Episode 040 || Weakness Turned Into Strength

Well, what's up, Pando family? We are excited to be back with you this week. We are in the middle of our, we're calling it the Unexpected Leader sermon series that we are going through as a church right now, where we're continuing that biblical narrative going from Genesis, now starting to walk through Exodus, talking about a guy named Moses. I'm obviously not alone today. My name is Derek. This is Brandon. We're on our online team, but we have a special guest who you guys would have, you've heard his sermons before. You've heard him preach on the broadcast, but now you got to hear him again talking about Moses. We have Lucas DeVries, our Blankenbaker campus pastor. So Lucas, how's it going? What's life like? It's good, man. I always try to answer that as life is full right now. Okay, yeah. I think all of us can say busy, but life is full. We married, got twin boys, just turned four years old, and my wife is pregnant and is having a baby in September. We are doing all the things. Life is happening fast. Painting nurseries, and yeah, all the things. Life is happening fast. It sure is, man. Yeah. Well, Brandon, what about you? We're trending towards the end of summer here, you got four kiddos at home. Four.

Yeah. So what... If it sounds like too many, it is. It really is. Yeah. No, it's fine. So what does the end of summer look like for the Braun household? Man, it's just a flurry of activities. So my wife homeschools our kids, so they are all in the thick of getting things together. So a lot of books around the house, a lot of tears, a lot of... But it's good. It's good. Like our oldest daughter starting high school this year, so it's kind of a new world there. So yeah, I mean, it's crazy to think summer's already over. I don't even know... Yeah. I don't know how we're practically in August now. It's crazy. Yes. Do you guys enjoy the hot weather? Do you enjoy... Like what season would be your favorite? I sweat in air conditioning. Some might say that I sweat more than the average horse, and so it is a sanctifying few months. Yeah. Brandon, what about you? Yeah. No, I'm essentially like part polar bear. So yeah.

So you're a winter guy? No, I don't... Okay. I'm more like fall. I'm more like fall. If we could stick like around, I don't know, 70, 75 degrees, like that would be great, but apparently you have to like move to California for that. Well... It's a hot fall. That is a hot fall. Yeah. Well, you know, if maybe 65, I just don't like it hot. I'm not there. I understand it. Yeah. I get that. Well, Lucas, first time having you on here in the podcast, which we're excited about. And like I said, I know our Pando family's got to see you several times, even over the course of this year already, getting to hear from you on our Blankenbaker campus and again through this series. But tell us a little bit about your story, where you come from, how you ended up here at Southeast. Yeah. So born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, was in a wonderful Christian home. Originally was raised here at Southeast, so I kind of make a joke that I was running around in diapers here at Southeast. You know, I... As a child. Yes. As a child.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Very young man. Good point of clarity there. That's great. Just to kind of breeze through it a little bit, I went to a Christian school. I say that I was... In my mind, I was graded to know who Jesus was. That was not the intent of the school, but it was probably how I interpreted it, and I just did not have this desire to glorify God and to love people the way that I do now. And long story short, I was on what we call now our high school camp, which we just had, and we were in Daytona, and long story short, I was body surfing in the red flag zone, might I add. Okay. Was not supposed to be there. In other words, sir, are you even allowed to be out in the water during red? No, but that was my style. Okay. Pushing the limits, okay. You said sit down, I stood up. So I was body surfing and I was shot down to the ocean floor and my body went over my neck and essentially my entire right arm just like almost went paralyzed. Oh my gosh. It was to the point to where like I could barely lift five pounds with my arm. And you know, at the time I wanted to walk on at a D1 school and play football.

I was wanting to be either a fullback or a linebacker. And so that was everything to me and went to the neurologist and he basically said like, hey, if you were gonna be an NFL star, we would look into this deeper, but unfortunately you can't play football anymore. And so as like a sophomore, you know, getting ready to start heading, you know, kind of towards my junior year, I mean, everything that I knew was, you know, my identity was just ripped away from me and at least so it seemed. And so through a series of, you know, God moments, I just kind of had this realization that, you know, if I went back to my senior year of high school at the school that I was at, like I just knew that I was gonna fall into the same temptations, same... You know, I started to dabble into drugs and some illegal activity and long story short, I just realized like, if I don't take myself out of this and if I don't, you know, say yes to what God's doing right now, I just don't know what the story is gonna look like. And so I, again, through a long story that I probably don't have time to tell, ended up putting myself in a nine month long wilderness discipleship program right outside of Nashville called Narrowgate and actually mentioned the tree with the face, you know, that Moses' face was carved into.

And man, it was one of the most formative, impactful seasons of my life. And it's there that I just remember realizing, like, I don't really know what I'm gonna do, but I just wanna help people experience Jesus like I have today. And so whether that's being, you know, a janitor, whether that's working at Chick-fil-A, whether that's working on staff at a church, I mean, I could tell you a thousand jobs that I've had, but every single one of them, I've just wanted to help people encounter who Jesus is. And so today I get to serve as a campus pastor here at the Blankenbaker campus, and I'm just having a ton of fun doing it, so. That's incredible. And I mean, that's so applicable even to the sermon that you spoke about this last weekend of being in the wilderness and there being seasons of life where God's not gonna waste those, those are formative. And man, that's awesome. I love that you shared that. But in terms of the sermon from this last weekend, Brandon, why don't you pick us up and let's dive into our conversation. Yeah, let's go. So you're largely in Exodus two and three this week talking about the story of Moses. And we see, you know, Bryson kind of opened us up last week

by talking about Moses's birth and him being raised in the household of Pharaoh. And here, you know, in Exodus two, we kind of skip ahead to Moses being a grownup. You know, we'll find out later, I think it's maybe it's Stephen's speech in Acts, we find out Moses was about 40 when this all happens. And he knows there's something different about him. Like he recognizes whether he's been told or whether he just, he figured it out. Like I'm not an Egyptian. Yeah, yeah. He just sorts this out. Like I am not, I'm part of Pharaoh's household, but I'm not really one of them. And so he is going out to see what the work his people are being forced to do. They're under slavery in Egypt. And he sees an Egyptian guard mistreating an Israelite man. And he responds in just a swift act of violence. He kills the Egyptian. He buries his body in the sand. He thinks that he's gotten away with it and everything's fine. And it turns out that it was seen. He finds out the next day, he sees two Israelites arguing with one another and their response to him, it's a little ungrateful. Their response to him is, oh, are you going to do to us what you did to the Egyptian?

And he realizes, oh, everyone knows. Like everyone knows what's happened. And he's kind of forced at that moment to flee because Pharaoh hears about it. The court of Egypt is mad. They're gonna put him to death. He flees out into the wilderness of Midian where a whole bunch of different things happen. As we talked about, we'll get to the point here in a little bit in Exodus three, where we'll talk about what is probably one of the defining moments of Moses' life if not the defining of where he sees God in the burning bush and he experiences this calling. But we get this sense of, you know, Moses going out into the wilderness and, you know, God preparing him in that moment for, hey, this is what you're going to be doing. And it's interesting, you know, we find out later in scripture that Moses' life basically works in 40-year blocks, right? He spends 40 years as a prince of Egypt. He spends 40 years in the wilderness. He spends 40 years leading the Israelites towards the promised land. And we see that none of those seasons is wasted, that God is doing something in each of them, whether it's preparing him, you know, as a prince of Egypt to go back to Pharaoh's court, whether it's preparing him as a shepherd

in the wilderness of Midian to lead God's people. And, you know, we see God at work even in this mess that is going on, even as you said this past week, even before Moses' official calling, God is at work preparing him for that. Yeah. So Lucas, as you were preparing and writing the message and just hearing a little bit about your story, what are some parts of this that you look at with Moses and you're just like, man, like I can feel, I can probably feel the way that he felt because I've been there. Do you have a moment like that from your story? Yeah, you know, I think first of all, you know, one of the things that I have always felt, I don't know if this is the case for you all, is that like, you know, all growing up, I mean, you know, closer, you know, the further you get through high school, people are asking like, so what do you wanna do with your life? Yeah. How do you, you know, what school do you wanna go to? And I was like, I just never felt like I could answer that. And half the time it was because like, we were starting from the standpoint of like, okay, let's look at a list of things that I could see myself doing and, you know, matching it up with gifts. And I think that there's a place for that. Like, I think that you do not want me in accounting, right?

Like, it just, it would not be a good thing. Like, you know, I am also not a great handyman, as my wife would tell you. But I think that what we see in this passage is that, you know, it wasn't necessarily just this long list that Moses closed his eyes and pointed and said, you know what, that's what I wanna do. But it was this burden that came, you know, through his gut into his heart, and he couldn't look away from it, you know? And I would say that, you know, as I have journeyed with the Lord, you know, I was saved, you know, and it kind of felt like a suddenly moment. But as I was journeying, trying to discover what God was doing in my life, like, I'll be honest, it wasn't just this, okay, I know who Jesus is, and now I know what my purpose is. And I think, like, if I was to go back and tell my 20-year-old self, you know, what would you do in that season? Like, I probably would have told myself, like, you know, like, experiment with God on, you know, certain things that you could see yourself doing. So for example, I had an opportunity to work for a homeless shelter, a homeless shelter slash recovery program. I myself, I wouldn't say that I'm in recovery, but I was like, you know what?

Like, I feel like there's some stirring here, and so I went for three months, at least started out to work for a recovery program in Naples, Florida. And, you know, what I realized was that, like, I just don't know that that was what God was calling me to. But what was so cool was that at the very same time, I was preaching in a little church. It was a 90-person church, you know, kind of just part. part-time stipend. I preached, did youth ministry, stacked chairs, anything that they needed me to do. And I had these two things right by themselves, and I just like... Every morning I would wake up and I would think about one. And it was just like this... Again, the word I used in the message was like, it was just this holy burden that I couldn't get away from. And I found myself dreaming about it, I found myself thinking about what I would do if I had more time there. And so as we just kind of crack open this text, I wish as a 20-year-old man, I would realize that first of all, I can explore my calling. It doesn't need to be a one-hit wonder, and I can start to, through doing things, realize how God's gifted me. That's good. So can we talk about this idea of calling for a second, this idea... What was the phrase that you... Holy burden? Yeah. This holy burden that we have. Let's explain that and flesh that out a little bit. What does that mean? What does that look like? Is that something that all Christians have on their life? Is it something that certain ones do, or are they different? How would we walk through that with someone that was sitting at a table here with us? Oh man. Yeah. That's a good question. That's a big problem.

That's a good question, right? Well, for starters, no. I think we can think of calling in two big ways. One, we can think of it in terms of the broad calling that's on all of us as Christians, right? That throughout Scripture, throughout the New Testament in particular, we read things like, you are called to be this. I think of Peter's words in 1 Peter 2, I think it is where he's talking about you are a holy nation, a chosen people, a royal priesthood. There are things, there are identities we are called to have as Christians, as believers, that we all share, that this is who we are together. And so I think the Bible or the New Testament uses that phrase call quite a few times. The second way, and I think the way we most typically think of calling is we think of calling in terms of a personal sort of thing. God has called me to this place, to this ministry. God has even called me to this position. And we see that throughout Scripture, right? Like in the book of Esther, Mordecai talks to Esther about that. Well, you've been put in royal position for such a time as this. You've been called to this place at this time to do this thing. So I think certainly we can see that as an individual level. And I love the way you put that this week in terms of holy burden. I think that is... I've heard people use the phrase divine discontent too. There's something in my soul that God has really put there that strikes at the core of who I am, that strikes at the core of what I wanna do with my life. And I think we do have those sorts of callings on our life, these things that God has put on our heart to do. But I would say, I think we so often get it backwards, is that we are so concerned with personal calling that we miss out on the corporate calling, when it's really... I think some of the reason why we have trouble discovering our personal calling is we're not living in that corporate calling first. We're not living in... Hey, if I'm living as broadly who I'm supposed to be, then I think God has a way of showing us more specifically what He wants us to do in that moment. So I have a pretty cool story with that. I do think that we find what God's... Whether you wanna call it an assignment or calling, I think that we find the next step when we are in community with one another. So my parents, what a lot of people don't know is that I am one of eight children, and so there were three biological children, and then through a series of events, my parents decided to adopt five children. And today, they are asked to speak into and encourage so many families who are also

following in their footsteps. And the five brothers and sisters that are part of my family, there are times where we forget that there was a time where they were not a part of our family. Like, that's how close we are. But it didn't start with... again, them looking at some long list of things that they wanted to do and say, you know what? We wanna be a family that's all about adoption. But rather, I remember I was probably like nine or 10. My parents served faithfully in our kids' ministry at the Blankenbaker campus. My dad passed out goldfish at one point and my mom taught the class. And then eventually they were elevated to being like suite leaders to where they were volunteer leaders over volunteers. And it was not uncommon that I would get out of whatever programming I was in and I would run back there and kind of help tie up loose ends of taking out the trash, cleaning up. And mom would often be talking to people for a very long time and I wanted to go eat lunch. And so- So let's wrap this up, come on. But I remember one time specifically, just taking out the trash and I came back in and my mom is holding a little baby that I learned was a foster child. And I mean, he just had snot rolling down his face and she was talking with the foster mother. And I look over and my mom is just weeping.

And I was like, even as a kid, I was like, there's something different about this moment, right? And as time would tell, that little boy became my brother. And the running joke was, if you spent the night at our house, you got adopted. And so Bryson came, Cynthia, Curtis, Angela, Clifton, and it just has been this incredible story. But I think we're so tempted to look at this, the end picture and the opportunities that are given to some believers as they're walking faithfully in the kingdom. But I think we forget that it oftentimes happens in those faithful moments where we're just doing the unseen work, the not exciting things and just saying yes to things that other people may see as insignificant. And so I imagine my parents didn't think as they were passing out goldfish that that yes of obedience would potentially allow them to step into an incredible opportunity of adoption. And so again, community, being faithful in the little things and seeing God do the extraordinary. And I like the way you phrased that because it makes me think, we so often, when it comes to calling and comparing ourselves to other people, we focus on their end result rather than our next step. Yeah. We just need to take the next step

in what we feel like God is leading us to. And then eventually that calling, I think, becomes a little more clear. Yeah. That's good. That's a great word. And I can't help but think, Lucas, one of the words that you just used is insignificant. And I know that y'all, let's be honest, there's probably several of you watching this right now where thinking that you would have a calling is probably just like rubbish, right? Or something that's like, man, that's just for people that have a future. Man, I may be here locked up for all my life. I may be here for several years. I know even the letters that so many of you faithfully send us just talk about how you've become an afterthought, even in your own family. And this idea of calling can be something that's even so difficult to wrap your mind around. You know, fellas, but I think that one of the things that God is so faithful in is that in each and every season, right, He calls us towards something. He gives us that next step. Yeah. And so digging maybe a little bit deeper, how has a sense of calling in your all's life,

no matter if it's ministry or outside of ministry, how has that carried you through difficult seasons? Yeah, I mean, I think that that is so key because I think that if your calling isn't rooted in a burden, I think that when ministry gets tough, you know, when life gets tough, we are often tempted to run from those things. I mean, you know, we don't need to fast forward too far. And like, what... Moses is getting ready to step into is, I mean, arguably one of the most known passages in Scripture as he is delivering the children of Israel from Pharaoh, and I just... I believe that in this season, this wilderness season that he's in, it's forming in him trust in God. It's... I mentioned this in the message, it's... He's unlearning things from Egypt, and I just... I choose to believe that when he steps into the moment of obedience in his calling, these things are forming him into the man that can hold that weight. And I try to tell young leaders all the time, what you are doing today in this season of... It doesn't look like God's handed you much. He is wanting to do something in your character far more than he is wanting to worry about your skill and something that you get to put your hands to, and that's hard. I think that we could all probably go around and tell of seasons where... No doubt. You're like, God, what are you doing? I feel like I'm in this waiting season, I feel like... What's a wilderness? A wilderness is dry, a wilderness is empty, it's lonely and obscure, and I think that in those seasons, God is... That's his school of training. He is forming and fashioning men and women who are able to walk out the calling that they have. And so, I would say that there have been many seasons. I think wilderness seasons are cyclical, like they come back around from time to time, and I mentioned it in the message. There was a season where I had gone from... I eventually came on staff at that smaller church, was preaching regularly. In my mind, ministry was one thing, and I had applied for a role, and when I showed up to the first interview, they were like, hey, this is probably not gonna be good news to you,

but the role that you applied for, we literally hired it right as you applied. And I was just like... Perfect timing. Great. And at the time, my fiance, my now wife, worked there, and so we just knew God was leading us to that church, our family to be there, and so I was like, well, I just know that God's leading me here, and so I said, what else do you have? And they were like, well, we have a pre-K coordinator role, and... Yeah. Again, at the time, I was like... There was a friend of mine who was like, so what are you gonna do? Are you gonna counsel babies? And I was like, I know this sounds crazy, but I just... I feel like this is where God's leading our family, and there's an opportunity to jump on the bus here, and I feel called towards the mission and the vision of this church, and I'm gonna serve in this season, in this role, and y'all, I had no idea that God would call me to be a campus pastor that would one day oversee one of the largest kids' ministries in the nation. Right. And I am so thankful that God led me in that season to... I was walking through Costco ordering diapers and... Passing out goldfish, baby. Goldfish and... And for a season, it... First of all, it addressed my pride and what I thought that my calling would flesh out to look like, and what I realized was that I think that our calling... The assignments change, but I think our callings remain the same. I just knew that I... All I wanted to do was to create moments where people would bump into Jesus and discover who He is, and thus who they are, and I could do that in kids' ministry. I could do that with the next generation, and sure enough, I eventually was given the opportunity to lead all of the children's ministry, and then they gave me birth through 18. And again, like I said today, I'm a campus pastor, and I look back on that season, and I'm like, that was the most crucial season for me in my leadership, both formationally... in my heart, but also skill-wise. I learned things about people and leadership and volunteers, and it was... I would not have written that for myself. But if not for that wilderness season, to your point, I think I may have pressed the eject button, and I would have said, you know what, God? I know better, and I'm gonna line out my own syllabus,

and I'm gonna teach myself what I think that I need to learn. And newsflash, I get to do it all over again every so often. And I would say, the Lord is teaching me things in this season that I'm still trying to figure out. Yeah, no doubt, and continually over and over again. And I think one of the points you made there is so good, and it's a fact that oftentimes the story God is writing for our lives is gonna be much different than the one that we would choose to write. And I think Kyle said this before in his preaching, is that he is a unique... Not Kyle, but God has a unique way of turning our wrong turns into detours. And I think that's a fact, because for example, we were coming off a few weeks ago a sermon series of Joseph where he gets moved into leadership, into Egypt, where God is this idea of working all things together for the good, right? He brings Jacob and his sons and their families over to Egypt. And if I would imagine if I were just entering this story for Moses, my inclination and assumption would be, oh, well, the way that God is going to get his people out of Egypt's grip is by using this guy named Moses who has been found in this river, and then he's gonna grow up in Pharaoh's house, he's gonna earn his favor, he's gonna then convince him and then take them. But that's not what happens, right? He, like, by Moses' mistake, right? Kills this Egyptian, he flees out to the desert, is there for however many years, and his assignment comes when he left. He left, right? He's been banished. And in the middle of that desert, God meets him through a literal fire and a literal bush. Moses pushes against the calling several times, frustrates God a little bit, has to have his brother-in-law Aaron come beside him to help, and that's how God uses him. And I don't know about you, but I appreciate the fact that Joseph and Moses are kinda juxtaposed next to one another. Because I was actually just talking with one of our staff members about this yesterday. When I look at Joseph's life, Joseph really didn't do anything wrong. Right, yeah. He was a victim of... A lot of the... Yeah, no doubt. His circumstances, and there's so much that we can apply to our lives, but if I'm honest, I think that for many of you listening, I think that I'm more like Moses, where it's like, I don't know that I'm a victim, I'm the one who did the wrong. I'm the one who screwed things up. I'm the one who put myself in this seemingly unfortunate spot. But I think, again, both stories speak to

the sovereignty of God, the fact that our God is in control, and even if we screw things up, like his promises and his purposes are not thwarted. We are able to see God still use us even when we do... Moses kills a guy trying to do the right thing and ends up in the... Again, seemingly in the wrong place at the wrong time, and yet God uses that and sets it up to develop a deliverer. It encourages my heart, because I think that there have been seasons of my life where I'm like, yep, I'm reaping what I've sown. And unfortunately, I'm just gonna have to miss out on some really incredible God opportunities because of what I've done. And what I've found time and time again is that God's grace, it baffles me at how good He is at taking ashes and turning them into beauty. I think that's part of the beauty of calling, because you talked about this in the message where you kind of set the way of Egypt versus the way of God against them, that Moses is operating when he kills the soldier, he's under this idea of, I have to do this. In his flesh. I have to take care of this. I have to make this happen. So good. And even at the burning bush, he's doing that, because God appears and he's like, hey, I'm sending you. And Moses' first response is, well, who am I? I think he got the wrong number, dude. You got the wrong guy. And then God is still like, no, you're gonna go. And Moses is like, but I can't talk. Well, I don't talk good. But isn't it crazy that in Acts, it talks about how he was powerful in words and in action. And so what changed? In my opinion, I think that Egypt gave him eloquence. I think that Egypt gave him power and strategy and authority. But the wilderness undoes all of those things. And I heard a pastor say one time, you know, what God is trying to accomplish in your life through a wilderness season is brokenness. That's good. And by the end... Great. Yeah, right. By the end, if you wanna know if you have passed and are able to move on to the next step, are you broken? Now, there's an interesting tension there, because I think that Moses is teetering on the tension of like, I can't do this. And I think that that's healthy. I think that we need to have this deep awareness of how finite we are and how absolutely powerful God is. But I think God's getting ready to take him on a journey to discover that in his weaknesses, God is made strong. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think Moses' problem is, in this moment of calling,

is that he's focused on that way of Egypt. And when we do that, when we get that idea, that I have to do this myself, that I have to be completely put together, I have to make this happen, our calling is gonna overwhelm us, and it's gonna paralyze us, because we're gonna be like, I can't do this, I can't make this happen. And over and over again, God is trying to tell him in the burning bush, like, no, I'll do this, I'll do... You just go, you just go do what I told you to do, and I'll make it happen. I think one of the more interesting scriptural... I like that word juxtaposition, you use... You don't get to say that very often. Double scrabble word. Yeah, there you... Yeah, don't ask me to spell that. But you get in Isaiah Chapter 6, where Isaiah is called, and he has this great vision of God's throne room, and he sees the seraphim in the chair, and he begins in that place of brokenness, like, well, I'm doomed, like, woe is me, I can't do this. And then the angel comes and purifies his lips with a coal, and then God asks, well, who is gonna go? He doesn't even give him the... He doesn't do what he does to Moses and says, hey, I want you to go. He's like, well, who's gonna do this? And Isaiah's response is to volunteer. And he'll be like, no, here I am, send me. And I think that is the beauty of calling, is focusing us in on the God who... Not what we've been called to do, but the God who called us to do it. And where we get ourselves backwards is that we focus and get so overwhelmed on, hey, this is what I need to do, rather than this is the one who's gonna do it. Yeah, and I think that that's a... That is such an exhausting path. Yes, 100%. Like, if you start with me and what is gonna make me happy... First of all, what a selfish path. Yeah. And I think that in many ways, Moses started off in his flesh, and God led him to crucifying his flesh and getting to the point to where he was able to walk... What the New Testament would say is walking in the Spirit. And so I think it is a... Unfortunately, I think it is a path that many people skip. And maybe you wanna call it a trial, a test. I think that if we skip it, man, there's just so much... God will use... God will still accomplish what He wants to do, but He might pick somebody else. And so I think that what we see in Moses' life is that he submits to the process, he allows God to undo the things that Egypt had taught him,

and he becomes this humble vessel that God uses as a deliverer. No doubt. So Lucas, to wrap us up, we'd love for you to give one final thought to encourage someone today that's watching this on their tablet, wherever they may be, whatever state they may be in. So floor is yours. Yeah. I think what I would encourage you with is that maybe like Moses, you find yourself in a dry season. I think that... We've already said it, but wilderness seasons are lonely, they're filled with obscurity, there may be dreams and gifts that you feel as though God placed in your heart, maybe even at a young age, and you're sitting here today looking at your reality and saying, God, how on earth could you, just like Moses, how could you take me in Midian and use me to deliver God's people? I think you are in good company, because almost every single person that God develops into a man or woman of God goes through a wilderness season and a dry season. And my encouragement is... I think the temptation is to sit in that season and do a few things. Either you can waste it, I think that you can wait it out, I think that you can complain, I think that there's plenty of examples of God's people in the wilderness complaining and grumbling, or I think that you can, and I think it's the example that Moses gives, is say yes to the seemingly small things that are in front of you. It may look nothing like what's in your heart. One last story, and we can be done. My first job at Southeast was actually in 2010, and I thought... I was like, man, I am called to ministry. This is even before I came on... I moved to Florida, it was like the holding period of getting ready to move to Florida, and I cleaned the sanctuary floors, and I remember taking out the trash, wiping down the podium before services on the weekend, and I remember taking out the trash, and I would say, okay, Lord, today I'm taking out the trash, but Lord, one day would you allow me to take out the trash in people's lives? I remember mopping the floors and praying over the seats and saying, Lord, one day as I clean these floors and I'm wiping up spilled communion and coffee, and I'm like, Lord, one day would you let me present communion to your church? And I specifically remember wiping down the podium and saying, Lord, one day would you allow me to wash your church with the water of your word? And had no clue that literally 15 years later that God would invite me back to Southeast and I'd have the opportunity to speak to some of you. And so, first of all, I know that God's not done in my life, and that means that God's not done in any of our lives. And so as we are in those

wilderness seasons, I would take joy in serving in those small, seemingly insignificant things, because I believe that those are... Those small yeses of obedience in the wilderness are what... That's when out of nowhere, those suddenly moments happen, and you look up and you're exactly where God intended you to be. That is so good. That is gold. That is gold to take away this week. Well, Lucas, man, thank you for your message. Thank you. We're looking forward to hearing you again in a couple weeks. We'll get to hear a second sermon from you in this series, then have you on again in this podcast. Brandon, great as always. And for you, Pando family, you may be asking this question, as a church for Southeast, why do you prioritize doing this and posting on Pando? And it's because we firmly believe that you are not an afterthought to God. We firmly believe that your life is not insignificant. We have a love for you because God loves you, because you have a Father in heaven who, like Lucas had mentioned, has a plan for you, has a calling for you, and we want to help encourage you to step into that. So y'all, we'll be praying for you this week. We're praying that the Lord blesses you, that He keeps you, that His face shines upon you. Y'all, we love you, and we will see you next week. you