MCC Podcasts
Rediscovering a Life of Adventure, part 1
"Get your heart going, do you like that stuff?" Come on, what was the first thing that you got in your head when you saw it? Stupid, that's what you thought, right? You're like, "Are you kidding me? "That guy just do that? "How is the first time that he thought, "You know, I think I'm gonna go for a quadruple back "off the cliffs." Like, wait, how does that happen? Man, we think that adventure is a great, it's one of our, I think it's, I don't know if you know this, but it's one of our eight core values that we have in our church that we value adventure. And we think it's because it's a godly thing. We think it's because it's a great symbol for what it looks like to be in a relationship with God, this idea of adventure. And here's why, and we're cutting to the chase right now, this is gonna be my definition of it, we're gonna talk about it eight, nine weeks, then even probably into advent a little bit. We're gonna talk about adventure from this angle, not alone, but this thing for me is this is how I define it. I define adventure as things are adventurous when we're out of control. That's what I think, you resonate with that? Things are adventurous when we're out of control. Venture is totally out of control. It's when we go, okay, I don't know how this is gonna go. I don't know how it's gonna end. I don't know if it's gonna go well. I think that I'm at risk. And I go, you know what? That sounds a lot like a relationship with God. Can anybody relate to that deal? I mean, that's what we think this is about. This walking with God thing is adventurous because we're out of control. I was just reflecting with somebody recently on an adventure that Ben and Linda and I did last year. And we may have told you about it. I don't know, maybe Ben bragged about it 'cause he brags about all his running stuff. But it was a year ago now, but we ran a section of the Pacific Crest Trail from Carson Pass up in the Tahoe Rim area. Carson Pass on Highway 88 to Echo Pass on Highway 50. And it's about 13 miles, and it's all above like 8,500 feet. And it's a 13 mile route, and we had somebody drop us at one end and then Katie picked this up at the other end. And so we started going by to the car and then we just headed in and we'd never gotten in the middle of this thing. We'd never hiked all the way through 'cause that's a long way. It's 13 miles long ways. And we took off, can you picture us? A little running shorts. Here we go, let's go. And so the three of us took off to do this, basically mounted to a half marathon up at like, you know, over 8,000 feet. Well, the thing was adventurous about it was we didn't know if we had what it took. It's not like we're up there training, you know, like mountain goats, like we weren't going, you know, I got this in me, we didn't know. We didn't know if there was gonna be snow on the trail and we would totally lose the trail and then not be able to figure out how to get, you know, out on the other side. We didn't know if somebody was gonna get, you know, clawed by a bear in the middle of the deal and then what we were gonna do from there. I mean, we just didn't know what was gonna happen. We didn't know if the trail even went through, if there was a mud slide, we had no idea whether we were gonna get from one end or the other. And it felt super like we're adventurous because we couldn't guarantee the outcome and we didn't know how it would go. Part way through the race, somewhere through the race, it wasn't the race, it was a work just to run. Part way through the run, a look back, Linda, is kind of moving, is she here? Kinda moving slow. And I look over at her and I'm like, "Dang, how is she doing?" And I'm like, "How are you doing?" She's like, "This is hard." And then I look back a little later, she's crying. You're crying, oh, good idea, Jeff. Go on that run with your wife. She's crying on the run and I'm like, "Okay, this is supposed to be an adventure. It's just not supposed to be." She's crying on the run and she goes, "I cry on all of our long runs." I'm like, "You do? I'm sorry?" I look at Ben, I'm like, "I'm in my wife crying." He's like, "I feel like crying a little bit right now." I mean, we were in the middle of it, was it not? I mean, we had no idea. And we got all the way to the end of the thing and we could actually hear the highway at the other end. Still, I mean, totally wracked, totally tired, going way up in the mountains on the single track run trail. And I rolled my ankle with an earshot of the parking lot. So bad that I basically hopped all the way there. I mean, can you imagine if that had happened five and a half miles before that, where you were six miles from anything, you know, on either end? And Ben just says to me, you know, just so you know, if that had happened in the middle of the trail, I wasn't gonna carry you. (audience laughs) But we didn't know how that would go. But, you know, all of us have stories where we go, man, it was awesome in my life that I went and took this chance and I tried to climb that mountain or I tried to learn that language or I tried to enter into the dating world or I tried to, you know, I mean, there's these adventures in our life where we go, it's pretty crazy because I don't know how it's gonna turn out. You guys, that's a metaphor for walking with God because our relationship with God, if there's any other way to define it, I don't know a better one, a relationship with God is about being out of control and giving him control of our lives and every one of us has to go, oh, that is not that easy, right? You guys, that is not that easy. So if you, and if you don't get anything else, I mean, we're talking not about, well, I want you to go climb a mountain or I want you to go run a race. I wanna talk about the adventure of being on a spiritual journey where we literally, literally become followers of Jesus and we don't know how that's gonna go. We don't know how that's gonna go. We don't know how it's gonna turn out. We don't know what risks we're gonna face. We don't know if we got it within us to make it. We don't know if there's something in the middle of the trail and we're gonna get off course. We don't know if we're gonna roll our ankle and our friends are gonna have to carry our sorry, dehines the rest of the way. We don't know. If you got nothing else out of my little talk this morning, I'm just introducing the idea of adventure. I'm gonna introduce something else and if you miss, if you get nothing else, I want you to get this. Anything less than being out of control is not authentic Christianity. Anything less than being totally out of control is not authentic Christianity because once we cease to become a follower of the living God, Jesus in our lives, you lead, I'm following, here we go. I don't know where we're going. I don't know how it's gonna turn out. Any less than that, once we cease to do that, it's not authentic Christianity, it's religion. Maybe we identify with Christianity, but it's not authentic in the sense that we do not follow our Lord Jesus. If we were to put a true serum in all of your coffee, which we do, did you know we do that every week, and had you reflect on where and how do I actually follow Jesus? Not follow Jesus's rules, somehow align a little with Jesus's heart, but I mean, follow our Lord Jesus. How do you follow Jesus? How would that reflection go? Would you be challenged a little bit and then think, man, I'm more in control of my life than I wanna admit, but Jesus should be in control. That's where we're talking about. The adventure of following Christ is about being out of control. And that's what we're gonna talk about over the next several weeks. And the other thing I wanna introduce to you is the book of Exodus, because we're gonna take some story. We think Exodus is one of the great books that reflect this idea that God is in control. And we're gonna grab some stories of people and situations of God's people in Moses in the book of Exodus, and have that help us kinda get our heads around this idea of living and rediscovering adventure risk out of control. So we're gonna look at Exodus, and then to start this morning, our text is, I just want us to look at the last two paragraphs, short paragraphs, in the book of Exodus. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn to it or find underneath the chair, it's the very, the Exodus, the second book in the Bible. And this is the very last paragraph of the book. And we also have it up on the screen. It's Exodus chapter 40. And we'll explain it a little bit, but I just want you to get a sense of where this book lands at the end of 40 chapters in the Old Testament. And we'll talk a little bit about get oriented to it as well, for I make a few more points and call that an introduction to our series. Exodus chapter 40, this is the very end of the book. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Okay, now you're gonna need some orientation. You're gonna need to get in here and read this book and figure out what that's about. But the cloud was the presence of God that went with God's people, we went with Israel, and the glory of the Lord kept showing up in this book, and it filled the tabernacle. Here's what the tabernacle is. The tabernacle was a temporary temple. It was the first temple where God dwelled with His people on earth. And He told them to go set it up. He said, "You go set this up, make a sanctuary for me, "and I will dwell among you." And while they were working to put this tabernacle together, it was something that could be moved around, 'cause as we know, they were moving around. Moses set up this thing called the tent of meeting, and he put it right outside the door, and it was a very quick tent, and it was a tent of meeting where he could go into the very presence of God. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, the presence of God covered the tent of meeting where Moses was meeting with him, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord in repetition, typical Old Testament repetition, and the glory of the Lord did what? Filled the tabernacle. God showed up. We can't miss that when we start talking about adventure and being out of control. God showed up. You're out of control without God showing up. You're just a circus. You know what I'm sayin'? You're out of control when God shows up. Now we got adventure with me. Look at the next couple verses. In all the travels of the Israelites, look at that phrase, isn't that great? In all the travels of the Israelites, makes it sound like they were on some sort of a junket, some sort of a retired travel expiration. Now they were out in the desert. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out. If the cloud did not lift, they did not set out, not until it lifted. You hear what's goin' on here? They, so the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day and the fire was in the cloud by night in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels. They could see the presence of God among them everywhere they went. In fact, they only went somewhere when the glory of God said, "Now go this way," and they got up and went. And if the glory of God didn't go that way, they didn't go. You see it? This was an adventure that these people were gonna go through. We're gonna pick some stuff out of their experience and their journey over the next few weeks, but I just wanted to get a couple of those. I'm gonna make a couple observations about 'em in just a minute. But let me give you a quick review of Exodus. You know what Exodus is? Exodus, second book in the Bible, Old Testament, part of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus Numbers, Deuteronomy, that's the Pentateuch, first five books, okay? Moses wrote most of it. People of Israel put it all together. That's the big five, man. And Exodus is the second part. Now, if you've read Genesis before, and it's got like 50 chapters, and so you gotta get caught up if you're gonna read Exodus with us. So you got at least 50 chapters to do this week, okay? That might be 30 minutes. You might have 30 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day over the next seven days to get caught up. Who's got that in 'em? You got 30 minutes to spend time with God? I don't think so. Yes, you do. That was a joke. Get caught up. Read Genesis. So Genesis is from the beginning through all the patriarchs, through all the fathers of our faith, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Jacob was renamed Israel. Israel had 12 sons. One of them was Joseph. Joseph got sent to Egypt by his brothers, 'cause he'll end his slavery. Oh, I've seen that musical, you say. Yeah, right. And so he's in Egypt. And then all of Israel comes down, and Israel starts getting blessed, living in Egypt. Okay, Joseph dies, end of Genesis. Exodus starts. Joseph has been gone. Israel has been growing tons of Israelites in Egypt, becoming more powerful, but they're slaves, they come to put lots and lots of them. And Moses is born, and now we've got the story of Moses. So Exodus is the story of Moses, who then becomes the deliverer of God's people out of their ever-increasing harsh treatment, treatment by the Egyptians, and gets them, the plagues come, the Passover, deliverance through the Red Sea. God's victory, God goes, come on then, you're my people. Let's go, get some out of there. Take some out of Egypt, put some through the Red Sea. They get delivered, and they show up where? In the desert, yeah, great, that's cool. We got all delivered, yeah, in the desert. And now they're in the desert, now they're wishing they were back in Egypt. Manah comes down, right? This is all in Exodus. You with me, little lights going on, flannel board from Sunday school. You can remember any of this stuff? And now they begin the wandering in the desert. Have anybody how long they stayed there? 40 years, yeah, but Exodus is just the beginning of it, just the beginnings of the wanderings, and they're getting this idea that God's going to be with them, and they're going to be out of control. That's what they're going to be figuring out in here. The Ten Commandments come to the Lord, they camp the bottom of Mount Sinai. Lord gives them the commandments, and other ordinances says, hey, we're going to work together, we're going to have a covenant relationship here. I'm going to be your God, you're going to be my people. Here's how you live. They're like, okay, we'll do that until Moses disappeared a little too long, and then they made a golden calf and some idols and had a party, it was awful. Read that story. And then Moses had to come back and do it all over again. Ten Commandments, ordinances. And then there's a whole section of Exodus. We won't do a lot of preaching on it 'cause it's a lot of detail about how they set up the tabernacle. And you look at the outline of the book and you think you spent like 20 chapters, maybe 15, talking about the details of this place of worship, and then you get to the end, and he says, my glory is going to come and live here with you. And you don't go anywhere when my glory's here, and my glory lifts, then you come and you follow. And you see the pattern set up where God said, I'm gonna be your God, you're gonna be my people, and you're gonna follow me, and now we're on an adventure. That's the book of Exodus, there you go. So if you miss Sunny School all those years, that was it, you got it. And that was free. But catch up and let's read together, and we'll be in the first couple chapters of it next week. But this is where we're going. We're talking about the adventure of actually being a follower of Jesus, because anything short of out of control is not authentic Christianity. And we're gonna take some stuff from the book, the book of Exodus. All right, you sound like a good plan for the next couple months? All right, let me just give you two quick observations in a few minutes that I've got left, which is Pastor Speakford, I'm gonna go now, and we're gonna preach it now, and we'll just see when we get done. Two things that I wanna point out about from just this last couple verses of the book, which are so cool. Number one, this is it. It's an adventure to find life, capital life, life, the life of God in his presence. It's an adventure to find the life of God in his presence. Not to mean it's an adventure to try to find it, meaning this adventure is that we find the life that we want in his presence. We find it in his presence. We find it in the reality of the presence of God. See, the adventurous life, the amazing life that God has promised us. Jesus said, "I came that you might have life "and have it abundantly." That life is not found in the details of life. It's found in his presence. You with me? That's what the text says. Look back at the first two verses again of this text. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory, oh, missed the word, it was glorious. The glory of God's presence filled the tabernacle. And Moses couldn't go in there because the cloud had settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled it. This is a great thing. The glory of the Lord kept showing up and rocking their planet. The glory of the Lord all the way through Exodus. Somebody wanna do some homework? Read where the glory kept showing up in Exodus. There's a whole bunch of cool passages. God kept showing up and going, I am amazing. Is essentially what was happening. And they were like, you are amazing. And we will live and serve you. He was so glorious, even just his presence. And we don't even know exactly what the glory looks like. There's one little hint where it said the glory looked to them like the mountaintop was full of a consuming fire. Come on now. I want that to show up. That glory kept showing up and it was literally just the presence of God himself was so glorious that they said, we're all about you. You are what we want. And you guys, this adventure for us is not that God's gonna give you a life that's so much better than somebody else's life. Look at your life. It has all these characteristics that are great. And I'm gonna bless you with a great wife, Enzi. And I'm gonna bless you with great kids. And I'm gonna give you this and I'll give you that. That's not where life is found, friends. Life all the way through our scriptures is found by the simple, glorious presence of God. Life's not found in life. Life is found in God. You hear that? Life's not found in life. It never is. So people, what we do is we try to get some life then. We go, you know, this makes me happy. I want more of that. Then this makes me not so happy. I'm gonna stay away from that. And then we start controlling our life. But what we said was, anything short of out of control is not authentic Christianity. We actually have to live out of control and let the presence of God fill whatever life He brings. Friends, your life's not good because your marriage is good 'cause it may not be. And then you're stuck going, my life's not good 'cause I'm in a hard time in my marriage. That cannot for the people of God be what we're destined to. That when your circumstances go up, you're doing great. And when your circumstances go down, you're not doing great. That's what we have. That's what we have. And that's what we have to offer a broken world. No, what we have is when you're here and your relationship's doing good, that's the glory of God pouring out on you. And when your relationship and your marriage is struggling, life is full of adventure and glory because God's still present when it's down here. And if you have kids, you're blessed and you feel great. And when you don't have kids, you know that God has meted you in that place and it's full of glory. Life is found in His presence, not in the external. We're gonna live on those external things or are we gonna know that God infuses all of our life with Him. And that's enough. Does that ring a little bit? That's not enough for most of us. Let's be honest. I want some light. I want some stuff to go along with that. I want some security to go along with that. I want some things that are gonna make me feel better. I want some less pain. That's actually how I feel. I don't want all, I want a little relief from stuff. But it is enough. That's what God says. And you hear it in the scriptures. It rings true of some scriptural things. Paul's saying, I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether in plenty or in want, I can do everything through Christ. I've all things. Paul went on to say in another book, he said, what he said, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness. Whatever was to my credit, I consider it a loss compared to the surpassing glory, essentially, of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. That's all I got. That's all I got and that's all I need. Friends, we may be a long ways from that because we put all these secure things around our lives and we go, that's where I'm finding life. And God says, you know what the adventure is gonna be? The adventure is gonna be you finding life in me alone. That's where life's gonna be found. Wow. It's like when nothing else matters, but God himself. Wow, isn't that powerful? You know what I can liken that to? I liken that to young love. Young love, married couples, beginning of their relationship, they don't need anything, they don't eat, they don't sleep, am I right? We just have each other. Linda and I, when we got married, we got married in April of 1986. And in April of 1986, we came back from our honeymoon, gave our notice, quit our jobs. We were both unemployed in three weeks 'cause you know, that's a super smart thing to do. And our parents thought it was really responsible too. But we quit our jobs and we moved to the Napa Valley and we rented a cottage behind some big house in the middle of the vineyards. And we spent the first four and a half months, four, five months almost of our married life hanging out in the Napa Valley. Water skiing, playing tennis, going swimming, sitting in the sunshine and gazing into each other's eyes. Is that awesome? And you know why? Because we didn't need to work, because why? We could live off our love. That's all we needed. We literally would go, hey, we're out of food. Do we have any more money? No, okay, let's go look for a little work. And I knew how to wash windows because I'd been trained in a maintenance company when I was a kid and in high school, I had a job to wash windows. So we'd go knock on doors and go, we'll wash your windows for a hundred bucks. And they'd be like, great. And we'd wash their windows and then we'd say, can we hang out by your pool for the rest of the day? And they'd be like, sure. And we made friends and we took the hundred bucks and we bought a little bit of food. That's all we needed. My life had nothing, you know what? I didn't have a car payment. You know how much my car cost? Literally eight hundred and sixty five dollars. That's how much my car costs. Some of you have eight hundred and sixty five dollar car payments. But we lived off our love. That's all we needed. It's that kind of a sense that life is rich simply because of what we have. And my friends, no matter what your life circumstances, the adventure is not God making it better. The circumstances is God infusing his glory into your life. The adventure is having life just in the presence of God no matter where you go, no matter what it looks like, no matter how you feel, God is here. And that's all I need. Come on Lord, do that in our hearts. Don't you wanna be that person? Totally out of control and free from those other things. Otherwise we're gonna control it. We're gonna manipulate it. We're gonna need more of this and less of that and all those kinds of things. And then friends, you know what? We end up in control of our own lives. It's an adventure to find life in its presence. And secondly, it's an adventure to find life in his leading. So not just him infusing himself in the middle of all of our life and bringing glory to those things. And you know, I wanna camp so much on that. I wanna camp so much on him infusing glory into the middle of our lives. I want you to feel the Italian passion in that. Do you have heart in you? Do you have an Italian heart in you that there's like one of the, Bruce Peterson said to me, man, you know what? When I see joy, I get my tears come to my eyes. When I see the joy of Becca and Anthony yesterday getting married, it just makes tears come to my eyes. He's like, I don't like that. And now I just outed him. I said that. Is he here? First gathering. I just told him, he's like, it just, it feels, that's the glory of God. When you've been married and when you've been divorced and then married or you've been, when you go to a wedding and you know the richness of God showing up and what they're gonna go through and that he's gonna have to take care of them, you don't feel the richness of that, you know, then you're dead. But that's how God infuses glory into the things that we have. Ah man, that's so good. I wanna live like that every day. I wanna be that guy. May God make us all that guy. In the adventure, that's funny, life in his presence. Second point was, it's an adventure to find life in his leading. It's an adventure to find life in his leading. The life is in where God's gonna take us. No matter where we go, look at the second half of those verses, verse 36 and following. Very end of the book. In all the travels, love the phrase. In all the travels of these real lights, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they'd set out. If it didn't lift, they wouldn't set out. You hear that? It's like, Lord goes, when I say go and my glory goes, you go get glory wherever he takes you. If I don't go, you don't go. I'm in control. You see it church? Super simple. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day. The fire was in the cloud by night. God's presence was there and it was in the sight of Israel when, in all their travels. They always had the presence of God leading them everywhere they went or they didn't go. This is Christianity. This is us following Jesus. Following our Savior. Where did they go? They didn't know. They didn't know where they were going. We call it the wanderings. Imagine how it felt to them for 40 years. They just followed God's glory. If wherever God went, the presence of God went, that's where they went. They had no idea how it was gonna turn out. Does that not sound like everybody's real life? You don't know. You don't know where this is going. You don't know what tomorrow holds. You don't know what this relationship looks like. You know, again, reflecting on the idea of young love and marriage. Do you think when I met Linda when she was 13, 12, I was 13, do you think I knew who she would be as my wife, my lover, the mother of my children, your worship leader? Do you think I knew who she would be when she was, you know, her age now? I had no idea. And then when I got a crush on her when I was 16 and then when I started dating her when I was 17, do you think I knew the depth of who that woman would be in my life? Do you think I knew the challenges that we would face? Do you think I knew that at the time? No idea, isn't that right? People, you think, you think you know what's ahead? Well, I gotta figure it out. I think I could marry this person. When we do premarital counseling, right, premarital couples are the stupidest people on the face of the earth. And it's God's evolutionary trick to get them to get married. But part of it is we let them be stupid. We let them think they know, well, we're compatible and it's gonna work out and I think you don't, you don't know who this woman's gonna be in 25 years. That's the adventure of it. When we are prone to just live out our destinations and our goals and our dreams and what we vision life can be, if I'm left to my own vices friends, I'm gonna have a small life that smells like me. I want God's destination and God's dreams and God's leading and God's glory. I want God to tell me what it's gonna be like and then I'm all in and that will be epic and adventurous. You hear the difference? That's what we're supposed to be about. But we go, man, this is where we're going. This is what I gotta do, I can't go there, I don't want. But we go, we go because the glory of God said you want glory, keep up, we're going. It's, this adventure is finding life in the leading of God and it's always gonna turn out better 'cause he's God. Hello, did I just say that out loud? It's always gonna turn out better 'cause he's God. Do you need to write that down? Yesterday at the, at Becca's wedding, I was sitting, we were sitting at a table and my wife and Ken Croner were talking, Ken, are you in this gathering? And that's good. Oh, he is? And anyway, they're talking and Ken found out, reminded or whatever, that Lyndon and I had gone to Davis and he's like, I almost went to Davis actually to work my first job out of my PhD. Sorry, out of him, he's got a PhD. So he was a, you know, he was a professor, right? So he's a professor and his first job, he almost got a job at Davis. And he was talking about how he loved Davis and he was really like, really wanted to go to Davis and really wanted to teach there and love the town and love the community and love the department and loved all this stuff and not anything to get to go to Davis. He ended up teaching in Arizona, at University of Arizona, right? So he's in Arizona, he ends up going to Arizona and he goes, but here's the thing, I got an offer from Davis two days after I accepted the position in Arizona and I felt like I'd already given them my word and he was sharing the story and he was like, man, what a bummer. Like I ended up in Arizona and I really wanted to go to Davis two days later, you know? And Linda's listening to him and she goes, didn't you meet Jennifer in Arizona, his wife? And he's like, yeah? And Linda's like, that's why he went to Arizona. Like, what were you thinking? He's like lamenting me and I could have gone to Davis. He's like, you met Jennifer there. Ken's like, yeah, that's a really good point. And he's like, you know, Jennifer's across table. He's like, yeah, thanks for that tip. That's a really good call, good way to look at it. It's always better when the glory moves, we go with God's plan and we don't know what the end is gonna be, but it's gonna be his plan and not ours because anything less than being out of control is not authentic Christianity. That's what we're about. It's an adventure to find life in his leading. Are you in control? (silence) Does he control your adventure? Is his glory present where you're present and leading you where you're going? What does that look like for you? Friends, I hope this ignites a fire in you to be that kind of guy, to be that kind of woman or the adventure is in his presence and in his leading. That's what following Jesus is all about. Some of you today are content to be religious, I think. Yeah, I'm religious. I got the God thing around me. I do some good stuff. I stop doing some bad stuff. I'm religious. Some of your content go further than that. You're content being religious, but you're content being a Christian. You're content identifying with Christ. If you get the gospel, you get Jesus died to save you, get He died on the cross for you and you're forgiven. You're going to heaven, like you get all that. You said yes, been baptized, glory hallelujah. My friends, I'm trying to paint the picture and wanna paint it for the next season of time here. Being religious is okay, I'm religious. Being a Christian is great, yeah, you gotta get saved. But we're talking about the step that says, and now I follow Christ, Jesus, my Lord, my living savior daily into his adventure for me. Today, tomorrow, next year, and on, that's who we are. And we're on that adventure together. I hope this fires us up to be gonna come on God, make us those people and that church. Bring your glory. And that's what Moses said, go check it out in Exodus 33. He said, I'll go wherever you want me to go. You just go with me and you show me your glory. May be true of us. Let me pray for you. Father God, just before ends and David, come on, make your way up here as I'm praying 'cause we got one more announcement. Thank you God for your presence in this room. Thank you for the adventure following you. We love it, we love it. We love it conceptually. We hate it 'cause we like being in control and we like to know how the story's gonna end. But we way rather live the epic, glorious adventure of following you. God teaches to do that. If there's somebody in this room that has no idea how to go there, no idea what that means. How do you know Jesus? How can you follow Jesus? God ignite a fire in them that does not go out until they learn, how do I follow Jesus? But make us those people God. Bless the reading and the reflection of your word today. We pray in the name of Christ, amen.