Like No Other - EASTER [Part 1] // Nick Serban IV

Like No Other - EASTER [Part 1] __ Nick Serban IV

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

god, jesus, begins, mind, control, thoughts, life, people, pray, good, speak, devil, happen, words, feel, talking, scripture, surrender, church, admire

We're starting our Easter series today. And we're we're talking about, obviously Jesus in His sacrifice for us. But all these different moments that took place beforehand of temptations and trials and things that Jesus had to go through, before he got to the cross. And what's so amazing is God calls us to live a life like no other, because he first lived a life like no other. And sometimes we can, we can compare our lives to Jesus and say, I can't accomplish this, or I can't do all the things that he did, no, because he's perfect. And he showed that to us throughout Scripture, but he calls us to be like him, and everything that we do. And so there's so many different stories and moments where we see Jesus battling things in life. And he's really showing us a model of how we should act and how we should be in our life and in our walk with the Lord so that we can live a life like no other. Amen. Again, even though we serve a God like no other, we're called to live like no other, we have to recognize that we have a Savior, who understands the battles that we face. I know we've talked about this before, but I just I love the Scripture so much in Hebrews 415, for we do not have a high priest, Jesus, who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way he's gone through everything that you have gone through before, it may not look exactly the same, but it falls in line exactly the same. Everything that Jesus went through on this earth that we go through as well. Yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So again, throughout this series, you know, we're leading up to Easter, it's on March 31. This year, it's so so early, there's actually five Sundays in March this year. So it's actually not that early, but it's only three weeks away. Easter is coming. As you can see, I wore kind of an Eastery pass deli shirt today. If someone said, I look like Neapolitan ice cream. I'm gonna claim that I like that a lot. I love it. So fun. It's also very hot. So if I start to sweat, man, it's because it's hot up in here. Anyway, some of us have been fasting. Does anyone here practice lent at all? Or maybe you gave up something back in February leading up to Easter. That's okay. Good Friday's coming up. And you know, sometimes we practice giving up things and fasting things. But so often, at least for my family, when it comes to Easter, or comes to Christmas, because both of my my parents and my in laws, they both live here because Brittany and I, my wife, we both grew up here. And Franklin. And my parents, our parents only live like three minutes from each other. So whenever holidays come around, it's always like, well, who are we going to have dinner with? Or who are we going to have lunch with? Or what outfits are we going to be wearing? Are we all going to be matching? Like what colors are we all going to be doing and the control freak in me and the control freak and my wife begins to come out and we have to like plan every little thing that we're going to be doing right? Like we got to schedule okay, right after church, we're going to take this picture with it with this other family, we're going to take it with this out of the family. And we're going to try to rearrange it into this way. And it's like, you may not think about this, but me with little kids like it can be a struggle with four kids to like, take a picture. And the the anger inside of me begins to rise and the blood pressure begins to go up as as things slowly get out of control. Do we have any control freaks here in the house? Anybody? No one's gonna raise our hands. Oh, we got a couple. Hey, praise the Lord. Nobody wants to be identified as that. But hey, name it claim it. That's all good. But again, I remember I remember this moment in Thailand. When we were missionaries a few years ago, where we were we were getting ready to fly back for my brother Garrett's wedding. And my two girls, I got two girls and two boys. At the time, we only had the three. My girls, they just look like ragamuffins. Their hair was all weird and crazy. And of course in Thailand, it's super humid. So it's just like frizz balls all the time. And we thought hey, we should we should get them haircuts, you know and take them to like a cute little kid salon thing before we go back for this wedding because there's gonna be pictures and and all the things and so you know, I'm like, oh, please God, like don't let this be like a bad haircut. You know? I get all weird with this because I grew up with the oldest of four boys and my dad always cut our hair all right, I know it's funny but like he got better as time went on Okay, so I early on it was the bowl and he just cut around the bowl and like for real the bowl cut and then after a while he just started shaving our heads and then he got better and started doing the fades and then I lost all my hair. So There was no point in him cutting it anymore. Come on somebody's bald bald brothers. But we, we took them to the salon and I had stepped out. And what I didn't realize is this was like the first time that they went to like a fancy salon to get their hair cut. And so they're they're doing this the whole time, like looking around, like what is going on right now. Like, there's TV, it's a kid salon. So there's like TVs everywhere, and Blippi is on all the screens, and they got all these TV shows. And like, they're just doing this the whole time. And none of this is just a certain thing. Or maybe you deal with this too. But when you go like this, your head scrunches up like that. And then when you relax your face, it's crutches back down. And I had to learn this the hard way to growing up, but when you scrunch your head up like this, and they cut your hair, and then you bring your head back, the hair goes up. So they got this cute little like bangs cut, you know, trying to look like Zoe de Chanel or something. But the instead of it being right here, it was all the way up here. So I'm like, what is what just happened? Like I step away for one minute and you jack up. Again, the control freak is coming out. Again, I'm thinking about all of the all of the pictures that we got to take all this stuff. But there are moments sometimes that seem like they're completely out of our control. There's nothing you can do about it, it's happened. It's over. And now we have to move forward. And we have to move on. And so many times we can play this game in our head and say I'm not controlling. I'm just aggressively helpful. Right? I'm not controlling, I'm just thoroughly organized. I'm coughing nervous. I'm ADHD hyper focused, right? Or I'm a little OCD. And so many times we, you know, think about this to this last week, I'm sorry, I'm full of stories today. But while we were in Houston, my whole family got sick. They were home, I was gone. My wife got the flu bill, the kids got it first as they do. And then they got worse. And then my wife got it and she's got asthma. So it's just like flared up really bad. She ended up in the ER on Thursday. And so it was just a rough, rough week. But when I got back on Wednesday evening, you know, I started looking around the house and cleaning and I knew that my mother in law, she's watching online right now, I love you, Lynn so much. I knew my mother in law was gonna be there at the house. And so I'm like, I need to clean this house. So that she knows, I got this so that she knows I can handle this. And it wasn't it wasn't so much about the fact that we needed to clean house, it was more about the fact that I needed her to see me a certain way that I needed her, the image that I was portraying to everyone is that I got everything under control. Right. And so many times, whether we realize it or not, we start with this battle in our minds of trying to control things. So people perceive us in a certain way. And so often to really when when we are trying to control something, it shows an area in our heart in our life where we actually don't trust God. Where you strive to control the most may very well be the area that you trust God in the least. Because we go, hey, you know, I gotta do this, I gotta, I gotta focus on this, I gotta organize all these different things. And then we completely, you know, overthink and calculate God out of the equation of our lives. Let me say that again. Because that was a really cool thing to say, as we're over calculating, we're calculating God out of the equation. And how many times have we overthought things, and then never bring it to the Father? And we take on all this pain, we take on all this worry, we take on anxiety, or we take on all of these thoughts. And in our mind, we're trying to make it seem like we've got it all under control. But really, God is saying, hey, surrender to me. We're more afraid of losing control. The more we try to control the less we trust God. But I want to look at this, these two passages of Scripture if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew 26. And this is, this is right where Jesus, he's about to be taken in. He's gonna go be crucified on the cross, like he knows all of this is going to happen, right? But he has this moment in the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples, it says this in verse 36, then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane and he said to them sit here what Well, I go over there and pray again. No, he's gonna be crucified while he's praying. Verse 37, he took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him. And he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death again, he's saying this, stay here and keep watch with me. He's communicating to him like, Hey, I'm, I'm overwhelmed. This is Jesus, saying to disciples, I am, I feel the weight of what's about to happen. And the disciples are probably they're in this place where like, What do you mean? Like what's what's about to happen, they again, they don't fully understand the gravity of the situation. Stay here and keep watching with me. And going a little further, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, My Father, if it's possible, made, this cannot be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will, then he returned to the disciples, he fell asleep, and of course, it fell asleep. Jesus went away a second time and he prayed, My Father, if it is not possible, for this cut to be taken away, unless I drink it may Your will be done. This is this is a really interesting, kind of transparent moment where we see the emotional side of Jesus. We see even some of the flesh side of Jesus. I know, I know, you know, it's Father, Son, Holy Ghost, three, and one, He is God, but he's still a man on this earth. He still went through what we've gone through he is, is feeling these emotions. He's feeling the weight of the sacrifice that he's about to lay down for this world for you and for me. But he's really transparent in verbalizing, to God how he's feeling. It doesn't say he thought this. Hear me church, it doesn't say that he thought this in his mind. It says that he said it out loud. He began to cry out, he didn't let his thoughts begin to wander, he began to speak, the sorrow and the pain that he felt the overwhelming feelings, and he didn't allow his mind to take control. He let his voice take control. Some of us again, we can get so in our mind, we can make mountains out of molehills right. We can make we can magnify and focus in on on what's about to happen. And how many times have you had you gotten so worked up about something and then you get to it. And it was like, Oh, that was nothing. It's like going to the doctor and getting a shot. I'm not a big fan of needles, I always kind of crease up when they said about to come. I always say Just don't tell me when it's coming. Don't tell me when it's coming. And then half the time I don't even feel it come because I would get so worked up. But if I just sat there, I would have realized that nothing. It's okay. Everything's good. It didn't hurt. But again, how many times do we get so in our minds, Jesus could have taken control. He could have said, God, I'm not doing this. The pain is too great. It's too overwhelming. To know that he would have to lay his life down and not just lay his life down, but to be tortured, to be beaten, to be bruised. To know that that was coming. And he still surrendered. Because his trust was not in his flesh and his ability to overcome it. It was knowing that God was with him. At church, we need to know that God is with us. And let me just give you permission. It's okay to communicate to God that you're overwhelmed. It's okay to verbalize these things. God I'm I'm feeling really depressed right now. I'm feeling really anxious right now. I'm feeling like things are completely out of control. I'm, I'm feeling like I don't know who I am anymore. I feel like that my calling. My purpose is is completely separated from me. It's this distant thing in the future and I just feel so isolated. I feel so hurt. I feel so broken. It's okay. It's okay to talk to God this way. Jesus did it. But then he says, Lord, not my will but your will be done. with absolute certainty Jesus trusted as Father God, Jesus had confidence that God was with him and Jesus chose surrender over control. He chose surrender over control and this is this is again not the not the cultural norm today. Right? Everything and culture teaches us to take control. Right you take charge. You make it happen you overcome it willpower manifest. Gosh, if I hear another person say manifest, I'm gonna move. You control your destiny. You make the moves you you make the decisions, like you're in control of your life and your future. Yeah. But God calls us to give him control. God calls us to surrender. You don't have the power to control what others think. Or control outcomes, but you always have the power to control your thoughts. You do. And we're going to talk about how today again, so many of us we lacked this, this confidence to speak louder than our thoughts and surrender control. Something that especially being at this, this pastors conference, for me, sometimes I get surrounded by other people. And I just admire them. Like I, even people in this room that I look at, and I admire and I, I look up to you as, as men and as women as fathers and as mothers, and I'm just like, Man, I want to be, I want to be like Stacey Daniels, y'all. That's that's really, that's really why I wore this awesome shirt today. Come on, man. There's so many people that we look at, and even on even on social media, we're scrolling through and we're seeing people and we admire, like, Oh, that's a cool outfit. Or man, it's a cool car, or man, their kids look like they're really behaving that didn't see what happened behind the photo, right? It looks like their life is going so well. And then, as I'm talking to this person, they just have so much faith. And it seems like God is just moving in their lives, man. I just admire this person so much. Every time they pray, it's like God comes through almost immediately, like why can't I have that? You know, and we begin to go from admiration, to comparison. And then we go to a place where we lack confidence. And what God identifies in us, as sons and daughters begins to go out the window, because we compare ourselves to other sons and daughters. We compare ourselves to other people around us. And because we are not at that level, in the areas that we admire, the gap in between begins to discourage us. And I know we've we've talked about this so many times, but again, we admire their lifestyle, their family, their faith, their worship, their wisdom, their financial capabilities, and where they're at with their job, their influence their abilities, even the call of God that's on other people. And they're active in it, and they're moving in it and you're like, God, why can I be like that? Or do that? I can't do what they do. I don't have that gift. I don't have that type of mindset. I don't have that ability. And then we'll begin to question our call of the thoughts. The thoughts that we allow, run through a mind and they take control admiration, turns the comparison, comparison turns to a lack of self confidence. And no one is exempt from this. I don't know about you, but I talked to myself a lot. Probably a crazy bit. Too much. Like if you were we're usually when I'm here at the church. My mom will be upstairs working and I'll just like walk around and she'll just hear me talking. And she's like, are you talking to you? You're on the phone? I'm like, nope. Talking to me, talking to myself. Because for me, my mind just wanders so much. That sometimes I just need to speak louder. But But what do you say when you talk to yourself? What do you say like in your mind, in your in your thoughts? And why? Why do you say, Why do you say what you say? Are you dealing with cynicism? Like a general distrust of people and their motives? Like what do you what do you really want? Like? What's your angle here? You're trying to be my friend right now. Like, what? You want something from me? You want me to serve another service? Like, come on? Don't do that. I'm just kidding. Negative filtering. Maybe you're always seeing what's wrong in a situation. I struggle with this because I think I'm a realist. Or I say I'm a realist, but oftentimes, it's just negative thinking. Where I think that it's the worst. Whatever the worst possible outcome that could happen. That's what's going to happen. We're overlooking what's good and what's right we're assuming the worst. What about absolute thinking? Are you are you are you saying things like never and always to yourself? In a negative capacity, are you are you polarized where you're you're all in or you're you're all out? Is everything black and white. You're You're let down? Calm simply because everything's bad and everything, nothing is ever good. You make one mistake and you think I must be dumb. You disagree with somebody and you write them off completely? Are you dealing with blaming Do you believe? Do you believe you're a victim? You don't have any control life happens. I just I can't do anything about it. I'm just a victim. Do you find yourself getting jealous? Dealing with bitterness and skepticism, constantly critical discontent? Are you hard on others? Are you hard on yourself? Again, so many times it's it's that battle in the mind that we have. Oftentimes, we would never actually say any of these things to other people, right? We're not going to say, you know, I'm writing you off, or I'm done with you, but we just check out. So good to see you, but not really good to see you. What you say to yourself, matters more than you can imagine. In Proverbs 423, it says, Be careful how you think your life is shaped by your thoughts. There's this thing I found it's the law of cognition. Where what you think what you think becomes what you believe? What you think becomes what you feel, and what you think becomes what you do. The majority of us we, some of us can be spontaneous movers can be really quick to do things or make decisions quickly. But oftentimes, we've thought about it at least a little bit beforehand. And what you think about yourself begins to shape who you are and your identity and your walk with the Lord. Dr. Paul David Tripp says this, no one is more influential in your life than you are. Because no one talks to you more than you do. Some of us are thinking ourselves into a life that we don't want to live anymore. Some of us are thinking ourselves into a life that we hate and we, we feel like we can never turn around from Romans eight, five through six is those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires. And those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. Someone say amen. Today. Let us be people that live by the Spirit and have our thoughts renewed. For the Lord. How many of you have seen the movie Toy Story for anybody in the room? Toy Story for? It's coming up on the statute of limitations? Like five years here this summer? It'll have been out so I'm just gonna ruin the whole movie for you. Are you ready? You're not gonna see it anyways. It's all good. Three was the best one. We all know this. You want to argue three is the best movie. I cried so much Toy Story three. Come on. But a toy story for Andy has has been replaced by a girl named Barney. And you got Woody and Buzz you got Slinky dog. Yeah, Mr. Potatohead, Mrs. Potato Head, all the all the potatoes. And you've got racks. And basically all the characters from the original gang with Woody are now Bonnie's. And one day, Bonnie goes to school. And she makes this she makes a toy. It's a spork. She puts googly eyes on it. And there's pipe cleaner. And it's got little like, like sticks for legs. And miraculously, this thing comes to life. And because Bonnie called it a toy, it is now a toy of hers. And she loves this thing, probably more than all the other toys that she had. And when his name was forky, when forky showed up at the house to see all the other toys. He's looking around at all these toys, and he kind of has this it's kind of fun. It's really subtle, but he has this moment where he sort of like has googly eyes you know they're all around and he looks at himself in a way and goes I am not like you I'm trash and he immediately starts running for the trash can and tries to jump up because he's made out of pieces of trash. He immediately just assumes I am not like all these other toys even though Barney has called me a toy. I am not like you and so therefore I must be trash I must not be good enough there must be an area in my life. That is not enough. stuff. And so just throw it all away who who cares? Now? How am I life turns out because I have not, I don't look like I don't feel like I don't act like all of these other things around me. And people around me, he looks at himself and he compares, and he determines that he must not belong. Because there's, you see the parallel here? How many times have you felt like you don't belong, because what you have gone through may not look like what someone else has gone through. The things that you're carrying may not be what someone else is carrying. But trauma I've faced or maybe the life I've had has been so good and so great and, and God's giving me all this favor, like I can't be around these, these, these church people who are always struggling. I don't want to be tainted. There's always someone with that feeling like they don't belong. Where you see friendships and you're, you're envious. You see communities and thriving families, but you and your spouse, you're doing the very best that you can just to keep your head above water. Maybe you're actually dreading interacting with people. Like maybe that three minutes that we had up on the timer that was like excruciating ly painful for you. I'm sorry, if it was. But maybe you're you're dreading to interact, because you're afraid that someone is going to see that you don't belong. Or recognize that there's something off with you or something different about you. Maybe you walk through life with a chip on your shoulder because you think God doesn't care about you like he does others. You show up weary from serving and doubtful of God's call on your life. Maybe you feel beat up and stress, you feel like forky and you think you're trash. Now I know I'm talking to many of you are believers here in this room. And when we come into an environment like this, and we're worshiping like, it's hard to, it's hard to feel like trash here. It's hard to feel unseen here. It's hard to feel like you don't belong. But let me just say it's okay to feel this way. Like, come as you are to this church. And I hope to you that you're not, I hope hope that you're not not inviting people to this church because their life doesn't look exactly like it should. I hope that there's people in your life that you're not writing off. But that's you're beginning to draw them in more and more because you see something and you see that they may feel like they don't belong, but you know that God is calling them you know that God wants them to join and be a part of the kingdom, you know that God wants to use them, and you see potential in them. But man, this is a house. This is a place where you can come when you feel like trash. This is a place where you can come where you when you don't feel like you've got it all together. It's okay to show up with your junk it's okay to show up with your your anxiety with your depression. It's okay to show up with your crazy, you know, chaos and your family and all these different it's okay to show up today. And say, God, I messed up this week, got a mess. I've made mistake after mistake. There's patterns in my life. Something's got to change. No one's looking at you and saying you're fake. No one's looking at you and saying you don't belong. Let this be a house. We're all belong. Let this be a house where we can come and be transformed. Heart and Mind and Body that our countenance will begin to change. When we leave this place. It's not okay. To leave this place the same. If you come in here with your stuff, leaving at the altar. If you come in here and you're broken, it's time to be restored and transformed in Jesus name, and you're just one decision away from letting God take control, Hebrews 1023 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful and let us consider how we may spur one another toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day approaching Let us hold. Let us be faithful in professing not just over ourselves, but speaking over others around us. And speaking to others around us actually going from we talked about this in our small groups going from everything being about, you know, community to countenance. I'm not just going to say today was a great day, but I'm gonna go and see if it really was a great day for somebody, I'm going to see it on their face. I'm going to see it in there, and the atmosphere that surrounds them, God that you would use us. God, we wouldn't just think about it, but we would be about it. Jesus did something powerful in the small one in the garden. But this wasn't the first time that he had to speak and share what was really going on in his heart and actually use his words to fight battles. On a flip the script a little bit to the beginning of His ministry, actually, right before his ministry began, in Matthew four verses, starting in verse two, Jesus was led into the wilderness right after he was baptized by by John the Baptist, and it's just really amazing, powerful, encounter, and moment, but immediately after He's baptized, he's led into the wilderness to be tempted. And it wasn't necessarily you know, to show you know how strong he is, or, or you know, that he can, it was to be an example to us of how to overcome, and how to fight this battle. So then the tempter came and said to him, if you are, if you are the Son of God, command, these stones become loaves of bread, but he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city, he set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, look at look at the devil quoting scripture, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, again, it's written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve them, the devil left him, and the angels came, and were ministering to him. I love this encounter, because it didn't happen here. It happens here. The enemy said something. And so many times the the enemy will actually will say things and there's influence and we can feel like it's just this battle going on in our mind, and we can feel like the enemy is attacking us oftentimes, it's really just our thoughts and, and negative things going on. But But the devil said and spoke to Jesus these things and began to challenge him in his weakness. After fasting for 40 days, he was hungry, he was tired, and then his weakness would begin to speak to him. The devil even quoted Scripture at him trying to manipulate him and and get him to do something that was probably a good thing. It looked good. Doesn't bread sound great right now. Man doesn't It doesn't sound great to have your angels come around you and and begin to move in your life and lift you up and fly? Wouldn't it be great if you were the ruler of all these different things, you have the influence and all the stuff like wouldn't it be great? And he's tempted and he's tempted, and Jesus doesn't allow these words to rest in his mind. Hear me today Church, the enemy doesn't. Jesus right. Jesus doesn't allow those words to rest in his mind. He begins to immediately speak and quote from Deuteronomy. Because Deuteronomy six and eight here's what Jesus doesn't do. He doesn't start singing his favorite worship song. This is our fight my battles. No. He doesn't start like praying in tongues. He doesn't start prophesying. He doesn't try to have an intellectual conversation with the devil or rationalize things. He immediately begins to quote Scripture and begins to fight. Because the word of God is sharper than any two edged sword, amen. Mate when the enemy comes and begins to speak to you, or influence you or discourage you, or the thoughts in your mind begin to overwhelm you start to speak And verbalize over those thoughts. Because I get I don't know about you. But when I pray, I have to pray out loud. Because when I when I pray, in my mind, I'm thinking about the predators game, like I begin to, I begin to think about my kids and all this other stuff I gotta do and all these things that my mind begins to wander, because I have not taken control over it with my words. And if Jesus had to take control in that moment, he could have just stayed silent the whole time. He could have just been quiet, you can just ignore them. It's all good. No, I'm not gonna do that. And then just let those thoughts and let those things begin to fester. He takes control immediately. And so many times the battle in our minds, is the loss because we don't speak truth. Because we stay silent. Because we let our mind fabricate reality. For us, rather than speaking truth and life, over ourselves, in our attempts to control how others think of us, or control the temptation, of good giving in our flesh, or even control the outcomes in our lives, our thoughts end up controlling us. Because it's all here and not here. If our thought, life takes control, how can we give God control? And fully truly surrendered to God? Just something to think about, like, how can we give God control of something that we don't even have control of? That might not be theologically correct and sound but so many times when I when I feel like I'm out of control. In my mind, I just cry out to God, let God take control God take control. And God's saying, I gave you the Word and the Scripture and the authority to take control with your words. Or thoughts can give us the illusion of being in control. I remember I was talking to somebody about this a while back. And they're like, Man, I always pray in my mind, always pray my thoughts because I don't want the devil to hear my prayers. I was like, Oh, that's cool. And of course, in my, you know, Bible thumping, preacher voice, I'm like, I want the devil to hear my prayers. I want you to be afraid of me. When I open my mouth, and begin to declare the word of God and begin to declare truth, and begin to pray, I want the enemy to be running in the opposite direction. Can we be a people of faith like that? You can pray in your mind. And I got nothing against that at all. I'm not I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But are you really in control when everything is here? And can you really give control to God and give and walk in that authority if the battle is all here and not out here? Don't Don't get me wrong. Praying in your mind is great. praying in tongues is great. When we can speak truth, where the enemy has come to distract and to lie to us and make us doubt ourselves and doubt our calling God can fully be in control. When we take that authority. There's this moment in Genesis three. John, Jonathan, if you want to come wrap up here. In Genesis three, the devil is in the form of a serpent, a snake, whatever you wanna call it. And he's talking to, he's talking to Eve. God had said, you know, don't, don't eat this fruit. You can have everything else but you can't have the fruit that's on this tree here in the middle of the garden. And the first thing these four words that the devil said to Eve, I think he says to us many times it says Did God really say to God really say this just that that questioning can cause us to doubt It can even cause us in our our nature to want to control things to get absolute proof and know and hear me church I think this can this paralyzes so many people in our faith where we take a week like last week if you weren't here I'm really sorry but last week was just incredible. We had brother David Wagner here he's a friend of the house he comes almost every year to to preach and prophesy and he began to prophesy over pretty much everybody in the room here. I was laughing You know, just on a personal note, he prophesied the exact same thing over me that he prophesied last year I was like, Okay, God, you're not done. You still you're still we're still going here. This is okay, God, this is good. But something happens when we hear from God whether it's from a prophetic word or just reading the Word of God or we're in prayer we hear from him, the enemy will come immediately just like handle was talking about during worship, and begin to blab, blab blab and say to God really say that? Oh, he's just a man. You know, the your filter is off. Like what translation of the Bible you're reading. Like, that can't be really what God said, You need to get it in the Greek or the Hebrew or you need to you need to know without a shadow, like all these things, and we begin to doubt what God said to us and the revelation that we received and the calling that we received and, and God is just saying, hey, come back. Come back to my word, just like Jesus had to do. By quoting scripture, just like Jesus had to do in the garden where he began to, to just be transparent and talk to God God I'm feeling down and feeling hurt, but I know that you're in control, I give control to you. Just let me express these emotions and Lord, let your truth remind me remind me what you said. Because Jesus could have had his own moment in the garden just like Eve had her moment in the garden where the enemy could have come and said, Did God really say that you had to lay down your life for all of these people God really say that you should sell it all and become a missionary. To God really say that you should share Jesus with your co worker. The guy really say that you should serve in your church and be unseen the God really say that you should be reading your Bible and praying for the last two God really say that you should walk in obedience no matter what the God really say that we live our lives. Comparing and feeling like trash will my bible teaches me is that words are formed words formed the earth. He spoke and it was the Word of God is what formed our very identity and who we are. Stop thinking to yourself and speak truth to yourself because your words matter. Your thoughts don't matter as much as your words do. Because when you speak and overcome your thoughts, things can begin to to shift and change. When you're struggling in your thoughts begin to speak to God with your mouth. Your thoughts have incredible power. And you have incredible power over your thoughts.