Living In Denial

I'm so grateful that Pastor Stephen would trust me to preach. And I'm really excited about this word because God has been working it in my heart over the last several weeks. He's been preaching it to me so that I can have something to bring to y'all. I'm going to stay in the flow of our Savage Jesus series. Haven't you

loved Savage Jesus? In case you're new, We've been looking at the life of Jesus through the Book of Mark, and I think one of the reasons this series is resonating so powerfully with me and with our churches is really just an overflow of our pastor's heart. Because I've been here for eleven year and I can say in every single season, he has always fought to keep our focus as a church on the main thing, which will always and forever be Jesus. And it's not just what

he preaches on the platform. It's in the decisions he makes behind the scenes. It's in the way that he's kind of savage, and how he loves and encourages and blesses people that you'll never hear about in a sermon. So I just want to thank God for a pastor he keeps as centered on the heart of God, which is to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm so excited about what God's going to do today.

You guys can have a seat now. This is a significant weekend for me, not just because I get the honor of preaching, but anyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty excited that there's a new Star Wars movie out this weekend. If you're watching this later, Solo came out this weekend, and I am just a full fledged, unashamed geek. I love anything that has to do with a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

And it's not just me, I've converted my kids. So this is you can see our favorite like post dinner lightsaber fight. That's kind of what we do to bond as a family. But you know, my kids even have a Star Wars YouTube channel called the Three Pos. I was pretty impressed with that name. Three Kids, three Pos. My wife came up with it. But I'm also a forty two year old man who may or may not collect Star Wars comics. But that's that's okay. But I'm just I'm just a casual collector. I don't hold a

candle compared to some serious collectors out there. And my friend who's on staff, Ryan Monette, he is a legit Star Wars, just anything sci fi collector. You go to his house and you feel like you're walking into a sci fi museum. You got life sized, real costumes and replicas. And let me show you how much better he is as a collector than me. So this is the prize of my collection. This was my R two D two

when I was five years old and I still have it. Actually, one night it just randomly turned on in my room as a kid and just felt that it freaked me out, but still still kept it. But I love this thing. This is this is like the pinnacle of my collection. Let me show you the highlight of Ryan's collection. I want to introduce that to you really quick. In case you missed this, RTD two is on the stage at Valentine. I'm living out every childhood dream. My eight year old

self would be going nuts right now. It took Ryan four years to build this. First of all, I've never realized R two is this big. I feel even kind of short scented next to him. But my thanks, artwo. It took him four years to build this because you had to get parts from certain parts of the country and they're only available at certain times of the year.

There's this whole R two builders club. And how many of you think that the best way Ryan could honor his worship pastor after preaching all week and would be to let me take this home if you want to say, start a petition. So R two, is there anything you'd like to say to the people? Oh? Really, what was your favorite sermon ins What was your favorite sermon in savage Jesus? Oh this is significant. I like that one too. Would you like to preach today instead of me? That's

how I feel too, buddy. All right, you need to go because I'll play with R two the whole time. I won't preach, So go that way, give it up for our two. So that is what a true collector will build. And you know, sometimes collections get out of hand, and maybe some of you think four years to build that is out of hand. I don't I fully endorse that and support that. But if you've ever seen Hoarders, you know what I have you ever seen that show?

There's some ridiculous, like gross stuff on that show. But what you can see sometimes is that someone starts out with an innocent collection, maybe a doll collection that's something good that you love, or a book collection. And I've seen the show where this woman was trapped in her house by the fifty thousand dolls that she collected, this tiny house surrounded by dolls, couldn't even move, couldn't function.

Or this one man who had five hundred thousand books, and they're overwhelmed by their collection and they can't even live their life anymore. And the crazy thing is they're living in denial. They don't even see that they have a problem. It takes somebody else to come and show them that this collection isn't helping you anymore, it's hurting you.

So collections can get out of hand. And Jesus in Mark Eate talks about a collection that can get out of hand and maybe something more important that we should collect instead. So this is our passage that we're going to focus on today. It's in Mark chapter eight, verses thirty four through thirty seven. So let's look at this now. It says, then he called the crowd to him, along with his disciples, and said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and

follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me and for the Gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul, Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? So I want to talk to you today about living in denial. Living in denial. Turn to your neighbor and ask them, are you in denial? So here we have Jesus talking. I'd be real curious to know. They answered

to some of that. Here we have Jesus talking about a collection gaining the whole world, and it's meaningless you lose your soul and instead taking up something far more valuable, which is collecting, taking up across. And so for me, I grew up in church. My granddad was a pastor, my dad was the music minister, my mom played the organ. My aunt and uncle they worked with the youth. So

I was always around these nice little Christian cliches. I heard all these things in youth group and sermon, and they would sound great on a bumper sticker, like deny yourself, take up your cross, and sounds cute. Right. Can we just admit that no one lives like that? No? I mean maybe you do, maybe you're way more holy than I am. But I'm trying to imagine how the disciples must have felt when they heard Jesus say take up your cross, because for them, across was not something you

wore on a necklace. Across was where someone was brutally murdered and executed. And the disciples had to be freaking out because, honestly, for them, up until this point, things have been pretty good. In Galilee. I mean, the crowds were growing, they were seeing miracles. Yeah, there was a little controversy here and there, but all of a sudden, Jesus is talking about taking up across and dying, and not just him taking up across, telling them to take

up across. And so I'm imagining them kind of murmuring to each other like wait a second, or we do we have to die too. It wasn't what they wanted to hear. And what they wouldn't realize until much later

is that Mark eight. This is the point where everything changes, because, like I said, up until that point, they'd have been in Galilee doing ministry there, doing miracles, feeding the five thousand, and this is the point where Jesus turns and faces Jerusalem, and the rest of the Book of Mark is the last week of his life in Jerusalem as he goes

to take up his cross. And so, like I said, when I was younger, that sounded nice, deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me, And I thought, you know, I've got this whole denying someend thing down, Like I feel pretty good. I'm in church every time the doors are open, but I kind of have to be because my granddad's the pastor and my parents work there, but

that's cool, that should work in my favor. And yeah, I watch MTV every now and then, even though my parents tell me not to when they're out of the room. And if I'm getting really crazy, I'll watch the Simpsons. But you know, that's that's okay. And maybe I think about Kelly Kapowski a little too much after watching Say By the Bell. But I've repented of all this at

youth camp, so I'm good. I'm good. But then I got older and I started to be confronted with the depth of my sin, and I started to realize that there was a lot of jealousy in my heart when someone got something that I thought I deserved. And I realized I was pretty selfish in my relationships and I wasn't ever really content. I always wanted more. And I began to feel really discouraged and defeated because I was like, well, I gave my life to Christ. I said, I was

going to commit my life to following Jesus. But how do I deny the sin because it's always right there before me? And I feel defeated all the time, like I could never live for God because I don't know how to deny my sin, and maybe you feel the same way. Maybe right now you just hear the voice of accusation all around you, saying you're a liar, you're an addict, you're an adulter, you're a cheat, you're insecure.

You're hearing just the voice of your sin right in front of you, and you feel like it's impossible to deny your sin, and you don't know what it means to live for Christ. With that being the case, God showed me something in this passage this week that has helped me so much. And I've been praying all week that would help you in the same way. Because I've read this passage for years, for my whole life, I've read it wrong. I've never noticed this until this week,

and I want us to look at it again. Let's read it one more time. Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples, and said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life from me and for the Gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul, or what can anyone gain in exchange

for their soul? Did you notice what's missing in that passage The word sin. The word sin is nowhere in that passage because Jesus wasn't talking about sin this whole time. I thought it was about denying my sin. Jesus never said deny your sin. He said deny yourself. But what about my sin? I mean, that's still a pretty big deal. Yet it is a big deal, And that's the whole reason. Jesus, when he said this, was about to head to Jerusalem to deal with your sin once and for all on

his cross, on his cross. He was going to deal with your sin on his cross. He was going to deal with your shame on his cross. He was going to deal with your condemnation once and for all. We receive his grace because of his cross. But the thing that has just been blowing my mind all week is that Jesus never told us to take up his cross. He said take up yours. You can't take up his cross. It's too big of a weight to bear. And the

good news is you don't have to. He took up his cross, dealt with your sin once and for all it is finished. You do not have to atone for your sin. You do not have to make yourself righteous. He made you righteous on his cross, and you can't deal with your sin on your cross. Your cross has nothing to do with sin. We deal with self on

our cross. And if our cross has nothing to do with sin, maybe it means that there are some things that we've never thought of as sin, maybe even some good things that we're holding on to that God wants us to let go of, that God wants us to deny in order to follow him. Because this, I believe is the word of the Lord for our church this week. And if you're a follower of Christ, your sin has been made right because of the cross of Jesus Christ.

But your refusal to deny yourself will cause you to miss out on the power of God in your life. We cannot experience the fullness of life in Jesus Christ if we do not deny ourself. And His cross was done once and for all, but we take up our cross daily, every single day. We have to learn what it means to take up our cross and deny ourselves. In fact, in the Book of Luke, when Luke is talking about this same passage. He says, you have to take up your cross daily. This is a daily dying

to self. And I've been asking myself all week, and God has been showing me that there are some good things that I need to let go of, and maybe there's some good things that you need to let go of as well, in order to embrace the power of God and your life. I know some of you are thinking, well, okay, so I have to feel bad about my sin, and now I have to feel bad about the good things too. That's not the point at all. But Jesus is saying that when you take up your cross, you're taking up

his way of life and his way of life. He promises peace, he promises joy, he promises fulfillment, but it does require letting go. So a couple weeks ago, I have my little Saturday routine with my kids before I get ready for church, and Ferris, my wife, she took Sydney, our youngest daughter, to dance class, and so I was upstairs. I have twin girls that are nine, and I was upstairs and I was playing video games with them, which is what any good dad would do when alone with

the kids. And so I'm playing video games, and I feel guilty. After a while, I'm like, well, we need to go downstairs and go outside. It's a nice day and do something productive. And so I'm about to go down the stairs. And here's one thing you need to know about me. I am addicted to soda. I love if, PEPSI, coke, whatever it is. I love it a little bit too much. So like none ten soda is a day. I know it's it's bad, don't judge me. But this is my

healthy option. This is ZeVA and so this is what makes me feel a little bit better about drinking all that. And so I always have one of these in my hand. And so we have this long flight of wooden stairs at our house. Zv is in my hand and I get three stairs from the top. My feet slip out from under me. It's like time stands still in this moment. And the first thought, I kid you not. The first thing I think of is oh no, I don't want to spill my ZBA. First thought, second thought is wow,

that stair hurts my head really really bad. My head slams against the stairs, my back slams, and then I hit every single stair on the way down. I mean, think of the worst scene in a movie you've ever seen of someone falling down the stairs. I can't even get words out. It hurts so much. It's just like it's the sound I made in my mind. I'm thinking, this is how I am. This is the worst way

to go, most embarrassing way to go. I slam on the bottom of the floor in the fetal position, and I hear adleon Leonna just come to the top of the stairs in the rail and they just look down, and I kind of like compare about them, like, Daddy, are you okay? Once again, I can't like vocalize words. I'm just like, ah, you would think my beloved daughters, who love me, who are compassionate, who are kind, would come and run to the aid of their loving father.

That is not what happened. They were so scared and thought that I was dying that instead of coming to help me, they ran to their room, screamed and slammed the door and just left me there all by myself for like five minutes. I'm there all by myself, and then once I can finally move, and then I start getting mad at them for running away, forgetting that I'm the dad that they're not supposed to take care of me.

They come down the stairs to check on me, and I'm just like, well, just clean up the zvia, And so they clean up the zva and then we have a nice chat about what to do if mommy or daddy actually was hurt. But here's what I realized after the fact. If I just let go of the zvia and grabbed the handrail, I could have just saved myself a lot of pain, a lot of embarrassment right now.

And I was driving later that day and I was wondering, are there any things in my life that I'm holding onto that are going to hurt me if I don't let go? And in your life, are there any things that you're holding onto any zba is that you're just refusing to let go of. And God is saying, if you just let go of this, not only will it save you from getting hurt, but actually have something better.

And so today I want to talk about three things that don't fall in the category of sin, and maybe some are even good things that God may be calling us to let go of. And I can't preach everything about what it means to deny yourself. In twenty minutes. But I think these are things that we can make decisions on every single day, and I think God will bless us if we learn how to have a posture of letting go in the first thing is this, let

go approving yourself right. Let go approving yourself right now. Do marriage counseling sometimes and one of the things I try to tell the husband's right away this is marriage one oh one fundamentalism. Marriage. There are four words, four words that you have to avoid at all costs, no matter how right you think you are, no matter how vindicated you would feel in saying them, no matter how justified you think your case is, don't say these four words.

I have never said these four words because I'm not that foolish and my wife would never do anything wrong. But fellas, tell me if you if you feel me on this, I told you so. It's not worth it. Do not do it. Not even if you're putting the rowing machine on Craigslist that your wife begged for for Christmas and you said, honey, you don't need a rowing machine, you're perfect, and she said, no, I'm going to use

it every single day. I want to get in shape, and I'm going to use it every day, and you're like, well, okay, I'll go ahead and buy it for you. And then she uses it twice and we use it as a coat rack in the closet after that, and you're putting it on Craigslist, which is exactly what you say, what happened. I would never say I told you so if that happened. That never happened in the Joy household. That's just a hypothetical, hypothetical situation. But we love to be proven right. And

sometimes it's silly like that. Sometimes it's more serious. I listen to a podcast sometimes on potential wrongful convictions, and I can't imagine how infuriating it would be to be on trial for something that you did not do and to be convicted for that. But that's exactly what Jesus

was walking into in Mark chapter eight. He was going to Jerusalem, where within days he would go from celebrated miss Pah to accuse blasphemer, where the son of God was going to be treated like a common criminal, and he didn't fight back. He could have said one word and a host a legion of angels could have come down and proven his credentials, but instead he was mostly silent at his trial. He didn't fight back. Jesus didn't try to prove he was right with his words. He

simply did the right thing. And it's got me thinking about all the times I've sabotaged my relationships, not by what I did wrong, but by trying to prove that I was right, refusing to humble myself. And I believe taking up our cross in relationships means laying down our needs and taking up the needs of others, because that is the heart of Jesus, and we see that in Philippians too. Let's look at this. It says, do nothing

out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others in your relationships with one another. Had the same mindset as Christ. Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. So have you been wronged? So is Jesus. Have you been betrayed? Jesus was betrayed by one of

his closest friends. Have you been misunderstood? That is part of following Christ. Jesus was misunderstood the whole time he was in Jerusalem. And this isn't permission to be walked all over, but this is a call to value the relationship over the argument. I think the most powerful cross you can take up in any relationship is the cross

of forgiveness. That means that instead of reminding your wife at the fifty seven other times she did this wrong thing, it means loving her and serving her, not reminding her of her past failures, but reminding her of her potential. It means maybe, instead of focusing on how she needs to change, focusing on how you need to change. This is the part where all the women are supposed to give me an amen. But no matter how much you feel like your hurt is justified, God is calling us

to take up this cross of forgiveness. And it's not always when we're wronged, but it's when we're misunderstood as well. And I wish I'd learned this in high school, that following Jesus means you're going to be misunderstood, You're going to be criticized, and it means trusting God that he will prove that his way is right in his time and he is the one who will make things right. And I love how my friend Nico here at Valentine, how he lives this out. He's one of our production volunteers,

eighteen years old. He's been serving since he was fifteen. There he is right there action pose, but he he just centers his life around serving. So he's serving every weekend, every Christmas, every Easter inside Elevation, the live recording serve as stacks. He's going to serve it youth x and now as an eighteen year old, he's actually training volunteers as a youth. But he used to do these camping

trips with his friends and they were pretty regular. But when he got more involved in church and felt God calling him to serve the needs of others through his gift, he started saying he couldn't do some of those trips, and his friends didn't get it. And then sometimes on Saturday nights he said he I have to leave from this because I get up early for church in the morning. And I said, well, just skip church. He's say, no, I can't skip church. I love church. This is what

God is calling me to do. And he was constantly misunderstood. And when I asked Nico about it. This is what he said. He said, when I tell them why church is so important, sometimes they don't understand. It doesn't really matter though I know what God has called me to do.

That's an eighteen year old who has his priorities straight and realize that because he is taking up the needs of others, the youth that he wants to reach, it might mean letting go of the opinions of other people, and it might mean letting go of some of the things that he wanted to do. And I believe when we learned to let go of other people's opinions, when we learn to let go of offense, and we learn to let go of being misunderstood, that's when we're the

most like Jesus. And that's when God wants to use this. So that's the first thing. Let go of proving yourself right now, Let go of living in the past. Let go of living in the past. So this one hits close to home for me. So Jesus says follow, which implies moving forward, looking forward. But you've probably also noticed a lot in scripture talks about looking back and remembering. I mean, Psalm nine one says I'll give thanks to the Lord of my whole heart. I will recount all

of your wonderful deeds. So looking back can build your faith. I mean, I preached about a year ago about how God healed my daughters and healed my family, So I look back on that a lot to build my faith. But sometimes Paul messes me up when I look at Philippians three and it says, but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. So what is it am I supposed to to forget?

I'm not supposed to remember? And I get confused. But I think Mark eight helps put some of it in perspective. Because Jesus was calling the disciples to look ahead towards Jerusalem, but there's a cross waiting in Jerusalem that doesn't look very appealing. Looking back at Galilee looks pretty nice. That's where the miracles are, that's where the crowds are. I could imagine them wanting to look that way instead of

looking forward to Jerusalem. Now, looking back at this can inspire your faith to move forward, but that's not the direction you need to continue to look. And I realize in my life sometimes I'm so focused on looking back at the good old days that I miss what God wants to do right here and right now. I imagine there's some parents out here that you're constantly looking back at the days when your kids would run up to

you and greet you at the door. Your five year old would come and be like, Mommy, Daddy, your home, And there's nothing like that. And now you have teenagers and the greeting is not the same way anymore, and you wish things were like they used to be. But you're missing out in the last two years you have with your teenager when they actually need you the most, And you're missing the work that God wants you to

do now because you're constantly looking back. And here is what I'm learning that a momentary glance can be motivating, but a constant gaze can be paralyzing. A momentary glance can be motivating, but a constant gaze can be paralyzing. So here is how I've learned this in my life. About two years ago, I felt the Lord call me to let go of something that I loved. I'd done it for over two decades, and I felt a sense of calling. When I did it, I felt so much joy.

I was passionate about it, and I define myself by this for so long, and that was leading worship. For over twenty years I was a worship leader. In the fact that I got to be a worship leader at Elevation Church, the greatest church in the world, was just amazing for me, and God used me and it was great.

But over the years I began to sense the stirring in my heart that one day God was going to call me to let go of that because he was bringing just anointed people to the team, and talented people to the team, and people that were honestly better than me, and He was showing me that my best use of my gift was going to be able to empower them and to push them forward so that they can reach more people. And I wish I could tell you that.

I was like, that's awesome. Not so much. I was like, Okay, that's great, but I could still lead worship, right And I kind of fought that, And then about two years ago I felt God saying no, like this is what I want you to do, and so I just kind of eased into it and I stopped scheduling myself at campuses, and like I said, I wish I could say that all this peace just flooded my soul, But instead I began to see a lot of unk in my heart that I didn't realize was there all this pride, all

this ego, the fact that I wanted people to know who I was. I'm just being real, And I remember the first time that I was at a campus and I wasn't known as Wade the worship leader. Somebody said, hey, are you here for the first time. I was like, Oh, that's stings a little bit. And what I began to realize was that God wanted me to let go of That wasn't just about ushering me into a new season

of ministry. It was about wanting to give me a new heart and a new perspective, because for too long, I defined myself by what I did, and God wanted me to realize that he didn't love me based on what I did. He loved me based on the fact that I was his child and based on the cross of Jesus Christ. And so over the course of several months, God began to work that out in me. And now I can say, not just because it sounds great in a sermon, but I'm more fulfilled in ministry than I've

ever been before. And it's because I let go of something I thought I can never live without God. When he calls us to let go, he wants to move us in to a new perspective, a new season, and sometimes a new understanding of ourselves. Sometimes you're not bound by past success, though, you're bound by past pain. And you're afraid to trust because of somehow someone's hurt you. You're afraid to get involved in church because of a

bad church experience in your past. And God's word for you today is that your destiny is not locked up in your past. Your destiny is ahead of you. It's in your future. So keep trusting, keep moving, keep walking forward. God will honor that. And finally he wants us to let go of living, let go of the need for certainty, let go of the need for certainty. So one of the things that I try to do with my daughters.

I don't do this all the time, I regularly, but I try to do daddy dates and I'll take them on a day to like get doughnuts or ice cream because I'm trying to teach him to eat clean. And and I was taking one of my daughters adlely on this date, and she's like our type a Enneagram three daughter always wants to make a plan. One time she ran into our room at like six in the morning. We were going on a trip, and she was like, mommy, Daddy,

who's going to take care of the dogs. And I didn't have the heart to tell her that that was the first time I'm Mary, Daddy had thought about the dog. So Adley sometimes keeps things together in our house. But I do this thing sometimes called ask Me Anything time, because I want him to get comfortable talking to me about anything. And usually it's who's your favorite avenger? But this time she said, she said, daddy. In our devotionals the other night it said that we shouldn't like trust

in our plans. But I'm a planner, so does that make me bad? And I was like, oh gosh, this is like a real life parenting moment right here. Please don't let me screw this up. And I said, Adley being a planner is great. Like look through the Bible and it talks about how we're supposed to make plans and that's a beautiful part of how God made you. He's going to use it. I make plans a lot with my job planning for the weekend, and we do that at church, and so God's going to use your plans.

But we just can't hold too tightly to our plans because sometimes God has a better plan. And I'm thinking about the disciples hearing Jesus say we're going to Jerusalem, and they're like, well, I thought if we were going to Jerusalem, it's because you're going to be king and you were going to deliver us. But you're going to Jerusalem because of a cross that wasn't part of their plan, but it was always part of God's. And they were so comfortable in Galilee that I imagine they didn't want

to risk all of that for a cross. And are we so comfortable where we're at sometimes that we don't want to make the everyday risks that God is calling us to make. And that's where God truly moves in our life. It's not the big risk all the time. Sometimes if those daily risks to get uncomfortable, So you may know you need to volunteer at church, and you love technology. You thought about production, but what if I'm not good enough and you never go to the tent.

You talk yourself out of it, or maybe you have this idea for your company, and it's going to increase revenue and it's going to make things more efficient. But you think your boss is going to laugh at you, so you never actually make the presentation or the pitching. We just settle for status quo because status quo is safe, and we're afraid of the uncertainty on the other side of a what if. But let me tell you, God always moves on the other side of a what if.

He always moves on the other side of obedience. He always moves on the other side of faith. And anytime we take the step of faith and uncertainty to let something go, God always gives us something greater. Every time, anytime we surrender something good, God always gives us something better. I've seen it in my life, and we see it in the life of Jesus. Here. Jesus, if he had stayed in Galilee, could have done more good things. He could have healed more lepers, he could have fed more people.

He could have cast out more dem so he could have writed in justice. He could have continued collecting those miracles in Galilee. But he let that go so he could go to Jerusalem, knowing he'd be persecuted, knowing he'd be misunderstood, knowing he'd be falsely accused, and knowing that he would ultimately die because his father had sent him

to collect something greater, something even better. And we find that in John chapter fourteen says, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. So Jesus laid down the works he could have continued to do on this earth to do an even greater work through you. And that is what see what God can do through

you is all about. It's about taking up the heart, taking up the purpose of God, and knowing that God wants to do a greater work, a greater miracle through you. So when we live in denial, you're not losing, You're gaining. When you're living in denial, this is actually how we truly live because God has something better, something more fulfilling, he actually wants to place in your hands. So when we were talking about Nico earlier, Nico said, yeah, had to give up some time with my friends. Yeah, I

had to give up some camping trips. But when I saw these guys in my e group actually give their life to Christ. To know that they were at Stack when I was serving at Stack, and they were there on the weekend when I was serving there, and they were there on Eastern when I was serving, and I know I had some part to play in them giving their life to Christ. That is far greater than any camping trip. He was not losing, he was gaining. Then you've got my man Chris down here, and Chris right here.

This will be the third year the outreach coordinator here at Valentine. This will be the third week you've taken a week of vacation to help serve for Lovely. Is that right, yes, sir. And so Chris was telling me that he did that. He knew he could be spending time with his family, but he wanted to set an example to his family that this is what it means to follow God, and that is to serve people. So, Chris, you're losing a week of vacation, but you're game a

legacy for your family. You're gaining a legacy for your son. So once again, when we open our hearts and our hands to God, he gives us something better. Elena at Lake Norman she's part of our welcome team there and at the end of the year for the Waymaker End of the Year offering season, she felt called to embrace a life of generosity, to open her hands to God and get herself uncomfortable and to begin to give. And she also began to pray for her sister, Debbie, who

didn't know the Lord. So as she began to prioritize her faith, she began to pray for her sister Debbie. Debbie ended up coming to church, gave her life to Christ, and last month, Debbie was baptized at Lake Norman. Anytime, anytime we open our hands to God, he fills it with something far greater than anything we ever let go of. And I believe that is God's heart to you today to go from this position because God won't bless this position to this position, and this position is a position

and a posture that the Lord will always bless. So I just want to invite you to stand at every location and I want you to hold your hands out like this. Let's close our eyes together. I believe there's something I've been sharing God's word today that God has put on your heart, that he is calling you to let go of that he's calling me to let go of. Hebrews twelve says, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Let us run

the race marked out for us towards Jesus. So maybe there is some sin that you need to confess and you need to repent of, and you need to lay at the feet of Jesus. But maybe there's some good things that are no longer right for you in this season. Maybe there's some attitudes, some mindsets that are slowing you down and holding you back from the fullness of life that God has for you. And today as a church family,

we want to let that go. So in a moment, after I pray, we're gonna single come to the altar and at every location we're gonna have ministry dreams and prayer volunteers at the front. If you want to come down and just ask somebody to pray for you to have the strength to let go whatever it is that you need to let go of, we have some people that would love to pray with you. But I believe all of us in our hearts can ask God to show us what that is. Because taking up your cross

is an active thing. There's something that God is actually calling us to release and then to take up. So God, right now we come to you with open hands and open hearts, thanking you for the fact that your plans for us are perfect and they're far greater than anything we could plan ourselves. So we surrender to your ways, we surrender to your will, and we trust your heart in this place in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I hope

you enjoyed the podcast today. If you did, there are just a couple things I'd love for you to do. Number One, subscribe to our show. That way, the most recent episode will always be in your feed, waiting for you ready when you are. And Secondly, if this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to help us continue to reach others, you can click the link in the description and you can give now and I'll see you next time on the Elevation Podcast