot get over. And we have to keep coming to Jesus for forgiveness. Because I don't know if you are the person here and you got saved and you are batting a thousand, I need you to meet me after this service because I can't be the pastor of this church because of how holy you are. Can I tell you? We all make mistakes, but God doesn't call us a mistake. I want to encourage us to stay in that zone. You gotta come to Jesus for forgiveness, to let go of shame, let go of condemnation, let go of regret, let go, let go of pain. Uh you all, like, I know some of y'all, Vicki, Vicki's a nurse in our in our church, it's part of the setup team. Vicki almost like threw something at me. I was walking around with this pain, and Vicki was like, You need to go to the hospital, you need to go to the hospital, you need to go to the hospital. And I was like, Vicki, it's okay, I'll figure it out. Can I tell you just the same way you need to not be afraid to go to God's hospital? And that's not just the church, that's his presence. You gotta come for forgiveness. The second thing you gotta come for is you gotta come for peace. Somebody say peace. Jesus asked, um, so this is in um Jesus says this, I have told you all this that you may have peace in me. Somebody say peace. Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart because I have overcome the world. This is legit one of my least favorite verses in the whole Bible. Because I wish I was the type of preacher that would come up here and be like, if you love God, you'll be healthy every single day of your life. If you give in this offering, I don't know why I'm talking with this low voice, but I'm this working. If you give in this offering, there'll be a check in the mail for you before you leave church today, and there'll be a Bugatti Veyron in your truck tonight. Like, whatever. Like, can I tell you? Jesus in the scripture says, in this life you will have trouble. In this life, you'll have annoying family members, in this life you'll have co-workers that talk bad about you. In this life, you will stub your toe on a Lego in the middle of the night. In this life, you will get sick because your kid goes back to preschool and they bring back every germ that God has ever created. In this life, you'll check your bank account and you'll be like, How did I get that low? You'll be like, I just want one comma, Jesus. I just want one, I don't even need two commas. I just, I mean, two commas will be nice, but I just need one comma, Jesus. In this life, you'll have trouble. But Jesus says if you come to him, he will give you peace. We need to recognize that there are things, can we be real that there are things that are happening in our world right now that I see a lot of Christians having a lot of fear, having a lot of anxiety, having a lot of where do I go, what do I do, what do I talk about? And I I don't even want to give you the answer to what's about to happen next. I'm studying through the book of Revelation right now, just in case, I would recommend you do so as well. Uh, but until I figure out what the revelation is, can I tell you the revelation is not about what's supposed to happen. The revelation is that Jesus is the answer we've always been looking for. That Jesus says in his word, listen, no matter what you see on the news, no matter what you see on your bank account, no matter what you see on your report card, no matter what you see at work, no matter what you're experiencing, I want you to know that I have overcome that situation, I have overcome that tribulation, I have overcome that issue. God has overcome everything we could think of. Here's what's not happening in heaven right now. When you're when you're dealing with something, like when you're working through something, uh, heaven never goes, how are we gonna figure this out? God, okay, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, God the Son. Like, okay, like Gabriel doesn't go up to him and go, Jesus, I don't know how you're gonna fix this one. Like He's the God that overcame hell, death, and the grave. He came to give us peace. Last year I was preaching on something similar, and I think it's it's so funny how sometimes the enemy will will mess with our vision because I I said this thing about how within a week within a week uh from moving in and starting a church, we'd have like uh pebbles at our windshield uh and busted my window first and then Kia's window like a week later, and uh and we finally got them fixed because you gotta get it fixed before inspection. Uh and like two weeks ago, y'all would not believe what happened. Like not just in one car, in both cars. Again. But here's what I want to encourage us not to do. Sometimes we can put more emphasis on the crack than the picture that God is putting on the other side of it. Sometimes we give too much power to the issues that are happening in our world instead of putting our eyes on the God that can change our world. Sometimes we put too much emphasis on the things that are going wrong, on the issues that we're experiencing, on the fight that we have with our spouse. Instead of looking at the God who provided, the God who protected, the God who heals, the God who's been faithful, the God who can do those things. Can I encourage you? Get your eyes off the crack. Some of y'all, that's like, that's literal, Pastor. I need to get off the crack. Amen. Get your eyes on Jesus. That's how you're gonna get peace. See, peace doesn't come from you working harder, pretending harder. Peace comes from looking at the God and saying, Man, he is big enough, he is strong enough, he is more than able to take care of me. Here's what happens peace happens when I take my eyes off of what I can do, and I put my eyes on what God can do. Peace happens when I take my eyes off of what I can do. Because I'm gonna be real, there's little that I can do, but there's much that God can do. Proverbs 3 says this. Proverbs 3 and 5, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Somebody say, trust. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take. Yeah, trust in the Lord. You know what I've discovered about trust? Trust requires trust. You know what I would love is for God to show up. Like, I would love. Like, I would love to be like, God, can we do a Monday morning staff meeting? You bring in a couple of the angels, you come in, you tell me, hey, like, give me the plan. Tell me what the play is. You know what I figured out after following Jesus for almost 30 years? Y'all, he never tells me what the plan is. I wish he would. All he says is this trust in me with all your heart. Don't depend on your own understanding. Seek my will in all that you do, and I will show you which path to take. The relationship that God wants to have is not employer, employee, it's father and child. I have two kids, and every single time when we're going someplace, they're like, you know what they ask? Are we there yet? Wait, we need to make that turn, not that turn. Can we stop for fries at McDonald's? And then we just know where we're going. But if they just here's what you need to do. Your job is not to figure it out. Your job is to come to God. Your job isn't to make it happen, your job isn't to fix it. Your job is to trust in the Lord with all your heart. You don't have to depend on your own understanding. You don't have to make the plan. You don't have to make the promise happen. You don't have to figure it out. There's tons of stories in the Bible of people trying to help God out. And can I tell you, God only needs your obedience, not necessarily you to step in and do it your way, because you gotta seek his will in all that you do. Not your will, not their will, not their opinions, not their thoughts. You gotta seek his will and he will show you which path to take. You gotta trust God. You gotta come for forgiveness, to walk out of condemnation. You gotta come for his peace. We gotta trust God. Here's why. I think trusting God is sometimes hard, sometimes difficult. We just we fail to trust God because we look at the issues that are happening and we don't know how we could fix it. And because we don't remember that God is God and we are not, we feel like because I can't fix it, no one can. There's a pride to that. And we have to get to a place where we say, God, I'm not strong enough. God, I'm not smart enough. God, I'm not wise enough. God, I don't have the financial resources. God, I can't pay for that. I can't take care of that. God, I can't heal their body. God, I can't restore their mind. God, I can't bring that relationship back together. But God, all I can do is I can trust in you with all my heart. Here's what I know when you trust God with all your heart. I'm not, this is not a money-back guarantee that everything is gonna get figured out and you'll never have problems. But you will never deal with your problems by yourself. That's why I love this verse. It says that you will trust God with all your heart. Here's what I want you to know. Peace happens when I take my eyes off of what I can do and I put my eyes on what I can do. And lastly, as kind of gets already preaching quick today, man. Hold your horses. You know how I get along towards the end. You gotta come to God for forgiveness. You gotta come to God for his peace. But something I want to encourage every believer to do is you gotta come to God for his power. You gotta come to God for the juice. You gotta come to God for the ability to do the things that He's called you to do. Let's read John 13 one more time. He says this I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Somebody say, much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you don't remain, uh, sorry, verse 6, if you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and we will be done for you. Uh can I do a little bit of teaching before, give a little bit of context? Because this is one of those verses that gets misapplied a lot and tends and turns into um what we like to call prosperity preaching, where people just go, if you trust God and you ask for anything, can I tell you the caveat to that is you have to be in his will to ask whatever his will is over your life? This is not go and ask for a Ferrari verse. This is God, I want to help the homeless person down the street verse, and I want your heart for that. And so I want to just give that as a caveat. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be the side. We need to get to a place where we are stepping away from sin. We need to get to a place where we are walking in God's sin, but we also need to get to a place as believers that we're coming to Jesus and saying, Jesus, I want to do the same things that you did. Jesus, I want to have the impact on my family like you did. I want to have an impact on my community like you did. I want to have an impact on my work. Jesus, I want to live my life in such a way that when people see me walk into a room, they know that Jesus is walking with me, that the presence of God is coming with me, that the Spirit of God is on me. You need to go to God, not just for forgiveness, not just for peace, but I pray you to go to God and say, God, juice me up so I can make a difference in this world. Students in this room, you go into your high school and you're thinking, man, there's so many people that are anxious, so many people that are depressed, kids that are going through difficult things. But I believe if you would come to Jesus, he will give you the power to make a difference every place you go, that teachers and principals and administrators would even look at you and go, man, this is somebody that the spirit of God is on. You need to come to God for power. You need to come to God to be empowered to do the things that you've he's called you to do. Here's something I want to tell you. If you've never needed God, then you're not in the will of God. If you've never shown up and go, Jesus, I can't do this without you. Some of you are like, I want to be able to be in control, do what I want, do it when I want. Can I tell you every single day of my life, I go, Jesus, I need you. I need you to be married, I need you to be a good father, I need you not to cut people off in traffic, I need you to show up and pastor this church. God, I don't want to preach this message without. I want to do all the things that God has called me to do with Him. Some of us are walking around, and I want to encourage us, especially the parents. Some of you are frustrated in your parenting because you're trying to do your parenting your way and with your resources instead of God's way and then God's resources. And that child belonged to God before they belong to you, and they'll be God's after they are gone from your house. And I don't say that to be a condemnation. I say that to go, yo, reach out to your co-parent. God is your co-parent. God is there in the presence, God cares about that child. And so, man, lean on God. Come to Him with your fears, your frustrations, your questions. Say, God, help me to love this child well wherever you are. You need to be reminded of how do we how do we come to God? I want to encourage you in three ways that we can come to God. First one is this, and the team can come up and join us. First thing you gotta do is you gotta be consistent. Somebody say consistent. You gotta be consistent in prayer. We started the year with a series called Teach Us to Pray. You gotta be consistent in prayer. Here's what prayer is: prayer is me throwing up the white flag and saying, God, I need you. Prayer is me connecting, prayer is the plug. Prayer is where I say, God, I need to be able to do these things that you've called me to. I need to be able to accomplish the task that you call me to. But God, I know that I cannot do it unless I stay connected to you. So I'm coming to you and I'm asking you to provide for my need. I'm asking you to give me your mind. I'm asking you to give me fresh ideas. I'm asking you, can I tell you sometimes I know all the time I preach a lot of you can you don't just ask for stuff during prayer, and that's true, but sometimes you need to go to prayer and just ask for some stuff. You'd be like, God, I need you. God, I need patience. Don't pray for patience. I'm just gonna like pro tip. If you pray for patience, you will get stuck in traffic all the time. Just pray, thank God. God, thank you for making me patient. I'm just gonna walk out believing you've already done. Don't pray for patience. He'll give you opportunities to practice. But you gotta keep consistently, be consistent in prayer. Prayer is not a Sunday thing. Prayer is not a Sunday prayer thing. You have direct access to the presence of God, to the will of God, to the heart of God. You can come to Jesus anytime. And here's what I want to encourage us about prayer. Prayer is not us throwing up our prayer, our wishes into the sky and I'm hoping it lands. Prayer is an intimate conversation with the God who made you, the God who called you, the God who cares about you. And if you be consistent in prayer, you will consistently have a conversation with God. You know how much your life will change if instead of going, what am I gonna do about this, you're going, hey God, what are we doing about this? Instead of going, how am I gonna pay for that? You go, yo, God, you called me into this. How are we gonna pay for that? Oh my gosh, how am I gonna raise them kids? God, you made them. It says that you built them in your mother's womb. How do I fix that? Oh, I married them and they're trifling, and oh my Lord Jesus. My you darling, you're great, wonderful, and amazing. That's these are the things Kia's praying. Um you go, God, she was with you before I married her. How she'll be in forever in heaven after we pass. How can I love her well in this easy? Show me two things I'm not saying. You gotta be consistent in prayer. Number two, you gotta be consistent in this. You gotta be consistent in worship. You gotta be consistent in worship. When we started the church, right now, I hope they're not here because this is you. Let's hook after service. Because we spent like a year and a half, two years trying to get the church off the ground, getting the t-shirts and doing the events, and that's like our first Sunday. Uh, and this woman comes to me and she goes, I just wish I never told you that. I was like, I just wish the worship would be livelier. Like, I just wish y'all had more instruments. I was like, man, we just got here. This is we number two. Like, like, it's just just, I was just like, and I I was graceful, I was like, hey, we're just glad you're here, we're just getting started. God's about to do some amazing things. It's more about, but can I tell you, if we come to worship with a mindset of, I want to be entertained, then we'll never get, you'll never even get what worship is about, and you'll never even get what you're supposed to get out of worship. Because if we go, if they do the songs that I like, then I'll feel the presence of God. You're not feeling the presence of God, you're just feeling your own goosebumps. Here's what worship says worship says, God, on the days when I'm down, I know you're still on the throne. On the days when I'm doing okay, I know you're still on the throne. God, on the days when I'm doing really well, I'm grateful you're on the throne. God, on the days when I've been fighting with my spouse on the way to church, on the day when my coworkers have been doing everything. God, on the day when I'm struggling with my sin. God, on the day when I'm feeling weak, and I'm feeling helpless, and I'm feeling broken, and I'm feeling like I need you. You are still worthy of my pregnancy. You're still worthy of my affection, you're still worthy of my worship, you're still worthy of this song. Because we wanna, we wanna, we wanna, we wanna. Here's what worship does worship, worship, worship is the act, specifically. I'm talking about corporate worship and singing to Jesus, is the act of putting my focus on God above my problems. You're like consistent. You think there's not some Sundays when I come into this place and I'm like tired? Y'all, I got two kids, like a bunch of y'all got two kids. You think I I don't get unsaved before church sometimes? Trying to get them in the car and they're acting up and saying all sorts of stuff. And can I have a snack and can I have candy? I'm like, it's nine o'clock in the morning. I need Jesus before I step in. And even then, I want to lift up my hand. What would happen to your perspective if you made not not wait for your emotions to kick in, not wait for, well, man, like I don't want to worship during the first song because you know there's a lot of clapping, and I don't like it's hot in the room, and I get that, and we're y'all pray, just pray. That's all I can do at this point, just pray. We're like, well, I'll do the second song, and oh, they did a hymn today, I really like a hymn, and oh man, it's this this is my song. Like, can I tell you I have my songs? But my songs will come and go, but my God is the same yesterday, he's the same today, he's the same forever, and you need to get to a place where you are consistently looking at a God who is consistent, and because when you do that, when you lift up his name, I know his presence will come down. What worship does, it's not all that it does, but one of the things that I think worship does, worship reminds us how big God is to us. When I have this weird reaction right now to the news, obviously I'm praying for a lot of the things that are happening, and you know, one of the things I have not felt, I'm like, Jesus, there's something wrong with me. I have not felt fear, not because there's not things to be afraid about, concerned about, to be praising about, but because I think the Lord has been gracious to give me in this season a heart of worship. And when I remember how big He is and how much He can do, and how mighty He is, then I can walk in the spirit of peace. So you gotta be consistent in prayer, you gotta be consistent in worship, you gotta be consistent in community. One of my favorite things about our church is that whenever somebody on our team, we have a surf team of about I think 50 to 60 people and they're super fun. Whenever somebody's been gone for two weeks, like half the team is like, where'd so and so go? You need to be in a space where people go at you and go, hey, where'd you go? Even if you're because I shouldn't have called you all this early. Now I'm preaching again, it's bad. Um because sometimes, here's what I know about, especially church people. Sometimes we can be in the room, but our spirits are a different spirit. And you need some people that are close enough to look at you and go, hey, where'd you go? Hey, you used to be in peace, but now you're not in peace. You need to be in hope, now you're not in hope. You used to be confident of the calling of God in your life, but now you seem fearful and insecure. You need to be close enough with some people that love you and love the God in you and love the calling of God for you that they're looking at you and going, Hey, where'd you go? That needs to live in biblical community. I've I'm gonna say this in closing and I want to set up our music and songs, but there's a verse that gets misquoted, misapplied a lot, and it says this it says, uh, God will never give us more than we could bear. So, yo, I want to be a good pastor, I want you to grow in biblical literacy. This verse is one of the most misapplied verses in the whole Bible. Because we look at that and go, God will never give you more than I can bear. But Jesus just said, in this life, you'll have trouble. That verse is specifically talking about voluntarily willful sin. Jesus is saying in this verse, I'm gonna make a way of escape for you. Here's the reality I want you to know, and I want you to know this so that I can give you the peace about it. God will give you all the time more than you can bear. God will give you all the time issues that are bigger than you, challenges that you can't overcome, things that you're passing through, and you're like, Jesus, I don't know how I'm gonna solve this. I'm gonna know how I'm gonna work this out, I don't know how I'm gonna make it through, I don't know how I'm gonna make it happen. And the solution he gives us is this. Come to me. When you're experiencing something that is bigger than you can bear, bigger than you can handle, bigger than you can solve, bigger than you can figure out. Jesus, I don't know how I'm gonna make it through, I don't know how I'm gonna make it pass, I don't know how I'm gonna live through the situation, I don't know how we're gonna recover from this. And Jesus says the answer is always come to me. Oh, you are wheelowy and brokenhearted, and I will give you rest. He will make our hat straight. I can testify about that. There's two groups of people we're gonna pray for today. Do me a favor, Vision Church. Would you stand to your feet this morning? I wanna I wanna pray for two groups of people as our prayer team gets in position and is ready to receive those of you who are have a prayer need. Two things. One, uh, on your seat there is an invitation to our Easter services. Man, Easter is one of the easiest times to say yes to an invitation to church. So I encourage you to be bold and be brave. But here's here's why I want to pray for these first. There's somebody that needs Jesus that doesn't know they can come to Jesus. There's somebody that needs power and they're walking around in our church, in our community, in your life, in your workplace, and they're powerless and they need Jesus. There's somebody that's walking around and they don't have peace, they're full of anxiety, they're full of depression, they're full of bitterness, they're full of anger, they don't have any peace, and we need to introduce them to the Prince of Peace. There's somebody that's walking around bound in their sin and they need to know about the God of the Bible who came in the flesh, who bled and died and rose again for their salvation. And God's saying Jesus is looking at our community and he's saying, Come to me. And today, this week, over the next two weeks, I want us to be Jesus' hands and feet extended. Say, hey, Jesus said, Can't come to me. I came to him and he saved me and he redeemed me and he sanctified me and he put me on a new path. So we're gonna pray for these, but I also want to pray for you because some of us, this time I've been dealing with things, you've been under a cloud over the last week, two weeks, three weeks, whatever it's been. And you need to come and receive prayer because you just need to come to Jesus. And I don't care if you've been, I've been like, I thought prayer before. You gotta pray consistently. Well, I have somebody else. I reach out to the prayer line. Pray consistently. Today might be your day. I want to pray for that in the word and say, Jesus, we love you. And God, I'm thankful for your presence. I'm thankful for your spirit. God, we surrender at your feet today. Come and move among us, move in our hearts, shift our situation as we come to you today. In Jesus' name.