Reflection With The Good Shepherd, And Looking Forward

Discover the profound connection between shepherding and spiritual leadership through the lens of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Learn essential qualities of spiritual guidance, including masterful care, tender attention, and faithful leadership. Explore the importance of reflection in spiritual growth, understanding divine guidance, and following God's direction. Perfect for those seeking spiritual growth, understanding Christian leadership, or deepening their faith journey. Topics include spiritual reflection, divine guidance, Christian leadership, faith development, spiritual growth, following Jesus, Christian living, biblical teaching, spiritual direction, and personal transformation. Gain practical insights for creating meaningful reflection practices, recognizing God's voice, and stepping into divine purposes with confidence.


This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Good morning. Happy New Year. We missed you guys last week, but I also just want to say thank you. Thank you for being the type of family, the type of community that gives permission. Larry, you're generous. There we go. That gives permission for our staff to value our families as well. As a pastor's kid, I grew up missing out on family celebrations and things like that because we were always at the church. And so it was really special that we're in a community, that you guys are generous enough to say, you know what, we understand that you guys have families too, and we bless you to take a week off on a Sunday and to be able to spend time with your families as well. That just means the world to us, and it keeps us healthy as we're trying to walk with you in your journey with the Lord. So thank you. Thank you for that. And we missed you. We missed you last week. Um, I hope you guys all had a really great Sunday last Sunday. Um, but we're happy to be back together and to launch into this new year. So if you don't know me, my name is Piper Keppen. I'm the worship and arts pastor here. And um this morning, Pastor Luke, our lead teaching pastor, he is actually on a trip with his family in Costa Rica right now. Poor guy, right? So uh we're just loving that he's getting the time away, and also felt like it was a really neat opportunity to ask the Lord, okay, what do you want to do differently this week, Lord? And as we sat before the Lord and asked him, What is it you want to do? How do you want to lead us? We felt his prompting. I don't want you to run into the next series. I don't want you to rush ahead. Our lives, especially, especially in our American Western culture, it's so full of rush and hurry. And we felt the Lord say, I just want to breathe and I want you to breathe and I want to take some time with you. I want to reflect on 2024 with you, and then I want you to sit and listen and perceive as we reorient ourselves in the trajectory and the alignment with him of what he has before us for 2025. So this morning we're gonna do something a little bit different. Is that okay? All right. So instead of moving into a series, we're gonna take time this morning and we're actually gonna move through a few different movements. Now, during these movements, you will need some paper and something to write on, or you can pull out your phone and you can use your notes app. We allow you to be phony Christians here. If you'll allow me to be a corny teacher. All right, so no, feel free to use your phone if you want to use it. Um, if you've got a journal or you have some paper you want to use of your own. If not, we also have some tables in the back there and some trays up here with journals that you're welcome to take and keep for yourselves, or some paper if you'd like to just grab. I would recommend one or two pieces of paper. Um, so feel free to get up anytime, come grab those things, and uh we're gonna jump right in. Now, before we get into actually walking through these movements, I want to acknowledge the fact that our culture is not prone to really celebrating and just loving times of reflection. If we're really honest with ourselves, we we live at such a busy pace in this culture that we tend to go, okay, that thing's done, moving on to the next, right? We tend to have so much that lies before us that we feel responsible for that we don't necessarily take the time it actually requires to look back and say, but what has just been accomplished in this previous season? And I'd like to propose to you that that is something that we as believers get to be counter-cultural in. We actually get to say, no, I don't believe that God has me living at such a rushed pace that I can't pay attention to what he has just accomplished or to be present. Right? We get to live differently. Not only do we get to live differently, but we're called to live differently. So this morning we're gonna take some time to do that. When we rush, we miss out on the present moment. We forget to take note, we forget to see the people standing in front of us, we forget to look at someone in the eye and actually see who they are. And especially when we live in this rushed, hurried culture, we really forget to look back and value, celebrate, treasure, and learn from the things of our experiences in the last season. I like how John Dewey says it. He says, We do not learn from our experience. We learn from reflecting on our experience. So true, right? Have you ever lived a season where you experienced a whole lot of things and then you're like, well, that was that, okay, and you move on, and then you look back and you're like, God, what was that all about? Actually, I'm kind of mad at you about that. I don't even understand why you allowed any of that to happen. And he's like, if you'd slow down for a minute, we could talk about it. If you just take a minute with me, we could actually look back and I can share with you what I was doing, but until you slow down, you won't have time to perceive it. Right? Anybody experienced that in your walk with the Lord? I know I have, I still do all the time. Not only do we need this, and is it a is it a vital need for us, especially in this hurried, rushed culture we live in, but it was actually modeled for us in Scripture. Creator God, when he created the universe, he stopped. He would pause and look back and reflect on what he had just accomplished and he would celebrate it. Jesus made a habit of pulling away and going, Okay, Father, I just need to get present with you again. I've been pouring out, but I need to look in your eyes and I need to be aligned with you again. Moses went up onto the mountain, spent some time with the Father, and when he came back, he was quite literally reflecting the glory of Jesus. It says his face was radiant with light. Why is that? It's because when we reflect on something, and it's because when we come away from beholding something, we will reflect it. How do we reflect all of the good that Jesus has been doing in our lives if we don't ever take the time to behold it, right? So even with Moses, his time with the Father then was able to be reflected back to Israel because he took the time to behold what the Father was saying. And even in our suffering, even in hurt, even in pain, even in wounding, Paul said this um in the Psalms. It says, It was good that I was afflicted. He wasn't saying that the affliction itself was great. He wasn't weird, he didn't enjoy it. He was saying, all that God accomplished in me through that affliction, I can look back and behold the goodness of it. So even for us in the places where we go through hard seasons and times of grief and loss, times of confusion, times of frustration, when we can take the time to stop and reflect and behold all that had happened and hold it before the Lord, He then can step into our story with us and say, Let's talk about that and let me show you what I was about in that season. It was not a waste. I waste nothing. Let me show you the work I had done. But it requires our partnership of taking the time to reflect, right? So this morning we're gonna jump in. We're gonna go to John 10 1 through 16, and I'm gonna read this for you. I'm actually gonna read off the screens, because I have the wrong version in my Bible than what you have. So it says, Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he brought all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who come before me are th all who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and I will go in and out and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, I lay down my life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice for so there will be one flock with one shepherd. So you may say, okay, that's cool, but what'd that have to do with reflection? One of the things that's so important that we understand as believers is that we are not intended to reflect alone. We cannot look back. We see only in part, we see only through broken filters, only through our humanity. So when we look back alone, we misunderstand the seasons that we've come through and we miss key points of something Jesus was doing in our lives. But the good news is we were never created to reflect alone, and he chose to step in as our good shepherd and walk with us and lead us along the path, even the paths of our own reflection. See, mirrors reflect what is what the image that is beheld in them, correct? Broken mirrors reflect a refracted image. We are a broken people. If anybody in this room is not broken, let me know. I'd love to hear your the hint that you have for me. We are a broken people, we're human, and that's okay. And Jesus knew that, and He doesn't He doesn't come to correct us about it, He comes to lead us through it. He doesn't come to chastise us, He comes to love us, to make us whole again. But when we look back and we reflect only with our with our own understanding, we will miss or see a refracted image of what God has actually been doing among our lives. So for us as followers, we have to invite the Good Shepherd to bring us along a path, a journey with him, so that we can reflect with him and see what he says. This is the reflection of what really was going on in that season. This is what I was really about. This is how I actually see you. Okay. For the sake of time, I'm not going to unpack every one of those verses, but I do want to point out a couple of things about it, about the ways that Jesus journeys with us and the ways he talks to us. So, first of all, I want to point out the context. The timing in which Jesus made these statements, I am the Good Shepherd, happened to be in a cultural time when Jesus and the disciples and many other Jews were all visiting Jerusalem and they were there to celebrate one of the Passover feasts, which is called the Feast of Tabernacles. And this feast, the orientation of this feast was we're here to celebrate the fact that God led us out of slavery in Egypt through the desert and provided miraculously for his people all through the journey. That was the focus of this feast, okay? Secondly, at this moment, he had just come away from healing a blind man. Now, the reason this matters, we will miss this because we don't understand the cultural context typically of the Jewish people. But what the Jews believed at this time was that only the Spirit of God could heal blind eyes. They believed that evil spirits could not heal blind eyes. So Jesus comes in a cultural moment of remembrance. I led you. Then he comes to a moment of doubt. No, I'm coming in the right spirit. And then he speaks their language. See, shepherding was the most common trait among the Jewish people at this time. And even if they weren't a shepherd or hadn't been raised in a shepherding family, they understood what it implied to be called a good shepherd. A good shepherd carried specific qualifications. Let's put those up here. To be a good shepherd. Do you guys have those notes?

SPEAKER_00 14:12

All right.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

To be a good shepherd, it meant that you had to be masterful. Good shepherds knew exactly what was required to care for their sheep, how to protect them, how to provide for them, and what paths to lead them on for the right type of nourishment for the season that sheep was in. To be a good shepherd, it meant you had to be tender. They would pull, as we saw in that scripture, he would call them by name. Every one of the shepherds that was known as a good shepherd would call, would name, literally name all of their sheep. They would have flocks of hundreds and they'd still know each sheep by name and they would recognize them, call them by name. Shepherds still do this around the world, actually. Call them by name. The sheep would come out of the gate, wait for their name to be called, would come out the gate, and the shepherd would kneel, would pull them into his arms, and he would run his hands over their fleece and their heads and their legs, checking for wounds or for um brokenness that needed to be tended to. He was tender. A good shepherd is diligent. See, sheep aren't the um most independent of animals. In fact, if a sheep is left alone, it will die. Sheep require a shepherd. Their fleece will overgrow and they won't be able to see. Sheep aren't the smartest, so they wander off cliffs frequently. And if another sheep goes off the cliff, they're definitely going off the cliff with that sheep. So sheep require a shepherd. They don't know how to find their own nourishment, they don't know how to groom themselves, they're not capable of it. And they will wander into places that are unhealthy and unsafe for them. Sound a little bit familiar. Maybe not y'all, but that's me. I know that's been me. And they tend to go back to paths. One of the things that they find is that sheep that are left unattended or are not watched diligently, they'll go back to ground that has already been uh grazed upon, and they will end up dying of a lack of nourishment because they keep going back to the same place, even though there's a fresh pasture right next to them. They will die in their stubbornness, in their unwillingness to follow the shepherd into this pasture, they will die because they keep going back to this pasture saying, Nope, I know there was food here once. Also sound a little familiar. And finally, the last quality of a good shepherd is he's benevolent. See, just like caring for a sheep requires masterful skill, it requires tenderness and it requires diligence. Mastery, tenderness, and diligence require benevolence. To be a good shepherd, the shepherd has to orient his life toward the care of that sheep. The scripture says, those who came before me were thieves and robbers, if they come in the wrong gate. It also says, I don't care for my sheep like a hired hand. I care for them like a good shepherd. Why? Because a hired hand will not love them enough to lay his life down for them. But our good shepherd will. A good shepherd knows his entire uh life's being exists around caring for the sheep in the way that they need. He orients his daily living to their care. For a lot of my life, I lived my walk with the Lord thinking, okay, I've got to set myself on the Lord, I've got to orient toward him, I gotta live it perfectly. If I don't, I'm gonna miss it. Okay, I've gotta make sure that I get A, B, C, D, E done and make sure that I'm checking all the boxes of what good Christians look like. And I've got to just make sure I get totally aligned and never miss it. And as I was studying this several years ago, the Lord said, No, you're missing the point. It's never been about you orienting your life around me. It's always been about the fact that I've oriented mine around you. That's a good shepherd. And that's what draws his sheep to trust him. And you guys, Jesus oriented his life around us. He is a good shepherd. He is masterful and tender and diligent, and his heart is set toward our good. See, Jesus at this moment, he comes to the people of Jerusalem and he says, Listen, I am the good shepherd. That story that you're remembering and that you're celebrating right now, that journey that I took you on all those years ago, that's still me. All of that deliverance, all of that provision, all of that love, that's still who I am today. And I've come in the right spirit, and I'll speak your language so you know me, so that you can understand me. John 10, we find that Jesus is speaking to a people using the context of their life, their daily life, in that present moment to reveal something of himself. And Jesus was then, and he still is now, in the business of stepping right into the middle of our stories, using our language, and calling us to follow him through our season. And we want to honor that today, that heart today. So for the rest of this time this morning, we're gonna invite you guys to join us as we practice some steps of reflection. We're gonna walk you through it, and then as we go through some reflection, then after a little while, we're going to shift and we're gonna look forward. And Josh Robertson's gonna come up and he's gonna lead us through a time of orienting and looking ahead into the and perceiving together the invitation of Jesus that's set before us for the for the upcoming year. Does that sound good? Okay, all right. So grab your pens, journals, papers, phones, whatever you want to use, and we're gonna go through a few steps here. With each movement, we're gonna I'm gonna give you a little bit of instruction, and then we're gonna just put on some ambient music and give you time to sit with the Lord and to walk through that process, okay? Sound good? Everybody with me? All right. So for this very first movement, what we're going to do is we're just gonna look back and we're gonna recall 2024. Okay? So for the next three to five minutes, I'd like you to, you can get out your phone and use your photos, you can use your calendar, you can use whatever you need to use. But I'd like you to just sit and jot down, don't process any of it yet, we'll get there. Just jot down any major events that have happened, experiences that you've had that have had a significant impact on you over the year of 2024. It doesn't have to be spiritual or deeply meaningful, it can be both positive things and negative things. It could be something fun that you purchased and it's been giving you joy. It can be a loss that you had that you know you need to spend some more time processing with the Lord. As we go through this next five minutes, we're just gonna throw on here a few questions for you guys to consider to help you think through the different events of your life in 2024. And we'll throw some music on for you. As you're going through your list, I'd like you to also underline any space that deserves celebration and gratitude. And I'd like you to circle any space that you experienced grief or loss. Don't worry, this is just the start of a conversation. So if you want to come back and revisit and go through these steps again, once you're home, you can come back and revisit. In fact, I encourage you to do so so that you can take more time. But we're going to move on to the next step. I had you circle moments of grief and loss here. And what I'd like you to do is look through that list. And out of all the things that you circled, pick one thing. Just one for today. Pick one thing that you're going to spend a little bit of time with this morning. Now, around you, on the chairs around you, you may have seen these bookmarks that were sitting on the chairs around you. If you don't have one, there should be one somewhere in your row. And if you need one, just raise your hand and we'll get you one. Grab one of these bookmarks because we're going to use this for this next session or this next movement. And then pick one of those moments of grief or loss that you circled. Little caveat here. If one of the moments, one of the grief and loss moments that you see is a little too deep, it's a little too raw, a little too painful, I encourage you to hold that back so that you have more time with it at another time and choose a different one for this morning. You want it to be something that you feel safe enough to process here in this room. And we will have some ministry time available for you guys after service as well, so that if you have other things that are coming up and you need some help processing, you're welcome to meet us and we'll pray with you through that. But for this next movement, for the sake of this movement, let's choose one that feels safe to process in this space right here. And then on this bookmark provided to us by Mary Jean Powers and her son Dave Powers, they've created this and handed it to us for free. They said, give it to your lookout family. We love you guys, we want you to use it. So thank you to them. But on the back of this, it says steps to grieving loss. We're gonna take 10 minutes, and I'm gonna give you the time to just go through each one of these steps and spend some time with Jesus. Linger on some steps, move quickly through others, however, it feels best for you as you're processing, but take some time to grieve that loss that you've picked out for this morning. And then I encourage you guys to take these bookmarks home with you and go back through your list with the Lord at another time and go through all of your circled spaces from 2024. And take the time to go through these steps. It's a powerful walk through talking with the Holy Spirit about grief and loss. So we'll take 10 minutes to do that now. Feel free to cry, to pause, to reflect. If you need to move out of your seat and pace, I'm a pacer. Feel free to pace. Whatever's going to help you facilitate this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

So if you haven't gotten to the last um few questions, go ahead and at least skim over those. Thank you that you know us. We are known by you.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Thank you that you have called each of us by name. Thank you, Lord, that the things that grieve our hearts, the losses that we experience, you sit with us in our grief.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

You don't rush us through it. You don't chide us for it, and you never belittle it. Thank you, good shepherd.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Now for this last movement, we're gonna move into some space of gratitude. So for every one of those spaces that you have drawn a line under that's a space of celebration or gratitude, I want to just take a minute. We're not gonna pray about those things, we're not going to process them, we're not going to do anything else other than we're just gonna say thank you. Just thank you. If you've never done this before, this is a really great practice where you take a season of your life or a gift that you've been given in life, whether it's through relationships or through from um an encounter with the Lord, or it's a new car, or it's a new um just a new discovery of self, even whatever it is, whatever that gift is, whatever the moment is that was worthy of celebration, a milestone in accomplishment, growth steps, whatever it is, to take those moments and say, Lord, I'm just gonna thank you for them. And I'm gonna leave it at that. It's such a great uh practice to do. So we're gonna do that this morning. So as you go through your list, just with each line that you've underlined, Lord, thank you. Thank you, Lord. For me, one is thank you, Lord, for my daughter Addison, graduating high school and starting college. That was also one of my grief circles, but it's also one of my celebrations, right? Because they can be both. So I have this moment of thank you, Lord, for her accomplishments, for the fact that she's growing well, that she's beautiful and she loves you, and that she's on a new journey and taking on new challenges in life. Thank you, Lord. Right? Now I could move from there and start going, and Lord, would you lead her steps? Would you keep her wise? And would you, would you, but that's not what we're doing right now, right? Believe me, I'm praying those prayers, but that's not what we're doing right now, right? We're just giving thanks. So as you go through your list, just offer these things up in Thanksgiving. And there may be offshoots of them that you may say, oh, and also, you know what, that led to this friendship, and thank you for that too. And that's okay. We're only going to take about two minutes because we want to keep moving this morning, but take about two minutes, go through your list and just offer thanks to everything that you underlined as a moment of celebration and thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

How was that for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Reflection, it's such an important thing, such an important thing. And like I've said, I really encourage you guys to take these bookmarks home with you, grab a journal if you don't have one at home to use, and take time. Go back to the list that you just created, add more to it. Do uh maybe do my husband and I just did a four-year reflection time, and that took us three days. So it takes time, but carve out the time because it's so important and it's so necessary for your health. Okay, so take the time. I'm gonna invite Josh Robertson to come on up and we're gonna move, we're gonna just transition a little bit and shift our focus toward 2025 as we're stepping into this new year. What invitations do you? Have you laid before us, and how can we be paying attention to those and partnering with you?

SPEAKER_03 44:08

So, so good. Thank you, Piper. Thank you, Piper. Can you all give Piper a little hand there for time? Thank you. Apparently, I'm not the same height as Piper. Need to adjust this a little bit. Wow, it's so important to uh stop and reflect. I know uh from my wife and I, we were going through this exercise just the other week talking about what happened in 2024. Oh my gosh, the list is vast. Um, we were dealing with our daughter being pregnant, um, then of course her having a baby, and now we're grandparents. And um, yes, I was 10 years old when we had her, and um so lots of lots of things, and uh, but you know, there's a lot of business uh challenges, there was sickness, there was uh family drama, there was all the stuff, right? And it just kind of happens sometimes, uh almost yearly, just in different ways, doesn't it? Um so it's so important to reflect and to just pause and to go, Father, what what have you been doing? What are you doing in my life? And go through these moments just like we just did, and um to process the grief and the pain. It's important to deal with your feelings, it's important to actually not go numb and avoid these issues. So um, you know, I I would encourage all of you to lean into this kind of practice as you go through traumatic or big things. I would encourage you to lean into it. Um, but some of you may have heard this before. It's so it's really important to not be okay. It's really important. It's okay, it's okay to not be okay. Not important to not be okay. It's okay to not be okay. It's just not okay to stay not okay. Tracking with me? You just can't stay stuck because that's not what the Father's heart is for us. That's not what he has for you. And and there's more. He is inviting us into more with him. Do you believe that? All right, let's jump in here. John 10, 4. We already touched on it briefly. Um, when he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Of course, we know Jesus, you know, he's likens this um thing between shepherds and sheep, you know, that that relationship uh to our relationship with him. And um, the abiding life in God is as simple as listening for the true voice of our shepherd and following him where he leads. Any of you guys ever seen that video of the sheep that is wedged in like a farmer's irrigation ditch, and here along comes the farmer to pull him out, and then of course, what's he do? He runs right back and just jumps right back headfirst into the ditch. Oh my gosh, I feel that way so often. It's uh just over and over. We do the things we know we we shouldn't do and we don't even want to do, and we just keep falling back into it. But it takes a good savior uh to come and to rescue us, and thank God we have one of those. Thank God we have one of those. Back during COVID, um Carly and I um we ended up taking a family vacation to Texas. While we were there, the father started kind of prompting us that we were in for a big change, and we felt like we were supposed to move to Texas. And um, as we started processing this, this idea seemed insane to me. Um for a lot of reasons. One, we're self-employed, for those who don't know, do a bunch of real estate stuff, and um it we were had a thriving business going on, and so I was really struggling with how is this gonna work? There's no way that this can pan out. Um, God, if if I move to Texas, I'm gonna be broke and this is not gonna end well. And so we wrestled with, but we couldn't get away from the prompting that we were supposed to go, and so in faith, eventually we just surrendered, and I I decided, Father, if I end up completely broke working at 7 Eleven in a one-bedroom apartment with my wife and two kids, and that's all I've got, because that's what you have for me. Fine, I surrender. And so we literally just laid it all down, took the leap of faith, bought a house down there. Um, luckily it was much better than a one-bedroom apartment. Praise the Lord. Um, but we went on this journey to make this huge move and step out and go um experience whatever he had for us. About a year and a half went by, and we were back on a business trip, and um, miraculously, by the way, somehow um we didn't go broke, and God did provide every step of the way, praise the Lord, because he is that good. Um, and so we were back on a business trip, and Carly, we're standing in this field showing this client some land, and then Carly looks to the west and she just has this overwhelming sensation that the Holy Spirit comes upon her and says, I'm inviting you to come home. And we're like, What? What is going on what is going on? So I'm like, she's standing in this field sobbing, like, we're supposed to go home. I'm like, oh my gosh, okay. Um, I mean, something resonates in me with it, but I don't know what that means. And so we start praying about it and we start processing, okay, Lord, what are you doing? Are we actually supposed to come back and what are we supposed to do? Some time goes on, we're back, you know, in Texas trying to sort out what this journey is about. And um, and sure enough, like I ended up having a dream about being back in this place. And I didn't say anything to anybody. I just, I was like, that is the weirdest thing because I never had I hadn't thought of this place in years. Uh, for those of you who don't know, I grew up in this church. I was 11 years old when my father, Walt Robertson, moved us here to come pastor. And um, so I hadn't thought of this place in a while, and then a couple weeks go by, and we're sitting at the breakfast table. Um in no, it might have been dinner, it doesn't matter. I miss those details. Any other guys miss those kind of details? Yeah, okay. So um, anyway, we're sitting down, about to eat, and then Carly like shares that she had a dream about this church. And I didn't say anything at first. I'm like, what the heck? And then our daughter says, I had a dream about the church. And we're like, and but we we were not talking about the church. This was not a thing, this was not like a subconscious thing that was planted into our brains, right? It just was completely separate, hadn't talked about it at all with each other. And then, of course, I whoa, I had a dream about being at the church, and so we're all freaking out, like, what does this mean? And then, sure enough, it as we're praying through it, we realize we were supposed to come back. Um, and so we did. We started making steps to come back, back on the house hunt here, prepare the house there to sell, you know, the whole ordeal, moving just sucks. Doesn't it suck? If anybody moving sucks, Noah, you agree with me on all your clients going through stress. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's just not not that fun of a process. We get back and um we're back at the dinner table. Love having good conversations over a meal, and I'm asking uh the kids, they're you know, they're teenagers at the time. I'm like, guys, what do you think Texas was about? Because I mean, we we had a lot of fun actually. We we played a lot, we swam in the pool, we played on the lake. Um, it was a fantastic time, and I was not fully understanding what it was about. And our daughter, she she goes, I don't really know what it was about, but what I do know is I feel like I know you guys now. And I was like, Oh, oh my gosh. Something about before we left, we were so busy, stuck in our own business, in our own patterns, in our own routines, that apparently my kids felt like there was a disconnect in our relationship. And so as I reflected on that, I realized, oh God, this whole time, you were inviting me into rest. You were inviting me into a season to connect with my children, with my wife. I didn't even ask you for a sabbatical, but you were giving me one and praise you, you're so good. And I was just too blind and dumb to know it, but he did it anyway, and we just obeyed and went along with it. And then I'm like, God, and why are we back here at the church? We started coming back, we would visit on and off in the early days. I literally had no idea if Bob was gonna throw me out of or what was gonna happen. I'm like, I have no idea what's going on here. Um, and honestly, the part of me was like, I don't know if I want to be there. I just don't know if I want to go back. And um one day I'm praying about it. I'm like, Lord, what was the dreams about? What was all of it? And he whispered to me again, hey, he goes, Hey, um, you don't have to do this. You don't have to go back. But I do have something for you. I have something for you if if you want to experience it. And the truth is, I'm still trying to figure it out. I don't know what he has for us, but what I know is he's invited us back in to the big family. We went tight-knit and we were dealing with the small family stuff and had a wonderful, blessed time, and then now he's invited us back into the big family. And it's been such a fun journey, and we'll continue on the journey. But here's the thing: in the midst of life's challenges, in the midst of confusion between business and family and all the stuff that's going on, God has something for each of us. And he has something that he wants to invite you into. And when you walk in it, you will find a peace that will surpass all understanding. Because let me tell you, even in the midst of all my confusion, once I surrendered myself to the Lord, Father, it doesn't matter if I'm broke, it doesn't matter what happens, if all I have is you and my family, it's enough. You're enough. And when you live in that place, you will find a peace that it literally does not make sense. It doesn't make sense on paper, it won't make sense to most people. But let me tell you, it's amazing. Does anybody want peace in their life? Does anybody want peace? He has something for you. He has something for you. Jesus is inviting us into something, he's calling us to follow him. Our culture really competes with this idea, though. We don't approach it this way. What happens often is we come to faith and we're working our plan of whether it be, okay, go to school, get a degree, build a career, have a family by age, whatever, and then we get whatever stage it is, you come to know the Lord, and we kind of go, okay, this is what I'm doing, and we go, okay, God, I invite you into this. And we invite him into our lives, which is not all wrong, but we forget that this is his story. He has a different plan. And sometimes it just doesn't make sense. Jesus is always inviting us into something. We have to determine what that is. If we're willing to listen, he speaks to us. If we're willing to obey, sometimes it'll require like it'll require a radical change. Sometimes it's a small thing. But he has something. If you will listen, if you obey, he has more for you, and he has more for all that don't know him. Do you understand the magnitude of what he's done to come and pursue our hearts? To bring unity between us and him. It's a radical, radical thing. He came and flipped the world upside down, and it's not something that we should take lightly. John 10, 14 through 16 says, I am the good shepherd, I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And I lay my I lay down my life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock and one shepherd. Um what I find funny about this, thinking in church context, is um what Jesus wasn't doing or saying in this parable, he wasn't trying to take some of his sheep from this barn and just move it over to this barn and say, look at all my sheep. I've got new sheep from here to here. Meaning um he's not necessarily looking to grow the church with people who already know him. He's looking for the lost ones. Right? There's nothing wrong with people coming from one church to another, but we cannot miss the main point. The main point is the Father is on mission. He's inviting us to follow him and to partner with him and to seek the ones that don't know him. Come on, we gotta get a little bit more than that. Yeah. Jesus, he was talking about gathering the lost sheep. We know he was referring to the Gentiles, and the work on the cross is the work that completed that's where the Gentiles, us, the non-Jewish, could reconnect with him. Um years ago, back when I was uh working in IT, um, I was really struggling with finding purpose. And I was trying to find some identity and figure out, God, what did you make me for? And so I remember daily uh going to work, and by the way, God provided this amazing job working, this IT job at Longmont Hospital, and there was tons of favor. But I would I would show up every day partially miserable, just miserable. And um, I've shared this story with some of the guys, so I'm sorry for any men that have heard it before, but um I would I was constantly trying to figure out Lord, what did you make me for? What did you make me for? I want to do something that makes a difference in this world, and I want to do something that impacts this the kingdom, and and why am I working this job? It's going nowhere, and I'd deal with a frustrating boss who was horrible to interact with, and I've shared that before too. And there was um another one that came right behind him. One day I was out on a prayer walk crying out to the Lord once again for God to come and change my circumstances. And Father, I want to do something I love that makes a difference. I want to do something I love that makes a difference, and so I stopped long enough and I asked the Lord, what do you want to say to me, God? And then in his tender, loving way, he paused. He said, Hey Josh, I want you to stop focusing on doing something you love, and I want you to focus on doing love. I had to ask again, what I want you to focus on doing love, not doing something you love. And I was like, I have no idea how to do that. I don't know how to do that. And so that began a process of me trying to reorient and shift my brain into what was it that the Lord had for me. And I was trying to figure out what that meant. Jeremy Riddle, uh, for those of you who don't know, he's a well-known Christian artist, but he wrote a song in the opening line, it says this. It says, My life comes down to this, to know and to make known. Doing love means we can help make him known. Matthew 4, 19, it says, and he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Matthew 16, 24 through 25 says, Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Whoever loses their life for his sake will find it. Do you want a thriving life? Do you want to find a true life? He's inviting us into something more, and we don't always understand it. We don't. It sometimes it takes years to get past it, and you look back, and then we become intelligent enough to understand what it was about. But he has more for each of us. I just can't get away from that for a second. I'm like, oof, whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. We get stuck in life sometimes, don't we? We get stuck, we don't even know what to do. We go through grief, we go through hardship, we go through uh highs and lows, and it is so essential that we stop and we reflect and um we process what's going on. But here's the thing there's times when we just don't know how to get out of the thing that has us stuck. And I find that one of the key components that will help is when we do move into a place of gratitude, just like Piper was talking about. Um, we have to process that grief, process the loss, but then we move our hearts into a posture with gratitude. When we do that, there's something that unlocks in our souls that allows us to align with what his will is, and we can begin to see what it is he's about. We have to listen and hear what is he inviting us into, even when it doesn't make sense, and we begin on the mission with him to participate in his story, not our story. So, how did Jesus act? How did he live his life? How did he gather his lost? And w how is he asking us to become fishers of men, to treat others? Well, Jesus didn't treat people like a project. That's one. Take note. Um, he met people right where they were at, right in their pain, right in their hardship. He'll meet you right where you're at, in your pain, in your hardship, whatever's going on. He never shamed, he never condemned. He was always ready to serve others. Are you ready to serve others? He was ready to encourage. He's ready to strengthen people, build them up, give them a new hope, a new identity. He's inviting us to come alongside him and to participate in this. He's always ready to build a relationship, not just clean up people's sin. The sin we all deal with, each and every one of us has our own stuff. That is what blocks our relationship with him. It blocks our connection and our intimacy with him. He came to overcome that though. That was the entire reason he came. To overcome the block in our relationship. He didn't just love on people when convenient, he loved daily, he focused on each moment. Um and wherever you go, we need to focus on each moment. Be aware of how to love on others, how to get outside of our own desires and our own plan and figure out what is his plan. It's so important to stop and reflect, as we've talked about. But it is equally important to actually be the hands and feet of Jesus. Church, we gotta get up and do something sometimes. We can't just Come to him constantly stuck in our stuff and stay there. He has more for you. Do you realize that the ceiling you have in your life for your life experiences, the things you get to do both in business, in family, in relationships, everything, the ceiling you have is only put there from you. You're the one stopping you from experiencing the fullness of life. It's not him, I promise you. If you want more, if you want to experience the freedom that he has for you, if you want to experience a new depth of love, if you want to experience the fullness of what he has for you, it will require you to get out of your way and just start seeking his way, to follow him in his plan. I want to take a moment to just ask some questions and I want you guys to process what it is God is inviting you into. What is the thing that he's asking of you? And for those of you who are not experienced with trying to discern the voice of the Lord, we we know it's often not audible. We know that. It can happen. It just doesn't seem to happen very often. And so just listen for the tender whispers. There's something that resonates in your heart, something that comes out of a place of peace. It may not make sense, but you'll you'll know, oh, there's something there to that thought, that thing that just prompted me. I I don't know what that's about, but it just seems like that's from a good place. I want you to just hone in for a second and try to listen. What is he saying? And then posture yourself with what you're gonna do with that. All right, so let's take a second. And I want you to process this. How might God be inviting you into obedience this year? And what is he inviting you into? Just process that for a moment. He's inviting us in to something beyond ourselves. It's not just about the journey we live with him. He wants us to be his hands and feet, to go reach those that don't know him. So the question is who is someone that needs to know Jesus? That you will commit to pray for and pursue, not just pray for, but pursue in twenty twenty five. Ask that. Quick word of caution. As we when we stop and we ask these questions, who am I supposed to pray for? Who am I supposed to love on? It's really easy and common for us to get a prompting of who it is, and then we just put it on the list to go deal with. But I want to encourage you to create a lifestyle of regularly asking, Lord, who's the one more? Who's the one more that you want me to pursue, that you want me to love? Don't just make it a checklist, make it a lifestyle of engaging and surrendering and understanding, Lord, what is it you have? What is it you're inviting me into? Where is your voice going and how can I follow? The Father wants to pursue all that don't know him. And my desire is that this church becomes a place that reaches those that don't know him. We can't just sit around being in his presence only. That is a major part. We know that. We know the Mary and Martha parables, and we know all the stuff about being at his feet, and we want to do that. This is a church that loves the presence of God. We will do anything for the presence of God. But he has a great commission, he has a great plan for all. And we can't neglect that. And if you are neglecting that, you need to deal with that with the Lord. It's not okay. It's not okay. There's people who are hurting. There's people who need him. There's family that you know that is hurting, that need him, they need his love. Not condemnation, not shame. There's friends you know, there's coworkers you know that are so broken and they have no idea. No idea the goodness that he has for them. And you are called, you are called to be a fisher of men. Father, would you open our hearts, open our minds to know your will? Would you give us the courage to walk in what you have for us? To take big leaps of faith, to take small movements towards your journey, whatever it is. Would you give us the grace that we need? Would you show us your will.