MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Qualities of a Leader - Qualities We All Should Have Part 3
Everybody get a Bible out. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna have an exercise in the scriptures. You know that we're in 1 Timothy. We've been studying 1 Timothy, which the overall theme has been, "Work It Out." 1 Timothy is the message of Paul to his mentee, Timothy, who's a young pastor in the church in Ephesus. And he's basically saying, "This is how we live as the church of Jesus. This is how we're gonna live it out." In the last few weeks, Ben talked to last two weeks, and this week, the third week, we're gonna talk a little bit about this idea of character and this long list in chapter three. At the end of this, you guys, we're done with chapter three. There's only six chapters we're halfway through. You're getting done. Except Art's gonna go back for the next two weeks, back into chapter two 'cause we did some stuff wrong. He's going back to fix it. But then we're gonna go past that and we're on our way. But we're in this long section in chapter three that are these, we've called it the qualities of a leader. These are qualities that everybody should have. These aren't just qualities that leaders have. This is qualities we think. If leaders are supposed to have them, then heck yeah, we all ought to have them. And so we're studying this. How should we live is the point of 1 Timothy? And why? How do we work this thing out? And so then we have this list of qualities we've been talking about. Now, this is the experience as you have your Bibles open. Everybody's gonna have some homework in the next five minutes as I read the text. And here's the homework. You can either underline every quality, individual quality we come to as I read it. Just be like, "Whoa, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." Well, these are all things that we should have that leaders have, and I want you to get them. I want you to take inventory. 'Cause we haven't really made an inventory list of these. Ben sort of summarized his top 10 favorites, left out the hard ones, but we're gonna do all of them. Maybe you underline them, and you can underline them in the church Bible that's in front of you too. That's totally cool 'cause it's God's word in your God's child, so you own it, so go for it. So you can underline it there. That's maybe one thing you'll do. You might just count them on your fingers as we go through, okay? And I'm gonna have a prize for the person who gets it right, all right? And the prize has been sermon CDs from the last two weeks. And then, or at least I want every single person to do this. I want you to pick one that jumps out at you. I mean, this is sort of the beginning of studying Scripture, right? You just read Scripture and you think, "Wow, Lord, what's there?" And boom, some stuff starts to jump out at me. What is one of those characteristics, one of those qualities that leaders should have from this text as I read it, it sort of jumps out at you, and then I'm gonna make eye contact with somebody who's been in our church a long time and then make them answer, okay? Ready? Do all those things? Do you seriously don't even have your Bible open right now? You're the worship leader. (congregation laughs) I don't have my reading glasses. How does a woman that's 38 years old need reading glasses? That's amazing. (congregation laughs) Seriously, do you just laughin' at that? All right, I wanna read it in the version that you have there. Here we go, you ready to do your homework? Here is the text again. Here's a trustworthy saying, Paul writing to Timothy, "Whoever aspires to be an overseer "desires a noble task." Now, the overseer is to be above approach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him. And he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church? He must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. In the same way, deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine and not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. They must first be tested and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons. In the same way, the women or their wives are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers, but temperate and trustworthy and everything. A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well. Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus. That's the word of the Lord. Now, how many did you get? Anybody count? How many did you get? How many did you get? 22, Caitlin got 22. How many did you get? How many did you get? 24. How many did you get? 25. (audience member mumbles) Well, you got the broken Bibles? What is that? No, there's, I don't know how many there are. There's no real right answers. But because you can kind of put some together, right? And figure out some are sort of related thoughts and all that, some are two part thoughts, I don't know. But there's a ton of them in there was my point in making you count, right? This is a, this could be a 25 point sermon. You ready for that? What are you doing this afternoon? Let's do it. I'm super game, seriously. If enough of you vote, we're going for it. No, we're not doing that. There's a ton of them though, right? Did anybody underline a church Bible? Did you? Nice, thank you so much for that. Makes me feel like it's used. The pages all stuck together in your Bible. All right, now I want to know about one that jumps out for you, okay? Which one, somebody volunteer? What's one that jumps out for you? Somebody named Mike, Schimman, jump out and tell me. What's one that jumped out for you? Oh, he's putting his glasses on. He's like, I wasn't paying attention. All right, John Beams, coming back to Mike Schimman. Were you raising your hand over there? What? All right, so here's the test. Who raised their hand over there? Okay, oh, Elizabeth, thank you. Which one jumped out for you? Managed, managed his children well. Yeah, anybody with kids go, that jumped out to me, but I pretended it didn't apply to me. Is that you? Okay, anybody else? John, you got one? Mike, I'm coming back to you. What's that? Now you're just gonna make one up. Is that what's happening right here? Okay, Church, here's what you do. When you read scripture, you ask God to speak to you, and when the preacher gives you homework, you do it. All right, that's what we're supposed to do. All right, Greg? - I'm not a lover of money. - Not a lover of money, good. Were you pointing at someone? Was that yours, Mike? All right, so... There are so many things in this text. This is part of what happens when we read scripture. You're making my point for me. We sorta read scripture, and it's like, ♪ Let's just stuff words and scary principles ♪ And things that make me feel uncomfortable and stuff that sounds hard. And there's all these things. This is very, very hard, you guys. But this text is part of God's word where, and our thesis has been in this, that these are qualities that a leader should have, and not just a leader. These are things that we all should have, this list of stuff. And Ben, for two weeks, put the first two up there. This is the last two weeks. Ben sorta summarized some of this stuff, and he said, listen, here's some summaries about it. These are the qualities that we should all have. And he said, it's about being respected or being above reproach. And then secondly, it's about having solid character. This is sort of the beginning of summarizing it. And he said, we're gonna do three parts of this. These are qualities leaders should have. Actually, we all should have them. In the last two weeks, he's focusing on respect and solid character. And I'm gonna add this one to it this morning. And that is that we need to develop a deep faith. This is sort of the summary out of all these 25 or 26, or somebody came up with 31 last hour. This is sort of the summary of what's in here that we should all have these qualities of being respected, of having solid character, and of developing a deep faith. And I'm adding that last one, because if you look at verse eight and nine, verse look at verse nine, I think we got that one on the slide up here. They must keep hold these leaders, us too. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. You see, the other two, this be respected, have solid character. That's about like how we're supposed to be living, but friends, how that looks, and how that plays out, and how we really live, ready, depends on what it is we believe. And that's the deep faith. This text says, you have to have a hold on the deep truths about Jesus. And then you live that out consistently. That's the clear conscience. In other words, what we believe must inform how we live. That's the thesis for this morning. If you don't get anything else, and I don't get back to it all, you know, before we run out of time, what we believe must inform how we live. We talk about character and morals and all that kind of stuff, but it's really, go back to the other three again, is really about developing a deep faith because this is really about our faith informing our character. You with me on that? That's where we're going this morning. That's what this is about. We cannot talk about characteristics and morality and leadership qualities and all that kind of stuff without saying, well, what is it that we believe? Because what we believe is how we act. It's how we live things out. That's how we know what to do. That's how we know what choices to make, all those kinds of things. We know this. We know this in ways every day of our lives that what we believe helps us sort of leads us to what choices to make and how to live. We make it in small ways. You know, I'm just about to write the first tuition check for the first semester of my third child. I'm trying to figure out where to get the money, but I'm about to write the check. But you know what? I believe that college is good for my kids. I believe it's good for my kids. I believe it's good for them to get out of my house. I believe it's good for them to grow up. I believe they're going to be intellectually stimulated. I believe they're going to mature in life. I believe they're going to get a better job if they get a college degree. I believe they're going to walk with a Lord and meet them in different ways. I believe in all that kind of stuff. This is what I believe. And so what I believe must inform my action. So when we look at our budget or we look at our future or we look at what to do, we've decided we're sending our kids to college even though it is a crazy hardship on us. You with me? It's just, I mean, it's kind of big, but it's sort of small, right? It's just like, no, I believe it's good. We're making it happen. My son's at Chick. Art talked about Chick. It's this conference in Tennessee. Tommy, he's our fourth kid. And we don't have any more money to send him to college. So I believe he's going to live at home and go to college and Marin. But no, we believe that this high school conference is a great idea for him. In fact, we believe he went to camp with me when I spoke for a week at a high school camp two weeks ago. And we're sending him to camp again a week after he gets back. He's going to three high school camps this summer because we believe that when you go meet with God's people and you receive God's word day after day and you get in there and worship with other people that it helps shape your heart for the Lord and that it will have transforming lifelong impact on his life. That's what we believe. And so we're sending him to camp three weeks. Plus, we're so tired of him 'cause it's summer. But this is what we believe. And so we're making it happen. We've organized our life. We've made choices around getting Tommy into these experiences. And it's going to be so sweet, isn't it, Greg? Check 6,000 kids. I guarantee you, some of you guys have gone, right? First song, first worship night, first thing, 6,000 kids just going, I'm all in for Jesus. And then they just infect each other with that joy and with that passion and with those convictions for a week. That is worth all the money you gave to the chick team to make it happen. Am I supposed to be washing somebody's windows 'cause somebody bought that? Is that you, David? Okay, we'll just make sure that happens soon. Many of you guys raised money at this auction to make sure our kids could get the chick. Super simple concept. I believe that's valuable. I will orient my life around making it happen. What we believe must inform how we live. And it's this way with our faith 'cause it matters how we live with our faith. Remember the story in the Alisson Wonderland, Alison Wonderland. Alice is walking down the road. She comes to a fork in the road and the Cheshire cat appears in the tree. And she doesn't know which way to go. And she says to him, "Which road should I take?" And he says, "Well, that depends where you going." And she says, "I don't know." To which the cat replies, "Well, then it doesn't matter. "It matters where we go. "It matters which fork in the road we take. "It matters that we walk in obedience to the plan "that Jesus Christ has laid out for us. "It matters if we believe in the truth about God "and his salvation through Christ, then it must impact "which fork in the road we take, how we live." That's kind of the summary of why we would develop deep faith as part of our leaders because that faith will inform how it is that we should live. Is our thesis again, our faith must inform how we live. Now, just to set the kind of context again and then we'll go on a little bit more. This list of qualities that we talked about, is 25, 23, 31, 19. Somebody else that came up with 19 and I think she just was ignoring some of them 'cause that was easier. This list of qualities Ben has told you this is not only about leaders, it's about all of us, right? If it's about leaders, then it's about all of us. So we don't get to go, "Well, that's good. "I'm not serving as an overseer "or a Deacon or a leadership team member "or a ministry leader." So it doesn't apply to me, not true. It's not about only about leaders, it's about all of us. Second thing about this list of qualities, it's not simply about specifics. It's not just these 23, 25, right? It's a shotgun approach. We've said that already for the last two weeks 'cause there could be more. It's not just about specifics, it's about character and about us gaining respect and living above reproach as Ben preached. It's about, it could be many more things. It's about this bigger idea of becoming who it is we're supposed to be. Now that's something, this is what we've already told you through Ben, that I just wanna make sure that you know that this is where we're ending this series on this three week series, on this character idea, these qualities, it's not really about morals. It's about faith in Jesus. It's not about morals. You see a list like this, it's not about morals. This is not morality, this is not about morals. Friends, our relationship with Christ is not about morals. Our relationship with Christ, as verse nine tells us, is about holding on to the deep truths of the faith that Jesus has become our rescuer, hanging on to that and then living that out consistently in these places of character. That's not morality, that's consistently living out what we believe. So I don't want you to see this and go it's a list. I want you to see this and go oh, our faith in Christ informs how we live. I put it this way, check out this slide. How we decide to live, how we decide to live. And this is our character, our morality, our values, our priorities, our choices, our sacrifices, our investments, I don't know what other words come to mind for you. But these are choices we make every day, right? When we face our kids, our work, our money, our time, our road rage, whatever we face, how we decide to live, these things, these morality, whatever, is consistent with our faith in Jesus. This is the call on our lives, how we decide must be consistent with our faith in Jesus. What is that? What is our faith in Jesus? It's these things and more. He's real, he's good, he has forgiven me. He's called us to live for him, he's powerful, he alone brings life on and on and on and on. These are the deep truths of the faith. And when we get a hold of those things, friends, it informs these choices that we make. That's my whole point, you got it with me and we'll keep moving on. That's what it's all about, it's not a morality, it's not a complete list, it's not just for leaders, it's about saying you hold onto the deep truths and it will change how you live. It must change how you live. Now, we have this faith that is informing our life and our life choices are helping us know what road to take and how to go on that path. See, without our faith informing our choices, we're lost. We get to the road, we don't know where we're going. And so it doesn't matter how we live. Or worse, we're on the road and we decide, I'm supposed to be a Christian morally something person so we put morals in our life that are unattached to the lordship of Jesus. And the church is famous, infamous for being moral and not attaching themselves to the life-giving power and the transformation of the spirit of Jesus Christ. So this isn't about morals, this is about us, that would be religion. And we got a bad rap already for that. This is about following Christ and His way. Now, what we believe must inform how we live. We wanna go through a couple of these, I want you to show you some of the examples. And there could be 10 of them. And you know what, if we run out of time by the end, what I'm gonna do, I mean, we will run out of time. And when we do, what I'm gonna do is then I'm gonna ask you to yell out one or two or you can email me, I think I'm my phone will buzz over there, Jeff@mcc.co, okay? You can email me and I'll get one that you wanted to hear about. But I want you to see how this works, that this is not just saying we're gonna be about morality, we're gonna be about acting good because what will happen is when you act good, then you don't act good all the time, so then you have to fake it, you know? Now, this is about what we believe in forming a higher calling of living this way. All right, look at with me at verse one, and you can see, I'm sorry, not verse one in verse two. So it says that these overseers, the first thing it's, and I'm just gonna do two or three of these, that these guys are to be above reproach, that these leaders are to be above reproach, okay? That's the first word there, and it's sort of an overarching word and it's a great word, it's a word that means no charge of wrongdoing can be brought against them. Is that not a radical thing to be called to? No charge of wrongdoing can be brought against you. So when someone examines your life, they cannot find anything to be critical about in terms of your consistency and in terms of your character. Wow, that's the one he starts with. You're like, this is gonna be a long list of 27. And overseer is to be above reproach, anybody can watch and there would be nothing in there for them to be critical of. Now, the key here has to be hypocrisy. The key here has to be this idea that there's no hypocrisy, you know, because hypocrisy is the one thing that people can look and go, you say you're this, you say you're that, and yet this is how I see you live. And so we're called to live above that beyond that. Now, that's the character quality, and we think, wow, that's a little overwhelming. But if what we believe affects or leads us to how it is that we live, informs how we live, then think about it. If we believe that it's true that I live to magnify the Lord, I live to mirror who God is. I live to be a witness to the truth of Christianity. I live to be a testimony to the power of Jesus, right? If that's all true, those are the deep truths of the faith that we're holding on to. If I believe that, I gotta up my game. I gotta up my game. I've heard, so I've had conversations with people and somebody came to me just afterward, this first hour and said, this is me. This is me, that if I told the people that I work with, that I was a Christian, they'd go, what? Oh, hey man, we all resonate with that, right? We'll bet. Well, if the deep truths of the faith say that I am what people see when they need to learn about God and learn about salvation, then I gotta up my game. I don't get to go, well, I just kinda wanna be morally better. No, I reflect Christ. And so I have to make sure there's no inconsistency that I accurately reflect Him and His faith. That is a huge calling. Does anybody intimidated by that? Okay, we'll grow up. No, I don't know what to tell us. I mean, I don't know what to say. This is the point of this thing. What we believe, these deep truths of the faith, affect how we live and so it matters. Now, some of you are going, well, I'm not perfect, so I'm already jacked, right? What do I do? Well, friends, this is where hypocrisy comes into play. This is where the church is infamous. This is a little bit of an aside on this point, but the church has been famous for realizing, well, I'm not above reproach, not even close, so you know what I'll do, I'll fake it. And when I fake it, then I'll put on this little smiley face and everybody'll think that I'm all great, but the point is you can't ever fake it long enough, right? Because the whole world then looks at your life and goes, what goes on behind the scenes in that house where all those smiley face clean Christians are back there and everything's all perfect in their lives and then we hear them screaming at each other when the windows are open in the summer. Like, what's that about? We'll never be able to fake it long enough. But part about being above reproach is there's no inconsistency, there's no criticism that what we say is not true. Well, friends, one of the truths is, one of the truths is that we're forgiven and God's grace is poured out on us daily and we receive that as broken vessels, amen? That's what we do, we just get to live in that. And so, one of the things we do when we live above reproach is live into that truth that we're forgiven. So when we fail, we fail consistent with the gospel. We fail openly, we fail honestly. We're people who say to our friends who have to listen through the windows to see what we're really like. We say to them as that person who does not know Jesus does not believe in Jesus, goes, "Well, what's going on in your life?" I don't go, "Everything's perfect." 'Cause I follow Jesus, I go, "I'm struggling." You know what? I am a giant butt to my whole family right now. Have been for six days, don't know what the bur is. I have not, man, I am struggling. But God is, continues this off in my heart. He's gonna get ahold of me. And that's what we tell, that's just honest, am I right? That's holding on to the deep truths of the faith. The deep truth of the faith is that we're broken and we're messed up and Jesus meets us in that. There's no inconsistency then with the gospel when we're not perfect. But I don't go so good thing, I don't have to be moral. I don't have to have these character qualities. I say, if it's true that I then reflect Christ, I represent Him in Christianity in ways that are consistent and I have to live that out all the way to the end. I can't say I live for Christ and I don't. That's the above approach. Let's do another one. Next thing he says, just comma. It's faithful to his wife. A lot of conversation about what that probably means over the centuries, but the word just means monogamous. It's just very simple because this is a time when there was some groups that believed in polygamy and this Christian group, Christians believed in monogamy. And so it's saying that, so it's faithful. He's faithful to his wife. He has one wife and he's not gonna get involved in polygamy. And we can of course broaden that a little bit, right? I mean, we know that what faithfulness and monogamy looks like, it's not just having one wife, it's being faithful to the marriage. It's being faithful to not have an inappropriate relationship. It's faithful to not have affairs of the heart. It's faithful to stay engaged in that primary relationship. Well, that's all good as I'm everybody in the world probably go, yeah, right on, good idea. It's hard, marriage is hard. You gotta, no, it's more because if our faith informs how we live, the deep truths of the faith are even richer and deeper than that, you guys, because we believe it's true that Jesus has a plan, that Jesus is, God is sovereign, and God has written our story. And so those of us that are married, married, that are called to be faithful, were married according to God's plan. I remember when I preached on the Sermon on the Mount and we preached about marriage and divorce, I think, and I remember saying to you, saying to you, here's a couple of truths, you gotta get your head around. Number one, if you're married, number one, you're married. And number two, you picked it, so you're in it. I mean, that's the deal. So now let's deal with that reality. Well, the deep truths of the faith is I picked it as God wrote that story. So my marriage is not a social contract I've made. My marriage is a sovereign plan of the eternal God. And I'm called to be faithful to her. So I have this investment in that relationship that is rooted in the eternity and not just rooted in this social contract. That is a huge reality. And I'm called to be faithful to it. Now you go, I didn't get married according to this great sovereign plan of God. I got married, I asked her when I was drunk and I wasn't living with the Lord. That's when I asked her, and now I got myself in this and I forgot, well, you know what, you made your bed. And so now the Lord's in it with you. So you still are, that's how God writes our stories. We go, I didn't, he tried to write it, I went over here and it's like, well, then remember the saying that's the new plan A, God is with you in it. So here's the deal. If it's true that God is sovereign and he has a plan and part of that plan is that I'm in this relationship and then it is my job, it is a calling on my life to live faithful to my wife. And so I know I'm not gonna have an affair then and I know I'm not gonna have a fair of the heart then. I know I'm not gonna dabble in giving my heart away to other things that could take away from her. That's the big stuff. The little stuff is I'm gonna be faithful to that relationship by being present and not absent 'cause that's faithful. God said, I have you two to be together. And Jeff, your job given this to you from heaven, you pay attention, I'm given to you this to you from heaven, your job is to strengthen your wife, to encourage your wife, to walk with your wife, to rescue your wife when she needs it, to love your wife, to speak into her heart, to build herself image, to equip her from ministry for the Lord, to tell her she's the best worship leader you've ever seen, that's your job from heaven. So I am present in that. I'm active and not passive in that. Hello men, you know what I'm talking about? Women, do you know what I'm talking about when men are not active and present? And vice versa. That's faithfulness. I'm in because God, the deep truth of the faith is the sovereign God called me into this relationship so I cannot take it lightly. And you can go there with all the ones that talk about your kids and managing your household and all of that. It's the same thing. God has called us into these things. Now, we're just about out of time. What's one of them that you saw in your list or go, man? I wish we talked about that one. Come on, first guy gets it, squeaky wheel. What is it? Which do you wanna hear? Must not be new in the faith, then what was this one? Self-control, let's do both of them really quick. Self-control is the same verse, verse two. It's kind of the fourth quality down. Self-control literally means of sound mind because what we believe, we already said this, what we believe, okay, leads us to how we act and how we live. So when we think well, when we have a sound mind, we live appropriately. This is the opposite friends of when we hear the words come out of our mouths, it's my problem, I'm out of control. No, we never get to be out of control because we believe that Jesus died for us, we gave our life to him, he is our Lord, and we live for him. And we think about these truths, what would Jesus want? Where's Jesus, what's right? How do I live? We never go, I don't know what I was doing, I'm kinda out of control. We don't get to do that. What we believe and we believe is that God said you, you follow me, then we follow him. And so this self-control thing is like, I don't know, I just wasn't thinking, I just kinda, no, no, we don't get to live like that. That's my son, my son all the time, I'm like, how did you leave the refrigerator door open for six hours? I don't know, I just didn't think about it, no. Self-control literally means of sound mind. I've thought about the truth in my life and I live consistent with it. We don't get to be out of control, serious business. New believer, the one that says you can't be a new believer 'cause any become conceited, here's what new believers do. New believers get in here and go, I'm saved, this is awesome. I don't get a whole lot, but I feel like I love Jesus and I stop swearing and I stop sleeping with my girlfriend for the last 10 days, I'm awesome. And they start to develop spiritual pride because the beginning of their journey looks so simple. God loves me, I figured it all out, I'm all in. And then later they start walking the hard road of obedience and the subtlety of the truth and the difficulties that are in this place, right? You know how, and there's always new believers who go, well, just says that in the Bible, why aren't you doing it? There's always new believers who do that. And you go, well, it's a little harder than that. It's a little more to be talked about. And so, conceit, spiritual pride, is rooted in this immaturity, this, you know, a new believer, the real word for it there, the Greek word is literally newly planted, young, no roots. And somebody with young and no roots hasn't thought it through very much and can think they know more than they do. And when they think they know more than they can do, then the enemy has just got a hold of them. And so, if we believe that, you know, that kind of the if I believe thing, if we believe that this truth is real, that God is real, that we walk with him, that maturity is part of the journey, then it shuts our mouth, we get humble, we open ourselves to learning, we listen more than we speak, those are the things that happen in maturity. So if I believe that, then I'm gonna live that way. We could do this with all of them, you guys. We could do this with all 27 and we could do this with even more. The truth of the matter is, we believe some stuff and what we believe must inform them how we live, not because we're supposed to be moral, but because the gospel compels us to follow Christ into these kinds of things that then bring fruit and life and glorify him and it's serious business. If we don't believe that stuff, we won't live it. And if we're not living it, we probably don't believe it, but we need the powerful reality reminder. What do I believe? And am I living that out? I'm gonna ask the band to come up and we're gonna worship here and as they do, let me just give you this concluding thought. So it's not about morals, it's about our faith in Jesus that informs how we live. Two questions, have you settled what you believe? Have you settled what you believe? If what we believe informs how we live, have you settled what we believe? Have you grabbed onto the deep truths of the faith, become a person of study and reflection and God's word and worship and said, what is it that this gospel is all about? Because if you don't know what you believe, then it doesn't matter how you live. But do you know what you believe? Second question, if you know what you believe, are you actually letting it inform how you live? Or is there inconsistency between the two? Man, I believe all this stuff, he's my savior, he's my lord, I can trust him, he takes care of me, all that kind of stuff. But I live like I'm in control, I live like it's up to me, I live like he's not gonna come through. Do you know what you believe? This could be the Sunday where you go, man, I'm digging in, I'm figuring it out. And the second question is, if you do, are you living consistently with what it is, these deep truths of the faith teach, does your life reflect that Jesus Christ is Lord, that he is sovereign, that he is powerful, that the Holy Spirit is in you, that you have a call in your life, et cetera? We just maybe need that reminder again, as we respond in these couple of songs of worship, let's just cry out to the Lord to reign in us, to lead us, and that will be his people.