You Can’t Make Me! | Road Trip | Pastors Blake and Amanda Clark

We got two amazing pastors, two amazing preachers in the house today. I'm gonna get out of their way because they got a smoking hot message for us today. And it is not a word, I truly believe this. I told you this in private. I believe it's the word our church needs. And so I'm asking for your help. Last gathering, packed house. We went into the time of invitation and there was resistance. You could feel God in this place. You could feel God at work and people were white knuckling. They were holding on. I shall not be moved. Let's not do that this gathering. When the invitation comes, God speaks to you, move out. Just everyone take your hands like this. Just put your hands like this. Just surrender to God now so it's not a battle later. Come on, we're gonna do something right now. Put your hands up. Just say, God, I surrender right now. Speak to me. Put your hands down. I love you guys. Listen, from St. Pete, Florida is our best friends. We were in kindergarten together. We were college roommates together.

There's no speaker on this planet I'd rather have here than pastors Blake and Amanda Clark. I want you to make them feel right at home. Come on, make some noise. Let's go. I love you, buddy. Have fun. Hey, good morning. How are you guys doing today? What's up? All right, I want you guys to have a seat, man. Oh man, we, man, I are so grateful to be here. Man, like Tim said, I've known Tim from kindergarten. It's been, we've been friends for a long time. I'm not gonna tell you how long. It's been a long time. Here's the thing though. I've got a lot of great stories on Tim. So if you want to come see me afterwards, I might have something for you. You think he's crazy now. You should have seen him 25 years ago. Woo, man, we're so, I'm so grateful. Let's not leave Stephanie out of that. No, that's true. Well, yeah, Stephanie. You guys think she's wild now. This is tamed down, Stephanie. That's right. Oh man, but we are so honored, grateful for your friendship,

grateful that we can be here. We, I love you like a brother. I love him like a brother. I love you like a brother. I love him like a brother. And I'm just excited for this. And we're excited for on behalf of Radius to be here. Yeah, I get to thank you on behalf of our church family in St. Petersburg, Radius Church. First of all, 12 years ago, we started and because of the generosity of Momentum, you all supported us for the first couple of years. And because of your generosity, right now there's still goodness happening in St. Petersburg. So I just want to let you know, we believe very strongly that generosity was like a, it really was something that you planted, a seed that was planted, that there's still crops growing. So we want to thank you for that. We also want to thank you because Pastor Tim has served on our board since we started. So thank you for sharing him so graciously with us, as well as want to thank you because they've been up down to our place to speak multiple times and our church family loves them. And we're so grateful to be partners in ministry with you. And a couple of years ago when the hurricanes came through and we had two devastating hurricanes right in a row,

and we had many people in our church family who had lost everything, as well as our community. So many people who were in need and we reached out and Momentum answered that call. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Big time. Huge. Yeah, I'm going to get teary eyed because you woo wooed. And I thank you for your generosity. And I thank you for sending teams down. You guys know, because you're Florida, you get it. When it comes and it's bad, it's bad. And so we appreciate how you loved and were Jesus to our church family. They still talk about that friendship. So thank you so much. Yeah, you helped us be a light in the community. I think we were able to help over 60 families with their homes. And as you guys know, living in Florida, these homes were devastated, just torn apart. And you've got a group down there and we did so much. Thank you for that, man. So Pastor Tim kicked off our y'all summer series this last week called road, family road trip, right? The journey through the 10 commandments. And it was so good. We got to check it out online. It was good.

And it was this idea. He looked at the first command, no other God before me, right, y'all with me. And if you missed that, by the way, you can go online and watch it. We did on the way up. It was so good. The point that really I thought was so good, Tim, was when you said that God doesn't want to be just the number one. He wants to be the only God in our life. And I thought, woo. I'm only going to talk to myself, but there are times there's a lot of space shared by a lot of gods in my life. And so that was so good. Thank you. And we get the privilege of kind of continuing the 10 commandments. We're in commandment two. We're going to jump into scripture and really read this part. I'm going to read in Exodus 20. I'm going to start with verse one. So we'll review the verses from Pastor Tim's message last week, and then we'll. Jump right into commandment number two. Echoes. Then God gave the people all these instructions. I am the Lord your God who rescued you

from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other God but me. Verse four. You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children. The entire family is affected, even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. I think it's really good to start off right away with understanding that there is, as we look at these commandments, as you will continue throughout the summer, there is a negative if you don't listen and follow God. There's a protection umbrella of God's way and we can get out from under it. And it says that there's a curse up to third and fourth generation. That's heavy. But it's really important to see the next line because to a thousand generations is how God lavishes his unfailing love. So I want you to see, because we can get this idea that God is a negative God,

but God is a positive God. God wants to bless you and he has unfailing love to give for a thousand generations. We're not, this wasn't even in the notes, but here's what I heard when I heard that. The Bible says, for sin abounds, grace much more abounds. You can't outrace or outpace God's grace. And I love that, man. By the way, this is a third service. So it's going to be crazy. All right. We're going to get excited. All right. The Bible says the last shall be first and the first shall be last. So you guys are in first place. Come on, that's what I'm talking about right now. But seriously, Tim's title last week was only me, right? This idea of only me, if we had to have a title for this week, it was you can't make me. So like I told you, I've been friends with Tim since kindergarten, but also I've been friends with Pastor Stephanie since we were little. Our families were together. This was before Tim and Steph ever got to know each other. I was friends with her and her family. And I have two sisters. She has a sister.

And so a lot of times after church on Sunday, we'd come over, have some dinner before church in the evening. Praise God, there's no church in the evening. Oh no, the pastor should be saying that, but come on, let's be real. And so- I'm going to reign you in. I'm going to reign you in the whole time. I see how this is going to go. All right, stay focused. All right, stay focused, Blake. But no, we would get together and I'd feel outnumbered. Have you ever felt outnumbered? All right, there was four girls and one me and we got to go run in the woods every once in a while. It was a pretty good time. But they had this little school set up in the back of their house and they wanted to play school. I'm like, I don't even like school. When I'm not in school, I don't want to play school. You know what I'm saying? And then they would guilt me and like, oh, you need to play with this. And here's what I'd say, I was like, you can't make me. You're not my boss. And end up, actually I didn't give it all the time. But I think that really does sum up the second command. I hear a guy going, you can't make me, you are not my boss. And if this message had a tagline,

it would be you can't make the maker. That's right. When you make the maker, you become the maker. Everything gets flipped upside down and wrong. That's right. You can't make the maker. And one of the reasons you can't make the maker is because if you make the maker, you make him small. You make him your size. In Genesis, there's a story of Jacob with his two wives, Rachel and Leah. And as they're leaving his father-in-law's house, Rachel, one of his wives, starts tucking in some idols in her backpack. And they run off with some of her daddy's idols. This speaks to the size of the idol. If you can tuck it in your backpack, right? Later in Judges, there's another story. It's a wild story. You need to read your Bible. It's interesting, right? There's a wild story in Judges that has two chapters. Crazy. It's about a guy named Micah, not the prophet, a different Micah. And he takes some coins, some silver coins, about like 22, I think it is. And he forms an idol. How big is an idol that's made from 22 silver coins? It can't be that big, right?

And then he builds like a box around it, a little shrine. And then he hires a priest, and he sets up worship in his house. And then somebody comes along and likes the idol, so then they steal it. See, if you start making God. God, you'll make him your size. You'll make him pocket size and you'll make God small. That's so good. I just thought of this as all, I know you're gonna reign me in, but I just heard it. This Micah character built his own little church, he was playing church. And we played church when we have a small guy. All right. Yeah, that needed said. We craft it how we want it and we put our own little two people into it. But God's bigger than that because here's the thing. If there's a God that you can hide in your backpack or on your tent, or if it's a God that can be stolen, he's a small God. And here's the truth. If he's a small God, he's a weak God. And I think Isaiah later on is calling Israel back because we see Israel struggling with idols and not obeying this command for generations and the curse and the struggle is there. And Isaiah is called to call the people of Israel back. In Isaiah 44, he talks about the impotence, the powerless of this idol. Isaiah 44 verse nine, it says this, how foolish are those who manufacture idols. These prized objects are really worthless. These people who worship idols don't know this, so they put themselves to shame. Who but a fool would make his own God? We could just pause there for a second. An idol that cannot help him one bit.

Isaiah is saying, you know, these idols, these things we create, these small gods, they're weak guys. They have no power in our life. And Isaiah says, no, this is not the God that I'm calling you back to. In fact, just four chapters earlier, God's on display. He said, let me tell you, if you've forgotten who I am, let me remind you of the great God that I am. Isaiah 40. We all need reminded who God is. Let's go. And we do, because I love these verses. It says, who else has held the ocean in his hand? Who else has measured the heavens with his fingers? Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed the mountains and the hills on a scale? He keeps going, to whom will you compare me? What image can you find to resemble me? There is nothing you can create that can even mimic me. He keeps going. And then he says this, can you compare to an idol formed in mold, overlaid with gold and decorated with silver chains? The answer is no. Verse 25 says, to whom will you compare me? Who is my equal, says the Holy one. I love God. God's not, he's not shy. He's like, I'm done with you worshiping these little idols. Let me remind you of who I am. That's right. I'm a great God.

We keep reading verse 26, look up into the heavens. Who created the stars? Who calls them and brings them out like an army one after another, calling each of them by name. I can't even remember all the names of my, the solar system half the time. Maybe I can. But because of, everybody say it, his great power and his incomparable strength. Not a single one is methane. Oh, Jacob. You know what I'm saying? Let's forget Jacob. Put our name. Yeah. Oh, Blake. How can you say the Lord does not see your troubles? Oh, Israel. Put your name. Oh, Blake. How can you say God ignores your rights? We say that. And then Isaiah, he's getting some of these, have you not heard? Do you, have you not understood the Lord is the everlasting God? The creator of all the earth. He never grows weary or weak. He, no one can measure the depths of his understanding. Let's keep reading verse 29. He gives power to the weak and he gives strength to the powerless. This is our God. This is our God. A passage that's really been speaking to me that kind of keeps building on who this God

is, is Psalm 65. I'm going to put that up on the screen. Y'all need to write that one down. Yep. This is in the message version and it has just been speaking. You know what I'm saying? The writer starts talking about how we all live in God's house and then it says this, all your salvation wonders are on display in your trophy room. Okay. Now we're going to start looking at the trophies. We're going to see what's inscribed on the gold plate underneath all these trophies. Are you ready? I want you to read these with me. Here we go. One, two, three. Earth tamer. Ocean pourer. Mountain maker. Hill dresser. Muzzler of sea storm and wave crash. Of mobs and noisy riot. I'm going to read. Far and wide they'll come to a stop. They'll stare in awe and wonder. Dawn and dusk take turns calling, come and worship. Now listen. That's your God. That's the one you pray to. What if you start praying to him. Hey, mountain maker, hey, ocean pourer, hey, when he goes to the closet, ladies, he's going

to dress a hill. That's the size of your God. If you start making the maker, you're going to make him small and you're going to miss out on the bigness of who your God is. That's right. Who wants to miss out on who, how big God is? Come on. You got big problems. You need a big God. You better get him out of the idol. You better get him out of that pocket size version. Because here's how you'll know that you've made God an idol in your life. Your problems are big. Yeah. And I can, I think of David, David, the Israel's army in, in, in Samuel, they only saw Goliath, but David saw a God that was bigger than Goliath. And if we know we've shrunk God down to an idol, our problems are bigger than who God is. That's right. But I'm here to proclaim that God is great, that he is big. He is the mountain shaper in your life. Whatever you're going through right now. I don't know if it's a family situation, it's in your marriage and your finances. I don't know. But God does. He sees you and he knows you and he calls you by name. He says, I am not that weak God. I am willing to walk with you through it. And I'm the willing that's going to bring you out of it. That's the God we serve.

And when we make him an idol, we make him small. So if you make him the maker, you're going to make him small. But if you make the maker, you're also going to make him yours. Which is also very dangerous because your God is a God you control. This is, this is, this will step on some toes. I know it stepped on my toes as we've prepared it and every service so far. We like to think that God is ours. You're like, what do you mean? God's ours. He's not ours. There's an interesting story in the book of Joshua. Y'all know Joshua? He was the commander of the Lord's army that was going to send Israel into the promised land. 40 years earlier, Israel had seen the problems that I, it's too big for my God. I'm walking away. But God said, Joshua, I'm going to take the children of Israel. You're going to lead them in to the promised land. And the very first battle he has to hit is Jericho. You heard of Jericho? It was a big city with a big wall that needed a big God to do a big thing, right? That was Jericho. And Joshua was called to the task to lead the people. And as any great military leader, he steps out before this and kind of surveys the land. One morning he's walking up, he encounters a man with his sword drawn. And he doesn't understand that who he's encountering is not just a man with a sword, it is God in flesh. And we see this scripture in Joshua chapter five. We're going to see two verses and we're going to see this part. Let's go into the first verse right here.

When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, he looked up and he saw a man standing in front of him with his sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and demanded, are you friend or foe? Let me put that in our terms. Hey, are you on our side? Are you on their side? Now that's how we do with God. God, you surely on our side, right? We've got the corner market. It's only going to happen here. We got it all figured out. And look what the answer of what God, or this man says, who is God, he says, verse 14, neither one. I am the commander of the Lord's army. I am on God's side. I am on my own side. I'm not on your side and I'm not on their side. Everybody needs to get on my side. And here's what happens when we make God ours, when we think we can make him our mascot, we make him our lucky charm. When we think we have the ownership of him, we begin to use him just to do what we want to do. Here are our sports teams, right? I don't think God's going to bless us, right? Our team, not the other team. And we all know in here, just to make it clear, the only team that God would be cheering for is the University of Tennessee Vols, honestly. First service, second service. I would like to officially apologize right now. I see some people already mad now, all right, anyway.

But more important, just joking there, but more than that, we use God as a mascot for our political side or our political view. But even more than that, we make God our mascot for our own agenda. I don't know about you, but a lot of times I come and say, OK God, I've got it all figured out. Here's how this needs to happen. I just need you to go ahead and sign off. I don't consult him, because surely God's going to do what I want, and so I just bring him along. Just go ahead and sign off. I prayed, but I'm not praying for your will, I'm praying for you to bless what I want to do. And when we do that, we make the maker a mascot. He becomes an idol that becomes something we think we can control. Because we like control. Anybody else in here? We like to think we have control. We like being in charge. We like something at our beck and call, right? This is why I think we love AI. Anybody else in here? A little chat GPT? I love chat, all right? It's good. got some healthy things to it. What I do love about chat is first of all, if I ask the question, it doesn't say I'm busy right now, I can't help you. It's like, all right, let's go. And then the second thing it does, it's quick.

Like I'm gonna stomp it, it gives an outline of everything, not my message, it gives me outlines of what I'm doing. You know the third thing I love about it? It says, Blake, I love that idea. I see where you're coming from, that's very insightful. And I'm like, thanks Skippy. Yeah, I like AI, it makes me feel good about myself. But here's the problem, we try to treat God like AI. When we want it, how we want it, and just make us feel good about ourselves. Yeah. That's what we do when we make an idol. I have a young friend, couple, they're newly married and I was talking to them and he is in his doc, he's working on his being a medical doctor and so he was getting ready to do, it's like this whole thing to ask for your residency, it's like a whole parade almost. And so in that, it's a lot of pressure to pick where you're gonna go and what you wanna do. So they sat down together and they plugged into chat like his test scores and his dreams and his goals and what his propensity are and where they wanna end up eventually. And they plugged all that into chat and chat told them, here are the top 10 schools that you should apply for. And I talked to them two to three days later and they had had a moment with the Holy Spirit where they were like, man, we needed the answer.

We had this form, we had to fill it out right away and we didn't even take a minute to ask God. We threw it in chat, we didn't have time. And I was like, man, right? We're all, I mean, we're all getting those Holy Spirit chill bumps, right? Because how often do I do that? And I think in a world where I love my Amazon Prime, right? I love that sometimes it'll come overnight. I think in a world where everything is for my convenience on my time schedule, right when I need it. It's a dangerous place to be and the idol of God can be a fake God because I wanna just plug and play. I want him on my time schedule. The truth is in the Old Testament, there are 40 to 45 times that literally tell you to wait on the Lord. And I'm 49 next month. I'm 49 next month and I remember a time when I did have to wait on things. But I don't have to anymore. So if you're sitting in the room and you're in Gen Z world, you've never had to wait on something. I'm gonna tell you something about your faith and I'm sorry, because I hate it too. But you're gonna have to wait on the Lord. In fact, in Isaiah 40 that he was reading earlier, later it says, wait on the Lord and you'll renew your strength.

If you don't have strength in your spiritual walk, I'm gonna tell you something. It may be because you have learned to rush past what God is doing. You've learned to rush past instead of waiting on God. And there's something that's built in the wait that I wish wasn't. I'm gonna be honest with you, I wish it wasn't, but I'm here to tell you I read scripture and it's just true and I've lived my life long enough to recognize it. So there's something about just sitting with God and if I make the maker, I'm gonna make him on my time schedule. I'm gonna make him mine. My agenda, something I can control and that's really dangerous. And it's dangerous because we can't control him. And he will never just be for our agenda. But you know what? I'm glad, aren't you? It gives me comfort that I have a God that cannot be controlled or manipulated. There's an interesting thing. We can't claim God as ours, but here's what I want you to hear. God has claimed you. And that's so much better. It's so much better. Isaiah 49 says this,

see verse 16, I have written your name on the palms of my hand. Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem's walls and ruins. The word written here in Hebrew is the word carve. It is not the exact same Hebrew in Exodus 20 where it says carved idols, but it carries the same meaning. Here's what he's saying. You don't have to carve an idol because I've carved you on my hands. You don't have to hang on to me and make sure people don't steal me. I'm hanging on to you. Come on, come on. There's a God that knows you by name. He knows you. He loves you. He has got your name on his hands. He says, you are mine. You don't have control of me, but I have control of you. And God, I thank you for that because when we make God an idol. We try to make them and craft them in our image and make them ours. So when you make the maker, you'll make them small. You'll make them yours, but also you'll make them jealous. That's right. Go back to that Exodus 20 passage that we read.

And what did God say? I am a jealous God. Okay, so let's look at another part of scripture. It's actually one of my favorite parts of scripture, which is odd and tells you probably more than it should about me. 1 Samuel chapter five, let's set this up. What's happening is the army of the Lord is going into battle against the Philistines. And the Lord has not told them to do this, but they took the Ark of the Lord, which represents the presence of God. And they said, let's put it out front. In fact, as Blake was saying earlier, let's make it a mascot. Let's say, look, God's on our team, God's on our side. And so they marched into battle with the Ark of the Lord out front. Guess what happens? They actually lose and the Ark of God is stolen. So the presence, what represents the presence of the Lord is no longer with Israel. Let's look at 1 Samuel chapter five. After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the town of Ashton. They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon. Okay, theologians say that this idol is probably six foot to nine foot tall.

And so they, picture it, it's a temple and they've put the Ark of God that represents the presence of the Lord right beside their idol. Let's see what happens. But when the citizens of Ashton went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground. Don't look over that. Face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord. Okay, God's saying, I'm a jealous God. You gonna set that up in front of me? You think that's equal to me? I don't think it is. But what do they do? They do the same stinking thing that we do. So they took Dagon and they put him back in his place. They propped up their God. They're like, oh shoot. He needs help. He needs help. What happens next? But the next morning, the same thing happened. Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark again. But this time, his head and hands had broken off and were lying in the doorway. Only the trunk of his body was left intact. Listen, God is a jealous God. And there are things in our life, I just wanna speak because I've been walking

with some people lately back home. If you don't know them, it's fine. I can talk about it. And they put friendship, a friendship, a group of friends as a God. And God came gently and he asked them to give it up. They might not have done that well. They kinda held on a little bit. And then God did something that laid down the friendship in front of him. We better prop that back up. Here's what you need to know. It's not a threat. It's the fact your God is jealous of you. How precious is that? He loves you that much. He's jealous of your affection. But he's saying, whatever you prop up in front of me, you need to recognize who I am. And it will fall in front of me. And you don't wanna hold on to things that can have their head and hands cut off. That's not a God you want in your life. But you're sitting here and you're like, okay, I get that. But Blake and Amanda don't know this, but I don't have a Dagon setting up in my house. I got no six foot, nine foot statue. So I think I'm good. This message was not for me today. But when we looked back at that Exodus 20 passage,

we read the word idol. So I kinda wanted to go back and revisit that word. So if we unpack that in what it truly means, in the Hebrew word. See, the book of Exodus would have first been written in ancient Hebrew. That's a little different than Hebrew. In ancient Hebrew or paleo Hebrew, that's a pictographic language. Like Egyptian, we think of hieroglyphics when we think of that. It's a pictographic language. So every letter is actually a picture. So I wanted us to put the word idol up. This is the word idol in ancient Hebrew. And each of those letters, remember that you're going to read a different way than you read English one way, you read Hebrew the other way. And each letter represents a picture that means something. So the. First one letter is peg, which means, you can say it with me, mouth. What is spoken, proclaimed, or declared? Okay, the second letter means support. It literally is like a cane. So like if I needed that, if I had a limp and I had to have a cane, that's what the second letter is, what a person relies on or leans on or puts their trust in.

And that third letter, we see a lot in the ancient Hebrew, it's a shepherd's staff, and it always means authority. It always means what leads you. So what an idol is, if you read the bottom, let's read that together, the conclusion. Will you read that with me? An idol is something a person proclaims, relies upon, or allows to lead them. Now, if I asked you, do maybe you have an idol in your home? It may not look like a six to nine foot statue, but are there things in your life that you've been declaring louder than you declare Jesus? Are there things in your life that you've been trusting in? Maybe, hey, maybe I'm just talking to myself here, but things that help you regulate your nervous system more than you let God be your escape, relies on, or is there something that's been leading you? Maybe there's a person, you need their approval to make any move. Wow. What's leading you that's not God? All of those things, all of those people, all of those situations are our idols, and they need to fall, and here's the truth of that. God wants them to fall. So either we lay them down, or they will be laid down. Now, what's better, me releasing them to the Lord, or God cutting the head off? Yeah, that's right. And just like de Gonzales, whose hands were cut off,

the things that you're putting your trust in were never designed or able to hold you. And we all do. We put our faith and our trust in so many things. If I just get this number in the bank account, if I just get this promotion, if I just figure out this relationship, that everything's gonna be okay. Come on, let's be real. We've all chased these things, and when we've got them, they were empty. We needed more because they weren't designed to hold us and support us. We end with this because the Old Testament restricts any image of the visible God. But the New Testament proclaims that there was an exact image of God in Jesus Christ. He was saying, look, you can't make an idol because who I am, you can't even get close to. That the real image of God is Jesus in person. It's why it says in John, why John was writing his book to proclaim the good news of who Jesus was. He was an artist. He used poetry as he tried to describe Jesus. In John chapter one, he speaks of Jesus as the Word. In John 1, 14, I'm gonna use the translation. I grew up learning it. It's on there different, but it's the same thing. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father. Yeah. See, an idol could never measure up. It's why it says in Colossians chapter one, that Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. Yeah. Jesus came and made all idols obsolete. You know what he said here? He says, all you need is him. It's why it says in scripture that all the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus. That's why it says in the book of Ephesians, or actually Philippians, it says, God, Jesus, who was God, but did not hang on to his divine privilege, but gave it up and came and became man and took on the form of a servant and were willing to die on the cross. This is why no image could ever replace God. That's right. There was nothing that could measure up to the express image of God. You may be here and say, I don't know who God is. I see a world, I see religions, and I see God do this and that. I don't know God.

If you want to know what God looks like, look at what Jesus did, how he lived, how he loved, how he gave up all things for you and me. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only thing worthy of praise and worship. And maybe someone here today, you've grown up in religion. Maybe you've been coming to church here for a little bit and, I mean, you like this church, but you're coming back at it because when you were a kid, you were in it and then you, you did religion and then you got to be 18, you realized there was nothing to it. It was empty. Or you've just been a good person, try to follow the rules. You try to follow all the rules and we all know that we can never follow all the rules. Then we have to fake it. And we have to fake it. And we feel like that broken idol. We can't do it, but we prop it back up. Maybe it's religion. I just got to be better. I got to, I got to fit the mold, or maybe I just got to keep being better at following the rules. And what I want you to hear today that God says those are idols that you have to lay down because the only place you will find freedom is in the person of Jesus Christ. That's right. It says in Galatians 2, 8 and 9, it's not of works, plus any man should boast. It is a gift of God, grace and mercy, not found in religion, but found in a relationship with a living, invisible God who became visible for us. And the mind blowing part is He wants relationship with me and you. You don't have to craft an idol.

You just have to get on your knees. Okay, God, I've tried and my idols keep falling and my life keeps breaking and I don't have any peace. I don't have hope, but I surrender now to you. Yeah. In Romans, the book of Romans, Paul rots to a church in Rome and tells them, look, a city full of idols. Here's how you have relationship with this Jesus. Romans 10, 9 and 10, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you are saved, that Jesus was risen from the dead. And just a couple of verses later in 13, for whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This is good news. This is good news. It's not about the church. It's not about religion. It's not about rules. It's about a relationship that Jesus wants to have with you. He claims you. He's got your name on his palm. He's reaching out saying, you take my hand. Every relationship I've ever started, including my wife 27 years ago, started with a conversation. So right now, I'm gonna have everybody bow your head and close your eyes because this is a moment for you that have been propping up the idols and hoping in the idols of religion and works to get you peace with God, to go ahead and set those down and to come to Jesus. It's a conversation for a relationship. For now, we're gonna pray and repeat after me these words. And it's not about what I'm saying. It's not about me saying. It's about you having a heart-to-heart conversation with your maker.

God, I believe that Jesus came and died for me. That Jesus came and died for me. I believe that he rose from the dead to give me life. I believe that he rose from the dead to give me life. I ask for forgiveness. I ask for forgiveness. I give you my life. I give you my life. Save me. Save me. We can claim on the authority of scripture if you prayed that in your heart to your maker. It is not a maybe. It is a solid that you are saved, redeemed, and his child. I want to take a moment. If that was you, you said, I prayed and I talked to Jesus. And I began a relationship with him. Just slip your hand up right now. I see that hand. Come on. The Bible says when one person comes home, all of heaven cheers. Anybody else say, that's me. I did that today. I've been chasing religion. I've been chasing work. I've been chasing my own way. But I give it to God today. Anybody else? Lord Jesus, thank you for the one that came home. All of heaven is cheering. Thank you, Jesus.

Friends, as we continue this moment of prayer, keep your heads bowed and eyes closed. But go ahead and stand with us. Follower of Jesus. There's no way we can look at this topic without some self-reflection. I'm going to ask you to just take a deep breath in through your nose, release it slowly through your mouth, and in that space invite the Holy Spirit to come talk to you. Ask Him to show up, to show you where you've made God small, where you've preferred a pocket-sized God, even though you know your problems are so big, you feel so overwhelmed so often. Ask the Lord to show up in those spaces and remind you. Maybe you need to pray that prayer to the mountain maker, to the ocean pourer, to the hill dresser. Maybe you need to ask the Holy Spirit, Lord, where have I made you a mascot more than the maker? Where have I said, I pray about it? While your heads are bowed and eyes closed, I heard this from the Holy Spirit while Blake was talking and I know it's for this gathering specifically, that those verses in Joshua, when God showed up, he declared himself to be the commander of the Lord's army. You know what he did? He told Joshua where his place was, because Joshua probably would have said he was the commander, wouldn't he? But God said, no, I got the commander role. Some of us, our idols have been ourselves. Today is the day to let go of some control. We believe in open-handed living. That is true generosity, but you know what open-handed living is? Letting go of control. Where do you need to let go of something you've been holding on to? And look, I get it. I feel like right now I need to speak to the moms in here. You have tried to control those kiddos because God knows where they would choose for themselves, but it's time to open-handed live, to trust that God loves them more than he loves, than you love them. I'm not standing up here acting like that's easy. I'm standing up here acting like it's true.

And lastly, maybe you need to ask the Holy Spirit to show up and show you where he's been jealous of your time, where he's been jealous of your treasure. He's been jealous of what you talk about. He's saying, where am I coming up in these conversations? When are you proclaiming my truth for people? You'll talk about that restaurant. You'll talk about that workout. You're gonna talk about me? Man, who's not convicted in here? So we're gonna open up. We're gonna have the prayer team come forward, but I'm just letting you know. I'm gonna be really transparent. There's not a person in here that doesn't have one of those idols set up. Look, they get propped up all the time. I've got to consciously see them and knock them over. I've got to do that. This is the space where you get to do that. Here's the thing I want you to hear. Every great movement of God and revival that happened in Israel started with one thing. They had to destroy their idols. If you want God to move in your marriage, to move in your life, to move for you, you've got to go and do the work of tearing down the idols that you've placed up. So as the music plays. I hear one more thing. I hear an idol of how people perceive me. Man, we right now together, can we just confess we are so consumed with how we are perceived? Holy Spirit, break our heart to be humble. May we humble ourselves today. As the music plays.