Foundations of Leadership; Obedience, God's Presence, and Community

Good morning, church. How's everybody doing so far today? Oh, come on, would you give God some better praise than that? Let's kick it off this morning with some praise. Come on, he's worthy. He's worthy of it all, right? Well, my name's Randy, and I'm so glad that all of you guys are here. If you're new to our church, I'm the pastor here, and we're so honored to have you guys here at Lakewood Ranch. Of course, we have those that are watching online and there are other campuses as well. Come on, let's welcome the rest of our family. Great to have you guys with us, yes. So, we are in the middle of a series called Foundations of Leadership. And, you know, as I kick this off, I can't help but to think that there are probably some of you that have a mindset about leadership that I used to have. I just remember growing up in my home that my mother all the time would tell me, Randy, you're a leader, and I hated it. Because I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and I didn't want it to impact other people. And she says, Randy, you can't do that. Other people are watching. You are a leader. God has given you influence, and what you do matters to other people. And what you don't do that you should do matters to people as well. They're watching you, and I just, I don't want to be a leader. I really didn't. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. But you know what? She's right. She's not just right about Randy. That's true of all of us. John Maxwell says it so good. He said, leadership is simply influence. Nothing more, nothing less. That's what leadership is. And we all have that, and we all need to understand that leadership is not a title. It's not a position.

It's not a personality. Like, whoa, they got a lot of charisma, man. They're a great leader. It's none of those things. You can be a great leader, and God has called all of us to be a leader. If you're a parent, if you're a small group leader, if you're a volunteer, if you have a job, if you have friends, if you're a student. In other words, all of us, it doesn't matter who we are, we all are leaders because we have influence. So the question that I want to make sure you understand throughout this entire series, it's not am I a leader, but what kind of posture will you have towards God and other people as God has given you influence and you are a leader. So this series, we're studying what I would call a really great leader. Besides David in the Old Testament, Moses is talked about and mentioned more than anyone else. He was an incredible leader, but he wasn't a great leader because he, you know, had great education to be trained as a leader. He wasn't a great leader because he had a certain personality trait. It wasn't because he had a lot of talents and abilities. Actually, it's just the contrary of all of those things. Moses didn't really know where he fit in life, and we talked about his identity last week and leaders, how we need to have the right identity. So it isn't about your circumstances or where you come from or your titles or your positions or what other people see about you. Today, it has everything to do with about your posture and it's your bit, your leaning towards whatever it is that you're leaning toward is going to influence you, which is going to cause you to influence people as well. So today, we're going to study Moses, and we're going to talk about the posture of leadership. Would you write that down? The posture of leadership. And then look, before we get into this, let me be real clear, all right, that today is going to be a little bit different in what I'm going to be speaking

and how I'm going to be speaking. You know, at different times, I tell you guys that. Like today, I put on the hat, I'm your pastor, and there's something that I need to really pastor you through, so I'm going to be a shepherd to you today. And sometimes I stand up here and I go, okay, I'm putting on the hat today of the CEO. As we're leading this thing, I need you to understand where we're going and what we're doing. Well, today, I'm putting on the cap as your professor. That sounds like something I shouldn't be, Professor Randy. This is going to be like a Bayside leadership class, like a Bayside college leadership class. So I'm going to teach you as someone who came today, signed up for this class, and you want to be a leader. Now, maybe you came in here and didn't even know that, but I'm telling you, you are a leader, so I'm going to treat you like you came here. I mean, you showed up today, so therefore you signed up for this today, and I'm going to do everything I can to teach you how to posture yourself to be a great leader. And can I just tell you, I could make each one of these points a sermon, so we're only going to be here for a few minutes. here till 4.30 and so everybody, everybody get ready and there's like four other points I didn't, I'm not even going to get to today and so, but anyway I think I'm going to keep building all this stuff and if you come to Bayside College and you sign up for a leadership class I'll probably be teaching this stuff real soon so you can come get the rest of it there. All right, I want you to write this down, here's the first posture, the posture of obedience. In other words, you have to obey God when it doesn't make sense. Maybe even when it doesn't make sense you need to raise the quotient of being obedient to God, how about especially when it doesn't make sense, okay? So here's the deal, Moses is leading the nation of Israel out of Egypt, they had, the Israelites, they had been in slavery to Egypt for some 400 years and we, as I said, we talked about Moses and where he came from and his identity and all of that, but ultimately God calls

Moses to go be the deliverer of the nation of Israel, to get them out of Egypt and into the promised land, which we're going to study here in just a moment. And as Moses goes and eventually Pharaoh, the Pharaoh, the leader of Egypt decides, okay, I'm going to let you guys go, so he lets them go, they're into the desert and they're heading towards this, the Red Sea and in that moment as they're getting there, the Pharaoh of Egypt, he had decided, wait a minute, I made a mistake. We should not have let them go, so we're going to go hunt them down, so he brings all of the army and the chariots and all of the military that he has and he's going to come destroy them in the desert there. And so Moses finds himself with the Israelites standing in a very precarious situation. There's debate theologically about exactly where they crossed, but most scholars based on information from the Bible that it says, believe it was in this one particular area where there were kind of mountain ranges on each side and there was the sea that was in front of them and the Egyptian army that was pressing in beside them. They were in a very tight, precarious situation, and what does God tell Moses in this moment of great adversity? Chapter 14, verses 15, you can look on the screen, it says, Then the Lord said to Moses, why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Everybody say, move on. Move on. Turn to your neighbor and say, move on. Move on. Tell them right now, say, move to another seat. No, I'm just kidding. OK. If they got hot breath, you can tell them. OK. Tell the Israelites to move on, raise your staff, everybody lock in, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, OK, raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water

so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. We jump to verse 21. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the cloud drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry ground. The waters were divided and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on the right and one on the left. I want you to mark in your notes or write this down in your notes, mark it in your Bible or write it in your notes there, where God says, I want you to raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea. This is a very important commandment or a word that God gives Moses. I think it's important for us to understand this was not a military strategy, this was an obedience test. I want you to get something that God sometimes puts in our heart. We call it God speaks to us, and I don't know how He speaks to you, He doesn't speak to me in an audible voice, that would freak me out, but, but you know how it is when you just feel something, you just know like, like that's God speaking to you, and a lot of times God will give you a prompting, He will speak to you, and it won't make any sense at all. And it's not because God is giving you a strategy, it is an obedience test. And great leaders posture themselves towards being obedient to Lord even when it doesn't make sense. Look, you're going to have adversity in life, it's just the way that it is. And so as a leader, the way you would handle adversity is you would posture yourself to saying, God, I'm going to do whatever you ask me to do, even when it doesn't make sense. Now this commandment that God is giving Moses is similar to the one that we talked about last week, when Moses was first being called to be a leader and God says what is that in your hand and it was a staff, a staff, it was a stick that's all it simply was was a stick and God says I'm gonna use what you have and I want you just to surrender that to me and I'm gonna use it so he would throw the stick on the ground it became a snake picked it up and it became a stick again it would never

become a stick again if it were mine it would just be a snake forever like y'all know how they have good snakes and bad snakes they're all bad snakes to me they just that's what they do to me right and so God told Moses when he called him for the first time which we talked about last week is that I want you to just use what your have your your staff in other words it represents the same thing to you and I our abilities our talents our giftings our influence our resources God is saying I'm simply wanting you to posture yourself towards me that you would listen to what I say because I have thoughts and ways of doing things that are different than your way and if you're gonna be a great leader if you're gonna be an overcomer in life you don't have to trust me especially when it doesn't make sense and everybody ought to say amen to that but what you have to realize is that the value of what you have your staff your talents your treasures your abilities your experiences all of those things the value of those are nothing when it's in your hand but as soon as it is surrendered to the hand of God that's where the the ability and the influence and the leadership magnitude becomes alive think about it this way I've shared this before I'm not gonna go into the full illustration but it'll make sense to you I could take a basketball which you can buy at Target for $30 if you put that basketball in my hand it's worth $30 probably even a little bit less okay but if you take that basketball and you put it in the hands of Michael Jordan it's worth over four billion dollars if you take a golf ball and you put it in my hand it's worth something but if you put it in the hands of Tiger Woods it's worth 1.5 billion dollars okay if you take a nail and you put it in my hand is worth 85 cents or whatever it would be at the Ace Hardware right but if you take that same nail and you put it in the hands of Jesus the value of it is priceless in other words what changes the value of something whose hand it's in so all of your gifts and all of your talents and all of your experience and resources and all the things that you have they are of some value but what I'm trying to tell you a great leader realizes that the way to me to to double or triple or quad X my abilities in my my influence is for me

to surrender it to the hands of God because that's where the value really comes so you have to understand that God oftentimes asks leaders to obey before he explains it and I think of Amy and I moving here to Florida leaving Louisiana I mean it did not make sense it's like God we leaving everything we're leaving our family and then God we're moving to a place I don't know one person no I don't know anybody God what about our money how we gonna pay the bills God what about our kids they they're not gonna know anyone what do we do about schools and what do we do about you know handling their life and and God I gotta do it I've never done a church I've never led a church before God I don't understand why you're asking me to do all of these things and it simply was an obedience test God saw right now what was happening I didn't see it 24 years ago I had to just take my staff what I could do and I had to surrender it to God and that's where he multiplies it and it goes back I want you to notice in verse 15 in your own Bible God said this he said quit crying and move on quit crying and move on that he God is speaking not about physically what you're doing but he's speaking about the posture of your heart I have heard that it is said by some preacher I don't remember who it was so I'll take credit for it pastor Randy one time said instead of facing God and telling God how big your problems are turn to your problems and tell your problems how big your God is and and that's exactly what God is a quick crying like he's looking at God and God's I get your eyes off me get your eyes on your problem move forward towards that and watch what I do I'm bigger than your problems but your focus is wrong your posture is wrong and when we get that right then our influence begins to multiply and we can begin to impact the people that are watching us in a positive way so the posture of obedience Okay, here's the next one. The posture of being presence-driven. Ooh. Everybody get ready. Presence-driven. And not with a T. I mean an E-N-C-E presence, like the presence of God. So, here we are in Exodus chapter 33, where we're going to study this principle in the posture of Moses as a leader.

So, Moses, at this point, he'd just gone up to the mountain and received the law, the Ten Commandments, as we call it, the law of God. Like, this is how we're going to interact as people with God. Okay, so Moses comes down the mountain and gives it to the people. And then God is about to bring them into the Promised Land after that. I mean, that's the whole plan. Here's how we're going to interact. Here's the relationship that we're going to have. And so Moses is going to lead you into the Promised Land. But while Moses is up on the mountain, the people get impatient. They get like, where is God? Why has God and Moses taken so long? So they build a golden calf and they start worshiping the wrong thing. They get impatient. They start putting their trust in the wrong thing. And God is mad at them, and so is Moses. And that's where we learn this posture of presence-driven. Here we are in Exodus 33. We're going to start off in verses 1 through 3. The Lord said to Moses, leave this place, you and the people, I like how he says, and the people you brought out of Egypt. You know, it's like a parental thing, you know, like a husband says to the wife, the wife says to the husband, you better take your son or your daughter or whatever. Like, well, wait a minute, we're in this thing together. I just think that's so funny how God's like, no, the people you brought, I don't have anything to do with them. So, you brought out of Egypt, and I want you to go up to the land that I promised an oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants. I will send an angel, look at this, take note of this, God's saying, I'm going to send an angel, and I'm going to drive out the Canaanites, and the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Peptides, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and the Termites. You're getting rid of all the ites, okay?

He says, go up, look at this. You guys, take note of this. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. In other words, this place is going to be prosperous. Everything you need is going to go there, but I will not go with you because you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way. Sounds like a parent. I will bust you up, brought you into this world. I'll take you out, make you another one, look just like you, you know? Okay, God, check this out. There's so much you can preach about God's mercy. He's going to let them go to the promised land even though they were rebellious, but I'm not going with you. I want you to hear this. It is possible for things to be going right in your life, and it doesn't mean you're walking in the favor of God. You could look at someone else's life and see maybe some blessings on their life. It doesn't mean God is with them. You could pray, and you could see God, and you could see answers to your prayers, but it doesn't mean that you're walking in the favor of God. Man, there's so much good stuff here. It is one thing to see and experience the blessings of God. It's a leader's responsibility to understand I want to walk in the favor of God. And I'm going to teach you in this point how to walk in the favor of God because you could run your life, you could run your business, you could run your family, you could run your friend group, you could run your schooling, you could run your small group. You could do all of these things your way and not walk in the favor of God. It can happen. It does happen. And God says, and the reason why I'm not going to go with you is because you're stiff-necked.

Everybody's like, do your neck like this, make sure it's not too stiff. I mean, I hurt a little bit. Look, I'm getting so old, I get injured from sleep. I wake up in the morning like, eww, what in the world, right? I'm stiff everywhere. Okay, so listen, these guys were stiff-necked. They were rebellious. Y'all better not. Okay, think about this. They were stiff-necked. In other words, you're rebellious is what God is saying. Proverbs chapter 6, verse 16, I believe it is, says there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him. I think we should take note of that. In fact, I think we need to teach a whole series understanding God hates this. Well, that's a pretty strong word. But you know what number one is? rebellious Rebellion haughty eyes as he calls it in God in other words because he detests something He will not partner with something that he detests Now I told you you could have this go ahead. God will still answer your prayers, but it doesn't mean that he's with you so Moses response is his is his posture What does he say in moments like this? This is right. This is where the money is. Okay, you guys listen to what happens next Okay, now we are in verses 12 through 17 So Moses said to the Lord you've been telling me lead these people but you haven't let me know whom you will send with me You have said I know you by name check that out once you underline that it's important God says I know you by name Moses and you have found Favor if I say favor with me if you are pleased with me God teach me your ways So that I may know and continue everybody stop

everybody say come and abide Hey, it's right here So that you will know and continue You will come to understanding of something and then you will abide in it. That's our words for the year. It's it's in here It's all over the place and I will find favor with you. Remember that this nation it is your people The Lord replied my presence will go with you and I will give you rest Then Moses said to him if your presence doesn't go with us Don't send us from here How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us? What else is going to distinguish or separate me and your people from all the other people on the earth? I? Want to teach you now I showed you how rebellion and pride and not being obedient to God can help you still walk in the Answered prayers of God, but we want the favor of God. Okay, so right here. He says this is how you find favor Everybody say favor again Find it You ever you ever lost something before and you know, you were looking for it You know how good it is when you find what you've lost, right you by the way You know what's interesting to me and when you lose something is you like look I'm looking for whatever and people go Well, where's the last place you had it? Well, you big dummy if I knew that I just go get it Like that's what I'm trying to figure out. Where did I have it last? And then sometimes people say once you find you go. Oh, it was in the last place. I looked well, of course You didn't find it and keep looking These are things that keep me up at night y'all I'm just sorry Welcome in here. All right So listen great leaders know that God's favor is found in getting to know his heart That's why Moses said teach me your ways your ways I Don't want to just see your blessings I want to know your heart not just your hand

God's favor is found in seeking his heart Not his hand His hand represents his blessings what he can do doors. He can open miracles He can perform all of the things that God can do which we could spend eternity talking about those. It's not seeking that It's like God, what does your heart say one thing? I know about great great leaders does that leaders they have a posture to know his heart not just this hand of blessing Okay, so now let's take it. We're gonna go we like we getting we going in there All right, now we're gonna go a layer deeper. So now we know what God's God causes or causes God to not Walk in his favor. Now. We know how to find his favor or what causes his favor, right? Seeking the heart not the hand. So how do we do that? Moses teaches us as well. Now, we're gonna jump into verses 7 through 11. We skipped that just a moment ago So here we are now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away calling it the tent of meeting and Whenever Moses went out to the tent all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents watching Moses until he entered his tent as Moses went to the tent the pillar of cloud came down and stayed at the entrance while the Lord spoke to Moses Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the inch to the tent They all stood and they worshipped each at the entrance to their own tent then the Lord would speak to Moses face to face look at this as one speaks to a friend I Want you in your Bible to circle that word the tent of meeting or I want you to write it in your notes as well This right here, this is it, church. If you don't leave with anything I tell you this weekend, if there's nothing else that you can't implement into your life, I want you to understand this. Because that tent of meeting, it represents a space and a place for just you and God. And if you are gonna be a person that postures yourself towards God and receiving what he has for you,

you have to posture yourself in such a way where you're shutting off the world and everything that is going on, and you have to find your own tent of meeting so that you can have some moments with God because it is in there that he reveals things to you that you can get nowhere else. And that means you turn this off, and you put this face down. You put it on do not disturb. I don't know what you do, but you have to have a tent of meeting. You have to have a place where you connect with God, where he begins to show you his heart so you know his ways, the things that he is going to do so you can align yourself over that, so you can walk in the favor of God. And if you don't have that tent of meeting, that place and that space to connect with God, you will not hear from God the secrets of heaven so you can walk them out on earth so that heaven can show itself on earth in your life. This is the sauce, everybody. This is where it happens. We have to have that place. I can't tell you how many times I've been faced with situations, whatever it is. I mean, all the things that you would deal with too. It's not like I don't face those things. And I haven't known what to do,

but it was in my tent of meeting that God shows me this is how you handle that. This is what I would say here. And then I'm able to go out and to do those things. Remember, we said this in point one, it's being obedient to what God has says even when it doesn't make sense. It doesn't mean that what he gives you in the tent of meeting is gonna make sense. It just means that's his way of handling things, which is way better than our ways. And he's changed people's hearts. He's changed situations and circumstances. And then I walk out and I know God's ways to trust him in that and I get to walk in his favor because of what he gave me in the tent of meeting. Golly, you gotta be the kind of leader that's not asking for God's hand, but you're seeking his heart. Because the scripture says in Isaiah, your own ears will hear him. Right behind you, it says their voice will be saying, this is the way you should go, whether it's to the right or to the left. How are you gonna get to a place where you hear the voice of God saying, this is the way, go in it. No, that's the wrong way, this is the right way, unless you create a tent of meeting. Church, please, that's our posture of being in his presence

is by having a place just like that. And why is this so important? As Moses said, God, if you don't do this, what's gonna distinguish me from every other person on this planet? What's gonna distinguish your people from everybody else? I mean, if we're just looking for wisdom, well, you can get that like everybody else has. But if you need a godly, heavenly download of wisdom in what to do, well, the God's presence has to go with you. Look, your family could be like everybody else's family. Your business could be like everybody else's business. You could be an employee like every other employee. You could be a student like every other student. You could be a small group leader like every other small group leader. Or you can be one that walks and operates in the presence of God, to where all of a sudden people look at you and they go, man, there's something different about them. It's walking in the favor of God because you are committed to being in a tent of meeting with God, where you can seek the presence of God, get download from heaven, and all of a sudden things happen to you. And not just because you see God's deeds, because you know his heart, church, and he's operating in your life in a way that other people don't have.

And it distinguishes you, it separates you. Everybody say favor. Come on, give God some praise for his favor right now. Yes. I like this thought. Most leaders ask God bless my plans. But great leaders say, God, show me your plan. Rather than doing what you wanted to do, what you want to do, and then asking God to bless it, it's talking about finding out what God is blessing and then doing that. That's where the favor is. Good things can happen even on the other side. I mean, God was gonna send them to the promised land anyway, but they weren't gonna be in the favor of God. That's what distinguishes you above every other person on this planet, is walking in the favor of God, because you know the heart of God, not just the hand of God. Okay, I could go on and on and on, but I'm running out of time. All right, let me get to the last point, which has sub-points. Anyway, the posture of community. This is the posture of a person, of a leader, realizing that you can't do it alone. Moses learned that even though he was a God-appointed leader, he needed other people around him. He needed other people around him. So now we're in Exodus chapter 17. The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, choose some of our men and go out and fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. Here we are. Back to the staff, right? So Joshua, verse 10, fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered.

And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. And then Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. And Joshua, so Joshua, overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. So incredible. As Moses held up his hands, they prevailed. When Moses' hands went down, they began to lose ground. Look, this tells us that leadership is not just organizational, it's not just structural, and it's not just strategy. It's spiritual in nature. And that goes back to our point that we were just talking about being presence-driven. And let me go back and tag some things here. Look, what happens when you're in a valley has a lot to do with what you do on the mountaintop. Do you understand? That's what they were. They were fighting in the valley, but it was Moses' hands lifted to the Lord that won the battle in the valley. And I don't know what valley you're in, and I don't know what valleys you're facing, or valley you just came out of, but I can guarantee you one thing, the reason why you overcame whatever it was that you were battling in the valley is because of what you did on the mountaintop. This is a spiritual principle right here. And so, that's why presence-driven is such a big deal. And what's interesting to me is this place where this battle took place is in Rephidim, which means rest. Oh, this is so good. The devil will come after your rest.

He wants to steal your peace. And so, if he steals your peace, most times we become erratic. And when we become erratic, we make wrong decisions. And when we make wrong decisions, we step outside of the blessings, the hand, and the favor in the heart of God. So we got to—I'm still preaching on the second point. On the third point. I'm going back to that. That's how big of a deal this place where you and I are downloading from God what we need to do as we're walking through this journey, this spiritual journey on earth. So here's the main point. I want you to write this down. Every leader has limits. It's said that Moses' hand grew tired. Those four words are incredibly encouraging. In other words, there will come a time and moment in all of our life as leaders where our hands are going to grow tired. OK, I've got to close this service, so I'm going to get to this illustration to help you understand this. OK, sorry. OK, if I were to ask you how heavy this glass is, I mean, there's probably, I don't know, 10 ounces of water. You say, well, 10 ounces is what that weighs. But that's not really the true weight of this thing, and in fact, I would submit to you that that may not even be the most important thing to know, because I can hold this glass whatever it weighs, and it's not really that big of a deal. But if I were to hold this glass for an hour, well, the weight of that would begin to change in my own mind, in my own heart, and even physically. And the longer I held it, the more difficult it would become. If I held this for maybe five or six, eight hours, my fingers would start tingling, and

my hand would probably start shaking. And at some point in time, if I tried to do this for a day or two, eventually my whole arm would become numb, and I would, eventually I would drop this glass. I could no longer handle the weight of something that was easy to carry at the beginning. So the weight of this is not what's important, it's how long I carry it is what's really important. leader oftentimes we think, well, I got this. I can handle this on my own. It's not really that big of a deal. It's how long are you going to carry it alone that is the big deal. That's why the posture of community is more important than what you think it is. Because oh, I got this. I can handle this. Well, even like, like major things happen in life. And we go, it's okay. I'm going to, I'm going to make it through and I'm just going to push through this. But the weight of that eventually is going to get so heavy that this thing's going to begin to shake and you're not going to be able to control it anymore. In other words, you and I need people in our lives that will support us and surround us when we're carrying life because life gets heavy. So the, the, the, the score of a leader and how great they are is not what they can handle, but it's how many people are around them or who actually is around them. Because Moses was dealing with this very same thing. His hands got tired and the great leader who did great things needed people holding up his hands in difficult moments. Look, here's the bottom line. Moses was insecure. In fact, he argued with God. He felt very inadequate. And I would submit to you, he made a lot of mistakes. But what made Moses great, it was none of those things. It was his posture and lean towards the Lord that made him such a great leader. It was his posture. Everybody say posture. Would you bow your heads? So I know for a fact that there are some of you here today and when it comes to taking the first step of leadership, it's the posture towards surrendering your life to Christ. And we talked about obedience early on. And I don't mean obedience to what God is asking you to do, I mean obedience to what God has already done. And that is He sent Jesus on this earth who lived a perfect life and died on the cross with your sin and it's posturing yourself towards that, surrendering yourself towards the Lordship of Jesus that allows you to live in eternity with God. And maybe you're here today and as a person you're not postured in that way. You never allow Jesus

to be your Lord and Savior. You're still trying to manage things on your own. And the first thing you need around you, community, it is not an Aaron and a Her, it's actually Jesus who could lift your sins and remove them. If you've never done that before, I'm going to count to three. I don't want you to raise your hand. Say, Pastor Randy, I want to be included in this prayer. Come on, would you do it on the count of three? One, two, three. Come on, lift your hand up high. Say, that's me, Pastor Randy, I need that. That's me. Come on, don't be ashamed. Let the Lord know. Let the world know right now. It's me. I need that. I need to change my posture. Wherever you are, whatever location, raise your hand. I love it. OK, we're going to all pray this prayer quickly. Say, Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me. Thank you, Jesus. You postured yourself. You positioned yourself in a place to take over my sin so that it could be removed forever. So today, I recognize that and now I position myself, I posture myself underneath you, Jesus. You are now my Lord. You are now my Savior. I'm following you in everything that I do and in every way that I do it. Jesus, you are my Lord. Amen. Let's give God some praise for what he's done.